Imports
import pandas as pd
import requests
import os
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from ratelimit import limits, sleep_and_retry
from pathlib import Path
reviews = []
done = False
offset = 0
while done == False:
r = requests.get("https://planetterp.com/api/v1/professors", params = {"offset":offset, "reviews": "true", "limit":100},)
if r.json() == []:
done = True
else:
reviews.append(r.json())
offset = offset+100
print(offset)
print(len(reviews))
# soup = BeautifulSoup(r.content, "html.parser")
# soup
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 2100 2200 2300 2400 2500 2600 2700 2800 2900 3000 3100 3200 3300 3400 3500 3600 3700 3800 3900 4000 4100 4200 4300 4400 4500 4600 4700 4800 4900 5000 5100 5200 5300 5400 5500 5600 5700 5800 5900 6000 6100 6200 6300 6400 6500 6600 6700 6800 6900 7000 7100 7200 7300 7400 7500 7600 7700 7800 7900 8000 8100 8200 8300 8400 8500 8600 8700 8800 8900 9000 9100 9200 9300 9400 9500 9600 9700 9800 9900 10000 10100 10200 10300 10400 10500 10600 10700 10800 10900 11000 11100 11200 11300 11400 11500 11600 11700 11800 11900 12000 12100 12200 122
print(len(reviews))
122
for i in reviews:
print(i)
[{'courses': ['INST737', 'ENPM808W', 'ENPM808W', 'ENPM808W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'A Seyed', 'slug': 'seyed'}, {'courses': ['MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Aaron Goldman', 'slug': 'goldman_aaron'}, {'courses': ['THET678', 'THET499'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Aaron Posner', 'slug': 'posner'}, {'courses': ['NFSC431', 'NFSC679R', 'NFSC112', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'NFSC672', 'NFSC112', 'NFSC679R', 'NFSC431', 'NFSC112', 'NFSC679R'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Abani Pradhan', 'course': None, 'review': 'Pretty funny guy and he knows his stuff too. Pretty much tells you exactly what is going to be on the exams. Class with him is pretty fun.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-11T04:18:01.840304Z'}], 'name': 'Abani Pradhan', 'slug': 'pradhan'}, {'courses': ['CMLT235', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL234', 'ENGL101H', 'AASP298L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Abbey Morgan', 'slug': 'morgan_abbey'}, {'courses': ['MIEH740', 'HLTH710', 'MIEH607', 'MIEH740', 'MIEH740'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Abdel-Razak Kadry', 'slug': 'kadry'}, {'courses': ['ENME674', 'ENMA300', 'ENME684', 'ENME489Z', 'ENME808N', 'ENME470', 'ENME808V', 'ENME361', 'ENAE652', 'ENME382', 'ENME473', 'ENME690', 'ENAE202', 'ENME202', 'ENME672', 'ENRE600', 'ENME473', 'ENME690', 'ENME684', 'ENMA689R', 'ENRE600'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Abhijit Dasgupta', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': 'I took the ENAE version of this class but it is the same as the ENME version. Dr.Dasgupta is very understanding and wants to work with you so you can succeed. The lectures were engaging and interesting. All his lecture notes were posted online so you could easily follow along. \r\nI have accommodations and needed special help for the studios and he was very helpful in getting me the help I needed to succeed in the class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-16T17:37:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Abhijit Dasgupta', 'course': 'ENME473', 'review': "The man. Really excellent lecturer, he puts in a lot of effort to be prepared for class and delivers interesting content. He's an expert in the field. Make an effort to ask questions and you'll get back ten times what you put in. He definitely is a harsh grader though. But I was able to get an A because he saw me patiently in so many office hours and he always responded to my emails and such.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-21T06:06:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Abhijit Dasgupta', 'course': 'ENME473', 'review': 'Dasgupta is very passionate about this subject, but I just want to caution anyone reading this thinking about taking 473. 473 is a very boring class, and is really more of a vocabulary memorization class than anything else. There\'s only 6 relatively easy homework assignments, 1 mid-term, 1 class project for undergrads, a 2nd project for grads, and a final exam.\r\n\r\nThe mid-term you get a 2 page DIY formula sheet that you can put anything on. The test itself had 1 calculation on it that was worth maybe 10% of the grade, the rest was reciting acronyms, listing pros/cons of different technologies, listing off manufacturing steps, and identifying parts based on pictures. This may sound easy, but there is an insane amount of material to cover and you won\'t possibly be able to fit enough on the formula sheet. I believe there was a massive curve or the grading was extremely lenient on this. I know for a fact that I did poorly on the test but somehow got a B.\r\n\r\nThe course project is easy if you make it easy, but if your group picks a hard device to disassemble and "redesign" you can make way more work for yourself. As it is, the group sizes are way too large and not everyone will really be able to participate. We had 6 in our group, and 3 of us basically did nothing, because only 1 person per group can go to the lab.\r\n\r\nWhich brings up my primary issue with this course. It\'s supposed to be about mechanical design of electronic systems. But there\'s no hands on portion to this class at all, unless you\'re a grad student with CALCE lab access. The lectures are basically straight vocabulary and lists, while the homeworks are a handful of simple stress/strain calculations. If you\'re searching for something groundbreaking or interesting, I\'d suggest going elsewhere.\r\n\r\nAlso grading took an absolute eternity in this class. We didn\'t get mid-term results back until a week before the end of the semester.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-12T13:33:57.218341Z'}], 'name': 'Abhijit Dasgupta', 'slug': 'dasgupta_abhijit'}, {'courses': ['CPGH200', 'CPGH100', 'CPGH101', 'CPGH230', 'CPGH240', 'CPGH250', 'CPGH270'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Abigail Bickford', 'slug': 'bickford'}, {'courses': ['ARTH389L', 'ARTH255', 'ARTH768', 'ARTH668A', 'ARTH372', 'ARTH488L', 'ARTH488M', 'ARTH488B', 'ARTH768B', 'ARTH260', 'ARTH768C', 'ARTH389K', 'ARTH496', 'ARTH386', 'ARTH488F', 'ARTH768A', 'ARTH260C', 'ARTH262', 'ARTH799', 'ARTH260C', 'ARTH262', 'ARTH260C'], 'average_rating': 2.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Abigail McEwen', 'course': None, 'review': 'I was actually really excited to take this course because I am interested in the history and art of the ancient Mesoamerican people, but her lecturing capabilities (or more precisely, lack of) completely ruined the course for me. \n\r\nOn the first day of class I encountered what has now become her infamous "um". She literally throws that in every other word. She also has an unfortunate habit of not being concrete. She uses terms like "kind of" and "sort of" and "possibly" instead of saying that it is. I\'m not sure if this is the appropriate way to explain things in an art history course, but I found it irritating. This was also said every other word. I found that she tried to stretch themes and concepts so it fit the lecture, and sometimes I really couldn\'t believe the information she was giving.\n\r\nThe course itself was rather monotonous because it was just simply going over object after object. This class, however, was not hard by any means. The TAs\' provided effective summaries of the themes presented in class, the quizzes in discussion and the exams in lecture were straight forward. If you want to get rid of your CORE, I would only recommend this class because it was easy, but do not take it with this particular professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T19:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abigail McEwen', 'course': 'ARTH250', 'review': 'Prof. McEwan seems fair and nice enough, but I found her lectures very scatterbrained and hard to follow. I didn\'t know whether to write down everything she said or nothing at all. She says "um" far too often for a college professor to the point where it is distracting. The class itself covers interesting material, but she manages to make it tedious and boring in lecture. Go to discussion and get the books (they\'re cheap) because the TAs were very helpful, and I learned way more in discussion than in lecture. Not a hard class if you can pick up the important themes in the art quickly and are good at memorizing pictures.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-18T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abigail McEwen', 'course': 'ARTH260', 'review': "I was excited to take this class because of the course content - the class itself was reviewing art in and about revolution/social issues, and it seemed like an interesting topic to learn more about during the pandemic. \r\nUnfortunately, this class was loads and loads of busy work - two synchronous lectures a week, a paper and discussion post every week, extra assignments and polls every week, and a group project for the final (note: collaborating on a group project is already tough enough - trying to maintain everyone online during a PANDEMIC is even tougher). There is almost no leeway in these assignments either. Here are some more pressing gripes with the class:\r\n-Don't buy the 40 dollar textbook. It is dry and is barely needed for class. It isn't even included in readings until the 8th week.\r\n-You won't learn anything from McEwen if you try. She is monotonous, dry, and her lectures don't have a clear outline. There is almost no talk of actual historical contexts behind the art discussed, and if there is - again, it is muddled by her dry and emotionless delivery. \r\n-The group project now, as mentioned before, is actually painful.\r\n-You'll never have a break from assignments in this class. They're all busywork, and you won't learn anything from them. \r\n-On top of all the busywork, participation in the zoom classes is graded too, and your grade will tank if you don't speak up in a 78 person class (...most people do not.)\r\n\r\nI will say that it is a bit ironic that this class has been so burdensome and unbending given the title and content of the course - this was the only class that was unwilling to cancel or change topics during election week. \r\n\r\nI will say the TAs are lovely and come prepared for discussions with good and informative content. \r\n\r\nOverall, if you're looking to takeaway any knowledge of art and social justice with this class, just go to Wikipedia and save your time and $$$. \r\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-11-18T16:49:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Abigail McEwen', 'course': 'ARTH260C', 'review': 'This class is really easy to get an A in but a lot of busy work. At least for this semester, there were no quizzes or anything really that tests your knowledge on the content. There are discussion posts and weekly response papers (300 words). The sections decide prompts for the final which are two essays. There is also a group project but she’s a pretty easy grader on it. There is a textbook but you most definitely don’t need to read it unless it’s for finding examples for the final. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T19:32:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Abigail McEwen', 'course': 'ARTH260', 'review': "Easy A but a lot more work then I expected especially in the beginning of the year. While the class materials pretends to be neutral as it continues on it becomes more biased and one sided. It would've nice to both sides of an issue for once instead of a lot of rants. The TAs were very nice and helpful however and the professor was very nice at all times and gave good lecture during the 1st half of the year which I enjoyed.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-21T03:33:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Abigail McEwen', 'course': 'ARTH260C', 'review': 'She\'s great. Don\'t worry about the negative reviews. Maybe she was bad earlier, who knows, but people can change. \r\n\r\nI took art history 260C with her: Art and Activism, as part of Carollin Communities. She was fantastic. Stupidly easy A. \r\n\r\nSpent max 10 minutes outside of the class with the weekly essay (it\'s really short) and posting some things on a class discussion board. Hint: you don\'t have to really read the weekly readings at all. \r\n\r\nShe kept things really neutral (at least until we started discussing feminism) and invited everyone to participate. \r\n\r\n"You\'ll have to try really hard to not get an A in this class" \r\n- McEwen at the beginning of the semester. This is something I literally remember her saying verbatim. Something she actually said.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-06T02:49:59.980416Z'}], 'name': 'Abigail McEwen', 'slug': 'mcewen'}, {'courses': ['PSYC629'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Abigail Romirowsky', 'slug': 'romirowsky'}, {'courses': ['GERM103', 'GERM203'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Abigail Trozenski', 'slug': 'trozenski'}, {'courses': ['PHYS405', 'PHYS275', 'PHYS758E', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS273H', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS273H'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Abolhassan Jawahery', 'course': 'PHYS405', 'review': "Phys 405 is difficult. It just is. Now that we've gotten that out of the way...Prof. Jawahery is great in that he explains certain concepts very well. Sometimes he might nitpick (instance in a lab report or presentation), but usually it is not to be critical in the negative sense but helpful and INSTRUCTIVE.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-12T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abolhassan Jawahery', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': "PHYS 273 is a challenging course. It's a lot of content in a short amount of time. That being said, Prof. Jawahery tries to make the most of it and present it to his students in a comprehensible way. His content builds on itself, so if you're paying attention along the way, you'll find content later in the course quite easy to understand. His homework assignments are pretty tough, so don't wait till the last night to do them. That being said, his quizzes and exams are almost identical to these homework assignments, so if you really work on them and understand the posted solutions, you'll do great. He is a very understanding and reasonable person who changed deadlines often when his lectures did not sync up with them. The final exam was quite the challenge and unlike anything we had seen before, which did not help my final grade, but the course as a whole was a good learning experience. I would recommend him if you had the choice.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-20T19:16:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Abolhassan Jawahery', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': 'quizzes and exams identical to the hws, good at teaching.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T00:46:47.110283Z'}, {'professor': 'Abolhassan Jawahery', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': 'The most "reasonable" person since Immanuel Kant. Jawahery\'s lectures are pretty straightforward and his homework content may be challenging from time to time but is absolutely doable. The quizzes and exams will mostly contain questions/problems from the homework problem sets however, there always may be one or two that are mixed in (i.e. one or two questions that aren\'t from the H.W. problems) just to make sure you know your material. Overall, PHYS273 isn\'t an easy course but Jawahery definitely made the experience way more entertaining and interesting.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-22T08:46:39.669032Z'}], 'name': 'Abolhassan Jawahery', 'slug': 'jawahery'}, {'courses': ['STAT701', 'STAT700', 'STAT750', 'STAT650', 'STAT410', 'STAT420', 'STAT386', 'SURV410', 'STAT401'], 'average_rating': 2.7, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Guy knows his stuff, but that\'s about all that can be said for his teaching. I like abstract, "hard," math, and ignored the other reviews at my own peril-- the result is that I regret taking this class. \n\r\nStat400 itself, a weed-out class (I guess) isn\'t especially hard, but I had no motivation due to the poor teaching and totally uninspired textbook. Would\'ve had an A if not for the homework. Not recommended. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-08-14T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'my courseevalum evaluation:\n\r\nHomework was weighted too heavily into computation of the final grade, as making it 30% of the total unfairly benefits students who resort to unethical methods (e.g. Cramster, solutions posted online) in order to successfully complete it on time. \n\r\nTextbook was difficult to learn from and uninspired (also expensive), alternatives should be considered.\n\r\nNo partial credit was given on the homework, which was frustrating and unfair. \r\nProfessor Kagan, however, was very understanding in not penalizing meaningless numerical errors on exams, though one of my midterms was graded incorrectly (in my favor). \n\r\nStatistical notation is confusing and was under-emphasized in lecture.\n\n\r\ndisclosure: I am a math major that enjoys rigor and abstraction.\r\nI also needlessly did poorly in this course due to low motivation related to what I have discussed here. I spent less time studying for either midterm than I spent writing this evaluation.\n\r\nThe worst thing about Professor Kagan as an instructor is that he tends to become a bit angry if students answer incorrectly in class, and then take this anger out on the student who happened to answer the question or be called on, regardless of whether the students in, say, the back row had any idea whatsoever what was going on. This greatly discourages student participation and feedback, and destroys the potential for communication between the instructor and students. It\'s also extremely frustrating to not understand something because of a misunderstood explanation only to have oneself berated with an angry exclamation of "No!" when one answers a question incorrectly. This made me not want to learn.\n\r\nAgain, note that I am a math major, even though the following criticism expresses a sentiment less often neglected in the humanities:\r\nIn terms of the material, the biggest failing of the course material and teaching was that we only ever discussed technical details of the material explicitly on the syllabus. What I mean to say is that there was no attempt even made (either by the textbook or the professor) to give students an introduction to the field of statistics as a discipline, or provide a deeper understanding of what we were learning. There was never any discussion of why what we were learning is important, or why we should care about it, or _exactly_ how it is used in the real world, or why the discussed material was included on the syllabus. There was no attempt made to explicitly connect together the different topics we were learning: how they relate and interact to each other, how we should think of them in relation to the field as a whole, and we gained no insight into how an actual statistician views statistics. Professor Kagan also never provided any commentary on the textbook: why is was selected, its strengths and failings, why the author made certain decisions, etc. As a result, our reading lacked objectivity, which made it harder to understand where the author was coming from.\n\r\nProfessor Kagan was, to say the least, unenthusiastic about teaching this course, and rarely seemed to enjoy himself while lecturing. He wasn\'t alone-- no one in the classroom seemed to care very much, or to be having fun, and even someone with an interest in statistics might be put off by the uninspired presentation. The class also moved slowly, and I felt like skipping class to study from the textbook was actually more efficient.\r\nAdditionally, questions not explicitly related to the material on the syllabus (i.e. what we "had" to cover) were discouraged even when students infrequently expressed genuine interest. \n\r\nTo professor Kagan\'s credit, I can say that he really knew the material. Unfortunately, this didn\'t translated into clarity of exposition in lecture. It\'s strange.. because I can\'t tell exactly why, but I always felt like I had to relearn the material from the textbook after lecture. In lecture, it wasn\'t clear what we were doing, or why we were doing it, or if there were other ways of doing it. I would ask questions, but the thing is, I couldn\'t even find questions to ask which would help my understanding. I also felt social pressure from my silent peers and the professor (I worried that he would be unhappy or offended if I took up class time by asking for something to be re-explained) to not ask questions in lecture, so as not to hold the class up. I think most of the lectures went misunderstood by the majority of the students. Attendance was also regularly low, though I appreciated that it wasn\'t required.\n\r\nAnother unfortunate thing about this course is that there was a lack of mathematically challenging problems on homework and exams, i.e. problems that require mathematical creativity and thinking. Rather, the problems solved were all formulaic. The difficulty of this class was in figuring out exactly what we were expected to do, and in understanding all of the confusing and sometimes ambiguous notation, i.e. needless difficulty without any didactic value, though I suppose the department needs to weed out students somehow. Unfortunately, a class like this might also discourage students with an actual interest in Statistics from taking more classes in the subject. \r\nThe bottom line here is that even if this is an applications class, students should be required to do more than memorize how to formulaicly solve a certain type of problem in order to do well. This failing is also exacerbated by the instructor telling the student exactly what type of problems will be on the exams, as it amounts to only teaching for the test, and does little for anyone\'s actual mathematical ability.\r\nAnother positive thing though was that Professor Kagan provided solutions to the exams immediately after we took them, though homework solutions were unfortunately never provided.\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-07-07T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'This class was like going to prison, sodomy and all. Impossible to learn anything from lectures or notes. Be prepared to study very hard on your own.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-14T18:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "It's ok? You get it? It makes sense? These are the only questions this guy asks otherwise he is alright.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-06-22T17:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "It was very hard to learn from Professor Kagan's lectures. Once in while I would pick something up but it was pretty hard to do so without some pre-reading. Eventually I would just skip class and read the textbook to learn whatever material was needed to do the homeworks, which themselves were extremely excessively challenging and often time-consuming.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-08T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Not a great professor. He did not post the proper edition of our textbook online and so many students (such as myself) bought the wrong textbook. I only figured this out after the first homework, which I failed because the problems did not match in the two textbooks... when i asked prof kagan if it were possible to drop a homework since it was his fault that some of us had failed in the first place he replied: "one or two percent of your grade is no great tragedy." \n\r\nI guess it wasn\'t in my case but I hope it didn\'t affect someone else. As for the class itself, the tests are really, really easy and if you\'re the type of person who can sit through a boring lecture you should do fine on the homework, which is worth a whopping 35% of your grade.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-06-09T11:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Really smart and funny guy. A little hard to understand because of his accent. Goes through many examples and lets you know what's coming up on tests. Lecture is difficult to follow but with a decent TA and using the textbook it is more than manageable.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-14T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': 'Kagan, despite what many others have said about his teaching style, is not actually that bad of a professor. (Perhaps he was dry and less good when teaching an (imo) uninspired class like STAT400.)\r\n\r\nThe beginning of the class was rather fast paced, with the first day touching upon content of 3 chapters and what is called the Borel-Cantelli Lemma, which definitely scared some people into dropping that day. However, he slowed down and more comprehensively covered the content in those chapters. I feel that he covers the class at a very reasonable pace.\r\n\r\nDespite his stern, scary expression he is a very kind man, even if you are perpetually delinquent. If you take 410, he will probably like you by virtue of you showing up every class on time. He is very understanding (as I have seen) of unfortunate situations and wants his students to succeed.\r\n\r\nExams are straightforward compared to the content which was taught. If he is in a good mood, he tells you what each question is about!\r\n\r\nIf all the so called "great" professors sections are all filled, he usually has slots remaining. Taking his section is not the worst choice in the world.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-11-30T03:52:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': 'He seems scary, but he is actually a sweet old man. He is very kind and genuinely cares whether his students learn or not. However, he does tend to go a bit quickly in class. Quizzes and midterms were straightforward. The final was tougher than the midterms, but still very fair.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-16T04:40:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Abram Kagan', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "His lecture can be boring and hard to understand (due to his accent and handwriting) sometimes, but his exams are easy. If you don't care about learning and all you want is an easy and good grade, definitely go to him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-17T23:34:46Z'}], 'name': 'Abram Kagan', 'slug': 'kagan'}, {'courses': ['KNES287', 'KNES497', 'KNES389I', 'KNES485', 'KNES389D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Adam Beissel', 'slug': 'beissel'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL243', 'ENGL101S', 'PHSC497', 'PHSC497', 'PHSC497'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Adam Binkley', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'This teacher is great for english 101, a class that most people dread, he makes exciting to come to. he uses youtube,facebook, etc to better relate to the students. Dont let his free spirit fool you though because he is a pretty critical grader and puts alot into his grading. If u want to enjoy Eng101 take Adam.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-15T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Binkley', 'course': 'PHSC497', 'review': 'He is one of the best capstone professors out there. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-30T21:39:13Z'}], 'name': 'Adam Binkley', 'slug': 'binkley'}, {'courses': ['BIOE602', 'GEMS497', 'BIOE120', 'BIOE404', 'BIOE489H', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'BIOE489C', 'BIOE399H'], 'average_rating': 3.8889, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Adam Hsieh', 'course': 'BIOE404', 'review': "Although it is somewhat hard to stay focused in his class, Hsieh is a good professor. He is a really smart and fair guy, and wants to make sure his students do well in the class. The grading policy he has is amazing and the tests are fairly straightforward. Make sure to make awesome cheat sheets for the tests and then you don't have to worry about the biology. (I wrote in all of the biology notes in size six font on one side of my cheat sheet for each exam, didn't study it besides actually typing it out, and it worked out really well.) Also Hsieh was really approachable if you had any questions and is happy to help.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-17T23:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Hsieh', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': 'Not an engaging speaker, which made it difficult to pay attention sometimes. However, he was good at answering questions and explaining concepts. Depth of material was good and tests were challenging but fair. Powerpoints were easy to follow and thorough. \n\r\nHomework was handled well: we had to answer questions in a word document and submit it online. It was mostly putting the calculation techniques that we learned in class to use.\n\r\nGroup project was debating about controversial issues in the modern day fields of bioengineering. Very interesting, and it helped pad my grade a lot.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-02-26T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Hsieh', 'course': 'BIOE404', 'review': "Dr. Hsieh, though monotone and boring, is a good professor. He is very straightforward with what material you need to know. So that makes it easy on the tests because not only do you get a cheat sheet, there only so many types of questions he can ask.\n\r\nHis grading policy is the best I have ever seen! 30% HW (8 homeworks, drop 2 lowest), 6% quiz (8 quizzes, drop 2 lowest), 20% project, 20% exam, 20% exam, 4% lowest (grade exam), 4% extra credit (which is just attending discussions!). You are almost guaranteed an A. I could have gotten an 0 on the final and a 50 on the project and still have a 90 some in the class. However, try REALLY hard on the homeworks. Homeworks are the most important part of the class! They are extremely tedious and would usually take 5+ hrs during the first half of the semester.\n\r\nAlso, the notes he posts online are really helpful, so you don't really need to go to class if that's how you roll.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-09T22:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Hsieh', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Initially, I was very skeptical of how his teaching style was and the material he covered in lecture. But as the class went on, I began to enjoy the material we were covering. This was only a 100 level course but the depth of material that we covered was far beyond an introductory class. Regardless, his tests always contained the most nuanced material, so it was imperative to actually read every single word of the assigned readings or you would risk missing a question he might ask on the exam. However, this actually makes you learn the material because you have no idea what will be on the test so you attempt to memorize everything. Hsieh is also super helpful and receptive during office hours and strives to help you as a person in his class. \n\r\nHe might seem dull and inattentive at times but he is pretty intelligent. I doubt he'll teach this course again but if he does, I would definitely take it with him if you want to learn cellular biology. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-21T17:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Hsieh', 'course': 'BIOE404', 'review': "Dr. Hsieh is a pretty decent professor. His class can be tough to sit through since he's a quiet, monotone speaker. Homeworks require some effort, but the exams are usually based off the central idea behind a single homework plus biology. I recommend putting all the biology on your cheat sheet for the exams and just knowing how to do the math. Oh he drops one exam, so do yourself a favor and just do well on the first two because the final usually falls on the same day as 340 which is not fun.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-17T22:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Hsieh', 'course': 'BIOE404', 'review': "This guy is pretty amusing - he gets COMPLETELY confused and thrown off by his own examples. It is worth it just to go to class to watch him get vortexed into a blank stare by his own typically simple examples. This class starts out pretty awesome actually. You gain the ability to analyze some interesting statics and dynamics problems applied to the musculoskeletal system. The second half is when this class is just a complete drag because of soooooooooooooooooooo much superfluous biololgy. We literally spent 4 or 5 weeks straight on just straight bio (which constituted a LARGE amount of his exams (this is where I lost all of my points.)) This wouldn't be a big deal if he directly connected it to what appeared to be upper level mechanics theory, but he did a HORRIBLE job in this regard. His notes are generally very vague, but if you really understand them (stare at them for long enough) then you should be able to do the homeworks just fine. The project turned out to be great. Like I said, I got particularly boned on the exams by all of the truely superfluous biology that I didn't give a shi* about. Bottom line - memorize the stupid biology crap for the tests, forget it, move on. Also make a really good cheat sheet with as much bio on it as you can.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-02-29T20:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Hsieh', 'course': 'BIOE404', 'review': 'Dr. Hsieh is a fairly approachable professor and pretty helpful in his office hours. His exams were very straightforward, but tended to cover a lot of material so to do well, you need to know just about every small detail from lecture. He also loves to use matrices to solve just about everything so this class might be a little hard to follow unless you know linear algebra. Typically, his homeworks tended to be very mathy and based on examples he would work out in lecture so if you were careful and knew what you were doing, those were easy points. His exams tended to cover mostly the anatomical stuff he goes over in lecture with one or two math-based questions.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-04T03:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Hsieh', 'course': 'BIOE404', 'review': 'Dr. Hsieh was quite disorganized in the material that he covered and never really settled on what the course was to be. He was frequently confused by his problems. The tests were very easy for people who had recently taken mechanics but those who had forgotten it did badly.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-09-22T12:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Hsieh', 'course': 'BIOE404', 'review': 'Straightforward, very good notes and explains everything very well. Make sure to go to all of the lectures, or the class will become very confusing very fast.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-14T06:25:00Z'}], 'name': 'Adam Hsieh', 'slug': 'hsieh'}, {'courses': ['COMM375', 'COMM498J', 'COMM498K', 'COMM498L', 'COMM376', 'COMM498N', 'COMM498Q', 'COMM498T', 'COMM372', 'COMM373', 'COMM498P', 'COMM374', 'COMM398T', 'COMM398Q', 'COMM398K', 'COMM398N', 'COMM372', 'COMM373', 'COMM375', 'COMM398Q', 'COMM374', 'COMM376', 'COMM498L', 'COMM498N', 'COMM372', 'COMM373', 'COMM375', 'COMM398Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Adam Nixon', 'slug': 'nixon'}, {'courses': ['CMSC433', 'CMSC436', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC436', 'CMSC436'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': 'Awesome professor. Knows the material extremely well and very effective at teaching concepts.\n\r\nHe becomes disappointed when less than half the class shows up after the first midterm. Make sure you ask questions in class for him to remain engaged in explaining the examples.\n\r\nProjects are difficult and time consuming. The section with Yeh had OPEN note/book/internet/anything midterms, which were held on google docs. Their class average was an 89, which is understandable since everyone gets 100% on his two midterms (worth 30% total).\n\r\nTake it with Yeh if you want to loaf around and still be able to pass. Take it with Porter if you want to learn concurrency and mapreduce.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-03T18:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': "Porter is a pretty cool guy. The projects are kind of difficult, if only because his project descriptions are vague. Make good use of the forum because he answers questions there frequently. Exam(s) aren't too bad if you study.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-12T01:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': "Reasonable teacher:\r\nThe projects can be quite hard (though not impossible) and all the submit server tests are secret.\r\nExams are fair and graded fairly.\r\nLectures are boring -- Porter seemed to have lost interest in the material after the midterm because students had stopped coming to class.\r\nJust try a little harder and you'll get an A/B", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-29T19:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': 'Easy class. Open note exams. One big group project.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:30:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': 'Easy class but awful professor. He is frequently absent to nonexistent on the student forum Piazza, and many questions are left unanswered or answered only affer they aren’t relevant anymore (i.e. exam/project questions after the deadline). A couple examples:\r\n\r\n1. For our midterm we were learning stuff up to the week before the exam. Porter confirmed that the exam material may include what was taught in lecture that week, but neglected to upload the slides for that material. Many students asked on the forum for the slides, frequently (13 hours before the exam, 9 hours, then 5 and then 2 hours before the exam, all on the same thread). One hour before the exam the professor finally responds saying “Sorry for the missing slides” but still neglects to upload them\r\n\r\n2. On the Tuesday a week before Thanksgiving break Porter assigned us another lab, to be due the following Monday (2 days before break). Again, students posted on the forum asking for an extension on the lab due date as many people were traveling for break and as the lab was also longer and more difficult than any other. Once again, no response from the professor, even after over 30 people “good questioned” it on Piazza. The day after, he assigned another lab due the Monday after break.\r\n\r\n3. The semester project was not brought up again until midterm season, and he waited an extra week to release the project idea bds, and then ANOTHER week to release the project signups (this wasn’t intentional, he released them late), which left us about a month to start and finish a priject from scratch in addition to the weekly labs and our other classes.\r\n\r\n\r\nOverall, this class was a huge disappointment and made me reconsider never doing Android dev ever again. Other reviews say Porter grows bitter as more and more students stop going to class, but he also grows really unresponsive and irresponsible. He doesn’t do a good job teaching; he just reads off the slides, which by themselves are just screenshots of sample code. Most of our labs we finished with a mix of stack overflow and just copying the sample code.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-21T01:56:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': 'Totally ineffective as a lecturer. He reads from the slides that are literally just text and bullet points. Lecturers are not engaging, and because the emulator on android studio is laggy and takes forever, he cannot demonstrate how apps work but instead shows you the code in fragments on his slide which are of no help.\r\n\r\nHis labs are relatively easy because they are "fill in the blank" style. These weekly labs were slightly annoying because they did not offer anything substantial to teach you. You could easily look up how to do something on stack overflow and it was normally a one liner. But I guess it is harder to make normal cs projects that involve making an application on android from scratch so personally I do not know what other alternative there could be.\r\n\r\nNow about the big group project: I feel this was managed horribly. The teams were not assigned until after the first midterm in mid October along with the potential project ideas to pick from if you didn\'t have an original one of your own. This left students 6 weeks to build an android application from scratch, while balancing weekly labs and other coursework. 6 weeks was not an adequate time frame to do a group project. You are normally a team of 6 people but thats still hard to manage during the roughest part of the semester.\r\n\r\nWhen it came to the midterm, students felt they got steam rolled. It was all short answer with a few true/false mixed in. the average was around a 64%. Fortunately the labs and the group project will weigh more than exams in the long run. Several students who took the midterm felt railroaded but that is partially due to Porters ineffective teaching.\r\n\r\nI learned the most about android dev doing my own outside research on youtube and stack overflow and most importantly during the group project. That is where the real learning starts. I understand this class will be switching over to iOS development for handhelds but whether or not that is a permanent thing or if it will alternate from fall to spring semester from android to iOS i am not sure. If Porter is teaching 436 again don\'t worry. The class is not too hard and its pretty manageable to get a high passing grade. Just don\'t expect much from Porter. Or his incompetent TA\'s that never show up to office hours. In fact, it felt like both instructor and TAs just didn\'t give a damn this semester...', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-11T02:04:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': "Porter responds to few, if any questions asked on Piazza, and will often read off the slides instead of actually lecturing. \r\n\r\nTAs are nonexistent on the online forum as well; many will often cancel office hours last minute, screwing over people who have questions on course content.\r\n\r\nPorter will often release the slides a few days late after lecture as well; while you can read previous semester's slides to study, this is still annoying nonetheless.\r\n\r\nI was and am extremely disappointed in this class' organization and content. Based on the past reviews of this class and Porter, I was expecting a learning experience, not a power-point reading club.\r\n ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-11T21:02:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': "436 was a fun class for me due to the subject matter but it was poorly run. The class was not difficult but TA's/professors were not very responsive in Piazza and Porter gave off a vibe that he did not really care about the class that much. My biggest gripe is with the midterm and final, where no practice material or quizzes were given beforehand, and we were not given the midterm back. The class was not hard but throughout the semester it was unclear what my grade in the class was as the weekly labs were only worth 25% of my grade, and the average for the first midterm was 65%, which indicates the class should be curved (Although Porter never talked about us or assured that a curve would happen). I went into the final not knowing what 50% of my grade in the class was going to be due to the final project being graded, and a week after the final I am still unsure what my final grade is. This uncertainty and poor administration made an otherwise fun course a source of minor anxiety for me.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-18T16:10:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': "Awful bro. The labs are assigned over weekends, so there's no office hours til the day they're due. Porter hasn't answered a single thing on Piazza & the TAs watch the Piazza and just don't reply. I'm terrified for the midterm and final cause this class is a mess. Horribly run and not worth the stress.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-21T20:42:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': "Please don't. The worst, I repeat, the worst CS class I've taken at UMD.\r\n\r\nUsually, 2 weekly labs worth 1% take a good amount of time\r\n\r\nIt took us 3 to 4 weeks to convince him to release the labs 1 day earlier so we could use more OH or not have the weekend fully consumed by them.\r\n\r\nRidiculously unresponsive professor\r\n\r\nAdam Porter simply does not care about students and it's questionable how a professor can get away with this\r\n\r\nI have to make follow-ups on follow-up posts in Piazza and still no response\r\n\r\nWe still don't have any grades besides the midterm (it's almost April)\r\n\r\nThe Course is outdated. Porter has tried to make it seem it's not, but he does not cover the most recent architectural models in Android properly very well at all, such as view models, etc.\r\n\r\nThey probably won't let us look at our exam results as well\r\n\r\nNo study guide whatsoever. The exam was ridiculously long. He put questions from every single lecture slides\r\n\r\nGarbage slides by the way\r\n\r\n436 is a bag of everything you hate about a 400 at UMD. Absolute waste of time, money, and effort. Honestly, just do Google Labs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-03-29T16:39:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': "Not a hard class to take, but lectures are mostly a waste of time except for the 30 mins a week he spends on answering lab questions and giving tips. The labs are manageable and most of the code is in the example repo/slides. Otherwise, he doesn't provide much guidance and you tend to teach yourself for most of the class.\r\nOne downside, is he doesn't use ELMS at all, so you have to be checking Piazza or the class website for updates, which just add an extra layer to keeping up to date with tasks.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-07T15:44:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Adam Porter', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': "I feel that I have learned nothing from the class.\r\n\r\nHis lab assignments which accounted for 30% of our grade, were mostly fill-in-the-blank style lab assignments. Most of it was easy and copy and paste from class examples. \r\nFor the big group semester project, most of what we learned wasn't useful as the lectures doesn't go in-depth for anything we cover. Google was the professor of this class.\r\n\r\nMid-term was a mess. He wrote on the piazza that mid-term would be multiple choice, fill in the blanks, and free-response. He didn't lie except there was 1 multiple choice, 1 fill in the blanks, and 30+ free responses. Many free responses questions asked stupid things like the name of the class example you saw certain concepts covered. Why ask the name of the example?? how does that test our knowledge of the concept? I don't know.\r\n\r\nBasically, the whole course is useless besides the fact that you get to get in a group to make an android app learning mostly how to do it by yourself and your peers.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-07T03:05:34.513261Z'}], 'name': 'Adam Porter', 'slug': 'porter_adam'}, {'courses': ['JWST284', 'JWST281', 'JWST319L', 'ISRL249F', 'JWST272', 'JWST219N', 'JWST282', 'CMLT398A', 'GERM299Y', 'JWST319Y', 'GERM148Y', 'GERM149Z', 'JWST289F', 'CMLT242', 'JWST419Y', 'ISRL249G', 'FILM298T', 'JWST219T', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'ENGL378V', 'JWST373', 'CINE298T', 'CINE298J', 'GERM399R', 'JWST219J', 'JWST319O', 'GERM103', 'GERM148Y', 'JWST272', 'JWST281', 'ENGL379G', 'GERM149Z', 'JWST282', 'JWST373'], 'average_rating': 2.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Adi Mahalel', 'course': 'CMLT242', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. the professor is a terrible rude narcissistic pos who wants nothing but for all of his students to act like PHD students in an online gen ed.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-05-07T17:22:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Adi Mahalel', 'course': None, 'review': 'Stay away! Unless you want to be confused the whole semester.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-10T04:32:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Adi Mahalel', 'course': 'JWST272', 'review': 'If you are looking for a teacher who treats their class as if it is life-saving material and you are a Ph.D. student, this is your guy.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-12-20T21:23:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Adi Mahalel', 'course': 'JWST272', 'review': "I don't know why his reviews are so bad. Class was interesting and not too hard, yes there were lots of long readings but as long as you skimmed the material and chimed into conversation at least once a class it was fine. There are 2 short reflection essays and 2 papers with no exams or homework outside of the reading. Overall an interesting course and a pretty understanding guy. Definitely give it shot if the course material interests you and don't let these reviews make you turn away.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-29T04:20:32.478598Z'}, {'professor': 'Adi Mahalel', 'course': 'GERM148Y', 'review': "Incredible professor! He has an excellent teaching style, and he's very adaptive in class to ensure his students fully understand what he's teaching. Barely any homework other than reading a couple to a few pages was ever assigned. He's also hilarious!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-05T21:24:33.957540Z'}], 'name': 'Adi Mahalel', 'slug': 'mahalel'}, {'courses': ['PHYS121', 'PHYS769', 'PHYS604', 'PHYS606', 'PHYS274', 'PHYS410', 'PHYS373', 'PHYS769', 'PHYS769', 'PHYS769', 'PHYS769'], 'average_rating': 4.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Adil Hassam', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'Dr. Hassam is awesome! He is so friendly and funny – he tries to make lecture entertaining. The examples he gives in class are not nearly as hard as the ones on the exams, but if you go to discussion and understand MasteringPhysics problems, you will be very well prepared for exams. I had Jack for my TA and he was very helpful. Lab is hard, but I still managed to get an 89% for my total lab grade. There are also occasional quizzes in discussion, which count for 5% of your grade, about a dozen MasteringPhysics homeworks (15%), two midterms (15% each), the final (30%), and lab counts for 20%. Hassam gives a very generous curve. The midterms consists of about 4 multiple choice/ true or false questions and about 4 problems. I did well in lab and on homework, but I failed most of the exams and still received a B in the course. He assigns grades relatively, meaning you are graded according to how everyone else in the class performs. Dr. Hassam doesn’t like to fail anyone if he can help it. If you study hard, do all of the homeworks, and attend every discussion you will do well in this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-18T17:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adil Hassam', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "He's a very nice guy, and a good lecturer. He uses a lot of demonstrations and generally wants everyone to do well. The curve this semester was ~5%. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-05-24T11:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adil Hassam', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'Hassam is ALRIGHT. I mean, he makes a lot of mistakes in lecture...and in the end you learn that lecture notes aren\'t even that helpful. He takes a lot of problems from MasteringPhysics and rewords them for his quizzes/finals. His syllabus is online if you just google "Hassam Phys 121"\n\r\nOverall, I thought he was both an enthusiastic lecturer and fair grader. You got to bring in cheat sheets to the exams (full pages). He\'s very understanding, I definitely recommend him! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-24T03:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adil Hassam', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "Class is strait forward. Attend lecture and practice problems and you will be fine. Dr. Hassam as a professor is a consummate professional and just an awesome guy in general. From the first day you can tell he is happy to be teaching and really wants you to do well in his class as much as he wants you to learn the material. I can understand everything he is saying and he doesn't speak in monotone. He care about his students and will always keep you in the loop of where the class is going. He sends e-mails to his students every day and is constantly looking for ways to improve your grade that will actually help you learn the material at the same time (he doesnt just throw you curves, he offers opportunities to raise your grade by showing you know the material), but even then he will still curve the class as he really doesn't want you to do poorly. Fair tests, fair homeworks, fair labs, Nice professor, helpful and relaxed TA. Couldn't ask for more...", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-05T14:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adil Hassam', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'You can actually understand Hassam, unlike a majority of the physics faculty. If you took physics in high school and actually remember some of the underlying concepts (such as F=ma), then you will have no trouble getting an A. His exams are straightforward, and most of the problems are just derivations of the homework problems. The best part about his exams is that you get to bring a one page cheat sheet (2 pages for the final). ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-10T21:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adil Hassam', 'course': 'PHYS601', 'review': "Prof. Hassam lays a lot of stress on students being able to understand the concepts more than do hard problems. His PHYS 601 class was very interactive. Some of the topics such as WKB and Geometric Optics may require more initiative from your own side. He is especially quick with responding to emails. What got me through this course is keeping up with what's going on in the lecture and reading the notes after class. His grading is lenient in general.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-30T12:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adil Hassam', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': 'I took PHYS410 with Hassam during the online fiasco that was Fall 2020. I really enjoyed his class though - his online teaching style is not my favorite (reading from prewritten notes) but his explanations of concepts are very good and his tests are remarkably fair and educational. I found that with his open note tests this semester that I was actively learning new things through his problems while still being able to get good grades. PHYS410 with Hassam is a very stress-free way to take PHYS410 while still walking away from the class with a much better understanding of the subject. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-24T17:37:49Z'}], 'name': 'Adil Hassam', 'slug': 'hassam'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Adina Ferguson', 'slug': 'ferguson'}, {'courses': ['PSYC644', 'PSYC630', 'PSYC643', 'PSYC629'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Aditi Vijay', 'slug': 'vijay'}, {'courses': ['DANC248', 'DANC218', 'DANC489P', 'DANC219', 'DANC489R', 'TDPS458V', 'DANC488', 'TDPS458P', 'DANC398L', 'DANC371', 'DANC468', 'DANC179', 'DANC318', 'DANC249', 'DANC789', 'DANC679', 'DANC647', 'DANC678', 'DANC319', 'DANC398', 'ARHU158N', 'DANC499', 'DANC698', 'DANC788', 'DANC799', 'DANC399', 'DANC148', 'DANC689M', 'DANC689T', 'DANC689O', 'UNIV100', 'DANC200', 'DANC179', 'DANC318', 'DANC319', 'DANC398', 'DANC399', 'DANC448', 'DANC449', 'DANC499', 'DANC648', 'DANC649', 'DANC679', 'DANC689O', 'DANC698', 'DANC788', 'TDPS362', 'THET399', 'DANC179', 'DANC318', 'DANC319', 'DANC448', 'DANC449', 'DANC648', 'DANC649', 'DANC218', 'DANC219', 'DANC779', 'THET328N', 'DANC179', 'DANC399', 'DANC499', 'DANC679', 'DANC788'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Adriane Fang', 'course': None, 'review': "Looks like she just started teaching, relys on her computer a lot to know what to do next but wastes a lot of class time.\r\nDoesn't give very specific demonstrations of dance phrases, but spammed everyone with this long email about how she puts so much emphasis on specificity.\r\nClass is taught either much easier or way harder than it should be, not consistent.\r\nNeeds to improve.\r\nShould not have taught a dance class while pregnent!!! Dance history maybe but not actual dance.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-13T17:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adriane Fang', 'course': 'DANC218', 'review': "A great introductory professor to Modern Technique. Really clear, really knows exactly what she's teaching and has years of experience and a lot of wisdom to share.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-21T01:29:15Z'}], 'name': 'Adriane Fang', 'slug': 'fang_adriane'}, {'courses': ['JOUR325', 'JOUR199', 'JOUR300', 'JOUR399', 'JOUR462', 'JOUR762', 'JOUR396', 'JOUR620', 'JOUR625', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR328L', 'JOUR501', 'JOUR320'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Adrianne Flynn', 'slug': 'flynn_adrianne'}, {'courses': ['ENEE222', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE620', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE322H', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE324H', 'ENEE222', 'ENEE222', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE222', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE222', 'ENEE322'], 'average_rating': 4.1724, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "Papamarcou is a great professor. I won't lie to you, this class is extremely difficult, but that is the content, not the teacher. He does a really good job of explaining everything, and posted all of his lectures on elms in case you need to hear something again.\r\nHomeworks were difficult and assigned once a week, but only a subset of problems got graded, and if your exam average was better than your overall grade with homeworks, then (if I read the syllabus correctly) homework grades get dropped.\r\nExams were fair. There are two midterms and a final, each covering material from their respective unit. The exams have similar problems to the homework, but are made slightly easier to compensate for the time constraints.\r\nHonestly, this is just a really hard course with a lot of material to get a hold of. If you can get Papamarcou, he will help you through it and you should get by okay. This professor is a good idea.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-16T17:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE620', 'review': "I really like Papamarcou. He cares about his students and attempts to help them navigate his course. He is thorough in teaching the material and the homework is tough but you learn a lot. On the downside, his exams are super-tough and the scores you make on the exams make up 90% of the grade. So, while I learned so much in this course, my grade won't reflect what I learned, but only how I performed on the timed exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2014-05-05T15:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'Papa is a great lecturer and makes fair exams that can easily be aced by looking over practice and past exams. Only complaint is that he sounds like a book when lecturing (not a bad thing, but can be hard to understand sometimes with the terminology he uses).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-25T22:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "Great professor. Had him for both 324 and 241. He can be a bit verbose (tends to speak like a textbook) but always precise, which can be very useful for simpler topics but confusing for more complex ones.\n\r\nHe has a very fair grading scheme based on point values, which is nice since you know what you need to get going into the final. He is a very organized teacher, and studying for this class is not difficult due to his lecture notes and provided solutions. The only downside: if you don't understand how to do certain problems, his solutions can be hard to understand since he skips many steps, so they cannot be relied upon exclusively.\n\r\nOverall, highly recommended as long as you are able to keep up with material as he presents it in class. I wish I had looked at notes for lectures beforehand, as that would have helped immensely.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T21:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': "Papamarcou is a great teacher. If your hcoice is between Papamarcou and Blankenship, CHOOSE PAPAMARCOU. I am speaking from first hand experience when I say you will have no idea what Blankenship does in class. I was in his section for the first week of classes, realized I HAD to get out, and switched to Papamarcou. Wow, huge change. Blankenship talks really quietly, and was doing some weird stuff when I was in his class. A week later, Papamarcou was still reviewing complex numbers and such.\n\r\nHis class goes at a nice, slow pace and he commonly stops to see if any student has a question. His exams are EXACTLY like his practice exams, so definitely get a hold of those. Also, his final is NOT COMPREHENSIVE. Some people think this is a bad thing, but I tend to think this is a great thing. Overall, this class is a breeze if you go to class, do the homework, and look at practice exams. Don't stress too much over the homeworks either, as he has a nice policy where if you do well on exams, homeworks don't even factor into the grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T17:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': "His lecture notes are very good. He also wrote his own textbook which is in .pdf so you can get away with not buying a text at all.\n\r\nI found his lectures to be somewhat lacking in mathematical rigour to the extent that some of his explanations could have been more clearly and concisely been conveyed in a rigorous proof.\n\r\nStudy any test bank exams you can get, plus his practice exams. The curve is insane... I think 30-40% get A's or something like that. The exams are more about precision than anything else... just make sure you can plow through all the test bank exams without having to 'think' very much and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-28T22:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE425', 'review': "This class was 10 times harder then 322. He doesn't make it any easier. If you don't understand his lectures drop the class right away.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2010-12-21T22:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': 'Okay, yeah, I admit that I don\'t fully understand the DFT.\n\r\nhttp://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/explained-fourier.html\n\r\nThat article explains it well. Music is composed of many different instruments, and the DFT does what the human ear does. It splits the sound into the sounds made by different instruments.\n\r\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObklYbQaX24\n\r\nIt\'s also basically another way to look at the same data, to see things you wouldn\'t normally see.\n\r\nOkay, now for my review. I think Papamarcou is a really awesome teacher. Anyone who has ever taken Blankenship will tell you, "I have no idea what I learned in 241." Never take Blankenship. EVER. Unless you are like super freaking smart and I mean SUPER, you will have no idea what Blankenship is doing.\n\r\nPapamarcou explains the concepts as well as possible. Just make sure you read the lecture notes, and skim the book sometimes. He\'s not that difficult, actually. I found this class to be challenging, but not impossible to get an A in. Also, like everyone else said, he cares a lot. That is really surprising because most of the ENEE2xx level teachers just don\'t care.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-08T05:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "i had papamarcou for 241 and 324.. while he is a good enough teacher, and i think that he genuinely cares about students and how they do, i really really REALLY hate the subject matter for both 241 and 324. not papamarcou's fault, but maybe it biases my review a little. papamarcou teaches like he is reading a book so it takes a good bit to get used to the way he describes things. ive done a lot better in 324 than i did in 241 i think because of that. either way, i think he is a little overrated. he might be better than the alternative, but he is a very very difficult professor. the workload that he gives you is a little unreasonable i think, but i suppose that his grading scheme accounts for that a little. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-08T21:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very good professor, keeps you engaged. However he is frankly too smart, and the material is far to dense and nonsensical. Easy to get a B at least though. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-31T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': "Even though I didn't come to many lectures and I never paid attention to the lectures I came to...I did all the homeworks and I was 100% fine. I even bombed one of the exams and he disregards it. It was awesome, I did work very hard for the final exam and I am very happy with him. In person he is amazing and actually cares about his students. Def take him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-21T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great Professor, but the course content is horrible. Some of the calculations get really tedious and can be very confusing at times.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-16T18:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': "Ok teacher, the course is just really, really, really boring. You learn all this computational stuff that you really don't understand. Like the other person said, you learn a 1000 ways to computer a DFT but never understand what a DFT actually is. \n\r\nHe is helpful and nice. So take him if you get the chance. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-25T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': "Papamarcou was an ok teacher. I found his exams to be pretty easy and I got good grades, but I didn't really feel like I learned much from the course. \n\r\nYou will learn about 1000 ways to compute the DFT of a signal, but in the end, unless you are really smart, you won't understand what the DFT is. \n\r\nBasically this class is about becoming a computational robot and sometimes it's really annoying when you realize that you have no idea what you are computing or why you are computing it, even though you may be very good at computing it. \n\r\nPapamarcou himself is alright, although it often seems like he doesn't trust the students that much.\n\r\nI think part of the problem is that the course is relatively new and needs a lot of tweaking. I hope for the future that he will teach fewer methods of computing DFTs and convolutions and such, and spend more time trying to get across the purpose of each step and what objects such as the DFT actually represent so students can know why they are doing these computations.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-14T22:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': "Even though Papamarcou's class covered some pretty hard material, his method of teaching is awesome. He is particular with his examples and tries to fully explain each concept as he comes up. You don't have to buy a textbook, he gives you one for free on blackboard. Not only that, with each homework set he gives you 3-4 pages of notes that explain the material that the problem set covers. The problem sets were time-consuming, but the included notes were a godsend. His tests are tricky, so you have to prepare well. Great guy and a great professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-25T16:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': 'Really good teacher. He understands the material very well and communicates very well to students. He gives a lot of homework but without it there is no way to understand the material. I would definetly take 241 with Papamarcou.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-01-22T11:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': 'he was awesome, great teacher, just do the hw and listen to him and you will do fine', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-19T14:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': "Easily one of the best professors in the department. He is a great lecturer and his lectures are well organized. The material he covers is tough, but if you can follow him and take notes (or get help when you need it) and complete his assignments you'll have every opportunity to do well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-09-03T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': None, 'review': "He's hands-down a great professor. Not easy, but if you're looking for easy you're in the wrong major. If you care about your grade enough to see him every once in a while you'll be fine. He goes fast in lectures but he tries to explain things in great detail and simple explanations, and tells you what you do or don't need to know--he knows it's difficult material and levels with you. Nice guy too. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-11-12T19:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'Overall Papamarcous class is easy as you can do well in each exam by practicing his past exams which he posts on ELMS. However I feel like I havent really learnt anything from this class other than the MATLAB portion.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-07-28T22:17:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE322H', 'review': "It's a hard course and the professor doesn't provide any motivation for why we are learning the subject. However, the professor is obviously extremely knowledgeable. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-01-24T15:26:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "I have such mixed feelings about this professor. Clearly very intelligent and passionate about his work, however he just doesn't teach this class well. His new flipped-classroom-esque style is inefficient at best, and flawed at worst. I feel if he just did lectures in class instead it would be much easier to pick up on concepts. However, this is not my main beef with this class...\r\n\r\nYou don't need to study. Period. You can, but it won't give you a significant advantage over anyone else with a good memory and 6 hours the night before a test. He gives carbon copy midterms and finals every single year, and he gives you four to study from. I know multiple people who, after figuring out this trick, didn't study at all during the semester until the day before the second midterm and the day before the second final, where we just grinded and memorized how to complete the previous tests. And that's all you need to do, as we all ended up with A's. In my opinion, this is unfair as I feel like I came out of the semester not learning anything and with a grade that I don't deserve. It's just that if I'm handed a slice of cake, I'm not gonna run circles around it for three hours a day when instead I could just grab it and go do something else. Papamarcou, in my opinion, could restructure this class into something very useful if he changed the format of the exams and instead made them about understanding of material instead of solving memorization puzzles.\r\n\r\nBut hey, if you can memorize stuff easily and want a free A in a weed-out course, take Papa.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-29T05:37:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "Recommend taking 322 with Papamarcou if you didn't hate 222 with him. He does a flipped lecture that takes some getting used to if you haven't had him before, but he also has a text version of all the content so you don't actually need to watch the lectures if that's more your thing.\r\n322 is hard. It's a lot of math-y computation, so not a lot of it is actually useful and applicable for stuff outside of school. \r\nExams are pretty straightforward. Some questions may have twists, but they're mostly the same type of questions as in the practice exams. Homeworks are helpful for learning the content for each week/couple of weeks, but by the time each exam comes up there has been so much content covered that you'll probably just need to learn everything again even if you got the homeworks all or mostly right. He also uploads practice problems. Highly recommend just doing all of the problems and exams that he uploads.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T04:02:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "Dr. Papamarcou is definitely one of the best professors at UMD. ENEE322 is a difficult course, but Dr. Papamarcou provides more than enough resources for his students to succeed. For every lecture in the course, he records 2 to 3 videos that go over the content in detail. He's great at explaining difficult concepts, both in lectures and in his videos. He also provides tons of solved example problems. If you put in a decent amount of work into this class, you will almost certainly get a great grade. Also, if you take ENEE322 with Dr. Papamarcou, you will most likely come out of it with an interest in signals. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-02-04T22:50:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'He is really nice and a good lecturer. As others have mentioned he uses a flipped lecture style which might not work for everyone. Exams are pretty straightforward and the questions are mostly taken from worksheets or past exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T16:29:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'Papamarcou himself is a decent lecturer and takes pride in his knowledge and willingness to teach others. The material he teaches is just hard and confusing in its own way, but he makes it bearable. There are always 2-3 homeworks to do each week, except during exam weeks then there is still one to do, along with a lab each week in matlab. The class is very time consuming and difficult but taking it with Papamarcou helps relieve some of the stress.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-05T21:18:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "This was Papamarcou's teaching 324 in a couple of years and it showed. However, the class was well structured and organized. He teaches the material well. If you have taken probability before, this class should be a breeze. He provides plenty examples in his lecture notes. Homework are extremely long and lecture alone are not enough to figure out what the homework asks for. The exams and practice exams were very similar, but he still threw curveballs. He is a harsh grader. Some problems on the exams, more points could have been given. The average on the exams were: around 75 for the first exam, around 66 for the second exam, and 63 for the final. He was alarmed to see how low the second average was, so he made the final best four out of five problems, which was nice. 60% was a passing grade and 85% was an A-. I would recommend this class with Papamarcou as he cares about his students. However, this class isn't as curved compared to other 324 professors. A 60% in other 324 course would be considered an A- or a B+ in some scenarios. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-24T20:14:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'Very organized and gives the most material I\'ve ever had a professor give. Weekly homework problems, short pre-lecture videos, practice problems (video and text) for each lecture, and plenty of exam review material. The only thing is he runs through his lectures and never really explains why something is "x*y/m" he just says it is which I found very annoying.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-09T05:07:26.554972Z'}, {'professor': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'Absolutely amazing professor for people who self-study. Basically gives you the entire course materials in convenient modules in ELMS, including practice problems, example solutions and old exams. Exams are VERY similar to past exams. He doesn’t give “gotcha” questions. He records all lectures and posts them quickly (including his digital notes during the lecture). Homework is a little tedious, but not too bad. 222 with Papa is an Easy A if you put in the work.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-25T20:42:03.883001Z'}], 'name': 'Adrianos Papamarcou', 'slug': 'papamarcou'}, {'courses': ['ENEE307', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE416', 'ENEE601', 'ENEE480', 'ENEE413', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE600', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE303H', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE313H', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE600', 'ENEE601', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE600'], 'average_rating': 2.4737, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313H', 'review': "Iliadis is an okay professor. The way he approaches the class, at least in his ENEE313H class, was to give the students a really high-level conceptual understanding of all of the course content. He goes through tons of proofs on the board in his lectures, getting into the nitty gritty math behind derivations. However, he himself doesn't really do practice problems during class time. You'll have to depend on your TA or yourself to get practice problem help.\n\r\nHomework was pretty light. He has this habit of assigning homework problems concerning topics that he hasn't covered himself in lecture yet, so I'd try to find a solution manual. \n\r\nTests were in the format of half multiple choice, half free...response. Multiple choice questions tested your high-level conceptual understanding of things, and in free response, some questions were also to test your conceptual understanding of the concept, qualitatively deriving behaviors and such. A small portion of the free response were actual calculations questions. \n\r\nThe best way to study for his exams are to really understand the derivations in how to do them step by step, and what kind of assumptions are made in justifying each one. After that, being able to understand how to do some of the simple calculations problems that he assigns for homework, and you're good as gold.\n\r\nThere is a curve at the end. My grades on the two midterms were 86 and 87, and he said that I'm on track to get an A+ or an A if I slip a little too much on the final.\n\r\nEdit:\r\nThis semester, I am also taking Iliadis for 303, and he teaches the beginning of 303 pretty much like 313. Our first exam for 303 could have been our first exam in 313 the semester before. He typically gives a quiz the class before a test, just to show you what you do or don't know. These quizzes don't count for that much, and he tends to recycle questions from them to put on the exam, so keep track of what the questions are.\n\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-11-13T13:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313H', 'review': "ENEE313, Introduction to Device Physics, is probably one of my least favorite ENEE courses. With that being said, Iliadis's lectures were pretty boring. There is not much structure to his lectures and he goes all over the place. The textbook he assigns is also very dense, and it is a pain to read. I actually would recommend taking Professor Goldman's course. Goldman wrote his own textbook for 313, and I actually ended up using it to study for the final as it was more straight forward than Iliadis's assigned textbook. Also, from Professor Goldman's website, he posts HW solutions and practice exams, which Iliadis does not do at all. I would have given Iliadis a 3, but once I went to his office to see my exam, and he ended up just regrading it and took an additional 4 points off. I was so baffled because he wouldn't even let me see my own exam, and he his grading methodology is so random. He literally said I took some points off here because I don't know what you were doing.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-17T00:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': None, 'review': '413 is a complete waste of time. I took Iliadis for 313 and he covers the EXACT same material with same quizzes and same exams. He uses a different book though (Buy the international edition from ebay, it will save you a lot). If you are interested in device physics and want to learn something new I recommend 411, 419A, 489Q, or 496. The exams were pretty similar to those in 313, except a question or two that was harder. Some exam questions tend to be confusing. Often times he would say "we discussed this in lecture" when in reality he didn\'t really talk about it or blew off the explanation. He also tends to make people feel awkward, especially in a small class like ours. With that being said, I think he does care about us doing well. Even though his lectures are bleh you should still go and take notes because his exam will be based off of it.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-03-04T02:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313H', 'review': "Iliadis is an okay professor. His lectures can be a bit boring but he isn't too bad at explaining the material. You realize he goes over the material pretty decently but you may not get a lot out of it. The workload is fairly light since there was little homework (I wish there was more HW to be better prepared for exams). Exams were pretty straightforward, there are simple computational questions, some derivations, and multiple choice questions. You pretty much have to remember the handful of formulas for the exam. He didn't give us back our exams for some reason, though the averages were really high. He is also disorganized and doesn't give very clear explanations. You need to read the book ahead of time to get the most out of his lectures. Overall, not a bad class and not hard to get an A. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-15T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'I stand by most of the comments the other reviewers wrote, but I\'ll add one thing that may or may not discourage people from taking a class with this professor. \n\r\nI recently received a test back in this class, and doubted some of the point penalties I got on a few of the problems. When I asked him what I should have done to get full credit on one problem, he looked at my answer and said, (his words, not mine), "This is bull-s***." I was a little surprised, since I understand what "B.S.-ing" an answer means, and this was not a B.S. answer. I proceeded to try and figure out why he didn\'t agree with my answer, but I\'m just as clueless as I was before. \n\r\nI consider myself a good student, and I get that I\'m not going to have the grades I want all the time, but I still don\'t appreciate my hard work on a test being referred to as "bull-s***". I will try very hard to avoid taking any more classes from this professor, and I will personally recommend that other students avoid this professor as well. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-11T00:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313H', 'review': "Lectures are not really that interesting, although looking back, the material itself is pretty interesting as you are finding out what goes on inside stuff like transistors to make them work the way they do. \r\nThe main problem with Iliadis is he doesn't explain stuff thoroughly enough. Many of his lectures require knowledge from other 300 level EE classes. \r\nThis being said, his exams a very fair and he does not give much hw at all (I actually kind of wished he would give us more so that I could feel more prepared for the exams). The hw he does give is basically impossible to do solely from the lecture material. \r\nOne nice thing was he emphasized knowing the concepts more than just being able to plug in numbers to equations. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-23T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': None, 'review': "I'm not sure why some people expected to use cheatsheets, when he specifically said no cheatsheets allowed. You have to know the important equations for this class by heart and know some of the derivations. Minus the second exam, he's required some type of derivation on every exam.\n\r\nHe tends to take points off your exam without really telling you why. (ie.checkmarks everywhere and a -10 points out of nowhere)\n\r\nDon't even bother going to class unless you want to waste time. He's incoherent and never finishes his sentences. I don't think he's ever properly answered anyone's questions because he frequently goes off tangent. Most of the time, he doesn't even bother to show up to class on time. In short, his lectures are useless. You'd be better off learning the material on your own.\n\r\nI never took ENEE313 before taking this class, but from what I hear, the material from this class is same as the material in ENEE313.\n\r\nBesides all the bad points, Illiadis is a fair professor. He really wants people to do well in his class. When a lot of people did horrible on the first exam, he gave us an essay to write to boost our first exam grades. And during the second exam, when people kept asking him questions about one of the problems, he gave hints on how to solve the problem.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-30T00:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': None, 'review': "If you take this class with him, expect to memorize every equation you need, and you will need a lot of them. The exams are not hard; if you know the formulas, it is literally plug-and-chug like a homework problem. This would have been nice to know beforehand, however, as he does not tell you this and a few people actally walked into the final expecting to be able to use a cheetsheet. If you don't know the right formula, you're dead in the water.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-29T12:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': None, 'review': '-Bad/boring lectures\r\n-Late returning grades (when he grades papers himself, not the TA)\r\n-Midterms have no comments on how he deducted points\r\n-Often late to his own lectures\n\r\n+Reasonably easy homeworks\r\n+Midterms were fair and he reviews material\r\n+Assigns extra credit if class average is low', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-15T16:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': "Not a fan. Maybe it was the content, but I couldn't stay engaged in the lectures. He couldn't keep straight when homework was due and the exams (extremely formula heavy) did not allow formula sheets. I spent more time making sure I knew the equations than understanding the premise of the class. I can't recommend Iliadis for 313, take Daniels if he is available. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-20T14:50:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Not a good professor. The class relied on memorizing formulas instead of using formula sheets which is not a good way to really learn the material, as the focus should be on learning how to solve circuit problems rather than plugging numbers into equations. The exams were very difficult to prepare for, as the HW that he gives is not what you would see on the exam, neither are the problems in the book. On top of that, he doesn't solve proper examples in class involving quantities, he just presents the formula and how he got there. Avoid if you can.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-23T22:18:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': "Awful professor. I don't think anyone learned a single thing during lecture. Need to learn everything from the textbook, but still go to lecture because it helps for the exams. He was quite arrogant, and unresponsive to student needs. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-31T21:48:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'Very, very few assignments to be graded off of. Lecture was very hard to follow and almost useless, learned almost nothing from it. Does not return your exams and takes quite a long time to grade them. Speaking of exams, good luck, as he does not release practice exams and they are nothing like the homework. No idea what my grade will be in the course, as he has not provided any criteria for curving whatsoever. Exam averages were 58% and 72% respectively. Final exam still has not been graded, over a week later. 2 stars instead of 1 because the workload was very light.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:18:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': "First thing you should know about Illiadis is that he has no desire to teach. He opens each lecture by asking if any students have questions from the current chapter (as if anyone has even looked at the textbook) and structures his lectures off of random tangents that are not cohesive whatsoever. \r\n\r\nDespite this approach to teaching, you can get an A in this class.\r\n\r\n1. You need to go lecture. Although lecture seems useless, he drops a lot of key information that will come up on exams/quizzes. He hints to potential topics for free responses, multiple choice questions, and will state specific page numbers that are important. \r\n2. You need to memorize equations and their derivations. Leading up to a midterm he will emphasize a lot of topics that you should know VERY well. He is explicit about which derivations you should know so there are no surprises, but make sure can explain every step.\r\n3. Read the textbook. The textbook for this class is painful, but it is critical for the multiple choice. You'll be surprised by the random information you'll retain just by skimming over the textbook once. However, the multiple choice is not the end all be all. It's usually about 15-20% of each midterm and the class is curved heavily. He's also emphasized topics in class that I've seen come up in the multiple choice. \r\n4. The numerical problems are very straight forward. Make sure you redo your homeworks and look over the example problems for each chapter. The numerical problem (singular) will be very similar to something you've seen before.\r\n\r\nOverall, this class is not terrible if you play your cards right. The homework is super manageable, typically 4-5 problems per homework. I think we had 6 assignments over the course of the whole semester. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-25T06:42:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'Terrible professor and does not want to teach. Also a rude person.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-17T00:35:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313H', 'review': "This professor's course was not a pleasant experience for me. The class was extremely disorganized, homework problems were often completely unrelated to material covered during lecture, and it was impossible to know what exam questions would cover. Additionally, the textbook for this course is one of the worst textbooks, making it difficult to even self teach the material. Lectures usually consist of Professor Iliadis scribbling his own words on a blank document while trying to follow the derivations in the textbook. Very boring. He also came off as arrogant and rude at times when interacting with students who asked or answered questions during class. Although he says you don't need to memorize any formulas or derivations for exams/quizzes, you need to memorize them. He will often test a very specific derivation from the textbook in an exam, and it's not possible to figure it out during the exam. It's all memorization.\r\n\r\nThe only reason I'm not giving 1 star is because he grades super leniently. There's no need to worry much about what your final grade will be, as the curve is very large. But, the process of getting there is painful and extremely frustrating. If you only want a good grade, Iliadis isn't a bad choice. But, your experience will likely not be enjoyable.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-08-07T02:48:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'I honestly thought Iliadis was alright compared to the other reviews. To be fair, he can definitely be rude, such as during exams he would randomly be like "this exam is easy guys, why is it taking so long??" and when I was the last person to turn the exam in, he would go "why are you last?" In addition, he would begin every lecture asking if we had any questions, and either get annoyed if we didn\'t have any, or would get annoyed if the questions were "too simple." His exams were also all derivation, and we were given no equation sheet, so you just had to hope that you memorized the right derivations and formulas or you were immediately down at least 30%. However, I always thought his lectures were very good and easy to follow, and he would upload his notes after every class. If you approached him individually, I always found that he was much more respectful and willing to answer questions, which he knew the course content very well. He also curved the class very heavily, which was a nice bonus after the not great exam averages. The homework was also very easy, with the textbook containing all the examples needed to complete it. If you are able to put in the effort in the course and study on your own time, you will be fine, otherwise you still might be okay with the curve. Definitely look at the review from 12/25/2019, as their outline is accurate and will help you do well in this class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-09T13:38:38.162257Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': '313 with Iliadis is the definition of a mid course. Iliadis as a professor is neither amazing nor horrible, but his teaching style leans more towards the negative end of the spectrum. His lectures mostly consisted of him info dumping information in long lines of text or writing out long derivations, many of which were never touched again. He barely does practice problems in his lectures, so if you want to work through problems, you need to go to your discussion section and work with your TA. Iliadis also has a tendency of sometimes making rude and/or irrational comments towards students. His normal routine is to show up right on-time to 10 mins late, so class never starts on time. It was so bad that he showed up 10 minutes to the final exam. He asks for questions on the current content at the beginning of class, but most of his responses consist of either "you should be reading the textbook" or "you learned that in middle school."\r\n\r\nRegardless of his attitude during class, the workload for 313 is rather light. We had around 6 HWs throughout the semester and only 1 quiz (for some reason). The HWs were not very time-consuming, though some of the content didn\'t relate to the content covered in class. Exams consisted of memorizing every equation from the recommended chapters and hoping that you memorized the right ones. He gives no other study preparation, so you have to find other means of studying outside of his class. Exams consisted of 20% multiple choice questions and 3 free response questions that made up the other 80% of the exam. Grading was pretty lenient, but getting any points back after getting your exam graded is very difficult. As a comedic last note, we never received our grade for our final exam. He uploaded our final grades to Testudo without releasing them. However, it appeared that he curved the class quite modestly.\r\n\r\nThis would definitely be a 1-star review if it weren\'t for the fact that he makes it easy to pass the class. I cannot recommend that you take him, but it is not the end of the world if you have to take him. You probably won\'t learn much, but you will at least check another class off of your list. There\'s an added bonus that you\'ll be able to laugh about your experience with your friends once you finish his course.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-24T00:05:30.845677Z'}, {'professor': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'Honestly, not sure why he gets so much hate. He was funny and really not that bad. I mean "come on guys". If you attempt the class, you\'re basically guaranteed to pass with him, but getting an A is extremely difficult.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2023-04-04T05:02:56.775659Z'}], 'name': 'Agisilaos Iliadis', 'slug': 'iliadis'}, {'courses': ['HEBR106', 'HEBR211', 'HEBR313', 'HEBR249M', 'HEBR314', 'HEBR249W', 'HEBR206', 'HEBR207'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Aharona Rosenthal', 'slug': 'rosenthal_aharona'}, {'courses': ['PERS302', 'PERS353', 'PERS402', 'PERS283', 'PERS452', 'PERS371'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak', 'course': 'PERS371', 'review': 'Dr. Karimi-Hakkak has simply been one of the best professors I have had in my entire undergraduate career. That said, he is not easy, and do not take his courses expecting an easy grade. This warning is especially true for any Iranian heritage students who think that they know so much about Persian culture. Believe me, he will challenge you and expect more from you if you are. The up side is that you will learn a heck of a lot more than you knew there was to learn. Be prepared to work hard, but the payoffs are huge, and far beyond just a good grade.\n\r\nI especially appreciate how well he balances his classes, and directs class discussions. He is an adept at broaching controversial subjects in a very thoughtful manner. His eloquence is a model for students whose first language is English. \n\r\nFurthermore, you should take your assignments seriously. You might get away with skimming some of the reading, but he has a way of quizzing you about a detail or two buried in the text to make sure you are caught up. Your term paper will be a real opportunity for you to improve your writing. \n\r\nSimply put, I have NEVER had a professor read through three drafts of my paper and extensively edit and annotate it before handing it back. You don\'t know how charitable he is to do that for all of his students. Some students can\'t handle the criticism and take it personally, but my advice is, don\'t take it that way. I thought I was a decent writer, and was surprised to see my draft "slashed and burned", but I took it in stride, and produced one of the best final papers I\'ve ever written as an undergrad. \n\r\nFinally, if you plan to go to graduate school, this is an opportunity to hone yourself, and possibly produce a solid graduate writing sample. If he really likes your paper, you may even be eligible for a the Amirsaleh Undergraduate Essay Award for $1,000, which the Department offers on an annual basis. Best of all, his recommendation carries significant weight among Middle East and Persian Studies faculty throughout North America. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-01T16:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak', 'course': None, 'review': 'All I am gonna say is that he made me love Iranian culture and Iranian women even more. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-16T02:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Karimi- Hakkak is a great teacher. His classes are challenging but he makes sure that he makes himself available to students. The lectures are pretty solid and you can get away with skimming most of the reading (do the major ones, though). \r\nHe has you write the term paper in different draft stages. Be sure to take advantage of this--it'll definitely let you know where you should take the paper and what sources you can use.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-07-29T21:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak', 'slug': 'karimi-hakkak'}, {'courses': ['ENCE340', 'ENCE444', 'ENCE647', 'ENCE799', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE340', 'ENCE340', 'ENCE444', 'ENCE340', 'ENCE645', 'ENCE647', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE340', 'ENCE444'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ahmet Aydilek', 'course': 'ENCE340', 'review': "Great guy. hE really cared. I didnt find the topic too interesting, but you can tell her really cared about the students. His tests were very fair. \r\nI wouldn't go as far as to say he made soil interesting, but he made it tolerable...\n\r\nIf I had to take another Geotech class I'd take him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-12T10:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ahmet Aydilek', 'course': 'ENCE340', 'review': "solid professor. the lectures were powerpoints or just packets, but he was a pretty lenient grader on homeworks. his tests did have a couple tricks in them, but for the most part they weren't too bad. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-26T22:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ahmet Aydilek', 'course': 'ENCE340', 'review': 'Excellent professor! Teaches the material in a clear, concise manner', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-29T19:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ahmet Aydilek', 'course': 'ENCE340', 'review': "Great Professor. This is my first semester here but he is my favorite out of all of them. \n\r\nEverything he teaches in class along with the power point slides, which are posted on blackboard, are all you need to know for the exams. Equations for exams will be given.\n\r\nYou need the book for homework but he teaches everything you need to know. \n\r\nHe is really good at teaching. He covers a ton of material but if you come to class, pay attention, and ask questions, he will ensure that you know what is going on. If you don't ask when you need help and do bad, that is your fault. If you ask him, you will understand.\n\r\nAlso he has actual experience with geotechnical engineering and relates everything to real life.\n\r\nThe second midterm and final get harder consecutively. They won't be as easy as the first. Know the concepts, not just the problems. He curves the final grade if the class average is too low so don't feel bad if you end up in the 80's at the end.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T19:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ahmet Aydilek', 'course': 'ENCE340', 'review': "I'm to sure if this is because we moved entirely online or what, but this class is awful. The exams are literally impossible; he does not give us enough time on them at all. No mention of a curve yet, when the class average on our last exam was a D. I am literally a straight A student and this class is impossible. The homeworks are unfair and the textbook is of almost no help (the course content doesn't really follow the textbook, and you are expected to know things he only mentions once or twice in lecture that are not in the textbook). This class is making me question my major choice, even though I am a second semester junior. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-04-03T17:37:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Ahmet Aydilek', 'course': 'ENCE340', 'review': "This guy is awful. DO NOT TAKE HIM if you have literally any other option for this class. This semester, we were entirely online, and all of his lectures were pre-recorded. Let me start off by saying he is such a stickler for academic integrity, we weren't even allowed to have a class groupme (even though all we used it for was helping each other understand concepts). He covers the bare minimum in class, and then expects students to be able to answer all sorts of trick questions on the homework. The HW is graded extremely harshly (averages were usually a 70 or below), and the exams are impossibly difficult and you are not given enough time. No mention of a curve, despite the averages for our first two exams being in the low 60s (exams are 85% of your grade, HW is 15%). This is one of the most frustrating classes I have ever taken; you can watch all the lectures and take good notes and still not understand a lot of the concepts. If that wasn't enough, the textbook is disorganized and does not include everything you need to know. All of this, on top of no groupme (so no one has any idea what's going on), is a recipe for frustrated and dejected students. He should not be allowed to teach this class again online. This is the first class I have ever come close to failing, going into the final with a 70.1 (my GPA is a 3.85 for reference). You simply are not given the resources you need to succeed in this class. Honesty, im just thankful we have pass/fail this semester. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-05-13T16:06:37Z'}], 'name': 'Ahmet Aydilek', 'slug': 'aydilek'}, {'courses': ['HIST429L', 'HIST429N', 'HIST639K', 'HIST319L', 'HIST419A', 'HIST607', 'PERS498C', 'RELS419N', 'PERS689C', 'HIST619P', 'PERS498L', 'HIST608D', 'PERS398C', 'RELS319L', 'RELS419V', 'RELS419X', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'HIST219X', 'PERS251', 'HIST120', 'HIST429C', 'HIST639V', 'RELS120'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ahmet Karamustafa', 'course': 'HIST319L', 'review': 'I really like this professor. Hi let me ask as many questions as I wanted. We had very interesting discussions in the few minutes before and after class. Great resource ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-09T12:43:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Ahmet Karamustafa', 'course': 'PERS251', 'review': 'One of the most kind, understanding, knowledgeable, and interesting professors I have met. He takes his time to ensure that you are getting what you need out of the classes and I always enjoyed attending his classes. I am definitely going to take another class of his in the future.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-17T04:06:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Ahmet Karamustafa', 'course': 'HIST219X', 'review': 'Prof. Karamustafa is a very relaxed and knowledgeable professor. His class mainly consisted of lectures, which were accompanied by slides to take notes from. His grades consist of reflections after each class and at the end of the week, two small papers, and one large final paper. The class is not difficult at all if you get everything turned in on time. Prof. Karamustafa is a great, friendly guy and I would definitely take one of his classes again.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-23T22:14:56Z'}], 'name': 'Ahmet Karamustafa', 'slug': 'karamustafa'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Aida Garcia Revuelta', 'slug': 'revuelta'}, {'courses': ['PHIL408L', 'PHIL408S', 'PHIL408B', 'PHIL362', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL858D', 'PHIL318B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Aidan Lyon', 'slug': 'lyon'}, {'courses': ['SOCY241'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Akilah Watkins-Butler', 'slug': 'watkins-butler'}, {'courses': ['CCJS331', 'CCJS418J', 'CCJS345', 'CCJS453', 'CCJS498W', 'HACS208Y', 'CCJS352', 'CCJS331', 'CCJS453', 'CCJS352', 'CCJS418J', 'CCJS498W', 'CCJS453', 'CCJS352'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alan Drew', 'course': 'HACS208Y', 'review': "This professor is trash. He doesn't know what to talk about nor how to teach. He barely knows anyone's names and didn't even know when his last day to each was.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-05T23:28:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Drew', 'course': 'HACS208Y', 'review': "This professor is terrible, he didn't have many grades in our grade server and for the grades he did post, they weren't for the assignments we turned in. Poor reflection of what the class is and had complete disregard for the syllabus.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-23T17:09:06Z'}], 'name': 'Alan Drew', 'slug': 'drew_alan'}, {'courses': ['GEOL342', 'GEOL489R', 'GEOL124', 'GEOL436', 'GEOL110', 'GEOL224', 'FIRE162', 'GEOL789R', 'GEOL789B', 'GEOL497', 'GEOL497H', 'GEOL789P', 'GEOL789Y', 'GEOL789C', 'AOSC436', 'GEOL342', 'GERM103', 'GEOL100', 'GEOL789R', 'GEOL789Y', 'GEOL436', 'GEOL789C', 'AOSC436'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alan Kaufman', 'course': 'GEOL124', 'review': "I cry at night because of this class.\r\nI don't think Kaufman realized how difficult this class is, the curriculum is way too high for a 100 level class. I'm also a BSOS major that was told the class is an easy class for non-science majors...it's not.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-16T00:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Kaufman', 'course': 'GEOL124', 'review': 'While Kaufman really knows his stuff and can give a lot of first hand experience, he tends to talk on what I found to be too high a level for a class that was intended for non-science majors. Of course, I am a BSOS student so that might be the root of the problem...overall, and interesting class that can be very challenging. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-04T19:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Kaufman', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "He is so boring but knowledgeable. I guess stay in the class, but I haven't learned anything?", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-28T21:02:54.166855Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Kaufman', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "I haven't learned one thing. He also treats this class as NOT a beginner class. He could talk for hours about geology, but expects you to know too much!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-03-16T20:48:49.181276Z'}], 'name': 'Alan Kaufman', 'slug': 'kaufman_alan'}, {'courses': ['CCJS300', 'CCJS352', 'CCJS418P', 'CCJS200', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS418P', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS418P', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS418P', 'CCJS200', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS200', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS418P'], 'average_rating': 4.4375, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS352', 'review': "Even though he is a good, cool, and funny guy do not take him in 352. I have Lehman for CCJS 300 as well and he is not much better. If you're taking 300 go with Brooks. The only reason I took it with Lehman is because I did not want Friday classes. But now for 352; DO NOT take this class with Lehman. The average grade for the first test was a C given that there are only 3 test, including the final, this made obtaining a good grade very difficult. 352 is an elective course and he treats it like a course in chemistry and biology. His test are 100 questions multiple choice and are written in the most complicated way possible.\n\r\nI got screwed over by taking 352 with Lehman to which I was recommended by a friend. I hope this review saved you from making a huge mistake. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-11-04T03:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "I completely agree with everyone else lol\r\nProfessor Lehman studies medicinal marijuana so he talks about it a lot and you will learn a lot about it in this course. The class material is pretty dry so he makes it a little more interesting.\r\nFor the SPSS assignments he outlines EXACTLY how to do them with detailed instructions on the assignment and sometimes he'll give you the answers in class. \r\nFor the exams it's very important to READ EVERYTHING in the assigned chapters, you should also go to class because we watch film clips and he'll talk about his research & some questions appear on exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-06T10:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "Honestly, everything the others have said about him is true. He can be a bit on the boring side some days, but considering the material he's teaching he does a good job of it not being boring EVERY day.\n\r\nFor the SPSS assignments, he writes on the packet he hands you EXACTLY where to click in the program, what kinds of graphs he wants, and how to interpret the data to get your answers. If you come to class, he even gives you the answers to some of the fill in the blank parts. \n\r\nThe exams are a bit tricky, as they're a random mash up of his lectures and stuff in the book. If you go to class and take notes on your laptop and then skim the chapters though before the exam you'll be fine.\n\r\nHe does talk about his work to decriminalize weed a LOT, but it's mostly done when it relates to the material. He also throws extra credit questions on the exam that you will only know the answers to if you go to class. (like about where he started his research or a state he is working with currently to find information)\n\r\nOverall, I'd take him over Dr. Brookes. She's a nice lady, but his tests are much easier and she never showed movies in class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-11-28T21:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'Class should be re-named "POT101" because he does his research on Medicinal Marijuana. \n\r\nJoking aside, he is a pretty cool guy/good professor. Very approachable. Dry material, but not too difficult. Every semester he sets aside a week to watch a movie. Grades are on 3 tests and SPSS computer assignments. I would highly suggest taking this course with him, ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-19T13:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "Lehman is my new favorite professor. He's a little quirky and obsessed with research about medical cannabis, but those are some of the reasons that we love him.\n\r\nHe tells it like it is, and makes research methods actually seem interesting.\n\r\nYour grade is made up of four homework assignments with SPSS (easy as pie!) and exams. Exams are easy -- just go to class, take notes, and read the book once.\n\r\nHe usually teaches for an hour instead of the hour 15 each class, so you always get out early.\n\r\nAfter dreading having to take Research Methods, Lehman made this the one class I looked forward to.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-01T16:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': "Take any class you can with Lehman! I took this class with him during a six week session, and I was able to do really well. His tests and homeworks are fairly easy but at the same time you learn alot. I'm taking ccjs300 with him in the fall as a result of my experience.\n\r\nbuy the book, go to class, do the hw and you will get an A pretty much guaranteed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-07-07T12:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "Lehman is great! His exams and computer assignments are pretty easy. There is an attendance policy, so you have to go to class. Buy the textbook, but don't buy the computer assignment book. Overall he a great teacher, and I'd highly recommend taking him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'Professor Lehman is great. He talks about a lot of interesting subjects in class and tries to help out students as much as he can. Very helpful during office hours and tells you what you need to fix on assignments. His exams are straightforward, and not difficult. A+ Professor in my book', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-10T22:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'Dr Lehman is straightforward. His exams are the best, they are not tricky at all. You literally just have to learn his lecture notes and read the chapter once. The material is easy and he is a pretty cool professor. Lectures arent boring, and the homework (worth 25% of final grade) is super EASY. You could literally do it an hour before class.\n\r\nWould def recommend him if you want to get a good grade without trying too hard ;-)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-08-31T10:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'Okay professor. The 100 question quizzes were a bit much. He always told us about stuff like a day before it was due which was annoying but I did take this online bc COVID. He’s not terrible but I probably wouldn’t take again. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-20T21:33:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "Lehman is a super sweet guy. The content itself isn't too interesting but you can tell he loves teaching it. The exams are very lengthy and HEAVILY memorized based which is the only fault. There is so much content from the lectures to memorize but as long as you get it all down you will get an A. Overall hes a great guy and was not a terrible class by any means. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-11-08T20:58:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': 'I took CCJS200 with Lehman over the summer - and it was the best decision. He did give many assignments, but they were all fairly simple and to the point. He also gave 3 exams throughout - but they were all open note and he gave you the entire weekend to complete them. The questions on the exam were identical to those he gave on the daily worksheets/assignments. Overall it was a low stress class and he is a very nice guy. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-15T00:10:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "He's a great professor and knows his stuff. Two pieces of advice for you guys: be sure to take good notes because he writes notes on a piece of paper and for the SPSS assignments, pay attention to the instructions because I did lose some points for that.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-19T00:17:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'Pros:\r\n- Research methods can be a little dry, especially if you’re not interested in research. Professor Lehman incorporates examples from his own research on marijuana into the class, which makes it much more interesting.\r\n- He wants students to succeed, and you can email him at almost any time before SPSS assignments are due with questions. He will get back to you. \r\n- Class almost always ends early. When he finishes his material for the day he doesn’t feel the need to keep students ‘just because’. \r\n\r\nPro or Con depending on your preferences:\r\n- Everything in this class is hand written by the professor on the board or a piece of paper that is projected onto the board. You have to write really good notes.\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- The exams are 100 question multi-choice, and they are heavily memorization based. You’ll be tested on stories he tells in class, so study those too!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-20T20:59:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'I love this professor so much. The topic is super boring but since you have to take the class, this teacher is the way to go. He throws in 5 assignments that he basically tells you exactly how to do which makes ur grade boost a lot if you get 5/5 on all of them (which is so easy). He is super accommodating, has very helpful office hours, and walks you through almost everything. The tests are multiple choice with 100 questions which sounds like a lot but actually helps you with scoring as you can get like 15 wrong and still get an 85. You MUST read the textbook and you will get a good grade. Requires a lot of studying but as long as you read the book and go over the notes he gives you, you will get an A', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-30T18:21:36.110683Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Lehman', 'course': 'CCJS418P', 'review': 'Awesome class, really well organized. Printed outlines for every class made studying for me so much easier. Exams are straightforward, no trick questions. He is very passionate about this subject and wants his students to succeed. Highly recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-24T14:13:50.517180Z'}], 'name': 'Alan Lehman', 'slug': 'lehman'}, {'courses': ['SOCY201', 'SOCY401', 'SOCY699C', 'SOCY602', 'SOCY601', 'SOCY699Q', 'SOCY889', 'SOCY699M', 'SOCY699I', 'SOCY699Z', 'SOCY404', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY672', 'SOCY201'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alan Neustadtl', 'course': 'SOCY201', 'review': "Like previously mentioned, easiest statistics class on campus. Open note, book, slides, previous exams/quizzes, homework, whatever, as long as you don't talk to the person sitting next to you. There is a long lab but it would behoove you to go since the TA's help A LOT with the homework questions. Not a painful class although I didn't understand all of the underlying principles of the meanings of the stats I'm still walking away with a good grade. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-05-22T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Neustadtl', 'course': 'SOCY201', 'review': 'This is probably the easiest statistics course you will find in CP. All the tests and quizzes are open note and open book, and he posts his lecture notes online. His lectures are pretty boring - by the second half of the semester i stopped going. I actually started doing better in the class by just attending the labs and teaching the rest to myself. The homeworks are really helpful come quiz/test time - the problems are very similar to the ones on the exams.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-21T15:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Alan Neustadtl', 'slug': 'neustadtl'}, {'courses': ['ASTR330', 'CPSP119D', 'PHYS106', 'ASTR340', 'CPSP118D', 'PHYS102', 'ASTR230', 'CPSP239D', 'PHYS131', 'CPSD100', 'CPSP218D', 'CPSD101', 'CPSD200', 'ASTR300', 'CPSD230', 'CPSP249D', 'CPSP369D', 'CPSD240', 'CPSP359D', 'CPSD250', 'ASTR422', 'ASTR421', 'ASTR230', 'CPSD100', 'CPSD101', 'ASTR230', 'ASTR330', 'CPSD100', 'CPSD101', 'CPSD200', 'CPSD230', 'CPSD240', 'CPSD250'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'CPSD100', 'review': "A good professor who presents topics well at a high level (which was what a lot of this course was about). \r\n\r\nHe is very nice and takes the time to learn everyone's name. He has a great desire to turn us into well spoken and productive individuals during our time here, which is a grand goal.\r\n\r\nGraders will take off points on the homework for weird or maybe incomprehensible reasons (for example, I had ten points, or 1 percent of the final grade, taken off a correct use of a logical fallacy probably because it was not politically correct). Others had points taken off for being too terse, which I feel is unfair for most questions.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-17T23:31:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'ASTR230', 'review': 'Dr. Peel is a professor who can be really chill one day, then totally rude and off another day. I had him for both astr 230 and 340 and both of those classes were quite a challenge with him as a lecturer. Do not get me wrong, he can be an effective professor but can come off as rude and material such as homework and exams can be rather tricky. In astro 230 the average on each exam was a 65, 58, 70, and 68. Which is actually much lower than astro 340 exams which were about 70 to 73 each. Saving grace for 230 was there was no final and there are alot of free points for discussion assignments and clickers. If you really like the material take him, if you are not adapt at the algebra and math of astronomy be advised.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-06-04T15:57:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'ASTR230', 'review': 'The class takes a lot of time and can be pretty frustrating and inconvenient. Dr. Peel though is pretty knowledgeable and good at explaining things, and I thought pretty likeable as well.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\nInteresting content if you are into this kinda stuff\r\nMakes you think about problems\r\nlearn quite a bit\r\nno real hw\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n3 discussions a week\r\nearly lecture\r\ngroup project\r\nreadings\r\nclicker questions/attendance mandatory', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-19T17:59:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'ASTR330', 'review': "He's a tough person to read but always tried to check in on us throughout the semester after we switched to online learning. His homework is not to be taken lightly. If you want to do well you need to deeply understand the material before attempting to answer the questions; some questions you can't even find in the book and instead need to use your intuition (which means you'll probably get it wrong). His curve at the end appropriately reflected the very low average in the class, but for the easiness of the material taught the questions were over the top and incredibly time-consuming. At times it felt as though the TA grading our homework was inconsistent in their methods and was trying to work against us.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-06-02T00:03:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'ASTR230', 'review': 'Very likeable professor, puts a lovely brand of dry humor throughout lectures and discussions. The course itself is challenging in that there is almost always something imminent: discussion 3 times a week with a worksheet, working on the Group Project Solar System towards the end of semester, etc. Otherwise, the discussions are graded on how much effort you put into them. The first couple units are math units with the expectations of an English class: make a good enough case, provide the evidence of your thought process, and get corrected if you were wrong later. You will still receive the points, just make sure you know the real answers for the tests. \r\n\r\nProfessor Peel always had a chat open during the discussion for questions, and was ALWAYS real with us. If there was an idea that didn\'t work out, or something in particular that he expected from us, he would tell us. He mentions things like "I see multiple groups doing this, that, -- please be aware that I am expecting you to know (something important)." Always respectful, in my experience.\r\n\r\nAlso, use ratios. Always.\r\n\r\nThe class is one long gauntlet of group work, so you better get along early or it will not be a good time. I was lucky enough to get a fantastic one where all of our members contributed and spoke up. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-14T19:57:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'CPSD100', 'review': "He's an arrogant, elitist jackass. This sentiment is shared by the entire class. He made me despise coming to class and I wish I never chose SDU as my scholars program. Peel is often times condescending and rude. His teaching style is abysmal and actively suppresses any fun that the class could have been. He needs to be removed as head of SDU.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-04-14T04:08:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'CPSD100', 'review': "I took CPSD100 with him during Fall 2020. He's a fine professor, seems maybe a little arrogant, but the class is very easy. I put in about 20min of work a week, except for when we had to work on our group papers. During those weeks, I probably put in 2 hours of work max. I personally thought the class was fun and he didn't suppress any fun, like the previous review says. I thought the concepts of pseudoscience and logical fallacies were very interesting and I'm glad I took the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-03T17:43:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'CPSD100', 'review': 'He da GOAT. This sentiment is shared by the entire class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-07T03:08:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'ASTR330', 'review': "People have a lot of strong opinions about Peel. Some people love him, some people hate him, but I thought he was just alright. \r\nYou can tell he's really passionate about the material he teaches, which is always a good thing to see in a professor. My MAIN\r\ncriticism is that the workload felt overwhelming for a class that's supposed to be for non-science majors. I didn't\r\nexpect the class to be easy by any means, but even then I felt drained constantly. He had post-lecture assignments after\r\nevery class that sometimes took hours to finish. For a 1 hr 15 minute exam he would give 30+ questions, half of which were\r\nlong answers. The final was 68 questions with a 2-hour time limit.\r\n\r\nOverall he's not bad, but if you don't put in the work your grade will slip really fast.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-15T02:00:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'ASTR330', 'review': "I didn't think Peel was bad at all. His lectures were informative and his witty humor kept the class engaged.\r\nI would have given him a 4/5, but the reason he gets a 3/5 is because his exams and assignments were just insane. We had a post-lecture quiz after EVERY class and half of them drove me crazy because of how ridiculous they were.\r\nWe also had 3 exams and a final, and the averages were 63, 71, 77 and 65. As you can see, exam 1 and the final destroyed the class.\r\n\r\nThankfully he curved generously so I guess that made up for the stress in some way.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-22T18:12:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'ASTR230', 'review': "I really liked the content of his class. I learned a lot, and all of the content is interesting. \r\n\r\nDon't take him for an easy-A though (or even a medium-difficulty A), the exams are very difficult, mostly because they were basically impossible to study for. There was also very little time in class to finish the discussion assignments.\r\n\r\nA major component of the class was group work.\r\n\r\nIt's a gamble whether you'll like Peel or not. Even depending on the time of day I either love him or hate him.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-03T15:57:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Alan Peel', 'course': 'CPSD100', 'review': 'Took him around a year ago. He himself seems pretty cool and is a good speaker, and the class is even interesting sometimes. He tends to make jokes in lectures and somehow finds a way to turn every single class political for whatever reason. He assigns a lot of homework which is very tedious and he grades too hard considering it is a 1 credit class. He is not that bad but in comparison, Thomson seemed nicer and better overall.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-22T06:31:06Z'}], 'name': 'Alan Peel', 'slug': 'peel'}, {'courses': ['BMGT476', 'BMGT386'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alan Pritchard', 'slug': 'pritchard_alan'}, {'courses': ['BUAC786', 'BUAC787', 'BUAC790', 'BUAC758J', 'BUAC758E', 'BUAC758I', 'BUAC752', 'BUAC723', 'BUAC717', 'BUAC752'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alan Siegfried', 'slug': 'siegfried'}, {'courses': ['EDCI427', 'EDCI611'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alana Murray', 'slug': 'murray'}, {'courses': ['ENCE655', 'ENCE411', 'ENCE651', 'ENCE755', 'MEES698Q', 'MEES698W', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE651', 'MEES698W'], 'average_rating': 2.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE411', 'review': 'I completely agree with everything that is said below. You can make this class fun if you want it to be fun, and Torrents is a very easy professor to get along with.\n\r\nYou will only get less than a C in this class if you do ******* work with your partners.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-04T07:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE411', 'review': "Don't believe what some of the people have posted below, Dr. Torrents is an excellent professor! The topics taught in class are relevant to actual field-work and are interesting. Material in class was supplemented by field trips to water treatment facilities, which were really cool. \n\r\n411 is definitely a lot of work and in my opinion should be a 4 credit course, but this is not the professor's fault at all (the general engineering office is to blame). Dr. Torrents always held office hours to help explain material.\n\r\nShe is a very good professor! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-28T22:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE411', 'review': "I was going to write this review earlier, but I was too busy slaving over the unfair amount of work torrents gives every night.\n\r\nShe gives too much work because she doesn't run the class herself, its run my a possie of her incompetent, disgruntled, and frankly ***** TA's. \n\r\nLabs NEVER worked. Not once. We would be forced to write long lab reports that were 10 pages on the many errors involved in the lab. Lab reports were weekly and took every group at least 10 hours a week to finish. \n\r\nshes a ****", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-21T12:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': "Like the other people are saying, her tests and quizzes can be very difficult, but if you go to her office hours and ask specific questions, instead of complaining about hard the material is, she can be very helpful. I for one did not do well on her first midterm, but she helped me with everything that was troubling me. \n\r\nWhen the final came around, I studied everything really hard, and I ended up doing really well. If only I had figured it all out sooner. It isn't impossible to well in her class. You just have to work hard for a good grade.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-02T21:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': "Keep your grade in the top five in your class, get an A and don't have to take the final.\n\r\nQuizes are somewhat hard. Has random information sometimes. Exam is very long. If you finish you are doing good. Most of class wont finish.\n\r\nShe is very nice but overburdens the work load. Don't be surprised to have a 40 page reading assignment given two days before its due.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': "Torrents is okay. Shes nice and smiles a lot but that's all your going get from her. \n\r\nQuizzes were very specific and the exam was long... It was hard to truly study for the exam because the material made no sense (i.e. ridiculous stoichiometry - converting lets say trees to diapers or something absurd).\n\r\nAdvice: Good luck :)", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-08T03:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': "Pros:\r\n-Nice\r\n-Tries to engage the class, but fails\n\r\nCons:\r\n-Quizzes are hard\r\n-Midterm is REALLY REALLY hard & long.\r\n-Boring\r\n-Horrible accent\r\n-Can't teach\n\r\nPray she doesn't teach this class when you have to take it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-04T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': 'Absolutely horrible class. Material was random and unconnected. Everything boiled down to memorizing equations and it was boring. Torrents was a decent teacher. The problem was that the quizzes and exams were the hardest things ever. Everyone mostly had quizzes from previous classes. As far as i could tell, thats the only way to pass. Take Hao the whole year if you have to take this class. Otherwise avoid the whole thing completely.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'd', 'created': '2009-12-04T04:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': "I really enjoyed this class.\n\r\nIf you pay attention in class, just follow along and ask her to stop and explain if she's unclear. She can be pretty confusing.\n\r\nTake quizzes really seriously. They are worth a lot of your grade. Make sure you do all the homework she assigns!!\n\r\nIts not that bad if you keep up with the lectures and homework. I really learned a lot from her. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-28T21:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alba Torrents', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': 'avoid her if u can.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-11T04:26:00Z'}], 'name': 'Alba Torrents', 'slug': 'torrents'}, {'courses': ['BUFN773', 'BMGT840', 'BMGT848M', 'BUFN758X', 'BUFN721', 'BUFN726', 'BUFN400', 'BUFN726', 'BUFN400'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Albert Kyle', 'course': 'BUFN773', 'review': '"Pete" Kyle\'s course is great. A ton of reading. You will read, you must read, and you will talk about it. You will also write about everything you read before class. Definitely definitely be prepared to work in this class. Make sure you write up your material well. You must. That is your grade. So, know what you are talking about from the reading and go for it. \n\r\nBut you will reap the benefits from one of the greatest teaching professors using the socratic/case study method ever. Smith is very lucky to have Professor Kyle. Former Rhodes Scholar and just a dang good teaching professor. \n\r\nGo inside the world of hedge funds, pension funds, and get some great trivia and learn who the players are in this world. You\'ll definitely know about Yale\'s David Swenson, Harvard\'s emulation, and about PIMCO. Kyle has a ton of knowledge, and he will be sharing. You must talk in this class, so do your reading. There is often no right answer. It\'s a critical thinking exercise, all perspectives are fair game. This is a great class.\n\r\nHe has a TA grade most of the write-ups, so write to that. I would pepper a lot of the writing with Econ lingo to give it the edge since I knew a finance focused TA would be reading them. If I polished my papers a bit more and didn\'t wait til the last second each lecture, could have done a lil better. Still did well. Enjoy.\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-03-26T00:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Albert Kyle', 'course': 'BUFN726', 'review': "soooooooooo good! after having his class, I feel no passion to have other classes. TT\r\nSo lucky to follow the world top economist's class!\r\nhis smile is the most beautiful smile in the world.hahaha...", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-12T02:15:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Albert Kyle', 'course': 'BUFN400', 'review': "The class was part of a new notation program designed for computer science students to get involved with financial analysis.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n- Homework (40% of course grade) was really easy, despite taking a little bit of time to understand the way the answers should have been formulated.\r\n- Even if you didn't have any experience with Python or using Pandas/NumPy, it was super easy to pick up throughout the course\r\n- Professor Kyle is probably one of the foremost experts in this kind of subject matter, so learning and listening to him is a really cool experience because he definitely cares about the content in this class\r\n- There is a heavy curve in this class. From person experience (Fall 2022 semester), doing class average on the exams was somewhere between a B+ or A-, and it's not that difficult to get a perfect score on the homework assignments to boost your grade\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- The exams are nothing like the homework. The exams (1 midterm for 10% and the final for 30%) consisted of a number of statements, which we had to label as True, False, or Uncertain, and then explain why. It was pretty unclear as to how much detail we should be providing. \r\n- The grading scale in the syllabus was confusing and didn't really apply to the final grades. For the homework, a 9 or 10 out of 10 was an A+, and then each subsequent point was a lower letter+sign grade. For example, the syllabus outlined that 8 was an A, 7 was an A-, 6 was a B+ and so on. This wasn't really observed come final grading time, which is a bit confusing. However, as a computer science student, where doing at or above course average is a passing or better grade, it was somewhat familiar\r\n- The TA office hours were somewhat limited\r\n- For a class that met 2x a week for 75 min lectures, there was a span of 3 classes where all we did was discuss a homework assignment, and there are often tangents that don't really relate to the material directly, and as a Computer Science student with a relatively limited finance background, it was definitely confusing.\r\n\r\nOverall, if you have the chance to take BUFN400, I'd definitely recommend it, but there's absolutely a bit of a learning curve. However, if you're interested in the material/content or have any sort of interest in FinTech, it's an amazing class with a great lecturer.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-30T20:28:59.050451Z'}], 'name': 'Albert Kyle', 'slug': 'kyle'}, {'courses': ['PHYS273', 'PHYS276', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS402', 'PHYS275', 'PHYS273H', 'PHYS758E', 'PHYS420', 'PHYS371', 'PHYS371', 'PHYS758E'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alberto Belloni', 'course': 'PHYS371', 'review': "I took PHYS371 in Fall 2021 w/ Alberto and I would say this was a great idea! His lectures are comprehensive and dives into the course material with an appropriate level of detail. This is especially important for the non-intuitive concepts introduced in Modern Physics like Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. If you still have lingering questions after lectures, he's also eager to meet up with you in office hours to answer those questions! Usually after lectures his slides would be available on his ELMS page.\r\n\r\nWith that in mind, PHYS371 certainly isn't a simple class. The topics discussed in modern physics can be hard to grasp and may not align with what you would expect given the knowledge from classical physics. For people taking this class, I suggest you take a good amount of time to study and truly understand the concepts you're learning.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-03-13T22:27:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Belloni', 'course': 'PHYS371', 'review': 'Great professor! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-04T16:04:24Z'}], 'name': 'Alberto Belloni', 'slug': 'belloni'}, {'courses': ['ASTR670', 'ASTR610', 'ASTR100', 'ASTR101', 'ASTR340', 'ASTR340', 'ASTR340', 'ASTR399'], 'average_rating': 3.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR340', 'review': 'This is not an easy class, but I enjoyed the lectures very much. He made so many connections it blew my mind. If you are looking for a class that makes you think about big things this is it. But it is not an easy A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-12T14:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR340', 'review': "He is a great teacher, he made a lot of connections. He makes you work for your grade, and he likes to challenge the students. But, hey, that's why I am taking university courses!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-10-13T19:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR340', 'review': 'He is a very friendly teacher, but I just felt like the material was a little detailed for a non-science major course.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-29T17:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR310', 'review': "Professor Bolatto is such a nice guy, which makes it so hard for me to review him so poorly, but he is terrible! You could totally get together for a beer with him, but taking a class with him is useless. I finished the class not understanding a single one of the topics, and it was not for lack of trying. He doesn't really explain anything at all. The information obviously flows clearly in his head, but it does not mean that the class understands. Midterm and Final averages were in the 50s.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-27T02:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR310', 'review': 'great,upstanding, happy, enjoyable guy. BAD TEACHER. taught a lot of random things, didnt get us grades back until too late. a big problem with this course when 70% of your grade is the 4 research papers about the labs. but when never get the grade back until youve done most of them, you dont benefit from the criticisms at all. suggested textbooks were useless, everything you need to know is on wikipedia. said he would give us all the equations on the two exams we needed and he fooled me twice.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-21T22:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "This class isn't a bad science to take if you aren't a science person. GO TO LECTURE he uses clicker questions for attendance and he will catch you if you try to do them from outside of class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-22T23:35:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "Took ASTR100/101. He was very informative and knew what he was talking about regarding this concept, it even frustrated me sometimes because he would seem so passionate about astronomy while I just didn't understand anything. For online courses, his class was fairly straight forward. Lab every week using some sort of astronomical software (but often times it would take more than 2hrs to do it with a partner), a discussion quiz due a day after your discussion is, plus two lecture quizzes. For the lecture quizzes, you just need a 6/8 at least to get a 100% for participation. I didn't personally feel like I retained information, due to laziness on my part - but I still have a good grade in the class at the end and ended up with an above-average grade on each assignment. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-03T16:51:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Prof Bolatto is very knowledgeable and for the most part, the class isn't too bad. The homework assignments a were bit too complicated but otherwise, the classwork wasn't too bad. As long as you stay on top of the readings and assignments, you should be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-20T21:47:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR340', 'review': "nice guy but the class is challenging \r\nhis explanations sometimes were confusing but the class is manageable if you're interested enough", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-05T17:14:48.580690Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'course': 'ASTR340', 'review': "Dude man, It's currently the middle of spring semester and I have learned so little from this class. This guy CAN NOT explain anything well. Youtube and reddit has been saving me. We have clicker questions, and 50% of students would often get it wrong. Instead of going back and explaining it again, he just goes forward and act like everything is fine and dandy. His homework takes forever to do as well. His 2 exam make up almost majority of your grade and its no notes, no resources what so ever. There is so much physics and math involved. If I were you, please stay away from this guy and class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-07T18:30:50.723263Z'}], 'name': 'Alberto Bolatto', 'slug': 'bolatto'}, {'courses': ['EDHI664', 'EDHI665', 'EDHI653', 'EDHI652', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI689', 'EDHI898'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alberto Cabrera', 'course': None, 'review': "Very friendly and approachable. Has a true love of his work and has extensive data for his research and class. The data isn't always up to date and his thick accent is sometimes hard to understand.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-01-22T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alberto Cabrera', 'course': None, 'review': 'I was deeply disturbed by his mocking and point blank fat shaming a student for snacking with the rest of the class at a break. It very much crossed a line, and he involved the class visitor giving a lecture that day to join him mocking this student to their face. The class content was fine, but this was not appropriate Especially in a class where he talks about the importance of faculty and classroom climate. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-13T21:27:29Z'}], 'name': 'Alberto Cabrera', 'slug': 'cabrera_alberto'}, {'courses': ['BUFN758N', 'BUFN758O', 'BUFN640', 'BUFN650'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alberto Rossi', 'slug': 'rossi_alberto'}, {'courses': ['ENTS759B', 'ENTS689W', 'ENTS622', 'ENTS659M', 'ENTS699R', 'ENTS699L', 'ENEE322', 'EDSP652', 'DATA603', 'MSML603', 'ENTS669D', 'ENEE322', 'ENTS622', 'ENEE222', 'ENTS669D', 'ENTS759B', 'BIOI603', 'DATA603', 'ENTS622', 'MSML603', 'MSQC603'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alejandra Mercado', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "When I originally registered for this class, I was apprehensive that I had not been able to get into the section taught by Papamarcou. Now that I know both professors and their styles of teaching, I'm glad to say that I'm much more satisfied with Dr. Mercado, and would elect to take the class with her over Papa if I was somehow given the option.\r\n\r\nProfessor Mercado teaches very thoroughly, and always answers questions in an easy-to-understand manner that demonstrates why certain equations or mathematical concepts work as they do.\r\nFurther, Mercado always relates the concepts we have in class to actual practical (employment) applications. In my experience, this helps me to remain much more interested in the topic at hand.\r\n\r\nExams are fair and test you on your understanding of concepts and properties, rather than your ability to perform complex calculations and algebra. She always provided ample study material, and it never felt as if we were tested on something we hadn't already covered in-depth.\r\n\r\nI definitely recommend Mercado over any other professor for ENEE322.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-17T14:23:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Alejandra Mercado', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'Amazing professor. She explains things very well and her exams are extremely fair. She isn’t trying to trick you and as your best interest. I really learned a lot about signals without having to stress that much. Papamarcou is also a good choice but I think she is better.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-13T06:27:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Alejandra Mercado', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "This review is slightly old - I actually took the class with her in Spring 2020.\r\n\r\nProfessor Mercado is fantastic. I cannot emphasize enough that she is now my favorite teacher in the ECE department. She gives very clear lectures with wonderful illustrations and visualizations of concepts - something that is INCREDIBLY important in 322 and any signals class (but often not stressed enough by professors!). I took Papamarcou for 222 and Mercado for 322 and I can definitively say that I learned more effectively from Mercado, though I absolutely have a lot of respect for Papamarcou, who is also a great. \r\n\r\nPerhaps one issue for some would be the style of Mercado's tests - they are EASY and SHORT. This means that if you miss even one problem in its entirety you will not get an A and probably something more like a B or a C on the test. Mercado is good at emphasizing what needs to be known before these tests, but if you are an anxious test taker this might not be the style for you since everything is worth so much. I didn't have a problem with it but I figured I'd document it in case that would be a concern for anyone else. \r\n\r\nI would 11/10 recommend taking any class with Mercado", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-19T19:26:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Alejandra Mercado', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "She is incredibly nice. The lectures are clear and generally follow Papamarcou's lecture notes, although Prof Mercado likes to emphasize practical applications as well. As others have said the exams are easy and she gives way more than enough time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-06-21T20:11:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Alejandra Mercado', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'Although this class had me on my nerves for the longest because of my poor performances on midterms, I would definitely say that I recommend you take Prof. Mercado because she is a great professor for the reasons mentioned below. The only thing I would warn you about is that, although her exams are short and simple, they are insanely easy to make stupid mistakes on and lose a large portion of your grade. So be aware about that.\r\n\r\nOther than that, I appreciate this class, and definitely would recommend it to other students', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-22T15:23:23.077460Z'}], 'name': 'Alejandra Mercado', 'slug': 'mercado'}, {'courses': ['PHIL370', 'PHIL320', 'PHIL170', 'PHIL318I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Aleks Knoks', 'slug': 'knoks'}, {'courses': ['FREN103'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alex Joensen', 'slug': 'joensen'}, {'courses': ['GEOL110'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alex Lopatka', 'slug': 'lopatka'}, {'courses': ['EDHD425', 'EDHD840', 'EDHD412'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexa Romberg', 'slug': 'romberg'}, {'courses': ['ENEE627', 'ENEE322H', 'ENEE620', 'ENEE626', 'ENEE324H', 'CMSC818K', 'ENEE729A', 'CMSC858Q', 'ENEE729C', 'MATH729C', 'PHYS889C', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE729P', 'MATH729P', 'CMSC858Z', 'ENEE620'], 'average_rating': 2.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alexander Barg', 'course': 'ENEE322H', 'review': "Par for the course. Lectures are decent to good, and homework is fair (6 assignments, a couple of hours a piece). Mixed results on the tests, usually a combination of things we went over and things you've never seen before. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-18T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Barg', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "Took 322 with him in Spring 2011. Wasn't a bad class and the tests weren't too insane. Could've used a better TA, but what can you do.\n\r\nHe gives a substantial amount of homework, but he assigns it several days in advance. Don't put the homework off until the last minute or it'll bite you in the ass.\n\r\nMake sure you understand the fundamentals of the new functions you learn like signal energy, power, delta and step - he's known to throw goofy test problems that you'll need to pick apart using definitions you learn in the first week of class.\n\r\nI'd say he's above median in terms of teacher quality for this course. Better than Espy and Ephrimedes, at least. \n\r\nAlso, he allows (or at least allowed when I took him) use of a sheet of notes for exams, but no calculator. This way you don't have to worry about mis-remembering a minus sign in a fourier table. You can also write down integral results that show up frequently.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-14T02:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Barg', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'Pro:\r\n-Teaching style is plausible\r\n-A good amount of homework to prep us for exams/help us with learning\r\n-Somewhat helpful in office hours\n\r\nCons:\r\n-Too much homework...basically takes an entire day to complete each of the 10 assignments\r\n-Exams are too focused onto a single topic (eg he tells us the exam is cumulative on 5-6 chapters but 2/3 of the exam will be based on a single topic of one chapter)\r\n-Very rude. Let me emphasize: Ridiculously rude!!!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-27T15:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Barg', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "Well, We haven't got our final grades for the semester so I can't speak about his curve but I will tell you that his exams are much more difficult than Tretter who is also teaching 322 this semester. He assigns a great deal of homework that has, on occasions taken me 15 hours per week to complete. Our largest homework assignment which was nearly 30 pages long when completed was due the Monday after Spring break. So much for my tickets to Vegas. He actively encourages students to drop the class but is very helpful at office hours. He sends out sample exams which look nothing like the actual tests, or the homework for that matter. Barg likes to focus on one small concept from the homework and then make the entire test about that so if you don't know absolutely everything there is to know about the material, you don't stand a chance on an exam. Also, he likes to structure his exams in such a way that if you can't answer question 1a, you can't answer anymore parts of question 1 so you lose 25 points right there. All in all, I'm not too happy that I chose this professor over Tretter.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2011-04-20T20:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Barg', 'course': 'ENEE620', 'review': 'The best professor for taking ENEE620. There are a couple of major advantages: \r\n1- 620 is among the courses that contain a huge set of contents that is not possible to teach in only one semester. Thus choosing what to cover is very important. Dr. Barg is very good at this. I realized this after doing a great deal of research on that topic and also observing several offerings of the course over the years.\r\n2- The set of assignments and the exams have a very meaningful correlation. You will not get surprised.\r\n3- Rather than focusing on too much machinery and unnecessary ugly computational mathematics, Dr. Barg provides a lot of intuition to the core of the subject. \r\n4- He is one of the most helping professors in office hours and is very flexible in dealing with the issues related to the course. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-08-26T01:40:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Barg', 'course': 'ENEE620', 'review': 'The last person reviewing this professor has lost it! This guy is lazy and a joke. Remember we review teacher ( TEACHING !!!! ) here and not his knowledge on the subject. I give him a 0 (if not a negative score) on teaching capability. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-10T04:06:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Barg', 'course': 'ENEE620', 'review': "Worst professor I ever had. Pre-recording lectures 1-2 months in advNce isn't teaching. Also two tough with his marks. A tiny mis type can cost you 50-70% of the grade even if everything else is correct. Would not recommend.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-24T18:20:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Barg', 'course': 'ENEE620', 'review': 'Professor Barg is available outside of class and genuinely wants his students to succeed in ENEE 620. This class was very difficult for me because I had not had proper experience in rigorous proof based math before taking this my first semester as a graduate student. Dr. Barg focused on the most important parts of the material, and there were never any surprises as far as exams and homework go. Make sure to start the homework early so you have time to get stuck and reference sections of the textbooks. Overall, he is extremely knowledgeable on the course material and presents it in a clear fashion that was digestible by someone without the best pure math skills. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-06-01T18:42:32Z'}], 'name': 'Alexander Barg', 'slug': 'barg'}, {'courses': ['GEMS497', 'URSP289A', 'URSP600', 'URSP604'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alexander Chen', 'course': None, 'review': "Though there seemed like there was a little bit of superfluous writing involved in the course, it was rather minor amount of total writing (150 words a week & 1 paper). A lot of the grade in the course comes from ability to make presentations, which, though it is a necessary skill, it is much more stressful that writing a paper. The only aspect of the course that I didn't enjoy in terms of content was that a very large portion of the course is just about environmentalism.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-16T20:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Chen', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Chen is pretty straight-forward, friendly, and knowledgeable about Urban Planning. He genuinely cares about his students, and wants us to be prepared for whatever the real world throws at us. He provides plenty of creative activities that better teach us the material. You will not be bored in this Honors Seminar, guaranteed! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T20:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Chen', 'course': None, 'review': "First off, I would like to give the disclaimer that I had Prof. Chen in an undergraduate Honors seminar which he had never taught before, sotake that for what it's worth. Anway, Prof. Chen is a really nice guy and he's really down to earth. He is VERY knowledgable about planning (maybe that goes without saying). He seems to have a lot of real world experience that translates into helpful insights during lecturing. He is also very good at coming up with creative ways to teach the material. I had a great experience in Prof. Chen's class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-24T21:02:00Z'}], 'name': 'Alexander Chen', 'slug': 'chen_alexander'}, {'courses': ['EXST009P', 'EXST039F', 'EXST019P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexander Dubrovin', 'slug': 'dubrovin'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexander Graves', 'slug': 'graves'}, {'courses': ['CLAS419W', 'CLAS409W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexander Nagel', 'slug': 'nagel_alexander'}, {'courses': ['JOUR352', 'JOUR152', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR355', 'JOUR368D', 'JOUR655', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR668D', 'JOUR268', 'JOUR652', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR355', 'JOUR368D', 'JOUR655', 'JOUR668D', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR355', 'JOUR368D', 'JOUR652', 'JOUR655', 'JOUR668D', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR355', 'JOUR368D', 'JOUR655', 'JOUR657', 'JOUR267', 'JOUR267', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR355', 'JOUR368D', 'JOUR655', 'JOUR657'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexander Pyles', 'slug': 'pyles'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexander Quinones', 'slug': 'quinones'}, {'courses': ['ENMA660'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexander Roytburd', 'slug': 'roytburd'}, {'courses': ['BMGT323', 'BUAC758B', 'BUAC758T', 'BMGT417', 'BMGT326'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexander Ruygrok', 'slug': 'ruygrok'}, {'courses': ['PSYC612', 'PSYC210', 'PSYC435', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC603', 'HLTH672', 'NACS898', 'PSYC614', 'PSYC435', 'PSYC489A', 'PSYC614', 'PSYC210', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC489A', 'PSYC614'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alexander Shackman', 'course': 'PSYC210', 'review': 'Easy class as long as you attend class and complete the assignments. The exams are easy and a helpful study guide is provided. A really nice guy who has passion for the topic and clearly knows what he is talking about. He keeps class engaging and shows he cares about his students. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-20T02:14:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Shackman', 'course': 'PSYC210', 'review': "Dr. Shackman is a fantastic professor and human being. Content can be difficult, but the homework is based on completion and the tests are pretty easy. The lower of the two midterms get dropped, the lowest 2 homeworks get dropped, and you can miss 3 classes without getting penalized. You should do the readings to better understand the content. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't really understand the class half the time, but I ended with an A+. (Also I haven't taken the final yet btw). Oh ya, and all exams are online, open notes, and open internet. He provides a PowerPoint of a lot of the answers to the exams that you can use lol. He also gives some extra credit here and there. Very enjoyable class, he cares about every student. I would take him again. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-10T17:39:01Z'}], 'name': 'Alexander Shackman', 'slug': 'shackman'}, {'courses': ['LING661', 'PHIL360', 'LING663', 'LING410', 'PHIL808W', 'PHIL408O', 'LING869', 'LING660', 'LING350', 'PHIL788', 'LING879', 'LING819A', 'PHIL879J', 'PHIL688T', 'LING888', 'LING879C', 'HONR229K', 'PHIL418L', 'LING888', 'LING660', 'LING888', 'PHIL688T', 'LING350', 'LING663', 'LING888', 'PHIL360', 'LING660', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alexander Williams', 'course': 'PHIL360', 'review': 'If you\'re not a philosophy major, you will probably not enjoy this class. Lots of reading really dense, mostly uninteresting, difficult to understand pieces of writing that are later explained in class, sometimes well and sometimes confusingly. Tests are extremely difficult to get through, because the questions are worded confusingly in order to avoid ambiguity and they\'re 90% short answer essays. If you\'re someone who likes to ask questions in class, prepare to be answered with a curt, "No", or cut off in the middle of your question. I also have no idea what grade I\'ll get, because your numeric grade apparently means nothing, according to the syllabus. Overall, do not recommend if you\'re considering this class for personal interest. If it\'s a major requirement, take good notes (even though he claims to offer lecture notes -- they\'re never released on time) and try your best to find the material interesting. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-11T19:55:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Williams', 'course': 'PHIL360', 'review': "Williams is a wonderful teacher but a very harsh grader. His grades are broken down into 6 mini quizzes (totaling 30%) that follow each of the units, which are slight if he provides his notes, if not they're hard asf. I think that he grades somewhat harshly on papers, however, I am not particularly skilled in writing so take that with a grain. You have 1 short paper worth 5% and the final paper worth 15%. Up until this point pretty slight class, what makes this class difficult and caught me off guard is that quizzes are worth 45%, there are only two. I have scored above the average on every assignment, including both quizzes, but the short paper and 1 mini quiz (which were both still close to the average) yet I am still expecting a C. I have yet to be in a humanities class that curves but I have also yet to be in one that actually averages a C so Idk take at your own caution. \r\n\r\nIn short: Extremely nice and engaging teacher but quizzes are ass and tank your grade, \r\nclass average for this prof is probably around a B- or C+", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-05-12T21:02:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexander Williams', 'course': 'PHIL360', 'review': 'Other reviewers are mostly correct, though I would argue he is not at all a harsh grader. Material is tough, dense, and must be worked through continually before you can fully understand it. I would highly recommend this class to philosophy majors (or to those highly interested), but not to those outside. Assignments are difficult, but not at all impossible if you study and come to class. Coming to class is the most important thing – he breaks down the readings (which again, are tough) very well and makes sure to provide time for questions, though he can answer them better. Massive curve at the end of the course based on the average grade, coupled with the somewhat lenient grading makes it easy to get an A or B. \r\n\r\nTake this class if you are very much interested in philosophy and you will not have a problem. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-21T20:09:51Z'}], 'name': 'Alexander Williams', 'slug': 'williams_alexander'}, {'courses': ['BSCI106', 'BSCI106C', 'BSCI106H', 'BIOL608D', 'BIOL608F', 'HONR258A', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI398H', 'BSCI106M', 'BIOL608A', 'BISI799', 'BISI899', 'HONR298P', 'HNUH268Z', 'BSCI400', 'BSCI398H', 'BSCI398H', 'BSCI398H', 'HNUH268Z', 'BSCI398H', 'BSCI400'], 'average_rating': 4.0667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Bely is adorable. She's very passionate about teaching and you can tell she has fun lecturing. She posts all of her power points online, so I tended to skip often and just catch up with the notes. Lovely professor, definitely would recommend. \n\r\nJust want to warn that she does not curve. That's because the tests are not insanely hard; the average is usually in the low 80's. Her tests are predominantly vocab-based, so flash cards will be your savior. She also does not have office hours, she only works by appointment. That intimidated me into never seeing her since I never had too serious of a question. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-01-30T13:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': "Professor Bely is awesome! She is super sweet and very passionate about her subject! I think the class itself lends itself to be pretty dry, and I think she does the best she can to make it interesting. \n\r\nShe posts all her lectures online, which is great. I think a lot of people skipped lecture because they just took notes on the stuff she posted online. It's pretty much the same thing. If you are someone who likes to have a professor in front of you actively teaching, then definitely go to lecture. But if you are someone who doesn't find evolution/ecology particularly difficult and you can self-study effectively, then take advantage of her online lecture notes. That being said, there are some things she talks about in lecture that she doesn't put in her online notes. She asks thoughtful questions during class, and sometimes the answer isn't on the online lecture notes because we answer them out loud in lecture. \n\r\nThe exams are easy. But I do know some people who struggled with her exams. I guess it depends on how you study and how your brain works. I understood ecology and evolution pretty well already before I entered her class because I had taken AP Bio. But even if I hadn't taken AP Bio, I feel like I would have done well because everything on the exam is something she has talked about. Her exams are more detail oriented I think. A few times, the discussion-like questions she posed during lecture appeared in the exam. But I didn't get below an A on any exam because she gives you all the information you need to know. It's just up to you if you are willing to put in the time and energy to memorize and learn the information.\n\r\nTime on exams was never an issue for me. I feel like most people in the class finished the exam with plenty of time to spare. The exams usually consist of like...maybe 25 multiple choice questions, 10 fill in the blanks, and 4-6 short answer questions. \n\r\nHomeworks were never particularly difficult. You can finish them in maybe 30-45 minutes max if you really concentrate and buckle down. \n\r\nShe also has an awesome policy where you can either completely drop your lowest exam score, or downweight your lowest exam and your final. If you do well on all the exams (which you should try to do), then you can relax for the final. I think a lot of the people I knew only needed a D on the final in order to get an A, because they all did well on the midterms. \n\r\nLab is a pain. I was in the honors version, which I think is better than the regular version because we didn't have as much work (in my opinion). We only had to do like 2 pre-lab quizzes, a presentation, and a few written assignments. I don't know if they will do this next time, but we also had 4 one hour long discussions spread out throughout the year. They were really chill and were an easy 15 points. \n\r\nMy lab TA was AWESOME. I think that makes all the difference in your experience. \n\r\nLab should bring up your grade. If you have the option to take the honors version, definitely do it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-08T17:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': 'Bely is pretty funny and passionate, and she really tries to make the class interesting, but at the end of the day, I just didnt really enjoy the class. Her lectures are heavily based on her powerpoints, and while she does post them on elms, her exams require memorization of the most detailed examples on those slides. The final exam only repeated a few things, but it was much less detailed and easier to handle. I took the honors version, which meant our lab portion was different. While we didnt have to take the pre-lab quizzes, we had to write up a few reports and the TA are VERY VERY harsh graders. But, there were discussion points and other points which were just some gimmes. In the end, my lab portion gave me a 90%, and I worked pretty hard--I personally think it was so low because of the harsh grading and not the content.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-12-21T20:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'I like Dr. Bely a lot as a person. She is really passionate about the material and she knows her stuff. She makes the course as interesting as it can be, but its still boring. Its a struggle for me to stay awake or pay attention. However, I often dont need to because she types up her lectures and posts them online. I know several people in the class who dont show up to a single lecture but still do very well. This class is a must for any BIO major and I would say BELY is the best option.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-11-29T15:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'There is a lot of work to do for this class, and it is very time consuming. It is a difficult class for people who are really interested in Biology. That being said, Dr. Bely is a FANTASTIC professor. She is VERY clear about the topics. I have learned more in this class than any other class I have taken on campus. It is difficult, but truly worth your time and effort. You will never look at Biology/Ecology the same again. Life-changing course with Dr. Bely. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-11-20T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "A LOT of work. 4 exams, 1 practical, 1 or 2 lab reports (don't wait til last minute!), lots of lab work.\n\r\nBely only really reads off slides in lecture. Other than that you don't deal with her directly. It's really about whether you end up with a good TA or not. She seems enthusiastic but it just felt pointless to go to lecture sometimes because slides are online and pretty much follow the book.\n\r\nExams are DIFFICULT and cover a LOT of material at once. I studied for hours for DAYS and still couldn't get good exam grades. It's best to have taken BSCI105 or other related Biology classes before taking this class. BSCI105 is references a lot and I never took it so that made things hard. It's a weed-out class so it's more difficult than it really needs to be. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-11-07T08:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Whoa! Don't listen to the bad reviews. They're plain naive. Dr. Bely is an amazing professor. I'm writing this review 2 semesters after taking Bely and I can honestly say she is one in a million. She cares about her students and keeps her lectures entertaining. She is more than willing to get to know every last student in her 300-kid lecture hall. There are other professors you will have to take who don't give fudge about your future, your grade, or anything about you.\n\r\nThe only reason she doesn't curve is because people do well in her class anyway! I found the class to be a bit too easy and slacked, which is why I got a B. But so long as you attend lecture, you can do well (and have fun). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-23T15:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'First, Dr. Bely is an extremely passionate and witty professor who everyone likes as a person. The class can be a little tedious. It is certainly not her fault because the material is pretty dry. Exams do require a decent amount of memorization. This is the major drawback because I learn better with concepts, not memorization and regurgitation. I am not sure if this is consistent across all bsci106 classes. Overall, exams are not extremely difficult. Third exam will kill if you dont study/memorize. She drops an exam so theres no curve. Lab serves as your cushion, dont screw up. Overall, not bad at all. Also, if you got time, read the book. Its interesting stuff and also help for studying purposes. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T13:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Dr. Bely is a great professor - always enthusiastic and very interested in her students. This class does require a fair amount of memorization but, with review sessions before each test, Dr. Bely tries to help focus the notes into a slightly more condensed package. If you like biology definitely try to take Dr. Bely as she will help you have a deeper understanding of how species are related.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-19T20:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "You have to be a moron to fail this class. The class average for the second exam was a 80%. For a science class, that's pretty damn high. For the final, she copied and pasted most of the questions from the previous exams. The solutions with keys were posted online! Also I never came to class after the second exam because all her lecture notes were typed up and posted on elms. It was better than terp notes. I was taking three labs with this class and it really saved me. I cut class all the time to get help on OChem and Physics. Posters need to learn how to study instead of *****ing. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T19:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "What are people saying?? I honestly don't think this class is that hard. I struggled at the beginning of the semester for some reason. But the class average before the finals was about a 79% or 80%. That's why there's no curve! (I was pretty bummed myself when I found out). She has 3 exams and one is dropped, so it's really not that bad. I have to admit, the first two tests gave me a wakeup call, so I had to try really hard on the last exam. And it definitely paid off! You need to study, guys. Lectures are not the most exciting thing out there. It's in a powerpoint format and Dr. Bely posts the outline of them on elms for you. Take your notes, it's good. Then you can rewrite them (trust me, it helps) and annotate them. Don't know if anyone has tried this, but recording lectures also help. Yes, it's VERY time consuming to relisten to lectures. But if you're not a huge biology buff and it takes you a while to get information into your head, it's a good idea. Lectures are only 50 minutes long though. When you relisten, it helps so much. It reinforces what you learned in class and you can add even more little notes to your notes. It really helps. Skimming over readings has helped (but there is NO WAY you need to read everything. Honestly, I didn't do all the readings) and looking at figures that were on the outline helped. As for the third exam. I think it is the hardest, but it was my highest exam score. She told us to study those phylogenetic trees (I didn't realize that until I relistened to the lecture). So I sat down and redrew the phylogenetic tree OVER and OVER and OVER again until I got it right. And guess what? That same tree was on the test. Also, the reading from the third module from the lab manual will really help on the last exam. Final was easy. There were many questions from previous exams. Many of them were straight from previous exams. I didn't study as much as I wanted to for this final since I was stressing over other ones, but I got really lucky since those questions were from old exams. She posts the answer key to these exams online, so there is really no excuse for not getting them right. You need to study. Period. It's not a hard class if you do. Don't procrastinate. If you don't want to put a lot of effort into this specific class, don't take her. If you just study, you will definitely ace the class. I've seen many other students who have.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T18:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Do not take this class! She literally expects you to memorize half the book in depth. She does NOT curve but she does drop the lowest test score, which still won't help you. She really doesn't care about her students. Her lectures are boring and she really isn;t helpful. My TA was a lot of help though. I asked my other friends in bsci 106 with another professors and he told me he didn't have to memorize much at all. Her exams are also a bit long. She can not teach for her life! For an example, you had to memorize a trillion different phylogenic trees, but she never went over them during lecture. She only went over them during one of the review sessions for an exam. And of course, most of the trees were on the exam. If you absolutely love animals and evolution and want to spend hours and hours studying for exams, take this class. if not, stay away! On the bright side, she was an approachable professor. \n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-15T09:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Class is based on a lecture and lab grade. Lecture includes 3 "mid-terms," one of which is dropped, a final exam, two problem sets. Lab includes a lab report, lab quizzes, lab assignments, and a lab practical. Lecture 3 times a week, Lab once for 3.5 to 4 hours.\n\r\nPros: Good lecturer, keeps biology as interesting as it can really get. When absent, class isn\'t cancelled, she sends in a substitute. Posts outlines of lectures online (she says they don\'t have everyone on them that she covered in lecture but they never seem to be missing anything...)\n\r\nCons: A LOT OF CONTENT. Tons of notes to study for each exam, as well as a lot of reading that\'s hard to keep up with, and lab notes.\r\n-No review guides for tests. Just study "everything"\r\n-Bely doesn\'t really take into account that students have 4 or more other classes besides this one.\r\n-Not very helpful.\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-08T15:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'BSCI400', 'review': 'TAKE HER CLASS!! She’s so nice and accommodating, seriously one of the best professors I’ve had. She helps you so much throughout the entire class and never once looks down at you if you’re struggling. There’s a lot of material, but if you make flash cards and study beforehand you should be able to get an A easily. Also go to her office hours if you can, she’s super helpful! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-14T13:41:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Bely', 'course': 'HNUH268Z', 'review': 'Never take this Professor she entirely does too much and has been very inconsiderate. She seems very sweet but it’s all fake. In addition, she cares too much about this gened class and expects students to complete her biweekly assignments which take hours, releasing them often only less than 24 hours before they’re due which is so inconvenient. She doesn’t understand that students have other classes and obligations and can’t focus all their time on her assignments. She takes off points for small little things in your writing and participation is 20% so unless you’re her favorite student expect to lose points.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-07T17:58:30.703670Z'}], 'name': 'Alexandra Bely', 'slug': 'bely'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL393Q', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL297', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393Q', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393Q', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393Q', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393Q'], 'average_rating': 4.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alexandra Calloway', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Alexandra is a nice professor and if you put the necessary work into this class, you'll be fine. As another reviewer pointed out, she allows you to rewrite pretty much any assignment in the course for a higher grade, which is great when you get a lower grade than you expected. She will also give you a lot of advice on how to improve your work if you ask her, making the rewrite policy very nice. She does only teach the class one night a week, so the 3 hour block can be kind of a drag, but she tends to do a decent job of making the class go by somewhat quickly, especially in the second half of the semester where most weeks there will either be some sort of class activity or a peer review. My one complaint is that, at the very beginning of the course, I was confused about when certain assignments were due, since the syllabus would show upcoming due dates for assignments we had not discussed, but she corrected this and it got better as the semester went on. You're probably required to take technical writing, but if you take it with Alexandra, it won't be that bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-26T23:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Calloway', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Alexandra is a good professor. She gives you a lot of freedom in writing your papers about topics that you care about, which makes the course much more interesting and bearable. \r\nHer lectures are kind of boring and not that helpful, but what can you expect from an English class? She often lets the class out early which is awesome. \r\nShe is very nice and responsive to student concerns.\r\nShe can be somewhat disorganized and there are too many documents and procedures for submission of assignments which is kind of annoying.\r\nBut overall I enjoyed this course very much. Just make sure to pick a final project that is easy so you don't get bogged down trying to finish it at the end of the semester.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T00:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Calloway', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Work hard in her class and you should be rewarded. For your group project, make sure you ask her for advise before turning in your final copy. Make sure you attend class because it counts toward your final grade. She allows every graded paper to be revised and resubmitted, take advantage of that and you should be fine. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-27T12:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Calloway', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Professor Calloway cares about her students. She is very nice and understanding. She gives good comments and feedback in almost all her assignments but doesn't take many points off. If you do the assignments and show up to class, you will get an A even if you submit assignments late. Definitely an easy A course that I actually learned stuff in. She makes us read certain short articles and do simple assignments that teach you important aspects of technical writing and skills that you will definitely put to use in the workplace. She also gives a lot of extra credit opportunities. I was probably putting, at most, an hour of work per week in this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-15T03:58:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Calloway', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': "First off, she is a super nice lady and really cares about her students. The reason I could not give her a 5 is because she was extremely disorganized. She'd have an essay and rough draft for another essay due at the same time. Sometimes she wouldn't comment on our rough drafts till after we submitted the final exam", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-23T23:27:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Alexandra Calloway', 'course': 'ENGL297', 'review': "She is a very nice person and cares about her students. Her class was an hour and 15 minutes and for the most part, she just chatted about random stuff which was annoying. I'd rather be talking about the class but who am I to complain. The class is an easy A and she is willing to work with students. You don't need the team writing book and I found a pdf for the technical writing textbook. You only need to read the textbook when she assigns something related to it. It's common sense stuff though. Overall, if you need an easy DSSP I would talk this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-22T22:28:43Z'}], 'name': 'Alexandra Calloway', 'slug': 'calloway'}, {'courses': ['PHIL140', 'PHIL338A', 'PHIL418D', 'PHIL230'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexey Aliev', 'slug': 'aliev'}, {'courses': ['PHYS721', 'PHYS798Q', 'PHYS798Q', 'PHYS798Q', 'PHYS798Q', 'PHYS798Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alexey Gorshkov', 'slug': 'gorshkov'}, {'courses': ['HDCC208J', 'WMST498P', 'HDCC106', 'LGBT200', 'WMST601', 'WMST709', 'HONR219A', 'WMST488X', 'WMST619', 'LGBT285', 'HDCC208E', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'WMST628', 'WMST368', 'WMST618', 'WMST602', 'WGSS368', 'WMST621', 'WGSS368', 'HDCC106', 'WGSS319F', 'WMST619', 'WGSS368', 'WMST601', 'WMST619', 'HDCC208Q'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alexis Lothian', 'course': 'HDCC208J', 'review': "Dr. Lothian's class is one of the few times at UMD where I really felt like I learned something. Thank you for an amazing semester!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-16T02:22:04Z'}], 'name': 'Alexis Lothian', 'slug': 'lothian'}, {'courses': ['AOSC658N', 'AOSC658E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alfredo Ruiz-Barradas', 'slug': 'ruiz-barradas'}, {'courses': ['PERS301', 'PERS401', 'PERS212', 'PERS302', 'PERS211', 'PERS312', 'PERS398Q', 'PERS386', 'PERS498D', 'PERS405', 'PERS406', 'PERS662', 'SLLC305', 'PERS298B', 'PERS298B', 'PERS398Q', 'PERS498D', 'PERS298B', 'PERS398Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ali Abasi', 'slug': 'abasi'}, {'courses': ['ENCE360', 'ENCE677', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE899', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE360', 'ENCE677', 'ENCE360', 'ENCE360', 'ENCE677', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE899', 'ENCE360'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ali Haghani', 'course': 'ENCE360', 'review': 'Haghani is a horrible teacher for ENCE360. He posts slideshows and goes over exactly what he wrote on them, which is often not helpful. The book is not correlated with the course, and it is impossible to take good notes during class. Grades are not posted online so you never know what you have in the class until the end.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-06-03T15:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ali Haghani', 'course': 'ENCE360', 'review': 'A really rude guy. Most of the classwork is groupwork, but the exams are impossible to complete. In lecture, he just reads word for word from slides and goes pretty fast.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-14T13:50:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Ali Haghani', 'course': 'ENCE360', 'review': "Had a horrible experience with his class. Do not need to be present at lectures because he post them a week before the class. In class, he goes over same thing and in the end he post a simple question to work with your group. Xpress sucks and only help available is TA. Exams are impossible to complete but tedious. I studied 3 days for exam only to find out that questions in the exam don't make sense. Final exam questions are poorly worded and you will be unable to figure out what he is asking for. Anyway, grade average will be low for both exams and there will be a curve in the end. But with that said, this class will be extremely stressful. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-07-13T19:04:54Z'}], 'name': 'Ali Haghani', 'slug': 'haghani_ali'}, {'courses': ['ENPM808D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ali Namazi', 'slug': 'namazi'}, {'courses': ['EDCI611', 'EDCI656', 'EDCI457', 'MATH213', 'MATH312'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alice Cook', 'slug': 'cook_alice'}, {'courses': ['CHEM271', 'CHEM705', 'CHEM889A', 'CHEM131', 'HONR238G', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM403', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM403', 'CHEM889A', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM705', 'CHEM889A', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM403'], 'average_rating': 2.3148, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Unapproachable, constantly messes up on her powerpoint slides. Exams super unfair. TA messes up just as much in discussion. She's going to need to put a huge curve on this class to make up for all the bad grades her students are receiving. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-02T20:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Mignerey is a difficult teacher to get an A in. Don't follow the book religiously but more as a small supplement since her powerpoints are better. Her exams are a lot like the practice ones so be sure to do them. As a professor, she's not very good. Her answers aren't always clear and her explanations aren't always clear as well. I'll be following her explanation and then suddenly she makes some drastic jump that leaves everyone confused and wondering how to do the problem. She also does tend to get a little flustered when students keep asking questions. Don't rely on Mignerey for learning, go find a good study group or GSS session. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-17T21:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Honestly, she is a very nice lady outside of class, and I actually have never ever written a review about a professor before.\n\r\nBut I warn you, please please please don't take her as your professor. \n\r\nEvery class she screws up at least one or two problems therefore making it incredibly hard for anybody to follow what she is saying, because if she is screwing it up how does she expect us to understand it?\n\r\nIf you try to ask a question she gets incredibly sassy and doesn't understand why you don't get what she is saying..probably because she doesn't even understand what she is saying.\n\r\nIf you want to actually learn concepts and understand the material and you HAVE to take her, don't go to class and just use the book.\n\r\nBut I would encourage all reading this that honestly, every class theres about 8 hands raised in the air and people are always looking around trying to see if anyone understands and what is going on, and the averages on the tests are embarrassingly low.\n\r\nDon't take her. Ever.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2015-11-13T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "eh... her lectures are a little difficult to follow and annoying. there is a decent curve at the end of the semester but the final exam was unreasonably long an therefore difficult to finish in the 2 hour time frame. she does masteringchemistry which is helpful but other than that Id consider another professor for Genchem 1 if I were you. I get the feeling she's a much better professor for more advanced courses, genchem 1 just isnt her thing", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-06-10T16:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Mignerey is an interesting teacher to say the least. While you do not want to miss any lecture you also have to read in order to keep up. She blew past material really fast and also covers material that will not be on exams because she finds it interesting. In all seriousness, she is a very intelligent woman, but you have to have an interest in science in order to do well in her class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-06T18:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "She's a fair teacher. Mignerey is not a bad teacher but she could have been better with her lectures. I didn't do good on the final. \n\r\nCon:\r\nHer TA, I think he replaced Mara. His name is Paul Diss and he is a snob! He's impatient and has an attitude that could throw anyone off.You will find it hard seeking help from him. Don't ever deal with him but only if you don't got a choice", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-18T01:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'To start in all fairness - this professor is smart in her own right. She studies nuclear chemistry which is quite advanced compared to the introductory Chem 131. So i can\'t review how she teaches other chem courses.\n\r\nHowever! Even the smartest people can be the worst of teachers. Mignerey is one poor professor.\n\r\nHer lectures are read off of less than descriptive power points. Her shinannagins in class result from her inability to demostrate concepts correctly.\n\r\nFurthermore, asking questions to her in the middle of class is a joke. She gets mad so easily and instead of elaborating on a concept she just says "it\'s like this right?...see right." She assumes the student knows the very questioned they asked about, which is silly because then why would they ask.\n\r\nThe most frustrating part! In her minimal effort to explain things she uses her stupid catch phrase "boot strap ourselves through it." This is a cop out as a professor who is basically is using a poor analogy to explain a concept in chemistry. \n\r\nShe also has some ghoulish henceboy named Paul Diss who has inhereted Mignerey\'s inability to teach effectively, not to mention her snotty attitude. These two combined really make the class an uncomfortable learning environment because they are always looking down their noses at students. It\'s sad they functionally exist in a teaching capacity. \n\r\nTesting: The tests are probably equivalent to other chem131 courses in terms of difficulty, but the professor does little to provide fundamental information in a coherent manner. Her class averages are depressingly low. The results you see on this website are most likely used after <50% of the class drops the course. \n\r\nThe TA\'s are the saving grace of Mignerey\'s career. Without them the class wouldn\'t do so well(minus the top percentile of students who just accel at any class they take)\n\r\nI wouldn\'t trust anyone who thinks this professor is good. Chances are they have a passion or understanding of chemistry already and rely little on the professor. Thy are basing their judgments off of the tests which is not a true reflection of the professor\'s teaching abilities. \n\r\nIf you are a Chem major or interested in nuclear chemistry or anything close to that then this might be the professor for you.\n\r\nIf you are a student who needs to take Chem with a relatively different major and hope to be enlightened with coherent knowledge of the subject then you might want to take a different professor\n\r\n#Mignereysucks ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-04-16T20:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "The good:\r\n-Her TA Mara is amazing and so helpful\r\n-She posts practice exams and formula sheets which are helpful before exams\r\n-No conceptss - just problems\n\r\nThe bad:\r\n-Always makes mistakes..\r\n-Is a bad lecturer\r\n-Semi bad at explaining\r\n-Can get angry easily\n\r\nDon't waste your money on a textbook, you won't need it. Or just buy the $1 old edition", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-24T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Exams are fair and proportional to the material taught in class. She has an open door policy with office hours and is extremely helpful. \n\r\nLike any chemistry course at UMD, expect to keep with the course and study! If you have a choice between her and Kahn, take Mignery.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-08-16T13:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Dr. Mignerey is a pretty good professor. I found the material very interesting and you can tell she is really enthusiastic about what she does. She was pretty accessible and if you asked her intelligent questions she would answer you clearly. \n\r\nHer exams are kind of challenging. Averages for 2/3 of them were low and because of that there was a decent curve. The final was pretty hard so make sure you come prepared. The exams really do test how prepared you are and if you are not, your grade will pay. Final is 40% of your grade so make sure you take it seriously. \n\r\nYou have to go to lecture because she has in-class quizzes that are an easy way to get points.\n\r\nThe TA, Mara, is phenomenal. She is very helpful in discussions. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-22T23:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'All i know is after dropping chem with kahn this class is a breeze!! Seriously her exams are almost identical to the practice exams she puts up!!! Going to class is a must because there are "quizzes" which are 1 pt daily problems on notecards that you can work on with others.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-12T15:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Make sure you understand the material when you come into lecture. She'll point out all the little things you need to know but you have to go back to the book and read up on it, thankfully the book is really easy to understand. \n\r\nHer tests are basically what she gives you on the practice exams, understand the concepts, memorize the equations and you'll do well on the tests. \n\r\nBe wary she's not to approachable. Yes she does want you to do well but it's best to understand when she raises her voice at you it's not because she's mad. \n\r\nI could have gotten an A in this class. In fact I got an A on the final. I wish she had a policy like Dixon's where if you get an A on the final you get an A in the class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-22T18:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Guys don't take her. Take Eichorn. I would suggest this. Go to two of her lectures, and go to two of Eichorn's, you will figure out four yourself. I knida' did it, but I did too later to drop Mignerey's class and go to Eichorn's. So, yea. Trust me. Take Eichorn. A better professor from every angle. \n\r\n>Mignerey doesn't teach you concepts, Eichorn does.\r\n>Mignerey puts everything in the powerpoint and everything is organized so she goes really fast over the material and loses a lot of her students in the middle. So, after she does every question, there would be 10 hands up by the students asking what she did. >Eichorn puts questions up, doesn't put steps up. Does on the board. So goes slowly. You get the concepts and understand how to approach the problem, and solve it slowly.\r\n>Mignerey faces board and powerpoint while teaching. Eichorn faces you.\r\n>Mignerey doesn't tell you the conceptual background of the question. Eichorn does.\r\n>Eichorn, in general, just gets more student's attention because he is animated. Makes stuff interesting. Mignerey, not any of that.\r\nEtc.. \n\r\nEichorn > Mignerey", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-22T04:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "While I'll admit I failed the course, I don't feel like it's Mignerey's fault. I'm just really bad at the math in the course. She tries her best to convey the material and is probably one of the better teachers in the course. She seems to try her hardest to get people to pass the course, which is typically used as a drop course. Do the homework and the quizzes - she gives you extra credit for it. I MIGHT be able to scrape a D from the EC, despite getting really low exam grades. \n\r\n---Edit---\r\nI ended up with a C- due to the massive curve. Lucky me.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2011-12-14T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Mignerey was not a bad teacher at all. Her exams were very straight forward. The only thing is that, I wouldn't go to her for office hours because she spoke to me with a condescending tone. But her TAs really wanted us to do well so I went to them often. The class wasn't hard but do not ever wait until the last minute to do your mastering chem. But for chem131, I recommend her", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-06-20T00:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Dr. Mignerey is a very nice and interesting person. I just could really get interested or engaged in that class.\r\nShe knows her material very well, but conveying it to the general public is not her strong suit and is very hard to follow along with when she gets lost in her own thoughts.\r\nHer exams are interesting. She posts a practice exam along with an answer key, but when the actual exam comes, there are several questions that were talked about for one lecture slide. Things like that make the averages of the exam around a 55.\r\nI think that in this case, either you lover her or you hate her.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-14T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': 'Dr. Mignerey is a really nice lady and she really cares about her students. She gave us plenty of opportunities for extra credit and has office hours all day the day before the exam. Her quizzes are usually not too difficult and you can make up for any low grades with extra credit from the homework. In class she gives plenty of examples to help you understand the material. Her exams are generally not too difficult if you do your part which means doing the "optional" homework and completing her practice exams. Before every exam she gives us a practice test which depicts EXACTLY what will be on the exam. She doesn\'t expect us to memorize a lot of things so if you understand the material, you\'ll do well on the exam. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-17T23:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "GREAT Professor! One of the few in the Chemistry department who WANT you to succeed and do well. She is always open for office hours, and her powerpoints-style of lecturing is amazing. If you miss a class it's fine, but better even that she highlights the MAIN concepts, and gives straight examples, so you know what the test will be like (exactly like the study guides). Compared to Dr. Khan, whose averages hover around 50%, and he does concepts, Mignerey teaches by example, and if you attend every class, do the homework, and study hard the night before, and can memorize a few equations and use your brain to manipulate them on an easy 80 point exam, then TAKE Dr. Mignerey!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-05-04T00:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "This class has been terrible for me! The online homework took hours to complete, but wasn't worth many points. The practice tests weren't always accurate depictions of the actual test. I am doing poorly, and have to drop the course! Do not ignore these reviews. Some people don't mind her, but she didn't work for me. Be cautious when choosing this professor!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-07T00:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'A very sweet lady, but unless you really need or love to take chemistry, do not take this class. Mignerey did not know how to work the equipment in the room, and after wasting ten minutes of each 50 minute class, she presented bare-bones powerpoint slides that she just read off of the whole time. Also, you had to show up at the beginning of class to answer questions with your clicker, and many people just left immediatewly afterwards (which disrupted the class even further). Three tests and a final. And the accompanying lab is awful (Chem 132).', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-11-14T02:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'HONR238G', 'review': "A fine professor for HONR238G that was enthusiastic on the topic. Really bad with technology but she admits to it and I can't fault her for that. Did not have her for any CHEM classes so I can't comment on it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:05:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "If you haven't taken AP/IB Chem or are bad at Chemistry, DO NOT take Mignerey. Mignerey is a brilliant nuclear chemist but she is not a teacher. Her slides have many mistakes and she makes mistakes during lectures pretty constantly. She does release practice exams that are helpful for the first two exams but the last two killed me. If you do have to take her, make sure to keep up-to-date with discussion worksheets and find a good GSS session or tutor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-13T02:31:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Worst professor I have ever had, if you have an option do not sign up for her lecture. I learned the entire course myself through reading the textbook and watching videos on Khan Academy. Her lectures are unbearable to sit through and she never explains what/why she is teaching what she is. She is smart and competent, but a bad teacher.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-03-26T17:17:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "She seems like a nice person. Now that that's out of the way, she isn't a great professor. She's always messing up in lecture and isn't proficient with technology. A lot of the ways she teaches concepts are unnecessarily hard. She makes a lot of mistakes while explaining concepts. That being said, she provides practice exams, which are essentially the real exam. But unless you find yourself going to GSS or office hours a lot, I would advise against taking her. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-16T14:57:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "She is a nice person, very sweet old lady, However, her class wasn't as sweet. Since school is online this semester, she just does not know how to teach over zoom. She is all over the place and when she finally lectures you literally only get a broad overview of the material. She isn't detailed in what she teaches which makes it hard to understand what's going on. She is not good at explaining the material. One question quizzes were given during lecture (meaning you had to go) and were quite frustrating. HW on TopHat and Chem101 were long and tedious and difficult( on Chem101). Tests were hard. It was a game of chance if the test was like the homework. It could be the same difficulty or easier, but sometimes the tests were much much harder than what we went over in class and the practice exams given. You really have to take in the time to learn the material so I would highly recommend GSS or Organic Chemistry Teacher on YT. Yeah she's nice but would not reccomend taking her. But if you have, PLEASE go to GSS or review often. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-08T02:49:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Not ideal for online learning. Spends half on the lectures trying to figure out how to make her iPad show on the screen. She is not a good lecturer and constantly has mistakes on her slides which students have to correct. First 2 exams were hard but doable. 3rd exam was so difficult and half of the questions were concepts that we haven’t don’t in class. If you don’t have an extensive chemistry background then I do not recommend. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-09T22:40:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Her behavior this semester was outrageous to say the least. She made sure our section knew she had a vendetta against us. Her emails towards us were disrespectful and childish. \r\nHer online lecture were so bad. She would constantly mess up and for god sake she couldn't use the ERASER tool. I had to spend time looking at her math to try and make sense of what she wrote. \r\nIt got so bad I ended up self teaching the class for the entire semester with a few friends. I will be the first to say I learned more from my study group than her teaching. \r\nOur 3rd exam had a massively low average. It was an outlier compared to the performance on our other exams. The only difference between the 3rd exam and the other ones was the fact that Dr. Mignerey made the questions. Instead of trying to understand what occured on her 3rd exam she decided to insult our section and justify why she placed every question on said exam. \r\nDr. Mignerey is a egotistical and sympathizing teacher. Avoid her and go for Papoian ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-15T20:16:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "She cares about the subject and seems like a nice person. However, if you are not doing good in the class or if the class teams up to achieve a better grade she pulls out attitude. The exams weren't that bad for online classes since they were on chem101 not canvas. The last midterm is worse than the final exam. She is understanding and flexible if you have a problem or need to take the exam at a different time. Overall, not a bad teacher. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-17T19:46:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "In a bubble Professor Mignerey is a cat lady @daisy.\r\nBut actually.\r\nShe was not the greatest teacher out there, but also not bad. What she lacks in clarity though she makes up for in good character. For more than one test she allowed students to take a retest. She also was generally pretty good about communication, which I've realized is super important. Some other teachers don't respond to emails ever.\r\nIt's not a very tough class. If you're some who's solid at chem, you'll probably fly through this class pretty easily. If not, just try to pay attention in class, and (more importantly, I think) do the Homework. The HW is the exact same form and website as the tests, so questions are similar. If you understand the HW, you will do well on the tests.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-18T17:13:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131S', 'review': "I took AP Chem in high school and got the credit but decided to repeat the class for a review. This professor is pretty average. It is simple enough if you have a good chemistry background, but she can be quite difficult to understand and very mean when she answers students' questions. She does write out all the problems by hand which helps to explain a lot, but her tests can be quite tricky with the wording. I can understand why a lot of student's dislike her, but if you have a good chemistry foundation and can't take any better professors, Mignerey isn't the worst choice.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-10-25T14:39:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Honestly Mignerey is probably average in comparison to the rest of the chem department which isn\'t saying much. She consistently says the wrong information in lectures and someone who sits in the front has to constantly raise his hand and correct her. She\'s very all over the place during class. The TA is even worse. On the first day of class she told us it\'s her first time in America and if we have suggestions on how to improve her english we should email her. Hearing that the first class I was initially concerned but thought "how bad could she actually be?" The answer to that is terrible. Any time anyone asks a question she just goes back to a random slide that has nothing to do with the question and points to it. Mignerey gives more than double the amount of homework as other professors give. Be prepared to have over 100 problems weekly for homework. I will say that the tests are somewhat fair if you understand what\'s going on in class. If you didn\'t take AP chem in high school though, be prepared to learn everything on your own. Also our last class of the semester we have an exam which was just lovely. She is pretty good at communication and responding to emails which is better than most professors. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-08T02:04:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Professor Mignerey is not a good teacher at all. Her lectures go way too fast and she is terrible at explaining things. Her slides also have wrong answers sometimes. She quizzes up on problems that we just learned on TopHat for completion and correctness. Her exams are so unfair. The final exam had questions on it that we didn't even learn. She didn't give us a practice exam for the final and just told us to look at the midterm exams and chem 101. There were like 3 world problems on there that were on the midterms, otherwise all the problems are different and we couldn't even practice them. Do not take her class. Get another professor. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T18:05:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Horrible teacher, good person. Her exams are extremely hard for no reason. She needs to explain topics better. Half of the stuff on the final exam was not on anything we learned in the class. Maybe I am just bad at chemistry but having a better teacher would make things better. I just wish the stuff she teaches would actually be on the exam and not other stuff.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-16T23:06:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I did not take AP Chem in high school and came into this class with just taking 10th grade honors chemistry. Here are some of my takeaways from this course\r\n- Professor Mignerey is a good teacher and person. Her lectures can be quite dry, but if you pay attention and follow along with her in class, you will have a much better understanding of the topic. Her office hours are very helpful and going to discussion is important to review the material\r\n- She gives daily in class quizzes on TopHat which at times can be challenging, but are usually on what we just learned in class earlier. \r\n- In terms of Homework, it's a bit on the heavy side but the homework genuinely helped me understand the material better. She assigns usually 2 Chem 101 quizzes per unit and 2 TopHat readings. The Chem101 problems are probably the most similar questions to the ones on her exams. Review those and understand those if you want a chance at doing well on her exams. \r\n- Her exams are tough, but relatively fair and cover most of the material in lecture however you do need to put in a bit of extra work and look over the Chem101 problems. - The final exam was long and the majority of the questions were questions we've had on previous exams just with different numbers. She did in fact tell us to study those and posted them with answer keys. \r\n- I recommend taking her if you are a chem major or interested in Pre-med and want to have a good base knowledge of chemistry before taking Orgo or any other chem class", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-17T18:35:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Alice Mignerey is a terrible Professor. I would give her 0 stars if I could. She doesnt know how to communicate her knowledge to the class at all and frequently glazed over the fact that only 20-30% of the class understood in class quizzes. Her exams are difficult and do not match her lectures what so ever. She doesnt post important math equations on her slides which makes questions impossible to understand if you are confused and need to review. If you have to take this course and you have no other option, Im praying you have taken AP Chem or at least have a strong background in chemistry. Avoid this course at all costs. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T21:15:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Professor Mignerey can be nice but also condescending and its so discouraging to get LAUGHED at when you ask a question about a topic that is obviously hard for someone who doesn't have a PhD in Chemistry like her. This happened to multiple people, oh and she was also extremely rude to people who came in to fix simple technological issues that she could not figure out. This class is so heavily dependent on the exams which makes it so stressful, and the final was hard. Although chemistry is gonna be hard with any professor most likely, you are probably better off with a professor that tries to be understanding so take someone else.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-19T07:09:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Knows what she’s doing, lectures are mainly her doing practice problems and not going over any actual material. Classes are mainly her proving that she knows how to do the problems. I would recommend doing the readings before the week starts to understand anything during class. Huge curve tho ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-12T01:32:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Honestly, if you do not have a good background in Chemistry. I would say avoid her like the plague. Unless you have an AP Chem background or feel like you have yourself together and can go above and beyond to get help from outside resources (GSS, Khan Academy, Academic Tutoring, etc.) then this is not the class for you. Her Exams were HARD, the final exam was even worse. Only thing that saved me was the curve. She gives out way too many midterms, the 3rd midterm is most likely to be the lowest grade (If you do decide to ignore this warning and take her class), since it's literally 2 weeks after the 2nd midterm. Mignerey as a person, she's a nice person BUT she can be very rude at times and oblivious to the idea that half of the class can be completely lost and she'll still move on like everything is going 100% well. I studied, went to GSS, looked at online Youtube videos and still didn't do as well as I wanted to, BUT I PASSED. So it's doable, but your stress levels will definitely be through the roof over this one class. But also bare in mind, I did not have a strong background in Chemistry at all. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-13T18:13:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Professor Mignerey accused me of being a liar when I asked her about inconsistent grading on her test, when a classmate received credit for the same work that I did, when I had not. She is rarely available, pretty rude, and practice assignments do not correlate with the tests provided. You will be relying on Organic Chemistry Tutor on YouTube for learning this material. Would not recommend unless you have a really strong background in chemistry, and even then you could find a better professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-02-06T22:19:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'The reason I did well in this course was because I knew most of the content from high school. The lectures were not that helpful and I found myself relying off of instincts I developed in high school instead of paying attention. The averages on exams were incredibly low (in the 50s and 60s), although the class had a very generous curve at the end (at least 6%). The curve is the only reason Alice is getting more than one star.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-23T21:08:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Not a friendly person, was an average lecturer at best. Exams were difficult, but she gave practice exams that were very similar to the actual exam. Gives a generous curve at the end of the semester.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-07T03:12:02.819690Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "everything written about her on here and rate my professors is correct, perhaps even worse. take that as you wish.\r\nthe exams are whack, she gets her own problems during lecture wrong and then gets fiesty when a STUDENT fixes her mistake.\r\nshe doesn't answer emails, only reason I might pass this class is because of the TA's and GSS sessions. ATTEND EVERY SINGLE ONE! they're the only place you're going to learn anything. she assigns you 50+ questions a week that are 100x harder than what you've seen in class, and expects you to get that down on top of an exam every 3 weeks and learning the material. her averages ranged from 52-63, nothing ever higher. i don't know one person who has passed one of her exams with an A. i strongly recommend taking ANYONE BUT HER IF YOU CAN! FOR YOUR OWN SAKE!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-05T03:34:14.857906Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Regularly copies things down wrong or makes mistakes while demonstrating examples, then when everyone is confused acts like we’re all stupid. If she finally realizes her mistake, Mignerey goes around in circles instead of reexplaining. Hostile to people who ask questions during class, but also unavailable during office hours. Pray that you get a different teacher.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-05T15:32:18.966957Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Do not take Mignerey. Dr. Mignerey is one of the worst teachers I have ever had. She consistently makes mistakes while doing problems and when students are confused, she is condescending and rude. She also consistently skips steps in example problems leaving students lost, and unable to follow without explaining the steps she has skipped. She makes every topic much more confusing than it has to be. She also assigns an astronomical amount of homework that is due Monday nights and sometimes does not teach the material until that Monday leaving those with busy Mondays completely screwed. Dr. Mignerey teaches badly, is condescending, and is never there for office hours.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-05T16:47:18.559482Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Mignerey was the reason I dropped premed and decided to go into business. She does not give time for students to process the information that they are learning. When lecturing, she messes up her own problems and then the TA has to call it out. The whole class would follow her until someone decides to speak up and she would then fix it. The only good thing about chem are the discussions. Please go to the discussions because those are the reasons why you will pass the exams. Before withdrawing and getting first hand experience from my friends, she would give multiple chapters of reading along with the learning curves and hw that would all be due in a week.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-12-08T22:06:17.277444Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I feel like her exams do not reflect what she teaches us at all! I feel confident going into every exam, I understand the review guides, did well on the homework, go to lectures, etc... yet do so terribly on the exams??? and It's not just me the averages on the exams are embarrassingly low. I understand this is a difficult course but I'm not sure what else one can do to improve. The only reason I did alright in the class is because of the TA, Sam who is very helpful. He also teaches the discussions and goes over practice problems during those so definitely don't skip! If you ever have to email Dr. Mignerey also email Sam because he will respond within minutes not days.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-15T01:01:09.213373Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Please don't listen to these other reviews. Mignerey is not good, but easily the best chem131 professor available. Guest is terrible, Baxter is brand new and gives students no material to prepare for tests with, averages in both classes were 50s and below. Literally just go to class and discussion and GSS if you're still confused and you'll be fine. She posts practice exams a week before each exam that are basically the same as the test. Plus Sam (TA) and Jen (GSS) are so so so helpful. Take this professor I promise.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-15T01:52:47.044103Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I'd say your grade in this class depends entirely on you. Mignerey's lectures aren't helpful, she goes way too fast, doesn't transition well into topics, and never explains anything conceptually. It's up to you to go through the textbook and teach yourself. BUT she's not as bad as everyone else says though - her exams are pretty similar to her practice exams. Sam, the TA, is also really helpful, as well as Jen (GSS). If you know how to self-study you should be fine. My best advice is to attend every discussion with your TA and go to GSS as much as you can (especially the ones before exams). Baxter's definitely better, Guest is um no comment but I just wanna emphasize that Mignerey isn't totally horrible.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T19:58:20.153378Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Honestly not that bad. If you were an A student in high school, you're gonna be an A student in this class. A lot of the reviews about mignerey are incorrect. She was nice and provided a lot of material to learn and prepare for the tests. The final exam was whack though and nearly impossible! Definitely the best general chemistry professor available.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-15T22:27:40.277824Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Honestly, I don't even know what to say. I have never felt this bad about a class in my life. This class is very draining and it's even worse when the professor is no help. She doesn't explain concepts well during lectures and I can only get proper insight when I go to discussions. When students ask her questions during lectures, she doesn't know how to answer them at all and usually the TA steps in to help. I'm glad we had a good TA because without Sam, I wouldn't have been able to do as well(barely) on the exams. Even though I understood the material, the exams did not reflect well. It was sometimes hard understanding what the questions were asking. Her midterm averages ranged from 50s-60s. Also, her last exam is a week before finals which seems like a set up for failure in her class. It just makes no sense and gives us little time to study for the final which is cumulative. The final was a total fail and I am only hoping she gives a really generous curve because that is all I am relying on right now. Allegedly, she gives a generous curve at the end and if she does I could possibly get a C-.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-16T18:14:42.780753Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "She's definitely not as bad as people make it out to be. It's going to be difficult to understand what is going on in class if you don't read the textbook since she doesn't really cover any conceptual ideas and if she does then it's covered in a very short amount of time and difficult to understand. The class is mostly going over practice problems and she does move fast but that is expected since they are only 50 minute lectures. She gives practice exams that are very similar to the actual exams that you receive, so as long as you understand how to do those and are able to do problems that are slightly different than the ones given on the practice exams then you should be fine. The averages on all of the midterms were in the 50s to low 60s and the final's average was in the low 50s, but don't let this scare you because as long as you put in the work then you'll do well. Before the exams always make sure to first have read all of the required chapters in the textbook and understand the concepts, do the practice exam given, and do the worksheets that are made by the TA and GSS leader. This is a very exam heavy class where your entire grade is entirely determined on the exams so make sure you don't slack off with not studying for an exam as it will be difficult to recover your grade. The word problems on the final were definitely more difficult than on the midterms in my opinion but it is still very attainable to get an A on the final.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T20:19:37.957779Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'All the positive reviews were given by the few students who fully understand chemistry and found this class to be easy, so I would advise that most students reading this do not listen to them unless you fully understand chemistry too. This is the absolute worst class I have ever taken. During finals week, this one class caused me so much stress that I physically couldn\'t eat. I was always hesitant to ask Mignerey a question, but one day I did, and she was very rude in her answer. During lecture, she goes way too fast and does not explain stuff well. If you ask her a question, she\'ll answer it in the most condescending way and then say "right?" while laugh. The only reason I passed this class was because of the homework. If you fail the exams but do all the homeworks, you should pass. Surprisingly, her curve was 20% so I passed the class with a 50%.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2023-01-05T00:00:36.355807Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM403', 'review': "The only reason Prof. Mignerey is getting three stars and not one is for two reasons. Firstly, Radiochemistry is her specialty. She was proud to teach us all about her life's work and was excited to teach everyday. We even took a class trip to visit the reactor! Secondly, ALL of the exams, including the final exam, were take home! She would make the exam available after class on Friday and it would be due Monday by 11 am. We could use any resources we could as long as we didn't work with each other. \r\n\r\nThat's about where the positives end. Prof. Mignerey would spent way too much time during class logging in and keeping track of files on her laptop. It was like a geriatric was just discovering what a computer is. She didn't even know what minimizing and maximizing a window did. It was excruciating. She had a very confusing lecturing style when writing on the blackboard. You kind of had to just write everything down and try to decipher it later. She also said that the material for the course is more like a graduate level course and it felt like it too. The exams, even though they were take home and open note, took me hours to finish. All in all, this class was worth it for an upper level chem elective.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-18T08:25:00.764526Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Mignerey', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Other comments basically say what I want to say, and one more thing I want to ask, this professor gave the practice exam and her actual exam have anything to do with it??????', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-03T23:35:47.488287Z'}], 'name': 'Alice Mignerey', 'slug': 'mignerey'}, {'courses': ['MATH246', 'HLTH710', 'MATH246', 'MATH246'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alice Wang', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "She is really knowledgeable about the course and makes note-taking very easy (printed packets to fill in). She didn't have a discussion section when I had her, but she made up for it by having 2-3 hour long sessions before each exam that you really should go to. Overall, she is nice and cares about all her students.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-08-12T17:06:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Wang', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Great Professor! Takes her time and provides you with all the resources necessary to excel in the class. 10/10', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-18T15:59:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Wang', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'You can tell that she cares but her class is much like high school. No office hours, no TAs. Just notes that you fill in the blanks for. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-17T16:24:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Wang', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "She's a good professor and very kind. She provides you with a lot of resources to learn the material. We had weekly quizzes (worth 10 points), and accompanying practice quizzes and solutions. These were very helpful for the exams. Additionally, she provided sample exams and solutions, and held ~3 hour review sessions before each exam. She also had recorded lectures, and the notes are structured (packets with outlines; fill them in during class). Unfortunately, I don't think her sections ever have TAs and she doesn't have set office hours. This especially became a problem for the MATLAB projects. You can make an appointment with her, but she sometimes isn't the most responsive to emails. Overall, though, I liked the way she structured her course and she clearly cares about her students. I highly recommend her as a professor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-04-07T20:45:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Alice Wang', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Alice is amazing! She releases note guide pdfs before lectures so that you aren't taking notes by scratch which allows for material to be covered efficiently. She has a lot of quizzes but has study guides for them, so if you go through them the quizzes are straightforward and will boost your grade. I'm not sure if she does this every semester but for Fall 2021 she gave a good amount of extra credit if you rewrite quizzes and exams after answers are released. This is time-consuming but raises your grade and helps you fully understand problems you may have gotten wrong. Also, Alice hosts review sessions before the exam which is very generous of her and always prepared me for the exams. \r\nI've heard valid complaints about no TAs, office hours, or discussion but if you're a student who is okay with learning content from lectures combined with going through practice problems and the answers she provides for them, then this professor is probably a great fit for you. \r\nOverall, she gives A LOT of resources to help you succeed so if you are willing to put the time and energy into her class, you will do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-18T20:26:23Z'}], 'name': 'Alice Wang', 'slug': 'wang_alice'}, {'courses': ['EDUC388', 'UNIV100', 'EDUC388U', 'EDUC388C', 'EDUC388C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alicia Thomas', 'slug': 'thomas_alicia'}, {'courses': ['ENEE719B', 'ENEE498R', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE419R', 'ENEE476', 'ENSE799', 'ENEE408K', 'ENEE488', 'ENEE498K', 'ENEE612', 'ENEE476', 'ENEE612', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENEE476'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alireza Khaligh', 'course': 'ENEE476', 'review': 'Not bad, not great. I really did not like his teaching style which consisted primarily of ejaculating dozens of equations for 75 minutes straight, however I definitely learned a lot about Solar and Wind. I thought the class would be more "marco" I guess, talking about where you should build solar farms and the challenges of offshore wind, but instead it was more "micro", focusing on inverters, AC machines, DC/DC converters etc. I do appreciate the fact that Alireza has no problem giving everyone an A if they earn it. He is very generous on grading and constantly says you should not worry about your grade in his class, which I found to be true.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T15:07:52Z'}], 'name': 'Alireza Khaligh', 'slug': 'khaligh'}, {'courses': ['EDCI288O', 'EDCP318M', 'EDCP108J', 'UNIV100', 'HESI318M', 'TLPL288O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alison Barlow', 'slug': 'barlow_alison'}, {'courses': ['EDCI428', 'EDCI421', 'EDCI420', 'EDCI427', 'TLPL471', 'TLPL479B', 'TLPL478B', 'TLPL489B', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL471', 'TLPL479B', 'TLPL478B', 'TLPL489B', 'TLPL471', 'TLPL479B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alison Jovanovic', 'slug': 'jovanovic'}, {'courses': ['ECON325', 'ECON709', 'ECON754', 'ECON601', 'HONR259G', 'ECON808', 'ECON757', 'ECON848', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'ECON371', 'ECON754', 'ECON371', 'ECON754'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': "He was honestly the most boring professor I can think of other than Professor Binns. I never went to class, didn't learn anything, and wouldn't recommend this teacher for anyone.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-20T04:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': "I had him this past semester. I can honestly tell you I did not learn a single thing in this class. My final grade was a 55%, which was curved at least 32% to a B+. The TA's are not really helpful, and the models used are completely different from anything an economics student would have seen before this class. ECON201 really does not help with this class at all either.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-05-29T10:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': 'This guy. I dont even have words for how bad he really is. Reads right off of the slides in a dry monotone voice. you can tell he just really doesnt care for macroeconomics very much which makes it harder on his students to grasp concepts when he doesnt present them with any energetic or constructive explanations or feedback. \r\ntests are extremely difficult with averages being around 50% sometimes lower. Just ridiculous im paying for this guy to speak the book information to me. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2013-05-16T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': "i would give him zero stars if i could. he reads right off the powerpoints and doesnt teach you anything else. if you have trouble sleeping take his course. \r\nprofessor chugh is a 100 times better professor. he explains the information better and is available to you. drazen will brush you off to his TA's. \r\nevery other economoics course i took the professor explained the information well.\r\nyou are stuck taking him since he is the only one teaching it. if you can wait take it in the summer or if you know the material well take it in the winter.\r\nhe is being paid just to read the powerpoints verbatim. any questions you ask him will get an obvious NO or I dont know. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-07T18:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': None, 'review': "Although he seems to understand economics very well, and he is a nice person in general, Professor Drazen clearly has better things to do than teach his students.\n\r\nHe was consistantly late and when he wasn't late the lecture would start late because he can figure out his computer. He would then read off the slides word for word and vanish.\n\r\nHe seemed unconcerned when the midterm average was less than 30%. He brushed me off when I approached him for help, and passed me off to the TAs, which were even less helpfull.\n\r\nIn the end I learned very little and came away more confused than anything. The other professor teaching econ 325 wrote the book on this class (literally) I would take him if I had to do it again.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-23T13:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': "I had Professor Drazen for ECON325 this semester, but the funny this was, he did not teach my class. All of his material were pulled directly from those of Professor Sanjay Chugh. In lecture, Professor Drazen was Professor Chugh's mouthpiece - he literally read off Professor Chugh's slides and did little in gauging whether his students understood the material.\n\r\nThere were only four grades in my class: two problem sets, one midterm and one final. This is absolutely absurd because by having so little grades, tremendous pressure is placed on each assignment and there is little to no chance of redeeming your grade if you do poorly on one assignment. Quite predictably, the problem sets were pulled from those of Professor Chugh. The problems were long and tough, so students resorted to consulting Professor Chugh's website for help. \n\r\nWhile I'm sure Professor Drazen is a very smart man and he understands Economics well, he is not fit to teach. It blows my mind that the university pays him $200,000 a year to read his colleague's slides. If this is how the professional world works, then shame on anyone who allows this. Never have I ever had a professor that cared so little about his students. Perhaps this was the reason why no one showed up to class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-18T04:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': ' Professor Drazen is the most boring teacher I have had at UMD. If you are having trouble sleeping, I recommend attending his lectures. By reading off powerpoint slides which he posted online, students had no reason to listen to him while in lecture or attend lecture at all for that matter. The entire course consisted of 4 grades, with 40% based on the final exam which seems unfair. Being an ECON major, I am extremely dissapointed at how little Professor Drazen seemed to care about his students', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-12T16:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': 'Great Professor. Very easy to understand and follow his logic. You have to go to class though unless you really like cramming for exams from the book because he writes all of his notes on the chalkboard. 2 Midterms, 5 Problem Sets, 1 Cumulative Final Exam.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-18T20:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'HONR259G', 'review': 'Professor Drazen was great this semester. He is an older guy who said he has listened to feedback about his lectures, and thus decided to have discussions led by students instead (Obviously guided by him as well with important points and readings beforehand). \r\nHis class was very simple, had minimal work, and had fantastic discussion even for an Honors Seminar. For someone who is not particularly technologically skilled, his adjustment to the virtual format was great.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-09T20:24:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'HONR259G', 'review': "Boring class and boring professor. Worse part was the course didn't have a final (according to the syllabus). A week before the course ends, prof. starts talking about a potential 1-2 page assignment. And then, at the very start of finals, he assigns a 5-6 page assignment. \r\n\r\nUnfortunate.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-29T17:09:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Drazen', 'course': 'HONR259G', 'review': "He says class is an open discussion, but you're secretly judged and graded on your views. Lashed out at a student for her views. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-07-27T07:12:05Z'}], 'name': 'Allan Drazen', 'slug': 'drazen'}, {'courses': ['MUSC329O', 'MUSC490', 'MUSC329B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Allan Laino', 'slug': 'laino'}, {'courses': ['EDHD413', 'HONR219Y', 'EDHD835', 'EDHD629', 'HONR219M', 'EDHD228'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Allan Wigfield', 'course': 'EDHD413', 'review': 'Dr. Wigfield is amazing. I really recommend him for edhd413. He is such a nice guy, so understanding, and overall just great. If you try and do well on the midterm and final its not a difficult class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-03-31T15:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allan Wigfield', 'course': 'EDHD413', 'review': "Wigfield was a pleasure to take his class. He was very informed on adolescent development and was very intent on learning each person's name and who they were. He was very approachable and down to earth and had a decent sense of humor. His power points were very useful and he was more than willing to create study sessions before exams. The pop quizzes he gave were sometimes challenging, but the answers were definitely in the slides and lectures. I really enjoyed his class, even though sometimes he was a tad technologically challenged. I would definitely recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-08-22T15:48:00Z'}], 'name': 'Allan Wigfield', 'slug': 'wigfield'}, {'courses': ['ENCE412', 'ENCE688C', 'ENCE215', 'ENCE650', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE751', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE310', 'ENCE650', 'ENCE412', 'ENCE751', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE688F', 'ENCE650'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Allen Davis', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': 'Alan Davis is a rather tough professor. He is incredibly knowledgeable but sometimes holds students to higher standards because of this. The example problems he does are helpful but he only does one example for each type of question. Often on the exams questions would be modified from the practice version, but no one would know how to solve it the new way. \r\nDavis breezes through complicated stuff too quickly, however, that might be attributed to the fact that ENCE 215 has way too much material to cover. You should learn a decent amount but your GPA might suffer.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-09T02:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Davis', 'course': 'ENCE412', 'review': "Dr. Davis is a tough professor, but very fair and very knowledgable. Things are generally explained pretty clearly with examples and his lectures are straightforward. The syllabus lays everything out, including all the assignments and their value, and he will stick to this. He told us from the beginning that the pass cutoff would be no higher than 55%, so 55% of points would guarantee a pass. Therefore there is a decent curve so do not panic if your grade is a bit low, especially on exams- they are tough but other parts of your grade will bring it up.\r\n\r\nThe only problem I had with this class was that due to it being open book, oftentimes we needed to look up values from a chart, but this would not be specified, so it could be unclear when to assume and when you had to hunt through the book to find some chart. However, I believe his tests are only open book due to being online for COVID, so this would probably not be a problem in a normal semester and charts would be provided.\r\n\r\nI would also say it's very important to go to class and focus on lecture. The book is not great and doesn't follow exactly what he says, so without the equations and examples he gives out in class you will likely be lost.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-05-13T18:43:00Z'}], 'name': 'Allen Davis', 'slug': 'davis_allen'}, {'courses': ['GEOG310', 'GEOG328A', 'GEOG384', 'GEOG312', 'GEOG385', 'GEOG384H', 'GEOG385H', 'GEOG396', 'GEOG397'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Allen Eney', 'course': None, 'review': 'Eney is amazing. Sure his class is easy but if you pay attention, you really learn a lot. He has actually inspired me to go into a different field. He does not allow you to miss more than 5 classes and grades are based on a midterm paper and a final which are both incredibly simple. I highly recommend this class. Loved every minute of it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-07-26T12:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Eney', 'course': None, 'review': 'Eney is the man. Just go to class, do well on the paper, and study the final prep that is given. If you dont go to class, this isnt the class for you.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-16T12:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Eney', 'course': None, 'review': 'Overall positive experience. Provides useful guidance when needed and some resources as well when applicable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-09T11:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Eney', 'course': None, 'review': 'I took GEOG310 in the summer with Eney. He was, as many have said, very easy. He gets very enthusiastic and dramatic during his lectures, which made them very tolerable. There was a midterm, paper, and a final. The exams were multiple choice and not difficult as long as you went to lectures or read the book. Overall, I liked Eney and enjoyed his class. If you are in dire need for an A to boost your GPA, I would definitely recommend this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-14T00:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Eney', 'course': 'GEOG312', 'review': "Yes, Eney gives out mostly As and there is very little work involved in his classes. That doesn't mean that they're interesting, and I left his class feeling that I hadn't learned a single thing from the past 15 weeks of lecture. All his classes are basically structured the same way: two 10-page papers and a final where he gives you the answers ahead of time. It may be worth taking a class of his just for the boost for your GPA. But expect to be bored and wanting more out of the class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-02-07T09:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Eney', 'course': 'GEOG330', 'review': "Eney is the man. He only requires you to show up to class and write 2 10 page papers. A little advice on the papers, do them ASAP! They are usually due during midterms week, free up your time. He gives you a review of final before hand so you're pretty much given what you need to know/study for. He's not a bad man either, you just can't piss him off.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-09-14T16:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Eney', 'course': 'GEOG202', 'review': "Here's the rundown.\n\r\nGo to class six times during the semester.\n\r\nGo the first day to get the syllabus.\r\nGo to the class before the midterm for the review sessions.\r\nTake the midterm.\r\nPick up the midterm (otherwise -5% overall grade)\r\nGo to the class before the final\r\nTake the final.\n\r\nYou can even just go to class just four times, if you have friends that go regularly and give you the review questions.\n\r\nSyllabus\r\nMidterm\r\nPick up Midterm\r\nFinal\n\r\nEney is the man...but can be anal at times.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-23T00:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Eney', 'course': 'GEOG202', 'review': "Eney gives out lots of A's. However, Eney is also perhaps the most boring lecturer I have ever witnessed. Seriously, bring a book.\n\r\nMr. Eney is also a pedantic, egotistical, angry, self-aggrandizing little man with no concern for the human condition. He is the worst person I have ever had the misfortune to know, and worse yet I have to repeat his Geog202 class because he would not let me take a makeup midterm, saying that I would have to write a fifteen page paper covering every single point covered in class or in the textbook -- or else fail the course. I chose the latter, so I could still retain my dignity -- and my free time.\n\r\nGo to every single class and you'll probably get an A like everyone else. But don't miss anything, ever. He has concern neither for you nor your problems. He will fail you if you miss anything. I speak from experience! Eney is not a bad professor, but he is a horrible person.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '95', 'created': '2008-04-27T22:03:00Z'}], 'name': 'Allen Eney', 'slug': 'eney_allen'}, {'courses': ['ENPM696', 'ENEE359R', 'ENEE459B', 'ENPM808', 'ENPM696', 'ENPM696'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Allen Hazelton', 'slug': 'hazelton'}, {'courses': ['MEES680', 'MEES698C', 'MEES606', 'HLTH710', 'MEES718J', 'MEES680', 'MEES680'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Allen Place', 'slug': 'place'}, {'courses': ['PUAF688A', 'PUAF699J', 'PUAF688D', 'PUAF620', 'PLCY699J'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Allen Schick', 'course': 'PUAF620', 'review': "Pros: Clearly an expert on subject material, you are certainly getting your money's worth.\n\r\nCons: Often posts readings only a day or two in advance. He grades on a curve that he refuses to define so students have no idea where they stand in the class. Occasionally has shouting matches with students and can be outright insulting at times.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-12T00:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Allen Schick', 'slug': 'schick'}, {'courses': ['PHIL170H', 'PHIL209I', 'PHIL209T', 'PHIL170', 'PHIL354', 'PHIL788', 'RELS236', 'PHIL858I', 'PHIL201', 'HLTH672', 'PHIL418K', 'PHIL808M', 'PHIL282', 'PHIL409X', 'PHIL201', 'PHIL282', 'PHIL236', 'PHIL409X', 'PHIL282', 'PHIL858F'], 'average_rating': 2.7, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL209I', 'review': "I would not recommend this professor unless you already know some philosophy and know how to write a philosophical paper, enjoy reading boring books, and don't mind a professor ranting about his personal beliefs all semester. Additionally, don't take this professor unless you don't mind regurgitating said beliefs on tests and papers. Also you have to be proficient in math for his classes, like other reviewers have noted. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-17T23:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL354', 'review': "Stairs is a great professor and does a great job at combining philosophy and physics into one course. However I took this course as a physics minor and I was one of the only people who followed the math and physics. I don't recommend taking this class if you math skills aren't the best. However this class was very stimulating and Stairs does a great job at unbiasedly presenting interesting philosophical arguments.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-23T10:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL236', 'review': "I would not recommend taking this class unless you love to read and can learn off of a professor ranting for 50 minutes. I am not an auditory learner, and this class has 0 visuals. Even if you go to class, you will never get all of the material. You must read the book which isn't too hard of a reading. The tests are hard because his review sheets literally tell you to reread every chapter. On another note, this class is interesting and the professor is a great guy. He has a sense of humor that you may or may not understand. His online lectures are great (yes there are online lectures) ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-05-17T10:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL354', 'review': "This class definitely had its ups and downs. But that's because of the topic...I don't think the average prof. could teach quantum mechanics and relativity in-depth to students who are not majoring in math or science. Stay away from this course ARHU kids!!! However, Stairs is a great teacher. He was more helpful outside of class, so office hours are a must. As the very least, as long as you put forth the effort, Stairs will not fail you or give you a C. it is possible to get an A. We had a 8 page paper, and two exams. Class attendance was apparently optional.... some days there were only 9 out of 20-some people.\n\r\nI would never recommend PHIL354, however, I do HIGHLY recommend Stairs. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-06-06T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL209I', 'review': 'Philosophy professor but not open to arguments which conflict with the opinions presented in class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-08-17T02:21:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL209I', 'review': 'Planning on taking PHIL209i or PHIL201 (Same class just different name)? ABORT MISSION! Do not take this class unless you actually are super interested in quantum theory or anything having to do with philosophical physics. Professor Stairs is a nice guy but he thinks you understand things when you obviously do not at all.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2018-12-19T06:27:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL201', 'review': 'This class grades on mainly participation. But, you will be lost for the assignments in class. He tries to explain stuff and demands clarity from you as a writer, but things are never so clear in class lectures. If you feel you are smart or "hard working" but don\'t have natural smarts it doesn\'t matter. You\'re basically learning about quantum entanglement, quantum swapping, and other material that doesn\'t have good educational resources available. In short, there are no TAs or YouTube videos to help you very much at all. Do NOT take this course take something else for your credit. This is harder to grasp than even entry level computer science. This is not similar to physics and if you even have a background you will be confused because things in this class are not tangible. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2020-12-12T02:22:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL201', 'review': 'Awsome teacher, but requires a lot of effort from the student in understanding the material. You probably won\'t like this course unless you have a strong interest or background in quantum mechanics or at least modern physics. There is a small disadvantage to students who aren\'t familiar with special relativity at all. As a physics major, this was my favorite class. The focus is more on quantum mechanics than "philosophical issues." The first 2/3 of the class is learning quantum mechanics at a kind of conceptual level with some math, and the last 1/3 is using philosophical argument structure to analyze a quantum mechanics issue in a final paper.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-02-02T18:09:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL201', 'review': 'Truly horrible experience, I see no reason to put yourself through this', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-09-21T01:23:48.016784Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Stairs', 'course': 'PHIL201', 'review': 'Hands down the worst class I have ever taken, coupled with the whiniest "teacher" I\'ve ever met. Lectures have no direction, he fails to answer any question accurately, and will constantly backtrack leaving you wondering what the real answer is. He asks for a specific format for his assignments, but even when you do as you are told, he will throw a fit and claim that you did not follow instructions. He also asks for a "modified APA" style for references and give you his awful mess of a paper to use as an example, yet even his own citations aren\'t consistent with each other.\r\n\r\nAt least he\'s an easy grader so even if you fail everything you still pass. Would not recommend unless you really enjoy quantum theory AND torturing yourself, but I\'m not gonna shame you. You do you.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-12-01T00:42:02.612130Z'}], 'name': 'Allen Stairs', 'slug': 'stairs'}, {'courses': ['ENAE464', 'ENAE362', 'ENAE488T', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE362', 'ENAE464', 'ENAE362'], 'average_rating': 2.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'course': 'ENAE362', 'review': 'Pretty terrible professor. Just reads the lecture notes he makes you buy all class. He doesn\'t actually teach you anything. Other reviews say he tells you what you need to know on the final and midterm but he literally just tells you to know every page of his notes. \n\r\nThe labs are pretty easy which is nice but the midterm and final are terrible. His grading system is atrocious (he takes off more points if you get a question wrong than if you skip the question -- if you don\'t know, don\'t try. Great lesson to teach). He gives no review help for the final so you have to read every page of his notes and know every circuit and what they do. \n\r\nHe also doesn\'t answer questions on things you got wrong on labs or finals. He simply says "You did it wrong". \n\r\nOnly plus side is he\'s old and crazy and says some funny things. But avoid him if you can.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2016-12-14T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'course': 'ENAE362', 'review': 'knows his stuff and expects you to know it too. Labs are easy, tests are hard. Read his lecture notes and lab worksheets religiously. Understand every aspect of every circuit. The Final literally has a question on everything and is 20+ pages. He drops hints towards exam questions in class and is quite helpful in office hours.\n\r\nhe barely ever smiles and is hilarious.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-09T11:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'course': 'ENAE464', 'review': "Labs are fun in this class. Be prepared for his exams though. Throughout the semester it was nice to be in his class and not Sedwick's because labs were easier, but the grade distribution really changes that at the end of the year.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-06-19T00:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'course': 'ENAE362', 'review': 'I think the other two reviews are a little harsh. There are three components to this class: labs, the midterm, and the final. As far as labs go, it really depends on the TA grading them. I normally got low A\'s since the TA saw fit to just take off points whenever he felt like it (this was the case for most of the class). I got a 70% on the midterm which wasn\'t bad considering the average was about 54%. The final was very long, 24 pages, and tedious. \n\r\nThe key to this class is to read the lecture worksheets you get at the beginning of the course, study the labs, and write down everything he says in class. He actually tells you some of the questions you are most likely to see by saying "make sure you know this" or "this would be a good question for the final exam." I couldn\'t believe it when I looked around and noticed that most of the people in the class didn\'t write anything down when he dropped us hints. \n\r\nThe reason I gave Winkelmann a four is that he is a very good teacher who knows what he is talking about even though his grading scheme is a little evil at times.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-22T05:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'course': 'ENAE362', 'review': "There are two components to your grade: labs and tests. The labs are long but easy to get a good grade on if you make sure you follow all the instructions. His grading will seem pedantic for the first few labs but after a while you will get the hang of what he wants to see and everyone gets high As. \n\r\nThe wildcard is the midterm and final. The thing about his lectures is that he doesn't write much on the board so most people think they don't need to take notes. Well that's wrong. Make sure you write down every single word that comes out of his mouth because it WILL be tested! I learned that the hard way. Also the averages on the tests are really bad--below 50%. He curves a lot so don't worry if you fail. I got an E on the midterm and still ended up with an A in the class somehow. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-25T13:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'course': 'ENAE464', 'review': "Always gives at least 1 student a D, even if graduating senior. Old, long-tenured professor who does not care about rules or policy. Decent teaching ability, but when you're looking for a 464 class, stay the hell away from his. Dr. Yu does not fail anyone, Dr. W is guaranteed to always fail at least one.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-06-24T11:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'course': 'ENAE362', 'review': "Absolutely awful. It's unfortunate that he is the only option for ENAE 362 because it's a mandatory class. He makes this class much more difficult than necessary. The labs are pretty straightforward and actually educational. It's not too hard to score 100% on all of them if you closely follow the directions and turn them in on time. However, the exams are designed to be extremely difficult. The average on the midterm was only about a 41% in Fall 2017. He gives negative points for incorrect MC answers, which makes already difficult questions worse. Basically, unless you are absolutely certain you are correct, the risk of answering a question is not worth it. The exams are also difficult because he doesn't really do a great job of actually teaching the class. He reads the lecture notes verbatim and sometimes highlights sections that MIGHT be on the exams. Go to lectures and pay attention because this is the most helpful thing he does. If you don't go, good luck memorizing the entire hundred or so pages of lecture notes. \r\nHe also does not post any grades whatsoever on ELMS. Students never find out what their final exam scores are. This is frustrating because the exam averages are so low. I would have liked to see my final raw score in the class to get an idea of what the grade cut offs ended up being. He pretty much just leaves students praying that the curve is big for the entire semester. The aerospace department is pretty obvious about not liking Winklemann's teaching style, but they can't do anything other than give him suggestions, which he clearly does not take. All they can do is offer their sympathies to his students. I absolutely will never take a class with this guy again.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-01-02T15:32:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'course': 'ENAE362', 'review': "Thank goodness there are no exams in this class anymore because his lectures are dreadful. Many people stopped attending as he would repeat himself multiple lectures in a row with no substantial material being covered. Pay very close attention to the lab manuals and make sure you do your Technical Writing exactly as the instructions say and you should be fine. He is an interesting fellow that doesn't seem to be in the right headspace 90% of the time but just make sure to get your work done on time and you will succeed.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-24T19:52:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'course': 'ENAE362', 'review': "It's great that he stopped giving any exams for his class, but that doesn't mean this class is a cakewalk. He is very specific about how you should make graphs and how you should format and write technical writing reports. He communicates all of his requirements and expectations very clearly, and also always make sure to get all of the work done before your assigned lab session. He explains the lab requirements and what things you should or should not do very clearly during the lectures, so make sure that you attend his lectures. Don't think that there's no exams in the class anymore would mean that you only need to come to the lab sessions and that's it. Lastly, just follow his expectations and instructions all the time, and you will still be fine. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-28T04:54:13Z'}], 'name': 'Allen Winkelmann', 'slug': 'winkelmann'}, {'courses': ['INST799', 'INST810', 'INST709', 'INST809', 'CMSC798'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Allison Druin', 'slug': 'druin'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'EDUC388'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Allison LaFave', 'slug': 'lafave'}, {'courses': ['EDHD230'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Allison Meisch', 'slug': 'meisch'}, {'courses': ['CPSP239N', 'CPSN101', 'CPSN230', 'CPSP119', 'CPSN240', 'CPSN250', 'CPSP359N', 'GVPT309Q', 'CPSN100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Allison Patch', 'slug': 'patch'}, {'courses': ['PUAF689J', 'PUAF798R', 'PUAF689Q', 'PLCY689J', 'PLCY689Q', 'PLCY898', 'PLCY611', 'PLCY689J', 'PLCY689Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alok Bhargava', 'slug': 'bhargava'}, {'courses': ['DANC208', 'DANC348', 'DANC420', 'DANC209', 'DANC488', 'DANC219', 'DANC318', 'DANC319', 'TDPS458O', 'DANC218', 'DANC468', 'DANC249', 'DANC679', 'DANC689P', 'DANC789', 'DANC647', 'DANC398', 'DANC678', 'DANC386', 'DANC689I', 'DANC309', 'DANC399', 'DANC499', 'DANC698', 'DANC788', 'DANC799', 'DANC207', 'HONR239C', 'DANC148B', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'DANC148', 'DANC448', 'DANC449', 'DANC648', 'DANC649', 'DANC148', 'DANC309', 'DANC398', 'DANC399', 'DANC468', 'DANC499', 'DANC679', 'DANC698', 'DANC788', 'DANC218', 'DANC219', 'DANC448', 'DANC449', 'DANC648', 'DANC649', 'TDPS458O', 'DANC606', 'DANC309', 'DANC399', 'DANC499', 'DANC679', 'DANC788'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alvin Mayes', 'slug': 'mayes'}, {'courses': ['SPHL498T', 'SPHL498G', 'FMSC410', 'SPHL498F', 'PHSC497', 'FMSC310', 'PHSC430', 'HLTH106', 'HLTH302'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alyssa Brooks', 'slug': 'brooks_alyssa'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'CMSC100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alyssa Neuner', 'slug': 'neuner'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL273', 'ENGL243', 'ENGL271', 'ENGL353', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL499', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL499', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL499', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "As a freshman in a blended ENGL101 class, I'm pretty glad I took it with Professor Allen. She is a very nice and easy-to-approach person who does her best to make her class interesting. Her assignments were usually less stressful than those I heard about assigned by other ENGL101 professors. She is a fair grader and if you check her grade distribution you'll see that most students receive in the A to B range. She definitely has the best interests of her students in mind. Overall, if you have the option to take her from ENGL101 and are willing to put effort into your work, I would recommend her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:03:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Prof Allen is great! She is extremely understanding to any student issues and manages to make a boring class enjoyable to come to. She never overworks her students and the class is very easygoing, but you still learn a lot. Definitely one of the better professors to take english from.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-04-14T21:43:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Professor Allen is extremely caring and respectful. She never loaded us with work (like the horror stories I heard from my friends in other ENGL101 classes) and she is great in office hours. I needed help narrowing my topic and finding a good angle, and she gave me good advice. She has "assignment sheets" for assignments that clearly lay out what she wants, and the assignments are never too much. I say she is very fair and it has been enjoyable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-04-02T03:26:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "I'm going to start of this review by saying that she is a very nice professor. She clearly cares about her class, and I appreciate that. However, I cannot recommend taking her, largely due to the fact that there are many more English teachers in this school that will be far more lenient in their grading than this professor. If you are looking to have a strong A (as long as effort is put in), then look for another teacher. Allen grades far too harshly, and the low amount of points that each of her assignments is worth leads to your grade fluctuating wildly if you miss even one point on an assignment. It has been an absolute pain to be able to get a decent grade this semester due to this. Your assignments have to be near perfect if you want an A, and quite frankly a course of this type does not deserve to have this much work put into it. Again, nice teacher, but take another teacher. You will have an easier time and be far less worried about being perfect in every assignment. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T19:35:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Blended class is super nice workload wise. She's really nice and makes the material as engaging as possible. She also gives in-depth feedback on your writing so you know exactly what you did wrong. She also generally helps you a lot with her feedback on the assignments before you start writing and gives good suggestions. The assignments are all well-explained and are all very approachable, I've heard so many things about other English teachers having really shit requirements but Prof. Allen has very reasonable requirements. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-09T23:00:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'The class is blended which is extremely nice. The days where you are asynchronous you have a mini assignment to do, which never takes more than the class period. On the writing assignments, she gives good feedback and is available for office hours outside of this if you want more in depth feedback. She is a little bit of a hard grader, but as long as you take time and put in the work, you will be fine. If you are willing to put in work to get a good grade, I highly recommend taking Engl 101 with Professor Allen. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T19:07:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Good professor, this is a subject I struggle in but had to take for the gen ed but was able to make it through with an A-. One major help was that the biggest assignment was before break, so while everyone else had to do it on top of all the other big final papers in the end, we were basically done before Thanksgiving. Blended was also great, only had to go in once a week with a short assignment the other day.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-22T22:25:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'She is very nice and I personally suck at English. If you are honestly trying she is willing to help. Honestly, I thought she was a little too critical on some things because most people will never use this kind of writing again. It is what is thou. I think she is a safe and good option overall ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-15T19:24:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Professor Allen was 100% the best choice for ENGL101. I loved her blended style, it suit the class very well. She's a fair grader and the assignments are your standard faire for a writing class. It's a hard class to NOT do well in. Recommend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T01:17:47.921869Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "I got a decent grade in this class but I would not recommend taking her. Don't get me wrong, she is very kind, helpful and an amazing individual but if you are looking for good grades, she is not the best choice. She is quite critical about certain details and her major assignments consist of very few points. For example, an essay is 15 points. So, if you lose even 2 to 3 points here, your grades sharply falls to a B or C. \r\nSome advantages are that she is very accommodating and her class is blended so you barely have to go more than once a week which is very efficient.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-15T08:58:52.036100Z'}], 'name': 'Amanda Allen', 'slug': 'allen_amanda'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'UNIV100', 'UNIV101', 'ARHU458', 'ARHU468', 'ARHU468A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amanda Bachert', 'slug': 'bachert'}, {'courses': ['ENGL201', 'ENGL404', 'ENGL310', 'ENGL304', 'ENGL428X', 'ENGL719F', 'ENGL289J', 'ENGL305', 'ENGL719C', 'ENGL758C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amanda Bailey', 'slug': 'bailey_amanda'}]
[{'courses': ['EDCP318T', 'HESI318T', 'EDCP315'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amanda Even', 'slug': 'even_amanda'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101X', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL101A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amanda Fiore', 'slug': 'fiore'}, {'courses': ['GEOG212', 'GEOG306', 'EXST030', 'GEOG384', 'GEOG385', 'GEOG384H', 'GEOG385H', 'GEOG201', 'GEOG211', 'GEOG441', 'GEOG201', 'GEOG201', 'GEOG212'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amanda Hall', 'course': 'GEOG201', 'review': "Amanda is amazing!! Literally so sweet and kind. She is extremely organized and makes everything clear and straightforward. Her lectures weren't the best, but they were still helpful considering the class was online! As long as you do all your work you should get an A. She also lets you drop a decent amount of assignments including one exam.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-17T19:47:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Hall', 'course': 'GEOG201', 'review': "Professor Hoffman-Hall is an amazing professor, and honestly, she makes the class super easy to get an A in. She lectures a little fast, however, all her exams are open everything so it's not really a big deal. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-06T15:04:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Hall', 'course': 'GEOG211', 'review': "Professor Hoffman-Hall is sort of hands off for this online lab course, but her instructions are super clear for each lab assignment, so it's not hard to get an A in this class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-06T15:05:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Hall', 'course': 'GEOG201', 'review': "Super nice professor, not a very interesting class but perfect for a gen ed requirement. The grading structure is VERY lenient. There are 3 exams that make up 30% of your final grade but the lowest exam grade is dropped (and they're all open notes/internet take home exams). 20% of your grade is from doing packback questions which is basically a discussion board so you can get a 100 on that pretty easily, but if you forget you're all set because she drops 2 out of the 8. The final is a project/paper worth 30% of your grade so you can either write a 1000-word paper or do a group project, both of which are pretty easy options. The last 20% of your grade is for turning point questions which you do during class time, so you get a 100 on that if you go to all the lectures. But if you don't want to go to lecture for whatever reason she posts the lectures online with questions you can answer to get that credit back.\r\n\r\nOverall, a very easy class with a great professor. Would highly recommend taking this for your science requirement. Also, the lab it is associated with is just as easy. It's completely asynchronous, you just submit weekly labs and if you bomb/forget to do a couple of them there are up to two make up labs available.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-09T22:10:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Hall', 'course': 'GEOG201', 'review': "Super nice professor, not a very interesting class but perfect for a gen ed requirement. The grading structure is VERY lenient. There are 3 exams that make up 30% of your final grade but the lowest exam grade is dropped (and they're all open notes/internet take home exams). 20% of your grade is from doing packback questions which is basically a discussion board so you can get a 100 on that pretty easily, but if you forget you're all set because she drops 2 out of the 8. The final is a project/paper worth 30% of your grade so you can either write a 1000-word paper or do a group project, both of which are pretty easy options. The last 20% of your grade is for turning point questions which you do during class time, so you get a 100 on that if you go to all the lectures. But if you don't want to go to lecture for whatever reason she posts the lectures online with questions you can answer to get that credit back.\r\n\r\nOverall, a very easy class with a great professor. Would highly recommend taking this for your science requirement. Also, the lab it is associated with is just as easy. It's completely asynchronous, you just submit weekly labs and if you bomb/forget to do a couple of them there are up to two make up labs available.\r\n\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-09T23:13:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Hall', 'course': 'GEOG201', 'review': "Professor Hall was amazing! She really cares about her students and tries to offer as many opportunities as possible to do well in her class. Tests were straightforward, and only one homework assignment per week (none during test weeks). She's really a great person and I enjoyed her class a lot.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-19T02:22:03Z'}], 'name': 'Amanda Hall', 'slug': 'hall_amanda'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM385', 'COMM498Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amanda Irions', 'slug': 'irions'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amanda Olson', 'slug': 'olson_amanda'}, {'courses': ['ARSC100', 'ARSC101', 'ARSC201', 'ARSC200', 'ARSC059'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amanda Revisky', 'slug': 'revisky'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amanda Torres', 'slug': 'torres_amanda'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amber Dees', 'slug': 'dees'}, {'courses': ['COMM402', 'COMM478', 'COMM398E', 'COMM498Y', 'COMM738M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amber Westcott-Baker', 'slug': 'westcott-baker'}, {'courses': ['ENCE453', 'ENCE713', 'ENCE454', 'ENCE611', 'EDSP652'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amde Amde', 'course': 'ENCE454', 'review': 'Only reason to go to class is to get the packets that he gives out. Tests come straight from the packets, which he spends a painfully long time going over during class. Test 1 and 2 are very easy. Final was very hard.\r\nAlso, throws a design project at you during the last week of the semester. Very time consuming and very hard. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-18T11:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amde Amde', 'course': 'ENCE453', 'review': "The exams are straight from the packets. Word for word. He spends a lot of time on derivations, which don't matter that much and few understand.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-26T20:54:00Z'}], 'name': 'Amde Amde', 'slug': 'amde'}, {'courses': ['BSOS388T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amee Bearne', 'slug': 'bearne'}, {'courses': ['HLTH200', 'HLTH776', 'HLTH352', 'HLTH352H', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'HLTH776', 'HLTH609', 'HLTH776', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amelia Arria', 'slug': 'arria'}, {'courses': ['MATH607', 'MATH405', 'MATH141', 'MATH406', 'MATH140', 'MATH603', 'MATH606', 'MATH403', 'MATH808G', 'MATH608F', 'MATH463', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'MATH462', 'MATH461', 'MATH141', 'MATH600', 'MATH601', 'MATH299Q', 'MATH141', 'MATH403'], 'average_rating': 4.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Pretty average lecturer. It can be hard to understand him when he speaks due to his accents and his hand-writing can be challenging to read, at times. Amin is good at answering any questions thrown at him during lecture and gives out bonus points to your final grade if you call out any mistakes he makes in lecture or if you correct him. The TA's are below average. They are hard to understand and the mandatory quizzes during discussion classes seem to be on material unrelated to the prior lecture. The G.S.S. sessions that are held are very helpful. His classes are nice because he always curves a lot at the end of the semester.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-02T18:02:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Amazing professor!! Really cares about students, gives back points on tests, HUGE curve at the end of the semester. Homework and tests are not too hard, just do some practice problems and ask questions in discussion ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-11T03:20:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Great professor who really cares about his students. He dropped the lowest grade of the 4 exams, then curved the rest 15 points. I think he also curved the final on top of that. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-25T18:12:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Great guy. I just loved Gholampour, he is such a sweetheart. One of the nicest professors I ever had. He curves the class by a lot because most people taking this course are freshmen and many of them are like non-stem majors and it's a hard course so the averages for exams are like 55-68% range. Therefore, he curves by a lot. His exams aren't bad but they are questions similar to webassign. If you get your exam back and see the TAs took bunch of points off for some dumb mistake you made, talk to the professor he will give back points if you can show the mistake you made and you understand the correct answer. (Max points got back was like 10 points) ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-28T08:35:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': 'Dr. Gholampour is an amazing professor. He really likes math and knows how to teach math. I really recommend him as an upper-level professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-08-18T02:10:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'I highly recommend Dr. Gholampour, he did just about everything you could ask for in an online class. Prerecorded lectures to watch any time, and organized lecture notes. A list of practice problems to go over with the textbook. 24 hour exams that were fair. Very willing to help students. Very generous curve, for the summer he let the final grade replace the midterm grade if the final was higher. Also a great teacher - gave clear explanations for everything and provided a good balance between applications and proofs.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-08-11T01:29:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'This course is really difficuly and we had huge curve every exam since the averages were always really low. He is willing to explain everything as long as you ask. We had 3 midterms (the lowest one was droped) and homework every week.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-09-06T21:00:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Amin was a good teacher, but his notes were very hard to read. By the end of the semester, there was a 100+ page PDF of notes from the semester, all handwritten, which made it hard to look for exactly what you needed at times. Exams were open note and you had more than just class time to do them (7 hours for exams, 12 for the final) which was nice because you didn't need all of it, but you had it if you needed. The class is very focused on proofs, and covers a lot of material. You could drop one exam and one of the weekly homeworks, too. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-16T20:37:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Amin is a sweetheart with a PhD in math. His lectures are good, and his tests are fair. Quizzes are easy if you do the practice problems. My only issue with this course was the WebAssign homework. Most the topics covered in them are not relevant to the course, or are too far fetched.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-14T23:55:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Average Lecturer. Godlike human.\r\nGood curves (10,5,3,20) on the four tests. I think he even curved the final.\r\nThe test questions were similar to the final. A quiz a week on two homework problems. WebAssign all due at the end of the semester. \r\nHe is very nice and understanding of student's concerns. \r\nCalculus 2 was not a fun course, but it was a lot easier taking it with this professor. \r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-15T05:24:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Pretty decent lecturer. The curves were nice and allowed me to succeed in the class despite getting Bs on most of the tests. Weekly quizzes, but he told us the possible problems ahead of time so if you did them ahead of time you were fine. All the homework was due at the end of the semester which was great.\r\n\r\nI personally did not like him as he seemed more responsive to the questions/answers of the guys in class compared to the girls, but he was a good instructor and I'm glad I took his class compared to what I've heard from other professors.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-02-18T20:42:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Amin is a competent lecturer with a good amount of responsiveness/attention and his assignments/exams were mostly fair. For our class, we had only weekly homeworks (lowest 2 dropped) and 2 midterms (lowest one dropped). No quizzes nor extra assignments, which was very respectful for our time. Some work could be really tedious (single HW problems taking hours was usual, expect to take multiple hours weekly to review content to make sure you understand it). That's to be expected given that this is one of the hardest classes in this department, but he did allow work to come in late and to ask him for help, he responds quickly via email and is usually available for office hours or just after class if you can ask him then. It was also convenient of him to have all of his notes online, which he would clarify in class or go over in more detail if anyone asked him. Once some people started getting lower grades on exams, he included extra credit parts in the exams which gave even more leniency for getting a higher grade. He also grades very quickly in this class so we could quickly discuss what we thought was and wasn't fair. Overall, he was a professor who knew how to instruct and had good control over how much work he assigned and gave many opportunities to do well in what is one of the most infamous math classes. TL;DR he is a solid professor, and it's a good idea to take a course with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T00:28:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Cannot recommend Amin enough, he's an amazing professor. He teaches the content very-well, giving examples of applications of every theorem and lemma as well as proving each one with techniques that often come in handy later for your own usage. All of this is also kept within his copy of the notes so you can refer back to anything you didn't fully get or want to review from class. He's very responsive to questions and even if you don't get it after asking, he'll explain again in whatever way necessary. You can tell he has a lot of enthusiasm for the subject and it really shows in the way he teaches it. Homework was weekly, difficult but prepared you very well and really helped you understand the content. Deadlines were super chill regarding late work. He also dropped the lowest exam grade and then curved at the end. Amin made one of the hardest if not the hardest class I've taken into one of the most enjoyable ones.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T05:46:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I took MATH141 last semester and I had Tod Rowland. Rowland is very clearly smart, but his lectures were impossible to follow and he was very absent minded. He is a really nice and accommodating person. Unfortunately, his lectures did it for me. I couldn't follow through the second half of the year. I ended the semester with a C- and I needed a B-. I retook 141 with Amin and I have a 93 right now. Yes I am retaking the class, but he is one of the best 141 lecturers. He does not give any discussion worksheets and instead gives weekly quizzes (lowest is dropped) and the questions come straight from the textbook, meaning you can get 100s every week with little effort. His homeworks are ALL due on the last day of the semester so no more staying up until 4 in the morning on mondays and wedensdays for WebAssign, and lastly his tests were very hard but he curves very very well. Currently he is curving the first 2 tests 10 points, the 3rd one 0 points and the 4th one 25 points, in addition to that the final is being curved and it seems he is going to lower the letter grade cutoff as well. Will likely end the semester with an A+, please please take Amin actual goat.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-09T05:15:08.213742Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'He is an amazing professor. He handles the content extremely well and he picks the best TAs to help the students. The TAs that he picks are willing to go above and beyond for their students. He is also very understanding and compassionate with the students. He will recognize the effort that students are willing to put into his class and rewards them for how much effort they put in instead of just simply their scores. Thank you, Amin!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-09T18:11:55.440267Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Amin is quite possibly the greatest professor you could take for MATH141. He explains concepts extremely well, and answers a lot of questions during lectures. The TAs he chooses are really good at covering what he does in lectures in a little more depth, as well as general doubt clearance. He provides you with a list of practice problems which help you cover most, if not all of the major concepts that will be tested. These practice problems are also used for the quizzes, so if you are thorough with the problems there is no reason for you to lose any points on the quiz. His curves are also extremely generous, and he makes changes to his grading policy in order to bring up the class average if he sees that the class is not doing so well. All the homeworks being due at the end of the semester also mean that you can do things at your own pace, which I really liked about the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-13T10:00:00.422431Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Amin has been a fantastic lecturer and provides more than enough information to succeed in this class. He is a very nice person and is very fair when grading. While his tests are difficult, he curves nicely and they help to prepare you for the final exam. He also has weekly quizzes on problems given in the textbooks, which makes it very easy to get 100's on them. They also help to reinforce the understanding of these topics by making you do some extra practice. This has been a great class and I would highly recommend him to anyone taking this difficult class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-14T16:48:06.803953Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "There is a reason why he is highly rated compared to other professors. Where to begin? First off he drops one of his exams and exams are 50% of the grade so you only need to do good in three tests, there are other professors who don’t drop exams. He also makes his quizzes based on the book problems what that means is the same problems in the book are the same problems that will be asked on the quiz. So really it’s almost impossible not to get 100% on quizzes easy 12.5% right there. Homework is hard but you can google or use a calculator if you want or ask him for help more on that later so another easy 12.5%. His exams are harder than usual which prepares you for the final and because they are harder he usually curves and oh boy the curve is CRAZY he curved the class like 4 times. He isn't your enemy he is on your side I joined the class late and got a crappy low quiz score the TA wouldn't drop it so I talked to the professor and he dropped it without any question. He is an okay average lecturer if you are excepting him to magically teach you everything in 50 minutes he can't do that no other professor can but his lectures are way better than some of the other choices if you think he’s bad go watch the other professors lectures you’ll miss him. He follows and explains the book and answers any questions pretty typically stuff. What makes him probably one the best math teachers and a 5-star teacher, in general, are his office hours. The way he runs office hours is like a free tutoring session he is an amazing teacher one on one. All you gotta do is ask him when is he available for office hours then you’re set to ask him any questions he always helped me with my homework daily because there are some people who thought he was just “another bad professor” and never bothered asking him for office hours there mistake. Trigonometric substitution, partial integration, and series you name it all complicated topics that I didn't understand at all but in 30 minutes I learned it easily because of his office hours. 100% take him. Also, he makes all his homework due at the end of the semester and drops the lowest homework and quiz so that's neat.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-15T02:34:29.503170Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Awesome professor, he is kind and genuinely tries to help his students. Make sure to keep up with your homework so you don't have to do it all in one day lol. Textbook problems are highly recommended as they are basically what is on the exams and quizzes. It may be a bit difficult to follow lectures if your knowledge of calculus 1 is little (things you should know are unit circle, derivatives, limits, some basic trig identities like sin^2 + cos^2 = 1, etc.).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T00:46:05.540986Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Taking MATH141 is absolutely never a fun experience. Being one of the hardest lower-level math weedouts with a significantly high fail rate made me extremely nervous to take this course. I was never good at calculus, so my stress levels were at its peak while taking this course. However, Amin made this experience worth it in the end- his lectures definitely were not my preferred style of learning but he is by no means a bad lecturer. He is always happy to answer questions before and after lecture, and during office hours. He also gives bonus points to those who catch his mistakes during class. He also records each lecture and posts notes every day (though the quality of the recordings are subpar, they can prove useful sometimes.) His class is formatted in a very straightforward way- there is a weekly quiz that will only feature examples directly taken from the textbook. As long as you study the textbook problems given, you will absolutely get 100%s on all your quizzes. These quiz problems also help you a lot for the midterms. I would say Amin’s midterms are significantly harder than other professors midterms- but FEAR NOT! While the exam averages were quite low, the curves given were insane (10%, 10%, 0%, 25% respectively). He also drops the lowest midterm score and the lowest quiz. This offered a massive cushion to those struggling in the course. As long as you do around or above the average, there is no fear of passing. Amin also offered a system where if you are still failing the course, if you do well on the final the final grade can replace your course grade- so hypothetically if you get a C- or above on your final you have a chance at success. All homework was due at the end of the semester, although I would highly recommend doing the homeworks as you do the units covered in class for maximum success in this course. Overall, I am extremely glad to have taken Amin for MATH141. If you are a student debating whether or not to take him: TAKE HIM! I cannot stress this enough. He might be an angel from heaven.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T07:13:22.640900Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Dr. Gholampour is a decent lecturer, but amazing grader. His way of lecturing may not work for everyone (which was to go through example problems of the topic at hand) but I felt it worked out for me, especially because I tried to do the WebAssign practice problems a day or two before he would go over the topic in lecture. MATH141 can be very difficult, but with Dr. Gholampour, the experience can be rewarding if you are willing to put in the work doing the homeworks on pace with his lectures and the practice problems in the book he gives (which are very similar, if not the same, as the questions you'll see in quizzes). If you do fall behind on the homeworks, you don't need to worry, as all of them are due at the end of the semester. If you fall behind on the actual material, you can always go to his office hours or meet with the TAs, who are very helpful in discussion and in exam preparation. His exams were definitely challenging, and when I talked to those with other professors, they had easier questions. However, he curves a lot (to the point where you can go into the final with more than a 100% in the class), and the final is also curved (even though it is pretty challenging. Your lowest exam is dropped, and your lowest quiz is dropped, which in the end allows you to actually focus on learning the material instead of stressing about your grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T23:45:41.349913Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Amin is the best choice for Math 141. Exams are insanely hard but quizzes are super easy. Curve is insane my 66 is a B- just don’t slack off and do the practice problems he assigns and you’ll be good. Hes an Ok lecturer but he’s a great tutor during office hours', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-19T08:00:20.931631Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Took 403 in Spring 2022 with Amin. The class poses an interesting dichotomy - he's a *really* good teacher, and his explanations of the concepts are clear and very helpful. However, the homeworks and exams are extraordinarily difficult. It took hours and hours to do each homework assignment, to the point that I was spending more time doing 403 homework each week than time I spent working on every other class combined. I would highly recommend taking Amin as a professor, just maybe not for 403 as it's already hard enough of a class on its own.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-20T18:58:50.351256Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Lectures are great, he records them and posts his notes too. Sometimes lectures were a little fast but it's fine, lots to get through. Textbook is good resource. If you want more on proofs go to office hours. Four midterms (3 curved for me) and a final (curved). Gives EC for finding lecture mistakes. Overall great professor, caring, definitely take Amin!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-22T01:50:42.144080Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I was fooled by these reviews into taking Amin for Calc 2. I, and many of my classmates, found the lectures to be very hard to follow because he makes too many leaps and expects everyone to follow, even though we are very unfamiliar with the material. The weekly quizzes were essentially homework checks composed of two problems selected from the recommended homework. The quizzes were pretty helpful in forcing you to do the homework, which forced you to maintain some level of competency in the class. Other than that, the tests were pretty hard, beyond a level that you can express your true knowledge of the topics, and the WebAssigns were a little too niche and overly complicated. The curve on the class was massive but it was more to address the fact that many of us had not been properly taught Calc 2 and performed poorly as a result. He's a sweet guy who means well but I think this class sucked a lot more than it needed to.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-22T01:59:48.186320Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Calc II is an undeniably challenging course, but it was made easier by Amin. His lecture goes fairly fast, but Calc II is a hard and fast-paced class, so there’s really no way around it. That being said, he replies to emails extremely quickly and does office hours by request throughout the day and even at night till 9 pm. And he truly is an amazing teacher, so there’s no way you’ll leave OH confused.\r\n\r\nI emailed him about OH at 8:13 pm and ended up meeting with him at 8:30 pm. When I asked him how he was so dedicated, he told me that he truly loves math. His passion for the subject matter undeniably makes this challenging class manageable.\r\n\r\nFor my Fall 2022 class, he curved 3 out of the 4 tests and the final (10%, 10%, 0%, 25%, 10%). He dropped the lowest test and the lowest quiz. He had 5 attempts per WebAssign and also curved your overall grade as well. He also had two other grading policies that are a little too complicated to explain here but should increase your grade by ~2%.\r\n\r\nHe’s an amazing lecturer, an approachable instructor, a kind person, and undeniably one of the UMD math department’s best professors.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-25T14:17:52.391213Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Curved my D+ (68) to a B-! Exams are a little tricky, but quizzes are fair because they come straight from the given textbook problems. Lectures are a little hard to follow, but he posts hand-written notes and posts the lectures online. As long as you practice and do your best, you should be alright. Math141 is not an easy class but with Amin, you’re nearly guaranteed to pass!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-25T17:46:09.925117Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "While I did end up doing well in the course, it was less because I was able to understand and master the content and more because of Amin's insane curve (My grade went from a c+ to a-). I feel like most of these reviews are a little misleading. He's a super nice guy, but let's not fool ourselves, his lectures were awful and exams were unfairly difficult. Luckily the TA's for this class were great- office hours is where I truly learned the course material. For anyone taking this course in the future, that would be my strongest recommendation for this course. DON'T SKIP DISCUSSIONS AND GO TO OFFICE HOURS. Also, as a lot of these reviews mention, Amin is a super compassionate and caring guy and makes himself available for office hours pretty much everyday, so if you have any questions you could also go to him. I never went to his office hours, but some kid in our class group me explained how he met with Amin everyday with questions and did very well in course. Any way, this is a hard course and one that easy to fall behind in, so stay on top of your work!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-28T02:56:57.647143Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I honestly think a lot of the problem with this course was that lectures weren't long enough. 50 minutes was not enough time to cover the topics we were learning, and class would often end before Gholampour was finished teaching what he had planned. He's a really nice guy and is clearly trying, but it's incredibly difficult to effectively teach 2-300 students in a giant lecture hall in 50-minute increments. For me, my TA carried the class. Dominic Flocco made every topic understandable and he was a really nice guy who also wanted us to succeed. This class was very difficult, and I'm speaking as someone who already knew the material from having taken AP Calc (Exam grade didn't transfer). However, Gholampour added multiple grade-saving curves/grade adjustments at the end of the semester, so most people passed even if they weren't doing well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-18T21:37:33.289199Z'}, {'professor': 'Amin Gholampour', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I was gonna write a really long grating review about Amin, but one of the people below me covered it pretty well. I'll rehash the main points and add a few things. Gholampour's a nice guy, but he's a terrible lecturer. After the first exam, I stopped going to lectures simply because they were making the class more difficult than it was by just learning the material in other ways. The TAs, as mentioned, are generally excellent. What I will say is often one TA will be better than others, so try and find the best one by trying out their various office hours. Gholampour's exams are completely brutal, averages were quite low (low 60s, a 75, and a 33), with the final exam average being a 48. When our fourth exam average was a 33, I went to a lecture with the purpose of mentioning my thoughts to him, so I talked to him after that lecture about my thoughts and he was completely unsympathetic to the idea that this somehow reflected on either his teaching ability or his ability to write exams. As for my advice for passing this class: watch Organic Chemistry Tutor videos on the topics, and follow along in your notes. Don't just watch it and assume you understand, genuinely walk through them with him. If you're taking it in a semester where GSS is offered for the course, go to GSS. And go to Keystone. It's not a well-known program, so it was generally 1 on 1 tutoring, although with the publication of this review it may get more traffic. Amin's curving policy was ridiculous, and in my opinion gave far too much leeway for people who slacked off, rather than reward those who worked hard (second lowest exam was replaced by your homework grade, which was basically a free A on an exam for everyone, regardless of how well students scored on their second lowest). Additionally, lowest was dropped, and specific exams were curved (albeit not the final). At the end of the day, what matters is your grade and not anyone else's, and because I got an A-, I am satisfied enough. But I wish Amin structured this course far better. I would recommend taking another professor if possible.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-23T03:03:04.077049Z'}], 'name': 'Amin Gholampour', 'slug': 'gholampour'}, {'courses': ['ENME641', 'ENME646', 'ENME332', 'ENME331', 'ENME331', 'ENME331', 'ENME332', 'ENME331', 'ENME331', 'ENME332'], 'average_rating': 2.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': "I'm sure Riaz knows what he's talking about, but he really doesn't make it evident in his lectures. He'll click through slides that I don't believe he made himself and often when students ask questions he is unable to answer them. He's a poor lecturer and frankly, I'm not sure why I continued to attend the class when I knew it was more effective to learn the material from the textbook.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2018-12-22T19:14:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': None, 'review': 'Fair exams, homeworks, and labs and was a very approachable and understanding professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-03T06:27:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': None, 'review': "On god the worst lecturer I've ever experienced. His TAs don't help. If you have a class with him, don't be surprised if the entire class hates him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-10T00:34:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': "He's a nice guy and he knows his stuff. I will say that. But the lectures are mostly derivations and the material is generally useless until you do example problems in studio. The exams are fair and easier than the homework problems. If you get him for studio, he does do a good job of explaining the concepts better in a smaller setting. That being said, I probably zoned out for most of the lectures throughout the semester and did fine in the class strictly because of studios. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-01T22:38:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "Lectures are pretty useless as they're all derivations of equations. literally 100% of my learning in his class came from homework and studios. But I'll give him 2 stars because he's kind and patient and encourages questions. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-16T18:20:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': "Riaz was an okay teacher. He's not bad, but not great, and probably could have passed the course without attending the lectures. The lectures were not necessary since he posts all lecture slides a day or so later. He likes questions, but may not understand your question entirely, so asking one on one at OH would be more helpful. The studios are where you will learn the most on how to solve problems. Homeworks were the most challenging, but still helpful. Exams were easier than the studios/homework, but studying from the studio problems and homework is the best way to prepare. Riaz also has a review session in the class before an exam which can be helpful.\r\n\r\nThe course content seems very challenging and confusing, but the exams are doable.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-27T18:14:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': "Riaz is an alright teacher. He is kind and responsive to students concerns but the lectures are not good. He goes through derivations far two quickly and his hand writing isn't always the best which can get confusing when there are so many similar variables used in fluid mechanics. Also the problems he presents in studio sessions are very difficult and often confusing.\r\nHowever, he does occasionally take the last ten minutes of class to do a non-graded knowledge check as a class, through a google form, and that was helpful. Also the exam review sessions and practice exams are well prepared and the exams are easier than I had expected. He is also a very kind grader on exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-04T12:14:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': 'I got a B- or B in ENME331 (fluids) when it was virtual. I really struggled in that class, I tried office hours and doing textbook problems, but everytime I saw a new problem I had no idea what to do. I think my error was a) taking it online (people cheated and I struggled to pay attention) and b) just trying to understand/memorize the problems rather than the actual concepts (like definitions of terms and what assumptions actually mean for the problem). I applied this in heat transfer and it really helped. He reads off slides and sometimes answers questions, its a fifty fifty sometimes he acts like stuff is obvious because he doesn\'t feel like explaining. I got a 65 on two of the three exams and was fine.\r\n\r\nIf you are going to take either of these classes, my advice is to actually just go to the studios. And then redo the problems afterwards sometimes. I only did this sometimes and still got an A. 90% of people skip them (because they are usually at inconvenient times and maybe because Professor Das talks so loud its basically yelling lol) but they are much more helpful than Riaz\'s lectures, and the problem sheets from studio aren\'t posted until right before an exam but it\'s helpful to have them as practice before you do the homework. Also actually do the homework even though they give you the solutions- the solutions are sometimes wrong and you will fail the tests. \r\n\r\nThat being said, I felt somewhat let down by Riaz. Nearly everyone was good about masks, but he didn\'t remind people to pull up their masks above their nose or not to eat or drink during class. During office hours if I was stuck even when I did everything right he just said oh you\'ll figure it out. His lectures were sort of dry, but more interesting in heat transfer (which was likely due to pandemic). I also heard about an issue with an ADS exam where there was a misprint and the professors didn\'t respond right away, but my friend said they got it sorted out it was just annoying. In fluids the grade point averages were "higher than normal" and he was pleased, but didn\'t seem to realize this was due to people cheating on the zoom exam. Overall an okay professor, you\'ll pass if you try your best even if it doesn\'t click for you. The heat transfer labs were much easier (and more helpful for understanding concepts) than the fluids labs. \r\n\r\nHe wore a mask while lecturing btw, used a mic so you can hear him, and did some other things right like let us use zoom rather than HonorLock and even moved exam dates around when people had conflicts. So pretty accommodating in that sense. The exams were easier than I expected based on the other work we did in class. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-13T21:43:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': 'I honestly don’t see why Riaz doesn’t have a higher rating. His lectures are very useful and he has them posted so you can refer back to them. The lectures are pretty straightforward and relatively easy to understand. \r\nHe is a VERY accommodating professor, he allowed me to make up homework’s and even a midterm when I really didn’t have a good reason to miss them.\r\nMidterms are usually pretty reasonable, and are very very similar to the practice exam he gives to you. \r\nHis lectures are pretty quick but that’s to be expected for a class that’s only 50 minutes long, with the amount of content we have to learn. \r\nThe text book sucks pretty hard tho. They seem to overcomplicate a lot of topics so I do not recommend using it. \r\nLabs are kind of a pain, but there’s only 6 of them. \r\nThe grade distribution is beautiful,\r\n20% midterm 1\r\n20% midterm 2\r\n20% labs\r\n20% HW\r\n20% final\r\nIt’s a very fair distribution. \r\nIf you study an average amount you can easily get a B or better ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-04-25T18:52:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "Riaz is a good professor. His lectures aren't super exciting, but he is clear in his explanations. The final, both midterms, homework, and labs are all worth %20 of the grade, which made the final much less stressful. Homework can be a bit difficult, but the TAs are helpful. There were two labs and both were quite easy. Exam questions are much easier than the homework.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T16:55:40.611021Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "Riaz is personally nice, but I wasn't a big fan of his teaching methods. Endless derivations in heat transfer are less useful than lots of examples so we can understand what kind of approach to apply to a given situation. I also didn't appreciate that we were told three different grading schemes by each professor and the TAs. Please communicate with each other! I don't have anything personal against Riaz but I'd avoid any of his classes in the future if I had a choice.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-24T16:46:19.174658Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Riaz', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "Dr. Riaz is probably my least favorite professor at this university. I don't think he cares about his students or about how well they understand the material. The lectures feel robotic and hardly worth going, but sometimes he doesn't post lecture notes until up to a week after the lecture (after homework is due), so you have to go and scribble down the equations that he wrotes. Most of the time is spent deriving an equation that you'll never use and then doing an example that's either way too hard or way too easy and you don't get anything out of it. Working/ listening through the studios and doing the homework are the only way that I learned any material for this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-01T19:13:34.840432Z'}], 'name': 'Amir Riaz', 'slug': 'riaz'}, {'courses': ['HONR268C', 'MIEH771', 'MIEH740', 'MIEH400', 'MIEH785', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'PHSC426', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH400', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH400', 'MIEH778', 'SPHL399', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH400', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH400', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'SPHL399', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH400', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786'], 'average_rating': 2.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amir Sapkota', 'course': 'MIEH400', 'review': "His exams are very fair. If you study and review your notes, you can get an A on the exams. Lowkey a harsh grader, but he lets you know how to improve your writing for essays. The workload for MIEH400 is not too bad, it's average for a high level PHSC course. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-15T19:11:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Sapkota', 'course': 'MIEH400', 'review': "This class is unnecessarily hard, exams count for 99% of your grade and they are all trick questions. Avoid Sapkota, he is not a good professor. Also the TA's in the class are not helpful", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-11-01T16:28:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Sapkota', 'course': 'MIEH400', 'review': "Professor Saptoka is quite passionate about the class, which made it all the more engaging for attending his lectures. If you are someone who is pursuing a career in Public Health, I believe he is one of the very few professors who talks about the serious issues we face. Course workload isn't bad at all but exams are 60% of your grade, and you really need to study well from them only using his lecture slides. Apart from that, he cares about his students and will help you in learning the material. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-27T12:45:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Sapkota', 'course': 'MIEH400', 'review': 'Exams are all trick questions. Not a fair grader, and the grading scale is horrendous. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-09T23:17:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Amir Sapkota', 'course': 'MIEH400', 'review': "I took this class in the summer. Content and exams weren't too bad and the essays were graded fairly. But it is really difficult to get an A or A+ in this class. Only the top ~8.5% of students get an A or A+, which is a worse ratio than organic chemistry 2 (16%) and calculus 2 (13%). Both of which are notorious weed out classes. The reason for this is that there are only 4 main assignments that comprise almost all of your grade and so if you do not do exceptionally well, there is very little else to support your grade with and he only gave our class a small curve on one of the exams. But he was passionate and knowledgeable on a topic I found very interesting so 3/5 stars.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-08-26T13:26:08.102160Z'}], 'name': 'Amir Sapkota', 'slug': 'sapkota_amir'}, {'courses': ['BUFN760'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amit Bubna', 'slug': 'bubna'}, {'courses': ['BMGT454', 'BMGT808T', 'BMGT858C', 'BUMK758F', 'BUMK760'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amna Khawaja', 'slug': 'khawaja'}, {'courses': ['CMSC424', 'CMSC724', 'CMSC498O', 'CMSC641', 'CMSC828O', 'CMSC320', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC828E', 'CMSC424', 'CMSC848E', 'CMSC724'], 'average_rating': 2.9333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'Prof. Deshpande was a great professor (especially for computer science courses). He did not just stand in front of the class and read off a power point. He actually taught the concepts, sometimes with no presentation at all. When he did use a power point, it was as a visual aid and not as a crutch.\n\r\nFor this semester, he did only quizzes (no midterm) and a final, plus homeworks. I liked the quizzes because it removed the stress of having a big midterm, however, it required you to always be caught up in the material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-22T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC724', 'review': 'A very good course and very good Prof. The course is quite extensive and well prepared covering the entire database concepts from basic to advance. The course is little bit heavy so be prepared to read lots of papers. Also a suggestion if you are taking this course then try to make the semester otherwise lighter. Else you may not get the time to read the papers thoughtfully. Grading is quite good.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-08-05T18:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC724', 'review': 'A very good course! Midterm and final will be difficult. He explains the concepts very well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-02T14:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "Very nice professor, willing to work with his students. His projects earlier on in the semester aren't a joke (unless you've already studied python and django). So much stress in finishing each project, but it really hammered in the concepts for databases. I would recommend this course, but probably not to final semester seniors.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-24T06:44:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "Nice professor. Didn't do the best job handling covid, but was clearly trying and cares.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-02T17:18:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'This class as an online course has been horrible. The homeworks are absolutely killer and take 10+ hours a week to get done, if you can even figure them out at all. They’re usually 20+ questions and some programming assignment that the instructions are often unclear for. Multiple times during the homework it feels like during lecture we were taught how to do a doggy paddle and the assignment is like figure out how to swim across the Atlantic, good luck. The midterm was poorly done too, with 2 parts on elms being multiple choice and a writing section, timed. I truly feel like I haven’t learned that much and the homeworks are incredibly frustrating. Lectures are not great either and we have a synchronous time every week where we meet and he just repeats what’s on the slides from the videos we already watched. This class is very poorly organized and I would not recommend it to anyone due to the frustration and headache.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-01T18:36:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "CMSC424 during the full covid semester is actually kind of absurd. The concepts build up extremely rapidly, but the extraordinarily difficult homeworks don't even cover material relevant to future jobs. If I ever have to calculate precisely how many hard disk seeks and block reads occur when running a SQL Hybrid Hash merge join operation in the worst case at a future job, I will actually eat my hat. The fact that homeworks ask us to effectively re-derive and analyze internal sql algorithms is a bit ridiculous for this semester. \r\n\r\nI made the mistake of not doing a couple early homeworks to make room for other classes, thinking the difficulty would be consistent throughout the semester. Turns out I need every point I can get in this class, and that's not really possible with how inscrutable and impossible the homeworks have become. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-11-03T05:09:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': None, 'review': 'Legit an extemely horrible class that has been poorly run during this fully online COVID semester. The homeworks are actually impossible to do good on since he barely even covers the concepts during lecture, and then on homeworks gives insanely detailed questions that not even the holy scriptures of the textbook cannot answer.\r\n\r\nThe midterm was extremely difficult and the class average was well below failing. The homeworks take an insane amount of time and scrutiny to complete, and I feel like I am walking out of this class as if I have learned nothing essentially.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-16T02:47:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "The lectures are worthless, the homeworks take 10+ hours to complete and even then getting good scores on them is extremely difficult, the exam was terrible and poorly managed, and I don't think I learned a single thing this semester other than some useful surface level fragments of information", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-16T02:50:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "First course I've ever had to withdraw from (3.9 GPA double major). Semester started off fine (SQL section was handled fairly) and veered completely off the rails into incomprehensible algorithms which were not well taught. Professor started off giving polls on certain concepts, but then didn't bother when it was really needed.\r\n\r\nHomeworks regularly required us to sift through documentation, including learning procedural SQL (not covered in class), to low-level implementations of data structures and joining algorithms in Python. If I wanted to write shitty low-level code for 10+ hrs/wk I would have just taken Operating Systems. In addition, even though the professor gives 20 late days, the standard due date for homeworks is within 3-4 days, so it's not that big of a helping hand. I thought the HW in the later half of the course would be similar to the difficulty in the first half, and got screwed having to write those algorithms with limited time.\r\n\r\nMidterm was filled with questions on highly specific concepts that were covered once in class. Average on Part 2 of the midterm was <50%. This midterm was also supposed to be taken closed note, but on the honor system. Any student who cheated probably gained a major advantage due to the specific nature of the questions.\r\n\r\nAvoid CMSC424 online with Deshpande at all costs. This class singlehandedly made me switch out of Data Science into the Machine Learning track, and probably killed any interest I would have in Data Science at all, which was a shame since I really enjoyed CMSC320 and CMSC422.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2020-12-14T07:27:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'good class pogchamp\r\nvery hard - but lots of interesting material\r\nonline environment is, if anything, just as good or better than in person lecture, as is the case with most computer science courses\r\n\r\nThe coding homeworks are often straightforward, but the gradescope questions are usually relatively long. Overall not too bad of a class. The exams are hard, but everyone does terribly, and the grading is extremely flexible.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-18T01:34:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "It's a good course but I don't know if its transition to online has been best. As many other reviewers have noted, there's a definite disconnect between the lecture/slides/textbook and the homework at times. Most coding assignments are fairly easy, but worksheets can be very vague and often require office hours for clarification. Projects/worksheets take up about 75% of your overall grade and there is probably a minimum of a solid 8 hours of homework each week. It seems like the curve will be fairly generous and I believe this class is pretty hard to fail, but it's also far from a piece of cake.\r\n\r\nAlso, there's simply way too much material involved in this course. You jump from topic to topic week after week while it feels like you're really just skimming the surface.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-21T04:30:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "I believe this class is necessary for all computer science majors to take because it gives you an in depth overview about databases and the theories/concepts behind them. However, the real world will probably cover 20% of what you actually learn. Since it was the covid online semester, I appreciate Amol for having a synchronous call once a week to cover the panoptos for the week, but if you didn't watch the videos or have any questions the lecture is useless. There was a homework worksheet on gradescope and mini coding project due every week which did seem tough to finish at times (especially at the end of the semester) but he was lenient and gave us 20 late days for the whole semester while dropping some assignments. The midterms were very hard and the averages of them were on the low side, but the curve was extremely generous (80% is an A). He is responsive to concerns and was one of the more understanding CS professors that I have had. The only comment that I have is that there are so many topics that you feel you are zooming without really learning it in depth. But it is kinda impossible to fail this class since the curve is generous and if you show effort within each assignment, you are guaranteed to pass.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-08T15:56:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'I took this class when it was online during covid. It was a terrible format for the insane amount of information they expected to teach. The pre-recorded lectures were decent (towards the end it started getting to be too much), but the once a week live classes were just simplified re-iterations of the pre-recorded lectures and did not add much value except for the few classes the professor created polls to practice application of the material.\r\n\r\nThe professor tried to answer questions during class but often ran out of time because he was spending most of the time re-iterating the material. There was no clear guidance to use the textbook, but sometimes he would answer a student question by just saying to read the textbook.\r\n\r\nHomeworks were way too long and sometimes vague in expectations. Exams were also too long to finish for the average person. There was an overall curve at the end that helped take into account the difficulty and effort required to complete all the assignments.\r\n\r\nI think a lot of the material in the class is useful to know, but since there is SO much information, it\'s hard to take all of it in and pick out which specific things you should know for homeworks or exams. A good word to describe this class is "overwhelming," but if you\'re prepared to consume an insane amount of information (with a decent amount of self study), then you could get a lot out of this class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-10T00:55:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'Absolute garbage professor. He gives out work without even teaching the material. Additionally, he has no respect for student concerns about taking an exam in person while Omricon is raging through the United States. Gave out assignments where majority of the time to work on it was during the Thanksgiving break. Would not take class with him. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-03T00:56:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "I would give 0 star if I could. The lecture slides are basically 100+ pages table of content with excessive amount of useless information. The exams are insanely long and difficult given only 60 minutes. His lecture is just hard to understand and he doesn't explain things well. Worst class I've ever taken at UMD.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2021-12-06T07:11:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "He is a very good and fair professor. He genuinely cares. CMSC424 could use some improvements - such as better coverage of the theory assessed on the exams. Most of the topics are covered well but the exams can be quite tricky. Projects are fair and even fun at times. I took the course hoping to be better prepared for industry since I lacked database experience. For me ~60% seems immediately useful and the remaining ~40% was some cool-to-know theory and some challenges/issues in the space. Others may not be happy with this ratio or they may perceive a different ratio. I enjoyed the class. I'd give it a 4, but I am giving it a 5 because it is definitely better than 2.93 it currently stands at.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-08T01:14:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "Not a good class at all. The lectures were very dry. I get it, databases aren't the most exciting topic in the world. But I just found it hard to retain anything from the lectures in this class. It's a very, very good thing that all the exams ended up being online, because I needed my notes and the slides as a reference. I just finished the final exam and there was so much stuff that I remember him talking about in class, but I couldn't remember any of the details of. Deshpande just doesn't seem to be very good at teaching. I don't think he got the concepts across very well at all.\r\n\r\nAnd man, this class is actually really hard! The projects will eat up tons of your time. The exams are really, really hard. Even the weekly quizzes were pretty challenging. The upside is that there's a very, very, very generous curve. No matter what, a 60 is the minimum grade to pass this class. That cutoff can be lowered, but never raised. So there is plenty of leniency. This class actually reminds me of 351 in a few ways. 424 focuses a lot on theory at times, much like 351. 351 is extraordinarily hard, but there's always a very generous curve at the end. This class is the same way.\r\n\r\nI have no doubt that the SQL skills learned in this class will be helpful. But this class is so much more than SQL, and I kind of mean that in a bad way. There's relational algebra and functional dependencies, E/R modeling, database implementation, then NoSQL stuff, and finally transactions. That's a vast array of topics, and they're done in a strange order, too. This class needs to be whittled down a lot. Focus much more on the SQL and NoSQL stuff. Then at the end, focus on database implementation. Cut out all the theory. Basically, what I'm saying is, this class covers a lot of useful information, but it also covers a lot of useless information. And under Deshpande, I think it's taught poorly. If I even got a 50% on this final, I'll be lucky. I'm just glad the cutoffs are so generous that I could afford to get a 10% on the final and still pass.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-12-18T21:18:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "good guy, but not the best at teaching/running a course. all the projects were rather difficult and required you to do a lot of learning outside of class to figure them out. on the bright side, no secret tests. the midterms and final were extremely long and difficult, but he heavily curves (A- is about an 80) to make up for it. giving him 3 stars because he does seem to care about his students learning, just doesn't seem the best at it", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T01:25:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'Amol is a nice guy and generally means well, but this class has a lot of issues.\r\n\r\n1. Assignments - In Fall 2021 we had 6 assignments (2 written, 4 programming). While they are somewhat helpful in understanding the material, their length makes them really time consuming (more than expected for a 400 level class). For example, I remember writing 20 or so SQL queries where 10 would have been perfectly sufficient, and in general the written assignments were really long. They aren\'t necessarily difficult, but you definitely have to start early. One nice thing that I really appreciated was that Amol gives you 10 free late days (up to 5 on a single assignment). \r\n\r\n2. Exams - The exams are quite difficult, not in terms of content but more so in terms of time. If you had 24 hours to complete it, you could probably get 80+ assuming you understood the material. But with the time constraint, it was definitely very hard to complete all of the questions fully (the averages on the exam were around 60%). One good thing is that Amol puts a fat curve on the class. He didn\'t disclose the official cutoffs, but in the beginning of the semester he said that an 80% would be an A (i think it ended up being a few points lower). \r\n\r\n3. Content - This is probably my biggest gripe with the class. Amol tries to cover at least 2 semesters worth of content in this class. As a result, he moves extremely fast and tends to not explain things as fully as he can. For in depth explanations, he just tells you to read the textbook (which is decent). The content starts off at a decent pace, but after midterm 1 really picks up. I didn\'t feel like I was able to absorb anything meaningful because I was so focused on just cramming all of this information into my head to study. I also think that a lot of the content can be changed. We spend a lot of time learning about specific operations on disk, even though Amol prefaces the unit saying "no systems actually do it this way anymore." He justifies it saying that this is still the foundation, but I personally found it very discouraging. \r\n\r\n4. Campuswire - This is maybe more of a personal issue, but Amol insists on using campuswire instead of piazza. I really hate campuswire (and I think the majority of the class did too). I find it harder to search posts, and you can\'t follow questions for when they\'ve been answered.\r\n\r\nIn general, databases is a pretty dry subject so I don\'t blame Amol for the class being generally boring. One thing I really liked was that he was very responsive so you generally got a fast response to questions on campuswire. He did also listen to students\' COVID concerns and had exams online (along with recorded lecture). There\'s definitely improvements to be made, so unless you are very interested in databases or need the class for a major requirement, I would avoid this class for now. \r\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-24T23:56:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "He gets a lot of hate but I don't fully understand why. His exams are difficult but he clearly cares about the students wellbeing by moving our midterms and finals online due to students fearing about COVID. He also frequently takes questions during lectures, which is not something other CS professors normally do. The projects in this class are quite tedious (especially project 4 and its lack of documentation), but overall he's a really nice guy, explains things well (at least for me), and has a really flexible late day policy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-25T06:40:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "I took the course during Fall 2021.\r\n\r\nThe biggest issue with the class was his teaching style. He would just plow through his slides which were pretty much just copy and paste from the textbook, but he wouldn't explain the content on the slides well. He would pretty much just end up reading it straight from the slides and then assume that we know exactly what it means, while on most slides there was always something he could explain more. This made the class really difficult when it came to exam time. There could be a question that was somewhat similar to the slides, and many students would still have no clue how to do it, which is a big issue. When you go to office hours, there have been multiple times where I've asked the different TAs the same question and have gotten a different answer, which made things even harder to understand.\r\n\r\nThe assignments were actually not too hard, just takes a lot of time, so you really have to set time to really work on it. Just getting a project set up could take 2-3 hours if your unlucky. Usually though, they are doable and you can get 90+ on all of them. \r\n\r\nWhile the teaching style was bad, you could get a 50-70 on every exam and midterm and still end up with a B/B+, so it ends not being the worst class. You do end up learning SQL, Spark, MongoDB, and important relational database concepts in the class.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-28T18:54:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'Amazing course. Learnt a lot about databases and the projects were fun to code. He is a good person and a great lecturer. He and his TAs are very responsive to questions after class on CampusWire which was a godsend because database environments and coding lead to a lot of questions. They also have a strong grip on the material and I got all my queries resolved. Highly recommend the class. One of the best ones that I have taken at UMD.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-31T19:18:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "This is THE worst structured course I have ever taken, which has not been helped by Amol's lectures not being useful, mostly just reading off of extremely long slide decks. Despite their size, the slides provide only minimal information to complete weekly homework and projects, so we are expected (explicitly) to read up on the programming language manuals for examples and syntax. The project descriptions are extremely vague and full of typos, with him usually updating them multiple times after releasing it. Sometimes the project descriptions contradict to examples we have gone over in class, making it all very confusing. \r\n\r\nThe class schedule is also a disaster. We will have homework due the day before exams, with a full project due only days after. On the topic of exams, he has put material on an exam that we had not learned until THE LECTURE BEFORE, with no opportunity to practice concepts on homework/projects. There were no explicit topic lists released for exams, usually having to be put together by scouring many piazza posts. The exams he released as practice did not accurately reflect the topics on the exam due to him re-organizing the syllabus, but he couldn't even be bothered to write an accurate practice exam. \r\n\r\nThe class has entirely too much content, trying to jam in at least 2 semesters of content, a lot of which is theory with no practical examples of why it is useful. \r\nI would not recommend taking this course under any circumstances. If you want to learn SQL, you are better off teaching yourself than subjecting yourself to this misery.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-11-03T04:39:22.616702Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'This was the most miserable class I have ever taken. It\'s hard to know where to start:\r\n\r\nThe review below touches on this, but the class is structured and managed terribly. The slides don\'t have enough information to rely on, but the lectures often weren\'t useful enough, so it felt like I was losing by going to class (I went to class every day) or losing if I didn\'t go. Some of the slides literally say to look stuff up online. There is a topic called Canonical Cover we "learned" where the slides said to look up how to do it, we didn\'t do any examples in class, and then we had to do Canonical Cover twice on homework and on an exam. Because literally everything in the class is on exams, there was even a case where something we learned in the last 15 minutes of class the day before the exam was on the exam. It makes it extremely difficult to study, especially because slides are grouped by unit, which means you have to sift through a ~250 slide slideshow to find any information. Furthermore, Amol does not provide good examples of stuff. The limited examples he provides are often copied and pasted form the textbook. I had no SQL experience before this class, but when we covered SQL he never really taught us how to write queries, he just sped through the syntax. This meant that I struggled on the SQL programming assignments.\r\n\r\nAssignments are doable, but often require a ton of time. We had homework and projects due within days of exams. At one point we had three weeks\' worth of homework assigned simultaneously. He does schedule assignments they\'re all done before Thanksgiving, but as a result we\'d only have 1-2 days of "rest" between programming assignments. Homework is your only attempt to get practice with the vast majority of the class content. The homework was okay, but he never provides answer keys because of his lax late policy. I\'d rather have him be slightly harsher about homework deadlines so I can actually get feedback and learn from the homework, because the Grade Scope rubric often doesn\'t provide the feedback you need.\r\n\r\nThis class also relies on Docker, so if you have a slow/old computer, like I do, you will be miserable on the programming assignments. Just a heads up.\r\n\r\nTo summarize, this class was terrible. If you are completely new to databases, like I was, just learn how to use SQL or MongoDB on your own. The hell you have to go through in this class is not worth the very little gain you\'ll get.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-13T19:27:48.347925Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'He is very very smart and this course covers a LOT of material. I was new to everything database/SQL, but had to learn fast. That being said, I thought the professor did a great job at teaching the content and answering questions for those who attended class. Projects were long but manageable, not to mention that he gave week long extensions available for every project/HW as the late policy. Overall, very useful class with lots to learn.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-13T23:08:08.851977Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'The only pros to this semester were that the dreaded B+ tree, the E/R Project, and the math-related projects are removed. Spark is a separate project and MongoDB was another separate project, along with a new JDBC/ODBC project. That\'s the only reason why I\'m giving this review two stars, since the projects were actually useful and were a lot easier than they were in the past, and from the generous late policy.\r\n\r\nBut other than that, this was miserable. Each topic no matter how complex it is was gone through in such surface level so then we have to pick up extra time ourselves to thoroughly learn the concepts, especially canonical cover, and concurrency. For canonical cover, we were just supposed to look up an algorithm instead which was ridiculous. Also, the fact that we have to study I don\'t know a 1000 slides for an exam that can ask about literally anything is ridiculous too. I could be fine with all of this if the homeworks had detailed solutions after them. Some answers are just marked as "Correct" or "Incorrect" without giving us the full answer, and how we get to that answer. Also, as I mentioned earlier in learning the material on our own, examples were not given well at all. Examples should mimic homework difficulty so then we can learn from them and apply to the homework problems, not learning them in surface level and then having to take a lot of extra time just to do the complex ones. And with the late policy, official solutions can\'t be released, which I understand that. But if that\'s the case, then we need more complex examples with solutions so we have a point of reference. Overall, this class was just a lot. If you want to learn databases, you\'re better off learning it on your own.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-15T00:42:28.846795Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'Learned a lot of material in this class. We started with SQL, some theory about database design, MongoDB, Spark and ended with some more theory. Definitely a challenging class but there was a lot to learn. Every homework/project had a one week, no questions asked extension. Exams were challenging but also always had questions that were on the homework.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-20T01:49:54.648766Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'Let’s start with the pros. The course teaches you a decent amount of concepts about different database systems, how to design them, and how to work with each. The projects were a lot of fun and taught me most of what I know about databases. I would say you could finish a project in a day or two if you understand the concepts. With all that being said.. the homeworks and exams are MISERABLE. Amol has HUNDREDS of slides on a subject, but they don’t really teach you much. He does go in depth about some subjects in class, but a lot of it is left to self teaching (go figure, it’s a CS course). I wouldn’t take this course again. A lot of what I found to be useful can be learned on your own if you follow some advanced SQL book and lookup Apache spark and mongodb. The last 4 weeks of class are mostly useless, as he goes into how database programs are implemented. It may seem useful at first, but there are just so many concepts to memorize. I’m giving the class 3 stars because I enjoyed the projects. The other material was insane. On the bright side, there is a pretty generous curve.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-21T02:31:25.818536Z'}, {'professor': 'Amol Deshpande', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'Content in projects had very little to do with exams and lectures and had little impact on our grade relative to how time consuming they were, there was just too much content in the course to where we were allowed a cheat sheet on the final and it was possible you missed half the content on the exam', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2023-01-28T16:43:39.818866Z'}], 'name': 'Amol Deshpande', 'slug': 'deshpande'}, {'courses': ['ENES601', 'GEMS297', 'ENME711', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'ENES221', 'GEMS496', 'ENME361', 'GEMS497', 'ENAE655', 'ENME662', 'ENME462', 'ENME489P', 'ENME808P', 'ENME462', 'ENME462', 'ENME662', 'ENME489P', 'ENME704', 'ENME808P', 'ENME462', 'ENME662'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'One of the best professors I have ever had. He teaches the difficult material very well and truly cares about his students. He is also funny and cracks a lot of jokes during class. You absolutely must take him for 221 or any other class he teaches!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-22T00:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME462', 'review': 'Great professor. He takes his time going over the material in class and then in the discussions the TA reviews it again to make sure you really understand it. Exams are open book. Homeworks are generally tough and long but some problems come from the book. I would recommend taking Dr. Baz for any class as he is a great teacher! Very helpful at office hours and student concerns as well!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-21T00:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME462', 'review': 'Vibrations II managed to be much easier than Vibrations I, probably due to Dr. Baz. Well laid out lectures slides that guide you through the homeworks. And there were just 2 exams, homework, and a final. Exams were open book! Take Dr. Baz!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-23T14:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME664', 'review': 'Dr. Baz made grad dynamics easier than undergrad dynamics. I took this class as an undergraduate and I was pleasantly surprised by the class material and Dr. Baz. What was taught in ENES221 was an okay introduction. ENME664 filled in many of the details that were missing and introduced far easier (if you can understand the math) methods to characterize the dynamics of a particular system.\n\r\nDr. Baz reviews the last lecture before each lecture. This is useful if you have missed a class and I think it helps me piece everything together mentally. He sometimes notes that he miswrote something last time and he\'ll correct it here too.\n\r\nUnfortunately, the book he chose for the class is not very good, and he admits this numerous times. I didn\'t use it very often. I found what he discussed in the lectures and the lecture slides he posted (which he often did not cover specifically in class; the projector seemed to be used for when he was running out of time) to be sufficient for most work in the class. He will recommend a number of other books, with reservations. Most books don\'t seem to cover everything he wants to cover.\n\r\nIn this class I was introduced to what he calls the "Augmented Force Method" for constrained systems. This method is extremely powerful and allows me to directly find the equations of motion of very complicated systems with a great number of degrees of freedom. This method is relatively new and it is not covered in most textbooks. In my opinion, this method should be taught to all mechanical engineers and embraced as the easy way to do these problems. I highly recommend taking this class with Dr. Baz for this reason as I\'m not sure if the other professors would cover this method. (If they don\'t, you apparently can read about it in Analytical Dynamics by Udwadia and Kalaba.)\n\r\nHis expectations were reasonable, but they were low in my opinion. I noticed that the syllabus listed many topics that were not covered. He seems to have scaled back the class to make it more easily doable. Even still, most students could not handle the work in this class based on what they\'ve said to me.\n\r\nThere were 7 homeworks with 4 problems each. Generally these problems were straightforward if you could follow the lectures, however, there were some tricky ones. He provided reasonably detailed solutions to every homework problem and exam, so I could figure out what I did not get earlier. The homeworks can be rather time consuming, however, I got better at doing them quickly as the semester progressed.\n\r\nHe\'s a very easy grader. On several of my homeworks I noted that my answer was incorrect for X and Y and he still gave me 8 to 10 of the points out of 10! I think he wants to see that you understand the method and cares less if you get the same exact solution he does.\n\r\nHis exams are basically simplified versions of the homework problems. The two hour and quarter exams had two problems and the final had three problems. You can use ANYTHING you want to during the exams. Most students used laptops, but I found this to be distracting and clumsy, so I made some good reference sheets and remembered most of what I needed to know.\n\r\nOverall, I\'d highly recommend taking ENME664 with Dr. Baz.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': 'The man is the absolute best. He teaches his class how every class should be taught. He gives really hard homework problems that force you to use Matlab and other online calculators, but his tests are super straightforward and just test that you know the concepts. Also incredible in office hours and a really funny and nice man', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-20T01:55:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': "Baz is the goat. If he teaches vibes this semester, take him! You will not regret it. Homework's are hard, but exams are very straightforward. He does not curve the class but grades individual exams leniently.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-06-10T14:13:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': 'best engineering professor at UMD', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-19T19:46:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME462', 'review': "Dr. Baz is the best professor I've had here. He takes great care to go over everything in a lot of detail and simply so people can understand it. Homework are pretty hard, but ask him to go over a problem in office hours and he'll walk you through how to solve it. Exams are really simple and test core understanding. Baz has never written an extremely difficult or unfair exam. Amazing professor, you can tell he really cares about teaching. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-17T02:26:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME462', 'review': "Dr. Baz is awesome. It will feel like you're not learning much, and his lectures can be super boring, but I felt by the end I had learned a decent bit about controls. The homework is insanely tough but he takes you through it in office hours. The exams on the other hand are crazy easy (as in you will get an A if you come prepared). My favorite thing with Dr. Baz is that he realizes you aren't going to solve a bunch of equations by hand in real life so he encourages using programs like MATLAB.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-02T01:40:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME462', 'review': 'Baz is great. His homeworks tend to be pretty hard, but his exams are a dream. There was rampant cheating on the first exam in my class so they scrapped the grade and had us take the rest of the exams in class, but despite this the average on the second exam was a 96. Honestly, never had an exam as easy as that in my 4 years at UMD. Overall, great at lecturing and very reasonable exams, take this class with him if you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-02T03:09:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME462', 'review': 'Very caring professor, inspires you do well in life.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-13T18:42:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME462', 'review': 'By far one of the best classes I had to take at UMD as a transfer student. The lectures may seem as if you are not learning a lot and the homework can be tough but Baz has office hours that literally explains how to answer the questions. If you come PREPARED, study and ask questions you will get an A. The course project at the end of the semester looked a little rough but Baz always helps. Baz wants his students to do well and makes sure of that. If you are struggling he works with you. A great class and a great professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-21T01:27:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME462', 'review': 'Dr. Baz is an amazing professor. He acknowledges that this is a senior-level course and wants the students to pass it and "get it done." He has long lecture slides but does most of the writing on the board. The homework was tough, but he goes over the solutions during his office hours, and he records and posts them as well. The exams could be challenging, but he posts practice problems and has problems posted in the lecture slides. Dr. Baz provides plenty of resources to do well in this course, and he also is a light grader on his exam. There is nothing negative to say about Dr. Baz!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-25T17:37:09.645775Z'}, {'professor': 'Amr Baz', 'course': 'ENME662', 'review': 'A professor who gives so much and emphasizes on learning', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-30T12:17:39.091116Z'}], 'name': 'Amr Baz', 'slug': 'baz'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'UNIV101', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amy Alexander', 'slug': 'alexander_amy'}, {'courses': ['HONR229M', 'HONR228G'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amy Brown', 'course': None, 'review': "I took Honr229M with Professor Brown in Fall 2011. She was a pretty good teacher. The material was a little boring and the one midterm (there was only one exam all semester, which was great) was a bit challenging, but all the other assignments were fairly easy. Just do well on the group projects, which were straightforward, and they should boost your grade. Her grading could be a little random, and she didn't give us rubrics or anything, but I don't think she graded very harshly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-18T23:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Brown', 'course': 'HONR228G', 'review': "I had Professor Brown for HONR 228G (Food Ethics). The class was held as open discussion between students. Students were required to complete readings and submit discussion questions on ELMS before each class. The questions and participation in class were the only grades we received other than an in class presentation and 10 page final paper. They were graded out of 3 points and NOT on completion, so if you lost 1 point you were already knocked down to a D. The readings could also be quite long and time consuming. Dr. Brown also deflated grades at the end of the class by changing scores on past assignments. I was surprised that my 99% dropped down to a 93% for no apparent reason towards the end of the class. Most people still ended up with As. She gets 3 stars because I still got an A and the class was interesting enough, but I wouldn't recommend her class to anyone else. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-02T19:09:30Z'}], 'name': 'Amy Brown', 'slug': 'brown_amy'}, {'courses': ['ANSC232', 'ANSC330', 'ANSC420', 'ANSC110', 'ANSC388', 'ANSC237', 'ANSC386', 'ANSC108', 'ANSC105', 'ANSC232', 'ANSC105', 'ANSC237', 'ANSC330', 'ANSC388', 'ANSC232'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amy Burk', 'course': 'ANSC232', 'review': "Professor Burk is one of the nicest professors I have ever met and really does care about getting to know her students. She really knows her stuff about horses and her exams and quizzes are more than fair as long as you attend lecture and read your book. If you don't do very well on an exam you always have the chance to make up your grade with extra credit opportunities. She gives you the entire semester to get extra credit which is extremely generous.\n\r\nIf you are interested in horses I would recommend taking this class with her as she really cares about the animals and your learning experience too!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-11T09:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Burk', 'course': 'ANSC232', 'review': 'Dr. Burk is one of the best professors i had in my academic career. As an abroad exchange student i took her horse management class and was a bit worried as i had zero background- she had amazing slides, great explanations and always a smiling face and an intelligent attitude. She is the best at her field and i learned a lot. Wish i could stay for one more semester and take more classes with her', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-05-01T08:25:52Z'}], 'name': 'Amy Burk', 'slug': 'burk_amy'}, {'courses': ['INAG110', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG110'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Dr. Fisher is great!! Apart from the speeches there is very little work. She is extremely lenient with grading which makes public speaking less stressful. She's also a good lecturer so class was usually interesting.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T17:15:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'This class was pretty nice, Professor Fisher led it well and had a fun energy. It wasn’t too difficult, the speeches do require some preparation though. Great way to cross off that communications gen ed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T22:27:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Mrs. Fisher was a great professor. Very kind and understanding. She communicates frequently and well. This class isn't terribly difficult, however, you must put in the work to do well. The speeches require time and practice. Have fun with this course and remember that the final is only 10% of the grade. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-28T02:00:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Amazing teacher, with excellent communication skills, lots of energy, easy to contact, and clear rubrics and grading for everything. Oftentimes, unless we are presenting speeches, she would let us off early or straight-up cancel class/post the lecture online. Classwork and hw assignments were all very easy and quick to complete. Midterm and final are multiple-choice online quizzes taken in her class. There are 4 speeches all with very clear rubrics and grading criteria. She does not require us to dress up like some of the other comm teachers. Literally if you prepare your speech the day before and have adequate notecards and tried, you should have an A in this class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-08T04:01:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Great teacher, easy workload besides from preparing for speeches. As long as your speech follows the worksheet, you won't lose points. Highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-21T23:35:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Fisher is the absolute best for this class. There may be others who are also really good, but I think Fisher tops all of them. She's incredibly lenient with how she grades, and if you mess up anything on accident such as incorrectly reading the directions to homework, she will fix your grade assuming you make the proper corrections even past the submission deadline. She doesn't take that many points off during speeches assuming you follow everything in the rubric. The exams are also super duper easy as it should take you at most 20 minutes each for the midterm and the final. The only thing I dislike about this class is the required attendance. I get that it's necessary for graded in-class activities, speeches, or exams but sometimes she presents slides covering textbook material in class which I think is a waste. Nonetheless, I still think she's the best INAG teacher. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-31T02:12:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Definitely the best professor for this class. The speeches aren't really graded hard. Basically if you do them and meet the requirements you will get a 100. Super easy workload, just prepare for your speeches some when you have them and you will cruise to an A. She is also super understanding and tries to not keep us in class unless she has to.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-09T04:06:50.606123Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'I took Mrs. Fisher based on reviews here and she most definitely surpassed all my expectations. A hilarious professor who genuinely cares for the well-being of her students. She keeps lectures entertaining and is very fair with her grading of speeches and other assignments. Highly recommended to everyone!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T15:05:09.749647Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Love her!! She made me excited to go to class, even though I’m a bit shy and don’t like public speaking. Midterms and finals are the easiest thing ever and is on Google Forms. She does helpful Kahoot reviews before those. All of us got an automatic 100% for the first speech if we did it. Very caring and loves to talk to people. Amy sometimes tweaks people’s grades if they didn’t get the one they wanted. She excused the homework for my friend and got him to a 93 for an A! Would definitely take her again!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-25T17:36:44.392919Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Fisher', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Amazing lecturer that creates a good environment to learn in and grow. The class is very easy and she does not stress over little grades; as long as you show effort, you will get almost a perfect grade. Her Kahoot reviews before exams are basically what shows up on the exam and she is very clear on what she wants from the speeches (which makes up the greatest portion of your grade); just hit those pointers are they are all 100s.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-03T07:15:13.455547Z'}], 'name': 'Amy Fisher', 'slug': 'fisher_amy'}, {'courses': ['ENCH437', 'CHBE426', 'CHBE437', 'ENCH609', 'CHBE497', 'BIOE489R', 'ENCH648P', 'CHBE369', 'ENES602', 'CHBE333', 'ENCH648P', 'ENES601', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENES602', 'BIOE489R', 'CHBE497', 'CHBE697', 'ENES601', 'ENES602'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amy Karlsson', 'course': 'CHBE497', 'review': 'Has high standards, but is very open to working with students to help them. Works hard to help students work on specific interests within the class. Lectures are engaging and easy to understand. Exams are long but fair, and several past exams are given to help study', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-03T17:19:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Karlsson', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Dr. Karlsson has been a great teacher for ENES100. This was her first time teaching it but she knew her stuff and prepared for it. Her grading for major project presentations could be harsh at times, but she always made her expectations very apparent to the class. Expected a lot from you but was always willing to help you learn as long as you tried.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T21:15:36.908800Z'}], 'name': 'Amy Karlsson', 'slug': 'karlsson'}, {'courses': ['FMSC332', 'FMSC660', 'SPHL399', 'FMSC270', 'FMSC270', 'FMSC332', 'FMSC601', 'GERM103', 'FMSC332', 'FMSC332', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC332', 'FMSC332', 'FMSC270', 'FMSC601', 'FMSC660'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amy Lewin', 'course': 'FMSC332', 'review': 'save yourself the work and headache. If you are here for an upper level elective, The amount of work for this class is a shit ton. take online courses during winter and summer. never again. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-10-25T15:24:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Lewin', 'course': 'FMSC332', 'review': 'Great professor, I learned a lot from this class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-17T17:28:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Lewin', 'course': 'FMSC332', 'review': 'Fantastic! Communicates material clearly and tries to make it engaging and applicable. Cares so much about her students. Really fair assessments, very flexible. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T20:09:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Lewin', 'course': 'FMSC332', 'review': 'Prof Lewin is the best. I just took FMSC 332 online in a 3 week semester. I cannot recommend this class enough. It was a very intense 3 weeks but the topics were super interesting and the class was asynchronous. There were 5 discussion boards, 5 quizzes from the textbook, 2 papers, and a family project. It def kept me busy but I am so glad I signed up for this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-20T18:55:55Z'}], 'name': 'Amy Lewin', 'slug': 'lewin_amy'}, {'courses': ['CHEM276', 'CHEM689', 'CHEM889E', 'CHEM481', 'CHEM688M', 'CHEM690', 'CHEM889F', 'CHPH709A', 'CHEM612', 'CHEM482', 'CHEM689L', 'CHEM611', 'CHEM682', 'CHEM689L'], 'average_rating': 1.7273, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM276', 'review': 'Dr Mullin is often misunderstood, she is a very nice lady who cares about her students learning. She also believes in challenging her students academically and making tests hard. but she will take care of the grades in the end. she might be a little scattered in lecture sometimes but that is probably because this stuff is so basic for her (her research is in quantum chemistry) but if you go to her office hours she is AWESOME. I have learned a ton from her. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-17T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': "Worst professor to begin my college career with. She is terrible at conveying the topics to her students. No doubt she is a smart person but her way of understanding chemistry doesn't work for everyone. She could barely get through an example without confusing herself so I have no idea why she thinks her students could understand her. Do your self-esteem and GPA a favor and AVOID her!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-16T13:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': "Don't take this professor. Her lectures are alright, but not great. Her exams would not be difficult except you never know what is on them. She may say one sentence about a topic and it makes up a quarter of the exam. If your lucky you studied the right information, but you never know. She does curve a lot, I think that I had a C+ or B- and I ended up with an A.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-21T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': "Please don't take her if you have a choice. She is awful! She tests on material she never goes over and blames the students when everyone fails. Her teaching methods are all over the place, she is obviously a smart person but is awful at teaching the material at a freshmen college level. I regret taking her, I wish I took general chemistry instead because you can take gen chem and be a biochem/chem major. Be prepared to fail if you take her. She destroys your self-esteem about you ability to do chemistry ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-12T18:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': 'She is a great lecturer but her exams are extremely difficult, so her lectures dont help at all unless you are some genius. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-11T15:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'bad lecturer. although professor mullin is very knowledgeable, she does a very poor job of explaining simple topics of chem131 to her students. her lectures are confusing, and she quickly jumps back and forth between topics. she also goes way into detail of upperlevel topics that are not needed for the exams and that are too complex to understand in a gen chem class. you must be very self sufficient in this class to learn and hopefully get a good TA.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'b+', 'created': '2011-03-27T01:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "where do i start?? oh i start by saying SHE SUCKS! she is one of those professors that destroy your self esteem and then give you a C as a consolation price to make you think she is doing you a favor! I went into the class with high hopes and after the first test, i knew i had the wrong professor! to start with, her class is an uphill battle and you will spend the rest of the semester fighting to stay alive! i attend over 90% of her lectures and i can count the number of times i actually learned something in one hand, over 90 percent of the work was done by myself, self learning. Our TA, Lenea Stocker was also really helpful. and when you think you got the material down and are prepared for the test? she hits you with something that is not even in the book! To do good on her tests, you have you go inside her head and think the way she thinks! After reading my review and that of others on this page, you'll be a fool to take her. SHE IS A SELF ESTEEM KILLER AND SHE CANNOT TEACH. and most likely, your grade in her class is not justified and will not reflect what you know. SHE is only gets that one star because we are required to give a minimum of a star.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T00:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Mullin is seriously not a bad professor like other people have said. Yes, you WILL have to do readings outside of class by yourself. She does not assign readings for you. You can read the chapter if you feel like it (which I recommend). Do practice problems. The homework on Mastering Chemistry is really not terrible. You have 3 tries for each problem. Yes, you do lose points for getting the wrong answer, but you can still miss quite a few and still get a good grade for the homework. PLUS, the lowest homework score is dropped and your homeworks together will combine to one test grade. There are extra credit clicker questions and this class is generously curved. I got an 88% or so in the class and still got an A+. You need to study on your own when you have to. There are office hours and you should go if you need to. Dr. Mullin has a very friendly personality, so don't be intimidated. Grading is not bad like what people have said. I have made some pretty poor mistakes on my tests and there are certain things I deserved. But also, I did get partial credit when I deserved it. I liked the tests since there were no multiple choice questions. Just four 25 point questions. The wording of the question may catch you off guard, BUT if you read very carefully, they are really not that hard to understand. You need to think outside of the box since they are not straight questions from your textbook, but she DOES cover the concepts in class. She lectures mostly by writing on the chalkboard and there aren't powerpoints for you. I think it's easier for her to draw and solve stuff on the board, then to give you a powerpoint of notes, but by writing on the board, she takes a little time to erase the stuff, which makes it seem as if there isn't enough time to cover all the material. I honestly don't prefer chalkboards, but I can't think of a better way to teach chem. Don't sit in the back of class, you won't learn. Too many people talking back there and it's hard to see the board. Good luck. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "By far one of the worst professors i have had in a while. She cannot teach at all. in an applied science like chemistry you can't say that you go from point A to point B without explaining the process of how you got there. She seemed nice at first but, first impressions can be misleading, i have had some very mean spirited teachers in the past, and they at least give 1 pt partial credit if you at least give a feasible attempt at a question, not Mullin. Harsh grading, poor teaching skills, tests are one giant curve ball after another, avoid if you can...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-15T19:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Horrible professor. She can't teach and her exams are ridiculous; four 25 point questions that are unlike any in the textbook, so even if you teach yourself the material perfectly you could end up screwed. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-12T19:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amy Mullin', 'course': None, 'review': "Mullin expects too much from her students.\r\nShe is a very enthusiastic person, and obviously loves chemistry, but the way she teaches is too complicated. She goes into too much detail refering to higher levels of chemistry that is not needed, nor understood, for Gen Chem 1. OR, she doesnt go into enough detail. She tells us she wants us to understand the concepts, and be able to apply them in a challenging way--in other words, she words all her exams in the most difficult manner, and all other professors' exams are way easier. \n\r\nIf you must take her, rely on the book. Its a fantastic source for CHEM131 and explains everything so well....and hope you get a fantastic TA like our class did. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-11T00:45:00Z'}], 'name': 'Amy Mullin', 'slug': 'mullin'}, {'courses': ['BSST330', 'BSST399T', 'BSST630', 'BSST338R', 'BSST335', 'BSST338R', 'BSST335'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amy Pate', 'slug': 'pate_amy'}, {'courses': ['MIEH688', 'MIEH773', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH785', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH609', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'MIEH690', 'MIEH699', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH699', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH400', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH699', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH690', 'MIEH699', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amy Sapkota', 'slug': 'sapkota_amy'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'UNIV107', 'CMSC100', 'INST101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amy Vaillancourt', 'slug': 'vaillancourt'}, {'courses': ['FIRE155', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE255', 'FIRE309'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Amy Voltz', 'slug': 'voltz'}, {'courses': ['ECON442', 'ENME331'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'An Wang', 'slug': 'wang_an'}, {'courses': ['SPAN301', 'SPAN302', 'SPAN426', 'SPAN310', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN311', 'SPAN325', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN311', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN311', 'SPAN325', 'SPAN425', 'SPAN625', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN311', 'SPAN301'], 'average_rating': 4.4737, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': None, 'review': 'Ana is an excellent teacher and I have had her in 301 and am taking her class for 302 again. She is very friendly and is more than happy to help in office hours', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-10-10T11:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN302', 'review': "She's pretty nice. She tries to make class interesting although the subject matter is really boring. She calls on people entirely at random. Expect to participate every class.\n\r\nMy one major complaint is the hw. She added homework to the class that was not written on the syllabus literally every single class until the last two weeks of the semester. Sometimes it was multiple assignments. It could be hard to keep track of, and it made the syllabus almost pointless. She should just write it down at the beginning of the semester. It was a reasonable amount of homework, but it was hard to remember what was actually due.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-15T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN301', 'review': 'Ana was a great teacher. She made it easy for you to understand everything she teaches, and her expectations are very clear. She even gives you the opportunity to turn in all your writing assignments twice and takes the average grade of the two. Her voice reminds me of watching a Spanish soap opera, and I really enjoyed her class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-01-18T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN302', 'review': "Ana was great!\n\r\nShe does pick favorites and there's no raising your hand in this class -- she calls on people.\n\r\nBut she does try to make things interesting with movies, songs, pop culture, etc.\n\r\nThree papers, a few quizzes, a midterm, and a final.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN301', 'review': 'Ana\'s a good professor who will really work with you. Her class is not "easy" but not hard to get an A in. \n\r\nAlso, if you mark an answer wrong on a test and think that it could be taken as right, argue the point with her, she will often see your side and give you at least some credit.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-21T13:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN302', 'review': "I had Ana for 301 and 302 and she was entertaining and very fair for both courses. She's really nice and approachable and has realistic expectations for the class. She makes otherwise boring grammar and composition somewhat fun with songs, games, and group activities. I'd definitely recommend taking her class!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-16T07:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN302', 'review': "Overall, Spanish 302 is a kind of boring course, but Ana was a pretty good teacher. She's from Spain, so she's a little gruff, but she's organized and grades pretty fairly. My favorite part of the course was preparing for the final b/c groups design different review games for the class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN311', 'review': '311 was an exceptionally fun syllabus, so I\'m sure it would be easy with any teacher, but Ana\'s nice enough, and grades very leniently. Unfortunately she does have favorites, so it really helps if you can make a positive impression in the first week or so of class.\r\nAlso, she\'ll sometimes "pick on" people for no apparent reason. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-12-31T17:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN311', 'review': "I had her for both SPAN302 and SPAN311. She's a nice teacher and fair grader. She's got a good sense of humor and doesn't overwork you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-09T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN301', 'review': 'I loved taking her class. This class made me want to get better. \r\nAna is always happy to help and gave me some resources I can use to improve my speaking.\r\n\r\nShe does in fact call on people randomly, but you can raise your hand. Her quizzes are kind of hard though. \r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-23T20:44:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN301', 'review': "She is an awesome, kind, and very lenient professor. The homework doesn't take much time and is mostly work on the Supersite, improving your knowledge of Spanish grammar, vocabulary, tenses, etc. We wrote four essays total which were not much of a hassle either; they actually were interesting to write.\r\nIn class, we would talk only in Spanish and mostly with each other. It could be annoying sometimes since some people are there just to slack, and some are there to actually learn. However, Ana was great! I loved how she would include personal stories! Really recommend taking her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-25T23:42:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN311', 'review': "Ana is so great! She's funny and helps all students regardless of their abilities. I really feel like this course helped me get better with speaking and I felt more confident speaking in front of classmates. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-07T12:55:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN301', 'review': "Overall, she's an awesome professor. She is very kind and makes class engaging for everyone. As some other reviewers have said, she likes to do this by calling on people randomly. This can be a little annoying but it really does make you pay attention and follow along. She's a fair grader and provides a sentence or two of feedback on literally every assignment. She also grades very quickly compared to some other professors, you'll never have to wait very long for an essay to be graded.\r\n\r\nMy only complaint is that at times her assignments were not spaced out well. We could two days without any work outside of class and then have an essay rough draft, a peer review, and an hour's worth of Supersite activities due on the same day. If you're a procrastinator, this can be a problem.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-26T22:36:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN301', 'review': "Ana is hands-down the funniest lecturer in the Spanish department! I had her both for 301 as well as 311. She's a lenient grader, but as others have mentioned she likes to stick to the schedule on the syllabus so it's important that you have done the textbook reading for that day of class. Most important of all she is so much fun to talk to and really wants to help you improve your Spanish!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T19:14:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN301', 'review': 'Overall, Ana was a great professor. I had not taken many spanish classes at UMD before 301, and I was extremely intimidated the first week of classes. However, I stuck it out and it was a great experience. She is very funny, and keeps the class lighthearted and energetic. Like others have said, you should keep on top of your assignments (especially supersite) and be prepared to answer questions in class about them. Every once in a while our assignments would pile up all at once, but otherwise the class was very manageable. Highly recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-22T22:39:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN311', 'review': 'Ana is hilarious and she really does make the class interesting. Participation is key to success in this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-19T22:50:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN301', 'review': "Ana is really funny and makes class very interesting (also, she tells everyone to refer to her by her first name!) She's a fairly lenient grader, and genuinely wants everyone to succeed. She's also just generally an incredibly kind person (one of our classmates had a birthday on a day we had class, and Ana bought a tres leches cake for the class) I'd definitely recommend that everyone take her classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-21T00:49:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN311', 'review': "Class is easy. She picks favorites though and it's so obvious. Take her for this class 100% bc she makes it super funny.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-07-21T21:12:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'course': 'SPAN301', 'review': "Best Spanish professor ever! Love her energy and keeps the convo going. Also an easy grader. My tip is to complete the supersite assignments ahead of time to get them out of the way instead of doing them the day before they're due. Talk in class though (in Spanish ofc) since she tracks your participation count.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T20:51:19.092811Z'}], 'name': 'Ana Acedo Garcia', 'slug': 'garcia_ana_acedo'}, {'courses': ['KNES389R', 'KNES498L', 'KNES334', 'KNES201', 'KNES370', 'EDCI485', 'EDCI495', 'KNES390', 'KNES370H', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ana Palla-Kane', 'slug': 'palla-kane'}, {'courses': ['SPAN408F', 'USLT202', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN408I', 'SPAN361', 'SPAN408L', 'SPAN408X', 'SPAN798Z', 'SPAN408K', 'SPAN408T', 'SPAN359B', 'SPAN408G', 'SLLC299P', 'SPAN229R', 'USLT418C', 'SPAN374', 'SPAN798C', 'SPAN408W', 'SPAN798N', 'SPAN408R', 'USLT428R', 'AMST798B', 'SPAN374', 'SPAN798B', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN374'], 'average_rating': 2.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'course': 'SPAN408I', 'review': 'The first review is so accurate. She is knowledgeable and dedicated to her field of study, but she is incredibly disorganized and irresponsible. She does show up 10 minutes late to each class and has unreasonable expectations for the amount of work to be done in the hour and fifteen minutes in the class. She expects you to read a lot of information, but NEVER reviews it in class. Nevertheless, you will be expected to be able to write in detail on exams.\n\r\nShe gives homework, but won\'t grade it. The first grade I received was in the 9th week of class, and it was a discussion post introducing ourselves. Ana Patricia is unresponsive to student concerns, once answering an email with, "Sorry for not getting back to you, I was busy with work." Isn\'t this class your job? Would not recommend a class with her. \n\r\nAside from her teaching, she is a nice person. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-09T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'course': 'USLT201', 'review': "Nice woman, knowledgeable in her field, but TERRIBLE teacher.\r\nIn a way I admire her, because she takes on so much, and tries to give her all to everything that she is involved with, but I definitely think that her busy life puts a strain on her teaching, and therefore her students. \r\nShe never returns grades, and if she does, its near the end of the semester. She expects way too much and assigns a ton of readings that she never goes over in class, then expects you to write details about the readings in essay form on the exams.\r\nMy biggest issue with her though, was her lack of organization. A typical day in her class was:\r\nShe'd come into class 10 minutes late, then want to discuss some speaker or event that had nothing to do with the class. Then someone would ask a question and she'd spend 20 minutes answering it. Once she realized that she had 5 minutes or less left in class, THEN she'd pull up a powerpoint and attempt to teach, meaning that we never got anything useful out of her sporadic, all-over-the-place lectures. She never had a lesson plan, and we didn't even get a chance to get to all of the material. But she does take attendance for participation grade.\n\r\nThe times that she did manage to get out some teaching, I did learn interesting information about the US Latino culture. It opened my eyes as a non-Latino to the struggles they face. We had to plan, coordinate, and initiate a tour of the Latino history in D.C which took up a lot of class time and all of one Saturday. It was fun I guess, but for all the time it took up, I didn't learn much. You have to watch a hour+ long movie every other week and post on it, plus the occasional pop quiz, and exams that require you to write 4 essays in 50 minutes. And like I said, she doesn't return grades and is not very responsive to student concerns.\n\r\nNone of this is against her personality though. She's a nice woman, and is knowledgeable about her subject, but leaving readings and videos to teach her students makes her a terrible teacher.\n\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-12T15:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'course': 'USLT202', 'review': 'I previously took USLT201 before USLT202 (even though it is NOT a prereq but it DOES help understand the material) and thought 201 was better. Yes, its interesting to learn about the present day latinos, but Dr. Rodriguez focuses majority on El Salvador immigrants to the Washington D.C area. The class itself was okay, I was clear of her expectations (lots of details w/ reading and writing) and thought the class was actually easier than 201. GET ON HER GOOD SIDE and you WILL get an A.. trust me.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-01T14:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'course': 'USLT201', 'review': "Dr. Rodriguez is an unique and intellectual professor. Honestly, she may be the best professor I've had my whole college career. USLT has a heavy workload though, but its so interesting that it doesnt seem that bad. We have alot of readings, we went to the smithsonian, and saw many documentaries at hornbake (outside of class). Her class is mostly discussion, rather than lecture. Her teaching style is very helpful in understanding the material. Go to every class, she does take attendance. Overall, its alot of work, but if you are truly interesting in learning latino studies, take her class, you'd be able to handle it! I plan on taking 202 with her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-12T16:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'course': 'SPAN363', 'review': "She's a very nice person and really passionate about her research areas, but totally out of touch with reality. \r\nThe amount of work she expects for a 300-level class is absolutely ridiculous. \r\nShe rarely gives back grades, and when she does it's 2 months after you've turned in the paper. (Literally.)\n\r\nThere's a reason all the other 400-level classes for next semester are full or nearly full and hers is half-empty. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-10T17:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'course': 'USLT201', 'review': 'Dr. Rodriguez is very knowledgable in her field of expertise. She brings her own insight to the class as she is an American Latino. Even though I am not Latino, I felt welcomed in the class and learned much about a culture I did not know about. The class has required attendance and is often times discussion based. Many good debates and insights are brought upon by the students and Dr. Rodriguez encourages it. There is a moderate amount of reading to do although the readings are easy to comprehend. There are also many movies to watch in dial access. If you go to class and do all your work and outside readings, you will do decently. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-10-23T19:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'course': 'SPAN408W', 'review': "Bro... the reviews below hit the nail on the head. I had heard these bad things before taking her class but thought there was no way they could be true. Unfortunately, I was wrong.\r\n\r\nShe is incredibly disorganized and irresponsible. Class time was spent discussing whatever political happenings, coronavirus updates, or social justice topics she was interested in for the day. She will find literally any way to waste time and not cover the material. She tries to brainwash you with her views and has an attitude for literally everything. If she finds out you don't agree, you'll be on her bad side and she's pretty overt about it.\r\n\r\nNow in terms of the assignments, quizzes, and essays: she is EXTREMELY picky and demands perfection. Your wording must be exactly right to earn points. Like someone else said below, the first grade we received was on our introduction posts on the 9th week of class. One of my classmates had to remind HER of the due date because she kept pushing off reviewing our drafts until the weekend before – absolutely irresponsible and hypocritical for someone who doesn't take late work. She slacks so hard, yet expects you to spend hours a week doing her readings and assignments.\r\n\r\nI emailed her multiple times throughout the semester and she either didn't reply or brushed off my email by replying but not answering the question. There was a point where we were weeks behind in the syllabus (because she was wasting class time discussing nonsense; see above) and when someone asked her when the next quiz would be, she said that we were supposed to be following the Canvas page... okay, but you post them last minute and the information is literally not there, so... ???\r\n\r\nOur class met twice a week, yet there were a few times she would wait until the literal hour before I went to bed to post the next day's readings. How annoying. We also had a two-hour movie to watch and 400-word discussion post to do on an asynchronous day and of course she posts it like 12 hours before it's due smh... like we don't have other classes and responsibilities to take care of.\r\n\r\nNow the worst part about it all is that although she's never seen us in person, she will assume things about your personality, interests, and work ethic based on what she sees in a small Zoom box three hours a week. Like you have no idea who I am, what I do in my free time, or what my accomplishments are. Don't under-estimate me because of your ignorance.\r\n\r\nAvoid her like the plague!! She's THE worst professor I've had during my time here, and I'm an upper-classman who's dealt with a bunch of STEM courses so yeah... she's pretty bad.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-07-31T00:18:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'course': None, 'review': 'PLZ RUN WHILE YOU CAN she is so awful! Teaching isnt really there... she talks to the class for like the first 45 minutes before we even discuss the homework readings, if at all. Our class midterm was so bad that many of us reached out to her and she was completely dismissive. Totally unfair, I felt like i did way better on the midterm than she gave credit for and even comapred my exam to an A exam and it was so similar that it made me so angry. The fact that we had a student DROP the class bc of the midterm... a GOOD student who spoke spanish very well, and that is so so telling of who she is as a teacher. Ironically, she told us "Guys you know I don\'t believe in grades I feel like they are a bad representation of who you really are as students" but then proceeds to grade SO HARSHLY like wtf. She is very disorganized, takes forever to grade, ALWAYS late to class. I had no other option but to take her this semester. I am in no means a bad student, I am in another 400 level spanish class this semester that i LOVE and i have an A in it. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-12T20:32:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'course': 'SPAN374', 'review': 'The course was very informative and interesting to learn about. I was very interested because of the discussions that allowed students to connect and understand. However, I do not believe that it was inclusive. The instructor seemed biased. As the course is anti racist and anti discrimination, it is meant to accept every student and their culture, in which I felt I was not. The course has much to offer, but through her promotion of wanting change and inclusivity of cultures it is necessary to accept every students perspective rather than challenge it as being wrong to even speak on. From my experience, great course but teacher has to recognize bias that tried to limit me from speaking on my cultural perspective.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-13T19:50:19.018786Z'}], 'name': 'Ana Rodriguez', 'slug': 'rodriguez_ana'}, {'courses': ['GEOG211'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ana Sanchez-Rivera', 'course': 'GEOG211', 'review': 'She is very helpful. Class is straight forward. Requires a bit of work though', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-22T17:02:24Z'}], 'name': 'Ana Sanchez-Rivera', 'slug': 'sanchez-rivera'}, {'courses': ['EDSP484', 'EDSP416', 'EDSP315', 'EDSP684', 'EDSP616', 'EDSP888R', 'EDSP860', 'EDSP443'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ana Taboada Barber', 'slug': 'barber_ana_taboada'}, {'courses': ['BMGT452'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anamaria Berea', 'slug': 'berea'}, {'courses': ['PUAF744', 'PUAF798W', 'PUAF790', 'PUAF741', 'PUAF688Q', 'PUAF688Z', 'PUAF688T', 'PLCY689K', 'PLCY699W', 'PLCY741', 'PUAF688J', 'PLCY790', 'PLCY688T', 'PLCY898', 'PLCY899', 'PLCY699X', 'PLCY699W', 'PLCY699X', 'PLCY741', 'PLCY790', 'PLCY699X', 'PLCY690'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anand Patwardhan', 'slug': 'patwardhan'}, {'courses': ['CCJS225', 'CCJS345', 'CCJS451', 'CCJS105'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anastasia Tosouni', 'slug': 'tosouni'}, {'courses': ['ENFP300', 'ENFP489L', 'ENFP611', 'ENFP320', 'ENFP620', 'ENFP654', 'ENFP629L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andre Marshall', 'slug': 'marshall_andre'}, {'courses': ['ENEE322', 'ENEE460', 'ENEE664', 'ENEE322H', 'ENEE661', 'ENEE698C', 'ENEE469O', 'ENTS669F', 'ENEE322H', 'ENEE460', 'ENEE664', 'ENEE322H'], 'average_rating': 3.7, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': 'ENEE322H', 'review': 'Tits is a pretty good professor. His lectures tended to be "mathy" but not hard to follow. Homeworks were challenging but good practice. He really cares about us and holds review sessions often, he once stayed until 10 pm or so for a review session. \n\r\nExams in this class were not a joke though, probably because he held us to a high standard. He would send us "disappointment" emails but it showed he cared about us getting better at the material. He curved us fairly and I somehow wound up with an A- even when I got D\'s on the 2nd exam and final.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-01-31T02:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': 'ENEE322H', 'review': 'Dr. Tits is an excellent professor who you should strongly consider taking if given the opportunity. He is very caring and kind; you will quickly discover his dedication to making lectures as insightful and informative as possible, often going *very* deep into the theory (at least for the honors version). That being said, I was a little disappointed by his apparent over-estimation of our abilities on the final exam - it was a shitshow, to say the least. \n\r\nOverall, Dr Tits is an excellent and very approachable lecturer who provided one of the most challenging and informative courses I and most of my classmates had ever experienced. The workload and amount of information can be daunting, even for someone like me who excelled in 222 and genuinely enjoyed the subject matter. If you can handle it, you will find this class to very rewarding in the end.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-01-13T00:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': 'ENEE460', 'review': 'I took 322 and 460 with Dr. Tits. His lectures are clear and to the point. I think he really cares about his students and their success in his classes (and as engineers in general). He is helpful during his office hours, easily-approachable and answers emails very quickly; he is also very nice. I highly recommend him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-02-02T21:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "He is a great professor who really cares about his students. As others have said, he will make you work; he assigns homework every week, and the tests aren't easy. But he tries to give everyone a chance - in our class, when a lot of people did badly on the first two tests, he changed the grading scheme so that the lowest letter grade you could get was one grade lower than the final. In other words, he gave a lot of students another chance to shape up.\n\r\nAlso, if you do well in the class and talk to him in office hours, he'll gladly offer recommendations and suggestions for other courses to take. He is extremely friendly if you ask him questions that aren't directly related to the course, too.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T20:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': 'ENEE322H', 'review': "His lectures could be somewhat hard to follow if signals isn't your thing (hey. We can't all be signals gods but we do all have to take 322). One thing is certain, though, he really cares about his students and wants them to learn the material. He is more than happy to help you if you show up to office hours.\n\r\nContrary to what some have said below, he is actually quite generous with grades provided you expend some effort yourself.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-03-01T00:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': None, 'review': 'Although some may say that Professor Tits is "pretty gay" about some things, he is quite "straight" about working for his students\' success. His lectures tend to be difficult, but his goal is for you to understand the material. He will make you work, but let\'s face it: Hard work pays off. If you\'re trying to get away with a good grade and don\'t care about the material, don\'t take one of his classes. If you don\'t have your heart set on an A but want to master the course material, Professor Tits is your guy. If you need help, go to his office hours. He WILL help you.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-08-20T21:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': None, 'review': "Although he is a nice guy he is very very bad about grades. He grades things very hard. His lec's are meh. If you don't care about grades and all you care about is learning the material then you can take him. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-02T22:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': None, 'review': "He is not a very good lecturer for ENEE241, although the semester I took it with him was his first teaching it. If you have the chance take Poppomarcou instead you should definitely do it. He is a much better lecturer for this course (he wrote the book you will be using) and he gives out better grades. Tits is pretty gay about giving partial credit and I don't think very many people got A's this semester, me included.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-12-18T15:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': 'ENEE460', 'review': 'He is a nice guy. His lectures are okay, and he is knowledgeable in his field. \r\n\r\nBUT, his exams are challenging, and he is a really harsh grader. On top of that, a large percentage(about 80%) of the overall grade goes to those two exams(mid-term and final). Homework is challenging and takes a lot of time to do. \r\n\r\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-27T04:43:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Andre Tits', 'course': 'ENEE460', 'review': "Professor Tits is a super approachable professor that is committed to your advancing your knowledge. His lectures can be hard to follow sometimes as he occasionally makes mistakes while writing and explaining concepts, likely due to his age, BUT he always welcomes questions and addresses student's comments during his lectures. He is always happy and open to helping students who stop by whenever he's in his office, even outside of his posted office hours. (He will drop whatever he's doing to help students.)\r\n\r\nSome advice to those looking to take ENEE460 with him: Do all the homework! This develops your ability to attack questions he gives on his tests. While he also posts reading assignments, you could probably get by without them. That being said, the book can sometimes have details he might've glanced over during lecture. Listen to everything he says during lecture, especially when he talks about how to solve problems as this is likely what he expects from you on the exams. Do not fret if you bomb his midterm (I did), he gives out an optional project to boost your grade and the finals are relatively similar in problem type to his past exams. Note: His final is still challenging so make sure to give yourself lots of time to study and fill your cheat sheet! Watch Steve Brunton, Brian Douglas, Prof. Madan Gopal, etc. on YouTube for strengthening conceptual and mathematical foundations for the course.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-19T22:16:05.596821Z'}], 'name': 'Andre Tits', 'slug': 'tits'}, {'courses': ['PSYC632', 'PSYC330', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC639', 'PSYC629', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC330', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC632', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC330'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrea Chronis-Tuscano', 'course': 'PSYC330', 'review': "Professor Chronis-Tuscano is interesting. She clearly knows a lot about what she teaches and her lectures are often very informative, but she also seems disinterested and disengaged with class at times. The textbook for class can be expensive and the reading is often very dense, but given the content that is to be expected. Regarding actual class, I'm not sure all professors teaching this class will organize it this way, but she had 3 exams, the final being cumulative, and she would do it so that we had 50 minutes for 50 multiple choice questions, or 75 minutes for 75 questions, which was extremely stressful. She also does not post lectures unless you are absent, which was annoying because reviewing lectures is a good study tool. Regarding assignments, they are manageable and easy. Sometimes there are in-class assignments which are pretty straightforward, and we also have reading reflections that are straightforward as well. Overall, the class content was extremely interesting, and lectures were engaging. It just did not feel like she cared too much about students or really making any improvements or changes to the class throughout the semester to make things easier. Definitely take this class if this content is an area of interest for you, you will still enjoy getting to dig deeper into such information!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-13T05:47:17.732843Z'}], 'name': 'Andrea Chronis-Tuscano', 'slug': 'chronis-tuscano'}, {'courses': ['FREN499I', 'SLLC285', 'FREN600', 'FREN639G', 'FREN301', 'FREN352', 'FREN699X', 'FREN499H', 'FREN498L', 'FREN352H', 'SLLC698W', 'FREN699B', 'FREN387', 'FREN302', 'FREN499R', 'FREN352', 'FREN352H', 'FREN699L'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrea Frisch', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Frisch was really nice, but the class was pretty challenging. Our class was not good at participating (either because it was 9:30 AM or because the readings were in Old-ish French and hard), so she really tried to encourage more discussion. She seemed to care a lot about the students and changed the grading scheme to emphasize homework more after the first midterm, which had a low average grade. She also made the midterms slightly easier when we expressed our worries about our grades and gave us the essay prompt ahead of time. Overall she was a good teacher and I feel that I learned a lot from the class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-27T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrea Frisch', 'course': 'FREN301', 'review': "she's evil. she showed up late to class if at all, gave worthless assignments that encouraged plagiarism, totaled points incorrectly at the end of the year... if you have another choice, take it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-22T17:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrea Frisch', 'course': 'FREN352', 'review': "Good class overall. Madame Frisch really knows her French literature (she's the director of graduate studies) and can really bring out some ideas that aren't so easy to grasp at first. \n\r\nHer 1 point online quizzes consist of 25% of the final grade. All you have to do is get 25 points even if that takes 30 or 35 quizzes. The midterm is definitely doable especially if you understand the review sheet. There are two essays (one worth 20% and the other worth 25% of your final grade) that are graded extremely hard. However, you get a chance to redo them for a higher grade. I assume the final is the same format as the midterm. Both are worth 15% of the final grade.\n\r\nOverall it's a good introduction to French literature from a teacher that really knows what she's talking about. However, since she really knows the course material so well, and can present it so well in French, not a lot of students feel comfortable participating with their broken French when trying to answer deep questions about Montaigne or Voltaire. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-30T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrea Frisch', 'course': 'FREN352', 'review': 'Professor Frisch is a great professor if you get on her good side. Since our class was online, she only made us meet once a week. No midterm or final exam, and only one assignment every two weeks. She made the class very reasonable and enjoyable as long as you paid attention and tried your best. A bit of a tough grader, but nothing crazy unreasonable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-25T19:30:19Z'}], 'name': 'Andrea Frisch', 'slug': 'frisch_andrea'}, {'courses': ['MUSC379'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrea McGray', 'slug': 'mcgray'}, {'courses': ['KNES131V', 'KNES160O', 'KNES201', 'KNES157T', 'KNES131O', 'KNES160N', 'KNES157N', 'KNES161O', 'KNES201U', 'SPHL240', 'KNES260', 'KNES286', 'KNES161C', 'KNES786', 'HLTH710', 'KNES200', 'KNES157O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrea Romeo', 'slug': 'romeo'}, {'courses': ['INFM600', 'INST728R', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrea Wiggins', 'slug': 'wiggins_andrea'}, {'courses': ['CHEM401', 'CHEM889C', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM608V', 'CHEM611', 'CHEM498B', 'CHEM601', 'CHEM889D', 'CHEM276', 'CHEM612', 'CHEM146', 'CHEM498V', 'CHEM602', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM498V', 'CHEM608V', 'CHEM271'], 'average_rating': 3.2683, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Vedernikov is the BEST.\n\r\nHe's a nice guy and dealt with our obnoxious class. His exams are almost exactly like his old ones, so use those to study. He actually cares about his students so don't be scared of him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-23T23:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM401', 'review': 'Dr. Vedernikov is a very nice guy and a good professor. An 83% is an A. Just study his slides and go to class and you will do fine. Their is Homework due every 2 weeks. Questions very similiar to the homework problems and the old exams are on the exams. If you every need help understanding Inorganic Chemistry Dr. Vedernikov is very open to helping you be successful, just go to his office.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-06-01T19:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "His accent is kind of hard to understand, but if you pay close enough attention (don't sit in the back and browse facebook and actually pay attention), I'm sure you'll learn enough. I chose to not pay attention and just read the textbook. I found the textbook to be very helpful, and Verdernikov's slides are right from the book and pretty useful (though I still recommend reading). His tests are very easy, and if you read the book, you'll be fine. The curve (85%+ is an A) is very generous and shouldn't be hard to pass.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-21T16:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Yes he has an accent, but you get used to it. I can't comment much on how good his lectures were since I didn't pay attention. However, he does explain anything you need to know well if you go to office hours. His old exams are also almost identical to his newer exams, so study those and you should be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-19T20:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'His accent was my favorite part of this class. \r\nDr. Vedernikov was definitely accessible, he had office hours every day, and always ended his classes with an invitation for students with questions to come up to him and ask. \r\nIt was hard to stay focused in lecture sometimes - we would cover a lot of material and then he would sometimes have to rush through the last few slides.\r\nThe last five minutes of class were always characterized by loud shuffling noises from the 300 or so people all packing up their stuff while the professor was still lecturing, making it impossible to hear. \r\nWe covered a ton of material for the third exam, which had a silver lining in preparing us for the final the next week. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-30T14:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM401', 'review': "Dr. Vedernikov is straight up awesome.\n\r\nThe first part of this class was centered around quantum mechanics and group theory, but he tries to make it as interesting as possible. From there, the class shifted into organometallic chemistry and catalysis, which is his area of research so he brings in a lot of modern day applications. \n\r\nAlthough his accent is a little tough at first you get used to it after the first week. And he's always willing to help if he was unclear about something. \r\nExams are very fair, as in they never cover something you've never encountered in lecture or the homeworks - so go to class, do your work and you'll be just fine (oh, and the cutoff for an A is an 80%, which is good too). ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-29T20:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "For those complaining about the clicker questions, just make a friend, give them your clicker, and switch off going to class. The homework on MasteringChem was easy (most of the answers are on yahoo answers) and if you get enough correct, you can get over 100%. The tests were okay, and I didn't pay attention AT ALL in class, just self-studied from the textbook/his powerpoints. For not paying attention in class and being sick and absent for three weeks, I thought a B was pretty good. This class is MUCH easier than Dixon's class, I always felt bad when my friends in her class were studying and I was doing nothing. \r\nI took AP chem in high school, and that class was much harder than this one (might be just my school) but I didn't remember much and still did well.\r\nOh also his office is impossible to find. But he was really nice when I had to make-up an exam.\n\r\ntl;dr: Homework answers can be googled, you can self-study and do okay, if you actually pay attention in class an A is pretty easy, MUCH MUCH easier than Dixon.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-05T16:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "He seems like a nice guy. Never really paid attention in his class but the workload is very light. He gives so much opportunities for extra credit like in homework which is masteringchemistry gives 13 but only counts 10 and in clicker points where he gives 50 but only counts 40. Most of the material I learned myself since I tend to fall asleep in his class since I don't keep up. He posts past exams and the final which is very similar to the tests that he gives out. Overall, just take him if you're not doing anything chemistry related in engineering. Easy A for you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T20:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Vedernikov was a fabulous teacher. Aside from the accent, which you can understand relatively quickly and easily, and his "g" looking like a "p" there is nothing really to complain about him. He utilizes both powerpoints and blackboard. The powerpoints will have definitions, pictures, and examples, but then elaborates on those things by writing more definitions on the board, explaining things with his own drawings, and doing more examples on the boards. All of that is really helpful in better understanding the material. However, despite his good notes, you do need to actually read and take notes on your own (I know, it\'s a shocker) because it will give you a better understanding of everything and if you do it before the lectures you will be prepare to actually sit and listen rather than just sloppily copy down notes. Overall, he has been my favorite professor so far, even though this is my first semester here, so the lesson to be learned is; pay attention in class, and do work on your own outside of class, namely take your own notes, and then you can easily get an A in the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-30T22:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I took CHEM135 because I need it for engineering. Vedernikov sucked. I took AP Chemistry last year as a Senior in high school, and I ended up getting a B+ in the class but only a 3 on the AP exam. I came in expecting for the class to be an easy A because I was told it was basically going to be a review of AP Chem. The first thing I noticed about Vedernikov is that he has a thick Russian accent and that he speaks quietly, even with the microphone it's hard to hear his if you are any further back than a third of the way from the front. He has all the material on the powerpoints he does in class and he posts them on ELMS after (or sometimes before) class. He has at least 1 clicker question in class and about halfway through the semester he started to do a clicker question at the beginning AND end of class, so you have to stay for all of class to answer all the clicker questions. You really cannot afford to miss any (or many) lectures, though what a friend of mine and I did towards the end of the semester was one person would take both clickers each day and the other person could relax and not go to class. I must say though, I do like his grading scale. I got a 77, 71, and 53 on my tests (in order of test 1, 2 and 3. I admit I could have gotten better if I studied and paid more attention) but I ended up getting a 105.7 out of 100 on my homeworks, so that helped balance out my grade b/c he has a points system (best 40 clicker questions counted at a point each per right answer, .5 points per wrong answer, lowest three homeworks dropped out of 13 homeworks (counted at out of 100 points) and 100 points each for the three tests. that plus the 200 point final adds up to 640 points). His grade range is pretty nice too, 85%+ for an A, 75%+ for a B, etc. and he said he curved max two points up on the final grade. Overall, I would not recommend him for Chem135.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-04-07T16:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I ended up with a B because I didn't study. It is not difficult to get an A in his class. Vedernikov posts his old exams on ELMS and if you study and understand them, then you'll do fine on his tests. He does have an accent, but by the end of the first week you'll understand him just fine. He has clicker questions, which means you have to attend class. His class is also extremely boring, but he does allow the use of laptops in class, so you can get other work done. He is an easier teacher than Dixon, so if you don't really care about learning chem and just want a good grade, then take his class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-02-17T23:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'My "OurUM" account is dedicated to the famous Mr. Vedernikov. \r\nAKA worst teacher I have ever had in my entire life. \r\nHas he been fired yet?', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T17:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Vedernikov has many problems as a professor. He gives practice exams which are great to study from for each exam, but when you get the actual test there are questions that are not featured on the practice. Its not that problems were different, the whole concept was missing. He just does a poor job of preparing students for tests. The accent depends on the person because sometimes I could understand him and other times I couldn't. If you take CHEM 135 with Vedernikov be prepared for grueling exams and terrible lectures", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-13T19:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Prof. Vedernikov is a pleasant professor who cares about his students. He responds to emails quickly. Don't worry about his accent; it's completely understandable. \r\nThe exams are extremely do-able since they are nearly identical to the previous years' exams (which he posts on Blackboard). The online homeworks aren't too bad. It isn't too hard to get an A (85% and above) or a B (75% and above).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-02T18:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "The class overall isn't that hard. If you took high school chem it's about the same material. When I had him an A>85, B>75.. and so forth. It's a pretty fair class; you get what you put in. \r\nBut if you have him for an 8am its brutal. He talks with an accent and has a monotone voice so you have to be somewhat alert.\r\nIf you can avoid taking him at 8 do it. But overall he isn't a bad professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-06-08T18:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'He had an accent so I was not always able to understand him. His handwriting was horrible so if you didnt understand what he said would would also not understand what he writes on the board. My TA was great and did a wonderful job of explaining the concepts.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'c', 'created': '2010-03-16T01:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'I didnt find that his accent was much of a problem, tho he does tend to talk a bit softly, so do sit near the front. His exams were EXACTLY like those of past years, just with different numbers. The curve is also quite generous. Homework was a bit annoying, but easy. As some have said, sometimes his explanations are not the best, but hopefully you will have a good TA, mine last semester was great. Most of the time, though, stuff was pretty clear, and discussion was unnecessary. The professor himself was very approachable, and was just very sweet and uber helpful. I most def recommend him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-08T19:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Like most other reviews have said, Vedernikov is a pretty decent teacher. His accent isn't too bad, and his practice exams are really helpful to prepare for the real ones. However, if you aren't really a science/math person, this class might be somewhat challenging. I put a lot of work into the course and maintained a B. And also I almost never took notes in lecture because he tends to go all over the place; I took notes from the book (following the topics covered in the syllabus lecture schedule).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-26T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Like others have said, his accent is slightly distracting and his handwriting can be difficult to read at times. However, his exams are extremely easy, his class is graded on a curve, and 3 of the lowest hw grades, 10 clicker questions are dropped. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-28T20:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Really nice guy, pretty good professor. His lectures/notes are kind of disorganized; also his handwriting can be kind of difficult to read. His accent, for me at least, took some getting used to. Sit near the front and you'll do better understanding him and reading his writing. An 85 is an A and a 75 is a B which is nice. He drops the 3 lowest of 13 homeworks. The homework isn't usually too hard, just annoying to do. I don't really feel like I understand chemistry all that well after his class, but it really doesn't matter because I'm a business major. Partly it's probably because I didn't put in all that much effort. He posts a practice exam online before each exam, and it's basically the same as the exam, just with different problems. My only issue was that I felt after each test that I had done really well and then I usually found that I had scored ~10 pts lower than I thought, for whatever reason. Go to every lecture--there's clicker questions. I often slept through my 8 am class and missed the CQs, bringing my grade down.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-26T14:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Professor Vedernikov is a good professor. He is friendly towards his students. But, his lectures are a little disorganized. The notes he writes on the blackboards are sometimes all over the place, so sometimes it is hard to follow what he is writing or saying. Usually, he likes to use a lot of examples to explain what certain terms mean, but I wish he would give us the definitions first rather than going straight to examples to make it more understandable. \n\r\nThe exams are fairly easy as long as you review the sample exams because they are very similar. There's a 5 point bonus question at the end of every exam. \n\r\nClicker questions at the start of class every morning are easy because he explains what they are going to be before we actually answer them. They are based on what we learned at the last lecture.\n\r\nThe online homework is tedious, and he drops the lowest 3 out of 13 total. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-09T15:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Vedernikov is a really nice professor, he really seems to care about his students, and he answers emails very quickly. The class doesn't have a curve, however that's only because an A=85% and above and a B=75% and above. The tests are easy, and are exactly the same as the practice exam that he posts. The only problem is lectures. His accent is totally understandable, there are no problems there, however you have to go to every lecture because he gives clicker questions every single class. So I usually go and then fall asleep. The homeworks are easy, just use your textbook, the answers are like directly in there. If you want a A take Vedernikov.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-21T10:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Even though Vedernikov may not be the best lecturer, he gets concepts across to the students. The additional work he has including homework and clicker questions definitely boost your grade and REALLY help with the tests, as do the practice exams he posts. If you want an "A", take him!!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-07-23T01:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Overall, the class wasn't too hard. There were three midterms, online homework, clicker questions, and a final. I didn't ever take notes in class, I just read the book. Vedernikov is an okay professor, although his accent is distracting. The class is supposed to be for science majors, but I'm a non-science major and I did just fine in the class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-27T16:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131S', 'review': 'Dr. Vedernikov was the most fair professor for CHEM131. Although his lectures went off on tangents a little, he explains concepts pretty well and supplementing the book with his lectures helped a lot. The old exams he posts online are very similar to the hourly exams as well as the final he gives.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-21T03:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "He posts all the previous year's midterms with answers, and the midterms we actually take are the same midterms, only with different numbers and slight variations.\r\nHe really likes to have people understand the material, so he wants people to attend office hours and whatnot.\r\nHis lectures are boring at 8AM, but if you took AP Chem, you will do well. I put little effort into this class. Dr. Vedernikov is much easier than Steffek or Dixon from what I hear from friends who took the others.\r\nHis accent is not too hard to understand after acclimating to it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-19T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Vedernkov is a terrible lecturer. His powerpoints do little to explain the concepts and his lectures in general did little for me in terms of understanding class material. I basically had to teach myself from the book and picked up a lot from lab rather than lecture (I got an easy A in lab). The only good thing about his class is that his tests are fairly easy, but the class doesn't have much of a curve compared to other professor's classes and since he doesn't teach the material well, having easier tests doesn't go too far...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-18T13:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Dr. Vedernikov is a good Professor. However, his lectures can be all over the place sometimes. But, overall he is able to explain the concepts well. If you read the book and go to lectures, you will be fine.\n\r\nHe is easy to get a hold of and always answer emails quickly. He is easy to approach If you have a question or a concern about the class or material.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-11T14:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Dr vedernikov is a great teacher. his class is fair and the clicker questions are easy IF you come to the class before and PAY ATTENTION. i havent really put a lot of effort into doing well in this class which is why my grade expected is a "C". his tests are fair and easy, i didn\'t study for them much and got a C. \r\nso you can listen to the students with the expected grade A that say hes awesome. or you can listen to the failing student complain about the work... point is He\'s a good teacher if you pay attention and take notes. the homeworks can be really hard and the exams are pretty easy. if you have a 85% thats\' an A. if u have a 75% thats a B.. etc. hope this helped. (i took him for chem131. P.S i have gone to tutoring and heard students complain about dixon and the other teachers being difficult.. and most wish they\'d taken vedernikov... ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-01T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "He does not explain concepts very well. It would best if you can take your own notes, and practice problems at the end of each chapter. His practice exams are somewhat helpful, but he gives different problems in his tests, so its better not to depend completely on his practice exams. I have also found that this year's exam are much much harder than last years.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-16T15:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'I agree with most of what LHaggerty said. He sometimes strays during the lecture onto somewhat related tangents which eat up valuable lecture time. On the positive side, he makes sure to explain difficult concepts in different ways to clarify things. His accent becomes easy to understand after about 10 minutes, so do not let a foreign accent discourage you. He was fair and friendly in dealing with me when I missed an exam.\n\r\nIt is annoying to have to purchase a 40$ clicker and OWL access to do the graded assignments. He grades attendance and the homeworks can be long and tedious. \n\r\nI would recommend, as it can be an easy A.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-03T16:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Approachable and friendly, I found him relatively easy to understand despite his accent. Gives online homework assignments that help a lot when test time comes around and it's easy to score well on these if you put in the time. Tests are very reasonable if you take advantage of the practice tests he posts. Participation points are earned by attending lectures and answering a clicker question at the beginning of class. Lectures are not particularly clear, so it's best to take your own notes and go to lecture as review of your notes and to pick up extras not in the book.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-20T15:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'The thing I found most difficult about this professor was how he did not explain the concepts very well, and his thick accent makes it all the harder to understand. Uses Power-points for lectures.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-19T23:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': "He's a nice guy, only thing annoying is he mumbles when explaining stuff sometimes and can be hard to hear and understand. His lectures are pretty boring and he usually goes over things in way more detail than necessary which isn't a horrible thing because then the exams seem more straightforward. There is homework due every week that takes anywhere from 1-2+ hours. He provides sample exams that are super similar to the actual exam so those are great study tools. The class is curved so an A is an 85. If you put in the time to at least do the homeworks and go to class for the clicker questions you shouldn't fail if you do somewhat okay on the tests. I never went to office hours because I was slightly intimidated. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-02T17:45:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': None, 'review': "Lectures have nothing to do with what is on the test. He only lectures on concepts mostly and mentions nothing about any of the calculations on homework's and on the exams. The TA seems really unprepared for every discussion and doesn't explain either. This is 100% a self taught class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-08T03:50:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': 'Very nice professor, but his lectures were very concept based and did not seem to connect much with the midterm or homework concepts. His practice exams covered what was on the test almost exactly so I would recommend studying from practice tests instead of lecture content. The TA for the class was terrible, he never seemed to double check his slides or have clear communication with Dr. Vedernikov.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-07T21:51:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': "Lectures have nothing to do with what's on the test, and everything in the textbook is expected to be prior knowledge. Couldn't follow his lectures at all and was not good at taking questions. Posts old exams that are exactly the same as the ones he gives. Only an easy class if you already have a good chem background(I had none). Went from an A to a B- in the last week. Easy to pass but hard to learn anything. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-02-04T19:59:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Thick accent, speeds through the slides and doesn't work through problems (just clicks too fast). Smallish curve (A-85%, A 88%), doesn't take questions. Lots of side theory stuff that won't be tested and not enough practice problems during class.\r\n\r\nRead the textbook early. I would have an A/A- rather B+/A- if I started reading the textbook earlier, usually I rely on the prof.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-08T16:22:20.563835Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'His curves are predetermined before the class ever starts and he will not stray from it. He only had about a 2% curve which is not a lot for a chem class. His teaching and slide has nothing to do with what is on the tests its just conceptual. The textbook is what has all the actual problem sets and content you need to know. If you are like me and have a hard time teaching concepts to yourself DO NOT TAKE HIM. The TA was not helpful and just made the class even more confusing. If chem is not your forte or you normally rely on curves to help your grade this is not the class for you.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-19T16:35:34.954587Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'The lectures and discussion are mostly conceptual while the exams which are worth 400 out of 520 points of your total grade is on equations and word problems. His curve is predetermined before you even step into the class and he will not deviate from it. This curve was only 2% and even people within a percent of passing would still not pass because according to him "once points are put into ELMS they are final". If you rely on curves or do not want to take a "teach yourself" class DO NOT TAKE. If you do go to lectures he has a thick accent and goes through his slides (which are not posted till after lecture) very quickly and doesn\'t answer any questions.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-19T16:41:51.753502Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Dr. Vedernikov is a rather underwhelming, but decent professor. The class is extremely consistent in both workload and difficulty, as you'll be expected to do one online homework assignment every week and the exams are extremely similar to the practice exams. However, the lecture slides are generally not helpful as they do not relate to the homework, and he speaks too softly to hear when he is lecturing at the front of the lecture hall. He will oftentimes not demonstrate how a problem is solved, or if he does, he goes into theory that is beyond the scope of this class. If you are any good at teaching yourself, you'll be fine. Otherwise, choose a different professor.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-03T02:15:27.548461Z'}], 'name': 'Andrei Vedernikov', 'slug': 'vedernikov'}, {'courses': ['PSYC436', 'PSYC625', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC639', 'PSYC629', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC436', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC625', 'PSYC436', 'PSYC625', 'PSYC899'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andres De Los Reyes', 'course': 'PSYC436', 'review': 'One of the most considerate professors I’ve had at UMD. Andy sets up his class for success. You choose which weeks you want to complete a short 2 page reaction paper for, which are the bulk of your grade. Class focuses more on developments in clinical psychology and how to expand the field rather than current clinical practice, which was not what I was expecting but still interesting. He also focuses more on children and adolescent mental health, which does give a unique perspective. Exams are fair and he gives a very helpful lecture beforehand that goes over all the topics that will be on the exam. Andy also has good advice for graduate school and career planning, and great knowledge of the research psychology field. Basically, if you try a little in this class you will get an A, but engaging in class will give you a better perspective on the field. Would definitely recommend to people interested in clinical psychology, research into clinical psychology, or if you just need to fill a credit.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-26T15:03:40.061804Z'}], 'name': 'Andres De Los Reyes', 'slug': 'de_los_reyes_andres'}, {'courses': ['IMMR200', 'SOCY498N', 'SOCY100', 'SOCY661', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'SOCY380'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andres Villarreal', 'slug': 'villarreal'}, {'courses': ['ENST452', 'ENST450', 'ENST650', 'ENST472', 'ENST652', 'MEES652', 'MEES650', 'ENST689', 'ENSP386', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST450', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST650', 'ENST689', 'ENST689W', 'MEES650', 'ENST452', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST450', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST650', 'ENST689', 'MEES650'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Baldwin', 'slug': 'baldwin_andrew'}, {'courses': ['ENAE423', 'ENAE425', 'ENAE283H', 'ENAE324', 'ENAE464', 'ENAE484', 'ENAE441', 'ENAE483', 'ENAE654', 'ENME672', 'ENAE283', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE283', 'ENAE283', 'ENAE423'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrew Becnel', 'course': 'ENAE283', 'review': 'Good and fair. Somewhat boring. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-12T06:34:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Becnel', 'course': 'ENAE654', 'review': "The transition to online due to the pandemic was especially bad. He moved his lectures from live to pre-recorded. HIs lecture slides were very generic and did not go into depth on the mathematical nuances required to solve homework and exam questions. One exam question on the final was practically unsolvable unless you read a section of an optional textbook in-depth.\r\n\r\nThe class normally has a lab component where you construct a composite by hand using various methods. These were replaced with some arbitrary write-up assignments in which no rubric nor sample was provided to give guidance on the matter. What our team thought was a good term project write up (met all of his reqs.) turned out to be not good in his eyes. We received vague feedback on the assignment that didn't help us understand what we did wrong. \r\n\r\nAlthough it seems like Spring 2021 won't have the same issues, many of the problems I stated earlier are just exacerbated versions of his in-person teaching.\r\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-08T21:54:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Becnel', 'course': None, 'review': 'I have had Dr. Becnel a total of 4 times throughout my career in college, due to the pre-planned nature of the Aerospace schedule for Space Track. That being said, it\'s not a bad experience, he is very knowledgeable and will always say "I don\'t want to be the professor to fail you and cause you not to graduate" so that should tell you how he is. Very accessible outside of class, I would say he probably responds to emails within maybe 20-40 minutes after you send it.\r\n\r\nFor the first semester, when I had him for 423 and 483, I viewed him as a very intelligent, but dry and sorta boring guy that just taught basically like a textbook and so you always had the info you needed but not too much more. His style of lecturing involves presenting concepts and then having you think over a more difficult problem that involves those concepts at the end of lecture to discuss the next time class meets. Be prepared because he will award participation credit to those who write it out and actually do it.\r\n\r\nFor the second semester, when he taught 464 and was the lead in our 484 capstone, my perspective of him changed given the more personal interaction I had to have with him as the advisor for our project. I would say if you find him to be boring in lecture, it\'s probably because he\'s just kinda awkward and presenting in front of a large group for any awkward person tends to cause them to shift to an almost robotic state. You should go to his office hours (all the way in the manufacturing building) and just talk to the guy I think you\'ll gain new respect for him.\r\n\r\nAll in all, great professor, learned a lot, very fair with assignments and grading, although some of the assignments were pretty frustrating.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-06-10T08:29:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Becnel', 'course': 'ENAE283', 'review': 'Had him for 283 summer 2020, so the class was completely online. He gave synchronous lectures with a couple exceptions for prerecorded ones, but all were recorded. Assignments were fair and was pretty generous (in my opinion) for partial credit on exams. Quizzes were mostly conceptual concepts and HW was more similar to exam questions. Overall would recommend. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-17T21:49:19Z'}], 'name': 'Andrew Becnel', 'slug': 'becnel'}, {'courses': ['EDCI688M', 'EDCI651', 'EDCI790', 'EDCI475', 'EDPS788T', 'EDCI754', 'EDCI858', 'EDCI798M', 'EDCI798A', 'TLPL713', 'EDCI792', 'TLPL728', 'EXST030', 'TLPL899', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL403', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL790', 'TLPL792', 'TLPL692', 'TLPL713', 'TLPL728', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL790', 'TLPL610'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Brantlinger', 'slug': 'brantlinger'}, {'courses': ['INST603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Casertano', 'slug': 'casertano'}, {'courses': ['CMSC858K', 'CMSC451', 'CMSC858Q', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC457', 'PHYS457', 'CMSC657', 'CMSC451', 'CMSC657'], 'average_rating': 4.6471, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': 'Good professor but has very high expectations for students.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-03-30T13:23:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': 'Great at lecturing. I learned a lot.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-18T21:13:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': 'Great professor. No slides, but excellent lectures with clear notes on the board.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-19T17:59:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Pros:\r\nHe is very smart\r\n\r\nCons:\r\nYou'll never be as smart as he is\r\nThe class is genuinely difficult\r\nHe is a very boring lecturer\r\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-07-08T15:34:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Incredible professor. His lectures are very clear and the expectations for students are very reasonable. This is a challenging class, but it's worth taking because you'll learn a ton.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-28T20:00:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Childs is probably the best professor I have ever had out of all the other CMSC professors next to Max for 423. Hands down takes the best notes, is easy to follow in class, and he is really interesting (his field of study is quantum algorithms). The only sort-of complaint I have is he doesn't post his notes online, but that never really bothered me and you definitely learn a lot when you're at lecture.\r\n\r\nMore importantly however is how hard this class is. Yes, the first half of the class is 351 material, but with 2 week long assignments and a final that is worth almost half your grade, the class has very little room to make up for lost points easily due to its structure.\r\n\r\nI will say the class was harder than 351 for me, as I had Golub for 351 and received a B at the end, and I wasn't the best at proofs coming in to this class.\r\n\r\nMy advice is if you are VERY confident in your ability to solve proofs then you should definitely take Childs; he's absolutely the best professor for this class. It honestly all comes down to how confident you feel about taking 451.\r\n\r\nP.S: I'm giving 5 stars because Childs is AMAZING, not because of the course material or its difficulty.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-12-14T20:34:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': 'Childs is insanely smart; he, for the most part, single-handedly managed the course Piazza. He writes his notes (on an iPad projected to the screen) in a way that students can copy word for word, which is nice when we need to review the concepts, but makes class a frantic effort to copy notes (missing a lot of what Childs has to say verbally).\r\n\r\nHis final was pretty fair in my opinion. He sticks very close to the book "Algorithm Design" (available as a PDF online).\r\n\r\n451 is a tough class. I guess it will improve some algorithmic thinking skills.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-12-19T00:37:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': 'Probably one of the best professors to have for a difficult class. He almost instantly replies to all Piazza posts, has great lectures, and he is very kind. This class was hard but the material I learned from it was invaluable and absolutely essential for any CS student.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-20T15:50:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "the course is pretty hard in general. there were a lot of smart people when i took the course and exam averages were in the high 60s. \r\n\r\nbut as for andrew childs himself, if you can take this class with him, do it. he is a great lecturer. while he might be fast at times he does address student questions during class. i went to his office hours fairly often and i got a lot of my questions answered and i overall learned a lot in this class. it's a challenge and bit stressful since the final is worth 45% but i think if you did well in 351 (B or higher) and you're interested in learning more about algorithms then take this class with childs. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-21T02:36:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Andrew Childs is such an amazing professor. He is clear and calm in his lectures, always willing to re-explain material, and his homeworks and exams are very fair. Not easy, but fair.\r\nWhen I had him, he took notes on an iPad and displayed them on the board as he taught, to show many examples and explain theorems. However, he didn't post those notes - so make sure you take your own!\r\n\r\nOverall, I would want no one else to teach me 451. I feel like I actually learned a lot. I wish he would teach 351 as well!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-12-21T16:51:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Definitely the best professor for CMSC451. The lecture videos are concise, well put together, and very informative. The course was also structured in a way that allowed for a lot of flexibility for students. Exams are fair and you will do well if you do the homework's. Professor Childs is very knowledgeable about algorithms and is also able to answer questions and explain concepts very well. Overall, really enjoyed his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-24T06:32:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': '\r\n(Disclaimer: had him during fall 2020 virtual semester) \r\n\r\nI found the course a lot easier than 351. The homeworks were a bit challenging but I found that the TAs, at least during this semester, graded very generously (the rubrics are not like 351 where it’s basically 0%, 50%, or 100% per question). The tests were kind of hard to do under a time crunch but they were generally easier than the homeworks and again had generous rubrics. Childs is a nice professor and responsive to the students - he extended the deadline on one of our homeworks. If you’re interested in 451 I recommend taking it with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-26T16:56:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': 'Childs was really fair, and I felt like a learned a lot through the course. It was challenging, but I could tell that all of the material was important. Grading was fast, and lectures were recorded. Piazza questions were answered quickly. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-04T00:17:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "I took this class Fall 2020 (online semester), but I thought Childs was a great professor. He's probably one of the most organized professors in the CS department. His course is heavily dependent on the textbook (which is amazing), but he does a really good job of breaking things down in a digestible way. I would like to say that I'm algorithmically-challenged, but I was still able to follow all of the lectures. He is extremely responsive on Piazza, and very lenient with partial credit. The class is not easy, and you'll definitely need to work for your grade, but overall this is a great class and I would 100% recommend taking it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-23T19:34:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "pretty tough class but Childs is a very smart professor who explains content very well. homeworks take a long time (there are only 5 though so it's not terrible). wouldn't recommend taking this course with a heavy schedule but otherwise definitely recommend", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-19T01:44:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Definitely one of the best professors in the department. Explains everything well, and the class definitely felt more manageable than 351, although that's not saying much. Homework is long though, so definitely start early on those.\r\n\r\nIf you're not algorithmically challenged like I am, this class might be fairly easy for you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-23T18:53:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Childs', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "I came into this class with high expectations due to his ratings and reviews, but honestly think he is a bit overhyped. He speaks so fast during lectures that I physically wasn't able to keep up with notes, and had to stop coming to class and watch the videos instead so I could actually understand what was happening. Additionally, this may be subjective to each individual, but for me personally I felt that his lectures lacked structure which made it especially difficult for me to take organized and digestible notes. These are minor issues though-- my biggest disappointment was that he is not the kind of teacher that recognizes and reciprocates effort. I had hoped to TA this class in the future, and made a substantial effort to build a rapport with him, but he is simply just not the kind of professor that you can build a rapport with. He is not approachable in a way that makes you feel comfortable asking him questions, and I've seen/experienced several instances of him responding a bit curt/rudely to questions on Piazza. Overall, I feel that the way he communicates with students is not conducive to learning. TLDR: Very smart professor that really knows his stuff, but his expertise in algorithms does not exactly translate to an expertise in teaching.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-11T21:40:59.687296Z'}], 'name': 'Andrew Childs', 'slug': 'childs'}, {'courses': ['TDPS201', 'THET377', 'THET659', 'THET481', 'THET477', 'THET499', 'THET799', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET669', 'THET659A', 'THET659D', 'THET428P', 'TDPS479', 'THET669O', 'THET399', 'THET669T', 'TDPS358T', 'TDPS479', 'THET788', 'TDPS479', 'THET481', 'THET669T', 'TDPS479', 'THET477', 'THET659', 'TDPS479', 'THET399', 'THET481', 'THET669T', 'THET788', 'TDPS358T'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrew Cissna', 'course': 'TDPS358T', 'review': 'Great lecturer. Passionate, knowledgeable, and caring. Fair assignments, and welcomes feedback.\r\nI highly recommend taking courses with Professor Cissna.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-04T06:03:43Z'}], 'name': 'Andrew Cissna', 'slug': 'cissna'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrew Delfino', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Andy was awesome! (Our course was already online before COVID started). The organization of the online classroom was fantastic, and he gave meaningful assignments (Loved the style exercises). All that, and he's a fast grader.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-16T02:20:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Delfino', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Andy was a great online professor for professional writing. The videos he posted every week helped with understanding the weekly assignments that needed to be done. I loved the way he structured the online course and I loved the way he critiqued our assignments. He always starts off with a nice comment about our work and then politely comments on what we could work on. He is very understanding and overall an awesome professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-20T02:16:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Delfino', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Chill professor, I only spent a few hours per week on this class and easily secured my A. Style exercises are a cool addition to try and improve your writing.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-21T06:39:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Delfino', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Really enjoyed the course and Andrew's approach. A few of the assignments weren't as well thought out as I'd like, but that's on me.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-02T21:28:54.545027Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Delfino', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'I took this course asynchronously and I believe it was a great experience. He graded very leniently, like the lowest grades people ever got was like an 85. All the assignments are like standard of like engl393 and he gave ample time to do them. He also gave bonus points here and there', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-30T05:19:58.637441Z'}], 'name': 'Andrew Delfino', 'slug': 'delfino_andrew'}, {'courses': ['MEES698X', 'MEES698S', 'HLTH710', 'MEES698X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Elmore', 'slug': 'elmore_andrew'}, {'courses': ['KNES100O', 'KNES131O', 'KNES131V', 'KNES157O', 'KNES155O', 'KNES157N', 'KNES160N', 'KNES160O', 'KNES152O', 'KNES161N', 'KNES161O', 'KNES201U', 'KNES201', 'KNES334', 'KNES497', 'KNES152N', 'KNES200', 'KNES131Z', 'KNES120A', 'KNES120A', 'KNES132N', 'KNES120A', 'KNES100N', 'KNES120A', 'KNES132N', 'KNES156', 'KNES120A', 'KNES131V', 'KNES120A', 'KNES131V'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrew Ginsberg', 'course': 'KNES201', 'review': 'Fun and thought provoking course...\r\nThanks for teaching Andrew', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-06-28T04:20:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Ginsberg', 'course': 'KNES161N', 'review': 'Took KNES161N for the winter semester. Had to do 12 lab workouts in 21 days which honestly was exercising most days of the week for 3 weeks. The assignments were all easy and you just had to write them up. There were 3 online quizzes where the answers are within his PowerPoint PDFs and were relatively easy. Easy A and enjoyable class. Few assignments overall besides exercising.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-24T19:10:57.851696Z'}], 'name': 'Andrew Ginsberg', 'slug': 'ginsberg'}, {'courses': ['ASTR310', 'ASTR610', 'ASTR305', 'ASTR410', 'ASTR340', 'ASTR288I', 'ASTR688C', 'ASTR688B', 'ASTR688C', 'ASTR288I', 'ASTR688B', 'ASTR688B', 'ASTR688C', 'ASTR288I', 'ASTR399', 'ASTR688B'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrew Harris', 'course': 'ASTR410', 'review': 'Perhaps he\'s fine in lower leveled courses, but my god, is he an absolutely awful professor to have for ASTR410.\n\r\nCurrently, the class average hovers around 50%. While low grades (which will be curved) are typical in upper level physics and astronomy courses, but those averages are somewhere around 70% or so. Not 50%. \n\r\nThe homework assignments should be fairly simple and the solutions are typically solved with basic algebra or maybe some calculus in the form of derivatives or integrals. Should be easy to solve, right? Of course not. He\'s so incompetent at teaching us what he sees to be the basic tenants of radio astronomy that we cannot even use the formulas he haphazardly puts on the board, despite that many of the solutions should be plug+chug substitution level algebra. Why is this the case? Perhaps we, as senior level astronomy students who have backgrounds in advanced physics and mathematics, are just totally incapable of using algebra. Or maybe it\'s because he fails as a lecturer.\n\r\nThe first midterm was a disaster. Average was around 50%. The day that we discussed the midterm in class, he basically told us that it was our fault that we failed, despite the fact that the class was fairly unanimous in failing and the students who got the highest grades (around 65%) basically said "I guessed and apparently the guesses were good." Sometimes whole classes do fail exams. It\'s a thing that\'s not uncommon to upper level physics/astronomy courses. What\'s uncommon is the professor not accepting a single ounce of the blame and telling the students that the poor results are on us.\n\r\nThen we have the term project. This, I\'m forced to assume, was supposed to be a semester-long project with a lot of thought and detail put in. How much have we talked about it? In a numerical sense, the answer has to be somewhere between 0 and 1. The only times we\'ve ever talked about the project was to extend the due date a week after he had failed to ever bring it up in class. What\'s it supposed to be about? What level of detail? Are we supposed to come to some numerical conclusions? Your guess is as good as mine, because the due date for that project is in about 5 days and he\'s yet to talk about it.\n\r\nIf you haven\'t been persuaded on why you shouldn\'t take the class, consider this. He\'s TERRIBLE with partial credit. Didn\'t get the exact result that he did while following the same exact generalizations and same exact assumptions? That sucks, you get 1/15 credit for that problem. \n\r\nDon\'t take Harris. For 400 level classes, there are far better options like J. Sunshine and D. Hamilton who effectively teach the class while also making exams and problems fair (and don\'t fucking blame the student when almost all of us fail a major exam). ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '?', 'created': '2016-05-05T15:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Harris', 'course': 'ASTR340', 'review': 'He tries to make the lectures interesting and it worked 99% of the time. I was never tempted to skip class.\n\r\nHe is pretty generous with grades (85% and higher is an A) and for our class, he gave us extra credit for turning in homework on time.\n\r\nYou get a handful of homeworks, a midterm and a final. IIRC he gave us a helpful sample exam for the midterm. It was close to the actual midterm.\n\r\nOverall I enjoyed the class and glad I took it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-21T15:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Harris', 'course': 'ASTR340', 'review': 'Professor Harris is an excellent teacher. He really makes class interesting and is a great lecturer. He is hilarious in his own nerdy way. Homework counts for a big percent of your grade and he has been giving extra credit for handing it in on time. There is only one midterm, so it is pretty comprehensive. The Final exam is cumulative and I expect it to cover a lot of material and be pretty difficult. \n\r\nThis is a pretty hard class and reading the text beforehand is definitely recommended. Even though this class is hard, I enjoyed it a lot, mostly because Andy Harris was a fantastic professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-22T23:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Harris', 'course': 'ASTR288I', 'review': "Although this course was taught with both Dr. Harris and Dr. Hayes-Gehrke, I decided to list Dr. Harris as the professor because he was there more of the time and I feel like he contributed to class more (Dr. Hayes-Gehrke had circumstances that prevented her from teaching a couple of times), although the two would switch off each class. With that being said, I don't know that I gained much from this class. Pretty much every week, whoever was teaching would go through a Slides presentation and we would have a few moments to talk in groups before sharing our ideas with the class. We had a couple of classes where there was a guest speaker and that was interesting, but other than that, the class was pretty boring. You learn about career options for people with an Astronomy degree and that it's okay to not go to grad school, but that's pretty much it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-18T21:06:17.438472Z'}], 'name': 'Andrew Harris', 'slug': 'harris_andrew'}, {'courses': ['HIST219Z', 'HIST329K', 'RELS219Z', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'EXST030', 'HLTH672', 'HIST329K'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Kellett', 'slug': 'kellett'}, {'courses': ['PHIL140', 'PHIL100', 'PHIL308P', 'PHIL309F', 'PHIL233', 'PHIL209J', 'PHIL364', 'PHIL209E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Knoll', 'slug': 'knoll'}, {'courses': ['EDHI672', 'EDHI788A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Lounder', 'slug': 'lounder'}, {'courses': ['ARCH770', 'ARCH770', 'ARCH770', 'ARCH770', 'ARCH770', 'ARCH770'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Pressman', 'slug': 'pressman'}, {'courses': ['GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'PLSC461', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'PLSC462', 'PLSC464', 'PLSC425', 'ENSP489Z', 'PLSC489Z', 'PLSC425', 'PLSC461'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Ristvey', 'slug': 'ristvey'}, {'courses': ['CHIN213', 'CHIN441', 'CHIN443', 'CHIN316', 'CHIN214', 'CHIN429C', 'ARHU158E', 'CHIN429D', 'CHIN215', 'SLLC286', 'CHIN429J', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'EALL284', 'SLLC286', 'CHIN441', 'SLLC286', 'CHIN441', 'SLLC286', 'CHIN441', 'SLLC286'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': 'I never thought I would be interested in eastern philosophies until I took this class. Dr Andrew is genuine and really nice guy, excellent at presenting ideas and discussing them too. I had so much fun in his class and would certainly recommend him! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T05:06:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': 'I learned way more than I thought I would in this class. He encouraged me to minor in Chinese and changed the way I think through eastern philosophy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-11T22:55:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': 'Taking this class for a gen ed, I found myself very interested in Chinese Philosophy. Professor Schonebaum is very personable and his personality makes learning the content easier and as a result, I was willing to participate much more than most classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-22T18:04:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': "extremely nice guy and really wants his students to succeed. He really hopes that students are actually learning rather than just getting through the class. This class was taught for the first time online (due to covid) so the few quizzes that we had and our midterm were on canvas. He always goes over the answers after. Most of the lectures are discussion based, we would just talk about the readings as a group or sometimes in break out rooms. There are readings assigned every week, but as long as you're paying attention and taking notes during lecture, you'll have all the information you need for the exam/quizzes. Great guy, who really cares about what he's teaching. Always in great spirits and just wants students to think and form ideas of their own. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-02T06:30:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': "Prof. Schonebaum was a solid teacher and was super enthusiastic about what he was teaching. There was a decent amount of reading, but it was easy to find a balance once you started the course. Also, the entire course is discussion-based which means he will require you to speak and have your camera on for Zoom as well as participate in breakout rooms. The tests were easy multiple choice with thought-provoking short answers. He was beyond reasonable with grading and I would argue that everyone should be getting an A (maybe a few B's).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-14T15:53:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': 'Professor Andy is such a nice guy and a really good teacher. He wants everyone to do well in his class, and he tells you that on the first day. He encouraged us to collaborate with our classmates and work together on multiple assignments, and that helped me make a connection with my Zoom classmates.\r\nThe class itself is not that hard, and if you pay attention in lecture and participate in notetaking, you should be able to get a good grade in the class. Again, he clearly wants you to succeed. If you have a chance to take this class or any class taught by Prof. Andy, I highly suggest you take that opportunity. He is such a great guy and his class was one I looked forward to often.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-20T04:22:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': "Can be a little strange at times but he's super interesting to talk to and is willing to listen to his students. The actual grade aspect isn't that important to him to he will let people take quizzes in groups.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-22T00:11:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': 'Very interesting class where you will learn a lot. I enjoyed the readings in the class a lot. Andrew makes it so that you can focus on learning, not stressing about your grades.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-03T19:38:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': "Prof Schonebaum was really nice to have. He's pretty open with office hrs; I even found myself going a couple times to talk about the readings or whatever I was studying which related to them. Taking notes in the class can be a little difficult because he skips around topics a lot (granted, I took SLLC286 in spring 2020, in the middle of the transition to online learning); just make sure to keep your notes organized, and taking the exams should be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T07:45:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': "I cannot recommend taking a course with Dr. Schonebaum enough-- he's seriously the best. He's really engaging and makes lectures fun to listen to. He's super understanding and creates a chill environment in class where students feel comfortable to contribute at any time. The contents of SLLC286 were already interesting, but he also taught the course in a way that made the materials applicable to real life and made it more relatable to us. I really enjoyed taking this course and having Dr. Schonebaum.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-02T17:34:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': 'Good professor! He really seems to care about his students, and classes are always fun to be a part of. I also enjoyed the readings we did and learning about how we can apply them to our lives today. Would definitely recommend taking him as a prof!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-25T15:54:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': 'I love Dr. Schonebaum. He is so passionate and sweet and his lectures are interesting if you do the readings, which are a nice thing to do as you unwind at the end of the day. The quizzes and final questions were a little confusing but it was nice that they were all online on elms. This is exactly how a gen-ed should be: if you cannot attend class one day it is fine, the exams are easy, and you just get to sit in class and listen to Chinese philosophy. He even brought us donuts on the last day!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T20:57:37.472358Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': 'He is a great lecturer and he keeps things interesting. He is very fair with his grading as long as you go to class and knows you. The exams are exactly what he talks about in class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-23T01:41:32.112225Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'course': 'SLLC286', 'review': "He is one of the kindest professors I have had at UMD. You can tell he genuinely cares about his students' success and wants them to walk away having actually learned something from the course. It is a great experience, very fun, and I honestly learned a lot. Highly recommend him and this course. It does not have a heavy workload, he goes over what is on exams very well, and even reuses some questions since he is trying to reinforce important concepts. Definitely one of my favorite courses and professors I have taken. He emphasizes making friends, so don't be shy in the class and make sure he knows who you are. It is a great gen ed, and you should consider taking it regardless if you need it or not", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-13T15:06:40.649087Z'}], 'name': 'Andrew Schonebaum', 'slug': 'schonebaum'}, {'courses': ['PHYS260', 'PHYS270'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Smith', 'slug': 'smith_andrew'}, {'courses': ['ECON460', 'ECON625', 'ECON868', 'ECON321', 'ECON461', 'ECON625', 'ECON625', 'ECON461'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrew Sweeting', 'course': 'ECON460', 'review': "Genuinely do not take this class. The average grade in this class is currently an F. Everyone is miserable. Don't take it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-03T03:18:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Sweeting', 'course': 'ECON460', 'review': 'This guys way too smart to be teaching an undergrad course and his grading system is wack. Everyone in the class right now has a failing grade and there’s no TA to get help from for the absurdly hard problem sets', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-17T16:02:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Andrew Sweeting', 'course': 'ECON460', 'review': 'Dr. Sweeting is extremely knowledgeable about the entire field of Industrial Organization since it is his research area. This class was a great opportunity to actually learn from an established IO researcher and it was well worth it for me. This class is technical compared to other undergraduate ECON classes so if you are not comfortable interpreting math and models it will be difficult. However, if you do have a strong math/technical background I would highly suggest this course.\r\n\r\nThe course covers many different IO models and Dr. Sweeting does a great job at providing intuition behind the models during the lectures and you usually work through solving the models in the problem set yourself. The content was engaging and definitely influenced how I think about markets and modern companies.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-17T00:04:03Z'}], 'name': 'Andrew Sweeting', 'slug': 'sweeting'}, {'courses': ['SPHL498F', 'KNES360'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Venezia', 'slug': 'venezia'}, {'courses': ['FMSC302'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrew Williams', 'slug': 'williams_andrew'}, {'courses': ['COMM422', 'COMM470', 'COMM686', 'COMM798A', 'EXST079A', 'COMM399', 'COMM638', 'COMM398Y', 'COMM422', 'COMM470', 'COMM399', 'COMM399'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andrew Wolvin', 'course': 'COMM470', 'review': 'The course was very introspective and gave a lot of insight on how you listen (your specific style) and skills to listen better. I am thankful I got into this course because I learned a lot and improved as a listener. \r\nWolvin is a caring professor and a great person. He actually cares about each student improving as a listener. You know he cares when he gives you the opportunity to redo a paper if you really messed it up. Not many professors share this reasonable point of view. Just go to class and do the best you can on the writing assignments. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-17T14:59:00Z'}], 'name': 'Andrew Wolvin', 'slug': 'wolvin'}, {'courses': ['SURV720', 'SURV721'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Andrey Peytchev', 'slug': 'peytchev'}, {'courses': ['PHYS276', 'PHYS375', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS758E', 'PHYS103', 'PHYS107', 'PHYS106', 'HLTH672', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS103', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS261', 'PHYS103', 'PHYS261', 'PHYS271'], 'average_rating': 1.4118, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Horrible professor. He seems like a nice dude, but he is the worst lecturer I have ever seen. Has no idea how to teach properly. He just does problems and mumbles about while trying to solve them. He doesn't explain well at all. If you didn't take AP physics in high school, you'll be totally lost. Avoid this teacher at all costs!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-08-05T09:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Bad teacher. You will most likely not do well if you did not take AP Physics in high school. \n\r\nEven having taken AP Physics in high school, I had to put in a lot of work to pull off an A. His exam questions are basically taken directly out of the book. My strategy was that if I did most of the problems in the book, I would be prepared when I saw the same question on the exam. This strategy seemed to work, and I recommend it. \n\r\nBtw, the final exam is insanely difficult. You will feel like you failed, but there is some ridiculous 20 point curve because everyone fails it. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-06-10T13:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Pretty bad teacher. Not much homework. The materials not impossible to learn on ur own.You'll learn nothing in lecture.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-17T13:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'THE WORST PROFESSOR EVER. You sit in lecture, and think "why the eff am I here?" The examples he gives in class are ridiculously easy and he spends too much time going over them. The exam problems, then, are NOTHING like ANYTHING he goes over in lecture. I stopped going to class because I wasn\'t getting anything out of them.\n\r\nI\'m pretty sure I would have gotten a worse grade in the class if I had actually gone. Instead, during lecture times I self-studied or did the Mastering Physics. Seriously, skuja is a horrible teacher, do anything you can not to take his class. \n\r\nHonestly, he\'s probably a smart guy with a lot of knowledge, but he does not know how to teach at all. Avoid at all costs. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-05-17T12:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Terrible Professor. He basically screwed up on the first exam because the average was a 90, and now he's going to compensate for it by normalizing the grades. Going to class is useless and exams (other than the first) are so obscure and ridiculous. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2013-05-16T00:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'He is a nice guy but not very good at teaching. Out of 300 of people in the class maybe 50 go to class. You really need to teach yourself in order to do well in the class. He does not give much homework so it is up to you to study and get practice. He takes everything out of the book almost word for word and does not teach anything new.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-10T21:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "The worst professor anyone could ever take in the span of their entire college career. He doesn't actually teach anything and likes to whip out obscure questions on exams. I would gladly take 8 am or even 8pm classes over this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-04-30T09:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Awful teacher, he does not explain anything in class. If you have him, you basically have to self study. When I go to lecture, I come out thinking why did I go? Literally have not learned anything all semestre.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-03-31T23:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS103', 'review': 'This is the lab class for PHYS102, but the lab and the lecture have little to nothing in common. The ExpertTA was decent but sometimes had typos in it that resulted in losing points on questions. For example: "Question 1: What\'s the lowest frequency the ear can hear?" Chose the correct answer. "Question 1: What\'s the lowest frequency the ear can hear?" Chose the same answer as before (because it was the same question) and eventually find after losing all possible points that Q2 was meant to ask about the highest frequency. The TA (not Skuja, was Clayton Ristow) was helpful during the class. Labs were sometimes too abstract and didn\'t have enough background available to make them make a lot of sense. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-01T21:20:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'Avoid at all costs! Lectures were absolutely useless but you still had to go to them every week because he gave us two quizzes every single week. We had two lectures and one discussion per week and in two of those we had a quiz. We didn’t have time to learn anything new before being quizzed and getting the same things wrong again and again. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-09-05T04:01:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Yup. Most of the reviews you're reading are 100% accurate. His lectures are done through PowerPoint and formatted horribly so you learn nothing. He talks super slow and becomes out of breath within 2 slides. There's literally no point going to lecture except for the quiz every Wednesday. Just read the textbook, watch Organic Chemistry tutors Physics playlist, and do all the end of chapter textbook questions. His quizzes are hit or miss, sometimes they're really easy, sometimes not so much. He drops 2 quizzes and 1 homework as well as an exam.\r\nHis exams are usually based on the end-of-chapter textbook problem so if you do those problems you're probably going to get a 100 on his exam. (Yes he's that lazy, also he falls asleep while proctoring exams...) The homework is on expertTA also. The final exam wasn't too bad especially since it was standardized across the whole physics department therefore more competent professors were able to put questions on the final that made some sense. We got a 10% curve. Expect anywhere between 10-20%.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-24T20:39:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'By the end of the semester, in a class of 60 something, there was on average 6-7 people still going to his lectures. He\'s probably a nice guy, but good grief is he a terrible professor. He spends his time mumbling through lecture slides while never really engaging with the class. His "examples" Typed out Google Docs sheets that never explain how he got to those steps (some of them aren\'t even complete). He spends the same amount of time on a lecture slide about Maxwell Boltzmann the person as he does about applications to the Maxwell Boltzmann constant. \r\nQuizzes are hit or usually, miss. Class averages were usually around 4. Exams are based off textbook problems, just do those and you\'ll be okay.\r\n\r\nThe worst thing about him however is his stance on Homework and Mock Exams. His mock exams are somewhat confusing, and not only is he the reason that solutions to these problems are never posted, but also the reason these solutions are never posted for any other PHYS260 professor, regardless of who you have. The ExpertTA questions are long and annoying, but there\'s even worse in that you only have 5 tries, and he has enabled it in that you lose points(as much as 25%) for each attempt.\r\n\r\nSo far the worst professor I\'ve had at UMD. Avoid at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-18T04:24:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Skuja is possibly the most boring person I have met in my life. His lectures are just regurgitations of content and equations pulled straight from the textbook, and they are delivered in the most soul-wrenchingly dry and uninspired way. Although Skuja appears to make an effort to be an engaging professor, performing demonstrations and completing example problems in lecture, for some reason it all refuses to come together because he's just so bland.\r\n\r\nThat being said, he has lenient grading policies; in my semester, he dropped the two lowest homework assignments, dropped the two lowest quizzes, dropped the lowest midterm (of 3), and also applied to curve to the midterm grades. I am also giving him more than 1 star because I can tell that he is a genuinely kind and understanding man, but appears to be afflicted by some ailment that totally prevents him from being engaging in lecture. Or maybe he's so old that he just isn't interested in teaching this undergraduate course and wants to focus only on his research, which appears to be incredibly cool but definitely is not related to the subject matter of this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-18T13:55:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': None, 'review': "The thing I can't bear is that he puts deduction when using hints and feedbacks in ExpertTA. But the ExpertTA sometimes requires us to use hints!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-08-31T01:55:07.298013Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'He does not care about the students and will not explain concepts well. He reads off slides, and class is very unorganized.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-30T23:35:12.003499Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS103', 'review': 'In preparation for each of the labs, there were questions to answer on ExpertTA. I found that there was not enough background knowledge or context to be able to answer them, so I made sure to start them early and ask for the TAs help when needed. The labs themselves ranged from easy to more difficult. I think we only had 10 labs, so we finished a few weeks before the semester ended. During every lab, there is the need to complete a worksheet, which can be tricky, so I found it helpful to ask the GA for clarification on questions. If one asked, I found the GA provided guidance on how to do experiments and answer questions.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T02:04:01.693420Z'}, {'professor': 'Andris Skuja', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'I have to learn by myself. His lectures are boring and unorganized.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2023-02-01T16:06:52.746310Z'}], 'name': 'Andris Skuja', 'slug': 'skuja'}, {'courses': ['ARTH496', 'ARTT489A', 'ARTH389M', 'ARTH489M', 'ARTH488G', 'ARTH489K', 'ARTH330', 'ARTH389A', 'ARTH488O', 'ARTH389F', 'ARTH389C', 'ARTH389N', 'HHUM205', 'ARHU158M', 'ARTH389T', 'ARTH488K', 'WINT488K', 'ARTH389X', 'ARTH389D', 'ARTH489O', 'HONR299A', 'ARTH313', 'ARTH324', 'ARTH389K', 'ARTH335', 'HHUM205', 'ARTH313', 'ARTH324', 'ARTH335', 'HHUM205'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Aneta Georgievska-Shine', 'course': None, 'review': 'Her lectures are super unorganized, for more than half of the lecture time she just read thru webpages. If you really enjoy study by reading webpages then this course is right for you. I would not take any of her classes again. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-12T17:44:26Z'}], 'name': 'Aneta Georgievska-Shine', 'slug': 'georgievska-shine'}, {'courses': ['ANSC260', 'ANSC211', 'ANSC235', 'ANSC204', 'ANSC205', 'ANSC204', 'ANSC205', 'ANSC260', 'ANSC245', 'ANSC204', 'ANSC205'], 'average_rating': 4.7, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC260', 'review': 'Dr. Black is absolutely amazing! She is engaging, intelligent and so approachable. She is one of professors that I have found to be the most inspiring. She has just a wealth of knowledge and she always wants to help. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-04-16T00:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC211', 'review': 'The only professor I would rate a 5. She is hands down my favorite professor. \n\r\nBasically the way her class runs is she assigns videos to watch before each class and you take notes on them at home. She then discusses them/answers any questions/plans activities with the material during class. I LOVED this method because it was on your own time. If you didn\'t watch the videos, it\'s not a big deal because she\'s not strict with Tophat (you can just work with a partner sort of) but you eventually have to watch them. The videos were slow and boring but they were very clear in explaining. Her videos drag because her dogs and cats interrupt the videos a lot, but her explanations are so clear. The videos allow you to take perfect notes because you can just rewind and listen over and over again. During class she plans interactive activities which will be useless to you if you didn\'t watch the videos beforehand. I strongly strongly suggest you watch them BEFORE the class. It\'s easy to leave them at the last minute because you\'ll end up with 20 videos the night before the test. The videos vary between 15-30 min so they\'re not super long. \r\nDuring class she also talks and tells stories and you\'ll never ever fall asleep during this class. Her stories and everything about the class is so interesting. \n\r\nHer tests are VERY reasonable. She gives you options on the tests like "Pick 2 out of the 4 to answer" so you don\'t have to know ALL the material and still do well if you blank out on a section. Everything about this class was SO fair. Her tests are 50 points so if you fail one you can still get an A. She drops one of the tests too. Her tests are short and fair, bordering easy. I wish all my classes were structured this way. I search for classes that she teaches even if I\'m not interested in the material because I know she\'ll make it interesting. I strongly recommend this class to anyone and everyone. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-29T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC260', 'review': 'Dr. Black is one of my favorite professors at UMD. She knows a lot about her field and has a lot of experience, which makes for some really interesting stories that helps to make the information more applicable. She is extremely nice and flexible and listens to student concerns. She is very busy so you need to be flexible when making appointments with her but over all great professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-18T23:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC211', 'review': 'Dr. Black is a very nice person, and she is very knowledgeable about anatomy, but her tests are somewhat difficult unless you memorize every single word of her lectures and labs, which is difficult to do when you have many other classes to worry about at the same time. She is always willing to help you out, but you need to put forth a significant amount of effort in this class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-07T00:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC211', 'review': "Dr. Black is a great professor. She knows her stuff, and is extremely helpful during lectures and lab.\n\r\nI had some qualms about the dissection part of the class, but it turned out to be my favorite part. Its really fun and interesting once you get a hang of how to use the tools like the scalpel and probe. \n\r\nStudy really hard for lab quizzes since they make up a significant part of your grade. Learn the locations and repeat the actions to yourself over and over and over again to commit them to memory. You'll find that while it is a lot of hard work to do well, the feeling of achievement in mastering anatomy is priceless!\n\r\nShe does NOT curve.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-11-04T04:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC211', 'review': 'She is a really great teacher - her lectures are very interesting and her tests are straightforward. \n\r\nEven though anatomy is essentially just a lot of memorization, she made the material engaging. She is VERY helpful in the lab. It was my favorite class of the semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-07T14:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC211', 'review': "literally the most effective teacher. don't be afraid.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-01-31T02:11:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC204', 'review': 'Dr. Black is probably my favorite professor of all time. If Dr. Black could explain anatomy to me, I am reasonably certain that an Orangutan would perform just as well as me (if not better) in the anatomy lecture. \r\n\r\nThe concept of the LOVs (Learning Objective Videos) combined with her fun discussions of how anatomy relates to functional conditions in class is (unfortunately) many years ahead of its time. This is probably the most effective format for learning any topic, and is taught by (probably) the best instructor that I have ever had. If you are a student taking her course, go up and talk to her about something interesting (animal related) while you have the privilege of doing so. She likes sheep, collies, and primates.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-09-04T09:43:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC204', 'review': 'Dr. Black is a wonderful teacher and person. She explains things well, can be flexible, and gives very reasonable exams. I gave her 4 only because she is unnecessarily strict about certain things, like turning in lecture assignments. Also, there were lectures when I feel that the time could have been used better. Otherwise, excellent professor. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-15T20:12:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Black', 'course': 'ANSC204', 'review': "Dr. Black is the only professor I know to truly master reverse lecture and tie in lecture to a lab well. There are assigned videos for each lecture (range from 30 min to 70 min of content per lecture), just take thorough notes on each video - I used google docs and then screenshotted the photos in the videos to put in my notes. Each class is a discussion on applying the anatomy or games etc. Going to class didn't feel super mandatory except for participation assignments every class, but even without them I would go just because it was fun. \r\nShe's super nice and understanding and will clear up any questions you have after class or in office hours. She'll get off topic if you berate her with veterinary questions(this means lecture assignments get postponed a week so she can finish the discussion, just don't forget to turn it in later cause she's strict about deadlines). \r\nTests aren't too bad, but come up every 3 weeks. If you commit a few hours for the few nights before an exam(took about 8-10 hours total to master content for 90 averages on exams(70-78 class averages)), nothing out of the ordinary is on them. The best way I studied is to turn her objectives into questions and answer them in your notes and then draw out a mind map of everything. Very much looking forward to taking her again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T02:43:00.667347Z'}], 'name': 'Angela Black', 'slug': 'black_angela'}, {'courses': ['EDCP470', 'UNIV100', 'EDCP108J', 'HESI470'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Angela Jackson', 'slug': 'jackson_angela'}, {'courses': ['BIOE120', 'BIOE121', 'BIOE372', 'BIOE601', 'BIOE658N', 'BIOE658M', 'BIOE241', 'BIOE461', 'BIOE488B'], 'average_rating': 3.4444, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Angela Jones', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Angela Jones knows what she is talking about, however she can be unnecessarily petty. For example, she does not allow students to use her stapler to staple their homework and takes off a half point if they don't staple it. She also has a lot of favorites in the class, and is very unpredictable and moody. However, she gives fair exams and teaches all the content that will be covered. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-19T02:40:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Jones', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': 'This is without a doubt one of the worst teachers I have ever had. She overcomplicates many subjects by going into extensive chemistry that is not required for the course which then dillutes the actual material and made understanding all of the concepts nearly impossible from her lectures. If you read all of the chapters or go through the slides on your own for hours while googling stuff before tests is the only way to succeed. She is also very rude and not in the slightest bit understanding so if you do have her, you better do everything exactly how and when she wants or expect to see a huge drop in your grade. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-11T21:43:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Jones', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "I took her in spring 2020. imo she teaches her class kinda like a high school class. Her personality can be uppity during lecture but as the other reviews say she can be unpleasant and passive-aggressive if you don't follow directions the first time they're given. It is very apparent who her favorites are in the class and I think she might base it off of who does well on her exams tbh. Homework was due every week and was moderately okay. She takes a lot of points off on exams if you don't have the right sig figs. Her midterms were okay but her final was hard. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-16T22:47:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Jones', 'course': 'BIOE121', 'review': "This class was okay but mainly due to the TAs. Prof jones wasn't present in lab a lot of times. She's very particular about the lab reports and takes a lot of points off for the smallest things. Also, she has a policy where she takes points off if you're late for lab so don't be late but since I took her in spring 2020 that policy might have changed. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-16T22:53:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Jones', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Jones is very picky. Submission font and organization requirement have to be followed to the letter. She sounds nice but can be condescending at times. IMO the exams are also harder than they need to be and little to no curve is applied. With that being said, I would sign up for another one of her classes. It wasn't too difficult, just very annoying at some parts. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-04T17:28:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Jones', 'course': 'BIOE121', 'review': 'I think Jones was a lot nicer in 121 than in 120. However, she does expect you to fully comprehend the lab and how each step affects the overall result so be prepared for that. Overall, I would say take Jones for lab and maybe a different prof for 120. She was bad for 120 but she is insanely picky.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-04T17:33:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Jones', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Dr. Jones is very good at what she does and makes sure you have the resources you need to do well in the class. Her lectures are great and the ta's are always very helpful too. That being said, she can be very nit picky, especially about sig figs and citing sources. You will end up losing points if you don't follow the directions exactly as they are written. Also, if you are taking her class online, make sure not to miss the synchronous recitations. These problems very closely match what will be on the exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-11T20:48:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Jones', 'course': 'BIOE658M', 'review': 'A great teacher. The only issue is that sometimes she is impatient.\xa0', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-06T23:30:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Angela Jones', 'course': 'BIOE372', 'review': 'This semester, she was very considerate with curving exams when she thought they may have been unfair. The MATLAB sessions I found to be very useful, teaching real-world skills which you will probably use later. I also though the course was fairly easy, a lot of plug and chug into formulas, especially fi you have already taken a statistics course even in high school.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-02-07T23:10:26Z'}], 'name': 'Angela Jones', 'slug': 'jones_angela'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Angela Mazur-Gray', 'slug': 'mazur-gray'}, {'courses': ['MATH212', 'MATH314', 'EDCI352', 'EDCI355', 'TLPL479D', 'EDCI450', 'EDCI451', 'TLPL478D', 'TLPL489D', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL479E', 'TLPL489E', 'TLPL424', 'TLPL312', 'TLPL423', 'TLPL479E', 'TLPL424', 'TLPL489E', 'HNUH268W', 'TLPL423', 'TLPL479E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Angela Stoltz', 'slug': 'stoltz_angela'}, {'courses': ['BMGT372'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Angelisa Gillyard', 'slug': 'gillyard'}, {'courses': ['HACS201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Angelisa Plane', 'slug': 'plane_angelisa'}, {'courses': ['PLSC608', 'PLSC789F', 'PLSC789M', 'ENST689Y', 'ENST407', 'PLSC608T', 'PLSC798', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC489T', 'PLSC460', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'AGST130', 'PLSC130', 'PLSC275', 'BSCI442', 'PLSC400', 'AGST130', 'PLSC130', 'PLSC608T', 'BSCI442', 'PLSC400', 'PLSC789M', 'PLSC608T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Angus Murphy', 'slug': 'murphy_angus'}, {'courses': ['GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS496', 'GERM103', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS497', 'GEMS396'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anil Deane', 'slug': 'deane'}, {'courses': ['ENME444', 'ENPM808J', 'ENPM640', 'ENPM640', 'ENPM640'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anindo Roy', 'slug': 'roy_anindo'}, {'courses': ['EDHI750'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anita Gopal', 'slug': 'gopal_anita'}, {'courses': ['TLPL102', 'EDCI488M', 'TLPL101', 'TLPL488M', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL889', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL414', 'TLPL102', 'TLPL414', 'TLPL102', 'TLPL414', 'TLPL102', 'TLPL414', 'TLPL889', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL102', 'TLPL414'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anita Sanyal', 'course': 'EDCI411', 'review': 'Anita is an amazing teacher that encourages interesting discussions. If you have a chance to take her for EDCI411, do it! We spent most of the class discussing and had interesting readings every week which we discussed in class. Class is based on participation, so must go to class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-07T08:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anita Sanyal', 'course': 'TLPL101', 'review': 'The best!!! Such a caring and kind professor. Take her class if you like to work with kids or tutor. Easy A and you get valuable experience! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-21T01:30:27Z'}], 'name': 'Anita Sanyal', 'slug': 'sanyal'}, {'courses': ['GERM103', 'GERM204', 'GERM203', 'GERM301', 'GERM302'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anja Ketterl', 'slug': 'ketterl'}, {'courses': ['ENEE350', 'ENEE350H', 'ENEE759T', 'ENEE640', 'ENPM607', 'ENES604', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE459C', 'ENEE459C', 'ENEE640'], 'average_rating': 3.9167, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE350H', 'review': "Favorite honors EE course I've taken. The professor makes the class very funny, while still teaching at a fast pace. We did extra material not in 350 for the last 3 weeks. I think he teaches 350 the right way by making it more hardware oriented as opposed to Silio/Oruc making their courses very assembly programming heavy. This way, EE majors won't be at a disadvantage to CE majors. Definitely recommend taking this guy for 350.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-09-30T21:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE350H', 'review': 'Srivastava is pretty good at explaining the material. The workload is pretty light since there little homework. Sometimes you have no idea if what you doing on a homework or exam is right, but Srivastava is somewhat generous with partial credit if you justify enough. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-01-31T02:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE350H', 'review': 'Good professor. He teaches the honors version of the course very differently from other professors - there was almost nothing my class had in common with Oruc / Silio / Barua. \n\r\nVery little assembly programming, which could be a plus for some people. I almost wish we did more than our single (one hour) assignment. \n\r\nHe gives out almost no homework, which can be frustrating when you find yourself equipped with so few practice problems to use for studying before a test.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-13T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE350H', 'review': "Cool guy. The class is in my opinion the most straightforward of the 300-levels and if you're a CE it'll be even easier. Lectures are interesting enough, very few homework assignments and they are quite short. The tests are fair and emphasize problem-solving over memorizing concepts. You don't really have to study for them if you pay attention in class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-18T23:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "Srivastava is great! He is a very interesting dude and always has cool anecdotes to add to the class. The bottom line though, is that he is just a solid teacher. You will learn the most important material from him as he cuts out all the stupid stuff that Oruc does. Homeworks are kind of annoying, but fairly straightforward and he doesn't give very many of them. Exams are tough, but fair. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-21T23:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE350H', 'review': "I, like most people, only review professors I really hate on this site, so for a change I thought I'd review a professor I actually liked. Srivastava is the kind of professor who definitely shows a passion for the teaching computer organization. I find this to be a rare quality among professors in the engineering department, many of whom act like teaching is a collateral responsibility for getting funded research. Srivastava makes it a point to make sure every student in the class understands a topic before moving forward. I know this is only feasible because of the small class size of an honors section, but that trait gives me lots of respect for him. I can honestly say he is the ONLY professor from whom I pretty much learned everything during lecture, using the textbook only as a supplementary resource. In all my classes it's the other way around. Yes his exams can be difficult, but I think the depth of his questions is commensurate with the detail he goes into during lecture, so if you pay attention you should be fine.\n\r\nThe only complain I have against him, which may sound ironic, is that he doesn't give enough homework. We only had 5 assignments throughout the semester, and each one took about 30 minutes to complete - unheard of for an engineering class. Why is this bad? Because I feel homework is the best way to get a grasp of the material. I feel so much more confident about a topic after I just did a rigorous problem set on it. Sure you can say one could do their own problems sets, but honestly, no one does that. So other than that complaint, I thoroughly enjoyed the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-13T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE641', 'review': ' He is a bad teacher even he seems to be a nice professor. he taught very easy materials in the class and gave very tough questions in the exam without notification. Moreover he kept giving book exercises as exam questions. Some students knows(guesses) it and definitely take advantages out of it since the exam is open book exam and the textbook solution is available online. It definitely is not fair for all the students. He also had no syllabus, so you do not know materials in advance and you have no idea how he will calculate the grade (you do not know the weights of homework, test scores).\r\n I also agreed with previous comments: "The class itself had plenty of potential but the professor expected a tremendous amount from the students but would not actually teach the material that he expected us to understand."\r\nAnyway, it is a bad experience. I will not recommend him as your professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': None, 'review': "He was completely disinterested in teaching the course, admitted to stealing another professor's slides and never showed up to class prepared. Was constantly asking the students to answer questions but would personally attack the students verbally if they were wrong. The class itself had plenty of potential but the professor expected a tremendous amount from the students but would not actually teach the material that he expected us to understand, especially the proofs that he never once touched in class but expected us to gather from the slides that he was continually telling us were incorrect. He was ok for 350 but for 644 he was really bad.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-18T12:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "ENEE244 is hard, but he keeps his lectures interesting. You need to keep up with the work, though, because his tests can be brutal. Luckily, the curve can save you. I personally failed the second exam and still wound up with an A-. Overall, from what I've heard, DEFINITELY better than Silio.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-25T16:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "He's one of the best professors I've ever had, you should definitely take him for 350.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-19T15:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "He's a cool guy...Always kept class kinda fun and interesting. But he is serious about the class learning his stuff. Pretty tough - the average on the first exam was a 40% - but he was fair and curved accordingly. I would def recommend him over Silio ANYDAY...", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-12T19:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Took it over the summer. Excellent professor. His lectures are clear, and make sense if you really pay attention. Exams, I thought were decent if you paid attention in class, and knew what was up. Along with being good at teaching, he was quite funny, and enjoyable to listen to. Would recommend definitely. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-07-23T22:53:10Z'}], 'name': 'Ankur Srivastava', 'slug': 'srivastava_ankur'}, {'courses': ['LARC489E', 'LARC470', 'LARC489R', 'LARC141'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ann Anderson', 'slug': 'anderson_ann'}, {'courses': ['EDHD413', 'EDHD718', 'EDHD619J'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ann Battle', 'course': 'EDHD413', 'review': 'Battle is the best! The class is interesting and challenging and I feel like a better student for taking it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-13T14:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ann Battle', 'course': 'EDHD413', 'review': "Easily one of the best professors I've ever had. The class was extremely engaging, half due to the subject matter and half due to Dr. Battle's ability to break down difficult theories in an easily understandable way. More importantly, she was able to relate each theory to a teacher's experience in the classroom. Her spunky personality had everyone in the class hooked.\n\r\nFour 3-4 page homework assignments, six quizzes (she drops two), midterm (take-home essays, in-class exam) and final (take-home essay, in-class exam), and a good amount of reading. Definitely worth it to take the class with Dr. Battle, because she makes herself available for help in and out of class the entire semester, and she really wants to see everyone succeed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-22T16:06:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ann Battle', 'slug': 'battle'}, {'courses': ['ENGL391', 'ENGL398V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ann Bracken', 'slug': 'bracken'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL398V', 'ENGL101', 'COMM200', 'COMM360', 'COMM460', 'COMM451', 'COMM461', 'COMM469E', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL398E', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ann Mason', 'course': 'ENGL398V', 'review': 'Absolutely an amazing professor! The things she teaches will significantly improve your writing. Writing for the environment can be tedious but she keeps it interesting. BUY THE BOOK! Not because you will need it but because it is worth reading. I am so glad I was able to take her class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-14T09:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ann Mason', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "I absolutely loved her. She was extremely helpful and kind. Her class is pretty interesting but the material can get pretty dry. (It is an English class after all). One of the best professors I've ever had. If I had a complaint, it would be that she takes a while with grading, but she is normally pretty generous when it comes to grading so I would say that evens out. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-03T19:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ann Mason', 'course': 'ENGL398V', 'review': 'She is a very nice lady and is very helpful if you want to improve your writing. Most people take this class to graduate, but she improves your writing whether or not you are interested in the environment.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-13T21:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ann Mason', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "She is an amazing professor who really cares about her students. She makes you want to improve your writing for the sake of improving it...not to just get the grade you want.\n\r\nI am a biology major, and I do have to say that so far this has been one of the most interesting classes I've taken.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-08-13T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ann Mason', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'I took ENGL393 online with Dr. Mason (goes by Michele Mason). For this reason I honestly have no idea what she is like as a person. I am sure she is great based on the other reviews! I am taking off one star for slow grading, but otherwise the course was very fair and went smoothly. She gives only relevant work (no busy work) and grades fairly.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T20:06:43.184860Z'}], 'name': 'Ann Mason', 'slug': 'mason_ann'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'IDEA101'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ann Smith', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "This class is divided into 3 modules; Dr. Stewart taught the first two modules and Dr. Smith taught the last one. Dr. Smith lectured with more passion, but her slides were not as straightforward as Dr. Stewart's. I studied Dr. Stewart's slides without referencing the textbook, and got A's on the first two exams. However, I had to rely heavily on the textbook to understand the material that Dr. Smith taught since her slides have very little substance to them (as per another reviewer). The labs are pretty fun, and can really boost up your grade. Make sure you keep track of all the assignments and their due dates since there is a lot of busy work. Also, if a problem arises that may interfere with the class, do not hesitate to talk to Dr. Smith. She is very understanding and will work with you to devise a solution. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-23T19:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ann Smith', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "Dr. Smith is an amazing professor! She really loves what she is doing, and teaching is evidently her passion. This definitely shines through during her lectures, her way of responding to students' questions, and even in her very well designed (but sometimes poorly supplemented/executed) laboratory exercises. This might sound strange, but Dr. Smith was so sympathetic to student's concerns, that at times she seemed like a second mother (she really is that nice!) In addition, she really has a knack for teaching you everything you need to know about microbiology. She has very fair examinations, and is really great about bumping you up provided you show improvement throughout. Amazing woman. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-11T10:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ann Smith', 'course': 'BSCI348A', 'review': "Overall, I liked being a UTA and thought it was a good learning experience. A lot of people do it as a good way to get to know a professor and to build up their resume for medical/ graduate school. \n\r\nBesides attending lab and UTA meeting once per week, there are weekly journals that actually take a long time to complete (reflect on last week's lab, write two questions for upcoming lab with answers, explain most confusing point of upcoming lab, multiple reading assignment questions). There is a lot of emphasis on teaching science to undergraduates, and a lot of the reading assignments are from education journals. \n\r\nI thought that more emphasis should have been put on how to actually help the students during lab. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-14T13:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ann Smith', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "Dr. Smith was a good teacher. Sometimes it can be a little frustrating b/c her slides don't seem to have a lot of substance to them, but by the end of the course, you will learn a lot! I recommend doing the study questions and going to review sessions to ask about any questions you might not be able to answer. I also recommend looking over the PAKs before the exams. BSCI223 overall is easier than most bio classes but there are a lot of small, kind of busywork assignments. I really liked the lab because you learn a lot of techniques and you are not penalized for mistakes during procedures, so you aren't afraid to try new things. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ann Smith', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "Dr. Smith is an effective teacher. Her tests are fair and based off the material she covers in lecture via power point. Some students dislike her because she tends to use gimmicky teaching techniques as were used in middle school (like stories), but I believe this gives her points context and makes them more interesting. Also like middle school, there are lots of small things due all the time and there are many projects. The syllabus is hard to read so it can be difficult to keep track of due dates. Despite the sometimes cheesy projects, overall I'd recommend Dr. Smith.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-04T18:43:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ann Smith', 'slug': 'smith_ann'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anna Engelsone', 'slug': 'engelsone'}, {'courses': ['ENGL391', 'ENGL297', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 3.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anna Szczepaniec-Bialas', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Terrible teacher. She's practically incoherent during lecture. She has no grade breakdown and can't even explain where points came off if you ask. I haven't learned anything in over 9 weeks over taking this course. She obviously favors the few students who talk to her after class the most and take multiple courses with her (she also teaches business writing and does work in the professional writing department with interested students).", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-11-05T21:32:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Szczepaniec-Bialas', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'Terrible experience. Class time is wasted going over random things and just going on tangents. She has no grade breakdown so it feels as though she just bases grades on who her favorites are. I am average at English and was struggling to get a B just because she seemed to not like me as much as others. She is rude to her students and told another student that compared to my writing she was doing well....do not recommend taking her', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-11-16T15:38:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Szczepaniec-Bialas', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'SHE IS SUCH A NICE WOMAN. She is so sweet to all her students I do not know what these people are talking about. Although I have not finished her class, I know she truly cares about her students, and makes this class a lot of fun. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-05T02:35:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Szczepaniec-Bialas', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "She is sooo nice. Wasn't at all like the older reviews describe her as. I had a great experience with her. Assignments are relatively easy and she gives clear and concise feedback. She also tries to make class engaging, which I appreciate.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-28T21:19:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Szczepaniec-Bialas', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'She is a very nice professor and gives good feedback on the assignments. The class is not too difficult and a lot of it is group work.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-04T22:50:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Szczepaniec-Bialas', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'This professor is great. She enjoys teaching the class and is more than happy to help if you make mistakes. There is a lot of group work so your group can make or break the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T01:13:58.067887Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Szczepaniec-Bialas', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Pros: Absolute sweetheart of a professor. Responds quickly to messages and deeply cares about all her students.\r\n\r\nCons: One of the most boring classes I have ever taken. Class is in person rather than online. During class it is just reading the class page word for word and boring discussions. A crap ton of group work and busy work. Assigned a random group for the final paper - if your group sucks, good luck. \r\n\r\nThe class is not as free of an A as the distribution may suggest. You have to stay on top of the many boring assignments and the professor grades pretty strictly - she does allow resubmissions which is nice but time consuming.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-28T17:32:31.400794Z'}], 'name': 'Anna Szczepaniec-Bialas', 'slug': 'szczepaniec-bialas'}, {'courses': ['HLTH491', 'HLTH785'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anne Anderson-Sawyer', 'slug': 'anderson-sawyer'}, {'courses': ['EDSP694', 'EDSP695', 'EDSP402', 'EDSP692'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anne Butler', 'slug': 'butler_anne'}, {'courses': ['MUSC329E', 'MUSC649E', 'MUSC329E', 'MUSC649E', 'MUSC329E', 'MUSC649E', 'MUSC329E', 'MUSC649E', 'MUSC329E', 'MUSC649E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anne Carswell', 'slug': 'carswell'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anne Gleeson', 'slug': 'gleeson'}, {'courses': ['PUAF359W', 'PUAF311', 'PLCY311', 'PLCY201', 'PLCY311', 'PLCY201', 'PLCY203', 'PLCY311', 'PLCY201', 'PLCY201', 'PLCY203', 'PLCY311'], 'average_rating': 2.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anne Kaiser', 'course': 'PLCY311', 'review': 'This class is kind of frustrating. Grading is pretty arbitrary, points are taken off for very minor flaws. Professor is also a politician, so "leadership" is pretty much exclusively limited to women in politics. Would not recommend. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-10T15:14:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Kaiser', 'course': 'PLCY311', 'review': 'Kaiser is an extremely harsh grader and is almost impossible to please. I put in A worthy effort and am now expecting a B. I highly recommend avoiding this course. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-18T03:06:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Kaiser', 'course': 'PLCY201', 'review': "I liked Prof. Kaiser. She seems like a good human being. However, she is way to harsh of a grader for someone who refuses to give a rubric. If she had, I would take her grades in stride. \r\nThe classes were interesting and she led discussions well. It's just that the TA's and her grade so harshly on the most minor mistakes. It's super frustrating. \r\nShe's a very accomplished woman and I have much respect for her--it's the grading that gets on my nerves.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-07T18:19:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Kaiser', 'course': 'PLCY311', 'review': 'Professor Kaiser definitely grades harshly, but she is very consistent. As long as you are careful with grammar and not making sweeping generalizations, it is easy to get an A. Has interesting guest speakers and tests and workload are generally manageable. Readings some weeks are long, but I just chose to only do readings and journals for shorter weeks. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-12T02:39:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Kaiser', 'course': 'PLCY201', 'review': 'This professor is the harshest grader I have had. Nothing is good enough, even if you follow the prompts she will find ways to make you unsuccessful. I highly recommend not taking her course.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-20T16:19:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Kaiser', 'course': 'PLCY203', 'review': 'A extremely harsh grader. Gives no rubric for the papers and will often nit pick to find points to take off on your papers. However, she’s a nice enough lady to help you out as well. A toss up Professor. Could love or hate her depends on the person', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-19T07:05:49.063000Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Kaiser', 'course': 'PLCY203', 'review': 'Professor Kaiser is a nice professor and makes a real effort to engage students in her class. A sizable portion of the grade is participation, so as long as you show up and participate during discussion time, it’s easy points. However, she is a very tough grader and it can be hard to nail down exactly what she’s looking for in her writing assignments. If you’re willing to meet with her she can help show you what she’s looking for, but if you don’t, your grades might really suffer. I didn’t mind her but could go either way', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-28T02:20:08.119371Z'}], 'name': 'Anne Kaiser', 'slug': 'kaiser'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL273', 'ENGL243', 'ENGL271'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anne Price', 'slug': 'price_anne'}]
[{'courses': ['JOUR453', 'JOUR453', 'AASP499N', 'JOUR453', 'AASP499N', 'JOUR453', 'AASP499N', 'JOUR453'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anne Rosen', 'course': 'JOUR453', 'review': 'Overall garbage professor. So unclear about expectations. Gets pissed at students for typing on their computers but expects us to memorize everything in every lecture. Constantly spitting micro aggressions and misgendering people. If you can avoid this professor please do', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-11T02:24:28.763737Z'}], 'name': 'Anne Rosen', 'slug': 'rosen'}, {'courses': ['HIST233', 'HIST289O', 'HIST428M', 'HIST289O', 'HIST233', 'HIST465', 'HIST289O'], 'average_rating': 3.625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anne Rush', 'course': 'HIST289O', 'review': "She was very excited about the class, which was about lawlessness. She was very approachable and always wanted to hear our opinions and not just hers. She was passionate, knowledgeable, and effective at lecturing. The exams weren't too hard, as she gave out possible short answers and essay questions. Received a 4 because her power points sometimes were cluttered and didn't have much of a structure", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-08-22T15:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Rush', 'course': 'HIST233', 'review': 'She is a good teacher and is obviously interested in her subject. She grades the papers fairly easy, I got an A, but the tests suck. She expects knowledge of specifics and we had to write essentially 6 pages in less than an hour.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-29T16:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Rush', 'course': 'HIST233', 'review': "She is very interested in the subject and is overall a great professor. That said the course is set up not in your favor... there are 2 books (oh and you better know all the intricate details of the characters) that she expects you to read along with the textbook, the other readings, notes on all of those, and all the other classes that you most likely take. With that, you also have to write about really unimportant things for the essays... you'll see when you take them. The exams aren't hard but you'll have to write an essay in an hour (actually less since you have to write a bunch of other long form answer questions before the essay), when she normally assigns them she tells you to start it a week before its due... ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-03T17:27:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Rush', 'course': 'HIST289O', 'review': "Dr. Rush is an incredible teacher! She is very organized, knowledgable, and understanding. For the lawlessness class I took, her syllabus thoroughly outlined everything we'd be doing: no surprises. She also gives very specific lists of what is going to be asked on our midterms/finals and posts video versions of her lectures. At least a quarter of her lectures end up being the students asking questions because everyone is so interested in the subject! That being said, this class is not easy. The essays are a little hellish, and the readings are fairly time consuming (especially for a gen-ed). But I felt it was worth it! At least 2 senior/juniors have told me lawlessness is one of their favorite classes they've taken at UMD. Plus, you get to tell your friends you're taking a class about pirates. And you get to learn about pirates. So like... ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-11-25T06:07:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Rush', 'course': 'HIST289O', 'review': "Dr. Rush is by far my favorite teacher! She keeps the entire class engaged for the entire time. It's truly the only class I don't find myself watching the time in. Additionally, she is the only teacher I've had who learned everybody's names. There's a good mix between lecture and interactive work. I was originally worried because I heard she was a hard grader, but I now disagree. As long as you hit all the questions she asks for in written work you will receive an A. She really wants her students to achieve and takes time to get to know the class. I would love to take another course with her. I highly recommend it!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-07T23:05:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Rush', 'course': 'HIST289O', 'review': 'Dr. Rush is a good teacher, very lenient if you ask for an extension, and knows her history. She is also very engaged in what she talks about throughout the whole semester. There is very little review of the book that you are assigned to buy because a lot of the material is posted on ELMS under modules, so the book is a waste of money.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-16T21:07:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Rush', 'course': 'HIST289O', 'review': 'Dr. Rush is a really nice lady and understanding when you need extensions on papers. She is also very knowledgeable about British history. However, her lectures were boring to me and seemed like they had no structure. It seemed as though she would just go on and on about one thing, and then all of a sudden talk about a new topic with no transition. The TA I had for this class graded very harshly, as well as Dr. Rush who is very nitpicky with your wording on assignments and will take off points for the smallest mistake. This class was not what I expected it to be, and I regret taking it.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-19T03:14:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Rush', 'course': 'HIST289O', 'review': "The class is pretty interesting and she is a very good lecturer. The papers are very specific and can be a little bit challenging if you haven't wrote a college level history paper before. Her tests aren't too hard if you do atleast a little bit of studying.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-01T20:30:14.549356Z'}], 'name': 'Anne Rush', 'slug': 'rush_anne'}, {'courses': ['HESI217', 'HESI315', 'HESI418T', 'HESI318I', 'HESI318A', 'HESI221', 'EXST030', 'EDHI788B', 'EDHI788B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anne Spear', 'slug': 'spear'}, {'courses': ['DANC466', 'HONR239C', 'DANC488', 'DANC766', 'DANC679', 'DANC789'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anne Warren', 'course': 'HONR239C', 'review': "For a subject (dance) that doesn't make sense to study formally, she does a good job of presenting the topics professionally, despite the fact that they are pretty much bs when it comes down to it. \r\nThe papers (3 of them) are not hard to write. Easily doable in one day. \r\nShe did a good job of introducing us to the world of dance, a world which I had never really explored before, being a scientist myself. The movement exercises are kind of weird, but they made me more confident in doing whatever I want in front of other people, which is a good thing I guess.\r\nOverall this was a good course which gave me some appreciation for and experience with dance. I only took it for HA credit, but it's nice to know I got something else out of it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T01:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anne Warren', 'course': 'HONR239C', 'review': 'Good professor and a very likable person. She does a good job of getting you interested in dance. Used plenty of videos and exercises to draw you into the world of dance. There were a few reflective assignments, a research paper, and a presentation, but those were very simple.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-14T04:47:00Z'}], 'name': 'Anne Warren', 'slug': 'warren'}, {'courses': ['UMEI004', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI003', 'UMEI001', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI007'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Annelies Galletta', 'course': None, 'review': 'very nice professor , ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-07T01:15:37Z'}], 'name': 'Annelies Galletta', 'slug': 'galletta'}, {'courses': ['BSCI339R', 'BSCI300', 'BSCI279B', 'EDUC388', 'BSCI300', 'EDUC388', 'BSCI300', 'EDUC388'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Annie Foster Ahmed', 'slug': 'ahmed'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM371'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Annie Nichols', 'slug': 'nichols_annie'}, {'courses': ['ENAE380', 'CMSC106'], 'average_rating': 2.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anthony Banes', 'course': 'ENAE380', 'review': 'Unfortunately, the fact that the midterm and final are both open-note lulled me into a false sense of security in this class. I did very poorly on the midterm and this cost me dearly even though I had around a 90 on the labs and the final.\n\r\nHere is some advice about this course. Work on the labs in groups since it is faster and it guarantees your code is correct. Next, print the lecture notes BEFORE class and make sure you understand everything. Finally, do not take your time on the exams. The midterm was four pages and I spent way too long on the first three so I left the last one completely blank.\n\r\nI missed an A- by 0.8% so try to heed my advice. Professor Banes is a nice guy, but his lectures are very boring. Do not be fooled by the grade distribution from 2009 like me, because I think he cracked down on this class a little bit. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-23T15:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Banes', 'course': 'ENAE380', 'review': "Not a good lecturer. Don't bother showing up to class because it won't help your grade. Quizzes are take-home and he lets you use the internet. Finals are open-note so just print out the powerpoint slides and bring them in. Labs are assigned and graded by the TA. I was lucky to have a good TA who made easy labs and helped anyone who was struggling. Overall I didn't learn anything from this class but it was an easy A.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-25T18:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Banes', 'course': 'ENAE380', 'review': 'Banes is an amazing guy and honestly cares about all of his students. While his lectures can be quite dry all of his exams are open note and pulled directly from things he covers in class. While his coding labs can be quite time confusing he will be very open to answering any questions you may have as well as providing snippets of code to point you in the right direction.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-24T19:43:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Banes', 'course': 'ENAE380', 'review': "Banes is a very nice person himself, but for the fall 2021 semester, he clearly has many things going on especially with the situation of his beloved wife, and this shows when he tries to communicate with the class. \r\n\r\nMany of his assignment and lab instructions are very unclear, and he always likes to take a small number of points off on some assignments and labs. He is way too specific about how we should format some of the assignments and labs, and the worst thing in fact is that he never communicates on how he exactly wants us to format the assignments and labs before we would formally turn them in for a grade. This is very frustrating. Like how we would know you want us to format in that specific way that you wanted to see without even directly informing us in advance, right? \r\n\r\nAnother bad thing for his class is that he never passes back and returns your in-class midterm exams. The only thing you would know from the midterm exams is your score, but you would never know what exactly you messed up on the exam and what things you should focus on and fix later. This is also very frustrating. In all of my other classes at UMD, you would always get your exam back and at least see which exact questions you had missed.\r\n\r\nOverall, he is a nice person himself, but he doesn't care about the students and (especially for me) I just feel like he always like to pick on me specifically. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-28T04:44:38Z'}], 'name': 'Anthony Banes', 'slug': 'banes'}, {'courses': ['ARTH738', 'ARTH692', 'HONR209C', 'ARTH201', 'ARTH488C', 'ARTH738C', 'ARTH389G', 'ARTH738D', 'ARTH488S', 'ARTH230', 'ARTH738E', 'ARTH738G', 'ARTH201', 'ARTH738K', 'ARTH201', 'ARTH330', 'ARTH230'], 'average_rating': 3.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anthony Colantuono', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': "There is a LOT of memorization and a LOT of Christianity in this class -- perhaps even more so than in other Art History classes! I don't like either one of those things, but I still enjoyed the class because Dr. Colantuono is such a wonderful professor. His lectures complement the textbook quite beautifully and it's always fascinating to hear him talk. (He is a dynamic speaker and uses just the right amount of humor.) This class has also helped me understand and appreciate literature and philosophy. If you're intellectually curious then you can't do any better than Dr. Colantuono!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-28T18:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Colantuono', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': 'Professor was enthusiastic and definitally knew the material, but for a CORE HA requirement, I would NOT recommend this class. There is massive amounts of straight up memorization, and overall far too much effort for an HA requirement. For art majors, however, this class was appropriate.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-28T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Colantuono', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': 'I like Dr. Colantuono. He talks pretty fast and it is important to take notes during the lectures. So be awake! It is also helpful to read the textbooks because one part of the exams is writing a comparative essay between two given art works. You need to include stuff from both the textbooks and the lectures. It is VERY annoying to memorize all the dates. There are a lot of paintings to remember. But it is an interesting class. I think TA is also important because I think I got A because of the discussion section.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-09T01:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Colantuono', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': "He is an amazing lecturer really eloquent stuff. its always interesting listening to him talk and he obviously knows art history like the backside of his hand. He'll talk about the history and context behind the painting and then go in to analyzing the painting itself which he'll tie into the philosophy of the artist or art of that time. The class is not too difficult but i though it was interesting which helped. If you go to lecture and take good notes and study before exams you'll do well. Its annoying memorizing dates and patrons and stuff but not too difficult. Besides the exams there are quizzes in discussion and a 3 page paper. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-09T18:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Colantuono', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': "I disagree with the poster below. Dr. Colantuono was really a really good lecturer and really knew his stuff. He made Art History interesting for someone who only had to take it for an HA. Don't take it for an easy A though...you gotta put in the work, go to class, take notes (all the tests came from lecture, hardly used the book at all), study. There's a quiz in discussion every other week too which is annoying.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-06T23:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Colantuono', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': 'He is a tough cookie. I do not like the his exam style. And he is really specific about his term paper. If you have a great TA then you can probably do well and enjoy the class, I had Adam and he was a jerk unless you talk to him 1 on 1. \r\nSo... do not take this class unless it is mandatory. And if you do, make sure its Majorie Venit or ... anyone but this dude!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2008-04-04T01:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Colantuono', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': "Colantuono was a decent professor with a lot of insight in to the world of Art History. The lectures were interesting for the most part, but I feel like there wasn't enough time to dive deeper into information on art pieces. I'm an art major and I believe quality over quantity. I would say Colantuono did his best with presenting information on pieces. I did enjoy his class and I would definitely recommend it, however, do not expect an A if you do not study or open your eyes and mind to art.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-13T02:58:35.341874Z'}], 'name': 'Anthony Colantuono', 'slug': 'colantuono'}, {'courses': ['ENEE620', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE625', 'ENSE698O', 'ENTS649M', 'ENEE621', 'EDSP652'], 'average_rating': 2.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anthony Ephremides', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': 'Terrible professor. Does not know how to teach at all. Everyone does poorly on his exams. Avoid Ephremides at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-30T21:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Ephremides', 'course': 'ENEE621', 'review': 'OK, two perspectives here: "as your advisor" and "as your teacher". This guy is a huge big-wig in EE, so having him as your advisor is gold. He\'s very knowledgeable and smart, and doors will certainly open for you. As your teacher, he follows the text, but he\'ll sometimes make typographical errors on the board during lecture, so if you actually read the material before class (which, admittedly, we\'re supposed to) you\'ll be just fine, but if you didn\'t then you can get lost (and you know how it is with math-intense classes: if you get lost on page one, you\'ll be lost for the rest of the class). Knows the stuff thoroughly.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-10-11T11:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Ephremides', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "Terrible teacher. Lectures are boring and does a poor job of explaining the material. \n\r\nTests are straightforward but since he does a poor job explaining, it will be quite hard if you only go by his notes.\r\nHomework did not count as part of the grade so all your grade are from his exams. He doesn't seem to curve a lot even though a lot of the class does poorly on his exams so don't take his class if you're aiming for an A.\n\r\nOverall, he seems to teach with the sole purpose of lowering your GPA so I highly recommend choosing another professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-26T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Ephremides', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "He's a pretty awful lecturer, and it can be quite painful sitting through the class, but he makes up for it with his very simple and straightforward exams.\n\r\nHomework from the book was optional, but highly recommended, as he considers your homework completion in factoring your final grade.\n\r\nHe's not the best (read: clearest) 322 teacher, but he may just be the easiest. The first exam had a tricky convolution, but the second and final were simple. It's easy to get discouraged due to his teaching style, but as long as you look over the provided homework solutions and remember the basic transform properties, you should be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-27T19:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Ephremides', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'He is certainly not the best professor. He do makes mistakes in the class. His exams are straight forward but his homeworks are time consuming. Overall he is not a great teacher and if you have a choice to pick up another professor I would highly recommend that you take this course with some other professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-18T15:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Ephremides', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'It was unpleasant having this professor for ENEE322. I questioned his grasp on the subject frequently as he made so many mistakes during lecture that I was afraid to write down anything he wrote on the board. Half the time some student in the class would have to correct his mistake. Also, this did little to motivate me to come to class, and I believe it had the same effect on my peers because often times people would just get up and leave during lecture out of frustration.\r\nFurthermore, if a professor shows little interest in a subject, his apathy is generally reflected upon the students. Specifically, the professor had unannounced absences at least five times during the semester. All these shortcomings may have been mitigated by a likable personality, but sadly Ephrimedes fell short in this department as well. He has a short temper, which manifests itself occasionally through his exasperation when students ask inane questions, to outright anger when people start to get up and leave during his lecture.\n\r\nTo try and stay at least a little impartial, I will enumerate the positive aspects of the course. I found his exams to be pretty straightforward and a good sample of the material covered in class. Nonetheless, the class average on exams tended to be pretty low, perhaps a result of his teaching style. Also, the homework was assigned judiciously and graded on completion rather than correction. As a bonus, he has a pretty cool accent. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-13T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Ephremides', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': 'Exams are terrible, thinks his way of doing things is the only right way. His notes are not sufficient enough to do well on the exams.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2018-12-13T19:38:43Z'}], 'name': 'Anthony Ephremides', 'slug': 'ephremides'}, {'courses': ['BSST630'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anthony Lemieux', 'slug': 'lemieux'}, {'courses': ['GEOL110'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anthony Mautino', 'slug': 'mautino'}, {'courses': ['INAG110', 'INAG110S'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anthony Pagnotti', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Best teacher ever. Really clear about what he wants.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:39:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Anthony Pagnotti', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'dope af', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-16T19:36:08Z'}], 'name': 'Anthony Pagnotti', 'slug': 'pagnotti'}, {'courses': ['MUED215'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anthony Rivera', 'slug': 'rivera_anthony'}, {'courses': ['GVPT422', 'GVPT479Y', 'GVPT828P', 'GVPT828B', 'GVPT289O', 'GVPT828O', 'GVPT479H', 'GVPT388R', 'GVPT771', 'GVPT828B', 'GVPT828O', 'GVPT388R', 'GVPT771'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Antoine Banks', 'course': 'GVPT479Y', 'review': "I thought he was really funny in class. And he's a really nice guy. That said, there's a lot of reading studies in this class, so if you don't like academic writing, it could be difficult. He also seems offended if everyone in the class doesn't want to talk about the readings, so talking is encouraged if you want him to be happy. There was also a weird dichotomy where some assignments were graded really difficultly and others were graded really easily. Luckily the assignments that were graded difficultly were weighted less overall.\n\r\nNot the easiest class ever, but with a normal amount of work, you can easily get into the B+/A- range.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-05-06T10:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Banks', 'course': 'GVPT479Y', 'review': "This class was pretty worthless. All you do is memorize experimental designs for social science research. I would be fine with this if there was actually some sort of standardization in this sort of research, but there isn't. So if you can just memorize things, you'll be fine. \n\r\nAs far as the writing for this class goes, as long as you're halfway decent you'll be fine. Just be sure to follow his prompts exactly. \n\r\nHe's pretty awful at lecturing, I basically never got anything out of it. His lecture would consist of 5 power point slides which only addressed the readings at the most superficial level. I always walked out feeling like I had wasted a lot of time. However, participation counts for a fair amount of your grade so you kind of have to show up. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-21T16:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Banks', 'course': 'GVPT422', 'review': "The class has nothing quantitative about it despite the title which I liked because I'm not a math person. The focus is more on research designs and how experiments/surveys are created around a question. \r\nProfessor Banks is a nice guy but not the best lecturer. He jumps around a lot within a topic, continuously referencing articles that he's read but no one else has and starts to make a point before deciding halfway to drop the connection. His ppowerpoints are never more than 10 slides and packed with information that he throws up all at once while discussing an important part of the reading so I recommend taping the class if you can and going back through the lecture again later. He doesn't post his slides online so make sure you go to class.\r\nThe readings aren't bad and are focused around mostly interesting topics. Two exams, one paper, three problem sets focused around research design. I used this to fulfill the gvpt quantitative class and it wasn't a bad choice. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-24T10:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Banks', 'course': 'GVPT422', 'review': 'Quantitative political anaylsis was a very interesting class. He puts articles online and they are pretty easy to read. My study guides for the two exams consisted of a summary of 6-7 articles, and the tests are straight from the readings.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-21T15:04:00Z'}], 'name': 'Antoine Banks', 'slug': 'banks_antoine'}, {'courses': ['HIST120', 'HIST429M', 'HIST429Y', 'HIST428R', 'HIST779E', 'HIST639M', 'RELS120', 'HIST639Y', 'HIST639N', 'HIST329M', 'RELS419C', 'RELS429M', 'HIST607', 'RELS419A', 'HIST607', 'HIST607'], 'average_rating': 4.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Antoine Borrut', 'course': 'HIST120', 'review': 'Borrut is a solid professor. He is very knowledgeable, is easy to talk to, and is good about communicating with the class via elms/email. However, he can be hard to understand, due to his accent and constant voice cracks, and expects too much from his students in a lower level, lecture hall class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-27T01:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Borrut', 'course': 'HIST120', 'review': 'One of the best (if not the best) history professors at UMD. Keeps you engaged in lecture and is very helpful during office hours. He is invested in seeing his students do well and has a good sense of humor. \n\r\nHIST120 has a good bit of reading and a lot of dates. Building a chronology is pretty much essential to doing well in the class. However, the material is incredibly interesting and I learned a significant amount about Islamic culture because of it.\n\r\nEasily my favorite class so far at Maryland and highly recommended.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-24T19:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Borrut', 'course': 'HIST120', 'review': "I took HIST120 my freshman year and fell in love with Islamic history all because of Professor Borrut. He is one of the top professors at Maryland. Not only does he know what he's talking about, but he passes on that knowledge in an interesting and clear way. He wants you to learn, and it shows. He is extremely available and helping his students excel is his main priority.\n\r\nHIST120 is a basic introduction to early Islamic history, and is not too hard. There are 3 essay exams, but you review in discussion, so you have no reason to be unprepared for the questions. Discussion is mandatory, and you discuss certain readings. You can guess which reading is going to be discussed so you do not need to read them all.\n\r\nI loved Professor Borrut's class so much that I decided to take HIST429Y with him. This class was much more difficult than 120, but it was very interesting and we were able to discuss topics in depth which was great. The readings can be hard to keep up with, but as long as you do 2 of them or are good at bs-ing in class you'll be fine. The papers are only based on that week's readings so don't worry about keeping up with each article in depth. The papers are long but not so difficult. I would recommend giving in a rough draft beforehand for him to look at so you can edit to make it what he is looking for. I'm a business major, and got A's on all of my papers.\n\r\nOverall, if you don't want to work, don't take his class. But if you're looking to learn a lot from an intelligent and attentive professor then I would highly recommend taking a class with Professor Borrut.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-21T23:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Borrut', 'course': 'HIST429Y', 'review': 'Well, Hist429Y: "Islamic Memory," was a seminar class I took with Professor Borrut in Fall \'11. In all honesty, I think I learned more in this class than any class that I\'ve ever taken and I looked forward to it very much; and I\'m a senior in History. That being said, however, it was second only to my SENIOR THESIS class in difficulty: two 10pg papers and a final 12pg. Like the other reviews say, he is a nice guy and is very helpful and available, but the level of work required in this class was astounding; also don\'t be an idiot and plagiarize, a number of people were hit for it. If you\'re looking for a class where you will profoundly learn something from an expert and aren\'t afraid of 6-10 readings per week, this is your class; if you are looking for a gimmie class however, do not even waste your time. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-01-25T03:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Borrut', 'course': 'HIST120', 'review': "You can tell he loves the subject. He presents all of the information really clearly and is as balanced as possible. He's also really easy to talk to and is always willing to answer any questions. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-15T10:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Borrut', 'course': 'HIST120', 'review': 'He is an awesome professor. He is also very approachable, responds back to emails quickly and is always there to help during his office hours. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-05T01:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Borrut', 'course': 'HIST120', 'review': 'This class is SUPER interesting. I think the structure of the class with prerecorded lecture videos taking the place of one class was effective, and I enjoyed that in-person classes only reviewed material from readings and videos. \r\n\r\nWith all of that said, there is quite a lot of reading assigned each week. You definitely do not have to do all of it to get As on every assignment, but the less reading you do as it is assigned, the harder the assignments become. I would not recommend taking this for the Gen-ed (as I did) unless you are very interested in the subject (like I am).\r\n\r\nThere are two quizzes, one paper, and three essays throughout the semester. I highly recommend going to discussions because you get points for participating, and the TA will go over the important parts of the primary sources during this time and you can just skim them in advance.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-26T22:18:32Z'}], 'name': 'Antoine Borrut', 'slug': 'borrut'}, {'courses': ['MATH437', 'MATH241', 'MATH462', 'MATH463', 'MATH246', 'MATH406', 'MATH401', 'HLTH710', 'MATH410', 'STAT386', 'MATH406', 'MATH411', 'MATH461', 'MATH463', 'STAT386', 'MATH406', 'MATH463', 'STAT386'], 'average_rating': 4.275, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'His lectures cover the material on his exams pretty well, but his accent is so thick it is very difficult to understand. His handwritten notes on the chalkboard are also difficult to understand sometimes. His quizes and tests are pretty straightforward and fair. He does allow formula sheets for the tests which makes a world of difference in a class like Calc3.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-09-04T10:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Great teacher! \n\r\nAs many people here have mentioned, he does have a French accent, but it you can clearly understand him right away on the first day. \n\r\nAlso, he is great at explaining the topics, and his tests are extremely fair. Always the same format and rarely any tricks that you didn't see in class or in the book. \n\r\nI would definitely suggest taking MATH241 with Mellet if you can! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-01-24T22:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': "He was a good, but not great professor. He lectured quickly, but clearly. The material didn't make sense while he lectured, but it made sense when I looked at the notes after class.\n\r\nMy main gripe is that he did not review at all for the midterms. Literally, the last class before the midterm, the only thing he mentioned about the midterm was that we were responsible for everything up to and including that lecture. Fortunately, the exams were not too difficult.\n\r\nOther than that, the class was not bad at all. The weekly homeworks (which he creates, so you don't need to buy the textbook) take maybe 2-3 hours, and there are no quizzes. The exams were straightforward; just do some practice problems the night before and you'll do fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-21T20:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Very good teacher and moves through the material at a good pace. He does have an accent but I didn't find it difficult to understand at all. Exams are very fair and don't throw and curveballs.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-21T19:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Cool, chill teacher.\n\r\nHas a relatively thick, but surprisingly easily understandable French accent. Only four MATLAB assignments, simple exams, weekly quizzes, optional homework.\n\r\nLegible notes and slightly fast-paced lectures. Very simplistic teaching style and is always very concise.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-04T11:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Not amazing, but definitely good enough. \n\r\nStuck to the book 100%, which gives students who are not math-saavy to hear two different perspectives on the material, and gives students who ARE math-saavy the freedom to just skip class and read the book, which is great. \r\nExams were very easy and very straightforward, no curveballs whatsoever.\n\r\nHas a very thick accent but you'll get over it after about 2 class periods.\r\nThere is a quiz before every class period, but if you take the time to actually open your textbook, there is no reason why you should not end up with a near-perfect score in the end.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'No quizzes, easy homeworks and matlab assignments, and straightforward exams. \n\r\nMATH461 is a fairly easy class and Mellet is a laid back professor. Lectures are helpful but you can easily read the book and learn the material and still succeed in the class.\n\r\nI suggest taking MATH461 as a upper level engineering elective.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-02T18:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "I would absolutely take more classes with Dr. Mellet given the chance. He was extremely organized with our class, and followed the book pretty closely. However, if you attended lecture, you could learn pretty much everything there and did not have to rely on the book much at all. You will need it for the homework, though. He is not the type of teacher to throw a curveball on the test. He gives out practice exams, which are a pretty good indicator of what you will need to know. If you navigate his website, you can find his old course pages and find exams from previous years. If you do 2-3 sample exams for each test, you should have no problem. The homework assignments are time consuming, but are not usually very difficult. Matlab assignments are pretty easy as well, and if you just put the time into doing them, it should be a free 10% of your grade. He weights your lowest test as half of your other test grades. Overall, this course was easy, and he taught it very well. It's not a bad idea to take this and differential equations at the same time, since the end of the course is pretty similar in both. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-27T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "He is an ok teacher. Homework is graded mostly on completion and the matlab assignments are easy. Mellet pretty much rewrites the book on the board, so you can find nearly all the notes and examples that he posts in the book. This was frustrating at times for me because if i had a hard time understanding the book, Mellet didnt help too much. The material was hard for me to understand, because it was very abstract. I didn't fully grasp many of the fundamental concepts until midway through the semester. But if you study hard and do all the example problems in the book, and you go to discussion and ask questions, you can succeed in this class. If you need an upper level math credit to take, this class with mellet is a good option.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-25T22:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Honestly, I didn't go to lecture that often since the material came straight out of the book. However, when I did go, lectures were informative and easy to follow along to. The exams he gave were very fair and straight forward. Overall, I would definitely recommend 461 with Mellet. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-25T15:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Professor Mellet did a great job teach Calc 3. His thoughts were clear and backed up by intuitive pictures. Furthermore, he taught by using lots of examples, which makes it much easier to understand what he's trying to do.\n\r\nWhile my TA was good, it was mostly about hw problems and the hw quizzes. I didn't find discussion helpful since Mellet was good at teaching.\n\r\nMatlab assignments were very easy. Most of them were copy and paste from the assignment. They were not nearly as confusing and obnoxious as many Matlab assignments tend to be.\n\r\nHis French accent is cool too.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-21T00:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'Overall he is a good mathematics professor. The class is easy and his grading criteria is pretty straight forward. 3 tests, homework each week (time consuming and definitely not eco-frindly ... wasting a lot of paper) two homeworks are dropped. He has a cool French accent. I would certainly recommend him for ENEE461.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T15:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Mellet is pretty good as far as math professors go. He doesn't need a microphone, he talks to the class instead of the board, and he writes legibly. \n\r\nMATH241 -- His grading policy is pretty awesome (he drops 3/9 quizzes and 2/6 Matlabs), and his tests are at the same difficulty of the examples from class and the textbook. Having a formula sheets for the tests just makes it easier.\n\r\nMATH461 -- Relatively straight forward exams and once weekly homework. Not having quizzes makes it unnecessary to attend lecture except for tests and test reviews. The homework was pretty easy since the textbook is decent and I had a good TA.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-13T20:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "If you find algebra intuitive, you can miss every lecture and do well in this class. However, Mellet made it quite enjoyable to be in lecture with his attractive accent and clear, organized lectures (he follows the book most of the time). Professor Mellet is really friendly and was excited to answer my questions unrelated to course material when I showed up at his office in the morning unannounced.\n\r\nThere are no quizzes in Mellet's 461, but the weekly homework questions were selected well to emphasize important skills. Tests (three total) were all straightforward, but graders may take off more points than you're used to for simple things like arithmetic errors in order to lower grades (not a big deal, but test averages are high in this class).\n\r\nOverall, a highly enjoyable and easy class with a great teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-05T14:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "If you're like me, you basically want to know if you can skip class and just learn from the textbook. And the answer is yes. Can't say I have been to many of his classes, but from the ones that I did go to, he was following the book pretty closely. This class was much easier than calc 2- no webassigns, and matlabs are like once a week- maybe even less than that. And they're easy- he tells you what to type in. Quizzes and tests are closely modeled from the book. He lets you bring a cheat sheet on tests. I wouldn't know how good of a lecturer he is, he seemed okay. My friends in the class liked him though. He posts what he's going over in class online and when stuff is due, so you know what days to go to class and to turn stuff in. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-24T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Can't say I was thrilled with his teaching style, but he is decent. The class is pretty easy overall. Just be sure to do the homework and read the book for the online quizzes. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-01T07:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': '"You take ze z-zeero"...Yes, Dr. Mellet has an accent, but it doesn\'t really make him difficult to understand at all. In my opinion, it made the class slightly more enjoyable. I have had professors with worse accents. Additionally, Dr. Mellet does a more than satisfactory job explaining material thoroughly, working examples, and addressing questions.\n\r\nSome positives: Homeworks are posted online, the material never strays from the book, and his exams never have anything on them that is unfamiliar. If you do the homeworks, you can ace the exams. Going to class is probably superfluous.\n\r\nSome negatives: If you\'re looking for exciting and rigorous academic challenge (I hear that\'s what college students are looking for these days), then stay away. Don\'t expect class to be anything more than an extension of the textbook.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-17T23:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "I loved his class and teaching style. He is very honest to the syllabus and covered everything in good detail. I would sometimes his lectures could get a bit monotonous, but i had a great TA,so if i wasn't paying attention in lecture, i would make it up in discussion. I think three quizzes a week and a homework every week is a bit too much, but if u don't read book regularly, this course material can be pretty hard. so in a way, all the exercises were helpful, albeit a bit painful.\r\nMellet is strongly recommended. He wants students to learn and will help you in any way.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-09T16:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Great teacher, though he did not stray from the book at all, which may have limited his overall usefulness.\n\r\nDaily quizzes annoying.\n\r\nHe has a noticeable accent, but I find it fun to listen to, not detrimental to my understanding at all. He is also very approachable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-20T18:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Decent professor, somewhat hard to understand and teaches straight from Lay's syllabus. Pretty easy class overall though. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-05-20T16:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "I didnt find Dr. Mellet's style of teaching very helpful, and his thick french accent made it worse. He taught straight from the book. His exams weren't too hard, and overall he's a nice guy. It also depends on what TA you get. Overall it wasnt too difficult to get an A as long as you do the homework and understand the material.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-20T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'He is such a charming professor. Love his soft smile and French accent. Actually this course is pretty easy. You can just study for it by reading the textbook. But going to his class is a really nice thing.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-04-14T21:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': 'Great professor - the class he taught was difficult and came with a difficult book, but for what we came with he gave out great notes and was easy to understand.\r\nCool, chill dude\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-12-18T16:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': "This professor was awful. I went into his office hours to get help from him and he didn't explain anything. He clearly knows his stuff, but he cannot teach. I absolutely do not recommend him.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-11T23:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': 'I would give 4.5 starts if it let me. He is a very effective teacher, and the class is not too hard while still being useful.\r\n\r\nThe only problem is his lectures can get a little boring.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-24T03:32:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Mellet is a good professor and the exams are very fair in comparison to other professors, especially Levermore. However, his lectures do get boring and he likes to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time. Also, his notes are just Levermore's, so make sure you use Justin Wyss-Gallifent's notes instead. If I had to take MATH246 again, I would gladly retake him. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-11-30T21:43:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Good professor. Agree with the other guy, he tries to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time, so make sure you focus, or else you'll get lost in lecture. His notes are just levermore's notes, so make sure you use Justin's notes (they can be found online). Exams are very fair, nothing trippy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-09-18T16:33:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Goes through lecture really quickly, some days I was able to keep up and some days I was really lost. Quizzes were a mixed bag; some were ok some were wtf is going on. Exams were really long but graded really leniently as well. Weird curve at the end.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-12-15T17:25:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'The best math professor I have had in undergrad mostly because of his lecture style. He makes an effort to coherently explain concepts with CONCRETE EXAMPLES IN CLASS, leaving time for questions so students understand the material and how to apply it to specific problems (which in my experience is not always the standard). Definitely a native French speaker so he has a fun accent, but no problems at all with understanding what he is saying and nothing lost in translation.\r\nEasy Matlab, no quizzes, online homework once a week that is comprehensive and makes you practice until you understand (but no credit deduction for wrong attempts like Pearson Mastering software or ExpertTA which is very respectable).\r\nLinear Algebra is a very important course for most engineering students (but not required for some reason), and after debating between MATH 240 and MATH 461, I am glad I took 461 with Mellet. I would take another class with him but this was my last math class at UMD.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-17T03:44:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'Good professor. Goes through lectures pretty quickly so you have to be paying attention to follow along. Homework and assignments are very reasonable, exams are very fair and similar to homework problems. Learned a lot in his class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-25T00:18:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': "He's a good teacher but he has a thick accent. I don't understand his writing. Do not take his class if you want to study by yourself. His exam was hard and not curved. He has 4 mid exams ,1 final exam, and 10 homework. He dropped the 2 lowest homework. Anyway, DO NOT take his exam if you are an international student.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-19T17:15:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'Has a French accent but I had no issues understanding him—it was even comical at times. His lectures were just fine, exams were mostly fair. Small 3% curve to final grade at the end.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-12T19:00:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': "For his online class, Mellet recorded the lectures and gave weekly discussions to go over the homework and answer questions from the class. He's very organized and responsive, always presents the material clearly. There were about 10 homework, 4 midterms and a final. Homework were basically examples from lectures, tests were basically homework problems. I thought the tests were easy as long as you are familiar with the homework problems (so, make sure to go over them the few hours before the tests). Oh and the tests were synchronous, you log onto Zoom with your camera on and then take it. The course was very computational. As a math major I did wish we had more theory. But then it is hard to balance the contents because there were other majors taking the class... Anyway, nothing went wrong and I had a good time. I still prefer his classes in person though.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T20:24:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': "Class was easy if you understood calculus, but he had a thick French accent and his voice was kind of monotone, making it hard to pay attention. He dropped the lowest 2 homeworks and had a small curve (89 is an A), but I probably wouldn't take another of his classes because of the boring lectures. If you're a cs major looking for MATH UL concentration, take this class with someone else", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-15T04:08:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "He is a good professor and this class isn't too hard if you have prior experience with proofs. However, Mellet's accent can sometimes make it hard to understand what he is saying as he talks quickly and mumbles sometimes. Luckily, he follows the textbook to a T so if you miss something, it's in the textbook. He uses the same examples and everything. He also goes pretty quickly in class in general, so you have to be a quick notetaker-- he starts wiping down the board the second he is done a proof or example. There also was a small curve at the end-- I walked into the exam with an 84 and ended up with an A- in the class, and it was not possible for me to get an A- even if I got 100% on the final. I definitely would have done better in this class if I had studied overall more. He has no quizzes, only weekly homework, 2 tests, and a final. So if you're like me and you do homework in 1-2 days, you may struggle a bit to catch up when it's time for exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-19T21:23:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': "He's nice. His lectures are very organized so might come off as a bit dry, but also makes it easy to follow the material. I really didn't think his accent was hard to understand at all but I guess that might vary from person to person. The homeworks clearly matched what was taught in class and the exams clearly matched the homeworks, so everything was very fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-23T02:37:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': "Great professor and lecturer. I had no problem with his accent or handwriting whatsoever (honestly barely noticed an accent, and his handwriting is leagues better than most professors). Mellet follows directly from the book, but you won't need it because all of the class material is self-contained within the lectures and homework. The lectures are very organized and if you take good notes you'll have everything you need. He goes over the homework assignments every week after they are turned in which is helpful. The homework and practice exams he gives out are extremely similar to the actual exams, so you never feel surprised by the content, and he's a lenient grader so you won't lose a ton of points for minor mistakes. \r\n\r\nThere were 3 exams accounting for 85% of the course grade. Homeworks account for the other 15%. Given the exams are very fair and he gives out generous partial credit you should be fine. Overall, I would definitely recommend this professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-08T13:55:55.185447Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': "Mellet is easily the best math professor I've had at UMD so far. I have zero problems with his accent (in fact, it's kind of endearing). He teaches so damn well, and his lectures are so well-organized and explained. The homeworks are super helpful and build up perfectly to what's on the exam. He's honestly such a breath of fresh air compared to other professors in the department; he's a wonderful person too! Partial credit is, as another reviewer mentioned, quite generous. Really appreciated this class and how straightforward and interesting Mellet made it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-20T19:40:28.755271Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': "Mellet is a great math professor. He teaches the content very well and is pretty by-the-book if you end up wanting to refer to the textbook for anything as review or just because you missed something. Though I did find that he taught the concepts better than the textbook and the textbook sometimes neglected some of the edges where he expanded. The homework is fine, I personally it a little tedious at times but they did teach the concepts well and as others have said they very accurately reflected what was on the exam. I will note that he does review the homework rather in-depth which can be very nice if you were confused, though I personally got a little bored during it. Overall, I'd highly recommend Mellet - he made the class interesting and taught it not just very well, but noticeably better than the textbook, which a lot of professors aren't able to do.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-25T08:03:13.057035Z'}, {'professor': 'Antoine Mellet', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'Definitely a great choice for a professor. If you have the opportunity to take Mellet for any course, I would highly recommend it. He teaches the course content very well, and sticks closely to the textbook which makes it easy to learn outside of class. The exams were very fair and the homeworks were not too long but were still helpful. Mellet has a moderate french accent which is easy to understand and I would argue actually improves the course significantly. The course itself is not very difficult compared to other 400 level math courses, and was interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-03T17:42:47.284111Z'}], 'name': 'Antoine Mellet', 'slug': 'mellet'}, {'courses': ['EDCP310', 'EDCP630'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Antoinette Goldthrite', 'slug': 'goldthrite'}, {'courses': ['AOSC680', 'AOSC798', 'AOSC798', 'AOSC798'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Antonio Busalacchi', 'slug': 'busalacchi'}, {'courses': ['AOSC201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Antonio Larios', 'slug': 'larios'}, {'courses': ['BSCI330', 'CBMG688N', 'CBMG688D', 'BISI899', 'BSCI432', 'BSCI432', 'BISI899', 'BISI899', 'BSCI432'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Antony Jose', 'course': 'BSCI432', 'review': 'Favorite bio class I have ever taken! This is not a traditional lecture course and we get to guide the discussion topics of the course. I learned how to think like a researcher and got better at reading research articles. I thought the coding project was super manageable and almost everyone in the class also has no coding experience either. Such an enjoyable class I would recommend it to everyone!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-22T22:22:11Z'}], 'name': 'Antony Jose', 'slug': 'jose'}, {'courses': ['CMSC330', 'CMSC216', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC433', 'CMSC388C', 'CMSC389N', 'CMSC389E', 'CMSC388A', 'CMSC388B', 'CMSC388T', 'CMSC389T', 'CMSC330', 'CMSC433'], 'average_rating': 3.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "I had cmsc330 with Anwar and between him and Hicks/Foster, he's probably the worst professor to take for this class. Anwar is a cool dude, but his lectures were terrible and he moves at a pace that was too fast for most students to catch everything. His explanations are less than clear, and I soon ended up watching Hick's online lectures to try and get the rest of the material.\r\n\r\nThere were two midterms, fairly tricky but not too bad. Both of them were pretty long, and took the full 75 mins right up to the line - they really pack the exams. Definitely study the exams from previous semesters and drill ocaml/prolog programming if you want to do well on these.\r\n\r\nOtherwise, it's actually an awesome class and the material is really interesting despite the workload. I felt pretty solid in my standing as a software eng. after this class, because a lot of concepts across different languages kinda clicked for me. Get Cameron Moy as your TA if you can :) Good luck!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2017-12-14T18:55:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'Mamat is a very accommodating professor, but his lectures are completely worthless. On more than one occasion, he would explain the material in the first 45 minutes while barely moving through the slides, and then rapidly go through them, only doing quizzes AND SOMETIMES SKIPPING IMPORTANT THINGS ALTOGETHER! \r\nFortunately, if Foster/another professor posts their lectures online, the class will be a breeze. Also, the project descriptions are very easy to understand, and the public tests are usually pretty robust, which is great especially if you\'re used to Nelson\'s "figure it out if you can" approach.\r\nI like the guy, but I didn\'t attend lecture after the first month and still got an A on the final just by reading slides and doing projects. That pretty much sums up how important his lectures are right there. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2017-12-16T17:28:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'The lectures were way too fast and not engaging. By the end of the semester, I was skipping class and watching Foster’s lectures online. The tests and projects were fair, although we were left to just figure out basic SQL on the last one, which was annoying. The class itself is an interesting one, and old tests are provided for study. It’s certainly not the end of the world or anything if you have Mamat, you’ll still learn things, just probably not as much as if you had Foster.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-16T17:42:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'what the heck is wrong with this dude. He goes over his lectures really fast. Cannot take notes and cannot understand anything. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:42:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'Goes over slides pretty quickly, but he is pretty engaging in my opinion. Just sit in the front. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-04-21T05:01:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "He is extremely engaging and I honestly understood the material so well after. He goes fast but the slides are online so you can just note what he says. I'm a visual learner and he's the best at explaining through code examples that he writes on the spot. I would say he is definitely a better professor to have for 330. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-13T20:39:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': 'I like anwar and he keeps class fun but the material is just kinda boring so it is hard to pay attention sometimes. The class feels like just memorizing a bunch of java libraries used for multi threading. Easy Class though and projects are not too bad.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-14T17:07:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'He is a horrible lecturer. Do not take him unless you are willing to basically learn all the material on your own outside of class. To make matters worse, he has tons of clicker questions to penalize you for not going to his pointless lectures. And he doesn\'t allow laptops in class for students who actually want to learn while he\'s "teaching." The one good thing about his classes is that the grading structure is fair, and the class is organized, but he just has no idea how to communicate the material. He doesn\'t seem to understand that coding in front of the class in a ridiculously small font while providing little explanation as to what he\'s doing is not the best way to teach computer science. Going from him one semester to an actually competent lecturer like Eastman the next was a night and day difference.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-06-27T03:30:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Anwar is a good choice. You will have to learn some things on your own as he doesn't go through everything fully. The amount of notes he provides for students is AWESOME. His tangents are funny but were less appreciated when we had to speed through topics at the end of the semester.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-13T20:51:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Anwar is a pretty good lecturer and incredibly funny. His exams are fair, the average my semester was an 80% on the nose. The only valid gripe people have with him is the pacing of his lectures. He does tend to fly through some of the material on the slides, but if you try to pay attention, you'll be fine. Even moreso, all of his lectures are online, and his lectures are recorded and put online in case you missed them, so you should be fine. The projects will be more challenging than the ones you have had so far in 132 and 216 because you will be forced to navigate through different languages and different concepts, but for the most part, you will survive. \r\n\r\nPeople have gripes with him for having clicker questions that force you to come to lecture, but that really isn't criticism, because you should come to lecture anyway and he's giving you easy points that'll bump your grade at the end of the semester. \r\n\r\nAll around a nice professor and person, and I definitely recommend you take 330 with Anwar. I've never had Eastman, but I hear he's ok too. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-19T17:01:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': 'Funny stories, nice guy. Class grades are pretty fair.\r\nProjects are kinda butt, and clicker questions suck, lectures are mediocre. I also hate slide trivia exams (which is what he gives)', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-20T06:38:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Anwar is not a terrible instructor, but not great either. He mostly reads off the slides and often rushes through topics. He tells a lot of stories and goes on a lot of tangents, which would be fine if it didn't mean rushing through challenging topics. I often felt like I didn't learn much by going to lecture and wished I didn't need to go, but there are clicker questions in order to enforce attendance. The material itself is very cool and the TAs for 330 are phenomenal. Also, Hicks is supposedly incredible, so if he's an option, take him. Otherwise, you'll be OK with Anwar, you just might need to put in a little extra time and effort.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-24T03:27:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'Decent lecturer, although he goes a bit fast at times. He is a nice guy and has some funny stories. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-06T16:06:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Anwar is a great lecturer for 132. He also explains concepts very well. His lectures slides are great too. He doesn't put anything on the exams that he doesn't cover in lecture. Exams are also pretty easy. I usually finish with 20 minutes left and use the rest of the time to check my answers. I also dislike the MC section, which make up a fair portion of the exams, because they're just memorization and can be kind of tricky. Projects are hard to implement, but the project tests aren't hard to pass. I think I got a 100 on most of my projects. When I took it, projects were 40% of the grade, which should make the class an easy A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-08-20T18:25:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'Solid guy but not a good lecturer. Reads off slides. Lectures are so useless but attendance is mandatory via clickers. Slides are good.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-12-18T07:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': 'I had Anwar for 433 and 330. He knows how to run a course well, curves fairly, and is generally pretty responsive to student concerns. I think he is a good standard that other UMD CS professors should hold themselves to. His slides are pretty good and his tests are fair.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-18T16:14:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Anwar flies through the material very quickly, but that's just because there's a lot of stuff to cover. This semester he managed the online transition due to the pandemic quite well, and he toned down the amount of work we had to do. The slides really are the primary resource in the class, so study those, look at them when doing projects, and you'll do great!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-21T23:31:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Took this course in the summer and Anwar was a great professor for it. Made class very fun, and made it easy to understand. Plan on taking his 330 class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-18T15:56:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Not a good lecturer, because he goes super fast over complicated material, and could be a bit more civil, but that's really the only main complaint. Clicker questions are not the worst and his slides are very comprehensive, the projects are fairly reasonable to do (better than 216's for sure) and the exams were fair too. Nothing completely out of the blue. Some TAs were really really helpful too and were responsive on Piazza. Overall, since 330 is usually co-taught, you should be fine taking either Anwar or the other professor. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-15T19:13:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "He is boring but the content is fine. He doesn't really care much about his students but the TAs are awesome. Start projects the day they are posted and you will be in good shape. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T06:21:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': 'Good professor that knows the material well. Mostly reads off slides but gives alot of examples which helped alot. TAs are very good and office hours provided alot of help on projects. Projects are standard and should be started when they are assigned. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-12T04:27:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Anwar manages to keep the lecture engaging and entertaining the whole class, he's a great professor and I have no dought I would have received a higher grade had I taken this class in-person. Genuine guy who really cares about his students and offers them a lot of resources and opportunities to ask for help in office hours. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-11T13:54:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': "Anwar is fine. He explains the material decent enough in lecture, but he moves so fast! It's really hard to keep up with him during lectures. Also, the exams for CMSC433 are kind of really hard. I aced every single project but I couldn't for the life of me manage better than a 71 on the midterm. I don't expect to do much better on the final. All in all, Anwar is just okay. Not the worst CMSC professor I've ever had but certainly far from the best.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-12T17:02:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': "Pretty good 400 class overall. I don't think Anwar is a good lecturer, but he's pretty accommodating by making clicker questions fairly easy and worth 5% of the final grade to redistribute from exams. Some projects were tough (akka), especially due a high amount of the grade being secret tests, but others were fine. Make sure you put time into them, since they're worth a lot, and if you do you should be able to get a good grade. \r\nI thought the midterm and the final were fine, since I found them to be somewhat modeled after old exams. Also, TAs were great; they were really responsive on Piazza (much more than other 400s) and helpful for office hours. Great slides, and the material itself is also quite useful. Thus, if Anwar is teaching this class, I'd recommend taking it with him. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-18T19:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Had him for CMSC132 and had to take him again because he's great. Would take another class with him if I could.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-27T20:11:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "He's great! Goes very fast but at least for 330, everything you need to know is on the slides anyway.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-07-22T20:41:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'This professor was very good. He made sure that everything you needed to know was in the lecture slides. Make sure to follow what he is teaching and do the practice that he puts up and you will be fine. The assignments are tough if you do not both to learn/practice the material that he is teaching. As a teacher he seems to genuily enjoy teaching the students and it was a breath of fresh air compared to other professors here.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-09-30T14:10:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': 'Not great lecturing style IMO. Lots of "you know?" "this stuff" "this thing" "this stuff is tricky" "just read the JavaDoc". Little motivational content to introduce concepts, which I\'ve always found very useful in CMSC. Absolutely flies through examples without prefacing them well. Much prefer Dr. Hicks or even Prof. Herman hyper-explicit lecturing style and projects.\r\n\r\nProjects are open-ended and almost guaranteed to be 75% or more secret tests. TAs are exceptional but projects will still take 15-30 hours for average student, which was hell for someone balancing career responsibilities and other CMSC4xx classes as well. Midterms were fair and lecture slides were good.\r\n\r\nMain complaints are lecturing style and project difficulty/disconnect from lecture material/lack of direction given in description.\r\n\r\nDo not let this review discourage you from taking 433 with Anwar if you enjoy his style or are simply... well... smarter than me. Anwar is cool but the class just did not resonate with me. I\'ve heard he\'s pretty good for 330 though.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-10-10T16:58:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': "Second class with Anwar and he's a great professor. His exams are pretty easy for the most part since he emphasizes more on projects (which I 100% agree with). The projects in the class range from extremely easy (Hadoop and MPI) to challenging (Akka), but they're all good skills to know. I didn't attend lecture live as he uploaded the recording, and he does fly through the material, but the slides and GitHub repository provide enough examples to help you understand the material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-23T13:47:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Anwar Mamat', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "I guess Anwar's gone now, but in case he comes back...\r\n\r\nI would say he's a good lecturer. My main complaint would be that he never really slows down. We would go through a huge amount of slides everyday and sometimes it seemed like he was racing. 330 has a lot of content, so that's probably why. I don't personally take notes, but I don't think anyone could with how fast he goes. He still did a good job at explaining concepts and the slides were well made, so you could basically just study off of those. He was clearly frustrated this semester by the turnout in lecture. Clicker quizzes used to be 4% of the grade, basically making lecture attendance mandatory. They changed the policy in the first week of the semester I believe, since people could be in and out with COVID. He would make lots of comments to himself during lecture about how it's so hard to teach this semester with not that many people in lecture and with everyone wearing masks. I also guess that computers used to not be allowed in 330 lecture, but now they are? He would complain about people having computers out too sometimes, and how he couldn't do anything.\r\n\r\nThe projects in this class weren't very difficult, except for the NFA to DFA project and maybe the first OCaml project. If you start early, you should be fine. There were two online midterms which were pretty fair. We had four 20 minute online quizzes in the semester that I found to be very difficult. 20 minutes was not enough time and they seemed a bit unnecessary (the last quiz was on a topic on the last midterm, which was a week before). The final was also in-person for some reason. People would complain on Piazza and the TAs said that the decision was made by the instructors. People tried to ask Mamat/Eastman to change it to in-person and they said they would think about, but they did nothing. Not a good look on their part, considering the online midterms were open book and this wasn't. Plus, many people expressed COVID concerns due to a in-person final, which was also ignored.\r\n\r\nAll in all, if Anwar comes back, I would recommend him. I was planning on taking 433 with him, but they changed teachers. He seems to have been a bit disillusioned by teaching this semester by all his comments on lecture, but I do hope he comes back.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-11T17:55:01Z'}], 'name': 'Anwar Mamat', 'slug': 'mamat'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'April Brohawn', 'slug': 'brohawn'}, {'courses': ['THET116', 'THET371'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'April Vester', 'slug': 'vester'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Apurva Parikh', 'slug': 'parikh'}, {'courses': ['GEMS297', 'CMSC651', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS496', 'CMSC287', 'GEMS497', 'CMSC858L', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC420', 'CMSC454', 'CMSC454', 'CMSC451', 'CMSC858C', 'CMSC454'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "He seems nice and caring.\n\r\nBut don't expect him to be nice on grade. He will fail you regardless of what situation you are in...even if it's your last semester ever, he will make you stay.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-20T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "Very reasonable guy. He's very open to questions and dedicates fridays to recapping what he over the prior week and for student questions (no one takes advantage of this).\n\r\nAs for exams, he is incredibly reasonable. As long as you attend class regularly, you don't even have to study for the exam. He focuses more on the general idea more than anything else. I can't say that I found the course itself too interesting (CMSC414, which I took the same semester, had a section about crypto that basically went over anything I was interested in), but the course was pretty good in conjunction with CMSC414.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T22:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "He is a good lecturer and is very open to students' questions. The homework is very hard (even if you know the material very well) but the tests are VERY easy. He curves the grades so that the median is somewhere around a C+/B-.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-29T19:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': 'Does a good job at teaching. He answers any questions about the proofs, theorems, and constructions during lectures. He also references some real world examples outside the course work to keep the class interested. Exams were very easy (20min midterm, 40min final) if you studied the material and did well on the homeworks. Homeworks may be ridiculously difficult at times but the challenges was certainly enjoyed.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-28T22:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "It is clear that Aravind has a vast knowledge of algorithms, and is very passionate about the subject as well. He teaches the course via lectures based off of the recommended textbook, following very closely to the examples and ideas from the chapters he tells you that you must understand. I found the lectures, if you pay attention, to be very interesting and relevant.\r\nAs for assignments, the course had 5 homework assignments, each giving you a deeper understanding of the topics covered in the past few lectures. They were graded moderately harshly.\r\nThe mid terms were pretty difficult and took the entire class time to complete for almost all of the class. None of the questions were unfair or anything he hadn't covered, and if you do the book problems and redo the homework assignments the tests are manageable. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-05-14T16:40:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': 'Pretty good professor. Cares about his students and is interesting enough. Much better run class than 351 for sure.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-06-11T17:55:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Two stars because he was a nice guy.\r\n\r\nI learned very little from this course. He is a tenured professor and it seems that the department threw him in to teach this class after Jason left again. The exams were easy and didn't test on most of the course material. Our midterms were worth 15% each and our homeworks were worth 11% each....\r\n\r\nHe clearly did not prepare to teach this course, and used Dave Mount's notes as a fallback for any lack of preparation on his part.\r\n\r\nThe class was not difficult, but we are here to learn. If you like to cram for exams and learn nothing take him. If you want to actually learn the content take anyone else.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-24T18:03:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Prof Srinivasan is genuine and cares about his students. \r\n\r\nPeople are saying that he just "falls back" on Dave Mount\'s course material, but to me it seemed that Prof Srinivasan did not lack any knowledge at all on any of the topics we studied. Yes, he does use Dave Mount\'s course material, but I do not think it is out of laziness... Prof was always prepared and knew his stuff. Dave Mount\'s course layout is just GOOD, and the extra provided resources were great to have in addition to lecture material. This way, we didnt have to buy an expensive, boring book. Using Mount\'s course is no different than using a textbook, except Mount\'s resources are much better than any boring CS textbook. \r\n\r\nHe was very clear with exam expectations, and doesn\'t make your life hell with homework. \r\nThe projects and homework are representative and provide good practice on what is actually taught in class. \r\n\r\nProf Srinivasan\'s way of teaching was unique and very appreciated: instead of trying to make you memorize every little detail, what was most important is that you understand the concepts, why they work, when you might want to use them. \r\n\r\nI am so glad that I took 420 with Professor Srinivasan in Fall 2021, I had a very good experience. \r\n\r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-02-23T21:30:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Very nice guy, always believes in his students. The class is more organized than 351, so it's easier in that way. It's also harder than 351 in that the homeworks are unbelievably difficult and time consuming, and the exams do not have anything to do with the homeworks (or even the practice exams). The 40% final exam is also scary. At least there is a massive curve. Definitely one of the harder CS classes, plan accordingly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-05T20:51:27.765255Z'}], 'name': 'Aravind Srinivasan', 'slug': 'srinivasan'}, {'courses': ['EDCP418F', 'HESI418F', 'JWST419L', 'HESI418F', 'HESI418F', 'HESI424', 'HESI424'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ari Israel', 'course': 'HESI418F', 'review': 'Highly recommend. Ari had a very unique style of teaching where the entire class felt like an open discussion. He would always push us to be leaders and gave a ton of perspective on any topic due to how much knowledge he carries. The grade distribution is a huge plus as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T15:36:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Ari Israel', 'course': 'HESI418F', 'review': 'Such an amazing class. Really introspective. Be prepared to participate. As long as you follow the rubric and do the weekly readings, you will succeed!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-29T05:01:42.600267Z'}], 'name': 'Ari Israel', 'slug': 'israel_ari'}, {'courses': ['EDCP310', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Arianna Lashley', 'slug': 'lashley'}, {'courses': ['BMGT289D', 'BUAC792', 'BUAC714', 'BUAC714'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ariel Ramirez', 'slug': 'ramirez_ariel'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Arielle Labrecque', 'slug': 'labrecque'}, {'courses': ['MATH113', 'MATH140', 'MATH115'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Arijit Sehanobish', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Quite possibly the worst teacher I have ever had in my whole academic life. Horrible at explaining things, never responds to emails, and doesn't care about his students or their grades. The class average at the end of the semester was a D- and they had to curve an entire letter grade to make the average a C-", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2018-05-04T16:36:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Arijit Sehanobish', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Arijit was quite possibly the best teacher I have ever had. He has a quiz once a week and screws the whole class and it's hilarious .Truly one of a kind.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-10-26T07:20:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Arijit Sehanobish', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'If you have this professor, RUN.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2018-11-06T17:17:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Arijit Sehanobish', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'cant teach', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2018-12-05T23:29:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Arijit Sehanobish', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Arijit teaches fine. His tests are difficult, but he curves the exams with considerable points. He expects the students to practice a lot themselves and is very helpful with doubts.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-17T23:45:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Arijit Sehanobish', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Do whatever you can to not have this professor. He doesn't care about his students at all and is very bad at teaching. Don't go into the class thinking everything will be fine, because he doesn't offer extra credit or curves, even when half his class is failing. His tests are extremely difficult and he has very high expectations. If you end up getting him, you have a big storm coming", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2018-12-19T18:25:28Z'}], 'name': 'Arijit Sehanobish', 'slug': 'sehanobish'}, {'courses': ['ENMA300', 'ENMA426', 'ENNU648M', 'ENRE600', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA698P', 'ENMA443', 'ENME382', 'ENRE447', 'ENMA626', 'ENME808A', 'ENRE661', 'ENMA643', 'ENRE648C', 'ENMA689C', 'ENMA490', 'ENME808W', 'ENMA435', 'ENMA635', 'ENMA689R', 'ENRE600', 'ENMA470', 'ENMA435', 'ENMA635'], 'average_rating': 2.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Aristos Christou', 'course': 'ENME382', 'review': "Christou is actually one of the worst lecturers I have yet had. He reads off of the powerpoint (which he got from the publisher). I once counted that he said 'um' 100 times in 15 minutes of class. Class itself isn't terribly hard, though. Pop quizzes suck and make you show up. The textbook uses WileyPlus which runs you about $90, and he seems to have stopped using it half way through. Smart man, with a big office. Too bad he can't teach, I feel bad for the ENMAs.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-11-20T00:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Aristos Christou', 'course': 'ENME382', 'review': 'Super boring lectures especially at 9 am. It combined some aspects of chem135 and enes220, though mainly just chemistry. I found the exams to be very fair - they were a mixture of numerical and short answer type questions. Just make sure to go through the powerpoints and homeworks and you should be fine.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-28T14:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Aristos Christou', 'course': 'ENME382', 'review': "Writing a nice review for you future terps since no one seems to.\r\n\r\nLectures: if you like listening to him read off the slides, go to lecture. If not, you can skip and you'll never miss anything. There was maybe 10-20 people in lecture when I went. Lecture content is very dry, especially the first month or so when it's all about crystals and you have no idea what the purpose is of anything you're learning. After first midterm the material got a bit more scientific so I felt like I was learning something and understanding the different material properties.\r\n\r\nHomework: Wiley plus easy stuff, the written homeworks are generally easy but can be a bit time consuming. You need to do your best to get 100% on all these.\r\n\r\nExams: you're going to get basically zero practice material for these. Run through the wiley plus homework, try the practice exam, maybe find another older exam on course hero. Thankfully the exams aren't too terribly difficult. I did admittedly little preparation and got a 80 and 78 on the midterms. You get a 2 page note sheet for exams that should be more than enough to get enough info on there for a good grade. Oh they don't actually give you the practice exam. You have a watch a zoom recording of a TF walking through it. Yikes, very annoying. There is no final exam.\r\n\r\nProject: this is a huge portion of your grade. The project itself is pretty easy. 3x 2-page reports (you only write 1 each, then write comments on other people's reports), 1 big final report and a presentation. If your group is good you'll be set. If your group is lazy I hope you like doing the whole thing by yourself like I had to.\r\n\r\nGrading is generally pretty lenient but was a disaster this semester due to TAs doing who knows what. A lot of kids had zero grades until a few weeks before the final project was due. Write a lot. Technologically this class was a disaster. Tons of canvas and willey plus issues. You have to sort through 100 files to find the right lecture slides.\r\n\r\nOverall, easy class, optional attendance, I put in maybe 2-3 hours of work on this per week and should be getting a B+ or A- with minimal effort. Christou is a very nice guy and obviously likes what he does but not a whole lot to write home about in terms of his teaching.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-15T23:29:48Z'}], 'name': 'Aristos Christou', 'slug': 'christou'}, {'courses': ['ENEE420', 'ENEE324H', 'ENEE621', 'ENEE222', 'ENEE425', 'ENEE620', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE634', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE634'], 'average_rating': 1.625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Armand Makowski', 'course': 'ENEE621', 'review': "His lectures are super clear; but you have to be in tune to what he's saying as you copy the notes from the board. If you listen, you can get a lot of intuition about the subject from what he says. The exams are not so much difficult as very, very wordy. You have to read about half a page of typed question, just to set things up. If I could have done his exams on a legal pad instead of those tiny exam booklets, it might have helped my organize my thoughts, but you end up flipping pages back and forth to make sure you're taking everything into account. And you do have to take everything into account, because usually you can solve the problem quickly if you realize that the assumptions allow you to simplify everything in a couple of steps. If you don't SEE that short-cut, then you'll really miss that legal pad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-10-11T11:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Armand Makowski', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "Makowski is a snooze fest. Yet for some reason this dude does not allow a single phone out otherwise you will be personally confronted about it. If you whisper at the beginning of the semester, he will never let you forget about it. So let's recap: he makes us sit with our eyes glued on him for an entire hour and way too many minutes while he's up there being boring. Then, he explains the information in a really complicated manner and throws in new variables that no one has ever seen before and no one actually needs to ever see, so we are more confused than ever. This is the one class I can say that not attending lectures may have actually helped on the exam, and my friends' exam grades proved this point. \r\nI will give him kudos for understanding this material probably better than he knows his wife and children. He just thinks about what he wants to talk about and the material appears for him, it's pretty amazing. He unfortunately expects that out of his students. He also expects us to read the chapters before going to class. My recommendation: don't go to class. I am glad that by attending class I learned that my 13 years of Hebrew School taught me nothing because I had no idea how to say zero in Hebrew. My temple really failed me on that, just to add on to the failure I already feel every day thinking about this class. \r\nIf you somehow find yourself with him as a Professor, he claims to not curve the class. You do get one formula sheet on the exams, but they won't help. Talking to him may help if you think you will fail, but do not expect an A unless you are one of those naturally gifted types. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-13T17:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Armand Makowski', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "I have used ourumd.com for many years, as a lurker, mostly. I have never felt the need to review professors, because most of them at UMD are not noteworthy, in my opinion (not to say there aren't GOOD professors, just none that motivated me to write a review).\n\r\nUntil I had Makowski.\n\r\nYou see, even the shitty teachers are tolerable. Kruskal made algorithms the biggest pain-in-the-ass topic I'd ever taken before, but I got a B. Why? The class was still tolerable and DO-ABLE. But the same cannot be said of Makowski; he is on an entirely different level of shitty. A level of shitty that is politely cruel, convoluted, and irrelevant. \n\r\nThe worst part about all of these things is that you don't realize this during the class. For most of the class, it just seems like you're not studying hard enough. It just seems like the hours of reading and rereading the book and meticulously going through every homework step-by-step, isn't enough. You've been studying for hours a day every day for seven days and you walk into that exam and it's as if you didn't study ONE MINUTE. IT'S AS IF YOU DIDN'T EVEN STUDY FOR THE RIGHT CLASS.\n\r\nThe level of math required for Makowski's exams goes beyond the prerequisite calc 2 level of math necessary for ENEE324. This is saddening to me, because I went the entire semester thinking I didn't study enough or didn't try hard enough, when the truth was that I didn't have the prerequisite bachelor's degree in math necessary for probability with Makowski.\n\r\nProbability with Makowski was a time in my life where I questioned the following things:\r\n- my major\r\n- my intelligence\r\n- my happiness\r\n- my ability to do anything\n\r\nIf you have a minor in math or are double majoring in math, then this class should be a fun exercise of your skills.\n\r\nOtherwise, stay clear of Makowski if you value your sanity, happiness, and GPA. \n\r\nOn the bright-side, he's a very nice guy, and genuinely enthusiastic about probability. This is actually refreshing, but significantly overshadowed by all the negative shit. \n\n\r\nThis class is the reason I started going to the counseling center on a weekly basis.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2013-12-11T01:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Armand Makowski', 'course': 'ENEE324H', 'review': "This class was definitely an experience. There were only six people in the class, so, uh, if you're reading this Dr. Makowski, hello. Anyways, he's a decent lecturer, though my main complaint is that he sort of expects us all to be some level of mathematics wizards. His explanations are solid enough but when he starts doing example proofs I begin to contemplate my life decisions which led me to enroll in the ece honors program. The bi-weekly quizzes are easy enough but the grading is all over the place. \n\r\nA bunch of the test questions involve some arbitrary math trick which makes the question become super easy, which is great, because I suck at figuring sh*t like that out and end up with a grade that causes me to spend a thursday afternoon drinking my troubles away. The rest of the questions are multi-step, but the kind where if you can't do step one, you might as well end your miserable existence of a life because that makes the other parts impossible. Also the final was extended to four hours, because the we all agreed that probability is so baller that we wanted to have a double dose before we were allowed to go home.\n\r\nI am proud to say that after passing this class the amount of information I know about probability is so little that if you were to give me a probability question I would solve it the same way I derive the first and second moments of the cauchy distribution. I worked really hard on that joke and it's bad but what are you a math major", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-06-14T00:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Armand Makowski', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "Here are the median grades for our tests this semester:\r\nMidterm 1: ~50%\r\nMidterm 2: ~25%\r\nFinal: ~40%\r\n\r\nFor overall grades, there was 1 A, 7 B's, 12 C's, and 6 D's. Spare yourself the trouble and avoid Makowski at all costs. He will tank your GPA, teach you little, and underhandedly insult the class when it inevitably does poorly. Test questions are typically either fairly easy or completely reliant on mathematical tricks that few people will get. Unfortunately, as should be clear from the grades, most questions are of the latter type, and he will not change that.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-26T22:35:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Armand Makowski', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "I heard that this course was hard but taking it with this Professor only made it harder. He likes teaching with little to no examples. It came time for him to teach some topics in Linear Algebra (a course I am familiar with) and he made it harder for others to understand by making easy tasks like LU factorization complicated. There are no practice exams for him in this course. He likes to form his own questions for exams which is good because it keeps you on your toes. He likes to ask exam questions that prove something. He kinda loses a little patience when you ask questions. If you have no choice but to take him, read ahead and practice a lot. It takes a certain kind of mind to understand what he wants from you during an exam so knowing how to do problems in the textbook won't just cut it.\r\n\r\nPros: will let you retake a quiz\r\nCons: Poor Teaching, Hard Tests, will cut you no slack about your grades (No extra credit, no dropped test, If you're failing before the drop date, drop it quick)", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-11-19T20:48:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Armand Makowski', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'Makowski has personified the act of poor teaching. He focuses on the "big picture", which essentially means no concrete examples and instead you get proofs/the theory behind the approach. He expects a lot of mathematical know-how in order to do the homework/exams, so if you don\'t already have a B.S. in Mathematics, good luck. The textbook used was written by Adrianos Papamarcou, (whom you should register for ENEE222 with instead), and reading the textbook rarely helps when it comes to Makowski.\r\n\r\nLecture is the equivalent of putting your brain in a blender and leaving it on pulse for a good hour and fifteen minutes. On the bright side, it has reaffirmed my faith, for now I know that there is indeed a hell and chastisement exists in the form of these exams. \r\n\r\nAdvice:\r\n- Stay away, if you value anything in your life.\r\n\r\n- If you need this course and this is your only option, invest in a high-quality bedspread so when you cry yourself to sleep at night your sheets aren\'t ruined.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-11-20T23:19:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Armand Makowski', 'course': 'ENEE620', 'review': "I have never had a professor so open about his disdain for engineers. This class is listed as an engineering class but assumes you have a prior BS in mathematics, and you will need that level of background information to do well. The class will be a mix of folks, some engineering and some math-focused. All the engineers struggled, whereas all the math folks did fairly well. If you are an undergraduate, don't even consider taking this course, he is very open about the fact that he tries to fail all of the undergrads. This professor pretty much singlehandedly killed all enthusiasm I had for graduate school, and honestly, I was just happy to pass by the time the end of the semester came around. Find another course if you value your sanity and aren't a hyper-theoretical mathematician.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-27T01:07:57.875005Z'}], 'name': 'Armand Makowski', 'slug': 'makowski'}, {'courses': ['ENPM613'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Arnab Ray', 'slug': 'ray_arnab'}, {'courses': ['ENFP416', 'ENFP425', 'ENFP426', 'ENFP625', 'ENFP629I', 'ENFP626', 'ENFP464', 'ENFP619', 'ENFP489I', 'ENFP664', 'ENFP653', 'ENFP630', 'ENFP619', 'ENFP626', 'ENFP464', 'ENFP619', 'ENFP664', 'GEMS296', 'ENFP426', 'ENFP619', 'GEMS297', 'ENFP664', 'ENFP464', 'ENFP619', 'ENFP625', 'ENFP626', 'ENFP664', 'GEMS396'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Arnaud Trouve', 'slug': 'trouve'}, {'courses': ['BUSI758B', 'BUDT733', 'BUSI630', 'BUDT732', 'BULM758X', 'BULM758Y', 'BUDT758W', 'BUSM762', 'BUSO758M', 'BUSO716'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Arnold Greenland', 'slug': 'greenland'}, {'courses': ['PHYS142', 'PHYS798L', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS174', 'BIPH698L', 'CHPH709L', 'PHYS115', 'PHYS375', 'BIPH698L', 'CHPH709L', 'PHYS798L', 'PHYS275', 'BIPH698L', 'CHPH709L', 'PHYS115', 'PHYS798L', 'BIPH698L', 'CHPH709L', 'PHYS798L', 'PHYS275', 'BIPH698L', 'CHPH709L', 'PHYS115', 'PHYS798L'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Arpita Upadhyaya', 'course': 'PHYS142', 'review': "I didn't pay attention in class, so I'm not going to rate the teacher. She's a nice lady and she goes through her powerpoints in class. \n\r\nHere's the breakdown:\n\r\nHomework- 10%\r\nQuizzes- 10%\r\nFirst Exam- 15%\r\nSecond Exam- 15%\r\nThird Exam- 15%\r\nLab Reports (free points) -10%\r\nFinal Exam- 25%\n\r\nI learned from reading the book doing the homework. The quizzes are straightfoward, and easy if you study. For each exam, you get a notecard, but its pretty much filled with formulas. Exams are variations on homework problems. If you know how to use the formulas, you're set for the most part. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-19T19:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arpita Upadhyaya', 'course': 'PHYS174', 'review': "She's a really nice lady and will pretty much tell you what to do. Also a pretty easy grader. She'll also hold a review session before the practical where you can pretty much go and write down notes on how to do everything on the practical. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-23T19:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arpita Upadhyaya', 'course': 'PHYS174', 'review': 'shes a fine teacher. seems to want to help if she can', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-05-02T19:37:48Z'}], 'name': 'Arpita Upadhyaya', 'slug': 'upadhyaya'}, {'courses': ['HIST326', 'HIST408M', 'HIST110', 'HIST619I', 'HIST319J', 'HIST325', 'HIST408I', 'HIST639T', 'HIST324', 'HIST319C'], 'average_rating': 2.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': "This class will end up feeling more like an English class than anything else. Eckstein is a good teacher, but he delegates all control to your TA, which can either be really good or really bad, depending on who your TA is. \n\r\nThe most important thing about the class is that you read the two books he assigns. They're actually fairly interesting, and you're going to have to use them for an essay and for the two exams. \n\r\nMy TA was somewhat erratic. I got an A in this class, but our entire section received horrible grades on our essays because our TA had decided to grade more strictly than the other TA's, which is unbelievably unfair. He had a very specific argument in mind for our papers; if we didn't argue using his points, we (in his mind) were wrong. Since when can you grade an argumentative paper with a checklist? \n\r\nMy TA also had a bad habit of getting upset if he thought students weren't reading the material. I'll admit, only about half our section put forth any effort, but our TA would storm out of the classroom and get all angry if he called on a student who didn't seem like he/she knew much about the readings. It was EXTREMELY frustrating for those of us who had read. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-03-16T18:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': "Poor lecturer. He has some very interesting insights, but they're few and far-between. Admittedly, this is a 100-level course, so I was not expecting any content intended to be taken particularly seriously. The course covers far too broad a swath of history to actually learn anything worthwhile that couldn't be gleaned from Wikipedia, though Eckstein is absolutely vehement about students not getting their information from the internet.\n\r\nThree assignments for the whole semester, all take-home essays, totaling maybe 8-10 hours of work. There's a moderate amount of reading assigned, but you can get away with skipping most of it, as only a fraction will actually be required on the assignments.\n\r\nPay attention in recitation, lest you do poorly on the essays - they'll want you to regurgitate buzzwords/phrases that you'll go over in discussion. That said, I managed a decent grade with definitively D-grade essay writing, so don't sweat it. Again, 100-level courses are a joke, and this is no exception.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-30T16:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': 'Dr. Eckstein is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the subject. Likes to relate to current / recent events, rehashes lecture material a lot in case you missed a class, and is friendly and eager to answer questions. His cynical attitude towards Christianity was the only thing that turned me off, but who can blame him, what with all the Bible pushers out there these days.\n\r\nWhen I took the class, it consisted of two exams (midterm and final) and a paper. Both exams consist of two essay questions each. Apparently he grades them based how many of the key points mentioned in lecture you are able to include, so definitely attend the lectures. Discussions consisted primarily of participation, along with some short reading quizzes.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-08T11:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': "Well it is hard to describe him. If you don't find history interesting then his lectures will e miserable. If you do he is great. I happen to be a history major so I felt that his class was very interesting. He comes into class and teaches like he is telling a story, very enjoyable if you find it interesting like I did.\n\r\nMid-term was a take home and the final was in class, neither were particularly hard.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-22T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': "He's a very knowledgeable man, and you can certainly learn a lot from his lecture. That is, assuming you can focus. He is very monotonous and uses no visual aids. In addition, while he explains a lot of great things in class, none of it is really ever relevant to exams. The exams rely on your ability to write endlessly about some random passage taken from a book that was required for the course. As long as you go to discussion, do all the readings, and study, you can end up with at least an ok grade. The lectures are not helpful at all", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-04T00:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': "His lectures are really boring, and you need to rely on your TA pretty heavily to get the big picture. He likes to focus on little details in lecture that might not matter for the papers or exams. The readings are also pretty dry since they are largely political papers. Unless you like Ancient politics and don't mind monotone lectures, I really wouldn't recommend this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-09-30T13:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': 'For the most part my CORE classes have helped me develop as a thinker outside of my major (engineering). However this class simply made me want to knock down the key building.\n\r\nThe lectures were awfully boring. His voice was at a constant for the whole semester. If that was not enough the lectures were pretty pointless when compared to the exams. \n\r\nThe graded work was suppose to look into how we interpreted and dissected the material of the course. The grade you receive is actually how well you articulate his ideas into your own words so no free thinking in this class if you want a decent grade.\n\r\nHe also comes off rude as far as not wanting to answer your questions. He pushed me off on the TA the handful of times I did try and ask a question.\n\r\nIf you need a HO CORE...look somewhere else.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-09-12T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': 'Horrible professor\n\r\nHe teaches his course by using overly simplistic stereotypes. His teaching methods also isn\'t very effective, since what he teaches in class rarely shows up in the actual exams.\n\r\nHe also likes to waste time by going off topic, and expects us to cover the time lost with our own time. For example, he started the semester off by pointing to a few black students in the class, and claiming how the campus belonged to them since the "original campus" that was burned down decades ago was built by slaves. \n\r\nThe funny thing was that the black students he pointed to seemed like transfer students from the Caribbean or Africa.\n\r\nCase in point, the class is pretty pointless, since you don\'t learn anything besides history stereotypes. And you\'ll probably end up getting a not so decent grade as well.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-02-10T00:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': 'Does not have any visual aid so you have to pay attention in his lecture. He is thoroughly knowledgeable of the subject and while sometimes he speaks a bit fast, he does repeat the main points once or twice. He does not like or answer questions he sees as irrelevant and can come off as a bit rude. He does really glow with happiness when he\'s covering a subject he likes, although sometimes his "uhh\'s" can be a bit annoying.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-15T20:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'course': 'HIST326', 'review': "Took his class couple years ago. Worst professor I've ever had. What a bitter old man. He was very opinionated, and it was annoying. Keep your modern political view to yourself. If I want to know how bad Trump as a president is, I would sign up a political science or whatever class instead of a course of the damn Roman republic. Even I'm interested in the ancient history in general, his class just made you feel sleepy. Pretty pointless class since you can get most stuff from Wikipedia.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-01-31T01:52:46Z'}], 'name': 'Arthur Eckstein', 'slug': 'eckstein'}, {'courses': ['HACS287'], 'average_rating': 2.2353, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': None, 'review': 'There really arent enough terrible things to say about goober (prof johnson). I would rather eat a dog crap and light bulb sandwich then have him again - but alas the department is apparently high off its a$$ since he is the only one they have teach this stuff so I have no choice - just like you unfortunately. \n\r\nFor starters he is the most senile professor I have ever had, and it\'s as if this is seriously the only thing he has to do with his life at this point. I\'m pretty sure he retired some 10 years ago - why won\'t he just go away. \n\r\nThe only reason I learned ANYTHING was from outside references - his notes make your head hemmorage as he is generally disorganized in thought and talks to the chalk board most of the lecture such that this class was completely a self taught experience. \n\r\nHe basically screws everyone on purpose on a continual basis because he thinks it will make us good engineers to have to teach ourselves everything. Ok I understand that much, but why are we then forced to pay this windbag\'s salary? In my opinion, this class should be free based on his teaching methods. He makes over six figures a year and he doesn\'t teach us anything more than what we could look up on the internet or read in a book. \n\r\nTo make things more frustrating they have Dr Ian White (chuck norris) COMPLETELY underutilized. Occasionally he would have some space to teach us which was amazing and highly informative. When he taught us we learned more in an hour than weeks of frustration and confusion on the scale of being sucked into a black hole and shot out in 9th dimensional space with goober. \n\r\nGoober basically sets the bar for the worst teaching methods I have ever encountered.\n\r\nHe also has these stupid weekly quizzes that everyone is terrified of as he gives NO indication as to what is going to be on them - as long as you know everything that has happened in the history of humankind and have an IQ of 12008992 then this approach should be easy.\n\r\nProbably the biggest thing that pissed me off about goober was that he goobed us big time with our groups...we had worked with a group for over 3/4 of the semester. I personally loved my group since we worked so well together and they were all great guys. You may find yourself in a similar situation, but dont let your productivity and positive environment fool you! Goober changes you up right before the final project so that you are completely unfamiliar with the people you are working with - so your final grade is essentially just a dice roll at this point. If ever anyone was to pull such a d*ck move in real life - I would simply quit working and return to more stimulating activity like playing music and partying every night whilst staring at my engineering degree on the wall going "wow at least I dont have to get goobed every day like that one goober did me at maryland and that awful job where everyone wasted money and time because they got switched up before a huge task with people they dont know at all after having been working with their original groups for quite some time." Give me a break goober, which real world have you been living in for the past 150 years?\n\r\nI am very excited to be here, and bioengineering I feel will ultimately be a great field to be in - but goober is a terribly unfortunate significant part of the dept. He discourages everyone to the point where they just want to quit trying. I look back at this point in the semester with nothing but negative reflection on his behalf. \n\r\nThis is by far the most ridiculous experience I have ever had with any professor at any level at any college and I am about to tear up at the very thought of having goober again for transport (a very difficult class). \n\r\nGoober does not teach - he punishes. Be prepared for pretty much the most awful experience of your life in ever facet of having to take a class. \r\nHe knows everything and will most likely outlive the explosion of the sun so unfortunately you can\'t avoid him. My best advice is to embrace the horror and team up with your friends - its the only way to get through it. Good luck to you all.\n\n\n\n\r\n---------------------------------------\r\nTransport\n\r\nThis seriously and genuinely killed any interest that I had in engineering. I do not want to be an engineer now. \r\nYou are a terrible creature, Arthur T Johnson.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-29T20:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': None, 'review': "Johnson's contract to teach 455 is over. Dr. White is supposed to take over from next year. Lucky everybody else. The design project is a pain in the ass but rather easy in retrospect. Electronics sucks.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-25T11:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "overall, he was a terrible teacher for 120. so terrible, i cannot find the words to describe it the experience.\n\r\nall his exams took questions straight out of his book. between 10-20% of the questions on the exam would come right from his quizzes.\n\r\nFor 455, he was much better. He actually tended to know what he was talking about. For 455, your grade is evenly split between lab reports, homework, weekly quizzes, a final lab practical, and a final project. The quizzes usually include material covered the week before and also included questions from the previous quiz that everyone got wrong. The quizzes given in the first half of the semester are doable since they tend to be similar to the homework in the book so make sure you do all the homework in the book. The quizzes given in the second half cover material he wrote so really pay attention in class then to know what's going on. He gives out 13-14 quizzes, but only counts 10 of them so pretty much, do well on the quizzes while you can.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T02:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE332', 'review': 'I have had Dr. J for 3 classes and yes his classes are hard but let me tell you first off that hes not bad. Trust me I’ve complained about him a lot until I did my research. He has published numerous papers on teaching methods and teaches they way he does ON PURPOSE. He deliberately makes it hard to understand and deliberately does not have office hours and is nowhere to be found come deadline. AS AN ENGINEER THIS IS HOW THE REAL WORLD IS. Clients will ask you to solve certain problems you know nothing about and do it as a team effort. Thus he always has group assignments and wants us to learn on our own and essentially teach ourselves, which unfortunately is a skill an engineer must have. \n\r\nTo do well in his class for 332/455/120:\n\r\nYou must do reading prior to class. Again, you MUST do it to get an A although you can get by with a B by doing nothing. I have read his papers on teaching and every one he mentions that “Do not let your students get away without doing the reading before class.” Do it or not its up to you, except for 332, doesn’t matter either way. This is why the quizzes are seen as hard (again 332 ur f’ed either way).\n\r\nYou MUST raise your hand and ask questions, or joke around with him before, in or after class. You must suck it up and make an effort to GET NOTICED. The way he assigns grades is compile all the averages of all assignments and determines the amount of students that get A’s, B’s and C’s. Then he goes through the list and chooses students based on the amount of people he already assigned per grade. So you must get noticed for him to bump you up otherwise he’ll screw you over. \n\r\nPretty much do some reading before class, contribute well on group projects (of course) and make sure to get noticed; be on first name basis with him. \n\r\nAlso he is extremely smart, ask any BIOE prof they have a lot of respect for him and I don’t like Dr. J as its hard to get A’s, and classes suck but he wants us to be good engineers and actually does care about us.\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-06-09T11:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': None, 'review': '\r\nDr. Johnson borders on incompetent in all aspects of teaching. The degree to which he plays favorites is incredible; he is extremely personable, approachable, and friendly to a select group of students, and completely ignores the rest of them, no matter what they do. His arbitrary grading methods strongly reflect this favoritism. His lectures are meandering and dull, and it is usually difficult to follow the illogical jumps he makes when "explaining" new topics. When asked to clarify a concept, he gets confused, and either avoids answering altogether, or asks Dr. White to explain the material. When asked to do an example problem from the homework, much of the time he is unable to do the problem correctly, or makes unrealistic assumptions that the students would lose credit for. In lab, he does not teach the material, expecting the students to figure it out and teach each other. For the homework, he has a socialist teaching system where students are supposed to sign off on each assignment that not only they, but everyone in their 4-person group, has mastered this assignment. However, as the semester was prefaced with the announcement that 25% of the students would get A\'s, there is a huge amount of competition, and everyone is wary of helping others at the expense of their own grade. The grading on the lab reports is completely arbitrary, and expectations are not defined. I can quote a conversation with Dr. Johnson about the grading of a lab. When asked why we lost points when all the material was present, he replied, "Oh, I guess you have everything after all. But I\'m not going to raise your grade."\r\nOnce the material in this class deviated from the textbook, which occurred in late September, there was no way of accessing the material outside of lecture, as no notes were posted, no review sessions were held, and office hours were not routinely held by Dr. Johnson. This made it very difficult to do well on the weekly quizzes.\r\nOn the subject of the quizzes. This was probably the worst organizational aspect of the class. Each week, quizzes were given at the end of lecture. The quiz was frequently on material that had been briefly or poorly taught at least 3 weeks previously, and unrelated to anything that had recently been done in the class. When many people did poorly on a quiz, sometimes, but not every time, the same quiz was given the next week. Multiple times, the first of the two identical quizzes had not yet been returned to the students, so we did not know how we did, what we got wrong, what concepts we needed to review, or how to improve our understanding of the material.\r\nI learned a moderate amount in this class, despite the fact that it is a 3 credit class that I need for my major, with interesting material that can be applied in all areas of engineering. If there had been a competent teacher, I would have learn much more and been far less stressed over the arbitrary grading method and having no way to learn the material other than searching for help sites on the internet. Dr. Johnson\'s attitude and teaching methods are a serious detriment to the Bioengineering program at Clark school. I learned very little when he taught my BIOE120 lecture two years ago, and I am seriously concerned about grasping the more difficult concepts of Transport next semester, which he is also going to attempt to teach my cohort. The quality of the professors has a serious impact on the learning ability and grades of the students, and also to the lives of the students in general, and how much they enjoy their time as students at the University of Maryland. It is extremely frustrating to be interested in a subject, and to be held back by a lack of resources.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-05-11T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Well I have this guys as my BioE advisor and my BioE120 instructor and boy did he suck. Sure, he knows the material - he wrote the book, literally. But, he can't convey it whatsoever and 90% of people don't go to his class or sleep through it. His test questions are totally random and obscure tid-bits in the text. You need to find old exams from upperclassmen to have any idea whats on the test because he gives you nothing. Really disconnected from what students want / need. Finally, he is never available, not my phone or e-mail. You best option is to find him in person in his laboratory because he cares infinitely more about his research then teaching. \n\r\nEdit - got a B in his 120 class, apparently so did 95% of the class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-03-03T18:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': None, 'review': "This class is a lot of work. You have a quiz, lab, and homework due every week. As someone previously mentioned the quiz is on material taught the previous week or quiz questions that most people missed. I STRONGLY advise to study for these quizzes and score as high as possible for reasons I will later explain. The homework and labs are done in randomly assigned groups, which can either be awesome or suck. The homework is pretty straight forward. The answers mostly come straight from the book. Labs started off horribly. No one knows what they're doing but as the semester progresses it gets better. Lab reports require the following sections: objective, methods, observations, and discussion/conclusion. The reports aren't too bad either and as long as you write a decent amount you'll get an A (not that it matters). \n\r\nFinal grades consist of 5 sections each worth 20%: Quizzes, Homework, Labs, Lab Practical, Final Design Project.\n\r\nDr. Johnson has extremely biased grading. You will have no idea what your grade is during the entire semester and at the end of the semester you will get a grade with no numerical justification. In addition it was impossible to contact him because apparently he lives on his farm and he only checks his email when he's on campus. There are two ways to get an A. The first is if he knows your name and if he likes you. The second way is to score high on the quizzes and get your final design project to semi-work. It's almost like he didn't even take into consideration the lab, homework, and lab practical grades. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-21T21:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE332', 'review': "I realize that BIOE120 is a pain in the ass, but Dr. Johnson's other two classes are much more useful.\n\r\nMy advice:\r\nFor electronics, take notes because the book is not helpful at all. Dr. Johnson especially likes students that show initiative, so if you have questions, ASK. He loves a good question. For the final project, become very good friends with your classmates and you'll be fine. I recommend going to Radio Shack also, since the materials in the electronics lab are not always reliable.\n\r\nFor transport, the group projects really suck BUT they teach you some very useful things. 1) If you don't trust that your group members are going to do something right, do it yourself. 2) Dr. Johnson takes group evaluations seriously, so make sure you contribute as much as humanly possible, and if someone doesn't contribute, tell him. 3) Start working as soon as you get the project.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-22T22:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': 'To reiterate what the other reviews say, this professor is incredibly BORING. He\'s also not very helpful and does not respond to e-mail. The material covered in this course(if you want to call it that) is completely pointless and random. The majority of the topics are obvious observations that Johnson decided to give a proper title. Tests are just as random as the "material". I attended lectures and outlined the text and yet there were still some questions on the tests that were not mentioned in either of these places. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-19T02:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': 'Class was extremely boring! It made my interest in bioengineering drop. However, Dr. Shah the professor for the Cell Module section of the course revitalized my interest in the major. \n\r\nDr. Johnson was extremely knowledgeable and presented interesting viewpoints on biology. After a cup of coffee before his class, he is pretty interesting; just pay attention to the lecture.\n\r\nTests were random; the only way to pass is to read the textbook. I never had an idea as to what my grade was, even heading into the exam. Dr. Johnson was also impossible to reach by email. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-17T02:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "...OMG. HE'S SO BORINGGG. and his tests and quizzes are so dumb. He wrote the book, so he lectures straight out of it...and it's not even a real bio book. \r\nPretty much, don't let him scare you away from bioE. He's the only guy who teaches the class, but it'll get better..", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-19T23:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': None, 'review': "The quizzes were hard.\n\r\nAlthough Dr. Johnson is intelligent and knows all the information forwards and backwards,\n\r\nhe just can't teach very well;\r\nlectures were very boring.\n\r\nNote: It's nice that he tries to make jokes every once in a while.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-01T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': 'This class was extremely boring and a waste of my time. The textbook was ridiculously unhelpful and full of really bad jokes and seemingly scattered information. I read all the chapters and can honestly say it would have been better if I had not read any of the chapters at all. The tests test you on testtaking skills. If you did well on the SAT, you will probably do well in this class taking all the tests. The problem is, if you are a bioE major, you can really avoid this class or Professor Johnson. He is also really boring so my notes ended up not being about much biology anyway. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-04T09:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': 'Terrible teacher!! He was so boring in BIOE120 and he turned many students away from the Bio major because of his antics. Tests were difficult because he tested us on trivial knowledge from his ludicrous textbook, and not on actual biology. I feel like I lost knowledge while taking this class!', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-03-04T12:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE332', 'review': "Dr. Johnson is sort of an institution in the ENBE/BIOE departments - he's been teaching for a very long time, and knows exactly what he wants from his students (although he doesn't always tell you first). So far, I've had him for ENBE455 and BIOE332. Here are my impressions:\n\r\nENBE455: Decent course. Labs, homeworks, quizzes, and the final lab practical weren't bad at all, particularly if you did some outside studying (don't just split up the homework problems among your group -- make sure you know how to do them all). However, the end-of-semester project was pretty bad - there weren't enough supplies in the lab to go around, and no group got their project to work completely. Once he assigned the project, he stopped giving help outside of class. Be prepared for this: I've heard it from this year's students too.\n\r\nBIOE332: This course is mostly about the projects, and does an excellent job of preparing you for a career in engineering. You get four randomly-assigned groups and three projects, each of which entails a pretty major design report with only 2 weeks to do it. He's specifically vague when he gives out the problem statements - he wants you to ask clarification questions , and his answers are helpful. If in doubt, be sure to ask. Lectures aren't really that helpful - he expects you to have read the material beforehand, so he just gives you a narrative of what's in his book (you probably won't learn much in lecture unless you come prepared with questions). All in all, BIOE332 is probably the most work for any one class in the ENBE/BIOE curriculum (even more than ENME331), but it's worth it to do a good job -- you'll learn a lot.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-17T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE332', 'review': 'As a teacher Dr. Johnson is pretty terrible. He goes way to fast, has a very dull voice so its hard to focus, and its hard to understand what hes talking about. For both electronics and transport processes you have a choice of doing a lot of work and maybe getting an A, or doing absolutely nothing and getting a C. Still he is the only teacher for these classes so you just have to deal with it. \n\r\nFor electronics, he gives a quiz, hw, and lab every week. Homeworks are pretty straightforward. For labs, make sure you write up a legit lab report. It will be pretty short but have an objective, methods, results section. The quizes he gives were on information he taught last class or they were recycled questions that everyone got wrong from previous quizzes. For the first half (analog) you can study whatever he is teaching from the book itself since it explains the information much better. The second half (digital) is actually pretty trivial and he does a decent job explaining it. \n\r\nYou do learn a lot in labs especially when whatever you are doing is not working. Troubleshooting your circuit will help you understand the concepts much better. Towards the end of the semester make sure to use the spec sheet to help check for too much current or if a chip is esd sensitive. \n\r\nFor transport process, he goes at an insanely fast pace and it is very hard to pay attention to him. Fortunately the practice quizzes online are basically the same question as the quizes he gives in class. Homeworks are not as straightforward as in electronics but they are doable. The majority of your grade comes from the 3 projects which involve lots of work. \n\r\nTo me putting effort in the class seemed pointless because I would do bad anyway. Still if you put in the effort to be successful, every class afterwards will seem a lot easier.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-12-05T20:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Johnson', 'course': 'BIOE332', 'review': "Tough course but by the the most rewarding if you are planning on being an engineer after college. Tight deadlines and bad groupmates are the two things to overcome here (exactly what you will see in the real world)\n\r\nWork is a lab, homework, and quiz a week plus 3 25-35 page technical design reports. You will also have to review other group's reports twice during the semester (hint: write alot to get a good grade). This is 7 credit hours of work packed into only 3. You must multi-task like crazy to get everything in. Or you could coast on the back of your groupmates- but there are group evaluations so be warned. Johnson may seem like he goes a mile a minute in lecture, but that is because he wrote teh book and has expected you to have read the section he is teaching before you came to class.\n\r\nBe warned that this requires a ton of work but once you pass it, you know you will have passed the hardest course in your major and be ready for real-world bioengineering.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-23T11:48:00Z'}], 'name': 'Arthur Johnson', 'slug': 'johnson_arthur'}, {'courses': ['HLSA760', 'HLSA720'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Arthur Reynolds', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': "I love this guy. Yes, he's late to class. Yes, he doesn't really teach anything throughout the semester. Yes, he goes off on tangents throughout the entire class. But the tangents are HILARIOUS. He really has a gift for words and is willing to help you with all the assignments to ensure that whatever you turn in to him will always come back an A. Almost all the assignments he gives are assignments you would have to have done anyway: cover letter, CV, personal statement. There's one final research paper on any topic, but he lets you do it in groups so it ends up at around 7 pages per person. Show up for class, participate a little, bring in your paper for him to review and he'll love you.\n\r\nAs for class time, just do the crossword or sudoku. Bring your laptop and work on homework. Study for another class. As long as you don't disrupt class, he's perfectly fine with it. \n\r\nFor a class that is required for graduation, he's the best and easiest teacher to have. Highly recommend!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-15T13:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Reynolds', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Professor Reynolds is one of the easiest teachers I've ever had. all you have to do is show up for class. He lets you work on all the assignments in class and then reviews them for you. unless you are really looking to learn a lot about technical writing, he is a good choice for a professor. he does spend a lot of time talking about completely random things, which can sometimes be interesting, but usually just end up wasting class time that could be better spent working on his assignments. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-04T17:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Reynolds', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': "Dr. Reynolds is disorganized and always late to class. He wastes class time by talking about random current events and only spends maybe 5-10 minutes actually covering his advice for assignments and tips for writing them. He will read drafts and make comments on them, so try to make the drafts as close as possible to final so you can incorporate any suggestions. Dr. Reynolds' lack of organization and advic annoyed me a lot, but it seems like many people worked a lot harder in other sections and still didn't learn very much, so maybe he's ok after all.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T01:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Arthur Reynolds', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': "The ideal Tech. English professor. \r\nHe's laid-back and minimizes the amount of work you have to do, but if you want honest feedback on your personal statement or resume, he's helpful. \n\r\nThe actual class-time however, is just a waste of time. He'll let you do other work in his class, though, so I suppose you could make good use of it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-07-01T23:10:00Z'}], 'name': 'Arthur Reynolds', 'slug': 'reynolds_arthur'}, {'courses': ['CCJS452'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Arthur Wallenstein', 'slug': 'wallenstein'}, {'courses': ['UNIV106', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ashleigh Brown', 'slug': 'brown_ashleigh'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ashley Adkins', 'slug': 'adkins'}, {'courses': ['KNES155N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ashley Delaney', 'slug': 'delaney'}, {'courses': ['GEOG211'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ashley Enrici', 'slug': 'enrici'}, {'courses': ['AMST101', 'AMST202'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ashley Hufnagel', 'course': 'AMST202', 'review': "She's really nice but she's not a good professor. There were a lot of awkward silences in class throughout the semester, she shows really old videos, has an overall awkward presence. Work is not too bad but weekly posts get annoying. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-05-23T21:46:16Z'}], 'name': 'Ashley Hufnagel', 'slug': 'hufnagel'}, {'courses': ['AMST101', 'AMST202'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ashley Minner', 'slug': 'minner'}, {'courses': ['HESI217'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ashley Venneman', 'slug': 'venneman'}, {'courses': ['AOSC201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ashley Wheeler', 'slug': 'wheeler_ashley'}, {'courses': ['CMSC417', 'CMSC818G', 'ENES603', 'GEMS296', 'CMSC498Z', 'CMSC798', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS297', 'CMSC412', 'GEMS397', 'CMSC388G', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENES601', 'ENES602', 'CMSC412', 'ENES602', 'CMSC412', 'CMSC412'], 'average_rating': 1.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': 'I straight up thought this class was an embarrassment to UMD (a top 10 CS school) and Agrawala and his TA Andrew were 100% to blame for it. I strongly advise to wait a semester or two and take this with a different professor.\n\r\nI\'m not writing this post as sour grapes either I performed pretty well in the class, I just started the semester really excited about learning about networks and in the end it all got sucked out of me.\n\r\nThe worst part of the class, the professor, and the TAs is that they create an environment where it feels like they genuinely want you to fail. If you ask about what content will be on exams (you will have no idea what will be covered) the only answer you will get is "read the chapter and do the problems." FYI chapters are 1-200 pages of thick, technical textbook with 40+ questions each and exams cover 2-3 chapters. \n\r\nI get that college is a lot about being able to teach yourself material, but you shouldn\'t have to teach yourself an entire class, especially a class as complex as Networks. \n\r\nProjects:\r\n- the first two projects were completely useless busy work that consisted of making simple client-server model. At no point in the class do they help you or show you how you would create such a connection (they just go over it on a high level, much different to actual C function calls), you literally just have to figure it out yourself. Not to mention, you have to use CORE, which is a nightmare within itself that even after the class I still have no idea how to use it. The second project is more about "can you parse in C" than it is about networks... Idk about you, but I didn\'t take 417 so I could waste my time tediously using strtok()\r\n- The final project is actually pretty cool - you implement some real deal stuff and you will learn a lot as a result. I wish they had you do practical things in Ruby all along as opposed to just at the end. Also a bonus that you get to work with a partner\n\r\nAll in all, you WILL learn a lot if you take this class, only because you literally have to memorize a textbook to pass. I did not come to college and pay tuition money to memorize a textbook, however. Professors should make it easier, not harder, to understand material and they should genuinely care about your success - Agrawala is neither.\n\r\nAgain, I did well in this class and I am not writing this because I am sour - i genuinely want you to either not take this class with Agrawala for your own good. If you do, I just hope he has magically improved and changed since. All things considered, there is no doubt Agrawala is brilliant, he\'s just not approachable and not a good teacher. Twice I went to office hours with course content questions and for advice and twice I got the answer "read the textbook"... not very helpful. \n\r\nCraziest thing is, if Agrawala changed a few things the course wouldn\'t be so miserable for everyone.\n\r\n1. Provide some kind of study guides for the tests so we know of the hundreds of protocols what to focus on\r\n2. Provide suggested book questions for each chapter so we don\'t waste our time doing 40+ problems. There is no reason why he can\'t give 10 questions per chapter or something like that. "if it\'s not on the slides don\'t worry about it" doesn\'t help at all\r\n3. Hold some kind of seminar at the beginning of the semester outside of class that introduces students to CORE and how to get set up properly\r\n4. Stretch the last project to be semester long and have students complete it in useful increments (maybe even add a bit to it)\r\n5. Act genuinely interested in the success and well being of the students as opposed to creating an environment where we feel like Agrawala wants us to fail', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-18T13:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': "I think the professor was actually a good teacher. He asked questions to get us to think and to understand why things were the way they are. I will say that the lectures were sort of dry, especially if you read the book. But the point was to get us to learn the basic concepts, and then we would study the details ourselves.\n\r\nI'll admit that the projects weren't entirely connected with the material in the lecture. But to say they were entirely irrelevant is false. I think the previous poster didn't really understand the point of the projects (considering they stated how it was just locate the standard library function and do it in this way, because that wasn't the point). It was to help us to understand how protocols work, and in that sense, it was connected to the material in lecture. But the final project was the most important. It really showed how hard network programming is, because you have to account for so many things, so it's much harder than say, Operating Systems. The final project was meant to help us understand that every decision in networking has some sort of reason behind it. And it does have real world use. So that gives me the sense of accomplishment. It was meant to simulate a real-life project as well, as it took a lot of coding and testing, and you had to work with your group members. I had a group member who only wrote ~200 lines of code or so, but the reason I didn't say anything was because the fact is that we do have other classes, despite this being like a real-life job.\n\r\nI will agree that the lack of study material or review for exams was disappointing, but there is a reason for that. It's hard to make questions that students can solve in a reasonable amount of time that adequately test student knowledge, thus questions are reused. I'd just recommend studying the questions at the back of the book. It is a vast amount of information to cover, but that's how a lot of courses are.\n\r\nOne thing I do agree is that it would've been better to add a reading schedule. It would have helped a lot.\n\r\nOverall, I would say I learned a lot from this course. I learned that understanding networking means understanding communication in general. I learned that there is a reason for every decision in a RFC. The professor also taught us that what we needed to learn is how to learn, because this information will soon be obsolete, and that's something important for CS majors in general.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-01-05T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': 'Agrawala was a horrible professor, and 417 was a horrible class.\n\r\nThis was possibly the worst computer science course I\'ve taken yet at this university.\n\r\nUnlike most other 400-level CS classes, that teach relevant and useful technology, this course seems to be mostly based on obsolete material. The projects don\'t convey any meaningful skills, and while in other classes I typically can look back on the projects and feel a sense of accomplishment, in this class, I felt like I jumped through hoops. (I got 100% or 90% on all the projects, so this isn\'t sour grapes -- the projects were just bad.\n\r\nFurther, the projects and lectures seemed entirely disconnected. I felt as if I was taking two different classes where two entirely different things were being taught. Lectures didn\'t prepare us for projects in any sense. As such, the projects weren\'t challenging, because they had to be easy enough for us to teach ourselves how to do. This meant that the projects consisted entirely of "locate the standard library function to do this thing, and invoke it in the right way."\n\r\nThe lectures were almost entirely taken from the textbook. If any reading had been assigned, this would mean that people who did the reading would get nothing out of lectures. The lectures were presented in an extremely dry and boring way. The lecturer would occasionally ask either extremely simple factual questions or incredibly complicated questions. Nobody was willing to venture an answer, because there was obviously a right answer (which the students didn\'t want to get wrong in front of the class), and in the simple case it seemed like the instructor was asking a trick question, while in the complicated case the students weren\'t sure of themselves. The instructor would, after doing this, chide the class for not participating. Further, the instructor would never revisit old or important material.\n\r\nThe exams were entirely disjoint from the lecture or projects. The two midterms focused almost entirely on concepts that appeared on one or two days of lecture. Further, the instructors refused to give students any information about what would be on the exam. This forced students to study huge amounts of information, including large parts of the textbook (which was tested on the exam, even though no readings had actually been assigned and there was no reading schedule for the course). Most students probably gave up; those that didn\'t were equally unprepared, because the exams were, rather than general, incredibly specific. The only way to get a good grade on the exam would have been to study in huge detail every aspect of the course. Typically, courses that require this have clear focus and direction, but this course had neither. It was like taking a survey of 1990\'s networking concepts and technology.\n\r\nOverall, taking this class was a vastly unpleasant experience. I had hoped that something as basic and vital to a computer scientists skillset as *networking* would be treated better at a major university. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-11T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': 'Good professor. Difficult to understand at times because of the accent. He asks a lot of rhetorical questions and goes on and on during lectures; therefore, they seem boring. Also, he just lectures from the slides and he posts his lecture videos and slides online, discouraging many from attending class. By the third week only a handful of people still went (I definitely did not attend), but this could be partly attributed to the class starting at 8am. His exams are almost entirely based on questions from the end of the chapters, and the remaining few questions are based on general terminology/ definitions of bolded words throughout the chapter. The projects in this class were very fair and interesting in comparison to previous year projects. The class is a lot of work because it feels like a programming class in addition to a theory of networking class (it is known as the 2nd hardest CMSC class). If you can keep yourself motivated and attend most lectures this is a very manageable class. Agrawala is a decent professor, but I feel he could be more interactive and give more examples/ real life problems. I would recommend him as a professor', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-28T17:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC412', 'review': 'I would give ZERO stars if I would. This is both the hardest and worst course that I\'ve ever had the displeasure of taking at UMD. I enrolled in this class because I thought that Operating Systems is a fundamental and useful skill to learn, even if difficult, but found out that the administration of this class makes this 10x more harder for literally no reason. There are so many things wrong with this course that I wouldn\'t recommend ANYONE taking it because it\'s not worth it. \r\n\r\nFirst of all, others seemed to like the professor\'s lecturing ability, but I did not. He goes on tangents all the time and is very unclear in his statements that it is impossible to focus. The slides are comprehensive, but are taken straight from the textbook so that isn\'t really a credit to the professor.\r\n\r\nThe projects and exams though, that is a different hell. Let\'s talk projects. Each one is incredibly difficult, and the instructions are HORRIBLE. There is really no valid reason why there should be a spec, slides, and FAQ for EVERY SINGLE PROJECT. The spec is awfully written and flat out wrong about things, the project slides are vague and also have incorrect information. The FAQs don\'t answer certain questions with any new information, and the fact that an FAQ is even needed for a project means that the instructions are poorly written. And to make things worse, even the spec, slides, and FAQ are sometimes not enough. \r\n\r\nOn a related note, administration for this course was TRULY TERRIBLE. Questions on Piazza were just left unanswered even though there were many people with the same question; the TAs just didn\'t answer and weren\'t active. I\'m pretty sure they were also left in the dark about logistics in the class, because it was near the end of the semester and we STILL did not have breakdowns of grading. That part of the course website was just never filled out. And one of our pop quizzes, which we only had 10 minutes to do and had a very poor average, was worth almost an entire project grade. That is completely ridiculous and shows how little the professor cares about administration for this class. For exams, we didn\'t get any review material, no study guide or previous exams, zip, zilch, nada. Just "look at the slides" which are hundreds if not thousands of slides so it\'s impossible to study everything on it. In addition, for our final, the professor was very unaccommodating to concerns over the Omicron variant, and refused to move the final online despite multiple CS classes shifting online, and almost the entire class requesting this change. No reasoning was given, of course. \r\n\r\nLastly, our final exam, which is worth a quarter of our final grade, was put on the grade server, and we never even got it back to see what we got wrong, let alone a regrade request. It was simply put on Testudo. This fact may change since this review is posted, but nevertheless it is inexcusable to have these final grades submitted without students seeing the reason, especially when this resource is easily available via Gradescope. \r\n\r\nI get that Operating Systems is a hard concept, but like I said, the administration made this course needlessly more difficult. I am sure that most other people in the class agree with me regarding the majority of the points that I raised here, and there are probably more points that I didn\'t mention. These points are definitely fixable (having clear grading, clear project descriptions, enforcing Piazza answering, giving us study material) and should definitely be addressed the next time this course is taken. I find that unlikely to happen though, so I do not recommend this course to anyone until then. You\'re better off looking at the slides or textbook on your own. \r\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-21T19:21:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC412', 'review': 'As other students have and will continue to write, I would give this a 0. As others have noted, 412 is a useful skill, so one should take it? No. It is one of my biggest regrets at UMD. There are literally 20 reasons to not take this course, but some of them include:\r\n\r\nAsking a question about a project that was not due until a week after the exam, which was weighted 18% of the exam grade;\r\nHaving TA\'s not reply to almost all piazza posts, and never replying the 4-5 days leading up to a project due date;\r\nGiving "Routine" pop quizzes (there were 2);\r\nHaving a Participation grade (Went to every class except 1 -- had a pop quiz on that class, and I got an 80 on participation (12 points lower than average));\r\nHaving a 52% on the final exam;\r\nThe professor not even making his own slides, rather uses the slides that the textbook gives;\r\nhas both slides and a spec for projects, both with information relevant, but only found on one or other;\r\nHiding the final not on gradescope where all previous exams and quizzes were placed.\r\n\r\nThere are literally so many more reasons, but just trust me don\'t take the class with this guy. He comes off as nice, but he grills students for coming in late, but half the class doesn\'t even show. I could guarantee he doesn\'t even know the questions on the exam also. Just avoid.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-24T18:33:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC412', 'review': "This is one of those courses where the lecture has nothing to do with the project. The professor is decent lecturing about operating systems concepts, but you're stuck with the TAs to get you through the project which is probably the hardest project in your entire college career.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-27T17:04:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC412', 'review': "Worst class I've ever taken. Stay far away if you want to maintain your sanity. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-31T20:49:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC412', 'review': 'While I took this course during the Covid Times, this Professor was an absolute Godsend. His only requirement to be able to turn in projects late was that you talk to him in his office, which was always a pleasure. He understood the particular pressure that students in his course were under, and worked with everyone who asked on a modified submission schedule. I had never had that with a single CS professor before, and it felt as the Prof. Agrawala truly wanted students to learn. \r\n\r\nAs far as actually teaching went, he was very knowledgeable about the material, and had first hand experience with the making of modern operating systems, which he shared with the class. His slides are yes from the text book, but they are always available on the class website, and line up exactly with the textbook, which he provided as a free PDF (I wish all teachers did this). As long as you read the book and practice any sort of problem that he does step-by-step with the class, as well as study the project slides, you have what you need to know for the exams. He doesn\'t list out topics for studying, but he also prefaces his course with advice such as, "get one last good nights rest tonight, that\'s it for the semester," and "everything you heard about this course is absolutely true." Regardless of if it is the case, it\'s imperative that you get stared on the projects early, and read the textbook. \r\n\r\nThis is not an easy course, and this Professor understands that, but the difficulty in the course does not stem from administrative BS or weird rules. It\'s hard because Operating Systems are hard, and that\'s the point.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-24T16:31:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'course': 'CMSC412', 'review': "The review below isn't really telling of the in person situation at all. Sure, he may have been fine during Covid, but this class has been a complete nightmare in person. Like some of the other reviews below state, he was completely unresponsive to student questions and concerns, and as a result, the class suffered during his extremely convoluted projects and exams. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-16T23:06:16Z'}], 'name': 'Ashok Agrawala', 'slug': 'agrawala'}, {'courses': ['ENME489W', 'ENME489X', 'ENME436', 'ENME489X', 'ENME436', 'ENME425'], 'average_rating': 1.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ashwani Gupta', 'course': 'ENME489X', 'review': 'Homeworks sometimes had nothing to do with what was learned in class. Pretty disorganized class overall ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-03T06:26:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashwani Gupta', 'course': 'ENME489X', 'review': 'Do not look to get an easy A in this class. Gupta requires summaries every class about material, and gives quizzes almost every lecture. This class is very disorganized. Gupta will wait until hours before an assignment is due, to finally upload the assignment to elms. Also the feedback from Gupta and the TA in this course is minimal to none because he does not respond to emails over elms. If you decide to take this class be prepared to be bored sitting through 2:50 minute lectures where he does nothing but talk and flip through slides. The material is okay, but the delivery of this course makes it really bad. Save yourself and choose a course where you will actually learn something useful. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-09T21:47:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Ashwani Gupta', 'course': 'ENME436', 'review': "So bored, so confused, so disorganized. Typing from class currently. Hasn't updated his slides since 2011 you can tell this is his side job to being a researcher.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-03-09T23:03:36.373027Z'}], 'name': 'Ashwani Gupta', 'slug': 'gupta_ashwani'}, {'courses': ['WMST602', 'WMST498N', 'WMST488T', 'WMST300', 'WMST298D', 'WMST618', 'WMST698N', 'WMST709', 'WMST488E', 'WMST628', 'WMST621', 'SPHL601', 'WMST488X', 'WMST488C', 'WMST368', 'WGSS368', 'WGSS488C', 'WGSS368', 'WGSS368'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ashwini Tambe', 'slug': 'tambe'}, {'courses': ['AMST289A', 'AMST260', 'AMST328R', 'AMST498X', 'AMST340', 'AMST629E', 'AMST386', 'AMST210', 'AMST340', 'AMST386', 'AMST315', 'AMST328R', 'AMST340', 'AMST210', 'AMST386', 'AMST450', 'AMST315', 'AMST340', 'AMST386'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Asim Ali', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is a really nice guy and interacts well with the classroom but he grades hard for no reason and is very unclear about what he is asking for in assignments.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-04T19:44:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Asim Ali', 'course': 'AMST260', 'review': 'One of the best professors this school has to offer. Do your readings and pay attention in class and you’ll be golden. Going to office hours and talking through concepts is also super helpful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-01T03:20:20.750144Z'}], 'name': 'Asim Ali', 'slug': 'ali_asim'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Assma Al Thowaini', 'slug': 'thowaini'}, {'courses': ['CHBE437', 'ENMA362', 'ENMA311', 'ENMA312', 'CHBE369', 'ENMA312', 'CHBE437', 'ENMA312', 'ENMA312', 'CHBE437', 'ENMA312'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Audaldo Ponce', 'course': 'ENMA312', 'review': 'Very nice guy, somewhat easy grader. Will help you with the class and can be a good resource down the line', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-03-30T23:45:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Audaldo Ponce', 'course': 'ENMA312', 'review': 'I had lecture online and lab in person. \r\n\r\nOnline lectures were pointless - would have much preferred a recording. Dr. Ponce would require cameras on for zoom, which no professor should ever require. All he would do is just read off the slides, and overall not a good lecture experience.\r\n\r\nThere was a lot of down time during lab, but lab was fine. Grading was frustrating - refused to give anyone an A unless they received over 95. He also refused to release grades until everyone submitted course evaluations, meaning we could not actual evaluate his grading. \r\n\r\nUnfortunately this course is required.\r\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-02T23:33:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Audaldo Ponce', 'course': 'ENMA312', 'review': 'nice guy, and i felt like the course was fairly straightforward. although this semester, our TA graded most of the work such as lab reports and notebooks, and our TA was pretty fair in grading, so this might vary if Ponce himself is grading it (he is 100% going to be more harsh on grading). Make sure you look over the lab report and notebook rubrics carefully so that you meet every requirement because the lab reports are 50% of the grade and the notebooks are 20%. theres a small exam that was also fairly easy, and an oral presentation at the end. make sure you know your experiment for that thoroughly because you will get grilled and feel miserable if you dont, but the grading for that wasnt very harsh (10%). we didnt have anything like 95% for an A but it could be different based on the distribution. good luck!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T22:30:26.172394Z'}], 'name': 'Audaldo Ponce', 'slug': 'ponce'}, {'courses': ['ARTT352', 'ARTT354', 'ARTT355', 'ARTT455', 'ARTT456', 'ARTT698D', 'ARTT454'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Audra Buck-Coleman', 'slug': 'buck-coleman'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL255', 'ENGL245'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Audrey Farley', 'slug': 'farley'}, {'courses': ['WMST360', 'WMST386', 'WMST621', 'WMST263', 'WMST200', 'WMST708A', 'WMST488W', 'WMST498O', 'AASP498D', 'AASP298I', 'WMST618', 'WMST709'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Augusta Bolles', 'course': 'WMST200', 'review': '"Anonymous" is spot on. \r\nLectures barely relate; very useless!\r\nApproachable\n\r\nHuge discrepancies in TA\'s. I also got the TA who graded us as though we were in an upper level class. "Anonymous"\'s last sentence sums it up!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-01-12T22:58:00Z'}], 'name': 'Augusta Bolles', 'slug': 'bolles'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'LGBT200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Avery Dame', 'slug': 'dame'}, {'courses': ['BMGT495'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Avinash Mainkar', 'slug': 'mainkar'}, {'courses': ['BSCI338N', 'BIOL708E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Avis Cohen', 'slug': 'cohen_avis'}, {'courses': ['HEBR314', 'JWST429P', 'JWST429C', 'HEBR313', 'HEBR112', 'JWST219O', 'ARHU158C', 'JWST609', 'JWST619P', 'JWST619F', 'HEBR298O', 'HEBR111', 'HEBR211', 'HEBR106'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Avital Feuer', 'slug': 'feuer'}, {'courses': ['EDCI464', 'EDCI665', 'EDCI763', 'EDCI463', 'EDCI461', 'EDCI462', 'EDCI625', 'EDCI664', 'EDCI488F', 'EDCI761', 'EDCI762', 'TLPL488F', 'EDCI488L', 'TLPL488L', 'TLPL654', 'TLPL733', 'TLPL734', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL342', 'TLPL343', 'TLPL650', 'TLPL651', 'TLPL343', 'TLPL653', 'TLPL342', 'TLPL654', 'TLPL733', 'TLPL734', 'TLPL733', 'TLPL734', 'TLPL343', 'TLPL653'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ayanna Baccus', 'slug': 'baccus'}, {'courses': ['ARTT150', 'ARTT110'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Aydin Hamami', 'slug': 'hamami'}, {'courses': ['ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'PHYS708', 'PHYS889E'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ayush Gupta', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Great professor, does not expect too much but pushes students to try their best ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-10-29T21:15:30Z'}], 'name': 'Ayush Gupta', 'slug': 'gupta_ayush'}, {'courses': ['BIOM602', 'BIOM621', 'ENST602', 'ENST689', 'ENST689', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Bahram Momen', 'slug': 'momen'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'BSOS361'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bailey Kier', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "the guy just has weird vibes. like the reason i signed up for his section was because it was at a good time and online so it's way easier to do nothing. if you have the chance to take it online i would say do it. but in person with this guy? no. overall just kinda awkward and another student and i agreed class just felt uncomfortable. nothing bad, never did anything wrong, just kinda iffy. again, if you can take his class online, that's a way easy option. but i know there are better univ100 teachers. but the class doesn't really matter so the prof doesn't really matter either i guess", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-01T17:45:18.484508Z'}], 'name': 'Bailey Kier', 'slug': 'kier_bailey'}, {'courses': ['ENME631', 'ENME633', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENME392', 'ENME332', 'ENME332', 'ENME631', 'GEMS396', 'GERM103', 'ENME332', 'ENME489R', 'ENME633', 'GEMS397', 'ENME631'], 'average_rating': 1.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bao Yang', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': 'Was unable to learn from his slides, ended up just skipping lectures and reading the book in order to learn the class. The important focus was being able to find the example in the book that the problem is similar to and find out which table you need to look at.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-23T10:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bao Yang', 'course': None, 'review': "pretty nice guy but he can't really teach mostly due to a language barrier. basically took stuff out of the book and put it on a powerpoint. exams were open book and his questions were pretty much exactly like the example problems given in the book, but he changes one or two things but the things he does change make the exam questions 10x harder than the examples.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-17T10:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bao Yang', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "I wrote a review for my fluids professor because I thought he was going to be the worst professor I've ever experienced. Unfortunately I was very wrong after taking Bao Yang for heat transfer. only reads off slides (spends little time on a slide with lots of info), gives 2 homework the night before exams (material isn't on the exam... and normal weeks only have one homework due), and his TA's are even worse (act like their teaching at gunpoint and they would get shot in the first 5 minutes). this man is horrible", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-02T01:15:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Bao Yang', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': 'Dr. Yang did not do much to help students learn material. His lecturing style consisted of him reading off strictly from lecture slides with lots of information. These slides are posted ahead of time, but there is a lot of content to cover. At the end of the slides, he added a practice quiz question, but since there was a lot to cover in the lectures, most people did not know the answer. Most of the learning came from studio section and not lecture.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-08-04T13:42:15Z'}], 'name': 'Bao Yang', 'slug': 'yang_bao'}, {'courses': ['BMGT301', 'BUSI785', 'BMGT485F', 'BUDT758J', 'BUDT758M', 'BMGT499D', 'BUDT706', 'BULM758J', 'BUSM750', 'ENTS673', 'BULM735'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'I decided to take this class based on a recommendation from a friend. Worst decision of my college career. I ended up getting an A- in the class, but had to fight tooth and nail for it. This man was a complete sadist, made a fifteen-page fill-in-the-blank final exam, and was just generally condescending, unhelpful, and rude. He would often crack unrelated jokes during class and failed at teaching his subject. He also refused to give any multiple choice questions at all, saying they would make his class "too easy."\r\nAvoid him at ALL COSTS. He is the worst.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-10-15T20:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "WHO MAKES A 15 PAGE FINAL EXAM????\n\r\nTHIS GUY.\r\nAVOID HIM, you won't regret it! ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-19T01:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'I really would recommend not taking Corwin for 301. I chose him because the overall reviews looked good and there are naysayers with everyone, but I wish I\'d paid closer attention to the lower ratings.\n\r\nYes, he has videos during class. They are slow, tangentially related to what we\'re talking about and guaranteed to be on a quiz or test in some obscure form. \n\r\nYes, he makes jokes and has a nice personality, but his teaching is all over the place. His lectures have 50+ slides, disorganized, and with the homework somewhere on one of them (but in a different place each time. There\'s also a "study group" practice homework assignment that looks exactly like the regular homework slide, but isn\'t for turning in, so you could spend an hour on an assignment and realize you should have been doing a different one).\n\r\nI don\'t know what it is, because if I\'m having trouble with a professor I can usually sit down and teach myself what I\'m not getting, but this class and I just did not connect. I know more about using programs like Excel and Access now, but the exams focus a lot on concepts, which he only half covers (but pretends he fully covers so he can put whatever he wants on the exam). \n\r\nHe is vague teacher and a specific exam-maker, which is a bad combination. There\'s too much sheer material for you to just learn everything, so you have to pick and choose and hope for the best. Not what I like to have in a class or a professor.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-16T01:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "I'm not sure if I have disliked a professor as a person more in my life than Corwin. His jokes are often inappropriate and he is not very helpful if you meet with him after class, although he will repeatedly encourage you to do so. The class itself is boring, though not very hard. 90% of the class just stares at their computer screens while he rambles through a powerpoint or shows irrelevant videos. His only saving grace is that he does try to give his students good grades, probably higher than we deserve. There are multiple opportunities for extra credit and the quizzes/exams are full of ridiculous amounts of partial credit and points added due to a curve. The excel/access/visio portion of the class is helpful and can be a valuable skill to have, but the rest of the course (regarding information technology in general) is incredibly uninteresting. I would avoid taking this class if possible, but it is certainly not the end of the world.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-19T18:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Definitely take Dr. Corwin for BMGT301. The class is great! He plays a ton of videos because he knows that students can only listen to lecture for so long, and the videos really help. He is a really funny guy, but at the same time he will also do whatever it takes to make sure you understand the material (especially if you go to his office hours). As other people have mentioned there is homework, but it really doesn't take long and is essentially a grade booster. Participation is easy, twice a month for an A. The excel/access/visio assignments aren't a big deal and they help you practice skills that separate you to employers. He offers plenty of extra credit. Take this class, you won't regret it! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-01-03T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Professor Corwin is a great professor and really cares about his students. The lectures are engaging and he uses a variety of media to keep them fresh. He levels with his students about what they really need to know for an exam, but makes an effort to bring in material that is supplemental and interesting as well.\n\r\nThe class is really not difficult. As long as you do the work and stay on top of the material, you won't have any problem getting an A in this class. If you have a problem with the homework, technical or content, he is always happy and enthusiastic to help.\n\r\nHe is also pretty hilarious, which can really help those days when the material is dragging a bit. Try to get Corwin if you can!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-03T00:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "The fact that he isn't getting unanimous 5 star scores kind of surprises me. Professor Corwin is a super nice guy and is eager to help students learn the material.\n\r\nPros:\r\n- He is nice and is willing to meet with students any time\r\n-Understands that the material is boring\r\n-Homework is easy and not strictly graded\r\n-Exams are straightforward\r\n-Shows videos and makes material easy to learn\r\n-Asks for feedback daily and what he can do better\n\r\nCons:\r\n-Takes attendance every lecture\r\n-Has written homework assignments every night (although they are easy points that help boost your grade, and help you learn the material without having to read the textbook)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-19T01:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'He class is boring. He is teaching nothing. For a good grade, just read the text and do the homework. He teaches nothing but he takes attendance. He class is easy but you will learn nothing. There are homework every meeting. So there will be like 25+ homework throughout the whole semester. Take his class if you like to do homework, get a good grade, but learn nothing.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-04-09T15:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Corwin is awesome!! He's passionate/knows what he's talking about unlike some of the other professors that teach 301. There is a lot of daily homework, but it's really not too hard and keeps you on top of what you're learning. He's very helpful if you ever stop by his office as well, especially if you don't understand the access/excel assignments. He cares about his students and among other things gets food for the class throughout the semester.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-15T11:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Corwin', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "AVOID HIM AT ALL COSTS.\n\r\nI had him this semester, it was the first time he taught an undergrad class. He's only taught PhD/MBA students before and he is WAY too intense. He assigned 30 pages of reading the very first day of class and has papers required every day. He also assigns podcasts as reading which are really annoying. He takes attendance every single day. He grades on a curve. If he catches anyone not paying attention he'll walk up to that part of the room and stare at them while he's talking. He loves to mention the fact that he got his PhD at Penn. He takes this class, which is supposed to be just a basic primer on Excel and Access, and turns it into some sort of high-level examination of the role of technology in business and our lives. He goes way overboard with everything, has some truly terrible methods of forcing group participation in class, and is an terrible lecturer. He also doesn't realize that everyone in the class hated him within the first 15 minutes. I repeat: avoid him at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-02T21:03:00Z'}], 'name': 'Barnet Corwin', 'slug': 'corwin'}, {'courses': ['SURV699N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Barry Graubard', 'slug': 'graubard'}, {'courses': ['ENCE688K', 'ENCE688B', 'ENCE305', 'ENCE489E', 'ENCE689G', 'ENCE489G', 'ENCE689E', 'ENCE201', 'ENCE489B', 'ENCE489G', 'ENCE689B', 'ENCE689G', 'ENCE305', 'ENCE305', 'ENCE489B', 'ENCE689B'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Barton Forman', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "He is one of the best professors I met. He would curve the grade for each exam and don't want any student to be panic and afraid. Also answer the questions nicely. I got an A- in the end when I thought I might get a B. CHOOSE HIS CLASS if you can!!! He is totally worth it!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-21T14:24:12Z'}], 'name': 'Barton Forman', 'slug': 'forman'}, {'courses': ['CPSP119E', 'CPSP239E', 'CPSP249E', 'CPSP118E', 'CPSP218E', 'CPET100', 'CPET101', 'CPET200', 'CPSP259E', 'CPSP369E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Becky Archer', 'slug': 'archer_becky'}, {'courses': ['ENEE739B', 'ENEE620', 'ENEE222', 'ENEE425', 'CMSC498M', 'ENEE439M', 'ENTS669D', 'CMSC828C', 'ENEE633', 'ENTS669E', 'DATA603', 'MSML603', 'NACS898', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE436', 'CMSC828C', 'ENEE633', 'ENEE425', 'ENEE436', 'ENEE698P', 'CMSC828C', 'ENEE633'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Behtash Babadi', 'course': 'ENEE439M', 'review': 'Very smart professor who is very knowledgeable about the subject matter. Always friendly during lecture, provides clear explanations of the material with easy to understand examples, and covers everything on the exams, homework, and projects in class. However, if you do take ENEE439m, be aware that it is a graduate level course and you will be treated as such. For the projects (which are very fun and interesting btw) you are given a lot of freedom in terms of the implementation of the project, but as a result you are given little guidance. Coming into the class, I had little experience with MATLAB, python, or R and thus struggled in getting started on the projects. Grading in the class is fair, and if you put in effort on the homeworks, get the projects working, and study for exams like any other class, you can expect to get a good grade. Overall, despite having a few difficulties grasping the material (it is challenging stuff), and getting started on the projects, I enjoyed the class and learned a lot. I would fully recommend Prof. Babadi and ENEE439m to anyone interested in machine learning theory and application. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-06-05T16:45:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Behtash Babadi', 'course': 'ENEE633', 'review': "Babadi is one of the best lecturers I've seen during my 5 years at UMD. He comes well-prepared to every class, delivering detailed yet intuitive lectures that allow students of various academic backgrounds to understand the difficult material. Seems ready to answer just about any question you throw at him. Also very punctual over email. His exams are tough but doable if you have a strong grasp of various mathematical fields (statistics, calculus, linear algebra). However, you should be fine if you work hard to understand the homework concepts, and don't skimp on the two projects!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-26T08:43:14.616686Z'}], 'name': 'Behtash Babadi', 'slug': 'babadi'}, {'courses': ['PHYS420', 'PHYS171', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS475', 'PHYS675', 'PHYS779A', 'PHYS274', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'PHYS371', 'PHYS371', 'PHYS420', 'PHYS420'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bei Lok Hu', 'course': 'PHYS122', 'review': "I don't recommend taking physics with Dr. Hu. For one thing, it's pretty difficult to understand what he says half the time because of his accent. Also, he never really explained concepts fully. He would derive equations, which sometimes had different symbols from those given in our textbook; PHYS122 is an introductory physics course- we are expected to know concepts and not derivation of equations, especially since this course is not calculus-based. He would go over problems using the derived equations but they were difficult to follow because he never really would explain WHAT the concepts were. Furthermore, his lectures were Powerpoint presentations often containing images and excerpts from our textbook. In a class such as physics where going over problems step by step helps in explaining concepts, powerpoint presentations were completely ineffective and useless. Using the blackboard would have been a much better approach to teaching this course. Dr. Hu also sometimes never completed problems that he started; thus, often my notes were incomplete. \r\nI feel that a majority of the class got by because most of the problems on the exams and quizzes were similar to (or the exact same) suggested review problems that he gave from the textbook as well as our homework problems (which were from the textbook as well). I suppose the predictability of the problems on the exams etc was one good side to Dr. Hu's teaching. This allowed me to get an A+ in the course, despite Dr. Hu's poor teaching skills. \r\nI believe Dr. Hu is very knowledgeable and also friendly and easy to approach; however, he does not seem to be the best professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-07-08T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bei Lok Hu', 'course': 'PHYS122', 'review': 'Dr. Hu was a very difficult professor to follow and I do not recommend him at all. He used notes and examples from a different textbook, and would jump into topics without explaining basic concepts such as what is a wave, or what is electricity. Even though our course was a non-calculus based course, he relied heavily on mathematical explanations instead of actually explaining concepts conceptually. He rarely worked through examples from the course textbook FULLY, from start to finish. His demonstrations were not effective as many students did not understand the scientific principles behind them. Very few students attended lecture as the course was not tailored to the abilities, background knowledge, and interests of non-physics major undergraduates.\n\r\nThe only good thing is that the exams were fair (textbook problems - nothing like the weird examples from class) and I liked that we could use notecards for them. There were also weekly quizzes (no notecards) consisting of a textbook problem and weekly homework sets of ~8 hw problems.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-03T15:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bei Lok Hu', 'course': 'PHYS274', 'review': 'Very kind and cares about his students. Expect to work a lot but to get a lot out as well. Very approachable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-04-20T19:08:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Bei Lok Hu', 'course': 'PHYS274', 'review': 'Prof. Hu was amazing! He taught this class so well that I can do some of the problems in my sleep, and was never boring. Great guy!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-31T17:12:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Bei Lok Hu', 'course': 'PHYS371', 'review': 'Dr. Hu the GOAT! he is extremely passionate to teach physics. The exams and homework are very similar. Strongly recommend taking this course with him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T01:46:35.171185Z'}, {'professor': 'Bei Lok Hu', 'course': 'PHYS371', 'review': 'Dr. Hu is a very difficult professor. He cares deeply about his students and wants them to succeed, but his teaching skills make it difficult for most students to do that. He is very approachable and kind and was willing to give extensions/move things around if necessary. However, his lectures consist mostly of him projecting his notes onto the board and speeding through them. Many derivations are left incomplete and topics barely explained. To succeed in his class, most students had to either entirely teach themselves or have prior experience in the topics. I would highly advise avoiding him if possible.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2023-01-11T15:51:58.018279Z'}], 'name': 'Bei Lok Hu', 'slug': 'hu_bei-lok'}, {'courses': ['CMSC198C', 'CMSC198D', 'CMSC198E', 'INST799', 'INFM799', 'TLTC708', 'CMSC798'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ben Bederson', 'slug': 'bederson'}, {'courses': ['MATH110', 'MATH010', 'MATH015', 'MATH115', 'MATH120', 'HLTH710', 'MATH015', 'MATH115', 'MATH015', 'MATH115', 'MATH015', 'MATH115'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ben Bezejouh', 'course': 'MATH010', 'review': 'Hes a decent professor overall, but there are a number of things that are very annoying. For one, his accent is very hard to understand initially, so it might take a while to be able to easily understand him. He sometimes makes mistakes while teaching which the class would correct him on, but hes only human so that can be forgiven. But he also assigns points to problems on his quizzes and tests seemingly arbitrarily. For example, he would make one problem on one test worth 12 points but a very similar one would be worth 6 or 8 points. But this wouldnt be so bad if he was even somewhat forgiving when it came to partial credit, which he shows a poor track record of doing. For example, in a 2-part problem, I got 1/2 off because I rounded to hundredths, not tenths. That was the only thing wrong and I lost 4 points for that. He also emphasizes a lot on word problems, so if you are not good at word problems, you are in big trouble. \n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-10T22:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ben Bezejouh', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "He is very poor when it comes to explaining concepts and often times is unwilling to answer questions. The few times he does answer, the response is brief and doesn't even resolve the problem. I took math 120 with him and found that it was much more of a review class due to his poor teaching skills and since I had not taken math 120 previously, I found myself struggling to understand the material. Do not take the class with him there are many other better professors.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2020-01-21T21:10:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Ben Bezejouh', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "overall nice professor, but when it comes to giving feedback on quizzes, or tests, or asking to further explain what you got wrong he won't give help. exams throughout the semester are weighted as more to your grade than the final. more preparation before hand in class would be preferred to ace the exams", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-18T23:05:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Ben Bezejouh', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'I do not recommend taking a class with this professor. He is very unresponsive to questions and does not clarify concepts that he is teaching at all. He often blames students for not being able to understand the work when he is at fault for poorly teaching concepts. He is also very passive-aggressive when you speak to him or ask for clarification on questions. The final exam was ridiculously difficult, did not have a curve, and caused many students to fail the class. Most of the time he teaches from the textbook and I sometimes think that he forgets he is teaching to a class. A positive I do have is that if you truly show that you are trying in the class and that you are a good student, he may give you a bump. Although it is possible to get an A, prepare to go through a tough semester to get it.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-24T20:18:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Ben Bezejouh', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Hands down the worst professor I've ever had. Completely unresponsive to questions, unwilling to explain in further detail, and expects you to come in already understanding concepts. Do NOT take this class if you haven't taken math since quarantine started. Personally, I would recommend you steer completely clear if at all possible. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-01T18:23:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Ben Bezejouh', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Completely unprofessional, rude, confrontational, and refuses to help his students even when they ask for help. In this week before the final exam, the majority of the class is failing and he has ignored our requests for review content. The only good thing I can think of is that he doesn't write or grade the final exam. Do not take this class with this professor, because it is easily the worst mistake I have made in my college career thus far. I have nothing but bad things to say about the professor and the class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T20:52:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Ben Bezejouh', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'Professor Ben is a good person but being a good person doesn’t correlate to being a good teacher. At times I did feel lost in class because he use to play videos of his zoom lectures from last year. But if you go up to him after class he will explain, so at least he is willing to help. I wish he did give us more material in class instead of just our class notes. I feel like he needs to improve his teaching style where he actually wants to teach the students instead of just showing us zoom lectures. Also important note for this class make sure you have friends that also take math 115 with you so y’all could study inna group. Overall I would rate my experience a 7/10. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-23T20:35:14Z'}], 'name': 'Ben Bezejouh', 'slug': 'bezejouh'}, {'courses': ['KNES461', 'KNES497', 'KNES461H'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ben Hurley', 'course': 'KNES461', 'review': "Literally the absolute worst professor I have ever had. I do not recommend this course. Hurley is God awful. There is no reason for body composition to be taught as a biochemistry class. He does not relate to his students and can not adequately convey the material to them. You expect a sweet guy, southern accent, kind of goofy looking with his glasses and hair cut, typical nerdy science professor type. Well, he is anything but. Not understanding in the least bit. Don't take this class!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-01-28T00:33:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ben Hurley', 'slug': 'hurley_ben'}, {'courses': ['CMSC734', 'CMSC798F', 'INST799', 'CMSC798', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ben Shneiderman', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'Great professor who really knows the material and does a great job of teaching it to students. Very fair on exams and projects, and really treats his students with courtesy and respect. One of the best professors in the University, and a leader in the field of HCI.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T23:48:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ben Shneiderman', 'slug': 'shneiderman'}, {'courses': ['GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'BIOE160', 'BIOE489E', 'BIOE689L', 'ENES498E', 'BIOE460', 'ENES489Q', 'ENES489Z', 'ENES161'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ben Woodard', 'slug': 'woodard'}, {'courses': ['PHYS131', 'PHYS132'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Benjamin Dreyfus', 'slug': 'dreyfus'}, {'courses': ['STAT730', 'STAT430', 'STAT705', 'STAT700', 'STAT701', 'STAT750', 'STAT426', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'STAT740', 'STAT741', 'STAT740'], 'average_rating': 2.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': 'Prof. Kedem made it extremely unclear what was expected from this course. The syllabus was barely a page, with much of it stating why the course was "so important." The professor was extremely uncommunicative outside of class, never alerting us about upcoming assignments through email or Canvas. He was very loose with deadlines, which was helpful if you missed class and didn\'t know when something was assigned, but it added to the lack of structure in the course. His advice for preparing for the first midterm was "look at the notes," which is tough for a course that is some part mathematical statistics and some part statistical programming in SAS and coding language, and the exams are unknown what part of each will comprise them (plus the midterm is worth 35% of the course grade). His instructions for our statistical project was "look at the syllabus," which had a 3-line description of the entire project, including only one line on the write-up portion, which essentially stated "summarize what you researched." I was then docked many points for not being descriptive enough or providing a long enough write-up, when there was minimal description for what I had to do. Thus, Prof. Kedem is a nice guy, and he tries to relate to the students, but his courses is extremely disorganized, and it thus hindered my learning experience.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-12-13T23:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': 'He is very smart however He does not know how to teach undergraduate classes. He write on the board all these formula and proofs that most of the class no one understands. He usually tells you about what is on the midterm however it is very difficult to review the midterm since a lot of materials are not in the book. The final project is very easy but you need to find a interesting topic. He allows you to hand in late home works. Overall his class is not difficult to get a B in because he is very generous about grading and if you get an A in his final, he gives you an A in the class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-16T00:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': 'I took this class to learn SAS and only feel that I am familiar with it. I don\'t feel like I know its "in\'s and out\'s." However, I do feel this class was an easy A. He gives quizzes and HW that prepare for the exam. Take notes directly on the handouts and always print and bring them to class. Don\'t BS the project but you don\'t need to put that much effort. Be creative because he likes that. A lot of people did projects on grades and Heart rates which got boring after a while.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-24T12:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': "SAS is a very good software to know, but he is a wierd teacher. I don't recommend his class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-19T08:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': 'You really don\'t get much about SAS in his class. He is funny guy and you don\'t feel bored at his class, but actually he doesn\'t teach you SAS. Instead he takes time of class with many complicated and big formulas that it\'s not really necessary to know to be a SAS professional. He calls it "wisdom behind SAS", but actually he is teaching what he really knows (statistics theory), not SAS! and he gives questions about them at final exam, although he says that he doesn\'t ask about them. I agree with other people that he really doesn\'t answer you question about software.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-18T20:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': 'Perhaps it\'s just been an off semester, but Kedem was neither approachable nor encouraging. On the first day of class, he handed out the syllabus with his e-mail and phone number, then told us not to call or e-mail. He also listed a half-hour long scheduled office hour, which he said no one ever goes to. When questions were asked in class, they were often ignored, misunderstood, or magically hand-waved away. Many times, the question of "Can SAS do (such and such)?" was met with "I don\'t know." \r\nOn the plus side, Kedem is fairly humorous and entertaining. He is also very intelligent. His tangents about his research, though generally unproductive to learning SAS and well beyond the scope of the class, were interesting. If you want to learn about statistics theory, Kedem is your guy. Furthermore, (as someone else said) Kedem accepts late homework, which is nice. (Be warned, however, that if this happens repeatedly by a majority of the class, he will attempt to retract this privilege.)', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-12T17:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': "Kedem is a really funny guy, and you actually learn a lot of stuff in his class. It also isn't difficult to get an A in the class, as long you put in the work. He can get a little carried away with proofs and his research sometimes, but hey, what math professor doesn't? Take 430 with Kedem.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T20:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': "Teaching: He mixes his lectures with both SAS programming and statistics and overall does a good job teaching the material. He is knowledgeable in the content topics and always encourages students to ask questions. He often go on tangents or talk about his research, but he always relate it to statistics. \n\r\nPersonality: Professor Kedem is pretty funny and approachable.\n\r\nGrading: Grading is not a big deal and accepts late homework/projects(even those that are weeks late). He doesn't treat you like kindergartens. If for example, you got a C on your midterm, and you received an A on your final. He'll give you an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-06-05T11:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': 'I took this class in Fall 2021\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ Genuinely nice guy, really wants you to do your best. For example, on the final he will tell you exactly what each question will be on\r\n+ Gives extra credit for participation\r\n+ You can pretty easily convince him to push back some deadlines\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Speeds through SAS examples in class, you essentially need to learn SAS on your own. All in all focuses way more on statistical theory rather than SAS code, and the class is worse off for it. The class becomes much harder than it needs to be\r\n- The class has no sense of organization. Kedem may go over a concept for the whole class period and then go "oh don\'t worry about that I\'ll never ask about that" at the end. It\'s unclear how important each concept is\r\n- There is no online presence for the class. No ELMS page, no gradescope, nothing. This means the only way to know what is on each HW assignment is to ask Kedem, but if you forget, good luck. Additionally, HW assignments had to be handed in MANUALLY, ON PAPER. This was EXTREMELY annoying to most of us who did not have a consistent printing situation\r\n- There is no consistency as to when HW assignments are due. Some are due in 2 weeks, others in 2 days, you never really know\r\n- He is not the best lecturer, a lot of the time it\'s very unclear what he\'s going over', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-23T19:27:10Z'}], 'name': 'Benjamin Kedem', 'slug': 'kedem'}, {'courses': ['MATH462', 'MATH411', 'MATH461', 'MATH140', 'MATH416', 'MATH410'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Benjamin Manning', 'slug': 'manning_benjamin'}, {'courses': ['CPSD101', 'CPSD100', 'CPSD200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Benjamin Miller', 'slug': 'miller_benjamin'}, {'courses': ['EDCP217', 'EDHI338K', 'EDHI338A', 'EDHI338D', 'EDHI338M', 'EDHI338B', 'EDHI338E', 'CHSE338T', 'CPSP300', 'HONR300', 'WEID300'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Benjamin Parks', 'slug': 'parks_benjamin'}, {'courses': ['HONR289A'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Benjamin Rosenthal', 'course': 'HONR289A', 'review': "The readings for this class can be a bit much; the class itself is just a discussion of the readings, with students moderating the discussions in the second half of the course. You must write 6 reaction papers to the readings, of which 5 are graded. He grades very leniently on these. The final paper is on a relevant topic of your choice, and is 12-15 pages (double-spaced). Don't take this class unless you're actually interested in the material, because otherwise it's understandably rather boring. He has a real passion for the material, and he does research in a closely related field, so he knows what he's talking about. As previously mentioned, the class is just a mostly unstructured discussion: he provides just enough direction that it doesn't devolve into nothing, and when there's something he wants you to grasp, he'll ask the right leading questions for you to figure it out.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-30T13:19:00Z'}], 'name': 'Benjamin Rosenthal', 'slug': 'rosenthal_benjamin'}, {'courses': ['PUAF798N', 'PLCY798N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Benjamin Schlesinger', 'slug': 'schlesinger'}, {'courses': ['BIOE489F', 'BIOE471', 'BIOE371', 'BIOE489B', 'BIOE608', 'BIOE689F', 'BIOE604'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Benjamin Shapiro', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': "He's a great professor and knows his stuff (he likes giving examples based on cars and cruise control). His quizzes can be crazy at times and i had 2 or 3 quizzes with zeros but I still ended up with a B+ in the class. His exams are standard and this is were you need to pick up and slack from quizzes so as long as you pay attention in class, study and understand his notes you can easily get a perfect score. He cares about students understanding material so he will ask multiple times before moving on if you understand so if you don't just say you don't. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-11-03T23:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Shapiro', 'course': None, 'review': 'Ok first off let me give you an unemotional, fair review. Yes, he does care strongly about his students; and the makeup exam was definitely unnecessary. He actually gave one for students being "under too much pressure" while they took it. My mind was blown. \n\r\nAfter being part of the FALL 2011 class also, I wish the two posters below me took the course then. Stop complaining about the material moving too slow. When he moves at his pace, you will pray to god you had it this easy. Get off your high horse.\n\r\n-Pay VERY close attention during class(not just half daydream and copy notes)\r\n-Write very thorough notes, (writing why he did certain things) (obviously)\n\r\nthats really it. i literally did not look at the material til a day or 2 before. and im far from smart. if you pay attention and focus hard during that one hour youll be in great shape when it comes down to studying for exams.\n\r\noh and also take the hw seriously. its worth more than exams, so dont put it off like any other engineering class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-04T19:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Shapiro', 'course': None, 'review': 'The other review is solid, so I guess I\'m just posting to confirm this. If you want to actually learn anything about controls, you will have to do it outside of this class on your own accord. We literally spent WEEKS on trivial bits of linear algebra and ordinary differential equations. In my opinion, he is a great guy who will bend over backwards for you to learn something. However, spending insane amounts of time on simple topics is not fair to those of us who actually keep up with the information and want to get something out of the class. No offense, but if you are sitting in a senior level engineering class complaining about "crazy math!" then the train for your business, liberal arts, or humanities degree left your a$$ behind a long time ago. Because BIOE consists largely of pre-med sh** heads and people looking to do dirty deeds for grades, Shapiro\'s style of teaching was taken advantage of, severely. For example: Most of the class bombed the mid term, and as such they complained relentlessley that they "deserved credit here" because it is not what they "meant to put down". Most teachers would have kindly told them to shove off, but Shapiro gave back MANY points and a makeup test, which people still tried to squeeze points from once they bombed that also. If you are not mathematically challeneged to an embarassing degree as a senior, this class will be insanely easy. Too much time on dumbing down simple material. The real beauty and power of control theory is overlooked and never quite achieved. I Did not get my money\'s worth (It was unreachable).', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-13T15:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Benjamin Shapiro', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Shapiro is one of the rare professors that cares tremendously about whether or not his students understand the material. However, this attribute is also his downside because he tends to teach the same material 2-4 lectures in the row whenever someone doesn't understand it. While this might sound great for some people, it really just takes away from the class as a whole because everyone missed out on some of the more interesting material. In addition, he doesn't assign the homework based on the progress of the class meaning you essentially have to teach yourself how to do the homework, which isn't how you would want to spend your night especially since the book is not very well-written. As for the exams, they are out of 15 points with 8 points in T/F questions and 7 in computations. The computations are relatively simple so the T/F are the ones that tend to determine your grade. They tend to be fairly simple if you understand the material and if you don't overthink them. Overall, he's a good professor who knows his stuff, but he is much too willing to accommodate the bullsh*t of the people in the class who either don't know anything or are trying to fish for answers.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T11:03:00Z'}], 'name': 'Benjamin Shapiro', 'slug': 'shapiro_benjamin'}, {'courses': ['HHUM106', 'HIST135', 'HIST408Q', 'HIST140', 'HIST476', 'JWST600', 'HIST283', 'HIST283H', 'HIST299C', 'HIST408C', 'JWST409C', 'HIST282', 'HIST601', 'FIRE156', 'HIST286', 'HIST419T', 'HIST287', 'JWST409L', 'HIST608T', 'JWST289T', 'JWST432', 'RELS289T', 'ISRL299C', 'JWST235', 'JWST235H', 'JWST299C', 'JWST234', 'JWST275', 'JWST459D', 'JWST233', 'JWST289E', 'RELS219D', 'RELS419D', 'JWST619', 'JWST699', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'HIST135C', 'HIST187', 'JWST187', 'HIST428D', 'JWST429F', 'HIST187', 'HIST373', 'JWST187', 'JWST333', 'HIST135', 'HIST418C', 'JWST419B', 'JWST469C', 'HIST135', 'HIST601', 'JWST289E'], 'average_rating': 3.9412, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST135', 'review': "Cooperman is a pretty dynamic teacher. Old Jewish man who doesn't give two shits. He's funny, though a little bad with technology. He tries to engage the class when people seem bored.\n\r\nThe class itself is interesting, though if you pay attention and review the material, it's easy. He does take home exams, which are a god send in my opinion. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-03-27T19:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST135', 'review': 'Professor Cooperman is a funny guy that brings a lot of energy even to very early lectures. The lectures are a bit confusing in terms of their importance, but you definitely need to do the readings and get the gist of what is being talked about. Discussion is vital as there are weekly quizzes and a more focused explanation about things. \n\r\nThis course is tremendously back loaded in terms of workload, so be prepared for that. The tests are not hard at all as you always are given exactly what you need to do well. \n\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-01-04T15:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST135', 'review': 'I\'m no history major, so I\'m not sure about how he is compared to other history professors, but if, like I did this past semester, you need to finish an I-series requirement and can\'t find one you\'re interested in, Cooperman and his history course that\'s all about riots is an okay choice. \n\r\nThere are two lectures a week and one discussion section per week. During lectures he talks about certain riots and how they relate to the class as a whole, the readings, and how they might help your essays you\'ll write later on. He uses powerpoint, but he goes through them quickly so be careful not to get a hand cramp from writing too much too quickly. In retrospect, what he has to say was probably more important that what was on the slides. His TA accompanies him in class while he lectures. The TA, however, mostly sits there, listening, though he does occasionally chime in with questions and thoughts for the class, and helps Cooperman with names of events and people when he can\'t quite come up with them himself. \n\r\nTo encourage you to come to class, he awards participation points through slips of paper that you sign and return to the TA if you earn one in class. To earn one, you need to do one of two things. 1: Answer a question(intelligently, that is), whether you\'re lucky enough to get him to acknowledge your raised hand or unlucky enough to have him put you on the spot when you can\'t quite process what he said fast enough, or 2: Come to class with a riot ready to present for the class briefly but completely. Either be prepared to answer subsequent questions about it from the TA(he was a PhD history student, so he keeps up with these things; he knows just about ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING; it\'s kind of scary to a non-history buff like me), or provide a complete enough speech about it that he doesn\'t feel the need to ask questions. If you struggle to quickly digest what Cooperman said in lecture, way number 2 is how you\'re going to have to get them. You need 5 paper slips to get full lecture participation credit, and I had to get all 5 from riot presentations. Just come in with a riot ready every single class, and if the TA wants riots, you\'ll be ready. If not, save it for next time. Have a backup riot just in case someone uses yours and happens to go before you (though you could be awesome like I was and do enough work on it to expand on what was said before and get a slip that way :D ). Do what you gotta do to get those paper slips. \n\r\nIn lecture, Cooperman may put you on the spot with a question, but in discussion, the TA will NEVER call on you without your wanting to. It sounds like a relief, but you still need to answer questions and participate in intelligent discussion about the readings and debates you were assigned in order to get discussion participation points (they are different from lecture participation points). The first half of them comprised of debates about a riot; you participate in one and observe the others. The second half involved breaking off into groups and reading together, preparing to answer questions he asks afterward. One of the last discussions involves an 8-minute presentation among your five-person group over a riot. Cooperman made a surprise appearance, so be ready for that and make it good, though my section was apparently the only one he appeared in.\n\r\nThere are a few papers in this course. One is about the portrayal of riots in certain movies you have to watch (there\'s a list, so pick your favorites or the shortest ones). Another is about a riot that you did your group presentation with. The last one is an evaluation of an argument for an author on a book I can\'t remember off the top of my head. Blah blah blah, don\'t leave them to the last minute, remember your bibliography, don\'t exceed the maximum page count. You\'d be surprised how much you have to cut out to meet the page constraints; the TA won\'t read past the 5th page in a 5-page paper, for instance.\n\r\nThere is a midterm and a final. The midterm consists of an essay on a book and some "IDs." IDs are basically the "who, what, where, when, and why" on riots, people, another other things emphasized in the course. Essay was graded surprisingly easily in my opinion. The outline is the most important part, in case you run low on time. The final consists of IDs only, and there is a list of IDs given that might possibly be on the exam. They emphasize that the paper on the author is "part of the final exam", but it\'s really just the IDs. They give you lots of time and you should be prepared with them.\n\r\nAnd that\'s Cooperman\'s HIST 135. He\'s funny; he tries to engage the class whenever he gets the sense that people are getting bored. Lots of readings to go over, so keep up with those. The syllabus is online, but it CHANGES OVER TIME, so keep an eye on it regularly. Again, if you need an I-series/diversity/history/social sciences course for your gen-ed requirements and couldn\'t find anything interesting, this is at least a decent choice. It knocks out a lots of requirements at once and you probably won\'t be bored. (Wow, that was long. Sorry about that... just trying to help future students, that\'s all.)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-07-14T02:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Cooperman is a great professor, and very enthusiastic about his material, in addition to possessing a good sense of humor. That being said, he is, by far, the most disorganized professor I have ever had at this university. Some days after lecture, I would have pages of notes, and some days, I would barely have 10 lines, after all of his tangents are accounted for. He is not a harsh grader, but it takes forever for him to get anything back, especially as the semester draws to a close.\n\r\nI enjoyed Dr. Cooperman's class, and the material presented, but if you aren't interested in the subject matter and can't handle disorganized teachers, I would hesitate before signing up for his class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-19T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Cooperman was incredibly enthusiastic about his lectures, making every single one enjoyable. His tests were fair, especially since he gave us a term sheet and three essay questions where we would only have to write one on the test day. However, the whole grading scheme was incredibly confusing. It's because of this that I have to dock off a star. His TA literally graded everything, and although Cooperman was very nice, his TA was a bit more strict when it came to grading. I never heard of anyone ever getting above a 95% on essays, and it seems like 85% was the norm. I would make sure to read the books he assign, though get them from the library since you'll need each one for maybe two classes max. However, there was a very nice curve at the end that surprised me (I thought I was getting a B, ended up getting an A-). ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-21T16:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST419R', 'review': "Yea Mr. Cooperman was awesome, I didn't have any interest in the course but had to take it to meet a requirement and it became one of the best courses I've had. Truefully, the syllabus wasn't followed to the T, but it was his first time teaching the class so it wasn't a big deal. Grades weren't returned as promptly as some people would like,it didn't bother me at all. Your grade is determined on your performance on the final paper, no final though!! The guy is hilarious, insanely knowledgable, and willing to help at any time, I would strongly suggest taking him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-15T23:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST419R', 'review': "Another 419R student checking in.. the syllabus was not followed at all, and grading is very slow. That being said, his lectures hit it out of the ballpark every time.. and so it's worth it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-21T15:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': None, 'review': 'I thought he was extremely unclear in what he was asking from the class. He assumed that everyone taking the class already had a lot of jewish studies knowledge, even though it was a CORE class. I felt distracted for being female. \n\r\nHe was also disorganized. I did not respect him, he never turned grades back.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-17T16:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST419R', 'review': 'Cooperman is funny and can be a great teacher.\n\r\nHaving said that, we are now 1 week away from finals and have only received grades for 15% of our grade thus far. Cooperman promises that grades will be in and then 3 weeks later they still are not. If you care about knowing where you stand in a class, do not take Cooperman.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-06T04:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': None, 'review': "I am a huge fan of Dr. Cooperman but he is a little flaky we didn't get our grades back until mid winter break. The TA's I had for 234 and 235 were both great. From what I hear he is the best professor for this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-06-09T14:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': None, 'review': "He's great! He lectures on broad, general topics, and you have to do the readings to know whats flying in class, but if you keep up with it, you'll love it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-04T22:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST135', 'review': 'jewish man thats funny but also has no filter. class was fun but he said racial slurs and heiled hitler. great class though.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-07T03:58:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'JWST187', 'review': "Dr. Cooperman is a funny guy. He likes to spark debate in class and tells interesting stories, he's also generally high energy.\r\n\r\nI'm subtracting one point because as we got later into the semester, lectures got slower as there was less debate and more quantity of content that was being covered. \r\n\r\nOverall a fun course and fun professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-19T09:20:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'JWST187', 'review': "Dr. Cooperman is a funny guy. He likes to spark debate in class and tells interesting stories, he's also generally high energy.\r\n\r\nI'm subtracting one point because as we got later into the semester, lectures got slower as there was less debate and more quantity of content that was being covered. \r\n\r\nOverall a fun course and fun professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-19T09:20:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST187', 'review': 'Professor Cooperman is an incredibly knowledgeable, wise, charismatic, and quippy lecturer who guarantees few dull moments. He likes to ask open-ended questions and then shoot witticisms no matter how you answer. His rambunctious lecture style was fun, although his tendency for tangents often resulted in the class falling behind on material.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-10T16:40:33.545361Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST187', 'review': "Decent class. Professor Cooperman is certainly knowledgeable and educated on the topic of the course and his lectures are pretty thoroughly fleshed-out. Honestly, whether you will like his lectures or not depends completely on what you're looking for in a college course. He likes to make lots of witty remarks, goes on tangents, and often calls out random students in the lecture to answer questions. This can be fun at times, but the tangents did put us behind on course content and he also doesn't hesitate to tease students if they don't have an amazing answer to his questions. Overall, if you're truly interested in the topic at hand and willing to have verbal jousts with the professor, you'll enjoy the lectures. Personally, I just skipped the lectures after the first month or so. The class has a decent workload, though it's all participation work. You'll have to subscribe to an online newspaper and also purchase a book for reading questions. Besides homework, there are grades for discussion/lecture participation, two papers, and two exams. Overall, the course is solid and educational, but definitely not easy. Take it if you want a challenging course to learn about, but don't take it if you just need a gen-ed credit.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-07T15:50:07.759504Z'}, {'professor': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'course': 'HIST187', 'review': "The class itself is very interesting. I only took this class originally since it satisfied 3 gen eds, but Cooperman made the class extremely enjoyable. His lectures were fun to go to and I would recommend this class to anyone interested in the topic. He does go on tangents and we didn't finish everything we were supposed to cover this semester. There is a book you have to purchase and a newspaper you have to subscribe to but you can get around this by pirating the book and getting a paywall blocker extension. You have weekly assignments, there are 2 exams, and 2 papers. Just put a little effort in and you'll be fine. Overall fun class, would take it again.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-15T06:42:43.452974Z'}], 'name': 'Bernard Cooperman', 'slug': 'cooperman'}, {'courses': ['HACS202', 'HACS201', 'ENPM685', 'HACS201', 'HACS202', 'ENPM685', 'HACS202', 'HACS201'], 'average_rating': 2.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bertrand Sobesto', 'course': 'HACS202', 'review': "He is one of the worst professors I have ever had. He's not even a real teacher, he works in the department of IT somewhere and he just comes in to share his knowledge basically. He DOES NOT TEACH YOU. He will take random points off your assignments for no reason and then when he returns the rubric, it has criteria that was never mentioned before in the assignment description. He seemed nice and jolly at first and really he's just a prick. One day when half of his students didn't show up to class (because they don't learn anything), he assigned a 10 point pop quiz. What a sad man. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-23T00:32:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Bertrand Sobesto', 'course': 'HACS202', 'review': 'I had a completely different experience than the person below me. Bertrand was a super chill lecturer and he made the class enjoyable and rewarding, even with the challenges of COVID and online class. He does a good job of making groups balanced (e.g. balancing students with lots of experience with students with less experience) and checks in weekly to make sure your group is on track. He was available outside of class time for meetings if needed and the grading for assignments was fair.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-21T17:51:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Bertrand Sobesto', 'course': 'HACS202', 'review': 'I wish he learned how to lecture, his voice is very monotone. However, he is very reasonable with deadlines and wants everyone to succeed in the class. I think that it is not his fault that not everyone in the class knows Linux, since the CompSci students have an advantage, compared to other majors who took hacs201 to learn Linux, a 1 credit class that insufficiently prepares us for the HACS202 aces minor group project. Overall, it is quite obvious he is a part-time professor, he has a full-time job and that probably is why this class runs until 9:15 PM.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T16:55:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Bertrand Sobesto', 'course': 'HACS202', 'review': 'I took this course in Spring 2021\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ Easy grader\r\n+ Provides specialized help for your specific project when needed\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Monotone, boring lecturer\r\n- Mandatory peer reviews are waaaay too long, will easily take an hour apiece\r\n- Assignments are particularly hard for those not well versed in lower level cybersecurity or linux programming', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-22T00:45:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Bertrand Sobesto', 'course': 'HACS202', 'review': 'Terrible course, unreasonable grading. Do not take.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-11-10T23:38:06.506479Z'}, {'professor': 'Bertrand Sobesto', 'course': 'HACS202', 'review': "A course where we get an intro to cybersec (making a honeypot, checking through network logs, etc., etc.)\r\nGood parts: It felt like we were actually getting experience with cybersecurity. Even if it is just bots, we are managing the sessions, checking through all the files, seeing what commands were run. It was very fulfilling to get the traffic and be able to analyze it, and I would daresay it's even fun to have the great deal of freedom in choosing a topic we want and getting the networks to edit how the machine works in some way. In my case, my group was full of people who also put in lots of effort into researching and working on it, so we all did a fair share and it was refreshing socially (although I have heard of groups that exclude others and don't allow people to participate... ouch).\r\nBad parts: The grading on our parts was quite harsh: they really want us to pour a lot of detail into writing the reports, and our group flubbed that somewhat so even though we spent a lot of time working for the class, our priority for writing was low so our overall grade was marginally lower than it should have been for how much time we spent. The timing of the class is also such a burden, because some nights we would stay until 9 trying to resolve issues, instead of splitting it over 2-3 days per week (although due to the nature of Bertrand's work it seems like it will stay this way). My group is one that didn't have data until the last month and there was a lot of stress around trying to reconfigure our whole paper to this fact. In my experience having an earlier option to get/set & deploy honeypots would greatly help the workflow of this class. As stated in other reviews, some other assignments are and the lectures are tedious and unhelpful, and it could be refined to be more interesting/memorable if Bertrand put a little effort into it. However, he is helpful if you are upfront about a problem so it should be highlighted to ask him for help if anything doesn't work as expected.\r\nThis class is required for ACES Minor people not in the LLP and it's almost always Bertrand, so I'd say make the experience one that's more positive than negative, spend a great deal of effort on writing or else your grade could falter but also try to get along with your group and make an interesting question/experiment as this class will be quite boring without it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-14T07:57:42.057473Z'}], 'name': 'Bertrand Sobesto', 'slug': 'sobesto'}, {'courses': ['ARTH250', 'ARTH370', 'ARTH389A', 'ARTH389B', 'ARTH389J'], 'average_rating': 2.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Beryl Bland', 'course': 'ARTH250', 'review': "I really liked this class, but you have to actually be interested in the content to get anything out of it. She can be pretty boring and monotonous during lecture, but is very knowledgable about the content and brings up interesting topics about the pieces and cultures. The class really is mostly memorzing, but unlike most of these reviews I thought it was almost no work. The night before a test, you will have to cram, and study a little before the quizzes. Most of the time you won't have to do anything. If you're good at memorizing and actually like the topic you'll do fine. The TAs are super helpful and make the class way better. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-01T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Beryl Bland', 'course': 'ARTH250', 'review': "I took this also because of the 5 star rating below but I agree this class is awful. I regret taking this class so much and I hated it. There is A LOT I mean A LOT of memorizing and sometimes lectures aren't even that helpful. I went to every lecture/discussion and even took notes. I would never take this again and I do not recommend anyone taking it either.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-23T17:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Beryl Bland', 'course': 'ARTH250', 'review': 'The one star review outlines her class perfectly. I took this class just to get an easy HA credit. The class is based on pure memorization of the powerpoint slides. There was no way to access your grade during the semester. You end up taking this quizes that everyone fails because they jam so much material from one week onto it. The final is 40% of your grade so you better be ready to memorize dozens of sites and over a hundred images with dates and cultures. Also need to be able to write a short paragraph about each one if you want to succeed. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-17T14:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Beryl Bland', 'course': 'ARTH250', 'review': 'I took this class based on the 5* review below... boy was I wrong. "Bland" really is an understatement for her. \n\r\nAlthough she does speak clearly and fully about objects on the slides, she does so in a way that does not engage you AT ALL. What\'s grand is that her monotone lecture is the ONLY source of information for tests/quizzes in the class--you\'re lucky if you find it online or in the book (which I don\'t advise purchasing). \n\r\nAs a result, not only do many students sleep, zone out, or skip her classes, I\'ll also get multiple emails every week from them asking for notes because they were "sick". \n\r\nYou get tested on:\r\n vocab terms (easy)\r\n short essays (100% bs\'d)\r\n slide IDs (pure memorization of a sculpture or figure)\n\r\nI studied ("studied" here means "memorized arbitrary sculptures and pyramids") for <1 hour the morning of the first test and got a C (seemed to be the average grade). For the next test, I spent 12+ hours studying everything about the cultures and everything about every artifact, and got a single letter grade higher, because none of the actually important, real-world material that I learned (using the textbook & internet) was covered in the "hey! let\'s see if you memorized this picture!" portion of the test. \n\r\nI don\'t know what my grade will be, because I honestly stopped caring about it halfway through the semester, and I don\'t know what the curve (if any) will look like, because we never get grade statistics, and we never ask questions in lecture or discussion anyway, since there\'s nothing to ask.. just go home and memorize more artifacts. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-03T18:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Beryl Bland', 'course': 'ARTH370', 'review': 'She is an extremely laid back teacher. She brings in slides with pictures from personal travels as aids in class. This keeps things fresh and interesting. She is clear and easy to understand, and her exams are not extremely difficult as long as you pay attention to the slides in class. You should attend class as she does not post slides, not even before exams. But she will go over any material missed and meet up with students before class one on one to go over what they missed. Overall she is an interesting, fun teacher. Her class is not hard to get an A in. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-02-06T04:44:00Z'}], 'name': 'Beryl Bland', 'slug': 'bland_beryl'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338D', 'EDHI338X', 'EDHI338G', 'EDHI338K', 'EDHI338T', 'EDHI338P', 'EDHI338Z', 'EDHI338A', 'EDHI338C', 'EDHI338Q', 'EDHI338R', 'EDHI338Y', 'EDPS788C', 'EDPS788Q', 'EDHI338W', 'EDHI338N', 'TLPL788O', 'TLPL788M', 'TLPL788O', 'TLPL788O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Beth Cohen', 'slug': 'cohen_beth'}, {'courses': ['BSCI348B', 'BSCI279B', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI433', 'BSCI339T', 'BSCI338Z', 'CPSF100', 'CPSP249L', 'CPSF101', 'CPSP218L', 'CPSP359I', 'GEOL388I', 'BSCI258', 'BSCI433', 'BSCI433', 'BSCI339S', 'BSCI433', 'CPSF100', 'CPSF200', 'CPSP249L', 'BSCI433', 'CPSF101', 'BSCI433', 'BSCI433', 'BSCI330', 'CPSF100', 'CPSF200'], 'average_rating': 3.9167, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': None, 'review': 'She\'s highly rude.\r\nI asked for help and i didn\'t even badger her. \r\nNever have i seen a professor that straight up says "don\'t email me until you do x and x".\r\nJust left me speechless.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-08-28T16:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Parent was a good instructor, but don't let last year's 50% A's sway you into thinking this class will be easy. Because the reality is that this semester she stepped up the intensity and reduced the distribution to 30% A's. \r\nI personally got out with an A, but many of my friends did not despite putting in their best effort. But that being said I'd still recommend the course. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-15T15:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'She\'s a really great bio professor. But I heard as the lab coordinator during the Spring and Fall she will "murder your lab grade." As a lecturer, she is very straight forward and great on relaying information. She reads/tests directly from the slides but in class she will tell you what she is more likely to test you on so it pays to attend lectures. She doesn\'t curve and she grades you like this: 89.998 is a B. There is no hustling for that 0.002% to get an A. Also, the TA during the summer is a gift from bio lab heaven. He gave everyone a 100% in lab. Bless him. :o)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2010-07-21T02:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'CPSF100', 'review': "Just do the assignments and you'll have fun :) LS4L", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-09T21:51:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'CPSF101', 'review': "Don't procrastinate and take note of upcoming assignments and due dates - this is where people might lose points. It's an easy A if you show up on time and stay on top of the week's agenda. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-09T21:53:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'CPSP218L', 'review': "I'm in Scholars so I had Dr. Parent for both semesters of freshman Colloquium and for first semester Scholars Colloquium. This will pertain to sophomore colloquium, CPSP218L, taken Fall 2019. \r\n\r\nThis was a half semester course, meeting once a week, for seven weeks. Workload was super reasonable - we read a book with 12 chapters, each on a different disease that changed the world, and each group of 2-3 students gave a 30 minute presentation on their chapter/disease. After presentations there were short write-ups on the presentations or discussions. \r\n\r\nPresentation was graded more than reasonably and was not overly difficult. Being one of the earlier groups to present made the workload heavy because we had little time to prepare, but we made that choice ourselves (we chose presenting on an early chapter). My advice would be to do the same - it's a lot of work for a week but then you have no/minimal work for the rest of the semester and the assignment is not hanging over your head. Besides, you don't have a lot of work in the first week of classes anyway. The write-ups were easy points and she asked decently interesting questions. You should get an easy and interesting A out of this class. \r\n\r\nShe is strict on phones: asked us to put them away and told us we'd lose a lot of points if she saw them. Was serious about it. She was also serious about being on time, since the class met so few times. She's good about answering emails. \r\nFYI, read the syllabus, it's worth it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-11-25T22:16:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'CPSF100', 'review': 'Seems like a kind person who cares for her students. I did not speak with her much but overall is just an easy class. Minimal workload.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-09T21:27:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'She really cares about her students and the subject. I had her during an online setting and felt that her lectures were very clear and informative. If you studied the lectures then you would do fine on her exams. She was very helpful and responsive through email as well. Lab for this class was very easy but that might be because I had an amazing TA ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-04T21:55:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Makes a hard class enjoyable. Sets clear grading and learning expectations, tests you on them and if you did the thing you will do well. Super friendly during office hours and seems to really enjoying teaching/discussing during her lectures. Would highly recommend her to anyone. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-06T19:30:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Beth Parent is probably the word professor ive had in my life. She mumbles first off. She word vomits. She goes on tangents. I would never ever take this class with her unless you want to see what med school is like. I absolutely hate this class and she is probably the worst teacher in the world. Not evens saying this because i think the class is hard, as a bio major this class is basically everything you need to know, its just her teaching stile thats absolutely horrible.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-14T04:11:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Lacks human empathy for students with serious medical problems.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2022-05-31T23:46:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Beth Parent', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'her tests are fair. just study her notes and you will get an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-11T22:39:21.114610Z'}], 'name': 'Beth Parent', 'slug': 'parent'}, {'courses': ['LBSC601', 'INST888', 'LBSC602', 'INST701', 'INST352', 'INFM799', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST709', 'INST309B', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'INST408A', 'INST899', 'INST608Q', 'INST352', 'INST728K', 'INST228', 'INST232C', 'INST408A', 'INST608Q', 'INST709', 'INST728K', 'INST228', 'INST352', 'INST354', 'INST451', 'INST232C'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Beth St Jean', 'course': 'INST352', 'review': "Easy class and she's very chill", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-25T18:33:23.010170Z'}], 'name': 'Beth St Jean', 'slug': 'st_jean'}, {'courses': ['JOUR262', 'JOUR203', 'JOUR361', 'JOUR368V', 'JOUR661', 'JOUR668V', 'JOUR603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Bethany Swain', 'slug': 'swain'}, {'courses': ['EDPS788F', 'EDPS620', 'EDPS788R', 'EDPS614', 'EDPS730', 'EDPS788P', 'EDPS788T', 'PUAF732', 'TLPL671', 'TLPL788P', 'PLCY732', 'TLPL788F', 'TLPL687', 'TLPL794', 'TLPL860', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL671', 'TLPL687', 'TLPL687', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Betty Malen', 'slug': 'malen'}, {'courses': ['EDCP108B', 'EDCP108G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Beverly Greenfeig', 'slug': 'greenfeig'}, {'courses': ['HLTH301', 'SPHL498N', 'MIEH300'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Beverly Wolpert', 'slug': 'wolpert'}, {'courses': ['ANSC688A', 'ANSC446', 'ANSC447', 'ANSC489Q'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bhanu Telugu', 'course': 'ANSC446', 'review': 'In all of my years in university, in the states and at my home country- he is one of the best out there in teaching. I didnt even need to take notes to understand him or remember what he said- it all was so clear and interesting. He is an expert in his field and it shows- amazing. Great class and good grades. Enjoyed it!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-01T08:32:46Z'}], 'name': 'Bhanu Telugu', 'slug': 'telugu'}, {'courses': ['BUFN750', 'BUSI640', 'BUFN752', 'BUFN755', 'BUFN751'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Bharat Jain', 'slug': 'jain'}, {'courses': ['ENAE631', 'ENAE415'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Bharath Madapusi Govindarajan', 'slug': 'govindarajan'}]
[{'courses': ['ENCE353', 'ENCE620', 'ENCE302', 'ENCE621', 'ENRE648D', 'ENPM808Q', 'ENRE648H', 'ENCE302', 'ENCE489L', 'ENCE620', 'ENRE648M', 'ENSE698R', 'ENCE302', 'ENCE620', 'ENRE648H', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE489L', 'ENCE620', 'ENRE648M', 'ENSE698R'], 'average_rating': 4.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bilal Ayyub', 'course': 'ENCE302', 'review': "Very straight forward teacher. Class is split into 4 25% categories. HW, Midterm, Project, Final. If you put in a decent amount of effort an A is very achievable. He states in the beginning of the semester that he would give out all A's if he could. If you want to do well in this class, you can. There is no curve and the average on our midterm was a 93%. Class can be a bit boring but everything is in the slides and textbook.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-16T14:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bilal Ayyub', 'course': 'ENCE353', 'review': "real nice guy, tests were very fair and homework wasn't too hard except for the fact it took a long time. as for lecturing, he would literally cut and paste things from the book and put them into a powerpoint and read off of it. because of that, the class got pretty boring after a while. still, he's one of the better structural professors.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-26T22:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bilal Ayyub', 'course': 'ENCE302', 'review': "Great guy! \r\nI really liked him as a person and as a professor. \r\nOne of the few professors I have come across that really cares for the students. He actually wants to give out A's. All he cares to see is that you learned the material. He does not try tricking you on the exams. \n\r\nFinal is harder than midterm so be aware. \n\r\nGood luck! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-20T19:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bilal Ayyub', 'course': 'ENCE302', 'review': 'A decent professor but the material was read word for word from the slides, which became boring after the first lecture. Dr. Ayyub is a very fair grader...the final was much more difficult than the mid-term', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-29T14:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bilal Ayyub', 'course': 'ENCE621', 'review': "The content of this class is very vague. I didn't get much use of this class. I only took it to satisfy my Math requirement. The textbook is authored by Prof. Ayyub himself. The book is not self explanatory, lacking examples, and not enough connection to real-life applications. The theories taught are very strange. \r\nHe grades very leniently. My average is about 85 but I got an A for the class. A lot of time consuming homework.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-20T18:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bilal Ayyub', 'course': 'ENCE353', 'review': 'Really nice guy. His exams are very fair. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-18T11:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bilal Ayyub', 'course': 'ENCE302', 'review': "Lecture was pretty useful but he really just reads off the slides... so you stop going after awhile.\n\r\nDo not let up after the midterm, the final is much harder.\n\r\nMidterm everyone gets A's on, and is really straightforward and easy.\n\r\nDO THE EXTRA CREDIT! ITS WORTH IT!\n\r\nKeep up with the homework, makes cramming not as harsh. \n\r\nGood class, highly recommend this teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-27T01:15:00Z'}], 'name': 'Bilal Ayyub', 'slug': 'ayyub'}, {'courses': ['MIEH300', 'MIEH480'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Billy McArthur', 'slug': 'mcarthur'}, {'courses': ['ENCE637', 'BIOE120', 'ENCE652', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'ENCE310', 'GEMS497', 'ENCE205', 'ENCE689O', 'ENCE205', 'ENCE205', 'ENCE652', 'ENCE205'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Birthe Kjellerup', 'slug': 'kjellerup'}, {'courses': ['EDCP220'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Blakely Mulder', 'slug': 'mulder'}, {'courses': ['BMGT452', 'BMGT858R', 'BUMK758J', 'BUSM711', 'BMGT858G', 'BUMK773', 'BUSI736', 'BMGT452', 'BMGT858G', 'BUMK773', 'BUSI736', 'BMGT351', 'BUMK773'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bo Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT452', 'review': 'I recommend any Marketing major to take Marketing Research with Bobby. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-02T00:58:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Bo Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT452', 'review': "He knows what he's talking about and tries to make things easy to understand. The second half of the semester was harder and more of a statistics class since it was all math but since he taught us SPSS it wasn't too bad. He taught us how to save money too. Overall amazing job Bobby!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-05T22:41:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Bo Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT452', 'review': "Bobby might just be the best professor I have ever had here at UMD. He genuinely cares about each and every one of his students and he explains the material in great detail and slowly so it's easy to understand. He gave us a lot of great life advice too, and if you come to class and pay attention, there's no reason you shouldn't finish with a solid A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-15T02:31:49Z'}], 'name': 'Bo Zhou', 'slug': 'zhou_bo'}, {'courses': ['ENES220', 'ENME473', 'ENME680', 'ENME690', 'ENME808Z', 'ENME473', 'ENME690'], 'average_rating': 3.1111, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bongtae Han', 'course': 'ENME690', 'review': "One of the most animated professors on campus, he makes paying attention in class easy. The only downside is that he goes through the material quickly, so you'll need to review the lectures on your own time.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-30T15:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bongtae Han', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'This semester, Dr. Han displayed high level of arrogance and temper that made some students, including me, feel uncomfortable seeking help from him. In addition, he and the TA\'s behaved antagonistically towards students who had shortcomings in understanding certain statics concepts (concepts which this class builds heavily upon). As for me, when I sought help, they shamed me for not knowing these principles; and to an extreme, encouraged me to drop the class, as they "were not here to teach statics". Furthermore, despite knowing that the grading scale on CANVAS was erroneous, and not reflective of our actual grade in the class, he deliberately left it like this and refused to correct the errors (the reason for doing this, I will never know). He is, nonetheless, very dedicated to the material. However, if you are ever stuck, then you are on your own. I was able to seek help elsewhere; but in the end, I barely passed with a "C." I don\'t look back on my semester with Dr. Han very fondly at all.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2014-07-18T20:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bongtae Han', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'NON STOP THRILL RIDE. If you like beams this is the class for you. Professor Han will rivet you as he takes you through the mystical journey that is ENES220. WOW. What a class, most fun I have ever had. If you like fun, and you like science you will have a great time', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-04-30T19:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bongtae Han', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "I have had many poor professors and only a few good ones. Han is one of the later. He is actually the best professor I think I've had in college. He is passionate and knowledgeable, and will help you if you need it. He won't give you the answer but makes you figure it out so that you understand the material. I'm planning on looking for upper level electives that he teaches in the future.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-01T12:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bongtae Han', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "A very good professor. He most definitely knows his stuff and is very passionate about what he teaches. Sometimes the class did get boring, but he would still teach it with rigor and like it was the most important thing in the world at the time. He told all of his students that if they ever have any questions or problems with engineering or not that they could come find him even after the semester is over and he would try to help. He said it is his job as our professor to make sure we succeed. Couldn't have asked for a more dedicated man to teach me.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-16T12:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bongtae Han', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'This class is pretty boring, and paying attention to this professor in lecture is hard. But he is very excited about the class and will help you in any way he can. Overall, I liked him. And I just cannot sit in a class and look at Professor Beigle, so if they are your two options I would definitely go with Han.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-05T18:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bongtae Han', 'course': 'ENME690', 'review': 'Typos and grammatical errors on tests created confusion and made grading seem unfair. As a grad student, I felt that the grad student version of the final assignment was too broad and nebulous. I never received individual grades or feedback on my final exam or two final projects.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-03-26T22:04:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Bongtae Han', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'One of the worst professors I have ever had, if you have any other options DO NOT take it with him. All of my friends in other sections go on and on about how easy this class is but all my friends in Han\'s section with me feel like we are drowning. His notes are incomprehensible, we\'ve had whole lectures where he doesn\'t even fill up a single chalk board with notes so it all comes down to understanding what he is saying. He goes on long tangents about how he doesn\'t care what we think about an answer and we need to listen more to what he\'s actually teaching, we timed one of his rants once and it was over ten minutes. He also creates a very hostile environment towards students asking questions, getting visibly frustrated when students are struggling to understand a concept. A friend and I were trying to figure out a groupwork and we couldn\'t get it on our own so we called him over, he took one look at my friend\'s paper and yelled "this is shit, just draw the damn circle" while slamming his finger down on the table in front of us. He also isn\'t accommodating when you\'re sick, he has on more than one occasion shamed students who got covid and when I missed a groupwork he refused to give me more than an hour of extra time to submit so I ended up completing it from the waiting room of the doctor\'s office.\r\n\r\nTL;DR he spends more time talking about things that aren\'t class content, is super mean to students who ask questions, and god help you if you have the audacity to get sick, not worth your time other professors are way better.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T01:18:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Bongtae Han', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Absolutely terrible professor. Just yells at you during class about the material and expects you to remember every word. He also doesn't give actually notes and then rants on in groupwork sessions about you need to do it his method or you wont get the problem correct. take another professor, he isn't worth taking for this course.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T23:21:24Z'}], 'name': 'Bongtae Han', 'slug': 'han_bongtae'}, {'courses': ['PSYC355'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Bonnie Brett', 'slug': 'brett'}, {'courses': ['CHEM135', 'CHEM231', 'HONR288B', 'BCHM463', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM134', 'BCHM461', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM232', 'CPSP218L', 'EXST155', 'CHEM242', 'CHEM271', 'BCHM463', 'BCHM462', 'BCHM463', 'BCHM462', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM242', 'BCHM461', 'CHEM231', 'BCHM463'], 'average_rating': 3.8523, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Honestly Dixon is a great teacher. She is really passionate and really tries to make lectures exciting and also make sure you learn the material. That being said, this class is extremely, extremely hard. You can not get by just going to lectures and doing the homeworks. Lol, that is what I did and I am most likely going to get a D. But everyone I know who goes the extra mile, goes to office hours and GSS, studies at least a little every day, and does all the practice worksheets does fine. Just be prepared to work extremely, extremely hard if you want to do well, or even ok. But this is orgo so you know that lol', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2016-05-12T22:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dixon is one of the best teachers I have ever had. Her class is based mostly on 3 exams and a final, with clicker questions and homework as a small part of the grade.\n\r\nPros:\r\n-She is very passionate!\r\n-She is funny, and nice!\r\n-Her teaching is very very very clear. She will make you know your stuff.\r\n-She really cares about students and is very helpful.\r\n- You will be well prepared for orgo.\n\r\nCons: \r\n-This class is hard, but it's chemistry so it will always be hard.\r\n-She is tough.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-02-27T12:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "LOVE Dixon. She's sassy and very honest. She told me straight-up when I went to her office hours (which are 9-5 btw) that as long as I went to lecture I probably didn't ever need to open up the textbook. That being said, the class isn't easy. No chem class will be. But if you have Dixon, you will enjoy lecture and have an insane support system. She's very passionate about helping her students learn, so don't be afraid to visit her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-30T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "BONNIE IS BAE <3 <3 <3\n\r\nI was super scared to take her...and I was so nervous coming into the first day of class. But, I am so glad that I took her! She is such a fun and crazy (in the best way possible) teacher, and she made chemistry so interesting. \n\r\nDon't be fooled though. This class isn't a walk in the park. She does go through the material at a fast pace, but just ask questions in class if you are confused and she will stop and answer them! I took AP Chem in high school, and I guess that helped, but Dr. Dixon was such a good and clear teacher that I think I would have been fine if I hadn't taken AP Chem before coming in. \n\r\nALWAYS TAKE THE EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES!!! She gives a good amount of extra credit (about 30-40 points), but you do have to work for it. She also doesn't do a plus minus system, which is really awesome. If you are borderline and you do all the online assignments, there's a chance you will be bumped up to the next letter grade! so take advantage of that!\n\r\nCLICKER QUESTIONS! She has 40 clicker questions. I don't know if she always does this, but for us, I feel like there were more clicker questions in the beginning of the year than at the end. So in the beginning half of the year, I would recommend just always being ready for her to spring a clicker question or two on you. She doesn't give you a lot of time to answer it. If you don't know what you're doing, you're kinda screwed. I was lucky enough to surround myself with a group of friends and we worked through each one together (which she is fine with). She also does like 5-7 clicker questions before each exam to give you some practice. Those helped a lot and gave me some idea of what topics would be on the exam/what kind of questions to expect. Some clicker questions are meant to trick you. But she goes over them if most of the class doesn't get it right. And hey! Better to get tricked on a 1 point clicker question than to get tricked on a 8 point question on the test!\n\r\nBefore each exam and the final, she tells you exactly what she is going to test you on. \n\r\nPersonally, I never had a problem with timing on an exam. But that might be because I just write really fast.i dunno. But I always finished with about 20 minutes to spare, which gave me time to check through my work at least 3 times (and usually I made a lot of little stupid mistakes so those 20 minutes gave me time to redo some problems) \n\r\nMake SURE you study for the extra credit pre-test because it is an awesome grade booster. \n\r\nThis may not be the case every year, but for me, I thought the first two exams were significantly easier than the third one. BUT! The third exam is still do-able. I studied probably around 3-4 hours for each exam. I just looked through my notes, clicker questions, and old exams (she has a bunch in her office). \n\r\nHer homework is not that bad. I got an A on every single one, but that required a couple hours of work. The homework questions aren't impossible, but I think everyone just wanted to make sure they got that 10/10. \n\r\nShe has AMAZING office hours. There are always a bunch of students in her office, either asking her questions, or sitting around working on homework or studying for an exam. \n\r\nI didn't really go to GSS The girls who taught GSS for us were super nice and helpful. I didn't go often because I like to study at my own pace. But if you are a person who likes to have someone teaching you stuff and working through problems with you, then definitely go! \n\r\nOVERALL...TAKE THE CLASS! You will have to put a decent amount of work into it, but hey...challenge yourself. It's worth it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-08T16:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Dr. Dixon is the best organic chemistry professor on this campus. You will have to work hard for a good grade, but it is definitely doable. I got an uncurved A. I did all of her weekly quizzes and handouts that were given out in class. I used a white board to go over and over the practice problems given in class. I started out by using the textbook, but she even said that the textbook would not be very helpful. Organic Chemistry as a Second Language was very helpful in the beginning, but by the second exam I was not using it anymore. Exams are always on Mondays, so reserve literally the entire weekend beforehand for studying. She is also very dedicated to her students. She holds office hours as often as she can, this semester she held them basically from 9-4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and for a few hours MWF. If you want to learn organic chemistry, take her.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-05T15:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is a great teacher. Her class is extremely difficult and her tests are really hard. I took her for gen chem with the mindset that I wouldn't get the best grade but would have a good base for all the other chemistry classes I have to take. GO TO EVERY LECTURE! First of all if you dont, your going to be totally lost. Also she does clicker points. Her homeworks are a giant pain in the ass. They are way to hard. Ask people who have taken her to help you so that you dont end up working on it for 3 hours and only getting a 3/10. I had a mixed expereince with her office hours. Sometimes she was extremely helpful and friendly but other times she was kinda *****y and just told me to go figure it out. Goodluck!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-18T12:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Bonnie Dixon is the best orgo professor you can find here at UMD! No question about it. She makes learning orgo very intuitive and straightfoward.\r\nYes, she will will push you. A lot. Her exams can be a nightmare. But she provides with every tool necessary to do well on them. Her weekly quizzes and homeworks are your best bet as to knowing what will be tested on. Going to her office hours is A MUST. There's tons of students in there that can help you, and Dixon is always willing to help you over confusions. \r\nThe grade you put into Dixon's orgo is reflected in your grade. I highly recommend her for anyone who plans on taking Orgo II. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-17T17:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is legitimately one of the best professors I have ever had. She's a fantastic and fun person (she plays music at the start of class), she knows exactly what she's talking about all the time, she's really helpful and caring, honesty perfect. Probably one of the things I'm the most grateful for is that she tailors her course material directly to what she tests you on. If you do the work, and you study what she says, you won't see anything on the exam that you weren't expecting. She lets you know exactly what she wants, exactly the format to put it in, and exactly what you need to do. The way she grades is also great, a lot of teachers will take off for small arithmetic mistakes and annoying things like that. Dr. Dixon will grade you for getting each step of the problem right, so if you set it up you get some points, if you move on to the next step you get some points, and the final answer is only worth some of the credit, it's great and it makes the class feel really fair. She had fantastic TAs and she communicated with them really well, they were all willing to adjust their schedules and help us out as best they could and even do some extra GSS's. I have no idea how Dr. Dixon manages her time with the amount of stuff she does for us. One time this semester her TA had a medical emergency so she ran almost all the discussion sessions herself, I can imagine any other teacher just canceling them and apologizing but not Dr. D.\n\r\nAfter all those compliments, legitimately the ONLY downside to this course is that it is extremely difficult. The tests are hard, the homework is hard, even lecture is pretty rigorous (I missed a single lecture and I felt way behind). I devoted the majority of my time and emotional effort this semester to this class in order to keep up. Also, time is a huge issue on exams, she makes them so you can just barely finish in the time given.\n\r\nThe thing about Dixon is that she makes you really want to do well in her class. This is the first serious chemistry class I've ever taken and it's made me love chemistry. It's so interesting and the way Dr. Dixon talks about it makes me like it even more. I know I already said this but I just want to emphasize that she is such a fun person, Chemistry is probably one of the only classes I have this year that I actually really enjoy going to.\n\r\nI think I'm going to get an A or a B. After every test Dr. Dixon will check in with how many points you should have to be on track for an A, B, C, etc. Also, word of advice, use the chat page on elms before an exam. People are usually in there working on the practice test and sharing answers and methods, it helped me so much.\n\r\nUnless you're honestly just looking to breeze through a gen chem class (is that even possible?) take Dr. Dixon. You will not regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-16T23:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "First off; holy god, this class will teach you how to work for what you want. Dr. Dixon is the hardest, but hands-down, the best chemistry professor on campus. If you take Dixon, you will know your shit, but she will force you to LEARN that shit in order to even do DECENTLY in her class. I have never worked as hard in a class as I did in this one, and at the end of the semester, Dixon recognized that and bumped me up from a B+ to an A (she doesn’t do minuses). But let me tell you, I worked for it. I went to GSS consistently, did the weekly quizzes, used Klein’s Orgo as a Second Language book, was in her office hours regularly, went to all the discussions, and studied with friends for homework and before exams. Her class taught me to work my ass off for what I want, and that’s going to be a lesson that I use many more times in life. Orgo with Dixon is A LOT OF WORK though. I took it at the same time as genetics and with 17 credits and barely made it out alive (genetics took most of the hits in terms of grades though, all my other classes turned out fine.) It was definitely my hardest class but the most rewarding. It takes up a lot of time so be careful what classes you take along with it. Dixon is honestly such a nice, funny, and amazing person and professor, but she’s strict and will tell you how it is bluntly, so don’t expect any sympathy. But she really does care about her students- she’s not out to get you- she throws curveballs on tests but her logic is that she warns us about those curveballs ahead of time (truth.) She will present the information in class to you on a surface level basis and will expect you to enhance your understanding through the homework and weekly quizzes. I prefer having people explain things to me, so I took the initiative to enhance my own understanding by doing the crap ton of stuff I did outside of class listed above. If you’re looking for the easy A for orgo, don’t take Dixon. If you want to learn your shit (I recommend her especially for chemistry and biochemistry majors, although I was biology) take Dixon- even if you get like a B- you’ll be shitting on everyone else in Orgo II because you’ll know everything. I made it through with an A, and you can too!!!! (Insert “no ragrats” meme here) (She also really likes memes. If you ever go to her office hours mine is the Hey Arnold one.) I remember hating chemistry in high school and now I’m considering switching my major to biochem because I enjoyed learning orgo so much. The choice is honestly yours when it comes to taking her. I recommend. Also as the review below says, if you're going to professional school after college- take Dixon!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-06-30T23:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Dixon is an excellent professor due to her constant attention to students outside of class. You will never again have a professor that has his or her office hours open every day for up to 5 hours!! Do not be intimidated by her. A friend had to eventually drop the class but she was very supportive of them because she knew that they cared about the course.\n\r\nPersonally, I learned more in this course than any other this semester. Her exams are very difficult but if you review the material a little each day and then kill it at Club Mckeldin the weekend before, you will be fine. Your effort will be reflected in your grade. Lots of partial credit on exams so do not leave blank answers! \n\r\nOverall, if you are interested in Medical School or graduate school TAKE HER CLASS. If you are looking for a job after undergraduate years, avoid or take for fun. I walked out happy I took her and I had little background in orgo I before.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-05T23:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dixon is truly an amazing teacher! She's on the same page as the students in terms of work. She seems very hard at first with all of the orgo but in the end, you realize you learned a lot more chemistry than kids in other professor's classes. \n\r\nShe grades very fairly and as long as you attend every lecture, you'll likely get an A or B. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-03T15:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I have had Dr. Dixon for Gen Chem 1, Orgo 1, and now Orgo 2. I would highly highly recommend her. She is tough. But you learn your stuff really well. And if you go to her office hours, she is more than willing to help you. And even if you don't want to talk to her, there is always like 10 other kids in there who also want to help you out and will think through things with you. Orgo 2 is also better than orgo 1- and she goes a little slower in that class it seems. She is one of the only professors at this school who remembers what it was like to be a student, so she really cares about her kids. If you can- take her. If you can't- just go to her office hours- she is a wonderful woman on top of everything else. really someone to be admired", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-11-14T20:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I took AP Chem in high school and got a 4 on the AP exam (still bitter that doesn't count for credit) so this class was not as hard for me as it is for others.\n\r\nYeah, as everyone says, its A LOT of work. But I would highly recommend taking her if you have to take future chem classes, especially orgo. She puts a lot of organic chemistry into 135, so when you do take orgo you'll have a base knowledge and be ahead of people who didn't have her. Unfortunately for me, CHEM135 is the only chemistry class I'm required to take so it would've been better and easier for me to take someone else.\n\r\nI must say, she's an amazing teacher and actually teaches, but her tests are super hard.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-10-02T15:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'I took CHEM135 and CHEM231 with Dixon. She is a very tough professor, but she wants you to understand the material. If you have a strong chemistry background in high school, I encourage you to take CHEM 135 with her, because you will gain a new understanding of gen chem. However, I regret taking her for CHEM231. Since I had almost no background of organic chem, she was just insanely tough for organic chem.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-07-15T14:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "If you have all the time in the world or are already a biochem expert, then this is the prof for you. If you're a regular full time student with a social life, AVOID THIS PROFESSOR AT ALL COSTS!\n\r\nBiochem is already hard to begin with... Dixon takes it to a new level.\n\r\nLetures: she's not good at introducting new material, she talks as if you already know the material and just further elaborates. I had to learn EVERYTHING from the textbook.\n\r\nExams: all free response questions and way too long. 50 mins is just not enough time to finish a Dixon exam and the averages are never higher than around 60%\n\r\nHomework: obligatory, difficult, and not even worth enough points. 5pts per assignment, which takes about 2 - 3 hours to complete each... and they are usually only 5 questions.\n\r\nPersonality: rigid and a bit unfair. she miscounted my total points on one of the exams. I asked if I can just get back the points I earned and should have gotten, and she flat out said no, simply because I didn't let her know about it earlier. I did email her (but she hardly responds to emails) earlier to let her know about the error, asking if I could hold onto my exam to study from it for the final and just show her my exam later (rather than leaving it in her office to correct).\n\r\nThe ONLY redeeming quality is that she is nice in her office hours. Literally answers any question you have and explains stuff for you. But going to office hours shouldn't be obligatory for earning a good grade...\n\r\nBOTTOM LINE: Dont.... just don't. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-14T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'ATTENTION: IF YOU ARE ANYTHING BUT A CHEM MAJOR OR ARE NOT INTERESTED IN CHEM, DO NOT TAKE DIXON! \r\nHonestly, she is the biggest mistake a freshman can make when taking chem135 and here is why. Sure she is cares about her students and what not, but her tests are NOT fair. She teaches one thing, and the test is 10x as hard as what she teachers. And the amount of Organic Chem she puts in to GEN CHEM is overwhelming. \r\nIf you are a chem major, take her, it is great preperation for orgo. BUT, if you are anything but chem major, AVOID HER AT ALL COSTS. You will have to put in hours for a class that is not even a priority. Take another proffessor, get a good grade, and never look back on chem. I promise you, AVOIDING DIXON WILL THE BEST THING YOU HAVE EVER DONE. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-05-02T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I have read a lot about Dixon and how hard she was... All of it was true. Her class is easily the hardest CHEM135 class at UMD. That being said.. she is also the best professor. If you do your work and you pay attention and poor effort into the class and into understanding everything, then you'll be fine. She was very approachable and kind when it came to office hours and helping students. I felt that I definitely earned my A from all the hard work I put into her class. (I also love chemistry, am a Chem Eng major, and got a 4 on the AP chem exam the year before taking her class). Her first two exams are hard (I got a 69% on both); the third is impossible (I got a 49%)... Then I studied for literally 20 hrs for her final, got an 85% on the final, and walked out with an A in the class. \r\nBottom Line.... If you are willing to work very hard and you love chemistry ... TAKE DIXON you might not get the highest grade, but you will walk out of there having learned a ton!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-29T12:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I hate to say this, but she is a great teacher. I hated that class so much. This is a fair warning for everyone: DO NOT TAKE DIXON UNLESS YOU A WILLING TO PUT IN MAXIMUM EFFORT. You will not do well if you do not study and practice for hours every week. I recommend getting the mastering chemistry, if not for the possible booster at the end, for the extra practice. Her class is tougher than steel ox balls. She is a very nice teacher and will give all of her time to helping you understand the concepts. She focuses on Organic Chem. Don't take this class unless you have to take Orgo (i.e. chemical/bio engineers or people on the premed path). I did barely get a C in this class. My average test grade was like a 44%. I laid in bed at night contemplating my schedule for the next semester, wondering if I will have to take this class again. Here is the twist, I tutored my friends in chemistry who had different teachers. You will get a better understanding of chemistry if you take Dixon than with any other teacher. Good luck and you have been warned. Mwuahahahahahah!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-03-19T18:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Whilst Dixon is definitely a good teacher and will help you learn chemistry well, the class is definitely hard, and I don't think that it is worth taking Dixon. I would recommend taking an easier teacher for the better GPA. I had a pretty good Chemistry background (4 on the AP) test, and I received a B+ as my final grade. The averages on her tests are consistently in the low 60's, and although she curves the whole class (about a 78 is an A), It is still hard to walk out with that A. The only advantage of taking Dixon is that if you are a Chemical or Bioengineer, she will prepare you very well for orgo, but never the less, your grade will suffer. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-03T21:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Here's the thing about Dr. Dixon. She's awesome, funny, cool, and easy to talk to, no doubt about that. \n\r\nHer lectures are easy to understand and she's easily the best chemistry lecturer out of all of the CHEM135 teachers. She's also really helpful during her office hours if you can make the time to go to them.\n\r\nHowever, where my complaints lie about her are in the unnecessary difficulty of her material. While she goes over the same topics as other CHEM135 teachers, she incorporates organic chemistry as a huge component in her material. For someone who likes and understands orgo, this isn't a problem, but I was very confused whenever she'd use orgo as an example for a problem that could have been taught without it.\n\r\nThe exams in the class are very fair, albeit difficult, not only because of the difficult material, but also because you almost always run out of time before finishing them. She covers all the material on her exams in class, and they're reinforced in the somewhat-helpful discussion sections. \n\r\nThere isn't much homework to do for her class, just 3 assignments due before each of the three tests, but this is just as bad as it is good. The homework assignments themselves are very difficult, and are weighted pretty heavily in your final grade. But if you work together with some friends, they should be manageable.\n\r\nOverall, if you're going into a chemistry-related major like chemical engineering or bioengineering and you'll need to take orgo in the future, take Dr. Dixon. She'll whip you into shape for that. Otherwise, you'll just burden yourself with very difficult material for no reason.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-16T22:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "She is very dedicated to her students. She makes time and holds a lot of office hour time for students. She may be rude sometimes but I have never seen her angry. She makes class decently fun. The topic is hard and you have to make the dedication to practice and do extra work. Definitely try to see her in office hours and you'll do great", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-11-30T20:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. Dixon has been one of the most difficult professors I've had at UMD... however, she will most definitely prepare me well for the MCAT. I will say that I worked incredibly hard and found the final exam to be way out of my scope, but theoretically if I did more problems/was more familiar with the material, I could have been well within the A range. Her curve is generous but don't take that as a reason to slack off. If you stick to the motto of spending time in this class every day, going to her office hours, REALLY understanding her homework problems, finding OUTside resources to do problems, there is no reason you shouldn't do well. However, any less and you'll be gambling your chance to get an A. \n\r\nGenerally, her rule is if you get more than 50% of the total points in the semester, you will get a C. Some, however, find that hard to do so by not putting in the time. Others will earn that A and prove that it's far from impossible.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-07-10T17:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Take Dixon! It's about all I can say. There's a reason why everybody always attends her lectures and tries especially hard in her class, but she's very encouraging and dedicates a lot of time to her students.\n\r\nFor me, she made orgo bearable. I laughed at all my friends who had other orgo teachers.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-17T15:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Two Words: F***ing Awesome\r\nDr. Dixon can be hated on by all these goons on this website because none of them want to put in any work. If you have to take Orgo, you're most likely in a major where your career path demands you KNOW your stuff. Dr. Dixon gets that done. If you want to go pre-health shes the best prep tool youve got for chemistry. And if you dont want the challenge, then drop premed please, I don't want you operating on me or my child if you didnt want to be challenged with organic chem.\r\n I got A+s in gen chem and orgo with her, but I worked for them. I also went to her when I needed to because she loves her students, and wants us to succeed. Im even taking orgo II with her this summer because I love her teaching style so much. As for her testing style, yeah, they suck. Getting the average is something to be proud of (so just hope you know more than those sitting next to you). Its awesome when you are talking to kids with different orgo teachers and they have no clue what youre talking about because thats how much material Dixon manages to teach you. \r\nApart from the learning she is really an awesome person just to go talk to about life. She's funny, personable, and will go out on a limb for you if you truly need someone. Love the woman. Take her", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-17T11:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Is she hard? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely, especially if you plan on taking orgo ii and/or the MCATs. She is an incredible teacher who does push you. She herself is not intense: she'll often go on tangents about her past or her family. And she frequently plays music before starting class. There are also many extra credit opportunities. You'll find this echoed in other review below, but I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to do those problem sets and visit her in her office hours. She strongly encourages students to do both and for good reason. If you're serious about your studies, don't be discouraged by friends who say that she's too hard and it's not worth it. An A is within your grasp (thanks to her generous curve...and hard work!). If I could take her for orgo ii, I would.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "This class is literally a joke. When you read bad freshman reviews on here, don't pay them any attention. The main problem is that these freshman come in expecting to do no work. My chem professor in high school was so bad that I basically came in with zero chem experience, and I still came this close to getting an A+. Dixon is nice and shes pretty good at teaching.\n\r\nDos:\r\nTHE MASTERING CHEMISTRY\r\nALL THE EXTRA CREDIT PROBLEMS\r\nUSE HER STUDY GUIDES\r\nUSE THE GSS STUDY GUIDES\r\nGO TO OFFICE HOURS\n\r\nDon't:\r\nPiss her off\r\nWhine\r\nGet below a 50% on the exams(auto fail if you do this)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-20T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Dr. Dixon is one of those feisty professors that people love and hate. She expects a lot from her students but also makes class fun. She was definitely a babe back in the day btw. If you have bad study habits you will die in this class. But if you study, you will do well and will be rewarded. As others have said, if you like chemistry you will love it with Dr. Dixon. But you will most certainly hate the class if you can\'t relate to chemistry. She gives quizzes every two weeks, the occasional clicker questions, three "midterm" exams, and one final exam. If you do the optional mastering chemistry you can earn extra credit. She also gives an extra credit question every week that you work on out of class and e-mail her the answer before midnight. Although the exams are tough (because it is hard to predict the questions asked) Dr. Dixon has a large curve for the overall class. So overall, if you put work in, you will surely get an A or B. If you challenge her teaching methods in class, prepare to be humiliated. If you joke with her or dress up, she will always play along and so will the 300 other people in the lecture hall. She is a nice person that truly wants her students to learn and will help the most she can. Just take her for the experience. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T22:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'What can be said about Dr. Dixon that has not been said? Excellent lecturer and cares tremendously about your grade if you care about it. The class is not easy by any measure but it is very doable if you put in the time that Dr. Dixon expects. Other CHEM135 classes will be easier but they will not prepare you nearly as well for Orgo. Dixon is in her office hours more than any other chem teacher and is helpful if you go to her although she may seem intimidating at first.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Dr. Dixon is a very good lecturer for chemistry. You will definitely learn a lot from her class. At the same time, though, you have to work hard. I recommend taking her if you have some prior experience with chemistry because she does assume you have some knowledge of chemistry going in. Exams can be stressful because of the limited amount of time to do them, but they are certainly doable if you study hard.\r\nTips to do well in her class:\r\n-Memorize ALL of the ions early on. She does not directly test you on how well you know your ions, but she refers to them a lot on clicker questions and exams. \r\n-Know your organic nomenclature early. Yes, she is organically inclined and will constantly test you on organic nomenclature throughout the course. I found that I only used the book to review organic nomenclature; she pretty much gives you notes on other material you need to know.\r\n-Study Hard! Practice exams are available in some fraternity, but they are a pain to access. The practice exams are a great study tool, but bear in mind her curriculum changes from semester to semester. Also go to the guided study sessions near exam time; they help A LOT.\r\n-Go to her office hours! While she is quirky in lecture, she is far more relaxed in her office, so go there if you need to ask a question or get clarification.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-05T04:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Dixon assumes you have a decent knowledge of chemistry from High School, if you don't, then I suggest you take another professor. I'm not sure of the difficulty of the other professors teaching this course but it always seemed as though Dixons class was the hardest. Her tests aren't that awful, if you study your notes then you should be fine, she only tests concepts that she goes over in lecture which is nice. She is a good teacher but a hard grader and expects you to learn way more (including organic chemistry) than you would in any other general chemistry course. Basically, if you want to LEARN chemistry, take Dixon. If you want a good grade without too much effort, take another professor!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-10-17T23:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is definitely one of the better chem135 professors. She actually teaches really well but holds us to a high standard. Therefore, this class is not an easy A. You have to work hard. Her exams can be difficult but if you take good notes and go to her office hours you should do well. She has the most office hours of all professors. During lecture she can come off as a quirky and sometimes strict professor, but she is actually really nice and so DO NOT be intimidated to go to her office hours. She is there helping students almost everyday of the week. Also, she has tons of extra credit points which are easy if you spend a little bit of time on those. Do them all and it will help you in the long run. She curves the entire course. I think 75% and higher is an A. But she is really fast during lectures and sometimes the taught material might just go right over your head but she answers questions in class during lectures. Ask questions if you don't grasp the materials. But one major drawback is that she expects us to have a decent grasp of basic chem coming into this class. Sometimes I felt like she was referring to AP Chem because the things she said I should have known from high school chem, I didn't know and sadly I never took AP Chem but still I ended up doing well in the class. So, she tends gloss over stuff sometimes. But be warned that Dr. Dixon teaches organic chem in a gen chem class. Organic chem can be overwhelming but if you study its not bad. The engineering school apparently wants student to have seen some basic orgo chem stuff, thats why she taught it. If you are a CHEMICAL OR BIO ENGINEERING student, I would recommend taking her because she gives an overview of some organic chem concept which should help us with organic chem courses that we have to take after chem135. If you aren't that interested in Chem, don't take her. If you love Chem, take her. She'll make you love Chemistry more. She is awesome.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-10-06T03:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "If you have a solid background in chemistry, then definitely take Dixon (because you will probably love her).\n\r\nIf you DO NOT have a solid high school background in chemistry, then DO NOT take Dixon. Although there are no prerequisites for the course, she assumes that everyone understands chemistry coming in, and builds off this general knowledge that everybody [should] have... which meant I had to outline each of the textbook chapters, just to have some sort of context for understanding the notes we took in class.\n\r\nShe does curve significantly (if you get at least a 50% in the course, you should finish with at least a C). If you receive a grade on the final higher than the grade you had in the class before the final, then she will bump your grade up (i.e. if you started with a C, an A or B on the final will but you up to a B for the semester.) If you have an A before the final then she will just figure the final into your grade, as it would be for any other class. My issue with this policy is that she refused to tell students the total points they needed on the final to get a specific letter grade (even after it was over), and she wouldn't tell students the total points they needed to get a specific grade in the class (even after all assignments had been handed in and graded). Is that even legal?\n\r\nI put significantly more effort into this course than my other classes, and still only received a B. If you take her, definitely go over your tests to check for grading mistakes.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-17T17:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Dr. Dixon is one of the better teachers I have had at Maryland, however she will make you work your ass off so if you better be willing to put in a lot of time to understand the material. Also, go to her office hours if you dont understand something. She literally is in there everyday helping students so get stuff clarified the first time you dont understand it, otherwise it will compound and the following exams all build on the previous ones. And definately form a study group, it was one of the best ways to further understanding.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-12T09:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'I just finished Orgo II this summer and everything you have heard about this woman is true. She can easily be the best and worst teacher you have ever had. One thing is for certain, she is by far the busiest professor I have ever seen at UMD. She constantly has students in her office, meetings to go to, calls to answer, letters of recommendation to write, etc. That being said she is very willing to help you IF you have legitimate questions about the material you have already prepared. Nothing angers this woman more than to go to her office and say "I don\'t understand this, how do I do this, how can I pass". \n\r\nGrading: Her tests are absurdly difficult and require complete understanding and memorization of every reaction and mechanism. Even knowing that you aren\'t guaranteed to do well on her tests. The average for my class on each of the 3 exams and the final was between 50-60% for each one. That being said there is obviously a curve which only really depends on your classmates. She has no set numbers and you are truly at the mercy of how well your classmates are doing in the class. One really good thing about Dixon is that she factors how well you do on the final into your grade and you may be able to move up an entire letter grade depending on how well you do on the final (which is also ridiculously hard).\n\r\nOverall I would definitely recommend Dixon for Orgo II. You will learn more from this woman than nearly any other professor at UMD. However, if you are not willing to put in at least 15-20 hours or work a week outside of class DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. You will fail. No questions about it, unless you are some kind of chemistry genius. If you want to skate by with a C with minimal amount of work take a different professor. Earning a C in Dixon\'s class is a victory in itself. But she will prepare you the best for the MCATS, DATS, and PCATS if that is what you are looking for.\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-10T22:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is THE BEST chemistry teacher there is at UMD. Her class is going to be TONS of work and you'll have to put in a lot of time, so don't go in expecting it to be a walk in the park. \n\r\nThat being said, this woman is one of the nicest professors I've ever had. At her office hours, she'll give you a bit of tough love and push you to make you figure things out on your own, but you'll always leave feeling a thousand times better and completely understanding the material. Her tests and quizzes are pretty difficult, but there is a curve because of it.\n\r\nI would definitely recommend Dixon to anyone who has to take chem131, chem135, or the orgos. You'll learn so much! Also, if your TA is Lenea Stocker, GO TO HER! She'll help you out a great deal as well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-07-05T22:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "The class is HARD, but if you do everything she tells you, keep randomly practicing mechanisms and go to her review and her office hours, and A is definately achievable. Its something that just requires a lot of time and if thats something you don't have, don't take the class. However if you're not a book learner and you need someone to teach you, she is the teacher for you", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-28T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Bottom line: Don't take Dixon for organic chem. She is a nice woman and very helpful, but her exams are downright impossible. I studied for weeks in advance for every exam and still would do horribly on them. Yeah, she knows her stuff, but it's not worth the semester of suffering. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-20T21:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "She is really a fantastic teacher. She makes sure that you know organic chemistry, and there is no way pass her class without learning it. At one point she mentioned that her grade distribution was very bimodal. A lot of students were passing but a lot of students were also failing. The reviews here seem to reflect that a bit. If you need to take this class just to get through it don't take Dixon, otherwise take her she is great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is really nice and approachable. However, she makes the class unnecessarily difficult. Organic chemistry is her baby so she incorporates a lot of that into Gen Chem, that she also unfortunately tests on. She likes to write exam questions about exceptions to general chemistry rules, so watch out for that.\r\nDixon also offers a lot of extra credit. Homework is not mandatory for her class, and I never did any. However, if you complete most of the online homework assignments, you get bonus points at the end. She also assigns extra credit assignments randomly throughout the semester, worth anything from like 2-10 points. She gave the option of a 10 extra credit point assignment just to tell her whether Duracel or Energizer made better batteries. No sources, no explanation, nothing else required. Just which one is better.\r\nDixon doesn't use the book to teach. She's a great lecturer. She also periodically sends out homework questions for practice that she writes herself. If you take her, you don't need the book unless you think you'll really do the extra reading or practice problems (besides the problems that she sends out, or is on Mastering Chemistry your usual online homework)\r\nIn addition to all the extra credit, she also has a big curve at the end (about 20%). Having taken AP Chemistry and Chem131, I had no trouble in this class, but my general impression is that most people struggled a lot with Dr. Dixon. Her exam averages are usually low (50-60). However, if you want to learn a lot of chemistry, take her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-19T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "All of the five star ratings are there for a reason. She really is the best. Her class is much harder, and you will learn a lot more than other orgo classes.\r\nShe's a great teacher though. She seems really intimidating, but just go to her office hours. If you don't have any questions, just sit there and work. She'll chat with you and make you problems from the top of her head that are pretty much exam problems. When it gets close to exams, other students will be in there and you can learn from them too.\r\nShe'll answer any question if you have a specific question, and she's in her office all the time. Go there and learn from her and you'll start actually enjoying orgo, if that's even possible.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-11T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I took this class spring '10 and I absolutely loved Dixon. She is the best teacher for organic chemistry ever. She teaches the material in a way you will always remember it, and her office doors are always open to those who need help. Actually, her office is always crowded. She truly prepares her students or organic chem 2. She is, by far, my favorite professor at Maryland.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-08T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'I am dedicating my OUR UMD account to Dr. Dixon. She is possibly the worst teacher i have ever had. She expects you to know organic chemistry till your brain is dead...and does not do anything from the book. Shes just terrible.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2011-05-04T21:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE DIXON\r\nunless you are amazing at organic chemistry (Yes I am aware this was supposed to be a general chemistry class) and even then you\'ll want to die like the puppies she eats\n\r\nShe has a vendetta against engineering students. She refers to them as "you people" and has said "You guys are the stupidest engineering class I\'ve ever seen." In our half a semester, we have covered more than those who have taken general chemistry I and orgo I. I asked a friend in Orgo II for help and his response was "I\'ve never seen a problem like this before in my life." \n\r\nIt is unfortunate that ourumd requires a rating of at least one star as she hasn\'t even earned that.\n\r\nShe constantly complains that the Chemistry Department is not allowing her to teach Orgo next semester and seems to be taking it out on us.\r\nIn her office hours, there were ten students from CHEM135 and two from CHEM231. She spent her entire time with us sitting directly next to the students in Orgo, leaving the CHEM135 students to fend for themselves, like her children in the back of the lecture hall. \n\r\nIf anyone reads this, please help me. I\'m DIENE... chem joke, if you don\'t get it, don\'t take her. If you do get it, don\'t take her. You will probably consider to be one of the worst decisions in your life thus far... If you survive. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-07T00:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Take her!! If you really want to learn, that is. Dr. Dixon is a fantastic teacher! I really wish she taught Orgo II as well. She is extremely dedicated to helping her students and really makes herself available to students. Granted, her exams are hard, but they aren't impossible. If you go to her office hours, study hard and really try to learn the material (rather than rote memorization), you'll be able to get an A. Also, she grades ridiculously fast; our grades were always up within 8 hours of taking it.\n\r\nSome people say you have to practice Orgo everyday to get an A, but that's not true. When you do study for Orgo, put all your effort into it and you'll be fine. There are tons of extra credit. On the last quiz and on our final, there were more points than what she made the final grade out of; our last quiz had 85 points, but she counted it as out of 75. Plus, the curve is always enormous. If you try to always get at least a raw C, you'll probably end up with an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-01T22:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Some days I loved Ms Dixon, but most days I hated her. She made exams very stressful by yelling random things in the middle of the test like "I have written the names of the people who I have no quiz 6 grade for." She taught too quickly. She gave clicker questions but never gave enough time to answer. I would have had trouble if I had not taken AP chemistry. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-16T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is a great professor who stimulates the class. Like everyone else here, I agree that she makes you legit learn organic chem. I also agree that this is one of the hardest classes that I ever took. It is not so much the material as it is the amount. There is so much stuff Dr. Dixon wants you to learn that only the most dedicated of students can master everything in time for the exam. An A is very difficult because it necessitate constant studying to keep up with the material. Sadly, I just didn't have that kind of time. Had I been a better and more focused student, it would have been no problem. So be warn, you'll learn a lot. But prepare to work like you've never worked before. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-22T22:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'I had a low B but I got an A on the final and she gave me an A for the course. Her tests can be tricky, but she has a fair curve to compensate for them. She is able to control the class quite well too. She also grades extremely fast. Overall she puts in so much extra work to help you, which is uncommon for an intro class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-17T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Dixon knows her material very well. I think she could a couple more examples when teaching, but I understnad that she is stressed for time. She wants her students to understand, but they need to come to her for help.\r\nI would strongly recommed her if you have taken AP Chem in High School. She sometimes teaches and than mentions that what she is currently teaching is something that should just be review from high school and that she's not going to go into it. \r\nAP Chem was not offered at my High School, and a lot of the material was new to me, so I was lost through out a lot of the lessons.\r\nThe tests and quizzes are pretty straight forward, though hard. She curves a lot at the end, and extra credit is available in the form of questions she gives during class to be completed and emailed to her at night. \n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-16T02:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'she is probably one of the hardest teachers out there. but she balances it out because she is an excellent teacher. i will admit after one of her lectures it feels like your brain is about to explode. the tests and quizzes are very hard and she usually puts in at least one problem never covered to make you really think. all of that said we were doubling the amount of material learned in any other orgo class and she really tries extremely hard to help everyone as much as possible. office hours, workshops, and she tries to get a good TA (which she did for our semester). she is a great teacher and explains the material very well. take her if you can and get ready to work.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-12T01:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Bonnie Dixon is a fantastic teacher, and if you put half the effort into her class that she does, you will learn a lot and be very prepared for orgo 2. \n\r\nLecture notes are useful and well organized, and this crazy lady held an extra hour of discussion every week to review the material for those who wanted it. Office hours are extremely helpful, and she really, really cares about her students succeeding. There isn't much that is easy in this course, but Dixon offers everything you need to do very well.\n\r\nShe's also probably the nicest and most approachable professor here. I still go to her office just to say hi. Take her course if you are serious about learning.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-19T22:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'the hard facts are...\r\nnice lady, funny quirky\r\nvery hard exams and decently hard quizzes\r\nneed to go to all lectures\r\ndiscussion is useless form the most part', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2010-10-31T20:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'While Dixon is definitely, shall we say, quirky, she really is a good professor. She moves quickly, but she knows exactly how to efficiently use the blackboard- which makes it really easy to take notes.\r\nHer exams and quizzes are not easy, by any means, but they are definitely fair. She also curves a tremendous amount- if you get 50% uncurved, you can expect to walk away from the class with a C.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-08-31T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "one of the best professors in the school. if your going to take orgo, make sure you take it with Dixon because you'll actually learn the material. if you really want an A, be prepared to work your ass off for it. exams tended to test understanding of the material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-20T22:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "She makes lecture at least a little fun, and is always very sparky and preppy. As students, you can mess with her and she'll go with it. She teaches very fast, which was probaly my biggest complaint, and not really by the book at all, although before tests it may help to find the corresponding chapters in the book to review.\n\r\nHowever, what she teaches is what you need to know. Go to lecture and take good notes. Don't go to discussion; I found it a complete waste of time after going the first time and didn't go again except to pick up tests and quizes.\n\r\nShe gives mad extra credit and weekly quizes (non graded) that are good study material for the actual in-class quizzes, which aren't bad and shouldn't affect your total grade too much. The tests are the main part of the grade.\n\r\nAlso, she had a HUGE curve. I think a 73 % was considered and A, and she had a policy that said as long as you earned half the points in the class, you would pass, so basically a 50% was a C.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-07-10T14:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "DIXON IS AMAZING TAKE HER! I was in her summer semester because I dropped it in the spring with another professor. \r\nThis class is ALL about practice and she's the only organic I teacher I know about that writes weekly quizes and problems for her students to review and practice with. \n\r\nPeople warned me not to take her, telling me how hard her class was, but if you do all of the problems she gives you, you will learn ochem and get an A. This term she had a bunch of extra credit as well which helped.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-08T20:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'If I could give Dr. Dixon 100 stars, I would do it. A few things that made her great were\r\n1. The book SUCKED, and she taught in her own way following the chapters and did a grand job\r\n2. She actually cared about our understanding of the material. She gave homework assignments and workshops that helped explain steriochemistry. Honestly that was probably the only way I was going to learn it.\r\n3. She had 4 times established for office ours AND said that if she was in her office we could ask her questions. Not only was I able to get help outside of class, but we also chatted about life as well.\r\n4. She is the best professor that G-d has ever created and I will miss her dearly next semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-12T12:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Originally took CHEM231 with Dr. Lee Friedman and got a C- (I probably deserved an F though). Took CHEM231 again in the summer, but this time with Dr. Dixon. Bottomline: She is AMAZING. Dr. Dixon LOVES chemistry and knows how to teach it so others can enjoy it (yes, even if you hate chemistry). I think she has a masters in education, and it definitely shows in her teaching! She's very helpful and does plenty of practice problems. HIGHLY recommend her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-06-03T21:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'When I signed up to take this class, a lot of my older friends advised me against it, telling me to take the easier professors to save my GPA. Suffice it to say that I was pretty scared for my grade going into the class.\n\r\nThat being said, Dr. Dixon has been one of my favorite professors so far in college. Never have I met someone who does more to help her students succeed. I\'m fairly certain she literally lives in her office waiting for students to come by and get help on the email problems or on old test questions that they don\'t understand, and what she said at the beginning of the semester is true: organic chemistry is like a part-time job.\n\r\nShe doesn\'t really go by the textbook at all - it was useful to go over nomenclature and basic information for the first quiz, but after that, I barely used it at all. If you go to her weekly reviews, go to her office hours, and do the weekly "quizzes" that she emails out, you will be as prepared as you possibly can be for her exams. She focuses on helping you actually UNDERSTAND the way reactions work, not just memorize them. So yes, her exams are tough and yes, the averages are dismally low (usually around 50 percent), but hey, that means that if you can manage to get half the questions right on a test, you got a B! I had a solid B average all semester (I scored right around the average on both quizzes and one exam, and did significantly better than the average on one exam), and as she promised, I got an A on the final and an A in the class. But it\'s not a 90% A - it\'s an A, as in one standard deviation above the average.\n\r\nPeople will tell you that she is difficult and that her class is work, and both are true, but if you want a solid foundation in organic chemistry, and a professor who is so willing to help you with anything and everything you want to ask her about, then Dr. Dixon is definitely the right choice. I haven\'t once regretted my decision.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T02:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Love Dixon! She's a good teacher, she'll always answer your questions. Go to lecture, they're worth going to. She'll make lecture fun too. She ocasionally do clicker questions, so watch out for that. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-20T17:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Orgo is a difficult class no matter who you take it with. Might as well take it with someone who teaches it well and makes the course...dare I say it...fun. She clearly has a lot of enthusiasm for the subject and for teaching, and this made her lectures very engaging. Not a lecture will go by where she doesn\'t crack a hilarious joke or make you smile! She does move quickly in lecture, so try to study the material before you come to class so you can keep up. Must attend class. You need those clicker points.\n\r\nYou do have to work hard for a good grade. There are numerous "tricks" in OChem and lots of rules you need to string together--significantly moreso than in Gen Chem--and Dr. Dixon will make sure you learn these. DO NOT BUY THE TEXTBOOK. I learned more from Orgo CliffsNotes for free online. I did much better in class once I tucked away the book and relied on her practice Qs and office hours (my exam grades went from E on the first quiz to an A on the final--very real difference). The trick to this class is practice, practice, practice--you CANNOT learn everything you need from the textbook, and Dixon sends out plenty of practice problems that cover all the info you need to know. They cover a lot of material, so if you\'re confused about something (and you will be) go to her office hours. She\'ll help you out. Workshops (3, during discussion), homework assignments (3), and weekly reviews are also essential prep for exams.\n\r\nRemember, there is a curve. It\'s a hard class, but you\'re graded on how you do relative to everyone else. And I guarantee you, everyone else is crapping their pants during exams too. Just do around average or better on exams (not too hard since class averages around usually Ds or Es), and you\'ll get at least a B.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-15T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Second time taking Orgo 1.First time I took it with Ammon cuz I didn\'t know any better...I was an ignorant little freshman...sigh...silly freshman...smh.\n\r\nAnyways, Dixon\'s great. She does practically live in her office to help you, and she has other work for points besides exams, like homeworks, workshops, clickers(although i didn\'t like this cuz I usually didnt feel like going to class, and i\'d miss clicker points), quizzes and extra credit to help keep your grade afloat. \n\r\nOkay, look. This is a research university. Most professors here only really care about their research and the whole teaching thing is kinda just part of the deal between them and the school. They probably don\'t even wanna teach, but they have to. They could care less about their students. I always wondered why the hell someone with a Ph.D is all of a sudden qualified to teach. Ya I get it they\'re really smart, but shit that doesn\'t mean they know how to teach that information to students effectively!\n\r\nDixon is here to teach. She uses great learning techniques and breaks things down to really help you understand the material, instead of just flying through a damn powerpoint.\n\r\nTake her, and if you work hard it will pay off. Some classes you work hard and still fail, this class is different.\n\n\r\nMY BEST ADVICE for ORGANIC I regardless of the teacher is:\n\r\n1. Go to google.com\r\n2. Type in "Carey" + "Organic"\r\n3. Click the first link.\n\r\nIts a great website that summarizes organic chemistry in a simple an easy-to-understand way :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-15T17:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Here's the deal:\n\r\nThere are two types of students in this world: those who go to class and those who don't. Some students who don't go to class manage to still pull off good grades. But in this class, if you don't go to lecture you WILL regret it. Forget buying the textbook. I don't think I opened it once this semester...she e-mails loads of crap to you that basically acts as a substitute. \n\r\nAnyway...TAKE ADVANTAGE of the extra credit opps. Seriously, that's what I regret the most about this class. I blew off most of that stuff (and didn't go to lectures so I missed clicker points) assuming that I would do well on the quizzes and exams..Boy, was I wrong! \n\r\n*shrugs* she teaches pretty well, and has weekly review sessions and pre-exam review sessions.....I dunno I guess take her, but just know that whatever teacher you take for organic chem its not gonna be easy AT ALL, and you need to mentally prepare for hard work BEFORE you dig yourself into a whole by the end of the semester.\n\r\nGood luck\n\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B?', 'created': '2010-05-15T17:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is a great teacher. She's definitely challenging, but she knows how to prepare students for Organic, which is really important. Be prepared to work and study. You may get low percentages, but don't forget she does curve a little. Go to every lecture to get clicker points. If you need help, go to her office hours because she really wants to help you. TA was also great", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-06T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Let me preface by saying that my preferred learning style is visual, not auditory. I need to be able to read something several times over so I can process that. However, Dixon is really geared towards auditory learners. You HAVE to listen during lecture to get the class. She has also worked very hard to develop a curriculum that she feels is best, which means she doesn't really stick to the order of conventional textbooks. She's really a great teacher, I won't deny that, but if you are someone who likes to take the time to sit down and process things on your own, you're going to be out of luck here because she doesn't provide many resources for learning the concepts outside of the class. She certainly provides a lot of practice work to hone your skills, but if you didn't pick up the methodology or conceptual bit in class, you're out of luck.\n\r\nThe textbook we're asked to buy makes a great doorstop. She told my class that she basically doesn't use it, except for a list of practice problems from the book she gives out. However, those problems aren't generally in the style she uses in her own problems and on tests, so they aren't much good. Ask yourself if you want to pay $100+ for some okay practice problems. You're better off buying Organic Chemistry as a Second Language, which is how I learned most of the concepts. I would recommend getting a jump on everyone else and just make a habit of going to her office hours from the beginning. No seriously, just write it into your schedule like it's another discussion section for the class. You really need to have her there, answering questions about little technicalities, before they come back to haunt you on a test. She loves throwing in problems with them.\n\r\nOverall: 5 stars for auditory learners, 2 stars for visual/textbook-based learners. This is the class to take if you want to go to medical school. If you're majoring in something else that just has this class a requirement and you won't be using ochem much/taking the mcats, take another easier professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-18T14:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I think Dr. Dixon is an excellent teacher. First off, organic chemistry is going to be hard no matter who you take it with. The reason I learned so well from Dr. Dixon is because her format of teaching was a very logical approach rather than fooling around with molecule model sets and picturing stuff in thin air. I appreciated her step by step, fool proof methods of tackling these problems. On a side note, if you are more of a visual learner then maybe a teacher who uses molecule model sets would be best for you. If you like the step by step, logical approach then she's your best bet. I will admit, she is very tough but if you want to take the MCAT or if you know you will be moving on to ORGO 2 then I think you will be most prepared if you take Dixon. If you're pre-med then I definitely recommend her. If you're just looking for the easiest way out of this course then I would question your motivation toward being pre-med to begin with. Dr. Dixon is such a good teacher that not only did I get an B in her class, but I never once opened my text book. She gives TONS, and I mean, TONS of study guides, outside help, answer keys to practice quizzes. I never once needed the text book. I would have had an A if I hadn't bombed the final. With that being said I feel that the final was very fairly written, I was just retarded from lack of sleep. And I'm not one of those freakishly wierd genius kids either. As a matter of fact, I failed G chem! \r\nMy advice if you take her:\r\n1. GO TO LECTURE. If you miss lecture, consider yourself done. You cannot expect anything better than a C if you don't go to lecture. Her exams are ripped straight out of lecture.\r\n2. Do all of her practice quizzes and study guides that she emails to you. They help so much, especially if you try to work through them yourself before you peek at the answer key.\r\n3. GO to office hours! The woman practically lives in her office to help you, you should take advantage! If you have any doubt or question on one of those practice quizzes then go straight to her. You can guarantee it will be on the exam.\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-04T16:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Take another professor. Very nice lady. But if you care about getting an A or B, not the person you want to take. Class is challenging.. but too challenging unless you want to be a chemist. Take it if you are passionate about chemistry. If not take another professor. I also had her Organic Chemistry 1, it was awful as she moved way too fast so I did not absorb much. Phil DeShong is a much better professor and actually teaches much more concisely and gives examples, which she does not do enough of. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-30T23:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I will attempt to be as objective as possible. Dr. Dixon knows her stuff and forces you to do so as well. By the end of the course, you will feel like you can teach general chemistry. Her real trick is to intimidate you and force you to understand chemistry. She gives very difficult exams which require you to apply what you know. To do this you must review her lectures daily and really devote time to the class. Thus by giving such hard tests she is pushing her students to study a lot in order to understand the material. I spent a lot of time for this class and ended up with a B+. If you are up for the challenge then take her. Yes she is very tough but it all works out in the end. If you put in the effort you will get the grade. That being said, I do believe that she can stand to move a little slower and not try and scare her students so much. I along with many other freshman, felt that she demanded too much of her students who were not used to thinking the way she wanted us to. Additionally, her pace/exams can discourage many people. Overall, it's tough to rate this professor because I'm glad that I understand chemistry at the level that I do, but I know I would've received an A with another professor. Therefore, I am still trying to figure out how I truly felt about the course. I don't know if I want to challenge myself again and take her for organic. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-27T01:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Effective teacher.. but too much information and extra info that it was hard to keep up. For sure I would take someone else. Her exams discourage you because the questions are so warped and time consuming!', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-23T04:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Damn, listened to you guys down below saying how great she was, wtf?!\r\nShe goes so damn fast in the damn class like a damn car. "Grades will not reflect what you learn"....that\'s all everyone cares about, the grades!!!!!!!!!!! my gpa got killed, and I\'m not even from america damn this country, how unlucky this semester i have dixon and gold at the same time', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-22T17:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Dixon is amazing. First of all, you cannot complain about it being hard because many people want to be doctors and you have to knows your stuff if you want to be a doctor and she knows everything! go to office hours...get to know her. she will remember your name and it pays off. Go to every lecture and take great notes and study study study. you will get a good grade if you do those things. no way around it. I run circles around my other organic friends who have different teachers because I know so much more than them from dixon. take her and go to office hours, discussion, review sessions and you will be fine. dont slack off for a second. it will all pay off. there is no way around it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-20T02:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "First of all, she is HARD. There's no way to get around it except studying quite hard and long before each exam. Go to her office hours frequently and DO NOT wait if you have questions. Material builds on itself quickly. \n\r\nThe good:\n\r\n1. Covers more information than all other Orgo teachers, which greatly prepares you for future chemistry classes. \n\r\n2. She makes herself very available to students in her ample office hours. Sometimes I think she spends the night there...\n\r\n3. She makes class fun and engaging, so you hardly ever lose concentration. She cares about her students and really pushes them to do well.\n\r\nThe Bad:\n\r\n1. She's terribly disorganized. Her notes are all over the five boards and don't seem to follow any logical pattern. \n\r\n2. Her lecturing pace is incredibly fast. She often forgets that Orgo I was design as an intorductory course for students who have never been exposed to the material before. This leaves the class lost and confused. \n\r\n3. She presents numerous concepts without giving many examples. This also leaves students lost and confused. \n\r\n4. She is always busy, so even if you make it to office hours you're likely to not get much of her time (DO go, though! Others WILL help you). \n\r\n5. Most people will do poorly on the exams with the exception of the few who'd get legitimate A's. It's quite demoralizing, but don't despair - SHE GIVES GODLY CURVES. \n\r\nOverall, she's a rather effective teacher but I'd recommend someone else if possible. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T18:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'She is the best CHEM131 teacher. She truly cares a lot about her students and wants everyone to do well. She is engaging and teaches the material in a good way (unlike some other teachers, she does not use just the examples from the book-she makes up her own so you can understand the subject better).\n\r\nThere are three exams and a final in this class. You do have to put effort in this class if you want a good grade. If you do your homework assignments, do the readings, and take notes in class, you will do fine. Just study effectively. Dr. Dixon is also there to help you during her office hours. Also, go to the discussions because the TA really helps clear some concepts up.\n\r\nThere are also many, many opportunities for extra credit, so you can easily raise your grade if you do not do that well on the exams. She also takes the extra credit problems created by students and makes it into a packet for students to complete if they need extra help. Also, the curve isn this class is insanely high (this semester, a 70-75% was an A)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T15:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'She is very knowledgeable and is a really good teacher! But her tests are impossible to finish in the time period given and are difficult. The averages on the tests were usually in the 50-60% but since the class was heavily curved overall, it helped out a lot! If you had 75% of the total points by the end of the semester, you got an A in the class!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "This class was extremely difficult. Dr. Dixon is an awesome professor. She's very engaging and entertaining and she knows her stuff. On the other hand her exams were very difficult. If it had not been for the curve I would have failed this class. If you have to take Dr. Dixon I recommend attending her office hours as many times as you possibly can. She loves to help her students and offer extra problems. Good luck...", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2009-12-18T02:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "This class is entirely what you make of it. I personally thought it was the hardest class I ever took in my entire life and failed every midterm with about a 45% and got a 60% on the final. However you WILL learn more than you would with any other Chemistry professor at this university. Bonnie Dixon is quite possibly one of the best professors, period! Though the exams ARE hard she does provide lots and lots of review. In my class we had two guided study sessions (reviews) a week and then holds a review before each exam. She holds office hours througout the week and if you catch her in her office outside of office hours she will be more than happy to talk to you then. She also gives extra credit throughout the semester which are very helpful. She also does clicker questions worth 40 points so go to class. As for the curve, she said that this semester around 50% is a C and then about 65% is a B and 80% is an A. To top that off if you're failing and get a C on the final it is an automatic C in the class. I would highly recommend her because as long as you study and put alittle effort into it, you will at least get a C.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-16T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Disregard everyone/anyone who says that Dr. Dixon does not care about her students. \n\r\nPros:\r\n1) she's not here for research, she's here to teach, and she does a good damn job of it.\r\n2) Her curve is immaculate.\r\n3) She holds numerous review sessions; a weekly one, one before each exam, and multiple office hours.\r\n4) She is personable. She called those students who actually came to class and went to her for help by their name.\n\r\nCons:\r\nshe is a VERY popular lady and sometimes its hard to get one-on-one time, but only because she is willing to help everyone.\n\n\r\nIf you expected for some strange reason that Orgo II would not be hard or a lot of work, then you are in for a surprise, b/c it is, but this is true for every teacher. Dixon wants everyone to pass and makes it easy to do so if you care the slightest bit.\n\r\nI, personally, have a difficult time studying on my own time and learning from the book, but with Dixon, you learn anything you need from lecture and review sessions, and then just practice practice practice for the exams. \n\r\nIf you want to learn organic chemistry and retain some of the information for the MCAT, take Dixon.\r\nIf you are afraid of orgo, want easier test, etc, take Khachik. \r\nBut remember, the easier the test, the less the curve, and their will always be geniuses in the class, so go for the better teacher if that's how you learn best. \n\r\nGrading:\r\nclickers (minimal)\r\nextra credit (minimal)\r\n3 exams and a final\n\r\nfinal grade: 50% to pass, 80% is an automatic A but the curve usually is even more, like a 70-75% = A. \n\r\n**in my class, she promised anyone who got a A on the final an A in the class, period. \n\r\nbest of luck!\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-15T01:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Dr. Dixon is amazing! She is an awesome professor and will do her best to help you succeed!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-14T13:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Best teacher ever! She is amazingly enthusiastic and has a passion that is truly inspiring! More over she managed to make entirely obscure and difficult concepts understandable. Her tests can be rather difficult, but if you go to lecture and pay attention you should do fine. More over, she is very nice, so if you really don't understand something, she is more than willing to explain during office hours. She is the best!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-25T17:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dixon is a great professor. Her class is rarely ever boring and she has great presence. That being said, her tests are unnecessarily tricky and difficult. You learn alot in her class but knowing the material does not guarantee you a good grade. The top 20% of her class automatically gets an A so if you think you're up for it then I would recommend dixon", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-24T11:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dr. Dixon has a great presence and a passion for Orgo, but she's unnecessarily difficult when it comes to tests. It's hard to do well in this class unless you study all the time, go to her office hours, attend the review sessions, etc. There are always a lot of people at office hours, so you're lucky if you get your questions answered. Honestly, if you don't have a passion for Chemistry and you're not a Chem major, do not take Dixon because it won't be worth it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-07-23T01:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Dixon is by far the best teacher I have ever had. She makes concepts in Orgo much simpler, and easy to learn. \n\r\nAs stated before, as long as you put in the effort to do well, such as going to office hours and/or review sessions, you should be able to pull off at least a B in this class. \n\r\nI would HIGHLY recommend Dr. Dixon for anyone who wants to actually learn Orgo while getting a decent grade in it.\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-07-09T21:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "What I am about to say is very repetitive of other ppl's comments about her. She is a FANTASTIC teacher, you will learn so much and understand it all if u take her. \r\nthat was the good news. The bad news... her exams are impossible... the averages are lower than everyone's spirit after they take an exam. if you decide to take her as a professor, just take a look at everyone's faces during exams and see for yourself... anyways. she is a fantastic teacher... difficult grader/exam writer HIGHLY recommended for pre-meds who have to suffer through the MCAT... at least you'll get the orgo questions right. just prepare to take a hit on your grades and transcript.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-07-07T18:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Awesome professor. She actually teaches you and makes you learn the material. Downside is that her exams are veryy hard. You definitely will need to start studying a few days in advance - all nighters normally dont work so well. However, the curve is very large and there are lots of extra credit opportunities along with clicker questions. I would definitely recommend her for orgo1 - best prof out there.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-06-17T14:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is a great teacher if you PUT THE EFFORT INTO HER CLASS. I read my lecture notes before class and made sure I understood them before I aksed her questions, and I got well above the average for each exam. People give her a hard time for being such a difficult professor, but honestly in comparison to other chemistry professors, I actually learned a LOT in her class. You honestly have to put in a lot of effort to do well, but you should expect to do that since it is Organic Chemistry. The people who don't do well are the ones that wait until 2 days before the exam to study and ask her a plethora of questions. She also makes 50% the cutoff for a C, and 1 standard deviation above the avg the cutoff for B, 2 std dev for an A. Entirely doable course, but again, effort and time are the keys to success.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-11T11:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Dixon is, by far, the best organic chemistry professor. I can attest to this because I went to Khachik, Ammon, and Friedman\'s lectures, and none of them compared to Dixon. The other professors lack the passion and upbeat personality that Dixon embodies, and Dixon is overall, a lot more clear. She does cover more material than the other professors, but it will help you out in lab and for the MCATs. She holds office hours everyday, as well as a review session once a week. Definitely attend the review sessions because they are very helpful. Also, do not fall behind. Organic chemistry is a difficult subject, and since Dixon moves pretty quickly, it will be very easy to fall behind. Rewrite your notes, do practice problems (especially the weekly "quizzes" on blackboard), and go to her office hours! I don\'t think her curve is very generous because I had a 68% in the class and ended up with a C. However, I do know that Friedman gives monster curves- my friend who had a 65% got an A in his class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-05T02:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Throughout my college experience, Dr. Dixon has been my least favorite professor. She makes it very difficult to get a good grade in her class unless you regularly attend her office hours. Also, if you ever confront her about a test question, she will respond very rudely and make personal attacks on you in a very unprofessional manner.\n\r\nI would definately NOT reccomend her to anybody for any class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-26T13:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dixon is probably the hardest teacher in this course, simply because she certainly covers the most material. The class moves very quickly, but I certainly have a very good grasp of organic chemistry. Her goal is to pass you if she believes you can handle orgo 2.\n\r\nTests are all relatively hard, but they're doable if you put in the time to study and understand the concepts. She's a very energetic teacher and explains the concepts well. You'll just have to go back and study on your own, to make sure you understand it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-23T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'This professor makes hard exams and is very difficult. Unless you have the time to attend all of the extra review sessions and spend huge amounts of time a week you will end up will not do well. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-21T22:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dixon is one of those professors that you will learn a lot from, but your grade will not necessarily reflect how much you learn. Exams were pretty difficult and clicker questions were a significant enough portion of you grade that your grade would suffer if you did not do well on the clickers. The only good thing is that the curve for her class was better than most others with an A-75% and B-50%. If you're looking to learn a lot about organic chemistry take Dixon. If you're just looking to get through organic chemistry with your grade intact, take another professor.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-04-20T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "You will learn a lot about General Chemistry with Dixon, but you probably won't get the grade you want. In the beginning of the semester she boasts a huge curve but by the end that curve is much smaller than she originally said so be careful.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-04-14T03:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Hands down--THE best Chem professor on campus. She always starts off class with an oldies song from her Itunes! But in all seriousness, you have to go to lecture and ask questions. She will tell you what's on the exam and will do one of those last-minute day before reviews IN CLASS where she will tell you what to expect. Also, although her exams are not as straightforward as other professors, you are here to learn and think....so go ahead and take her, get your money's worth, you will have a good time working with her. She's funny and energetic and can definitely keep you awake. The curve is very very very generous. I believe a 72% or higher is an A!! Good luck!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-16T14:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'She was an awesome professor. Explained concepts well and very open to students. However, her exams were quite difficult, but still manageable if you put enough time to study for it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-05T11:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Hard course made easy.\n\r\nVery energetic teacher.\n\r\nFair exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-01T17:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'She does an adequate job of presenting the material but sometimes seems to focus more energy on less important and easier topics while not going into much depth on more challenging ones. Also, the way her review sessions are set up so that they are on the same time tue. and thurs. means that I am unable to attend any of them because I have the same class on both days at that time.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-04-22T20:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dixon's great. She gives a great lecture, and is always receptive to questions and helpful during her ample office hours.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-03T03:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Entertaining, but all over the place in terms of her teaching. Even her boardwork is scattered all over the room. \r\nIt really doesn't seem like she cares whether students do well in her class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-12T03:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'OMGzz she is so hawt and so awasome!!! seiously. I luv her a lot and she is like the best thing to ever happen to me! she openeed my eyes to orgasmic chemistry, and i have never looked back! thank you bonnie!\n\r\nbut seriously, shes a pretty good teacher who explains things well. Her tests are kind of hard, but the class is fairly manageable with the right studying.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-30T00:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I am in love with Bonnie L. Dixon. She is the best teacher ever, if you don't take her you will regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-10-28T19:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great teacher, makes herself very available for help. Really cares about her students. Makes CHEM as interesting as it can be.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-24T15:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is a good lecturer and has a lot of experience explaining orgo concepts to inexperienced students. Her tests are relatively fair; the averages are low because it's just a lot of material to understand. There are extra points built into her tests and extra credit available so good grades are not out of reach when the curve is applied at the end of the semester.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-04-25T16:26:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Honestly, Dr. Dixon was the best teacher I've had so far at UMD. She's really nice once you get to know her and can be of a lot of help to you if you (1) go to her office hours and (2) ask specific questions pertaining to what you're confused with. \r\n\r\nThat being said, this class isn't a walk in the park. You HAVE to put in the work if you want to pass this class. Do her practice problems because those will help for exams. Also, always go to lecture! If you absolutely can't make it, ask a friend for their notes because a good amount of content is covered in class and you can't afford to miss it. \r\n\r\nFinally, when it comes to grading, she's really strict but she does give partial credit to decent amount of answers on the homeworks and the exams. She also curves the class but she doesn't tell you by how much. I ended the semester with a 67 but that was a B-. Overall, it was an awesome class to be in.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-18T20:31:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'I’m not really sure why Dixon has such high reviews when she’s well known as one of the HARDEST professors that teach orgo. her lectures were so confusing to follow, and quite frankly she was really rude to students in class. would definitely not recommend to anyone regardless of how good you are at chemistry ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-18T00:10:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'I will be 100% honest, I had dixon for orgo 1 and LOVED her. I understood the concepts really well because she knew what she was doing. She has a good system for chem 231 and I will not take that away from her, HOWEVER she has been awful for Chem 2. Her first exam was way to difficult for no reason. Her lectures in person have been very confusing and she makes it hard for us to connect different equations to the problems we need to know. I will say that since quarantine she has had better lectures prepared, but that still doesn\'t mean she is an overall good chem 2 professor. I have personally sent her multiple emails throughout the semester asking for help and she has not responded. She finally got back to me after bombarding her with multiple emails regarding something very important and she got mad at me because she felt I did not even need to send her an email in the first place. She is super unreliable online and her "office hours" that she says you have to go to are not effective in an online setting. She has made this class terrible for me. I have liked chemistry until I took her Chem 271 class. Don\'t talk her for chem 2, ONLY CHEM 231!!! She has a good system for that class but for chem 2 she does not.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-04-29T18:27:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I had her for orgo 1 and absolutely loved her, so when I saw she was going to teach CHEM271 I was very quick to add her as my professor. When I started chem 2 i realized that this was not Dixons strength. Her lectures were confusing and unorganized. I would go to her office hours and study for hours and still that wasnt enough to be prepared for the first exam. The first exam was so difficult that we had to receive extra time on it. Multiple TA's also complained about how absurdly hard the exam was. I gave her a 3/5 because she was a 5 for orgo and a 1-2 for Chem271. I ould say take her for orgo. She has been teaching it for years and really has nailed how to properly conduct the class, but if she is ever a professor for Chem271 again stay far away.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-07-23T18:27:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "She is the worst possible person to take for this class. At least with orgo the textbook went along with the material so you dont really need a teacher to even learn orgo but with bchm her curriculum does not go with the book at all.\r\n\r\nshe just rapid fires super important information at you and skips around acting like you've already learned it. The only way to do this class is to either have laser focus on her lectures and scribble notes real fast (which most people are not capable of at her speed of teaching) or record lectures (what i did). even when i did record lectures, i spent 2-3x the time of the lecture just to decipher her shitty lecture.\r\n\r\nThe homeworks are difficult but if you work with friends you should be able to get 90+% on all of them. Exams are really hard - by far the the hardest lecture exams ive ever taken. Her exams literally require you to have a high iq or graduate level understanding of the material. \r\n\r\nIn my honest opinion the material wasn't actually that terrible or even that much. Orgo1 was a similar amount of material. it was just spending so much time trying to decipher what she said. Her powerpoints are utter shit. they explain jack shit and if you don't have lecture recordings you definitely wont be able to remember what many of them mean. Without perfect notes, lecture recordings, reliable textbook, reliable powerpoints how can you be sure you're learning the info? OFFICE HOURS\r\n\r\nShe is generally nicer and more helpful in office hours but you gotta go there early in the morning. it gets crowded fast and then she gives half ass answers to your questions. If you're gonna take this class with her record lectures and find a study group because its impossible to get all of the information alone", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-08-27T05:54:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "Honestly she was a terrible teacher. She spoke way too fast and skipped around in lecture. On top of that the bchm book was useless and her powerpoints were terrible. \r\n\r\nPremed Junkies will say she's so amazing and awesome and say how much they learned in this class. In reality, there is a similar amount of material in this class as there is in orgo. The way she teaches just makes you do extra work to understand genuinely simple concepts. Im serious, Biochem is not that difficult. She made it difficult. If the only way to understand the material in this class is to take incredible notes from her ridiculously fast lectures then you're setting up yourself up for failure. The only other resources you have is her office hours which are always packed.\r\n\r\nShe pits her students against each other, there is a quota for A's and B's which just creates a toxic environment for no reason. \r\n\r\nGuys biochem did not have to be hard. Looking back the material wasn't bad at all. It was deciphering her terrible lectures, going to office hours and countless group study sessions just to understand SIMPLE THINGS that allowed me to do okay in this class.\r\n\r\nThis is a different ballgame than orgo. Just read the book in orgo and you're set. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-10-13T06:39:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I was scared at first because I heard she was a hard professor but now she's literally one of my favorite professors at UMD. Her lectures go fast but she's good about answering questions and her office hours are genuinely so helpful. She's lowkey very funny so don't be afraid to get to know her. Her tests are hard but fair. She will give you challenging questions but all the material on it is what you learned in class so there's no surprises and she's good about partial credit. Honestly she's really great ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-18T15:13:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'She assigns very very hard exams and homework. She talks super fast during class and its hard to understand. You really have to keep up and give your all to succeed. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2020-11-18T16:56:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dr. DIxon is amazing at teaching CHEM231. Especially if you are taking this course in Spring 2021, highly recommend taking her. She teaches very well in the online environment and provides many options for students to be in contact with her as well as the TAs. Office hours are offered every single day, both private and open office hours. She does SO much more than she needs to for her students, and really just wants to see us succeed. Also, she was the only orgo 1 professor for Fall 2020 so she's the only teacher with an fully online curriculum that she knows works :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-12T22:52:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'I loved taking CHEM231 with Dixon. She explains complex concepts very well and answers questions clearly. While her exams and homework assignments are quite difficult, the information is all in the lectures and she is always available to answer questions (office hours everyday and she responds to emails). Overall, Dr. Dixon goes above and beyond for her students and is an amazing teacher for Organic Chem.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-25T18:02:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Dr. Dixon is a very good online chem teacher. She is available for office hours every day if you need help and builds in a curve to all the exams. There are weekly homework which are pretty hard and time-consuming, but it makes the exam questions very easy. She records all her lectures and hours of supplemental videos which are very helpful. There are so many practice worksheets she provides that you could not do them all, and between her and the TAs there are probably 20 office hours a week! There is also a sizable curve at the end.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-27T22:56:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': 'This course was hard but not because the material is super hard to grasp. It’s because the lectures go by incredibly fast and the way things are explain is very roundabout. It doesn’t help that her TA tried to match her style of teaching and gave very non descript explanations that often didn’t answer the question. SIE averages tend to be high because students work super hard. This class requires you to work extra extra hard because she has a lot of gaps in her explanations and you end up spending hours just figuring out what she’s talking about when the whole time, it could have just been explained better. This class was hard not because of good teaching. It was hard because we were all trying to fill in the gaps. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-02-11T17:22:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Absolutely the best orgo I professor. Dr Dixon goes above and beyond to help her students understand orgo, including one on one office hours and problem of the day zoom sessions that cover harder topics on the exams. I definitely recommend Dr Dixon to anyone taking orgo. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-16T04:22:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Dixon: Ahhh... where do I start. I feel very mixed about Dr. Dixon. She definitely feels like a fun person. At times, I felt like she was out to get us, but other times she was patient and listened to our concerns. She has a messy gradebook (a pet peeve of mine), but come a month from the end of term, she helps explain standings so you can get a grip of where you're out. She covers material pretty quickly and REALLY EMPHASIZES orgo, which is a pain for engineers lol. Some good points are that she makes asynchronous videos and gives out extra credit (DO THEM!!!). She does go over material in depth so you have an understanding, I just think she doesn't go too in detail on how to actually apply that knowledge in questions, but after doing non-graded problem sets and homework, it works out.\r\n\r\nCHEM135: The class goes fast. High school knowledge won't carry you too far. With Bonnie, you're going to have to put in the effort, but its worth it. Compared to Stocker, I feel she cares more and teaches WAY better. I always ran into a timing issue on my tests, walked away feeling like I failed, but always got above average! Dedicate TIME and energy to this class, and do all non-graded problem sets too! I went in just needing a C- or better and now I'm currently at an A before the final! Just know what the class is about, go in with a good productive attitude, and you'll be set!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-04-29T03:56:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Full transparency, this class was very difficult. Like you might think you're smart and you can coast but you really can't. To do well in this class you have to put in the work for it. Do the homework and study hard for the tests. Do all the extra credit even if you're dying.\r\nSometimes Dixon seems like she's being overly tough and vague or confusing, and at the beginning of the semester I hated that but then I realized that it helped me understand all the stuff on a more fundamental level such that I can apply it better. I think it definitely has me way better prepped for orgo 2 than most of the other teachers.\r\nThe other thing for this class is that you sometimes just have to be able to move forward. The first test I got a 50% straight up, and I felt so bad about it and people were talking about dropping the class which just got me feeling so down and pressured, but you actually just have to push through, and reset. You have to go to office hours and put in a lot of work into the homeworks until you get how to do it like instinct. It's tough but really doable. There was nothing that felt better than getting the good grade in orgo after putting in the hard work. So yeah, I would definitely recommend Dixon even though a lot of people don't like her and think it's too tough. She really preps you for orgo 2 and even though the tests are very difficult the whole course is curved, so as long as you do well enough you can get a good grade in the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-01T16:45:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Took her class last year online. She's an excellent lecturer and cares about her students. When I took the class she was available for office hours just about every day of the week, and had extra long ones before homework quizzes and exams. Homework assignments do take long, but they are great for reviewing the content. I've heard from other professors that she teaches some unnecessary topics, like going too far into complex splitting and teaching bulky bases, but I feel that her depth in the content will help anyone who takes CHEM241 and BCHM.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-30T11:44:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I had Dixon for both CHEM131, CHEM241 and CHEM242...let's just say I should have learned my lesson the first semester and never taken her again. Both semesters I had her were completely virtual which I know caused a lot more issues but most issues I had with Dixon were about her personally. I was diagnosed with COVID during my first semester with her and although I was very sick and reached out to her four times requesting a private meeting with her, she never responded or gave me any accommodations even though my absence was University approved. Dixon is notorious for never responding to students which I find unacceptable. In my experience, Dixon did not care about her students at all. As a teacher, Dixon goes extremely fast and never records her lectures so you can't go back to see what you missed. She has makes A LOT of mistakes. All of her homeworks and exams had mistakes on them. On one of my exams, this past semester over 50% of the questions on the exam had big mistakes and she refused to give us extra time to decipher her hieroglyphs of an exam. Dixon also posted almost all homework assignments late but never gave us extra time to complete them. Even Dixon's TAs this past semester admitted how unfair and confusing Dixon and her homeworks and exams were. The TAs even admitted that some of the questions Dixon was giving us were material too advanced to be covered in orgo 1 and 2.\r\n\r\nI am a junior here at Maryland and I can confidently say that I have never had such a terrible experience with a professor. Throughout my two semesters with her I watched her get reported multiple times my students for her unfair teaching styles. Avoid taking her if you can.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-02T00:34:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'DISCLAIMER: I am reflecting on Dr.\r\nDixon’s class as a junior who had her class 2 years ago.\r\n\r\nDixon’s class is quite difficult, but unless you are planning on just taking one semester of organic chemistry, she prepares you for future chemistry classes that involve a deep understanding of organic mechanisms. In other words, the knowledge which she drills into you will only serve to help you in the future.\r\n\r\nHer grading is fair, and this is coming from someone who essentially failed the first pre-test from her course. She is receptive to student needs and has really helpful office hours. \r\n\r\nReflecting back on this class as a third year biochemistry student, all the hard work and effort which I put in to raise my grade from a low D to a low A by the end of the semester really gave me an appreciation for her class and organic chemistry in general. \r\n\r\nIn the end I would say that I definitely do not regret taking her class, and would recommend her class to those taking more than one year of organic chemistry.\r\n\r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-09-17T18:57:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dr. DIxon is not only the best orgo professor, she is probably one of my favorite professors overall.\r\nThere is no one who wants to help you succeed more. Yes, the material is hard but she offers so much help by posting extra videos, practice problems with answers, and has a million office hours in which she will answer any question you have a million times until you understand it.\r\nYou have to put in a lot effort if you want a good grade, but she curves tremendously. If you want to actually understand orgo, take Dixon. \r\nNot everyone likes her or her style and that's fine, but I highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-14T15:09:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "Only for CHEM134:\r\nShe is kind of a hard-ass. Might be the new-englander poking through but her teaching style is no-nonsense. She knows her stuff and will dump the information down your throat. Very nice lady and will talk about her own life to an extent, but will not accept paper-thin excuses. \r\nShe gave us very little review material for the midterm, and the homeworks are often only doable if you go to office hours and basically ask how to do the problems. \r\nCHEM134 is hard, and do not expect to be able to waltz through it with your shaky memories form AP chem. Since it's a one-credit course there is very little time to go over all the information necessary so there is minimal time for questions and clarification. I don't even know who the TA was because they were not involved at all. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-18T13:40:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'She is definitely a hard ass. She’s not very kind or understanding with helping students succeed. She’s more of “you either understand it or you don’t.” She never responds to emails. However, she does hold a lot of office hours and reviews to help students. But I think she’s just too smart for her own good. She goes wayyyy too far it’s too hard to comprehend anything. Very intimidating. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-12-08T23:00:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': None, 'review': "Bonnie. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. She has a Ph.D. in nmr and that is all you will be doing the whole semester. All the other professors were understanding that this was a hard concept and gave basic questions for homework and tests. Bonnie, however, decided that we could learn, what she spent years learning, in only a month before having to apply it to all the tests and quizzes. You must put a lot of effort in to get a good grade. I took this online in spring 2022 and the curve was really good (up 2 letter grades) but honestly, the whole class would have failed if she didn't have a curve because the average for every single exam was less than 50%. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-12-09T21:20:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'Dixon is a bad professor for CHEM 134. She made it abundantly clear from the first class that she would be apathetic, bordering on cruel, for the entire semester. She delivers all her lectures in a way that makes it difficult to comprehend and follow along. Everything is prefaced with "don\'t come complaining to me". It did not seem to me that she tried at all to help students succeed. Very difficult, intimidating, and apathetic.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T17:32:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': 'Dr. Dixon is one of my favorite professors at the University of Maryland and I am so lucky to have taken CHEM231 and BCHM463 with her! A lot of people say she is really difficult but that statement is very misleading. The CONTENT is difficult, which is expected as college level chemistry courses cover complex topics. However, she provides you will ALL the resources necessary to succeed. If you stay on top of understanding content after each lecture, do all the practice problems and old exams she posts, and attend office hours a few times a week, you will thrive in the course!!! Also, her office hours are amazing! I have made so many close friends through spending time there working on problem sets and have also had lots of wonderful conversations with her :) She’s always got your back and taking any of courses will be the highlight of your academic career at UMD! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T19:55:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Truthfully, organic chemistry is going to be a difficult class no matter which professor you take. Dr. Dixon has easy to follow lectures with written notes, and she will always have practice questions for you to do, both graded and non-graded. She will also post videos from previous semesters when learning was still virtual, which can be really, really helpful. She tends to make the homework and tests out of the hardest types of problems within a topic, so you will most likely have to go to office hours. She can be intimidating and harsh during office hours, so if you're someone who thinks you'll be too afraid to go to her office hours, I would pick a different professor. While I didn't think the first three exams were hard, I always thought the homeworks and the final exam were extremely hard. Do the homework -- you'll be fine. I'm glad I took her class, and while she does make this class more difficult than it likely has to be, she will give you a lot of study material and office hours so that you can succeed. \r\n\r\nYou don't need the textbook -- please save yourself 200 dollars and don't buy it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T00:43:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'She talks very fast, but she talks slower and is very helpful at CAN and her office hours. HW is hard, but you have a whole week and can work with classmates. Tests are difficult but fair and she tells you exactly what will be on there/point breakdown. Her curve is very generous, I had ~66% and ended with a B, and I had friends with ~50% and ended with a C. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-22T21:16:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "If you're reading this and you will be stopping chemistry courses after organic chemistry 1, I suggest you take a look at Dr. Stocker's reviews- I find her more easygoing on students who are maybe not as interested. If you will continue to organic chemistry 2, biochemistry, and onward, or you like chemistry, I strongly, STRONGLY recommend you take Dr. Dixon.\r\n\r\nDr. Dixon's lectures are in-depth, quick, but to-the-point. She knows her stuff and will answer your questions completely. She will let you know if you're asking something that you'll learn in the future (like o-chem 2), so that you don't have to worry about it. On ELMS, Dr. Dixon posts class outlines before, and often the lecture notes after each lecture. She will seem intimidating when she lectures, however she is an extremely kind and understanding person. You can see this if you go to her office hours (on zoom or in her office) or if you ask her questions after lecture. I will agree with some reviews below that Dr. Dixon has some sort of obsession with NMR spectroscopy, but I found it more rewarding when I could use NMR spectroscopy analysis as a part of synthesizing a molecule.\r\n\r\nExams: They are difficult but extremely fair. Dr. Dixon provides the point breakdown by topic for each exam, including the final, and makes everything CRYTSTAL CLEAR. If you don't understand anything, simply ask her and she will make it even more crystal clear. Exams are often based on the weekly homework assignments, and Dr. Dixon generously drops several of the difficult topics from the final exam. The averages are usually 60-65%.\r\nIn addition to the generous curve she draws for each exam, for the second and third midterms, Dr. Dixon offered extra credit homework worth 12 points each (12% of each exam), which were directly added to your exam grade. And as if this wasn't enough, each exam had around 10 extra points built in, above the maximum possible score (100 for midterm, 150 for final).\r\n\r\nGood luck :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-24T17:01:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "This teacher is a little crazy, but she is fantastic. She brings a bit of a hectic style to her teaching but absolutely makes sure she says everything you're expected to know and delivers it in a structured, easy to understand way. There were a few moments where she wouldn't teach a specific thing for a homework assignment, but she would always mention it a day or the day it was due. I also noticed she wouldn't always write down everything on her notes, and sometimes she would just verbally say some super important things. But she definitely repeats these over and over, it's just important to pay attention to all that she says and not just what she writes down on her board. This can make looking back at her notes difficult, but I'm sure going to office hours or anything shed be happy to help. I never had to go to any extra review sessions, office hours, read any books, or anything outside of the weekly discussion and lectures to earn an A in her class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-28T07:56:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "She should not teach 134. Part of the problem was the garbage curriculum but the professor would have made this a tolerable class. Instead, she gave almost zero effort, instead seemingly only caring about her orgo students. Yes it is a one credit class, but the content and time for this one do not reflect that. Just hope you got a 5 on your AP/IB I guess. \r\n\r\nDixon provided little to no study material for the vast content of the class. For both exams, we basically just had our homeworks to look over, and an ancient and outdated exam sans answers anyway. The HW in themselves were a nightmare. For whatever reason she decided to only allow a window of 4 hours a week to submit. to her credit, the office hours were spread out through very helpful times, and were efficient for getting your question answered. \r\n\r\nI wholeheartedly agree with the other reviewers here so far: her lectures were dense and gave no time for clarification or followup, and barely time to write things down. She would never repeat herself if you miss something. At least record it, lady! Dixon expects knowledge from your AP so be ready to review shit she wont even teach. I have no idea who the TA even was, save for the final where they proctored it. \r\nSpeaking of final... The first exam set an expectation of difficult material and a reasonable amount of time. The second one dashed all of that, instead opting for fair question content but nowhere near enough time to complete it. Most students scored below a fifty on that one, reflecting poor teaching or poor test writing or both. Luckily there is a class curve. Unluckily, it is not announced, and nothing is curved until after all grades are in and you've left campus. \r\n\r\nIn summary, Dixon is a hard-ass and made a simple bridge course a pain, but she really knows her stuff, and expects you to as well. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-03T04:03:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'Dr. Dixon is SUPER structured in that she will post skeleton notes the night before the lecture and the homeworks are based on the problems she gives in class. The tests are structured similarly to the homeworks. Do yourself a favor: GO TO OFFICE HOURS. I had her for CHEM134 and I made the mistake of thinking, "Oh a one-credit class, I probably won\'t have to put in effort outside of it". No. no. no. I took a phat L the first couple of homeworks because of it. If you want the A, you have to work. The work is what sets an A apart from a B. This is the schedule I followed to fix my grade and get to an A from a C:\r\n\r\nThe night before lecture: Copy down the skeleton notes\r\nDay of Lecture: Literally write everything she says down. ALL OF IT. Every last breath that comes out of her mouth.\r\nAfter Lecture: Review notes/organize them and compare to the ones she has posted ** Sometimes she includes things not in the posted notes in class, so go - it\'s not a waste of time if you want an A.\r\nStart on the homework day of and go to an office hour to ask her any questions. \r\n\r\nShe has SO MANY OFFICE HOURS. She\'s super supportive, so if you\'re diligent with your work, then you will be fine.\r\nAlso, she\'s a little intimidating, but she\'s literally the best. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-05T01:59:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "Bad professor, at least for CHEM134. She didn't provide any study material for the exams, then got unhappy with us for wanting some. In one review session on a Sunday night, she told us she was watching the football game at the same time as the zoom. She gives one example of a problem and that's it. For example, when we did the small orgo unit, she gave us a single example of an electrophilic addition then sent us to do the hw/exam. If she makes a single mistake (which has happened), there are no other examples to check and the class is oftentimes too introductory for students to find the answers online. She doesn't use a textbook either. She will refuse to answer questions from people claiming there's not enough time in the lecture period (true, the classes are too short for the material), but will go on tangents about her personal life. She once compared the students in our class to nagging toddlers that she would lock in a bathroom. She has refused to repeat herself in class and also refuses to record lectures, even for an 8 am class. \r\n\r\nI've heard mixed reviews about Dixon teaching other classes. She might do great at those. But I am sure she should not teach chem134. Easily the most painful class of the semester. I would have accepted a 70 over a B+ if it meant taking another teacher. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-31T19:30:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Best prof. ever ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-01T19:15:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Ochem is never going to be easy, but I feel like Dr. Dixon made it harder than it needed to be.\r\n\r\nHave you ever been working alongside someone who is really good at their job, and they say something like, "I ~would~ show you the basics first, but they never serve me, so I\'m just going to teach you the insanely complex tricks and tips that make this impossible to understand at a cursory glance, but don\'t worry, after decoding and encrypting my words and my ways, you can teach yourself the basics, then run through what I taught you again."\r\n\r\nFor example, for many years, I\'ve taken lots of joy in working as a barista. I would teach a new barista, "pull the shots, steam the milk, a little aeration for a latte and a lot of aeration for a cappuccino. As you get better, I\'ll make it more technical."\r\n If Dr. Dixon was a barista teaching a new barista, she would say, "First, you want to heat up the bulkheads on the machine and test them with your thermometer so that they are at least a temp of 130*F, then you tare out the scale, and you take stock of the humidity and make sure that the bean dispensing machine is calibrated to a degree of your liking, then you measure out 18 grams, can be a little over but never under, and then you tare your scale (MAKE SURE ITS THE AUTO-SCALE) and use pre-rinsed shot-glasses, make sure the shot pulls at 36-39.5 grams at a rate of 21-26 seconds. And for decaf its... and when you steam the milk, fill the pitcher to... that\'s 6 ounces for a small, 8 for a reg.... 16 for an extra large... and cappucinos... make sure the fully rotating head is positioned at an angle of 45 degrees and your pitcher... TADA! A SIMPLE latte. That was basically review, right?" \r\n\r\nWas that hard to read? Was that a bad experience? \r\n\r\nWant to sign up for 6 months of it? ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-04T00:07:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': 'Hands down one of the most condescending professors I have ever experienced in my college career. I see a lot of reoccurring themes which is that she lectures at a rapid fire pace and it’s up to you to decipher what is important and what is not. I’ve been to her office hours up follow up on a question and she flat out said “we can entertain this all day long and talk in circles, but go ahead”. If you don’t have the patients to help students when they have questions, why are you here? She’s just miserable. Biggest mistake was taking this class with her. She picks favorites as well. But for those taking her, just make sure to read the textbook so you know the true underlying concepts, maybe review orgo notes, and still show your face in office hours. She will be a bitch, but don’t let that stop you. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-03-07T13:47:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "I'm giving her a 1 star rating mainly due to her attitude and general unhelpfulness, but I think my bad experience in her class was also due to the greatly overloaded curriculum and the 8 am lecture. This class should NOT be considered a 1 credit class, and I would strongly advise anyone against taking it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-04-02T18:12:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Love her ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-15T00:06:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Gets a bad rep for no reason. Extremely accomodating and friendly woman. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-16T16:30:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': 'As a professor, I think she was good and provided enough materials to study but her attitude was awful. I wish I could give 0 zero stars. She\'s just so condescending and disrespectful, if you don\'t have an A in her class she just won\'t like you. She HAS her favorites! Half the time I talked to her she didn\'t even look me in the eye. Her office hours were never helpful because she always just said to look back at the slides, but her slides are so hard to follow and most of them are just diagrams. She doesn\'t record the classes so it\'s hard to understand her slides when reviewing. Don\'t take this class with her, the first day she explicitly said "most of you will get a C". terrible experience, 0/5', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T01:00:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Had her for 231, then for 241. Pretty much the same review I would for 231. Outstanding professor. If you are taking 241, you likely need it for your degree or future courses, so Dixon is the right choice.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-19T18:22:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I had Dr. Dixon for both orgo 1 and orgo 2. Overall, she will give you a lot of material to succeed in her class. There are a ton of practice problems, office hours, and supplementary videos. She also does extra credit quizzes (that are often unreasonably hard, but doable if you find a good group to work in). I always thought that the exams were easy, but the homeworks were insanely hard. A lot of her homework assignments are based on weird tricks and rules to whatever functional group you're working on, not necessarily how they actually work. It seems like there is never a middle ground between easy and hard problems. She has frequent office hours that are semi-helpful, mainly because you'll be able to find students who are also working on the homeworks. \r\n\r\nYou should definitely be aware that Dr. Dixon has a huge attitude problem. I think a lot of other reviews give a good idea about what kind of person she is, but to sum it up, she will be condescending and short-tempered. Go to your TA for help before you go to her. She also does not cover all of the material on a homework until the day it is due. It's really frustrating. \r\n\r\nPersonally, I think that all of the materials that she gives like extra credit quizzes and videos make up for her attitude, but if you are worried that you may need a lot of help in chemistry, you should try to find a different professor. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-24T14:02:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "She was a good professor but her homeworks were extremely hard for no reason. She also gave extra credits that were nearly impossible to do unless you got lucky with your guessing. I felt that they just took time away from studying right before exams. However, she does give you lots of good resources and practice sessions that were helpful. I'd strongly recommend finding a good study group to do well in the class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-27T21:44:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Some of you may not like Dr. Dixon. However, this will depend on your own attitude as a student. Organic Chemistry 1 and 2 will be a challenge no matter what teacher you have. In my opinion, I was able to excel in this class due to her teaching style and her character. Dr. Dixon cares about her students. She demands that you work hard through weekly homework assignments, but these homework assignments force you to study for her exams. She directly writes the exams based off of the hw. Additionally, Dr. Dixon hosts two chemistry at night zooms that go over lecture material from that week. Put your best effort into the homework, go to the C.A.N. zooms, and go to office hours when you’re struggling. If you’re willing to work hard, in my opinion, you will have the best chance of achieving a higher grade in her class than in other orgo teachers’ classes. There are no shortcuts through orgo. With Dr. Dixon, you earn the grade you work for. This is an advantage to taking her compared to some other orgo professors. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-07-08T20:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "This is one of the worst classes I have taken. She doesn't explain everything in class, so you're forced to go to every single office hour and her Biochem At Night sessions to learn material that should've been taught in class - which isn't feasible for many students who have jobs, extracurriculars, etc, and need sleep. She expects everything to be application based, but never explains any examples in class, she'll mention a concept and not explain it, then expect you to understand it in depth for the test. Her exams would take three hours to do effectively, but we only get 50 minutes in class which is not nearly enough time considering we haven't been taught half the material on the exams. She clearly has favorites in her office hours, and will often tell students to just refer back to lecture, GSS, or her BAN videos instead of actually answering their questions. She likes to think she is accessible because of how often her office hours are, but when you ask questions, she will often tell you to figure it out on your own or she will give completely contradictory answers to the same question to different students. It's just not clear at all what we are supposed to be learning.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-13T23:50:34.191486Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': 'Quite literally the worst experience in my academic career was having her as a professor. Her lectures are indeed fast paced but if you have follow up questions she refuses to answer as she calls it “re-lecturing”. Seen students leave her office in tears many times just from trying to learn and ask insightful questions. I’ve never met a more arrogant, patronizing professor. Truly lucky she’s tenured because she makes learning a difficult subject unbearable. The one star comes from the fact that cant vote any lower. Must attend Bchem at night and office hours ALWAYS if you want to pass.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-15T05:27:48.709895Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': 'An awful teacher and an insanely condescending person. I don’t get how she thinks it’s okay to teach the way she does and I don’t get all the desperate pre-meds who eat her horrendous teaching up.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-10T00:13:27.136485Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM462', 'review': 'I will say that Dr. Dixon knows her stuff as an academic. It is clear that she knows the material well enough to be teaching it, but the way she chooses to communicate that understanding is not fit for students, even in an upper-level class. Aside from that, she is very condescending, and when the class doesn\'t do well on one of her exams, she blames the students for not trying hard enough and saying that the effort was "disrespectful to her profession and the material". Don\'t take her class if you want to do well or understand the material.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-12-17T23:49:49.606498Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I can write a book about how much I love her. Don't get me wrong, her class is HARD. Definitely the hardest class I've ever took. But I know I'm more than set for the MCAT because of her. I never had to go to forgo 2 lecture because of how much she prepared me in orgo 1. She is willing to help you all day every day. The amount of effort she puts into teaching us is honestly incredible. With that being said, if you don't need a great orgo background and you're not willing to put in a lot of effort into the class, take anyone but Dr. Dixon.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T00:36:58.544572Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "For everyone who is saying she is impossible; she is not, but its all relative to the work you are willing to put in! I failed our first exam legit a 50% and was below the average. I went to office hours to talk to her about it and she was very kind but did not offer much help because there is not much more she can do for you. Basically what I am saying is if you want a certain grade in her class it is all about the work YOU put in and how diligent YOU are. After the first exam I started studying for the exams 2 weeks out. DO EVERY PRACTICE PROBLEM. If you want to succeed on her exams redo every hw (version A and version B), the extra hws she posts and review ALL the slides. I would recopy my notes after every class and write questions for her for office hours. Plenty of people on here say she isn't friendly during office hours, but that is not the case. What she is looking for is someone who has tried on their own and then found questions. If you go to her and say I dont get this, she probably won't help much because she really does not have the time to reteach you the whole thing. But if you go to her and say I went through the notes and this is where I am getting stuck, she is much more receptive! I ended up getting As on the 2nd and 3rd midterms and an A in the class even with my below average exam 1 score. With her you need to show her that you care and are taking the time to learn because in her class there are no short cuts! If you do these things I guarantee you will enjoy her much more and although the class is tedious and hard, it will be possible to succeed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-16T16:20:40.005251Z'}, {'professor': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "Dr. Dixon is the best. BCHM463 is an insanely hard class, like it's a combo of BCHM 1 and 2 in the same class, so there is a ton of material and you move very fast. But I think that Dr. Dixon really explains everything really well. She is in her office all the time, and is always helpful so long as you are not asking her to potty train you (it's been done). I think people end up not liking Dr. Dixon or the class because they're used to previous bio and chem classes where you can just wait till the night before and study and do great on a test. With this material, you can't just do that. You actually have to sit with the material, and internalize it outside of class. It becomes incredibly neat when the information clicks and suddenly all that information from Orgo and Gen Chem and Cell Bio now actually makes sense and work together.\r\nI also know this will sound super nerdy, but if you're taking this class then it's probably because you will need it at some point in the future, so knowing the material beyond just the one semester is super important. I had Dixon for Orgo 1 as well, and I can say with certainty that her class and teaching style have helped me retain the knowledge past the end of the semester. Dixon's Orgo 1 allowed me to take Orgo 2 like it was nothing, and BCHM463 has me remembering all of that stuff inside and out.\r\nIf you're in doubt, take Dixon for this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-26T21:34:47.502596Z'}], 'name': 'Bonnie Dixon', 'slug': 'dixon_bonnie'}, {'courses': ['EPIB301', 'HLTH301H'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bonnie Richter', 'course': 'EPIB301', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR! Only thing you are graded on is quizzes and exams which are poorly timed. The course load is too high. You will be teaching yourself for the most part.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-30T07:25:36Z'}], 'name': 'Bonnie Richter', 'slug': 'richter_bonnie'}, {'courses': ['JOUR479O', 'JOUR150', 'JOUR200', 'CPMS100', 'CPMS225'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Boya Xu', 'slug': 'xu_boya'}, {'courses': ['MATH140', 'MATH141', 'MATH141H', 'MATH220', 'STAT464', 'MATH212', 'MATH120', 'STAT400', 'STAT430', 'MATH241H', 'MATH424'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bradford Sanders', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Best math professor by far. If you have the opportunity to take Brad for 141, take it!! This class requires a lot of time and effort but Brad is very detailed in his explanations, his prefectures helped prepare me for class, and I just overall liked coming to his classes because they really helped me understand the material and concepts a lot better than I ever have and will. \r\n\r\nA big note to take under consideration: he has the hardest exams out of any of the math professors in 141, but don't let this intimidate you. They help prepare you so much, especially for the final, which isn't even written by him. I'm not big on test taking at all but Brad really tries to help prepare everyone for the exams and he's helpful at office hours and just in general. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-17T02:22:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Bradford Sanders', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "While he talks fast, I think he does a great job at explaining the material. His lecture videos also help a bunch when it comes to understanding the material. \r\nHis quizzes and tests are hard for sure, but all quiz questions come straight out of the textbook where you can try them out beforehand. Either way, be prepared to put in work if you take him. (I'd recommend at least 90 mins a day for practice and hw) ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-20T01:42:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Bradford Sanders', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Brad is a great professor who talks fast but is more than open to questions during the lecture. I really like the way he taught. I did wish he had more office hours but he\'s truly overworked with no time in between classes :( I mean what\'s up with that UMD?? \r\n\r\nTips:\r\nGO TO LECTURE\r\n-He gives "pop" quizzes (with warnings)\r\n-Seriously you\'re here to learn calc 2 GO TO CLASS\r\nSTUDY FOR QUIZZES\r\n-12.5% of your final grade DO IT! \r\n-Good practice for exams\r\nEXAMS\r\nDo every single practice exam (he gives 3-4 examples from previous semesters) and you\'ll understand that he has hard exams but if you pay attention and make sure to study ahead you\'ll be ok\r\nWEBASSIGN \r\nJust do the damn webassign everyday and you\'ll basically get practice + 6.25% DO NOT JUST SYMBOLAB OR WOLFRAM all of them. Do the ones that you are struggling with.\r\n\r\nOverall I am happy having taken him. Unfortunately I needed a B- (woo internal transfer:( engineering) but I\'ll probably end up with a C. \r\n\r\nP.S Finals hard so don\'t count on it.\r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-14T01:47:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Bradford Sanders', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Great professor who really knows what he's talking about. Study for the exams with the practice ones he gives you and GET 5'S ON THE QUIZZES(he gives you the problems they will be on form the textbook). Needed a B- and got a C but regardless he's truly an amazing teacher with a quirky sarcastic side.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-12-17T19:55:44Z'}], 'name': 'Bradford Sanders', 'slug': 'sanders_bradford'}, {'courses': ['MUSC140'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Bradley Green', 'slug': 'green_bradley'}, {'courses': ['SURV701', 'SURV742', 'SURV720', 'SURV746', 'SURV625', 'SURV617', 'SURV829', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SURV829', 'SURV721', 'SURV721'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brady West', 'slug': 'west'}, {'courses': ['EDHD320'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brandee Feola', 'slug': 'feola'}, {'courses': ['MLAW388', 'MLAW377', 'MLAW358R', 'MLAW150', 'MLAW358L', 'HONR378R', 'MLAW358B', 'MLAW358G', 'MLAW404', 'MLAW358J', 'MLAW358K', 'MLAW358Q', 'HLTH710', 'ENGL392', 'MLAW373', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL101', 'MLAW388', 'ENGL394', 'MLAW355', 'ENGL101', 'MLAW359', 'MLAW388', 'MLAW404', 'MLAW388', 'MLAW388', 'BSOS448M', 'MLAW325', 'MLAW388', 'MLAW388', 'MLAW378P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brandee Pettus', 'slug': 'pettus'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brandon Clark', 'slug': 'clark_brandon'}, {'courses': ['EDCP418B', 'EDCP418D', 'HESI418D', 'HESI418B', 'HESI418D', 'HESI421', 'HESI423'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Brandon Dula', 'course': None, 'review': 'This mans is the chillest professor out there', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-14T19:49:37Z'}], 'name': 'Brandon Dula', 'slug': 'dula'}, {'courses': ['ARTT489I', 'ARTT370', 'ARTT479A', 'ARTT479', 'HDCC208O', 'HDCC106', 'ARTT479D', 'ARTT479H', 'ARTT489Q', 'ARTT489M', 'ARTT370', 'ARTT370'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Brandon Morse', 'course': 'ARTT370', 'review': "He's basically the definition of awesome.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-03-30T19:26:50Z'}], 'name': 'Brandon Morse', 'slug': 'morse_brandon'}, {'courses': ['FMSC477'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Breanna Davis', 'slug': 'davis_breanna'}, {'courses': ['EDHD419B', 'EDHD872', 'EDHD427', 'EDHD412', 'EDHD415', 'EDHD220', 'EDHD419A', 'EDHD434'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brenda Jones Harden', 'slug': 'harden'}, {'courses': ['ECON641', 'ECON683'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brendan Epstein', 'slug': 'epstein_brendan'}, {'courses': ['MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brendan Schnabel', 'slug': 'schnabel'}, {'courses': ['ENAE601', 'ENAE788N', 'ENAE741', 'ENAE603', 'ENAE404', 'ENAE603', 'ENAE741', 'ENAE484', 'ENAE603'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Brent Barbee', 'course': 'ENAE404', 'review': 'Brent is a solid lecturer, but does tend to get into the weeds of some derivations at times. He is always enthusiastic about the lectures and you can tell he really enjoys what he is talking about. His exams tend to have one or two curveballs, but are quite fair in relation to the content. Homework can range from quick items to full days of work, but Brent is always welcome to answering emails in a timely manner. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-02T13:33:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Brent Barbee', 'course': 'ENAE404', 'review': "Barbee is one of the best instructors I've had at this university. He relates complicated concepts to simple analogies with comprehensive explanations and it is obvious how much he loves to teach. He's always willing to spend extra time to answer questions. I greatly appreciated when he would begin a lecture with some space news then relate the lecture back to real world missions (Such as JWST or DART). His exams are fair, homeworks are fair with sometimes challenging MATLAB required. Overall this was easily my favorite class in the aerospace curriculum.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-05T01:25:43.321680Z'}, {'professor': 'Brent Barbee', 'course': 'ENAE404', 'review': "Professor Barbee is an astounding lecturer! He is clearly passionate about the course material, and his knowledge runs deep. He made every class interesting - even when the material itself was dull. Not many professors are so enthusiastic about talking to students about course concepts, and Professor Barbee is one of them. I've never had a professor that I've enjoyed so much and I would kill to take his class again. ENAE 404 is definitely my most favorite course I have taken here at UMD, and it is all thanks to Professor Barbee.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-10T20:44:37.973528Z'}], 'name': 'Brent Barbee', 'slug': 'barbee'}, {'courses': ['GVPT379C', 'GVPT319L', 'GVPT339B', 'GVPT433'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brent Newton', 'slug': 'newton'}, {'courses': ['ARCH470'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brent White', 'slug': 'white_brent'}, {'courses': ['HLTH130'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brett Hagman', 'slug': 'hagman'}, {'courses': ['BSCI207', 'CLFS510', 'BSCI392', 'BSCI393', 'ENTM701', 'CLFS609F', 'CPSP219L', 'CLFS725', 'HLSC207', 'CLFS609F', 'CLFS725', 'CLFS725'], 'average_rating': 3.6818, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "While I would say that it's important for you to know how to apply and connect information without memorization, this class is a HEAVY memorization class, and if they tell you otherwise, do not believe them. True/False questions on each exam nearly killed my grade, because they were straightforward answers and I was thinking abstractly. STICK TO THE FACTS.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-07-11T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "So, while the content and lectures are COMPLETELY relevant to the field... The exams were slightly unfair to those of us ahead of the game in connecting things abstractly. They comprised mostly of multiple T/F questions, which is like a memorization course. Thus, when he says that this is not a memorization course, do not believe him. He's a wonderful professor who knows how to relay the material well, but the exams were horrendously memorization-based.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-27T11:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Kent makes it interesting and is extremely knowldgable of the subject. \r\nBut its a very hard class', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-20T19:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Great lecturer - really keeps you interested in the material which could otherwise be very, very boring. Very engaging, and always willing to help if you stop by his office. \r\nTests are hard, so study well. And definitely go to class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-29T20:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I took Dr. Kent's BSCI207 course with Dr. Haag this Spring 2012. It was an extremely interesting course, with a large focus on macrobiological concepts like physiology and biochemistry. It is a great introduction to upper level biology courses. When I first signed up, I was a little apprehensive because I heard a lot of bad things about BSCI207, about how it was hard and uninteresting. But in actuality, it is very relevant to anyone who wants to pursue a degree in Biology. The main thing is to GO TO LECTURE. You will not do well on the exams if you don't go to lecture!! The slides contain minimal amounts of information. All the tested material were things that Dr. Kent/Dr. Haag explained in lecture. The exams are fair. They're not easy, you actually have to study a lot for them. Dr. Kent is an outstanding lecturer and takes the time to drive home important points of the topic. Tough, but enjoyable class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-28T10:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I really didn't want to take this class but I had to because it is a requirement for my major. Unfortunately, I was stuck with Dr. Kent and Dr. Haag for Spring 2012. By far one of the WORST bio classes I have taken at this university. All the material is random BS which makes you want to pull your hair out. They test you on the most pointless topics (3 exams, lowest dropped, weekly quizzes -10 total). Final exam is cumulative with a strong emphasis on the most recent material. All the exams are about 30 true false, 10 multiple choice and short answer. \n\r\nAlthough Kent is very passionate about the subject material, he is a very difficult person to deal with. He really wants to fail his students (which he has expressed he doesn't mind doing). Just an old and cranky old man who does nothing but sip his coffee while lecturing you.\n\r\nOverall: boring professor, difficult, passionate about bio.\n\r\nBottomline: Avoid this professor if you can. Otherwise, good luck...", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2012-05-15T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I took him with Higgins last Spring. Kent was pretty good. You can tell he enjoyed the material since he was very enthusiastic during lectures. His enthusiasm made it easier to pay attention. His tests were hard, but that's only because BSCI207 is designed to filter people out. He, like Higgins, pointed out specific concepts that were definitely going to be on exams so the class generally knew what to focus on. Overall, I enjoyed his teaching. If you decide to take him or Higgins, go to lecture! Most of the exam material stemmed from his words and NOT the powerpoint slides.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-13T23:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Great lecturer, hard tests. You literally have to study each and every word in his Powerpoints. Not as goofy as Higgins, but I liked him. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-17T01:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI392', 'review': "I really loved BSCI392. Dr. Kent is a great lecturer, and the class was fascinating. But be warned that this class is not an easy A -- it might not even be an easy B. He posts his lectures online and they are helpful outlines to study from, but you MUST go to class. There is a ton of information that is not in the PowerPoint and sometimes he'll even hint as to what will be on the final exam. His tests are pretty tough (16 multiple-multiple questions and 2 short answers) but there are two group reconstructions that will boost your grade. If you truly care about the subject, pay attention and study a moderate amount you should get an A. If you skip class a lot and don't study much you will be lucky to get a B. Kent is a very nice person who genuinely cares about us and how well we learn, but he holds us to a high standard. If you are interested in paleobiology (especially vertebrate paleobiology) he will be the perfect professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Kent- his lectures are really boring.. his exams are soo hard. He will have short answer questions on the most random things and tiniest details which are worth a lot of points. Therefore, you pretty much need to study EVERYTHING on his slides.. which is crazy.. \r\nHiggins- I learned a lot more from Higgins than Kent. Higgins is a lot more entertaining and his exams are based more on concepts than straight memorization like Kent. \r\nBSCI207 sucks.. pointless class that you have to study so much for. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-05-15T00:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I took 207 with Higgins and Kent. Kent was boring though he is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject matter he teaches (which, unfortunately, is also boring). I thought his test was also a LOT harder than Higgins' because it was less straight forward. He wasn't bad, but he wasn't great either. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-24T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I took this course with Higgins and Kent, and found that I got more out of the lectures with Kent. While they both post their lectures online, Kent had more text so it was easier to follow along and take notes. Definitely do what they recommend, and print out the lectures beforehand and take notes directly on them. And go to class, because most of the exams are based on the lectures, not the book. \n\r\nThe class was really hard, and you definitely need to study along with the lectures instead of cramming the night before an exam. That said, it's not impossible to get a good grade in this course; it just takes work, but you really do learn a lot.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-22T03:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Great teacher who knows his stuff. Had BSCI 207 with him and Higgins and Kent, while the less eccentric of the two, still loves participation and likes to have fun with the material. MUST go to lecture, nothing else including posted slides and the text will due. Tests based on lectures. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-01T08:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I had a class with Kent and Higgins together and Kent is by far the better teacher. He thoroughly explained concepts where Higgins would just hope that you knew them. Kent was also nicer and wasn't obnoxious like Higgins. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-10T23:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He was a GREAT professor and a really nice guy. He and Higgins had a great relationship too. He explained all the concepts clearly and thoroughly and answered any questions students had. He also moved at a reasonable pace. You just have to take extra notes during lecture and study hard and you'll do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-15T01:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Kent was a very good lecturer. Between him and Higgins, I liked Kent better. He was a little clearer when explaining the material and wasn't as intimidating. His lecture notes also have more words that Higgins' so they are easier to follow. Must attend class though, the lecture notes don't have everything. I also thought his test questions were very fair.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-22T14:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I have a class dual taught by Kent and Higgins. Though Kent is the less dynamic of the two, he is an excellent teacher. He can move quickly, but still explains everything thoroughly. He is very interested in his subject matter, and very knowledgeable. Must attend lecture because the slides don't contain all the information. Receptive to questions and likes participation.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-16T13:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI392', 'review': 'One of my favorite professors! He is so interesting and smart and presents everything in a pretty standard, easy to grasp way. He is very accessible outside of class as well. Exams require a lot of studying but are not too difficult. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-11-20T06:13:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'BSCI393', 'review': "Wonderful guy! Loved him! Super enthusiastic about his work! And with the Covid situation, he is transitioning to online, and everything he's doing is amazingly smooth!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-01T16:36:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': "Yes this is his first year teaching the class, and yes it is an online learning environment, but it doesnt excuse his lack of teaching. He only holds office hours once a week and gives us poorly done powerpoints as our only material. His TA's hold office hours for longer than he does but they've never had him as a teacher so they aren't as much help as they should be (even though they can be useful). He will tell us not to worry about specifics and not to memorize certain information then test us on exactly that. The exams consist of 10 vague short answer questions in a 50 minute window that forces students to write until their fingers fall off because the questions are so vague they don't actually know what he expects in the answers. He is a nice guy but should not be teaching this class if the experience continues this way.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-10-15T19:54:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': "*class was fully online due to covid*\r\nHe doesn't teach. That's it. I didn't hear his voice after the first day of class. His idea of a lesson is releasing an annotated powerpoint and having his students read through it to basically learn the material themselves. I paid $2000 to download powerpoints off the internet, for an honors class. That's just insulting.\r\nAlso, he decided to assign group papers called “explorations”. Group projects are already bad before it's impossible to actually meet with your group in person, and group papers are the worst type of group project. The papers were supposed to make us engage with the new material, but he did that by forcing us to research some obscure topic ourselves, then turning around and teaching it to us the following week. Or rather, releasing his research the following week and making us teach ourselves, because again, he doesn't teach.\r\nThe final was optional though, so that's kind of cool.\r\nFor anyone reading this who's considering joining ILS- the honors college is great. This professor isn't. It was his first year teaching the class, and I hope it will be his last. Please don't let this professor hold you back from choosing ILS. Despite my bad experience, I think it's worth struggling through this class for all of the other benefits the honors college can give you.\r\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-26T22:10:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Bretton Kent', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': 'His content is interesting and he knows the content really well, but he did not really teach. It might just be because of the whole COVID situation, but he just made us read his slides and did not have any live or video lectures.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-27T01:35:34Z'}], 'name': 'Bretton Kent', 'slug': 'kent'}, {'courses': ['ENGL245', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL222', 'CMLT277', 'ENGL255', 'FILM245', 'CMLT275', 'WMST275', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL293', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL290', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL245'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Brian Davis', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Awesome guy, great professor. Brian is the man', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-01T18:10:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Davis', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "You wanna take Mr. Davis for Engl101. He's really laid back, and grades really lightly. Just follow the directions for papers and you'll be guaranteed an A. He also assigns less work than other Engl101 teachers. Makes a lot of jokes in class, and is really great in general. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-03T22:47:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Davis', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Davis is a nice and effective professor, and has done a pretty good job of running things online. Readings get to be a little much sometimes (this was more applicable in the first half of the semester), but other than that the workload is very manageable. There are several papers/projects throughout the semester; some individual, some group work. All of it can be done in a reasonable amount of time, and Davis is willing to listen if there are any issues with meeting deadlines. Grading is also pretty generous; grades tend to go from the high B to mid A range, tending towards the latter. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-20T17:38:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Davis', 'course': 'ENGL245', 'review': "Thoroughly impressed. Dude has a lot of passion for teaching and is really helpful. I kind of slacked off in the class a bit which I do regret because Davis definitely didn't deserve that, yet he still was incredibly lenient for late work and absences. Really kind professor, you're in good hands. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-12T23:45:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Davis', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Best professor ever. He is the most laid back, reasonable, and respectable professional I have ever had.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T05:05:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Davis', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "If you ever get the chance, definitely take a class with Dr. Davis. Absolutely incredible professor. Gives intense feedback but is a really fair grader if you put in effort. He's really accommodating and has really insightful commentary.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-11T02:21:59.356524Z'}], 'name': 'Brian Davis', 'slug': 'davis_brian'}, {'courses': ['CCJS350', 'CCJS498G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brian Engelmann', 'slug': 'engelmann'}, {'courses': ['SURV672'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brian Harris-Kojetin', 'slug': 'harris-kojetin'}, {'courses': ['CCJS602', 'CCJS200', 'CCJS600', 'CCJS498B', 'CCJS670', 'CCJS699F', 'CCJS699U', 'CCJS418T', 'CCJS600', 'CCJS600'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Brian Johnson', 'course': 'CCJS498B', 'review': "This class was fairly easy, you dont really have to do the weekly readings because we go over everything in class and his powerpoints are pretty much all he uses for the exams. There's really only 4 assignments in the entire class: 2 exams, an easy group presentation, and a paper. The final paper is a research paper meaning that it's super long, but thats the only bad part about the class. Dr. Johnson is very nice, tries to get students involved in discussion, and answers any questions.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-05-06T09:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Johnson', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': "Great stats class to test! The examples are great and very relatable. Even uses statistics from a survey directly from the students' own habits. Good teacher!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-04-12T12:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Johnson', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': 'Professor Johnson was a really good professor. He made the class interesting by giving examples students can understand. If you are confused you simply have to raise your hand and he will repeat it.\n\r\nThere is an online quiz every week as well as homework. There is 4 exams and you are allowed a notecard for help answering questions on the exams. \n\r\nHe offers bonus questions on the exams as well as extra credit projects to help boost your grade. \n\r\nI definetely recommend Professor Johnsno for a stat class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-21T02:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Johnson', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': 'I took this class with Dr. Johnson as the professor and Dr. Hull as the TA. Both of them are very familiar with all the subject matter of the class and can explain any of the concepts forwards and backwards.\n\r\nBoth of them very enjoyable in their own way, in terms of their class-room dynamic. I went to every lecture and learned ALL the math from that. The book is necessary to pass the quizzes, but most of the work in this class is conceptual/mathematical, not definition based.\n\r\nIf I remember correctly, there was no curve on the exams. However, there are enough extra credit opportunities that it doesn\'t make a big difference.\n\r\nThe first 2-4 weeks of class (before T-tests and beyond) focus on basic math things that are easy to pass. However, they are IMPORTANT because the class ramps up afterwards and builds heavily upon that.\n\r\nThere is homework due each week, but it\'s not difficult. Most of the time I could finish it within 1 hour, but that is because I took the time to understand each concept.\n\r\nI highly recommend going to lecture/discussion and FOLLOWING ALONG with EVERY problem being demonstrated. If you find yourself finishing before the teacher and they arrive at the same answer you did, then you will pass this class.\n\r\nFormatting is important here. "Step 1: ... Step 2: ..." If you follow carefully and explicitly the formatting you are given, then you will not lose credit.\n\r\nAlso, PUT your NAME and SECTION NUMBER ON EVERYTHING.\n\r\nProbably the most straight-forward and satisfying 200-level Statistics course you\'ll find.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-19T15:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Johnson', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': 'What the other guy said: "Really good professor! Puts slides up prior to class, gives practice exams, and discussion was really helpful. Doing hw sucks but it\'s actually really helpful for exams."\r\nOnly problem, is getting a GA that doesn\'t grade too harsh = \'B\'.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-08-11T16:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Johnson', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': "Really good professor! Puts slides up prior to class, gives practice exams, and discussion was really helpful. Doing hw sucks but it's actually really helpful for exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-04-08T17:47:00Z'}], 'name': 'Brian Johnson', 'slug': 'johnson_brian'}, {'courses': ['ARCH798', 'ARCH400', 'ARCH433', 'ARCH405', 'ARCH797', 'ARCH201', 'ARCH655', 'ARCH629', 'ARCH448V', 'ARCH201', 'ARCH797', 'ARCH797'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brian Kelly', 'slug': 'kelly_brian'}, {'courses': ['INST706', 'INST733'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brian Kolowitz', 'slug': 'kolowitz'}, {'courses': ['THET659', 'TDPS458A', 'THET499', 'THET678', 'THET286', 'THET477', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET669W', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET669', 'THET429', 'THET669W', 'DANC488', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET669W', 'THET429'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brian MacDevitt', 'slug': 'macdevitt'}, {'courses': ['ENST702', 'ENST414', 'ENST309', 'ENST308', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST301', 'ENST302', 'ENST303', 'ENST414', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST309', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST702', 'ENST301', 'ENST302', 'ENST303', 'ENST414', 'ENST472', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brian Needelman', 'slug': 'needelman'}, {'courses': ['BMGT496', 'BUSI758R', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT289K', 'BMGT496F'], 'average_rating': 3.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Brian Nelson', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Never really understood why this guy got so much shade. Really intelligent and friendly. I'd suggest taking him. He can be a bit dry at times and his teaching style relies a lot on the board but he can be funny and interesting. I had a terrible semester and he still gave me a B- after I failed two exams. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2013-04-24T01:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Nelson', 'course': 'BMGT496', 'review': "Probably the best professor I've had at the business school. There is absolutely no reason to get anything but an A in this class, and I'm a B student. The class schedule is a little confusing at first, but you'll get use to it after awhile. I learned a lot about decision making and corporate social responsibility. All business majors should take this class! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-12T00:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Nelson', 'course': None, 'review': 'This guy belongs in law school more than a business school. He is extremely boring and tends to go over minor details like definitions of terms. I learn more from the cases than his lectures or discussions. His syllabus is 20 pages long and is confusing!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-02-19T16:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Nelson', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "he wants everyone to do well. topic reviews are the 'homework' type assignments you have to complete online. he's very understanding and wants everyone to do well. do exactly what he says and you'll be fine on the exam. grade is based on 2 midterms, a final, and topic reviews. take him! + he's funny (sometimes) ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-29T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Nelson', 'course': 'BMGT110S', 'review': "He splits the class into 1/2 A's and the other B's, which is complete bogus since he decides where the curve is going to be. Midterms are really easy, completely based on the book and also the practice exam. Textbook is easy to read/follow. Doesn't matter if you attend lecture or not.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T02:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Nelson', 'course': 'BMGT110S', 'review': 'i didnt like hiom as a teacher, he talks really slow and monotone so his voice puts you to sleep. its pointless to go to class because the midterms are based solely on the books and not his lectures, he curves a lot so his grading is not hard', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-07T16:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Brian Nelson', 'slug': 'nelson_brian'}, {'courses': ['ENCE611', 'ENCE455', 'ENES100', 'ENCE710'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Brian Phillips', 'course': 'ENCE710', 'review': "He gives lots of Assignments and it may be intimidating at first but its worth it. His exams are neither not too easy nor difficult, come prepared. His grading is ok if you perform 'ok' which is fine by me but if you want to get grades without work he is not the right guy for u. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-04-11T22:21:55Z'}], 'name': 'Brian Phillips', 'slug': 'phillips_brian'}, {'courses': ['ENGL428X', 'ENGL749D', 'ENGL379D', 'ENGL379Q', 'ENGL630', 'ENGL346', 'ENGL425', 'ENGL602', 'ENGL749', 'ENGL479W', 'ENGL479N', 'ENGL699', 'ENGL749M', 'ENGL312', 'ENGL463', 'ENGL475', 'ENGL457', 'ENGL768C', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL463'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Brian Richardson', 'course': 'ENGL346', 'review': "Richardson is a great teacher. He doesn't expect a lot and understands the stress of college. A very relatable, understanding, and intelligent professor. Take him if you have the opportunity but his classes fill up fast. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-09-05T19:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Richardson', 'course': 'ENGL379D', 'review': 'This class was very boring, and all he did was lecture to us. But, at the same time the book Ulysses is very dense and there is really no other way to teach it. If you can stand the boredom it is a pretty easy class and he is a very very easy grader.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-04T17:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Richardson', 'course': 'ENGL457', 'review': "This guy is a bit of an oddball. I had high hopes for this class, but the lectures were so boring I just couldn't stay interested in the texts. He definitely knows a lot about modern and postmodern literature and had interesting interpretations, but the way he runs the class was slow-paced and not engaging. It probably did not help having the class at the end of my day from 2-3:15. The midterm was pretty easy, and the final was a set of take-home essays. Other than that we had a couple of homework assignments and two papers that were no longer than 7-8 pages each. It was not a hard class, just really really dull sometimes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-31T13:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Brian Richardson', 'course': 'ENGL312', 'review': "His lectures are quite boring. Unless you're already interested in the subject he is discussing you will probably have a hard time paying attention. Other than that, though, he seems rather friendly and reasonable. He's a fair grader, too.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-07-09T02:13:48Z'}], 'name': 'Brian Richardson', 'slug': 'richardson_brian'}, {'courses': ['THET223', 'THET391', 'THET110', 'THET110', 'THET110'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Brittany Ginder', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'Took this class for a GENED with no experience and honestly no interest in theatre and can say it was a great decision. My professor was incredibly sweet and seemed actually interested in her students. The workload was very slight with one open note five point quiz and discussion once a week. The class description said we had in person class twice a week but we only had it once and watched a short lecture online. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-07T18:02:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Brittany Ginder', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'Brittany was fantastic! She is super accommodating and understanding as well as an easy grader. I took this class to get an A and for credits and I ended up learning quite bit about theatre. Very easy workload and a very low pressure class. great for a GPA booster and learned a lot.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-09T23:07:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Brittany Ginder', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'Mrs. Ginder is awesome! She is so nice and very accommodating. There was hardly any work in this class and it was always a good time going to class because she has such an incredible personality. Highly recommend this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-24T23:50:54Z'}], 'name': 'Brittany Ginder', 'slug': 'ginder'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM353'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brooke Fowler', 'slug': 'fowler'}, {'courses': ['INFM620', 'LBSC635', 'INFM706', 'LBSC631', 'INST706', 'INST878E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Bruce Dearstyne', 'slug': 'dearstyne'}, {'courses': ['BMGT332', 'BMGT831', 'BMGT434', 'BMGT434', 'BMGT434', 'BMGT434', 'BMGT434'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bruce Golden', 'course': 'BMGT434', 'review': "I'm a senior, and I have had my share of terrible professors. But professor Golden is, without a doubt, the worst professor I've ever had. Make no mistake, he is a nice guy, but when it comes down to teaching he just... sucks! This semester was his first time teaching BMGT 434, and he seems to be knowledgeable on the subject, but the class is structured so that you can't really do much better than an A-. Which really sucks because, for our semester, if we have a 90% or higher, we are exempt from the final, and the only, exam. But for all of our projects and assignments this semester, he did not provide a specific rubric that he is grading us on and instead grades us on what he subjectively thinks is a perfect paper. As a result, many of us had to resort to going the extra 5 miles to impress him just for the sake of a higher grade. He is so out of touch with technology that he had to get a TA to photocopy his written ANNOUNCEMENTS so they can be put on canvas. Oh, and he doesn't post the grades on Canvas at all, so we never know if we make the mark of being exempt from the final or not. We made several attempts to get him to open up to us about what he expects from our work. But he would simply repeat the same instructions and then continue giving us 80% on our work without any feedback. Not to mention the pop quizzes that he gave out to us in class- which I wouldn't have minded IF HE ACTUALLY TAUGHT US ANYTHING USEFUL AT ALL. The class is literally listening to students present the article that the class is assigned to read the night before, and Golden contributes by clarifying and discussing things with us. But because different students present their material differently, it's hard to pay attention to the presentations given the fluctuating quality of their work. \n\r\nProjects: the projects that we do in separate teams are actually pretty interesting. This is the one part of the class that I have to be thankful for because I feel like I've actually learned something by working alongside other students to brainstorm approaches to solving problems. However, Golden, again, takes off points without giving us enough feedback.\n\r\nFurthermore, he likes to dock your points on quizzes and the final with little details that contribute nothing to our understanding of the subject matter. For example, given a 20-year dataset, he asked us, from memory, which year was the outlier. How are we supposed to remember this in a pop quiz?\n\r\nSuggestions for students: if by some unfortunate event you have this guy as your professor, you want to take notes and write down the details that he might just briefly go over in class. Overall, the class workload is fair, you just want to maximize your grade at every corner possible if you want to be able to skip the final exam.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-12-18T04:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bruce Golden', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': "He's the worst professor I've ever had. The class is pointless also. I got straight A's this semester and a C+ in his class. That speaks more volumes about his performance as a professor than my performance as a student. Very unhelpful and unwilling to help, unless you're one of his favorites in the class (which is picks very early in the semester). His exams are pointless and aimless and have no direction. All exams are cumulative and no new material is covered for the final after the 3rd exam. He also listed a book as required and we didn't use it once. AWFUL class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2014-05-29T12:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bruce Golden', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': 'Professor Golden seems to have the right intentions in his teachings, however his style is extremely odd. Often times you\'ll find yourself sitting there thinking "What the heck is he talking about?" If you study and prepare for tests, the class should be fairly easy to pass. I would still suggest looking into taking the course with a different teacher.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-20T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bruce Golden', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': 'Well... this guy is smart, but teaches class in a very... unusual way. His course material is related to operations research, but mostly his own projects and case studies from a textbook that has a lot of errors. His exams are fair and directly from class lectures, although people manage to screw it up anyway. There is a group project that I thought was relatively easy, although you did need to do research.\n\r\nIf you have an A going into the final, you are exempted. I got an A with moderate effort, but you need to go to class (no notes needed). Also he likes to randomly call on students (Calls on people dozing off, or on cute girls).', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-22T11:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bruce Golden', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': 'I had a 4.0 GPA going into this class. Much of the course material is very basic and easy. At times I felt insulted as he was teaching slope intercept form, and how to read a graph, a skill most of us learned in middle school or earlier. In addition, the exams tested on random useless information that does not test what you learned but if you could memorize the useless facts about case studies. Since I expected a normal college exam, I ended up getting a low B on the first exam and could not bring up my grade. This class could be good, maybe with another professor, but I feel I learned nothing and got a B to show for it. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH THIS PROFESSOR.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-21T14:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bruce Golden', 'course': 'BMGT434', 'review': "This man was truly my least favorite professor I had at UMD (and this is coming from someone who performed pretty well in his class. \r\n\r\nDespite being a distinguished professor in the analytics department, he is completely incompetent when it comes to education technology. He makes absolutely no effort to properly use Canvas and gives a ridiculous amount of paper handouts and assignments. \r\n\r\nEven though most of his assignments aren't very difficult, he assigns them in massive quantities and with no official rubric. His grading system is unclear and you have no clue what your grade will be until the very end of the semester.\r\n\r\nHe is a somewhat engaging lecturer, but manages to talk about absolutely nothing most of the time (he generally spends about 50% of class time talking about topics completely unrelated to course content).\r\n\r\nMy advice to someone considering his class: run for the hills. Either take this course with a different professor or don't take it at all. It will do nothing to prepare you for a career in consulting", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-06-12T03:25:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Bruce Golden', 'course': 'BMGT831', 'review': "Best professor I've ever had.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-05T23:46:09.429284Z'}], 'name': 'Bruce Golden', 'slug': 'golden_bruce'}, {'courses': ['CLFS610', 'CLFS680'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Bruce Jarvis', 'slug': 'jarvis'}, {'courses': ['CHEM131', 'CHEM608B', 'CHEM602', 'CHEM401', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM898', 'CHEM146'], 'average_rating': 3.9231, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Eichhorn was really knowledgable. His style of presenting lectures is helpful. You also have to study a lot for this class, though. It's not one of those classes where you can just attend the lecture to get a good grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-10-08T19:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I recommend taking Dr. Eichhorn's class. He is good at explaining concepts and showing how to do problems in lecture, but I felt like a lot of the material on the test came from the textbook, not his lectures. If you read the textbook and do practice problems from it, you'll definitely be prepared for the tests. He barely curves (this semester it was ~2%), but it's definitely possible to get an A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-18T15:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'I went into this class thinking he was a nice, considerate teacher (like many reviews said). Boy, was a I wrong. First of all, sometimes he was a little condescending when students would ask questions that he might have felt were stupid or obvious. We are students for a reason--we came to class to LEARN and ask questions. Anyways, he\'s a complete asshole when it comes to getting points back on tests. I showed all of my work on a test and got the CORRECT answer but got a considerable amount of points off because I didn\'t do the work **exactly** how he had done it on the answer key. I showed him my work and he tried to say that I hadn\'t shown certain major things in my work. I POLITELY pointed out that I in fact had. He acknowledged that I had shown the correct work. AND THEN GOES "yeahhh i don\'t think I\'ll give you the points though..." Excuse me????? he says on his answer key that if we got a correct answer but approached it a different way, it was a valid reason to get points back. It just doesn\'t make sense. I\'ve seen students come up to him and ask him a question, and when he doesn\'t want to answer, he just looks at them, smiles, and turns the other way. That\'s just rude, inconsiderate, and shows that you do not care. Especially in a Chemistry class, every point is important and he just doesn\'t care about the student, in my opinion. ALSO HE DOES NOT CURVE. When averages on the tests are in the 60\'s, you would expect an professor to curve. But, no. He REFUSES to curve. I don\'t know if it\'s because he\'s tenured now or is just jaded but it just doesn\'t seem like he cares whether or not we do well. Then, he gives you practice tests BUT NO ANSWER KEY. what is the point????? i have never understood professors that do that.In addition, he said he would ask a little over 40 clicker questions this semester so we could get a possible max of 10 extra credit points. INSTEAD he asked a little over 19 questions. With each clicker counting as 0.33 points, it was impossible for anyone to get the max of 10 extra credit points. We needed at least 30 clicker questions for that. Those points could have really helped, but again, doesn\'t seem like he cares. He might be a nice person outside of school, but I was not impressed with his teaching at all. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-17T23:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Averages for the exams:\r\nExam 1: 71\r\nExam 2: 80\r\nExam 3: 71\n\r\nI'd recommend Dr. Eichhorn. If you do the practice problems in the book, you will be over-qualified for the tests i.e. the practice problems are harder than the actual exams. Also, Brad is the nicest T.A. you will ever meet.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-14T20:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "An excellent teacher. A nice guy and sometimes makes some good jokes in class. More importantly, he has a knack for going through problems clearly and methodically. Studying those lecture notes go a long way to doing well on exams. His exams are fair and really not too terrible. The only downside is that I didn't feel as prepared for Orgo I as other students did. Still, I would recommend him for Gen. Chem. I.\n\r\nOh and if you Brad as a TA, take advantage of him. Go to discussion. He's awesome.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-30T22:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'He is a very good lecturer. His class really is not hard if you read the book a little bit and understand the concepts. I recommend this professor for anyone really.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-16T12:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Eichhorn may night be the best professor in the world, but I'm confident that he is one of the best (if not the best) professors for general chemistry. People that give him low ratings probably weren't happy with their grades. Chemistry itself is a very hard subject, you have to put a LOT of effort in it. However, Dr. Eichhorn is a good instructor that does multiple problems until everyone is able to understand it. The exams for Dr. Eicchorn are fairly easy. The average for exams for Eicchorn is usually the highest compared to other professors. I definitely recommend this professor for those who are taking general chemistry (CHEM 131) because he's the better one out of the other professors.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-28T16:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Eichhorn is a very nice professor, but he is not that great at teaching. He zooms through the material in lecture which is definitely not enough to complete the online homework. Reading the book is a necessity for this class. If you want to go back to examples done in class, you can't because he doesn't post any notes or examples online. Homework is quite difficult, but not hard to do well on which helps with your grade. He posts pasts exams online to review but don't rely on them. They are nothing like the actual exam that he gives.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-10-31T18:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM401', 'review': "Dr. Eichhorn is not a great professor. His teaching styles are average, his exams were challenging, and he is a bit of a jerk. He lacks a few social skills and is primarily focused on his research. His actions speak for him that this class, albeit a senior-level advanced chemistry course, is not one of his priorities. He was lazy about putting stuff online, it took him weeks to grade the exams, and he was unhelpful and unyielding in office hours.\r\nChem401 is a really challenging course and Dr. Eichhorn did a less-than-average job of explaining all the new, challenging concepts. He would do one example of each problem (if that) and move scurrilously on to the next topic. \r\nI ended up with an A in the course, but that is because the curve was so beneficial. And that was only because the exam averages were so low. But - of course - that is only because Eichhorn isn't a great teacher.\r\nYou won't really have a choice in picking a teacher for 401 because only one section is offered once/year in the Spring, so hope that it is someone else (I hear Professor Sita is good). But if not, Eichhorn isn't the worst. He just very much so is not the best. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-21T02:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I really liked Dr. Eichhorn. Chemistry is a difficult class no matter what professor you take, so working hard is implied. There were three exams throughout the semester, and the material becomes harder as the course progresses. I did ok on the first exam, but not as well on the last two. Material from lecture will most likely not be enough to help you prepare for the exams. Attend guided study sessions (GSS), go to discussion, and form study groups if you can. That's how I made it through this class. Discussions are extremely helpful to clarify concepts. There is homework on MasteringChemistry, which is difficult but also helpful. And homework helped boost my grade immensely. As long as you study in advance for exams and get help outside of class to clarify concepts, you should do fine in the course.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T23:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I don't recommend his class. Don't be deceived by all these great rating about him. He's an okay professor, but a lot of the work you have to figure out yourself because he does like one problem and expects you to understand the concept. All he does is problems on the board and he DOES NOT CURVE. even when our third exam had an average of 60/105 (I think that average says something about the way he teaches). Some of the material that was on the exam was NOT covered in lecture. I would recommend another professor that actually cares about his students and curves. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-15T13:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Read the book thoroughly before lecture, otherwise you'll have some trouble. He's a pretty cool guy who I definitely recommend. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-03T19:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "not a good prof..\r\n he didn't teach just did problems on the board fast!!!\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-27T01:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Eichorn was a great Chemistry teacher. He broke down the concepts so anyone was able to understand the basic rules and equations. Has graded clicker questions almost every lecture but a lot of them are repeated or are from a problem he just went over so if you go to all the lectures, you will get easy points. He has three midterm exams, online homework that is pretty easy to get a 100 on since he allows 2-3 attempts, and the final.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-10T00:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Emily is probably one of the greatest TA on the college park campus. She was very helpful and easy to understand that she clarified every problem the professor didn't explain very well or go over very much. If you have her, you are in good hands. Eichorn is a little bit above average chem professor. He explains the concepts fairly well. And compared to Verdernikov(sometimes hard to understand his explanation) and Dixon (hardcore exams that you might as well put your pencil down before you began) he was definitely the happy medium. This was my second time taking this course after failing it the first time and I got a B.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-07T07:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "He's a fairly easy professor, but not all that good at lecturing. He'll teach you exactly what you need to know for his tests, and his tests are pretty fair. The class itself should not be hard at all - keep up with the work and go to lecture, and you're virtually guaranteed an A. If you're looking for an easy class, his is the one to take. However, if you're looking to actually learn a lot about chemistry, try Dr. Dixon. She's a lot harder, but teaches you a lot more about the foundations of chemistry.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-07T04:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Good professor. His exams are decent, the average was around 70% for the first two, though our third exam had an average of 50%. Sometimes he'd make a student feel dumb during lecture if they asked a question that was obvious to him (to be fair, sometimes it WAS a really bad question). He's a nice guy and pretty funny (in a cheesy way). Graded clicker questions each class, though sometimes they were freebies (what do you eat on thanksgiving? turkey). I'd take another chem class with him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-20T16:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Eicchorn was a great professor. He cracked some jokes and tried to make the material interesting. He also used real life examples of some chemical reactions so we can relate to the material. His tests aren't that terrible. The first 2 were pretty easy and the third one was hard. Overall I had no problems with him. 1 time he wasn't there and the substitute professor, Verdernikov (or however you spell it) sucked and made me appreciate him more.\n\r\nEmily is also a great TA and made herself available and went over everything. Some things she didn't know but for the most part she was great as well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T04:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'He is definitely an awesome professor. I would recommend him to anyone. His exams are fair, and his lectures are engaging. He has a good sense of humor, and tries to incorporate real-world examples into his lectures. \n\r\nIf you go to all the lectures and do your homework, you should do fine in the class. \n\r\n(Also, if Emily is still the TA for the class, she is fantastic) ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-11-15T17:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'My advice is to definitely take Chem 131 with Dr. Eichhorn. He is a wonderful teacher. A bonus is that if you took AP Chem and understood it (but maybe got a 3 like I did - no credit), he goes in the EXACT order as they do in AP, so you are not entirely lost. Throughout the course I used notes from regular and AP Chem in highschool, in addition to his notes and I have done quite well.\n\r\nDr. Eichhorn is funny in class and helpful. He is willing to work with you during office hours, or will make time for you if you have class during his hours. His exams are fair and he lectures well. He works many examples to make sure you understand. He also does clicker questions for points that are very easy to get. Also, sit in the front. You learn better that way in his type of class.\n\r\nJust work hard (as with any class) and you will do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-01T00:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "so i have been going through these reviews in hoping i could make a good decision about my organic chem professor next semester. Not really satisfied with the reviews so I decided to write some aboutt he professors I had this past semester. HOPEFULLY, I can be of some real help in helping you decide on what professor to choose.\n\r\nDr. Eichhorn as he likes to be addressed is all in all a pretty good professor. His lectures are pretty interesting and he teaches the material very well. His exam<----if this a big issue for you!! are really easy!! Just make you that you stay on top of the material and do alot of PRACTICE!!! he post past exams in an exam bank(no solutions) for practice.the curve he had on the exmas were not even worth it. 2 or 3 pts. But, again its because they were so easy.\n\r\nHis lectures were actually interesting. He always cracked some jokes or had some story to tell. I personally did not completely DREAD going to class. He made it bearable. He has clicker questions almost every class. But, near the end of the semester you never know when he is going to throw in another. So, you could two clickers in one day. I actually liked these because the clicker ques were essentially FREE PTS!! so this alone was like a boost to your grade. even if u get it wrong, you get half a point! \n\r\nhomeworks are the one thing i must say were horrible though. They are really really HARD! but, he does give you two attempts at getting the best grade possible. I don't know how he is going to do it next semester but for fall '08 in the beginning he allowed three attempts but each attempt had 10 NEW ques. and then near the end he finally changed it and allowed the two as i said with the SAME 10 ques.\n\r\none last thing i have to add is Dr.Eichhorn does make you feel like an idiot if you ask an obvious or stupid ques. But, then again what is the definition of a stupid ques?? i don't think in CHEM there is such a thing but apparently he does. So, if your iffy about asking DON'T. because he will make you regret it infront of 300 other people. Just wait til after class or ask a peer or TA. saves you the embarrassment.\n\r\nSo, if this is your first time taking chem or you have taken it before Eichhorn is a good professor to choose!!! Many did very well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-27T15:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Good teacher and makes some funny corny jokes, lol. uses a clicker ~3-4times/week. 3 tests: each of which are fairly easy;however, you must come prepared (unlike myself). gives prac tests which are good. online ARIS hw is really hard compared to book work or in-class work. go to lec to get worked out problems. writes own final. curve.."depends"', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-22T01:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Solid Professor. the class notes are not enough to do well in his class. Become VERY familiar with your book. Test are easy if you STUDY FROM THE BOOK. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2008-12-20T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Kept lectures interesting with jokes and anecdotes. Overall, he's a really good teacher and his lectures are easy to follow. Homework is online and you get multiple attempts and a week to do them. Clicker questions pretty much every class. Tests aren't that bad, and he posts old ones online (no answer keys though); you do have to study hard to get a good grade though.\n\r\nThe only thing bad I can say about him is that if you ask an obvious question during lecture, he might make you look a little bit dumb.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-11T02:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'He was a pretty good teacher, and the fact that he posted old exams online really helped. In front of the class he was funny and kept your interest. The only thing is that whenever I would try to talk to him one on one, he always made me feel like an idiot.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-21T06:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': "I had him freshman year(2018) so i don't really remember a lot of his teaching style. His lectures were okay, he explained the concepts really well, he's also very helpful during his office hours and he does his best to answer them.For some also talked about barbecuing a whole lot during lectures .The past exams he posted were very much like the exams he gave us. One thing i'll say is practice a lot , he pulled a couple of questions right from the textbook once or twice. \r\nOverall, i think he's really fair in his exams, grading and curves. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-26T15:27:32Z'}], 'name': 'Bryan Eichhorn', 'slug': 'eichhorn'}, {'courses': ['ENEE181', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Bryan Quinn', 'slug': 'quinn_bryan'}, {'courses': ['PLSC125', 'PLSC120', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC405', 'PLSC100', 'PLSC275', 'PLSC460', 'PLSC253'], 'average_rating': 1.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Burkhard Schulz', 'course': 'PLSC100', 'review': 'He will teach you the course like it is your major. People never go his lectures but he found a way to force this through constant lecture quizzes. The syllabus said all lecture quizzes would be online. One day there were barely any people in lecture and he decided to give it on paper, which is directly against the syllabus. You could probably get a higher grade on your actual major course than this gen ed because of how it is taught.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-10T21:11:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Burkhard Schulz', 'course': 'PLSC100', 'review': "This professor is literally the WORST gen-ed professor I have ever had a class with. He changes his syllabus randomly without any beforehand announcement and his exam averages are actually really low (don't believe the average GPA, he made it much harder from now on). His lectures are insanely boring and his powerpoints are mostly just unhelpful pictures. His TA taught more than him. Rude to students and inconsiderate, doesn't ever reply to emails.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-16T13:17:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Burkhard Schulz', 'course': 'PLSC100', 'review': "I feel conflicted about this prof. On one hand I appreciated the field trips (National Arboretum, US Botanic Garden) and how he taught fun facts like ergot possibly causing the Salem Witch Trials. Yet the course overall was pretty frustrating. Prof Schulz spouts a lot of random, extremely detailed information and expects us to comprehend immediately. But because most of us are taking PLSC 100 for Gen Ed, it's difficult for us to form a foundational understanding from his disorganized teaching style. As a result, it's difficult to score well unless you're willing to put in more work than most people expect of a gen ed. A good TA does help though, I had TA Bilian and she was a real gem. Super patient and clearly explained complicated concepts. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-06-02T02:49:56Z'}], 'name': 'Burkhard Schulz', 'slug': 'schulz'}, {'courses': ['LARC240', 'LARC489K', 'LARC640', 'LARC461', 'LARC699', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'LARC748', 'LARC471', 'LARC162', 'LARC799', 'LARC340', 'LARC748', 'LARC162', 'LARC471', 'LARC162', 'LARC162', 'LARC641', 'LARC162', 'LARC340'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Byoung-Suk Kweon', 'slug': 'kweon_byoung-suk'}, {'courses': ['HLSC100', 'BSCI279C', 'HLSC377', 'BSCI338F', 'BSCI330H', 'HONR219G', 'HONR359G', 'BSCI279H', 'BSCI329H', 'BSCI348', 'BIOE389F'], 'average_rating': 3.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': None, 'review': 'You have to actually try to not get an A or an A+ in this class. Do your reflections and turn them in on time, and participate in class. BAM look at that nice A+ on your transcript. Don’t listen to anyone who says anything bad about Dr. Quimby, she is fine for HLSC100. You do all sorts of randomness in this class but you do learn. Yay for easy As!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-06-03T15:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Quimby is a very enthusiastic professor. The class was your pretty basic UNIV100 class. The TA matters more for this class experience and my TA did a good job.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Good professor, exams were fair, nothing to complain about, she kept me engaged and was able to bring in alot of current information into her lectures.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-03-26T19:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': None, 'review': "She teaches well, and her exams are challenging. But if you pay attention in class, you'll be fine. You will learn a lot in class too.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-03T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "I thought she was a great lecturer. She had a nice personality and wasn't just boringly standing there talking. I have no complaints about the exams. They are EXACTLY what you would expect from entirely multiple choice exams. I'm very happy that there weren't any short answer questions on them.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-23T15:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Quimby tries very hard but she is not a good lecturer. The material in class was covered less in depth than in 222. The exam questions were randomly taken from textbooks and did not correlate to the class material. The questions where also very tricky. Take any other professor for this class if you can. It may even be worth it to wait a semester. She knows very little chemistry which makes her a poor MOLECULAR genetics teacher. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-20T20:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Dr. Quimby was a very engaging professor I thought. She gave a decent amount of work if you consider the level of the class. She was very helpful and very approachable. The class generally curves the borderlines. I guess the only students are on here because they are looking for an easy way to get by, which won't help if you plan to take any of the 400 levels and to go on to the Medical school. So work hard now and you will be rewarded for the infinity because you won't get by when you're at the medical schools. \n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-17T15:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'She\'s not a good lecturer. She often makes a LOT of mistakes during lecture which really makes it confusing. Her exams are VERY specific; all of ours were multiple choice because it would have taken "too long to grade 100 written exams" as she said. They were really tricky and a lot of the questions were arguable but her reply was always "but this one is the BEST answer." I personally don\'t like answers like that.\n\r\nThe class itself is a lot more work than I had initially thought. We had online quizzes due every week, in-class mandatory clicker points, and 3 major assignments throughout the course of the semester. The assignments took me a while but they were graded fairly. We had 3 exams, and it was spectacular the amount of information we were expected to know for each. \n\r\nThe class is very interesting. She is very passionate about the material and tries to be engaging. She goes in to a lot of detail about molecular genetics and in doing so really expects you to know your stuff from 222. If you take this class, my advice is to read the book. She takes a lot of exam questions from the book. Go to class and take notes religiously; one of her little tidbits might end up on the exam. Go to office hours; generally, she\'s ready and willing to answer any question you have. \n\r\nOh yea, and do the extra credit. I think that\'s the only reason I got a B. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-15T13:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Unfortunately, Dr. Quimby is really not a good lecturer. She is not engaging (although you can tell she tries to be), and her exams focus more on remembering random insignificant facts than on understanding the concepts of the course. If you have a chance to take Molecular Genetics with any other professor, do so. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-26T14:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Byrn Quimby', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "This is the worst professor i have ever had in my life. She can't teach and all you do is watch animations or videos and she does not explain anything. She also reds off the slide. SHE IS HORRIBLE ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-04-11T01:16:00Z'}], 'name': 'Byrn Quimby', 'slug': 'quimby'}, {'courses': ['ENPM602', 'ENPM600', 'ENPM600', 'ENPM602', 'ENPM600'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'C Ravishankar', 'slug': 'ravishankar'}, {'courses': ['FREN203', 'FREN250', 'FREN250H', 'FREN204'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cae Joseph-Massena', 'slug': 'joseph-massena'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Caleb Kriesberg', 'slug': 'kriesberg_caleb'}, {'courses': ['GVPT459E', 'GVPT200', 'GVPT203', 'GVPT459Y', 'GVPT485', 'GVPT888A', 'GVPT200', 'GVPT888A', 'GVPT459Y'], 'average_rating': 3.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Calvert Jones', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': 'Trashcan of a professor. She\'s really annoying and is actively unhelpful - she expects you to know the entirety of a subject but will only test on a fraction of it. Says it\'s "extra knowledge" but it really just stresses you out because you don\'t know what to study. \r\nYou have to go to lectures because she doesn\'t post slides. She gave us photocopies of anthologies as a textbook - for the most part, you don\'t have to read them - it\'s just more "extra knowledge" and wastes your time. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-06-24T16:48:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Calvert Jones', 'course': 'GVPT459E', 'review': 'Great professor; she provides all the reading material free of charge on elms from the beginning of the semester. She is very organized and a good lecturer. Exams are easy and straightforward. Basically, show up, do the work, and you can expect to get an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-11T17:19:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Calvert Jones', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': 'The type of professor who thinks you already know all the material for the class before you even begin. I struggled HARD with this class because I didn’t have basically any precious knowledge of international relations. Vague slides and not very helpful. Won’t take again ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-05-09T18:34:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Calvert Jones', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "I took it as a GenEd while the class was hybrid, so the other reviews seem really different to what I experienced. Dr. Jones is pretty nice and covers lectures thoroughly online. Even if we don't understand something, we have the panopto recordings to go back over, and she's generally pretty available by email. I agree with other reviews in that she doesn't really make it clear what we're supposed to study. But the lectures were livestreamed through Panopto (weird but whatever) and she posted all the recordings of lectures after class. The exams were in essay format and we had 24 hours to submit it. Really no surprises on the exams, they were really simple to respond to. You just had to reference readings and lectures and write well to get an A. That being said, I highly recommend keeping up on the readings week-by-week since it's helpful to understand course material (and especially for the exams). I found it to be pretty interesting material-wise and we related the concepts to things happening in the world currently (like the Russia-Ukraine war). Common misconception: this class is NOT a current events class. Its about international relations theory and how to link that to what's happening now. I'd be fine with taking this course again as long as it was still hybrid. If you have to take this course fully in-person I'd trust the other reviews more than mine, but if youre taking it online or hybrid, it's not really bad at all. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-03-15T15:42:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Calvert Jones', 'course': 'GVPT203', 'review': 'Super knowledgeable on the subject and a solid lecturer. The class and exams are fair. I recommend this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-03-23T00:58:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Calvert Jones', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "Decent, but not great professor. I found her lectures very informative, but the readings were very dull and at times seemed like they didn't connect well with the lectures. The exams were heavily related to these readings. There were only a couple assignments, and they have been taking a while to grade them. Many times, she would cancel class only minutes before it was supposed to start, but it was online, so it wasn't the biggest deal, just annoying. She lectures also were automatically uploaded to the ELMS page, which was nice if you needed to rewatch them. However, there was about a 40 second delay on the live stream, so if you had a question, it would often require backtracking from what she was talking about. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T00:19:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Calvert Jones', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "Pretty good overall. Her lectures were engaging, and I especially appreciated when she would discuss her own research/experience in the field. The exams were heavily based on each week's readings, which ranged in quality from interesting to very boring. I think the class could have been better if the lectures were in-person (as asking questions through the Panopto live streaming interface was not convenient), and if assignments were graded more quickly, but overall the class was well run and covered interesting material. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-21T19:32:06Z'}], 'name': 'Calvert Jones', 'slug': 'jones_calvert'}, {'courses': ['KNES100N', 'KNES100O', 'KNES152N', 'KNES152O', 'KNES160N', 'KNES160O', 'KNES131V', 'KNES157N', 'KNES201', 'KNES157O', 'KNES497'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Calvin Lu', 'slug': 'lu_calvin'}, {'courses': ['ENGL280', 'ENGL282', 'ENGL281', 'ENGL291', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101C', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393H', 'ENGL398V', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL290', 'ENGL398V', 'ENGL398V', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cameron Mozafari', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Dr.Mozafari is a great teacher, he does a good job in all his classes to engage the class and make sure that students are doing well and doing their work. He is very accomodating to course difficulty and often changes the rubrics if students think it is too hard, you just have to ask him. He is also very kind in offering extensions for the whole class and relieving stress. He makes sure you are doing well in class by asking about your mental health and checking up on you and giving your response changes the assignment due dates to help you. However, I would say that he is a picky grader and grades the essays with more focus and difficulty than other professors might. Other than that, he is a great professor and I would recommend taking him again. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-20T18:00:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Cameron Mozafari', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Dr. Mozafari is a very kind and understanding professor. His classes are engaging and you can tell he cares about his students. He is very lenient when it comes to grades and due dates, so definitely talk to him if you are extremely stressed or falling behind. This class has a lot of assignments so don't worry about doing badly on one of them. I would definitely reccomend taking him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-22T23:00:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Cameron Mozafari', 'course': 'ENGL290', 'review': 'Super fun class and very worthwhile in terms of content learned, best gen ed in my opinion, professor is very nice and constructive when it comes to assignments ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-22T23:36:54Z'}], 'name': 'Cameron Mozafari', 'slug': 'mozafari'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Candace Orsetti', 'slug': 'orsetti_candace'}, {'courses': ['GVPT376', 'GVPT377', 'GVPT388I', 'GVPT379A', 'GVPT320', 'GVPT429C', 'GVPT320', 'GVPT377', 'GVPT320', 'GVPT377', 'GVPT320', 'GVPT377', 'GVPT320'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Candace Turitto', 'course': 'GVPT320', 'review': "Professor Turitto is super nice, very knowledgeable, makes her lectures funny, and is overall a wonderful person. She is very good at explaining complicated statistical topics in a way that is easy to understand. GVPT 320 is really an extension of GVPT 201, and she does a good job of reviewing the 201 content before launching in to anything new. There can be a lot of repetition of 201 content at times, but this course does go farther. Lectures can be a bit boring and are sometimes nonstop R commands, but they're informative. Overall a great class, especially if you want to get comfortable working in R. Can't go wrong with Professor Turitto.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-01T14:02:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Candace Turitto', 'course': 'GVPT320', 'review': "Great professor! She made a difficult class (for me, at least) as interesting as it could be. She gave us genuinely great advice, too. The class itself wasn't my favorite just because I'm not a math person, but Dr. Turitto is an engaging and disarming presence in the classroom.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-15T00:10:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Candace Turitto', 'course': 'GVPT320', 'review': "Really important class for developing skills in R, and generally the assignments/projects helped achieve this goal. The workload is not too overwhelming and the professor and TA were very helpful in working through questions with the material. *However* I found Professor Turitto's instructions on the final project and most of the assignments to be vague and confusing, resulting in my getting points off for small things that were not made clear at the beginning of the assignment. It required that I ask for a lot of clarification on work and the final project, so just something to be aware of. Otherwise good class!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:27:27.008541Z'}], 'name': 'Candace Turitto', 'slug': 'turitto'}, {'courses': ['EDCI462', 'EDCI664', 'EDSP470'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Candice Doyle', 'slug': 'doyle'}, {'courses': ['ENES215', 'ENES115'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Candice Staples', 'slug': 'staples'}, {'courses': ['UMEI004', 'UMEI001', 'UMEI002', 'UMEI003', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Caralyn Bushey', 'slug': 'bushey'}, {'courses': ['ARCH410', 'ARCH611', 'ARCH413', 'ARCH461', 'ARCH463', 'ARCH466', 'ARCH679'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carl Bovill', 'slug': 'bovill'}, {'courses': ['PSYC644', 'PSYC622', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC629', 'PSYC639', 'PSYC789Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carl Lejuez', 'slug': 'lejuez'}, {'courses': ['JOUR200', 'JOUR371', 'JOUR620', 'JOUR200U', 'JOUR300', 'JOUR462', 'JOUR762', 'JOUR689F'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Carl Stepp', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': 'Stepp is a baller. Cool dude. Cool accent. Class was meh. But take Stepp!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-11-19T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carl Stepp', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': "Really nice guy, very affable and pleasant. If you know how to proofread or are lucky enough to have a friend who aspires to copy-editing for the Wall Street Journal, the papers aren't a big deal, and he never tests on anything unreasonable. A surprisingly interesting class and certainly a great step up (no pun intended) from the waste of time known as Deborah Nelson's JOUR100.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-15T02:26:00Z'}], 'name': 'Carl Stepp', 'slug': 'stepp_carl'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN307'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carla Onate', 'slug': 'onate'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL101M', 'ENGL272', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL352'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carlea Holl-Jensen', 'slug': 'holl-jensen'}, {'courses': ['EDCP108C', 'EDHI338B', 'EDHI338D', 'EDHI338V', 'CHSE338B', 'CHSE338J', 'CPSP369J', 'HONR338J', 'CHSE338B', 'EDCP619B', 'HESI671', 'CPSP300', 'HONR300', 'WEID300', 'EDCP619B', 'HESI671'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carlton Green', 'slug': 'green_carlton'}, {'courses': ['MUSC606', 'MUSC123', 'MUSP619X', 'MUSP620X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carmen Balthrop', 'slug': 'balthrop'}, {'courses': ['ENCE215', 'ENCE310'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carmen Franks', 'slug': 'franks'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101S', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Carol Cron', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'If you want an easy A and a chill class for English this is your teacher. Not saying there is not work, but she grades super easily and is just a good professor overall', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-10T03:54:29Z'}], 'name': 'Carol Cron', 'slug': 'cron'}, {'courses': ['ANSC435', 'ANSC437', 'ANSC699', 'ANSC699', 'ANSC489', 'ANSC489', 'ANSC435', 'ANSC437'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carol Keefer', 'slug': 'keefer'}, {'courses': ['FMSC653', 'FMSC658', 'FMSC640'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carol Werlinich', 'slug': 'werlinich'}, {'courses': ['JOUR175', 'JOUR200', 'JOUR200U', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR200', 'JOUR501', 'JOUR200', 'JOUR200', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR200'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Carole Lee', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': "I really liked this professor. She worked in the field for a long time and can teach the material well. If you follow the guidelines and write well she'll give you a good grade. Nice lady too", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-03T18:56:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Carole Lee', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': "Professor Lee is incredible. She tries her best to engage with students and make class interesting with the virtual formate. She's also super understanding with students and not a harsh grader.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-16T00:24:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Carole Lee', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': 'Super nice lady. If you follow the guidelines, write well, and turn in your assignments, you will get a good grade. A good variety of assignments: news quizzes, a project, research paper, discussion posts etc. Sometimes lectures can be a bit boring and have lots of detailed information at once.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-15T18:31:49.366639Z'}, {'professor': 'Carole Lee', 'course': 'JOUR201', 'review': "really nice professor who tries hard to engage with students. Class is sometimes boring, but thats just the nature of 201. It's not her fault. Very nice person and understanding teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-26T01:41:37.972497Z'}], 'name': 'Carole Lee', 'slug': 'lee_carole'}, {'courses': ['EDCI457', 'EDCI652', 'MATH312', 'MATH315', 'MATH212', 'HLTH710', 'TLPL798M', 'MATH212', 'MATH212', 'MATH315', 'MATH212', 'MATH315', 'TLPL407'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Carolina Napp-Avelli', 'course': 'MATH212', 'review': 'She is super nice and really wants to help her students succeed. She is very passionate about the subject matter and answers any questions students may have. She posts a lot of resources to help you understand the material and gives a lot of extra credit opportunities. However, sometimes her explanations can be confusing and she says to do a lot of work and explanations for classwork/homework yet not to do so on the exams due to the time constraints. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-03T23:53:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Carolina Napp-Avelli', 'course': 'MATH212', 'review': "Best Math Teacher I've ever had! This class is required for all Education Majors, but if you have any leeway, l highly recommend choosing her! She is so passionate and truly works so hard to make the class as fun and informative as possible. There are 4 exams (3 midterms and a cumulative final) which can seem a bit scary. But there are so many quizzes, homework, and EXTRA CREDIT to get your grade to where you want it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-09T19:53:17.546694Z'}], 'name': 'Carolina Napp-Avelli', 'slug': 'napp-avelli'}, {'courses': ['FREN488W', 'FREN499F', 'FREN243', 'FREN301', 'FREN351', 'FREN699Q', 'FREN665', 'FILM319G', 'FREN499D', 'FREN699G', 'FILM359F', 'FILM420', 'FREN303', 'FREN351H', 'COMM798B', 'FILM429D', 'FILM298A', 'CMLT679G', 'FILM469C', 'FREN398F', 'FREN480', 'FREN699K', 'FILM423', 'FREN423', 'FREN498D', 'FREN387', 'FILM429P', 'FREN499A', 'FREN699J', 'FREN250', 'FREN250H', 'CINE369E', 'FREN398E', 'CINE423', 'FREN423'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Caroline Eades', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very nice, very knowledgable on film. Grade consisted of midterm, a bunch of short quizzes on movies (not too hard if you watched the movie and paid attention), one 5-page paper, and a final exam.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-17T15:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Caroline Eades', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Eades made the class interesting and easy to understand.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-20T01:52:56Z'}], 'name': 'Caroline Eades', 'slug': 'eades'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Caroline Gutierrez', 'slug': 'gutierrez_caroline'}, {'courses': ['ENGL398A', 'BUSO705', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL398A'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Caroline Wilkins', 'course': 'ENGL398A', 'review': "I have no idea why there are no reviews for Wilkins. She's a fantastic professor, and makes English interesting. She has high expectations, but is still fun and understanding. The papers you write are about stuff you care about, and about 5 response papers on some readings. One kinda bad thing is that she doesn't hand back papers in a timely fashion, and I have only one grade currently on ELMS, so I'm not exactly sure what my grade is.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B?', 'created': '2012-05-05T00:21:00Z'}], 'name': 'Caroline Wilkins', 'slug': 'wilkins'}, {'courses': ['EDSP210', 'EDSP289I', 'EDSP452', 'EDSP220', 'EDSP411', 'HONR248H', 'EDSP434', 'EDSP435', 'EDSP454', 'EDSP470', 'EDSP477', 'EDSP677', 'EDSP683', 'EDSP401', 'HLTH672', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL488B', 'EDSP220', 'EDSP220', 'EDSP220', 'EDSP605', 'EDSP220', 'EDSP220'], 'average_rating': 4.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Carolyn Fink', 'course': 'EDSP289I', 'review': 'Intensity: 3 continuous hours offline and probably 1- 2 hours online every time(In summer school).\r\nGaining: Amazing content. Eye-opening. World view redefining. Super nice and helpful professor. Lots of readings, videos watching, discussions and guest lecturers. Snacks were offered every day(she was a fantastic baker)\r\nGrading: 200 in total and A- if lower than188(High risk of A- for international students). Every detail counts.Good English required(got about 4-5 points lost because of my English).\r\nIf you are really interested in cultural classes and are interested in America culture and history, strongly recommended; Just for credit taking? there are lots of other courses from which you can easily get an A+/ A', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-07-03T20:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carolyn Fink', 'course': 'EDSP210', 'review': "Dr. Fink was probably one of the nicest professors that I've ever had. She honestly cared about all of the students and there wasn't too much work. This class is also really easy. Even though she says that she grades as a group for the final group project, one girl in my group never did anything and she got a lower grade so don't worry about that (unless you're that kind of person). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-25T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carolyn Fink', 'course': 'EDSP210', 'review': 'This class is pretty easy and does not require a lot of time or effort. There are chapter preparation assignments (you need the book), a book/movie review, two tests, two quizzes, and a presentation. There are also many guest speakers. Dr Fink was very laid back and accommodating, and she really does care about what she is teaching. Warning: she will make you feel bad if you use any words like "retard", "handicapped", or "disabled person". Before even starting the class, you should know that she requires person-first descriptions of people (ex: a child with autism, NOT an autistic child). and NEVER use the R word. I\'ll save you the lecture :) ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-25T00:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carolyn Fink', 'course': 'EDSP220', 'review': 'Good teacher, very knowledgable and kind. This course was extremely disorganized (online) and she was never consistent with her wording/assignment requirements which caused a lot of unnecessary stress. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-13T18:31:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Carolyn Fink', 'course': 'EDSP220', 'review': "Great professor. She's knowledgeable, accomodating, and is really passionate about disability studies. Since the class met online only once a week, there was a fair amount of content to read/watch and assignments to do, but it was reasonable. Also, I found her rubrics pretty clear. As long as you put effort into the class and use critical thinking skills, you should get a good grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-18T00:24:29Z'}], 'name': 'Carolyn Fink', 'slug': 'fink'}, {'courses': ['GEOL110'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carolyn Plank', 'slug': 'plank'}, {'courses': ['KNES154P', 'KNES154O', 'KNES335', 'KNES154N', 'KNES154T', 'KNES154W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carrie Tupper', 'slug': 'tupper'}, {'courses': ['PHYS273', 'PHYS410', 'PHYS375', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS273H', 'PHYS748', 'PHYS407', 'PHYS165', 'PHYS407', 'PHYS407', 'PHYS165', 'PHYS407', 'PHYS748', 'PHYS407'], 'average_rating': 4.625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Carter Hall', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': "Dr. Hall is a fantastic teacher. Everything is clear, concise, and on point with what you need to know. He keeps all his lectures and notes in a logical order and there's hardly confusion when reviewing over them again. Homeworks are from the textbook and are generally not too terribly difficult. Exams (take-home this semester) were tough, but doable. He's a bit of an android in terms of emotions or humor, but it's hilarious when he does joke. This is my second semester with him (previously PHYS 273) and I'd, without a doubt, take another class with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-11T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carter Hall', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': "This guys is the most excellent professor I've ever met. Super smart + humble = clearly covers concepts and wants students to learn the stuff. Homeworks were somewhat challenging but the test were recast/simplified homework questions! Ahhh, why aren't all my professors like him?!?", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-13T21:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carter Hall', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': "The textbook for this class has a one star rating on Amazon, so I didn't get it. But it was okay because he posts his notes on his website, and they cover literally everything he goes over in class. Technically, you don't even have to take notes!\n\r\nHe lectures very clearly and effectively and definitely wants the students to do well. The class is called waves, but he describes the class as a pre-quantum mechanics, mathematical methods class. Thus, as a math major, I already knew a lot of the stuff he taught and thought he taught the beginning of the semester rather slowly. Other students didn't seem to have this problem though.\n\r\nThe exams are easy and straightforward (he provides equation sheets). For the second exam, I only studied for about an hour (I had a lot of other exams that week), finished it early, and only lost two points. They test concepts rather than little details, so if you go to every class and pay attention, you'll do fine. Homework is also fairly easy, maybe 3 hours a week.\n\r\nAnother tidbit: my friend took this class with a different professor two semesters ago, and it was extremely difficult. He worked really hard, but ended up with a B. This shows how much this class can vary with different professors.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-23T18:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carter Hall', 'course': None, 'review': 'Unlike a lot of other teachers, Hall does actually seem like he wants students to do well. He is one of the first physics teachers I\'ve had who actually posted notes online and his tests are quite easy (so far). However his homework, which he writes, can be convoluted. For example he often says "solve the system" without saying for what to solve. So for some homework I\'ll spend more time reading it than actually solving it. But unless the rest of the class goes much worse, Hall seems to actually want students to get A\'s and B\'s. However, I think he makes it very clear that he doesn\'t actually like teaching. When I ran into him after the semester he obviously did not remember that he had taught me in a class of 20 nor did he even seem like he wanted to talk about his research or congratulate me on doing my own research.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-18T04:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carter Hall', 'course': 'PHYS401', 'review': "This professor is a no-nonsense professor. His notes just get straight to the point. His notes are also very clear and excellent. His tests are no-nonsense. They are similar to the homework problems, and his final exam just re-used questions from old homeworks and midterms. He is not out there to try to get you or screw you over. He is just straightforward. If you study, you'll do well; that simple. No strings attached. His assignments are simple, and are much more testing of concept, and not just mathematics. An excellent physics professor indeed. I dont think he'll teach PHYS401 a year from now ... which is unfortunate for many (as the PHYS dept. does 3 - year cycles). Good luck to those who have not had this guy for 401. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-12-26T01:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carter Hall', 'course': 'PHYS401', 'review': "I've had Dr Hall twice now. I liked him the first time (phys272) and I loved him the second tie (phys401). He's a good lecturer. His notes were very well organized, which is something I find extremely helpful in understanding the material. He also would use the discussion time to go over the answers to the homework, which was amazingly helpful. The tests for 401 were take home, which made it more about what you actually understand and less about what you can remember in an hour.\r\nHe has definitely been my favorite physics professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-09T12:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carter Hall', 'course': 'PHYS272', 'review': 'Excellent professor. Comes prepared for the lectures and the recitation sections are actually useful to go to, since the exam questions are very similar. You finish the course knowing the material, and the exams are usually very straightforward, since they test the concepts. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T13:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Carter Hall', 'course': 'PHYS272', 'review': "He is a very good and patient prof. answers all your questions in class and will make time to meet you outside of class if you want. \n\r\nhomework is a bit long, but easy enough that you can do it without going to lecture.\n\r\nhis tests are very straightforward. no calculators, or notes. he will provide an equation sheet which isn't' that help full... but if you know the material you will do fine. cause all the questions ask about concepts and rarely about little details. the only bad thing is that they are always out of 20-30 points, so you better get everything right....", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-02T14:15:00Z'}], 'name': 'Carter Hall', 'slug': 'hall_carter'}, {'courses': ['TDPS479', 'THET274', 'THET474', 'TDPS458D', 'TDPS469', 'TDPS470', 'THET499', 'THET286', 'DANC610', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'BUDT758A', 'BUSI758A', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'BUSI604', 'BUDT700', 'BUDT700', 'BUDT700'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cary Gillett', 'slug': 'gillett'}, {'courses': ['BUFN758G', 'BUMO758X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cary Krosinsky', 'slug': 'krosinsky'}, {'courses': ['MEES743', 'MEES498I', 'MEES608P', 'MEES698I', 'MEES718B', 'MEES609A', 'HLTH710', 'MEES718E', 'ENST334', 'MEES601', 'MEES498I', 'MEES698I', 'MEES601', 'MEES718A', 'MEES498I', 'MEES698I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Carys Mitchelmore', 'slug': 'mitchelmore'}, {'courses': ['MATH131', 'MATH463', 'STAT401', 'MATH246', 'STAT100', 'STAT464', 'MATH241', 'MATH130', 'STAT400', 'MATH340', 'MATH135', 'MATH410', 'MATH401', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'HLTH672', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL610'], 'average_rating': 2.9091, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': "reads off PPT slides, usually the not-important stuff, you will not learn a single thing in lecture so don't bother going\n\r\nnice guy but terrible prof. be prepared to teach yourself/get a tutor if you take his class", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-04-25T14:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': "Dr. Cremins is not a good teacher. He's a fine person but doesn't convey any material clearly and then doesn't answer questions because he assumes people just aren't listening. \r\nI had to start going to Mezullo's lectures just for anything to make sense. Having a TA who didn't speak English or know how to teach didn't help either. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2016-04-21T10:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Casey was a pretty bad teacher. When I signed up for MATH246, I had Mellet but they did a professor switch and I ended up with Casey. Going to lecture was pretty pointless because there were the online notes for you to reference, and what he taught didn't always follow the notes online. When we got the study guide for the final (written by Levermore, the course chair) we realized we were at the disadvantage because methods Casey taught us were either slower and more steps than other classes learned, or simply we never learned the material on the review which was then on the final. \n\r\nWhen asked about a curve he laughed and said maybe 1%. There was no curve for my class. \n\r\nA lot of the learning I had to do was independent and through the online homework because what he taught in class was not all that helpful. He also took a while to get started. There were times at the end of the semester where he took half the class to prepare and talk about the final, but there were still things we had to learn up until the last class before the final. \n\r\nOverall I was pretty disappointed with Casey. I don't know if Levermore would have been better because I heard his tests were harder, but we didn't get a curve - even with test #2's average being a 60%. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-18T13:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. You dont learn anything in lectures, all he does is narrate the book. The exams are fair, however you get A LOT of points taken off for trivial stuff, even though you still come up with the right answer. I had an A in this class RIGHT UP UNTILL THAT STUPID FINAL which brought me down to a C+. THE FINAL HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WE LEARNED AND WAS NOTHING LIKE THE EXAMS. HE MUST HAVE BEEN POSSESSED TO GIVE US A FINAL LIKE THAT. TERRIBLE MAN. TERRIBLE PERSONALITY. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-30T20:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "YES. He talks in monotone the whole time and is boring but he definitely is a nice guy. He didn't put anything unexpected on the exams; do the assigned homework problems. There were quizzes every week in discussion sections and I think we got to drop 2 quizzes (there were 12 quizzes). There were 4 MATLAB projects which were super easy. 3 midterms and a final. Unlike other MATH241 classes, we DID NOT get to bring a formula sheet to the exams (except for final) and I found it VERY unfair. Also, grades were posted on canvas throughout the semester but we NEVER got to see our grades online; he muted them and never unmuted the grades even after the final. I misplaced few quizzes so I had no idea what grade I had until the final grade was posted. VERY ANNOYING. Overall, the class wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but I would take it with Justin if I were to take it again. I had to take his class because Justin's class didn't fit into my schedule.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-06-18T05:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT464', 'review': 'Really nice guy. Very easy class that can get boring at times, but Dr. Cremins does his best. Quizes everyweek, you can drop one.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-18T19:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': 'I thought he was pretty good. Never put anything unexpected on quizzes/exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-23T09:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Personality: B+ He's a great guy, kind, patient and always available outside class to answer additional questions. His only flaw is his accent and monotone voice. \r\nTeaching skills: B- He is a good teacher but you will need to read ahead before class because he is not the best at breaking down a concept. If you read ahead though it makes his lecture far more clear.\r\nTA: F+ Joe is just an absolute idiot. He made quizzes harder than they needed to be with no time to complete it! We had to form a group of like 10 just to finish. Each of us answered 1 question and then copied each others answers. Is this really the best way to teach a concept Joe? All your years of school and you couldn't see that this didn't make sense? Luckily I had a lot of friends in my class so I was good. So were the Asians and Africans. But I felt sorry for the new folks who worked alone or in groups of 2. They never finished. Joe also grades the exams! This needs to change b/c he's clearly some nerdy kid who is anxious to use his red pen. He needs a life or a girl friend to relieve us from the spread of his misery. Kelly A+ was amazing! She actually taught the class. \r\nIn short, if you sign up for Cremins, avoid the TA Joe and you should be good. Read one lecture ahead so you know what questions to ask in class. There's no homework. Only quizzes and exams and no multiple choice easy point questions either. Good luck! ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-11-16T16:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "I don't see why he has 1 star rating at all. He was an awesome professor who made everything straight forward and easy to understand and also a very approachable guy when you're in need of help. He clearly knows what he's talking about in class and can actually TEACH. I think this class is the easiest math class I've ever taken. I got a 85% on the first exam and 100%s on the last two.\n\r\nAs for the class structure itself, there are 3 tests and a final overall. You have two discussions per week, one for biology and one for math. My math discussion TA was Joe Galante and my biology discussion TA was Kelly Pippins. They are both really nice and are eager to help you. At the beginning of the semester, Joe was an absolute asshole. He just WANTED you to fail my taking as much quiz time away from you as possible. He takes almost 30 minutes to explain shit that we already know and then hands us the quiz to do and we only have 15 minutes left, leaving us unable to complete the quiz. People soon complained to Cremins and he eased up on the quiz questions and FINALLY gave us enough time to do it. At the end, he turned out pretty well... but I still hate him.\n\r\nOverall, everything is clearly laid out for you; I don't even know how you're supposed to fail unless you're exceptionally retarded or don't know what's going on.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-05T19:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Professor Cremins is a good professor. People may think he is boring - well he is a little boring. But you can tell he is really into mathematics and its content. i think people don't really like math, so they don't really like him because he wasn't peppy or outgoing and he didn't make math really interesting. BUT I learned a lot from him. His lectures were in depth; he even showed us how to derive all the formulas used. Overall, his teaching style was excellent - he taught the background of the section and gave examples. His tests were fair. Make sure guys that you do practice problems before the exams. \n\r\nThe discussion quizzes were hard - I think they were made by the TA's? but you can always ask them questions and they'll help you. Just work hard and you'll earn at least a B ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-28T17:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "This class is impossible if you take it with Cremins. The TA quizzes are hard and Cremin's exams are impossible. Don't take it with Cremins at all. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-05T15:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT464', 'review': 'Dr Cremins is not an exceptionally good teacher for stat464, but he tries the best he can to teach you the material and he genuinely cares about his students doing well in class.\r\nSuccess in this class: Go to class always and write down every single questions he will work on in class because chances are he will bring similar or the exact question on the questions or exams. It is overall good and A doable class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T08:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "The quizzes in class are impossible, thanks to Joe the TA who is bitter because he's never been laid, but the projects are easy. Class is very boring. He knows the material but has the worst tone and accent in the world. He didn't curve this semester, which really sucked, but is understandable because the average was a 78%.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-16T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': 'Casey Cremins is a really nice guy but not a very good professor at all. It takes him half an hour to go over a single example sometimes. He really knows his math but he just comes off a bit...awkward in lecture. I didn\'t learn very much from him, and if you have Joe Galante as a TA, you\'re screwed. Joe thinks it\'s his personal responsibility to create quizzes 10 times as hard as Cremins\'s tests to "prepare you properly." If you have the option, don\'t take Cremins for MATH130. There\'s no required homework and the tests aren\'t terribly hard, but you won\'t learn anything and you will fall asleep in his lectures.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T03:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "Dr. Cremins is a very nice person, he's just not an especially good lecturer. His class is deathly boring but not exceptionally hard. He's full of arcane knowledge and loves to go on unnecessary tangents. \n\r\nHe explains things well, if you can stay awake. I did like his accent and the fact that he was a good sport about being a bore. \n\r\nWeekly quizzes and worksheets in discussion help your grade. You need to study to do well but don't kill yourself studying, the material is not that difficult. \n\r\nNot bad overall, remember that it's calculus that sucks, not Dr. Cremins. The main problem is the boring material, not the prof, hence the 4 stars. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T02:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "I feel bad leaving a lukewarm review for Dr. Cremins because he really is a nice person (though he may not seem very approachable in lecture) and because he does care about the material. The fact is, Dr. Cremins just isn't a very good teacher.\n\r\nHe pretty much taught straight out of the book, occasionally using similar problems on an overhead projector. It wasn't always very easy to follow what he was doing, and he always took FOREVER to do things. So class got boring quickly.\n\r\nHe also did not seem to communicate very much with the TAs. He'd say one thing about how our Monday quizzes would be, and then they'd turn out to be completely different. Or he'd go through all the steps of solving a problem on the board only for us to do the same exact problem on a worksheet in the Wednesday discussion.\n\r\nHe can't teach but his tests are predictable. It is not impossible to get an A.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T17:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "I took this class with Dr. Cremins after having taken MATH140. Compared to 140, 131 was a breeze! Dr. Cremins' notes weren't really helpful - a lot of theory and derivation of formulas, but the math discussion section each week was pretty helpful in terms of content review and questions. I had a great TA (Hana Ueda) and she did a good job of covering necessary material. That being said, go to class and take notes because on occasion, when class has been particularly empty, Dr. Cremins will put a question on an exam that comes directly from class notes and may not be in the book.\n\r\nThe exams are straightforward, lots of partial credit is awarded, and I thought it was fairly easy to get an A!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T02:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "This class consists of three exams 100 pts each, quizzes every Mon. for 100 points total and bio worksheets every Fri. for 100 points total. The final is 200 points. (700 pts total).\n\r\nThe exams are not difficult but sometimes he throws in an obscure problem that he mumbled through in lecture. Doing the suggested homework problems will generally prepare you for the exams nicely. Cremins is a NICE person but not a very good lecturer. \n\r\nIf Hana U. is your TA for quizzes - you're golden. She's EXTREMELY nice and knows her math. If Kristen is your other TA, well let's just say that she should really cut down on the Hohos. Unhealthy food makes you unhappy. She's arrogant and thinks all students in MATH131 are idiots. She relies on the answer key for everything and can barely teach calculus. She also grades harshly.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'Dr. Cremins is not a very great professor. His lectures are extremely boring and the majority of the time he goes over material that you do not need to know such as history of mathematics and proofs of the material you are learning. I am not one to normally recommend skipping lectures but in this class it truly is alright to skip the majority of the time. The text book (which is very good) will teach you the material just as well as he does. Definitely attend discussions because the TAs will clarify anything he goes over in class. \n\r\nThat being said, his class is not very difficult. 90% of the time, it will be obvious what he will ask you on the exams. Furthermore, the final simply tests you on the same material that was on the three midterm exams so there will be no surprises. Do not blow off the quizzes and projects as they are major grade boosters. The quizzes and projects are equal to an entire exam each. \n\r\nAs long as you either attend lecture OR read the textbook and attend discussion, you should be able to get the grade you desire.\n\r\nGood Luck!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-16T23:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "If you've had Cremins before, you know that his class is unhelpful, and going to discussion is what is going to make or break your grade. He does unneeded proofs, and takes about 45 minutes to do one problem in excruciating detail. He's very into history, and will go on a random tangent about how, why and who came up with a certain theorem or equation. His exams are very tough, but it's easy to pick up the patterns of the questions he will ask. Whatever you do not understand will be on the exams. The format of his exams are awful (5 Questions, 20 points each). On a personal level, he's rude- and always treated me with disrespect. After a year with this guy teaching me calculus (had him for math130)...I'm happy to say I am done with it. If you are forced, however, to have his as a professor for this course, make strong relations with your TA- they will absolutely help you. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-05-06T08:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "Cremins is an Ok professor. He definitely teaches you the material pretty clearly and goes over it very slowly. He teaches it to you by proving how things work. If you like to just learn the shortcuts and memorize them this will be a drag. If you like knowing how and why things work in Calculus, this is the way to go. \n\r\nThe discussions are very helpful. I learned more in the discussions than the actual class. 1 day a week are quizzes where the TAs go over the material and use very similar problems on the quizzes and they are easy 10/10s every week. The other discussion are projects where you get worksheets and can work in partners which are also 10/10s. \n\r\nMy TAs were Wei and Paula. Wei was a very good and nice TA who did a good job of going over everything. Paula I wasn't a fan of. She really didn't answer questions about the worksheets very clearly.\n\r\nOverall, if you like learning why things work take this professor. Due to the size of the lectures you can also teach yourself out of the textbook if that works better for you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T04:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "Professor Cremins did not do such a great job teaching this course. He knows what he's talking about but it was very hard for him to explain some concepts and questions when students asked. He also did not give review sessions or make up any review sheets to prepare us for exams and made the problems that we focused on in homework and applications way more complicated than what was taught. I do not recommend him for this course. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T02:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT464', 'review': 'Good class, but definitely challenges you to think. The textbook was very convoluted and confusing, as it would jump from examples to definitions and formulas and back to more examples. Cremins was a good teacher, and knew his stuff, even though class was boring at times. Four exams and weekly quizzes. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-25T02:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': "Cremins is a decent professor, but I had to teach myself from the book a fair amount. If you need to save money, you could just photo copy the necessary pages out of this book because it is small and you only use about 1/3 of it. Or you can get the 1st edition. Tests and quizzes weren't too bad, they were mostly based on the homework questions, so do all the homework and get help if you can't figure it out, and you'll do well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-06-04T12:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'good prof. gives out practice tests which are very close to his real tests. very good teacher as well. explains everything really well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-03-03T14:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'teaches it clearly and straightforward', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'c', 'created': '2007-12-21T04:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Not as bad as everyone makes him out to be. His lectures are VERY slow but exams were a joke and so straight forward. No surprises, easy to do well in his class. He makes subtle jokes no one laughs at but are actually kinda funny.\r\nSide note: this man has the most ambiguous accent ever. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-04-11T00:10:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Cremins is a really nice guy, but pretty inept at lecturing. If you go to his office hours, he's happy to help you or even just chat, but his lectures basically consist of him mumbling into the microphone and writing vague things on the board. He follows the textbook exactly though, which makes up for it. The quizzes and exams are also really easy, especially if you keep up with the textbook problems.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-04-11T22:38:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "The good:\r\nCasey is a nice guy and is respectful to his students. His quizzes and exams are basically the homework problems so there are no surprises. He allows for a formula sheet for exams which you can just cram example problems onto. His infamous Austrian/British accent is weird and is often full of stutters but you get used to it over time and it does not really take away from his lectures. He tries to makes jokes occasionally but no one can really understand them.\r\n\r\nThe bad: \r\nHis handwriting is inconsistent as it can range from neat and legible to straight up Egyptian hieroglyphics. He does speak a little too soft and his mic is trash so sit near the front. His lectures get stale fast and a lot of the times he will start doing proofs of equations and concepts which you will never need to know for quizzes/exams. \r\n\r\nAdvice:\r\nYou don't need to put in a whole lot of work into this class but make sure you understand all the related homework problems before quizzes/exams. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-09T06:33:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'He is a nice guy but sucks at teaching. You have to learn from the book because he will not teach you the necessary material. He will test you on the stuff in the book that was not taught in lecture. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-10-28T17:45:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'I learned nothing from him nor his TA. I learned everything on my own, and from the book. His quizzes are very easy, they are direct questions from the homework. As long as you study the book and do the homework problems you will do fine.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-13T15:58:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "You will have to read the book very well in order to pass this course. Lucky for you, the book is one of the most well-written I've ever had and is super easy to understand. Lecturing is admittedly not one of his greatest strengths, but he is a nice person and cares about his students. Further, his exams are fair, and can be challenging, so even though he didn't teach as much, I left this class with a solid grasp of introductory statistics and probability. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-19T17:03:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH135', 'review': 'Reads off slides and does examples directly from textbook. Chooses the hardest questions for his exams, but are not too hard overall. Learned majority from textbook, not from him or the TAs. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-05T20:54:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "The only reason I earned a B instead of a C+ is because I worked my ass off for the final. Finessed a 192/200 on the final, don't know how, probably curved. His finals definitely maintain a pattern from his past semesters in terms of what kinds of problems he puts on it.\r\n\r\nI went to the first lecture, and didn't go to anymore after that (except for midterms and the final of course). This man's teaching ability... I don't even know. It's difficult to understand his mumbling/thick accent (he's American but... idek), especially with a lecture hall of students and without a mic. And you can't even see his sloppy handwriting on the CHALKBOARD.\r\n\r\nMe and a lot of other people were better off learning from the textbook for quizzes and exams. This was my first experience ever learning stats (didn't do AP Stat) so I can officially say this experience has made my view on statistics a negative one.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-01-21T16:52:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'I found Dr. Cremins to be a great professor. He gives a lot of past exams to review from, does examples, and is especially helpful during office hours. I recommend him as a professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-01-27T00:17:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': 'Prof Cremins is the best. He is super nice, funny, and cares about his students a lot! The key to getting a good grade is doing the homework and going to office hours if you have questions! His exams are always SOOO straight forward and from the homework. He is literally the BEST guy!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-03-29T17:35:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Confusing lectures, so only way to learn is through the textbook. His exams are pretty similar to the past exams and homework problems though, so that's a plus. He also let's you use cheat sheets which are lifesavers. However, the exams only contain 3-4 questions each, and he throws curveballs sometimes, so if you miss a question, you're screwed. Doesn't use the plus minus system, so your B+ is the same as B, or C- is same as C which can be a blessing for some while a frustration for others. Wouldn't take this professor again. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-29T14:45:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Possibly the worst lecturer at UMD. Don't bother going. Exams are alright. He pulls the same stunt every semester for STAT400: first two midterms are really easy, third one is like 50% Calc 3, which isn't a prereq for the course. So watch out for that.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-01T22:29:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Pros:\r\nExams are reasonable\r\nClass isn't too difficult\r\n\r\nCons:\r\nHe has to be the most boring lecturer out there\r\nYou will not get anything out of his lectures (read the textbook instead)\r\n\r\nI would not recommend taking Cremins for Stat400!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-07-08T15:42:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "I don't even know where to start. I can't understand his accent during the lectures, and the times when I was there he spoke to the board and wrote out example problems I could have taught myself. He scheduled exams on Halloween and the day before Thanksgiving break with the full ability to change those exam dates but choosing not to. My TA spoke broken English, so it was difficult to understand her during the discussions, but at least the quizzes are easy. You'll want to study for the exams because they're harder than I expected compared to the quizzes, but they're not unfair. I've also heard that he doesn't do +/-, and based on my mid-semester grade I believe that. If you have to take this professor, Godspeed and I wish you the best of luck. You're gonna need it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-11-25T18:03:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "I think Cremins gets a bad rep. He clearly covers all topics thoroughly in a way that is representative of the exams. Regular quizzes that are pretty easy. He does go fairly slowly through examples but I don't think that's always a bad thing. He also is a little boring, but at the end of the day, it's a math class not a movie. He might not be very entertaining but he's a good lecturer.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-27T20:33:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "The only good thing about this class is that Cremins is a nice guy and is respectful to his students. However, he is the worst lecturer and often explains concepts in class that will never show up on exams or quizzes. TAs are okay and the quizzes are based entirely on the homework. I would not recommend going to lecture. Instead, use that time to review the textbook by yourself and keep redoing homework questions. He allows one page of notes on exams, which is nice, and the exams aren't too bad overall. The exams are also based on the homework questions. If you have no previous stats experience, this will probably be a rough class and if you're not good at teaching yourself, drop this class immediately.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-28T19:13:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Lectures are disorganized and unclear. He knows the topic well but his lectures are not thorough and are hard to follow. I learned more by reading the textbook and teaching myself than lectures. That said, his weekly quizzes were not too bad, usually similar to a homework problem, and his exams were mostly fair. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-06T17:35:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Casey Cremins', 'course': 'MATH135', 'review': 'Cremins gets such a bad rap. He is boring, but about halfway through the semester he began to become more engaging. He stopped reading off the powerpoint and began trying to engage the class and did problems on the board and explained them better. The exams are not awful if you do the homework (exam problems tend to be similar to the homework). He is actively trying to become a better professor. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-03-24T23:31:33Z'}], 'name': 'Casey Cremins', 'slug': 'cremins'}, {'courses': ['URSP620', 'URSP688O', 'URSP673', 'URSP804', 'URSP709', 'URSP709', 'URSP601', 'URSP709', 'URSP804', 'URSP640', 'URSP688O', 'URSP709', 'URSP709', 'URSP804'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Casey Dawkins', 'slug': 'dawkins'}, {'courses': ['JOUR361', 'JOUR360', 'JOUR368T', 'JOUR130', 'JOUR363', 'JOUR661', 'JOUR663', 'JOUR660', 'JOUR668T'], 'average_rating': 2.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cassandra Clayton', 'course': 'JOUR130', 'review': 'Her class is enjoyable, but she noticeably like this one ass-sucker and gives him extra points while some people get points off for pronouncing her name wrong. Also she changes her mind so much and can be rude. She always gave me this look whenever I had a question about my quiz, she would be like "Yes you are here for the grades, AGAIN". I liked her at first and then by the end of the semester, I hated her. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-12-13T00:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cassandra Clayton', 'course': 'JOUR360', 'review': 'She really takes the time to stress the various techniques and strategies you\'ll need to write for broadcast. You\'ll learn a lot doing the exercises from the CD, especially how to use ENPS.\n\r\nThe current event quizzes, as they are in every JOUR class, are such a pain but that\'s not really her fault. The only things that wer truly annoying were the grammar questions where the answers usually didn\'t make sense and the only explanation for them was, "That\'s just the rule."\n\r\nShe\'s also the most awesome person ever!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-08-02T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cassandra Clayton', 'course': 'JOUR368T', 'review': 'This professor berated a learning-disabled journalism student by telling them "you will never be a local television news reporter" and that "you are BS-ing me". She ridicule the student. Cassandra is rude to all students in JOUR 360 and JOUR 368T respectively.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-11-10T02:02:22Z'}], 'name': 'Cassandra Clayton', 'slug': 'clayton_cassandra'}, {'courses': ['PLSC689N', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC489T', 'PLSC420'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cassandra Swett', 'slug': 'swett'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM798A', 'COMM107C', 'COMM107', 'COMM107C', 'COMM107', 'COMM107C', 'COMM798A', 'COMM107', 'COMM107C', 'COMM107C'], 'average_rating': 3.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cassondra Pope', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Ms. Pope's class was one of those classes were she wasn't about to let you slack off and do nothing, however, everything you would ever do in the class would be for the genuine purpose of you becoming a better speaker in class. She was an awesome teacher and she made class really fun and engaging through a bunch of in class activities and she was also super helpful in clarifying topics or guidelines for assignments. She's a fair grader too and leaves a ton of feedback on every assignment you do. 10/10 recommend taking her course. Only thing I didn't like was the textbook but that's just cuz textbooks are absolute ass with any class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-13T16:43:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Cassondra Pope', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'I feel like she wasn\'t always super considerate of the circumstances her students were facing. I distinctly remember an email where she told me "The pandemic is not an excuse for you to not attend class." This was when I decided to take class online for 2 days right before spring break (where UMD practically forced students to go home) in order to avoid possibly infecting my family, some of whom are high risk. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-14T20:59:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Cassondra Pope', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "This class is pretty straightforward. I hate public speaking, but Cassondra provides good feedback after every speech and keeps the environment decently light. You do need a decent amount of time to prep, but if you put in the work you should be good. She doesn't take nonsense from anyone, but overall I had a good time and felt like I actually learned from this class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T19:34:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Cassondra Pope', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'I loved this class with professor pope. My comm class felt like a group of friends by the end of it and professor pope was a huge reason why. She encourages you to get to know everyone and her class assignments are super fun.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-17T04:40:38.965110Z'}, {'professor': 'Cassondra Pope', 'course': 'COMM107C', 'review': "She gives good feedback on public speaking and the class is overall fun, if a little cheesy. It felt like a middle school class sometimes. She wasn't always considerate of student's feelings and circumstances, though: she would sometimes laugh at our chosen speech topics or complain if a student missed class for illness, and we were encouraged to give speeches even when we were sick.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:31:40.068232Z'}, {'professor': 'Cassondra Pope', 'course': 'COMM107C', 'review': "She doesn't have in-person tests. Good professor if you put in the work to prepare speeches and go to class. Does get a little mad over trivial matters, but just be a background character for everything except speeches and games and you should avoid her wrath.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-23T05:16:49.572179Z'}], 'name': 'Cassondra Pope', 'slug': 'pope_cassondra'}, {'courses': ['TDPS479', 'TDPS201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cate Barger', 'slug': 'barger'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101S'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Catherine Bayly', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'CB (as she likes to be called) cares for her students more than most professors. My class was mostly stem majors who cared about more of their classes more than english. She recognized this and sought out to make the course reasonable and interesting. Her light sarcasm made me actually listen to her and enjoy sitting in class and the workload was extremely light for an english course. We only had one long essay and we got multiple weeks to perfect it. If you bring her your writing she will tell you exactly what she is looking for so you know you will be getting a decent grade. She also makes the homeworks a large part of the grade and since they are just for completion, it is a great boost. The only reason I did not get an A in the class is because I was lazy and missed a few homeworks and got screwed over on one of the group projects.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-07-19T13:48:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Catherine Bayly', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'Absolutely wonderful teacher, happy to help and gives you the resources to succeed. This class is an easy A, but only if you put in the effort. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-22T04:08:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Catherine Bayly', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Amazing professor who cares about her students and the class. Clearly outlines assignment expectations and grading and is flexible with deadlines as long as you communicate. The content of the class isn't tough and some of the projects were actually pretty interesting, but the number of assignments is definitely going to make you work. However, if you put in the work, you will get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T02:54:53.519120Z'}, {'professor': 'Catherine Bayly', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'Great professor! Reasonable grader and offers feedback on everything. Always open to help and look over your writing before submission. No complaints at all!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-18T20:20:01.615961Z'}, {'professor': 'Catherine Bayly', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'The winter section had a fair amount of coursework. Content is straightforward and simple. One thing is the weighted assignments are heavily dependent on 3 projects75% so grades can easily tank.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-25T02:00:48.901522Z'}], 'name': 'Catherine Bayly', 'slug': 'bayly'}, {'courses': ['BSCI353', 'PSYC409', 'BSCI446', 'PSYC789C', 'BIOL708Y', 'NACS898', 'BIOL708V', 'NACS728V', 'NACS899', 'BSCI338E', 'BIOL646', 'NACS728A'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Catherine Carr', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Carr taught the first 2/3 of neurophys and Dr. Quinlan taught the last 1/3. Dr. Carr covered an entire chapter from the Neurophys textbook each lecture, which made it very hard to keep up with the pace. I would definitely recommend trying to keep up with the reading, because I found her lectures difficult to follow when I didn't read in advance. I mostly relied on the book to learn what I needed to know for exams because she follows it fairly closely.\n\r\nDr. Carr did post practice exams, which made it somewhat easier to study. The final also wasn't cumulative, which was a huge help. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-14T17:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Catherine Carr', 'course': 'BSCI353', 'review': "She is absolutely terrible. Never coherent, rambles incessantly on material that isn't relevant for the tests, and is never prepared for lectures. She doesn't respond to emails and makes it clear she doesn't care about you. She also writes pretty awful test questions that she thinks are coherent and straightforward, but are absolutely awful. The class is very very unclear.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-18T19:06:41Z'}], 'name': 'Catherine Carr', 'slug': 'carr_catherine'}, {'courses': ['BCHM676', 'BCHM698'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Catherine Cotter', 'slug': 'cotter'}, {'courses': ['FREN103', 'FREN301', 'FREN250', 'FREN203', 'FREN303', 'FREN250H', 'FREN204', 'FREN302', 'EXST030'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Catherine Favier-Kelly', 'slug': 'favier-kelly'}, {'courses': ['EDCI420', 'EDCI421', 'EDCI689', 'EDCI627', 'EDCI620', 'TLPL362'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Catherine McCall', 'slug': 'mccall_catherine'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'WMST488T', 'WMST498D', 'WMST468', 'WMST618', 'WMST498B', 'HONR258D', 'WMST488L', 'WMST300', 'WMST488P', 'WMST468C', 'WMST468L', 'WMST708', 'LGBT448D', 'WMST698D', 'WMST698P', 'WMST350', 'WMST386', 'WMST709', 'HIST419I', 'WMST428H'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Catherine Schuler', 'course': 'HONR258D', 'review': 'Dr. Schuler is probably the worst professor I have had during my time at the University of Maryland: College Park. After reading her horrible reviews from over the years, the only reason I decided to take this honors seminar because it was offered online and the grade distribution has been mostly A’s from past semesters. With this in mind, I thought that I wouldn’t have to deal with her nasty attitude, but I was terribly wrong. Not only is this woman condescending, arrogant, and blatantly disrespectful. She lacks basic communication skills as her instructions are unclear and questions are vague, yet she is always looking for something specific. Of course, you won’t know this until you read the comments she leaves after grading an assignment (which takes her forever to do). For an online class, you would think that she would have the courtesy to respond to emails in a timely manner, but this is simply not the case ー ever. She also never fails to include snarky comments in her announcements and posts as she is never satisfied. She also makes sure to publicly put down students for simple things, such as asking a question or posing a concern about an assignment. If she does not agree with your analysis, you are simply wrong. If you take this class, you cannot have an opinion of your own (even in the discussion posts). These discussion posts, which were the bane of my existence during this past semester, would take hours upon hours due to the overwhelmingly extensive prompts that she would post three days (or less) before the due date. These were not discussion posts, but papers in disguise that were only worth a measly 10 points. The workload for this class, in general, was unbelievable. She would often demand we watch two 2-hour long films and read an article or several almost every week. Once, she gave me a 5/10 on a discussion post because she didn’t *think* I watched one of the assigned films that I talked about in my post, yet apparently I still did a great job. She leaves comments IN CAPS LIKE THIS, which is unprofessional, to say the least, and doesn’t know how to talk to students in a respectful manner (when she actually has the decency to respond). To summarize, Dr. Schular is awful. I finished this class with an 89.15% and she refused to bump me even though she is the one who mistakenly entered in an extra credit assignment. Since when does EXTRA credit negatively impact your grade? I would never recommend her class to anyone. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-05-30T13:48:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Catherine Schuler', 'course': 'HONR258D', 'review': 'Read the reviews on RateMyProfessor. Dr. Schuler is an academic but is not suited for teaching undergraduate students. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-06-07T04:31:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Catherine Schuler', 'course': 'HONR258D', 'review': 'Took her last semester. The review from 5/30/20 summarizes the experience of HONR258D very well.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-27T19:16:57Z'}], 'name': 'Catherine Schuler', 'slug': 'schuler'}, {'courses': ['TLPL101', 'TLPL102', 'MATH470', 'MATH115'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Catherine VanNetta', 'slug': 'vannetta'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cecelia Parks', 'slug': 'parks_cecelia'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "I don't think anyone likes Engl394, and it's overall not the most worthwhile class I've taken at the university. Professor Goldberg isn't the worst teacher I've had, but I wouldn't take her for another class if I had a choice. She's very nitpicky, and small things like not signing your initials next to your name on a memo can make you fail an assignment. Her instructions also weren't totally clear all the time.\n\r\nMy advice is to pay a lot of attention during the first few classes, and do really well on the first few assignments. After you've proved yourself, she seems to keep giving you the same grade throughout the semester. On the other hand, if she decides she doesn't like you from the start, then the rest of the semester will be rough.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-30T02:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "This is one of the worst professors I've had at UMD. Most of the reviews before me describe her well. She speaks on trivial points for a majority of the class. She's EXTREMELY stubborn. When you point out she's wrong, she lashes at you. It's terrible that this school still employs this woman. I could find you 10,000 students more knowledgeable, organized, and understanding than her. Which means if you've taken any stat course that about a third of her students should be teaching instead of her. I wouldn't take this class with her if I were you.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-11T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Just read the posts below. They are all correct. Grades based on Goldberg\'s predetermined judgement of you as a student at the beginning of class. Goldberg retaliated against me for challenging her grading "method" by knocking enough points off my grade to give me a B+ (when I had an A wrapped up). Her grading "method" is basically downgrading for whatever she doesn\'t "like." Do not expect a shred of objectivity in grading. She leaves rubrics vague so she can give you whatever grade she wants. \n\r\nThis teacher has only given out an A+ to 7% of her students in 20 semesters? This number would make sense if Goldberg was actually invested in the class; however, during summer, she acted like she would rather be any place else, came unprepared to class, REFUSED to read a final draft of a final paper - seriously! (out of sheer laziness, as Goldberg sat around in class reading a newspaper until letting us out early, rather than read a final draft of the final paper.) She consistently let out class early which, again, reeks of laziness, since not all material was covered. \n\r\n"One of the most incompetent professors I\'ve had" - totally agree. Never take her class, ever - you might actually learn something from the other teachers. The one 4 star review was obviously someone happy with the grade that was decided on for them. \n\r\n"Very nitpicky in grading, takes points off for frivolous things. This perhaps is related to "what grade you\'re supposed to get" in her head......or maybe I\'m just paranoid." - Absolutely correct, you are not paranoid. What an awful teacher at what is supposed to be one of the top public universities, teaching a required course. The word "professor" has been omitted purposely from this post, as this would imply a standard that is not met by this teacher.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-30T11:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'one of the most imcompetent professors I\'ve had. As far as "professional business writing" goes, she \'s pretty much lost her grasp on reality. She would focus on really trivial stuff rather than the important aspect of your work. (make sure to put down your signature for the assignments that require it, she takes off ridiculous amount of points otherwise). She\'s also stubborn as hell and probably won\'t concede to your argument(however reasonable it maybe). ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-25T17:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Do not take this class with Ms. Goldberg. She's pretty strict when grading and extremely harsh in her feedback. She will also, at times, publicly rip apart your work in class on the projector without hiding your name. What earlier people said about how she forms an opinion of you very early on and is basically what your grade will be at the end regardless of your future efforts is completely true. You also will sit around in her class a lot and do nothing after you finish peer reviewing people's work because she'll walk around to literally every student and review their work personally. When she does this she'll shout out her thoughts to the person whose work it is regardless of how bad/good her thoughts are.\n\r\nI would recommend switching out.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-08-17T12:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'She is really not a bad teacher. She is nitpicky when it comes to grading, but she is fair. She can be pretty blunt, almost harsh but don\'t take it to heart. Compared to other business writing professors, I\'d say she\'s one of the easier ones. I swear, the majority of the class was spent doing memos and emails. As long as you go to class and do all of the little assignments on time, you will be fine. \n\r\nI did have an issue with her "textbook" though. Even though it was cheap ($40) compared to textbooks for other 394 classes, it was just 100 pages of examples. Although they are helpful, I don\'t think that they are worth paying for.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-04-29T02:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Here\'s my opinion. Goes without saying that it should be taken with a grain of salt: \n\r\nProfessor Goldberg forms an opinion of what you\'re capable of very early on in the semester and metes out final grades accordingly. However you perform on the first couple of assignments is a very good indicator of what you\'re going to end up with in the course, no matter how much effort you put in afterwards. \n\r\nVery nitpicky in grading, takes points off for frivolous things. This perhaps is related to "what grade you\'re supposed to get" in her head......or maybe I\'m just paranoid.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-19T20:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'very blunt woman.\r\nHer common response to students\' remarks is "no". \n\r\nEh...an okay professor. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-22T23:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Very bad teacher. \n\r\nSays her jobs for the past 20 years were as editor and writer. The first thing she will look for in your paper is grammatical and mechanical errors. \n\r\nHer grading is bad. \n\r\nSwitch out now!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-08-25T11:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ceil Goldberg', 'slug': 'goldberg_ceil'}, {'courses': ['ENME272'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Celeste Roschuni', 'slug': 'roschuni'}, {'courses': ['BUFN754', 'BUFN740', 'BUFN750', 'BUSO601', 'BUSO758J', 'BUSO601', 'BUSO758J', 'BUSO601', 'BUSO758J', 'BUSO758J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ceyed Baiju', 'slug': 'baiju'}, {'courses': ['ECON630', 'ECON744'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ceyhun Durdu', 'slug': 'durdu'}]
[{'courses': ['EDCI488D', 'EDCI488E', 'TLPL488E', 'PHYS889E', 'PHYS499Q', 'PHYS889Q', 'PHYS371', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS499Q', 'PHYS889E', 'PHYS889Q', 'PHYS371', 'PHYS371', 'PHYS401'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Chandra Turpen', 'slug': 'turpen'}, {'courses': ['ENES221', 'ENME371', 'ENME632', 'ENPM620', 'ENES232', 'ENME272', 'ENME400', 'ENME406', 'ENES102', 'ENME470', 'ENME400', 'ENME400', 'ENME400', 'ENME406', 'ENME400', 'ENME400', 'ENME400', 'ENME400'], 'average_rating': 4.1852, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': 'Thamire made this class much clearer than the other professors from what I understand, and also made sure that we knew the material before moving on. I would definitely recommend taking him for any course that you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-19T20:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "I had Sandborn the first time I took dynamics and ended up dropping the class, and was super scared to take the class again during the summer. But Thamire teaches in such a clear, methodical way, everything seemed to make sense. He is a great teacher, is really helpful in office hours, and is really fair. That said, it's a really hard class and requires a lot of work and practice, but Thamire is the guy to take it with.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-08-19T15:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': 'The most important required ME class in my opinion. Thamire should be teaching this class forever, because he does a great job. Also i was SURE that i had a B+ in the class but managed to get an A, despite him saying that there is no curve in the class, he tends to bump you up if you are really close.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-01-02T18:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': 'Prof. Thamire is an incredible professor. He is knowledgeable about an incredible variety of topics and is very dedicated to ensuring you learn the material in his courses well. Very nice man and an excellent professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-10T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': "Dr. Thamire has got to be one of the nicest professors. I had him for both ENME 371 and 221. He is incredibly intelligent, helpful and fair. He will work you hard but you'll learn alot. Oh, and the elephants that he draws are hilarious. \n\r\nBe warned, ENME371 is an incredibly demanding class, it's more like a 6 credit class. It's not necessarily hard, just time consuming and the reports can be somewhat tedious. Make sure you get a section leader who's there for you and fair. I have nothing against Dr. Das personally but he's far too occupied in other things to be a section leader for this class. His grading was largely unclear, unfair, and took FAR too long. The report and presentation grades for other sections were far higher... bear in mind that this class is not curved.\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-18T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': 'Dr. Thamire is one of the Best engineering teachers I have had at the University of Maryland. I would recommend him over and over to anyone looking to take his class. I wish he taught the lab portions of the class as well because he straight up front helps you with ANYTHING you can think of. He even will adjust the class schedule with what is going on in other classes during the semester. Hands down my favorite professor ever!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-09T12:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'If I had a choice between Kiger, Sandborn and Thamire I would definitely choose Dr. Thamire.\r\nThe reason Thamire is the best is because he genuinely strives to help his students not only to learn the material, but ASLO to get a good grade in the class. \r\nShow him that you care about the class, and he will help you!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-08-10T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "Dr. Thamire is a really nice, approachable guy and a good teacher. Dynamics is a difficult class, but if you keep up with the homework it is manageable. He really cares about his students and wants them to do well, and even though he says he doesn't curve, there are a number of extra credit opportunities that raise your grade just as much. I recommend going to Keystone for this class, I would not have survived without it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-01-25T22:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': "The class is not hard, per se, but is extremely money and time intensive. You will find that 3-4 times during the semester you will be pulling all nighters to get papers done on time, or spending a large amount of time studying for quizzes on material that was briefly mentioned in class, never to be seen again. The review for the final was also lengthy, covering the majority of the 800 page textbook.\n\r\nThe benefit of all this? You WILL be rewarded for all of your hard work. He grades quite generously and gives several opportunities to fix mistakes. Extra credit quizzes are nice too. The material was sort of iffy for me, but the design project was rewarding in the end. Good guy, good teacher.\n\r\nAs an extra note, if you have the choice, get Thamire as your section teacher and not Aris Cleanthous. Aris knows what he is talking about and is knowledgeable, but is difficult to get a hold of and imposes his own arbitrary limitations to reports than what Thamire does. For example, on a Design for X presentation, Thamire's section only had to do a report on a single part, while Aris required two parts to do. The end result being each team rushed through the presentation and went well over the time limit. Not fun.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-20T17:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "Dr. Thamire was a really nice professor and I'm really glad I had him for dynamics. Dynamics is a pretty tough course and the homeworks can be time-consuming. Yet both exams and the final were relatively easy, just make sure to go to the reviews beforehand. Dr. Thamire really wants everybody to do well and as a result gave a bunch of extra credit. At the end of the year we took a 15 point extra credit quiz that nearly everybody got a 100% on. Then, he doubled that to 30 points and added it to our exam scores. I highly recommend taking Thamire for 221.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-19T22:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Good professor, knows and teaches the material well. Extremely nice guy, easy to talk to if you have any questions in or out of lecture. Exams were fair, not my favorite, but not really hard either. Take him if you want to get through ENES102 without hating the class at the end.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-20T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Dr. Thamire is a great statics instructor. He really knows the material well, and makes himself very available if you have any out-of-class questions. Also, lots of opportunity for extra credit in his class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-12-31T00:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "He's a really nice teacher. He wants you to understand the material and genuinely wants you to get a good grade. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-20T02:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Decent professor, he does his best to try and make you understand the material. Lectures were really really really really boring. I hated discussions because the questions were always too difficult to answer. His teaching style kind of got sloppy towards the end of the semester. And he does other little stupid things that I didn't like. I suggest try getting a professor like Beigel but if you end up with Thamire, it won't be too bad. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-19T19:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'By far the easiest statics teacher. He will love you as long as you appear to try hard. His voice can put you to sleep though. Hope you get this guy for ENES102. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-12-07T04:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': 'Very intelligent person, but sometimes goes too in depth or has trouble explaining concepts. This might just be a ENME400 thing though.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-12T06:42:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': 'I do not enjoy existing because of this class', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-03-15T17:23:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': 'Thamire is a really nice guy and is sorta funny sometimes (without trying to be), but he is immensely boring in lecture. Furthermore, the project for 400 is absolutely absurd and he does not teach or explain the concepts well. If you can take the class during the winter or summer I would because outside of the project the class is super easy.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-20T01:52:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME406', 'review': 'I hate him so much. His courses are a disgrace to this university.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-08-03T15:35:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': 'He kinda took academic integrity to a whole different level. We had to show our exam papers on zoom 5 minutes before the exam is over, which a lot of us forgot to do because we were trying to finish up the exam. And he tried to punish the students who genuinely forgot to do so. I understand where he is coming from but it was kind of anal.\r\nDid not want to upload his zoom lectures because he worried about "lower viewership". I think he should have uploaded the recorded lecture even if it costs the amount of the viewership. The learning outcome is more important and students could greatly benefit from recorded lectures especially for courses like this.\r\nExplains concepts really well but sometimes repeats very basic things over and over every lecture. Nice guy and very pleasant to interact with.\r\n400 is a hard course but he probably could do it better than anyone else. I\'m glad that he taught us 400.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-21T05:41:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': 'I love Thamire, but this class is painful at times. He does a great job with drawing figures and is honestly a pretty good teacher. Despite going really fast, you never end up covering as much as what is lined out in the syllabus. The homework is fine, the studio assignments are a tedious but doable group project, and the exams are reasonable but a time crunch.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-02T01:34:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': 'Dr. Thamire is a great teacher who is always open to questions and wants to help students. While it might take some time to get used to drawing some of the figures he draws (he is basically an artist), overall, the class is very well-taught. As for the workload, it definitely is manageable. Exams were fair and reasonable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-22T03:53:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': 'Thamire is a nice guy. His class however is incredibly difficult. The homework is time-consuming. Our studio, which was to design a motor and pulley system and to conduct various failure analyses on it, made no sense - we ended up needing a 9-foot-long pulley because of his initial design requirements. This is unrealistic and the other measurements we got were crazy too, but he would always talk about design in a real-world scenario. Anytime my friends or I would email him with questions he would respond with answers that were unhelpful. The good thing is he will tell you the topics that each question will be on, but the questions themselves can be pretty hard (but relatively fair). Most people I knew did not like his lectures or his pace and his notes are hard to read/follow. Probably the hardest course I have taken in my four years at UMD. It felt like a 400-level weed-out course.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-06-01T00:36:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': 'This class was so frustrating. It should be renamed from "Machine Design" to "Dynamics II w/3 lectures about belts and bearings". I was so excited to learn about... designing machines. We learned a bit about belt and pulley systems, then some about bearings and shafts and otherwise this class felt like an exercise in extra annoying dynamics with extra harsh grading. You need to be good with force and moment balancing, start reviewing now if you haven\'t done it in a while.\r\n\r\nMy biggest gripe by far, is that Thamire from day one will spend something like 10-15 minutes per week telling you that half the class will fail and you should drop it. What a lovely and encouraging thing to hear from your professor, especially when he\'s the only option for this class. He will also threaten to call the FBI on anyone that uses chegg and has apparently done that before (yes this actually was stated the first week LOL). Spends a lot of time talking down on non-engineering professions and on bad engineering students. I was told to drop the class after getting an F on the first exam, but ended up passing just fine. Something like 15% of our class didn\'t get the C- they need, I believe this was a pretty low % compared to usual for him.\r\n\r\nThe homework can be extremely time consuming, and the textbooks are of little to no use. Attendance is basically mandatory as he will give in class participation grades and that\'s the only time you\'ll see how to solve the homework, even though he commonly makes mistakes on lecture material since he does it all from memory. You must do everything you can to get good grades on the homework as I strongly believe he bases exam grading leniency based on homework performance. Lectures will spend an absolutely obnoxious amount of time on deriving equations and far too little on solving problems, as seems to be tradition at UMD.\r\n\r\nExams are somewhat reasonable. They are basically identical to homework with a few slight changes. The best thing you can do is completely memorize the homework solutions. You can easily get a good grade in as long as you can memorize the homework solutions and recite them on paper in 15-20 minutes. Exams will be extremely long and you will most likely not finish, but there is a standard exam curve where highest grade gets rounded to 100, and all others accordingly. There\'s a lot of opportunity for extra credit, but again he really wants a lot of kids to fail which is so annoying. He will dock points over asinine things, such as putting a bearing on a FBD.\r\n\r\nThere is a studio team project that I hear is pretty bad during the regular fall/spring semesters but was overall pretty easy during the summer session. The studio for our class at least served as an easy grade booster. Be ready to work hard, but you can get a good grade in this class. Just don\'t expect to be designing transmissions and engines when you\'re done.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-08-24T15:31:16.232354Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': 'Dr. Thamire ENME400 class has been one of my favorite classes so far. The course work is challenging but as long as you put in the effort to learn it you will succeed. His is always willing to help students succeed and is very helpful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-17T02:51:23.404646Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': "I transferred to UMD from a community college with little remembrance about statics and dynamics. I was extremely worried about this class because I have heard horror stories about this class. Do not let the negative comments scare you.\r\n\r\nThis class is one of the classes I actually enjoyed having no background knowledge in anything in regards to machines or gears, belts, pulleys - yeah anything you can name. If you put in the time and work by doing the homework and show up to class, you will be fine. Be prepared to do a lot of memorization of steps and formulas because when it comes to exams, you have an hour 15 minutes to do 3 problems and the time goes by QUICK, also Dr. Thamire does not give a good formula sheet. Homework's can be a tad bit lengthy but still manageable.\r\n\r\nDr. Thamire is a great professor. He wants his students to learn and ask questions. If he sees that you are trying to understand and that you are doing your best, he will help you out the best he can. There were a lot of people who complained about him-not sure why. He gave us extra credit quizzes to help our grade, extended deadlines to homework and studios a few times to help us as well. He does tend to go fast in lecture because he has material that needs to be covered in 1 semester but he really goes out of his way to help his students who wants the help. If you can do the homework and studio problems, you should be able fine on the exam. The project is not that bad, he makes it manageable. There are parts that are a little harder than others but still manageable. \r\n\r\nI promise you, compared to other UMD ME students I feel dumb as rocks and I still did well on exams. Just make sure you put time into this class and you will be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-20T21:01:04.417271Z'}, {'professor': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': "Thamire is very intense. I think ENME 400 is a difficult course regardless of the instructor, but I could tell that Thamire made every attempt to be thoughtful and reasonable when adjusting expectations and trying to teach us as much as possible in the limited time allotted. He's a great professor, but he WILL demand a lot from you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-24T16:49:59.635368Z'}], 'name': 'Chandrasekhar Thamire', 'slug': 'thamire'}, {'courses': ['ENGL301', 'ENGL487', 'ENGL611', 'ENGL294', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Chanon Adsanatham', 'slug': 'adsanatham'}, {'courses': ['HONR238K', 'HIST328A', 'HIST289Y', 'HIST639X', 'USLT318C', 'HIST419R', 'HIST608N', 'HIST429W', 'ARHU230', 'ENGL254', 'HIST219N', 'HIST429I', 'HIST328A', 'HIST429I'], 'average_rating': 4.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Chantel Rodriguez', 'course': 'HIST289Y', 'review': 'HIST289Y is a unique look at fear throughout history. The class discusses how the legends about zombies reflect the fears of people at the time.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-31T16:09:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Chantel Rodriguez', 'course': 'HIST289Y', 'review': 'Fairly easy gen ed class, fulfills multiple gen eds which is great! Professor is a great lecturer, interesting and engaging. Workload is minimal, weekly movies to watch on your own time and answer some questions. Lots of readings and are “required” but you can get by with skimming. Discussion is kind of pointless but definitely go because participation is like 20% of your grade. Midterm was fairly easy, not much studying needed and you get to use a notecard. Professor is very organized but the elms page has so much stuff it’s hard to find, just go to modules to find everything basically. Fun interesting class, definitely recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-26T03:51:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Chantel Rodriguez', 'course': 'HIST289Y', 'review': "Teacher is very passionate, however, it's a LOT of work. So much so that many people dropped the class due to the insane amount of readings, obscure questions on oral reports, and just a very confusing class structure. Despite this, I still believe it's a good class and the content is entertaining. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-09T17:12:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Chantel Rodriguez', 'course': None, 'review': 'Prof. Rodríguez is a brilliant scholar and passionate teacher from whom anyone would be lucky to take a class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-06-28T17:19:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Chantel Rodriguez', 'course': 'HIST289Y', 'review': "Zombie class is a lie. Don't get me wrong it is a complete joke, but you are assigned a crazy amount of boring readings every week which makes the class a chore. You probably want to take this class because of the very high GPA, but the TA, goes out of her way to dock you points on all your assignments based on nothing and does not leave feedback. This class is set up so that there's one asynchronous lecture and one mandatory 50-minute discussion per week, but the problem is that because the discussion is so short and everyone has to talk, you are not given that many chances to talk. Discussion is graded on participation and is worth 25% of your grade, so because you aren't given that many chances talk, your grade sinks. Even if you manage to participate several times during the discussion the TA does not give you full credit and never explains why. The content is not very interesting and for the last three weeks, we've been watching old zombies movies. Dr. Rodriguez seems like a very nice person and a great professor, but the formatting of this class is not great. My main problem with this class it thinks its important but its just a class about zombies.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-16T15:49:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Chantel Rodriguez', 'course': 'HIST289Y', 'review': 'Interesting and fairly easy gen-ed I would recommend taking (especially as it covers 3 GenEd requirements). Most of the teaching is done by the TA who you see in discussion once a week. Before you do the discussion sections, there are certain readings or movies you must watch beforehand. There is also a 1-hour lecture that you can watch at any time which is also part of what you will discuss with the class online, but besides that, there are very few assignments. The only big assignments are the 3 oral reports, but you usually have no lecture the week they are due so there is a lot of time to work on them. Overall, the coursework is very manageable, interesting and you get to watch zombie movies, so I would recommend taking it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-28T18:40:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Chantel Rodriguez', 'course': 'HIST429I', 'review': 'A lot of readings and weekly discussions, plus book reviews and a final project. Do not take with a heavy class load', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-30T21:42:35Z'}], 'name': 'Chantel Rodriguez', 'slug': 'rodriguez_chantel'}, {'courses': ['URSP612', 'URSP688L', 'URSP688M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Chao Liu', 'slug': 'liu_chao'}, {'courses': ['ENEE459C', 'ENEE759L', 'ENEE244', 'ENEE351', 'ENEE457', 'CMSC818L', 'CMSC818C', 'ENEE759F', 'CMSC798', 'ENPM809V', 'EDSP652', 'CMSC456', 'ENEE456', 'MATH456'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charalampos Papamanthou', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "The grading in this class is significantly harsher than Washington's Cryptography section (class average was 79.5% while Washington historically averages ~87% and we did not get a curve. In addition, Dr. Papamanthou did not hold us back from the mathematical rigor that a cryptography course should have. Homeworks and course content are proof-based and taught rigorously. Having a good understanding of proofs will likely make this course much easier.\r\n\r\nThat being said, I felt like Dr. Papamanthou was a very good professor. He frequently stopped to ask questions in class and carefully answered all of them, trying to make sure everyone understood the material. The course content reflected content in corresponding chapters of the textbook, but his lectures definitely condensed the material and made it more digestible.\r\n\r\nOverall good professor, but I would suggest having a good understanding of proofs before taking this class. In addition, taking MATH406 Number Theory before or alongside this course makes the group theory part of the course much more understandable, in addition to helping you get used to proofs.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-06-04T21:59:18Z'}], 'name': 'Charalampos Papamanthou', 'slug': 'papamanthou'}, {'courses': ['FREN103', 'FREN203', 'FREN204', 'FREN301', 'FREN312'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Charlee Redman', 'slug': 'redman'}, {'courses': ['GVPT241', 'GVPT743', 'GVPT441', 'GVPT741', 'GVPT449F', 'GVPT449K'], 'average_rating': 4.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Alford', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "Professor Alford is a cute, grandfatherly type. He is clearly passionate and extremely knowledgeable about the subject.I thought this class sounded absolutely horrible because I'm not a fan of the subject. However, Alford presents the information in a clear and concise manner and makes it interesting. There are no exams, instead there are three approx 5 page papers.\n\r\nThere is a good amount of reading. Doing the reading is especially important if you want to get an A. He will quiz you on random things from the reading that are not discussed in class. Doing poorly on the quizzes will definitely hurt your grade.\n\r\nGetting a good TA will make or break how you do in the class. Some grade much harder than others.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-11-19T21:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Alford', 'course': None, 'review': "For this seminar it was basically Alford and 10 students. it was mostly the students talking and was really interesting if you're into that kind of thing. Alford really didn't like it if you didn't show up to class but basically it was impossible not to get an A if you just showed up and participated. 3 straight up 3-4 page papers. It was pretty easy and fun.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-05T21:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Alford', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "Professor Alford is a bastard. That's really the only way to describe him. He has a podium from which he can speak, and he will be damned if anyone will challenge his authority. He'll spend the whole class lecturing on his opinions on the world, which any rational person is guaranteed to disagree with, and then twist each question into further proof that he is right.\n\r\nThankfully, none of this has anything to do with the grades.\r\nThere are 2 essays, each based ENTIRELY on the reading (he actually says in the assignment not to quote class notes, he prefers independent ideas). After your essays are returned, you have a week to revise them for a better grade. Those are each worth 25 points.\r\nThere is also a final exam, the question given 2 weeks ahead of time, based, again, entirely on the reading. No notes allowed, but you can pretty much write your essay at home and memorize it. This is also worth 25 points.\r\nThe final 25 points come from 6 pop quizzes. These are based on the reading assigned for the day, and are split 3-3 between lecture and discussion. As long as you did the reading, you should be able to get a 4-5 on each one. Each one is 5 points, and you can drop the lowest one. \r\nBasically, do the reading, sit through lecture (bring a crossword or something), take the quizzes when they come, write good essays (or good enough that you can do well the second time around), and study for the final. Easy A.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T06:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Alford', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "Two 5-7 page papers, 6 short pop quizes (although you usually know when they're coming), and a final. Gotta buy 7 books and read most of them completely, they're about 200 pages. Professor Alford is totally fair and gives you plenty of time on the papers. There is no homework in discussion, and if you do the reading, they are actually interesting. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-18T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Alford', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': 'I really liked this class. Instead of arranging the material chronologically (i.e. Socrates. . . Hobbes. . . Kant), he arranged it thematically, making it more relevant to the students. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-03T14:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Alford', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': 'Professor Alfords class was really challenging, and I really enjoyed it. I had difficulty understanding some of the readings, but he definitely clarified the them for me. I enjoyed this class immensely, and I suggest Alford for anyone taking this class. Taking his class taught me to question everything, and has helped me redefine a lot of things, education wise and life wise. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T19:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Alford', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "Professor Alford is quite a character. Although I can't say I was always very thrilled to come to class, he went great lengths to engage his students in the material.\n\r\nThe whole class is essay based (there are rewrites thank God), with the exception of 5 pop quizzes that makeup 25% of one's grade (you have to go to class/discussion).\n\r\nThe TA's basically determine whether you get an A or B.\n\r\nI will be taking upper-level courses from Professor Alford :)", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-07-20T17:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Alford', 'slug': 'alford'}, {'courses': ['EXST039A', 'EXST049B', 'COMM639M', 'COMM649M', 'COMM639N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Charles Becker', 'slug': 'becker_charles'}, {'courses': ['MATH111', 'MATH107', 'MATH113', 'MATH003'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Charles Daly', 'slug': 'daly'}, {'courses': ['CBMG688O', 'HONR278K', 'BISI678D', 'BSCI464', 'CBMG699B', 'BSCI238B', 'CBMG688B', 'CBMG688U', 'BISI712', 'BISI712', 'BSCI464', 'BISI712', 'CBMG688B', 'CBMG688U', 'CBMG699A', 'BSCI464'], 'average_rating': 2.2963, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I took this class in fall 2011 with Delwiche AND Schultz, so I am reviewing both of them together (and cross-posting this to Schultz's page).\n\r\nI have to disagree with most of the other reviews on this page. I think people here are just bitter that the class was difficult and covered a large volume of information. I think it acts as a weed-out course for a lot of prospective bio majors. Grades also tended to be low percentage-wise, which can be discouraging, but letter grades are assigned according to class rank and people in my class only needed about a 76 to get an A. There is also a drop-one policy for midterm exams and quizzes, which can help quite a bit\n\r\nDelwiche and Schultz are both knowledgeable and enthusiastic professors (Schultz especially is a funny dude). Contrary to what they say, however, you DO need to memorize some specific information and diagrams (evolutionary processes of certain body parts and organisms, phylogenetic tree, etc.) in addition to understanding overarching concepts. I highly recommend reading the textbook chapters before each lecture and attending every class, but that's the exact same advice I give for most courses. Make sure to pay attention and write down any diagrams or explanations that aren't on the slides. Also be sure to review BSCI105 and 106 information on their review guide at the beginning of the semester since there is a full-length preliminary exam very early in the semester. It's scaled to be worth only 10 points, but it helps to start the semester with a good grade and a solid foundation in gen bio.\n\r\nBottom line: it is possible to do well in this class if you're willing to put the time and work in.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-08-16T17:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "i don't even know where to begin with this! there were just so many things that bothered me about bsci207 with delwiche and shultz. definitely not the best introduction to college classes, that's for sure. As you will find out, bsci207 is the bane of an intro bio majors existence, especially with delwiche and shultz who teach off of a whim. they essentially tailor their class to whatever they want to teach, so it ends up sbeing a disorganized mess of random, miniscule facts and large concepts. This semester with 207, delwiche and shultz decided to hand out eleven pop quizzes, and while only five points each, proved to be major stressors. Delwiche is big on thinking about a concept and making inferences based on the information given (mixed in with a few completely random facts here and there of course). Shultz is very big on memorize these random details here, some equations there. this made it difficult to figure out what would be on quizzes and exams, which by the way were very stressful. typically i did not work in this class, at all, except for the week before exams. there were only two exams and the final, and thank goodness one midterm is dropped. I would cram a bunch of information in my head the week before a midterm with the full intention of forgetting it right after, because of how useless it was. to do well without cramming would mean paying attention to delwiche and shultz's monotonous voices for an hour and fifteen minutes. i went to lecture for the quizzes but never, ever paid attention, which isn't really their fault as much as my sheer inability to pay attention to people talking about algae and biomechanics for so long. while i'm sure they are cool people to talk to out of class, I just had a bad experience with this class. I think I got an A because of the humongous curve (75 and up was an A). The TA's weren't much help either, although they were very nice. Avoid taking delwiche and shultz if you have trouble paying attention in lecture, or never learned how to think about biology. at least it's a good way to bond with friends, bsci207 has become a running join between my friends and me. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-07T23:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'This was my first bio class coming into college. I initially thought that bio would be my easiest class, since it was purely memorization. I was so wrong though. BSCI207 with Delwiche and Schultz turned out to be my most difficult class. They emphasized so much in the beginning of the semester that "memorizing everything will not help you" and that instead you must "focus on the broad concepts." I took their words too literally, and didn\'t review much of the material for the first midterm. After taking that exam, I realized they expect you to memorize EVERYTHING they say in LECTURE. Basically, Delwiche and Schultz orient the class on their own interests, with Delwiche lecturing on plants and botany, while Schultz takes over every few weeks lecturing on a totally unrelated topic of biomechanics. To me, these topics ambiguously fell under the class topic of "organismal biology" and it was very frustrating that they did very little to show the relationship of the topics we learned (we started with plants, jumped to viruses, then random bio-astronomy, back to plants, then metazoa [took students forever to realize metazoans are organisms--Shultz should have just straight up told us], to plants againnnn, then the biomechanics of an muscle, finishing with numerous other random topics I cannot remember). \n\r\nTo do well in this course, pay attention in lecture. If you can\'t focus for the full hour 15 minutes, record the lecture and review it with the powerpoints they post on BB. If you don\'t have lecture recordings to go with it, the powerpoints are rather useless. Also, do all the past exams they post. And most importantly, memorize everything. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-03T18:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "This class sucked. Its a combo of 105 and 106 but more in depth and viewing information a different way and if you're really not interested in evolution and phylogenies then get ready to be pissed after every exam! Delwiche was an okay lecturer but he kinda acts like a jerk.. and Schultz is a worse lecturer but really nice (at times). The exams are ridiculously hard with MC choices like (2 of the above) and (none of the above) so that sucked. And the pop quizzes... what college course has pop quizzes?! Lol anyway avoid these 2 professors if you can...", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-26T20:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'This is more of a review for the entire course of BSCI207 with Delwiche AND Shultz...\n\r\nSo...snidely insulting a student\'s intelligence after he asked a question during lecture in front of the whole class made me lose a ton of respect for professor Shultz, though he is the more effective lecturer. I admit, it was kinda funny, but totally inappropriate and unprofessional in that setting. It made him seem a lot less approachable, at least to me. Delwiche seems like the more approachable professor for students who have questions or concerns.\n\r\nShultz\'s lecture slides conveyed the course material better than Delwiche\'s lecture slides. And at times, I did not entirely understand the main points of Delwiche\'s lectures because it was not that explicit (though the plant unit slides were fine).\n\r\nThe tests were okay, and showed that one must know a lot more than just rote memorization of facts in order to be successful. You must be able to logically synthesize the information presented to you, and this is indeed an important skill that they emphasized during the course. \n\r\nI honestly didn\'t open the print textbook that much for this course, though I used the online textbook, and did the chapter outline quizzes, etc but that\'s just my style. \n\r\nFor the "pop" quizzes, you must know the little details covered in the recent lecture. Even if you wrote it down, always review your notes after lecture or right before lecture, because you probably forgot what you wrote down! Happened to me a lot, frustrating.\n\r\nThis was my 1st biology course taken at UMD, so I don\'t know who/what to compare this to in terms of biology professors/lecturers/courses. They seemed just alright, and the tests seemed fairly difficult I guess. I think an average student (who goes to all the lectures and takes some notes) can pass with a mid to low B.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-10T18:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'I read most of the reviews on here and I just think most of it is really biased. So I will be as unbiased as possible when I am rating Dr.Delwiche and Dr.Shultz. \n\r\nBSCI207 is a really tough class. The entire class is about the evolutionary past, so you can\'t really apply the knowledge you learned until you get the present organisms (which also explains why it\'s 3 credits because you can\'t really have a lab about evolution).\n\r\nDr.Delwiche and Dr.Shultz taught this class. Dr.Delwiche taught plants and microorganisms while Dr.Shultz taught metazoans. They are mediocre instructors. They aren\'t the greatest, but they aren\'t bad so you can\'t really complain that they are bad teachers. \n\r\nThe reason why I think the ratings on this page are biased is because of the difficulty of the class. It doesn\'t matter what professor you take BSCI207 with because either way it will be very difficult. I don\'t know how other professors does it but Delwiche and Shultz base your grade on a class ranking system. The top of the class gets A\'s while the bottom part of the class fails. There are pros and cons behind this. Pros are that students are able to get good grades. The exams are very difficult...so it will almost be impossible to get an A by total percentage wise (assuming 90% is an A). The exams are so difficult that 76%+ = A, 70% - 76% = B, 62-70% = C, etc. The cons are that some students are bound to fail. \n\r\nIf you are good at biology and have a lot of confidence that you can do well in this course, then Delwiche/Shultz is for you because of the class ranking system. If you are not confident, I would recommend taking with a professor that uses the percent-grading system.\n\r\nI really believe that the bad ratings on this page are because of the ranking system. I can see why the ranking system can frustrate a lot of people. However, if this class used the percentage system, no one would get A\'s. \n\r\nIn conclusion:\r\n-Delwiche and Shultz are decent instructors\r\n-This class is really really hard\r\n-The grade you get is based on your rank # in the class\r\n-The textbook doesn\'t really help, but you might as well get it because it\'s $5-$10 online\r\n-DON\'T purchase MasteringBiology with the textbook because it\'s useless (it\'s a complete waste of money)\r\n-Delwiche and Shultz are good people, personality wise\r\n-Exams are really really difficult, you need to study a lot for it, probably more than any of your other classes\r\n-The exams require you to think and apply everything you learned about biology\r\n-BSCI207 doesn\'t ask you "what" questions, they only ask you "why" and "how" questions so you REALLY have to know the concepts by heart\r\n-This class is PURE concept, not memorization\r\n-Biology application is this entire course', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-28T17:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Took BSCI207 with Dr. Delwiche in Fall 2010 - it was my second time taking it. I\'m a senior with a 3.6 GPA so I\'m telling you honestly that this is a difficult course.\n\r\nDon\'t blame the professors. I took it the first time with Dr. Cooke and Dr. Jensen because I\'ve heard so many good things about Dr. Jensen, but the material was exactly the same and presented in exactly the same way (hell, some of the lecture slides were even identical!). \n\r\nDr. Delwiche is a great guy, always fun to talk to and willing to help you. He\'s really intelligent, also. One of the more interesting "plant" guys that I\'ve met.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-09-29T21:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Delwiche is the devil. He comes in a pleasant disguise, but don\'t be fooled by his excitement about algae. He will try to fail you just as well. Delwiche and Schultz co-taught this class and neither one of them knew what they were talking about. Both Delwiche and Schultz are obsessed with their research and they don\'t know how to explain anything other than that. Schultz introduced himself by talking about spider penises and how they give "nuptial gifts" to the females. This was the only lecture that I ever understood from the class. Seriously, if you need to take this class don\'t EVER try taking it with either Delwiche or Schultz. They ended up using a bell curve, so in order to get a B in the class you needed higher than an 80%. They were not sympathetic at all. They would give no points back on tests, even if you provided a perfect explanation on essay questions. They were the worst!!! ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-12T16:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS CLASS! You will learn almost nothing that you will ever use again, while sitting through the most uninteresting lectures of your entire life. Professors are indifferent towards students and are very self absorbed into their research and weird stuff that they are interested in (Shultz was also the teacher for this class). Put random side notes on exams - speaking of their exams they are ridiculous. You will study for days and still fail. Don't waste your time, and if this class is required for your major TAKE IT WITH A DIFFERENT PROFESSOR or you will regret it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-18T01:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Dr. Delwiche is honestly one of the most caring and dedicated people (not just professors) that I have ever met. Take heed, this is not an easy course, but in terms making himself available to students and doing everything he can to help them, he is unmatched. If you introduce yourself to him, at all, he WILL remember you, not only by face but by name. If you ever wander up to his office looking for help, as I did on only a few occasions, he'll set aside whatever he is working on and meet with you, and answer any questions you may have. He is passionate about his research, and his lectures are engaging. I can't stress enough, if you are having trouble in the class:\r\n-A) download the lecture slides, and read the corresponding sections of the book as you go through them. They will provide a much more detailed description than one can reasonably fit on a lecture slide.\r\n-B) If you're having problems in the class, talk to Delwiche. He is more than reasonable and will do everything in his power to help you.\n\r\nIn conclusion: hard class? yes.\r\nGreat professor? that too", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-14T15:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I just took the second exam for this god forsaking class. Have not studied like this for so long only to get an exam with questions that weren't remotely close to the study guide. Please please please do your self a favor and DO NOT take this class with them!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-10T21:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I hate 207. It isn't nothing like my advanced plasemint biology at High School or at the community colleges I been too. It seem like you have to take notes and read the book and even that won't mean you will do good on the exam. The lectures are so boring I would fall asleep, but I like talking to the guy next to me who feels the same way and we get through it somehow. The lectures don't entertain me enough; I need lots of sounds, colors, motion and stuff to keep my interest. All these guys do is like stand and talk and talk and show slides of stuff that nobody care about. What's so great about plants and bugs and stuff anyway? What a waste of my time. If you like me, don't take this course!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'I', 'created': '2010-10-29T17:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'One of the most ridiculous classes I’ve ever taken. Be prepared to take extremely detailed notes (and that’s not going to be enough- put in A LOT of extra study time). I would suggest probably recording the lectures (I didn’t do this but thinking back, it may have helped). This class was co-taught (partly by Prof. Delwiche and Prof. Jeffrey Shultz). Their teaching styles are different- Prof. Shultz’s lectures come straight out of the book, are monotonous, and boring. You will be tempted to fall asleep (during either one’s lectures). At times, the material we learned didn’t seem to connect (it seemed like we were jumping around). Exams are random, ridiculous, and (most often) unfair. There are 4 undergrad TAs and 1 grad school TA. This time around, they were absolutely no help and tended to contradict each other. They’ve either forgotten the material or just don’t know it. There is no discussion section for this class; the TAs hold review sessions throughout the week. Random topics that were never fully discussed in class ALWAYS come up on the exams and are worth a lot of points. Reading the textbook thoroughly will help but does not guarantee in any way that you will do well on the exams. \n\r\nThis class will be horrible no matter who you take it with, but please, take another professor. Occasionally these two have condescending attitudes when you ask them questions. At times, you wonder whether they really want their students to do well.\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-07-02T18:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Well. You won't expect a good review from me. Dr. Delwiche starts off in the beginning of the semester taking pictures of his class. He is more of a photographer than a professor. His powerpoints are absolutely trash. They are just pictures with little or no text. You literally have to record his lectures because there is no way in hell that you write that fast. His exams are irrelevant. It is like a giant tank water with thousand of balls with words on it, and he has manatees swimming around in it and push the balls into an opening. In that opening, the balls falls in a lottery type machine and the words form a sentence. That's what a typical Delwiche exam question looks like. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-28T02:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'This class was just crazy. Everything that one would expect to be on the exam, the kind of stuff that you should come away with from a class like this was not there. Instead, look forward to memorizing every random fact that comes up in lecture. As tempted as you may be DO NOT FALL ASLEEP! Whatever little fact you may miss in that 5 minute nap may very well make a free response worth hefty points on the exam. Also, work on writing a lot in only a few minutes. Most of the exam is free response, and sometimes even what seems like the most comprehensive explanation to you may not get you full points on the question. The only other graded work beyond the exam was a museum assignment, which was actually graded pretty harshly, so do it well. Take very copious notes during class, or record lectures, since the PowerPoints, tho available, are not ever good enough to study from as they are simply pictures. Wikipedia becomes a good friend to look up stuff like formulas that are not fully explained in class, but that WILL COME UP IN THE EXAM, you can count on it. Nothing against the professors personally, since they both seemed very knowledgeable, but class was pretty boring, and the exam was ridiculous. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-02-08T19:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'First off let me say TAKE ANOTHER PROFESSOR!!! Delwiche is very very interesting and he clearly knows his stuff. He is excited about plant biology and he makes it interesting to learn about. However, the tests are impossible, and he picks random nonsense that he\'s interested in for the essay questions and the fill in the blank (no word bank). You better be prepared to read the book if you really want to fully understand whats going on. As for Schultz (the guy that he tag teams with) he is TERRIBLE. His lectures are the most boring ever and i definitely fell asleep multiple times. His lectures jump around and are NOT sequential at all. You learn random crap about muscles and then half way through the lecture we\'re learning about water and electrolyte balance. \r\nDO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND TAKE ANOTHER PROFESSOR UNLESS YOU WANT A TON OF READING TO DO IN ORDER TO SCRAPE BY WITH A "B". ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-02-03T18:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'PROF IS THE WORST PROFESSOR AT UMD. avoid him at all costs. honestly, i have never done so badly in a class that i study so much for. his exams are a joke, pulling questions out of the blue, testing you on a senseless amount of material. he is obnoxious and arrogant, and his lectures are pointless. \r\nthis class ruined my GPA.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2010-01-30T11:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Dr. Delwiche is an amazing professor. His class is hard, but as long as you pay attention in class and take good notes you should be fine. It also helps to have a vast knowledge of introductory biology. Dr. Delwiche is really friendly and willing to help his students. His expertise of microogranisms is evident during he lectures. I would highly recommend him to anyone. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-07T14:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He is an awful awful professor. I regret taking his class more than anything I've done all of college. He is arrogant, his exams are ridiculous and have no focus and it is impossible to study for them. He doesn't teach, and his slides are just dozens of pictures that have no relevance to the subject matter. If you have to take him, the only thing I can recommend is to make sure you read the book. It's not a guarantee for a good grade, mainly because his exams are ridiculous and don't make sense. But it is the only concrete way to study. Since the lecture slides have virtually no information on them, taking notes while he speaks is very important, something I didn't realize until it was too late. However, regardless, it is impossible to write down everything he says because he speaks faster than you can write, and the topics he goes over are so random that it's hard to know what's important and what's not. \r\nAs an example of how ridiculous the exams are, we had an essay question asking us to describe how a bird's digestive system works in detail, when nothing like that was ever mentioned in the book or in lecture. We learned about bird RESPIRATORY systems, but not digestive systems. The first thing that occurred to me when I read that question was that he got mixed up and in his infinite wisdom mixed up digestive and respiratory systems. I still don't know what the answer to that question was...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-27T18:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'This is a review from someone who had this professor this past semester. I must say, he is a smart, approachable, and kwirky person, but, he is very intense at the same time. What do I mean by that? His lectures are very intense, his tests are even more intense and his powers of observation even more so. Let me tell you something: Be prepared to work hard. There are no freebies in this class; even a museum assignment that would seem simple required a lot of work to be done. He keeps track of who actually comes to lecture and whatnot, so keep that in mind if you want a good grade in this class. Although our test averages were horrifying at times, there was a curve in this class, and he drops one test- take note however, this doesnt mean that you should flunk any one test. Somehow even after dropping a test and curving, MANY people got Cs and even Ds. That might have somethign to do with one of the final questions, which was worth close to 15% of the entire exam: Describe the origin of life, draw the phylogenetic tree and explain how life evolved. Basically, it asked you to summarize the whole course in one question-in 8 minutes. I was happy to get the grade I got. One more thing: Avoid this class if you can, especially if you arent too fond of plants and/or fossils.\r\nAnd, please show up to class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-04-08T10:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH DELWICHE.\n\r\nThis was the worst class I have taken in my college career. He is a very arrogant, obnoxious professor. His tests are just ridiculous (who else would make you memorize the ENTIRE tree of life and when everything evolved?). Most of all, you never know what is going to be on the tests. If you have to take it with him, attend all lectures (although you learn nothing from them). MEMORIZE EVERYTHING. including chapter and lecture notes. Not only do the exams have extremely unclear and confusing questions and you have to write paragraphs for each question, the TAs are also strange graders. I still have not figured out what happened in that class. LEARNED NOTHING. RUINED MY GPA. POINTLESS CLASS. WORST TEACHER EVER.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-03-19T00:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Good lectures, friendly and easy to talk to. Exams were the worst i've encountered in the department thus far. The exams were typically unclear, confusing and irrelevant. The final focused a great deal on material that was not stressed during the semester. Extremely inconsistent assessments, avoid this professor if possible.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-19T17:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Honestly, I've never gotten a C in a biology class before. This class is pointless. I really don't feel that this has improved my understanding of biology whatsoever. I think that he makes the tests impossible and he doesn't talk about enough during his lectures.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-17T21:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Lectures were interesting but it was difficult to tell what we were supposed to be learning. Exams did not make any sense. He is approachable and I would consider doing research with him. The most I can say about this class was that I've never had such an interesting class that I had no idea what we were learning. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-09T20:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Helpful hint to doing well in this class: MEMORIZE EVERYTHING. Every chapter assigned and all of the lectures. Make sure you understand it all too, because the tests actually make you think. Lectures were interesting, but don't fall behind because it's all fast-paced. Interacts with students, and really helpful when it comes to questions.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-08T17:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Only care for the students is reminding them to drop before the fail with an F. His exams are ridiculous. His lectures need to be reviewed to help the student more than trying to confuse them for the exam. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2008-11-10T03:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Delwiche', 'course': None, 'review': 'A nice guy and very smart guy. He really cares about the subject. The exams are kind of hard to predict.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-10-28T02:41:59Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Delwiche', 'slug': 'delwiche'}, {'courses': ['UMEI001', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI006', 'UMEI004', 'UMEI003', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI006', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI005'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Duquette', 'course': 'UMEI007', 'review': 'This professor assigned lots of assignments and is non-sense. Do not recommend him at all.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-22T02:51:08.829969Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Duquette', 'course': 'UMEI005', 'review': 'TO MANY ASSIGNMENT AND ITS ALL BULLSHIT', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-29T03:45:43.820168Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Duquette', 'course': 'UMEI007', 'review': 'I do not know if people are complaining about the amount of work for this class. Like what do you expect, this class is 6 credit course. So, you will definitely accept a lot of assignments and readings. If you go to the class and do the work you will definitely pass this course. Charles is much better than any other MEI professor. This is coming from someone who had to take this class twice.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2023-02-04T01:17:37.391046Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Duquette', 'slug': 'duquette'}, {'courses': ['PUAF753', 'PUAF752', 'RDEV688E', 'PLCY752'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Charles Field', 'slug': 'field_charles'}, {'courses': ['PSYC353', 'PSYC690', 'PSYC698', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC468H'], 'average_rating': 4.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "Tests = 1/2 book, 1/2 lecture.\n\r\nLecture is off the slides, but attendance is mandatory because he adds so much information verbally. Tests are straightforward, no curveballs, so study the important stuff. Lecture is kinda boring, but the subject is still really cool and Dr. Gelso knows his ish and engages you.\n\r\nREAL SIMPLE:\r\n*YES. Dr. G = amazing professor. Nationally recognized to be correct. so don't worry about the teacher, just the class if you like the subject.*", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T23:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "I disagree that lecture was boring! I found this class to be fascinating and Dr. Gelso to be an excellent professor! After my science courses I would come into abnormal and relax because it was such a stress-free environment. We watched videos, discussed schizophrenia, and engaged in debate. The exams were also super fair and straightfoward. Gelso is one of those professors that really wants you to do well. He believes that all of his students deserve to excel and gives us extra credit options and straightfoward tests. The TA's for this class were also great. Take it! You will learn a lot about psychopathology.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T09:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': 'Lecture was honestly boring most of the time but still a fairly good class if you are interested in the abnormal part of psychology.\n\r\nA lot of studying is required for the text part of the exams because its not covered in class and the questions are specific and tricky.\n\r\nDr Gelso is very nice and approachable and there was so much extra credit , which is easy and worth doing. There are only a few exams so doing well on them is essential, as it makes up your grade. \n\r\nGoing to lecture is absolutely necessary, so if you do that , keep up with the text, and study, this class is pretty easy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-14T14:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "Hands down one of the most engaging, informative, and interesting classes I've ever taken--not just because of the subject matter per se, but the professor as well. I have to strongly (but respectfully) disagree with the negative reviews, because I personally think that Dr. Gelso is a phenomenal professor, one of the best I've ever had in college. His lectures are very well structured, especially for a 75-minute class--he lectures for the first half, gives the class a break, then provides supplementary material (videos, case studies, etc.) and initiates thought-provoking discussions with the class. As a professor and clinical psychologist, Dr. Gelso has many years of professional and teaching experience. His good-humoredness, coupled with his wealth of knowledge and experience, makes this class a must-take.\n\r\nThe multiple choice-based exams are very straightforward, and are based upon the lectures and the text, split exactly in a 1:1 ratio. The text portion can be a little challenging, but as long as you review the boldfaced terms in the book, the tables, and the general ideas found in the summaries at the end of each chapter, you should be more than fine. The final is noncumulative, and only tests the last part of the course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-06-01T21:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "Professor Gelso is an amazing professor and this is a must-take class! To me who normally hates going to lectures, I looked forward to these lectures and never skipped one. They are very interesting and don't follow the book and are more related to real life. The tests are easy but the questions are all fair and straight foward, you just need to know the information. If you study hard and pay attention in lecture it is not hard at all to get an A. Don't let these negative reviews prevent you from taking the class because you will love it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-25T18:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "I really enjoyed this class. It was great that there was no homework, and only 3 tests (supposed to be 4 but changed to 3 because of the snowstorm). Gelso is a pretty great professor, in my opinion. He's an extremely pleasant person, and funny now and then. It's true that his lectures could be a bit more structured, but if you go to every class and pay attention/take notes you'll be fine. Its a longer class, but even he knows that so he always give us at least a 5-minute break.\n\r\nThe first portion of the exam is on textbook information, the last half is lecture stuff. Review your notes and read the textbook (yeah it's a lot, especially if saved for the last minute but at least it's interesting!) and you really should be fine if you really care about doing well. He repeats that you should focus on the bold words anyway. The last review confused me because I took good notes and read through the text once (usually right before the test, especially going over harder-to-remember parts, and I always did well... \n\r\nBut there's extra credit if you need it, you can do up to two 2-page book reviews. They're not necessary though, I didn't do them and still got an A in the end. However, before the final I wished I did one, just so preparing for finals would've been less stressful!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T05:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "I actually thought this was a very interesting class, and I loved Dr. Gelso's teaching style. It made things more interesting when he switched from lecture to case studies to videos, and gave a more complete picture of the material. If you can keep up with the reading and study well for the tests, it's not too difficult for a 300-level class. I would recommend this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-18T23:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "The person who said this was a great class is LYING to you. I too was fooled by great reviews on ourumd and other sites so i took the class. I couldn't have hated this class more. I thought it would be interesting learning about abnormal behaviors. Gelso is extremely boring. There's no structure in the class. He switches from power point to just lecturing and you never know what is worth writing down and what isn't. Randomly he'll break out into class discussions. I'm always confused as to what we're doing. He uses videos about people with disorders, which was interesting. There were only 3 tests, strictly half of the questions from the book and half from the lecture. No matter how many notes I took or how many times I read the book, I always did bad on the tests. I wouldn't recommend this class to anyone. The extra credit is to read a book on a psychological disorder and write a review on it for 5 points. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-04-27T12:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "This class is fairly difficult. There are usually 4 exams but we only have 3 because of the snowstorm. The exams are half textbook, half lecture which isn't so bad but can get really confusing. There are two extra credit opportunities which involve book reading and paper writing - not worth it. He is fun and knows his information however he is not very good at teaching. Try to find another professor for this class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-04-26T19:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Gelso', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "Great class, great professor. Dr. Gelso is engaging and interesting and actually makes going to class enjoyable. Exam questions are half lecture material half textbook material, which means you have to read and learn the book material on your own....annoying but very doable.\r\nTry not to miss lecture, because you won't be able to find what he says in your book. Three exams and a final, as well as extra credit opportunities.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-22T13:16:00Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Gelso', 'slug': 'gelso'}, {'courses': ['PUAF720', 'HACS208P', 'PLCY388C', 'INST408V', 'HLTH672', 'PLCY388Q', 'INST467', 'PLCY798P', 'PLCY399', 'PLCY688C', 'PLCY288Q', 'INST467', 'PLCY388C', 'PLCY798P', 'HACS208P', 'PLCY288Q', 'PLCY688C', 'INST467', 'PLCY388C', 'PLCY798P', 'BUSI758A', 'HACS208P', 'PLCY688C'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Harry', 'course': 'HACS208P', 'review': "The course itself seemed more interesting than it ended up being. Charles Harry lectured for just about every class. The final was a paper while the midterm was an exam, so it's important to pay attention to the first half of the course (or at least study). The class was boring, but manageable and not hard.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T17:27:52.989116Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Harry', 'slug': 'harry_charles'}, {'courses': ['ECON306', 'ECON454', 'ECON709', 'ECON808'], 'average_rating': 1.8235, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': "Really depends what youre looking for in an econ class.\n\r\nAttendance not required (its used if you're between grades. 3 exams are all that determine your grade. Exams are 85% from the problem sets he posts online. Powerpoints posted online. \n\r\nSo if you want to go to a class 3 times a semester and still get an A, this is for you.\n\r\nOn the other hand if you want a real teacher this guy is hands down the worst. Dyslexic (really annoying when his test questions need editing), mumbles, makes class really tough to pay attention in. No class interaction just powerpoints and mumbling.\r\nFor a business student that doesn't care about economics this was a perfect class for me.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-19T09:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON454', 'review': '100% of the review aoiara made for econ306 can be applied for econ454', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-14T19:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': 'I rarely ever review professors. But this guy is special. I wanted to wait until the CourseEval came up so I could give him a scathing report. \n\r\nHulten is the worst professor I\'ve ever had in my entire life. It baffles me that people are giving him higher star ratings. I\'ll tell you now: I rate professors not based on how easy the class is, but based on how good the professor is. If the professor sucks, but I still get an A, the professor will get a low report. If the professor is amazing, but I get a B, the professor will get a fantastic report.\n\r\nThat being said, Hulten is horrendous. Here\'s why:\n\r\n1) His class is extremely boring. There\'s a reason why no one goes to his class. When you go, he spends the hour muttering off, and there\'s absolutely no way to hear him. You can sit right next to him and he\'d still sound like one of those grumpy old men. \n\r\n2) He is not interested in helping his students. His office hours are extremely inaccessible, especially if you have schedule conflicts. He does not agree to meet you anywhere outside of his walk in hours. He says he\'s "too busy." If you ask him a question regarding the class material, he will tell you to ask the TA. The only time he would talk to you is if you had a question regarding the class itself, not the material. Such as what the grade curve is. \n\r\n3) I don\'t know why, but he didn\'t give any homework or quizzes or anything. The three grades you have are the three exams. You have nothing to boost your grades. \n\r\n4) He doesn\'t post the grades online. He takes 5 to 7 days to post up freaking exam answers, which can easily be posted up an hour after the exam like most professors do. He then just leaves ELMS completely empty. There\'s not a single grade in there, and it\'s already May. I don\'t know the class curve, and I am not 100% sure of my own grade. What if I changed an answer or accidentally filled something wrong? I\'d never know. He apparently curves the class based on the class\'s performance. Too bad we never know the class\'s performance.\n\r\n5) The powerpoints are useless. He literally changes letters/symbols for the same variable. For example, when he says "change in X," he sometimes writes it as dX (which, by the way, is normally the symbol for the derivative of X), and then sometimes he writes it as lower case delta X. Why not just triangle delta X? Baffles me really.\n\r\n6) He puts in completely random abbreviations and terms. You will NOT know what they mean. He puts everything in equation form. For a class like econ, that\'s not beneficial. For example, he randomly put on the letters "VRTS" in one of his powerpoints. No other mention of it anywhere else. Just VRTS. What the hell is VRTS? I made a guess, but I\'m still not absolutely sure. Googling it? I\'m pretty sure it doesn\'t mean Virtus Investment Partners. \n\r\n6) There are literally three practice set problems available for us for the midterm. You would not be able to understand how to do these practice problems by looking at the powerpoint. I had to google how to do these questions. I had to youtube search some random microeconomic teachers in order to understand some concepts. Yeah that\'s right, I actually had to find teachers outside of Hulten in order to learn the material that Hulten should teach himself.\n\r\n7) He is absolutely inept. Usually, even if a professor is bad (such as Pfieffer), I still admit that they are very smart or passionate individuals who understand the material completely. But Hulten simply does not care. You ask him why German markets are so inept, he answers "because they have strange work hours." The hell does that have to do with this course?\n\r\nI would accept this class a lot more if there were just homeworks, quizzes, or some kind of practice material that isn\'t the practice sets. The practice sets do help in the exams, and doing the practice sets will guarantee you to get most of the questions correct.\n\r\nHowever, the exams are 40 questions. The practice set might help with 30. If you are content with getting a C in every exam, that\'s all you have to do. I wanted an A in every exam, meaning I could only get 2 questions wrong per exam. Two. There are at least 5 to 10 questions on the exam that come out of absolutely nowhere. \n\r\nOh, and DO NOT BUY THE BOOK. He teaches maybe 1/3 of every chapter. All the book does is slightly clarify the points. You can easily get the same clarification using google. I don\'t know why he skipped over so much material.\n\r\n1 star is too much. 0 stars need to be made available.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-29T16:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': "There's not much to really say here. The dude can't teach. At all. \r\nI haven't gone to class since the second week, have a 90 average, and might very well get a B only because I was way too lazy to hand in the homeworks.\r\nPoint is, take the class, but don't expect to learn, and do expect to spend about an hour every two weeks doing the homeworks. Oh, and studying a little bit. A few hours most.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T06:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': "He lecture is boring, but he is knowledgable. He doesn't take attendance. There are 6 homework, two midterm, and a final.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-09T15:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': "While Hulten's teaching style is not super helpful, the class is not too bad. ECON 306 is definitely a class where teaching yourself will really help. \n\r\nIf econ comes somewhat naturally to you, to do well in the class all you have to do is memorize/understand his PPT slides and then look up anything you don't understand in the book.\n\r\nIf econ does not come naturally to you, read the chapters and look through the PPTs. \n\r\nFor tests, Hulten gives the best advice: look at each slide and think about the purpose of the slide and the questions that he could ask you about it. Though the most important thing for this class is making sure you UNDERSTAND the material and it MAKES SENSE to you. If you just memorize it with no rationalization, the tests will be harder than they need to be.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T11:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': "Definitely not great. He is very dry, and while he definitely knows his subject, he is not great at keeping class interesting and lecture attendance drops to 15% by week 7. He tells you the first day that you don't have to come. \n\r\nThe material isn't that much different than ECON200 and while they show you some calculus, you don't need it.\n\r\n6 online quizzes, lowest gets dropped. they start out easy and get pretty tough at the end. He provides problem sets before the quizzes which are\xa0very similar, so make sure you pay attention to those. 2 midterms and a final. They are very similar to old exams and problem sets, so not that tough. Scales the class against your peers, so if you beat the curve, you'll be fine.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-16T15:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': "I understand that ECON is a tough class to teach and that students will never be very interested in it, but you have to do SOMETHING to try to get them involved.\n\r\nHe drones on monotonously for an hour and 15 minutes to the point where you can't listen to him. My suggestion is to learn from the textbook and use the quizzes to practice.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-11T11:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': 'If I somehow was not accepted into the Smith School, my last choice would have been majoring in Economics, and this class solidified this. I have never experienced such an inefficient, ineffective, and generally incompetent teaching style as ECON306 with Professor Hulten. To myself and most students I have spoken to, I have gathered that he is highly disliked for several reasons: First, his lectures are incredibly boring. Over the course of the semester, you would have thought the class came down with a case of SARS, only to miraculously return to the class when an exam was scheduled. Second, the TA’s were very ineffective when he was out with a sickness. When several students asked for practice problems, the answer was simply, “We don’t have enough time.” Are you kidding me? What kind of teacher/TA deliberately doesn’t want their students to learn the material by practicing? None of the lectures included problems that we would see during exams, which made studying very difficult. This leads me to my third reason; the slides presented in class were very different from the ones put on ELMS. On many occasions, slides were missing or completely different from the ones online. This made it extremely difficult to study for quizzes and tests, since the material simply wasn’t there. When quiz answers were posted, they were simply answers. No work was shown, god forbid you get a question wrong and not know how to figure it out when it comes time for a test.\n\r\nI understand that economics is a part of business...if a professor who actually could relay the information to the students in the class taught it. Professor Charles Hulten, in my opinion, has been the worst teacher in my 4 semesters here at the University of Maryland. Not just because he teaches a class that is incredibly boring and monotonous, but his overall demeanor during class. His voice was only audible if you sat within 11 inches from him or had incredible, supernatural hearing, and even then you could not hear his mumbling even with the aid of a microphone. \n\r\nYes, I understand that he was out for a good month due to illness, but before his illness and after his illness, it seemed as though he was only teaching for the sake of teaching. Obviously, he has a great understanding of the subject, otherwise he wouldn\'t be teaching here. However, on one occasion, I emailed him twice and received no response. The matter at hand was a question on a problem set that is ungraded. After not returning my emails, I went to his office hours and explained the problem and asked for some help on the solution and to get a better understanding of the material. His response was simply, "Go ask the TAs." What type of “distinguished” professor denies a student the right to come to office hours to receive assistance and just turns him/her away without a valid reason? This is simply absurd.\n\r\nI have attended every single class and have learned absolutely nothing. Many students I have talked to in the class feel the same way and this is terrible. As a student, I feel as though you should learn at least ONE piece of information that you can use in the future, and this class nullified that theory with ease. \n\r\nTo be honest, it really pisses me off that the University of Maryland would continue to employ such incompetent people to teach such an important course. Failure to give practice problems (seriously, how hard is it to put together 10-12 problems for each chapter) and blaming it on “not enough time” was the worst excuse I’ve ever heard in my entire life. How can you try to teach a class if there are no examples to base studying off of? If you don’t want to give practice to your students, then go teach at a community college where students don’t care at all, because here I know for a fact students want the best education and actually learn topics discussed in class. \n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-09T11:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': 'The business school keeps getting better and better!\r\nFirst Karen Gold, now this.\n\r\nHe won\'t answer questions, responding that "the TAs will go over it in discussion." TAs don\'t give a crap and hurry through discussion trying to avoid answering questions, cus, you know, they have more important things to do. Waste of money and time. Don\'t go to class and teach yourself, you\'ll do better than if you go to class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-02T12:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': 'Worst teacher and TAs Ive ever had. Hulten could give a crap about any of his students. None of the students seemed to understand anything he was saying and everyone just stopped showing up. It took him and his TAs weeks to post the answer keys to the tests and the grades. Overall, dont expect to learn anything in his class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-07T05:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': "The combination of his confusing and oversimplistic, stained overheads dated back to 1992 and his incoherent ramblings to go along with it make this class hard to stand, but you'll have to just suck it up because you're an econ major and he is teaching a class that is a prereq for 400 levels. Luckily, as others have said, tests aren't bad as long as you read the book, and homeworks are his old ECON306 homeworks for non-majors. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-15T18:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': 'study at home and get an A.\r\ngo to his classes and get an F or lower\r\nI am not gonna add anything, the guys said what i see as 100% true.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-02T13:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': 'It was sad to say that I was very dissapointed to have him again. I had him for econ300 (when he makeshiftly taught the first half), and now for 326. His voice is so diffucult to hear. Its like a lulliby, putting me to sleep in class. His ancient slides, no I mean, his outdated and stained to prove it overhead transparencies and his presentations of them were a disorganized blaaa. You walk in with nothing and walk out just the same. The only up side is that his TAs are there to help, and the real lecturing is done in discussion. His exams are simple, and his homeworks are do-able. Also, over the two consecutive semesters that I have had him, he has made attempts to connect with us through youthful examples. For one, he used a bug named Sqishie to convey utility maximization, and uses examples of Ipods and sitting in class for other concepts. BUT, they are all hits and misses. Poor fellow. He is a genious, but just cannot translate it into a lecuturer.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-27T22:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': 'He has the knowledge to teach, but he has problems delivering it to the students. His class is boring and what kills me is his jokes that no one laughs at unless himself. I am taking this class with him cuz I have to take it and his sections are the only sections that fit into my schedual.\r\nAVOID HIM.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-07T12:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON300', 'review': "Very dry, monotonous and boring. Extremely technical in his explanations and terms. Obviously knows the subject material very well but doesn't convey it in a way that makes sense at all to the class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-10-30T02:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Hulten', 'course': 'ECON300', 'review': "I don't understand anything he is ever talking about. Neither does the rest of my class. Extremely boring, has a monotonous voice, explains things in very technical terms. Probably a really good economist, but not a very good teacher. \r\nHe doesn't make our exams though so there not too bad. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-10-23T17:16:00Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Hulten', 'slug': 'hulten'}, {'courses': ['CCJS310', 'CCJS498L', 'CCJS498D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Charles Jordan', 'slug': 'jordan'}, {'courses': ['CMSC100', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Charles Kassir', 'slug': 'kassir'}, {'courses': ['BMGT398Q', 'BMGT448G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Charles LaHaie', 'slug': 'lahaie'}, {'courses': ['MATH246', 'MATH412', 'AMSC698L', 'AMSC667', 'MATH420', 'MATH410', 'AMSC460', 'CMSC667', 'AMSC760', 'AMSC762', 'AMSC420', 'CMSC460', 'HLTH710', 'MATH416'], 'average_rating': 3.55, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Make sure you practice with the old exams. If you do, and can understand the online notes, don't bother going to class. Seriously, don't waste your time. Grab yourself a good study group and you'll do fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-11T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Pros: Very intelligent, clearly knows what he is talking about, seems really nice and friendly, and doesn\'t give you busywork (except for Matlab, which sucks, but that isn\'t on him. His grading policy is also specifically designed to give you as fair a grade as possible, and to not screw you if you mess up occasionally. His website is also a tremendous resource. I personally didn\'t find his notes too helpful, but many did, and his online exams and quizzes are incredibly valuable.\n\r\nCons: His intelligence gets in the way of his teaching, and he makes things that should be easy in application seem very complicated. I would often read through his notes trying to understand what the heck was going on, then watch a youtube video on it and understand it very clearly, and think "why didn\'t he just say that?". He understands things on a different level than most students, and that is the level he teaches on, because that is how his mind works. Pure mathematics is not a strength of mine, so this caused me difficulties. He also does cover a lot more material than other people do in general for diff eq, so this makes it harder to find supplementary resources on it. This inability to lecture or explain things clearly has caused big problems for me and many people I know.\n\r\nSynopsis: if you have an easy schedule or were really good at calc2 and calc3, then take him, because you\'ll get the highest grade from him. Just be prepared to teach yourself, because odds are you\'ll have a hard time learning from him. If you thought those classes were hard, or you are taking a heavy class load (i\'m taking 19 right now and i\'m slowly but surely drowning), take someone else who\'s a better lecturer, or put diff eq off until you have the time to dedicate to it, because, especially with him, it\'s a ton to digest and master.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-10-21T14:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Great Professor, hands down the best option for diff eq. Very Nice person who is very dedicated and wants his students to succeed (Not many professors will hold a 2 hour review on a Sunday before an exam). He\'s average at lecturing and sometimes goes a little too fast, but he is very helpful at office hours and posts the notes online. His website is AMAZING and you can find old exams as well as class notes on his webpage as well, which is extremely helpful. Tests are very fair, yet there are still idiots out there who don\'t study and do his sample problems/old exams and complain about the difficulty of the exams. He also has a nice "bomb\'s away policy" and your quizzes get bumped up if you have a higher exam grade. The final was extremely easy, and I\'d say Levermore prepared us well for it. The only negative thing I\'d say about this class were the matlab\'s which were a pain in the ass. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-21T01:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'amazing online notes (no need to attend lectures). fair grading scale. Easy tests/quizzes that are the same as past semesters. \n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-17T04:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "It's true that He covers more than other professors, but it's worth to learn then. Because the book may often confuse me. He has the nicest online note. Most people complain that the course is hard, but they are the one who does not do his practice exam and former exams that he post online the exam is almost identical to the previous exams. Sometimes, I fell he goes too fast during the lecture, but overall he is a good math246 professor!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-01-28T19:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'I liked Levermore. I always felt like he was on the students side by always trying to make things clear in class. \n\r\nAs people have mentioned his website is a great resource. There are old quizzes and exams to study from which are extremely helpful. His notes are also quite helpful. A lot of the time though I usually did not understand the theory that he explained before he went into examples which there are plenty of. I usually went to his notes rather than the textbook which is an okay secondary resource.\n\r\nHis lectures were okay. I usually felt pretty confused. He is obviously a really smart guy but sometimes his explanations were not the greatest. I also felt like I memorized a lot methods rather than understanding differential equations but who cares.\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-25T01:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Levermore\n\r\nTHE GOOD: Levermore is a good professor. He really limits the proofs he does on the class, which is good for engineering students. He is also very dedicated to teaching diffeq. His website is really well designed. It’s obvious he spent a lot of time on his class notes and sample problems for exams (he uses the same ones every year). Exams questions were predictable since he uses a similar format every year.\n\r\nTHE BAD: Personally, I found differential equations difficult. This is a class where the curve can work against you if you make lots of careless mistakes. Some of his “shortcut” methods (especially partial fractions and linear algebra stuff) are somewhat cryptic and hard to understand. \n\r\nOVERALL: Good professor, hard exams. If you are looking for an easier A, then take someone else.\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-11T23:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "I have not taken the final yet so I can't fully describe how well he prepared us. But with that in mind I have to say Levermore is a really good teacher. He seems to understand that most of the people in the class didn't really care about proofs so he seemed to do just enough for this to still qualify as a math class and then spent most of the class doing examples which ultimately helped me a lot. And, as a bonus, it was really easy for me to picture him as a super villain who spends his nights punishing students who don't know math. This served as a great incentive to learn diff eq.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-04-06T01:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Levermore taught us fairly well, but it seems like he taught us more how to do the problems in the class and less how to do differential equations in general. It doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of good diff eq professors in general, but I would recommend Levermore over others.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T20:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Levermore is a good guy. His lectures are not great, in fact they're quite boring. However, at times he will clarify questions if asked and he seems like he genuinely cares. Go to his office hours and he is more than happy to help. He also has a very generous grading policy. I stopped going to lecture and taught myself out of the book. Easy A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-13T14:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Levermore is a pro at teaching differential equations. He really knows who the class is made of - primarily scientists and engineers, not mathematicians. His online notes are then particularly useful because he takes the time to write out general formulas that can actually be applied to real-world problems. I am saving his notes for life.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-25T19:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Great professor and nice guy. He is very reasonable with grades as his policies suggest. Drops a quiz and matlab, replaces quiz grades if you do well on the test and curves generously if you perform well on the final. I probably had around an 85 going into the final but he curved me up to an A since I did well on the final. Most importantly, his website is amazing. I literally went to class for 10 minutes a week just so I could take my quiz and learned everything off class notes and previous quizzes/tests. If you read his online notes intently, you will get an A in the class. He is better than the other teachers from what I have heard and a great choice for differential equations.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-22T02:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Lecture:\r\nLevermore was not the greatest lecturer, but from what my friends experienced in other 246 classes he is probably your best bet. Definitely helps to be a math major and know many different math terms and symbols. Handwriting was subpar. You really only need to go to lecture for the last three weeks or so because that is when he goes over phase portraits and right before the second exam when he goes over spring forces because theses are not on his online notes. (He has great online notes that he posts)\n\r\nWebsite:\r\nSeriously best website ever, take him because of his website.\n\r\nMATLAB: \r\nIs difficult I can't really grade him for it though, he just assigns it and we have to figure it out (buy the MATLAB book, it does a pretty good job)\n\r\nGrading:\r\n3 Midterms (100points each)\r\n6 MATLAB's one dropped (20 points each)\r\n11 Quizzes (almost every Tuesday during lecture 10 points each)\r\nFinal (200 points)\n\r\nHe also has some crazy grading systems which you can look up here:\r\nhttp://www-users.math.umd.edu/~lvrmr/2010-2011-S/Classes/MATH246/Quizzes.html\n\r\nHint: look over the past couple years quizzes to study for each quiz (he keeps the answers posted too). And do the practice tests.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T12:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Just finished taking him. Probably the best teacher you could ask for for a class like 246. Very engaging, handwriting sometimes hard to read but bearable.\n\r\nBest part: His amazing website. All pertinent announcements go on there, grades averages and distributions, awesome sample problems, and best of all: Online notes! His online notes are great; they could easily be a substitute for going to class, but keep in mind there is a weekly quiz.\n\r\nExams aren't difficult at all, just look at old exams and the samples problems and you can easily ace the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T17:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "It's true that Levermore's lectures are difficult to follow and often he will go on tangents in which little will be added to our knowledge of calculus. That having been said, Levermore has a great grading policy, one that is more than fair. I get the impression that he really is not trying to make the students' lives difficult. He seems like a good guy and although he threw out one very difficult test this past semester, that was largely to weed out those who were performing poorly. You will have to teach yourself a considerable amount out of the book if you do not have a calculus background. However, if you have taken calc, this is your guy: no homework and he drops 5 quizzes. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-04T11:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'First of all most of his lectures are introducing formulas...so pointless to go to them. He gives examples with variables(he is very hard to follow). A couple of his exams had ridiculous problems that were much harder than the quizzes (he did have an 8 point curve on one unfair problem).\n\r\n Although I loved the no homework(webassign) it was hard to discipline myself to actually teach myself from the textbook. I managed and ended up with a B. \n\r\nIf you have taken calculus before and dont mind teaching yourself from a book this is the class because he has an awesome grading policy. He drops lowest 5 quizes out of 15 and he drops lowest exam if and only if it is 2 letter grades below all the other exams including the final (aka if you get a D on one exam and As and Bs on the rest..he drops the D b/c it is 2 letter grades below the As and Bs). If you dont remember shit or have never taking it then get another teacher and one that can actually teach you!', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-19T01:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Levermore is a bad teacher. His tests are confusing, and he likes to trick his students. He does not teach the material well, and his tests are much harder than the other 220 sections. I took calculus before, and still cant manage to figure out this course. Take math220 with a different teacher!\r\nhe even laughed in my friends face and told her to do better next time when she expressed that she was nervous about her test grade.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-06T19:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': 'The class is supposed to be Applications of Linear Algebra, but we haven\'t learned a single one other than polynomial interpolation for what that is worth. The lectures are useless, the books sucks, and there isn\'t even a syllabus for the class. It took ten weeks to get the first exam back. The second exam wasn\'t too difficult but most of the class managed to do poorly since everyone has to learn from the book. The final was pretty easy. Most of the problems came from old tests.\n\r\nThe homework for this class is beyond annoying. Although he assigns only 15-16 problems per week, some of these have up to "s" parts, meaning one problem is actually 19 problems. To make matters worse, the matrices increase from size as you go from a to s. Even with a calculator, the homework takes forever. I didn\'t even bother to do the last problem set since it effectively amounted to 85 problems. \n\r\nI wouldn\'t advise taking Levermore for this class. He can teach differential equations, but he fails when it comes to teaching Linear Algebra.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-24T00:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Levermore has no accent and very effectively presents what you need to know - you can't ask for more than that. But, he also has a website with all his old exams and quizzes. He does reviews for exams and the actual exams are nearly identical in format to his practice ones, you can't go wrong if you study. Matlab will take up time but that is just the course not him. Between Levermore and my TA, I managed an A+ which is a pretty big turn around from a D I got when I first took Math246. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-03-03T19:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Ok professor, however just like every other math course at UMD, the structure is terrible. His lectures would leave you left in the dust, got most of my help from the TA during office hours. \n\r\nNot impressed with the way this class is set up. Your grade in this class solely depends on what TA you get. They grade all of the quizes and exams. For the last exam, my TA was not given a solution manual and had to make up her own solutions to the exam and then graded my exam. Don't expect to get any partial credit, it's either right or wrong with this class. I'm so glad that I pay so much in tuition to have my TA teach and grade me. \n\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-02T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "At first, I hated this guy.\r\nHowever, once you get used to his teaching method and the extensive information he throws at you at once, he is a really good professor. He has his own methods of teaching things (KEY IDENTITY is his method) and it is by far easier than the other methods. He is the best Differential Equations professor UMD has to offer.\r\nHis exams are EXACTLY like his sample tests he posts on his website with only slight variations. Do those and you'll be fine.\r\nQuizes every tuesday sucks, but if you get a higher grade in an exam, he replaces all the quizes leading up to that exam with your exam grade. This is the reason why I got an A in the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-11T14:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Not a great professor. He tries to make class entertaining with his jokes and such, but it doesn't compensate for his lack of teaching ability. Don't even bother going to class unless there is a quiz or an exam, you won't learn anything at all. He just writes a bunch of greek symbols and nasty algorithms. Get past exams and quizzes and study those. Also read the book. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-25T16:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'I think he was a good professor. Slightly humorous. His class webpage is possibly the best in terms of utility I have seen from a professor. The exam dates, notes, homeworks, and solutions to quizzes, etc are posted in a very organized, clear fashion.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-10-01T21:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'So-So.\n\r\nHis lectures often left you saying "WTF?" He will force you into learning the greek alphabet if you do not know it yet along with drawing some other random symbols. Not too many examples in the lecture however.\n\r\nThe homeworks, old quizzes, and practice test will make sure you are ready to get an A or B in the class as the material really isn\'t hard for the most part. Easier than Calc 2 for sure. \n\r\nGo to his office hours and he does a slightly better job of explaining things to you that he went over in lecture. He is also very approachable and does not have a accent you can\'t understand', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-09-12T16:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "He can't teach. He spends 75 minutes writing gibberish on the board that no one can understand. Even the book does a better job of explaining the material than he does. At some point during the semester you realize that you can't learn from him and you might as well skip his class and go to lunch instead.\n\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-19T02:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "I was expecting to get a B in the class but was pleased to find out that I got an A-. Although he isn't the greatest teacher in the world, the only advice i can give is to do his sample questions for his exams and the final. They are EXACTLY like his exams just with different numbers. Also, for any math class, when preparing for a final exam, go to UMD's testbank and do past exams. There was a question that was taken verbatim off last years test. Do his sample questions and past exams and you will have no problem getting at least a B", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-18T13:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'he was so-so as a professor. I personally found him to be very confusing at times and not very clear. however, the book for the class was awful, and for someone like me who uses textbooks as references, this made the class even harder for me.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-18T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "One of the worst professors I have ever had. Rarely uses examples to explain and lectures get confusing with the vast number of symbols and variables he uses. My TA's were excellent and more effectively explained 2 lectures worth of material in 50 minutes that he was able to do. Avoid taking his Math246 class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-01T15:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'He is difficult to understand and tends to strictly teach theory rather than doing examples. Also, his lectures get rather confusing due to the abstract variables, bold letters etc. His tests can be too long vs the time that is given to take them.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-08T19:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'His lecture is clear and great! You have to par attention though because sometimes he teaches his own methods which are easier than the stuff in the textbook.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-04T22:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'worst professor ever. he is a genius, thats for sure, but he can not teach at all. i have not taken calc 3 yet which is supposed to make it easier but either way... he teaches class like he is reading from a book, which book, i havent a clue, because it sure isnt the one that is assigned to us. he has his own methods for solving things which are not in the book (or any others for that matter) which are not at all intuitive and effectively take up class time, as they are all useless. (to me at the very least). he rarely does examples to illustrate the concepts that he presents to us, and the examples he does use are not very good and are only of the simplest cases. his hand writing is very difficult to read, and his board is very rarely cleaned making it even harder to read the notes. finally, he refuses to accept any excuse for missing an exam. even if your mom dies, he does not care. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-01T22:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'He knows the topic really well. Lectures follow the class notes very closely, and homeworks are helpful for learning the material. One piece of advice for taking this class: the tests are similar from year to year. He has old tests posted on his website, so you should definitely use those to study.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-12-16T16:59:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'LECTURES: Very organized, engaging, and useful lectures. He often goes into the history of math during the class, but does so in a beneficial way such that it completely integrated with the course content. He often expects class participation from people (not explicitly graded, but "factored into the final grade"), but is really good about getting students to "think like a mathematician." The class often proved many of the largest theorems in calculus together, which helped with learning the material.\r\n\r\nI\'d give a subscore of 5/5. Truly the best lecturer I had the semester I took the course.\r\n\r\nASSIGNMENTS: Levermore makes his assignments incredibly difficult in general. I normally spent ~8-12 hours each week on homework for this class (partially since I didn\'t know how to prove non-trivial problems before this course), but in general, they were very useful at building confidence before an exam. Levermore is very much a "give hard homeworks, make the test easier" kind of professor, but at the same time, some assignments were just so much harder than any of the tests we took that it was demoralizing at times. Thankfully, the assignments are not worth a large part of the grade overall, so it\'s alway spossible to half-ass an assignment and have it not do massive damage to your grade. (The 4 lowest homeworks get dropped at the end of the semester)\r\n\r\nI give a subscore of 4/5 -- Assignments were sometimes just too hard to be useful, and often took too long.\r\n\r\nEXAMS: Levermore gives 3 exams for his 410 class--two midterms and a final. The exams are largely easy since he recycles most of the questions on the exams from previous homework problems and previous exams in different years. This means that just with proper studying/memorizing, it\'s possible to get ~80% without understanding the material just by copying answers from previous exams. However, the logistics of exams is frustrating. Our first exam was returned in 3 weeks, which was a bit slow, but our second exam was a different story. We took that exam halfway through the semester, and got the grades back the night before the final, nearly 1.5 months after the test. While the logistics of regular homework assignments was well done (usually given back within a week), the exams were graded directly by Prof. Levermore, which caused significant problems.\r\n\r\nSubsection score: 3/5 -- For really bad logistical errors made with grading\r\n\r\nOVERALL THOUGHTS: Definitely one of the hardest, yet most rewarding math classes I\'ve taken here. I\'d recommend taking MATH410 with him if you\'re interested in a challenge, and willing to put large amounts of time understanding the material.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-24T04:29:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Honestly horrible lecturer. Seriously, don't even bother going to class. His online notes are almost in a different language, they extremely complicate fairly trivial topics... but eventually you will get the hang of them and how to decipher them. Still though, horrible class to take, only plus side is that his tests are all fairly similar to past years exams. Literally the only plus to taking diffeq with him", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-10-16T20:38:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Literally horrible lecturer, like horrendous. His online notes are extremely difficult to decipher, and you dont learn anything in discussion because he has you doing graded groupwork. Eventually, you'll learn how to decipher his notes, but in all honesty, what a horrible class. The only perk to his class is that he has past exams and quizzes online so you have a pretty good idea of whats going to be thrown your way. Still though, its a shame that the university lets such horrible teachers teach diffeq, a fairly useful class", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-11-11T02:24:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'What a strange, strange man he is...\r\n\r\nHe presents the content of this course in a very theoretical manner, so if you do not work through practice problems or if you do not generally understand a string of just theory, you may encounter problems. The practice problems on his website are sometimes unclear as to how he reaches his final answer and you\'ll have to kinda go through it several times to notice which steps he has omitted. \r\n\r\nRegarding my first comment, he "speaks in fonts." If you don\'t know what that means then oh boy you\'re in for an experience. He also frequently used the phrase "licking your chops" when referring to types of ODEs, then proceeded to make some ungodly schlurpschlupschschlurp sounds. He will ask for volunteers that serve literally no purpose. Just an all around odd experience, but certainly something you should endure if nothing else then as a rite of passage into your big boy classes', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-06-10T08:18:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH416', 'review': "Levermore is cool - as long as you can endure his snarky attitude. His lecture is fine, but I find the pace a bit slow. That said, this man should be banned from teaching new courses. He couldn't finish writing the homework on time for most of the time of the semester, so we had 5 psets for spring break and 4 psets for final's week. That was just not very reasonable. The exams were take-homes because of the pandemic. While the first exam was long and easy (the format was similar to the hw with the workload doubled), the second one was really tedious (he picked the hardest + longest problem from each hw and compiled them together). That was one of the instances when I look at my solution and wonder how on earth would the instructor have the mental power to read through my solution. He graded things very leniently at the end, I'm not sure if it was because he felt sorry for the way he bombarded us with giant hw packages or he's just lenient. Anyway.. the material is very interesting, I recommend learning some harmonic analysis on your own if you get a chance. The text used was Wickerhauser - alright but not the best for self-study (<- so you can't learn everything by reading the book and not attending lectures).", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-29T21:54:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Yeah, reading the other reviews, and given my previous success in math courses, I thought 246 with Levermore would be tricky, but doable. My god was I wrong. I do not know how his grade data is as good as it is, I worked so damn hard on this class to get the grades I did but I can not imagine so many people going as insane as I did. I probably sound a bit pretentious by now but anyway if you can take this course over the summer with Justin- DO IT.\r\n\r\nHere's what made this course so frustrating:\r\nHe teaches more content and some of it he ~customizes~ so if you can't comprehend his lectures or notes, you're basically fucked. I remember googling a term from class and the top results were all his notes. You can learn the basics from Justin's awesome notes, but you will need to learn Levermore's custom/proprietary stuff. The grading policy is pretty good though. I don't think my grievances with this class are due to it being online though. All of the other reviews mention his shitty teaching method of reading through slides/notes. It's terrible.\r\n\r\nI can't imagine how bad the other prof's are if he's the least of the evils, but if you can take this during the summer or at a different college, do it. \r\n\r\nI really though I would be fine in this class in spite of the other reviews below, but I was so wrong. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-19T16:20:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Very knowledgeable in the field. He breaks up his very math heavy lecture with interesting historical anecdote that puts into perspective the depth of the work well. His homeworks are quite difficult and tedious, but he lectures well and is very available for help.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-26T19:31:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Levermore', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Great professor. I’d definitely recommend taking 410 with him, it really improved my ability to do proofs. Levermore knows a lot about math and its history which makes lectures interesting. He also provides super detailed notes. He is very helpful in office hours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-01T16:03:14Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Levermore', 'slug': 'levermore'}, {'courses': ['HIST319N', 'HIST483', 'HIST284', 'HIST482', 'HIST285', 'HIST429P'], 'average_rating': 3.3636, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': 'I\'m sad to say that this class was a completely disappointment. Please do not get me wrong, Dr. Lilley is very friendly and is very endearing, and is clearly invested in the study, however I did not find his teaching style effective. Posts below summarize his teaching style pretty accurately. His lectures will drive you insane, and you will never be able to take notes. It was amusing listening to the grunts and the sucking of teeth of annoyed students every time he changed the slide. As some reviewers below have said, just write down as much of what he says as you possibly can. He seemed to inevitably post all of the slides before an exam so if you missed anything on the slides. You would be okay. However, for the amount of work you have to do, the class can be incredibly obnoxious especially if you just need a plural societies credit. Look elsewhere, this class wasted more time than 400 level science courses.\n\r\nAnother Important thing to note: As of this semester (Fall 2014) Dr. Lilley NO LONGER ALLOWS LAPTOPS. This is what made it incredibly aggravating to take notes because he speaks so quickly, so reviewers below saying to "write down what he says" is of utmost importance.\n\r\nMy main issue was with the awful discussion class. The TA noted below in other reviews is no longer there and the TA\'s name is Trish. She was by far one of the worst TA\'s I have ever had at UMD. It was nothing like reviews below had stated where discussion helped them tie together the lecture classes. This never happened. We sat in silence while she waited for someone to "lead the discussion" when there was nothing to discuss because the textbook was very straightforward about what sort of culture was there. Instead of discussion we should have just read the textbook instead of wasting time going there. In one instance, only two people showed up to discussion which was pretty funny to give you an example of how awful it was. On top of that, you better hope you never use any commas on your papers or you can prepare yourself to have 10-15 points taken off your papers for "comma usage" even though it is correct. There is no point arguing with her either, multiple people got the same "comma usage" point penalty as me and even though it was proven the comma usage was correct, she would not falter.\n\r\nOn the exams there were about 2 main questions you had to answer one being an overarching theme of what we had discussed so far, and one from the discussion. Again, discussion was so useless the question could have been easily answered if you read the book.\n\r\nThe class uses a lot of your time, especially for the discussion with little gain, and I wouldn\'t recommend taking it if absolutely necessary, or if Trish isn\'t the TA. The course subject was interesting, but difficult to follow because of Dr. Lilley\'s teaching style. However, if you follow the tips noted here, you will probably get a B or an A.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-14T13:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST319N', 'review': 'I have had the honor of having Dr. Lilley as my professor for history 319, 482, and 483. I personally feel that Professor Lilley is a very good lecturer who provides a tremendous amount of information and resources to his students. I have found that most people who complain about Dr. Lilley have not done the necessary assigned reading, or they fail to attend class and participate in discussions. In some cases, I have heard people complain that he does not teach history in linear order for a specific culture. The fact that he does not do this is good, you cannot learn about one culture at a time when so many cultures are linked. If you actually want to learn then I highly recommend Dr. Lilley as your professor, on the other hand if you just want an easy A, he is not your guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-13T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST319N', 'review': 'As I look back over all the decisions I\'ve made in my 20 years on this earth, one in particular seems to stick out in my mind. I remember that fateful day like a picture in my minds eye, back when I was contemplating my concentration in my major. I had recently decided to focus on "socio-cultural" history, and I was desperately looking for upper levels that fit this description as well as didn\'t hold classes before 11am because I\'m a lazy asshole. Scanning ELMS I saw a class topic that I had not previously even conceived. "This could be interesting" my naive self said as I proceeded to open Testudo\'s Drop/Add database. It was at that moment when I wish more than anything I could go back. The seven keystrokes: H. I. S. T. 3. 1. 9. have fundamentally obliterated my life in more ways than I could\'ve ever thought possible. The amount of sheer gayness contained within Charles Lilley\'s course is staggering, an "exercise in futility" would be a complement to this class. Without reddit, barstool, and Facebook, I may not make it through this course with my life. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2014-04-22T15:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': "This is a bit late, since I took him in Fall 2012. \n\r\nI didn't really like the map quiz, but in general, he wasn't that bad of a teacher. He goes out of order chronologically, but there's a method to his madness.\n\r\nThe important thing is to write down WHAT HE SAYS. He uploads the powerpoints. But make sure to pay attention to what he says. What I would do is just type as fast I could to get down as much of what he was saying. I recommend either doing that or trying to get permission to record what he says.\n\r\nThere are two midterms, and two essays. Honestly, this class isn't that hard compared to HIST483, which I took last semester. If you study hard and listen to what he says, you should be good.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-29T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': "I agree that Professor Lilley isn't the greatest lecturer - not only does he not present the material chronologically (the best way to learn history of a specific area), but he constantly tries to make us understand some underlying theme that only confuses us more. \n\r\nI am also a little frustrated with his study guides. They only cover 60% of the exam. For the final, I know to review the military history of all the dynasties of China, but the previous two exams I got a 65 and 64 because I was stupid and didn't figure out that he really likes military history. Therefore I got 5% on the major essay (which is essentially a compare and contrast essay on two dynasties and their military polices) and 60% on the rest. The only thing that keeps my grade afloat are the two essay/papers and the IDs. \n\r\nSadly, I'll have to take his class again because he's the only teacher of the 400 level Japanese history courses that I'm required to take as a Japanese major...", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-14T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': "I agree with Prof. Lilley is not a good lecturer, but can never agree with this class is that difficult. Do not be possessed to write down everything on his powerpoint. (It is pointless because he always posts his ppt on ELMS) Instead, just pay attention to LISTEN WHAT HE SAID in lecture. The assignments are easy - ridiculously easy map quizzes, some identifications, and just two essays (3 pages each) based on two assigned books. And NEVER SKIP DISCUSSION CLASS b/c it's Amazingly helpful and some of exam questions comes from discussion section. If you get Rene Stadtler as your TA, you will be alright.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-06T18:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': "Unfortunately, Prof Lilley is not a good lecturer. His powerpoints are generally straightforward, but his lectures vary throughout the hour between disorganized side ramblings and 'so this is what happened here' type thing. It's pretty difficult to grasp some of the points he tries to make, but if you do the readings diligently and at least pay a good amount of attention, you'll get by. Discussion class with the TA, however, is far easier to understand and more interesting.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-04-05T22:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': "1) This class is challenging, but not impossible to get a good grade in.\r\n2) Professor Lilley is a funny and interesting professor but he speaks very, very quickly during lecture and his powerpoints go by fast, so it's important to pay attention.\r\n3) The TA for this class is SUPER helpful, so always go to discussion.\r\n4) Attendance counts--attendance is taken both in lecture and in discussion.\r\n5) Do the readings for discussion, they'll usually show up on the exams.\r\n6) The papers for this class are relatively easy and quite short--only 3 pages. So they're easy to do well on, if you put in the time and effort. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-19T19:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': 'This class is difficult but it is not impossible. The professor does talk very fast, there is a lot of information to know, and there is a lot of reading but this is all very manageable. Professor Lilley is a very smart man and he knows what he is talking about. If you pay attention in lecture and i mean REALLY pay attention then he is easy to follow. Discussion is like a whole other class in itself because it focuses on the cultural side of asian history. Most of the reading and virtually all of the work comes from discussion. The T.A. is amazing and very funny, i enjoyed going to lecture.\n\r\nIMPORTANT TIPS:\r\n1. Do not try and copy the power points, it is a useless thing to do. Instead take notes of what the professor is saying. Dont even bother looking at the screen, just pay attention to what he is saying himself. I can not stress this enough! Just write down what he is saying. He posts the power points online so you get the information there also his main ideas do not come from the slides but from his speech. Just pay attention to him, it took me a while to get this and once I started to just listen to him i understood the material better and got two letter grades higher on the next text. \r\n2. Read for discussion/always go to discussion. Treat discussion like a separate class.\r\n3. Use the study guides he gives for the exams!! If you thorough do everything on the study guide then you will surely get an A.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-07T18:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': "He's a very poor lecturer. He goes very quickly, and for the most part his lectures are out of order, so it's difficult to keep up. Learning out of the textbook did not work for me because most of the things he covered weren't in the textbooks, so I'd end up with more information than I actually needed for the class. However, the TA, Bill, is really amazing, and I learned more from him in discussion than I did in lecture. If you listen to him and do all your work for discussion, while managing to copy down as much of the powerpoint as possible before Lilley moves on, you should be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-01-14T22:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Lilley', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': 'His lectures drive me crazy.\r\nAt first he would have powerpoints, but they would have a lot of text and he\'d flip through them too quickly for us to take notes so you had to write super fast.\r\nBut then he started get mad that we were taking notes on the powerpoint "instead of listening to him" so he got rid of them for the most part. But it was still hard to take notes since he talked fast and you had to guess spellings of word/names you weren\'t familiar with.\r\nThat said, the class was still pretty easy. the exams weren\'t too hard as long as you study. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-04T20:20:00Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Lilley', 'slug': 'lilley'}, {'courses': ['PHIL320', 'JWST459M', 'PHIL417', 'PHIL828C', 'JWST250', 'JWST452', 'PHIL428B', 'PHIL788', 'JWST619B', 'JWST453', 'JWST619C', 'PHIL424', 'JWST609', 'PHIL234', 'RELS250', 'PHIL688G', 'JWST619M', 'JWST429B', 'PHIL428M', 'JWST699', 'JWST619', 'PHIL828E'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Manekin', 'course': 'JWST250', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS!!! Thought it would be easy based on the grade reviews, but he is so harsh and gives so much work where you would think it's a weed out class. Gave a research paper and then a week later gave a few days to write a 12 page paper. Not an easy class. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-04-26T23:30:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Manekin', 'course': 'PHIL320', 'review': "The class is certainly a lot of writing, but half was for completion. Dr. Manekin is very learned in the history of philosophy, and if you have an ounce of passion for the topic, you will get more than your money's worth.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-11T03:51:36Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Manekin', 'slug': 'manekin_charles'}, {'courses': ['ENTM622', 'BSCI337', 'ENTM798K', 'ENTM798A', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Charles Mitter', 'slug': 'mitter'}, {'courses': ['BUSI788E', 'EMBA759B', 'BMGT493H', 'BUSI681', 'BUSI683', 'BUSM626', 'BMGT494H', 'BUSM778E', 'BUSM708', 'ENTS630'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Olson', 'course': 'BUSI683', 'review': 'He really challenges you and takes pride in the subject matter. I would suggest taking any course he teaches, because he will challenge the way you think and really, that is what teachers should do. Charley is a great professor and enjoy his soapbox, because it can be a fun ride. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-09-25T21:57:00Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Olson', 'slug': 'olson_charles'}, {'courses': ['ENCE201', 'ENCE447', 'ENCE640', 'ENCE100', 'EDSP652'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Schwartz', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': "Schwartz is a super busy person and doesn't really have time to teach the class, let alone help with assignments or anything. He didn't have any regular office hours. The grader became a person that would have to help with the teaching. She wasn't very helpful. This class I really felt on my own unless you could catch schwartz by email or appointment. Definitely don't wait until the last minute for any of the assignments.\n\r\nI really liked the fact that it was a lot online. It was easy to reference and work through more problems that way. So that I give a two thumbs up!\n\r\nShwartz is amazing, and nice but just overworked.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-12-22T13:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Schwartz', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': "Very nice guy. Didn't learn anything from class as he doesn't really do any examples. However, the textbook explains the algorithms extremely well so you can learn it on your own. The matlabs homeworks are almost impossible to do alone, so work in groups. Use the book, do the written homework and the tests won't be too bad. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-05-10T01:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Schwartz', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': "Really good professor. He made lectures as good as they can be. Always showed actual programs in lecture, and coded for the class to help demonstrate how to use matlab (I found it really helpful and something I did not see in ENCE 200).\r\nHe grades really fair. And is always willing to help you out in office hours or via email. \r\nI was really worried about this class, but I did not find it to be as difficult as it was made out to be. \r\nStay on top of the work--you'll do fine. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-23T03:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Schwartz', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': 'I thought he was a pretty good professor. he does throw some hard stuff into material and the class gets really boring after a while, but in the end I felt like I learned something significant', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-15T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Schwartz', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': "Class covers a lot of material in a quick manner. Most of it isn't too hard to understand, but he likes to throw in some book stuff that was hardly mentioned in class.\n\r\nTeaching paralleled book, but not too closely.\n\r\nMay seem hard at the time, but with the curving and make-up credit, an A or B is fairly easy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-29T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Schwartz', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': "I took Charles Schwartz's class during the fall of 2020. There was no final exam, due to the pandemic, but there were two mandatory projects. The professor is very busy, he usually takes weeks to grade an assignment, because it seems like this one-credit course is low on his list of priorities, which makes sense. As the class progressed, requirements were made easier for those students which failed to meet the initial requirements due to procrastination. If you submit every assessment on-time, usually two or three multiple-choice or brief paragraph questions per week, and submit every project on-time, you should ace this course. Just make sure, that you get his approval through email for any project, so you don't waste a trip.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-17T13:50:16Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Schwartz', 'slug': 'schwartz_charles'}, {'courses': ['ENEE244', 'ENEE350', 'ENPM607'], 'average_rating': 2.7576, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "This class will be frustrating. For the first few weeks of the semester I guessed my way through the homework, turning it in, and learned how to do it the next day from my TA. \r\nHis lectures are very long and drawn out and I had trouble learning anything from him. \n\r\nI passed this class by getting my hands on his previous tests and homework solutions. His exams are very similar to previous semesters and was not surprised by the exam when I showed up.\n\r\nThe prgoramming assignments are the most difficult. He slightly changes a few of these so that you can't just copy and paste the assignments from previous semesters. If you get them working 100% he will curve your grade, so I relied on my TA for assistance to get them working. \n\r\nHe grades extremely fast but gives little partial credit.\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-23T01:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "Don't take him unless you already know how to do assembly. He's hard to learn from and I have not learned how to code at all this semester. \n\r\nIf you do end up having him make sure you hand in all the programs WORKING. You have until the last day of the semester to hand them in otherwise your grade will not be curved.\n\r\nHe replaces your lowest midterm grade with your final grade if you get a higher score.\n\r\nTry to show up to class occasionally he remembers who shows up. \n\r\nIf you plan on memorizing his past exams, remember that the final is not on IEEE\n\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-17T20:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Do not take him!! He is horrible at teaching, he puts students to sleep but you cant skip class because he purposefully puts things in his lecture that you cant learn anywhere outside of class so you will fail the test if you didnt learn it. Only problem is half of the crap he says is useless, so what do you memorize? On the subject of his test, he tries to trick his students then he grades without partial credit. One mistake and you loose all your points, no matter what. Its honestly the first time Ive seen multiple people fail a class entirely from stupid mistakes. It doesnt help that he is rude and seems like he has something out for his students. Just stay away from him ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-06T23:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "I really like Silio. His lectures can feel a bit long and boring, but I don't know how any other professor could do much better. \n\r\nSometimes he goes off on tangents about his experiences, but I really enjoy his stories because they help you make connections between the theory you learn and real-world applications. \n\r\nHis midterms have seemed fair so far. Its really annoying that he doesn't give partial credit, but he doesn't put any surprises on the midterm and gives you a sample midterm so if you don't make stupid mistakes and study then you should do fine. He also replaces the lower of the two midterm grades with the final which is nice.\n\r\nOverall, I think he is a good professor and I think he really knows what he is talking about. You can tell he's put a lot of though into the best way to teach the topic and the textbook that will allow us to learn best.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-04T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Nope. Don't take him.\r\nHe made 244 a pain and a bore, when otherwise it could have been a very interesting class. What a shame and a waste of money. I don't ever want to have him as a professor again.\n\r\nApart from him being a poor teacher and his character condescending, the way he grades exams is illogical (the irony). Your grade can easily turn into a C if you are not a human calculator because mistakes are inexcusable for exams, even if you completely understand the course material and you just made a silly mistake, inexcusable.\n\r\nMaybe one person in the entire class enjoyed it. He is not a good professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-26T13:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "The only reason I'd give him 3 stars is because of the easy exams. Apply for IEEE (UMD one) so you can look up his previous exams. They are almost word for word the same, so you should nail them with little trouble. He gives minimal partial credit so you'd better get the questions entirely correct.\r\nHomework is an absolute BITCH so watch out for that. Plan on spending ~2 hrs on each week's assignment (more if you actually want to read the book, which I recommend you do). Pray that you have a good TA because s/he'll be able to teach a week's worth of Silio's lecture in one discussion. Anything they miss can be learn easily enough through the book.\n\r\nI recommend for the easy exams, but as a lecturer.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-26T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Worst lecturer on the planet. Pretty sure he just put ridiculous questions on the exams because he was trying to make a point about people not attending his boring lectures. \n\r\nIf you can manage to be excited enough about the material to actually pay attention in lecture, you might be able to do well. \n\r\nDo not recommend.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-19T20:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Silio really likes IBM and will spend 75% of his lectures talking about the industry rather than the material you're supposed to know for the class. His exams don't really test how well you know the material; rather, how well you can memorize the answers from IEEE testbank. You have to know the exams inside out because there is no partial credit, so if you make the tiniest mistake, you will not get higher than a B. His grading also is very hit or miss (the final is worth 35% of your grade and can replace a midterm which totals to over 50% of your grade).\n\r\nHowever, he is the better alternative for the professors that teach ENEE244, so you should take him as a lesser of two evils.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-11-21T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "Even though I got a low grade in this course, the guy is fair. Very fair. His exams are up, free to viewing, and exams are usually very similar to those online. Fast grader; usually done within a few hours.\n\r\nMight be dull during lecture, but when you go to office hours, you see a personality in this guy. He teaches you, shows passion, talks about things in industry, and is actually a very interesting guy. I got a bad grade because he gives like ZERO partial credit on exams, but that's my fault, not his.\n\r\nDo the programming projects and turn them in before the end of the semester, and he curves your grade (regardless of how the rest of the class is doing). I'm sure that I passed this semester because of that...", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-05-17T13:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Dr. Silio is truly terrible as a professor. He goes on and on off tangents and fails to really communicate the course content across. Doing the homeworks is the main way you'll learn anything on this course, and the tests are the same year after year as other people mention. It's not too hard to get an A though as long as you study off of the old tests and memorize/learn the way he poses questions. Also, learn to do as much of the homework as you need, and copy the test from the answer key (he assigns WAY too much: more than a 4 credit class). He seems to have no respect for student's time and notion of what is appropriate. \n\r\nHe's also quite arrogant which comes across easily. It's ironic considering he's a no-end professor with a very low salary and low significance. It's clear that he thinks of himself as better than scientists, and quite ridiculous actually.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-05-06T13:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "If you've had Silio before, you know what to expect. Two exams and a final account for 90% of your grade, and the final can overwrite one of the other exams. Exams are similar to previous years so check the testbank. However, the testbank alone will not get you through this course like you might be used to. He gives 4 programming assignments during the semester (one of which is a program he writes and you just analyze.) The programs themselves are worth only 4% of your grade and are a lot of work, so most people chose not to do them. HOWEVER, if you do not do the programs, he will not curve your grade. You will also not know how to do large portions of the second exam and final. You must get all 4 programs 100% working to get any credit for them, but you can turn them in up until basically the last day of the course so that you can still guarantee yourself a curve. The only way to do well on the final is to do the programs and know what you're doing.\n\r\nHe also creates a few big sets of notes for some of the more important topics, minimizing how much of the book you have to read. The microarchitecture notes, which you get within the first few weeks, are your most important resource for the class. Read them, have the diagrams and instruction set out while you're programming, and you'll learn everything just fine. You also get most of the diagrams and tables on the exams. A large portion of the class did not do the programming assignments, and they as a whole did not do well in the class. If you don't do any of them, you're almost assured a C or lower.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-16T10:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "He is totally unfair. Let me give you an ex, no3 on exam 1 got 85 and 63 on exam 2 and 89 on final. So final score was 86/100. As the person didn't submit programming assignments the grade should not be curved as he told the class .so 86 is a B. But he gave an A which is unfair to other students. Exams are similar to previous exams. So not bad but a bit unfair.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-13T16:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Silio can be very blunt and rude at times. The one time I went to office hours he wasn't pleasant at all. But when it comes to the actual class and the material, I thought he was pretty good. Lecture is spent not on theory but on going through example problems and explaining the concepts behind them. The methods that Silio used during lecture were generally a lot better than the ones presented in the book. The 2 midterm exams are worth 27.5% of your grade each, and the final is worth 35%, with the other 10% coming from discussion section. In addition he will drop your lowest midterm and replace it with your final exam score if this benefits you. The layout of the tests is nearly identical to his prior exams on the UMD IEEE test bank. Definitely run through a bunch of those old exams and you will do fine on the tests. Silio is very straight-forward and is not out to trick you, so you will be able to anticipate exactly what is going to be on the exams. For the final, he gave those of us in lecture lots of hints about the problems that would appear, so definitely go to lecture to benefit from this.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-01-26T17:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Very straight forward professor - he is not around the bush, not out to "trick" the students. He is very blunt about what he tests on and what he expects you to take from his class. Personally, I loved this about him. The sample exams he hands out are very similar to the actual exams (almost identical to the 1st). There are weekly homework assignments, two midterms, and one final exam. The homeworks are very tedious and time consuming, but they are beneficial in that most of the problems at the end of the chapter are harder than any problem he will give on an exam. I remember one homework assignment had 75 karnaugh maps. The two midterms are significant toward your grade in that they count for most of the points in the class; however, he has a policy in which if one performs better on the final than any of the previous midterms the midterm grade will be replaced by the final. This is only for 1 exam though. One thing about him people hate, though, is the fact that he does not believe in partial credit. Only very rare occasions will he give out partial credit. As far as the lectures go, he goes off topic often but has interesting stories pertaining to the material that you learn, which makes it better. Also, he teaches much easier methods to perform logic than the book does. Definitely get your hands on previous exams - they do not change. He says so himself.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-27T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "The homework can be difficult and time-consuming in this class, but it's only 10% of the grade and TAs seem to be very fair in grading it. The book is useless, but unfortunately you need it in order to do the homework. Attend lecture, as Dr. Silio explains things much better, and often knows much simpler methods than the book uses. The problems on tests are identical from semester to semester, only with slightly different information. If you do not belong to the testbank, sign up and study old tests. Practicing them, and being very careful not to make a mistake on test day, can get you a pretty easy A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T22:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Boring lectures, and lots of homework are what describes taking ENEE244 with Silo. HOWEVER, his exams are the same every semester (just different numbers). Take Silo for ENEE244, you won't regret it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-04T01:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "You can't follow Silio's lectures! He talks so quietly that if you dont sit within 10 feet on him you cant hear. He strays off topic constantly, and isnt too structured in his assignments which causes a lot of confusion.\n\r\nOverall, take 140 with Silio but dont go to lectures, they're incredibly pointless. He gives you everything you need to know on elms handouts and reads straight from them in lecture anyways. Good class, bad professor\n\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-17T22:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Well, I read a lot of poor reviews about Prof Silio and for the first 3 weeks of the semester I had made up my mind to hate him. Yes, his lectures are ancient. Yes, he likes to tell army stories. Yes his exams require you to be proficient, not just knowledgeable. Yes, he gives very little partial credit.\n\r\nNow read this carefully: Prof Silio is the Mr. Miyagi of professors. He has been teaching the same 5-6 courses since Elizbeth Taylor was in the second grade. There is a method to his madness. You might not like how he teaches but you will be a digital logic ninja. If you go to his office hours he will explain, in great detail, how to solve the problems. \n\r\nAdditionally, if you take him for 244, you will be a whiz kid in 206. If you ask his gradebook, I was at the bottom of his class but 206 is a cakewalk now. All in all I enjoyed the class because you get to solve problems without complicated math. You get to design things that solve problems with only two numbers (1,0). It's quite fascinating how much you can do with True, False. I'm honestly considering minoring in microelectronics now. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-10-21T21:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "First of all, anyone who is looking at this review has to take this course at some point. That really isn't an option. The only option you have is the professor. I recommend Silio over Nakajima.\r\nFrom what I have heard and read, Nakajima cares too much about proofs and Boolean algebra instead of Digital Logic Design.\n\r\nSilio, on the other hand, does teach the material, including helpful hints that detour from the book. In fact, I didn't really have to read the book at all because I learned everything in class.\n\r\nThe one drawback to Silio is his grading. He does give partial credit if you do part of the problem correctly, but it isn't always as much as you would like. For example, if you fill in every row correctly on a truth table except for one, there goes a quarter of your points even though you got 1/16th of the problem wrong. That said, pay attention in class, and study the sample exams, and you will do fine with Silio.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-21T17:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "If you wondering who to take, Silio or Nakajima, it's really up to you.\r\nSilio will actually teach you something unlike Nakajima, but he doesn't hold review sessions. Nakajima holds review sessions, but he can't teach. If you study a bunch of Silio's past exams, the test will be a cinch. Nakajima makes you do stuff like prove this and that using Boolean algebra which I really don't see the point of.\n\r\nBasically, it's like the other guy said. If you have to stop and think, you probably got the problem wrong. On the final exam I took 5 days ago, I had to stop and think on the propagation delay one, so I just left it for last. It was multiple choice, so I worked it out partially and guessed.\n\r\nI mean, I would say, I liked Silio because the final exam is the most important thing. I got an 54 on the midterm and a 40 something on the 2nd exam, but I got a B on the final so I got a B in the class.\n\r\nYou should come to class just to see if there's anything important that might be on a test. But most of the time it isn't so bring a pillow, catch up on your sleep. Don't bother taking too many notes if it's in the book because he goes way too fast with slides. You won't be able to copy them. You're better off reading the book and his notes.\n\r\nI recommend Mano's book, not Givone's. Givone never gets to the point. Honestly, I barely even used the book. Only for homework did I actually open it.\n\r\nWhen he gives you the choose a/b/c/d/e for karnaugh map about implicants, do not choose none of the above. That is always wrong. That killed me on the first exam. And hopefully your TA will teach you the graphical method for NAND->OR/AND. After you do that, put it on a Karnaugh map and then get the sum of products.\n\r\nAnd make sure you know exclusive OR really well. Basically, it tests to see if the inputs are both the same. 0 XOR x = 0, 1 XOR x = NOT x.\n\r\nThink of it like this:\r\n0 0 0 If I don't eat the cake and I don't eat the pie, then there won't be only one thing left to eat.\r\n0 1 1 If I don't eat the cake and I eat the pie, then there will be only one thing left to eat.\r\n1 0 1 If I eat the cake and I don't eat the pie, then there will be only one thing left to eat.\r\n1 1 0 If I eat the cake and the pie, then there won't be only one thing left to eat.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-22T12:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'his son went to princeton. at princeton they don\'t let you double major. he once had a student who misread a question and when the student asked for a regrade, he wrote "learn to read" on his paper. the student\'s mom was a reading teacher. everyone loves ibm. he laughs like tickle me elmo. these are the things and more that you will learn in his ENEE 244 class. What did you expect to learn? Engineering?\n\r\nHe handwrites everything on transparencies and they mean nothing to me. Literally, it\'s just a bunch of variables. No one asks questions because it seems like everyone is too lost to ask them. They don\'t even know what to ask about.\n\r\nto put it in perspective, i had a 3.9 GPA in high school and came in with 40 AP credits and had a 4.0, let\'s see what happens this semester...', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-05-13T18:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "I had Silio last Spring and he has been by far my favorite professor. He tells personal anecdotes, which irritates some people, but which helped me stay engaged throughout the class. \n\r\nHis lectures alternated between written on the chalkboard and overhead slides pre-written in marker upon request (but it was a foolish request). \n\r\nHaving some background to the course is very useful as he'll jump right into things that will be over your head if you've never done anything with logic before. I took an Introduction to the Fundamentals of Computer Science class in high school and it was more than enough to give me solid footing. \n\r\nHe does give partial credit, but in a different way then most professors. He'll follow your process and from the moment you make a mistake, everything that follows is wrong (because you have a wrong assumption). Unless, I suppose, you make a second mistake that magically fixes your first, in which case you'll get credit for the work that's right again. Most people complain because they get no credit when they fail to set up a problem correctly, but if you can't take the time to read a problem why did you bother even enrolling?", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T17:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Silio is one of those professors that you dont want to go through. I skipped his lectures quite often because i could not keep up with his lecture notes. BUT if you take his class, all you have to do is study his past exams, because the ones he gives are very similar. that should be enough to get by', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-08-01T15:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Had him for Summer 2009. Was a good teacher. Make sure you get a hold of his previous exams and study his practice exams as well as any homework problems he gives you.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-07-23T20:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': 'OMG....he is really not good at teaching.he is always talking about his personal experience during class and cover the material by just reading the slides.his class will really makes you fall asleep because its toally not helpful. i really dont recommend him. you can study the material by reading his notes and maybe that will be much more efficient.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-14T21:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'He is awesome if you want to talk past ancient history about some computer that he advised the government to make is small size but they never listened... and how the whole project is in somebody\'s basement...\r\nIf you want an easy "A" or "C-" and dont want to understand a single word of the material... then get homework solution and his past exam form other students...\r\nOtherwise "YOU ARE WARNED IN ADVANCE"', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-12T20:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Unlike what everyone else says, he actually isn't too bad of a lecturer. However, you have to come prepared for class i.e. look at the material in the book in order to understand him. \n\r\nThe best thing about taking his class is that his exams are all very similar to his previous exams which you can easily obtain. All he does is switch up a few minor things. Sometimes, he uses the exact same questions. Best way to study for his exams are to look over past exams and maybe go over the homeworks. \n\r\nIts true that he's stingy with partial credit but if you can do his past exams, the real exam should be easy and you shouldn't really make any mistakes. Also, he's pretty generous with his exam curves which really help out at the end. \n\r\nBest advice I can give you: start early on the homeworks since they take forever, get your hands on previous exams, and practice practice practice. If you do enough practice problemss, eventually they become second nature to you and it's really not that bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-03T05:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "He's a good teacher. \n\r\nHe thoroughly explains the material (get him to teach on the chalk/whiteboard-- this is much more effective than his transparencies) and he is always willing to help if you go to office hours.\n\r\nPeople complain because he's a harsh grader, but it really just motivates you to actually learn the material. Yes, this is engineering, you have to do a lot of work.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-26T03:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "He's such a terrible lecturer. He'll give really long supplemental readings that are worthless to you and are a waste of paper because no one understands them. His handwriting is illegible on his ancient overhead slides. His homeworks take a long time.\n\r\nHe hasn't changed the format of his tests for years so you'll probably get more out of studying previous tests if you can find a test bank than from his practice tests. He's really harsh in his grading and gives next to no partial grading.\n\r\nYou might be surprised at the grade you get (could be higher or lower than what you expect). He curves a lot, but given the harsh grading, it might not be enough.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-09-03T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'I took 244 and 350 with him. Pretty much, he is a terrible lecturer, and cannot teach worth anything. However, he will give you homeworks and tests in such a way that if you are not proficient in the material, you will fail.\n\r\nHe gives very little partial credit, and his exams are more of an exercise in precision than creativity. What I mean by that is, he will give you some 7 problems and if you have to stop and think about any of them, chances are you are not going to do well on the test.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-25T17:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Silio is a bore in class and couldn't teach a cat to meow. Avoid if you can. Most of his class is ranting about old computers. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-13T20:14:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "Silio is a terrible at teaching, rude to his students, and does not give reasonable study material.\r\n\r\nFrom the first day of class, he assumes that all of his students are familiar with the specific example machines' architecture and layout, and any questions are regarded with exasperated and inadequate answers. It appears as if he can't fathom that something may be confusing or explained improperly.\r\n\r\nThe material he covers is often inadequate to answer homework questions, and the required text does not do much to help in that regard. Many times, it will be impossible to decipher what a question is exactly looking for simply due to poor phrasing.\r\n\r\nThe material in the class is interesting, and if you want to enjoy it I would recommend taking anyone other than Silio.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-10T22:56:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Silio', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "STUDY THE OLD TEST! ONLY WAY TO GET BY! IF YOU DON'T YOU WILL FAIL! CLASS WILL PUT YOU TO SLEEP! AVOID AT ALL COST!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-21T14:14:02Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Silio', 'slug': 'silio'}, {'courses': ['ENPM808F', 'CMSC436', 'ENPM696'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Charles Song', 'slug': 'song_charles'}, {'courses': ['PSYC300', 'PSYC604', 'PSYC489I', 'PSYC221H', 'PSYC221'], 'average_rating': 2.1944, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221H', 'review': "He is a very boring professor. Additionally he doesn't make much sense when he rambles on about topics. I didn't do all that much studying for the quizzes and you can do some of them open-note. He's a generally nice guy but just doesn't sound that intelligent when he teaches. The book is necessary and you really should read. The extra credit is a great way to boost your grade each credit of SONA is 1% onto the final grade. There is a 500+ word paper every week sometimes in addition to a quiz, as well as a final paper and a final quiz (which consists of multiple 500-word essays). ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-23T18:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': 'stangor is NOT as bad as everyone makes him out to be. there are a bunch of small things to boost your grade (weekly lab activities, weekly 5 Q quizzes, extra credit). project 1 was annoying and time consuming but not impossible. project 2 is a group project where you create a replicated experiment and do a quick 5 min presentation (wasnt bad). FOLLOW APA TO THE LETTER. you lose a ton of points if you screw up apa format. lecture slides are posted and all material comes from his textbook. hes a good professor and knows the material really well. I asked some Qs after class and he was very helpful. he tried to get to know the students, he knows a bunch of peoples names. overall not a bad class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-09T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': 'Avoid taking this class with Stangor at all costs! The material is pretty straight forward, and I am a straight A student. However, the class is extremely unorganized and Stangor\'s assignment of grades is completely irrational and unfair. Example: I got a C on the first research paper - when the TA gave our papers back, he said: "If you followed the textbook guidelines for APA format, then you definitely got a lot of points deducted." STANGOR wrote the textbook! So basically, if you take this class, I\'m just warning you that you will likely be held accountable for the misprinted information in a textbook that you were required to buy, and that the professor wrote. Stangor also uses class time extremely inefficiently and is extremely unresponsive to student concerns. Take my advice, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH STANGOR- literally the worst teacher I\'ve ever had in ANY course, not just psychology.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-19T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': "he is an idiot!!!!! do not take this class with him. its boring and dry enough without having a dumb professor. he has no clue what he's doing, he thinks he knows everything, he doesn't know how to answer questions and its just so frustrating to sit in his class. so not worth it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-30T14:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Stangor is kind of a weirdo. He\'s very dry humored and doesn\'t get very involved with his students. He\'s weird about answering questions. He\'s REALLY smart, though and extremely involved in the field. He writes his own books for his classes and they\'re pretty well-written and definitely prepare you for the exams. I feel like this class could have been more interesting but he made it boring. Not a BAD professor, just.... "different." Exams are tough but fair. Stangor makes sure every question is fair and well written. He curves the test or takes out questions if he feels like he didn\'t word them well enough or if EVERYONE got one wrong. He\'s a TOUGH grader when it comes to research reports but I have to say I learned a lot through him.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-07T09:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'The material in the class was very interesting, but Stangor was not very engaging. His teaching style is very convoluted, and his textbook was confusing (even though it was free).\n\r\nSo, take this class. But wait for another professor. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-08-04T21:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Let me just say this class was horrible. It seemed decent at first because of the way the class was set up - exams multiple choice, two papers, and extra credit opportunity and the material seemed somewhat interesting. However, the grading and expectations by Stango and the TA's was so ridiculous I could not believe this was a 200 level class. It was extremely frustrating to have A's in 300 and 400 level classes and put in so much time and effort into the class only to receive D's on all my assignments. Since the class was doing so horrible he gave us the opportunity to rewrite our first paper and drop the lowest test grade (which did not help much thanks to the vagueness and horrible grading of assignments and lectures). Also when I approached the TA's about my paper that was extremely well written, concise, well supported, and included all areas of the paper all they could tell that it did not address topics that were not even mentioned in the rubric. Lesson be learned: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-07-01T11:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "I don't even know where to start with Stangor. I'm a psych major and in ALL of my other psych classes I've recieved A+ but somehow through this class I got a C. I studied and wrote and reworte my papers and still coudn't get above a C on anything. Luckily I did the extra credit which helped my grade SOME but not enough to get me a B. So my advice would be to avoid Stangor at ALL COSTS. This class material is very interesting but I hated the class and getting a C when I'm an A student does not sit well with me. I agree with the other posters that he's very vague and often doesn't answer questions completly or even the answer you were looking for. I thought I could take this class and follow the rubric and be fine but that isn't the case. If you have a photographic memory and can regurgitate everything Stangor says then you'll be fine. This is in NO WAY an easy class which really stinks because it could've been so great. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND TAKE THIS CLASS WITH SOMEONE ELSE.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-06-01T12:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Too many haters right now. Maybe Stangor changed his teaching habits recently but I thought he was a very smart teacher, very accommodating to student needs but a bit unorganized. His exams were real easy and he even dropped one of the exam grades along with adding an extra credit online activity. He did everything he could to help his students get an A.\n\r\nYou don't really need to go to lecture because he wrote the book he used so everything is out of there. If you were to study strictly the vocab out of the book (which he encourages) you could manage a B on every exam. So anything beyond that and you are sitting pretty for a high B or A.\n\r\nHis paper grading is real harsh but he offers a re-write where you can get points back.\n\r\nThere are a lot of haters, but Stangor is a smart professor that knows his stuff. His lectures are usually not that bad either and his exams, at least when I took him, were simple.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-23T15:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "He is not at all a clear teacher. The notes he gives in class are very vague, leading you to believe the exams will be as well, which affects how you study. Instead they were all specific, which easily threw off my grade (though admittedly I'm sure there were some students who still did well). The papers are also graded very harshly, as many of my peers showed proficient knowledge of the topics covered but still received low grades. Avoid this professor. PLEASE!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-17T14:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Straight to the point: Stangor is terrible. Grades are extremely unfair.\n\r\nMy biggest problem was with how he and his TAs grade. They take off significant points for grammar, even if the grammar mistakes do not detract from the overall meaning of your work. The most ironic thing is that Stangor\'s book and his tests are SO full of typos and grammatical errors!\n\r\nAfter we got our first paper grades back you could literally feel the tension in the class because people were so pissed off. It doesn\'t matter how well you understand the material and how well you describe it. If you do not say EXACTLY what Stangor happens to have in his head you will get points off.\n\r\nThere are rules for his papers about how certain paragraphs cannot be longer than "x" number of sentences. Yet you can write the max number of sentences and get marked off for "not enough information."\n\r\nI got a 100% on an online assignment, then wrote a paper which for part of it asked the exact same questions as the online assignment, so I wrote the same answers. Yet I got those same questions marked wrong on the paper that I had gotten right on the online assignment. Other people had this same problem. Stangor explained to the class that just because you get 100% on the online assignment doesn\'t mean those answers will be correct on the paper. What?!\n\r\nStangor thinks very highly of himself. He doesn\'t listen to students\' questions during lecture and routine cuts them off to answer what he THINKS they are about to ask. \n\r\nExpect to write a great paper and then get it back with a C+.\n\r\nGreat material, very interesting class. DO NOT TAKE 221 WITH STANGOR! OR ANY CLASS WITH HIM!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-15T23:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "At first the class seemed very interesting. Stangor started the first few lectures on interpersonal relationships, I found it one of the more interesting topics of the class. The material that the class covers is interesting. However, it is very frustrating that Stangor lets his TA's run the class and hardly has (if any at all) anything to do with the grading. They grade the papers solely based on grammar so if you take this class, make sure your paper has flawless grammar, punctuation and the exact number or required sentences. I would recommend that you find PSYC221 with another professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-06T13:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "If there has been one thing I could go back about college so far, it would be this class. If you care about your grades and want to take good classes...DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH STANGOR. Wait until another teacher is teaching it.\n\r\nI spend countless hours studying for this class and get mediocre grades. The online assignments are graded extremely harshly and it is very hard to get a good grade on them. It's hard to know what is going to be on the tests because he doesn't let you know. The papers are graded terribly and no one does well on them. They're pretty much just a big waste of time.\n\r\nOverall, Stangor knows what he's talking about but he's a terrible teacher. His textbook isn't grammatically correct and is agonizing to read. And lectures aren't much better. Sometimes I walk out not having learned a thing. DON'T TAKE STANGOR.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-26T02:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Stangor's really boring. His lectures are mind-numbing and he's not exactly what you'd call an engaging speaker.\n\r\nThe exams are designed haphazardly so it's difficult to predict what they're going to test, and the only source of informations aside from lecture is his horrible, horrible unedited textbook, which you can only get online. They're the kind of tests that you're likely to get a B on unless you've committed his (horrible, horrible) textbook to memory.\n\r\nThere are two very long papers that you have to write for the class. The guidelines are unnaturally specific and the grading is very harsh (and often wrong, but I suppose that's a problem for the TAs). I suppose they're intended to teach you how to write professionally, but they fail in spectacular fashion. These time-consuming wastes essential consist of reviewing psychology papers.\n\r\nIn addition to the papers, there are three exams, a final, and six online assignments (of which he counts the highest five). Grading is pretty inconsistent (and wrong again) across all of these, but I suppose that's another TA problem.\n\r\nStangor's a bad teacher and his class is an exercise in maximizing workload while limiting learning. Don't take him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-25T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE A CLASS WITH DR. STANGOR!!!!!\n\r\nI am a psychology major and just being in this class makes me hate psychology more and more every day. He mumbles and clears his throat after every other word. Maybe know knows what he is talking about but he just can not get it out, and it takes him more than 45 minutes to even get a point across.\n\r\nHe is the harshest grader I have ever come across. He uses the same grading TA every semester and if the paper does not say the exact wording that is asked of you, then points are taken off. It is impossible to get an A on the paper. The material for each exam is never ending, again it is almost impossible to do well. \n\r\nThis class is miserable and Dr. Stangor makes this easy and understandable material almost impossible to follow and he makes it extremely uninteresting. So again, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WTH DR. STANGOR.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-04-25T15:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "If you value your GPA, don't take this class with Dr. Stangor. Hardest graded class I've ever taken in college (and I'm a Junior). \n\r\nHe's very knowledgeable in social psychology and the material is interesting, but the assignments are graded very harshly. They're graded almost like we're taking a graduate level class. HELLO, THIS IS A LOWER LEVEL COURSE!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-23T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Definitely wait to take with someone else. The other 1-star/2-star reviews sum the class up well. This is by far the worst class I have ever taken. It's not difficult, but the teaching quality is horrible. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-04-11T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'This teacher is absolutely RIDICULOUS. He\'s constantly vague, even when you ask direct questions. He makes a point of you participating in online discussions and when he answers questions or gives input, he gives you links to other places to find everything youself. I have no idea how many times he\'s said, "It\'s in the syllabus, I believe," instead of just answering a question. He\'s pugnatious in emails and often comes off as rude. He has slides, but he goes too quickly. Often asks for extremely minute details from one lecture slide out of nowhere. There was literally a question on the exam where you had to fill the blanks of the missing sections of a chart he showed once in class while he rambled. More than half the class is online. Even if you read the textbook, you\'re grades don\'t improve because he tests on about 4 chapters and gives you no idea what he\'s going to be asking about. Way too many videos to watch that are way too long. The TA\'s were generally unhelpful and show up late to their office hours. I also received about a million emails from the teacher- receiving about two to three every time I log in. The class was time consuming and superfluous. I should NOT have chosen this as an elective.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-04-10T02:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "HORRIBLE PROFESSOR!! Very ineffective at communicating the material, and the way papers and tests are graded is absolutely ridiculous! I'm in honors and on the first paper I got a 79%, despite following all of the instructions for the paper. He takes off points in random areas for no reason, or is SUPER picky about things that are just unimportant. Moral of the story -- Don't take 221 with Stangor unless you absolutely have to.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-04T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Horrible Professor. The material is actually really interesting but he is just SO BAD at teaching it. He is very disorganized and not good at explaining concepts. He doesnt give you any idea of whats on the exams and the papers are graded VERY harshly. If there is any way you can avoid taking this class you should!! ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-04T16:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': "The worst professor I have ever had. Confusing, disorganized, vague (especially on exams). Always seems to be making up assignments as he goes along. You can't win. Wait to take this course form someone else.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T15:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Horribly boring, he mumbles a lot and isn't effective in getting the information across. The class is kind of a lot of work - exams, papers and many online responses. The textbook was awful but you need it. I'm sure he knows what he is talking about he is just really bad at teaching. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-16T22:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Psyc221: Do not take this class unless it is required for your major! And even then try to take it with a different professor. Stangor doesn't seem like a bad guy but he mumbles a lot and doesn't get the information across well, along with being horribly boring. The worst thing was his forcing you to pay for his illiterate, ungrammatical, and just plain bad textbook. Furthermore, he grades papers hard and takes off points for vague reasons. I definitely do NOT recommend this class.\n\r\nPsyc300: Having this guy for yet another semester illustrated his ineffectiveness at teaching even more so. For this class he also wrote his own textbook, but this one is much better and more professional than his social psych one (although very expensive). His lectures are boring but okay, the real problem is his horrible communication skills and his lack of professionalism. His tests are worded horribly and he puts in questions that aren't even in the reading. He also does not respect his students at all. Overall an okay course information wise but I would suggest trying to take the class with another professor. Also, there is a 2 hour lab besides lecture that is pretty pointless. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-10T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Stangor is definitely passionate about what he teaches EXCEPT he is horribly monotonous and doesnt always explain his lecture slides well. \r\nThe book is a preliminary edition which cost a pretty penny with many typos and missing figures/charts. Its quite repetitive and scattered. Its written as if you already were supposed to know certain parts because it will say as in Chapter 8 the concept of XYZ is etc etc etc. Problem is, youre reading a much earlier chapter in the book which isnt always clear. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-20T03:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "This class was pretty interesting. I have no negative feelings toward this class. Here's a quick overview:\n\r\nThe class consists of 6 online assignments, 2 papers, 3 exams, and a final. Seems like a lot right? Well it is actually very manageable if you try. \n\r\nHe does 5 online assignments and then one at the end to make up for all of your lost points so as long as you get 30 points on the first 5, you'll get 50/50 on the online assignments.\n\r\nThe papers are very long, but with some effort it is not hard to attain good grades (I got As on both with some effort)\n\r\nThe exams can be kind of tricky and you really have to read and understand the material. Overall the material is not that difficult. A lot of memorization and understanding concepts which is pretty easy. \n\r\nAs far as the class itself, it can be boring at times. To me, the material was interesting so even though the class could be somewhat boring at times, I was able to pay attention. He tries to do examples of what he teaches using clickers to help you better understand the material which sometimes helps.\n\r\nOverall, if you put the effort in, you'll get the grade you want. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Dr. Stangor is extremely knowledgeable about the field of social psychology.\n\r\nHe wrote the textbook for the class which is extremely long, boring, and convoluted. While it may be tempting to skip lecture and just read the book since he wrote it himself, I highly recommend not doing this. The textbook is actually much, much more detailed than the lectures so you will definitely be doing yourself a favor by attending the lectures. The lectures will let you know what information you actually have to know from the book and what information you do not. \n\r\nAs long as you attend the lectures, you should have no problem with the exams. They actually get easier as the semester goes on so do not get discouraged by the first one. In addition, definitely do the homework and extra credit as they will both boost your grade. The papers are a pain to write but overall not a huge issue. \n\r\nOverall not my favorite professor in the world, but when it came down to it, he definitely taught me a lot about Social Psychology. He is big on the "themes" of Social Psychology so as long as you understand those, it will be easy to predict the kind of information he will ask you on exams. As long as you do your work, it will not be hard to succeed in his course.\n\r\nGood Luck!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-12T03:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'An OKAY class. I always walk out from the exam thinking I did well, but I receive a C. His wording on the exams are a bit vague. Just be careful. Two papers to do. Otherwise, fairly easy class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-04-30T11:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "221 is an important class for learning principles about social psychology. Things that I learned in this class have come to help me in certain upper level classes. However, the class is ALOT of work for a 200 lvl. Some 300 in psychology where much easier. \r\nThe papers were graded in a ridiculous way since they were looking for everyone to write more or less the same paper. Also like others have said the multiple choices are tricky and in many situations the TA's were unsure of how to clarify the questions because even they didn't understand the questions!\n\r\nIt is true stangor is not around too much, but this didn't bother me that much.\n\r\nYou must attend lecture and read the book to do well in the class. It wasn't fun to take, but looking back I value what I learned in the class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-13T22:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "I would not take this class with Stangor unless it is required for your major. It is a lot of work and he doesn't grade papers easily. Even if you know all the material from class and the book, he still tries to trick you with his questions on the exams. It shouldn't be too hard for anyone to get a B, but I would recommend taking this class with a different teacher.\n\r\nAlso, he wrote the book, and it is actually pretty interesting to read, but for some reason he decided not to have someone edit/proofread the book, so there are mistakes everywhere, which is pretty annoying.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-10-11T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'The class workload was manageable. I honestly did not find the material too interesting. He wrote the book which has several errors in it and is written strangely. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-30T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Prof. Stangor is obviously enthusiastic about Psyc and wants to share his knowledge. The lectures are pretty interesting and he explains terms well and gives real-world examples which helps a lot. However he wastes lecture time whining about people coming in late in a 450 person lecture- useless. Also uses clickers. Extra credit is offered- not too hard to get the points you need for an A. Weekly online assignent require work however as well as two papers. One main negative is that he forces students to post questions on the elms Discussion Board instead of individually adressing them, but then he often does not answer the questions- even crucial ones before due dates so be warned.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-26T22:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Meh, he is all right, but honestly you don't see much of him outside of lecture (and he has his head TA do a lot of the lectures anyway). Class is interesting but grading can be a little more difficult than you expect. The MC exams try to trick you by asking questions Stangor briefly mentioned in lecture, and things straight out of the book that weren't mentioned in class, so watch out. If you're really into psychology and can deal with a huge class/occasional annoying TA's, go for it cuz the material is pretty interesting. But otherwise, don't take this as an elective, it's not worth it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-10T13:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Professor Stangor is extremely enthusiastic about his lectures. You can see it on his face. At first, this had me pretty excited about this class.\n\r\nHowever, as a 450-person lecture, there are obvious problems. Stangor will often allow his TA's to run the class and not show up at all. Usually when this happens, I feel like I'm being babysat, and the truth is that it's not interesting material - that's probably why Dr. Stangor didn't show up. The book is useful, but he wrote it and it's a preliminary edition that's largely unedited, which is annoying, because the text will refer to figure # __ and the figure won't be there...\n\r\nWe also have to write two papers that are basically written for us. The topic is pre-selected, and there is a very strict rubric. \n\r\nFor Psych majors: this class is requirement, you have to take it. Read the book, study, don't skip and follow the rubric on the papers! You'll be fine :D but it does get old...", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-04-29T22:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Stangor is never at the lecture instead he has his TA's give the lecture which is pretty much common sense. I only go to class because of the clicker points. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-23T22:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221H', 'review': "Dr. Stangor is a pretty good professor. I would definitely recommend reading the book in addition to attending lecture, since he tries to get audience participation and thus doesn't cover some important concepts, but overall the class was easy when I took it. There is only 1 paper for the general course, and the honors students had to do a presentation and a final proposal for a research project (which involved a decent amount of work). ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T01:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Charles Stangor', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Professor Stangor obviously knows the material really well (as he wrote the textbook) but it is hard to see that from his lectures. The textbook was definitely more valuable than lecture. Professor Stangor constantly tries to get the class to answer open ended questions which often results in never getting a direct answer. Overall, he was a decent professor and the class was fairly easy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-12T18:44:00Z'}], 'name': 'Charles Stangor', 'slug': 'stangor'}, {'courses': ['ANTH263'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Charneka Lane', 'course': 'ANTH263', 'review': "Great professor, very responsive to emails and grades based off of argument and not her personal opinion on the issues. I really appreciated the unbiased grading, it made the discussions pretty interesting and not just an echo chamber of her own opinion. I thought I'd hate the class tbh, but it was really enjoyable and I learned a lot from the reading and rather free-form writing assignments", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-20T22:56:17Z'}], 'name': 'Charneka Lane', 'slug': 'lane_charneka'}, {'courses': ['JOUR458B', 'HONR349P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Chartese Burnett', 'slug': 'burnett'}, {'courses': ['CHEM425', 'CHEM625', 'CHEM135'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cheng Lee', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "The best thing about taking him is that tests aren't too difficult and he gives out extra credit quizzes. Extra credit quizzes can't harm your grade no matter how bad you do. They're simply added onto your exam score, so they only help you. Lee's exams are fair and straightforward, so just make sure to grind MasteringChemistry (I honestly felt the mastering chem questions were harder than his exam questions.)\r\nAs far as lecturing goes, he just reads off the slides which makes the class pretty boring. Just make sure to really understand the slides or textbook examples for this class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-20T01:59:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Cheng Lee', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Exams are nearly identical to the old ones he gives you for practice. Gives extra credit pop quizzes so be sure to show up for lecture. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-13T15:02:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Cheng Lee', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Cheng Lee is a grumpy man. I had accommodations for test taking and he fought me on them even though they are on the paperwork. He said I was back talking him when I was just trying to submit the accommodations paperwork. Besides that he is rude to students and very strict in class. His lectures are straight from the ppts which he provides which is nice. He tells you what will be on the test and occasionally gives out extra credit so go to lectures. I spent the lectures working on other work since he's such a boring lecturer and studied the ppts on my own. \r\n\r\nOverall he is not the best but easy to get an A in the class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-16T17:18:35Z'}], 'name': 'Cheng Lee', 'slug': 'lee_cheng'}, {'courses': ['URSP601', 'URSP606', 'URSP688Q', 'URSP709', 'URSP606', 'URSP688C', 'URSP709', 'URSP601', 'URSP601', 'URSP606', 'URSP709', 'URSP709', 'URSP601', 'URSP606', 'URSP709'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Chengri Ding', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Ding is clear, passionate, and knowledgeable. He has an inquisitive spirit and is amazing all around. His syllabus was comprehensive and the course readings were easy to find.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-15T22:56:59Z'}], 'name': 'Chengri Ding', 'slug': 'ding_chengri'}, {'courses': ['EPIB611', 'EPIB626', 'EPIB631', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'EPIB301', 'EPIB611', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB399'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cher Dallal', 'course': 'EPIB611', 'review': 'She is not considerate to students personal lives when they conflict with homework assignments. Also very reliant on the textbook which is not easy to read.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-09T08:02:56.576351Z'}], 'name': 'Cher Dallal', 'slug': 'dallal'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cherie Walsh', 'slug': 'walsh_cherie'}, {'courses': ['AMST418A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cheryl LaRoche', 'slug': 'laroche'}, {'courses': ['JOUR370', 'JOUR670'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cheryl Meyer', 'slug': 'meyer_cheryl'}, {'courses': ['SPAN204', 'SPAN363', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN302', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN311', 'SPAN359A', 'SPAN373', 'SPAN370', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN370', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN373', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN370'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'course': 'SPAN207', 'review': "Señora Hidalgo is awesome. She's very funny and I learned a lot in her class. The Spanish professors have all been great and she has only boosted that stereotype for me! The homework assignments and workload are very manageable and she really cares about her students. Attendance is important, as it should be in any class. Definitely take a class with her if you get the chance. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-01T15:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'course': None, 'review': "Senora Hidalgo is a great professor. I had her for SPAN207. I really learned a lot from her class and it was pretty easy. No taking notes, only daily homework that took less than an hour. Honestly show up to every class and participate and you’ll get an A. It’s really not hard to do those two things, I swear. She checks homework after every class. We had two very short writing assignments, two quizzes, two exams, and a final. All were straightforward. She is a nice lady but strict about homework and attendance, but again, just show up, do the homework, and talk in class. Definitely enjoyed it! (And I’m definitely not a great Spanish speaker so your actual competency in Spanish probably won't matter)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-10-14T00:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'course': 'SPAN302', 'review': "She was okay for the most part. But when I emailed her after she claimed that I had only turned in 1 homework after being absent, I told her that even though I had threw away some of the previous homework (because the semester was over) I had some of the last one she had graded in red pen. She refused to even look at it, stating that she was very organized and had noted everything I had turned it. She also doesn't post stuff on ELMS so I had to email her to get information about why I got the final grade I did. I would make sure to keep everything from her until the final grades are posted. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-20T02:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'course': 'SPAN302', 'review': "I don't know why no one has reviewed Chila yet. She was by far one of the best professors I've ever had at UMD. As a somewhat shaky Spanish minor, she was always very accommodating to all of her students and constantly placed an emphasis on respecting her students and their diverse ideas. You can tell she genuinely cares about all of her students.\n\r\nAs far as grading goes, she is a very fair professor. This class was pretty easy as long as you did the assignments and participated occasionally in class. You shouldn't have trouble getting an A-/B+ in this class.\n\r\nIf you're looking to take any Spanish classes at UMD, DEFINITELY take them with Chila! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-04T22:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'course': None, 'review': 'She is an amazing professor. So accommodating, understanding an encouraging. I was not confident in my Spanish and asked a lot of questions and she always made the classroom feel like it was a welcoming safe place to learn and ask questions. She checks homework every day but her homework actually applies to the class and is useful, not just busy work. She is excited about what she teaches and cares about her students. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-11-08T19:30:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'course': 'SPAN207', 'review': "SHE IS THE BEST SPANISH PROFESSOR AT UMD! If you're looking for a sign to choose her as your professor, this is it!!! She is very generous with grading, and is also very understanding with course material, grades, and help. The class is very organized with a set schedule each week that she actually follows. Great class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-17T01:54:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'course': 'SPAN207', 'review': 'I was expecting this class to be horrible, I am not a confident spanish speaker but Prof Hidalgo has made it enjoyable and I have learned a ton! She is communicative and organized. The class is composed of HWs, 2 quizes, 2 writing assignments and a midterm and final and all of these expectations are reasonablely easy and well graded. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-06T21:39:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'course': 'SPAN207', 'review': 'She is an amazing Spanish professor; she does an excellent job of integrating lessons about grammar into discussions of culture and art. The class consists of a lot of work in small groups and discussions. The homework load never takes more than 30 minutes however there are grammar quizzes worth 1-3 points that tend to be very difficult. Overall I would definitely recommend her. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-08T02:37:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'course': 'SPAN207', 'review': 'She is such a good Spanish professor! There is a lot of speaking and working with a partner while in the classroom, but it is not too challenging. Every week you have 3 homework assignments. The grammar and vocab assignments are hard, but her quizzes and written assignments are easier and help to raise your grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-05T21:39:00.797614Z'}], 'name': 'Chila Hidalgo', 'slug': 'hidalgo'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christa Cooper', 'slug': 'cooper_christa'}, {'courses': ['PHIL308X', 'PHIL408K', 'PHIL245', 'PHIL209Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christian Tarsney', 'slug': 'tarsney'}, {'courses': ['MATH406', 'STAT410', 'MATH246H', 'MATH432', 'MATH404', 'MATH848Z', 'MATH246', 'MATH848E', 'SURV410', 'MATH734', 'MATH808W', 'HLTH710', 'MATH402', 'MATH848T', 'MATH403', 'MATH730', 'MATH403', 'MATH403', 'MATH730'], 'average_rating': 3.4545, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH734', 'review': 'Great professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-13T19:51:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH246H', 'review': 'The MATLABs for this course are actually impossible, but Zickert is a very passionate professor and you can tell he loves math. He goes pretty fast in lectures but will openly answer any questions you have in office hours. He also teaches straight from the online book which makes going back over the notes a breeze. (the online book is basically a compilation of PDFs and practice problems) Make sure to do the best you can on quizzes and other graded assignments throughout the course because the Midterms are killer. As long as you study and keep up with the material, you should earn an A or B. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-15T20:47:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH246H', 'review': 'Took this with him last semester. Really nice guy with very fair exams, he provided a past exam for each of the 3 exams to study from. Solid lecturer and was always willing to answer questions during class. Prepared you well for final exam.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-05T01:10:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH246H', 'review': 'Professor Zickert is fantastic. He is able to answer any and all questions you have about the material and is clearly extremely passionate about mathematics. He is friendly and hilarious, and it is impossible not to love his class. (Be warned, his handwriting might take some getting used to.)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-06-09T03:16:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH246H', 'review': 'Great professor, he really enjoys teaching the material and tries to pass on his love of math to the students. The material is hard but he teaches it well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-08-17T14:41:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH404', 'review': "I'm really surprised by how many positive reviews there are for this professor. His lectures are a worse presentation of the chapter of the textbook, and his terrible handwriting makes course notes useless. He doesn't seem well prepared for class and often rambles on during proofs, presenting things with little structure. Very disappointed and wish I didn't take this course.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-11T16:31:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH246H', 'review': 'Zickerts teaching style just did not work for me and it might not work for you. You know what kind of class it’s gonna be when, on the first day, the professor goes straight into the content. He has terrible writing and his classes consist of him lecturing about theory without many worked out examples. I also found that the midterms were much harder than the homework he assigns and the matlabs are nothing more than busy work for an extra assignment in the grade book. Lastly, the content that he said will be covered in class on the syllabus did not match with what he taught and was on the exams. With all that being said, he is very smart and passionate about math. However, I would not recommend this professor if you aren’t a math protege and want a good grade.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-10-25T00:43:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH246H', 'review': 'makes the class wayyyy harder than it needs to be. handwriting is pretty bad and he assumes the students know much more than they actually should. MATLAB projects are just busy work and take an insane amount of time. exams are also very challenging and nothing like the examples he goes over in class. that being said, i still got an A but I had to put in a lot of work', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T16:22:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH246H', 'review': "Professor Zickert's MATH246H was a nightmare class. He's one of those professors that's too smart for his own good. His tests are much harder than you would expect given his homework and quizzes. But, in spite of the difficulty, he is a nice person and will give you help and credit if you show effort and improve.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-01-23T00:05:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH432', 'review': "He's great!! Lectures were entertaining and he's quite passionate about math. The class isn't easy but honestly the exams were very fair and never had crazy proofs or anything like that. Awesome class, nice prof, highly recommend if you're interested in this sort of material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-23T02:45:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Christian Zickert', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "You can tell Zickert is extremely passionate about math and he will elegantly field any question asked during a lecture or office hours. That being said, his handwriting is pretty bad and his lectures are usually (not always) just a worse presentation of the corresponding sections in the book. Zickert is one of those professors that think difficult concepts are trivial and doesn't often try to engage students with the material. In my experience, he's a pretty harsh grader and will take a lot of points off for tiny mistakes.\r\n\r\nI wouldn't say Zickert is a bad professor, but he's not a great one. Would definitely recommend trying another professor, but you'll be okay if Zickert is the only choice you have. My recommendation would be to read ahead in the books and take notes beforehand, using his lecture only as a supplement.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-08T14:05:52.041322Z'}], 'name': 'Christian Zickert', 'slug': 'zickert'}, {'courses': ['HIST208O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christiane Abu Sarah', 'slug': 'sarah'}, {'courses': ['LARC721'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christie Ciabotti', 'slug': 'ciabotti'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christie Cradock', 'course': None, 'review': "Minimal effort required to get an A in UNIV100. I don't feel like the class was very helpful though to be honest, and I think it was a waste of time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-24T02:15:53.214131Z'}], 'name': 'Christie Cradock', 'slug': 'cradock'}, {'courses': ['ANTH260', 'ANTH264', 'ANTH463', 'ANTH411', 'ANTH613', 'IMMR219C', 'ANTH663', 'ANTH611', 'ANTH413', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH606', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH606', 'ANTH264', 'ANTH411', 'ANTH606', 'ANTH611', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH606'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christina Getrich', 'course': 'ANTH264', 'review': 'Great teacher, very passionate when teaching. makes class an enjoyable experience', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-03-11T01:26:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Christina Getrich', 'course': 'ANTH413', 'review': "Amazing professor and amazing person. She is so smart and genuinely cares about her students (both education and wellbeing). I wish I could have her as a professor every semester. ANTH413 with her was amazingggg, I'm looking into taking other courses she teaches now too. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-04T18:08:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Christina Getrich', 'course': 'ANTH264', 'review': 'Dr. Getrich is a very smart and experienced teacher regarding immigration and immigrant lives. She chose really great readings and films for this class and explains everything so well that I was more prepared for her midterm and final exam than any other class at UMD. The workload is not too heavy; one discussion post per week and a couple readings to do before lectures. I wish I could take every immigration class with her. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-03-15T23:11:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Christina Getrich', 'course': 'ANTH264', 'review': "I really like Dr. Getrich's teaching style. She makes immigration concepts extremely interesting. For the readings, there are sometimes pop quizzes announced - which are announced in advance - so make sure to keep up with those. We usually only have one writing assignment a week for the discussion sections and those are around 250-500 words. The workload really isn't that hard. For the lectures, Dr. Getrich does teach from powerpoints - and there are A LOT of words on each slide. Make sure that you are typing up your notes because it is extremely hard to write notes that fast. For the exams, they really aren't that hard. If you are able to go through your notes and the study guide and remember important overarching concepts and important laws/concepts, you will do great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-03T21:45:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Christina Getrich', 'course': 'ANTH264', 'review': "Dr. Getrich has a very relaxed teaching style. For the most part, this class is a combination of lectures, readings, and discussions. There are about 5 pop quizzes, but even if you don't do too well on them, the discussion assignments more than makeup for your grade. The 12 discussion assignments you have to do make up for 48% of your grade. The discussion assignments are pretty easy, you just need to summarize some articles and sometimes give your opinion on them or connect them to whatever you learned in that week the assignment is due. There is one interesting discussion assignment where you interview U.S. immigrants on their experiences coming to and living in the U.S. The class only has two exams: the midterm and the final. The class fulfills the DVUP, SCIS, and DSHS gen-eds, so this pretty much clears out a lot of gen-eds. Like the review before mine said, you should type up your notes or take pictures of the slides since there isn't enough time to write down everything on Dr. Getrich's PowerPoint slides. Dr. Getrich introduces very interesting perspectives on immigration and is very experienced in regard to immigration, immigrant lives, and everyday activism. I really enjoyed this class and would recommend this class to anyone who's willing to give it a try. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-23T07:42:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Christina Getrich', 'course': 'ANTH264', 'review': "Dr. Getrich is an excellent professor. The class material was interesting and relevant, and I actually learned a ton about immigration. She is genuinely excited about the topic and interested in her students' stories. She managed to teach us so much without making her class too difficult or time consuming. One assignment a week, plus the midterm and final, which were both online and open notes. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T17:35:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Christina Getrich', 'course': 'IMMR219C', 'review': 'As long as you take notes during lectures you will most likely be fine. The pop quizzes were easy. Discussion consists of sharing your findings on the topic you were supposed to research that week. Professor Getrich is very understanding, but against posting notes online because it decreases attendance, but I definitely still recommend this professor. The midterm and final were both open-note but timed. You can do extra credit to boost your grade(There are multiple opportunities).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-24T03:15:11Z'}], 'name': 'Christina Getrich', 'slug': 'getrich'}, {'courses': ['AMST289A', 'LGBT448C', 'AMST629O', 'LGBT488Q', 'AMST629M', 'LGBT488A', 'AMST878A', 'ARHU158F', 'LGBT488B', 'AMST498V', 'AMST629C', 'AMST878', 'AMST878B', 'AMST878C', 'AMST628T', 'AMST450', 'LGBT488C', 'AMST601', 'AMST101', 'AMST628F', 'AMST603', 'LGBT488D', 'AMST602', 'AMST629L', 'WMST698L', 'AMST101', 'AMST498V', 'LGBT448C', 'AMST101'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christina Hanhardt', 'course': None, 'review': "Christina was a great professor and the TA's were awesome as well. The class, I realized, didn't interest me that much, but somehow their teaching ability made it more than bearable and quite interesting. Very fair grader on the assignments. \n\r\nCan't get much better than this for a class I took just to fulfill two CORE requirements at once", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-18T13:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christina Hanhardt', 'course': 'LGBT448C', 'review': "I wish all of my classes were like this. Although we had a substantial amount of reading, Christina kept class stimulating, entertaining, and engaging. It was such a comfortable learning atmosphere, and she's so great at explaining things you have questions about. You could constantly hear laughter coming out of our classroom, yet the class really opened my eyes up to a lot of LGBT issues. Highly recommended. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-09T03:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christina Hanhardt', 'course': 'AMST101', 'review': "Professor Hanhardt made it very easy to succeed in AMST101. I could tell that she cared a lot about our learning along with our two TAs. Grading was very lenient and it is very easy to get an A. Participation in lecture (attendance) and discussion is a grade but all you have to do is show up for class and participate a few times in discussion to get an A. There were readings and/or videos along with a response paper due every week. The readings and videos sometimes took a few hours to read or watch which was kind of annoying. The response papers were 300-500 words but they aren't formal and they aren't individually graded (there's a overall response paper grade which you get at the end of the semester). They were also posted to a discussion page so everyone in your class could view your responses, which in my opinion, made it hard to get really personal with the topics because I didn't want my peers to read some of my responses that would be very personal to me. I would say that my biggest concern taking this class is the lack of grades. The first grade was the midterm grade which came a few weeks after it was due, so it was hard to know how you were doing grade-wise in the class until the very end. My TA facilitated great discussion which enhanced my learning on the topic, and the ~7 guest lecturers throughout the semester were engaging and great to listen to. Overall, Professor Hanhardt is a great professor and I would recommend AMST101 for a Gen-ed requirement.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-24T00:59:06.009423Z'}], 'name': 'Christina Hanhardt', 'slug': 'hanhardt'}, {'courses': ['SOCY699A', 'SOCY202', 'SOCY498C', 'GVPT729E', 'SOCY498A', 'SOCY699D', 'GEOG788Q', 'GEOG498B', 'SOCY498B', 'ANTH689N', 'GEOG788S', 'SOCY709P', 'GEOG498Q', 'GEOG331', 'GEOG788B', 'MEES620'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christina Prell', 'slug': 'prell'}, {'courses': ['ENGL301', 'ENGL749T', 'ENGL425', 'ENGL428Y', 'ENGL457', 'HHUM106', 'ENGL630', 'ENGL379I', 'ENGL798B', 'ENGL602', 'EDSP652', 'ENGL453', 'ENGL428N', 'ENGL749A', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL453', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL479Q', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL601'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christina Walter', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': 'I\'m taking ENGL301 right now with Christina. She is really easy to talk to, and more knowledgable than any other professor I\'ve known. That said, she is a fair ("hard") grader and doesn\'t hand out As. This class also focuses a lot more on critical theory than most other 301 instructors.\n\r\nIf you want to have a good base for future literary studies, take this class with Christina. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-05T19:12:00Z'}], 'name': 'Christina Walter', 'slug': 'walter'}, {'courses': ['BIOM301', 'BIOM601', 'BIOM405', 'ANSC386', 'BIOM301', 'BIOM301', 'BIOM301', 'ANSC386', 'BIOM301', 'ANSC389', 'BIOM301', 'ANSC389', 'BIOM301', 'BIOM301'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "Dr. Hakenkamp was an awesome professor. I took her class over winter break because I had to drop BStat with a W or I was going to fail. I suck at math, but she's a great teacher. Biom301 over winter break is the easiest thing i've ever done at UMD. Her homework assignments are fast, mostly true and false questions. Our final exam was optional if you wanted to boost your grade. If you need a super easy math or stat class take this with her", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-02-11T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "She's pretty goofy, but you can tell she is obviously into the material. Her tests were reasonable, but often she'd throw on questions that were really backwards to confuse us. I hated that. I wish she would test us on the material and not try to confuse us. You have to read every word of her test questions and expect her to be tricking you. Overall, class is meh.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-08-23T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "she knows exactly how to teach the course, so just do what she says and you can't go wrong", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-22T17:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "Not a hard class, but you do have to put in some work if you want to get an A, and not an A-.\r\nThere are 4 exams and a final, along with online quizzes, discussion assignments, and a group project (which was fairly easy). The final is optional, so try and do well on the exams, which aren't too hard.\r\nHakenkamp is a pretty boring lecturer, but she does give you quite a few resources to draw from--all lecture powerpoints are posted online, and most of her lecture audio was recorded and posted online as well in case you missed a class. She also posts practice exam questions and practice exams as well, so if you do all of those you should be in good shape for the exams.\r\nAll in all, not a bad class, if you like statistics in general then you'll probably like this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-17T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "like the previous reviewer said, it's not a super easy class; it's just not as hard as other 300 level science classes, for example. You need to put in the work for the grade. In case you wanted to know, the final was about the same difficulty as the 4 midterms, but you should try your best not to have to take it and just score well on the midterms.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-23T12:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "Discussion brings up your grade so you have to go. Definately do all the quizzes and discussion assignments. \r\nHakenkamp got really old to me during the first month. First she was okay but then I started to hate her. She spoke too fast and no one paid attention in class. You can't really take notes during class, you have to take time to review the powerpoints in your own time. Her exams are easy - if you study reasonable amount you could get at least a B easily. Their is a group project - seriously she doesn't want a lot of effort into it - my group put a lot of effort and our result was a B because one of our sections was too long.\r\nTake BIOM301 only because its an easy A, not because of reviews about Hakenkamp", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-19T00:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "This really isnt that hard of a course and its not that much work. Theres a discussion weekly where you have to do an assignment, and a quiz every week. They're pretty easy. Theres a research assignment at the end that you do as a group which is pretty easy.\n\r\n4 exams, 150 each, final is optional. pretty easy if you study. \n\r\nteacher isnt bad, but she just reads from the ppt. I stopped going to class after the first couple weeks and still did fine on the tests. just read the slides before you take the test. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-11T21:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "This class isn't difficult, and its not a ton of work. Attendance is required for discussion. Weekly discussion homework and online quizzes, but she drops the lowest. 4 in class exams--true/false is usually the hardest part of the exams. She likes true/false questions. \n\r\nThere's a group project worth the same as an exam. The groups are large, so its not a ton of work individually.\n\r\nShe runs through lecture very quickly each time, so you are usually done early, but its almost impossible to keep up with her for notes. Almost all the info you need is on the slides, which she uploads. She also tries to record and upload lectures.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-03T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "pretty easy class. first exam is the easiest so make sure you do really good on it. it gets a bit tricker for the next exams. final is optional and i don't recommend taking it. \r\nshe speeds through lectures so you always get out early.\r\nshe always seems to be in a rush but she is helpful in office hours", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-06-08T01:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'This course is a breeze. I took it over winter break which I highly recommend if you have the opportunity. Dr. Hakenkamp is great, she is very bubbly and nice and I enjoyed having her as a professor. There were three exams for the class, but since I took it over winter break there was no final, just three noncumulative exams. There are also discussion assignments, which you can usually get 100% on. I had Melissa as my TA, and she was awesome. And there are online homework assignments/quizzes. The material is not too difficult. There are a lot of equations and statistical tests, but you are given a cheat sheet for each exam that includes all the formulas you will need. Spend a decent amount of time studying and you will get an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-24T15:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'This class is easy as heck.\r\nJust study the powerpoints, and you can essentially skip all the classes.\r\nIf you took AP Statistics in high school, then you will realize that this is essentially all of the same material.\r\nI pretty much had to study a night or two before each mid-term, and I did well.\r\nYou get lots of easy points by doing discussion worksheets and ELMS quizzes. You have the option of not taking the final if you did well enough on the mid-terms and are satisfied with your scores.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-15T11:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "It was impossible to take notes in this class. The powerpoints were too long and she went too quickly for it to be possible. The material is not particularly difficult, but you'll probably learn the best by doing practice problems out of the book, and by going to discussion. There are good examples provided in the slides though, so they are a good reference for when you're doing any of the assignments. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-09T23:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'Dr. Hakenkamp teaches at a lightning fast speed which can be frustrating for those who are not great with math. However she does provide a lot of resources to help students succeed and she is available outside of lecture. Going to discussion is crucial to passing this course. Almost all assignments are completed during discussion. The class is easier to take during the winter session because there is no research project and tests are given closer together when the information is fresh in your mind.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-06T22:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'Do go to discussion...and also study very very well for her exams, they can be tricky..and do well in the online quizzes..there is a group project that can also help your grade do well in everything and good luck with the final..it was def tricky..overall she was an okay teacher the final exam messed me up :(', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-09-02T00:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'Professor was not up to par. Too many slides to articulate basic information. Wording was tricky on the weekly quiz and true false questions. Its not hard.. she just makes it really annoying!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-03-02T01:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'Very nice professor. exams are straightforward: problems are easy but multiple choice can be tricky. discussion is easy but mandatory. project is easy but a pain. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-28T01:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'I had two courses about statistics before this one and she was the best stat professor. She keeps it simple but fun and relevant, which is hard to do with statistics. The exams are challenging, the labs are good practice, and the project is a lot of fun. Go to class, go to labs, and practice for exams should get you an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-27T15:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'This is a basic stats class applied to biology. The first test is literally about mean, median and mode which makes it pretty easy. It gets a little harder from then on but as long as you go to most of the classes and do the work in discussion it shouldnt be too bad. There is one group project and as with all group projects you may get stuck with people that dont quite carry their weight, but even so the project isnt too bad and she grades them fairly easily. As long as you look over the notes and look at her examples and practice exams it should be an easy class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-05T17:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "Dr. Hakenkamp was probably the MOST accommodating professor I've had at UMD. She had all of her lectures recorded online in case you couldn't attend them, she had a grade buffer on the quizzes and discussion, making it really easy to get a good grade. If you complete the quizzes, discussion, and watch the lectures, this class is an easy A. And the final is optional, which is an added bonus since I would guess most students in the class had an A- at the very least by the end of the semester.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-09T18:07:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'She is a really good teacher. I took this class winter semester and it went fast but it was very manageable. She is extremely organized and her expectations were clear. She did a 200 max out of 240 points for the quizzes and discussion assignments so you could lose 40 points and still get a 100% on those sections. The exams were very reasonable and open note (but this was COVID and winter semester so might be different for other semesters). She had a lot of review sessions and office hours. She is very helpful and teaches well. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-22T22:40:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "I suffered through PSYC200 for half a semester before I just dropped it with a W so I could take this the next semester and thank god I did. She's taught this class so many times now, so she knows the best way to set it up and how to teach it. also, she is super accommodating; everything is recorded/online and exams are open note and open elms page (meaning all the powerpoints, discussion practice worksheets, etc.). Discussion is also AMAZING because you work with a group on everything & the final project (also done with your group) is literally the easiest thing ever. She does cover a lot of info each lecture & the class moves kinda fast, but honestly, its fine whether or not you stay on top of notes/lectures because your grade gets cushioned pretty nicely by the discussion worksheets & quizzes (which are also pretty easy). I got like Cs on all 3 exams but ended the class with a B+ so. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-03-10T22:43:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'It’s really easy to get an A in this class. Grading and tests are VERY fair. There are a lot of opportunities to make up if you fall behind on anything. The professor makes the concepts very easy to understand with lots of practice and examples.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-11T16:21:37.763265Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': "I'm going to be real honest... PROFESSOR HAKENKAMP IS THE GOAT!!! I barely showed up to class but still was able to do extremely well. The exams are fair and not too hard as they all reflect the past exams (which she provides). The later topics could get a little complicated if you fall behind, but there are so many ways to earn back points that it will cushion your grade. Discussions are mandatory and there is an online quiz once per topic. There are 3 mid-term exams and the final is optional (she will only take the final exam score if it benefits your grade). Professor Hakenkamp genuinely wants you to good in her class and walk out with an A at the end.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-22T08:16:39.016398Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'SO SO sweet and great professor! love her :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-28T18:21:01.987139Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'course': 'BIOM301', 'review': 'This is the most well organized class you will ever have. You can not go to class ever and still get A+ on the tests. Moderate amount of information, but the teacher is good so this is not really a big issue. Tests are also easy and similar to practice tests.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-23T17:10:24.116601Z'}], 'name': 'Christine Hakenkamp', 'slug': 'hakenkamp'}, {'courses': ['ENAE601', 'ENAE404', 'ENAE441', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE404'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christine Hartzell', 'course': 'ENAE601', 'review': "Overall good, straightforward professor. Teaches the main concepts needed to know for homework. You will need the Vallado text to understand more in details since she tries to cover many topics (even though it's not required - highly recommend). \r\n\r\nShe picks low hanging fruit with grading. Most grades came in at the very last day/day before final grades were due (as with many AE professors). For the report she didn't provide a rubric and graded on her arbitrary thoughts on how you should have done your report.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-30T18:17:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Hartzell', 'course': 'ENAE404', 'review': 'Dr. Hartzell is an extremely organized, fluid, and talented teacher. Her grading is pretty strict but there is a slight chance of a curve in this course which should make up for it. Everything she asks of you will challenge you, but it is pretty reasonable. She is definitely one of the better professors in AERO', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-25T18:03:36Z'}], 'name': 'Christine Hartzell', 'slug': 'hartzell'}, {'courses': ['JOUR199', 'JOUR356', 'JOUR399', 'JOUR652', 'JOUR352', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR202', 'JOUR501', 'JOUR656', 'JOUR150', 'JOUR620', 'JOUR320', 'JOUR620', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR502', 'JOUR502', 'JOUR620'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christine Harvey', 'course': 'JOUR201', 'review': "This professor is an extremely tough grader, and her lectures can be quite boring. The most frustrating part of this class was that this professor picks very clear favorites, and if you're not one of them you will feel it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-20T22:24:19.823294Z'}], 'name': 'Christine Harvey', 'slug': 'harvey_christine'}, {'courses': ['FMSC332', 'FMSC460', 'FMSC698V', 'FMSC432', 'EXST030', 'FMSC383', 'FMSC332', 'FMSC432', 'FMSC460', 'FMSC332', 'FMSC383', 'FMSC432', 'FMSC460', 'FMSC750', 'GERM103', 'FMSC332', 'FMSC432', 'FMSC460', 'FMSC460', 'FMSC698V', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC432', 'FMSC460', 'FMSC698V', 'FMSC383', 'FMSC432', 'FMSC460', 'FMSC698V', 'FMSC332', 'FMSC432', 'FMSC460'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christine Schull', 'course': 'FMSC460', 'review': 'Professor Schull is always late to class. She is really nice, but kind of dull. I liked her class and respect her as a teacher, but if you are looking for a super interesting class I would not pick this one. Her grades were very straight forward and she has a pretty good turn around time.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-17T16:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Schull', 'course': 'FMSC332', 'review': 'Professor Schull is okay. She gets the job done. Nothing special but an easy grader on papers. Quizzes are hard but the other assignments make up for it', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-03T15:48:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine Schull', 'course': 'FMSC460', 'review': "She's an ok teacher. Nothing great and bad about her. There's literally no need to go to class either (except during your bookclub days and you can just be on your computer the whole time). All the quizzes open up at the beginning of the semester, and sometimes its 2-3 attempts and she'll forget to turn off the correct answer prompt, so that was really helpful lol. Even still, you can always just open up the slides on a new tab and the answers are always in her presentation. The only annoying part of this class are the papers (2 of them). They aren't hard and she's a very easy grader, but you just have to do them. You could spend a day or two before and grind it out even though she gives you two months and you'll still get an A on them. If you need a pretty chill gen-end, this is definitely one to take if you don't care about the two papers.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-23T15:23:36.469291Z'}], 'name': 'Christine Schull', 'slug': 'schull'}, {'courses': ['CCJS230', 'CCJS325', 'CCJS350', 'CCJS370', 'CCJS331', 'MLAW305', 'MLAW358R', 'MLAW358T', 'MLAW358Z', 'MLAW404', 'MLAW358A', 'MLAW305', 'MLAW358T', 'MLAW404', 'MLAW304', 'MLAW305', 'MLAW358T', 'MLAW404', 'MLAW358T', 'MLAW358Z', 'MLAW404', 'MLAW304', 'MLAW358T'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christine White', 'course': 'CCJS325', 'review': 'Professor White is not an academic expert on this subject, but has professional experience with it. She is prepared to teach and manages to keep most students engaged, even though each class is two and a half hours long. It is absolutely necessary to do the assigned readings!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-02T00:03:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine White', 'course': 'MLAW358T', 'review': 'Boring lecture but the professor was pretty nice. To be fair, I think she had some personal stuff going on that affected the quality of the course.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-18T06:05:58.395843Z'}, {'professor': 'Christine White', 'course': 'MLAW358T', 'review': "very very interesting class. no exams or final. barely any assignments. you just genuinely learn about human trafficking and its super interesting. professor white is super nice and very accommodating. loved her she's great. this is a super super easy great class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-28T17:14:37.006965Z'}], 'name': 'Christine White', 'slug': 'white_christine'}, {'courses': ['STAT100', 'MATH115'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christoforos Somarakis', 'slug': 'somarakis'}, {'courses': ['ENPM611', 'ENPM611', 'ENPM611', 'ENPM611', 'ENPM611'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Ackermann', 'course': 'ENPM611', 'review': 'Engaging professor. Material was easy to understand but quizzes and exams always had 1 or 2 "gotchas." This doubly hurt because of the large weightage on exams that were worth 30% of the course grade but only had 15 questions etc.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-05T23:16:20.640467Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Ackermann', 'slug': 'ackermann'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688L', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Camarra', 'slug': 'camarra'}, {'courses': ['BCHM463', 'BCHM464', 'HONR299I', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM232', 'HNUH278Y', 'BCHM463', 'BCHM464', 'BCHM461', 'BCHM464', 'BCHM463', 'BCHM464', 'BCHM461', 'HNUH278Y', 'CHEM231', 'BCHM463', 'BCHM464', 'BCHM461'], 'average_rating': 4.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Capp', 'course': 'HONR299I', 'review': 'I was a little bit apprehensive going into this class due to my lack of a Chemisty/Biochemistry background, but I felt that everything was fair, and was pretty engaging. I would definitely recommend this course for anyone who needs a Science credit and an honors seminar. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-17T22:34:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Capp', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "Dr. Capp is amazing. I was so scared going into this class because it's known far and wide as the premed weed-out class, but it ended up being one of my favorite classes I've ever taken! GO TO HIS OFFICE HOURS -- he's so helpful and receptive to questions, and has a ton of analogies to help you figure out difficult concepts. His exams are fair; they can be tough, but he doesn't try to trick you. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-01T13:46:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Capp', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "Dr. Capp is a gem in the chem department. BCHM463 is a hard class, but he makes it so that if you want an A you can get it (unlike some other chem professors). He gives problem sets for practice and holds lots of office hours. There's also a discussion board which helps boost your grade (full participation over the semester is worth as much as a full exam). He's also super nice and helpful and uses lots of analogies and jokes to help you understand concepts. He's so good at teaching chemistry, I learned everything about general and organic chem 1 and 2 from his class! 11/10 would recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-30T22:40:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Capp', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': 'Capp was a great professor. As a student who was a solid B in organic chemistry and A-/C student in general chemistry, biochemistry was a scary topic to approach. However, Capp took his time in explaining topics to us thoroughly and did not rush us at all. He has useful tips and tricks and was incredibly helpful in office hours, which you really should attend if you want an A and also get a hint of how to solve some exam questions (he is very open about what he expects and I was saved multiple times during the exam by simply being there when he solved something during office hours). He is very friendly and patient, and took the time to discuss grade distributions with the class since he knew that was a major concern for many. His exams are generally fair and there was a pretty large curve (I had a total of an 81.33% in the class and got an A).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-11T02:00:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Capp', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': 'Premeds: take Capp for bchm463\r\n\r\nDixon is a hard af. Capp does it right. \r\n\r\nProvides learning objectives with each lecture. Problem sets (non graded) each week that prepare you for the exam. Lectures are extremely clear. Has reference slides but does most of the class written on the chalk board.\r\n\r\nOffice hours are a stimulating environment to deepen your understanding of the material. 10-12 people are in his office in ESJ, asking questions one by one circled around the wall of his office. 4 people sit at the table in the center. Please note he does not do 1 on 1 appointments. Must go to his office hours to speak.\r\n\r\nI really enjoyed this class. It connected the 4 semesters of chemistry we took to the biology. Prepares you well for the mcat. Engaging lectures!\r\n\r\nTough exams. Averages 65-70 on each exam. But my semester 80+ was an A', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-11T06:06:21.832325Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Capp', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'Dr. Capp is an excellent lecturer, he communicates the information he is trying to teach in a way that can be both fun and intellectually challenging. However, in terms of class structure, Dr. Capp is severely lacking and may have you in struggling in your other courses. He does not plan lessons around the relative difficulty of a concept, even though he creates his calendar well in advance. For example, the lecture before a midterm he claimed it would be a review session only to expect us to memorize two more enzyme mechanisms and fully conceptualize them. As well, he put an exam the day after thanksgiving break, leading me to study over what was supposed to be a break.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T02:23:00.604902Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Capp', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'Truly an amazing professor. He challenges his students and really helps you fully understand biochemistry in an interesting way! I really enjoyed that his style was to apply knowledge in unexpected circumstances on his problem sets/exams. Take Dr. Capp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-29T04:59:17.774622Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Capp', 'slug': 'capp'}, {'courses': ['ENME271', 'ENME392', 'ENME489I', 'ENME361'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Chabalko', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': 'Maybe I wasn\'t reading him right, but I had the impression that he just didn\'t care in the slightest for teaching. He essentially just read powerpoint slides that were taken straight from the book. He skirted around any questions asked during lecture, most often answering with "Well...it depends on the question." \n\r\nThere were a number of pop quizzes throughout the semester, many of which boiled down to whether or not you memorized a formula from last lecture. I believe the lowest two quizzes were dropped though. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-19T14:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Chabalko', 'slug': 'chabalko'}, {'courses': ['ENGL310', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL393H', 'ENGL479D', 'ENGL375', 'ENGL377', 'ENGL404', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL297', 'ENGL212', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL393H', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL393H', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Crane', 'course': 'ENGL377', 'review': 'Fantastic teacher. Here\'s just five (and a bit) reasons why:\r\n1) Great availability outside of class, with availability over email, Skype, phone call, etc. (So important for a class with a heavy workload like ENGL377!)\r\n2) Wants his students to know and understand all course material. 3) His enthusiasm makes more "boring" material like Beowulf fun, interesting, and relevant, which is pretty hard to do IMO.\r\n4) Creates highly productive and engaging in-class discussion that isn\'t high brow or exclusionary.\r\n5) Provides constructive and nuanced commentary on assignments\r\n\r\n**Also allowed our class very cool extra credit opportunities!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-20T21:54:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Crane', 'course': 'ENGL377', 'review': "Great professor who knows his stuff upside down and inside out. He is very passionate about English and Tolkien in particular, which is clear in the high quality of both his in-class/online discussions and assignment feedback. A very pleasant and approachable professor. Great class, was definitely worth the hard work! Read, write good notes, and ask questions and you'll succeed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-03T22:44:03Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Crane', 'slug': 'crane_christopher'}, {'courses': ['ENEE498C', 'ENES100', 'ENEE408E', 'ENEE381', 'ENES100A', 'ENES304', 'ENEE496', 'ENES305', 'ENEE205', 'ENEE380'], 'average_rating': 4.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Davis', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Very nice guy, and is very willing to help. However, since he was used to having teams win the ENES100 competition, it seems I didn't get an A just because we didn't qualify for the competition.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-07-15T14:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Davis', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "NOTE: The review I'm writing for is Courtney Davis, NOT the Christopher guy. \n\r\nI'm pretty decent in math so I'm not just some dumb, lazy student whining about low grades. I had friends who were taking MATH131 with Cremins and were getting A's while our class was basically failing. However she always says the class average is like 75, and that there would not be a curve. I personally think that's total BS because I've seen like 6 people in just one section with test grades below 50. Her test questions were nothing like book problems or what she lectured in class and more difficult than they should be. I was always getting A's on the weekly quizzes and biomodules in discussion but literally failed on the (second and third) midterms, basically because the questions were worded really strangly.\n\r\nOverall, I assume that other students won't have to take her class because she's going away to Cali (why didn't she go sooner?!) but if she decides to return, then just know, never take a math class with her! Oh sure, she's super nice and eager to teach but that's not worth the C/D I will be getting in her class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-09T18:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Davis', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Davis is BY FAR the best professor I've had in the ENEE department. \n\r\nBreakdown:\n\r\n- Exams : Not easy , BUT , graded EASY! In other words, you get LOTS OF PARTIAL CREDIT. \n\r\n- Grades: Gave 50% A's in my class. He curves something like 10%. So to earn an A in his class, you need an overall 80....etc. \n\r\n- Approachable: Very nice, great during office hours...etc\n\r\n- Only 7 HW assignments the entire Semester \n\r\n- 2 Midterms and 1 Final\n\r\n- British Accent \n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T02:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Davis', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Dr. Davis is the man! He's always very upbeat, incredibly smart and knowledgeable, and takes great care to see his students do well. Take his courses if you can, its well worth it!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-10T21:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Davis', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': 'Amazing professor! Interesting, personable, and an effective teacher. If you go to lecture and pay attention, you will get an A in the class. Tests and quizzes are not hard because she does many practice problems in lecture. I highly reccomend taking this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-10T12:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Davis', 'course': None, 'review': 'Definitely the best professor in the EE department in my opinion. Explains everything in great detail and keeps the class interesting. If you are having trouble, go to his office hours, he is highly reachable and does not mind explain the same thing 10 times over until you get it. He is one of the few professors who actually tries to help the students with the tests i.e. tests are similar to the ones he posts online, and he would hold review sessions before the test. Also he would give out points for any question graded unfairly or too harshly. I highly recommend this prof.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-09-08T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Davis', 'course': None, 'review': "Awesome professor. Extremely smart man who can break things down to the smallest details so everybody can understand him with ease. Obviously enjoys what he teaches and his field of study. \n\r\n2 test styles are the following: 1) he gives you more problems than you can possibly finish. You can do a lot of simple problems (low-point value) and accumulate points that way or do fewer hard problems (high-point value) and accumulate points that way - or anywhere in between. He assigns grades by seeing what cluster of scores your score falls into. 2) 8 problems, do 6 and if you do more than 6, he'll grade them all and take the best 6! He really tries to play to every student's strengths in test-taking. \n\r\nWill definitely take this professor again!! Enjoyed him a lot.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T02:44:00Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Davis', 'slug': 'davis_christopher'}, {'courses': ['URSP661', 'URSP708', 'URSP688V', 'INST728G', 'URSP688Y', 'INFM603', 'INST314', 'INST630', 'LBSC671', 'INST201', 'INST414', 'INST201', 'INST755'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Dempwolf', 'course': 'INST201', 'review': "Ok, so this teacher was basically none existent, still don't know if he's a real person. He had recorded lectures at the start, but then just started posting PowerPoints. The class itself is extremely easy. The biggest part of your grade is a group project where you have to write an essay about the topic you're assigned. Grading is extremely slow also. In the end, the class is an easy A but you won't learn anything from it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-15T06:49:23.599935Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Dempwolf', 'slug': 'dempwolf'}, {'courses': ['EDHD426', 'LARC641', 'LARC160', 'LARC140', 'LARC341', 'LARC452', 'LARC120', 'LARC699', 'LARC620', 'LARC121', 'LARC489O', 'LARC453', 'LARC221', 'LARC141', 'LARC799', 'LARC341', 'LARC141', 'LARC642', 'EDHD436', 'LARC120', 'LARC341', 'LARC453', 'LARC489O', 'LARC489O', 'LARC489O', 'LARC642'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Ellis', 'course': 'LARC160', 'review': "Dr.Ellis is really nice. His lecture is very easy to understand, and he posted slides to elms, which helps the exams a lot. The key to ace? Never miss a discussion and you'll do great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-19T18:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Ellis', 'slug': 'ellis_christopher'}, {'courses': ['PUAF620', 'PUAF737', 'PUAF688Y', 'PUAF688E', 'PUAF688T', 'PLCY688Y', 'PLCY737', 'PLCY688E', 'PLCY688T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Foreman', 'slug': 'foreman'}, {'courses': ['LING321'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Green', 'slug': 'green_christopher'}, {'courses': ['JOUR300', 'JOUR600', 'JOUR698C', 'JOUR456', 'JOUR289J', 'JOUR283', 'JOUR283', 'JOUR456', 'JOUR283', 'JOUR456', 'JOUR283', 'JOUR456', 'JOUR283', 'JOUR456'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Hanson', 'course': 'JOUR300', 'review': 'Easiest class ever. All we do is watch youtube videos of stuff like Tiger Woods cursing at himself and ask "Is it ethical to show that on TV?" "Is it fair to him or his family?" "Does the audience need to know?"\r\nHe is actually an ethical genius, he used to write for CJR. So, he knows what he is talking about even if he presents in an odd way. Like, sometimes he will pretend to be an old lady and have you interview him. It\'s hilarious but he usually does have a point if you pay attention.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-13T11:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Hanson', 'course': 'JOUR456', 'review': "Pretty long and boring class. You have weekly readings which are interesting then you have a roughly 2-hour discussion about them. You have to lead one eventually (he picks which day). The grades come from participation, leading a discussion, and a short essay plus the final. The short essay is a few pages and the final is 2,000-2,500 words and is based on a book you choose from a list. I am a science major and I took this bc I thought it was gonna be easy which it was in a way, but pretty boring to me. I ended up skipping a few classes. I don't love writing but it wasn't too bad. Probably would liked it more if you are an actual journalism major.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-03T03:17:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Hanson', 'course': 'JOUR283', 'review': "Great Professor with tons of experience surrounding the topics of journalism, war, and politics. The class was very laid back and was spent conducting discussions and going over very interesting topics. The powerpoints that Professor Hanson presented contained very insightful videos and explanations of historic events. The class consistently ended early and rarely required take home readings. There are only a few quizzes all semester that are open note and he will go over any questions you have surrounding the quiz. Professor Hanson has a genuine passion for the content he's teaching and makes the class easy so long as you participate. I highly encourage anyone with an interest in this topic to take this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T17:15:40Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Hanson', 'slug': 'hanson_christopher'}, {'courses': ['LING449E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Heffner', 'slug': 'heffner'}, {'courses': ['BIOE689T', 'BIOE331', 'BIOE608', 'BIOE453', 'ENMA425', 'BIOE447', 'BIOE447'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Jewell', 'slug': 'jewell'}, {'courses': ['DANC138P', 'DANC200', 'DANC338P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Law', 'slug': 'law_christopher'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'EDCP108N', 'EDCP104', 'EDCP105', 'EDCP105', 'EDCP105'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Lester', 'slug': 'lester'}, {'courses': ['PHYS838C', 'PHYS171', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS171H', 'PHYS273H', 'PHYS402', 'PHYS404', 'PHYS404', 'PHYS402', 'PHYS404'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Lobb', 'course': 'PHYS273H', 'review': "Dr. Lobb is the best Professor I've had so far and I wouldn't be surprised if it stayed that way.\n\r\nin terms of teaching, he did a very good job, spending more time on the difficult concepts so students could catch on. Also, in class he would emphasize the important things to learn and used the important equations or techniques over and over again so that he would be sure we understood.\r\nHis class was always interesting because he's got a great sense of humor and if per chance the class starts to lull he gives everyone a 10 min break.\n\r\nHis exams are hard--basically applications of the things you've learned--but he is very reasonable and if you make the effort outside of class to get help he is happy to account for that. \n\r\nLike another reviewer wrote--he goes out of his way to make sure his students understand and succeed. I would highly recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-09-11T22:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Lobb', 'course': 'PHYS273H', 'review': 'Where to begin? Previous reviewer mentions the poor choice of textbook, which was unfortunate. That said, Lobb is one of my favorite professors and one of my favorite people as a whole. His toughness was surprising, given the feeling of trustworthiness he gave off, and as a result he felt like a real mentor, as well as a teacher. I highly recommend him for any course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-09-09T20:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Lobb', 'course': 'PHYS273H', 'review': "Excellent. Very humble, has a great sense of humor, has a great respect for his students, and a brilliant and accomplished scientist. On top of that, even with a poor choice of the textbook (Waves and Vibrations, by H.J. Pain, should have picked book by French), he was an extremely effective teacher. His ability to convey material more htna made up for the textbook. Despite not covering all the material we had hoped to cover (maybe the snowstorm in Feb. had something to do with that), he drilled the material into us well, and I learned so much in this class. Yes, the book sucked, but the notes I took in class from Lobb were very clear and conveyed the information crystal clear. Strived to help students in any way he could, gave extensions of homework assignments, extended office hours, and he is a really understanding professor. Knows that students lead busy lives as well. He really went out of his way to see his students succeed. As he said in the beginning, he does not believe in 'casualties.'\n\r\nTests (2 of them) were difficult, but if you knew the material and actually made a strong effort on the homework assignments (9 of them), then they were not bad at all. The homeworks were long and tough, but intellectually challenging, and I enjoyed them very much. If anyone did poorly in this class, it was certainly not Lobb's fault. Likewise the most effective and best professor I have seen in the physics department. If Lobb is teaching PHYS273, TAKE IT. I am not even a physics major, but I learned so much from him. Enough said. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-14T23:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Lobb', 'course': 'PHYS401', 'review': "Best prof I've had, makes class entertaining and clearly cares about students. Also exams never require memorization at all, only test for understanding.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-24T03:30:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Lobb', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': "Great guy. Nothing can go wrong taking him, so maybe I should say something about this class.\r\n\r\nFirst I am a math student. This was the first physics class I've taken since high school (did physics c in hs, didn't learn anything), so I was clueless from the beginning. It turned out that I could manage derivations pretty well, and the concepts were very sensible. But whenever there were formula based and plug in chug type of questions I would get totally lost because of my lack of familiarity with those stuffs (and apparently reluctance to memorize them). Not all homework problems were graded, so it was sometimes a pain depending on whether if I correctly solved the graded ones. Also never did too well on the quizzes (bunch of zeros, ouch), but the tests were fine since there were a lot of guided derivations, which I liked. My raw grade on elms was appalling (less than 65%) but I ended up with a B (my tests were all a bit above average). Lobb is strict about material-wise grading (quizzes, tests) but is very lenient when it comes to the final grade. I would say don't worry about grades too much, but focus on the understanding of the material and that feel of doing physics. Last remark, I much prefer French's book to Pain's, especially French's treatment of Fourier series (honestly I didn't read either of them).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-24T23:18:34Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Lobb', 'slug': 'lobb'}, {'courses': ['DANC448', 'DANC209', 'DANC219', 'DANC318', 'DANC319', 'DANC449', 'DANC648', 'DANC649', 'DANC719', 'TDPS358I', 'DANC789', 'THET499'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Morgan', 'slug': 'morgan_christopher'}, {'courses': ['PHIL209J', 'PHIL848A', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL848N', 'PHIL203', 'PHIL245', 'PHIL438B', 'PHPE401', 'GVPT449E'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Morris', 'course': 'PHIL209J', 'review': "Prof. Morris is knowledgeable, lenient, available, friendly, and difficult. YES, his class is boring at times. YES, it is obnoxious that you can't use any tech in class. YES, he grades harshly. \n\r\nThat being said, if you are a competent writer, and CAN FOLLOW DIRECTIONS ON ASSIGNMENTS, there is no reason to not get a B+ in this class. The TA is extremely approachable and helpful, and Prof. Morris is clearly not out to give bad grades. \n\r\nTake this class, put forth a reasonable amount of effort, go to discussions and SOME classes, and you will be golden. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-18T14:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Morris', 'course': 'PHIL209J', 'review': "Do NOT take this class. It is so boring and like the other reviewer said, it is not an easy A for an elective. The professor is nice and somewhat lenient. He knows what he's talking about and tries his best to explain things, but it's still really hard to understand when the subject is boring and his voice is monotone. He cares about his students and wants them to succeed, but it is so hard to succeed when there are like 4 assignments total. His assignments are short but really dense, and he is extremely particular on the little details. They are all writing assignments, so if you aren't a good writer, do not take this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-17T16:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Morris', 'course': 'PHIL209J', 'review': "I'm currently in Professor Morris's class, and I would love to give him a 5 out of 5 for his sheer expectation of discipline from his students. However, the fact that he is so paranoid about the use of laptops leads me to the following rant:\r\nSome students (myself included) feel more comfortable having all their notes available digitally in one compact piece of technology. I doubt that a significant number of students would dare get distracted by the internet in Professor Morris's class, as it is very hard to understand (and hear) him already. And even if a few students choose to ignore his clear warning about getting distracted in his class, then why should the rest of us have to suffer on their behalf? It is not his duty to develop good study ethics in his students; his duty is simply to teach.\r\nIt is my belief that Professor Morris is still stuck in the age of parchment and quill, and that he needs to move to the twenty-first century with the rest of us. If he reads this post, I hope he sincerely reconsiders his laptop policy.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-29T20:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Morris', 'course': 'PHIL209J', 'review': "Holy moly, do NOT take this class if you're looking for an easy A. He is one of the most challenging professor in Philosophy. He is extremely, extremely nice, but he also is boring and reads off of his slides. Grading depends on the TA. Was a lot more work than I thought it would be. I was actually interested in the subject, and decided that I didn't care how hard the professor was because if I worked hard enough, my grade would reflect it. It definitely did, but I had to work a lot harder than I expected for a lower level class", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-01-01T04:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Morris', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Morris is very knowledgeable on the subjects, but you need to go to class. His slides aren't posted on BB and the readings are very dense (hard to get the meaning out of). However, he teaches material very well.\n\r\nHe makes a point to learn people's faces and names, and if you go talk to him, he's very nice. He will help you out if you get to know him.\n\r\nThe only thing I wish was that he had lectured less, and discussed more, but it's something that I can't expect when a prof is teaching a 75 person class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-15T22:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Morris', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "Although the class can be dreadfully boring at times, Professor Morris knows what he's talking about and teaches well.\n\r\nHe tries awfully hard to be funny, but considering that the class is about death and dying, most of his jokes don't shine through.\n\r\nOnly two exams, one paper as grades.\n\r\nDisclaimer: exams are ALL written. If you don't enjoy writing/suck at it, don't take the class. If you do, enjoy Morris' antics :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-18T19:30:00Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Morris', 'slug': 'morris_christopher'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL273'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Philpot', 'slug': 'philpot'}, {'courses': ['ASTR422', 'ASTR340', 'ASTR320', 'ASTR398B', 'ASTR622', 'ASTR399', 'ASTR350'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Reynolds', 'course': 'ASTR320', 'review': "Chris is the best. It honestly does not get better than him. This course was expected to be quite difficult, and yet he kept everything relatable and self-contained (still challenging, but completely doable). He's very insightful and knowledgeable. He always has a positive attitude and is just a pleasure to be around.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-11T18:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Reynolds', 'course': 'ASTR320', 'review': "The easiest class I've ever been at. Take this class if you want an easy A. Extra credits for even showing up to class. Always gives you extra time for finishing hw. No final. Just 1 midterm, which is a joke. Basically all you have to know is velocity = distance/time. class participation is also not important. you can play games on your computer while in class, and he doesn't even care. I've seen this old guy who usually picks up his phone in the middle of the class and talks about having dinner.\n\r\nWant an easy A? You got it! Take ASTR320!\n\r\np.s. Hey Business majors...you want an easier class than yours? take it and cruise through it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-05-11T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Reynolds', 'course': 'ASTR121', 'review': 'Probably the best professor I have had at this university. He makes the class really interesting and its really not hard to sit through the hour fifteen minute lecture. Hands out his powerpoint notes so you can just take notes on them and then he posts them online if you miss class. Should be a straightforward class if you are good at math.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-27T01:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Reynolds', 'course': 'ASTR121', 'review': "This class can be hard. Getting a B isn't too hard but getting an A requires some dedication. However, the professor is incredible and the information is fascinating. He obviously loves teaching as well as astronomy. If you're a physics or engineering major and you're comfortable with deriving equations this is a great class to take. It's the only class I have that I'm always excited to go to. I had him for 120 as well and it was just as good (don't take 121 without 120, it's doable but difficult).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-22T21:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Reynolds', 'course': 'ASTR120', 'review': "This class is kinda tricky. He assigns the book, however the tests are all from his class notes. He focuses 90% on the physics of the class and his tests are physics based. If you want to ace this class you will need to be able to take a basic physics formula and derive it into something useful for your problem. Overall he is a good teacher. He's very nice and class is amusing and interesting. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-18T16:19:00Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Reynolds', 'slug': 'reynolds_christopher'}, {'courses': ['ENMA613', 'ENMA689T', 'ENMA613'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Richardson', 'slug': 'richardson_christopher'}, {'courses': ['BMGT444'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Ruemke', 'slug': 'ruemke'}, {'courses': ['JOUR361', 'JOUR661'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Shlemon', 'slug': 'shlemon'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM330', 'COMM401', 'COMM461', 'COMM458D', 'HONR239Y', 'COMM200', 'COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM107', 'COMM200'], 'average_rating': 2.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Swift', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Dr. Swift is a good professor, pretty chill as a person. Very clear in communicating things, responsive to student concerns. He is a tough grader though...', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-04-12T20:50:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Swift', 'course': 'COMM200', 'review': 'Chill and effective instructor but he assigns a ton of work for COMM 200', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-10-01T14:35:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Swift', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Pretty good lecturer but tough grader', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-11-01T05:09:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Swift', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Picky grader but otherwise good teacher and adapted to online stuff pretty well. Definitely still an easy gen ed course with him', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-31T23:41:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Swift', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "This class made me so angry. It should have been an easy A, but he's such a harsh grader that I find myself fighting for my life. Take anybody, BUT him. He is so extra for no reason and makes us do mini speeches every class. Also, if you miss a quiz, you don't get to make it up.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-21T23:50:01.570887Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Swift', 'course': 'COMM200', 'review': 'Interesting class, and he let us debate random topics a lot. Very tough grader though, he would take points off for really arbitrary things. Pretty lenient with late policy and there are a TON of assignments.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-13T22:03:39.420201Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Swift', 'course': 'COMM200', 'review': "such a tough grader and should have been an easy A but it wasn't. don't recommend if you just need a general credit OC credit, take 107 cuz 200 was too many assignments and so much work. Every class was a new speech or debate we had to do and it got annoying, plus the discussion boards on readings we had to do.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:40:38.420519Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Swift', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Nice guy but don't recommend. He's such a harsh grader. This class should be such an easy A but its not with him. He wont let you make up quizzes if you miss one. He takes points off for the most random things too. He also assigns a lot of work for what the class is. I don't usually write reviews but I don't want anyone whos taking comms to make the same mistake I did.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-26T18:07:50.660957Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Swift', 'slug': 'swift'}, {'courses': ['MUSC229J', 'MUSC629J', 'MUSC388'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Vadala', 'slug': 'vadala'}, {'courses': ['PHIL140', 'PHIL324', 'PHIL364', 'EXST155'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Vogel', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'LOVE HIM! HES VERY fLEXIBLE', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-10T21:47:00Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Vogel', 'slug': 'vogel_christopher'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM370'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Volker', 'slug': 'volker'}, {'courses': ['PLSC100', 'PLSC303', 'PLSC189I', 'PLSC433', 'PLSC275', 'PLSC608T', 'PLSC489F', 'PLSC689G', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC489V', 'PLSC460'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Walsh', 'course': 'PLSC275', 'review': "Dr. Walsh is one of my favorite professors on campus and I've only had him for this one class. As everyone else has said he is super passionate about what he does which makes the class so much better. He made the material interesting and I really appreciated the non-traditional reading (chapter books over textbooks) because chemistry at any level is difficult for me. He brought in great guest lecturers and because he had conversations with the class and wrote all the material on the board, keeping up with his lectures wasn't hard. It's true that there is a lot of information to remember and his exams are mostly short answer (never MC or matching), but if you study straight from your notes and diagrams covered in class then there's no way to fail! :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-01-06T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Walsh', 'course': 'PLSC100', 'review': 'He is very passionate about plants and I can say that the class is pretty interesting. It is probably one of the easier lab sciences but by no means is it a breeze. His exams are not multiple choice and there is a lot to remember. I actually studied in groups to try to get through the material. Definitely go to class when you can because he is a decent professor. The lab portion is also pretty interesting and you also get to go on 2 field trips to the National Arboretum and the Botanical Gardens. It reminded me of high school field trips which was awesome. Overall good class, but please do not under estimate the amount of info to remember, not necessarily difficult but time consuming nonetheless ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-16T00:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Walsh', 'course': 'PLSC100', 'review': "I gave Dr. Walsh a really high rating because he is truly passionate about plants and was just a genuinely nice guy. However, the course was NOT as easy as I expected. Exams are not multiple choice and the final was really difficult. I had an easy semester otherwise when I took this course, so I studied A LOT and managed an A, but if you don't have a lot of time to dedicate to this class I would recommend a different lab science course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-09-26T20:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Christopher Walsh', 'course': None, 'review': "He was a pretty cool professor. I learned alot of interesting things in his class. Shoutout to Julia the TA she was bomb. It was a creative class and I felt like they did a very good job of making a class that non-science majors could understand. \n\r\nIf you need a non-lab science class take this. You will enjoy it and the readings are easy. By no means is it a birdie class, you have to read and come to lecture but it's fun. We watched videos, dissected flowers, and took a field trip. \n\r\nCool class. Cool professor. Cool TA.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-01-21T20:07:00Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Walsh', 'slug': 'walsh_christopher'}, {'courses': ['KNES154O', 'KNES154W', 'KNES335', 'KNES154N', 'KNES154T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christopher Whipple', 'slug': 'whipple'}, {'courses': ['HESP411', 'HESP730', 'HESP411', 'HESP730', 'HESP411'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Christopher Zalewski', 'course': 'HESP411', 'review': "Professor Zalewxki is a great teacher. He's funny and makes class very comfortable. The test are EXACTLY FROM THE SLIDES! Literally memorize the slides and you'll ace the class. Anything in little print is a possible extra credit question. His third exam offers 15 points extra credit, and every other test offers about 10. He's reasonable, he responds back to your emails. Go to class because he takes it to heart if you don't come.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T13:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Christopher Zalewski', 'slug': 'zalewski'}, {'courses': ['EDHD424', 'EDHD432', 'EDUC388H', 'EDUC499H', 'EDHD220', 'EDHD435', 'EDHD441', 'EDHD442', 'EDHD443', 'EDHD228'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Christy Tirrell-Corbin', 'slug': 'tirrell-corbin'}, {'courses': ['ENCH648K', 'GEMS397', 'ENCH437', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'CHBE301', 'CHBE473', 'CHBE437', 'ENCH468K', 'ENMA489C', 'ENCH648', 'CHEM648K', 'ENCH898', 'EDSP652', 'CHBE473', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE673'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Chunsheng Wang', 'course': None, 'review': "I wish he covered the material in a more engaging way. I was unable to follow his lectures and thus decided to learn the material using the slides from home when possible. Sometimes the slides are poorly organized and require research from other sources, but sometimes they are well organized and complete, but it may take some reading from other sources to realize this.\n\r\nThe main redeeming feature of this courses is the relatively low workload and inflated grades.\n\r\nMake sure to attend lectures when he's not there because you'll be sure to learn something from the substitute teachers. Its like all the content is sometime on the slides, but its really up to the presenter to teach how to interpret the graphs, crystal structures, diffusion patterns, etc.\n\r\nHis voice is strangely relaxing, calm and tonal; unfortunately its these qualities and not the content that seem relevant during class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-13T02:25:00Z'}], 'name': 'Chunsheng Wang', 'slug': 'wang_chunsheng'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Chynna Obana', 'slug': 'obana'}, {'courses': ['ECON155', 'ECON200', 'ECON461', 'ECON488K', 'ECON315', 'ECON416', 'ECON490', 'ECON398J', 'ECON488C', 'ECON489L', 'HONR209I', 'ECON489C', 'ECON461'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cindy Clement', 'course': 'HONR209I', 'review': 'she started getting technical about economics when this was a course open to all majors. her expectations are fuzzy, and grades participation. she is very passive aggressive and played favorites. she lectured the entire time. on a novel. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-20T18:30:21Z'}], 'name': 'Cindy Clement', 'slug': 'clement'}, {'courses': ['ANSC252', 'ANSC252', 'ANSC252'], 'average_rating': 4.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cindy Driscoll', 'course': 'ANSC252', 'review': 'This course is a guarunteed A! I took this class for my major, but if you are looking for a class to boost your GPA, this is a great option. Dr. Driscoll is great, and her course is very interesting. I went to each lecture, but you can definitely get away with skipping. There are about 5 homework assignments and a group presentation, which are both graded easily. There is a midterm and a final, both of which are open notes. You could bring your laptop to the exams and look up any information that you needed. There are also guest lecturers for almost every class. Some are from the zoo, others from DNR, and many of them are highly qualified vets. There is a field trip to Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, as well. If you are an ENSP wildlife major, definitely take this course! But if you simply enjoy animals and nature, this is a great option.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T18:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cindy Driscoll', 'course': 'ANSC252', 'review': 'This class was so easy. The exams are open notes/laptop/book, the final project is fun, homework is pretty easy. Lectures are BORING but definitely informative. There is even a feild trip (which was also boring, but it was neat to go on a college field trip). ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-23T09:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cindy Driscoll', 'course': 'ANSC252', 'review': "Dr. Driscoll is an awesome teacher. I've learned so much in this class, and she is always eager to help people. She came and gave a talk for my professional fraternity, and will give you contact information for anyone in her field, and she knows a lot of people. All the guest lecturers were great, and the tests were fair and open book, note, and computer (but no internet). The field trips were fun and informative, and the class overall was so worth it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-08T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cindy Driscoll', 'course': 'ANSC252', 'review': 'The class is an easy A. She has guest speakers come in every week to lecture and there are 2 field trips with great opportunities for contacts in veterinarian medicine or wildlife biology. The midterm and final are open note, the group presentation should be taken seriously but is graded lightly and so is the term paper. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-12-27T15:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cindy Driscoll', 'course': 'ANSC252', 'review': "I absolutely loved this class! The teacher is a wildlife veterinarian from MD DNR and has taught this class for a while and knows what she is doing. There are many guest lecturers and field trips too. Tests are open EVERYTHING!!! She feels that as a vet or biologist, you aren't required to memorize everything, just know where to find the information. Very interesting topics presented in lecture! Take this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-17T21:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cindy Driscoll', 'course': 'ANSC252', 'review': 'She is great at her field and as a concept the class is interesting- in all honesty its very repetitive and some of the million guest lecturers were super boring. Class is an easy A', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-01T08:36:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Cindy Driscoll', 'course': 'ANSC252', 'review': 'Dr. Driscol is a great professor who really cares about her students. If you want to get additional information about the field of vetinary science, Dr. Driscol is the best professor, who can answer your questions or find someone who can. Overall the workload in this class is not hard with 4 assignments and weekly discussion assignments based off the lectures, which are given by guest lecturers. The class has alot of interesting content, but do not fret, you are not required to memorize the information. There are not alot of assignments, so if you do mess up or do poorly on one of them, your grades will suffer. Dr. Driscol understands that, so she provides extra credit opportunities. The workload in this class is not stressful with the due dates being extremely generous. Overall highly recommend this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T00:28:22.340969Z'}], 'name': 'Cindy Driscoll', 'slug': 'driscoll'}, {'courses': ['JOUR362', 'JOUR668B', 'JOUR662', 'JOUR362', 'JOUR362', 'JOUR662', 'JOUR362', 'JOUR662', 'JOUR362', 'JOUR662'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cindy Wright', 'slug': 'wright_cindy'}, {'courses': ['ENCE688I', 'ENCE470', 'ENCE688L', 'ENCE370', 'ENCE688G', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE688I', 'AREC466', 'ENCE370', 'ENCE489T', 'ENCE370'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cinzia Cirillo', 'slug': 'cirillo'}, {'courses': ['EDCP789B', 'EDCP617', 'EDCP745', 'EDCP746', 'EDCP717', 'EDCP651', 'EDCP789N', 'EDCP888C', 'EDCP701', 'EDCP750', 'EDCP617', 'EDCP888C', 'EDCP701', 'EDCP717', 'EDCP717', 'EDCP617', 'EDCP888C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cixin Wang', 'slug': 'wang_cixin'}, {'courses': ['HESP645'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Claire Buxton', 'slug': 'buxton'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Claire Tills', 'slug': 'tills'}, {'courses': ['PSYC691', 'PSYC457', 'PSYC700', 'PSYC433H', 'PSYC433', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC700', 'PSYC691', 'PSYC899'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Clara Hill', 'course': None, 'review': 'Clara is super down to earth, very knowledgeable, and a great professor. She does a lot of research and really knows her stuff. I enjoyed the class and although it was a lot of work, she was flexible and decreased the workload if we felt overwhelmed. Take a class with her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-02T15:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clara Hill', 'course': 'PSYC433', 'review': 'Great professor! She is very kind and knowledgable about the things she teaches in class. Her work is mainly about helping skills training and dreams in psychotherapy--very interesting things. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND HER!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T21:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Clara Hill', 'slug': 'hill_clara'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 3.7692, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Alright, so you will probably get a good grade in this class, but it comes at a price. \r\nClare Parsons is a very inappropriate professor. She requires you to follow her on social media, Instagram or Twitter or whatever her choice of the day is. She claims "that is the only good way of contacting me". I don\'t have any social media besides facebook, and I sure wasnt going to friend her there, so I got punished for it by her deducting points from my grade. That is one of the most inappropriate things a professor has ever done that I have witnessed throughout my college career. She make announcements every class about how she "tweeted something so cool yesterday" or some idiotic thing like that continuously trying to make students follow her. \n\r\nShe also is extremely vague in all her assignments and stays vague if you ask questions, and deducts points if you don\'t have it exactly how she wants. \n\r\nShe is absolutely terrible with technology. She was unable to make the projector work for all except maybe 2 class periods, her ELMS page is completely disorganized with her assigning work from, for example, Modules 3, 6, and 11 in a single class period. She takes forever to respond to any form of communication, except perhaps social media like I mentioned before. \n\r\nI am fairly sure that there are other professors that you can get a good grade with, and honestly I think I would have taken a B with any other professor just to not have had the miserable experience I had with her. DO NOT TAKE CLARE PARSONS!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-13T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Compared to other teachers for ENGL394 (from what I've heard from friends), Parsons is one of the better teachers to have. The content is relatively easy, there are only a few assignments, and the blended learning meant less class time.\n\r\nOn the downside, I just really didn't like her as a teacher. She was really disorganized, I learned absolutely nothing about business writing from her. The only way I learned was by doing the assignment myself. I got the feeling she was thrust into business writing with no business knowledge whatsoever. Being a business major myself, I was thoroughly disappointed.\n\r\nShe is nice and all, but she's just not a good teacher. As long as you can stand some boring classes/assignments, you'll be fine.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-06T03:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "I really don't understand these negative reviews. She's an extremely easy teacher for business writing. No textbook is required. No readings that we have to do write-ups on - my friend had a different teacher for business writing who made them read articles and write things about it. Parsons doesn't assign any homework. We have the same assignments as all other business writing classes (cover letter, resume, 2 memos, 15 page final paper, group project). The only groupwork that we had is a final presentation, but every professor assigns that. As far as the group practice work that another student mentioned, it's really not a big deal. We don't get graded on it. She'll just hand out a worksheet and in your group just come up with some bs to write down so you have something written. 1 of these worksheets per group. My class got let out 15-20 minutes every time. Every assignment that we have, she'll write on the board pretty much exactly how to outline it and what she wants to see. She's really nice and if you for some reason need help and go to her, she'd be more than willing to help. I put in a moderate amount of effort into all the assignments and ended up with an A-. Parsons is hands down one of the easiest business writing teachers. Try to get into her section!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-01-05T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Business writing as a class is irritating but Professor Parsons managed to make it worse. There is an annoying amount of groupwork where there really was no need for it, including tedious group 'practice' work for assignments which was basically designed to keep us from being dismissed from class 15 min after the start. \r\nShe barely taught anything and demanded we follow a rigid and unfamiliar outline for simple assignments like the cover letter and resume. Her grading was extremely vague. As it has already been noted, her comments would be positive but she would make no comments as to why points were lost and wouldn't comment on the assignment when asked. Her samples and assignment sheets were unhelpful. \r\nFinal project is a 15+ page business proposal based on research. This is supposed to be an easy but helpful course for juniors and seniors trying to fill a ridiculous requirement and it ended up being way too much work. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-24T10:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "I disagree pretty strongly with the first review. While Parsons is pretty nice and does let you out of class early, she offers absolutely NO guidance on assignments and has no specificity to her grading whatsoever. Her comments will all be positive, yet somehow you will get docked 20 points. She is also really vague and ambiguous in class, which doesn't offer much support either. Finally, some of her guidelines for writing directly contradict with what the business school teaches, which is very frustrating. Overall, I would say avoid", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-15T18:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Dr. Parsons is a very nice lady and a good professor for the much dreaded business writing. Look at her grades for starters. Much better than other professors. She is a fair grader and doesn't make things too challenging. Also she has you email your assignments to her so she grades it that way and replies with comments and a grade. Saves paper and gives you time to turn it in online instead. Our class was for some reason in a hall far away from Van Munching so she let us out early. Definitely take this class with Parsons if you can, and if you get her don't drop it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-12-08T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "As said below, you'll get an A but at a price.\r\n\r\nShe doesn't know how to use Google Drive or ELMS, but insists those are the best mediums. \r\n\r\nShe's bad at setting times to meet for the required conferences. Just overall unprofessional in communications - which makes me question why she's allowed to teach a professional writing class!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-11T17:09:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Dont know why she gets so much hate. Such an easy professor to take this class with. Its not possible to get lower then an A on each assignment as long as you follow the instructions.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-08T18:32:12.561190Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Great professor, communicates quickly, and for all assignments, she encourages you to message her to ask about questions on assignment and she replies fast as hell', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-23T22:52:06.707564Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Don't know why she is so low in reviews, its a free A, all the bad reviews they got A's , all you need to know", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-25T04:08:36.393170Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Goated, easy ass class, avg for assignments 88+', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-25T04:08:46.741187Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Great professor, easy and friendly', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-25T04:08:56.420052Z'}, {'professor': 'Clare Parsons', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Clare parsons is a great professor, her assignments are easy and straightforward, and she replies to emails super quick', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-25T04:09:14.873108Z'}], 'name': 'Clare Parsons', 'slug': 'parsons'}, {'courses': ['BMGT495', 'BMGT467', 'BUMO758G', 'ENTS625', 'BUSO614', 'BUSI714', 'BMGT467', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT289B', 'BMGT495', 'BUSO614', 'BMGT289B', 'BMGT467', 'BUSO614', 'ENTS625', 'BUSI714', 'BMGT495'], 'average_rating': 2.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Clarence Wesley', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'This teacher was awesome. A very fair grader and super understanding. The weekly course load was low stress as you only had to submit either a case matrix or take a mini quiz before class. The only downside is that you take the quiz without going over the material first, you just read the Harvard publishing review of the case and use a framework to answer the quiz. The class is based on participation with the camera on, but honestly that was not too bad as the information was not dull and the class was not recorded so you could not go back to look through information. Also participation is mandatory for any 495 class but he was a bit more understanding of the introverts in the class, but I still recommend participating for full understanding. There was only one exam, but it was honestly just a longer version of the quizzes we take each week so not too hard and he tells you about the cases and the frameworks before hand. Overall, great class and teacher, would totally recommend! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-16T02:31:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Clarence Wesley', 'course': 'BMGT467', 'review': "Clarence was overall a good teacher that really made you learn all the business concepts (PESTEL, SWAT, etc). \r\n\r\nHowever, class was mandatory and pretty dull. There was a participation grade, but as long as you answered one thing per class, you were fine. He also didn't allow laptops, which made the class feel a lot longer. There were no midterms or finals. Instead, you are put in groups and do presentations, which were really easy. The only work that we had to do outside of class time was reading a Harvard Business Review and then completing a matrix or a explaining the how one of the business concepts applied to that case. This happened every week and could take 1-2 hours max, which was great. The one thing to keep in mind while taking this class is that he compares your work to other students in the class, so if you want to get an A, always make sure to write a lot. If you don't care too much, you can just do the minimum (spending 30 mins a week) and complete the assignments and you can get an A- easy.\r\n\r\nIf you are looking for an easy, no stress business class, this is the one to take. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-28T19:02:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Clarence Wesley', 'course': 'BMGT289B', 'review': "Clarence was overall an okay professor. He wasn't a bad professor but he wasn't amazing. Classes felt long and boring. He seemed very into the topic he just wasn't able to transfer that into his teaching and make it interesting for his students. We had a participation grade which required you to show up for every class and answer a question but there were plenty of opportunities to participate as this class involved a lot of discussion. We had no midterm/final just a group project. We also had weekly reading quizzes. The material on the quiz was always discussed the class after it was due. He wasn't too bad with grading and as long as you put in effort you should be ok. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T14:00:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Clarence Wesley', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'Clarence was overall a good teacher, very by the book and told some funny Dad jokes. \r\n\r\nWe did a lot of case studies and group presentations. My only qualm is the fact that Professor Wesley grades us in regards to our peers. So if someone does really well and others can\'t match that performance we are not scored as high. Additionally, the comments he leaves for quizzes and exams are based on the entires classes performance and not your individual performance. This is a bit upsetting because you do not get individualized feedback. Overall, he is a good professor, but I would not say an "easy A". ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-19T15:43:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Clarence Wesley', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'If you don\'t want to spend your Sunday\'s reading 10-30 pages of an article which you then write about either via quiz or something called a case matrix, then go on to discuss your findings with your classmates the next week of class, don\'t take Wesley for BMGT495. He is a very lenient grader which I appreciate, but the way he teaches the course is just not optimal for the students. Participation is close to 15% of your grade, so it is important to show up to class and speak even though the entire 1 hour and 15 minute class period is repetitive and discouraging for students to stay attentive. He does this thing called analog time where you cannot use your laptops or phones at all and I\'d say 90% of the course is probably spent on "analog time". He also provides feedback for the entire class on assignments and not particular to any individual\'s work, making his feedback useless. \r\n\r\nSo, if you want a nice, easygoing semester of BMGT495, I recommend looking for other professors.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-19T17:43:49.512238Z'}, {'professor': 'Clarence Wesley', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "Overall, Wesley is a fair grader and you know what to expect every class and HW assignment. Every week you fillout a case matrix after doing a reading. The readings look scary at 20-30 pages each but as long as you have a couple key points and a general summary you'll be okay- it's not about the finer details, more about general ideas. Classes are heavily discussion and participation based.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-28T18:11:16.296574Z'}, {'professor': 'Clarence Wesley', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "Very frustrating taking BMGT 495 with Professor Wesley, I signed up to take this course with him due to positive reviews, however they proved not to be true or accurate. The assignments were very time consuming - which is fine, but significant effort and high quality work was not rewarded by his grading. Professor Wesley never gave 100% on any assignments, except 1. Grades on every assignment are so random, some weeks I would receive the high grade of an A, other weeks I was given a low B despite my work quality and effort being the same level, if not even higher. Everyone in the class felt their grades were completely random. He gave no individual feedback on any of these assignments and never went over his grading/what he was looking for in class. It was impossible to know what he wanted or what he was looking for in these assignments, when we had our first ever assignment, which had extremely little guidance, someone asked for a model or past example he went on to explain that is totally against policy. Everyone was always struggling to understand what he was looking for in these assignments. He grades participation in this class, I participated every single class period and shared my work in front of the class yet did not get full participation points - don't know what else he could've wanted. He then proceeded to tell us not to bother him by asking questions about our team project as he would be drunk and golfing. Each class consisted of him putting a list of questions on the board and telling us to talk about it with our neighbor, we would and he would repeat the exact same question and tell us to talk about it with our partner as if we hadn't just done that and that would go on for the entire hour and 15 minutes. He would give looks to people who finished their conversations early as if they were slacking off, yet we had spent the entire class period talking about the same topics over and over again. We took our final before Thanksgiving but he didn't put in our grades until the last day of final exams and proceeded to tell us not to ask him about grades or ask for a grade change despite participating or else he would lower our grades. I know I speak on behalf of others when I say it was a very frustrating class, and true hard work and effort that resulted in high-quality work were not given appropriate and fair grades. Take with another professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-21T03:40:26.648527Z'}, {'professor': 'Clarence Wesley', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "Take Wesley's class if you like a B grade and like to spend a lot of time especially on weekend for the case matrix and quizzes. A UMD guidance he did follow is to give a 3.30 GPA for this class. However, there is no guidances or rubrics for the quizzes and case matrix for his students. It is a fortune if you get a 85% grade on any of them. The only 100% you can hit is the multiple choices in the final exam when you select the correct answer. The final exam which was taken before Thanksgiving and final grade came out on the last day of the semester. He told us not to ask for a final grade change since he curved for the presentation projects, he would lower our grade otherwise.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-23T19:50:19.831515Z'}, {'professor': 'Clarence Wesley', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "Take Wesley's class if you like a B grade or like to spend tons of time on weekend for the case matrix and quizzes. He has a UMD guidance (Target GPA for the course is 3.25) to follow; however, his students has no guidances to follow in the case matrix and other writings. It would be a fortune if he gave you 85% score on those assignments or questions in writing. The only 100% score you can get is the multiple choices in the final exam when you select the correct answer. The final exam grade and final grade were out on the same day, the last day of semester. He told us not to ask for a grade change since he curved the two presentations. Otherwise, you would get lower grade.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-23T20:53:09.601610Z'}], 'name': 'Clarence Wesley', 'slug': 'wesley'}, {'courses': ['ENRE670', 'ENRE655'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Clayton Smith', 'slug': 'smith_clayton'}, {'courses': ['MUSC801P', 'MUSC467', 'MUSC800P', 'MUSC468'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cleveland Page', 'slug': 'page_cleveland'}, {'courses': ['BUFN754', 'BUFN761', 'BUFN772', 'BUFN758R', 'BUSM736', 'BUFN724', 'BUFN759', 'BUSO758R', 'BUFN716', 'BUFN742', 'BUFN746', 'BUFN747', 'BUFN742', 'BUFN746', 'BUFN747', 'BUSI758G', 'BUSO758R', 'BUSO758R', 'BUFN742', 'BUFN746'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Clifford Rossi', 'slug': 'rossi_clifford'}, {'courses': ['CMSC250', 'CMSC250H', 'CMSC451', 'CMSC351', 'CMSC452', 'CMSC452', 'CMSC454', 'CMSC351', 'CMSC452', 'CMSC351', 'CMSC451'], 'average_rating': 2.7857, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': 'I strongly felt the particular content of this course is best (and easiest) learned through his whiteboard style rather than by book. Clyde covers a TON of ground in one lecture\'s time, especially when compared to professors who just read off a watered-down powerpoint from the book for their entire class "lecture". \n\r\nThe big caveat is if you have a lot of trouble following (at least roughly) what he\'s doing, it won\'t be much fun for you and you will feel lost all lecture. Either way you need to write down literally everything he does. The material can be hard to grasp, but Clyde is really great at walking through an algorithm. If you take good notes and review them (possibly with another classmate/TA) you will eventually understand it.\n\r\nThe other most important thing to do in this class is to ask questions when something isn\'t clear. In each class there\'s usually 2-6 little insights he forgets to mention, if you can catch those omissions and get him to explain them, you are a hero and it will be tremendously insightful for you and for every other student in the room. Although if you still don\'t get his explanation, you may need to just let it go- and if you took good notes, you should eventually understand it when you are reviewing them later.\n\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-11-12T15:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Clyde is actually very intelligent, and I found it fun to learn from him. While lectures aren't extremely helpful at the time of the lecture, going over the notes and understanding the semantics of every afterwards algorithm helps. Clyde will handwave some things in what he teaches because to him it's trivial. However if you go through the algorithms step by step, you can learn a lot and do well in the class. Overall the material was difficult, but the exams could be manageable given the right type of studying. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-20T00:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Lecture:\r\nKruskal seemed to be a little out of his element this semester (Spring 2012). He supposedly never uses power point, but was forced to because Meesh said her class and his class had to keep up with each other. I didn\'t really learn much from the power point slides, most of the interesting tricks came when Kruskal would steer away and do one of his \'fun\' problems. \r\nHe was disorganized and late to every class. I honestly don\'t know how I learned during lecture, but I did. So I would suggest going to lecture (no pop quizzes or anything like that though). \n\r\nHomework:\r\nAssigned weekly, and very hard. I took MATH310 and MATH406 (A+ in both) already, and I thought this homework was very difficult. \n\r\nQuizzes:\r\nOn Monday\'s during discussion. Usually pretty easy, just look over the slides.\n\r\nExams:\r\nthe midterms were long, I kind of finished them, but I didn\'t really get to check my answers.\n\r\nFinal:\r\nHe randomly gave us 2 hours and 7 minutes to finish the final. When I asked him why he just said "I have my reasons" which is the response he gives to just about everything...\r\nThe exam itself was not that bad, I got a 90% but the class average was a 60%. It was only a little bit longer than the midterms, but it was harder. \n\r\n**Finally I would like to say that I considered testing out of this class, since I was a math major I could have probably passed the placement exam. But I wanted the free 4 credit A. Turns out this class is not a free 4 credit A no matter how much math you know. Kruskal makes the homeworks too hard for that. That being said I think that you should take this class rather than test out of it, I learned a lot of stuff (especially Induction stuff, which isn\'t covered very well by the math dept. but Kruskal did a extensive covering of induction).\n\r\n----------------------------------------\r\n----------------------------------------\r\n----------------------------------------\r\n----------------------------------------\r\nI also had Kruskal for 351:\n\r\nHe did a much better job in 351 than he did in 250. I think he just wasn\'t really into the 250 stuff. In 351 his exams and HW were very hard, but he curves like crazy so don\'t worry about it (like a 60% = B for our class). This seems weird, but it is done because it is hard to test algorithms. \n\r\nThe only thing I didn\'t like was that there was one midterm that was 40% of my grade, the final was 50% and homeworks were 1% each.\n\r\nOn exams if you are asked to make-up an algorithm on the spot just make one that works and disregard efficiency, you get a lot of points for one that works. Efficiency will get you more points, but just move onto the next question and try for efficiency if you have more time at the end of the exam.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-22T13:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Dr. Kruskal is a terrible professor. For algorithms, he did not teach nearly as much as any other professor. Looking at material from other semester, he did not cover as much material NOR covered it as deeply. He would refuse to do proofs under the mindset that they were not instructive. Even when he did attempt them, the proofs were so terrible I didn't even bother writing them down. He would always be minutes late, and would often spend the last chunk of classes doing unrelated material further wasting time.\n\r\nThis being said, our semester also had many terribly harsh graders for TA's. The class up to the final was pretty straight forward. The midterm was not too difficult, and the weekly homeworks were usually doable and he accepted resubmissions (and very late submissions). The final exam was incredibly difficult and harshly graded. The mean was a 45, and the final cut offs for passing the course was a 37, and for an A-, a 67.\n\r\nIn the end, going to lectures and doing the homework is still crucial. He does not offer any other manner of learning the little he did go over in the semester, such as online notes, so not going to lecture makes getting a decent grade nearly impossible. I would not recommend him. He makes the class just as difficult as the other professors, but you end up learning less in the end. It might be a little less work with the somewhat small weekly homeworks, but it is not worth it in the end.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-20T01:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC250H', 'review': "It's very important to accept that Kruskal simply operates on a different wavelength from the average person. He's a true mathematician in the sense that he experiences life abstractly and disregards some aspects of interaction in favor of maintaining his flow of reasoning.\n\r\nThe honors section was an intimate and fun experience, and I can see how Kruskal might be more difficult in a large lecture, or with students who are less enthusiastic or willing/able to follow the material. So I highly recommend the honors class for the abstract-thinker. The assessments and graded assignments are the same, but you get to spend half the time solving logical puzzles.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-24T23:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Kruskal is great in this course. His policy on homework is great (hand it in whenever, no real due dates). You just have to make sure to keep yourself on top of it so you don't fall behind. HW is good practice of the concepts.\n\r\nExams are tough, but that's to be expected for this type of course. The questions are fair.\n\r\nMost importantly, Kruskal makes the course very interesting by motivating the topics very well. He is also very good at explaining stuff, but you have to make sure to ASK him questions. Otherwise, he will breeze through the material and you won't understand anything. He is decent for help in office hours too.\n\r\nMy only complaint would be that he seems a little disorganized (just try visiting his office for example). However, he never lost any of my work, so this is not a big issue.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-15T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "You have to work your butt off in this class because it is a hard class to begin with. But, to top it off, the professor doesn't teach well. Hopefully you have a good TA", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-01T12:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "If you're not into math, STAY FAR FAR AWAY. The lectures are incredibly hard to follow, but attendance is still imperative to have any chance of success. The homework is quite difficult and extremely time-consuming; expect to spend 8 hours per assignment and to get a low grade. There is no indication of what to expect or how to prepare for the exams, but fortunately they were tempered significantly to make them fit into the allotted time. They're not easy, but they're not impossible either, which is all-important since the two exams are 90% of the grade.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-03-21T17:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "This course was super fun! Easily my favorite course taken at UMD so far. It's a panorama of cool stuff in algorithms- I was continually surprised with intuitive tricks that are simple to explain but probably took months each to develop. They're priceless drips of distilled knowledge that you can't afford to miss if you're a CS major who plans to stop at your bachelor's degree. \n\r\nKruskal communicates the course content clearly and with a refined taste for what's interesting. He seemed to care less about grades than most other professors, and gave a ridiculous curve. His marking is merciless though- if you do something wrong on a problem then you can expect a 0 or 50% grade for that problem.\n\r\nThe tests were hard, especially the final which was very hard. He puts heavy emphasis on proofs. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-24T20:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "My only real complaint about Kruskal is that he's probably too smart for his own good. Unfortunately, that impacts his teaching significantly. It's frustrating when he insists on only proving things a specific way, and this is the only class I've ever taken in which I really felt like I had to ask questions.\n\r\nThe exams were worth most of the grade which made it a little scary. But if you really do all of the homework on your own and study well, you should do well on the exams (at least relative to other people, which is what matters in this course with regards to your grade). Definitely go over all of the homework questions before taking the exams, and maybe do a few questions from the book.\n\r\nKruskal is very accommodating and cares a lot about his students. He clearly wants to see them do well. I definitely learned a lot in this course and was adequately rewarded for my efforts. It just takes a lot of getting used to his teaching style, and several hours doing and reviewing problems to prepare for the exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-11T03:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Class is hard so do not skip any lectures. There were only 4 homeworks but they were challenging and were used on the exams.\n\r\nMidterm was 40%, homeworks 10%, final 50% of grade.\n\r\nMany people drop this class because of his no-regard-for-human-life grading style.\n\r\nI thought I'd fail with a 55 average on the midterm and final exam, but with his curve that was a B.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-07T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Kruskal comes from a long line of brilliant mathematicians and he is no exception. However, he forgets that not everyone, especially undergraduates, are not as brilliant as he is. His homework assignments were vague and sometimes his lectures would go off on vague tangents.\n\r\nHis midterm and final were very difficult. Average for both was about a 50. Granted, his curve is mean + std. deviation is the B/A line which is nice, but still hard and stressful.\n\r\nIf he's your only option, you'll live. If you have other options, take them instead.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-21T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "The previous two reviews are probably accurate in the Clyde was frequently late, unprepared, and probably didn't care tremendously about the class. I won't lie. I hated the class while I was taking it. Didn't study enough for the midterm and did awful on it. Did really well on the final and ended up with an A-.\n\r\nLook. He is clearly passionate about the material and he is actually decent at explaining it. As much as I hate to admit it, both tests were fair. You got a certain amount of points if you understood the homework and you could figure out the other problems on the fly if you generally understood the material.\n\r\nAlso, do yourselves a favor. Don't spout out that CLRS is a useless book too loud. It really isn't.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-03-01T00:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'No syllabus.\r\nThe book is useless.\r\nHe scribbles random gibberish on the board. Those are your notes for the class. \r\nHis office is a mess, to say the least.\r\nHe doesnt give a damn. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-23T20:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Kruskal is a terrible teacher. He never showed up to teach on time, always being five to ten minutes late. He was even late to the final exam. He didn't post the chapters that went along with the material he taught in class, so your class notes were your only study source. I approached him about this and asked if there was any material in the book I could use, and he replied that nothing he taught was in the book. On several occasions he taught the wrong material. The class had no structure, either a student would remind him where he left off the class before, or he would just start in a seemingly random place. The average on the midterm was a 50%, with the standard deviation being 25%. This meant that the grades were so scattered, that a 75 was an A, a 50 was a B, 25 was a C, and 0 was a D. He was such a bad teacher he made it impossible to get an F in his class.\n\r\nTL;DR Kruskal is a scatterbrained, unorganized mess of a professor, and you should avoid him at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-18T02:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Kruskal is a great guy. I have had couple of classes with him, and I think he is definitely one of the better professors in the department. His class is entertaining and educational at the same time. Mind you, 451 is a hard class. You learn many complex classes of algorithms, and their mastery can only happen over time. The good thing is Kruskal understands this. His tests aren't super hard if you go through and understand his lectures well. He doesn't give very organized notes (mostly writing on board). Also, there were couple of times when he stumbled a bit solving some problem. But on the whole, I would recommend taking this any/all algorithms classes with him. Also has a decent grade curve. But go into this class prepared to see some really hard problems.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-08T02:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Professor Kruskal was a good teacher for this class. Especially when you consider that Prof. Golub is the other option. Kruskal taught pretty well. I think an average student should have been able to understand most of the topics we covered. Though his tests are not easy. They are between average and hard. He curves grades like most comp sci classes. For this class, make sure you do his homeworks and the practice exams. Though tests may not be very similar to them, but they do help you build a strong foundation for the test. \r\nHe does show off his intelligence at times and can be slightly rude, but if you don't ask questions, you won't get much out of him any way. But he wants you to learn. Definitely recommended for CMSC351. He is after all related to the guy who came up with the famous Kruskal's minimum spanning tree algorithm. :).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-07-19T17:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC250H', 'review': "Dr. Kruskal is awesome. He is an excellent instructor and he presents the material in his own way (which many people may not like). He is a mathematician and he loves math. For the most part in 250H we did not cover ANY of the material that we needed to cover (we had to read everything from the book) However, we spent the time doing special projects that were so much fun and interesting that it was worth having to read the book for the actual course material. The projects were not graded but you get to argue with and against Dr. Kruskal and he is so much fun to argue with. Overall, Dr. Kruskal is really passionate about his math and he is very funny. (He is a little bit forgetful and rarely answers to emails, but he's just awesome!)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-26T23:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Heh, what can I say about Kruskal... first off, I had him for both CMSC250 and CMSC351. He seems very averse to doing work, and though he is very smart he rarely imparts this knowledge on students in a way that really impresses people. His lectures can be disjointed (he never has slides) and it can be hard to follow what he is doing, most of the class was not able to learn the material from the lectures.\n\r\nOn the other hand, if he likes the material, I feel like he is able to teach something. And he seems to be really passionate about algorithms. So there is a silver lining - if you understand and follow what he does, you can learn.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-22T10:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "This class was one of the toughest algorithms classes I've ever had. Clyde is somewhat of a right of passage for UMD, but that doesn't make the class any easier. The professor is somewhat disorganized and gives bogus explanations for things, but you learn a ton about sorting/selection algorithms and complexities in the worst case for most things.\r\n\r\nThe first midterm from this semester was brutal (and I heard harder than last semester), and the average was a 56% with a standard dev of about 15 pts. The second better wasn't too bad and had a 68% with standard dev of 15 pts.\r\n\r\nI've no idea how the final will be, but I know the class has become more lenient since 2010-2012, so I'm hoping not too bad. They'll apparently test you on MoM, graphs, minimum spanning trees, and np on the final. Good luck to anyone taking this class, and get a study group :)", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-12-14T18:48:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "This man is terrible. His lectures are rambling, he is unhelpful, and he just doesn't give a flying fuck about you as a person. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-12-15T17:29:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Love the guy. He has an eccentric personality but if you get one on one time with him, get to know him and show genuine interest in the material, he is great. I retook this class after not passing over the Summer. Did much better the second time. \r\n\r\nIf you have to retake a second time, fear not. Nearly everyone who retakes Kruskal does even better the second time around because he doesnt change a thing. Hes a creature of habit. The addition of a second midterm in the semester has helped the class be more "pass-able". Clyde is probably the best option for 351. His exams can be daunting in terms of how hard it makes you think, but it mainly just recycles some home work problems with different numbers and one coding interview question.\r\n\r\nAfter getting a D+ the first time in the summer, I am expecting a B- the second time around after the curve. It can be done!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2017-12-23T06:26:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Kruskal is one of the best professors I've ever had. Is he easy? No. But his style, for me, just fits.\r\n\r\nEverything he says has a logical purpose in the lecture. He not only explains everything that's done, but he also goes over it again if someone asks. He periodically stops and asks if everyone is following. If you are lost, and you aren't asking questions, that's YOUR fault. Not his.\r\n\r\nKruskal expects you to be intuitive. This may make some students struggle, but to be quite honest, it really comes down to how much work you put in to the class in order to gain that intuition on how to solve a problem.\r\n\r\n60% of every exam is basically regurgitated homework problems. As such, if you fail this class, you simply aren't putting in the time to nail down the homeworks to perfection.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-02T02:49:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'I\'d like to first clarify explicitly that this rating is of *the course itself* and my experience, and not Kruskal personally. "Clyde," as I sometimes hear other students call him (not my style), is friendly, even solicitous, in person; although at times I was very frustrated with him I never had a bad impression of him as a person. \r\n\r\nBut almost everything else about the course, including his teaching style, left me unhappy and on-edge. Among other things, at the end of the course I received a grade better than a B - the night before, I had calculated the likely cutoff for a C-, because I was *that* unsure where my not-yet-graded final exam performance left me. A member of my friend-group was dumbstruck to receive a 50% on one exam (exams are far-and-away the bulk of your grade in this course), only to discover that he had been misgraded by about 30% - that is, he actually earned an 80. \r\n\r\nTo avoid going over-length with anecdotes, some key complaints/corresponding survival tips:\r\n\r\n- TAs are perennially unhelpful (make sure you work with other students)\r\n- Exam questions draw heavily on homeworks, so successfully understanding homework (no matter how vague or slow-grading TAs might be) is important to get done before exams\r\n- Grading is slow and curves aren\'t specified until the very end (avoid panicking, and monitor where you are with respect to the average; for reference, 75% earned you an A in my semester)\r\n- Make sure you understand the rudiments of calculus (how integrals are approximated with sums, for example) and summation-handling, because this knowledge will be largely assumed in derivations\r\n- Our final exam was largely *not* cumulative, and what did show up was more trivia we\'d all forgotten than anything substantive (all I can hint here is to take note of "space complexity" during the course)\r\n- TAs frequently pull the hardest exam questions from websites like "geeksforgeeks," interview-type questions for professionals; studying at least a few of these will give you a fighting chance of solving the problems in real time\r\n- The textbook is sometimes helpful but always a pain to read; if you anticipate trouble, start reading in advance\r\n- This course often tends towards the frustrating; instead, try to have fun - really the best thing about this course is it encourages on-the-spot facility with making a good algorithm to solve a problem you encounter, which is a cool skill to have\r\n\r\nSadly, I could still say more, but I think I\'ve gone on long enough. Kruskal\'s course by reputation teaches you more than others - I\'d certainly say so - but the stress and the "on-your-own" attitude mean that you have to be aggressive about making sure you understand well enough and have enough practice to acquit yourself well on exams. Truthfully, I can\'t say I recommend Kruskal\'s 351 - only that it is survivable if you bite down from the start.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-09T00:28:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Clyde is disorganized, and hard to communicate with for administrative issues. He also gives the impression that he does not really care about his students.\r\n\r\nDespite this, I think he explains the content of the course adequately.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-30T20:02:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'This class is difficult no matter who teaches it. It is obvious Kruskal is an algorithms wizard and it worth taking his class, even if it mean night exams and long homeworks. Office hours are a must for this course but more enjoyable because of Clyde', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-04-11T00:12:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Kruskal is an awful educator, an irresponsible mathematician, and an unapologetic narcissist.\r\nHe asks questions in class, which is always a pain. Right before calling on you, he might say something demoralizing like "I don\'t think you have the right answer, but go ahead and try." After you answer, he may say something like "I knew you had it wrong." or "Google will never hire you."\r\n\r\nKruskal assigns a ton of homework. Be prepared to join a study group and meet multiple times a week and have no social life just to complete his homeworks - which, by the way are really vague sometimes. God forbid you ask him to be more specific with what he means on a question - he will say something like "it should be clear from the context what I mean". If you press him further, he will get even more annoyed at you, and never answer your question. The homeworks are vague enough so that a TA in office hours once had to announce to everyone that he instructed people incorrectly on a problem because of misinterpreting what kruskal called "clear from context."\r\nA true mathematician is always very clear and specific when defining a problem that they\'re solving (or asking someone to solve) - it\'s arguably the most important part in solving a problem. Yet kruskal can\'t be bothered to specify what he means when his wording could mean two things reasonably and even a TA gets it wrong.\r\nIf you ever misinterpret kruskal\'s meaning from context, he will say you\'re cheating for not "answering in the spirit of the question". He thinks you purposefully misinterpreted the question to make it easier, or something.\r\nDon\'t expect to be able to make regrade requests on much, either. He said something along the lines of "don\'t make a regrade request just because a TA graded you more harshly than someone else. That\'s just life". even though that is literally what capricious grading means and there are numerous policies against that and the instructional staff have an obligation to correct any capricious grading like that...\r\n\r\nOne time, he was working on a really hard problem in class. A student pointed out an error he made, and he said "oh. i\'m lost and confused. so you are all dismissed"\r\nAnd we just left without the answer, never getting the answer. Kruskal spends all his time spouting nonsense about how students are always wrong yet he can\'t solve a problem he posed to us himself.\r\n\r\nIf at all possible, take 351 with someone else who isn\'t a d0uchebag who likes making his students suffer.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-04-12T03:19:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Kruskal is genius but he lacks the ability to teach. He thinks we already know everything. I was in the TA room everyday to get my homework done and study for the exams. Phong saved our lives. Without Phong passing this class would have been impossible. He changed the structure of the class to help students. various office hours to get help. 5 starts for Phong.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:46:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "If you can take Jason Filippou instead for CMSC250, you should. Kruskal knows the material and can teach it, but he always complains about his lack of interest in CMSC250 and even when he teaches, skips over steps. He thinks that everyone knows about certain things, so he'll just skip over things, but most people attending the lecture may not know what he is doing. However, he does like to joke around and have some fun, so his lectures can be interesting on occasion. Normally, I attend his lectures and then look at Jason's slides on ELMS, which are more in-depth and have better examples. \r\n\r\nIf you have to take Kruskal due to the fit of your schedule, you will be fine, but I hope that he has regained excitement in teaching CMSC250.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-03T03:53:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "One of the better professors I've had at UMD CS. He knows his stuff and is easy to understand and follow.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-04T20:38:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Clyde\'s class is difficult. His homeworks are the same as Eastman\'s, but different from Jason\'s. I found that the "prep" and the self-study sheets that Jason would post around midterms or throughout the semester were very helpful if you did all the problems listed. Most of the exam problems look just like the ones on the practice midterms but expect a few curveballs.\r\n\r\nAs an instructor, Clyde is objectively frustrating to follow. He\'ll take examples from the slides and change them so that if you don\'t pay close attention the whole time, you may end up lost. \r\n\r\nAsking questions in class is good. He won\'t demoralize you if you have the balls to ask a question, but if you try and answer a question that HE asks, and you get it even slightly wrong, he will not be forgiving. Just before Thanksgiving, he taught a lecture that was like an intro to algorithms, and there were only 15 of us in class that day (weather was bad and it was the day before break). I guessed the answer to one of his problems, and upon learning that I got it wrong, he followed it up with "I guess you really don\'t know anything." It\'s objectively a terrible teaching tactic, but the TA\'s will be a lot more helpful in giving constructive feedback during discussions or office hours.\r\n\r\nMy tips for surviving the Clyde:\r\n\r\n1. I definitely wouldn\'t have survived without this. Go to discussion. The TA\'s will go over problems more in-depth than he does and will answer your questions without ridicule. I personally never went to office hours but if that\'s your thing hey more power to you.\r\n2. Do problems from the textbook to prepare for exams. I got a 78 on the first midterm when I didn\'t do this, and then a 98 on the second when I cracked open the book.\r\n3. Look back at the homework to get an idea of the types of questions that can come up on exams. Oftentimes, midterm problems will be carbon copies of these with a few words or numbers changed.\r\n4. Follow along during lecture on a laptop with the lecture slides. I found it helpful to get some notes a minute or two in advance of him covering it. Side note - Jason makes the slides and Clyde lectures on it, so that\'s why it seems like he\'s only reading it for the first time. Also, Clyde will sometimes skip over a lot of slides at once because he feels it\'s not important, but it can be helpful to get a couple more examples under your belt while he\'s rambling.\r\n5. Try to keep your cool. Clyde is so frustrating, I can\'t stress this enough, but if you\'re taking his class, the best you can do is get your bearings and learn more in-depth on your own time (which honestly can be during lecture).\r\n\r\nI hated his class, but I\'m taking 351 next semester with him because I\'m a freshman and register last so wish me luck.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-13T01:55:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Coming into this class, I knew what to expect with Kruskal because I had him for CMSC250. He seems like a great guy and he really knows what he is teaching, but I do not find him to be a good teacher. However, I can see why others would disagree. His lecture style seems to work very well for some and not at all for others. I definitely fall into the second category. \r\n\r\nAlthough I stopped attending his lectures early on, I was able to do well in the class by taking the homework assignments seriously, watching a lot of YouTube videos, and watching the Panopto recordings from the other professor. I don't mind learning this way and Kruskal's exams are very fair (even if they are hard) because they are based almost solely on the homeworks. But if you are someone who prefers to learn directly from the lectures instead of someone who learns by struggling through homeworks, I would not recommend taking Kruskal.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-14T02:54:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Just keeps on rambling. Always assumes you'll know the concepts and skips over a lot of stuff.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2019-05-11T20:40:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "kruskal may be really tough and all, and sometimes doesn't completely finish the math when he does it on the board, but his tests are more or less an easier version of the homework. if you understand how to do the homeworks, you can get a decent grade on his tests. i'm not an extraordinary smart person but i didn't think this class was impossible, but again don't underestimate the class either, because some of the homework questions he asks can seem really difficult at times. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-14T05:44:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Great lecturer, with in general, fair exams. He doesn't award much if any partial credit, so it is important to be 100% confident in your answers. I thought that the course's logistics were not the best, even if they were done by the TAs and not Kruskal himself. We weren't able to get our homeworks back before the final for example, and the final took ~1 week to grade. The final was particularly brutal, with ~45% average, but the other tests averaged about 61%. The other exams felt very fair, and if you could do the homework, it shouldn't be bad. The final was not fair however, so you're always taking a risk on whether you're getting a reasonable exam or not.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-26T22:57:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Kruskal made it clear he was not too excited to be teaching 250 this semester. He is a knowledgeable professor but during lecture he would often refuse to answer questions and would sometimes make students feel unintelligent. He was not very responsive to students\' concerns and the class was not very well run. If you take him make sure you attend lecture because he purposely does not record lectures and there are often no slides posted (and if they are, all the examples are absent and say "do in class").', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-29T12:36:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Sometimes he's a good lecturer, and sometimes he just rambles on and on about irrelevant content. Usually he is fairly entertaining when he does that.\r\n\r\nA counterpoint to some of the Kruskal yay-sayers is that when you get to the gritty, Kruskal actually is a good lecturer. I honestly disagree, as Kruskal explained several key points terribly throughout the course, including but not limited to the tree method, several explanations about the existence of paths and the correctness of the MST algorithms, and solving optimization problems using decision problems using polynomial overhead (which is something that he stated will be on the final).\r\n\r\nHe is an average lecturer at best. The homeworks are decently challenging, but they don't help you learn the theory whatsoever. And honestly the theory for this course is extremely meager. To study for the final I made a topics list and it didn't even cover a full page of content.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-10T02:20:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'If you have class with Kruskal all I can say is GG', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2020-01-27T15:59:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Truly garbage. Doesn't teach anything--and what's worse--doesn't seem to care. Terrible organization and complete apathy.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-05-08T16:03:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'The disorganization complaint echoed across this website about 351 stems from a lack of communication between Kruskal and his TA\'s. There has been a few times where I would get marked off by TA\'s on homeworks because I did it differently than the grading criteria although I checked in with Kruskal beforehand and made sure my way was correct as well. Although the TA\'s regraded them, it shows the lack of communication. Also, posts on Piazza regarding how certain problems can be done are usually answered by the TA\'s with "defer to Kruskal". Like, bro, just make up your mind as a teaching panel and tell us, I don\'t need another side quest to find Kruskal and ask him the same question right now. \r\n\r\nKruskal himself is a very knowledgable professor (dude has been doing research on this area for god knows how long, he\'s like a fossil). Some lectures he articulates the concepts very clearly and makes it very easy to understand, other lectures he leaves the class a little confused. When the latter happens, please go to office hours before complaining here. From what he told me, he only gets a few visitors per day (TA\'s might get more). I don\'t really understand how people can be blasting Kruskal for being a bad professor while they don\'t go to office hours for help. \r\n\r\nUnfortunately we can\'t rate courses, we can only rate professors, and Kruskal is one of the better professors in one of the worst-run courses.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-11T15:43:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "While the content of this course is interesting the organizing and implementation is severely lacking. Professors and TA's should respond to students in a timely manner but in this class there was seldom any communication with the students on basic course information ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-21T15:11:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Professor Kruskal tries his best to teach the material, and he seems like a nice guy. He has his good moments, and it's in those moments where you can obtain a lot of knowledge about algorithms. However, there are also moments where he rambles a lot, which makes it hard to pay attention to the class. Make sure you try your hardest to understand the course material because it seems fascinating even in a hard class like CMSC 351.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-05-25T23:28:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "please don't give last year record, really can't hear anything clear about it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-10-02T15:45:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Ok, so I know that Kruskal gets a lot of hate. His course is definitely disorganized and he does not spend lecture time actually teaching the stuff, rather going over other topics like probability and induction, and getting distracted by telling bad jokes. Homeworks were vague and were graded very late. Some TAs were great, but others were not really knowledgable. \r\n\r\nHOWEVER, I will say him and TAs are responsive on Piazza and gave reasonable extensions. Also, the biggest selling point is that his exam questions are almost always variations of the homeworks, which means you can predict what the exam questions may be like in advance. That is the single reason in my opinion why you'd want to take Kruskal over Teli, because his exams, the biggest part of the grade, are predictable enough to pass the class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-15T19:17:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'I think Kruskal only half deserves the reputation he has (or that he and 351 jointly have). \r\n\r\nHis lectures are not great. He often implicitly make assumptions in lectures, leaving you very confused if you don\'t see the implicit assumption yourself, because he will not clarify it unless asked. And even when asked he doesn\'t answer very well. I truly don\'t think he\'s being malicious, he just can\'t see student\'s train of thought and see where the reasoning is breaking down.\r\n\r\nPeople who are reasonably "smart" (for some definition of intelligence) will probably see these assumptions and be fine in lectures, but people who are not will struggle with this.\r\n\r\nI found the exams to be very fair. It might have been because of covid, but our exams did not include a challenge (or "interview") question. Instead they were mostly minor variations on homeworks.\r\n\r\nOverall, I agree with the vocal majority that the course content is not taught well, but disagree that the exams are unfair.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-20T05:01:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': " If you don't want to fail, then run! No matter how much effort you put in the class is so poorly taught that you end up not learning anything. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T06:19:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Took him during a pandemic because no other professors were available don't make the same mistake. he uploads pre-recorded lectures from previous years with horrible sound quality and the final was 45% of our grade. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2020-12-28T21:57:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Kruskal is a great person, and he's a really brilliant computer scientist. In terms of explaining material, he's pretty good as well. This semester he uploaded short video lecture videos asynchronously, which are great because they let you rewind whenever you want. His homeworks are like puzzles, but if you can talk them out with your friends you'll do a great job on them. MAKE SURE you find people to work on the homeworks with you! Otherwise, it's 10x harder to pass the class. \r\n\r\nNow for the negative about this class: The exams are fucking bullshit. Yeah, they are heavily based on the homeworks, however, the graders show no mercy on some questions. The format of the questions are in a way such that if you are blanking out on a how to solve the problem, you're pretty much screwed out of 5-10 percent of your final grade in the class. I studied and restudied for the final exam so much, but when it came around, I still met some problems where I understood the concept, but the algorithm for solving it, wasn't coming into my head. Personally, I don't know what more I could have done to prepare for the final, and I still got a pretty low score (I passed though). \r\n\r\nSo in summary, clyde is a good professor who gives crazy ass exams. The exams are about 70 percent of your final grade, so make sure you know your shit thoroughly. But at the same time, make sure you are also very well rested before you take the final, or midterm. You want your mind to be on it's A game. \r\n\r\nThe material of this class isn't really too hard to grasp and understand either. I thought that it was going to be based off 250, which I wasn't the best at, but it's a lot easier in my opinion. Just watch out for the exam questions!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-16T04:05:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Had him last semester. Everyone complains because they don't put in the work. I was busy with recruiting last semester so I prioritized that over school. But if you honestly keep up with the work and don't push all the studying until last minute you'll be fine. Everyone complains that the professor is ass but its because the concepts require actually thinking, whereas everyone is used to spoon feeding.\r\n\r\nRegarding the TAs, its either a hit or a miss. They tend to grade relatively slowly.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-02-10T16:26:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Class is definitely disorganized and needs a major restructuring. Despite this, I think when Kruskal is actually focused on lecturing, he explains things pretty well (like in his 15-20 minute recordings on specific topics). Exams were very difficult and worth way too much, but were modelled very closely to homeworks. TAs are hit or miss. \r\nYou're likely gonna heavily rely on the 351 Bible (a large set of notes by a former TA that covers nearly every topic), along with some online videos for topics that you are confused about. If you do use these, though, you should be able to pass the class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-04-10T15:39:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': None, 'review': "Class is disorganized. Lectures with poor audio quality are used for actual class material to learn. Kruskal sometimes spends way too much time talking about jokes or other irrelevant matters. He is a smart guy and is nice, but the class could be run a lot better. Everything that people say about the tests is true. You can't pass this class if you don't put in hard work. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-04-12T17:15:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "I took this class in Fall 2020\r\nPros:\r\n+ The professor is very smart, he definitely knows what he's talking about.\r\n+ The inclusion of quick quizzes is a fast way for you to know if you're caught up on all the content\r\nCons:\r\n- Lecture content is posted in the form of asynchronous videos. The video length is often significantly longer than what a lecture would be, so it forces a significant out-of-class time investment\r\n- The live lectures were almost completely useless, he spent two months going over basic induction and never covered actual relevant material\r\n- Tests are quite hard ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-20T22:33:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Had Dr. Kruskal for CMSC351/451. He is not perfect, but I absolutely disagree with his 2.87 star rating.\r\n\r\nHe has a good sense of humor and teaches algorithms in a way that makes it very intuitive. He also really makes sure to answer student questions during lectures and is helpful during office hours. One of the biggest complaints is that there is a really long turnaround time before things get graded. This is not any of the TA's or Kruskal's fault. They are simply understaffed for the amount of kids they have to manage. Another complaint is that the tests are completely unfair. This was absolutely not true in 351, where the problems were literally just slightly altered homework problems and problems that reflected lecture material. The tests for 451 I felt were more difficult.\r\n\r\nMany people also leave the class frustrated because they can't seem to get a good grade by rote memorization of the materials. I think that the problems Kruskal gives out on the homeworks and exams are fair for a difficult algorithms class and focused on difficult problem solving. It is, however, very difficult for any teacher to 'teach' a class math maturity or problem solving ability. You are simply going to have to do extra practice practice from the textbook if you haven't done these kids of problems before.\r\n\r\n\r\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-27T11:45:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Some of his videos were really good, but there were a lot of lecture videos that had horrible audio or loads of content that did not matter. The class administration is so horribly run I would title this class the worst run class at UMD. Homeworks never graded on time (many graded AFTER the exams that the homework material was on), quizzes randomly showing up (like at 9:00 pm due at 10:00 am, thank god that was fixed), and many more. If these administration problems were fixed this class honestly wouldn't be that terrible. Probably like a 4-star, but those issues are so colossal I can't rate higher.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-05-27T20:10:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "I took this class in Spring 2021. Typically, while most people say that your 451 grade with Kruskal is the same as your 351 grade with Kruskal, I feel as though your 451 grade may be lower. If you choose to take this class with Kruskal, be sure you know what you're doing...\r\nPros:\r\n+ The ridiculously long pre lecture videos from 351 are gone. The professor actually teaches new content during lecture time, making lectures highly informative.\r\n+ He repeats most NP assignments from 351, so you can reuse your work\r\n+ Professor is very chill regarding deadlines. Often, he would extend a homework deadline by a few dates simply because someone asked nicely. Our midterm deadline was actually moved by 2 weeks.\r\nCons:\r\n- The quizzes from 351 that helped gauge your progress are (mostly) gone. We had a few at the beginning of the semester but they stopped afterwards\r\n- There are no written solutions given for any homework assignment (not just NP). This is especially detrimental when exams are often based off of homework assignments. While there are review sessions that go over homework assignments, they lack the formal rigor that a written solution would have. Also, there is no guarantee that the every problem is covered in these sessions. It is especially baffling that we do not have solution keys when this was done so often back in 351.\r\n- The live lectures are often very free-flowing and not directed without the slide set. This can make it difficult to determine what to take notes on.\r\n- No review material is given for either the midterm or final. The homework assignments do not make up for this. As a result, it is very easy to lose lots of points of exam questions where you may actually understand the concepts at hand. Again, exam review material is something that was easily made for 351, so I am shocked that they couldn't apply the same processes here to make it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-30T00:58:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': 'This is my second review of kruskal, the first being for CMSC 351, posted on 12/20/2020 (search for "tybug"). I\'ve changed view slightly; I think he\'s actually quite a good lecturer, but the class is far too disorganized to get anything above 3 stars, similar to 351. I also didn\'t learn the things I was most excited for in this class: proving algorithm correctness (formally, not hand waving with a certifier) and learning how to come up with algorithms, not just analyzing existing ones.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-30T22:46:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "I've heard all sorts of scary things about Kruskal so I was pretty nervous going into 351, but he's actually really nice. I thought he was a good lecturer, much more interesting than most CS profs at UMD. I don't know how he does things in person but for the online version the actual lecture material was prerecorded and class time was for him to go over various assignments or just talk about some random topic, usually something 250-related. Overall pretty interesting, he likes to tell jokes and stories or just kind of ramble.\r\nI think the main issue with the class is that it's pretty disorganized. Kruskal seems to have outsourced all the course logistics to TAs, with mixed results. Personally I didn't mind this but I can definitely see how it bothers people, so be warned.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-07-22T20:37:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Avoid this man at all costs. If I could go lower than 1 star I would. Don\'t listen to any of the reviews for this man that are above 3 stars. All of his lectures are pre-recorded from either a packed lecture hall where all you can hear is the students\' coughing, or from his bedroom at 240p quality with tin-can audio that only plays in one ear. His "class times" were just 1 to 1.5 hours of him doing problems that are irrelevant to the lecture or homework material. The homework material was always based on an advanced version of lecture material that you did not learn how to do. The two exams (for my semester) were a grand total of 80% of the final grade, were 6 questions, and consisted of problems 5 levels above what you learn from class material and that I\'m pretty sure he cooked up in his evil layer with the specific purpose of making you cry. Our midterm average as a class was a 44. The final exam average as a class was never released, but the entire class\' grades were so bad that they lowered the final C range to a 41 in the class. The previous semester had their \'C\' range lowered to a 50, which is apparently the normal passing range for his classes. Alongside all of this, Kruskal does not answer emails or his phone. He hardly ever responds to the TA\'s, but every single bit of communication to you comes through the TA\'s including his "office hours" which is actually just "TA hours." To top it all off at the end of the semester, Kruskal posted incorrect letter grades to everyone\'s transcripts based on our unweighted number grades. More than half the class had \'D\' or \'F\' posted to their transcripts when they had actually passed with a \'C\' or higher. It has been over one month since the class has ended and the Chair of Computer Science as well as the Dean of Computer Science have just admitted that they can\'t fix students\' grades because Kruskal will not answer his phone or emails to confirm with anyone from the school that he messed up. Because of this, many students from the class got deregistered from their next semester\'s classes because they currently (and incorrectly) do not meet pre-requisite requirements.\r\n\r\nSummary of this review: Kruskal does not care about the students. He is a tenured professor that is forced to show up and provide "something" to his students. He does not care if anyone learns the material, he will not communicate with you, and he seems to enjoy causing immense stress. This class material is already extremely difficult for even for the smartest Algorithm students, yet Kruskal manages to make it exponentially more difficult and stressful. Avoid this man and anything he teaches at all costs for as long as you live. Go to another school to fill this requirement if you have to. It is not worth it to fight through torture with him.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-08-11T20:36:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Had him for 351/451. Got a B+ in both classes. Clyde is extremely lazy. When asked to go over some homework problems he may flat out refuse because it's too much work. Best thing you can do is form study groups and learn from other students. Pretty cool guy overall.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-11-10T20:00:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Kruskal is honestly not a bad professor, but the problem is he's not really organized. When he comes to class prepared, his lectures are really good, otherwise he just spends time talking about other concepts which can be cool, but they don't really matter too much. My biggest problem is the TAs. It honestly seemed like they were working against us, trying to look for any reason to take as many points off as possible. Kruskal is way more understanding than them, and he's actually easier to talk to. I just wish he would do a bit more, like making the grading rubric for exams instead of letting the TAs do it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-18T18:00:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Rambling. Terrible recordings. Doesn't interact /want to with students. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-19T21:43:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Ave =61%, STD=17%, fail cutoff = 49%, what do you mean that equals 1/4 of the class fails.\r\nOther than the extreme cut-off, and how low the exam aves are. Horrible prof, lectures are half tangents that don't relate to cs or anything academic. Explains things poorly. Class is unorganized, our syllabus was finalized day grades are due. He leaves almost everything outside of lect to TAs.He writes his exams the morning of. Half our assignments got graded the day after grades are due. The list goes on ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-26T03:48:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Very interesting professor in my opinion. He started prerecording lectures for recent semesters which seems to be better in my opinion. He said that he will redo the ones with poor audio quality for future semesters. Basically, all of the actual content is covered in these videos. Class time is for going over homeworks, quizzes, exams, etc, and tangents about interesting puzzles. \r\n\r\nI highly recommend going to class because I think it helps you practice how to find solutions. \r\n\r\nThe quizzes were often dumb gotchas, but there is one every class, they total like 6% of your grade, and a significant portion of them (maybe around 5) are dropped. \r\n\r\nExams are pretty gnarly. Average is usually between 50% and 60%. \r\n\r\nWe had way too few TAs. We had about 10 out of 17 homeworks ungraded on the day of the final exam, which is unacceptable. \r\n\r\nKruskal is pretty helpful in office hours and is much more generous with partial credit than the TAs. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-26T22:26:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "- He pre-records pretty much all of his lectures. Sometimes the lectures are clear and well-made, but mostly he uses in-class recordings from a couple of years ago, which can be frustrating to watch because of poor audio. The actual content of his lectures are OK though, and I'd say he's overall a decent lecturer. \r\n- The class sessions are used to go over assignments and any extra ramblings. This flipped classroom approach seems nice at first, but the problem is that he assigns a quiz that is due before every class, so you pretty much have to dedicate an hour or two before the class to actually watch the lecture and take the quiz, in addition to the time that you're already spending on homework assignments and studying. \r\n- Exams are crap. Averages are usually in the mid 50s, and make up around 80-85% of your grade (the rest of your grade comes from homework/pre-class quizzes). The fortunate side of this is that Kruskal grades with a huge curve, so you're usually not at risk of outright failing if you're doing about average. In the past, exams used to be based heavily on homeworks, but that seems to have changed this semester, with exams having new problems that are only loosely based on previous homeworks. He also seems to have added a number of different topics this semester that he doesn't usually cover, and this was particularly frustrating because many of the TAs and GSS leaders did not have any familiarity with the material at the tail-end of the semester. \r\n- He outsources pretty much all of his course operations to his TAs, aside from lectures and homework/exam writing. This was probably one of the most frustrating parts of the course, because the TA team is woefully understaffed and left most of our homeworks ungraded until after finals week. I do not understand how 330 had almost 20 TAs and 351 has barely 10, most of whom are other undergrads who have obligations with their own courses. Seriously, this is one of the most ridiculous parts of this class - please hire more TAs. \r\n- Kruskal himself is a nice guy and is flexible + willing to help. I would highly encourage people to go to the actual classes/lectures to stay engaged and to get help from him directly. \r\n\r\nTl;dr - Kruskal is a nice guy and a decent lecturer overall. This class is highly disorganized, has difficult exams, far too few TAs, and content that is pretty boring and occasionally difficult to understand. If you can take this course with Justin or Teli, take it with them. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-12-27T22:12:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Kruskal's okay I guess. He's a pretty cool guy to talk to, but the class was disorganized, the TAs were kinda ruthless, and the exams were crazy. \r\n\r\nIf you're gonna take 351, just take Teli if you can. \r\n\r\nIf you have to take Kruskal, try to keep your grade above 50%. If your grade dips below that you're almost guaranteed to fail.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-28T02:31:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "I honestly don't understand all the hate Kruskal gets. I thought his lectures were usually pretty easy to follow and he is willing to clarify any confusion during class. The homework can sometimes be frustrating but he allows us to work in groups which I would highly recommend doing. He is also a nice professor to talk to after class or during office hours. The thing I feel drags down his overall perception is his exams. The exams expect that you will be able to come up with efficient algorithms that are different than ones seen on the homework which makes them difficult to study for. You can't just memorize and regurgitate information from class and expect to do well, but if that was the case, I think it could defeat the whole point of the class. \r\n\r\nOverall his class is pretty difficult but it's definitely possible to get a good grade and I believe the content is worthwhile learning. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-06T20:02:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'This man is simply bad at his job. Grades take forever to get back, the class structure is abysmal, and homework/lecture material often has little to do with the ruthless exams. I could go on, but the other reviews pretty much accurately put things into perspective.\r\n"You teach your students? I torture mine." -Literally overheard Dr. Kruskal saying this to another faculty member and I don\'t think I\'ve heard anything more accurate.\r\nHe may be smart, but this man should not be teaching. Avoid at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-08-04T08:41:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "I took this class with Kruskal in Fall 2021. He's a pretty chill dude but he doesn't teach at all. Whatever material we had to learn, he just posted recorded lectures on Elms. In class he would sometimes give us problems to do, but other than that he would talk about anything else besides class topics. It was really down to us to learn the material on our own. And of course his exams were the most stressful thing about that semester. If you take Kruskal, form study groups, visit office hours frequently (two things I didn't do...), and start the homework early.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-09-24T16:03:32.528379Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Had Kruskal over COVID in spring 2021. Worst experience in the CS department -- lectures were very disorganized and felt like I didn't learn anything in lectures. Avoid Kruskal.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2023-01-30T21:53:21.983387Z'}, {'professor': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "KruskGOAT!!! Incredibly kind professor, homeworks are fair and really short. You barely have to study for exams, they're so easy!!! I love this class :) <3 !! xD", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-19T01:27:42.385206Z'}], 'name': 'Clyde Kruskal', 'slug': 'kruskal'}]
[{'courses': ['DANC109', 'DANC148', 'DANC398Y', 'DANC228', 'DANC398C', 'DANC409'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Colette Krogol', 'slug': 'krogol'}, {'courses': ['LING640', 'LING641', 'LING888', 'LING888', 'LING640', 'LING888', 'LING641', 'LING888', 'LING640', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Colin Phillips', 'slug': 'phillips_colin'}, {'courses': ['HONR289N', 'CPGH240', 'CPGH250'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Colleen Farmer', 'course': 'HONR289N', 'review': 'Dr. Farmer was an amazing professor, and made my first semester college a great experience. She really inspires you to live a healthy lifestyle, and will teach you invaluable material that if you follow will keep you fit for life. LOVED her class!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-01-08T19:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Farmer', 'course': 'HONR289N', 'review': "Easiest class ever. Dr. Farmer is amazing. You are a fool if you don't take this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-11-19T16:05:28Z'}], 'name': 'Colleen Farmer', 'slug': 'farmer'}, {'courses': ['HIST111', 'HIST133', 'HIST319R', 'HIST408R', 'RELS289D', 'HHUM205', 'HIST111', 'HIST319R', 'HIST111', 'HIST319R'], 'average_rating': 4.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HHUM205', 'review': 'Prof. Ho is a fantastic lecturer and extremely knowledgeable. Though she tends to assign a lot of reading, the material is always so well curated. She really makes class very interesting. She is also a really nice person; if you ask her a question, she always gives you a thorough, thoughtful answer, and she often goes out of her way to look into a question further and answer it in the next class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-10-17T19:51:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HIST111', 'review': 'Very knowledgeable and approachable professor. She presents the material in a very fun way. Loved being in her class. She does assign lots of reading to supplement the class which is a shock at the start but becomes easier as the semester progresses.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-03-24T23:43:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HIST111', 'review': 'Prof. Ho is extremely knowledgeable, and presents the class information in a way that is easy to understand and retain. Although she assigns a lot of reading, they truly help to further understanding of subjects. She is very strict in class, but also is super accommidating towards students who need help. Extremely organized course made it easy to learn info and understand my grades.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-30T22:55:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HIST111', 'review': "There's a lot of reading to do and there's a research paper at the end of the semester that I suggest you do well on. But she's very knowledgeable and knows how to keep the class engaged. I don't like history and even I enjoyed this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-12T17:40:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HIST319R', 'review': "Professor Ho is a very knowledgeable and helpful professor. However, much of the course structure is very frustrating. Expect for the first 2/3rds of the course to have 100+ pages of reading a week. Lecture quizzes are based on off-hand comments made during them that 90% of the time are not on the lecture slides and factoids that either are not relevant to the material, or you wouldn't think to write down, such as the technically correct pronunciation of her surname (yep, lost a point for getting that wrong since I didn't think to make a note of it), expect to lose many points on lecture quizzes. Attendance for synchronous lectures are mandatory, and they are not posted afterwards so if you miss them you are SOoL. There are 2 discussion posts a week and these are much too intensive for a simple discussion post. Material was interesting and course structure was clear to follow, lectures were also easy to follow. Somewhat of a harsh grader. Good professor but course is often frustrating. I took this and HIST111 and their structures were nearly identical.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-22T22:16:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HIST319R', 'review': "Dr. Ho is great at teaching. And her class is exceptionally well-organized. HIST319R is a class with very interesting subject matter and Dr. Ho does a good job of making sure it's an enjoyable class. However, it is a lot of reading. The readings get smaller and smaller as the semester goes on, but you'll be reading 80-100 pages a week in the first couple weeks, and 40-60 for a majority of the semester. Only late in the semester do the readings become only 20 or so pages per week.\r\n\r\nAlso, the final exam is a ridiculous amount of work. There are 6 possible questions, and 1 is picked at random when you take the exam. Oh yeah, it's an oral exam, too. That's no good. So you'll need to prepare a response to each of these questions, and all but 1 of them will end up having been a waste of time. I wrote ~1000 words for each response, and I had to do it in the span of a week. Having to read a lot each week isn't that big a deal, it's kind of par for the course for a history class. But the final exam for this class is kind of brutal. The questions aren't even that hard or anything. And despite it being an oral exam, she doesn't grade it based on your speaking skills. So I think I'll get a good grade on it. But the amount of work was insane.\r\n\r\nI'm still giving Dr. Ho 4 stars because she is a genuinely great teacher. If the final exam were better I'd easily give her 5 stars.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-12T16:59:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HIST319R', 'review': "HIST319R with Dr. Ho is an awesome class, the material will definitely change your perception of the Mongols' impact/legacy on World History. Dr. Ho is a great teacher and integrated student questions from discussion posts in lectures to facilitate active class discussion. I learned a lot and genuinely enjoyed attending the synchronous lectures. Like previous reviews have said, there is a substantial amount of reading in the class, but this is an upper-level history class so you should expect to encounter a lot of reading regardless. With these readings come discussion posts that are due twice a week like another review mentioned. To be honest, these discussion posts are totally what you make of them. As long as you contribute questions/comments that are mildly interesting and/or critical, you will be just fine. I've seen people post the most mundane things every week and yet still the average for each discussion assignment was at least a 90%. If there is any criticism for this class, it would probably be the way the final exam was organized; 6 potential exam questions with your eventual exam question being chosen at random during a private meeting with the professor was not my cup of tea. Either you had to work pretty hard to prepare for all questions, or you had to play the odds for a specific question to be chosen. Overall, if the Mongols have ever interested you and you have no problem with dense but manageable readings/discussion posts, then definitely take this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-22T01:14:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HIST111', 'review': 'Dr. Ho was the reason I decided to double major in history. I took her Medieval history class first semester freshman year and it was probably my favorite class that I have taken so far. I really enjoy her lecturing style. Between her slides and her spoken words, you get all the necessary information that you need for the exams. She made the information very engaging and I am taking another class of hers next semester because of it. The workload is not bad. You just have to do discussion posts and write one paper and the exams are just a couple of IDs with an essay. If you need a GenEd, TAKE THIS COURSE!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-06T18:26:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HIST111', 'review': "Although she is very nice and knowledgeable, the class is unreasonably hard and the work load is very heavy. It is difficult to do work that is up to Professor Ho and the TA's standards. This class is not what you expect, majority of the time we learn about religions and only one day we learned about vikings in a very short lecture. DO NOT take this class if you are bad at history, this class is not worth your time. Also there are readings due every Tuesday and Thursday that have at least 25 pages in them so do not take this class if you have other difficult classes. The exams were also extremely difficult and Professor Ho did not give us a study guide, so I had to go through every single reading and guess which events and people were important and will be on the exam. The TA's also take FOREVER to grade the homework assignments and exams so I didn't even know what my grade was for the entire semester. DO NOT take this class, it is definitely not an easy GenEd.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-07T16:39:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Ho', 'course': 'HIST111', 'review': 'Professor Ho is clearly incredibly knowledgeable and well-versed in her field. I learned a lot that I didn\'t know before and I enjoyed the content of the lectures. However, the class was shockingly hard for a 100-level class. The exams wouldn\'t have been hard in theory, but we received no study guide and were expected to guess what was "important" enough to be put on an exam. The content of the class was very dense and complex, so narrowing it down even just a little bit would\'ve made it much easier. Definitely not an easy gen-ed, but probably a good class for an actual history major.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-14T01:22:22Z'}], 'name': 'Colleen Ho', 'slug': 'ho_colleen'}, {'courses': ['EDCP789Z', 'EDCP635', 'EDCP789N', 'EDCP640', 'EDCP641', 'EDCP636', 'EDCP888C', 'EDCP635', 'EDCP640', 'EDCP641', 'EDCP636', 'EDCP888C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': "Colleen O'Neal", 'slug': "o'neal_colleen"}, {'courses': ['MATH003', 'UNIV102', 'MATH003', 'MATH003', 'MATH003', 'MATH003'], 'average_rating': 2.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Colleen Terpos', 'course': 'MATH003', 'review': 'I would not recommend this woman. I had her last semester and she was very impatient and often very rude in her responses. Similar to that of a smart alec. \n\r\nShe frequently would not assist me in exercises/problems but rather point me to the online book. This was frustrating as sometimes I needed a direct explanation as the book can be vague at times. \n\r\nTake somebody else.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-13T10:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Terpos', 'course': 'MATH003', 'review': 'not very helpful at all. Avoid her at any cost. If you are stuck with her, you better be hella motivated and put the effort in to pass and get the hell outta this class. Her tests are hard as well. so be ready af.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-17T03:16:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Terpos', 'course': 'MATH003', 'review': 'She is ok. But at times she is mean and rude. She makes me feel more stupid and made my mindset to fail the course instead oof motivating me to pass.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2020-05-19T00:44:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Terpos', 'course': 'MATH003', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS! it is totally avoidable if you just retake the placement test! If for some reason you absolutely need to take this class, you can take it in 5 weeks if you stay on top of all the assignments. The class is literally just like the middle school/early high school Algebra 1 course you took just with no help from the teacher. \r\n\r\n As far as Professor Terpos goes, she was really mean all the time and made all her students believe they were going to fail. She also did not teach a single thing to anyone, all she did was stand around and watch kids do the online textbook problems for 3 HOURS! If I could put negative stars, I would ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-11-20T19:40:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Terpos', 'course': 'MATH003', 'review': 'Colleen’s no nonsense attitude can come off as rude, but I truly don’t think it is meant to be. Besides, I think she is a great teacher. If you ask her a question, she always explains things in a way that is easy to understand. \r\n\r\nBecause this course was self-paced, students worked on their own and came to class with questions. I think some students expected something else, but you could always get help from with this professor or TAs of you asked. \r\n\r\nIn fact, I still go get help from Colleen now that I am onto more advanced math courses, because she explained things so well. If you have her as a professor you are in good hands! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2022-05-23T22:36:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Terpos', 'course': 'MATH003', 'review': "I was nervous taking Colleen's class after I saw her ratings, but I'm glad I did because this is the first time I've actually understood math. The course is homework heavy, and she's strict about attendance but it's because she wants you to succeed. I did so well in this course that I didn't even have to take the final! If you actually want to understand math, and don't mind a professor with a bit of sarcasm, take her!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2022-12-12T21:23:24.533946Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Terpos', 'course': 'MATH003', 'review': 'I want this to serve as a warning to incoming freshman. For your sake, take the math placement test seriously. Don’t do what I did, which was take it at 2 AM, not put in any effort, and then end up in this class. Colleen Terpos is unhelpful, condescending, difficult to work with, and has a serious attitude problem. She does the bare minimum, which is teaching for maybe ten minutes and then you spend the rest of the class with a group filling out a worksheet. It’s one of the few classes where the TA’s are actually more helpful than the teacher. As for the work load, it’s definitely manageable. It’s annoying and boring, but if you grit your teeth and stick it out you will have no issue passing the class. Just stay on top of the workload, do NOT start it at the last minute, and you’ll be good. If you do end up in this class and you’re reading this, just know that I believe in you and you can do it. Just grind it out. Good luck.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2023-04-11T19:25:37.370430Z'}], 'name': 'Colleen Terpos', 'slug': 'terpos'}, {'courses': ['LARC160', 'LARC121', 'LARC160', 'LARC160', 'LARC160', 'LARC160', 'LARC160'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Colleen Vacelet', 'course': 'LARC160', 'review': "Colleen was very professional and helpful throughout the course. There were daily assigned readings (some were up to ~80 pages), but don't let that scare you! The lecture slides summarize the readings to help with the midterm and final exam. Just be sure to take notes and pay attention to what is taught in class, because the material is really interesting and Colleen really makes the subject stick with you in the future with her multiple examples and campus tours. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-03-17T00:24:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Vacelet', 'course': 'LARC160', 'review': 'This class was easy enough, but Colleen was very rude and unhelpful over email (made worse by the fact that I took this as an online class). She said she would have office hours every day, but that ended after the first week, and the one time I scheduled to meet with her, she cancelled right before and then stopped responding to my emails. Fine class; not fine professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-06-21T01:14:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Colleen Vacelet', 'course': 'LARC160', 'review': "Took it in 2020 with her. There were videos available to review as well as the PowerPoint she would use during the lecture so make use of every resource available. Exams were straightforward and easy to fail if you don't take notes during lectures and on the PowerPoint. There are readings, but whether or not you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-21T19:56:20Z'}], 'name': 'Colleen Vacelet', 'slug': 'vacelet'}, {'courses': ['HIST266', 'HIST289X', 'HIST819D', 'HIST452', 'HIST619J', 'HIST608B', 'HIST319B', 'HIST408F', 'HIST428K', 'HIST608N', 'HIST429Z', 'HIST408F', 'HIST453', 'HIST408P', 'IMMR200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Colleen Woods', 'slug': 'woods_colleen'}, {'courses': ['HESP620', 'HESP702', 'HESP648A', 'HESP648B', 'HESP728', 'HESP418B', 'EXST030', 'HESP702', 'HESP728'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Colleen Worthington', 'slug': 'worthington_colleen'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL265', 'ENGL255', 'CMLT277', 'ENGL101S', 'CMLT270', 'ENGL222', 'LGBT265'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Collier Cobb', 'course': 'CMLT277', 'review': 'Took a very good CMLT course with him on basically Latin/Native American literature. One of the few courses I never skipped in college.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-18T16:26:17Z'}], 'name': 'Collier Cobb', 'slug': 'cobb'}, {'courses': ['HONR228T', 'HONR359B'], 'average_rating': 4.7222, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': "TAKE COLMAN MCCARTHY!!! This class was one of the most relaxed yet most informational I have ever taken. The class is ridiculously easy and so interesting that you will want to come to class everyday. Colman McCarthy is an old man and is kind of slow when he speaks, so I almost dropped the first day I saw him because I didn't know if I could deal with that for 2 hours. The first day or two of class isn't interesting, but the rest is definitely worth it. He's so passionate and involved in everything he teaches. You learn about current events, and you just feel like you know so much more than before after every class. The only thing that he grades for the class is a 1000 word paper and a journal entry you have to log after every class. I highly recommend him to anyone. He does this all because he cares about informing others of these events. He honestly cares about each student and what they have to say, and he hates grades and giving students grades because he thinks school should focus more on education. I love him as a teacher I wish I could take him again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-11-26T10:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR359B', 'review': "This course is one of the most powerful classes I've ever had the pleasure of taking at UMD. I made me discuss topics I had previously never given much thought about and forced us to explore different perspectives on complex issues of our world.\n\r\nProfessor McCarthy is a delight. Because the class is so small (mine had only 7 people), he took the time to get to know each of us individually and genuinely cared about us. He's one of those professors who brightens your day and his students will remember him years beyond the end of the course.\n\r\nThe only out-of-class assignments include short weekly readings and a final essay (2,000 words). I kind of wish there were more assignments for us to reflect on the course content.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2016-05-10T13:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': "Gotta break up the love fest just a little bit.\n\r\nDon't get me wrong: McCarthy is a great person. He's very passionate about his views, he's got a grandfatherly sense of humor, and the 2.5 hour class went surprisingly quickly.\n\r\nHowever. Despite his anti-test views, the class has a final exam that requires you to remember 20 random quotes and match them to their speaker. I suspect he wants students to organize and resist taking the final (it would fit with the revolutionary flavor of the class), but alas, I lacked the necessary backbone.\n\r\nHe also tends to get rather preachy, especially with the animal rights portion of the class. I'm a pacifist but I also enjoy meat, and he seems to be offended by that. (To be fair, his guest speaker on the topic was incredible, preaching veganism in a surprisingly logical way.)\n\r\nAll that said, I can certainly say that no class made me think as much after it was over as this one. I still find my mind wandering back to those discussions, and I took the class in fall '12. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-23T15:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR359B', 'review': "McCarthy is a wonderfully sweet person- he's been around a long time and seen a lot of things. Astonishingly spry at his age. He likes to crack cheesy, and at times redundant, jokes, but I think the consensus is that he is a very likable, respectable fellow who really sticks by his guns when it comes to the topic of peace.\n\r\nI took Alternatives to Violence with him, and while it wasn't life-changing (nor did I by any means agree with everything presented), it really did challenge my views/perspectives on a number of issues (particularly the segments on war and animal rights). I consider myself a fairly skeptical, pragmatic person, and his class was the first time in my life I actually contemplated veganism (for entirely logical reasons, not even on the basis of not wanting to eat animals!). It was really good to hear perspectives you don't hear publicized often.\r\nThe only things I would note about this course is that McCarthy is a bit 'stuck in his ways' so-to-speak; he always hears people out, but I noticed he never budged an inch from his personal opinions, even when the argument presented was sound. \n\r\nThe quality of the class is also strongly dependent on the discussions among students- so if you have a dead silent classroom, you really won't get as much out of it. It's when people say what they really think you start getting the full benefit of their views and experiences.\n\r\nAs others have discussed, this is a P/F course- just show up once a week and write a 6pg paper on nearly anything peace-related by the end of the semester. Someone in my class made a movie, which he accepted as well. Very easy, and enjoyable. It's definitely a what-you-make of it class too- show up and participate, and you'll be surprised by what you learn. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-12T03:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR359B', 'review': "Colman was easily the most influential professor I ever had at Maryland. He has some very unique viewpoints that he shares with the class and let's you come to your own conclusions. He is very open to discussions and loves it when students challenge his ideals. \n\r\nClass is P/F and it really impossible to fail unless you don't do the paper. The final paper is very simple and can be written about pretty much anything. Take this class if you have the opportunity.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-23T13:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': 'McCarthy was a great professor that really changed the way I look at pacifism and our society at large. I wasn\'t quite as blown away as I thought I would be (my expectations were probably a little high after reading some of these reviews), but I think he had somewhat of an "off" semester with my class. Overall I would definitely recommend this course; some of the ideas he presents will stick with you forever.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-26T20:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR359B', 'review': "Terrific. This professor and course will open you up to a previously-unfamiliar set of peace-related topics, as well as some creative perspectives on a few more familiar topics. Classes are discussion based. They are initially driven by readings that you are supposed to have done ahead of time, but you can just briefly skim them and get the basic idea so that you can contribute to lecture. \n\r\nThis is a P/F class, and your grade is basically just based on completion of a 6-ish page paper at the end about whatever topic you're interested in. \n\r\nIf you never want to attend, you don't have to, and the professor will not mind (and often won't even notice); he will give you a Passing grade regardless. If you want to attend, you will benefit from the interesting discussions and viewpoints that you (guaranteed) have not gotten (and never again will) in any other class at UMD.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': "Professor McCarthy is my favorite teacher of all time. He is the sweetest man ever. He is just so nice and it is incredibly easy to do well in this honors seminar. He is just a nice man in general and I loved having discussion in this class, even if I disagreed with some of the views presented. I mean you have to be a complete fool not to get an A. He makes the class so easy. I fell asleep during some of the videos because he uses vids from the 70s and 80s but it was really awesome. And...the books you use for the course are all compiled writings edited by him. Go figure. I didn't read after the first class and I got an A+. He asks everyone to pick a passage and describe how you felt about it. I would pick something simple before class started because he usually takes a few minutes to get going. Easy A. Take it. It is a 3 credit class that will boost your GPA and you will gain a friend in Professor McCarthy. The last class is the best by far. I love this class and the professor who taught it. Do yourself a favor and take this honors seminar. He is the best.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-04-16T05:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': "Professor McCarthy is truly one of a kind and this class is an amazing experience. He will make you think in ways you have never thought before. Workload is fairly light and grading doesn't seem to be too bad. I am expecting to get an A, but if I don't I will have no regrets about taking this class over one that would have been an easy A. If you have the opportunity, sign up to take a class with Professor McCarthy as he is a part of a dying breed of professors. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-12T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': "Professor McCarthy is a great teacher. A lot of classes at college teach you facts that may or may not apply to your life/future. This class is all about application and practicality. You will want to go out and make the world a better place every time after class. There is no one more qualified to teach peace than professor McCarthy. He teaches by example and that is very important. After going through his class, you will be forced to reconsider some stuff that you never thought fully about before. Extremely interesting and endlessly fascinating. The class environment is so relaxing that I find myself looking forward to the 3-hour class every week. \n\r\nA note about the final exam. It's not difficult. At all. Simply mark down quotes that students read aloud during class. Spend an hour memorizing them. You're golden for the final. \n\r\nIf you have the opportunity to take this class, then you are extremely lucky. If you get into the class, consider it an honor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T14:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': "I always tell my friends that this class is like a mini-therapy session.\r\nI admit, there are times when I have fallen asleep in his class. But it's only when he dims down the lights and pops in a video for a good hour or so.\r\nOtherwise though, he really is a one of a kind professor. I've never had a professor like him. He's like that grandpa I wish I had. We have one exam, a paper, and a weekly journal. The weekly journal is a pain if you procrastinate--so don't! I'm super proud of the paper he's inspired me to write in this class.\r\nI haven't taken the exam yet, but I have no idea how to study for it. I have a bad feeling about it though.\n\r\nHe's made me think harder on a lot of issues, and the weekly readings are actually very interesting!\n\r\nI'm also a Vegetarian because of this class now, believe it or not. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-01T01:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': "I agree with all the other reviews about the fact that Professor McCarthy is an outstanding individual. He is a great man, but I was not wholly convinced of his teaching. I found him, at times, to be unrealistically liberal (which I am amazed to say seeing as I would describe myself as very liberal) and although he says he welcomes opposing opinions I would certainly not have wanted to present one. Overall it is a good class and the workload is very manageable. My only complaint is that I don't believe the final was very very. It's a 20 question exam which asks you to match quotations with their authors. These can be drawn from any of the readings throughout the semester and unless you start writing them down from the very first lecture it almost impossible to study for. More importantly, though, matching quotations doesn't have much to do with any of the knowledge I gained in the class. That being said, I scored low enough on this pointless final to get an unwarranted B in the class. Even so, I would recommend this class with the disclaimer that it will definitely challenge your views.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-05-11T19:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR359B', 'review': "I took McCarthy last semester and I agree with every single comment above. He is probably the most influential professor I've ever met. This guy has met so many famous and important people that its amazing that he purposely chooses not to be some kind of politician. He is an incredible advocate for peace and is morally opposed tests quizzes or any kind of academic assesment. The class can get kind of boring because he is old and his speech has slowed some but he is at least worth listening to. I personally don't agree with his way of thinking but I don't think anyone should be robbed of the opportunity to listen to him. Great class! Great Professor!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-27T10:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': 'You owe it to yourself to take this class. McCarthy is an incredibly idealistic individual who will challenge your worldview and inspire you to be a better person. He will probably be the most caring and understanding teacher you ever have. The workload is not something to be concerned about: weekly short readings and journal entry plus a 1200 word essay on virtually anything you please. As a stalwart opponent of what he dubs "fear-based learning," McCarthy doesn\'t even believe in judging students\' participation in class. Take this class, and take it seriously. If everybody in the world did, we would all be so much happier.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-10T03:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': "The most influential class and teacher I have ever had. Colman becomes the old wise man down the road that all the kids sit down and talk with. He presents convincing arguments on non-violence. The guy is amazing: he has never drank or smoked, eats vegan, rides a bike everywhere, and runs marathons. He is around 85 years old. I will miss Colman more than anyone. Take this seminar and be prepared for an experience. Also its easy A's, Colman hates grading and feels everyone should get an A if they try.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-07T14:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR359B', 'review': "This class is excellent. The professor is an awesome older guy who has seen a lot and is a wealth of information. The course opens your eyes to a lot of things and challenges your beliefs and standpoints on a lot of issues by showing you a new side of the argument. The only written assignment is a final paper basically on any topic you want to write about as long as it somehow relates to the class. Besides this, he only asks you to read some essays for the next class. Also, if you really want to take this class and can't get into it for some reason, go to the class and talk to Mr. McCarthy, he won't turn you down and will try to accomodate you as best as possible. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 's', 'created': '2009-01-21T11:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR359B', 'review': 'Absolutely phenomenal. Professor McCarthy is a fascinating individual with an incredible wealth of knowledge of events and people. This was a highly enriching class, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone. He never takes life too seriously, and you get a great sense of community within the classroom. His approach to peace and conflict resolution really separates it from the negative stereotype of peace-loving hippie counterculture. Take this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-04T00:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Colman McCarthy', 'course': 'HONR228T', 'review': "One of a kind. The class, the professor, the curriculum - a wholly unique experience unlike anything I've ever experienced in school. This is by far the most fulfilling course I've taken to the point that, every thursday after class, i come back to my room and recommend it to everyone I see. It is a true eye-opener that teaches you lessons you would only expect to learn outside the classroom in the real world. McCarthy's got something special - he's a cute old man with a twinkle in his eye, and the class is kind of like hanging out with grandpa for the afternoon. His life experiences and writings are truly amazing and he really makes you think about our role in society and where we place our values. I find myself, after 2.5 hrs of class, never wanting to leave.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-07T03:12:00Z'}], 'name': 'Colman McCarthy', 'slug': 'mccarthy'}, {'courses': ['HISP630', 'HISP680', 'HISP650', 'HISP619M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Constance Ramirez', 'slug': 'ramirez_constance'}, {'courses': ['JOUR354', 'JOUR654'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Corey Kliewer', 'slug': 'kliewer'}, {'courses': ['LING460'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Corey Miller', 'slug': 'miller_corey'}, {'courses': ['AOSC375', 'GEOL375', 'AOSC432'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Corinne Hartin', 'slug': 'hartin'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Corinne Janet', 'slug': 'janet'}, {'courses': ['UMEI004', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI013', 'UMEI006', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI007'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cornell Brellenthin', 'slug': 'brellenthin'}, {'courses': ['CCJS230', 'CCJS360', 'CCJS498L', 'CCJS301', 'CCJS345', 'SOCY227', 'CCJS498B', 'CCJS230', 'CCJS301', 'CCJS360', 'CCJS498R', 'CCJS230', 'CCJS301', 'CCJS345', 'CCJS498L', 'CCJS230', 'CCJS301', 'CCJS345', 'CCJS360', 'CCJS498R', 'CCJS498T', 'CCJS360', 'CCJS345', 'CCJS345', 'CCJS498R', 'CCJS230', 'CCJS301', 'CCJS345', 'CCJS498L', 'CCJS360'], 'average_rating': 3.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': "CCJS360 (Victimology) is one of the best classes I've ever taken at UMD. Cortney is awesome. She knows the topic so well because of her experience working with victims. She gives tons of extra credit opportunities through bonus quiz questions and random days where she'll give extra credit if you attend lecture. The exams are online, which makes life really easy and makes it easy to get an A. I think that this class gives such a fascinating look at how the criminal justice system disservices victims. Take this class -- it's awesome and Cortney is fantastic.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-11-26T20:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': "This class is one of the most interesting classes I've ever taken. The information is depressing yet very important and intriguing, and bringing in guest speakers helps make the content much more relatable. All of the grading was online through ELMS --> 10 quizzes with warning, multiple extra credit opportunities, and online midterm/final. She posted the lectures online and additional readings so it's very hard to get lost. However, I would attend lecture just because sometimes she doesn't post definitions within the powerpoint and you'd miss them otherwise.\n\r\nCortney is a very engaging and interactive teacher - she has a sense of humor and tells it like it is, which makes lecture much more bearable. Having a background in law and experience with this topic gives her much more insight and therefore more knowledge is given to her students.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T13:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "This is one of the most engaging and informative classes I have taken in college. Courtney's lectures are extremely interesting and almost everything you learn you can use in real life (law) and to help you stay out of trouble and know your rights. Her lectures never lasted the full time but there were 10 pop quizes (open note) throughout the semester. The tests are pretty difficult BUT you can do well on them. Most of her questions come from class exercises and her past quizes so as long as you study those you should get an A or B (if you don't you will probably get below a C). This is a great class and you will enjoy it!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-25T18:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS105', 'review': "Cortney is a great professor. She gives engaging lectures in which she presents the information from the book in a simple, comprehensible manner.\n\r\nHowever, her tests can be tricky -- they are multiple choice, but many of the answers are like this: A. [some answer]. B. [another answer]. C. all of the above. D. none of the above. They can get confusing. \n\r\nBut the final recycles questions from the first two exams.\n\r\nDiscussions are good; helpful. The TA reviews before exams and basically tells you the answers.\n\r\nThere are also pop quizzes. These are hard, but most of them are open note. It helps to read the assigned text before class, because these pop quizzes are based off of random facts hidden in the corners of the books. Just be familiar with the material before you go to discussion.\n\r\nThere is also a research paper you must do. It wasn't terrible, just make sure you don't put it off like I did. 10 pages!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-01-26T22:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': 'This class was probably the most interesting class I have ever taken at UMD. I took this class as an Advanced CORE class; it compliments my major (Psychology) very well. I would definitely recommend this class to anyone, especially crim and psych majors.\n\r\nC. Fisher was a good instructor. She has a very sarcastic, yet funny, personality. Her exams were a little tricky, but they weren\'t too bad. She also gives alot of extra credit. All together, you can earn about 80 extra credit points (the class is out of 1000 points). So don\'t complain if you get a B+ and you didn\'t do the extra credit. She gives 10 "pop" quizzes, which are all open note. There\'s the midterm and the final (non-cumulative). There is no textbook, so you must go to class! There are 4 novels you must read, but they are pretty interesting. TAKE THIS CLASS!!! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-27T16:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': "Phew, I LOVED this class! Even though the material was depressing, the class was very interesting. Professor Fisher brings in a lot of guest speakers, one in which is from a book you have to read (A Rip In Heaven). Professor Fisher is a VERY knowledgeable woman. \n\r\nClass was based off of 10 quizzes, a midterm, and a final. The quizzes were open note. Her midterm and final were a bit tricky in the wording so DEFINITELY study! Even though you need to study for the exams, TAKE the class i'm sure you will find it as interesting as I did!\n\r\n(I'll probably even come back next semester just to hear one of the speakers speak again!)\n\r\nEnding note: Professor Fisher does not put up with any kind of disrespect toward her speakers as in (text messaging, using your laptop for things other than notes), she WILL take measures to stop this behavior from happening. So this is just a warning.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-18T05:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS451', 'review': 'I didn\'t think this professor was all that great. When I asked if she knew how to open the powerpoint slides on a Mac she told me it "wasn\'t her problem". She constantly was cutting class short for stupid reasons. She does let you make up the quizzes if you have an excused absence but the TAs I had were not helpful. Not a hard class but she is not a great teacher.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-07-08T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': 'Great professor, kept class interesting and fun, which could have been very hard considering the depressing material. Made all notes accessible to students and was very helpful.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-01-25T13:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': 'Wonderful class. Lectures were very interesting, no outside work, a few readings, but nothing overwhelming. Gives extra credit opportunites that are outside of class and very simple. Highly recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-07T17:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': 'Contrary to older reviews, I believe this class has ramped up in difficulty, particularly on exams. With the midterm and final being worth 30% and 40% of the grade, respectively, the class averages around 70 on each. There is still a 5% extra credit opportunity, but that comes through 3 separate essays. I will give her credit for having extensive knowledge of the course, but the some of the questions on the exam come in the form of "In lecture, we mentioned (small topic that was discussed for 30 seconds)..." and the quiz questions rarely appear on there. If you are taking this class as an elective, I\'d avoid it as there are too many readings to complete and requires a much longer time to study for exams.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-11-27T20:00:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': 'The class itself was interesting as it gave useful information whether you are going to law school or not BUT she was not a great professor. Not only did she make a huge mistake by having students use honorlock for our midterm (despite many students telling her it was causing issues on our laptops), she then proceeded to brush over the exam and “learn for the next time” while giving us bad grades because honorlock would kick us out and/or glitch causing us to lose time. She did however remove honorlock from the final. In continuation, she would always make facial expressions and put you down if she deemed your question being unworthy- this class just wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been. I know she is a good person but maybe 2020 got the best of her.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-17T02:26:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': "I recently had Dr. Fisher for the Fall 2020 semester and her class was extremely interesting. You can clearly tell she is well informed on the subject matter and provides multiple guest speakers throughout the course of the semester. You're allowed to take quizzes twice and she offered 4+ extra credit opportunities that were relatively simple to complete. The midterm and final are worth a lot and are a little challenging due to the wording, but if you attend office hours, complete a majority of the assignments, and study for both exams, you'll be fine. Her class is not as difficult as people make it out to be.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-14T16:46:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': 'I love Dr. Fisher! She’s funny and very intelligent in her field. Lots of extra credit opportunities. You can take quizzes twice which helped a lot. Very straight forward lectures but attendance is mandatory. I would love to have another class with her !', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-09T18:38:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Cortney Fisher', 'course': 'CCJS360', 'review': 'I recommend NOT taking this course in the winter. Her prerecorded lectures can be too long. Also, there are too many readings to squeeze into 2 weeks. From the comments, if you want a fair playing field take this class in the spring.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-18T02:47:00.927432Z'}], 'name': 'Cortney Fisher', 'slug': 'fisher_cortney'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Coty Behanna', 'slug': 'behanna'}, {'courses': ['EDCP315', 'HESI315', 'UNIV100', 'HESI320', 'HESI321', 'EDCP694', 'HESI417', 'HESI318A', 'HESI318E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Courtney Holder', 'slug': 'holder'}, {'courses': ['ENAE692', 'ENAE788W', 'ENAE692'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Craig Carignan', 'slug': 'carignan'}, {'courses': ['HLTH606', 'HLTH130', 'HLTH230', 'HLTH460', 'HLTH460H', 'HLTH609', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'SPHL611', 'SPHL610', 'HLTH240', 'HLTH240H', 'HLTH230', 'HLTH609', 'HLTH460', 'HLTH460H', 'HLTH240', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'HLTH289A', 'HLTH460', 'HLTH460H'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Craig Fryer', 'course': 'HLTH460', 'review': 'Dr. Fryer taught really well (HLTH230) in the pandemic. I liked his style of teaching-- Tuesdays were recorded lectures and Thursdays were synchronous. However, Dr. Fryer gives too many busy assignments. He grades very harshly, he is a nice professor although. He gives video worksheets every single week, discussion board assingment is very lengthy and due on wednesdays and friday is 2 responses to classmate due. exams were too specific and hard. dont take this class ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-23T20:46:02Z'}], 'name': 'Craig Fryer', 'slug': 'fryer'}, {'courses': ['MUSC611', 'MUSC613', 'MUSC612', 'MUSC614', 'MUSC605', 'MUSC811', 'MUSC813', 'MUSC812', 'MUSC814', 'HONR259W', 'MUSC699Z', 'MUSC606', 'MUSC605', 'MUSC611', 'MUSC613', 'MUSC811', 'MUSC813', 'MUSC612', 'MUSC614', 'MUSC699Z', 'MUSC812', 'MUSC814', 'MUSC605', 'MUSC611', 'MUSC613', 'MUSC811', 'MUSC813'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Craig Kier', 'slug': 'kier_craig'}, {'courses': ['MUSC229G', 'MUSC229I', 'MUSC229U', 'MUSC229F', 'MUSC629U', 'MUSC129U', 'MUSC229K', 'MUSC629O', 'MUED499M', 'MUED305', 'MUSC129U', 'MUSC229U', 'MUSC629O', 'MUSC629U', 'MUSC229I', 'MUSC129U', 'MUSC229F', 'MUSC229G', 'MUSC229I', 'MUSC229U', 'MUSC629O', 'MUSC629U', 'MUED305', 'MUSC129U', 'MUSC229I', 'MUSC229P', 'MUSC229U', 'MUSC629O', 'MUSC629U', 'MUSC129U', 'MUSC229F', 'MUSC229G', 'MUSC229I', 'MUSC229U', 'MUSC629O', 'MUSC629U'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Craig Potter', 'course': 'MUSC229F', 'review': 'Dr. Potter is great! Even gave me a chili recipe.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-16T16:47:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Craig Potter', 'course': 'MUSC229U', 'review': 'Really funny and approachable guy! Also a knowledgeable conductor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T19:04:58Z'}], 'name': 'Craig Potter', 'slug': 'potter'}, {'courses': ['EDCP417', 'EDCP694', 'HESI417', 'EDCP789', 'HESI498'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Craig Slack', 'course': None, 'review': 'Craig is a really nice guy with a thorough understanding of leadership concepts. He is accommodating and courteous to all of his students. EDCP217 is an easy class that Craig made enjoyable to attend. Lecture attendance is important because a large portion of the grade is attendance based, but the actual assignments are easy. No tests, just journals/reflections, and a few group presentations. I would highly recommend this class if you are looking for 3 EASY "A" CREDITS', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-09T14:37:00Z'}], 'name': 'Craig Slack', 'slug': 'slack_craig'}, {'courses': ['BUSI683', 'BULM758O', 'BUMO756', 'BMGT878C', 'BUSI681', 'BMGT888P', 'BUSI788Y', 'BUSM604', 'BUSM778Y', 'BUSO778Y', 'EMBA778Y', 'BUSO701', 'BUSI787', 'BUSI798D', 'BUSM788D', 'BUSO788D', 'BUSI683', 'BUSI787', 'BUSO701', 'BUSO701', 'BUSO701'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cristian Dezso', 'course': 'BUSI683', 'review': 'One of the best professors on economics and the global environment. Very intelligent; pushes students to think beyond their comfort zone.\n\r\nHe deserved that Krowe award. Wished he taught more classes', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-08T12:55:00Z'}], 'name': 'Cristian Dezso', 'slug': 'dezso'}, {'courses': ['PSYC332', 'PSYC432', 'FIRE157', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE257', 'PSYC437', 'PSYC489W', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398', 'FIRE398', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398', 'GERM103', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE398', 'FIRE199', 'FIRE199'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Cristina Risco', 'course': 'FIRE298', 'review': 'Very very smart person, wants to see you succeed and genuinely cares about her students. She can talk a lottt but overall a great person and professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-04T18:07:08Z'}], 'name': 'Cristina Risco', 'slug': 'risco'}, {'courses': ['AGNR200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cuiyin Wu', 'slug': 'wu_cuiyin'}, {'courses': ['BMGT370', 'HONR288N', 'BUSI683', 'BMGT888I', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT888W', 'BMGT888Y', 'BMGT828Y', 'BUSI764'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Curtis Grimm', 'course': 'HONR288N', 'review': 'Professor Grimm is great. He is very good at explaining economic concepts to non-Economics majors, and he is extremely laid-back. His class was interesting as it gave you an overview of the global economy via various Harvard Business School case studies that are subsequently discussed in class. \n\r\nGetting an A in the class is not very difficult as long as you do the case write-ups (which are graded basically on making an attempt) and participate in class. The quiz and final exam are not difficult as long as you pay attention in class.\n\r\nOverall, Professor Grimm is a great professor and a kind man.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-21T14:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Curtis Grimm', 'course': 'BMGT370', 'review': 'Professor Grimm is awesome. Very nice guy, very approachable, and VERY knowledgeable. The class was discussion format and you get a grade for participation. \r\nWe had a midterm, a final, and homework assignments, which consisted of a few questions that would be used for discussion. Class is fairly easy. Just show up, participate, do the homework assignments and you should be fine.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-17T16:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Curtis Grimm', 'course': 'BMGT298F', 'review': 'Grimm was a really good professor. He encouraged class participation and also was very approachable and willing to spend outside time and money on the class.\n\r\nGrade consisted of class participation/attendance and 4 two-page case study write ups basically answering 4 questions. Full credit if you did it.\n\r\nHe scheduled class lunches, bringing in potbellys one day and bagels and coffee another. \r\nOverall, a very friendly and nice guy who really wanted his students to succeed. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-11-14T17:15:00Z'}], 'name': 'Curtis Grimm', 'slug': 'grimm_curtis'}, {'courses': ['DANC128', 'TDPS358A', 'DANC148', 'DANC200', 'DANC149'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Curtis Stedge', 'slug': 'stedge'}, {'courses': ['MUSC490', 'MUSC329B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cynthia Bauchspies', 'slug': 'bauchspies'}, {'courses': ['ARCH226', 'ARCH426', 'ARCH635', 'ARCH227', 'ARCH435', 'ARCH225', 'ARCH427', 'ARCH428Z', 'ARCH429', 'ARCH428C', 'ARCH629', 'ARCH628Z', 'ARCH425', 'ARCH628C', 'ARCH428X', 'ARCH628X', 'ARCH428I', 'ARCH428D', 'ARCH628D', 'ARCH428D', 'ARCH628D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cynthia Field', 'slug': 'field_cynthia'}, {'courses': ['RUSS202', 'RUSS101', 'RUSS289I', 'RUSS409J', 'RUSS282', 'RUSS398P', 'RUSS409L', 'RUSS302', 'RUSS382', 'RUSS381', 'HONR279I', 'RUSS102', 'RUSS201', 'RUSS386', 'RUSS398G', 'RUSS409A', 'RUSS401', 'RUSS402', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'RUSS411', 'RUSS405', 'RUSS287', 'RUSS301', 'RUSS287', 'RUSS301', 'RUSS402', 'RUSS405', 'RUSS411', 'RUSS386', 'RUSS398G', 'FREN499E', 'GERM499D', 'PERS498B', 'PORT409D', 'RUSS409D', 'SLLC499D', 'SPAN409D', 'RUSS386', 'RUSS398G', 'RUSS287'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cynthia Martin', 'slug': 'martin_cynthia'}, {'courses': ['MEES698G', 'MEES708F', 'MEES618D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Cynthia Palinkas', 'slug': 'palinkas_cynthia'}, {'courses': ['EDCI432', 'EDCI689', 'EDCI474', 'EDCI637', 'EDCI435', 'EDCI698', 'EDCI488R', 'EDCI634'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daisy Fredricks', 'slug': 'fredricks_daisy'}, {'courses': ['HLTH377', 'HLTH371', 'HLTH371H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daisy Le', 'slug': 'le_daisy'}, {'courses': ['COMM402', 'COMM602', 'COMM435', 'COMM436', 'COMM776', 'COMM605', 'COMM436H', 'COMM399', 'COMM777', 'COMM385', 'COMM701', 'COMM399', 'COMM399'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dale Hample', 'course': 'COMM435', 'review': "He does not teach AT ALL in class and then the exams are impossible and unorganized and really don't make much sense.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-11T17:21:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Dale Hample', 'course': 'COMM436', 'review': "The worst teacher I've ever had - literally does not teach and if you don't read every page of every reading and book and take notes you won't pass exams", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-05-20T02:22:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Dale Hample', 'course': 'COMM435', 'review': 'Classes were not helpful when trying to learn the class material. You have to read the textbook very carefully in order to do well on exams. He also would often make comments that were offensive or made the class uncomfortable. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-07-19T02:33:20Z'}], 'name': 'Dale Hample', 'slug': 'hample'}, {'courses': ['AREC306', 'AREC435', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC306', 'AREC435', 'AREC386', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC306'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dale Johnson', 'course': 'AREC306', 'review': 'Professor Johnson is a good instructor. The class only met once a week, which was tough at times, but he gave breaks in the middle of the lecture.\n\r\nThere are guest speakers, but most of the class consists of his lectures.\n\r\nThe tests can be tough and require a lot of memorization. There is also a group project and pop quizes on most days.\n\r\nThe key to this class is going to his reviews sessions. He is approachable and willing to review exam material before the tests.\n\r\nEven if you are not an AREC major, you will still learn a lot about small businesses in general and also learn a little bit about farming as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T20:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dale Johnson', 'course': 'AREC435', 'review': "This class is fun! It's about the ways to reduce risks and maximize profits in the futures and options market. Once you fathom the principles of those strategies, you can do well. Professor Johnson cares about his students and he is passionate during lectures. He gives handouts that are very helpful for you to learn, but to do well in exams, you may need to memorize some details (like definition) on his handouts.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-18T04:33:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Dale Johnson', 'course': 'AREC306', 'review': "Our readings are wikipedia articles and he spends the whole class telling us about his son's 3d printers or his father or whatever. And then expects us to teach ourselves hard material. Impossible to get ahold of after class or even through email. Worse prof I have ever taken at UMD. BY FAR! I have never reviewed a prof until him so that should tell ya.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-03-10T19:52:25.330739Z'}, {'professor': 'Dale Johnson', 'course': 'AREC306', 'review': 'Prof. Johnson makes this class light and easy going. He has alot of personal experience in the field so theres alot of first hand examples he gives in lectures. Hes a reasonable grader, tests are online, and the material isnt hard to grasp.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-20T21:36:34.009615Z'}], 'name': 'Dale Johnson', 'slug': 'johnson_dale'}, {'courses': ['FMSC381'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Damian Waters', 'slug': 'waters'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dan Winters', 'slug': 'winters_dan'}, {'courses': ['ENEE759O', 'ENEE459E', 'ENEE244', 'CMSC498R', 'ENEE457', 'CMSC858T', 'HACS279', 'HACS289', 'HACS287', 'HACS479', 'CMSC498E', 'ENEE456', 'CMSC456', 'MATH456', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE457', 'CMSC456', 'ENEE456', 'MATH456', 'GEMS297'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dana Dachman-Soled', 'course': 'MATH456', 'review': "Dr. Dana was okay. She explained things well and her office hours were a big help, but her slides weren't all that clear, and her exams were pretty hard.\r\nShe does offer extra credit assignments though, so you can use that to pick up your grade.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-05-16T23:19:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Dachman-Soled', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "She is nice and a clear lecturer. She teaches from slides which generally have everything you need to know and does examples on the projector. The exams weren't trivial but were often similar to examples which were heavily emphasized in class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-06-21T20:26:57Z'}], 'name': 'Dana Dachman-Soled', 'slug': 'dachman-soled'}, {'courses': ['SOCY498E', 'SOCY699B', 'SOCY699J', 'SOCY699Y', 'SOCY202', 'SOCY699I', 'SOCY415', 'SOCY633', 'HONR249D', 'SOCY625', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY699L', 'SOCY215', 'HNUH248V', 'SOCY632', 'HNUH248V', 'SOCY625', 'HNUH248V'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dana Fisher', 'course': 'HONR249D', 'review': 'The course was unnecessarily stressful - not even because of the material, it was just because of the professor. Avoid and take something else. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-24T00:46:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Fisher', 'course': 'HNUH248V', 'review': 'Compared to the other course (248U) you can take for this cluster, this class is a lot more work. Most of your grade comes from two projects that are designed entirely by you and your partner, plus a presentation and paper. Dr. Fisher is great at office hours and I really like her as a person, but she grades harshly as she seems to grade based off of her own writing style. Make sure to go to office hours if you take this class!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-06T17:48:38.636471Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Fisher', 'course': 'HNUH248V', 'review': "In the classroom setting, Prof. Fisher is a great instructor that engages her students and connects new content to concepts that we've previously discussed. However, the assignments are very unrealistic for the degree of which this course is taken for. Students on average are asked to complete up to 6 hours of course work per week and the assignments are graded harshly. Pop quizzes are distributed frequently and entered into the grade book when the majority of the class fails. Her office hours are helpful, but from my experience, what she instructs in office hours and agrees upon being acceptable for the assignments, is not the same outcome you receive when the assignment is graded. Rubrics are unclear at times and material presented in class is not posted in canvas for the student to review. Additionally, the required course materials are her published work. Most websites sell her textbooks at an overpriced rate and are not easy to acquire from the UMD bookstore. Certain things made Prof. Fisher's class enjoyable, but overall I would not recommend this course as the workload is not ideal for the two credit course.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-12T21:49:38.304017Z'}], 'name': 'Dana Fisher', 'slug': 'fisher_dana'}, {'courses': ['CMSC722', 'CMSC421', 'CMSC474', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC474', 'CMSC722'], 'average_rating': 2.2727, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC722', 'review': 'As CamelCase says, his teaching style is to read over his lecture slides (which, granted, are packed with information) pretty much word for word. I found in-class lectures pretty pointless unless you managed to immediately digest and comprehend information at the (pretty quick) rate at which he presents it, and ask tons of questions. You’d be better off pulling up the lecture slides on your own and working through the examples during class time. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-23T13:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC722', 'review': 'WARNING: Please avoid taking this course unless you are a RA for Prof. Dana Nau. There are so many great classes in UMD CS but this one is the worst even though Prof. Dana Nau is an AAAI fellow, outstanding researcher in this field, but it does not indicate that he is a great teacher. The reasons are as follows:\n\r\n1. You can HARDLY learn anything new if you have taken an undergraduate level AI course except for fancy words that defines fancy planning and acting engines & models. You will NOT learn optimization techniques for AI planning but some bad framework that you will NEVER use. \r\n2. Unfortunately, Prof. Nau and the TA Dr. Vikas Shivashankar READ slides all the time. \r\n3. The book draft is not consistent from section to section and full of flaws.\r\n4. The grading is a SUBJECTIVE procedure with no room for rebuttal. Worse still, the TA has the power to grade the exams as he wishes.\r\n5. The professor simply IGNORES the students’ questions on Piazza nor email and seldom response in time.\r\n6. The professor once was LATE for over 10 minutes for one Ph.D. student’s preliminary oral exam and everyone waited him.\r\n7. The professor and the TA are MEAN to students and don’t recognize your previous efforts except for the raw subjective score, which is reasonable for undergraduate level class but definitely not for graduate level class. And this class limits A to a score of 93. \r\n8. The professor’s lecture often EXCEED the time by 15 minutes or less than. \r\n9. The professor never grades your homework nor explain homework very well.\r\n10. The syllabus and the actual schedule are NOT consistent. \n\r\nHowever, every coin has two sides:\n\r\n1. Prof. Nau is a famous professor in this field. Taking his class and getting an A will make your resume more remarkable to AI people.\r\n2. You can learn how to formulate things and make ordinary programming style extraordinary using what is learnt in class, which most papers do. \r\n3. Prof. Nau gives us a good example of teaching lessons.\r\n4. Though you cannot get a much higher score from your projects, don’t worry because it does not hurt your final score.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-22T11:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC474', 'review': "Nice enough person, but a poor instructor.\n\r\nHis teaching style is to read over his lecture slides (which, granted, are packed with information) pretty much word for word. I found in-class lectures pretty pointless unless you managed to immediately digest and comprehend information at the (pretty quick) rate at which he presents it, and ask tons of questions. You'd be better off pulling up the lecture slides on your own and working through the examples during class time. \n\r\nHomework sets took a bit of time to do, since there was a fair amount of having to review the slides repeatedly and first trying to understand the examples and reverse engineer them. Practice Midterm and Final Exams were given, but were much easier than the actual ones. Nau's justification was that they were all of 'easy' difficulty for him, so he didn't realize ours was harder.\n\r\nFinal grades in this class were curved, in my opinion heavily (~8-10%). The projects are not of complex difficulty and ended up bringing up most people's grades in this class, at least a little bit.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-20T18:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "I think Professor Nau is a nice person, but not the most effective/organized teacher. I took the class because I thought AI sounded cool, and it is but I don't think I was ready to put as much effort as I would have needed to get an A.\n\r\nBottom Line: He's not bad, but don't take this class if you're just looking for an easy A. Be prepared to put in a decent amount of work.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-24T09:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': 'Do not take a class with this professor. His class was very unorganised/unstructured. For the first project he had put it on the forum for about 2 weeks before even making any mention of it. He gave us about 1 month for that project, which was a simple "get familiar with the language" sort of a project and for the other 2, which were significantly harder he gave 2 weeks.\r\nHis lectures were pretty boring, and he took forever to give back the homeworks.\r\nHe tried to be helpful, but his teaching style/class structure just works against him.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-13T15:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': 'Pros:\r\n-Interesting and Challenging material\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n-Professor makes mistakes during in class derivations, at one point becoming so flustered he ended class early. \r\n-Just reads from slides during lecture, students can do this just as easily on their own time and skip class\r\n-Grading was not prompt at all, project 2 of 3 was finally graded just a few days before final\r\n-Homework solutions are not posted, and homework is only returned if you go to TA office hours\r\n-Project 3 was based on TensorFlow, which the professor admitted "I don\'t know anything about and won\'t be able to help you. Just read and work through the tutorials"\r\n\r\nSummary:\r\n-Not easy, you\'ll have to study a lot, but the material is pretty interesting\r\n-Going to lectures isn\'t a good use of time\r\n-Projects are all group based and project 3 was absurdly difficult with no guidance', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-12-19T22:04:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "I was really concerned with this class reading the previous reviews. He's actually a pretty decent professor if you listen to him. I really kind of wish that they didn't go over as much First Order Logic in the course but other than that he really paid attention to student concerns, was lenient with deadlines and frequently added extensions. If you had a question in class he would stop everything and made sure you understood the material and would readily go over anything anyone asked to.\r\n\r\nThe project was pretty fun actually and I've heard a few people talk about how it was nice to have a project that actually demonstrated AI and was something they could show to their non-CS friends.\r\n\r\nI would recommend taking this class with Dr. Nau!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-11T17:03:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "One of the nicest professors I've ever taken. Taught the material clearly and commonly gives extensions on assignments if enough students ask for it. Reads from slides with heavy information, but goes back through them and students are visibly confused or ask questions.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-11T23:23:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': 'This class was terrible. Very unorganized, waited forever for grades and overall sad. I already took 422 and this class was more dry and uninteresting. Thought it would be cool since ya know, AI but it was very difficult to bring myself to class and care about doing the world. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-05T19:35:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': 'Uninteresting and poorly communicated projects. Lecture covers the material well but is uninteresting. Exams are very easy and it is not hard to get a good grade in the course. Homeworks are easy as well.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-12T02:08:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Dana Nau', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "Nice person, not so great class. This has been the most frustrating class I have taken in my undergrad here. The projects were poorly implemented and communicated, and the TA's did not really help much. It would often be the case that there would be dozens of piazza questions left unanswered on the day before an exam or a project. In addition, expectations on projects and how they would be graded was not communicated well at all. With no semblance of tests to evaluate your performance, you just had to write something and hope whatever arbitrary grading scheme worked in your favor, if not then oh well. For this reason many people ended up with very low scores in the class, despite putting in a lot of effort. \r\nI would be very careful in taking this class. If you are expecting a class with clear expectations on projects and transparency with grading, this is not it. Instead you will feel a lot of stress over unclear grading, lack of communication and poorly defined student expectations. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-17T09:21:19Z'}], 'name': 'Dana Nau', 'slug': 'nau_dana'}, {'courses': ['JOUR328N', 'JOUR328F', 'JOUR459P', 'JOUR628N', 'JOUR459T', 'JOUR328Y', 'JOUR628Y', 'JOUR479F', 'JOUR328W', 'JOUR328Y', 'JOUR459P', 'JOUR628W', 'JOUR628Y', 'JOUR328F', 'JOUR328U', 'JOUR459P', 'JOUR628N', 'JOUR628U', 'JOUR328F', 'JOUR479Y', 'JOUR628N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dana Priest', 'slug': 'priest'}, {'courses': ['ARTT200', 'ARTT331', 'ARTT438C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dane Winkler', 'slug': 'winkler_dane'}, {'courses': ['MUSC648'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Boomhower', 'slug': 'boomhower'}, {'courses': ['FREN204'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Bowman', 'slug': 'bowman_daniel'}, {'courses': ['NACS643', 'BSCI453', 'BSCI339F', 'BIOL744', 'NACS640', 'BSCI279Q', 'BSCI353', 'NACS898', 'BIOL608W', 'NACS728Y', 'NEUR306', 'BSCI238F', 'NEUR479', 'BSCI279Q', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI238F', 'BSCI279Q', 'NACS643', 'BSCI279Q', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI353', 'NEUR306', 'NACS898', 'BSCI279Q'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniel Butts', 'course': None, 'review': "I actually enjoyed neurophys with Dr. Butts. He is clearly very passionate and extremely knowledgable about the subject. He's also super nice! \n\r\nI can see how this class may be challenging though. The lectures are delivered like scientific talks (a lot of figures and little words) so you must understand and not just memorize everything. So I thought the book was necessary to clarify things when going over the material again. If you understand everything on his slides, then the exam should be very fair. \n\r\nThe material is difficult but fascinating. Fun class! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-21T23:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Butts', 'course': None, 'review': "While I can agree with some parts of the review below that Dr. Butts can be a bit confusing, he is really one of the nicest and most caring professors I've encountered at UMD. Although his explanations were sometimes confusing and the textbook was usually needed for extra explanations when studying, Dr. Butts was overly willing to meet with students whenever and answered questions via email quickly and with very thorough responses. He truly wants every student to do well and his tests are very fair based on what he emphasizes in class. As long as you go to class and show him that you actually care, you'll be totally fine in one of his classes. Study the main concepts and if you remember what he emphasizes in class, then you can pretty much predict what the big questions on his tests will be. After this semester, I would definitely take another class with Dr. Butts. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-19T01:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Butts', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Butts will be teaching another intro to neuroscience class after this semester, since 453 won't exist anymore, but i highly do not recommend any class with him. unfortunately, he is a horrible lecturer but a very nice man. i don't know how lenient he is going to be when assigning grades, but i should have taken 353 which is supposed to be easier anyway, or taken the 8AM 446. it's super hard to follow his lectures. i end up teaching myself from the textbook but going to class anyway to keep up appearances, maybe he will factor this into the grade somehow since most people don't bother showing up just to nap for 75 minutes. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-30T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Butts', 'course': 'BSCI353', 'review': 'Glad I took Bsci353 with Dr. Butts! In order to do well in his class you really need to understand the lecture concepts, instead of memorization like some other biology classes. Understand what the graphs and diagrams in the lecture slides and that will help you immensely with his exams. Gave a mini exam worth only 5% before the first big midterm which was useful to understand how he will write exams. He was always nice and responsive to questions. Would take the class with him again!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-22T23:24:12Z'}], 'name': 'Daniel Butts', 'slug': 'butts'}, {'courses': ['EDCI758', 'EDCI788C', 'EDCI753', 'EDCI788Y', 'EDCI858', 'MATH274', 'TLPL488Y', 'TLPL712', 'TLPL728', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL728', 'TLPL788Y', 'TLPL728', 'TLPL712', 'TLPL728', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL413'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Chazan', 'slug': 'chazan'}, {'courses': ['THET678', 'THET672', 'THET639', 'THET669P', 'THET499', 'THET471', 'THET286', 'DANC789', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'THET428R', 'THET639R', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET491', 'THET639A', 'THET639D', 'THET669', 'THET475', 'THET670', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET475', 'THET639', 'THET670', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET639', 'THET471', 'THET669P', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET639', 'THET788'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Conway', 'slug': 'conway'}, {'courses': ['THET285'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Dilliplane', 'slug': 'dilliplane'}, {'courses': ['CHEM241', 'CHEM441', 'CHEM640', 'CHEM650', 'CHEM460', 'CHEM889D', 'CHEM641', 'CHEM889C', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM237', 'CHEM460', 'CHEM237', 'CHEM460'], 'average_rating': 4.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'definitely take orgo II with falvey. he gives you practice problems before the exam that are exactly on the exam. you need to go to class for extra credit clickers which can boost you from say a b to a b+ if you get enough points. he even curves the clickers! he also discusses some real life problems in class and 1 usually shows up on each exam. if you just memorize the practice problems he gives you before the exam you are good to go', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-06-08T01:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Dan Falvey is a legend. If you have the opportunity to take him, TAKE HIM. The guy is amazing for orgo II.\n\r\nExam Format: \r\n-Two pages of straight-up reactions. One is usually not straightforward, the rest are easy.\r\n-Two mechanisms, pulled directly from the practice problems, or very similar to the practice problems. One is usually a simple one that he\'s shown in class, and the other is usually a complicated one from his practice problems.\r\n-Two syntheses. Pulled straight from the notes or the practice problems. Instead of copying exactly what he gave you in the practice test, he might just include the "tricks" in the problem but not the exact same molecule or something.\r\n-A short answer. This is what separates the men from the boys. Half the time, you have no idea what he\'s going to ask. Look at old tests. He loves asking questions about acidity, and for the second test its almost always about Oxygen18 labeling\n\r\nThe tricks to get an A:\r\n1 Know absolutely EVERYTHING on his practice test he puts online. Seriously, look at other reviews, what they\'re saying is true. He pulls so much from the practice test, and the rest is variations of the stuff he has on there. There is maybe one question that won\'t be on his practice tests that are pulled from the book, but if you understand the concepts behind what you\'re being tested on, you\'ll be fine and you really don\'t need to do the book problems unless you want more practice\r\n2 Keep a few separate pieces of paper at the end of your notes dedicated to copying down the synthesis problems he shows you in class. Almost always, at least one will appear on the test (he usually shows about 4 or 5 per exam). \r\n3 Keep another couple pieces of paper for the mechanisms he shows you in class. He\'ll probably ask about an easy one that he showed you in class.\r\n4 Make sure you look over the emails he sends out. They\'re really annoying, but I know in previous years he\'s pulled short answer problems from the stuff he sent out. This year, he didn\'t really pull anything from his emails for the tests, but they did make the stuff we were learning seem less dull.\n\r\nIn class, he goes over a LOT of theory that\'s pretty much unnecessary to do well in the course. Just copy down the syntheses and know the mechanisms of the reactions he goes over. Mainly focus as much as you can on the practice tests, and start reviewing for the tests a week in advance. He usually hosts a review session the Friday or Thursday before his exam, make sure you\'ve attempted all his practice problems before then, so that you can get the answers for the ones you don\'t know at that time.\n\r\n^^ Do that stuff, which seems like a lot written out but isn\'t all that much to do well in an Orgo course, and you\'ll get an A guaranteed. Clicker questions aren\'t worth studying for in my opinion, when you can just do the four things listed and get a easy grade. To do well on clickers would require a lot of studying before class and constant review and doing the book problems and staying up to speed in the book with respect to lecture, and its just not worth it. I didn\'t do any book problems the entire semester. I only used my book to go over mechanisms that he drew kind of confusing in class. I don\'t recommend studying from the book, you\'ll go over a lot of material you don\'t need to know.\n\r\nSo, the man basically gives you everything you need to do well on a silver platter. All you need to do is review the practice sheet about eight times and understand everything on it and you already are guaranteed a high C without the curve. Do everything else and you have an A.\n\r\nDan Falvey is the man. He\'s always joking in class and points people out by name. He teases everyone and makes fun of himself, and is a downright genius when it comes to Orgo. He eats paper and makes sure no one feels stupid. Great teacher, great guy. Take him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-31T03:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Dr. Falvey is an energetic and knowledgeable teacher. I highly recommend taking Organic Chemistry II with him. He sure makes the topic interesting! Tests consisted of matching structures with names for interesting compounds, identifying reagents/reactants/products, mechanism problems, synthesis, and qualitative problems. To get an A in his class, you have to go to lecture, take good notes, read ahead, and demolish those clicker quizzes. He has a straightforward grading policy and he grades the exams VERY quickly. Dr. Falvey is certainly a good teacher to take if you have Organic Anxiety and need someone who can make this otherwise tasteless subject somewhat palatable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-05-28T11:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Falvey is definitely the man to take for Organic II. He is relatively easier than MS, who has NMR on every exam. Falvey teaches you interesting drug molecules, and such. His tests are almost identical to his practice exams. \n\r\nHis averages for three exams were 70, 70, and 63. These are extremely high for Organic class. He also gives extra credit for doing well on clicker questions. \n\r\nThe first top five grades are the basis for grade distributions. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-20T23:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "He is Great. If you ever see him as an option to take for organic chemistry, DO IT. His exams were fair and decent grade doesn't even require reading the textbook. Just pay attention in class, and other online resources can really help. He has plenty or resources available and there is no shortage of review material posted.\r\nDon't think he's going to let you BS the class though, any organic chemistry class requires effort, with Prof. Falvey you just don't feel cheated after every exam. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-20T12:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. Falvey is one of the best professors I have been taught by at UMD. He really cares about his students and he does whatever it takes to pass this course(or ace it, depending on your goals). He posts plenty of practice problems on ELMS which frequently show up on midterms and final exams. Falvey takes the time to learn a lot of people's names and will call on you in class. He is very funny and entertaining. Very knowledgeable which explains why he will go off on tangents from time to time because he is so passionate about organic chemistry.\n\r\nYou must work hard in this class though. Organic II is not meant to be easy but it is certainly doable. There are 3 midterms (150 pts each), 1 final (300 pts), 1 diagnostic exam (assesses orgo 1 background), and clickers (extra credit). \n\r\nOverall, very enthusiastic and caring professor who will do whatever it takes to get you an A or B.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T16:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Awesome! He is definitely the guy to take Orgo II with. Great lecturer, really funny and entertaining, and the lectures seem to move a lot faster than with other chem professors'. \r\nHe really cares about his students. There is both an upside and downside to this. Be prepared for class, because by that, I mean he goes through the roster on the first day, tries to get to know everyone's name, and in class, he WILL call on you at least once. It doesn't matter that there are 200 other people in the class. You will be called on. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-08T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Prof. Falvey is a great professor. He is funny, cares about his students, and extremely knowledgeable. Exams are fair and looking over previous exams really helps. \n\r\nThe only thing that didnt work for me is the curving system. 10% below the 5th highest score will earn you an A. Unfortunately, the 5th highest score was somewhere around a 94% this semester. That means messing up on one exam will cost you. So Falvey's averages tend to be higher than other classes, but his curve is almost always lower.\n\r\nVery easy to get a B, the A cutoff will depend on that 5th score...", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-11T01:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. Falvey is a great professor! He is funny, straight forward and teaches pretty clearly. The only thing is that his hand writing was not too good for me though.\n\r\nI recommend to read before going to lecture (even though I never did). Since there is not much time, not everything is covered clearly. The book is kinda helpful in explaining stuff that I didn't get in class. The books problems don't really help in my opinion but more practice is better. \n\r\nHis exams were ok if you study. He gives out practice exams before each exam and about ~50~60% is from the practice exam! And sometimes he gets a bit lazy and steals the problems that our TA Derek(One of the best TAs ever!) made up and gave us for practice. \n\r\nFor practice exams, I remember he gives them out 2 weeks before the exam and gives out hints via email. He gives out the answers 2 days or so before the exam. I recommend start doing the practice exams right after and make sure you understand each question instead of looking at the answers the night before. I think it's important to understand and know how to draw the mechanism for every reaction instead of memorizing them. \n\r\nI don't really remember the averages but I think they where around 65~70%. For me I got high Bs in all of them, got a A on the final and had a A without the curve. \n\r\nFor the final, redo all his exams, practice exams, practice sheets that the TA gave. Go over notes and clicker quiz questions. It's a lot of work but as long as you understand all those. You will do fine. \n\r\nDr. Falvey is a really nice professor, although I never went to his office hours (he calls on ppl in class if he remembers you from his office hours so be careful!) The shocking thing about him was once when we were talking about cellulose, he ripped a piece of paper and started chewing O___O", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-08T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Coming from someone who is awful at organic, he's a very good professor. He is very nice and extremely enthusiastic He likes to go off tangents, but they normally relate to the topic. His exams are things we've seen before. Half the answers are already in the notes he gave in class. As long as you understand the topic and don't just try to memorize things you should do well. However, I hated his grading system. Top 5 grades gets an A+, next 10% gets an A and so on. Oh yeah, he has clicker questions that are considered extra credit at the end of the semester", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-06-14T20:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Good professor. Very nice, tends to ramble from time to time but gets the message across. Go to office hours, he's very helpful and he puts up old tests to study from. No matter who you take orgo with it's gonna be hard so study for it every day, no joke. Tests are fair.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2011-05-22T01:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "FANTASTIC lecturer. He is Santa Claus. (you'll get this on the first day if you take him). \n\r\nHe's genuinely a nice person and teaches very well. There's definitely a reason why there was a 40 pt discrepancy in averages between Falvey and Issacs during this semester. Falvey does NOT throw in any low blows on his exam - he tests you on what he teaches and what he asks you to practice.\n\r\nI highly recommend him for Orgo II!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T13:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I did not do so well in his class because I completely panicked on the final exam like a punk. Too bad the final exam was everything we had already been tested on. Go to every lecture, every discussion, and study the practice exam problems, synthesis, and mechanisms. He doesn't surprise you on exams, which is great. I would have gotten a B had I been a better student. Overall, he is a great professor!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-05-19T01:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Best orgo professor out there, really just makes the material easy to learn. Exams are variations of the practice exams, with a few curve balls here and there, but if you follow the logic of the practice problems, and understand them, you'll be fine. Similar to Dixon in that he really enjoys the material and enjoys teaching, unlike some of the other orgo professors here.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-17T14:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Phenomenal professor. He's clear, succinct, and extremely engaging. He emphasizes the WHY and the HOW of organic chemistry and less of the WHAT. Memorization in his class only takes you so far. Overall, I can't even count the times I completely lost track of time when listening to him. \n\r\nComing out of the class I REALLY felt I knew organic chemistry. Let's put it this way: by popular standards Dixon is supposed to be a great teacher. She really isn't worth the chalk he writes with. \n\r\nHis exams are not easy, as shown by the relatively low averages. However, they're very fair and will reward those who study for them. He likes to send out lots of practice problems. They're really not a waste of time, considering he pulls about 60% of the exam material directly from them. \n\r\nI really agree with the below review - Falvey actually tests you on what you learn in class. There are no surprises going into the exam. \n\r\nI did have one small issue with him - his curving system is really wacky. Basically, 10% below the 5th highest score in the class in an A. You can imagine just how problematic it can get when the 5th highest score is over 90%. \n\r\nOverall: I will take any possible class he'll teach in the future. \n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-15T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Falvey is a great professor! At times, the work does seem overwhelming, but he explains everything very well. \n\r\nAs long as you do all the homework and practice problems, you should be fine. About 60% of the exam questions come directly from the practice problems, and the others are slight variations. Unlike other professors, he actually tests you on what you learn in class, and does not try to trick you. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-10-05T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Very enthusiastic BUT he can be TOO much sometimes and unorganized.\n\r\nTests are okay. \r\nMake sure you study for them.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-18T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Great professor for Orgo 1. Exams were fair and exactly what you would expect. He made a hard class enjoyable :). Highly recommend! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-23T23:28:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Seems like he must have been great for orgo 2, actually the worst for orgo 1. He skipped quickly over brand new and difficult topics, but went into extreme detail explaining things we've been taught since 8th grade. Falvey flat out refused to record zoom lectures or slow down when people asked, and his notes are usually posted late and full of mistakes. He always acted annoyed anytime someone asked a question, and called on any people who have their cameras on on zoom randomly. Exams weren't too bad (mostly bc they were open note) but I wouldn't have come close to passing this class without the TA. Diandra was my saving grace - go to her office hours and GSS if you want any hope of understanding half the crap falvey spouts in class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-10T03:28:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM237', 'review': 'Loved falvey, he’s funny in lecture and is easy to understand. Only downside is he doesnt record lectures (but still posts lecture PowerPoints so i guess it’s manageable). Class is mandatory cause he has clicker questions every lecture, but it’s an easy grade booster so def go to class. Exams are also very fair with extra credit opportunities for all them including finals. Extra credit is usually freebies as long as you pay attention in class. Overall I had a great time in his class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-14T02:22:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Falvey', 'course': 'CHEM237', 'review': "By far my favorite professor I've had at UMD. Lectures are straightforward and interesting, lots of bonus points on every exam on concepts that were gone over in practice packets, and genuinely wants to help you learn. Exams are predictable and comparably very easy. Does do collaborative quizzes every class, but they're open note and you can work together. I had Robert as my TA, and he was also easily my best TA, he could probably have taught the class better than Falvey did even if it would have been much harder- the man loves orgo. His packets and quizzes were designed in a way that challenged the way you thought about orgo, and there was infinite practice opportunity for those who wanted it. Extra credit was also available in discussions, and he included fun facts and recommended songs on each weekly packet. The combination of Robert and Falvey was the best class I have ever had.\r\n\r\nHis lectures are very easy to follow along and take notes to- he does them Khan Academy style, drawing as he speaks on a tablet that he projects. I highly highly reccommend taking notes during lecture to help you see where your understanding fails and help you ask questions. He and Robert are both very open to answering any question, no matter how stupid you may think it is.\r\n\r\nTL;DR: Made a class known to be hard very easy, grades fairly (almost inflates tbh), pray you get Robert as a TA for he is a god amongst men", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-10T22:24:30Z'}], 'name': 'Daniel Falvey', 'slug': 'falvey'}, {'courses': ['ENST334', 'ENST333', 'ENST445', 'ENST472'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Fisher', 'slug': 'fisher_daniel'}, {'courses': ['BUMO732', 'BUMO752', 'BUMO758T', 'ENES664', 'ENES664', 'ENES664', 'ENES664', 'ENES664'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Gordon', 'slug': 'gordon_daniel'}, {'courses': ['CHEM271'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Gowetski', 'slug': 'gowetski'}, {'courses': ['ENTM798E', 'BSCI361', 'ENTM798V', 'ENTM612', 'ENTM788C', 'ENTM798Y', 'BISI898', 'BISI899', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI361', 'ENTM612', 'BISI899', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniel Gruner', 'course': 'BSCI361', 'review': "This class is not too difficult. A lot of the material is a review from BSCI106, but the material is very interesting. The course consists of two midterms and one final, which is not cumulative. There is also a term paper, which is graded leniently, and weekly online assignments for discussion. You must attend discussion because attendence is part of your grade. It is also important to attend lecture because there are usually clicker questions, which you get credit for answering (right or wrong). However, Gruner's exams were frustrating. He said that in previous years he gave out too many A's in the course, so perhaps he wanted to make it more challening. I did not think that this was very fair. I did well on the exams, but it seemed impossible to get an A on them. The average for my class on exams was a low B. I maintained an A in the course the entire semester, but dropped to a B+ after the final because I only received a low B on it. It was very annoying to do well in a course but then lose out because of the final. Gruner needs to reconsider his letter grading. Other than that, he is a very nice professor and very approachable. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-26T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Gruner', 'course': 'BSCI361', 'review': 'Excellent course on ecology. Good basis for if you\'re looking to do something worthwhile with your life and following your passion versus what your parents told you to do. His exams were fair, and we actually did better on them than he expected (go us!). Material was straightforward and from the book, nothing too tricky. I participated because I found the subject interesting, and really wouldn\'t have cared what grade I got because I left this class feeling like I learned some very valuable information. That\'s the point of education, no? I also realize there\'s no such thing as "too nice" but if dr. gruner could have that title, he would. Great guy. My only complaint was that it was sort of annoying having premed students asking about grades and curves all the time..', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-09-02T23:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Gruner', 'course': 'BSCI361', 'review': 'AVOID THIS CLASS/AVOID DR. GRUNER. Okay, so granted Dr. Gruner may be a really nice young man, but he just can\'t teach, he can\'t write exams, and the class is a mess. I am a GENB major (pre-med) but unlikely all of my other Bio classes, this one is so heavily filled with weird Ecology/Evolution majors aka tree-huggers. They all know how these Ecology classes work so they did very well on the exams (averages were alwasy 82%+). Hence, there was no curve. Until at the end of the semester when he promised a 4-8% curve. But, he UNDERestimated how the class would do on the final (everyone did so well, not surprising) and so he "lied," he upset many students, ruined people\'s grades, and ended up curving a mere 1%, hence why I have a B+. I put a TON of effort into the discussion, you have to read dense/pointless articles, write summaries, and do a term paper. Dr. Judy Che led the discussion and she is so great/energetic, too bad she couldn\'t teach the course itself. Dr. Gruner put people to sleep, about 15 people showed up to every class sadly. And going to class doesn\'t help since he is TOO nice, and only puts things on the exam that is IN THE BOOK. I repeat, READ THE BOOK. He\'s not a good Bio professor, like Dr. Ades (and other seasoned faculty) who test on material mentioned, and on material outside of the book. Dr. Gruner is a straight from th ebook guy, but that doesn\'t help since the book is poorly written and there is WAY TOO MUCH material per exam. Overall, over this class and avoid Dr. Gruner. HE is a nice guy, but doesn\'t know the importance of grades for pre-med students. This is completely ridiculous, I got A\'s in classes like BSCI330, BSCI433, BSCI410, and pulled off a B+ in this supposedly joke class. Good luck folks!', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-06-16T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Gruner', 'course': 'BSCI361', 'review': 'I love Dr. Gruner! He is not the most interesting professor all the time, but he is super genuine and really cares about his students success. The class was not too hard and he let us drop up to two of the four exams depending how many projects we did. He is very supportive and has done some really interesting research, and is very passionate about helping students apply the class to real world scenarios. Classes involved readings before coming to lecture and an 8 point quiz, but you can retake the quiz once and everything was open note and open book. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-05T15:23:35Z'}], 'name': 'Daniel Gruner', 'slug': 'gruner'}, {'courses': ['JOUR772', 'JOUR472'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Keating', 'slug': 'keating'}, {'courses': ['PHYS105', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS798D', 'PHYS411', 'PHYS485', 'PHYS685', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS499X', 'PHYS410', 'PHYS499X', 'PHYS275', 'PHYS499X', 'PHYS715'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniel Lathrop', 'course': 'PHYS141', 'review': 'Comical some of the time.\n\r\nTests were fair.\r\nEasy if you took AP physics.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-01T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Lathrop', 'course': 'PHYS275', 'review': 'Really glad I took his lab section. Didn’t lecture every class and just made sure we knew the important things before starting lab. Very chill guy, even gave us a tour of his research lab! Definitely recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T15:58:26.249396Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Lathrop', 'course': 'PHYS275', 'review': "Straightforward with instructions and pretty helpful with lab modules. PHYS275 is the first of the 4 semester lab sequence for PHYS majors, so it's not that bad, mostly requires you to be just proficient at Excel - keep in mind that the exams require you to be good with doing basic mathematical operation just as differentiation and basic algebra and no.... there is no formula sheet: you have to memorise all the formulas and are only allowed to use EXCEL for them [NO Calculators Allowed]. Lathrop's sense of humour is pretty entertaining and his lab tour was probably the best part of the whole class. I definitely recommend taking him if you ever get the chance!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-22T21:48:03.095982Z'}], 'name': 'Daniel Lathrop', 'slug': 'lathrop'}, {'courses': ['EDCI676', 'EDCI698', 'EDCI671', 'EDCI675', 'EDCI689', 'EDCI606', 'EDCI413', 'EDCI414', 'EDCI411', 'EDCI488A', 'EDCI488W', 'TLPL425', 'TLPL488W', 'EDCI898', 'TLPL788W', 'EXST030', 'TLPL688N', 'TLPL688O', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL415', 'TLPL321', 'TLPL413', 'BSCI155', 'BSCI155', 'TLPL720', 'TLPL321', 'TLPL420', 'TLPL788W', 'TLPL415', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL420', 'TLPL788W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Levin', 'slug': 'levin_daniel'}, {'courses': ['ENGL395', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Pendick', 'slug': 'pendick'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL393X', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Technical Writing with Saalfeld is an alright experience. Saalfeld himself is a good guy and he provides useful insight on technical reports. He can be boring as he likes to read word for word directly off papers to you in a rather monotone voice. The entire class revolves around a final project where you have to research and propose a solution to a problem. He grades pretty fairly, so do the work and you'll be fine. Don't be absent to many times, because if you are then 10% of your grade is gone. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-11-14T01:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "This is a really easy class. He is a very liberal grader. And the class is mostly presentations and a project throughout the semester. You have to do a giant group research project and write about it. Most lectures were just student presentations about various weekly assignments. But quite easy stuff.If you have to take ENGL393, definitely take it with Saalfeld for an easy A. And as long as you don't completely ignore the assignments or coming to class, you will do fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-08T02:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Amazing professor. Really liked his class. Even though it was too much work his directions and rubrics made it lot easier. Took it online ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:52:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "He's really not that bad, but the final project is individual and not as a group and he bans over a dozen topics for the final paper including on campus issues, curriculum changes, legislation changes, fraternity/sorority related, big issue/global issues, social problems, business plans, traffic on 495, and more. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-01T00:53:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Mixed feelings. I don't think taking ENGL393 with Professor Saalfeld is very difficult (his grading is fair), but it's a decent amount of work. Occasionally he would send us very passive aggressive emails when a chunk of the class missed an instruction, however some of these instructions are buried in large walls of text that he gives us for assignments, so I wish that he cut the students a little more slack at times. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-24T18:01:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Really respectful and lenient grader. Would recommend', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-14T23:23:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'I recommend taking this course asynchronously online. If you read his announcements and do each assignment, you will be more than fine. For the longer papers, follow the rubric and go to the writing center. I recommend taking it with him as long as you are asynchronous. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-20T16:45:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Very reasonable grader. Took an entirely asynchronous course that was organized well. Very much recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T18:17:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Although he is a fairly easy grader, I do not recommend him. He is extremely nit-picky and will take off even a quarter of a point for very little things. In addition, there are multiple assignments where you have to propose a topic, and he will most likely not let you do the one that you want to. Finally, he will also send out passive-aggressive announcements on ELMS about assignments. Overall, it's a 393 class, almost all of the asynchronous versions are the exact same, so the professor is the only real difference. In any async 393 class you can get an A if you put in any effort, but taking it with Professor Saalfeld will put unnecessary stress on you because of the way that he grades and how he converses with the students. I do not recommend. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-14T14:01:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Lenient grader, but a sort of heavy workload. There were a lot of discussion posts and video response activities to do, but they were easy. The proposal was the most painful assignment and it took me a good amount of time to finish. The course was well-organized though, and if you put in a reasonable effort you should get an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T17:27:53.538812Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Good class structure but Professor Saalfeld is very nitpicky as other reviews mention. He is very passive aggressive and does not believe he is ever wrong. He honestly feels like he is a bit bias sometimes with his lack of compassion for students. This teacher will be a hit or miss for you.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-21T14:11:55.021926Z'}], 'name': 'Daniel Saalfeld', 'slug': 'saalfeld'}, {'courses': ['BUDT758E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Spar', 'slug': 'spar'}, {'courses': ['BSCI417', 'BSCI283', 'CBMG688M', 'BSCI283', 'CBMG688M', 'GEMS296', 'BSCI283', 'GEMS297', 'BSCI283', 'GEMS396'], 'average_rating': 3.5455, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "well first off there is a 2 to 3% curve in the class. He tells you all semester theres not, but there is. Also stein isn't a bad professor or lecturer. His exams aren't too tough if you do his study guide questions, but the set up of the class especially the lab is atrocious. Alot of times in lab we did not have to correct equipment needed for the lab and even the Tas were confused on what to do. But for steins class all you need is to get like 85 on his two exams and wont he final, as he gives a lot of extra credit (pak points up to two percent increase), and he has two group assignments worth 10% of your grade that it should be easy to get an A in (my group got 99 and 101 and our projects were that good (we also had a good TA)). Also with this class make sure to read each question carefully because alot of it isn't to hard, but can be tricky if you are not reading the questions correctly. Also this class is made alopt easier if you have taken bsci 222 and understand the central dogma. THe entire second exam is the central dogma and if you get it you are guaranteed at least an 85 on it. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T12:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': 'Dr. Stein really wanted us to "understand" a lot of things. His lectures slides were very engaging. I do have to say that his course is a lot of work. He is somewhat approachable, yet I feel that his test seemed unfair at times. He even claimed that "I feel that this was a bad test, since majority of the class got x amount of things wrong." But, if you are up to date with everything, and work hard, hopefully, you will be able to do well in this course. Overall, I thought it was okay, the Module 3 about HIV, and immunology was great :]', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-27T09:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': 'Compared to Smith, Stein is a little more difficult. My TA, who took Smith, said the stuff we were learning was harder than what he had learned. That said, Stein really does want his students to learn the material in this course, not just regurgitate the info. He tries to make the information interesting and engages the class through "cool" facts presented at the beginning of each lecture. The book is pretty helpful, so I\'d recommend you get it. Also, labs and assignments are actually pretty fun and interesting, but I may be biased because my TA and UTA were awesome.\n\r\nStein also grades students individually. If he sees you\'ve improved through each exams and do well in labs, he\'ll definitely bump you up a decent amount.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-27T00:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "honestly, i didn't learn that much in lecture. found it hard to take notes unless you had a netbook because he teaches off powerpoint slides. all you really have to do to get an A is read the book. the labs were relatively easy and the exams were alright if you keep up with the reading. if you find yourself short a few points of your target grade, dont worry since he'll give out a lot of extra credit towards the end of the course. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-25T03:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "Dr. Stein is actually a very solid and effective teacher. I had a good time in class and overall learned a lot about microbiology. He uses a lot of interesting examples and the last few lectures on STDs were really awesome. \n\r\nUnfortunately, he is NEVER clear about what he wants as an answer on the exam. I'm not exaggerating - this is ABSOLUTELY TRUE: If your answer to a question is correct but does not appear on the answer key, HE WILL MARK IT WRONG! He says it's so everyone is graded fairly, and if you have any concerns about your right answer (that was marked wrong), you can go to his office hours or submit a regrade. This is terribly disrespectful of our time - we don't have time to go chase points we rightfully deserve. \n\r\nOverall, solid teacher but crappy grader. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T13:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': 'TERRIBLE COURSE. Besides that fact, Dr. Stein is ok. He tries to make the subject interesting by adding a few fun facts before every lecture...sometimes they actually are cool. If the course wasnt such a mess, i think it would be really very good. The lab+lecture activities due almost on a daily basis are very confusing, but the upside is that they help your grade quite a lot. The reason i say that the course is terrible is because people have no idea when things are due and the dates change constantly...besides that, the course is actually fairly interesting.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-06-17T14:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': 'Dr. Stein is a really good professor. He tries very hard to make this subject fun, by giving assignments that are actually real fun. At the beginning of every class he shows you one of the applications of microbiology and is always fun. He checks attendance using clickers, but he does not grade you on whether or not you got the right answer. His exams are difficult. The final exam is a combination of a 3rd exam (on new material) worth 75%, and a cumulative part worth 25%. The lab section of this class is very fun (you get to make yogurt! and play with bacteria!) The lab questions are not hard, and the lab exams are easy.\n\r\nOverall it is easy to get a B in this class (because the lab grade will boost your grade a LOT!), but getting an A requires a lot of effort. Even then I would still take Dr. Stein because he is a great teacher, he explains things well, he hold review sessions every week, and his assignments are really fun (content-wise). ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-16T15:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': 'Not a fan. He was not a good teacher, his tests (especially his final which was 12+ pages long) was ridiculously complicated, and he took attendance by clickers each class. Oh, and yes, he was quite boring. The best part of the class was it was close to my dorm so waking up at 7:50 for his 8 AM class was not too shabby. Good luck to any who has to take this class. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-01-21T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "Dr. Stein is a very good professor who gives a very thorough explanation of microbio. Honestly, the hardest part of this class is to just keep track of what assignments are due and to go to class every time. \n\r\nThere alot of assignments every week, but in general they are all very easy and dont take up much time. Everything in lab is basically guaranteed to be 100% unless you don't put effort into it.\n\r\nThe exams are fair and the best way to be ready is to print the powerpoints before hand and take notes on what he says. Dr. Stein is one of the few teachers imo that actually explains as well as the book. If you can pay attention in class studying for the exam will be 10X less stressful and difficult. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-05T02:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': None, 'review': "Great professor for micro. Really gets you interested in the topic and understand just how important it is in the real world. Lecture being at 8am was the only bummer, but if you like biology, you shouldn't fall asleep. In lab, he will not just teach you the techniques but make sure you understand the underlying chemistry and biology behind them.\n\r\nMicro honors was 2 tests, a final, 3 projects, 1 hw/week, 1 lab/week, and various other mini assignments/ extra credit opportunities. Nothing was that difficult. Alot of what he taught was from bsci105 but then again, the same can be said of 99% of the bsci courses taught.\n\r\nNice guy, good teacher, fair tests/labs.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-10-23T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Stein', 'course': 'BSCI283', 'review': 'Dr. Stein taught two of the three units this semester, with the other one being taught by Dr. Wade Winkler. For the lectures that Dr. Stein taught, he really seemed all over the place, having few clear transitions between slides and constantly bringing up new ideas. This was reflected in the exams he wrote, which were exceedingly long and often asked about stuff that was simply never covered in lecture. That being said, the exams were all online and open-note/internet so you could look up stuff you didn\'t know, but with so many weird questions and not a lot of time you have to pick your battles wisely. He was also not clear at all about what he was looking for in short answer questions. The final wasn\'t cumulative, but was just as annoying in terms of the lack of direction, extreme specificity in the material, and the addition of completely new topics.\r\nStein tended to act kind of pretentious and patronizing when someone answered something wrong. This was especially true when he went through the answers to the first exam in class, saying that our average was far lower than what it had been previous semesters and that he was able to "finish the entire exam in 17 minutes so we should\'ve had plenty of time." Well yeah, of course he could finish it quickly because he wrote the questions...\r\nThe lectures were also structured very poorly. PAK assignments were due at the start of the week and Monday\'s class would be spent going through the answers instead of having an actual lecture, so we had to watch prerecorded lectures to make up for it. Wednesdays then had normal lectures, but he recorded those too so very few people showed up to class at all. The labs were super fun, but Stein didn\'t have anything to do with that.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-26T17:42:12.971435Z'}], 'name': 'Daniel Stein', 'slug': 'stein_daniel'}, {'courses': ['SOCY105', 'SOCY100', 'SOCY100', 'SOCY100'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniel Swann', 'course': 'SOCY105', 'review': "One of the smartest people I know. This was the only class this semester I never skipped. He's so interesting and focuses on making you learn about social issues and not memorize stuff. Barely any work just quizzes he tells you about before hand", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-06T21:40:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Swann', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'Professor Swann is super chill, understanding, and funny. But, he is super unorganized when it comes to Canvas, and giving assignments. Lectures are interesting, and he shares lots of personal stories. One flaw is that he does not provide feedback on any assignments, and gives a few pop quizzes. Also, he gave us a project 1 week before our final.\r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-04T17:45:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Swann', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': ' Professor Swann is super chill, understanding, and funny. But, he is super unorganized when it comes to Canvas, and giving assignments. Lectures are interesting, and he shares lots of personal stories. One flaw is that he does not provide feedback on any assignments, and gives a few pop quizzes. Also, he gave us a project 1 week before our final. He does not put a rubric for any assignment so you will not know what to expect ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-18T23:11:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Swann', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'Amazing professor. Super funny and engaging. made me love a class i hated in high school. really smart guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-08T19:57:45.539759Z'}], 'name': 'Daniel Swann', 'slug': 'swann_daniel'}, {'courses': ['ECON604', 'ECON808', 'ECON848', 'ECON662', 'HONR259L', 'ECON603', 'ECON708', 'ECON868', 'ECON415', 'ECON414', 'ECON414', 'ECON703', 'ECON414', 'ECON604', 'ECON414', 'ECON703'], 'average_rating': 3.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniel Vincent', 'course': 'HONR259L', 'review': "Vincent is an interesting professor. If the course interests you, then you'll love it. The work definitely isn't hard. He'll tell you exactly what's going to be on the tests, and gives you the previous year's tests which basically mirror the exams you'll take. He brings in a lot of examples in class, like videos, that are fun to watch, and the latter half of the course is spent basically on student presentations. Pretty easy class to get an A in, in my opinion.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-30T19:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Vincent', 'course': 'HONR259L', 'review': "Class wasn't hard, the information was fairly easy to understand if you attended class. Goes over material and is willing to talk after class or during breaks about questions you have. There are two-three main test and on e very large project, and a few homework assignments for what your grade is based on. Not too bad if you are interested in the subject matter, super easy if you've learned about game theory probability already in an econ class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-12T12:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Vincent', 'course': None, 'review': "Positives: Class is easy as hell. Though an honors seminar, it required no reading. Easy exams, easy homework. If you have a logical mind, you probably don't need to go to class. In total, I probably did about 10 hours of work outside class over the whole semester.\n\r\nNegatives: Vincent is a pretty bad teacher. He reads off his powerpoints, which are not very descriptive, and rarely involves the class. Though he had a small room of 20 kids, it was like he was teaching a lecture hall of 200. Monotonous voice as well. HW sets are riddled with errors.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-14T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Vincent', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Let's get this straight: Vincent is an awful professor. He reads off of his powerpoints (which have all been posted online in the beginning of the semester) and at some points, he even reads his jokes off of them! \n\r\nTAs are usually extremely unhelpful - seriously, you are on your OWN in this class. Read from the textbook, memorize it, and complete the problem sets - that's pretty much all you can do. I recommend him if you are prepared to teach yourself the basics of micro-economics. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-06T11:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Vincent', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Class is easy, but lecture might be one of the most difficult things to stay awake in. He is mind-blowingly BORING. I went to class 4 times (for the 3 tests & final) and discussion once and never returned - hopefully your TA speaks english but thats a 50/50 chance they wont. Doesnt matter though I did well on everything.\r\nReview the slides you will be good. The weekly online homework is a necessary to ensure you will understand the concepts.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-29T02:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Vincent', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I couldn't really tell you anything about the professor since I never went to class, but this class is one of the easiest you will take at maryland. The assignments are all online, and if you struggle the TA's for your discussion are very helpful. So I can say that he has a very organized class since I never had to go but knew what to expect on exams and how to do my homeworks. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-05T02:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Vincent', 'course': 'HONR259L', 'review': 'Most boring teacher ever!!!! Went to 3 classes and could not stay awake. Dropped the class, kept the textbook. Loved the subject.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2018-09-05T22:04:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Daniel Vincent', 'course': 'ECON414', 'review': "I didn't find the lectures too engaging but his slides explain the material pretty well. Never touched the textbook. Gave a generous curve at the end of the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-10T21:08:24.021434Z'}], 'name': 'Daniel Vincent', 'slug': 'vincent'}, {'courses': ['EDCI210', 'HESI217', 'EDCI475', 'EDCI474'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Vivas', 'slug': 'vivas'}, {'courses': ['AREC326'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Voica', 'slug': 'voica'}, {'courses': ['MATH220'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniel Weinberg', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'Amazing teacher, best on campus. A lot better than that Paul Koprowski guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-20T18:47:00Z'}], 'name': 'Daniel Weinberg', 'slug': 'weinberg_daniel'}, {'courses': ['MUSC251', 'MUSC450', 'MUSC675', 'MUSC250', 'MUSC671', 'MUSC448C', 'MUSC151', 'MUSC448B', 'MUSC699B', 'MUSC450', 'MUSC675', 'MUSC251', 'MUSC450', 'MUSC448B', 'MUSC699B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Zimmerman', 'slug': 'zimmerman_daniel'}, {'courses': ['ISRL329A', 'ISRL448N', 'HIST428W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniel Zisenwine', 'slug': 'zisenwine'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN359L', 'SPAN408B', 'SPAN375'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Daniela Bulansky', 'course': 'SPAN204', 'review': "A good professor who is very friendly and helps a lot with feedback. My one concern was that when I received a bad grade on the last assignment of the year which made me get an A-, she never responded to my email where I asked for feedback and didn't bump me up even though I was 1 point from an A. That was a bit bizarre but besides that she was great!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-08-05T19:12:14Z'}], 'name': 'Daniela Bulansky', 'slug': 'bulansky'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'EDHI338A', 'EDHI788Z', 'EDHI338R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniela Bulos', 'slug': 'bulos'}, {'courses': ['UMEI003', 'UMEI004'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daniela Wagner-Loera', 'slug': 'wagner-loera'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL250', 'ENGL282', 'ENGL292', 'WMST255', 'ENGL388C', 'ENGL201', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Danielle Griffin', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': 'Gives the best writing feedback I have ever received at a college level. Extremely friendly and is passionate about the topics she covers. Very solid instructor with my only note being that her section of 395 seems a bit more labor intensive than her peers, but you will come out of it with actually useful professional documents and improved writing skills. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-06T19:26:19Z'}], 'name': 'Danielle Griffin', 'slug': 'griffin_danielle'}, {'courses': ['ENEE303H', 'ENEE680', 'ENEE600', 'ENEE691', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE307', 'ENEE381', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE313H', 'ENEE790', 'ENEE601', 'ENEE380', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE498M', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE380H', 'ENEE411', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE222', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE413', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE411', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE411', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE307'], 'average_rating': 2.7059, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': "*****THIS REVIEW IS FOR ROMERO'S 313 CLASS*****\n\r\nI'd give Romero a 3.5 if I could, but that unfortunately is not an option. I've heard for many other classes, Romero can be a pretty bad professor, but for 313 he honestly wasn't that bad. In my class, he switched between giving us lecture slides and actually using the board to give notes, and he was pretty good at both. The examples he gave in class were very similar to exam problems, and his lecture slides were actually very detailed. His exams are also pretty fair and there was a pretty generous curve (85 for an A-). He also decided to drop two of our lowest homework grades at the end of the semester, something that was not originally on the syllabus, to help boost grades, so its actually pretty easy to do well in his class.\n\r\nHis homeworks can be quite difficult to solve, and the textbooks he recommends are practically useless in most cases. I would try and find a different textbook than the ones he recommends since if you can't figure out a homework based on his notes/lecture slides, you're basically screwed.\n\r\nHe is also pretty nice about exams. Before our first midterm, he personally led each discussion section to take questions from students about the exam. He also pushed our second exam back 2 weeks because students said it would help them prepare. Overall, I would recommend Romero for 313.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-20T19:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE303H', 'review': 'I am surprised Romero has this many bad reviews. I agree that his course was really hard (hardest course I had in UMD), but he "does not care if students learn" is a COMPLETE lie. He set up extra office hours, moved exams and homeworks, and went over concept multiple times if we said we didn\'t understand them. Yes, the book is also ridiculously hard, but it is the accepted standard (Sedra & Smith) and it is helpful being taught at its level and not babied. So if you want the easy grade and the basic, take Franklin. If you want a challenge and knowledge, take Romero. A/D electronics is really hard - our TA considered our course way to easy and showed us some of his past assignments - if you want the easy way out, you will just be behind everyone else.\n\r\nEDIT: So I took him for both 303 and 381. He was pretty good for 303. For 381, on the other hand, he was pretty lenient and didn\'t really teach much concepts, too much focus on just plugging in numbers. So take him for 303. Don\'t take him for 381 unless you are lazy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-02T21:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE600', 'review': 'Horrible professor. Clearly knowledgeable about material but does not care if students learn it and cannot communicate it effectively. Exams and homework assignments almost always have errors he needs to correct, and he is almost exclusively available by e-mail, and only infrequently. He absolutely ruined this class for me and I did not learn much from it as a result. Avoid him if at all possible. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-14T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE303H', 'review': "Single-handedly ruined my interest in a/d electronics. He's a nice guy, and makes it more or less impossible to fail his course, but I learned absolutely nothing. Lectures consist of long derivations that are usually not finished by the end of class or just straight incorrect. The assigned homework all consists of designing complex circuits from scratch instead of actually letting us practice basic concepts before hand. Also, the book more or less assumes you are some sort of electronics wizard going into it. You get a formula sheet for all of the exams, so you can pass by blindly writing formulas. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-18T23:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE303H', 'review': "You need the solutions manual to do any of his homeworks otherwise you won't be able to do any of them. And don't even try to study for quizzes...YOU WILL FAIL!!!! On the first quiz over half the class got a zero. He puts the textbook pages on pdf's and reads them to you in class. Complain to him about stuff though. He moved a test, canceled a homework and moved another homework because we complained. Oh and make awesome formula sheets. He doesn't have set office hours you always have to make an appointment. He never replies to email. He just plain sucks.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-09T21:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "Dr. Romero's lectures are pretty well-organized and informative. The book he chose to use for the class was not the best, and although homework assignments were quite difficult, the exams were much more straightforward and fair. Not to mention there were many opportunities for extra credit; unsure if this will repeat for future classes. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-26T20:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': 'Good Professor. He explains the concepts well and the exams are fair. He will give sample exams that are similar to the exam but not too similar that you can just do a problem like you did on a sample exam. The only negative was that the homework was very hard and the discussion quizzes at least early on were difficult. Overall he is a good professor and I recommend taking him. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-21T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': "This professor does not teach, but gives you slides with all the equations you'll need. You probably will get an B or C b/c he practically gives you all the formulas for the test. His distribution is 100-90 A, 89-70 B, and 69-55 or 50 C. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-05T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'Romero is a fair professor. You will definitely learn a lot out from his class, as his HW assignments are quite tricky. Lectures are not that useful as they focus on long derivations more than problem solving. For our class, exam questions were similar to past midterm he posted, except that a few questions had twists that you had to figure out. These twists were essentially included to test your understanding of the material. Good thing is the exams are open notebook. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-06-10T18:10:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Avoid Romero if possible. Doesn't explain material well, frequent mistakes in lecture and in solutions. Tests were mostly fair. However, large curve and almost impossible to fail.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-10T19:42:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Romero is very kind and compassionate, but he honestly doesn't teach the material very well. The homeworks are basically impossible to do without consulting internet resources. The tests are open note and graded fairly leniently however.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-07T04:10:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "I took ENEE380H with Romero. For one thing, I would like to note that the only difference between 380 and 380H in his class was a single relatively easy homework on our second homework set. So this class was essentially 380. I feel bad but I cannot recommend Romero as a professor; he is a very kind man but especially with online lectures it can be difficult to follow his teaching style, as it's often walking through a presentation with copy-and-pasted textbook slides. I skipped nearly every online lecture because I did not get much out of them. The tests were open note and many hours long (two of them were 36 hours) and were difficult but fair with that amount of time. I would argue that the tests should have been worded more clearly, but he's more than willing to clarify in email conversations. I did not have much trouble with this class but I did not get much out of it either except practice with multivariable calculus - the class was very math heavy and not focused enough on conceptual topics. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-24T17:50:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Dr. Romero is a really nice, easygoing guy, but he's not a good lecturer at all. His exams/assignments are somewhat difficult, but fair. However, he takes forever to grade exams, so you won't know your grade until way after the semester. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-25T05:54:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'Learned a lot about 313 topics. His lectures and exams are very dense, however. Very generous grading scale! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-06T00:07:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'hard exam and homework problem. Late homework grade and solution. lecture is okay', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-10-01T17:25:32.387187Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'A good professor, sometimes a little muddle.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-16T19:29:57.392439Z'}, {'professor': 'Danilo Romero', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'Challenging class, but fair. I feel confident with A/D circuits and enee303 material moving forward. Exams similar to homework and practice exams. sometimes a trick question... do not doubt.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-15T04:05:54.948813Z'}], 'name': 'Danilo Romero', 'slug': 'romero_danilo'}, {'courses': ['ENGL391', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL297', 'ENGL393X', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL241', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL250', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL398R', 'WGSS255'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Danuta Hinc', 'course': 'ENGL393X', 'review': 'guys she is the cutest and nicest professor ever, I took her for professional writing and really all I had to do was submit my work and got a 99%. It was online and class was supposed to happen 2 days a week but she only had it once so it was super easy ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-17T03:19:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Danuta Hinc', 'course': 'ENGL398R', 'review': 'Amazing Professor. She cares so much about her students and helping them improves in their writing. Definitely a class I would take ten times in a row. Very chill with deadlines and just gotta complete the work really. Very free to write about whatever you want which is great too and she will read all that you write. Amazing Class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T00:42:44.278653Z'}], 'name': 'Danuta Hinc', 'slug': 'hinc'}, {'courses': ['KNES157N', 'KNES157O', 'KNES131Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dapeng Chen', 'slug': 'chen_dapeng'}, {'courses': ['EDHD426', 'EDHD426', 'EDHD426', 'EDHD426', 'EDHD426'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daphne Williams', 'slug': 'williams_daphne'}, {'courses': ['CCJS100', 'CCJS200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daren Fisher', 'slug': 'fisher_daren'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Darlene Reyes', 'slug': 'reyes_darlene'}, {'courses': ['HONR279R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Darron Monteiro', 'slug': 'monteiro'}, {'courses': ['ENES181', 'UNIV110'], 'average_rating': 4.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Darryll Pines', 'course': 'ENES181', 'review': "This class is an easy A, but it's kind of a waste of time. The advisors suggested I take it because I was undecided engineering, but it didn't help me choose a major at all. It was just a minor nuisance to show up for an hour once a week to the lecture to here a relatively boring presentation from a different member of the various engineering disciplines. Darryll Pines seems like a really great guy, but he's not very involved with the class. As head of the engineering school, I think he had more important things to do. Overall, good guy, but the class isn't really worth taking.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-04T01:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Darryll Pines', 'course': 'ENES181', 'review': "The course is very boring and you don't do much. The course is not very demanding but you do have a lot of work to do (green paper) Some of the speakers are engaging and speak to topics that you are interested. Otherwise it's a very chill class but I wouldn't recommend it really, waste of time", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-30T20:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Darryll Pines', 'course': 'ENES181', 'review': 'ENES181 is an easy class. You basically just show up and listen to a bunch of speakers from different departments talking about their program. A good choice for any undecided engineering majors. There are a total of 5 assignments; 1 of which is a "green paper" that has to be 10-15 pages long. That is the only real work you have to put into this 1 credit class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-05T04:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Darryll Pines', 'course': 'ENES181', 'review': 'Very easy class, hard to get a B. Also, Pines is a great guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-06-02T06:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Darryll Pines', 'course': 'ENAE100', 'review': 'grade was attendance based but there were many pointless assignments. way too much busywork for a one-credit class. not a free A, but not hard to get one if you try', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-20T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Darryll Pines', 'course': 'ENES181', 'review': "If you're undecided engineering, don't waste your time with this class. Instead, just declare whatever major you're most interested in and try out some of the classes so that you can actually get a feel for what that type of engineering is. As others have said, the class is just a bunch of different mandatory lectures with a 15 page paper (now on the NAE Grand Challenges in Engineering), it's an easy A as long as you put in the work, and Dean Pines seems like a great guy. This class had potential conceptually, but it honestly doesn't help with any decision making", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-20T22:58:19Z'}], 'name': 'Darryll Pines', 'slug': 'pines'}, {'courses': ['AOSC470', 'AOSC818', 'AOSC494', 'AOSC431', 'AOSC600', 'AOSC658E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daryl Kleist', 'slug': 'kleist'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL391'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': "Daune O'Brien", 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Professor O'Brien was a great professor for ENGL101 and was very understanding if we needed more time for assignments. Due to the pandemic, getting assignments done was harder and motivation was definitely lower. She always managed to keep the class somewhat upbeat and positive and is always willing to help with your writing.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-08T21:08:21Z'}, {'professor': "Daune O'Brien", 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Prof. O'Brien is super caring and practical. She noted how hard it was to complete quick turnaround assignments and is very lenient with extensions, barring a BS reason. She also accounted for pandemic time and cut down coursework significantly to help us out. She gives great feedback on writing, and really focuses on providing constructive suggestions. Definitely take a class with Prof. O'Brien if you can. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-12T16:23:39Z'}, {'professor': "Daune O'Brien", 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Actually terrible. The workload is so much more than all of the other teachers and she just doesn't care. Choose another professor if you can.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-04T16:25:14Z'}, {'professor': "Daune O'Brien", 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "She's actually really nice. The workload is not that much it's managable. She provides great feedback on your projects and is very understandable when it comes to extension. I recommend you take her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-20T18:49:55Z'}, {'professor': "Daune O'Brien", 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "She's actually nice. The workload is manageable and she gives great feedback on your project on what you need to work on to improve and is very understandable when it comes to asking for an extension. I recommend you take her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-20T18:55:56Z'}, {'professor': "Daune O'Brien", 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'We did not really learn about business writing, if you are okay with learning about other things then its okay, but this class is just not what I signed up for. We do not really go in depth about the concepts of professional business writing, throughout the semester we did more research and humanities related stuff.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-03-29T03:12:37.446136Z'}], 'name': "Daune O'Brien", 'slug': "o'brien_daune"}, {'courses': ['ENAE484', 'ENAE488R', 'ENAE791', 'ENAE483', 'ENAE788X', 'ENAE697', 'ENAE788D', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS497', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE692', 'ENAE791', 'ENAE483', 'ENAE788D', 'ENAE788X', 'GEMS496', 'GERM103', 'ENAE484', 'ENAE697', 'GEMS497', 'ENAE483', 'ENAE788D'], 'average_rating': 2.0769, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE483', 'review': "I'm shocked and confused about the reviews below, enough to write my own which I never do. Dr. Akin is an extremely caring, intelligent, and passionate teacher. His 483 class is one of the best I've taken in my entire college career. No, he doesn't hold your hand. His deadlines are fluid and he's forgetful. However he treats his students with respect and is willing to show the same understanding towards your busy schedule as he expects that you, as his student, will show him. As long as you don't have a stick up your butt and are able to be somewhat flexible, you will thoroughly enjoy having Dr. Akin as a professor ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-07T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE483', 'review': "Akin is an awful professor. If it is not too late take the aero track and do not take any electives with Akin as the professor.\n\r\nHere's the bottom line with Akin: He is so disorganized that he will never return any of your homework sets. He will return your midterm 1.5 weeks before the final, so you better hope you did well on the exam you took a month and a half ago. He will also give you homework with less than 5 days to do it. Then he will give an extension at 12:30 the night before it is due.\n\r\nIn 484 he will not be involved with your project. The only time he will give you feedback is at the reviews where he and his grad students will snicker at you because what you are proposing is ridiculous to them. He will not give you any grades throughout the semester so he may as well be randomly assigning grades at the end of the semester. He also does not seem to care that you need your grade to graduate or that the grades are actually due by a certain time. Overall, 484 is a class that should be the best class in college and Akin makes it the worst.\n\r\nBut let's dive into this. At one point we had a parts list all ready to go. We heard nothing from Akin, but ran into him by happenstance when trying to talk to another professor. We asked him about our parts list and he said that one of the grad students wanted to check it over in its entirety. So we went to that grad student who said Akin doesn't do shit and he didn't get the parts list. Then he and a different grad student fought about our parts list until they finally just let it go through. By the time our parts arrived we had 2 weeks to CDR and had to stop thinking about building and start putting slides together. Later on, after CDR I talked to Akin and he said that we should have ordered the parts earlier.\n\r\nLike everyone else who has reviewed Akin, I had a miserable time in his class. The most shocking thing was grading in 484. I don't know how he did it. It was either he had two hats one with our names and one with grades and essentially made grading random or it was based on how much he likes you. He may also call you snotty while his grad students are trying to tear you apart.\n\r\nAVOID AKIN. You will not like his class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-19T00:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE484', 'review': "What are my comments on this class? If I knew how this semester was going to turn out, I would have taken air track just to avoid this one class and my least favorite subject is aerodynamics. Akin keeps telling us 'this is what it'll be like in the real world' and because of that, has convinced me to avoid industry at all costs. I wholeheartedly and absolutely refuse to touch any space systems topic in the future because I never want to deal with anything or anyone like Dr. Akin ever again. \n\r\nThe expectations and workload for this class were beyond what is reasonable for a 3 credit course which is supposed to have 9 hours a week of time outside of class. Oftentimes, we as a group spent over 9 hours in a day easily on this project, at times going to 12+ hours. This project would have been much better suited for a year long class. ENAE483, while interesting at times, was completely useless. Listening to a grab bag of topics that go no more in depth than what an hour or two of internet research can tell us does not help us at all for our design project. What we should have been doing was working on the Exospheres vehicle with Akin and the grad students the entire time. \n\r\nThe first couple weeks of class, we were given a classroom and told to start designing. Since this was our 'design' time, Akin rarely was found during these class hours. Because of this, we all as a group were very confused on where to start as we were given no direction at all. Then after a week or two of this when he asks for our parts list. After seeing it, he basically goes on a rant, berating us since what we did 'was not engineering' and was 'a piece of shit' in his words.\n\r\nIf we were given more specific directions and a guideline of expectations instead of “I want a parts list for this robot in 2 weeks. I'll see you then.” we would have been able to fufill this. I understand that the technical topics that we researched were covered in previous classes, but we needed a bit more guidance from the theory to applying it. \n\r\nIt doesnt help when the grad students and Dr Akin himself are both very condescending and short when you try to ask for help. That is, if you can find Dr. Akin in person long enough to ask him a question, because that is the ONLY way to get anything useful out of him. I've started to debate whether to title my subject line in emails to something along the lines of “RESULTS OF DARPA PROPOSAL” because I think he filters anything with ENAE484 to go to trash. \n\r\nAlso, the grad students seem very annoyed to help us. Its painfully obvious that they see us as lowly undergrads incapable of understanding and checking numbers. In fact, at one point, it was a detriment as one grad student refused to put the 'OK' stamp to get parts ordered until he checked over every single part himself for a specific subgroup, something that was already double checked by avionics. In the end, it turns out there was no major problem, except for the fact that he delayed the order of parts. \n\r\nThe Preliminary Design Reviews (PDR) and Critical Design Reviews (CDR) also seem useful in theory but bad in practice. The grad students that were so short to help us out before to answer any questions spend the 4 hours trying to find every single flaw in our design. At times, it felt like at least one of the grad students was intentionally trying to find flaws with the design. \n\r\nIn the end, taking space track was my biggest regret of undergrad. I wish I could do it again but with Palumbo's capstone or design build fly. ENAE484 is a good idea in theory, but Dr. Akin implements it so horribly that I feel like he should be barred from ever teaching this course again. It's clear he spreads himself too thin and that the SSL has higher priority than 484 which is probably barely on his radar. \n\r\nOh, and I marked N/A for 'Based on the quality of my work in this course, the grades I earned were “ because I have no idea how our grades are determined. I think he arbitrarily assigns people grades based on how much he likes us from the couple min of class he sees us in. \n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-25T17:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE484', 'review': "I don't really know where to start here. So I'll start with this: If this course were indicative of what my real-world aerospace engineering career was going to be like, I would quit. If it were indicative of a single job I would find a new job, where I would not be miserable, and if it were indicative of the entire industry I would find a different industry.\n\r\nThe project assigned is entirely unreasonable in scope. With under 20 of us, we were constantly scrambling in order to do what we hadn't necessarily been taught in the previous years. Many of the areas we needed to cover are taught as a graduate course devoted to a single topic, and not only had none of us taken that course, in many cases Dr. Akin was unable to help when asked questions on the topic.\n\r\nIt is true to say that he didn't himself understand the project he assigned us. He has in fact on multiple occasions answered questions with false information simply because that was the impression he had of what the physical reality was. It happened to be the wrong impression.\n\r\nTo some degree it is hard to say what Dr. Akin could and couldn't help with, because he tended to not respond to emails asking for help. He also tended to show up to class late, or, on multiple occasions, not at all. He split the class into two sections, which means that his attention (already not sufficient) was divided between the two groups.\n\r\nEven had we had the support which we needed, this course would still have required too much work. At three credits it should be nine hours of work (counting in-class work) per week for fifteen weeks, or 135 hours over the semester. I -- along with many of my group members -- put in that amount of work in less than five weeks. And then we did it again. And then again. \n\r\nWe worked as hard as we could for our first design presentation, and it was nowhere near good enough. This was due to two factors. 1) We didn't know what we were doing. ENAE483 had not prepared us for this experience, for researching things which our professor could not help with, for becoming experts on topics we'd never considered before in such a short time span. 2) There weren't enough of us to do the work. As I mentioned before, there were a lot of people who invested a lot of time in this course, frequently letting jobs, other classes, and personal commitments fall to the side. And it wasn't enough.\n\r\nWe got ripped apart during our presentation, and it wasn't at all in a constructive manner. It consisted of Dr. Akin and his graduate students mocking our attempts at analysis, asking questions to try to trip us up and laughing if they succeeded, and generally trying to prove that they were superior to us in knowledge. This was no surprise to me, they were graduate students and a professor who had had more time to learn these things.\n\r\nThere is a lot more I could say, but I'll keep it now to this: almost everyone I speak to in my group says they wish they had gone air track because and only because of this course, Dr. Akin shouldn't be permitted to teach undergraduates, and I really loathed this course. The last five months have been miserable because of it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-16T17:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE484', 'review': 'The previous review hits it on the dot. He is the sole reason why you should avoid the space track. It really is that miserable. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-28T22:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE484', 'review': 'Dr. Akin is consistently unclear with his expectations. On top of being virtually entirely inaccessible, Dr. Akin is equally as unhelpful in guiding you through the design process. In ENAE483, he will not return your homeworks or midterm, so you will receive no feedback from him throughout the course. I have no idea how he grades that course. ENAE484 is a followup course to ENAE483, where you are expected to design a mission from scratch. Dr. Akin does not equip you with the tools or resources to be able to do this adequately, and then he will rip you apart during your presentations including making fun of you. He has been in the field for many years where he has learned to develop an incredibly large ego. He will constantly cite his own "Akin\'s Laws of Spacecraft Design." Law 4 reads, "Your best design efforts will inevitably wind up being useless in the final design. Learn to live with the disappointment." This is essentially his motto. He is rude and should not be allowed near students. Expect a negative experience.\n\r\nIf you have not chosen whether you are doing the aero or astro track yet, I would honestly recommend you choose aero just to avoid him, or transfer to a university with an adequate design professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-03-07T14:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE483', 'review': 'Everything you hear about Dr. Akin being hard to get a hold of, forgetting to post assignments, etc. is true. That said, 483 is both one of the most interesting and useful courses in the aerospace major and he teaches it well. He recognizes his lack of organization and is generally happy to grant extensions and remove problems for assignments posted late if you ask. Despite the communication and scheduling issues, I have enjoyed the course and learned a great deal.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-06T04:01:38Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE484', 'review': 'As much as I despise air track for not only their boring subject matter but for sort of making the degree a joke with how easy their classes are, if I had to do it all again I would 1000x over choose air track just so I could avoid having to take a class with Dr. Akin. I have never met a professor - scratch that, ANYONE - so deluded in their own ways that they believe hating literally everything you do in this class constitutes actual teaching and guidance.\r\nLet’s say you have to design a thruster (because you can’t just use what already exists like the rest of the world). You think to yourself “hey, I remember learning something about this in the 483 slides, I’ll just use information from that, it came directly from Dr. Akin so it must be what he wants.” And so you go on with it, present your findings in the Design Review, and he says every bit of information you used is inaccurate and wrong and the analysis is faulty and you shouldn’t use info from his slides why would you even consider doing that. So, OK, no problem it was just PDR you’ll surely fix it by CDR, just take his information out, find new sources, redo all the work for that, good to go yeah? Wrong. Didn’t you know you covered the same concepts back in 483?? There were literally slides you could’ve pulled information from! Why would you not use the 483 slides when they were made accessible specifically for you to use in this class, it’s like you’ve just ignored a whole semester worth of teaching, how could you, how heinous, that deserves a 4/10 for technical content should’ve known better.\r\nDon’t even get me started on how he doesn’t even look at the assignments he gives in 483 let alone grade them with any feedback, effectively wasting your entire semester that you could have used to plan for the RASC-AL competition, that he complains about how hard it is for UMD to gain entry into every year, instead of waiting until you only have a literal month to design an entire system. I honestly hope, for the future of the Space Track curriculum, he gets phased out with someone who can actually give constructive guidance. To anyone entering 484, I wish you the best.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-09T07:32:28Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE483', 'review': 'Let me start off by saying, if I could give Dr. Akin a 0/5 I absolutely would with no question. He is the most disorganized, condescending, and apathetic professor I have ever had. In 483 you will learn absolutely nothing substantial, briefly cover a summary of all the previous classes you have taken up to that point, and you will work on lengthy and time-consuming projects with zero guidance that will never even be looked at, you’re basically getting a grade assigned to you at random. The midterm for 483 will be graded, if you’re lucky, by the last day of classes, then you have to turn around and take the final, both of which consist of a watered down version of previously taken content with poorly worded questions and honestly unclear methodology because his PowerPoint slides offer actually no guidance to how to do things like probability or MMOD analyses outside of a blurry graph with no context. I’m honestly not even sure why he bothers making 483 a class in and of itself, it serves no purpose, you won’t get anything out of it, and all it ends up doing is making it so that your capstone project for 484 lasts only a few months instead of an entire academic year. Oh and good luck with the whole “picking your group” he’ll prioritize his favorites who work in his lab and just give everyone else to a random group and random assignment (I wanted to be AFSS, I was instead put on MPA, likewise I wanted to do the Mars mission but again was put in a different group). Half of your team will not do anything for your team but will present results with no justification behind it in PDR and CDR and score significantly better than you because he won’t ask them any questions about their analysis despite being completely and glaringly incorrect. \r\n\r\nAnd on that note, he’s going to stand on his grand and prideful podium and give this haughty lecture about engineering presentation format - how to present, how to show data, etc - and then he will never follow his own advice. You can literally count all of the inconsistencies with how he says an ideal presentation should look and how he presents the lessons he is supposed to be teaching.\r\n\r\nIn 484, you are quite literally on your own. He will offer absolutely nothing and contribute absolutely nothing but will be the very first person to laugh at your analysis or progress when you try to ask him any questions. And you better believe he’s going to hate your PDR and CDR, in fact he hates them before you create them. He will call you rude for answering one of his “gotcha” questions (that are specifically designed to stump you up because he derives some sick pleasure in watching undergraduate students stumble and trip up) with something to the effect of “I hadn’t considered that and I will look into it for the next review.” And if he asks you something, you did an analysis that completely supports your assertion but he just doesn’t believe you, he will not look at your evidence, will not even humor the thought that he could actually be wrong, and will spend the next 5 minutes during your presentation talking to another panelist instead of paying attention to you, then complain that you didn’t present certain things when in reality you did he just ignored you. But that’s “what it’s like in the real world,” and he asserts he’s actually being quite generous. What a joke, if industry really was like that no one would ever work in Aerospace.\r\n\r\nWhy Akin is even allowed to teach anyone is beyond any level of understanding. You thought Winkelmann was bad, just wait.\r\n\r\n483 and 484 are supposed to be what your degree leads up to - the ultimate experience of undergrad, completing a project you are supposed to be genuinely interested in. Dr. Akin has instead created a medium by which I was absolutely miserable the entire time taking his class. Everything felt like a chore, nothing I did interested me, and I had to spend countless long nights picking up the slack of my teammates who didn’t do a single thing to contribute. Don’t get me wrong, I love Aerospace I’m general, but for a “completely free design course” you are subject to the lunacy and frustrations that come with Dr. Akin’s power and superiority complex.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-10T03:32:27Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE484', 'review': 'I cannot even begin to describe how terrible of a professor he is. Doesn’t teach, is condescending, never grades anything in a timely manner, spends lectures talking about stories of his previous projects but never actually gives you anything of substance - essentially you’re on your own in an uphill battle in this class because you’re for sure not going to learn anything from him.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-17T03:55:49Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE483', 'review': "Dr. Akin seems to be an effective teacher and he has the most detailed slides I have ever seen and ever wish to see. Do not attempt to take notes because you will not be able to. He has a very clear syllabus but his grading is just a black box. I have absolutely no idea what my grade will be in this course because at this point (the semester is over and I took the final over a week ago) I have had 2 homeworks of 7 graded, 0 of 1 midterm graded, 1 of 2 projects graded, and 0 of 1 final graded. As such, I know that I have an A in about 25% of this course but I have no idea what I have for the rest. This class is pretty hard to review because there were so many good moments and so many bad moments as well. In summary, I would say Dr. Akin does teach effectively, does not grade well at all, assigns groups and projects for 484 well, does not communicate well, but has a very nice curve at the end. I haven't taken 484 yet but I'll make sure to review that one as well afterwards.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T16:18:26Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE484', 'review': 'I had to let this class sit with me for a little after I graduated because after I was done I honestly could not find the words to describe how awful he is. Akin is quite possibly the worst professor in the Aerospace department and I say that having also taken classes with Winkelmann. Akin would be incapable of even accidentally teaching you something. \r\n\r\n“This is what it’s like in the real world.” OK. I work at NASA now. None of my superiors or coworkers have ever berated me for design ideas or completely missed due dates by months, or go off to the side and snicker with their other senior engineers about how inexperienced the new hires are. \r\n\r\nA manchild with a power complex and ego so huge that he can’t ever recognize his own faults and takes it out on his students. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-07-06T22:20:02Z'}, {'professor': 'David Akin', 'course': 'ENAE483', 'review': "I'm rarely inclined to write reviews on any professors, but the reviews here are so atrociously untrue I feel the need to speak up.\r\nAkin is a very knowledgeable man with DECADES of experience and expertise. I really don't understand why so many people are on here trashing him. \r\nI went through a tough time last semester and Akin was both understanding and compassionate about the situation. \r\nHis lectures are the most interesting, thought-provoking, and inspiring I can recall in my college years. \r\nSo what, things are a bit unorganized sometimes. Everything in life isn't handed to you pressed by a cookie-cutter mold.\r\nWe're engineers, just use your critical thinking skills and figure it out...", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-03-12T00:47:59.294426Z'}], 'name': 'David Akin', 'slug': 'akin'}, {'courses': ['KNES289Y', 'KNES287', 'KNES614', 'KNES485', 'KNES613', 'KNES789P', 'KNES630', 'KNES287', 'KNES616', 'KNES689B', 'KNES485', 'KNES613', 'KNES628', 'KNES287', 'KNES287'], 'average_rating': 4.5455, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': "Dr. Andrews is super knowledgeable in this subject. His class helped me understand how sports relate to the economy, politics and life. It's really interesting, a lot of athletes take the class to. There are 3 exams and 2 essays, you can turn in essays early for review before your final turn in. Also, Andrews is super understanding, if you have a problem he's easy to talk to in person or by email.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-01-20T14:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': "One of my favorite classes! Dr. Andrews is an engaging and awesome professor. He teaches with enthusiasm and makes lectures interesting and fun to attend... Few papers to write, but get TA help and you'll be fine", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-05T03:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': "He was a great professor, he always made the lectures entertaining and still taught you everything you needed to know. The tests were exactly what he put on the slides, just make sure you understand the concepts because a lot of times his questions could be argued two ways and pointing it out could get you points back. He's great at responding to students concerns. Overall an awesome and very fair teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T18:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': "I took this class as an elective and a diversity requirement (also fills SB) . As far as an elective goes it is definitely a bit more work than it should be. However Dr. Andrews is very engaging and open to students' concerns. He is a very fair teacher. Come to class as whatever he goes over in class is what is going to be on the test. If you like sports and sociology definitely take this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-12T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': 'Fantastic professor. Engaging and incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable in his field. He wants his students to do well and makes himself available and open to them. Thoroughly enjoyed attending his classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-09-04T15:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': 'Funny and a genius, knows everything there is to know about class material. Tests are surprisingly hard, considering material is interesting. Final paper not that tough and quizzes less than once a week.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-17T01:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': 'Great teacher with good personality! Good sense of humor and wants to help the students do well in his class. The hardest part of the class is the first test. Material is not hard- just takes a while to grasp the diction used by the British professor. class becomes easier if your familiar with sociology and well versed in sports events. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-04T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': "Andrew is a fun guy, I'll give him that. However the course material is extremely difficult and way too much work for a 3 credit GenEd class. Also, TA Brandon gives really harsh grades. If you want a B from a class with a lot of fun, go for it", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-14T01:30:10Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': "Taking this as a winter course. The lectures are interesting but cumbersome and excessive. You won't pass the quizzes without watching the entire lecture. It's clear Dr. Andrews expects KNES students to think and write like sociology students in a graduate mindset. It's best to avoid this professor if you're to knock out this req without much stress. I'm sure the glowing reviews must come from an engaging personality in person, but online this class feels like a drag and we're only halfway through.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-11T00:01:30Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': 'Prolly one of the most down to Earth professors at the university. If you have the opportunity to get him, take it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-22T07:19:11.561507Z'}, {'professor': 'David Andrews', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': "I loved going to Dr. Andrews's class. He is the most genuine and hilarious professor. He genuinely cares about what he teaches and also cares about the students. He makes his lectures fun and the class itself is really interesting. His TAs are also both really great, I had Lilah but I've heard great things about both her and Brandon. Each week there are topic source notes, which get tedious but I promise they really help in the long run. Basically, you get a question and sources and you have to pick two (1 academic, 1 non-academic) and analyze how they apply to the question plus add in your own personal experience. I loved how I was able to always add in my own experience and it is so highly encouraged. There are also only 2 essays the midterm and the final. For those, you get to pick a question from your topic source notes and then elaborate on it, so basically each week you are getting your feet wet in potential essay topics which I found super helpful. There are also weekly quizzes that are open notes and easy if you go to the lecture. Literally the first day Dr. Andrews will say he doesn't care if you go to a lecture or not, but GO I swear it's genuinely so much fun and interesting. He always adds one or two questions directly from the lecture as a way to reward those who go which makes it easy to score well. They graded the essays very thoroughly which I appreciated because they were the first real college papers I had. Overall, Dr. Andrews class was phenomenal and I definitely plan on taking other classes with him if I can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-23T19:05:06.329308Z'}], 'name': 'David Andrews', 'slug': 'andrews_david'}, {'courses': ['CCJS461'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Bierie', 'slug': 'bierie'}, {'courses': ['ENME201', 'ENME808Q', 'ENME466', 'ENME392', 'ENME472', 'ENME472', 'ENME392', 'ENME489B', 'ENES401', 'ENME401', 'ENME466', 'ENME392', 'ENME392', 'ENME392', 'ENES401'], 'average_rating': 2.5625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME466', 'review': "Don't take ENME466. The project was a huge pain in the ass, and nobody cares if you have a Six Sigma Certificate. It's not worth it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-02-19T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "He initially seemed to be one of the better professors from the mech E department, as he appears to genuinely want students to succeed and learn the material. He is also one of the only professors to go through examples and really try to hammer in each step of the problem.\n\r\nUnfortunately he is also one of the most petty and egotistical professors. He took people skipping his class as some sort of personal grievance, and took it out on the rest of the class. He started spending more and more time complaining to the class, and made exams unreasonably long in order to punish students for skipping. This just resulted in more people skipping his lectures because they weren't useful.\n\r\nHe asked for feedback on how to improve, and took any suggestions and threw them back at students' faces, refusing to take any responsibility on his end. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-01-19T14:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'Absolutely awful professor. Half the class ends up skipping his lecture and he will constantly whine about people skipping failing to realize that it is because of his terrible teaching style. You will learn nothing from his class and he has a bad personality. Do NOT take him!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-13T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Horrible professor. His lectures are disorganized and rushed. He skips half of the material in the PowerPoints that he made and tell you to learn it on your own. He is smug, arrogant, and condescending to students. Constantly complains that attendance is poor in his lectures, but doesn't realize that it's because he is a bad teacher.\n\r\nAvoid if possible!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-15T03:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME489B', 'review': 'Bigio is a character....I really liked him. He makes class fun. Good to chat with. Very smart. \r\nI also just loved the six sigma class. They gave us very real consulting projects. I learned a lot. I strongly recommend this class. \n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-12T10:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME201', 'review': 'ENME201 is just a pass/fail class with very little work and guest speakers every week. Bigio only ran a few of the lectures, but is one of the friendliest people I have encountered in the ME department. Take this class if you want to figure out what you want to do with your ME degree', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2010-12-12T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Just here to say as of 2020, all these reviews for 392 are still accurate. He just simply is disorganized, not prepared to teach effectively, and just reads off slides. Bigio claims he tries, but in all honesty he should just stick to research. I feel for the guy, but man, he might have been the most useless professor I have had. Just make sure you do the HW's and all the practice exam material and you should be good. Also a fire formula sheet will save you, as they give out really nice partial credit on exams.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-01-04T13:30:35Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "As of Fall 2021, Professor Bigio is the most unhelpful professor I have had in my three years at UMD. Spends all of class going off on tangents and focusing on concepts deviating from the book. Super disorganized, misses class like its nothing and wonders why people skip his lectures. Complains constantly about students, when he could spend that time teaching or doing examples. He thinks his MIT degree qualifies him as a god or something. News flash, it doesn't. If you can, try to get a different instructor for 392.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-27T21:45:41Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Bigio is a very very bad professor. He cannot work through, and often refuses to work through problems without skipping over important details. He doesn't understand what confuses students, and spends way too much time telling us why we're wrong. Before the 2nd midterm, this dude gave us the worst review material i have ever seen. We got McGraw Hill homework problems instead of exam problems; McGraw Hill is barely even from the same class. The exam problems were unlike anything we had ever been given on homework or in class up until that point.\r\n\r\nDo not take Bigio, also avoid the other professors like Fuge.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-12-15T23:07:59Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'Dr. Bigio is probably one of the laziest teachers I have had at UMD. That being said, this class can be done without ever attending lectures. Bigio cares and wants his students to succeed, but he is such a useless teacher that his lectures do not help. Barely anyone shows up to lectures, and he wonders why even though we have to learn the material outside of class through the textbook (flipped class). There are textbook reading questions that take much longer than he says they will, and the homework is confusing. He barely goes over the content in lectures, almost never does practice problems in class, and when he does, he skips steps and writes messy, so the work is unclear. He tried to change it up towards the end of the semester by asking the students what to do differently, but he did not adjust accordingly. Also, Bigio is very unorganized as he has so many lecture slides that are each 50 slides long. He picks and chooses which slides to show us and quickly goes over them without explaining in depth since he assumes we read the textbook before coming to class.\r\n\r\nMy suggestion to be successful is to read the textbook, do the homework, and rewrite the homework with the solutions that appear after the homework is due. Lectures are a waste of time, but sometimes he takes attendance. He also applies a curve, but does not say the word "curve." Since the averages are low, the top like 20% get an A, the next 35% get a B, etc. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-27T18:46:03Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "DON'T LET THESE REVIEWS SECOND GUESS TAKING DR. BIGIO\r\nI honestly enjoyed having Dr. Bigio as an instructor. I would say to be successful in his class, you have to read both the textbook and attend lecture. There are some topics that are not covered in the book that he goes over in lecture such as (Sign Rank and Sign Test, some hypothesis testing problems, and Design of Experiments). He really likes when people engage in his class so make sure to ask questions/work out problems when he says to or he will not be happy. I also used the syllabus to help me plan out what sections of the book I needed to read by a specific date. The homework problems aren't exactly like exam problems but it helps you understand how to solve the problems to prepare you for exams. I know a lot of people say Dr. Bigio isn't the best teacher but I think he is especially how he styles his exams. He doesn't make exams too difficult, it's just knowing the right formulas to use but he is not out to get you. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND taking Bigio in the summer or fall than taking 392 with the other professors who teach in the spring, they make stats more confusing. I tried taking stats in the spring but dropped it because the teaching was horrible and they make you use MATLAB to answer problems. \r\nAlso, if he sees improvement in your exam grades he's likely to help you pass the class\r\n\r\nI HIGHLY SUGGEST:\r\n- USE THE SYLLABUS AS A GUIDE OF WHAT TO READ SO YOU ARE NOT BEHIND\r\n- READ THE BOOK (spend 2-3 hours reading/taking notes and trying to do the homework)\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-30T02:41:40Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Bigio is a funny guy but not a great lecturer. It is not uncommon to walk away from one of his classes feeling more confused than when you walked into class. He often has odd tangents or jokes which do help students to stay engaged for the 75 min class periods. He also occasionally gives a break during the 75 min class periods.\r\nAlso be prepared for Bigio's very unorganized files page on canvas. There are a lot of past exam problems and other helpful resources, but they are often very hard to find and require a bit of digging.\r\nAs for the class readings, they are longer than they should be, but they do a really good job at teaching the material, and Bigio is open to shortening them if students ay they are too long. For the exams, I think they were fair and Bigio is a pretty lenient grader as long as you explain your thought process for the question.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-04T12:19:34Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME466', 'review': "This class is useful and you definitely get real-world experience through the class project, but imo it isn't worth dealing with Dr. Bigio. He does not grade based on your performance, just based on his opinion of you. Now, this wasn't a huge issue for me grade wise because I was on his good side, but if you do anything to annoy him he will not give you a good grade. Also, he expects you to spend way more time outside of class working than should be expected of a 3 credit elective. Overall, he is inappropriate in his grading and dealings with students, I would not recommend taking this class unless you are prepared to be frustrated by him every class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-02T03:06:41Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME466', 'review': 'This is single handedly the worst professor I have ever encountered in my time at University of Maryland. I wish there was an option for ZERO stars. Do not take this professor.\r\n\r\nFirst of all, this is the most disorganized course I have ever taken. This course is a horrible reflection on the teaching performance of the University of Maryland as a whole. The professor goes on random tangents and does not prepare lectures at all. He will pull up a set of slides (if his computer works), loosely talk about them for a few minutes, then veer away from the slides into a rambling heap of non-sensible Lean Six Sigma projects he has completed in the past.\r\n\r\nThis course involves a semester long lean six sigma project. Unfortunately, these projects were a HUGE stretch as relating to lean six sigma. My project was closer to an English project than anything else. It was extremely disappointing and a huge waste of time for everyone involved. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-27T00:37:55Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Bigio is by far the best option for ENME392 and it's not even close. You absolutely want to take this with him over Fuge and Cukier.\r\n\r\nOur class was on zoom, and attendance was optional but you really want to attend these. They're a bit annoying at times and you'll be forced to do group break out participation things. But he will walk you through examples, and most importantly he will tell you exactly what's going to be on the exam. For our class, he told the zoom section a method to do one problem that anyone who didn't watch the lecture would not have known, and definitely got a 0 on the exam for that.\r\n\r\nSo maybe that's not fair, but if you attend the lecture and participate, you'll get a good grade. Lectures are recorded too so you can watch it later. He can be funny at times although I'd guess some will not appreciate his humor and may find it a bit... out of touch.\r\n\r\nHW is harder than exams by far, so if you can understand the HW you'll be in great shape. He's a pretty lenient grader too, I think even more so if you attended lecture and actively participated. Do the HW, then run through the practice exam he posts and you'll get a good grade. Overall I put in very minimal effort for this class and got an A. I never even opened a textbook (or textbook PDF) for this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-15T20:44:41Z'}, {'professor': 'David Bigio', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "To do well in this class you really need to use both the lectures and the book as resources. Bigio's lectures are a bit disorganized and he went through the content a bit slower, which made them easier to follow, but he often didn't cover all the content you need to read in the book. However, I found this teaching style a lot better than the other professor who would speed through all the content to cover everything. Exam questions also seemed fair. From what I can tell, he is probably the best option to take for ENME392.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-31T03:16:30.729616Z'}], 'name': 'David Bigio', 'slug': 'bigio'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL211', 'ENGL295', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Dude is the man. Funny and easy grader. Go to class, participate, ask him questions, easiest English A you could ask for.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-23T15:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': None, 'review': 'I just finished his class this semester. Im surprised this teacher does not have any reviews. Honestly the most thoughtful and nice person. He really cares about his students and that fact that they might be in harder classes. Really wants you to learn and understand how to become a good writer. Highly recommend this teacher to anyone.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-15T17:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Super caring professor and knows that his students are taking other challenging courses. Extends deadlines, allows you to rewrite essays and overall just wants you to learn something and do well in class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-17T22:46:35Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Dr. Brookshire is an amazing person. He truly understands that we are busy students with other obligations as well. His deadlines are fair and he works hard to be available for students during office hours and outside appointments. There's a lot of small grades throughout the semester that will help carry you when the real papers come. There were 2 long essays that we wrote in class with multiple activities that lead up to them to help us get the best grade possible. The 2 essays go hand in hand, so it wasn't so tedious. Also, we got to choose our topic, so it was more fun to write. At the end of the semester, we made websites out of our topics, which is a lot of work but it's much better than writing another essay. He is also one of the only professors that don't require purchase of the ENGL101 book, which saves you $100 !", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:20:26Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Dr. Brookshire is an amazing person. He truly understands that we are busy students with other obligations as well. His deadlines are fair and he works hard to be available for students during office hours and outside appointments. There's a lot of small grades throughout the semester that will help carry you when the real papers come. There were 2 long essays that we wrote in class with multiple activities that lead up to them to help us get the best grade possible. The 2 essays go hand in hand, so it wasn't so tedious. Also, we got to choose our topic, so it was more fun to write. At the end of the semester, we made websites out of our topics, which is a lot of work but it's much better than writing another essay. He is also one of the only professors that don't require purchase of the ENGL101 book, which saves you $100 !", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:20:30Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Dr. Dave is such a great teacher. He is so nice and accommodating to all of his students. I would 10/10 recommend taking him. He is so real and understands you have other things going on. He is easy on grading and is always giving out extra points for minimal assignments.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-19T20:54:37Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'GOAT. good luck getting him tho, gotta be quick. Man wants to work with the students, not work the students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-30T07:49:06Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "As other people had said, love Dr.Dave's class.\r\n-He doesn't over lecture.\r\n-pushes deadlines all the time to give students more time work on papers\r\n-easy-going and approachable\r\n-flexible office hours\r\n-assignments are relatively easy (other than the actual big papers which just take awhile to do)\r\n-Some things I would say that aren't great about him is that he is a VERY SLOW grader. He takes forever to give back feedback. This can be annoying and stressful because the big papers you work on in this class have to do with one another. So he says he'll give back feedback on Tuesday and never does. \r\n\r\nYeah would recommend and get put on waitlist (I was on waitlist I think I was #12 and ended up getting a spot so I would try it anyways)\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-29T20:52:19Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "This is a phenomenal professor. He is so flexible with grades and class attendance. He is fun and his office hours are so laid back. He doesn't waste time or your money! I didn't have to buy a textbook. His essays are definitely challenging but if you just talk to him, he will change the due dates to work with you. If you need a freshman professor, he's the best!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-06T15:21:04Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'He is very flexible with assignment due dates and grades. He gives constructive feedback to all our essays. His essays are pretty straightforward with clear criteria. He makes writing so much easier to organize and helped me improve my writing. I am pretty sure that he gave out relatively fewer essay assignments than most other ENGL101 professors. His class is one of the few English classes that are blended. In his class, you only need to come twice per week, you have a short discussion assignment once per week. Like the earlier reviews have said, Dr. Dave is easy-going and approachable especially during office hours. I would recommend anyone to take his classes even aside from ENGL101. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-23T07:28:18Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'I’ve hated english all my life but Dr. Dave made it great. He always extended deadlines for papers, and always gave criticism in a logical manner. In this class, you will be choosing an unresolved issue and will be writing about this issue for the entirety of the semester. My only recommendation for this class is to choose an ongoing issue that you are actually passionate about, whether it be environmental, political, etc.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-11T23:14:06Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'I hate english. Well... hated. I was so afraid to take a college level english course because I dreaded writing all throughout highschool. But now I feel pretty confident as a writer and have a newfound appreciation for writing. Dr. Dave is so easy going and stress-free. He changed my outlook on english classes. Also he pushes back deadlines a lot which is a lifesaver. Take his class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-14T03:10:41Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'BEST PROFFESOR!!!\r\nI have never gotten an A in any English class before, and I received an A+ in his class. This was not due to him being an easy grader (although he was not particularly harsh), but it was due to how resourceful and helpful he was. I have never met anyone that cared for their students more. He is always available (and encouraging) for office hours, and will give you significant help with your paper. I hate English, but I am taking another English class just to have him again ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-03-09T20:45:16Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Best ENGL101 professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-09T14:13:15Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Dr. Dave is the best english teacher I have ever had. I used to be terrified of writing but he makes everything very clear and makes the class fun. He is extremely accommodating and always pushes back deadlines to help his student. 100% recommend him for engl101', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T02:45:48Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Easily the best English teacher I've ever had. I've never liked English as a subject and never liked going to English classes, but Dave made the class enjoyable to go to. He gives a lot of extensions which gives you a good amount of time to complete things. I would definitely recommend him for ENGL101.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T20:24:11Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Great teacher! Funny, helpful, flexible with assignments and due dates. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-31T14:21:18Z'}, {'professor': 'David Brookshire', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'If you are able to get Dr. Dave, get him. He is very fun to have, classes, are enjoyable and he always provides a great perspective on a multitude of different topics. No textbook. Very flexible and wants you to succeed and have a good grade. I would highly recommend this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-05T19:42:36.163619Z'}], 'name': 'David Brookshire', 'slug': 'brookshire'}, {'courses': ['PHYS122', 'PHYS121', 'PHYS115', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS132', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS261', 'PHYS261M', 'PHYS271', 'PHYS271M', 'EXST155', 'PHYS331', 'PHYS332', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS132', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS331', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS132', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS331', 'PHYS332', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS132', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS261', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS271', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS132', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS261', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS271', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS132', 'PHYS161'], 'average_rating': 3.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "He's terrible at teaching. His lectures are so vague and he never does examples. I give him three stars because his class wasn't too hard. The clicker questions are online so you can not go to lecture and still do the clicker questions, you just have to always be looking at your computer so you know when a new questions pops up.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-11-15T10:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS132', 'review': 'Buehrle is your best bet with physics II. We tend to repeat material in class from the class before and after, which helps enforce the topic. The class didn’t seem to be a lot of work besides the lab, which will never not be a pain in the ass, but at least there is no take-home work from lab. Honestly the key to success with either physics for the life sciences (I or II) is to do well on the homework. Find a group of friends and work on it together, and go to office hours with a TA who seems the most competent. And hint hint, the homework get reused usually each semester. Overall I would recommend taking PHYS132 with Buehrle, seems like a pretty chill and nice guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-06-03T10:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS132', 'review': "Great professor. His motto is: ZERO STRESS. He recycles A LOT of clicker questions on his weekly quizzes and on his exams. Great at answering questions and responding to student concerns. And he doesn't use those annoying white boards from 131 which is awesome! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-06-08T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'I never leave reviews for professors unless I have a bad time. I had a bad time with this guy.\n\r\nThis guy straight up gives you old AP Physics C problems as exams. Those by themselves are hard. He does not actually teach anything, especially as an introductory Physics class. All he does is derivations on the board. I went to every lecture and it seemed like the time spent in class did not help at all and was a complete waste of time. All in all, bad teacher and really hard exams. Reading the book and watching videos helps a bit.\n\r\nWeekly quizzes which are usually pretty hard and can rarely be done in the time given. Discussion is utterly useless as all you have time to do is take the quiz then go over the answers to the quiz after it is collected.\n\r\nNow, after all this there is a pretty big curve. Be aware the final is really hard. I would recommend just doing old AP Physics C Free Responses to prepare for the exams. \n\r\nI worked really hard in this class and was able to pull off an A- in his class after the curve but if I had the option to take it with someone else that actually teaches, I would. (Side note: This guy is treats guy and girls completely differently -- to the point where me and several other students in lecture would pick up on the way he would talk to guys as opposed to the way he talked to girls.)', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-05-29T01:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "He is engaging and enthusiastic in his teaching. Grading was fair with the exams being manageable. I'll say the same for quizzes.\n\r\nIt's important to actually do the homework problems and GSS worksheets. If you practice until you can get the answers without error, you will get an A in the class. I became lazy and started googling the homework answers since they are all online. Still managed a B in the class.\n\r\nI should mention this is my third physics class since I am a biology major and the material in this was a bit different.\n\r\nDefinitely would take a another class with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2015-01-20T14:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Buehrle was a decently dynamic teacher, but ultimately lectures were superfluous and I rarely went. Having taken AP Physics, I was quite bored by the class and he didn't do enough to change that. This would've been fine, but his mastering physics homeworks were ridiculous. They would often take hours and be significantly harder than anything he had talked about in class. On top of this, his exams were laughably difficult and the averages seemed to generally fall in the 60s. I don't feel like I learned the material well at all. That being said, the curve is definitely in your favor and relative to what I've heard of other teacher's for 161 you could do far worse.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-04T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'Buehrle is a top notch professor. His lectures were very interesting and he is a really nice guy. His tests got progressively more difficult but he is a fairly easy grader. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-08-20T03:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'First, you are going to have endless amounts of Mastering Physics. It sucks. They take 2-5 hours depending on the week and your Googling ability. They don\'t match up all that well with the difficulty and style of the problems you get in class.\n\r\nSecond, he does not go over many examples in class, and mostly does formula derivations, which is not very helpful for learning how to actually do the problems.\n\r\nThird, his exams are really hard. People walk out and say "I don\'t know if I got a single point." They are all curved, usually a lot, so there is no final curve on the class. Many people had already learned the material but the University did not give them AP credit, so that messed up the curve.\n\r\nFourth, he is an engaging and energetic lecturer. He likes to bring in demonstrations that are not necessarily helpful, but at least interesting. He lets class out 10-15 minutes early almost every day.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-28T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Buehrle is such a nice, straightforward person. He's teaching style is slow but thorough. If you've gone through AP Physics B you'll be fine for most of the course (you can probably skip most lectures and be fine on the exams). If you've never had physics before, he is also a great choice because of how thorough. \n\r\nI definitely recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-26T02:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Buehrle was a very straight forward and easy to understand professor. He explains everything VERY slowly compared to physics professors I've had in the past, which is good when you get into slightly more complicated topics. He's also easy to approach and is probably the least condescending professors I've ever had.\n\r\nHis tests are more difficult and fast paced than his teaching style would suggest, but they are graded leniently. I'm usually decent at predicting my test scores, and I was confident I got a C or B at best on each test, but I actually got all As BEFORE the curve. The curve on each exam was around 10%. The tests did have a lot of questions without numbers, which could be a problem for some people.\n\r\nI noticed the reviewers that complained were in 121 or 122. I took those classes when I was a biology major, so I'm guessing they are also bio majors. I met a lot of bio majors while getting my microbiology degree at umd, and I hate to generalize, but a large percentage of them are incredibly lazy when it comes to certain classes (mainly pre-meds who want the glory of being a physician, but don't want to put in the work). My point is, don't judge Buehrle by those reviews.\n\r\nP.S. The last paragraph wasn't meant to offend pre-med students. There are plenty of hard working pre-meds who will be great physicians one day!\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-31T15:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS122', 'review': "Ouch this guy is so outta whack. Do your GPA a favor, take someone else. His exams are all over the places. If your physic is semi ok, you'll feel like crap when taking his exams. I don't understand why he doesn't write his own exam that is related to what's teaching in the classroom, but instead he takes some questions from college board website, probably copy and paste and said he wrote them. At the end of the class, I think he curved like 1% or something geez. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-09-04T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'Explains things really well. Easy to talk to and willing to help.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-08-19T00:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "I also disagree with the first review of the professor. He is one of the kindest individuals I've ever met and explains the concepts very well. His tests are not too difficult. Physics is one of those subjects you either get or don't. I would say I'm usually one of those students who wouldn't get it...but I truly excelled in this course. If you have taken physics in high school...then you will do absolutely fine. Usually 800+ out of 100 points is an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-14T15:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "Buehrle is the king. \n\r\nPros: EXTREMELY nice, presents the material in an understandable, friendly way. Tries to make sure all of his students get a concept before he moves on. He also curves a BOATLOAD apparently. He says an 80 is rounded to a 90, and looking at his stats in our umd he is really generous. Also, his homework is graded on completion and not correctness.\n\r\nCons: Dude teaches you AP Physics. Straightup. He uses old AP physics questions for his own exams, and his final. You can google the questions from his key and ap exams from like eight years ago show up. This is a royal pain when you're studying class notes and from the book and he asks you something that you've never come across before, which none of the other current phys professors do. However, there's usually only one or two of those on each test, and other than that they're OK.\n\r\nIMPORTANT note: Make sure you have the old exams when taking this class. He reuses a lot of his questions, and this is pretty convenient. What I found was the best way to study was to study old exams, notes, old AP physics problems, homeworks. That's listed in order of importance.\n\r\nI walked away with a decent understanding of basic physics and an excellent grade (I got about 910 points looking at my total grades)\n\r\nMake sure you do the force and motion survey at the beginning, it's worth like 1.5%", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-22T07:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "I completely disagree with the above review about this professor. He explained concepts very thoroughly and made lecture both fun and enjoyable (which is difficult especially for a 2 hour lecture). He is very responsive to students who do not understand the material, and knows how to teach it better than some of the other professors because he used to teach high school (so he isn't mainly a researcher). His tests and quizzes were difficult, but fair. If you did the practice problems he gave you then you would do fine. Clearly he is not too difficult a grader because his grade distribution is all A's and B's.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-13T12:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': None, 'review': "For the record, it should be said that physics is my weakest and least favorite subject and I hope to not come off as bitter in this review. Buehrle is a friendly and funny guy, but when it comes to teaching physics, he is not that good. I tried my best to learn the material from the lectures, but I guess I just don't get it like everyone else does. A lot of the time, it seems like he just talks about the problem but doesn't do them out completely. His exams were pretty challenging and they were both heavily curved. \r\n\r\nHonestly, my only advice is to grind through his class and watching videos like Khan Academy on YouTube and hopefully you'll do better than I did. I regret not taking Hailu Gebremariam because I have heard that his section is having a better time than I am. Also, it should be said that my experience is not representative of everyone else's experience, and best of luck if you take him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-05-03T03:47:43Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'You’re 100% not going to take anything from this class. I would honestly say he is the worst professor I’ve had at this university, and it’s a shame because he’s a nice guy and says funny things and engages the class - all building façade that you might be learning something useful or that those practice problems you just went over or the demo he did will end up being beneficial. The BAM here comes midterm number 1 ready to just bend you over and dilate your orifices until you walk out of the lecture hall physically and emotionally drained, wondering how you got to that point, and whether or not you’ll ever make it as an engineer when you thought you studied and prepared for this exam only to stare at the first problem and then at your formula sheet and realize you didn’t learn a damn thing in this class and it’s only getting worse from here on.\r\n\r\nFor anyone discouraged after taking this course, PHYS260 is arguably harder in terms of content, but so long as your professor actually teaches you things they test you on, then you’ll be fine. \r\n\r\nJust rely on Buehrle’s curve to pass this class, I’d honestly say it’s impossible otherwise unless you took physics in high school. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-06-02T10:29:05Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS132', 'review': 'He is a pretty good lecturer but the class is still difficult. Reuses a lot of questions on clickers, homework, quizzes, and exams. One nice thing is that the exams do not count for a large percentage of the final grade. The exams have way too many questions to get done in the time period allotted. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-11-20T17:13:11Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'The lectures were boring and long, but the homework was easy. However, the exams were tough. He gives a good curve because the average was low, but you still have to put in effort to get a good grade', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-25T01:20:53Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Great Guy, Lectures were really boring sometimes, but HW was free and the exams were pretty fair, quizzes were really dumb sometimes tho', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-13T19:06:46Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Covers the material well, makes the occasional physics jokes, and is personal with each student's concerns and requests. He teaches at a manageable pace and posts his lectures slides. The exams however are quite difficult, but he curves.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-04-10T20:48:57Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "He's a funny and nice guy, but with this class, you get what you put in. The lectures are mostly pretty boring and the exams are pretty tough. There is a curve for the exams tho, plus he drops 1 of the 3 exams since the other physics professor only gives 2 exams. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-07T23:49:34Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Buehrle is a chill professor who makes the occasion physics jokes. The homework is easy, but the exams are usually pretty difficult, but he always curves the average to around 80%', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-13T18:38:51Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'The first thing people think about Professor Buehrle is that he looks like Mark Hamill. Aside from that, Buerhle is a laid back professor, and teaches similarly to AP Physics C. The notes were not too helpful with homework, but was doable. Exams were difficult, but he always curves to make the average 80%. Since quizzes were online, there was nothing to do in discussions, and therefore were pointless, unless you had a homework question.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-05-26T22:11:57Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "David Buehrle is a pretty nice guy, but his lectures were pretty boring and not too helpful; most of the content was ripped straight out of the textbook (including examples), and he didn't start doing more beneficial examples until halfway through the course. \r\nHis online lectures were about the same as in-person. Homework was fairly straightforward and easy, but it took a lot of time to do. Exams were probably the worst part of the course: they either escalated the difficulty of problems or didn't give enough time to complete everything and check your answers. The raw average scores of most of the exams were in the upper 50's to lower 60's; however, he curved exams by 20-30% (around the average), which was a blessing.\r\n\r\nOverall, I didn't learn too much from his course, but I had taken AP Physics (so it wasn't utterly terrible). Since this is a requisite for engineering majors, I wish you the best of luck!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-06-08T21:52:31Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'Buehrle was great. Online lectures were helpful and frequently ended early. OH were helpful and he was cool. Exams were standardized and on ExpertTA', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-04T23:06:43Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS131', 'review': 'This class was super chill. The class focused more on theory than doing math (great for me because I suck at math!). The homework and weekly quizzes can be difficult but he repeats very similar questions on his exams. His online lectures were reused from spring and summer sessions. This made me feel disconnected from the class which was hard for me mentally and made it difficult to stay engaged. Online lab was fine because there is no work outside of the lab. You work with your assigned group over zoom through out the semester and everything is done on the computer. You can put in some effort and do fine. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-27T04:04:55Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "As far as the quality of physics lecturers goes, Buehrle's probably up there as one of the better ones. Pretty entertaining guy in-person. His exams were somewhat challenging but he infamously had really generous curves on them. The flipside is this meant he didn't curve final grades, no matter how close you may have been to the next grade cutoff...", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-13T06:49:40Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS131', 'review': "The grading scale is heavily tilted so its almost impossible to fail the class. But, don't expect to get much out of the class because its a disorganized nightmare", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-15T16:49:45Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "This class was run asynchronously and he just posted old lecture videos from previous courses he taught, not even necessarily from PHYS161! This means it was extremely disorganized and nothing he said in the lecture about the exams/homeworks was actually true. The tests were very hard, though they were curved insanely generously. Personally, I literally got nothing out of listening to his lectures which consisted only of slides from the textbook company and the example problems from the book. I had to do a ton of self-teaching just to pass the class. He also didn't respond to my emails and took forever to grade exams (like a month!!).", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-21T15:41:14Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS131', 'review': "If you need to get physics out of the way because it is just some random requirement, then this class is for you. He puts a huge curve on the grades, so even though I knew literally maybe 20% of the content I still got an A in the class (my exam scores were 88.5%, 68%, and 135/200 on the final). His lectures are absolutely useless, because he never teaches you how to actually think through and solve a physics problem. Most of the quizzes and homeworks could be found on old UMD PowerPoints and quizlets. With all this in mind, I have never known less for a class and came out of it with an A, despite the fact that I literally don't know anything about physics. This sucks for me because I am a pre-med student, so now I have to self study physics for the MCAT since he did not teach me anything. So if you actually want to learn, I would give this class a 2/5, but if you are looking for an A with minimum effort to simply get a physics requirement out of the way I would give this class a 4/5.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-23T17:35:29Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "Buerhle explains every single concepts very clearly and concisely in his lectures, and even taking the course over the summer, he always host office hours regularly and he won't even mind to meet students at times other than office hours. He addresses every question very well, and once when I got stuck on a problem for hours, he and I spent 30 minutes together and we figured it out. Exam questions formatted a lot like the homework questions, perhaps there may be one question that threw people off especially on the third midterm or the final exam, but I promise you will learn a lot from his lectures and the class as a whole. \r\nIf you are planning on taking PHYS 270 over summer, even when it definitely will be in-person next summer, still, do it! I guarantee it will be the best experience! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-07-21T23:22:16Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS132', 'review': 'This class is a dub. Even though my man is the epitome of laizefaire, the class is an absolute W.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-26T21:03:56Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "PHYS161 isn't easy, and it is a benchmark course for engineering at UMD. My one and only retake was at UMD, and I took the class with Professor Buehrle.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\nSemi-generous curve.\r\nNo textbook is required. (Physics textbooks can be really expensive.)\r\n\r\nCons:\r\nLong lectures.\r\nExtremely difficult exam problems.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-09-03T01:30:07Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Other people I've talked to think he's great, but personally I think he's just okay. His lectures felt almost entirely conceptually based, meanwhile his exams were only applied problems so it felt like a lot of extra work to keep up. The discussion sections cover applied problems but unfortunately I didn't have a great TA so I was kind of on my own. The HW software wasn't great and was tedious at times. The curves on the exams did help quite a bit, but the questions tend to be more difficult than any other applied problems done during discussion and HWs. I only have Khan Academy to thank for my A in this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-03-02T00:47:47Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "This professor did quite well in teaching the course, however as many people point out, his lectures are really long and extremely boring at times. His exams tend to be kind of difficult to some extent, but honestly I never found them to be insultingly hard. He curves SUPER generously and the grade distributions basically means that, as long as you get the average on all the midterms and do well on the homeworks and online quizzes, you'll basically have an A by the time you take the final. Not only that but he also drops your lowest midterm, meaning that if you did very well on the first 2 midterms, you don't even have to take the last one. Hell, I only took the last midterm for practice and for funsies. Didn't study at all, barely knew what I was doing, yet I STILL got a good grade on the exam. That's how good the curve is. Overall, study hard for the midterms, course is pretty straight forward, decent professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-12T22:18:54Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "He's a nice guy. You gotta respect him. He gives a nice curve given the exams which he gives are difficult. I wouldn't recommend emailing him he doesn't really help with that kind of thing. Overall pretty good, just do the hw and you will be fine. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-15T19:36:32Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Quick overview of the course: 2 homework and 1 quiz a week, 3 midterms, 1 final, and you get a formula sheet for every exam\r\nMy experience: I learned nothing from this class. Buehrle's lectures were very long and boring, meaning there is very little chance you will be able to focus enough to understand what he is teaching (many people gave up on showing to class after a while). He also didn't prepare us for the level of difficulty of his exams, so the only thing that will be keeping your grade afloat will be the curve. When I say difficult, I really mean his exams were designed to mess you up. For instance, one of the test questions this semester had 2 paragraphs talking about a block's movement and like 15 variables listed, all of which was completely useless to solving the problem. Instead of testing your knowledge, the problem was only meant to make you waste your time trying to use all of the information given. This is why the curve is critical. He curves the average grade of every midterm up to an 80% and drops your lowest scoring one. I doubt you'll end up learning anything from this class, so at least take the teacher who curves like crazy. GOOD LUCK!!! ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-17T21:58:53Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS131', 'review': "The homeworks and the labs are very tedious. But the exams are easy as long as you review the practice exams. Plus the (required) textbook is well written and helps to understand lecture. He's a very engaging lecturer by the way. And he's willing to answer any questions you have about the material. Yeah physics might be required but at least you got Dave C Buehrle to help you out.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T01:04:09Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "His lectures are a bit long and dull, and his exams are on the harder sides. However, he does apply a generous curve to most exams and he drops your lowest exam grade, so it's still possible to do well in this class even if you absolutely bomb one of your exams ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-19T12:52:58Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Pros:\r\nVery-generous curve.\r\n\r\nCons:\r\nLectures are pretty bad.\r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-20T01:46:07Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Overall, taking physics with Buehrle was okay, but it was the hardest class I have taken here at UMD so far. There is a lot of room to get A's on assignments, especially with the expert TA homeworks, because even though they can be frustrating, they are very doable. The quizzes have very vague and conceptual questions and I think that the wording is intentionally tricky. His exams are very hard since very little information is given to you in each question and you may be unable to see the path that you're supposed to take to answer a question. I also found it very frustrating that the exams asked questions that were similar to lectures, but the expert TA homeworks and quizzes didn't exactly line up with lecture, so it could feel like you were practicing skills you would not be tested on. Buehrle also had no control over the 300 student lecture hall. It was always noisy and distracting and very difficult to learn in that environment. I think Buehrle is a nice guy, and if you already have a solid foundation in physics, you can probably do well in his class. If you never took Ap physics in high school, you should probably find a different professor simply on the fact that it is really hard to focus in his class and the exams and quizzes will be extremely difficult since the expert TA homeworks aren't good practice for them. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-24T14:16:08Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "As someone who has never liked physics this class was painful. Buehrle seems like a nice guy, but his lectures weren't helpful especially because he posted his slides which were straight copied from the textbook and didn't say anything different than what was included in the text. I found it really hard to study for this class because expert TA and quizzes were nothing at all like the problems on exams. I feel like I learned nothing, did average on exams, and only got an A because of a very large curve.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-06-08T01:23:25Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "The professor is a really nice guy and is very understandable. People say his exams are harder, but he also curves pretty generously. Overall this guy is really nice and his class is more engaging than Hailu's, so he's a better bet over Hailu so long as you make the effort to understand what's going on in lecture.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-11T00:18:31.967890Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS132', 'review': "I always enjoy his lectures, even though I've never liked physics much, because he does a good job of incorporating a lot of examples and practice problems. The class is definitely doable - he has lots of Tophat questions for completion that help boost your grade, and the hws and labs, while tedious, aren't too bad if you work with others or go to course center hours. Exams aren't too hard, they're usually similar to many of hws and old exam practice problems. Buehrle's a very nice and understanding professor - when one of our exam averages was pretty low this semester, he gave us the opportunity to make up points on a couple of the problems, which I really appreciated as not many STEM professors will do this. Glad I got to take his course for 131/132.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T19:00:30.605189Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS132', 'review': "Dr. Buehrle is seriously one of the best people, and professors you can have as a student at this University. It is rare to find a professor who is not only genuinely passionate about the material they teach but also about the students they teach it to. Dr. B is very accommodating of students' needs and will do anything in his power to ensure they succeed. I highly recommend taking any class he teaches.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-17T23:28:39.085506Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS132', 'review': "Dave Buehrle is a legend. He may seem intimidating at first through lecture or email, but I promise you he is a genuinely nice professor and person. His lecture is engaging and interesting, and I promise you will learn a lot of useful information. The grading is setup so that as long as you put in effort you will NOT fail. I'm not sure what these other reviews are about, but definitely chose this professor and come ready to class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-26T04:57:49.688882Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "The only reason I got an A- in this class was the extremely generous curve. In lecture, I felt like I understood the material when it was taught and studied it. However, when it came to exams I had no idea what I was doing- meaning I wasn't really understanding the material in the first place. As someone who has never taken physics before, his lectures teach you the step above before teaching you the basics- which was detrimental for someone like me who has never seen the material before. I even tried to learn and study the basics, but was still confused when exams came around (though I have come to realize that physics is one of my weaker subjects).\r\n\r\nOverall, I would take Buehrle if you just want to pass the class as he generously curves. Personally, I was not happy taking this course because I wanted to understand the material and found that his lectures hindered my learning instead of helping it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-28T15:47:52.308237Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS131', 'review': 'Such an amazing teacher. Attend lectures. Ask questions during office hours. He really is there to help you understand and apply physics to everyday life. He truly wants his students to succeed. Take him!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-29T04:57:15.775405Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Great guy and decent lecturer. Homeworks give plenty of attempts and are mostly straightforward (there are a lot however). Quizzes are also pretty simple. Exams are tricky with Buehrle but he curves them pretty significantly. Overall good experience and would definitely recommend taking it with him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-03T18:44:13.584107Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS132', 'review': 'Phys132 was very disorganized. The lectures, labs, homeworks, exams, and textbook were all out of sync with each other. The material in the 2nd half of the semester was poorly taught, not enough examples to prepare for assignments. Easy A but did not learn a lot.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-05T20:59:48.931580Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS131', 'review': "Really good professor. He answers emails really quick, he cares about students understanding the content, and he is very considerate with grades. It's not a hard class if you take some time to study. Homework can be challenging so make sure you take some time to complete them. There are a lot of easy points for the class, and I recommend going to lecture. Exams are tricky, but he gives you a bunch of material to practice with... USE IT! I definitely recommend taking Buehrle.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-13T18:39:13.732867Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS132', 'review': "Actually the worst professor of the worst class ever. Everything in this class is a mess. None of the material is relevant to the tests, and the tests are not meant to be answered by students of this class. Most people will get an A, if that's what you're worried about. But if you want to actually learn physics DO NOT take this class.\r\nThe absolute WOAT", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-26T21:39:26.010663Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "The worst. He thinks that he knows what he's talking about but does not. Worst professor EVER. The curves are pointless and the exams are rediculous. HE LIED WHEN HE SAID THAT THE EXAMS ARE EASIER THAN THE HW. JUST THE WORST!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-03-11T01:11:20.904540Z'}, {'professor': 'David Buehrle', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "If you are the type of student who has to be walked through examples as you learn the material, Buehrle likely is not the professor for you. I have had a lot of problems with retaining physics information specifically because of this. He does a good job dumbing the concepts down to a conversational level, but the way he lectures makes it difficult to really understand the theories and math behind the physical concepts, which is what a lot of physics exams revolve around. It's especially difficult because he does very few practice problems in class. He usually has the work for the problem pre-written and presents it during class, which doesn't help me at all because I don't understand the steps he took to get there.\r\n\r\nThe layout of the class is like this:\r\n- ExpertTA homework assignments every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (lowest homework score is dropped I believe)\r\n- A weekly quiz due every Sunday on ELMS\r\n- Three midterm exams, lowest score is dropped\r\n- One final\r\n\r\nThe homework assignments are usually way more difficult than what he covers in class, and the TA I have hasn't been much help in learning the material either. He allows a little leniency for the homework due dates, so if it's a day late you can still potentially get full credit. He doesn't make his own practice problems for exam studying, he only provides textbook practice problem answers, which have helped a bit, but I would prefer personal problems. After having Hailu for 161, I would say Buehrle is actually harder to deal with due to my learning style. Every previous review says the curve is generous, which I'm hoping for, but generous or not the struggle in finishing the class almost isn't worth it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-17T02:49:38.314388Z'}], 'name': 'David Buehrle', 'slug': 'buehrle'}, {'courses': ['SURV640', 'SURV641', 'SURV400', 'HIST204', 'PHSC401'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Cantor', 'slug': 'cantor_david'}, {'courses': ['JOUR455'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Cross', 'slug': 'cross_david'}, {'courses': ['GVPT100', 'GVPT808B', 'GVPT722', 'GVPT409P', 'HONR239W', 'GVPT718C', 'HNUH228A', 'HNUH228A', 'GVPT622', 'GVPT411', 'GVPT622'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Cunningham', 'course': 'HNUH228A', 'review': "I personally was not interested in the subject matter of this class, however, he was so passionate about it that it made me engaged in the class. The readings are quite dense, however, if you just read the abstract, intro, and conclusion you should be fine. He was very lax with the participation grades as it was a zoom class, which was great because everybody has different situations with distanced learning. \r\n\r\nAs for assignments, you had three 3-pages papers that were answering a prompt, two short scholarly article summaries (grade boosters), and a 10-12 final paper. The TA graded everything for us. He was not a harsh grader and gave helpful feedback. The final paper was difficult, but that's mostly because I waited last minute to do it, so don't do that. I definitely recommend this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-28T01:35:00Z'}], 'name': 'David Cunningham', 'slug': 'cunningham_david'}, {'courses': ['MUSC830W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Fedderly', 'slug': 'fedderly'}, {'courses': ['ENME489F', 'ENME489D', 'ENME489F', 'ENME489D', 'ENME489F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Findlay', 'slug': 'findlay'}, {'courses': ['HIST398', 'HIST395', 'HIST219E', 'HIST408B', 'HIST608B', 'HIST329R', 'LASC235', 'PORT235', 'SPAN235', 'HIST607', 'HIST396', 'ARHU158R', 'HIST361', 'HIST339F', 'HIST429Z', 'HIST201', 'HIST361', 'HIST429Z', 'HIST201', 'HIST638A', 'HIST361', 'HIST429Z'], 'average_rating': 3.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': 'HIST395', 'review': "Would strongly advise against the history honors program at UMD. It's an easy A or B the first year, yes, but half the class did not receive honors the second year. If you don't already have an advisor picked out that will be a good one, you will suffer, as your grade and completion is almost totally dependent on the quality of your advisor. \n\r\nProf. Freund is a good guy, but has very high standards for students. Freund does not live up to his own standards.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-06-27T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': 'HIST428T', 'review': 'Dr. Freund emphasizes analysis over facts and dates, thus understanding the interaction of forces rather than simply the accumulation of events. The discussions can be unfocused at times, especially if you have classmates that think they know all the answers. However the lectures were informative and well structured. Exams were take home papers that required you to put into your own words and justify with sources a narrative that explained the events. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-10-21T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': None, 'review': "Hist157 was something I took for my CORE but really expanded my thinking of how the US got to where it is today. This guy makes every lecture almost like a story where he connects everything and even gets the class going by telling us something he did or saw or asking us how we are. He's humorous and was my favorite professor of the semester. It can be difficult to try and grasp all of the big concepts but he explains them well and once you get them, the US today makes so much more sense. Yes, there are readings but the book itself is not that bad. It's all about looking at the big picture and that's much easier to remember then a lot of dates and names because you feel like you know what he's talking about if you grew up in the US. The TAs for my lecture seemed kind of uninterested but the professor could not have made history more exciting.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': None, 'review': "Hist157 should have been called Racism in the US since 1865. Every assignment and test was an essay question regarding the underprivileged and marginalized groups at different points in American history. I also found the grading to be overly nit-picky--most students in my discussion section received C's and D's on every assignment and test. If you want to learn facts and dates, do not take this class. It is more geared towards how people (esp minorities and women) felt at different points in time.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-07T16:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': None, 'review': "Lectures are tolerable but I would bring a laptop so you do not fall asleep. He is very analytical so you do not have to read the text if you attend lecture but read the primary sources. He loves primary sources. Most people did not attend lecture and did fine; I did attend and did fine. 2 essays, a midterm, and a final. Hist 157 was pretty easy but Freund is a history major's kind of teacher", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-07T14:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Freund is very articulate and really does a good job of turning a lecture hall of 200 or so people into a discussion-based class. However, I feel that HIST157 shouldn't be overly analytical, which is the way he structures the class. Attending lectures is not mandatory but his PowerPoints are essential for his essays, and going to class really fleshes out the information.\n\r\nMy problem with the course is that my TA's grading policies were rather harsh. It seems as though everyone in his sections received grades they did not expect. This is an entry-level course, yet the level of scrutiny toward the assignments is just plain unfair. Ruined my experience and hurt my GPA.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-01T22:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': None, 'review': "Like other people have said, interesting class, but way too much reading and work for the Core credit. Take it with someone else if that's all you're going for.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-09T23:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': None, 'review': "Like ksmith1987 said, Fruend seems like a good professor to take for History Majors. For a core class, it wasn't the easy A. The TA determines how well you do on papers as well as exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-04-08T10:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': None, 'review': "Freund was a really cool guy. You don't have to memorize dates or facts, but concepts and major ideas. He gives the exam questions ahead of time, so if you work hard you can get a good grade. Also his lectures are very interesting and tend to be full. Though the grades may be lower, I still recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-04-25T18:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Freund', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Freund was a funny man but I did not enjoy the class at all. It was two papers and two essay exams. I went into the class actually wanting to learn dates and people and events... but this never happened. It was more about how people felt or reacted to certain things (which is what historians think about because they already know the basics). I wanted the basics and never got it. If you're a history major then I would say definitely take the course with Dr. Freund, if its for core and you just want to get through it take it with someone else. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-01-05T17:09:00Z'}], 'name': 'David Freund', 'slug': 'freund'}, {'courses': ['MUSC550', 'MUSC450', 'MUSC670', 'MUSC250', 'MUSC671', 'MUSC448F', 'MUSC673', 'MUSC448C', 'MUSC460', 'MUSC671'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Froom', 'slug': 'froom'}, {'courses': ['BSCI126', 'ENTM788C', 'ENTM798L', 'BSCI126', 'BSCI126'], 'average_rating': 4.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI126', 'review': "Cares about his students and wants to get to know them, easy to do well with little/no effort, you can learn a lot if you just try a little bit\n\r\nskim the readings and know what they're about and you'll do fine", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-25T14:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI126', 'review': "I would not agree with the review below me. While I did receive an A in the class, i wouldn't say it required no effort. It is not the hardest class I have ever taken, but if you put in the effort there is no reason you should not receive an A. \n\r\nThere were 2 tests during the semester as well as a final project. The project was decently demanding but if you go into professor Hawthorne he will help you. There were also other assignments over the semester that were decently long but not difficult.\n\r\nIn terms of Dr. Hawthorne, he's great. He was nice, approachable, and a great teacher. That being said, with the class being a lecture with at least 80 students, I would definitely recommend making sure he knows who you are- it definitely helps.\n\r\nAll of that being said, the entire and your grade depends very much on your TA. If your TA is hard, I would say that the class would be. Overall good class and great teacher", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-03-31T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI126', 'review': 'This class was extremely easy. Literally required almost no effort.\n\r\nThere is 1 exam. The rest of the class you work on a group project. Pick a good group-- you will work with them all semester.\n\r\nHe is also super nice and is responsive to his students concerns. He is super knowledgeable in his field. He clearly loves pollinators and will make you love them too by the end of the class. \n\r\nDefinitely recommend.\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-11-19T22:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI126', 'review': "Prof. Hawthorne is very knowledgeable and down to earth. He treats you with respect and kindness and values your opinion. He tends to try to make an otherwise boring class interesting and uses powerpoints, TED talk videos, and hand on teaching to make sure you know everything you need to before the final project at the end of the semester. \n\r\nAbout the project specifically, it's a group project involving the people you've worked with all semester in your discussion sections. Basically you just design a hypothetical project to bring pollinators into an urban area and discuss how you would do it and what you would need. He gives you free reign to do whatever you think is best and generally just let's you run with it.\n\r\nThe ONLY downfall I find with this class are the (simple) 5 - 10 point quizzes he gives on the reading from the night before. He calls them BCRs and it reminds me of highschool and kind of annoys me. They're not hard if you read the chapter thoroughly, but they are sometimes on obscure parts of the book. He does let you use your book during them though, so BRING YOUR BOOKS to class.\n\r\nThe exams overall were easier than the quizzes, even though they did ask you to label a diagram in a few of them. For example, labeling the diagram of a flower. You go over it beforehand in discussion though, so just pay attention and you'll do fine.\n\r\nOtherwise, great professor. I'm a bit sad I'm graduating as he's pretty knowledgeable and chill. Take him if you need a fairly fun class for credit.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-11-28T21:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI126', 'review': "fun teacher, if you got and A you don't have to take the final!!! great teacher!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-18T17:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI120', 'review': 'Incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic professor. Very receptive to student concerns and a great guy!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-12-13T22:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI126', 'review': 'Dr. Hawthorne is a really nice teacher and he cares about his students. Exams are a little demanding because they covered a lot of readings but grading is ok. Overall will take him again.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-24T16:43:44Z'}, {'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI126', 'review': 'BSCI 126 is a class that is interesting and not too hard at the same time. The exams can be difficult but Dr. Hawthorne cares about his students and tries his best to help them do well in the class. In addition, Dr. Hawthorne is very knowledgeable about the subject matter and you can tell that he is passionate about the material based on the energy he has in an 8 AM lecture. If you want to fulfill the DSNS gen-ed requirement, BSCI 126 with Dr. Hawthorne is a good choice to do so.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-25T23:54:32Z'}, {'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI126', 'review': 'This is not an easy GenEd. It sounds chill, laid back, and light - but it requires hard work. As somebody who found pollinators and in particular bees fascinating, the class was made easier. However, if you have no interest in pollination and just want an “easy A,” this isn’t your best bet.\r\n\r\nThe class is split up into one day of asynchronous videos and one day of in-person lectures to go over the videos. Dr. Hawthorne is an expert and his knowledge was welcomed. He thoroughly explained every concept, provided ample detail, and answered questions via email and in-person the same day - a rarity amongst professors. However, Dr. Hawthorne was not approachable. He never smiled (even with a mask, you can still tell!), he seemed cold toward his students, and often would berate the class for small, non issues like “not enough people are asking me questions.” For Dr. Hawthorne’s attitude, one star is knocked off.\r\n\r\nAnother star is knocked off for the incredible workload this class carries. I was taking 5 courses, many of which are for my major. They all paled in comparison to BSCI126 in the work I had to do. Here’s what this class requires: weekly videos, weekly readings, 3 exams, a 10 minute presentation, a 15-20 page final paper, discussion worksheets, and a photography project worth 100 points. Yeah. That’s a lot. I enjoyed much of it, but not the part about putting in a vast majority of my study/homework time into a class on pollinators.\r\n\r\nThe class is buoyed by the fact that the TAs absolutely rock. Lindsay and Tais were outstanding. They answered any and all questions, actually smiled when talking to students, and were reasonable graders.\r\n\r\nOverall: a time consuming class made difficult for those looking to get an “easy A” - but if you have any interest in bees, it’s worth taking.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-24T19:21:14Z'}, {'professor': 'David Hawthorne', 'course': 'BSCI126', 'review': 'Professor Hawthorne was an amazing professor! He was genuinely kind and cared about your success in the course. He was funny during lecture and made the topic of pollinators very interesting. His exam review is helpful and he expresses a belief that everyone can succeed in his course. He also ordered BSCI126 stickers and pins for the whole class with a student\'s design which I thought was so sweet! \r\n\r\nI would consider this course a moderate to easy GenEd. There were 2 projects, discussion board posts on weekly readings, 3 exams, and occasional discussion section homework. The two projects consisted of a site analysis where you chose a flowery patch somewhere on or off campus and used an app to identify plants and insects around the site; eventually synthesizing changes in insect and flower activity to what you learned in class. The other one was a research paper (about 8-12 double spaced pages) on a topic he assigned related to what you are learning in class. A huge plus to this course is you can drop one exam grade, so if you do well on the first two, you can drop the final exam! The exams honestly were not hard as long as you were paying attention in class, taking notes, and reviewed chapters and lecture slides before the exam. I would definitely recommend this course, it isn\'t an "easy A" no college course is really, but I was taking 15 credits as a freshman and this course was not to overwhelming or stressful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-11T17:29:42.202657Z'}], 'name': 'David Hawthorne', 'slug': 'hawthorne'}, {'courses': ['MUSC102', 'MUSC102B', 'MUSC103'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Henry', 'slug': 'henry_david'}, {'courses': ['EDCI798B', 'EDCI682', 'EDCI798A', 'EDUC888', 'EDCI782', 'EDUC898', 'EDCI788W', 'TLPL677', 'TLPL798B', 'EDCI898', 'EDSP652', 'EDUC888'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Imig', 'slug': 'imig'}]
[{'courses': ['MUSC129B', 'MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Jones', 'slug': 'jones_david'}, {'courses': ['GVPT474', 'GVPT874', 'GVPT479K', 'HONR288A', 'GVPT770', 'GVPT479H', 'GVPT474H', 'GVPT475', 'GVPT379A', 'GVPT479R', 'GVPT475', 'GVPT474', 'GVPT475', 'GVPT475', 'GVPT479H', 'GVPT474'], 'average_rating': 2.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Karol', 'course': 'GVPT479K', 'review': "easy to do well in his class, but he's not a good professor, no guidelines for papers/assignments and doesn't respond to emails, I took his class because the topic seemed really interesting but if you want to get something out of class, don't waste your time with him", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-11T19:30:10Z'}, {'professor': 'David Karol', 'course': 'GVPT474H', 'review': "Not a bad professor, but assigns a ton of readings each night. Really knowledgeable and passionate about the subject, but poorly timed assignments (i.e. a midterm exam one week and a 15 page paper due the next) and an excessive workload in my opinion. He also posted readings late (i.e. Wednesday morning for a Thursday class). If you can handle reading an upwards of 100 pages for each class meeting, you'll be fine", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-25T19:26:19Z'}, {'professor': 'David Karol', 'course': 'GVPT475', 'review': 'Horrible Professor, do not take this class. I had him in Spring 2022. Gives a ton of reading and random true or false quizzes at the beginning of classes. You will be lost. Don’t do it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-11T07:34:13.850436Z'}, {'professor': 'David Karol', 'course': 'GVPT474', 'review': 'Finished the class with an 89.98… He did not round up. That should tell you everything you need to know.\r\n\r\nIf you’re still not convinced that Karol has no heart, he assigned a midterm with a 15 page paper due shortly after. He shuts you down every time you raise your hand and then complains when no one wants to participate. He assigned 8 pop quizzes over the course of the semester, so if you don’t want the added stress of being randomly quizzed, I advise you don’t take his class(es). Karol consistently assigned 60-80 pages of reading from academic journals per night and the quizzes were solely based on the readings. I would spend hours upon hours just trying to get through his readings… So many hours it would be to the point where I lost sleep over this class. After losing all that sleep, I would wake up in fear that there would be a quiz that day. Almost all of his quiz questions contained double and triple negatives in the wording (on top of the questions already being true/false), so I and my peers would spend a majority of the allotted quiz time simply making sense of the questions. Despite him insisting that the quiz questions were not intended to be trick questions, they certainly were! He would always project the correct quiz answers on the board after the quiz was over to go over it with the class, and we could see the percentages of students who got the correct answer. On two separate occasions 15% or less of the class got the correct answer (on a true/false) and he refused to omit the question! The question was very obviously written in a way that made no sense to students, and he would not take the blame. He also never posts slides because it “serves as an incentive for students to come to class.” While I agree with this sentiment, Karol spends the first 40 minutes of class on the first slide, leaving almost no time to cover the actual content of the course. I had another class 15 minutes after his class which was in a different building, and Karol would consistently hold us for 5 to 10 minutes after class was over. He left me almost no time to get to my other class. It was during these 5 to 10 minutes that he held us that he would go through the final 5-7 slides (which were the genuinely important slides), forcing everyone to frantically jot down the notes as quickly as possible. After multiple complaints, he still refused to post the slides! Even our TA (who was the designated note-taker !!) told him to post the slides. He still refused! While I personally have no experience emailing him, peers have told me that he never responds to emails either. Due to his tendency to make students feel as worthless as possible, he is overall a very unapproachable professor. Absolutely miserable class. Would not recommend.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-24T02:47:41.778164Z'}, {'professor': 'David Karol', 'course': 'GVPT475', 'review': 'He’s incredibly knowledgeable and really passionate about the subject + getting us to understand. Don’t listen to the other reviews. If you like the topic of the class, it won’t be difficult and you will definitely learn a lot. Readings aren’t as long or challenging as other reviews suggest. Quizzes are really effortless if you even skim the readings anyways.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-21T21:25:13.843322Z'}], 'name': 'David Karol', 'slug': 'karol'}, {'courses': ['BMGT340', 'BMGT440', 'BMGT340F', 'BMGT340H', 'BMGT440', 'BMGT440', 'BMGT440', 'BMGT440'], 'average_rating': 4.6154, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': 'David Kass is one of the best professors in business school. he is easygoing and not that picky. if you study a little bit, you will be fine. he talks about Warren Buffett all the time. I enjoyed his class and learned a lot.\n\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-05-27T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': 'Kass is overall a nice guy. He is very knowledgeable and offers interesting stories about Warren Buffet just about every class. Unfortunately, his lectures are typically boring and the way he assigns grades is more or less random. The majority of your grade consists of projects/assignments. He falls asleep during just about every presentation so who knows how he actually assigns grades to them. He makes it seem like he is very relaxed at the start of the course, and he is fairly flexible most of the time,but beware, there is no leniency when it comes to grades. Even over a couple basis points. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-18T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Kass is a very likable guy, and good professor. His class is very laid back, and can run a little dry at times. He always manages to keep the class relevant though with current event discussion before the lecture. He also genuinely cares about his students, and makes an effort to ensure everyone is on the same page before moving on.\n\r\nOn a side note, I would just like to talk about his obsession with Warren Buffett. At least once, if not more, in each lecture Kass will go silent and he will start grinning ear to ear. He will then proceed to gush over the magic of Warren Buffett or Berkshire Hathaway for five good minutes. He also often mentions his Buffett-centric blog or his Buffett related tweets almost daily. This really doesn't impact my opinion of him in any way, but it's impossible to write a review of him without mentioning it.\n\r\nOverall I enjoyed his class very much, and learned very much, albeit with not very difficult material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-11-19T18:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': 'Professor Kass is a pretty straightforward and laid-back professor. He has a lot of knowledge about financial management and corporate finance, and he is very helpful to his students (and is almost always available either in his office or by e-mail). \n\r\nAlthough BMGT440 with Professor Kass is one of the easier finance courses in the program, you can certainly learn a lot from him and his class if you choose to do so. \n\r\nBMGT440 is pretty much an extension of BMGT340 that allows you to gain experience in financial analysis and DCF valuation with actual case studies and projects. \n\r\nOverall, I strongly recommend Professor Kass for this course. He is a very kind professor and is very willing to help you learn a lot and to receive a good grade in the process of doing so.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-06T16:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': "You get as much out of this course as you want to. Kass has a PhD from Harvard and knows just about everything regarding today's economy, so he can be a great resource for those of you who really want to learn from him. But if you're lazy and just want an easy A, that's fine too; this class is very easy and an overwhelming majority receives A's. Assignments consist of about nine-ten 1-2 page case summaries, a group case project/presentation, a final group project/presentation, an individual case, and a midterm for which you are basically given the questions ahead of time and are allowed to use a notesheet. \n\r\nKass is incredibly nice (almost a pushover) and the class itself puts the material you learn in BMGT340 to real-life practice and gives you practical experience valuing companies. \n\r\nNo complaints", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very easy to get a B. You honestly have to just study the day or so before to get a B. An A on the other hand, you have to quiet work for it and do very well on his stupid exams, which he pulls questions out of his ass. I got a B for not doing anything, and always skipped. So I guess he is an easy grader, but he is a DOUCHE BAG, especially when you send him emails. Certified douche needs to retire.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-28T19:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': 'Great professor. Class consists of case write ups, a few presentations, an individual case project, a midterm, and an optional final. \n\r\nPeople like to take this class since it\'s "easy". I think it\'s definitely less stressful compared to other classes where you fight for any grade you get, so you can learn Finance at your own pace. I actually learned a little bit from Professor Kass, although I would have liked it if he went deeper into some of his material, like Black-Scholes. He\'s an old man, so cut him some slack if he falls asleep during presentations. Great teacher though', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T18:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': 'Awesome! Do take. The person below described well, i wont bother.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-07T04:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT340F', 'review': 'Wont actually learn anything, but super easy course', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:40:22Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': 'Professor Kass is very laid-back and very knowledgeable. His lecture is a bit dry but it\'s very clear, easy to follow, and can be related with real-world events so you will learn a thing or two by going to lectures. He also talks about Warren Buffet all the time. He is not hard on students, meaning you don\'t have to necessary went to every class. However I found his class very enjoyable that it was more worth to go and I learned a lot from him. \r\n\r\nExams are all very easy and the mean is always around 90/100, and very similar to his sample problems in class. But the quality and grades of team projects highly depend on the teammates on your team, so pick your teammate wisely if you want to get a good grade above A-! Grading can be a bit random but generally if you put your effort in studying the materials, an "A" should not be hard to get. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-25T02:57:04Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': 'Great professor. Lectures are a bit dry but he is really accommodating and willing to go out of his way to help you. Make sure you pick a good team at the start of the semester as this will largely impact your grade. Study a bit before the exams and you should be fine. Projects do help you learn a lot. I would definitely take a class by him again. He also loves talking about buffett.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-26T00:53:29Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': 'extremely sweet professor who basically reminds you of a typical grandpa. the course material is not very intensive and the midterm and final are directly based off practice problems from class. The group project was challenging and tedious but it was really the only work I had for the the class. Definitely recommend taking 440 with Kass!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T06:51:25Z'}, {'professor': 'David Kass', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': "Kass is overall a nice guy and the class is pretty easy. The exams he tells you exactly what will be on them however there are a lot of homework assignments like case summaries. Also 2 group projects are presented. The class is pretty boring though and the pace is really slow so most people just don't show up to lectures. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-02T15:56:46Z'}], 'name': 'David Kass', 'slug': 'kass'}, {'courses': ['BUSI660', 'BUMO752', 'BMGT878E', 'BUMO732', 'BMGT468V', 'BMGT468W', 'BMGT878T', 'BMGT366', 'BMGT878C', 'BMGT878I', 'BUSO712', 'BMGT868C', 'BMGT366', 'BMGT468V', 'BMGT868C', 'BMGT878T', 'BMGT468W', 'BMGT878E', 'BMGT366', 'BMGT468V', 'BMGT868C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Kirsch', 'slug': 'kirsch_david'}, {'courses': ['BSCI105', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI171', 'BSCI171S', 'BSCI105M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Kirschtel', 'slug': 'kirschtel'}, {'courses': ['ENTS625', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT364', 'BMGT461', 'BMGT461M', 'BUMO732', 'BMGT461N', 'BMGT366', 'BUSO712'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Kressler', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'This is the most incompetent teacher I have ever had. Unable to use a computer and send out simple emails, but teaches a class that is mostly computer based. Thinks the class is wrong when he makes stupid mistakes. Grades unnecessarily hard. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-13T14:19:00Z'}], 'name': 'David Kressler', 'slug': 'kressler'}, {'courses': ['NFSC440', 'NFSC678R', 'NFSC660', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC688', 'NFSC688', 'NFSC440', 'NFSC678R', 'NFSC688', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC660', 'NFSC688', 'NFSC440', 'NFSC678R', 'NFSC688'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Lei', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "Lei's asynchronous NFSC100 videos are verbatim what you read in the required textbook. The only addition is Lei's voice which is ideal if you need to fall asleep quickly. Between not teaching in-person despite Testudo saying so and creating voice recordings of the textbook readings, Lei is about the most unengaging professor you will take. Silver lining is NFSC100 isn't the most dense course and the videos do highlight what from the textbook will be on each exam.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-12T23:43:02Z'}], 'name': 'David Lei', 'slug': 'lei'}, {'courses': ['JOUR320', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR320', 'JOUR620', 'JOUR320', 'JOUR320', 'JOUR320'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Lightman', 'course': 'JOUR320', 'review': "Amazing professor. Extremely hard, and not always nice if you don't live up to his expectations. But taught me a ton about reporting and inspired me to work hard. Very challenging professor though, only take him if you want that extra challenge.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-08-21T21:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lightman', 'course': 'JOUR320', 'review': 'Be warned: he does not give you the whole semester to get your 10 clips. He gives you until the first week of December, so get your clips early!! Also, he makes you pick a "beat" which is a location in the area, like Greenbelt. You have to write lots of stories for your beat, such as a review of a council meeting and a profile of a business. Choose wisely. Anyway, he is great teacher and you will learn a lot in his class but it is very hard. Forget giving 110%, you need to give 210% to pass this class. I\'m not kidding!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-16T23:49:00Z'}], 'name': 'David Lightman', 'slug': 'lightman'}, {'courses': ['ENCE302', 'ENES100', 'ENSE698E', 'ENCE402', 'ENES100A', 'ENCE688D', 'ENSE799', 'ENCE201', 'EDSP652', 'GEMS102', 'GEMS104', 'GEMS202', 'GEMS208A', 'GEMS208B', 'GEMS208M', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'GEMS208D', 'GEMS208E', 'GEMS208F', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'GEMS202', 'GEMS208A', 'GEMS208B', 'GEMS208M', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'GERM103', 'ENCE402', 'GEMS102', 'GEMS104', 'GEMS208D', 'GEMS208E', 'GEMS208F', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENES100', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'GEMS202', 'GEMS208A', 'GEMS208B', 'GEMS208M', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497'], 'average_rating': 2.1818, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENCE302', 'review': 'I thought Lovell was a great teacher. He tells you what you need to know for his exams and he gets right to the point with the material. He is a fair grader and applies a generous curve. He is a nice, funny guy and I was never bored or confused in his class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-06-03T15:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Dr. Lovell is a pretty good guy if you ask him for help. If you never ask a single question, you're going to be completely lost on your hovercraft. If you ask him for help, he will gladly help you if you continue to ask questions.\n\r\nOur class was one of the most prepared when it came to building the hovercraft. \n\r\nHe is a very harsh grader, and a pretty boring lecturer, but once you get to creating the actual hovercraft, it will be fine.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-07T03:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': '**********************************\r\nAVOID THIS PROFESSOR AT ALL COSTS\r\n**********************************\n\r\nHe wastes your time every class.\r\nWhich could be cool, yeah...\r\nExcept for when you get to the homework, quizzes, and milestones, and ask yourself "HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THIS?" because you have never once seen Lovell do an example problem in class.\n\r\nENES100 is a stressful, difficult class for most students who have decent professors. ENES100 is HELL when it is taken with Lovell.\n\r\nDo yourself a favor.\n\r\nIf you find yourself in the same situation as I did, where the only ENES100 class that would fit into your schedule happened to be with Lovell...\n\r\nDROP THE CLASS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.\n\r\nTake it another semester. For your own sanity.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-10-05T05:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Butthole. Doesn't really teach. Too harsh of a grader. Won't help you. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-28T22:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "He's a horrible professor. He's stern and overly critical. He grades so harshly on all of the presentations and design reports. After the last homework set, he showed up once every two weeks to class. And he never helped any group. Don't take him. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-22T13:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Dr. Lovell had a pretty good sense of humor, but he was often absent throughout the semester when we most needed his help in constructing the hovercraft. Also, after talking to friends in other sections, it seems as if Lovell is a much more harsh grader and is much later in giving grades back.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-19T02:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "He's a chill guy. He, however, is very boring and does not teach well. He speaks monotonously through the whole class, whole 1 semester. Sometimes he jokes but not many laughs. He makes the class material hard and when we presented, he took off of unnecessary points, and gave criticisms which did not need to be addressed. BUT, if you know the material, then take him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-04T21:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Dr. Lovell is a great professor and is very helpful to anybody who asks. He does expect you to work hard, but his expectations are reasonable. He is also very knowledgeable about the field of engineering and is a great resource for ENES100 students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-19T18:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "His attitude can be a little polarizing since his humor is dry and he seems strict, but his lectures were solid. But his homework was tough. The majority of work is with teams, so he's not really too involved with the programming or building of the rover, but that's where the TAs come in. His quizzes are on random information he said like once. Overall, I would give ENES100's course difficulty a 4/5 with him, because although he grades fairly, if not a tad harshly, he expects you to know random information he said like once in lecture and he doesn't teach most of the content on these exams. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-01-29T14:44:21Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'ENCE402', 'review': "He is the least approachable professor you can have, and seemingly cares little for the student's well being. During COVID asynchronous class, assigned 2 large assignments due within a day of the final exam. He has belittled students when they ask questions in office hours. You will likely pass his class, but will have to sacrifice some of your soul.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-05-14T13:47:40Z'}, {'professor': 'David Lovell', 'course': 'GEMS102', 'review': 'Does not know how to engage students and how to get then excited about true research in Gemstone.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-27T22:59:33Z'}], 'name': 'David Lovell', 'slug': 'lovell'}, {'courses': ['CCJS418B', 'CCJS699M', 'BSST330', 'CCJS454', 'CCJS388H', 'CCJS389H', 'CCJS489H', 'CCJS720'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Maimon', 'slug': 'maimon'}, {'courses': ['CMSC451', 'ECON703'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Malec', 'slug': 'malec'}, {'courses': ['HONR348M', 'BSOS289I', 'BSOS201', 'BSOS201'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David McCandlish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': 'SUPER genuine and nice. Very accommodating and knowledgeable. He Co-teaches with Dr. Wish and does a great job making the class run. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-04T06:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'David McCandlish', 'slug': 'mccandlish'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Miles', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Scott (David) was a super nice professor and had very easy and relevant assignments for students interested in technical work. Grading leniently and provided great feedback . Would recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-16T16:46:48Z'}], 'name': 'David Miles', 'slug': 'miles'}, {'courses': ['CCJS400', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS340'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Mitchell', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': 'I liked the class. There are 3 (50) question multiple choice exams and that’s it. He’s the Police chief of UMD. He offers extra credit, a police ride along for 5 extra percentage points. \r\nHe rambles a bit about stories from his experience that will not be on the exam but it’s interesting. He also post the slides on line\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-26T15:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mitchell', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': "He's a great professor. Just do the readings and take good notes in lecture and you'll be fine. He also provides a break roughly in the middle of the lectures since the class is 2 and a half hours. You should definitely take advantage of extra credit, it helped me out a lot. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-19T00:19:29Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mitchell', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': 'This man is so nice. He talks a lot and rambles and most of the time fills up almost the whole 2.5 hours but its only 3 exams for the whole class and if you go over your notes and read the book its so simple. He tells you everything that will be on the test and gives you barely any information to know. Super interesting super nice and a chill easy class taught by a police officer with cool stories. Definitely take him', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-11T18:29:17.559942Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mitchell', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': "This is a fun course. Despite it being 2.5 hours, it's only on Monday nights and professor Mitchell is a wonderful storyteller. Formerly, Professor Mitchell has served as police chief for multiple counties (currently UMPD), has been chief of the Maryland State Police, and has served for the department of Homeland Security. In addition, Professor Mitchell also has his JD. Thus he is extremely informed and knowledgeable not only on course material but also on life and leadership skills. He is more than willing to be a reference for his students in the future, and write letters of recommendation. He is a kind man who wants all of his students to succeed and the class only consists of 3 exams which are very passable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T03:12:08.211081Z'}], 'name': 'David Mitchell', 'slug': 'mitchell_david'}, {'courses': ['ARSC400', 'ARSC401'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Morrissey', 'slug': 'morrissey_david'}, {'courses': ['BSCI422', 'CBMG699X', 'CBMG688J', 'CBMG699W', 'BISI899', 'CBMG899', 'BISI712', 'CBMG699X', 'CBMG688J', 'CBMG699X', 'BSCI422', 'CBMG699W', 'CBMG699X', 'BISI899', 'CBMG899', 'BISI899', 'CBMG899', 'CBMG688J', 'CBMG699X'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Mosser', 'course': 'BSCI422', 'review': "I had him with Frauwirth. He's also a great lecturer. Very engaging. The material was really interesting too and he helped me get excited about immunology. Tests were hard, but reasonable. Would definitely recommend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-08-23T15:34:00Z'}], 'name': 'David Mosser', 'slug': 'mosser'}, {'courses': ['CMSC754', 'CMSC451', 'CMSC425', 'CMSC427', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC388D', 'CMSC420', 'CMSC420', 'CMSC420', 'CMSC388A', 'CMSC388B', 'CMSC389G', 'CMSC335', 'CMSC754'], 'average_rating': 4.8182, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC427', 'review': 'Really enjoyed his lectures. He knows this stuff really well and can explain ANYTHING.\n\r\nProjects:\r\nWe had 3 projects, the first and last were pretty hard. You should definitely start early on these graphics projects because most of the time the language you use (OpenGL with C++) won\'t tell you what mistake you made, it will just produce a blank image. I had a lot of fun working on these projects.\n\r\nHW: \r\nWe were supposed to have 2 homeworks, but it was reduced to one because of project difficulty. The homework was like mini-projects and some linear algebra stuff. While I am on that topic I would like to say that you really should have a basic understanding of linear algebra to understand how things work in this course. It won\'t matter much for projects, but it will matter for exams and just being able to understand how OpenGL works.\n\r\nExams:\r\n1 Midterm, 1 Final. He gives about 10 practice problems in preparation for the exams and if you can get through those you\'ll be in pretty good shape. The final had some trickier problems than the midterm (the final really tests your in depth knowledge of graphics combined with linear algebra).\n\r\nLecture Notes: \r\nHe posts awesome lecture notes online. You can pretty much just read these, but there are places in the lecture notes where he puts things like "Can you think of why this is true?" or "What would happen if we used a cone instead of a sphere?". We always discuss these questions in class and they seem to have a habit of showing up on homework or exams. \n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-17T16:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC427', 'review': 'Dave Mount is a really good professor simply because of two things: he knows graphics well, and he is exceptional at teaching. \n\r\nWhile there are many professors in CS dept who know their stuff, most suck at teaching. Mount, on the other hand, takes a lot of pain to make sure people understand the concepts. And the best part was that he did entire class on white-board. Graphics can be a hard class to teach on the board because it involves so many 3D drawings and stuff, but Mount stuck to doing everything on the board, and that just made his lectures very effective.\n\r\nThere are legends about his lecture notes -- other professors like Meesh use his notes for their classes. We had great lecture notes for this class that included everything he went over in class. Yet, it was still useful to come to class because his teaching style meant that you needed to do very little preparation for the tests.\n\r\nThere were four projects, which did a good job covering most of the important topics we discussed in class. The project difficulty level was about medium. \n\r\nHis final was harder than the midterm, but neither was long. This class is great fun in general, and it was quite an experience with Dr. Mount. Strongly recommended!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-24T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC451', 'review': "Great lectures and lecture notes. Comprehensive, lucid, and insightful best described the class. Homework was challenging but quite interesting. Exams were likewise challenging but definitely not impossible if you understood the material. There's a lot of non-linear thinking involved which is not too uncommon for proof-based mathematics courses but may surprise those coming from a traditional CS background.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-28T22:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Best professor at UMD. Lenient grading on exams and homeworks. Engaging, enjoyable lecturers. Fair project difficulty. Also answers every piazza question personally within 24 hours, often quicker.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-12T02:05:15Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Dave's a great instructor He knows the content like the back of his hand and lectures are never stuffy. \r\n\r\nHe takes questions seriously and is happy to deviate from his plan if some interesting question got his attention. Even with the large class, lecture often felt more like a discussion.\r\n\r\nMy class was a little disorganized because he was rewriting the syllabus as we went, but he was always upfront about the changes he was making and what delays to expect. He took time to develop useful assignments rather than just relying on the materials past instructors used. \r\n\r\nHis future 420 classes will probably have more assignments; the difficulty will probably depend on whether you like using homeworks for practice or if the extra work is too much for you. Either way I highly recommend Mount.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-18T21:52:09Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Fantastic instructor. He knows his stuff and teaches it well, is very kind and understanding, and makes the class interesting. If you see that Dave is teaching a class, TAKE THE CLASS!! He made online school a little more bearable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-13T01:34:11Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Best professor I have had in the CS Department, I definitely recommend taking a class with him. You will learn a lot!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-29T14:11:39Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Definitely one of my favorite professors that I've ever taken at UMD! He does a great job at breaking down the material in order to understand it better. He provides lecture videos, hand written slides, LaTeX notes, and small bite sized videos for every single topic that he covers. He's also super accommodating and he's very responsive on Piazza and email. I felt that his tests and homework were fair, and the projects were well written and applicable to what we were learning in class.\r\n\r\nThe only complaint that I could really think of is that grading might be a bit slow at times. However, It turns out that he graded ~190 midterms by himself.\r\n\r\nHighly recommend him as a professor!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-18T17:34:38Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Really caring and helpful professor. Absolutely take him if you can. However, be warned that this is not necessarily an easy class. Although the projects are fine, the homework and exams require critical thinking on certain questions that only a few people may get. Nevertheless, Mount provides recordings, drawn notes, slides, shortened videos, review sessions, and more to help you succeed, which is really amazing that he goes to this level to help us succeed. One of the best professors in CS. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-18T19:53:16Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Easily one of the best CS lecturers I've ever had. Both his written slides and LaTeX notes are extremely helpful. he does normal lectures during class, and has fast-forward lectures that take around 15-25 minutes to complete. Explains material really well, very open to questions, and is always open to feedback. If you put in a lot of effort in his class, he wont fail you. Definitely take him for any class if you have the option to. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-25T22:57:55Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Great professor and an even better person. The other reviews aren't lying at all. He really does want you to succeed and tries his best to teach you. \r\n\r\nThis class is not easy, though. I found the exams to be tremendously challenging (admittedly I didn't put too much effort into studying, as I had a very loaded semester with other classes as well), with pretty intense critical thinking in time constraints. This class isn't an easy A by any means, but you will come out understanding a lot about the data structures he covers in class, and their different variants. His notes are fantastic -- i loved his lecture videos and how organized everything was, even amidst the online environment. \r\n\r\nProjects are pretty easy, all things considered. I procrastinated and did them the day before and didn't have a problem getting everything submitted, although I might say that for some projects it was kinda stressful because I did this. He also does side-lectures to help you with the projects, which are super important. \r\n\r\nOverall, I'd recommend the class -- not necessarily because it's easy (it's definitely not easy lol), but because Mount is so great. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-06-03T01:59:59Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Probably the best professor in the CS department by far. You can tell he really cares about the students. I had him Spring 2021 (online semester) but he has handwritten "slides", printed notes, ad lecture videos for you to learn from. He was engaging and really receptive to student concerns. You could tell he prepared and knew exactly what he was talking about. The exams weren\'t the easiest, but if you study the content and the homeworks you should be able to get by. I\'m pretty sure he said he hasn\'t had a student get below a C in a long time, so study hard and you\'ll be good!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T20:00:37Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'The best professor I ever had \r\nHis slide and explanation is rational and clear\r\nA question on piazza will be answered within 2 hours ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-05T00:31:28Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "He teaches way better compared to other CS profs. But he likes proofs. If you are not into proofs like me, then you will be disappointed doing his homework. Other than that, he is nice. If you don't mind being asked to prove something, consider this a 5-star rating. He is good in all other aspects. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-07T20:25:43Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "One of the best professors in the CS department. His notes and short lectures are incredible, and he has the class fully figured out and knows exactly how to teach it.\r\nHe's really into proofs though, and if you're challenged in that area then homework and exams might be a pain. But Mount really wants you to succeed and he provided as many resources as he possibly could.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-04-28T05:21:30Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Can't go wrong with Mount, his exams are on the difficult side but it follows very closely to the homeworks. If you understand and can do the homeworks you should be fine on the exam. This class is also curved at the end of the semester so as long as you do average on exams you will pass. He also answers piazza questions thoroughly and in a timely manner.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-05T21:46:09Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'as said by the other reviews, just an amazing professor. highly recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-19T01:42:34Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Personally, the lecture style wasn't for me as it was a lot of reading off notes, with a few examples here and there. My biggest gripe is that by using pre-written notes, he was able to cover so much material, to the point where it was overwhelming. He does provide a lot of forms of the material which is nice. For each lecture, he had latex notes, handwritten notes (he presented these in class), in-person lecture video, and a prerecorded video where he creates and explains the handwritten notes. As others mention, he is a bit more theory-heavy than some other profs. The course was overall easy (except for exams... which required a lot of prep but were mostly fair), but I will be honest in that I don't feel like I learned much. This is because the projects were simple enough where they didn't really require too much understanding and the homework was infrequent enough that you could get away with just trying to match the lecture notes procedures, rather than truly understand them. Some of this is my fault for sure, but the limited amount of assignments meant I wasn't practicing concepts. Anyway, I would say the course is fairly easy except for exams. Mount is a very nice guy though and he'll tell you if you're on the right track with homework and other assignments. Last thing, you are allowed one two-sided cheat sheet for each exam, and you can bring previous cheat sheets to subsequent exams (one sheet for first exam, two for second exam, three for final). The cheat sheet policy is nice but means that there can be more difficult exam questions. Prepare your cheat sheets carefully because they can really help with certain questions. He always provided ample practice material for exams, so that was nice.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-21T14:56:26Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Mount is simply amazing with the amount of effort he puts into the class and does everything in his power to help you succeed.\r\n\r\nHe provides more than enough resources with extremely in-depth project descriptions, lecture notes, and practice exams. If that wasn\'t good enough, he\'s a genuinely cheery and nice guy who goes off on interesting tangents about the history of the material he\'s teaching as well, oftentimes joking that he\'s old enough to know the people who invented the ideas he\'s teaching us. Given this, he obviously knows the material really well and it\'s common for him to provide multiple clear examples during lectures that make his explanations really clear. His Piazza responses are absolutely legendary - clear, and provide additional and interesting insights that are always worth a read. He sometimes even goes as far as drawing figures to answer a student\'s response just to give a visualization.\r\n\r\nThe class itself was also quite interesting on its own. As other reviewers have mentioned, it is rather theory-heavy, but Mount also does a good job at sprinkling general best-practice information as well. Projects are generally pretty easy as the project handouts are pretty good at giving you the right idea. Homework and Exams are difficult but overall very fair given the amount of practice he gives you and how well the problems relate to what is actually taught in class and given in the practice. Overall, if you listen during lectures, do a quick reading of the lecture notes, do some of the practice he gives, and then prepare your "cheat sheet" with general ideas and relevant code snippets, you\'ll be able to do well. \r\n\r\nNo regrets about taking Mount. It was nice having his positivity brighten up my mornings.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-13T06:56:24.762259Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Mount is a great professor, he has both Latex and hand-drawn notes for every topic, and these are very clear in understanding the different data structures/concepts. He is a great lecturer, and is understanding of student concerns (adjusting difficulty of exams), and has a great grasp of the material that he teaches. Overall, a very knowledgable professor and an interesting class. My only issue would be that that the homework problems are often changed days after release, and that the project code he provides does sometimes have bugs. However, once notified, he usually fixes these ASAP and is very active on Piazza. As for the difficulty, the projects were not too bad, and the HWs/exams were difficult but always very fair with plenty of practice material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-02T17:44:29.940219Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "I didn't find the material all that engaging, but Prof. Mount is a very nice guy, gives pretty good lectures, and has excellent hand drawn and Latex notes available on the class website. The programming assignments and homework problems were also reasonable.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-22T04:58:02.356969Z'}, {'professor': 'David Mount', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "I took this class back in the late 80's, David Mount is one of the most likeable and caring person I've come across in all my years. Everything I read here is spot on. He really wants you to succeed, is a great lecturer and inspires confidence in his students. Great person inside and outside the classroom. Looks like he continues to be a consistently great teacher. So glad I took his course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-13T20:09:35.201674Z'}], 'name': 'David Mount', 'slug': 'mount_david'}, {'courses': ['LARC341', 'LARC450', 'LARC489T', 'LARC265', 'LARC452', 'PLSC289I', 'LARC321', 'LARC152', 'LARC699', 'PLSC321', 'LARC642', 'LARC671', 'LARC799', 'PLSC471', 'LARC452', 'LARC642', 'LARC152', 'LARC341', 'LARC152', 'LARC452'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Myers', 'course': 'LARC341', 'review': 'greatest teacher ever. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-12T22:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'David Myers', 'slug': 'myers_david'}, {'courses': ['MEES608Y', 'MEES698R', 'MEES698Q', 'MEES609B', 'MEES698R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Nelson', 'slug': 'nelson_david'}, {'courses': ['AREC455', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'ECON485', 'AREC455', 'ECON485', 'AREC899', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC455', 'ECON485'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Newburn', 'slug': 'newburn'}, {'courses': ['BSCI222', 'MOCB708B', 'MOCB608B', 'BISI688B', 'HLSC322', 'ENTM798F', 'ENTM760'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': "David O'Brochta", 'slug': "o'brochta"}, {'courses': ['JOUR368B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Owens', 'slug': 'owens_david'}, {'courses': ['MATH221', 'MATH213', 'MATH141'], 'average_rating': 4.5455, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': None, 'review': "David is a great TA by always going over the confusing lectures in discussion and summarizing the main concepts. While math isn't my best subject, David really goes the extra mile to make sure you understand the content.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-04T21:19:35Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Greatest professor of all time! Amazing teaching, makes sure you understand every concept before moving on. Lots of extra practice in-class. If you plan on taking 141 and you aren't taking Pincus, you are making a mistake.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-07T23:06:43.272962Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Super Helpful Professor. Probably the easiest A I've gotten in any math class. Like WOW. His notes are clear and concise and takes the step above for each of his students to succeed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-07T23:07:16.226897Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Actually the best teacher of all time. He is what is known as the GOAT. If you struggle in math, take his class, he does not move forward unless everyone understands the material and he is extremely clear when explaining problems. 10/10, would take his class again.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-07T23:08:14.853712Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Really appreciate the hard work from Mr. Pincus! When attending office hours, he does not stop until he makes sure you understand the material and are prepared for the next units. He also is a really nice professor and understanding.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-07T23:09:20.568756Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "This man is a saint, he is helpful and kind, and will give you extensions on the hw if you need them. He is thoughtful and doesn't care if you are on your phone in class, and will explain in depth the solutions and proofs. Would reccomend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-07T23:14:19.911747Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I'm so sorry, we wrote the last 5 5-star reviews(the ones on 11/07/2022) as a joke, but after the last exam average was in the 30s it wasn't funny anymore. Take this class if you want to self-learn the entire thing and have a mental breakdown. Horrible at explaining, ask him a question and he will freeze, ramble a half answer, and move forward. This class is 100% an avoid, the workload wasn't bad but you just don't learn from him, HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO TEACH! Going to class is pointless, he's such a bad teacher, he spends the entire time going over proofs without actually teaching. The entire class stopped showing up and is watching youtube videos(Online chem tutor for the win), as going to class is a waste of time, and you won't learn the topics. Even people with Calc AB/BC couldn't follow his classes, his strategy is to read out loud the textbook but skip any explanations. I can't emphasize how bad he is at teaching, there are units where the entire class just didn't learn a topic. No curve, again we gave those 5-star reviews as a joke. DO NOT TAKE PINCUS. He's not a bad person or mean, but he doesn't know how to teach, we all had to self-learn the entire year and that made it hell.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-07T17:00:02.021950Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "The other reviews on this professor raise some suspicion. While he certainly isn't a bad professor by any means, he is far from the best calc teacher I have ever taken, and all of the other review for MATH141 coming on 11/07/22, I would question if this rating is genuine. To do well in this class, you have to do very solid the first 2 / 3 exams, as there are 4 midterms and a cumulative final. Luckily, the lowest exam gets drop! :D yippee! However, despite how great this sounds, exam 4 is the killer. With the HIGHEST score on exam 4 being a 70 last year, the average coming out to around a 50, exam 4 is always the one dropped. So, if you are able to keep your cool and get relatively high scores the first few exams, you'll be sitting pretty. I enjoyed Pincus, but I cannot in good faith give him 5 stars, simply for the large spike in difficulty that comes with exam 4. Pincus, if you read this, please stop teaching the hardest topic in the class in the week over Thanksgiving as a video. Explaining it in person, even if it was rushed, would likely largely improve the exam 4 scores, singlehandedly removing the one flaw I see in your teaching.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T02:23:04.446041Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'I recently had the pleasure of taking Calculus 2 with Professor Pincus and it was an exceptional experience. Professor Pincus is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about the subject, and it shows in the way that he teaches the material. He is able to explain complex concepts in a way that is clear and easy to understand, and he is always willing to help if you have any questions.\r\n\r\nOne of the things that I particularly appreciated about Professor Pincus is his dedication to his students. He is always available for office hours and is more than happy to help you if you need it. He has a great sense of humor and his enthusiasm for the subject makes the class enjoyable and engaging.\r\n\r\nOverall, I would highly recommend Professor Pincus for anyone taking Calculus 2. He is an exceptional teacher and I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-08T04:42:05.547208Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Good calc teacher with fair exams and preps students well with practice exercises and practice exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T02:02:36.820192Z'}, {'professor': 'David Pincus', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Professor Pincus was a great calc 2 teacher. He gave practice exams that closely resembled the actual exam. He taught the concepts clearly with tons of examples and was extremely helpful when you went to office hours. To do well on the weekly quizzes, you have to do suggested textbook problems because they are very similar to the quiz questions (some questions were copied directly from the textbook). None of the 4 exams were curved but he curved the final grade to make up for it. I would take one of Professor Pincus' classes again", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-02T23:07:56.333477Z'}], 'name': 'David Pincus', 'slug': 'pincus'}, {'courses': ['MATH110', 'MATH113'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Reynoso Valle', 'slug': 'valle'}, {'courses': ['BSCI223', 'BSCI424'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Rollins', 'slug': 'rollins_david'}, {'courses': ['CCJS234', 'CCJS418D', 'CCJS345', 'CCJS418D', 'CCJS418D', 'CCJS234', 'CCJS418D', 'CCJS418D'], 'average_rating': 3.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Salem', 'course': 'CCJS234', 'review': "The class is early in the morning, but that is the trade-off for having a Federal Attorney as your professor.\n\r\nHe is friendly and upbeat, elaborates on any Law related thing you ask him about (even if it doesn't have to do with the class), and gives copious notes worth of information.\n\r\nI took all of what he said down almost verbatim and took the time to understand each concept logically. This allowed me to consistently get A's on all the assignments.\n\r\nTaking that much notes and working through all those concepts is certainly not easy, but if you care about learning the intricacies of the law then you will do it for fun and end up passing the class.\n\r\nOverall, I had a very positive experience with Mr. Salem.\n\r\nPoint of interest: In the past, a friend of mine took his class and found that it was hard contact the TA and get answers to certain questions from the professor. This was before I took the class. When I took it, I had no such problems.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-19T14:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Salem', 'course': 'CCJS234', 'review': 'If you actually want to learn, I highly recommend this class. It isn\'t an easy "A" like a like a lot of other crim classes, but Salem has a ton of knowledge to share especially if you are interested in law school after undergrad.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-22T23:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Salem', 'course': 'CCJS234', 'review': 'This guy has the worst Lectures, there are no slides, powerpoints, or multimedia of any kind to keep you awake during class. His shit gets boring quick and he talks about the same stuff all semester. He actually taught for 30 minutes before handing out the final and then *****ed he had to leave early. Boring class, with 3 assignments. No chance for extra credit and he has no time for students', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-20T09:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Salem', 'course': 'CCJS234', 'review': 'I would say this is a messy class I have ever learned. I have achieved almost full credits on the first half of the semester since the ideas and points he taught are clear. While in the second half of the semester it is a disaster since what he taught are really confusing and his lectures are unlistenable. It is a harsh time for me to record and reconsider all ideas. And the final include more than 30/50 questions related to hypotheses which is tremendously difficult to decide in just 75 minutes. Overall I think this class is a good one to just learn with P/S but if you want to have a good grade, do not choose this. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-16T20:18:28Z'}, {'professor': 'David Salem', 'course': 'CCJS418D', 'review': 'Professor Salem is a friendly, uber knowledgeable professor. Don’t let the other reviews scare you. His upper level course, CCJS418D, was more immersive than any other CCJS course I’ve taken. He discusses everything from R Kelly, to rap lyrics used in criminal trials, to Theranos. With each relevant topic, Professor Salem captured my attention and explained, in detail, a variety of legal implications. Is the class structured like other CCJS courses? No. Is it difficult? Yes. But… that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it. There are more than enough opportunities to excel in this course, starting with the pop quizzes. There are 5 total, one every 2-3 weeks. They are 1 question. You have a minute to respond. And while that seems daunting, it’s not if you pay attention to and understand the lecture material. There’s no homework, no outside readings, just lecture. And the midterm exam and final project were very fair, and there’s a natural grading curve. Overall, take this course if you really want to learn about new evolving legal issues. You won’t be disappointed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-08T19:19:43.013051Z'}], 'name': 'David Salem', 'slug': 'salem_david'}, {'courses': ['MUSC129A', 'MUSC469C', 'MUSC129', 'MUSC669C', 'MUSC469C', 'MUSC669C', 'MUSC469C', 'MUSC669C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Salness', 'slug': 'salness'}, {'courses': ['BSCI440', 'BSCI353', 'BSCI454', 'BSCI453', 'BSCI444', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI440', 'BSCI450', 'BSCI353', 'BSCI454', 'BSCI440', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI450'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Sandstrom', 'slug': 'sandstrom'}, {'courses': ['HIST419O', 'HIST250', 'HIST639N', 'HIST408Q', 'HIST601', 'HIST319X', 'HIST608I', 'HIST477', 'HIST829A', 'LASC250', 'HIST819Y', 'HIST339A', 'HIST408Z', 'HIST608N', 'HIST473', 'HIST250', 'HIST339A', 'LACS250', 'HIST250', 'HIST319M', 'LACS250'], 'average_rating': 2.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST473', 'review': "the Good: he knows a lot about Caribbean history and is very passionate about it.\r\nthe Bad: Extremely tough grader who plays favorites. I consider myself a pretty good writer (if the grades in my other courses are any indication) but i could never figure out what exactly he wanted out of an essay. i think my best essay grade was a B- and I thought it was an A or A-. Also come to class prepared or he will embarrass you just to make a point. \r\nif you take his class make sure you read everything, go to every class and talk to him about what he's looking for out of your writing but even if you do all of that your grade might just be average.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2014-07-13T13:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST473', 'review': 'I had Prof. Sartorius for HIST 473, and I didn\'t think it was too bad. He says on the first day that the class isn\'t about beaches and drinking in the Caribbean, and he means it. He can be tough, so get ready to read, but I didn\'t think the amount of reading was anything extra insane. He wants arguments and interpretations about history, not just facts or summary. So if you can\'t come up with arguments for weekly assignments, watch out. My biggest issues were some of his classroom policies. If you aren\'t there when he calls your name on roll but come in literally 2 seconds after, you\'re done. If you have food or a loud drink, you\'re done. If, Heaven Forbid, your phone goes off, you\'re REALLY done. He also hates sleepers. So you have to make the choice to either bring a drink like tea or pepsi, or sleep. Oh, and don\'t ask any questions, interrupt him, or dare to get up and use the restroom. He\'ll either be a loose cannon about stuff like that, or say nothing. But you know what he\'s thinking-"that you\'re sooo done." All in all, its not easy but you can learn alot. It\'s a pretty good choice if you have to take a 400 class, but remember it\'s 400. Make sure you participate EVERY LECTURE, and you\'ll get through it. :)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-04-17T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST250', 'review': 'This guy is brutal. If you want a lot of reading and a douche bag professor then take this class. More reading than a 400 level class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-11-10T02:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST250', 'review': "He's a very squared guy. Treats course as a 400 series history class. Very passionate about the subject. Harsh grader. It's unclear what he is asking for in his exam. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-12-17T21:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST339A', 'review': "One of the hardest and most stressful classes I've ever taken at UMD. Not sure if this is a problem he only had with online teaching, but he refused to update grades at all. When you were lucky enough to find out your grade on one single assignment, it would be a vague letter grade. The assignments never made any sense. Especially the final wiki project. Some of the readings were interesting, and a good professor could have ran with them, but I never felt like he taught me anything. He also just is not very empathetic and accommodating at all. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-04T16:32:32Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST339A', 'review': "this dude is the absolute worst. he doesn't tell you what he expects or the parameters then he will take off based on parameters he makes up after the fact. he's the worst professor I've had at UMD as a senior & he assigns a project to add to Wikipedia & takes Wikipedia as a reference. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2020-12-22T00:39:42Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST339A', 'review': "He does not tell you a single grade throughout the entire semester- no way to tell your stance in the course nor measure your progress. Excepts way too much from his students, especially during a pandemic, and can be outright rude when there are differing opinions between him and the students. He used the pandemic to justify being behind on grading, but would rarely give out any extensions or accommodations for students who had been personally impacted by COVID. There was one student who had to get an emergency surgery one week and they asked for an extension on that week's work and he responded that it would be more convenient for him if she didn't get an extension. So clearly no empathy towards his students. Some interesting readings though. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-01-26T21:07:54Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST250', 'review': 'Professor Sartorius\'s HIST 250 class offers a unique opportunity to understand how society works with history as context to "hegemony" which is the main theme of the course. This is not an easy lower level history course! It was harder than one of my 300 level history classes. He is strict and does not take well to eyes on computer screens, and phone usage. He can also get flustered if there is not sufficient participation from numerous students. However, if you show up on time, go to all classes, participate and do all your assignments to the best of your abilities, there is no reason why you should not walk away having passed the course. While he was strict and had high exceptions, your writing significantly improves throughout the course. I would lastly recommend, an interest in the Latin American region as a precursor to this course. I would give this class a 3.5 but that is not possible with this rating system. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-18T14:58:29Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST250', 'review': 'The professor is a strict but fair teacher. It is true that he does not like screens, interruptions, and he can be intimidating. However, just by following a few rules like being on time and turning your phones off, the class becomes quite enjoyable. I honestly did not like history before I took this class, but now I’m getting a minor in colonial Latin America. As long as I did my work, I enjoyed the professors little quips and passion to teach his favorite subject. Don’t get me wrong, his class is hard and can frustrate some students, but through his office hours, and notes I believe anyone taking this class will be fine. You just need to put in the work and adapt. If you are not the student to work hard and learn from this class, I suggest you take an easier one. This class challenged my writing, reading, time management, and critical thinking skills every single time, and while it was not always fun, I believe it was worth it. I believe that he often times gets a bad rap due to his demeanor but once you get into the groove of the class, his little jokes and love of history can make the class enjoyable.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-15T04:17:39.824488Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sartorius', 'course': 'HIST250', 'review': 'At the beginning of the semester, I only took this class as a “easy” gen-ed without really caring at all about history. However, this class was far from easy. There is a lot of homework and it takes a lot of self initiative to do it well. It is true that the professor insists on being early to class, go to the bathroom before class, and have phones turned off, but is it really that difficult to follow these rules? He does have a little temper but he got better throughout the past semester. I believe that most students who don’t like him came with different expectations for the class and would have preferred better communication. That’s how I felt. However, I went often to his office hours and he helped me understand and learn what I should be looking for. This class is for someone who wants to greatly improve their writing, reading analysis, and their critical thinking skills. It is not for those who want to “breeze” by. I am now reaching for a LACS minor and while it was difficult, and filled with many late nights, I would take this class again. The syllabus is key to understanding structure and being prepared by reading ahead.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-15T04:30:23.996254Z'}], 'name': 'David Sartorius', 'slug': 'sartorius'}, {'courses': ['COMM609', 'COMM610', 'COMM762', 'COMM610', 'COMM637', 'COMM657', 'COMM789A', 'COMM610'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Sawyer', 'slug': 'sawyer_david'}, {'courses': ['BMGT499A', 'BUSI758K', 'HIST607', 'HIST136', 'HIST201', 'BMGT468L', 'BMGT499E', 'HIST608B', 'BMGT468Y', 'ARHU158A', 'HIST319O', 'HONR299D', 'HIST451', 'HIST450', 'HIST406', 'HIST819M', 'HIST136', 'HIST639J'], 'average_rating': 4.0909, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': None, 'review': "HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE professor! It would have been better if there was at least one TA for this class! He does not send anything on time. He does not know how to use canvas. Don't expect a syllabus until weeks into the class. Don't expect a grade on ANYTHING until the last week of class. AND THEN HE HAS THE NERVE TO CRITIQUE PAPERS ALL LATE. No one even likes coming to class. No one even likes him. He thinks he's funny. He's not. He makes jokes and imitates people with accents, which is not funny. It's rude. Gives you an assignment that is due after people graduate which MAKES NO SENSE. Bad, just very bad.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-23T14:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': 'HIST136', 'review': "This class was okay. Material was very dry, and discussions were beyond boring. Unfortunately, the lectures were at 9:30 in the morning, so attendance was small, but there was no final exam--only a midterm and a final project, which was not overly hard.\n\r\nProf. Sicilia, however, is a great professor. He knows his material, and he has a very dry sense of humor, which is hilarious if you understand it and are actually paying attention. HIST136 was not a great class, but if I had to take another history class, I would definitely take one with Sicilia. It may be tough to pull out the grade you want, but if you are willing to work for it, it's worth it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-27T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': None, 'review': "He is hilarious, which is what makes this class so enjoyable. It's a lot of information during class, so be prepared to take good notes. 2 papers, 1 midterm, 1 final - and he instructs the TAs to grade very strictly. Plus, there is a lot of reading to do for the class. \n\r\nOverall, though, highly recommended.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-03-25T02:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': None, 'review': "Given that it was his first time teaching this course, it was very poorly structured. We didn't really start working till 3 weeks into school. Basically, the course consists of weekly readings, which aren't too bad and a weekly reaction paper. There are two exams and a participation grade. There is also a ten-page paper. It's pretty easy if you are good at history. \n\r\nYou just talk about the readings. \r\nThe first half of the class was a little dry because it was pre-20th century. The second half picked up because it focused on today's issues. \n\r\nSicilia is a good guy and he's got a dry wit. He's flexible and is willing to push stuff back or talk about your grade. \n\r\nIt was a good course, all things considered because it was pretty easy. Sicilia wasn't very organized ever, but he's a good guy and knew some stuff.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-23T16:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': None, 'review': "If you're going to take history and are not a history major, by all means take Sicilia. He's SO funny, and has a very dry wit, and not to mention he keeps you engaged in the lecture. Plus he really knows his stuff, not that I would say the rest of the dept doesn't - but his tidbits of info are often interesting and funny.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-12T23:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is a great professor! Very engaging and approachable. Professor Sicilia is a very good lecturer.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-27T19:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': None, 'review': 'I first thought he would be a droan, but he turn out to have surprising dry humor. He used his bitting wit to wake the class during boring sections of material. \r\nHe was engaging and related the material to the students. \n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-06-04T23:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': 'HIST136', 'review': "I loved Scilia. He has a monotone voice, but he is extremely funny and uses a lot of dry humor/sarcasm (but he's also really nice, not a jerk). Lectures were great, I really enjoyed each one. You pretty much have to go to lecture since his slides don't have much info. Exams were easy, there were 1 or 2 and the final was the same format. He would give you 5 essay questions the week prior to the exam, and 2 of them appear on the exam. As long as you go to lecture and have a clue as to what's going on, they're pretty straightforward. There was one final paper which was ~8 pages and you had to watch a movie, which honestly was my least favorite part of the class.\r\n\r\nAs for discussion, it all depends on who your TA is and the people in your discussion. I had a great TA (shout out to Kyle) and in our discussion we were pretty much all involved. As long as you read the material, it's actually a lot of fun. Kyle allowed for some really interesting open ended discussions.\r\n\r\n10/10 would recommend this course, interesting and really easy.\r\n\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-19T20:37:34Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': 'HIST136', 'review': "As a first-semester freshman, Professor Sicilia is my favorite professor so far. He does have a somewhat monotone voice but he is SO FUNNY so that it makes his voice bearable. He does pretty funny impressions to keep the dry course material entertaining. There are weekly 2-point 250 word essays based on that week's readings. If you do make time to do the readings every week (usually quite a few pages) you're pretty much guaranteed to get a 2/2 on each one.\r\n\r\nHis midterm and final are essays and he gives you a list of possible prompts around a week before, so you have time to make notes on what you want to say. Relatively easy with grading, as long as you have good grammar and reference material from class and reading. That said, his tests will not be the ones you are most concerned about during midterm/finals week.\r\n\r\nHe really is an interesting man. He's not afraid to say inappropriate things. He has many works published and definitely knows his history, but doesn't expect you to know more than what he says in class. I really suggest talking to him before or after class because he is really easy to talk to and will be helpful if you have any questions.\r\n\r\nOverall, if you are thinking about taking his class, do it! It's really not that difficult but still informative.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-26T22:17:31Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': 'HIST136', 'review': "I think his TA graded papers with a random number generator. Don't take the class if you hate group projects. He made us do a group project on a 70s tv commercial where we had to role-play the commercial. It was painful.\r\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-10T04:39:02Z'}, {'professor': 'David Sicilia', 'course': 'HIST136', 'review': 'If I could take this class 100 more times I would. It was so interesting and my TA was amazing. Take Kyle if possible!! Essay was kind of hard but we didnt have tests!! so if you like to write and read take this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-03T14:45:38Z'}], 'name': 'David Sicilia', 'slug': 'sicilia'}, {'courses': ['BSCI222', 'CPSP219L', 'BSCI348R', 'BSCI415', 'BSCI348R', 'BSCI348R', 'BSCI415', 'BSCI222', 'BSCI348R', 'BSCI348R', 'BSCI348R', 'BSCI348R', 'BSCI415'], 'average_rating': 4.8824, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "I LOVE LOVE LOVE Dr. Straney. He's one of the nicest most caring professors I've ever had. His material is so organized, all the questions he asks are very structured and well designed to be easy to learn, but still demonstrate the material in a memorable way. I've had a lot of bio classes where the material is just disorganized, hard to learn, and easy to forget. Dr. Straney's class is exactly the opposite.\n\n\r\nHe holds extra review sessions and he brings tea and cookies!! Where else are you going to find that. He even brought food to the early morning final. He posts all his past exams, his expectations are reasonable, he offers extra credit that's actually a lot of fun (RNA puzzle game). Genetics is HARD but he makes it fun and interesting. \n\r\nI had a summer internship immediately after taking the class where I used exactly what he taught us, it was incredibly helpful. He's my advisor now too and he's just such a great guy, remembers my name and things about me and clearly cares a lot about his students and the subject of genetics. Genuinely could not recommend him more. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-11-04T20:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Reviews below pretty much sums everything up. Dr. Straney is extremely nice and is a great professor. He tries his best to teach his students by putting up his lectures on Canvas and by having multiple review sessions and office hours. Unfortunately, he got rid of the "drop the lowest exam grade" policy this semester, which is unfortunate (since the average for the first exam was extremely low), but it is fine. There was an extra credit opportunity later one that boosted our grades back up. Just a warning. The first exam was by far the hardest exam. It is very long and the entire class had trouble finishing it on time. The average for our first exam in my discussion was a 50%, so make sure you do well on the first exam. If you do well on the first one, then you are pretty much set; the next two exams were much easier. I got a B on the first one, an A+ on the second one, a B+ on the third one and an A- on the final, and got an A in the course. Overall, he is a great professor and I highly recommend taking him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-22T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Very good class, and what a helpful professor. It's a lot of information, but you will definitely feel like you learned something afterwards.He gives out old exams, answers all quesyions, RECORDS HIS LECTURES, gives out outlines that cut your reading in half.... You name it and he does it. BEWARE of the first exam. You don't have as much time as you think!\r\nBTW, Dr. Straney brought us tea and cookies for our review sessions. TEA AND COOKIES!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-09-09T17:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Based off these reviews, I registered for Straney thinking that I would wanna like marry him by the end of it cuz I would love him so much or something. (v impt life update: decidedly do not want to marry him)\n\r\nBasically the reason why Straney is so highly rated isn\'t because you\'re gonna remember him being like "Wow he was that memorable amazing teacher I had in college," it\'s because he basically hands you everything you will ever need on a platter and then says "here comes the choo choo train" and spoon-feeds it into your mouth.\n\r\nHe gives you all the material you could ever need:\r\n- Uploaded powerpoint slides for each lecture\r\n- Study guides for each lecture that tells you what you should know\r\n- Outlines for each lecture (he basically already took your notes for you)\r\n- Practice exams with answer keys for exams 1, 2, 3, and the final (6 per test, so a total of 24 practice exams for the entire course)\r\n- Review sessions (where he tells you exactly what\'s going to be on the exam)\r\n- Lets you take exams for as long as you need (!!!) Seriously this man will stay with you until you are done that exam, even if it takes you 5 hours. AND he lets you start exams late if you want to do last minute cramming.\n\r\nThere are some classes where you\'re like "easy class but the teacher sucks" but this isn\'t one of them. He is the nicest, most down-to-earth, most approachable teacher on campus. It\'s so obvious he WANTS to help and wants every student to succeed. You can ask him any question ever and he gives you straight-up answers (and gives you answers for pre-labs if you wanted to double-check your work or are just too lazy to do it). He never treats you like you\'re stupid.\n\r\nHE BROUGHT COOKIES EVERY FRIDAY AND EXAM DAY. WHO DOES THAT SERIOUSLY like it\'s like he\'s the father of everyone in the class, and everyone is his favorite child that he spoils, it was awesome. Okay and they weren\'t even like lame cookies, like the day before our final he brought s\'more cookies. I didn\'t even know s\'more cookies existed but now I do and omg they were so good.\n\r\nThe #1 thing to do with Straney is do the old practice exams. Straney reuses the same questions over and over so old practice exams show you exactly the answer he\'s looking for.\n\r\nThere\'s no curve but half the class got an A (average final grade was a 90) so you shouldn\'t need it. The only way you could possibly do badly with Straney is if you literally never paid attention and/or didn\'t do practice exams the night before an exam. Do NOT take Genetics with anyone else or you will be making a huge mistake.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-07-12T05:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI415', 'review': 'Dr. Straney is the best professor ever. I cannot say it enough. He really wants his students to do well and is so incredibly patient. This course is composed of 4 lab reports, 6 homework assignments, one midterm quiz, and a final quiz. You do interesting experiments throughout the semester. There are four main experiments you carry through over the course of the semester. It is very interesting to actually apply what you learn in textbooks and lectures. I loved this course. Dr. Straney does not have "deadlines" but "target dates". He\'s so understanding. Please don\'t take advantage of it. He puts in so much time for us and is patient enough to answer all of your questions...even if another student already asked. He genuinely wants you to do well and I believe this is how teaching should be. I definitely learned so much out of this course, especially when putting those lab reports together. If you can take this class, please do. \n\r\nAnd he\'s also an amazing BSCI22 professor. He holds weekly review sessions, provides old exams and is there for you if you need help. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-16T21:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr. Straney is an exceptionally understanding professor. To be honest, his lectures are a bit boring at times but if you feel like you are not being able to put your full attention in class, it is not at all intimidating to go up to him and ask questions after class or during his office hours. It is very feasible to do well in this class if you keep up with the assignments (that's probably one of the biggest challenges for this class), go to Straney's reviews before exams, and review past exam papers.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-24T13:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "He's a fantastic instructor, the tests are relatively easy to manage and you shouldn't have any issue getting at the least a B+ in his course. \r\nJust remember to do the practice test problems and the book. Reading the book is moderately integral to doing well in this course. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr Straney is the sweetest professor on campus. He is a semi-boring lecturer but a good one at that. He always provides past exams with smiliar problems he will put on his exam so make sure you do them. Most of the material is straight memorization, but of course you have to understand the processes. Discussion is really boring but it's good easy points to get. Make sure you do the end of the chapter textbook problems - they help you understand the material even better. Keep up with the material since you will learn a lot.\r\nDr Straney is ALWAYS there for help so make use of him and your TAs!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-19T17:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "DR. STRANEY IS AMAZING!!!! He is the nicest professor you will ever have and he legitimately cares about each student succeeding. He is always available and willing to help through email or in his office (open door policy). He is a very good lecturer, making jokes and keeping the material interesting. He gives you an infinite amount of material so that you can succeed (study guides, lectures, outlines, old exams and weekly review sessions). He also is just an extremely caring person, he brings cookies to class sometimes, and for the final we just took, he brought a lot of food and coffee and tea for everyone. He just goes out of his way to make your life easier and does everything he can to make the class and material interesting. \n\r\nThis class in general is a lot of work, especially the discussion. In order to succeed just make sure you get all the easy points in discussion and review Dr. Straney's old exams. If you know his lecture slides and the old exams really well then the exams should be easy for you since he tests on a lot of the same concepts. If you have extra time going over his study guides and outlines is helpful as well.\r\nAll together, MAKE SURE YOU TAKE GENETICS WITH DR. STRANEY BECAUSE YOU WON'T REGRET IT AND YOU WILL LEARN A LOT!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-18T11:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Pretty good lecturer. He teaches off his slides, which are taken straight out of the book, but he goes into pretty good detail about all of the important stuff. Exams were pretty fair and weren't too bad if you kept up with the material. He's one of those professors who wants everyone to do well so he posts study guides on bb and holds review sessions for the exams. Pretty much gives you ample opportunity to do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-25T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "This class was the easiest I've taken so far. I skipped lecture, went to discussion, and read the book. Dr. Straney provides tons of resources including lecture powerpoints, lecture outlines, and old exams. If you have a basic understanding of genetics, you shouldn't have to put too much work into this class. Exams were fair, and you can drop one, which is quite helpful. However, there is no final curve for the class. Regardless, I honestly think they tried to make this class as easy as possible.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-22T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Extremely nice and helpful, gives you plenty of resources to study from. lectures tend to be boring but he's very passionate about what he teaches. holds weekly q&a sessions. i read reviews saying this course used to be easy with him. it's not anymore. i think they leaned on him to give less A's, so don't expect an easy ride", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-05-22T01:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "DR. STRANEY IS AMAZING! He's very easy going and laid back and you can tell he really cares about his students and loves the material that he teaches. He makes class interesting even when some of the material can be dull at times. He's also very willing to help you with anything outside of class. Make sure to do well in discussion (especially on the weekly quizzes) because it will help your grade in the end. Study well for the weekly quizzes in discussion...they are detailed and difficult. Otherwise, the other things you do in discussion are easy points. Your two lowest quiz and homework scores will be dropped. There are 3 exams (the lowest score is dropped). They are detailed but fair...make sure to read the book and review old exams. Overall interesting class. If you can take this class with Straney, DO IT!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-20T23:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI415', 'review': "Dr. Straney may be the sweetest person to ever grace College Park's bio department. This class is super interesting and very laid back, I enjoyed attending. Dr. Straney just wants everyone to get an A and if you are confused he will help you until you understand even if that means staying late. If you do the work on time you will do well in this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-09T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "He's a really good professor and a super nice guy. His exams aren't that bad if you study. He gives you everything you need to study including the lecture powerpoint, lecture outlines, study guide, and practice problems. My TA's quizzes are pretty hard, but not too bad. Take it with Straney if you can. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-04-14T00:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI415', 'review': 'Before I start, let me assert that Dr. Straney is one of the best professors at Maryland!! Anyone that says otherwise must have some sort of grudge against him...\n\r\nI started out taking BSCI 207 and most of the classes I had taken since then were mostly rehashed versions of previous material - I started to find that the classes became very boring. I never really paid attention in my classes after a while and would just cram for exams and do just fine. That\'s all fine and good - I was getting through everything that I needed to get though - but I totally stopped enjoying biology.\n\r\nThe environment that Dr. Straney created in the lab gave me faith in biology again. It wasn\'t just about memorizing things, doing busywork, and worrying how others do (e.g. curves in organic labs). He cares so much about having students learn the material - and he is able to teach very effectively. If you have any questions at all, you can call, email, or see him before/after class and he is always willing to help. He also understands that sometimes people\'s semesters are loaded and it may be difficult to get everything done on time and be satisfied with it - he will let you turn things in by what he calls an "approximate date." His quizzes and exams are very, very reasonable - read the rationale for doing the labs and why we do things the way we do before the semester quizzes and make sure to understand your lab reports before the final exam - and everything will go smoothly. He is a big proponent of "big ideas" over minute-you-will-never-need-it-again details. He tests understanding of material.\n\r\nI really, really enjoyed the class and put in (and enjoyed putting in) some effort. I learned a lot and appreciated being able to do so in a fairly relaxed environment.\n\r\nIf you\'re in a class with him right now, don\'t take him for granted. You should really appreciate what he brings to the classroom.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-21T04:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "I personally don't see what is so great about Straney. The way he teaches is pretty boring. However, he is very nice and holds a weekly review session and stays however long you need him to. \r\nOverall the class is pretty easy. The resources he provides you with are soooo useful for the exams. From what I know, there was no curve, but I'm not sure. \r\nDiscussion helps a lot with your grade because it's like busy work and fairly simple. However, there's a weekly quiz which you should review your notes for. You can get away with not going to class and reading the powerpoint.\r\nThe biggest thing to study is the study guides and lecture outlines. With those, you should be fine. \r\nTake Straney if you can, he makes the class pretty easy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-08T18:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "This man is a saint! The nicest and sweetest man on earth - period. He tries incredibly hard to help students understand the rather difficult material by posting lecture outlines, study guides, old exams, holding weekly review sessions, and always having his door open to any one who needs help. If you need BSCI222 (or want to take it), take it with Dr. Straney!!! You won't regret it!\n\r\nExams: they're rather detailed and require you to thoroughly know the information from lecture. Textbook helps a lot, but doesn't determine what will be on the exam. He likes promoters, regulatory elements (that's essentially his research), and math-based problems. When studying ALWAYS reference the study guides and ALWAYS go to review. ALWAYS. \n\r\nDiscussion: he has no say about what goes on there, since that's Dr. Shields' domain. It does help your grade a lot. \n\r\nFinal: covers half comprehensive and half new material. Comprehensive sections covers only what's been tested on previous exams. This time he had a tricky problem, but it doesn't usually happen on the midterms. \n\r\nOverall: very fair class where you learn a whole bunch. Highly recommended!! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-20T00:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr. Straney is literally the nicest person to have EVER stepped on college park. He actually wants students to learn and do well. He holds review sessions every week and brought cookies/hot cocoa at least once when I went! He makes his tests very fair and just generally likes people. Don't you dare take BSCI222 with anyone else. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T22:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "if you have the option of taking bsci222 for your major, TAKE IT and TAKE IT WITH STRANEY!!\r\nhe is the nicest professor EVER and i definitely thought i was doing worse than i am. i can get an 85% on the final and still have an A in the class (i've gotten 89s on both tests and did kinda poorly on the quizzes in my opinion but the rest of discussion helps your grade SO MUCH!!) the second half of the class is kind of boring, but easy enough if you put normal effort into it. i think i might apply to TA the discussion of this class later on! :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-12T21:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Dr. Straney is the best! He is probably one of the best professors at Maryland. He is willing to explain absolutely anything, and is actually GLAD to be able to help. Even in a huge lecture, he encourages everyone to ask questions and get help. He even brought snacks to a review session before our exam. Seriously a very approachable and genuinely nice guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-07T17:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI415', 'review': "This was a great course. I'm now in grad school, and this course taught me things that are really useful in my courses now. Dr. Straney is also the nicest person ever, and he really cares about students understanding and having enthusiasm about what they are learning. I definately recommend taking this course if you are thinking about going to Grad school for Cell/Molecular Biology!!!! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-29T21:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Great professor. Really cares about students doing well. Exams stem from lectures and text. Exams are fair and very doable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-03T02:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI415', 'review': "Dr. Straney is solid. Teachers don't get much better than him. He's excited, enthusiastic, willing to help, not afraid to slow down and explain something again, and just plain nice. \n\r\nThis class is the epitome of what college classes should be like. There aren't a lot of students. The teacher is passionate. There's a lot of one on one interaction with the professor. Nearly everybody gets A's, but those are actually earned A's. This class is in no way a fluff class - there's a lot of work. But the work is doable and enjoyable. \n\r\nIt's the complete opposite of the typical cookie-cutting lab class here at Maryland. Throughout the semester, we worked on four extended projects, which means we jumped around. You do a mutagenesis experiment (on both C. elegans and Arabidopsis), a molecular mapping experiment, a plant transformation experiment, and a DNA sequencing experiment. The DNA one was great - we isolated a highly variable region of our own CYP2D6 gene (it produces the protein that metabolizes nearly a third of the drugs we take) with PCR, sent it off to a lab, and analyzed the sequence results using different software programs. We found out if we had multiple copies, a defective copy, etc. and what that meant.\n\r\nSeriously, if you have the chance to take this course, you won't be disappointed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-16T18:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI415', 'review': 'I cannot say enough about Dr. Straney. He is hands down the best professor in the science department and he makes this class one of the best. If you are remotely interested in genetics take this class! He makes it relatively easy and you actually do hands on things that work (compared to most science classes here at maryland). In addition, he is extremely nice and wants everyone to learn and succeed not just in his class but in life. He is very approachable and was always willing to help. The course had a lot of work on occasion, but it wasnt very difficult and he grades very easy. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-23T20:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "really nice prf, but harsh grading policy. I did avg on all his exams, above avg on everything else, but bombed the final. My grade went down 6 points. Reading the text book is a MUST because he doesn't go over everything in lecture.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2018-08-28T16:14:55Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "LOVE STRANEY even though the class is a bit more brutal than necessary. he gives lots of materials. He's very friendly and caring and hilarious. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-04-29T11:15:21Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "An absolute gem of a professor. Kind, compassionate, encouraging, motivating, there aren't enough verbs to describe him. His lectures are interesting, and while some parts get dull (it is genetics, there is only so much you can do), he does his best to keep it fun and throws in the occasional joke here and there. He gives so much practice with his D2U, 222utorials, weekly review sessions, and practice exams, that you should have a surplus of review material. Memorize lecture slides, understand his exam questions, and ask him questions, and you literally can't do poorly unless you try. His final for online wasn't cumulative, but it is still fairly easy to do as long as you have been keeping up with the material. Information is also highly conceptual so make sure to apply the lectures. Good luck! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-15T01:53:26Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "STRANEY WAS THE BEST PROFESSOR I HAVE EVER HAD!! He was extremley good at teaching content in a way that made alot of sense and always takes the time to answer everyone's questions in a way thats really encouraging and sweet. He also makes the material super interesting and is SO FUNNY when he gives his lectures. He provided us with like almost a dozen exams for each midterm and the final to prepare and had so many other resources including weekly review sessions, lecture outlines, and study guides. He is the reason I love genetics and really did well in this class and I would highly recommend trying to get him as your professor!!! #king", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-17T02:13:53Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Straney is the goat. \r\n\r\nNice and approachable guy. Tons of points to be earned, and a bunch of stuff dropped too. Curve on the tests as long as the average is low enough (2/3 mid terms curved). Genetics has a TON of material so it's not the easiest class but everything is recorded so you can skip class or rewatch lectures as well.\r\n\r\nTons of old exams to help, he also posts lecture outlines and the power points. Can't ask for much more. \r\nHe's also pretty funny sometimes. Usually good at taking questions.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-09T05:02:13Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Straney is the go-to professor for 222!! He gives you everything you need to succeed & is always ready to answer questions with his weekly review sessions. But don't expect this class to be easy. It takes way more time & brain-power than it should for a 200-level class. That being said, it is very possible to do well. Go to GSS and do the old exams", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-02T05:47:23Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Straney is THE ABSOLUTE BEST PROFESSOR who truly wants his students to succeed. His lectures might go fast but he records them, holds weekly review sessions, and provides a lot of material to help you better understand the topics. He has like 10 practice tests to study from for each of the exams which are super helpful and he usually curves a few points on tests depending on what the average is. There are also a lot of little in class assignments that he does with you that are basically free points so do them. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-03T17:32:28Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Dr. Straney is my advisor and he’s so responsive, kind and helpful. I wish I had the opportunity to have him as a professor but for anyone considering taking one of his classes I would highly recommend him. He’s a great person and is always willing to help you if needed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-25T21:53:59.916576Z'}, {'professor': 'David Straney', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr Straney is one of the nicest and most helpful professors I've had--he provides SO much support for the class (dropped assignments, practice questions, quizzes, etc) without ever having to even attend office hours or GSS. I can't say how nervous I was going into 222 but he really sets the class up in a way that makes it hard to fail.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-26T21:18:12.624771Z'}], 'name': 'David Straney', 'slug': 'straney'}, {'courses': ['SOCY227', 'SOCY105'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Strohecker', 'slug': 'strohecker'}, {'courses': ['ENST281', 'ENST405', 'GEMS397', 'ENST489W', 'GEMS496', 'ENST605', 'GEMS497', 'ENST689W', 'ENST472', 'HONR239X', 'ENST499K', 'MEES698Z', 'ENST477', 'MEES605', 'ENST282', 'ENST689', 'ENST689Q', 'ENST470', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST282', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST405', 'ENST470', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST282', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST499E'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Tilley', 'course': 'ENST281', 'review': 'Great guy! Very straightforward with the information and his expectations, and the final exam was super easy. I wish more of the class was devoted to his portion.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-12-31T04:18:37Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tilley', 'course': 'ENST405', 'review': "He's super chill and nice, but I feel wholly unprepared for the content. He does calculations on the board, but it's very messy and hard to follow. A lot of the students and I are very lost on the actual math most of the time. The textbook he assigned was super hard to read and a lot of the main content at the start of the course was dependent on that. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-28T22:24:53Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tilley', 'course': 'ENST281', 'review': 'Dave is extremely chill, as long as you show up and participate you are guaranteed a good grade in the class. He does not provide much feedback throughout the class and his assignments page is hard to maneuver but the class itself is very easy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-01T02:52:14.215533Z'}], 'name': 'David Tilley', 'slug': 'tilley'}, {'courses': ['ENGL398N', 'ENGL398N', 'ENGL398N', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL398N', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL398N'], 'average_rating': 1.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Todd', 'course': 'ENGL398N', 'review': 'Literally the worst professor ever. Is always at least 5-10 minutes late to every class, and is NOT clear at all on any instructions whatsoever. We are doing class online and he spends at least an hour explaining what is due and changing due dates and deadlines when he could just make a SCHEDULE ON THE SYLLABUS and an ASSIGNMENTS TAB. His writing is incoherent even though he’s a lawyer. Very disorganized and nobody ever knows what is due. Do not take his class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-25T13:42:06Z'}, {'professor': 'David Todd', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Professor cares about his student's success but does not communicate assignment procedures well. He is very unorganized, his elms page is a mess and as a result, much of his instructions are unclear. Additionally, he often leaves the beginning of class for 5 min or so to get TEA which I find discourteous considering students are paying for the course.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-02-24T17:13:50.354913Z'}, {'professor': 'David Todd', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "The most logistically challenged professor. Avoid him at all costs. Somehow finds a way to overcomplicate the most simple tasks and manages to waste your time through it all. \r\n\r\nMany people complain about his habit of starting every class fifteen minutes late but that's not even that bad when considering just how complicated he makes the structure of the class. His ELMS course has a thousand different due dates on it, half of which he tells you to ignore- whch makes it even harder to find what's actually due. The frustration when realizing you lose a couple points from an assignment simply because the course structure on ELMS didn't prepare you for it is nothing short of an embarassment for this institution.\r\n\r\nJust a terribly organized professor who ought to change his ways. In terms of his teaching ability however, I would say he is average and unremarkable. You'll certainly gain some value from this class but it'll be a hell of a lot easier with a professor who knows what they're doing.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-28T18:39:14.697763Z'}], 'name': 'David Todd', 'slug': 'todd'}, {'courses': ['CPSP227', 'HIST204', 'GEMS104', 'CPSP239T', 'CPSP119T', 'CPSP249T', 'CPSS100', 'CPSS101', 'CPSS225', 'CPSP349T', 'CPSS230', 'CPSP118T', 'ENES440', 'ENES440', 'CPSP349T', 'CPSS100', 'CPSS340', 'CPSP318', 'CPSP386', 'CPSS101', 'CPSS340', 'ENES440', 'CPSS100', 'CPSS340'], 'average_rating': 4.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': 'HIST204', 'review': 'Very good teacher, but quite a bit of work. There is a lot of small responses and some larger papers, as well as a few quizzes, but everything in his class is open book. If you actually do the assignments, its an easy A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-25T02:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': None, 'review': 'Good teacher, very helpful to students\r\nclass consisted of many weekly readings and 6 2-3 page response papers.\r\nThere was an essay exam given that was based on all the concepts of all the readings in class, so you need to keep up on your readings. \r\nand finally, there is the final project which you work on all semester long. there is a 10-12 paper, a poster presentation, and a power point presentation that make up the project.\n\r\noverall, it was a good class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-01T11:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': 'CPSS100', 'review': 'Dr. Tomblin is the best. Super chill guy and as a program, STS has to be one of the easiest. I wish he taught all of the STS courses. I would highly recommend taking any of his courses if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-11-30T21:45:11Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': 'CPSS101', 'review': 'Tomblin is awesome and STS is one of the best scholars programs that is offered. This class is somehow easier than the first colloquium, CPSS100. The topics are generally interesting and the class is good.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-03T03:57:49Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': 'CPSS100', 'review': 'BEST PROFESSOR EVER!!! literally puts up with all your shit (may even give you a three month extension and cop you a B when u clearly deserve an F)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-11-01T23:49:04Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': 'CPSS100', 'review': 'Great guy. Genuinely cares about his students and just wants you to learn. Super chill guy too.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-01T02:07:29Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': 'CPSS100', 'review': 'Nicest guy, great person, well spoken and very generous and understanding with deadlines as CPSS will be far from your most important class. Class has some weekly assignments that will stack up along with your hw in other classes, but this guy is the best.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T00:09:13.252718Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': 'CPSS340', 'review': "Dr. Tomblin is a great guy and is very understanding. He's also pretty lenient about grades. This course is very relaxed but does require a few expeditions/trips outside of class. If you're in Scholars and need DSSP, take this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T18:25:09.231937Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': 'CPSS100', 'review': "Class is easy, seems easier than what people describe about the other scholars programs. Him and Dr. Mogul have a slightly odd dynamic? But that's irrelevant to the actual class material. You'll get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-05T02:33:00.143048Z'}, {'professor': 'David Tomblin', 'course': 'CPSS100', 'review': 'Super chill class, just weird content at times. Dr. Mogul is a little odd but its nothing to worry about.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-22T00:32:18.978035Z'}], 'name': 'David Tomblin', 'slug': 'tomblin'}, {'courses': ['CMSC631', 'CMSC430', 'CMSC131A', 'CMSC132A', 'CMSC388F', 'CMSC198Q', 'CMSC838E', 'CMSC389B', 'CMSC330', 'CMSC388Q', 'CMSC330', 'CMSC430', 'CMSC801', 'CMSC838E', 'CMSC398I', 'CMSC430', 'CMSC430'], 'average_rating': 4.4167, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC131A', 'review': 'The good:\r\nThis guy is very knowledgeable about programming languages, he even wrote some textbooks about them. He is very clear on what he wants and is always willing to answer questions. Sometimes he can be generous with bonus points with quizzes and other things. He can be low key funny af sometimes but is mostly monotone. Also dis man look like lil dickey bro lmao.\r\n\r\nThe bad:\r\nExpectations are wayyyyyy too high for his students in 131A who are supposed to be beginners to CS. His lectures are boring and have little engagement. Some of his assignments can be straight up disgusting and will destroy your will to live. He can be very inconsistent with posting assignments and notes.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-09T06:09:46Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC131A', 'review': 'I was new to programming, loved the class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-08-29T17:26:50Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC430', 'review': 'Epic twitter account. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-10-24T02:54:17Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC430', 'review': 'Such a great professor. Clearly is dedicated to the course and the students. He genuinely wants kids to learn and to build a curriculum that is strong and representative. \r\n\r\nHowever 430 was very challenging and a lot of work so beware if you enroll to spend 10-15+ hours on projects. There were no exams though just projects for all assignments, midterms, and final.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-05T19:36:38Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "DVH is a good professor, but somewhat unremarkable. His lectures are kinda dry, but maybe that's just because we were online. The projects were interesting and fun, and overall I enjoyed this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-15T16:29:53Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "DVH is a decent lecturer, but is very monotone, though I didn't mind that personally. \r\n\r\nNot much more to say except that I disliked having graded clicker quizzes. If you don't attend lecture the onus is on you to know the material, but you shouldn't be punished with a 0 on the clicker quizzes on top of that. But YMMV.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-20T04:53:17Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "David Van Horn is clearly incredibly knowledgable on the topics that he teaches, however, his lectures are rather dull and lacking on student engagement. If you're able to focus through his lectures, you will do a great job, but I often found that I would zone out at some point and then fall behind his fast-paced lectures entirely and resort to watching Anwar's lectures instead. The class as a whole is easy if you put the time in, but that being said the work is constant and unrelenting, the expectations are high, and if you fall behind you will have a very hard time catching up.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-28T18:28:36Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC430', 'review': "The course material was very interesting, and the materials provided were very helpful. DVH lectures well, but can be monotone, which can make it difficult to stay focused if you're easily distracted like I am. Outside of lecture, a Discord server was set up for the class. This was massive since it made communication between course staff and students more frequent, casual, and clear. It closed a lot of distance between the two groups. The format of Discord also made it so that problems students had could be solved more smoothly than they would on something like Piazza. DVH is also very kind in general. If he's an option, I'd highly recommend taking him, because he knows how to run a course. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-26T22:31:35Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC430', 'review': 'Lectures are kinda dry but DVH explains things really well. Instead of Piazza he used Discord to communicate with the class, which made it so much easier to reach him and the TAs.\r\nThe class is not necessarily hard, but it is a lot of busy work. Gotta stay on top of it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-06T16:38:27.425400Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC430', 'review': 'He deserves a 5-star rating for the following. First, he cares about students and their learning. His main objective is encourage students to learn as much as possible. His lectures are clear and he never rushes through the materials, which are well organized into different modules with increasing levels of sophistication to build up compilers with advanced programming language features. \r\n\r\nI like the way the course organizes exams. We had two midterms but no final exam. The midterm problems are all about designing and implementing certain features of some compilers that had been discussed in the lectures. The midterm questions are clear and reasonable. We were given 48 hours to complete the midterms but I did not have to devote the entire two days to each midterm.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-19T20:58:27.357065Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC430', 'review': 'Time consuming but relatively easy class, as projects are mostly implementation, little to no theory involved. Dry lectures, much more engaging online and when you ask him questions in person. Otherwise a brilliant guy, would recommend if you liked 216/330.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-05T21:03:02.925248Z'}, {'professor': 'David Van Horn', 'course': 'CMSC430', 'review': 'Lectures are kind of dry, but the class is well structured, excellently run, and very interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-22T04:53:40.394829Z'}], 'name': 'David Van Horn', 'slug': 'van_horn'}, {'courses': ['BUSI690', 'BMGT878R', 'BMGT828D', 'BMGT878C', 'BMGT878P', 'BMGT868C', 'BMGT495', 'BMSO758B', 'BUSI798W', 'BUSM788W', 'BUSO788W', 'BMGT878R', 'BMGT868C', 'BMSO758B', 'BUSI690', 'BMGT878R', 'BMGT468A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Waguespack', 'slug': 'waguespack'}, {'courses': ['BMGT289D', 'BMGT411', 'BUAC765', 'CCJS453', 'BUAC714', 'BUSI758R', 'BUSO704'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Weber', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': 'Very egotistical, talks about himself a lot and tends to deviate from the class material with irrelevant stories.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-16T12:57:24Z'}], 'name': 'David Weber', 'slug': 'weber_david'}, {'courses': ['NACS728Q', 'PSYC301', 'HONR209O', 'PSYC407', 'PSYC606', 'PSYC401', 'PSYC414', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC309U', 'NEUR200', 'PSYC202', 'PSYC468H', 'NEUR479', 'NEUR200', 'PSYC202', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC414'], 'average_rating': 3.6364, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': "Okay, I'd just like to clear the air regarding the Biological Basis of Behavior. This class receives a lot of negative attention that it doesn't receive. I won't lie, this class is VERY challenging and you have to work your ass off if you even want to break a 80%. Yager can be a little dry at times, but overall, I enjoyed going to class. The material is very interesting - then again, I love the brain. With this class, it's very B.S.-geared and not very B.A.-geared; it really depends on what you're trying to do in the psych field, so take that into consideration. He offers extra credit, but lets be real, it doesn't do shit. EC is offered in the form of little weekly lecture quizzes on ELMS that you have unlimited attempts to score a 100% on. If you get a 100, you get 1 extra point on the exam. But in reality, when you only have about 3-5 quizzes per lecture exam (and the exam is already 130+ points), 3-5 extra points don't really make that much of a difference percentage-wise, especially since the quizzes aren't easy. Okay, so the big thing is exams. I swear sometimes he's trying to kill you in these exams, but they're not impossible. Getting an A is doable, but you better know that material like the back of your hand. The good thing about exams is that he drops the lowest score and they're all curved. I got a 85, 63, 84, and a 92 on the final, and that ended up giving me a 88 overall in the class (B+), when in reality, my uncurved grade would probably be a B-. Oh yeah, and your grade is just based on tests. There are no other assignments, but that being said, getting a B in this class is not impossible. Hard, but you can do it if you're motivated and put in the work. You really get the grade you deserve in this class. SOOOOOO takeaway: it's hard, but don't listen to the people that defame Yager and the class in general. Most of these people try to put off studying until the night before and think that they'll pass and then end up failing and/or they're not interested in the material, and misattribute their bad time to bad teaching. It's bullshit. I highly recommend this course for anyone in the B.S. track. It'll really help you in the long run. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-06-06T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': "If you are concerned with getting a good grade, I would suggest taking another professor for this course. I took this class last semester with Dr.Hall and got A's on first two exams before I had to drop course for personal reasons. Was not easy but if you study hard and make sure you know all of the study guide, you should do well. This semester with Yager, I got a very low E on first exam(lol). His material is different and focuses more on what seems like training to become a doctor. I think his tests are unfair with irrelevant or miscellaneous questions. However he is very knowledgeable and very interesting. If you take his class, pay a lot of attention in class and take extremely good notes. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-04-04T01:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC407', 'review': "This course is the epitome of why the minor is as a whole a useless endeavor that should be avoided for the supplement of actual research ( See the Phenomena of Psyc300 being absolutely useless for teaching research). You'll waste at the average 12 hours of life that you could use for work in a research lab or hwk/real science each week and write lab reports that are in effect glorified narratives of what was conducted in lab. The lab rarely demands an actual understanding of biology and in fact is all about knowing the minimal foundation, going into the lab and doing lab work that is as you guessed it minimalistic. \r\nThe class teaches basic 'neuroscience techiques' which really are just classic (See: useless) techniques that give you a very minimal understanding of electrophysiology in response to sensory stimuli (This course should be renamed Sensory Neuroscience Lab because there's little behavior actually studied and more principles of supposed circuits firing to supposed ganglians to cause supposed sterotyped behavior that we in majority do not get to see). We use a program (Chart) that is worse than anything on this Earth and generally we can all accept that we learn absolutely nothing in lab other than the pain of learning that we made a massive mistake attempting to finish this minor. And in lecture we are taught what I would call very much minor brush strokes of biology, we genuinely learn a minor amount of the biology of an organism just enough to do the lab but not actually understand the very fundamental information necessary to know anything worthwhile.\r\nSo in short if you want to take a course where you pretend you've learned something. Go ahead, if you actually want to do neuroscience go join a research lab. I know that if I could go back I wouldn't do this course, it taught me absolutely nothing about neuroscience that I wanted to know. \n\r\nSo if I were to break it down into ratings (1 to 5)\r\nProfessor: 4/5\r\nMaterials in lab ( In 301 you're taught all about these magical methods and now you're using metal toothpicks for electrodes) : 1/5\r\nTime Spent efficiently learning: 1/5\r\nWay Course is tested: 1/5\n\n\n\r\nConclusion: Do something else with your life. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-07T14:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': "While I will not say that this is an easy course for most students, I had taken a graduate level neuroanatomy before and helped the students in my section with review sessions. Greg is helpful, but he doesn't go over the material a second time and neither Dr.Yager nor Greg will give you hints to memorize things. I still have my notes/review guides if anyone should need them, and if anyone needs any help, feel free to reach me!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-07-11T15:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': "This man knows what he's talking about. Awesome, interesting class...no doubts about these statements. But if you want an A you better know that material INSIDE AND OUT. Very conceptual course, not detail oriented. His exams are very hard. Koofers helps out a lot, but do not fully depend on it. Usually he uses the same diagrams and short essays as koofers, at least. Going to class and paying attention is a must if you want to fully understand the material. Dont ever underestimate his exams. I made this class my main focus and still received a C. If you enjoy neuroscience or are used to taking courses in the physical sciences, it clearly is much easier. \r\nBottom line: one of the most interesting courses you will ever take, but involves an immense amount of effort. Although i received a C, i do not regret taking this course. Yager is awesome.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-06-10T00:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'HONR209O', 'review': "Dr. Yager is fantastic! This was my favorite honors seminar out of all 5 that I took. It was insanely interesting. It really does change the way you think about sleeping. Yager does a really great job teaching it - he's very relaxed and doesn't bullshit you. He also brought in a real brain for us to look at! Overall I really really loved this class. We had to do one paper about a book but he let us hand it in early if we wanted and he reviewed it for us and gave it back so we could definitely get an A. Dr. Yager is funny, blatantly intelligent, and very sincere. I highly recommend this seminar if you are even remotely interested in the brain or psychology. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-26T17:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'HONR209O', 'review': 'Dr. Yager is a great professor, both knowledgeable and engaging. If the class is talkative, then the lectures become very enjoyable to attend. \r\nTake this class at your own risk however, for it is very hard to get an A, not so much because the material itself is hard, but because his grading is rather tough. If you dont have exactly what he wants you will lose points...a lot of points. And make sure take good notes and attend every lecture. You can read the light blue book to get a general understanding, but know that whatever extra information you grab from this book will not be worth a thing if you write it as part of an answer on his tests...unless you get it wrong.. then it will cost you points.\r\nWhat Ive learned in this class is just phenomenal and i would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the importance of sleep with many aspects of college life. \r\nI have to say.. unlike some other classes.. ex. orgo, calcIII... this class is actually interesting.\r\nPS... best thing to do is to just go listen in... learn the stuff... and not fret about getting an unsatisfactory grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-21T11:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'HONR209O', 'review': "Basically, if you want an easy A, if you're a non-science major, or if you need an honors seminar, I don't recommend taking this class. \r\nTypically honors seminars are supposed to kind of be an easy A; not this one. You have to take copious amounts of notes, study hard, and have an intuition for science to get a decent grade. \r\nThe lectures are fine, a little boring, but the videos and information are interesting enough. Just make sure you take a ton of notes because that's your main study tool.\r\nThe tests are difficult. They consist of 5-7 questions based on broad topics discussed and repeated in class, but then you have to apply a bunch of details and connect it all to get points on the answers. You definitely need to study for them.\r\nThere's also the ten page paper which, if you're a good writer and can look past the surface meaning of the book, should be fairly easy to write. \r\nThe in-class discussions for the weekly papers can be painful. There seemed to be the same 4-5 students talking each week. Conversation is difficult to stimulate because sometimes it seems like no one wants to talk. \r\nOverall, this class was difficult, especially for an honors seminar. If you're a science major and are interested in this subject matter, it'll probably be a lot easier for you than it was for me. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-17T15:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC401', 'review': "This was probably the best psychology course I have taken in the department so far. I wanted to review it because there aren't any other reviews. This class is unlike other lab classes where the lab supplements the lecture. Instead, the lecture provides background information, and the main focus is information gained in lab.\r\nThe labs are 4 hours long, and sometimes they go long - they expect you to stay, so don't plan anything after this lab. The longest lab we had went for 6 hours! At the time it seemed horrible, but I really learned a lot looking back on it. The last lab of the semester is the best one. You get to perform brain surgery on a frog and record neural pulses straight from the optic tectum (part of the brain that integrates visual information). Recording action potentials and other things you learn about in other psychology classes you actually get to do in this course! I would recommend to anyone - just be prepared to do a lengthy lab write-up each week. It truly a science course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-10T15:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': "For Psyc301 you HAVE to go to class because his slides are just pictures and he just talks for the whole 65 minutes. He is a good lecturer and knows his stuff really well, but as others have said his exams are definitely rough. The multiple choice had an answer choice for a, b, and c, choice d was all of the above and choice e was answer choice a and c. Definitely know everything he puts on the review sheet and try to look at things in the big picture. It's a hard class, but the material is actually really interesting. \n\r\nAlso, I would suggest using Terpnotes from bookholders because someone took amazing notes that are very similar to what he teaches now. I heard that is first exam was on koofers too, but I'm not sure if that is true.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-10T20:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'HONR209O', 'review': "Professor Yager is very knowledgable and very passionate, but he tends to be a bit boring in his lectures (I dozed off in his class every time except for once). The exams are pretty challenging, but they're fair if you study. Take notes on everything he says, because that's what's tested. And READ THE BOOKS (especially the blue one). I didn't read the books all year, and my friend pointed that there were helpful bullet lists and things like that.\n\r\nBottom line: Interesting material, very interesting if you're a psych or bio major. Involves a lot for critical thinking. If you're looking for an easy A, look elsewhere. Recommended with caution.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2010-12-15T20:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': "Yager was good in the sense that he knew the material well, but he's the type of prof who's only there for his research. He doesn't really care as much as he should for his students. I went to him several times for help and it didn't help at all. His exams are horrible, like they come straight from hell. It doesn't matter if you know everthing he said in class. You HAVE to know extra miscellaneous stuff and have to know how to apply your knowledge to the bigger picture. He really knows his stuff...that's why the exams get so hard.\n\r\nOverall, he's not worth it. He might be able to explain stuff in class, but he won't help you a lot during reviews and the exams are HELL. Don't do it to yourself.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-25T11:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': "Dr. Yager is an excellent and knowledgeabe professor! He communicates the information well and makes the class interesting. You MUST attend every lecture though since the tests are extremely hard and lecture based. You have to work really hard to pass this class but it's definitely worth it if you're interested in biopsychology.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-04-19T03:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'HONR209O', 'review': "Very interesting class. The material gets better for the last 2/3 of the class. Presentations are difficult to get an A. Exams are not bad but need good notes. As for the essay, he accepts drafts for review, so make good use of that opportunity. Overall, a lot of work, but if you're interested, take the class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-25T13:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': "Dr. Yager is an excellent professor. He is very knowledgeable in his field and explains concepts very well. He says A LOT in class, so you'll need to be ready to take good notes and write down everything he says, but the book is just supplemental, he never tests on anything from the book that he didn't mention in class. There are 3 tests (you can drop the lowest) and a cumulative final, but there are no papers or other work. Tests require a lot of studying, and you need to be able to expand on what you know. He also holds reviews before exams which are very helpful. Fascinating class, difficult, but very satisfying.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-28T14:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'HONR209O', 'review': 'the professor is a nice enough guy and knowledgable (except for the astonishing amount that he seems not to know things in the field of sleep... which he probably should?) and the class is interesting but definitly an annoyance because of the note taking and the epic paper. it is true if youre not going to be a neuroscientist or whatever and youre looking for an easy A... DONT DO IT.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-30T17:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'HONR209O', 'review': "Well don't that just say it all.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-12T23:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'HONR209O', 'review': "Warning: If you're an honors student looking for an easy, interesting honors seminar, just stop reading now and go take the multiverse one, or multiple me's.\n\r\nThis class was, overall, an interesting class. Sleep was always something interesting to me (both from a scientific standpoint and from an experiential one), and I greatly looked forward to to the class. I soon found out, though, that though the information was definitely interesting, the class was going to be a lot harder than I'd thought.\r\nFirst off, my main gripe is that the class is almost completely-discussion based - he spends every class going over information in his slides, trying to get people involved, but then gives absolutely zero percentage of your grade from participation. \r\nYour grade will consist of 40% two midterms, 30% the final, 20% two scientific paper presentations, and 10% a 10-page paper.\n\r\nSo first off, the tests. Make sure you take good notes, because if you don't you'll basically be screwed for the midterms, because he'll ask you specific things from the lecture, like 'list all the ways sleep inertia is bad to society' and if you don't list everything, you're screwed. On the tests, make sure you answer everything in bullet format, because it's the fastest, easiest way to answer, and it's what he wants anyway (even if he doesn't specifically tell you). If you answer a question, no matter how much you've written, as long as you write the specific things he's looking for, you get full credit. No matter how much you BS an answer, if you don't include the specific answers he wants, it won't matter.\r\nThe final was similar format to the tests, you just have a lot more time to do it. Also, he included some extra credit on the final just to boost your grade, but even then, be prepared for B's and C's on the tests, or if you're 'that guy' maybe a low A.\n\r\nFor the paper presentations: every week a different group gives a presentation on a scientific paper that he posts online, and everyone will have to do two of these. For this, what he's looking for is basically that you spend 5 minutes max explaining the paper and its outcomes and everything, and that for the next 10-15 minutes the class will be engaged in good discussion on it, thanks to your amazing leadership abilities you are expected to have. Make sure you have friends in the class who you have convinced ahead of time to get involved in the discussion, and whatever you do, don't say anything to try to get the discussion going unless you absolutely have to. If you do that well, you can expect an easy A for that 20%, but if not be ready for B's and B-'s. \n\r\nAs for the paper, it's actually 8-10 pages, on one of the books you'll be assigned. There's absolutely no research necessary, and the book it's on is actually a (pretty interesting) novel about this sleep clinic, so you'll basically be writing a literary analysis on it. Do with this what you can, and though you'll have a lot of time to do it, don't push it off or you'll feel the consequences.\n\r\nOverall, I'd say I enjoyed the class (though the lecture style did start to get old), and did learn a lot about an interesting subject I hadn't actually known much about, but I do wish the class had had some sort of a participation grade, because otherwise no one has incentive to participate, and it's the same 3 people taking over and over.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-20T16:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'HONR209O', 'review': "While this course is extremely interesting and you will learn a ton, it will not help your GPA in any way. The exams are very difficult to do well on, even with hours of studying. Dr. Yager is not a gentle grader. The tests are all free response, so you have to know the content like the back of your hand, and mind you, the content is based on detailed neurobiology. If you're not into biology, I would steer clear. To succeed in this course, you have to attend every lecture, take precise notes on everything Dr. Yager says (his powerpoints are absolutely barebones), and complete every assignment with 100% effort. There is absolutely no room for slack in this class. Not the honors seminar for you if you want an easy A.\r\n\r\nThat being said, it is a super interesting course, and it is possible to get a good grade if you are on it from the beginning. Dr. Yager is brilliantly smart and presents the content in an engaging way. Definitely a challenging course, but overall I like it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-11-12T16:32:51Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': 'I took 301 my first semester at UMD after transferring. Not so smart of me but I had no clue what I was in for. Be prepared to work your ASS OFF. The information is really interesting and I find myself thinking about practical applications of it even after the class ended. I got an A (94) but it did not come without very hard work. I went to every weekly review session with the TA, every review session led by Yager before exams and only missed one lecture throughout the semester. I also studied for 10+ hours (not exaggerating) for each exam. That being said, this class can be really interesting if you are prepared to work hard. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-07-15T17:21:39Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC309U', 'review': "Dr. Yager is one of the best professors I've ever had. He is genuinely passionate about what he's teaching and actually cares about his students - the couple of times I went to office hours, he asked about my other classes and my plans for the future, not just his class. \r\nThat being said, this class is NOT easy. Even after taking detailed notes and going to every lecture, I found myself struggling on tests (not because they were unfair, but because there were just so many small details we needed to know). The weekly journals were also kind of a pain and seemed rather unnecessary, especially when they were graded pretty harshly for such small assignments. There is a decent curve, and the things discussed in the class are incredibly interesting, so it is definitely worth taking. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-31T20:27:07Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': 'Excellent teacher and fascinating course. It requires an interest and a dedication to do well in this course, but it is rewarding. Dr. Yager is very helpful in such a way that you do receive help or advice, but do not get out of work or a free pass. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-16T15:57:26Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'NEUR200', 'review': 'Nice guy, lectures border on boring but are more coherent than expected. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-04-29T11:10:24Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC301', 'review': "If you love neuroscience and the brain, you will love this class. Yager is sooooooooo funny. Even if he SOUNDS dry, listen to the words that come out of his mouth; he's hilarious. I was in love with every single topic which motivated me to study my ass off. With all the extra credit, I ended the class with a 101%. Getting a good grade is definitely possible if you study well. Do NOT take this class if you are not interested at all in brain science; it requires a certain level of interest and passion to do well. Yager is super nice and helpful, but do not rely too heavily on email communication. It is best to talk to him right after class, but usually, there is a long line, so I always sat in the front to get to him pretty quickly. This course changed my life and confirmed for me I wanted to do neuroscience. So much love to this man.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-07-09T21:06:50Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC202', 'review': 'This class was very difficult and I would only recommend it to people who have a burning passion for neuroscience. Dr. Yager was a slightly-above-average lecturer, though he was very skilled at making the course interesting. The quizzes and exams tended to be unnecessarily confusing and I wish some more direction could have been given on the essays. I think this class would have been better if I got to take it in-person.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-18T07:33:05Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'PSYC202', 'review': "This class is significantly more difficult than you'd think. The weekly quizzes were difficult, confusing, and graded you on only the smallest details of hours-long lectures. I only started doing well on them after watching the lectures directly before the quizzes (which, by the way, were scheduled on a non-class day). Quizzes were worth 30.4% of the grade and the class average was consistently below a 75%. Exams were better, but very long. However, they were heavily curved. Honestly, I feel like I did not retain most of the lecture content because I spent all of my time trying to strategize against the unfair quizzes. The lectures are interesting and the professor seems like an okay dude, but I don't think he helped me understand the concepts very well at all. Maybe he's better in person. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-19T14:06:28Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'NEUR200', 'review': 'I would not recommend this teacher to anyone. Lectures are all online and extremely hard to follow. The weekly quizzes were difficult, and you were tested on small details from hour and a half lectures. Exams were all graded differently by each TA and were unfair 75% of the time. All quizzes are scheduled on non-class days as well. Teacher wants students to make this class their only priority and assumes they have no life outside this class. Stay clear from this class or you will suffer 1 semester because of it. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-20T20:54:40Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'NEUR200', 'review': "*class taken completely online spring 21*\r\n\r\nThis class is not perfect- my main complaint was that the questions on the weekly quizzes are sometimes very specific and vague [but the TAs recognized this on the one quiz it was a big problem and quizzes after that point were better]\r\nIf you are taking this class you have to take notes and review them. You definitely can't just coast through the quizzes/exams. The exams online were open note/open book/open web but you will not have time to hunt through your notes for every answer if you do not study or at least condense your notes [you hear this a lot but it is especially true in this class]\r\n\r\nHowever, the availability of the TAs and Dr. Yager was very great. If you have a question or are unclear on a concept then it is very easy to schedule an appointment with them and they are very diligent about explaining until you understand. Dr. Yager can be vague in his lectures, but the TAs always cleared up the topics I was unclear on [still you definitely have to go if you are unclear on anything]\r\nYager tells you if what he is talking about is not going to be on the exam and everything else can often be summarized with diagrams [that you do have to copy down and study to do well]\r\nAdditionally, there was a great amount of extra credit in this class and generous curving of exams.\r\nAs such, I'm rating this class/Yager 5 stars. The support offered in this class was amazing.\r\n\r\nAll in all, not a perfect or easy class, but definitely one that's possible to do well on. (and Yager is hilarious in lecture, which is always fun)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-20T21:29:58Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'NEUR200', 'review': 'No. Literally have no idea what he is saying half the time. Nothing in lectures is on the exam. Do not take this. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T22:05:47Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'NEUR200', 'review': "This class is honestly extremely interesting, however, IT IS THE HARDEST CLASS. the concepts are easy to follow, but his exams are very complex. He really tests you knowledge to apply the concepts learned and the brain's structure. Know what brain regions correspond to what. There are three essays that helpful to boost your grade, but creativity and application IS SO IMPORTANT, and go to the writing center to make sure your grammar/transition sentences/organization are as good as can be. GET BONUS POINTS, there are so many ways. ALSO, do the weekly quizzes, they help prepare you for the exams, and can potentially improve your grade. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-21T04:53:26Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'NEUR200', 'review': "Dr Yager's lectures are incredibly dense and difficult to sit through. The class is purely graded on exams and essays, both of which are hard to score well on. Additionally, I found him to be very disrespectful and unempathetic when I privately met with him to discuss a personal matter that affected my performance/grade. Overall just not a good professor, which is a shame since I really find the course material to be interesting. Please avoid taking him if you can. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-25T08:20:19Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'NEUR200', 'review': "I came into this course with a lot of Neurology knowledge. Not only did I do so well in all of the review sessions that some students thought I should teach the class (LOL no thanks), but I wrote two very detailed essays on some very complex neurological concepts and still barely scraped by with one A and B's on my papers. That being said, I still got a B- because his tests are ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. I don't mean that they are difficult because the coursework is hard. No, the information is very simple and in fact, it is open note. But the way Dr. Yager writes his questions is extremely frustrating and indirect. The content of the tests are not directly related to the lectures for half the exams with questions about Hamlet, Vampries, random frogs, and three scientists walk into a bar questions - that Dr. Yager erroneously believes to be a better demonstration of knowledge than testing directly over the course material in lecture. He thinks that this is somehow a better test of intelligence or aptitude than directly testing the information she lectures on. I was advised to take this course for a future grad school program and now I have to explain all of this to my future PI and why I got a B- in an intro course that even the TAs said looked ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like their Intro to Neuro course tests/work at other schools. Do yourself a favor and if you're the kind of person that wants an actual, straightforward neuro course, then look elsewhere. I have no idea why this guy is rated as high as he is. I have to wonder if some TAs or whatnot were told to post on here to inflate his rating. Maybe it was the pandemic, and I have no idea how his tests were before but for us the tests were online thru ELMs and I don't know if that is what the difference was. But if you aren't the best test taker for someone who asks confusing, indirect questions a majority of the time, run away!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-01-15T19:26:29Z'}, {'professor': 'David Yager', 'course': 'NEUR200', 'review': "hard af don't take it ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-01-17T05:27:27Z'}], 'name': 'David Yager', 'slug': 'yager'}, {'courses': ['GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'David Zajic', 'slug': 'zajic'}, {'courses': ['ENME467', 'ENES467', 'ENME482', 'ENES467', 'ENME467'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Davinder Anand', 'slug': 'anand'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dawn Ginnetti', 'slug': 'ginnetti'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN316'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Daybert Linares', 'slug': 'linares'}, {'courses': ['HONR258T', 'HONR359A', 'HONR100'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dean Hebert', 'course': 'HONR258T', 'review': 'Dean Hebert is a great teacher. He really cares about the subject and loves to discuss short stories. He is insightful, and had us read many interesting stories. I loved taking this class and it really made my first semester at UMD way better. If you get the chance at any point in your UMD career, I highly suggest you take this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-04T01:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dean Hebert', 'course': 'HONR258T', 'review': "Best class I have ever taken and Im a senior at Maryland. Dean is extremely engaging and the class is thoroughly entertaining. There are 4 3-4 pg papers but they are really easy to write. You have to write a short story but it doesn't count towards your grade and they're fun to write and review. Great class, great professor. Fairly easy A. Take it if you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-20T00:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dean Hebert', 'course': 'HONR258T', 'review': "Dean Hebert is an absolutely fantastic professor, and if at all possible, take his seminar in the fall. As the first reviewer had said, the workload for the course is moderate, but if you're willing to take the seminar, it doesn't seem like very much because it's mostly stuff that you WANT to do anyways.\n\r\nThe course is essentially this: four essays, reading 2-4 short stories a week, writing your own short story, and a final in which you rewrite the end of a short story and explain why you wrote it -- it's really not that much at all, and his sense of humor keeps you engaged for basically the entire class. the class isn't really so much about how to write each detail of your short story as it is to just have fun with things - he's rather laid back and is very responsive to the essays you write, oftentimes including 2-3 paragraphs just for feedback on your essays; the most work I did all semester was just having my story workshopped, in which all of the students in the class had a bit of input on my story and continued to ask questions.\n\r\nAgain, if you have the opportunity to, take Hebert's class. You won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-19T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dean Hebert', 'course': 'HONR258T', 'review': 'This course is a great way to fulfill your HL requirement. Dean Hebert is a really awesome guy and a very fair teacher.\r\nClasses will always be fun as all you do is discuss the most recently read short stories. Mr. H always has some good jokes for each story.\r\nThe workload is not bad at all. On average you will read 2-4 short stories a week, which is very manageable. I just made a habit of reading one before bed each night. You will write 5 essays of about 4 pages double spaced each and you will create your own short story. This may sound like a lot of work, but it is not. \r\nThis class is not so much about learning facts as gaining an appreciation for short stories. You will learn some terminology related to short stories, but mostly you will learn to appreciate how authors think in order to write short stories and the amount of creativity and detail that goes into them.\r\nWriting your own short story is pretty cool too. Everyone in the class writes one and then he hands out copies of each one to everyone else and then for the last half of the semester the class just discusses each others stories and gives constructive criticism.\r\nThe only really hard part about this class is final, for which you have to write your own ending to the part of a short story that he gives you and then explain how you wrote this ending. This is very difficult to do well, but he is fair in grading it.\r\nOverall, Mr. H is awesome and this class is really fun and interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-23T20:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dean Hebert', 'course': 'HONR258T', 'review': "The class is split up into two parts. The first part of the class is reading short stories and discussing them in class. The second part of the class is where each student writes their own short story and then the rest of the students read them and discuss them. \r\n\r\nGrades come from 4 written papers over the course of the semester. Each essay analyzes a short story. For the final you need to write the ending of a short story and then also write an analysis of the short story and your ending.\r\n\r\nHebert is very passionate about short stories and the entire class is very much discussion based. Honestly, discussing and writing short stories turns out not to be my favorite thing, so I didn't love in-class time. Nevertheless, writing your own short story and getting to read and discuss the short stories of your classmates is pretty cool. The workload is not nothing, but not bad at all. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-07T16:47:29Z'}], 'name': 'Dean Hebert', 'slug': 'hebert_dean'}, {'courses': ['ANSC489R', 'ANSC489M', 'GEMS296', 'ANSC440', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'ANSC688J', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'ANSC688M', 'ANSC410', 'GEMS497', 'ANSC410', 'ANSC688M', 'ANSC440', 'ANSC688J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Debabrata Biswas', 'slug': 'biswas'}, {'courses': ['ARHU299T', 'AGNR270', 'BSOS288V', 'TLTC222'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Deborah Mateik', 'slug': 'mateik_deborah'}, {'courses': ['JOUR400', 'JOUR479N', 'JOUR328I', 'JOUR289E', 'JOUR698N', 'JOUR698I', 'JOUR700', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR479D', 'JOUR402', 'JOUR702', 'JOUR281', 'JOUR281', 'JOUR479D', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR635'], 'average_rating': 3.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Deborah Nelson', 'course': 'JOUR400', 'review': "It's media law. It's going to be boring almost regardless of who teaches it. Nelson tries (perhaps a little too hard) to make it engaging, to the point that it often felt like a high school class. But the class is surprisingly not that bad. Nelson doesn't teach some things that might be important (as in, how to read a legal opinion), but there are enough assignments (all open note tests or projects) that it's relatively easy to pull an A. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-23T15:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Nelson', 'course': 'JOUR400', 'review': "Ms. Nelson is da bomb. She always tries to make the class a little more interesting. I fell asleep a couple of times but not as much as I thought I would concerning this is media law. I liked that she had us try and argue cases as a group occasionally. She's nice but keeps it real. She loves participation, so make sure you speak up in class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-16T23:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Nelson', 'course': 'JOUR400', 'review': 'She is a harsh grader, but not unfair. Exams are open note, so if you do poorly it is your fault (as I sadly found out). She is a nice person and wants you to do well, she gives a lot of hints about what will be on exams.\r\nShe is also a badass and has many exciting stories about her investigative journalism days.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-13T00:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Nelson', 'course': 'JOUR289E', 'review': 'Open note exams, quick and detailed feedback on written assignments, and engaging lectures and presentations. Definitely enjoyed hearing about her experiences as a reporter, and it made the course material way more engaging. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-21T19:13:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Nelson', 'course': 'JOUR281', 'review': 'JOUR281 is an interesting course. It deals a lot with exploring the constitution and amendments as they have applied previously and especially now in a digital age. There was some amount of outside the classroom work but it was ultimately interesting and never too hard and certainly worth it considering we only met for effectively one hour every week. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-13T22:08:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Nelson', 'course': 'JOUR281', 'review': 'Terrible professor. I don\'t know what the person below me was thinking; JOUR281 was not interesting in the slightest. Nelson did absolutely zero teaching and had us learn through "Microsoft Sways" she had created, which are essentially interactive Microsoft presentations. Tests were all open note, but really annoying sometimes because you often had to search through court documents. Some of the court case precedents were interesting, but most of them were just things we learned in high school or expanding upon them with further case precedent. This class is limited to Carillon students, but for those of you facing the option to take it: avoid it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-07T21:17:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Nelson', 'course': 'JOUR281', 'review': 'As someone who majors in Computer Science, JOUR281 did feel a bit like a nuissance since it was extra work to do, however I have a lot of good to say about this course. Even after being sick for about 2.5 weeks, Professor Nelson and her TA Abbi Ross were very caring and did their best to make sure I was catching up. The assignments are really not difficult at all, they just take some time to do. As long as you follow the instructions exactly as per what the rubric says, you should be fine. The tests and quizzes are relatively easy and had I not been sick, I probably could have even got an A+ in the course. You also only meet once a week in this course, most of the learning is outside of class in these "Microsoft Sways" which are some detailed slides. As long as you have somewhat of an understanding of what is going on, you should be fine. Since all quizzes and tests are open note, I never felt like I had to study for them, and if I am going to be honest, I am glad I did not spend time studying, since the sways you had access to helped tremendously in these tests and quizzes. I had almost an A in every test. You also have extra credit points where you can drop your lowest quiz scores, or add points onto a test. Overall this class was more interesting and easier than expected.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-25T01:39:40.642364Z'}], 'name': 'Deborah Nelson', 'slug': 'nelson_deborah'}, {'courses': ['WMST298D', 'WMST621', 'WMST601', 'WMST618', 'WMST709', 'WMST498H'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Deborah Rosenfelt', 'course': 'WMST298D', 'review': "Rosenfelt is a very sweet, nice woman. She actually reminds me of my grandmother. However, the class (298D) is a lot of work. A lot lot lot of reading, but honestly, you really don't have to read every single one. You have to come to both lecture and discussion, because attendance is counted in both. The content and writing assignments for the class are pretty easy, so as long as you do all of the assignments and come to all the classes, you'll probably get an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-17T13:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Rosenfelt', 'course': 'WMST300', 'review': 'I have taken two classes with Dr. Rosenfelt (250 & 300) and have enjoyed her lectures. She loves to give As to students, but you have to put some effort into the papers/readings. I know she is teaching WMST298D next semester, and would GREATLY recommend that students take that class - I know she has some great things planned for next semester. Overall amazing professor! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-17T00:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Rosenfelt', 'course': 'WMST250', 'review': 'For any guys looking at this class, dont be fooled by the grade distribution. This class was terrible. The work was tedious and complete bs. Lectures were the worst and longest two hours of my week. This is the first college course I have taken where I can honestly say I learned NOTHING in a whole semester. Assigning 12 pages during exam week is a ludicrous request that made my final week almost unmanageable. Nothing against Dr. Rosenfelt but this class is worthless and I can not believe you can actually get credit towards a major for it.\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-16T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Rosenfelt', 'course': 'WMST250', 'review': "Well couple things to point out about this class. First is the workload seems much too large for what is a 3 credit course. Sometimes the information also seemed to be either repetitive or uninteresting.\n\r\nI do have admiration for Professor Rosenfelt. She seems genuinely interested in the topic we are discussing plus her students and tries to stay extremely open minded. Its only tough to follow because the classes are backed up with so much work it's hard to appreciate the content that is being taught to students.\n\r\nOverall I wouldn't suggest this class as a CORE to most people, there is definitely more interesting and easier courses in CORE, but it wasn't entirely unbearable. Try to have an open mind.\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-16T07:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deborah Rosenfelt', 'course': 'WMST250', 'review': "This class is horrible. I believe that other WMST250 classes were better, but Rosenfelt's class was just awful. I took it because I thought it would be an easy A, however I regret that completely.\n\r\nThere is a paper due every week, and oftentimes we had to read a book and write a paper on it within that week. \n\r\nOur final is take-home, but consists of 15 pages worth of writing, including an 8 page paper that we are given a week to write. \n\r\nThought the TA's were nice, I feel that Rosenfelt was very critical of her students and was too politically correct, causing her to sound silly a lot of the time.\n\r\nBottom line: Too much work for a 3 credit, beginner class. I dreaded going to this class every week.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-03T18:46:00Z'}], 'name': 'Deborah Rosenfelt', 'slug': 'rosenfelt'}, {'courses': ['HLTH301', 'HLTH301H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Debra Bernat', 'slug': 'bernat_debra'}, {'courses': ['MATH113', 'MATH013', 'MATH107', 'MATH007', 'MATH007', 'MATH007', 'MATH007', 'MATH107', 'MATH007'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Debra Franklin', 'course': 'MATH013', 'review': "Deborah Franklin was perhaps one of the greatest teachers I've had in College. I am writing this review during the summer between my Freshmen and Sophomore year [I took the her class my first semester at UMD] and I still remember her course with fondness. \n\r\nFranklin explained the material very clearly and with a great pace. Also, she always left time in the end of class for practice problems. Practice at the end of 30-40 minutes of lecturing might seem like a chore but you really do learn the material much better this way. I took MATH220 my following semester and it is MUCH more difficult to learn math when you only have the theory under your belt with no practice. \n\r\nI also felt like she prepared me really well for MATH220. I remembered a lot of the algebra that was used in calc that many of the other students didnt and it helped me tremendously! If you need MATH113 for 220 this is your BEST option. I hope they offer her as a MATH113 stand-alone option in the future and not just for 013", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-22T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Debra Franklin', 'course': 'MATH013', 'review': 'Prof. Franklin is a very good math teacher. MATH013/113 is a pretty high-paced course (since if you pass into 113, you have to study all of it in a much shorter time period than people who start in 113) and she makes the material easy to understand. She explains everything very clearly and is always happy to help after class. \n\r\nHomework is easy points - just do the assignments and make sure your answers are right. She drops some of your lowest quizzes, and the tests are really straightforward.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-13T19:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Debra Franklin', 'course': 'MATH110', 'review': "She is the best math teacher I have ever had. She knows her material well and makes it easy to understand. She expects a lot out of her students and won't let them fail (so if she sees you struggling she will keep u after to make sure you understand) My class met 5 days a week which was a pain but the time always flew by.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-18T02:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Debra Franklin', 'course': None, 'review': 'If I could give her a 0 I would... She is so annoying. If you were absent from class once she would take it personal and get all in your face. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-29T15:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Debra Franklin', 'slug': 'franklin_debra'}, {'courses': ['BMGT463', 'BMGT868K', 'BMGT828M', 'BMGT868Q', 'BMGT463', 'BMGT463', 'BMGT463', 'BMGT463'], 'average_rating': 2.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Debra Shapiro', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': "So as a person she's very sweet and knowledgable but I really just didn't like the course. Each class is based on a reading and she tries to connect them but their similarities are vaguely there leaving you VERY confused. There are quizzes at the end of each class so do the readings but even then she words things funny and you can get the wrong answer and not understand why it isn't correct. I did well on most quizzes and completely bombed the first exam so actually study. I had the same issue, each question said select the best answer when any answer was plausible with the right train of thought so wtf. The syllabus is 40 pages and its annoying how often you have to reference it to keep up. I wouldn't take this course again.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-06T00:18:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Debra Shapiro', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': "Professor Shapiro is a good person and she makes every student feel valued in her class. At the same time, this class is very difficult, and the exams are borderline unfair at times with no curve provided whatsoever. If you're going to take 463 with her, do not expect to get an A, our class average for the final exam was a low D, and even if you've done well on the first two exams, nothing prepares you for the final. I wouldn't say that Professor Shapiro is a bad professor by any means, her class just feels unfair and impossible at times no matter how hard you try. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-05-15T22:37:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Debra Shapiro', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': 'Dr. Shapiro is very sweet and very passionate professor. Despite this, her class is very poorly structured. She gives quizzes everyday based on discussion posts which are due before each class and swears that reviewing these as well as the many readings are the best way to study for exams, which make up 65% of your total grade. This could not be further from the truth. She is somehow okay with running a class which got an average score of 60% on the final exam and only giving out 1 A and 1 A-. I have never taken a business class which only gave out 1 A. Her curves were very minimal and the manner in which she prepares students for the exams is entirely unhelpful. After reviewing my scores, which were still consistently higher than the average, I realized that even if I had my notes and the readings during the test, I wouldn\'t have done any better. She then sent a condescending email to all of her students blaming our poor grades on "outside circumstances beyond our control" when it was obvious that our grades were due to her mismanagement of the class. If you don\'t have to take this class, please don\'t, it is not worth the stress. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-23T13:46:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Debra Shapiro', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': 'Everything about her course is confusing. Having a 40+ page syllabus, you’d think instructions would be clear and detailed. It’s so hard to know what is expected in this class and everyone feels that way.I feel like she has the ability to teach well bc she’s so knowledgeable, but I think she’s not a great teacher. One of the worst classes I have take', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-10-14T04:56:11.266871Z'}, {'professor': 'Debra Shapiro', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': "Professor Debra is a sweet person. However the class is so unorganized and all over the place. Having a 40 page plus syllabus which was extremely confusing and frustrating. Don't think the study guide will help you for the exams most of the time the study guide would not help you prepare for the exam. The exam curves are so minimal and unhelpful. So you have to read every article carefully otherwise you will not be successful in this class. Please don't take this class if it's not required because it's not worth the stress.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-27T19:54:55.165038Z'}, {'professor': 'Debra Shapiro', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': "Professor Debra is a sweet professor. However her class is unorganized and poorly structured. She had a syllabus that consisted of 40 plus pages which was frustrating. Her exams are insanely hard and if you think the syudy guide will help you prepare for this insane exam then you are wrong. The study guide was unhelpful when it comes to preparing you for the exam. You have read every articles otherwise you will not be successful in this class. The curves were so minimal for the exam and unhelpful. She doesn't post assignments on canvas so you have to email it to her instead of uploading to canvas. You also have to check the syllabus more often because she uploads every assignment on the syllabus and expects you to remember the deadlines. Please don't take this class if you don't have to take it because it's not worth the stress that you are about to be put on.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-27T20:05:08.634879Z'}, {'professor': 'Debra Shapiro', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': "Professor Debra is a sweet professor. However her class is unorganized and poorly structured. She had a syllabus that consisted of 40 plus pages which was frustrating. Her exams are insanely hard and if you think the syudy guide will help you prepare for this insane exam then you are wrong. The study guide was unhelpful when it comes to preparing you for the exam. You have read every articles otherwise you will not be successful in this class. The curves were so minimal for the exam and unhelpful. She doesn't post assignments on canvas so you have to email it to her instead of uploading to canvas. You also have to check the syllabus more often because she uploads every assignment on the syllabus and expects you to remember the deadlines. Please don't take this class if you don't have to take it because it's not worth the stress that you are about to be put on.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-28T17:30:10.760375Z'}], 'name': 'Debra Shapiro', 'slug': 'shapiro_debra'}, {'courses': ['COMM382', 'COMM107', 'COMM683', 'COMM472', 'COMM498D', 'COMM498X'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Deepa Anagondahalli', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "I don't know why she has so many bad reviews . . . \n\r\nComm is mostly common sense, mixed in with a few new terms. \n\r\nDeepa is not a harsh grader by any means. She actually grades pretty leniently. It's not an guaranteed 100% on every assignment, but it's still an A or B as long as you follow the directions. She's nice and she tries to make her lectures as interesting as possible.\n\r\nThat being said, her exams are mostly lecture based. Pay some attention in class and most importantly to the Powerpoints and definitions.\n\r\nHer exams are a little bit more detailed which can throw you off. Learn to memorize everything. Literally.\n\r\nOverall, a relatively easy enough A with some work involved. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-21T01:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deepa Anagondahalli', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'guy below me said it all. grades extremely harsh in attempt to make this useless subject important. deducts points for no reason and is clueless to the actual topic she is teaching.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-16T02:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deepa Anagondahalli', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "I came into this class worried about having Deepa because of the review below, but I soon found out it wasn't accurate at all. She has a slight accent which doesn't interfere with the lecture and she tries to make lectures as interesting as possible (comm107 is a boring class). Her grading is harder than the other comm professors, but if you follow the in depth rubrics she hands out you can easily pull an A or B on every assignment. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-04-29T11:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deepa Anagondahalli', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Deepa is a power tripping ***** who loves to hear herself speak poor english for 90 minutes straight. She takes the class and grading way too seriously. Too bad this won't make her any more successful in life. This other review can NOT have come from a student. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-30T02:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Deepa Anagondahalli', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "I love Deepa! She is just so nice, welcoming, and engaging. She may grade harder than other COMM107 teachers but that's only because she really wants everybody's communication skills to improve. She is a wonderful teacher!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T16:50:00Z'}], 'name': 'Deepa Anagondahalli', 'slug': 'anagondahalli'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'CMLT235', 'ENGL234', 'CMLT277', 'ENGL101S', 'AASP298L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Delisa Hawkes', 'slug': 'hawkes'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688A', 'RDEV610'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Delna White-Gray', 'slug': 'white-gray'}, {'courses': ['MUSC603', 'MUSC643', 'MUSC830A', 'MUSC830V', 'MUSP619X', 'MUSP620X', 'MUSC602', 'MUSC603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Delores Ziegler', 'slug': 'ziegler'}, {'courses': ['KNES689N', 'KNES689T', 'KNES689A', 'KNES612', 'KNES498E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dena Deglau', 'slug': 'deglau'}, {'courses': ['EDCI437', 'HONR228V', 'EDCI635', 'HONR238L', 'TLPL666', 'TLPL444'], 'average_rating': 4.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Denis Sullivan', 'course': 'HONR228V', 'review': 'He is a very knowledgeable professor, and his class is enjoyable. The only really required work are two papers and two article summaries, which he grades easily. Contribute to the discussions, write decent papers, and this class is an easy, enjoyable A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-29T00:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denis Sullivan', 'course': 'HONR238L', 'review': 'This class was great because it did not involve a lot of work. You have two 5-6 page papers and a 12 page final paper. All the "research" you need to do is go on Blackboard and use the articles provided. He is a really easy grader, and the content is pretty interesting as well. I strongly recommend this course ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-03T18:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denis Sullivan', 'course': 'HONR238L', 'review': 'The bulk of your grade is two 5 page essays and a 12 page term paper. As long as you pick the right topic (IE one that was discussed in class and has articles on ELMS) you have to do no outside research. The grading seems to be more of a completion grade than anything else, if you follow the format and write coherently, you get an A. The remainder of your grade is two in class presentations of an assigned article. Although sometimes the articles are very lengthly (50+ pages) he only expects you to summarize main points and talk for about ten minutes. \n\r\nThis class is great for anyone who has an intrest in technology and history.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-29T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denis Sullivan', 'course': 'HONR238L', 'review': 'Highly knowledgeable, very intelligent, and very patient professor. Class discussion (a must, he says) grows dull after a short time.\r\nAn easy A. Class required two papers (5-6 pages), two ten-minute oral reports, and a final paper (10-12 pages). As long as you complete the work, you will get an A.\r\nThe reports are purely research based, and the professor supplies plenty of sources online, so class discussion is rendered irrelevant with respect to your grade. Unfortunately, he has the decency to learn all the members of the class by name and face almost immediately, and the seminar format of the class makes it exceedingly rude to stop attending class for any large stretch of time.\r\nProfessor Sullivan is a great, engaging guy and is quite clearly highly regarded in his field.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T12:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denis Sullivan', 'course': 'HONR228V', 'review': "Good class and good professor. As long as you do the work, you should get a good grade. There are two papers, 3 oral reports, and 10 article summaries. The class itself was pretty enjoyable. Sometimes it got a bit boring when you had to listen to other people's reports. Overall, I recommend this class and professor strongly.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-27T11:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denis Sullivan', 'course': 'HONR228V', 'review': "Really nice, approachable professor. He loves the material he teaches and it shows when he talks about it. Unfortunately, that is about all the happens because there is not a lot of time for participation, even though the class is discussion based and he has class participation as a significant part of your grade. A typical class would involve discussion on the assigned readings from the book for the first half of class and then reports on outside articles given to specific members of the class for the second half. Each person has to give three of these reports during the semester. While they do not require a lot of work (summarize the article and say a little bit about what you thought of the author's point), they still bog down the class and while one person is presenting, the others have to sit and listen which seems like a poor use of class time. The class itself consists of these 3 oral reports, 10 one page written reports throughout the semester on other people's assigned articles, a midterm paper, and a final paper. Grading, especially on the written and oral reports, seems more like a completion grade than how well you actually present your argument. Overall, it is an easy class to get an A in, especially if you contribute a couple of intelligent statements every class period. I would recommend this class and professor if you are looking to have an easy way to fufill your CORE requirements, especially if you are even mildly interested in the subject matter.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-20T03:14:00Z'}], 'name': 'Denis Sullivan', 'slug': 'sullivan_denis'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Denise Erskine-Meusa', 'slug': 'erskine-meusa'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'HESI310', 'HESI310'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Denise McHugh', 'slug': 'mchugh'}, {'courses': ['AASP202', 'HIST254', 'WMST265', 'AASP298C', 'AASP298B', 'AASP298A', 'HIST255', 'AASP398V', 'AMST328F', 'HIST329J', 'AMST328O', 'HIST319F', 'AASP398K'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dennis Doster', 'slug': 'doster'}, {'courses': ['EDPS301', 'EDPS888', 'TLPL888'], 'average_rating': 3.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dennis Herschbach', 'course': None, 'review': "Extremely disorganized.\r\nFirst of all, he's a nice guy.\r\nThat being said, he never replies to my email.\r\nHe calls students out during the class to answer the questions.\r\nHe is really boring though. Many students fall a sleep. \r\nI even had some students who snore lol.\r\nWhat he says though, are quite unrelated to the book (most of the times).\r\nHe digresses with his stories.\r\nI got all the attendance points though.\r\nFor the exams, i got the concepts and explained well, but he didn't give me any point for not coining the term.\r\nSo make sure you know the terms specifically. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-08-25T12:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Herschbach', 'course': 'EDPS301', 'review': 'Do not take his course during the summer. We never received a syllabus for this class. We have a 10 point quiz every time we come to class on what we read from the text. We do not discuss the material or listen to a lecture before we are tested on it. There\'s no midterm or final exam, only the "quizzes" each class period. You get one point for every class for just showing up. I just find it really interesting that our entire grade is based off of textbook readings when he talked for 15 mins the first class period about how he hated the textbook. Also, during his discussions, I\'ve been looking up the statistics and information he\'s been saying and some of the information is incorrect. He doesn\'t respond to emails quickly or do anything on Canvas because he admittedly hates computers. I\'ve been keeping track of my own grade through Excel. I gave him a rating of 2 because he does care about his students and is willing to talk to you whenever you need him.\n\r\nHint: For the discussion guide, it\'s a PDF format (umd.edu and search "edps301" and it\'s the first link). Save PDF to your PC and then use pdftoword.org to convert to a word document to take notes on your laptop. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-06-12T18:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Herschbach', 'course': 'EDPS301', 'review': "Dr. Herschbach is one of the coolest, most straightforward professors on the campus. He teaches you the history of education and it sticks. The class is out of 150 points and 30 of them are just for coming to every lecture. The class is very easy there are 2 midterms worth 30pts each, 3 pop quizzes worth 10pts each, and a non cumulative final exam worth 30pts. The exams are 15MC and a couple like 5 written problems. He gives you a discussion guide that it actually all the exam questions that he's going to ask! Read the book since everything is from the book. Fill in the guide and memorize and you should be straight. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-02T21:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Herschbach', 'course': 'EDPS301', 'review': 'Dr. Herschbach is a cute little man. He is old, funny, and really laid-back. We only had 2 exams and 1 final, and were potentially given 30 points for attendance. Class can occasionally be dry and boring (especially at 9:30 in the morning), but you get points for going to class and he actually may say something worthwhile every now and again. Just work through the "discussion guides" and memorize those answers for the exam and you are sure to do well. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-31T03:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Herschbach', 'course': 'EDPS301', 'review': "I actually thought this class was pretty interesting and really wasn't bored too much (I gauge my boredom by how many times I look at my watch). Either way, I thought the class could be revised. As the previous poster mentioned, the book is awful. Instead focusing on the history of education the author goes on long tangents on how we have oppressed minorities in our past. Granted, this is true and should be mentioned, but I'd say the history of education is talked about 35-40% of the time, while minority oppression constitutes about 60-65% of the book. The point system of the previous poster is correct, but he told our class that a 100 is an A, so there is a curve. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-06-29T12:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Herschbach', 'course': 'EDPS301', 'review': 'I must say I thought this class was not very good, although I do not think it was Herschbach\'s fault, but maybe it was, he probably deserves a 2 but I\'m giving him the benefit of the doubt. The book he uses was really boring, but could have been interesting if it was condensed, the author likes to babble. \r\nHerschbach gives you a "discussion guide" and if you read the book and find all the answers and memorize them then that guarantees you about a 90% on the exams. The other 10% comes from random stuff from the text so read the text and take extra notes.\r\nDuring "lecture" which consists of Herschbach going all over the place he will periodically say something like "I\'m going to ask _____ on the test and the answer is ____" so may sure to go to class. He also is okay with you coming in late.\r\nGrading:\r\n2 Midterms 30 points each\r\nAttendance 30 points\r\nFinal 30 points\r\n(The guy below me was probably right about the curve, since I got a 106/120= 88%, but I got an A. It might only apply if you have good attendance, he doesn\'t like it when people have bad attendance)\n\r\nHint: Tests were 15 multiple choice questions and then 4-5 short answer but you could usually choose between two or three different prompts for each short answer (But there is usually one short answer that doesn\'t have choices).', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T11:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Herschbach', 'course': None, 'review': 'he may seem boring, but not every teacher is supposed to be entertaining. just bring your study guide to class and he gives you all the answers...you do learn. the 3 tests are based on the guide so simply memorize everything, read the text as assigned (few mult choice questions always include stuff from the text) and you will be golden. PS: 30 points for attendance, which he adds 6 points too as a curve.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-25T14:07:00Z'}], 'name': 'Dennis Herschbach', 'slug': 'herschbach_dennis'}, {'courses': ['EDCP888T', 'EDCP789A', 'EDCP798P', 'EDCP692', 'EDCP682', 'EDCP691', 'EDCP789E', 'EDCP789', 'EDCP690', 'EDCP682'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dennis Kivlighan', 'slug': 'kivlighan'}, {'courses': ['LARC321', 'LARC340', 'LARC420', 'LARC160', 'LARC641', 'LARC151', 'LARC265', 'LARC140', 'LARC389', 'PLSC321', 'LARC699', 'LARC721', 'HONR338B', 'HONR348N', 'LARC489N', 'HONR338A', 'LARC489A', 'LARC151', 'LARC160', 'LARC160', 'HONR338B', 'HONR348N', 'LARC489N', 'HONR338A', 'LARC489A'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dennis Nola', 'course': 'LARC151', 'review': 'This guy is the best professor ever. If you need to take some gen eds, do it with this guy and you will have a great time.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-14T11:14:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Nola', 'course': 'LARC151', 'review': 'Cool class, learned a decent bit. The first exam was too hard and asked some overly specific questions but I think he was aware of that once he saw the exam scores. I liked the group project and liked the idea of getting teammates based on skill sets (good at art, good at organization, etc.). Unfortunately that did not happen but I think that was more on the TA. \r\n\r\nLecture is skippable if you need to but try not to miss too much because he says "Hmm, this looks like an EXAM QUESTION" a lot, which is obviously useful. \r\n\r\nHe was nice about helping assignments get graded when the TA was not on top of it. Very friendly and nice. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-11-29T04:36:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Nola', 'course': 'LARC151', 'review': "Nola is a really nice person and the class is easy, as long as you attend discussions and submit notes on the readings, which are a huge portion of the grade. However, despite Nola being a good lecturer, the material is dry, the syllabus had no clear grading policy (a clear violation of UMD policy), and grading attendance is heavily discouraged by UMD policy. It's an easy A if you attend discussion but you have to be willing to put up with these annoyances.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-24T16:37:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Nola', 'course': 'LARC160', 'review': "I truly have no clue why he used to be rated so highly. I took his LARC160 in 2018 and every lecture was super boring since he just rambles on and on about stuff you barely understand or really care about. Discussion was useless too, just some boring random assignments. There was also a project where you had to draw an aerial view of parts of the campus, which for some reason he took off a bunch of points and never made his expectations clear. There were also exams involving essays, to this day I still don't know how or why he graded the way he did.\r\n\r\nIf you think LARC160 is an easy class you are wrong, you'll actually have to spend a ton of time and research questions that don't really have an answer. If I could go back in time I would have chosen a different class. Nola is incredibly overrated and I totally regret taking this class with him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-02-10T23:02:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Nola', 'course': 'LARC151', 'review': 'Great guy. Really passionate and understanding about things. Really easy going especially when our classes were online due to COVID.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-09T17:10:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Nola', 'course': 'LARC151', 'review': "Nice guy who really knows landscape architecture. Most of the lectures are him telling the class about different design projects he's done. You just have to take notes on his achievements because those topics will show up on the exam. \r\nPros: All questions on the exam are given beforehand on the study guides he provides. Kind and passionate about his work.\r\nCons: Hard to reach (never answered my emails). Does not allow phones or laptops in class and stops the class to lecture about it if he sees one.\r\nThe semester-long design project isn't too bad and spaced out enough to not be a hassle. Fun and easy class if you enjoy sustainability and design.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-28T19:31:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Nola', 'course': 'LARC151', 'review': "Class is easy, and I didn't have to attend lecture", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-18T03:50:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Nola', 'course': 'LARC160', 'review': "This guy assigned a million hard drawing projects... and a full final board presentation. I spent hours upon hours each week on the projects and got 100% on everything. His lectures were terrible. He didn't respond to anything until emailing at least three times. Final was awful. Do not recommend.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-07-15T22:59:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Nola', 'course': 'LARC151', 'review': "I didn't learn crap but the class was easy. Had 7 different graded assignments besides the the weekly discussions we had to do. It is mainly group work, no exams. Easy A", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-28T02:50:20.625860Z'}], 'name': 'Dennis Nola', 'slug': 'nola_dennis'}, {'courses': ['HONR239A', 'HISP600', 'HISP710', 'HISP670', 'HISP711', 'HISP611', 'HISP645', 'HISP660', 'HISP701', 'HISP650', 'HISP619Y', 'HISP619L', 'HISP629', 'HISP655', 'EXST030', 'HISP619C', 'HISP635', 'HISP640', 'HISP690'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dennis Pogue', 'slug': 'pogue'}, {'courses': ['BMGT367'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dennis Strzegowski', 'slug': 'strzegowski'}, {'courses': ['KNES333', 'KNES389E', 'KNES689J'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dennis Vacante', 'course': 'KNES389E', 'review': 'Got an A for showing up every Saturday morning (I skipped two actually), filling out some paperwork, and making a project at the end of the semester and presenting it. NICE.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-01-17T12:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Vacante', 'course': 'KNES389E', 'review': "Your grade is attendance every Saturday morning for CHI, a folder of a couple simple pages to fill out, and a project. I'm pretty sure he gives 100s to all projects no matter what you turn in. Easy A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-06-09T02:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dennis Vacante', 'course': 'KNES389E', 'review': 'Dennis is fun and knows how to get you and the kids involved. 389E is the most rewarding class you can ever take. All you do is play with disabled children a couple hours for most of the Saturdays of the semester and you end up with 40 hours of community service & a better resume. Plus, you make friends with your classmates and will love the child you are paired up with.\n\r\nShow up to class. Get an A. boom.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T23:02:00Z'}], 'name': 'Dennis Vacante', 'slug': 'vacante'}, {'courses': ['BSCI120', 'BSCI121', 'ENTM745', 'BSCI120'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dennis vanEngelsdorp', 'slug': 'vanengelsdorp'}, {'courses': ['MATH141', 'MATH140', 'MATH410', 'MATH452', 'MATH199A', 'MATH199B', 'MATH410', 'MATH140', 'MATH410', 'MATH410'], 'average_rating': 3.8871, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'I honestly don\'t understand why Gulick is so highly rated. Yeah he\'s funny and adorable sure, but his class is simply far too difficult. \n\r\nHis webassigns will consume your life after class, there were many times I had to give 3 hours to complete one webassign. His discussion classes are absolutely useless as the assignments given there are just theory and you\'re not actually tested on them. \n\r\nFurthermore, the class is only four credits, but you spend close to six hours per week in either class or discussion (50 min MWF class, 1hr 20 min TR discussion) \n\r\nBut don\'t take my word for it, the median on the first and second tests were a 74%, and Gulick even said "that\'s around what we go for when we make the tests." ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-08-09T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "He's really nice guy.\r\nHis class isn't a walk in the park.\r\nI took AP Calc in high school, but still failed for my freshman year.\r\nThere is one unannounced quiz per week.\r\nHis exams are not impossible but weren't easy.\r\nWebassigns are annoying.\r\nI asked if i could come to the lecture for Calc 2 for spring semester (after i failed Calc 1 with him and was taking with Wyss-Gallifant), and i went 8 AM.\r\nIf you have a choice, take with Wyss-Gallifent.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-08-25T12:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Denny Gulick is one of the best math teacher I have ever had. He is very straightforward with the material and the tests always mirror the practice exams. I took him for MATH140 as well. Calculus is not easy, but he makes it understandable with tons of examples in class. I highly recommend him because although the classes are at 8 am, you know what you're getting in the professor. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-03-11T10:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "Gulick teaches the concepts well. He emphasizes physical intuition, but he also is a stickler about definitions and proofs, which was annoying at first, but made me realize that I didn't understand the material as well as I had thought. \n\r\nHe also cares a lot about the students. He'll take the time to print out solutions to particularly challenging homeworks, and he'll have at least two review sessions for each midterm so everyone can make them. And this is on top of him working 80 hours a week.\n\r\nThe reason I'm giving him four stars might be a personal preference. He taught us like we were children. Some of the students liked it, but I didn't. It somehow made me take the class less seriously than I should have in the beginning and middle of the semester, so I had to work really hard for the final.\n\r\nHe also gives homework every class, which was both good and bad. The homeworks would each take 30-90 minutes to complete, so they weren't a time-suck. On the other hand, it was a bit annoying to do the homework so often.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-21T20:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Denny knows his math. He is a ok teacher too. He doesn't have a curve(well he gives out .5% curves so that your 79.5% will be a B) and it is hard to get an A in his class. He is actually really overrated. He is friendly but don't except any mercy from him he won't even bump your grade up by .5%. He seems to like honesty a lot.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-17T02:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "I don't know why everyone loves Denny, but I know I do. Yes, he can be very entertaining, but it's also the fact that he is compassionate, in-tune with student concerns, and knows his stuff! I would not necessarily call him the best professor ever or possibly not even in the math department BUT he is certainly a great professor. I was literally jealous of 410 classmates who were able to be in 411 with him the following Fall because I had to take it over the summer. Luckily, I got to have him for 452, and for the most part, it was great as well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-13T05:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "he talks fast and speeds through material. really nit-picky grading on exams. sure he's a funny/cute/smart guy but he goes too fast. i took a diff professor for math 141 and got an A. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-31T12:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Denny is awesome. He is a nice older man and makes calc as fun as he can considering it is an 8am. He teaches calc at 8am because he knows that the only people that will take it are students that care about their grades. It is not easy to get an A in his class but if you have taken calc 1 before it isn\'t hard. He is the best calc professor in 140 and 141. I am taking him next semester for 141. The people that don\'t like him are the ones that say "what is the point of calc i\'m never going to use this...etc" If you are a normal person you will like him. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T23:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Denny is as good as people say he is. However he puts s lot of emphasis no Quizzes, over 10% of the final grade. So if getting up at 8AM isn't your thing then don't even consider him.\n\r\nI missed a lot of quizzes and that is the only reason I got a C. If I attended them all then I surely would've gotten a B+ if not an A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-13T17:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH452', 'review': 'I did not feel like I was treated as I have come to expect in a 400-level math class. I understand that all instructors hope their students attend lecture and pay close attention at all times, but I am well-studied in the course content and often the lecture covered material with which I was already familiar. Dr. Gulick assigned homework in almost every lecture period due for the next class and held pop quizzes that ensured that students needed to attend class regardless of the personal value of the lecture, because their attendance was effectively enforced by the grading scheme. Additionally, whereas many professors do not raise objections to me sleeping or text messaging in their classes and leave such decisions to me as my responsibility (which seems reasonable at the 400-level), Dr. Gulick interrupted class to chastise me for using my phone and threatened to disbar me from the classroom if I used it again. He later explained that using my phone was distracting to other students, but I feel the interruption of class that Dr. Gulick chose was ultimately more distracting and took more class time than any of my phone use would have. Similar interruptions and stalls took place daily as Dr. Gulick would ask the class and wait for answers to trivial questions such as simple arithmetic or even a response to "Good morning". I just did not feel the demeanor of the instructor was well-matched to the level of the course and seemed better suited to introductory courses where students are not electing to study an advanced topic.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-01T15:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "410 is a great course to take as you will really start to understand what math is all about from it. Gulick is a good professor for this class. He definitely cares about students and tries to help you learn to the best of his ability. He gives a small homework due each class, which gets pretty annoying, but it's good that it keeps you up to date with the material all the time. His exams can be tough, but they are pretty fair. The quizzes that he gives to enforce attendance are stupid, but they're not really a big deal in terms of your grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-21T23:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "This class was horrible. Let me tell you something about Denny Gulick. Very nice and very intelligent. He is sometimes funny...I did not find him very funny like other people did. He holds really great reviews sessions for upcoming exams. He is a great person,but I would have to say, as a professor, he sucks. He is only a good professor if you take the extra step and talk to him and often as you can. The class for me was very difficult, and his office hours were during the times I had class, so I could not see him for help. We had WebAssigns, which were very difficult. I found myself having to stay up late/putting a lot of my time into these webassigns (~5 hrs). We also had worksheets during discussion (i had a horrible TA by the way). The worksheets were hard as hell and didnt give us good practice at all. Some people say these do not make a whole lot difference in your grade, but they do. The worskheets brought me down a lot. He also teaches way to fast, very hard to keep up. This class needed about 50% of my time, not to mention I had other difficult courses and I was pledging, so time was limited for me. I took this course over the summer and got an A+. If you have prior experience to the material, have a lot of time, have a great TA, have a strong study group, can make it to his office hours, can manage to do the webassigns, and can wake up at 8am, I'd say there is a chance you can ace this course. Otherwise, drop it before it is too late and take the summer course. He is difficult and his course is way more demanding than this course for other professors (except his wife, who is way worse). ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2011-08-20T14:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I feel this professor is the most overrated professor at UMD. Basically, when I was registering for Math141, I was scared that I was going to get a horrible teacher,so I made sure I waitlisted for all of this guy's sections. I was beyond happy when I got into his section. \r\nFirst off, the 8am sucked, but it is manageable for a lot of people. I am definitely not a morning person so I missed quite a few lectures. \r\nAs for the lectures, here is one reason my grade went down. He teaches way too fast. He will go over a topic super fast, and make the topics seem confusing, and would not go over it again. He also writes crap on the board that he just thinks of at the top of his head and then tries to explain it. He makes quite a few mistakes too and doesnt realize it until someone points it out. He wastes time this way. He would talk fast, and write fast (and sloppy; everyday someone would ask me what a certain word/num was). No doubt he knows his stuff and he is very intelligent. But, me and the people around me could barely keep up with what he was teaching and often found ourselves reviewing the lecture from the book (poorly written by the way). I also had the worst TA, which really brought my grade down. He was a tough grader, and at the same time he was clueless. He didnt even know what we learned and try to apply his own concepts he learned in his grad courses. He never helped me and didnt care whether we were failing or not. He was not fit to be a TA. \r\nThe exams were fine, some easy and some just hell. The average was pretty low for each test.\r\nThe final was hell, totally not a good test that covered all the material there was. There were like three questions that were proofs, that we barely covered. \r\nI would suggest taking him if everyone else is horrible. But if there is another teacher with similar stats, I'd say go with him/her and not this guy. Hard teacher, goes through material fast, hard webassigns, etc.I spent more time trying to ace this class than trying to get a grade in all my other classes. I took this class again over the summer and aced it with flying colors. If you can take it over the summer, do that!!!\r\nOnly the people who took this course in high school ended up surviving, others just dropped the class. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-08-20T14:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': '(Both MATH140 and MATH141)\n\r\nSignificantly better than the other professors that teach these courses (from what I have heard). Well worth the 8 am class.\n\r\nPROS: He is entertaining during class, writes neatly, writes detailed email responses if you even have a question about the homework (or a last-minute question before an exam), and really enjoys helping students.\n\r\nCONS: His answers to questions people ask in class can come off harshly... but honestly he just wants to make sure you understand the material so he gives very thorough answers. He goes over easy examples in class when he teaches new material, making the WebAssign homework and discussion section worksheets extremely difficult, but they play a very small role in your grade and his classes always feel significantly more prepared for the exams.\n\r\nSuggestions: if you can switch discussion sections before the cut off date, try to get a good TA \r\n(or at least a nice one) because it really matters. Show up to class because there are weekly quizzes. If you get stuck on a homework problem, go back over your notes... you probably just forgot you went over it because it was at 8 am.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-17T17:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Denny. Amazing. Its not a question. Notice that I did not put a question mark after amazing. For all those who say Denny is overrated, your wrong (and I've heard several). Notice once again, no question mark, because its a fact. Denny explains things very thoroughly. He only goes over material that he needs and he goes over proofs and 10 or so examples in class. It's amazing that he gets so much done in a 50 minute class. Because he wrote the textbook and writes the final, he prepares you the best because he teaches material that will be tested, while for instance, Dick Wentworth taught non-seperable differential equations to his class, but those weren't taught by Denny and didn't show up on the final. Not to mention that Debbt tries his best to be interesting and funny, and he succeeds on almost every occasion. I wasn't lucky enough to get Denny in MATH140, but I still went to his lectures because they were worth it. Denny. Amazing. Thank you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-23T00:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'He is really cute and nice. He also teaches really well untill the end. I felt like he was worn out toward the end of the semester and made some of the materials confusing. But I would choose him for math141.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T20:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Denny maybe as good as it gets for Calculus II. He teaches from examples instead of proofs, and is very, very approachable. He's a bit quirky and fun. My only complaint is his discussions. Worksheets are meant to get you to think--but they were horrible! They're really difficult to drill through, and once you do finish them, questions don't show up again! Exams were most relevant to Webassign and suggested homework problems. \n\r\nEDIT: This guy does not believe in curves. I ended up with a D--the first D in my entire life!! Disappointing class and instructors (including TA's). ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2011-05-18T08:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Okay. Cal 2 is actually not that bad. Denny is definitely a good teacher. Funny and patient. If you don't understand the material, just go ask him and send him an e-mail. He will explain to you very thoroughly. But if you really want to get an A in this class, do attend every discussion and pray you will get a good TA. My TA is total asshole, grading all the worksheet harshly. Denny will curve a little bit. Just a little. So work your ass off for this class to get an A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-17T17:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Definitely overrated. If I had not taken Calculus before, I would have been completely unable to work with this class. My TA was about average, but the discussion worksheets are terrible and frequently irrelevant to what we were actually expected to know. The WebAssigns were fair and relevant, but there were frequently programme errors that affected grades (a problem that was inaccurately displayed, for example) and there were several occurrences where the due dates were "mysteriously" changed to be earlier than they were supposed to. As a whole, I found Denny to be completely ineffective but the book to be helpful and the TA to be occasionally useful. The tests were fairly straightforward, if harshly graded at times, and he allowed us to do corrections on the class-wide worst test of the semester. Not a class I would recommend if it\'s not needed, but I\'ve heard better things about Denny than the rest of the Math Dept so you could do worse. Just expect to rely on the book more than the prof.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-07T12:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I have nothing against Professor Gulick because he's soooo nice and really sweet, but I think he's a bit overrated. He taught well but he was not the best professor I've had. I think because he's so entertaining with his cute noises and little kid voice impressions that people just fall in love with him and want to recommend him all of their friends.\r\nI don't know if it was the fact that his class is at 8am and I was never fully awake, if it was his teaching methods, or maybe I just couldn't grasp the concepts, but I ended up getting a C in the class. \r\nHe actually did a reallllly nice thing and let me come back to his office for 15 extra minutes to finish my first exam because I overslept and ran to class so I wouldn't miss it. \r\nI guess the point is, if you don't mind getting up at the crack of dawn and want a funny professor, then take Denny, but if you don't think you'll be able to make it to all the lectures, you're better off taking it with another professor. (As long as it isn't his wife)\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-03-06T22:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH402', 'review': "Best math professor in the dept. He really cares about every student. HW was assigned every class, but was not difficult. A few pop quizzes some of which were just attendance quizzes. 3 exams. He feels definitions and theorems are very important so there will be some on exams. Each exam we were able to do test corrections. Grades were spread usually as below 50 and above 70. If you go to class, pay attention, do the little HW's you're fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-04T16:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Denny was amazing. One of the best math professors UMD has to offer. If you're willing to get up early, you will learn. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T03:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Denny is a pretty cool guy. He drops 2 quiz grades, some webassigns, and worksheets. His tests are way easier than his wife Frannie(or as he calls her: his better half). Denny is also quite funny. He makes some lame math jokes, but that early in the morning you'd laugh at anything too. He does give random quizzes, so sometimes when you can't get up for his class, you'll lose a quiz grade, which is pretty much why I got a B.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-16T19:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Taking this class was the biggest mistake ever. First off if you are a business major take 220 bc there is no need to put yourself through this hell. While I hear all the calc teachers here are bad, his class is just awful. Waking up for an 8am class three times a week is a lot harder than you think, which is why his class is so difficult, since he gives a quiz once a week without telling which day. Also the TA's are not only stupid because they wont help you at all in discussions (also worth a significant part of your grade) they grade with no regard to partial credit. Derivatives are understandable for not receiving any credit, but most other problems on tests the TA's basically look to see if you have the right answer, if you dont they basically cross it out, and if you do, they look for things that you might not have mentioned to take off excessive amounts of points. While his class has its funny moments, and he is very nice bc he always holds review sessions, his class is tough and unless you think you will be able to make more than 90% of his classes, I suggest not taking him.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-10T08:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "He's a great teacher, and funny! Even though his classes are at 8:00 am, he's entertaining enough for you to be able to pay attention when you're tired. He is tough on partial credit, but he drops a lot of assignments with low scores AND he curves. If you do all the assignments and come to class every day for the quizzes (which are super easy), it's an easy A!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-01T20:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'He only holds lectures at 8 AM which may be a problem for some people (like me). I was frequently tired during lecture, but he was able to teach the material well and even cracked jokes once in a while to liven the mood.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-02T00:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Amazing math professor.\n\r\nOne of the few classes that add inspiration to my life\n\r\nlim sin(1/x) =GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR \r\nx-->0', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-23T23:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'He is certainly one of the greatest math professor... if u go to lecture, u will get a good grade. he is Funny! the "krrrrgh" thing as the last person said. Once in a while, you will write "BOO" in ur notebook, which means you wont be able to get an answer. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-13T23:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'He is very strange. He likes to make strange noises like "krrrgh" as he describes an equation, and he likes to talk to himself in high voices. He seems almost senile, yet he is very effective. He\'s certainly not boring, and if a student dozes off or appears distracted, he will embarrass them. This is for their own good. He certainly provides a wide variety of examples, and goes through every topic very thoroughly. A good student should have no trouble understanding the material and thus, doing well on exams.\r\nAlso, he wrote the textbook (well him and Dr. Ellis, whoever that is...)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-05T12:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Prof Gulick is absolutely amazing. He makes the tests self explanatory by listing the upcoming test topics and using Webassign by reviewing the previous lecture the day of discussion. Highly recommend to all calc beginners and veterans alike.\r\nProf Gulick has some personality quirks which make the class exciting. He talks to the class as if we did not understand and thus comes across as arrogant to those who know but greatly helps those who have no idea what is going on.\r\nI highly recommend his class to anyone taking calculus. Personally i am signing up for his MATH141 class next semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-13T01:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Denny Gulick is an awesome teacher. He is really good at effectively explaining the topics and he has a good sense of humor. The only slight downfall with him is that I found him to be very strict with partial credit.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-12T03:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "he's awesome, make sure you get him - D.Gulick, instead of another Gulick...\r\nthat's a big difference.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-09-29T19:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "He explains everything very thoroughly. He sometimes talks to himself like he's a little kid... just take it all in stride, it makes the class interesting. \n\r\nThe webassigns aren't too bad if you go to his lectures. He will usually cover the material/concepts in the assignment the day before it is due but sometimes random problems in an assignment will be from previous chapters.\n\r\nHis quizzes are sweet too. Make sure you attend the class after an exam because most students won't, therefore he'll give a quiz, and when he's too lazy or there's not enough time for everyone to finish an actual quiz he'll put up two problems on the board and go through the answers with the class and then tell the class to hand in those problems. 10 points without doing actual work right there.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-06T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Denny Gulick was awesome, like the person below me said. He wrote the book, and is very good at explaining the material. The class was at 8AM, but if that doesn't bother you, you will do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-23T15:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'If you can get any calc teacher get him. He is an excellent professor and will hold review sessions before every exam. If you come to class and do the webassigns you will get an A or B.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-15T20:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Best calculus teacher at UMCP. Having his 8am class is better than having a 11am class with someone worse. Try to get him. You have the best chance of getting an A with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-13T12:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Webassign is some ass\r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-12-13T15:18:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "He is funny during his lectures and teaches really well. The only major problem was that his grading criteria is too strict. Didn't draw the figure for a question (not asked in question)cuts 5 points out of 10. Wrote 5 lines for an answer and made a small calculation mistake at the end, cuts 10 points out of 10. If this was not there, he is awesome ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-12-13T18:44:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'I just took Gulick\'s 410 class. Solid professor -- quite an old guy, you can tell he\'s been teaching the material for quite a long time and definitely knows his stuff inside out. \r\n\r\nPros:\r\n-- Lively/Quirky, easy to stay engaged in class, fairly clear lecturer\r\n\r\n-- Exams and grading seem to be considerably easier and more straightforward than other profs who teach 410 (just from talking to other students and looking at content of final exams). This is the biggest pro. \r\n\r\n-- Gives a lot of material to prep for exams. He gives out practice exams, reviews problems, as well as "concept understanding" problems for each chapter. Also, all his past final exams are on math test bank. \r\n\r\n-- Drops lowest two quizzes, and takes 50% of your lowest midterm\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n\r\n-- Goes through the proofs too fast for my taste. Luckily, the the textbook he uses (Fitzpatrick) is well written and there to help.\r\n\r\n-- The biggest con: Assigns homework due every class period (MWF), that usually takes 30-90 minutes. I had a hefty schedule this semester so this was extremely annoying. I advise that you take Gulick\'s 410 with other low-workload classes\r\n\r\nSummary: All in all, a solid professor to take 410 with, and (from my observation) the easiest version of MATH410 to get an A or A- with if you reguarly attend class and put in the work.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-20T00:36:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Overrated professor. Sure he is quirky, but he teaches a little too fast. It is hard to follow work in class not to mention he's hard to decipher what is being written. Note I sat 3 rows away from the board. His exams are pretty fair. WebAssign will take over your life. Do NOT take this class if you are not a morning person.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2019-04-22T17:31:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Gulick is certainly an interesting professor. At times he runs through material a little fast, and makes a few mistakes while writing out work on the chalkboard (the class always catches them). However, he is one of my favorite professors here at UMD. He knows exactly what he's talking about, and does have his funny quirks that make class enjoyable. He gives you practice tests a few days before exams which are extremely helpful. WebAssign can be a pain sometimes, but it does prepare you for the exams. The final is fair, as he gives you practice ones for that as well. I would recommend taking Gulick for Math141 (and MATH140). Take his class with some friends in case you need to work on homework or test prep. Good luck!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-23T14:18:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Garbo. He is Garbo. Extra Garbo. Do not take. He is garbo.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-24T00:37:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "I highly recommend taking a course with Gulick if you can. He's a super nice professor and loves to teach his class, and as others have said he has a very quirky personality, which I think is a huge benefit to keeping the class interesting. Additionally, I've always had no problem reaching out to him for help as he's quite welcoming and never once was condescending towards any questions I had, regardless of how silly they may have been (something that unfortunately can't be said about many of my previous math profs). I agree that the way he runs through proofs in class can be a bit too fast sometimes, but going to office hours has helped with that along with going through the textbook while doing HW. While the homework definitely becomes a pain in the a** as the semester goes on its definitely a helpful way to keep you on track and in my opinion is better than having a few major assignments as it gives you a little bit more leeway in the event you forget to do an assignment or submit it late.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-09-16T14:58:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Prof. Gulick is beyond knowledgeable about all mathematics and that comes across in the way he teaches. His lectures are very structured and he is always available after class for questions. The course was not easy and required a lot of work but that is calculus. The biggest downsides were that he overcomplicated some simple concepts by trying to provide a mathematical understanding by proving something or using unnecessarily obscure language/symbols and that he would occasionally make a student feel stupid for asking a reasonable question. I did enjoy him enough to take him again for Math141, but that is mainly thanks to an amazing Discord we have for our class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T15:58:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Professor Gulick is great. The lectures are very helpful and he goes over a lot of examples that are similar to homework and exams. The worksheets were pretty worthless but his sample exams are great for prep and are very close to what the exams look like. Overall great professor and nice guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-17T21:41:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "From what I've heard of other Calc profs, Gullick is probably the best bet. He tries his hardest to help everyone, sometimes he does get frustrated and loses his temper. I personally found this class to be extremely hard and I struggled all the way through. Don't bother looking at your grade in elms, the grade weighting is incorrect. Also, he says attendance isn't mandatory but he throws in random pop quizzes that you will fail if you aren't in class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2020-12-27T15:24:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Compared to other calc professors, Gulick is a good option. His lectures are synchronous but recorded so they can be watched back at any time. His exams are challenging but he gives you multiple practice exams from previous semesters that mirror the actual exam very closely. As someone who isn't great at math, if you work hard you can definitely succeed in Gulick's class. Very knowledgeable and definitely recommend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-04T17:40:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "It's a tough class. Gulick is a tough but fair teacher. I don't think you will find many better options at UMD. Make some friends and work together on the homework and worksheets, that will make the class more manageable. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-08T20:07:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Never shows his work, and changes the exams to questions that are nothing like the practice exams.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2021-12-03T01:41:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "DO NOT, I repeat, do NOT take Denny Gulick for MATH140 if you can help it. The 8 am time is not worth it, and you will either hate yourself or stop going to class. He's like a mathematical genius which means he just expects his students to understand his super complicated and poorly-explained proofs that he writes in terrible, tiny handwriting on a blackboard during class, which don't help you understand any of the material at all, even with help of the textbook (which he wrote, btw). He does NOT record his lectures, and the discussion sessions are just an hour and 20 minutes of torture and confusion. He doesn't let you use a calculator on tests but then expects you to use a calculator on several of the homework problems, which themselves take hours to do (and you don't even get to see the correct answer if you get the problems wrong).\r\nHe's also super disrespectful to students with foreign (specifically Asian) accents.\r\nTL;DR: DO NOT TAKE DENNY GULICK FOR CACL 1 OR 2.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2021-12-06T14:52:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Denny is a nice guy and obviously very knowledgeable about calculous. However, his lectures are not good. He skips over algebraic steps for the sake of time but in doing so leave the majority of students confused and fumbling to understand what he did instead of focusing on the complex calculous concepts being taught. Personally, I would say WITHOUT PRIOR CALC EXPERIENCE DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS/PROFFESSOR. Gulick moves too fast for someone with no experience unless you are determined to do A LOT of outside work or possibly drop the class rethink it. On the POSITIVE, his exams are almost exactly like his reviews. NO CURVE (that I know of).', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-25T15:52:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "MATH410 is regarded as one the four toughest math classes at UMD. However, Denny does a fantastic job at teaching the course and makes the material much more straightforward compared to MATH310. There are 3 homeworks each week and a pop quiz. While this is a pain it keeps you on track for the course as there is a lot of definitions, theorems and arithmetic to learn. The quizzes are usually very easy and ask to state a theorem/definition (the ones he stars in class), a 2 sentence proof or basic arithmetic. The exams are 5 questions each with 2 parts and can be a time crunch but are manageable as well. He will ask you to state theorems/definitions (again the one he stars), arithmetic and more in-depth proofs. In general he takes half of your lowest midterm, drops 1-2 quizzes and does a curve at the end of the semester, midterm averages are in the 70's. In order to succeed in this course memorize the theorems/definitions as well as how the proofs work and you can get at least a B. This class can seem very daunting to math majors but Denny does a great job at teaching it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-12-30T09:16:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "I loved Denny and his attitude. He makes the class fun. Weekly pop quizzes (usually on Fridays) and homework due every class. Sometimes the homework can be hard, so find a study group! Mine got me through some tough homework problems. Memorize and understand the major theorems he teaches-- he calls them one, two, and three star theorems, ranging in importance. Quizzes usually ask for these theorems, or a definition, or a T/F question, or an easy computation problem. Memorize these theorems, please. I didn't do well on some quizzes due to sheer laziness in not studying except for exams. Totally my fault here-- he really makes these quizzes easy, honestly. He gives old exams to study with a few days before an exam, but if you ask him to share them earlier, he will. His exams are very similar to old ones-- usually the same ideas are tested, and there's usually one or two problems that are the same as the old exam, just the numbers or function is changed. He also hosts review sessions before each exam, which is nice. Do go to these, he will answer all your questions and do as many proofs as you ask of him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-01T22:41:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'He was a decent professor, nothing absolutely amazing nor do I recommend the 8 am schedule. If you have to take it with Gulick, he is a fine option. He stopped doing lecture quizzes so my grade was a but more inflated than it should have been. He is genuinely smart and passionate about the subject, so not the worst. Not great, not terrible. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-02T19:30:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Gulick is very straight forward with fair exams. He gets frustrated with students who don't understand whats going on right away, but overall he wants you to succeed. He focusses on a lot definitions during lectures but its not needed on exams so you don't have to worry about the proofs of which a formula is derived from. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-05T21:20:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Gulick is very straight forward with fair exams that have decently high averages. Calc 2 is a hard course in itself, but he does a good job to teach the material and make sure you understand whats going on. Overall he is the best professor to teach this course and I learned more than I did in this course than any other math course here at UMD.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-05T21:22:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Although MATH410 is believed as a tough course for Math majors, I had really good time in the class. Prof. Gulick is very sweet and friendly. He makes all the things straightforward and tries his best to make everyone to understand. Reply to email super quick and always be willing to help. The old exams are useful, my suggestion is to do all the old ones before your exam. And remember all the important ideas in his notes. The notes are fantastic!\r\n\r\nI really appreciate his work. After his class, I gained my confidence back and enjoyed the beauty of Math.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T18:16:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': '8 am was brutal, canvas never accurately reported the grade, and he gaffes wat too much on the problems. Skips all tje algebraic steps amd leaves you wondering wtf is happening. Webassign problems took up all day and the discussion assignments were irrelevant and not graded fairly.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-07-03T05:40:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Professor Gulick is amazing! He is a clear, funny, organized lecturer. He is very knowledgeable and passionate, which always helps. I had always heard of 410 as a nightmare course for math majors, but it was honestly not bad at all for me with Professor Gulick. I obviously still had to work hard, but his homework and exams were very fair and doable from reading the textbook and attending lecture. He always holds review sessions for the exams and takes any questions that students may have. He is very sweet and accommodating and it is clear how much he cares for his students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-02T15:30:13.548730Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "If you take him, he has + or - which other teachers don't have, so take that into consideration. Otherwise, the practice exams before each midterm is identical to the midterm he gives, so it's great if you like knowing the format of the midterms ahead of time. He is very nice and likeable. He writes the final so taking him is a good idea if you want to know the format of the final.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-17T22:01:26.656180Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Pros:\r\n-Gulick is a funny "cute old man."\r\n-If you took any calculus class in high school, it\'s very easy but you still need to study for exams.\r\n-Lecture notes are posted before class and are very detailed.\r\n-Final was very easy compared to previous years (I did the past 4 years of finals from the test bank as practice and the real final was incredibly easy, but that might just be luck this year).\r\n-You can work as a group for discussion sheets.\r\nCons:\r\n-If you did not take calculus in high school, or did not do well, then this class is going to be hard. Gulick kinda speeds through concepts and sucks at teaching because he uses very old and confusing ways to describe things.\r\n-You have to memorize theorems that are not common sense.\r\n-Tests can be hard, and make up most of your grade.\r\n-Even though I did almost perfectly on the discussion worksheets, THEY ARE CONFUSING, DIFFICULT, AND IRRELEVANT TO WHAT IS TAUGHT IN LECTURE.\r\n-Can\'t use L\'Hopital\'s rule for limits.\r\nOverall: I skipped 40% of lectures and did perfectly well in the class only because I enjoy math and was good at it in high school. If you aren\'t math-minded, then it will be impossible to understand the lectures since the language used seems to be more of a code than an explanation. If you took any AP calculus class this will be mostly review. I would not recommend this class unless it is necessary (which it is for most of you reading this so you\'re out of luck).', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T02:41:34.655977Z'}, {'professor': 'Denny Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Gulick is hilarious and a very traditional professor, who has been teaching longer than you or your parents have been alive. If you have a good morning routine, taking 8ams with Gulick isn't a bad idea. He does not upload his examples or work onto his lecture notes and his handwriting can be hard to see, so make sure to sit closer to the front. Although he moves quickly, he will always stop and ask if anyone has a question with is work. As someone who has never taken calc before, this class wasn't super hard as long as you can sit down and do the webassign homeworks. There may be some points where you need to watch some youtube videos to understand things, but it's not daily. Gulick also writes the final exams since he is the department head, he will give many hints as what to expect and it almost feels spoonfed with all the practice exams available. You will definitely have a better understanding of calculus after taking Gulick.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-27T03:40:09.262752Z'}], 'name': 'Denny Gulick', 'slug': 'gulick_denny'}, {'courses': ['PSYC695', 'PSYC432', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC690', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'AAST498J', 'PSYC489Z', 'PSYC468H', 'AAST498J', 'AAST498J', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC489Z', 'AAST262', 'PSYC262', 'PSYC468H', 'AAST262', 'PSYC262', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC690', 'PSYC899', 'AAST262', 'PSYC262'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Derek Iwamoto', 'course': 'PSYC432', 'review': "Professor Iwamoto really cares about his students and offers advice for graduate school. That being said, the class itself was poorly structured. The first half of the semester was relatively easy with a couple of writing assignments and a midterm, but the second half of the semester involved having writing assignments almost every week, finishing a group presentation project, and the final exam. It's definitely doable, but takes a lot of time management. His rubrics for long essays and the group presentation were a little vague and confusing, but he does offer 2% extra credit. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-21T00:09:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Iwamoto', 'course': 'PSYC489Z', 'review': "Dr. Iwamoto is such an amazing and genuine professor. He's so passionate about what he teaches and encourages asking for help when needed. The class is structures as a 200 level class which makes it generally easy. I would highly recommend taking a course with him before graduation.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-20T16:11:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Iwamoto', 'course': 'AAST262', 'review': "Although Dr. Iwamoto shows a level of care for Asian American (AA) representation and wants to address systemic AA-experienced issues, he tends to limit his teachings only to work he's personally done. It comes off slightly ego driven which can be somewhat uncomfortable at times. Although he wants to promote a more inclusive and intimate classroom experience, which he does well with in-class discussions, it's limited to his very traditional teaching style using very rigid assessments and late feedback. Furthermore, he himself does not ask for feedback on classroom quality. He also has a lack of rubrics for written assignments but wants students to still share their personal experiences with him. With that being said, he does have a level of insight that can be a really good introduction to AA issues if that is what you're looking for, and I'm still thankful to have had him as a professor.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-14T22:15:01.181279Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Iwamoto', 'course': 'AAST262', 'review': "In terms of class content, the amount you learn really depends on your personal racial consciousness. Students may find this class fulfilling because it provides a safe space for discussion. But, some content may be outdated and restricted in regards to exploration. While I appreciate Dr. Iwamoto for being one of the very few Asian American faculties in the psyc department, his teaching style may come off as rigid and pretentious at times. I also find it concerning that he never offers or promotes any feedback forms, which isn't really standard practice. I acknowledge that he has been in the field for many years and has made substantial impact in the field, but the pride that comes with it can often impede his connection with the students and overlook other voices.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-26T16:40:15.232430Z'}], 'name': 'Derek Iwamoto', 'slug': 'iwamoto'}, {'courses': ['ENAE743', 'ENAE301', 'ENAE403', 'ENAE788G', 'ENAE646', 'ENSE799', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE301', 'GEMS296', 'ENAE646', 'GEMS297', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENAE301', 'GEMS396'], 'average_rating': 4.375, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Derek Paley', 'course': 'ENAE301', 'review': 'Paley is a pretty smart man, and I think he enjoys showing that off in class. While he explains the concepts well, he is not great at showing their application. The book is semi-helpful but most examples are either way too simple or way too involved. homework questions can be vague and seem unrelated to the concepts of the chapter or even to dynamics in general.\n\r\nHowever, Paley really does try hard to make Dynamics understandable and doable. He is helpful to a fault in office hours, often taking 30 minutes to explain a simple error and leaving other students unanswered. Still, its undeniable that he is a pretty good teacher and probably one of the best Dynamics teachers at the University. \n\r\nUse office hours and really understand each chapters main concepts and you will be fine.\n\r\nreminds me of Dennis Reynolds from IASIP', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-09T12:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Paley', 'course': 'ENAE301', 'review': "Dr. Paley is a good professor. He is enthusiastic and very patient. This class is hard though. The other review discounts the homework... Don't. Do it and understand it. We also did not get practice exams so we went into the midterm and final blind. And they were much, much more difficult than anything we saw in class or on homeworks. Class was curved about 10% because the grades on the final were so terrible. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2012-01-03T15:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Paley', 'course': 'ENAE301', 'review': "The other post is pretty accurate about this class. The lectures are clear and helpful; however, the homeworks are very difficult and time consuming. I strongly encourage anyone taking this class to do the homeworks in groups since many of the problems are pretty difficult. The exams are easier so you don't really need to study for them if you work hard on the homeworks. I worked very hard in this class so I was really happy when an A showed up on my transcript!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-21T04:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Paley', 'course': 'ENAE301', 'review': "His lectures are easy to follow but unfortunately they don't prepare you to do the homework well. The problems are vague and consume a lot of time. Luckily each problem set ends up being only about 3% of your grade so if you screw up on a few of them it's OK. Tests were straightforward and included only the most basic concepts. He gives out last year's tests for practice and if you can do the problems there then you're good. He curves a lot so it's not hard to do well. Don't waste too much time doing the homework.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-25T13:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Paley', 'course': 'ENAE301', 'review': "Dr. Paley is a pretty good professor. His lectures and demos are interesting, but they do not prepare you for the homework very well. However, he is very willing to discuss HW problems in his office hours and does a much better job at explaining concepts there. They were also held right before class, which was very helpful. Seriously, go to office hours. I learned that way too late. \r\nPaley also will give nearly infinite extensions on HW. The first week is no questions asked, but after that you need a valid excuse. \r\nThe midterm exam was okay. It was pretty fair, but was not like the problems done on class or on the homework. The average was around 75%. The final was similar to the midterm, but was more difficult due to the content in later chapters. The average on the final wasn't great (60%), so the class was curved about 7-9%.\r\nOverall, Paley is really understanding and tries to make an extremely difficult class doable. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2018-01-02T15:55:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Paley', 'course': 'ENAE301', 'review': "Dr. Paley is a cool professor. He uses lots of examples, videos, and in class demonstrations to show concepts. The weekly homework can be difficult, but as many people have said it helps a lot to go to office hours. Dr. Paley makes an effort to learn everyone's name in office hours even though a ton of kids go. He does expect you to participate and work along with the examples in class. However, he is very easy to talk to and will go to great lengths to help you understand a problem/concept. \r\n\r\nThis class is still pretty difficult and stressful but Paley makes the best possible effort to make everyone in the class understand. I'm far from one of the smartest kids in aerospace but I've done pretty well in this class thanks to his help. Also, shoutout to our T.A. Austin for his help.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-10T02:07:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Paley', 'course': 'ENAE301', 'review': 'Dr Paley’s examples were extremely thorough and he was an excellent lecturer. Very fair and also a decently challenging course. Memorable teaching style and will give you the majority of the dynamics you need for later classes. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-11-03T23:08:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Paley', 'course': 'ENAE301', 'review': "Dr. Paley's lectures are very thorough and does a tremendous job keeping students engaged with what they are learning. Always tries to point you in the right direction (especially during office hours) and will attempt to make sure no one is left behind. This is a VERY challenging class and should be taken seriously, especially in the beginning. He tries to warn you that everything used in the first half gets built upon very fast in the second half of the course. Make sure to do your homework and attend office hours as these are good places to prepare yourself for the exam. Exams are graded very generously and fairly and it is clear Dr. Paley wants you to succeed in his class and the future. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-24T19:55:22Z'}], 'name': 'Derek Paley', 'slug': 'paley'}, {'courses': ['ASTR121', 'ASTR120', 'ASTR320', 'ASTR615', 'ASTR415', 'ASTR220', 'HONR268G', 'ASTR220', 'ASTR399'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR120', 'review': "Derek was really cool as a professor. He was really funny and kept things simple. Homework wasn't difficult, tests were actually pretty funny (science fiction references left and right), and it was a great class to take (ASTR121 too).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-11T18:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR120', 'review': 'Derek is AWESOME. He makes all of the classes fun by incorporating little animations or videos to demonstrate concepts, as well as making references to video games or birding (two things he loves to do). He has a great sense of humor, and love answering questions. The homework and tests make you think, but are by no means impossible, and he is very accessible by email or during office hours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-16T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'This class was interesting and the professor did a good job of organizing the lectures. Homework and exams are pretty difficult, but I consider myself relatively bad in science, and I managed to get an A for the class. Go to his review sessions before exams.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-09-30T13:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "pretty cool professor. class is all power point presentations, and pretty boring. hardest part was trying to stay awake. has 2 exams, which were trivial because most of his questions are taken from the online practice quizes. homework was a joke. overall, class was pretty boring, but jus try to pay attention to the stuff he repeats, and you'll be ok", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-06-05T12:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "Richardson is a really really nice guy. However this class was definitely not an easy class at all. He is always open for office hours but homeworks are hard and online work was tedious. \n\r\nAs for the exams I did okay on them but not amazing because astronomy isn't the most interesting subject to me. \n\r\nIf your looking for an easy A def don't take this but it isn't all on Richardson.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2009-05-13T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "This class was a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend it. Derek is funny and his power points explain the concepts really well. I would suggest going to lecture because sometimes he gives surprise quizzes when he thinks attendance is low. The surprise quizzes aren't hard, but they're easy extra credit points. His exams were easy and the homework wasn't too bad, but the online part of the homework took up a lot of time. Overall, the class was interesting and an easy A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-27T17:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR120', 'review': "Derek is an awesome guy. His attempts to make lectures interesting are effective and I really enjoyed his class. He is also one of the most understanding professors I've ever had.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-11-19T19:25:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': 'Great teacher, fair grader. I would definitely take him in another class if I needed to. the class is very straight forward anyone should be able to get a B.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-02T19:30:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR415', 'review': "Awesome teacher!! He really cares about his students and he will work with you through the homework and pre-class quizzes so that you can do well on them. The class isn't hard if you have some python knowledge, the only hard part imo is the pre-class quizzes. Also no midterm and no final!! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-13T16:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': "I took the course in person. \r\n\r\nProfessor Richardson is a very nice person and is very knowledgeable in his subject. Overall, he's understanding of student needs and will work with you if you're having issues. \r\n\r\nThe premise of the class is interesting, though I personally thought there was too much busy work for a 2XX course. All major assignments were group assignments and were pretty lengthy. Your group is determined after the add/drop period at the beginning of the semester. Before each class we needed to watch a pre-lecture video (15-45 min) and take a quiz. You'll be taking notes and learning the topics through the pre-lecture videos and reinforcing each topic in the actual lectures through various interactive activities. At the end of each lecture, you'll need to answer a question ( in ~4-5 sentences) that will be about one of the topics covered in that lecture. \r\n\r\nExams were kinda tough. Lots of facts to know and equations to memorize. I'm personally not the best at that but exams are not worth that much of the final grade. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-04T00:47:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': "Probably the only class I enjoyed going to all semester and I took this class to fulfill a gen-ed.\r\n\r\nClass is in a reversed format so the lectures are extremely interactive. Derek keeps everything fun and discussion based as the entire classed is based around group work. Pre-lecture quizzes are a free 10 points before every class and keep you up to date. The exams are 2/3 Individual and 1/3 Group so there is almost always a boost to your grade. Extremely large amount of real world applications so it's easy to see why everything has a purpose. Gave us donuts for the final exam.\r\n\r\nDerek is super easy going if there is problems, the lowest 3 attendance, pre-lecture quizzes, and post-lecture response questions were all dropped so it was honestly hard to do bad in the class.\r\n\r\nHe also was an engineer on the DART mission to deflect an asteroid that just launched so overall this guy is a cool dude.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-14T01:22:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'HONR268G', 'review': "I took this course Spring 2020\r\nProfessor Richardson is very passionate and caring. The class has a nice feel since you go out birding together. It's not a trivial class since I found it difficult to learn to recognize birds by sound, but I learned more than I thought I was capable of.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-27T17:33:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': "Genuinely such a fun class. The material was super engaging and you could really tell Derek was passionate about what he was teaching. This was Fall '21, which couldn't have been better timing. The DART mission was awaited all semester (which Derek worked on), the James Webb Telescope got some mentions, the Don't Look Up movie, etc.\r\n\r\nThe class itself isn't difficult - the math is formulaic and most errors were due to misinputs. The projects were interesting and he does a good job arranging groups. Exams weren't that bad content-wise, just crunched for time. The pre-lecture work is pretty light.\r\n\r\nOverall, my favorite class that semester. Definitely something I looked forward to because of Derek. He's very friendly and didn't mind us joking around on the interactive slides. I'm probably going to be adding an Astronomy minor because of this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-02-07T19:11:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Derek Richardson', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': "Astronomy is the love of my life and my passion.\r\nHowever, this course burnt me out and I have to take a break before my next astro course. \r\nBoth Derek and Carrie were phenomenal, but the class is all group work. Everyone in my group were complete (insert profane term here). Every day I got chirped at and bullied. The assignments were absolutely miserable and I hated the use of Nearpod to take polls and do interactive activities. I am in the minority when I say that I just prefer lectures. I don't like relying on other people for my grade, ESPECIALLY because this is a gen ed and everyone in the group made it clear that they did not care about the work and phone it in. \r\nI abhorred this class. It was easy, don't get me wrong. But the way it's structured where we do the lecture before class and then in-class activities was not it for me. Ugh. Don't take this class if you don't like group work--that's all the class is. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-01T01:48:32Z'}], 'name': 'Derek Richardson', 'slug': 'richardson_derek'}, {'courses': ['AOSC818', 'AOSC424', 'AOSC123', 'AOSC658L', 'AOSC494', 'GEOL123', 'AOSC400', 'AOSC658E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Derrick Lampkin', 'slug': 'lampkin'}, {'courses': ['FIRE120', 'FIRE164', 'FIRE264', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Derrick Yeo', 'course': 'FIRE164', 'review': "Derrick is super chill and very smart. Don't be offended if he calls you names or makes fun of you; he's just joking.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-27T20:29:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Derrick Yeo', 'course': 'FIRE198', 'review': 'Great professor. Class is super laid-back and I would highly recommend his research stream to anyone interested.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-19T17:29:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Derrick Yeo', 'course': 'FIRE120', 'review': "He is literally the funniest, most chill dude out there. He's always there to help you out and is very understanding, and he's very practical about the course material as well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-07-31T20:44:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Derrick Yeo', 'course': 'FIRE198', 'review': 'Awesome guy. Really chill and friendly. Take him if you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-09T19:44:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Derrick Yeo', 'course': 'FIRE298', 'review': 'Derrick continues to be one of my favorite professors. Sadly, I do not think the Autonomous Unmanned Systems stream will be continued past this semester, but hopefully he can continue to be an advisor in the FIRE department.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-27T19:21:31Z'}], 'name': 'Derrick Yeo', 'slug': 'yeo_derrick'}, {'courses': ['CHEM699C', 'CHEM482', 'CHPH718C'], 'average_rating': 1.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM482', 'review': "Never before has a professor actually made me dread coming to class the way he does. He serially picks on students for answers assuming we have a working knowledge of quantum mechanics, but the whole point of taking the class is that we don't know, we're there to learn. He's very much a bully, and he is more focused on humiliating his students than he is on teaching them, a fact that I find extremely aggravating. He doesn't have any sort of respect for time limits (he has only finished class on time once this semester so far) and will not give any sort of direction or help for homeworks and exams. 482 is a hard enough class without having a professor that works against you.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-11-04T13:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': None, 'review': 'taught a lot of cool, conceptual stuff. basically made gen chem into a physics course (which was not very helpful for lab). very straightforward assignments/expectations. arrogant in a funny way. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-22T17:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'wow i hate him!\r\nmade chem scary!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'd', 'created': '2011-01-25T00:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'If you decide to his worthless lectures, be prepared to listen to him complain about the students or something irrelevant 40% of the time. He is a complete asshole to the students and doesn\'t care about whether or not you are learning. I know this because he never once gave us a more than relative description of what would be on the exam. He just said "I don\'t know, I haven\'t made the test yet!" or "You need to study what we learned in class, what else would you be studying?" followed by some smart ass comment.\n\r\nThis guy isn\'t teaching this class next semester, and hopefully, he will never teach again. He does not take his job seriously whatsoever. Many time, students would ask questions, and he would respond "I\'d write it on the board, but I\'m too lazy". He spent no less than two weeks attempting to explain Shrodinger\'s Equation to the class. Why? That\'s what I want to know.\n\r\nThis guy is waste of time and money.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2009-06-01T09:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "He seriously sucks, but he does curve the class to a C if you are around the average. He also gives you unlimited homework attempts.\n\r\nOur exam averages were 49, 64, 62.5, and I am not sure about the final.\n\r\nIt was very hard to study for any of the exams because you don't know if he is about to pull questions out of his ass that he assumes we know even though he hasn't covered it.\n\r\nHe is a rude jackass if you ask him any questions. He spends much of his time explaining how he hates when people talk in class. \n\r\nCHEM135 is suppose to be annoying and hard intentionally but this guy SUCKS, don't take him or even speak to him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-22T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'What these two guys have said is right, I had him this past semester. If I\'d ask him to explain a question his answer was always "Find out for yourself." His tests always include things that have not been taught or even mentioned in class, he does not write legibly, he is incredibly rude, does NOT care about his students, and CANNOT teach or convey material at all. Do not take him!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-20T22:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'horribly rude and quick tempered professor. does a terrible job teaching, grades harshly, and makes the exams far too hard (ie. the average on each exam ranged from 45 - 60%). avoid at all costs. if avoid him means getting that horrible math teacher, take the math teacher.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-20T01:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'He spends way too much time with "descriptive" chemistry in the beginning and then he mumbled through the rest of the course, not making too clear what we were learning. He was also an arse when it came to students asking him questions which he expected them to not ask or something. Besides his personality, the biggest problem was that he taught stuff that didn\'t always correspond with the book or was not in the book at all. The online ARIS homework also did not have any problems available to practice his not-in-the-book topics. He also refused to mention which topics would be on any of the exams--no not spoonfeed us of course, but not even some general chapters or topic names. Basically, he teaches stuff not in the book and doesn\'t give practice for it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2009-05-19T14:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "He is a smart guy, but not that great of a teacher. He spent a better portion of the semester going over some basic quantum mechanics and expected us to understand, take apart, and put back together formulas using ideas that we were supposed to have learned in high school. While I did agree with him that we should be able to use things like the quadratic formula from a 10th or 11th grade math class, I do not agree with how he covers the material. Alot of the first exam was material that he would briefly go over in class, some of the equations he only spent a total of 2 minutes on. He doesn't understand that not everyone in the room is a genius and can process equations through their heads like he can. He told us on the last day that he cared more about us understanding the material and that we shouldn't be worried so much with the grades. That is particularly easy for him to say when he doesn't have tuition money riding on a GPA. \n\r\nThis is my second time taking the course, the first time I got a C because I forgot my calculator on my last midterm and my batteries died on my final exam. I heard he is not teaching this class after this semester, which is good news for everyone else because he was probably the worst professor I've ever had. However, I got 80's on his last two exams after I got the hang of how he teaches the class. It focuses mainly on taking apart equations and putting them back together. Once you get those ideas down his tests aren't too difficult. You just have to look over your notes and pretty much ignore the amount of time he spends on certain material, because it isn't proportionate to its importance. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-19T03:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'this professor does not treat any student in his classes with any respect whatsoever, if you ask him a question he is completely unwilling to help. as far as teaching the material he is horrible he rushes through everything and very seldom does any examples and as the other review said, alot of the material on the test was never even mentioned in class', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-18T20:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "All the information about him is already stated!! \n\r\nThe good news is he is never teaching this class again! so no worries\n\r\nThis class was a waste of time for me! I wished I had learned some chemistry here! When i take the lab with this course I'm sure I will be super lost :(\n\r\nwords cannot describe the frustration that students had for this class!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-16T16:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I didn't take this course, but I tutored two kids in this class and am posting this review to warn you about this class. Try your best not to take it. He spends the first third of the semester on the first chapter then rushes through the remainder of the material. The tests are pretty challenging because he hasn't taught some of the material on the test in the first place. The average on the first test was in the 40's, the second in the 50's and the third was in the 60's. I am pretty sure he is the worst chem professor on campus. Avoid him if you can!!!!!!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-04T02:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "He is rude and a terrible teacher. I had trouble believing he has a PhD. I'm sure he knows Chemistry but the point is that he sucks at teaching it, particularly for this class. His explanatations are horrible, handwriting is illegible, and accent is often hard to undestand. The whole class failed the exams because he didn't teach us anything (exam avg. = 47%) and he refuses to accept that he sucks at teaching and instead tries to help out by giving extra points and whatnot but it's still not enough for an A-student to even get a B. \n\r\nI give 1 star because he gives unlimited attempts on the online homework problems, which is nice. But I still hate him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-03-12T14:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'course': 'CHEM482', 'review': 'This professor have to take Teaching 101 course before teaching this graduate level course.\r\nHe has no idea how to approach a specific lesson rather boasting about his own success. \r\nHow he was hired anyway?', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-01T19:55:25.600842Z'}], 'name': 'Devarajan Thirumalai', 'slug': 'thirumalai'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM330'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Devin Scott', 'course': 'COMM330', 'review': "He was a relaxed teacher as in if there was ever a issue with an assignment or technical difficulties he would be lenient. He sometimes let you resubmit for a higher grade if he thinks you could have done better. The class was a bit of a time commitment because it has a lot of quizzes and projects but if you put in the work and complete them you'll do well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-19T22:46:17Z'}], 'name': 'Devin Scott', 'slug': 'scott_devin'}, {'courses': ['MIEH300', 'MIEH688', 'MIEH770', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'HLTH688D', 'MIEH698D', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH770', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH770', 'MIEH786'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Devon Payne-Sturges', 'slug': 'payne-sturges'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'UNIV108', 'UNIV108'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Devyn Sturdavant', 'course': 'UNIV108', 'review': 'Only some aspects of this class seem to be beneficial for applying to the business school such as the resume, cover letter, and personal statement, and maybe some of the guest lectures. But overall the class was sometimes a waste of time, some of the lectures should be online. She also takes forever to grade things. The last class was a week ago and I still have no grade in the class. But she is very chill and laid back compared to the first teacher I had for this course who started off saying that she is "a bitch at grading".', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T00:48:53.118166Z'}, {'professor': 'Devyn Sturdavant', 'course': 'UNIV108', 'review': 'Overall chill nothing bad. The first half of this class that goes over the business school is important, but the other half is practically worthless.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-13T03:25:29.883333Z'}], 'name': 'Devyn Sturdavant', 'slug': 'sturdavant'}, {'courses': ['ENPM808M', 'ENPM691', 'ENPM808K', 'ENPM697', 'ENPM809A', 'ENPM657', 'ENPM691', 'ENPM657', 'ENPM691', 'ENPM691', 'ENPM697', 'ENPM691'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dharmalingam Ganesan', 'slug': 'ganesan'}, {'courses': ['JOUR300', 'JOUR400', 'JOUR202', 'JOUR700', 'JOUR702'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Diana Huffman', 'slug': 'huffman'}, {'courses': ['EDCI411', 'EDCI671', 'EDCI770', 'EDCI788P', 'EDCI372', 'EDCI687', 'TLPL888', 'EDPS788T', 'TLPL600', 'TLPL788A', 'TLPL795', 'TLPL720', 'TLPL795'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Diane Ketelhut', 'slug': 'ketelhut'}, {'courses': ['BMGT452', 'BUSI650', 'BMGT350', 'BUMK701', 'BUMK757', 'BMGT457', 'BMGT350N', 'BUMK758G'], 'average_rating': 4.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Diane Whitney', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "The class overall is very textbook heavy. What I mean is that you can basically understand everything and pass the exams by just focusing on the textbook. She has a group project and then 3, 60 question exams. The exams are all multiple choice, pretty straightforward, but very long and boring. I literally outlined every chapter and memorized all of the main points. If you do this, the class is not bad at all. Her lectures are pretty boring and class participation isn't mandatory so more than half of the class never goes, but if you participate she will remember you. I personally always went to class, never used a laptop, sat relatively close, and answered questions every once in a while. In the end when I should have received an A- she gave me an A, this is all without ever having a personal conversation with her. I was borderline and I'm sure that my engagement is what pushed me over.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-15T23:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Diane Whitney', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'I don\'t, by any means, echo the extreme positivity in the reviews which convinced me to take her class. Her tests are fair-ish, there are usually 3-5 ambiguous questions per 60 question test. What was a problem were her "discussion board assignments." She grades them like full on papers, even though the syllabus makes it seem like they are supposed to be discussions. She refused to give full credit to anyone in the entire class, and when asked why she said she didn\'t believe that anyone in the class of hundreds deserved full credit on any of their 4 papers. The class average on one of her tests was a 76 and she didn\'t do any sort of curving. She wasn\'t horrible, but definitely not a full 5 stars.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-02-18T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Diane Whitney', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'This professor was a great marketing teacher. She laid out the whole semester and how the course would be broken up and then she followed that schedule. She taught a lot of great topics for all business majors and her tests were all multiple choice. The final was called "exam 3" and was held right before thanksgiving. It was the same length as the other 2 tests and because of it there was no actual final during finals week. The tests were easy to study for, definitely get the online course mate because that\'s all you really need to study for the tests and using it should guarantee you an A overall in the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-07T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Diane Whitney', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Professor Whitney is a solid lecturer and a fair grader. If you put in some effort to study for her exams, you will get an A in her class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T00:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Diane Whitney', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Prof. Whitney is awesome. She goes over exactly what she wants us to know, and tests us on that only. She is more than willing to accept arguments for grading discrepencies, and is an overall fair person. This class did not require much effort at all, if anything it was mostly memorization.\r\nPlus, I actually learned some things from this class. Wait until Prof Whitney is teaching 350 to take it; it's worth it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T21:16:00Z'}], 'name': 'Diane Whitney', 'slug': 'whitney'}, {'courses': ['BMGT471F', 'BMGT476', 'BMGT478D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dianne Fox', 'slug': 'fox_dianne'}, {'courses': ['MUSC130', 'MUSC130H', 'MUSC310', 'MUSC483', 'MUSC445', 'MUSC448E', 'MUSC130S'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dianne Goldman', 'slug': 'goldman_dianne'}, {'courses': ['MUSC226', 'MUSC127', 'MUSC443', 'MUSC602', 'MUSC601', 'MUSC604', 'MUSC126', 'MUSC400V', 'MUSC227', 'MUSC127', 'MUSC227', 'MUSC443', 'MUSC126', 'MUSC226', 'MUSC400V', 'MUSC127', 'MUSC227', 'MUSC443'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Diba Alvi', 'slug': 'alvi'}, {'courses': ['HACS208Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dimitrije Kostic', 'slug': 'kostic'}, {'courses': ['ENCE300', 'ENCE644', 'ENCE747', 'ENCE447', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE300', 'ENCE300', 'ENCE300', 'ENCE489G', 'ENCE489G', 'ENCE300'], 'average_rating': 2.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dimitrios Goulias', 'course': 'ENCE300', 'review': 'Goulias:\r\nUnclear: He has a strong accent that is sometimes hard to decipher. He had very small handwriting not easily visible from even halfway back in the classroom.\r\nBoring: The 2 hour lecture associated with this class killed me. It was very dry, even Goulias seemed bored by the material.\r\nUnreasonable: My group submitted our lab report in PDF format instead of a word document. Since we also submitted it hard copy, and that was where all the comments were made, we figured it would be ok. Little did we know that this was an offence that went "beyond understanding, excuses and reasons" so our group must "suffer the consequences."\r\nBizarre: We had to take the exams in pen. Still haven\'t figured out why. Everyone\'s paper was a mess of scribbles and crossings out. Math should be done in pencil. For each exam, you get a letter grade, A, B, C, or D. Once I got a C by getting one problem completely right and the other completely wrong. I got a B for the same breakdown on the next exam.\r\nUnfair: He said our lab report grades were too high. The class average was a 95%. So he downcurved everyone, but only told us that on the very last day of classes.\n\r\nThe Class:\r\n50% of the class is Goulias lecturing, the other 50% is lab. Lab is so much fun, and super easy. My TA was wonderful, clear, fun, and engaging. One lecture she taught the class and we all learned so much more than when Goulias teaches. In lab, you weight things, watch things break, and mix things. Mostly you chill with the rest of the students in your lab section waiting for it to be your turn. Only one lab took the whole time, almost always we got out an hour early.\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-05-18T13:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dimitrios Goulias', 'course': 'ENCE300', 'review': "I did not end up with the grade I expected. The teacher was very vague about his grading scale. He told us that if you got below a certain amount you got a C on the first exam, once finals came around the then said that your exam grade is not curved. Which was contradictory from what he said on the midterm.\n\r\nI got an A in lab, but somehow barely scraped by in this class.\n\r\nHe's extremely boring to listen to and it's not informative. Everything he goes over is literally in the book. The lab TAs were much more helpful than the professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2015-12-22T13:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dimitrios Goulias', 'course': 'ENCE300', 'review': "The lectures are sooo boring. 2 hours of him flipping through powerpoint too fast to take any notes. For whatever reason this semester he decided to not give any homework and just give quizzes every week. 50% of the class gets a 0, its ridiculous. Plus he sweats profusely and adds all his female students on facebook, so inappropriate. So glad he isn't my advisor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-10-16T23:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dimitrios Goulias', 'course': 'ENCE300', 'review': "This class is boring as hell. Every lecture it was two hours of powerpoints. It was beyond horrible. Labs are okay. The TAs are nice. Since you will have 5-6 people per group, there's not enough work to go around so you will be probably just be standing there watching other people do work. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-05-20T11:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dimitrios Goulias', 'course': 'ENCE300', 'review': "This is for ENCE300- Kim section (I couldn't review for him specifically).\n\r\nIts a really boring lecture, but just pay attention to the things that he says to pay attention to. \n\r\nPut some effort into talking to him outside of class, and do the homework to get extra credit.\n\r\nIt can be tricky, but its not the hardest class ever.\n\r\nLab is really straigh forward, just put effort into the reports.\n\r\nThis class isn't that bad. Isn't really time consuming, Lecture you can miss frequently..\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-27T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dimitrios Goulias', 'course': 'ENCE300', 'review': 'Powerpoint ad nauseum. Labs are fun, with some work, class is mind-numbing.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-20T18:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Dimitrios Goulias', 'slug': 'goulias'}, {'courses': ['ARAB105', 'ARAB107', 'ARAB104', 'ARAB206', 'ARAB207', 'ARAB305', 'ARAB304', 'ARAB499X', 'ARAB205', 'ARAB399A', 'COMM798B', 'ARAB499A', 'ARAB499V', 'ARAB204'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dina El-Hefnawy', 'course': 'ARAB104', 'review': "Ustaadha Dina is awesome - she's really nice and generally good at explaining things and making everything interesting. Occasionally she didn't explain rules clearly enough, I think because she's a native speaker and doesn't always understand how hard it is for us, but this wasn't a huge problem. \n\r\nOne thing to think about before choosing professors is what dialect you want to take. Dina is Egyptian so she works with the maSri (Egyptian) dialect in class. If I had thought things through more at the time, I would have taken Arabic with a professor who spoke the shaami (Levantine) dialect because that's what I want to focus on. Ustaadha Dina is a great teacher, but might not be what exactly what you're looking for if you know that you want to learn the Levantine dialect. \n\r\nShe's a pretty harsh grader but I think that's true across the department; she just has very high standards (won't scale a test even if no one got A's), but she seems to be pretty fair in her grading. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-01T23:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dina El-Hefnawy', 'course': 'ARAB105', 'review': 'Horrible woman, She needs to be taken elsewhere.\r\nShe is the kind that had obvious favorites and treats everyone else like crap. I personally would never take a class with her again. I hope she sees this review and sees she is unwanted and hated by one of her former students. i can honestly say she was the worst teacher i have ever had and do no like her. i wish i could tell her how much i hated her.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-09-02T17:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dina El-Hefnawy', 'course': 'ARAB206', 'review': "she was awesome! she put fair things on the exams and she went over everything in class so that you understand things. \r\nnon-native arab speakers: a bit of writing in arabic is involved but it is manageable. she's a great teacher! the homeorks are easy and she grades fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-01T12:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dina El-Hefnawy', 'course': 'ARAB204', 'review': "Dina is great. she has the knowledge and the ability to teach. Her style of teaching makes you involved all the time. Don't miss her", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-07T12:10:00Z'}], 'name': 'Dina El-Hefnawy', 'slug': 'el-hefnawy'}, {'courses': ['MATH648M', 'MATH241', 'MATH424', 'MATH463', 'MATH858M', 'AMSC466', 'MATH462', 'CMSC466', 'AMSC673', 'MATH673', 'AMSC466', 'MATH424', 'MATH464', 'AMSC466', 'CMSC466', 'AMSC466', 'CMSC466', 'MATH424'], 'average_rating': 4.587, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "He's a really funny guy but I was definitely scared to ask questions in class because he made fun of like everyone who talked in class. His exams are fair and although he said there wasn't a curve at the beginning of class, there ended up being a small one because I had a 91.6 on ELMS but I still got an A", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-19T21:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Amazing professor. One of the best in the Mathematics Department. His exams are very straight forward and you WILL do well if you do all of the recommended problems. Make sure you get on your TA's good side. At the end of the semester, Dio sits with his TAs and goes through his roster and asks his TA what grade each student deserves. Dio really wants you to learn and if you ever have the opportunity to take him, TAKE HIM!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-30T20:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Dio is really a great teacher. He is passionate, and clearly loves to teach. His tests were graded a bit harshly, and one test with stupid mistakes was enough to drop me to a B. That being said, I think his expectations were fair and he did a good job of imparting the material. If you're the type of person who doesn't feel like going to every class, you could certainly get away with it. It wasn't very hard, and from what I've heard he's the best Calc 3 teacher you're going to find at UMD.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-04T01:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Dio is an excellent lecturer. He is very engaging when he speaks and is never boring. He is also very easy to understand and writes clearly on the board. He is also hilarious, but usually at the expense of one of my classmates. The only reason I was hesitant to give him five stars is that he will destroy you in front of the whole class if you ask a question, no matter how legitimate it might be. Nonetheless I still enjoy his class and have learned quite a bit. The TAs are also excellent. I often learn as much in discussion as I do in lecture. The grades are fair. You do not have to turn in homework, but it is an excellent study tool. Also, the exams are not overly challenging. I would definitely recommend Margetis, just try not to provoke him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-02-10T03:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great professor indeed.\r\nBut gotta say his exams were way too easy, including the final. \r\nGetting an A in this class is easy as long as you attend all the lectures, read the book, and do a lot of practice problems.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-21T11:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'This class should have been an A :(\n\r\nDr. Margetis is one of the prominent research professors in the Math department who happens to be a terrific lecturer. At times he may go a little too fast but his hand writing is pretty clear. \n\r\nThe last 2 chapters are the difficult ones. Good Luck.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-01T05:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "In talking with my friends, I regret that I didn't have Justin. Justin's exams were more straightforward compared to Dio's this semester. I could not rely on just his lecture material to prepare me for his exams. There were times that I didn't follow his notes, but I would never dare ask him to explain it in front of the class. Asking for any kind of help from him would be too intimidating. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2011-12-25T22:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Dr. Margetis is a great lecturer and is wonderful at teaching the content of the course. His exams were exceptionally easy, however, which ended up being a bad thing because of the difficulty of the combined final.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T20:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Wrote very clear, organized, detailed, and neat notes. Would not recommend him if you like to ask questions in class and mind being made fun of. I also doubt he is someone you would want to ask for help from during office hours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-21T21:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': 'The reviews below do a good job of summing up Margetis. Phenomenal lecturer. Writes crystal clear, precise notes on the board, making reading the textbook unnecessary. There is a reason he is one of the highest rated professors on ourumd. His tests are really easy, and he drops the lowest grade. As mentioned below, however, he will absolutely destroy anybody asking questions. He can get away with it because he lectures so well, but it is nevertheless really embarrassing when you think you are asking a legitimate question and he rips you a new one. People very soon stop asking questions. In spite of this, I would recommend taking him over any other professor in the department. You will learn the material really well and get a good grade for it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-11T03:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'By far the best professor in the math department', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-03T01:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "tests were extremely easy, maybe too easy.\r\nthe people who said that his tests were fair are being ridiculous. he pretty much told us which questions would be on the tests as he was teaching the material, and during the lecture before the test he would give many hints. \n\r\nthe best part of class was when he would completely rip apart the people in the first few rows when they would ask ridiculously dumb questions. margetis can be quite funny in these outbursts, but if you are the target you might be embarrassed in front of ~200 other people.\n\r\nOverall he is an excellent 'teacher', from what i have heard a brilliant mathematician/physicist, and quite the entertainer.\n\r\nAlthough he may rip you apart for a dumb question, if you ask a bright question or make an insightful point during lecture he will praise you and ask you your name in front of ~200 people.\r\nand those are definitely rewarding moments.\r\nbasically, choose your questions and comments wisely during lecture.\n\r\nFinal was hard, though. avg. in my section was a 120/200. \n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-21T19:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great professor; will burn you in class if you ask stupid questions. Engaging and fair tests (sometimes).\n\r\nIf you have a good TA, then you are in for a easy math semester, if not, you probably have to do extra work out of class :T\n\r\nBut overall, Calc III was fun with Margetis! :D', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-05T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Good choice for Calc 3\n\r\nDio is excellent at teaching the material and lecturing. I was able to follow his lectures and not have to read the book for almost the entire course which is very uncommon for me. His grading and tests are very fair and his website is organized. The only problem I had with him is that asking questions in lectures usually resulted in a condescending or hostile answer and sometimes he even ridiculed the student asking the question. I understand this is just his personality but it made me reluctant to raise my hand in lecture. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T17:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Overall great class. He's a good professor and very straightforward. His tests are fair and are based on problems gone over in lecture or in discussion. He doesn't collect any homeworks and doesn't give any quizzes in actual lecture so there is no incentive to go. Absolutely take Margetis, he's the best for calc 3.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-30T01:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "He's a good professor. He's very straightforward about the concepts, and has a great sense of humor. However, he doesn't bring anything else to the table that you couldn't find elsewhere. I stopped going to lecture pretty quickly. The examples he gives are similar to the ones in the book, and although the explanations of the concepts in the book don't make much sense, you can find good ones online (I recommend Paul's Online calculus Notes). He doesn't grade the homework, so there isn't much incentive to do it, but I would recommend doing it anyway since a lot of the tests problems are very similar, if not exactly the same as the ones he assigns for hw.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-18T14:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "I went to about three lectures since 10am is a bit early for me. He is a very articulate speaker and knows how to explain the material well to even non-science/math majors like me. I'm horrible at math but still managed a C+ despite never getting above a 50% on my tests or quizzes. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2010-01-10T23:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Overall, an excellent professor. He focuses on what you need to know for the course, with an occasional dose of humor. Takes 3/4 highest tests, 7/8 highest quizzes and 4 Matlabs (worth 7% of the overall grade). I also happened to have a terrific TA, so that definitely made the experience great. If you are going to take Calc III, I can't think of a better person to take it with.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T02:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Absolutely wonderful Professor. Extremely articulate and teaches lessons beyond just Calculus. Was an enjoyable class to go to and never felt like I was wasting time by going to lecture. I don't see how a professor can get much better. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-16T07:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "This class was exceptional. People taking the other professors classes (Rosenberg) were dealing with 60-70 test averages and our test averages were a cool uncurved 80. Dio made the material very easy to follow with no required homework. There are quizzes in discussion that are easy and matlab homework that's basically extra credit (and only 4 of them). He also drops a test and a quiz. \n\r\nAlso his English is very articulate and easily understandable unlike other teachers you run into at UMD.\n\r\nThe tests were also much easier than the tests I saw from Rosenberg... The tests did test the material but they were not unreasonable so no real surprises. Sometimes you had to think but you weren't stretched too far. Also has his TAs give very reasonable partial credit.\n\r\nOverall: Wonderful class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-14T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great teacher i would definitely recommend this instructor to other students. Fair grader, fair tests and he actually cares about his students, unlike manyyyyy manyyy other teachers on this campus. He wants his students to do well in his class and as long as you go to his lectures and solve the recommended hmw you should definitely be able to do well in class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-13T20:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'He might seem a bit crazy at times, but to be honest it makes him a better professor. He will yell, but not at the students, it is for emphasis which is great in a morning class. He also allows for a one page one side cheat sheet on every exam and two sides on the final, it proves to be very useful. If I could get another course with him as the professor I would.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-11T00:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Awesome professor. very energetic guy and talks very loud which makes u pay attention. gives 4 exams (drops lowest) and about 8 quizzes. every quiz is announced about a week in advance. \r\njust go to class becasue his exam questions are the examples he gives in class, just different numbers.\r\noverall, very good class\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-05T12:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Dio is awesome! His lectures are incredibly easy to follow, which is especially necessary at 9am. His homework is optional, he takes no attendance, and the quizzes aren't bad, either. Gives plenty of warning for upcoming exams and possible exam problems during lecture. His tests can be tricky if you don't prepare well enough, but his notes + the book gives you more than enough information. One of the best professors at Maryland.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-02-25T15:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "He's really charismatic and his explanations are simple and he repeats the important things. His tests are also significantly easier than other professor's tests. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-27T19:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'great lecturer, and fair grader. does not go over the top on the tests, if you know the basics it will be easy. no tricky stuff or senseless complication. probably one of the best put together courses i have ever taken.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-21T22:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'A very good teacher. He makes all the concepts easily understandable, perhaps to such a great extent that it gets a little repetitive. That said, I would defiantly recommend him. He also talks loudly so you will pay attention, but also makes jokes, which make the class more interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-12-20T18:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'One of the best lecturers I\'ve ever had at UMD. He was very engaging and explained the material very well. His exams and quizzes are very straight forward. 4 exams - drops lowest one, 6-8 quizzes, drops lowest one. Some problems on exams and quizzes came directly from problems he showed in lecture. He will tell you during lecture which problems he thinks are "hot" for an upcoming exam. He\'s also a really funny guy and cracks jokes quite often, but not enough to seem unprofessional. I highly recommend Dr. Margetis for 241.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-20T16:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great professor. Wants you to understand the material. Teaches straight from the book, but helps you understand it a little better. I cruised by the class. Consists of 7 quizzes (you can drop 2 of them) and 4 tests (you can drop 1). NO HOMEWORKS, DOES NOT TAKE ATTENDANCE, AND ANNOUNCES THE DAYS OF EVERY QUIZ AND EXAM AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR. Exam and quiz questions are just examples he gives in class with different numbers. If you are good at understanding math you dont even have to show up to class and can teach yourself with the book like I did. If you make a stupid mistake on something but otherwise set a problem up right he will only deduct a few points. Definately try to get Margetis if he is teaching your class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-20T05:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Dios is an incredible professor. Every morning i wake up looking forward to his early lectures, cause thats when he drinks coffee, and it makes him super energetic! even at 9 am he still cracks jokes, but he still gets right down to work and explains every section thoroughly. to all of you i recommend this professor for calc III!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-12T14:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Dio is the man!! i am very blessed to have him as my calc professor. he is great at lecturing the material and he grbs your attention. his tests are really easy, and the quizzes aren't too bad either. i highly recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-11T04:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "I don't know if my compliments are enough for the guy. As a professor, he gets everything down to the point. Every lecture session reinforces the previous session, so you won't be clueless. The guy tries very hard to make sure you knows the topics. As a person, he's a funny and caring guy. He throws jokes quite often and so there's not always a tense studying environment. He's easily approachable and will help if asked. His tests and grading policy in my opinion are a little too easy, not that its a bad thing, but he does teach well and you will come out knowing the material of the course IF you try. Take him if you can. I highly recommend him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-03T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "He's a great teacher! If you can get him, definitely do. His explanations are usually really good and he gives examples in class that are very similar to those he puts on the exam.\r\nIf you do the recommended homework problems, you'll definitely get A's on the exams. \r\nOverall, it's a great class with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-19T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'This professor is a very charismatic guy. He often yells when presenting the topic, which keeps you awake. He is a good teacher and explains things very thoroughly The grading is fair and as long as you do practice problems then getting an A is really not very tough.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-01-21T12:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "I just wanted to preface this by saying that I did indeed get an A in Dio's class, and a pretty decent grade on the final (188/200). Not trying to brag, but I'm just showing that he's a pretty solid teacher. \r\n\r\nDio is a good lecturer if you like his teaching style. He goes very fast and draws a ton of diagrams, but doesn't really slow down for people who like to ask questions or perhaps take time to understand things. If you went to lecture and did hw problems as soon as the lecture was over (or, at least before the next class), you'll be more than fine. He stresses that you should do the problems. You should - they're vital to your understanding of more complicated topics like Stokes or Greens theorems (to name a few). \r\n\r\nI failed the first test - 21/40. Luckily, he drops your lowest exam, and also your lowest quiz grade. I think he just made the first test intentionally tough to weed out the kids who weren't serious. That being said, the next three tests were a joke with regards to difficulty, and I got straight 40/40's on all three, making my test average a 100. Legit, doing the problems, as well as looking at his pasts tests on koofers, gets you through his tests. \r\n\r\nThe final wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad either. That being said, Justin's average was a cool 6 points higher than Dio's, making me believe that perhaps Dio's teaching style didn't really suit everyone. I stopped showing up to lecture because once you miss one, he moves way too fast to keep up with - I just watched professor leonard on youtube. \r\n\r\nWith regards to TA's... well taht's a toss up to be honest. You may get lucky with a good one, or unlucky with a bad one. Either way, the material is easy to self study if you find yourself behind for a quiz, and there are plenty of resources online necessary to do so. \r\n\r\nFinally, they do bump letter grades if you were a good student and did well on tests/quizzes (for those who don't do super well on the final). For instance, one of my friends got bumped from a B+ to an A- for his final grade. I also have friends who had 91.0 and up who all got bumped to A's. Just keep a nice relationshpi with your TA and you should be fine. \r\n\r\nAll in all, Dio was good. Grades weren't super hard to get and he's a good teacher. But if you can, take Justin. Seriously, that guy's a legend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-05T03:47:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': "arrogant, doesn't explain well", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-21T17:42:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': "I thought Margetis is pretty good. His (online, synchronous, not recorded) lectures were very organized and he writes neatly using an tablet. He can be mean sometimes so the class wasn't exactly responsive when he asked questions (at least I was intimidated), and those silent moments were awkward. The assignments consisted of ~10 problem sets, 3 midterms plus the final. Homework was reasonable, basically asking to replicate things he did in lectures. Tests were timed, with the midterms basically homework-looking questions and the final slightly more involved than the homework. I found the exams extremely stressful, mostly because of the time pressure, and for that I screwed up a lot of computations. Otherwise the exam problems were fun.\r\nThe course forced me to relearn calculus, which was good. I don't like my grade :/ But still this is one of my favorite classes taken. I have no complaints...", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-12T20:04:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': "The last review is spot on. He's sort of intimidating and gets noisy when asked questions, but overall his lectures are extremely organized. Exams were mostly computational which can be annoying if you screw up. He gives more time than if it were in person, but I felt like you have to use the entire time if you want to make sure you answered everything the way he wanted you to. I also think his offering of 466 is probably on the easier side, because I don't think I learned very much. Interpolation is heavily emphasized, while nothing about linear systems is covered. He also really wants people to turn on their cameras which made me a little uncomfortable. People sort of stopped caring after a few weeks though.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-18T06:45:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': "Mark my words, this class is death, and Dio is the poison. The material is extremely dry, which is not the professor's fault. I did feel as if Dio was a somewhat dry lecturer, and at times our class fell down the rabbit hole and we were so far off-topic I couldn't understand which way was up or down. While the online-exams were not extremely difficult, the algebra was brutal. He would require us to solve huge algebraic equations, just to get to the next problem which would have us do the exact same thing but even more so (aka orthogonal polynomials). This class was awful, I do not recommend, do yourselves a favor and take AMSC460 instead. For the record, I perform very well in all math classes and this was my first non-A. Avoid, avoid, avoid.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-03-09T20:05:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': "Not going to lie, the course sucks. It is not interesting. But if you take my warning you should be warned that AMSC460 is not much better if at all, at least according to my pals.\r\n\r\nDio himself as a lecturer is very polarizing; I found I didn't like him at first, along with the content, but eventually I found that he was not too bad. He is very witty and quick on the nose. He tends to be very thorough, although because of the material this meant that class time was a little snoozy.\r\nIf he was teaching a course that was more interesting I would take him again.\r\nThe homework was not too bad and neither were the exams. However he chose not to have a final but instead a doubly weighted homework (probably to spare himself the trouble of grading a final), but this is a pro for most students (including me). Feel bad for the grader though.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-15T00:52:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': 'Cruel grader and arrogant.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-15T04:42:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH424', 'review': "He's a bit crazy, but he's a good teacher", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-11T01:38:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH424', 'review': "He's a savage but he really does care about his students. He roasts you when you are unattentive but it's out of genuine honesty. Always attend his lectures as they are legendary. I usually zone out while I attend lectures but for this class, Dio always makes them entertaining and he explains concepts super well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-18T02:23:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH424', 'review': 'Good lecturer, very passionate about the material. Can be a bit intimidating at times, but going to lectures and asking questions makes the class pretty enjoyable. He follows the textbook very closely, and holds reviews before every exam. The course is an easy A if you have a strong background in probability and can learn finance terms. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T06:15:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH424', 'review': 'Dio is a very passionate about his teaching. The content of the course is heavy with finance terms and dio does a great job of explaining the concepts in lecture. His lectures are very entertaining and he keeps you engaged, but if you miss lecture catching up can be difficult. He also gives out hints and tips for exams and Homeworks during lecture, so attending class is important for getting a good grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-04T20:51:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'course': 'MATH424', 'review': 'I like Prof. Margetis very much. He looks like a strict guy but he is funny and super passionate. We had great class atomsphere and everyone can ask questions. He teaches the class very clearly and all the things are easy to follow. It is great that he allows formula sheet for exams, exams are easy if you understand. Notes will not be posted so please pay attention to all the lectures.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-23T23:42:50.384612Z'}], 'name': 'Dionisios Margetis', 'slug': 'margetis'}, {'courses': ['PSYC301', 'PSYC221', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC221', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC221', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC221', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC221', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC221', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC221'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'A really engaging professor who genuinely cares about his students! Standard lectures with powerpoints, but Professor Parham made them pretty interesting and enjoyable to attend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-27T16:12:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "EASILY my favorite professor of all of freshman year! He very clearly loves teaching & psychology and has never had a boring lecture. I took PSYC100 and it was definitely on the easy side because he makes it a personal mission to make sure everyone in the class is doing well. He was also super accommodating with the online classes, and he's one of the reasons I'm now a psych major. take his class!! you will NOT regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-04-29T01:55:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "He is the best professor ever!! The lectures are always interesting and his main priority is for us to learn instead of forcing us to do random assignments and stress us out. The class is so chill, but enables you to get a lot out of it if you're interested. The textbook is pretty interesting too so just take notes from that and you'll be perfectly fine. He does exam reviews that are literally based on the exam so you don't have to worry about that either. Cool class and amazing professor!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-20T04:38:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "A top-notch professor who cares about students, is knowledgeable on the subject matter, and goes out of his way to help and explain things. His lectures and assignments were manageable and focused on actually help you learn the material (versus busy work). His syllabus was well outlined and he followed it pretty well, and his grades always well kept and even automatically applied the dropped material. Also, don't miss his exam reviews, he literally reviews the exact exam you will take. The only drawback I can mention is that he is very confident in his knowledge and has the occasional obscure (strange) belief; however, he does mention that he is willing to debate anything with anyone so if you are willing to take the time to talk with him this isn't an issue. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-08T19:50:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Literally one of the best professors I have had. So understanding, will let you make up anything and make sure you get the best grade that you can get. You can tell that he truly cares about his students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-10T16:08:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'IF YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO TAKE HIM, DO IT! One of the best professors I have had so far. Very organized and makes lectures and topics super easy to follow. There are 7 essay but he is a pretty chill grader and in smaller classes he will given opportunities for feedback before grading the paper. He does not put in 0 for late assignment unless you do not do anything. One of the best natural science classes to take! He does exam reviews and gives out candy!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-11T20:42:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Definitely the kindest professor ever, so glad that I had the opportunity to take his class. He teaches virtually from Florida but makes online learning so fun and easy to follow/understand. He's a very fair grader and very understanding. He has a rule that if something is due at 11:59, he won't count it as late as long as you hand it in before 10 AM the next day (and even then he doesn't take off many points for late assignments). He also starts every lecture by asking each student how they are and if they have anything fun that they want to share with the class which shows that he actually cares about his students and wants to connect with them. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-19T00:14:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'Professor Parham is so nice and the class is not difficult at all. Just go to his exam reviews where he goes over the entire test and take notes and you should be able to ace the test no problem. I wish I could take him for more classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-19T21:10:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'He is a very helpful and easy going professor. He is always understanding if you communicate with him and offers more than enough help for you to succeed in the course. His reviews basically tell you everything that is going to be on the test. Beyond being a great professor he is also an amazing and friendly person. Professor Parham is more of a friend in the course than an instructor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-24T15:32:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'Quite literally one of the greatest teachers at UMD, not only as a teacher but as a person as well. Professor Parham is very understanding and is there to help you succeed. He helps you understand psychology to a level you can apply it to your daily life, rather than just feed you information. Every assignment was with a purpose, and they were all very engaging. The Scientific Analysis, was definitely the hardest part of this class, but if you work on them in advance you should be fine. Exams were straightforward and easy. This guy is a GOAT. Take him if you see him. Best of luck.\r\n-', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-27T17:25:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'Amazing guy, had fun and learned so much. Some papers and exams/quizzes, but all manageable ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-12T13:31:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'The 5-star reviews are not overexaggerating. As a senior, Professor Parham is one of the instructors who left a significant impact on my career. Not only is he understanding and accommodating to life circumstances, he also genuinely cares about the progress of his students. Taking psyc100 with him reinforced my interest in the field and 4 years later I am just as motivated to learn more about psychology as I was when taking the intro course with Professor Parham. If you have the option to take a class with him, do it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-30T20:57:16.952101Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'I think that Professor Parham was great. I took an online class with him and he was very caring and a nice professor. His lectures were interesting and I was often engaged. He takes late work but of course try to get everything in on time if you can so it does not overwhelm you at the end.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-12T19:21:43.946170Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Great professor, he genuinely wants to teach and help students and his lectures are quite interesting and somewhat interactive. He is overall a great person with an open mind and awareness. If you want an intro to psychology, then definitely take this because even if you don't pursue psychology later, this course will help you out in your life later on.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T00:50:33.521184Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'Professor Parham is easily one of the best professors I have had. He is engaging and truly cares about his students in an impactful way. Super interesting lectures, exams are straight forward, and essays are relevant and simple as long as you do what is asked. Highly recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-16T21:48:49.822845Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Professor Parham is awesome. His class is super easy if you keep up with the work and have a good TA (the TAs grade all the papers). The lectures aren't mandatory because he records all of them but I recommended attending simply because the guy is so interesting and he genuinely cares about your success in the course. There are weekly quizzes, 3 small papers (lowest score gets dropped- GODSEND), a 1500 word final paper, and a multiple choice midterm and final. Highly recommend taking PSYC221 with professor Parham.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T01:51:34.193468Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "insanely great professor, he knows so much about psychology and is a very chill guy. there were some lecture technical difficulties on zoom but they were easy to get pass. the assignments were super easy if you go to lecture. he's also very lenient and overall great prof, take him if you can!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:42:25.721783Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Amazing professor. Very relatable, also there to help you, and gives you helpful feedback.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T20:00:16.458335Z'}, {'professor': 'Dirk Parham', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "I've never met a professor who genuinely cares so much about his students. The lectures are interesting and the course work isn't so hard. \r\nTake professor Parham at any chance you get!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T19:07:13.558219Z'}], 'name': 'Dirk Parham', 'slug': 'parham'}, {'courses': ['MATH643', 'STAT410', 'MATH424', 'STAT400', 'STAT650', 'MATH670', 'SURV410', 'AMSC670', 'MATH671', 'MATH452', 'STAT600', 'DATA601', 'MSML601', 'MATH642', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'DATA400'], 'average_rating': 1.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'You will not learn anything from his lectures. He will spend all of the time writing down formulas and answering questions without any explanation The worst professor ever. Avoid at all cost.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-01-06T22:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'The professor was okay for Stat400. He seemed very nice and wanted to help. However, his lecturng was not good and only a very small amount of people attended. He puts sample responses on Elms before the midterms and final which are very helpful. He also has homework solutions which help teach you the material and prepare you for the weekly quizzes, a generous 40 percent of your grade.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-12-22T12:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "He is impossible to understand. He speaks very quietly, has a thick accent, and is overall a poor lecturer. Lecture is awful, and the majority of the learning in this class is done on your own or in discussion. I had an excellent TA which made discussion tolerable, but I've heard from friends in other sections that several of his TA's are not good.\n\r\nGrading-wise, this class isn't difficult. Weekly quizzes are usually taken directly from homework problems, and the exams were basically mirror images of the practice exams we were given.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-14T18:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'course': None, 'review': "You should take this class with anyone else. Seriously. Dolgopyat is the worst lecturer I have had to date in any class. He makes this class far more confusing than it has to be in lecture; the material itself isn't difficult. It's just probabilities, means, and standard deviations, but Dmitri will give you overly complicated formulas and actively confuse you. That's not to mention that he lectures through a thick accent and monotone mumbling, so he is very hard to understand or pay attention to. We're halfway into the semester, and only 30 kids show up to the 200 person lecture anyone because the lecture is almost useless. If you have this class with him, you are better off teaching the material to yourself or with friends on your own time than going to lecture.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-04T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'course': None, 'review': "The review below does a good job of highlighting the fact that he does not speak clearly at all. His accent and his tendency to speak very softly makes it extremely hard to understand anything he's saying. This translates into being a very poor professor overall, and he tends to go over the problems, so fast that going to the lectures accomplishes literally nothing. Most of the class ends up just studying the entire course out of the book since he does not help at all. The weekly quizzes are 40% of your overall grade, which means if you have a bad TA who does not speak english then you are screwed. I would say that Prof. Dolgopyat is not a good professor for this course, and he does not curve since he does not care about his students one bit. Try to take this course with someone else besides him; this class will be much easier with anyone else. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-13T23:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "Though Prof. Dolgopyat is not the best lecturer (he tends to speak very fast or very low) he does make up for it by providing a wide array of problems, and goes over each one thoroughly. Most people in the class earned an A with a couple almost failing because they were a little too cocky (ppl who scored A's on exams) and decided not to do the HW (worth 25% of grade). He did give them a pass but I don't know if he will do that in the future. All in all three exams and HW is not much to stress a person out but be warned, if you can't follow what the prof is writing on the board without listening to them explain it then you will not fair well in his class. As I've said before he doesn't speak clearly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T18:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "His lectures are useless. You'll basically be learning the material entirely on your own. Also, the average on our final was a 56% and he STILL didn't curve. I urge anyone to take STAT410 with someone else or STAT400.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-05-17T18:04:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "Can't understand his teachings at all", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-01-04T07:38:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'course': 'DATA601', 'review': "You better teach yourself, he speaks English with a very thick accent which confuses me all the time. Homeworks are hard if you don't work with others(who are smarter than you). ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-20T02:00:19Z'}], 'name': 'Dmitry Dolgopyat', 'slug': 'dolgopyat'}, {'courses': ['EDHD230', 'EDHD424', 'EDHD751', 'EDHD320'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Doireann Renzi', 'course': 'EDHD230', 'review': 'Dr. Renzi is a sweet sweet angel. Class is super engaging and easy as long as you are at least semi paying attention. So good to her students and truly cares about their well-being. 10/10 recommend this course ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-14T23:25:04Z'}], 'name': 'Doireann Renzi', 'slug': 'renzi'}, {'courses': ['MUSC602', 'MUSC605', 'MUSP619X', 'MUSP620X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dominic Cossa', 'slug': 'cossa'}, {'courses': ['ENAE482', 'ENAE481', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE481', 'ENAE482', 'ENAE481'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dominic Palumbo', 'course': 'ENAE481', 'review': "His lectures are hard to follow because you can't really understand what he says and his handwriting on the board is terrible. However, he makes up for it by making typed notes accessible to students. These notes cover everything on the quizzes and most of everything you need to do the homework. For the rest, you can e-mail him and he'll get back to you promptly. You still have to go to class because he takes attendance but you don't have to pay attention (no one does). \n\r\nMake sure you study for the quizzes by reading the lecture notes and start your project early. Our group started the weekend before it was due and I had to put in over 15 hours of work on it alone. He says he doesn't curve but I ended up with a 82% but I still got an A. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-14T19:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dominic Palumbo', 'course': 'ENAE482', 'review': "The second design course is a big step up in workload from the first course. The material is really interesting, but Dr. Palumbo's lectures are dry. I utilized his Word Documents to do the homeworks and mini-projects. The final project needs to be started in advance if you wanna do well on it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-09-22T13:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dominic Palumbo', 'course': 'ENAE481', 'review': "It's cool to get be taught a design course from a guy who has designed two big time aircraft being used today. His lectures are pretty dry, but the material itself can be pretty interesting. He does a good job breaking down the process of designing an aircraft, and I would definitely save his Word Document lectures. You can probably get away with starting his design project the week before finals, but I would definitely recommend starting it after Thanksgiving. The one mid-term we had was a take-home exam, but his 3 in class quizzes were sometimes difficult. Overall, a good professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-22T05:52:00Z'}], 'name': 'Dominic Palumbo', 'slug': 'palumbo'}, {'courses': ['ENME351', 'ENME481', 'ENME808E', 'ENME489B', 'ENME740', 'ENME202', 'ENME441', 'ENME202', 'ENME441', 'ENME202', 'ENME441'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Don DeVoe', 'course': 'ENME202', 'review': 'Good. Hard course and slightly boring lectures, but fair exams. Homework was not easy, but good for learning material', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-05-25T01:15:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Don DeVoe', 'course': 'ENME202', 'review': 'Best professor I have had so far. Explains concepts really well, and takes the time to create really engaging course material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-20T13:10:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Don DeVoe', 'course': 'ENME489B', 'review': "Great professor. Really cares about his students. Though if you're not good at learning the material, you'll have a harder time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-08T20:48:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Don DeVoe', 'course': 'ENME202', 'review': 'DeVoe was an okay teacher, but a chill person that likes to joke from time to time. His lecture notes were simple to follow and review, but the studio and homework assignments were more complex than what was taught in the lecture. A big way to learn the material came from going to TA/TF office hours. Since this was done virtually, not sure how the class will run in person, but if possible, going to office hours and working with friends is a big way to be successful in the course.\r\n\r\nDeVoe struggled with online learning as he had technical difficulties throughout the semester, but he was very knowledgeable about MATLAB and C++. DeVoe tried his best, but the course itself is challenging if you are unfamiliar with coding.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-20T15:05:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Don DeVoe', 'course': 'ENME441', 'review': "Lecturing on how to code is never easy. He put in a lot of effort though. We had a lot of technical difficulties this semester. He never let things outside of our control (technical difficulties, his errors, etc) affect our grades and he granted extensions for the class often. If you reach out he'll likely accommodate you.\r\n\r\nThe class was challenging, but fun. I hardly listened to lectures because they were so hard to pay attention to and learn from. Lecture slides are your friend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-21T06:09:45Z'}], 'name': 'Don DeVoe', 'slug': 'devoe'}, {'courses': ['BMGT289M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Donal Donovan', 'slug': 'donovan'}, {'courses': ['NACS642', 'EDHD775', 'EDHD314', 'EDHD420', 'EDHD315', 'EDHD310', 'NACS898', 'EDHD228', 'EDHD200', 'EDHD310', 'EDHD314', 'EDHD200', 'EDHD425', 'EDHD310', 'EDHD310', 'EDHD314'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Donald Bolger', 'course': 'EDHD425', 'review': 'Bolger rules, he is really helpful and is very interested in what he does. Very accessible and easy to talk to, not a terribly harsh grader, exams are pretty fair.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-13T23:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Bolger', 'course': 'EDHD310', 'review': "Easy course, good gened to take. Work load very light, no need to pay attention in lecture. Bolger is chill and will do a good job explaining concepts to you if you're actually interested.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-02T19:14:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Bolger', 'course': 'EDHD310', 'review': "I took EDHD310 with Donald Bolger in Fall 2021, and let's just say that it was my favorite class in three years of college. Dr. Bolger was a fantastic professor. Other commentators are correct in that the workload is light and you don't have to pay much attention in class if you prefer. However, Bolger always made the lectures very interesting. He's passionate, knowledgeable, and interested in what he teaches. He stays up to date with research, and he's willing to answer any question you have both on research and how it applies to your own personal learning. Although the class was easy, I feel as though I learned and retained so much valuable information on the subject.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-24T20:51:26.505634Z'}], 'name': 'Donald Bolger', 'slug': 'bolger'}, {'courses': ['PUAF689X', 'PUAF620', 'PUAF388K', 'PUAF711', 'PUAF101', 'PLCY100', 'PLCY688G', 'PLCY101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Donald Kettl', 'slug': 'kettl'}, {'courses': ['HISP701', 'HISP711', 'HISP600', 'HISP655', 'HISP660', 'HISP710', 'HISP645', 'HISP679', 'HISP629', 'HISP619L', 'ANTH496', 'ANTH696', 'SUMM015', 'EXST030', 'HISP629', 'HISP629', 'HISP655', 'HISP660', 'HISP701', 'HISP710', 'HISP711', 'HISP629', 'HISP645', 'HISP660', 'HISP701', 'HISP710', 'HISP711', 'HISP629'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Donald Linebaugh', 'slug': 'linebaugh'}, {'courses': ['MIEH780', 'MIEH688', 'MIEH783', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH785', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH609', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH688', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH688', 'MIEH783', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH688', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH688', 'MIEH786'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Donald Milton', 'slug': 'milton_donald'}]
[{'courses': ['BMGT301', 'BMGT405', 'BUDT758Q', 'BUDT705', 'ENTS635', 'BUDT758Z'], 'average_rating': 1.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Donald Riley', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Riley was okay. He rambled a LOT in every class, and usually spent the first 30 minutes solving technical issues and going over homework. He did try to make the class more interesting by getting us involved in discussions and talking about timely topics, but I always found myself drifting away. If you already know a lot about technology (which you probably do if you're majoring in IS) then you'll find yourself very bored most of the time. This is definitely tailored to the less tech-inclined part of the business school.\n\r\nThe homeworks are worth a LOT of points so make sure you do them and do them well. The exams are okay. The first one had a few Excel problems that you had to solve, but the rest is just short written responses and a matching section. The final was pretty much all written responses and matching. There's also a group project that's fairly easy.\n\r\nIf you're expecting a ton of hands-on work with databases, this isn't the class. It's a lot more focused on conceptual matters.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-06T20:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Riley', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "One of the worst professors to have ever step foot on the face of the Earth. He speaks in monotone and expects everyone to memorize the most minute details on tests. Quizzes are absolutely laughable as sometimes they are worth 35 points while others are worth 10 points. For assignments, the guy shows random unrelated slides and expects students to go home and ace the assignment. He makes everyone bring laptops but even if he does not, everyone would bring them because you'd rather be studying material from middle school then listen to his babble for 75 minutes.\n\r\nThe TA is completely incompetent and simply put, horrific. I get exasperated every time I receive my assignment grade because of the idiot's inability to grade. It takes him 5 days to respond to an email and is never approachable outside of class. It is as if he has a social hatred for the world, besides the professor that he works. They were meant to be together, to say the least. Highly recommended if you want to go through the worst time of your life. Not recommended if you desire otherwise.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-16T01:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Riley', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'He has absolutely no business being in a classroom. He knows a lot about the subject but lectures are extremely boring and pointless. Do not ever ask questions because he will tear you down in front of the entire class and make you feel incompetent. Befriend the TA because he grades everything and if you argue about your grade on something you can usually get some points back. Basically do not take his class unless you already know a lot about the subject so you can just teach yourself.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-27T17:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Riley', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "This guy is the worst professor to take. The TA is on a power trip and will take a ludicrous amount of points off tests and assignments. The tests and quizzes are difficult and don't expect to learn anything in class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-03-30T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Riley', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'This guy is completely incompetent. The class is boring and is a waste of time. Avoid at all cost. This is a universal consensus in the class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-23T17:54:00Z'}], 'name': 'Donald Riley', 'slug': 'riley_donald'}, {'courses': ['HIST436', 'HIST447', 'HIST608C', 'HIST428B', 'HIST446', 'HIST328G', 'HIST328K'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Donald Sutherland', 'course': None, 'review': 'stricter grader but I really enjoyed his course on Old Regime France. Understanding of students, good lectures, fair workload. overall it was a well taught class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-08-21T19:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Sutherland', 'course': None, 'review': 'Tough professor but fair. The key to doing well on the papers is to use text sources over internet sources. He even offered extra credit, which turned out to be the difference in my getting an A over a B. The midterm and final were both pretty difficult, but if you do the extra credit and focus on the papers, you should do fine.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-01-27T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Sutherland', 'course': None, 'review': "He was a fair grader. Not many grades or assignments in the class, so not much work involved. His class isn't too exciting, but if you like the subject it shouldn't be hard paying attention.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T04:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Sutherland', 'course': None, 'review': "I didn't like this professor at all really. We had basically two papers, a midterm, and a final. The papers are the only assignments so that would most likely determine your grade for this course. The papers are worth a lot of points so turn them in on time and well done. He's very serious about plagiarism and he said he was good at finding it so beware. Some people plagiarized in his class and either had a choice of taking an F for the paper which was worth a lot of points or he would turn them in into the honor council. NO REWRITE if you were found plagiarizing. Beware.... especially if you like to procrastinate a paper last minute. His teaching style is like my grandfather telling me some war stories. He rarely ever put anything on the board. I would not recommend him at all. Don't take him if you don't have to. I wish I dropped the course in the first few days of class.WORD OF ADVICE: Don't take this course because its only twice a week, big mistake I'm sure you will regret because he is boring and horrible.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-01-07T07:50:00Z'}], 'name': 'Donald Sutherland', 'slug': 'sutherland'}, {'courses': ['ENEE150', 'ENEE446', 'ENEE488', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE150', 'ENEE150', 'ENEE646', 'ENEE150', 'ENEE646'], 'average_rating': 4.8125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "It seems that every course that Yeung teaches is very challenging, but he is also a very good professor that is able to explain concepts very well. Do not procrastinate on the projects or you won't finish, seriously. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-09-30T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': 'By far my favorite professor! He cares so much about his students and will always make time for you! Take Yeung for every course that you possibly can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-06-29T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "I'll start of by giving the downsides of professor Yeung. His 150 class is HARD. I took 140 my first semester and had no trouble at all in that class. I thought 150 would be roughly the same but its not. He usually gives 2 weeks per project and the projects usually take that amount of time. I think I only completed one project in it's entirety, not because I didn't know how to do them, but because they are that time consuming and I ran out of time. Whenever you get a project in this class, make your best effort to start it on day 1.\n\r\nAside from that, Yeung is a great professor. He explains the content really well and is really REALLY helpful. I cannot stress that enough. This guy is like the C whisperer. He makes his best effort to help all students who come to him for help on projects, and almost every time does a good job of finding your problem and helping you fix it. If you send him problems early enough, he will even de-bug your code for you, saving you a lot of time. He is also quite reasonable. I missed two of the four quizzes, and he allowed me to take the average of the third and fourth quiz as my grades for the first two. His midterms are also reasonable. They aren't difficult, just there to make sure that you know the material. If you do, you will usually get at least a B, even with minimal studying.\n\r\nOverall, don't expect to get an easy A in this class. If you want an easy A, look to Hawkins (though I hear hes a terrible professor). If you're looking to learn how to program in C, then Yeung is your guy. Even if you don't get an A in the class, you will come out of the semester with a really strong understanding of the language. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-06T13:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': 'Yeung is a great teacher and explains the material pretty well. His lectures can get a bit boring at times, but overall very solid at teaching the content.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-21T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "One of the best teachers I have ever seen when it comes to teaching. If you don't have much programming experience this class will be hard at first, and you'll need to put in some extra effort. That being said, his exams aren't tricky, they're just there to make sure you know concepts.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-21T15:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': 'Best professor I have had at UMD. He is an amazing lecturer, who really cares about whether or not the students are learning. My best advice is go to lecture!..Start on projects early!\n\r\nYou will get an a if you miss no lecture or discussion, and put in an effort.\n\r\nOverall, he makes this class a good/interesting learning experience', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-07T00:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "Very very very good. Take this professor. Avoid Hawkins. He is straightforward, clear, logical, and won't trip you up on the tests.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-16T02:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': 'Great professor. This is a really smart man who really knows how to run a class well. Fair quizes, very fair tests. Tough projects but I learned a lot from them. Will most definitely take this professor again if I come across him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T02:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': None, 'review': 'Yeung is a good professor whos lectures are very planned but informative. The big projects he gives are very important\r\nand it really helps to get started early on those. The class is tough but not impossible. Also NEVER turn anything even a minute late because he will not give you credit no matter what.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-28T21:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Yeung is very helpful, the class can be difficult especially if you don't have prior programming experience but just go get help from yeung, he helps out alot and if you fall behind early its almost impossible to catch back up.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-14T11:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': None, 'review': 'most horrible class ever!!! dont take it', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-29T20:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': "Great professor who is extremely knowledgeable bout the subject matter. Lectures are extremely interesting as a CE major. It's a tough class but very rewarding. The projects in the class are extremely relevant and engaging but they do take a lot of time. Do yourself a favor and start early to get ahead of the curve.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-01-24T15:29:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "I have mixed feelings about Dr. Yeung's teaching style. I respect him immensely, as his passion for the subject is very clear in his lectures and through the involved and engaging classwork that he assigns, however after finishing 150 I don't feel that it was taught as well as it could've been. \r\n\r\nI might be an odd person out here, but I found it incredibly hard to focus during his lectures. Especially when getting into the meat of the class - data types - I felt that his lectures were a little too high level for me to stay focused. By this I mean that he did a good job explaining conceptually what different data types and structures represent, and especially how they integrate with computer hardware, but I feel that he didn't focus enough on software implementation. He did use many code examples to try to make up for this, but personally I felt that the examples he used were way too complicated for a lecture in terms of gaining a quick understanding of implementing a new data type. They are useful for studying at home when one can dive deep into understanding the programs, but they're often too involved for the purposes of an intro lecture. Maybe other people could follow the code examples better than I could, but I consider myself to be a pretty bright guy and I could absolutely never pick up on the real-time code examples fast enough to follow.\r\n\r\nI loved his projects. They were hard, but really rewarding. The projects are actually useful extensions of what we learned in class and almost every exam problem can be traced back to something on a project. I probably spent about 8-15 hours on each project, usually in two or three days, and ended up with high A's on all of them. If you work with and pass his given test vectors you're basically guaranteed an A, but it does take a lot of time and effort to do so. \r\n\r\nThe exams are fair. They are difficult though. Thankfully, the midterms and final only count for 35% of the final grade, so these aren't major stressors throughout the course. \r\n\r\nIn the end, I have mixed feelings about this course. Yeung certainly does a great job running this class, and you'll end up with a lot of knowledge about C. I mainly just wish that his lectures could be restructured to be more engaging, by focusing on easy-to-grasp examples for coding implementation of new concepts. \r\n\r\nFor reference of difficulty in this course, I found it to be more difficult and time-consuming than ENEE222 (Papa) and ENEE205 (Murphy) to get an A in.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-29T05:24:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': 'Tough course, but very good lectures and you will learn a lot. I also had him for ENEE150 and thought he was a good professor for that as well; certainly the best out of him, Hawkins and Qu.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-05-24T13:51:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "I didn't get a bad grade in this course because of professor yeung, I got a bad grade because I suck at coding. That being said, it was because of Dr yeung that I did not get a worse grade than what I got. He was an extremely good lecturer. I could tell he was very passionate about what he does. Unfortunately, the online environment hindered him because he wasn't really able to ask questions and interact with his class, but this is not a reason to rate him any less than a 5. He was always willing to help out if you reached out, and held additional office hours at opportune times. Homeworks and projects don't overlap, so you aren't dying with assignments. Projects were fairly hard, but also prepared you well for exams, and overall, I felt like I learned a lot and did better than I thought I would ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-02-02T05:20:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Donald Yeung', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "Dr. Yeung is definitely one of my favorite ECE professors. For starters, he's really personable and enthusiastic when you talk to him and when he teaches. He goes above and beyond to try to help his students, and he encourages you to reach out and talk to him. He is also very knowledgeable on the course he teaches, which is definitely reassuring. \r\n\r\nIn terms of the course, our lecture portion of the course was designated in covering the concepts needed for our assignments. My only critique about the lectures is that he would spend quite a lot of time talking through pre-coded examples, which some might find beneficial (but for me it wasn't). The examples were helpful for the assignments given to us, many of which you could take the code directly from. We had 4 projects, 4 pop quizzes and 3 homework assignments over the semester. We used discussion section time to cover the lecture's content again, the TA's offering a lot of assistance in clarifying concepts while providing helpful examples for assignments. \r\n\r\nWith all of this being said, ENEE150 is a tough course. As someone who took ENEE150 without taking ENEE140 (credits covered by another course), I had no background in C, but by the end of the course I felt relatively comfortable with most of the concepts. However, this experience might not be shared by everyone. Projects had a 2-week deadline, but they were pretty time-consuming. I would normally spend about a week on each project, but thankfully, I thought all of them were pretty cool and interesting. Some were easier than others, but completion of them relied a lot on learning outside of class. One really great thing about Dr. Yeung is that he would hold additional office hours for the projects close to their due dates; this would include weekend office hours and multiple office hours on the same day. Exams were probably the most feared part of the course. Practice exams were not offered, so in order to study, you would be dependent on the coding examples from lectures and from the TA's. While exams were open-notes, the averages for the midterms and final were in the 60's. The reassuring part of all of this is that Dr. Yeung heavily curves the final grade for this course; it was probably an 8-10% curve, which was surprising even for me.\r\n\r\nOverall, I would highly recommend Dr. Yeung. You are going to have to work a lot for this course, but you will definitely leave the course with a lot of knowledge about C.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-25T02:45:19Z'}], 'name': 'Donald Yeung', 'slug': 'yeung_donald'}, {'courses': ['MEES698B', 'MEES608R', 'MEES708M', 'MEES608R', 'MEES698B', 'MEES608R', 'MEES612', 'MEES708M', 'MEES713'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dong Liang', 'slug': 'liang_dong'}, {'courses': ['BMGT301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dongwon Lee', 'slug': 'lee_dongwon'}, {'courses': ['CHBE101', 'CHBE486', 'ENCH609', 'ENCH640', 'ENCH686', 'ENCH648E', 'ENCH609', 'CHBE486', 'CHBE686', 'CHBE486', 'CHBE686'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dongxia Liu', 'course': 'CHBE486', 'review': "Pretty enjoyable and interesting tech elective that requires less effort than other tech electives in the catalog. There were 7 homeworks and they DEFINITELY got easier as the semester went on... I think the professor did that on purpose because the second exam was also way easier than the first one. And prof heavily implied the final is not gonna be that hard (fingers crossed). A drawback may be that this elective requires a 10 min presentation to go along with the paper, where some of the other electives only require the paper. However, I think the paper was also shorter than comparable papers in other tech electives, based on a convo I had with a dude who took E-chem with Albertus this semester.\r\n\r\nI think prof Liu's lectures themselves are also pretty good. She's clearly knowledgeable on the subject, since her research is mostly on catalysis. She follows the book (which is also not difficult to read btw), but makes her own slides and usually switches things up between slides, writing stuff on the white board, the occasional video etc. She asks the students questions, tries to get them to participate and is generally very encouraging. Her lesson planning is pretty thought out. A lot of the content in this class is qualitative, which is sorta refreshing after multiple years slogging through endless ChemE math hell. (Exam 2 was mostly qualitative) The content varies a ton since this is sort of a survey course, and it's also why the 2nd half of the semester involves fewer equations than the 1st half. Not gonna lie though, there's some quantum in the middle of the semester that gets pretty dry.\r\n\r\nInteresting, relatively easy class with an organized and enthusiastic professor. Glad I took it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T00:09:53Z'}], 'name': 'Dongxia Liu', 'slug': 'liu_dongxia'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'PHYS170', 'PHYS299B', 'PHYS399D', 'PHYS399F', 'PHYS399C', 'PHYS399E', 'PHYS299A', 'PHYS204', 'PHYS205', 'PHYS399W', 'PHYS399Y', 'PHYS298D', 'PHYS399I', 'PHYS170', 'PHYS399D', 'PHYS399E', 'PHYS399I', 'PHYS170'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Donna Hammer', 'slug': 'hammer'}, {'courses': ['HLTH130', 'HLTH665', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'HLTH386', 'EXST030', 'HLTH306', 'HLTH306H', 'HLTH306', 'HLTH306H', 'HLTH306', 'HLTH306H', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898'], 'average_rating': 3.8462, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': 'Ended up with an A- and yes she does go on tangents a lot but I just wrote down everything she was saying in class. You can get an A, it is doable! Just make sure you know everything on her study guides. I read the book and the assigned readings on blackboard the night before the exam. I went to every class and printed out the slides before hand to take notes on.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-31T01:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': 'Dr. Howard is a really nice teacher who cares about her students. However, I found the class to be extremely boring. She posts all of her slides online and gives her students great study guides. If you do the study guides, go over the slides extensively, and do the readings you can pull off an A in this class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-06-05T12:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': 'She is pretty dry and boring. she posts everything online so you dont need to go to class, BUT sometimes she will hint at specific things during class that will show up on the exam (and they always did). pretty much 4 exams, which were only 33-40 MC questions. this is one of those classes where its easy to get a B, but hard to get an A if you get just a few questions wrong.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': "yikes. she's very off the wall. Her exams are a pain, and even worst are her lectures. You really have to focus and following along with every word she is saying in order to do well. you're grade is only based off of 4, 30 question exams (no curves). would have definitely avoided if it were possible.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-16T02:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': "Dr. Howard is great. She's pretty funny and smart.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-02T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': "She's a very knowledgable professor and is enthusiastic about the material she's teaching, but the class can feel VERY long since it is straight powerpoint.\r\nA lot of times the material is actually interesting, and the book we had to use (Intro to Public Health) was very easy to understand. As a KNES major taking this as an elective, however, I wish I picked a different class. Though the information is interesting, her ONLY grades are the 3 exams, with no curves. That would be my only complaint. Make sure you study the power points VERY well and attend class, because she says some things in class that are important, and pulls many questions right off the powerpoint.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-17T16:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': 'This class is SO boring. I dread going to it every tuesday and thursday. That being said, if you put in any work at all its super easy. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-14T00:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': "Professor Howard is an awesome professor. When I came to UMD I pretty much knew where I wanted to be in the field. Her teaching has really broadened my thinking and now I don't know where I want to be. There are so many options.\n\r\nHer exams are not difficult if you take the time to study and ask questions if there are things you do not understand. \n\r\nAlso, our class was fortunate to have Toni as a TA...omg she is great!!! Both Prof. Howard and Toni were on one accord regarding everyone getting the most out of HLTH130. They did everything within their power for the students to succeed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-26T17:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': 'Great Teacher and Great TA (Toni) they are extremely nice and will go out of their way to help you. \r\nTests are all about the lecture slides and they seem to mostly consist of "All of these EXCEPT" type questions. My only complaint is its kinda hard to get an A but its very easy to get a B.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-15T23:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': "Dr. Howard is certainly passionate about her field. She always puts 100% into her lectures, although I did find myself sometimes drifting because she'd go into so much detail on certain things. That said, she's a very nice professor and poses a lot of questions to the class which I like. In fact it's very nice, since there's no discussion section for the class. \n\r\nThe exams aren't too bad, although they're really all about memorization. If you're great at memorizing then you'll do very well. If your strength lies in analyzing and the like, then you might find them a little harder. Overall you definitely get what you put into it. Do the readings and go to lecture and you'll definitely get a B and probably an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-13T19:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': "Professor Howard is an awesome professor in my opinion. She knows what shes talking about. I know the lectures may be boring to those who dont care about this stuff but I found it really interesting. Shes one of the nicest professors I've met and she just loves her job which makes her a good professor. The exams are fairly straightforward if you put the effort into it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-18T20:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': "I have a completely opposite view of Dr. Howard than Anonymous below. Dr. Howard is a great teacher. Her material is interesting... you can tell she really loves what she does and has a genuine interest in how society's structure affects the health outcomes of the community.\n\r\nThe course was very discussion-based which I loved, because students got to share all of their different ideas and beliefs, and we could bring those discussions together to see the bigger picture of public health.\n\r\nThe courseload is not difficult at all, just 3 MC exams and one cumulative MC final. She doesn't try to trick you, and you won't run into any problems if you just read the exam questions and answers thoroughly before answering. I got As on all of the exams and the final (took me 12 minutes to complete)... no tricks, no help. \n\r\nStudy about two days before the exam and you'll be fine. I suggest printing out the lecture slides before class and taking notes on them as she talks, because while most of the exam is on what's found in lecture slides, some answers are derived from class discussion and comments made by Dr. Howard. Overall, Dr. Howard is very nice and open to any questions or concerns about the course material, and she loves when people visit her office to talk about public health. She wants to engage everyone, which I think is an awesome quality for a professor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-06T11:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Donna Howard', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': "Dr. Howard kinda sucks to have as a professor, but you don't really have a choice since she's the only one that teaches hlth130. She doesn't curve at all, and so our second exam had a C average and she still refused to curve. Luckily the printer people failed to print the right number exams for our third exam so she made it take home, but if she hadn't made it take home I think I would have gotten a C in the class, I got a C on the final even though I studied hard. The only advice is to go to lecture and not goof off on your laptop because her powerpoint notes suck so you actually have to pay attention to what she says. Also read the exam questions carefully, she has an obnoxious habit of asking EXCEPT or THE BEST ANSWER type questions.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2010-05-24T11:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Donna Howard', 'slug': 'howard_donna'}, {'courses': ['EDCI322'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Donna Paoletti Phillips', 'slug': 'phillips_donna'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'WMST263', 'WMST265', 'AASP298I', 'AASP298B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Donnesha Blake', 'slug': 'blake'}, {'courses': ['HONR268L', 'HONR269E', 'HONR218J', 'HONR348D', 'HONR228J', 'BSOS388B', 'HNUH228Y', 'HNUH228Y', 'AASP101', 'HHUM205', 'AASP202', 'AASP487', 'AASP687'], 'average_rating': 2.9583, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR218J', 'review': 'I will not recommend anyone who wants a easy A or a easy seminar to take this class.\n\r\nWe have to finish two 5-7 page papers, one 12-15 final paper, three quizzes, one team debate and one personal presentation. Besides, we have to read for every class and have to participate.\n\r\nWriting is a major portion here, so if you are not into writing, do not take this class.\n\r\nFor this professor, she can challenge some of our conventional thoughts which I appreciate. However, she structured this class way too big and broad so feeling lost in this class is normal. \n\r\nOverall, I will not recommend this class to anyone, neither this professor. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-25T13:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR268L', 'review': 'Nice lady, but if you are not a raging liberal, do not take this class', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-08T14:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR218J', 'review': 'This course was supposed to be about sustainability, and all it turned into was an ECON course with some talk about human issues in the world. The readings she assigns are all rehashes of the same thing. She threatens you with a quiz every class, but she only gave three throughout the whole semester. Her grading system for papers is extremely subjective and nonsensical. The class is a bore as well. She constantly tries to "provoke" you, by asking a rhetorical question and then getting upset when no one answers. I don\'t recommend taking this course or any course with this professor.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-05-14T21:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR268L', 'review': "It might have just been the structure and nature of HONR268L, but I did not think that Professor Grant-Wisdom was a very good Professor. Her class consisted of discussions of the assigned reading in every class, as well as other pertinent concepts to the overall topic of immigration in the U.S. While the topic of the course was interesting, I did not think that the readings did much to further my knowledge and thinking on the concept. A big chunk of your grade is based on class participation and quizzes, so you have to make sure that you stay on top of all of the assigned readings (which can get extremely dry at times). Her grading on the op-ed papers appeared very arbitrary and it was very unclear on how to get an A in her class. While the grade distribution might suggest a high majority of students receiving As, it did not seem like this was the case. In fact, this class required the most work out of any class to just get a B+. I personally don't recommend taking this course with this professor.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-05-25T18:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR269E', 'review': "Pretty boring class. Just like every honors seminar. \n\r\nThe readings aren't even necessary. I read the first two and blew them off the rest of the way and did fine. If you choose not to do the readings you just have to stand out by being vocal and actively participating in the discussion. Though we disagreed with pretty much everything, she respects you if you bring intelligent points up and that goes a long way in determining how you do in the course. \n\r\nThe subject matter is really mundane. I walked out of the course still wondering what I really learned and gained other than an easy A. \n\r\nShe's really nice though and is always enthusiastic about the class each day and does say some thought provoking things. 2 5-7 page papers, and a 12-15 page final paper. Some quizzes scattered throughout on the readings, but I feel like they weren't even worth much of the grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-26T17:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR269E', 'review': 'Great professor, intelligent, knowledgeable, engaging, and just plain nice! Take this class if you want to learn a lot but without the tedious BS of most other seminars.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-21T21:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR269E', 'review': 'Grant-Wisdom is such a good professor. If you\'re in the class for just the grade, don\'t take her class, you won\'t learn anything. Her teaching style is different from your average professor at the University of Maryland. She tries to engage you to think beyond what\'s given to you or implied. She tries to open your eyes to subjects that we are generally unaware of. She tries to give you an education that is beyond memorizing terms and taking exams. She truly wants people to learn. Her papers are about 5-7 pages and there are pop quizzes (30% of the grade) and a debate as well as a 10-12 page paper at the end. If you actually try and DO THE READINGS, you will get a good grade. She has a tendency to not believe students when they say they have read. However, if you show her that you have by participating and even bringing in your own experiences and thinking on a "different level," she will enjoy your company and this helps with grading. The paper topics are usually very general but she provides a series of questions that can guide you through writing them. If you answer all the questions and REFER TO THE IN CLASS READINGS, you should do very well. Reading is very important for her, so definitely do it. Also, there are in-class presentations that the students do every class period. If you take this class, don\'t make it boring for your classmates. Include questions, images and video. Bring in your own stuff. She is very intelligent with a liberal perspective and she loves to rack people\'s brains with difficult questions. She doesn\'t answer them for you which is why some may think she doesn\'t understand questions, but she wants you to think, not to rely on her for your education. Don\'t be mad at her for making you think. \n\r\nLastly, keep up with the news and current events. It helps you as a person understand the world better and also helps you understand the concepts. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-02T09:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR268L', 'review': "She is an excellent professor, who spurs a lot of discussion in my Honors Seminar on US Immigration. We do disagree on political ideaology, I'm a staunch conservative, and she's a liberal, but when you express all of your views constructively, I don't see much of an issue. I am very passionate on such topics, and a plus for taking this class is that you naturally know a lot about current events, and that you keep up with international news. This class surprised me in terms of how many factors affect US Immigration.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-10-13T16:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR269E', 'review': "Piss-poor professor. She's angry, unintelligent and uninspired. Her lectures are mind-numbingly dull and her interaction with the class in mandatory (and wholly unfruitful) discussion periods are just as bad. She often fails to understand questions and comments and regularly responds (and often interrupts) with emphatic non-sequiturs. Lectures vacillate between student presentations (boring), her own crude powerpoint-driven lectures (yawn) and lengthy discussion that she expects to shake us from our collective dogmatic slumber (which might actually work if we didn't have the natural curiosity of students with more intelligence than a sack of bricks).\n\r\nThe class requires two 5-7 page papers, a 10-12 page final paper, a presentation of one of the readings and an in-class debate. In short, it's a lot of grunt work for a class from which you aren't going to learn much anyway. The readings (and there are many!) are rather dry, but you'd better read them well them because she enjoys giving pop quizzes.\n\r\nGrading is based on how much she thinks you care. If it's obvious you don't pay attention in class (she watches like a hawk) then your paper grades will suffer. If you decide to shape up and somehow get her to notice, you can crap on a stick and she'll give you a decent grade.\n\r\nDon't take this class, and don't take her.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-05-28T01:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR269E', 'review': "Teaches as if you know both philosophy and all fundamentals of all governments around the world. The readings are long and tedious but you really don't have to do them if you know the subject well enough to discuss it in class. Really easy grader and you basically are guaranteed an A if you talk in class and put effort into the essays and presentations. No exams. Basically the class is easy to get an A in but you will feel like you really have accomplished nothing in the class because every class you just talk in circles. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-14T01:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': None, 'review': 'Pros: She blasts political correctness to hell, which I find extremely refreshing. Exams are fair and fairly graded.\n\r\nCons: She clearly has an ax to grind, which can get annoying at times.\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-12T00:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "This is a tedious class only in that you have to be an avid listener. I took notes, attended all lectures and discussions (freshman and gvpt major so I didn't know better...) \n\r\nThe tests aren't bad, did well on the first and poorly on the second and who knows about my final and paper (research paper) because I never got them back.\n\r\nAll depends on the TA, I ended up with a B+, spoke to the Professor and she said I should have gotten an A. If you get Benli, you better be a damn good writer and memorizer...?", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-05T22:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'Not the best class you will take. Laptops are required to stay awake, and make it easier to copy down the 7 words per slide she puts on. \r\nThe material is everything that is obvious and implied but rephrased so you have to know it anyway for a test, but the tests are generally easy especially if a study guide is provided. \r\nShe herself is very nice and will definitely recognize you in public. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-23T17:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "Don't worry, you don't have to think at all in this class but you better have your memorization skills up to par. Bring a laptop, I find it's easier to type exactly what she says so you can spit back verbatim on the test. \n\r\nThank god she is a liberal like me! She's one of the view professors who let's her political ideology really color her lectures. Being professional is over-rated.\n\r\nI also loved her because unlike some professors that try to get to know their students, she really leaves that to the TAs. I find it refreshing. I would rather get to know someone my own age anyway. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-03T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "Outstanding speaker! Truly talented. Never before have I had a professor with such an extraordinary ability to put me to sleep. Her uncanny skill at dodging questions is astounding!and the novel-worths of notes that she rambles about in class are such profound nonsense that she's managed to used to same lectures for the past thirty years because no one can understand them. Brilliant! I never thought I'd meet a professor capable of such monotonous drivel that prompts students to audibly groan with delight (or is it pain?) every time she pulls another page of non-information from out her ass.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-03T15:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "Professor Grant-Wisdom gives a LOT of lecture notes, which can be extremely disorganized all hard to follow. The tests are almost entirely note based, so study the notes in detail and you will get A's on the tests.\n\r\nThe material is pretty interesting, although if you are not a GVPT major, I wouldn't take the class. To do well on the tests it takes a lot of studying the detailed notes, and if you aren't interested in politics, it will be very boring.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-12-28T02:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': 'Dr. Grant Wisdom is a pretty boring lecturer, but the course material is quite interesting. She has a heavy Jamaican accent which makes her hard to understand if you are half asleep, but she generally she is comprehendable. Her notes tend to be quite discursive, and on some days it seems that the pages of notes, as well as the class, will never end. Her tests are very straightfoward and if you apply yourself and have the slightest aptitude for writing, you should have no problem earning an A (the TAs tend to grade pretty easily). Bring a lap top to this class! One 10-page paper, 2 exams, and a final. Discussion is mandatory and counts toward your participation grade (20%). There are also a few assignments where we need to write a 2-page (double spaced) summary/review of a movie which we watch in or out of class (about 4 of these assignments throughout the semester).', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-25T22:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "Tip: If your not a GVPT major, chances are you won't like her 100 class. If you are a GVPT major, most like this class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-04-02T10:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great professor with the ability to engage students incredibly interesting subject matter. Very straight forward class structure with notes, readings, and videos which all feed into the exams, very typical gvpt exam. A breath of fresh air in the government department!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-28T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'HORRIBLE.\n\r\nNotes are like foreign language.\n\r\nI could not understand her in class, let alone take down the MASS amount of notes that she put up on the overhead.\n\r\nWORST PROFESSOR I HAVE HAD YET', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-22T22:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "She is a decently interesting professor, and her lectures are good. Some of them are boring, but she usually keeps it somewhat interesting. She can take all sides of an issue during the lectures, which creates the illusion that she is without bias (and that's good.)\n\r\nShe can be non responsive when emailed, though, and she is not without flaws. Her exams are typical GVPT exams, but with multiple choice, too (so about 30 multiple choice, several short answer, and an essay question.)", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-17T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR228J', 'review': "Very nice lady who is constantly trying to say thought provoking things, to varying degrees of success. Her grading is kind of nonsensical and her lectures are boring. In this class, we did two 5-6 page papers, one final 10-15 page paper, teach the class for a day, and lead a debate. Way too much for an honors seminar in my opinion. I'm getting the notion that she tries to inject political economics into everything she touches so if you aren't interested in that, stay away. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-03T18:51:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': 'HONR218J', 'review': 'Do not recommend this class. First half of the semester is easy enough to skate by if you do the readings, as nothing is actually due - however, second half of the semester consists of three papers, two projects, and three pop quizzes. Much of the class is not really anything of substance and I was pretty bored (turned out to be much closer to resembling an economics class than one about sustainability), and she claims to not take sides but "provokes" people by playing devil\'s advocate. She blew up at our class over a misunderstanding about the definition of a word and its connotations about her material. That being said, she is a very nice lady outside of class and genuinely wants to push people into becoming better students. However, she did not post ANY of our few grades on Testudo over the entire semester, and it wasn\'t until the final grade was posted that I had an inkling of how well I did. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-30T00:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'course': None, 'review': 'See Anonymous 05/28/2011', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-08T18:56:48Z'}], 'name': 'Dorith Grant-Wisdom', 'slug': 'grant-wisdom'}, {'courses': ['BCHM675', 'BCHM698', 'BCHM662', 'BCHM461', 'BCHM889A', 'BCHM465', 'BCHM889C', 'BCHM669F'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dorothy Beckett', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': "Hmm for some reason, all of Beckett's reviews (here and on ratemyprofessor) disappeared. Luckily for her, I am going to say some good things about her unlike all her past reviews. \r\nI honestly do not think Beckett is too bad of a professor unlike what all her reviews say about her. Each exam has tons of material and when I say tons, I mean tons! She makes you memorize many mechanisms (e.g., DNA polymeration, amino acylation, all the types of DNA repair, etc) and structures (e.g., the different subunits of DNA polymerase I, II, vs III, the significance of each subunit, etc). She loves asking about old experiments too. If you are good at memorizing material then you should be fine in her class. For all the exams (including the final), I studied the night before and pulled all nighters, and I always ended up getting significantly above average. I think I ended up with a 78%+ and she made a 70% an A. Huge curve.\n\r\nThe great thing about Dr. Beckett is that she actually wants her students to learn and she is genuinely interested in the material. I talked to her a few times after class about some interesting questions related to lecture and we spent approximately an hour each time, discussing and searching for potential answers. \n\r\nHer exams were challenging not because of the content but because of the way she asked her questions. She also gave us old exams to practice but even after looking over her answer keys, my friends and I would always be disappointed of some of her answers. Some of her answers were short and vague and others were just wrong. Her exams are also EXTREMELY LONG!!! Our second exam was 12 pages long in a 50 min lecture period!!! Luckily for me, I was able to finish it (had to guess on a question) but many of my peers would leave the last page completely blank. Then for the third exam she told us that she would make it shorter. And she indeed did.. to 11 pages...\n\r\nTo get on her good side, definitely participate in class and/or go to her office hours. She definitely favors those who participate in class though. Even if she asks a very simple question, if you answer it, she will love you forever. She will pick on you in the class and will probably consider your participation in the class when thinking about your final grade. Your classmates will probably hate you but if you are doing poorly in the class or if you are worried about the class then you have to be that person. I for one rarely participated in class but I occassionally talked to her after class and asked her good questions. She called me out a few times and I answered questions but I never voluntarily participated.\n\r\nIn conclusion, stray away from the rumors you heard of Beckett. She is a little unorganized and she sort of has a childish personality, but she is very welcoming and wants her students to learn. If you work hard in her class you will get an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-06-29T02:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorothy Beckett', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "I can't let this woman have a good 4/5 rating with how terrible she has been this semester. I am a current 461 student during the pandemic. I understand that the online switch is hard, but this woman is the most disrespectful person I have ever met. She gives us 10 minute quizzes that should take at least 20 and constantly gets mad at us when we don't upload on time even though many people experience wifi problems. I do not show up to the lectures anymore because of how terrible she was at explaining all of the concepts. She yells at people during lectures and overall is just not a kind person. I know people write reviews after they have a terrible encounter with a professor as a way to blow off some steam, but I am telling you she sucks as a professor and has been receiving complaints for multiple students for the past 2 months. DO NOT TAKE HER. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-10-22T14:07:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorothy Beckett', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'This course was my most challenging and unfair this semester. I am a current BCHM461 student during the Fall 2020 semester (online and during the pandemic). The amount of lecture time we were required to attend was unreasonable. We signed up for a class that meets twice a week for an hour and 15 min each, which in person would be 2 hours and 30 min per week of class time. This semester, we were required to watch 2 x 1 hour long lectures on our own time AND attend zoom calls during our scheduled class time - almost doubling the amount of class hours per week. I quickly began falling behind in the class due to the amount of hours we were required to put in JUST to watch and attend class (not even counting hours to study the material, complete other assignments, and juggling other courses). Also, her lectures were incredibly hard to follow, as they were disorganized, included blurry slides, and some of her explanations were cut off or unfinished. \r\n\r\nIn addition, the way quizzes were conducted in the beginning of the semester were incredibly stressful. It took several weeks of students raising concerns regarding the turning in process of the quizzes and internet struggles before the professor agreed to switch things (which I and many of the students appreciated greatly). Whenever students did experience problems submitting quizzes, as 80 students trying to submit an assignment at once and many using the unstable campus wifi usually resulted in issues, Dr. Beckett responded by saying her students "needed to work harder" in order to overcome these issues. Her lack of understanding and regard for concerns brought up by her students added to the stressful nature of the course and this semester overall. \r\n\r\nLastly, I often felt as though Dr. Beckett did not treat her students respectfully. Whenever majority of the class did not understand a concept thoroughly enough (based on exam or quiz scores), she often blamed her students for not studying hard enough instead of trying to teach the material again in a better way for her students to understand. On several occasions she spoke to us in a demeaning manner and it felt very discouraging most of the semester. I understand that this semester was stressful for professors as well, but it was no excuse for professors to take it out on their students. Several students have tried to approach her with clarifying questions regarding the course or the material itself and were often met with angry responses from Dr. Beckett, so that students became afraid to ask her questions.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-10T23:12:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Dorothy Beckett', 'course': None, 'review': 'She was ok. Not really lenient about technological errors which was very annoying since she experienced a few herself. She expects us to put in twice the amount of work and effort despite being in other classes. We have to watch 1 hr - 1hr 30 min long lectures and attend her zoom lectures every week. Honestly, I would avoid her.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-21T19:28:00Z'}], 'name': 'Dorothy Beckett', 'slug': 'beckett'}, {'courses': ['ENGL274', 'AASP274'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dorothy Phaire', 'slug': 'phaire'}, {'courses': ['PUAF689E', 'PUAF698A', 'PUAF790', 'PUAF798E', 'PLCY698A', 'PLCY699W', 'PLCY689E', 'PLCY790', 'PLCY699X', 'PLCY689R', 'PLCY699W', 'PLCY699X', 'PLCY689E', 'PLCY790', 'PLCY689T', 'PLCY699N', 'PLCY699N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Douglas Besharov', 'slug': 'besharov'}, {'courses': ['ENES672'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Douglas Britton', 'slug': 'britton_douglas'}, {'courses': ['PUAF790', 'PUAF698A', 'PUAF689E', 'PLCY698A', 'PLCY699W', 'PLCY689E', 'PLCY790', 'PLCY699X', 'PLCY689R', 'PLCY699W', 'PLCY699X', 'PLCY689E', 'PLCY790', 'PLCY689T', 'PLCY699N', 'PLCY699N', 'PLCY699X', 'PLCY690'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Douglas Call', 'slug': 'call_douglas'}, {'courses': ['KNES498W', 'KNES306', 'KNES306', 'KNES306', 'KNES306'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Douglas Collier', 'slug': 'collier_douglas'}, {'courses': ['SPAN301', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN302', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN311'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Douglas Glynn', 'slug': 'glynn'}, {'courses': ['ASTR430', 'ASTR695', 'HONR238W', 'ASTR120', 'ASTR121', 'HONR289V', 'ASTR100', 'ASTR330', 'ASTR450', 'ASTR330', 'ASTR101', 'ASTR630', 'ASTR101', 'ASTR630', 'ASTR630', 'ASTR101', 'ASTR101', 'ASTR101', 'ASTR399', 'ASTR101', 'ASTR399', 'ASTR430', 'ASTR101', 'ASTR399', 'ASTR430'], 'average_rating': 2.5882, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': None, 'review': "Doug Hamilton - Astronomy.\n\r\nThis guy is amazing. He is one of the best professors that I have had at UMD. He is so passionate about astronomy and makes lectures really interesting and fun. I love going into his office hours to get extra help and to talk about random space things. He has made me love space so much that I am adding an astronomy minor!\n\r\nIt is definitely one of the more difficult non science major labs because the labs and homework can be sort of tough and the tests are very challenging. The average on all of our tests have been D's. With that being said it is not impossible to get an A on a test as long as you study a lot and care about what you are learning. He also curves the tests a lot so that the average is a C/B. He gives an extra credit point or two at 95% of the lectures which helps a lot. \n\r\nGreat guy, great class, don't take it if you want to easily get an A, take it if space interests you and you want to learn a lot about it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-12-01T23:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR450', 'review': "ASTRONOMY - Doug Hamilton\r\n------------------------\n\r\nPretty good lecturer. Very funny.\n\r\nThe course itself was pretty difficult at times, but putting in your time will get you a good grade. Go to the study sessions he provides, ask questions, read the book, go to class, do the homework early, and you'll learn a lot. (If you're reading this review for his lower level astronomy classes, it won't be nearly as difficult as ASTR450, but you still have to put in a little work. It's not an easy A, but actually doing the work, studying, and caring a little will get you a grade you're happy with at the end of the day).\n\r\nHe also emphasizes other tricks that are super useful, such as checking units, taking limits, symmetries, etc. which are very handy for gaining intuition behind equations (things that should be taught early to freshmen physics/astronomy students).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-07T20:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR120', 'review': 'profesor hamilton is a very good lecturer, trys to make sure every one knows whats going on. takes lots of questions and answers them during class. he is big on teaching big general concepts, but their have been times on homeworks and test that i lose points for being too specific, and times i have lost points for being too general. its rather hard to figure out what he wants work wise. claims are made of intense use of math, but their really is only light calculus, and that is rare. most of the time their is no math at all.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-22T00:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR330', 'review': "I really enjoyed this class! Dr. Hamilton was very engaging and it was clear he was really passionate about the topics in the course. He was really kind to students and I loved his teaching style! For lecture, one downside is that I felt he didn't hit on the points needed in the exams or had an organized way of conveying information, since it felt like I got a bit lost during lecture. Other than that, I would take a class with Dr. Hamilton again.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-09T01:51:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR330', 'review': "Doug Hamilton is such a wonderful guy. This class is challenging, so this review is based solely on who he is as a professor.\r\nHe is engaging, animated, and funny. He's a bit of a dork, which is so fun to be around. 9:30 classes never felt like it with the energy he brought. You can always come to him for help in math (which I desperately needed as an English major.)\r\nHe is an empathetic and sweet person. The nice things I have to say about the dude is unending. Not to mention he is very bright and an expert in this field. Even my mom loved him when she facetimed me during office hours. Do yourself a favor and choose him for this class. You won't regret it. \r\nOne of the best professors in the entire university. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-12-07T18:13:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR330', 'review': " I have taken 3 ASTRO 3XX classes and this one being my last and fourth one to fulfill my COMPSCI upper level concentration requirement. I got an A- in both ASTR380 and ASTR340 and a B- in ASTR350. These classes were structured in a way that the professors understood that the students in this class take it as an elective, so that's how much they expect from you. However, they are 3xx level classes so their is still a good amount of studying and work to do in order to well. In addition, for these three classes all the hw, quizzes. and exams only relied on class sides, no textbook. These professors also dropped lowest HWs and even Quiz grades.\r\n\r\n ASTR330 on the other hand was something else. The professor required you to read and memorize line by line every single word and concept from the textbook he makes you buy. His class slides were not helpful nor meaningful at all as they only contain a title heading and one picture per slide. He mainly just talks about everything in class and expects you to memorize everything that he has said. The hws are also long and very confusing. His chapter quizzes are also very horribly designed as they can be anything from the dense chapter you have to read and memorize. I barely passed the class, I would not recommend taking this class with this professor if you are thinking that you can easily pass, you need to really work hard for this class as if this was one of your major classes. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-06-16T16:46:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR330', 'review': 'Professor Hamilton is a cool, funny, and easy to approach person, but I will admit this class was seriously a jumble of work(his grade distribution of the class should tell much of the story). The class focuses around a textbook you are forced to read as all the class\' content will be drawn from there. The class slides are an attempt to give you more context, however, this consisted of an image and like 2 words lol. The reason he does this is to convince more people to come to class to hear his lecture and what he says during the slides. There are quizzes for each chapter to which the questions can range from "oh i heard that in lecture" to "u have to memorize every detail of the chapter to get this one". Sometimes there will be online quizzes - which are open note. The homeworks were extremely difficult and graded strictly. I would come into office hours for help and professor Hamilton would spout a lot of random stuff but if you come prepared with questions and an honest attempt, he will offer more help. Treat homeworks seriously as overall they will be weighed more to the final. There were 2 exams and a final, all of which honestly required a lot of memorization. He allows you to have a cheat sheet but that just gives him incentive to make it harder. If you score higher than the average you are in a really good spot, but easier said than done. But I scored below average on the first exam(by a lot) and the final(by quite a bit) and still got a B- b/c I did good on the hws, did pretty good on the quizzes, and scored above avg for the 2nd exam\r\nThere is an automatic curve after every assignment, which is nice but he curves around a C range based on the average(so the average score becomes the C). There is also extra credit provided and a lot of points for participation, which helps for the loss of points from homeworks and exams- so come to class and office hours. Overall, one hell of a class and a lot more work than I would have anticipated. You will need to put a lot of work and time into this class if you want a good grade... and have really good memorization skills. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-06-26T01:38:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR330', 'review': "Very interactive class and super interesting guy if you're into astronomy. I found that by reading the book and going to class I didn't have to spend too much time studying at all. His lectures don't strictly follow the book, so be sure to take notes for quizzes and exams. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-26T14:08:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR120', 'review': "While he's not a terrible professor, going to office hours I've gotten the impression that he doesn't really know anything about neurodivergency or what being a woman in STEM is like. I'd avoid if you actually want to enjoy your time in Astronomy.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2022-11-04T20:18:00.394937Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Took this class for GenEd lab credit... big mistake. Lectures are all over the place and don't at all match up with textbook readings or labs. He can be condescending which isn't helpful when you are trying to understand material. His exams are also very strange- they have a ton of hypothetical questions that there's no way you could know the answers to. When the class asked what to study for exams, the exact content he told us to focus on studying wasn't even on the exam, which was so frustrating. Just avoid all together.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-12T03:29:58.220457Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'Professor Hamilton is very knowledgeable on astronomy but he seems out of touch with teaching. He does not use powerpoints during lecture, and expects students to take notes on what he is saying for over an hour. Very challenging for visual learners or those with focus issues. The only reason I am passing the class is because I learned all the material on my own time with my own resources. There is a curve for exams but that is because the average grades are so low that everyone would be under a C. If you are super smart and type A then you will do fine but otherwise I would try to find someone else.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-13T16:25:39.032895Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "I took this class as a gen ed and because I had a personal interest in astronomy. I wanted to learn more about the field and become more engaged with STEM. However, I left this class feeling unmotivated, embarrassed, and frustrated. Dr. Hamilton seems to have a general dislike for the youth. He frequently makes comments about how we don't pay attention or don't participate when he is abrasive to those who do. I really enjoyed his personality, but the silliness became belittling. Especially so as a woman. Another review mentioned how he doesn't understand much outside of a binary sense, making the class hard for neuro-divergent students. Exams were incredibly difficult and broad, and there was little to no guidance on what materials were to be studied. He also uses archaic ways of conveying information. Overall, unless you are very interested and well versed in astronomy/physics, I don't recommend this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-14T01:08:03.144955Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'Douglas is an all around inefficient educator with a poor attitude towards his student body. Any chance there has been class feedback opportunities, there have been no changes to improve instruction, exam formatting, and teaching to better assist students in succeeding. There have been a few times when the professor outright humiliated his class by displaying the statistics on class scores, later placing all blame on our efforts and lack of attendance rather than shortcomings that have been voiced on his end. This created a hostile environment and relationship professor to student where few in the class felt psychologically safe to ask for further help. When a class average for an exam is a 58, this says more about the failure of an educator than each individual in the classroom. I would never recommend Doug’s class to anyone hoping to enter science at a novice level. You will be thrown for a loop. I had a 4.0 before him and don’t know what to expect now.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-12-14T15:44:10.130367Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'This man is a joke of a professor. Save yourself the mental turmoil and stress of trying to work through his inefficient teaching and lack of respect for students. With so many students failing to grasp concepts enough to pass an exam, the blame cannot just be on us. He needs to take some responsibility for his shortcomings as he time and time again refuses to.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-16T18:04:30.858445Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'Dr. Hamilton is a generally uninteresting lecturer who still uses overhead projectors even though he has a projector and a computer available to him. He tries to make the lectures interesting with demos that are momentary distractions from the boredom of being in his class. On top of this, his exams are unreasonably hard for a gen ed lab requirement, with the average of many exams being around a C or a D. He also accuses everyone of cheating on homework’s he doesn’t prepare us properly for, and will give harsh penalties if you use Google or any other resource besides the textbook. Sadly, not even the textbook seems to have these answers either. He’s just a generally out of touch guy who seems to think most college students are lazy and unmotivated, and will blame us for doing badly on exams. I would avoid his class if possible.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-20T23:32:41.659425Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'Don\'t get me wrong this dude tries his hardest to make his class entertaining and engaging, the thing is that he\'s not a good professor. The average for the exams in the course were low and he made it seem like he would curve them by assigning a letter grade (For example I got a 74.5 on Exam 1 and I got my exam returned with a B+ on it). However, this was very misleading as at the end of the semester he said the letter grades were not a curve but instead to "let you know how you\'re doing in comparison to the rest of the class". Further, he used collective punishment in class. He got upset that many people weren\'t attending lectures so he said he would not post lecture recordings and slides until class attendance was over 60%, which was completely unfair to people who attended class regularly and had no control over the attendance of other people. This also hurt people\'s ability to review for exams which is probably why the grades were so low. Overall his grade distribution in an entry-level "easy A" astronomy course was 34 As, 54 Bs, 67 Cs, 15Ds, 5 Fs. I overall wouldn\'t recommend him for this course however I\'ve heard other people have had a better time with other professors.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-06T17:09:02.160331Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'The class is harder than it should be for a 100-level course. He is friendly but could be more organized. He did give a LOT of extra credit during lectures which honestly carried my grade. The exams were way too hard, but thanks to the extra credit, my grade did not suffer as much. Still, I found the class very interesting. My TA, Brian, was really good and made labs fun and interesting. It is a good class to get the Lab Credit if you are interested in astronomy and can come to lectures/labs.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-30T03:50:40.145601Z'}], 'name': 'Douglas Hamilton', 'slug': 'hamilton'}, {'courses': ['BCHM463', 'CHEM271', 'BCHM698', 'BCHM461', 'BCHM465', 'BCHM462', 'BCHM889D', 'BCHM464', 'BCHM677', 'BCHM461', 'BCHM462', 'BCHM461', 'BCHM461', 'BCHM677', 'BCHM462'], 'average_rating': 3.7879, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "I had Dr. Julin for both BCHM461 and BCHM462 in Spring and Fall 2015. My grades on the exams were B-C-B-A (BCHM461) and B-B-A-B (BCHM462) and I got an A in both courses. Brilliant man, very kind, dry sense of humor (but my friends and I thought it was hilarious), cares about students, and is a wonderful lecturer in biochemistry. He's responsive to e-mails and student concerns.\n\r\nHis notes are so clear and organized (except his arrows for mechanisms haha). He writes on the chalkboard and uses a powerpoint. Bchm is a hard class no matter how you look at it. He recommends (and so do I) that after every lecture or so, you recopy your notes and go through it to keep up. His exams are challenging, but absolutely brilliant in the way they make you think. They are definitely fair - they test what he teaches, though in novel ways. He gives you a bunch of his old exams to practice. Based solely off his lecture notes. \n\r\nI definitely recommend Julin (and so do my classmates).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-01T12:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "Julin is really smart and has a WICKED SENSE OF HUMOR!!! He's the sort of professor you see in movies; those who sits down and talks with you about all the things in the world. I found that charming! He inspires your imagination and your enthusiasm. His lectures are great and he sometimes make subtle not-so-innocent jokes which makes everyone laugh. I felt so free and happy, till I took his exams. If you love biochem or love the enlightening aspect of study, by all mean take it. If you need a good GPA, I suggest you look elsewhere. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-11-10T11:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': 'My method of studying in this class was to rewrite lecture notes, supplement lecture notes with book notes, and do previous exams. In the upcoming paragraphs, I’ll try to explain my mistakes. \r\nFirst, I did poorly on the first exam because I was not used to Dr. Julin’s exams. His exams are 6+ questions for the midterm and 11+ questions for the final, with the questions being free-answer, and sometimes multipart. To better prepare for the first exam, I should have done all of his practice exams and gotten a better feel for how he asks questions. Better understanding the material by going over all of his lecture notes would have helped too (the book is a supplement to the lecture notes; he only tests on stuff from his lectures, and the book has too much information.)\r\nI did average (mean) to a few points above average on the rest of the exams and got the grade I got (he implemented some kind of curve). If I were to take another Julin-type class, I would look out for the following. \r\nHis exam questions can be tricky in several ways. The type of question I had difficulty adjusting to was the question that required a “key”, or something we learned about during lecture. The question would seemingly be about something we did not learn about and would be asking you to extrapolate based on given information. I would guess the answer the first few times, without using the correct or any learned concept; these responses would turn out to be wrong. To fix this, I had to have a list of all the concepts (e.g. the specific DNA type’s handedness, the specific DNA type’s major and minor groove properties, the stability/energetic property of a bond) ready to be recalled and “placed” into the problem to see if it would answer the question, and an understanding of the definition of every part of the processes (e.g. DNA repair processes, DNA replication’s trumpet model) he talked about. \r\nThe most frustrating part of his exams was that his questions were often unclear to me. In the questions I got wrong, I often had to guess what the answer should contain, as seen previously about the questions seemingly about something we did not learn, or I would misread a part of a question that I knew the answer to. Overall, I felt that while the regular professor’s exam question contains one part (know the answer to this question, perhaps through extrapolation of what you already know), Dr. Julin’s questions contained two parts (know what the question is asking about through careful reading and thought; then, know the answer, perhaps through extrapolation.) To fall for this would be my own fault, however; more careful reading comprehension would be a fix, perhaps through increased sleep. \r\nHere are some other useful pointers. Study the experiments by being able to recall what the experiment variables are. They were tested moderately. If you want a letter of recommendation, go to his office hours regularly. He explains concepts well, and will answer questions specific to things we learned (not usually questions about the exam, like ‘Is this on the exam?’” For the final, review everything, including experiments and \r\nIn summary, Dr. Julin is a good lecturer and professor, and his exams tested less on a wide scope of knowledge, and more on how well you can understand questions and work with the material taught. I noticed that a decently sized group of students had B to A averages on the exams, meaning they probably got As after the curve (the uncurved exam mean was around a C.) Somehow, they were able to avoid the trickiness of the questions, perhaps by taking a class of his before, or perhaps through reading comprehension better than mine. \n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-06-03T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'TAKE HIM FOR BCHM461. There is a lot of mixed opinions about Dr. Julin and the truth is that this class is NOT easy, but he is hands down one of the best professors I have ever had. He is INSANELY smart, just from listening to him speak in lecture or office hours you will realize that this man in brilliant. It\'s because of this that it can be a bit of a disadvantage because I don\'t think he realizes how little some students may know. That being said he is the BEST biochem professor there is! A lot of students will say that he is a bad Gen Chem II professor but a great BCHM professor and this is true, that is because BCHM is his field of research.\r\nHis exams are tough, but honestly really fair. You have to study lecture notes. He doesn\'t surprise you with any "new" material. Whatever is on the exam will be from lecture. That being said I\'ve found that the best method is to record his lectures and then recopy notes. RECOPY RECOPY RECOPY. It\'s a 400 level class, you honestly can\'t expect to look at your notes the two nights before the exam and do well. \n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-12-20T02:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'Had him for 271 and he was terrible. When I found out I was having him for biochem (they switched teachers on us) I cried because he was so bad for Gen Chem 2. BUT I WAS SO WRONG. Julin KILLS it in biochem. I am so happy that I had him as a teacher. His style of teaching goes along with this topic material soooooo much better then gen chem 2. He really loves bio chem and is a great resource if you ever have questions. I have actually made my schedule next semester so that I could specifically have him again because HE IS AMAZING for biochem. Take him for biochem if at all possible, but avoid him at all costs for Gen Chem 2. His level of understand really reflects in his teaching. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-11T01:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Hey, do you like learning physical/theoretical chemistry in a general chemistry class, spending most of class on derivations, tests with convoluted questions that are much harder than you would expect, and getting screwed over for the MCAT, then you'll fall head over heals in love with Julin, and I would highly reccomend him. If you prefer the opposite, go jump out a window before signing up for his class. The whole problem stems from the fact that Julin is a Biochemistry professor not a general chemistry teacher, and he has only taught this class like twice (which probably explains the difference in opinions below). If your the type of person who prefers to learn from the book, then you will have a major problem when taking Julin's class, since exams are only from class material. In addition, I agree with the review below from 5-22-14. Doing lots of practice problems won't help you one bit, since test questions are predominantly concept based. To succeed in Julin's class, you need to rewatch lectures (he records them) and pay attention to every word that comes out of his mouth. Other than that, there is really no way to prepare for his test. Unlike other classes where if you work hard, you are pretty much getting a good grade, that isn't true with Julin. His questions are so bizarre that for the Thermodynamics unit, he asked a question on the history of state functions, but didn't ask a question on Hess' Law, one of the most fundemental concepts for that unit. Gen chem 2 is not a hard class and the material is somewhat interesting, but Julin makes it a lot harder than it really needs to be. My reccomendation is to never take a biochemistry professor for a general chemistry class...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-08-29T13:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'I actually liked the material in this class and found it to be very helpful for the MCAT. that being said, I couldn\'t enjoy it one bit thanks to this guy. Absolutely terrible professor, would never take this man again in my life. If your a chemistry major or you really like chemistry, then Julin might not be a bad idea, since his teaching style is that he focuses on the in depth theoretical side of chemistry, and about 2/3 of the tests are conceptual based as opposed to problems. Unlike other chemistry classes where you have to just understand how to do the problems, in Julin\'s class you really have to know your stuff inside and out. Just knowing how to do the problems won\'t suffice to get an A in this class. His tests are also nothing like the practice tests that he posts, so watch out for that. He always likes to have 1-2 test questions where you are like "where the hell did that come from...". Not to mention, his test questions aren\'t even similar in anyway shape or form to what he teaches in class. Also, when you practice doing normal general chemistry problems, it\'s easy to get thrown off based on how much biochemistry is on his tests. Julin teaches this class like a 300-400 advanced chemistry class and wastes half of class deriving complex equations. There really isn\'t any point coming to class because you will not learn anything useful. Honestly, there isn\'t really any way to study for this class, since his tests aren\'t anything like practice tests, the book, or his lecture slides. I reccomend taking CHEM271 with another professor. Just to let you know how much I hate this man, I signed up for BCHM461 next semester originally with some other guy, however the minute that it got changed to Julin, I switched out in a heartbeat. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-06-07T21:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Definitely not the worst lecturer ever, but he's certainly not far from it. I've had much worse professors here at UMD. Going to class is literally the biggest waste ever because Julin focuses more on the theoretical side rather than the important concepts. As a result, I feel that I've barely learned anything meaningful. In addition his tests also focus on the theoretical side rather than doing chemistry problems. WARNING: DO NOT get fooled by Julin's practice exams that he posts. He posts one thing, but the exam is literally 10 times harder than what he posts. His exams are also not fair in terms of length, as it is nearly impossible to finish his exams. The questions are also worded so wierdly that you will literally have no idea what the question is asking, when in fact it was actually a pretty easy question. In addition, nearly every question has a biochem example using biological molecules instead of normal chemistry molecules which throws everyone off. He tries to be helpful by offering review sessions, but they are absolutely useless. To sum up, as I said before, he isn't the worst lecturer ever as there are far worse, but I'd probably say he's the worst all-around professor when you take into account his teaching, tests, grading, and most importantly, how unfair of a teacher he is. Also, the general consensus is that he's great for biochem, but horrible for gen chem. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-26T00:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Where to start... Well first of all, let me say that I can't think of a single professor at UMD where I've said this before, but there is absolutely nothing that I like about this man, whether it is his scowl on his face, his teaching style, the way he treats his students, his exams, his grading policy. I can't seem to find one positive thing about him. I seriously think that all the reviewers below were on cocaine when they wrote their reviews. Beyond the fact the he is the most unengaging lecturer ever, Julin's teaching and tests are not even closely related to the textbook, so you need to pay extremely close attention in class. His grading is so unfair that you must have exactly what is on the key to get credit even if you answered the question in a correct manner. If you go to him for a regrade and try to explain your point, he's so adamant and stuck up about his grading policy that he will not give you points. The worst part about this guy is the complex derivations that he does in class, and tries to incorporate calculus. Then when he makes a mistake he spends like 10 minutes trying to figure out what he did wrong. Julin tends to focus on random theoretical bullshit instead of explaining to students how to solve chemistry problems. In addition, on exams he includes so many BIOCHEMISTRY examples in a GENERAL CHEMISTRY class. \n\r\nAlso, a word of advice. Many students come into this class cocky because they think that gen chem II is easier than orgo II; it's not. In fact, I now understand why they make you take gen chem II after orgo II. Honestly, the material in this class is not hard, but Julin makes this class 10 times harder than what it needs to be. I'm warning you, Don't take Julin. If I had known the truth about him earlier and not paid attention to the useless reviews below, I would have purposely pushed off gen chem to another semester, even if it means being behind in the chemistry sequence. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-05-24T19:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Honestly, I just made an OURUMD account so I could warn all other future students not to take Julin. He is probably the worst professor I've ever had. Supposedly he's great for Biochem, but he's literally THE WORST professor for general chemistry. I had Dr. Dixon for Orgo II and was spoiled, because when I came to Julin, I noticed that he is exactly the opposite (minus the hard tests). This man seriously cannot teach and he will make you fall asleep with his monotone voice. In addition to being a shitty teacher, Julin's tests are the most unfair thing ever. He tests you on the little minute things that are not important and doesn't test you on the major concepts in each unit. That's why you need to make sure that you know literally every little detail on every slide. Also, when you think of Chemistry, you are used to doing lots of algebraic calculations, not in this class. I'd say about 75% of the test questions are conceptual based rather than problem based. Not to mention, that when it comes to regrades, he is extremely stingy with regards to awarding back points. Even if you accurately explain your point and if it makes sense.\n\r\nBeing Pre-med, besides the fact that GPA is important, I don't believe that I have learned anything meaningful with Julin, and I don't feel more prepared for the MCAT then I was before I took his class. I never thought I'd say this, but I can't think of a class that I've had before where I felt it was hard to scrape by with a B. Whatever you do, don't do it to yourself. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-23T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'If you learn by doing practice problems THIS TEACHER IS NOT FOR YOU!!!!\r\nHe is actually against giving practice problems for his test. Or hw or just any practice in general. You can try and study from the book and other teachers tests but they offer little help. The only way he says to study is to "rewrite your notes" which is very hard because he doesn\'t do any practice problems during class either. He teaches theory in a very complex way (this guy LOVES do derivatives for things you don\'t actually need to know) and then expects you to be able to apply it in a very complex way on the test. Because of the lack of practice problems I feel like I didn\'t fully learn anything. I am taking the MCAT this summer and GenCHEM is by far my worst section because I didn\'t get the proper back ground knowledge from this class. IF you actually care about knowing the material for the MCAT or any other test you are going to have to learn it completely on your own. His class doesn\'t prepare you. I have heard he is good for BioCHEM, but he is NOT a general chemistry teacher. IF you care about learning the material DONT DO IT. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-22T15:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Ok, so I heard that he was a very good Biochem professor, which might be true, but I can tell you that he is literally the worst gen chem professor ever. Not only is he a very poor lecturer, but he is extremely boring to listen to and his lectures are way too theoretical (he likes to focus more on proofs and concepts rather than teaching how to solve problems). That being said, the main reason I gave Julin 1 star is because he is the most unfair test writer ever. His tests focus on abstract theoretical concepts that were barely covered in class rather than solving chemistry problems. You really have to know your stuff inside and out to succeed on his tests. And whatever you do, make sure that you study EVERYTHING on the slides because the things that you thing he is least likely to test you on, he does. \n\r\nBottom line: Stay away from Julin at all costs. If he is the only professor teaching for the semester, I reccomend pushing it off to another semester just to avoid taking Julin. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-18T03:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Julin is one of the most bland professors you can ask for. During the lectures, he frequently went over the theory behind some of the material and ALWAYS derived equation after equation. This may be helpful, but he asks for none of this on an exam. One lecture he spent the entire class deriving a single equation. Also, he messes up in lecture a lot and makes plenty of mistakes. After a lecture, you can bet that there will be a follow-up email of him attempting to reconcile his emails.\n\r\nHis exams are absolute insanity. The first exam he expected us to finish 12 pages in just 50 minutes. Needless to say, almost nobody finished. Questions are always poorly phrased and there is absolutely no way to properly study for anything he writes. \n\r\nJulin is far from the best chem271 professor, but hell this course isn't even about chemistry. At this point, it's more physics/thermo/kinetics. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-16T03:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "Dr. Julin is the best.\n\r\nI Had him for Chem271 and Bchm463.\r\nHe's a very good teacher.\n\r\n4 exams total (75 points each) + Final exam (200 points) for a total of 500 points for the semester.\n\r\nThe first two exams cover Biochem 1.\r\nThe last two exams cover Biochem 2.\n\r\nThe class can seem a bit fast paced.\r\nDefinitely Study your notes. His tests are solely based on what he lectures. \r\nHe held online review sessions on ELMS which were kinda helpful.\n\r\nIf you have to take this class, take it with Dr. Julin.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-25T23:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "Real talk: Biochemistry is no walk in the park. Biochemistry II definitely isn't- probably among the hardest classes I took in my undergraduate years.\n\r\nIf you have to take BCHMII, take it with Julin. I didn't do so hot because I approached studying for the class the same way I did other chemistry courses, but it's just not the same.\n\r\nTo his credit Julin presents the complex material in a very straightforward fashion. His exams are a fair reflection of the material covered in class too- the real challenge is that you don't know what specific reaction, process, mechanism, etc. he's going to pick from those covered- so you have to know them all. And fyi the exams are it- no homeworks or anything else to supplement your grade- so make them count. I believe he drops one bad exam among the 3 midterms, followed by the final.\r\nEven if you memorize everything correctly, make sure you can imagine them in other contexts. Julin's favorite thing to do is posit a situation, ie given a start compound and an end compound, and have you explain the mechanism or explain why you got one product instead of another using something we learned in class. \n\r\nThe lectures are fairly boring tbh. The first few in BCHMII are just review- but once the review ends, DO NOT drop the ball. Do NOT miss a word from this man's lips, and do NOT miss a single diagram on the board, or in the blink of an eye you will have fallen behind, especially because everything builds on the material before it. Get a recorder. Fill in gaps in your notes with your friends'. Julin is a nice guy and very willing to answer questions and provide help, but if you don't take him up on that it's your loss (I know that was the case for me).\n\r\nIn BCHMII, you literally learn and memorize step by step the metabolic processes of the body. That's insane. It's cool and very interesting, but still completely nuts. Your memory will be worked to the core memorizing chemical structures and reactions and mechanisms. It's not about formulas (physics/chem classes), and it's not mainly about memorizing big concepts (bio classes). It's actually a lot like Orgo. Yeah. Actually, BCHMII is essentially applied Orgo. \n\r\nYou can't avoid putting a lot of time and effort into this class. I recorded lectures, but didn't always go back over them and paid for it. No cutting corners- you just have to memorize and know your stuff. It's definitely doable, but woe to those who fall behind.\n\r\nAlso, I had the book but hardly touched it. He pretty much covers everything you need to know in class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-09-06T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "Excellent professor. Makes the material very logical and simple to go through. \n\r\nFollow his tips for success and you should get that A. Go to office hours after you review the material and he will help you out. Read the book before and after class (but not too detailed), pay attention during class, and take very good notes. I tried to write down everything he said verbatim, especially when I didn't know what was going on that day.\n\r\nFor me, recording the lectures and rewriting my notes was super helpful in understanding what he was talking about. It took time, so try and get through the material quickly. It won't be so overwhelming if you keep up with lectures and study at least a week before each exam. The rewritten notes were very helpful when the final exam came. I was able to get the mechanisms in metabolism and such after I wrote them out neatly and practiced each like 5 or ten times so it was natural. He does test you on these (and everything in lecture), but the exams, like the class, are fair. The final was basically like the 4 exams.\n\r\nOur class this semester was a bit worse than normal so I think it was about a 10 percent curve and he always makes the B/C line the average. I would have had an A if I didn't mess up on two exams and the final.study hard and Score more than maybe 60/75 (i guess?) on each exam and you should be ok for an A with a good final exam grade.\n\r\nOur curve was approximately: A-=80;B-=70, C-=51, D=48.8%\n\n\r\nLong story short: Excellent professor. take him.\n\r\nMake flash cards for the amino acids.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-22T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "I am not sure why everyone on here thinks this professor is brilliant. He isn't. I'm a good student and I study a lot for his exams, but his questions come out of nowhere. There is no homework due, so your whole grade is based on whether or not you can memorize every mechanism in the book. He doesn't test his students based on any overall concepts and any questions he asks that are actually similar to the homework problems he assigns for practice are worth approximately 4 points, but his random questions are worth 15. Also, his exams are insanely timed. He gives an 8 page exam and expects us to finish it in 50 minutes. You have to have everything memorized front and back to be able to finish on time. \r\nHis lectures are clear, but boring and they don't really reflect what he tests on. I don't recommend him at all. Plus, he never smiles. I mean this guy wears a permanent scowl, leading me to believe he hates his job, which doesn't exactly make me very interested in it either. \r\nIf you are a CHBE major or anything else that is not solely biology or general chemistry, you will not have the time to dedicate to this class and all the memorizing it entails.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-12-10T11:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': "Same as the other comments. Very nice during office hours, great lecturer, very knowledgeable. hard exams (comparable to Dr. Friedman's) but huge curve. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-14T16:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "Dr. Julin is a wonderful professor and very willing to help his students learn. His teaching style is great - very similar to Dr. Dixon. I really enjoyed this class because I actually understood what I was learning and it connected all the dots between biology and chemistry courses previously taken.\n\r\nI went to his office hours frequently and he was very helpful.\n\r\nHis tests were tricky but you really have to study hard and understand the concepts. You do have to memorize basic facts (i.e. amino acids, their pKas, and some other small things here and there), but it's mainly applying concepts.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-07-16T19:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "Dr. Julin is a great professor! His lectures, as described in the reviews below, are well structured. He teaches on the whiteboard along with powerpoint slides of graphs and pictures. He goes over the material a bit fast though. \n\r\nMake sure to take good notes because he tests on what he teaches. I think retaking notes helps a lot for studying. What I did was retake every lecture after class and even glue the slides on to my notebook. By this, you can know what you didn't understand in class and you can ask him questions through email or just after class. Looking over the sections of the book (he will say which pages) also helps because some definitions are not described very clear in class. \n\r\nHe holds a review section a day before the exam/final for us to ask questions. He also answer emails pretty fast and clear. I ask about 2 sentences and he will reply me with a paragraph. \n\r\nAs for the exams, study your notes and the sections of the book. His exams are difficult and are basically all short answers (lots of writing!) and some drawings. He likes to use the graphs and experiments described in class and ask what if happen if you change something. Study a week or two before hand, cramming and pulling a allnighter won't do any help. \n\r\nThe averages for our exams were 66, 68, and 64. As for the final the average was a 75. For the final, it is not as detailed comparing to the exams but you still need to understand all the material !\n\r\nAs for the grade cutoffs(%), A>81.6, B>71.8, C>51.6, D>42.4, F>30.8. \n\r\nAs long as you study, and know the material he teaches in class, you will do fine. \n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T02:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'Julin is cool, but his exams are pretty difficult. Paying attention to his lectures can be challenging because you get bored after like 10 minutes.\r\nThe class is curved, and so every year the grades are based upon how that particular class does as a whole.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-15T11:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "He is simply a brilliant professor. He is very structured, organized, and rational. Very knowledgeable about the material. He lectures very clearly. \n\r\nHe's not really funny though. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-11T21:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': "One of the most outstanding lecturers at the university. Dr. Julin has a great personality, his lectures are on point and well structured. He truly wants you to learn as much as you can and do well in his class. A lot of the course material was genetics review, but more in depth and interesting. \n\r\nThere were a total of 5 problem sets, not difficult to do, but required some thinking. It really help me stay on top of the material. Exams were fair, first exam's average ~80%, then 60-65% for second and third exams. He really likes to ask questions about experiments and hypothetical situations on the exams.\n\r\nGo to lecture, take notes, attend review sessions, you will do well. He's a keeper.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-17T13:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM462', 'review': "Dr Julin is probably one of the top lecturer in the department...\n\r\nHe's approachable, answers your questions completely, holds review sessions, answers emails within a day, comes to class fully prepared. Even when I had an all-nighter, I can never fall asleep in his class for some reason.\n\r\nHis exams are not that hard if you really understand the material...questions usually involves making you think about a similar enzyme or similar mechanism...he uses applications on his exams (apply what you learned in class to another system)\r\nthe worst are the open ended questions because they are so ambiguous and unclear. His averages are actually pretty decent. I got 98%, 85%, 100% on his midterms.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-05T18:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM462', 'review': "I really liked Professor Julin. He's a great lecturer, really gets the point across. Makes some strange but funny (maybe only to nerds like me) jokes. \n\r\nHis exams are difficult in that it really tests understanding of the material he teaches, but I think they're pretty fair. I bombed the first test because I didn't know what I was expecting, but pulled up at the end. \n\r\nDefinitely put your thinking caps on in this class, if you're going in just to memorize, I don't think you'll do as well as you expect. Lots of Mechanism, some facts, and physiological applications. Loved the class really felt like it was a logical organization that integrated chem/biochem/biology. \n\r\nI look forward to having BCHM3 with him next semester!\n\r\nOh and those of you who are reading just for this: large curve I think 45% was a C for my semester. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T02:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': "Fantastic lecturer... one of the best in the biochemistry department. He demands a higher level of thinking than just memorization. His problem sets and exams usually involve him giving experimental results and asking you to explain mechanistically how the results are possible. Tricky but a fair professor. Never went to his office hours, but he was kind of a jerk when I went to pick up a graded problem set that I wasn't in class to get.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-22T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM462', 'review': 'I had Dr. Julin for BCHM 461 and am currently in his BCHM 462 class. \r\n\r\nFantastic lecturer. Definitely one of the best biochemistry lecturers in the department. Highly organized notes and methodical, comprehensible explanations for biochemical topics made for some of the most structured, easy to understand notes I have written in my three years so far as an undergrad. \r\n\r\nDr. Julin is responsive to student concerns and questions and absolutely cares about our understanding of the course material.\r\n\r\nIf you have the choice to take him for biochemistry, take him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-17T19:09:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "I have him currently for BCHM461 and he is an amazing professor. He quickly responds to email even at 8pm the night before the exam. When he lectures, he thoroughly explains the slide before showing the slide so you aren't scrambling to take notes while he's talking about something else, preventing you from missing information. He offers plenty of practice problems and a review session before the exam and his exams were fair. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-08T20:27:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM462', 'review': "If you have to choose between Professor Julin or Professor Poulin I would go with Julin for many reasons:\r\n\r\n1. He doesn't require you to do so many other assignments for your grade in the class like Professor Poulin had prescribed in his syllabus for the Spring 2022 semester (I originally had him but immediately switched when I saw you had to do these discussion board type things every week and show 70% effort plus HW, plus quizzes-i think- ontop of participation and exams); this semester Julin only had 5 grades he gave out 3 midterms, 1 final exam and clicker questions which if you tried you got at least 50% on them and they only help your grade really.\r\n\r\n2. There is a significant curve and you want to make sure you are at or above the average of the class to guarantee a great grade; while Poulin didn't mention any curve in his syllabus (Julin doesn't tell you the breakdown of the grade cutoffs but I have found it never to be an issue).\r\n\r\n3. He is nice, responsive, and detailed in his explanations of the matter/concepts and when responding to any questions.\r\n\r\n4. He records his lectures (including the blackboard and slides he preps so you can rewatch each lecture or be sure to not miss out if you for some reason miss class).\r\n\r\n5. He provides previous exam questions and answers for you to study (HIGHLY RECOMMEND STUDYING THESE BECAUSE YOU WILL SEE SOME SIMILAR QUESTIONS).\r\n\r\nNote: While the class was similar it was different from my experience with him in BCHM461 where we had 4 HW assignments that helped you better understand the material; but other than that it was the exact same.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-20T20:22:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'Super chill biochem professor. Though his lectures can feel long and boring, if you stay relatively on top of things and know what is going on, you can get a good grade without too much stress. I studied for exams the day or 2 before, and just kept up with taking notes in the lecture and making sure everything made sense to me. I got an A after getting 75-85 on every exam. The guy is helpful and the class teaches you a lot even though it seems very slow and conceptual! Highly recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T14:09:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "All the bad reviews are from one year where he taught gen chem. He's an amazing biochemistry professor though", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T19:24:45.226746Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'I think he’s one of the worst professors I’ve had here. I learned absolutely nothing from his lectures. Had to find supplemental videos to teach myself. He’s unreasonable and hard to contact. Our grades were basically only our exam scores. The exams are really difficult and if you asked him anything regarding the final his only answer was “maybe, maybe not.”', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-22T18:50:10.335151Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Julin', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'Julin is one of the best lecturers in the chemistry department, with some great dry humor. He writes everything out on the chalkboards that he shows on his slides, making it really easy to take notes while he talks. He only assigned 4 homework assignments the entire semester, and they were all super short and easy. All of the exams were pretty lengthy and really tough, and definitely require a lot of studying. He provides a bunch of practice problems that were really similar to the kinds of questions he asks on exams.\r\n\r\nGlad to have had him before he retires next year! :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T21:07:42.867549Z'}], 'name': 'Douglas Julin', 'slug': 'julin'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL234', 'ENGL388W', 'ENGL278D', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL275', 'ARHU318B', 'ENGL101X', 'ARHU318W', 'AASP298L', 'ARHU319B', 'ARHU275', 'ENGL388V'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Douglas Kern', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Really wants the best for the students. As long as you do the work, you'll get a good grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-08-19T17:00:51Z'}], 'name': 'Douglas Kern', 'slug': 'kern_douglas'}, {'courses': ['LBSC708X', 'LBSC690', 'LBSC671', 'INST734', 'INST301', 'INST346', 'INFM718X', 'INST810', 'INST799', 'INST709', 'INST809', 'CMSC798', 'INST899', 'INST408Z', 'HONR269I', 'INST154', 'INST208M', 'INST228', 'MSML699', 'INST408Y', 'INFM603', 'INST154', 'INST899', 'INST899'], 'average_rating': 4.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': "Doug is clearly passionate about what he's teaching which makes class enjoyable. Lectures are pretty much a 50 minute monologue on the space program/ background of Apollo with a 25 minute table discussion. Personally, I found the lectures to be fascinating but the discussions were fairly useless. The class overall is fairly easy. There are 3 essays and as long as you follow the rubric you'll get an A. Readings are a mixed bag; some are really interesting, others, not so much. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-01-20T22:47:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': "The 3 major grades are 2 papers and one group project. They aren't hard per se but you will have to put in the effort. You'll also have to do readings for quizzes but no exams to worry about. Overall, it's a good class experience.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T21:53:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': 'Fascinating course for those interested in the Apollo program. Classes were fairly engaging, 3 major grades one of which is a group project but it doesn’t require a lot of collaboration. No tests Professor Oard is very knowledgeable on the topic and very helpful, wants you to succeed. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T21:36:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': "Doug loves teaching about Apollo, and the material can get technical at times but is almost always interesting. Doug can answer virtually any question imaginable, and makes the class fun. There's no tests, only writing assignments which aren't super long.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-20T00:53:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': 'This class was great. A typical week for the online class looked like:\r\n2 reading quizzes, about an hour for the "reading" if it\'s a video and ~15min if its an actual reading\r\n1 discussion post based on async. lectures\r\n\r\nThen, 3 papers throughout the semester. Overall, very easy class and super interesting. I really recommend it. Other than the one group project paper, the other two papers are scaffolded. For example, you submit the topic or outline for 2 points, then the draft for 2 points, so by the time the final paper is ready, it\'s almost a guaranteed 100% if you correct the paper based on feedback.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-23T23:20:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': "Great teacher and very nice guy. Class had a very easy workload and was mostly writing assignments. Lectures could get a little boring if you're not completely interested in Apollo and space missions but it wasn't bad. Highly suggest taking this especially if interested in engineering and or space missions.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-04T18:31:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': 'Dr. Oard is extremely knowledgeable about the space program and makes lectures quite interesting. No exams, just homework quizzes based on readings (sometimes videos), weekly discussion posts (on ELMS), and three papers through the term. The second paper is done in a group of three, which makes it much easier to handle.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T16:28:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': 'Extremely well knowledged. Lectures are very interesting. Class is not a lot of work unless you are doing one of the three projects throughout the semester and those are still quite reasonable. Is very helpful during office hours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-05T18:37:19.695836Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': "Pros:\r\n-Interesting lectures and material.\r\n-Relatively easy (no tests, quizzes were literally one online multiple choice question each and a fifth grader could answer them since they were common knowledge half the time and somewhat specific dates/numbers found in the readings the other half).\r\n-Classes were laid back.\r\nCons:\r\n-Long writing assignments.\r\n-Some dense readings (2ish per week).\r\n-To get a good grade you need to put in the work.\r\n\r\nOverall: It's a very interesting class but a lot of work. You don't need to memorize anything which makes it easy.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T02:25:37.373455Z'}, {'professor': 'Douglas Oard', 'course': 'INST154', 'review': 'inst 154 is one of the best gen ed I have ever taken. take this class for gen ed is a good choice. it is about actually have fun in the class and get good grades (super ideal for a pure stem student as myself). Dr Oard is very good at telling stories and everything is based on facts. the class is very chill, simply to listen to all those fascinating stories, and discuss within the discussion table. sometimes Dr Oard or his ta swing by and sharing thoughts which is indeed interesting process. there are routinary readings but most are able to do skim through (all good readings but some bit long). if there was no time, missing several (7-ish as i recall) readings would not affect grade (will be dropped) (anyway reading quizs super easy). there was only three important written assignments: case study, group paper, final paper. help is always provided and since they made everything interesting, completing these is not difficult at all.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-28T17:57:49.876613Z'}], 'name': 'Douglas Oard', 'slug': 'oard'}, {'courses': ['UNIV399'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Douglas Roberts', 'slug': 'roberts_douglas'}, {'courses': ['EDCI435', 'EDCI638', 'EDCI732', 'EDCI632', 'EDCI788B', 'TLPL656', 'TLPL788B', 'TLPL444', 'TLPL793', 'TLPL656', 'TLPL793', 'TLPL656'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Drew Fagan', 'slug': 'fagan_drew'}, {'courses': ['KNES100O', 'KNES157N', 'KNES157O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Drew Jordre', 'slug': 'jordre'}, {'courses': ['ECON435'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dun Jia', 'slug': 'jia_dun'}, {'courses': ['MUSC329M', 'MUSC649M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dustin Francis', 'slug': 'francis'}, {'courses': ['CPPL101', 'CPPL201', 'CPPL200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Dylan Hart-Medina', 'slug': 'hart-medina'}, {'courses': ['PSYC221', 'PSYC334', 'PSYC420', 'PSYC100H', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC289D', 'PSYC234', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC221', 'PSYC234', 'PSYC468H'], 'average_rating': 3.1765, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'He claims to be on the students side, but in reality has 0 consideration for them.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2017-12-30T06:16:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "People have a lot of bad things to say about Selterman, I'm not sure why. Sure he's a little cocky, but he's a fine teacher, and knows what he's talking about mostly. As for the horrible blended learning assignments everyone talks about, of the 3 out of 4 I did, I got a perfect score on 2 and a couple points deducted on one for not doing hanging indentions in my bibliography. They are really not that difficult if you just make sure they are formatted perfectly. Also, exams are a little tough but he literally lets you retake them and get points back two days later, THE EXACT SAME EXAM. So don't let people scare you lol, if you do the bare minimum you will get at least an A-, and a lot of extra credit is offered.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-12T18:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Dr. Selterman thinks he\'s a good teacher, and thinks he\'s "on our side." But really, he is so against you. He does not want to work with his students in any way. He doesn\'t accept late work, due dates are ridiculous, like May 1st at 12:01am instead of April 30 at 11:59. So many people in my class was confused by this and missed the deadline and he had no sympathy and didn\'t accept late work. Never answers emails. TA\'s are sarcastic and think you\'re dumb. He leaves everything up to his TA\'s including grading. All he does is walk in, lecture, walk out. Doesn\'t like to answer questions and almost gets offended when you ask questions. DONT TAKE THIS CLASS WHATEVER YOU DO. Also, the grading and syllabus make 0 sense. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-05T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "He really isn't all that. In his syllabus he says he is really open to talking about grades but in reality he wont change a thing. There were multiple occasions that I thought a grade was unfair and yes he was open to discuss it but the whole time he was very stubborn and i knew nothing i was going to say was going to change his mind. Also he gives a few extra credit assignments and on elms they are not dated so it makes it seem like you can turn it in whenever because he also never brings them up in class but you have to look at the syllabus because it will have a due date in there. That was annoying because nobody really knew about it and ended up missing the opportunity, so read his syllabus even though its so long. Over all he isn't a bad teacher, just a pretty harsh grader and doesn't really budge when asking for a grade change.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-04-26T18:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Professor Selterman is an egotistical teacher and I would not recommend his class to my worst enemy. His lecture slides are not easy to read, he cannot explain terms for his life and his exam questions, BLA essays and busywork assignments are graded unfairly and harshly. Not to mention the lack of email response, and when he finally does response, he is not helpful, in fact I was completely offended by the harsh and rude tone of the reply. Although the content covered in class is not difficult, Prof. Selterman does not explain the material very well and he always brings the lecture back upon himself. If you want to get to understand D-Money (as he calls himself) and his life experiences, then by all means this is the class for you. However, if you want to take a course that will educate you, this is NOT the course for you. In addition, there was one article in particular that he assigned for the reading that was offensive. The article was called, "– Is There Anything Good About Men?" Not only was this article offensive, explaining that feminism is the reason for the wage gap in America, but this article has absolutely no connection to the material learned in class. It was an article that just shows his student what a patriarchal jerk "D-Money" really is. Not only was this article offensive, but his "I know better than all of you" attitude really disabled a good learning environment throughout the class. All in all, if you want to be taught by a know it all jerk who thinks way too highly of himself, this is a class for you. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-23T11:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Professor Selterman is very pretentious. Although he's nice and tries to make the lectures interesting, it was overall not a pleasant class. The Blended Learning assignments killed everyone's grade (including mine) although that is more the fault of the TA's than him (which is why I gave him three stars). They were entirely too much effort for the grades received regardless of how good the papers turned in were. As a Psychology major, I did not expect the class to be this difficult. The content was not but the way it was handled and assessed made it so. I took a 300-level psychology class last semester and was taught more about writing and APA format which makes no sense since this is basically an introductory level class. When I went to his Office Hours to request personal help on improving my Blended Learning grades, he rushed out at the end telling us he had somewhere to be…it would have been nice of him to warn us at the beginning of the hours so we would know. When I did have my one-on-one meeting with him, he did not do much to help and once again, was in a rush because he had somewhere to be.\r\nI would definitely not recommend Dr. Selterman for a GenEd class. If you want to hear about how he apparently knows everyone in the social psychology world and all of their research, this is the class for you.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-22T22:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "AWESOME PROFESSOR! I absolutely loved going to class simply because Selterman made everything so easy to understand, I'd even say it was fun! The class itself was pretty interesting.\n\r\nMy only complaint was this class was a 'Blended Learning' course. Meaning every other Friday, half of the class wouldn't come to class but have an online assignment due by Sunday and the other half would come to class and complete an assignment based off of what was discussed in class. Every Friday the groups would switch. The TA's graded the online Blended Learning assignments EXTREMELY HARSHLY! They took off a good portion of points for the littlest things such as citations and references. \n\r\nOther than the BL assignments, grading was very fair. The tests are easy if you thoroughly fill out his study guides. He gives lots of extra credit opportunities as well :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-07T18:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "I took this class looking at the previous reviews and I wish I had dropped it during the add/drop period. Psych221 is awful Selterman just lectures to the class and the blended learning assignments are very frustrating because the TAs will randomly change the rubric without telling the students and you will get points off for no reason. Selterman does not understand that everyone in PSYC221 is NOT a psychology major, especially since it is a CORE class, not a psych major requirement class, and refuses to help students who are having difficulties with the assignments. It's almost as if he has a vendetta against non-psych majors. Don't waste your time on this class it is not worth it. Exams are fairly easy and you get a lot of extra credit opportunity but trust me it is not worth the headache. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-23T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Dr. Selterman is that young lad who worked really hard during his college years, got his doctorate and now thinks he is the infallible expert of social psychology and writing. When you talk to him there is this aura of 'I am better than you, just look at my big fancy degree'. \n\r\nHe assigns you papers and grades it as if you were writing for the Journal of Social Psychology. I am an English major and I consistently got B's on his ridiculous writing assignments. Points would be deducted for a missing comma or improper use of a colon. If I wanted to take an English class, I would have taken an english class! \n\r\nThere is also the material. It starts out very interesting until you realize your entire job in the class is to memorize definitions. To study for the final you literally just sitting down at your desk open wikipedia and your glossary and read through it until your mind is numb.\n\r\nHis exams are also the most inconsistent I have ever seen. Exam one will be a walk in the park, but all of a sudden if he thinks you're getting just a bit too smart he will write the second exam with failure in mind. It was still passable, but for an introductory, 200-level class, it was completely unfair.\n\r\nSo, if you are willing to put up with the worst possible system for grading papers, constant reading to keep up with the mountain of materials you will have to memorize and probably the most incompetent group of TAs then take Selterman, in fact, I encourage it. But if not, take Curtis....or talk to a squirrel on the mall. \n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-14T10:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "Selterman's awesome. He grades pretty fairly and the exams aren't too bad as long as you go over the lecture slides. He gives random writing exercises that count as attendance grades, but there are only a few--you just never know when one will come up.\n\r\nLast year for another class a lot of people didn't really read the book and did fine, but for 334 this semester he definitely got some exam material from the book. \n\r\nYou get extra credit for going to office hours and doing SONA studies. Grading is a little harsher on the papers.\n\r\nPower point slides are always up right before class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-17T08:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Awesome guy! Really interesting teacher with fun anecdotes. Very fair, gives extra credit; if you have any problems just email him and he's more than happy to help! If you go in to his office hours for help or just to chill he gives you extra credit. just saying. \n\r\nHis exams are relatively straight forward with extra credit opportunity on the exam. Exams are half multiple choice and about 6 short answer (meaning REALLY short answer. like 2-3 sentences) and doesn't usually take the whole class\n\r\nI personally never really read the book for this class; just go to lecture and make sure you listen to what he says because the stuff on the slides are just topics for most of it; he elaborates a lot more during lecture. He also does spot check participation during class...so go to lecture!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-30T11:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "-really nice guy, definitely cares about his students' concerns\r\n-gives out many opportunities for extra credit\r\n-posts ppt slides right before the class starts\r\n-slides aren't the most helpful slides I've ever seen since they don't give as much important information compared to what he says and what the books says, so READ THE BOOK and listen to him\r\n-grades fairly; exams are fair", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T15:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Dr. Selterman is the only professor I've had this semester that has been reasonable, efficient, and responsive to student concerns. Unlike many others he is actually focused on his students learning material in a way that will allow them to use it in their own lives. \n\r\nHe's pretty good with having information about assignments and grades online on time, and is more than happy to help out whether it's during office hours or not. \n\r\nSelterman doesn't make you feel like you have to do everything perfectly--he makes it clear that so long as you work hard and put in effort, you will get a good grade, and he actually follows through with that. \n\n\r\nHe is able to admit when he makes a grading mistake and fixes it on time. \r\nClass was fun and he isn't unreasonably harsh if you need to skip a few times for legitimate reasons. \n\r\nThis class is the only one I even feel motivated to study hard for the final because I know it will pay off.\n\r\nAlso, he gives pretty good life advice", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T09:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC289D', 'review': 'I was very skeptical of taking Selterman for this class after reading reviews that he was egotistical and not very helpful. After taking this class I feel like the complete opposite of those people. The only time Selterman talked about himself was on the first day introducing himself or if someone asked a question about his research and when I had a question he answered promptly and was very helpful. This class is very interesting and you learn a lot of useful things to know. Selterman is a good lecturer and knows the content really well. My only criticisms is he shows up late to class often and when we have class discussions he sometimes prolongs it which made some classes a drag. Your grade comprises of a term paper, exams, short weekly reflections, and clicker participation. There is a ton of extra credit offered in this class that takes minimal effort to do. Take advantage of it! Exams were not too bad since he allows you to get points back with a follow up. Averages for midterms were 85 and 95, final average was 80.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-17T22:27:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "He's not understanding or ethical. You can study his ppts, but the tests are more focused on the readings. He words questions on the test alot harder than they need to be. He doesn't even go over them. Essay assignments are also graded pretty harshly. It's alot for just a 200 class. Please take Curtis if you want to take this course", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-08-15T13:39:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': None, 'review': 'So-so. There is definitely that divide between professor and students. Tests can be confusing, need to study a good amount. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-11-09T00:53:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Professor Selterman is a pretty solid professor. He is organized with the schedule of the material we learn and he emphasizes how he wants his class to be manageable. The only issue I had with him was his resistance to accommodate my learning differences in needing to be seated in the front. He treated my accommodation as a sort of inconvenience that wasn't really important to him. Otherwise, he's pretty easy to talk to and friendly. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-11-24T17:52:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "I don't understand why a lot of people seem to hate him? His lectures were very clear and he posted recordings on them on ELMS. The readings were also pretty straightforwards, but they were also long so I used an audio app to make it read it to me while I did other stuff. The tests were okay, but for every exam other than the final, you had the chance to take it again with your notes for possible extra credit points. Speaking of which, he offers A LOT of extra credit, I finished the class with a 103 (originally a 93 before EC was added). My only complaint was that his TA was really strict with commas on writing assignments.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-01-13T02:50:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC289D', 'review': '!!!PLEASE READ!!!\r\nDylan claims that he is on the students\' sides, however he couldn\'t care less. He agreed to let us submit an alternate assignment for Exam 2 and I submitted a publisher doc to elms on the due date. However, he took 20 days to put grades out on ELMS, which ended up being the start of finals week. I checked ELMS and I received a 0/100 on the exam assignment and a comment that simply said "I can\'t view your submission. You created a file from Microsoft Publisher but did not print as PDF or other readable document." That\'s it. Since when is a Microsoft publisher document unreadable? He waited 20 days to even look at the file I submitted and then left me with a zero for Exam 2 right at the beginning of finals week. As any good student, I messaged him and said "I understand that the syllabus says there is a zero-tolerance policy for this kind of work because, in the past, students have tried to purposefully do this in order to buy more time to make changes and perfect their assignment. However, this was never my intentions and, if needed, I have proof that my original Microsoft Publisher assignment that was uploaded a day early has not been modified since the day I submitted it, which was April 25th, 2019 at exactly 10:00 pm." I was in no way trying to cheat the system and buy myself more time for the assignment. I had proof too! However, he responded and said that students have also found ways to hack into their Microsoft system and change that "last modified" date on files. I was crushed; I was very scared for my grade at this point, so I asked to meet with him and discuss it in person and he agreed to do it on the third to last day of finals week after the class final. We talked about it and he did not budge or try to reason with me. At this point he was just being stubborn. I am currently trying to speak with the head of the Psyc department because I think that this is extremely unfair. In the midst of chaos, I went onto ELMS to find some extra credit opportunities and I completed a three-hour extra credit research assignment and submitted it and emailed him that I completed it. His response: "the Open Mind module was not assigned this semester. It was not required, nor was it available for extra credit." If it wasn\'t available for extra credit, then WHY is it on ELMS under "Extra Credit"!?!?!?!? Nothing that he does makes sense and he never tried to show any mercy or meet me in the middle with these issues. I was a good student in his class and did all the assignments and he still wouldn’t reason with me. It is currently finals week and the combination of study stress with Selterman\'s spontaneous and excuses that he pulls from thin air has pushed me over the top. I have never felt so helpless in a course in my entire life. For a Psychology of Happiness class, he sure knows how to spread the joy. 100% would NOT recommend.\r\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2019-05-20T19:26:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "You can tell Selterman knows what he's talking about when he teaching during lecture. His exams are application based and are very tricky. However, exams are weighted less than the worksheets that we have to do every week, which take about 3 hours to do. I would do as well as possible on those quizzes, so the exam grades won't affect you as much. The class is interesting, but the workload kind of ruins it. It's not an easy A type class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:08:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "This professor claims to care about his students when he really does not. He is rude and dismissive and has a huge ego. The TA's grade every paper in this class. His lectures are boring, yet you have to pay attention to get every detail for the tests because his slides have no information whatsoever. Not a terribly hard class, but if you have the option please go with another teacher. Selterman isn't worth the headache and pain of taking this class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-01-24T18:11:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Overall I disliked Selterman. His lectures all felt robotic, and he was extremely unhelpful with explaining any of the assignments for the class. He made it much more difficult then it should have been. You have to write a scientific analysis essay every other week and is graded very specifically and overall difficult to write. If it wasn't for the TA, I would've never passed this class. I will say if you show up for class and participate with the clickers, you will get a TON of extra credit in the end that actually boosted my grade up by two letter grades. I would not recommend taking this class unless required.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-14T16:48:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "I don't know why people don't like Dr. Selterman because he was super great! He was funny and very knowledgable of anything psych. The scientific analysis essays were not hard if you put in effort, start early and get help from the TAs when you need. Yes, it was a different assignment that was not like anything I've done before but if you thoroughly read the instruction, look at the sample and ask a TA to proof read it then you'll be fine. Class was also divided into two groups and each group attend discussion on alternate weeks. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-16T03:36:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Was a lot of work and I felt like it should honestly be a 4-credit class. While the content wasn't difficult, the workload felt overwhelming at times. Between weekly 30-50 question quizzes, and having essays due every other week, it was rough for me. Don't take this class unless required.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-08-22T00:42:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'The nicest and most understanding professor during this pandemic. Please take his class he genuinely wants you to learn! He made us do projects instead of exams and made the final one optional!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-12T00:31:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "I had his class fully online, and what a ride it was. The coursework wasn't really difficult (participation questions and a weekly activity/essay), and we didn't have exams either. What sucked is that I literally didn't learn a single thing in his class, as everything he covered was material that is taught in PSYC100 or AP Psych. He has a huuuuge ego and will not respond if something questions what he is presenting (like if you were to propose a theory that contradicted his own- he would straight up pretend like you didn't type or say anything). I also noticed that he didn't really address anyone in his class who had a more complex or foreign name, which was incredibly disheartening to see. Overall I am giving two stars because the workload itself wasn't that bad and I liked his cats; he seriously needs to work on actually connecting with his students and teaching new material.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-02T17:29:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Very good professor and he is obviously very aware of what's going on with the pandemic and how to ensure that his students can hold open discussions about what is going on in the world. He gives a lot of extra credit assignments. As long as you do your work on time and complete extra credit assignments, you should get an A in this class. He is a bit egotistical about some philosophies as others have mentioned but overall, he is a very well-spoken professor. The same goes for his TAs", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-24T20:08:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Is he good at actually teaching? Absolutely! Am I coming out of this semester knowing more about psychology than I did? Yep! Is there a heavy workload? Yes to that too. However, unfortunately he is very quick to report students to the OSC over minor similarities found using turnitin.com, as helpful as this website can be, it can't be too heavily relied on for student work, especially when the professor specifically states that proper APA format and references aren't required for these 400-500 word essays, not just that, neither him nor my TA contacted me beforehand to clarify the situation. I'm sure he's great in an offline setting, but online, he jumps to conclusions and has power trips if you bring up how harshly a TA may grade your papers. I will also be taking his PSYC234 class next semester when we're fully back on campus so hopefully I'll have a better review.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-04-26T22:42:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC234', 'review': "This professor is great at conveying course content to students and utilizing course materials (textbooks, articles, videos, and podcasts) to improve student learning. However, he will also deflect from student concerns and throw his TA under the bus if a student is concerned about the way an assignment is graded. Guidelines for the assignments were difficult to understand and the professor has managed to deflect from fully answering students' concerns regarding this. This professor is also hypocritical in his teaching values and claims to want students to advocate for their education and that grades shouldn't matter but took an opportunity to gaslight us when concerns were brought up about the weekly reflections and the way they're graded.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-01T17:04:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "I think professor Selterman is a solid professor overall. The course work is extremely manageable (a worksheet once a week and a 500-word short response once every other week.) He also doesn't require you to come to class in person and offers both an in-person as well as zoom option which is very convenient. The grading is pretty fair on the short responses as it's mostly the TA's grading them. He's very ingrained in his beliefs which can make it a bit hard to have a meaningful discussion if you disagree with him or present a counterargument to his point of view. But it's nothing ridiculous like I've seen in some of these reviews. No exams are a huge plus too. I would take him again for sure and I enjoyed how manageable the workload is ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-01T19:37:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'I put it in very minimal effort in this class and got an A. It was so easy. The professor doesn’t have any exams. You have an open note worksheet quiz every week, and a paper every other week. The TA’s do all the grading and they usually go pretty light. I also did not learn anything and could not help anybody with this class, but at least it was a GPA boost.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-09T14:51:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Very easy A, just do the weekly worksheets and short SAs. Try to do the Clicker questions because it doesn't matter if you get them wrong as long as you participate. Dylan is nice and sometimes funny but he goes off topic. He let you choose in-person and zoom, there are no exams or final projects, and the course load is fair. It's a great elective to boost your GPA and the content is very interesting.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-09T22:05:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Relatively easy A as long as you do all of the work and extra credit in the class, although his grading on papers is ridiculously petty. My problem is more so his attitude, as he is very arrogant and talks down to students as if they are beneath him, and he seems to dislike teaching. However, if you can deal with that, it's a simple A class. In addition, though, I would not recommend taking him if you are actually interested in learning psychology, as I didn't really gain much new psychological knowledge from this course. It felt more like busy work if anything,", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-02-06T22:22:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Dylan Selterman', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "I received an 104% in this class due to extra credit he offered and the class being extremely easy, this class was one of the easiest A's I've ever gotten, he offers no midterms, no finals. All you have to do is do the worksheets, and put effort into the SAs due every other week. I got 30/30 on almost every SA assignment except one time I got a 27/30 because I was lazy and just typed something out quickly. I would recommend him if you just want a chill, easy class. I also enjoyed the conversations he would have with the class. We barely went over actual content but it was interesting to engage in current topics in psychology like social media, the American education system, etc. Some people didn't like this but I actually enjoyed this a lot, it was the only reason I came to class. I think Selterman is a great professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-03-16T21:35:07Z'}], 'name': 'Dylan Selterman', 'slug': 'selterman'}, {'courses': ['BUAC743'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'E Carr', 'slug': 'carr_e'}, {'courses': ['CHEM483', 'CHEM484', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM177', 'CHEM134', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM132'], 'average_rating': 2.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Earle Stone', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "Very passionate about chemistry but doesn't care about students personally. his quizzes are difficult but aren't worth the effort.. the final is easy as long as you study for it", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-15T20:39:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Earle Stone', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'Seriously he is really boring and it seems he wants everyone to at least get a C- which is DEAD easy. But if you want better than that then expect to be shocked with the hard final that has a HUGE curve based on how everyone else did.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-12-17T19:57:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Earle Stone', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'Dr. Stone clearly is passionate about chemistry. However, his teaching style is so boring and ineffective. Prepare for lecture slides with way too much text and boring lectures. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-12T16:51:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Earle Stone', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'Let me start off by saying that I have Dr. Stone 2 stars because I strongly believe the setup of this course(with 40% of your grade being homework and a whopping 50% being the final) is kinda terrible. It means that your grade is essentially entirely determined by the final as most students entered the final with relatively similar grades up until that point.\r\n\r\nThat being said, I do think that Dr. Stone is a bad lecturer. His classroom setting is flipped classroom meaning that he expects you to have read the book before class(which literally nobody does) and then he runs through his powerpoints in a brief overview. However, he is also very disorganized—there were multiple quizzes that were on material he would teach AFTER we took the quizzes. This meant that quizzes are essentially a crapshoot. A similar problem occurred with the homeworks(which is mastering chemistry and should be an easy 100), where the homework would be on material he had yet to go over. Also, he’s rude to students who leave during lecture for any reason.\r\n\r\nUltimately, this class is easy to pass and hard to get an A in. If you want the A, either take Chem135 with a good prof like Griffith or grind your ass off for the final in 134. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T05:29:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Earle Stone', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'Dr. Stone can put a whole lecture hall to sleep in a matter of minutes. His lectures have way too many words on the slides and are littered with irrelevant details. Avoid him at all costs. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-02-05T23:56:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Earle Stone', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "Dr. Stone is an interesting guy. He is very well versed in chemistry, don't get me wrong, but he is not the best teacher. He goes through the topics very quickly considering most of us have not heard this type of chemistry language in 1-3 years. He also sometimes gives quizzes or homework on material which we don't learn until the following lecture and his multiple choice quizes are harder than anything I have seen before. He also can get very annoyed when people leave the class early but he has some perks. He is very open to discussing topics with students in office hours, he grades very quickly, and the final was all multiple choice (easier than the quizes).", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-03-25T17:00:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Earle Stone', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'Stone is passionate about chemistry, but cannot teach. He makes the class very "passable," but his lectures were long, boring, and irrelevant. Weekly quizzes are based off his previous lecture, but are very difficult & confusing. As long as you fill it our properly, and select an answer you\'ll get credit. Homeworks can be completed based on CHEM 131 knowledge, or AP CHEM, not from his lectures. Homework counted for 40% of the final grade, and are easy. The program tells you how to solve the question, and then regenerates with similar numebrs afterwards. As long as you complete every homework, and every quiz you will be in good shape. \r\n\r\nHis final is very difficult, but is very curved like the SAT/ACT, and the questions are much easier/straightforward than the quizzes. It is more than half T/F, then multiple choice. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-05-26T22:19:16Z'}], 'name': 'Earle Stone', 'slug': 'stone_earle'}, {'courses': ['EDCI689', 'EDCI763', 'EDCI631', 'EDCI288C', 'EDCI385', 'EDCI611', 'EDCI698', 'TLPL288C', 'TLPL300', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ebony Shockley', 'course': 'EDCI288C', 'review': 'Dr. Shockley is very funny and personable. The assignments are doable and also interesting in their own way', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-18T12:39:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Ebony Shockley', 'course': 'TLPL288C', 'review': 'Dr. Shockley is a great professor who truly cares about her students. She really makes an effort to get to know her students personally, and she makes her assignments very doable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-16T04:34:51Z'}], 'name': 'Ebony Shockley', 'slug': 'shockley'}, {'courses': ['UNIV348E', 'FGSM340', 'HONR378J', 'HNUH348T', 'FGSM340', 'GERM103', 'HNUH348T', 'FGSM340', 'HNUH348T'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ed Fendley', 'course': 'FGSM340', 'review': 'Good guy, very approachable. Lots of real world experience. He can talk slowly and vaguely sometimes. Not a horrible class, but sitting for three hours is difficult sometimes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T03:57:00.103459Z'}], 'name': 'Ed Fendley', 'slug': 'fendley'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eden Garosi', 'slug': 'garosi'}, {'courses': ['BSCI124', 'BSCI125', 'BSCI135', 'CPSP219L', 'BSCI135', 'BSCI135', 'BSCI135', 'BSCI135', 'BSCI135', 'BSCI135'], 'average_rating': 4.12, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': "BSCI135 is a GREAT course. I would recommend this class for anyone who's trying to fulfill their Gen Ed lab credit. \n\r\nThe material is very interesting, and he keeps the class engaged by throwing in some jokes here and there. You learn about food - what's there not to like?\n\r\nHe says there's an optional textbook you can get - don't get it. He bases his exam questions off of the powerpoints, some movies we watched, and articles we read.\n\r\nThere are a lot of extra credit opportunities at the end of the semester which is great for people close to jumping up a grade, and they're not hard at all. \n\r\nThis class doesn't require a lot of effort - just put in some time to study for exams. The labs were easy and interesting as well - we got to cook food in lab! \n\r\nTake this course! You won't regret it. Moctezuma is a great, funny, and helpful guy and the TA, Annie, is the best! \n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-08T11:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "Moctezuma is super nice! Like literally one of the most understanding and genuinely nice professors I've ever had. He understands that a lot of people in the class are not science majors and tries to present the information in a way that applies to daily life.\n\r\nThe exams are straightforward. Usually 55 questions with 50 MC and 5 FITB. The only way you could fail these tests is if you didn't dedicate any time to studying or didn't come to lecture. It's all very basic. Moctezuma posts a study guide the week before and holds review sessions the week of. Your grade is an average of these 4 and they are NOT cumulative! The final is the fourth exam.\n\r\nHe also offers a ton of extra credit. Up to 25 points. I maxed out on extra credit this semester and managed to bump my grade up two letter grades (B+ > A- > A).\n\r\nThe corequisite lab is even easier than the main class. If you didn't get an A+ in the lab you either (a) didn't come or (b) are genuinely an idiot.\n\r\nIf you want an easy A and/or to fulfill you DNSL credit take this class!\n\r\nThe textbook is useless, save yourself the 75 bucks and don't buy it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-17T20:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': "The class itself is pretty easy. There were three exams that weren't hard, and in each class he had a worksheet based on the notes that day, which you typically turned in the next class. Labs were an absolute joke, and you often got to leave early. However, the lectures got kind of boring; you'd fill in one blank on a powerpoint, and otherwise basically not pay attention. There were a few extra credit opportunities, so definitely do those. DO NOT BUY THE TEXTBOOK, all the exams were based off the powerpoints. \n\r\nOverall, easy class, the subject matter was interesting enough, and there was actually minimal info about real biology, it mostly focused on the nutrition of foods, how they're grown, and how they might affect you (i.e. caffeine wgives you energy, etc.). If you're a non-science major looking for a lab requirement, definitely take this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-11T22:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': "This class is super annoying for many reasons. It's super boring and easy in lecture. He gives you a powerpoint before each class with one word blanked on each page. You then listen to him ramble on for 75 minutes. The exams, though, are super difficult. They aren't what you're expecting at all. The exams are actually difficult! Pick one, Moctezuma! Hard or easy! The lab was easy, but TA John Clay is annoying.\n\r\nBottom line: Moctezuma is a cool dude you can probably grab a beer with, but this class is deceptively harder than it seems.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-11-19T16:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "PERSONAL BACKGROUND:\r\nI'm a English/Journalism major and needed a Lab Science. I heard this was the best class to fulfill this requirement.\n\r\nCLASS CONTENT:\r\nDr. Moctezuma does his lectures in Power Point style. You fill out a fill-in-the-blank notes during class. \n\r\nEXAMS/ASSIGNMENT:\r\nThere is no homework.\n\r\nThere are 4 MC, uncurved exams, each worth 100 points. They are entirely lecture based. They are not tricky, but if you do NOT pay attention in class and/or study, you will NOT do well on the test. \n\r\nDuring the semester, you will have the opportunity to earn a maximum of 25 extra credit points that are basically tacked on to your final exam score total. So if you perform poorly on an exam, you can boost your final grade by a whole letter grade. \n\r\nTEACHER:\r\nDr. Moctezuma does a good job on making plants as interesting as humanely possible and relative to your lives. Also, he has a good, if somewhat dirty sense of humor. He is willing to help students if they are struggling with the class and easy to approach. \n\r\nCO-REQUISITE LAB (BSCI124):\r\nEasiest lab I've ever taken. I had B. Gonzales and got out at least 30 mins. early almost every lab.\n\r\nOVERALL:\r\nI have no interest in science, often fell asleep during lectures, and suck at memorizing large amounts of information. I still got an A and would recommend to this class for all non-science majors.\n\r\nBecause all assignments and exams are ENTIRELY lecture based...\r\nDON'T BUY THE BOOK. DON'T BUY THE BOOK. DON'T BUY THE BOOK. DON'T BUY THE BOOK. DON'T BUY THE BOOK. DON'T BUY THE BOOK.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-29T22:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': 'Professor Moctezuma is the best biology teacher I have ever had. He knows his stuff, and he makes the material easily accessible. He brings in things like coffee for class when you discuss stimulating plants, and he always has a presentation or joke in his slides to make lecture interesting.\n\r\nAs long as you go to lecture to fill in the slides he posts online, you are almost guaranteed an A. Even if you do poorly on a test, it is fairly easily to keep on top of your grades with all of the extra credit that he gives. If you need to take a science CORE class, this is definitely the one to take.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T21:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': 'Hands down best lab science at UMD. Textook is helpful but is definitely not necessary. The lab is scheduled for two hours but we never spent more than an hour in it. The tests are straightforward. Just by doing all of the easy take home quizzes you add 2.5% to your overall grade in extra credit. If you hate science, take this class. I hated science and still do, but loved this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-13T17:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "I loved this class.\n\r\nI never missed a lecture, mostly because of the fact that he does not put the slides online and we have to fill in the blanks on the powerpoint slides. But it did help that he was funny in his own way too.\n\r\nHe's a really nice guy who you can tell cares about his students and wants his students to do well.\n\r\nOne thing that makes the class awesome is the fact that the exams are not cumulative, all four weigh the same amount, so if you're struggling in the beginning, you can still make it up by studying hard for the last one.\n\r\nI'll admit that I only studied hard for two of the exams, but I still did well - and I DESPISE science. Like I really do.\n\r\nHe doesn't curve, but that is because he gives extra credit, so make sure to do those. It really makes a difference.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-19T14:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "He's the nicest guy ever, and he tries to make things as fun and interesting as possible. Pretty much a guaranteed A, provided that you study for the four tests. He also offers SO much extra credit.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-11T11:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "When taking this class I was under the impression it was super easy from the reviews. I was also recomended by my advisor to take this class because science is not my strong suit. I found the first exam to be the hardest. The material is not difficult, but there is just so much to study all at once that it's easy to get mixed up. Moctezuma is a very nice and makes lectures not as dry. Do go to lecture! ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-27T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI125', 'review': "If you don't get an A in lab you probably have some sort of disability.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-17T17:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "This guy is really nice and actually cares about his students. Lectures are interesting even if you aren't a big science person because he relates things back to real life and throws in the occasional joke or two. I only wish the class was earlier so I could have woken up for it more often. \n\r\nYour grade basically comes down to 25% Exam 1, 25% Exam 2, 25% Exam 3, and 25% Final. You may think you know everything going into the first test, but if you don't study you will fail. Don't buy the book it's pointless, just go to class or get the lecture notes. TESTS ARE BASED ON THE LECTURE NOTES SO STUDY THEM. \n\r\nHe also offers an insane amount of extra credit that can help you. I didn't get over a B on the first three exams but managed to do a bunch of ec at the end of the semester and still pulled off a B. Overall it's a pretty easy class that you can definitely get an A in if you put in a little effort. \n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-22T05:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "I LOVED THIS CLASS! I don't care much for science and I failed a the Insects CORE. I should have listened to my gut and taken this class to begin with. \n\r\nMoctezuma knows his stuff, and he's so nice. \n\r\nI highly recommend this class. Don't be discouraged by Test I. It gets better. Also, go see him in office hours and do the extra credit. \n\r\nGreat class, great professor, great TAs. Thanks Grace!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T23:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': 'Moctezuma is the man.\n\r\nAnd I hate biology. I very much dislike science. But Moctezuma actually made plant-biology *shutter* as interesting as possible. \n\r\nI found him very funny. If you paid attention you would pick up on all his little humor cues.\n\r\nYou DO have to go to class. I had it at 9:30 am. It sucked it was so early. However, I never went to two 10:00 am\'s and two 11:00 am\'s this semester, but I always attended his 9:30 class.\n\r\nAll the information on the tests is given in class. The class is structured VERY well. If you go to class (which is TOTALLY manageable for a course like this), and you are even half decent in picking up cues for what is going to be on the test, you will do fine.\n\r\nNote: I feel like the vast majority of the class struggled. Thats because nobody went to class. I am somebody that misses many other classes, but I did not miss this one. Going to class is essential for the A. The book is NOT a supplement for his class. The power points have blanks that need to be filled in during class. Its very easy considering. In fact, don\'t even bother getting the book. \n\r\nAlso, there is a fair amount of extra credit you can get throughout the semester. And most of it isn\'t annoying extra credit. You can get up to 7.5% extra credit added to your final grade if you do it all. And most people did.\n\n\r\nI highly suggest to take this class if you need it for core. It won\'t get better than this.\n\r\nAll in all, Professor Moctezuma is the man. Just one little example to leave you guys with: For one of the extra credit assignments we had to fill out a quiz about psychoactive plants. One of the questions was about if you supported the legalization of marijuana or not. Then it asked to explain why. At this point of the year I had a high grade so I didn\'t take the extra credit seriously, so I quoted the Notorious B.I.G. for my answer: "Life\'s ***** and then you die, thats why we get high, \'cause you never know when you gonna go." The T.A.s grade the quizzes, and I\'m almost certain that mine was horrified and took it straight to Professor Moctezuma to show him. Instead of getting zero credit, he doubled the extra credit points for my assignment, and make a joke about it during lecture. He didn\'t call me out because he didn\'t want to embarrass me, but he used it as something to spice up the average class day.\n\r\n Professor Moctezuma is a champ. Give him a chance and it will be very evident. Probably my favorite college professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T16:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': "Moctezuma is an all star. Memorize the lecture slides before exams. Do all the extra credit. You'll get an A", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-01T22:31:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "Take this class if you hate yourself. Lectures are UNBEARABLY boring. He does not teach, just reads right off the slides. The exams are tough because they cover over 400 slides worth of information. There's also only 4 of them! One poor result and 25% of your grade is gone. The only reason he's not rated one star is because he offers extra credit. Only take this class if you have to.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-13T03:22:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "CAUTION! Difficult course for non-cs majors!!!!! I was attracted to the course as it seemed to be a fairly easy gen-ed for non-cs majors but as soon as you start the class, you see the content is a lot and although it isnt too hard, the exams are very tough. The exams are all multiple choices and he asks very specific questions that you would find hard to answer unless you treated this course like a major course. During Spring 20, he informed the online class that the exam would take place on the lockdown browser 20 MINS BEFORE the midterm. We all had to struggle to download and many of the students had difficulties with the software too. He did not seem to care at all. Overall, suggested to never take a course with this teacher again unless you're a bio major. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-05-27T07:11:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI124', 'review': "Besides the inconvenient, last-min lockdown browser issues (I took this class spring 2020), the class itself wasn't bad. His lectures were, in my opinion, not engaging whatsoever--I only attended them because he had us fill out blank PPTs that were only available in lecture. If you memorize (literally memorize, not even study) the PPTs, you'll get at least a B on exams. BSCI125 (the lab) was super easy as well. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T07:42:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': 'He is a really nice guy but this class is pure memorization of facts. His exams often have very specific facts. The class is purely him reading the slides, occasionally he has activity sheets that go along but i ended up skipping classes. The lab was super easy but exams are too difficult because of their specificity. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T14:44:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': 'Class is not as easy at it seems, and he makes the exams way too hard.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-12T22:11:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': "As long as you studied the material before the exams you should be fine. Quizlet is your friend. Most of the negative reviews are probably because they didn't bother putting in the time to study.\r\n\r\n\r\nProfessor Moctezuma is a very accommodating and easy to talk to professor. You'll learn a lot.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T22:49:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': 'This is the best science class you can take here. Moctezuma is a legend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-09-28T18:45:12.167810Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': 'DO NOT BUY THE TEXTBOOK, waste of money. Ask for a printed syllabus because the one online is locked and he never fixed that. Very nice professor who wants you to do well. He hosted a review before each exam (the evening before which sucked though) and they helped A LOT so I advise that you go. This class is alot of memorization, so keep that in mind. I took this for my natural lab credit and the lab portion was so easy. A 2 quiz for each chapter we learn and 2 attempts are allowed (highest score kept). This is probably your easiest route to take if looking to fulfill the natural lab credit. People like myself began not attending lecture once they realized its pure memorization, but the professor noticed and got upset. He really is a nice guy and did his best to make the class engaging to students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T06:47:17.245201Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': None, 'review': "This isn't a stressful class. Attend lectures and labs, complete the canvas quizzes, go to review sessions, and you should do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-24T23:49:46.911979Z'}, {'professor': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'course': 'BSCI135', 'review': "The class is relatively easy as long as you remember to do the lecture quizzes (which I forgot to do a couple of times) and really study and memorize every bolded term on the slides. It's clear that Moctezuma is really passionate about what he teaches but you really don't need to show up to lecture-- I barely got an A- by only studying the slides 3 days before each exam. Overall, I learned more in this class than many other gen-eds and I highly recommend it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-25T03:41:34.458628Z'}], 'name': 'Edgar Moctezuma', 'slug': 'moctezuma'}, {'courses': ['LBSC645', 'LBSC708B', 'LBSC708A'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Edith Ching', 'course': 'LBSC645', 'review': "Most materials are outdated-- published decades earlier with very little recent literature. Her recorded lectures are clearly from years earlier (will cite articles 'published just yesterday', and it was published in 2014). This was one of my worst experiences in education, period-- she would argue with me over the most polite emails. Truly a nightmare. Avoid at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T19:11:39Z'}], 'name': 'Edith Ching', 'slug': 'ching'}, {'courses': ['ENGL317', 'ENGL748B', 'ENGL234', 'ENGL479P', 'ENGL470', 'ENGL628B', 'ENGL431', 'ENGL349J', 'ENGL748I', 'AASP298L', 'AASP478A', 'AAST498C', 'AASP398C', 'AASP478B', 'AAST398J', 'ENGL428K', 'ENGL738A', 'ENGL479C', 'ENGL313', 'ENGL479C'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Edlie Wong', 'course': None, 'review': 'One of the best professors in the English department, every single English major loves her!! Her class is so well organized, she gives great feedback, super encouraging - fair grader and gives a fair amount of work. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-14T21:47:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Edlie Wong', 'course': 'ENGL313', 'review': "Professor Wong is such a delight. Her class is very straightforward; if you come to class, participate, and complete the assignments you're pretty much golden. There are reflection assignments each week about the assigned readings that are informal and low-stress. The bigger assignments are 4-5 pages and she gives you a list of topics to choose from. She is very accommodating and just an amazing instructor. I highly recommend any class with her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T20:01:03.015479Z'}], 'name': 'Edlie Wong', 'slug': 'wong_edlie'}, {'courses': ['FMSC498A', 'FMSC720', 'FMSC410', 'FMSC310', 'FMSC710', 'EXST030', 'SPHL399', 'FMSC310', 'SPHL399', 'FMSC310', 'FMSC710', 'GERM103', 'FMSC310', 'SPHL399', 'FMSC310', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC310', 'FMSC310', 'FMSC310', 'FMSC710'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Edmond Shenassa', 'course': 'FMSC410', 'review': "Professor Shenassa is honestly the worse professor I have ever had at UMD. He is incredibly condescending and rude. If you ask a question he will mock you and act like you are stupid even though his own powerpoints have tons of typos. His syllabus is very inconsistent and if you try to point out something that doesn't make sense/match up he responds very rudely and defensively. \n\r\nShenassa thinks his class is soooo hard and that he is such a tough professor. The class itself is honestly not that hard, but his poor attitude ruins any good material. I regret taking this class so much and dread going. Again, it is not too hard of a class but his personality is dreadful. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-11-25T17:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edmond Shenassa', 'course': None, 'review': "I was so scared this was going to be the hardest Family Science class ever, but it turned out to be one of my favorites. Dr. Shenassa is a great professor and really just wants all of his students to do well in the class. He expects everyone to come to class prepared and doing the readings before class makes lecture a little easier to follow. He offers bonus points throughout the whole semester that can help make a difference in your grade, but you need to go to class and pay attention. He's a really nice person so don't let the first couple of classes intimidate you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-20T00:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edmond Shenassa', 'course': None, 'review': "He will try to scare the shit out of you the first day of class and tell you this is THE hardest class you will ever take at UMD. He is just trying to weed out those who will do the work from those who won't.\n\r\nYou'll learn a lot in this class, and it's not really as hard as he makes it out to be. As long as you read before every class you'll seriously be fine. There is one group paper, like 4-5 pages and a presentation at the end of the semester. \n\r\nHe calls on people randomly in class, which is why you need to read beforehand. He has a sense of humor once you get to know him and there are LOTS of opportunities for bonus points, which will really help your grade.\n\r\nDon't let him scare you into dropping the class the first day!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-24T17:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Edmond Shenassa', 'slug': 'shenassa'}, {'courses': ['ENEE790', 'ENEE690', 'ENEE381', 'ENEE380', 'ENEE380H', 'ENEE690'], 'average_rating': 3.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Edo Waks', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "He knows the material well and he is very well organized in class. The class material isn't particularly hard, and his exam were really straight forward and simple. Easy A in my opinion. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-03-08T20:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edo Waks', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "Prof. Waks is a very good professor. He doesn't really try to trip up or trick his students at all, though the occasional wording of a test problem may cause issues. Homework is absurd but rarely shows up on tests. Just go over old exams and the material/problems covered in class. Also let's you have a note sheet for the tests (just put old problems on there!) All of this should be enough to get you a solid grade in his class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-04T01:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edo Waks', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "Waks is an amazing professor. His lectures are clear and concise and goes through alot of good sample problems in lecture. He also posts all of his notes in the beginning of the semester just in case you want to look ahead.\n\r\nTests are very simple and are not meant to trick you at all. My suggestion would be to study the problems gone through in class and his past exams and you're guaranteed to do well. Averages for the exams are usually very high so make sure you study. \n\r\nHe also gives quizzes in the beginning of every discussion, but depending on your TA, this may not be the case. My TA was a grad student so he typically didn't have time to make the quizzes, but be sure to look over the material beforehand anyway.\n\r\nOverall, Waks is an amazing professor. I suggest him to anyone who is looking to take 380. Good luck!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-31T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edo Waks', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': 'Waks is a great professor, has very clear notes and examples which are also in text form on the website. He lets you have cheat sheets on the exam with anything on them, so just write down all the old exam problems and I promise at least one will be on his exam. All you need to do is do the homeworks and all the old exams you can find and you are good to go in 380.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-27T13:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edo Waks', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "Waks was great. He was willing to go over anything you wanted/needed to go over to complete the assignments in his office hours. He also posted very high quality lecture notes, available several weeks in advance.\n\r\nI always appreciate professors who do this.\n\r\nAlso, his exams weren't too bad. They were similar enough to test bank/practice exams that you felt like you could study for them effectively.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-28T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edo Waks', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': 'Waks was a good professor. He was prepared and came in to lectures ready to go. His homeworks were challenging, but if you could do them, you were good for the entire class. The quizzes were similar to HWs, and the exams were also similar to the homeworks. Definitely do and turn in your homework. He had a no cell phone policy during class, which was totally fine. He also gave us a 5 min break every class in the middle, which was amazing. Conveying information wise, he was good, but the later chapters were more difficult, and wish he slowed down. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-19T20:00:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Edo Waks', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': 'Edo Waks is Wack. These other reviews are out dated. Exam and quiz averages were in the 40s-50s. Homework is insane. Does not do examples in class and refuses to help with practice problems.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-18T20:13:46.447977Z'}, {'professor': 'Edo Waks', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "The most frustrating classes I've ever gone through. The 2-stars is because Professor Waks genuinely knew the material and was a decent lecturer, but he made the course itself very frustrating, especially for the non-honors section. The exam averages were a 57 for exam one and a 45 for exam two, yet he would not announce any type of curve going into the final, where the highest grade in the class that I heard of was a 60. The weekly homework's took at least a 6 hours and Waks would not respond to any email asking for help. I emailed him three times throughout the semester and received no response, and others I talked to had the same experience. I also knew people that attempted to go to his office hours, yet he wouldn't show up and would not send any kind of announcement. During class he would only cover the theories and never any examples, which made the course much more difficult as you had to figure out on your own how to approach any of the questions. To the professor's credit, he hasn't taught a course since before Covid, so he definitely had to adjust.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-01-09T13:17:16.698532Z'}], 'name': 'Edo Waks', 'slug': 'waks_edo'}, {'courses': ['BUAC758L', 'BUSI610'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eduardo Martinez', 'slug': 'martinez_eduardo'}, {'courses': ['EDCP217', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Edward Bempong', 'slug': 'bempong'}, {'courses': ['PSYC300', 'PSYC789', 'NACS898', 'NACS899', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC437', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC437', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC437'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Edward Bernat', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': 'What a cutie, can’t get enough of him. His pony tail is very adorable. He uses multiple slide shows instead of using one, which is strange. But it works. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-09-05T15:24:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Bernat', 'course': 'PSYC437', 'review': 'He was quite disorganized throughout the semester. He changed the grading rubric part of the way through as well. His slides were helpful when he posted them but he went way too fast in lecture for anyone to write anything down. After week 2 everyone gave up going to lecture and taking notes and just watched the panaptos from home. We also had weekly writing assignments in groups due every Sunday. There was no consistency in the grading so it was hard to know how well we would do each week. He also released grades really late. On the last day of finals he released grades from sepetember and october till the end of the semester and gave us low grades. He knew the concepts well, but I did not learn much from this course. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-22T00:03:21Z'}], 'name': 'Edward Bernat', 'slug': 'bernat_edward'}, {'courses': ['PSYC604', 'PSYC798A', 'PSYC420', 'PSYC334', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC420', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC420', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC798I', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC798A', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC420'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Edward Lemay', 'slug': 'lemay'}, {'courses': ['MUSC329A', 'MUSC329B', 'MUSC329O', 'MUSC490', 'MUSC659', 'MUSC329M', 'MUSC491', 'MUSC649B', 'MUSC388', 'MUSC389', 'MUSC649A', 'MUSC649O', 'MUSC689', 'MUSC649M', 'MUSC659A', 'HONR259W', 'MUSC329B', 'MUSC490', 'MUSC649B', 'MUSC649O', 'MUSC659A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Edward Maclary', 'slug': 'maclary'}, {'courses': ['ENEE381H', 'PHYS715', 'ENEE681', 'PHYS411', 'ENEE789O', 'PHYS798D', 'ENEE380', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE381', 'ENEE789O', 'PHYS715'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Edward Ott', 'course': 'ENEE381H', 'review': "Ott is an okay lecturer. His lectures are heavily theory based (derivations) and lectures straight out of the book. Think of your typical physics professor. I thought he was okay in the beginning, but as time went on, I realized I wasn't learning anything useful in lecture, and I was better off reading the book. The lecture don't really help the homework and exams. He can be boring but this class is doable. Exams aren't computationally difficult, just review his old exams and you should be fine. He gave out 3-4 B's and 4-5 A's when I took it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-21T02:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Ott', 'course': 'PHYS411', 'review': "Professor Ott is one of those professors who is too smart for teaching. The fact that he is not aware of the class's understanding, or lack thereof, is also clear. He writes on the board and blocks what he writes with his body, talks into the board, and often mumbles. Medians of the exams were in 40s and 50s. You are better off taking a different professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-27T02:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Ott', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': "Professor Ott's lectures are alright, as mentioned below. He is very dry, and simply goes over derivations for the current topic. He jumps around in the textbook some, which can be difficult to follow. However, his grading is fair and the exams are quite straightforward. If you go over his supplementary problems from homework and review quiz questions, the exams will be quite similar. He did give out a few supplementary notes that he wrote that are not included in the textbook, so be sure to focus on those. He likes to ask practical questions derived from these notes. Overall, he was an average professor. His lectures were not great, but you can tell he is a very intelligent and well-respected physicist. I'm not sure how the final course grades were distributed, but the course grading scale seemed pretty fair.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-24T22:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Ott', 'course': 'PHYS715', 'review': "I concur with the previous reviews. Prof. Ott's book on chaos is exceptionally good for self-learning, which, unfortunately, makes his course redundant. He focuses too little on modern stuff like quantum chaos, thermalization, random matrices, networks, chimera, machine learning etc, which could have drawn students from different research interests to his course and put the course material in the context of modern research directions. But nice course overall, good guy, medium prof.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-25T00:15:38Z'}], 'name': 'Edward Ott', 'slug': 'ott_edward'}, {'courses': ['INAG110', 'INAG110S', 'INAG131'], 'average_rating': 4.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Edward Priola', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "GOAT professor of my time at UMD so far. Effectively teaches the content and is a cool guy. He can seem a bit strict at times and will poke fun at students but he does it to everyone and it's always in kind faith. Definitely a good option for a comms class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-04-17T02:38:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Priola', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Very strict and most days seems to pull facts out of thin air (statistics, studies, etc.) just to back up some claim he made. Made us take a rather difficult midterm and final, which were all from the textbook. If you don't want to read the textbook cover to cover, I would not recommend this professor.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-11T23:15:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Priola', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'As long as you come to class, participate, and practice your speeches, you will earn an A. As a professor, Ed is much stricter than other comm teachers and assigns a lot more. However, he is fun-loving guy and enjoys what he does. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-15T20:51:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Priola', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Well worth the credit. Don't be mistaken you'll have to work for an A but the skills you get while going for an A are invaluable! Highly recommend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-17T19:53:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Priola', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "You must attend every lecture (obviously) and don't be surprised if he calls on you during class. You should be fine if you read ahead and memorize key terms from every chapter. The midterm and final are quite easy if you skim the entire book. For presentations, I'd recommend rehearsing your speech as much as possible. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-09T21:50:37Z'}], 'name': 'Edward Priola', 'slug': 'priola'}, {'courses': ['PHYS132', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS132H'], 'average_rating': 3.6364, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS131', 'review': "This class is indeed challenging and causes you to look at physics in a much different way, meaning its not simply plug and chug physics. He makes you think critically and wants you to understand what is really happening. Overall this class seriously takes a lot of effort and work, but all in all it is highly possible to get an A. Professor Redish is one of the few professors I've had thus far that wants you to succeed and really wants all his students to pass. If you go to office hours in the course center for homework help you will be golden. Also if you have the pleasure of having Kim as your TA then you are extremely set. This class is a lot different than what you may be use to, but it really is possible to pass. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-06T04:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS131', 'review': 'His class is difficult in that you SHOULD/WILL put 6-10 hours per week on weekly assignments. Thats how you learn in this class, from your mistakes. But this course has been the best I have taken yet; his style of teaching concepts in lecture really allows you to expand from the usual "way" of approaching science education. That\'s what I loved about this class, designed to make (or teach) you how to think critically, approach detailed problems using the strong foundation he instills about physics and biology. For a serious pre-med student, I strongly recommend him and this course specifically. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-07-26T01:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "He has 3 exams, including the final. His test questions come from quiz questions that had poor average scores and from the homework. You will spend about 3-7 hours every week on homework. Labs depend on your TA. I had the fortune of having the best TA I have had at UMD. \n\r\nRedish's lectures are interesting and worth attending, but you will have to spend a lot of time outside of class learning the material because he doesn't really teach the content so much as teach you how to think about physics. If you want an A get help on the homework. Make sure you understand the answers to all the homework problems and the tests should go well. \n\r\nOverall a fantastic teacher, a cool person, and you will learn a lot if you put in the effort. If you want to learn physics for the MCATs you should definately take him. What I learned from Dr. Redish also helped me a lot in biomechanics. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-31T20:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS122', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE REDISH! He intentionality tries to trick students on his exams and is proud of it. He will often say, "don\'t just memorize the equation or I will trick you on the exam and you will get it wrong." This idea would not be bad if he actually taught the material correctly. Instead of doing any practice problems during class, he will ask a question and then just make it a clicker question. In phys121 I took a different teacher and got an A fairly easily, but this semester I am struggling to make a B. Additionally, on his homework he will include several non-physics questions that are usually very hard to figure out and will bring down your grade. Overall, this class is very weird and is not taught correctly for a student to succeed. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-19T15:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "A LOT OF WORK. Syllabus says it takes 4-6 hours of the week to do lecture hw due on Friday, but I was working on a little bit everyday and I had a pretty high average on the hw. Almost every homework had an annoying problem that required arguing with classmates and consulting with several TAs. You learn in this class from experience, such as by getting quiz and hw questions wrong to learn the concepts for the exams.\n\r\nBut helpful that he teaches conceptually so you feel like you don't have to memorize. Really puts in the effort to learn everyone's names. So it's a tradeoff between feeling like you really learn with a nice professor and having a class take up most of your time during a semester and whether you can afford to take it with your other science classes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-24T00:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS122', 'review': "I had him for both 121 and 122 and hes a great professor!! His techniques seem weird at first but once you get the concepts you'll always remember them. I'm studying for MCATS right now and I can tell you that all the concepts I learned in his class are of great help to me and the ones I didnt fully understand are coming back to haunt me ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-07-20T20:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "Dr. Redish has a very... unorthodox way of teaching, for his PHYS 121 class at least. He doesn't do any example problems in class, and skims over conceptual material in a hurry. There's a substantial amount of work to be put in for this class, even for a 4 credit class--weekly tutorial homeworks, lecture homeworks, labs, and quizzes. The lecture homework took at least 5 hours a week, and can be very frustrating and time-consuming. The tutorials are a joke. He's an OK professor to talk to be can be kind of condescending if you don't understand the material the first time round.\n\r\nHis grading scheme is also kind of wacky; the quizzes and exams are not curved (with >75% and A), but the labs and homework are, dependent upon the harshness of your TA's grading.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-27T04:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'Dr. Redish is a education research professor. He will learn your name, interact with you, and he really does care whether or not you LEARN the material. You might get a slightly lower grade because his tests and homework require you to think really hard, however I highly recommend him. You will get something out of his class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-16T22:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'Very good lectures. The homeworks took up most of my free time during the week, you have to get help on them or work with others. Tests are difficult but there is a generous curve. The lab and discussion are a waste of time.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-08T17:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "A bit confusing and not clear.\n\r\nBUT, he tries his best.\n\r\nDo ALL the homework and classes, then you'll be fine.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-18T16:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Edward Redish', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "He's not the best teacher I've ever had-very confusing, not very clear, and his approach to teaching is very different from other physics courses. BUT, he does try to make the material interesting with interactive lectures. \n\r\nHe requires a lot of independent work; I learned more from doing homeworks and talking to other students, rather than listening to him. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-15T18:47:00Z'}], 'name': 'Edward Redish', 'slug': 'redish'}, {'courses': ['CHEM601', 'CHEM401', 'CHEM889D', 'CHEM602', 'CHEM399A', 'CHEM399C', 'CHEM611', 'CHEM612', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM889C', 'CHEM611', 'CHEM146', 'CHEM608E', 'CHEM146'], 'average_rating': 3.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Efrain Rodriguez', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'I had a Rodriguez and Jarzynski for Chem271 online on alternating weeks and I have to say I found just reading the textbook better than his lectures. The online textbook for this class is a MUST. Saved my life.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-09T22:17:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Efrain Rodriguez', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Efrain is not a good professor, however his exams are unbelievable. Our class's averages were in the 50s, and he laughed about it. He does not seem to care if students do well in his course, and the GSS leader (redhead girl, idk her name) is not useful in any way", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-11-01T16:26:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Efrain Rodriguez', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Efrain is a super nice man. He doesn't really seem like he knows that much about chemistry but he is very considerate it seems like. The exams I thought had a few surprises, but any chem class will be like that. If you study and read the book you should be fine. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-08T23:15:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Efrain Rodriguez', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Rodriguez is . . . fine. He is a decent lecturer, but makes mistakes at least once every couple classes if not every class, which is annoying because he usually doesn't recognize it until halfway through the problem. His homeworks are easy enough, but I felt the exams were harder than any practice material he gave us. He does give a fair amount of partial credit though which is nice. However, he didn't give us an answer key for a final practice exam which was irritating. Dr. Schech guest-lectured for the beginning of the semester while he was on paternity leave and she was GREAT, I honestly wouldn't have realized how mediocre Dr. Rodriguez was in comparison had she not filled in for him. Overall, if you take him be prepared for harder exams but the class itself is pretty manageable. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-15T01:57:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Efrain Rodriguez', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': "Honestly such a great professor. Very caring about his student and more than willing to give help if approached. He makes it a point to form personal connection and does a good job of explaining concepts in different ways if you don't understand. You can tell he is super passionate.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-11-10T05:21:46.537942Z'}, {'professor': 'Efrain Rodriguez', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': 'He is very passionate about chemistry and cares about each student he teaches (even remembers the names of most people in the lecture). His midterms are fair as long as you study using his exam practice test, which is really helpful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-18T03:49:29.782738Z'}, {'professor': 'Efrain Rodriguez', 'course': 'CHEM146', 'review': 'Dr. Rodriguez was a good professor who was tasked with teaching the "not so interesting" general chemistry 1 class. He is very understanding and will answer your questions during class. The curve is based off he class average which made it easy to get an A even if you had trouble recalling some of the information from Highschool.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-30T21:00:21.368035Z'}], 'name': 'Efrain Rodriguez', 'slug': 'rodriguez_efrain'}, {'courses': ['GERM103', 'GERM203'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eileen Sellman', 'slug': 'sellman'}, {'courses': ['AMSC612', 'AMSC666', 'AMSC698T', 'CMSC666', 'AMSC466', 'CMSC466', 'AMSC666', 'CMSC666'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eitan Tadmor', 'course': None, 'review': "He's too used to teaching graduate students and has too high of expectations of undergrad students. Take this class if you're ready to not have time for the rest of your courses", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-15T00:52:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Eitan Tadmor', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': 'Professor Tadmor is a very smart guy and is very passionate about what he teaches. The material is already difficult and in addition to his personal views on how/what to teach, learning material was quite difficult. However he is very helpful when asked questions and does his best to ensure that students succeed. You get exactly what you put in to this class so keep that in mind if you decide to take a class under him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-12-19T18:16:35Z'}], 'name': 'Eitan Tadmor', 'slug': 'tadmor'}, {'courses': ['FMSC750', 'UNIV348P', 'FMSC879', 'FGSM320', 'HONR378E', 'FMSC431'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elaine Anderson', 'course': None, 'review': "Course definitely had a big family science spin on it but overall a good introduction to health policy. You got what you put in. It went until 6 on Tuesday so people are definitely a little tired in class. The papers are graded fairly and both Dr. Anderson and Amanda Ginter, the other teacher, are approachable, helpful and accomodating. I was able to get an extension on one paper because I had a couple exams due on the same day. Class is really chill and the guest speakers are very interesting. Computers are allowed so you can take notes and look up extra information on whatever you're learning about during class. The book is also amazing. There are weekly discussion board questions which you don't have to necessarily read the book to participate in, but I'd suggest reading if you have time since it'll add to your knowledge.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-18T13:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elaine Anderson', 'course': None, 'review': "Had her for Federal Semester- Health Policy. One of the nicest and most engaging professors I've had at Maryland. Super energetic about health and very receptive to students' ideas and concerns. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-29T12:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elaine Anderson', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Anderson was a very approachable professor and this course was really great because it only has about 25 people in it. The book assigned for the class is absolutely great - understandable yet informative. There are also some interesting guest speakers who come in - a nutrition expert from NIH, a maryland state representative, and more. There is also an interesting class trip to D.C. to visit the Capitol (Rep. Hoye'rs office) and meet people working for non-profits and Dept. of Health and Human Services. \n\r\nHowever, Dr. Anderson focused a lot on family centered health policy, since she is a family science professor. Although we did learn some about health policy, this was not the best introductory health policy course since many of the lectures related to family issues. However, I still enjoyed the class and would recommend it to others - just make sure to do the readings if you really want to learn about all of the aspects of US health policy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T00:33:00Z'}], 'name': 'Elaine Anderson', 'slug': 'anderson_elaine'}, {'courses': ['ENAE788A', 'ENAE788J', 'ENAE788Y'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elaine Oran', 'slug': 'oran_elaine'}, {'courses': ['JOUR201', 'JOUR320', 'JOUR620'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elaine Povich', 'slug': 'povich'}, {'courses': ['HLTH491', 'HLTH785'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elbert Glover', 'slug': 'glover'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL281', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eleanor Tipton', 'slug': 'tipton_eleanor'}, {'courses': ['FREN301', 'FREN303', 'RUSS402', 'RUSS401', 'RUSS405', 'RUSS203', 'RUSS433', 'FREN352', 'RUSS303', 'RUSS298C', 'RUSS406', 'FREN352H', 'COMM798B', 'RUSS439A', 'RUSS321'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elena Lozinsky', 'course': 'FREN351', 'review': "Really good professor. She is extremely knowledgeable about the subject and manages to be enthusiastic about every piece of French literature we studied (which amazes me because Symbolist and Surrealist poetry was the lousiest stuff I have ever read). She is also really nice about turning in things late or not having enough time to prepare the readings, so I would definitely advise you take her class. It's a lot of work, but my French skills improved significantly after taking her class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-01T07:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Elena Lozinsky', 'slug': 'lozinsky'}, {'courses': ['MATH113', 'MATH121'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elif Kuz', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "Okay professor. She has a very soft voice so it is difficult to hear her and stay awake during lectures. She also breaks down information a bit too much, making everything convoluted and difficult to follow. Besides that, she was nice and helpful when you came to ask her questions.\n\r\nThree exams, plus a cumulative final; the second exam is the most difficult. She also gives around 10 quizzes, the first half are take home and the rest are done during class. Also, there are weekly webassigns to complete that (usually) aren't too difficult. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-22T12:00:00Z'}], 'name': 'Elif Kuz', 'slug': 'kuz'}, {'courses': ['ARCH402', 'ARCH171', 'ARCH170'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elijah Northen', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "Professor Northen is seriously one of the best professors I have had at the University of Maryland. The lectures were engaging, interesting, and relevant to the architectural field; you will take away a lot from this class. He is a practicing architect who knows what he's talking about and gives you a great look into the architectural career field. He is a fair grader as well, if you put in the effort then you should be able to get an A in the class. I highly recommend trying to take one of his classes if you can. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-30T20:39:11Z'}], 'name': 'Elijah Northen', 'slug': 'northen'}, {'courses': ['MUSC229U', 'MUSC229G', 'MUSC229I', 'MUSC229F', 'MUSC229P', 'MUSC629U', 'MUSC629F'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elijah Osterloh', 'course': None, 'review': 'Awesome!!! Lots of ENTHUSIASMS! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '1', 'created': '2016-05-05T22:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Elijah Osterloh', 'slug': 'osterloh'}, {'courses': ['BMGT445', 'BMGT445F', 'BMGT440', 'BUFN772', 'BMGT345', 'BUSO601', 'BUSO758J', 'BMGT440', 'BUSO601', 'BUSO601', 'BUSO758J', 'BUSO601', 'BUSO758J', 'BUSO758J'], 'average_rating': 3.9412, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': 'She abuses her poor husband, Steven.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-09-08T12:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': "She's not the most entertaining professor out there, but she explains everything very well, is extremely nice, and has tons of experience. She really wants everyone to do well in her class. Her class is made of two exams each worth 32% or 33%, a group presentation, case studies (or ProBanker, if in the Fellows sections), and homework. Her reviews will prepare very well for the exams, since she will tell you exactly want is going to be in them. Usually, they consist of a few multiple choices, short answers, and problems, which are not too bad. Overall, I enjoyed the class, because I have an interest in the field, and an A is not really difficult to get. If you take her class, I'm sure you won't regret it!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-25T13:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': "She is definitely here as a result of tenure. Don't get me wrong, she is a very sweet lady and really wants her students to succeed. She is definitely very knowledgeable about banking and is a great resource if you are going in that field. Her class consists of homework,a group presentation, a group case study, and 2 exams worth 33% each. Her classes are brutally boring and she even admits to using some of the same slides from 20 years ago. She is unfortunately a boring teacher and is all over the place. Luckily, her exam reviews and homework will adequately prepare you for her exams, she will act like they are a mystery, but trust me, they are predictable. I guess I have mixed feelings about whether or not you should take her. Getting an A is not too difficult if you study, but if you are looking for a superb professor keep searching. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-15T23:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': 'One of the best teachers in the business school. She cares about her students, and displays 100% effort in teaching finance and banking. As long as you go to class, you will learn a lot. She is extremely knowledgeable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-04-23T23:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'BMGT340 is actually a decend class to get a B in. I recieved a C- due to slacking but if you go to every class, which can be painful, you will not have any trouble getting a B if not an A in her class. Many students were able to 100s on her exams. As for studying do not memorize the material, rather learn it and understand it. Her exams consist of actual equations as well as technical questions which can be very tricky. As for a person Prof. Kiss does truely have a soul. I was going to recieve a D+ in her class but after explaining how much this would set me back, she reasoned with me and gave me a C-. Go to class and you will reap the reward of a good grade. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'c', 'created': '2012-07-11T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Let me start this off by saying I took this class in the summer, so maybe it was a bit different. But I absolutely loved Professor Kiss. She was always readily available with help via email. While she did take time to explain what was due when at the beginning of class, it always helped. Often times when not many people would come to class she wille explain exactly how to do her extra credit assignments. While going through her powerpoints, she always points out which questions will be on her exams. \n\r\nAs other people stated she does talk about her previous job as a CFO, but that is only to help the students better understand.\n\r\nI'm not any type of business major, but I found this class very interesting and she made it easy.\n\r\nYou will absolutely get an A if you go to all the classes. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-29T15:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': 'Professor Kiss is one of the best teachers in the business school. She genuinely cares about her students, and displays 100% effort in teaching finance and banking. As long as you go to class, you will learn a lot of in the field of finance. She is one of the few teachers in the business school that teaches extremely well, and knows what she is doing. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-14T20:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': "Professor Kiss is the argument against tenure for teachers. Her class is painfully hard to follow and she doesn't even go over her slides. Her technique on teaching is tell a story and then run over 9 slides without saying anything except this slide will be on the exam. Whatever finance students can do to not take this class with her will bode well for your education. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-09-27T13:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'Kiss is probably the nicest yet most ineffective teacher I\'ve had at UMD. She seems to really care about helping her students, but she really wasn\'t a good teacher. She wastes the first 15 minutes of class going over what\'s due and when, and other things we already know. When she does teach, she jumps around from topic to topic and from the ppts in the course pack and her own "better" ppts, making her difficult to follow. I eventually just stopped going to her class and went to White\'s class and I know this is the reason I did better on the last 2 exams. All three teachers of 340 (White, Kiss, Hallows) all taught the same things and gave out the same exam so it really didn\'t matter which teacher you went to.\r\nThis class had 5 projects, like 8 hw assignments, and 7 extra credits. Thank goodness for the extra credits. This class was a ton of work, but as long as you put in the effort, it is possible to get an A.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-19T12:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Take this with White. Kiss goes on and on about being a CFO and how the other teachers changed her slides. She doesn't teach this course well at all. Don't take it with her you will get an A with White not Kiss. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'b', 'created': '2011-05-16T21:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Dr. Kiss has really good intentions. She is extraordinarily accessible and responds quickly (in person, class, office hours) to any questions you have. You can tell she really cares.\n\r\nHowever, I find her to be an inefficient teacher. She spends so much time showing us what is on ELMS and repeating random facts about her life that have no relevance to the topic at hand. She's a lovely person, but wastes so much class time that we never get through all of the topics! It's frustrating when you go to do homeworks and practice problems to realize you never did any sample problems in class!\n\r\nI would not take this class with her (although I heard from rumors she was better than White). If you have to take it, go to the TAs for help. It's a big work load, and definitely tough. The exams are super hard.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-04-07T02:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': None, 'review': 'very knowledgeable!She gives out three exams (25% each)(final is non-cumulative). Assigned hw (10% of total grade) + Group Project (15%). Lectures are very imformative and enhances understanding of subject by relating to her personal experiences. B4 exams she posts sample practice exams and many question from them would appear in exam. SO practice and understand them.\r\nEasy A with little work and effort. :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-07-30T00:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Great professor. We had three exams, one group project, and 3-4 homework problems from each chapter. Exams are easy and straight forward. She worked in the finance field for a really long time, and always related the boring textbook material to real world stories, which really helped us to understand the stuff better. Very approachable outside of the classroom. There were always tons of materials posted on blackboard to help you learn finance. You do need the book, and read it before the exam, since one third of the exam was conceptual questions - but they are not hard at all! \n\r\nOverall, I think she's one of the best professors in the business school.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-07-09T21:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': 'Go to class, do the assignments, study for test, and an A will not be hard to get.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-02-21T15:07:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': "I don't know why people criticize her on her voice or her tenure. I think she is a very good professor with tons of industry experience that her lecture will be related with her real world experience. Every lecture she tried her best to make the class not boring, and she care about her students by giving detailed exam reviews and sending recordings of her lectures to those who have excused absence (which I believe a lot of people benefited by this a couple of times). \r\n\r\nThough her lectures can be dry sometimes, and she talks a lot about assignments and events coming up, but her lectures are easy to follow and understand. Moreover the exam problems are mostly based on her exam reviews therefore making the course very easy; think about it, other instructors won’t spend extra time to do this – but she did – so she still care a lot on her students. And I strongly agree with “Go to class, do the assignments, study for test, and an A will not be hard to get.” \r\n\r\nBtw her husband Steven is a very nice and funny person as well.\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-04T21:26:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': 'Prof. Elinda really wants her students to pass the class and learn. She will go over and over things you might not understand, always asks for questions and does not care if she takes time from her lectures to help students understand things. She will give her best to give exams that replicate homework and class work. But you have to put some input, bare minimum to get a C, little more if you want an A. Homework and cases she gives can be a little bit too much at a time, but doing them it really pays off for exam. We only had one exam due to pandemic, but we have extra cases and takeover project. \r\nOverall recommend this professor for Finance courses', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-29T15:24:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Elinda Kiss', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': "Her voice tone can be intimidating and harsh, and not going to lie, I did not like her at the beginning. I learnt to appreciate her over time and honestly enjoyed it at the end. Strict with deadlines but through her class I learnt how to persevere and how to discipline myself. I thought I wasn't going to make it at one point but this was the class I performed the best in. Even though this class can be work heavy, I learnt so much from this class and so much about myself, and I am glad I took it with Professor Kiss. She really wants everyone to succeed and has so much experience in the field. Touching story with being a 9/11 survivor as well. \r\n ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T16:02:46Z'}], 'name': 'Elinda Kiss', 'slug': 'kiss'}, {'courses': ['EDHD210', 'EDHD313', 'EDHD323', 'EDHD431', 'EDHD220', 'EDHD228', 'EDHD210', 'EDHD210', 'EDHD323'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elisa Klein', 'course': 'EDHD210', 'review': 'Dr. Klein is great! She is so sweet and kind and wants all of her students do well! This class met once a week for a 2:45min session which was kind of a lot but she let us a take breaks and we usually got out early! The grades are based off of a few "essay" type assignments but they are all straightforward and easy. The content is interesting and she tells a bunch fo stories that really helped me understand what we were learning better! Great teacher and great class, highly recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-14T19:52:24Z'}], 'name': 'Elisa Klein', 'slug': 'klein_elisa'}, {'courses': ['PUAF640', 'PUAF689K', 'PUAF688Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elisabeth Gilmore', 'slug': 'gilmore'}, {'courses': ['FMSC332', 'FMSC110S', 'FMSC280', 'MIEH240', 'MIEH309', 'CPGH230', 'CPGH240', 'CPGH250', 'CPGH270', 'EXST030', 'SPHL260', 'FMSC110', 'CPGH100', 'FMSC265', 'SPHL399', 'CPGH100', 'FMSC110S', 'GERM103', 'FMSC265', 'MIEH309', 'SPHL399', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC110', 'FMSC110', 'FMSC110S'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elisabeth Maring', 'course': 'FMSC110S', 'review': "Prof Maring is amazing! She's so nice and makes class really interesting. She always includes examples about her family and makes the material very relatable. \r\nTests are relatively easy.\r\nDefinitely take her for fmsc110s if you are in GPH scholars. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-19T23:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elisabeth Maring', 'course': 'FMSC332', 'review': "Dr. Maring is a very kind, approachable woman. Her class is very easy-4 midterms, 6 online quizzes, and a few in class activities. She also shares a lot of stories from her own experience parenting, which is very cute.\n\r\nHowever, I will add that she does dumb down course material quite a bit, and her lectures move very slowly. Not the best class/professor if you're looking to stay engaged or challenged.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-11T12:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elisabeth Maring', 'course': 'FMSC110', 'review': "I'm taking the asynchronous version of this class during the summer. It bugs me that all she does in the lecture videos are read from her pre-written notes and go through some slides. The course doesn't seem well prepared. There are a lot of assignments that are due every day and the instructions given are not clear enough. Unless you have no other choice, I recommend not to take this class with Dr. Maring, and not to take this class in general in the summer. I don't know how Dr. Maring expects students to read two entire books AND watch all her lecture videos, all while doing at least two assignments per day and interacting with other students for almost 15 days. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-06-02T16:15:33Z'}], 'name': 'Elisabeth Maring', 'slug': 'maring'}, {'courses': ['COMM606', 'COMM798B', 'COMM679', 'COMM769', 'COMM606', 'COMM679', 'COMM769'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elisabetta Ullmann', 'slug': 'ullmann'}, {'courses': ['FMSC642', 'FMSC260', 'FMSC330', 'FMSC170', 'FMSC460', 'FMSC698T', 'EXST030', 'FMSC260', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC260', 'FMSC260'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elise Resnick', 'course': 'FMSC260', 'review': "She's a really cool professor. She's really knowledgable and she engages the class in every discussion. Her exams are pretty easy. She gives extra points at the very beginning of the semester just for going in during her office hours to tell her why you're interested in taking the class. There's a 5 page paper about a book. There are some questions about the book on the last exam so make sure you read at least some of it. She gives a group (pair) project at the end of the semester which is so easy! You just present one topic to the class by role playing. She's a really nice person and she lets you know that she's always available to her students. If you take the class, take it with her. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-14T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elise Resnick', 'course': 'FMSC260', 'review': "Dr. Resnick is such a sweet professor! She's great at explaining course content. She makes it fun! The course content was extremely interesting because I could apply what I learned to everyday life (not just couple relationships). She makes you read the book The Five Love Languages, which is a super easy read but I found it so interesting and just wanting to read more! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-08-09T19:39:18Z'}], 'name': 'Elise Resnick', 'slug': 'resnick'}, {'courses': ['ENGL370', 'ENGL243', 'ENGL688', 'ENGL788', 'ENGL499', 'ENGL353', 'ENGL788C', 'ENGL469A', 'ENGL749E', 'ENGL499', 'ENGL353', 'ENGL446', 'ENGL788'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth Arnold', 'slug': 'arnold_elizabeth'}, {'courses': ['PHYS748'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elizabeth Beise', 'course': 'PHYS174', 'review': "Very easy class. Beise's presence serves to make sure you're doing things correctly and guide you in the right direction if you're not. If you know what you're doing with the basics of statistical analysis and circuitry, the course should go easily no matter the professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-30T14:16:00Z'}], 'name': 'Elizabeth Beise', 'slug': 'beise'}, {'courses': ['KNES350', 'KNES451', 'KNES451H', 'KNES498', 'KNES350H', 'MUSC328', 'KNES350', 'KNES350H', 'KNES451', 'KNES451H', 'SPHL399', 'KNES350', 'KNES350H', 'KNES451', 'KNES451H', 'KNES350', 'KNES350H', 'KNES451', 'KNES451H', 'SPHL399', 'KNES451', 'KNES451', 'KNES350', 'KNES350H', 'KNES451', 'KNES451H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': "Dr. Brown is one of the most kind, fun, and interesting professors I have had the pleasure to take classes with at UMD. I would take anything she teaches. Not only does she try to give all her students the best possible grades, but her classes are actually enjoyable. Make sure you take notes from her lecutres. They're mostly composed of personal stories so she asks questions about them on her exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-07-14T12:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': 'Very sweet woman. Subject matter is interesting, but attendance is pretty much mandatory. There are ways to find past notes online for her class, but solely relying on those is probably a bad idea. She makes the class fun and interesting. She also lets the class out early a lot, which is also a plus. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-19T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'course': 'KNES451', 'review': "My 2nd time taking Dr. Brown and it was as expected - AWESOME. This class is very easy and like her 350 lecture, involved plenty of stories, videos, and easy tests if you attend class because she will quiz you on her stories and such. \r\nDo NOT take this class if you plan on skipping, most of your grade is based on participation, so don't be an asshole and skip, she'll certainly notice too with only 30 students. Have fun with it and the papers are easy too.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T22:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': 'Definitely one of the best classes I have taken at UMD. Dr. Brown is hilarious and so engaging. You would be silly not to take this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-05T11:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': "Dr. Brown is great. Friendly, outgoing, dynamic - her lectures were funny and enjoyable. All you need to do is write. Write down everything! write. down. everything. she. says. Word for word. All stories and examples. Just write for the entirety of the hour and twenty minute lecture each day. Also, she normally lets us out at least 20ish minutes early. She's really a great teacher and loves getting to know her students. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-23T23:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': "Dr. Brown is the best professor I have ever had! She truly wants to see her students succeed. Her class is entertaining, and extremely fascinating. She is very engaging in her lectures, and students really enjoy being there. Her tests are all multiple choice or T/F and very very straightforward. Straight from class discussions and lectures. She tests on the most random things, just to make sure you were in class and listening, but her test averages are usually mid 80's. Overall she is probably the best teacher I have ever had and would certainly suggest taking her for anything she teaches! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-19T05:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': 'One of the best teachers in Kinesiology. Shes funny, gets to know the class on a personal level. Tests are easy- all you have to do is go to class (which is always engaging and fun) and study for 1 hr at most. TAKE 350 WITH DR. BROWN shes awesome!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-29T02:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'course': 'KNES451', 'review': "Out of the KNES department Dr. Brown is hands down my favorite professor. As a senior graduating I honestly never had an interest in psychology but her 350 class made me interested. Attendance is mandatory for points participation points at the end and because she only lectures with no slides. You should take notes on literally everything she says (family stories, videos/TedTalks watched in class, family stories) and you'll pass the exams with flying colors. If you have any issues making class communicate that to her and she'll catch you up. I also recommend her office hours even if you're doing great in the class, she has a lot of career insight for a major that has a lot of niche job fields. This is one professor I'll absolutely reach out to after I graduate and I'm not office hours type!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-13T16:35:29.673013Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': "Best professor I've ever had. She teaches by telling really interesting real life stories and relates them back to the current topic. You have to go to class since she has no slides but her humor actually makes you want to go... you will never be bored. During class take notes on everything including details of the stories and she will also point out what to write. Exams will be easy as long as you have good notes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-03-30T16:01:16.665456Z'}], 'name': 'Elizabeth Brown', 'slug': 'brown_elizabeth'}, {'courses': ['HIST327', 'HIST408O', 'HIST289C', 'HIST329F', 'HIST110', 'HIST289T', 'RELS289M', 'HIST320', 'JWST331', 'HIST324', 'HIST326', 'HIST110', 'HIST110', 'HIST319C', 'HIST320', 'JWST331'], 'average_rating': 2.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elizabeth Conner', 'course': 'HIST320', 'review': 'If you want to learn about early Christian history, read a book, do not take this class. I thought this class would be interesting and fun but instead, it has made me never want to take another history class again in my life. When the class started on the first day of the semester there were at least 30 kids, by the end of the class I don\'t, there was 10. This class was so disorganized that we had gone over the same stuff for weeks and the schedule was so messed up by the time the class was done. Her thoughts were never organized and consisted of an unfathomable amount of "ums" making the lecture extremely hard to comprehend and made me think personally that she doesn\'t have a clue on what she is talking about. In the final exam, you\'re expected to write a four-page essay on the spot (no biggie usually) however she wanted exact sourcing from reading materials on where that information was found. She gave us the essay question beforehand, however, being that we had a lot of reading material we had to do, it is hard to remember specific sources authors and dates. I had never had to do this in my schooling career. If I were a history major, maybe this would be okay but as an elective that allows every major to take, I am baffled at how we had to do that. She is a nice person, and the handful of times I\'ve gone to get extra help have been helpful, however, that doesn\'t comprehend for the amount of work that has to be put into a class, let alone an elective.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-15T06:37:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Conner', 'course': 'HIST326', 'review': 'Dr. Conner was the sweetest, she was more than understanding throughout the entire semester and I am grateful for that. A friend of mine died earlier this year from COOVID and her leniency made a difficult situation bearable. With that being said, I did not enjoy this course in the slightest bit. Every assignment was dreadful. I love history, but they were boring and the fact that every week we were assigned the same exact thing was dull and draining. Every week two zoom meetings, a quiz and a writing assignment. Like clockwork. Nothing was worse than the the zoom meetings where we sat for over an hour and she just read and explained powerpoint slides. It would have been nice if we had different types of assignments. Maybe a group or creative project, making a timeline, more discussion boards( discussion boards are amazing tools, utilize them), a reading that was not 30 pages long, maybe even sprinkle in a kahoot or two. There are so many different types of assignments that could improve this course. I mean this as respectfully as possible because I liked this woman a lot, but I would rather eat a pair of bootcut jeans than take this course again. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-10T20:06:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Conner', 'course': 'RELS289M', 'review': 'Like the other reviews said, she is very compassionate and has a genuine soul. The class, however, is extremely boring that even she seems bored too. Every other sentence ends with "um" and she doesn\'t seem energetic about the material. On top of that, the writing assignments are VERY tedious, and she grades them harshly too. The worst part is they are worth 60% of your final grade! I wouldn\'t recommend the class unless you\'re very interested in Jesus, Mani, and Muhammad.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-04-13T00:31:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Conner', 'course': 'HIST324', 'review': "Dr. Conner is understanding and considerate of students needs. I really don't think most of these reviews are fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-24T17:35:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Conner', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': "Professor Conner is a very considerate and flexible professor when it comes to student needs. The course work isn't too difficult, and you can find it interesting but only if you intended to be interested when signing up for the course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-02T21:56:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Conner', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': "I don't know about the reviews for the other classes but for HIST110 she is not that bad. Don't not take this class because she is the one teaching it. The only bad thing I could say is the tests. The questions are complex to begin with and they are worded in a way where you are always second guessing yourself if you are answering it how she wants you too. But for our class she noticed and switched the last 2 online so they were much easier. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-26T03:31:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Conner', 'course': 'HIST110', 'review': "Her weekly coursework was really easy, but her exams were essays- which I'm glad for. But I followed her rubric to a T and wouldn't get the best grades on them... and I'm a straight-A student. If this will be a filler class for you, I would look elsewhere. Her grading the essays as she did really didn't make sense and was very frustrating.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-04-22T17:05:53.765178Z'}], 'name': 'Elizabeth Conner', 'slug': 'conner'}, {'courses': ['PUAF698T', 'PUAF711', 'PUAF688Y', 'PUAF688G', 'PLCY688Y', 'PLCY698T', 'PLCY688G', 'PLCY688G', 'PLCY698T', 'PLCY688G', 'PLCY698T', 'PLCY688G', 'PLCY688G', 'PLCY688G', 'PLCY698T', 'PLCY631'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth Duke', 'slug': 'duke'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394', 'ENGL398N', 'ENGL101'], 'average_rating': 2.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elizabeth Fixsen', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "This class consumed majority of my time. You have a 5-8 page paper due every week plus other assignments on top of that. She is very picky when she grades. She's kind of out there. Wouldn't recommend. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-06-28T23:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Fixsen', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': "She's a nice person, but her class was a pain. There are a lot of reading assignments, but you don't really have to read because she goes over it in class anyway. There are also a bunch of other busywork assignments and she tends to nitpick on grading for those, and for the essays, she grades much harder than most other ENGL101 professors, but she's generally fair.\n\r\nYou can get an A in her class if you work hard enough for it (or at least an A-), but I'd recommend another professor if you don't want to do a lot of work.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-22T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Fixsen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'The class had a lot of busy work, but she graded essays fairly. Even though I got B+ and A- on the major assignments, I got an A in the class because of the busy work.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-04T00:24:00Z'}], 'name': 'Elizabeth Fixsen', 'slug': 'fixsen'}, {'courses': ['MATH314'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth Fleming', 'slug': 'fleming_elizabeth'}, {'courses': ['BMGT289D', 'BMGT422', 'BUAC786', 'BMGT326', 'BUAC787', 'BUAC758J', 'BUAC758E', 'BUAC758I', 'BUAC752', 'BUAC723', 'BUAC717', 'BUAC752'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth Folsom', 'slug': 'folsom'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM398T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth Gardner', 'slug': 'gardner_elizabeth'}, {'courses': ['CHEM135', 'CHEM482', 'CHEM177', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM272', 'CHEM134', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM177', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM481', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM177'], 'average_rating': 4.1818, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Griffiths taught the material pretty well and kept it interesting enough that I rarely wished I wasn't there even if I wasn't engaged. Hefty curve and reasonable exams, and from what I hear of other professors is that Griffiths is a lesser of a few evils for 135", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-18T23:05:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'absolutely the best professor for chem135 ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-19T03:35:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'She is one of my favorite professors at UMD. Hilarious, straightforward, clear, and concise. She states her expectations, gives hints during lectures, and provides useful problems during both lecture and discussion. Her exams might be harder, but that only means that the curve is higher. Get her if you can because her teaching helped me so much. For course difficulty, I would give CHEM 135 4/5, since its a very difficult class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-29T14:27:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "She's nice but I highly recommend looking at the grade data for her. If you think you'll excel with her teaching style, then go for her. However, you'll see in the grade data she curves so majority of the students get C's", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-16T18:34:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Dr. Griffith is a great teacher who seems to know the content very well and is very good at managing the course. Her class is difficult, but there are no curve balls or tricks on the exams, and she will even explain the topic distribution of each test ahead of time. (On the final exam, we were given whole questions ahead of time!) Attendance is mandatory, and there are graded in-class participation questions, but they are not very hard.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-06-09T03:05:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'She is an excellent professor who is very knowledgable and seem pretty excited whenever she teaches, and she is super sweet. However, her exams are tough, and she does in-class clicker questions so make sure you pay attention during lectures. The good thing is that she curves the class by 10 %. Also, everyone that I knew got a B or lower in this course. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-11-10T16:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': "This professor is great at her job. But her TAs are horrible. You'll be lucky to scrape by with a B. She often has her TAs grade her assignments, if not all of them. It's obvious that they are not doing their job when it comes to grading based on the rubric and instead they grade based on whether or not they like the student. I was expected an A or A- in this class until the TA-graded assignments rolled in...", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2019-12-15T00:44:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Dr. Griffith is a really great professor! The class is challenging but she is very straightforward about what to expect on tests and teaches exactly what you need to know. And she does curve the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-04-02T02:01:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'if you can get Dr. G for CHEM135, do it. She is one of those rare professors who clearly are here because they love to teach. The class is tough but the curve is generous and there are lots of bonus points', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-10T01:09:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "CHEM135 is already hard, but Griffith tries her hardest to make it manageable. If you are feeling stuck like I was, go to her office hours! Shes honestly really approachable and wants to help you and wants to see you learn. Only reason I didn't do better is because I waited until it was too late. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-09-02T14:47:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Dr. Griffith is a fantastic professor and really cares about your learning. She takes her job as an instructor very seriously, and is willing to work hard for you as long as you show up and are respectful. I was super nervous taking chem135 because I was always so bad at chem in general, but she really helped me out in office hours and was very approachable. She expects a lot of her students, and her class is tough, but completely worth it for the quality of learning she facilitates.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-02T20:11:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': "Dr. Griffith was nice but not very understanding, and the way that she structured chem177 this semester was pretty terrible. The labs were in person, but we didn't get lab partners which made things very tough and time-consuming. She made no changes to the labs themselves to make them more manageable for one person to do. It was very easy to mess things up in the lab, and with no partner you had no one to check you. For each lab you write a lab report which make up the bulk of your grade, and they can be graded quite harshly. Dr. Griffith left many comments on them, and could sometimes be pretty passive aggressive. As for the lectures, they were kinda dull and most of the time was spent in breakout rooms working on a worksheet with your group. The worksheets did help prepare us for writing lab reports, though. The midterm exam wasn't too difficult, but the amount of time you had was insanely low. Most people barely finished within 50 minutes, and there was no time to check anything. One major problem with the class was how Dr. Griffith expected us to read and understand some very complicated scientific papers. Each week we were assigned a paper to read and answer questions about. And for the final, we had to write a paper summarizing 3 of the articles published by a faculty member. It was bit extreme of her to expect us to understand and explain all these technical papers that went way beyond us. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-16T21:10:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'Dr. Griffith is an excellent lecturer and is very effective at communicating content from the course. She took over CHEM134 at the middle of the semester, so adapting to her expectations was a bit difficult, especially when it came to the final. Because of the switch, it was significantly different from most of what we did in class, although it was still manageable to a very well-prepared student.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-18T19:14:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': 'The class is hard and a lot of writing, but I think Dr. Griffith does her best with what the class is. The class is curved a little at the end which was really good and she says she rarely gives - grades.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-31T23:44:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'First, and foremost let me be clear that CHEM 135 is ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL no matter who you get. This class is so poorly designed and structured to set people up to fail and the order of topics covered makes no sense at all. If you have never taken AP Chem or if you have not taken chem recently (or not taken chem at all) then this class can become a nightmare. However, she did a great job at explaining things and trying to accommodate students. She rushes through the majority of the work however that is the fault of the pace of the class, not hers. Attendance is necessary. She gave students 1 index card of notes during exams. To make up for the difficulty of the class she does a pretty generous curve at the end of the year, somewhere around 15%. Assuming you do all your classwork attendance participation and homework and score around a 50 or 60 on all your exams you can pass because of said curve despite those horrible test scores.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-10-12T04:17:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Griffith explains things very simply and eloquently. The content in class generally lacks depth, but it is sufficient for an introductory course and the exams. The pacing is relatively fast, but not unmanageably so. I think some of the topics are covered too quickly, which makes it difficult to do problems without supplementing your knowledge with a textbook or online sources (e.g. hybridization). \r\n\r\nExam average this year is a low-to-mid C, which isn't as disastrous as previous years, and better than most of my other classes. I heard the curve is relatively generous, and Dr. Griffith wants people to be as successful as possible. Exam formats are handed out before exam day, and exam difficulty is very similar to previous years and pretty straightforward. Discussions are good for practicing problems.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-01T18:53:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "She is a really good teacher! You can tell that she really loves her job and that is seen in her teaching. She explains things really well and wants everyone to have a good understanding of the material. Her lectures are very clear and she does a lot of examples and a lot of them are similar to what will be seen on the exams. She even let us have a notecard that we can write stuff on for each exam. She also provides a lot of previous exams to practice with which a very very similar to what your exam will be like. SO I really recommended on studying with them. She also host review sessions before each exam which are really helpful and she brings the answer keys to all her previous exams.\r\n\r\nSo overall if you can take her for CHEM take her. \r\nIt is a hard class but she makes it a little easier and she curves it really well. \r\nThis is coming from someone that didn't take AP chem in high school.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-18T00:54:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I started off with Dr. Koppel and the beginning of the semester but for some reason she stopped teaching and our class now has Griffith. Her teaching style is a million times better than Koppel. She reminds me of a high school teacher in that even in a lecture with 200+ students she tries her best to engage students, answer all questions, and make sure students are following along. She has a great sense of humor and makes the class itself tolerable. Her online lecture videos are almost better than in person because you can pause the videos and go at your own speed. It's difficult to be a good professor for such a difficult and unfair class as CHEM135 but Griffith does a very good job. I'd highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-11-22T17:24:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'AMAZING PROF\r\nyou have to go to class!!!!!!!\r\nyou have to study in class notes to do good on exams\r\nexams are 8-10 easier multiple choice or write ins then 1-2 problems that are CHALLENGING and require knowledge and work \r\ndiscussion worksheets are optional practice to do with your TA, i personally have an A- before finals and have never done one discussion worksheet. \r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-06T13:57:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "This class (CHEM135) is definitely a hard class regardless of what teacher you have, but taking Griffith is such a blessing. The difference between her and other teachers is that she actually wants you to succeed in the class and gives you multiple opportunities to do so (has a decent amount of extra credit opportunities, hold exam review sessions, gives previous exams, gives fair curves, etc.). Although her lectures can hold a lot of information, she tries to make sure that the class understands the material before moving on, creating different ways to explain a topic, or simply writing out how to do different processes rather than most teachers who just read off slides. She is the best teacher I've had at UMD so far, and would highly recommend taking her for this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-07T19:05:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': "Dr. Griffith is a great lecturer and you can tell she loves teaching. She is a bubbly person and that makes going to lecture fun. Now the class is not a fun class however that is not Dr. Griffith's fault. The course is a lot of writing and the grading tends to be harsh. This class is extremely time consuming. I highly recommend going to office hours since you figure out things that are needed in the report that she may not explicitly say in lecture. I do not recommend taking Monday labs since you learn what you need to put in your report in the Friday lecture and then only have the weekend to write the report. Overall she is a great professor but this is a bad class. This was my worst course during the semester.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-08T04:17:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Griffith is an excellent teacher who did her best to keep us all engaged the entire year. She tries her best to make everyone understand the content, and wants to see people do well. She even openly acknowledged that people wouldn't be as interested in chem, and has this class designed to see people pass. She makes it clear that she wants her students to be engaged, and sometimes class is even fun! She always comes to class full of energy, with a smile on her face, excited to teach a subject that she very clearly enjoys, and successfully makes a huge lecture actually enjoyable, not droning on like other teachers sometimes do. I would very highly recommend Griffith for chem, as she is a superb chemistry teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-10T14:25:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Literally the best professor I ever had. She made this awful course somewhat ok. If you have to take this course make sure you take it from her. I had Dr. Koppel at begging but for some reason the instructor changed to Dr. Griffith. I thought I was going to fail when I had Dr. Koppel but with Dr. Griffith I am pretty sure I will get an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-10T18:39:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'I really enjoyed having professor Griffith for CHEM135. She was energetic and was very flexible with the class and made chemistry as entertaining as chemistry can be. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-18T00:20:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr.Griffith is definitely the teacher to take for CHEM 135. She always seems excited to teach the material, and her exams test you on your ability to understand the underlying concepts for each topic rather than just memorize them. \r\n\r\nShe also gives plenty of opportunities for her students to meet with her, and is very quick to respond to emails. \r\n\r\nTLDR; she wants you to do well and I think that's a pretty desirable trait for a professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-21T00:48:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I highly recommend Dr. Griffith for CHEM135. \r\n\r\nCHEM135 is a hard class. It goes lightening speed and there is A LOT of material that needs to be covered which can be confusing. I was having a hard time keeping up even though I took AP Chem in high school. Having said all this, I believe Dr. Griffith is the only professor capable of going over this material all while making it comprehensible. She gives AMAZING examples which really help us understand the mountain of information we were presented with. Not to mention the practice problems and discussion worksheets she gives are almost always identical to the problems you will see on exams. So as long as you try your best to understand the practice problems she provides you with, you will do well on her exams. Now lets say you don't do well (which is bound to happen at one point or another), Dr. Griffith provides a very generous curve to the class at the end of the semester. \r\n\r\nNot an easy A class, but Dr. Griffith makes that A possible. Good luck :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T03:39:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'I initially started with Dr. Koppel until she left and Griffith replaced her for the rest of the semester. This was a MIRACLE in disguise because Griffith taught exponentially better than Koppel. She always came to class energetic and ready to teach. She empathizes with her students as many engineers dislike CHEM135 by making the class more bearable, like giving use notecards on the exams. Although her midterms/exams are definitely harder, she goes through many examples during lectures and always gives us a chance to try the question first before she solves it. My tip for the class would be to go through previous midterms and practice them to study. 12/10 would take again', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': "Dr. Griffith is extremely fun and outgoing. All the TAs for the most part were ready to help--you just have to ask for it. The class requires effort for sure but she did apply a curve at the end and I think it was more than fair. You have to be on top of your shit in this class. Don't wait till the last minute to do your workups and reports bc it will just drain you!!! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T16:39:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': 'My favorite professor for my first semester of college. No one brings the amount of energy and positivity into the classroom setting like Dr. Griffith does. It kinda makes you forget how hard the class actually is lol. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-24T00:52:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'I highly recommend Dr. Griffith for CHEM135.\r\n\r\nShe is an amazing person but the class is super hard. She made this awful course somewhat ok. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-12-27T03:00:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'My grade really suprised me, very generous curve. Understands that the people who take chem135 do not care about chemistry and just want to pass. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-31T01:56:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I heard a lot of bad reviews about CHEM135 before going into this class, and was completely surprised when I enjoyed class. TAKE GRIFFITH SHE IS AMAZING (plus the curve was insane). She is very organized, understands the concepts, sometimes jokes around, and adjusts to the needs of the class. If you took ap chem, you will be fine because it will all be review. The hw assignments are mastering chemistry (aka they take a long time and are boring) do yourself a favor and break up the hw into sections and don't do it last minute. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-07T20:11:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Dr. Griffith was very accommodating, giving extra credit and pushing back homework assignments. Tests were fair, would give an outline of each test the lecture before. Definitely recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-12T01:46:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Dr. Griffith is an excellent professor who listens to the needs of the class and adjusts her lesson plans accordingly. The tests were fair for the most part and she was good about letting us know what to expect before each exam. If you are able to take her, do it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-12T01:49:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': 'Very nice lady, but worst class I have ever taken. I spent more time on this 1 credit class than all my other classes combined. Class averages were regularly in the 50s, and nothing was ever curved. Everything depends on your luck with which TA grades your assignment. There is zero standard. Spent 20+ hours on a lab report and got a 53 (class average was a 50). All of the little assignments brought my grade up, but it was miserable to make it to an A.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-02-04T20:02:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Dr. Griffith was by far my favorite teacher this semester. She is super energetic and encouraging which is fantastic in a chem teacher. She makes this very difficult class feel easier by a little bit making you feel like a kindergartener who just wants a treat for doing school, but like in a good way. Definitely take her if you have the chance.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-15T17:03:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'honestly, she really does want her students to succeed and will give outlines of exams. However, they seem easy but they are not. Its all about how you perform as a student, if you are old at conceptual multiple choice questions - this is the right teacher for you. I am personally better at straight forward math and would prefer calculations on an exam. this class makes you work hard, but at least there are clickers and homework to boost your grade!!! PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT SHE SAYS. she hints at her exams while teaching and you do not even realize. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-05-18T00:27:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': 'this class sucks. professor sucks. no instructions. have fun self learning chem in a LAB', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-10-10T21:41:20.623322Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': "She's nice but sucks at giving proper instructions on assignments and sucks at teaching. She also does not grant you extensions on assignments even though it was a problem with lab materials, not a student error. If you haven't taken chem lab before that has a heavy workload, you will struggle.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-13T04:16:30.084918Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Nice professor, exams are hard, does NOT know how to curve. A C should not be curved to a C+ idc. Avoid', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-11-05T20:54:12.442584Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Professor Griffith's CHEM135 is hard, that's nothing new. But she is a great professor to do it with. She explains things REALLY well. Her PowerPoints are well made (and evidently haven't changed much over the years), and discussions sections are a MUST. Also gives a lot of little extra credit clicker questions and super generous with the curve. Recommend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-01T01:19:13.378226Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'While CHEM135 is a difficult course, Griffith explains concepts in a way that makes sense, using a lot of examples and hand writing the examples down while working through them rather than just using a PowerPoint. her PowerPoints are very thorough and useful, but the handwritten examples are even more useful. She will answer any question as completely as possible and ensure you understand the answer. Make sure to do the homeworks.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2022-12-01T16:51:52.212144Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Griffith is such a good professor. Sure, the content is hard but she makes sure to repeat concepts multiple times and answer any questions. She also does many practice problems during lecture and gives a lot of study material. Her old exams are almost identical to the ones you take in class. She is also extremely personable. She likes to banter and make jokes in class which definitely makes chemistry more enjoyable. She is easily one of the best professors here at UMD. She genuinely cares about the students doing well and always makes herself available to help with any material you may be struggling with. She also posts videos on ELMS so if you miss lecture, you can watch the videos. Do yourself a favor and take her class, I haven't taken chem in years and I somehow did really well in this class .", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-02T02:25:06.597205Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Coming into the year I heard all the standard things about how chem135 was an impossible weed out class. Looking back, CHEM135 is not impossible, there's just a lot of material that you have to learn in a very short time frame. Thankfully, Dr.. Griffith does an amazing job at making sure that all of the material is approachable and easy to pick up if you pay attention and do the work. She's a great lecturer, she's always available, she maps out her exams question by question (content, not exact details) in advance so you know what to expect- I can't really think of too many things she could have done to make this easier for us beyond giving us the exam answers ahead of time too. If you're an incoming freshman engineer and need to take CHEM135, take it with Griffith; I'd imagine it'll be even easier once she finishes the redesign of the course she's working through.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T19:02:32.918342Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Chem135 sucks as a class, but Griffith made it possible. There's too much material for one semester and so some of it ends up as rushed, but Griffith made what would have been an impossible class into something manageable. She's clear about grading and is very fast to start giving bonus points to give some grade boosts. Even though I only actually talked to her a few times, she genuinely felt like she wanted every single person in the class to succeed. I hope after the redesign, the class is less impossible, but regardless, if you have a chance to take Griffith, take it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-08T23:08:29.180643Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Lectures and powerpoints are detailed and the exams are fair', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-09T20:43:08.038655Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': 'Separate the class from the professor. CHEM177 is not the best class because it is a lot of work per week. The work is a pre-lab assignment, a report, and an additional assignment per week. There are 7 experiments in the semester with two being more than a week resulting in major reports which are scientific paper style. The class is difficult but manageable if you put in the work. However, Dr. Griffith is always there to help. Go to her office hours! She will answer every question you have no matter how stupid it is. She is very approachable and knows what she is talking about.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-10T01:28:21.101107Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "First of all, I want to say that CHEM135 is just a hard class, no matter your professor. However, Dr. Griffith made the class extremely bearable. Not only is she a good lecturer, but she provides a huge curve that helps a lot of people's grades. She posted online lectures from her previous online classes which helped a lot when you miss something in class. She answers all questions and tells you during lecture what questions she will consider putting on the exam. On top of that, either the two lectures or the lecture before the exam, she will give you a question layout of the entire exam so you know exactly what question on every exam will ask you. The lectures were sometimes weird, as we would end a unit halfway through class and start a new unit the other half, but she explains the concepts really thoroughly. If you don't understand something, make sure you clear it up as it's really easy to get behind in the class. If you don't understand chemistry or haven't taken a previous chem class, I would highly recommend you take it with her. But honestly, even with prior knowledge, this class will still be a little difficult.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-10T22:39:26.055627Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': "I'd give this class a 3.5 if there were the option to. This class is one of the hardest if not the hardest class I took this semester, and it took a lot of stress and effort to get to the end. My problem with this class is that the grading is incredibly harsh—there is no consideration for the fact that we're first-semester freshmen who've never taken a lab-based class and don't have experience writing full research papers biweekly. My one advice is go to office hours. Even if you don't have questions, listen to other people's questions. Dr. Griffith is an amazing person and will answer all your questions during office hours, but she is very strict about grading so make sure to read the rubrics before submitting. **Be very careful about deadlines, even if it's a minute late it automatically gets 25% off. Double check, triple check, quadruple check, quintuple check deadlines, and whether you submitted.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T22:26:26.358805Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Hard class but Griffith is a great professor and the exams weren't bad, even though the averages were in the 50s normally.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-16T02:09:22.952564Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Basically have one homework a week and three exams plus clicker points. You have to go to lectures to get the clicker points even though she has all of them posted. Clicker points may seem insignificant but they add up and actually can make a big difference. I usually just watched all the lecture videos over and did a few practice exams to prepare for the exams and did average. She makes the exams way to hard which I think is dumb but its whatever because the curve is huge as everyone says. Honestly the difficulty of this class is overrated by everyone. It hard to get an A and you will need to work for it but if you just want to pass its not that bad just show up and do the homework.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-16T03:40:44.971306Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "This class is DIFFICULT. As an engineering major, you just got to get through it. If you do not like chem(like me), you won't like this class. There is a ton of content to cover. Work hard and you can get through this. Griffith has all the PowerPoints for her lectures posted at the beginning of the semester. Get through your homework early and do NOT fall behind on the content. It is a lot and you want to be on top of things. Griffith curves nicely, but that only works out if you study hard. You can get through this, just do your best.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T07:39:01.151453Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Griffith is a good lecturer, and although the exam averages are usually terribly low, she does give the letter grade cutoffs after each exam, so that definitely gave me some peace of mind during the semester and kept me from being stressed out about grades after receiving the score back. \r\n\r\nIn Fall 2022, she did also allow you to take a notecard into the exam. I am not sure if the other professor(s) allowed you to do this or not.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-18T04:16:21.367898Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Even though CHEM135 is a difficult class, especially if you did not take AP Chemistry in high school, you'll still do well with Dr. Griffith. She's really helpful and makes the lectures bearable, and there's a huge curve in the class. I'm not entirely sure how the course will look like after the redesign, but if you are good at test taking (unlike me), then you can definitely get an A in this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-20T17:39:33.542631Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'She is a great professor and a REALLY good lecturer, however her exams were very difficult (averages usually lie around 50-60). It is absolutely essential that you attend lecture to succeed in this class. Curve is really good at the end given the exam averages are so low (about 10%).', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-26T03:18:14.202617Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Griffith is an incredibly nice person, but more importantly, is amazing at lecturing and makes chemistry genuinely interesting. Prior to this class, I only had bad experiences with chemistry and was dreading this class. I had heard terrible things and was beyond nervous. But since Dr. Griffith is a physical chemist, she explains chemistry in a way closest to how most engineers would understand. If you like physics and have experience with things like Coulomb's law from electrostatics, then this class is made significantly less stressful since so much of chemistry can be explained with physics and Dr.Griffith is the one who made that connection.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-27T04:49:55.156243Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Griffith was a very very sweet woman and seemed incredibly caring. The curve at the end of the course was very generous. With that said, this was the hardest course I have ever taken in my life. She moves through content incredibly fast, about 1 1/2 units a class. The content on the tests were incredibly difficult and the averages on the tests were 40's and 50's. I would recommend taking Amanda Scheck. I heard that her class moves slower and the tests are easier. If you have not taken AP Chem or are not good at chemistry, do not take Griffith.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2023-01-08T00:58:51.319028Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Overall Griffith is a pretty good prof for 135; she answers emails, has good lectures, and makes a lot of study resources available. Her exams are pretty brutal but the curve helps and she is pretty accommodating overall. I definitely recommend using the textbook because her lectures match the book content very closely.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-10T02:14:49.147943Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "FANTASTIC lecturer, makes everything very clear and actively takes feedback in lecture. Lets you use index cards on exams and final. Great curve and lots of extra credit opportunities. Lecture videos available. She's lowkey petty sometimes when the lecture hall gets talkative and sometimes she complains a lot but it's okay, her lectures were honestly a highlight of my week because of how clear and informative they were. Ask questions because she will answer them well. \r\n\r\nRelatively easy class if you've taken AP Chem, entire class is basically dimensional analysis. Definitely don't fall behind and don't be afraid to ask questions.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-20T18:41:06.679295Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Chem 135 is one of the toughest courses a freshman can take, but don't worry, Griffith is a great proffessor. As someone who never had a proper chem class before, this was a challenging class that moved quickly, especially in the last two units. That being said, Griffiths teaching and her assigned work will help prepare you for her exams. They are hard but the class is curved. If you are willing to put in the work, and understand instead of memorize, you can do well in this class. Also in case you are worried, AP chem is not a prerequisite.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-23T02:30:19.223492Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Griffith is an amazing lecturer. Every day, she enthusiastically engages with the class throughout her lectures. Although attendance is mandatory, she generously rewards participation points which are a great way to raise your grade. Expectations and deadlines are always clearly established, and she declares test material ahead of time! As a bonus, tests are always graded within 1-2 days. Although CHEM135 is an incredibly difficult class, Griffith makes it possible to get a good grade!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-26T19:04:11.884371Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'I was pretty nervous going into this course that AP chem was a pre-requisite, that\'s not true at all. Griffith is very friendly and will do her best to prepare you for the "most accelerated class in the chem department." Homeworks and practice problems are instrumental in learning each of the topics. After the second exam, a new topic is taught per day and it becomes very important to attend lectures. During lectures, Dr. Griffith will tend to hint at possible exam problems and will go over problems by hand which is vital to staying on track. Clickers also give generous opportunities for extra credit, don\'t skip lectures. Exams are challenging, but the entire class is curved in the end to make up for this. Her office hours are also welcoming and very useful to answering questions. As long as you study hard and challenge yourself, it\'s possible to get an A, even if you have never taken a proper chemistry class before.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-27T03:30:56.831401Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM177', 'review': 'If you can take the biology version of chem 1 lab, do it. This class is the hardest 2-credit class you will take in your freshman year. Expect spending anywhere from 6-24 cumulative hours writing the lab reports. I guess all I can say is that this class throws the heavy reality of science as a profession directly into your face. It is absolutely a weed out class for chem/b-chem majors even though the department refuses to admit it.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-30T21:03:05.939849Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'It is chemistry so it is of course hard work. But the good thing is that I got an A- when I should have a B.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-02-28T19:14:18.121146Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM481', 'review': 'I do not recommend', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-03T10:09:02.781936Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I'm late reviewing her but she is just terrible. Yes, she is nice and does not make her lectures boring but her exams are rediculous and lectures do not cover exam material in the slightest. She does do around a 10% curve as I got a 75% at the end despite failing the final and I ended up getting a B. Take another professor if you can!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-03-11T01:23:23.411895Z'}], 'name': 'Elizabeth Griffith', 'slug': 'griffith'}, {'courses': ['ENGL301', 'ENGL359D', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL265', 'ENGL212', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL393', 'LGBT359D', 'LGBT265', 'ENGL304', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 1.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'She is, hands down, THE worst professor I have encountered in my 3 years here. She overburdened us with many overlapping assignments that made it impossible to complete everything in a timely manner. For most of us, it meant not doing the reading one of the nights. She had told us at the beginning of the semester we would have quizzes, but after 2 months we hadn\'t had any. So that one night when no one had time to read because we were trying not to fail the heavier assignments, she decided to surprise us with a pop quiz. When none of us could answer the questions after, she stormed out of the room and told us to teach the material for that day to ourselves, since it wasn\'t her job to do so (what the ever loving fuck?). \n\r\nShe also was HORRIBLE about responding to emails. I don\'t know what was worst, that or the fact she would promise almost every day that graded assignments would be returned the following class, and they never were. I only knew 3 of my grades all semester, and it turns out they were incorrect anyways! She ignored repeated attempts by many students to receive comments on their turned in assignments. At least half the class hadn\'t received any real grade back as of the end of the semester. And the final grades were clearly graded on a whim, because all semester she complained how she was too busy to respond to anything because she needed to grade. Of the things she did hand back, she was quickly scribbling to grade them in the minutes before the end of one class. There\'s no way she took her time to grade them well...\n\r\nIn one-on-one meetings with her, she would say to students how she hadn\'t even looked at email updates she had required us to send beforehand to gauge how we felt about our progress. Had she read them, she would know how we all felt. But of course she was always "too busy." \n\r\nTL;DR avoid McClure like the plague. Take a W even. I\'m not one to write reviews, so listen to me when I say she is a horrible professor!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-06-19T01:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE HER!\r\nDO NOT TAKE HER!\r\nDO NOT TAKE HER!\r\nDO NOT TAKE HER!\r\nDO NOT TAKE HER!\r\nDO NOT TAKE HER!\n\r\nShe treats her class like it is the only class students are taking. There are at least an average of three assignments due EACH CLASS. Not every week. EACH CLASS. \n\r\nThe readings are extremely long which I don't necessarily have a problem with since every single college class is going to have long readings. If you're not ready to read a lot, then you're not ready for this class or college period.\n\r\nThe problem is that we have long readings ON TOP of other written essays and assignments. Most students sign up for this class only to meet a requirement, not as part of their major so to get so much work is not fair considering the other rigorous courses which students are taking related to their career path.\n\r\nIn terms of personality, she is very smart and intelligent and personable. She's not a boring lecturer but she requires too much of her students outside of class compared to the other ENGL394 professors.\n\r\nYou will learn a lot from her but it will hurt your GPA.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-03-10T04:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'She sucks. Her grading is just not consistent at all. She never told us what was wrong what our writings exactly so we had no idea how to do better in class. \n\r\nShe never responds to emails either. and always late to appointments', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-06-06T22:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL265', 'review': 'I have to agree with the previous anonymous post. I wanted to like this professor - on the first day she seemed really nice and accomodating, offering extensions on assignments if a student has too much going on and so forth - but was an ultimate let-down. She was incredibly last-minute in regards to many aspects. I know I may be last-minute as well, but I am not the teacher of this course and even I found myself wondering where information was on Blackboard and why I my e-mail had not been responded to. She makes her assignments incredibly vague and confusing and, honestly, expects far too much from her students for a 200-level course. It seems as though she wishes she were teaching a 400-level Queer theory course when she is in reality teaching a 200-level literature course. This is especially annoying to me considering the fact that it is apparently not counting as requirements for my major, despite the fact that it is the most rigorous course I am currently enrolled in. If you are expecting this course to be anything like other minority literature courses through this university, you are advised to understand that this is not the case. It is more a psychological research course than anything else. Professor McClure, if you read this ever, just be aware that this is nothing personal. You seemed like a great person and that I would enjoy you as a friend were I in your age group, but you have far too high expectations for mostly underclass-students who think they are in for a course focused around literature discussion.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-08T22:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Shes a very nice person, but honestly, I cannot recommend her. \n\r\nShes very hard to contact out of class and she has very limited office hours. She said she would email us comments on topics for a paper we had to write, but didnt email us until the night before it was supposed to be due. To add insult to injury, she didnt allow extra time to write the paper. \n\r\nThe assignments arent very hard, but are usually very confusing. Her assignments are done in parts, and honestly it feels like each part is more confusing than the last one, and she doesnt do a very good job explaining what to do. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-10-26T01:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': 'she was straightforward for the most part, and wasnt difficult at all. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-23T15:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': 'If you like extremely picky teachers who think that writing class discussions on the bored is teaching, this is the one for you. Her grading is inconsistent, slow, and does not fit a rubric.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-10-22T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Have you ever received a final letter grade at random? Because I'm pretty sure that's how she operates. On the last day of classes, only eleven out of 42 assignments were graded. Today, weeks after the end of the semester, I have a final course grade, but my final project has none. Get ready to spend 12 hours on every project for absolutely no reason.\r\n\r\nAstonishing that she is still allowed to teach. Praying that my course evaluation allows someone else to take her job.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-06-11T04:47:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Easily the worst professor I have had at UMD so far. \r\n\r\nFrom the things I have read on here I’m honestly not sure how she is still allowed to teach. Final grades are due tomorrow and there are three grades in the grade book from the beginning of the semester, so the entire time I had no idea what my standing was in the class. \r\n\r\nShe gives no feedback on assignments. Everything was relied on peer feedback, even more stressful when it came to (potential) grades. I had no idea what was right or wrong in the work I was doing. We would have 2 different PROJECTS due almost every week, overlapping different assignments and overall an extreme amount of busy work.\r\n\r\nShe was extremely hard to reach. Would take days to respond to my emails or just ghost me completely. When or if she did respond it was useless because we were already on a new assignment. She never lectured on HOW to do anything, just threw assignments at us like this was my only class. There was no way a gen ed technical writing class should have taken up the most time in my schedule, but it did. \r\n\r\nOverall awful, awful professor. She seems nice, but does not have the responsibility to be a professor here. Leaves students in the dark. I am genuinely concerned about my grade in this class, and I never leave reviews on professors but she was just that bad. Considering reaching out to the English department because my god, this woman should not have a job. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T04:53:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'To restate what my peers have said before me: Do not take a course with this professor, no matter what. Even if this is the last available professor and you need to take 393, just take it next semester with someone else. I wish I had done exactly that. \r\nShe will not give you feedback on your work, and you are left to rely entirely on your peers to review your assignments. Often, assignments are closed until a few hours before their due time, yet the professor does not shift the due date to match her lateness. Believe me and other reviewers when we say the workload is completely unrealistic. Multiple assignments are due daily, along with long readings that, oftentimes, lead to broken links. \r\nIt is the end of the semester and I have received one grade out of almost sixty assignments. Sixty. From open-response quizzes to peer review summaries (like, what?), this class required far more of my time than it should have. I have no idea if this course will be an easy A, or if I have even been successful so far, and I am sure I will not find out until Testudo gives me my final grades.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-03T07:18:20.888626Z'}], 'name': 'Elizabeth McClure', 'slug': 'mcclure_elizabeth'}, {'courses': ['MEES698F', 'MEES616', 'MEES608D', 'MEES608J', 'MEES608D', 'MEES608D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth North', 'slug': 'north'}, {'courses': ['NACS644', 'NACS728M', 'BIOL608Q', 'BIOL709A', 'BSCI353', 'BSCI279Q', 'NACS898', 'BSCI279Q', 'BSCI279Q'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elizabeth Quinlan', 'course': None, 'review': "I really liked Dr. Quinlan's lecture style. She is very precise in what she says and what she expects you to know. I really learned from her well. She comes off as being strict and can be an intimidating person, but she is very approachable and is willing to answer any questions you have for her. Her portion of this class was the second half, first half taught by Dr. Payne. Her material was really interesting! Before our final exam she gave out practice questions to work on and some of them were identical questions on the exam. If she gives you a practice set of questions then DO THEM and MEMORIZE THEM. \r\nI didn't need the book for her class. She is a really good teacher and I highly recommend you take her if you can. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-29T15:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Quinlan', 'course': None, 'review': "I took BSCI453 (first two-thirds taught by Dr. Catherine Carr, last third taught by Dr. Quinlan). I really enjoyed Dr. Quinlan's lectures - they were very interesting and she presented material in an understandable way. I didn't have to rely heavily on the book when studying for her exam. She also required that we read a paper that used a methodology we learned about in class and write a summary, which I actually thought was a really good assignment to give us exposure to scientific literature. I don't think she teaches undergrads much, but I liked her a lot!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-01T12:28:00Z'}], 'name': 'Elizabeth Quinlan', 'slug': 'quinlan'}, {'courses': ['BSCI330', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI330'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth Read-Connole', 'slug': 'read-connole'}, {'courses': ['EDCP310'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth Reeves', 'slug': 'reeves_elizabeth'}, {'courses': ['EDHD400', 'EDHD440'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elizabeth Robertson-Tchabo', 'course': 'EDHD400', 'review': "Easy upper level core/fill in class. The 2 midterms you do have to study for though, but doesn't take more time than studying 4-5 hours the day before. Some assignments need to be done but they are BS-able and easy. The professor is super nice and understanding.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-20T15:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Robertson-Tchabo', 'course': 'EDHD400', 'review': 'Heard the course was very easy and I heard correctly! If you need a GPA booster this is the class for you! Professor is super nice and very friendly and really knows her information! It only meets once a week and the workload is very minimal! Take the course!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-18T20:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Robertson-Tchabo', 'course': 'EDHD400', 'review': 'easiest. class. ever. \n\r\nnot even going to say anything else. take it. she lets everyone in off the waitlist, so if youre on it go to class the first day. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-11T21:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Robertson-Tchabo', 'course': 'EDHD400', 'review': 'easy A class\n\r\neverything is online and the final is a take home paper\n\r\nthere are 2 in class "quizzes" which are actually 80 multiple choice questions each but she gives you a study guide and you guys should make a google doc for the study guide and just memorize that/ look it over a bit and you will be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-08T01:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Robertson-Tchabo', 'course': 'EDHD400', 'review': "This class is like one of those classes you see in movies where all the students fall asleep or mess around on their macbooks.\r\nPlenty of dumb sorostitutes take this class, so you know this class is easy.\r\nHowever, attendance is required so you can't skip (*gasp*).\r\nThis class is a joke. If you want to challenge your mind, then take another upper-level CORE. If you just want an A, then this class is for you.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-15T11:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Robertson-Tchabo', 'course': None, 'review': 'The prof. is completely unreachable outside of class and the syllabus she hands out is for nothing. None of the reading assignments are actually on there nor does she actually hold office hours. Her methods are outdated and her handouts are useless. Slides are provided on paper, but rather than using ppts for their actual purpose (brief, important points), she basically just breaks entire paragraphs/articles/source materal/etc. into bullet points.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-10-25T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Robertson-Tchabo', 'course': None, 'review': "She is very nice and approachable. The lectures only go for half the time they are supposed to. So 3 hour lectures are only 1.5 hours. If you pay attention to what she is saying you can get a lot out of it... but it might be hard to at times if the material does not interest you. She gives 100% A's so you don't really have to worry about your grades which is nice. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-23T18:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elizabeth Robertson-Tchabo', 'course': 'EDHD400', 'review': '100%.. seriously.. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-11-01T21:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Elizabeth Robertson-Tchabo', 'slug': 'robertson-tchabo'}, {'courses': ['HLTH300', 'HLTH300H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth Seaman', 'slug': 'seaman_elizabeth'}, {'courses': ['INFM747'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elizabeth Thiry', 'slug': 'thiry'}, {'courses': ['GERM281', 'GERM689E', 'GERM689M', 'GERM439G', 'GERM620', 'GERM439B', 'GERM401', 'GERM439A', 'GERM689K', 'GERM439T', 'GERM889E', 'WMST281', 'GERM829M', 'GERM689A', 'GERM439L', 'GERM439K', 'GERM689F'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elke Frederiksen', 'course': None, 'review': "I personally really enjoyed it cuz i'm a german minor and she focused on a lot of german history and culture, which is really interesting. she assigned a good amount of readings every class, normally takes an hour to finish, but some of them are pretty interesting. she REALLY cares about participation, which counts 25% of our grade, and if you don't read it, she will notice! the papers are okay but she only likes the way she wants you to write it. as in for the mid-term and final, be aware of the DATES and NAMES. overall speaking,not a bad class at all. i got to know Frederiksen outside of class and she's a very nice lady!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-23T22:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Elke Frederiksen', 'course': None, 'review': "Great, engaging, interesting professor. She does not utilize many forms of technology (no ELMS, barely any email notification) and there is required reading for every class. This is not a class you can skip often, she will notice. But the content is pretty interesting and she's a very easy grader.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-08T13:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Elke Frederiksen', 'slug': 'frederiksen'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ellen Blumner', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "If you are reading this right now, then you are likely enrolled in her class.\n\r\nRUN. DROP. CLOSE THE PAGE.\n\r\nI am a 3.6 junior finance major at the University of Maryland. I have held two internships (one at Morgan Stanley) and currently going to work in NYC over the summer. Obviously, I have the ability to write professionally. I received a C+ in this class. The first C grade that I have ever received IN MY LIFE. \n\r\nHere is a breakdown of how shitty a professor she is:\n\r\n1) She can't communicate. Her voice sounds like death, and she fails to return emails that she doesn't know the direct answer to. She cannot keep anyone's attention in class, and she fails to elaborate on grading. She'll give you a B on an A paper simply because you used one too many spaces in between paragraphs. She once told me that one of my papers was incomplete. And that was it. She didn't say why or how. She just said I was wrong and it was over.\n\r\n2) WAY TOO MUCH WORK. She requires you to write a paper every week, and post in at least two or three discussions a week. You learn nothing from these discussions, and they're simply just time consuming. If we had this work and it actually MEANT something, I wouldn't be opposed. But it was useless. \n\r\n3) Not organized. On the first day of class, she asked the students if they could find her a TA. THE STUDENTS. Are you kidding me? She also was not prepared for the several snow days, and struggled to tell us when assignments were changed. \n\r\n4) Extremely bias. If you don't go to class everyday and participate, she'll hate you. I was actually not one of these people. She actually liked me, and believed I could succeed in this class. Until she paired me up with someone in the class that she hates. She gave us a crappy grade on our final project because SHE DIDN'T LIKE HIM. How do I know this? I compared projects. She gave us a 50% on format when the format was copied and pasted from an example project that she gave us. \n\r\nOverall, the worst teacher I've ever had in my life. I've seen challenged kids get A's in this class solely because their teacher wasn't insane.\n\r\nThis teacher is a disgrace to this University, and I'm disappointed that she represents our school. If you think that you'll get through this class with an A because you're better than everyone else at writing, think again. That was my process. And look what it did. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-15T13:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ellen Blumner', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'If it were possible to give this woman a negative rating I would. When you take this class and it says "staff" when you sign up and you realize on the first day that you have E. Blumner DROP IT IMMEDIATELY. TAKE IT AGAIN WITH SOMEONE ELSE (ANYONE ELSE). \n\r\nI am currently a junior at UMD and in all of the years of my schooling I have never encountered a more miserable teacher. Here is the breakdown of why: \n\r\nBlumner plays favorites and it is beyond apparent who her favorites. If you aren\'t one of her favorites, she absolutely despises you and makes sure that you are aware of it. I unfortunately upset her very early on in the year and have never (will never) recover from it. What upset her? The fact that after I finished my in class assignment, I worked on assignments for other classes. When she approached me about doing other work, I calmly asked her if she had any other work for me to do during the allotted class time. Her reply was a very snarky "no" and she marched away. From this point forward she went out of her way to make snide comments to me and about me to not only the TA but also other students in the class including "well you aren\'t the worst writer in the class." \n\r\nAdditionally the amount of work that Blumner makes you complete for this class is insane. And once she marks you as one of her hated students, no matter how flawless the work you turn in, you will never receive the score you deserve. You will at best get a slightly better than average score. Her arbitrary point system of -.65 of a point for punctuation on your assignments diminishes your grade from an A to a B. The work she gives you is completely busy work and generally useless in terms of learning. She offers no actual insight into your writing but nitpicks specifics of your grammar or punctuation. \n\r\nAlso beware of her "professionalism" grade. She has an arbitrary point system for professionalism that includes (Direct quote) " on-time, regular attendance; notification of absence in one or two cases all semester when class HAD to be missed; no other work but ours during classtime, including discussion board posts; phone usage; well done peer reviews; revision of projects and sending of surveys to clients." And when she determines that she doesn\'t like you, she gives you a 3/5 for professionalism because "you have a negative attitude" and should not be rewarded for that. A student in my class actually sent her an email calling her "a completely incompetent person" and still received a 4.5/5 on professionalism because he was on her "hated students list." \n\r\nAlso: She does not follow the syllabus, she adds in extra assignments, and she makes you do discussion posts. These discussion posts (generally 3-4 per week) are the most USELESS waste of your time possible and they are completed for a grade. You even have to respond to 1-2 of your peers discussion posts which is even more irritating and pointless. Less than 1/2 of my class currently completes these worthless discussions. \n\r\nAnd finally. Just to give you an idea of how awful she truly is: The first day of classes we began with 23 students. 5 people dropped immediately. Since that point 6 students have WITHDRAWN from the course, one student with less than four weeks until the end of the semester. The fact that this woman drove away nearly half of her class is a very telling of her teaching ability. \n\r\nSUMMARY: \r\n-Miserable teacher who doesn\'t teach you anything.\r\n-Holds grudges against students. \r\n-Plays favorites and absolutely torments those who are not her favorites.\r\n-Arbitrary grading system \r\n-Grades work of students who are not her favorites EXTREMELY hard\r\n-Assigns BUSY WORK ALL THE TIME\r\n-Incredibly large work load. \r\nBonus: \r\n-Horrible speaking voice (nails on a chalkboard is a sweet symphony compared to her voice). ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-12-11T00:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ellen Blumner', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'I have been attending school for thirteen years now, and I can say, without a doubt in my mind, that Professor Ellen Blumner is the worst teacher I have ever encountered. Yes, I know this is a big statement, but I wholeheartedly believe it is deserved. She made attending this class and doing the subsequent work absolutely miserable. \n\r\nAs a professor, one of your goals is to instill knowledge and actually teach your students. Professor Blumner did not even come close to accomplishing either of these objectives. She would not “teach” anything, as all of the material that was learned came from other students making chapter presentations to the rest of the class. When presented with most questions, her response would be “go look at the textbook.” Oftentimes, the textbook disagreed with what she wanted anyways, thus reducing your grade. \n\r\nIn addition, much of the work we complete is tedious busy work. That is ironic because she stated at the first class that she prided herself on not assigning any busywork. However her way around this minor detail was to assign most every assignment we handed in, a value. This led to a few worth 1% or 2% of the final grade, or them being looped into her wide-arching “professionalism” grade. A prime example of this is the in AIDA class writing assignment that took many students an hour or so after class to complete. This was graded on a credit/no credit basis, worth 1% of the final grade. On top of this, she offered zero feedback on the grades, and the only thing students saw was the grade on ELMS. Unfortunately, many of those assignments took hours to complete. \n\r\nThe sad thing is that this class had the potential to be very useful, if taught correctly (or at least, any bit better than Professor Blumner displayed). I know that I will have to write many business propositions and memos and other professional documents as I enter and thrive in the corporate world. Sadly, this course did not help prepare me to do this. She would flip-flop on her own ideas of how to do something; sometimes she would tell us to consult the textbook, while other times instructing us the book was wrong. Mind you, this would be for the same assignment/part of an assignment. \n\r\nThat covers much of the academic area of Professor Blumner. Lets move on to an area that she could possibly be worse in: her behavior.\n\r\nPlaying favorites is something that should be avoided as much as possible, especially in a school or University setting. It is not fair to the students are “favorites”, and much less fair to the ones that draw the ire of their instructors. Evidently Professor Blumner was never made aware of this. \n\r\nFrom day 1 of the class, it was apparent who she liked and who she did not. I was fortunate to be one of the ones who did not irk her. However, some of my classmates were not as lucky. For the entire semester, she would offer snide comments and pick on them. While I have no proof, myself and other students strongly believe that she graded the students she did not like much harder than the ones that she did. That is simply not fair, as students should be graded on the quality of their work, not whether they are loved or loathed by the professor. \n\r\nOn top of that, she used very elementary methods of getting our attention. If she had the smallest thing to say, Professor Blumner would incessantly clap her hands until we all were paying attention. While this was an effective method because all of the students just wanted the obnoxious noise to come to a halt, there has to be a better method of doing so. And we were by no means an obnoxious or unruly class. \n\r\nHer voice, while certainly out of her control, did nothing to contribute to the learning of the class. It was almost impossible to understand her, thanks to the scratchiness and low volume of her voice. In addition, she would often cut herself off mid sentence and say, “you know what I mean. ” Unfortunately, we rarely knew what she meant, and she was not making any effort to clarify things. I know you shouldn’t be prevented from doing something by something natural, like your voice, but there has to be some type of way around this. It really pained me to listen to her speak. \n\r\nI contemplated dropping this class very early in the semester, but we were assigned a partner and assigned a semester long consulting project. I did not want to disappoint my partner, and make him take on the gargantuan task by himself, so I decided to stick it out. In hindsight, that was one of the worst decisions I have made, academics-wise in all of my life. I should have convinced him to drop with me and take it next semester taught by a professor that was capable and not miserable.\n\r\nAs you can probably tell by now, I had a horrible experience with this class, and more importantly, the professor. One of the very few positives that I can draw from this is that I am happy her name is not associated with the business school. I feel like she is a serious detriment to the university as a whole. The fact that I am paying tens of thousands of dollars to attend this fine institution, and this is the quality of instruction I receive; well I find that to be completely unacceptable. \n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-17T23:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ellen Blumner', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Blumner may go down as one of the worst teachers the university has ever had. If Blumner does not like you on the first day of class your grade will be affected tremendously. She plays favorites, and holds grudges for the entire semester. Additionally, it is not that she simply holds grudges, she will attempt to make your life miserable and call you out in every class and grade you harder than other students in the class. She has no problem sounding like a bitter/grumpy old lady. \n\r\nIn terms of the actual class, everything is completely useless and tedious. She believes that assignments are not busy work if she attaches a grade to them, so she will simply make assignments worth 1% of your overall grade that will take you hours to complete. On top of that she does not follow her syllabus at all, and will change her guidelines and expectations on a person to person basis and will never clearly state what she wants. Your grade will essentially come down to how much she likes you (and you will realize she likes NO ONE!)\n\r\nAdditionally, Blumner never really taught any classes. For class, she would have groups of students present chapters from the textbook. Beyond that, she would instruct us to do meaningless book exercises, and then offer little feedback on the correctness of our answers. If you asked her a technical question, her response, more often than not was “consult the textbook.” Beyond that, she had one of her TA’s present a chapter lesson. I can hardly recall learning something of value from her. \n\r\nLastly, another point that I would like to touch on is the voice of the professor. Now, i know this is nothing that she can control, but when teaching a class to numerous students throughout the day it really is important that the professor can speak. Her voice might possibly be one of the most irritating sounds you will ever hear. And i know many students can attest to this fact that it was indeed painful to listen to and became quite the distraction.\n\r\nIn conclusion, Do NOT TAKE HER CLASS or consider yourself warned!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-12T03:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ellen Blumner', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Blumner is easily the worst teacher I have ever come across at this school. I signed up for the class when it still said "Staff," and what a mistake that was. First day of class I came to realize that this professor had clearly just suffered a stroke because her speech was horrible. Funny how the women who can\'t string a sentence together without stuttering is teaching English.\n\r\nI should have dropped the class the first day. The project you complete for this class if beyond ridiculous. You find a real world client and then complete 10 pages of single spaced writing per group member on the client\'s problem. The syllabus in this class is meaningless. She changes every assignment and due date.\n\r\nI got an A in ENGL101 and mistakenly took this class for business school purposes. I barely scraped by with a B from this professor. She refused to acknowledge her mistakes and ended up giving me a 50% on an assignment that she deleted from my ELMS folder because after I uploaded it again it was past the due date.\n\r\nThe professor would consistently rip on her other sections. I had a friend in the class before mine, and he would always tell how she hated my class. At one point she even told our entire class that we were all lazy. She told a few people they should drop the class and receive the \'W.\'\n\r\nDon\'t take this class with this professor. She is a miserable human being. This class and this professor is the reason I got drunk Mondays and Wednesdays.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-15T18:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ellen Blumner', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'I would not recommend this professor at all. She is very grumpy and takes every assignment very personally. She holds grudges about everything, especially if you miss a class (although I never did, I saw her do it to many other students). If you say something to her that she doesn\'t like, she gets very angry and can be outright mean. She called out or yelled at several students right in the middle of class in front of everyone.\n\r\nIf she decides she does not like you (which I think was more than half of the class by the time the class was over) she will never be nice to you again. She grades very unfairly. I actually heard her say to a student: "I can\'t believe what your GPA is here at the University, I am going to make sure that is changed by the end of this course."\n\r\nThe other major problem was that she gave us a class syllabus, than basically did the exact opposite of anything the syllabus said. Every assignment was changed or completely unclear. She would say one way to do it in class, than post another way to do it online, than say to refer to the book, which was never the way she actually wanted us to do it. Than, when we got to class she would be in another one of her moods and would decide to throw in another part that essentially no one did, than proceed to mark down everyone else for not doing it, using the justification that one or two students did it as proof that we all should have known it was necessary. \n\r\nAlso, syllabus due dates were ALWAYS changed. I don\'t think a single one was the same as the syllabus said. This makes it extremely hard to plan out when to do the work ahead of time (as I have to do with an extremely busy schedule).\n\r\nI could go on even more about the problems with this professor, but to sum it up she is a grumpy old lady and a terrible teacher. Plus, the class material in ENGL394 was tedious and pointless. It was nothing anyone will ever use in the real world. STAY AWAY!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-11-04T00:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ellen Blumner', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'sincere advice to fellow students: Stay away from her!!! \n\r\n-Strict grader/not fair grader (will not hasitate to give you "zero" on any assignment)\r\n-Not Friendly AT ALL (sometimes worse)\r\n-assignment instructions NOT CLEAR\r\n-WISPERS the ENTIRE LECTURE!!!!!!!!!!! it is very difficult to hear her.\n\r\nThat\'s All... wish you good luck if you take her cuz you gonna need dat :P\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-28T01:20:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ellen Blumner', 'slug': 'blumner'}, {'courses': ['EDCP652', 'EDCP462', 'EDCP615', 'EDCP611', 'EDCP616', 'EDCP788', 'EDCP418', 'EDCP622'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ellen Fabian', 'slug': 'fabian'}, {'courses': ['LING646', 'LING440', 'NACS642', 'LING869', 'LING889D', 'CMSC828W', 'LING848I', 'LING895', 'LING888', 'LING869D', 'LING888', 'LING440', 'LING646', 'LING869D', 'LING888', 'LING888', 'NACS642', 'LING440', 'LING646', 'LING869D', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ellen Lau', 'course': 'LING440', 'review': "Amazing professor! I don't like neuroscience at all and she made learning about it fun. Super engaged and very open to questions. One thing I don't like is that she sometimes lets other students interrupt her in class and the students go on long rants where no one learns anything and they just argue against each other, which is a waste of everyones time imo. When she lectures I do learn a lot, its just that I wish she'd cut students off when they start running their mouths.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-21T22:19:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Ellen Lau', 'course': 'LING440', 'review': "Very intelligent and knowledgeable. Kindhearted and understanding. The only reason I'm giving 4/5 stars is because this class has a TON of work. Probably 1.5 times as much as any other linguistics class. And most deadlines are on weekends, which is very annoying. I always feel robbed of my weekends because of this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-25T06:25:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Ellen Lau', 'course': 'LING440', 'review': "Incredible professor. This class changed formats from previous semesters, and it's definitely not too much work anymore. A lot of writing and reading assignments, but her grading is lenient and her comments are encouraging. If you have time in your schedule to do so, take this class. It has completely changed how I think about language and thought.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T03:20:18.620072Z'}], 'name': 'Ellen Lau', 'slug': 'lau_ellen'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 3.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elliot Berger', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "He teaches well, and usually has interesting things to do each day. The assignments are in the end graded fairly, but we didn't get anything back until the end of the semester.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-19T18:03:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Elliot Berger', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Very nice guy, easy going and fair with what to expect from students. He likes to interact with the class so make sure you are willing to participate. A slow grader however he is fair and is not extremely strict about assignments. Most of semester focuses on a final proposal which is not that enjoyable but he is willing to help in any way to get you through it.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-13T03:39:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Elliot Berger', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Good teacher, fair to students and very courteous in class. Some lectures can be a bit dry, but he has some assignments (peer critque of papers, sentence rewriting handouts) that are a bit more interactive. \r\n\r\nBiggest issue with him is that assignments were never graded on time and that he's always late to class by 5-8 minutes. Also, he only accepts hard copies of assignments, and doesn't really use ELMS for submitting essays which is annoying.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-17T00:37:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Elliot Berger', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Really nice professor. Lectures are sometimes a little boring, but he's really accommodating and tries to help every student pass the course. If you need help with papers he has weekly office hours. Only issue I have is that he takes a long time to give your grades back to you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-04T14:18:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Elliot Berger', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Really nice dude, it was genuinely fun to be in his class. He studied something relating to comedy in school, so he always cracks corny jokes to break the ice. He is always willing to help on assignments. He seems to be very lenient on grading, but I wouldn't know.\r\n\r\nThe problem:\r\nNone of his major assignments were graded when the semester ended, I mean ZERO. My final grade on testudo was posted... and I still have ungraded assignments on ELMS. It's not cool to leave students in the dark on their grades like this. I don't know anything about his personal life, but if they gave him a grading TA this course would have had no problems.\r\n\r\nI still enjoyed class with Berger, I wouldn't change professors if given the opportunity. He was laid back and cared. Slow (or non-existent) grading is a major pet peeve of mine as a student.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T18:08:58Z'}], 'name': 'Elliot Berger', 'slug': 'berger_elliot'}, {'courses': ['BMGT367', 'BMGT367F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Elmer Cherry', 'slug': 'cherry'}, {'courses': ['AASP313', 'HIST329W', 'WMST498O', 'WMST498Z', 'WMST498P', 'WMST498X', 'HIST619C', 'WMST602', 'HIST819M', 'AMST856', 'WMST619', 'WMST709', 'HIST329E', 'WMST314', 'AASP298K', 'AASP498N', 'HIST607', 'WMST386', 'AASP298A', 'ANTH856', 'HIST810', 'AASP498I', 'HIST360', 'WMST498M', 'HIST408O', 'WMST250', 'WMST298D', 'EXST030', 'AASP298I', 'WMST263', 'WMST618', 'HIST329C', 'WMST368', 'WMST379G', 'WMST488A', 'WGSS314', 'WGSS368', 'WGSS301', 'WGSS263', 'WGSS379G', 'WGSS488A', 'HIST329C', 'AASP298I', 'WGSS498M', 'AASP313', 'HIST329E', 'HIST638E', 'WGSS301', 'WGSS314', 'WGSS368', 'AASP498B', 'HIST255', 'WGSS378', 'WGSS498Z', 'WMST698Z', 'AASP498I', 'HIST360', 'WGSS498M', 'AASP255', 'AASP498I', 'HIST360', 'WGSS498M', 'AASP313', 'HIST329E', 'WGSS263', 'WGSS301', 'WGSS314', 'WGSS368', 'AASP263'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Elsa Barkley Brown', 'course': 'AASP313', 'review': 'She means well, but her class can be very boring. Many times I showed up to class and thought, "well that was pointless." She doesn\'t respond to emails, so you\'ll have to speak to her in person.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-03T03:23:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Elsa Barkley Brown', 'course': 'HIST329E', 'review': "I came in to this class so excited and passionate to learn about Black women's history, only for her to snuff it right out. Her assignments are just so tedious and you don't learn anything. On top of that, her lectures are so boring that I find myself almost falling asleep, and I am not one to fall asleep in class! She doesn't respond to emails, takes forever to grade your work, and don't even get me started on the tests. I'm giving this 2 stars because she's actually really sweet and really knows her stuff, but this just goes to show that just because you're knowledgable, doesn't mean you can teach. Avoid unless necessary!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-06T15:48:04.141669Z'}], 'name': 'Elsa Barkley Brown', 'slug': 'barkley_brown'}, {'courses': ['BMGT818Y', 'BUSI611', 'BMGT321', 'BUSI610', 'BMGT818R', 'BMGT818N', 'BMGT818G', 'BMGT411', 'BMGT220H', 'BMGT310', 'BMGT818M', 'BMGT310', 'BMGT818M', 'BMGT310'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Emanuel Zur', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': "Solid choice. Decent lecturer. I had a hard time staying engaged in class but I'm not sure I can blame him for that since I didn't particularly enjoy the material. My only complaint is that, while he does post his lecture slides and the recordings of his lectures, he often diverges from what's on the slides and writes numbers/calculations/T-charts/etc on the whiteboard, which is too far from the camera to see what he's writing (so if you miss class or just want to rewatch a lecture, sometimes you're just screwed). Also, sometimes there's a problem with the microphone and his voice is too quiet in the recording to hear it at all. However, neither has been a huge issue for me so far because it's easy to make up what you missed using the textbook and slides. \r\n\r\nAs far as his exams go, you have 90 minutes to complete roughly 13 questions. He posts the exam on ELMS and your time starts from when you first open the file. You just do your work and write your answers on your own paper, then scan it/take a picture and email it to him. He's lenient in terms of how long you have to email it to him (like if you send the email 93 or 94 minutes after you open the exam, he won't take points off). He also posts a LENGTHY study guide which is a fair representation of what you'll see on the exam. He doesn't surprise you or give you trick questions. If you know what you're doing you'll finish the exam with plenty of time to check your answers. \r\n\r\nOtherwise, there's a weekly homework assignment on Connect due Sunday at midnight, and any score of 85% or above he rounds to 100% in your final grade. If you're like me and procrastinate actually learning the material until the weekend, they might take some time. If you know what you're doing, it's an hour or two max. There's also a group project at the end of the semester but it isn't too much and he gives you plenty of warning.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-01T02:23:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Emanuel Zur', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': 'Great professor who clearly knows the material and is able to effectively convey it to students. As the other review stated, recorded lectures were not the best quality so it was difficult to use them for reviewing purposes. The content for this course was difficult but between the textbook and his lectures you should be fine. He is also very friendly with his students when answering questions about class or about career-related topics.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T01:28:29Z'}], 'name': 'Emanuel Zur', 'slug': 'zur'}, {'courses': ['ECON603', 'ECON708', 'ECON661', 'ECON398X', 'ECON868', 'ECON427', 'ECON698A', 'ECON636', 'ECON603', 'ECON636', 'ECON603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Emel Filiz Ozbay', 'slug': 'filiz-ozbay'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'CMLT277', 'ENGL211', 'ENGL101H', 'CMLT275', 'WMST275', 'ENGL250', 'WMST255', 'ENGL255', 'ENGL256', 'ENGL293', 'ENGL311', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL265', 'LGBT265'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Emilee Durand', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Although, she makes sure her students are comfortable with the material she's teaching, she makes it almost impossible to get a more than decent grade on writing assignments due to her strict grading guidelines (if you're expecting a close to perfect grade on writing assignments, think again and proofread to death). Her lectures aren't the most captivating, but she tries her best and manages to teach what she must.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-11T09:54:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Emilee Durand', 'course': 'ENGL255', 'review': 'I really enjoy the way she teaches a class, it feels a lot like book club. As long as your willing to do the readings and participate in class you should get a good grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-02T19:33:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Emilee Durand', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'She is a very strict or harsh grader. Make sure to proofread all your work at least 10x. A lot of work is busy work also. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-17T17:09:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Emilee Durand', 'course': 'ENGL256', 'review': 'Dr. Durand is engaging and genuinely excited about the texts she teaches. She is a thorough grader, offering students many opportunities to improve and refine their writing.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-29T20:15:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Emilee Durand', 'course': 'ENGL256', 'review': "I had a blast in this class! It felt very much like a book club, and the atmosphere was so relaxed that these meetings were what I looked forward to! Dr. Durand is one of the kindest and most thoughtful professors you'll encounter, and is accommodating when situations arise. The texts you read for this class are absolutely delightful and it is evident that Dr. Durand enjoys the texts too. The class is flexible and is easily adapted to both in-persona and virtual settings. The class heavily uses small-group discussions, which makes it incredibly unique. About half the time was dedicated to group discussion, with the other half dedicated to whole group discussion. I found this helped get classmates engaged and involved with others that they may not normally get engaged with. There are two papers, but they are not too bad and you get to write about what you choose. Overall, I have only good things to say about this class, and I am so glad that I got to have a class like this with Dr. Durand at least once in my time at college. If you get the chance, absolutely take this class with Dr. Durand!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-19T17:11:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Emilee Durand', 'course': 'ENGL265', 'review': "Dr. Durand is fantastic! She's a great discussion leader- she makes every course text interesting to talk about, even when they're not very fun to read. She gets paper feedback & grades to you pretty quickly, and gives insightful comments about what to improve/what worked well. I didn't feel like she was a particularly tough grader, but maybe that was just me. Definitely would recommend her for any literature class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-20T02:20:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Emilee Durand', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "She's a good professor but has strict grading compared to other professors. Every writing assignment earned me a B. The topic you choose dictates the amount of effort invested in the assignment.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-24T14:24:22.310749Z'}, {'professor': 'Emilee Durand', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'I loved this class! She is an amazing professor and likes to make sure her students understand everything she is talking about!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-30T19:47:43.561839Z'}, {'professor': 'Emilee Durand', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Dr. Durand is an engaging professor who I can tell wants her class to have fun. There are a lot of assignments to help boost your grade say you ever forgot to complete one or just messed up on something. I will note though however she is a bit of a harsh grader but gives you plenty of opportunities to fix your mistakes with multiple revisions and rough drafts before any final assignment is due. The only complaint I have about the class is there is, at times ALOT of busy work that makes you feel as if you're stuck in high school. Good professor overall.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-06T18:54:19.458230Z'}], 'name': 'Emilee Durand', 'slug': 'durand'}, {'courses': ['ARTT210', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418A', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT428H', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT428H', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT428H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Emily Conover', 'course': 'ARTT428', 'review': "Prof. Conover is such a great lady! She helped me expand so much on my drawing techniques with a great sense of freedom and respect for what i already had to offer! She's great for advanced painting and advanced drawing!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-18T16:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Conover', 'course': 'ARTT418B', 'review': 'Very helpful, kind, provides constructive criticism. Great class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-04-15T18:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Conover', 'course': 'ARTT320', 'review': 'I\'m assuming that a "1" rating is good, because that\'s what Prof. Conover deserves. She is kind and funny and really provides helpful information to students. She is a gem of a person and a great professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Conover', 'course': 'ARTT428', 'review': 'Absolutely wonderful!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-18T10:00:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Conover', 'course': 'ARTT210', 'review': 'Great prof. Super nice and friendly. She helped me become a better artist and gave fair grades. Really recommend! The projects were a lot of fun. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-19T00:56:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Conover', 'course': 'ARTT320', 'review': 'the best professor at umd. super kind and really encourages creative thought. will take your ability with art to the next level with her constructive feedback and encouragement. taking her for my third semester in a row next fall', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T15:49:19Z'}], 'name': 'Emily Conover', 'slug': 'conover'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'IDEA258A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Emily Foley', 'slug': 'foley'}, {'courses': ['ENGL272', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL271', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL352', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL469D', 'ENGL398A'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': 'She goes by Emily Flamm in class. She is very, very boring. In addition, she does not provide consistent critiques. Flamm is constantly changing the style she wants and does not realize she is asking for different things. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-03-29T01:19:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': 'She grades based on her own style, so god help you if you decide to use passive voice for two sentences in a row. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-03-29T01:19:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Funny, easy to talk to and thoroughly engaging.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-07-08T16:09:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Great teacher! Took Spring 2021 and I think she graded pretty fairly.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-05T23:13:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Not a fan. I took this class online Spring 2021, so that might have contributed. She didn't answer emails. She took a VERY long time time to grade our assignments and the lectures were rather dull. She did grade me fairly though, but she left little feedback. At one point, we had to create a website, and we had to learn how to create it ourself cause she had no clue. She seems like a nice person, but not a great professor. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-19T01:05:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "She is funny and responsive to student issues. The readings and online coursework aren't too bad, for the most part she keeps it interesting. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-04T18:52:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'The class was pretty straight forward and she likes to help out her students! Her class is pretty boring but idk how exciting ENGL 101 would be in general... Nice lady and wants people to participate and have fun. I took it on Zoom which was kind of a drag but it probably depends on the person. We also only met MW but she gave us online work to do every Friday which I found annoying but it was usually simple and quick. Not the best but probably not the worst! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-14T19:41:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Professor Flamm is an okay teacher. I personally did not like her teaching style. It seems like she would teach us a complex thing for a day then give us a project/ paper or confusing assignment on it. For the majority of the class I felt confused about the content and did not feel like I was really learning to learn something. Just learning to get the class done. Professor Flamm was a very nice, if you needed a day or so extension she would be very understanding. I did not completely understand her grading style. She left nice comments but did not give me much feedback on how I could improve. Her class was 2 days in person and 1 day asynchronous work. Depending on the asynchronous assignment, it would take 15 minutes to an hour or more.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T21:06:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Really boring class. Lecture is usually on MW and online work due for a grade on Fridays. Grading is inconsistent at times, and the class can be a bore (only because it's English, and I guess it can be hard to make the study of rhetoric fun). I just wish she graded a bit more leniently and responded to emails especially those regarding attendance. Seems odd when she'd respond to emails about assignments and not reply at all to whenever I was sick and couldn't attend class. It's an easy enough class and only 6 or 7 major assignments. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-20T23:38:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Lyons', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Good teacher and all around nice person. You get the feeling she actually likes talking with her students. Her style of teaching may not be for everyone but it did a lot for me. It conveyed how interesting language and persuasion can be. She gave good advice on papers and I could see my writing improve. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-25T19:35:57Z'}], 'name': 'Emily Lyons', 'slug': 'lyons_emily'}, {'courses': ['ENGL498', 'ENGL689', 'ENGL789', 'ENGL789B', 'ENGL469D', 'ENGL378L', 'ENGL469J', 'ENGL352', 'ENGL498', 'ENGL498', 'ENGL689', 'ENGL378L', 'ENGL498'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Emily Mitchell', 'course': 'ENGL498', 'review': 'There were a lot of extraneous assignments when I took this class. I felt that the level of work we were doing was not anywhere near "advanced." The class was rigidly structured, and we spent a lot of time discussing things such as "what makes a good sentence." While understanding the basics of rhetoric, plot, theme, and character development are vital to writing fiction, they are usually covered in the beginner and intermediate courses we are required to pass before making it to this one. So, I felt that our time was not being used as effectively. In addition, the restrictions on what kind of fiction we were allowed to write were disappointing. I feel that in higher level classes, freedom to explore our interests and talents should be greater, not lesser. She was a fair grader, but I did not enjoy the class because of the strict way it was taught.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-02T13:58:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Emily Mitchell', 'course': 'ENGL352', 'review': "She's okay. She gives detailed feedback; the material and assignments are fair. On average at the beginning there were like 5 readings due each class and then it reduced to 3. The class was pretty rigidly structured, so I didn't enjoy it as much as workshops in the past. We never really got a chance to know our classmates which was disappointing. Overall, it's just okay.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:20:45.371437Z'}], 'name': 'Emily Mitchell', 'slug': 'mitchell_emily'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101A', 'ENGL222', 'CMLT277', 'ENGL233', 'AASP298L', 'ENGL234', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101S', 'AAST233', 'CMLT235'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Emily Perez', 'slug': 'perez_emily'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688L', 'ENGL101', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Emily Smith', 'slug': 'smith_emily'}, {'courses': ['KNES157N', 'KNES157O', 'KNES157T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Emily Sterner', 'slug': 'sterner'}]
[{'courses': ['EDCI698'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Emily Yanisko', 'slug': 'yanisko'}, {'courses': ['JOUR504', 'JOUR604'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Emma Schwartz', 'slug': 'schwartz_emma'}, {'courses': ['ENPM603', 'ENPM809X', 'ENPM603', 'ENPM809X', 'ENPM809R', 'ENPM603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Emre Gunduzhan', 'slug': 'gunduzhan'}, {'courses': ['ENRE602', 'ENRE655'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Enrique Droguett', 'slug': 'droguett'}, {'courses': ['CPSP118A', 'CPSA100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eowyn Mays', 'slug': 'mays'}, {'courses': ['ECON398A', 'ECON521', 'ECON643', 'ECON426', 'ECON426'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ephraim Leibtag', 'slug': 'leibtag'}, {'courses': ['LATN201', 'LATN488', 'CLAS309', 'LATN101', 'LATN304', 'LATN688R', 'CLAS289A', 'LATN688C', 'LATN688H', 'CLAS311', 'LATN488C', 'LATN688', 'LATN410', 'LATN488P', 'LATN640', 'LATN688P', 'HIST328D', 'CLAS276', 'CLAS276'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Adler', 'slug': 'adler_eric'}, {'courses': ['SPHL401', 'PHSC401', 'SPHL498F', 'PHSC497'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Boyle', 'slug': 'boyle_eric'}, {'courses': ['MEES622', 'MEES627', 'MEES718Y', 'MEES627', 'MEES698K', 'MEES718Y'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Davidson', 'slug': 'davidson_eric'}, {'courses': ['INAG110', 'COMM398Y', 'INAG110S', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG253', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG253'], 'average_rating': 4.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Dunning', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Entertaining and very reasonable workload', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-04-05T01:45:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Dunning', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Eric Dunning is absolutely the best professor to take for INAG110. His lectures are fun, and if you have him on Tuesday/Thursday for the hour and fifteen minute time, you will always get out early. He likes to come in, get things done, and get out. \r\n\r\nThere are a lot of in-class exercising that are simple, goofy and fun to help with public speaking and speech structure skills. His grading of speeches is straightforward and he will always give you feedback if you want it. The lowest grade on any speech in my class during the semester was a 92, so you will do well.\r\n\r\nHe does have a midterm and a final, which are basically extra points, They are based on the chapters from the book which are super simple and it is basically a glorified vocab test. Most people studied the day or or the night before and did great.\r\n\r\nHe does have pop quizzes for the readings, so going to class is important, but you can also predict when they are going to be, but class is fun so you might as well go. For the pop quizzes, if you look over the vocab at the end of the chapter right before class, you will be set.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-07T14:38:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Dunning', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Very easy grader when it comes to speeches. He gives pop quizzes, often at very inconvenient times (for our semester, he gave a pop quiz before the midterm, and after the midterm), so make sure that you're ready for those. The quizzes are just vocab, so if you read through the chapters, and learn the vocab, you should be fine (he pulls from headers and bolded words FYI). I ended up getting caught off-guard by a couple quizzes, so if you find yourself in this situation, Dunning will give extra-credit if you wright an essay for him, so it's still not so bad. Otherwise, he's very engaging and fun to take, so I highly recommend", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-26T23:09:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Dunning', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Dr. Dunning is a really chill professor. He's laid back, a little funny, and seemed to adapt well to online learning. There isn't much work in the class, but you do have to read the textbook, or at least skim it, as there are pop quizzes based on the reading. If you have to take an FSOC class(which you do), I wouldn't tell anyone not to take him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-19T02:31:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Dunning', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Eric Dunning is a great professor. Just by the way he lectures, it is clear to see he is well qualified to teach a course about public speaking. He gives a few easy quizes on readings and the midterm and final are multiple choice. The course load is low, but you really need to spend your own time outside of class prepping for your speeches. He also usually lets the class out a little early.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-04T11:50:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Dunning', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Super chill professor. Lectures are informative and entertaining. 10/10 would take again. Quizzes are worth a lot of your grade but aren't worth many points so definitely need to do all the readings. Other than that his grading on speeches is very reasonable and class activities are engaging and fun.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-25T04:06:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Dunning', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Overall, Dunning is a great choice for INAG 110. He's super laid back and will be pretty entertaining. He actually cares about teaching so he'll infuse the lectures with his personality but he is very chill with grading. Make sure to prepare your speeches ahead of time and write it exactly to the rubric but other than that, you'll really be fine. \r\n\r\nVery important: The reading quizzes are super valuable and have very few questions so you really can't mess them up. I bombed a couple and fumbled an A in this class, don't repeat my mistakes. Do the reading, use quizlet, just make sure to get perfect scores on those reading quizzes and the rest will fall into place. This class isn't a lot of work, just nail the quizzes, be passingly engaged in class, be competent in your speeches, and everything will be ok.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-22T02:05:16.621231Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Dunning', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Very chill professor. His chapter quizzes are kinda annoying because it means you can't skip class, but they're pretty easy and straightforward. The midterm and final are basically the same as the chapter quizzes but, just, longer; be sure to study for them using Quizlet, though. His lectures are pretty fun and entertaining, but that said, there's some content he covers that you just don't need for any quizzes or exams, so be sure to actually read the textbook. As for speeches, he's a very lenient grader, so long as you look at the rubric and specifically tailor your speech to them.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T00:42:16.467289Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Dunning', 'slug': 'dunning'}, {'courses': ['BSCI430', 'BSCI207', 'BSCI339A', 'BSCI339E', 'BEES608A', 'HONR248G', 'BIOL708I', 'BIOL709E', 'BIOL615', 'BISI678D', 'BSCI170', 'BISI899', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': 2.4545, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I am taking this class right now and I love it. There is a lot of material covered, but the exams are very fair. You can drop one exam, but I honestly don't even think I need to. He is a very nice teacher and is very helpful during office hours. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-11-19T22:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I feel sort of bad giving Dr. Eric a bad review because he's genuinely a very nice person but just... this class was hell. It was horrible. It was disorganized and totally incomprehensible. The sheer quantity of material that gets covered is insane. I want to be mad at the professors for it but I don't think it's entirely their fault I think it's just a bad course. This information shouldn't be taught all in one class. You learn nothing because you can't organize it, and studying sucks and is inefficient. Two professor's teach this class because they can't get one person who knows everything that's covered. You can ask a question about some of the material to one professor and they won't know the answer because it's the other professor's specialization. Can I give UMD a bad review for making this a class?? \n\r\nI love biology. It's been my favorite since I was 3 years old and I'm 100% solid in my major choice but this class made me hate it for the first time ever. I dreaded learning bio and studying bio. Poor Dr. Eric, guy probably did the best he could with the shit material.\n\r\nThat being said, we did group projects which I hardly found helpful beyond finding people to complain about the class with. I feel like they just need work, they were (like most of the class) badly organized and confusing and the point behind them was never clear until you re-read them 3 times alone while studying. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-01-02T05:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Nice guy, bad teacher. He wasn't even familiar with half of the information he was teaching us and admitted it to the class during lectures. He's very nice with a great personality but I question why he's teaching a class if he doesn't know the material....", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-01-01T13:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I was taught by Dr. Haag in BSCI207. It was his first semester teaching this course and he was as clueless as can be. He was not very familiar with the course material (even admits he teaches himself the material the night before a lecture). He is a very nice guy but not very knowledgeable. But I can't bash him for that because he probably didn't want to teach this awful course. Haag is a developmental biologist who teaches upper level bsci classes. Haag could be funny sometimes and he is a nice guy. I am sure he is a much better professor when teaching an area of his expertise as opposed to bsci207 which he has never taught before. However, if you are debating which bsci207 to take, you won't be stuck with just Haag, the class is usually taught by 2 or 3 professors which could get annoying. Enjoy...", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2012-05-17T12:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI430', 'review': "this class was not up to par with some other science classes. Dr Haag was dry although he was really in to the material. His exams were more analytical then concept based. He didn't go by the book. You had to learn how to take his exam not only the material. Its a good class to take if you want to be seriously challenged. I think his exams were not fair although the average on the exams went up each exam because people were getting used to him rather then understanding more. I dont recommend him. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-02-02T13:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I am currently taking this course with Dr. Haag, and it sucks. He talks really fast and doesn't know how to answer a question in less than 3 sentences, overcomplicating absolutely everything. Classes are 50 minutes and he expects us to go through a 40 slide powerpoint, which we of course never do because he talks so much, so he just speeds up and skips things that turn out to be important. He gives absolutely no feedback on what stuff is going to be on the exam, which makes studying nearly impossible because he gives so much information. Also - if he says 'this is not AP Bio, you're not supposed to memorize information by understand greater concepts' don't listen. He has said that twice now and both times he asks extremely (unnecessary) specific questions that there is literally no greater purpose to memorizing. Half the time, he would tell is that he doesn't know the information because it wasn't his specialty, which 1) is extremely annoying because why should I have to know it but not you, and 2) makes it extremely clear to me this is too much information for 1 class. In the past I have loved my BSCI classes, but this class makes me want to cry and fall asleep at the same time, every single time. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-20T18:54:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Dr. Haag is a very nice guy, and does his best to be engaging and interesting with material that is not necessarily that cool. Personally, I don\'t see the value in this class especially since a lot of it is just detailed AP Biology and concepts that most people should already be familiar with, just in a really detailed format. If you want this class as transfer credit, it counts as general bio 2 in most other universities, which emphasizes what I said before. Whenever Dr. Haag does what he calls "tours of organisms" the class gets confusing since we don\'t know what we\'re supposed to be taking notes on and what we actually have to know, since he just seems to be presenting basically fun facts of each organism. For these tours, I would recommend that you take notes on the key concepts that make them different from other organisms instead of memorizing every single feature of each organism, since test questions won\'t ask you about random specific information, rather they will ask you about how it is relevant and why it matters.\r\n\r\nAll that being said, however, the class itself is not difficult provided you are willing to put in more than the bare minimum amount of effort to get by, which can be said for all biology classes at any university. The class is intuition-based provided you have memorized the key concepts needed to be able to use intuition. As a study technique, I HIGHLY recommend reviewing for exams through the GSS sessions and going through every lecture and making sure you can understand each slide and put it in your own words. There are no past exams, at least not for our semester, so the GSS leader makes practice exam questions and summarizes each of the lectures, so definitely go to those. He allows you to drop a test at the end of the semester (even though I probably won\'t need to) which can be hugely impactful for people that failed the first test and needed to get the hang of things and the way the class is taught. There are 4 units and 1 exam per unit, the exams are fair in length and difficulty. He even adjusts the length and difficulty of exams based on performance of his students on previous exams. Personally, I think Dr. Haag is doing a good job at teaching all this material in a way that keeps us interested and engaged. Whenever he geeks out over concepts, it makes the class a lot more interesting and even though we don\'t always get through the material in lecture, part of the responsibility of reviewing lecture notes afterwards lays on us students. But, I will say that having a class longer than 50 minutes would probably be better so that we can actually fully get through the material and not have to rush through parts of the lecture just to finish on time.\r\n\r\nDr. Haag is very responsive to emails and is very helpful as long as you are willing to take initiative and reach out to him. Overall, pretty good class as long as you put in the effort, good professor, and great person.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-10-29T15:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Dr Haag does the best he can with this terrible course. I would like to give him a poor review, but truly I think the course is the problem and not the professor. I received over a 96% average in both 161 and 171, and I am currently hoping to end with a B- in this class (207). The material covered is literally all over the place, one days information usually has nothing to do with the next. This makes it hard to retain small details and study because the topics contained on one single test can be so vastly different from each other (hard to study fungi and kidneys at the same time..). Personally, I recommend just staying away from this course. It\'s way too much random information and minuscule details thrown into one course. That being said, If you do need to take it for a major requirement, Haag is not a bad choice. He truly wants his students to do well and he adjusts each exam according to performance on the last exam. The averages of our exams have all been around C-, increasing with each exam. He also recently adjusted the exams so that a "cheat sheet" can be used, which is very considerate of him but it only boosted the average exam grade about 5 percent because again, the material is just so all over the place. Just be prepared to have an overwhelming amount of material covered, regardless of the professor. Take advantage of how helpful and caring Dr Haag is by asking questions and asking for help, there\'s also GSS sessions that are very helpful. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-24T19:21:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He is a really nice guy, but this course is not it. The material literally does not correlate with anything. One lecture we are talking about the kidney and the next class we are talking about evolutionary trends of bacteria. It made studying really hard because we had to remember every single detail. His tests are also really hard as well - but you eventually become better at taking them. Also, I don't think he curves, so there is that. Also, Dr.Haag is very enthusiastic about his work and all that he goes on tangents that make no sense and it's hard to tell what his tangent is and what the material is. Another thing that annoyed me so much is that the lecture slides for one lecture are about 50 slides. He takes 40 minutes going through 10-15 slides and then rushes the last 35-40 slides. It was really frustrating since we were still held accountable to know all of the material that he just rushed through. \r\n\r\nOverall, nice guy but terrible course - avoid at all costs.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-16T23:53:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I feel that he is a nice guy, but is awful at lecturing. He always plans to get through a 30-40 ppt slide in 50 mins when we only end up actually getting through about 15 of the slides (then he expects us to just know the rest for the test). Sometimes he will see that we have 5 minutes left in class and 20 more slides to get through, so he'll quickly flip through the last slides. Not only that but he is just all over the place, the slides most times are disorganized and he will talk about the least important thing for 10 minutes. His exams are so hard and he purposely tries to make the questions difficult. The averages were 50-60 range constantly, even when he let us use an 8x11 page front and back for the test. Also we had exam 4, 5 days before the final....\r\n\r\nWould NOTTTTTT recommend him to anyone", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T16:45:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Haag', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Dr.Haag is a super nice guy. He is very understanding and tries to make things as interesting as possible. However, the class SUCKS. BSCI207 is one of the worst classes I've ever taken and I would avoid it at all costs unless you need it for a prerequisite (like I did). The material is super boring, doesn't connect from one lecture to another, and is a jumble of things you will learn in other bio, physics, chem, and plant science classes. Dr.Haag's exams are hard to understand and are always looking for more than just memorization. Because of the type of material, it's super difficult to know what they're looking for. The TAs also aren't much help so you're kind of screwed. ALSO : 4 MIDTERMS AND A FINAL, MIDTERM 4 WAS ON THE MONDAY OF EXAM WEEK AND THE FINAL WAS ON THAT SATURDAY. Avoid at all costs!!!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-01-10T22:42:49Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Haag', 'slug': 'haag'}, {'courses': ['MATH111', 'MATH110', 'MATH113', 'MATH140', 'MATH003', 'MATH141', 'MATH220', 'MATH214'], 'average_rating': 4.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Hamilton', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "Eric is the bomb. Take this class. He is so fun. And he teaches well. I had a 98% all semester and I'm usually not good at math", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-11T22:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Hamilton', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "He's a really good teacher and interesting character. Probability is not the most interesting topic, but he tried to make it as engaging as possible. Its pretty easy class and Eric is a fairly easy grader. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-11-19T04:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Hamilton', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'Great teacher. He will go over it until you get it and makes quirky jokes. I would take any of his classes. Highly recommended!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-05-24T02:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Hamilton', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'Great teacher. Knows his stuff, and is very good at showing how to do the work. Tests are easy. I got an A on all exams and the final. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-24T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Hamilton', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "Great guy. Little quirky but he knows what he's doing and grades easily. Easy A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-08T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Hamilton', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Eric is a great TA! You can tell he really wants his students to succeed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-12-11T09:36:12Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Hamilton', 'slug': 'hamilton_eric'}, {'courses': ['MUSC220', 'MUSC648'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Hermann', 'slug': 'hermann'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Johnson', 'slug': 'johnson_eric'}, {'courses': ['MUSC388', 'MUSC469E', 'MUSC669E', 'MUSC400S', 'MUSC660', 'MUSC800S', 'MUSC400S', 'MUSC469E', 'MUSC660', 'MUSC669E', 'MUSC800S', 'MUSC129A', 'MUSC469E', 'MUSC669E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Kutz', 'slug': 'kutz'}, {'courses': ['PUAF302', 'PUAF349', 'PLCY302', 'PLCY100', 'PLCY688E', 'PLCY300', 'PLCY101', 'PLCY100', 'PLCY201', 'PLCY699D', 'PLCY699I'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Luedtke', 'course': 'PLCY201', 'review': 'Amazing professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-06-10T01:09:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Luedtke', 'course': 'PLCY201', 'review': 'Great guy. Class is very discussion based. Grades based on attendance, 5 quizzes (1 question, short answer response to question), 2 written papers (both very manageable), midterm, and final. Exams are written responses and fair.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T07:39:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Luedtke', 'course': 'PLCY302', 'review': 'Best professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-07T21:39:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Luedtke', 'course': 'PLCY100', 'review': 'AMAZING professor. Super nice guy who is very engaging in class. The class is also extremely interesting and I feel is an important subject for everyone to know a bit about. I would highly recommend this class in all aspects. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-22T14:22:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Luedtke', 'course': 'PLCY100', 'review': 'Amazing professor. Very engaging. Grades can be slow and often tries too hard to incorporate (factually incorrect) conservative points of view in some topics. very passionate about the subject and overall makes the class more interesting than it should be', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-12T02:36:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Luedtke', 'course': 'PLCY100', 'review': "Great teacher! Really passionate about what he does. He's the majority leader in the Maryland House Of Delegates which is really cool. Class is not that much work. As long as you do the work and try somewhat, you will pass.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-13T20:50:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Luedtke', 'course': 'PLCY100', 'review': "What I think is very cool about professor Luedtke is that he is the majority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates so he brings that experience to the class. The content is very interesting as it goes over all different types of policy. There is an average amount of work such as 4 papers, and a midterm/final however if you put in the work, and send in your papers to your TAs to check before you submit, you'll be fine. He is also super nice, and funny. The textbook is very long and the readings can be 40+ pages sometimes which can be annoying, but all you really need to do is skim the chapters and make sure you understand the basic ideas. Also, the midterm and final is mostly based off the class slides + discussion so reading the book will not impact you as much. Overall, I highly recommend this class/professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-23T22:08:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Luedtke', 'course': 'PLCY100', 'review': "Luedtke is great! Super engaging, clearly cares about the subject and his students. Only 4 writing assignments that you have plenty of time for, a midterm, and a final. They're all weighted a lot because it's the only assignments, so you have to do well on all of them if you want an A. But you can send your work to the TAs and they'll review it. Great class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T22:09:50.054377Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Luedtke', 'course': 'PLCY100', 'review': "Best professor ever. His lectures are so much fun. He's an easy grader and wants to make sure all of his students do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-17T04:41:36.608954Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Luedtke', 'slug': 'luedtke'}, {'courses': ['PHIL858A', 'PHIL308S', 'PHIL370', 'PHIL408R', 'PHIL470', 'HONR278X', 'PHIL478P', 'PHIL408I', 'PHIL858E', 'PHIL408Z', 'PHIL170', 'PHIL478M', 'PHIL309P', 'PHIL858K', 'PHIL418A', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL688E', 'PHIL218A', 'PHIL858P', 'PHIL171', 'GVPT449D', 'PHPE400', 'PHIL409C', 'PHPE408', 'PHIL688X', 'PHPE400', 'GVPT449D', 'PHIL808K', 'PHPE400', 'PHIL271', 'PHPE400', 'GVPT449D', 'PHIL478', 'PHPE400'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Pacuit', 'course': 'PHIL309P', 'review': "Very nice guy in class and in office hours. Class assignments are very reasonable, and he'll work with you to meet deadlines if you have any issues. I highly recommend for PHIL170, PHIL309P, and PHIL418A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:01:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Pacuit', 'course': 'PHIL309P', 'review': 'Awesome professor and a nice person all around, he managed to make everything very interesting and engaged the class well. I will say that towards the end of the class I had pretty much no idea of what was going on but the earlier topics were really fun to learn about.\r\n\r\nWould definitely recommend this course and professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-17T23:39:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Pacuit', 'course': 'PHIL171', 'review': "very nice guy, willing to help and work with you to meet deadlines. However, he's too smart for his own good. Makes the course content a little too hard for non-philosophy majors. Definitely not a class that you want to take for an elective, but if you apply yourself it is do-able.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-10T16:27:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Pacuit', 'course': 'PHPE400', 'review': "PHPE400 was a difficult course in terms of content but Dr. Pacuit was extremely patient and made space for students to ask questions about the material. The workload itself isn't the hard part but it does take a while to understand, especially if its your first time seeing it. As long as you go to office hours and put in work outside of the class you will succeed. Definitely one of the most accommodating professor's I've ever had.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-25T15:33:44.892390Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Pacuit', 'course': 'PHPE400', 'review': "This class is terrible. The information is like a cult--you have to learn it and it feels pointless. Pacuit is nice, flexible with deadlines, and very willing to answer questions. However, the course content is so niche, if you don't understand (esp if you don't understand Pacuit) there's not really another way/source to learn the material from. There isn't a TA and everyone I spoke to who had taken the course previously had no idea what was going on. Also, you have to go to class because lectures aren't recorded and Pacuit posts slides, but you need to hear him in conjunction with if you want hope of comprehending what's going on. \r\nBottom line: if you have experience with set notation and/or are comfortable struggling, you can probably survive with a decent grade. Know that you will be frustrated. Make friends to do problem sets with.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-15T16:59:05.291527Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Pacuit', 'course': 'PHPE400', 'review': 'Definitely a difficult class that requires you to have frequent attendance in order to understand the material. The concepts are a bit abstract and difficult at first but going to class, participating, and possibly going to office hours will help. I recommend making connections with people in your class in order to study together. He is lenient with deadlines and will give extra credit if the class average on a homework isn’t good. Also includes a small curve at the end. Overall a real long nice guy!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T18:55:08.136315Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Pacuit', 'slug': 'pacuit'}, {'courses': ['MUSC140'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Pazdziora', 'slug': 'pazdziora'}, {'courses': ['ENFP662', 'ENFP662'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Rosenbaum', 'slug': 'rosenbaum'}, {'courses': ['MUSC629P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Shin', 'slug': 'shin_eric'}, {'courses': ['STAT705', 'STAT650', 'STAT730', 'STAT770', 'STAT818M', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'STAT818D', 'STAT702', 'STAT750', 'STAT700', 'STAT701'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Slud', 'course': 'STAT401', 'review': "He's really boring and assigns lots of homework. You won't learn anything. Stay away.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-20T14:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Slud', 'course': 'STAT650', 'review': "Class is hard, but you learn a lot. One of the homework problems took 7 pages typed. I would suggest to only take the class if you're genuinely interested in the material, which is probably expected for graduate level courses.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-12T08:20:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Slud', 'course': 'STAT700', 'review': "Class is hard. \r\nHe doesn't teach very well during lectures. He is helpful when you ask him specific questions, but not good at proving the theorems in the textbook.\r\nThe textbook is bad. It contains a lot of topics but insufficient theorems and facts to finish homework. It's not well organized. There is a lot of homework from the textbook, very difficult.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-29T19:44:22.548931Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Slud', 'slug': 'slud'}, {'courses': ['ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Thiel', 'course': 'ENGL398B', 'review': "Professor Thiel is one of the best professors I've come across in college. He teaches you real skills, makes the classroom environment super comfortable, makes assignments low stress. He really cares about his students succeeding and like I said, learning real communication skills. Anyone who doesn't give him 5 stars is insane. Take him for PW you will not regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-17T14:56:18.277907Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Thiel', 'slug': 'thiel'}, {'courses': ['GVPT423', 'GVPT429C', 'GVPT473', 'GVPT878E', 'GVPT479H', 'GVPT479P', 'GVPT423H', 'GVPT770'], 'average_rating': 1.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Uslaner', 'course': 'GVPT473', 'review': "Here's the deal: My experience with Dr. Uslaner wasn't as bad as others below. I've never had a personal issue with him, but he's just not a great professor.\n\r\nHis lectures are pretty bad. He's extremely knowledgable about the subject matter, but has a serious organization problem when it comes to his lectures. It's sometimes tough to follow him, but his TAs will give you a study guide for the exams. His syllabus is absolute garbage and is totally useless, his TAs usually re-write it and make it readable.\n\r\nHe has some very odd policies (must use three sources from the class readings on the paper or you get a D). He also got very upset that people were showing up late to class this semester, so he started seriously penalizing people for it.\n\r\nHis TAs are very helpful, so make sure you go to discussion. This semester, he had a graduate and undergraduate TA. Odd for a class of about 40, but totally helpful.\n\r\nHe's not great, but the class wasn't too difficult.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-03T17:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Uslaner', 'course': 'GVPT423', 'review': "Honestly one of the worst professors in the entire world. I have no idea how this man still works at this university. I really wish I had listened to the reviews below before taking this class with him so listen to me when I say, do not take this class with him. His lectures are unorganized. I have about 100 pages on notes that are in no particular order at all and just ended up being confusing to me while doing my take home exam. The course load and readings are bearable, but didn't particularly relate to the lectures for that week. \n\r\nI've also just never felt more stupid than sitting in his lecture. It was almost like he could tell when I wasn't understanding what he was saying, and call on me out of nowhere to answer a question, which he obviously knew I didn't know the answer to. After I would say 'I don't know' he would smile and laugh like he got pleasure out of my humiliation. It got so bad that I just stopped attending after a while. \n\r\nThere is also no way he reads any of you papers. There are about 25 of us in my class and we would have grades back for 10 pages papers within the next 24 hours. I'm sorry it is not humanly possible to read that many papers in that short of a time period. I truly believe he gives you a grade based on how much he likes you, therefore I do not do very well on my assignments.\n\r\nAll in all, just a horrible experience and definitely the worst class I've taken at UMD so far. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2015-05-18T06:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Uslaner', 'course': 'GVPT423', 'review': "Probably the worst professor I've had at UMD thus far. Uslander is rude and arrogant. He is extremely unhelpful to student needs and will immediately dismiss you if you try to talk to him for help or questions on a topic discussed in class or otherwise. Also, his grading is extremely sporadic. Some people would receive C's and D's on an exam or essay while others get A+'s. I would personally read some of these essays from fellow classmates and there was no distinguishable difference between them for such an immense grade difference. Also if you try to speak with him about an unfair grade, he will only get mad at you and basically call you stupid, no matter what your reasoning. Completely terrible, avoid at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-05-10T00:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Uslaner', 'course': 'GVPT423', 'review': "Dr. Uslaner is a decent professor, if he actually shows up to class. When I had him for GVPT423 (a once a week class) he missed 5 classes during the semester...thats almost half of the classes.\n\r\nHe is incredibly full of himself. If you agree with what he's saying then you'll be good to go, but heaven forbid you disagree with him and he will punish you for it. He literally said I was being disrespectful to him because I disagreed with one of his stances and refused to discuss it any further.\n\r\nIt is questionable as to whether he reads the papers that you turn in. If you have less than 3 outside sources (not including assigned textbooks), you can get no higher than a C on your paper. The final paper for the class was 10 pages long and Dr. Uslaner posted grades a day after we turned in the papers. There were close to 30 people in the class, so if he sat down and did an all-nighter with our papers then perhaps he did in fact read them all, but who really thinks he did that? Not me.\n\r\nIf you agree with him, I'm sure his grading is fair. Because I disagreed with him however, he decided to give me a C for the class. When I went to his office to discuss my grade he freaked out and told me to take it to the dean's office. Unfortunately for Uslaner, I took him up on his word, went to the dean's office and they agreed with me and pretty much forced him to give me the grade I deserved...When I was speaking w/ the dean I was informed that 3 other students that semester were also complaining about Uslaner, so this isn't an isolated incident.\n\r\nSo in summary, if you can sit around and listen to Uslaner without voicing opposition to any of his opinions, his class will be a breeze. The material is interesting (at least for 423) its just a shame that Uslaner is the one teaching it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-11T12:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Uslaner', 'course': 'GVPT479P', 'review': 'Run. Run as fast as you can. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-02-05T22:15:46Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Uslaner', 'slug': 'uslaner'}, {'courses': ['ENMA489H', 'ENMA698W', 'ENMA489W', 'ENMA410', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA414', 'ENMA614', 'ENMA486', 'ENMA410'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eric Wachsman', 'slug': 'wachsman'}, {'courses': ['UMEI002', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI004', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI006', 'UMEI011', 'UMEI013', 'UMEI003', 'UMEI004', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI005'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Walker', 'course': 'UMEI007', 'review': 'The teacher is lazy.\r\nHe canceled classes and were late for the class several times.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-16T03:06:53Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Walker', 'slug': 'walker_eric'}, {'courses': ['HONR348M', 'BSOS289I', 'BSOS201', 'BSOS201', 'BSOS201', 'BSOS448A'], 'average_rating': 3.0357, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS289I', 'review': "BEST CLASS YOU WILL EVER TAKE!! \n\r\nI took this since it was offered in the Freshmen Connection program. Dr. Wish is so passionate about the subject and he likes to tell corny jokes. David, his assistant is just as funny, nice, and intelligent. I loved this class so much.\n\r\nIn the beginning, there is a LOT of reading that you have to do. Don't slack off on the readings as it's crucial you understand your concepts before you apply it to the trading simulation. \n\r\nOther than that, this class is great! Applies to real life, especially the guest lecture by Ann Holmes. She came in towards the end of the year and gave a fantastic lecture about finance, credit cards, etc. \n\r\nHIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU TAKE THIS CLASS. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT. If you put in the effort, you will find this class super interesting, fun, and you'll most likely earn an A", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-11T18:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'HONR348M', 'review': "Dr. Wish is a fantastic professor, definitely take this class. \n\r\nRecommendations:\r\n1. During the trading simulation, consider investing some percentage of your $100,000 entirely into ETFs\n\r\n2. Be honest with yourself. Don't set a haphazard stop loss in the simulation that you would never do in real life! If you treat the money as if it's real, you'll get a better sense of how you'd actually behave in the market with your own investments, and you can tailor your rules to something you would practically use.\n\r\n3. While you're reading your books, make a TC2000 account and look at real stocks to get a sense of the abstract ideas. I found that I couldn't really grasp the concepts until I started playing around with TC2000.\n\r\n4. Have the printer situation thought out beforehand. Pretty much everyone in my class wrote a final paper that was above 80 pages, and that's a lot of printing to do if you don't have your own printer or if you're low on color ink. (It doesn't have to be color, but since it will include stock charts, color is preferable.) It seems minor, but it can get you into a lot of trouble if you're working last minute. \n\r\n5. Don't fear the long final paper that much. It'll have a lot of charts, and you should have a lot to talk about.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-11-20T19:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'HONR348M', 'review': "Dr. Wish is amazing. Period. This is one of the best classes at the University of Maryland, and I would recommend that everyone take it if possible. Dr. Wish is an excellent teacher who genuinely cares about his students learning the material. The first few weeks can be extremely difficult given the enormous quantities of reading required, but after the gauntlet it gets far better. You must keep up with the readings and market every week to stay ahead, but trust me, it is worth it. \n\r\nI learned so much about stocks, specifically technical analysis, as well as numerous other approaches, and strategies for personal finance. Dr. Wish also brings in a slew of phenomenal guest speakers. Above all, the highlight of the class is the stock competition, which is closely followed each week. This course provided me with several valuable skills that I will keep with me the rest of my life. I love this course and think the world of Dr. Wish. \n\r\nThere is definitely a large reward for all of the hard work you put into this class. Make sure you don't put off the final paper, as it's almost all of your grade, and it can be challenging. All in all, most of the class receives A's, but it's not because it's an easy class. Dr. Wish is a great teacher, and inspires us to do learn and to do the work.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-27T02:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'HONR348M', 'review': "Take this class! Not only do you learn about the stock market, but you also learn about managing money, which I would have never learned about (I think Business majors learn about this stuff, but I am Math-CS). \n\r\nReadings:\r\nThis is a very daunting amount of reading in the beginning, but if you can get through that then you will compete in a stock market competition with a fake $100,000. It is definitely worth the reading in the beginning. (I read half the books over the summer before the class started, this is a good idea if you want to be able to finish the readings.) I got a lot out of the readings and would suggest that you try to do most of them.\n\r\nStock Competition:\r\nThis part of the course can be a lot or a little work depending on how much you put into it. If you put a lot in you will learn a lot and have a lot to talk about in your final report (which is why I managed an A+). The one thing I liked about this was that you can plan your stock market competition work around the rest of your schedule, just do it at bare minimum once a week (twice is good but more is definitely better, I would do in depth stock market stuff on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday and usually glace through stock charts while eating breakfast and dinner).\n\r\nWarnings:\r\nDr. Wish will call you out in front of the entire class if you slack off(like updating your overall market analysis, or updating your transaction sheets). \n\r\nThe final assignment took me over 100 pages and an entire weekend, I started Friday afternoon and finished Sunday night and did almost nothing but this project. It is impossible to do the night before and get a good grade. The final project has gotten a shorter than it was in the past, but you now need to be more detailed and analytic. \n\r\nI would suggest reading these three books (in this order) before the semester starts:\r\n1) How I made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market (DARVAS)\r\n2) Stan Weinstein's Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets (WEINSTEIN)\r\n3) Lessons from the Greatest Stock Traders of All Time (BOIK)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-22T13:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': None, 'review': "I found Dr. Wish to be the ideal teacher for he's strict about doing your work but if you are a good student, he's very fair and understanding. His class was probably one of the most rewarding classes I have ever taken. He really cares about his students and definitely wants you to succeed. Very understanding, very kind. He's an easy teacher if he knows that you are trying and are not slacking off so DON'T SLACK OFF or he will call you out. However, I highly recommend him and I definitely think that everyone should take this class to learn about the stock market. You do not have to be a stock market enthusiast to enjoy this class but I guarantee you will become one (even if you have no idea what it's about.. like I was)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-09T22:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': None, 'review': "It's a lot of work but you learn a lot too. He's very understanding in that he knows that trading stocks isn't for everyone. I tried out the class because I wanted to learn about the stock market, but after going through the trading simulation I realized that I really didn't have the passion for trading stocks.\n\r\nThat being said, he expects you to keep up with the readings and put some effort into the assignments. At the end of the trading simulation you have to compile all the records of your trades and then analyze it. Don't procrastinate on this final assignment.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-09-03T02:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': None, 'review': "This class was a LOT of work, but absolutely worth it. When you leave college, this will undoubtedly be one of the classes you look back on and know that you learned something useful.\n\r\nPositives:\r\nLike I said, this will be a class that you look back on thinking about how much you learned and how you'll use what you learned for the rest of your life. Even if you know nothing about the stock market, Dr. Wish is great at explaining the topics thoroughly and helping every student truly gain a knowledge of the stock market.\n\r\nNegatives:\r\nDr. Wish assigns a LOT of reading, but it really is necessary. You might be able to get away with not reading a few of the articles, maybe 1 or 2 books, but in general you'll be lost without doing the reading. There are quizzes nearly every week about the reading, so make sure you keep up. About halfway through the semester the amount of assigned reading went way down, but the workload definitely stays high. You will be required to participate in a simulated stock market competition and it is a LOT of work.\n\r\nIf you are looking for a rewarding class, despite the high workload, take this course with Dr. Wish. It's worth it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-15T19:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': None, 'review': "This was an exceptionally challenging class, particularly because I had absolutely no knowledge of anything pertaining to stocks before i took the course. However, it was one of the most rewarding courses I have taken here at the university. Professor Wish was an excellent teacher, and did everything possible to guide students to practical approaches to the stock market. He had many resources and guest speakers to provide a spectrum of opinions and ideas. He was very approachable, and would answer any question fairly and objectively. He assigned many helpful projects, but the workload is very tough. I highly recommend this course, for its practical applicability in the real world, as long as you don't mind the reading and projects.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-06-18T11:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'HONR348M', 'review': "Not a good professor. Incredibly inconsistent with grading. I understand that reviews in past years are positive, but I took HONR348M in the most recent semester (spring 2020) and can honestly say you don't need to take this class. If you're interested in the content you can just read the books on wishingwealth blog. If you want to have an unfair and inconsistent professor in Dr. Wish by all means take this class. None of these criticisms apply to the teaching assistant David.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-23T17:16:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'HONR348M', 'review': 'Don’t take this class if you want to learn about the stock market. Much of the information in this class is factually incorrect or outdated. At times, it is even misleading. If you take this class, you will walk away with a misunderstanding of the stock market that will hurt you when you begin to trade on your own. \r\n\r\nThe core issue is that this class teaches Technical Analysis (TA). Technical Analysis is a method that uses patterns in stock charts to make educated investment decisions. These patterns are supposed to indicate whether the stock will move up or down. You may have heard of patterns like “head and shoulders”, “cup with handle”, and “bull flag” or indicators like “moving average”, “relative strength”, and “Bollinger bands”. These are terms associated with technical analysis.\r\n\r\nThe problem is technical analysis is a lot like reading tea leaves or looking at horoscopes. It has repeatedly been shown to be an ineffective predictor of stock movement in efficient markets like the US stock market today. TA *was* viable in the past when trading wasn’t automated, but today, high frequency trading algorithms, which place orders microseconds apart and account for nearly 80% of the volume in a day, have eroded any advantage technical analysis used to have. \r\n\r\nTA also suffers from double-sided language and non-falsifiable claims. Technical analysts look at chart patterns and make statements like “XYZ stock had a Bollinger Band bounce signaling a reversing downtrend, but its low Relative Strength and high Stochastic could mean a break through resistance to lower lows”. These types of statements are far too common and are essentially saying the price can go up OR down. Later, analysts point to the subsequent stock’s price movement and use hindsight to justify their correctness. Of course, you can’t be wrong if you predicted the stock price would move in either direction.\r\n\r\nA broad metastudy of 96 papers also concluded that technical analysis has not been demonstrably profitable in equity markets after 1990. Studies that did show profitable strategies in the past still may not have beaten the average market index (SP500) or made questionable methodology decisions in their analysis (https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6419.2007.00519.x). These days, successful firms like Citadel, IMC, and 2 Sigma use rigorously proven statistical techniques and machine learning strategies like LSTM and SVM to predict market movement. If you walked into an interview at a hedge fund, trading firm, or investment bank and said you use technical analysis to make investments, they would laugh as they showed you the door.\r\n\r\nDespite all this, Wish makes TA seem like the be-all-end-all of trading. He talks a lot about his own successful trades. What Wish never does is quantify his strategies with industry metrics like CAGR, Sharpe, Alpha, and Drawdown that normalize the performance of trading across different market conditions. We never know how often he wins or loses, or by how much. Wish also never reveals his trades before he places them. If Wish is teaching us investing strategy, at the very least, he should be able to demonstrate that the technique is successful by providing his historical performance, both the good and the bad. This may seem like a large ask, but it is standard in the industry to have this information publically available. \r\n\r\nBesides this fundamental issue with the course, there are other minor but notable ones as well. \r\n\r\nThere is a trading simulation in this class in which you spend 8 weeks trading against your classmates. The idea is to apply what you have learned to design your own unique strategy. That’s not what you really get to do because you are required to build your strategy on top of Wish’s restrictive preexisting rules. \r\n\r\nAlso the final paper, a self-evaluation of your strategy, is just busy-work. The paper exceeds 50 pages in length because you have to document the entry date, number of shares, $ profit, and other values for every single trade you made during the simulation. Then, you have to write 3-4 sentences about what you learned from that trade. The final paper was the most boring, tedious assignment I have ever completed at UMD.\r\n\r\nFinally, the grading policy is pretty arbitrary. Sometimes assignments are point based, while at other times, they are all-or-nothing. You can get 4/5 questions right on an assignment and end up with a 0 on ELMS. The assignment weighting was similarly nonsensical: quizzes were worth 10-20 points while the final paper was worth 1000.\r\n\r\nIn conclusion, in this class, real information is presented in the same way as information that is straight up wrong. A busy student or an inexperienced student isn’t going to be able to fact check every single thing Wish says. That is what makes this class dangerous. For this reason, I recommend avoiding the class entirely. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-07-06T02:51:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': None, 'review': 'This class was one of the most difficult courses I have ever taken. The work load was around 10 hours a week, plus. The assignments were so confusing to comprehend, and the course material was so difficult to understand. The course met once a week for three hours and took up way too much time. There are no grades posted the entire entire semester, so you have no idea what your grade is. The quizzes each week are extremely difficult, and you need to pay attention to the full three hour lecture and watch every single video he posts if you want to even know what the questions on the quizzes are talking about. The class is so fast paced, I took this as an elective to learn about investing, and by the end of the semester, I am more confused. If you plan on spending ALL of your time on stocks go ahead, but this has nothing to do with my major and I thought It would be an easy elective and It took up ALL of my time. Dr. Wish does not post an overall course grade at all, and It is scary at the end of the semester. He does not talk very clearly and in the lecture he just seems like he is yelling at everyone. I do not recommend taking this course at all. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-07T21:04:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': 'Unless you are already interested in stocks, do not take this class. If you are already interested in stocks, do not take this class either. The work is tedious and the grading is abysmal. You cannot see your average grade for the entire semester at all. All assignments (Excluding the midterm and final report) for this semester have added up to be roughly 375 points. The midterm and final are worth about 330 points. This class is not worth the stress. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-08T21:11:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "Doesn't grade anything and the grading system he has set up is awful, you can't even see the final grade and his teaching style sucks. You are basically teaching yourself and the workload is awful for this class. not that great don't take it for a gen ed too much work.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-13T02:26:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "This class is definitely not for everyone but for people who are genuinely interested in learning about stocks and other financial tools, I would highly recommend. I knew nothing going in and I learned so much. This class is long, the lectures can get super boring, and there is a lot of reading during the first half of the semester, but if you just suffer through it I think it is worth it in the end. Even if you do poorly on the weekly quizzes, most of your grade depends on your final report. The grading system is super weird where he won't give you a cumulative grade until the end of the semester but most people end up with an A or A+. If you are willing to put in the time, this class is really useful. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-27T18:52:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "Dr. Wish is a great teacher. He's nice, but the workload is insane. There is an 8-week trading simulation with insane trading rules (you need to be 90% invested, you can only follow certain rules, you cannot purchase meme stocks, etc). After the 8 weeks, you do a final report on what you did. To be honest, I did not follow most of the rules and I wrote that on my final report. He says to be honest in your report, and I did. I surprisingly came out with an A after getting a C on my midterm and doing decent on my quizzes.\r\nI genuinely don't know how I got an A.\r\nIf you want to take the class to learn about stocks, I learned a bit. You should do your own research if you really want to get into the stock market. Everyone is talking about grades, but to be honest just don't lie on your final report, put in a bunch of stuff you learned, and your grade will flip to be on the bright side. If you're not going to pay attention, expect a poor grade. I understood 50% of what he taught and managed to get a good grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-05T04:01:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE. I am writing for about 50 other students when I say this class is not a first year class. The workload is more than you have ever seen and half the stuff Wish talks about is mad outdated. You will most likely get an A or B, but this class was horrible and I would never take it again.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-22T16:16:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "I took this class a few years ago and have been a Teacher's Assistant for it ever since. Do not be scared off by some of the recent negative reviews. The fact is that this class isn't for everyone, but if you are interested in the topics then it will be the best class you'll take at UMD (it has been for me). The first half of the semester is intense and requires reading a few books. There are weekly quizzes used to encourage you to stay on track but they aren't weighted high for the overall grade. I hate to read and stress about quizzes, but being interested in the topics makes it pretty enjoyable and the quizzes aren't too bad. \r\n\r\nPeople complain about the workload during the start of the class, but it's really not that bad and only having class once a week means you can space out the work. It is by no means easy for the first part of the class, but if you manage your time then it's fine. After the midterm, the weekly quizzes stop and the class goes into cruise control basically. You'll be in a virtual trading competition that you'll need to monitor every few days, but if you put in the work during the start of the class it is pretty easy. \r\n\r\nThe final project makes up a very high percentage of your grade. If you pay attention the whole year, the project shouldn't be bad at all. It takes a lot of time and detail to put together, so you'll need to give yourself a lot of time to do it. But in terms of difficulty, it isn't too hard at all (if you pay attention and try throughout the semester). The way the grades work, you won't have access to your grade on elms throughout the semester. They do this because your grades are calculated using excel and it makes it easier to play with the final weighting and stuff. If the grade was visible in elms throughout the semester, it might give students a false sense of their performance in the class. If you want to know your general grade and how your doing, you can just go to the virtual office hours and ask a Teacher's Assistant. Dr. Wish usually says that almost no students ever fail his class.\r\n\r\nYou'll also see some people complaining about technical analysis in these reviews. Even if you never plan to use technical analysis or Dr. Wish's trading strategies, this class is till very valuable. You'll learn all the financial terminology and how to properly save for retirement. This class prepares you for the real world and gives you so much more confidence in setting up your future.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-04T06:48:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "This class isn't as bad as people make it seem, I learned some pretty fundamental knowledge about the stock market and personally i didn't spend more than 2 hours a week on this class. The grading is a bit weird as I didn't know my final grade really until it was put in but he literally tells you what to do to get an A so theres really no surprise there. You can take a look at the grade distribution as well, majority of people get an A as long as you follow instructions. Last note* This course is very final heavy, your final basically determines if you pass or fail this class so keep that in mind.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-11T15:50:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "Do not take this class. I have spent hours studying algorithms that do not work. Dr. Wish rambles for half the class, and you will do better by randomly choosing stocks than using this course as trading reference. Also this class is a miserable slog of 3 hours. Do not take this class if you wish to learn about the stock market. I wouldn't wish this course upon my worst enemy.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-02T21:11:51.103164Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': 'TLDR: do NOT take unless you really really love the stock market, otherwise it\'s painful busywork where you don\'t learn much. This is also NOT a class about financial literacy.\r\n\r\nI took this class because I thought I would learn how stocks work, what can make them move up or down, and some general knowledge on how to manage my money. I got none of that. I still have no idea what makes a stock move up or down other than "uhhh someone out there thinks this company is good maybe". And we learned one and only one thing about financial literacy, which I\'ll tell you right now: get a Roth IRA, it\'s better than a traditional IRA.\r\nThe first half of the class was learning the alien language of Technical Analysis. From everyone I\'ve talked to outside this class who knows what they\'re doing, TA is considered absolute garbage. You\'ll learn about "indicators" for the stock movement that are pretty much arbitrary and often even contradict each other (e.g. MACD histogram and stochastics have a strong correlation, but tell you opposite things). Of course, when you put these into practice, stocks turn out to be largely random noise. I\'d go on here, but I\'m no expert in the stock market, and others can say this better (including some of the reviews here, especially that one really long one). At roughly the halfway point of the course, you\'ll take a big midterm. That was fairly standard, but it took me way longer than I was expecting.\r\nThe second half is a trading simulation where you get $100,000 in fake money and have to invest it. I ended up with a ~1.7% profit, in a pretty bad market. This is a cute idea on paper, but in reality it just creates a ton of extra work and eats up your free time, including thanksgiving break. It\'s also really restrictive; the idea is to trade for yourself to see what it\'s like, but every stock you buy has to follow some strict rules (which I didn\'t even realize I broke multiple times), and every stock needs a "setup", which is even more restrictive. You\'re supposed to learn about trading from the simulation, but all I learned was that stocks are mostly random noise. You have to trade quite a bit, and the final has you analyzing every single trade you made. It\'s just tedious for no reason. The one thing I will give to him is that he\'s clear about grading. He tells you pretty much exactly what you need to do to get an A, meaning you don\'t have to think much... so it\'s not only busywork but MINDLESS busywork!! Also the final paper is worth 65% of your grade which is just horrendous.\r\nOther notes: the gender ratio is really bad. Like, CS class bad. There are 10 TAs and 2 professors and none of them know me. The classroom is huge, and you can clearly see more and more empty chairs as the class goes on. In the first week or so, he\'ll go the entire way through the 3 hours with no break to scare people off, but after that he\'ll typically have a 10 minute break in the middle-- which is still nowhere near enough to sit through a 3 hour lecture. If you get top 10 or bottom 10 in the simulation he\'ll make you talk in front of the class, so maybe don\'t do that. Or just don\'t take the class in the first place.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-04T18:15:27.259590Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': 'This class will be very difficult if you have no prior knowledge or interest in the stock market. If you do, you might be fine. But, if you do not have a burning passion for stocks I would avoid this class like the plague. Within the first few weeks we were assigned multiple books to have read. The course grading itself is not that difficult, but it is a lot very quickly. In addition, the final is worth most of your grade. For a Gen ED course, I would not take this.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-06T04:12:41.360436Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "Dr. Wish is a nice enough guy, but this class is absolute torture. I took this class to learn more about stocks, and while I feel as though I did learn some bit of information, I am also more confused than I was initially. If this class was split up into shorter sections over multiple days in a week I feel as though myself and many of my classmates would've been able to focus on this class much better. Even pounding cups of coffee did not help me stay engaged and zoned-in to the lecture. If you are super into stocks and the stock market, go ahead and try this class, but I definitely wouldn't just take it for the gen-ed, as insane amounts of work and a 3 hour lecture each week simply aren't worth it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-07T18:39:48.718799Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': 'I would not recomend this class unless you are very interested in the stock market. It is not an easy Gen Ed! as I thought it was. The 3 hour lectures are way to long and Dr wish will finish his slide in the first 1.5 hours and just ramble on for the last half of the class. It requires you to read 3 books in full and the final is a 25 page paper that for me was over 5000 words long. The setups he teaches are useful except that they are not taught very well so he briefly goes over them and expects us to understand them in full. The TAs are very helpful but that still does not make this an easy class. But if you are really interested in the stock market this might be the class for you but if you are not do not take this class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-09T16:46:28.265115Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "Please spare yourself from this class. It's a 3 hour lecture which is impossible to sit through, and you have to commit to doing crazy amounts of work. If you don't already know how the stock market works, you won't learn it here, so your energy is better spent somewhere else. I do believe that Dr. Wish is a knowledgeable guy, but he doesn't do a good job at transferring that knowledge to his students. He has been pretty harsh to people that don't understand his expectations. This class is my biggest regret of the semester and I should've dropped it after the first week. Good luck to anyone in it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-09T17:42:42.524775Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "This will be a long review so for sake of time here's the tl;dr:\r\nThis course is only enjoyable if you have interest in stock trading prior to this course and may serve as a catalyst to further that interest. The course itself is not quite fun nor teaches much content and may be difficult to achieve a high grade in.\r\n\r\nOnwards to the full review!\r\nBecause of the sheer conflicting amts of 1 and 5 star ratings I'll be going very very indepth here and review in form of Q&A. Read other reviews before this one. Simply put they're both right\r\n\r\nQ: Is the workload for this course actually bad? Who is right?\r\nA: The ones who say it's crazy are right to an extent. Those saying it's not bad are flat out lying for the first few weeks. Some of your first quizzes have assigned readings of 50-200 pages and like 30 minutes of videos in addition to lecture content. Luckily you can get away with a B or A on these quizzes through good use of cntrl F, google, and youtube video -> transcript conversions. However the fact that you're expected to dedicate this amount of work initially? Crazy. Luckily these quizzes fall off in difficulty over time and halfway through the course cease to exist, from which case effort is smooth sailing until your final paper. You have a trading simulation instead which you are supposed to actively manage, but if you plan it out and know in advance what you need to do you can realistically only put in effort trading a few stocks and still be fine by the end. The two week add drop will expose you to these quizzes, so if you think they're manageable then this course is easy from then on.\r\n\r\nQ: Are the 3 hour lectures bad? Is it impossible to set through?\r\nA: Nah but man does this class not need to be 3 hours. The first hour might be taken up by relatively slow review over quizzes, some what rambly analysis of new market events, or other things. Simply put it's not very organized and the content could be easily delivered in 2 hours or less. The end of this course has frequent guest speakers as there is no more content in this course left, so while this might be a pro or con I found some of these speakers quite boring. Impossible to sit through? Certainly not, but lecture 100% does not need to be 3 hours. They're all recorded and you can totally skip so you can play them back at 2x speed. (My recommendation)\r\n\r\nQ: Is the class content actually useful? Is TA astrology?\r\nA: Yes-ish, Yes-ish. If you have 0 financial background or 0 stock backgrounds then this course will intro you to some basic ideas that can be useful as a catalyst for your own further personal research. If you have previous experience not much in this course will be new info for you. Despite being 14 weeks long surprisingly little content is discussed in the 3 hour lectures. I personally am not a fan of TA and thus didn't take away much from the course itself, but having to work with stocks and research so often catalyzed my own interest and passion which I think was a net plus. Thus the course itself? Not very useful, but for newbies it can be an ok launchpad.\r\n\r\nQ: General biggest cons?\r\nA: Dr. Wish makes TA sound like the second coming of christ. In reality TA is a mixed bag that doesn't have crazy proved performance. Don't get trapped by this and make sure to do your own personal research for alternative trading methods. \r\nA: Grades are LOCKED and you cannot view your own grade in calculus and thus have to do the math for it or beg a TA to view it. Annoying as all hell and frankly am not sure why they do this. \r\nA: Trading simulation has assigned busywork (and quizzes). In reality you will learn what you can skimp and not do and get away with to have a more manageable schedule, but before that workload is high.\r\nA: Grading is brutal, but there always are rubrics. Despite this you can feel like you followed the rubric and still lose points because different TA's are very different in grading style and rigor. Go to office hours and complain your case and you just might get points back on certain assignments (When applicable, most things you cannot change your grade like this. Realistically only one assignment you can) \r\n\r\nAnd to end it off on a positive note here's why despite all that I give it a 4 stars. It's just a good way to immerse yourself in stocks and to socialize with other people who are interested. The actual class itself? Mid. The experience? Good. If you actually want to learn deep thoughtful content on stocks, learn it yourself and you will learn it better and faster. This class however introduced me to some great people and just sparked my interest so I'm biased with personal experiences to like it. I think in reality though the haters are right and this class is outdated and badly organized. \r\nThis class is certainly not the easiest A, nor may it be enjoyable for some of you. My advice is take it and drop by the 2 week add-drop if need be.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-15T08:32:38.016573Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': 'This course is definitely a learning experience. If you have experience and/or interest in stock trading prior to the class, this course is for you. For me, coming in I did not know anything about managing a stock portfolio, however, I learned very fast in this course. This course is like a crash course to stocks, bonds, retirement, and everything in between. This class is very enjoyable if you love learning about stocks, however, the lectures sometimes tend to be long and boring. Most people in the class had a cup of coffee or something to keep them awake throughout the lecture.\r\nIn terms of the workload, the beginning of the semester was not horrible, however, you need to read A LOTTT. You will read on average about 6 chapters of the several textbooks in a week. After the readings and small quizzes at the beginning of the semester, you will jump into stock trading. First, you have to get approval and this will be addressed in the class. However, you want to get approved to trade quickly and please please talk to the TAs if you have any questions EVER in the class. They were very helpful throughout the course, and they are willing to work with you. \r\nIn terms of Dr. Wish, he is an amazing professor. The guy definitely knows what he is talking about. Also, don’t be afraid to go up to him and ask a question. Dr. Wish makes class interesting if you are willing to listen to him. He is like a pastor, he preaches the content to you, and your job is to listen. \r\nLast, the grades are closed, so try not to worry about your grades, as they will be good if you try your best. Good luck!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-18T19:44:56.071281Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': 'Interesting professor, you can tell he’s very passionate ab the content but the content itself is just boring. Unless you’re really into stocks like which I was only remotely interested in, you probably shouldn’t take this course. I only showed up for the first two lectures out of the entire semester because I lost interest. Expected a B because of this but somehow wound up with an A even though I forgot to take a 40pt quiz, didnt do any of the readings, and rushed the final report in 3hrs. All the content is online including the recorded lectures so there’s really no point in sitting for an entire 3hr lecture every week. \r\n\r\nAll in all, boring content, a lot of busy work, I put in no effort but some how came out with an A, would be very cautious in choosing this course.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-26T08:56:35.329286Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Wish', 'course': 'BSOS201', 'review': "I would not recommend anyone who doesn't have a REAL interest in the stock market to take this class. I went to every 3 Hour class and it felt like a waste of time. Dr. Wish also makes it extremely difficult to ask questions during lectures. He has a way of making you feel stupid for asking a clarifying question(Oh and don't let him call on you if you don't know what going on). Then he will complain about how the class doesn't ever ask questions... Also. hearing DR. Wish go over the same slide for a 1hr and a half really takes its toll after a while. Second, the amount of work needed in this course is way too much. The quizzes every week, trying to remember the weekly survey that continues to happen after the final, trying to learn about each fundamental and technical setups ( which I might add are not easy to search for online or go by different names when you try to look it up.), keeping up with stocks/ having to stay 90% invested during the stock game, and worse of all the 23-25 page final. Having other classes I needed to study for and then having to do this final a week before finals week was absolute HELL. I also think my final scores in my other classes took a hit because I was unable to fully study for them because of this class. Third, the overall fact that you cant check your class grade tops the cake. It is December 28 and I still have no clue what my actual grade will be - The expected grade on this post is what I got on my final.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-28T18:16:17.098341Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Wish', 'slug': 'wish_eric'}, {'courses': ['HEBR498Q', 'SLLC368A', 'ENGL602', 'HEBR498C', 'HEBR498P', 'HONR209V', 'FILM430', 'SLLC368Z', 'FILM299T', 'SLLC335', 'SLLC698G', 'FILM362', 'ISRL282', 'ENGL245', 'JWST429J', 'FILM329F', 'FILM369C', 'JWST429N', 'JWST609', 'ISRL449K', 'CMLT788D', 'ISRL449P', 'JWST429R', 'SLLC698D', 'FILM369Z', 'HEBR430', 'JWST699', 'RELS419F', 'ARAB398F', 'CMLT788G', 'FILM335', 'ISRL349V', 'FILM299I', 'FILM245', 'JWST619I', 'CMLT398R', 'ENGL379D', 'JWST319R', 'FILM298I', 'HEBR499I', 'JWST219I', 'SLLC368F', 'FILM369N', 'FILM302', 'CMLT280', 'FILM298D', 'FILM469E', 'JWST619', 'FILM451', 'FILM359Z', 'FILM319E', 'FILM359R', 'RELS319G', 'FILM359B', 'ISRL329B', 'FILM329I', 'FILM359A', 'JWST319G', 'SLLC468A', 'CINE329Y', 'CINE369R', 'CINE469E', 'ISRL329V', 'JWST419C', 'RELS319G', 'CINE359A', 'CINE369N', 'CINE411'], 'average_rating': 2.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eric Zakim', 'course': 'ENGL245', 'review': "He's good. Very personable and the class is discussion based. However, he is slower at putting grades in.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-18T12:36:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Zakim', 'course': 'ENGL245', 'review': "Extremely disorganized and doesn't grade assignments until the last possible second. Would NOT recommend ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-20T04:09:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Zakim', 'course': 'ENGL245', 'review': "doesn't put in grades in a timely manner and has a very disorganized class", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-24T03:16:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Zakim', 'course': 'ENGL245', 'review': 'not an easy gen-ed. would not recommend ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-24T03:16:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Zakim', 'course': 'ISRL329B', 'review': 'Very disorganized professor. He would post our assignments a couple days before they were due and expect us to be able to watch a whole season of a TV show in one or two days (mostly because he forgot to post the episodes until a day or two before class). The class and grading were entirely based around his opinions. Furthermore, grades were not entered in until the end of the semester so we had no indication of our performance in the class until it was too late to fix. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-12T20:18:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Zakim', 'course': 'ISRL329B', 'review': "Slow grader and not easy for a gened, but some of the people here come to this website just to complain that they didn't get an A for doing no work. Zakim is hella funny and super smart. It's definitelly really possible to get an A if you just watch the stuff we're supposed to (can do other hw during) and just write like you agree with his opinions.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-09T01:59:51.793965Z'}, {'professor': 'Eric Zakim', 'course': 'CINE359A', 'review': 'This is my 3rd time taking him and I refuse to sit by and let all the negative reviews win. All these reviews complain about his grading, and yes, admittedly, he does take his time with putting in grades but that is mainly because 1) he is (much more focused on making sure each student fully understands the films & material & has something to add to class discussions than a few pixels and codes on canvas and 2) he is very understanding and empathetic if you need an extension or turn in something late', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-20T00:32:11.215833Z'}], 'name': 'Eric Zakim', 'slug': 'zakim'}, {'courses': ['UNIV099', 'BMGT367', 'EDCP108J', 'ENES114', 'EDCP108I', 'BSCV302', 'PSYC123', 'EDCP108I', 'PSYC123', 'UNIV099', 'PSYC123', 'UNIV099', 'PSYC123', 'UNIV099', 'UNIV099', 'UNIV099', 'UNIV099', 'PSYC123', 'UNIV099'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Erica Ely', 'course': 'PSYC123', 'review': "Easy class. Just make sure you keep up with the work and it's an easy A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-24T14:09:28Z'}], 'name': 'Erica Ely', 'slug': 'ely_erica'}, {'courses': ['CPJT240', 'CPJT100', 'UNIV100', 'CPSP119', 'CPJT200', 'CPJT230', 'CPJT250', 'EDHI338A', 'CPSP218', 'MLAW298M', 'EDHI338W', 'CPJT101', 'ENGL392', 'PLCY100', 'PLCY302', 'HNUH100', 'HNUH300', 'HNUH100'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Erica Smith', 'course': 'PLCY100', 'review': 'The course is not difficult, but Professor Smith made it a lot harder than it needed to be. Her lectures are read word-for-word from the textbook but you still have to watch them because she slips in one or two points that you will definitely be tested on. Exams and quizzes require a lot of memorization and not much actual understanding/application of the content. She is a nice person and she clearly cares about the well-being of her students, but the way she structured the class just made it much more stressful and overwhelming at times. Luckily a lot of the class is taught by the GAs and all of them were very good.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-17T19:24:18Z'}], 'name': 'Erica Smith', 'slug': 'smith_erica'}, {'courses': ['COMM351', 'COMM350', 'COMM633', 'COMM739E', 'COMM398D', 'COMM298P', 'COMM201', 'COMM700', 'COMM332', 'COMM498K', 'COMM398D', 'COMM631', 'COMM398D', 'COMM476', 'COMM631', 'COMM201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erich Sommerfeldt', 'slug': 'sommerfeldt'}, {'courses': ['ANTH398N', 'EDHI338G', 'EDHI338K', 'UNIV100', 'EDHI338A', 'EDHI338P', 'ANTH398N', 'ANTH398N', 'ANTH398N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erik Hanson', 'slug': 'hanson_erik'}, {'courses': ['AREC453', 'ECON785', 'AREC632', 'AREC785', 'AREC832', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC892', 'ECON453', 'AREC891', 'AREC453', 'AREC891', 'AREC892', 'ECON453', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC453', 'AREC891', 'AREC892', 'ECON453'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Erik Lichtenberg', 'course': 'AREC453', 'review': "Extremely boring lectures with little class interaction and overly wordy power point slides that don't necessarily convey much useful knowledge. Seems standoffish, but really he's a very nice professor who will help you understand the formulas or other material if you ask.\n\r\nHe provides midterm and final exam study guides on what you're expected to know; make sure you understand everything on these study guides and you'll do well. For the quizzes, search key phrases in the PDF notes and you can finish them quickly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-22T11:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Erik Lichtenberg', 'course': 'AREC453', 'review': 'Prof. Lichtenberg is a very knowledgable professor despite his lectures sometimes diverging into dryness. He may seem stand-offish to most but if you ask for help he is very accommodating. The term paper for the class is pretty hard, but he gives you a lot of help along the way. Overall, good class and good professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-23T04:02:00Z'}], 'name': 'Erik Lichtenberg', 'slug': 'lichtenberg'}, {'courses': ['BCHM463'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erik Lontok', 'slug': 'lontok'}, {'courses': ['LBSC670', 'LBSC783', 'LBSC671'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erik Mitchell', 'slug': 'mitchell_erik'}, {'courses': ['SPHL298A', 'SPHL298', 'SPHL498M', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erin Caporellie', 'slug': 'caporellie'}, {'courses': ['EDSP477', 'EDSP677'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erin Clancy', 'slug': 'clancy'}, {'courses': ['ARTH389F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erin Haney', 'slug': 'haney'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erin Iverson', 'slug': 'iverson_erin'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338C', 'EDHI338N', 'EDHI338V', 'EDHI338W', 'EDHI338E', 'EDHI338T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erin McClure', 'slug': 'mcclure_erin'}, {'courses': ['ECON414', 'ECON401', 'ECON200', 'ECON465', 'ECON181', 'ECON181', 'ECON354', 'EDCP108I', 'ECON200', 'EDCP108I'], 'average_rating': 3.68, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Gives a lot of opportunities for extra credit and posts slides/practice exams online. Everything on the exam is in the slides and lecture. \r\nShe says to read the slides before class, but it's useless since she just reads the slides and draws a graph. No new information is given in lecture - there's extra credit in class though. \r\nShe uses LearnSmarts - so don't bother reading the textbook more than highlighted portions online. You don't need a physical copy of it. \r\nHer voice is annoying and the class is kind of boring. Make sure you're in the class group chat. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-06-24T16:44:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'I really appreciate her bubbly personality that comes out during her lectures. The material is dry but she conveys it well and offers plenty of assistance. She drops a few of your lowest grades in assignments st the end of the term to help people out.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-10-18T18:31:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Great teacher, very understanding and explains material well', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-13T22:15:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'classes were boring, reads from the powerpoints, exams are impossible to study for ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-17T22:44:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON181', 'review': 'So fun and bubbly in lecture. Made discussions optional a bunch of times, usually an extra credit opportunity if you do go. Midterm and final are fine if you look through the slides which she posts.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T03:48:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I came to her ECON200 class after being academically dismissed from UMD for 2 semesters, I had doubts in me and in the beginning of the semester I already planed to get a B for the class. But nope, Dr. Moody and her personality has made the dry material wayyy more fun to learn, except the Game Theory which I found it to be very entertaining to learn. It is quite IMPORTANT that you do those pre-lecture SmartBook assignments. I usually just do them right before the class starts because I'm lazy as f. But I think these SmartBook assignments are more important than the after class HW and gave a good general understanding for incoming lecture, it usually takes me less than a hour to finish them and she already highlighted all the important stuff on the assignment's reading part, just take notes from the highlighted paragraphs and bring them to lecture then you would find yourself follow her lecture drastic easily. Her mob lab extra credits are easy points to get if you follow my previous advice. And GSS sessions are also helpful btw especially before the exam. Her midterms are not hard at all if you do her practice exams, I mean literally we had 2 graph problems that we need to do ourselves then the next 30 or so questions are just multiple choices, and I appreciate she often do not test us on those controversial and theoretical questions. She is very reachable after class and have confidence in yourself, I'm writing this as I'm holding a 1.7 cumulative GPA, this class is not hard compare to other science courses I had at UMD, there is no nasty number and confusing formulas that you need to memorize, a good understanding of the demand and supply curve is sufficient enough. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-22T09:01:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Great teacher, explains concepts well, paces the content well and creates fair exams. For all her exams she makes practice tests that are very similar and give you practice for the content. She is very generous and drops some of the lowest assignments. She also provides extra credit opportunities which can increase your grade past 100. (great buffer for the tests/final) Additionally, this semester she has decided to make the final not cumulative which is awesome. Only real "complaints" would be that the exams have a high weight but this is college so nothing surprising there!\r\n\r\nIn terms of the biggest pro I would say is her energy, always comes to class excited and ready to teach. Very responsive to students and always happy to be in the classroom (even though its just zoom)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-29T22:26:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Prof moody is always all over the place. Lectures were optional for attendance online but going to them made me more confused than I would be before attending the zoom. It was a lot of busy work and all assignments were through McGraw hill connect which I hate. Although the class sucked and I feel like I learned nothing it was still easy to get an A since most of the grades are through the chapters (you get a 100% if you complete it) and the HW which you get 2 attempts on. If you have the option take a diff prof.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-10T18:42:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Class was easy but boring. I only went to two class meetings. Class requires McGraw Hill materials which you have to pay for. Major grades are two midterms and a final. Also small quiz-type assignments every week or so based on reading. Just read the textbook, take good notes, do the assignments, and you should be fine.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-25T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Dr. Moody did the best she could with this class considering there were 300 people in my section alone. For anyone reading, my best advice is not to worry about the professor but GO TO GSS MEETINGS! They are the only reason I passed this class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-06-16T22:02:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': None, 'review': "The class was pretty easy with a small background in economics and Professor Moody did nothing to make it harder. A fun personality she is not an outstanding teacher but I had nothing wrong with her. Passionate about what she teaches and responded to emails. Never taken attendance but have clicker questions occasionally that sort of act as attendance. Overall would recommend Econ 181 with Moody not a hard course and an interesting Topic. The TA's were good people but did very very hard to understand. Many people never or rarely went to discussion sections.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-02T16:54:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON181', 'review': "I absolutely love Dr. Moody. She is so fun and definitely has a lot of energy. She clearly has a lot of interest in what she's teaching and she's extremely passionate. Her grading system is very forgiving and you can tell that she wants to help you and give you a good grade. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-02T17:53:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Nice woman but honestly not a great professor. She constantly says confusing things in lecture and explains things differently than the way the book does which gets really confusing. Also, mcgraw hill sucks', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-04-07T01:53:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Dr. Moody gives out a lot of extra credit, and as long as you study/do your homework, you should be able to do well on the exams. She is super passionate about the subject and always connects what she's teaching to real world examples which is very interesting and helpful for studying. Go to the GSS sessions, they're super helpful for studying. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-07T17:24:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "She is very nice and energetic in lectures and obviously knows and cares about what she is talking about. She made lectures optional all semester and recorded them on zoom while simultaneously holding them in person. She gives extra credit throughout lectures (In the grand scheme of things it only accounts for around a 1% bonus in your final grade so it's not much) The class is VERY test-heavy, making up75% of the grade and the other 25% being LOTS of hw assignments. She had a change of heart this semester and made the tests open-note and you can bring any old practice exams to help. This is honestly the reason I have an A in this class because I only study the day before an exam. Go to class and go to lecture however, hundreds of students this semester are idiots who skip class or never attended in person and complain to her about them failing their exams when she honestly is a good teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-04-08T04:09:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "She's nice but hard to learn from. I would recommend taking this somewhere else or from another professor... 3 exams including the final, online hw assignments, gss leaders are not very helpful ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-05-04T22:28:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "if you want to do well: go to lecture, read the chapter before you complete the smart book assignments, and go to gas (even if only to prove to yourself that you know everything). lots. of zoom options. even though exams (3 of them) are 75% of your grade, they aren't all weighted evenly which is nice. moody is an upbeat person, but an overall average professor. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T17:20:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "This class is mandatory for GVPT, business, econ, and public policy majors, so a lot of people don't want to do this class, so at least for my semester, she curves the exams. There are 3 exams worth 75% of the grade, but she weighs the lowest scoring one as 18%, middle as 25%, and the highest as 32%. The last test is cumulative, but it focuses mostly on the stuff she teaches after the 2nd exam. The other 25% of your grade should be free points, but its a lot of work. You could attend her classes physically or virtually, and she records them in case you don't want to come. She gives extra credit, but it doesn't really raise your grade by that much, probably 1%, but if you know you're going to struggle, just go to her lectures and do it. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-26T20:40:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'She is really kind but really bad at explaining concepts. it kind of seems like SHE is confused sometimes. mcgraw hill is terrible and its hard to learn in this class ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-06-23T14:30:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON181', 'review': 'Dr. Moody is so passionate about what she teaches which makes all the difference in her class. She is excited, kind, and super willing to help whenever she can. I find that she does a good job at going over concepts and giving examples. She is knowledgeable and I recommend taking her if you get the chance.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-11T15:40:04.232962Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON181', 'review': "Dr. Moody is incredibly passionate about economics, and this fun i-series is a great basic introduction to environmental economics, even if you don't know anything about economics. She tries to make the concepts understandable and explains how they are connected, bringing in lots of real-world examples to get the point across. She is very open to questions and is willing to let everyone understand. The class wasn't too hard, only big annoying grade is a final presentation but it is certainly manageable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T01:49:04.872010Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Horrible horrible horrible horrible lecturer. Take this class online at community college, you won't be disappointed. It will transfer and you won't have to sacrifice your mental sanity or gpa. This class is literally a gen ed there's no reason to spend money taking it at umd when you can do it cheaper at community college.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-06T00:47:48.046650Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON181', 'review': "Super passionate professor that keeps you engaged in the class. It honestly wasn't that time-consuming besides the final project. Would recommend taking this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-21T04:53:41.286923Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'I did not enjoy learning from Moody. I wish I took this pre-req course at a CC and transferred over. She is really nice but omg I have never struggled so hard in a class to learn from a professor.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2023-02-18T05:49:27.085181Z'}, {'professor': 'Erin Moody', 'course': 'ECON181', 'review': 'Great class, but over 50% of the grade comes in the last week of the semester (final exam, final project). Moody is super sweet, and the course was pretty easy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-19T16:53:23.892317Z'}], 'name': 'Erin Moody', 'slug': 'moody'}, {'courses': ['BMGT398A', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT367F', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT398A', 'BMGT367F', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT398A', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT367F', 'BMGT398A', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT398A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erin Saddler', 'slug': 'saddler'}, {'courses': ['HLTH285', 'HLTH285H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erin Tagai', 'slug': 'tagai'}, {'courses': ['ECON645'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Erkan Erdem', 'slug': 'erdem'}, {'courses': ['ECON604', 'ECON868', 'ECON300', 'ECON635', 'ECON406', 'ECON327', 'ECON327', 'ECON635', 'ECON327', 'ECON635'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Erkut Ozbay', 'course': 'ECON327', 'review': "Professor Ozbay knows his stuff. I will give him great credit for that. However, he's the type of professor I would advise staying away from.\r\n\r\nOzbay is the kind of professor that, at the end of the day, is a pompous intellectual socialite. He knows that he's smarter than his students and is proud of it as well. He barley responds to emails and is very rude in regards to coming to his office hours. Overall, he cares more about his research at UMD then teaching students.\r\n\r\nThe class itself is mostly probability and some lights calc/algebra, its more quantitative then qualitative which caught many people in the course off guard. There were 3 homeworks, 2 exams, and a final. The first exam was easy, but they get harder as the semester progressed.\r\n\r\nThe TA was also pretty unhelpful and was also arrogant in his mannerisms. He didnt even grade the homeworks and exams, he had someone else do it for him, and only showed up to explain the review for the homework and tests (barley) for like 15 minutes.\r\n\r\nIf you are a Econ major and think this class is solid to take, I would advise not to. You have a better shot at getting a better grade in ECON317 or Econ 330, not to mention that those classes are way more useful in terms of material then behavioral economics.\r\n\r\nOverall, Ozbay is smart and if you put a great deal of time into the class, you will pass. But the majority of students will end up falling into the C and B range by the end of the semester, its not worth the stress.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-16T01:43:28.674776Z'}, {'professor': 'Erkut Ozbay', 'course': 'ECON327', 'review': "Professor Ozbay's teaching style isn't the worst. He explains concepts in an okay manner in my opinion. Behavioral Econ is a more quantitative class than qualitative surprisingly, which I believe throws students off guard when signing up for the course.\r\n\r\nMy main issue with Ozbay isn't how he teaches, it's his personality that rubs me and my fellow students the wrong way. He's mostly arrogant about how he knows so much compared to what you know. Asking questions via email and or during office hours is met with scoffs and unresponsiveness. He would be much better suited for a position as a pure researcher than teaching in my opinion. Also, the TA was a bit rude as well. Going over the homework was mostly a quick rundown. He tells you the right answer instead of why that is. I found it funny he didn't even grade the homework either, he had another person do it for him haha. \r\n\r\nThe class itself is a bit challenging. Three homework are 30% of your grade. Then two tests and a final which lead to 70% of the rest of your grade. If you mess up on one test it'll diminish your opportunity to get an A significantly.\r\n\r\nOverall, I'd avoid taking this class to satisfy the Econ 300 level requirement. You're better off taking Econ 317, 354, and 330 as your option. Those classes are way more practical and career-relevant than behavioral econ.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-17T00:02:44.713810Z'}, {'professor': 'Erkut Ozbay', 'course': 'ECON327', 'review': "Not great, not bad. The class itself is harder than most other Econ 300 level requirements. If you study hard you'll pass.Dont expect an A though.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-17T03:45:10.759404Z'}, {'professor': 'Erkut Ozbay', 'course': 'ECON327', 'review': "Genuinely interesting lectures. Class started off really easy but the math snuck up on people as the semester went on. He doesn't try to trick you on exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-10T21:12:38.497196Z'}], 'name': 'Erkut Ozbay', 'slug': 'ozbay_erkut'}, {'courses': ['GVPT729M', 'GVPT888P', 'GVPT459B', 'GVPT482', 'GVPT482H', 'GVPT729A', 'HONR248Z', 'GVPT459H', 'GVPT459T', 'GVPT888P', 'GVPT729B', 'GVPT429T', 'GVPT459B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ernesto Calvo', 'slug': 'calvo'}, {'courses': ['THET489D', 'THET669G', 'THET489G', 'THET608E', 'THET290', 'THET698C', 'THET698D', 'THET712', 'THET488C', 'THET685', 'IMMR400', 'AAST498D', 'THET499', 'AAST298R', 'THET286', 'THET428I', 'THET399', 'THET789', 'THET489V', 'THET669'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Esther Lee', 'slug': 'lee_esther'}, {'courses': ['LBSC731'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ethan Henderson', 'slug': 'henderson_ethan'}, {'courses': ['EDPS788M', 'EDPS611', 'EDPS751', 'EDPS301', 'EDPS788G', 'TLPL674', 'TLPL767'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ethan Hutt', 'slug': 'hutt_ethan'}, {'courses': ['ECON326', 'ECON708', 'ECON756', 'ECON175', 'ECON709', 'ECON808', 'ECON878', 'ECON848', 'GVPT729C', 'HONR279V', 'ECON422', 'ECON175', 'ECON422', 'ECON756', 'ECON175'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ethan Kaplan', 'course': 'ECON422', 'review': "Everything is taught conceptually... Very very few examples if ever for the questions you will be asked on homework and exam problems. Answers questions you ask him by repeating exactly what he said or saying things in an equally confusing way. Speaks in terminology and a way that can't be directly applied to homework questions.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2020-11-13T18:15:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Ethan Kaplan', 'course': 'ECON175', 'review': "You won't understand he's lecture because he is just reading the slides. Heavy lecture and you don't even understand a word. He doesn't like question and only gave a few few few examples. Eeven you ask a question, he won't answer it clearly. VERY AMBIGUOUS LECTURE! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-21T17:12:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Ethan Kaplan', 'course': 'ECON422', 'review': "Professor Kaplan's econometrics class was very eye-opening for me. Econometrics isn't easy but Professor Kaplan gives you opportunities to do well in the class. The project and homework assignments are 2 categories that I think you have the most leverage in. The exams are easier than the homework so as long as you understand what you're doing you should easily get a B in the course. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-03T13:24:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Ethan Kaplan', 'course': 'ECON422', 'review': "Econometrics is very difficult and requires time to understand how the regression equations are derived. Professor Kaplan is very understanding and will help guide you with the homework and projects. I recommend Professor Kaplan because he wants you to learn and teaches you the material as an adult. As a college student, I understand it's very hard to teach yourself difficult concepts but showing up to class is important and still sticking to some sort of study schedule is vital. Econometrics will be fast and might not be that nice but its a requirement that all ECON BS majors have to take. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-03-01T15:08:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Ethan Kaplan', 'course': 'ECON175', 'review': "Ethan Kaplan is a great teacher. I took his ECON175 course not really expecting anything in particular, but ended up really enjoying it. Economics were never my particular focus, yet the course was really interesting, and he teaches it with enthusiasm. \r\n\r\nHe always takes time to answer any questions students have, and does so thoroughly, periodically going into interesting tangents. Exam wasn't too hard and quizzes are very reasonable. \r\n\r\nEven if you aren't majoring in economics, imo the material of this course has a lot of generally useful and important information. \r\n\r\nOverall I really enjoyed the course :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-17T22:03:53.205832Z'}, {'professor': 'Ethan Kaplan', 'course': 'ECON422', 'review': "Great professor!!! Definitely take him. Econometrics is challenging and difficult but he tries really hard to ensure everyone understands. He's reasonable and patient with students. He's also really passionate and it makes the lectures interesting. His slides are pretty detailed and comprehensive. He actually wants students to pass and is proactive about it. He gives extra credit questions on exams and drops the lowest hw grade. Don't get me wrong, this class was so so challenging, but it would have been 10x worse if I had a different professor. I honestly learned and truly understood a lot.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:24:57.126138Z'}], 'name': 'Ethan Kaplan', 'slug': 'kaplan_ethan'}, {'courses': ['EDCI474', 'EDCI432', 'EDCI732'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ethan Sewall', 'slug': 'sewall'}, {'courses': ['JAPN102', 'JAPN202', 'JAPN101', 'JAPN201', 'JAPN302', 'JAPN106', 'SLLC109J', 'JAPN107', 'JAPN221', 'SLLC109K'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Etsuko Yamakita', 'course': 'JAPN202', 'review': "I had Yamakita-sensei for both JAPN202 and JAPN302. She is a great teacher, and you can understand a lot by taking her class, but she is a pretty harsh grader. On quizzes and exams, even for just simple mistakes, she'll end up taking more points off than each question should even be worth. By taking he class, you'll be sure to be constantly frustrated by your grade. The class grade in 302 was so bad, she actually had to curve. In other words, if you want to get an A, you better be prepared to study your butt off so you don't make any mistakes on your exams or quizzes. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-11-14T02:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Etsuko Yamakita', 'course': 'JAPN201', 'review': "I really enjoy Yamakita-sensei's class. She's a personable teacher, but she does keep her home life a little more private than some of the other teachers. \n\r\nHer grading can be a little subjective at times (each quiz/test seems to have a random number of total points assigned to it, leading some of the students to believe it's possible to get a negative score). Especially the translations - things that mean exactly (or almost) the same thing in English are wrong if it's not the set formula that she taught. This occasionally leads to sentences that sound really awkward in English. A lot of students were complaining about her kanji quizzes, but I've never had a problem with them. \n\r\nThe way she presents exams is also a little frustrating because she gives them to us in parts. So we must completely finish part A before we receive part B. This makes pacing impossible because if you're stuck on something difficult, it's not like you can come back to it. Therefore, most people make stupid mistakes on the translation and utilization sections.\n\r\nI put my grade expected as a B, but it might be an A because I'm literally right on the edge between the two. I think I have an 88 or an 89 right now, but based on my speech presentation, oral interview and final, it could go up. I'll be taking her course next semester as well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-14T14:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Etsuko Yamakita', 'course': 'JAPN201', 'review': "Good teacher, if you have a solid foundation in JAPN101 and 102. As someone who placed into 201 and didn't know the material that they covered, I struggled, especially since Yamakita does not take much time in reviewing. She's also very heavy on reading, writing, and grammar skills, and she does not take much time in practicing speaking/listening. However, those end up being large parts of the exams, so it's up to the student to study those parts independently.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2010-01-14T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Etsuko Yamakita', 'course': 'JAPN201', 'review': 'Great professor who really knows how to teach Japanese. The workload is equivalent to that of a 6-credit class, but as long as you put the time into it, this class is not bad at all.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-21T15:44:00Z'}], 'name': 'Etsuko Yamakita', 'slug': 'yamakita'}, {'courses': ['BMGT323', 'BMGT417', 'BUAC758F', 'BUAC758C', 'BMGT210', 'BMGT321', 'BUAC758L', 'BUAC758M', 'BUAC758B', 'BUAC784', 'BUSI610', 'BUSI611', 'BUAC712', 'BUAC764', 'BUSO616', 'BUSO781', 'BUSM616', 'BMGT210', 'BUSO616', 'BUSO781', 'BMGT210', 'BMGT221H', 'BUSM616', 'BMGT417'], 'average_rating': 4.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT417', 'review': "Professor Cantor is the best professor that I've had at Maryland. He loves teaching and is a great guy. 417 is a tough course with a lot of boring material but he makes it fun. His wife bakes the class cookies every week which is a huge plus. Cantor wants his students to learn a lot and he will make every effort to help students out. Great professor, Great guy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-05-10T11:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT417', 'review': 'Professor Cantor was really awesome. He tried to make some very dry material as interesting as possible. He has a lot of background knowledge and prior experience that he draws on in class. The exams (open book and note) and the final project were very tough, but he curved some of the exams, and the project had a lot of real-world applications. His wife also made cookies for us, which he brought to class every week and made our 2.5 hour-long class more bearable.\n\r\nIf you pay attention in class and study for the exams, you should do fine. Professor Cantor was a very effective and fun teacher.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-01-30T02:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT417', 'review': "Professor Cantor is one of the best professors I've ever had at UMD (and not just because he brought his wife's chocolate chip cookies to every lecture). He genuinely cares about the students and the material, and he makes what would otherwise be a completely boring lecture surprisingly interesting. \r\nI am not a person who attends many classes; but I did my best to attend every single one of these, because I genuinely learned something every time. He also is the only professor to actually talk us through the CPA exam, which is incredibly helpful (he actually teaches CPA reviews, so he really knows his stuff).\r\nIf at all possible, take him for anything and everything you can. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-01-09T17:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT417', 'review': 'Professor Cantor is the best I ever had at Maryland. I really regret that I did not take him for BMGT323. He is very nice and flexible with students. Also, he is great at explaining the difficult concepts. I love the cookies that his wife made. For the record, he is far better than Pfeiffer. Take him if you can. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-07-11T17:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': "This class is one of my favorite Accounting classes in CP! For a three hour class, he was really entertaining! On top of that you got free cookies :D.\n\r\nGrades are based on \r\n10% In class Assignments\r\n30% Midterm\r\n30% Final\r\n30% Simulation\n\r\nOur Umd understates the number of A's he gives out, its closer to 55%, which is 9% more than Pfeiffer.\n\r\nYou will do a much better job on the CPA if you take him over Pfeiffer. I learned a lot from this class, but the exams arent easy.\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-15T15:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT417', 'review': "Best professor I've had at Maryland. Cantor really wants his students to do well. He provides the class with a ton of resources and can always answer any questions (he's super smart). He also brings homemade cookies to every class. Highly recommended!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-21T00:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT210', 'review': 'Eugene is a G! His class got boring sometimes but he ultimately wants his student to learn the foundations of accounting. the final was noncumulative and the homeworks and other assignments were very easy to complete. he does in class problems and posts solutions online so you always have a resource, and his TAs are super helpful ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-05-14T16:00:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT210', 'review': "Professor Cantor is the nicest and best professor I've ever had at UMD. For the business minor, he has the students watch lecture before class and do the workbook problems during class. If you participate and do the work, it is an easy class. He gives out extra credit on the exams and curves them nicely. He understands students needs and makes lectures fun with his skits and stories. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T16:47:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT210', 'review': 'Professor Cantor is a very nice guy but his teach tends to be very boring. What he does during lecture time is go over workbook problems which is good but your exams will almost always be more theory based. I felt like I learned more in the discussion section quizzes than I did during lecture. You end up talking about the Wall Street Journal far too much during class and less about actual accounting problems. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T19:48:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Cantor', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Took him over the winter course for Accounting I BMGT220. It was an accelerated 3-week course so there were lots of long lectures that we bored lots of the time. He knows what he teaches and is very smart and insightful which is what causes him to go on random tangents or talk about random companies rather than the topic at hand. The class had fairly easy homework assignments that he allowed multiple attempts on which were easy grades. However, the rest of the grade was split between 3 multiple choice question exams. For whatever reason, he does not do A+ grades and he does not do A grades unless you get 94 OR ABOVE in the course which is weird because I have never seen a teacher say a 93% is an A- but in his class, it could cost you. He does not round to the nearest percent either. Although you should remember this is Accounting I so overall he was a very good teacher and you can expect a good grade if you try. Would take him again over the other teachers probably.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-29T06:03:06Z'}], 'name': 'Eugene Cantor', 'slug': 'cantor_eugene'}, {'courses': ['CMLT498L', 'CMLT498N', 'CMLT398L', 'CMLT398N', 'CMLT398D', 'ENGL329A', 'ENGL329Y', 'ENGL379R', 'ENGL329C', 'ENGL379V', 'CMLT398C', 'CMLT398L', 'CMLT398N', 'ENGL329C', 'ENGL379V', 'CMLT398C', 'CMLT398D', 'ENGL329A', 'ENGL329Y', 'ENGL379R', 'CMLT398L', 'CMLT398N', 'ENGL329C', 'ENGL379V'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eugene Robinson', 'course': 'ENGL329C', 'review': "Dr. Robinson is smartest and wittiest teacher I have encountered in my college career. His classes are what you make of them, but you will totally be liberated by the stuff he shows you. He's going to blow your mind with film, I swear I'll never watch a film in the same way again. Keep your syllabus, he's so laid back you forget about deadlines. He loves the socratic method. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-09T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Robinson', 'course': 'ENGL379V', 'review': "Pretty easy class. You don't do much until later in the semester. It includes a 12 page research paper, a journal documenting your research (make sure its really extensive), an oral presentation, a written final, and another extensive outline of your presentation. Not easy for an A, but very easy for a B. Overall, he is a decent professor.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-23T13:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eugene Robinson', 'course': 'ENGL329Y', 'review': 'Easy, fun class. There is a research paper now though.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-05-02T17:18:59Z'}], 'name': 'Eugene Robinson', 'slug': 'robinson_eugene'}, {'courses': ['AOSC614', 'AOSC658E', 'AOSC614', 'AOSC630'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eugenia Kalnay', 'slug': 'kalnay'}, {'courses': ['PHYS276', 'PHYS260', 'CHPH618', 'PHYS778', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS778', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS778', 'PHYS778', 'PHYS171', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS778'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eun-Suk Seo', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "I'll admit I didn't attend most lectures. She talked really quite, so combined with her accent, it made it difficult to follow lectures. She lectures from slides which I'm not usually a big fan of but that's just my preference. Homework's were done online with expertTA and were fairly easy, and would help reinforce concepts with easy questions that tended to lead to somewhat more challenging questions. However her tests were quite a bit more difficult than the homework's, and would sometimes test on material not found in the homework which I found difficult to study for. There were review worksheets which were somewhat helpful, however. The key to this class is a good equation sheet. Really try to cover your bases because one obscure missing equation can really trip you up in an exam. Overall not bad I just wasn't super impressed by the way the class was set up, but it is still completely possible to do well in this class and get an A. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-25T15:07:15Z'}], 'name': 'Eun-Suk Seo', 'slug': 'seo_eun-suk'}, {'courses': ['HESP403', 'HESP648A', 'HESP648B', 'HESP400', 'HESP415', 'HESP603', 'HESP617', 'EXST030'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eusabia Mont', 'slug': 'mont_eusabia'}, {'courses': ['KNES497', 'KNES498N', 'KNES691'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eva Chin', 'slug': 'chin'}, {'courses': ['KNES350', 'KNES497', 'KNES350H', 'KNES389M', 'EXST030'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Evan Brody', 'slug': 'brody'}, {'courses': ['CMSC434', 'HDCC209C', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC131H', 'CMSC433', 'HDCC208F', 'CMSC250H', 'HDCC106', 'HDCC208N', 'CMSC351', 'INST717', 'CMSC388L', 'HDCC209D', 'IMDM127', 'IMDM290', 'CMSC434', 'IMDM127', 'CMSC434', 'IMDM127', 'CMSC250', 'CMSC434', 'CMSC388Y', 'CMSC434', 'IMDM490'], 'average_rating': 2.2647, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Wow.... Where to start with this monster of person. Not only does he have the most dry sense of humor but it's like he's allergic to teaching in general and avoids it at all fucking costs... IT'S YOUR DAMN JOB MAN don't tell us stories about some bullshit NASA stuff you made up and how people were just begging to use your code. We get it... comment our code yeesh just teach the damn class. \r\nThe only reason I plan to get a relatively high mark is because I taught myself out of class... I have 100% on all of the projects and labs but shit grades on the exams. Wanna know why??? well i'll tell you... THE MAN DOESN'T TEACH YOU WHAT HE ASKS ON THE EXAM.... although there could just be a situation we may never considered about his case.\r\nHe could be a savant and only understand coding and can't comprehend how to interact with other humans or do his job... If that's the case I'm sorry for my tone", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-12-14T22:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Golub was a terrible professor. It was extraordinarily difficult to pay attention in his class because he talked about the material in such a fluffy way.\r\nThere was no concrete information on the slides, and the copies that he put online were half complete and didn't show the work he wrote in class.\r\nAlso, he refused to put full solutions to homework and thought questions online, which made it very difficult to study by myself.\r\nOverall, I was extremely unhappy with how little I felt I learned from this course. You need a professor who can teach the material much more clearly and in a concrete way, not one where he blabs for half the class.\r\nI also don't feel that I learned at all how to apply the knowledge I learned from this class to anything I would see outside of this class.\n\r\nHe was also very strict and not willing to be accommodating of student concerns for the most part.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-10-31T13:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Basically if you're the type of person that's pretty good with computers and knows his stuff, and goes to lecture, this guy is for you.\n\r\nI've had 11 years of computer programming experience since elementary school, so I found this class to be far too easy.\n\r\nBut I don't think he's a bad professor. He asks questions to make sure people are involved, and he gives hints on what might be on quizzes, etc.\n\r\nBasically, he says to study daily, and YOU SHOULD. I studied C++ in middle school on my own, so these concepts are familiar to me. Also, review the quizzes for the tests.\n\r\nIf you have questions, try to go to his office hours to ask a question. But to be honest, he won't help nor will the TA really help. You really have to figure out what's wrong with your program yourself. Once you get to JUnit Tests, make sure to write little junit tests for each method as you go along. That will help a lot. With your JUnit tests, you can figure out what's wrong easily unlike the submit server's JUnit tests.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-03-03T21:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'He was a horrible professor. He talked about himself the entire class and what you needed to know and why you needed to know it, but would never actually teach you how to do it. His exams were long and difficult and if you need 20 seconds to finish a line of code he will scream his head off and literally rip the exam from your hand. He does not teach the material and leaves it up to the TA. So if your TA sucks good luck in the class. I never learned a thing from his class even though I attended lecture, reviewed daily, and bought the book. Whatever you do, do not take this exam.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-17T23:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Worst professor I have ever encountered. Lectures are the most pointless waste of time(I went to everyone) where he spends time going off on tangents that have nothing to do with computer science. Extremely harsh grader when comes to projects and tests. Due to the snow he attempted to cram every project into the semester, the last being due in a week as we also have finals to study for. If you have zero experience in Computer Science avoid. The tests are tough and so are the projects expect to put a lot of time into this class. He must enjoy wording the most complex questions into exams. Dont be mistaken if you have learned anything by the end of this class its because of your TA or the people you decided to work with, how Golub has a job here is astonishing. He gives you study questions that, guess what, have no real impact on tests and quizzes :). Dont believe any of the reviews that rate him from years ago as they do not reflect Golub's terrible teaching strategy. Not to mention his condescending attitude when faced with question, prepare to be spoken to like a baby. As an intro course designed for people new to Computer Science courses the workload was by far too heavy his expectations are flawed for students. AVOID AT ALL COSTS", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-12T12:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "By far the worst teacher I've ever had in my entire life. First off his lectures are terrible. You don't learn a thing from them. He just talks about life experiences and why you need to know something but he never actually teaches it to you. He's so self conceited you'd think the class was named GLUB131. All he talks about is himself. Impossible to pay attention through the stories in his lectures so when he does actually say something related to the class, you're not paying attention to it. He is BATSHIT insane. Would literally rip students tests out of their hands and yell at them at the top of his lungs for finishing a line of code on tests seconds after he said stop writing. Least personable and reasonable person I've met in my life. Comes off as if he hates all of his students. I received a 77.954 average after putting in more work for this class than any other by far and he wouldn't give me the C+ for the class. DO NOT take this class even if it is the absolute last option. You'll regret it. Golub is just the worst candidate for a teacher. I have no clue who hired him with his psychological brain, but he needs to be fired. Doesn't help a soul being there. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2015-03-29T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Imagine the first day of class. As you embark on your journey through the mystifying complex universe of computer science, you have no idea what to expect. You could be dealing with the unforeseen; singularities caused by Eclipse phenomenons, encounters with fierce, atrocious bugs on the submit server, or even bang you head on your very own $800 laptop as you scream at the ambiguous results of the release tests! A toilet bowl of intellectual thoughts flurries around your noggin; there could be computers, video games, cameras, programming, computers, flying cellphones, virtual pinball and more!\r\nThen all of a sudden.\r\nBAM!\r\nGolub's hairstyle is crazy – he’s like the Yoda of comp sci. Don't underestimate his powers.\r\nAs soon as you walk through the door, the surrounding air temperature drops 30 degrees as you witness the epitome of the human race. A majestic white haired dude strides across the lecture hall and spreads his arms openly– with a devilish grin on his face – so fast you could have blinked and missed the moment of a lifetime. (I strongly advise bringing a camera to savor the moment)\r\nGolub E., or professionally known as “Evan de Golub”, is a retired super villain who now only uses his powers for forces of good….. for students of the CMSC major at the University of Maryland. He wears a silk vest every day - except on every other Friday. However, I personally felt like when he wasn't wearing the vest his lectures were more interesting and remained on topic. (Escalating theories in the scientific community that this very vest may have been part of his original super villain costume - and retains faint traces of pure evil.)\r\nHis vest is swaggy doe. Props to him.\r\nAlthough his receding hairline may fool you upon first glance, he has a magnificent pony tail and has the full-fledged back-head experience. But keep in mind he is no Lebron James. Golub is an extremely young person – his hair is only grey from an abundance of knowledge and sagacious wisdom he has accumulated throughout his career. (One, of course, which would take the average man many lifetimes to equal.) Golub is a young warrior, holding years of experience computer sciencing, playing wacky poker in the devious back rooms of mobster hideouts, taking photographs of people’s feet and farm animals, and executing simulations of the mass genocide of pond fishies. But don’t let me spoil the extravagant, Oscar-worthy backstory though. Let the Golub himself reveal it to you through his eloquent novel-worthy lectures which leave you hanging on an epic, thrilling cliff hanger after each 51 minute session. But don’t worry my fellow Golub-goers, he always comes back the next week to continue the story almost where he left off, even after he has given tests that were not on the future topics he touched in the lectures – but on the stuff you should’ve KNOWN ALL ALONG FROM THE START. Damn, this guy practically wrote Inception. (Before Christopher Nolan bought the rights to it.) \r\nAnyway, at first his lectures might seem pointless, spontaneous, random, unconnected, irrelevant, boring, and really confusing - but don’t let that fool you. In each session there is a small ten second topic that will become a pivotal test question somewhere down the road. Trust me. All of the spontaneous, random, unconnected, irrelevant, boring, and really confusing tangents he goes on are actually tests, testing the mental capacity of all 140 stude– I mean 45 students who bother to show up- in search for a new padawan. So if you want the prestigious position of “Golub padawan” on your resume, it’s best you sign up right now and claim your first row seat.\r\nI strongly advise not bringing a computer to his lecture – this only distracts you from the true Golub-glorified experience. His signature hand gestures during his elegant lectures engage full houses of students – from all over the world- elevating them to the balls of their feet as he tells witty jokes that no one listens to. Seriously, one time someone almost let out a giggle and the whole universe practically collapsed inward upon itself and imploded. \r\nI suggest bringing the classic pen and notepad – which were the slim-lined computers Golub himself used when growing up in college – not those vintage clay tablets developed by the Mayans. (They’re too intricate for the average man!) No matter which type of device you plan to bring, always stare at it and never make eye contact with the master while he speaks – this is a sign of challenge, an instinct Golub has picked up from his years chillin with lions and tigers and preforming weird combos to their portraits.\r\nGolub is a man with an infinite bag of tricks – did you know he was bilingual? Early on he’ll amaze you with a programming project that no only asks you to prompt the user in English, but also in SPANISH?!!?! hhhhoooooowwwWWHHHHAAAAAAA?!!?!?! This man is a genius. You’ll soon learn the concept of accounting for different cultural values and measurement systems because Golub exposes the flaws of NASA and unit conversions. During his reign as supervillain, Golub encountered the forces of NASA and recollects how the US measurement of distance was different that Europe’s system, causing the NASA probe to crash (wasting the hundreds of millions of dollars Golub could have used for world domination). He references this story at least once every week, which now in hindsight, I think was a reoccurring subliminal message for comp sci students: don’t trust NASA.\r\nNot only will you embark on pointless, unnecessary projects while other classes are sticking closer to reality, Golub will personally teach you the secrets to his mischievous trade of the wacky poker underground. His wacky poker project seemed too wacky for my taste, but then again, I was never playing a high stakes poker game with 300 zoo animals on the line. Golub is truly a modern superhero. When I took this class I never expected to learn essential life skills including: what Rwanda’s flag looks like in 3 bit-resolution, how to do calculus in Martianese notation, how to program, or even the science behind a fish pond exploiting the true concepts of Darwinism. \r\nBut now I know, and I shall hold on to these precious gifts dearly as I move on with my life.\r\nIf you have been missing a real Bill Nye the science guy in your life, then this is the opportunity of a life time. Golub is a golden star, which luckily this review system can represent for future generations yet to come.\n\r\n1st out of 5 stars\r\nWould take again…… And audit too if forced by gunpoint.\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F+', 'created': '2015-01-30T17:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': "Unfortunately, Professor Golub is a decidedly average instructor/lecturer. He's not at all clear about his expectations, and is condescending to the point where it seems one of his primary goals is to leave you feeling inferior to him. \n\r\nQuestions about the subject matter are often met with replies that don't answer the question, and his expectations for students are arbitrary and unequal. This is reflected in communications with him both in person and via email (and unfortunately he's not very responsive over email either).", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-20T18:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Terrible professor. Avoid at all costs for your own sanity. The people who give him good reviews are the students that already know everything there is to know about computer science and find his jokes and stories amusing. He spends sometimes up to half of the class telling stories about things he used to do in previous coding jobs that have absolutely nothing to do with the material you are learning, then gives you quizzes on the same material.\r\nIf you are even somewhat of a visual learner that needs to see how things work, do not take Golub. He explains everything using stupid metaphors that he finds helpful and almost never shows actual code in java. Exams are not very similar to the study question posted. As someone below me said, he definitely leaves core topics to the TA's and barely teaches anything in class. So if you have a bad TA, you are in a terrible position.\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2014-12-11T15:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "His lectures are good but he's very self-absorbed, biased and will passive aggressively undermine students he doesn't like. He wastes lecture time on repeatedly describing his past exploits catching proofing errors in other people's work, but then leaves core topics for TAs to teach in discussion. \n\r\nToo few exercises & worked problems overall. Pedantic, with heavy focus on empty formalism. He starves his course without adequate worked problems, especially since he places so much emphasis on extremely formal procedural steps. You often can't tell if you got points off because of some formal expression nicety you didn't follow or because your whole proof was wrong. It's difficult to learn well when you have only a couple of examples for each core topic to work off. If he didn't leave so much core teaching to his TAs, the discussion sections could be used for more exemplars and working of problems, but as it is there is inadequate work.\n\r\nHe compensates for this all by having limited coverage of topics and never gets to graphs at all. All he really cares about (obsesses over) is formulaic formalism, it seems.\n\r\nYet, he hands out a lot of A's simply because students who want to memorize off the few worked examples you get and the limited coverage his course provides can do well in his classes. The people who have it worst are those who want to do their own work (not get solutions from other people) and not memorize problem-solving.\n\r\nThe average students who do well in his class are ones who band together and pool their resources to create a set of solved problems. What they are doing in effect is compensating for how he starves his course for worked problems and exercises.\n\r\nHis personal biases and prejudices against individual students comes across strongly at times in the classroom, like when he snaps impatiently at a student he clearly thinks is a fool. Personality and appearance-wise, he's rather like that character in the Simpsons who runs the comic book store.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-05-18T14:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Horrible Professor.\n\r\nI\'ve taken 115 credits of classes, and this professor is honestly the most incredibly lackluster and astoundingly nitpicky professor I have ever seen.\n\r\nThe first lab was a total disaster, Golub cannot plan logistically at all. He tried to have over 100 students download eclipse at the same time to complete failure. This was then supplemented by him blaming the students for this failure, and making the due date for the first lab the next morning (this was considered "being nice") I submitted the project the next AFTERNOON, to which Golub was apparently physically incapable of giving me any points for.\n\r\nSo there you have it! If you want a teacher who will fail you three days into the class for his own complete incomptence with logistical issues, this is the man for you!\n\r\nI\'ve aced every other assignment he\'s ever assigned (taken the class in HS), but for your average student, this teacher should be avoided like the plague.\n\r\nEmad is way better, sat in on his lectures, and Emad is much more entertaining/worth going to lecture for.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-10T14:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I took 131 with very little prior programming experience (I took a god-awful class in Java when I was a senior in high school). Regardless, Golub's exceptional style of teaching not only drilled all the fundamentals securely into my mind, but also sparked a passion for programming in me. \r\nHe does NOT read off slides; he does NOT drone on the entire lecture. (We all know a professor like that!) He buttresses every concept he covers with fantastic analogies, anecdotes from his own impressive career, and examples of practical implications. \r\nHe takes clicker polls, which may annoy some, but which I found helpful; they motivate you to attend all lectures (which you should anyway) and they help you commit the more important points in a lecture to memory.\r\nHis quizzes are perfectly fair as are his projects. His project descriptions are especially great - visually appealing, lucid, and not too wordy.\r\nHe is not as quick with email responses as some other professors, but he is alright. And he always welcomes questions before/after lecture and at office hours. He is a very approachable individual who gives students' questions a good amount of consideration.\r\nI have nothing negative to say about him! Look elsewhere in this page for vicious criticisms (LIES, I TELL YOU! haha).\n\r\nTIPS: \r\nSit closer to the front; it'll help you pay attention, participate, and be entertained.\r\nManage your time well in the exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-26T20:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Dr. Golub has received a few negative reviews, but I disagree with them. \n\r\nSure, he's a bit on the crazy side(good crazy), but that's par for the course in college-level science courses, especially in the UMD Computer Science dept(according to friends of mine who are Comsci seniors). \n\r\nDr. Golub's teaching style in CMSC131 regularly includes real-world examples and previews of things to come in future CMSC courses. Dr. Golub and his TAs this semester kept a very wide amount of office hours(26 Office hours/week for our course, in addition to the 5 50-minute inclass hours each week). You likely will not need the textbook if you're paying attention in class.\n\r\nGrading wise, the 2 tests had 105 points but graded out of 100(5 point curve). For our class, the median on the 1st test was 79, and the 2nd test was 80. In addition he dropped the lowest quiz and the lowest lab grade. Grading for this course was pretty lenient, and it is very possible to earn a little over 100% in the course.\n\r\nI can't comment on how effective he is at teaching as I took this course with a decent amount of prior knowledge of the material.\n\r\nOn the course webpage, we had access to study questions and answers for each week, the powerpoint slides, project descriptions, and some code examples. The study questions and answers are very helpful in preparing for quizzes and tests, and pretty much all you need to study from. The slides were pretty much a skeleton of what's covered in class, and were not much help if you had to miss a class or 2. Project descriptions were clear about what was and wasn't allowed in a certain project, and how to obtain the maximum points. I can't comment on the code examples as I didn't look at them often.\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-08T22:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': "I am an engineering major and I found this class to be ridiculously easy. It is by far the easiest CORE class. There were 5 projects and the lowest grade I got on them was a 95. He gives step by step directions so its really easy to finish them. The last graded project was to create webpages which was the most fun and useful thing we did in class.\r\nHis class is really boring and hard to stay up in. But he has clicker questions for attendance, so I tried to be there as much as possible.\r\nHe assigned two papers which I completely BS-ed and got an A on both. For the exams, I looked at all the lecture notes (which he posts online) and I got A's on the exams.\r\nIf you are good with computers or are an engineering major, definitely take this class. It is an easy A. Just make sure to take you laptop to class or have other stuff to do because its the most boring class ever!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-21T14:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Golub was an okay teacher. His lectures were pretty boring and not always helpful, but he was very approachable and always willing to help. The quizzes were very difficult however. Fawzi Emad is the better option for CMSC131 and 132.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-19T02:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'This guy is the worst, one of the worst professors ever. Don\'t pay attention to any of the good reviews, they come from people who got good grades because of his "curve", who studied in groups and did the homework in groups. His curve only benefits people who do well on his exams. \n\r\nYeah...this class is easy if you study really hard everyday, attend every lecture, studying in a group, ask questions about everything, and pay attention to every little detail\n\r\nOtherwise if you don\'t do ALL of those things you won\'t get a good grade, now that\'s what an easy class is. You are technically not allowed to work together on homeworks but I\'m guessing the good reviewers who studied in groups did anyway.\n\r\nYou basically have to study in groups or be very good at algorithm theory in order to get a good grade', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-07-03T04:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'I don\'t know what the deal is with what ALMOST EVERYONE told me but this class has been fairly easy. One thing to note about this class (which is perhaps why I found it easy) is that the material that you learn is actually extremely relevant to the field of computer science. If you tackle the material with that attitude you\'re bound to do much better in the class. I have had internship interview questions based on material learned in the class -- so learn the material any way that you can!\n\r\nThe only thing about Golub\'s class is that you need to be in lecture. You need to learn how he wants all of the problems\' solutions to be set up -- exactly the way he does them in class. Do your best on homework and try to imitate his examples in lecture to get the best grade. Also, definitely do the thought questions -- get a study group. I can\'t stress this tip enough. His exams seemed to be based much more on the thought questions than the homework questions (how convenient..) -- and if you\'ve done the thought questions, you\'re bound to ace the exam.\n\r\nGo to office hours if you are confused about something. He actually is very helpful in office hours (not necessarily in class), just make sure that you have notes from class because the first thing some of the TA\'s and Golub sometimes asks is "okay, well lets look at your notes."\n\r\nIf you do miss a class make sure to get the notes from someone else. If you miss some classes you can still get away with an awesome grade, but if you miss even a single one of the classes where he discusses critical material, you\'re grade will drop like a rock unless you have access to someone else\'s notes.\n\r\nAll three of our midterms were pick 4 out of 5 questions. It was not this way in the past semesters (not for all 3 exams anyway) so don\'t bank on it, but it did make the class a hell of a lot easier. He also tells you he weighs grading as follows: 17% per exam, 14% homeworks+quizzes+projects, 35% final. For us, he changed it to 12% lowest midterm, 17% middle midterm, 22% best midterm, and for the homework section (which totalled 150 pts), he took the score out of 125 instead. \n\r\nHe also seems to curve exams arbitrarily..but everyone else has already touched on how he curves. Our first exam was taken out of 88 points, our second was 95, and third 97 or so. I would have expected a much higher curve for the second exam, which makes me wonder where he gets his numbers from (the 12 point curve on the first exam was unnecessarily high, but I\'m not going to complain).\n\r\nAlso, the book is unnecessary.\n\r\nI would have given him 4 stars but if you try to ask him questions right after an exam even if it\'s unrelated, he will yell at you. He is also very condescending sometimes. Even if you have a legitimate question he will cut you off and say "I\'m not answering those questions right now" or "I can\'t solve new problems for you right now" or "that\'s not relevant to the topic" even if a) it\'s a general conceptual question, b) you\'re not asking him to solve a new question, and c) it is relevant to the topic. Golub many times (not always) assumes that his students are idiots and comes off as being extremely mean and as someone else has said, his head can be very far up his ass.\n\r\nFinally, when you\'re taking a test, make sure to get your question across if you have a legitimate question. Many times the TA\'s too (and Golub) may think you\'re fishing for the answer even when you\'re not. This has happened so many times it makes me want to smack them and tell them to listen to my damn question before cutting me off. You\'re basically on your own.\n\r\nAlso I don\'t know what the other people are smoking who gave him 5 stars. I ended up with ~99.5% (so it\'s not like I\'m biased against or bitter about his grading) in the class and I still think he was not a very "patient" and "approachable" and friendly guy who cared for his students...', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-05-23T03:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'I don\'t see where the hatred stems from. All the negative reviews about this guy and all the complaints about how ridiculously tough the material is - is complete bullshit.\n\r\nI am by no means, a top student. I merely got a B in CMSC250, and that was with a curve. I found this class to be somewhat enjoyable and predictable in terms of what would be on the exam.\n\r\nI agree with the guy below me, form study groups. Most of the "lone warriors" ended up failing the course, or barely passing with a C.\n\r\nIf you honestly go to all lectures, office hours, and do all the homework problems and thought questions intuitively, then you have no problems getting a B or higher.\n\r\nThe guy was nice enough to curve exams (although randomly and not by much) and drop 25 hw points.\n\r\nVerdict: Go to every class, attend office hours if you sincerely get stuck, form a productive study group, and do ALL the homework and thought questions. Assuming you aren\'t the type to choke during exams, you should net a relatively A or B.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'This course is pretty easy in my opinion. Especially if you found cmsc250 easy, this one is similar. However, the professor himself is a total loser and a-hole. First of all, he thinks he\'s the smartest person alive, talking about how he can do pretty much any proof alive and how him and his friends go around cracking systems. He will tell you countless stories every class about how he outsmarted one thing or another. It\'s funny one kid told me about how we should do a drinking game where everyone takes a shot whenever he boasts about himself.\n\r\nOf course, all professors have some ego but that is not why he\'s a terrible professor. He can be excessively rude and repressive during lecture and office hours, up to the point where he will yell at you if you ask a question he finds trivial. Personally, I went to his office hours once to explain how he did a certain proof, and he yelled at me, "okay you are not doing this the way i mentioned in class, you have to pay attention!" Forget about even asking any tangential questions, because he will automatically shoot down anything that\'s not related to the topic at hand. His default response: "we\'re not talking about that. see me in office hours." Also if you approach him with your own problem and ask him to solve it, he refuses to do so out of concern that others won\'t get a chance to see the solution.\n\r\nAs other people have mentioned, he does not post up lecture notes or worked out examples, so you must attend class or get notes from someone else. the only good thing i have to say about the class is that his exams are reasonable and predictable; there is very little deviation from his homework and thought questions. Also, he is generous in that he allows you to answer 4 out of 5 questions and curves each exam score. I was able to coast through this course with an easy A, but I still hated the professor.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-18T01:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Okay number one if your major is computer science you should be expecting hard courses. The teacher is a great teacher, provides plenty of extra help and if you DO NOT wait until the day of the exam you can get plenty of help. He will explain something as many times as necessary until you completely comprehend the topic. He does not post his in class notes online because he wants to encourage student to attend class and once again if you are a computer science major you should not be looking for the easy way out. The class takes place in the afternoon so there is no excuse to not attend class. His Homework’s are fairy difficult however, if you email him or seek help during his office hours he will provide you plenty of help and clues. His test can be Extremely hard or Extremely Fair, it’s all based on how much you have actually learned. It is not impossible to get an A in his class. Also, he is very patient, approachable and does not make you feel stupid for not understanding a topic. Also, he cares about his students!!!!\r\nI would recommend him to other students.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-04T23:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Such a lovely person. He's always so nice and smiling to you whenever you talk to him. \n\r\nHe made such a amazing adjustment for the percentage distribution to try to help the class.\n\r\nHe has a unique way of encouraging students to go to his class and office hours, yet it's really helping people to understand and learn the material.\n\r\nDidn't really appreciate what he did in the beginning of the semester but now I understand why and am truly grateful.\n\r\nUnlike some of the CS professor, he's friendly and approachable.\n\r\nPeople whoever don't want to make any effort and slack off but still hope to pass better not take his class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-04T23:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'This guy\'s head is so far up his own ass that he can see out his mouth.\n\r\nHe has made 351 to fail you. This is one of those courses where you will have to come to his office hours or the TA\'s office hours if you want to actually learn anything. If you do show up for office hours, don\'t expect to get help for about an hour because EVERYBODY ELSE is also trying to get help. Good luck.\n\r\nHis slides are absolutely useless. For whatever reason, he does not post his written examples online. Make sure to take good notes. He will do examples in class on his fancy shmancy Tablet PC, but not post them afterwards.\n\r\nHe posts extra assignments and examples online, but again, he does not post solutions. Same deal with the homework: NO SOLUTIONS ARE POSTED EVER. This alone makes the course hell for the math illiterate. You want to learn from examples and build up your confidence, but you can\'t because you have NOTHING to work off of.\n\r\nExams are generally based off the homework and his "thought questions," the extra problems he posts online without solutions. Don\'t expect any extra help with those exams because he doesn\'t post sample exams. (If he did, they probably would come without solutions. So useful.) Of course, how he expects you to master some of theses proofs after one or two examples is beyond me.\n\r\nHis exam grading policy is the worst. If you get a problem wrong, you will lose almost all the points if you don\'t lose them all. Don\'t expect points for effort. You can write out an elaborate proof and get maybe a couple of points for it.\n\r\nAnd then his "curving" system...\n\r\nSince he\'s all into his mathematics, he "curves" by dividing your exam grade by a decimal he magically calculated or pulled out of his ass which is now also his mouth. Now your simple arithmetic abilities should tell you this is an issue. If you got a 100 on the exam with a curve of .90, you\'ll enjoy an extra 11 points. If you\'re the unfortunate guy that only got say a 50 on the exam, you get a mere 5 extra points. So if you do well on an exam, you get an extra boost. If you\'re already failing, expect to be failing even more. The rich only get richer in his world.\n\r\nThis guy always talks about how he\'s "clever" yet he doesn\'t do a damn thing to endow his students with his "clever"-ness. This guy is incompetent as a teacher. Just dodge him for your own sanity.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-03-31T12:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'This is the worst professor ever\n\r\nThe book does not cover the material on the exams\n\r\nThe slides also do not cover the material on the exams\n\r\nAll of his posted examples are either half of the problem or very unclear and vague\n\r\nAll of the most important real work he does in class on a note pad for a few minutes but he never posts these notes online on the slides at all, instead he just assumes you get it\n\r\nYou are not allowed to study together on homeworks or use notes from online\n\r\nThis makes this class nearly impossible to study for\n\r\nOverall, one of the worst experiences so far', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '?', 'created': '2010-03-26T16:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': "He's enthusiastic about what he's teaching... but that doesn't make it less boring.\n\r\nThe course is for non majors...so don't expect coding. The hardest thing you'll do code wise is probably a basic cascading style sheet for an html page. \n\r\nYou learn about email... and file transfers...and html...and spreadsheets...sound fun yet?\n\r\n20% of the first test grade was on dates like when the first mac graphical os came out... or when the microsoft mouse came out... and the dates are one digit apart... things like that made this course ridiculous. \n\r\nI'd never take it again and never suggest it to a friend. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-17T20:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': ' The first half of class is pretty easy. I am not great with computers, but I got an A on the first exam and the first 3 projects. Then things get harder, and his notes are not that helpful, so I just looked stuff up and didn\'t use his notes. \r\nIn class, a good way to stay awake is to play GOLUB BINGO. \r\nUnder the G, put "blows his nose". Under the O, put "Tells a story about the inaugration". \r\nUnder the L, put "Tells a story about an East German spy." \r\nUnder the U, put "Talks about his sister, who is in law school." \r\nUnder the B, put "Mentions the New York Times". \r\nIf you get all 5 in one class, you WIN GOLUB BINGO! YEAH!!\r\nNote: You may win very, very often.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-17T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Oh Golub...\n\r\nHis lecture notes aren\'t the best in the world. He\'ll show how to do a proof on his Tablet PC...but not post those notes online. Sure it discourages the class-skippers but what about those who actually take notes and need to review them? He might have the occasional "generic" proof posted online but thats about it.\n\r\nHis exams are painful but doable. The biggest thing is reviewing all those homework/thought questions he gives and manipulating them. Practice practice practice!\n\r\nOne of Golub\'s bright spots: He\'ll happily answer "any" questions in class. If you missed something in the examples he does, he\'ll gladly go over it again until you get it. Please don\'t be asking "what-ifs". He often cut you off.\n\r\nHe does curve the exams. Often it\'s drop a question and add a few points.\n\r\nWith the final exam, he\'ll give you about 12 questions and you only have to do 8 of them. They are grouped into sections...like a section of three questions, a section of two questions, etc.\n\r\nOverall Golub does know his material very well..but he\'s quite arrogant about it. He can be helpful but his teaching methods are questionable.\n\r\nAnd yes, he doesn\'t give much partial credit.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-26T12:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': "If you're a journalism major and do not know a whole lot about computers, do not take this class with Golub. The lectures are boring, his notes are awful, and overall he is an absolute nut job.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-22T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': "He is probably the most boring lecturer I ever had. He cannot teach at all and just so painfully boring. If you take the class with him, you better be good at UNIX. \r\nThat being said the class itself was pretty easy for me. I am an Electrical Engineering major and I found this to be the easiest class I have ever taken through out my academic career. I got above 100's on all 8 projects with curve/extra credit. Exams were really long and was not able to finish in 45 minutes, but he curved them anyway. The final for the class was the easiest test I have ever had. It was all html coding/trivial question about html and I found it really easy. I even finished it in 15 minutes and got above a 100.\r\nOn the other hand a lot of other people found the class hard because they never was exposed programming or not used to UNIX. But if your some one like me and your in engineering you probably will find this class really really easy. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-19T01:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'As bad as the CS department professors are I would say Golub is the worst. \n\r\nTo start, his lecture notes are very bad. He hand writes his lecture notes on his tablet PC during lecture and says these will be online. The bad thing is that he works through a problem in class and doesn\'t put that work online. This is no help at all.\n\r\nHe post thought questions which are supposed to be sample like questions but he posts no answers or ideas about how to go about approaching them. You never really know for sure if you are even close to getting the right answer.\n\r\nHis exams are extremely hard. He does not have sample exams because as he says at the beginning semester "He never really thought they were helpful". Are you kidding??? If a question is worth 20 points you will only receive around 4 points for work if you are wrong. \n\r\nThere is so much more to say about this guys teaching that is bad. The sad thing is that in the past 4 or 5 semesters he is the only professor teaching 351 during the fall and spring so you are pretty much forced to take him. I think it is better to take this class during the summer with someone else in my opinion!!!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-01-22T12:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'As previously stated, Golub isn\'t the greatest professor the CS department has to offer, more like one of the worst I\'ve had. \n\r\nAs others said, he knows the material, but you never will. Algorithms aren\'t for everyone, but he will make you regret taking the class in the first place.\n\r\nHis notes are USELESS, and I mean utterly, supremely pointless. He will give examples in class that are on the slides, yet he leaves out the actual answer. He uses a tablet PC to do most of the lectures, writing in the answers to questions as he goes along. He fails to keep those handwritten items in what he posts. \n\r\nHis homeworks are difficult and you really have to take them head-first. He doesn\'t post any practice exams, etc... NO answers posted to HW\'s, NO answers posted to his "thought questions", NOTHING. So if you don\'t go to lecture, you will have no reference as to how to do the work.\n\r\nDespite all of this, office hours with him help a lot, but he still doesn\'t want to give you the answers to anything.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-17T16:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': "I would have had an A if i hadn't screwed up submitting one of the projects. This class is not easy if you are unfamiliar with Unix and have no real computer background. I found myself trying to do a simple command for hours. His project directions are extremely vague. I am a journalism major and took this class thinking it would be easy. Definitely DO NOT take this class with Golub if your looking for an easy A. A's are possible, but not fun to get. Lectures are boring as hell and are mandatory for good grade because of clickers. Overall he is nice, but just a bad teacher. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-10T20:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': 'Golub is a terrible lecturer who is extremely hard to follow. The first few weeks of lecture youll learn that taking notes is impossible and pointless (he posts notes online.) Going to lecture is pretty much pointless except to get attendance points via clickers, afterwards you would be best served to leave. The class consists of three exams which are 15 percent of your grade, 7 projects all worth 3-7 percent, attendance/scheduled in class discussions, and one monster of a final exam worth 27 percent. The projects are just step by step instructions that take anywhere from 1-3 hours. You work with UNIX command lines (yes, in an intro class), HTML code, spreadsheets, and a few other things. the exams are pretty tough, but if you study you can definitely pull off a B. Im pretty good with computers and had experience with HTML, but the class was still confusing. Had to take this for journalism requirements, but avoid it if you can.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-04T16:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'His lectures are okay, but his examples can be a bit hard to follow. It\'s not difficult to do well in his class, but some of his exam questions are overly difficult and can be vague in terms of what he is really asking. No quizzes. Were assigned eight homeworks throughout the semester. Homeworks aren\'t too bad and are actually useful as a couple of homework questions were asked to me in job interviews. He is very helpful during office hours and will go out of your way to explain things to you before and after class. Make sure to do all of his "thought questions" and alter some of his homework questions to study for his exams.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-20T20:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Golub is a guy who seems to mean well, but his flaws are pretty serious. For one his grading methodology is questionable at best. If you read the syllabus he claims to curve each assignment...but his curving method is random and mathematically suspect. For example, on one exam we were told to divide our scores by .8. The problem with this curve is it gives MORE of a curve to people with higher grades...seeming to violate the point of a curve. Another time he gave everyone in the class 5 extra points as a "curve" but admitted that he had not yet calculated the average. He will intermittently claim that he has to "recheck his formulas for final grades"...so basically he leaves your grade as one of his thought questions. I finished the final for class yesterday, so the final grades aren\'t up yet, but it will be interesting to see what he does. I know kids who are brilliant and very knowledgeable about the material who currently have Bs.\n\r\nThen there are the exams which give little to no partial credit, and somehow expect you to answer questions based on information that he doesn\'t give you. For example, when he says "use the quantified definition" somehow in Golub-speak this means "use the quantified definition using an inductive proof"...the later part being a crucial piece of information I wish I had.\n\r\nHis class is set up like a discussion. He gives you limited notes, and then you work out the details in class. This looks good on paper...but the problem is all those damn smart-ass CS kids who want to show off instead of letting everyone else learn. They\'ll derail him and let him think he can gloss over the details because everyone gets it already. Don\'t let him get away with this, shy people! Also, because his notes were so sparse and I\'m a bad note-taker, I was affected negatively by his teaching style, but not everyone will have a problem with this.\n\r\nIf you want to do well in this class, you HAVE to come to class. His notes aren\'t going to help you. Trust me, come to this one. Also, see him in office hours if you can. This is kind of irritating to me, because this isn\'t feasible for everyone, but unless you have prior knowledge of the material, you\'re going to want to get extra hours with him to clarify some of his vague details (especially towards the end of the semester when the algorithms get weirder). Ask questions in class! He\'s more than happy to answer them. Also, submit regrades even if you have the slightest question about your exam. He will sometimes expect answers for questions he doesn\'t ask, and you can get those points back easily...once I got an exam bumped up a full letter grade because of this. He can be very stubborn about some things though...I know one student who had a log base 3 in one of his answers which golub argued with him for at least 5 minutes over whether it was a 2 or 3. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-18T21:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "An awful professor. He really knows what he's talking about, but nobody else does. He is very stingy with grading and will give little to no partial credit.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-17T18:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': 'He clearly knows the material very well, but is terrible at teaching it. Lectures are painstakingly boring, so try to bring a laptop and stay awake, though almost no one will attend. You can definitely get an A in the class, but it is not fun and you will not walk out with any practical knowledge.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-04-25T17:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "People really scared me into thinking Golub was a terrible professor. I don't think he is really that bad. However, you will need to goto his office hours if you don't understand something and make sure you practice the material. He is sometimes overly tough, but generally fair. For example for the first test this semester he gave us decimals and fractions all over the place. It was really just a pain in the ass more than a test of knowledge.\n\r\nHowever, he is a competent though not excellent teacher, and is more than happy to help you out during office hours.\n\r\nThat said though, he is not the sort of guy who will bump you up if he sees you in his office a lot or w.e. He will give you what you earn and nothing more.\n\r\nThat said, I abused notes from the previous semester with Bonnie/Vibha's sections because Golub just has garbage for notes sometimes.\n\r\nSo, pro tip: look at Fall 07 section notes :)", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-25T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Golub does not really aim to prepare you in lecture for exams or homeworks. After the first midterm I found myself ignoring his lecture notes and working entirely off of the other section's (taught by Bonnie Dorr and Vihba) posted notes. Golub was also indeed stingy with grading, and people in the other section could get points back on midterms that our section could not get back via Golub. I rather wish I had been in the Bonnie/Vihba section.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-23T19:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Taught me all I needed to know, he had no surprises on his tests and was a great resource when I had concerns about my grade. I failed the first test (like 20%), studied my butt off for the next 2 and the final and ended up with a B.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-01-02T17:43:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': "Golub is, well, Golub. This class is fun, but he can really make things serious about the designs and implementations. Design mocks required hours of effort (in a team), but were kinda satisfying in the end. It's a pretty chill class, but I don't recommend skipping too many classes - he seems to love random pop quizzes. Tests were pretty much right off the slides, and the homeworks were just 1-2 page question and answer things. If you take this course, be prepared to spend some time out of class for the project. Designing something in Android can take hours to make look pretty. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-24T06:56:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'I had him for 131 and did not learn a single thing except how is made world a better place, how is a influential person in many things. He should not be teaching 131 at all. This class needs a person who actually teaches. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:47:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "AVOID HIM IF YOU CAN, worst professor ever, you barely learn, exams get a tad harder near the end of course, and the clicker quizzes were so pointless and literally the only reason I bothered to show up to his lectures. Anyone I took to watch his lectures with me all said that it was the worst lecture they'd ever been to, one of them chose Kruskal over him for his 351 class after he watched in on my 131 lectures.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-08T04:48:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'Had him for 131 and 434 and I learned that he is good in teaching non coding classes. I hated him so much for 131 but really liked him for 434. He was so organized in 434. Lectures were still boring but they were informative. Project descriptions were extremely well organized. In 434 there is a big group project. If you follow all of his directions, you should get a good grade in class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-22T05:34:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Golub talks a lot during lecture without having a lot of information on the slides themselves. The most crucial information you will learn is what he writes down during class. However, he will not post those notes online, so you can't miss any classes. If you show up to class and take down his notes, you will most likely be successful. Every once in a while, he will post example solutions on the course website - take advantage of them because he will most likely ask a similar question on his midterms. He has many homework and practice questions, but never posts the answers. So make sure that you compare answers with other people before the midterms. Study groups are key since you will never be provided with homework answers. If you go over every practice question and every homework, you will be adequately prepared for the midterms. The midterms are simple compared to the practice questions - just make sure you read the instructions carefully because Golub often asks that you only set up the question and not solve it. He isn't the greatest lecturer, but he will teach you enough to succeed in your class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-07-12T16:01:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': 'confirmed bad', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-01T01:04:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I had to take Evan Golub for CMSC131 because I am international student and the seats for Fawzi Emad (Best CS Prof) were full. Its pretty much the same as his other negative reviews for 131 where his lectures are boring and off-topic, doesn't help you prepare for the exam, weird grading criteria, stupid clickers, laughs at his own jokes!! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-13T18:46:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I thought he was fine for 131. Lectures aren't great, frequently goes off-topic. Kind during office hours. If you have prior programming expierence you'll be fine. If you don't then develop a hand in Java before starting 131.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-01T22:26:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'I had Golub for 131 and 351. I disliked him for 131, as I was just learning CS and his lectures were very rambling and not very useful. His slides are not that great when he has them, so you really have to pay attention. Despite these complaints I did learn stuff in his lecturers and I think I got the correct grades for the amount of work I put in. For 351 he was great mainly because he was much easier than Kruskal. His tests were very fair in that class and were very similar to the homeworks and lectures. I would recommend Golub for upper level courses, but maybe avoid him for earlier courses, as his non-sequiturs can be really frustrating when you are first learning certain concepts. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-18T16:22:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "He's a good person, but an okay teacher. He lectures every class, but rarely stays on topic. If you know basic Java already you are probably better off taking his class because it will be so easy and minimal work. He does clickers, but it is really just for attendance. So you will have to show up to his class, but do nothing in it. His exams are tough-ish. Its more because he likes to test on the stuff he said once. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-28T17:09:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'Lectures are a complete waste of time, except for the participation points. The material he plans to cover in class, on paper, looks to be interesting, but he completely butchers every topic with long anecdotes, and extreme bias.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-05-07T16:16:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'HDCC106', 'review': 'I had Professor Golub for the DCC Prototyping class. The class itself was interesting, in my opinion. However, the professor spent a lot of time going on tangents, so at some points it took us a long time to get through the material, or it was hard to pay attention to it. The projects themselves were fun, but I think they were somewhat repetitive. The professor was nice and liked talking to the students, especially in a smaller class like this, so that was a nice environment. Overall, I would recommend the class, even if it can be boring at some times.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-04T03:53:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': "The professor is nice, but the lectures are kinda boring. You don't really need to go to class, especially when they are zoom meetings. The grading of the exams seems strict to me. The average of the exams is also lower than I expected. The group project really takes some amount of time, if you have bad teammates then good luck on dealing with them. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-19T18:18:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'Avoid taking this course with Golub at all costs. Grading is based purely on his opinion, which is impossible to predict. Project descriptions are absolutely useless. You put in a lot of work and are not rewarded.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-16T20:06:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': "The course is fairly interesting, simple, and mostly theory/definition based. Golub is very engaged in the course and answers questions quickly but his assignment descriptions are vague and because of that, he grades harshly if he feels like a group/student did not follow what he wants (even though it wasn't really specified in the description.) If you go over the Panopto lectures (which are divided into small video sections) and work well as a team, you should be fine. Ask Golub questions if you are doubting anything because of his description vagueness.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-28T20:09:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'I had Professor Golub for CMSC434. The biggest weakness from the course is the lack of directions and the grading. A lot of the assignments that are given have very vague instructions, so it can be frustrating to see the feedback when you never knew that you were suppose to include something. However, the class is not really that difficult. The most important thing is making sure that you have a good group because a majority of your grade will rely on the assignments that you complete as a team. I would recommend to take this class in the same section as a few of your friends so that you will at least know who you are working with and that they will contribute equally.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T05:19:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': "Super nitpicky/strange grading, can be frustrating as it feels like he's desperate to lower the class average. Would honestly prefer a down curve instead.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-23T20:28:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': "Was thinking this would be a fun course to take during my last semester as the thought of working on 1 single large project sounded fun, I was wrong. Lectures are very clear, everything else isn't really much so. \r\nThe course has very vague descriptions of what was to be expected of the student and when grades are released, there is generally no explanation as to why points were removed. You end up not being to fight for points back since there no rubric. You essentially either did what he wanted or didn't, but he didn't tell you, so hopefully you guessed right. The assignments are graded based off personal bias and any attempts to put a creative twist leads to point reduction. I don't understand how a interface design class could be so close minded. Concepts can be applied in different ways. Considering all the concepts taught from lecture, he really need to redesign the course project and assignment descriptions and grading system as I'd rate them as a level 4 on severity because their catastrophic problems. I don't dislike Golub as a person, I however do dislike him as a professor. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-04T21:36:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': "The class is basically one big group project. One of my group members dropped the class, but I don't think he took that into account. Some of the others said it best. His assignment descriptions can be wordy and vague making it hard to figure out what EXACTLY needs to be included for a good grade. The class just felt frustrating overall", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-12-20T01:21:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': None, 'review': 'I just want to say that I asked this dude a question during his office hours about an algorithm. He gave me a vague af answer and when I tried to followup and ask for clarification he told me he "didn\'t want to argue with me" and told me to leave and stop emailing him. This was extremely surprising to me because not just as a professor, but also as a scholar and a researcher, he should have been more open to discussion about computer science in my opinion, but clearly I was wrong. Looking at the other reviews here, it seems like I\'m not the only one who thinks he is too vague and weird toward his students.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T04:29:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'Lectures are pointless, avoid this class if you wanted an easy CMSC course, the professor turns what should have been an easy class into a very frustrating experiance.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-03T20:33:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'Very great professor. In my top 5 for sure. I find his lectures engaging and entertaining. Just make sure you get a good group for the semester-long project. If you get a group that will actually do their work, this is a very easy class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-04T16:58:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': "He is horrible Professor, his grading is based on his opinion. He is a complete d*** and doesn't listen to reason. He has no business teaching and has destroyed my GPA.\r\n\r\nSTAY FAR AWAY!!!!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-05-17T20:30:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': "I took this course in Spring 2021\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ The inclusion of three midterms and a final in this course means that, even if your group is not doing well, you still have chances to increase your individual grade\r\n+ For each exam, Golub provides a list of relevant topics along with practice questions to help prepare\r\n+ Golub himself is very knowledgable about HCI, and is more than happy to answer any question regarding it\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- The inclusion of three midterms and a final in this course means that this course is probably significantly more work than you are anticipating\r\n- The course is largely based off of a group project, so if you don't like your randomly assigned group, good luck lol\r\n- Lectures are largely pointless, technical concepts are not important until exam time\r\n- For the group project of designing an app, the help provided by Golub and the TAs is largely design based. If your team is having technical roadblocks, they are, frankly, of little help. \r\n- Especially if you're having technical issues, the timeframe to create the actual technical application can very much feel like not enough time", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-21T23:44:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'IMDM127', 'review': "There's nothing in particular that makes this a terrible class it's just he explains concepts confusingly. The slides help more than the actual lectures sometimes and for questions he kind of drones on before giving an answer.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-10T02:26:15.851857Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'Reviews saying he grades on his opinion are pretty spot on. Gets decently rude in comments on the term project, but grades light(ish). Exams are very easy, and course is overall light except craming the coding portion of the project in mid semester. Can be frustrating though.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-12T02:29:22.560579Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'This is a really good class and professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-21T22:37:06.643664Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': 'The "postive" reviews are all tainted, Golub has no life he is a text book example of a hoarder with absolutely no life. He goes above an beyond to make sure that the class remains at a C average. This monster will destroy your GPA and then some. Either don\'t take 434 or find a professor like HuaIshu Peng to take it who is a young cool dude who actually trusts his students and has a chill class where you actually learn something and can take exams AT HOME ON ELMS (NOT LOCKDOWN BROWSER). Golub has no business teaching, he his the Judas of academia!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2023-02-22T17:41:42.609128Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Golub', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Entirely invalidating proofs on exams due to minor mistakes at the beginning of proofs and destroying exam grade.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-03T04:44:56.412902Z'}], 'name': 'Evan Golub', 'slug': 'golub'}, {'courses': ['ARSC200', 'ARSC201', 'ARSC400', 'ARSC401', 'ARSC301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Evan McCauley', 'slug': 'mccauley_evan'}, {'courses': ['BMGT398T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Evan Riddle', 'slug': 'riddle'}, {'courses': ['BMGT495', 'BMGT868C', 'BMGT878C', 'BMGT878X', 'BMGT878P', 'BMGT878Y', 'BUSI690', 'BMGT198C', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT878C', 'BMGT878Y', 'BUSI690', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT468A'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Evan Starr', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'Good professor, makes classes interesting through real-world examples and case studies. Encourages discussion rather than lecturing at people. He is a tough grader though and will not hesitate to mark people down for small mistakes. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-25T00:19:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Evan Starr', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "Great professor. He explains things in interesting ways and tries to make it relevant. His classes are really engaging without having to drag participation out of students, and it makes learning easier. He's a fair grader, maybe even a little generous. Do the work to get the grade you want. Reading required for short assignments can be pretty lengthy, but it's relevant to the course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-25T02:00:47.059852Z'}], 'name': 'Evan Starr', 'slug': 'starr_evan'}, {'courses': ['PHIL408I', 'PHIL209B', 'PHIL408P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Evan Westra', 'slug': 'westra'}, {'courses': ['ENES100', 'ENES100A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Evandro Valente', 'slug': 'valente'}, {'courses': ['WMST250'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Eve Grice', 'slug': 'grice'}, {'courses': ['SPAN203', 'SPAN306', 'SPAN206', 'SPAN103', 'SPAN371', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN306', 'SPAN371', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN206', 'SPAN371', 'SPAN306', 'SPAN307', 'SPAN371', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN371'], 'average_rating': 4.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Evelyn Canabal-Torres', 'course': 'SPAN203', 'review': "She's awesome. To this day, she's probably one of my favorite professors I've had at UMD. She really cares for her students and I learned a lot in her class. I really hope I can take another class with her in my remaining time at UMD. She's fantastic! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-01T15:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evelyn Canabal-Torres', 'course': 'SPAN307', 'review': 'I have to say Canabal is probably one of the best professors you will ever come across on this campus. She really cares for her students and does the best she can to help out her students. She is very understanding of students situations and does whatever she can to make sure you learn the material. She grades very fairly on all the work as long as you put effort into it. Ridiculously amazing professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-02-01T06:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evelyn Canabal-Torres', 'course': 'SPAN307', 'review': "I absolutely loved her! She is hilarious. She is quite unorganized though. She really wants to help you out if you ask for help. Very open-minded. She even dropped the midterm for our class because she didn't want to jeopardize our grades. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-08-18T05:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evelyn Canabal-Torres', 'course': 'SPAN203', 'review': "Spanish has always been hard for me but she doesn't make a big deal if you aren't fluent or too willing to participate. She makes funny sound effects and is generally entertaining to be around. I just wish the material was reviewed more after we had moved on from the previous section. We went through the info pretty quickly and that didn't help me on the tests", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-23T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evelyn Canabal-Torres', 'course': 'SPAN203', 'review': 'Canabal is great, I would recommend her. If you put in the effort to participate and speak spanish in class you should do well. Its not easy for everyone, but if you have taken spanish before you should be able to survive. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T15:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evelyn Canabal-Torres', 'course': 'SPAN203', 'review': "Really great teacher overall. She gives you the opportunity to learn through experience rather than memorizing charts and vocabulary from the book. Best Spanish teacher I've had so far.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-03T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Evelyn Canabal-Torres', 'course': 'SPAN371', 'review': 'She is funny, intelligent, and so very caring for every one of her students. One of the best professors I’ve ever had and my favorite class I’ve taken.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-07T00:59:56.122605Z'}], 'name': 'Evelyn Canabal-Torres', 'slug': 'canabal-torres'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'AGNR499', 'AGNR489', 'AGNR388', 'AGNR100', 'AGNR388', 'AGNR388', 'AGNR499', 'AGNR388', 'AGNR100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Evelyn Cooper', 'slug': 'cooper_evelyn'}, {'courses': ['HLTH366', 'EPIB641', 'KNES689Y', 'SPHL611', 'HLTH898', 'EXST030', 'HLTH778', 'HLTH785', 'HLTH688', 'SPHL610', 'HLTH366', 'HLTH778', 'SPHL620', 'SPHL399', 'HLTH366', 'HLTH778', 'HLTH366', 'HLTH778', 'SPHL399', 'SPHL611', 'HLTH366', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'HLTH366', 'HLTH778', 'HLTH366', 'HLTH778', 'HLTH366', 'HLTH778'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Evelyn King-Marshall', 'course': 'HLTH366', 'review': 'I took this course over the summer, and her lectures were severely unorganized. There were many spelling errors throughout and she is CONSTANTLY yawning. She was very unresponsive, and harsh on grading. Even completing assignments based on the rubric is not enough to get you a decent grade. Her tests were ridiculous and required rote memorization and used honor lock. Overall, I would recommend not taking this course with this professor. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-06-18T19:24:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Evelyn King-Marshall', 'course': 'HLTH366', 'review': 'The course content is really easy but the professor did everything she could to take off any points she could on bigger assignments/essays without much explanation for it at all. This made reviewing work extremely tedious because there were multiple rubrics for each assignment that were lengthy and hard to follow.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T16:38:53.504482Z'}], 'name': 'Evelyn King-Marshall', 'slug': 'king-marshall'}, {'courses': ['SPAN361', 'SPAN798F', 'SPAN408C', 'SPAN798N', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN408W', 'SPAN798G', 'SPAN788N', 'SPAN408K', 'SPAN408V', 'SPAN798K', 'SPAN448A', 'SPAN408P', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN375', 'SPAN451'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Eyda Merediz', 'course': 'SPAN361', 'review': "I like Eyda a lot. She is really funny, and incredibly intelligent and knowledgable. However, she expects a lot from her students, so you have to be prepared to put in work. Participation is 15% of our grade, so you need to read and come prepared. I've gone to her office hours twice now, and she has been very helpful and receptive to my questions/concerns. I would recommend her just because she's fun. But it's not an easy A. \n\r\nClass is sometimes a little hard to follow because she goes on tangents, and doesn't specify what information is most important. But it's still interesting, and I can feel my Spanish improving. Also, the study guide for the midterm gives you all the questions that might be on it, so you can prepare ahead of time. This is not to say the midterm was easy, but at least she told us what we were accountable for. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-11-05T16:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eyda Merediz', 'course': 'SPAN361', 'review': 'She is knowledgeable and personable, however, does not provide structure to her classes. She does not write on the board, and goes off on tangents during her lectures, making it very difficult to ascertain what information is pertinent and should be on the tests. She includes very vague identifications for the test that do not pertain to the main themes of the course. Definitely pick a different professor in the department- like Demaria, over her. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-19T02:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Eyda Merediz', 'course': 'SPAN303', 'review': "Overall, I enjoyed taking Prof Merediz's course. She is funny and knowledgeable. Expect to have quite a few assignments a week (film analysis, literature analysis, or a mix of both). While you could get away with putting minimal effort into them, I suggest taking them seriously, as the questions she asks explore concepts and themes that will be on the midterm and the final. They may feel like busy work (I'd argue that sometimes they are), but they can serve as a good study resource if done well. She teaches based off of slides that contains few words, so sometimes it is challenging to discern what to takes notes on- this is why I'd recommend using the homework assignments to guide your note-taking. During lectures, I just listened and jotted down recurring concepts and terminology. Some materials can be a bit dense if your Spanish skills aren't nearing those of a fluent/native speaker. If you fall into that category, don't worry, she reviews materials in class and gives out assignments that mirror potential exam questions so you know what to expect. The final analysis paper is divided into 3 steps (outline, draft, final) and takes a nontrivial amount of time, so be sure to start early and utilize office hours. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-08-15T17:32:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Eyda Merediz', 'course': 'SPAN361', 'review': "Great professor, but the readings can really pile up during the week. You can't survive by just skimming the material - you really need to understand and pick apart the text to do well. Hence this isn't a class you can skip readings for and expect to do well. Throughout the semester she made accommodations for us (canceling a quiz on Latin American capital cities, extending an essay deadline). She is a good professor and doesn't pick on you to answer if she senses that you don't want to participate. Overall had a really good time in this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-30T01:36:20.137477Z'}], 'name': 'Eyda Merediz', 'slug': 'merediz'}, {'courses': ['SPAN415', 'SPAN315', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN302', 'SPAN370', 'SPAN470', 'UNIV100', 'INST201', 'INST201', 'INST201'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Fabian Faccio', 'course': 'SPAN315', 'review': "Fabian is super nice and fun to have as a professor. But I don't think I'm learning aaall that much. I mean the vocabulary is helpful, but the structure of class time is not put to good use. \n\r\nHe's a very easy grader, and if you study for the midterm you'll do well. He only grades on content, not grammar, which is nice. It's a pretty easy class, and I am learning vocab that is used commonly in the spanish speaking world, so I'd say it's worth taking. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-05T16:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fabian Faccio', 'course': 'SPAN315', 'review': "He is awesome. His enthusiasm is great and he is really a character. I have no bad complaints, and I am thankful he didn't make the class as difficult as I thought. Overall, he is recommended and do 415 with him too. I'll see how that goes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-10T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fabian Faccio', 'course': 'SPAN207', 'review': 'This has been one of my favorite classes at Maryland. Fabian is a great professor. He is excited about Spanish and loves his students. He wants each student to succeed. I learned a lot from him and truly enjoyed his class. I would highly recommend him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-21T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fabian Faccio', 'course': 'INST201', 'review': "Fabian is a good professor. He gives a lot of office hours and he is able to help so much with assignments if you need it. However, the course load isn't too bad (or hard by any means) as long as you don't dedicate time to the weekly readings. The weekly assignments consist of saying three things you learned from lecture (recorded), a 5 question open-note quiz based on lecture, and a discussion board. His TAs were somewhat strict on grading, but not enough where you'll get below an A. The other con was the group paper that was a semester-long, working on with our group during Zoom discussion. He assigns the groups, but as long as you get lucky, then you can knock it out pretty easily. A good class despite being thrown together during the first week of classes. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-17T19:45:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Fabian Faccio', 'course': 'INST201', 'review': "He is a really great professor, he understands everyone's concerns and really takes the time to address those concerns, I took his class recently in Spring 2022, our class got pushed too online last minute with zoom lectures every Friday, the TA's are strict on grading but I believe that it is fair. Overall the class is really great and Fabian is a really great professor to have ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-29T02:23:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Fabian Faccio', 'course': 'INST201', 'review': 'Goat prof, super nice and chill, take him if you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-29T11:42:39.429445Z'}], 'name': 'Fabian Faccio', 'slug': 'faccio'}, {'courses': ['HONR249A', 'THET408D', 'THET608D', 'THET489A', 'THET489B', 'THET408G', 'THET489I', 'THET606', 'THET408M', 'THET698F', 'THET499', 'THET608C', 'THET711', 'THET286', 'THET489M', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET698E', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'THET888', 'THET889', 'THET898', 'THET899', 'THET489W', 'THET712', 'THET391', 'THET390', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET223', 'THET889'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Faedra Carpenter', 'course': None, 'review': "I'm not a Theater major, but I expect that people in the major probably like this professor alot. This class really made me step outside of my comfort zone and think about race in performance. There area readings and a small single spaced paper every week, but if you're not doing as well as you think you should on them and you talk to her about it, she will really try to help you. She let us write extra credit papers on basically anything at semester's end and really tried to help us out. Great, energetic professor I definitely recommend!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-26T21:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Faedra Carpenter', 'course': None, 'review': 'this course was really interesting if you like reading and discussing. personally i loved it because Carpenter is an AMAZING professor. she is so animated and passionate about what she teaches and does her best to make everything as interesting as possible. she mixes up the readings with movies and even brings snacks to some classes. \n\r\nthe only downside is that there is A LOT OF WORK. she assigns 1-2 plays to read per week and for each of the plays you need to write a one page (single spaced) reaction NOT Summary discussion major themes, motifs, etc and how they tie into the "american dream" \n\r\nsometimes she gives you a break and lets you watch the movie in class instead of reading the play. \n\r\nthere are two big papers ( i think it was around 7 pages double spaced each) which i did well on but i knew a lot of people struggled with...so make sure \r\n1) you go to the writing center if you have bad grammar\r\n2) you have her read over it before you turn it in, i did this both times and received really high marks. not because im that great of a writer but because she goes out of her way to help you out.\n\r\nshe is the kind of teacher you remember from that great high school english class that even made ppl who hated english learn to like it. \n\r\nthe final was a creative project. most people wrote original plays and acted them out. \n\r\njust do your work. go to class (attendance/participation matters), keep up with the work.\n\r\nif you like reading and analysis this is the class for you. but remember the plays take 30-60 min to read each and the writeups 30-60 min each. which sums up to about 3-4 hours a week.\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-20T07:30:00Z'}], 'name': 'Faedra Carpenter', 'slug': 'carpenter_faedra'}, {'courses': ['HLSA711', 'HLSA775', 'HLSA601', 'ECON671', 'EXST030'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Farah Farahati', 'slug': 'farahati'}, {'courses': ['CMSC122', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC131H', 'CMSC250', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC132'], 'average_rating': 4.2913, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'BEST PROFESSOR FOR CS! He is so funny and passionate about the topic. \r\nHowever the class is really hard, especially for people who have never coded before, like me. I struggled a lot in this class. You need to dedicate a lot of time to understanding the material. Class is hard but Fawzi is awesome!! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-05-12T12:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Best professor in the Computer Science Department, and I don't think it can even be debated. I've taken him with both 131 and 250. \n\r\nFawzi teaches every course with a genuine interest and enthusiasm that just makes you want to learn and grasp every concept. His ability to teach with clarity is absolutely amazing. In addition, he's always there to help if you have any difficulties with the material. \n\r\nHis quizzes, homeworks, and exams are incredibly fair and with a good amount of studying, doing well in the class shouldn't be an issue. CMSC250 is traditionally known as one of the weedout courses, but with Fawzi it never seemed like one.\n\r\nIf you ever get a chance to decide between Fawzi and another professor, you pick Fawzi, end of discussion. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-19T09:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Fawzi is the best teacher I have had at UMD, if not the best teacher I've ever had. He knows the material very well, is actively interested in it, and loves to spark interest in others.\r\nHis tests are not necessarily easy, but they are a very fair reflection of the course.\r\nThe best part about Fawzi, though, is that he's just a really cool guy. He has a great balance of nerdy, intellectual habits and a perfectly normal personality. He's the type of person you'd want to have as an uncle. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-15T12:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Fawzi was a really fun and engaging professor for 250. Although the material in the class is fairly difficult, he manages to make the material fun and engaging sometimes. He's actually funny, which is another plus since his jokes will probably wake up the class if they ever decided to doze off. Tests were pretty fair too, sticking to questions that were on quizzes. The homework assignments were challenging, but at the same time doable. Overall a great class for me, and I definitely would take Fawzi again if I could.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-06T10:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': 'Amazing professor. Makes the material very interesting and got me involved in computer science. I am a business major and he was so good I started coding in my free time!\r\nSome people had trouble with certain parts of the class, but that was not his fault, but a function of the material.\r\nBottom line: Take Fawzi for anything he teaches. He is the man.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-01-21T12:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "Fawzi is a FANTASTIC professor! I entered 122 with absolutely zero knowledge or experience in the subject, and by the end he had me switching my major! He is exciting in class, extremely fair in his tests, helpful in assigned projects, and if you go to lectures he makes the material incredibly easy and understandable! With computer science, part of it will always be a natural aptness to computers and thinking in code that not everyone has. However, for beginners and non comp sci majors, Fawzi is more than ready to help and always willing to repeat ideas. If you are ever stuck, I've never been to a more productive office hours!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-19T13:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Fawzi was an excellent professor for 131. He was really great at explaining the concepts and his projects were fair and fun to do. I would definitely take Fawzi if you get the chance. His class wasn't particularly easy, but if you want to learn the material and have a bit of a challenge take a class with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-11T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "Great instructor. His enthusiasm keeps you from falling asleep in his class. Projects aren't too bad, but I've never had programming experience so javascript was difficult for me. I heard he's helpful during office hours but I never went.\r\nTake this if you want comp sci experience, but not if you want an easy DSSP gen ed credit.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-05-19T21:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "As an freshman who is a CS Major with no prior experience in Computer Science, I can say that Fawzi Emad is an amazing professor. He keeps the class interesting while also teaching the material in an extremely clear fashion. However, if you are new to programming languages like Java, there are obstacles that you have to overcome (Don't worry, they're not to bad!). \n\r\n1. Fawzi can't review every topic with a fine tooth comb because it's only a semester-long course, therefore the rate at which new material is introduced is fast. You will have to attend pretty much every lecture if you want to be at a good pace, and you must take copious notes - Fawzi doesn't use the textbook (don't buy the textbook, it's completely useless). \n\r\n2. The projects. The first two projects are very easy and doable...however the difficulty then increases quickly. PROJECTS ARE THE MOST CRUCIAL IN GETTING A GOOD GRADE!!! The biggest problem students have with the projects is not figuring out what to do...it's actually completing the project on time. Fawzi gives you about a week and a half to do the projects, but most people wait till the last minute and their grade suffers mightily. PLEASE START YOUR PROJECTS EARLY. I CAN'T STRESS THAT ENOUGH. \n\r\nNow that I'm done addressing those who might be new to programming entirely, let me broaden my view to everyone taking the class. Fawzi's tests are perfectly fair. Not too easy, but definitely not hard as well. Study well, and you'll do fine. PAY ATTENTION TO THOSE STUDY QUESTIONS. They're the keys to a good test score. Quizes and Labs count for a small portion of your overall grade, but make sure you don't BS them. Fawzi's Final Exam was definitely tougher than both his midterms, so don't blow that off and make sure you study hard for that one. \n\r\nFawzi is a fantastic professor and I can't imagine any professor better in the CS Department who is better. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-01-18T03:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Incredible professor. Teaches everything himself; never need to buy or look at the book (nor will it help you to). Take good notes in class; they are your only source of substantial information because truth be told, the online lecture slides (which are written by another professor anyway) are convoluted and give much extraneous information. Do not skip exams (as obvious as it sounds, it happens) or quizzes because he strictly adheres to university policy and will give you a zero. You can get by with showing up late but if you try and leave lecture early he will stop you and make you feel terrible in front of the entire class. Start projects early (especially those toward the end of the course) since nobody can get it perfect the first time. Review the study questions he puts online, they mirror key questions on the exams.\n\r\nI came into this class a Business major with no computer programming experience whatsoever, but he goes out of his way to make sure that everyone understands the material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Fawzi is the best natural teacher I\'ve ever seen in my life! If you go to the lectures you will learn the material. Period. He\'s also pretty entertaining and tries to keep things informal and low-key. If you see a few "mixed reviews" on sites like this, let me tell you why: Fawzi has a very low tolerance for students who are obnoxious during class. If you act like an ass during the lecture, he will shut you down! It\'s pretty funny to watch. So you\'ll find a few negative reviews from some of those people. But trust me, Fawzi is the best instructor you could possibly get. I\'ll take him for any course I can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-09-21T08:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "This guy is brisk, jovial, relaxed, and accessible. Most lectures are teeming with material, but he somehow makes it all digestible and light. Thing is, some of the topics (like data structures) won't stick to your mind in just one lecture; so you must re-read the slides, draw memory diagrams, and then explain them to yourself until you're comfortable enough.\n\r\nThe projects are appropriate for the subject matter and most of them have their easy or advanced sections already implemented so you can focus only on the stuff you need practice on.\n\r\nQuizzes and exams are all easy as long as you go through the slides and maybe some of the example code. The discussion exercises are seldom helpful, but good for collaboration.\n\r\nI got an A+ and the class is my favorite (most informative) CS class yet.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-30T23:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "Fawzi was a great professor. Anyone saying he taught poorly probably just doesn't like Computer Science, not Fawzi. I don't know how you can make a computer class anymore simple or interesting. The TA's and his own office hours were extremely helpful for the projects. The tests and quizzes were straight from the lecture slides so if you go to class and then review them as study material you will get an A; the final is no exception. \n\r\nI had fun in this class and am now going to declare a Computer Science minor", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-18T12:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "Programming is not really my thing, but Fawzi made the class more than bearable. His sense of humor and teaching style were very amusing and overall this was a great class. He grades reasonably, and the assignments were mostly pretty cool (except for one of them that drove me up a wall.) BTW, I thoght I was getting a C, but ended up with a B! Fawzi is more than fair when it comes to grades.\n\r\nSomebody else said Fawzi wasn't helpful in office hours, but that's total B.S. I don't know why that kid is so pissed off - Fawzi knows the material backwards and forwards and will go out of his way to make sure you understand it. I got a lot of help in office hours from Fawzi -- he was totally chill.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-29T20:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "The class was fun! Fawzi is truly a gifted instructor and does a great job making sure that everyone learns the material. I met with him several times during office hours and he was very personable and helpful. \n\r\nThe exams were very fair (actually, they were pretty easy). The projects were reasonable, but don't start working on them at the last minute because office hours get crowded on the day the projects are due.\n\r\nThis is a course for beginners, so you don't need to know anything beforehand. But be prepared to do some work. The projects take a good amount of time and there are frequent quizzes that you'll need to study for.\n\r\nOverall, this was a great class for me -- I learned a lot and enjoyed it quite a bit.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-24T12:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "This class consisted of 2 midterms, the final, 10 quizzes, 5 programming projects, and an 8 page paper. The paper sounds bad but it's easy, basically if you do it and it's coherent, you should get an A. \n\r\nThe class is easy in the beginning, until you start talking about Javascript. However, I ended up getting an A in the class and I had no prior programming knowledge whatsoever. He tries to make lectures interesting and talk about things that could be useful and get you interested in computer programming, if you aren't already. \n\r\nThe tests have at most three questions where you have to write programs, and the rest are short answers, so he tries to help out the people who might not be good at writing programs and functions.\n\r\nGood class to take if you are willing to put in a little work for the A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-14T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He doesn't care about his students.\r\nDon't take his class.\r\nHe knows his stuff, but expects his students to already know the content that he is there to teach about.\r\nWorst professor I've had at Maryland by far\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-01T12:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "I'm finishing up CMSC122 with Mr. Emad this semester. So far (as a second semester Freshman) this is the best class I've had in college. I'm actually changing my major to Computer Science as a result of my experiences in this course. Mr. Emad's teaching style is outstanding -- he is very enthusiastic and his explanations are always logical and easy to understand. The exams were reasonable (not too long and at the right level) and the projects were decent. I'm looking forward to taking CMSC131 with Mr. Emad this summer and continuing on in the major.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-22T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "1st: If you are a JOURNALISM MAJOR dont take this class with him. and btw that expected grade is a C if he doesnt act like a complete douche. He teaches 122 as if you already know coding and caters his class to people that will be majors or are trying to get into the major. His grading is arbitrary and doesnt give you a rubric for the projects. Sketch. His grading is harsh, unforgiving and frankly unnecessary for an introductory class. He doesnt curve, but takes off chunks of your grade for senseless things. \n\r\nHe needs to think more about his audience, which is the key to being a good teacher. Don't cater your class to people that already know material. Bring everyone up or reconsider your profession\n\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-04-20T21:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He is a great professor if you're smart. When I mean smart, I mean you know the material well, or pick it up while he's teaching. Everyday he comes to class he is disorganized but is a decent professor. He spends at least five mins per slide complaining about how the slides are wrong or not how he would have done it. The same with the coding examples you see on the CVS. He ASSUMES you remember almost everything from 131 but many friends of mine that tested or AP'ed (not sure how to say it) out of 131 have told me how much 132 sucks because he assumes you know more than you actually do. He is very meticulous with his grading and excessively strict. He is notorious for not curving the class so don't expect it. He curved for our first midterm (we had two) because the average was like a 65% percent. He told us that the exam was going to be easy, however many people didn't finish.\n\r\nHe's not for the average b student because he caters to the smarter crowd. Try to talk to him in person and tell me he isn't an self absorbed asshole. He invites questions but will sometimes ignore simple questions he assumes we should already know. He is rude and even if the TA's agree with you that one of his exam questions are unfair he will debate it to no end until you give up and realize it's impossible to convince him otherwise.\n\r\nDon't get me wrong, he's not a bad professor and I would even recommend taking him as a professor. I just think he's an asshole.\n\r\nRemember, he caters to the smart.He's a decent, but not the best, professor. The only reason I had an 85% was cause I know how to program decently even though I failed one exam. \n\r\nHe's good in the sense that he expects alot from you and in turn you work harder because he doesn't curve. He's tough but not horrible.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-02-20T03:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I enjoyed this class a lot from the academic perspective. I have seen him cut students short as is being argued below, but he needs to do so to teach all of the material, and when he does realize he had not heard someone's idea or question through that he should have, he will immediately apologize. He is confident but he does not devalue his student's ideas. In fact he encourages it, and I am confused by comments to the contrary.\n\r\nI may be biased since I had few difficulties understanding the actual material; however, I am new to programming, and did do a lot of work outside the class to keep my grade up and be able to ask suitable questions. Some students asked questions that they should ask during office hours. I have taken advantage of this in the past and he is very thorough at explaining things as long as other students' time is not being completely wasted.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-22T18:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi rocks! The reviews by the angry student below do not represent my views at all. Fawzi's lectures are thorough and clear, his exams are fair, and he has a great sense of humor. I actually looked forward to going to his lectures! In office hours he isn't going to debug your code for you, but he'll give you enough hints to get you going if you're stuck. I thought his exam reviews were extremely helpful -- he went over everything that we asked him to in great detail. The exams looked exactly like what he had prepared us for. He really seems to care about teaching and I'll take any class with him that I can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-16T19:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "The guy is awful and you are not a great programmer. Everyone who has not gone to his office, loves him. Everyone who has seen him personally, thinks he is a world class douche. I will admit, I am spiteful now because he gave me a D for being less than a point away from a 70 (did bad on the final, was doing well until I took it). I asked him for something, anything to make up the small difference and not screw me for the next year, but he said it wasn't his problem and that was all. If you are a natural programmer, take him. If you need someone who is kind and willing to be nice behind the scenes as well, take ANYONE else. I have found Golub, Nadua-Perez, Plane,much more approachable. Fawzi really is a jerk if you are a guy who is a below average programmer.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2011-12-17T23:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Fawzi was a great professor. He explained all the course material in a way that was easy to understand and retain. I took AP Comp Sci in high school and had no problem in this class. Those who dislike Fawzi must have either skipped class often or are not cut out to be Computer Scientists.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T15:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi Emad is a good professor in the things that he does. However, he is not willing to adapt his style for students who do not learn from his particular style of teaching. He expects you to come to every class, and will tell you what to expect on exams and such only in class (he also teaches using slides).\n\r\n This is not unreasonable; however, for people who learn best by doing and have a hard time following lectures, this can be a problem. On the first midterm, there was a big portion of the grade that was not tested via a project beforehand which can be very problematic for kinesthetic learners.\n\r\nHe also does not offer review problems, or even a sheet listing things to study.\r\nHowever, it should be noted that if you attend class, keep track of the general topics discussed, and take very brief notes, then go back and study slides before the exam, you can do very well. You MUST do these things to succeed, because Fawzi will often test on things that he mentioned once in class that are just historical facts and you won't find in the materials.\n\r\nAlso, pay attention to what appears on quizzes, because it is likely to reappear on exams.\n\r\nBasically, I would say that if you know yourself to be a kinesthetic learner, avoid his class because it will be a struggle to go by his style of teaching, but it is possible to do well with some work outside your normal way of learning.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-11-28T17:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Fawzi is an excellent professor. Explains the material really nicely and keeps the lectures interesting.\n\r\nDefinitely disagree with the idea of him not caring about his students. He takes time to answer all questions in class and is very thorough in doing so. The idea of him not caring about his students is quite far from what it seems like in my class at least.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-09-14T18:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I also disagree with the person two/three posts below... I had Fawzi for both 131 and 132. I can assure you that he always went out of his way to help us learn the material. His classes are actually FUN and he is always upbeat and energetic.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-09-12T00:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I disagree with the person one below me. Fawzi is a really nice guy, and he does care about students. You'll find that out if you go to his office for help. \r\nHe is definitely one of the best teachers in the CS department if not the best. Teaching people how to program isn't an easy task, and no one does it better than Fawzi. If you've never programmed before you'll have a hard time while taking cmsc131. It's because learning how to program for the first time is really hard, and you'll have to work extra hard in that class. He'll make sure that you learn all the material needed. He doesn't always write the exams, but he'll look at the exams and make sure there isn't anything that he didn't cover. When I took 131, he was running the class, and he wrote the exams, and the exams were very reasonable. On the other hand 132 was run by Nelson, and the exams weren't that great, but still fair.\r\nYes, CMSC389C (C++) didn't go that well, since it was the first time the class was being offered, and Fawzi tried to cover too much stuff in 3 weeks, which didn't work out so well. Fawzi hates curving, but he ended up doing a 10% curve in that class. Fawzi cares about his students, and he'll definitely straighten out that class the next time he takes it.\r\nFawzi has recently started to teach from slides, since he has some physical issues from writing on the blackboard for a long time, and his doctor told him not to write on blackboard. This is kind of unfortunate.\r\nHe is not like one of those dorky CS professors, he's a very fun guy.\r\nOn response to the reviewer one below me. Fawzi is a human being. He'll only get angry when there's a very good reason to be angry. One time a student was asking Fawzi if he could gchat with him over the weekend if he has any questions!!! You expect your professor to sit in front of his computer all weekend so that he can answer students' questions! Now who wouldn't get angry at that?\r\nI took 4 classes with Fawzi. And I would never take a class with anyone else if Fawzi's teaching it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-06-12T13:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "Let me begin by saying that CMSC122 is probably one of the most demanding CORE classes out there, and you should take it only if you're willing to LEARN something (not a class where you can beat around the bush and get an A). With that said, Dr. Emad makes the rigorous challenge of learning a programming language for the first time insanely fun. He's a great guy, and overall a professor that can actually TEACH. I usually suck at programming, but because of his guidance, I can actually program independently now. You will have to work your tail off in his class, but trust me, in the end it's the most accomplished feeling you'll ever have. Wish I actually majored in Compsci now, since he made everything seem so interesting! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-16T13:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Okay. I had this guy for 131 and 132. He's probably one of the better teachers in the department. He's a decent teacher. Not incredible. He is good at conveying the information, and you will learn the material pretty well. However, there are a few majors problems.\r\nFirst off, I don't think he cares much about his students. He is really into himself, and if you get in his way he will stomp you into the ground. Yes, he will teach you what you need to know, but he makes it fairly obvious that he doesn't care much about the students, but more about the fact that his boss wants him to teach in a certain way. Everything usually needs to go the way that he wants it, otherwise he will get angry.\r\nA big problem with his grading and tests is that he stresses trivial stupid points that don't have much to do with the class. Some of the tests will have not much concepts, but some stupid esoteric stuff about Java that does not really matter.\r\nAnother big problem was that he used lecture slides made by the department that he didn't like. He was always commenting on how the slides were wrong and stupid. Well, if he didn't like them, then he should make his own.\n\r\nHe's a little bit rude as well when it comes to dealing with students, and helps very little with actual exam preparation in the weeks before the final.\r\nOverall, 131 and 132 aren't too bad. The projects take some time, but if you work hard you can get an A. You should probably take this guy over some of the other 131/2 professors, but you should know what to expect. He just isn't as great as everyone says he is.\n\r\nBy the way, I'm not one of those students who happened to have a bad encounter with Fawzi or anything. I did fine in the class and didn't have any personal issues with him. I'm just telling you what you need to know about this guy.\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-14T13:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "Very friendly and approachable person. Clearly passionate and knowledgeable. Unfortunately, he has apparently injured his clavicle from years of writing on the board, so he gave lectures from a PowerPoint. He seemed a little out of his comfort zone.\n\r\nNonetheless, great professor. If you know nothing of HTML, CSS, or Javascript he'll make sure you do by the end of the class! Always has office hours and always willing and able to address any concerns.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-25T19:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Fawzi was a great teacher. Fawzi sets his expectations at a reasonable level and then expects you to meet them, unlike many teachers that expect WAY too much and then curve. Curves always seem to add more stress to the class than necessary.\n\r\nFawzi always did a good job conveying his thoughts, and was also good at coming up with multiple ways to explain the same concept for people who were struggling.\n\r\nFair exams too. Don't expect much of a curve, but you shouldn't need it since he's fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-03-21T00:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Fawzi is an excellent professor. I went into his class not having any programming experience and I came out with a great foundation in Java. He really enjoys teaching, so his enthusiasm made the class fun and interesting. His grading is very fair and he is very helpful and personable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-02-07T09:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': None, 'review': "I had Fawzi for both CMSC131 and CMSC132, and got A's in both classes, although both of my A's were very challenging and I worked hard to make sure I did well. If you are reading this page for 131 or 132, please take Fawzi's class. However, for an upper level class (meaning 250, 351, or in my experience 389C winter class) please do not take Fawzi unless it is necessary. He taught CMSC389C for the first time and threw so much material and difficult concepts at us in a 3 week winter class (without a TA or office hours), that half the class didn't finish the final project, and since the final project was so difficult and right at the time of the final exam (who gives a final exam for winter class?), the class average was horrendous as well. He was reluctant to curve, and even then it didn't make up for an extremely difficult class with very little allowance for people with no knowledge of C++. Hopefully he improves it in the future, but please take Nelson's winter class or someone else's class, trust me, you'll be better off.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-02-04T04:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Excellent teacher, obviously I'm not the only one with this opinion looking at others people's appraisals. He knows java in and out, explains everything you need to know about the upcoming projects and he's just a likable person. His great personality makes the class bearable. If you have to take CMSC131, try to take it with Fawzi.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-19T19:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': None, 'review': 'Fantastic. Explains concepts very well, with very good examples, is helpful at office hours, and very friendly and approachable. Not an easy A, but you will learn lots.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-09-01T11:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132H', 'review': 'Fawzi is a great guy. Really nice and respectful to students and he understands students very well. He is very funny too and an interesting teacher. He will often start the class saying "What the hell am I doing right now?" or something like that because he will chat with students almost to the point that he forgets he has to teach. But don\'t worry, you will always get through all the material for the day and you will understand it well enough. Biggest recommendation: start the projects early. You will be amazed at how good you feel and the stuff you can do when you\'ve already finished your CS project early.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-14T22:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Awesome professor. Makes sense of difficult concepts. Students of other professors always come in and sit in on his lecture because he is always a better teacher. \r\nHis exams are really easy also. He gives 2 mid terms and one final, about 8 quizzes, and 8 projects. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-01-02T16:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': None, 'review': 'Fawzi is an excellent teacher. He won the teacher of the year award at the University of Maryland in 2006 and after taking his course I can definitely say he deserves this. Fawzi is one of the most helpful, interesting, and knowledgeable teachers at the University. If you get him as your teacher you will be very lucky because his teaching methods are exceptional and you will learn a lot. He is not an easy professor though and many of his tasks are quite challenging, but he does value hard work and effort. Fawzi deserves the 6 golden stars!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-21T02:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'He is a great teacher, he is fun to listen to, he has a great way of making difficult concepts easy to understand, and he is quite approachable. Very nice.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-07T12:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Not all professors are great communicators; Fawzi exceeded my expectations, providing excellent information in easily understood terms. Fawzi's classes had a good energy, making it easy to ask questions and get clear, concise answers.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-09-05T23:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I dropped this class. he caters to those who already know the programming language. yes, he has a good personality, but if you don't know the material to begin with, expect to fail. not my fave.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-08-31T12:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Fawzi really is a excellent teacher, definitely one of the best at UMD. He explains everything extremely well, providing concrete examples along with easy-to-understand explanations of the material. I didn't have to buy anything for the class (books), just go to class and you will get a good grade, which is easy because the class is very enjoyable. If you can, definitely take a class with Fawzi.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-08-06T11:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Had him for 131 and he is damn good. One of the best profs in the CS department.\n\r\nHowever, there is a downside, in that if you don't know some level of programming before walking in, you will have trouble. This is partially because Fawzi does not curve extra to cope with kids who know code inside out and still take the class.\n\r\nAs his GPA spreads say, he is a tough professor, and curves pretty minimally, but in the end, he is a solid teacher. Regardless of the grade you get, you will know the material to a good extent.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-12T19:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': None, 'review': "Fawzi is one of the greatest professors I have ever had. He's the most friendly guy in the world and explains everything with great clarity.\n\r\nClass was never boring and, unlike some other CMSC classes, he backed up all his notes with actual code and showed us how it all worked.\n\r\nFantastic.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-11T17:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'the best professor Ive ever had in all of my educational experience. Very approachable, very cool, very nice. Ver good person, i wish he taught all my cmsc courses. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-29T01:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Probably the best teacher I have ever had in college. Don't bother buying the textbook; just go to his lectures and you'll learn everything you need to. He's very friendly and approachable outside of class and will always try his best to help students out. He is pretty fair when it comes to tests, quizzes and projects - you will be challenged, but you will also learn a lot from him as long as you study.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-12T22:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Fawzi is a great professor, he's incredibly approachable and he'll help you with any problems you're having. His class wasn't a walk in the park but it also wasn't made any more difficult than it had to be. Fawzi's exams were fair and he taught you what was necessary to understand the material you were expected to know. \r\nOne problem was that the book required for 131 was not even mentioned once by Fawzi, I assume the only reason it's required was for the other professor's lecture and sections. Make sure that the text is going to be used before you buy it for this class. \r\nAlso, Fawzi is a computer science advisor for non-freshmen, and he's really nice if you come in wanting to get advice about classes. He's just generally a cool guy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2007-11-29T05:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Excellent professor, one of my favorites. His lectures are interesting and he's a fun guy. He does an excellent job explaining material and caters to the beginners in the class. Will definitely be looking for him teaching other courses I need to take.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-08T01:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I took a class with Fawzi a few semesters ago, and he is still the best professor I've had. This was the first comp sci class I took at UMD, and he went into great detail about all subjects, while still keeping the class interesting. I went to just about every class (something I never do now) because I knew I'd learn a lot and have a fun time. Great guy, great teacher...if you have the option, take a class with him", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-06T18:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Fawzi's way of explaining the material really makes it stick. I'm not sure what it is. He just makes you see why a concept is useful or why it matters and the explains it in a logical manner. Everything just clicks. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:37:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'This guy is both hilarious and very passionate about teaching. My favourite teacher so far! Take him whenever you can', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-11T05:00:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Excellent lecturer! This was my favorite class to go to. The projects are interesting the exams were not too bad. Take that with a grain of salt since I have programmed before. He posts weekly study questions and those are the guide to acing the exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-17T22:29:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Fantastic professor, he is very engaging and pretty funny. The course (CMSC131) covers a lot of ground, so things move very fast-paced, but Fawzi does a great job covering everything. Study Questions are great for exam preparation (but not sufficient alone). Projects are not too difficult but become increasingly more time-consuming as the semester progresses, thus starting early is a good idea. Exams are very fair, not too difficult, not too easy. Things that are passed by in lecture may show up on the exam, so it is a good idea to make it to every lecture and take detailed notes. Definitely practice writing chunks of code on paper if you are not used to it, those are usually the most difficult portions of the exams and you won\'t have a lot of time to think of how to go about the problem, so it\'s important to know your approach immediately. Do the labs, the code that you have to write in those often resemble the code problems on the exams. Fawzi is superb at explaining abstract concepts and their practicality. The class is not an "easy A", but if you put in the work then you should be fine and will certainly learn a lot. The man is good at his job.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-11-20T22:16:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'One of the best computer science instructors I have ever had. He is extremely organized, and is great at explaining new topics in lecture. He is enthusiastic when teaching and wants to see you succeed. I would prioritize signing up for his class over anyone else. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-13T03:33:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Fawzi is a good lecturer, has good explanations. He is sometimes rude to students, specifically women, in lecture and in office hours.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-13T20:43:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Everything I want to say has already been said by all the 5-star ratings of Fawzi Emad! This man is an enthusiastic, organized, well-spoken professor who is passionate about whatever he teaches. Of course, if you don't put effort into reviewing concepts and doing the CS projects early, your grade will reflect that. \r\n\r\nI liked his teaching style. Very straightforward and to the point, plus his humor to enhance the learning environment. Fawzi is surely the way to go when deciding which professor to learn from! In fact, I'm taking him again for CMSC132 and CMSC250 this semester :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-01-21T16:44:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi is a solid lecturer. He explains concepts extremely well and is generally very articulate and well-spoken. \r\nHowever that being said, his quizzes for CMSC132 are unnecessarily difficult and he's often rude and condescending if you approach him at office hours. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-04-17T13:27:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "This review gives 2 stars for his 132. (For his 250, it will be 4 stars.)\r\nI take his 132 after reading reviews of his 131 here, and realize that his 132 is pretty hard. He delivers content a bit fast in class, while the materials he provides on the website are not good enough to study for quizzes and exams. His quiz drives me mad. If you take his 132, you'd better take notes carefully and make sure everything is covered.\r\nOn the other hand, I recommend his 250, it's much easier than his 132, cool and relaxing. \r\nBy the way, he's really strict, just don't miss any assignment. I feel like he's not quite approachable.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-04-22T00:40:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I had Fawzi for CMSC131 and CMSC132.\r\n\r\nPros: He is a really good lecturer that keeps students engaged and makes normally hard material easy to understand via great analogies, detailed examples, and in-class demonstrations.\r\n\r\nCons: Beware of pop quizzes. Also, there are instances of him giving difficult projects. Additionally, in his office hours, he tends to be a bit more condescending that what his lecturing style implies.\r\n\r\nOverall, my experience in his class has been a positive one. You will definitely learn a lot from him. However, be prepared to put in a lot of work every day.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-28T01:56:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Yes, he's a good lecturer. He was horrible for 132 regardless. Incessant pop quizzes. Rude during office hours. Unfair exams. I've heard only good thing for his 131 class but don't drink the Kool-Aid: Fawzi isn't all that. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-06-01T22:20:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': '132 with him was drastically different from 131. Pop quizzes were really difficult and he was kind of a douchebag in office hours.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-06-16T06:45:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Great Lecturer', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-08-06T04:17:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Trust these reviews. Fawzi knows how to teach CS to beginners unlike any other professor in the department. I came in with absolutely no knowledge of Java and got an A+. By no means is his 131 class easy, conversely it is actually very difficult. I am a business major adding CS and this was definitely the hardest class I've ever taken. You need to work really hard and study literally every day to do well in this course. Fawzi is an astounding lecturer and if you sit in the front, ask questions, and take notes on everything he says, you can do well. Fawzi is miles better than any other professor (including Nelson/Pedram) for CMSC131. Take him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-08-11T14:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Fawzi is pretty overrated. Maybe it's just me since everyone else seems to love him, but he was under-prepared for class almost every single lecture. Maybe its because I was his first class of the day, not entirely sure, but he'd frequently forget about slides or not have materials ready. His lecturing style was alright, but nowhere near as phenomenal as people make it out to be.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-08-15T06:01:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I had Fawzi for both CMSC 131 and 132. I felt that his class for 131 was far better planned and overall the projects and exams were fair. However, for 132 his quizzes were a disaster, his teaching got more confusing, and whenever students approached him in office hours he was extremely rude. Honestly the most overhyped CS professor at UMD ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-08-19T20:59:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Fawzi is AMAZING! I don\'t see how anybody could give him a negative review. He is a true professional who loves teaching and cares deeply about his students. He\'s the best natural "teacher" I\'ve ever had (including college and high school). The lectures were informative and held my attention the whole time. He was also very helpful and encouraging to me during office hours. I wish I could take another class with Fawzi!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-11-16T22:58:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Fawzi is an amazing proffesor, one of the best in CMSC. He makes topics that could be really hard as easy as possible. Homework always fits well with the exams. Warning that he has a dry sense of humor so if you're not prepared for it you might think he's making fun of you. Hilarious and cares about his students.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-27T20:28:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'I was worried taking this class with basically no cs experience, but fawzi definitely made everything feel doable. His lectures are great and because of the way his slides are made, you HAVE to attend every lecture if you don’t have a strong background. His quizzes are also very easy but he doesn’t drop so you have to make sure you go to every lecture and consistently stay up to date with his study questions. The two midterms are almost entirely straightforward questions and are very simple to study for by looking at past quizzes/study questions. The projects are easy A’s if you start them the day you’re assigned, which I made a habit.\r\n\r\nOverall, this class was the most time consuming class I’ve had so far, but also one where I learned the most. I definitely recommend taking fawzi, as I believe you’ll learn the most from him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T05:46:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi is a good lecturer. I will give him credit in that he is able to present the material clearly and in a way you will understand. However, as a human being, he is very rude. He constantly is making comments to make himself sound so much better than you. He is rude in office hours about your concerns. I felt as though he did not take the time to feel the concerns or engage with the students. There were plenty of comments he made in class that left me feeling offended or upset. That being said, if you do not care about personality, he teaches well. If you want to have a good relationship with a professor, or are the kind of person who needs office hours with a professor, don't take his class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-07T21:19:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi is a pretty solid lecturer for beginners and his exams are pretty fair. He is open to explaining any conceptual problems you have about what he's teaching (as long as you're willing to wait in the long line for him). \r\nHowever, his quizzes and some of his later projects can be much more difficult than how he formatted them in CMSC131. Specifically for the quizzes, some of them seemed straight up unfair (considering the resources his class provided and the content we had covered). \r\n\r\nI would say that his CMSC132 class is doable, but be prepared for the spike in difficulty transitioning from his CMSC131 class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-06-09T16:42:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "AMAZING professor. Clearly always prepared for his lectures, makes everything understandable and attention-holding, and easy to talk to. Great class even if you haven't done CS before. Overall, I had a great time in his classes (took CMSC131 and 132 with him). Projects are doable and interesting but will take time. He also has pop quizzes (better in 131 than 132 there). I learned so much from him!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-25T00:00:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Fawzi is the best! He knows the material inside and out. If you watch his lectures, you\'ll understand everything. He\'s really good at explaining even the most difficult concepts. He\'s also a fun person with a great sense of humor that he uses to make the class even more enjoyable. I get the feeling he has a low tolerance for "whiners", which might explain some of the lower ratings. Lol', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-10-13T01:06:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I had Fawzi for both 131 and 132. He's definitely the professor you want for either of these, if you really want to learn the material. His lectures are easy to follow and he makes the class interesting and fun. He's also very friendly outside of class. I went to his office about 6 times and he was always welcoming and helpful.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-10-28T19:25:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Had him for 132 in Spring 2020 and I couldn't recommend him more. Some other reviews say he's rude but I never got that vibe from him. In fact, he's one of the kindest and most humble professors I've had. He genuinely cares about his students. If you have to choose a prof to take online, I'd recommend Fawzi. He handled the transition to online learning very well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-29T18:38:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Such an awesome teacher for 131 and 132. He's fun and fair, and he's a good lecturer that makes sure you understand the material–as long as you pay attention during his lectures and show up, you can do really well in the class.\r\n\r\nHe also let me take my first 131 exam in his office after I accidentally slept through it, so I pretty much owe this man my life.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-02T17:43:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'The actual GOAT. I have minimal background programming experience and took this class to see if I enjoyed CS. Fawzi was a great professor with a great sense of humor and very fair exams/quizzes. He taught me so much about CS and I am very glad I took it with him, plan on taking 132 with him next semester to. If you can, take Fawzi.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-03T18:34:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Really enjoyed his class - though lectures were recorded online, I was never bored when watching them, plus he makes the content really easy to understand for a beginner CS course; plus, quizzes + projects were not bad - would definitely reccommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-05T01:27:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Fawzi was a solid professor with quality lectures and enjoyable, reasonable projects. His lectures were asynchronous and you had all day to watch them, which was convenient. If you enjoy challenges, then I guarantee you will like his Soldiers project which was a lot of fun to work with. The biggest downside is that his quizzes are little tough and can be tight on time. He also comes off a bit rude in his class-wide emails, however whenever I personally emailed him, he was receptive and kind.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T15:49:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "He''s a great professor and all his lectures explain the concepts thoroughly. During COVID his lectures are recorded and it mandatory to watch for a grade. He posts them a day early. His exams and quizzes are timed. He makes silly jokes in his lecture and overall, I definitely recommend him as a professor for this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-15T00:47:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I took Fawzi for 131 and will be taking him again for 132 in the spring. He is a great lecturer, explaining concepts well and then illustrating them with examples. He also keeps them fairly entertaining (which is hard to do with pre-recorded lectures, I'm sure his in-person classes are even better). All of the projects were fairly straightforward and most of the time you end up with a cool final product. If you watch all his lectures and study your lecture notes, you'll do fine on quizzes/exams. He covers everything that winds up on his tests in his lectures.\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-26T22:22:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I am a rising senior in CS and Fawzi is one of the best teachers that I have had alongside Teli. He explains the concepts well and is good at gauging what a freshman understands better than Yoon. You can't go wrong with taking him or Nelson. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-01-03T23:45:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Solid lecturer, though wouldn't recommend taking him if you don't do well under pressure due to the time constraints he had for tests/quizzes.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-01-11T00:45:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "His lectures (which were asynchronous) were always out in a timely manner, and when they weren't he would give you an extra two or three days to watch them. His lectures were not only well-taught and understandable but also entertaining, as he constantly cracks jokes. He is also very responsive to emails.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-13T21:19:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I had Fawzi for 131 last semester and he did an outstanding job. I really felt like I learned the material completely. I can't recommend him enough.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-04-02T22:09:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Good lecturer, although he gave less time than some other professors for quizzes and exams which made them somewhat difficult.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-04-20T01:57:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Online lectures are asynchronous and are informative and well structured with lots of examples. Weekly Wednesday quizzes can be challenging but most of the time was on recent material. Exams and quizzes are both timed, however, the time given is reasonable and the content of the assessments is also reasonable. Also had Fawzi for CMSC131 last semester (Fall 2020 - Online) and enjoyed him thoroughly. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-04T17:30:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Prof. Fawzi is super reasonable and super knowledgeable. I would choose him over Nelson again (although I hear Nelson is great too). I loved the projects and the lectures were always informative and easy to understand. The quizzes are challenging but not unreasonable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-08T20:12:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'This semester was definitely an improvement from last semester when I took 131 with him. Fawzi kept up with the informative lectures and related coding examples, providing helpful study questions, and assigning projects and discussion assignments relevant to the course material. The quizzes and exams were much better time-wise this semester, hence me actually doing better this semester since I get stressed under a ton of pressure. Lectures were almost always out ahead of time, so we had plenty of time to watch them, and quizzes and exams always tested material that was on the lectures. I definitely recommend taking the class with him if possible!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-26T15:40:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Absolute King of a prof. He's as funny as he is knowledgeable, and is an all-around great choice. His lectures are entertaining and informative, and he will pause periodically and wait for someone to raise their hand. After each lecture, he'll post his slides and any code he used in class as examples. As someone who's had a few years of experience in Java, the projects are challenging but always fair and well-implemented (and there's always a TA who can help you). Each week, he'll post practice questions that he'll occasionally directly copy onto quizzes and exams. The quizzes are easy but frequent enough that you're always forced to keep up with the information. The exams can be challenging but are never impossible. In each discussion section, he'll give a lab that is very reflective of any quiz or exam coding questions. \r\n\r\nOverall, Fawzi makes you want to learn and understand the info and I can't recommend him enough. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-08T22:26:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'I LOVED FAWZI! He is the best CS professor you can ask for! His lecture is fun and easy to understand, his quizzes and exams are super easy. And he will give you a head start on the upper-level course, so it will be easier when you get to the higher-level CS course! !! There are also chances for you to be engaged in competition in his course where he will give out prizes to you and make you feel like a STAR! ! ! ALSO, his projects are super easy and some you can even put on your resume! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-13T00:20:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Compared to Pedram, who I had for the same course, Fawzi taught this better in almost every way. He's very enthusiastic, makes jokes, and really tries to make sure the class understands difficult concepts before moving on. For really difficult things, he'll always tell you if it is testable material. Besides that, his quizzes are generally easy, projects can be finished in a couple of days, and the exams are fair. Also, this TAs this semester were very helpful whenever I did have problems with a project.\r\n\r\nI would recommend choosing him regardless of your experience with Java.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-15T00:19:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Extremely easy to understand, excellent lecturer, very charismatic, and knowledgeable on the subject. Just all-around an excellent professor. He is incredibly invested in making sure his students understand the concepts, which is why he doesn't allow laptops in any of his lectures, but don't let that scare you off at all. Don't skip a class, start all the projects early, and you will easily pass this class. I will definitely take him for 132 next semester. \r\n\r\nI have heard that he can be very egotistical and arrogant in one-on-one conversations, but that's never happened to me. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T01:44:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi is one of the best lecturers at this university. He's very clear with describing topics, and goes through a lot of examples in class (which are posted) to help you understand the topics. I would strongly advise against skipping lecture since his slides are very basic, so you want to make sure that you are taking good notes. You do have weekly quizzes in discussion, but if you take notes and make sure that you understand the material, you should be fine. His exams are pretty straight forward, but he doesn't have practice exams for you to study from. He does however model his exams off of the quizzes and weekly study questions that he posts, so I would say they are pretty manageable (no trick questions). Office hours are also pretty helpful (usually run from 9-5 every weekday) for clarifying topics. Some of the projects can be a little tricky, but if you start early and go to office hours you'll be completely fine. I think he has a slight curve (couple of points) based on the class averages. I had him for both 131 and 132, and would definitely recommend taking him if you want a solid understanding of intro CS concepts and data structures!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-21T19:28:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'I’m glad I chose Fawzi for 131, and I would take him again for 132 if my schedule allowed me to do so.\r\n\r\nAs a beginner, I felt like his lectures were effective because his teaching style somehow got the material to stick in my head. He is straight to the point, but also occasionally throws in some humor to keep the class engaged. Lectures never really felt rushed, I think he was good at time management and knew when to cut off a lecture to not rush a topic. \r\n\r\nI’m not really sure if he has office hours, but TA hours (from 9-6) were a godsend. I don’t think I would’ve passed this class without his TAs. The TAs were helpful for getting me through the projects, but they also seemed to help other students with any questions about course content. \r\n\r\nThere were 2 major exams throughout the semester and 1 final. I thought they were all fair questions - study the study questions and notes from lecture, as well as last quizzes. Quizzes were basically weekly and also fair. The front of the worksheet was usually multiple choice or short answer questions, and the back was a coding question, and you had 20 minutes to do the quiz.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T17:24:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Really nice and made class enjoyable to come to', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-03T03:22:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Fawzi was pretty nice and his TAs were wonderful. I appreciated his teaching style (giving the specifics of each topic we covered) and discussing the concepts before jumping straight into the code. The weekly quizzes were a bit of a drag, but they did make sure that I learned and retained the material. Exams seemed fair and I would've taken him for 132 if I didn't have schedule conflicts.\r\n\r\nDO NOT SKIP CLASS THOUGH! He does not record and the slides are very barebones.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-18T20:44:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'I took Fawzi for both CMSC131 and 132 in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022, respectively. He is an amazing lecturer and a "fair" professor. 98% of what will be on a test is what he has taught in class, but sometimes throws 1 or 2 multiple choice questions that he briefly mentioned. Moreover, the teacher assistants are super helpful: I can\'t make it in his class without their support, especially when it\'s for coding projects and reviewing for midterms (they make review slides and coding examples in my semester, and I hope the next TA will do that too). I never have an office hour with Fawzi, but the TAs are more than enough (he recruits amazing ones). \r\n\r\nThere are 3 advices to give to new students who take his class:\r\n1. DO NOT SKIP CLASS! Fawzi posts lecture slides but most are similar to outlines. To truly understand it, it\'s better to attend classes and see his thinking processes with examples and drawings. He is strict with time, so he prioritizes delivering all the contents he has for the lecture first then asking questions second.\r\n2. START PROJECTS EARLY! The day Fawzi posts the announcement that the next project is available is the day you should start right away! The TAs are there to help you. Immediately go to them if you don\'t know how to start. Don\'t wait until the last 4 days, unless you love being in a long queue of ~20 students (each takes like 5 minutes, give or take another 5).\r\n3. REVIEW LECTURES WEEKLY! Fawzi usually gives weekly quizzes and it\'s a good way to know what you need to review for midterms. I regret that I didn\'t do this weekly, which gave me lots of stress the day before the quiz or exam. This not only maintains good scores for all assignments during the semester but also helps you solidify your understanding of all contents for the final.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n- Great lectures (easy and clear to understand, good examples)\r\n- Fair exams (what you have learned)\r\n- Supportive, friendly, and super helpful TAs\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Exams: because he tests all of what you have learned (some topics appears a lot and some only appears once), you have no idea what will worth lots of points. You study EVERYTHING, which is just ... a lot.\r\n- He doesn\'t record lectures (maybe once or twice if it\'s Friday before a holiday weekend).\r\n- Optional: "nerds" who ask a lot of advanced questions at the front and interrupts the lectures.\r\n\r\nPS: I failed the final (D), but all other assignments were high (B+). They balanced out.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-04-27T16:24:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I'm really happy to take Fawzi again for CMSC132 (it was a close call because there was only one available spot left for me, probably someone dropped out), mostly because I like his teaching styles and his TAs. \r\n\r\n3 tips to get good grades in his class:\r\n1. Don't skip the lectures! Fawzi doesn't record his lectures\r\n2. Start projects early! You don't want to come to TA office hours 2-3 days before the due date\r\n3. Review weekly! There are weekly quizzes (don't get discouraged because you get low grades, it's a good review for midterms and final)\r\n\r\nThe only thing that is challenging in his course is that you have to study everything for his tests (no idea what he will put on specifically - you know what lectures he will cover, but the contents are massive). It's fair but difficult, sometimes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-04-27T16:33:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "If you ever have the opportunity to take him for 132, seize it. Fawzi is funny, knowledgeable, and honest. If you want to do well in his class, I would recommend:\r\n\r\n1) Starting Projects Early! Looking at the description is a good start, but I would suggest trying to code as much as you can, submitting, and reviewing the results from the submit server. If you are confused, try to debug the code yourself before seeing a TA.\r\n2) Attending Lectures! Fawzi's lectures are usually entertaining, but he knows when the content is boring and when students like to skip. Sometimes he will give you the topics for the quizzes and coding tricks. \r\n3) Attending Discussions! Discussions usually focus on coding and other technical things which are tested or used in a project. It's in your best interest to show up, do the lab, and ask for help. If you finish the lab, you can usually ask your TA questions about the class or the project.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-11T02:05:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi is by far the best professor I've ever had (I'm only a freshman btw). His lectures are extremely informative and easy to follow, so DON'T MISS A SINGLE ONE! (He doesn't record them) Fawzi's exams and quizzes are extremely fair, and his projects weren't lifeless. I had Nelson for 131 and he was also a good option that had his pros, but Fawzi's projects are more satisfying when completed. Fawzi's projects often have GUIs that make you feel a sense of accomplishment after completing them. If I could, I would take every CS class with him. Yea he doesn't allow you to have laptops out, but you really don't need them in the first place to be able to follow through. Take his class and you won't regret it unless you never go to office hours or you start your projects late. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-11T18:56:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "This might be an unpopular opinion because everyone seems to love Fawzi at UMD, but he's just not my type of lecturer. He goes through topics super fast during class and his speed of talking is just a little too fast for me to comprehend. Can't doubt that he genuinely loves what he does and is always really enthusiastic about class though.\r\n\r\nMy least favorite fact about him is that he never records lectures. Sometimes if you're lucky he'll record them on religious holidays but other than that if you ever miss a class you're screwed. I had to miss class for a lot of personal reasons and it really brought me behind and I struggled to bring my grade back up. \r\n\r\nAdditionally, we only had 2 exams throughout the whole course. We literally learned about every type of data structure within one unit and were tested on it all at once. This is simply just too much information for one exam while most other 132 lecturers had at least 3 or four exams. Splitting it up would've not only helped my grade but would have allowed me to focus more on specific topics for specific exams. I just always felt super overwhelmed around exam time because they were pretty much making or breaking your grade. \r\n\r\nAlso it's a good idea to remember that he's not as lenient as Nelson. He doesn't allow computers or phones during class and he usually won't do any extensions unless you have a really good reason. His exams seem to be more difficult than Nelson's but a lot of people are okay with that since they like his style of teaching. This is all just me speaking from personal preference though.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-13T07:35:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi is an incredible lecturer who cares about his students learning and understanding the material. He's been teaching 132 for a while, so his materials for the course - including lectures, labs, and projects - are incredibly polished. It is also evident that he frequently practices giving his lectures in order to stay on top of his game. The material felt well-paced and, even though there were only two midterms, the testable material felt fair and it was not hard to succeed if you took good notes in lecture and sought extra help when needed.\r\n\r\nWith that in mind, make sure to take good notes in lecture! Fawzi does not allow the use of laptops for taking notes, and he does not record his lectures. You will need to be on top of your game and write things down in a way that really helps you to understand the content because the lecture outlines he posts online are really not so helpful. Also, start projects early. They are a joy to complete, and procrastinating will really hurt you with some of the projects in this course.\r\n\r\nIf you have the option to take Fawzi for 132, do it. He is a top-notch professor and a cut above the rest of the instructors for this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-18T13:49:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Unpopular opinion but without bluff like some of these other reviews. (NOTE: I had Nelson first semester and received a very good grade so 132 with Fawzi was a shock. I have completed the course but chose to leave it optional out of confidentiality).\r\n\r\nFawzi is too fast paced in lecture. On top of that his powerpoint are next to useless and he doesn't record lectures. On top of that he doesn't give fair exams in my opinion. I will admit the midterms were fair, but they test the smallest details which you wouldn't need in the real world or which a compiler would pick up. For example, on one of the exams I declared a variable incorrectly, with the rest of my code is logically and syntax correct I only received 2/14 points. I approach external TA's who said I should receive points, but when I approached Fawzi on the regrade he refused to give points back and gave an excuse as to why. In additions we only had 2 exams unlike other classes, where they would split we had all of OO(Object oriented programming) and the entire second exam on every DS (data structure). \r\n\r\nOutside of the course work to sum up Fawzi in a few words:\r\n- shrewd/out right disrespectful \r\n - Doesn't help in office hours. Always acts like he's better and we know nothing.\r\n- not lenient at all\r\n - Was sick and couldn't make it for a quiz. Fawzi told me either to come for the quiz or receive a 0 (this was the second time I was sick and couldn't use a self attested note). Especially for a time while we are still in a pandemic this was out right disrespectful and foolish that he is willing to risk the health of his TA's and students for a quiz. \r\n- doesn't care about his students mental or physical health\r\n - Over this semester I was struggling with my mental health a bit and when I approached Fawzi about his essential response was I don't care. He is not as nice and caring as nelson, I didn't receive any help throughout the course during this. Outside of that office hours were always packed and the TA's were quite bad. \r\n- comes off as some high achieving professor with lots of publications and no time for his students when in reality he's a lecture (massive ego problem)\r\n\r\nOutside of this his class is taught like we are all high end comp sci people who know what we're doing. His exams once again are more difficult than nelsons. If you could I would avoid Fawzi at all cost and take Nelson. Nelson was one of the best professors I've had across all departments. \r\n\r\nOther Notes (sorry if repetitive to some other parts of the review):\r\n- Doesn't give practice exams\r\n- Doesn't tell us a concept list like Nelson or any other teachers\r\n- Refuses to record lecture \r\n- Steep late penalty (20% off your highest score if submitted at or after 11pm. 100% off after submitting 24hrs after the deadline).\r\n- 1 practice packet with questions that don't resemble exams a week\r\n- Quizzes were very hard for weekly assignments (we also didn't know the context)\r\n- Purposely goes into harder concepts which aren't relevant material to the course (refers to 351 and theoretical CS concepts we don't learn a lot). \r\n- Final Exam is the worst. 30% of the grade. Everything we wouldn't have been tested on for an FRQ was there. You cannot expect first time students with no experience to come in and redo parts of their project by hand. You cannot make students code out concepts you referred to for 5minutes in a lecture. You cannot make students code a question we have never seen a code example for and something which was barely touched in class. A final is cumulative that includes everything we were taught not everything after the midterms and the concepts we barely went over. \r\n- Labs also aren't too helpful and I think he should adjust the labs to have a due date of completion so students actually do then and cut down on the weight of the final exam. a final worth 30% dropped by grade from B to (well you can do the math for that :)). \r\n- Projects in others classes are worth way more overall than ours. \r\n\r\nFinal thoughts: I wish I took nelson when I had the opportunity to while registering. If I could go back into that time and choose nelson I would've probably got a B+ at the lowest. Nelson's exams side by side Fawzi's are much easier on relevant materials and won't make or break your grade such as Fawzi. Unlike the other reviews I can't say that he enjoys teaching. From what I experienced he enjoys the idea of being the smartest in the room at what he does which isn't a trait for a good teacher.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-18T14:30:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi had a lot of positives that really made the semester quite good! His lectures are very informative and he's very good at what he does. After I left a lecture, I really felt like I knew what I was doing. I completely understood each thing he taught. The review before mine wraps up my thoughts completely, but I will reiterate them.\r\n\r\nFawzi, like was stated, is a VERY good professor which will make sure you understand his concepts. I had Nelson for 131 and switched to Fawzi for 132. Altogether, I highly prefer Fawzi. Lecturing is better, exams better reflect what we've learned, labs are useful, and the quizzes were fair. All in all, so long as you studied you should be fine. \r\n\r\nAs for criticism, I am not a big fan that he didn't record lectures. It makes it hard to catch up or do well if you have any need to miss class. I also had been a bit upset initially when he said no computers in class, but those who wanted to takes notes on it ended up ignoring it and taking notes anyways. He does try to hold people at the end of class and gets upset if you leave early. There was only 2 exams which were weighted heavily which also covered an extremely large amount of information.\r\n\r\nAll in all, I would absolutely recommend taking Fawzi if you want a strong foundation in CS fundamentals and data structures as a whole. However, it may be best to not take him if you are to not keen on going to every class or if you think that you aren't going to really put in the time to study for every exam.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-19T20:45:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi continues to be an excellent CS prof as he maintained his sense of humor and teaching style that he had in 131. Any tips are obvious things you should already be doing (going to class, starting projects early, etc). The only problem I had with his class was that there were only 2 midterms, the second of which had an enormous amount of information that was covered. The projects can be challenging, but most of the TAs are great resources for help on class or project material. The final was fairly daunting and could've been designed better, but nevertheless, I would absolutely take Fawzi again if I could. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T23:02:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'He\'s a decent lecturer, but still confused as to why he is so overrated. I definitely do not think his lectures are boring, I did get sleepy a lot of the times but that\'s probably because I had 8AM classes and was always extremely tired. He makes jokes and I think he tries to be an engaging professor. I will however say that he uses his pencil and a paper to visualize what he is describing, and his handwriting is very ineligible and he has to erase so many times that I can\'t help but bother about the amount of eraser dust he produces. I wish he just uses a tablet when he wants to draw things.\r\n\r\nWhat I disliked the most was his lecture slides that he makes on his own, which severely lacked a lot of information. He seems to hate the lecture slides the CS department made but the department\'s slides are far more helpful. He doesn\'t record lectures because he wants to encourage students to attend to his lectures, so you kind of always have to attend his lectures since you will miss out a lot if you are absent as his lecture slides are lackluster, but frankly, if you study the department\'s slides, I don\'t think his lectures and slides were particularly helpful at all.\r\n\r\nAside from that, he is extremely unapproachable. I\'m not sure if he is "rude" per se as I haven\'t had a proper conversation with him, and he can be pretty sweet like asking "how are you?" to his students, but when someone asks him questions, he can be really condescending. I think I asked him questions only two times throughout the semester, during the exam and after the lecture, and both of the times he was very cold. Maybe I was asking dumb questions to his eyes, because he does seem to love whenever his top students ask advanced questions during the lecture.\r\n\r\nI think he also makes his exams on his own, and in my opinion, those are much harder than the practice exams provided by the department. I did decently on the second midterm and the final exam, but I did pretty badly on the first midterm, which hurt my grade the most, because I had no idea his exams would be as difficult. I\'m not saying his exams are the worst, but you definitely need to study consistently on everything that he covers, and he also teaches things that the department curriculum does not seem to include just because he "likes" those particular topics.\r\n\r\nHis projects are enjoyable though. You might not wrap your head around initially for some projects, but once you do, they\'re pretty easy to solve, and the GUI he makes for some projects are quite fun. I still can\'t figure out the solutions for his secret tests however...', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-06-07T12:27:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Fawzi is a fantastic professor. Yes, he doesn't record lectures(unless on a religious holiday or if he is sick), but this encourages you to attend class and pay attention. His two midterms were COMPLETELY fair-game, and his final exam was difficult but was not as hard as I thought it would be. The secret to doing well in his course? Study his notes and lecture examples every day after class. His exam questions are ALWAYS based on his lecture examples and slides. Be diligent in your studying, and make use of his office hours, as they run 8-5, Monday-Friday, administered by TA's who are extremely knowledgeable and will help you with not only projects, but concepts as well that may seem confusing to you during lecture.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-07-06T16:51:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He's good at explaining the concepts... but that's the only plus point I have for him. \r\nHe's got his TAs taking points off for missing a semicolon or parenthesis - that's not how coding works and losing points on things like that teaches you nothing relevant to being a programmer in the real world. He also speeds through his lectures and doesn't really save much time for answering questions. If you ask him a question outside the syllabus, a lot of the time his answer is 'I don't know.' Basically, he knows the material and not much past that. Also, he doesn't record his lectures so if you miss a class because you're sick or something like that, good luck catching up :( He isn't very understanding if you have to miss the weekly quiz (yes, there's a stressful quiz every week) for any reason that's not 'I'm severely ill' - he won't even reschedule. He also doesn't allow laptops in lectures - and taking handwritten notes for a CS class isn't really easy (in fact it doesn't make sense IMO). \r\nYou'll get the A if you work for it, but I know for a fact that you wouldn't have to work so hard if you managed to get a spot in one of Nelson's classes instead.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-15T02:06:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'he talks too fast he is annoying and he is not beginner friendly', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-17T00:59:41.248431Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Fawzi is harder than Nelson. He is a better teacher, but he is slightly harder. I would recommend taking him for 131 over Nelson to build a strong foundation though. If you are doubtful of passing though, take Nelson.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-19T17:50:46.611723Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Excellent Professor. He explains concepts really well and gives fun interesting projects. If you're regular, the course won't be too hard for you. There are quizzes every week, but I think they keep you on track and make Comp sci easier overall. Would definitely recommend him for CMSC131 especially if you don't have much experience with programming before.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-02T19:15:35.966347Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': None, 'review': 'Excellent Professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-02T19:16:07.448508Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'The professor teaches really well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-02T19:16:23.807663Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Overall I thought he was a good professor, he teaches pretty well in my opinion (but that may be due to myself having a little of CS experience beforehand) and he\'s pretty interesting! Compared to Nelson, Fawzi sticks to the lecture consistently during the entire time and always teaches till the class ends and I usually enjoy his lectures. He doesn\'t record his lectures unfortunately and doesn\'t allow laptops which wasn\'t the worst for me personally but I think it\'s worth it compared to taking Nelson.\r\n\r\nProjects are a little abstract to start out with but end up usually being for myself. They\'re rewarding because most of his projects are GUI based so you can see the progress of making something work which is fun. Compared to Nelson\'s projects, you learn the content better and just have more fun. Nelson\'s projects are more open ended ish but just aren\'t fun when compared to Fawzi. \r\n\r\nFawzi has almost weekly quizzes that are 15% of your grade and you usually have no idea of how to figure out what will be on the quiz beforehand so usually screwed on what to study for besides the Study Sets he gives you. This is one of my least favorite parts of the class.\r\n\r\nHe has 2 exams which is less than Nelson\'s but doesn\'t give you really any material to study for his exams, unlike how Nelson gives you practice exams for his tests. I feel like tests are not a good descriptor of the content to learn in the class and can sometimes feel like "How was I supposed to know this?" during the exams, but that\'s probably just me not being an absolute CS god unlike some people in the class. \r\n\r\nI think you should definitely take Fawzi over Nelson, Nelson goofs off too much and just doesn\'t have as good of content as Fawzi even if it comes at the cost of being harder. Maybe if you plan on just taking CMSC131 and that\'s it take Nelson but that\'s really the only edge case I can think of', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-07T15:24:54.478470Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nothing on his test is stuff he never discussed in lectures. He's strict but not too strict. In my opinion his projects were very interesting which made it a whole lot easier to do. I highly recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-07T18:22:07.803277Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Fawzi's projects are very interesting, and he is very good at explaining concepts to you. He does a good job of planning question time into his lecture especially on days with harder content, giving you time to really understand it. He has weekly quizzes that account for 15% or so of your grade, these quizzes I find are pretty easy to study for if you go to discussion every time. He gives optional labs during discussion that often reflect the concepts that will be on the quizzes, at least for the programming questions. If he is asking about concepts or has multiple choice questions, you would have to review the study questions ahead of time. The biggest resource for exams and quizzes in this class is your own notes, write down everything he says. A lot of things he says are not on the slides, his slides are for him to remember what to tell you so you can't skip class and easily understand the new material, if you have never seen it before. He doesn't record his lectures either. He also does not allow you to use laptops in class because it is really easy for you to get distracted and do other things so all notes you take are going to be on paper. His exams are easier, and they are fewer exams than Nelson's class, but the tradeoff is you have weekly quizzes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-10T13:33:24.607711Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Fawzi is a good lecturer, and he genuinely deserves a lot of credit for making the course so easy to understand for new comers. That said, my biggest gripe with Fawzi is the way he approaches quizzes and exams; he gives weekly quizzes which, while not difficult, are annoying. Furthermore, Fawzi gives two exams for 131, but he doesn't provide a practice exam for either, which is really just annoying. Still, he's a good lecturer and is good at making sure the content is understandable.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-11T02:51:59.518489Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Fawzi is a great professor and I'm continuing to have him in Spring 2023 for CMSC132. While I'd say his tests can challenge you and question some things as he can bring up some slightly interesting topics on there, the content and the way he lectures is amazing and I am glad to have him again because I'm here to learn and not slack off from what it seems like from Nelson's class. Nelson can seem easy and great, but Fawzi does challenge you and academically pushes you to where you want to be. It may seem subtle at first, but it will start to become more rigorous as time goes on. As someone who normally gets As in classes, this A- does not disappoint and nor would having a B or B+ to say the least.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T04:07:13.585560Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Good lecturer and keeps class engaging. Weekly quizzes were a pain as a mistake will drop the quiz grade to basically a B. Projects were interesting and not too time consuming for me. The finals were kinda hard this year but that might just be me not studying enough. You cannot use electronics during his lectures and he doesn't record his lectures so you have to always be there in person. Overall, good lecturer but you will have to work for a decent grade especially if you have no prior programming experience.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T18:37:37.452685Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Hes a decent lecturer, but he doesn't have lecture recordings like other professors. The main problems I have with his class are his quizzes, exams, projects, and content. Fawzi likes to give weekly quizzes which are annoying to do, he also does not provide any sample exams so you are stuck trying to figure out what will be on there. His projects are quite difficult and you will find yourself at the TA's for most of it. Fawzi also likes to teach more than required, he likes to teach upper level stuff which was annoying considering this is a 131 introductory course.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-20T06:00:13.578106Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "He's a decent lecturer but if you rely on slides for notes you are doomed. Fawzi's slides provide no information and he does not do recorded lectures, so you are stuck with trying to listen and copy down notes. It doesn't help that he talks fast and teaches content outside 131 for upper level courses. He does weekly quizzes and has 2 exams. Both are graded strictly and he does not provide practice exams nor tell you what will be on there. The projects look cool but can quite difficult and you will find yourself at the TA's a lot.\r\n\r\nDO NOT TAKE FAWZI", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-20T06:05:56.444445Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "So I can see the appeal of Fawzi's teaching, however it did not work for me. He made his projects interesting and was overall an interesting person who would take time to delve into concepts using examples in lectures which sounds very helpful. However, I found it quite frustrating when I had been sick for a little over 2 weeks when the only way for me to catch up on what we are learning was through someone else's notes. There not being recordings and how little information there is on his slideshows made catching up nearly impossible for me. Also weekly quizzes were a nussiance since he would not really tell us what topics would exactly be on the quiz. I remember one week, we were learning 2D arrays and the next quiz was coming up, so I thought the quiz would be on 2D arrays. I studies 2D arrays quite a bit, however the quiz was on something completely different. On a random topic taught weeks ago. I guess it can give incentive to be ontop of previous topics but that was quite the nuissance. TAs can be helpful, but they are often crowded and you have to wait your turn for every question you want to ask. Overall, he is a decent lecturer and I see the appeal, but did not work for me, or anyone who needs to review topics through recordings.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2022-12-25T02:09:23.550918Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Amazing professor. Teaches the subject very clearly and obviously loves the subject he teaches as well as teaching itself. Readily engages with students during his lectures. You do need to attend his lectures if you cannot get notes from a classmate though, as he does not record his classes and his lecture slides are really just so he remembers what to say during class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-09T00:31:28.125274Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "If you're stressing over Nelson, Fawzi, or Gonzales, DO NOT CHOOSE FAWZI. He makes you take a quiz every single week and they are literally my downfall. He gives you 3 release tokens that refresh every 24 hours instead of 12. AND THERE ARE ONLY 3. I genuinely love learning and computer science, but his assignments stress me out. I had a better time in Nelson and a better grade. I am literally on the verge of failing this class right now. So I'll be grateful if I even get a C-. There are no recordings and he goes really fast, so good luck if you're a literal beginner in computer science that is struggling to understand.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2023-04-07T01:38:21.694295Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Projects require some thinking. Exam 2 covers lot of material and final exam had tricky questions. The final topics that are taught are not covered by quizzes and exams so things like recursion only showed up on the final exam, not even in the projects. Good lectures but doesn't record, teaches some interesting topics slightly outside Java. Good prof, would recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-25T15:10:13.860030Z'}, {'professor': 'Fawzi Emad', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Projects require some thinking. Exam 2 covers lot of material and final exam had tricky questions. The final topics that are taught are not covered by quizzes and exams so things like recursion only showed up on the final exam, not even in the projects. Good lectures but doesn't record, teaches some interesting topics slightly outside Java. Good prof, would recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-25T15:10:14.559990Z'}], 'name': 'Fawzi Emad', 'slug': 'emad_fawzi'}, {'courses': ['ENTS629A', 'ENTS629C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Fazlul Kabir', 'slug': 'kabir'}, {'courses': ['ITAL103', 'ITAL203', 'ITAL478T', 'ITAL499T', 'ITAL478B', 'ITAL498B', 'ITAL475', 'ITAL478L', 'ITAL478D', 'THET499T', 'MUSC448L'], 'average_rating': 4.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': "Professoressa Deigan is the best Italian teacher you can ask for. She engaging, cares about her students, and is just an excellent teacher. The course is laid out really well and very straight forward. If you do the homework and study, you will excel in this class. Honestly, all you have to do is want to learn Italian, and you'll do awesome. seriously a great teacher, if you don't take her for italian, you're missing out. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-03T01:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': 'Wonderful teacher. I learned a lot of Italian and the course was engaging and nicely taught. She is a very understanding professor and is willing to make time to work with students if you are having trouble with a certain chapter. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-08-21T19:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL203', 'review': 'I loved this class with Professoressa Deigan. I was coming into college with only a minor Italian knowledge from high school and she really helped me blossom into what I consider myself in partial fluency. \r\nShe is a bit different from other professors in that her syllabus is very loosely structured and just decides to change things at certain times. But overal I highly recommend her as your professor for ital103 or ital203. I even decided to take another advanced level ital class with her this upcoming semester', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-01-13T05:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL203', 'review': "Professor Deigan is great. If you put in the work and just study the book for ten minutes everyday, you'll get an A. She loves to give A's you just have to work a little for it. Also, she really hates it if you talk and be rude in class. Because I was polite, sat in the front, and always payed attention to her, she told me that she wanted me to redo a part of a test that I misunderstood the directions on. She did not have to do that at all, and she took her own personal time t do it. I would definitely take her class again if I could.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-17T13:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': "If you're willing to put in the time necessary, take Professoresa Deigan. Great personality, really nice and helpful professor. The class is hard though. Lots of memorization, which is necessary. I mean, it is a foreign language. Take her if you can! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-19T00:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': "She is a good teacher, and I learned a lot, but the course is very difficult and moves fast. That being said, it is a college language course, and that should be expected. The grading is fair, but it takes her a very long time to return tests and compositions. The worst part of this class is that you don't have any idea of the grade you have. I had to bother her incessantly to give me a current grade, and didn't get one until right before thanksgiving break, and even then it was just a percentage. Besides this, she is a very good teacher. When she says don't save the workbook for the last night, she's not lying. Also, the amount of crocheted clothing in her wardrobe is impressive. She is very sweet and understanding.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-04T13:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': "I am not surprised that I look up reviews for Deigan and all I see is 5-star reviews. I can't compare her to any other language instructor (since she is my only), but she is a great professor. She teaches straight out of the book and the quizzes and exams are very straight-forward. \n\r\nI suggest you go to class since it is in class that you can truly understand the concepts, and study before quizzes/exams. Obviously, if you actually learn and practice the language, you will do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-26T23:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': "I totally was not expecting an A+ because I had been doing great on the quizzes but mid-high Bs on the exams. I think Dr. Deigan is an amazing teacher and she is so so so nice and really funny! This class wasn't that hard at all and they definitely curved even though the syllabus said they don't, but I speak Spanish fluently and the other people in my class who spoke Spanish/ French definitely did better/ thought it was easier. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-17T23:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': 'Great foreign language instructor. She is committed to seeing that her students do well. In order to succeed in this class, regular attendance is necessary. I am going to go out of my way to make sure I have her for the ITAL203.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-20T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': 'Fantastic Professor. She is by far the best foreign language teacher I have ever had, definitely take her if possible', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-20T17:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': "She is very dedicated to students learning italian, but she can be intimidating because she likes to say as much as possible in italian and I rarely understand. I really enjoy her class and I'm far from the best at italian.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-04-23T22:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Federica Deigan', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': "She's nice but kind of hard. Participation is essential to doing well in the course. I didn't miss one day but still got a B.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-04-15T13:54:00Z'}], 'name': 'Federica Deigan', 'slug': 'deigan'}, {'courses': ['SOCY410', 'SOCY630', 'SOCY709B', 'SOCY412', 'SOCY709D', 'SOCY699F', 'SOCY699J', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY201', 'SOCY709D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Feinian Chen', 'slug': 'chen_feinian'}, {'courses': ['ECON442', 'ECON741', 'ECON808', 'ECON630', 'ECON709'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Felipe Saffie', 'slug': 'saffie'}, {'courses': ['AOSC658F', 'AOSC658I', 'AOSC661', 'AOSC663', 'AOSC658E', 'AOSC662', 'AOSC610', 'AOSC680'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm', 'slug': 'miralles-wilhelm'}, {'courses': ['MUET210', 'MUET650', 'MUET660', 'MUSC438D', 'MUSC210', 'MUSC438M', 'MUSC679N', 'MUSC679G', 'MUSC632', 'MUSC679A', 'MUSC679M', 'MUSC679P', 'MUSC210', 'MUSC438L', 'MUSC679N', 'MUSC632', 'MUSC677', 'MUSC679K'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': 'I\'m only saying B- for people that write exactly what they say down in class. If your wording is wrong, they will not hesitate to chop of half credit. So you are more likely to get a C.\n\r\nThe professor is incredibly boring and the "review" sheets are only basic guides. He tests on more stuff that isn\'t even on the review sheets.\n\r\nThey take little accommodation to student concerns about grading. After the final, they will not be available to meet or discuss your exam other than through email, and even then they only tell you what you did wrong, giving no way to correlate what you got incorrect.\n\r\nNice guy, but as a professor, very unprofessional\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2016-05-24T14:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUSC210', 'review': 'This class was extremely boring. The lectures were helpful though, because he would basically tell you exactly what you needed to know for the exams. A study guide would be released before the exam with "study questions" that were basically copied onto the exam. Therefore, going to lecture was important. The only grades were 3 exams (the final is not cumulative), 2 papers (5 pages each), and participation. The papers were extremely hard to write because the topics were kind of dumb. It also all depends on the TA you get, because they grade all of the exams/papers/participation. Overall, the class was easy just EXTREMELY boring.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-05T15:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUSC210', 'review': "Rios is probably the best teacher I have had yet at Maryland. He is kind, charismatic, reasonable, and engaging. MUSC210 is a great gen-ed: easy, interesting, and different than anything else you will take at Maryland. I am an engineering major, and music is not really my thing. But this class was so well designed that I couldn't help but enjoy it and do well. Rios picks case studies that emphasize the point he is trying to make: the close relationship of music and culture. By the end, he creates a bigger picture that really stays with you. If you go to class most of the time, spend a little time listening to the music before the exams, you will have no trouble getting an A. Absolutely take this class and do so with Professor Rios. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-26T15:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': "This class is only 50 min twice a week. Its a very relaxing class and not a lot of work. Professor Rios is very chill and the TA's are super flexible if you need to go to a different section or something on Fridays. The exams are fair if you study and pay attention in class. He tells you exactly what you need to write down and if you put it a fair amount of effort then theres no reason you shouldn't get an A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-11-17T18:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': 'Nice guy. Super easy class. Just make sure you show up to class, take some legible notes, and study a few hours and it should be an easy A. \n\r\nOn top of that, very interesting material in terms of the music we explored. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-21T23:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': "I really like Professor Rios and the MUET210 class. You can tell that he is really passionate about music. I think that his lectures are interesting (if you like world music). I didn't care for the first 1/3 of the class because of the topic though, but it was not hard. If you show up to lecture, jot down the important concepts and go to discussion it should be a relatively easy class for you :-)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-13T17:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': 'WORST CLASS EVER. DO NOT TAKE THIS WITH RIOS! it is painful', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-05T15:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': 'Rios is a great professor who you can tell really cares about his students. The class itself is not hard but rather boring and the there are only 2 tests and 2 papers. The TA you have will largely determine your grade, if you have May May Chiang I would advise to switch to another section. She is unable to answer or understand the most basic questions and grades harshly. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-23T14:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': "I don't have any real issues with Rios or this class. Personally I thought that he was corny and his lectures were boring, but other students seemed to like him. And regardless of my opinion of him its easy to see that he is knowledgeable about the subject. He doesn't always organize and present the info clearly, but somehow its all there. The class entails about 4 exams (including the midterm and final, none of which are comprehensive), and three 7-page papers (none of which are difficult, but kind of annoying). I had a hard time grasping his teaching methods at first, but going to discussions (Jennie Terman) really helped me better process in the information. The exams are pretty easy if you pay attention, so attending lecture is a must. This class wasn't really for me, but I made the most of it. If you are not prone to fall asleep in class, can commit to attending every lecture even though it may seem pointless at first, and have an open mind to really foreign sounding music, then this will be a really easy class for you.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-12T14:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is really nice and funny. This class is really interesting and easy. Only way you can get lower than an A or B is by not coming to class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-22T17:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Rios is great! He makes the material interesting and he is very nice to his students. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-18T12:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is a great professor. He has interesting lectures and the tests were graded pretty leniently. He wants the students to succeed and to enjoy class.\n\r\nI have Jennie Terman as a TA. She is an amazing TA-- she is really nice and organizes the material into charts and terms.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-09T11:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': "Course taken: Fall 2010 semester.\n\r\nLearn a little about different cultures. Go to all the classes. Lectures are fun when you have an open mind to different cultures. Discussions are great because they review you well for the exams.\n\r\nDon't sweat the class. Have fun with it. :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T20:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': 'I really think this is the easiest HA course ever. Although the course itself is about native Andean music, Islam, Chinese music, and African music. \n\r\nI admit, the topic is very boring, but Dr. Rios is amazing. You will get an A with minimal effort if you have a good TA. Get Melanie Pinkert. If you have Emma Diao, be ready to suffer. Run away from her. It will not be an easy A if she is your TA. \n\r\nI took Theatre 110, and this class is so much easier. Definitely the best HA course. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-13T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': None, 'review': "Rios is a GREAT professor. His assignments and tests are pretty fair. You can almost predict whats going to be on the exam (if you go to lectures). If you need an HA class, I highly recommend taking this class. It's an easy A and actually really interesting. Lots of youtube and corny jokes (which are sometimes funny)in lecture. There are readings, but if you take really good notes in lecture/discussion, you should be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-11T02:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUSC210', 'review': "As a lecturer, Rios is alright and the class can get really boring. However, taking this class is totally worth it because it gives you two geneds and is easy. As long as you look at his outlines before the exam, you should be fine. From what I know, the TAs grade the exams, which is probably why my first two exams were graded pretty leniently. \r\n\r\nAlso, a lot of people don't even attend class, so I don't believe that attendance is necessary to get a good grade, but I still recommend going to class and listening.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-03T03:35:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUSC210', 'review': 'The course is fairly straightforward and pretty easy. His teaching style is usually interesting, with guest lecturers throughout the semester mixed in. We had quizzes each week in discussion which kept me going and it was honestly worth staying to go over everything with the TA.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-19T18:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUSC210', 'review': 'Professor Rios was a wonderful professor and really knows the topic. The exams are fair; if you come to class you should do well. My TA Mariangel Villabos was absolutely wonderful. A great class. I recommend to all!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-11T21:12:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUSC210', 'review': "If you want an easy A, by all means DO NOT take this course. The concepts and ideas were very simple but the grading was very subjective to the extent that some TA's found a lot of difficulty finding a justifiable reason and would end up giving some points back (only if you review your exam individually with them). They graded harshly for no reason especially at the beginning, so when they realized the ending average would be terrible, they completely loosened their grading style. Stay away from this course by all means if you do not want a lot of extra work.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-22T18:23:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUET210', 'review': "I won't say avoid him, this is just not the course for me.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-01-30T18:39:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUSC210', 'review': 'This class was very easy and the work was easy to keep track of. That being said, the professor was extremely lazy. The writing prompts for each week towards the end of the semester got extremely repetitive which made the content less engaging. Another thing to note is the class became less and less about music, and more and more about stereotypes, and struggles of different races, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds. Towards the end of the semester, the lectures had less focus on the music, and eventually, the writing prompts did not even mention music. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-28T17:44:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUSC210', 'review': 'Overall, really enjoyed this class. It\'s not exactly what it sounds like. When you hear "the impact of music on life," you think more about psychology and emotions and sociology, but this course was very much an ethnomusicology (music/anthropology) course. Also your experience in the course will really depend on the TAs, as they grade exams, and papers. Dr. Rios is a great lecturer and the only negative thing I have to say about him is that halfway through the semester, he stopped using pretty much any text in the slides, only keeping the examples (music/videos). I think he did this because of low lecture attendance. It was frustrating because your notes were literally the only resource left to study for exams. Exams were easy if you pay attention (especially to the review sessions), so can\'t complain too much.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-01T03:28:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Fernando Rios', 'course': 'MUSC210', 'review': "Frustratingly, a lot of people around me did really well but I just could not understand HOW. the lectures are boring. and the wrong TA can make this even worse. my TA was not helpful at all and didn't seem to teach cohesively with the class. Avoid this if you want an easy A", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-02-18T05:52:36.460198Z'}], 'name': 'Fernando Rios', 'slug': 'rios_fernando'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Filipa Calado', 'slug': 'calado'}, {'courses': ['SURV400', 'SURV630', 'SURV631'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Florian Keusch', 'slug': 'keusch'}, {'courses': ['ARTT200', 'ARTT333', 'ARTT333H', 'ARTT438D', 'ARTT438H', 'ARTT489P', 'ARTT489H', 'ARTT489Y', 'ARTT200', 'ARTT333', 'ARTT333H', 'ARTT438D', 'ARTT200', 'ARTT333', 'ARTT333H', 'ARTT438D', 'ARTT200', 'ARTT333', 'ARTT333H', 'ARTT438D', 'ARTT438H', 'ARTT489H', 'ARTT200', 'ARTT333', 'ARTT438D'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Foon Sham', 'course': 'ARTT200', 'review': "Professor Sham is the BEST. I would recommend him to anyone, including non-majors and people uninterested in sculpture. He's very energetic, friendly, and fun. There was never a time I didn't look forward to going to his class. He really cares about his students, gives you great feedback and tips to help you improve your work. This class was one of my absolute favorites to take thus far in my education, and I would absolutely take a course with Foon again. He invites you to his gallery openings for extra credit, and even once took a friend and me around to other galleries in DC with his wife, which was hilariously fun. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-09-18T09:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Foon Sham', 'course': 'ARTT200', 'review': 'An excellent professor, who really cares about is students. He has a lot of work in the dc area, and is relatively famous. Students vote for the projects that they want to do at the beginning of the class. Early projects are rather restrictive, but later projects allow you to do whatever you want under loose guidelines. You will use a lot of materials and power tools in the class. He throws a huge party after cleanup at the end of the year. Greatly recommended.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-09T19:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Foon Sham', 'course': 'ARTT333', 'review': "Possibly the best professor in the art department. He really is passionate about sculpture. I looked him up and he's pretty much a celebrity in the art world. He's so humble and will sit down with you one-on-one to teach you how to use the tools or how to push your concepts. He's a fair grader too. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-09-14T21:21:08Z'}], 'name': 'Foon Sham', 'slug': 'sham_foon'}, {'courses': ['ENPM684', 'ENPM630'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Forrest Svingala', 'slug': 'svingala'}, {'courses': ['MATH115', 'MATH141', 'MATH430', 'MATH140', 'MATH402', 'MATH241H', 'STAT401', 'MATH470', 'MATH401'], 'average_rating': 2.0566, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Consider this your warning - do NOT take any classes with F. Gulick. She was outright mean and made what should have been a basic math class into the most difficult course I have ever had the displeasure to have taken. I took Precalculus in high school and got a B, so I figured this would be a review, but instead I had to fight my way to a C. Even if that doesn't deter you, this class is a LOT of work. Multiple difficult online assignments per week and in-class quizzes. Make sure you buy the book - the examples it has will be your lifesaver.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-05-16T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "If you haven't taken calc 2 before or in high school, I do not recommend her. She has very high standards and expects you to know the material before you come to lecture. I had to read the textbook and watch youtube videos (Professor Leonard) before every lecture. I also went to her office hours, my TA's office hours, attended other MATH 141 lectures, and did almost all the book problems but I know I'm not gonna end up with an A. This class requires A LOT OF EFFORT and the way she grades is RIDICULOUS. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-13T13:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'The worst professor I have ever had. She only goes surface deep on each chapter section, and then gives you homework which she gives no information on how to complete. She is also extremely mean, as I was leaving the class one day to use the restroom she yelled goodbye to me as I walked out. She seems to really look down upon the students. It saddens me to see a professor like this still have a job, especially teaching a class that a lot of people find very difficult. I highly recommend avoiding her as a professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-02-18T18:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "I never write these things but I feel its my duty because she is THE WORST PROFESSOR YOU WILL EVER HAVE. I have taken many classes from community college and to umd now, and by a huge margin she is the worst professor on campus, maybe even all of Maryland. It's as if she wants you to dislike her class and math altogether. Everything is made 1000x harder than it has to be. Coupled with that fact is her atrocious teaching style. Like other have said, if you ask a question in class she will make you look like an idiot and condescned you. And she has this very whiny loud old lady voice. Sort of reminds of me of your classical christian school nun type, scratches the board if you aren't paying attention, smacks a ruler on your desk. She is very strict. Everything has to be according to HER RULES on exams. And she will take off excessive points if you don't follow her rules, labeling everything on graphs et cetera. Albeit. she is very friendly in her offices hours which was a surprise. It's probably the only redeeming quality about this class. But everything else about this class far outweighs it. Unfortunately, if you want to get to higher level math classes you have to go through her first, there generally isn't any other options,\n\r\nI wouldn't wish the experience of this class on anyone. Good luck!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2016-02-04T13:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Awful professor with control issues. She is condescending and her lectures are uninformative. Her tests and pop quizzes are overly difficult (especially with her teaching skills). Asking questions results in rude replies and condescending answers. Avoid her classes by any means necessary.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-09-01T23:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Her approach to teaching Calculus I is mediocre at best. If you have never taken a Calculus class before, I would not take your first with the Witch. She has these unnecessary pop-quizzes in lecture called "White Papers" to guarantee attendence. There is usually no curve, and if there is a curve, you will not be happy because if you are on the borderline of a C, you will be getting a C. All bad things aside, she is a very nice lady outside of lecture, and is at least somewhat approachable. If it weren\'t for that, I would give her 1 star.\n\r\nBottom Line: Do not waste your time.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2015-02-02T04:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "This is my second attempt at 141. My first was with Hamilton, which was a disaster as he went through the material out of order and had unreasonably difficult tests. This semester, everyone but Frances was full, and I braced myself for a serious struggle.\n\r\nI noticed that the majority of the negative reviews were for 115, but she is not *that* bad for 141. Maybe it's because I'm familiar with the material, maybe she respects her 141 students more than her 115 students. Whatever it is, I'm definitely clicking with her better than most. It's definitely some serious work, yes, and I hate online homework, but if you have the diligence to put up with it, you'll find that her tests are mostly fair. She'll answer questions in lecture and office hours and is not nearly as condescending as everyone makes her out to be. She's actually one of the more personable professors out there. She also gives white papers and quizzes. Quizzes are closed-book, but they're rather infrequent. White papers occur approximately every 2 classes, sometimes more frequently, sometimes less. These are open-note, open book quizzes, and she leaves examples on the board. They're free points that make sure you're on board with what's going on. You can compare answers, but don't copy. You NEED the practice to ensure that you're getting it.\n\r\nThat's not to say that this won't be a difficult class. She's preparing future teachers, scientists, engineers, doctors, and whatnot for the rigors of what's to come. She sometimes has her TAs take off points from tests and white papers for the silliest, most stupid reasons but that should only serve to motivate you to do better. It's all about figuring out what she wants from you and to deliver. This class is going to be a serious challenge and anyone who comes out with an A has my undying respect. \n\r\nCome to class, go to office hours, dedicate a strong part of your studying to this class, and if you put in the effort, you can pass. Let this class be your reality check. It'll be tough. You're tougher.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-04-09T12:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "She is a bit condescending, and at the same time teaches you very little. You will not be able read what she writes on the board. It wont really matter because it is not helpful anyway.\r\nI have looked at the notes other classes get in their lectures and realized just how terrible she is. Other teachers seem to want to help make sure you understand the topic. It seems like she is afraid to teach you too much. It is almost as if she believes that if she teaches you any topic too well, then it will be too easy. This results in our class averaging way lower on tests than any other. She does not give you any breaks. White paper quizzes almost every day, even on topics you do not know yet. Worksheet every discussion. Your grade bases heavily on your attendance which sucks because you learn very little in lectures. I was warned this past fall to avoid at all costs and I didn't listen. I really wish I had though. Calc II should not be this hard.\r\nAt least she's really hot.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-03-06T00:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "She is an awful professor. I have no clue how she even still has a job teaching. She not only does not teach you ANYTHING in lecture, she does not care about her students AT ALL. If someone is confused and has the nerve to ask her a question, she looks at you like you are stupid and is so rude about it. She has made my semester a living hell. DO NOT TAKE THIS SECTION WITH HER. you will not learn anything and most likely will have to take the class over again. the only reason I have a B in this class is because my TA had to teach me everything. If you want to have a professor that actually cares about their students succeeding, not about making a salary, I would recommend not taking this class. The only reason I gave her 1 star is because I had to, I'd give her 0 if that was possible. AWFUL professor. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-20T22:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Professor Gulick is not the best teacher, I'll admit. But, if you keep up with the readings in the book for each lecture, you will be just fine as she spends a lot of time proving many concepts. She is entertaining during lecture as well, and i never once hated going to her class. Just make sure you go because she gives small quizzes once or twice a week unexpectedly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-12-15T19:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Frances Gulick was not a good professor. I’m not completely comfortable writing that statement, cause she’s such a sweet lady, but it’s true. If you’re signing up for classes right now, and if you still have the opportunity, I’d recommend switching to another one. \r\nGulick has extremely high, unreasonable standards for how you show your work. She seems to have a set of highly specific criteria in her head that you must meet, but she doesn’t feel like sharing with you until after you’ve made a mistake. I’ll give an example. \r\nThe first test given out in the class I got all the questions right. All of my final answers were correct, but Gulick managed to nitpick my grade down to a C- because of arbitrary rules that any reasonable math professor would laugh at. For example, I had nearly completed a problem, and was just simplifying my answer like this (I have the work in front of me): \r\nh = (3+9)x(4+5)\r\nh = 12x20\r\nAnd, in my final answer, I had my result in a box\r\nH = 240\r\nDespite 240 being the correct answer, Gulick took off 50% of the credit for the problem. Her reasons were as followed: \r\n“You simplified 240x to 240 without showing x = 1” \r\n“h=/=H”\r\nSo apparently, she only accepts work that solely uses parenthesis for multiplication. You can’t use a little x to show multiplication. Despite x not being a variable in the problem, she felt that it could be confusing for someone looking at the problem as to how the variable x appeared and disappeared. A friend of mine lost points for using a little dot to do their multiplication because it could be mistaken for “taking the dot product” despite dot products not being a part of the problem or even part of the entire course. \r\nI also lost points because I capitalized the h when I gave my final answer, which is apparently a completely different variable in her eyes. She also takes off points if you don’t indicate what the final variable is, so if I simply wrote “240” in a box to indicate my final answer, she would have marked off points for not indicating what 240 is equal to. \r\nIt can be extremely frustrating losing so many points to arbitrary rules and small mistakes which most professors would ignore (you can lose full points off a problem for a simple algebra error) which can be pretty devastating when tests have five to seven problems. It can be really tough to meet her unrealistic expectations for displayed work for tests when you’re struggling just to finish just in time. You usually just don’t have time do all the work and quadruple check your work for small errors. The intended satire in this video is pretty close to truth for Ms. Gulick. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsvLLKQCxeA\r\nThe website that Gulick uses to assign homework, webassign, can be equally as finicky as she is. Lots of homework points can be lost to webassign not being clear in how it wants you to give your answer. “Oh, you wrote that the answer ‘DNE’ for does not exist rather than ‘N/A’ for this problem? 0 points.” And then two problems later “Oh, you wrote N/A for this problem? The answer was clearly DNE. 0 points” Actually, it doesn’t do that. The website offers no feedback or advice. It’s often a matter of just hoping that the website accepts your answer. The website frequently crashes as well, which can be pretty frustrating when you’ve got a limited amount of time to complete it. Take a look at some of the comments here: http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/webassign.net.html\r\nAnd that’s really just her grading style. Gulick frequently skips algebraic steps while doing work on the board. She’ll go straight from something like: \r\n((((6^2 * 10) + sqrt((5000*3) - 600)) / 4! ) * 4 ) - log(1 * 10^11) = 69\r\nAnd then move on to the next problem, which can be rather confusing if you’re a minute behind or so. \r\nFurthermore, she does focus heavily on proofs, which is great for understanding problems conceptually, but not so great when both the webassign questions and the tests focus heavily on application problems. Her lectures are hard to follow which makes her very frequent pop quizzes (which she calls “white papers”) all the more stressful. \r\nAll that said, she’s a nice lady, and very approachable. She’s got a corny sense of humor and is very willing to help you out if you need it (and you’ll probably need it, since she’s not at all clear in class). She’s a really nice person, but a terrible professor. \n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-13T20:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'The only reason Frances Gulick is a "professor" at this school is because her husband wrote the textbook. The fact that she is still teaching here makes me wonder if the university takes student evaluations into account at all--if they did, she would probably have been fired long ago. You learn nothing from attending lecture, but must go because of "surprise" quizzes that do nothing but check attendance. She micromanages her classroom and threatens to confiscate electronics as if she\'s teaching middle school. You can\'t even use your laptop to follow along her lessons on the online textbook (god forbid you actually try to learn something). \n\r\nI wouldn\'t mind not being able to use any electronics in her class if we actually learned something. However, her droning lectures mostly consist of pointless rambling, threatening to confiscate someone\'s phone, and multiple mispronunciations of the word "root." I had already taken PreCalculus in high school and was only taking this class as a refresher, but I ended up getting a mediocre grade because of her nitpicky grading. Trying to relearn any material I had forgotten was incredibly challenging. I essentially had to teach myself. She would vaguely go over some basic concept in class, and then the homework would be incredible complicated and sometimes even unrelated, or even from a later section. \n\r\nIf you have any other possible choice, DO NOT TAKE ANY CLASS WITH THIS PROFESSOR. She is a horrible teacher and cares nothing about her students or their grades.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-12-10T22:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'Professor Gulick is a very unique person. She knows exactly what she is doing in lecture. She does commit mistakes at times. She is not an easy grader. She expects students to work hard and try their best. Nonetheless, she is always open to questions and her office hours she is always available.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-10T16:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH241H', 'review': 'Her ratings on this website really speaks to how terrible of a professor she is. She rambles on without attempting to give her students an understanding of the subject material. While other professors in this course give out a one page cheat sheet for exams, Frances asks, "Why should I?" and asks no questions when all her students fail miserably. Every day I find new reasons to hate her teaching style and mannerisms. If you want to try and teach yourself Calc 3, then I suggest taking a class with her. There are more reasons I could list, but seriously- save yourself a semester of grief and go with ANY other professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-02-13T15:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'Overall terrible experience. teacher does not care about students. Course is basically taught to oneself. Homeworks (on webassign) have material not taught or even gone over in class. I felt like putting in minimal effort on the work required gave the same outcome as putting in my all. You will not learn from the teacher or from the TAs during lab hours, they will tell you how to solve a problem but not explain to you how or why. Very disappointed with class because It did not help me learn the basic math necessary in order to move on confidently onto a harder math course next semester. You spend most of your time on a computer trying to learn the material by yourself. Every class (you meet once a week on mondays and then go wednesdays and fridays to lab) you are given a white paper assignment basically to ensure you attend class. these WPs are very easy but make up a very little percentage of the semester grade. The hardest part of the class are the webassign labs and homeworks which are almost impossible to complete without a TA. My TA was ben he was very disconnected with students, did not want to teach material instead, just gave a simple solution to problems in order to help students earn high points on web assign. If you HAVE to take this class, make sure you choose brad as your TA because although he may be sassy, he is clearly the most knowledgeable and is willing to put in extra time on his part in order to help you learn the material. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-02T17:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Frances Gulick is one of the hardest professors I have had yet in my UMD career. I really learned nothing from going to lecture, but was forced to because of the graded pop quizzes and white papers. Lecture was really a waste of time and I could barely understand what my notes said. My TA was helpful, but she makes the TA's take off a lot of points for minor errors grading exams. I wish I had listened more to these reviews before. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-08-19T11:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I had a very hard time in her class. She teaches some of the material really well, but a lot of times you will try to do the webassigns and realize that you really haven't learned any of the material on the assignment. She also makes a ton of mistakes when she's solving problems on the board, which can be really confusing later when you're trying to use your notes to study or do the homework. I always thought I was prepared for the exams but as soon as I would see the exam I would realize that it really had nothing to do with what we had learned. For the first exam, she put a question involving the use of the shell method, which she hadn't covered and had specifically said would NOT be on the test. Another test primarily focused on the domains of inverse trig functions, which is something we did go over in class, but makes you feel like you wasted your time studying the material you were actually supposed to be tested on. What makes the tests even worse is that they count as over half of your grade (and she doesn't tell you this in the beginning of the semester) Attendance is absolutely mandatory (for both lecture and discussion). She gives out white-paper quizzes, which are like a pop-quiz based on material she has just covered. (i.e. she does an example and then gives you a similar problem you have to do right then). She gives no warnings about when she will give white-papers so you really had better show up to lectures. In addition, you have to complete ridiculously difficult worksheets in discussion, often involving a proof of how a formula is derived. The whitepapers and worksheets count as a significant portion of your grade. Don't bother trying to talk to her about points, since she just gets really rude and refuses to be at all lenient. She doesn't curve at all, so the grade you see on your tests is probably the grade you will end up with. I really wouldn't suggest taking her class since it is a very painful experience. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-25T13:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'I was initially worried about taking her class because of all of these bad reviews but her section was the only one open. The first few weeks and the first exam was pretty rough, but I attended every class and did all the webassigns and ended up with an A- after struggling to get a B in Calc I. Very reasonable teacher but a tough grader. Having a good TA will help you tremendously. If you want to learn calculus, take her class. If you want good grades and easy work, take someone else. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-16T23:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Terrible. Her lectures are 90% uninformative and she talks as if we already know the material. If I know the material I wouldn't be in the class. She doesn't focus on why something is a done a certain way and just runs through problems. \n\r\nThat isn't really that big of a problem EXCEPT she gives us problems that are almost nothing like what's shes lectured on so when I try to use the processes, it never works out. \n\r\nThe teaching method for this class is very poorly designed. In my experience very few people actually learn this way. \n\r\nIn the end this class sucked dick. Just a bunch of mindless work. I asked her what I could do to improve myself. She told me to read the book. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-03-01T12:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Horrible. Tests are way too hard, don't gauge how well you understand the material, and she's just plain mean. avoid at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-25T13:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'calc 1 is not hard. frances is decent at teaching, you will understand material easy enough. even the white paper quizzes arent that bad. but frances grades terribly. you always get points off here and there because she doesnt like your notation or the way you do a problem. theres almost no partial credit. even if you know your calc you still get random points off. so unless youre the most careful and meticulous problem solver, it will be pretty hard to get an A. Ive been getting 100 on all the webassign homeworks and the worksheets, but when it comes to the test I end up with a B or a C. And when you contest any points you got off, she somehow makes up some explanation about why its wrong and doesnt give one bit back. when it comes to points on a test, shes always right and youre always wrong. another thing is, she HAS NO CURVE. the averages for tests will be in the 50-60 range, and she wont do anything about it. even the TAs dont seem to be able to make her curve. dont take her unless youre neat and careful in your writing. her husband is supposed to be much better. I was thinking about taking her for math141 (calc 2) but instead im gonna take 8am with her husband. Its worth the sleep sacrifice, i cant deal with these unreasonable bad grades anymore.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-19T13:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "She's okay. I took her for 140 in my first semester and came out with an A. I've always loved math and I took ABcalc in high school and got a 5 but I still retook it. She teaches to her tests- the practice ones that you get are ones that she's given out in the past. If you can do the practice tests you should be okay for the actual test.\r\nAnd by okay, I mean like a C at least.\n\r\nThe webassigns are confusing... they purposely make them difficult. It's more conceptual. It's not bad though. They're always due the day of the discussions. They're not terrible though.\n\r\nMy only complaint is that she jumps around from topic to topic when teaching so it can be hard to follow her. She also skips the simple steps that people end up needing to ask her about anyway. \n\r\nIf you do go to office hours, she is helpful. Also, contact your TA when you need help. And make sure you have a good TA.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-05T12:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Avoid her!!! Whatever you do, stay away!! Take Denny or anyone else for 140, she's nothing but bad news.\n\r\nLike many others, I took BC calc in high school and got a B so I thought I could do with a refresher when I got to college - big mistake to do it with her. Webassigns and tests were horrible and she was very unhelpful (and rude sometimes) whenever asking for help at her office hours or via e-mail. I was a student used to getting a lot of work but this was just terrible - I would study for hours and still bomb her exams. Her lectures went way too fast and she sets the speed of the class to match the students who she likes in the front row of the lecture. Her TAs were understanding at least and helpful with problems. Quizzes were annoying and she would grade pretty harshly taking off major points for silly mistakes like forgetting a negative that caused you to get an incorrect answer (even if your methods were good). I guess it's the kind of thing where you either love her or you hate her - I surely knew what camp I was in.\n\r\nIf you take her for 140 (which is okay material wise with any other prof), just know what you're getting into but please consider someone else!!!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2011-01-25T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Avoid Frances Gulick at all costs!... Lectures are a waste of time; she spends the entire time deriving equations and proving theorems, and rarely ever makes time to fit in an example. You will do all of your learning on your own, which makes the weekly homework assignments and quizzes in discussion significantly more difficult. On top of that, she gives pop quizzes and graded classwork assignments during lecture to make sure people are attending. Maybe all of that is necessary to keep freshmen up to speed in Calc I, but this is a 400 level class, and she definitely doesn't teach it like one. The extra work will only drag you down; take this class with a professor who grades you on your exams, not your attendance.\n\r\nAnd if you're still not convinced, just compare her average GPA to the other STAT profs. It's a no-brainer.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-17T21:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Despite all the negative reviews on this site, I took Frances Gulick for Calc I, and came out with an 'A'. It took a decent amount of work, but overall I think that she's a quite effective lecturer. IMO her tests are graded quite fairly, and she's a really nice lady if you talk to her during office hours. She does go a little overboard on the proofs during lecture, but after a few classes you learn to only key in on the pertinent information. The only other quipe I have with her was her placement of quizzes on very inopportune days, such as the day after Halloween, the day before Thanksgiving, and nearly every Friday. If you have her for a 9 am lecture, this kills any prospects of going out on Thursday night. Overall, I'd recommend her. But expect to work hard.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T06:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I love her!\n\r\nShe teaches well and makes sure you understand what's she talking about. On the hard subjects she goes a little fast in class because she has to cover everything but if you go to her office hours she'll help you and is patient. When I went to talk to her about my grade she was nice and talked to me with the familiarity of a high school teacher. She wants hard-working students to do well in her class and tries to help. \n\r\nYeah, webassgin sucks but everybody who takes math has to deal with it, not just in her class. And yeah, white papers are a pain especially if you come late but you can talk to your neighbor and ask her questions about it-- how can you not ace them? She's energetic and funny in an awkward way and hers is the one class I don't sleep in at all (and I sleep through ALL my other classes except for my labs b/c I'm standing). \n\r\nShe does exam reviews (in class and maybe out of class) and usually gives you an old one to study. Her test questions change but the format and the type of question basically stays the same though there may be a proof type question on there. And if you mess up on the exam, she will go through it with you after the fact so you understand what you did wrong.\n\r\nIf you don't study, and don't come to class you won't do well (white papers/quizzes do count). If you want an easy teacher, find someone else (people love her husband). If you want someone who will push you and make you learn this stuff, take her.\n\r\nI'm pretty sure I'll take her for 141", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-20T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Shes moves along too fast, without really reviewing the material. Get Denny. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-11-08T13:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH470', 'review': "I avoided taking math classes my whole career here at Maryland because of what people told me about Frances Gulick. And then, my senior year, I'm forced to take a class with her. You know what? I literally have no idea what people have against her.\n\r\nYes, she's a tough professor. She actually makes you do WORK in COLLEGE! WOW! And I see people complaining about all the homework she gives. Umm. It's called practice. You need it to not only pass but UNDERSTAND the material. I don't understand why someone would take a math course and expect an easy A with minimal work.\n\r\nShe's actually one of the best professors I've had to be honest. You can't pass her class by sleeping through it and casually glancing at the textbook the night before a test. She gives out a lot of work, but it's for your benefit.\n\r\nHer teaching style is very visual, and it works for me. The lectures are very proof heavy but you need that knowledge to understand why things work they way they do.\n\r\nSo if you want a class that you can skip every day and still pass with a C, this isn't it (and I suspect college isn't really for you if you expect things to work out like that in life, is it?). If you want a challenging and ultimately interesting class with a professor that KNOWS how to teach, take her.\n\r\nAlso, she is not still in the math department because her husband runs it. She's in the math department because she's great at teaching math and is very passionate about it. Sounds like a lot of reviewers here need to grow up.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-27T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I took calculus BC in high school and decided I wanted to retake it in college to make sure I fully understood it. If it I hadn't taken it before, I would have NO idea what was going on! The webassigns are awful! Yeah they test your skills but they often have little relevance to what you actually need. The discussion sections are by far the most helpful! The TA's are personable and knowledgeable. The lectures on the other hand are terrible. She goes over proofs for the longest time and then does these little white paper quizes right afterwards. Yes you get to correct your answers at the end of the quiz but she will take off large amounts of points if you forget an = or add a negative or forget a parentheses. Then on the tests, she grades equally frustratingly. My last test I got a 46%. All of the math was right, and I had all the theorems and ideas correct. I got a 46 because I worked through the test and left off little things like a limit or an equals sign or added a negative or left off an x from a little part (and the next line down the x was there! so it didn't even change the answer!!!!)\r\nAll in all, I recommend taking this class with another teacher... Which is probably what I'm going to have to do next semester...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2010-10-20T14:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "I wonder how she's managed to survive this long at Maryland.. \n\r\nWhen people say she knows her stuff, that is like saying an NBA player knows how to play basketball.. WAKE UP!! Professors HAVE to know what they are teaching.. that's how they make their living off of.. it's HOW they convey the materials and communicate with students that count toward determining whether the professor is good or bad..\n\r\nAnd this lady is NOT a good professor.. I regret taking this course with her.. I should have known about this lady beforehand..sigh** but what can I do.. the two things I can do are.. first leave this review here and.. evaluate her at the end of the course.. hoping that the school will do something about it although I highly doubt anything will be done..\n\r\nAs I am writing this I prepare myself to a sleepless night studying hoping that I'd get an A.. although ourumd is very skeptical about her giving A's..\n\r\nAnd someone mentioned that she's like an evil..I do not know her personally but seeing her during the lecture tells me she is indeed someone who'd smile and fail you simultaneously :o", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-10T22:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "She certainly knows what she's talking about, but I never did well with her teaching style. She's more into deriving the formulas rather than actually going over the applications. She gives plenty of pop quizzes, webassign HW assignments, and worksheets. The webassigns never helped me to much; I always found myself trying to finish them by the deadline instead of actually learning the material.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-05-16T20:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'She is a good teacher, I just find that her grading is too hard. I also feel like she may be a bit bias towards certain people when it comes to grades. Whoever called her the devil was absolutely correct. She will smile in your face and will still fail you. You will have to study every night in this class. You don\'t really have to go to the lectures. Unfortunately, she has "white papers" and pop quizzes that are part of your grade which forces you to go to class each day. I do not recommend you take her. You are going to struggle and get irritated with how she grades. Being in her class has made me hate the name Gulick. Take a different professor. Since her husband also teaches, I would stay away from him as well.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-01T21:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "She certainly knows what she's talking about and expects the same from her students.\n\r\nShe'll give in-class problems to do on random days, and there are graded worksheets in discussion so expect to go to class all 5 days of the week.\n\r\nIf you've gotten AP credit for this class, do not bother retaking it - you will not learn one new thing in any MATH141 class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-20T02:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'If you go to her outside of class, she is very responsive and helpful but her lectures are horrible. She spends most of the time with proofs and "surprise" graded white paper assignments in class than actually going over the important information. It is not impossible to get an A in this class but you do it by speaking with her one on one or through TA\'s help since the lectures are random and she gets sidetracked easily. I think she would be a wonderful high school teacher. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-10T01:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Frances loves in-class proofs. This makes a lot of sense; they demonstrate clarity of thought and a straightforward presentation of the material. Unforunately, her rigid concern for this sort of order invariably leads to a sacrifice of precious class time which could be used for review and practice. She incessantly emphasizes the importance of the short class time, and then proceeds to waste it with proofs. While I find the proofs interesting and useful, they tend to confuse and frustrate the majority of the class, to the point that while most of them started out fresh and eager to learn at the beginning of class, they were tired and worn by the end of it.\r\nShe assigns internet homework after every lecture (before and imediately after tests not included), and expects the student to practice a good deal of problems recommended in the textbook. To paraphrase Frances from her class syllabus, you CAN do well in her class but it requires a LOT of work.\r\nThis is due largely in part to the rather strange format of the tests. There are generally 5 questions, with mutliple parts to each question. Regrettably, the paucity of test questions leads to a proportional increase in point values per questions. If you make a mistake on part of a question, you can easily lose 5 to 10 points. Coupled with the single point losses for careless error throughout the rest of the test (which are common, because they are so thorough and lengthy), the grade for a test that you were well-prepared for can easily slip into the 80's.\r\nWebAssign, worksheets from discussions, and in-class quizzes are collectively a huge part of your final grade. Frances compensates for her exams by allowing a great deal of points to be made up elsewhere.\n\r\nMOST IMPORTANT PART:\r\nThe tests are relatively straightforward, without much mathematical innovation necessary. She is the math teacher for people who work hard, but don't like math (despite the counter-productive proofs during lecture). If you are of a mathematical bent, you will find her class tiresome and frustating, but will likely get an A with work. If you are not such a person, you will find her class thorough and work-heavy, but you can discover that you will be able to scrape up an A or B with consistent effort.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-17T12:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "This teacher obviously knew what she was talking about, but she did not care about her students. Her grading methods of her quizzes were a little harsh and her webassigns take a while to complete.\n\r\nThe grading of the tests was a little more fair. The TA's graded the majority of the exams and she would grade 0% to 20% depending if there were 4 or 5 problems on each exam.\n\r\nThere was no curve in the class and most people seemed to end up with horrible grades. \n\r\nYou will struggle in this class.\r\nYou will.\r\nYou will. \r\nYou will.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-05-21T15:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'She is literally the devil. I would say "devil in disguise," but she also looks like the devil. She is the WORST teacher I have ever met. Correction-she is the worst HUMAN I have ever met. Disregarding family deaths as excused absences, religious holidays because the U is "secular," this lady is a completely insensitive heartless devil. I have seen more people cry in her class than a theater full of preteen girls watching The Notebook.\n\r\nAvoid her at all costs. If you have to wait to take calc, do it. If you have to defer your college acceptance, do it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2009-02-08T00:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'i strongly agree. she is nothing short of a huge ***** and a ****. she spends most of the class writing up long proofs on the board that no one ever needs to know. she doesnt care about any of her students, even gave a quiz the day before thanksgiving. she grades ridiculously unfairly like taking off half credit for missing an equals sign or similar things. often goes on to long tangents during class and im pretty sure i know her whole family history not to mention she told us the story how her son missed his calc final like 80 years ago at least once a week along with the story of how her daughter got her car stolen twice cause shes a fuckin idiot and left it unlocked. if i hadnt already taken calc in high school i would have gotten a D or dropped. whatever you do DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS!! itll be your biggest regret of the semester.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-01-24T14:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "MATH 140 is supposed to be Calculus for engineers, there are hints of this in the class taught by Frances Gulick but overall the class misses the point. F. Gulick attempts force feed her students mathematical proofs throughout the semester and her obsession with notation is enough to convince one that F.Guclick is nothing more than a math teacher harboring a resent against engineers. Her efforts to appear modern by using a projector come out as forced and futile, and lectures can easily morph into useless convoluted time wasters when one of her signature obscure proofs introduced. Those students who hadn't seen calculus before were lead straight to the slaughter, her drop-out rate only tells half the story as some stayed and dragged through the semester like fatally wounded sheep. Overall I would recommend Frances Gulick to anyone who loves unnecessary amounts of work and stress, and strives to build-up a deep hatred for math.\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-09T22:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Frances Gulick is a very tough professor, however you do learn a lot in her class. I thought her exams were fair, albeit rather difficult.\r\nOverall go to class, and do all of the assignments. I was amazed how many points I lost by not bringing my clicker to class and participating in the clicker problems. Its a hard, challenging class, but if you put forth the effort you should be fine.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-09T03:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Expect a lot of work, but "A" is not impossible. You have to keep up with your Web Assigns and problem sets in the book to do well on the exams. Her exams are challenging and she\'s very picky with notations. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-05T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "People seem not to like her, but she's not bad. She will answer questions and offer help all the time. If you study the prac. exams well and do the webassigns at math success there should be no problem. Clickers were used near the end of the year. People who complain typically don't try in class and blame the teacher -- even if she tries to help.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-11-17T02:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'I actually learned a lot in her class. As long as you goto lecture and do the homework then it is easy to do well on the exams. The exams are straightforward and are based on the homework problems she sets out at the beginning of the semester and webassigns. \n\r\nIf you just want an A without doing a ton of work then avoid her, either wise she is a good professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-09T20:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Dr. Gulick is a very good teacher, but challenging. It is not an easy A. She will challenge you any way whatsoever. From pop quizzes, to quizzes in discussion, and web assign(241) and homework/web-assign. I took her for two semesters even though I didn't get A's, I actually learned calculus as opposes to just cramming for the test. DO all your home work on time and you'll be fine. Again, It is not an easy A. SHE DOSENT CURVE. I got 89 the two times but still got B's. If you want a stress free semester, DONT TAKE HER", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-07-29T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Dr. Gulick is a very good professor, those who write these reviews obviously did not show up to lecture, did not do assigned homework, and actually the funniest point that someone tried to make is that "math comes naturally to them." This is a calculus course for engineers, chemists and a couple other majors, IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE EASY! Dr. Gulick sets out the guidelines and expectations the very first day of class and follows the syllabus to a "T." I learned more in this course than probably any other, because Dr. Gulick will take the time and put in the effort to help any student that actually puts forth an effort. Professor\'s that hand out grades do not do anything for the students, the University, or society that has to deal with engineers that forget decimal places. If you want a passionate teacher, a good class, and to learn a lot than I say to you, "take it with Francis Gulick," if you want an easy math class than head back to kindergarten children. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-07-13T03:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'you might learn a lot but end up with poor grade. she is the worst teacher ever.. if you are not good on math, stay away. you received 4 credits but it feels like you ware taking 6 credits class.\n\n\n\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-22T10:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Transfer out of the university before taking her class. Yes its that bad.\n\r\nExams are completly irrelevant to material in class and web assigns. Grading scale does not exist whatsoever, she just randomly adds points to different catagories at the end of the semester. Her grade distribution compared to the rest of the university is much lower. I'm not just blasting her becuase shes going to give me a bad grade, she dosnt belong teaching anywhere. Don't put yourself through the unnesessary.\n\r\nHeed the Warning...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-15T18:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Absolute garbage, if there is a worse professor alive, I have never had them. She is a 100 year old, she-devil ***** who is a control freak and a terrible human being. Homework is assigned constantly, and they don't really teach you anything. Every discussion had new problems that were never seen before, and never would be seen again. There was no flow whatsoever to this class.\n\r\nThe class is so disorganized it's incredible. The lectures are a pointless exercise in proofs (which she messed up on every single day), the discussions test really obscure extremities of the material, and the homework is generic, but almost inapplicable to the test.\n\r\nIt's pretty clear that the only reason this retard has a job is because her husband runs the department.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-02T20:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH430', 'review': "STAY AWAY... she is a terrible instructor. he lectures are absolutely pointless and you will not follow anything she says because nothing is interactive... \n\r\nher homework is easy to do but she is so tough on grading it that your grade will go down from the homework and it doesn't help you at all.\n\r\nher tests are too long, and she is again a very tough grader...\n\r\nI am usually an A math student and it comes natural to me, but she was just so tough on grading and did no teaching... ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'b', 'created': '2008-05-02T14:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'i think she might be the worst teacher i have ever had in my whole life. she screws up what she is doing constantly in lecture. she is some kind of control freak, she yells at kids when they leave her class early, like she can make them stay! she throws alot of pop quizes to make sure kids show up for lectures. she even yelled at my TA infront of his class, and he was easily one of the best teachers ive had. if i had not already seen calculus before i would have easily failed this course. oh yes, and dont believe what she says about her point scale for grading. i blew off the web assign because she said it was worth 50 points out of 650 total. by the end of the simester it had become closer to 250. im just glad i passed and can move on with my life and never, ever see that woman again', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-22T00:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH430', 'review': "Her tests are unreasonably difficult and often do not reflect the material taught. Homework is assigned almost every class and she always ran 5 minutes over. Didn't learn much, but I wasn't really interested in the class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-27T01:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "If you ever take a class with her, be prepared to stress about it a lot. She's good at teaching, but the homework and tests are unreasonably difficult. There's a reason why her drop/fail rates are so high.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-12-15T20:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Gulick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'She is an extremely tough professor. The averages on her test are always really low but if you disregard your grade you realize that you learn a lot in her class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-16T02:00:00Z'}], 'name': 'Frances Gulick', 'slug': 'gulick_frances'}, {'courses': ['EDSP403', 'EDSP690', 'EDSP400', 'EDSP625', 'EDSP603', 'EDSP402', 'EDSP602', 'EDSP490', 'EDSP888A', 'EDSP652'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Frances Kohl', 'slug': 'kohl'}, {'courses': ['GVPT479H', 'GVPT770', 'GVPT473', 'GVPT873', 'GVPT419H', 'GVPT419A'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Frances Lee', 'course': 'GVPT473', 'review': "Professor LEe is knowledgeable professor whose lectures, while a tad boring, are informative and pretty easy to follow. There is an attendance policy, so don't expect to skip lectures. \n\r\nThe class is well-organized, structured, and ESSENTIAL for any GVPT major. \n\r\nThe work load is tough, but not unexpected: this is a 400 level course. We had a project (not difficult), weekly reading quizzes, a midterm, a term paper (10 page, easy topic) and a final exam. \n\r\nHer exams can be somewhat tricky, since she expects that you pay attention in lecture. \n\r\nOverall, great class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-01-08T01:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Lee', 'course': 'GVPT473', 'review': 'I enjoyed her classes. Lectures could get a bit boring at times, but overall, kept my attention. good organization of lectures and classes. Reading quizes are hard for most people, but the workload was a typical of a 400 level gvpt class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-02T11:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frances Lee', 'course': 'GVPT473', 'review': "I really enjoyed Prof. Lee's class. I wouldn't say her lectures were amazing, but she definitely keeps your attention. Her assignments were really interesting and she offered plenty of choice about what projects to do and what to write your paper about. The one downside was that the class did require a lot of work. She gives frequent reading assignments and gives short reading quizzes on them. For us, there was also a project, a short paper, a medium-length paper, and two exams. She grades somewhat toughly, but fairly. The class is a lot of work, but it's interesting and you learn a lot.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:07:55Z'}], 'name': 'Frances Lee', 'slug': 'lee_frances'}, {'courses': ['FREN203', 'FREN204', 'EXST030', 'FREN250', 'FREN250H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Francesca Roth', 'slug': 'roth_francesca'}, {'courses': ['EDPS735', 'EDPS736', 'EDPS489', 'EDPS679', 'EDCI898', 'TLPL762', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL762', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Francine Hultgren', 'slug': 'hultgren'}, {'courses': ['BMGT430', 'BMGT487F', 'BMGT487', 'BMGT881', 'BMGT882', 'BMGT230H', 'BMGT837', 'BMGT430F', 'BMGT836'], 'average_rating': 3.7273, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': 'Professor Alt is an excellent professor. He is outstanding at explaining concepts slowly and in a manner that is conducive to students understanding what he is saying. Although this class went beyond the level of understanding in basic statistics, Professor Alt did a great job of explaining everything very clearly and concisely. \n\r\nThe grades consisted of three exams, one group project, and homework. Exams are pretty straightforward and fair. Homework is also very straightforward and simply reinforces the topics covered during the two lectures presented during the week. The group project is designed to be of interest to finance students specifically as it deals with a statistical representation of the CAPM model.\n\r\nAll told, I strongly recommend Professor Alt to any student considering taking BMGT430. Despite other reviews that depict him as being unfair in grading and exams, I found the opposite to be true. Although he can be a bit more strict with his grading than other professors, he is also very fair with his questions.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-06T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT487', 'review': 'Agree with the review below me. Very, very difficult class that non-Operations Management majors will struggle with. Very harsh grader who loves to take lots of points off for no reason. Almost impossible to get an A without previous experience in Management courses. Worst QUEST elective ever.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-26T23:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': 'Professor Alt is a cute old man. But don\'t let that fool you.\n\r\nHe likes to demean certain students in class when they ask a "stupid" question in his eyes. Also, one time, I told him we ran out of packets for note taking and he told me to not interrupt the class.\n\r\nDon\'t take this class if you don\'t have to. You have to attend every lecture because he provides fill-in-the-blank notes. Homework assignments are assigned every other class over the weekend. They are tough and do not fully follow class notes. They take me about 4 hours to complete.\n\r\nExam 1 was pretty easy, Exam 2 was tough. He gives you the exam from the previous semester, but he doesn\'t usually go along with the same format semester to semester. He allows you to have a 8x11 note sheet for the exam, you can write whatever you want.\n\r\nI wish I wasn\'t required to take this class. Although he is humorous and tries to make statistics fun, his notes and questions can be confusing and he isn\'t the nicest person when you have a dilemma.\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-11-01T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Professor Alt is a great instructor. He tries to make the class engaging, which is difficult given that statistics is such a horribly boring subject. He's got a good sense of humor and is really really passionate about he subject, which I think is important. His tests are pretty tricky but they can be handled, especially since he allows reference sheets. The final is very hard however, and he lets you bring open notes and the textbook because of that. Homework is a pain however, he doesn't usually give problems with answers in the back so it's pretty hard to tell if you're right or not. He's also a tough grader for the one project you have to do. Very tough. \n\r\nOverall I like him as a professor and person, but I did not enjoy the course itself. Unfortunately, every business major or person applying for the business school has to take it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-07-11T00:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'He was awesome professor, and gives out extensive notes for the lectures that are covered. Although his tests are tricky, if you do your homework, and go to TA office hours, or even his office hours, it is reasonable!\n\r\nHe is very approachable, and have a sense of humor that makes the class engaging at times.\n\r\nI strongly recommend him, if you want to have a good foundation of stats. But note, there is no curve for this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-28T01:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Professor Alt is an extremely nice man who truly cares about his students. He lightens the subject of stat with funny little stories. I found that although stat was a tough subject, I enjoyed coming to class because of Professor Alt. He even tried to learn a lot of the students' names even though it was a big lecture! He was also open to helping students as much as possible. I highly recommend Professor Alt!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-11-19T00:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'Though he is not an excellent teacher, he is very nice person. His exams are really fair if you study. Lectures are not required but his study guides are helpful. He sends emails to students about almost everything, so if you miss some lecutures, not a problem', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-20T12:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'Hard to go to class because 1 hour and 15 minutes of this guy talking just makes you sleep, most monotone teacher ive probably ever had ... Its pretty wack\n\r\nAlso does not consider your own personal situations\n\r\nLuckily the class is somewhat easy if you actually study', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-05T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Excellent teacher!Yeah he does talk extremely slow but that's what makes him so great. There's always the teachers who go so fast that it's honestly pointless to go. But not with Prof. Alt, and the packets make your life easier because you don'thave to spend your whole class time copying notes down, instead you can listen and follow along. He is my favorite professor by far, and he is extremely fair. No reason why anyone wouldn't want to take stat with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-08T19:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'Easy class but he is very boring and its hard to follow in lecture. I skip lecture every now and then and just read the book and study on my own because it is more worthwhile. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-03-31T10:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Francis Alt', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': "One of the most boring teachers that I have ever had. He talks extremely slow and monotone. His material isn't hard but he doesn't teach a lot other than giving you note packets. Lots of homework and exams.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-10-21T14:23:00Z'}], 'name': 'Francis Alt', 'slug': 'alt_francis'}, {'courses': ['BSCI279P', 'UNIV100', 'BSCI106', 'BSCI106C', 'BSCI363', 'BSCI106M', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI161', 'BSCI161C', 'BSCI161S', 'CPSP218L', 'UNIV110', 'BSCI161', 'BSCI161', 'BSCI161C', 'BSCI161S'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Francisca Saavedra', 'course': 'BSCI161', 'review': "Very strict when grading assignments. Don't take online.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-04T04:29:31Z'}], 'name': 'Francisca Saavedra', 'slug': 'saavedra'}, {'courses': ['MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Frank Ames', 'slug': 'ames_frank'}, {'courses': ['ENCE200', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE200', 'ENCE200', 'ENCE200', 'ENCE200'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Frank White', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': "Frank's a great professor, but the way he teaches ENCE200 requires you to pay attention 100% of the time. If you fall behind, you're pretty much done for, unless you have a friend next to you who can bring you up to speed. All instructions are demonstrated live on the projector, so sit toward the front of the class. He doesn't record lectures, so there isn't time to take notes and copy his steps. You'll have to decide for yourself which is more helpful. Finally, do NOT use the virtual lab. Download the student version of the software to your PC.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T14:13:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Frank White', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': 'One of my absolute best classes taken so far as a sophomore civil Major. The class was well taught, had plenty of extra help, and was plenty interesting. All you have to do is focus in class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-27T15:52:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Frank White', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': 'Such a good man. ENCE200 was easy as long as you come to class and pay attention(I would recommend sitting in the front), you will have everything you need to get an A. Always ask questions if you have them he is super helpful and jokes around with his students. If he taught any other civil classes I would definitely take them. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-08T21:37:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Frank White', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': "Frank is a funny and helpful professor that expects his students to work hard and put in effort. He doesn't mind taking time to explain content if students are confused and he'll always share his experience in the real world. Only downside is that he grades a little harsh and is not willing to curve.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-27T19:49:22.562974Z'}, {'professor': 'Frank White', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': "Frank's teaching style is unhelpful at best. He goes over a million different ways to do the same thing so you get lost and can't even remember one of them because you mix them up. He goes through things quickly and expects you to know everything perfectly the lecture after. You don't have time to take notes so if you don't have an amazing memory, good luck. He also hints at his political leanings when it would not be appropriate to do so in class when covering content. He also never seems glad to be teaching and constantly complains (almost as if bragging) about how much he is working. He tends to go off on tangents in the middle of explaining a concept which is distracting at best. He also does not accommodate ADS whatsoever. Need more time on a quiz? He'll tell you that everyone always finishes in time and blows you off. He goes right into lecture content after a quiz so you can't book with ADS either and I highly doubt he'd approve it if you did. If you email him, he will not respond unless you email him three days in a row which is a nuisance for both parties involved. In addition, he is old-fashioned and you will waste half of a COMPUTER-aided design course learning to do profiles by hand which he says is for a concrete understanding but is just tedious and doesn't help anyone understand anything. If he can't explain it with a computer, perhaps he should reconsider teaching a CAD class. He does not tell you when he is going to drop assignments so you need to always have time prepared in your week to waste a couple of hours on some of his homework. My class relied heavily on YouTube and each other to make it through. Also if you want extensions as per your accommodations, you can kiss those goodbye. If you want to instead try and get access to assignments early to find another way of having extra time, Frank will thwart you in any way possible. He will blow you off, ignore you, and then flatly tell you that you cannot have access to anything before the rest of the class even if you have accommodations. Many other teachers are fully in this century when it comes to dealing with disabilities and the content they present, but Frank is not. He stubbornly holds onto the mentally that if he had to go through things a certain way, you must go through them too.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-13T18:23:15.221891Z'}], 'name': 'Frank White', 'slug': 'white_frank'}, {'courses': ['THET489P', 'THET712', 'THET488A', 'THET700', 'THET698G', 'THET698P', 'THET499', 'THET600', 'THET698I', 'THET286', 'THET698J', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'THET888', 'THET889', 'THET898', 'THET899', 'THET669E', 'THET688A', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET669', 'THET391', 'THET889', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET390', 'THET399', 'THET600', 'THET698G', 'THET700', 'THET789', 'THET391', 'THET489A', 'THET698A', 'THET889', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET390', 'THET399', 'THET698G', 'THET788'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Franklin Hildy', 'course': 'THET489P', 'review': 'Didn\'t receive any grades, except a midterm paper, until after I had handed in my final exam. For the final term paper, I handed in an annotated bibliography with my topic clearly stated, and got no feedback. When I received the final paper, the first comment Dr. Hildy wrote on the paper was "As I feared, this was not a good topic." I would hope that with a better professor, I would hear this feedback before the paper was actually written and submitted.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-17T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Franklin Hildy', 'course': None, 'review': "Rambling, disorganized, didn't learn much. On the plus side he's a relatively easy grader.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-08-04T12:15:00Z'}], 'name': 'Franklin Hildy', 'slug': 'hildy'}, {'courses': ['SURV630', 'SURV721', 'SURV720', 'SURV829', 'SURV699Y', 'SURV751', 'SURV667', 'SURV699', 'SURV699Z', 'SURV627', 'SURV400', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SURV635', 'SURV699Q', 'SURV699', 'SURV699', 'SURV699', 'SURV699', 'SURV751', 'SURV699', 'SURV699'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Frauke Kreuter', 'slug': 'kreuter'}, {'courses': ['BUMK757', 'BUSM703', 'BUMK758J', 'BUMK758P', 'BUSO612', 'BUSO612'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Fred Katz', 'slug': 'katz_fred'}, {'courses': ['SURV632', 'SURV829', 'SURV699', 'SURV699G', 'SURV623', 'SURV621', 'SURV622', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'INST408M', 'SURV699R', 'SURV621', 'SURV632', 'SURV699', 'SURV622', 'SURV621', 'SURV632'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Frederick Conrad', 'slug': 'conrad_frederick'}, {'courses': ['PHYS275', 'PHYS107', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS276', 'PHYS261', 'PHYS271', 'PHYS375', 'PHYS261M', 'PHYS271M', 'ENEE899'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS260H', 'review': "Exams are fair, I didn't think his lectures were worth my time, but he gave out attendance quizzes so I went anyway. No idea how much the quizzes are worth. I took the Honors version and the only difference was a dedicated discussion and an extra three or four homework problems total, which was nothing. This is definitely an easy H-version compared to others I've taken. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-01T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS261', 'review': "*This is a review for Phys261 Lab*\r\nNote: My grade in lab was an A, but because I got a C in 260, I got a C in lab unfortunately. Anyways, this class is taught by your TA, and I had Ryan Maunu. He was great! He had notes to help us and always checked our work. He would try to give you hints to get you in the right direction. This was my first lab course, and it wasn't difficult if you came prepared. Met only every other week.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-25T22:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Wellstood might be the best lecturer I've had in college so far, but the problem is that he seems to cover significantly less in lecture than the other professors do. Everybody in our sections thought the combined final was impossible, but the others thought it was easy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T20:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "The best part of Wellstood's class is that it is taught by a reasonable physics professor- meaning that his expectations of busy engineering students are fair. He prepares the class well for all three exams. The final was hard, but he gave us fair warning and offered a review session.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-25T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Great teacher! He was helpful and very interested in his work. His exams were fair and offered make ups for the first two. He is also very nice if you visit him during his office hours. Would take again.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-18T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'By far one of the best professors in thy physics department...he goes the extra mile to ensure that his students understand the important concepts of physics. Dr. Wellstood also includes in-class experiments to supplement the material; all were very interesting, especially once the electromagnetism units were covered. This is not an easy class, but Dr. Wellstood is definitely one of the greatest professors I have had thusfar', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-01-03T01:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "one of the best physics professors in the school. explains concepts clearly and has very straightforward exams. he's willing to spend as much time with you during office hours as you need and puts your needs first. if you go to lecture, quizzes are easy since he gives the answers right after he asks the questions. if your not happy with your exam, he always gives makeups. pretty much, he gives you every opportunity in the world to do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T15:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Professor Wellstood is an absolutely awesome physics teacher. Every lecture, he presents information in a clear, organized, and thorough fashion, taking the time to explain why things are how they are, and how they are useful to you. He is very approachable and understanding, and he actually responds to e-mails, even when they're about really stupid things. Tests are challenging, but definitely fair, and there is a review session for each one. There are also sample exams which may not be entirely representative as to the difficulty of the actual test, but are great practice. There were even make-ups for the first two midterms. Homework is a huge portion of the grade, so it's important to start it early to make sure you don't get stuck when it's too late to ask questions. There's also some material on the masteringphysics assignments that isn't covered in class because it's not important enough to be on a test.\r\nTrust me, if you take Wellstood and go to every single lecture, you will really learn the material, and even get to watch some pretty sweet demos.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T11:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "The professor explained the concepts well and engaged the class even though I don't particularly like physics. His examples are quite useful in understanding the material. His tests are fair in that he tests main concepts and not strange obscure problems. In fact I took him for both phys161 and phys26o because he is much better than the other physics professors. His tests reviews are extremely helpful.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-27T22:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "I don't think there is any sane person who would have any complaint WHATSOEVER with this professor. I think he might actually be a godsend to reward us cursed engineering students. He responds to e-mails, cares about his students, basically gives away the exams with his review sessions, Gave MAKE-UP exams for two exams last semester in 161 (I don't think you heard me right, let me say that again: THE MAN GAVE TWO MAKE UP EXAMMMMMMMSSSSSSS!!!!!!!), has a fun, quirky attitude in lecture, explains all the concepts behind equations in PROSE AND INDENTIFIES THEM PHYSICALLY, has cool fun demoes sporadically, I could spent all day listing his qualities. I took him for 161, have him right now in 260 (and btw the first exam was easier than expected, lol), and damn sure plan to take him for 271. I don't care what you expect to get from the class, how you want your tests to be, how you want the professor to teach, or your general level in physics (he could teach a monkey about fluid dynamics) -- Wellstood is the high school physics teacher who came to answer all of your prayers! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-03-03T14:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Softball class, especially if you have had some Physics in high school. Wellstood is a great professor, going through derivations and a few examples in class. \n\r\nA bit nitpicky when it comes to grading, although if you attend review sessions and/or pay attention in class, he tells you what he expects and how he grades.\n\r\nHomework is sometimes harder than what is covered in lecture, but that's what discussion's for. Tests are surprisingly easy, although the final is a bit tricky.\n\r\nOverall, a good experience. As someone with a good background in mechanics, this class took little time and effort. Even for someone new to physics, it shouldn't be too bad.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T15:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Professor Wellstood has been my favorite teacher this Fall 2009 semester. His class is fun, and very informative with great examples to use for the homework. He is approachable and will also answer any questions you may have. The mastering physics homework is also helpful and really makes the students think. \n\r\nHis examinations are very difficult but they are ALL curved (so is the class) so just do as well or better than the class average and you should get at least a B in the class. One last thing, if you completely bomb any of the examines, he will allow you to complete a make-up examine! How many professors allow students to get another attempt at the material? None that i know of.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-12T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Dr. Wellstood is an amazing professor. He's the best physics professor I've had, not only does he know the material, he is capable of getting the important points across to his students (which is no mean feat for science and math classes). \n\r\nHe really cares for his students and does everything possible to help us. Go to his office hours and he's very willing to give you his time to explain the things that you might not understand. His syllabus is set in a way to give you the best chance of getting an A in his class he puts a lot of weight in the homework and attendance. \n\r\nHis exams are challenging and many people have a difficult time getting the hang of them. But go to lecture, do your home work, and go to review. He has a habit of putting things on there are test whether or not you understand the material and are able to apply it, not if you can redo problems that you've seen. So it really depends on how much effort you are willing to put in to actually learning the material. \n\r\nBasically, take him if you want a little challenge and want to LEARN the material. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-15T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'EXCELLENT PROFESSOR! Dr. Wellstood truly cares about his students and goes the extra mile to make sure he is doing everything possible to be of assistance when help is needed. He personally grades exams, so he gets to know your strengths and weaknesses in the subject material. Dr. Wellstood makes sure that all students understand the essentials of Physics I (i.e. vectors, proper notation, etc.), all of which are critically important in all sciences/math/engineering. The class is challenging, but it is a necessary class for all engineering majors (and no physics class is easy). Dr. Wellstood is by far one of the greatest professors in the physics department. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-04T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Professor Wellstood is awful! First of all... he SMELLS SO BAD all the time! Please do us a favor and take a shower! Second... his exams are so hard! They are nothing like lecture, homework, or discussion. The old exams are sometimes helpful, but not that much. Don't take him! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-16T02:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Amazing teacher. very clear and comprehensive with his lectures. you will definitely want to go to all of the lectures and take notes since they are extremely helpful. He takes the extra effort to emphasize the important points and theorems and try to incorporate demonstrations to illustrate certain points (makes the class so much more interesting). His animated character and love for physics is quite contagious (will keep you entertained and awake in class). Although his examples are graded a bit more carefully, it is very reasonably done so since the problems are basically exactly like the posted sample examples and he will go over the entire sample example at the review sessions (if you can't make it, he will go over the sample exam with you in office hours). His lectures are also thorough enough to warrant for the difficulty level of the test. \n\r\nDefinitely do all of the mastering physics hw! they are very helpful.\n\r\nTo succeed in this class:\r\n1. attend and stay awake for all his lectures\r\n2. do all the mastering phys hw\r\n3. do sample exam and go to review session\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-06T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Professor Wellstood is very smart and very knowledgeable about physics, so much so that I felt like his teachings and his expectations for you as a student went beyond what is necessary. Classes were okay. You definitely want to take notes, as a couple exam questions here and there will come from what is discussed in lecture. Homework was relatively easy, as the problems were straight out of the book. \n\r\nHowever, you can have a great understanding of how to do all of the problems in the book/homework and then his test questions come straight outta "no-man\'s land". \r\nExams are SOOO HARD!! Exam questions that are nothing like the homework problems and oftentimes the type of problems that were never covered in class. If you take his class, DEFINITELY study the old sample exams; exams are ususally very similar to old exams and are very helpful. He doesn\'t post answers to these old exams, you HAVE to attend his review sessions (usually in the evening, day before exam) in order to obtain the solutions. Also, he provides a curve based on a bell statistical distribution. AVERAGE grades were usually like a 45 for my class; he already anticipates offering a make-up exam before giving the actual exam. Harsh grading; real big on vector notation. If I had to take this class again, I\'d definitely look to take it with another professor. Please!\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-10-30T20:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'course': None, 'review': 'This class had 3 tests, alot of homework and a final. Overall the professor explains the concepts pretty clearly, but the majority of my learning was from reading the book itself and doing practice problems. \n\r\nThe homework is not difficult, but if the computer software is likely to drive you crazy. For Ilearn which was used when I took it, the solutions were basically needed to make sure that the right sig figs were used. \n\r\nOverall, this class has a major curve because of all the slackers. I am pretty sure I had an A without the curve so its not really difficult unless you try to learn everything last minute. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-05T02:10:00Z'}], 'name': 'Frederick Wellstood', 'slug': 'wellstood'}, {'courses': ['BUFN758G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gabriel Thoumi', 'slug': 'thoumi'}, {'courses': ['MATH220', 'MATH246'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gadi Fibich', 'slug': 'fibich'}, {'courses': ['BIOE120', 'ENCH468M', 'ENCH609', 'CHBE484', 'CHBE101', 'CHBE333', 'CHBE444', 'BIOE489L', 'BIOE689L', 'ENCH648M', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE100', 'CHBE369', 'CHBE100', 'CHBE444', 'BIOE120', 'CHBE101', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE101', 'CHBE100', 'CHBE444'], 'average_rating': 2.9091, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': 'I am posting this review to potentially sway you to NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. As a straight A student at UMD, and a very-hard worker, I found the content and manner in which Sriram teaches class to be ineffective at evaluating my knowledge of basic biology-engineering concepts. The content of the tests and homeworks are completely irrelevant to the Engineering curriculum of your major, and test you on material that is most often not taught in class. Expect to be taken back by the arrogant attitude of the professor as well as his hasty emails that lack any sort of professionalism. Also, expect to spend the majority of your time at Keystone, with the TA. Having Dr. Sriram teaching Biology for Engineers, is a disgrace to the University as well as the Engineering School. Does not care about the students. AVOID AT ALL COSTS', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-11T23:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Professor Sriram is very intelligent and knows what he's talking about... That being said... He is not a good teacher... I very much dislike him and his attitude. He acts like biology is the end all be all of the world and that everyone loves it as much as him and knows as much as him. He makes the homeworks and the exams near impossible. Also, I had to miss a couple of his classes (and one exam) for medical reasons, and he was completely uncooperative! It took me an entire month A MONTH to finally get ahold of him and get him to give me the make up exam... I wound up taking it two days before the second exam causing me to have little time to study for the second exam (I wound up failing the 2nd exam). He has a very high opinion of himself. Sriram is lazy and never gets anything graded and returned to you in a reasonable manner nor does he ever get anything to you on time. Yet he penalizes us very heavily for being even a minute late on our homeworks. Overall, I am not a fan...", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-11T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': None, 'review': "He's okay. As totally typical of Sriram, his homeworks are hard and will take you a long time. However, this class is easy, and there were only 5 hws total, and 1 of them was really easy. Our class had all sorts of majors in the class, so I feel like it had to be that way. You have to be comfortable with basic matlab scripts for this class. He also lets you bring anything to the exam. You don't need any textbooks for this class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-31T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Sriram might pull some ridiculousness when it comes to turning in homework in time (He arrives late half the time too) but he also knows what hes talking about. he overplays his own research, but he knows how to explain what he wants to, and the same things he stresses in class he will stress on a test. if you go to class every day and pay attention you should have no problem acing any class he teaches, he's the kind of genius being a doctor at the age of 26 suggests", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-11T02:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Dr. Sriram is TERRIBLE. like others have said he's brillant, and he really is; but he expects you to know as much as he does while taking this intro course. His homeworks are ridiculously hard and his grading on his homeworks are pretty unfair. Its HW #3 and I've spent hours upon hours in research for things the average bio person doesn't know. this is an intro class but he treats it like a 300-400 level class. I don't know what the exams are like but I'm sure it wont be pretty. whatever you do DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR! if you have to wait a semester for another one I'd strongly advise it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-02-24T14:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Sriram is extremely smart, and sometimes I think he expected his students to think the same way he does. You have to go to class, as he memorizes all 100+ students in the lecture by name and will notice if you aren't there. He expects quiet at all times and the class can get extremely boring, but he is kind at heart and will occasionally try to crack a joke.\n\r\nThe class itself was difficult in that the weekly homework he assigned always seemed to take a couple hours and would be more difficult than anything covered in class. His tests also were very tough. \n\r\nThis being said, he was an easy grader. On tests, the range for an A was usually anything over a 70. I ended up with an 85 in the class (without any curves) and was comfortably in the A range. He is also very receptive to students during office hours.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-09T21:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Dr. Sriram is tough. Not gonna lie. But hes absolutely brilliant and really knows his stuff. From wht ive heard the other professors for BIOE120 are also really hard so I'd say Sriram is as good a bet as any but be prepared to work hard. Theres a good curve though so if u stay above the average you should be just fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-29T14:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Dr. Sriram is the DEVIL.\r\nHe knows what he's teaching inside and out. He's an extremely intelligent person and a good lecturer, albeit a little monotone and too fast-paced. Unfortunately, his homeworks are super hard and take me HOURS to do, and his exams are just ridiculous. Even if you understand the material, it's a very comprehensive class. He tries to get you to apply concepts in ways that are difficult to see at first. He also teaches stuff that you apparently learn in upper level courses, making it unnecessarily difficult... I think his manner of teaching this class is really unfair for an introductory level class. I got a 5 on AP bio and an A in bsci207, and I still found his class very difficult. \r\nHe's not very approachable and makes you feel rather stupid when you ask questions. His exam averages are really low (like 60%). Not entirely sure how big his curves are, but as of now, I have a B-. He likes to curve the class so that most students will get a B, but his class is honestly not worth the time. If you have the option of taking another teacher DO IT. It'll save you hours of time, and your ego from taking a beating. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-19T16:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Dr. Sriram really knows his stuff!\r\nHe teaches using the chalkboard, and gives examples and stuff, but when you start the hw, it's like 10 times harder then what he went over in class. Also, he says that he'll have something done by a certian day (like assigning the new hw, or updating grades), but it never is. You'll come to expect that saying he'll return something on monday really means thursday, or friday at the earliest.\r\nHe does take advantage of the discussion feature on bb though, and it is extremely helpful!!!! I wish all of my teachers used this feature.\r\nBasically, take a crapload of notes and ask questions, and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-09T23:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': None, 'review': 'Good professor, knows his chemE. Tough course with tough exams and tough homework. Put a lot of time into reviewing notes/book/homework and go to his office hours, and you should do well. ~70% cutoff for an A', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-06-17T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': None, 'review': 'The first equation Dr. Sriram wrote on the board was "THERMO=HARD", and it turns out it is a hard class. That being said Dr. Sriram was able to clearly explain most of the concepts and was always available during office hours. His exams were extremely difficult and he ended up curving to make a 70 an A. Some of his homeworks are ridiculously hard, but if you show him that you have attempted the problem, he will give you some hints. \r\nP.S. NEVER go late to his class and NEVER interrupt his lectures, or you will be on his shitlist. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-05-30T18:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': None, 'review': "I wouldn't say Dr. Sriram is the best professor, but he definitely tries to get the material across in an understandable fashion. Obviously in a chemical engineering course, if you don't keep on top of your work, you'll fall behind, and have to work your ass off to catch back up, so I don't understand why people are complaining about his course, especially since he makes himself readily available via email and office hours. \n\r\nIf you have Sriram as your professor, it's important to go to lectures and write everything down. Yes, I mean everything. You never know what might help you on the homeworks or tests (tests are open note, open book). \n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-19T22:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': None, 'review': "As the first class in chemical engineering, it is hard to know what to expect in ENCH215. However, if you have Professor Sriram, expect a fairly difficult class. Sriram himself wasn't a bad lecturer and was able to explain the concepts clearly enough (for me at least). Unfortunately, he seems really distant and condescending in lecture, but he is a pretty nice guy outside of class. However, that is about all the good I can say for the class as a whole. As far as I know, Sriram only has one graduate student under him and therefore only one TA. This TA is horrible. It is difficult to understand him and he does not teach well so going to discussion is pointless. Homework was just enough of your total grade to mess it up if you did not do well on the homework. Homework was weekly and it was impossible. No matter how much I worked on the homework during the week, I would still end up staying up all night the night before homework was due. Because of Sriram, I have seen more sunrises than I care to count. No matter how well you think you know the material from the lecture, the homework will still make you desperately search through the book for a way to solve the problems. Quizzes were annoying, but they were pretty easy especially if you brought your book (open book). However, they did not reflect the tests. Even though tests were open note/open book they were still pretty difficult. The sample exam was approximately the same difficulty as the actual test, but the actual test was changed just enough that you felt like the sample test did not help at all. The only redeeming quality in all of this is that Sriram's curve is pretty generous, with a majority of the class getting B's. If you're looking to get an A then good luck, but if you're okay with a B then with some effort it is not too difficult because of the curve.\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-20T02:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': None, 'review': "Sriram relies far too much on PowerPoints for a class that centers on problem solving and analysis. The basic material was presented clearly, but the strategies and tools needed to actually solve the problems on an exam were difficult to learn from his Powerpoints. I found him to be quite approachable and likable during office hours/appointments, but he comes off as very arrogant and condescending towards his students during lecture. At some points during the semester, he would single out certain students in class as some kind of attempt to set an example. \r\nSriram is also very nitpicky. Homework (which was often excessive and difficult) needed to be completed on engineering paper, stapled, signed with the honor code, and folded LENGTHWISE. If this was not done correctly, your homework would not be graded and you will receive a zero.\r\nExams were okay for the most part, but a huge curve was always needed for half the class to pass. The overall grades for the class were fair (majority A's and B's), but most of us felt like we were going to fail for about 90% of the semester. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-14T03:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': None, 'review': 'I wish you could score less than a 1. This guy is totally pointless and the TA is even worse. He uses powerpoint which when you take a class on concepts and theories don\'t help. He expects you to be able to get this new information from day 1 with no problems whatsoever. He\'s wrong. The book is pointless too (tip: don\'t bother finding the solutions manual since it has a lot of errors and he\'ll trap you if you use it for help). I\'m pretty sure I\'ll be changing my major now thanks to him. Some people liked him, but a man that uses a "factor of 5" on how long it\'s projected you\'ll finish a test is a total failure of a teacher especially for an introductory level course. He makes himself available to the students, but he\'ll make you feel like a moron too. No redeeming qualities at all.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-24T04:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': None, 'review': "As a lecturer, he's relatively clear and gets the concepts across well. However, I feel as though he is entirely out of touch with what its like to be a student. HW sets take several hours and are graded so harshly that getting even a B (80/100) on them is near impossible. Also, the HW problems are far harder than the exams. I feel like the HW sets are generally useless and did not help me understand the material.\n\r\nHe's not very understanding... counts HW sets late if you don't arrive at class precisely on the hour. He expects everyone to ask regular questions, but then mocks students for not understanding some material. Generally not approachable. I think he enjoys the fact that small mistakes can really mess up your grade. For instance, failing to bring the book to lecture could result in you failing the pop quizzes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-17T00:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': None, 'review': "He's a fuck face. He can't teach for crap and assumes the class knows everything. I know you probably don't have a choice if you take him or not, but good luck (you'll need it)", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-02T16:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': 'He had a good lecture style, printed packets for you, and had interesting lectures. If you ever needed help for anything in his class, he was more than willing to take time and go through it with you. He would also post multiple hints or clarifications on ELMS promptly whenever you emailed him a question. Though I found his discussions kind of pointless (but mandatory) he was a nice guy who genuinely loves teaching his students and the materials. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-15T02:58:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'CHBE444', 'review': 'Great Teacher. Work hard, and will get good results.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-17T01:34:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'CHBE444', 'review': 'Sriram is of another dimension. If you are not capable of committing 20+ hours a week to complete all the work he has set out for the class then you will suffer and there is nothing you can do about it. He tries very hard to organize the course in a unique method but it only serves to make finding anything pertinent annoying. Rather than find a more effective method to engage the class to ensure understanding every assignment is made unnecessarily complicated so you have to spend hours on end working through each assignment. Lectures cover the simplest of examples while assignments more based in reality are impossible as the class material is practically irrelevant. After many complaints about the strenuousness of the course, rather than reduce the complexity of everything, Dr. Sriram instead overhauled the course entirely so that the only consistent portions of the course were now gone and we had to adjust to an entire new structure half way through the semester. All of this is to say that while his heart is in the right place in trying to be a good teacher, every effort misses its target by a country mile and instead the class is simply punished week after week. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-28T20:05:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'CHBE333', 'review': 'Mediocre lecturer: may have a strong understanding of first-principles, but has no business teaching them', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-02-10T19:59:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'course': 'BIOE120', 'review': "Took BIOE120 with Dr. Sriram in Spring 2022. Dr. Sriram is an incredible professor. He's very knowledgeable in this field and wants students to succeed in the course (which they do thanks to his great teaching). Dr. Sriram hosts 2 hour exam study sessions before an exam, and they are extremely helpful. Midterms are extremely fair. Homework is on the slightly challenging side, but the TAs assist greatly. Would definitely take BIOE120 with him if you have the chance.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-17T02:12:01.503200Z'}], 'name': 'Ganesh Sriram', 'slug': 'sriram'}]
[{'courses': ['ENEE644', 'ENEE140', 'ENEE359R', 'ENPM808C', 'ENEE244', 'ENSE698C', 'ENEE459B', 'ENPM615', 'ENEE759B', 'ENEE150', 'ENTS689A', 'HACS279', 'ENPM809I', 'ENSE799', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE899', 'ENSE799'], 'average_rating': 3.3529, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "He's an ok lecturer, but it is sometimes hard to understand what he is saying. As for the courseload, the homework was reasonable. He did make the 3rd exam and final very hard, so I would recommend trying harder once you get to the last 3rd of the course. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-09-30T21:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': 'Great professor! I feel like he really wants you to work hard and have a deep understanding of the material. He focuses on you learning how to problem solve. 140 was an easy class but the project can be very time consuming. \n\r\nHe also taught 150 and the difficulty level was definitely increased tenfold. Very long projects and most exams were pretty difficult. You could tell by the end of the semester some students were pretty stressed out, but that is expected. He basically tells you the main things that will be on the exams but to expect pretty much everything he has gone over. You really need to manage your time wisely. Most questions on the exams were ones that I had not yet tried to implement so you need to be on your toes and prepared to think and problem solve! \n\r\nOverall, if you put in the time and effort you should do well and also learn some too!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-09-11T19:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "Pretty average professor, nothing extraordinary or terribly bad about his teaching style. There is an accent here, but I think it's pretty understandable. Pay attention, maybe he'll tell you the story of how he told his son he couldn't play basketball.\n\r\nFor 140, he had our class get a little paper booklet of the all the notes for the entire class at the beginning of the semester for like $5. If you've had any programming experience before this class, 140 will probably be pretty easy. If not, consult that booklet all the time. Seriously, it has pretty much everything need in it.\n\r\nFor 244, I thought he was a pretty good teacher. Better than Silio at actually teaching, and I'm assuming better than Nakajima just based on the horror stories I've heard about his 244 class. When I took it, he fit 3 exams into the semester as well as a final exam, but I don't think he usually does that. Our final and our third exam had a lot of overlap, because not many people did well on that third exam. The end of his exams always have extra credit questions, but they're pretty tough so don't bank on these for points.\n\n\r\nQu grades on a curve..kind of. He doesn't like when you have hard cut offs and someone is like 0.01 away from a letter grade, so he clusters grades near enough to eachother to be certain letter gradse, and decides the cutoff when there is a big gap in grades. For example, 93, 92.5, 94 might all be A's, but if the next grade is 88 that could be a B. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-11-13T12:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "He seems like a nice guy, but the class is very hard if you have never done any programming before. The projects take a ton of time and effort so make sure you start them early. This class was way too much work for a 2 credit class but I don't necessarily blame that on Dr. Qu.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-11-02T15:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "Tough class, but he is an average teacher. The class is dependant on the TA you have, so if you don't feel like you have a good one, try to change it ASAP. His lecture notes are good, but I would have liked to get more out of discussion. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T16:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "Qu's pretty good and he's pretty generous with grades. But his projects are so hard. I'm warning you about those projects; they are hard. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-23T21:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "Nice professor. Hard class if you've NEVER done ANY programming ever before. I felt that there is more work than credits though. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "He wasn't that bad of a professor. I studied C programming since I was in 8th grade, so this class was honestly too easy. I wish he would have taught people how to debug though.\n\r\nBut, I guess, if you have no prior experience, you are in for a long semester. It was pretty easy for me.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-12T16:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': 'Very Very difficult class. Only a two credit class but takes a lot of time and it is very difficult without previous programming experience. Professor is difficult to understand, but very lenient and a very nice guy. Prepare for a long semester tho if you are taking this class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-08T15:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "Qu was just an ok lecturer. I didn't feel like I picked up a lot during class, but programming is generally a self-taught class so it wasn't a big deal. Reasonable grading scales and doable exams/projects. I wasn't great at the class but programming isn't my bag. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-18T23:10:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "This is a really poorly structured and disorganized course. His lectures were extremely basic and off sync from the labs by two or so weeks for most of the semester. By the time we finished the first project, Qu had just started covering the required material in lecture. The lab manual is also sometimes obtusely worded, so be wary of that. This class is highly TA dependent, so be sure to attend office hours often and ask questions frequently. Do your projects early. I learned almost all of the material in the class by reading a textbook (Stephen Prata's C Primer Plus) and attending office hours. This course did not feel like 2 credits of work, especially for what was intended to be an introduction to programming. Having experience with C or another programming language would have been incredibly helpful.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-17T22:47:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "Lectures were fine. Tests weren't as hard as expected. However, especially during the transition to online format, we were left in completely the dark about our grades and how the course would be adapted. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-07T04:28:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "Dr. Qu was just ok at lecturing and instructing this course. He's decently helpful in office hours and very nice once you get him talking, but his lectures can be pretty dry. I took this class with no prior programming experience at all and found it challenging, but not impossible. The homework was pretty fair, and the projects were sometimes tough so I basically lived in office hours. The TAs we had during my semester in this class were phenomenal, so sometimes they really do make or break the course. This class should be more than 2 credits given the work load, but I don't blame Qu for that (the EE department kind of sucks in general...) ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-02T20:21:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'So, I did learn a bit, and I think the class was fair. What makes it difficult to recommend Dr. Qu is that he is extremely disorganized. I never felt as stressed for exams as I felt about last-minute assignments and such. Often, he would say "homework is coming out tomorrow", then it comes out a week later, he extends the deadline, then quizzes us on the homework the day before it\'s due, and so on. If you can handle the stress of a disorganized course, I think it would be good to take Qu because he is not too bad otherwise. He\'s a mediocre lecturer, but the homework is very similar to the exams, and he is forgiving when he makes organizational mistakes.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-19T16:27:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Probably the most disorganized and confusing teacher I\'ve ever had. Does not post any practice problems and tells us to review the semi-weekly homework assignments to study instead. Additionally, he also mentions how he pulls things from "the book", but he never mentioned any book, and there is no reference in the syllabus or in any documents he has. The only lecture material he posts is the chapter slides, so it is near impossible to know exactly what material he covers in a single class, unless you know exactly what he ended on the prior class and what he started teaching the next class. Additionally, he does not have any idea how to measure the workload he is giving his students. There was one week where he assigned a homework assignment due the day of an exam, and then he assigned a quiz on material covered in the exam literally the next day in discussion. His lectures, if you went, were hard to understand what was going on, and I eventually realized that I understood more from the slides alone than looking at the slides and hearing him discuss them. The only reason I\'m giving him 2 stars is because I can tell he\'s a nice guy, but he\'s just not good at his job at all.\r\n\r\nTLDR: Qu is unorganized and makes it hard to know and study material. Take any other teacher if you can.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-14T22:50:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE459B', 'review': "There's a big separation between the lab and lecture components of this course. The lab component is taught by Booz Allen Hamilton employees and teaches you super practical skills in reverse engineering, using Ghidra. In lecture, Professor Qu talks about hardware security abstractly and assigns his own easy but sometimes time-consuming homework. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-27T17:08:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Gang Qu', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Gang Qu is pretty frustrating as a professor. The homework was very hard but you could figure it out, also most were graded by completion with only a few points of accuracy. The quizzes were very very easy, but the exams were rough. The exams were much harder than most examples from the quizzes and homework, but this is also a self teach kind of class, I went to lectures the first few weeks but they were not pertinent and frankly did not cover what was needed to understand the material, mostly examples without real explanation. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-29T00:45:29Z'}], 'name': 'Gang Qu', 'slug': 'qu'}, {'courses': ['ENCE688C', 'ENCE670', 'ENCE689', 'ENCE899', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE470', 'ENCE670', 'ENCE676', 'ENCE688C', 'ENCE689', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE899', 'ENCE670'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gang-Len Chang', 'slug': 'chang_gang-len'}, {'courses': ['CHEM687', 'CHEM889E', 'CHEM482', 'CHEM684', 'BIPH708B', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM889F', 'CHEM889G', 'CHPH709A', 'BIPH708A', 'CHPH718I', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM481', 'CHEM271'], 'average_rating': 2.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Garegin Papoian', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Dr. Papoian is a good teacher for what is usually a difficult class. His lectures are clear and helpful. He spends time going over quantitative problems and makes it clear what will be on the exam via practice exams. The exams are relatively easy compared to other 131 profs (esp. Friedman). The average overall grade for our class was 81.9.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-12-21T13:53:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Garegin Papoian', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Papoian seems like the classic archetype of a professor who understands his material so well that he struggles to teach to people with little to no chemistry background. His lectures were unenlightening but he is a nice enough guy and the class isn't challenging if you just do your work.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-04-25T15:44:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Garegin Papoian', 'course': 'CHEM131S', 'review': 'Do not suggest taking him online by any means. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-09T15:14:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Garegin Papoian', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "The professor mostly went over the same topics we did as homework. Lectures were okay, not very interesting. The workload was by far the worst out of all my classes but its not too hard to get a decent grade, just VERY time consuming. Practice exams were NOTHING compared to the real exam so don't be fooled. Same concept but much more difficult problems. One of the exams ended up having a horrible class average (many 40s) and from many complaints, was curved at least 18 points.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-09T21:21:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Garegin Papoian', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "He was an alright professor. I chose an asynchronous class and he recorded his lectures. I mainly used the textbook and CHEM101 homework to teach myself. I only used his lecture if I really didn't understand a concept but I only needed to do that once or twice. The class is manageable and the textbook was my main resource. The homework was reasonable and it really helped me in the end. He also is willing to work with students. My class did really bad overall on one test so he let everyone take the make-up but if we ended up with a worse score that would be our grade either way. I think he was better than the other teacher for the semester. Overall the class was fine.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-22T22:37:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Garegin Papoian', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'He understood what he was talking about and usually answered questions pretty well. Was not very helpful on the interactive textbook, which has a lot of glitches and answers key issues. Other than that his exams and homeworks are very similar to those in the past. DIfficult material for any freshman I think but if you study a lot you should be fine in his class. However, having him online and in-person are two very different things. Easier to get a good grade in person so I would wait to take his class until the apocalypse is over.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-04-22T16:28:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Garegin Papoian', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Not a terrible teacher but make sure you don’t learn too much or they’ll curve down your grade. Wtf', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-17T02:07:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Garegin Papoian', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'The lectures were rarely useful. I mostly learned from the software TopHat which had assigned readings and questions. These readings were long-winded and usually convoluted. The exams were fair(no trick questions). However, at the end of the year, he curved down the grades. For example, a 90% translates to a B+. I feel like taking this class in person would be best.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-28T01:08:54Z'}], 'name': 'Garegin Papoian', 'slug': 'papoian'}, {'courses': ['BMGT311', 'BMGT321', 'BMGT410', 'BMGT424', 'BMGT220H', 'BMGT313', 'BMGT313F', 'BUAC743', 'BMGT221', 'BUAC780', 'BUSI610', 'BMGT221H', 'BMGT411'], 'average_rating': 4.8235, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT410', 'review': 'Let me start by saying that Government Accounting is not an easy course by any means, but Prof. Bulmash made it so much more accessible. He is a great instructor, probably one of the best accounting professors at UMD, always available to help, and has a great sense of humor. He wants to make sure that everyone understands and is comfortable with the material. Overall, the exams are not very difficult, but you are likely to find some questions on material that you may not necessarily have encountered during your study. The project was also very accessible. Overall, this is a great course to take, especially if you want to sit for the CPA, and if you can, take it with Bulmash, since it will make your life much easier!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-26T22:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT221', 'review': "My favorite teacher at UMD. This man cares about his students and makes accounting interesting. Accounting isn't even my major and he kept me interested. The class is laid back and he tells stories that ties into concepts. If he were to teach another class I would enroll in a heartbeat. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-17T18:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT221', 'review': "Professor Bulmash is an amazing person. He will go above and beyond for his students. If you can, go to his office hours and meet him. He is such a good person to know and teaches well too.\r\nHis teaching style is as good as it can be for the material, which I personally found to be dry (not his fault).\r\nHis exams are challenging but As are achievable. He does NOT try to trick you by listing 4 possible answers you can get by making a mistake like other professors do.\r\nBottom line: Take Bulmash. Don't just take his class, meet him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-01-21T12:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT220H', 'review': "PLEASE take 220H with Professor Bulmash! \r\nHe's nice, he's funny, he speaks loudly enough that you won't fall asleep during lecture, and he really does want you to learn. \r\nThe course is paced perfectly (1 chapter each week, lecture on Tuesday and example problems on Thursday), and there's hardly any work (practice problems aren't collected. 2 exams, a project, and a final). \r\nHe's great at explaining confusing concepts (pretty much all of them are confusing), he'll answer any and all questions thoroughly, and he's full of stories from his day as an accountant, which help explain concepts and also provide a nice break from talking about journal entries. \r\nDr. Loeb gave a guest lecture in my class once, and it was miserable. Bulmash is a far better choice. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-11-26T19:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT410', 'review': 'Professor Bulmash is one of the best accounting professors that I have had at the Smith School. He really wants to make sure that students understand the material, and he is more than willing to give you extra help to make sure that you are comfortable with what he is teaching. He illustrates the material in a way that students can relate to and understand. His exams are not very difficult overall, but there will be a few questions that you might not have encountered during your study period. I recommend him highly for any accounting course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-25T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "DEFINITELY TAKE BULMASH IF YOU CAN! he's the best accounting teacher i've ever had and he has a good sense of humor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-23T22:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Professor Bulmash is really one the best accounting professors at the Smith School that I've had. He breaks down the course material so that it's easy to understand, and teaches you to think more comprehensively. As long as you do the practice problems, the course is very doable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-05-18T12:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Bulmash is the best accounting professor i've had thus far. i've taken 3 accting classes and he tops them all. he's animated and interesting and gives funny anecdotes throughout lecture. I took this class during a winter term and loved it. \n\r\nDuring the winter we were graded solely on 3 exams, weighted equally. they were all MC and had 1-2 written problems at the end. The MC is just like the ones he gives you in his practice exams (which are old exams). I recommend studying the book, doing some practice problems for each chapter, and then doing the practice exams. If you can do all that, you will be fine. \n\r\nHe is always happy to answer any questions that you may have and is a genuinely nice person. \n\r\nMake sure you pay attention. Accounting is a class that no one should cram for because there is a lot of memorization and you do need to practice to be able to do the problems. \n\r\nAs long as you keep up with the work, which is fairly minimal, read the book, pay attention in lecture you will easily get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-12T15:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT313', 'review': "Pure awesomeness! I really loved him a lot! First accounting class that connected it all together. He's really funny and nice. Hated to miss his class even though i did half of the time. Exams are reasonable. Project get a little subjective/confusing though. Much easier for accounting majors than for finance i would say, get in a group with an acct major but you should be fine working on your projects by yourself, i was just fine doing so.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-19T21:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Bulmash is a great professor. He made Accounting about as tolerable as it could be. I liked that he told funny stories throughout the class to break up the lecture, but he still ended class on time or early. The first two exams and quizes were all pretty easy, but the final was difficult. He curves a little bit so that an 87% or 88% will probably be an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-06-17T22:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'He was a very good professor. He clearly presented the information and was pretty funny at times. Attendence in the class is optional. His powerpoints are available online and the textbook is extremely helpful so it is easy to learn the informaton without attending. However, he does tell you what will be on the quizzes during discussion during lecture which is extremely helpful. Knowing what will be on the quizzes makes those easy points. The tests are fairly easy as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-23T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'great professor. funny guy who actually makes accounting class somewhat interesting. tests are very fair (all MC). seems to be a really nice guy. took time out of class once to give the class tips on interviewing for jobs. definitely recommend taking him for 220.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-17T16:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'He, I liked, good teacher, nice and loud voice, and also told us info about Accountants in the real world. Class tended to get boring but that was because the classroom was so cozy. But he is loud nad will wake you up. Homework is good, exams are fair, but the final got me, it was pretty diffucult. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-28T20:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT221', 'review': 'He was an okay professor. I personally enjoyed the class. He does go on a bunch of tangents, but I prefer that over being overload with even more accounting concepts. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-05-23T20:18:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT221', 'review': 'Explain most things in detail and lots of homework and quiz each week. Need to purchase "Connect" for over $100. His exams only have multiple choices.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-01-27T15:18:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT221', 'review': 'Bulmash is the man to take. He makes this class fun relative to the boring nature of accounting. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-15T18:15:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Bulmash', 'course': 'BMGT221', 'review': 'Great PowerPoints and plenty of practice quizzes/exams. Assignments are graded fairly, not too much work (if you get started early), and directly representative of what will be tested. The class is very routine in its weekly assignments and expectations are clearly laid out. Read the book and pay attention to the content covered on the PowerPoints if you expect to be successful. Attendance is not mandatory, since the online lectures are recorded and during class, you review the PowerPoints that you should have watched before class. Overall, Bulmash is a fantastic person who takes plain information and equations from a textbook and applies it to the real world. He challenges his students to push themselves and is always willing to take time out of his day to clarify or help a student. 10/10 would recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-01-26T22:42:19Z'}], 'name': 'Gary Bulmash', 'slug': 'bulmash'}, {'courses': ['BMGT477', 'BULM733', 'BUSM758G', 'BUSI761', 'BUSM758Z', 'BUSO714', 'BUSO750', 'BUSO614'], 'average_rating': 3.8182, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': 'BMGT477', 'review': "I really enjoyed Professor Cohen's class. His power points give a good basis of what you need to know for his exams. As others have mentioned, the group project is very open ended so you should be very thorough and try to get a good group. Cohen is one of the best professors in terms of getting to know his students and helping them with getting internships and jobs. My only complaint is that Professor Cohen tends to play favorites with certain students, which can be apparent at times. I suggest taking this class if you are interested in anything related to global supply chain as Professor Cohen has tons of experience in it.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-18T00:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'Professor Cohen was an unbelievable teacher. He was very knowledgeable about the class and was enthusiastic about it as well. Although he talked a lot about Starbucks and Apple it was an entertaining and useful class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-11-06T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': 'BMGT477', 'review': "Cohen is great! He spends a lot of time discussing current events (and requires student participation) and the remaining time on lecture. His tests were somewhat difficult because they can be very specific but he gives lots of hints during class. Don't really need to take notes just go over the slides before the test, I don't think I read the textbook much at all. The group project can be a little annoying - its very open. Just make sure you get a good group!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-24T19:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': 'BMGT477', 'review': "Cohen is a fine teacher, engages his students from the get-go with current events, personal stories and campy profanity that he isn't very good at.\n\r\nGoing to class is important for the participation grade (10%) but as far as taking good notes it's not overly necessary, the slides are pretty good.\n\r\nHe claims the tests are heavy on class specific material, but no. Read the book carefully and the tests are fine, the second one being the hardest of the three.\n\r\nThe group project is kind of ambiguous, which is good if you have really enthusiastic group members but bad if you like to be told what to do step by step.\n\r\nAt the end of the course there was about a 3% curve which gave me an A-, so overall not a bad course.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-06-17T11:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'Professor Cohen is overall a very good professor. He seemed very knowledgeable about, and interested in, business and management in the real world. He drew a lot of examples from his own professional experiences and used a wide range of teaching materials, including video clips. \n\r\nBased on my own experience, the best way to succeed on the exams is to do the reading. Pay attention in class because the information will be reinforced there, but the readings are definitely the most effective and complete representation of what will be on the exam. There are a few questions in the exams that start with, "In class, we learned that such-and-such means..." or "We saw in such-and-such video that...", but the majority of the questions come from the reading. The exams are actually pretty tough, which can be a little unexpected because Professor Cohen sometimes implies that they\'re relatively easy, but if you don\'t do too well on them, don\'t freak out. There is a curve at the end of the semester, and it\'s pretty generous.\n\r\nA lot of the information is fairly easy to understand, but it certainly helps to have some experience in economics. If you\'ve taken AP economics in high school, that can be pretty helpful. I imagine that taking some economic class at the university before/at the same time would probably be just as helpful. Also, another piece of advice: Professor Cohen recommends flashcards as a study tool. I think these help, but they don\'t replace doing the reading. I did much better on the exams where I just paid attention to the reading, and not so well on exams where I had focused more on making flashcards and less on the information that was not vocabulary-related. Taking notes and making flashcards probably help as a supplement, but definitely, definitely focus on reading the textbook.\n\r\nAll in all, I enjoyed this class and I\'m glad I signed up for it.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-06T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': None, 'review': "Cohen is very good at setting up an environment for engaging conversation, but the actual content of the discussion is a waste of time. \n\r\nIn class, the first part is general discussion. If you are a die-hard fan of MacDonald's, Starbucks and Apple, you will find this part of the class enjoyable.\n\r\nThe second part is content. While he will tell the class that the entire exam will be based on what is discussed in class, the exam wil hardly follow what was discussed. He is like the credit card companies - follow what is in the syllabus (which he calls your contract) and pay no heed to what he says. \n\r\nIn all, if you are not a die-hard fan of the companies mentioned and you are really interested in what this class is about, just read the case studies in the book and sign up for books' word press site. You will be able to discuss the latest going on the business sector there.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-28T10:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': 'BMGT477', 'review': "First, let me qualify the other few posts. I believe these posts are from kids who want to make sweet love to the supply chain/suck up to teachers. ignore these other reviews. gary cohen is OK as a teacher. hes not as nice as a guy as everyone paints him to be. He came in saying the first test was going to be really easy, and the class average was an 82. overall, including all three tests, the class test average was an 85. this is obviously not very high. also, he takes A TON of test material straight from the book that he NEVER goes over in class. so basically, hes saying thanks for spending tens of thousands of dollars on an education you couldve gotten from an overpriced $120 textbook, which can teach just as well as i can. I'm an IB major, and I hate the supply chain. I also hadnt taken the other scm course, 372. i HATED this class. there is almost no reason to go to class, except i think he recognizes who is there and factors it into participation, so i highly recommend going. the class is graded on three tests, a project, two cases, and participation. its just too bad he doesnt quiz you on his own life, because sometimes the class turns into GCohen101: life of a gloves salesman. If you love scm, youll probably like this course. if think scm on the same level of excitement as the wnba, like i do, good luck and god speed.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-21T13:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'Warning: If you have not done Economics or are not currently doing Economics, I strongly suggest that you NOT take this this course (or if you still want to take it, get a Economics textbook and study from that mostly).\n\r\nThe course is heavily weighted toward topics that are covered in Economics and at least some of what is covered in Communications. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-14T15:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': None, 'review': 'Prof. Cohen is amazing!!! Not only is he knowledgeable about business topics, but he is supportive outside of class as well. His exams are fair and cover content from class, so studying for them is easy if you keep up. His "current events" discussion at the beginning of class makes for great debates. Overall, he really cares about his students and isn\'t kidding when he says that he\'s "the most accessible professor at Smith".', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-05-13T13:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': 'BMGT392', 'review': "Cohen is a great professor. He starts each class with a discussion on business news. We talk about it and he'll pose question really getting you to think about it. He runs class very effectively and well and is my favorite class to attend because he really likes student input and makes an active effort to learn everyones names, which is always refreshing compared to some professors who could care less. We haven't had any assignments due yet so I can't really speak to his grading but he seems to be very fair so far. Very engaging but moves through the slides very fast so make sure you print them out before class or you can't keep up. I would strongly recommend taking a class with him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-15T23:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Cohen', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Professor Cohen is a very nice guy and he means well. However, his try-to-come-off-as-very-nice attitude can sometimes be his undoing. He has a lot of experience in the business world and he frequently gave useful and practical advice that ca only be learned from experience. However, I felt that his scholastic knowledge of business was sometimes lacking, as was shown by his frequent inability to helpfully answer questions. Though I normally wouldn't really care about this, it made his exams more difficult because he taught the class in a discussion setting rather than in an academic setting which is how his exams were organized. Still, he was a good professor to have, he was very easy to talk to and reach out of class and he was a nice guy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-01-13T04:04:00Z'}], 'name': 'Gary Cohen', 'slug': 'cohen_gary'}, {'courses': ['PLSC271', 'PLSC798', 'PLSC789E', 'PLSC203', 'PLSC689T', 'PLSC608', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC789F', 'PLSC271'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gary Coleman', 'course': 'PLSC203', 'review': "Terrible teacher. I took this as a gen ed, yet the class was unbearably difficult. The average of the first exam was a low D... and still there was no curve. The second exam was just as difficult. He literally expects you to have photographic memory remembering the smallest detail from the notes and then writing an essay on it. For example, a caption for a picture. I had a high B considering I got the highest grade on the second exam in the class and then average on the first. I was so sure on getting an A but he did not even bother to curve. He really doesn't care about his student's grades. You grade is based of 2 exams and 2 assignments. There were even plant science majors taking this class as an elective that did poorly. His lectures are extremely dry and he basically just reads of slides. I highly do not recommend this guy.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-01-04T16:39:15Z'}], 'name': 'Gary Coleman', 'slug': 'coleman_gary'}, {'courses': ['ENES102', 'ENES102H', 'ENME489V', 'ENME472', 'ENME201', 'ENES232', 'EDSP652'], 'average_rating': 4.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "Great professor, as all of the other reviews said so I will not elaborate.\n\r\nTeaches by example, which is great. Will always answer questions and is very approachable.\n\r\nNo curve (well, he normalizes the grades so the highest grade becomes the new 100, but grading is pretty easy so the highest grade is probably 98+). No +/-, but that's true for all 102 sections, at least when I took the class.\n\r\nTake Pertmer, he's great!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-06-04T18:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Prof. Pertmer is definitely the professor for ENES102. \n\r\nHe is approachable, personable, and never gives the impression that he takes himself too seriously. He will make jokes during lecture (some of them are subtle but still quite funny). \n\r\nThe material itself is not that hard, and Prof. Pertmer never makes it harder than it has to be. Lectures can sometimes be a bit dry (I had the 2 pm lecture and every now and then I would zone out a bit), but they are not too long (50 min vs. 75 min) so this is usually not a serious issue. \n\r\nThe HWK is through Mastering Engineering and generally is free of errors (which can be a serious annoyance on online HWK). It varies from being relatively simple in the beginning to somewhat time-intensive (though not impossible). I would give it a range from 1-4 hr per week. \n\r\nI went to his office hours once to check my HWK because I had to miss a class, and he was very helpful and willing to answer all manner of questions.\n\r\nThere are two tests and a final; Prof. Pertmer posts a ton of review questions for every topic, and those questions alone are usually plenty for the exams. The two tests he made for us during the semester were not bad and he allows an equations sheet. The final exam (joint for every ENES102 professor and section) was tougher, but still fair. \n\r\nThere are no +/- grades, and generally speaking getting an A is not too hard if you've had some physics in HS and do not mind some math. It's not a free A, but Pertmer removes most of the roadblocks. \n\r\nIf you need to take 102 and he is an option, take his class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-03-24T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Dr. Pertmer is incredibly approachable, thorough, and funny. He teaches by example, which makes it very easy to learn. He goes at a good pace, and explains well. I never used the textbook. The weekly Mastering Engineering homework isn't fun, but really helps you learn the material. It took me 2-4 hours. The class is not really curved, and he does not give +/-, so I really earned a B+ but got a B.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-28T21:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Great professor! Good at explaining concepts, and has a good balance in class between equations and example problems. Good review sessions in discussion every Friday. We did in-class problems in groups of three. \n\r\nExams were fair, and the practice problems he posted were extremely helpful when studying.\n\r\nHomework was handled very well. We had five problems online for practice and the sixth one was graded online, but the five practice problems had to be written out and handed in during class for credit. This allowed instantaneous checking of answers, but then forced us to write out the whole process, which ultimately helped me on the test.\n\r\nThe only reason I am not expecting an A is because I took the class at 9 AM and I failed to turn in some assignments because I woke up late.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-02-26T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "Pertmer is nice and incredibly understanding. I've had a few issues I had to address to him, like taking up a make-up exam, and he was always very approachable and easy to talk to.\n\r\nAs a teacher, he's competent, covers all the material you need (I know a couple of other teachers miss some things that Pertmer makes sure to cover), and makes sure he teaches you in the simplest way possible. He makes the material very easy to understand as long as you pay attention, which isn't too hard because he doesn't drone and makes occasional jokes if he's in the mood.\n\r\nThat being said, if I could go back in time, I don't know if I'd take the H-version of this class. There's not much difference in the teaching, but there's a huge difference in the curve at the end. If you have a strong background in vectors, go for it - if not, I'd probably go for 102 regular.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-16T21:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Dr. Pertmer is an awesome professor. He was always very approachable and seemed to actually care about his students. He makes some funny jokes in class, and lectures are usually interesting. He covers the material very well. For each new topic he starts by introducing the topic, giving an outline of how to solve the kinds of problems for that topic, and does many examples (with the examples becoming progressively more complicated). I really enjoyed his class and would recommend that you take a class with this professor. You will always feel like you know what you're doing in this class, and can ask him for help any time you don't understand something.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-25T13:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "I took this class 2 years ago, but I am in the mood to do this so here you go.\n\r\nPertmer is the Chuck Norris of statics. If I had to sum up one class where I SINCERELY feel like I got my money and time's worth out of, it would be statics with this guy. He is incredibly thorough with his notes, lays everything in a step by step manner, prepares you very well for exams and homeworks, and is actually very witty and hilarious if you listen close (he makes subtle jokes that most people miss.) You will really learn a lot if you put in the time here. I 1000 percent recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-30T05:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'I felt well prepared for all the tests in this class. He goes over examples thoroughly and is very willing to answer questions (either related specifically to the course or engineering in general). He also spends the class before tests going over key topics covered in the course so students know what to include on their formula sheets. Often, one can find examples in the textbook that look exactly like the homework problems.\n\r\nnote: the only difference between ENES102 and ENES102H (as far as I can tell) are the two weekly in-class problems that you do with a group, so definitely take the Honors version.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-17T17:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Pertmer is a great teacher. Though sometimes the material is a little dreary, his examples are great and he really helps you understand what you are doing. The in class problems can be challenging, but he is happy to help out. The class overall is quite challenging and the homeworks are long and graded for accuracy. (harsh graders). Overall, I think he is a fantastic professor and I would recommend him to anyone who needs to take statics, and if you listen carefully you will notice that he is actually very funny.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T22:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "This professor is great. He's not the most boring teacher, he throws in small jokes periodically that are usually subtle and hard to catch.\r\nHe teaches everything you need for the tests and is a reasonable grader. I've never needed to use office hours but I wouldn't hesitate if I wanted to ask something. definitely recommend him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-18T14:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Pertmer is very helpful. His lectures mostly consist of showing you how to derive an answer and one or two numerical problems. This worked fine with me, and only once or twice did I ever need to really go for help but the background he provided really made it easy to move on from there.\r\nHe's also very willing to answer a lot of questions, and usually does very well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-10-13T13:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Not the most exciting teacher, but covers the material adequately enough. The stuff he does cover he covers well, he just tends to not cover everything assigned on the homework which is frustrating. \n\r\nReally nice though, and very approachable.\n\r\nI know everyone always tries to get Biegel but my friend took beigel at the same time and he gave her much more homework-he would add on to the regularly assigned stuff and pertmer would take stuff off that he thought was a waste of our time. pertmer also gives lighter homework after exams which is very appreciated. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-12T21:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Dr. Pertmer really is a great teacher he is willing to stay late and answer your questions as well as explaining the material clearly and succinctly.\r\nAlso he is willing to work with you and make allowances if you need a reasonable amount of extra time to turn in an assignment or something', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-03-09T02:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Nicest man. Fantastic teacher...even though I was miserable in the class he made things understandable. I would say that that in and of itself shows how fantastic he must be!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-08-25T17:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Dr. Pertmer teaches the material very well. He is very straightforward, explains things clearly, and uses class time effectively. He provides plenty of example problems in class and is willing to take time to answer people's questions. The material in ENES102 isn't difficult conceptually (it's an entire semester on vectors), but Pertmer will definitely help you out if you're having trouble. Although he's not as funny as Beigel, it's not a huge loss.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-02-06T01:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'He’s a great guy, really understanding and he explains concepts relatively well. He’s really generous with partial credit but unfortunately the exams are graded by many professors (Young is pretty stingy with partial credit). During class, pertmer’s examples can get a little drawn out and boring, but overall the class was good.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:40:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Covers the material well. Makes the typical physics jokes. He is helpful with explaining concepts after class if you did not understand something. Made the course fun and engaging.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-25T16:52:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "I thought this dude hated me for the first month of classes. I'd ask questions - not understand his answer - then he'd be done with me. Once he just completely ignored my question in class and waved me off. But I went to his office hours and turns our he's nice. Teaches really well.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-05-03T06:26:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Pertmer is a nice, funny, and thorough professor. His notes are clear, and straightforward. The only downside is that his example problems are more simple than in the homework and exams. Pertmer curves the class by dividing all grades by the highest percentage in the class which is really nice. Friday in class problems are difficult, but if you do the homework problems beforehand, it'll be easier.\r\n\r\nAll ENES 102 classes are taught the same content at the same time, so you can go to any teacher for help. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-26T22:22:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Gary Pertmer', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Dr. Pertmer was a great professor! Exams were very fair and directly reflected what was taught in class. Lectures were easy to follow. His class was also very well adapted to the online environment, and the way it was structure helped you learn the material better without stressing over quizzes (because there are no quizzes!) while also getting somewhat familiar with him and your classmates. Highly recommend him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-03-24T01:19:32Z'}], 'name': 'Gary Pertmer', 'slug': 'pertmer'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101S'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gary Slack', 'slug': 'slack_gary'}, {'courses': ['ARCH611'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gary Strand', 'slug': 'strand'}, {'courses': ['LBSC631', 'LBSC734'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gary White', 'slug': 'white_gary'}, {'courses': ['ENES667', 'BUMK758I', 'BUSO758N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gaurav Bhalla', 'slug': 'bhalla'}, {'courses': ['EDHD411', 'EDHD322', 'EDHD721', 'EDHD629', 'EDHD779O', 'EDHD460', 'EDHD413', 'EDHD228', 'EDHD779A', 'EDHD322', 'EDHD721', 'EDHD411', 'EDHD779A'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Geetha Ramani', 'course': 'EDHD411', 'review': "Professor Ramani is okay. Her voice is pretty monotonous and lecture is not that interesting, but she knows what she's talking about. When we had discussions in class, that was more interesting. She's just interested in everyone's opinion. Her lecture outlines are posted online, but she usually fleshes them out in lecture, so its helpful to go. Don't bother buying the textbook, I never opened it. She doesn't test on anything from the book, only lecture.\r\nOverall, very easy class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-24T18:39:00Z'}], 'name': 'Geetha Ramani', 'slug': 'ramani_geetha'}, {'courses': ['AAST498E', 'AAST398D', 'AAST498O', 'LGBT448E', 'AMST328J', 'AAST498Q', 'AAST363', 'AAST363', 'AAST498Q', 'AAST363'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gemirald Daus', 'course': 'AAST498Q', 'review': "This class meets for 2.5 hours a week, but this class is a lot of work. We have weekly readings (which are not short), a case study paper as the final (10-15 pages), at least two 750 word papers, and a demographic profile presentation/paper that is not easy (and you have to do it with a partner). Our last reading required a two-page double-spaced reflection paper. I would really not suggest taking this class, it's giving me a headache more than my other classes. I have no idea how harsh his grading is yet, but I'm not too hopeful.\r\n\r\nGem's actual teaching is okay, this class is participation heavy so if no one talks, we're all just sitting in silence. It could be an interesting class since some of the topics we have learned about are interesting, but due to the workload, I view this class as a burden.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-25T21:39:56.515641Z'}, {'professor': 'Gemirald Daus', 'course': 'AAST498Q', 'review': "The way this class is structured is pretty even, but the workload for an upper-level AAST elective is ridiculous. Professor Gem assigns weekly assignments ranging from reading 2-3 short articles on Perusall to something outlandish such as reading 20-30 pages of an article, only for both to be graded similarly. As a result, it's a class that's more of a headache and chore rather than something enjoyable.\r\n\r\nAs the previous review states, it's more of a headache, and he grades exceptionally harshly. For the essays, he treats them as if they were a Ph.D. dissertation and dings point for GRAMMAR. This isn't an English course; it's an Asian American studies course. He expects everything to be MLA cited; if he sees any discrepancy in the information provided, he will drop it by a grade. This course is more brutal and annoying rather than fun and exciting.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-18T21:32:58.782535Z'}], 'name': 'Gemirald Daus', 'slug': 'daus'}, {'courses': ['BMGT370', 'BULM736', 'BULM733', 'BMGT471F', 'BUSO713', 'BUSO714', 'BMGT477', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT372', 'BMGT477G', 'BMGT372', 'BMGT477', 'BUSO713'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Geoffrey Milsom', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "Great lecturer and not too many difficult assignments for this class. His mannerisms can sit wrong with some students and he may come off as a jerk but I think it's just his type of humor. Never read the textbook, just pay attention to his slides/lecture. Definitely participate in his class, but if you do be prepared to argue your answer lol.\r\n\r\nI disliked how far he was behind in grading, doesn't really help me understand where I stand with this class/ if I need to visit him for feedback/office hours. It's the end of the semester (over 10 assignments) and I only see 2 grades. \r\n ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-04T21:22:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Geoffrey Milsom', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Great guy who tries to make this class enjoyable. Don't know the others but you won't make a mistake at all taking him\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-23T23:41:18Z'}], 'name': 'Geoffrey Milsom', 'slug': 'milsom'}, {'courses': ['MUSC150', 'MUSC463'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Geoffrey Sheil', 'slug': 'sheil'}, {'courses': ['ENME489G', 'ENME489Q', 'ENME472'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'George Dieter', 'course': 'ENME489G', 'review': "Dieter is really old but he is still good teacher. He's like one of those old timer teachers in the 60's or 50's. As long as you do your work really well, like well written though out essays and neatness and organization like proper headings and font and stuff you will be fine. he might be alittle boring sometimes but the class is a pretty easy upper elective class. You do have to write lenghty papers thought but you should still take it.\n\r\nAlso it is a fun fact to note the Dieter was the previous Dean of mechanical engieneering from like the 1950's-1990's then came dean Darrel pines which is current dean. so just cool fun fact to know!\n\r\n(hint, dieter has alot of connections ;) )", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-10-22T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'George Dieter', 'course': 'ENME472', 'review': 'This man is wise beyond his years. He is quite friendly, and loves to talk to students. However he is quite slow in getting his points across (due to his age). Nonetheless, he is very helpful with the senior design project. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-13T11:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'George Dieter', 'course': 'ENME489Q', 'review': "Dieter is about 85 years old. He shows an extreme bias to the women in the class, so if you're a girl you're basically set. He really knows what hes talking about, but his classes tend to be a bit on the boring side. \n\r\nI would say hes strict, but fair. The class is pretty useful and interesting overall.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-16T20:45:00Z'}], 'name': 'George Dieter', 'slug': 'dieter'}, {'courses': ['ANTH448F', 'ANTH298D', 'ANTH240', 'ANTH305', 'ANTH451', 'ANTH341', 'ANTH688F', 'ARTH305', 'CLAS305', 'ANTH651', 'ANTH641', 'ANTH242', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH251', 'ANTH436', 'ANTH636', 'ANTH789', 'JWST319Y', 'ANTH451', 'ANTH651', 'ANTH242', 'ANTH305', 'ANTH451', 'ANTH453', 'ANTH651', 'ARTH305', 'CLAS305', 'JWST319Y', 'ANTH242', 'ANTH341', 'ANTH641', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH451', 'ANTH651'], 'average_rating': 4.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'George Hambrecht', 'course': 'ANTH242', 'review': 'Great professor. He is very passionate about the subject which makes his classes very enjoyable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-12T23:47:38Z'}, {'professor': 'George Hambrecht', 'course': 'ANTH242', 'review': 'He loves this subject which is reflected in his course work, he is so understanding and will be willing to work with you! also sometimes he brings his dog to class which is a bonus but I highly recommend taking him! I loved this class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-14T23:13:53Z'}, {'professor': 'George Hambrecht', 'course': 'ANTH242', 'review': "I don't know what was up with him this past term but he barely taught me anything. There was a point in the semester when I forgot I was even taking this class. It consisted of five 10-minute reading quizzes and then just 2 projects towards the end. Communication was bad since he barely emailed back and would skip over things in the syllabus. Half the time he never uploaded any lectures. He never even made any real contact with the class until we were 2 weeks into the semester. Throughout the semester it was super easy with barely any work and then at the end there are two big projects that determine your grade. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-24T22:37:09Z'}, {'professor': 'George Hambrecht', 'course': 'ANTH242', 'review': "I found his lectures engaging to listen to and he was an interesting person to talk to. The projects were interesting and not difficult. The only real complaints I have are that the reading quizzes we had were graded strictly and the ELMS pages was a bit unorganized. I'm an archaeology nerd, so I really enjoyed this class, but I know others who were in this class and weren't anthropology people found this class a not interesting. He also brings his dog to class which was a major plus. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-12T23:29:25Z'}, {'professor': 'George Hambrecht', 'course': 'ANTH242', 'review': 'Super easy class, lenient grader, interesting lecturer/guy in general, easy A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-08T05:10:33.606941Z'}], 'name': 'George Hambrecht', 'slug': 'hambrecht'}, {'courses': ['GEOG748F', 'GEOG615', 'GEOG442', 'GEOG642', 'GEOG301', 'GEOG398H', 'GEOG415', 'GEOG140', 'GEOG398H', 'GEOG442', 'GEOG642'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'George Hurtt', 'course': 'GEOG415', 'review': 'Took class in Spring 2021. Live lectures were pointless to attend most weeks as he did a lot of monologue on off topics. Had a group "research" project to do over the semester which was sporadically mentioned and checked in on over the semester (for which guidelines were unclear and confusing a good majority of the time). \r\n\r\nThe 2 closed note exams were identical formats. Both were unreasonable for the amount of time he expected us to complete them in (1 hr 15 min with 3 sections which included matching, fill in blanks, and short answers for undergrads, but also a fourth long essay for grad students) and based on random details from the research papers he assigned (when I say random he wanted specific percents recalled in one of the fill-in-the-blanks).', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-09-08T14:14:15Z'}], 'name': 'George Hurtt', 'slug': 'hurtt_george'}, {'courses': ['JOUR350', 'JOUR130', 'JOUR130'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'George Lanum', 'course': 'JOUR350', 'review': "He is laid back. He loves to talk about his wife, dogs and his band. He can be sarcastic and doesn't always give clear instructions, but he is overall a nice guy, and will let you re-do your work until you get an A. Plus, learning InDesign isn't hard. I would recommend this class. Best Part: No homework (except sometimes a little news reading for quizzes, but they are really easy).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-13T00:42:00Z'}], 'name': 'George Lanum', 'slug': 'lanum'}, {'courses': ['JOUR459G', 'JOUR328B', 'HONR349Q', 'JOUR628B', 'JOUR382', 'JOUR443'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'George Solomon', 'slug': 'solomon_george'}, {'courses': ['ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENPM808', 'ENPM808', 'ENPM808E', 'ENPM808', 'ENPM808', 'ENPM808', 'ENPM808', 'ENPM808', 'ENPM808'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'George Syrmos', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "He's nice but is confusing when he's trying to explain homework concepts and helping with the hovercraft project. He tries to give students a lot of leeway with the hovercraft project so if you ask him specifics, he'll probably tell you that the decision for something (or a certain part) is completely up to you. However, for the weekly homework assignments, he gives a lot of hints and is very approachable", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-21T23:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'George Syrmos', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Incredibly nice guy but an overall bad teacher for the hovercraft project. He has a PhD in electrical engineering yet was completely worthless in helping my team wire our circuit. Every time we asked him to show us how to use a component, such as a transistor, he would give a different response. As long as you work hard and put effort into this project he will give you an A.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-01T14:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'George Syrmos', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "He's a nice guy and a pretty easy teacher, but he doesn't know too much about the hovercraft project. He would rely a lot on our TA and the other people like Evandro that helped out. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-22T02:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'George Syrmos', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Dr. Syrmos is always eager to help his students. However, he can be a bit confusing (actually... a lot).\r\nBottom line, he is a great person, decent teacher.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-02T20:44:00Z'}], 'name': 'George Syrmos', 'slug': 'syrmos'}, {'courses': ['PHIL308T', 'PHIL366', 'PHIL481', 'PHIL408R', 'PHIL878B', 'PHIL879G', 'PHIL660', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL879A', 'PHIL318D', 'PHIL309B', 'PHIL879B', 'PHIL309B', 'PHIL362', 'PHIL309X', 'PHIL366', 'PHIL490', 'PHIL309B', 'PHIL808M'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Georges Rey', 'course': 'PHIL308T', 'review': 'If you do not care about your grade all that much, this class is worth every minute. He is a very engaging and intelligent professor, truly cares that the class is able to understand the topics, but as mentioned before the tests require very specific definitions.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-11-30T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Georges Rey', 'course': 'PHIL308T', 'review': "Rey is a pretty decent guy. He's not a great professor, though. He tends to ramble and get excited about topics that are only ancillary to testable material. Not only is this a poor strategy for teaching a graded class, but it also makes him occasionally difficult to follow. Still, he's intelligent and well-intentioned so if you don't understand what he says in class he won't mind at all if you ask him some questions, and he'll likely answer them in a way you can understand.\n\r\nHe gives out review sheets that have everything you need to know for the exam. The only problem is that your source of information is his rather shoddy presently unpublished (and consequently unedited) textbook and the lecture notes, which aren't always clear. The review sheets are both good and bad, for obvious reasons. If you study ahead of time, he doesn't mind if you send him (short) emailed questions. (I never studied ahead of time, so I can't attest the strength of that particular claim.)\n\r\nClass with him is kind of a crapshoot. He takes it easy in lecture, and I personally find the material pretty easy, but his tests emphasize his own definitions and (sometimes rather unique) contributions to the field, which can get frustrating when you're trying to study without adequate notes.\n\r\nIt's hard to say if I'd advise people to take him or not. He's certainly a viable alternative to a professor with terrible reviews, but on the whole (considering both his teaching style and the tests) I could only give a lukewarm recommendation.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-25T20:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Georges Rey', 'course': 'PHIL366', 'review': "Can't really say anything bad about Professor Rey. The course was intellectually engaging. He gives you pop quizzes that are just one question sometimes but you don't have to really do well on those to do well in class. He gives you review sheets with a series of terms to define and essay questions to write (just a paragraph suffices). And those same questions will show up on the exam, so if you do the review sheet then go to him to grade that, you'll do marvelously well on his exams. He actually recommends you to do this.\r\n\r\nThe class is basically taught while following along to his book so if you don't explain the concepts the way he understands them then you'll lose points. \r\n\r\nIf you don't get a good exam grade, go to him and ask him to review it again, he will give you a lot of points back. I personally went up two letter grades because he gave me back 12 points. He makes mistakes and sometimes grades to harshly, and the second look he takes really does help!\r\n\r\nProfessor Rey is worth taking this class with. You'll think hard on the subjects at hand, and if it goes over your head, don't worry he encourages students to take up as much of his time as possible so you can understand the concepts.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-09T17:07:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Georges Rey', 'course': 'PHIL309B', 'review': "Man is he bad... first the lectures are unbearable and so long. Then he gives you hundreds of pages in readings including his own poorly written book. Finally the exam is half a writing assignment which if your lucky you understand and perform well on, but another half is an in person meeting where he grills you on questions he picks until he's satisfied. It is by far the worst class I have ever taken and my first withdrawal in 4 years at UMD, please take my advice and do not take any course with this professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2020-10-25T16:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Georges Rey', 'course': None, 'review': 'spectacularly self-righteous. the type of person to unironically prefer if I used the term "epistemically overconfident" in this review. Seemed friendly enough in the first day, but really, really proud of himself. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-14T02:23:06Z'}], 'name': 'Georges Rey', 'slug': 'rey_georges'}, {'courses': ['BSCI465', 'BSCI360', 'BSCI339O', 'BSCI338R', 'BIOL708B', 'BIOL608B', 'BIOL708D', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI370', 'BIOL708B', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI360', 'BSCI370', 'BIOL708B', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI360', 'BIOL708B', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI360', 'BIOL708B', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI360'], 'average_rating': 1.6875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Borgia is rather boring, I will admit, but that's not what makes his class kill you. His exams and quizzes are mostly true and false questions where he only changes one or two words in the definition to make it false. Sometimes, he'll have a question on the exam from a quiz, but the answer is different. His questions purposely try to trick the student - they aren't designed to test for actual knowledge at all. He also makes a LOT of errors, both in his powerpoint slides and on exams. It shows he could really care less about the class he teaches. He also only curves by the highest test score. One person gets a 96 and he curves by 4 points, despite the class average being a 66.\n\r\nI agree with what someone else said - if you ask a question during lecture, he will answer quite brutally, almost rudely. There was one gentleman that obviously didn't quite believe in evolution and Borgia insulted his intelligence several times over. \n\r\nThe lab isn't too bad. I had Dilip, who actually seems to care about how well you're doing and whether or not you understand the material.\n\r\n---Edit---\r\nI was furious with my grade. After checking and checking, apparently I ended up with a C. Out of 800 points, I was 1.5 points away from a B. I asked if it was possible to be bumped and the TA I was corresponding with (not Dilip) said Borgia didn't do that.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2011-12-14T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "This class was super boring but with almost no effort I got a B. If you're a bio major I would take this class with someone else where you'll probably learn more. There are quizzes every other lecture or so that really help your grade. He's a pretty okay guy, he does try to make jokes in lecture... Anyway if you have a good TA then your experience will be better. I had Katie and she was really great. Lab is where you learn most things but you do have to go to the forest which is by Lot 6 behind the Public Health Building. Also the last lab is at the stream which is by the View near Route 1. I have absolutely no interest in bio so this class was good for me because there was no book and by simply glancing over my notes I got C's on the test. The good thing about Borgia is he rounds from the highest grade to a 100 so my final exam grades were always Bs. I'm sure with a little more effort I could've gotten an A but what's done is done. The TA's are really helpful and there's opportunity for extra credit, through quizzez and the like, but it's only a few points so it won't make a big difference but if you're on the edge it will. Overall not a bad prof. but class is boring and it's not one you want to go to. He also pot notes and slides online and sometimes reuses exam questions. His tests are mostly true/false with one minor difference being false, there are fill in the blank, short answer, and matching.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-06-01T12:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Do not ever take him. His true and fa1se questions in pop quizzes and tests are SOOOOOO hard and tricky. His lectures are so boring that half of the people comes to lecture. Also his lecture slides do not make sense because there are so much grammatical error. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Do not take him. You will learn nothing from his lectures and you'll end up teaching yourself the whole course. Not only is he rude, but he is extremely unhelpful. He doesn't care at ALL how much the students are learning or how the students do.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-18T15:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "AVOID HIM AT ALL COSTS. He is by far the most boring professor I've ever had. His lectures are awful, boring, mono-tone and just confusing. He barely explains anything as he reads from his lecture notes through the whole class. His lecture notes that he puts up on elms have so many different errors. Just to sum it up, save yourself a huge dissapointment and many many headaches... \r\nDON'T TAKE HIM", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-13T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'The content was impossible. I went to class and studied for an ABSURD amount of time for the exams, and I\'ve only gotten a 65% and 55% on the midterms. The class average for the second exam was a D, which is absolutely ridiculous. I\'m a mostly A, high B student. I have never once gotten a C in any class and I\'m praying for a C in this class, which is ridiculous considering the amount of time I put into this class. The teacher is an idiot; he reads right off the slides. When I go back to his lecture slides to read the notes, he spells "cells" as "sells" and has so many grammatical errors that you cannot even understand the point he is trying to make. My TA wasn\'t even good. I emailed him 6 days before the exam to ask what we should study since there was no study guide given out and no specifications and he did not email me back until two days before the exam, only after I sent him a second email. He responded with "I have no idea how to answer your question." There was literally NOTHING enjoyable about this course and I wouldn\'t recommend my worst enemy to take it. I\'ll admit that I am much more of an English/History student, but I\'ve never been a bad student whatsoever and I\'m praying that I do not need to retake this class. His exams are 60 True/False questions. True and false does not test your knowledge, but your test taking skills. He is not curving the class, but he should when his average on a test is a D, and a friend of mine who got an A in BSCI105 is struggling and worried about his grade. I wanted to take this course to be a Psychology major, but I\'m dropping the major. Dr. Borgia is way to old to be an effective teacher- he cannot even see when his students have questions. He snaps at certain people and his TA\'s do the same thing. Even my TA would start a class beginning, "If I don\'t make you fall asleep today, it has been a successful day." In the middle of class he would say to himself, "I love my job. I love my job." While everyone else has had their quizzes back for weeks, I\'m still waiting for my grade and they obviously will not be returned by the end of the semester. This class is 100% the worst class I have ever taken and will ever take through my college career. I am possibly taking it to the department, but I\'m not sure what they can do about it.\n\r\nBasically, DO. NOT. TAKE. THIS. CLASS. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-11T10:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "The teaching style is abysmal. The powerpoints are fraught with typos, he lectures in a monotone, and even though he asks if there are questions, he never stops to actually see if there are any, and the TA has to intervene before he moves onto the next slide. He goes through the lecture slides incredibly fast-- he reads straight from the slides, which he posts online a few hours after the lecture. Going to class feels pointless, but he has 10 unannounced quizzes throughout the semester, so you need to go or else you'll most likely miss one. \n\r\nExams are inordinately difficult: we have 2 midterms, both of which are half true/false, and remaining half consisting of fill in the blank, matching, and short answers. The exams don't focus on overall concepts, but rather nit-picky details hidden in his disorganized lecture slides, which makes it VERY difficult to get a grade that matches the level of effort you put into studying for the exam. He curves each test to the highest grade, which is nice since he isn't obliged to do that, but since there are only a few people with any A's at all, the majority of the class is still stuck in the C, low B range. Also, don't waste money on the textbook; he says in the beginning of the year that you can to have some background information, but his tests are completely lecture-based, and it is a complete waste of money to buy the expensive text listed on the syllabus.\n\r\nThis class isn't the worst in the world; if you work your ass off, you can probably get a decent grade. That having been said, if you can take the course with a different professor, I highly suggest you do so.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2011-04-28T14:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "This guy is an awful teacher. He can barely see and can't read his lecture slides to us without getting an inch from the screen. On top of that, his exams come straight from lectures, and are so poorly worded that almost nobody does well, yet one person will get a 95 and wreck the curve for everyone. Avoid Him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-27T14:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "This professor is the worst one I have ever had. I tried to read the reviews on here and decided to take a chance and take this class with him. Biggest mistake ever. I highly suggest you find another professor. His tests are confusing and most people get c's and d's on them, but since one person gets a 95 or above he only curves the test by 2-3 points.\n\r\nTrust me, save your time/money and take it with a better professor. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-04-19T14:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Borgia sucks. He is an extremely boring lecturer, he's really rude, and if you raise your hand he won't call on you cause he's basically blind. The class is real easy though. You have to go to class because of the 5 question clicker quizzes each lecture. The exams are all true/false and most of the questions come from the clicker quizzes. Don't buy the textbook or anything for this class besides the response card, everything comes from lecture.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-19T17:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "He is awful. rude, not very helpful, all he does is read the notes which you can do yourself.\n\r\nalso you dont need the book at all. all the notes are available online. \n\r\nthe TA's basically teach this class ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-11T17:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106C', 'review': 'Ok so Borgia was one of the most boring lectures I have ever been to see. He does these clicker questions that are eventually totaled up into an exam grade which sucked but the TAs in this class are amazing. Reimi was great and actually made lab pretty fun. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-04T12:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "First off try and get JF Savard as your TA (he is more than a grad student i think he said he was here to work for Maryland on their projects in Australia over the summer or something like that. anyway he has TAed for BSCI106 like 7 times so he knows what he is doing)\n\r\nAs for Borgia he is really an ok guy. There was one true/false midterm (but he changes the midterm type semester to semester i think) and a final. There were also 5 clicker question points each class and those added up to one test grade. A lot of points in this class come from the lab, so that is why you want Savard. \n\r\nBorgia's lectures were pretty useless, but you had to go for the clickers... He just reads off a powerpoint that has many misspelled words.\n\r\nHe curves tests so that the highest grade gets bumped up to a 100 and everyone else gets bumped up the same amount of points. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-04-30T19:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI338R', 'review': 'Stubborn, even rude at times. Easier to talk to in his office than in class.\n\r\nLecture for fifteen minutes, rest of the class is discussion lead by a different pair of students each week.\n\r\nIf quiet or not very opinionated, class may seem dull and annoying as you try to find something to say each week. Participation is part of your grade.\n\r\nTurn in typed questions from the reading every week. \r\nOne multiple-choice midterm, curved to highest grade. Based on lectures (he posts them). \r\nOne paper presenting a novel idea relating to Darwinian Medicine, or presenting different sides of a related topic. \r\nPresentation on last day to class on a different topic than paper. \n\r\nReadings from "Why We Get Sick" by Nesse & Williams, papers or articles. Vary in length and difficulty. \n\r\nWould not recommend to friends.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-08-19T02:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI360', 'review': "TL;DR Don't take this class unless you want to really work for your grade. This is a 3 credit class but feels more like a 4 credit class\r\n\r\n\r\nFun class, but a terrible teacher. The exams are T/F and short answers and its almost impossible to finish in time. He expects you to understand his typoed notes and how his rambling stories are relevant to the lecture.\r\n\r\nThe discussions are pretty bad especially when he expects you to lead at least 2 discussions on scientific papers that are written for experts in the field. He grades kinda fairly just make sure you are on good terms with the TA though, my TA was a harsh grader so it made the class even more stressful", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-04T17:43:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Borgia', 'course': 'BSCI360', 'review': "The class is horrendous. The classwork itself isnt the worst, they give a reasonable amount of work. The discussions are pointless, all you do is read an article for the week and talk about it during the discussion period. OH YEAH, pop quizzes during discussion as well, so you never know when you get one. First class I have seen give pop quizzes throughout my 4 years at umd. The exams are the worst part. 41 true/false (doesn't sound bad right?) and 8 short answers in 55 MINUTES!!!!!!! There is almost no time to run through the exam in its entirety, and the wording of his exams are so confusing. He also barely curves the exams, so if someone does exceptionally well then its wraps for your grade. TAs are super strict for no reason. It's almost like they're purposefully trying to make your life worse. If you are taking this class for an upper level class, and it is not specifically required for your major, I beg you to choose another class. This one is not worth it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-11-07T17:10:55.329217Z'}], 'name': 'Gerald Borgia', 'slug': 'borgia'}, {'courses': ['ENCE189I', 'ENCE688J', 'PUAF798J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gerald Galloway', 'slug': 'galloway'}, {'courses': ['INAG110'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gerald Powell', 'slug': 'powell_gerald'}, {'courses': ['BSCI360', 'CPSP219L', 'BSCI401', 'BSCI160', 'BIOL708B', 'BIOL608W', 'BIOL708W', 'BISI899', 'BISI712', 'CPSP218L', 'BISI712', 'BISI899', 'BISI899', 'BIOL708A', 'BISI712', 'BSCI339R'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gerald Wilkinson', 'course': 'BSCI360', 'review': 'Very knowledgeable and open to quetions. Also humble for a department chair - will take the time to help you. Class is pretty boring though. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-14T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerald Wilkinson', 'course': 'BSCI360', 'review': 'Horrible professor who does not offer any help! The TA was nicer but still did no offer much help! \r\nThe professor was always busy and only cared about his own research. As a final project he made us write a grant proposal that Im more than sure he will use for his won good!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-14T21:43:00Z'}], 'name': 'Gerald Wilkinson', 'slug': 'wilkinson'}, {'courses': ['PUAF359C', 'PUAF313', 'PLCY313', 'PLCY313', 'PLCY313', 'PLCY313', 'PLCY313'], 'average_rating': 3.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': 'PUAF313', 'review': "Fake static. It is very unlikely to get an A in the class. Boring class and teacher. Don't take it. \n\r\nAs someone commented below,\r\nDON'T BE FOOLED BY THE GRADES ON OURUMD! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-07-23T15:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': 'PUAF313', 'review': 'PLEASE explain to me how this man teaches at this school. He honestly was the WORST extracurricular professor of my time at UMD. He never puts grades on ELMs even though there were few, his grading scheme is honestly based on if he likes you or not, and he is very unfair and prejudice. Seriously, we had only THREE assignments all year if you don\'t count participation clickers, and he NEVER put grades up. He also lies about the grade you get overall. On the midterm I got a C, on the presentation I got an A, and on the final I got an A. I also had 100% participation. Explain to me how that translates into a B overall. He is a terrible professor, we learned nothing, he would constantly take phone calls in class, he let us out an hour early, we would always be on Facebook or online during his class, people signed in each other and some people didn\'t go to class, and overall the class was a joke. He also always spent about half an hour talking about his family in class. I learned everything for each exam (we only had a mid term and final) about 4 hours before class. Your grade at the end, is very unclearly determined. This man should stick to his work as a snotty, manipulative lobbyist. He does not belong at UMD where he screws up students\' extracurricular GPAs for no reason. I honestly regret taking this class. A friend convinced me due to the "joke" nature of the class. Be forewarned: your grade is not set in stone. You could be an A student in it like me and receive a B or worse... Also the way he chooses TAs is completely biased and unfair. I do not recommend this class at all. Seriously: RUN away now. I also have a theory that he only gives A\'s to his favorites or maybe those whose families contribute to his lobbyist campaigns... just a theory. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-26T04:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': None, 'review': 'DON\'T BE FOOLED BY THE GRADES ON OURUMD! Yes, this is the most bs class that I\'ve ever taken, and requires very little effort. He lets us out of class after an hour and the entire class is based on 3 short chapters of an online "text" he emails out in the beginning of the semester. His lectures are pretty boring. Everyone is either talking or on facebook during lecture. The class consists of 2 straightforward, factual exams, and a group presentation that you work on with about 10 other people.\n\r\nObviously, I registered for this class seeing 90% As on OurUMD. However, how he does grades is very unclear. He NEVER puts up any grades on elms. I got an A on both of the exams, and not sure about my presentation grade, and got a B. My friends in the class, who got D\'s on the exams and were in the same presentation group as me got a B as well. So I have no idea how he graded.\r\nThis is the first non-science class that I\'ve taken at UMD that I have not gotten an A in. So do not be mislead by the grade distribution.\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-15T14:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great guy. If you are interested in gov/pol and/or want to be a lobbyist this is a great class to take. You also really have to try to not get an A in the class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-15T02:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': 'PLCY313', 'review': "Honestly, I took this class recently, and I enjoyed it. Gerry is a really chill dude and makes lectures engaging. Class was also insanely easy, I don't know what these reviews were saying before I registered. He legit gives you the exam questions and answers during the review session, so just fully memorize them. That's what I did. A midterm, a project that everyone who attended got a 100% in, and a final that you don't even have to take if you get a 100 or higher on the midterm (he gives extra credit). Take this class, I enjoyed it. Just actually go to lecture and don't get lazy like half of our class did. If you go to the one lecture a week and pay attention, you will easily get a 100 in this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-15T20:48:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': 'PLCY313', 'review': 'Literally go to that once a week lecture and take notes during review session. He literally will give you the answers for the exam. Easiest A+ in my life and you actually learn some interesting stuff about how potential and recent bills. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-19T16:33:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': 'PLCY313', 'review': "Evans is a good guy and is incredibly knowledgeable as a lobbyist and lawyer but it's kind of hard to get information from the course because he talks about his own personal experiences a lot. The course lacks a lot of structure but it is not difficult and is basically no work. He's good if you're looking for an easy A course but not if you're actually trying to learn something about policy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T21:20:45.321726Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': 'PLCY313', 'review': 'Absolutely amazing professor and an even better person. Love Professor Evans and I highly encourage you take his classes. Very easy A too!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:58:29.421830Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': 'PLCY313', 'review': 'dont take unless you have a remote interest in plcy', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-24T06:33:52.738310Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Evans', 'course': 'PLCY313', 'review': 'i did not pay attention one bit during lecture. and I did not pass that threshold you need to not take the final I think. but I still ended with an A because I worked really hard with my group to do well on our presentation. and I cant remember if I still had to take the final or not... but if I did, I think I did well.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-18T06:15:12.281752Z'}], 'name': 'Gerard Evans', 'slug': 'evans_gerard'}, {'courses': ['EXST009M', 'EXST018D', 'EXST028E', 'EXST019D', 'EXST048A', 'COMM609F', 'COMM719C', 'COMM729C', 'COMM619F', 'COMM629F', 'COMM749C', 'COMM629'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gerard Francois', 'slug': 'francois'}, {'courses': ['MUSC106', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSC454', 'MUSC699Z', 'MUSC654', 'MUSP316S', 'MUSC106', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSP218S', 'MUSC106', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSC106', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC454', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSC654', 'MUSP218S', 'MUSC106', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gerard Kunkel', 'course': 'MUSC106', 'review': 'This is a fantastic class. The course waitlist is exceptionally large, so most people are in their final year or semester of undergrad. I\'m writing this review because I really enjoyed the class, and I want people to know what it\'s really about.\n\r\nI\'m going to start off by noting that you will have to bring your own guitar. Buy a nylon-string classical guitar since this class focuses on classical techniques (no guitar picks, only fingers). \n\r\nI\'ll mention what we learned in class, and you can google anything you haven\'t heard of before since I\'m going to talk shop for a moment.\n\r\nYou will learn fingerpicking (look up P-I-M-A), mostly using P, I, and M, on the first position of the guitar. The music theory we covered is pretty straightforward (no memorization of scales needed) and included notes on the grand staff, time signatures, note types, chords, and sight-reading. Prof Kunkel spread things out over the whole semester, so you won\'t be overwhelmed if you have never played an instrument before. All songs we learned except one or two were given to us in western music notation, with few having tablature below them.\n\r\nNo textbook needed--just need to bring your guitar every class. If you already have an acoustic guitar, just bring that. If you don\'t, specifically purchase a nylon-string acoustic such as the Yamaha C-40. Definitely make sure you have a gig-bag or case. An acoustic guitar other than a nylon-string classical such as a steel-string dreadnought guitar (the type rock/pop musicians play) is acceptable, but a classical is easier on the fingers and has a unique timbre (distinct sound). \n\r\nBoth music majors and nonmajors take this class, but regardless of your background, it\'s really designed so you can keep on jammin\' after the class is over. It\'s two-credits and grading is very fair, but you will have to practice outside of class weekly if you want to really say that you "can play guitar," so take the class seriously. I think the class works best when everyone in it is really into wanting to learn to play. The songs we learn are typical beginner-type things/exercises and not too long.\n\r\nI will continue to play even though I\'ve graduated so I can get better and gain a lifelong skill.\n\r\nThe tl;dr version is: kickass class, no book, need guitar, must practice.\n\r\nTake care folks.\n\r\nPS: this is what a classical guitar is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06GVrYP6NKs\r\n~ and you will have to play this.\n\r\njk :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-12-21T13:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Kunkel', 'course': 'MUSC106', 'review': 'I\'m writing this to confirm other positive reviews about this class. \r\n-Easy A and very fun\r\n-you will need your own guitar. Nylon string is preferred, but I used a steel string and was just fine\r\n-You do not need any musical experience to do well in this class\r\n-You won\'t really be able to "play the guitar" after just taking this class, but its a really good foundation\r\n-Practice is required! Prof can tell if you aren\'t doing it and your progress will suffer. This class is for your own benefit. It\'s 14 weeks of free (ish) guitar classes for 2 credits of free (ish) As. Take it seriously and enjoy!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-02T15:42:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Kunkel', 'course': 'MUSC106', 'review': "This was the most amazing two credits I've ever gotten at UMD. It only meets twice a week for 50 minutes each time. Lowkey Kunkel knows more about guitar than I ever could hope to. You need your own guitar but I bought a really cheap used guitar online for this class. There are written exams (midterm and final) but almost everyone got an A on those. Reviewing the night before or morning of is good enough. The caveat to all of this is that you actually need to practice unless you have a lot of musical experience. Professor KunkeI will grade you based upon your improvement, so for the half of the class that aren't music majors that means that you aren't expected to get to their level but you do need to show him you are trying. I only got into this class because I have early registration. The waitlist is really long so you either need early registration or to be a senior to get in. Overall, if you need two elective credits and you're willing to practice (and you can get in), take this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-11T01:55:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Kunkel', 'course': 'MUSC106', 'review': 'I never played guitar before this class, but definitely learned the basics and am able to play. However, every single student in this class has years of experience so be prepared to be the worst one. One kid literally said he had been playing for 8 years. He gives an easy final exam though, and grades so easy on the final playing part, but you really need to put the work in to get it. Overall pretty good.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T18:35:37Z'}], 'name': 'Gerard Kunkel', 'slug': 'kunkel'}, {'courses': ['ENGL206', 'ENGL788A', 'ENGL289I', 'HONR208A', 'ENGL719D', 'ENGL428Z', 'ENGL719G', 'HONR218Y', 'ENGL412', 'ENGL120', 'ENGL788F', 'ENGL404', 'ENGL719J', 'ENGL120', 'ENGL478C', 'ENGL428T', 'ENGL719F', 'ENGL120', 'ENGL478J'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gerard Passannante', 'course': None, 'review': "Gerard Passannante is one of my all time FAVORITE professors! He is so entertaining. Like an actor, he seems to always be performing and engaging students in fascinating discussion. Seminars are small, so our class was 18 people and we all sat around a round table and just discussed DaVinci, Shakespeare, and Montainge in a relaxed atmosphere. No quizzes, no tests, just a few papers here and there. The papers weren't long though! The readings were interesting, but the class discussiongs we hands down the BEST PART! I REALLY recommend this class and this fantabulous professor. Good luck Terps!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-03-29T13:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Passannante', 'course': 'ENGL289I', 'review': "This was one of the best, and most fun, English classes I have ever taken. Professor Passannant is engaging, interesting and has fun during the class, making it easy to understand and want to learn about the plays of Shakespeare.\r\nIt's not a super easy A, but it is a very enjoyable one.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-10-24T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Passannante', 'course': 'ENGL120', 'review': 'Incredible lecture. I actually enjoyed Shakespeare for once', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-04-13T21:45:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerard Passannante', 'course': 'ENGL120', 'review': "Dr. Passannante is great and incredibly passionate about Shakespeare. Lectures involve him going over important themes and messages in various plays, and are not too bad unless you absolutely despise any amount of Shakespeare analysis. He is open to talking about anything Shakespeare-related, and really wants everyone to find and realize the magic and connection he has with it. 2 relatively short essays due across the semester, not too bad and he can certainly help you out with starting it if you don't understand the prompt or the plays. I personally don't care much for Shakespeare but still appreciated him and the TAs.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T01:53:54.468966Z'}], 'name': 'Gerard Passannante', 'slug': 'passannante'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'UNIV100', 'EDUC388', 'EDUC388U', 'UNIV362', 'UNIV362', 'HESI318O', 'UNIV362', 'UNIV362', 'UNIV362', 'UNIV362'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gerry Strumpf', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Best teacher. So kind, yet also a fair grader. Oddly felt at home in her classroom. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-24T17:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerry Strumpf', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Gerry Strumpf is a seriously adorable southern woman that can be put off track easily and tells story after story in class. We hardly took notes, and I never opened the book. That being said, she is a strangely hard grader for her teaching style. The class was laid back and fun, and I genuinely enjoyed being in class. It is an easy A if you take your speeches seriously (which I didn't at first). She is such a kind woman and she made COMM107 bearable. I would definitely recommend her. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'a', 'created': '2013-11-21T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerry Strumpf', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "I'm kind of embarassed that I got an A minus at the end of this class because it was seriously easy, although she's a surprisingly tough grader. But she's pretty lenient and caring and nice person. If you're looking for an A in comm, take her. If you're looking to learn about public speaking, take her. If you're looking to skip class, don't take her she takes it seriously(totally the reason why I got the minus).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-01-31T22:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerry Strumpf', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "If you're a natural public speaker, this class is an easy A. Otherwise, Gerry does a great job of preparing you for the speeches you will give. A bunch of online quizzes (open book), no exams, a couple speeches, and one group project. Lectures require participation. Not the right teacher for quiet students... Highly recommend!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-15T21:22:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerry Strumpf', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "I feel like you can't help but love Gerry's class. Yeah, she may be a bit crazy, but she is warm, caring, and clearly passionate about her subject. Although she grades a bit tougher that one would expect, she is more than willing to work with you to improve. Take this class if you want an entertaining hour fifteen every other day. Highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-17T21:17:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Gerry Strumpf', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "I love Gerry's class so much! She is trying really hard to make the online format work for everyone and it is the most enjoyable of all of my classes. Class is relaxed and fun but my public speaking has definitely improved. Make sure you show up to class, pay attention (she can tell!), and do the quizzes (reasonable ones) from the textbook, and you'll do well. She is my favorite professor and I highly recommend taking her for COMM107. I even plan on taking UNIV362 just because she is teaching it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-12T20:37:51Z'}], 'name': 'Gerry Strumpf', 'slug': 'strumpf'}, {'courses': ['BMGT380', 'BMGT488A', 'BUSI764', 'BMGT380N', 'BMGT380'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gideon Mark', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "His lecture is nothing helpful for the exam, which is challenging and feels like a SAT reading test. \n\r\nDon't be mislead by the comments from 2011, because Smith core course policy haven't changed at that time. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-02-19T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gideon Mark', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Gideon is legitmately one of the best professors I could ask for in law. He really knows what he is talking about and he is hilarious.\n\r\nHis lectures are straight from the book so don't waste your time reading anything but the cases. Take notes on your computer to keep up with him...there are a LOT of notes. The exams are right out of the notes and he applies all the concepts to situations with Jersey Shore and the Kardashians.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-22T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gideon Mark', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "I liked him a lot. He is very dry (but so is the subject of business law) with a very wry sense of humor. Pretty straight-forward way of presenting notes, although he does not upload them online. Makes you present a case for a free 10% and then the rest of your grade is just three tests. The tests are 15 T/F and 35 MC which are really straightforward and directly from his notes. Doesn't try to trick you", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-15T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gideon Mark', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Basically agree with the two other comments. Really nice. Very helpful. Really funny. Great lecturer. 3 tests. 15 t/f, rest are multiple choices all pretty straightforward. Take good notes, review them and you'll get a good grade. No need to read the book if u take good notes. His exams r directly from his lecture. He is actually one of the better professors for teaching BMGT 380 especially compared that McClenahan guy. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-28T22:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gideon Mark', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "The most awesome professor in the Smith school! One of the reasons I actually understand the law is because of his teachings. He is a great professor. He seems dull at first but is actually extremely hilarious! He's super cool since he's into pop culture and half of his examples are from the entertainment business. He make the concepts so easy that as long as you are taking good notes and review them well before the exam you are going do really well. He is very knowledgeable, and genuinely likes to help students. He has to be one of the best business law professors-he teaches during the fall so if you need to take bmgt380 make sure you register for his class asap since most of the seats for his class gets taken fairly quickly. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-11T06:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gideon Mark', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Quick to respond to e-mails. Very available to students. Tests are pretty straightforward. You don't really need to read the book if you take notes. Funny guy at times, otherwise pretty boring with a monotonous voice. Make sure to take good notes in class and you will be fine getting an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-21T18:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gideon Mark', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Beast! Loved his class, super funny dude! Take good notes and you should do fine. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-21T19:59:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Gideon Mark', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Super funny guy, very nice. Right down everything, memorize it, and you will do well on the exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-07T03:00:40Z'}], 'name': 'Gideon Mark', 'slug': 'mark_gideon'}, {'courses': ['AMSC460', 'CMSC460'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gil Ariel', 'slug': 'ariel'}, {'courses': ['BUSI662', 'BMGT868R', 'BMGT868G', 'BMGT868C', 'BMGT868F', 'BMGT828Q', 'BMGT828Z', 'BMGT868W', 'BMGT868B', 'BMGT868N', 'BMGT868B', 'BMGT868G', 'BMGT868N', 'BMGT868T'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gilad Chen', 'course': None, 'review': 'Best professor in the program. Take anything he teaches.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-23T10:39:00Z'}], 'name': 'Gilad Chen', 'slug': 'chen_gilad'}, {'courses': ['ENPM671', 'ENPM620', 'ENPM620'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gilad Sharon', 'course': 'ENPM671', 'review': 'Prof Sharon is a great teacher. He gives examples that really help with the homework and final exam. His passion for teaching is obvious and he answers all student questions thoughtfully.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-08-26T17:44:06Z'}], 'name': 'Gilad Sharon', 'slug': 'sharon'}, {'courses': ['BIOL608K', 'CBMG699K', 'CHEM608K', 'ENTM699K', 'BIOL608K', 'CBMG699K', 'CHEM608K', 'ENTM699K', 'BIOL608K', 'CBMG699K', 'CHEM608K', 'ENTM699K'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gili Ad-Marbach', 'slug': 'ad-marbach'}, {'courses': ['ENEE222', 'ENEE463', 'ENEE408I', 'ENEE322', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE222', 'ENEE408I'], 'average_rating': 3.1053, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "He seems like a very nice guy. From what I heard, he pretty much takes on any senior looking to do a project for ENEE499. There's a lot of learning that you have to do on your own for this course, so if you're afraid of that I'd recommend Papamarcou over Blankenship for that reason.\n\r\nBlankenship tends to teach like a graduate professor, in that it's not as organized and structured as some of the better Undergraduate professors in the department. If you take Blankenship for 222, you will be pretty much set for 322, because he kind of teaches 222 like it's 322. Homework problem sets involve a lot of Matlab, so if you weren't familiar with it before you will be after this course.\n\r\nTests were a little tricky just because we weren't as familiar with the course material, but to be honest he told us a couple of the test questions in class..essentially word for word. You can also find some of his old exams online, and he tends to recycle exam questions.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-11-13T13:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "Professor Blankenship is very fair. Although he does teach like a graduate professor, he takes into consideration every question the students have. I got an A+ in this class although I didn't do very well on the first exams. His final exam is pretty much the other exams put together, so study them. The homework is doable, and he definitely curves everything. I would take his class again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-06-29T11:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE THIS GUY FOR ENEE222. I took 322 with Rotkowitz, and Blankenship basically taught everything I learned in 322, but in such a disorganized and unintelligible way. I highly recommend taking papamarcou or anybody else than blankenship for 222. This was my first course ever in signals, and Blankenship made it so convoluted and hard to understand. I hated signals after taking it with Blankenship, but after taking 322 Rotkowitz, I realize it's actually pretty interesting. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-17T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "As you progress through the EE program, you will realize that this guy is good. He grades primarily on setting up and approaching the problem as opposed to memorizing formulas and carrying out long derivations. \r\nHowever he does expect a proficiency in MATLAB that the class itself does not quite warrant, and rushed through 322 material to incorporate 463 material into the class so the syllabus isn't great.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-24T12:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE660', 'review': 'Very approachable and friendly. Very clear in his lectures. No nasty surprises on the exams. You get the feeling that an engineer is teaching you, not an applied mathematician. Overall, really good.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-10-11T10:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "First off, I'd like to point out that I did not have Blankenship for 222, and that I survived the course.\n\r\nBlankenship is an extremely nice guy, and I found him to be rather hilarious. My only complaints about his personality is that his voice is soothing and it makes me fall asleep in a warm room.\n\r\nIt is true that he teaches every semester slightly different, that his homeworks are very difficult and his exams fall somewhere between fair and impossible. However, I do believe that he keeps the material interesting, and cares more about whether or not you understand the concepts than if you can apply it or not. He spends a lot of time reviewing things that he talked about last class, which is EXTREMELY nice (albeit boring), because it really emphasizes what he thinks is important (and what will be on the exam). I found his lectures to be extremely well put-together, and mostly engaging. Keep in mind he tells you the exam questions before the exam. I must say that even though I found this class to be stressful, I learned significantly more than in a lot of my other classes, and I really enjoyed it overall (which I found strange).\n\r\nMy advice to someone who is considering taking him: sit in the front, attend every lecture and discussion, pay attention, and abuse your TA. Attending lecture is crucial because otherwise it's impossible to know what he talked about, and he often gives out test questions. Your TA is your friend and will help you with the homework. Don't try to do it completely by yourself because you will die. Remember that it is your TA's JOB to help you. Also keep in mind that if you're struggling with something, chances are everyone else is, too.\n\r\nOverall, Blankenship is an awesome professor and his class is completely doable, even if you're taking 18 credits, if you approach it the right way.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-21T10:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "Dr. Blankenship is pretty terrible. He teaches every semester differently and in an arbitrary manner. He confuses almost everyone in the class, and fails to teach in a remotely structured manner. If you want the easy A though, and you're decent at Math, he's the guy to take, since he grades on a really nice curve (makes cut offs on average so approximately 40% of people get As). You might find you learned a decent amount for ENEE322, though the class could be much better used for its 4 credits.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-03-02T23:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "Blankenship's teaching style is very different from other teachers in ECE. Unfortunately I could not learn very much from him.\n\r\nLectures are very technical and hard to follow unless you have a prior knowledge of the topics before class. Blankenship has alot of background knowledge which he shares during lecture, but it goes so quickly so that you're not really sure what you just learned when you leave. I had to rely on outside sources and notes to figure out what was going on. He teaches off of a set of notes found online, which is equally hard to understand.\n\r\nHomeworks were assigned about every week (unless he forgot) and they took a good 5-7 hours to complete. Often times the homeworks would be on entirely new concepts, completely different from what was going on in class. Depending on your TA the hw could be graded rather harshly, or more for completion.\n\r\nTests were...interesting. Blankenship himself says he likes to put new concepts on tests and the result is a combination of things you haven't seen before, and things that you thought you knew - except with a hidden trick or secret. Fortunately the class is graded on a curve so as long as you do slightly better than the rest of the class, you should be in good shape.\n\r\nI really wanted to like this class - I just couldn't do it. Blankenship's teaching style just isn't for me. I feel that if you know what you're doing already on the subject matter, take Blankenship, as he'll throw new concepts at you, but if you don't know the relationships between fourier transforms and fourier series out of the gate you might want to look elsewhere.\n\r\nEdit: He curves generously, but since the content in the course is referred in future classes, I don't feel as confident in much of the subject matter (complex numbers, fourier transforms, etc)", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-13T12:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'First semester at UMCP This "genius" guy intimidated me so much. His lecture is .1% understandable. No guidelines whatsoever. Homework is literally impossible to finish. I feel like being in a PhD class. He lectures with so much confidence as if every one is totally understanding it. I know that I am not alone in this class who have such feelings. He seems like a good guy but knows nothing about teaching. He expects you to be a PhD before he lectures', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-09T19:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is a very great guy, and also very intelligent.Unfortunately, he has no teaching skills.Lectures, homework and exams will make you think that they belong in three different classes. My advice is to take this class after linear algebra, calc 3, and differential eqns. Or just take the class with another prof. \n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-11T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Blankenship -- well his lectures were pretty hard for me to understand. He seems to love to do everything in greek letters; and his "notes" (/textbook) online weren\'t really that helpful. The homeworks were quite difficult and took a lot of time; but the one thing this class did was make me think. The homeworks contained between 50 and 100% MATLAB assignments and I didn\'t really know MATLAB that well going into this class but I\'ve learned SO much about it and how useful it actually can be. Dr. Blankenship really emphasized signal processing in the course, which I found to actually be quite interesting.\n\r\nAll I can say is that Dr. Blankenship himself said he\'s not here to hold our hand. In fact, he\'s more of the type of person to put everyone in the ocean and observe who can swim. His grading is quite lenient though. The way it worked for our class was that if you had one point above the average for the class, you had a B, and if you had 1.1*the average number of points+1, you had an A.\n\r\nHis exams are very difficult but as someone else said, he really grades on approach more than getting the answer. Study hard for the first exam and you will be rewarded later as the later exams don\'t go so well.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-19T18:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'Nice guy, very approachable. However, lectures can at times seem to have nothing to do with the homework.\n\r\nPretty decent prof, but I would say I learned the majority of the course material from the TA and not from him.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-09T18:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': None, 'review': 'I read all of the comments on pick-a-prof and on here, as well. Blankenship is an EXCELLENT professor. The homeworks are extremely difficult, however, the class is graded on a curve. What I came to realize was that if I couldn\'t do the homework, neither could anyone else. The exams are exactly what he says they will be with one question that always "tests your actual knowledge of the material". I was aiming for a B when I got in the class, somehow after exam 1 I had an A, then exam 2 I still had an A....and after the final, I had an A. He prepares you for enee 322, you will be ahead of the class when you walk in the door for 322, TRUST ME. Blankenship is a great teacher, plain and simple', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-29T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': None, 'review': 'Prof. Blankenship is one of the few ECE professors at UMD that really impresses me. Not only is he very knowledgeable of the subject matter, but an excellent teacher as well. His lectures would be worthy of recording. Homeworks may be difficult, but they are so for good reason. I highly recommend Prof. Blankenship.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-23T19:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': None, 'review': 'Blankenship is definitely a difficult professor, but he is very fair. He is much more interested in how you set up problems to solve them than he is in the answers you get. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-08T01:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'He doesn’t know how to explain. Even the average for the class is really low.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-05-19T22:16:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'Nice guy, hard to hear. Expect to spend a lot of time reading the material outside of class and not comprehending it. His text is poor and the homeworks and tests are difficult to near impossible. Large curve to make up for this.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-10T19:40:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "He was objectively a nice person, but at the end of the day, his class was one of the hardest classes I've ever had, at an unreasonable rate. I currently have a different professor for 322, and we are currently doing 222 review, all of which I did not learn in Blankenship's class. Yet, the remaining topics in 322 after the first 3 weeks is stuff we did in Blankenships 222 class, no wonder it was so unreasonably hard. His exams were ridiculous diff eq and lin alg heavy and homeworks were near impossible. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-02-02T05:17:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'I would only take this professor for 222 if you are already comfortable with some of the basics of signals and systems and want to really challenge yourself. His problem sets are challenging and require lots of outside research to finish, which he will warn you of during his lectures. The tests are also very challenging and for my semester all of the averages were in the 50s. The curve he gives is substantial and he expects the grades to be low on most of what he assigns. I was very frustrated about this at first, but compared to the students who took other professors for 222 my understanding of signals is much higher. The professor is also very accommodating and gave reasonable timelines for assignments and extensions when asked for. If you are interested in feedback and controls and actually being good when you get to the real world this is your guy, if you just want to pass because it is a required course you should probably steer clear of him. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-18T14:54:21Z'}], 'name': 'Gilmer Blankenship', 'slug': 'blankenship'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN315', 'SPAN361', 'SPAN316', 'SPAN361H', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN331', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN331', 'SPAN361', 'SPAN316', 'SPAN332', 'SPAN362'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ginette Eldredge', 'course': 'SPAN316', 'review': 'Professor Eldredge is a great teacher because she will commit extra time to helping students if they need it. This is the most work I have ever done for a class, and she is a very detailed grader, so it may be difficult to get an A or higher. As long as you show that you are committed to learning how to translate and actually read her comments, the class will be very rewarding. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-03-15T23:07:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Ginette Eldredge', 'course': 'SPAN361', 'review': 'She assigns so much work like its a 5 credit class. my grades in my major classes dropped because i was so focused on this class because she gave so much! ruined my gpa. do not take her. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T19:43:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Ginette Eldredge', 'course': 'SPAN361', 'review': "So she's insane. Like actually built different. She will make you work your tail off for 15 weeks straight. Not only should you be prepared to spend 10-15 hours a week doing the ridiculously long readings and essay questions, but the material is unfamiliar and hard to grasp. This class is the reason why I didn't sleep for a semester. DO NOT TAKE!!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-29T02:48:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Ginette Eldredge', 'course': 'SPAN316', 'review': "So I've had her twice & I'm traumatized. Her teaching style is no-nonsense & she doesn't play at all. She will assign loads of work, grade it in detail, rapid fire questions in class, & make you participate. Please don't take her unless you're willing to put 110% time & effort into every assignment. That being said, she really wants you to succeed", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-02T05:20:26Z'}], 'name': 'Ginette Eldredge', 'slug': 'eldredge'}, {'courses': ['MATH130', 'MATH410', 'MATH452', 'MATH642', 'MATH660', 'MATH670', 'MATH131', 'MATH462', 'MATH868F', 'AMSC452', 'AMSC670', 'MATH669', 'MATH411', 'MATH406', 'MATH405', 'MATH461', 'MATH401'], 'average_rating': 1.9412, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "Professor Forni is a really nice guy, but he can't teach very well. People rarely showed up for lectures. Also, the TAs sucked so much. They were terrible teachers too, and they gave us so little time for our quizzes the first several weeks. Exams are difficult, but if you consistently do the homework, you should be fine. You have to teach yourself math at this school anyways, the teachers usually suck", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-05T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "Professor Forni is a very nice man but is awful at teaching. He goes off on tangents during lectures and it is very difficult to keep up with him. I completely stopped going to lecture and just went to discussion instead. He has very nice and helpful TAs that understand the students. Forni's exams are impossible, I got a 43% on one exam but still managed to get an A- in the class. He curves very generously to compensate for his difficult exams. Overall awful professor but a good curve ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-24T00:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'He teach very fast and very confusing. He does curve the class alot but if you are a student who needs to know the material very well I would NOT recommend him at all!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-16T14:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'This is by far the worst professor i have ever meet in my life. Enough said.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-06T14:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': 'Well, people below do make a quite-true comment on him. However, I have to say something else. Don\'t expect the teacher to teach you everything in the classroom, especially in the math class. If you don\'t do homework, don\'t read the text carefully, don\'t go to his office hour, then don\'t blame at last. I took MATH405 with him. I believe 405 is the most or second most difficult math class for undergrade(you guys can confirm this with anyone in math department or any students who have ever taken this class). His lecture is "terrible", full of abstract content and lots of stuff that presume you have already known. But, he is patient both in and out of classroom. You can bring your homework to his office, he will do every single one for you step by step. And he curve a lot, as long as you got a score above the average, you can guarantee to get a B. And usally, this B finally turns to an A- or even A on your transcrept, because he really CURVES a lot. \n\r\nGuys, don\'t blame how fxxxxxx bad the professor he is if you don\'t attend lecture, nor do homework. Blame yourselves, cuz you are students, you are supposed to be responsible for what you have ever done.\n\r\nLast, I want to say, if you devote your time into it, you really learn a lot, far more than the course coverage, from him. He is knowledgable and smart. You know, he was a Ph.D. from Princeton U. xD', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-02-11T15:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "After the first few days of class I thought I was really going to like this guy. Unfortunately, those feelings haven't stayed the same due to the fact this guy just rambles on about derivatives without teaching. Just to give you an idea how bad of a teacher he is, the class average for the first midterm was a 39. He's arrogant in the fact that he expected people to get everything right on these tests when in reality, they were nearly impossible. The only reason why I'm doing well in the class is because I took calculus last year. I've talked to kids who didn't take calc and are in my class and they are completely lost. There are so many other teachers you can take for this class. I advise you NOT to take a class with Forni.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-15T18:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "What everyone else said. His lectures were awful so I had to rely on my TA to learn the material. Homeworks were pretty easy but do not prepare you for the tests at all. Even though the tests are open book, the book doesn't help at all. I failed my second midterm but still got an A because of the generous curve. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-18T04:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'His lectures are impossible to followw, so you must learn everything from the book. His tests are created to be IMPOSSIBLE! He himself said that a student should be able to only understand half the test. That sentiment was reflected in the average grades (the first midterm average was a ~45, and the second was a 32). The final was do-able. Avoid if possible.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-19T00:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Good lecturer: no, a terrible lecturer\r\nSmart: may be but definitely not a smart teacher\r\nTests: hard, at least 2 problems not doable\r\nApproachable: not really, sometimes didn't show up during his office hours\r\nShould I take him: I suggest to do everything possible to AVOID taking any class (esp. STAT400) with him\r\nAre lectures helpful: 95% of lectures that I attended were not very helpful, other 5%: don't know.\r\nTest avg: Test 1 -> low-mid 50s, Test 2 -> low-mid 30s...I'm not kidding!!\r\nCurve: Huge curve, basically if you do avg on test, its a B\r\nOther comments: \r\n-If you have questions about homework, don't go and ask him. He will do everything but answer your question. \r\n-Even though he is a stats professor, he won't give you a grade distribution which is sad\n\n\n\n\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-03T19:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Honestly, I went to no more than 25% of the lectures. From when I was there, I can say that Forni focused mostly on the theoretical concepts of the class. He showed us the proofs for many concepts in statistics. His lecture was not really organized well and he rarely did example problems. \r\nHW is 30% of the grade, which boosts your grade. I learned most of the general concepts by doing the homework and reading the not-so-well-written textbook. I knew the material well enough to do the practice tests that tested a basic understanding of the material.\r\nHowever, HIS TESTS ARE HARD. The problems make you apply the material in ways that you have never seen (not in lecture or in the book). There is a huge curve, because even though I likely got below 50% on both midterms and the final, I still got a B+. \r\nEven with the curve, the class is just annoying, because the tests just stress you out and I didn't learn anything that I really couldn't have figured out from AP statistics. \r\nI would say AVOID HIM if you can.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-05-23T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'This man is a genius but a terrible teacher. The exams are open book but insanely difficult. He curves to a B average though which is cool and he is also very approachable and responds to emails fast.\n\r\nBasically, he is terrible teacher but also a fair one.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-22T14:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Must have to agree with all poster below. All he does in lectures are proofs. I only went to majority of his lecture before exam 1 then i found out nothing in his lecture resembles on his exam. HW was 30% of grade (grade booster), it was straight from the book. All exams resembles NOTHING from HW or lecture. He even told us to do practice exam from other prof in testbank....totally different.\n\r\nHe only had 4 problems on exam 1 & 2. He even stated that the last 2 problems he makes it more difficult to see how we do...so he atleast expect a 50 from ppl\n\r\nExam 1...the average was around 50+\r\nExam 2...the average was around 30+\n\r\nWith those averages, he gotta curve...but if you hit the average and do really well on the HW....you should be fine...I manget to get a B with good HW scores but a little below average test score...\n\r\nBut if you really want to learn...he is not the prof for you...\n\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-20T13:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "He is a terrible professor, he reads the book and does proofs the entire lecture. He assigns a lot of homework and it's 30% of your grade. The tests look nothing like the homework, nor do they resemble anything else he did during class. The average grade for the first test was a 55 and the average grade for the second wont be higher than a 45. DO NOT TAKE STAT400 WITH HIM. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-22T01:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Forni teaches stat400 in a very unique way. lectures are very confusing, and most people do not attend. the weekly homework from the book was pretty straight forward, but his tests are completely different and there are not any good tools to study for them. however, there is a large curve as a 50% on the 1st test was close to a B. it is not hard to pass the class, but the material is sometimes overwhelming. do not recommend for people who really want to know the material', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-21T19:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': "Prof. Forni is a nice and approachable guy. That being said, his lecture was kind of unorganized and through out the semester I had no idea what was going on. But he always appears so understanding and innocent that I just couldn't want to blame him for anything... Do not expect his class to engage you (in this class he assigns problems out of a boring book. I liked the problems he wrote but it only happened for the very first hw :/ ). Take his class if you are especially motivated/determined or you may slip off the way I did... \r\nExams were hard, mostly because they were ~10% similar to the problems from the book... He did generously curve the average of the class final grade to a B (the raw average was failing).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-17T22:51:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': "He's a funny guy, really smart too. His lectures are ok, but you doesn't follow the textbook very strictly, so oftentimes I had no clue what was going on. His midterms are ridiculously hard, while the final is somewhat more reasonable. That said, he curves to a B average, which is pretty generous. His style of teaching is different from others, but the way his exams destroy your self-confidence gives you great perspective on how little you really know.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-19T06:50:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Giovanni Forni', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR\r\n\r\nHe is the worst professor I have had during my undergrad studies and he should not be teaching classes. His exams were totally unfair and unrelated to the material he was supposedly teaching and his teaching was totally incoherent. I made the mistake of taking this professor but I hope others avoid making this mistake. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-01-23T21:12:43Z'}], 'name': 'Giovanni Forni', 'slug': 'forni'}, {'courses': ['BIOE371', 'BIOE489I', 'BIOE372', 'BIOE608', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'BIOE433', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'BIOE232', 'BIOE433', 'BIOE632'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Giuliano Scarcelli', 'course': 'BIOE372', 'review': 'The class is not a conventional statistics class, which is fine considering its applied to bioengineering. But where the class fell short is the professor. Scarcelli lacks the ability to explain the material well & his questions are bizarrely worded. He refuses to answer any questions that would clarify his confusing wording on exams. Avoid him.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-02T00:11:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Giuliano Scarcelli', 'course': 'BIOE372', 'review': 'One of the worst professors I have ever had. Does not explain material well at all. He’s an awful teacher in general and should be avoided at all costs. Oh yeah, if you do have him for the final, have fun because he puts impossible questions to drop your grade. Thanks for a great Christmas gift!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-12-24T16:18:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Giuliano Scarcelli', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'Scarcelli does not explain the material well and does not give any outside resources to help understand the materials other than homework problems.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-08T16:25:16.255894Z'}, {'professor': 'Giuliano Scarcelli', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'Doesn’t explain materials well and does not give help to students', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-08T18:02:27.591982Z'}, {'professor': 'Giuliano Scarcelli', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'I think I lowkey know who posted the negative review on 11/8 but lemme tell you, Scarcelli is one of the best professors I’ve had. He is so goofy and sweet and genuinely cares about your understanding of the material. He is a professor that wants you to succeed. The people who do not do well in this class guess and retake the online quizzes without watching the lectures, they do not attend classes on Tuesday’s where the lecture material is reiterated, they copy the homework’s without understanding, they do not attend Thursday office hour classes, and they do not show up to discussions on Friday. Of course if you put in the bare minimum, you will not be happy with your test scores. Scarcelli goes out of his way to provide the necessary materials you need to succeed, is SUPER nice about partial credit (he wants to see that you understand the theory behind topics), and is just overall a good guy. If you don’t take advantage of the classes, quizzes, online lectures, office hours, and discussions, then that’s on you lmao.\r\n\r\n(Shoutout to Anjali for being the best TA btw. She’s super helpful and clearly explains how to do relevant practice problems, so make sure you don’t miss them)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-15T20:51:30.838131Z'}, {'professor': 'Giuliano Scarcelli', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'Amazing professor super sweet and helpful. He only has negative reviews because there is an insanely rude girl in his class this semester who yells at him and writes bad reviews. He is a great professor and person really kind and gives great helpful resources to students. He wants all of his students to succeed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-15T22:16:24.650838Z'}, {'professor': 'Giuliano Scarcelli', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': "I like Giuliano a lot. He is probably the only BIOE professor I've had that actually seems to enjoy teaching and getting to know you. Exams are kinda hard but we definitely take harder classes in BIOE so thermo overall isn't that bad", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-11-20T17:20:32.931519Z'}, {'professor': 'Giuliano Scarcelli', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': "Giuliano is the sweetest and definitely most caring professor I've had. He definitely makes sure to get to know his students and takes feedback very seriously and has a genuine desire to make sure students have everything they need to succeed. He really put in the effort to ask for our opinions on how the class was going and already had plans in place to pivot if needed. He was once even chewed out (rudely) by a student about how we were prepared for an exam (no one really agreed with this student), and when other students voiced that they disagreed with this student Giuliano still made an effort to validate that student's opinion and reasoned that people learn in different ways and promised to try to adjust for them as well. \r\nHe's also a very lenient grader. You can get a totally incorrect numerical answer on an exam and still get full credit if you can explain why the answer you got doesn't make sense, because he ACTUALLY cares about his students learning. He wants you to understand the material/derivations and cares less about little calculation errors. \r\nYou can tell he's a very passionate guy. He's even stated that thermo is one of his least favorite subjects but somehow he had the most helpful and lively lectures, even despite having his class immediately after two other back-to-back hour and a half classes each week. If you go to discussions and office hours (which he holds instead of lecture during his Thursday classes so it's super convenient), his exams are totally doable and fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-11T23:41:22.650487Z'}], 'name': 'Giuliano Scarcelli', 'slug': 'scarcelli'}, {'courses': ['EDCP310', 'EDHI338C', 'EDHI338O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Glenn Ireland', 'slug': 'ireland'}, {'courses': ['BIOE150', 'HONR288L', 'HONR248K'], 'average_rating': 3.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Glenn Rahmoeller', 'course': 'HONR288L', 'review': "One of the best classes I've taken here at UMD, and I know many of my classmates agreed that the course was great after speaking with them and also by seeing how lively our discussion was. It really felt like an important class to take (as an intro to ethics) for both personal and professional life. I'm a pre-med, but you certainly don't have to be one to like this class! I was scared to take the class because the reviews suggested it would be boring and dry, but I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting the case studies and discussions were. We started off the course by reading about some ethical theories, which I really enjoyed because they provided a guideline for evaluating the ethics of different cases and decisions. Later, we discuss specific case studies and concepts, such as whistle-blowing. Every class, Mr. Rahmoeller has our desks arranged in a circle, so the class is heavily discussion based (no lecture) and it can be largely about whatever you want. We spend the class discussing case studies, ethical theories, and ethical issues in the news - it keeps you well-informed about current events. As long as you speak up (which is easy to do because everyone just speaks about his/her opinion), you will get the participation points!\n\r\nThere are 3 short papers (3-4 page double space each) and 4 quizzes. However, he replaced all 4 of our quizzes with short 1-2 page (double space) papers on a reading, which were super easy to write as long as you put in facts from the readings and put in your own insight. I was also worried about the papers, but I found the papers to be easy to write because the topics were so interesting. You basically had to summarize the reading so it wasn't too much thinking, and then put in a couple of your thoughts and opinions. I got 100's on almost every paper, and they did not take very long to write. My other classmates agreed. There is an individual paper on a topic of our choosing, and you later have to present it to the class, which wasn't too hard either. The presentations were interesting because they were discussion based too. The final exam was a 4-5 page paper on what we found most interesting in the class basically.\n\r\nThe readings were also short and very interesting, and I normally HATE readings. They were really easy to read. You have to buy a $5 coursebook, and also a textbook (which many people bought), BUT you can totally find the textbook online like I did. The readings were weekly.\n\r\nLastly, Mr. Rahmoeller is just a very nice guy with a light sense of humor. He's an old, quiet man who worked for the FDA for awhile, so he always has many interesting stories from his own professional life to share. He was on the quieter side, but he always let people speak, asked thought-provoking questions, and made us laugh here and there. I would say the discussion depends on your class - the people I took it with were very humorous. On the last day of class, he buys Ledos pizza! Hurray! I totally recommend this class - it's not only an easy A if you participate, but it gave me knowledge that I will carry on with me to the future.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-06-01T12:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Glenn Rahmoeller', 'course': 'HONR288L', 'review': 'As a premedical student, this was my favorite honors seminar and gen ed I have taken so far. It is a good class to take if you need an easy gen ed, especially if you’re interested in medicine and/or ethics. There are only about 4-5 relatively short papers, one oral presentation, 3-4 short quizzes, one 5 page (double spaced) final paper, and you get a grade on your class participation. Mr. Rahmoeller is kind of dry but he tries his best and the class is interesting if the students get good discussions going, so it’s really dependent on the students themselves to get something out of the class. He is a really nice guy though and he knows what he’s talking about. (You even get to have a pizza party during the last class!)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-17T12:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Glenn Rahmoeller', 'course': None, 'review': 'I really enjoyed this class. It was very easy but still informative and enjoyable. You have to write a paper every week- most are 1-2 pages and a few are 5-6 pages, but they are fairly simple papers to write. You also have an "individual paper" which is just a research paper, and a presentation for that paper. There is also a final paper which basically describes your overall experience in the class. I did very well on the papers and presentation throughout the semester, but ended up getting a C on my final paper because it did not go in-depth enough for Rahmoeller, but I still got an A- in the class. You do a lot of case studies in class which I thought were very interesting. He likes it if you participate a lot, which I found easy because you just have to state your opinion on what\'s being said. I recommend this class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-27T12:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Glenn Rahmoeller', 'course': 'HONR288L', 'review': "I thought this class would be really interesting and relate alot to my interests as a pre-med, but I find it extremely boring. Its al about ethics and really concerns analyzing what should have been done in different case studies. There is a 1-2 page paper (or a 3-4 page paper) due every week, a group project consisting of a presentation and 15pg paper, and a final 15 page paper. \r\nThis class is somewhat easy but I wouldn't take it again based on how lacking the discussion was.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-11-17T16:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Glenn Rahmoeller', 'course': 'HONR288L', 'review': "Not a bad seminar at all. Can be boring at times, but some topics did stimulate a good amount of discussion. No exams, 1-2 page papers due every week, and he's an easy grader. If you're looking for an easy A in an honors seminar, take this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-30T10:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Glenn Rahmoeller', 'course': None, 'review': "Looking for an A in a SB course? \r\nYou have chosen the correct class and professor!\n\r\nThis class is very boring...discussions are pretty dry because the professor doesn't lighten things up...but anyways its an easy course as you don't have any exams...just do the weekly papers and the major paper and final you should be JUST FINE!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-08T12:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Glenn Rahmoeller', 'course': 'HONR288L', 'review': 'When I took this class, there was a paper every week (usually 1-2 pages double-spaced, occasionally a bit longer but still double-spaced). He may take a point or two off if you confuse some deontological ideal with utilitarian, but I never thought his grading was "nitpicky" since every one of my papers hardly had marks on them, leading me to believe he simply skimmed papers for understanding of major ideas. Analysis of issues are always done from both deontological and utilitarian perspectives. Discussions can be thought-provoking but almost always lifeless.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-17T20:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Glenn Rahmoeller', 'course': 'HONR288L', 'review': "Ethics is, by its very nature, a subjective course. This course is based on case studies mostly drawn out of Rahmoeller's own experience. There are weekly questions to answer, and every two weeks, there is a short paper to write. However, his grading of the papers is nitpicky and narrow-minded. When you write papers giving your opinion about something, make sure that your opinion is his opinion and that you completely beat every single point you make into the ground by dumping every little detail about that point into your paper. That's the kind of writing he likes. Discussions in class can be interesting, but there were more awkward silences than there were stimulating debates. Overall, the material can be interesting, but he has too much of a personal investment in the case studies to make for an unbiased teacher.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-10-21T15:42:00Z'}], 'name': 'Glenn Rahmoeller', 'slug': 'rahmoeller'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Glenn Smith', 'slug': 'smith_glenn'}, {'courses': ['INAG110', 'INAG206', 'INAG111', 'INAG199', 'INAG240', 'INAG199C', 'INAG289', 'INAG199E', 'INAG199', 'INAG199C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Glori Hyman', 'slug': 'hyman'}, {'courses': ['AASP101', 'AASP395', 'AASP499Q', 'AASP396'], 'average_rating': 1.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gniesha Dinwiddie', 'course': 'AASP101', 'review': 'this class is boring. Everyone looks like they want to fall asleep during class! all it is is power points and facts anyone can look up! the group project was a bit much especially in the given time. she expects you to get in touch with a CEO of an organization when employees cant even do that! however boring it wasnt that hard if you actually studied or learned on your own. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-06T14:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gniesha Dinwiddie', 'course': 'AASP101', 'review': "Dinwiddie was an OK teacher. SOmetimes her lectures were engaging, other times they weren't. When talking about statistics and stuff like that, you can tell she knew what she was talking about. Alot of other times during lectures, I found her hard to understand because every other word was (ummm, uhh, umm, uhh, umm, uhh) so yea pretty boring. The only good thing is that she posts all lectures online so you don't even need to go to class..\r\nHowever, the books she requires you to read in class aren't ideal. She expects us to read an entire 200 some page book in a week, like we don't have other classes. Books are a waste of money. Also, we have to read these 20 page small print readings online. pointless again. \n\r\nEasy class though. TA's are what make the class easier. Erika Thompson was a great TA. But it's about 5 papers and a midterm and exam and that's it. Easy diversity/political history credit.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-10-20T23:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gniesha Dinwiddie', 'course': 'AASP101', 'review': "she is a TERRIBLE lecturer. some of her points are interesting, but they are often lost along the way. she is also a difficult grader, and chooses clear favorites. mostly, i would avoid this class so that you don't have to sit through her attendance mandated lectures. discussion once every two weeks can be interesting, but watch out if she disagrees with you. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-10T20:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gniesha Dinwiddie', 'course': 'AASP101', 'review': "Wow. The way this class was executed was atrocious. Dinwiddie is very knowledgeable but teaching and lecturing is not her strong points. The class was extremely unorganized and there was not a constant way she would assign assignments and papers. For example, sometimes assignments was given to us via email. Other times it's embedded in a powerpoint. Other times, word of mouth. The review session for the final was announced LESS THAN 22 HOURS from the time it was to be held! SERIOUSLY? I have a busy life and most professors respect that. Not in AASP100. They assume this class is the only class we are taking or something. Terrible, skip this class and take something else to fulfill your CORE requirements. I suggest a SOCY or ANTH class. Forget this one. Please, for your own sake, don't take it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-15T13:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gniesha Dinwiddie', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'She was the worst- very hard to understand in lecture and bad at engaging with the class. Lecture thinned to almost 1/4 of the total by the 3rd week. Gave little to no assistance with midterm review. Without the TAs, I dont know what I would have done. Made some very ignorant, opinion base remarks in lecture as well. Only take if you are interested in doing a lot of reading and learning almost nothing in lecture', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-07T15:13:00Z'}], 'name': 'Gniesha Dinwiddie', 'slug': 'dinwiddie'}, {'courses': ['BMGT495', 'BUMO714', 'BUMO794', 'BUSI667', 'BMGT364', 'BMGT363', 'BUMO767', 'BMGT463', 'BUSI662', 'BMGT364N'], 'average_rating': 2.2222, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gosia Langa', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "One of the worst professors I've had in the Business School. She was unprofessional and seemed cynical. \n\r\nShe does not make the exam for 364, so did not know what to tell the class what to study for. She ended up telling us to review the powerpoints primarily, meanwhile nearly the entire exam was from the textbook -- which she never mentioned once in class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-10-29T16:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gosia Langa', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "I'm not sure why Professor Langa gets a bad wrap. In my opinion, she is a very energetic professor, does a good job of keeping students involved, and actually has a sense of humor unlike many other professors. I took the 7pm section for 364, so some days I was pretty burned out. However, Langa's personality did help me make it through those classes.\n\r\nI think a lot of professors who teach 364 get a bad wrap because many students see the material as common knowledge and think they can coast through the course. However, you do need to stay current on the reading to do well. Taking very detailed notes is not required but you do need to follow along in class because some of the material covered is not in the book.\n\r\nThe exams are somewhat difficult (about 60% multiple choice and 40% fill in the blank/short essay.) There is a good amount of material to remember and you don't get a cheat sheet. So give yourself ample time to study.\n\r\nThere are quite a few assignments outside of the class but they are pretty easy (just make sure to know the due dates and submit on time.) The group project is very extensive and requires a good amount of work and effort. Not the biggest fan of this because the groups are randomly assigned and you can get stuck with someone who won't pull their weight. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-01-17T13:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gosia Langa', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "What a dumb professor. She hasn't had any corporate or worthwhile experience and she's trying to teach me about business? Add into how she talks about her nonexistent dating life and you have the makings of a terrible class.\n\r\nSeriously though Langa, you need to be more professional. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-13T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gosia Langa', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Despite what other comments say here, I actually enjoyed this class. I didn't find the material to be all that hard- you do have to study to do well on the tests though. You have to be able to take it seriously.\n\r\nI didn't find her biased, since there was like one kid who talked and the rest of us chilled for the majority of class. \n\r\nMy only problems with the class was the group that I was in for our group project, but that's not her fault. I wished that she would have giving us a little more direction with our group assignments, but I feel this was probably part of the learning process. \n\r\nIf you have Langa next semester, don't worry about it too much. You will be fine!! Plus, those extra out of class assignments meant that we got days off from class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-07T21:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gosia Langa', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "I hated this class so much. The amount of material on the exams was ridiculous, making the averages much lower than a Smith CORE should be. The group projects were stupid and we had no idea how to do them due to her complete lack of instruction. This class was so frusturating the entire semester. I think half of my hatred came from the actual class material itself, and the other half from how annoying/incompetent Langa is. All she did was talk about herself and her problems, and unnecessecarily show us videos that wasted class time. We had a lot of out of class assignments like: guest speaker, group project, a research sona study, and ropes course (yes, the ropes course behind Eppley. Who knew a mgmt class would force me to be physically fit/active?). Overall a poorly designed class that I'm glad is over.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-03T20:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gosia Langa', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': "She isn't very clear on guidelines for the final group paper. In our class the week before the final paper was due she began to add more things she wanted included in the paper, this is completely unorganized on her part. I do agree she does come off biased and if she likes you she isn't shy about giving you extra points.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-14T17:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gosia Langa', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': "if you love to participate, take this class. grade is heavily based on in-class participation - attendance AND giving intelligent comments in class. LOTS of reading. one case write up, 2 group projects. exams are not impossible but you do have to study extensively (all multiple choice) this isnt an easy class - you have to work to get the grade you want. she's a great person, very helpful as a professor, and really wants everyone to do well. she loves to travel and shares lots of stories. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-29T16:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gosia Langa', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "Whenever we have problems with capsim, she always says call capsim, she never try to help us. The only time she gave us advice it was wrong. We asked her if we could produce new product for our company in the very early round, she told us it was too late. Our company would be so much profitable if we didn't listen to her. She also graded us unfair. We got a lower score in the later rounds when we were doing so much better. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-22T19:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gosia Langa', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "She is the worst professor I have ever had in my life. Don't take her class. She is so biased. Everything in this class is group work. If you are in a group with all the smart students, she always give you good grade no matter what you do, even if you don't do anything. Capsim is a online game require a lot of work. And the grade she give is totally unfair. Participation, current even notebook, everything in her class is not fair. And she doesn't treat students with respect.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-22T13:26:00Z'}], 'name': 'Gosia Langa', 'slug': 'langa'}, {'courses': ['ENMA289A', 'ENMA650', 'ENMA465', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA460', 'PHYS431', 'ENMA201', 'ENMA650', 'ENMA440', 'ENMA640', 'ENMA650'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gottlieb Oehrlein', 'course': 'ENMA201', 'review': 'Definitely do not recommend taking this. The class is so much work and is mostly based on group projects that are graded very harshly. Very poor communication overall from him and no one ever knew what was going on in this class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-25T19:00:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Gottlieb Oehrlein', 'course': 'ENMA201', 'review': "The professor is not really a fluent speaker, so it might hard to hear him, but his lectures are quite detailed and my classmates are interesting to hear. Make sure you have a clear communication with your partner(s) in discussion to do slides, which makes up a lot of your grades and are graded quite strictly. Don't wait until last minute. Exams are pretty fair: it's in the lecture slides (know some facts for evidence and terms) and the study guide.\r\n\r\nThe most important skill you learn in this class is supporting your argument with good evidence because there is no right or wrong answer when it asks for your opinions in a topic. If you want a slightly easy A and GenEd credit (DSNS and SCIS), take this course. It's a plus if you like debating or discussing topics related to technology and world-problems. The TA is friendly and understanding.\r\n\r\nI think that the course's purpose and content are interesting and important. It only lacks excitement and engagement. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-04-27T17:11:38Z'}], 'name': 'Gottlieb Oehrlein', 'slug': 'oehrlein'}, {'courses': ['ASTR101', 'ASTR300'], 'average_rating': 3.5882, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Boring as hell. Avoid her if you can. Class is easy if you pay attention but that can be hard sometimes, especially if you don't have any interest in space and objects billions of light years away. Overall and easy class for a lab if you can tolerate her", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-28T04:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "I do not recommend taking this course. Lectures are painfully long and the TA's really don't care how you do in the class. The tests are extremely hard, even after studying for about a week before. Deming is very nice and her office hours are helpful, but if you're just taking this class to fulfill the requirement I suggest finding something else. As a business major, I found this class to take up way too much of my time and took away focus from other classes that I actually care about the material. Also, the labs are painfully boring and you get almost nothing out of them. Although I respect Professor Deming for her depth of knowledge, unless you are very interested in Astronomy, do not take this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-12-10T16:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "If you're looking for an easy class to fulfill your lab requirement, this one is a pretty good choice. Deming is a pretty boring professor, but the assignments and labs are pretty straightforward. I recommend bringing a laptop or something to class and discussions so you have something to do, as the hour and fifteen minutes of her talking can drag on a bit.\r\nHer lectures are almost straight from the book, so reading the right sections before exams should be all the studying you need.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-10T22:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Deming is a great professor. She's very excited about Astronomy and is able to convey that feeling during lectures. The class itself is extremely interesting and I felt like I came out of it knowing a lot more about space than I did before. Lab sections are the only downside to the class imo. A few of the labs are ok, but mostly they are just time consuming and tedious. They're not hard though. You will need an elementary understanding of algebra going into the class which shouldn't be a problem for ANYONE.\n\r\nThe class is easy, interesting, and Deming did a nice job teaching it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-27T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "I enjoyed this class. No doubt it was very difficult for a core that we wanna get out of the way, so if you're looking for that, this may not be for you. \n\r\nDeming's lectures were hit or miss, depending on how dry the material was, because her voice can have the ability to make you drowsy. If you stay engaged, however, you can really understand the material. There are a lot of extra credit assignments on the homeworks, and these help bolster your grade. The labs, homeworks, and activities are graded pretty strictly, and systematically, but the EC can help override that. \n\r\nExams are tough, especially if you have other exams close to them, because you need a week of steady. Otherwise, get ready to cram in one night, which I was forced to do for most of them. I got A's on the exams, but it was stressful. I guess with more study time, they aren't as hard.\n\r\nMy TA was AWESOME. Hannah was really helpful, always willing to take time to explain concepts and help with the homework. \n\r\nTough class, but not impossible. If you work a decent amount, you will be find. Easy to get a B, but a lot tougher to get an A. Just put in the effort, and you will do well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-25T16:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'All lectures mandatory because of random quizzes/activities, and it is the only way to get the detailed notes, which she WILL ask about on the exam. Discussions mandatory because of graded activities. Labs are very easy. Exams are what make this class difficult to get an A in. I had almost 100% on everything except for exams in this class, with an 87.5 on midterm 1 and an 85 on midterm 2. This left me with an 89.7 avg going into the final. Final was very difficult and I got a 77 on it, which gave me a B overall in the class. \n\r\n2 midterms, labs, lecture/discussion activities, 5 HW, and a Final will make up your grade.\n\r\nAn A will require a lot of studying for exams in this class, however getting a B is not too much work.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-24T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'Quick Pros and Cons list.\n\r\nPros: Class is just memorize, memorize, memorize. Definitions, processes, and like 3 formulas.\n\r\nCons: Where do I even begin?\r\n-Deming is nuts about Astronomy. That\'s a good thing, but it also causes her to go further into the subject than we should. \r\n-Often wastes time during class talking about unimportant, extraneous, or unnecessary subjects. \r\n-Has a very boring lecture tone\r\n-Treats us like children. I feel like I\'m in a high-difficulty 4th grade class.\r\n-She requires you to go to lectures and stay until the end. She often has lecture activities that count for grades, and you don\'t know when those will be given. \r\n-She doesn\'t post full powerpoints online. Only a tiny outline\r\n-Her tests often focus on the details she explains during her lectures. Sure you may be thinking "oh, that\'s what everyone says, you must be stupid." But no, I knew around 85 to 95% of the material, but seriously, that 5 to 15% of lecture related details that no one really cared about... they really drag down your score. You make one little mistake and here\'s a B... or worse.\r\n-I don\'t like the TA I had. He took 10 minutes to explain something that can take 2 minutes to explain. No, he was not just going into detail, he was repeating himself, thinking about what he was going to say, saying completely obvious things that a 6th grader would know, etc. He wasted a lot of time, and it didn\'t help anyone.\n\r\nAll in all, don\'t take this class for a core. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-07T14:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Deming is absolutely crazy. Don't take this class unless you have to. My advisor told me this was going to be an easy lab to fulfill my lab requirement but it was NOT. The exams are extremely difficult and random and no matter how hard I studied (one test i studied for two weeks), I could't get an A because of the tricky questions she likes to throw in. Labs weren't that bad but still really annoying. She does give extra credit opportunities and holds reviews sessions which are good, but I still hated this class and am so glad I will never have to talk about space ever again.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-15T16:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'A class from hell...Seriously I feel like Im at a Star Trek convention everytime im at class...Do not take for Lab Science Core it is way to hard for an intro lab class', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-10T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "This class is one of those classes where the exams make or break your grade. The exams are really hard, which makes getting an A in this class very hard, especially if you are not interested in astronomy and can't memorize all the details well. I don't think I got the grade I deserved, but other people did much better that me on exams, so it might be a more personal difficulty with astronomy.\n\r\nAstronomy is my first B in college and I am a second semester freshman.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-05-18T11:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Deming was a great professor. Even though I thought astronomy wouldn't be interesting, she made it interesting. Lectures were very good. \n\r\nDiscussions and labs were mandatory and not the most exciting, but they were good grade boosters.\n\r\nAll of the exams were pretty easy. There was also an online quiz every week and 5 homeworks total, but all of those were easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-16T15:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'I love her enthusiasm. Great teacher.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-15T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Class is WAY easy, especially if you know anything about space already. I read A Brief History of Time after her class, and she uses a LOT of the information presented in the book in her class. Didn't read the textbook, just went to lecture/discussion and took notes. Study for the exams so you can at least get the avg, because the range of scores for some of the exams were: hi-95, low-13.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-06-17T15:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "She is absolutely amazing. I was a business major my freshmen year, however, after i took her class, I fell in love with astronomy and switched majors. The class can be a little tricky. Its not extremely easy however if you put a next to some effort and show up to class, you would have no problem getting an A. She's very nice and very easy to talk to. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-18T16:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "This course was a lot harder than I expected. Exams are tricky, but review sessions do help a lot. If you get a good TA you will do a lot better in this course as well. Deming keeps things interesting with a lot of cool demonstrations and she hands out free stuff. Towards the end of the semester material gets heavily into physics, which I hated, so beware. She gives a lot of extra credit opportunity for homework and on exams, which I liked. If you put some effort into studying and go to all lectures, you'll be fine. Labs are easy, as are discussions. Lots of easy points in this class, but exams will make or break your grade. Be prepared to spend some time studying! ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-09T22:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "I was very happy with this class. She's a good professor, and is very nice and approachable. She also reminds you when the homework is due, and gives opportunities for extra credit. I came in without much knowledge of physics, but did well, after putting in a little bit of work. Having a good TA is essential, as the lab, which you do with the TAs, is annoying. Focus on the class notes, not the reading, when studying for exams. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-21T03:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Grace Deming', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Her exams are hard!! She's a good teacher though, and her lectures are interesting. The course requires a lot of reading which I found difficult to retain. Count on spending a lot of time studying for the exams. To her credit, she does give a good review session before exams. Your TA can make or break you in this course; they grade all your work, and some are a lot harsher than others when it comes to grading. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-01T18:17:00Z'}], 'name': 'Grace Deming', 'slug': 'deming_grace'}, {'courses': ['EPIB610', 'HLSA785', 'EPIB330', 'EPIB697', 'EPIB611', 'EPIB785'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Graciela Jaschek', 'slug': 'jaschek'}, {'courses': ['MUSC604', 'MUSC644', 'MUSC831V', 'MUSP619X', 'MUSP620X', 'MUSC831A', 'MUSC606', 'MUSC604', 'MUSC604'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gran Wilson', 'slug': 'wilson_gran'}, {'courses': ['BMGT367'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Grant Clough', 'slug': 'clough_grant'}, {'courses': ['AMST429K', 'ARTH389A', 'ARTH350', 'ARTH351', 'ARTH359A', 'ARTH359C', 'ARTH359G', 'ARTH359E', 'ARTH359O', 'ARTH359I', 'ARTH360', 'ARTH359R', 'ARTH389G', 'ARTH359D', 'ARTH359M', 'ARTH359F', 'ARTH359L', 'ARTH359B', 'ARTH359T', 'ARTH359V', 'ARTH359W', 'ARTH359', 'ARTH359G', 'ARTH359O', 'ARTT260', 'ARTH359B', 'ARTH359F', 'ARTH359G', 'ARTH359F', 'ARTH359G', 'ARTH359V'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Greg Metcalf', 'course': 'ARTH359B', 'review': "I took the class over the winter at it was very fun. There is almost no engagement with the professor; he provides you with the films and readings (12 required films and each film has about 30 minutes to an hour's worth of reading), and the class is laid out very clearly. You have to write three papers total in the course, about 5 pages double spaced, so the workload was not difficult. He was good about providing feedback for papers and student questions, but the class is asynchronous and won't send any extra work. The films were good, and there's ample material on the internet to help you analyze them further.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-24T16:35:57.154920Z'}], 'name': 'Greg Metcalf', 'slug': 'metcalf'}, {'courses': ['ENCE627', 'ENCE667', 'ENCE320', 'ENCE688Y', 'ENCE688A', 'ENCE688T', 'ENCE899', 'ENCE689R', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE603', 'ENCE662', 'ENCE603', 'ENCE627', 'ENCE627', 'ENCE662', 'ENCE688T', 'ENCE689R', 'ENCE603', 'ENCE627', 'ENCE662', 'ENCE688Y', 'ENCE899', 'ENES677', 'ENCE627'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gregory Baecher', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': "I was an undecided engineering major as a freshmen and because of randomly taking ence100 I confirmed civil engineering as my major just because of Baecher. The class was incredibly easy but did what it was designed to do: introduce the world of civil engineering for students. \r\nThis guy is also a genius, he's in charge of many research projects. I don't know what he's like for upper level ence classes but I would try to take him just based off what I saw in ence100.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-09T03:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Baecher', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': 'nice guy. class was easy, and theres a huge curve', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-23T15:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Gregory Baecher', 'slug': 'baecher'}, {'courses': ['ENES100', 'ENES100A'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gregory Barr', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Greg is THE man!! Take him for ENES100 if you can. Super helpful, super chill, software engineering industry guy that wants you to talk to him about his job. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-15T15:32:29Z'}], 'name': 'Gregory Barr', 'slug': 'barr'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gregory Brown', 'slug': 'brown_gregory'}, {'courses': ['HACS208Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gregory Clark', 'slug': 'clark_gregory'}, {'courses': ['MUSC329M', 'MUSC490'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gregory Graf', 'slug': 'graf_gregory'}, {'courses': ['EDMS722', 'EDMS657', 'EDMS451', 'EDMS645', 'EDMS769N', 'EDMS798', 'EDMS451', 'EDMS646', 'EDMS657', 'EDMS722', 'EDMS451', 'EDMS657'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gregory Hancock', 'slug': 'hancock'}, {'courses': ['MUSC129C', 'MUSC129N', 'MUSC629B', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gregory Miller', 'slug': 'miller_gregory'}, {'courses': ['BIOE232', 'BIOE486'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gregory Payne', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'DR. PAYNE IS A PHENOMENAL TEACHER. First he manages to keep everyone awake in a class that has the potential to bore you to death. He is also a fountain of knowledge; he can answer most all of the questions you could think of during class. The best part is his focus on the practical understanding of Thermodynamics. Rather than just shove a bunch of equations down your throat, he actually take the time to make sure you LEARN SOMETHING. In short, great professor, take BIOE232 with him if you get the chance!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-23T21:38:00Z'}], 'name': 'Gregory Payne', 'slug': 'payne_gregory'}, {'courses': ['ENSP350', 'ENSP305', 'ENSP342', 'ENSP101', 'ENSP340'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gregory Schnaar', 'slug': 'schnaar'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gregory Shaffer', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "He's sooooo dreamy. Sometimes it stinks having to take this class because I can't stop staring.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-08T14:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Shaffer', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Greg is one of the main reasons I came to UMD. He really cares about students and makes an effort to get to know them. The course content is pretty boring, but he tries really hard to make it interesting. Good class to get to know other students and make a connection with a faculty member.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-17T17:24:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Shaffer', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "Probably the best UNIV100 teacher. He makes it interesting without piling on tons of work, and he's also a pretty nice dude. Plus sometimes we did games and stuff. 10/10.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-30T14:17:18.768455Z'}], 'name': 'Gregory Shaffer', 'slug': 'shaffer_gregory'}, {'courses': ['CLAS289A', 'HONR208C', 'CLAS470', 'LATN301', 'LATN424', 'LATN405', 'LATN688L', 'HHUM105', 'CLAS170', 'HHUM206', 'LATN303', 'LATN488K', 'HHUM328', 'LATN415', 'LATN624', 'RELS170', 'HHUM329', 'LATN688K', 'LATN605', 'CLAS276', 'CLAS276', 'CLAS276', 'CLAS276'], 'average_rating': 4.5294, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Is he a bad professor? Maybe not. Good? Hell no. I give him a 2.5 (rounding to 3).\n\r\nHe does not seem to understand the people that are taking this course are NOT taking it to hear about Freudian psychology. Everything is either a womb or a phallus. Seriously. They went into a cave? No they went into a womb. He expects you to either have some psych background or pick it up on the side, while still completing his massive number of readings.\n\r\nHe also expects you to be Christian, with decent knowledge of Bible stories. And into Star Wars. Don't know them? Well then you're going to have to do a bunch of additional work for some of the weekly assignments.\n\r\nThe assignments are all over the place; organization is very much not his thing. He also publishes everything in html pages that are so poorly coded that some browsers cannot open them. Have fun figuring out what the readings actually are through the wall of random text that has the titles and pages included, since he thinks that the return key doesn't exist.\n\r\nHis exams are terrible. There are a list of essays that you have to prep for. Then there is matching from hell and a short answer section that has occasionally super vague questions and you will inevitably run out of time to answer. Then the pictures. There's a whole bunch of random pictures in his slides and html pages, and you need to be able to recognize a tiny grayscale version of them. We complained that it was hard to tell what they were, and he got defensive and yelled at us for making excuses. The quality is often so shitty that you can't pick up on the clues for what it is and just need to memorize the pictures. Oh, despite the fact that spellings of the names vary between the readings, spelling counts.\n\r\nHe is a generally agreeable guy and a good lecturer, but his disorganization, womb obsession, and painful exams make him not even close to your best choice for this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-20T02:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS289A', 'review': "Greg Staley is one of the nicest guys you will meet. He is very passionate about the classics but comes off a tad pretentious at times. His lectures were quite boring in my opinion.\n\r\nAs a bio major who took a classics class as a gen ed, I felt completely out of place. Discussions were based on classical readings we were assigned and often wandered off into other classical stories that I had never read. This left me clueless at times during these discussions.\n\r\nThe class was not too difficult, not too much work, and the tests were fairly easy. However, about 30% of the grade was based on two group projects. \n\r\nDon't take his class if you do not like group projects. The group projects we're partially to blame for me not earning an A.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-07-05T01:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS289A', 'review': "Professor Staley is one of the best professors I had this semester. In the future, I would take a class just because he's teaching it. He is engaging and entertaining and I enjoyed going to lecture\n\r\nThis class is not a piece of cake but it's one of the most interesting classes I've taken my freshman year. I learned so much and would recommend it to any friend that is interested in learning something new. There is a good amount of work which also means a good amount of grades. I never did the readings, only skimmed them for the exams and the clicker questions on the readings, you can guess. Take this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-08T14:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Professor Staley is a wonderful lecturer as well as a caring and kind professor. The work in this course was not hard at all as long as you did the readings - there are a lot of those, but most are interesting so it wasn't so bad. There are 3 exams, 3 papers, and a final. Discussions were mandatory and helped to clear up confusing topics in class. I would wholeheartedly advise anyone to take this class if they can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-10T14:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "This is a really great class. I took the class for a core credit because of the great reviews on this site, but they are true. I thought the material was very interesting, and Staley is a great teacher. There are two exams during the semester, and you have to submit homework for discussion each week, which you must also attend. You also have readings for each class, which I would recommend doing as it helps you understand the material and it also helps you on the exams. There is kind of a lot of work to do in the class, but I felt it was worth it. Staley also tried to use clickers with his classes this semester and ended up having a lot of technical problems, but they helped you know if you were understanding the material. If you don't mind a little bit of work and want to take a great class, I would highly recommend CLAS170. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-27T12:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Dr. Staley himself is a wonderful professor. Extremely sweet and nice guy who is very approachable and easy to talk to. There is absolutely NO way you can dislike this professor. That being said...I don't like this class. I'm just not into mythology. Took it thinking it was gonna be an easy HL core, but looking back sadly, I probably would have enjoyed another type of literature class, even if the professor wasn't as good. That, and my brain's just not very literature oriented (I'm a science major). Me disliking the class however has absolutely nothing to do with Dr. Staley. He is a great, funny guy and an excellent lecturer. Yea I know, totally mixed feelings, however, if you are interested in myths, this is the class to take!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-17T01:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Staley is one of the few professors I've had in school who really cares about his student's understanding of the material. I had him for classics170 as well and he is pretty consistent across the board. His lectures are interesting but his readings are very long. He grades fairly but he gives you every opportunity to excel in the material. For our class he set up a notes sharing folder on elms so that everyone posted their notes from one day before and after the midterm so that before the midterm and final notes were available from every class. This made studying much easier and it was not too painful if you missed a couple of classes like I did. This class is a lot of work but it is very interesting and worth the time", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-16T07:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Professor Staley is an excellent professor. It's definitely not easy and there's a lot of readings but it's really worth it. You don't have to be majoring in the classics to like this class. Staley is like a cute little grandpa and I loved him. He puts so much effort into his presentations and they are perfectly timed, you never get out early or late, always on time. He tries to make his presentations relatable to the students. He knows how to keep the students awake and interested. Two exams throughout the semester and a final. Two essays due throughout the semester also. You have to answer about 5 questions weekly, due in discussions, which are mandatory. Great class overall. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-16T00:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Not gonna lie, its not an easy Core but its so worth all the work that I put into this class. Staley is a wonderful lecturer, I never missed any lectures. It was something I looked forward too. You don't have to be in love with the classics to appreciate this guy. A lot of readings but if you fall behind a little, wikipedia is always there. But you need to be able to analyze the myths you learn for the test. He gives the essays that will be on the test and also he gives you all the important names that you need to know. I had a dictionary of classical myth which proved to be very helpful. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-01T21:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Staley is a great guy and a good professor. He does a good job of presenting the material, and although mythology can get kind of boring at times, with all the readings, he does a good job keeping it at least fairly interesting. Still, this is definitely not an easy A. I had a low B in this class and did poorly on the final, pushing me down to a high C+. There is a lot of reading and if you do all of it, especially when you are supposed to, it makes it a lot easier to follow the lectures, and you'll probably get at least a B. Some aspects of the tests can be difficult though, because there is simply just a large depth of information, and there are usually some pretty specific questions.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2008-05-19T13:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'Dr. Staley is a great professor. His lectures are interesting and I always enjoyed them. He is not an easy teacher though. The tests are difficult but he made the class so interesting that I barely minded studying for them.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-11T02:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'Dr. Staley certainly knows his mythology. The course is interesting, just be prepared for 3 readings a week of 15+ pages.\n\r\nThis is NOT the easy A core that I was told it would be.\n\r\nThe textbook fell out of the binding after the first month.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-04T13:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'Staley is a master of mythology. His lectures are interesting and hilarious. He gives you outlines to follow along with his lectures and routinely uses movie clips in lecture to make a point and get a laugh. Readings can be lengthy but are, for the most part, interesting. 2 mid-terms, 2 essays, and a final. One-page writings due at discussion every week and discussions are mandatory.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-28T12:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'i took his class as a core, but it really got me more interested in mythology. there is a lot of reading, but if you go to lecture, most of it isnt necessary. he makes lecture interesting and holds your attention. he is also really helpful if you have questions about anything from reading or the lecture, and the tests arent too bad if you take notes during lecture, he gives you the potential essays.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-15T16:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Dr. Staley is an amazing lecturer and I enjoy coming to class every day. He obviously puts a lot of effort into making his presentations, and they are well thought out and offer answers to his essay questions. In fact, most lectures will have the potential essay topic at the beginning, and he will give you answers to the question throughout the lecture. Each test has 2 essays that come from about 8 that he gave during lectures, so you should have answers and notes for any essay he gives. The tests also have short answer/multiple choice that comes from notes mostly (some reading) and they are a bit difficult because they usually aren't the big ideas, but include smaller, relatively unimportant characters and places from Greek myth. For example, you might not see anything specific about Apollo, but you will need to know the name of one of his lovers. But once you take the first one it will be easy to see how to study, and I did so much better on my second test. The TA does all the grading so they are very important- James was really great and very interesting in discussion, which is mandatory and part of your grade. The responses to reading give you easy points to bring up your grade. Dr. Staley is a wonderful professor and I really recommend his mythology class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-14T17:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'HHUM105', 'review': "Prof. Staley is like Santa Claus, Papa Smurf, and Aristotle all rolled into one lovely old philosopher. As someone in the Honors Humanities program, I suppose I have had more personal interaction with him than the average student who's just taking one of his classics courses, but he's a wonderful person who is really invested in his students and in his subject. Would highly recommend taking any class with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-04-11T22:30:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Staley', 'course': 'HHUM105', 'review': 'I had Prof. Staley in my first-semester Honors Humanities course. He’s a wonderful person/professor who can speak about the humanities well, and who has a lot of stories to tell (of course, not on class-time). In discussion, he welcomes any and all ideas, but also challenges us to develop them on a deeper level. \r\nThe only thing I’d warn people is that, since the “humanities” is really broad, taking this course requires a lot of personal interpretation and it may seem that you’re going in circles and circles. But it’s definitely manageable.\r\nI believe he’s retiring next year, so I’m grateful to have had him in at least one of my classes!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:48:11Z'}], 'name': 'Gregory Staley', 'slug': 'staley'}, {'courses': ['PHYS104', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS165', 'PHYS499P', 'PHYS441', 'PHYS474', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS165', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS474', 'PHYS165'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gregory Sullivan', 'course': 'PHYS165', 'review': 'I really enjoyed Dr. Sullivan’s class. He kept the material very practical and applicable. That said, this class definitely focused more on applying Python to physics problems rather than learning coding logic, so there might be a learning curve at the beginning if you’ve never coded before. Assignments included 6 homeworks and 3 labs throughout the semester, no exams. Dr. Sullivan was always open to student feedback and answering questions about assignments. He really made sure everyone to do their best. Highly recommend taking his class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-08T16:04:26.997876Z'}, {'professor': 'Gregory Sullivan', 'course': 'PHYS165', 'review': "Honestly, this class was perhaps one of the most underwhelming courses I've taken so far. The format of the class isn't focused on learning how to code but rather learning how to apply computational/numerical or programming methods in Physics - in spite of the fact that this course does count as a programming course. For majority of this course, you'll benefit from having learned background information relating to Physics and some Mathematical Methods - that being said, those aren't necessarily required since Dr. Sullivan goes over the material on how to perform those calculations or methods. But be prepared to be confused by some materials as you progress into the semester (nothing to be afraid of though, it's just material that you may not be familiar with yet but as far as applying the methods go, it's relatively the same). Overall, this was a stellar class and the learning experience couldn't have been any better. Totally recommend taking him if you get the chance. \r\n\r\nP.S. He grades you on attendance (you can miss 5 lectures before he starts deducting points), so beware of that when signing up for any of his courses, i.e. attendance is MANDATORY.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-10T21:32:53.033200Z'}], 'name': 'Gregory Sullivan', 'slug': 'sullivan_gregory'}, {'courses': ['SPHL400', 'SPHL415', 'PHSC415', 'PHSC420', 'MIEH400', 'SPHL498F', 'PHSC497', 'EPIB301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gretchen De Silva', 'slug': 'de_silva'}, {'courses': ['UNIV389F', 'FGSM370', 'HONR378D', 'HNUH378T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Griffin Thompson', 'slug': 'thompson_griffin'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL272'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gu Qian', 'slug': 'qian'}, {'courses': ['STAT401', 'MATH131'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Guan Huang', 'slug': 'huang_guan'}, {'courses': ['ENME414', 'ENME470', 'ENSE627', 'ENME272', 'ENPM647', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799'], 'average_rating': 4.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Guangming Zhang', 'course': 'ENME470', 'review': 'Dr. Zhang is probably one of the best professors on campus. All he cares about is can you operate the CAD programs. Class is literally him doing the homework problems in the program, and if you can follow him (or his book, which is unpirateable but useful) you will have half the homework done each class. Homework can take a while, but he has office hours every week and really wants you to succeed. Middle Button!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-30T16:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Guangming Zhang', 'course': 'ENME414', 'review': "Great class, especially for the compressed Winter semester. Dr. Zhang is a little hard to understand at first, but a great instructor and very helpful. You need to give him your full attention during class, because he can go very quickly through the software and it's easy to get lost. Instructions for everything are provided in the textbook, but it's more time efficient to get it done in class. For Winter 2013, class was held M-F for three hours a day. I found it was only necessary to work an additional 2-3 hours a week to complete everything. Exams are easy as well if you've done the homework. He makes himself available for help before class as well. Overall, great class, both because of the content and instructor. I wish I had taken it before my Senior year.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-01-17T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Guangming Zhang', 'course': 'ENME414', 'review': "Dr. Zhang is quite a character and an overall very loveable old man. He essentially does the homework for you in class, but its hard to keep up with him because you'll prob be trying to decipher what he says. Homework was not at all hard, but it was very time consuming because you have to go through the drawing and make sure it has everything he's looking for. Exams were fairly easy if you did the homework yourself. Overall, a very good class and an awesome professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-07T22:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Guangming Zhang', 'course': 'ENME470', 'review': "Great class, really get to learn more about pro/e and other FEA software. For best experience I would recommend taking 414 first and then 470, 470 will be much much easier this way because you will already know the basics around the software. The tests can be nerve racking when you first get them but it is nice that attendance and homework's count as a good portion of your grades. Zhang is the best! Take as many classes with him if he is an option.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-21T00:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Guangming Zhang', 'course': 'ENME414', 'review': 'The review below is very accurate.\n\r\nZhang is awesome, you are missing out on your experience as a mechanical engineer if you do not take ENME414, and if you do not experience Dr. Zhang. He is always willing to help and is extremely friendly.\n\r\nTake this class if you know whats good for you', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-23T14:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Guangming Zhang', 'course': 'ENME414', 'review': "This class was exclusively using pro-e and solidworks on the computer. Lectures were essentially the students following along what Zhang was doing on the projection screen. This class was at 8AM, and attendance was required. Homework was generally just following tutorials from the book, and would sometimes take a few hours if you saved all of the work for the night before it was due. Zhang knew the software very well. The exams weren't hard, but it became a race against the clock as most students were unable to finish in 1 hour.\n\r\nIn my opinion, this class should be a mechanical engineering requirement, but since it isn't, I would strongly recommend taking it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-16T20:48:00Z'}], 'name': 'Guangming Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_guangming'}, {'courses': ['ECON722', 'ECON709', 'ECON808', 'ECON624', 'ECON423', 'ECON626', 'ECON623', 'ECON708', 'ECON623', 'ECON626', 'ECON722', 'ECON623', 'ECON626'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Guido Kuersteiner', 'slug': 'kuersteiner'}, {'courses': ['CHIN201', 'CHIN202', 'CHIN301', 'CHIN415', 'CHIN205', 'CHIN302', 'CHIN402', 'CHIN418', 'CHIN401', 'CHIN418L', 'COMM798B', 'CHIN203', 'CHIN102', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN103', 'CHIN204', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN201', 'CHIN202', 'CHIN102', 'CHIN103', 'CHIN203', 'CHIN204', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN102', 'CHIN103', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN102', 'CHIN103', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN201', 'CHIN202'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Guiling Hu', 'course': None, 'review': 'Hu laoshi is so nice and funny! She is also very polite. The work she gives is for your own good, and they’re pretty easy. Actually, this whole class, there’s not too much work in general. Everything is just practice and to see what you have learned. Definitely recommend Hu laoshi for learning any CHIN courses', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-08T17:37:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Guiling Hu', 'course': 'CHIN101', 'review': "Hu laoshi is one of my favorite teachers I've had among all of my education experiences. I was lucky to have a few years of high school level Mandarin before I came into her class, but she is an extremely good teacher and very understand. I had to miss class a number of times and she always let me come and make up my quizzes/work during office hours. She is unbelievably friendly and nice. If you have the opportunity to choose I would highly recommend her as your teacher. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-19T20:18:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Guiling Hu', 'course': 'CHIN102', 'review': "Hu laoshi is a great professor! She is very nice and funny. She is very understanding and nice with her corrections because she realizes that we are still new Chinese speakers who are going to make many mistakes. There are a lot of assignments for this class (10-15 assignments in one week), but the assignments are not difficult and should only take you 10 minutes a piece honestly. The course will take up a lot of your time with studying, but that should be expected with a language class, especially one that is 6 credits. I took the section that meets everyday for CHIN101, but this section is so much better and more manageable even with the additional work. Take a class with Hu laoshi, you won't regret it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-25T15:11:21.324184Z'}], 'name': 'Guiling Hu', 'slug': 'hu_guiling'}, {'courses': ['HLMN473', 'HLMN470', 'SMLP470', 'SMLP473', 'SMLP470', 'SMLP473'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Gul Branco', 'course': None, 'review': 'Best teacher ever <3', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T14:58:04Z'}], 'name': 'Gul Branco', 'slug': 'branco'}, {'courses': ['BUFN740', 'BMGT343', 'BUFN738', 'BUFN763', 'BMGT848E', 'BUSM731', 'BUFN758J', 'BUFN670'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gurdip Bakshi', 'slug': 'bakshi_gurdip'}, {'courses': ['ECON414'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Gustavo Saraiva', 'slug': 'saraiva'}, {'courses': ['BSCI330', 'BSCI339I', 'BSCI421', 'BSCI339C', 'BSCI420', 'BSCI338Z', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI339Z', 'BSCI339Z', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI343', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI339Z', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI339Z', 'BSCI343', 'BSCI358A', 'BSCI338Z', 'BSCI338Z', 'BSCI343', 'BSCI338Z', 'BSCI343', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI339Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hadiya Woodham', 'slug': 'woodham'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM398G', 'EDHI338G', 'COMM401', 'COMM609', 'COMM619', 'COMM629', 'COMM649', 'COMM659', 'COMM719', 'COMM749', 'COMM798I', 'COMM798J', 'COMM130'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hagar Attia', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Nice teacher but low key felt as if it was harder than other comm classes', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-16T04:39:08Z'}], 'name': 'Hagar Attia', 'slug': 'attia'}, {'courses': ['GEOL110'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hailong Bai', 'slug': 'bai'}, {'courses': ['PHYS270', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS121', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS122', 'PHYS142', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS122', 'PHYS142', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS122', 'PHYS142', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS260'], 'average_rating': 3.1136, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'I love Bantu, he is the best! go to his office hours and befreind him he is a great guy. I already graduated two years ago but he has become my freind and mentor for a long time. What an amazing guy. so damn nice. godman', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-21T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "Bantu makes PHYS270 a decent experience. There are two midterms, each worth 12% of your grade, which is nice because most of the PHYS270 professors do 3 midterms. Overall, they were pretty easy, with a few of the questions being very similar, or even direct questions from the homework. \n\r\nLab is 25%, but that is the same regardless of your professor. Lab was, in my opinion, the worst part of the class. There are only 4 labs (plus the culminating lab), but they all pretty much took the full 3 hours and were pretty tough. Your experience is going to depend entirely on who your lab TA is. If you get a good one, lab shouldn't be bad. \n\r\nQuizzes are 10% of your grade, and there is one at the end of each chapter. He does not announce the quizzes beforehand, but if you follow his lectures and the schedule, you should know about when they will be. They are almost always very easy and require only basic knowledge of the chapter. Write down the equations as he is teaching, or start the homework before he finishes the chapter, and quizzes will be simple.\n\r\nHomework is 21%, with 14% being masteringphysics and 7% being written. The written is just to do 3 of the masteringphysics problems by hand on paper and turn it in, so it's not really extra work. The masteringphysics tends to be pretty easy, so the homework isn't a huge burden. Do check often if there is an assignment though because he does not announce when he posts them. Do not copy from the solutions manual because they are watching for that and a large portion of the class did just that on the first homework.\n\r\nThe exams were each 3 problems and were usually pretty simple. The only issue is that since they are only 3 problems, if you are completely lost on one question, you already lost a large portion of your grade. Study hard for these, redo the masteringphysics, and you'll be fine.\n\r\nThe final exam was a common final across all the sections, and was actually pretty easy. It's hard to say if he curved the class because we did not get our final exam scores back, but I have a feeling that he did.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-19T13:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "To be honest, the only reason I ever went to lecture was because of the unannounced pop quizzes. Bantu's lectures are pretty boring (and that's with a laptop). \n\r\nMastering Physics (online HW) is more difficult than any of the tests (or the examples done in class).\n\r\nIf you have even marginal experience with physics this class is a review. (but a 3 on AP C Mech doesn't place you out).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-05-22T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'This guy isn\'t that bad, but he isn\'t that good. He should illustrate some more example problems. Instead, he primarily just uses Power-Point slides which are identical to the book, so if the book confuses you Bantu won\'t help that much. Also, I didn\'t like that he gives no sample exams whatsoever; on Fri. before a Mon. exam he just tell us "3 problems 1 is on Chap 35, 2 is on 36, 3 is on 37". However, his exams were really straightforward, everything was an example in the book or an assigned homework problem - no curve balls. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-03-03T19:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'Bantu is a really nice guy and a decent lecturer, although he can be kind of boring. He goes through the material pretty slowly, which means his tests end up covering less material than usual for 270, so they are not very difficult in general.\n\r\nHe grades very fairly and I think there was a curve at the end of the semester.\n\r\nHe usually does one pop quiz a week, but the questions are so easy (as long as you have the equations written down).\n\r\nThe Mastering Physics hw is not too bad, especially since he gives you 5 chances to answer each question correctly, with no loss of credit until the last chance is used up. \n\r\nThe only really annoying thing about Bantu was that he never emailed us when he posted assignments, so you basically have to check Blackboard constantly to see if there is a written assignment and you have to check MP to see if there is a new online assignment.\n\r\nOverall, Bantu is definitely one of the better physics professors.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-28T20:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "Dr. Bantu is a very nice, easygoing professor who made PHYS270 a relatively easy experience. He's a rather dry lecturer, but he cracks jokes in lecture occasionally to wake up the many sleepy, bored students. \n\r\nHowever, his class was not too hard., especially compared to the other professor, Jenkins. The tests were straightforward (except maybe the second one, which almost no one finished), and the final was not even cumulative! MasteringPhysics was the homework system used and there was always help available if you knew where to look. There were quizzes in lecture at the end of each chapter, but most of the time you did not really have to go to lecture since he posts lecture powerpoints online. Also, discussion is useless. My TA always went on tangents that usually ended in him talking about Maxwell's equations, which was irrelevant to most of the topics we were covering.\n\r\nThe worst part of this class is the lab which counts for 25% of the 270 grade. Fortunately, we only had it every other week, but my experience was awful since no one knew what he or she was doing and the TA couldn't speak a word of English and explain anything!\n\r\nOverall, definitely take Bantu over any other PHYS270 professor!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T14:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'It only requires V5 but actually uses V3,4 and5. Does not make sense to buy 3 books. Try the full volume(ISBN:0805389601)! It will be a lot cheaper.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-01-24T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Took him for PHYS161. I would not recommend him. His classes are mainly done from Powerpoint . He did many examples during class but the exams were a lot more difficult than the examples. Worst part was that he does not curve at all. And trust me, you'll want curving.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2018-05-05T22:19:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'In my experience in all 3 general physics classes here, I thought Hailu was the most well-rounded when it comes to teaching the material and going through examples in class. Although the first exam is pretty hard, he lightens up the second and third exam. He also curves the class on average 2-3%. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-22T21:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "He's a pretty decent professor even though most of his teaching is based off his slides. His TA is pretty bad however, and discussion sections are basically useless aside from the required quizzes. One big thing about his class though is that there's no curve which you'll want at the end of the semester", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-01-28T23:52:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'The course material was not difficult, but the lectures sometimes were pretty hard to get through because they were pretty dry and his tests were quite a bit more difficult than the homework. He does curve though in his class, which helped quite a bit.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-24T16:58:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'By far one of the worst professors at UMD. He teaches via PowerPoints and uses the simplest examples in class, and then when the exam time comes nothing is the same. The exams are much more difficult than anything offered in this course, although you can expect a 10%+ curve at the end of the semester. nevertheless, I would not suggest you take him unless you have to!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-24T20:34:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'Whatever you do please don\'t take this professor. Three exams, doesn\'t drop any, doesn\'t narrow down on topics covered in the exams he will say to "study everything" which is no help at all. His lectures are super boring but he does do a lot of example problems which help a little at first but definitely doesn\'t prepare you for the exams. His exams are such curve balls there\'s aways one problem that will throw you off and he gives like 2 problems, so if you screw up one, you fail. He curves a lot at the end but you gotta have at least a 70% or higher to get a B. Which isn\'t bad but his exams are bad so that might be hard to get. The course isn\'t bad as long as you read the textbook and do practice problems, but just make sure you have a good professor. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-05-28T08:25:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'Hailu is a fantastic professor and I definitely recommend taking his class. He is very careful in explaining complex topics accurately and makes few mistakes in lectures. His exams were incredibly easy (except for the final, which was not as much difficult as it was time-consuming). If you pay attention in lecture and try to understand the content, you should have no problems.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-06-09T03:31:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "He is the definition of an alright teacher. You will get in what you put out and his exams are fair representations of the material covered in class. I do advise you work out a significant number of problems in the book, since just doing the ExpertTA homework is unlikely to earn you and A unless you have past experience with physics. He's a good guy and writes very clearly. Lectures consist of mainly slides with supplemental work on the chalkboard.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-17T22:39:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Hailu's style of teaching mechanics is by completing examples during lecture, so if you do not make the effort to attend, you will likely have a hard time. He's a pretty laid-back professor and likes to occasionally joke during class too. His home work assignments are pretty easy and only take around one hour a week. He is not a perfect professor and definitely will not make you love physics if you already don't, but I would recommend him in general.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:15:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'Professor Gebremariam is one of those professors that you can just tell that he is being forced to teach students, which is clear when you email him, as he talks down to his students and acts like he is gods gift to physics. His lectures are mind numbingly boring and pointless. To make it even worse, the TA that i had was somehow has worse Hailu. Would stay away from this professor if possible.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-05-23T17:07:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'I had Hailu for 161 and i loved him, however this year for 260 his setup is a little different due to covid and Im struggling a bit. Hes a very understanding prof and is so helpful if you have questions but the lecture videos are sooooooo boring i can barely get through them. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-05T18:43:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "I would give him 0 if that was possible. I think he doesn't deserve one dollar of his salary. He posted the lecture videos and never held class once, only proctored exams and quizes which is so nice of him honestly. He also never ever gave any study material for any test. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2020-12-13T15:00:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "*class was fully online due to covid*\r\nImagine learning physics by reading a textbook. It's informative, but not particularly exciting. Now turn that textbook into a powerpoint. Literally just screenshot the equations from the digital version of the textbook and stick it in a powerpoint. Mix in an excessive amount of practice problems, usually solved wrong and usually easier than anything the test will give you. Now have a man read this powerpoint, veeerrryyy slooowwwlllyyy, unconstrained by the normal class schedule due to the asynchronous format of the class online. Thats Hailu. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that if I skipped every lecture and just read the textbook, I probably could have learned the same amount in half the time.\r\nThe class had quizzes every week over zoom. They were timed for 10 minutes, so if you had internet issues, you were kind of screwed. The quizzes varied wildly in difficulty, from high school trig to problems we haven't learned yet.\r\nThe class uses expert ta for all homework, which is actually very nice. It gives you hints and specific feedback if it knows why your answer is wrong.\r\nThe class is curved, but hailu seemed to be deliberately vague about how much, or whether he would curve down if final grades were too high. In the end, the 67% average on the final meant there was a generous curve up of at least a few percent.\r\nUltimately, take Hailu if you have to. He's not necessarily a good teacher, but he's also not actively bad.\r\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-26T22:10:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Dr. G is a very fair professor. His lectures are monotoned and slow, but his lecture videos are simple and easy to follow. The homework goes well with the lecture content but may get stuck on a few which is normal. Dr. G's quizzes are very fair and relate to the previous lecture content as well. He provides the equations and contents needed, so as long as you complete the homework (or most of it) before the quizzes, and are caught up on the lectures you are in good shape.\r\n\r\nExams are fair, but studying with book problems does help. Book problems are more challenging than exam problems but are a good tool for understanding the content more. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-30T01:20:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Hailu is absolutely awful. His lecture videos are mind-numbingly boring and his ego is off the roof. Don't bother emailing him unless you want a snarky response that makes you feel stupid. His final exams are also incredibly hard, leaving everyone to wait anxiously for the curve to save their final grade. Save yourself and find a different prof", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-25T18:35:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "I had him during fall 2020, so class was completely online. His lecture videos were somewhat monotonous but actually taught you the material if you paid attention, and he had good examples so I never felt the need to read the book to supplement in-class instruction. Make sure to watch out for numerical mistakes in his examples though! Quizzes were simple FRQs which reflected the main concept of the content for the week, and homeworks were pretty consistent with what was taught in class. (Some problems were hard, but that's normal). Midterm exams were pretty ok, final was really hard, but the curve takes care of it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-19T17:15:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'He’s both ok and extremely boring. If you’re ok with listening to boring, monotone lectures that give the information necessary for homework and exams, then go with him. His exams were mostly ok, but the final exam seemed way harder than necessary. If you need an ok professor, then he’s your guy.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-17T01:08:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'He is very nice and the class is straightforward. Exams and quizzes were fair. Lectures were monotone and mostly examples, just makes sure you actually pay attention.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T17:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "The most cold-hearted and cruel professor that I have met so far. He even made the expectations of us learning online being higher than in-person settings. For some weeks, he made the HW problems extremely difficult and he didn't care if most people are immensely struggling. Instead he always would say that these problems are easy and made people feel even worse. He basically doesn't know how to show empathy towards his students and. If he would help us out, then everyone could be benefited that way! \r\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-23T20:01:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "Some may say his lectures sound monotonous. This is true and he speaks so incredibly slowly—still, I think they were good quality lectures that were easy to understand and had plenty of examples. His quizzes are easy and exams are fair. He typically will curve the final grades to a B- average, but since our class average was already doing this well, we didn't get a curve this semester.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-26T14:23:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Hailu is decent, pretty boring, but decent. He goes very slowly through the material, so we wound up around two weeks behind the syllabus by the end of the semester. The slides are usually easy to follow, but he'll occasionally go off onto a separate screen and start deriving an equation or something, which we often don't need to know. He spends a lot of time going through example problems in lecture, which is somewhat helpful but wastes time since he goes so slow.\r\nThere are weekly homeworks on Expert TA with 10 or so problems, usually a couple of which are quite hard. He doesn't take off points for incorrect attempts though, which is great. There are also weekly quizzes in discussion which are really easy, save for a couple hard ones, but you'll always get the equations and constants you need. Discussions themselves aren't that helpful, the TA will just go through a bunch of problems from the textbook and that's it. Most people just left after the quiz was over.\r\nThere were only two midterms which were not bad at all, and you get to make your own formula sheet for them. The averages were in the high 70s/low 80s. With the homeworks, quizzes, and midterms all being pretty manageable, you could build up a strong grade buffer for the final exam. The final was slightly more challenging than the midterms, but still doable. There were 6 questions, but we only had to do 5 of them, so you could just skip whichever one looked the hardest. All 260 professors use the same final, which made me quite worried since Hailu was pretty far behind schedule, but there wasn't anything on there that he didn't cover. \r\nOverall, Hailu is fine and he makes 260 straightforward, but he's just a bit dull.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-18T19:21:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Hailu is fine as a professor. He tends to get frustrated with students who ask questions in lecture which makes it a hard environment to be in when you're confused.\r\n\r\nThe reason this rating is so low is because the TAs for this class were absolutely terrible. They take up to a month to grade quizzes, and don't know what has been introduced in lecture. Multiple times my TA has done in-depth practice problems in discussion on a topic that students had never seen before. \r\n\r\nExams also aren't graded with feedback. You just get a little x next to your answer with no notes, meaning that you lose points but don't gain any knowledge from messing up.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-19T09:19:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "I literally could not make it through Hailu's lectures without falling asleep because he speaks in a monotone and is so disinterested in his own words. Eventually, I stopped going to lecture and taught myself the material. I actually was doing better in the class this way until I bombed the final because it was a common final exam and was completely different from Hailu's midterms, quizzes, and homeworks. There was no good way to prepare for midterms or the final because students are given no practice problems, no old exams, no feedback on anything you submit, nothing at all to give any vague idea of what an exam problem might look like.\r\n\r\nAlso, I had to speak with Hailu on two different occasions about special circumstances that affected my ability to do work, and he was cold and unsympathetic, providing the bare minimum accommodation of one make-up quiz, then not telling me what the quiz would be on so that I ended up with a zero on it because I had no idea what to study. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-12-24T17:53:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'most boring prof ever. Spends half of class deriving a single equation no one cares about just to show us what the equation is right after. Gives no practice to study for midterms or finals and final was based on nothing we ever learned.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-24T23:44:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "I think this is one of the few professors where the TAs are much worse than the professor, and not in a good way. As other reviews stated, he's very boring and spends class deriving equations and solving problems. Don't take him in the morning if you don't get much sleep, you might doze off. The TA I had was horrible, always late to discussion, took long to grade, and get aggressive if you asked questions how she solved a problem. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-25T21:59:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'I\'ll be honest I came into this class having done physics a few times before but being pretty bad at it. Content is almost exactly what one would learn in AP Physics C mechanics, honestly wished I paid more attention then. First exam is pretty easy but it gets harder from there, even then I felt his midterms weren\'t that bad. On exams he does allow you to bring a one sided cheat sheet, so I found that to be helpful. \r\n\r\nDiscussions were honestly the worst part. There\'s a quiz pretty much every week in discussion in the last 10 minutes of class, and obviously you would want to focus on that content during discussion, well you would be disappointed because our TA at least would just go over stuff from the next chapter and spend all of class doing maybe 2 or 3 problems even going into the last 10 mins. I tried really hard to pay attention but it was tough to follow along. Getting exams/quizzes back was very disorganized and we never went over any of them. Grading also took really long. This semester all the office hours were online and I tried going to one once but it seems the TA stopped holding them halfway through the semester, so I was pretty much on my own. There was some in person tutoring thing in the physics building I went to once (I did go day before hw was due so maybe that\'s why) but it was packed and the tutor wouldn\'t just answer the question and no one got it for hours, I ended up just figuring it out myself later.\r\n\r\nWe also got assigned a homework to complete every week, and it\'s pretty long. I would definitely recommend starting early (at the minimum a day or two in advance) because trying to do it all at once is really hell. I would also recommend finding people in your class to work with because it makes it easier and helps you through it emotionally as well lol. Last couple hw problems of each set were pretty hard in my opinion and def harder than quizzes and midterms so I would just try and answer it and move on without devoting too much time to really understanding. We used expertTA which could sometimes be really stupid and confusing but it does give you 5 tries, no points deducted, and the feedback can be helpful if it gives you any.\r\n\r\nI will also admit I sometimes skipped lecture, sometimes fell asleep in class, or just did not focus in class and here\'s what I found to be the secret to doing well. He goes over problems in class and posts the slides online. DO THOSE PROBLEMS BEFORE MIDTERMS AND QUIZZES. Follow along with the work to those problems and try understanding why those steps were taken. These problems seemed to be the most on level and usually weren\'t too bad. He does "post" the slides online but there\'s no answers. It is possible to find the answers to those problems online but sometimes its more confusing. I would recommend going to class and just writing down exactly what he does on the board even if you don\'t get it in the moment (sometimes I just took pictures but I ended up losing them in camera roll or just not looking back). If you keep this organized you can use it to study and it will help you a lot. Sometimes looking at the textbook may be helpful if you don\'t know a concept at all or you can try looking at videos online.\r\n\r\nFor exams I did that^ to study and wrote down all the equations and anything I would usually forget on my cheat sheet. I got an 88, 84, and 95 on the midterms this way. Most people fail the last midterm but I studied for like 7 hours at Mckeldin (probably shouldn\'t take that long but I get distracted easily) for it, looking over all of that^ for each chapter on the exam. I still never felt very confident after exams but I always answered each question and showed work because he does give partial credit. There\'s usually "3 questions" on the exam but each has like 3 or 4 parts and some parts were not even related (pretty much different questions). I did end up working pretty much till the end of the allotted time for every exam.\r\n\r\nThe final exam in my opinion was possibly the worst exam I\'ve ever taken in my life. I had 2 exams that day so maybe that\'s also why but I was sure I failed. He allows a double sided cheat sheet for this and I wrote every equation that came up but it honestly wasn\'t super helpful. I probably could have studied more but I pretty much just re did all 3 exams and tried to really understand how to do everything (if you can get your hands on someone\'s past exam where they got everything or nearly everything right, USE THAT, because just going off his "corrections" is not good enough for figuring out how to do the problem and google did not help). I would recommend going over quizzes as well but I lost most of mine or just didn\'t get them back, and lastly look over the slides questions, and then if time do textbook stuff. The actual exam was "6 questions" but again they have parts. All of the questions were pretty hard in my opinion but I did attempt everything, and honestly BS\'D my way through most of it. He looks at partial work so if you know how to do one thing and not the other just come up with something and use that in the part you know. I ended up actually getting a 71% on the final so...\r\n\r\nI had a 92.5 before the final was put in and then it went down to an 87% after. Hailu does not curve exams but he does drop your lowest quiz grade and if you\'re sick you can be exempted from one quiz as well. He does end up curving the class at the end so 20% of people get A\'s (A-, A, A+) all included, and after the curve my grade went up to an A-. What I\'ve heard from people in the past is that after the final grades go up by ~5% so a B+ becomes an A-, a B becomes B+, B- becomes B, etc. \r\n\r\nTo wrap this up, this was my hardest class in my first semester in college so maybe my view is skewed but I think physics is just a hard subject overall. I\'ve never had a good physics teacher to compare this to but this class has more to do with the amount of effort you put in than anything else. If you\'ve taken physics before like me you can get an A by just putting in work when needed and hoping for the best. If you have never taken physics before I would recommend maybe doing AP mechanics stuff over the break before and putting in a lot of effort and time into this class. Good luck to all of you!\r\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-18T01:11:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "People here are saying he's boring, but honestly, there are worse things. He knows what he's talking about in and out. His teaching style is clear and he is patient with any questions that are asked. He was accommodating, when people were having trouble seeing the blackboard he switched to the projector in the next class. He does a lot of examples in class. If you do/understand those with him, it's a huge help. Quizzes are not that bad. Midterms were hard but not a crazy level of hard, especially because you get an entire sheet of paper. I would take him for the rest of my physics classes if I could.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-31T19:16:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': "Had an amazing time studying PHYS273 over the summer with prof. Hailu. The course was straightforward, the material he went over was quick for me to grasp onto, the TA was very accessible, the Homework wasn't difficult and same with the midterm. If you have to get your credit for waves over the summer, I strongly recommend taking it under him, you will not regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-17T18:49:49.644868Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Hailu is okay, and you'll learn the material you need to if you can manage to pay attention. He's incredibly boring (literally spent most classes trying not to fall asleep), but his practice problems in lecture are relevant. However, he does tend to derive formulas which sucks up a LOT of time, and makes you feel very confused. Furthermore, he often goes over formulas that are NOT in his power point slides posted online, so you really do need to attend class for those formulas and lecture examples.\r\n\r\nOverall, so long as you attend class and ask your TAs questions early and often, you'll be fine. He could be better, but could be WAY worse.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-11T00:22:46.201781Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'If you want to have a professor with thorough and easy-to-follow lectures, Professor Gebremariam is not the professor to take for PHYS260. His lectures are almost pointless, as they are tough to follow and are seemingly all over the place. There is very little to no review material for exams and your grade is highly dependent on how good your TA is. I was lucky to have an amazing TA who saved my grade and gave amazing review material for the final. Professor Gebremariam is a great person, but I found myself struggling to attend lectures due to their lack of practicality.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-19T15:10:53.157490Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'A good, if not a bit slow, professor. A lot of the class is learning a concept, learning an equation, and doing a few fairly easy practice problems with it. This style took a lot of time, and not much material was covered in each individual lecture which is good if you need a thorough overview, and hate professors who blitz through lectures. This did become a bit dull, and I admit I zoned out on my phone for most lectures and then caught up on anything I missed via the textbook. The exams were fair, although do not expect to be given any practice or old exams to study off of. I found the best way to study was doing old HW problems, as the exams were about as hard, if not very slightly harder, than the HW problems. Which is to say not really all that hard if you know which equation to use. Knowing which equation to use is basically two-thirds of the class. Thank god you get a formula sheet.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-20T23:30:11.967953Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "A very slow and boring professor. There is never a curve and you'd be better off skipping class and just reading the textbook because Hailu makes no sense whatsoever and will send you to sleep in a matter of minutes.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-23T20:48:09.426356Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Regardless of which professor you take, PHYS260 is just a hard class. I enjoyed having Hailu as a professor, however, his lectures are extremely boring. Coming from someone who has never fallen asleep in class, Hailu will almost certainly put you to sleep. The practice problems in class are great and extremely relevant to homework and the exams, however, the formula derivations are confusing and unecessary (just don't bother trying to understand them, you'll do fine not knowing derivations). The homework was usually okay. The quizzes are either extremely difficult or extremely easy. There is no in-between so be prepared for either. Overall, you should do fine with Hailu if you come to lecture, take good notes, and do practice problems before exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-03T02:28:11.327830Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'UMDs physics department is not strong. Very boring lecturer, does not explain anything well, and he’ll put you to sleep. There’s about a 5% curve in the class. Weekly homework, quizzes, and that’s it. The exams are the majority of your grade. The final is extremely hard.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-01-09T14:55:31.776469Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Dr. Hailu is a very straight forward teacher. If you attend lecture and do practice problems, you will do well in his class. You have multiple attempts on homework, but he doesn't give extensions. My TA helped with homework problems I did not understand. His exams are exactly like the problems he demonstrates in lecture. I only relied on the textbook for extra practice problems.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-28T23:31:58.240211Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'You know he is a good teacher the problem is you might fall asleep in his lectures.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2023-04-14T20:35:53.688615Z'}, {'professor': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'I hate hailu. So boring.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2023-04-25T04:41:14.529310Z'}], 'name': 'Hailu Gebremariam', 'slug': 'gebremariam'}, {'courses': ['CMSC723', 'CMSC422', 'LING848I', 'CMSC726', 'CMSC828Z', 'LING723', 'CMSC828W', 'INST735', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC848C', 'CMSC421', 'CMSC848I'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hal Daume', 'course': 'CMSC422', 'review': "Unfortunately, Hal was disappointing. At first, he seemed like he'd put a tremendous amount of effort into the class and that we would learn a lot. After the first 3 weeks though, he stopped putting any effort, and taught extremely poorly. We barely covered any material, and he made the final trivial. I wouldn't recommend him for anyone who wants to learn: though he does make the class very very easy (16% extra credit absolute).", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2016-12-18T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hal Daume', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "Hal is a good professor. He gives very interesting projects for AI based on the Pacman game. These are actually kind of fun to do. \r\nThe HW is a little too easy I'd say, and doesn't necessarily clarify the concepts from class. But at least it doesn't take long.\r\nThe exams are pretty fair and not too hard.\r\nHal's lectures are a bit tough to follow and he isn't the best at explaining concepts, but he will go over good examples and try his best to explain if you are not understanding.\r\nOverall though, Hal is a really cool professor, and he cares about his students.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T00:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Hal Daume', 'slug': 'daume'}, {'courses': ['CMSC420', 'CMSC725', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC828T', 'CMSC420', 'CMSC828T', 'CMSC420'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "He's by far the worst professor I've ever seen. Some people say he's good because he wrote a bunch of thick books - but even those are not great. He talks down to everybody, beginning with students, and ending with his TA and fellow professors. (At the classes he talks about how other professors teaching the same class are so much worse than him, and how their slides are stolen from other people...) \n\r\nThen there's this Quadtree project, which is supposed to be written in C/C++ or Pascal. Still even though he claims to be an expert in all of them (and all Computer Science, for that matter), he constantly demonstrates he doesn't know what he's talking about. But again, according to him, everybody is wrong and only he's right.\n\r\nAt the classes, he sticks to his slides and rarely gets up from his chair. Whenever someone asks something that is not explicitly explained in there, he gets angry, saying that we're supposed to know it already. That may be acceptable if after saying it he would actually do the explanation, which of course, he doesn't (I suspect that's because he doesn't know anything out of those slides...). \n\r\nHe's paranoid about using electronic tools like the submit server or the grade server - because of this, it's hard to keep track of your progress in the class. We've just taken the final, and if we want to find out our score, we have to go to his office...\n\r\nI guess the only good thing about this course is that it teaches you how to work on your own, and not expect it to come from your instructor - in a way, it's a good life lesson... \n\r\nI wouldn't take any (other) course with him!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-18T00:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'I once heard Meesh say: "Never use a binary search tree. If you use binary search then I\'ll laugh at you, because you\'re stupid. Use hashing." So useful! So up-to-date!\n\r\nOn the first day of class, Samet spent 15 minutes comparing methods of string representation based on how much memory you can save by SHARING COMMON SUBSTRINGS. He claims to have lost the old Macintosh software that created his slides, and they\'re all marked Copyright 1997. You have the option of turning in your quadtree project in Pascal. So, not exactly cutting-edge.\n\r\nThe projects are all, without exception, sorely under-specified. For all of the projects the TA had to post lengthy clarifications to make the projects possible.\n\r\nRight now, the early morning (!) section with Subrahmanian is full. Every time someone drops from that section, someone from Samet\'s section jumps ship, so Subrahmanian\'s stays full. 15 or so people actually show up for class every day in our section.\n\r\nThe infamous quadtree project is ridiculous. Within the first couple days of class you have to turn in your specification for the data structure. Four weeks later it must be completely finished supporting 15 different operations, along with a text-based command parser, makefile, etc. All code must be completely from scratch, and you\'ll need to implement a linked list, a heap, and a binary search tree (heh heh) during this time to finish your quadtree. We didn\'t get to quadtrees in lecture until December, so you need to figure everything out by reading his 1000+ page tome. And if, like me, you escaped 216 without ever learning how to use gdb then you\'ll have to develop a feel for that too because it\'s impossible to write 2,000 lines of bug-free anything (let alone C) without a fully-featured debugger.\n\r\nMany weeks of class are wasted learning Lisp, which has nothing to do with data structures. Those projects are straightforward compared to the quadtree project, but they\'re nontrivial. \n\r\nThe tests are hard. For the first midterm, out of 24 exams (by the way, note that the class started out full with 40 students) 1 got <30%, 2 others got <40%, 8 others got <50%, 7 others got <60%, 6 others got <70%, 4 others got <80%, and 1 other got <90%. So only 5 people got above a 70%.\n\r\nI can\'t say it was a total waste of time, because I did gain a lot of experience writing crappy C code, but if I wanted to do that then I\'d have taken OS.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-15T01:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Do not take Data Structures with Samet.\n\r\nHe knows the material well- he literally wrote the book on it, and he\'ll make sure you know it. He\'ll talk down to you, make a big deal about how you don\'t know anything, and not actually teach you very much you haven\'t already seen before in other classes until way after you\'ve done the projects on them. He assigned us the notorious quadtree project, which while a fun exercise, isn\'t fun when you have only the first three weeks or so of the semester to finish it. If you aren\'t experienced writing thousand-line projects with C/C++/Pascal, if you appreciate your Friday nights as times to not do work, or if you like teachers that give you reasonable test cases and use the submit server instead of making the TA grade your output by hand... you will start hating this course very early if you take it with Samet.\n\r\nHe teaches on overhead slides and "animated" pdfs. He teaches us to think recursively, and teaches us how trees work, and seems to think he has a better definition for just about everything in Computer Science than everyone else. (He doesn\'t.) He doesn\'t use the submit server because the process "isn\'t human enough" for him.\n\r\nHe really really does know his stuff. He\'s a smart guy, but he teaches you the material in vague, opinionated terms using materials that a) largely haven\'t been updated in over a decade and b) don\'t really correspond with the rest of our CS education.\n\r\nBut hey, he\'s still teaching the course, so he must be doing something right... oh, that\'s right- tenure. Never mind.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-06T04:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Probably the best thing about this guy is that he is very smart and knows what he\'s talking about. Unfortunately, thats where the good things end.\n\r\nOn the the first day of class, he assigns the notorious quadtree project. Although the first two parts of it are very easy, parts 3 and 4 are complete hell. Samet himself gives no instruction on the project himself, instead telling you to learn about quadtrees from the long project description and gigantic textbook of his. He then goes off lecturing us about linked lists and other stupid structures we already learned about time and time again.\n\r\nDuring lectures, he simply reads off lecture slides which he wrote, making lecture extremely boring. He tries to engage students by calling on them randomly and asking them questions, but (unsurprisingly) people rarely ever answer them the way he wants. If you don\'t learn the material from lecture, you have two other resources to learn the material from: Notes on Data Structures and Multidimensional Data Structures, two books which were also written by Samet. So yeah, you basically learn stuff by reading the same material three times. And don\'t try to learn the material from somewhere else: Samet has carefully added his own opinion and bias to his course materials, and these are often important for the test. If you put down that "an advantage of doubly linked lists is that you can traverse backwards", he will frustratingly mark you wrong.\n\r\nHe seems to have this delusion that CMSC 420 is the only class his students are taking, and that we spend all of our time on it. It is not below him to assign extra homework assignments and lectures whenever he wants, and he often does this, even when students are buried in projects or other work for his class. We had class Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he would literally assign extra lectures on Fridays, and then would get upset when only 8 people showed up to them. \n\r\nSeriously, I don\'t know what people see in him. My rating is based solely on his TEACHING, not on his intelligence or research. It\'s people like Samet that really make we wish the tenure system is abolished and that teaching departments actually had some quality control.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2009-04-29T12:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Intelligent\n\r\nHe is sarcastic at times but quite insightful during lectures. He knows the material very well (much of it deriving from his own areas of interests) while capable of going beyond the normal curriculum. However, do be discrete about questions as he will digress/rant at times if they are bad. Pre-reading lecture slides are not necessary imo, just careful understanding during the lectures. Projects may be seem long but are relatively easy if you understand the problem's nature. Exams were relatively easy", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-28T22:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "I think the best way to write a review for Dr. Samet would be in a list\r\nformat, so here it goes:\n\r\n1) His teaching style is not engaging and will put you to sleep. He asks\r\nthe class many questions, and it's rare that students ever answer them\r\ncorrectly to Samet's standards.\r\n2)He has an extremely abrasive personality and talks down to students like\r\nthey're children. I felt like I was in middle school again many times\r\nthroughout the semester. He also spoke badly about other professors in\r\nthe department in front of the entire class. He literally said most of\r\nthem don't know anything, especially about simple things like linked\r\nlists. I found this to be absurd and very unprofessional.\r\n3)He was away on travel a lot throughout the semester and re-scheduled\r\nclass a few times on different days than when class originally took place.\r\n Whenever some people wouldn't show up to these re-scheduled sessions, he\r\nwould chastise the class and lecture us about how he's taking the time out\r\nof his schedule to lecture us and how everyone needs to be there. Problem\r\nis, the class was on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and rescheduling the class on\r\na Friday evening means half of the class won't be able to be there because\r\nof work, other scheduled activities, or other private matters. Samet has\r\na really difficult time understanding this.\r\n4)He's a smart guy and has been teaching the material for so long that he\r\ncompletely understands it but expects everyone else to understand it at\r\nthe same magnitude of his understanding. This makes him have a difficult\r\ntime coming down to the level of undergrads and understanding that most of\r\nus are absorbing the material in the class for the first time, hence most\r\nof us actually having to learn the material. He constantly refers to\r\ntopics in the class as common sense and gets agitated when students are\r\nleft feeling clueless from his awful teachings.\r\n5)The infamous quadtree project gets assigned on the first day of class,\r\nyet he teaches absolutely nothing about quadtrees. He told the class to\r\nlook at some Java applets that show examples of how quadtrees work and\r\ntold us to go read his encyclopedic book. That project was the most\r\nhorrendous project I've done at UMD and the major reason why it was so\r\ndifficult was because I didn't have a good understanding of quadtrees as I\r\nwas left to research them on my own. It would've been extremely helpful\r\nif he spent the first few days of lecture talking about the mechanics of\r\nquadtrees and tips on how to implement certain operations. Instead, he\r\njumped right into teaching us data structures we've learned as freshmen\r\nand assigned other homework assignments on top of the newly assigned\r\nquadtree project.\n\r\nThere are other things about Dr. Samet I could mention, but I feel that\r\nthe five things listed above should provide a decent foundation of what to\r\nexpect from him. In regards to the class, I found the exams and some of\r\nthe homework assignments to be difficult. Besides the quadtree project\r\n(which has to be implemented in C, C++, or Pascal), the remaining\r\nprogramming projects are all done in Lisp and are straight forward.\n\r\nI don't recommend Dr. Samet for this class, and if I could go back in time\r\nI would've taken it with another professor as I truly don't feel I've\r\nlearned much from his class at all. I feel like I am walking away with a\r\nsemi-understanding of some convoluted, advanced data structures and the\r\nknowledge of little tricks that can be used for simple data structures to\r\nsave space that pointers/references take up.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-28T19:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "He is a very smart man, and wants to teach. He grades tests very fairly and is willing to take time out of his day for you.\n\r\nIt may well seem like he has difficulty coming down to the level of undergraduate students to explain things in a way we easily understand. However, a lot of the difficulty in learning from him can be alleviated by pre-reading the material in the textbook (or, more specifically, the extended notes corresponding to the lecture slides) before class. He expects you to pre-read, which is reasonable but quite time consuming. If you don't pre-read, it will be hard to learn from his lectures.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-16T23:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Incredibly rude professor, constantly yelling at people for asking questions or for not having known material. In our class, someone joined the class late because somebody dropped the class so they got on off the waitlist. Samet spent the first 15 minutes of the class lecturing the guy who joined late saying "this class isn\'t a train, you can\'t get on and off whenever you want, you need to have done all the homeworks already. Where are they??"\r\n\r\nThere\'s no grade server or submit server, he made us print some of our projects and hand them in, and we didn\'t receive grades until a couple days ago. There\'s also no elms page, and he hasn\'t sent a single email or message on elms out. All he does is sit there and yell at people, definitely would not take.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-12-13T22:28:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'In my family, I am perceived as the "smart one" and basically forced to help my younger sibling in 6th grade math homework. Admittedly though, nothing much is learned during these tutor sessions because I cannot fathom how what I 100% understand to be difficult and because I do not have any teaching skills at all. Now imagine me, but now I am over 70 years old, very unfamiliar with very recent technology, and is paid to teach. That is basically professor Hanan Samet. He is really smart, having pioneered research into Computer Science and even has his own wikipedia page. But all that matters is if he can teach college students and my god he doesn\'t.\r\n\r\nTaken him with online classes, his lectures were boring and barely understandable. Most of it consisted of him going through a pdf of illustrations that are hardly understandable by itself, therefore you have to watch the lecture so he can explain what it all means, but then you can\'t get through the dull barrier or understand at all. Also for some reason the slides and chapter pdfs given do not support ctrl+f, and this is especially bad given that these things are huge pages of text.\r\n\r\nThe big project seems to be the same each time according to the other reviews, but this time the project was split into parts with different due dates. While I appreciate it making me keep my procrastination in check, the project was still god awful. This mostly comes down to the information on the project like the project description. I\'ve learned more on how to do the project from piazza than the pdf given. At one point, plenty of people received zero\'s because the hidden tests were exponentially larger than the sample ones given. Fortunately we were given a second chance to edit our project, but I wasn\'t happy having to edit in C of all things. They still made us use these weird huge inputs for the later parts that just makes it too difficult to debug. Oh yeah instead of using gradescope or the submit server to submit code, Samet uses Elms. Gradescope is used, but only for written homework.\r\n\r\nI should have known this professor was not gonna be good at all when the only section open for 420 was him. I wish I actually saw all these previous reviews before I was too desperate to take something for the semester. If I had the ability, I would go full Jimmy Neutron and time travel back to the exact time and location I was signing up on Testudo. I would slap that laptop out of his hand and tell myself to get a new laptop, because it\'s way cheaper than the tuition taking his class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2020-11-16T03:22:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Dry on details with the quadtree assignment along with a poor teaching style with hard to follow slides (that he hasn’t updated since 1998) make for my most frustrating course in UMD this far.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-25T21:21:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Do not take this professor at any cost. He will give you an assignment without teaching you anything. He can't even teach. He will want you to read the bullshit book he wrote, and you can't even hear his voice. It is a total mess. I don't know about any other professors but take another professor instead because there is nothing worse than Samet. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2021-09-13T15:39:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanan Samet', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Doesn't know what an HDMI cable is, haven't personally taken his class, but be warned, he knows not what he says!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-30T00:38:03.027705Z'}], 'name': 'Hanan Samet', 'slug': 'samet'}, {'courses': ['COMM609D', 'COMM619D', 'EXST009A', 'EXST028A', 'EXST019B', 'EXST029E', 'EXST048B', 'COMM719B', 'COMM729B', 'COMM749B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Handan Bao', 'slug': 'bao_handan'}, {'courses': ['BMGT310', 'BMGT313', 'BMGT313F', 'BUAC758C', 'BMGT220H', 'BMGT311'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hanna Lee', 'course': 'BMGT313', 'review': 'Prof. Lee made the class simple, so far all of our homework’s have been graded 100/100 and the midterm was take home. The only problem is that the grading is very slow, and it’s almost near the end of the semester and I do not expect her to have final grades in before graduation. Other than that the class was pretty easy ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-15T15:44:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanna Lee', 'course': 'BMGT220H', 'review': "Lectures are boring, but Prof. Lee wants her students to succeed. The workload isn't too bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-06-01T22:24:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Hanna Lee', 'course': 'BMGT313', 'review': 'Professor Lee is a very friendly professor who is very willing to help her students. But I can only say that overall she is just an "okay" level professor. The grading was ***EXTREMELY*** SLOW, and her lectures can be dry and boring, since they are right off the textbook. The best way to learn this course is by teaching yourself, which is reading the slides rather than going to class which will be a completely waste of time since you can\'t use your computer and you\'ll be easily fallen asleep. \r\n\r\nAlso the workload of her course is very heavy. Each of her 2% assignments will usually take a minimum of 5+ hours and the assignment itself is very useless and the techniques are very much far from practice, outdated and hard to apply (seriously who will calculate ratios directly from 10-K if you have Bloomberg/Morning Star??? seriously no people would do this in practice). Overall, you can learn little from this course and it\'s basically reviewing BMGT220&221 plus valuation which BMGT443 would be ten times better for studying it. \r\n\r\nHer take-home midterm was a bit tricky, and for a lot of problems, she has never mentioned anything in class or on textbook. That’s why even though it’s take-home, the average on this exam was still a “B”. Her final exam on the other hand, is much easier and allowed to take a cheat sheet. \r\n\r\nAll-in-all, Professor Lee is still a great professor, and I would still strongly recommend her as BMGT313. The positive sides are, the material is very basic and easy than the textbook, and she is more than willing to help her students, as her office hours are always full of people and she is always very nice, kind and friendly. She is also a fair grader and curve upwards, and would like to provide feedback for students. Compared to other accounting professors in Smith, she is definitely above average. Maybe just average compared to all the professors in UMD, but what can you expect from accounting? Overall I would take her again. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-04T11:52:46Z'}], 'name': 'Hanna Lee', 'slug': 'lee_hanna'}, {'courses': ['INST714', 'INST610', 'INST612', 'INST613', 'INST878B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hannah Bergman', 'slug': 'bergman'}, {'courses': ['HLSC100', 'TLTC499A', 'TLTC333'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hannah Jardine', 'slug': 'jardine'}, {'courses': ['FREN103', 'FREN203', 'FREN250', 'FREN250H', 'FREN301', 'FREN306', 'FREN351', 'FREN351H', 'FREN709', 'FREN306', 'FREN387', 'FREN709'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hannah Wegmann', 'slug': 'wegmann'}, {'courses': ['BMGT364', 'BMGT395', 'BMGT364M', 'BUSI662'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hannah Weiser', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Awesome professor. Super enthusiastic and supportive, gives great feedback, and responds quickly. The class moves fast and there's lots of assignments, but you learn a lot! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-19T01:50:17Z'}], 'name': 'Hannah Weiser', 'slug': 'weiser'}, {'courses': ['MATH742', 'MATH437'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hans-Joachim Hein', 'slug': 'hein'}, {'courses': ['CPSP119A', 'CPSP219A', 'CPSP249A', 'CPSP269A', 'CPSP118A', 'CPSP218A', 'CPSA250', 'CPSA200', 'CPSP239A', 'CPSA149A', 'CPSA149', 'CPSA240', 'CPSA201', 'CPSA100', 'CPSA101', 'CPSA260', 'CPSA149', 'CPSA100', 'CPSA149', 'CPSA200', 'CPSP239A', 'CPSA101', 'CPSA149', 'CPSA201', 'CPSA240', 'CPSA250', 'CPSA260', 'CPSP318', 'CPSA100', 'CPSA149', 'CPSA200', 'CPSP239A'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Harold Burgess', 'course': 'CPSA149', 'review': 'Very caring and personable. I had two classes with him this semester and, since I’m in the Arts Scholars program, I will have many more classes with him as well. I’m reviewing CPSA149 specifically because it is a service learning course and there are only two other students in the class besides me, so it’s a very personalized experience by nature. Harold is very friendly and easy to talk to. I really admire how “human” he is—we check in every week with how we’re doing emotionally, and I can tell he is always very honest in his responses. It can be really nice to see professors in a more “human” sense because its a lot easier to approach them with any problems you may have without feeling as bad about it, because Harold is open about things too. However, although everyone in the class is very friendly and we know each other quite well, Harold is excellent at keeping things professional, too. He is very clear about assignments and expectations and is always open to suggestions and feedback. Service learning this semester (fall 2020) was different because it was mostly online due to COVID, so options were very limited, but Harold was always willing and ready to help students with anything they may be struggling with. Overall, he is very easy to talk to and you can tell he really cares. As for the course itself, it really isn’t that hard to get a good grade. There aren’t a lot of assignments and the class is somewhat chill to begin with. Most of the work is service learning (2-3 hours or so per week), which you mainly reflect on a lot during class meeting times. Definitely a manageable class with a very kind professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-18T18:34:43Z'}], 'name': 'Harold Burgess', 'slug': 'burgess_harold'}, {'courses': ['MATH404', 'MATH406', 'MATH808B', 'MATH600', 'MATH130', 'MATH601', 'MATH606', 'MATH808G', 'MATH607', 'MATH432', 'MATH660', 'MATH405', 'MATH669', 'MATH808D', 'MATH406', 'MATH808C'], 'average_rating': 3.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Harry Tamvakis', 'course': None, 'review': "he is a very good prof. his lectures are very organized and he really knows what he is doing. he is well educated and will often give you random math history. engage him in class and ask good questions he doesnt' mind and will like you if you ask good questions. \n\r\ntake notes in class, they will help you and take notes fast cause he writes very fast and you need to keep up. \n\r\nhis homework is good. I always liked his extra problems that weren't from the book and the bonuses are fun. I am not sure how he will curve the tests but if you are a good student you don't need it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T14:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Harry Tamvakis', 'course': 'MATH432', 'review': 'He goes very fast, and the homework is hard. But I think he is a good professor and he is usually always available as stated. You need to put in a lot of work to do well in the class. MATH432 has a reputation as one of the most difficult undergraduate classes and Tamvakis lives that up.\r\n\r\nUnlike most of the professors of previous, he chose to forego any discussion on the basics of algebraic topology for more specialized topics, like metric space completion and Arzela-Ascoli.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-10T01:47:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Harry Tamvakis', 'course': 'MATH404', 'review': "I'm surprised no one has reviewed Tamvakis since 2009.\r\n\r\nThis man will make you work like a dog. His homeworks are brutal. His lectures are fast-paced. Everyone struggles, from the brightest students to the not so brightest students.\r\n\r\nMy mans is absolutely crazy. He is a bit impatient and thinks everything is trivial. Sometimes he asks the class a question and scoffs when nobody can answer him.\r\n\r\nAll in all, a good dude.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-24T01:40:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Harry Tamvakis', 'course': 'MATH404', 'review': 'As a professor, he lecturing is very straightforward. He takes a little bit of time to emphasize some interesting parts or stories from math history to make the lecture a little bit more engaging.\r\n\r\nHis homeworks are pretty difficult and take some time to think through. His exams are significantly easier if you understand the concepts involved. Overall the class was a good class in person.\r\n\r\nOnline, Professor Tamvakis had a good setup with a document camera and live meetings although it was a little bit less engaging than in person (he would go over his prewritten lecture notes instead of say, writing on a board).', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-29T21:12:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Harry Tamvakis', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "Very straightforward and easy-to-understand lectures, but he gets angry at the American education system (he's Greek) sometimes and takes it out a little on you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-04T16:53:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Harry Tamvakis', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': "His lectures are great, but first note that he sometimes went really different from the books, not only one chapter but multiple chapter. while he doesn't have any notes available on elms. You have no place to go back to check and you have to have pretty good notes. \r\nThe HW are brutal. It it really difficult and you have to spent so many times to finish it. Also no answers key. Exams are really hard. There is no study guide and most of the exam problems aren't any hw problem nor class example we did. \r\nHowever, his lectures are very straightforward and he answers questions in the office hour. So if you are a student who is determined to put your times to study math, Tamvakis is great.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-13T05:58:24.915603Z'}, {'professor': 'Harry Tamvakis', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': "His lecturing is mediocre. He goes through topics at high speed, pausing for a second and asking if people have any questions like a student that is lost will have enough time to formulate a question. He isn't willing to give out notes before or after lecture. He isn't willing to tell you what section of the book he is going to cover before lecture. These things give the impression that he just wants to come to class, write on the board for an hour, then leave. Not good.\r\n\r\nHis homeworks are extremely difficult but thankfully he gives you 2 free late passes which were very much appreciated. I would not take this class with Harry alone, having a friend to talk to about homework problems is essential to doing well. \r\n\r\nHe also doesn't pull any punches with his exams. It was so bad that I spent the time before the final terrified and in tears that I would fail the class. Never has an upper level math class put me under so much stress. \r\n\r\nIn conclusion I wold not recommend taking 405 with Harry unless you are doing so with a friend, and/or feel comfortable with the topics covered.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-22T16:50:30.403055Z'}, {'professor': 'Harry Tamvakis', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': "Harry is a really good lecturer who you can tell enjoys the subject he teaches. Lectures are rather quickly paced and in-depth, but he'll be happy to answer any questions whenever. As others have said, the homework is rather difficult. It took me a quite a bit of time per homework, but the homework was very good at reinforcing the concepts learned in-class. His content mostly matched that of the textbook, but he did diverge in places and he doesn't give out notes so if you're one to skip occasionally, make sure you have a way of ensuring you get all the content. Overall I'd highly recommend him if you're comfortable with the class not necessarily being the easiest thing in the world as he teaches it very well. In case the difficulty dissuades you, I'd like to also note that the homework grading was always pretty chill and he seemed to curve a pretty large amount at the end.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-25T07:48:12.780956Z'}], 'name': 'Harry Tamvakis', 'slug': 'tamvakis'}, {'courses': ['ARTT489W', 'HDCC209A', 'HONR209Q', 'HDCC208A', 'HDCC106', 'ARTT768', 'HDCC379', 'ARTT699', 'ARTT689W', 'ARTT689X', 'ARTT489X'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hasan Elahi', 'course': None, 'review': "Hasan is honestly one of the most down-to-earth, helpful people I've met in my time at Maryland. This class was basically a semester-long, independent guided research project (which may have since been removed from the curriculum). His expectations are high, but are similar to what you can expect from an employer. He's very responsive to student concerns, and gives thoughtful feedback on assignments. \n\r\nMake sure you pay attention. It's a pet peeve of his when students are clacking away on their laptop when it's supposed to be a class discussion, and rightly so. Be courteous, honest if you screw up (trust me, it's better), and stay on top of things (which isn't hard to do), and you'll have a great experience.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-20T18:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hasan Elahi', 'course': None, 'review': "Hasan's a good enough professor. He's very involved in his students' work and progress. He puts an emphasis on presentation of work, which is good for those who enjoy public speaking and dislike writing. However, during the project class I took with him, he was vague on criteria for assignments, he added some distracting auxiliary activities that didn't contribute to the project, and he tended to talk about decisions he'd made as if they were the results of consensus. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-04T17:17:00Z'}], 'name': 'Hasan Elahi', 'slug': 'elahi'}, {'courses': ['BMGT403', 'BMGT407', 'BMGT485', 'BUSI785', 'BUSI788M', 'BUSM778M', 'BUDT758N', 'BUSO778M', 'EMBA778M', 'BMGT490H', 'ENES490H', 'BMGT403', 'BMGT407', 'BMGT490H', 'ENES490H', 'BMGT403', 'BMGT407', 'BMGT490H', 'ENES490H', 'BMGT403', 'BMGT407', 'BMGT490H', 'ENES490H', 'BMGT403', 'BMGT407', 'BMGT490H', 'ENES490H'], 'average_rating': 3.7, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT403', 'review': "Pretty good professor. His lectures aren't the most interesting but there not completely boring either. The class basically has two components, the exams and the group project. The exams are not terrible, as long as you study the slides he gives, you'll get a good grade on those. The project isn't overly difficult but it requires ALOT of time and dedication. You have to consistently meet with your team to get the work done. And hes pretty particular about what he wants in the project. But if you listen to his suggestions, you will get a good grade. Overall, not an overly difficult class but you have to be heavily involved throughout the semester. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-17T16:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT403', 'review': "I really enjoy his style of teaching. He is much more engaging than the other IS teachers, even if the stuff he has to teach isn't all that interesting. He does call out people in class for not paying attention, but that is because he knows how distracting it can be when the person in front of you is playing a game on their computer. For the group projects, he will be very nitpicky with you to make sure you did your research, but as long as you make the necessary adjustments you still get a good grade. His tests are really easy as well. As long as you study the slides that he prints out for you for each chapter, you'll be fine!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-11-06T02:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT407', 'review': 'He is funny BUT you learn nothing from him; if you ask him to help you with the project he sends you to his TA, who was helpful. Given that his input to the class is minimal, you still end up with an A in the course!!!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-02-14T13:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT485', 'review': "Dr. Ibrahim is a very good professor. His lectures are entertaining and straight forward. He is always available via email to answers questions. I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot but the only down side was that there were a little too many assignments. There were 2 simulations that lasted the entire semester with group decisions having to be submitted 3 times per week. At the end of each simulation we had to turn in a logbook with details about every period'd decision (12 periods each). There were also 4 cases for which we had to prepare a report for and groups would be called randomly to present on the due date of each. The final exam is optional if you are happy with your grade. I felt that I did pretty good; however, even if I took the final exam I would have not gotten an A in the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-28T11:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'I agree with what the previous person said. He is very approachable before / during / after class. He makes the class enjoyable by telling jokes and relating course material to real life situations. Exams arent terribly hard, but you need to study. 2 projects total (1-excel 1-access). Not too bad at all', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-04-26T01:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "I took him during the summer session he teaches you only what you need to know. He understand that this is an INTRO to Info Sys. class and won't bore you useless info your not interested in. However, if your an Info. sys. major he is very knowledgeable and will have no problem discussing anything with his student. He's easy to talk to and helped me with my access project.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-10-03T16:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT407', 'review': "This rating is for Ibrahim's TA, who basically teaches the entire 407 course. He's amazing but if you're taking this class after spring 2020 then you won't have him. Just pray that your TA is as capable as mr. Sadaat was\r\n\r\nprepare to learn a lot about coding websites", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-17T23:36:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT403', 'review': "Overall great professor. The course is essentially a one-semester long consulting project where you build an information system for a client, and he gives very good feedback on your work after your presentations. I found his grading to be fairly lenient, and he understands that this is probably the first time we've been engaged in such a comprehensive project.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T18:40:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT407', 'review': "I can't believe I'm paying for this class. Ibrahim is basically a no-show for the class and most groups have no clue what's going on. He barely lectures and just uses old videos taught by someone else where you can't even see what's happening in them. Such a frustrating and disappointing experience.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-26T04:32:00.259104Z'}, {'professor': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'course': 'BMGT403', 'review': 'Overall a professor that is really fun to be around but also is fairly chilled. The class is mostly project based so you dont have to show up to many lectures but the exams are spit back(study the slides really well) but not too easy. Choose a good team and it will be a very chilled course. He is so nice.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-15T00:37:02.898002Z'}], 'name': 'Hassan Ibrahim', 'slug': 'ibrahim_hassan'}, {'courses': ['HIST282', 'JWST231', 'HIST419F', 'RELS289M', 'HIST370', 'HIST320', 'HIST639F', 'HIST419V', 'HIST371', 'HIST219T', 'JWST234', 'JWST469F', 'JWST325', 'JWST331', 'RELS319C', 'JWST648F', 'HIST619L', 'JWST326', 'RELS319D', 'HIST281', 'JWST230', 'JWST386', 'JWST699', 'RELS219C', 'JWST619', 'JWST469P', 'JWST719P', 'JWST799', 'HIST429B', 'HIST639B', 'RELS419L', 'HIST281', 'HIST289T', 'JWST230', 'RELS230', 'RELS273', 'HIST287', 'HIST429B', 'HIST639B', 'JWST233', 'RELS419L', 'HIST289T', 'HIST291', 'RELS273'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hayim Lapin', 'course': None, 'review': 'I just have to say that Prof. Lapin knew his stuff. He was very knowledgeable about most of the stuff we covered in class and almost always had a good and sufficient answer for any question. \r\nUnfortunately, knowing the material and being able to teach it are two distinct issues.\n\r\nI had two main issues with the class,all the "um"s and the lack of direction the class had overall.\n\r\n(Note: this is an academic study of the Jewish people\'s history; therefore, if you take this class expect to be faced with opinions that challenge most every aspect of the Jewish faith. You will read articles that claim that there is no G-D, that the Israelites never went to Egypt from Cna\'an and that the Patriarchs are a made-up tale. While it\'s legitimate to question these issues, the way it was presented in class seemed to dictate that these were TRUTHS, not just another side of the coin. I don\'t blame this on Lapin, rather the book (Effron) was the main source of these "heresies".)\n\r\nLet\'s talk about the first major issues I had with the class. The exuberant amount of "um"s that Prof. Lapin said in class. I sounds like it would not be such a major issues but after sitting in that class for a whole semester I honestly think I would lose my mind if I had to sit through one more lecture! It starts to grate on your nerves, hearing "um" after every single sentence (sometimes even multiple time within the same sentence), until eventually you just can\'t pay attention to anything but the word "um". It seriously detracts from the level of the class and makes it almost impossible to learn anything.\n\r\nThe second issue I had was the seemingly random direction the class took in regard to the source material. You would think that a history course would be pretty straight forth. You go from one time period to the next, chronologically. Unfortunately, there were whole lectures that would deal with the culture of a society or era and would compare/contrast that culture with another, even if one took place much earlier or after the society we were "up" to. For example, when discussing Jewish rights and culture under the Islamic Empire we would contrast those rights with the same ones that Jews possessed under European Christianity, even though they took place at different time periods. This doesn\'t seem too complicated but when you have a midterm and final in which you have to discuss Jewish culture/society/history from material throughput the whole semester this can get very confusing about what belongs where. Also, we put way too much emphasis and time into minor details that didn\'t seem to really matter in the overall structure of things. The class seemed to lose track of what was going on and we started a series of lectures on one specific thing, like birthing rights and women\'s roles in medieval Ashkenaz, and totally lost track on what the overall Jewish history was. \n\r\nOverall, I wouldn\'t recommend this class. If you want to learn about Jewish history, read a book. Just make sure it\'s not Elisheva Baumgarten\'s one. \n\r\n(Note: As part of the course we had to read a book [Elishev Baumgarten\'s Mother\'s and Children] and write a 6-8 "paper" on it. (it\'s in parenthesis b/c the paper was a load of bs), the book was TERRIBLE, it was dense, boring and just repeated the same material over and over. Prof. Lapin and the TA even admitted in class that the book was a mistake to assign for class. You have been warned)', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-27T21:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hayim Lapin', 'course': None, 'review': 'This course was way too much work and extremely boring. We had to write one-page outlines on 2 chapters from the book, one chapter from an outside source and on 3 lectures, before and after the midterm. All together, that is 6 outlines, which take a lot of time to write and shorten to a page. There is a midterm, which was online but closed notes and book, and a final, which is in class. In addition to all of this, there was a 6-8 page "book review" on a boring 200 page book and we had to review three book reviews of the book. This was a waste of time and not helpful to any skills.His lectures are mind-numbingly boring and do not make sense. He posts his lecture slides online but they are impossible to comprehend. As a core requirement, I highly recommend to NOT take this course, especially with Lapin. It is not worth any of your time. There is way too much tedious, unnecessary work, and it takes up way too much of your time', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-12T23:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hayim Lapin', 'course': None, 'review': 'I can honestly say this class was the worst mistake of my life. Granted I\'m neither a history buff nor Jewish, but this class has been way more miserable than need be. Professor Lapin\'s teaching style consists of a lot of incoherent muttering that makes one question "why do I bother". \n\r\nThere is an insane amount of reading in the textbook, around 20-30 pages every few days, which for a core, I find RIDICULOUS. And you actually have to do the reading, because you have to submit 6 chapter outlines over the semester which constitute a large part of your grade. Along with that, you have to submit 6 lecture outlines, and given Lapin literally never puts one coherent thought out there, this is quite difficult. \n\r\nWorkload: 12 outlines, 6-8 page term paper on a 200-page book, midterm, and final.\n\r\nOnly pro: The TA, Josh, is hilarious and actually knows what he\'s doing. If he taught the class it would be a LOT less miserable, but still not worth it. Just DON\'T DO IT. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-25T13:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hayim Lapin', 'course': None, 'review': "This class was a disaster. His lectures are extremely boring, and his notes make no sense. He says absolutely nothing helpful in lecture and I haven't learned a thing from this class all semester. There were four books for this class and you have a lot of reading to do every couple of days, so the work load is pretty hefty. I would very strongly recommend avoiding him, especially if you are only taking this class for CORE credit.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-12T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hayim Lapin', 'course': None, 'review': 'Nice guy, but the lectures could get EXTREMELY boring. Stumbles on his words a lot and made it hard to pay attention. Grades depend on the TA you get (unless you are in his discussion). Made studying for exams or papers very easy, and posted all lecture slides online. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-08T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hayim Lapin', 'course': 'JWST230', 'review': 'Professor Lapin is not a bad instructor. He knows what he\'s talking about and genuinely wants to make ancient material relevant to students. His course material (I took his class on inventing tradition/rabbinic Judaism) is interesting, if you\'re into that kind of thing, but it can get caught up in minutiae, as rabbinic Judaism tends to do. He does want you to succeed, so if you\'re struggling to understand, go to him sooner rather than later to see what can be done.\r\nMy biggest critique is that he is a bit scatterbrained. He does say "um" a lot, but not for lack of trying. He is so intelligent that it can be difficult for him to convey information in the most clear way, but he conveys it nonetheless. He doesn\'t mind if you ask questions, and actually encourages it, so don\'t be afraid to say "hey wait, I didn\'t get that, please go back."\r\nOverall, not a bad experience, just show up to class, don\'t be afraid to ask for help, and the assignments will be easy enough.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T15:24:39.328204Z'}], 'name': 'Hayim Lapin', 'slug': 'lapin'}, {'courses': ['BMGT434', 'BMGT430'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'He Chen', 'slug': 'chen_he'}, {'courses': ['PHIL408G', 'PHIL309A', 'PHIL140', 'PHIL100', 'PHIL318E', 'PHIL204'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Heather Adair', 'course': 'PHIL100', 'review': 'She does not put grades onto ELMS, and holds her students up to ridiculously high standards for an gen ed. NOT an easy class. Would not recommend her.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-23T19:00:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Heather Adair', 'course': None, 'review': 'Philosophy is hard and lets be real, kind of boring...but she always made the topics fun and interesting. Plus, she curves grades.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-01-15T07:35:47Z'}], 'name': 'Heather Adair', 'slug': 'adair'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Heather Arianna', 'slug': 'arianna'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'BSST340', 'BSST399T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Heather Epkins', 'slug': 'epkins'}, {'courses': ['ENGL212', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL244', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL255', 'ENGL241', 'INAG110', 'INAG299A', 'INAG299B', 'INAG288', 'INAG289', 'UNIV110', 'INAG252', 'INAG110', 'INAG199', 'INAG110', 'INAG199', 'INAG199C', 'INAG199D', 'INAG288', 'INAG199', 'INAG206', 'INAG199', 'INAG199C', 'INAG288'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Heather McHale', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Great teacher. She is a fair grader and actually tries to improve your writing. I wish she would diversify her in class readings though since every article we read was about women/feminism. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-12-24T17:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Heather McHale', 'course': None, 'review': "Great professor! I had her for British Literature. The class was A LOT of reading (5 novels and some short stories), but the pieces we read weren't that bad. Only 2 papers the whole semester, and she is very helpful if you have trouble writing the papers.\r\nGoing to lectures is a must! There are quizzes on most of the pieces we read, but if you actually read the piece then the quizzes are pretty easy. Lecture can be a bit boring, but it really helps with understanding the text and preparing for the final.\r\nOverall, not a bad HL class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-14T10:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Heather McHale', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "The course itself is not particularly enjoyable, as it involves several papers and a pretty good amount of busy work, but Professor McHale is a pretty good professor!\n\r\nShe's SUPER liberal, which I loved, but she openly admits it and she's never offensive about it. I felt that sometimes she beat a dead horse with a stick, and class drug on, but in general the class isn't too bad. The class is really interactive, and she's got a nerdy, fun sense of humor. But prepare to wait a longgg time to get your paper graded and returned to you.\n\r\nEngl101 is a hard course to get an A in because the university wants students to take Junior English, so she was a tough grader, but it's definitely possible to get an A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-09T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Heather McHale', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Her class was my most enjoyable class this semester. She has a sense of humor which makes the class fun, but she expects students to work hard. The work load is not quite as fun as the class; however, all of the English101 classes are tough. \r\nShe is not an easy grader though she is a fair grader. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-07T13:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Heather McHale', 'slug': 'mchale'}, {'courses': ['UMEI003', 'UMEI004', 'UMEI002', 'UMEI028A', 'UMEI028C', 'UMEI028E', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI012', 'UNIV104', 'UMEI004', 'UMEI003', 'UMEI004', 'UMEI007'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Heather Mehrtens', 'course': 'UMEI005', 'review': 'This is her first time teaching umei 005, and she is super nice! If you treat this course seriously, you will get 95, but if not, you will still get a good grade. Her quiz is about the plot of a book. But you can use the book while you are taking the quiz. But anyway, if you get 75, you will pas umei005. I rarely read the book, so I did badly on the quiz, but I still get a 90 finally.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2019-12-13T14:25:27Z'}], 'name': 'Heather Mehrtens', 'slug': 'mehrtens'}, {'courses': ['ARAB104', 'ARAB499C', 'ARAB105', 'ARAB205', 'ARAB499A', 'ARAB499E', 'ARAB399A', 'ARAB315', 'ARAB316'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hebatalla Salem', 'slug': 'salem_hebatalla'}, {'courses': ['CMSC351', 'CMSC858B', 'CMSC726', 'CMSC702', 'CMSC423', 'CMSC498T', 'CMSC320', 'CMSC643', 'CMSC798E', 'CMSC828O', 'AMSC760', 'BISI799', 'CMSC644', 'BISI899', 'DATA606', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hector Corrada Bravo', 'course': 'CMSC320', 'review': 'CMSC320: really interesting lectures imo. Apparently lots of people disagree, as very few people attended lecture (maybe 25%? of ~180). He was pretty lenient on assignments: he gave extensions on ~50% of the projects due to people asking on piazza.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-23T05:56:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Hector Corrada Bravo', 'course': 'CMSC320', 'review': "Pros: Was a really, really nice guy when I went to talk with him during his office hours. You can tell he's very knowledgeable in his field. He is also the most lenient grader I've ever seen (apart from Meesh) and gives a lot of extra credit.\r\n\r\nCons: His lectures were pretty horrible. They were very hard to follow and required that you knew a lot about statistics going into the class (he mumbles a lot and tends to gloss over the basics). Calculus based statistics is basically a hidden prereq for this course, which sucks because I didn't take calculus based statistics. The biggest problem I had with him as a professor is that I actually didn't learn anything all semester. I honestly don't know any more now than when I started this class. He is a lenient grader, but what that really means is that you can basically stop going to class and BS every assignment and still come out of the class with a decent grade. I got a B, but I did NOT deserve a B.\r\n\r\nI will say that I learned some VERY basic stuff about the R language, but that's about it. I didn't learn the stats, I didn't learn the ML, I learned how to pretend I knew stats and ML.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-23T14:52:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Hector Corrada Bravo', 'course': 'CMSC320', 'review': "Hector is a decent guy and research professor, but he's honestly a horrible lecturer. My friend (who was a TA for the class) hyped up this class a lot, and it was a big disappointment.\r\n\r\nAbout 75% of students stopped going to class after a few weeks because his lectures were fast-paced, hard to follow, and he mumbles/glosses over important concepts. Nobody tells you that calculus-based stats is a needed prereq for this course, and on top of that, Hector uses his own statistical notation in his notes (which often differs from the standard). The bi-weekly homeworks aren't too bad, but his exams are conceptual and weirdly difficult.\r\n\r\nBe warned - it's hard to learn anything from this class. If you take it, make sure it's on a semester when Hector teaches Python (R is useless the way he teaches it). \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-06-11T16:49:47Z'}], 'name': 'Hector Corrada Bravo', 'slug': 'corrada_bravo'}]
[{'courses': ['EDCP789Q', 'EDCP633', 'EDCP738', 'EDCP888C', 'EDCP789', 'EDCP743', 'EDCP888C', 'EDCP743', 'EDCP888C', 'EDCP633', 'EDCP888C', 'EDCP743', 'EDCP888C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hedwig Teglasi', 'slug': 'teglasi'}, {'courses': ['NFSC315', 'NFSC220', 'NFSC678V', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100H', 'NFSC498V', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100H', 'NFSC498V', 'NFSC624', 'NFSC678V', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC220', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100H', 'NFSC624'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hee-Jung Song', 'course': 'NFSC220', 'review': "Grades are done mostly by TAs. Attendance is mandatory and participation counts for a grade. There are 3 debate papers (max 3 pages) you have to write, some other assignments that are grade boosting and a final group project at the end. It wasn't too bad but single space for the papers and mandatory attendance were the most annoying.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-19T22:29:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Hee-Jung Song', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "An annoying class. While it is nice not having to go to a lecture, pretty much all the interactions are with the TAs, who are hit or miss. It was also more difficult than I expected, but I'm also not a STEM person. I wouldn't recommend this class, solely because I have not once spoken to any of the professors. And yes, there are like four professors for this class who take turns making lecture videos, some of whom are difficult to understand or are just boring lecturers.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T01:28:38.646881Z'}, {'professor': 'Hee-Jung Song', 'course': 'NFSC100H', 'review': "This class is way harder than expected, you can't understand the teachers and the video / lecture quality was extremely poor. Ended up having to teach myself the entire course load on my own just by reading the textbook and doing practice problems. There is no curve, and the average midterm/exam score is around a 70. Would not recommend", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-25T20:08:51.903398Z'}], 'name': 'Hee-Jung Song', 'slug': 'song_hee-jung'}, {'courses': ['ENCO099', 'ENCO098', 'ENCO099', 'ENCO099', 'ENCO098'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Heidi Sauber', 'slug': 'sauber_heidi'}, {'courses': ['THET373', 'THET649C', 'THET383', 'THET649', 'THET499', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET473', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'THET669', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET649A', 'THET649D', 'THET669R', 'THET788', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET649', 'THET669R', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET383', 'THET649', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET649', 'THET669R', 'THET788'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Helen Huang', 'slug': 'huang_helen'}, {'courses': ['BMGT350', 'ENTS632', 'BUMK757', 'BMGT451', 'BUSI788J', 'BUMK758B', 'BMGT457', 'BMGT355', 'BUSI650', 'BMGT350N', 'BUSO612', 'BMGT350M', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT457', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT350M', 'BUSO612', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT457', 'ENTS632', 'BMGT350'], 'average_rating': 3.3571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Boyd is a great guy. He enjoys what he does and is to date my favorite professor in the Smith School. His tests are hard. He has a generous curve for them. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-18T23:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "He's a great guy and very enthusiastic about what he teaches. I'll say this- pay attention in lecture because his exam questions come from lecture and the textbook. Speaking of the exams, they are not solely definition based questions. A lot of the questions are application. Thank goodness for his very generous curves. Turned a D into a B. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-10-18T21:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Good professor and nice guy. His lectures are awesome and he ties in real world examples for everything he teaches. Makes this a fun class and i guarantee you will never be bored in his class. \n\r\nOfcourse, just as everyone mentioned his tests are impossible. You have to read the book to do decent but even that doesn't guarantee you an A. Most people who get A's generally get lucky with the curve in their favor. \n\r\nEven though his tests are hard, I would recommend taking him. You will most likely end up with a B but honestly you will learn alot about business in his class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-23T20:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE BOYD - HIS TESTS ARE CONFUSING, CONVOLUTED, AND AMBIGUOUS.\n\r\nThat's basically what you need to know. I agree with everyone when they say he is an awesome guy, fun person to get to know, and will definitely try and help you but he just does not know how to make tests. \n\r\nI would highly recommend taking Letkoff or whoever else is teaching BMGT350 because in the end, your grade does matter. The class just becomes frustrating because the material isn't hard, his tests just don't ask about the material.\n\r\nI'm not mad or bitter that I took his class, but for your sake and your GPA, I would suggest you take someone else.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-09T15:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Boyd is awesome. His lectures are really entertaining and actually enjoyable. The downside is that his tests do have a lot of random questions out of nowhere, but the curves are huge to make up for it. I got As on the first two tests. You just need to carefully read the book and review lecture notes, and use your best guessing skills on all the random questions. You need to go to his lectures, but that's not an issue because they are interesting. Whats also great about his class is that he has no annoying papers or group projects. I definitely recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-26T09:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "His lectures are really fun, but he's a terrible professor. He can't teach and loves to talk about himself throughout the class. His lectures don't tie into what's going to be on the test. His test are completely random. Half the material comes from the book and hte other half is complete BS that we have never covered in class. If you want to get an A in the course you really have to read the textbook well and beat the curve. His curves are ridicioulos. Even if you fail the exam you end up with a B-. Worst class ever because you legit have to put more effort into it to get an A than any other class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-25T00:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Professor Boyd is a great lecturer. He's funny, will keep you engaged and you'll never be bored! However, when it comes to his exams he has like half of the materials out of nowhere. No matter how much you study the book, do the online quizzes, it'll never help you. If you end up with an A it's pure luck. My advise don't study too hard for this class. No matter how hard you study there is no guarantees for an A. However if your target is a B don't even bother to study since you'll never fail his class and get a B anyway-thanks to his gigantic curve. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-11T06:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Professor Boyd is an excellent lecturer. He is concise, interesting, and always has relevant real world examples. With that being said, I am still not sure where some of the exam questions came from. The exams have about 50% information from the book, 15% from lectures, and 35% from a random source nobody has discovered yet. They are curved steeply so this pretty much makes up for it. I kind of like this because you don't have to study much for the exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-12T14:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Professor Boyd is the best lecturer I have had so far in the business school. He knows how to captivate the attention of the class and makes his lectures interesting. \n\r\nAs far as the tests, don\'t get too freaked out by all of these comments on here. Just study the chapters in the book! Lecture is just part of what he tests you on. Yes, his tests involve some application of the material, but it really prepares you for real world marketing situations. If you want to be a marketing major you should take 350 with Boyd!\n\r\nHe also tests you at the end of the semester on "marketing jargon." So you basically have a vocabulary test circa 9th grade in a college level class. However, reviewing words like "surmise" and "obviate" isn\'t all too bad in the realm of preparing us for mature business conversation. \n\r\nOverall, I highly recommend Professor Boyd for BMGT 350. He really knows his stuff and keeps class interesting. I\'m pretty sure attendance is taken throughout all sections of this class, so why not have a professor who\'s interesting? \n\r\nAlso, everyone is basically guaranteed a B. I got an A on my first test and a B on my second, so only time will tell how I do after the vocab test and final. Regardless, I\'m going to get at least a B. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-08T03:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "He's no doubt a great lecturer. Only con is that his exams are unfair, which makes this class not worth putting an effort in. One reviewer said that to do well on the exams, you must guess how Boyd would analyze a situation. I agree completely. This is how I did on the exams:\n\r\nExam 1 - studied somewhat, ended up getting a high B\r\nExam 2 - studied a lot, did worse than the first exam with a B-\r\nExam 3 - decided to test this guy's test. didn't study at all. I legitimately knew answers to 5 questions out of 50 on the exam. I guessed the other 45. I got a B on this exam.\n\r\nConclusion:\r\nWhether you study or not, you'll probably end up with a B in this class, so my recommendation is don't study. In fact, save your money and don't buy the book because you'll get a B whether you read it or not.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-08-05T11:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Extremely amiable guy. Very funny and really keeps your attention. Lectures are fun and interesting, though can sometimes seem irrelevant. \r\nWhen looking at ourumd.com before taking the class, i said that i would be one of the 17% or whatever to get an A. I was wrong. Though, i'm not sure of my final grade yet, i'm assuming its going to be in the B+ range. \r\nGetting an A is attributed to one thing only - luck. Honestly I put in at least twenty some hours before each test studying and it yielded no results. For the people who did really well, honestly it is luck. not to put any of them down. So if you're one of those people who is good at guessing on tests and prepares a lot, you might pull it off. \r\nBy the third test, the best way to study for me was reading each chapter (not outlining), then reading the summaries in the back, then taking the online quiz for the chapter, and then going over the lecture notes from that date pertaining to the chapter. I don't know if the third test was easier or what, but i felt a whole lot more confident from that method of preparing. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-16T15:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Boyd is an extremely interesting lecturer, and is very lively for an early morning lecturer! His exams ARE from the lectures and book respectively, but if you miss lectures you can get an A just by reading the book. The book is also extremely helpful in that it has online practice quizzes. Seriously, the reason people are convinced it is impossible to get an A in this course is because they hear it so much and it gets into their heads! There is no reason a student cannot get an A in this course if they make an effort. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-16T23:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Most interesting lecturer I had this semester. However, this guy tests on NOTHING he lectures about. Some of the information on the tests is from the book but the vast majority isn't from the book. I don't know where the hell he comes up with his test questions, but they suck ass. Everyone fails the tests and he curves everyone up to a B. It's stupid. It seems like the guy likes to see us fail. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-02-03T17:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Getting an A seems unrealistic. He's a great lecturer, but the material on the exam is based on the book, not his lectures nor his power points. Pick Van Winter as yor TA, he's the best. Just read the book, or don't read, you'll probably get a B no matter how hard you study. 3 exams, all multiple choice, 1 paper, 1 true-false reading quiz, discussion attendance, and experiment participation. Overall not pleased because studying hard isn't rewarded; i got a B in his class. I found out later that i was 0.4% away from an A. Sad.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-02-02T23:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'This is the most frustrating course I have taken so far at the business school. His lectures are really interesting and make marketing seemed fun and then he hits you with the first exam. It had nothing to do with the interesting things in lecture; instead, it was mostly from the book and partially from who knows where. They are multiple choice and most questions are "application" questions, which basically mean how good are you at guessing how Professor Boyd would analyze a situation. The terms are annoying because there are a ton of them and a lot have very similar meanings. The second and third exam aren\'t much better, they did seem to incorporate more from the lecture but that doesn\'t help because after the first one you\'re not expecting lecture material to be on it.\n\r\nThe true/false quiz on the reading assignments is tough too because some of the questions were very specific and hard to remember after reading like 10 articles. Hard to figure out what your grades are because everyone does so bad that it all depends on the curve.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-18T03:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Boyd gives awesome lectures; one of my favorite classes ever to go to. \r\nHis lectures are short and sweet, he always ties in the most random examples either from his own life or things like movies and tv shows. He keeps the class interesting and entertaining.\r\nHowever, the only downside is that the exams are really hard. he lectures about basic concepts from the book, but the exam are all application questions. and there's always random questions that have nothing to do with anything we learned. \r\nThankfully there is a huge curve. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-04T20:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "He is a really good professor and his lectures are really interesting. However, as mentioned by many others, his exams are very difficult unless you are good at memorizing 100s of useless terms. Grading for the marketing paper was ridiculous since he didn't provide us with any specific guidelines. I would suggest taking this during winter or summer, or at a community college if the credit transfers.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-11-26T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Get Bonavia as your TA! She's fantastic. Really helpful, too.\n\r\nOn Boyd - He's a great professor. Lecture is really interesting, and he never keeps us longer than an hour. Exams are tough but not impossible if you study hard - both lecture and textbook, I'd recommend. Go to class! He doesn't post his slides online, and the information that he goes over during lecture WILL be found on the test. Theres a paper in the class - but nothing aggregious, just 5 pages and your TA will go through it with you step by step. You DO have to attend discussion, but its fairly painless (assuming you don't get an early one). Readings for the class are interesting, and required for a reading quiz at the end of the semester. Good class, really!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-11-17T23:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Mr. Boyd is a really nice and funny guy. His lectures were always interesting and enjoyable to go to, but some of his examples didn't really help us understand anything. However, his tests were mainly straight from the book (his lectures basically reinforce what the book say). For the quiz on the readings at the end, listen to what your TAs say about past years because he reuses the same questions. I ended up getting an A in the class. I read the each of the chapters 2-3 times before each test and did well. An A on the tests was about 82%.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-06T22:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "I took this course in Fall of 2006: Strengths\r\nDr. Boyd is a very funny guy and wants his students to do well. Made lectures enjoyable and easy to go to even at 9:30AM. Knows marketing well. Definitely recommend going to lectures as it reinforces what you are going to read and he provides good examples and it makes reading the textbook easier. But do read the textbook too as the tests are more heavily based on the book. But you're doing yourself no good by skipping lectures. Also I've heard that he eliminated the group paper and made the project and made it an individual project which is definitely better as you never know who you'll get put with in a large class.\r\nDrawbacks\r\nHis tests are very challenging. He curves on a floating curve. You really have to read the book well and think about the material. It's hard to get an A though easy to get a B. I squeaked by with an A-. The first exam is the easiest and if you manage to get an A on it, it definitely increases your chances of getting an A in the class. About 80% get B's and 18% A's. My TA was not very good as she couldn't get people to participate and didn't really seem in control. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-03T02:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'A very enjoyable professor who can relate any concept to life and make it understandable. The exams do not feel as though they are related to the content in class but I retained a lot of concepts and terms from class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-04-22T18:00:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is funny and his classes are pretty entertaining. His exams are quite difficult. I wish he taught to the exam a little bit more. He does curve the exams though. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-12T16:35:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "He's a good guy but not the best teacher. Don't think you know anything going into his exams. The average was around 55% for each exam and the highest grade for each was 80%. He curves the exams by 20-25% each time but doesn't update the grades until the end so you have no idea what your grade is.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-18T15:41:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Weekly mini group projects that don't relate to the lectures. Exams that don't reflect what he teaches in class, nor do they cover the chapters we are told to study. He says to expect a curve, but we have no clue where final grades will end up. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-15T17:28:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Interesting guy but terrible professor. First off his exams have nothing to do with the textbook or the lectures so it is impossible to study or prepare. He references specific companies than were never discussed whatsoever and asks in depth questions on the exams. He gives a curve but it is impossible to know what grade you will receive until he releases the final grades after the year is over.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-05-16T19:21:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "He seems like a really nice person but a terrible teacher. This class is really poorly organized. He regularly gives assignments that you complete with a group and he grades them comparative to other groups in your class. No clear rubric is provided either so you don't know what you are losing points for. The lectures do not match up with the exams or the assignments. The average exam grades are consistently 50-60% but he curves it which is nice. No matter how hard you study though, there is no way that you will get an A or B on the exam. This class was very frustrating and I would recommend taking it with a different professor if possible.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-09-07T17:40:29.156075Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Makes lectures interesting and is charismatic. Not the easiest class to get a good grade in but he makes it worth it to come to class and listen.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-11-17T20:40:11.511116Z'}, {'professor': 'Henry Boyd', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Dr. Boyd, while possessing a charming and friendly demeanor, teaches a course in which it is impossible to learn. His lectures are meandering and difficult to follow, and his examinations and course materials have little to do with actual lecture content. In fact, his examinations differ so far from the assigned textbooks, that he will ask questions relating to other chapters that we were not being tested on, or even material that was never covered in lecture OR the textbook at all! You will do extremely poorly on his exams. However, since literally everyone else does just as badly, you will be granted a generous curve. You will not be able to properly gauge how much you learned because the class average hovers around a 55%. If you want to actually learn, you should not take his course.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-14T21:35:09.563083Z'}], 'name': 'Henry Boyd', 'slug': 'boyd_henry'}, {'courses': ['BUSI621', 'HONR269P', 'BUDT758D', 'BMGT808O', 'BUSM621', 'BMGT808I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Henry Lucas', 'slug': 'lucas_henry'}, {'courses': ['CHEM237', 'CHEM460', 'CHEM647', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM889C', 'CHEM889D', 'CHEM399B', 'CHEM898'], 'average_rating': 3.1765, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM247', 'review': 'Best professor I have had at UMD. He really understands the material and makes it easy to understand. I might have cracked open my text book 3 times during the whole semester (and that was to do practice problems). All of the stuff he does in class is all you need for your exams. I averaged 67% on his 3 exams during the semester for stupid mistakes. I did really well on his final (and he basically gives every question you should expect). I had an 80% in his course and got an A. You do have to study pretty hard for his exams, but his class is well structured so it was really easy to organize my notes and figure out what to expect. There was occasionally one "surprise" question on his exams that were tough to solve, but not impossible and he gives A LOT of partial credit even when you don\'t understand what you are writing, so you won\'t miss out on many points anyways. He really helped me understand the material for orgoII and it really helped me do well in the Biology section on my MCAT. I didn\'t even study for orgo in my MCAT prep because Sintim was such an awesome professor. He is very lenient, approachable, and welcoming. Hands down my favorite professor at Maryland. Definitely take Sintim', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-03-29T23:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM460', 'review': 'He might be a good professor in lower level classes, but DEFINITELY NOT if you want to see deep into chemistry (preparing for grad school or research). He was the worst professor ever had in my chemistry years. From this class, I expected to learn concepts of basic techniques such as NMR, IR, EPR, rotational spec etc. Lots of people recommended this class. Not sure about other professors but do not take with him. For entire semester, we only covered NMR and IR that I ended up teaching myself everything from other people or online. He is not good with organizing, so things come from everywhere in his head. In syllabus, he provided guidelines for class such as homework and attendance. NEVER followed.\r\nHe was out of country for 1/3 of semester which made me wonder why he decided to teach this semester. Reading one paragraph online before the exams was so much helpful than him talking all throughout the semester. Very disappointed!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-17T23:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "No doubt he knows his stuff, but he's not that good at explaining it (or even finishing in-class examples). Quiet spoken with some jokes. Curve is based on top 5 grades and to pass w. only a C you need >50% on the final, regardless if you've failed every exam. Tests are medium/to okay-hard. Some problems come from lecture (which he'll tell you it'll be on the test) and some are based on lecture (not actually from lecture) but you'd have never expected it/or not even know how to do it. Very few clickers (he considers these EC)", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-03-02T15:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'If you want to get through Orgo 2 and only worry about passing, and not learning the material too thoroughly, take him. \n\r\nIf, however, you are concerned about actually learning the material well, do not take him. He speaks very quietly. SEVERAL times, students explained to him that the mic was not carrying his voice to the back. His reply was "Oh, I\'m just a soft-spoken person." Oh, really? What are you doing teaching in a huge lecture hall, then? He really wasn\'t even making an attempt, he was speaking in a voice that is more suited to talking to someone 3 feet away. Combine that with his accent, and you\'re looking at having a difficult time following along with his lectures.\n\r\nHe is very generous with grades, though, so if you want an easy C, by all means, take him.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-23T15:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "If you want to learn organic chemistry take Dr. Sintim. He is the best teacher I have ever had. He is not really available at office hours but it's worth putting up with it for the education you get. He is strict and expects students to know the material well. Many of the students just expected his class to be easy, but orgo is not an easy topic. He also had a GIANT curve and gave 3% worth of bonus points. I you are a chemistry or biochemistry major, or just want to learn orgo, take him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-21T12:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Sintim knows organic chemistry very well and teaches decently. I went to every lecture, but I still had to supplement lecture, by reading the book. The course can be challenging, and if you want an A, it might take a lot of studying. Here's the grade distribution for Fall 2009:\n\r\n1) To get an A (A-, A or A+), your score should be equal to or higher than 81%. [36 students will get A]\r\n2) To get a B (B-, B or B+), your score should be equal to or higher than 58%. [62 students will get B]\r\n3) To get a C (C-, C or C+), your score should be equal to or greater than 41%. [56 students will get C]\r\n4) To get a D, your score should be equal to or greater than 30% [25 students will get D]\r\n5) If your score is less than 30%, then you will get an F grade. [8 students will get F]\n\r\nThese grade boundaries change slightly every year, based on how the class is doing. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-21T06:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. Sintim gave me a B- when my final grade was a 51.3%. I'm not sure how it happened. I scored a 36% on the final exam....\r\nAnyways, his soft-spoken voice and accent are challenging to overcome, so I would recommend getting another professor if you want to actually learn the material. I essentially taught myself this semester.\r\nI gave little effort in the class compared to the other students though and ended up with a B-. I studied less than 3 hours for the final exam. I'm not a pre-med student.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2009-12-19T16:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Don\'t make the mistake I did and take Sintim for orgo 2 solely based on his grade distributions. This is his second semester teaching this class, and he made it a lot more difficult than his first semester of teaching. The grade distributions for this semester are: 19% A; 33% B; 30% C; 13% D; 4% F. These are the numbers he provided in his e-mail. Note the significant decrease in B and increase in C in comparison to his first semester. I also did not like his teaching style. He would write things on the board and while everyone is scurrying to copy down everything, he starts erasing the board. The students start complaining, and he just smiles and says "it\'s ok, it\'s in the book". He is soft spoken, so you need to get a seat in the front of the room to adequately hear him. He is also very unresponsive to students\' concerns. Throughout the semester, I sent him probably 8 e-mails, trying to arrange a time to meet with him or with a question that I needed help on. He did not respond to a SINGLE email. He also has office hours once a week- it was on Friday from 3-5. I bet he picked those hours because he knew that no one would make use of his office hours. Keep in mind that Sintim is a researcher. He is in UMD to conduct research, and teaching is just a side job that he was forced to do. It shows that he does not really care much about how well his students do. I definitely recommend Dixon over him, but if you must take him, here is some advice: look over his old exams because he likes to use similar questions. Also, redo all the problems in your notes because one of them is bound to appear in your exam. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-18T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "He's a very nice guy who love Orgo. But he can't teach for his life. His class is organized pretty horribly and to be honest, it doesn't seem like he puts much effort into planning his classes. He's pretty brilliant and I think that's how he gets away with having bad lectures. But he does want the class to succeed. if I had to take the class again, I'd go with Dixon or Khachik.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-17T17:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dont listen to what the negative comments written here, most of these people were the ones that never attended class - which could be why they failed and didnt list their grade.\n\r\nI also struggled in orgo 1, but Sintim made orgo 2 seem a lot easier. Sintim is a great prof if you go to class. Hes very nice and gives you a big heads up on whats going to be on the exam. Study what he went over and do his post tests. He loves to reask questions so if you know the answers to those, you're guaranteed to get at least one question correct on the exam. His curve is very nice as well...its pretty hard to not a C since all you have to do is get a 45% and whatever the class average is = a B. His A's are a little bit more difficult but definitely not as hard to obtain as an A in Dixons class. I would highly highly recommend Sintim for orgo 2. You might not exactly learn as much as you would in Dixons but youll definitely get a better grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-16T20:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'previous post is not true. Class was very easy for an Orgo 2 Class. Lectures were easy to understand and everything on tests we went over in class. Discussion was very helpful with AB as a T.A. I Didnt put much time outside of class and expect an A. I struggled through Orgo 1 and this was a cake walk. Average was a 55% for the class but that is a B. Just look at the grade distribution. It is impossible to get anything less than a B. I got a 342/400 on the final by just studying the lectures for a couple of hours', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-16T19:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "He has made this course so much more difficult than compared to previous semesters... His lectures are interesting with life lessons inserted. However, it's really hard to hear him in lecture and his tests cover very complex material, far from what is taught in lecture. I learned more from the GSS than the lectures itself. A very time consuming class. Average for the class was a 55%....", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-16T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I can already tell Sintim's going to be a good teacher. I must add, however, that after dealing with Ammon for a semester of Orgo 1, ANY other professor would seem like a frickin genius. LOL...but I must say, I enjoy his teaching style. He does a lot of writing on the chalkboard, explaining everything as he goes (as opposed to Ammon's powerpoint lectures, which did not show a logical flow of events, but rather a bunch of formulas and arrows going every direction). Take Sintim if you can!\n\n\r\nNegatives: only thing is sometimes his voice trails off and its hard to hear him if your not in the front. Try to get a good seat in class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-09-04T16:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I would take Sintim over any of the other organic chemistry professors based solely on the fact that his tests were easier than the other professors' tests. He doesn't try to trick you with the test questions; they are pretty straightforward and in lecture he teaches all the material you will need to know for the tests. The grade breakdown for the class was A-80%, B-60%, C-40%. In the end he even dropped the cutoffs a couple of percentage points based on how you did with clicker questions.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-20T02:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Take him if you can!!\n\r\nHis teaching isn\'t amazing but he gets the major points across. His exams are not VERY difficult because he always tells you in advance what you should know and be able to do and emphasizes it when he says "POSSIBLE EXAM QUESTION". His final consisted of prior exam questions that gave most of the class trouble and a couple of brand new questions.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-28T16:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Prof. Sintim loves to explain complex organic material with his "life lessons" in which he tries to get a laugh out of the class...and he is usually sucessful in doing so. As a professor, he teaches at a steady pace and tries to answer questions to the best of his ability.\n\r\nMost of the time his exams were str8 up copy and pasted from previous years...having said that, focus on what he wants you to know! You do this, and ur well on ur way to doing well in his class', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-01-09T00:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Herman Sintim', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'A mediocre professor. I had him while he was a new professor and in the beginning, he was completely clueless, but he got better as the semester progressed. Very easy to get a B, because the cutoff was a 60, and impossible to fail, because the cutoff for a C was a 40. Tests were pretty fair, but I felt I learned nothing from this class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-12-26T15:24:00Z'}], 'name': 'Herman Sintim', 'slug': 'sintim'}, {'courses': ['SPAN303', 'SPAN333', 'SPAN798D', 'SPAN408Q', 'SPAN798W', 'SPAN332', 'SPAN331'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hernan Sanchez', 'slug': 'sanchez'}, {'courses': ['MATH340', 'MATH341', 'MATH220', 'MATH120', 'MATH135', 'AMSC460', 'CMSC460'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Heyrim Cho', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'Honestly she was a good person, and knew the subject, but was not good at teaching it. She left the class confused at many occasions. She also relied on MyMathLab for homework which gave us so many issues. I think I only did well because we had a good TA who helped us out whenever we were confused during discussions. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-14T04:46:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Heyrim Cho', 'course': 'MATH135', 'review': 'She is a super smart and nice person, but not the greatest at teaching her material. the quizzes and projects are super easy, but her tests are pretty tough and there may not be a curve instituted, depending on the class average. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-18T20:19:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Heyrim Cho', 'course': 'MATH135', 'review': 'She’s a very sweet person and obviously very smart, but is not a very good teacher. Hard to follow lectures and exam questions are all over the place ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-04-26T03:53:20Z'}], 'name': 'Heyrim Cho', 'slug': 'cho_heyrim'}, {'courses': ['BSCI441', 'BSCI454', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI455', 'NEUR405', 'NEUR479', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI455', 'NEUR405', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI455', 'NEUR405', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI455', 'NEUR405', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI455', 'NEUR405'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hilary Bierman', 'course': 'BSCI455', 'review': 'Not an interesting class made up of a lot of busy work. The professor is nice but very obviously picks favorites (this has an affect on the grade you get)', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-17T02:47:01.068910Z'}], 'name': 'Hilary Bierman', 'slug': 'bierman'}, {'courses': ['URSP631', 'URSP688N', 'URSP708', 'URSP601', 'URSP688M', 'URSP709', 'URSP688F', 'URSP709', 'URSP688F', 'URSP688N', 'URSP709', 'URSP631', 'URSP709', 'URSP688N', 'URSP709', 'URSP688F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hiroyuki Iseki', 'slug': 'iseki'}, {'courses': ['HONR279L', 'HNUH228Z'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hoda Mahmoudi', 'course': 'HNUH228Z', 'review': "The reading list is quite dense, approximately one whole book a week (which personally is quite heavy because I'm a slow reader, so I recommend audio). However, all the readings were very interesting, and the class discussions that stemmed from them were extremely engaging and made me look forward to coming to class. She's a very kind teacher, and I highly recommend this course. Just so you know, she is a stickler for grammar. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-28T01:02:54Z'}], 'name': 'Hoda Mahmoudi', 'slug': 'mahmoudi_hoda'}, {'courses': ['EDCI413', 'EDCI698', 'EDCI652'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hollie Young', 'slug': 'young_hollie'}, {'courses': ['HIST408X', 'HIST419V', 'HIST289L', 'HIST395', 'HIST399', 'HIST398', 'HIST608A', 'HIST408V', 'HIST819V', 'AMST629W', 'HIST639W', 'HIST353', 'HIST819G', 'HIST200', 'HIST408N', 'HIST429Q', 'HIST353', 'HIST408C', 'HIST607', 'HIST146', 'HIST607', 'HIST619C', 'HIST200', 'HIST607'], 'average_rating': 1.5556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Holly Brewer', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': 'The absolute worst lecturer. Assigns readings that make ZERO sense, we come to close and all bomb the clicker questions. If 68% say the answer is true but false is actually the right answer, that should be an issue for her??? Interesting this class is required for education students when the only thing I have learned is how to create an actual lesson plan and to teach effectively. Her lectures are extremely disorganized, her powerpoints are in no way helpful so all the students have left to do is fail. When the exam rolled around, we were not given a study guide and told that "we should know what terms are important" when in reality, our class study guide of important terms had NO OVERLAPS to what was on the exam. Let\'s also not forget the TA grades with decimals, I just received a 16.75 on the exam, one would think that would just be a 17 but not Dr. Brewer! Spare your sanity and wait to take this class with Chiles. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-04-06T19:55:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Holly Brewer', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': 'Absolutely terrible teacher. DO NOT take her if you can help it. Required for Ed majors, but just wait to take it with someone else!! Class is extremely boring and irrelevant, she just rambles on and goes on tangents. Only a few vaguely assigned and harshly graded essays and tests. DO NOT take this class with Holly Brewer!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-04-11T14:14:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Holly Brewer', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': "Actually the worst professor I've had so far. Her lectures are confusing and irrelevant, and she's not understanding or adaptable to the class's needs. Her TA is the only reason I have any idea what is going on and I think he is confused by her too. An absolute mad woman, take this course with someone else. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-04-17T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Holly Brewer', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': "i regret taking this class on campus when i would have gotten an A+ online. She is one of the worst professors i have ever had- she literally fell asleep in class last week??? also majority of the class fails every clicker question quiz...if only 38% of the class gets the answer correct, shouldn't that be alarming for her??? OR, why are there TWO correct answers for a question!!! she also never posts grades so we won't actually know how were doing until final grades are in so thats great. the TA looks so utterly confused the whole time as well but never says anything. she goes on tangents about god knows what and pressures us to answer questions that we do not know and gets mad when the class does not get them correct. this is a required class so wait to take it w chiles- its worth it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-07T13:47:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Holly Brewer', 'course': 'HIST289L', 'review': "I regret taking this class. Lectures are hard to stay engaged in because she constantly goes off topic and then realizes we are out of time. You don't really know what is important to take notes on in her lecture slides. She doesn't grade things until the very end, so by the time you realize what your grade is, its already too late to improve on anything. She is nice, but needs to improve her teaching style a lot as well as grade things in a more timely manner. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-05-15T16:54:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Holly Brewer', 'course': 'HIST353', 'review': "Dr. Brewer... is honestly not a good professor. I like her, she's very nice and she obviously cares. But the lectures are disorganized and assignment descriptions (there's only 3 for the whole semester, so that's cool) are vague. For a history professor, you really want the lectures to be good, and Dr. Brewer's just aren't.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-15T16:32:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Holly Brewer', 'course': 'HIST353', 'review': 'Prof Brewer is really nice and was lenient for paper and project extensions. sometimes hard to follow her lectures, hard to know what to take notes on, but is super eager to help students', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-02T02:44:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Holly Brewer', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': "Not sure if it's just because these reviews are old but she's really not that bad! Our only assignments are three papers throughout the semester and an oral presentation as the final. She is very knowledgeable about the material but it's kind of hard to take notes in her class. She is not super great but not bad. I would ask our TA for help and she was better at explaining things than Dr. Brewer. I put in very little work for this class and have an A. I see people in comments below talking about quizzes and doing clicker questions but we don't have those! The TA has graded our papers so far and takes kind of long but it's not a huge deal for me. My biggest drawback for her is lectures but I really don't think she's that horrible like all these comments say, just kind of boring and hard to follow.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-14T20:21:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Holly Brewer', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': "She is the worst teacher I've had so far at UMD. Her lectures are very unorganized and she always skips through the slides with words very quickly but stays on the slides with the pictures for a long time. Her lectures are very disorganized and she rambles about the smallest irrelevant details of the event we were discussing. During one lecture she went from Native American and settler relations to the Salem Witch Trials. The only reason grades are up to date is because the TA grades everything and tries her best to pick up the mess Professor Brewer left. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-03T23:45:24Z'}], 'name': 'Holly Brewer', 'slug': 'brewer_holly'}, {'courses': ['ENTM788C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Holly Martinson', 'slug': 'martinson'}, {'courses': ['BSST340', 'BSST340', 'BSST340'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Holly Roberts', 'course': 'BSST340', 'review': "it's definitely worth noting that this class is a 300-level course and feels like it the entire time. I wouldn't take this as an alternative to other professional speaking classes if you aren't interested in national security and press briefings and things like that. The first assignment is the heaviest one- a ten-page paper and presentation on the paper- but once you get through that, the class isn't so bad. She's a nice woman who knows what she's talking about, but she grades harshly on papers. Heads up, buy professional clothing before you take the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-16T21:51:27.230326Z'}], 'name': 'Holly Roberts', 'slug': 'roberts_holly'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Holly Smith', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'She is such a great teacher. Never assigned work that was unnecessary. Business is all about short writing and that is what she taught in her class. If you are looking for a professional writing class this is extremely practical and the minimum amount of work, take 394 with Holly! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-14T15:57:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Holly Smith', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Wonderful teacher! Is enthusiastic about the subject matter, and has clearly laid out course requirements. Final project is a monster, but is assigned with MONTHS left in the semester. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-15T17:30:18Z'}], 'name': 'Holly Smith', 'slug': 'smith_holly'}, {'courses': ['EDMS645', 'EDMS646', 'EDMS738', 'EDMS738A', 'EDMS626', 'EDMS738E', 'EDMS738L', 'EDMS738J', 'EDMS738C', 'EDMS623', 'EDMS626', 'EDMS724', 'EDMS623'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hong Jiao', 'slug': 'jiao'}, {'courses': ['EPIB612', 'EPIB740', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'EPIB612', 'EPIB740', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB612'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hongjie Liu', 'slug': 'liu_hongjie'}, {'courses': ['ECON418M', 'ECON424', 'ECON200', 'ECON644', 'ECON185', 'ECON424', 'ECON200', 'ECON424', 'ECON185', 'ECON424', 'ECON644', 'ECON418M', 'ECON644', 'ECON644', 'ECON200', 'ECON424', 'ECON432'], 'average_rating': 4.1515, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'I thought Abbasi was a good professor. Not great, but also not bad. Most of the students in my 300-person lecture could care less and only came because we had participation points (clicker stuff). I did pretty well in the class, but the average grade was around 80%. He explained things clearly with emphasis, but sometimes you tone out to his voice. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-02-28T14:54:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Totally fine. Had clickers (which you could do from your phone put I think they would be more difficult if you weren't in class). First exam had some grammatical errors but late midterms were fine. Lecturing covered what it needed with appropriate emphasis according to the importance of the topic. Solid choice for professor (just don't disrupt class).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-04-11T14:41:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'our class was not the biggest fan of him. personally i hate large lecture classes but if you like economics take this. if youre looking for a gen-ed to fill, do not take this, i made that mistake and wish someone had told me earlier', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-06T00:42:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'I found professor Abbasi to be very good. What was helpful is him posting all of the lecture notes, so if you miss something in class you can easily go back and take notes. He also posts practice exams which reflect the level of difficulty that you will face on the actual exam which is helpful. I think the exams were fair, but you have to put in a good amount of work to get an A in the class. Abbasi is approachable so you can easily reach out to him in person after class or during his office hours, or simply email him with any questions or concerns.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-22T18:03:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'He handled online classes really well and was a very good lecturer. Boring at times but very accessible and accommodating.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-04T21:40:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'He’s a really good lecturer. Workload is kinda heavy but exams aren’t awful', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-15T00:26:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'I found professor Abassi to be a very good teacher. His lectures are clear and relatable. His tests are fair. I think the best way to do well in his class is to review the homeworks, attend the GSS study sessions and office hours if you have any questions, and read the textbook, and study hard and econ could be a very interesting class. the material is very valuable and helps you think about the world in a more practical light. it is very conceptual and not a lot of math. there are normally two chapters a week to read which can take an hour each at least because of the questions afterwards which are easy but a lot. the grade is counted for completion but the homework is counted for correctness.. Overall, the professor is there to help his students success and wants them to do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-31T16:56:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Really good lecturer, but then again, the course material really isn't the hardest thing out there. Exams were very straightforward where if you actively paid attention to his lectures and did well on the assigned work, you'll be able to ace it with little studying, as the homeworks are generally a lot more difficult and oftentimes a lot more convoluted due to bad question writing than the exams. Overall, you definitely learn a lot in the class because the course material is oftentimes rather relatable and applicable - would recommend if you need a gen-ed during a semester where you have a lighter workload, as this course is rather demanding in that aspect.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-03T18:49:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Professor Abbasi is an okay teacher. He basically just teaches from the powerpoints, but those powerpoints are extremely helpful. I used those to study for every exam and they helped a lot. He releases each powerpoint so you can use that to follow along. The smart books assignments really help your grade and so do the homework assignments if you do them properly. The exams really aren't harder than the homework assignments, so just make sure to review those.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-03T21:36:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Professor Abbasi was pretty solid and the class is structured that you don't need to attend the lectures. You can do just fine from home if you follow the notes and powerpoints on ELMS. The exams can be confusing and are a huge weight of the class so keep that in mind\r\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-08T18:16:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON424', 'review': "Professor new how to really explain the material in a methodical way. You really see clearly how everything builds off of each other. In the classroom he's very helpful in explaining concepts in a workshop setting. He is strict with turning things in on time but if you do that you should be fine. Before-lecture quizzes based on readings are lowkey a big part of your grade so don't let those pull you down.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-15T03:45:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'really nice professor. lectures can be boring at times but he is very straightforward and tries to make as many physical connections to the concepts as possible. Really liked him and he was funny in lectures. workload is very light and practice exams were extremely helpful for the exams. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-15T15:26:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Good professory. Be sure to do homework and practice exams in order to do well on regular exams.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T20:40:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Abbasi is a great professor and an A in his class is very obtainable. You don't have to attend the lectures as he posts the slides and videos covering them online. There are 4 main exams that make up the majority of your grade which are online, just study and use the practice exams and you'll be very successful. The HW can be tedious at times but the overall workload is 2-3 hours a week. Great professor and enjoyed this class with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T20:54:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Easy class if you actually do the smartbooks and the exams aren't too bad, just make sure you take the practice exams first because they prepare you for the concepts covered and also have some questions from the actual exam. You don't really have to attend as long as you review the slides and try on the smartbooks, I only attended for the first two weeks then never went again. Only reason I didn't get an A+ is because I didn't take time to completely learn the concepts on the 3rd exam and could've gotten a better grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-19T20:33:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON185', 'review': 'Easy and straight forward class but you do have to put in the time to do the work. There are weekly online quizzes and discussions, the answers to them are found on the power points he provides. The only thing to watch out for is the wording of some of the questions on the quizzes, you cant always control+f the answers(you also get two attempts at each quiz). The main big assignments are the research papers and a final report. You get 6 days to do the 1250 word research papers. There are 5 in total and they are a chore to do. As long as you follow the rubric, you will be fine. The final report is basically your final for the class since there is no final exam. You do parts of it as the semester goes on and in total it will need to be above 2500 words minimum by the end of the semester. Again as long as you follow the rubric you will be fine. The reports are graded generously by the TA. Professor Abbasi is a good lecturer but if the topic does not interest you then you will find the class to be a huge chore. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T23:25:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON185', 'review': "This course is a super easy A. If you can read the slides and finish those quizzes, you don't have to attend classes. There are some papers to write and they are annoying. However, you can always get a 100% score. Take it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-27T18:50:04.919290Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I signed up for this course as a requirement for my major, but ended up getting really into it. Abbasi is a great professor, his lectures are always clear and easy to understand. You can definitely do well if you just watch the recorded lectures, but I would say to actually go to in person lectures, cause he definitely says and emphasizes different things in person. He's also funny and gives a lot of real life examples that ended up sticking with me and helped me on exams. The smart books and HW's were super helpful so make sure you do them. Definitely not a super easy A, but totally manageable if you actually do the work.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-21T18:08:12.929959Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Pretty good professor but was a difficult class for me personally, I think you either get the material or you don't. Practice exams and practice problems help a lot for exams. Pretty easy homework but there is quite a lot of it, most answers are on Quizlet. TA's grade exams are kind of weird sometimes tho so make sure you go and review your exam sometimes you might get extra points if you argue.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-01T00:37:24.194424Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Good professor who tries to keep class engaging. The lectures are straightforward and the exams are a good reflection of what was covered. He posts all of the slides and prerecorded lectures online so you can still do well without going to class which is nice.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T20:33:25.233457Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Very straight forward and the exams are pretty easy if you stay on track. His lectures are recorded which is a big plus. He also posts every resource you might ever need. If you're taking econ200 I would highly recommend Abbasi.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-07T18:24:00.023748Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Dr. Abbasi is the best professor for this class imo, he's very nice, understanding, and a great lecturer. His exams are reasonable and he provides practice exams that literally have the same questions as the actual exam sometimes. Just do the smartbook assignments and study for the exams and you'll be fine. He also drops the 3 worst hw grades so that's nice too. My only complaint is he doesn't allow a cheat sheet for the exams like most of the other profs for this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-08T23:45:28.570877Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "literally no one goes to class after the second week because all of the notes are online. many resources on his canvas page for practice. exams are really hard tho. wouldn't recommend for a gen ed, go find an easier one", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-13T01:04:48.426917Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Overall a good professor who will prepare you for the exams. My only problem is his lectures are extremely boring', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-13T03:24:17.872147Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "The professor posts all lectures online and gives practice exams and problems, overall making his content very accessible. This made it really easy to skip the class which wasn't good since I was struggling a little in the class, but all the material is there. Some of the exam questions are even directly from practice problems or lecture slides. Overall provides resources but lecture itself was just okay.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T05:45:10.512069Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Abbasi's lectures are barely attended because you can learn everything he says by watching his recordings and reading his slides. You can play his recordings at 1.5x speed which is great. 2 midterms and a final do the practice exams they are super similar. Overall he himself doesn't really help or hurt too much it is mostly up to the student how well you wants to do in this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T21:47:40.633195Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'If you show up/ watch lectures and do the smart books and homework’s, and literally just study- you will be fine. I feel like a lot of people don’t do anything the entire semester and end up with a C and then they start complaining. Abbasi is definitely the best ECON200 teacher and obviously this isn’t an easy A, but you get what you put in. I mean this is college come on', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-23T19:19:31.510001Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Homework could be a little bit time consuming but not super difficult, and exams were based pretty much entirely off of the lecture slides he uploaded to elms and the textbook sections and were pretty similar to the practice exams so not very challenging and I found the homework harder than the exams. His lectures could be a little dry sometimes (it is economics) but solid so this class shouldn't be very hard if you consistently go to lecture and complete the homeworks.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-08T23:09:52.008456Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I loved Abbasi and his class. I found it easy to get a good grade if you dedicated time to actually learning the material. Homework and smartbook for every chapter (about 1-2 a week), but normally weren't incredibly time-consuming. Studying with friends was really helpful for this class, too. Abbassi also really cares about his students, so try to go to lecture if you can because he does his best to engage. Super sweet guy and very knowledgeable in the topic.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-18T04:16:38.064713Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Amazing professor, homework wasn't that bad, and his exams were very fair. Would definitely recommend taking him if you have the chance", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-21T04:52:40.495508Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON424', 'review': 'This course was challenging in a great way. As long as you GO TO CLASS (which Abbasi emphasizes over and over), you will learn from one of the best and funniest professors in the business. Initially, I took the course for the requirement, but Abbasi legitimately made me interested in numbers and statistical analysis. Would recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-03-07T19:29:02.558771Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "let me warn you with this: i am not a business or econ major, literally a stem major and took this class for no reason and it was just a poor choice as a gened.\r\n\r\nbut anyways this class was pretty easy, the homeworks were a little bit of a pain because they were so time consuming, but doable. also i never went to class. never. and i also didn't watch his pre-recorded videos either. regardless, his practice exams were actually the best study material ever. very similar to the real thing and all. I was only like 0.5 away from an A- but he did already give a 1% in extra credit so its whatever. \r\n\r\nthe class is definitely doable to get within the A range, i was just slacking, and even with that came pretty close. lecture: boring; resources: helpful.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-03-27T08:24:20.765608Z'}, {'professor': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'course': 'ECON424', 'review': "Professor Abbasi is one of the best Econ teachers I've had at UMD. He's great at explaining concepts that are complicated, and breaks them down into easy steps. Not only does he provide lecture notes for each lecture, he provides step by step videos to on how to solve problems for concepts for each lecture as well. This is a great class for the quantitative requirement. Not only are you learning valuable regression concepts, but the coding involved in Stata is easy enough for a beginner to understand. Even if you get a 55% average on the 3 exams, you can still pass the class easily with the other assignments. Exams are also straight forward to follow and have similar concepts from practice exams. I'd encourage anyone to take this class. It's not hard to pass and builds a good foundation on coding skills and statistical analysis", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-04-09T02:56:26.477338Z'}], 'name': 'Hossein Abbasi', 'slug': 'abbasi'}, {'courses': ['BMGT458B', 'BMGT458B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Howard Bomstein', 'slug': 'bomstein'}, {'courses': ['CMSC798E', 'CMSC878B', 'CMSC760', 'AMSC661', 'CMSC351', 'AMSC663', 'CMSC763', 'AMSC698E', 'AMSC600', 'CMSC661', 'CMSC663', 'AMSC763', 'CMSC798', 'AMSC460', 'CMSC460', 'AMSC762', 'AMSC760', 'AMSC760', 'AMSC762', 'AMSC664', 'CMSC664', 'AMSC660', 'AMSC663', 'AMSC760', 'AMSC762', 'CMSC660', 'CMSC663', 'AMSC760', 'AMSC762', 'AMSC763', 'CMSC763'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Howard Elman', 'course': 'AMSC660', 'review': 'Pretty dry and dull. Should take another professor if possible. Exams are quite hard and lectures are abstract and hard to understand', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-02T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Elman', 'course': 'CMSC660', 'review': 'Reasonable workload for a graduate class. Homework and exams are reasonable in difficulty, maybe on the easier side compared to the more theoretical courses. The math is explained very clearly and in a way that is easy to understand, but this also results in the pacing being slower than typical math classes. Overall good instructor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T23:40:56.188088Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Elman', 'course': 'AMSC660', 'review': 'Very nice old man. The class was only 75 minutes but he regularly took breaks from lecturing and talked with the class about sports or funny stories from his life. The workload was not too much there were just 5 problem sets in the semester, there was an in-class midterm but take-home final. Also he writes the lectures on ipad notes instead of the whiteboard and posts them to elms which is nice.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-30T05:25:34.530342Z'}], 'name': 'Howard Elman', 'slug': 'elman_howard'}, {'courses': ['CHEM241', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM241'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Howard Fribush', 'slug': 'fribush'}, {'courses': ['INFM605', 'INST702', 'INST702'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Howard Killam', 'slug': 'killam'}, {'courses': ['LING610', 'LING689A', 'LING819', 'LING611', 'LING889E', 'LING819C', 'LING698', 'LING889A', 'LING888', 'LING819D', 'LING819E', 'LING819G', 'LING819J', 'LING698', 'LING888', 'LING610', 'LING689M', 'LING698', 'LING888', 'LING888', 'LING698', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Howard Lasnik', 'slug': 'lasnik'}, {'courses': ['AREC365', 'AREC427', 'AREC433', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899'], 'average_rating': 3.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "Take this class. Leathers makes it impossible not to do well- yes the lectures are a bit boring and dry, but he posts slides online with voice recordings that are extremely helpful in case you miss stuff from lecture. There are exams every 3rd friday on the material covered for the previous 3 weeks, so it's pretty tough to fall behind. Exams are 3 questions each, with two prompts per question; you get to choose which prompt to answer for each question (e.g. question 1. answer prompt A or B, not both). and by the time the final comes around (which is all multiple choice), all you need to do is review your notes a few times. There are weekly quizzes online that you can retake as many times as you want (so you are pretty much guaranteed to get a 100% each week). I thought this class was interesting and was the best structured of any course I've taken at UMD, you would have to try not to do well", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-10T12:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "Unless you understand econ, don't take it. He lectures from a book he wrote himself and reads off of slides with -2 font. Going to class is worthless because you can teach yourself more by reading the book. TAs were extremely not helpful. The 250 point final consisted of 82 multiple multiple-choice questions (REALLY DIFFICULT) and it was somewhat cumulative with most emphasis on the last section of the class. The only grades from the class come from six 125 point exams (every other week). No curve and no weight. I took this class for the global poverty minor and an upper level elective. Seriously save yourself and your gpa.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-05-14T21:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "Leathers is a horrible professor. He reads from his book that seems to have been written by a third grader. You don't have to go to class to do well. Leathers will also make his tests much harder than they have to be. You'll have to answer questions like: in which article did you learn this piece of info? that is ridiculous. how on earth does it matter where we learned any of this information. \n\r\nleathers should be fired since he has nothing to offer the class- any insights can be grasped from his book. (but that would never happen bc of tenure) btw, he is also completely inattentive of student needs...", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-30T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "Very good professor. I made mistakes in the beginning of the semester and messed up the first few tests but here's how to get an A in this class..\n\r\n-go to every single class\r\n-take notes on what he talks about (not just whats on the power points)\r\n-review notes day before exam\r\n-read the assigned articles on blackboard night before the test\r\n-the textbook isn't important to read but it can't hurt", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-10T02:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "I really wish that I could professor Leathers a 5 but unfortunately the class was designed to be way too easy, which was not his fault. I'm not going to complain about an easy A but I wish that this class at least had Econ100 as a pre-req so he didn't have to give his lectures as though we didn't know any econ. With that in mind, I did learn a lot from this class (this is the only class I've taken where I actually will bring up what I've learned in casual conversation.) So while Leathers obviously knows what he's teaching the lectures are way too informal and the university should have some pre-reqs for this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-06T01:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'Professor Leathers is a nice guy. He makes the class engaging by showing small clips and using slides with pictures. Besides the book, there are some extra readings, but most questions in the exam are not very specific. Final is cumulative, but not hard at all if you go over the most important points made on the semester. Also your grade is based only on exams and he drops the lowest grade. I would highly recommend this class to people who want to learn about world hunger.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-21T18:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "Lecture is worthless, just read the book/readings. Slides he puts up help sometimes, but they too are mostly worthless. Lots of graphics and barren slides.\n\r\nExams were easy, ~15 multiple choice questions and a few short answers. There are 6 of them (one every two weeks). He will drop one of them, average your other 5 exams, and use that average in place of the 6th. Final was 81 questions long, 50% stuff after exam 6, 50% stuff before. It sounds daunting but I was done in ~25 minutes. There were no short answers, instead replaced by a short answer style question using ~5 different answers, using A and B for true or false basically. It's not the easy A it apparently was in the past, but it still doesn't require much effort.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-20T09:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "I took this class because I heard it was easy and a lot of the work tests/quizzes were online but he changed the structure this semester. Your grade comes down to 6 exams and a final so if you are not a good test taker I would encourage you to stay away from this class. \n\r\nOverall though, Leathers is a pretty nice, easy-going guy. His tests aren't really that hard as long as you read the chapters and attend lectures regularly to see what he is focusing on. He also gives out extra credit when the average grade for tests is low so it is VERY important to go to class after he posts the test scores. If you need to fulfill a diversity requirement, this isn't a bad class to do it ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-04-19T03:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'Professor Leathers changed his teaching style for the class this semester...for the better. There is an exam every two weeks. In order to prepare for these exams, you must do the assigned reading...but the reading is manageable. There are no quizzes and class attendance is not mandatory. However, he sometimes gives an online quiz and if you go to class he gives you the answers. The exams are not hard if you do the reading for them, so far i have finished every exam in 25 minutes. Overall, this is not a difficult class and it is a good fulfillment of my diversity core.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-24T13:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC433', 'review': "Test are every other week. He has changed his whole class because people are saying his class is too easy. Now in order to get an A you MUST attend all the lectures or at least get all the notes because his exams are mostly based on them. His final was tough too, but if you keep up with the daily articles/reading you'll do fine for the final. He also does not curve , alot of people were upset , so if you get a 89.9% you'll get a B. Over all good class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-04T21:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC433', 'review': "The class isn't very engaging because the lectures consist of him only lecturing with no types of in-class discussions or small group discussions to break things up.\n\r\nThat said, he gives a lot of A's and B's if you put in the effort. He can be a bit strict at time, but he is a nice guy who will help you if you need it.\n\r\nIf you're an AREC major looking to fulfill your major requirements, this is a good course to take.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T20:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Leathers', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'I am a business major who took this class as an upper-level humanities elective. The class was very boring, although Howard Leathers did seem like a nice enough guy. He assigns weekly homework assignments and online "quizzes" so it is imperative that you check the website daily. You also will be required to write up a paper. This was kind of a hassle. The tests were somewhat challenging, though if you go to class and fill in the blanks on his slides, you should be fine. I went to class probably 10% of the time and managed to pull an A. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-01T18:03:00Z'}], 'name': 'Howard Leathers', 'slug': 'leathers_howard'}, {'courses': ['ENEE681', 'ENEE690', 'ENEE790', 'PHYS499L', 'PHYS420', 'PHYS270', 'ENEE381', 'ENEE496', 'PHYS260', 'ENEE488', 'PHYS899', 'PHYS404', 'ENEE380', 'PHYS404', 'PHYS899'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Howard Milchberg', 'course': 'ENEE690', 'review': "Can be a little difficult to approach but he does care about teaching and is very willing to help.\n\r\nSome times I think he doesn't realize how difficult his hw/exams can be but overall a solid teacher and fair grader. \n\r\nSeems to appreciates effort, know your hw inside/out and you'll be ready for at least 50% of any exam. Think more about concepts, I never got anything lame a like a derivation or extremely calc heavy problem on a test. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-02-15T03:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Milchberg', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'Milchberg is a decent lecturer and a great/hilarious guy. Homework was straight out of the textbook for 270, and the exams were pretty insane, but his grading is dependent on progress. The departmental final for 270 meant that after his exams the final was a cakewalk and almost everyone in the class walked away with an A. \r\n\r\nJust wish I could take him for 420, but they switched up the professors on me. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-18T23:19:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Milchberg', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "I would say Milchberg is an above average lecturer. In his lectures he spends time deriving formulas and explaining concepts. He will include a few examples but not too many. His reviews before the final and midterms were helpful where he could do more examples and summarize concepts. The homework is time consuming but you get roughly 2 weeks per assignment to complete it. He also uses an improvement grading style where only your best midterm is counted and if your final exam grade is higher than your best midterm then that counts for both your final exam grade and midterm grades. Usually on midterms and the final he will include a problem that's similar to the homework. Overall Milchberg is a nice professor and wants to help his students.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-05T23:29:02Z'}], 'name': 'Howard Milchberg', 'slug': 'milchberg'}, {'courses': ['ENGL498', 'ENGL689', 'ENGL789', 'ENGL352'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Howard Norman', 'course': 'ENGL352', 'review': 'Professor Norman is a very laid back and friendly teacher. He is interested in developing your talents and working with you on the subjects you are interested in.\r\n\r\nI was delighted that he allowed us to submit pieces of whatever we were working on instead of demanding we create new work just for him; this allowed everyone to get valuable critique on the pieces they care about.\r\n\r\nSome people dislike how extremely laid back he can be, but I think that if you have the drive to be working on your own work, he is a good support, and will do what he can to take it to the next level.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-02T14:02:08Z'}], 'name': 'Howard Norman', 'slug': 'norman_howard'}, {'courses': ['HIST201', 'HIST289V', 'HONR238R', 'HONR348J', 'HIST266', 'HIST357', 'BSST288R', 'EXST030', 'HIST201', 'HIST357', 'BSST288R', 'HIST200', 'HIST201', 'HIST266', 'HIST357', 'HIST200', 'HIST201', 'HIST289V', 'HIST357', 'HIST357', 'HIST357', 'HIST357', 'HNUH268K', 'HIST201', 'HIST219Q', 'HIST266', 'HIST357'], 'average_rating': 4.5357, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST289V', 'review': "I had to create an account just to review this man. Hands down, no question about it, the BEST professor at this school. I am currently taking him for HIST289V after I had him for 201. He is even better this semester than he was the last, partially because his TAs were terrible last semester. However, he is always happy, cracking jokes, talking about interesting current events, etc. I have only missed his class once all semester, and I wish I didn't even miss that class. He is a ray of sunshine. You should really take one of his classes at some point during your college career even if you don't have to", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-13T13:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Smead is an absolute delight! You may think the subject of history is boring but honestly his lectures are pretty interesting. He also has a great sense of humor and throws in jokes here and there and that can make the lectures fun. \n\r\nThe coursework is not a heavy load - 2 midterms, 1 final, and your discussion grade.\n\r\nI honestly would have aced this class but it was my discussion part that killed me. I had Greg as a TA and he talked so much and we barely had time to participate.. so yeah participate for sure every week in discussion.\n\r\nOtherwise, this class is great! A great, light class if you are looking for something to fulfill a GenED credit. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-05-12T12:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST289V', 'review': 'Smead is alright. Pretty funny, but he knows nothing about technology and usually spends the first few minutes of class figuring out everything again. The class topic itself "What Does it Mean to be an American?" is weird. It\'s basically an overview of U.S. history with some highlights on what people thought of the general populous and how that\'s changed. I find it pretty easy and sometimes enjoyable. Some of the TAs seem kinda uptight and snobby, but others are pretty nice. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-03-27T19:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HONR348J', 'review': 'Dr. Smead is a really knowledgeable and nice professor. The class consists of a weekly 2 page reflection paper. Overall the papers are fine but he tends to randomly assign grades without much explanation which is annoying. You MUST talk during the in class discussion or you will receive a B. Overall very interesting class, and definitely an easy A and not stressful at all.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-15T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Strongly recommend taking a class with Smead. Funny and entertaining lecturer where I wish HIST201 was longer than 50 minutes, makes a potentially dull class/lecture very exciting and interesting. Terrorism seminar is also highly recommended - not a lot of work needed to be done while still being interesting and informative for people with little subject knowledge. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-14T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': None, 'review': 'I strongly dislike history, but Dr. Smead tries to make this class as engaging and informative as possible. I’m going to be blunt- I took this class because I had a heavy semester and I needed a GenEd course that was an easy A, and reviews told me that this class would get me one. However, I barely scraped an A- because I hardly participated in class. Dr. Smead is serious when he says discussion is a big part of your grade. He’s a very easy grader for the three essays and one presentation you have to give, but don’t slack on the discussion part. He makes a note every time you participate in discussion, so say something at least once every class to ensure you get an A. There is hardly any work for this class actually, just three essays and a presentation for the whole semester. If I wasn’t being a prick and doing work for other classes during this class, I probably would have learned a bit. Then again, I’m not a fan of history, but if you enjoy your history, I recommend this professor because he knows his shit.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-06-30T23:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "Amazing!! Professor Smead lectures as if he's telling a story. He doesn't put much information on his powerpoints, but you get used to that quickly. He always seems so interested in what he is teaching. I actually looked forward to his lectures. The class was only 3 exams and reading several books. The books were relatively short and interesting, but you need to stay on top of the syllabus because they won't warn you that you have to read an entire book by next class. Strongly recommend for history and non-history majors. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-21T21:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Smead is a great lecturer. He knows his stuff and goes through the PowerPoints quickly. Exams are very straight to the point and the TAs are all very good. Smead offers 5 percent added to your grade at the end if you send a weekly email for the semester about a topic you learned about. Lots of books to read though.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-05-01T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Dr. Smead is a great lecturer and he seems like a nice guy. He brings a great energy to every lecture. I would definitely recommend him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-11-19T18:52:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Lectures are very entertaining, but for each exam, you have to write two essays which can be stressful if you are not the best writer', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-18T04:43:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "Best lecturer I've had at the university. The only reason I'm not giving him 5 stars is that he leaves too much up to his TAs. This means that lots of grading is inconsistent and things can take a long time to get back to you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-15T19:11:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Great professor. Dr. Smead was one of the best and most entertaining professors I had at UMD. He somehow made history entertaining. A lot of grading is dependent on the TA, however. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-01T02:03:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "Prof. Smead is ok! I took his class in Spring 2020, so I did not get to experience his in-person discussions. He really knows his stuff and is interesting to listen to if you have all day...but if you don't, I recommend listening to his lectures at 1.5-2x speed. He often goes off on tangents which can be frustrating when you're not interested in the subject but I imagine could be interesting if you are. He's a goldmine of knowlege for sure. My main complaint would be that he leaves so much up to his TAs - they can make or break a class. My TA, Kyle Stelzer, was ok but didn't respond to emails very quickly. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-03T13:37:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST357', 'review': "his lectures were engaging - hes very dry and sarcastic in an old man way and it made it more interesting. read the books and listen to the lectures and you should be fine even though it's time consuming. he was laid back regarding late work which was appreciated. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-11T16:37:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HONR238R', 'review': "Difficulty: 2.5/5 \r\nInterest: 4/5 \r\n\r\nProfessor Smead is a great lecturer, and he is very willing to speak his mind while never crossing lines into being preachy or imposing his will unduly on students. The assignments were reasonable and interesting; they consisted of: a presentation and corresponding term paper, two brief reflections, a journal of our thoughts on the course, and a dropped participation grade. The grading was pretty fair with good feedback in a reasonable amount of time. It being during COVID and him not being the best with technology plus the class being in person yet most students phoning in through Zoom definitely hurt the experience because of reduced participation, but that is not his fault by any means, and we still had good discussions, just more often with him as the interlocutor than students amongst themselves. I would recommend taking this class in particular and Prof. Smead's in general. Unfortunately, I believe this particular course will only be offered once more, but if you enjoy history or foreign affairs, or have an interest in terrorism or philosophy or sociology, or just want a solid HONR class for the citation, then consider this. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-14T07:34:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Good class, really interesting. Two essays, two midterms and a final. We were behind though, and missed like 3 weeks worth of content. Other than that really solid class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-04T13:16:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'BSST288R', 'review': "Course was interesting and I appreciated Professor Smead's commentary, but it was clear that he played favorites with students. He also provided no feedback on written assignments, and when asked to elaborate on the grade received, gave no helpful information.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T19:36:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST266', 'review': "Smead is the GOAT, man. There's not a better lecturer in the history department. There may not be a better lecturer at this entire university. Sometimes the slides could be better organized, that's the only complaint I have. Otherwise, Smead is just the best. His lectures are excellent, and the workload is more or less nonexistent, both for this class and his 300 levels like 357. Three exams and some discussion boards, that's it. No papers, no projects, no participation grades, nothing like that. This is the ideal way to run a history class. I wish Howard Smead taught more classes because I'd gladly take them.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-18T21:22:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "Professor Smead is really really nice and he makes his class interesting. He gets sidetracked pretty easily, especially if someone asks a question. We were supposed to cover post-civil war America all the way to Trump but we hardly made it to Vietnam, so we missed a lot. I don't mind this because it made us have to study less for the final. Discussion awards points based on participation. There are 2 essays and 2 midterms but everything is graded by the TA, so it's usually lenient. I recommend this class and professor Smead", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-22T02:09:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST266', 'review': 'He is a great professor but this class is hard tho. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-26T17:25:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Dr. Smead is a great lecturer. His slides are very informative and great materials to prepare for the exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-02T17:45:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST357', 'review': "I really enjoyed Dr. Smead's lectures, although he can get off on tangents, it is always really interesting info or facts that I never knew. However, he lost some stars for me because although the information itself is very interesting, we got very behind in class, like weeks behind. We were doing discussion posts about Obama when we were still learning about Reagan. It was hard to get 100 on those when you haven't learned the material yet. Like I said, super interesting info, and really enjoyed his teaching style and him as a person, but being behind the syllabus wasn't a good experience.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-06T17:57:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great prof who is passionate about what he teaches which makes sure all the students excited to learn ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-05T18:11:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "He is a pretty good teacher most of the time, but there are some days we he just randomly Strats listing event after event with no explanation. Your TA kind of dictates your class. \r\nOnly 2 tests, a final and a discussion grade so you have to do well on the tests, but I found them incredibly hard. You get 2 hours to write 2 essays on undisclosed questions. If you're good at history and a good writer, definitely take this class because there is minimal work. However, if you are not one of those, AVOID", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-13T01:05:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Smead is a fun guy. As a lecturer, I thought he was interesting, funny, and informative. Some lectures can be a bit boring, while others will be more fun but that is just how a history class usually goes. Attendence is not mandatory, and all my lectures were recorded so if you missed class, you could just watch the recording on your own time. Overall, I definitely recommend Smead, you cannot go wrong with him as your professor.\r\n\r\nBut there is a reason that I put 4 stars:\r\n\r\nThe only issue with this class is that there are 2 exams, a final, and a discussion grade. So you need to do well on each exam and discussion to get an A- or better. Therefore, show up to every discussion and make sure to prepare well for all exams. The TA grades everything that you write (including your tests) so make sure that if you have any clarifying questions that you ask your TA first. Tests are usually 2 essay questions. Other than tests and the occasional discussion response paper, work is very minimal just make sure to look at the syllabus ocassionally to make sure that you are not missing any required readings.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T04:47:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': 'Professor Smead is such a passionate lecturer, which makes his class engaging. I was not expecting to enjoy attending this class because I find that learning about history can sometimes be a bit boring, however, he made learning about these topics very interesting and exciting for someone who is not very passionate about the subject. There were two exams, the final, and one discussion post a week responding to a question. I never once felt overwhelmed by the work given in this class. He would always describe his exams as essay questions, but he really just wanted however much you felt it took to answer the question.\r\nTo be completely honest, I never read either textbook (American Yawp and Voices of Freedom) because everything I needed to complete each discussion post was already covered in the lecture. He tends to get sidetracked and often did not finish the slides as he intended, but since my class had a weird 45-minute class time with an additional hybrid component, we were able to cover everything in online recorded lectures that he would post.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-20T17:04:01.943279Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "Dr Smead's lectures were interesting but he would never make it through all of the material he intended too. Lots of tangents and he would show up to lecture 5 minutes late every day. Class was supposed to make it to 9/11 but we only made it to Watergate. Class consisted of 2 exams and a final (all essay based) and weekly discussion sections with one mini essay. As long as you do everything you are guaranteed an A or a B.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T02:40:18.545471Z'}, {'professor': 'Howard Smead', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Will never answer your emails, but love the guy nonetheless. His lectures are extremely engaging, and if you have any interest in history whatsoever you\'ll definitely like 201. It might differ from TA to TA, but my only assignments were 2 midterms, a final, and a graded essay (which lumps into your discussion grade). This is nice in terms of workload, but it puts all the focus on the exams when it comes to determining your final grade. I found the exams to be difficult (2-3 essays within a tight time limit), but doable as Smead "does not have a policy on notes during exams".', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T20:50:53.757519Z'}], 'name': 'Howard Smead', 'slug': 'smead'}, {'courses': ['BUAC784', 'BMGT323', 'BMGT220H', 'BUAC758T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Howard Weiner', 'slug': 'weiner_howard'}, {'courses': ['ECON435'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hsuan Yu', 'slug': 'yu_hsuan'}, {'courses': ['ENSE698B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Huan Xu', 'slug': 'xu_huan'}, {'courses': ['MATH241H', 'MATH310', 'MATH141H', 'MATH808G', 'MATH406', 'MATH405'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Huanchen Bao', 'course': 'MATH141H', 'review': "I would not recommend taking the honors version of math141 if you can avoid it. Dr. Bao was a brand new professor when I took him for math141H, and so I give him credit for trying to adjust to his new teaching role. However, he was not very good at explaining and his exams were really tough. Half way through the semester he stopped giving students partial credit on their work and that was my downfall. He curved really generously though because I should've failed his class and instead ended with a C. He's a really nice guy and I could tell he was trying, but overall would not want to have him again. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-11-02T20:16:05Z'}], 'name': 'Huanchen Bao', 'slug': 'bao_huanchen'}, {'courses': ['BIOE241', 'BIOE463', 'BIOE604'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hubert Montas', 'course': 'BIOE241', 'review': "If you don't walk out of his class without having laughed your ass off, and 1 or 2 funny things to say, you have no soul whatsoever. I can't stress enough how hysterical this guy's mannerisms become after awhile. I didn't learn anything, but it was the easiest A I've ever had. It was worth it to go to class just to listen to his ridiculous and bizarre references to things that had absolutely nothing to do with the class. He is my capstone adviser now. . . not sure if that was a good idea, but I bet it will be hilarious nonetheless.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-14T02:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hubert Montas', 'course': 'BIOE241', 'review': 'What a unique professor - this guy might be one of the craziest people I\'ve ever met. He makes terrible jokes, and will randomly bust out into creepy laughter. However, BIOE241 is a decent course. I came into the course with zero programming experience, and have come out learning a lot. The course is divided into two halves - C, and then MATLAB. The class is "easy", but you still have to put work into it. All of the lecture notes are online, which are important to read. The tests were open note/internet (NOT open people) and were easy if you came to lecture, did the homework, and read the online notes. Every once in a while there would be some really challenging problem on the homework, but otherwise it was not bad.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-19T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hubert Montas', 'course': 'BIOE241', 'review': "hahaha funny guy and really approachable too. if you've taken C before, this class will be easy. if you havent, then the class will suck balls at least until you get to MATLAB. exams were open book, open notes, and open internet.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-17T18:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hubert Montas', 'course': None, 'review': "Very smart guy, class is enjoyable. One of the few classes (BIOE471) I am taking this semester that students regularly attend. Still helpful to read the textbook because the class covers a lot of material. Exams are fair, aren't meant to be tricky, but tend to be long and require understanding the material well. Keep up with the hw because it does end up affecting your grade", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-10T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hubert Montas', 'course': 'BIOE241', 'review': 'Very funny and seemingly high on life all the time.\n\r\nMontas was VERY helpful for homework and any other help you could ask for.\n\r\nHW and projects were fair, easy if you had help from him or the TA.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-01T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hubert Montas', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Montas is hilarious. Although he seems pretty whacked-out most of the time, he can be quite helpful if you can get him to focus on your question (might take a few tries). He definitely knows his stuff, and he's a great resource for questions about analog and digital electronics, as well as anything computer-related.\n\r\nENBE/BIOE 241 is a very easy class. The tests are open-book, open-note, and open-internet. He posts all of his lectures online, so you can look at them while you take his exams. Homeworks and project weren't hard, either.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-12-17T19:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hubert Montas', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Montas rocks. His class is really easy and its not really necessary to go to lectures, but he is a riot. What other professor would share a pizza recipe with a class for 30 minutes? He really really knows his stuff and you can surprisingly learn quite a bit if you wanted to.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-10-29T23:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hubert Montas', 'course': 'BIOE241', 'review': "Went to lecture only about 4 times. Montas tends to ramble/mumble about MATLAB, C, the moon, or whatever else is on his mind that day. He has a quirky sense of humor if you get it (I didn't). Lectures are posted online. There is a weekly homework assignment, midterm/final, and a project. Midterm and final are open-internet/notes so they aren't really a problem.\n\r\nIf you already have had exposure to C and MATLAB, then this class isn't worth attending. If you haven't, use your class time to read through Montas' notes instead of listening to him-you'll learn more.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-10-23T11:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hubert Montas', 'course': 'BIOE241', 'review': 'love this guy', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-17T03:46:16Z'}], 'name': 'Hubert Montas', 'slug': 'montas'}, {'courses': ['ENME672', 'ENME489Y', 'ENME489Z', 'ENME676', 'ENMA300', 'ENME470', 'ENME808Q', 'ENME808Y', 'ENME382', 'ENME489L', 'ENME472', 'ENME444', 'ENME444', 'ENME413'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hugh Bruck', 'slug': 'bruck'}, {'courses': ['BMGT198F', 'BMGT372', 'BMGT110F', 'BULM758G', 'BMGT375', 'BMGT372M', 'BMGT110', 'BUSO751', 'BMGT372M', 'BMGT110', 'BMGT372'], 'average_rating': 4.44, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': None, 'review': 'Hugh Turner is a very cool guy and professor. I had him for a blended learning class that met once a week at 8am. He brought bagels/croissants/ muffins, coffee, and orange juice for us because of the early morning time (he does not do this for later classes). The class time was spent generally reviewing material, going over "business news," sometimes watching videos. It was not overall helpful for the tests. Both the midterm and the final ask VERY specific questions from the textbook, especially regarding vocabulary. Each is on around 7-10 chapters of material so there are probably 200+ words to know for each test (many are common sense, don\'t worry). But the tests (50 multiple choice) are hard to get an A on, and he can be pretty harsh on participation points. Make sure you speak to an obnoxious degree in class to get that grade boost. Otherwise, there is a group project that ends up being a long paper and an in-class presentation. But he makes you complete it in pieces throughout the semester so it isn\'t so bad at the end. The LearnSmart 100-200 questions per week are time consuming, but it is a completion grade that as long as you finish (with limitless attempts to each question), you will get a 100. Overall I really like him as a person and he is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about the subjects, but this class will involve a lot of independent work. Do not expect to walk out of lecture prepared to get an A. I tend to be an A student, and I barely got there for this class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-07-13T11:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Don't take Hugh. In the blended learning class you meet once per week and the whole class is a waste of time. All we did was watch 60 minutes videos and talk about news. Each week you are assigned a tedious 100-200 questions online. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-01-20T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "I had him in a blended learning class once a week at 8am. We got breakfast, consisting of muffins, bagels, OJ, and coffee. The class was basically just an opportunity to ask questions. If people ran out of questions, he would dismiss a little early or show a video that he planned on showing. He recorded his lectures and expects you to listen to them on your own. There were a few questions in the exam on info in them so if you want to get an A, you should take the 30-45 min it takes to listen to it. Homework each week consisted of one or two learnsmarts consisting of 100 questions each. The class it literally just vocab, so flashcards are your friend. He only curves for certain questions that are bad. One final, midterm, and a group project (paper). He's a nice guy and knowledgable. I just can't give him 5 stars when he doesn't actually teach you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-23T02:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Very engaging and cares about his students. You can tell he's passionate about business, especially SCM.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-10-21T18:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is the man. I had Turner for two classes my freshman year and I cannot say enough great things about this guy. Just a wonderful professor, very approachable, and an excellent teacher. Class is always fun and interesting and he always makes us laugh. All his tests are fair and if you prepare for them you will do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-27T02:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': None, 'review': "In short, this man is da bomb. Extremely chill and down to earth. For BMGT110, he assigns mass amounts of reading for each class but you really only need to get the basic idea and review bold (and italicized) terms. You watch some interesting movies in class that he knows are not too exciting but it all helps provide you with a basic insight into what business actually is, and that's what this course is all about", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "Professor Turner is one of the best professors I've had. He really knows what he's talking about, and is very passionate about SCM. Funny and very nice guy, too.\n\r\nThe course is fairly easy, and professor will do what he can to make things easier. There were two tests, midterm and final. All multiple choice, all straight out from his study guide. Also, a group project on a subject of your choice and an essay on one of two topics he will give you.\n\r\nHighly recommended.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-17T16:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'Like the other reviewers have said, Prof. Turner is very knowledgeable and passionate about the subjects he teaches. However the cause of my lower-than-average grade was due to the very large amount of vocabulary and readings that are included in the tests. It was hard to judge what material to study, since we had a textbook, packet, as well as a nonfiction book readings included in the tests. This, along with the multiple choice nature of the tests (no partial credit) made it easy to do poorly on tests. If you did poorly on the two exams, you have little to no chance to bring your grade up because there were a total of 4 grades including the tests. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-01-25T02:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Very easy course by a really knowledgable professor. You don't really have to go to class ever because he puts all of the slides online and the tests are almost only just vocabulary. \n\r\nTurner is a really interesting guy. If you take the time to engage him you'll make the class a lot easier, and if you're interested in business the classes go by quickly. You'll often watch movies he selects from 60 minutes, and will tell you pretty much everything that's going to be on the test. Make sure you go to class later in the semester because he'll give you answers to questions on the final just for showing up.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-20T00:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Great professor, he really wants you to do well and he has your best interest in mind.\n\r\nNot a very hard class, you should definitely go to all the classes and pay attention. He posts the slides so you don't need to take notes necessarily, but you should definitely just pay attention to make sure you understand everything. And it's a small class, so it's not like a huge boring lecture. He also shows videos basically every other class, which is a really nice break and they are always relevant and interesting (usually 60 minutes pieces).\n\r\nHe tells you what you need to know for the tests which is helpful because there is often a lot of information and it's hard to determine what really matters and what he really cares about, but he makes it clear.\n\r\nNot a hard class, definitely a worthwhile class to take if you're interested in Business and want to get a general understanding of what it's all about. And if you're going to take the class, definitely take it with Turner--he's very knowledgeable, nice, and funny.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-30T19:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great professor who is very knowledgeable. He comes from a supply chain background, and loves talking about it. But he also does a very good job of explaining the other aspects of business. He helps you understand the material and not just know it. \n\r\nYou need to do some studying if you want to do well in this class, but he tells you what terms to know from the book and make sure to study his powerpoints too. Overall, great professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-27T13:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'Professor Turner is awesome. Very knowledgable. Shows videos that are really interesting and does a good job bringing the material to life. Has great conversations with the class. One of my favorite classes, he is very approachable. Take him if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-04T23:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "I love this professor! He is able to bring in his personal experience working for Toys 'R Us into his lectures, and obviously has a great knowledge and passion for all aspects of business. While I already knew a lot of what he was teaching I still found the class enjoyable and compelling - his enthusiasm is enough to make me think twice about being in Supply Chain and Information Systems!\n\r\nAs long as you attend class and read the textbooks (don't need to take notes unless you have a really bad memory when it comes to vocabulary), and participate in the group project, you should come out with a big fat plump A.\n\r\nA great course for anyone who wants to learn how to read the business section of the newspaper and learn about all the majors offered at the business school!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-01T17:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': None, 'review': 'Amazing professor. I would definitely take another course with him if I was a supply chain management major. Turner explains everything and loves to just talk with his students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-27T13:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': None, 'review': 'BMGT386: Pay $800, get 3 Credits for doing an internship. 1 page a week, evaluation, and final paper (combining the one pages a week :). Prof is kool, dont stress.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-07T04:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Cool guy. He's really into music (an audiophile), thus he can't hear very well. Didn't find the material too interesting but lecture wasn't bad as he showed several videos. Tests were pretty easy if you just read. Multiple choice questions and an essay to write from a choice of two.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-08T02:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT298F', 'review': "Had him for 110 and 298. Prof Turner cares that you do well. Tests are easy if you study for them for even just a little bit of time. The classroom experience really depends on you and your classmates. If you participate, class doesn't seem so bad. If you don't, class can seem to drag on forever. Likes to show clips from 60 Minutes that relate to the topic you're learning about which are usually interesting.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-02T00:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Very enjoyable class. Didn't find the course material too interesting, but Professor Turner is the man. Easy grader, very funny, showed many videos in class, and just a very nice and knowledgeable teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-28T20:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': None, 'review': "Hugh Turner was the best professor ever. Great personality and approachable. He's funny too. You can talk to him about almost anything without feeling uncomfortable. Class was easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-29T06:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "The blended learning class you don't really learn much, and he gives you no type of preparation for the exam so you just have to have really good memorization skills. He has also never done that whole breakfast thing for us, not even the first class. I think he's a good person but the class was kind of tedious for no reason. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-23T22:48:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'The in class lectures 9.9/10 times were a complete waste of time and rather annoying to go to especially since they were all at 8am regardless of the section you chose. He did an awful job at preparing students for the exams since he would direct us to look over 400+ terms in the back of the textbook. In the end, the exams were either hit or miss depending on how you studied. We also had a business proposal that ended up being 10-12 pages, but it did not weigh much at all which is frustrating given the amount of work put in for it. I do not recommend taking Turner. Very boring especially early in the morning, and grades harshly for attendance/participation points.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-22T18:10:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'Hugh Turner is a great guy and very smart professor. Does not give too much work and the exams are not too bad. He is pretty laid back and understanding. I definitely recommend taking him for BMGT110F', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-27T23:15:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'really chill professor. took the blended version of bmgt110f, which is great because you only go to class once a week. thus, most assignments are done online. the midterm and final require lots of straight up memorization though. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-20T18:41:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Prof. Turner's A-synch class was pretty boring and I didnt feel like I gained much from it but it was an easy A. the weekly readings were long but everything was completion based in the class which helped raise your grade. It is a pretty easy A as long as you do the work. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-31T17:01:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Hugh Turner', 'course': 'BMGT372M', 'review': 'I had Professor Turner for BMGT372M and he was a decent professor. He had prerecorded lecture videos that we would have to watch each week, but for some weeks the videos were from other professors from the past. An important thing to note about the course was that the assignments are weighted very specifically. For the three activities that you have to do for the class, they make up a significant amount of your grade, and the feedback that he gave for the assignments was very minimal. Overall, the class was not too bad and Turner is fine, but I do think that there are easier options for classes in the general business minor. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T05:11:38Z'}], 'name': 'Hugh Turner', 'slug': 'turner_hugh'}, {'courses': ['BUSI667', 'BMGT868M', 'BUMO758L', 'BMGT868P', 'BUMO767', 'BMGT868V', 'BUMO796', 'BMGT868C', 'BMGT828V', 'BUMO758J', 'BUSI758N', 'BMGT364', 'BMGT364', 'BMGT364', 'BMGT868V', 'BMGT364'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Hui Liao', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "In short, I would not recommend this professor. \r\nFor further detail, she has a TA do all of the correspondence, absence excusing, and grading. Students should not have divulge personal reasons for absence to a fellow student (TA). On top of that, the TA was a bit of a picky grader. \r\nYou have to jump through hoops if you miss class because there are a lot of participation points in attendance. The amount of points per class appears to be arbitrarily applied.\r\nConcepts that are surface-level covered for a paragraph or two in the textbook will pop up in quizzes and exams requiring you to apply the information in deeper concepts than you were taught, so they don't make sense.\r\nFor a low level class, there are too many assignments and too much application needed.\r\nShe seems very nice in class and tries to be engaging. No so much in virtual correspondence, but that may just be because it's virtual.\r\nShe speaks pretty quietly so it's hard to pay attention.\r\nFinal exam prep is a joke. One class was labeled as a review class, and all she did was hand out a printed piece of paper with the chapter objectives on it and told us when the exam was. No review, no specific material to cover, except to tell us the final would cover the entire textbook (which has an enormous of subjects, concepts, subconcepts, rules, applications, and terms similar to others that mixing up would make you wrong). Out of a class of over a hundred, where 90% of the questions were multiple choice not a single student even got a 90. Even though you could have a sheet of notes. That's not a student problem. She seems really knowledgeable on the subject matter, but may be more a professional than a teacher.\r\nYou can get an A in this class. But you will hate the process.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-25T02:50:05.452361Z'}], 'name': 'Hui Liao', 'slug': 'liao_hui'}, {'courses': ['BMGT110F', 'BULM758B', 'BULM758K', 'BMGT372', 'BULM758Q', 'BULM700', 'BULM701', 'BUSM758X', 'BUSI672', 'BUSO713', 'BUSO751', 'BULM700', 'BULM701', 'BUSO751', 'BMGT372', 'BUSO713', 'BMGT372', 'BUSO713', 'BULM700', 'BULM701', 'BULM721'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Humberto Coronado', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': 'Honestly, I don\'t even know where to start. The professor didn\'t seem to fully grasp the concepts he was teaching, and the "correct" answers on his quizzes were frequently vague or blatantly wrong. I remember one question asking "Which of these is an expensive way to ship?" Answers: Freight, flight, boat. The \r\n answer was boat but wtf okay I guess.\r\nOh yeah, and he recycles most of his quiz and exam questions from previous semesters. It\'s a classic situation of an easy class conceptually with lengthy and confusing multiple choice questions that make up 100% of the grade.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-10-28T18:25:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Humberto Coronado', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': 'The previous review is a bit harsh but it is a situation where it is an easy class with lots and lots of concepts/topics that only have quizzes and exams as your grade. The topics/concepts are honestly very very basic and easy, the problem is that the professor goes on forever about them. His philosophy is that he drills the concepts in your head till you honestly do not need to study that hard to do well on the quizzes. But the problem is that he repeats things constantly and it is very hard to stay motivated and pay attention to class. His quizzes are also recycled and are mostly on Quizlet so you can study for those before going to class as prep. Though, some questions are a bit tricky and do not genuinely test the students\' understanding (strange wording and some "kinda right" answers to trick you). \r\n\r\nHe claims that you can earn the grade you want in the class by signing up for presentations (15 min ones you present to the class) but he is kind of slow on answering emails and queues you weirdly with the other students who are desperately trying to up their grades. I also feel like he favors some supply chain major students more which can be unfair if you are trying to sign up presentations and you can get bumped down.\r\n\r\nI really do not see the reason to go to class if you do read the textbook on your own time, the chapters are kind of long but the classes you go to is him basically reading textbook slides (he does not share his slides) and him verbally drilling things into you. He is a great lecturer but after sitting through it for almost an entire semester of him projecting loudly, it gets very tiring and boring. He has a no laptop policy (except when we have quizzes) and wants you to do handwritten notes (unless you have accommodations) which is his attempt in keeping your attention. I would be more ok with the class if I can type my notes and do other work because it is honestly a waste of time to sit through class. I am glad I read the textbook on my own time since he zooms through concepts or goes through the same concept for 20 minutes. \r\n\r\nI would not recommend taking him but if you need a relatively chill class and ok doing work outside of class, this class is good. I am not a supply chain major but he is good at explaining and breaking things down for you and the topic is relatively interesting if you want a taste. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-04-25T15:57:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Humberto Coronado', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "I really enjoyed this class, as stressful as it was. Professor Coronado is funny, engaging, and knows supply chain management inside and out. My best advice is read the chapters slowly and carefully, and utilize quizlet for all the terminology (there are already quizlets made for this specific class). Another thing: watch out for the quizzes. Each point counts, so make sure you know what material will be covered and make sure you know it well. \r\nThe class becomes super engaging after the first couple weeks; conversations about current supply chain developments and course material were interesting and useful. Professor Coronado is a great, really friendly guy who cares about his students—he constantly reminded us that he is willing to help out with any questions, whether it is about class/connections/careers/etc. \r\nSome of his quiz questions could sway to one answer or another, but he encourages you to email him and argue for your answer choice to try to get your points back.\r\nAlso, book the extra credit presentations early. Spots will fill up quickly, and I'd recommend presenting at least once in each half of the semester so that you have some level of comfort going into the exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-07-14T20:02:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Humberto Coronado', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "This is a great class content-wise, it's useful for pretty much all majors and it's not super difficult to understand concepts. Exam questions are very different from quiz questions and the exams are difficult to understand. The wording of exam questions is pretty confusing. He does extra credit in the form of optional class presentations. Not all sections are at the same pace so you should try to go to your section only. If you miss class, it is difficult to catch back up. The textbook is hardly used and very lengthy. Everything we learn is in his presentations which are based on the textbook but he doesn't post the ppt on Canvas. Professor is very bad with technology, be prepared to wait months for grades to be posted and last minute assignments. For example, at home quizzes are only available for 24 hours but they are only 5 questions. Our section 0201 is way behind the syllabus like 4 classes behind due to him explaining every slide for 5 minutes. He tries to include everyone and ask the class questions so you won't be bored or fall asleep. He is overall a great guy and very passionate about what he teaches. He's also willing to network with students and provide you with professional opportunities if you ask. There is no writing assignments in the class, he hates reading essays and short answers so exams and quizzes are all multiple choice. That being said, our section was the first to use VR headsets as an additional module so we had to write warehousing reports almost every week, which he slowly grades. My group didn't really like the VR module though because it was completely outside of class and didn't tie in with class material well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-04-03T17:13:47.864253Z'}], 'name': 'Humberto Coronado', 'slug': 'coronado'}, {'courses': ['KORA101', 'KORA102'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Hyojin Jeong', 'slug': 'jeong'}, {'courses': ['PUAF780', 'PUAF790', 'PUAF700', 'PLCY699W', 'PLCY780', 'PLCY790'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'I M Mac Destler', 'slug': 'destler'}, {'courses': ['MUSC129G', 'MUSC629G', 'MUSC129G', 'MUSC629G', 'MUSC129G', 'MUSC629G', 'MUSC129G', 'MUSC629G', 'MUSC129G', 'MUSC629G'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'I Suadin', 'course': 'MUSC129G', 'review': 'TAKE. THIS. CLASS. SO much fun! yes, thursday nights suck but you can go to class then go out or whatever. end of the semester concert is an amazing experience, get fully dressed up in costume etc and perform for friends and family, no pressure, just fun! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'I Suadin', 'course': 'MUSC629G', 'review': 'Best professor for an elective I have EVER had. Guaranteed A if you make the effort, and its only once a week. Everyone who comes to a majority of the classes and performs at the end of the semester (its not bad) gets an A. He is a very nice professor and you can tell he cares about the students. I definitely want to take this class again!!! And seats will soon open up to 30 so dont worry and get on the waitlist!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-12T20:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'I Suadin', 'course': 'MUSC129G', 'review': "The professor for this class is awesome. The grading for this class is entirely through attendance and going to the final concert. The professor is always in the best mood and just wants to have fun even. Even if you aren't great at playing the instrument that's okay he just wants people to enjoy the class and show up. At most you can miss two classes and you must go to the final concert. Overall class is an easy A/ 1 credit course. Highly recommend if you want a stress free class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-12T23:27:42.285722Z'}], 'name': 'I Suadin', 'slug': 'suadin'}, {'courses': ['PHYS401', 'PHYS731', 'PHYS402', 'PHYS165', 'PHYS404', 'PHYS798G', 'PHYS474', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS273H'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ian Appelbaum', 'course': 'PHYS402', 'review': "One of the best physics lecturers I had: 1)extremely thorough and clear presentation of QM, with lecture notes posted; 2)put effort into designing the course, supplementing Griffiths' textbook with his own derivations which are often more insightful; 3)challenging but well-written homework problems focusing on physics concepts. \r\nThat being said, he held (perhaps righteously) high standards for his students therefore gave difficult exams. But, even when the problem seemed really hard, you could manage to solve it if you followed and understood all his lecture notes (which I should have done but didn't). I definitely learned a lot in his class and did not regret taking him. It's not an easy ride, but neither is QM. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-11-20T12:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ian Appelbaum', 'course': 'PHYS402', 'review': "Probably the worst professor I've ever had. He had unrealistic expectations of the students, a monotonous classroom experience, and did not provide nearly enough support to his students. His exams were purposeful attempts to fool students, a fact of his teaching strategy that he shared with us.\r\nMoreover, he made me really dislike QM, something I would have thought impossible.\n\r\nAvoid at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-11-20T00:29:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ian Appelbaum', 'slug': 'appelbaum'}, {'courses': ['FIRE151', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE251', 'FIRE309', 'AREC453', 'FIRE120H', 'INST408G', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE398', 'FIRE120'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ian Page', 'slug': 'page_ian'}, {'courses': ['PHYS721'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ian Spielman', 'slug': 'spielman'}, {'courses': ['GVPT449C', 'GVPT846', 'GVPT241', 'GVPT289F', 'GVPT449D', 'GVPT449H', 'GVPT449G', 'GVPT442', 'GVPT449J'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ian Ward', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "I am a GVPT major, and not a huge fan of Political Philosophy. However, I think Dr. Ward did an effective job of teaching this class well. It may seem a little boring or dry at times, since he walks back and forth in front of the class lecturing about the readings, but if you pay attention, you will realize that he's providing very insightful thoughts on the assigned works, and it will be super useful when writing your essays. For the final essay, I went to his office hours a few times since I knew everyone would be going to see our TA (since he was the one grading it, not Dr. Ward), and Dr. Ward helped me out a lot with thinking of new ideas and analysis to put into my paper. My TA commented on my final paper that I had incorporated a lot of ideas he had not seen in any other papers, so lesson learned: go to your professor's office hours! Dr. Ward was a solid teacher, and if I had more interest in political philosophy, I would take another of his classes.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-10-02T11:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ian Ward', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "Ward is one of the most boring professors ive ever had. No strike that he is the most boring professor ive ever had. Every lecture is sitting in the class with the lights off while he rambles aimlessly about the book you're trying to read. His powerpoints do not add up to what he is saying at all and attending lectures is almost more harmful than beneficial to your knowledge of the reading. If it wasnt for my awesome TA I would be absolutely lost", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-04-24T07:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ian Ward', 'course': 'GVPT449C', 'review': "Dr. Ward is a highly intelligent, incisive, and erudite professor. Discussion plays a HUGE role in the course. If you register for this class, be ready to talk. A lot. Also, do the reading so you don't say stupid shit. He doesn't write your name down in his notebook (that's how he marks down your participation) unless you say something smart that demonstrates knowledge of the readings and attention to the class discussion. \r\nThe rest of the course is a long paper. I have heard some stories that Dr. Ward is a tough grader, and I certainly believe that he has a low tolerance for bullshit or poor writing abilities. Nevertheless, I felt that my paper wasn't exactly amazing and I managed to get an A plus somehow. The key might be thorough research. Finally, Dr. Ward is civil when it comes to turning in things a day or two late. Overall, great guy, loved his class, probably one of my favorites in college. Not an avalanche of work or anything, just make sure you participate in the discussions, do the readings(they aren't super long) and start the paper EARLY. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-02-07T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ian Ward', 'course': 'GVPT289F', 'review': 'Okay, so I took this class "Does Democracy Have A Future?" I thought it was going to be interesting, I\'m a government major, etc. Well, this class is awful. The topics are interesting, but Ward is so dry and boring. I found myself borderline tears in numerous lectures. If it is possible I will never EVER take a class with Ian Ward. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-18T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ian Ward', 'course': 'GVPT289F', 'review': "Professor Ward is a great speaker and presents himself as a well-defined expert in the field. Although I am rarely interested in politics, Ward did find essays that presented very interesting perspectives, sometimes long, but interesting nonetheless. Classes are generally not boring or dry, and Ward moves at a comfortable pace. The only negative thing I have experienced was an attempt to show up to office hours and he was not there. I did not hold it against him as he had a meeting that day that limited the time he was in his office, so I assumed the reason involved that, and I'm sure that it was probably the only office time he had missed.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-11-29T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ian Ward', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': 'Extremely boring and dry. Each lecture was like an essay being read to us. Nice guy, smart guy, not a good teacher...would avoid taking this course with him.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-08-26T17:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ian Ward', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "He's a nice guy who obviously knows his material well, despite the excessive notes that he reads off of during lecture. Bring a recorder and go through notes and lecture again afterwards- he is flowery in his explanations and you have to really listen to get at the core of what he's saying. He cancelled several lectures due to illness but covered the material well despite the many setbacks. Get Stephen Arves as a TA if you can", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-11-29T12:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ian Ward', 'course': 'GVPT449C', 'review': "Professor Ward is really smart- perhaps too smart. Many of his descriptions were a bit above me but he is a nice guy and very willing to help. Don't be afraid to go to his office hours. I got an A in the class and it was definitely the hardest-earned A I've ever gotten, I had to work for it but I felt intellectually challenged the whole way and definitely learned a lot. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-01T21:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ian Ward', 'course': 'GVPT449C', 'review': 'Definitely do the readings for this class! Professor Ward definitely notes who is speaking and who is not. He is very very smart and while I had no interest in democratic theory, his approach to the idea was very informative. He deconstructs the readings in very interesting ways that you cannot do on your own. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-07-11T13:52:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ian Ward', 'slug': 'ward_ian'}, {'courses': ['BSCI338P', 'BSCI433', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI338G', 'BSCI339Q'], 'average_rating': 4.1892, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "I do not recommend this professor. He seems like a very kind man who would be willing to go to great lengths for his students, but his lectures and exams were irreparable terrible. I unfortunately had his class for 1 hr 15 mins, and almost every time I nodded off, even though class would start at a reasonable hour. This may have been the sound system, but I could not make out what he was saying due to the slurring/lack of pronunciation. This made taking notes extremely difficult since he does not provide ANY substantial information on his slides. I absolutely hated going to class, made me more frustrated than anything else. \n\r\nHis exams, no matter how hard I prepared, always took me off guard. He doesn't test on actual material that you can study for, but rather he tests you on specific things he's said in lecture that are not included anywhere in his slides. One of his exam questions this semester was literally asking the species of animal examined in a specific case study mentioned once during a random lecture. If you happen to miss that one lecture, you missed 10% on the exam.\n\r\nLab is extremely easy, got 100% on every lab report. Only counts for 20% of the grade, so didn't make a difference. Ended up dropping because I couldn't take it any more and didn't want this to influence my GPA because of a bad professor. Want to take BSCI330? Don't take Ades.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2016-12-18T18:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "All of the below reviews are spot on: Professor Ades is incredibly intelligent and difficult. I am new to the university and transferred here from community college. To say the least, this class has challenged me to my core. While I have A's in the rest of my science classes, I am maintaining a mid-C in BCSI330 currently... and the final isn't even here yet (pray for me?)\n\r\nHis teaching style is definitely new to me. There is no book, only one that he recommends if you feel you need it. The slides are all pictures and only contain words if it's a chart describing a cellular process. I cannot stress enough how important it is to record all of the lectures. Without this, you're more than likely to miss many of the small details that he is bound to exam you on.\n\r\nHis exams are the hardest that I have ever experienced. I got a D on the first exam because I simply had no idea what to expect of a university exam and this was my first. The second exam I did about ten points better and received a mid C. I am currently waiting on the third exam grade to come back. Essentially, the lab portion of this class is saving me (I have received all A's in it).\n\r\nYou may be wondering now why I'm giving the Professor five stars... Well, it's because he is a phenomenal one. Sure, he is incredibly difficult, but it challenges you and makes you grow. Without a doubt, I've grown into a better student because of this class. The man is a genius and I take everything he says as a piece of gold. And not the colloidal gold he always talks about (take him and you'll get this joke).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-11-22T18:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "You won’t get an A unless you work your ass off. His exams are difficult, and if you slack on studying it will completely reflect in your grade. Write down everything he says in class, and record lectures, because he goes pretty fast. But the man knows his shit. Good prof to take if you’re premed. I’d take him again if I had the chance- he’s a hit or miss with some people, but if you know how to work hard, you’ll do very well. I actually looked forward to this class at 9 AM. Lab isn’t hard, it’s up to your TA’s niceness to determine your grade, but I haven’t heard of anyone having issues with it. He curved final grades by about 4% this semester because the average on the final was a D. But DO NOT rely on the curve, because rarely does that happen in a biology course. Questions? Go to office hours, he’s super nice. Good luck :D\n\r\nEDIT: I also took him again for BSCI433.\r\nAny class Ades teaches, you have to work for that A - that was to be expected. I learned a ton from this class and enjoyed it. However, in classic Ades fashion, he wrecked everyone on the final, but for final grades, he was really lenient. I had an A+ before the final that dropped to an A-, but he still gave me an A. I had a friend who even dropped from an A to a B+ but he still gave him an A. Honestly, study really hard for the first two exams and you’ll have a bit of a buffer for the final. Three exams determine your grade. If you did well in BSCI330 with him, I’d definitely recommend this class. If you're interested in cancer, I would also recommend it – you learn a lot of cool stuff! Its format is the same as BSCI330. To do well, write down pretty much everything he says in lecture and memorize it. Old exams probably won't do much for you other than get an idea of the format, because Ades creates his exams from scratch. Great prof, love that dude. It’s not too bad! Good luck :D", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-06-01T21:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Ades heavily emphasizes the experimental basis behind what he teaches--it's really interesting and useful. He doesn't read off a powerpoint (the power-points are largely graphics and pictures). Some students struggle with this but I think it makes lecture more interesting and makes it easier to focus on what he is saying. He also shows interesting videos fairly regularly.\n\r\n If you need to miss a class or two it's okay because chances are you can find at least 10 people who have a recording you can listen to. \n\r\nIn my opinion the midterms were very straightforward. He gives you study guide questions and 2 practice exams. If you do this with a buddy (or as a friend for their old guides) there is no reason you can't get 100 on the exams (especially since 10 points are pretty much added to every exam...for our second exam 15 points were added). Let me repeat this: if you do the study guide completely and verify your answers are correct you will be completely fine on the midterms.\n\r\nThe final is very detailed and a little vague but flash-cards really help for memorizing small things. The terms and specific wording he uses are important.\n\r\nOverall, if you're reading this review because you can't decide if you want to take Ades or not I would suggest do it. He is the nicest guy ever (I asked a question at the final exam viewing and he spent a while showing me the explanation for the correct answer and looking up pictures for me). He makes himself very available as well.\n\r\nJust remember to focus on details and complete the study guides and you'll get an A.\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-27T02:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Ades was an amazing professor. He was very knowledge of the subject and BSCI330 was one of the very few bio classes I looked forward to attending MWF at 9AM. Beginning of each lecture, he reviews the material he went through last lecture and then gives a quick of summary of what he is teaching us today. Class is total of 700 points (500 points come from lecture, 200 points come from lab). Doing well in lab totally depends on your TA and how hard he grades. If you have a hard TA, your lab grade will suffer. IF you have an easy TA, you will do tremendously better in lab. Lecture- there are 3 exams each worth 100 points and the final is 200 points. There is NO curve in the class (because for each of the 3 exams, there is a total of 110 points but he makes it out of 100 points only, so there are 10 point curves for each of the 3 exams). The final exam is very extremely difficult. Almost everyone going into the final pulled an all nighter. The final exam asks very, very specific details, so start studying early! \r\nBut overall, Ades was a pleasure to have as a Cell Bio professor. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-22T21:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI433', 'review': "I took Cell Biology with Dr. Ades a year and a half ago, and found that course exceedingly difficult for me to maintain a B in the class. After some time had passed and I was looking for electives to fulfill, I decided to take the Biology of Cancer course with Dr. Ades again, thinking perhaps I wasn't educationally mature enough the first time a took a class with him. By this time, I had really developed myself in this regard. Yet, a couple of classes in, there it was, the same feeling I had when I took his Cell Biology class. \n\r\nIt's interesting to me that so many people rate him so highly. I've been thinking that maybe his teaching style and my learning style simply don't coalesce or something. I do agree with many of the other posts made here, in that he is a nice professor who is very knowledgeable. I also agree with the number of people saying to write down everything that he says, maybe even record and relisten to the lectures.\n\r\nHis slides are rather lacking in substantial information. It's hard to supplement the missing information with outside sources because it's what he says the lecture that really matters, and it seemed that if what was said in the lecture wasn't caught and verbatim regurgitated onto the exam page in front of you, you would undoubtedly be marked off.\n\r\nOut of my entire undergraduate career, I have never had so much difficulty with a course. My confidence in what I thought to be appropriate and relevant to the topic did not in any way correlate with my performance on the exams. I have hardly ever felt confident going into one of his exams despite protracted studying, and have subsequently scored within the A, B, and C ranges. The one time I actually did feel very confident going into one of his exams, I nearly failed it. \n\r\nAt times I felt his questions were inappropriate, irrelevant, and arbitrarily finicky. At times I felt some questions were very relevant to the topic, and I assuredly respected those. I'm the kind of student that likes to come to class to study and learn the material through the coherency and forth-flowing logic of the teacher's lecture, and not feel as though I am entirely occupied as a scribe for his lecture that he could have preparedly articulated and have written it down so that, if need be, I can return to that material to supplement the lecture.\n\r\nIn summary, I was very disappointed with the learning experience in the teacher's class for both Cell biology and the Biology of Cancer.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-16T11:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Okay, so based on these reviews I came into this class thinking Ades was some demi-god or something. He wasn\'t superhuman or anything, just really chill. Out of the other professors at UMD, I think I liked Ades the best so far. I was aiming for an A+ in the class but the final was still a little too low, so it dragged me down just enough so I got an A. That being said, the class was NOT super easy. I think that it was moderately difficult. I invested many, many hours into studying for this class, as I do for all of my bio classes, but I wasn\'t freaking out about bombing like I did for some other bio courses.\n\r\nExams were not focused on details as much as I\'ve seen in some bio courses that I\'ve taken at the 300 level. I didn\'t listen to lectures in 330 because I never got a recorder, but it wasn\'t absolutely necessary -- I just wrote down EVERYTHING that Ades said. Ades likes to post slides that are mostly pictures, with very little text. This was frustrating for me, because he can be very repetitive, yet contradict himself in lecture, so you can\'t always just "check the slide" to see the right answer.\n\r\nOffice hours are held twice a week, usually right after class or a few hours after. These are group sessions where he meets with students in a conference room across from his office. I went several times to ask for clarification about his confusing/barely-touched-upon statements.\n\r\nAdes does NOT try to trick you. That actually made me mess up a little on the first exam, because I wasn\'t sure what to expect really. All short-answer for the 3 midterms, and all-MC final, ether 80 or 100 questions....I can\'t recall.\n\r\nAdes is a very gentle, polite, and nice man. He listens to you when you talk to him and lets you speak first, and is extremely respectful. He is very reasonable and I really enjoyed taking a class with him because he was so much more approachable than any of my other bio professors. He is not intimidating whatsoever.\n\r\nP.S. the lab is annoying and late labs (6-9 pm) is awful, but everyone has to take the lab section, so whatever. You\'ll survive. Averages on the practical were around a 40/50 or so, and yes everyone feels like they failed it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-07T00:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Ades was a pretty good lecturer. His lectures were straightforward, but definitely pay attention to the details. I found that his exams focused on details, often from one individual slide. The final was terrible. Despite being multiple choice, the questions were ridiculously hard. So definitely don't rely on the final saving you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-08-23T15:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "The best teacher I've had at UMD. I definitely learned more in this class than any other class. You absolutely must record the lectures and write everything he says, or be able to get every word he says in class. I did not do this for the first exam and got a C. I did do this for the next two exams and got 100% on both of them. The lab is a little harder than I expected, but it all depends on how hard your TA grades. The final is impossible. Do work on the 3 exams and the lab, to set yourself up so you can still get an A after the final.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-02-28T14:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Ades is a great lecturer. His exams are doable if you study hard. Make sure you take good notes and record the lecture or make friends with someone who does both. You can also play his lectures at 1.5x speed when relistening because he speaks so slow. Final is 100 multiple choice which covers everything so study early for that, especially if you're borderline. Lab was straightforward and easy but it can bring your grade down if you have a bad TA. Ades didn't offer 20 points extra credit this semester although the lab offered 7 points extra credit.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-18T13:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Terrific professor! Great lecturer and a fair grader. He even gave students to submit an extra credit video worth a maximum of +20 points (my group got +15, which definitely helped pull up one of my exam grades). It's very important to take good notes during lecture since the slides don't have all the details and he covers things that are not in the textbook. Make sure to learn all the details about the processes and structures he goes over! Also, don't take the final for granted; it is multiple choice but very comprehensive and brought a lot of people's grades down.\n\r\nLab portion obviously depends on the TA but I didn't think it was too bad. Assignments seemed to be graded pretty easily (at least in my section) and we weren't penalized when procedures didn't work as planned. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-16T18:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Great professor. Very straightforward. I took him last fall and I really did enjoy his lectures. 330 is definitely a challenging class but is an enjoyable one. He gave us an extra 10 percent on the exams, and the average my semester was really high (class average in the A's or something). I would have had an A if I didn't get lazy around the final. That's what brought a lot of people down, I think. It was multiple choice and very hard.\n\r\nThe way to do well in this class is to attend the lectures and pay close attention. What helped me was to record and listen to the lectures later on, re-writing the things I missed in my notes. This guy was so boss that he just talked like a living textbook, so every second of audio was useful and clear. Get some sleep so you can pay attention during lectures and ask questions! That's the way to get an A! If you understand all the concepts, it becomes easy.\n\r\nThe lab was pretty challenging too, but, like the lecture and any other challenging class, it was definitely doable. Definitely possible to get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-04-27T23:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "One of the most straight forward biology classes taught at UMD. BSCI330 by Ades is a class that if you put in the appropriate amount of effort, you are guaranteed to receive the grade you desire. There were three written exams (short answers) and a multiple choice final exam. All of the exams were incredibly straightforward (only if you studied all the material) and the questions tied the subject material together. There was a bonus project given where you could send a media presentation or anything to illustrate subject material. I believe the highest rated project was given a 20 point bonus.\n\r\nTeacher:\r\nAdes is a straightforward professor with a classy sense of humor. You can expect to come to class every time and get all the material you need. He does not go off on nonsense tangents and explicitly lets you know if something is going to be or not going to be on the exam. A lot of people missed a problem on the first exam where you had to draw the exact structure of a phospholipid because they thought Ades was joking. His lecture pace was comfortable for me, but I still used a recorder because there was so much information given out each lecture. \r\nIf you had questions about material, Ades had two office hour times per week. These are really Group style office hours where he goes in a circle answering everyone's questions until no one has any. Ades is a nice professor that is willing to help those who need it and wonderfully clarifies cloudy material. But I did notice he got a little annoyed when people would come in with simple questions that were clearly and explicitly clarified in lecture or even asked already by someone in lecture. \r\nHe also posted old exams with keys and review questions on blackboard, all extremely helpful material. \n\r\nMaterial:\r\nThe material is not hard but it is challenging; it just takes an effort on your part to keep up with material and take it all in. I highly suggest a recorder so you can go back on iffy spots and get clarification. If not, use office hours. Do not wait till the last minute to study as there is too much information unless you are aiming for a C or D. The overall class did extremely well this semester . For one test, I remember 50% of the class got 90 or above. But do not mistake that as a assumption that it is easy to get an A. 50% of the class did work hard and got the grade they wanted. It's as simple as that. Some exams were long and most students did not finish sometimes but the average was so high for those instances that a curve wouldn't be justified. \n\r\nLab Portion\r\nI would say that a large percentage of your lab grade depends on which TA you get. Some are easy going while others are unnecessarily harsh. There wasn't enough time to complete several labs but we weren't penalized for that. Do all the work and complete assignments on time and there should not be a problem on getting an A in the lab part (unless you get a bad TA or you turn in horrible quality lab reports). \n\r\nOverall\r\nSo there you have it. An straightforward class with resources like old exams and office hours as well as bonus opportunity to help you succeed. Based on this, there is absolutely no reason you can't do well if you want to. Great professor, great class, and the pay off of getting an A after all the work you put in at the end is enormously gratifying.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-02T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Very friendly and approachable guy. He tries to make himself available to students when they need help. During lectures, he often pauses to ask if students have questions\r\nThe class was very content heavy, but he tests mainly on lectures. It might help to record him since he has a bit of an accent. Details from reading the book help a lot- especially because he always has a bonus question at the end of midterms that are based on readings', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-21T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Ades is the man! He's an adorable little old guy who kind of looks like Professor Farnsworth from Futurama, but despite that he's really got it together.\n\r\n330 is not an easy class, but if you work your ass off and go to all of Ades' lectures, you should get an A. The averages on his exams were in the high 80s-90 range. He's very fond of going into excruciating detail on processes, so if he does, learn them. If you can absorb all of his lectures and everything they contain, you should have no problem in the class. \n\r\nBe careful about diseases he mentions- he usually puts a question about them on every exam. No matter what, all the stuff he says makes sense and is building on previous bio classes, just in so much detail that if makes your head hurt.\n\r\nIn summary: Dr. Ades is a cool dude, and it isn't all that hard to get an A, assuming you work hard. Very hard.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-15T18:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI433', 'review': 'I took his Biology of Cancer class. His lecture style might be a little slow paced for some but is very easy to follow. The tests focused a little too much on details but they are fair. He curved the class at the end. The material he presents are very up to date and kept me interested. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T21:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI433', 'review': "Nice enough guy, but incredibly tough class. He is clearly very knowledgable on the subject, and goes into incredible detail. This is a strength as well as a weakness as he goes into so many tangents, that it becomes difficult to follow the overall story. \n\r\nWhile the exams(he'll give you ones from past years) don't look too bad, be warned that if things are not in the exact way described in the answer key, you will lose the majority of the points. For example, when he asks for the pathway by which PAH can cause cancer through monooxygenase activity, it will not suffice to just draw the structures of each compound that leads to a carcinogen. You must also know the exact name of any given structure he posts on his slides. Finally, while it's not directly asked in the question, you will also need to explain how the carcinogen(epoxide-diol structure) causes an adduct in the DNA that the repair system can't fix. In short, the problem has nothing to do with not knowing the information taught, but rather not knowing what exactly he's asking. Making just one mistake like this will cost you 10-15 points in a 250 point class. This is one question among maybe 3 that completely shattered my grade, and there's just no coming back(no curve).\n\r\nThis was my only C in my college career , and it had nothing do with a lack of effort. I put in several hours re-listening to all of his lectures (some twice), making study guides, getting into study groups. I threw the kitchen sink at this class, got A's in my other 400 level bio courses with a tenth of the effort. Like you guys, I check these websites to see what the inside scoop is on profs, and I'll dismiss reviews that just seem like bitter kids trying to blow off some steam, but this isn't that. Be prepared to invest a lot of work into this class, learn a lot of really cool stuff about cancer, but not neccessarily get the reward for it at the end in terms of the grade. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-14T20:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Ades was easily the best professor I have had on the UMD campus. He is extremely intelligent and knows the material like the back of his hand. He is good at making the material applicable to an undergraduate level and his tests are fair (often provided extra points on the midterms). I definitely recommend going to every lecture. You will not regret taking him - he is very entertaining and you'll learn so much!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-20T00:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "This is probably the most intelligent teacher I've had on campus. He is just so interesting! The best way to get an A in this class is to record lectures and transcribe everything he says with his lecture slides. NEVER MISS CLASS! The only time you need the text book is if he specifically sites something he wants you to read. If he tells you to read something out of a book that's pretty much a promise that it will show up on the exam.\n\r\nHis exams and grading are very fair. His midterm exams usually have 20-30 extra points on it. If you score over 100pts on the exam, you just get the score of 100. It also helps because if you don't know everything you can pick and choose which ones you want to answer. Now since he does this, don't depend on him curving his class. He doesn't really curve unless you are like 10 points away from a grade. This semester he gave 22% A's, 38% B's, 27% C's, and the rest D's and F's. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-20T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Ades is a great professor! His lectures are interesting and I hear that he's really helpful during office hours. As other people said, recording lectures is really helpful and something that a huge chunk of the class does. The first 3 tests were relatively easy but the multiple choice final was really hard.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T22:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Professor Ades was a fantastic professor. I wish all the rest of the biology professors cared as much about teaching and taught as well as he does. Yes, he does go into great detail about things, but you actually learn. It\'s not just memorizing facts. He always gives examples so you can remember and he always repeats himself. He even tells you "this will be on the exam." \r\nAfter every concept he stops and asks if anyone has any questions. He even builds in extra points for the midterm exams (more points possible than 100 and only takes your grade out of 100). \r\nHowever, yes, it is a difficult course. All the other reviews who whined about it being hard obviously this was their first upper level biology course. It\'s not Ades\' fault you are lazy.\n\r\nMy recommendation is to \r\n1. Go to every class and take notes\r\n2. If possible, record him. He has a bit of an accent so sometimes you may miss one or two words. Also, all of his midterms are open ended so you can literally quote him and get full credit.\r\n3. Go over any old exams...he likes to repeat questions :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T20:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "one of the best professors i've had. his lectures are very fast-paced so make sure you record his lectures and listen to them again. also helps if you read the book. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-14T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI433', 'review': 'This is a very interesting class, and Prof. Ades teaches the subject very well. Be prepared to study and memorize a lot of facts though!!! Doing the practice exams and review questions definitely helps, and you get to drop one exam. \r\nHe is very approachable and will explain things over and over again for you if you ask. He also makes you interested in the subject by relating several stories and scenarios. The lectures were rarely boring. Learned a lot in this class!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-07T00:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Dr. Ades is by far the best professor I have had so far in my college career. He is really engaging, he knows the material very well and is very helpful in providing office hours and seminar review sessions in addition to answering questions in lecture. He is a nice old man who wants you to learn the material. Not some sadist who is out to ruin your social life-just leave your attitude at the door, and you will do just fine in the class. I found the exams to be vey straightforward and fair, albeit very thorough (memorize only lectures-book only for background i.e not too helpful and the lab was very cool and you actually learned things unlike in other lab courses. I have one piece of advice: go over every single slide in the lecture and memorize things that are not intuitive. You should also record all his lectures. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-03T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Dr. Ades is one of the the most engaging professors I ever had. He makes the lecture interesting. Similar to how the other reviewers have said, he does expect alot from the students. There is so much material for each exam, and everything is fair game. On the flip side, his exams are doable-there is no problem of not finfshing an exam- and partial credit is possible. His final exam is very hard. In constrast to his previous three midterms, which were all essay format, his final is all multiple choice. It is very specific, and anything he has said since the beginning of the year is fair game. This is a very hard class. But if one is willing to put the effort in, it is very rewarding. Dr. Ades goes into so much detail, but he is there if anyone needs help. Personally, I liked the class because we went into depth about topics such as cellular respiration, receptor-mediated endocytosis, and other areas that other science classes generally brush over. All-in-all, if you want to learn, take Dr. Ades, if you want to get the class over with, take another professor. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-22T15:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "All the other reviews about memorizing everything he says are wrong. I never brought my computer to class and never went to an open session (I had class every Wednesday at 10) and I still earned an A. His class is like every other, you have to take notes and then actually study for the exams. All the other reviews about kids who got C's are because they've never actually had to study for a challenging class before.\n\r\nDr. Ades was really good about meeting with students to discuss previous exams and I always responded quickly to e-mails. If you try in his class, you'll do well. You don't need to put in a ridiculous amount of effort like the other reviewers said- they're just whining about getting bad grades.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-20T13:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Dr. Ades has a PhD and MD. I am a junior biology major and i am scrambling for a "C" in this class. His expectations are ridiculous for undergraduates! You cannot miss one lecture! You must record them! Memorize everything he says, verbatim. Predicting what material will show up on his exams is IMPOSSIBLE. He gives no hints in class. After having 3 exams in this class that consisted of 8 Essay Questions the final was 100 multiple choice questions, unlike any of the previous exams. I would not recommend Dr. Ades, for cell bio (BSCI330) because he has the lowest percentage of A\'s. The lab reports are highly time consuming and can potentially hurt your grade. ( the lab sections were not normalized, and it was very frustrating) ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T03:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'be prepared to spend about every waking hour you have studying or worrying about his exams which are painfully specific. forget one concept, there\'s one fifth of your grade right there. cell biology sounds like a trivial concept, this class is not. \r\ni\'d admit, i unwittingly took this class as a sophomore in a sea of juniors, maybe if i was more experienced in developing my "type as quickly as i can", and "go back to my room immediately to rewrite, reread, and compare slides to notes and recording before i forget" skills i wouldn\'t be scrambling for a C. \r\nas a person, he\'s great- he cares and knows a lot about this subject but the whole class is one continuous monologue you have to pick apart. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-17T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Wow...what a GREAT professor. For sure, this class is no joke, the lab is the part that kills most people, 8-12 pg lab reports, literature reviews, lab notebooks, etc. However, although lecture is not fully attended all the time, those are the ones who do poorly. I\'ll be honest, I\'m the type who works hard for my grade and I\'m not the "naturally smart ones." But, I didn\'t read the book, unless if I was really confused. I recorded lectures, typed them 2 times (once in class, once after class) and memorized things he said in lecture, went to EVERY "open session" where he gave hints about exam stuff, and did exceedingly well. My averages on the exams were in the 80-81s, and they were always curved to 85-95% depending on how bad others did. The final is ALL multiple choice, and very detailed, but manageable if you kept up with the study and didn\'t cram all semester. He\'s a nice old man, a bit soft-spoken, but very very knowledgable and adorable. Take him!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T12:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'EXACTLY what LunarFlower said.\n\r\nWrite EVERYTHING. Memorize EVERYTHING. Rewrite EVERYTHING on the exam. Must attend class or get someone to give you their notes.\n\r\nHe was generous on his 3rd exam. Exam is taken out of 120 but there were 150 possible points. (No bonus points from it though)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-08T13:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "How to do well Dr. Ades' BSCI 330 Class:\n\r\nWithout Recording his lectures:\r\n-either bring a laptop to class and type everything he says verbatim OR write it down..which ever is possible.\r\n-Memorize everything.. especially relevant to his study questions from your notes.. he usually presents the answers to his study questions during lecture, but these questions are usually posted around examtime\n\r\nIf you do record his lectures:\r\n-type everything verbatim and complete the review questions\n\r\nAttending class is essential..can't really do well without attending. Also, attending isn't your ticket to an A. You have to really know EVERYTHING he says.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-14T20:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI433', 'review': "Ades is a wonderful proffesor. This class was def. challenging, but sooo interesting. I came into the class wanting to know the information, so it probably made it easier to get through. \r\nThe exams are based solely off his lecture slides, and cover 3-4 lectures, each with 60-80 slides. He takes a lot of exam questions off graphs and the tests are mostly conceptual. It's in short-answer format, and asks you to explain things he went over in lecture. You will NOT do well in this class if you don't go to lecture, because his slides don't explain much-- he tells you the important things. \r\nIn SP08, he made the final optional if you were satisfied with the first three midterm grades. I didn't take the final, but I heard it wasn't bad compared to the midterms. The midterms were all curved a good 2-4%. \r\nTake this class if you want to be challenged and think you'll be interested in the material, bc you will learn a lot. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-07-27T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "He goes over each process at least three times, tweaking and adding/removing details every time. This can get extreeeemely frustrating when you're studying for a test. \r\nAnd the tests don't seem difficult but are graded in the most arbitrary manner possible. (He does curve the tests though, and all the questions are pulled from the review questions/previous exams he puts online. But the review questions don't have answers. Also, a big fan of multiple multiples.)\n\r\nGoing to class is absolutely imperative because of the arbitrariness of exam grading. \r\nDr. Ades is not a particularly scintillating lecturer, in fact he can be lame beyond belief, but he's not deathly boring. And everything he says in lecture should be treated as gospel. Even though half the time it'll be contradicted in the text book.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-31T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Lectures were sort of interesting in the beginning of the year, but when you realize that alot of the things he says conflict with what is written in the book, it starts to get annoying. Exams would never seem hard, but they would be essay based and the TAs cant grade for sh**. They would be so stingy with points and then when you ask for a regrade he almost never gives you anything back. I can think of three instances in which what he said COMPLETELY deviates with what is written in the text. And if you don't go to class there is no way to know. He also made it seem like he was curving the class in the beginnning of the yr, dropping the cut offs for As and Bs by almost 10%. Then, even after everyone BOMBED the almost IMPOSSIBLE final, he curved by only 2%!!!!! The final had about 20 pts worth of questions on Noble prize winners!!! Something on which we did not cover at all in class and that was not on the review guide he gave us. The man lost his mind this semester and I would advise you to avoid him. Getting a B is easy because the lab is B.S. But don't count on getting an A unless you focus most of your energy on this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2007-12-21T23:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great, informative class. Ades is a good at lecturing and makes the class more interesting. His tests were sometimes a little long, mostly short answer, but fair. The labs were pretty easy, but they have probably been changed, now that the class is being offered as BSCI330.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:29:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Ades is one of my favorite professors at the University! He is so passionate about the topics and this makes lecture interesting! I took him for 330 and 433 and ended with a 98% and 100% respectfully. This is because he provides extra credit on the exams so you can lose points and still get 100% in the course. \r\nYou have to study hard in this course but if you do you'll do well. Attend every lecture and RECORD every lecture. Review your notes several times and UNDERSTAND the details. This is what we will test on! \r\nThe midterms were super straight forward but the final is much more difficult but if you prepare well, you can still get a great grade. \r\nIf I could take Ades for a 3rd course I would. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-18T19:53:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'The sweetest old man who cares about you very much. Took this class online because of the virus and exams were fair. Remember the specific details and you will be good ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-15T17:45:58Z'}], 'name': 'Ibrahim Ades', 'slug': 'ades_ibrahim'}, {'courses': ['AASP200', 'AASP310'], 'average_rating': 4.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ibrahim Kargbo', 'course': 'AASP200', 'review': "I personally thought Kargbo was scattered and his lectures were dull. The quizzes and tests were focused on the minute details of the course and it was just too much work for a 3-credit Gen-Ed. I don't think it's worth taking. Sure, it's an easy A if you want to put in hours of work a week studying a dull topic.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-17T15:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Kargbo', 'course': 'AASP200', 'review': "Just be warned that the class is A LOT of work.....it's easy to get an A, but you work for it!\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-02-03T01:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Kargbo', 'course': 'AASP200', 'review': "i took AASP 200 with him and I got an A+ in his class. He is an awesome teacher. Its very obvious that he knows the material and what he is talking about.\r\nTake notes in class cos they are very very helpful cos that's what most of the questions on the quizzes are based on. Very few questions come from the book.\r\nAlso, the Midterm and Final are basically repetitions of the quizzes. Its not BRAND NEW MATERIAL. He technically pulls out EXACT questions from the quizzes and puts them on the midterm and final. So all u have to do is study your old quizzes and you'd get an A. Voila!!!\n\r\nThe class is an easy A only that you get ALOT of work to do. There's a quiz EVERY class and a summary paper due EVERY class.\n\r\nThe class meets only once a week so its ok.\r\nHe is very very very nice, approachable, funny and very tolerable.\r\nBEST TEACHER EVER!!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-01-09T19:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Kargbo', 'course': 'AASP200', 'review': "Dr. Kargo's accent can take a bit time to understand but once you get use to it, he is one of the best professors. He understands what he's teaching, he has a lot of connections, and plenty of experience in the field and travels to Africa regularly. He's an easy grader once you know what he's looking for. Don't slack on your work or it will bite you in the butt.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-22T21:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ibrahim Kargbo', 'course': 'AASP200', 'review': "Dr. Kargbo was a very interesting professor with a lot of experience and knowledge about Africa's history. Being that he was born there and had many personal stories was an added bonus. His exams require some studying but when I took the course all you needed to pass was to get 900 out of 1300 points. This was no problem and most people didn't even have to take the final exam.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-10-29T19:50:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ibrahim Kargbo', 'slug': 'kargbo'}, {'courses': ['ENMA481', 'ENMA685', 'ENMA460', 'ENMA465', 'ENES603', 'ENMA688', 'PHYS431', 'ENMA797', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA486', 'ENMA489L', 'ENMA437', 'ENMA637', 'ENMA460', 'ENMA797', 'PHYS431', 'ENMA437', 'ENMA637', 'ENMA797', 'ENMA460', 'ENMA797', 'PHYS431', 'ENMA797', 'ENMA797', 'ENMA437', 'ENMA637', 'ENMA797'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ichiro Takeuchi', 'course': 'ENMA460', 'review': "He explains everything well and writes everything he says on the board so taking notes is easy and thorough. He's also always willing to stop and answer questions. \r\nHomeworks can be tough, but the previous year's solutions will usually have what you need. \r\nTests are pretty tough, again find previous tests and solutions because he reuses a decent amount of stuff. \r\nOverall nothing special but he's a solid professor and his class is very fair. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-15T23:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ichiro Takeuchi', 'course': 'ENMA460', 'review': 'Pros:\r\n-Explains everything thoroughly\r\n-Class is organized and interesting (as much as an eng class can be)\r\n-Helpful to questions in class\r\n-Tests and homework are very fair\n\r\nCons:\r\n-Very little, if any, partial credit given\r\n-Not very helpful over email', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-14T14:48:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ichiro Takeuchi', 'slug': 'takeuchi'}, {'courses': ['EXST018A', 'COMM719F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Iciar Gomez', 'slug': 'gomez_iciar'}, {'courses': ['PERS251', 'PERS252', 'PERS398B', 'PERS398D', 'PERS283', 'HIST219X', 'HIST328C', 'WMST298J', 'TDPS358B', 'FILM298B', 'JWST319I'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ida Meftahi', 'course': 'PERS283', 'review': "The course is a bit boring but Dr. Meftahi is a great professor. Overall it's very easy to get an A in this class as long as you put some effort in the assignments and the final paper/presentation.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-02T02:06:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Ida Meftahi', 'course': 'PERS252', 'review': 'Class material can be quite dull at times, but Dr. Meftahi does her best to engage the class as much as possible. Participation heavy. Two short 700 word essays and a final paper 2400 words long. Even though its quite a lot of work, it will pay off in the end as grading is lenient.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-16T07:49:37Z'}], 'name': 'Ida Meftahi', 'slug': 'meftahi'}, {'courses': ['BUSI622', 'BMGT828J', 'BMGT808D', 'BMGT808R', 'BMGT808E', 'BMGT808W', 'BUDT758F', 'BUSI621', 'BMGT301', 'BUSM621', 'BMGT808E', 'BUSM621', 'BMGT808E', 'BUSI621', 'BUSM621'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Il-Horn Hann', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "This professor looks like he tries to appeal to us but he is honestly not that good of a teacher and his material is dry/mundane. The class is useless outside of excel, which we never do in class but do at home instead (lynda.com). The quizzes are random questions purchased from a textbook and do not ask valuable information. You could study for hours and still get a D because they want to know things like what university michael dell went to or what some random guy in the book said about a quote that mark zuckerburg said (not even zuck's quote itself). He doesn't respond to emails and is unhelpful. The quality of the grading is also poor since we need to keep coming back to get points back because the system marked our written answers wrong when they are right, which is highly annoying. It's like this class tries to train you to be an information system of useless information yourself but its just impossible for me to do as a human and very frustrating/unmotivating. He also asks a lot of stupid, self-explanatory questions. This dude conducts in a way that makes it seem like he just went straight from comm 107 to teaching and relies heavily on powerpoint. I would have liked if he could have helped more with guiding students on what they will need to know and use in their life through the course instead of just trying to shove all this random content down my throat. dont know if all bmgt301 classes are like this but do yourslf a favor and avoid this teacher. i dont mean to be mean but his tests and dry material will make you want to hang yourself with a noose. i would have appreciated hands-on excel practice IN class and fairer questions. material isnt hard its just that its so much they want you to digest and your brain has to forget about what they taught you about only paying attention to on objective-relevant details. and sometimes your test will contain more written questions than multiple choice than others, which are generally more tricky since ur just looking for one word, and this can make you do worse than average. useless class and useless professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-03-01T06:57:54Z'}], 'name': 'Il-Horn Hann', 'slug': 'hann_il-horn'}, {'courses': ['HESP120', 'HESP403', 'HESP202'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ilina Kachinske', 'slug': 'kachinske'}, {'courses': ['BMGT434', 'BMGT808E', 'BUDT732', 'BMGT834', 'BMGT838E', 'BUDT758P', 'BUSI751', 'BUSO603', 'BMGT834', 'BUSI751'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ilya Ryzhov', 'slug': 'ryzhov'}, {'courses': ['ENAE403', 'ENAE642', 'ENAE742', 'ENAE898'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Imraan Faruque', 'slug': 'faruque'}, {'courses': ['ENAE633', 'ENAE651', 'ENAE634', 'ENAE631', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE631', 'ENAE651', 'ENAE634', 'ENAE631', 'ENAE651'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Inderjit Chopra', 'slug': 'chopra_inderjit'}, {'courses': ['CMLT275', 'CMLT270', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101H', 'WMST275'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ines Rivera', 'slug': 'rivera_ines'}, {'courses': ['ECON722', 'ECON624', 'ECON708', 'ECON709', 'ECON828', 'ECON624', 'ECON722'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ingmar Prucha', 'slug': 'prucha'}, {'courses': ['ENGL346', 'HONR259P', 'HONR269A', 'HONR239B', 'HHUM106', 'HONR248J', 'HONR359D', 'HONR208P', 'HNUH300', 'HHUM205', 'HNUH300', 'HNUH259T', 'HNUH300', 'HNUH300'], 'average_rating': 4.5333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HONR239B', 'review': "I loved this class. As other have mentioned, it is not an easy A, but it is not extremely difficult either, if you find the subject interesting. We do read a lot, but it is a lot of novels spread across many days as well as short stores and poems. The class is very discussion based, which I found great especially for the more challenging and confusing texts. In addition to that, we had 3 papers, one of which is the final, and a journal. The key to the journal is to do more than what is expecting in order to get a good grade. The papers weren't too bad and she gives you good feedback and returns them in a timely manner. She is a very liberal teacher so I think your growth also contributes to your final grade. I definitely thought I would get a B+, and was surprised with an A. \n\r\nOverall, I love the books we read and I loved the class. It exposed to a lot of new ideas and knowledge. It was my favorite class this semester especially being a STEM major and getting away from that.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-28T21:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': None, 'review': "This class was great! It's about contemporary art and ideas (modern art) with a focus on the arts in DC.\n\r\nProfessor Satelmajer is a great teacher, and she breaks down the class into well organized and manageable sections. This makes the material easy to learn and retain. She is very good at communicating and is understanding to student concerns.\n\r\nThere are homework readings and maybe a video or two to watch each week, but the workload is not bad at all. A lot of it is actually very interesting. Most of the readings are pre-assembled in a course packet that you buy at the beginning of the year, and I found it very convenient to annotate along in the packet as I read.\n\r\nThis class requires you to go to 5 or more arts events of your choosing and to write brief critical responses on them relating to the course/packet material. I found the events to be awesome because they enlightened me to an art world that I didn't know about beforehand. There are class field trips that can count towards your events. The responses aren't long (~ 2 pages), but you have to write them well and relate directly to course concepts. At the end of the year, your final report must be ~ 4-10 pages instead of the usual ~ 2.\n\r\nI highly recommend this class and teacher. I had a great experience and am surprised by how much I retained about DC/contemporary art.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-05T00:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'ENGL313', 'review': "Professor Satelmajer is a lot of fun. She really enjoys what she's teaching and the reading selection was mostly really great. \n\r\nThe class was really interesting. She tries to assign a doable amount of reading each night and usually it's not too bad. She does have random reading quizzes a lot though so make sure you're on top of the reading she does assign. She's also a pretty strict in grading papers- a lot of the class complained about it. She puts a great emphasis on detail from the reading and on originality of the argument. \n\r\nHer exams straightforward if you pay attention to what she emphasizes in class so make sure you take notes during her class. She also has some optional assignments that help at the end. She's really big on participation too and it really helps your grade! She's really passionate and always around to give help", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-12-25T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HONR239B', 'review': 'Definitely an interesting class, but there is a lot of work. We read 10 books, and little short stories as well. Not an easy A at all. There are basically 4 papers, one thats 3 pages, and the rest are about 1250 words. There is also a 10 min presentation at the end. A lot of work is piled on at the end of the semester so be prepared. Satelmajer gives a really interesting view of New York City. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-14T14:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HONR239B', 'review': "This class was really enjoyable, but don't expect an easy A. \r\nSatelmajer is not an easy grader in terms of papers on analysis so you really have to write high quality papers in order to get the A.\r\nThere are a lot of books you read, but she spaces them out so that you never have to read a lot during the week.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-07-22T15:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': None, 'review': "She's a great teacher who expects a lot. She required a lot of work (especially reading) but it was worth the effort and her class was full of interesting discussion. You won't get an easy A but it's definitely worth the time spent.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-11-09T15:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HONR239B', 'review': "Has high expectations but a great class to take. Some of the assignments' details were a bit fuzzy, but she was good about clarifying them in person and through email. Her style of discussion keeps students engaged and responding.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:04:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HONR208P', 'review': "Dr. Satelmajer is an amazing teacher. If you want to do well you'll have to do a lot of reading and a fair amount of writing, but it is 100% worth it. Assignment details are fuzzy sometimes, but she's super helpful over email or in person if you're confused. A joy to be in class with", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-13T23:12:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HONR248J', 'review': 'Dr. Satelmajer was a good professor. She breaks this D.C based class up into three sections. The class grade is made up of three "section quizzes" based on the assigned readings, two short papers, and a final project, along with some small assignments here and there. She gives a lot of opportunities for extra credit, and if you do the work, you will get the grade you want. That being said, she expects high-quality writing on the papers in order to do well. Lets you redo one of them though. The workload is doable but noticeable. \r\nCons: She tends to talk quite a bit. I did not find the material in this class interesting, and it was painful to sit through the 1-hour 15-minute monologue. Other than that, not a bad HONR seminar. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-24T17:42:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HONR239B', 'review': 'Amazing professor who is passionate about what she teaches about. Very clear on coursework due and what is necessary for each writing assignment. Something is always due but the workload is certainly manageable. Second time taking her and it has been a great experience both times. Very forgiving and easy to talk to.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-30T04:37:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HONR248J', 'review': 'Dr. Satelmajer is an extremely approachable and dedicated professor. She has high expectations for completing the readings and contributing to class discussions, but it definitely pushed me to become a better student and I appreciated the class content more because of it.\r\nShe provides lots of opportunities for extra credit and it is not difficult to do well in her class if you put the effort in for the readings and few papers you need to write. I definitely recommend taking her class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-02T15:15:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HHUM205', 'review': "Satelmajer loves to talk and expects you to complete all the readings. She doesn't believe in giving students 100% on writing assignments, so if you're a perfectionist watch out. Attendance is required. Decent professor, kind human.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-15T17:03:31.830491Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HHUM205', 'review': "I loved Professor Satelmajer. At first, I was iffy and I just wasn't sure about the vibes I got from her, but she's really nice and you can tell she has a lot of experiences and knowledge that inform her teaching. She's passionate about what she teaches. She also takes care to notice and remember personal interests that are brought up in class. She does talk a lot sometimes though and she expects you to participate in discussions, complete readings before class, and do brief but thoughtful journal entries.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T18:39:28.979888Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HHUM205', 'review': 'Dr. Satelmajer talks a lot, so the full 75 minute lectures can get a little boring. Really passionate about what she teaches, and is always willing to talk to her students. Participation is factored into your grade so you definitely have to keep up with the assigned readings.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T22:01:06.655815Z'}, {'professor': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'course': 'HHUM205', 'review': 'Amazing class and professor! She made participation a part of the class grade and worked to create a discussion environment where everyone in the class shared stories and opinions. A large part of the class is discussion based, which I enjoyed. The other part centers around her providing background information on topics, which is interesting but lengthy. In terms of the work, there were sources to interact with for every class, reflection pop quizzes, short responses, a final project, and a field trip to D.C. (for extra credit). A lot of the class content centered around balancing the humanities and work, so if you are interested in exploring past of future artistic endeavors, then the class will let you do so.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-27T16:51:31.690474Z'}], 'name': 'Ingrid Satelmajer', 'slug': 'satelmajer'}, {'courses': ['MATH141', 'MATH241', 'MATH220'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ioannis Markou', 'slug': 'markou'}, {'courses': ['HIST428O', 'HIST819O', 'HIST200', 'HIST619X', 'HIST396', 'HIST819F', 'HIST463', 'HIST639R'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ira Berlin', 'course': None, 'review': 'Berlin is a really good lecturer. He focuses more on the political and ideological changes that occur more than on actual events. He also focuses heavily on slavery since that seems to be what he specializes in. The class itself is reasonable, without too much work, but grades really do depend on the TA. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T03:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ira Berlin', 'course': None, 'review': "Great man, great teacher. Knows history. Class is a bit hard to get an A. Bs shouldn't be too tough. Really depends on your TA. They determine what grade you get. All tests are short answers and one long essay. I wrote a 6 page highly detailed essay and got an A- on an exam. My friend with another TA wrote a 3 page essay that didnt really answer the question(she admits this) and got an A- also. Her TA was very lenient.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-17T18:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ira Berlin', 'course': None, 'review': 'Overall, Dr. Berlin is a good teacher. This course asks you to make history an argument. You do not need to read that much and you do not need to memorize any facts. There is a good amount of writing but its not too bad.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-06T01:15:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ira Berlin', 'slug': 'berlin'}, {'courses': ['JOUR772', 'JOUR200U', 'JOUR476', 'JOUR200', 'JOUR200', 'JOUR476', 'JOUR200'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ira Chinoy', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': 'best professor i have ever had. genuinely wants his students to do well and stays in touch with them after the semester ends. he is so passionate about journalism and his students and will do everything he can to help them in class and in the real world. he is kind, smart and accomplished and has engaging lectures and class assignments. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-03-25T23:03:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Ira Chinoy', 'course': 'JOUR200U', 'review': 'Such a great professor, always welcoming and open to scheduling office hours. He makes the lectures interesting and is always smiling in class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-03-27T16:36:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Ira Chinoy', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': "Professor Chinoy is the best professor I have ever had. He genuinely cares that you succeed and is always checking in. He's super understanding and is a passionate and intelligent teacher who wants to create opportunities for you to grow and learn. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-19T19:48:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Ira Chinoy', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': 'I love Mr.Chinoy, he has been such an amazing teacher, especially through the coronavirus pandemic he makes sure that we know he is always there for us and puts his students first. He genuinely makes the class so interesting and is one of the nicest professors. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-02T04:32:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Ira Chinoy', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': "I had Chinoy last fall. Best professor I ever had. Kind, caring, and makes the material interesting, even though it's inherently boring. Cried when I learned he wouldn't be teaching anything this year. We miss you, Mr. Chinoy!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-10-26T00:13:18Z'}], 'name': 'Ira Chinoy', 'slug': 'chinoy'}, {'courses': ['EXST039B', 'EXST039F', 'COMM798D', 'EXST049G', 'COMM609E', 'COMM639D', 'COMM639E', 'COMM659B', 'COMM619E', 'COMM649D', 'COMM649E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Irina Knizhnik', 'slug': 'knizhnik'}, {'courses': ['MUSC801S', 'MUSC428', 'MUSC609', 'MUSC400S', 'MUSC660', 'MUSC800S', 'MUSC609', 'MUSC400S', 'MUSC428', 'MUSC609', 'MUSC660', 'MUSC800S', 'MUSC801S', 'MUSC428', 'MUSC609'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Irina Muresanu', 'slug': 'muresanu'}, {'courses': ['GVPT475', 'GVPT877', 'GVPT100', 'GVPT831', 'GVPT170'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Irwin Morris', 'course': 'GVPT475', 'review': "This class was the absolute worst class I've ever taken at UMD. The lectures were very interesting and Professor Morris and his book are pretty interesting. But if you don't want to have 100 pages of reading a night (this is not an exaggeration) and take exams that are fair but graded entirely too hard, then do not take this class. The expectations of the teacher are really high and you will probably stress out all semester. There is also a long research paper that you will have to do.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-07T01:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Irwin Morris', 'course': 'GVPT475', 'review': 'This class was both good and bad. Lectures were very intersting and enjoyable, and Dr. Morris is a good teacher. But he very high expectations on his tests. The tests were given in 50 minutes, and even the people who finish before everyone stayed until the end. There simple was not enough time to do all he wanted. His defintions section is the worst because you literally have to mention EVERYTHING that was ever mentioned about it to get full credit. He did give a small curve, but it was if a certain percentage of the class does better than the current average, then there will be a curve proportional to that percentage. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-02T10:57:00Z'}], 'name': 'Irwin Morris', 'slug': 'morris_irwin'}, {'courses': ['BMGT476', 'BMGT472'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Isaac Elking', 'slug': 'elking'}, {'courses': ['ENEE475', 'ENEE474', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE474', 'ENEE475'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Isaak Mayergoyz', 'course': 'ENEE474', 'review': 'As others said, his exams are based on the material that he teaches during lectures. He does not follow any book so you will need to come to lectures and take good notes. His exams are easy (try understanding each equation in lectures, then memorizing will be easy), and you will learn a lot from his lectures. I highly recommend taking his class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-21T16:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isaak Mayergoyz', 'course': 'ENEE474', 'review': "Mayergoyz is an excellent professor, but don't mistake excellence for being easy. The class is based off of 3 exams, and 2-3 HWs. \n\r\nThe HWs are given in the 1st half of the semester (before November for fall && before April for Spring). Following this, you have no more HW assignments in the class. \n\r\nThere are 3 exams, two midterms & 1 final. There's never a curve because the average on exams is usually around an 80%. The exams are straight forward, and you know what will be on them going into the exam (nothing tricky whatsoever). The catch is you have to know the material by heart, you have to know it like the palm of your hand. You have to know it so well that when you see the question, you don't even think about it you just write. Its a memorization style exam, no solving like you do in 303 or 322 per say. \n\r\nI just took the final in 474 and it literally took all of the 2 hours for me to finish. I seriously maybe only took 5 mins total to relax my hand haha.\n\r\nOverall, an excellent class to be in and you will learn A LOT! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-20T13:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isaak Mayergoyz', 'course': 'ENEE474', 'review': 'Mayergoyz is a fantastic professor. Also, he has a spectacular accent. He is not easy, but he is good at facilitating your learning. All the homework is in the first half of the semester (which is a lot of work, but, for the second half you dont have nearly as much work) His lectures are easy to understand and follow, and if you take good notes and number equations like he does, it is easy to find things. Everything that is important he repeats multiple times and is very straightforward about everything. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-10-28T17:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isaak Mayergoyz', 'course': 'ENEE474', 'review': 'best professor in the EE department', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-12-13T21:45:49Z'}], 'name': 'Isaak Mayergoyz', 'slug': 'mayergoyz'}, {'courses': ['ENMA300', 'ENES100', 'ENMA463', 'ENES100A', 'ENME382', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA472', 'ENMA672', 'ENMA301', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENMA180', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA300', 'ENMA301', 'ENME382', 'ENMA300', 'ENME382', 'ENMA180'], 'average_rating': 2.0556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENMA463', 'review': 'I agree that she\'s pretty enthusiastic, and she clearly does like the material in macroprocessing, but her lectures are really just god-awful. She crams too much info on her powerpoints and when she uses them she spouts other random knowledge that may or may not be relevant to the class at all. Both in her presentations and in what she writes on the board, she doesn\'t write enough to convey meaningful info or even to be understandable except as a direct supplement when she\'s talking. I went to every class, but then when trying to learn on my own with her material it was essentially useless. \n\r\nHer organization is terrible, with seemingly random interjections and tangents that may still be important. The class seemed to be structured as almost an overview of the entire industry, and then her homeworks were on really specific things. For example, she went over grinding methods and what size input and output they were used for in class, and then had us pick grinding methods for specific materials in the homework - no sizes mentioned or even useful. \n\r\nAnd the tangents, oh my god. I know more about this woman\'s ex-husband, current "boyfriend" (shudder), and kid than I do about my own brother, not to mention her personal interests and every single person she\'s ever met in the industry. \n\r\nOverall, this class was frustrating and honestly seemed pretty outdated most of the time. Not recommended. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-03-22T20:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENME382', 'review': "Dr. Lloyd does not have a good teaching style for college students. Most of us became disinterested very quickly, which is disappointing because it's a required subject. She uses new terms without bothering to ever explain what they are and throws in many unnecessary details about how things relate to her work, all in an attempt to maybe sound smarter. She does all this while using pointless anecdotes about her personal life, such as her ex-husband, that make us laugh over how contrived they are. Just her speaking style and body language is as if she is speaking to middle school students, not those in college.\n\r\nHer presentation slides are too wordy, which makes it pointless to try to take notes when she skips ahead quickly. Luckily she posts those slides online, which would have caused the majority of the class to not ever show up had it not been for the fact that she gives unannounced pop quizzes in order to have some attendance. Everything you need to know you can learn in the textbook. \n\r\nGrading is very inconsistent. Students who worked with each other on a homework could have grades that differ by over 10%. Questions on the exam also can be opinion-based for material selection problems and result in varying grades. Because you don't learn much in class, you are reliant on putting all the relevant information from the book and homework on the crib sheets you are allowed for the exams.\n\r\nI would recommend avoiding her unless you really love pointless stories early in the morning. I hope to never have her as a professor again.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-10T17:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENME382', 'review': "She is one of few professors I've had so far who genuinely has an interest in the topic she teaches and wants students to succeed. I found her attitude toward the material to be somewhat infectious, and probably found the class more interesting than if I had taken it with someone else.\n\r\nHer lectures can be somewhat scatterbrained, and I think at least once a week she brought up something from her personal life. She doesn't go off on long tangents about it, but it's still distracting. When she is on point, she focuses more on the bigger picture of the material, and expects you to dig in to the details on your own.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-19T14:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENME382', 'review': "I really liked her. She's not the best lecturer I've ever had, but she was pretty good.\r\nShe definitely goes heavy on the conceptual end of things, but partly just because the course material was heavily conceptual. \r\nPretty fair grading, for the most part. VERY willing to help students - wants them to succeed. Likes to go off on tangents; can be a little scattered. She really likes and cares about the material, which makes a huge difference.\r\nOverall, I would definitely recommend her.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-09T13:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': "Dr. Lloyd is not the best lecturer. She is very enthusiastic and cares a lot about materials, which is nice at least. I could not pay attention to any lecture, and resorted to being productive on my laptop. The homeworks are just math and using equations, and the lab sections are a joke. Each midterm we had a cheat sheet, and could have 3 for the final. What killed my grade was missing out on conceptual stuff that I missed in lectures, which the final was heavily based on. If you're stuck with Lloyd, sit in the front and try to get through it. You might need to read the book or go to office hours with her if you can't get Christou or McCluskey.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-25T22:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': "Yeah I wouldn't say that she's very good at teaching you the stuff you are supposed to learn, the stuff that you'll actually be tested and quizzed on. She goes off on tangents on real world applications (which are interesting and nice to know, but don't really help you) that take you away from what you're actually supposed to be learning. I was in her class for about a week before I switched into another professor's section (McCluskey-- much better, probably the best ENMA300 teacher) and it made doing homeworks and understanding what I was actually supposed to learn better. So I would avoid Lloyd, but if you HAVE to take her she's not THAT bad. Her class may be a little more work when it comes to understanding what you're supposed to understand.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-14T21:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENMA463', 'review': "She knows her stuff for this course and is very helpful if you need to talk to her or don't understand something. If you're having trouble in a course she is teaching go talk to her. She wants you to learn and do well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-10-31T01:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': "Okay. I didn't think she was as bad as the other reviews made her seem, but not great either. Definitly true that lectures are hard to follow-she'll start something once, stop, continue it later, stop, continue it two days later...basically one topic will be on five different pages in your notes. But I thought the homeworks were pretty reflective of the test, and you got a cheat sheet for each exam which helped. She had 2-3 pop quizes which sucked, but didn't seem to effect your grade much. And if you pay attention in class the stuff she goes over ten times usually shows up on the exam, its just a hard class to pay attention in.\n\r\nBooks good, so yes, you can pretty much learn everything you need to know from that. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-10-12T20:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Lloyd doesn't really know anything about the material so everything is left up the TAs. If you ask her a question she will usually defer it to TA since she doesn't know the answer. I'm starting to wonder why she is allowed to teach this class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2009-12-21T02:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': 'Yes, lectures were schizophrenic. they were all jumbled and impossible to follow and strung together rather incoherently. she also does a rather poor job explaining most things, so you will really have to try hard at the homeworks, and figure them out on your own. its really through the homeworks that i gained any understanding of the material. HW every week, 2 tests and a final.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-08T00:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': None, 'review': '"Lectures were schizophrenic."\r\nVery true.\n\r\nTests were impossible to study for, too much info per powerpoint slides.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-01T16:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "She sucks. During lectures she spends about half the time talking about her ex's family or about how she spent twenty years in industry and all that. She provides very little help during the hovercraft building time and relies on her TAs a lot. Her lectures are almost a copy of the common section lectures given a week before. Not much help on the midterm either. Her TA is much more helpful. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-04-29T03:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': None, 'review': 'She sucks. Lectures were schizophrenic- always talking about something related to the subject but when thought about more closely, means nothing at all. I learned literally nothing from her.\n\r\nWork consists of 4-5 hws throughout the year, 2-3 quizzes, and 1 midterm/final.\n\r\nIf you have her for another course, make sure you bring the crossword to class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-10-23T12:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Dr. Lloyd is a nice, friendly, and easy-going professor. However, going online proved challenging to her as the TA had to do most of the technical work over Zoom. The class is very straight forward, simple participation questions, quick homework, and in-class assignments mainly completed in groups. The entire class is group-oriented so you will never be alone or stuck if you have a question.\r\n\r\nSometimes the homework may include topics that were not covered in depth in class which makes them difficult, but if you go to any Office Hours you will find your answer. My one critique for Dr. Lloyd would be she may respond to emails really fast or sometimes awhile, and that she always goes on small tangents about her life and past family issues. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-30T00:54:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': 'Glad to see that a decade later, the previous reviews for ENMA300 are still accurate; lectures are indeed "schizophrenic," the information presented on the slides are jumbled, and she still goes on tangents every other sentence (about real-world examples that don\'t seem all that helpful in terms of learning the material). ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-18T05:45:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Dr. Lloyd can come off as very talkative and somewhat friendly during her classes, but she constantly brings up completely random stuff out of nowhere and goes n random tangents of irrelevant things of her life or one of her multiple ex-husbands or family members and does not really do a good job at teaching or reviewing the materials. The TA does a lot of the work for her and is the one that people go to for help and explanations because while some students are trying to learn the concept she would still be rambling about her "Years of experience in the field" rather than teaching it. The class is mainly group-oriented along with the occasional quizzes, so if you get placed into a good group, and have a decent TA, you\'ll be fine', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-10-11T03:58:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "She is the worst teacher, professor, and UMD employee I've encountered so far. She is extremely talkative and boring, always mentioning her son, ex-husbands, and her experience in engineering classes from 100 years ago. Her boring voice and teaching style makes it difficult to pay attention during lectures and lessons. Her anecdotes and dreadful stories go on forever and keep students from working on their project. She is terrible at answering questions and students are forced to hesitantly nod there head and walk away after asking three times for clarification. She expects students to have perfect assignments, milestones, and projects with no guidance at all, so be prepared to do a ton of research on your own and come into this class with knowledge of circuits and Arduino. This class itself is very poorly structured and laid out time-wise, but Dr. Lloyd makes it so much worse.\r\n\r\nDo everything you can to avoid having Dr. Lloyd.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-11-22T17:22:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'course': 'ENES100A', 'review': "Lloyd takes a more hands off approach and is one of worst professors you could take this class with. Unsurprisingly, noone in Lloyd's section this semester did great on the OTV project. The flipped classroom approach gives your boring and old videos and don't teach you much. The TA, Gerald, was chill though. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-25T21:53:15Z'}], 'name': 'Isabel Lloyd', 'slug': 'lloyd_isabel'}, {'courses': ['GVPT280', 'GVPT419B', 'GVPT888B', 'GVPT888G', 'GVPT482', 'GVPT417', 'WMST698Y', 'GVPT388E', 'LASC609', 'LASC648', 'LASC609', 'LASC609A', 'LASC688', 'LASC689', 'GVPT482H', 'LACS609', 'LACS688', 'LACS689', 'LACS609', 'LACS609A', 'LACS688', 'LACS689', 'GVPT388D', 'LACS688', 'LACS689', 'LACS609'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Isabella Alcaniz', 'slug': 'alcaniz'}, {'courses': ['ARCH420', 'HONR278F', 'ARCH227', 'ARCH435', 'ARCH628B', 'ARCH635', 'ARCH426', 'ARCH226', 'ARCH428E', 'ARCH429', 'ARCH628E'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Isabelle Gournay', 'course': None, 'review': "If I could give her a zero out of 5 I would. She gives out an insane amount of work with short deadlines and gives no regard to the fact that you have other classes. If you try to have a conversation with her she just yells over you and listens to nothing you have to say. I don't know how they still let her teach with her unprofessional behavior. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-12-18T13:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabelle Gournay', 'course': 'HONR278F', 'review': "this class is absolutely an easy A, but you're really going to hate professor gournay. she has a very heavy French accent and you do have to pay close attention to understand what she is saying. there are 2 mandatory field trips in which you need to find your own way to greenbelt and various locations in DC such as Langston terrace, and she gets really rude if you don't have a car or can find a ride.\r\nshe gives out all As or high Bs on papers, I got an A or A- on every single one, and none are longer than 4 or 5 pages. you never have to do the readings and there are never any pop quizzes. you have to present one of the readings in 1 class, but that's easy too and you can work with a partner. there is no final, just a paper. bring your laptop to every class and you can work on whatever or go on Facebook and be totally fine. this class is a really easy A you just have to put up with this annoying teacher", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-10-22T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabelle Gournay', 'course': 'HONR278F', 'review': "This woman is freaking insane. \r\nSeriously. \r\nIf there's any way you can get out of having her, do it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-25T01:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Isabelle Gournay', 'course': 'HONR278F', 'review': 'had her for honr278f...worst class I have ever taken. I would strongly advise to reconsider taking this class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-15T23:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Isabelle Gournay', 'slug': 'gournay'}, {'courses': ['AMST205', 'AMST212', 'EDHI338D', 'EDHI338X', 'AMST101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Izetta Mobley', 'slug': 'mobley'}, {'courses': ['KNES350', 'KNES689X', 'KNES498C', 'KNES476', 'KNES478', 'KNES477', 'NACS640', 'KNES350H', 'NACS898', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'KNES445', 'KNES645', 'GEMS397', 'KNES445H', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'KNES445', 'KNES445H', 'KNES645', 'KNES350', 'KNES350H', 'KNES350', 'KNES350', 'KNES350', 'KNES445', 'KNES445H', 'KNES645'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'J Carson Smith', 'slug': 'carson_smith'}, {'courses': ['ARHU468A', 'UNIV100', 'ARHU468'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'J Darius Greene', 'slug': 'greene_darius_j'}, {'courses': ['RDEV689T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'JEFFREY BOND', 'slug': 'bond_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['MATH003', 'MATH120'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jack Baker', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Very nice guy! he is very sweet and caring. the guy tries to make the class interesting but we all know math in general isn't the most entertaining class. Jack doesnt explain to great but learning on your own isn't too bad!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-06T00:40:47Z'}], 'name': 'Jack Baker', 'slug': 'baker_jack'}, {'courses': ['PSYC638', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC353', 'PSYC651', 'PSYC630', 'PSYC639', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC651', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC353', 'PSYC353', 'PSYC651'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jack Blanchard', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "This class is wonderful. Blanchard is a great professor and knows so much. A potential downside is that there are only 5 grading opportunities (4 exams and 1 paper) but it is very possible to do well. It is really important to follow all directions for the paper. Study hard for the exams and definitely read the book and go to class (even though it's optional). Blanchard is slightly monotone but if the topic interests you then its easy to listen. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-23T18:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jack Blanchard', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "Blanchard likes 8 ams, so that makes the class rough, especially since he is pretty monotone. But as long as you can stay awake, the topics are interesting and Dr. Blanchard is really smart. If you don't do well with exams though, don't take this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-03-20T19:07:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Jack Blanchard', 'course': 'PSYC353', 'review': "All grades come from 4 exams and one paper. That being said, the paper seemed to be graded very leniently (by the TA). Otherwise, the 8am time slot isn't ideal, but the tests aren't too hard. Just read the powerpoints (that he posts online) and the textbook and you'll be fine if you don't feel like waking up for the 8am.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-18T14:06:35Z'}], 'name': 'Jack Blanchard', 'slug': 'blanchard'}, {'courses': ['LARC648', 'LARC440', 'LARC620', 'LARC489F', 'LARC321', 'LARC721', 'LARC699', 'PLSC321', 'LARC489Z', 'LARC263', 'LARC663', 'LARC799', 'LARC440', 'LARC648', 'LARC663', 'LARC440'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jack Sullivan', 'slug': 'sullivan_jack'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM360', 'COMM330', 'COMM371', 'COMM371', 'COMM324', 'COMM398T', 'COMM371', 'COMM398T', 'COMM324', 'COMM371', 'COMM371', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE398', 'COMM371', 'COMM398T', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jaclyn Bruner', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Dr. Bruner is one of the easiest going teachers. She made the lectures interesting, interactive, and allowed students to understand the material. There are online quizzes, but as long as you do the reading, the quizzes are easy. Very light grader when giving speeches.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-02-12T15:15:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Jaclyn Bruner', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'I did not want to take COMM. She understood most people were there because they had to be and did a good job teaching to that. The class was interesting and not too difficult even if you arent interested in the material', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-03T16:54:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Jaclyn Bruner', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Prof. Bruner is one of the kindest professors I met. She is very understanding of circumstances and is a fair grader. If you put the effort in then you will surely succeed in that class. She gives you all the materials and lessons to be prepared for this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-24T03:18:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Jaclyn Bruner', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Dr. Bruner somehow made a class that happened at 8AM and, as a bonus, involved me speaking for long periods of time to a room full of strangers an enjoyable experience. While I don't necessarily recommend that time slot, I would recommend taking her for COMM107 whenever you get around to it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T19:04:25.214033Z'}], 'name': 'Jaclyn Bruner', 'slug': 'bruner'}, {'courses': ['MATH462', 'MATH674', 'MATH410', 'AMSC660', 'AMSC674', 'CMSC660', 'MATH858D', 'AMSC664', 'CMSC664', 'MATH498', 'AMSC663', 'CMSC663', 'MATH140H', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'AMSC460', 'AMSC673', 'CMSC460', 'MATH673'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jacob Bedrossian', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Professor Bedrossian is an amazing teacher. He wants students to succeed, and provides many opportunities to do so, from posting exam review guides, pointing out which type of questions and concepts will be on exams, and posting where students can get assistance from other faculty or students if they cannot make his office hours. He made a hard class seem, if not easy, then at least doable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-23T21:12:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacob Bedrossian', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Great lecturer, but exams are hard.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-25T17:18:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacob Bedrossian', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'A very knowledgeable guy and a great lecturer', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-23T15:37:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacob Bedrossian', 'course': 'MATH140H', 'review': 'Professor Bedrossian is an incredibly intelligent man, and a pretty good lecturer. His exams could be difficult sometimes, but were fair. His weekly homeworks had some real crazy stuff attached to them, but doable with fair bit of thinking. Very nice, sorta awkward.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-28T00:24:40Z'}], 'name': 'Jacob Bedrossian', 'slug': 'bedrossian'}, {'courses': ['ECON676'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jacob Goldston', 'slug': 'goldston'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL272'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jacob Sevick', 'slug': 'sevick'}, {'courses': ['CCJS100', 'CCJS105'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jacqueline Lee', 'slug': 'lee_jacqueline'}, {'courses': ['HESI315'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jacqueline Mac', 'slug': 'mac'}, {'courses': ['ANTH469J', 'ANTH469R', 'ANTH380', 'ANTH688J', 'ANTH689R', 'ANTH473', 'ANTH673', 'ANTH469C', 'ANTH689C', 'ANTH474', 'ANTH674', 'ANTH474', 'ANTH674', 'ANTH473', 'ANTH474', 'ANTH673', 'ANTH674', 'ANTH473', 'ANTH474', 'ANTH673', 'ANTH674'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jacqueline Messing', 'course': 'ANTH473', 'review': 'Dr. Messing is a wonderful professor. For me, doing readings can be hard sometimes, because I read very slowly. But I actually found myself enjoying while doing the readings. Readings provided by Dr. Messing are worth to read. She also cares about students discussion posts as she gives responses to them. Conversations with her are very comfortable. She’s definitely the one professor you would like to have further discussions with, and without worries. Especially, I gained so much knowledge from her while taking ANTH473, and she’s one of my favorite professors at umd.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-21T23:03:02.707499Z'}], 'name': 'Jacqueline Messing', 'slug': 'messing'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338B', 'EDHI338E', 'BUDT758A', 'BUSI758A', 'BUSI604'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jacqueline Pearce Garrett', 'slug': 'garrett'}, {'courses': ['MATH113'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "Really good teacher, explains everything well. Sometimes I feel she could've used class time better when she took forever to review a single problem. But overall she is really helpful. She tells you exactly when quizzes/tests are and will tell you exactly what's on them. She collected some homework but after the first few she didn't for the rest of the semester. I would definitely recommend her.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-16T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': 'Grade B/A. She is a great person! she cares about her students a lot. If you have trouble she will ask you to come to her for help, instead of just leaving you hanging. Do website and your textbook hw that she only collected like 2 or 3 in the beginning to scare you to make you do them. But do it anyways itll help you study. 3 exams. she will drop a few quizzes at the end too. #TakeHer', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-31T01:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "Prof. Stone is the best math teacher I've ever had. She really cares about her students and makes math really easy.\r\nTake Her for 113!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-19T22:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "Professor Stone is AMAZING! She truly cares about her students and tells us to email her if we're frustrated with your homework and tell me you trouble. She will work with you outside of the classroom. I actually earned a B, but she bumped me up to an A. STUDY THE TEST BANK. Tests dont really deviate much. Same concepts though. I took precal senior year and did horribly, but took this class the semester and got an A. It was easier than my high school math. TAKE IT WITH STONE!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-01T14:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': 'Extremely great math teacher. Learn easily in her class and as long as you study you will get an A or B. Also very nice, open and helpful. Definitely recommend taking her for math. Expect to put in time for online HW as well as textbook HW. Grading system is also very efficient and beneficial. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-10-28T01:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': 'Jacqui Stone is potentially the best teacher I have ever had. She is so nice and does a great job of simplifying and explaining everything. I had learned this material before but she made it ten times more clear. Only annoying thing is doing webassign but if you have any problems she is a great help. Take her if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-04T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': 'I Loved this lady she was great. She always went out of her way in this class to make it easier on you. She is extremely nice and approachable and like someone else said earlier she is like a kindergarten teacher and treats her class amazingly. He teaching style is perfection. She goes through problems that are identical to the ones on the test and the WebAssign is so easy it takes like 10 minutes to do. Take her if you can!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-04T13:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "You HAVE to taker her!!!! she is the best teacher no doubt!! i feel like she's a kindergarten teacher she's sooo sweet and most importantly, its impossible not to understand. =)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-06T17:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "\r\nShe's a great professor and a genuinely kind woman. I used to hate math, but now I definitely understand it more. It's no problem getting an A in the class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-20T16:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "Even though I had basically taken this class before I came to college, Stone did a good job of reinforcing and teaching new things that I hadn't learned. Class was based on web assign hw, three tests, quizzes in discussion every week, and the final. My TA was horrible, so I really depended on lectures to learn new topics. She gives you book hw after every lecture that basically goes over what was taught, so you don't really have to go but it helps. I'm not sure what the other math113 teachers are like, but Stone is definitely a safe bet. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-17T02:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "Stone is by far the best math teacher I've ever had. She really takes the time to explain things clearly, and tells students WHY something is the way it is, not to just memorize the rule. She is very polite and friendly and easy to talk to after class if you ever have questions.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-03T23:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "She is such a sweetheart. I am a huge fan of hers. Stone teaches math in a non-threatening, sincere manner that made bombing the entrance test a blessing. Sometimes you have to turn in your homework but not that often, other than that just easy webassign's. Tests and quizzes are very straightforward and there are so many resources to do well, which she points out before every class. \r\nI'll miss her next semester when I have to take math220! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-02T22:04:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jacqueline Stone', 'slug': 'stone_jacqueline'}, {'courses': ['COMM200', 'COMM107', 'UNIV101', 'COMM230', 'COMM330', 'COMM398C', 'TLTC699A', 'COMM398P', 'COMM401', 'COMM398O', 'COMM469', 'COMM301', 'COMM398O', 'COMM469C', 'COMM330', 'COMM398O', 'COMM301', 'COMM469C', 'COMM330'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Jade Olson is awesome and makes comm107 great. def take this class with her if you have the chance.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-08T00:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM200', 'review': "Overall this was a very good class. As long as you did the readings and attended class you should do fine. There are two speeches and one debate but they aren't that hard. It maybe takes a couple of hours each. There is one paper but it's not that bad. No midterm but there is a final. As long as you understand what is going on in class then it's not that bad. Jade is great! She is down to earth and chill. She really knows a lot about this and really gets that this isn't your first priority. She is more than willing to help or explain things in any way she can. Overall a good class to take if you need to take it but I wouldn't go out of my way to take it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-18T12:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Great professor. Very understanding and actually makes the class useful', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-04T23:07:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Very chill professor, has a great sense of humor and understands that not everyone is a good speaker. Sometimes grades strictly if you make mistakes but gives you useful feedback on how to improve. Definitely a good choice if you need to take this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-10T22:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM330', 'review': 'I had her for the summer session and she was one of the best teachers that I have had at UMD. Her style of teaching easily allows everyone to participate, be excited about the class, and also helps to make the content relevant. She gives great feedback and does everything in her power to help you succeed. She gives extensions freely and during the summer session, she had a two-day grace period. This accommodation for everyone helped to make the accelerated course less stressful. 100% recommend. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-07-09T14:16:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Where do i start with her.... Excellent communicator, you can tell she has a PhD in this field. Very accommodating to students, and overall, just a very sensible person. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-02T06:51:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Dr. Olson was the most amazing teacher ever. She was very well-organized, super nice and caring to her students, and also so funny. I was so sad when my class with her ended because I am just going to miss her personality so much. I definitely 1000% recommend Dr. Olson.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-26T03:42:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM469', 'review': "This class isnt finished but its April and I have a 100%. I really enjoy her teaching style and she's super forgiving. I can't imagine disliking her I think she's a great teacher and gives good feedback on all assignments. The class is easy but that doesn't mean I am not learning. She offers a 2 day grace period for late assignments on all assignments which is nice. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-01T14:07:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM398O', 'review': 'This Professor was very Nice,Caring and Helpful. She gives helpful feedback on ways to improve on assignments. She explains things in a clear way that will make sense. She’s easily accesible. She made class Fun. I highly recommend taking a class with her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T18:33:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Jade Olson', 'course': 'COMM398O', 'review': 'This class was very Fun, I enjoyed it. The Professor was very nice,caring and helpful. She explained concepts in a clear way that made sense. She gives helpful feedback on the assignments. She was easily approachable. I highly recommend taking a class that she teaches. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T21:23:06Z'}], 'name': 'Jade Olson', 'slug': 'olson_jade'}, {'courses': ['EDSP415', 'EDSP695', 'EDSP482', 'EDSP477', 'EDSP484', 'EDSP416', 'EDSP888I', 'EDSP615', 'EDSP682', 'EDSP677', 'EDSP684', 'EDSP616', 'EDSP888A', 'EDSP850', 'EDSP484', 'EDSP684'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jade Wexler', 'slug': 'wexler'}, {'courses': ['GEMS497', 'KNES300', 'KNES498W', 'KNES689G', 'KNES289P', 'KNES789B', 'KNES789P', 'KNES689W', 'KNES300H', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'KNES789T', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'KNES689Q', 'KNES498V', 'KNES497', 'KNES498V', 'KNES789A', 'GEMS496', 'KNES289P', 'KNES751', 'GEMS497', 'KNES789A', 'KNES498V', 'KNES751', 'KNES265', 'KNES689Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jae Kun Shim', 'slug': 'shim'}, {'courses': ['ENTS630', 'BUSI681', 'BULM758M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jahangir Boroumand', 'slug': 'boroumand'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'WMST400', 'LGBT200', 'WGSS488C', 'WMST618', 'WGSS319U', 'WGSS428D', 'LGBT200', 'WGSS368', 'WGSS378', 'LGBT200', 'WGSS200', 'WGSS250', 'WGSS250', 'WGSS368', 'WGSS378', 'WGSS428D', 'WGSS487', 'WGSS290', 'WGSS250', 'WGSS487'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jaime Madden', 'course': 'LGBT200', 'review': 'LGBT 200 had a lot of writing assignments, such as two "Daily Question" assignments due a week, where we had to reflect on the assigned reading material of that day. There were also 3 essays assigned throughout the semester that needed to be a minimum of 3 pages; along with a few other projects.\r\n\r\nOverall, if you don\'t mind writing frequently, this class will be a piece of cake and an easy A. Sometimes weekly writing assignments, such as the "Daily Questions," can be annoying and an inconvenience, but they aren\'t necessarily difficult to complete. Also, Dr. Madden was sweet and answered emails quickly. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-21T19:38:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Jaime Madden', 'course': 'LGBT200', 'review': 'Dr. Madden is probably the most professional professor I have worked with. \r\n-I have taken classes with "organized" professors before, but Dr. Madden has installed her own home page into the ELMS ticker with working links and shortcuts to assignments. \r\n-She features guest speakers and encourages ways you can get involved and attend historical events around the university\r\n-This is an intro class, with a lot of different backgrounds, so she has the somber job of introducing people to their first exposure to some pieces of writing/media about hard-core discrimination, and pieces with radical voices. She\'ll ask you to reflect on these, but she handles everything with seriousness and respect. \r\n-Dr. Madden handles class emergencies very well\r\n-Her teaching style is engaging, and her assignments are not too demanding.\r\n\r\nIdk, I couldn\'t really ask more from a class and with a lot of experience taking STEM classes here, this class was a gem. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-11T02:39:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Jaime Madden', 'course': 'LGBT200', 'review': "Dr. Madden is an incredibly respectful and kind professor. Very careful and deliberate with her words and instruction, she makes sure to create an environment that is accepting of everyone and acknowledges everyone's experiences. She encourages class discussion and invites students to voice their opinions and experiences to contribute to the discussion, while guiding the overall progression of the class. She is very methodical and organized in her instruction, and is one of the most structured professors I've had. There are frequent daily questions, which are not too bad to complete (about a paragraph each). I found that she is a very lenient and easy grader, and accommodates situations as they arise. The class is not too demanding or difficult, but does require frequent readings (for those that may be unaccustomed to that). There are frequent videos and films that are also assigned, which helps add variety. There was a class emergency at one point, and she engaged and handled the incident expertly and with a profound kindness. Overall, she is incredibly thoughtful and a great professor to teach this intro class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-19T16:55:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Jaime Madden', 'course': 'LGBT200', 'review': "Professor Madden was one of the best instructors I've had. I took LGBT200 as an gened requirement and pretty much hope all of my geneds are structured like her class was. She's very sweet and organized. There's small assignments due before each class and a few essays as well but they were not too hard. She does keep track of attendance. Discussion is a big part of class but I really enjoyed how that went. There's a good amount of reading involved for the assignments. Overall I really liked her class and would definitely take another class of hers again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-10T20:43:31.723434Z'}, {'professor': 'Jaime Madden', 'course': None, 'review': "Sweet, respectful and kind! Dr. Madden makes me feel very seen and understood in her class. She offers many opportunities for participation credit that do not involve speaking in class, which is good for if you are a shy student. However, even though I am a rather shy student myself, Dr. Madden's class is the only class I feel fully comfortable participating in during discussions. She really ensures that her classroom is a safe space and makes sure that students are understanding the material. It is easy to keep up with the work and get a good grade as long as you are trying, and Dr. Madden is a lenient grader. She is also very very organized, which is SO helpful for someone like me who always gets overwhelmed at big Canvas pages. Her Canvas Pages are always organizes into separate weeks so you know exactly what you need to focus on. Would love to take more classes with her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T23:28:22.545374Z'}], 'name': 'Jaime Madden', 'slug': 'madden_jaime'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'SPHL240'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jaime Oliver', 'slug': 'oliver_jaime'}, {'courses': ['ENAE685', 'ENAE684', 'ENAE415', 'ENAE488I', 'ENAE481', 'ENAE482', 'ENAE788I', 'ENAE631', 'ENAE788U', 'ENAE788G', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE684', 'ENAE788G', 'ENAE482', 'ENAE685', 'ENAE488K', 'ENAE684'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Baeder', 'course': 'ENAE415', 'review': "Material is sometimes dry, and the textbook seems like it is for graduate students. \n\r\nHomeworks are quite challenging, so plan on forming study groups, or asking him for help. \n\r\nBaeder is a nice guy and is approachable, but he is very busy. \n\r\nTests/Quizzes are a little easier than homework, so that's a plus. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-05-16T22:02:00Z'}], 'name': 'James Baeder', 'slug': 'baeder'}, {'courses': ['JOUR479G', 'JOUR200U', 'JOUR201', 'CPMS100', 'CPMS101', 'CPSP218J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Baxter', 'slug': 'baxter'}, {'courses': ['BSCV181', 'BSCV301', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Bond', 'course': 'BSCV301', 'review': 'This guy is an absolute piece of shit. Stay far away from him. He is a two-face, BE CAREFUL!!!!!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-17T01:55:19Z'}], 'name': 'James Bond', 'slug': 'bond_james'}, {'courses': ['HLTH775', 'HLTH774', 'HLTH140', 'HLTH391', 'HLTH140H', 'HLTH391H', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'SPHL610', 'SPHL399', 'HLTH140', 'HLTH391', 'HLTH391H', 'HLTH609', 'SPHL399', 'HLTH140', 'HLTH140H', 'HLTH391', 'HLTH391', 'HLTH391H', 'SPHL399', 'SPHL610', 'HLTH140', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'HLTH140', 'HLTH140', 'HLTH140H', 'HLTH140', 'HLTH140', 'HLTH140H', 'HLTH391'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Butler', 'course': 'HLTH140', 'review': "The most amazing professor I've had. Super chill and easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-08-09T00:25:49Z'}, {'professor': 'James Butler', 'course': 'HLTH391', 'review': 'Dr.Butler is truly one of the best professors I have ever had. He is very considerate about the circumstances in this pandemic & cares about all of his students', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-08T17:43:53Z'}, {'professor': 'James Butler', 'course': 'HLTH140', 'review': 'Great professor, very interesting class. Easy work and tests are not hard. One of my favorite classes, and I felt like I learned things I could use throughout life. Definitely take his class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-28T00:46:22Z'}, {'professor': 'James Butler', 'course': 'HLTH140', 'review': "Professor Butler is wonderful! His lectures are informative, and he often includes real examples from his own life and career as a public health professional. The one downside is that he talks very quickly during lectures, making it difficult to take notes. Professor Butler posts his slides but leaves out information in an effort to make students come to lecture. \r\n\r\n HLTH140 is a great intro course to take if you're interested in healthcare. The assignments are easy, mostly 1-2 page reflection papers. You don't need to buy the textbook for this class; I never used it once. Take notes and you'll do well on the exams (which are all multiple choice)!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-08-05T21:33:14Z'}, {'professor': 'James Butler', 'course': 'HLTH140', 'review': 'Dr. Butler is the best professor I have had at UMD so far! He is so nice and helpful. He really wants his students to do well so his quizzes and exams are extremely straight forward. If you go to class you will get an A+. He does sometimes randomly do discussions grades so you have to be in class, but as long as you go every week then you are almost guaranteed an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-30T19:33:57.912800Z'}, {'professor': 'James Butler', 'course': 'HLTH140', 'review': "Dr. Butler is the absolute best!!! He is the reason I switched my major to community health. Super kind and caring. Go to his office hours and don't miss a lecture.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-17T19:00:21.966915Z'}, {'professor': 'James Butler', 'course': 'HLTH140', 'review': 'Dr. Butler is an absolute beast! He is the nicest guy and one of the best professors I have had here at maryland. I love him. The class is very straightforward. There are 3 tests which are online and open note and as long as you show up to every class and write down the notes from the board you should be fine. I loved this class and love Dr. Butler. Take this class if you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-05T20:41:51.389674Z'}], 'name': 'James Butler', 'slug': 'butler_james'}, {'courses': ['JOUR353', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR625', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR625', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR625', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR625', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR625'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Carroll', 'slug': 'carroll_james'}, {'courses': ['AOSC611', 'AOSC670', 'AOSC420', 'GEOL670', 'AOSC798', 'AOSC658E', 'AOSC617', 'AOSC375', 'GEOL375', 'AOSC375', 'GEOL375', 'AOSC611', 'AOSC798', 'AOSC798', 'AOSC375', 'GEOL375'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Carton', 'course': 'AOSC420', 'review': 'Jim Carton was a great professor for oceanography! He has a passion for what he does and is quite evident in his lectures. He is easily accessible though email and is willing to help you outside of class. His coding project were difficult to understand if you didnt have a lot of background knowledge on the subject. He helps you through the projects if you ask for it. He had a midterm and a final exam. Both are worth a significant portion of your grade and they are extremely challenging. Be prepared for those things. Other than that this was an amazing course with a great professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-01-16T04:22:02Z'}], 'name': 'James Carton', 'slug': 'carton'}, {'courses': ['URSP250', 'URSP709', 'URSP605', 'URSP640', 'URSP804'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Cohen', 'slug': 'cohen_james'}, {'courses': ['HONR269V', 'PLSC489W', 'PLSC689W', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC618', 'PLSC420', 'PLSC125', 'PLSC608', 'PLSC125', 'PLSC608', 'PLSC618', 'PLSC608'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Culver', 'course': 'HONR269V', 'review': "Jim is a very nice guy, and the virus seminar was very interesting. It went very in depth, much more than I expected, but I learned a lot. He is clear with assignment expectations and is always open to revising presentation and the final project. No quizzes or exams is a plus, but that doesn't mean you won't have to work. There is a final research project, but it's spread out over several weeks and very doable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-05T23:44:54Z'}, {'professor': 'James Culver', 'course': 'HONR269V', 'review': 'Professor Culver is really enthusiastic about his teaching. Class discussions were interesting and easy going. The class is really fun because we got to do tests on plants and visit one of the labs on campus. The professor was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about virology and it made learning more enjoyable. I would recommend this seminar to anyone because it made me want to come to class and try my hardest. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-06T17:44:28Z'}, {'professor': 'James Culver', 'course': 'HONR269V', 'review': 'Jim has been my favorite professor so far, he is extremely passionate about the subject and really wants his students to do well. This class is an easy A if you are willing to put work into a few projects over the semester. The final project was really interesting and I would really recommend this class to anyone remotely interested in science.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-11T17:24:08Z'}], 'name': 'James Culver', 'slug': 'culver'}, {'courses': ['PHYS606', 'PHYS761', 'PHYS762', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS373', 'PHYS604', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS610', 'PHYS611', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS260H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Drake', 'course': 'PHYS721', 'review': "Drake is a wonderful professor that really has a knack for teaching. I took this same class with a different professor (Bernake) and I simply couldn't understand him. On the other hand, Drake teaches in a slow and methodical fashion that's incredibly easy to understand so long as you attend each and every lecture. He goes into much detail around the example problems he gives that are very similar, if not identical, to the problems that he gives on exams. The HW can get difficult at times, but the professor is always more than willing to help however he can.\r\nWhen it comes down to students, Drake shows genuine care in the success of his students and at one point, had an intervention of sorts when the class failed to meet his expectations. He holds review sessions before every exam and lets us know what's going on at all times, including exam days, review days, how far we are in the curriculum and so on.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-17T02:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Drake', 'course': 'PHYS272', 'review': "Dr. Drake is one of the best physics professors I've ever had. He is extremely knowledgeable in regards to his subject matter and has a sincere desire to see his students do well. The review sessions he holds before the midterms are extremely helpful. I highly recommend you attend all of them. He is very accommodating, and he doesn't have any issues talking with you one on one outside of class. I would definitely recommend taking a class with Dr. Drake. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-02T16:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Drake', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Drake is amazing. His lectures are always very clear, and he explains everything quite well. He will go out of his way to help students succeed and holds a review session before exams just to make sure students know the material. His grading system is very fair, and if you put in the effort, you will do very well in his class. He loves answering questions and helping students out. If you can take Professor Drake's class, do it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-11-15T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Drake', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'Dr. Drake is a great professor. Gives very clear and informative lectures with very good notes. If you go to lectures and take the notes he writes up on the board you can get an A without ever opening the textbook. Exams and assignments ask fair questions that are representative of the material covered in the lecture and are graded fairly as well. Dr. Drake personally holds a review session before every exam and the final and is more than happy to meet with students outside of class to help them. It is very easy to make a time to meet with him as he is in his office very regularly. If you need help go talk to him and he will help you. If you miss a lecture go talk to him and he will copy his lecture notes for you and go through them with you. Take a class with Dr. Drake if at all possible.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-18T15:24:00Z'}], 'name': 'James Drake', 'slug': 'drake_james'}]
[{'courses': ['ENME331', 'ENES221', 'ENME642', 'ENME640', 'ENME640', 'ENME640'], 'average_rating': 2.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Duncan', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': 'Lectures were completely useless and nearly impossible to follow. Spends way too much time on derivations and does not like going through example problems. Fluids Mechanics overall is not too difficult of a class and the material makes sense more or less, so if these lectures were even a bit more effective, this class would be a lot easier.\r\nDuncan is a really nice person, but not a good teacher for 331.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-06-04T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Duncan', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': 'His lectures are pretty difficult to follow. Throughout the semester I generally had no idea what was going on in lecture. He spends the vast majority of time going over proofs and doing math, but he did very little to explain what any of it actually meant physically. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-19T14:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Duncan', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': "Did not learn a single thing from lecture all semester long. All he does is perform complex derivations throughout the entire lecture, everyone looks around at each other wondering what on earth is going on. I like to joke with my friends that he just wants to see how many partial derivatives he can fit on the board at once. Don't take him.\n\r\nWith regards to the class itself, it's not too bad you can look everything required from the homework.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-13T18:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Duncan', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'Good professor...just horrible course. Duncan is very open with his students offering major help and explanation during office hours. He is willing to push back tests or delete quizzes or even remove some homework problems. Great guy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-23T03:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Duncan', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'I though Duncan was a pretty good professor overall. The class itself is just impossible though.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-15T00:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Duncan', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'Dr. Duncan is a great professor for dynamics. His lectures are good (although a bit boring) and he is very open to questions during class. He is also extremely helpful during his office hours. My one complaint would be that he sometimes spent too much time trying to prove things rather than spend extra time on examples.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-23T19:52:30Z'}, {'professor': 'James Duncan', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "STAY AWAY! AWFUL PROFESSOR, VERY BORING!\r\nIf you want to have a miserable time with poor direction, then take this guy. He shouldn't even be considered faculty, absolute garbage! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-17T01:50:17Z'}], 'name': 'James Duncan', 'slug': 'duncan_james'}, {'courses': ['GEOL489F', 'GEOL444', 'GEOL789F', 'GEOL789Q', 'GEOL489P', 'GEOL789P', 'GEOL489Q', 'GEOL899', 'GEOL124', 'GEOL124', 'GEOL124'], 'average_rating': 2.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Farquhar', 'course': 'GEOL124', 'review': "Farquhar is a really nice guy, almost too nice. \n\r\nI came into this class expecting a challenging, engaging course on how life evolved on earth from the beginning to its present day form. While we certainly did cover some of this, it seemed that climate change was a bigger topic of discussion than life itself. I can't say that I didn't learn anything, I definitely did. It just wasn't the type of stuff I expected to learn. The class itself was generally boring, although there were a couple topics where the material was interesting and Farquhar gave a good lecture. \n\r\nAs for Farquhar himself, like I said he is extremely nice and overly agreeable. He is also the most awkward teacher I have ever had. Half the time it seemed like he was scared to death of public speaking. He wants his students to succeed and do well, but he isn't commanding enough. Farquhar also tends to go off track and talk about his research. I actually didn't mind listening to this though because it tended to be more interesting than the lecture slides. Farquhar knows his stuff but has a hard time of conveying it. The TA, Brian, was very good and explained things well. The discussion sections were a lot lighter and more social. \n\r\nAs for the difficulty level of the class, I don't understand how anyone can possibly get less than a B if you go to class even half the time. We had two projects for the class. In one we had to go to the National History museum in DC. The worksheet we had to fill out was dreadful, and it took me about 3 hours to complete. The museum itself is really interesting though. The other project was a group project which was pretty easy. The tests are easy and you get extra credit all over the place. I'm sitting at a 91% for the year and barely did any work. If you spend 1/2 hour studying for the tests and an hour studying for the final you'll get good grades. \n\r\nThe class was meh. Not awesome, not terrible. I learned a decent amount and got a good grade with no work. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T17:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Farquhar', 'course': 'GEOL124', 'review': 'This class is DREADFUL!! Yes, the subject has potential to be interesting (which is why i signed up for it) but the teacher just completely killed every ounce of that appeal. He rambles like crazy! I can not even begin to explain how off topic he gets for such extended amounts of time. Also, his planning is awful. The syllabus is pointless because he follows no lesson plan at all. He becomes so completely engrossed in one subject that we would end up spending more than 2 weeks on one graph. He also has a tendency of assuming everyone has an extensive knowledge of every subject in science ever so lectures, on top of being highly disorganized, are impossible to understand.\n\r\nAs for course load there were two projects. For one, we had to answer 10\r\n+ pages of specific questions pertaining to various exhibits at the Museum of Natural History. It personally took me 5 hours to complete, it was 10% of our grade. The other project was a group project where you had to make a wiki page on a topic concerning global warming/climate change/etc. We had 2 mid-terms, each of which asks very specific questions like what is the energy output of the sun, and the choices varied only in decimal placement. There is also a final which is cumulative.\n\r\nFor discussion, life was not so bad. The T.A. is a million times better than the professor and section was kind of interesting. For the whole course, every week you had to read a chapter out of the discussion book and answer a question pertaining to that chapter, very easy.\n\r\nIn conclusion, do not take this class. Even though discussion was good, having to deal with the lecture is not worth it. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-07T18:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Farquhar', 'course': 'GEOL124', 'review': "awful class. do NOT take this class unless you want to be absolutley bored and angry the whole time. farquhar gets off topic about his field research and science buddies half the time, and then expects you to understand everything he didn't say. even though it says its an easy core science class, STAY AWAY.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-03-27T00:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Farquhar', 'course': 'GEOL444', 'review': "Farquhar is a really nice professor, and he clearly knows a TON about what he's talking about — he discovered a decent amount of the things we learned about! But as someone with basically no experience with what he was teaching us about, a lot of the class ended up going over my head and was just really hard to absorb. Honestly think the only reason I did well in this class is because our TA was a huge help, Farquhar gave us all 100% for participation, and I think he put a pretty big curve on the final. Be prepared to put a lot of work in outside class!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-11T23:40:06Z'}, {'professor': 'James Farquhar', 'course': 'GEOL124', 'review': 'Do not take this class if you are accepted into the Carillon community. The course is boring and tedious.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-15T04:59:03.337247Z'}, {'professor': 'James Farquhar', 'course': 'GEOL124', 'review': 'Although Dr. Farquhar clearly knows what he\'s talking about, he rambles, and my classmates and I would leave class not having felt that we learned anything. He\'s a really nice person, but he seems to be an ineffective educator. We had two tests in the entire class and both contained multiple choice/fill-in-the-blank questions that were incredibly specific and definitely not things we would have remembered for class. Luckily, he gave us "study guides" for both exams that were just the exact questions, so definitely use those to study. My class had to complete multiple group projects relating to methane, an abridged paper about methane concentrations around campus that we collected, and group research posters that we presented at a Carillon showcase in early December. These methane-related assignments appeared to detract from the main focus of the class which was how the Earth and life have changed over the course of its lifetime, a topic that was actually quite interesting. I think if Farquhar had gotten rid of the methane stuff (His personal research) and instead focused on the main themes of the class, I would have gotten a lot more out of it.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-18T21:12:50.569064Z'}], 'name': 'James Farquhar', 'slug': 'farquhar'}, {'courses': ['HONR249E', 'MUSC450', 'MUSC673', 'MUSC460', 'MUSC550', 'HONR278R', 'MUSC448F', 'MUSC670'], 'average_rating': 4.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Fry', 'course': None, 'review': 'This was one of my favorite courses ever. It was taught in the most ideal fashion, and it was executed by the professor and students to perfection. As a course about creativity, Prof. Fry knew that there should be few restrictions on what students needed to do to fulfill the course requirements, and that one\'s grades and effort should be more intrinsically motivated than anything else. Otherwise, would the course really be conducive to creativity?\n\n\r\nThe course began with class discussions based on the readings of a self-help book on creativity written by Twyla Tharpe. I grew to love these discussions as they were student-led and not restrictive on our interest and ability to participate at all. There was no "requirement" for participation, nor was there a quiz or assessment based on the reading. We were simply learning and talking about creativity in the most creative setting of all - a free one. Conversations ranged from the incubation period required to complete a creative idea to how restrictions help one complete a creative project to smell memories that we could recall to our favorite creative location (and if we could repeat going there). I was sad when this portion of the course was about to end, but the next portion of the class was just as entertaining if not more so.\n\n\r\nWe were each assigned to complete two presentations on creative topics. There were suggestions in the syllabus, but really it was up to us to decide. Topics ranged from innovation to imagination to creativity in dreaming to superstitions to creativity in sports trick plays. The lack of restriction on course topics continued to add to the allowed creativity and freedom in this class, unlike many others, and the more general guidelines on what we had to present allowed for further intrinsic motivation as opposed to restriction- or grade-based motivation. Furthermore, this freedom of topic made this version of the course unique, as next semester’s will also be unique, as was the previous semester’s version.\n\n\r\nI was fearful the end of creative topics (which lasted about a month) would limit my love of the class, but we seamlessly transitioned into case studies, which further added to the perfection that was this course. Each individual was required to research any person in history or current day and present how they overcame a creative problem in their life. Some people researched serial killers, someone did Sylvester Stallone (I was amazed by what he had to overcome), and the sheer variety was spectacular. Once again, the course allowed students to put forth a presentation they were proud of, not that a rubric was proud of, and each class’s case studies will be unique, making our class a once-in-forever experience.\n\n\r\nLastly, we had to make a creative project. Now this I was excited for, as if the flawless course wasn’t already enough. And that was literally the basis of the instructions: make a creative project. You had to make a physical result, using what you learned in the course, but the beauty of the assignment was how simple the instructions were: make a creative project. People went above and beyond. They saw the edge of their comfort zones, leaped over it, ran a few miles, and then made their project. The results were outstanding, unique, and, of course, creative. One individual made a comic book with our Professor Fry as the main character. Individuals took photographs who weren’t photographers, and non-poets wrote poems. I was ENCOURAGED to make a nose-based board game, a brain-child of mine for about 2.5 years now, and how many classes would even ALLOW that. The requirements weren’t much - basically create your project and you got an A - but students went so far above and beyond that it really speaks the structure of the course and Professor Fry himself.\n\n\r\nI loved this class so much. My fellow classmates, Professor Fry, and the course itself really made it fun to walk up to The Clarice twice a week, and I wouldn’t have traded this semester in it for anything. I recognize that not every course can be like this - not all students can be this intrinsically motivated, some students or courses need more structure, some professors cannot teach like this - but this course was truly perfect for what it was. It was a course about creativity, taught by a creative professor, discussed by creative students, and structured in a creative manner that instead of inhibiting creativity, encouraged it. It may not count as any Gen Eds in the future, and it may in fact be a pass/fail class one day, but I would recommend that everyone sign up who can. It’s not often that you can take a course like this, and even if it is outside of your comfort zone, I can almost guarantee that you will enjoy it.\n\n\r\nThank you to Professor Fry, for he was the real person who made this course a reality. It was truly wonderful to have him as my professor for this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-13T23:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Fry', 'course': None, 'review': "This is a great class to take! I have learned so much from the student presentations in the class, and it's actually really interesting. Everyone is engaged. It's really easy to skip class, but the discussions are so good that it makes you want to stay. I also became kind of close with the other students and professor Fry. He even baked us bread for class. It's such a great atmosphere and really not that difficult of a class.\r\nIn the class you have to do basically one presentation a month and a paper with the presentation. The first two presentations are on basically whatever you want that is related to creativity. The third presentation is about someone who went through a hard time, and the last presentation is a creative project, so you literally can do whatever you want. Some people are taking pictures, recording videos, making music, really whatever you want. \r\nI love watching the other presentations because as long as it's interesting to them it'll be interesting to you which it is most of the time. I highly recommend taking this class. Professor Fry grades decently easy except for your grammar. He's a real stickler on grammar, but I have managed to get A's on all my papers so far with only a few points taken off. Otherwise, it's a very easy, fun, and interactive class!! I would recommend because it's such a great atmosphere and class with little work and grading involved. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-11-26T10:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Fry', 'course': 'HONR249E', 'review': "Good choice for an HA core but be prepared for a bit more work then you expected - then again, most H* courses are a decent amount of work. \n\r\nFour tests through the semester, each one is recognizing 12 songs from a list of 30. Each test is on a different era of music so to speak, so it may be easy/hard depending on your own music tastes. I'd say just download all of the songs, make a playlist, and throw it on shuffle.\n\r\nAfter those, everyone creates a presentation and 8 page paper on their favorite topic and presents for the rest of the semester. \n\r\nClass was pretty laid back, come in, learn about some music, listen for a bit, discuss, done. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-02T13:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Fry', 'course': 'HONR249E', 'review': "I took this class for my HA core and loved it. \n\r\nThe workload is so manageable: 4 exams based on the songs you hear in class. You gotta be able to recognize the song, then identify the composer/title/some characteristics with a couple short answer questions at the end. You do 1 presentation on a topic of your choice and write a paper with it (~8 pgs.) \n\r\nClass was so chill, just go in and listen to some crazy songs. Really opens you to a whole new realm of music [and you don't have to be musically talented!] \n\r\nProfessor Fry is a really nice guy! I would most definitely recommend this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-12T04:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Fry', 'course': 'HONR249E', 'review': 'Excellent teacher and musician. Great at explaining musical concepts and giving examples. Gives funny and interesting anecdotes within his lectures and is generally a nice guy when it comes to grading.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-14T13:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Fry', 'course': 'HONR278R', 'review': 'Wonderful guy. Really pushes you to learn more about yourself and your classmates with personal things like case studies on creative person of your choice and a very open-ended semester-long creative project. I thoroughly enjoyed this course and being taught by Professor Fry, and I wish him the best in the future.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-21T18:59:48Z'}], 'name': 'James Fry', 'slug': 'fry_james'}, {'courses': ['HIST285', 'HIST428A', 'HIST481', 'HIST484', 'HIST428F', 'AAST398R'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Gao', 'course': 'HIST285', 'review': "I took this class Spring 2012, so I can't remember it too clearly. Professor Gao has a heavy accent so it can be difficult to understand him some times, but he is very knowledgeable in his subject. He teaches using power points, which he posts online. However, he says more in lectures that he puts on the power points so you'll need to fill in the gaps with notes. \n\r\nThe exams were essay-based, but he gives you a review which is really helpful. At the end of the semester I had to do a 7 page paper on a topic of my choice. \n\r\nThe class is East Asian Civilization, but 80% of the class is spent talking about China, with the other 20% spent on the other east asian countries.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-11-14T01:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Gao', 'course': None, 'review': "History is supposed to be marked by change over time: development, progression, evolution, you name it. The prof, however, decided that he can conveniently squeeze ancient Chinese history into a few unrelated segments and call it a class! What bull - this was a huge waste of time; I can honestly say I learned very little of the change ancient China experienced as a culture and learned a lot about how to sleep with my eyes open. Unless this terrible structure changes, I won't recommend this class to anyone. \n\r\nOn the bright side, the midterm questions were given ahead of time as a study guide and he gave us an option to either do a paper (bleh) or to do a presentation on two short stories (guess which the class picked). It was a rather stress-free class but it wasn't easy - overall you should have known something to get an A. The prof is very reasonable and accommodating, but this is not a review of his character (I'm sure he's an interesting fellow outside of class). I really can't say anything good of his teaching style. \n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-04-23T21:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Gao', 'course': 'HIST285', 'review': 'I liked Professor Gao. He is a little hard to understand sometimes, but if you sit near the front it helps a lot. He is very enthusiastic and knowledgeable and his review sheets for the exams are great. \r\nAlso, my TA, Bill, was really good and willing to talk to you.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-12T20:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Gao', 'course': 'HIST285', 'review': "I really liked his class a lot. It's best to read the textbook even if it's dry because all of his lectures are just summaries of the textbooks chapters. Sometimes he adds more information in his PowerPoints so be prepared. He's knowledgeable and very witty too. If you need clarification with anything, it's best to attend his office hours and he can really help you. In addition, this class may be one of your easier classes because Dr. Gao is a very chill professor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-30T15:22:32Z'}], 'name': 'James Gao', 'slug': 'gao_james'}, {'courses': ['CMSC434'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Gilkeson', 'slug': 'gilkeson_james'}, {'courses': ['GVPT423', 'GVPT729G', 'GVPT227', 'GVPT429A', 'GVPT729D', 'GEOG498W', 'GVPT771', 'GVPT368K', 'GVPT368I', 'GVPT392', 'CCJS699G', 'GVPT373', 'GVPT423H', 'GVPT423', 'GVPT423', 'GVPT423', 'GVPT429B', 'GVPT423', 'GVPT429B'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Gimpel', 'course': None, 'review': "He is a really nice guy, just not the best teacher... He had slides that he used and just looked at them the whole time, barely looked at or interacted with the class. Sometimes he wrote on the white board..? Again, he's a really nice guy, its just hard to get involved with the class. One time he started an actual discussion that got the students involved, and it was actually pretty interesting debate/talk, but it only happened one time. Take the class if you are good with ArcMap or want to work with that (that's the lab portion taught by the TA and basically all the grade is based on), but not if you're looking for a super interesting discussion/lecture class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-05-14T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Gimpel', 'course': None, 'review': "DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH GIMPEL.\r\nI am sure he would be a good professor in a qualitative class where all that needs to be done is lecture, but gvpt227 is a qualitative class based on statistics and he is not the right teacher for this. He gets off topic when giving examples, the lectures are not relevant to the exams, and although a formula and numbers are given I have NO IDEA what the relevance of the numbers is to analyzing the data. But in this class that is fine, application is not tested at all. He lectures with his head facing down towards the projector and focused on what he is saying, so even when there is a question he has no idea. Its a pretty awful class. I'm sure the grades will be fine but if you do not have to take this class for a gov requirement DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH GIMPEL.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-03-26T13:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Gimpel', 'course': 'GVPT423', 'review': "Good class, good teacher. Lecture was engaging and enjoyable. A lot of readings, but they weren't difficult to understand. Tests were fairly straight forward and if you came to class, or at least did readings, nothing suprised you. Homeworks were ok, but more work than expected. He seems to think that writing 5 or 6 or 7 pages, due the very next week he assigns them is normal. But we only had 4 or 5 a whole semester. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-02T10:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Gimpel', 'course': 'GVPT423H', 'review': 'Dr. Gimpel was a great professor! You could tell he genuinely cared about students and tried his best to make the class as interesting as possible. I would take him again! I would suggest anyone who takes this class should do the readings and look at the homeworks in advance since they are five-page papers.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-09T01:47:50Z'}, {'professor': 'James Gimpel', 'course': 'GVPT423', 'review': "Dr. Gimpel was a good professor! The essays and exams are based heavily on the readings/lecture notes, so reading the required books is really important, but I thought they were easy to understand and more interesting than other class readings. Not many assignments besides the readings. He really seemed to care about his students and the topics, but more class interaction would've been nice. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-20T16:14:02Z'}, {'professor': 'James Gimpel', 'course': 'GVPT423', 'review': 'Gimpel is pretty chill, and teaches pretty well. Class is 4 homeworks or short papers in different formats, as well as a midterm and a final. MC and some written parts. A LOT of reading, but interesting. Lecture is just going over slides, and studying for exams consists of learning a bunch of terms and concepts. If you are interested in elections, take it, 100% worth it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-18T01:59:38Z'}], 'name': 'James Gimpel', 'slug': 'gimpel'}, {'courses': ['CPSP119N', 'CPSP239N', 'CPSP259N', 'GVPT349P', 'GVPT443', 'GVPT443H', 'CPSP118N', 'GVPT105S', 'GVPT449A', 'CPSP249N', 'GVPT241', 'GVPT241H', 'GVPT742', 'GVPT449E', 'GVPT449L', 'CPSN100', 'HONR278I', 'CPSN101', 'GVPT743', 'GVPT449H', 'GVPT388A', 'GVPT349H', 'CPSN230', 'CPSN240', 'CPSN250', 'CPSP359N', 'EXST030', 'GVPT449P', 'GVPT449F', 'GVPT449L', 'GVPT449P'], 'average_rating': 3.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': None, 'review': "I've taken two classes with Professor Glass and couldn't have enjoyed them more. Each was a film class (one on terror and one on the Holocaust) and was really as involved as you wanted to make it. \r\nI found that actually doing the readings was helpful to my participation and understanding in the class. But really they were basically optional. \r\nHis standards aren't high enough as far as participation and reading but he really knows his subject. He's just a really cool and interesting older dude and worth taking a class with.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-21T10:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Glass is like a nice, old, hippie grandfather (he sometimes will wear sunglasses due to some health condition, but it's a nice touch). I will admit I fell asleep in his lectures and didn't come to alot of the classes in the first couple weeks, but once you hear Professor Glass out, he and his muses are quite enjoyable to listen to. In the end, I found myself reading the books, and going to all his lectures. It makes me a little sad that the class is done now.\n\r\nThe down sides to this class though is the grading method and exam style. There are only 3 exams + final. All of them are in-class essays. I suck at timed writing so it was difficult for me to whip a good paper in 50 mins. Also importantly, the TA grades them, not Professor Glass. \n\r\nOverall, if you like to think and write well under time constraint, you should be fine. If you don't, you may need to try harder to get an A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-01-02T07:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': None, 'review': "This course is easy if you read the books (or sparknote them, or skim). You must always attend discussion though. It's really helpful.\n\r\nLectures were often tangents that seemed unrelated to the books. That being said, professor Glass is extremely insightful and intelligent! He seems to be an endless pit of knowledge and facts. His lectures are always relatable and interesting. \n\r\nHis voice is a bit monotone, though. Try to take a quick nap before classes; it will keep you from falling asleep. Lectures are unnecessary to attend, but I ALWAYS did just because I really enjoyed them. \n\r\nCan't wait to take more classes with Professor Glass!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-09T22:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': None, 'review': 'There is no reason you should not get an A in this class. Professor Glass is a nice old man. He drones on and on and on about nothing interesting. I get summaries off the internet. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-03T17:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "Truly brilliant. He kind of reminds me of a real-life Dumbledore. His lectures weren't incredibly easy to follow because he tended to go off on tangents, but I really enjoyed just going to class and listening to him. I did none of the readings and managed an A-, but I am also incredibly gifted in the art of BS. If you go to lecture and do the readings, an A is expected, if you don't do the readings a high B or low A are possible.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-10-27T03:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "Professor Glass is a trip. He is a very liberal guy who went to Berkeley in the 1960s and sometimes offers up funny little anecdotes about his time there. His lectures can sometimes be hard to follow but this could be due to many factors. 1)He is prone to going off topic and rambling. Even though he tangents are sometimes funny/insightful they are often random. So watch out for that. 2)Even though I am a government major, philosophy is not my forte so I often found the reading boring. But really I don't blame Glass for that. It's a requirement to learn about the past so we can study the future. And Glass tries his best to make it interesting.\n\r\nMore than anything, this class was entertaining. I learned a lot and even though some people think he is a crazy old coot, you have to appreciate him for who he is: a brilliant (if kooky) man who knows a lot about government, history, and philosophy.\n\r\nGrades consisted of three written exams (two midterms and a final). Even if you don't read, attending lectures and discussions should get you at least a B. Make sure you attend discussion (TAs are extremely helpful at clarifying confusing topics) and you will do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-27T15:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "Professor Glass will take you on a journey with his lectures and please be assured that you will probably get lost somewhere in the midst of it all. Hopefully your TA will be good so be sure to attend ALL discussion sections so they cn explain things to you better and tell you what to include in your exams. The exams are 2 in-class timed essays. They are a bit stressful to write in only 50 minutes but do your best. Be sure that you know each philosophers' personal views, experiences, and theories so that you can support things you say and compare their views. Your TA grades your exams so try to understand their style and want they look for in a good response. Know your stuff!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-06-01T13:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': None, 'review': "While Dr. Glass is an amazing professor, who clearly knows the books well, he is NOT the one who grades the class' papers. Rather, it is the TA who does so...rather harshly. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-21T12:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': None, 'review': "I loved this class, the lectures were always interesting and he manages to connect the texts together very meaningfully. If you are looking for a professor to summarize your assigned readings in lecture, you will not like Glass's teaching style. But if you are looking for a professor that treats you like an adult who can get the literal meaning of the text from reading the book, you will appreciate the anecdotes and background that Glass gives you during lecture. The honors section is a bonus because Glass leads the discussion section himself, which is great when you need to clarify points about the readings for the essays.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-03T19:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': None, 'review': 'he is a genius. his lectures are very profound and even though it gets repetitive some days, he never fails to have an interesting story.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'a', 'created': '2008-12-14T22:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': 'This man really is a genius. His lectures at first may seem to ramble, but he always ends each one making some profound point about the text.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-02-26T20:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "Easy A, but my god. This man can't keep a train of thought tot save his life. His TA's taught the class and even they were clueless on what was next. Very unorganized and confusing, but easy A nonetheless.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-01T16:57:04Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT105S', 'review': 'Professor Glass - as a PERSON - is great. He\'s very kind, intelligent, thoughtful, and passionate. But his classes are extremely boring, and he relies almost completely on his TAs, who never seem to know what\'s going on. I would not recommend being in International Studies for College Park Scholars. Luckily I had a really cool TA so it wasn\'t as stressful, but we had five grades for the entire semester, 3 of which were long 5-7/6-8 papers based entirely on really dry readings. Lecture wasn\'t mandatory but he gave "pop" quizzes, but after half the class missed the first pop quiz they warned us beforehand about quizzes. He\'s a nice guy and you can probably get away without doing the readings and the TA\'s were easy graders, so an A can be expected (if you don\'t miss a quiz and submit every paper). But be prepared to be bored out of your mind, as every class he sits and talks for 50 minutes straight and never gives presentations - he doesn\'t do anything other than ramble. Be prepared to have convoluted and unclear topics for papers with TA\'s who won\'t be much help.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-14T07:28:13Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': 'Dr. Glass has so much life experience and knowledge, and it’s so visible through his lectures. I was always fascinated by his ability to talk extemporaneously about dense political theory. He made great connections between older texts and their modern applications. I know that some people don’t like his rambling or slightly slower speech, but he is definitely someone you can learn a lot from. He always challenged my thoughts about the books that we read, and gave me a new perspective. I admired this professor and I hope to take him again in the future! As far as terms of grading goes, the TAs grade the 3 papers. Your experience can be varied depending on the strictness and expectations of the TA. Grades aside, I enjoyed Dr. Glass’ lectures very much. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-17T21:15:21Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': 'This was probably my largest lecture, and I guess, as a result, there was a lot of “disconnect” between Glass and students. I know that there are a lot of large lecture classes in uni, but perhaps it was his style of lecturing that made it feel impersonal, and at times, really boring. Occasionally he’d digress into a side topic, but catch himself. But his style of lecturing is sometimes scattered to the point where you’re mentally thinking “????” while you’re writing notes. But he knew what he was talking about, which is why I gave him 3 stars.\r\nHis essay prompts were okay—sometimes they were so ambiguous or long that I’d have to talk to my TA about what he wanted. \r\nGranted, this class isn’t for everyone. If you’re not required to take it, don’t (unless you find political philosophy interesting)—I’m a gov’t major, so it’s required for me.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:55:04Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT105S', 'review': 'Dr. Glass is a cool guy who has both eloquence and intelligence. At first, lectures were concise, helpful, and analysing the assigned readings (Plato, Machiavelli, etc.). However, mid-way he began to go off-topic and talk about US politics and Trump for 50 minutes straight. \r\n3 papers and 3 pop quizzes (lowest quiz grade dropped) make your grade.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-21T00:58:22Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT241', 'review': "This is my second class with him and he has a theme, no tests or exams but he will issue 3 essays throughout the course with vague prompts. Outside of that there have ben no assignments. He's chill, but TA's run the show. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-06-13T02:19:17Z'}, {'professor': 'James Glass', 'course': 'GVPT449F', 'review': 'Not a bad class per se, but Dr. Glass has a tendency to go off topic. Class is 3 essays, and that is it. Third paper is optional if you screw up one of them. Grades not too roughly. Class is boring, in the format of a discussion. Each week someone presents a book and a movie that was watched before, and we discuss. There are minor points for class participation and attendance, however not formal. Not the hardest class in the world, discussions if they pertain a hard book are not really worth going to due to the way people simplify their questions due to them not properly reading the texts. Dr. Glass does not lecture, just corrects any mistakes or says something at times. Reasonably easy A, however is pretty dry.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-18T01:56:30Z'}], 'name': 'James Glass', 'slug': 'glass'}, {'courses': ['ENGL265', 'ENGL344', 'LGBT327', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL295', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL465', 'ENGL312', 'ENGL359F', 'LGBT265', 'LGBT465', 'ENGL456', 'ENGL150', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL359F', 'LGBT327', 'ENGL359F', 'LGBT327', 'ENGL359F', 'LGBT327', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Goodwin', 'slug': 'goodwin'}, {'courses': ['PSYC361', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC798K', 'PSYC707', 'PSYC737', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'PSYC707', 'PSYC361', 'PSYC737', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC361', 'PSYC707'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Grand', 'slug': 'grand'}, {'courses': ['ENES461', 'ENES465', 'ENES210', 'ENES462', 'RDEV688P', 'ENES464', 'ENES140', 'ENES662', 'ENES466', 'ENES460', 'ENES471', 'ENES140', 'ENES210', 'ENES461', 'ENES662', 'ENES663', 'ENES666', 'ENES140', 'ENES210', 'ENES461', 'ENES662', 'ENES664', 'ENES666', 'ENES140', 'ENES210', 'ENES461', 'ENES460', 'ENES460', 'ENES460', 'ENES462', 'ENES667', 'ENES140', 'ENES210', 'ENES461'], 'average_rating': 3.0411, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "This guy thinks he is the smartest person in the world and everyone else is wrong. He changed an ELMS assignment 3 days before it was due, and when I emailed him about it I started receiving C's when I had previously been getting A+'s. He is not a good teacher and ignores student concerns. This class is online and it took me 4 emails to make contact asking what the syllabus was since it was never posted. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2016-03-29T15:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES464', 'review': "This guy thinks he's much smarter than he is. He didn't upload the course correctly to elms so everyone had to do the first assignment without having proper content from video lectures and not until the day of the assignment 2 did he actually postpone the due date. Thank you for nothing.He never took responsibility by apologizing for it or anything.His lecture videos are at least 3 years old. He makes me feel like UMD is a for profit college.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-03-27T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'Although the class was graded rather easy, i found it to be one of the most awful classes i have ever taken. Green gives pop quizzes to make sure you come to class, but you do not actually learn anything by going. The quizzes are only to lure you in so you have to listen to him ramble about cars and his achievements. Do NOT take a class of his.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-24T07:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "Dr. Green is an amazing individual. He is a bit abrasive early on, but his ENES course is extremely fair and incredibly informative. He is very experienced and knows what he is talking about. He provides several in-class activities that replicate real-world, entrepreneurial presentation-like settings. There are only 3 main essays and one final project, so it's definitely not the most time-demanding course. If you do the readings (never more than 30 pages) you'll truly appreciate everything he and the course have to offer. Definitely take one of his courses if you cannot or don't want to take ENES210.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-15T01:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES460', 'review': "He never responds to emails. Or if you ask something he doesn't want to answer too, he just wont respond. I had to make up 3 different fake emails just to talk to him. unbelievable. Get your act together man, what kind of unprofessional teacher are you.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-20T23:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "Wow, for such an easy class, I was given a ton of stress. He's got a really weird grading policy. He takes attendance by random quizzes here and there (usually every couple weeks, then near end of semester its highly unpredictable, like 3 back to back quizzes). The quizzes are easy as long as you get a general idea of the reading. However, if you mess up on one of them, it will bite you in the end. \r\nThis was honestly a bs class and I really didn't learn much at all. For example, the book we studied half the time they had a disclaimer that they need more information before they could draw a better conclusion.\r\nThe first essay was straight up dumb, They wanted 3 pages for 18 points, so that each paragraph was literally 4-5 lines and had not much substance at all. The later essays are much better though. The group presentations/project wasn't bad as long as you have a decent team. Participation does matter, although I having trouble seeing how I got my grade when there are 80 people in the class. If you have some issues with the grading on your quiz, don't hesitate to talk to the instructor, the TA's get a lot of stuff wrong. He offers a 2% curve on the final presentation if you fill out the end of semester class survey", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-30T14:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES460', 'review': 'The course was so poorly depicted in the syllabus that I had to schedule a meeting with the professor on campus. Also, his grading was just simply unfair. For one assignment, there were 3 criteria outlined by the syllabus, when I got my grade back I was shocked that it was as low as it was. Turns out that the rubric that he sent me had over 30 criteria listed on it! How is that fair? And no, even after I questioned him about this, he refused to change my grade or allow for any make up work. I asked him why he couldn\'t have just sent everyone the rubric and he said "well, it\'s a senior class". I\'m still not entirely sure why that makes a difference. He also said that, based on the semester, he grades more leniently or more difficultly. I know someone, a guy on the football team, who took this class in a winter session and he got A\'s on every single assignment without putting forth any real effort. I, who am in the Honors school, have had to dedicate huge amounts of time to these papers, and only have 1 A paper. What really gets me is that the syllabus never changed! How can you grade two semesters so differently when the syllabus doesn\'t change at all? The class should have been better planned. We had about two weeks to complete the first, smallest assignment and then about a week for each successive assignment. Then the very last, most important, hardest assignment came around and he gave us 4 days! Why couldn\'t the assignments have been spread out better to avoid us having to write 20 pages and plan 30 minute presentation in 4 days? Lastly, the professor had a discussion board on ELMS that he liked to use for questions, because this way there wouldn\'t be repeats. I thought this was a good idea until I asked a question myself. With our final project due in less than 2 days it took our professor about a day and a half to answer one of these questions. (The question wasn\'t mine but I had the same question). It just seems to me like he didn\'t care about his students needs at all. I originally took this class because I read some reviews about this professor and heard he was a great guy. Well, he seemed nice while I watched him on our video lectures, but he was a real disappointment in person.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-11T11:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'This class was def. a great laid back class. Take this with a hard scheudle if you want a breather! Grade consists of 3 main essays, which are easy to get an A on if you follow his instructions, and one big final group project(35% of your grade). Not much homework, except for reading assignments. Pretty much guarneteed an A if you do your essays and project', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-10T16:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': None, 'review': "Good teacher. Had him for Freshman Connection. Don't need to show up for lectures but he takes attendance. Make sure you participate because thats a part of your grade. Overall he teaches well. All his lecture notes are on slides posted online. His papers are easy too as long as you write exactly what he's looking for. And usually he'll say what he's looking for on the paper. And what he's looking for is on the slides. So it makes it really easy. The TAs graded the papers. I did well on all of them. Interesting class. Easy A.\n\r\nOh and he'll give pop quizzes off of the chapter you had to read. But he only have it twice. And he gave extra credit on the second quiz. He's easy, but he's very serious. You kind of don't need a textbook, but you might need it for quizzes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-10T14:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'The online course is a complete scam. Green does not teach. You "watch" videos and "read" slides and then submit assignments that are clearly graded by word count, not content. This course is an easy A for everybody (I missed out on an A- by .1%), and it honestly devalues the GPA here. This course should not be taught. Green requires everybody spends $30 on his own online textbook that is completely unnecessary. If you need a GPA booster, take the course. It will most likely help. But understand Green is profiting off your need for a high GPA by selling useless textbooks and not teaching at all. Do not email him either about grades, because it is automated and he does not care.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-01-02T00:09:53Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "I personally signed up for his class for the easy A. There are weekly quizzes that can be found in the readings and the final project is a simple essay. You can't simply write nonsense in the essay, but as long as it makes sense and is coherent, you will get a good grade. I put little to no work in this class and I easily received an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-03-26T23:18:13Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "This class has been changed a lot from past years, DO NOT TRUST the reviews from previous semesters. The class is pretty simple, and you basically have to do a weekly online quiz and a writing. The writing is not solely off of words last last years, but there are actual TA's that check your writing. That being said, the material is pretty easy and just basic business stuff. The course has been changed, but it's still the easiest A on UMD campus.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-03T22:44:30Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "Ayy lmao. The signature class of your boy James Green king of meme classes. Pay $27 extra dollars (for the book code you have to buy) to take a class that is a guaranteed A/A- if you do all the work and aren't braindead. Some assignment are randomly graded on a curve, since he knows a lot of people wont contest a B and hes tryna pull his average down a bit so that the class looks like less of a free A. If you actually do the work, appeal all your random grades and you'll do well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T06:44:43Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'So, everyone mostly takes this class because of its reputation of being an easy A. It is honestly still an easy A, but way harder than it’s been in past semesters. The word count for the analyses are 200 now. And we have a final group project now worth 18% of our grade which isn’t hard, but I’d rather just have an individual final project rather than meet up with people. \r\n\r\nI didn’t learn much while taking this class though. There’s no feedback on any of the written assignments besides the final project. Which is weird because how am I supposed to learn from my mistakes? And it felt like some grades were just assigned randomly.\r\n\r\nOverall, if you want an easy A, take this class. Just remember you actually have to try now because they’re skimming the analyses. But, if you want to learn, I wouldn’t recommend it. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-23T21:14:46Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "This has probably been said before, but this man is running a scam. It's shameful. He sells tons of books every semester and turns a huge profit.\r\nWhat's worse is that there's nothing really to learn in this class. The only subject matter he is qualified to teach is con artistry.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-12T17:55:26Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Everyone is coerced into buying his fake textbook because that counts for 10% of your grade. Finished his class with an A last semester and learned nothing. The course is a joke.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-03-08T19:17:07Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "This guy is an absolute scumbag. Not only is it a class just so thousands of students buy his trash 30$ textbook, but the class isn't even the easy A it's supposed to be anymore. You could learn more about being an entrepreneur from Shark Tank then this absolute joke. Even if you wanted to learn things in this class, it's not like the quiz grades are shown to you, so you can learn from your mistakes. \r\nThis guys is a waste of life and it's a massive disappointment that UMD allows this guy to teach at a school. The money I spent on the textbook for this class would've been better being spent on a random textbook, because at least with the random textbook I could beat James Green over the head for being a garbage human being. Congratulations Maryland, you've managed to outdo yourself with this hiring.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-05-01T21:31:24Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "This guy is a fucking idiot. Some dude last semester basically told him the whole class copied so he made it way harder. Still not that hard of a class, but now the quizzes average are below 80%. He makes you buy this useless online textbook that you need for 12% of your grade. He's a scam and an absolute fuckhead.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-05-11T18:17:55Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "No words to describe this class. I took ENES140 is get an easy A, but it literally became the HARDEST class I took this semester. James Green is an extremely rude person who never responds to any email sent to him. This guy wants you to buy a textbook for $30 which is a big SCAM. The textbook never helps you with any of the quizzes and simulation that take place for they cover outside detail that is never found in the textbook and CTRL F is completely useless now. I beg you, DO NOT TAKE THIS GENED CLASS. It is not an easy A like it used to be and it will screw you up unless you're up for a challenge.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-05-19T03:26:19Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'This class is far from an easy A anymore. Oof. \r\n\r\nI particularly had a problem with the videos because it felt like he was just trying to fill up time. I wish he just got to the point.\r\n\r\nThe quizzes were also unfair. Especially for the modules that talked about entrepreneurship in action. If he at least gave us a video outlining the things we should have taken note of it would have been fair, but the quizzes essentially evaluate our analysis which is subjective.\r\n\r\nI barely know Professor Green, but the class was pretty hard.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-23T20:40:04Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'Easy at first, but the group project requires a lot of work and the final was hard. The videos are ridiculously long and are not helpful. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-25T01:17:54Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Your whole grade depends on these 5 point quizzes and 2 point "simulations" that are all impossible to 100% on so you end up getting 4/5 or less on each one, bringing your grade drastically down. I do the readings and use them while I take each quiz, but he words the questions so specifically that it\'s impossible to do well. NOT as easy as it looks', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-04T16:58:12Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "Class is no longer an easy A. You must do readings to do well on quizzes. He wrote the book for the class and charges you $30 for it, making it seem as though the class is just a front for his book. I'd say if you're in need of an online class, this is ok but treat it like a class you go to lecture to and don't slack on it or else you won't do as well. My grade could have been far worse than it will be.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-10T19:20:35Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Class is no longer an easy A. Textbook is a scam, teaches nothing and is $25. Expect to have to read everything and watch all the videos (a lot) if you want to do well on the quizzes and get an A.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-12T02:09:44Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES461', 'review': 'Take the class you learn a lot! Not time consuming at all.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-21T14:08:34Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': None, 'review': "If you are not interested in business, do not have any business background knowledge, and are looking for a class that does not require any brainpower whatsoever, do not take this class. However, if you have a background in business, this class is a breeze. It reviews very basic business topics and you read 1-2 chapters which totals to 6 pages each week. If you take notes on the chapters you don't even need to look at any of the extra readings or even his lectures to take the quizzes. The simulations can be a bit difficult, however the final INDIVIDUAL project was very manageable and easy to get almost 100% on. He also offers an optional extra credit opportunity at the end which was helpful. Never had to interact with the professor, but his grading was very fair and straightforward. People who are complaining probably didn't put any work in or missed his deadlines and expected to get a 95%. Finally, it being all online was super nice, you just have to allocate 2 hours a week for this class and you will be set.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-22T18:17:20Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'The other comments hit the nail on the head. He sells his own textbook, which is literally useless then spews useless crap in lecture videos that he recorded 5 years ago.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-02-08T04:27:22Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "This man does not know how to communicate with people. When I, a student, asked for HELP with content, he referred me back to the content he already posted (which I had already read, bc otherwise I wouldn't be asking for help). He was horrible with helping me with our final group project when some of my team members were not responding to our final project. I literally sent the dean of the engineering school an email about this man. Never got anything back lol but I figured maybe during this crazy time we'd see some leniency.\r\n\r\nOh and also, he makes you buy HIS book as the textbook for the class. It was a waste of $25", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-07T12:59:31Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'See other comments. This class is a joke. So much subjectivity in the quizzes, it shocks me. So little class work that each question on the quizzes and simulations cost roughly 1% of your final grade. Just shocking', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-05-29T16:15:46Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'Professor Green seems to be a nice man who is very sympathetic to the concerns of his students and can help you with any questions you have during the course. Unfortunately, the course itself is not very informative, and a good proportion of the students in the class have trouble with even the most basic topics, severely worsening the experience in a heavily group project-based course.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-08-15T00:43:36Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Actively makes you buy his $28 textbook that he wrote, you must have an online official copy cause he grades off it and course is now 5+ hours a week of hollow readings and videos that teach you nothing', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-09-02T16:56:46Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "The other reviews are somewhat reflective of the truth.\r\n\r\nHe runs the course on autopilot, with the synchronous lectures being pre-recorded videos. Yes...The SYNCHRONOUS lectures are pre-recorded. Which means you're stuck watching a ~20 minute video at a specific time of the day, and can't watch it back later.\r\n\r\nThe average work week is around 1-2hrs of work (including watching module videos, reading, and note taking). There is a quiz each week, and 4 simulations. This semester, he dropped the simulation grades and just went off of completion (I.E., you do it, you get 100%).\r\n\r\nThe core of the grade comes from weekly group activities, which take around ~5 minutes per team member (4 of them). These weekly activities lead up to the final project, which is a 4,000 word writeup and summary of your theoretical startup company product/service. If you get inactive teammembers, you're stuck covering for them. \r\n\r\nAt the end of the semester, you do a final independent writeup of the team project, where you can list the members who did contribute or did NOT contribute to the project. He will then ask for a Google Docs link where he can see who did what, and substantiate your claims. My understanding is that their independent grade is docked accordingly.\r\n\r\nAs a whole, I don't mind him and I would take him again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-10T21:31:58Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "He makes you buy his textbook that he written for $25 and you must buy this book as all the quizzes are based on it and the online simulations. The class itself is fairly easy with just simulations, weekly quizzes/assignments, and the final group project. You have to design an MVP with a group and go through the steps to build a startup around the product. You'll work on it slowly throughout the semester through the weekly assignments. If you have a good group, you'll be fine and it'll be easy. If you get a slacking group, you'll have a lot of work to do. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-15T00:51:02Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES460', 'review': "Class is a joke but it's an easy A. The whole class revolves around a group project so make sure you choose good partners. My parents did very little work and I had to carry the load.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-11T22:24:04Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Material is pretty boring but the class it self is easy. Just read the given chapter with the quiz and your good. The final is also very easy. Just wrote enough for the word count basically. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T04:24:19Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES461', 'review': "This guy is a literal joke. I don't understand why UMD keeps this clown around. The only thing he is good for is scamming students to buy his stupid text book. The dude probably makes six figures just by having thousands of students a semester buy his book that costs $30. It's a pretty easy course, but the only assignment that is going to require effort is the final. I wouldn't push that off for the last minute, as its kinda long and takes some effort. Oh and for 461, its the same as 210 but the final project is independent. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-12T16:12:07Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'Took this and ENES461, easy As in both but they are genuine scam courses. I learned essentially nothing from them and you pay $27 for the textbook he wrote for each course, they are not the same textbook. Basically take them if you want an online grade booster, this is all the class is useful for.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-23T23:27:33Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'The grading in his courses make little sense. The material is just a repackaged crap udemy course. He can be arbitrarily tough on one assignment and then laughably incompetent on others. For example, assignments that asked about partners, distribution channels, exits, I had personal experience with my startup (Acquired for 2 mil by Bitesquad - sorry I gotta flex) that I drew on and really tried.... I got like 50%. In contrast, on the final assignment doing the whole write up of like 10 paragraphs, I wrote 1 paragraph and copy and pasted it 10 times and got 100%. The entire minor is an exercise in bs', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-07-24T19:49:07Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "James V. Green is potentially the most hands-off professor that I have ever encountered at my time at this university. All of his lectures are pre-recorded, and, from what I have heard, have been reused for several semesters now. He makes a lot of money off of students buying his textbook that you have to buy for the class, and most of his assignments are extremely surface-level and do not teach you about the real nuance and strategy development skills behind entrepreneurship and other related skills that the course description claims to offer. In essence, he tells you that, in order to have a successful startup, you need a good idea, good people, and good strategy with little to no competition in your area. This, as mentioned earlier, is extremely surface level, and does not even begin to dive into the depth marketing and management skills needed to successfully run a startup company. His course claims that being the first and most innovative product design will lend you the most successful opportunity. This, however, is clearly not the case, as many product launches, including Apple's iPhone, were launched with preexisting technology but took advantage of other factors and markets to take over larger portions of market share. His class will NOT lend andy real skills that you can use later on. However, if you are looking for an easy three-credit gen ed, then you might want to consider taking it, as it is very low time commitment and all of his quizzes are easily ctrl+f-able (from his his textbook). ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-21T02:12:48Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "Although the class is online, it is not a zoom lecture. Instead, he broadcasts himself speaking and does not give you an opportunity to ask him questions. He is only available through email and offers no office hours. Although the class itself is straightforward, as someone who likes to ask questions and has needed help over the semester I did not feel like I was given many options to ask for help other than email. The weekly assignment is based on the textbook (which he wrote and makes you pay for), which he then re-iterates in videos you have to watch before class, and then again in the broadcast lectures. I took this as a gen-ed and to learn more about business and entrepreneurship and I honestly don't know if it was worth it for the stress caused by not being able to get appropriate help. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-01T01:40:34Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "Yes, this class is still not very useful, pretty boring, but it is easy to get an A. Just make sure to actually try on the quizzes, and weekly activities, because they do actually sometimes grade the weekly activities, and don't put off the final project until the last day. I think everyone in the class got an A on the final project as long as they did all the questions. It's supposed to be 4,000 words which is kinda a pain, but I only give this class this high of a rating because of how little the workload was.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-26T00:39:25Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'I took this as an easy elective, and it was, but I learned absolutely nothing in this class. I\'m amazed that James Green gets paid to teach at this school because he literally does nothing. I assume he made all the content for this course years ago and all he has to do is upload an ELMs page with it every semester. Not only does he get paid for doing nothing, but he requires you to buy his textbook to answer his reading quizzes and do the evaluations. The final project is the only thing he has to "grade", but there is no way he reads everything due to the amount of kids in the course. Still, it was an insanely easy class. I would put in a maximum of 30 minutes of work every week for this class. You can finish an evaluation in a less than a minute by clicking through it. The reading quizzes were a bit tricker than everyone says they are. You can CTRL-F most of the answers, but there are some questions and are a bit tricky. I think I got like an 89% average on them and that was with not even reading the book, however. The final project is like 45% of your grade and I basically would just say random things from his textbook and I got a 100 on it. You have to write 2000 words, and it can take a little time, but it\'s not difficult. \r\n\r\nWhile James Green is barely a teacher and I learned nothing from this class, it was so easy. I\'m even taking ENES210 next semester because I heard it was of similar difficulty and I needed to get my last DSSP credit. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-11T18:40:09Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "Not very accommodating and hard to reach. He makes it difficult to seek help and is quite rude and arrogant in general. This is definitely an easy class just because there isn't much work and not much material that is tough to understand. But I wouldn't take it if you're the type that likes to reach out to professors or engage with TAs to do well in school", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-13T16:39:23Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'do the work. easy A. good luck and thank you, Professor Green!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-18T00:33:55Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Easy A 3 credit class? Only need to spend ~10 minutes a week on the class? The essay at the end is a joke?(As long as you meet their word requirement and have something semi relevant) \r\nI came into the class having 0 expectations besides getting an A so I am satisfied.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-18T17:34:31Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'People like to sh*t on this class, but everyone knows what they’re expect when they sign up, you buy a 20 dollar book, take a weekly quiz thats straight from the textbook, answer weekly questions about a potential product you are creating, and you’re basically done.\r\n\r\nfor the final you put all your weekly assignments together and add filler, get 3k words and you get an A', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-18T22:36:08Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "i mean it's just a free A which is why i give it 2 stars instead of 1. i can't say I learned anything at all in the class. it's pretty much a way for Green to scam a living. you're forced to pay $30 to access his textbook which you need to get assignments and such. assignments are all a joke though. take it if you need the gened and want a free A. if you want to learn anything at all, stay far away", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-19T01:46:47Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'These classes exist solely for James Green to make a profit off of selling his textbook, so if you take 210 or 140 to actually learn any of the material, you will quickly be disappointed. His online lectures are pre-recorded, and his (mandatory) textbook is often copied word for word onto assignments. That being said, the class is an easy A that requires little to no effort aside from the final project. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T23:22:37Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "Easy A class but you don't learn anything.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-25T17:30:40Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'Everyone complains about not learning anything but honestly the only reason anyone takes this class is for the easy A, which is exactly what it is. I fulfilled a few GenEd credits without putting any work so I’m not gonna complain', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-28T00:46:13Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "People don't like him because you don't really learn anything in this class, but for someone who took this class purely for the gen ed credit, it was great. Minimum amount of effort was needed for the class. Lectures were both in person and pre recorded so you could choose if you wanted to go into class or not. The pre recorded lectures were usually only 20 minutes long, the weekly assignments took 20 minutes max for more research focused ones, weekly quizzes are a big part of your grade but they're open book and the answers are almost always in the textbook. Plus class was only once a week and there are no exams of any kind. The only real downside is the final paper which is expected to be 3k - 4k words with 10 citations. As long as you start early it's really not even that bad, you use the weekly assignments for most of the answers and then to reach the word count you just talk about random stuff. Mine was around 3.5k words and I got a 100 and ended with like a 98% in the class. He was also very responsive to emails (would reply within 24 hours) and is very helpful in person if you're ever really struggling (I went to lecture in person in the beginning of the semester). Would definitely recommend if you're looking to fulfill a gen ed, but of you actually want to learn something, choose a different class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-30T17:31:52Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "Take this class ASAP! The easiest A I have ever gotten throughout my entire life. You really won't learn anything. The entire class is graded based on weekly activities that are based on the lectures which are very easy and there are weekly quizzes out of 4 points every week which are also a walk in the park no cap. The only part of the class that I actually had a hard time with was the final. It was a lot of work and took a couple days to complete but it wasn't too bad considering that I spent under 10 minutes a week for this class. Definitely take this class if you want the easy A but just be prepared to learn nothing. Also, James Green is a great guy and is really smart and knows his stuff very well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-25T22:44:02Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'You can at least get an A- if you do all the work. But I want to point out that an A/A+ is not guaranteed because the quiz questions are not clear to find. You can make 5 mistakes at most in the whole semester if you want an A. Each mistake in the quiz takes 1 point off from your total grade, which is terrifying. The final project/paper is fine and everyone can get 100/100.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-27T19:03:37.293821Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'Bro if u want an A take this class, sure you wont get anything out of it but its still worth it', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-29T11:38:38.945194Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "lmfao thank you master james for the free A in this course. It's somehow easier than enes210. Free GPA boost very helpful for a premed like me.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-25T19:00:13.894140Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "Easy A so if you want to take an elective that doesn't require that much work then go ahead and take this class. What sucks is how you have to buy the textbook though...", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T19:22:39.135866Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Typical james green class, easy, feel like part of a money landering scheme.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-12T02:30:24.694572Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Quizzes are kinda annoying cuz each question is like 1% of your grade or miss but it should still be a free A.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T14:31:10.110047Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'This class is poetic. All of his pre-recorded "lessons" (common sense packaged into power-points that he reads directly, recorded 8 years ago) teach you how to become an entrepreneur. A $30 "e-book" (those same power-points copy-pasted onto a site he owns as an LLC (https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_md/W16090763) - he likely has near-zero expenses) is required for the hundreds of students that take his courses with this material each semester. You do the math.\r\n\r\nAnd not a single drop of sweat from James Green\'s bald head. That\'s passive income baby. \r\n\r\nAt some point you\'ll realize the real lesson is that you just got swindled by the one true entrepreneur: James Green. THIS is his business and you\'re just a customer. Welcome to the real world. \r\n\r\nAccepting what\'s happened, you turn a grin to your new friend, late-stage capitalism, and realize that this is more than just hustling students. He\'s really offering you a deal under the table: pay tuition for the course, give him his $30, and for 5 hours of total work you get an A for 3 credits! And what\'s that? You can do it again?? In ENES461: Advanced Entrepreneurial™ Opportunity Analysis™ in Technology Ventures™ for another easy 3 credits??? Sign. Me. Up.\r\n\r\nJames Green! You madman! Thank you for all the credits. It\'s been a pleasure doing business with you. \r\n\r\n5/5 stars.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-20T08:42:37.098562Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "Take this class for what it is, an easy A. If you have a busy schedule, 210 is a great opportunity to catch a break and an A. The textbook is expensive and useless but it's the price of admission that lets the whole machine go round. Use quizlet for the weekly quizzes and don't do any of the reading (they are literally never relevant). Lastly, take the class with friends are form a good relationship with competent group members because taking care of the group project is actually the only important thing in this class. Overall, I spent about 30 minutes of critical thinking on this class this semester and got away with everything I needed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-22T01:51:10.559806Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Quizzes are a hassle given how the answers are irritating to find on the venture book source. One point deduction on a quiz can greatly reduce your grade. The other assignments that are on the venture book is easy as you just answer the questions in any way and get free points. The final assignment was a pain since you need several cited sources and ensure that you answer each question in the range of 180 to 220 words, otherwise, you get a zero for that question. Regardless, as long as you have cited sources applied to the question and fill in the other assignment requirements for said question, you can get full points on the quiz. Moreover, it is best to do the quiz a few days before the due date/deadline because it takes like half a day to complete. Ultimately, this course is an easy A for everyone, but you are definitely not gonna learn anything useful.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-23T16:37:30.654010Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES461', 'review': "I remember I saw someone said this class is a kindergarten class. Yes, it is. ~10 minutes for a quiz and sometimes an evaluation every week. The final essay can be done within a few days, remember to satisfy the word count requirement, then it's a free A+. Mr. Green looks pretty cool in his recording lectures, if you have time, I'd recommend watching them before taking the quizzes. Otherwise, I feel like I didn't learn anything much in this class basically because it's not my interest. A perfect class to fill 120 credits requirement.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:15:02.996490Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES461', 'review': 'What can I say, my boy is the GOAT. Homie gets paid for the books and gets a salary on top of it. Easy quizzes, easy final just don’t do it last minute. Homie prints money off our innovations and ideas, he is the entrepreneur we read about.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-24T23:38:07.731595Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "You're paying the guy 30 bucks for an A, are you kidding me. I'm taking this deal any day of the week. Me 🤝 James Green", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-25T19:11:37.831791Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is not really a teacher, but more of an NPC. You are paying money for an easy A, with little to no work. Careful on that quiz though make sure you actually read the content.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-02T03:12:47.923374Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': "Grading through the course is through weekly quizzes, product assessment, in-class activities, final project write-up, and individual analysis of final project write-up. For the weekly quizzes you can find the answers in the lecture videos and book this takes about 30 minutes max. The product assessments are a short questionnaire about your product they take 2 minutes max. The in-class activities never take more than 30 minutes max. Finally the final project write-up and individual analysis make sure you do every part required of these and hit the word count and you'll get an A. Overall this class is super straightforward and you'll never spend more than 90 minutes a week on it and get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-12T23:32:59.603623Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES461', 'review': "Easy A and it won't waste your time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-23T23:27:05.701362Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Do you learn stuff? Yes...but it is super basic stuff you can learn off google or a motivational video. Besides that, you pay $30 for an A. You could put in 1 hr of work every other week and get an A in this course. The people reviewing bombing him are probably mad they did not learn anything (understandable) or are salty they got bad grade because they have an IQ deficiency', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-24T19:27:32.819742Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "I don't understand why people hate on James. Free 3 credit A for at most 30 minutes of work per week. Love this man.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-24T21:31:34.846602Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES460', 'review': "I took ENES460 online over the winter session. This course is mainly common sense and by the end, I was no longer watching any of the videos. I was just completing the assignments. You do not need his book to succeed. The assignments are very condensed in the winter session, so plan ahead because you have to conduct a lot of interviews. The feedback he provided didn't feel personalized.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-28T23:22:11.844058Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES461', 'review': 'Terrible professor, class is a literal scam you learn nothing and he makes you pay for a $35 book that serves you no good. stay away at all costs and try to take a different class if you can.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-29T20:58:40.141148Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES461', 'review': 'Professor does not teach, STAY AWAY. he makes you buy his book and it is not relevant to what the quizzes are on. he is a crook and is making endless money for no reason and does not deserve to be teaching this course. you walk away learning absolutely nothing. 0/10 do not take.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-19T23:34:52.693981Z'}, {'professor': 'James Green', 'course': 'ENES461', 'review': 'This class is useless but a free A. He purposely tries to make it more difficult than it is. I would not recommend this course even tho it is fairly easy.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-03-21T21:47:16.648351Z'}], 'name': 'James Green', 'slug': 'green_james'}, {'courses': ['KNES497', 'KNES711', 'KNES260', 'KNES695', 'KNES692', 'KNES618', 'KNES785', 'KNES898', 'EXST030', 'KNES260', 'KNES497', 'KNES618', 'KNES260', 'KNES497', 'KNES260', 'KNES260', 'KNES498D', 'KNES260', 'KNES498O', 'KNES497'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Hagberg', 'course': 'KNES260', 'review': 'This class was way too much work and way too hard for a core class. quizzes every week, and you need to study at least an hour for each one. there are two writing assignments and each one takes an extremely long time. tests are hard but theres a big curve. overall it was an ok class, you learn a lot, but be warned that it is a lot of work.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T20:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Hagberg', 'course': 'KNES497', 'review': 'Would highly recommend him for your seminar. He has the students lead the class which leads to a friendly environment where the students challenge each other and lead to a lot of learning. It has been an awesome class with him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-15T17:42:38Z'}, {'professor': 'James Hagberg', 'course': 'KNES260', 'review': 'Would not recommend this class at all.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-03-15T01:55:26.189844Z'}], 'name': 'James Hagberg', 'slug': 'hagberg'}, {'courses': ['THET497', 'THET685', 'THET489J', 'THET711', 'THET408N', 'THET608N', 'THET686', 'THET499', 'AMST428R', 'THET408F', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'THET888', 'THET889', 'THET898', 'THET899', 'THET486', 'THET669N', 'THET408U', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET408A', 'THET608U', 'THET669', 'THET408M', 'THET713', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET408U', 'THET608A', 'THET399', 'THET408K', 'THET711', 'THET788'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Harding', 'slug': 'harding'}, {'courses': ['JOUR352'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Hill', 'slug': 'hill_james'}, {'courses': ['BUAC765', 'BUAC758E', 'BUAC706', 'BMGT411', 'BMGT411'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Lager', 'slug': 'lager'}, {'courses': ['LASC448I', 'PHIL308W', 'LASC448J', 'PHIL308C', 'AMST498K', 'AMST498D', 'HIST428N', 'HIST419L', 'HIST429N', 'RELS319W', 'RELS419J', 'RELS419B', 'PHIL408L', 'AMST428N', 'LASC448N', 'RELS429N', 'AMST498F', 'ANTH469L', 'ENGL479O', 'LASC448K', 'PHIL428A', 'PHIL428N', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Maffie', 'course': 'AMST498K', 'review': "A good class to take if you need one more class. The material is new and interesting, makes you think, and is not too hard to understand.\r\nBasically we read articles and then go into class and discuss. The readings are not long and he summarizes them enough so that if you didn't understand, you will. Plus he repeats himself often. But he doesn't write many things down, so it's good to take notes as he speaks. Like I said he repeats himself often enough that you won't miss the important stuff.\r\nWe read some books too, and he explains the chapters well too. \r\nWe have three papers, 3-5 pages each. \r\nThe other part of grades is class participation, so talk. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-02T22:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Maffie', 'course': 'HIST429N', 'review': "Very interesting class, my only problem is he is a very tough grader when it comes to papers... which is the vast majority of your grades. Even if you take other History classes, I find he grades harsher than other History professors. But if you're interested in Aztec history, take his classes because he has tons of information and is well versed.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-10T18:18:07Z'}], 'name': 'James Maffie', 'slug': 'maffie'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Mattson', 'slug': 'mattson'}, {'courses': ['MIEH600', 'MIEH331'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James McDevitt', 'slug': 'mcdevitt'}, {'courses': ['EDCI698', 'EDCI372A', 'EDCI372', 'EDCI670', 'TLPL321', 'TLPL620', 'EXST030', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL898'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James McGinnis', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Mcginnis is one professor I will always love and remember. He is the biggest science geek ever (in an adorable way) and he has a true love of knowledge, teaching, science, and people. I've never met anyone that was so chilled out and approachable. He respects each one of his students, and he's the sort of guy who would never judge someone...about ANYTHING. And he's so knowledgeable and interested in science. I've always hated science until his class. After his class, I began to see our world in a different light. He put the fun into science. You could never be wrong in his class. Everything is based off of trial and error. It's all about the learning. He's PERFECT for teaching future teachers how to teach science. Absolutely perfect.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-01T00:36:00Z'}], 'name': 'James McGinnis', 'slug': 'mcginnis'}, {'courses': ['JOUR203', 'JOUR504'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James McIntyre', 'slug': 'mcintyre'}, {'courses': ['BMGT422', 'BMGT310', 'BMGT428C', 'BUAC758A', 'BUAC758O', 'BMGT326', 'BUAC758H', 'BUAC758E', 'BUAC735', 'BUAC716', 'BUAC722', 'BMGT326', 'BMGT422', 'BMGT326', 'BMGT422', 'BUAC716', 'BUAC722', 'BUAC735', 'BMGT326', 'BMGT422', 'BUAC716', 'BUAC722'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "Professor McKinney is a horrible teacher. He is extremely boring and he simply cannot teach. His slides are awful and provide no valuable information. His class is poorly structured and it is hell to sit through. McKinney would make a wonderful TA, but he is the worst professor I have ever had at this university. He is one of the only professors that teaches the course, so I had to take him. The assignments aren't terrible, but I can honestly say I haven't learned a thing in his class. I am not sure why McKinney has a job as a professor.. he is horrible. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-15T17:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "He's okay. I also took him for BMGT428D (accounting research), and I realized he is just a weird guy. He is a decent lecturer, but he spends a majority of some classes babbling about extra credit opportunities, news articles, your group project, etc., instead of actually teaching the course material. But he does test on all the material from the slides, a lot of which he skips over.\n\r\nHe also expects you to read the course notes before you get to the class where he teaches you that material, and will call on people to talk about what he is about to teach. That's odd, because last time I checked he is the one being paid to explain the course, not us students. It's a really odd way to inspire class participation.\n\r\nHis tests are really difficult, and I feel like he takes some pride in making them that way. He does curve each exam though, so even if you do poorly you definitely stand a chance of getting an A/B. I'm pretty sure almost everyone ends up with an A or B in the class unless you don't study.\n\r\nSo in summary, he isn't a bad teacher, but he isn't really good either. He's just weird. You'll do well as long as you study the course slides and listen to his small hints throughout the semester in class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-11-06T03:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "I would probably give him 3.5 stars.\n\r\nHe's good in the aspect that he provides you all of your study materials upfront, so you can control your learning to a good extent. He seems like a relatively nice person, and he doesn't have bad intentions.\n\r\nIn terms of his teaching, he isn't great. He mumbles a lot of the time. He's not very concise or coherent. It doesn't help that it's hard to read his handwriting too. I don't agree with the person who said his slides aren't useful without the lecture. You'll learn in his class because he gives a pretty heavy workload, not because of his lectures.\n\r\nIf you're looking at the recent reviews, he's overrated. He's not as bad as some people think though. I'm not surprised that he used to be condescending, but he's changed.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-31T20:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "Professor McKinney is a great professor - one of the best in the business school. He is extremely clear with his assignments and directions and truly wants his students to succeed. Those students who perceive his tips and tricks to do well on group assignments as being condescending are those that are foolish enough not to follow Professor McKinney's advice.\n\r\nAlso, contrary to popular belief, all of his assignments are very fair. His midterm exam was very similar to the practice worksheets that we do in class, and his final exam was very similar (conceptually) to group projects 2 and 3 and individual assignments 3 and 4. Professor McKinney basically tells you what to focus on for his final, so be wise and focus on those subjects.\n\r\nHe is very good at explaining the concepts in a manner that students can more easily understand. Overall, he is top-notch. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-05-21T14:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': 'whoever is writing these good reviews is either mckinney or insane. the class is naturally difficult which is fine, but so are most business school classes. he makes it unnaturally painful. i should have known when he emailed the class 4 months before the semester started.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-28T15:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "Best professor I've had at the University of Maryland, or at least, best Accounting professor within the Smith School. I had a good grade before the final, only studied about three hours the night before the final, and got an 83 raw score on the final (before the curve, after the curve it was an A+) and then got an A+ overall in the class. He's a very fair grader with an extremely generous exam curve and a very fair amount of extra credit in the class too. To say everyone fails the final is an exaggeration, because I personally came into the final needing only a 40% to get a C in the class (which was all I really needed to graduate) and I still got an 83 (A+) on the final. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-21T01:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': 'Everyone hates on this guy but he is really not that bad. Yes, he will give you a lot of work. Deal with it. This class will have you 90% prepared for the Audit portion of the CPA exam if you can get an A, which is more important than the letter grade. He gives three projects and they take some group work but if you meet with your group twice, you will be set for the project. His tests are very difficult but he gives you a cheat sheet like he does for all of his classes. For 428C he decided to drop one of the projects which was a huge help. He is extremely reasonable and he really wants everyone to do well in the class and be prepared for the profession when they graduate. Yes the class is tough, but it will get you prepared for the future.\n\r\nAlso, lots of extra credit. Offered at least once, usually twice a week.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-20T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "Professor McKinney is a good professor if you listen in class. He provides you with all of the resources that you need to do well: worksheets, group assignments, on-line videos. But you need to go to class. If you miss a class, you'll be missing a lot of material. His lecture slides aren't very useful without his actual lectures. Some people have said he gives out a lot of busy work, but I would say that it was helpful for exam preparations. He does curve a fair amount.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-19T04:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "The class is hard but he is a good teacher for the class. If he was more personable as the previous posters are complaining about then he probably wouldn't have a doctorate in accounting. Well structured class and he saves you money by not using a textbook. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-15T11:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': '"beware he\'ll fail you on final" i for one got a D( failed) the final,but curved that was an A. So don\'t get scared by that. Many people perceived this class as extremely difficult, well it is. Audit isn\'t an easy course, but McKinney gives you all the necessary tools to do well, is up to you to so well. If you are taking this class because you wanna have a career in audit, i would recommend chossing McKinney. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-20T02:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "Don't take this teacher unless you like hell. Any teacher who takes a picture of you the first day of class is a joke. His projects suck and require insane amounts of work with extremely picky grading. Individual assignments are a pain as well. He gives way to many projects back to back without any regard. His exams are impossible, the material on the exams is much harder then the material provided for studying. Overall worst teacher I've ever had and would never take him again. His teaching method sucks as well, thanks for reading me the powerpoint prick. I can do that by myself without looking at his big head for over an hour. Someone please audit this guys teaching method. Many mistatements would be found douche. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '-', 'created': '2012-05-19T14:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': 'If you take his class, the only thing I can say is, take care. He will fail you on the final.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-20T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "Professor McKinney is not near as bad as people make him think. His classes are fairly organized and follow the lecture slides. There is usually a worksheet at the end of class that you complete as a group to get participation points. He also passes out candy every class period. Attendance is mandatory but he allows 6 absences for the year. He has a class website where he posts everything from the class. On the website is a forum that you have to post on 3 times throughout the year. The forum is very helpful during the projects because people will post questions about the assignments and either other people or McKinney himself will answer.\r\nThe class consists of 1 exam and 1 final, 3 group projects, and 4 individual assignments. The midterm is not that hard and is like the worksheets that you do at the end of class. The group projects are a pain in the butt. He provides fairly detailed instructions and instructional videos on how to do them, but they still take forever and there are a lot of places to make mistakes. The individual assignments are fairly easy.\r\nOverall, the class is not that bad. It is true that he tends to mumble a lot, but it's really not that bad. It does seem like he has a bit of an ego, but if you're not a smartass to him then you'll be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T21:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT428C', 'review': "I don't know why everybody is saying what they are saying below this comment but this professor isn't bad at all. He's generous, well intentioned and understanding. I had some family issues that resulting in my not caring enough to make it to one of his exams. I was straight up and told him the deal. He was understanding and let me take it after I missed it twice (yes, twice- I was begging to drop the course). Yeah there's some work involved to do well in the course but he simply wants students in one of the best accounting programs in the nation to go out and succeed. No biggie. Don't take those bitter reviewers below too seriously. It's just some voluntary response bias. Give this guy a chance, he wants to see everybody do well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-11-17T03:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': 'Best professor ever, however little bit mean as a person.\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-10-02T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': 'I have been waiting to write this review for some time. This class has really has made my life unnecessarily difficult over the past semester. I am extremely thankful that I can graduate and put this all behind me. \n\r\nNevertheless, I feel obligated, more than ever, to pass on some insight on BMG422 and Professor McKinney.\n\r\nOnly after taking the final did I truly understand the kind of person that professor that McKinney is. If you want to know the secret to the class and his final, feel free to skip to the end of the review but continue reading if you want hard found insight. (this is a compilation of opinions, thoughts and insights from multiple attempts to write this so bear with me if it is repetitive)\n\r\nBmgt422 with McKinney is by far the worst class required of accounting majors and possibly of all majors at the University of Maryland. For a school with such a reputable accounting program it’s a tragedy that students have no choice but to take such an important course - audit with McKinney.\n\r\nI believe the fact that the average course grade for this class has been at an acceptable level has skewed the appearance of the course’s difficulty. Furthermore, grades have been artificially inflated due to the course work consisting of relatively easy assignments, group work, attendance, and theoretical midterm.\n\r\nAttendance is mandatory and laptop usage is not permitted. Do not be swayed by his top40 playlist at the beginning of class and his pathetic attempts at bribery – a piece of fun-sized candy during class, this class will be a waste of your life. You are literally paying $43 for every class he wastes so hold your professor accountable and complete the reviews.\n\r\nMcKinney is demeaning and condescending towards his students. He often repeats stupid, snide remarks when talking about projects and how students make mistakes and therefore receive poor grades. Obviously by this point in our academic careers we understand that not doing things correctly will result in poor grades. It’s a moot point that he beats to death. Professors being condescending towards their students is not a new thing, yet as I will address later, his actions to intentionally trick students while being a demeaning smart ass should not be acceptable. \n\r\nHis lectures are extremely mundane and his slides are literally blocks and blocks of words. He mumbles when he lectures and has an extremely negative attitude towards anyone who dares to stop his class to clarify a concept. Is our education and understanding more important or is his ability to exert complete control over the class room more important…\n\r\nWhat’s worse is that he will personally stop the entire class if anyone turns to another and attempts any form of communication. The participation consists of filling out a worksheet,\r\nwhich everyone just guesses on since no one has actually learns anything from lecture.\n\r\nHe wastes multiple class periods going over the projects that already have extensive, multi-paged directions and online instructional videos. What’s worse is that his videos are literally just hours of him mumbling again. He will stutter over key vocabulary words. Yes – vocab words. For someone who has been in the profession for as long as he has been, he has the worst communication skills of any professor I have ever witnessed. An hour long video will take 2 or 3 times as long to watch and understand because you have to keep rewinding. He will get lost in a train of thought and then jump around confusing concepts he should be able to easily explain. \n\r\nWhat drives me nuts is that for someone who prides himself on being technologically savvy, he does not have to decency to actually edit out his mistakes. You’d think technology would solve issues like these but in this case, technology only magnifies them.\n\r\nHe literally demands 100% attention within the classroom. After a few classes, you’ll understand what type of person McKinney is – a weak, insecure, arrogant one. He yearns for affection from his students and tries so hard to be accepted. I’d sympathize with him if he weren’t such an egomaniac that thrives off his position of power. His self-named website, MckinneyPhD.net, and his self-made projects are only proof that he has to be in control of everything.\n\r\nI could go on and on about how bad this class was but it would make little difference. Don’t stand for such a subpar, pompous professor. Don’t allow him to answer your questions as if they were the stupidest, most ridiculous questions in the world. He fears the ones\r\nwho don’t put up with his crap because it affects his ability to exercise complete, totalitarian control over his classroom.\n\r\nIn conclusion, this is a class where attendance and attention are demanded from the professor despite the class being neither stimulating nor remotely enjoyable. The professor is among the worst of the worst and does not deserve to teach at Maryland.\n\r\nNow for the insight only received after taking the final:\n\r\nMckinney purposely misdirects students in what they must study in order to succeed. He gets great joy out of this as is apparent by his snide remarks throughout the semester. He took great pride in bragging about how many students failed his final despite doing well during the beginning of the class. 50% averages for an accounting final? Impossible! After all, accounting material is limited, unless - of course, the professor purposely intends to hurt demoralize students. This is apparent to me after taking the final exam. Even his review videos are a mockery to those who try to gain even the smallest amount of value from them. \n\r\nHis final is based almost entirely on the group work, the individual assignments (particularly assignment 4, which no one does since he drops the lowest of the 3 assignments) and the in class examples. Despite this, he posts long videos blabbering about the useless slides rarely ever mentioning any of the assignments as examples.\n\r\nWhile he drops hints at the importance of group assignments, HIS FINAL REVIEW VIDEO DOES NOT TOUCH ANY OF THE CONCEPTS LEARNED THROUGH THE GROUP ASSIGNMENTS. As in, he teaches everything other than what you need in order to succeed on the final. WORSE OF ALL, HE INTENTIALLY COLLECTS COMPLETED GROUP ASSIGNMENTS AFTER THEY ARE GRADED AND TAKES THE ASSIGNMENTS OFF HIS WEBSITE MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO STUDY THE NECESSARY CONCEPTS FOR THE FINAL. It is important to note that without the packet of crap (source documents or whatever they’re called), the answers that students have are essentially worthless. \n\r\nTHEREFORE, IF YOU WANT TO SUCCEED ON THE FINAL, MAKE A COPY OF YOUR ANSWERS FOR THE GROUP ASSIGNMENTS AND COPY/SAVE THE SOURCE DOCUMENTS AND DO INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 4. The material is not hard. It’s just impossible to do well on a final that tests material that you cannot review. \n\r\nThe culmination of these factors drive me to imagine a young, hard-working, but extremely awkward Mckinney determined to succeed in the wide world of accounting. I bet he excelled in school and didn’t mind doing the most work in his accounting groups being so in love with the subject. but as Mckinney entered the work force, he was soon surpassed by his less studious, more social peers and could not make it past manager. Realizing his future in the public accounting industry was limited, Mckinney pursued teaching where his failures and insecurities manifested themselves in his negative attitude towards students and need to dominate the classroom at all times. \n\r\nOh, I ended up with an A- =]', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-26T23:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "Terrible teacher, it's embarrassing to sit through his classes.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-18T07:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': 'This guy is one of the biggest douchebags ive ever met. He mumbles his words, grades INSANELY HARD, and overall is a control freak. His material is very boring, and he talks down to all of his students. \n\r\nHe is not approachable, stumbles upon his words and does not clearly go back to correct his errors.\n\r\nMidterm is similar to the sample, and he takes his questions from old work sheets. His later classes always do better since students tell eachother what to write on their note sheets and first class gets worse grades because of the curve. \n\r\nUnfortunately he is the only professor teaching the class. Our class has spoken to administration multiple times about him and i suggest you do the same.\n\r\nhorrible professor, and even worse of a person', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-12T22:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': 'I will give you the low down regarding this professor and the audit course that he attempts to teach. Let\'s get one thing straight. He doesn\'t teach in either the traditional sense or the transformational sense. Don\'t expect to a) learn anything or b) walk away feeling transformed with a new base of audit knowledge. His teaching style will not help you learn anything about audit but you will learn a thing or two about psychology when you witness his gargantuan ego interfere with genuine student engagement. At the beginning you will have a chance to see firsthand the mammoth size of his ego when he mocks students’ responses but over time, you will realize that under all those layers of ego lies an insecure, affection yearning, weak-minded individual. This pulsating ego, however, surprisingly doesn’t influence his teaching style, which is tantamount to that of a disconnected autistic child. However, having often interacted with wonderful autistic children, I can say that even they are more insightful and brilliant in conversation than this professor will ever be at a cocktail party. News flash: a PhD in accounting and a CPA doesn\'t make you as intelligent as an individual with either a PhD in applied mathematics or biomedical engineering. How does this ego come out in class? He is extremely arrogant in addressing students\' questions and concerns. His tone is totally and clearly sarcastic and pompous about 95% of the time. He often makes you feel as if your answer to a question he poses is legitimately retarded, and calls you out in front of everybody when you are texting discreetly, blasting you with an arrogant remark. He must not perceive students as adults or something and needs to compensate for loss of control in other areas of his life by running a totalitarian, OCD classroom. So, beware. For example, somebody once answered a question erroneously, to which he responded, "[arrogant tone] it must have been all that drinking during Spring Break...(incoherent muttering)...kill brain cells [arrogant chuckle and smirk]" after blowing the answer apart with his RPG ego, which launches arrogant comments at meek students. Why is that necessary and how is that fostering an environment where students can ask questions without the fear of being embarrassed in class? The only thing that’s deservedly and really embarrassing besides his undeserved recognitions is how easy this course is, even for a student who doesn’t give a flying sh*t or, say, a deadbeat, alcoholic hobo with methamphetamine shivers. I went through the motions mechanically and simply memorized useless facts to fly through but I can sincerely say I\'ve learned nothing about audit and I got an A. This is very possible for you too. Definitely. You can turn your brain on auto-pilot or appreciate the wonderful expanses of your imagination in this class. Heck, why not write a children\'s book or practice Swahili on Rosetta Stone during class? This class is perfect for a new hobby since you\'re more likely to learn how to program in C++ during lecture than anything meaningful from his slides. Why, you might ask? Well, he compiled book information into his own ghetto, “roadmap shoddy,” and meanderingly confusing booklet [why not use the textbook? We would have learned something…] in an inefficient way, putting things out of context together and expecting us to understand it in a holistic way. At least with a real roadmap booklet, you can actually get somewhere but his only sets you up to learn, dare I say it, nothing at all. His delivery and explanation of the material is sloppy and terrible [frequently stumbles over his words, mumbles explanations and conveys a good portion of difficult, technical formula-intensive material by reading it off the slide instead of explaining it in terms that make sense and relating it back to the bigger picture] and, although it was extremely easy for me to get by on auto-pilot, I am confident many students struggled because of this. IF I were given a grain of sand for every time he stumbled over his words, I would be lounging on the Playa de las Salinas with a hooker and a Cuba Libre on the rocks….after one class. I refuse to let another audit course review opportunity go by that insufficiently describes how a majority of students feel about this class [maybe it\'s his noteworthy curve that appeases the masses; 6% C’s to keep the outspoken, like myself, at bay]. All in all, I am disappointed about having taken a required course by the Robert H. Smith School that fails to quench my thirst for audit, especially since it\'s what I wanted to do in the short-term. Not anymore. I wish future students luck in this class and I hope the business school actually addresses its real problems. If you can, avoid it like you would avoid herpes simplex II, which he probably caught already during his couple swinging and brothel days in Mumbai. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-11T02:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "He is a nice guy but CAN'T teach at all. He talks too fast, doesn't make coherent sentences and is constantly contradicting himself. The class isn't too bad but his style of teaching is worthless. He would be better off as an auditor than a teacher.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-03-15T23:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "Assignments:\r\nClass Participation, four individual and three group assignments, midterm, and final. Participation is based on in-class participation, forum posts, and peer reviews. Group assignments are designed to simulate real-life accounting fieldwork. Midterm is very similar to practice midterm, final is ridiculously hard. \n\r\nThis is probably the hardest accounting class, as it is basically one course for one entire section of the CPA exam. I don't think the class is generally full of busy work, except for the first two individual assignments. I agree that McKinney's teaching style is quite a put-off, especially his putdowns of other students. Tough teacher, tough class, but a.) this course was very practical and applicable to the accounting profession, and b.) you really don't have a choice but to take his class if you want an accounting degree.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-22T04:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "The coverage of material in the Auditing course is extensive and relevant to future CPAs. This class isn't to be taken lightly as there is much memorization of acronyms (AR,RACTRL,CR,IR to name a few from just one slide) and a few stuff you thought you left behind in statistics. \n\r\nAgree with the review below about his teaching style. He teaches like a straight-from-the-field auditor. He is only professor I've had here that will tear you apart for not understanding what is seemingly obvious to him. \n\r\nI will say that his course website and class forums have been helpful. And, although there were a ton of projects (7 I think), I did learn a lot from them.\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-04-26T20:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': 'I personally do not like his teaching style. It seems like his daily objective isn\'t to teach the material but to say everything he needs to say at the fastest speed. In the process, he keeps tripping over his words and confusing the heck out of the students. Oh, and once you make a comment that may be seem obvious to him, he will jump on that like hungry hippo jumps on a floating watermelon; instead of a simple "no", he will go on a winded discussion of how that comment is absurd and inconceivably senseless. \n\n\n\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-14T10:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': 'Good professor..just too much busy work...HAS FOUR Individual projects..and THREE group assignments which are graded very strictly so make sure all the detail is correct or kiss an A good bye..\r\nTips: KNOW the first practice MIDTERM exam he posts on his website...The test is 80% similar..beware that final is very difficut..but doable..just make sure you konw your stuff..OVERALL GOOD PROFESSOR\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-28T01:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "McKinney is an interesting guy for sure. To be frank, the lectures were some of the most driest, boring ones I've ever sat through. That being said, McKinney covers a great deal of information and provides all the material up front. Be sure to participate (in class and the online forum), watch the lectures online, check your hw with each other for accuracy, and practice the worksheets to do well on the individual portion of your grade. As for group work, be sure to join a group of reliable students for the group projects and delegate tasks accordingly. It counts for a large chunk of your grade so double and triple check your work, since it is graded harshly. The midterm is difficult, I advise prepping at least a week or two in advance. Make sure your cheat sheet is on point. The final is damn near impossible. Practically everyone fails so just try not to fail badly lol. Class is curved but don't take these exams lightly. Take the class with McKinney if you can, he's a nice dude and will answer your questions promptly. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-01-25T02:25:28Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "Nice person but I understand nothing from this class. His lectures just aren't that effective for me and the slides are filled with so much information. The questions he asks on the in-class assignments make no sense.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-21T20:17:31.263473Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT326', 'review': "Nice guy, but their lectures do not feel like they include any real information. The HWs are your best bet to doing well on the exams. There are no practice exams and you won't need to buy the textbook. there is a lot of conceptual information in this class so it can be hard to pick out the relevant information you need to know for exams, but its not a super hard class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-16T21:59:23.099203Z'}, {'professor': 'James McKinney', 'course': 'BMGT326', 'review': "Prof. McKinney is a great professor, really nice guy. He's probably a very good resource when it comes to networking and whatnot, he's always posting opportunities from KPMG, Deloitte, etc. But yeah, I agree with the rest of these reviews, his slides can be fairly off topic except for a handful of multiple choice questions on the exams. Not to say you shouldn't go to class though, he takes attendance and often says some things you might miss that pertain to exams or projects. But I did find myself tuning out a bit in class when he was lecturing on and on. Exams aren't terribly difficult, you get a 2-sided note sheet and the content does pertain pretty well to the projects you do and some of the slides. I would take his class again overall.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-22T02:31:10.793251Z'}], 'name': 'James McKinney', 'slug': 'mckinney_james'}, {'courses': ['ENFP108', 'ENFP489M', 'ENFP101', 'ENFP411', 'ENFP413', 'ENFP627', 'ENFP405', 'ENFP489G', 'ENFP613', 'ENFP250', 'ENFP440', 'ENFP621', 'ENFP102', 'ENFP655', 'ENFP663', 'ENFP101', 'ENFP440', 'ENFP627', 'ENFP655', 'ENFP101', 'ENFP411', 'ENFP413', 'ENFP613', 'ENFP655'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Milke', 'course': None, 'review': 'I am pretty shocked that no one submitted a review for Milke. This guy is a class professor. He is easy to understand and makes class fun. His exams are based on material in class and he has a great teaching style', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-09T22:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Milke', 'course': 'ENFP101', 'review': 'Milke is an amazing professor. Knowledgeable, funny, and down to Earth, he really makes this class even better than it already is.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-19T02:34:55Z'}, {'professor': 'James Milke', 'course': 'ENFP440', 'review': 'This man is like Jesus himself because of how much of a legend he is in the Fire Protection community. Unfortunately he’s retiring summer ‘23 so any reviews won’t have any impact. Very passionate about smoke control and I will miss him very much, informational lectures and curves if necessary in your favor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T23:29:37.362673Z'}], 'name': 'James Milke', 'slug': 'milke'}, {'courses': ['ENCE661', 'ENCE661', 'ENCE661', 'ENCE661', 'ENCE661'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Myers', 'slug': 'myers_james'}, {'courses': ['CMSC132H', 'GEMS497', 'CMSC435', 'HONR239R', 'BMGT408C', 'HACS208G', 'HACS279', 'HACS287', 'HACS479', 'CMSC798', 'BMGT490H', 'ENES490H', 'CMSC435', 'CMSC435', 'CMSC435', 'CMSC435'], 'average_rating': 2.6429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': None, 'review': 'This was a very interesting honors seminar. Purtilo is very passionate about the material he teaches, and I learned a lot about privacy. The workload is reasonable, and he will give you a good grade if you write thoughtfully. I definitely recommend taking this course with Purtilo. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-12T21:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC132H', 'review': 'Purtilo is a solid professor who respects his students. He is an efficient teacher, and he frequently ended class early, since we tended to get ahead of the other sections. He makes it clear that he is dedicated to producing "satisfied customers" of his students.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-03-19T13:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': None, 'review': "Purtilo was an extremely engaging professor. The class was all and all fairly easy and as long as you turn in coherent thoughtful work, he'll give you an A. He brought in a ton of interesting guest speakers. Make sure you start on the paper early, it'll help you greatly when you have to cram down towards the end of the semester. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-14T16:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC435', 'review': 'One of the most useless classes I ever took at Maryland, and Purtilo was mostly responsible for that. I learned almost nothing from this class, because, duh, he doesn\'t teach at all. Most of the class time is spent either meeting with your teams for the class project (will get to it in a sec). And even when he lectures, the topics are lamest and most useless. "Change is inevitable," he will say multiple times during the lectures. And that\'s about all you will get from this class (but didn\'t you already know that).\r\nNow about the class project. One of the most horribly designed software I have ever seen in my life -- Terpnav. The thing (hard to call it a software) has 10 different languages supporting it, is spread over multiple machines with source code that has no documentation, and even Purtilo doesn\'t know how to install and run the thing. But he persists with it every semester, makes students add features to it, which is not hard in itself, but dealing with this beast of a software is the most annoying part, and yet not worth it at all. And the final is a take-home, which is entirely based on the TerpNav project. So, almost all your grade comes from the class project. He will say in the beginning there will be smaller projects too (we had just one), but essentially what you do with TerpNav is all that accounts for your grade.\r\nTake this class with anyone but Purtilo. I have heard some other professors do much better job.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-20T16:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC132H', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE HIM FOR CMSC132 OR ANY INTRO-LEVEL CLASS......FOR AN UPPER LEVEL COURSE HE HAS NO EQUAL. Just so we are clear. \n\r\nDr. Purtilo is a phenomenal professor, engaging lecturer, and an all-around wonderful person. However, he is simply not interested in teaching lower level classes. He instead will lecture on far more upper-level topics of overall software engineering and product development which, while very interesting, have little to do with the course material. He will occasionally go through the syllabus but blow through it at a staggering speed so no one can not learn any of it.\n\r\nIn our class he did "show and tell" Fridays where he brought in ancient relics of computer engineering and explained their functions, inner workings, and how modern design has since expanded. For one interested in such a subject this experience is phenomenal, but anyone taking the course simply to learn Java would roll their eyes.\n\r\n If you enroll in his class you will want to attend every lecture out of interest, however, will have to pray that another professor posts their lecture slides and that your TA knows how to actually code in Java (or read the textbook I suppose...gasp!). My course took a significant amount of outside-lecture work.\n\r\nHe has long left Java in his profession so any syntax question on its inner workings (you know, the entire midterm and final test material) he will do his best to answer for you and certainly take time outside of class to be sure he gets you the right answer. But this whole process could have been avoided by simply taking a professor more focused on lower-level programming.\n\r\nIf you are competent learning material outside of lecture and are genuinely interested in computer science his knowledge, persona, and class complete a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn material beyond the textbook from a truly remarkable person. BUT If you are taking a lower level class to satisfy some random requirement his class will require a lot of unnecessary work.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-19T02:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': None, 'review': 'The class material was very interesting. Towards the middle/end of the semester we had guest speakers every lecture or so from all different fields of industry, including many from the three-letter-agencies. The final paper at the end was a doozy, but the trick with that (like everything) is getting started early. The professor, unlike most Comp Sci instructors, is very helpful and approachable outside of class. Overall, an enjoyable experience and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-25T15:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC435', 'review': 'The most unorganized and effortless professor I have ever met. Pop quizzes in the first 5 minute of the class, if you are a bit late then f u. Every project is group project. Does not teach coding/programming/any comp sci technical knowledge AT ALL. The course is him saying "hey I want this cool software and you guys have 8 weeks to make it".', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-10T19:30:16Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC435', 'review': "DON'T TAKE HIS CLASS. I didn't write comments at all here. But I am writing this 3800 words final and I got to alert you guys. His lecture is unorganized, he tests you things on his slides but he never uploaded his slides and recordings. What you did is a big group project which is lack instruction, all you do is to figure out how to start from zero to 100 by yourself. I paid way more time than in this project than in other classes. After demo, presentation, documentation writing. You also need to write a final (which is like a 4000 words reports to him) reflect your effort on this project.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-19T02:53:39Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC435', 'review': 'doesn’t teach, and gives no directions for all his work then proceeds to be very unfair with grading ethics ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-28T02:17:56Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC435', 'review': 'I went into the class very optimistic. Purtilo seemed like a nice guy. Little did I know the absolute piece of human debris this so-called man actually embodied. I took this class in my final semester. On the first quiz, the SYLLABUS quiz, he falsely accused me of cheating. Rather than talking to me about it, he went straight to the University. This could have completely derailed my reputation and ability to graduate on time. I was found innocent because thankfully the other accused party admitted to cheating off of ME on the quiz. From that point on, it seemed this "teacher" had it out for me. His teaching style is horrific. He is, as the kids say, a donkey-hole. He did not teach a single substantive thing the entire year besides common sense work habits and practices. No technical skills taught whatsoever. He makes everyone keep GRADED journal entries of their class-related activities, but only accepts the journal entries to be given on his own personal webpage (which half the class did not know existed) (he refused to accept my handwritten journal entries). His grading system for quizzes and projects is completely abstract and holds zero standards. For the final project, which is worth about half your grade, he divided us up into teams, gave each team a different project description, and continued to change the project requirements and give unclear answers of his expectations. He would then blame us (my teammates and I) for the confusion that he orchestrated. I pulled two all-nighters in all of college, both for this final project. My teammates and I worked our donkeys off, and we stayed up until the last waking minute to get everything done correctly. At 11pm the night it is due, he set out an email with a new requirement to all of our surprise: a five page report..... added on to the final project. We submitted the project well into the night, and by 9am, after literlly spending all semester and multiple crazy late nights on this, he had it graded. By 9am. Literally hours after submitted. A large scale coding project, a 20 page paper, and a 5 page report. And he gave us all the same grade (even though he said he would grade on team participation as well). He gave us all an F. BY THE WAY, each team final project was just a personal pet project that he wanted to personally use, and each team\'s project was entirely different from every other team, which is completely unfair in terms of expectation and grade. He clearly has class favorites (if you are a kiss-donkey and teacher\'s pet, you get an A, otherwise, you get a C). He pretends to care about your issues in class then in private he scolds you for being "stupid" and "dishonest". He said in the beginning of the final project that JIRA is encouraged to be used, only to completely disregard all out JIRA entries once submitted and treated it as if we did zero task tracking because "its on JIRA, that\'s not the right format". His class is endless and thankless work, zero gain, useless busy work, and a compete mess. He is hypocritical, confusing, condescending, abusive, degrading, and BY FAR the worst "teacher" I have EVER had. Stay the frank away!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-04-25T21:15:58Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC435', 'review': 'if you were doubting any of the other reviews of this class, i highly suggest you to take this class and see for yourself. thankfully i was able to pick up on all the red flags of this professor that others -- especially the one that wrote the essay -- wrote about myself in class BEFORE the drop period.\r\n\r\n- having class favorites\r\n- says the same common sense stuff every lecture\r\n- unorganized lecture', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-09-09T12:01:36.656843Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC435', 'review': "Please don't take his class at any cost. First of, for those of you who doesn't know, this class is a capstone class(I didn't know ). This means he doesn't teach you anything. He even tell you that at the beginning of the class. All his task is vague. You don't know what the heck is going on in class. And the project description is as vague as it can get. If the instruction doesn't confuses you, he will find another one that does (I am serious).", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-04T00:36:09.343900Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC435', 'review': "Prof. Purtilo can be an a-hole. He is extremely strict about deadlines, and ruthless in grading students who don't contribute actual effort to the course. To reiterate that - your class performance depends more on effort than any other single factor. \r\n\r\nHowever, it's become clear that behind his cold facade he legitimately cares about how well his students learn. He's more immediately and consistently responsive than any other professor I've had in my 5 years at this university. He expects significant effort from you, but will reciprocate with equal effort towards enabling your success.\r\n\r\nAnyone who puts their 100% into this class will learn immensely (and get a good grade), no matter what level of professional experience they have coming in. He makes sure of that. The class projects are intense, but offer experiential learning that's almost unparalleled at this university. While many hate this class with a burning passion, those I know almost universally agree that they're better engineers for having gone through it.\r\n\r\nIf you want to graduate from this university without working too hard, this most definitely isn't the class for you. That said, I got a CS education at UMD to become a Software Engineer after graduating. Towards that end, no other class has been so applicable. If you want to become a Software Engineer, and want a significant boost to your career, put yourself through the gauntlet. Maybe it's the Stockholm syndrome talking, but I have no regrets about taking this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-10T03:48:52.007392Z'}, {'professor': 'James Purtilo', 'course': 'CMSC435', 'review': 'This is not web development with Nelson. This is an upper level class and expected to take a majority of your time throughout the semester. Most lessons are not taught directly, but learned through trial and error. Purtilo teaches through tough love. There is not enough time to teach all of software engineering so the “do the right thing” and “deal with it” mindset are used throughout the course. \u2028While this is not an easy course, the lessons are valuable and the class has insight into business, technology and life as a whole.\r\nPurtilo cares more about your success than you do. It was an uncommon occurrence he’d take more than a few hours to respond to an email at any-point throughout the semester day or night.\r\nAssignment requirements are intentionally vague to make you decide the right path to take. This is frustrating as a student being not exactly sure what to do, but helps practice skills in deciding the right path to take.\r\nGrades will come naturally if you put in the work, but there is not way to bs this course.\r\nThis is the only course I’ve had to spend multiple nights working late into the evening to get the project done on time.\r\nIt seems a lot of reviews on this page are from people not ready for the course. Purtilo does his best on his website and the first week to weed out any students who don’t intend to work hard in the course. If you want to learn software engineering and are ready to put in some effort this class is for you. If not then stay away.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-27T18:38:41.974649Z'}], 'name': 'James Purtilo', 'slug': 'purtilo'}, {'courses': ['CMSC422', 'CMSC289I', 'CMSC727', 'CMSC828K', 'CMSC421', 'CMSC498G', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC389F', 'CMSC828Q'], 'average_rating': 4.0909, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC289I', 'review': 'A truly wonderful professor. I\'d heard mixed stories about CMSC289I beforehand, but Prof. Reggia made this class a great experience. He was always friendly, and very approachable via office hours and email. After every homework, quiz, and exam, Prof. Reggia took great pains to make sure we understood the content before moving onto new topics. Even if people had still trouble understanding the material, Prof. Reggia strongly encouraged students to "grab me or one of the TAs after class". \n\r\nThe content itself was great. This class provided a great opportunity to see how broad a field it really is. One definitely doesn\'t need to be a CS major to get something out of this class.\n\r\nIn short, excellent professor and excellent class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-02T04:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC289I', 'review': "One of the best professors I've had in my UMD experience. His slides were easy to understand, and he made sure that everyone understood the content before moving on. For example, he'd give ungraded quizzes from time to time, and always take time afterwards to explain what was going on. The same went for the exams. After each of the midterms, Prof. Reggia took a good chunk out of his lectures to make sure we got the content. Both in lecture and in office hours, he was very friendly and polite; in fact he encouraged us to stop by if we were worried about grades, homework, or a topic not clearly understood from lecture.\n\r\nIf you have a chance to take a course under Prof. Reggia, do it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-27T00:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC289I', 'review': "This is from the perspective of a CMSC student.\n\r\nReading the description, I was worried this class wouldn't be as suitable for Computer Science students, but was happily wrong. \r\nThe class does not require mathematical knowledge beyond algebra(logarithms are briefly explained, and provided for you in many cases).\r\nThe class also does not require previous knowledge in computer programming. While it will be easier to understand some of the concepts with a ComSci baackground, it is in no way required or required to do well.\n\r\nIf you are a Computer science student interested in AI, you will enjoy this class as well. Many of the concepts, algorithms, and techniques taughts can be used in your other CMSC courses as well as CMSC421 of course.\n\n\r\nThe grade is made up of 20% for homework and quizzes, 20% for each of two midterms, and 40% for the final. \r\nWe had 9 homework assignments regularly spread out through the semester. Each homework took roughly a couple hours to complete, and plenty of time was given to complete them. Part of the homework would be 'randomly' selected and be graded, the rest wouldn't be graded.\r\nThere was 1 quiz early in the semester, then a second quiz that wasn't graded. \r\nThe two midterms were difficult, not cumulative, but thorough, and resulted in low averages, about 50-60%.\r\nThe final was cumulative and mainly consisted of problems that were already reinforced through homeworks as well as trivia-esque questions.\r\nWhile the averages for some of the homeworks and the midterms were fairly low, there was a very generous curve, and Dr. Reggia revealed an estimate of how the curve would be done based on each of the midterms. Though not estimated in class, the curve also affects the homework and final exam.\n\r\nEssentially, if you finished the homeworks and understood them, paid attention in class and did the readings, you could get an A without it being a high-stress course.\n\r\nAfter every homework, quiz, and midterm, each question was reviewed in depth and Dr. Reggia gave numerous opportunities for students to ask questions. \n\r\nDr. Reggia is very approachable after class and in office hours. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T21:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC289I', 'review': "CMSC289I- Horrible class. Worst class I've ever taken at UMD. Was duped into thinking it would be an interested course to fulfill a CORE requirement. Turned out to be the hardest class I've taken at UMD. On top of that there is no discussion so you don't really have an opportunity to make sense of what you cover in class. If your looking for an easy CORE class, THIS IS NOT IT.\n\r\nReggia- Nicest guy ever. Went to him a week before the final breaking down bc I had like a F in the class and he was so comforting, and reassuring. Told me if I got a C on the final he'd give me a C in the class. And I did:)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2011-12-20T16:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC422', 'review': "pretty chill prof, understanding of personal issues. the class isn't too difficult for a 400 level class, but i took this class during the covid pandemic so that might have skewed the difficulty of class(making it easier). either way if he's teaching take it with him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-13T01:13:31Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "Spring 21 - Online -\r\nDoesn't record his lectures, has really vague slides and the exams are fixed for a certain time which makes it really hard if you're not staying in the US.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-03-09T07:07:47Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "Although he's a nice guy, he's sort of a grandpa if you know what I mean. Doesn't record his lectures, which was annoying. To be fair the class is still easy with only the slides that he posts and a friend or two that does go to lecture (for when a concept is unclear). I would just knock out in class so I completely stopped going after the midterm and still did alright. I personally wouldn't take him again, but only because there are definitely better professors at UMD.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T23:29:52Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "This class and this professor were alright. Kind of unremarkable. CMSC421 isn't as interesting as it sounds, and there's a solid month of the course where you're spending time on stuff that you wouldn't really associate with artificial intelligence. An annoying portion of this course was basically a repeat of information from CMSC250 and STAT400, and neither of those things were very interesting or really what I was thinking of when I took this course. The class does end strong, focusing on neural networks and machine learning and those kinds of interesting things.\r\n\r\nReggia is just a very bland professor, I guess. His slides are a little bare bones, and he doesn't record lectures. So I felt that going to class was more or less necessary. I couldn't learn anything just by reading his slides. If you go to class, you'll get a lot more out of what Reggia is actually saying. His lectures didn't blow me away or anything, but he's solid. The exams and homeworks were kind of tough, but they weren't graded very harshly, so that's fine. There's a group project. That's no fun, but whatever.\r\n\r\nAnyways, I would recommend this class if you're looking for a lower workload class. If you're in the unfortunate position of taking three 400 levels in one semester, as I was this semester, this class isn't a bad choice because the workload is fairly minimal and not particularly challenging. But overall I wouldn't call it a super interesting class, and I don't feel like I got all that much out of it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-18T21:11:58Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "I took this class Spring 2021 (online semester). This class is definitely one of the lighter workload 400 levels, and Reggia has major grandpa vibes. It's not necessarily the most engaging course, but you do get to learn a few cool things. The exams were actually pretty difficult given the time contraint, but he has an extremely generous curve (I think a 60 on the midterm counted as an A). I wish he recorded the lectures, but overall Reggia was approachable and cared about the students.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T19:43:31Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "CMSC421 with Reggia is an extremely disappointing class. The first month you spend learning search algorithms (yes, exactly the same ones you already did in CMSC132). Then you spend 1 month on propositional logic (yes, exactly the same stuff you already did in CMSC250). Next, you cover the same bayes rule you already did in STAT400, and the following month and a half is just a watered down version of CMSC422 (and yes, you learn the exact same ML models, absolutely nothing new). You spend the remaining 15% of the course learning niche, obsolete (in both industry and research) topics like programming in LISP and Prolog. Topics that would be an actual extension of anything you've previously learned, like say Reinforcement Learning, are barely touched upon beyond a single lecture.\r\n\r\nBeyond the class being wholly underwhelming, Dr. Reggia is actually an incredibly reasonable professor. We did not have a single lick of programming assigned in the class, had 3 homework assignments and 3 take home quizzes (graded on effort not correctness) which you could easily find answers to on the slides and the midterm and final were both identical to the homeworks, if not easier. The only thing to keep in mind is that there is a semester-long group project worth 30% of your grade that you must complete in groups of 6 that involves writing an academic paper on a topic in AI (not an essay, you actually have to do something new in the field). So if you're a senior looking for an easy, low-effort class take 421 with Reggia, but if you actually want to learn something I suggest you look elsewhere.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T17:53:05Z'}, {'professor': 'James Reggia', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "Dr. Reggia is an easygoing professor and cares about his class a lot. It's basically a survey class for a wide range of ML and AI techniques. I recommend this class if you don't know anything about AI/ML. Many of the topics are taught at the surface level, but to teach anything above that would require significantly higher math prereqs which would get in the way of the spirit of the course. If you already have extensive experience in ML this class is probably not for you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-30T23:07:06Z'}], 'name': 'James Reggia', 'slug': 'reggia'}, {'courses': ['UNIV325', 'UNIV389G', 'UNIV389S', 'UNIV399P', 'UNIV389L', 'UNIV399V', 'UNIV326', 'UNIV378', 'UNIV399C', 'UNIV389T', 'UNIV399Z'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Riker', 'course': 'UNIV325', 'review': "The first half hour of class is usually very interesting, but after that, he starts ranting, and it becomes hard to pay attention. He is a really nice professor though and cares a lot about the issues. Easy class as well, just show up and do the work. I'd recommend sharing the textbook with friends so you don't all purchase it, as you might not really do the reading, as I couldn't make it though it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-21T03:26:00Z'}], 'name': 'James Riker', 'slug': 'riker'}, {'courses': ['MUSC229A', 'MUSC229R', 'MUSC757', 'MUSC448M', 'MUSC629A', 'MUSC629R', 'MUSC689', 'MUSC830C', 'MUSC831C', 'MUSC659B', 'MUSC899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Ross', 'slug': 'ross_james'}, {'courses': ['MATH456', 'MATH601', 'MATH403', 'MATH401', 'MATH603', 'MATH411', 'MATH734', 'MATH431', 'MATH600', 'MATH432', 'MATH602', 'MATH404', 'MATH437', 'MATH406', 'CMSC456', 'MATH405'], 'average_rating': 3.625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Schafer', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "I thought I would do well in this class, but I ended up hating Schafer's irreverent style. Also, Schafer is not rigorous, despite what others have said. His explanations are often imprecise.\n\r\nProfessor Schafer's teaching style is very aggressive, and I felt uncomfortable asking for clarification, as the professor tends to get exasperated with students.\n\r\nIn regards to Professor Schafer's lectures themselves, I found them difficult to understand-- not because I'm unaccustomed to mathematical thought or rigor, but because his lecturing was often unclear.\n\r\nThe worst was that he doesn't provide much perspective on the material, which made it seem kind of pointless. The semester was basically a mad, stressful rush to absorb the material in Herstein as fast as possible, without much reflection or analysis. I don't think my analytical or problem solving skills developed at all, and I don't plan to become an Algebraist, so this class was essentially useless to me.\n\r\nAlso, Schafer is not brilliant. Has he even published? He has no website, and I can't find any of his papers online.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-29T19:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Schafer', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'Since I withdrew from the course about halfway through the semester, I normally would not review the professor except I don\'t want other math majors to make the same mistake I did. \r\nFor the record, this is the first course I ever dropped with a W. \r\nI agree with the other reviews that Professor Schafer is indeed a very brilliant man, and he lectures more coherently than many other math professors I\'ve had. \r\nHOWEVER, he is not a good professor unless you are already naturally brilliant at math. Like most professors in the department, it is clear that he holds the frustrating point of view that math should only be for those to whom it comes naturally, and that those who are not born math geniuses shouldn\'t even really be in the field. I am generally an A student in math, but it is not a subject that just comes easily to me. I study a LOT to get the grades that I do. \r\nHis obvious favoritism for those who seemed to understand the material instantaneously was frustrating to say the least. Also, I unfortunately had a class scheduled during his office hours, so I e-mailed him to try and schedule an alternate time to meet. He set up a time with me, but then never showed up. \r\nFurthermore, after writing down a bunch of barely legible nonsense on the chalkboard, he would then make a statement like "this is quite easy, you just have to think about it," which is not a helpful statement when it actually ISN\'T easy at all.\r\nIn short, if you are someone who learns math as opposed to someone who just knows math, Schafer is not the right guy for you. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2011-10-15T23:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Schafer', 'course': 'MATH404', 'review': "He is a very brilliant prof and does a good job of repeating and going over the important stuff. \n\r\nwith that said he is a terrible teacher. his thoughts are not organized and his lessons aren't organized. he will skip 2 chapters then teach 3 and then go back and the jump to the end of the book and teach the last chapter. you won't be able to keep up if you skip class a lot \n\r\nhis homeworks are always do on tuesdays and he often gives you a few weeks to do it. but more often he will give you tons of homework on a thursday and expect it on tuesday. oh and he more than likely won't even really go over them and you won't really get a grade for your work unless he has a grader for the class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-13T12:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Schafer', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': 'Schafer is an excellent teacher. He teaches a lot of very hard material that must be taught in a short amount of time, but he is always willing to give help outside of class or in class, and no question is too stupid to ask him. If you do the homework and do it well, the tests will be manageable. I would definitely recommend taking MATH340 with Schafer if you are planning to take it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-19T15:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Schafer', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Professor Schafer may look like a homeless Einstein, but he's a great professor. He's very willing to help his students and explains things well during class. His exams challenge you to think differently but are never unreasonable. (If you listen carefully, he drops hints about the questions the lecture before the exam.) He's open to questions during class and will gladly walk through problems if you ask.\n\r\nHe's a classic and exemplary math professor, and I'd recommend you take a class with him if you have a chance.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-14T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Schafer', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Schafer is a really cool guy and an entertaining professor... even though he looks like a homeless person. Several students in my class went on to take 404 and then 432 with him, regardless of their grades in any of these classes. Several students also dropped out of his Math340 class. Schafer is completely incapable of hand-waving; he loves to prove things, and if you can appreciate mathematics done rigorously you'll appreciate him. Of course, if you're taking a class like 340 or 406 with him, it's likely his approach is more intense than you're prepared to deal with, but if you can stand up to the challenge you may grow a lot as a mathematician.\n\r\n He understands that the material he teaches is hard and how much effort it takes to learn it and he is encouraging. Many students benefit from his office hours, and he's happy to help out. He also will not let you get away with not learning -- he assigns a lot of homework. Many think his tests are hard; it's probably just a consequence of the material itself being hard, and having Schafer means no safety bubbles. \n\r\nSome other professors are sloppier and slower than he is, so having someone like Schafer who can hammer out details but still keep you on your toes can be a breath of fresh air. He is a really cool person, but if you don't like to prove things or if you're not willing to put a lot of energy into learning math, then Schafer is not for you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-26T03:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Schafer', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Not sure how to put it politely... Schafer is fucking terrible.\r\n\r\nHe seems to be pretty good at what he does, but his personal style is simply not conducive to learning. He is an aggressive classroom tyrant and stifles discussion - does not clarify things and talks in a seemingly blunt and antagonizing way. Sitting in his lecture is very stressful. His sloppy handwriting does not help either. He would jot down whatever is on his mind on some blank spot on the blackboard so at the end it's usually all over the place so it's simply not possible to make out his notes after the class ends.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe material is not boring but I had a very hard time following. You have to put in a lot of hours after school since the goal of this course is to force you to absorb Hernstein. I looked at other school's syllabus, group theory and ring theory are usually taught as a one year sequence.\r\n\r\nDo yourself a favor, avoid James Schafer if you can.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2018-11-26T05:53:13Z'}, {'professor': 'James Schafer', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': "After speaking with others, Schafer seems to be a truly polarizing teacher.\r\n\r\nPersonally, I liked his informal and socratic style. It was a breath of fresh air from the oft pedantic teaching found in the department. He's visibly passionate about teaching and isn't one to provide a text-to-speech rendition of the book.\r\n\r\nIf you'd like an eccentric professor who speaks on material that goes beyond the book, then take Schafer. If you're on the fence, register for two professors: you can immediately determine if Schafer is for you or not by the end of the first lecture.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-10-03T13:25:50Z'}], 'name': 'James Schafer', 'slug': 'schafer'}, {'courses': ['BSCI105', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Sniezek', 'slug': 'sniezek'}, {'courses': ['BMGT360', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT289F', 'BUMO720'], 'average_rating': 3.8125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT289F', 'review': 'This class is a joke. We do absolutely nothing. The teacher is nice but adds random things that make absolutely no parallels to what the class should be like. For example, he had us draw a picture based on what a class mate described out loud, which was just a random cactus with a bridge over water. Another, he described that he knew what we were thinking and read our minds one class, for 20 min.\r\nSeriously, avoid this class at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-11-03T13:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "HORRIBLE CLASS.I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY HIS RATINGS ARE SO HIGH. I can truly say that I did not learn a single thing from his lectures throughout the entire semester. We learned how to fold napkins and play with straws more than learning anything educational. He was extremely unorganized and ADD in class and honestly it was really weird. I'm not going to lie this was honestly one of the worst classes I have taken here at UMD, I would definitely say avoid at all costs. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-18T23:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'I do not understand how this professor\'s ratings are so high, as I thought this class was very poorly taught and even more poorly structured.\n\r\nHalf of your grade is based on group performance in Capsim (an online business simulation), and several writeups and a presentation relating to your performance in the simulation. Your performance is not graded fairly, as he simply bases your score relative to the others in the class, as opposed to grading every group objectively (this was an issue in our class where one group did extremely well, thereby making the other groups look terrible and as a result, each of the other groups got lower-than-justified grades). \n\r\nAs for the writeups and presentation, it seems as though Spina has no clear grading method, as he is not able to justify the grades he gives. You are likely to get about an 85% on each assignment, but if you complain that he did not give you any feedback, he will always reply with something along the lines of "in the real world, you won\'t be spoon-fed the answers, you just have to infer what to do if you are given no directions".\n\r\nOther assignments include a midterm (you will not do well, as he does not teach what was on it since other professors create the exam, and the latter group actually prepares their classes for the exam), a final (very easy, as it is just doing the Capsim simulation yourself without your group), and attendance-based participation.\n\r\nI would avoid Spina as he is just too disorganized, does not give adequate feedback, and has an awful and random grading system. You will unquestionably leave this class feeling like you learned nothing. The most you will get is a bit of anger that the business school is requiring you to take this course, and a bit more anger with the fact that Spina is teaching it.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': None, 'review': "This was a very FUN course, you will learn a lot of new things but you will always get a feeling of being clueless about things mostly related to Quantum Mechanics.\n\r\nThere's just one long class a week and its quite fun. Make sure you get good teammates or else you won't be able to turn in a proper paper. THe paper counts for most of your grade (35%), 3 exams only 15% of each, peer evaluations 20% etc", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T14:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "This is a pretty interesting class, and if you do your work is a pretty easy A. I learned a lot about the world of Human Resource Management and got some insight on how the job search process looks from the side of those recruiting. \n\r\nWhile Spina makes the class interesting with activities and videos, the 3 exams that are worth 60% of your grade are all based on the text. The other 40% of your grade is attendance in lecture in lecture and discussion and some group homework in discussion, so don't skip class like a jokester. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "I love Spina. From his little old man wardrobe to his mildly funny jokes. \n\r\nHe's such a great professor. He brings up volunteers from the class and has them do different activities in order to show content we just discussed. He also uses youtube to do the same thing. \n\r\nGranted his multiple choice exams are stupid and have two really good choices (choose the one that's the BEST one, they say -_-), this class was great!\n\r\nHis wife is also a good T.A.! They both use stories from their lives to help explain a topic. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-13T12:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'This is the best class that i have ever taken in the business school. I learned a lot while having fun doing it. I took the course during the summer, so it was more hours per session but i had a lot of fun. The course is easy if you read the chapters and look at the reviews at the back of the book. I would recommend this course even if it is not for a major requirement for your major. LOVED IT!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-11T12:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': 'Attendance counts for 40% of your grade.\n\r\nDo NOT skip class like a jokester or you will seriously fail because there is no curve.\n\r\nMaterial is hilariously easy and participation is very entertaining in class.\n\r\nDo not try to cheat attendance with clickers. The TA douchebag takes attendance manually in his diary sketchpad.\n\r\nEasy A or B if you attend class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-07T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'i took this professor exclusively because of the great reviews on here. it ended up being my only B at the university of maryland. be warned, this class is not as great as the reviews say. full review to come later...', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-24T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "His class is not demanding at all. Just 3 tests 20% each, attendance is about 17%, and FBO 20%. Just make sure you don't have his wife for the FBO. She is a harsh grader, and kind of rude. Her grade can easily lower your final grade.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-20T13:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': 'Good class, and Spina makes the material interesting.\n\r\nJust make sure to go to class and do the homeworks for discussion for easy points.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-16T13:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "I would recommend Spina's class to those who are trying to make a choice btw 360 and 364. He's a really good teacher - always has some funny comments and ideas up his sleeves :, but always manages to relate what he's saying to the HR management! He knows just how to make lectures 'not boring' and at the same time informative. \r\nI had first thought that the 75 mins of lecture was too long, but Spina knows just how to keep his students engaged and interested in class. I would take his class again any time! \r\nAs per grading, just try to attend classes and the FBOs, the exams are prety straight forward too (make sure u have the text book!)\r\nOverall, Spina is a great professor!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-09T16:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "I loved this professor. He made class so interesting. He does fun stuff with people in the class and there is really never a dull moment in class. He uses clickers. His tests are really easy, you don't even need to read the book. He tells you exactly what you need to know in review sessions before the tests. You do get a decent amount of HW in the class, but it is all really interesting hw. Great class and BY FAR my favorite professor at umd.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-02-26T01:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "I really enjoyed this class. Spina is adorable and really funny. He makes lectures bearable with all this groups activities (he will randomly picks you out in lecture to participate in his activities), it will feel like you're in grade school again. Attendance by clickers (25%). His wife was my discussion leader and she is awesome too! Exams were not bad, he gives you exact pages to study from. I am borderline A/B, dont know what I'll get, it all depends on the final exam (missed 1 lecture, attend all discs, did all hw assignments (there are quite a few), and B's on 2 exams. I definitely recommnend this professor, one of Smith's best!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-20T13:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "Would definitely recommend him. He's pretty interesting and does demonstrations every lecture to keep the class engaged. He also gives you the exact pages out of the book to study for the tests. If that isn't motivation enough to come to class, however, he also takes attendance. He gives about two assignments per week but they're nothing intense.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-17T18:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Spina', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': '\n\r\nGreat Class. Completed last Fall. Highly recommend Dr. spina. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-21T14:52:00Z'}], 'name': 'James Spina', 'slug': 'spina_james'}, {'courses': ['ARTT100', 'ARTT351', 'ARTT356', 'ARTT489N'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'James Thorpe', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': 'I would not say this class is an "easy" A, but I mean, as far as work load, yeah, it\'s pretty easy...I felt Thorpe graded a little hard, I mean out of 8 projects I received 4 B\'s and 4 A\'s, so pretty fair distribution...As far as Thorpe, the guy is awesome...I didn\'t find him hard to approach at all, and he was generally a very nice person...He makes class fun and he really takes to time to know and respect his students...Take Thorpe, you will not regret it ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-01T21:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'James Thorpe', 'course': None, 'review': "Thorpe is...interesting to say the least. He really doesn't care if you go to class as long as you get your projects in on time. He does have a rather crude rough personality, and is somewhat difficult to approach.\r\nClass is easy- but if you're an art or hart history major, he will grade your work a lot harder.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-09T17:02:00Z'}], 'name': 'James Thorpe', 'slug': 'thorpe'}, {'courses': ['ARCH403', 'ARCH443', 'ARCH406', 'ARCH797', 'ARCH408', 'ARCH428B', 'ARCH408', 'ARCH797', 'ARCH406', 'ARCH797', 'ARCH408', 'ARCH797', 'ARCH401', 'ARCH428B', 'ARCH428B', 'ARCH406', 'ARCH797'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Tilghman', 'slug': 'tilghman'}, {'courses': ['ENPM808X', 'ENPM660', 'ENPM809J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Turso', 'slug': 'turso'}, {'courses': ['PHYS731', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS738', 'PHYS739', 'PHYS404', 'PHYS165', 'ENEE489B', 'PHYS467'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'James Williams', 'slug': 'williams_james'}, {'courses': ['JOUR364', 'JOUR664'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jamie Forzato', 'slug': 'forzato'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jamie Fry', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Having Professor Fry as a teacher was honestly one of the luckiest things. She knows a lot about the University and especially Freshman Connection if you are in that so having her as a professor is a great thing.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-19T06:29:42Z'}], 'name': 'Jamie Fry', 'slug': 'fry_jamie'}, {'courses': ['EXST018C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jamie Wright', 'slug': 'wright_jamie'}, {'courses': ['AMST298I', 'AMST498E', 'AMST498R', 'HONR278N', 'AMST498A', 'AMST628L', 'AMST628Q', 'AMST120', 'AMST450', 'AMST498I', 'AMST601', 'AAST498R', 'AAST498W', 'AAST498K', 'IMMR419F', 'AMST878A', 'AMST878B', 'AMST878C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jan Padios', 'slug': 'padios'}, {'courses': ['ARCH407', 'ARCH460', 'ARCH700', 'ARCH678G', 'ARCH678B', 'ARCH403', 'ARCH601', 'ARCH601', 'ARCH468N', 'ARCH668N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jana VanderGoot', 'slug': 'vandergoot'}, {'courses': ['CMSC122', 'HACS298', 'HACS297', 'HACS100', 'HACS318A', 'HACS102', 'HACS279', 'HACS299', 'HACS201', 'HACS498', 'HACS101', 'CMSC106', 'CMSC395', 'CMSC106', 'CMSC106', 'CMSC131'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I have no idea why people are saying she's a bad teacher. If you aren't a bright person you aren't gonna do well in computer science, the material isn't easy to comprehend.\n\r\nThat being said, I had never programmed going into college and got a 100 on every single project. Jan hooks it up in office hours and bumped my grade when I was borderline.\n\r\nMake sure you practice writing code on paper or it will hurt you come exam time, which is the only reason I needed a bump. jan is a great lecturer, teacher and person.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-25T18:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "She's nice, but her examples in lecture are terrible. If you're obsessed with cats you'll love her because every single example she gives in class deals with cats. The projects are also very different from what she teaches, if you expect her examples to help you on projects you're wrong, and the lectures aren't very helpful towards teaching the concepts of the class. If you go to discussion, though, the TAs are actually really helpful and teach in a much simpler way than Jan.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-04-30T09:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "She is very nice and tried very hard (saw her a couple times at office hours), but just didn't teach the stuff well. One problem is the class doesn't really have homework. She expects us to create situations that we would use the code. In a normal comp. sci class that could fly, but this is an intro class! Anyway the material wasn't that hard, but I had to teach myself everything, which made it harder. A+ for my TA though (I don't know if shell be there next semester)", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-27T14:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "The class itself is not hard. Unlike what the person below me had said, I had no problems when it came to midterms (92.2% avg), projects (99% avg), or the labs that I had done at home with very little difficulty. I have previous programming experience in MATLAB from PHYS165 so most of aspects of the class were already familiar to me and I had no difficulty adapting to slightly different terms and methods. If you know MATLAB, you should be fine.\r\nHowever, you should be aware of the fact that many of the students with 0 experience had a very hard time. Some did not do well on exams, needed help on projects, and were continually relying on the TAs to dig them out of holes.\r\nWith that said, Plane is completely unresponsive to student concerns. In one case, i had an issue that I had contacted her about. She replied very promptly and I thought we had resolved it, but she took no action. So I contacted her again. And again. And again. No reply, no action taken. Because of her lack of activity and willingness to help, I'll be getting an entire letter grade lower because the issue at hand was worth about 8% of the total point breakdown. If this doesn't convince you that she doesn't care about your concerns, I don't know what else to tell you.\r\nIf you have a definite need to take this class with Plane, I suppose you don't have a choice... However, if you get another professor, you're probably in better hands.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-12-17T02:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': 'I am currently taking this course with Plane, and I would like to say that she is a very kind woman and really does want to see her students succeed, however wanting to help them succeed and actually doing it are two different things. You will struggle in this course if you have no prior Computer Science experience, which is why I took the class. As others have said before, in her other computer science courses her lectures are so basic that when it comes time for quizzes and tests you have no idea what to do. Not to mention she only gives 10 minutes to do these quizzes which are too complicated for a class at this level. The tests were equally as difficult and on more than one occasion almost the entire class did not finish on time.\n\r\nAs soon as you get to JavaScript you better hope that you don\'t fall behind or else your grade will be ruined. Don\'t expect your TAs to help you either because they don\'t speak English.\n\r\nAs for projects they are also extraordinarily complicated for what you learn in the class. There is no way you can do these without help and I recommend starting them as soon as they are assigned. There are weekly "In class labs" that are supposed to help you do these projects and understand the material better, but after the first week of class she leaves you to do them on your own with no help.\n\r\nShe is a very nice woman but do not take this class if you want an elective and are new to Computer Science, you will most certainly regret it. You can learn about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript on your own for free without being so brutally penalized.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-04-11T09:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "I know this is late but I had her for 250 over the summer. I was a little scared because I've heard crazy mixed reviews, but there is nothing to be afraid of. She is very kind and helpful but most importantly she wants her students to succeed. She knows that the material can be confusing so she goes over it and makes sure the class understands before moving onto the next unit. \n\r\nWhat I really love about her is how approachable she is. She had set office hours but I sometimes showed up at her office randomly and she still was happy to help. \n\r\nShe is really helpful about exam grading too. She will explain to you why you got the grade you did and will negotiate with you if you don't think you deserved it. There was one time I misread a question and would have lost a lot of points but I explained that to her and she let me rewrite my answer.\n\r\nShe is overall a very understanding and caring professor. She made 250 a fun class (like we were doing puzzles rather than long boring proofs). I recommend her not only as a professor but also an adviser (you can ask her about anything!) ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-19T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "This course was absolutely horrid. This was my first time learning to program and I made a mistake taking it with Plane. She is extremely confusing, boring, and her voice just makes me want to tune her out. Her examples and analogies don't make any sense, either, which causes me to become even more confused.\n\r\nThe lectures were such basic material that when it came time for the quizzes/projects, I struggled. Quizzes are given every week and for the little amount of time given, the concepts were so much more difficult compared to the labs and the lecture examples. She cannot expect us to understand something at a higher level if she cannot even teach us the basic examples, especially for a beginner Java class (where most students in my lecture had no prior programming experience). The projects were also substantially more difficult than any of the examples ever given in class. Even those with prior programming experience found them to be a little difficult. \n\r\nMy TA was also horrible. She was so snappy and anything she wrote on the board could not even be seen .. GET BETTER MARKERS PLEASE. She never spoke loud enough for me to hear and was snappy whenever a student asked a question.\n\r\nHowever, those with previous programming experience had no trouble in this course. J. Plane basically catered to those who already knew Java ..\n\r\nI am a CompSci major and this bad experience has caused me to reevaluate my choice of major. Hopefully 132 with Fawzi will change my mind.\n\r\nDO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH J. PLANE IF YOU HAVE NEVER PROGRAMMED BEFORE. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-01-04T14:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Sorry to say this, but I feel like this course would be more appropriately titled "introductory minutia of Java syntax." I greatly enjoyed all of the programming assignments, but to be honest, I found the course material extremely frustrating and unenlightening because there was an overwhelming focus on Java\'s syntactical conventions, rather than the conceptual basis for the object-oriented programming paradigm. All in all, this wasn\'t a bad course, but I think the content could be a lot better. \n\r\nUnfortunately, Jan also took a rather parental tone towards her students in this class. I\'m sorry, I tried, but was unable to find her explanatory metaphors very compelling :( ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-06T13:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "At first I wasn't sure what I thought of Jan. I've definitely never had a professor with her style of teaching and communication. That being said, I thought she did a great job teaching 131. Here's why:\n\r\n1) She is VERY approachable outside of class and is really good at clarifying stuff 1 on 1. If you don't understand a lecture she could probably explain it all to you in a matter of 10 minutes if you're bright.\n\r\n2) She explains stuff and demonstrates what she's talking about by coding in front of you in lecture. It necessarily make the material easy, per se, but it definitely makes it a lot easier to visualize and understand.\n\r\n3) She has a PhD in both Comp Sci AND Education so she knows what she's doing.\n\r\n4) She curved both of her midterms this semester.\n\r\nHonestly, she's probably one of the best professors I've had at Maryland yet. Here's the rub, however, with CMSC131:\n\r\nIf you're not logically inclined (and honestly not exceptionally bright...there's no point in lying to yourself) you're going to really struggle with this class. That being said, Jan is definitely your best option because of her approachability outside of class.\n\r\nRegardless of that fact, I thought Jan was a great professor and I would highly recommend her for CMSC131.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-05-21T12:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I had taken computer science classes in high school, but hadn't learned some of the material taught in the 2nd half of the course. \n\r\nI thought Jan was a great teacher. If you came into this class knowing absolutely nothing about java, then I can see how this class could be very difficult. I know a lot of people got C/Ds on the quizzes. \n\r\nAnyway, the use of projecting Eclipse onto a large screen really helped. Unlike some reviewers mentioned from past years, she only used a few pointpoints near the end of the course. And Piazza was great for communication.\n\r\nI came in dreading this class b/c of these bad reviews, but I thought it was pretty bearable. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-03T02:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'I thought that Jan was a good professor who did an excellent job explaining confusing concepts in Lecture. All lecture slides are available online, and she also posts many coding examples that make life a lot easier when it comes to doing the projects and studying for the exams. In office hours she is friendly and willing to help. \r\nThe class definitely is a lot of work, but just avoid procrastinating and you should do fine. For many of the projects extra credit is offered if you pass all of the public tests by a certain day, so definitely start early and take advantage of this option. There were also office hours from 10-6 every weekday, so if you are stuck on project just go to the TAs and they will usually clear up the problem for you.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-26T17:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Jan is a very nice and knowledgeable professor. Because of the nature of the course, she has to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time so blanking out for even a minute will leave you lost for the rest of lecture.\n\r\nShe\'s not one to care if you\'re messing around on the internet during lecture (as long as you\'re not disruptive to the rest of the class) but I highly suggest you pay attention. One of the most efficient ways to study for this class is to attend and understand the lectures - and this is only a quarter of the work.\n\r\nThis class is curved around an average of 75, despite what she might say about only ever curving 2-3% ... this is a lie.\n\r\nQuizzes - She says "you are always to expect a quiz in discussion" but she really only gives them about once a week or every 10 days. The topics are never announced but you can bet that it will be on slides covered about 2-3 lectures ago. If you use those topics as a guide and prod around, Jan can\'t lie, so I suggest you straight up ask her if, say the quiz will have \'Assembly\' coding on it. If she says \'maybe\', or does a slight nod, it\'s probably a yes. Use your best judgement.\n\r\nLabs - you can tell that no one put any effort into these as my labs were titled with the previous semester with the wrong directory name. We spend the first third of the class trying to locate the file, the 2nd third trying to figure out what the directions were asking and the rest trying to follow the confusing instructions. Put out your best effort and hopefully your grader isn\'t a dick and gives you a 2/2. Highly suggest consulting the people around you.\n\r\nProjects - start early. Try to talk to Jan/TA(/friends). Use Piazza. They are hard and you never know what the Secret Tests are looking for. If you think you\'re done, you\'re not done yet.\n\r\nExams/Final - You\'ll be able to pick up clues on what\'s to be test in lecture and if your TA is nice, in discussion. Give yourself code to write and run them on your computer before you have to spit it out on paper. If you\'ve had to do it on a project, expect to do a simplified and different version on an exam/final.\n\r\nTA - possibly one of the worst TAs I\'ve ever had. Thought he was too smart for anyone else and just sat in the front of the class not answering any questions. Complained about now being paid enough ... -__-\n\n\n\r\nOverall, if you\'re not a CS genius, work your ass off if you expect to even pass.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-23T12:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Alright, so this class is gonna suck, regardless of who you chose for 216. 216 is a fast-paced course by nature and on the way you'll likely be learning two new languages - C and assembly. If you barely passed 131/132 or had trouble on some of the assignments I HIGHLY recommend you work on projects early. These are not the kinds of projects you just sit down and burn through in a few hours like in 132, and I took the honors version.\n\r\nAnyways, Plane is a decent 216 professor, she uses the same slides as all of the other professors use and she remains fairly engaging at 9 in the morning, so that's good. She does a good deal of coding examples in lecture which helps you understand topics. I would recommend you go to lecture and work a bit on your projects while she teaches, and pay attention during the more important bits of the lecture.\n\r\nThere are six projects in this class, each with about two weeks to do. The spec for each one is drawn out and boring to read, but make sure you do, as there are a lot of hidden tricks and requirements hidden in the text. Gone are the days of private tests - 10 percent of your grade is public tests, and 75 is secret tests. You don't get to see what your project grade is when you submit - you wait a week and you get a magic score. Again, start these early. If you finish early, great, you can relax for a week and you are prepared for the quizzes. Again, this is NOT like 132. Secret tests often test a bunch of odd things (malformed input, large sample size, etc) and since you can't see the results until it is graded you can't just spam submits like in 132 until you get that perfect submission.\n\r\nQuizzes are slightly tough. If you haven't started the project most likely the material on the quiz will be brand new to you, and considering you are given 15 minutes to do a few concept questions and a programming assignment, you need to know the subject matter going into the quiz.\n\r\nLabs are the same as quizzes - if you have started the project, you should know what you are doing because the labs are a derivative of the project material of stuff that has gone on in lecture.\n\r\nTests are fairly hard, alot of programming questions, and the graders seem to love taking points off on things like syntax (I always found that rather stupid - a compiler will catch syntax errors, not logic errors). All you really need to do is look over all of the slides (posted online) before each test and refresh yourself. If you do well on the quizzes, labs, and projects up to the test, you should do fine.\n\r\nI learned so much from this class - and that's because the class moves insanely fast. You'll be doing C projects while learning assembly, then going back to learning C and doing assembly projects. If you are not up to date with the latest 131 and 132 concepts (recursion, structures, blah blah) you will get your ass handed to you in this class. I aced 132H and this class was much more time-intensive.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-20T02:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I'm going to start off by saying that this class was hard. Really hard. Probably the hardest class I've ever taken. I breezed though 132 and pulled an A easily, but 216 kept me stressed almost the whole semester and especially during the last two weeks of the course.\n\r\nThis is the review of the course:\r\n-From what I've heard from friends the books are useless, don't buy them. (I didn't)\r\n-The entire course is in a Linux environment, through GRACE. If you're already familiar with Unix commands and such, you're in luck. Unfortunately I wasn't, and this made the first few weeks using it very, very confusing. Even at the end of the course I still felt weak with Unix.\r\n-You use Emacs to code in which is OK. The debugger is complicated and I never bothered leaning how to use it. I just debugged using print statements and other little tricks.\r\n-The major topics for the course were as follows: Learning basic C, Arrays in C, Structures, Pointers and pointer arithmetic, Makefiles, Dynamic Memory, Assembly, Process Control, Function pointers, Threads, and some misc.\r\n-Both Midterms and the Final were good. They were challenging but definitely not unreasonable and tested fair material.\r\n-The quizzes, on the other hand, were plain rude. The difficulty was unreasonable, they tested stupid material, they were graded harshly, and everyone failed the shit out of them. I failed every quiz except for 2.\r\n-Lab exercises were really hard for me, and I felt like everyone knew what they were doing except me. I would recommend trying to study the material that the lab is on beforehand. It's hard to ask questions when you're completely lost.\r\n-There were 6 projects, each of them took around 10-18 hrs to complete. Projects for this class were hard and stressful (a recurring theme). I didn't need office hours at all in 132 but I went for 4/6 projects for 216. The difficulty of the projects went up for each one. Even though the projects were extremely challenging, I thought they were all semi-reasonable as long as you started early. Except for the last one. \r\n-(Mini rant) The last fucking project. Assigned literally 10 days before the final, it was easily the hardest and longest project of the year. Project 6 stressed me out so much that I felt like I was going to vomit in the coming days before it was due. (Right before the final remember) You have to pass 75% of the public tests for each project to pass the course, and I couldn't pass any of them until the day before the project was due. I tried to go to office hours all 3 days before it was due, and each day office hours had at least a 20 person waiting-list for 1 TA. I have NO IDEA what Jan was thinking. How difficult was the project to complete? Fuck if I know, I didn't even try to implement threading because I needed to study for my two hardest finals that were the first day of finals week. \r\n-Overall the course was VERY fast paced. Looking back I definitely learned a ton from the course, but I didn't really have time to get a thorough understanding of all the topics.\n\r\nThis is the review of Jan:\r\n-I'm giving Jan 4 stars mainly because I think her current rating of 2 is too low. \r\n-Jan is a very nice person and a pretty good lecturer. She has a good grasp on all the material and knows what she's talking about. It's not too hard to pay attention in class, there is just so much material that it's easy to instantly forget a lot of it.\r\n-The format of the class is a bit boring. Powerpoint lectures.\r\n-Some of the powerpoints are not well done and confusing. You really need to pay attention in lecture to figure out what's going on. Especially the powerpoint on Assembly, which I thought explained Memory very poorly.\n\r\nAdvice:\r\n-Go to class, study before the Lab Exercises and quizzes.\r\n-Start the projects as early as you can. I wish I hadn't procrastinated some of them.\r\n-Make a couple friends and talk about the projects together. Yeah it's technically against the rules, but it will keep you from going insane when working on the projects.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-24T01:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'She is a really nice professor. She cares about her students but does not mind that most of them are not paying attention to her. She gets really annoying with her cat analogies, but she is a good teacher.\n\r\nShe describes concepts well and exams are not that hard. Quizzes are also pretty easy. The bad thing is that the last project she assigned were almost impossible. They were way beyond our level of programming and I just feel she did not prepare us well for CMSC132', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-01-26T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Jan is a decent professor. She does a good job teaching the material, but if you have any programing knowledge you'll find the class slow and boring. Since this is an intro to java course and aimed at people who never programmed before. \r\nProjects and exams are the same with any teacher and aren't very hard. \r\nContrary to what others say I found the quizzes to be quite easy, some of the quizzes on inheritance were pretty hard and I failed maybe 2 the entire semester but each quiz counts for very little of your grade. Just do well on your projects and exams and you'll do fine.\n\r\nYou will breeze though the class if you have prior programming knowledge. If you don't have prior programming knowledge this class isn't impossible you'll just have to work a little harder and go to office hours or ask a friend to explain it to you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-21T14:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I completely hated this class. I really didn't learn anything from the power points. The quizzes were confusing and if you don't know how to program, it's pretty tough. If anything take this class with Fawzi.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-22T16:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Easy class, especially if you have programming experience. Contrary to what others have said, I believe she did a decent job teaching programming. Her lectures were to the point and covered most of the important exceptions that help. Quizzes and tests were a breeze, as was the final. Labs are very simple and take only a few minutes.\n\r\nProjects sometimes do not overlap with the material being taught, and often take a bit of extra effort, but they are generally not difficult to finish, as long as you start on time. The last project is a bit tricky, though.\n\r\nOverall, a pretty good teacher. I found her lectures helpful, although she does tend to be rather repetitive since this class is geared more towards people without programming experience. Some of her metaphors are quite helpful, I found quite a few of them enlightening, although I can kind of understand being put off by them.\n\r\nDon't listen too much to the other reviews; as long as you actually attend classes and vaguely pay attention, it's definitely a softball class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-21T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Pros: Jan cares a lot about the progress of her students. I went in to her office hours a few times, and she was a huge help. She's very thorough with her explanations.\n\r\nCons: I found it extremely difficult to pay attention in lectures, and I stopped going after a few weeks. Don't be deceived by the lecture slides posted online, because they don't always cover everything that Jan covers in class.\n\r\nAlso, if you're like me and you prefer to learn everything the night before an exam, don't expect to do well. Weekly quizzes are given to ensure you're keeping up with the material.\n\r\nBottom line: This class wasn't exactly a nightmare for me, but it wasn't all that fun either.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-18T15:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Jan Plane is a horrible teacher! She actually does try, but she just makes no sense to me. About half way through the course I started going to lectures by the other instructor -- Fawzi Emad -- and it is 1000% better. Mr. Emad explains things in a way that anybody can understand. If you have a choice, take the class with Emad not Plane.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-22T11:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I got an A in this class but I cannot imagine how hard it is if you have no programming experience.\n\r\nMy programming experience is very limited but it definitely helped a lot.\n\r\nShe tries to use metaphors but she doesn't understand that metaphors are suppose to be something that students can easily relate to to make things more clear. So when she teaches she just makes things confusing as hell.\n\r\nShe responds to her emails at ridiculous speeds and is very friendly and approachable outside of class.\n\r\nThe quizzes in the class are INSANE. They are so hard and purposely made to hurt your grade. My TA sucked but some of the others were awesome.\n\r\nExams are hard to finish on time (except for the final)", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-22T14:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I consider my self to be a pretty computer savvy guy, but this was my first programming experience... Lectures were boring, didn't really cover everything I felt was needed for the projects.. Jan did offer help on projects and pretty much does them for you if you go to here office hours or email her constantly.. Thus I received high As on every project.. QUIZZES were IMPOSSIBLE.. I have a D average for quizzes. EXAMSSS.. are rediculous like everyone below me said they are beyond impossible to finish on time and extremely hard.. look to make most of ur points in projects. if you do Well on projects you might just get a B\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-16T18:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'This class with this teacher is ridiculous. Not only is she incredibly boring, but she makes things that could be easily understood incredibly hard to understand. She also LOVES cats and makes every analogy incredibly confusing.\n\r\nProjects are extremely unclear and confusing.\n\r\nExams are idiotic. She gives a study guide and study questions, and guess what, very few of them have anything to do what showed up on the exam. SOME of them are based on what she says during lecture but who can understand her? To top it off, you get very little time needed to complete the exam. Even the people who have prior CMSC knowledge are struggle to finish on time.\n\r\nDo NOT take this professor, you WILL regret it, especially if you have no prior CMSC knowledge.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-04-20T14:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I took 2 years of Java during high school, but chose not to do the AP Comp Sci test, so I had to sit through this class, which was essentially my 2 years of high school Java condensed into one semester. Didn't fall asleep in class, but didn't pay close attention, either. I did most of my learning through the projects. Quizzes were similar to others' experiences. I'm still kicking myself that I didn't take Fawzi.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-02-25T15:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "This class is beyond horrible, but she was the ONLY teacher available for CMSC131 at this time. Only those who have prior knowledge in programming will do well.\n\r\nThe first week or two were okay as it was relatively simple and therefore easy to understand, but after that, it gets boring, at least, with this professor.\n\r\nTeacher: She is a really nice lady, she tries to help you as much as she can and is approachable outside of class. However, she cannot teach at all. She is incredibly confusing, boring, and only she tends to know what she is talking about. She makes things that could be easily understood even harder to understand. She makes a lot analogies, which are freaking horrible as they only confuse you further. (She uses lecture slides and refers to examples she puts up on screen.)\n\r\nTA: My TA was pretty nice, but she follows the instructions of the professor when it comes to how to grade or what to do, so it doesn't really matter how nice she is.\n\r\nProjects/Homework: You get a project/homework once every 1-2 weeks, since it takes a while to do. You get a guideline on what you have to do and you have to use what you have learned from lecture. This isn't so bad because you have a long time to do it, so you can get help from TAs, the teacher, or friends(sometimes).\n\r\nQuizzes/Exams: WOW, these things are beyond RIDICULOUS. For someone who does not have prior programming knowledge, you will NOT finish on time. In my class, only 1-2 people, who DID have prior programming knowledge, were about to finish in time. Everyone else did not. Not only are they badly timed, they are HARD.\n\r\nLike I said earlier, she was the only teacher available for CMSC131, but if you can avoid her, DO SO WITHOUT HESISTATION. If you aren't a major in computer science, AVOID. If you can't avoid, you will need to invest an incredulous amount of time if you want an A. Make sure you get a lot of rest before you enter her class, because she goes through a lot of stuff and she will bore you to sleep. Her poor speaking skills and habits do not help her either. It was hard for me to stay interested and awake.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-02-23T21:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Other reviews pretty much hit it on the head, so I\'m going to let you know that they were right. At first, she\'s alright, tolerable, the material is interesting. And then, just after \'if then\' statements, her lectures are off the mark completely. She zips right through incredibly valuable material with some occasional examples, but nothing near what your then supposed to be able to...code... in your own project. I emailed her several times with the most unhelpful condensed reply I\'ve ever seen, as if I was wasting her time. If you haven\'t had background experience, she is brutal. She puts questions on the exams that are a harder evolution of an unexplained example in class.\r\nOh, and yes, "Office Hours" IS a \'barrage of chaos\', 50 kids to one TA. A real shame to have this class the first experience that CS majors get.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-01-26T05:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "This being my first computer science class, at Maryland or anywhere, I didn't come in with any idea of what a computer science class would be like. I thought overall Jan Plane was a successful professor - I learned a lot, and got a lot of good practice for programming. The lectures started off interesting, but as time passed they became less and less, but make sure you keep paying attention, because otherwise you'll suddenly have a ton of information to catch up on without much to draw from, other than going to the TAs for help. \r\nShe has a lot of metaphors for the programming, and the usefulness of those vs. the amount they might just confuse you is definitely up in the air.\r\nThe tests weren't too bad at all, but like I said if there's a topic you don't really feel that comfortable with writing code on, make sure you fix that because chances are there'll be a test problem that has you writing code on that.\r\nFor the projects she was very helpful, always willing to look through your code to see what the problem was, which was immensely helpful, but make sure you start the projects early or you'll find yourself having to put hours and hours in the few days before it's due. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-20T15:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "She is simply not a good teacher. The projects are the majority of the grade, but the examples she provides in class are inadequate. Therefore I've had to rely heavily on my programming experience from high school. The last few projects are a little hard even for me, so imagine how hard it must be for someone with no previous experience. If you have never programmed before, don't expect to pass her class unless you're prepared to invest a truly incredible portion of your time into it. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-07T03:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "At the start, this class was quite simple to understand, all the concepts were basic and taught at a steady pace that was optimal for understanding the material. A few weeks in, however, I, being the very-limited-knowledge-in-computer-science person that I am, was overwhelmed. Seemingly infinite material is provided in a matter of a few weeks, and if you're not extremely diligent and nearly obsessive about learning the material, you'll most likely have trouble here. \n\r\nLectures rarely helped where they needed to (projects, quizzes, etc.)\r\nQuizzes were harder than you could imagine, rarely would anyone pass them (besides the ones that have been programming for 5+ years...).\r\nProjects were just as frustrating - and when you try to go in for help, you're met with this barrage of chaos, stuck in a void where the TAs only meet with you for less than five minutes. Really, you could learn more about computer programming from the textbook, or any other equally equipped textbook. \n\r\nIf you're not a Computer Science major or don't have an extremely high interest in Computer Science, save yourself the trouble, money, and credits and don't take this course. If you do...you've been forewarned.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-04-15T12:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': None, 'review': 'Did not have a great experience with her. Lectures were boring, quizzes were ridiculously hard and stressed trivial points, and exams were too long and unfinishable. Her projects were pretty straightforward though, and I learned a lot from them. She was also very friendly and approachble outside of class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-03-05T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'not a bad lecturer, but not great either. this was my first programing course ever, so i was in the deep end early. she explains every thing, but if you zone out, even for a minute, you are gonna be lost for the next half hour. if you already know about programing, than you probably dont even need to go, as the slides are online', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-22T00:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Not a very good teacher, bad jokes, only went when there was a review, and even those weren't helpful. Final was pretty rough.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-12-15T22:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'sucks at teaching, corny jokes, just sucks', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-10-31T15:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'HACS100', 'review': "She's nice and tries hard for her class. If you don't understand, send her an email or go to office hours. Lectures are mostly off the powerpoint and giving examples, but it'll take time on your own to understand usually if you don't already know the material. I took both HACS100 and HACS101 with her -- the classes themselves weren't my favorite, but Jan is great.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-24T23:55:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC106', 'review': "Learned the material well from this class, feel like a C++ pro. Only gripe is that A+'s don't exist, always a bummer to get a 97 or higher and just get an A. Her videos and lectures were very helpful, and even though this isn't about them her TA's were the best I've had in a class. As someone completely new to computer science, this class was great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T18:19:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'course': 'CMSC106', 'review': "Honestly one of the best professors I have had. This class I didn't find that challenging considering we also had like three TA's that were SUPER helpful. Sometimes the Projects we had due were a bit hard but the TAs help you out a lot. Also, the professor is very helpful during office hours and would work with you even after the allocated time until your program is running again. If you know you're going to struggle with projects you HAVE to start them ASAP, so you can get help before the project is due. She is pretty flexible with submitting stuff late due to technical difficulties. She was also very sweet and kind at least to me. If you're taking CMSC106 as a math major whos not really interested in CS, I definitely recommend her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T14:18:54.957351Z'}], 'name': 'Jandelyn Plane', 'slug': 'plane_jandelyn'}, {'courses': ['ENES474', 'ENES472', 'ENES458E', 'ENES304', 'ENES458N', 'ENES305', 'HACS408D'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jane Fines', 'course': 'ENES472', 'review': "This class isn't bad as a whole. This class is a decent amount of work. There are essays, discussion board activities, online quizzes, a group paper and presentation, and final exam that all factor into the grade. You learn all sorts of various things about business cultures and how to deal with them. There are a wide range of majors represented in this class. The group project involves researching various aspects of a country one may do business in. The project isn't hard but be careful not to blow it off even though there are a lot of people in the group and it's easy to slack off your part. Also, there tends to be a pop quiz precisely on the day you don’t do the readings.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-08T03:09:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jane Fines', 'slug': 'fines'}, {'courses': ['UNIV389C', 'FGSM360', 'HONR378A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jane Rhee', 'slug': 'rhee_jane'}, {'courses': ['AAST200', 'AAST398F', 'AAST498T', 'AAST498V', 'AAST443', 'AMST328L', 'AMST298C', 'AMST498J', 'GVPT368C', 'AMST629N', 'AMST450', 'AMST290', 'AAST310', 'AMST310', 'AAST443', 'AMST498J', 'GVPT368C', 'AAST378', 'AAST388', 'HNUH238B', 'AAST378', 'AAST388', 'AAST443', 'GVPT368C', 'HNUH238B', 'AAST201', 'AAST351', 'AAST498W', 'AAST378', 'AAST388', 'HNUH238B'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Janelle Wong', 'course': 'AAST443', 'review': 'Very nice professor. Assignments are easy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-06T15:54:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Janelle Wong', 'course': 'AMST290', 'review': 'Prof Wong was the best! She really changed the format of the class for online and it made it really informative while only having a few big assignments. There were no tests or papers just one assignment a week. If you are looking for an easy gen ed with a great teacher and interesting information take this class for sure!! Your TA grades most of the papers and my ta was super cool and always willing to meet and talk about grades.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-05T14:15:42Z'}], 'name': 'Janelle Wong', 'slug': 'wong_janelle'}, {'courses': ['ANTH468I', 'ANTH688L', 'ANTH468D', 'ANTH468J', 'ANTH468L', 'ANTH461', 'ANTH462', 'ANTH760', 'ANTH398D', 'ANTH688I', 'LASC448L', 'LASC448F', 'LASC448Q', 'ANTH661', 'ANTH456', 'ANTH656', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH456', 'ANTH456', 'ANTH461', 'ANTH462', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Janet Chernela', 'course': 'ANTH468D', 'review': "Dr. Chernela is a little out there, but she's very smart and knowledgable about the subject. She's actually had a lot of experience with the subject she's dealing with and is obviously really passionate about it. She has no idea how to operate the film equipment and has trouble with emails. She doesn't use blackboard at all and opts instead to send out emails, often sending about 2-3 in one week (messing up quite a few times on some of these and having to re-send them with one or two attachments). Hard to get a hold of via email and she doesn't have a number to reach her. She doesn't use study guides, she just has review sessions. I wrote 8 pages of review notes, which was pretty awful, but they helped quite a bit for the test which was mostly essay questions. I like how she lets us all voice our opinions on the film and often has debates going on through the whole class. Be sure to speak up because it's really interesting if you participate.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-01T21:36:00Z'}], 'name': 'Janet Chernela', 'slug': 'chernela'}, {'courses': ['MUED473', 'MUED484', 'MUED494', 'MUED186', 'MUED471', 'MUED489G', 'MUED474', 'MUED692', 'MUED222'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Janet Montgomery', 'slug': 'montgomery_janet'}, {'courses': ['BMGT458C', 'BUMK736', 'BUSI650', 'BMGT353', 'ENTS632', 'BMGT458J', 'BMGT457'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Janet Wagner', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': 'I have never been more unimpressed by a professor. Janet Wagner is the epitome of someone that you don\'t want as a teacher and I wish I took all these previous reviews seriously before thinking I was going to be ok.\n\r\nSure, I looked at the grade breakdown on OurUMD and believed I would easily fall within the A or B range. However, although I put considerable effort forth in this course and went to talk to her multiple times about different concepts outside of class, I surprisingly found myself in the 1% C range.\n\r\nFirst, there is no room for error in this course. Honestly, you need to do everything absolutely the way she wants it done or there\'s no chance of getting an appropriate grade. For example, towards the beginning of the semester, we had a group presentation (and was the second group to go, so we had a good idea of what to expect) where we followed the syllabus and met with her beforehand to make sure what we were doing was correct. After we presented, she basically told us that we did everything wrong in front of the entire class. Not only did we actually do everything right (which we found out after we met with her after class), but she disrespected us in front of everyone and still only received a B+ on a perfect presentation. This woman has no moral compass and believes that everything in her head is right.\n\r\nSecond, DON\'T BUY THE BOOK. On multiple occasions, only AFTER the first test, she said that she mainly relies on everything in her slides. On the first exam I took, there is a definition section where you define vocabulary words that she gives you. Seems easy enough, right? So I used the definitions given in the book and to my surprise, I get pretty much the entire section wrong (8 points off my grade on the test). When I went to talk to her after class about it, she said, even though I checked and it was nowhere on the review sheet or anywhere else, that she expected us to use her definitions in the slides and that she had mentioned it ONE TIME in class. I argued about why the book is required although we use her concepts instead and she didn\'t have an answer for me except, "Tough luck, you won\'t be getting any credit back on this test and you should consider sitting closer to the front of the class." I\'ve never been more disrespected in my college career and, looking back, those points would\'ve earned me an appropriate B in the class.\n\r\nLastly, class participation. If you don\'t participate multiple times in every single class, you won\'t get full credit. Not only did I attend every class except for two (that were excused), but I participated every now and again and ended up with a lowly 70/100. For a second, I thought she was out to get me until I heard that everyone else in the class finished with poor class participation grades. I couldn\'t tell you what goes through her head during the grading process, but it\'s definitely not rational.\n\r\nTo be honest, I\'m not sure what Janet\'s deal is, but I believe she is drastically overpaid, a terrible professor and I can\'t believe she earned a Ph.D.\n\r\nWhatever you do, do not take a class with her.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2012-12-21T15:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Janet Wagner', 'course': None, 'review': "As stated before me, Janet Wagner is extremely passive aggressive and immature as a person. As a professor she is often rambling and incoherent. Her tests are convoluted and extremely difficult. For material she claims to know a lot about, she is often unable to answer simple and relevant questions. Don't take this class-- you won't get much out of it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-25T22:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Janet Wagner', 'course': None, 'review': 'Prof Wagner seems nice enough, but she definitely takes this class too seriously. The material is common sense, however she makes it complicated. I took this class because it fit into my schedule, but it was not worth the amount of work.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-21T09:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Janet Wagner', 'course': None, 'review': 'This might look like an easy class, even when looking at the syllabus but it actually is a ridiculous amount of work. Professor Wagner holds students to an MBA level (this was her first time teaching undergrads) and is an extremely hard grader. She also is ridiculously strict about attendance and takes students out in the hallway to discuss them missing class. She is passive aggressive and her tests are extremely difficult. If you are a marketing major looking for an easy elective, this is not it. The material is easy but she tries to make it hard. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-12T23:34:00Z'}], 'name': 'Janet Wagner', 'slug': 'wagner_janet'}, {'courses': ['MATH481', 'EDCI414', 'MATH498K', 'EDCI413', 'EDCI457', 'EDCI751', 'EDCI788G', 'TLPL423', 'TLPL424', 'TLPL788L', 'TLPL710', 'EXST030', 'TLPL899', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL788J', 'TLPL788I', 'TLPL312', 'TLPL423', 'TLPL788K', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL710', 'TLPL788K'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Janet Walkoe', 'slug': 'walkoe'}, {'courses': ['HIST111', 'HIST331', 'HIST133', 'HIST330', 'HIST495', 'HIST619Z', 'HIST219B', 'RELS341', 'RELS289D', 'RELS340', 'HIST289A', 'RELS289C', 'HIST328G', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'EXST030', 'WMST455', 'HIST408Q', 'HIST133', 'HIST331', 'RELS289D', 'RELS341', 'HIST289A', 'HIST408Q', 'RELS289C', 'HIST330', 'HIST330'], 'average_rating': 3.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST331', 'review': "Professor: Dr. Bianchini is a very knowledgeable and passionate professor.You can tell she's an expert on the subject matter. She Grades fast and takes no bs when it comes to plagiarism. I never really talked to her personally but she comes off as nice. One thing to note, Bianchini doesn't dramatize her lectures like some history professors do. There's absolutely no theatrics over murders, battles, etc. the class is interesting because the subject matter itself is inherently interesting. \n\r\nCourse: Personally, the course was relatively easy, considering you take very thorough notes and attend each class. There are email responses which are short essays based off reading material she gives due every week. It is essential you complete all email responses because they make the difference between an A and a B. Also, material from the responses show up on exams. \n\r\nAttendance: Attendance isn't required, however there are participation points in each class, so you'll only hurt yourself. The reason I gave a 4 instead of a 5 is because she only takes mental notes when someone participates, instead of writing it down. Usually you have contribute two meaningful comments or questions to get a 100. I would do that, but apparently she forgot and would give me a 50% sometime. It is also essential to attend her class because I don't see how it would be possible to pass the exams without attending her class to take notes.\n\r\nExams: The exams consist of multiple choice with possibility of extra credit, short answer with possibility of extra credit, short essay questions based off the readings (pick 3 out of 5), and an essay question about the themes of the class (pick 1 out of 2). The exams are not tricky so long as you took good notes, and the extra credit really helps. She gives study guides each class to help you prepare for the exam which contain key terms and dates and they are very helpful.\n\r\nOverall: Interesting class, great professor, highly recommended.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-23T18:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST330', 'review': "Everything the other reviewer said is true. \n\r\nShe's clear, easy to follow, but still does a good job addressing the complexities of the subject matter. She is one of the best lecturers I've had.\n\r\nIf you attend lecture and pay attention, the exams will be easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-27T02:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST330', 'review': ' Dr. Bianchini is my favorite professor at Maryland, hands down.\r\n Her lectures are incredibly clear, straight forward, and interesting. She definitely takes the time to answer questions and make sure everyone understands. She even hands out guides for the lectures with key terms that are amazing study guides for the exams. \r\n She usually has a midterm and a final along with a 5-10 page paper and participation points. She also assigns weekly discussion responses based on a primary source reading but they are very easy and opinion based. \r\n She is a fair grader and amazing lecturer and I always try to take whatever classes she is offering. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-05T22:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST289A', 'review': 'Favorite class ever. Amazing professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T07:25:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST330', 'review': "Took HIST330 as a summer class and loved it - the class was interesting, tests were fair, and it was all clearly laid out in elms. Would def recommend. Take notes - this is not a class where you can cut corners and skate by to get a good grade! But it's worth it. Dr. B was also very responsive to emails.\r\nIf you're wondering whether to take her during Fall 2020, she is a master of online classes, so you won't have any issues there.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-10T01:04:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST289A', 'review': "Janna as a teacher is average. This class is way more effort than its worth and is definitely not worth taking. Unless you are on of the slim few people who are EXTREMELY interested in learning about this meaningless garbage then take literally any other class. You are gonna feel like you have a really good grade in the class then her and her sub-decent TA don't grade anything until finals week and you are left awe struck, thinking that your gpa booster class might turn into a D-. I felt that I had at least a minor interest in the class, and then the work load killed all of it. Not to mention, the final is 2 essays in person, by hand, closed note. And on top of that, its on a Saturday this semester. Very much done with the class and would not do it again if you paid me.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-14T01:16:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST289A', 'review': 'I really liked this professor. Like many of the other reviews said, her lectures are easy to follow and she definitely knows what she’s talking about. I will admit that this class has a decent sized work load though. This is a good professor to take if you have ADS accommodations, as she was understanding and easy to work with.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-18T20:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST289A', 'review': 'Overall the course was great. The one star down is due to Turning Point issues affecting my grade and the TA being a bit harsh and slow with grading. Overall I thought it was a good course and the readings were not totally necessary. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-25T18:14:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST331', 'review': 'Pretty rigorous course. Make sure to take thorough notes on the readings. Work load is a lot and she does not leave room for any error/make ups. Way more effort than worth taking.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-04T21:32:34.048393Z'}, {'professor': 'Janna Bianchini', 'course': 'HIST289A', 'review': 'do NOT take this course as a gen-ed credit or if you are not extremely interested in the courses topic. Not only is the substance of the class very specific, but the whole class itself is very harshly graded. After every lecture you have to get together with a randomly assigned group to write a "takeaway" on what was discussed in the lecture and it is very meticulously graded. Janna seems to be a very nice person but is an extremely nit picky professor. The course load can be very overwhelming at times and the final is writing two full essays in two hours with no notes, on paper, and this semester its at 8am. If you were expecting an easy A gpa booster class gen ed this is not at all that.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2023-04-26T22:50:53.791568Z'}], 'name': 'Janna Bianchini', 'slug': 'bianchini'}, {'courses': ['MUSC140', 'MUSC151', 'MUSC150', 'MUSC251', 'MUSC463', 'MUSC250', 'MUSC450', 'MUSC250', 'MUSC450'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jared Kenlon', 'course': 'MUSC250', 'review': 'Kenlon is the best music theory prof at the university period! Very engaging and provides up to date musical examples to explain topics. When he used American Boy for mode mixture it just really made me love that man. He explains things very clearly and has multiple ways of teaching the same concept if someone doesn\'t understand. He\'s really funny and made me enjoy theory. He also makes an effort to get to know his students and form connections. He remembers little things that we mention in class and makes an attempt to be "with the times," but not in a cringey way. He also dresses really well so dr Kenlonif you\'re reading this keep doing you bro', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-09T02:23:24Z'}], 'name': 'Jared Kenlon', 'slug': 'kenlon'}, {'courses': ['THET399D', 'THET669D', 'THET428D', 'THET669M', 'THET385', 'THET679', 'THET328D', 'THET499', 'THET428M', 'THET399', 'THET788', 'THET799', 'THET428Y', 'THET669', 'THET789', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET669C', 'HDCC106', 'THET679A', 'THET678', 'THET385', 'THET399', 'THET669M', 'THET679', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET428D', 'THET669', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET679', 'THET385', 'THET399', 'THET679', 'THET788'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jared Mezzocchi', 'slug': 'mezzocchi'}, {'courses': ['HESP300', 'HONR279Y', 'HESP818C', 'HESP818', 'HESP214', 'NACS898', 'EXST030', 'HESP468H', 'NACS799', 'HNUH278A', 'HESP300', 'HESP468H', 'HNUH278A', 'HESP468H', 'HNUH278A', 'HESP468H', 'HNUH278A'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jared Novick', 'course': 'HESP214', 'review': "Dr. Novick is absolutely the best. He is super clear in his lectures and made the class super easy to understand even if you have little to no science background (I'm a business major). I loved this class, it was an easy class that got me thinking differently than the rest of my core classes! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-10-29T17:02:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Jared Novick', 'course': 'HESP214', 'review': "Amazing professor! Truly cares about his student's success. I took this course while it was online and it took up maybe 1-2 hours max a week. So worth it!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-20T19:21:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Jared Novick', 'course': 'HONR279Y', 'review': "Took this course last year and loved it. Novick gets to know each student and cares for them. Lectures were always easygoing and fun. You get what you put in, so he expects you to do the readings and think critically. Super supportive, you don't have to be a language science major to learn a lot from him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-03-23T16:24:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Jared Novick', 'course': 'HESP214', 'review': "Took online and asynchronous. He always made sure that students knew he was there for us. The class itself can be hard if you're not experienced in reading and analyzing scientific papers. Read a couple web articles a week and a scientific paper ~every 2 weeks. Workload also includes writing summaries for 4 scientific papers. Final is a paper reflecting on what you learned.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-25T22:06:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Jared Novick', 'course': 'HNUH278A', 'review': 'Kind of a GOAT. The workload is super light - four article summaries and three reflections make up a large part of the grade, each one having a two page *maximum*. The subject is also pretty interesting, and Novick is super enthusiastic and caring, and makes you want to learn more. Overall, a really great and easy course, and you learn a lot about the issues discussed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-05T04:19:59.580875Z'}, {'professor': 'Jared Novick', 'course': 'HNUH278A', 'review': "He makes lectures feel like TED Talks and the subject itself is something I think most would have at least a mild interest in. He's very knowledgeable when it comes to the subject material and is really enthusiastic about transferring his passion to the class though not in an overly didactic way. \r\n\r\nOverall, the class was pretty easy with its workload with lighter readings and short 1-2 page writing assignments every week or so. As long as you put in a genuine effort to keep up (attend lectures, read the readings and answer discussion questions), you're basically guaranteed an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-20T07:21:15.036799Z'}, {'professor': 'Jared Novick', 'course': 'HNUH278A', 'review': 'Dr. Novick is an extremely kind professor and kept our classes engaging. He is an understanding and thoughtful professor, and the workload was never too much. As long as you show up to classes and participate you should be able to do well in this course. He definitely sets you up to succeed!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-26T23:06:36.887595Z'}], 'name': 'Jared Novick', 'slug': 'novick'}, {'courses': ['ENCE426', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE426', 'ENCE426', 'ENCE426', 'ENCE426'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jason Dreher', 'course': 'ENCE426', 'review': 'Jason is a get in get out kinda guy. Loves revit it’s his passion as a man in construction. Basically the final project is the largest part of your grade so don’t delay on it, and the midterm was pretty solid as well. Make sure to study the book answers for quizzes. Also homie deleted the class 2 hours after the final project was due lmao. Love this man', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T23:32:07.122877Z'}], 'name': 'Jason Dreher', 'slug': 'dreher_jason'}, {'courses': ['AMST418B', 'HDCC106', 'AMST628N', 'HDCC105', 'AMST418E', 'AMST260', 'ARHU338', 'AMST629U', 'MITH610', 'HDCC379', 'ARHU338', 'HDCC379', 'AMST629I', 'ARHU338', 'HDCC105', 'HDCC379', 'IMDM350', 'AMST260', 'HDCC379', 'IMDM290', 'AMST629I', 'IMDM350'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jason Farman', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Farman is a good and pretty engaging lecturer, and had some interesting and occasionally profound things to say every class. The course load (especially the readings) for HDCC209B was greater than I expected, but not completely unmanageable. He's a nice guy who encourages conversation in class as opposed to talking at his students, but unfortunately he suffers the common humanities shortcoming of having nebulous expectations on assignments, which can lead to some disappointments when it comes to grading.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-21T17:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Farman', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Farman is a great professor! Lectures were extremely interesting and engaging, and I can definitely say I\'ve come out of this class learning a lot and with a new perspective on how mobile devices influence our lives. There were iPad "quizzes" every lecture, but they were easy if you did the weekly assigned reading, which was reasonable, and overall, the course load was manageable. We did many fun activities like going out geocaching, and creating our own mobile media narratives. Definitely take a class with Dr. Farman if you have a chance!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-10T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Farman', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': 'Great professor, very well-spoken, knowledgeable, and passionate about the subject matter.\r\nFun, informative class on design and current issues concerning design, cultures, and creativity.\r\nSometimes writing rubrics were unclear on how much elaboration on a particular piece of criteria was necessary to achieve full marks.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-01-21T16:54:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Farman', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': 'Very energetic and enthusiastic. Very well read (has even written a book or two himself). He is always open to discussing class topics further after class or in office hours, or discussing how everyday events and design parallel the course material. The one caveat is he does not always respond to emails quickly and is usually slow on grading.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-03-25T16:55:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Farman', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': 'He does a good job with teaching us to focus on "philosophical" discussions and encourages conversations in class. Slow grader, but it\'s not too big of a deal. Personally, I\'m not a fan of his big class discussions, but I can appreciate what he\'s teaching us. He is pretty good with responding to emails, but I know some people disagree.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-01T19:16:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Farman', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': "Prof. Farman wants to individually connect with all of his students. He is reasonable, fair, and easy to talk to. He gives engaging, thought-provoking lectures that make the time fly by. Be prepared to read! While the course doesn't explore topics in depth, it covers a wide range of topics. I strongly recommend taking Prof. Farman's class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-23T17:18:25Z'}], 'name': 'Jason Farman', 'slug': 'farman'}, {'courses': ['BCHM673', 'CHEM271', 'BCHM661', 'BCHM662', 'BCHM463', 'BCHM889A', 'BCHM461', 'CHEM134', 'BCHM698', 'BCHM889J', 'CHEM272', 'BIOE389F', 'BSCI338F', 'CHEM277', 'CHEM399A', 'BCHM464', 'BCHM661', 'BCHM662', 'BIOE389F', 'BSCI338F', 'BCHM477', 'BCHM661'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'I loved Dr. Kahn. He truly wanted his students to learn the material, even if it costed him precious lecture time. I think we did not have enough time to go over two units but we mastered everything else. \r\nKahn used different programs such as Pymol and MatLab to go over certain abstracts that were difficult. He clarified many concepts and briefly went over GenChem II material in the beginning of the semester. That set the proper foundation for the entire course and I have to say, he clarified GenChem 2 information so quickly and easily, I do not understand why he has such bad reviews for CHEM271. The way he teaches CHEM271 definitely prepares you for biochem. \n\r\nAnyways, I went off on a tangent. Kahn posts all of his old exams on his website which definitely helps you prepare for his exams. The best way to study for his class is to master his classnotes two nights before the exam and then practice his old exams the night before. I always ended up getting very close to the high on all the exams (including the final).\r\nAlso, when I took the course, Kahn did not make his final exam cumulative. We were relieved temporarily until we saw the exam. He included A LOT of derivations that he did not go over in class but he gave us the proper foundation in class to find the answer. Honestly, the reason why I respect Kahn so much is because students genuinely have to understand the material to do well. There are some professors that re-use problems and if you memorize it, then you are set for the exam. You are not learning. For Kahn, if you do not fully understand the material, then you will not do well on his exams. He also asked us very trivial questions like "In the MatLab project I gave you, what was this one file called that gives you this graph? [picture of the graph]" Now this Matlab project was very difficult and it took me days to get the correct answer. I had to look through all the files like 30 times each so even though I did not spend time memorizing the name of these files when I was studying for the exam, they were in the back of my head and I was able to get that question right.\r\nIf a student just copied answers from someone else, then there will be no way that he or she can get that question correct.\n\r\nAnyways, if you get the chance to take Kahn, take him. Well at least take him for biochem!!! He knows his stuff and is very good at explaining it.\n\r\nFor CHEM271, he will definitely prepare you for biochemistry. I guarantee it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2016-06-29T02:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Great professor, and even better class', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-09-04T21:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "I feel like I was truly blessed to have Kahn as a professor after having so many horrible science professors at umd. I heard a lot of bad comments about him but his class was my absolute favorite and i despise chemistry. He focuses on learning concepts which is difficult for some people to do. If you have a question he can figure out a way to explain it in a way that makes sense to you. He truly cares about his students and the education that he provides them. I thought I was going to get a B or C and ended up with an A just by following his guidelines. Don't be scared of his class. Just go to lectures, do the homework, review old exams, and have a good attitude about it and you'll be really happy that you took his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-23T19:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "I was intimidated at first after hearing all the review about Dr.Kahn, but in the end was the most enjoyable chemistry class I have taken. Don't be scared to take it with him just because you've heard bad things. He is helpful, goes slowly, and is very willing to review concepts. He held long reviews before the tests and would answer any question, even those that would appear on the test. Definitely review old exams and ask reccuring questions during the reviews-he will show you exactly how he wants you to answer them and it really helps on the exam. I got a 90 on one of the tests just by reviewing old exams and lecture slides (rarely attending lecture)! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-01-09T00:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Let me just start off by saying...this class is tough!!! So much unnecessary work for a 2 credit class! The material doesn't need to be difficult but Dr. Kahn finds a way to make this class a living hell. He is very interested in biochemical applications which he mixes in with general chemistry. The material is very boring (thermodynamics, kinetics, electrochemistry, acid-base titrations, etc)but it is definitely helpful for the MCAT or DAT. \n\r\nCourse Structure:\r\n2 midterms (100 pts each)\r\n2 quizzes (20 pts each)\r\nOnline HW (60 pts, unlimited tries)\r\nFinal Exam (200 pts)\n\r\nI got a 340/500 and ended up with a solid B! The exam averages tend to be in the mid 60s. The overall class average was around a 65 percent. \n\r\nDr. Kahn is a humorous professor and he is very knowledgeable and even holds exam review sessions. But he makes the class so hard that he eventually pisses you off. \n\r\nOverall, Kahn is cool but the class is tough! Enjoy...", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2012-12-18T20:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Since the +/- system is implemented this semseter, I unfortunately ended up with a B-. \n\r\nThat being sad, I am really upset about the new law, but at the same time, I just wanted to say a couple of things about Kahn.\n\r\nHe is smart. Enough said. Of course, this guy is a biochemist. Not everyone can even attempt biochemistry as a major. He applys biochemistry concepts into his lectures, which I found quite interesting, but extremely difficult. This class is suppose to be easy, but Kahn makes it so so difficult. I really wanted to drop the class.\n\r\nHis quizzes are not easy in addition to his tests. I had to take this man because he was the only one teaching it this semseter.\n\r\nI suggest that you all make the right decision. Since his tests were on theories and concepts, I had a hard time figuring out what he wanted us to know. I recorded his lectures and listened to them religiously. I think that if you want to pull your hair out for a 2 credit chemistry course, that's suppose to be easy, take this man. You will learn, but you will hate yourself for taking it with him. \n\r\nI don't recommend this man to anyone. You might fail actually. But if you are smart and value perfectionism, take him. You will love this man. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-17T01:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Avoid this man as if he were the plague! ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-08-16T13:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Some things to know about Kahn:\r\n1. He is incredibly smart. He is also incredibly nice if you are a sincere student.\r\n2. He doesn't teach material superficially. He expects you to understand the material deeply. If you are going to get points on his test, answer the questions thoroughly. The numerical problems on his tests are easy. It's the concepts that make or break you grade.\r\n3. Kahn actually goes pretty slow, so there's no way you should be lagging behind.\r\n4. GO TO EVERY CLASS! and review his powerpoints... because only and exactly what he says in class will be on the test. If you understand what he's saying in class, you don't even need to study much for the final. It is easy to get an A if you know specifically the ideas he has talked about in class, which may not always be captured by the powerpoints.\r\n5. Review old exams. He has been known to pull a couple of questions off them.\r\n6. DO NOT miss the online homework. They are the easiest points in the world.\r\nOverall, an excellent teacher with a few idiosyncracies, but his class was very, very rewarding... People who usually give him low ratings typically either don't go to class, or don't pay attention because if you are doing those two things, there's no way you will get anything lower than a B.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-14T21:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Do yourself a favor and take someone else!!!! The dropout rate for my class was so high... i wish i would have dropped', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-12T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Kahn is a funny dude. Like everyone else said, he teaches a lot of biochem. Its kind of annoying, but it isnt too bad. \n\r\nThe tests arent bad. Theres 2 of them and theyre impossible to understand whats going on. He gives A LOT of partial credit on them. He's funny and tells random stories, which keeps you engaged. He doesnt use the book like at all. Just beat the averages on the exams. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-07T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'TERRIBLE PROFESSOR. monotonous lectures, unfriendly attitude, unhelpful office hours, hard tests, barely any other grades beside the tests. \n\r\nIf you do poorly on one test getting an A is pretty much impossible. Wants all his test averages to be low. literally said "If people are getting 80\'s or 90\'s on my tests I\'m doing something wrong."\n\r\nHe doesn\'t care if you learn anything, only about the bottom line of his grade distribution. Take anyone else you can.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2012-03-19T17:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Dr. Kahn is a nice guy and very chill. Although I think that he is too smart and what comes naturally to him might not be so for his students. As a result, his exams are very difficult and rely heavily on a conceptual understanding of the material. Workload for the class is not bad at all. Online homework is very easy and the quizzes are not too bad either. Large curve, but dependent on how well your classmates perform. So naturally, try to beat the average on every exam. Good luck!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-22T15:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'He\'s definitely not the best professor. He tends to rant a lot, goes off on tangents about hypothetical situations, and covers a lot of material that\'s nowhere to be found in his Powerpoints. That being said, I learned a lot of practical knowledge/application from his class. His lectures are almost solely theory-based. He does very few "examples" or calculations in the class -- these are all assigned for homework. But, his exams test the practical application of the theories that he\'s been ranting about in class. So, it\'s to your benefit to go to class, listen, take notes, and really understand the theories. If you\'re looking to learn how this type of chemistry relates to biology, the body, and life in general, then I highly recommend Dr. Kahn. His class is also very useful when it comes time to take biochemistry, as most of his exam problems are biochemical applications of chemistry concepts. But, if you just want the A and don\'t care much about the material, another professor might be a better idea because an A is definitely not easy to come by for his class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-15T02:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Kahn is the man. Yes, he's hard and he won't take your crap about how you don't like his class. But he actually *teaches.*\n\r\nThis was hands down one of the most rewarding classes I took at UMD. Don't pass him up because he's an undeniably kickass prof. \n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-23T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Nice guy, but teaches very differently than most professors. Like others have said, he emphasizes theory and tends to go off on some pretty gnarly tangents that no one understands. You will probably be frustrated with his exams, probably frustrated with him sometimes too, but he grades on a monster curve so just be above the class average. My exam grades were roughly D, B+, D and I still pulled off an A since I was above the average.\n\r\nTo do well in this class, I recommend looking at his old exams to understand what he tends to test on. Don't just give the old exams/answers a cursory run through--really look at what concepts he tends to cover and make sure you understand everything completely. Unfortunately, you'll have to study his slides as well. They're pretty long, but there are always test questions from the slides that don't appear anywhere on his old exams. If you go to class, you should be able to narrow down the exact concepts you need to focus on. He often skips through a bunch of the slides and doesn't expect you to know them. So going to lecture does help...just try to print out the slides and cross out whatever he glosses over. Cuts down on your studying immensely.\n\r\nOther assignments: 2 quizzes, online homework. Both very easy with some decent effort--should be free points so don't screw those up.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-12T19:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "I personally thought that he was a good professor. Yes, he adds biochemistry to his exams but it only helps you to apply the concepts learned in class to real situations. Yes, there's a lot of text on his ppt slides in lecture, but you're not obligated to copy it all down. Just pay attention to the concepts/equations in bold. \n\r\n2 Exams (100 pts each), 1 Final Exam (150 pts). 60 points for Smartwork (unlimited tries). 2 quizzes in discussion (20 points each, really easy). Substantial curve (350 points is an A). \n\r\nI personally used the textbook throughout the course but it depends on your learning style. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T13:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "He is a really good professor, in my opinion. He warns in the beginning of the semester that because he's a biochemist, the application that he's going to talk about are going to pertain to biology.\r\nHis lectures are very interesting, because from time to time he goes on a rant about geopolitics and hydrogen economy, etc. and to me, it's very interesting.\r\nHe's very helpful in his office hours and treats students with respect. He'll clarify himself in lecture if you ask him to and go over material twice for you to get it. Basically, if you ask good questions, you're on his good side.\r\nHe has a pretty good curve, quizzes are straightforward if you study beforehand. For tests look at previous semesters, they'll help a bunch.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-18T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Dr. Kahn is not the most engaging professor at the university. He is very pretentious, and speaks highly of himself and the professors he had as an graduate and undergraduate. \r\n In addition, he likes to dump plethora of information at you that is seemingly inconsequential, but really is what most of his quizzes and tests cover. For example, he spent a total of 20 minutes explaining the Blotzzmann distribution but had a 28 point problem about it on the test. The average on the quiz was a 6/15 because he failed to go over things in class which he put on the quiz, or deemed important. \r\n He teaches Gen Chem II as a prep class for biochem. And so you do not learn what is given in the textbook. He goes off on tangents. Alot of his problems are about DNA hybridization. He tests on theory. \r\n He speaks to the us as if we follow everything he says. He goes by fast, and assumes that we know the material. \r\n The only advantage to him is that he curves alot. When I took it this year, a 70% was an \'A.\' But he only curves b/c the averages on the tests were very low. The average on the second exam was 50% flat. The tests averages were low, in part, because his questions are verbose and confusing. For example, we had a huge essay type question on the first exam which was all fill-in-the-blank. And you had to use the information from the essay to answer the next part. So if you did not get the first part, you were screwed for the second part. \r\n In conclusion, I would like to summarize his class by using a quote he told us about one of the lectures that he gave us: "it wasn\'t all it could have been," in short a huge disappointment. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-27T12:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "I wouldn't say Kahn has any flaws in his teaching ability. He's a nice guy and he goes over the powerpoints in class and posts everything online. He emphasizes theory, which shows on his exams, but you still have to be able to do the calculations. \n\r\nIt seems like a typical Chem 271 class covers acid-base chemistry in depth, electrochemistry, and kinetics. He wants you to know the theory, be able to do basic problems, and then he tells you about applications in Biology. That is the biochemistry part that everyone is complaining about. If you're taking biochemistry later, its probably a good thing to get some intro to it. \n\r\nWhile he definitely does focus a lot on biochemistry, it's not like his tests aren't fair. They assess what he taught.\n\r\nBut, if you think you would do better in a class without any biochemistry, then don't take him.\n\r\nHis grade breakdown is purely based on curve, based on the following ratios:\n\r\n25:30:30:15\r\nA:B:C:D/F\n\r\n2 exams, 2 quizzes, unlimited tries for online hw (free points)", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T19:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': None, 'review': "Extremely boring. Does not even teach general chemistry. It's all biochem which would even be interesting if he wasn't teaching it. and you can read all the slides you want, you are still not going to do well on the test. just understanding what he is asking for will take a lot of your time on the exam. Basically if you have a chance to take another professor, DO IT.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-19T14:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'im not sure how anyone could write these positive posts on kahn (especially the ones recommending to take him) maybe he has changed since you have had him. i consider myself a decent student and will probably end up with a B in 271 but believe me that B was earned. kahn is not a good teacher his lectures are boring and monotonous. his tests are extremely difficult and the averages are very low. he does not do any sample calculations in class or his power points and then expects you to figure them out by yourself. he is in the biochem department which you can tell by the way he tested us. he consistently talked about biochem topics and even tested us on a few. i had friends who were taking the other section of 271 with the other teacher (minegery or something like that) and not was that class easier but they didnt even cover some of the material that we were tested on. he even likes to talk about how his quizzes are straight forward and to the point and yet the average on our second quiz was a 6/15. i would recommend taking a different teacher and i know a lot of people who were in my class that would feel the same way. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-16T13:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Firstly, he sucks at lecturing. His slides are pointless in that they have SO MUCH information on them and you can't understand what is going on. When he does math on the board he skips steps and it's really hard to follow. Also, he has these random excel spreadsheets that he expects you to understand. More importantly, if you're inclined in general chemistry you will do well on his exams. If you are not inclined toward general chemistry you will only score around or below average no matter how much you study. Literally-- no matter how much you study. \r\nI also didn't have the best TA, but if you can have a good TA, you may find that you do better. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-06T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "When I first signed up for this course, I expected to learn about general chemistry...instead, I found myself in a situation where I was trying to figure out the basic concepts for p-chem and biochem without having the foundation of general chemistry II. If Dr. Kahn was able to convey the concepts in a clear and effective manner, I'm sure I would have still enjoyed the class. Unfortunately he merely read from his powerpoints (which were full of text and very confusing). He expected us to do derivations on exams when he did not even teach them in class. He also expected us to perform calculations that he never went over in class (He never goes over calculations in class). Overall, his teaching style was not at all effective...the worst chemistry teacher I have ever had. Although I currently have an A in this class, I will finish this semester feeling unsatisfied because I did not learn what I needed to from this course.\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-06T02:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "If you read his powerpoints and really understand the material, you'll get an A, easily. He basically just lectures straight from his powerpoints, so going to lecture isn't neccessary. And I don't reccomend using the book too much, if you waste your time taking notes from that, and use the powerpoints as a seccondary studying resource, you'll probably do poorly on the exams. His class involved a lot of biochem, so using the gen chem 2 book isn't really helpful. \r\nThe work load is really light, and involves 2 quizzes and 2 problem sets. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-20T12:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "If you have the chance to take a professor other than Kahn for CHEM271, DO IT!!! I do not recommend that anyone take Kahn for Chem271. Kahn is a very smart guy but he does not know how to teach this course very well. It is very biochemically inclined. Although he curves and tells you an expected curve in the beginning of the class, he does not stick to that curve. Please do yourself a favor and do not believe the grade distribution shown for kahn on this site. It's not true. He gives two exams, one final (its extremely challenging), two quizzes, two problem sets. Discussions are kind of helpful especially for the problem sets and confusing material presented in lecture. He posts the lecture slides on blackboard but i recommend going to lecture (even if it is boring) just so you know what he focuses on for exams and quizzes. By the way, he is in love in Nash's book on elements of statistical thermodynamics (he mentions it constantly in class along with TANSTAAFL). So if you like that book too, then this class might just suit you.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-05T00:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'So I heard CHEM271 was completely calculation based... this class was the complete opposite with Kahn. There were calculations, such as titrations and calculating E, but a lot of it was theoretical AND there was a HUGE links to biochem. He had mentioned that he\'d "throw in a biochem flavor" into the course but it was absurd. \n\r\nWorkload is extremely light. 2 problem sets (which the TA practically tells you the answer if you go to discussion), 2 midterms, 2 quizzes, and 1 final. The only suggestion I have for studying is to read his powerpoints a lot and understand the theory behind it. \n\r\nIf you want straight up calculations, take the other professor. I heard she (Migner-- I don\'t know how to spell her name) was easy.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-19T23:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'I love him so much!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-03-18T03:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kahn', 'course': 'CHEM277', 'review': "277 is a tough course. With two labs per week, there was always a lot going on having to work on the analysis and report for one lab while prepping for the next one. There are 8 labs total, though most of them are broken into multiple parts with separate but related experiments. The protocols were generally easy to follow (as long as you read them beforehand), and could always be completed within the 3 hour lab time. Unfortunately, though, Dr. Kahn sometimes wouldn't post the protocols until the day before or the morning of the lab, at least for the M/W section, which was kinda annoying.\r\n\r\nIn lab, we usually worked in groups of 3 and were able to keep the same group the whole semester. Logistically there were some small issues, like the bottleneck from everyone having to get chemicals from the same fume hood, but they'll probably get sorted out in the future. Most of the labs deal with absorbance/fluorescence spectroscopy, so get used to that. The last lab deals with three different titrations, and there's one lab that's a Matlab simulation about Einstein solids and entropy, but other than that it's all spectroscopy. After all the main labs are done, we had to come up with our own, student-directed lab where we basically just expand on the work from a previous lab. We got 4 lab periods to work on it, and yes we did have to present our results to the class, but they weren't that harsh grading it.\r\n\r\nDr. Kahn's lectures were alright, he's a pretty funny guy and clearly cares about what he's teaching. Instead of using slides, though, he would go through a very long and wordy pdf which wasn't always easy to glean important information from. The pdfs were useful references when writing lab reports and studying for exams, but required a lot of digging through. And speaking of the lab reports, we didn't get a rubric for them. He gave a rough outline of what he was looking for on the first couple reports, but after that we were pretty much on our own. There were many times I lost points for things I simply didn't know I needed to include, which was frustrating. As for the exams, they were exceptionally challenging. There's one midterm on the first 4 labs, and a non-cumulative final on the last 4 labs (plus the student-directed lab). The kinds of questions he asked made the exams rather difficult to study for; they weren't excessively specific questions about the protocol, but they could be about almost anything related to the analysis and required a strong intuition which I felt I didn't have. He provided some practice exams, but they're mostly just helpful for familiarizing yourself with his writing style. The exam averages were in the 60s and he didn't curve them, but he did curve the overall grades, so even if you do poorly on the final (like I did) you can still get an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-22T14:00:31Z'}], 'name': 'Jason Kahn', 'slug': 'kahn_jason'}, {'courses': ['ARTH290', 'ARTH488F', 'ARTH489F', 'ARTH484', 'ARTH789A', 'ARTH488C', 'ARTH389K', 'ARTH789B', 'ARTH488R', 'ARTH389R', 'ARTH488I', 'HHUM205', 'FILM426', 'FILM429C', 'WMST498J', 'FILM329K', 'FILM359N', 'FILM429I', 'FILM329B', 'FILM359G', 'SLLC368B', 'SLLC368G', 'ARTH488T', 'ARTH389Q', 'ARTH489Q', 'FILM359X', 'FILM429G', 'FILM329D', 'SLLC368D', 'FILM329M', 'FILM459M', 'EXST030', 'ARTH488X', 'FILM429L', 'HONR239Q', 'SLLC368M', 'SLLC468M', 'ARTH778A', 'FILM329C', 'SLLC368C', 'ARTH392', 'FILM329L', 'CINE329C', 'CINE329D', 'WGSS498J', 'ARTH391', 'CINE426', 'CINE335', 'ARTH392', 'ARTH488C', 'CINE337', 'CINE429C', 'FILM329L', 'WGSS498J', 'ARTH391', 'ARTH778A', 'ARTH778B', 'CINE335', 'CINE329D', 'CINE359T', 'SLLC368D', 'SLLC368N', 'CINE329B', 'CINE459M', 'SLLC468M', 'CINE329B', 'CINE459M', 'SLLC368B', 'SLLC468M', 'ARTH392', 'ARTH489L', 'CINE337', 'CINE459L', 'WGSS498K'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jason Kuo', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': "Our grade was based on 5 quizzes (he drops 1), 2 papers, 1 midterm and 1 final(cumulative). I took this course in 2012 Fall semester, Dr Kuo is nice person, but the lecture is really boring; however, you have to take good notes to be prepared for the exam. I only give 3 stars to Dr Kuo, but 5 stars to my TA:Madeline Gent. Ye, she is strict, but she really help you to understand the course content that covered by Dr. Kuo. I have taken some core courses, many TA just go over the assigned reading that is totaly not related to the course materials, but Madeline is not the one. She will cover the important materials and make sure you understand it. One thing needs to be mentioned: our exams and paper topics were determined by the TAs, the mid-term final, and quizzes was format in matching(vocab), multiple choices(from your notes), fill in blank, and short answers. No long essay which is my favorite part. It would be painful for someone to memorized over 100 slide IDs and vocab for the exam. But for me, it's fine ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-11T21:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kuo', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': 'PERSONAL BACKGROUND:\r\nI took this class because I needed to fulfill a "History/Theory of the Arts" requirement for CORE. I was a spring transfer so I only chose it because it fit my schedule - I had very limited options!\n\r\nAt first, I hated the class, but I grew to appreciate it because it really did open my mind to Asian culture/philosophy/art.\n\r\nIt should be noted that Dr. Kuo is not a consistent teacher of this class and only teaches this large lecture every few semesters.\n\r\nHOMEWORK:\r\nFor those of you who are unfamaliar with Art History (as was I), the class is reading intensive. The readings will come from the assigned books (yes, you\'ll have to purchase multiple small books) and posted PDFs. The book readings are quite dull, but the PDFs are more student friendly. From the readings, you\'ll have to grab overall concepts and memorize vocab if any are mentioned. I\'d recommend doing the reading AFTER the lecture because then you can sort out what you really to know. \n\r\nLECTURE:\r\nExpect a very large lecture hall. The lecture will consist of Dr. Kuo presenting a slideshow of different Asian art. He starts his lecture with a brief historical background and then talks about each art piece featured. His analysis of the culture/art is fantastic and very interesting. He is very insightful and has a great command of English grammar. He also tries to inject humor every now and then. However, Dr. Kuo is very old and has a strong Chinese accent, so you\'ll need to be very attentive to pick up on what he is saying. Often, I\'d be knocked out by the last 10-15 minutes. The lectures reinforce the readings and his analysis can help you on the essay section of the tests. It is not imperative to attend the lecture (I skipped a few times), but I recommend going.\n\r\nTESTS:\r\nYou will have 1 midterm, 1 final, and several quizzes throughout the semester. They are all similar in format. For the midterm & final, you\'ll have to memorize the artist/title/date/medium/dynasty for 60+ images that they post on Blackboard. You\'ll also have to memorize vocab terms and enough art history to do well on the compare&contrast essay. You will definitely have to do a lot of studying and memorization to succeed on these tests. It is a lot to memorize, but if you review the image IDs/readings every week (or at least a few days before the test) you\'ll be fine.\n\r\nMUSEUM PROJECTS:\r\nYou\'ll have 2 3-pg visual analysis essays throughout the semester. These will require you to visit the Freer&Sackler Art gallery in DC. With no art history background, I initially found these assignments to be challenging. Luckily, my TA was a great resource for teaching me how to analyze an object and then write about it. \n\r\nDISCUSSION SECTION:\r\nYou basically have to attend the discussion sections. They go over important concepts that you need to know for tests. Additionally, this is where you\'ll be taking your quizzes, receiving clarification about subjects, AND receiving instructions about other assignments. \n\r\nTEACHER ACCESSIBILITY: \r\nFor me, Dr. Kuo was a wise old man who was not to be approached. I just can\'t imagine approaching him outside of class and asking him to help me write an art analysis paper! My most important resource was my TA. \n\r\nOVERALL:\r\nThis class was a real wildcard for me. I never thought an art history class could be so insightful. I thought I would fail the class, but ended up earning an A+. It was very intensive, but also very eye-opening. I\'d recommend it - but of course, if you\'re looking for an easy HA, this is NOT the course for you!\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-31T16:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Kuo', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': "Our grade was based on 5 quizzes (he drops 1), 2 papers, 1 midterm and 1 final. The final covers the second half of the class and is NOT cumulative. We also had an additional paper for 5% extra credit.\r\nThe quizzes if you pay attention to your TA, in the previous discussions and memorize all the object ID's, you'll be good.\r\nThe papers are 3 pages long and its complete BS. As long as you write 3 pages and answer all the questions, you will get an A.\r\nThe midterm had three parts: object ID's, matching and a comparative essay. Object ID's were complete memorization. Matching was a list of vocab words that they tell you. The comparative essay was comparing two images and talking about them. If you remember atleast some of the things your TA mentioned in discussion, you are good to go. The final was exactly like the midterm.\r\nDr. Kuo is a really bad professor. He has an accent and mumbles into the microphone. There were only two classes when I was able to stay awake and take notes and that was when the TA's were subbing for him. He assigns a ridiculous amount of reading, which I never read. The class is supposed to be about Asian art but its primarily focused on JUST Chinese. We probably had 2 weeks about Japanese art and 2 weeks about Indian art. Everything else was Chinese. \r\nTo do well in the class:\r\n1. make flash cards and spend a couple hours the night before the quiz/exam memorizing them.\r\n2. Go to every TA discussion and take notes. Going to class is completely pointless.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-21T14:21:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jason Kuo', 'slug': 'kuo'}, {'courses': ['EDPS301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jason Mayernick', 'slug': 'mayernick'}, {'courses': ['AASP100', 'AASP498K', 'AASP400', 'AASP498O', 'AASP400H', 'AASP299Y', 'AASP298G', 'AMST429D', 'USLT498E', 'AASP211', 'AASP399', 'AASP100', 'AMST290', 'AASP100', 'AASP498O', 'USLT498E', 'AASP100', 'AASP211', 'AMST290', 'AASP100', 'AASP100', 'AASP100', 'AASP100', 'AASP498O', 'USLT498E'], 'average_rating': 2.6111, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "This is the best class that I have taken at UMD thus far. He is a very entertaining lecturer, literally never bored. he's fun to listen to doesnt just stand and read. really knows his stuff\n\r\n3 dicsussion post, 2 exams (which he holds review sessions for so theer are no surprises) and participation grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-06-08T13:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "I thought Dr. Nichols was an excellent teacher. He know his stuff very well. The reason the class is so interesting is because he goes off on rants. Although he discusses the course material he also talks about current events that are important to the topics he is discussing. If it wasn't for his rants the class would be kind of dry. His exams are fairly easy. He has a review session prior to the midterm and final. Has no quizzes if everyone participates in discussion. All in all, great professor who is very easy to talk to and willing to help with grades. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-05-18T23:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'He is a very stupid teacher I dont know where UMD got this fool. Some one need to audit his ass he is a junky. Never knew this kind of pimps exist in higher institutions of learning like UMD. \r\nHe has no idea on what he is doing in the school teaches off syllabus and slow grader and exams do not reflect his teaching he is highly miss leading and will fail you. DONOT take this teacher. He is a moron.\r\nTalking about rap and other stupid artistic things which does not relate to the course', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-12-18T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'Parts of these ratings are true. He did go off topic a lot, but when he did was very interesting things. He kept me listening the entire class, not a single time was I bored. He has improved on that throughout this semester by providing powerpoints and staying within the syllabus more but still providing us with the fun stories and allowing us to share our opinion. This class is easy if you read and pay attention. Jason is very easy to get a long with and if you ever have a problem within the course or with his teaching style he makes it clear that you can talk to him. I would recommend taking this class with Jason because you will learn things from him you might not learn elsewhere, as far as the work you do have to put in work outside of class to pass. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-12T01:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "He's terrible. He never talked about anything related to readings and he went on stupid rants all the time. He only changed his ways when he read the reviews on here and he still didn't improve that much. Avoid him if you can. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-09T15:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'Overall, he was not a good teacher. The grading was inconsistent and the material was never discussed in class. We were assigned readings, yet we talked more about subjects he thought was interesting such as his rap album or other irrelevant topics. Personally, he is a cool person, but I would not take him if you expect to learn anything', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T13:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'Worst teacher ever! Talked about many unrelated topics ALL THE TIME!\n\n\r\nAvoide him if you can.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-14T23:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'He is a HORRIBLE TEACHER! I agree with the previous two posts. He talked about hisself and other useless topics. Also as a TA he disrespected the professor multiple times and even started to refer to a student as "Snitchy" for apparently telling the professor.\n\n\r\nAvoid him!!!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-31T20:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'I second the previous poster. I had him in the spring and I remember leaving work to get to class and sitting there hearing him talk about himself. \n\r\nI just sat there in class thinking. He might be funny and all, but is it really worth it to cut my work hours to come to class? Even if I did not have to go to work, is it REALLY worth it when I could actually be studying?\n\r\nBut hey - it was not like I had a choice - class attendance/participation is 30% of the grade!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-24T13:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "The Worst teacher EVER! Although he served as a TA this semester, it seems that TAs are more powerful than the instructor. He's EXTREMELY hard on grading papers and his discussion session is a TOTALLY WASTE OF TIME!!!! He talked about football, basketball a couple of times(almost 30 mins of the entire 50 mins session) which is absolutely unrelated to the class topic. \n\r\nPlease avoid him just for your own sake! PLEASE!!!!!!!!! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-05T12:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "I have a love/hate relationship with his teaching style. On some days, it's cool to go off topic and talk about current and controversial things. But other times, like before tests, I thought it would be helpful if he actually revied the material, and he rarely did. I feel like we spent more time talking about the Redskins than we did actual material.\n\r\nI would take this class only because AASP may be discontinued, and the information is valuable. But if you are lazy and dont like to read or take notes, do not take it.\n\r\nHe made the students buy his stupid rap album for extra credit, which I think is like buying a grade basically. Isn't that unethical?\n\r\nAnywho, fun and knowledgable guy. I got an A- and I didn't really put in that much effort. I did however show up to every class and take notes.I also just skimmed the books (there were THREE lengthy and dense novels) and got a B on the paper so...\n\r\nOverall it's riveting material, and it makes you think. My policy was that he didn't put that much effort into the class, so why should I?", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-29T16:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "Nichols is cool teacher. He's jokes around and he raps. He goes off topic A LOT and doesn't really cover assigned reading that much. That's tough when midterms and finals come around because that's what they're based on. You should read anyway to comprehend, but it'd be nice if he reviewed what he thought were key points. He does sometimes, but like I said, he'll go off topic. Some readings are short. Some are long. He says if you skim the reading you can pass the quiz... FALSE--unless you have no life and study the reading. It sucks when you have a pop quiz on a long reading because he asks real specific questions. He also says that grades don't matter. So if you don't care about your grade and want to have discussions in class about random things, then sure.. take the class. And make time for reading and show up to class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2009-12-13T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "I took this course a couple years ago with Jason and I'm extremely glad I did. The readings can be a bit heavy, but he knows his stuff and you're guaranteed to both learn a lot and come away interested in further African-American Studies coursework. If you read, your life is easy. His quizzes and exams are not hard, and the papers are interesting. There are other professors who are easier than Jason, but if you're seriously interested in pursuing AASP then I highly recommend taking this class with him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-07T16:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "Jason is very knowledgeable. However, he assigns too much reading in one night. He is frequently 5-10 minutes late to class, and if he thinks nobody read, or if a lot of people are missing, he will give a pop quiz (which many people fail). But that's about it, he doesn't really give many assignments. Plus he frequently goes off topic during class, which is frustrating when he gives a test on things we didn't learn. His motto is, grades don't matter, as long as you walk away with something. (That of course didn't help me, since I was trying to save a scholarship)lol", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-08T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'Jason is a very nice guy, but he assigns wayyy too much reading and nothing ever gets accomplished in class beacause we just end up talking about a bunch of irrelevent stuff that he thinks is interesting. He doesnt give enough exams (wait a min.. did we have an exam?), and his assignments are graded much too stictly. If you want to have a good time in class, take Nichols. If you want an A in AASP dont take Nichols. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-03T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "Dr Nichols is a great lecturer, coming to class was always nice. I would give him 5 stars, but the exams seemed a bit unfair, very disconnected from the lecture material. You could essentially not come to class and be fine if you did the readings, but those aren't the good part of the class. The final exam dropped me from an A to a B+, half an hour for 30 difficult mc questions seemed a bit unfair. The class is great though, just don't expect to come out with an A if you don't put in a good amount of work.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-20T18:16:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "Very disorganized and unprepared. Our review session and classes don't have anything to do with exams AT ALL. I will say reading was interesting though. Not the best of professors.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-07-06T01:59:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Jason Nichols', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'Professor Nichols is the best teacher ever! Yes, he often gets side tracked and talk about things that are completely off topic. BUT our discussions are always insightful and educational. I learned a lot about African American studies as well as life lessons. Every single topic we\'ve discussed, I\'ve always been engaged in. He is not a boring teacher, he\'s funny and respectful. The people saying that he\'s a "moron" and an "awful teacher" are simply just close minded people that only care about taking this class as a GENED and getting a good grade. This class is more than that and if you do decided to take one of Professor Nichols\'s classes he will not disappoint.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-27T19:26:57.855476Z'}], 'name': 'Jason Nichols', 'slug': 'nichols_jason'}, {'courses': ['GVPT170', 'GVPT376', 'GVPT377'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jason Stonerook', 'slug': 'stonerook'}, {'courses': ['ENFP405', 'ENFP621', 'ENFP653', 'ENFP653'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jason Sutula', 'slug': 'sutula'}, {'courses': ['JOUR202'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jay Goldman', 'slug': 'goldman_jay'}, {'courses': ['KNES451', 'KNES457', 'KNES152N', 'KNES152O', 'KNES497', 'KNES246', 'KNES350', 'KNES350H', 'KNES457', 'KNES497', 'SPHL399', 'KNES350', 'KNES350H', 'KNES457', 'KNES497', 'KNES246', 'KNES457', 'SPHL399', 'KNES498G', 'KNES350', 'KNES350H', 'KNES457', 'KNES497', 'KNES498G'], 'average_rating': 2.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jay Goldstein', 'course': 'KNES246', 'review': 'Contrary to popular belief, KNES246 is NOT an easy "A," nor is it an easy class. The description of the class that you will see on Testudo is not at all reflective of the course itself. While I think that Prof. Goldstein is a very nice person with positive intentions, he assigns way too much work for a class that should be easy. On paper, the class looks like a lot of fun, and it could be — you go to the gymnasium and demonstrate skills to practice coaching sometimes and participate in some fun activities about sports. But in reality, you\'ll find yourself waking up for an 8 a.m. class three times a week so that you can do a lot of annoying busy work and an extraordinary amount of homework — plenty of which are online modules that you have to pay for. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-06-01T20:14:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Jay Goldstein', 'course': 'KNES457', 'review': "Thought this would be a fun and easy-ish class. It wasn't. Professor is nice, but grades VERY harshly on EVERYTHING. I have never gotten bad grades consistently on group assignments and in this class, I have gotten 3 D's in a row on different assignments which is super upsetting and shocking to me. Other groups have talked about how low their grades were too. One assignment was literally worth 5 points and he gave a 1/5 to almost every group. This class went from fun to dreadful very quick. Reconsider taking it with him, or taking it at all. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-08T21:11:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Jay Goldstein', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': "From what I've heard KNES350 is suppose to be an easy A, however I would not recommend this professor and take the other professor (forgot the name), he grades harshly on everything, makes the class a lot harder with so many weekly busy work assignments. Makes the final exam a competition and the final barely boosts your grade at the end if your boarderline. Honestly his voice is really annoying too. I never felt the need to go to class b/c it was a waste of my time. We had a lot of group work and somehow we put our full effort and somehow barely get a B. Don't take this professor I hated him! Save yourself from the effort and time.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-13T06:40:33.966940Z'}, {'professor': 'Jay Goldstein', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': "Dr. Jay is an ok professor, but the way he organizes the class makes the class itself suck. Dr. Jay is easy to contact, understanding, and helpful as a professor. The reason why I am rating this class poorly is solely based on the way he teaches. The classroom style is flipped, so you won't have any lectures during class, but rather you watch pre-recorded videos and take quizzes online. Class itself is comprised of group work and group quizzes. So a major flaw to this class is that if you get a bad group, you either have to do lots of work on top of your individual assignments, or have your grades suffer. The workload can be alot, depending on how much effort you put into the online portion. If you want to learn sports psychology and are willing to put an unproportional amount of work, this class is for you. If you want an easy A or relax, this class is not for you.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-23T00:26:27.484782Z'}, {'professor': 'Jay Goldstein', 'course': 'KNES350', 'review': 'I loved Dr. Goldstein! I took him in Fall 2022 and had a great experience. The entire class is group work besides the weekly online quizzes. The classroom is flipped so in class, you do the group assignments and at home you watch lectures. I found the class to be extremely straightforward and easy to follow. If your group wins in your league, you do not have to take the final which is great. It all comes down to your group (they are randomized), so if you get a bad group or even one bad person in the group, LET HIM KNOW! He is very understanding and will work with you so you can succeed. 10/10 recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-03-27T18:52:52.917843Z'}], 'name': 'Jay Goldstein', 'slug': 'goldstein_jay'}, {'courses': ['PHYS622', 'PHYS839J', 'PHYS420', 'PHYS731', 'PHYS626', 'PHYS625', 'PHYS625'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jay Sau', 'slug': 'sau'}, {'courses': ['HEIP144', 'HEIP241', 'HEIP143', 'HEIP240'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jay Smith', 'course': None, 'review': 'There is a lot I could say about Jay smith and the EIP Program. The first being, stay away from EIP. UH is much better for everyone. Now onto Jay Smith, he tries to bring fun to a boring class. But he tries too hard, making the class almost unbearable. He will assign incredible amount of BS hw for a one credit class. He might even go as far as accusing you of cheating even though the only suspicion is that you had one similar idea as someone else even though you “are allowed to work together.” Stay away from this program ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-01-25T05:55:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Jay Smith', 'course': 'HEIP143', 'review': 'The EIP program is not useful. Rather than learning how to be a more successful entrepreneur, it seems to be all about busywork and having guest speakers pitch to you their half-baked products for a full 50 minute time slot. Mr. Smith seems to be a decent guy, but I just cannot recommend taking EIP.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-24T23:36:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Jay Smith', 'course': 'HEIP144', 'review': "Lots of salt in these reviews. EIP is a good program, easy A classes and you'll meet a lot of new people.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-02T00:03:58Z'}], 'name': 'Jay Smith', 'slug': 'smith_jay'}, {'courses': ['ENME489C', 'ENME675', 'ENME808M'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jaydev Desai', 'course': 'ENME489C', 'review': 'As interesting as I find the topic for this course, I cannot recommend this professor. I though his lectures were extremely dull, and they mainly consisted of him deriving formulas. This class is pretty much linear algebra. In fact, the only exposure to the medical aspects of robotics are the guest lectures and what you research for your own project. A more appropriate title for the course would be: "Robotic Arms." In addition, he has no qualms about giving low grades for the course, which could potentially bring down your GPA. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-06-17T00:24:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jaydev Desai', 'slug': 'desai_jaydev'}, {'courses': ['BSGC100', 'EDHI338P', 'EDHI338D', 'EDHI338L', 'EDHI338A', 'EDHI338G', 'EDHI338B', 'EDHI338I', 'EDHI338J', 'EDHI338M', 'EDHI338O', 'EDHI338N', 'EDHI338T', 'EDHI338X', 'EDHI338Z', 'HESI671', 'CHSE338N', 'CHSE338T', 'CHSE338X', 'CHSE338P', 'CHSE338B', 'CHSE338I', 'CHSE338K', 'CHSE338L', 'ENES338K', 'CHSE338J', 'CHSE338N', 'CHSE338P', 'CHSE338T', 'CHSE338X', 'CPSP369J', 'HONR338J', 'CHSE338B', 'CHSE338I', 'CHSE338K', 'CHSE338L', 'ENES338K', 'GEMS208Q', 'HESI671', 'CHSE338N', 'CHSE338P', 'CHSE338T', 'CHSE338X', 'CPSP300', 'HESI489', 'HONR300', 'WEID138M', 'WEID138N', 'WEID138O', 'WEID300', 'CHSE338B', 'CHSE338I', 'CHSE338L', 'GEMS208Q', 'HESI671', 'WEID139B', 'WEID139I', 'WEID139L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jazmin Pichardo', 'slug': 'pichardo'}, {'courses': ['CCJS699D', 'CCJS699J', 'CCJS418G', 'CCJS601', 'CCJS610', 'CCJS105', 'CCJS651', 'CCJS633', 'CCJS633'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jean McGloin', 'course': 'CCJS105', 'review': 'Nice professor...tries her best to help the students. Her exams are relatively easy and based almost entirely on lecture. Papers and quizzes are not too bad,also. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-22T00:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jean McGloin', 'course': 'CCJS105', 'review': 'Professor McGloin was great. You had to go to lecture but her lectures were not boring she always cracks a joke or might just randomly walk up the isle and sit next to a kid sleeping. Wore knee high boots in the morning which kept some people awake, but anyway her papers were a sinch. She would basically spell out your thesis with a blank you have to fill in and then tell you what she expected from each paragraph. I was done with her midterm in 15 minutes and pulled an A-. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-15T01:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jean McGloin', 'course': 'CCJS105', 'review': 'Self centered stocker. Worst experience. This professor was more obsessed about herself, attendance and sucker upers than she was about lecturing. Discussion, which lasted an average of 10 minutes constituted 15% of your grade. Whaaa? Also, her lectures had no back up notes and did not follow the book. So you are forced to sit through her lecture and be succumbed to three things. First, she would spend a good 10 to 15 minutes "complaining" (for use of a better word) about how people should come to class on time, be awake, and not surf on their laptops or they would be kicked out and their final grade would be reduced. Then she would attempt to give a discussion section for a good 15 minutes or so, to a class that is about 300 students. Lastly, she would divide her time between making jokes and witty remarks that are not funny and maybe squeasing in a couple of bullet points of notes, verbally. I would walk out of that class with half a page of notes wondering, where did all my money go? The one time there was a helpful lecture, it was done by her assistant. But she was so full of herself that she wasted yet another lecture day reteaching that same lecture because she thought that no one could do it better than her. I rest my case. Whenever we would have readings due on elms, which no one would do because they were sloppy copies of 50 pages, she would go on elms and see which exact student downloaded the article and "complain" about how nobody downloaded it. Whaa? Thats why all I did was douwnload it, forget reading it. All in all, Terrible teacher, who needs to get her priorities together, do not recommend her at all. Would give her a zero. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-27T21:47:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jean McGloin', 'slug': 'mcgloin'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM798A', 'EXST079A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jean Vandenbosch', 'slug': 'vandenbosch'}, {'courses': ['ENME331'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jean-Louis Balint', 'slug': 'balint'}, {'courses': ['WMST200', 'AAST498Q', 'WMST420', 'AAST498E', 'AAST222', 'AAST200', 'AAST398W', 'AAST420', 'AMST498P', 'AMST418T', 'LGBT448E', 'WMST498C', 'AAST378', 'AMST298Z', 'IMMR219A', 'AMST298C', 'AMST328I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeannette Soon-Ludes', 'slug': 'soon-ludes'}, {'courses': ['EDHD320', 'EDHD411'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeeyoung Noh', 'slug': 'noh'}, {'courses': ['EDCI730', 'EDCI630', 'EDCI788R', 'EDCI436', 'EDCI631', 'EDCI633', 'EDCI432', 'EDCI788A', 'TLPL646', 'TLPL655', 'EDCI437', 'EDCI898', 'TLPL664', 'TLPL740', 'TLPL453', 'TLPL666', 'TLPL444', 'TLPL664', 'TLPL646', 'TLPL453', 'TLPL453', 'TLPL664', 'TLPL740'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeff MacSwan', 'slug': 'macswan'}, {'courses': ['KNES137N', 'KNES137O', 'KNES289L', 'KNES137N', 'KNES137O', 'KNES289L', 'KNES137N', 'KNES137N', 'KNES137N', 'KNES137O', 'KNES289L'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeff Maynor', 'course': 'KNES289L', 'review': 'first half is at the range and playing 9 at UMD golf course. Next half is in classroom learning about business golf. Definitely my favorite class at UMD.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'a', 'created': '2013-12-19T09:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Maynor', 'course': 'KNES289L', 'review': 'Jeff is extremely down to earth and makes the class very interesting. If you like playing golf or want to learn how to play golf KNES289L is the perfect class and Jeff is the best teacher for it. He basically helps you improve your golf swing hands on and teaches you about all the rules of golf while also teaching about etiquette and business in golf.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T06:41:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Maynor', 'course': 'KNES289L', 'review': 'This class is awesome, and Jeff is a great teacher! You start the semester out at the driving range, first learning how to swing and hit balls. Then, you move to play 9-holes of golf for about 2-3 weeks on the UMD course. When it turns colder, the class moves inside, and you learn how golf can be used as a business tool. Definitely recommend, though it is hard to get into!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-02T23:56:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Maynor', 'course': 'KNES289L', 'review': 'Dude is very overrated (I\'ve taken two classes with him in the past 2 years). Switches course material all the time (in terms of lecture topics on certain dates, guest speakers, etc.) so it\'s pretty hard to maintain organized in the class, barely barely ever gives out material both inside and outside of class, and has a barely above average personality. Literally admitted to us that he was "lazy" in how he taught the course 95% of the way through the semester, wtf lmao?!?! Would give him a 3-3.5/5 but the average so far is very skewed positively so I\'m trying to skew it back in the right direction. Easy class for the most part besides the tests but makes it much more messy then it really should be, especially for someone who extremely really likes/prefers organization, proper communication in and out of the classroom, etc. Kind of weird dude if one is being extremely honest to be honest.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-09T16:54:36.470397Z'}], 'name': 'Jeff Maynor', 'slug': 'maynor'}, {'courses': ['BMGT110', 'BMGT289I', 'BMGT372', 'BMGT110S', 'BMGT466', 'CPBE100', 'BMGT110', 'BMGT289I', 'BMGT110', 'BMGT289I', 'BMGT110', 'BMGT289I', 'BMGT289I', 'BMGT289I', 'BMGT289I', 'BMGT110', 'BMGT289I'], 'average_rating': 4.0635, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Pretty funny guy, although he gets off tangent sometimes. We spent about half the class going over recent news, and the other half was a powerpoint. Tests are pretty straightforward, they're straight off the book and notes. He doesn't post the slides until the day of the exam, and he does graded attendance checks, so you gotta go everyday. Would take this class again.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-01-26T15:30:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE MILLER! Going to class is a waste of time. He says he will put up the slides for exams 1 day before the exam, which is BS first off, then fails to put it up until hours before. He is a really interesting guy, but holy crap does he not know how to run a class. He does not know how to use ELMS, how to grade assignments, and most importantly how to write a quiz/exam. I never missed a class and was always attentive but did poor on the tests because they dont test your knowledge on the subject, but instead if you can memorize useless facts/definitions.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-14T08:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "He is simultaneously the best and worst professor I've ever had. Very funny and interesting lectures. No group projects or annoying presentations. He doesn't take attendance or use clickers. Exams are multiple choice, true/false, and matching. On the other hand, he is virtually unreachable by email. You will feel like you're back in high school because he has a no cell phone/laptop policy. He will LITERALLY disrupt is OWN lecture to call you out saying you are disrupting the class because you are on your phone when he is actually the one being disruptive. The same will happen if you attempt to leave early. He will stop HIS OWN lecture to say you should have told him if you wanted to leave early. What's next, he's gonna ask to spit out your gum?? Welcome back to high school. Another EXTREMELY annoying thing he does is not put up lecture notes until the day BEFORE the exam. This is made worse by the fact that news stories leave him rushing through lectures, so you may not get good notes. You are then expected to use those notes to study up until the day before the exam. Such a terrible way to lead a class. Exams will test your knowledge of the smallest acronyms and names of ppl so study those. He assigns 2 homeworks that are basically papers with no real rubric and he will grade it very harshly. Good luck figuring out what you did wrong. And as said before, do not buy the book. You won't open it. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-12T01:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'The class itself is very boring - the material isn\'t interesting. I actually even switched out of the business major... \n\r\nMiller is a nice guy, pretty funny, but he\'s a terrible lecturer. There are often times where he doesn\'t even know where in the textbook the class is. He is often confused of what module you need to watch as well.\n\r\nHe also does a segment at the end of class called "news stories" which are really interesting, but can take away time from the lecture. \n\r\nThe exam questions were weird... he heavily emphasizes on reading the textbook and taking notes from his powerpoints, but sometimes the questions are from neither of those sources and can be nonsensical. \n\r\nThis is not a class to breeze by, you do have to put in some effort but not that much. There weren\'t a lot of assignments - 2 papers, 2 quizzes, 2 midterms, and a final. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-08T06:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': 'Very pretentious know-it-all. The class itself isn\'t hard, and attendance isn\'t a big deal. He puts random questions on the exams. The exams are all multiple choice but you will get many questions that have more than one answer. He\'s always bouncing up and down with his rolly backpack and twisting his coffee in the middle of your face. Reminds me of the teacher that kicks Seth Rogen out of the high school in "Pineapple Express". ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-09-08T08:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "I don't understand for the life of me how so many students have praised Miller on his teaching skills. Honestly the WORST teacher I have had at UMD. I worked my butt off studying, showing up to class everyday and taking notes. Miller teaches about 30 of class lectures and the remaining 45 minutes he goes over news stories that we aren't even being graded on. He doesn't allow phones (which I understand) or laptops (which is ridiculous because he flies threw the notes making it impossible to handwrite all the notes). Emailing is completely pointless because he doesn't respond to you and when you go to his office hours you end up leaving even more confused and hopeless because he doesn't care about his students! It is literally sink or swim all on your own. Theres only two homework and the rest is quizzes and exams (which if you aren't a great test taker, you're pretty much screwed) The TAs are just as bad and they aren't allowed to help students by conducting study review sessions (one TA did that and got in major trouble...which then what is the point of a TA?) I am not a student that received a bad grade and therefore am writing a negative review, I truly feel this way about Miller and want to give future students an insight on my experience taking his class. I highly recommend taking this class with a different professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-16T22:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'Professor Miller is a great guy and an interesting lecturer. In an hour and 15 minute class, over half of it consists of sitting there and listening to modern news stories. While this is interesting and makes you want to go to class, it also results in him not having enough time to go over the slides. He rushes through them so quickly that you never get the chance to write everything down that he puts on the slides. If he could just reduce news stories by ten minutes and put the ten minutes towards notes, the information would be a lot easier to grasp. The main problem with Miller is the way he makes his exams. Although the material is VERY easy, he makes the exams so obnoxiously specific that even if you know all of the material by heart, you will still most likely not get an A. His tests are all about strict memorization, not whether or not you understand the material. If you know everything, but forget one small acronym that he went over very briefly, you will get the question wrong. His favorite thing to put on tests are "all of the above" and "none of the above." Seriously, these options will be on at least half of the questions. This makes the questions much more difficult than they need to be. Overall, professor Miller is a very interesting and funny guy. However, the class is made more difficult than it needs to be. If you can memorize definitions, you will do great. If not, be ready to study a lot for exams if you want to do well, especially because the three exams are 80% of your grade. Make sure you study the slides he puts up and go to class, and above all, do well on the exams. I felt as if I knew the information in this class better than any other I took this semester, yet this class was my only B. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT BUY THE BOOK. YOU NEVER NEED IT AND IT COSTED ME 300 DOLLARS.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-28T10:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Miller has a great personality and makes the business stories really entertaining. Although, he spends about 40 + minutes of every class talking about random stories and not class material. Once he finally finishes the news stories, he rushes though slides and it is almost impossible to keep up. He also seems to think that everyone in the class already has a decent understanding of business, but it is an intro course and he skips over alot of basics. His exams are not very well written. He requires you to study rediculous amounts of power point slides for each exam, when the test is only about 40 multiple choice questions. It will not be an easy class if you are new to business and you will struggle/waste millions of hours studying pointless slides. He is an entertaining and funny guy though, that's about the only positive.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-18T09:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'A lot of people have said it already, but Miller is definitely an interesting professor to have. He does about 30-45 minutes of comedic discussion about current events at the beginning of each class, so you could probably come that late and miss nothing except some entertainment. \n\r\nHe is horrible with grading assignments and answering emails promptly, and he does not post grade totals so you will have to do that yourself. He also doesn\'t allow technology (laptops, phones) in class unless you get permission from him beforehand. It was funny to call people out the first few times, but it gets really annoying when you\'re trying to check the time or something and he tells you loudly to "live in the now" and put the phone away. \n\r\nI hope you read and write fast because he goes quickly and you won\'t get the PPT notes until the day before your exams otherwise. His exams (2 midterms & a final)/quizzes (only 2) seem straightforward because it\'s all multiple choice and true/false, but he will definitely pull out some obscure facts from lessons so good luck on that. He also says you need the textbook, which can be helpful, but it\'s not necessary because he covers in class what he will test you on. \n\r\nOverall, not a particularly hard or boring class, but you still have to put in some effort!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-12-18T01:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "Pretty much all the positive things people have said about this guy are true. He's funny and and has an obsession with keeping students updated on current events. His tests, pop quizzes, and announced quizzes are all multiple choice. He can be a little tricky with the wording of his questions so watch out for that. Oh and acronyms, he always asks about acronyms and the tests so make sure you know those. Also he only posts lecture notes shortly before the exam. He says he wants us to rely on our own notes first and just use his for brushing up on topics. I am not a big fan of that, but its whatever. As far as homework we had one 1-page reflection and then there is this online simulation thing that you have to participate in once a week. The simulation looks confusing, but if you just try a little you'll ace that portion of the class. \n\r\nNow to moving on to Miller's major downfall. He almost never replies to emails. It annoys the living everything out of me.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-11-15T14:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "I feel like I've actually learned a lot through the current events that he shares. I don't know about others, but when we apply what we learn to real life situations, it makes more sense to me and sticks in my head for a longer period of time. He is funny and very energetic, just don't fall asleep in class and do your homework and you should be set! It's a very simple material, people often overlook it due to its simplicity and get B's and even C's. But you shouldn't. It's honestly really easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-09-11T09:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Very funny and interesting. Talks about current events and is knowledgeable about current events. The only problem is that he is a terrible exam writer. They're not unreasonable in content but he makes up answer choices, expect you to know stuff he covered very briefly, has a lot of acronyms, and overall relys on memorization ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-06-29T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "He is a great professor and really knows how to keep students engaged. He always kept me up to date on business current events and really related everything we talk about in class to everyday life. The exams weren't too difficult if you go to class and actually care it shouldn't be too hard for you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-06-03T07:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'Professor who really cares about his students. Took this class as a gen-ed and kept coming, because Professor Miller really keeps you engaged and is a fun professor to be around. His discussion of current business topics around the world was my favorite part and helped apply concept you were learning about in class to modern and current principles. Would highly suggest taking this professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-05-11T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Miller is a fucking clown. He spends at least 40 minutes of every class playing Tosh.0 with business stories he finds on the internet. Don't get me wrong it's extremely entertaining, but it's 40 minutes you really could have spent doing anything else. As a stand-up comedian, he's great. In fact, his skills as a teacher are his best joke. The man doesn't respond to emails. He doesn't send reminders about quiz or exam dates. He doesn't even post homework assignments, so you get about 30 ELMS messages asking what the homework was every time. He doesn't allow laptops, which makes it very difficult to keep up with his lectures as he speeds through his slides. He's extremely disorganized and clearly doesn't give a shit about his students. I had him for 110, and he could be different for other classes, but this was my experience. You'll still do fine, just know what to expect going in. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-05T14:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'You people may question why the GPA is so low. Half of the kids dont show up to class or fall asleep. These people do this since he posts the slides he uses during class to study. But that doesnt mean you dont come to class. Thats why they do bad. Overall if you go to class study the slides he puts up before a quiz or exam you will definitely get an A. GRADES: there was a game called glo-bus we played with a group of people within your class. I thought it was easy and fun and an easy grade too. There was 2 quizzes it was quite easy but he also throws in video questions which I never watched so if you do watch you should be fine the quizzes are like 10 questions match up true false and multiple choice. and theres 3 exams all fairly similar format like the quizzes. Also participation in the game is critical it counts for participation credit and attendence for class. He does claim that he checks the cameras in class for attendance to so its on you if you believe that or not. I kid you not my friends took this class with the ex dean of the bmgt school and they got raped with pop quizzes which miller doesnt do other plus for yall. TAKE IT WITH MILLER', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-30T21:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "He's really passionate about the class and the field. Basically all you need to study is the lecture slides, which he gives you before the test, but he is horrible in the admin part. I got a test back once a few days before I took the next one. He took over 3 months to grade one assignment. He was the only teacher who couldn't figure out how to work elms, so we never saw our grades. Finally, he didn't know anyones names even at the end. With all that, he's such a fun teacher I give him 4 stars. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-12-27T09:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "So as if it wasn't clear enough with all the other reviews, Miller is one of the best professors you will have at UMD. \n\r\nThis was my first Supply Chain Class and I wasn't sure what to expect - especially since I was the only freshman in a upper level course with all sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Well it's safe to say, I loved this class! Miller has been teaching this class for 14 years now I think and he clearly knows what he is doing. I highly recommend him and this class!\n\r\nNow here is what you want to know:\n\r\nDifficulty: 4 (out of 10)\r\nTests: Super Straight forward (like seriously just go over his slides)\r\nTextbook: He says to but no, you don't need it.\r\nPapers: None\r\nProjects: All group, and all easy!\r\nLectures: Starts with news stories and keeps things interesting.\n\r\nOverall: TAKE THIS CLASS AND TAKE MILLER FOR ANY CLASSES HE TEACHES.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-09T11:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': 'Professor Miller is a cool guy, he adds a lot of humor to class. That being said the class is terribly disorganized. Be sure to do his extra credits. His exams can be tricky!!!! The course sort of brushes over various aspects of supply chain without going into depth. They leave out some important supply chain functions, which is a shame for an intro class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-24T20:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "Miller is one of the finest professors the Smith School has to offer. This is now my 2nd class I have taken with Professor Miller, and it's safe to say that he is my favorite teacher at UMD. \n\r\nHe starts off every class, regardless of the course, with a 25-35 minute class discussion about various news articles he found surfing on the internet. You can tell that he puts a great deal of effort into the news stories, considering that he's practically memorized every single punchline and one-liner that coincides with each article. He has excellent comedic timing, and has nearly mastered the art of sarcasm. It's always a great way to start class. Miller does his thing, the class often laughs pretty hard, we get into some relevant and intriguing discussions, and by the time it's over, you're all warmed up for class. \n\r\nWhen it comes to credentials, Miller has more than enough. He's worked on dozens of supply chain systems throughout his career and helped found an asset management and supply chain consulting firm. He constantly refers to his prior experiences during lectures that provide a much needed perspective of the industry. \n\r\nHis tests aren't really that bad at all. If I had one complaint, and many others feel this way, it would be that his exams are more of a test to see how well you memorized the material rather than actually applying the terms. If you study the slides really well then you should have no problem getting B's and A's.\n\r\nDefinitely recommend this class or anything with Miller for that matter. He's truly one-of-a-kind ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-04-18T06:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110S', 'review': 'Miller hosted a welcoming cozy environment classroom that proved to be very interesting. If you can stand the battleship gray curtains and the seeping onion bagel smell then I recommend this class for you! Take his quizzes and tests seriously they will make or break your grade. Good luck on the extra credit!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-01-24T19:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110S', 'review': 'Greatest professor at UMD. This was the only class I ALWAYS looked forward to going to. If you took macro in high school you know a great deal of the material already. Otherwise all of the test questions come from the powerpoints he puts on elms. Study those. Some questions are tricky, but fair. Enjoy this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-13T12:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Great guy. Every class is virtually the same: first 30 minutes news stories (basically a discussion) then he goes over material. He's very funny and easily approachable. Very knowledgeable about the subject as well although he gets really ticked off if he catches you texting or having side conversations in class. \n\r\nTests are all multiple choice and straight from his slides although there are always a few curveball/obscure questions.\n\r\nDO NOT BUY THE TEXTBOOK. everything comes straight from slides. The Glo-Bus assignment was a bit of a bummer since we had to pay around $40 for it but using it was not so bad. overall a fun class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-01T21:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "Professor Miller is an amazing professor! His supply chain mgmt class was the best class of the semester. I loved going to class--he taught for like 30 mins and spent the 1st half of the class going over current interesting news articles-he is seriously hilarious! and you wont feel like skipping a single class. His class isn't much work. The only thing we needed to worry about working on is studying for the exams which were like super straight forward, provided that you memorized all the acronyms& terms and whatever he has in his slides-and I mean literally memorize it! All his exam questions are from his slides although he is going to say the ebook is required and the book is fair game for the exam--you really don't need the book so don't spend money trying to buy it. There will also be a pop quiz during the semester although he will have 2 assigned in his syllabus--it's only worth 2.5% of the grade though--and there will be extra credit but you get like 0.5% credit for writing a 1 page paper about your experience at IKEA or at a self check out and stuff like that.. BMGT 372 was the best class I took last semester and I can only say that caz of Prof Miller. If you need to take bmgt 372 take it with Jeff Miller! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-09T09:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': None, 'review': "This review is for BMGT289I\n\r\nProfessor Miller is an amazing professor. He was very enthusiastic about the subject he was teaching and did a very good job at making sure that the class participated and understood the material. \n\r\nThere wasn't too much workload in this class but the exams were tricky. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-25T10:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110S', 'review': 'Professor Miller is an awesome teacher. He is hilarious when doing current events but also teaches the material very well. Some tricky multiple choice questions but a quick review of your notes should be enough if you go to class. Favorite class this semester. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-02T18:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110S', 'review': 'Miller is one of the best professors I ever had. His lectures were downright outstanding. Every day he would start with going over current events for about 15 minutes, which was always entertaining. Also, there were various quiz questions throughout the lectures where if you answered correctly with your clicker, you would get .05% extra credit.\n\r\nThere were 2 quizzes and 3 exams. They were not too hard, but they were pretty tricky. There are also various extra credit opportunities such as a museum scavenger hunt and a short paper. Also, there is a required simulation that runs throughout the semester where the top 3 teams get extra credit.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-16T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110S', 'review': 'He is an amazing professor He really cares a lot about his students and wants them to do well. He keeps students engaged in class, so you actually learn the material and like it. He presents news stories before the start of class, and they are very informative and funny. He really tries to tie what you are learning in class with current events occurring around the world. His powerpoints are really good (probably the best I have ever seen) and he puts them up on blackboard so you can study from them for quizzes and exams. There are also many trivia questions given during class which you answer with your clicker (for every question you answer correctly you get 0.05% extra credit). The quizzes and exams are all multiple choice an extremely easy (as long as you review notes from the book and his powerpoints). He does give opportunities for extra credit (you can raise you grade up to 2.5%) so take advantage of them. You also do a business simulation, which is pretty fun and allows you to apply the concepts you learned in class to a real world situation (and the top three winning teams get extra credit!)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T12:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': '', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-09-04T08:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "Great class, not a lecture you'll feel like skipping. Miller really knows his stuff and makes good use of his class time, making what could be dull information more interesting.\n\r\nHe goes through news stories for the beginning of of the class (usually the first 1/2 hour) and makes jokes all the time. \n\r\nStudy the lecture slides and know the terms from the class. He creates exams that really test whether you remember the info from his slides and lecture, don't plan on studying for just a few minutes before the exam...spend time on the exams, there's really not that much else you need to work on in the class.\n\r\nGroup project isn't demanding, but don't forget to DO IT! It's a weekly submission that could be easy to overlook.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-04-28T08:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'He is an amazing teacher! you can do trivia questions if u go to lecture, quiz/exam are taken with a clicker (only mc), you get to go on a treasure hunt and get 2.5% extra credit. The class is just fun because he keeps you current and updated with weird/funny news before class really starts. He is willing to help. One word, amazing! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-13T18:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "I really enjoy Professor Miller's class. He does news stories in the front of the class for the first 15-20 minutes, and is basically a comedian during this time. He really keeps the students entertained during the entire time. His tests are from the lecture slides. If you miss a few on the test your grade will drop significantly. Glo-Bus simulation is very fun and can be quite competitive. Overall, one of my favorites!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-12T07:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "Professor Miller's class is interesting and entertaining. I hardly needed motivation to attend every class. He begins with funny news stories and takes the class through lecture which he tries to make entertaining. Assignments are easy and he really tries to emphasize fun, group projects. The only negative part is his tests which are not only arbitrary, but do not test students on what they know, but rather how well they remember. Instead of applying logistics concepts, he wants to make sure you can remember certain acronyms. I'd recommend the class still, however, the poor tests are unfortunate. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-27T20:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "great class, definitely recommend this professor\n\r\nkeeps class entertaining, has real world experience so he keeps the class up to date\n\r\ntests are exactly from his lecture slides\r\nthere is one one-page paper which is really easy and everyone gets full credit as long as you turn it in. \n\r\nbasically as long as you show up to every class and turn in everything you'll be fine. showing up to class isn't a big deal because he makes it entertaining", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-13T09:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Mr. Miller is an extremely funny man, and the news stories he goes through at the beginning of class make the class enjoyable. The class is, however, challenging and you will need to do some serious studying to pull off an A(which I didn't do). I recommend this class if you don't care about not getting an A and just need an elective", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-04-23T20:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "well, i took this class freshman year and totally bombed it. i thought it was because everything is multiple choice and very tricky, but i now that i am taking it again as a JUNIOR, i realize that it was probably my fault (but also the technology has improved and made it easier). you really need to study for the exams and quizzes because that is your only opportunity to succeed (no homework). he is a good professor and i strongly suggest printing out the slides and bringing them to class. when he talks and reads the slides you can tell what parts are important, and if you underline them while you are going over them, studying will be a breeze b/c you will know which material to skip over. take this class, but make sure you pay attention or you'll end up repeating it like me. at least i'm getting an A this time!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-14T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'Professor Miller is enthusiastic and made the lectures somewhat entertaining. He has all his notes online and that is what the tests and quizzes are based on. Make sure you study the material because a few wrong questions on a test or quiz could bring your grade down.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-12T20:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Hilarious professor, can be inappropriate at times, just have a sense of humor. He does not answered emails, just talk to him after class. Lectures are mandatory, answering daily questions with clickers and exams with clickers too. Don't need textbook, everything is in ppt slides. Multiple choices exams (3 including finals), 2 quizzes, extra credit assignments are not worth doing. Enjoyable class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-22T22:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Professor Miller was a funny and engaging guy, and he kept an otherwise boring class somewhat interesting. Basically, the entire course was about learning definitions of business terms. Kinda boring. Also, so of Miller's jokes incorporated some of the students. While funny, they could have been construed as inappropriate at times.\n\r\nThere were three tests, 2 quizzes, and bonus points during every lecture. Everything was multiple choice, but Miller threw a lot of curveballs, and graded harshly. Overall, a great guy and an OK class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-20T16:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "I want to rate him higher because his class really is interesting and a favorite of mine overall but there are some serious caveats. He goes over news stories and engages with students about what they think about the stories. He has a way of making the classroom feel smaller than it is, which is a rare trait.\r\n\r\nHOWEVER, this news story content, interesting as it may be, is irrelevant to anything that you are tested on and I find it VERY frustrating how little time he spends on course material! Most days it's only between 10-15 minutes of slides related to coursework This, of course, makes it impossible to write notes while he flies through the slides. Which is even more annoying because there is a STRICT no technology rule so your notes must be handwritten.\r\n\r\nBut wait, there's more. He does not post any of those precious slides until the day before testing so you have no opprotunity to study or view them after class. You can only binge study.\r\n\r\nI know that he does this to encourage attendance but there has got to be a better way.\r\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-10-18T19:20:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110S', 'review': "This class gives you a decent overview for all business majors. The class is about half content and half news stories which is nice because you get a chance to discuss stuff that's happening in the real world. Exams aren't bad if you set aside 2 days or so to study. Miller is pretty funny and it was one of my favorite classes I've taken so far.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-04-30T23:23:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "Miller is an engaging professor who is clearly very interested in business and the class he teaches, however, there are several flaws in his teaching style. First of all, he spends over half the class covering news stories which will never be on his exams and then proceeds to rush through his class material at the end of class, usually not finishing everything. He goes through his content VERY quickly and makes his students lives even more difficult by making them take hand written notes and enforcing a very strict no technology policy. Then, if you happen to have missed a lot of his notes (which you probably will), he doesn't post his slides until the day before an exam. The exams are short and fairly easy if you study your notes and his slides but the questions can be weirdly specific sometimes. Lastly, Miller does NOT round, I ended the class with an 89.93% and he would not budge. Overall a cool and interesting professor just needs to fix several big issues with his class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-04-24T02:17:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "The class was pretty interesting and the material was easy to grasp. My only complaint is the amount of time spent on news stories, being that it's something you're not tested on it (though this isn't a huge problem).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-11T20:48:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "He's hilarious and engaging. My only criticism is that he spends class time going over current news stories instead of actual class content, which he expects us to learn outside of class. It doesn't make much sense, but other than that he's great. Not a harsh grader either.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-04T21:53:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "Honestly, this was one of my favorite classes this semester (Fall 2020). If you enjoy the material (general business stuff) I'll highly recommend. People complain about the news stories but it's not that bad at all. If anything, it gives you ideas about what to do and what not to do with your company. Since nobody mentioned this, you'll have to pay about 70 for a program for the class. In my opinion its worth it given the fact that I am interested in business. Even if your not its graded on participation. On the real, just do the work (its slight) and you'll walk away with an A. Miller is a great guy tho, mad funny and approachable. Loves what he teaches and always cracking dad jokes and stuff.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-18T17:49:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'this class was one of the best classes I took because there was no exams, even quizzes. Jeff is not out to get his students. I also enjoyed the news stories he discussed during discussion. The work load is very minimal being max 30 min a week and 3 4 page papers that are not hard at all. make sure to follow the assignments and there is no reason you should get below an A in this class. Such an easy A if you want a relaxed class for a hard semester', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-31T16:51:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "This class was honestly one of my favorite classes at UMD. Jeff cares about his students and can be really understanding. There are no tests, including no final exam, because he doesn't want students to stress over his class which I found so helpful. The news stories discussed in class can be boring at times, but some of them allow for great discussion. The content is very straightforward and the weekly reflections were great. The only other assignments were 2 papers including a final reflection. Overall, this is an easy class and Jeff makes it very enjoyable. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-14T02:49:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'I can’t believe we are paying tuition to sit in this class for the professor to talk about his opinion on the news for an hour and 15 minutes ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-07T20:52:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "Such a joke of a class. Huge waste of time! Didn't actually learn anything, but there are no exams and the assignments are pretty easy.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-03T00:47:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "Definitely take this class if you're looking for an easy A. As long as you do the assignments, you will get and A on them. There is a decent amount of work, but none of it is hard or too overwhelming, and as I said, as long as you do it, you will get an A on it. The reason for his low rating is because he is very poor at explaining assignments, and over half of my class was caught in a cheating scandal, partly due to needing clarification on assignments in the groupme. I would recommend this class to anyone who needs to boost their GPA, but whatever you do, do not join the groupme", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-03-09T20:41:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "This is the easiest class I have ever taken. There are weekly assignments where you write a 500 word summary and have to sit on a website for 15 minutes. I spent about 35 minutes on this class outside of lectures every week. The Ben Franklin assignment is easy if you pay attention during class. Also no exams! This is absolutely an easy A and I look forward to going to class since it's super chill! Highly recommend this class if you can take it, I took it as an I-Series", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-14T20:05:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'The people giving him low reviews are just upset that they were called out for being on their phone in class. Easiest A ever. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-22T20:31:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "Such a fun and easy class. You have to write a 500 word reflection every week and occasionally do other assignments but I almost always got 100% with minimum effort. There's no exams and you use a program called GLO-BUS that I found fun and put effort into, but you legitimately only need to use it for 15 minutes a week to get credit. Don't go on your phone in this class, it's not worth to be called out by him and the class is interesting anyways he spends the first 30 minutes just discussing news stories which was honestly the best part of the class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-08T01:28:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'Super engaging. highly recommend', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-08-30T18:52:31.006978Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'Very interesting teacher and is very funny to listen to. Is annoying about phones and not sharing notes but it is not too big of a deal. As long as you put in at least 45 min of work a week you should get an A.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-06T21:23:58.725851Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "Such a fun and unique guy. Put in the work and it's an easy A. He is very particular about formatting and phones, otherwise he is very laid back. He doesn't give exams and you will learn a lot about current events. I am taking 110 with him next semester.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-09T01:53:04.089175Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': 'This was my favorite class this semester because of Jeff. He is a very cool guy and his class is interesting. He spends most the class going over news articles which is very relaxing. I would spend just about an hour a week outside of class which is nothing for a 3 credit class. There is one difficult assignment in the middle of the semester which took me a while, but I would highly recommend this class and Jeff as a professor overall.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-16T04:06:38.289368Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'Do not come into this course thinking you just "turn your brain off" and get an A easily like some other courses. You have to do 500 words every week, which for the ultra lazy is not the move. This is a dealbreaker for many people, but he will cold call (randomly call on) people. If you don\'t respond, you\'re marked as absent. However you can respond and just say you don\'t know. NO phones/laptops he will get annoyed about it and could ask you to leave. And you even have to write a book report and some other 750+ word bs \r\n\r\nTake something else, there\'s easier As.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-18T23:20:50.856918Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'Easy A. Miller is funny and keeps the class engaged. Only issue IMO is that he does go on and on about the news stories in the beginning of class. Other than that, really cool dude and great lecturer.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-22T03:39:07.955619Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'Amazing class, amazing professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-26T03:24:42.334271Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'I did enjoy the class, but here are the pros and cons\r\n\r\npros \r\nyou know what the assignment is every week. Ever since the first week, you have the same 500-word reflection due every Friday night. You can easily bs this, but 500 words are still 500 words. \r\nI enjoyed the news stories at the beginning of the class. It was a bit of humor and boredom relief before he went into his slides on content\r\nHis attendance policy is very simple. He randomly calls on people during class. If you are called on and are present, or don\'t get called on u get a 100 for the week. If you get called on and skipped class, you get a 0 for the week. So, you can skip class, but at your own risk.\r\n\r\ncons-\r\nI would have had a 100% in the class if I formatted it right (I ended up with a 93). I did every single assignment exactly how I was supposed to. One time I got a 50% on a reflection because it was Arial, not Times New Roman. Another time, I got a 50% because I forgot my name at the top of the paper. Obviously it was my fault, but taking half off for formatting is a little much.\r\nIt is a problem communicating with him. I once had a problem and emailed him 4 times. He said to come to his office hours then canceled them for 3 days straight without notice. When I did finally go to OH, he said "ok I\'ll fix it" and never did until I bugged him even more.\r\nFinally, the no laptop policy in class is annoying. I totally get it because I would be on youtube all class, but still annoying.\r\n\r\n\r\nAll in all, this class is very easy to get an A. If you show up to class every day and do your work on time in the format you should, you will ace it.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-02T02:06:49.152594Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'Ended with a 100%, easiest class in my life. Its just typing reflections and creative writing which you can just bullshit. I put in like 1 hour each week and ended with a 100%. Easier than ENES140 and ENES210 take this for a free A. I think this class is easier than breathing honestly', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-26T16:41:02.898386Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeff Miller', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "This class is taught like we are 6 years old. Professor Miller tries to be hip and funny and he is just obnoxious. He randomly calls out students and says such rude things that no teacher should say like asking students if they have student loans and asking them how much money they make. He grades papers like elementary school. He doesn't actually care what you write because all he cares about is how you format your paper to the most extreme level. He cries if your font or margins are not up to his standard. He treats college students like children. he thinks he is doing something by trying to scream at people for going on their phones and he feels the need to talk about it every single class for the first 10 minutes as if he didn't say it every single day for the whole year.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-19T15:59:34.219696Z'}], 'name': 'Jeff Miller', 'slug': 'miller_jeff'}, {'courses': ['CHEM241', 'CHEM611', 'CHEM889D', 'CHEM648F', 'CHEM640', 'CHEM237', 'CHEM650', 'CHEM441', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM889C', 'CHEM641', 'CHEM889G', 'CHEM648K', 'CHEM647', 'CHEM247', 'CHEM447', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM647', 'CHEM241'], 'average_rating': 4.7576, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM237', 'review': "I took this class last semester and I struggled a lot with organic chem and obviously didn't do that well, but Jeff Davis - or as my friend and I called him, JD - was an awesome teacher. He definitely made the class better and he was very fun and even had silly demos where he pretended to be a molecule laying on the table and showed how a molecule could be held in place by adding certain things in the solution. Even though this was for majors, he kept the majority of the material the same. I felt only at a disadvantage because we didn't stress pKa and naming all that much like the other classes.\n\r\nOur tests were very similar to past tests that he posted on ELMS for us to do for practice. Not many surprises.\n\r\nWe had a flat ~15% curve and lab was a large portion of our grade. That actually helped me since I did poorly in lecture. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2015-12-18T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM247', 'review': "Dr. Davis is a great professor. He is certainly one of the most animated and passionate instructors I've ever had. He would run around, throw chalk at the wall, and talk really loudly while teaching. Also, he is excellent at explaining difficult concepts and reaction mechanisms, something that other Orgo professors struggle with. We got through chapters 1-13 (but skipped most of 8), so we were responsible for A LOT of information on the final. That said, I feel really well prepared for Orgo 2.\n\r\nThe one downside is that his lectures tend to be disordered. If you require highly structured lectures to learn the information (like I do), then this might be a problem. After the first couple of weeks, I learned how to use the textbook to organize all of the material in my mind.\n\r\nAll in all, I'd recommend taking Dr. Davis! Also, Taylor is a great T.A.!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-24T20:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM237', 'review': 'Dr. Davis was a really interesting lecturer and his exams were extremely fair. Textbook problems and practice exams are helpful. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-18T18:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'hard course (duh its orgo II) but prof davis was a great professor. exam averages got higher over the course of the semester, first was low 60s, 2nd was high 60s and 3rd was 77. lecture is long but he has small breaks throughout it. discussions were VERY helpful (my ta was Kim). look at old tests and practice mechanisms and concepts over and over again. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-12-09T17:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'great professor. He is a lot easier that any of the other ones. I took dixon for orgo 1 and when i took davis for II, i felt so smart and it seemed as he went really slowly in comparison. But he is a great lecturer and answers any and all questions. The average for the first test was i think a 65, then second was 72 then third was 79. The exams got easier and you started to understand what he also wanted. He is a really easy and good lecturer. We went a bit slow. But I highly recommend him if you can for any class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T13:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Davis is an excellent teacher. He tends to not cover many topics, but this works in your favor because the amount of material is bearable. I would say I didn't try amazingly hard in the course, which is why I ended up getting about 86% in the course(which is an A since 80 is the A cutoff). This is a course where getting above a 90% without a curve is very possible.\r\nAnyway, to do well in his course here are your tips:\r\n1. Review the notes he gives in class. Many questions on the exam are easy multiple choice questions which you won't ever focus on if you don't go to class and take notes\r\n2. Do every single GSS worksheet. Many questions are pulled straight off those.\r\n3. Think about resonance structures for pKa and stability problems.\r\n4. Look at old exams.\r\n5. GO TO CLASS! His lectures will definitely pique your interests.\r\nOverall, he is swell guy, but don't get on his wrong side.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-20T19:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Davis is amazing! He obviously loves teaching and cares about the class. I only went to office hours once, but in that one time it helped me figure out how to think of exam problems so much better. He does reuse problems, or gives very similar problems. In 4 exams, there was only one straight synthesis problem. The rest were roadmaps. He loves to test you on the reasoning behind why things are the way they are in orgo, to test your understanding. Not a lot of memorizing, more understanding based as a class. Go over old exams that he posts and previous exams from the semester to study. He also gives you breaks in the 75 min lectures which is really nice. Overall, if you have the option you should take him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-17T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Davis is a good teacher. Obviously orgo2 is going to be a hard class, but he does his best to make it interesting. 3 exams, and the final. 80 is an A, 70 is a B, and etc. You can use the book if you don't get whats going on in class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-11T23:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Davis is a great, engaging teacher. His lectures are all you really need (thank goodness) so the textbook is really supplementary at best. Just take really good notes and learn them, and you'll be set. Davis has fair exams, no curve balls, and gives out A's via a cut off (I forget how many points is the minimum). Overall definitely the best prof you can get for Orgo II. And if ever you're confused, ask! He is very open about taking questions and having students participate. I actually enjoyed the class and the content, which I never imagined I'd say about Orgo. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-09-16T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "He was a very engaging professor who was very enthusiastic about teaching which made orgo a little more bearable for me. His lectures were taken out of the book for the most part, but he explained the concepts well enough that you prob don't even need the book. His exams were very fair and tended to place more emphasis on understanding material rather than memorizing reactions. Do the recommended problems and you should have no problems on any of the exams. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-26T11:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Davis is awesome! I got the feeling that he really cares about his students and he loves answering questions. His teaching style is great and engaging. His exams have a lot of borrowed answers from previous exams and are doable. Going to class is super important because sometimes minor things show up on exams. I didn't use the book too much, but I thought it helped for the sections I did use it in. I honestly didn't think I could get an A in this class, but a lot of us improved drastically for the third test and final.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Absolutely excellent teacher!!!! \r\nHe explains things in such detail. He did go a little slow and we didn't get to a lot of chapters in the syllabus but that's in your favor! \r\nHe's extremely personable and easy to approach. Just a great guy! \r\nThe way I got an A in his course: I never missed lecture, I recorded his lectures and wrote down everything he explained. His exams are straight from lecture. I never once touched the book although that may not work for everyone. My notes were detailed enough because I recorded his lecures but if you don't record then you may need to use the book. \r\nI got a B in Dr. Dixon's orgo1 and was able to pull off an A in orgo2 with Dr. Davis. I high recommend him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-20T16:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "He went a bit slow (we didn't even get to 5 of the chapters on the syllabus) but I found that this was very helpful in understanding the material, though I know it went too slow for people who understand Organic Chem well, and can learn it quickly. He makes the class interesting (as interesting as Orgo can be) by using real-life examples! Also, you will do VERY well on his exams if you study the problems he does in class AND in past exams (both previous exams during the semester and from past semesters). He always reuses exam questions, and half the final was questions we had seen before. Best bet to get a good grade! He also tests more on concept than memorizing reactions, which is really nice! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-14T16:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM237', 'review': 'He was a great guy! I have really enjoyed his class. Orgo is really easy, if you attend all of the lectures, and do the practice problems, and tests that he gives you. If you have any question, he is really approachable, and explains really well. I really recommend him if you want to enjoy Orgo.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-27T09:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM237', 'review': 'Best professor ever. Great guy in general and very approachable. Animated, loves what he does and actually cares. Supplies you with sample exams and study problems (not collected but a load of help)Will take one question from the most previous exam and put it on the next exam. Usually the question everyone gets wrong on, say, exam one will appear on exam two. Fair guy. Had a great time; and it was orgo!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-19T18:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Very sweet professor. Approachable and fair. Take good notes during class and do the assigned problems/ reviews. Do any practice exams available. A very effective teacher, I could not have learned so much about ochem from anyone else. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-07T00:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. Davis is the most animated science teacher I have every had. He really makes an effort to make organic chemistry as easy as anyone can. He is a little hard to follow in lecture because he doesn't write on the boards in a very organized fashion, and most of the important points to take away from the lecture are only verbal and no notes are provided.\n\r\nRemember to do all the readings and problems even though they are not for a grade! They make loads of difference!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-03-26T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I thought Dr. Davis was a great professor. I agree with previous reviews - definitely review class notes and previous notes b/c I didn't do so well on the first exam after doing tons of book problems. Dr. Davis wants you to learn reasons behind reactions, and doesn't emphasize nomenclature or cover some of the reactions in the book (which is good during the class, but you'll have to learn that stuff eventually if you plan on taking the MCAT). Dr. Davis is also very approachable if you ever go to office hours. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T00:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'A really, really good teacher. He goes out of his way to clear up any doubts and really cares that you understand the material. \r\nAlmost all his exam questions are from old exams posted online. The key to doing well is reviewing the lecture notes. For the first exam I studied all the sections in the book, did all the book problems, memorized all 20 mechanisms, and got a 56. For the next 2 exams I did the book readings, but concentrated a lot more on reviewing lecture notes and problems from old exams and got As. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-31T18:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Curves the class at the beginning with 80 and up is A, 70 and up is B, etc. Very nice, always willing to answer questions during lecture. His exams are not too hard but they are not very indicative of his lectures. He loves resonance, pka, explaining why a product is faster or more stable on exams. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW HIS OLD EXAMS. he repeats a lot of his questions from old exams. Also, he'll put q's from exam I on exam II and so on.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-29T21:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. Davis is a really good professor because he doesn't strictly stick to the syllabus- he goes at his own pace. On our syllabus we were supposed to get through 9 chapters over the semester and we only got through 6. At the beginning of each class he puts up the assigned readings and homework problems for the next lecture on the board in addition to what he plans to cover in lecture that day; I found that doing the readings beforehand really makes what he teaches in lecture easier to understand. \r\nHe had a built-in curve from the beginning as 80% and above is an A so he doesn't curve individual exams. It is possible to get an A. I bombed the first exam and then got Bs on the other 2 exams and the final and I got an A.\r\nThe way I improved on the rest of teh exams after the first one was going over LECTURE NOTES and his old exams. He recycles questions from his old exams from previous years as well as the exams he gives that year. And some of the problems come DIRECTLY from lecture notes. \r\nHe's very approachable and a really good professor because his main concern is how his students tackle the course and learn. He's not concerned about completing x amount of material in the semester.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-27T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "He's a really nice guy. Very willing to listen and answer any questions you might have. It took a while to get used to his teaching style. He focuses on understanding reactions, mechanisms, etc. as opposed to just remembering reactants/products which can make his tests extra painful. He curves pretty well, I had a 66.8% by the end of the semester and it curved up to a B (I was ecstatic). There is automatically a 10% curve built into the class (80%=A, 70%=B, etc.) so that helps alot. All in all, good class, but unfortunately our TA was terrible so it kind of brought the class down. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-17T11:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "One of the most passionate professors. He truly wants students to learn and enjoy organic. There's a reason he fills up first! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-10T06:28:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "He's a really great professor and makes lecture fun by telling stories and throwing chalk at the walls like the other reviews mentioned. The class had 4 midterms and a final but we got to drop one which was nice.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-19T19:39:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Honestly, despite my grade, Davis is a great professor. It is not his fault that I did not understand the concepts. Lots of resources are provided to do well, and the only reason I even passed is because of his more-than-generous curve on the class. If you understand orgo, he is great. The only thing I can complain about is the fact that there are no homeworks or assignments, so your grade is purely exam based which is what hurt my grade so badly. He is passionate and an extremely nice guy, so take him if you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-12-01T00:23:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Davis is the first teacher I met that actually cared if you understood the material and did not rush the material. If we were behind in the topics in the syllabus he didn't rush he wanted to make sure we understood it. He also dropped one exam and curved so if you had an 80 or higher you had a guaranteed A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-02T21:01:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Most flexible orgo professor. Extremely kind and understanding. Although there are ONLY 4 exams that contribute to your grades, no hw or anything he really ensures that you do well. He award a lot of partial credit and bonuses. One exam gets dropped. He’s very well organized and cares about his students. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-08T22:58:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Davis is an amazing professor, especially for the chem department lol. He's so chill, kind, and caring. One thing I love about his classes is that he gives 5 minute breaks. He also gives a lot of real life examples that make orgo so much more interesting. He gives 4 exams including the final and even allows you to drop the final (since its not cumulative) if your grade is good enough. I took Freidman for orgo 1 and he would rush everything so much if we were not on track. With Davis, he never rushes anything and is really organized. There's no homework or anything so you have to study to do well on the exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T03:34:10.071562Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Davis is one of the kindest and caring professors. If you put effort into this class, you will get an A. His lectures are fun and he puts breaks in. His curve is also great, which is that if you get 80 or above, it’s a guaranteed A or A-, and he drops the lowest exam score. His tests are very fair and he prepares you for an A in the class. Study the notes in and out and PRACTICE. He’s an amazing professor— would definitely recommend him over any of the other ones.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T17:08:31.980822Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. Davis makes orgo 2 enjoyable. The exams are the only thing that contributes to your grade, but he gives you plenty of resources to study from and he makes lectures entertaining. Study the practice exams in advance of the midterms and you will be fine. He drops one midterm, but his 3rd midterm in particular tends to be more difficult than the others. He explains concepts very well in office hours, and he isn't condescending towards students. Overall best orgo professor there is.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T23:14:01.672067Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Just leaving another 5-star here... nothing much more I can add to the other reviews. Best professor I have ever had hands down. Super thoughtful, understanding, and caring. Dr. Jeffery Davis must be protected at all costs.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T15:42:44.724116Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Amazing professor. Stocker, Koppel, Friedman and the other dude straight up need to take a page out of his book. From the very first day of class I could tell he really cared about his students and wanted us to pass..no other chem professor gave off this vibe. He even thoroughly explains practice exams. The lowest exam grade is dropped and theres an extra credit opportunity. The extra credit at the beginning of the semester saved me. The content is not easy, but Professor Davis is an angel and it's a shame he doesn't teach every semester. However, grades are only based on exams. Literally if you take anyone else for orgo 2 you're stupid.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-12-29T02:03:39.707452Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Davis', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'He is the sweetest professor ever. I had Tue/Thurs 8 AMs with him. 8 AMs. And he made it bearable and entertaining. Take Davis!!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-04-12T22:24:43.991656Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffery Davis', 'slug': 'davis_jeffery'}, {'courses': ['ENCH476', 'CHBE410', 'ENCH609', 'CHBE302', 'CHBE476', 'CHBE301', 'ENCH648G', 'ENCH648P', 'CHBE369', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE610', 'CHBE302', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE610'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffery Klauda', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor:\r\nVery soft-spoken. There isn't much inflection in his voice. His hand-writing is really bad as well. To understand him, sit as close to the front board as possible. For some reason, he doesn't use a microphone, and writes with the little chalk (we had class in the armory - depending on where you sit, it was hit and miss whether or not you could see the whole board. He seems like a nice guy - but I get the impression that he would rather be anywhere but teaching undergrads...\r\nClass:\r\nGraded on three (3) exams: two (2) midterms and one (1) final; homework; and pop quizzes. I believe he curved our class so that > 83% = A. He did this using stat (of course!), so it will change depending on your medians and standard deviations. The book will become your best friend; use it wisely. \r\nFor some of the homeworks, you will need the program Minitab; it's not available on the VCL, so you will need to either use a trial version, or purchase it. The professor usually goes over an example of how to do certian things in Minitab - but he typically speeds through it. SO whenever he does demonstrate it, be quick about writing down a few steps to help you remember. THe book uses Minitab as well, but doesn't show you how to use it. THe class covers probability, confidence intervals, hypothesis tests, etc. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-01-17T14:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Klauda', 'course': None, 'review': "He's whatever. His lectures are not very interesting, so bring something else to do (fluids hw, lol). You have to come to class because he has pop quizzes. I found that the textbook was pretty good to learn off of, so I pretty much never listened to him. His exams are not that hard. Be sure to pay attention when he goes over Minitab, as you will need it to do homework. A nice thing about Klauda is that you can ask him for help pretty much anytime, which was nice. Just a word of advice, become comfortable with Minitab earlier on in the course because you will definitely need it for the last few chapters. Minitab is very useful for the homeworks, and will save you a lot of time vs. using Excel. So become comfortable with Minitab as soon as you can. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-31T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Klauda', 'course': None, 'review': "Best advice for Klauda... sit in front of the class, pay very close attention, write everything down. Especially the examples. In fact, if you write nothing else down, write down the examples. He's very hard to pay attention to because he talks so quietly and quickly, and sometimes it makes no sense how he gets from one equation to the next. The textbook helps a lot, but he'll do derivations that aren't in the book, or describe things in ways that aren't stated in the book. So it's really only a supplement to his lectures. \n\r\nDO the homeworks. DONT miss quizzes. His tests aren't so bad. There's also a group project towards the end. \n\r\nMy honest opinion of him... he's a relatively nice guy, and he's pretty available to meet if you have any questions. Just don't expect to become buds. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-02-20T21:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Klauda', 'course': None, 'review': "His lectures will are okay if you're good at statistics and math. He tends to cover a lot of information in a lot of detail. Often it is not clear why methods of analysis proceed the way they do, or are applied the way they are so both statistical and organizational skills are needed to succeed and make sense of the formulas. So its really up to you to adsorb the methods and and make all the math mean something. \n\r\nHis notes are largely a summary from the book, which is well chosen. His notes correspond so well to the book that often, you can go back and read the book if you had trouble in lecture. He uses so much Minitab for statistical analysis that you get the feeling he may have shares in Minitab software.\n\r\nAnyway, its the only class in which we learn about how to assess the statistical significance of quality control tests - so its a must take if you're serious about engineering.\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-13T02:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Klauda', 'course': None, 'review': "He couldn't teach a monkey to eat a banana. Hearing his voice, you'll fall asleep instantly, He Pretty much writes equations from the book and writes it on the board, so lectures are completely useless. His quizzes are ridiculously annoying. As a person, he's ok, really quiet. I think the reason why he hasn't been fired is because he does good research, but if it wasn't for that he would have been gone. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-04-27T16:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffery Klauda', 'course': 'CHBE302', 'review': "In all honesty this professor is really intelligent, but somewhere along in 302 this man's exam makes me want to puke. His research is really intelligent. He is soft spoken, and does not make the class interesting at all. Maybe do like an experiment in the back of your house or something. He overwhelms you with all this information and equations that you probably cannot even do on paper. He honestly makes the class harder than it has to be. In my experience use another book call Fundamental of thermodynamics. The homeworks are so hard that you lose motivation and do not even want to study. His exams are not fair at all to the students, he rushes over partial derivatives to be used in thermo and that ends up being 35% of thermo 2, in all honesty good luck but you do not have a choice!!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-04-22T21:40:54Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffery Klauda', 'slug': 'klauda_jeffery'}, {'courses': ['MATH475', 'MATH636', 'MATH401', 'MATH744', 'MATH461', 'MATH405', 'MATH141', 'MATH456', 'MATH310', 'CMSC475', 'CMSC456', 'MATH246', 'ENEE456', 'MATH600', 'MATH601', 'CMSC456', 'MATH406', 'MATH456'], 'average_rating': 4.4444, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "I don't like this professor because he is very unorganized and relaxed. He would change problems sets days after he assigned then. So I would do problems that weren't require. He post videos that you have to look at before lecture too. He always post them the day before or maybe the afternoon before. God forbid you want to get ahead in this class and do you work ahead of time because he either won't post assignments until later or he will change them. He also does problems out of the book then gets to lazy and doesn't finish them. If you can't finish one problem for us in class, how do you expect students to do 20 for their HW. He is pretty chill so he lectures are easy to understand and kind of dumb down for the average joe, but maybe to chill for students that want to get head.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-04-13T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': 'Adams is a fantastic professor. He always comes prepared to class and does a great job helping his students through difficult problems. I would recommend him highly if you get a chance to take one of his courses.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-12-12T17:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'course': 'MATH475', 'review': 'Lecture:\r\nAdams was always willing to experiment and investigate students ideas that we come up with during lecture. I actually learned a lot during these little diversions. \r\nWe did a lot more combinatorics than graph theory, but Adams said he might start with Graph theory next time to ensure that he covers it in more detail next time. \n\r\nHomework/Book:\r\nWe used Brualdi\'s textbook and it was alright. Many of the questions were vague which made it hard to figure out what the questions were asking. Look over the homework the class period before it\'s due so you can ask Adams about it during lecture. \r\nOverall homework wasn\'t too difficult, it was assigned once a week and took 4-8 hours depending on what you are covering. Homework was usually about 70% application and 30% proof (but this was dependent on the topic, partial orders, recurrence relations, and graph theory were a little heavier on proofs)\n\r\nTests:\r\nTwo midterms and a final. All of Adams test follow a similar set-up. Some medium difficulty problems, then one problem that is rather easy followed by a problem that is really hard. The easy one is "free points" so you don\'t feel bad about not getting the hard one.\n\r\nNo quizzes or anything like that. Grading was\r\n100 exam 1\r\n100 exam 2\r\n150 final\r\n100 homework (2 dropped)\n\r\nand he curved a little to make the median a 75 on both exams (and probably did the same for the final).\n\r\nI really enjoyed this class, Adams made it fun and the material isn\'t terribly rigorous. It would be good to take this class with the rigorous courses like MATH410/411/403/etc.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-26T10:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': 'Adams was an all around wonderful professor and this class was my favorite of the semester. It\'s a tough course, with an estimate 5-10 hours needed per week to master the homework problems and material. Thankfully, Adams did very well explaining concepts and helping the students through problems. He\'s a really nice guy (with a relaxed teaching style) who was very helpful during office hours. He was also lenient when it came to a late homework once in a while or toward emergencies. Frankly, he\'s just a nice guy that loves teaching Cryptology. There are weekly homework assignments with reasonable due dates and two midterms and a final (no quizzes). I found the exams tough, but struggled with the material throughout the course. For some reason, the course material clicked toward the end and I started to see the "big picture." Adams does a nice curve and does everything he can to make sure everyone passes (i.e. possibly dropping a poor exam grade if you do good on the other one). \n\r\nTaking number theory (Math 406) is not mandatory for this class as Adams covers the topics from number theory that are needed. It will obviously put you ahead of the curve if you\'ve taken such a class, but you won\'t be behind if you didn\'t. \n\r\nThis review covers Cmsc 456 and Math 456 as they are the same course. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-07-23T23:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "i would give him more stars but sometimes when he writes proofs he doesn't completely organize the steps that well. otherwise, he is very fair with grading on tests. if you have a general idea of what you're doing on a test problem you'll get at least 50-75% credit for that problem. he's nice and respectful and understands situations where you have to turn in homework late. 3 stars seems low but if you put the effort in this class with him you should do fine. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-05-14T05:50:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "Adams has been super supportive and understanding this semester due to the online format. He made all midterms open note and take home with at least 24 hours to complete each one. For this semester, the final is optional if you're already satisfied with your grade. Adams is also good at stopping for student questions.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-16T03:41:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'course': 'MATH456', 'review': "Nice guy, real smart too. Super accommodating. He would push back deadlines if the class complained about the hw being too long. In lectures, he writes on a tablet, records and shares lecture notes. He is effective in communicating the ideas without having to make things too rigorous. Questions from students were taken seriously and Adams would spend a considerable amount of lecture time explaining/investigating the ideas (you may or may not like this). Office hours were helpful, and he tries hard to help clear any confusion the class had. Tests were takehomes and easy (a little long though, still reasonable), so the averages were around 90/100. Like the person below said, final was optional. In the end, I think the vast majority of the class got A's. He decided to not give +/- grades because of the pandemic.\r\nOverall, zero stress and a lot of fun. Definitely recommend his classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-13T21:42:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': "Great prof, very good instruction, reasonable homeworks and exams. A high-quality course where you'll learn a lot about advanced linear algebra.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T02:52:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': "While I dropped this course halfway through the semester Adams is a great professor. MATH405 is extremely difficult and I quickly learned I was in over my head. In class Adams does a good job explaining the theorems/definitions as well as providing examples. My only complaint is that sometimes he uses different variables compared to what's in the book when explaining concepts. The homework is extremely difficult compared to in-class examples and time consuming. The midterms however are much easier and straightforward the averages are still low but he has an insane curve, post curve the average for our first midterm was a 90. Honestly to do well in this course memorize the theorems/definitions and go to office hours to get help whenever you feel you need it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2021-12-30T09:20:45Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Adams', 'slug': 'adams_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['PHIL354', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL858J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Bub', 'slug': 'bub'}, {'courses': ['CBMG688K', 'BSCI437', 'CBMG688C', 'CBMG789', 'CBMG899', 'BISI899', 'CBMG688K', 'BSCI437', 'CBMG899', 'BISI899', 'BSCI437', 'BISI899', 'BSCI437', 'CBMG688K'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey DeStefano', 'course': 'BSCI437', 'review': "This class, which was co-taught with Dr. Kramer, was the best class I've ever taken at this University. It's pretty laid back, and although I agree with the review below that he's not the most engaging lecturer, he adds notes on the bottom of the slides telling you exactly what you need to know, so if you miss a class it's not the end of the world. Despite the fact that there is no curve and you can't drop an exam like other 400 level bio classes, it's not tough to get at least an A- in this class. If you looking for a fun, low-stress upper level bio class to take, definitely take this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-26T13:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey DeStefano', 'course': 'BSCI437', 'review': "He's alright. His powerpoint slides can get a little long and tedious sometimes. He enjoys posting blocks of text in each slide. He is kind of boring while speaking too, but maybe it was just the material (various mechanisms of viral entry and infection). He seems like a genuinely nice guy. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-08-23T15:40:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey DeStefano', 'slug': 'destefano_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['BSCI207', 'BSCI106', 'BSCI106C', 'BSCI106H', 'BSCI106S', 'BSCI106M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Firestone', 'slug': 'firestone_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['CMSC430', 'CMSC798E', 'CMSC330', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC798F'], 'average_rating': 4.5556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'course': 'CMSC430', 'review': "Professor Foster is extremely responsive to his students. At the beginning of the course, he made it clear that it was his first time teaching the course and that it was being redesigned from the ground up. He was very amenable to giving extensions when the situation warranted, and whenever a problem or difficulty with the project specs was brought up, he would ask the class what fix they thought was appropriate.\n\r\nThe lectures in this class cover a lot of very interesting, oh-that's-how-that-works topics. They were mostly his slides, with a few taken from others' talks, and a few design discussions.\n\r\nThe projects are a lot of fun, but a LOT of work. Do not put them off. They help a huge amount in understanding the material.\n\r\nThe tests were tough, since they required serious knowledge of the topics covered, but we were only expected to have an in-depth understanding of topics that were the focus of lectures. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-04T12:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'course': 'CMSC430', 'review': "Jeff is a great professor, and his classes are well-designed and great. \n\r\nFor 430 (compilers), Jeff totally redesigned the course, and made it incredibly challenging, relevant, and fun. I look back on the work I did in his class and can feel as if I accomplished something meaningful that made me more powerful as a computer scientist.\n\r\nEven if you aren't interested in programming language design (Jeff obviously is, and his enthusiasm for the material is palpable in the class), you should still take 430, because it will enable you to know intimately a tool that every computer scientist uses on a daily basis.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-11T19:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "He is one of the best professor I have ever had and he is totally fair. He knows the materials very well and there is always a decent curve on his grades around ten points. He loves his students and never let them go down and if you need him please go to his office hours. His both midterms are long but easy. %50 of the grade is for projects. If you do your project and get around average for your test you can pass the class easily with b/c . He is talking very very fast but you will get used to it. He tests you on what you know not what you memorize. His hardest project was 4th project and the 5th one..... so do your best on the first 3 ... they are not easy but interesting and doable without any TA's help. He is always on time and on his schedule. he provides solution for all of his tests and quizzes.. he is awesome. I will take a class with him if i can ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-23T13:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'He isn\'t perfect, but there\'s one reason I\'m giving him five stars: I can tell he actually tries to adjust his teaching style as opposed to holding onto how he teaches the course every time. This means that over time, he is going to become an even better professor as he drops things that didn\'t work and holds on to things that did.\n\r\nFor example, in 2008 someone commented that it was "purely a slides class." A friend who took the course a couple years back also said it was very slide-heavy at the time. This semester, he used the slides sometimes, but didn\'t teach purely off of the slides. They played more of a supportive role, and oftentimes he didn\'t even use the slides at all and gave several real-time examples and the like.\n\r\nProjects were kind of a mix. I thought they were mostly fun, but toward the end the public tests dealt with nothing more than basic functionality, which isn\'t a bad thing, but you have to be aware of it and actually test your code. Practice exams, practice problems, and slides were sufficient for studying for exams, but I had to study pretty hard to get As (according to my browser, I visited the class website 226 times this semester).\n\r\nI know a lot of people care about this, so yes, there was a curve even though the raw mean was a 74.\n\r\nPotential drawbacks: I never asked for an extension in his class, but I did hear he was relatively unaccommodating about them. If you are taking this class at the same time as, say, a class with Meesh, and your life is hard, you should try to finish your assignments for this class on time and ask Meesh for the extension. If you know ahead of time you\'re going to have a really tough semester for whatever reason, I\'d consider holding back on this course until your life clears up a little, if you can afford to.\n\r\ntl;dr not perfect, but good and improving, definitely worth taking', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-16T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "I highly recommend Professor Foster for cmsc330. His lectures are very clear. He enjoys class participation and answers questions very clearly and patiently. The projects are all do-able as long as you don't procrastinate. He's also a genuinely nice guy. There is a reasonable curve at the end of the course so if you're borderline on a grade a bump up is not out of the question. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-16T14:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Great guy, hard course. This course will work you to death, and then some. Ocaml and Ruby projects are hard, and are nothing (conceptually) like the projects you are used to C, Java, and Assembly. Good luck managing the lengthy projects with the difficult concepts of the class, which also lend themselves to harder exams than in previous CS courses. I wish I wasn't taking 19 credits this semester and could put in more work to get the A in this class, but I am quite satisfied with Foster, he's a genius, and quite possibly the smartest professor I know. \n\r\nSince CMSC330 is required for CS majors and minors, as well as CE majors, there's no way around taking this course, but take it with Foster, you'll learn a lot and feel better about your 400 level's after this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-28T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'He is a very good professor. This class is a bit dry, given it is very theoretical. But despite that, Foster made it quite interesting. He is a very nice guy, answers questions patiently and is an easy grader (decent curve). All material can just be learned from slides. This class is all about projects, where starting early is the key. Strongly recommended with Foster.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-06-08T01:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'Great guy. He did try to make the lectures interesting (considering it\'s purely a slides class). Projects were for the most part reasonable (and pretty interesting imo). Only exception was the last project he gave. It was difficult and since it was a week before the final it wasn\'t pretty.\n\r\nExams can be a little tricky and sometimes be a little too long, but nothing terrible.\n\r\nHe is a lenient grader. What I like is he reserves about 3-4% of your final grade as "class participation" to bump you up if you did terrible on one project but good on the others. He also doesn\'t just use cutoffs as a guide, he looks at everyones standings and sees if he can bump them up.\n\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-23T02:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Super friendly guy. Lectures can be super fucking confusing (at least if he is teaching 330). He's a reasonable option for any class. With the curve, I got a B- and finished the class with a 77%. So that alone is worth having him for.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2017-12-23T06:29:19Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Foster', 'slug': 'foster'}, {'courses': ['ENGL206', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL410', 'ENGL152'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Griswold', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': "Griswold is a very structured and professional teacher and genuinely remembers each student's responses, which is impressive. However, he does grade quite difficult when compared with other ENGL101 teachers", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-17T05:41:46Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Griswold', 'slug': 'griswold'}, {'courses': ['EDMS651', 'EDMS779', 'EDMS645', 'EDMS769M', 'EDMS771', 'EDMS769N', 'EDMS779M', 'EDMS769F', 'EDMS646', 'EDMS657', 'EDMS646', 'EDMS769L', 'EDMS651', 'EDMS779S'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Harring', 'slug': 'harring'}, {'courses': ['HIST408R', 'HIST428Z', 'HIST408I', 'HIST419M', 'HIST113', 'HIST729A', 'HIST848', 'HIST415', 'HIST729', 'HIST441', 'HIST729G', 'HIST319K', 'HIST408Q', 'HIST429R', 'HIST429P', 'HIST729D', 'HIST408K', 'HIST240', 'HIST638Z'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Herf', 'course': 'HIST419M', 'review': 'For those hoping to find a career in the History field, taking a class with Herf is a must. At times he can be intimidating, but he is easily the best resource this History department has to offer. An expert in his field and passionate about his work, Professor Herf is no joke. He expects his students to not take information for face value as it is granted to them. He encourages you to question what is presented and demand evidence to support it. I learned a lot not only about Nazi Germany, but about being a more critical historian. Serious history majors; take his class(es)! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-12-03T03:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herf', 'course': 'HIST419M', 'review': "Lucky if you have Professor Herf's class. Very intelligent and nice person and great lecturer. No heavy burden of assignment and not that difficult exams. If you are interested Hitler, Nazism, or Holocaust you must take this class. It is the best class in my undergraduate years.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-06T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herf', 'course': 'HIST415', 'review': 'Awesome teacher.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-07-14T09:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herf', 'course': 'HIST113', 'review': "Though this was his first semester teaching European History since 1795 as a whole, I thought he did an excellent job at keeping us engaged in what he was lecturing about, knew his stuff, and accepted questions at the end of class. Would definitely take other classes of his. Two books assigned, read neither of them and got a B on the midterm and the two mid-semester 4-5 page papers weren't hard if you paid attention in lecture. Pay attention, and that's all you'll have to do. Use a laptop for notes, speaks fast and sometimes jumps around. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-12T13:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herf', 'course': 'HIST419M', 'review': "Easily the best professor I've ever had. His lectures are very interesting, but he does assign a lot for reading (1000 pages or so)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-12T17:23:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herf', 'course': 'HIST240', 'review': 'Super engaging, extremely kind and intelligent. Taking another class with him next semester for fun.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-16T17:31:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herf', 'course': 'HIST240', 'review': "Incredibly intelligent, engaging, and thoughtful. In the midst of the pandemic, seminars with Professor Herf were a welcome activity. Easily the best professor I've ever had. HIGHLY RECOMMEND", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-02T15:02:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herf', 'course': 'HIST428Z', 'review': "Taking a course on the downfall of German democracy while Nazi's were storming the Capital was wild. Professor Herf is incredibly intelligent, kind and recommended. If you have any interest at all in European 20th century History, Herf is a MUST HAVE!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-02T15:04:16Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Herf', 'slug': 'herf'}, {'courses': ['ENRE671', 'GEMS397', 'ENME426', 'GEMS496', 'ENME607', 'GEMS497', 'ENES489P', 'BMGT490H', 'BMGT438G', 'ENME808X', 'ENES490H', 'ENES489Q', 'ENSE799', 'ENME809D', 'ENSE698A', 'ENSE698A', 'ENME426', 'ENME607', 'ENRE671', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENME426'], 'average_rating': 3.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Herrmann', 'course': 'ENME426', 'review': 'Inconsiderate man. Does not respect his students. Is not honest. Is not an ethical person. Does not think in the best interests of his students. Does not value the time, money, effort, and sacrifice that people make to be in his class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-07T04:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herrmann', 'course': 'ENME426', 'review': 'I would strongly recommend this class. Professor Herrmann is an excellent teacher, who knows the material well. This class had 4 assignments, and a final all weighted equally. Video lectures are posted online, so as the semester went on, attendance dropped but you could catch up from the videos. This is a pretty easy class with a high pass rate. Take it if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-16T20:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herrmann', 'course': 'ENME607', 'review': 'Dr. Herrmann is a respected expert in his field. This though does not help when students ask for specific help on items. If you are struggling, the help given is in the form of a telephone call for online students. This is a moot point on any math.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-05-29T19:56:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herrmann', 'course': 'ENME607', 'review': 'Course is very straightforward with a very forgiving grading system. Professor Hermann does everything he can to set students up for success, providing lots of examples and ensuring that his evaluations/exams do not have unfair trick questions or situations not covered in practice. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-07T00:27:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Herrmann', 'course': 'ENME426', 'review': "Dr. Herrmann is an okay teacher, but not bad. This course is straightforward and laid out clearly in the syllabus. You don't need to buy the textbook and do the readings as he says, but his pre-lecture videos are helpful to watch. During lectures, he has group activities that most students don't want to do, but they are beneficial to learn the content. The best way to be successful is to complete Module Evaluation (practice problems) before the exams as they are pretty similar in difficulty. This course is not challenging, but it can be annoying at times. Dr. Herrmann tries to learn the students names and know the students at least.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-25T17:41:11.622944Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Herrmann', 'slug': 'herrmann'}, {'courses': ['CMSC818P', 'CMSC412', 'CMSC714', 'CMSC798', 'HNUH219T', 'HNUH219T', 'HNUH219T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Hollingsworth', 'slug': 'hollingsworth'}, {'courses': ['THET285', 'THET408D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Kaplan', 'slug': 'kaplan_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'UNIV106', 'UNIV108', 'UNIV106', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU286', 'UNIV106', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU286', 'UNIV106', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU486'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Kodis', 'course': 'UNIV106', 'review': 'Professor Kodis was very helpful and inspiration in this class. He is also an amazing advisor that I can go to for anything. If I have the opportunity to take one of his classes again, I absolutely will.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-27T15:18:46Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Kodis', 'slug': 'kodis'}, {'courses': ['BMGT398A', 'BMGT360', 'BMGT362'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Kudisch', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "I can not recommend DR. K enough. He makes you work for your grade, but if you put in the effort and come to class you'll get a good grade. \r\n\r\nGrades aside, in this class you'l actually learn something. He is a very experienced professor who knows what he's talking about. And generally just a very cool dude.\r\n\r\nTake Dr. K!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-02-28T16:45:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Kudisch', 'course': 'BMGT360', 'review': "One of my favorite professors at UMD. He's very engaged and takes his job very seriously. I'd love to take another class with him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-10-24T18:32:41Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Kudisch', 'slug': 'kudisch'}, {'courses': ['LING641', 'LING444', 'LING879', 'LING448', 'LING248', 'EDHD779A', 'LING849B', 'LING849', 'LING644', 'LING879A', 'HESP818G', 'LING859A', 'LING888', 'LING449B', 'LING879E', 'HESP818C', 'LING879J', 'LING248', 'LING448', 'LING888', 'LING248', 'LING448', 'LING879P', 'LING888', 'LING248', 'LING444', 'LING448', 'LING888', 'LING248', 'LING448', 'LING879P', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Lidz', 'course': 'LING444', 'review': "If you do not remember syntax, LING444 will be a challenge in the second part of the semester, either take LING444 right after Syntax I or II or brush up before taking the class.\n\r\nThis class is reading and writing heavy. There are one page reading response papers and longer reading assessments due every week. The final is a paper. There are also 5 short quizzes that essentially checks if you did the readings and if you understood what was talked about. No tests.\n\r\nGrading scale is very confusing, you never know how you're doing. Everything is graded via the check minus, check, check plus system and it's pretty hard to get a check plus unless you really get the material - no BSing here.\n\r\nThe TA was slow to respond to email and evidently both her and the instructor are a bit slow in that department, according to other students. Don't expect responses over night, will take at least a few days if not more (took me two weeks once). They travel for conferences a lot apparently.\n\r\nIntellectually challenging, very interesting topics covered but at 9:30 AM can be really dry. Lidz does not post slides, which is a damn shame because they would be SO helpful to ensure understanding. And he tends to breeze through them, so you better be a good note taker.\n\r\nHe is also pretty soft spoken, you might strain to hear what he says and his writing is kind of illegible. I suggest recording his lectures - wish I did.\n\r\nHe expects participation, but will push you if you speak up, so you'll be put on the spot, know what you're talking about.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-04T00:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Lidz', 'course': 'LING444', 'review': 'This class had a decent amount of work but it was very interesting. We had papers due every week, and lots of readings, but Dr. Lidz is an enthusiastic instructor and the class was always filled with good discussions. Both the instructor and the class are highly recommended', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-28T14:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Lidz', 'course': 'LING444', 'review': '*class taken online spring 21*\r\n\r\nIssues from the old reviews here have definitely been addressed. \r\nThe class is still reading and writing heavy. You have to complete readings before the class and respond to readings every so often. There was a midterm and a final primarily concentrated on the readings. It is a good idea to review Syntax before taking this class as many of the concepts will apply here.\r\nThe grading scale was clear and grades were usually in promptly (which is impressive for such a writing heavy class). \r\n\r\nLidz expects participation but is great at moving discussion along. He sometimes asked a question that no one knew how to answer, but he rephrased his questions and guided us into discussing the topic as a class. He will call on people but he allows you to talk through your answers. As long as you read the readings and are prepared it is okay not to know exactly what he is looking for. \r\n\r\nThis was a very interesting class and I thoroughly enjoyed every topic. I have to say it was one of the classes where I genuinely had fun learning. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-20T21:52:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Lidz', 'course': 'LING444', 'review': "Jeff is a top-notch professor. He's a real expert on the topic. He goes out of his way to help his students. His lectures are clear and engaging. He's a great discussion leader, and he can be pretty funny too. I always look forward to showing up to his class. He's a little awkward if you talk to him one-on-one, but it's no big deal to most people.\r\n\r\nLING444 has a pretty heavy workload, though. Many readings every week, and usually a few writing assignments too. I don't mind it since it's fascinating material, but some people might.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-07T08:14:28Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Lidz', 'slug': 'lidz'}, {'courses': ['SOCY660', 'SOCY699N', 'SOCY230', 'SOCY699K', 'SOCY699X', 'SOCY699D', 'SOCY398J', 'SOCY498J', 'SOCY699J', 'SOCY699G', 'SOCY819', 'SOCY448', 'SOCY448G', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY230', 'SOCY819', 'SOCY230', 'SOCY610'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Lucas', 'course': 'SOCY230', 'review': "Great class and great teacher! The book he recently made the class use is amazingggg and I've recommended it to anyone and everyone. I'm sure some people may on occasion find the class boring only because it's usually a straight through lecture and powerpoint class, but sometimes we did activities that were really fun, and he also tells interesting and funny stories that relate to the topic we're learning about (well, mostly haha) to the point where yeah you're learning but you're also getting to know the teacher in a fun way. Every Thursday there was a very simple 3 question quiz, based on that week's reading; if you do the reading you'll get 100%. If you didn't do the reading, you pretty much won't (the questions are tricky enough to make it that way but simple enough so if you did do the reading, you're golden). Reading the book and showing up to class are important, and the papers he assigns are very short so as soon as you get the assignment sheet, do it that day as best you can then send it to him to see if he can read over it! It'll help you get a better grade and you'll show him that you're putting in the effort. The class is very well organized and he gives you an awesome review sheet to work off of prior to each exam. The only thing I didn't like was having to use TopHat because I already have a physical clicker (which you pay for only once) and with Tophat, you have to renew the simple button pressing online clicker every semester (oh corporate profits at the sake of college students). Though I think some students were able to get out of paying for it by just writing their answers to clicker questions on paper and turnign it in at the end of class? Not sure. Other than that though, this class is really worth it, really awesome, and that's mainly because Dr. Lucas is an awesome teacher. :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-08T14:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Lucas', 'course': 'SOCY230', 'review': "Professor Lucas is an incredible instructor. He spends a lot of time telling stories in class in a way that really helps to reinforce the material we are learning and keeps the class's attention. His rules are fairly strict but he is also very understanding of personal situations and it's clear he wants his students to succeed. \n\r\nThe best advice I could give to anyone taking this course is to show up to class and read the book. (I'm not someone who usually reads textbooks, but this one is a good read) It's work, but it's not too much work, and it's really interesting.\n\r\nThe class is very well structured and the in-class quizzes definitely help prepare you for the midterm and the final.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-10T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Lucas', 'course': 'SOCY230', 'review': 'Great professor, not a hard class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-01T18:37:30.713412Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Lucas', 'course': 'SOCY230', 'review': 'Good professor, all his classes are lectures. He added participation points where you have to be in class for them. Definitely need to show up, you can only miss 2 classes without losing points. 4 exams, 1 drops. Each exam, including the final, is not cummulative. (final includes one of the 4 exams).l Easy class, just show up and listen. 4 papers, not too difficult. He is very sweet and great at answering emails and questions.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T23:58:44.769342Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Lucas', 'course': 'SOCY230', 'review': 'Great professor, highly recommend taking his class. As long as you take notes and read the required material this is an easy A class. The book is very interested and I actually looked forward to do the readings.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T17:35:46.250792Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Lucas', 'slug': 'lucas_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['BMGT323', 'BUAC758T', 'BUAC758V', 'BUAC758X', 'BMGT417', 'BUAC765', 'BUAC706', 'BUSI610', 'BUAC767', 'BMGT411', 'BUAC758D', 'BUAC774', 'BUAC758A', 'BUAC764', 'BUSO602', 'BUAC772', 'BMGT323', 'BMGT417', 'BMGT323', 'BMGT417', 'BUAC764', 'BUAC772', 'BMGT323', 'BMGT411', 'BMGT417', 'BUAC706', 'BUAC767', 'BMGT323', 'BMGT417', 'BUAC772'], 'average_rating': 3.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Milton', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': 'I had Milton for 323 and 417, and contrary to the one review on this website, I thought he was great. Milton is a slow talker and he is not that interesting, but I still think he is a great professor as a whole. \n\r\nUse of class time: He spends class going through the publishers power points, which have example problems in them, and if you pay attention you will learn from his lectures. Usually the class before and exam we will play jeopardy. \n\r\nHomework: For homework, he uses McGrawhill Connect. You will have one assignment every week, they are not long and are not too hard. You also get unlimited tries, so everyone should be able to get 100%. Homework is 30% of your grade which is great. \n\r\nTextbook: This is one of those classes where you should read the textbook (about 1 chapter a week). The exams are open book, and it is much easier to take advantage of that if you have read the book and can navigate it easily. \n\r\nQuizzes: We did not have quizzes for 323, but we did for 417. They are all multiple choice and open book/notes. \n\r\nExams: The exams are all multiple choice and open book/ notes. They are very fair, and Milton gives more than enough time for exams and quizzes. Also he often recycles quiz and jeopardy questions for exams.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-11-21T17:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Milton', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': 'He is just about the worst teacher at the Smith School. Boring like hell! I challenge people to stay awake in his class, let alone learn something.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-11-11T23:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Milton', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': "The lectures are a little boring but he's a nice guy. His lectures are like conversations and he'll ask you questions you don't know how to answer, but just participate and guess and you'll be fine. You can't be afraid of sounding a little stupid if you get the question wrong. HWs are a big part of the grade and exams are open book (you'll need to buy a physical version of the book).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-16T21:56:40.008844Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Milton', 'course': 'BMGT417', 'review': 'His class is pretty standard. Lecture involves power points and practice questions and homework is just Connect HW and SmartBook. Milton is a pretty nice guy with real world experience but he does like to cold-call sometimes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-18T05:29:10.567477Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Milton', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': 'Prof. Milton is a really cool guy, he has a lot of life stories as he\'s been in pretty much every industry under the sun. Been in a lot of director, CEO type spots. Offers a good amount of extra credit, be sure to show up to class as he takes attendance, plus class is where you\'ll see the extra credit opportunities. Exams and quizzes are open-book, open-note, if you study just a little bit and know how to search the index of the book and skim the chapters, you should be good to go to get an 80+ on each exam. Homeworks are easy 100s if you put the time into them as it\'s "do until you get it right". Lecturing could be very boring though, often felt like droning on and on. And yeah, the cold calling sucks. It does keep you on your toes though.. because nothing\'s worse than zoning out and all of a sudden he\'s asking you about filing statuses.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T02:35:05.901651Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Milton', 'slug': 'milton_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['EDMS623', 'EDMS646'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Patton', 'slug': 'patton_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Reed', 'slug': 'reed_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['ENTM699J', 'BSCI481', 'BSCI480', 'ENTM798J', 'BSCI207', 'BSCI481', 'ENTM788C', 'BSCI481'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jeffrey Shultz', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I would give this guy negative stars if possible. One word describes him: ASSHOLE. He is the worst teacher that I have had at UMD so far. His lecture slides are nothing but scribbles from is touch screen laptop he uses for lectures and it is impossible to learn anything from him. His slides would have little to no valuable information for the tests on them and it was impossible to use them to help you study and do homework. He was very unapproachable and was extremely unhelpful whenever you asked him a question. For one of the exams my test score was mixed up with someone else's and he wasn't going to go back in the grade book and change it. Luckily another nicer professor did it for me. NEVER TAKE THIS GUY", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-01-01T13:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jeffrey Shultz', 'course': None, 'review': 'I thought he was a decent professor, and his only fault was that he was sometimes dull in his speech. It became a little difficult to pay attention later in the lectures, which can be a problem.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-07-17T10:30:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jeffrey Shultz', 'slug': 'shultz'}, {'courses': ['HONR378N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Starr', 'slug': 'starr_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['EDCP220'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Yeung', 'slug': 'yeung_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['JOUR203'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeffrey Young', 'slug': 'young_jeffrey'}, {'courses': ['ENME808I', 'ENME742', 'ENME423', 'ENME424', 'ENME808U', 'ENME422', 'ENME423', 'ENME753', 'ENME422', 'ENME753'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jelena Srebric', 'course': 'ENME423', 'review': 'This class is awesome if you like thermo or if you are at all interested in green building design or HVAC. I learned so much and was actually able to talk about this class in several interviews and put the project on my resume. It was time consuming but fine if you worked ahead. The teacher is funny and nice and always colorfully dressed and made my day every class. She also asked us what we wanted to do covid-wise so we had class in person one day and virtual the other and it was great. Definitely recommend if you are okay with some work, but a potential start to a career. The tests were pretty smushed for time but she gave plenty of partial credit.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-13T21:55:31Z'}], 'name': 'Jelena Srebric', 'slug': 'srebric'}, {'courses': ['SOCY230', 'SOCY105', 'SOCY100H', 'SOCY498O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jenelle Clark', 'slug': 'clark_jenelle'}, {'courses': ['AMST101', 'AMST202', 'AMST205'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jennie Chaplin', 'course': None, 'review': "I had Prof. Chaplin for AMST 200 which is American Studies of the Everyday Life. First and foremost, I would avoid this woman for multiple reasons. The first few weeks, you'll start to notice she picks favorites from among the class. She will tend to alienate everyone else soon afterwards with how she treats people, vs how she treats her favorite(s). For this class, her tests tended to be on obscure aspects of the (very dry) reading material. She does give study guides, but they're only somewhat helpful. We had a few in class presentation days about various aspects of American culture where we talked about things in our own lives or on a specific topic, but she does not give out a rubric on what she's looking for and grades arbitrarily because of it. She takes attendance every class, but has no problem cancelling class the morning of (via email, sometimes no more than an hour beforehand if you get an email at all). She loses her train of thought quite often, and just stands there staring blankly at you for a good ten seconds sometimes. This whole class gets VERY depressing as the semester rolls on very quickly. I had to drag myself there some mornings just so she wont ***** about low attendance for the first 10 minutes.\n\r\nIf you decide to take her anyways, good luck and godspeed. As the other person said, she's nice... mostly. I'd describe it as more 'polite' personally. But that's just me.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-28T21:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennie Chaplin', 'course': None, 'review': "She's a nice lady, the course material was kind of boring though. I liked US history in high school and thought this class was gonna be a similar, more interesting variation. It wasn't though. The articles are weird and are not very fun reads. She herself is nice though, and doesn't grade harshly. We had weekly writing assignments instead of coming to class on Fridays, sweet deal. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-17T01:42:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jennie Chaplin', 'slug': 'chaplin'}, {'courses': ['EDHD320', 'EDHD411', 'EDHD306', 'EDHD413', 'EDHD230', 'EDHD402', 'EDHD431', 'EDHD221', 'EDHD718', 'EDHD390', 'EDHD320', 'EDHD390', 'EDHD718', 'EDHD320', 'EDHD390', 'EDHD718', 'EDHD320', 'EDHD390', 'EDHD718', 'EDHD221', 'EDHD718'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jennie Lee-Kim', 'course': 'EDHD221', 'review': 'She is so genuinely nice and. caring towards all of her students. The class has a few touchy topics and she always did such a great job of trying to be respectful and understanding of everyone and their needs in class. I really would recommend her to anyone. Great professor and an even better person ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-04T17:48:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennie Lee-Kim', 'course': 'EDHD320', 'review': 'She is a really amazing professor! Her ELMs page is super organized, provides many useful resources for the class, and provides detailed outlines for assignments. She makes her lectures really engaging and fosters a really great discussion environment (very low-key and engaging). In addition, she is really attentive to all her students in her class and wants everyone to succeed. Highly recommend her!! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-04T00:14:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennie Lee-Kim', 'course': 'EDHD320', 'review': 'Dr. Lee-Kim is one of the best professors I have had at UMD so far. Her lectures are really engaging and the course content is so interesting. The online component is a little bit more work than expected but pretty manageable. The exams are open notes but on a lockdown browser. They are pretty easy, all of the content is from the lecture slides, the book, and the class presentations (which are also easy). I would recommend renting the book for the semester for the exams and you need it for the online assignments. I highly recommend this class, it has been one of my favorite classes so far!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-29T19:27:00.044700Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennie Lee-Kim', 'course': 'EDHD320', 'review': 'Amazing professor! Her class is engaging, and the work load is manageable. You do have to go to class but since it was only once a week it’s fine. Her tests are based on the lectures and textbook, and grading is fair. I highly recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T18:03:45.866539Z'}], 'name': 'Jennie Lee-Kim', 'slug': 'lee-kim'}]
[{'courses': ['KNES161V', 'KNES260', 'KNES497', 'KNES161R', 'KNES463', 'KNES601', 'KNES463H', 'KNES786'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jennie Phillips', 'course': 'KNES260', 'review': 'Do not take this class. Although this teacher is a good teacher and the class is interesting the work load and amount of work i have had to put into this class just to get a mere C is ridiculous. I took this class as an easy core and was fooled. Although I could have put more work into this class I was told it was and EASY A. All i have to say is false advertising. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-12T02:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennie Phillips', 'course': 'KNES289W', 'review': 'This was a good course, particularly for people who may not know a lot about fitness and proper health decisionmaking, and it was appropriate for people of all levels of skill or fitness. Jennie was a very nice teacher. Four easy papers, and participation in a different fitness activity each week, ranging from soccer and australian rules football to step aerobics and yoga to weightlifting. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-31T17:14:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jennie Phillips', 'slug': 'phillips_jennie'}, {'courses': ['EDCI461', 'EDCI362', 'EDCI488F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jennifer Albro', 'slug': 'albro'}, {'courses': ['THET399P', 'THET328V', 'THET499P', 'THET499', 'THET328F', 'THET326', 'THET440', 'THET222', 'THET340', 'THET399', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET328I', 'THET429', 'THET669', 'THET222', 'THET326', 'THET340', 'THET399', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET429', 'THET440', 'THET326', 'THET340', 'THET399', 'THET788'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jennifer Newsham', 'course': 'THET222', 'review': 'Love love love her! Super kind, definitely cares about her students. Works to help you succeed in the TDPS department as a whole, rather than just for the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-03T12:19:42Z'}], 'name': 'Jennifer Newsham', 'slug': 'newsham'}, {'courses': ['UNIV101', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jennifer Froh', 'course': None, 'review': "I don't know how Jenny doesn't have any reviews yet but she is fantastic. She's an adviser for the College of Ed, so she knows how to make this course directly applicable to potential teachers. She actually takes the time to read and respond to your writings (not much) and discussions are always chill. \n\r\nAnd she always brings food -- done deal.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-10-11T20:23:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jennifer Froh', 'slug': 'froh'}, {'courses': ['UNIV150', 'FIRE152', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE252', 'FIRE308', 'MIEH309', 'CPSP239S', 'CPSP259S', 'MIEH325', 'MIEH225', 'MIEH783', 'MIEH309', 'PHSC420', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH783', 'PHSC420', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH325', 'PHSC420', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH786', 'PHSC420', 'PHSC497', 'MIEH300'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jennifer German', 'course': 'MIEH325', 'review': 'I love Dr. German! She is super kind and is very passionate about the subject matter! If you are looking to gain clinical experience and want some background to do so, this is definitely the class for you.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-05T17:45:05.354143Z'}], 'name': 'Jennifer German', 'slug': 'german'}, {'courses': ['BMGT496', 'BMGT380', 'BUSI764', 'BMGT380N', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT380N', 'BUSI764', 'BMGT380'], 'average_rating': 3.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jennifer Gershberg', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "This is a hard class to begin with but she makes it manageable. If you don't read the book in advance she gets pissed. She will tell you what you need to know for the test and has review sessions before each test. Her tests are multiple choice and T/F. I just didn't like how she had a sign in sheet every class. Seemed pointless.\r\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-05T22:36:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Gershberg', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Stickler on participation and uses bias when grading it. Some students can literally sit in class fucking around online and get an A while others can pay attention, never come late, take hand written notes and get below average. Kind of not fair and way too arbitrary. \r\nAnd as if her tests werent long and wordy enough, she DOUBLED the amount of questions on her final last minute and said it was to help us. She also does not curve and tends to discipline the whole class saying we didnt put in effort when thats just a minority of students.\r\n\r\nMean lady. Looked at me like I was retarded when asking for clarification. I did pretty good here, but wow she is a controlling bitch. \r\n\r\nIf taking her class, get ready to be treated like an inferior. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-20T01:42:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Gershberg', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'If you are a junior and is at USG. Take a different professor at CP during summer. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-03-19T13:16:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Gershberg', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "She is amazing! I learned a lot from this course. This course has a bad rep to begin with, but it's not bad at all. She makes the concepts easy to understand. I definitely recommend her for business law.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-04-30T19:52:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Gershberg', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Not my type of professor. Her teaching was decent, but her exam questions were too wordy and not as straight-forward as her lectures or reviews. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-10-26T22:17:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Gershberg', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Garbage professor. Had to study so much through the dense material and she was completely uninteresting in the way she 'taught' the material. Doesn't really care about making exams accessible for everyone, just makes the exams as convoluted as possible and ultimately unless you have a ton of time to devote to the class you're probably not going to enjoy it. I feel like she genuinely believes her students are only taking her class. \r\n\r\nAvoid if you can. this class already sucks, don't bother tkaing it with her as she'll make the experience worse", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-06-03T01:53:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Gershberg', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'I loved this class!! The professor made this super interesting and as a difficult course, this was really refreshing. She really cares about her students and the material is not too much to handle as long as you go to class and take good notes. Best class I have taken in college and my favorite professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-17T18:52:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Gershberg', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Professor Gershberg has a nice personality and generally made the class enjoyable. Her teaching style stresses verbal lecturing as opposed to reading from a slide deck, so you really have to listen and grab ahold of every word she says. Overall, she presents the material in an interesting and thought-provoking manner.\r\n\r\nHowever, I have to add that grading is a bit harsh in this class, with practically the entirety of your grade dependent on 3 exams. The course literally encompasses 3 exams and 2 easy, lightly-weighted assignments. On paper this sounds nice (basically no HW), but this means you virtually need to get an A on every exam to get an A for the course. If you have a bad exam, you're likely out of luck.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T02:06:38.380120Z'}], 'name': 'Jennifer Gershberg', 'slug': 'gershberg'}, {'courses': ['INFM289I', 'LBSC690', 'INST631', 'LBSC708L', 'INST775', 'INST888', 'INFM743', 'ENPM808W', 'INST627', 'INST632', 'INST799', 'INFM799', 'INST810', 'INST709', 'INST809', 'INST309', 'INST633', 'INST414', 'INST462', 'ENPM809G', 'INST670', 'INST671', 'INST673', 'INST326', 'EXST030', 'INST155', 'INST408N', 'INST608N', 'INST899', 'INST462', 'INST818', 'INST151', 'INST155', 'INST709', 'INST808', 'INST155', 'INST462', 'INST633', 'INST670', 'INST671', 'INST673', 'INST151', 'INST462', 'INST608N', 'INST633', 'INST462', 'INST151', 'INST462', 'INST608N', 'INST633', 'INST151', 'INST155'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': None, 'review': "I'm not sure why everyone is hating on Jen. If you take the time to talk to her, she can help you out a lot. Yes, you definitely have to be proactive with her. It's hard to find her, but generally she's available after class or if you make an appointment with her. Make sure you take advantage of her while she is in class to get facetime. None of her classes are really that hard or boring in context, and she's generous with grading.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-05T01:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': None, 'review': "ok, she gives us a lot of things to read. like really, A LOT. BUT, as long as you just read and know the main point (just go through it once, know what the readings are about), you'll definitely get through the quizzes. (yeah, the readings are mostly for the quizzes. so, you have to read them somehow.)\n\r\nbut all in all, she's really nice! and she enjoys it if you participate more in the class. and... she's VERY VERY generous in her marking! so, if you've done your homework/do pretty well in your quizzes, you'll def get an A! :D believe me!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T10:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INST462', 'review': "I think the main problem is that there are so many assignments and only 1 TA. My class had around 93 people and only one TA. This means our assignments took forever to get graded. Another issue is that some of the assignments had very unclear grading criteria. The class was hard per se but the overworked TA and unclear grading criteria were the class much harder than it needed to be. I did, however, learn a lot of new visualization tools from her class that I have used in my other classes so I'm very thankful for that. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-06T20:06:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INST673', 'review': "Great professor! This class was entirely online during the winter semester. The lecture videos were done really well, and none of the assignments were particularly difficult. The only concern I have is that Weka doesn't seem that widely used, but this class is a decent introduction to a few ways that machine learning algorithms are analyzed in the real world.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-17T04:31:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INFM289I', 'review': 'awesome', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-28T19:59:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INST155', 'review': 'If you read any reviews about this class that say "it\'s extremely difficult" or "Golbeck is not a good teacher", I strongly disagree. INST155 is certainly different than its description on Testudo, but it\'s not a difficult class. The basis of the class is around social network analysis and using a software named Gephi. If you are unsure about this class, look up Gephi and what it\'s about. I didn\'t love Gephi, but this class is still an easy A for someone who at least puts in some effort. \r\nThere are about 5 "major" assignments that you are graded for in this class; I say "major" because most are only 10 points and super easy if you follow Golbeck\'s Youtube tutorials. You technically have weekly modules to complete which consists of one discussion board post, but the posts are only worth 1 grade point and they aren\'t due until the end of the semester. So, you could get them over with early or procrastinate and do them at the end of the semester.\r\nBe aware that you are committing to an online class! It might require some more self teaching and discipline than a normal class, but if you are okay with that then this class will be super easy. Golbeck is very understanding and offered so many extensions and extra credit. \r\nI was in a GroupMe for this class in which many (lazy) kids complained about this class being more work than a 100-level class, but I am a first year student and thought it was comparable to my other 100-level courses. If you are a good student and do your work, you will get an A in this class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-04-10T17:51:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INST155', 'review': "This class was unreasonably difficult for a 100 level Gen Ed class. Golbeck was almost never accessible through email, and when she was, she was needlessly rude. Gephi projects were very vague and confusing, with one 1500 word paper and also getting 10K interactions on social media for a full grade!! That is a ridiculous assignment for an instructor to give. Don't expect regrades from TAs either. Avoid if possible.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-05T14:56:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INST155', 'review': 'Way too much work for a 100 level class. A lot of the assignments were unreasonable and took forever. Go with another Gen-Ed. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-04-08T14:59:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INFM289I', 'review': "The negative reviews here are ridiculous. I understand this class had a lot of work, but you signed up for and need to take a chill pill and relax... this Professor is very nice and very lenient when it comes to grading and giving extensions--if needed. I can understand the fact that she is teaching online may make it harder because you don't have her in person, but the complaints here are so ridiculous. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-04T01:21:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INST155', 'review': "Pretty easy class, definitely has gotten easier from previous semesters. Golbeck no longer makes you do that 10,000 likes assignment, and it's replaced with an 8 page paper. Pretty important to note that this isn't a fun little class about social media, it is a class that discusses networks and graphs, similar to stuff you would learn about nodes and edges in CMSC132. GEPHI is a bit annoying to work with but after a few assignments you get the hang of it and it becomes second nature a little bit. And of course, the class being entirely on ELMS is a huge plus for people who have otherwise busy schedules. There were about two assignments a week with a 1 week grace period with no penalty. I found this class really interesting and I think it's a great option if you're interested in graphs and networks.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-01T05:36:29.456018Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INST155', 'review': "As a senior, I can say with confidence this was the easiest class I've ever taken. I'm shocked this is a 3-credit class. Minimal effort will get you an A. \r\n\r\n- Fully online and async; all assignments are open and able to be completed from day 1 (you could complete the entire class in a week if you had the time)\r\n- No need to watch the lectures; all assignments can be done from skimming through the slides\r\n- Assignments consisted of short quizzes (1-2 questions), discussion boards, a midterm paper (short/informal, super easy), and final paper (longer/informal, but still easy)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-15T23:31:11.554640Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'course': 'INST155', 'review': 'I only took this class because it was asynchronous. She posts lecture videos each week pertaining the textbooks which I paid for and of course never used- you do not need to watch them because the quizzes are often worth 1 point. She responded fairly quickly, but she could be friendlier. This is essentially a CODING class. My advisor told me this was a social media class .. we had one discussion post about social media. Gephi, the coding software, is the most glitchy thing ever that it made everything take 3x longer because you had to start over or download a new version. I would not recommend overall, so glad it is done.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-13T06:41:53.821077Z'}], 'name': 'Jennifer Golbeck', 'slug': 'golbeck'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jennifer Kouo', 'slug': 'kouo'}, {'courses': ['CPSP239P', 'PUAF201', 'PUAF359I', 'PUAF388D', 'CPPL200', 'CPPL201', 'HONR348D', 'PUAF100', 'PLCY203', 'CPSP259P', 'PLCY349', 'PLCY388', 'CPPL101', 'PLCY100', 'PLCY309', 'PLCY400', 'PLCY388', 'PLCY399T', 'PLCY203', 'PLCY309', 'PLCY309'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jennifer Littlefield', 'slug': 'littlefield'}, {'courses': ['ENST460', 'ENST462', 'ENST461', 'ENST463', 'ENST464', 'ENST466', 'ENST467', 'ENSP399R', 'ENST487', 'ENST489B', 'ENSP699R', 'ENST689', 'ENSP399', 'ENST602', 'ENST689E', 'ENST499F', 'ENST689F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jennifer Murrow', 'slug': 'murrow'}, {'courses': ['INST810', 'INST809', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jennifer Preece', 'slug': 'preece'}, {'courses': ['JOUR203', 'JOUR604'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jennifer Rynda', 'slug': 'rynda'}, {'courses': ['EDCI462', 'EDCI461', 'EDCI791', 'EDCI667', 'EDCI769', 'TLPL791', 'TLPL698', 'TLPL651', 'TLPL652', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL644', 'TLPL791', 'TLPL651', 'TLPL738', 'TLPL840', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL644', 'TLPL791'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jennifer Turner', 'slug': 'turner_jennifer'}, {'courses': ['PSYC221', 'PSYC798O', 'PSYC361', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC489E', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC447', 'PSYC798O', 'PSYC447', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC447'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jennifer Wessel', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "She didn't require a textbook for the class and taught concepts very well. Her teaching was really thorough and easy to understand. Her exams are easy and for psyc221 it was exactly based on her guided lecture notes. She drops one grade per category including exams. I'd say she is an excellent professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-03-14T03:32:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Jennifer Wessel', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "An amazing professor, definitely one of my favorites at UMD. She explains concepts in a very understandable way and is very approachable if you have questions. She does a great job at facilitating conversations in lecture and discussion. Her exams are very straightforward and if you study her guided lecture notes and do the practice problems provided, it's hard not to get a good grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-04-30T20:09:20Z'}], 'name': 'Jennifer Wessel', 'slug': 'wessel'}, {'courses': ['MATH212', 'MATH121'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jenny Rustad', 'slug': 'rustad'}, {'courses': ['PSYC403', 'PSYC406', 'NACS641', 'BSCI329', 'PSYC489M', 'PSYC798L', 'PSYC789', 'NACS898', 'PSYC468H', 'NACS641', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC406', 'PSYC899', 'NACS641'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jens Herberholz', 'course': 'PSYC406', 'review': 'I really liked Dr. Herberholz. First of all, his accent is awesome (and I think he\'s hot, but that\'s me). Second, you can practically see passionate fire in his eyes and he has a hard time keeping still when we get on an interesting topic. And third, he\'s just a really good teacher. Instead of standing there and reading slides while we silently take notes, he asks a lot of questions. Now, I\'ll be the first to admit, that can be a pain in the ass and not a lot of professors can pull it off, but with Dr. Herberholz it wasn\'t uncomfortable. He\'ll always ask for new ideas, future points to think about, criticism of current research, etc. It makes you feel more involved in the learning, trust me. \n\r\nAs for the class itself, the material was usually okay. Nothing too hard or complicated as long as you take the time to read through it. Unfortunately, he doesn\'t post his slides online (bring a computer, my notes from each class were always at least 4 TYPED pages in Word, hand cramps!), but he stresses that he won\'t test you on anything that you can\'t find in the textbook (and a lot of his graphs and graphics are from there too). His midterms were 15 true/false, do 10, and 15 short answer, do 10; final was 20 of each, do 15. I really liked that, because I could pick the questions I felt I really understood and could give the best answer for.\n\r\nThere\'s also a paper, a "grant proposal" proposing new research using one of the animal models we studied (bat, owl, toad, crayfish, aplysia, drosophila, rat) and a combination of behavioral and neuroscience techniques. I was super nervous about that because he\'s a bit of a strict grader on his exams, but we all ended up getting a 92.5% as long as the paper had all the parts and was handed in on time.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-05-16T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jens Herberholz', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Herberholz teaches straight from powerpoints. His tests are always the same format - 15 true/false (you choose 10 to actually do) and 15 short answer (again, you only have to do 10). Studying the book is helpful, but you can definitely get an A if you know the powerpoint information well enough. Attendance not required, but he does not use blackboard so unless you have a friend in the class, you can't get the notes. Very interesting class if you're interested in animal behavior.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-28T12:49:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jens Herberholz', 'slug': 'herberholz'}, {'courses': ['BUMK717', 'BUMK758O', 'BUSM714', 'BUSM758M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeremy Brown', 'slug': 'brown_jeremy'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'BSGC100', 'BSGC398A', 'EDHI338L', 'EDHI338M', 'EDHI338O', 'EDHI338G', 'EDHI338B', 'EDHI338E', 'EDHI338U'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeremy Gombin-Sperling', 'slug': 'gombin-sperling'}, {'courses': ['ENEE380H', 'GEMS296', 'ENEE380', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'ENEE489I', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENEE789C', 'ENEE488'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jeremy Munday', 'slug': 'munday'}, {'courses': ['PHIL233', 'PHIL431', 'PHIL230', 'PHIL408M', 'PHIL308L', 'PHIL838L', 'PHIL408F', 'PHIL838J', 'PHIL309L', 'PHIL838A', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL688M', 'PHIL338B'], 'average_rating': 2.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jerrold Levinson', 'course': 'PHIL230', 'review': "Dr. Levinson...seems like such a nice guy, but good lord can he bore the hell out of you. He is a very good philosophy professor...supposedly. Guess you have to be a philosophy major to think that. \n\r\nYou will find yourself in lecture, falling asleep, wondering why you took this class, everyday. He will literally talk in language that makes note taking impossible the entire time. He will walk around the room like he is lost and look out the window babbling on about nothing really. If you are a philosophy major, you might think otherwise. \n\r\nI'm an A student and business major here, and if you are thinking of taking this as a core, don't. I have confidence you will not enjoy it. I took this because I'd never taken a philosophy class and thought I'd take it for kicks and satisfy my HA core at the same time. So if you have interest in taking a philosophy for kicks, don't take this one. It really is useless. And for an HA credit, they're all going to be bascally pointless, but after taking this, anything might've been better.\n\r\nGuess what else Levinson likes to do? Assign the final paper, due on the day of the final exam! Yea,because we all love doing papers while studying for our exams ya know...said nobody ever... HoweverI don't think he did this on purpose. I just don't think he has a clue what goes on in the real world and lost track of what day it was, honestly. So while I wish I could be studying for finals, I have to look at 3 articles by 3 philosophers, and analyze their theories on what is art. Sounds like just so much fun, right? I'm doing this right now and to take out my frustration I thought I'd warn everyone on this class to save them from this in the future.\n\r\nIf you need to take core classes, take ones that actually reflect on real life and you can put forth skills learned in that class, in the real world. Take something useful, not on the study of how to be poor (philosphy). This class really does suck, and Levinson...really nice guy, terrible teacher. Regards, to whoever is thinking of taking this class, best of luck...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-06T15:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jerrold Levinson', 'course': 'PHIL230', 'review': "I'm not a philosophy major and took this as a CORE. I thought most of the work for the course was fairly easy. The midterm was a breeze and the first paper was very easy to write. The final was a little tricky but apparently graded very kindly, and the second paper could be made difficult depending on one's argument, but was definitely graded fairly. \n\r\nThe readings, on the other hand, were quite difficult at times. The most frustrating aspect of how this course was shaped was that many of the difficult readings were clustered together toward the end of the course, while many of the easy readings were given too much time and attention toward the beginning of the course. Nonetheless, despite having not completely finished some of the readings, I was able to fill in some of the gaps through lecture and discussion.\n\r\nLevinson is a decent lecturer. Sometimes I got bored. But when I paid attention, I really got a lot out of his lectures. Like someone else mentioned, Logan Fletcher is an awesome TA. His discussion sessions were totally worth getting up on a Friday. I also didn't feel like I had to hold back when I wrote papers. I don't know if that is a feature of philosophy classes in general, or a feature of this particular class and of the TA. I mentioned medium-rare steak, Snooki, and Rebecca Black in one of my papers to support a few points with modern examples. I was reluctant to do so even though they were ideal examples for what I was arguing, since I wasn't sure if I would be taken seriously. I got a 100 so I guess it was fine. I like feeling like I can be myself when I write. As soon as I have to pretend to be something I'm not, the paper becomes fabricated rather than created.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-01-11T03:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jerrold Levinson', 'course': 'PHIL233', 'review': "He's a very relaxed professor, but his class get boring at times. If you're moderately intelligent, interested in philosophy, and do all the work, you should have no problem acing this class. (Although my impression may be due to the great TA - Logan Fletcher - more on him later.)\n\r\nThe material is interesting and covered a lot of area, so nothing was studied in extraordinary depth, but it was done such that you leave the class with an impression of knowing a lot about each one of the topics - not an easy task for a philosophy class.\n\r\nLogan Fletcher, my TA, is the man. He's laid back, brilliant, gives really easy quizzes and grades really leniently.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-04-26T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jerrold Levinson', 'course': 'PHIL230', 'review': "Typical philosophy class and professor. If you don't like philosophy, you'll be bored out of your mind, because it got boring for even PHIL majors. Workload isn't too hard, and tests were pretty good, but it was weird to have multiple choice in a philosophy class. He's willing to accomodate students when they need it and its pretty easy to catch up on work and lectures you missed. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-02T11:13:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jerrold Levinson', 'slug': 'levinson'}, {'courses': ['AASP441', 'AASP314', 'AASP411'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jerry Semper', 'course': 'AASP441', 'review': 'Amazing dude. Teaches you so much more than the course material about life and everything in between. Highly recommended!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-04-16T19:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jerry Semper', 'course': 'AASP441', 'review': "Prof. Semper is simply an instructor who wants his students to learn. If you plan to take this class you will have to participate -- it's 15% of the grade -- but you have the choice of contributing a current event story if you're too shy to voice your opinion on the material. He assigns readings every class and he ACTUALLY goes over them!!! It's a very laid back class with assignments consisting of short one page papers due every now and again, one midterm, one pop quiz (which he gave twice verbatim because majority of the class failed, and people failed it twice), a final paper of the length of your choosing -- yes no length requirement, and a final. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-08-22T16:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jerry Semper', 'course': 'AASP441', 'review': 'This class was very interesting. It is VERY easy but at the end of the semester, you honestly have learned a lot. \n\r\nYou MUST speak in the class but its usually a small class jammed packed into a room in Tydings. Everyone talks and its become more like a discussion about current events and the readings which are not hard at all. You have about 20-40 small pages to read a week but the class only meets once a week - and sometimes there are breaks in between where we do not have readings. It only took me an hour to accomplish the weekly readings and then I was done for the week! \n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-08-16T13:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jerry Semper', 'course': 'AASP441', 'review': "This is a class I think every student graduating from the university should take before graduating. It's a real eye opener, and Dr. Semper is a great teacher, and a very interesting guy; He's had so many experiences that he could share with you and the 2 1/2 hour just goes by with you laughing and learning. His exams are so easy it'll mess with your head. \n\r\nIf you wanna get an A in a class while learning more important stuff in one semester than you have your whole life, then this is the class for you!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-16T09:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jerry Semper', 'course': 'AASP441', 'review': 'Pretty good professor. Forces students to have an open dialogue during class. Very interesting character.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-06T18:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jerry Semper', 'course': 'AASP441', 'review': "Great professor. Very old school and personal. He has a lot of anecdotes and stories about his life. Speaking in class is a MUST! But not to worry because you can talk about anything really, he loves current events so you can speak up there if you didn't do the readings, which are not hard at all.\n\r\nQuizes are just to see if you read, so make sure you do, and make sure you go to class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-26T18:39:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jerry Semper', 'slug': 'semper'}, {'courses': ['ARHU318B', 'ARHU319', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL272', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL101A', 'ARHU318C', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL398V', 'ENGL393', 'ARHU275', 'ENGL275', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL398V', 'ARHU275', 'ENGL275', 'ENGL398V', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL398V'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jesse Brooks', 'course': 'ENGL101A', 'review': 'He did not like students using laptops in class, even though our syllabus mentioned us being allowed to use them in the first place. \r\n\r\nIt’s a good idea to come to class and participate, if you don’t show up having read whatever he’s assigned then you may have a difficult time in class. \r\n\r\nHe’s not a bad person, in fact he’s a good guy deep down, although there are times where he may come off as arrogant.\r\n\r\nThe class itself was structured around discussions of what was assigned prior, if you come prepared then you’ll have an easy time. Brooks is a super liberal person and teaches that way, which helps bring the content of the class to relevant news of our current issues. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-12-14T04:50:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Jesse Brooks', 'course': 'ENGL398V', 'review': "I took this class in Fall 2021\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ Class is mostly pretty chill when an essay isn't immediately due. Classes mostly consist of discussing readings, but since there are no grades that rely on having you read the readings you don't really have to do the readings.\r\n+ Prof, all in all, is pretty chill. Even if you miss assignments, just talk to him and you can normally reach an arrangement\r\n+ Also I guess he's changed a lot from December 2017, he allowed us to have laptops in class\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Essays are very anecdote-based, if you're used to writing research papers, get ready for some whiplash", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T19:03:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Jesse Brooks', 'course': 'ENGL398V', 'review': "I loved him! I feel like my writing improved so much in this course, he focuses on straying from regular cut-and-dry rubrics (which was hard for me), but really helps with writing and expressing ideas/communicating in general. Really loved the content of this course, if you're looking for a professional writing course to take, I'd highly recommend 398V (especially with Jesse). Great course and great professor! Never talks down the class and really tries to relate and build connections with everyone (not in a cheesy way). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-14T23:37:19Z'}], 'name': 'Jesse Brooks', 'slug': 'brooks_jesse'}, {'courses': ['LBSC784', 'INST742'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jesse Johnston', 'slug': 'johnston'}, {'courses': ['MATH111', 'MATH214'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jesse Milzman', 'slug': 'milzman'}, {'courses': ['HIST208R', 'HIST208F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jesse Zarley', 'slug': 'zarley'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL611', 'ENGL444', 'ENGL607', 'ENGL708D', 'ENGL379Z', 'ENGL708A', 'WMST444', 'WMST498V', 'ENGL378Z', 'ENGL708C', 'ENGL699', 'WGSS444', 'ENGL460', 'ENGL460'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jessica Enoch', 'slug': 'enoch'}, {'courses': ['ECON615', 'ECON878', 'ECON416', 'ECON616', 'ECON708', 'ECON417', 'ECON878', 'ECON616', 'ECON878', 'ECON417', 'ECON878', 'ECON616', 'ECON878'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jessica Goldberg', 'slug': 'goldberg_jessica'}, {'courses': ['MUED155', 'MUED222', 'MUED473', 'MUED187'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jessica Kendal', 'slug': 'kendal'}, {'courses': ['THET291', 'THET290', 'THET399T', 'CPSA201', 'CPSA100', 'CPSA250', 'CPSA200', 'CPSA101', 'CPSA260', 'CPSP359S', 'ARHU468A', 'ARHU468', 'ARHU468A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jessica Krenek', 'slug': 'krenek'}, {'courses': ['GEMS208L', 'GEMS208E', 'GEMS208K', 'GEMS208J', 'GEMS102', 'GEMS208F', 'GEMS208P', 'ENES215', 'ENES215'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jessica Lee', 'slug': 'lee_jessica'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM360', 'COMM324', 'FIRE274', 'FIRE174', 'ARHU338', 'HDCC379', 'HDCC209C', 'HDCC209D', 'HDCC208O', 'HDCC106', 'ARHU338', 'HDCC105', 'HDCC208O', 'HDCC379', 'ARHU338', 'HDCC209A', 'HDCC379', 'ARHU338', 'HDCC105', 'HDCC379', 'HDCC208J'], 'average_rating': 3.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jessica Lu', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': "She's a really good and kind professor. She cared about her students and tried to connect to students in many ways. The assignments in this class weren't too hard and she made expectations clear. Her presentations for her lectures were always pleasing to the eye and relevant to today's culture. She made learning fun and created a welcoming environment. I was glad I started off my college experience with her as a professor!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-07T05:01:54.190982Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Lu', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': "She's an ok professor. Honestly, this class was an afterthought for everyone, so there are no strong opinions either way. If you hate professors who spend most of the course talking about their personal lives... do not take her. I know more about her family than I know about what I'm supposed to be learning in this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-10T02:15:28.240334Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Lu', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': "She's an ok professor tbh. This class is the definition of an afterthought. She assigns readings but you don't have to do them, and she just talks about her personal life 75% of the time. Don't know what I was supposed to learn in this class but the course engagement grade at the end was the worst part. She grades you on if you were memorable in her class of 60 people which is dumb. I only go for attendance and to do other work.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-10T02:19:53.761838Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Lu', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': 'She spends the first 30 minutes of every class talking about her personal life. I like when professors talk about their personal lives but I feel like 1/3 of each class is too much. Also, she gives a participation grade at the end of the semester, and apparently participating often in class and having perfect attendance is not good enough for an A. Other then that, Dr. Lu is a nice professor and the assignments in this class were fun and a good way to unwind. She drops 2 of the 6 total offerings and gives two weeks after the due date to resubmit offerings.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-10T19:17:58.690492Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Lu', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': 'Dr. Lu was an ok professor. She spent so much time on her personal life that I feel like could have gone into teaching the lecture instead. She seems as though she needs a therapist and not a class. She assigns readings every so often and then does knowledge checks on them which are for completion so it is kind of confusing. The readings do not seem to have a huge impact on the class though. The worst part is the engagement grade at the end of the semester. She graded us on how much of an impact we made in the class which in my opinion was unnecessary and added nothing. As someone with anxiety I felt as though the engagement grade was a terrible add on to the class. She is nice as a person and someone to talk to about problems but as a professor I would not recommend if you have a choice.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-12T19:32:48.861939Z'}], 'name': 'Jessica Lu', 'slug': 'lu_jessica'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jessica Macklin', 'slug': 'macklin'}, {'courses': ['MUSC328'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jessica McKee', 'slug': 'mckee'}, {'courses': ['PHSC415', 'PHSC425', 'FIRE180', 'FIRE280', 'FIRE120H', 'SPHL399', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398', 'FIRE398', 'PHSC415', 'SPHL399', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398', 'PHSC415', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE398', 'PHSC415', 'SPHL399', 'FIRE199', 'PHSC415', 'FIRE199', 'PHSC415', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398', 'PHSC415'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': "Jessica O'Hara", 'course': 'FIRE120H', 'review': "Dr. O'Hara is a fun and engaging professor who is easy to talk to, especially when asking her about her research. She graded very generously for FIRE120H and made it a class I enjoyed going to.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:09:29Z'}, {'professor': "Jessica O'Hara", 'course': 'FIRE280', 'review': "Dr. O'Hara is the most personable professor I have ever had. She truly cares about students well being along with their understanding of the course and all that working in a lab entails. The host-pathogen interaction stream within the fire program is a really interesting course that can be applied to so many different majors. The time in the lab is fun and rewarding when things finally work out. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-01T15:53:05Z'}, {'professor': "Jessica O'Hara", 'course': 'FIRE298', 'review': 'Best professor I have had in a long time. She loves you if you participate and try to make an effort. Her class is super easy and you learn a lot of useful lab skills.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T21:01:41.006911Z'}], 'name': "Jessica O'Hara", 'slug': "o'hara"}, {'courses': ['ENME201', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jessica Stein', 'slug': 'stein_jessica'}, {'courses': ['ASTR330', 'ASTR430', 'ASTR100', 'ASTR688J', 'ASTR220', 'ASTR630', 'ASTR220', 'ASTR230', 'ASTR399'], 'average_rating': 4.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': "I took this during Fall 2019.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ Very clearly passionate about the subject matter, if you like astronomy you'll love this class.\r\n+ Class content is pretty interesting and made topical through the use of real world examples.\r\n+ (Kinda) easy A (See below).\r\n+ Tests are extremely generous. Basically, after you take them, you immediately take the same test again in your group, allowing you to net a lot more points. This is carefully designed to never hurt your grade, only help.\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Despite the course being designated as for nonscience majors, the course actually does require quite a bit of rudimentary knowledge of math, science, and physics. Some help is given during class, but most likely not enough. STEM majors will be fine, but non-STEM majors should be prepared for some additional studying.\r\n- Class organization was a bit strange, as we had to take extensive notes of pre-lecture videos that were quite long, but in class lectures mostly didn't go over any new content.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-22T01:11:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': 'Class was really interesting, professor Sunshine included plenty of activities to help us grasp the concept of each lecture. I took this course with absolutely no knowledge of Astronomy and I felt like I struggled a bit, but still came out with a B. This course does involve a substantial amount of advanced math calculations and some physics applications so be aware of that. She also does not do well with answering her emails. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-06-17T16:58:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Very easy class, half to most of it is online and you only have to come to lecture once a week every Friday, maybe twice. The exams on ELMS are extremely easy and you can figure out the answers very easily (cough cough quizlet cough cough). Attendance to class is mandatory though, they have assignments at the end of every lecture or discussion that you have to turn in. Decent amount of course work though I would consider it simple to do. Overall great class if you need a natural science gen ed with not a lot of time commitment.\r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-01T15:49:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "This is a great class to fulfill your science gen-ed. It is basically an online self-paced course with a couple of hard deadlines throughout the semester. Therefore, you only go to lecture every two weeks and have one discussion section every week. Even though it is self-paced, do not save everything until the end because that is extremely overwhelming. The lectures and discussions are mandatory attendance because they give an assignment at the end of each discussion and lecture. There is some work, but the quizzes are really easy (if you use online resources wisely) so it doesn't feel like that much over the entirety of the semester. Also, the general coursework is extremely interesting.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-03T21:50:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "Great and pretty easy class. For the fall semester of '21 the class was mostly a bunch of online work that you could do at your own pace. It seems like a lot of work but it's pretty easy. She is also very nice and helpful. Highly suggest taking this to fulfil gen ed and for gpa booster. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-04T18:27:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "Amazing professor who understand what it takes to teach this course. It is almost entirely self-paced, which is good for some people. Just make sure you remember deadlines and don't save all of the work until the last day. The projects are easy and kind of fun. She does a ton of demonstrations in class which is super super cool", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T01:59:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Very amazing professor and TAs are great too. Class is easy, almost too easy, but very interesting and you learn a ton of information in the process. Take this class if you need the credit or are just interested in the Astronomy in the slightest bit and have room in you schedule. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-13T22:31:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'course': 'ASTR430', 'review': "Jessica is incredibly passionate as a lecturer and very engaging. Took this class as a tech elective for aeroE (without any prior ASTR classes) and it is my favorite class ever. The bandwidth of learning in this class is extremely high and it's very interactive. Highly recommend her and this class as well!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-16T15:46:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Class was asynchronous in nature, with all homework assignments being due at the end of the semester. The material is interesting and was an easy gen ed', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-29T05:32:14.965628Z'}], 'name': 'Jessica Sunshine', 'slug': 'sunshine'}, {'courses': ['INFM600', 'INST611', 'INST627', 'INST201', 'INST810', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INFM799', 'INST899', 'INST466', 'INST408Y', 'INST366', 'SURV699A', 'INST878M', 'INST366', 'INST366', 'INST709', 'INST808', 'SURV699A', 'INST818', 'INST899', 'SURV612', 'INST366', 'INST899', 'SURV612'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jessica Vitak', 'course': 'INST201', 'review': "Great professor she really does try to make things interesting for the class. She does make you do a meme group project. Her tests are easy and she doesn't make the class overly difficult. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-12-30T00:43:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Jessica Vitak', 'course': 'INST366', 'review': 'Professor Vitak is one of the great professors at UMD. All materials are organized, and if you are struggling with one subject, she will try to help you out.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-13T23:58:22Z'}], 'name': 'Jessica Vitak', 'slug': 'vitak'}, {'courses': ['CPSP218L', 'UNIV100', 'BSCI258', 'CPSP359I', 'GEOL388I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jessica Wilke', 'slug': 'wilke'}, {'courses': ['EDMS651', 'EDMS646', 'EDMS738', 'EDMS623', 'EDMS738C', 'EDMS738K', 'EDMS626', 'EDMS651', 'EDMS738M', 'EDMS724'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ji Seung Yang', 'slug': 'yang_ji_seung'}, {'courses': ['STAT420', 'STAT410', 'SURV420', 'SURV410', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SPHL610', 'STAT420', 'STAT420', 'STAT420', 'SURV420', 'STAT420'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jian Lun Xu', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "To start out, the person bellow is incorrect about attendance not being required. It is very important that you go to his lectures and take good notes on everything he writes down. He explains the concepts quite well, but his accent can really make it hard to understand sometimes. If it weren't for that, I'd probably give him a 5.\n\r\nDr. Xu is certainly worth it over Cerrai or some other professors that usually teach it. He goes more in depth and teaches the class in a very structured manner, which I appreciate. The exams should theoretically be easy if you consider he gives 2-3 problems from homework or class, and often the other 2 are problems from the book that he did not assign (look in the high end). If you pay attention to what he says will be on the test, and look at his review sheets, you should be able to do very well on the tests. In the end, you will probably learn considerably more than the other professors who teach this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-03-02T23:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jian Lun Xu', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "The worst thing about Prof. Xu's teaching is that he spends most of the lectures simply going over examples from the textbook, which I found completely unhelpful. \r\nBy the same token, the best thing about this course is that attendance is not required.\n\r\nIf attendance had been required, I might have dropped this course simply due to boredom. Professor Xu is a competent teacher however, though the lectures aren't imaginative or exciting, nor do they provide any kind of deeper perspective on Statistics as a discipline. I did appreciate his anecdotes, though he does try to set a moralistic tone (in his characteristically Chinese way) which may be (perhaps intentionally) intimidating to some students. He does care though, which is very much appreciated. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-29T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jian Lun Xu', 'course': 'STAT420', 'review': 'Professor Xu definitely knew his stuff and was really clear in his explanations. He taught very methodically, writing down definitions, explaining them, giving an example, and repeating. His teaching was so clear there really was no need for questions. His tests were fair, the homework was definitely challenging. The only complaint I would have is that he never held office hours, which would make asking questions, if you had them, pretty tough. \r\nIf you are into a more engaging class this professor is probably not for you, but he is a good teacher and I would take a class with him again.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-08-01T13:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jian Lun Xu', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "Excellent lectures, very good at explaining concepts (much more than the garbage book that the math department decides to use for STAT410), and gives a strong, theoretical foundation for probability theory, despite his dry lectures. His homework in general was not incredibly difficult, and often pulls test questions from previous homework assignments and examples done in class, so it is not hard to excel if one studies properly. \r\n\r\nI would say that the class he taught was incredibly dead since it was held from 5-6:15 p.m TuTh, which made it dreadful to go to, which was only made worse with dry lectures. Ideally, he would be perfect at an earlier time, but since he is an Adjunct professor, this is unlikely. Another problem is that he can't hold office house besides ~30 minutes before/after class, but he is excellent about responding to email. \r\n\r\nI would recommend him to anyone taking STAT410, but to be wary of the options. I think I got more out of this class by taking it with him than people like Friedlin, Dolgopyat, and Kagan, but I feel like better options might exist elsewhere.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-24T04:49:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Jian Lun Xu', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': 'Excellent lecturer and fair exams; they are similar to the ones from previous years. Dr. Xu only works at UMD part-time. He works at NIH as a researcher. He has a lot of interesting stories to tell as well. He does not have a strong accent.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-20T02:03:31Z'}], 'name': 'Jian Lun Xu', 'slug': 'xu_jian_lun'}, {'courses': ['BSCI337', 'BSCI410', 'ENTM699W', 'ENTM788C', 'BSCI482', 'BSCI482'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jian Wang', 'course': 'BSCI337', 'review': "nice guy but he cannot speak english.\r\nexplanations are so bad and he doesn't understand questions either. he expects us to be experts on insects and doesn't tell us what is on the exam. he basically says memorize everything but you can't learn it cuz taking notes is impossible when he doesn't speak english and the ppts arent the most detailed", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-03-11T05:10:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Jian Wang', 'course': 'BSCI337', 'review': "He means well and he's definitely knowledgeable, but communication is horrible.\r\nDoesn't understand questions, exam question prompts are written in very poor english, doesn't respond to emails, not very willing to work with students, expectations are way too high for not being explained.\r\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-10-14T17:52:42Z'}], 'name': 'Jian Wang', 'slug': 'wang_jian'}, {'courses': ['MATH113'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jian-Long Liu', 'slug': 'liu_jian-long'}, {'courses': ['ENCE200', 'GEOG651', 'GEOG677', 'EXST030', 'GEOG653', 'GEOG795', 'GEOG653', 'GEOG653', 'GEOG653', 'GEOG653'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jianguo Ma', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': 'Jack Ma was a very dedicated, organized, and passionate teacher. He speaks softly, and sometimes, by the flickering light of the computer monitor, you might find yourself drifting off a bit. But I had him for GIS which is incredibly powerful software, and he made if fun and easy. I found him a very approachable teacher, and a likeable person. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-04-06T22:23:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jianguo Ma', 'slug': 'ma_jianguo'}, {'courses': ['PLSC400', 'PLSC789B', 'PLSC601', 'PLSC689A', 'PLSC689D', 'PLSC201', 'ENST407', 'PLSC203', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC608T', 'PLSC689B', 'PLSC460', 'PLSC411', 'PLSC201', 'PLSC411', 'PLSC201'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jianhua Zhu', 'course': 'BSCI442', 'review': "Best professor I have ever had. Exams were very easy, and he is a very friendly person. I failed the first exam that I did not study for at all, but got an A on the second exam. Labs were fair but were boring at times. Fortunately we had Candace Pritchard as our TA and she helped out everyone. \n\r\nLectures were boring, but I would take this class again since it wasn't difficult.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-01-20T14:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jianhua Zhu', 'course': 'PLSC400', 'review': "It's an very interesting class about plant physiology, especially plant environmental stress physiology. Professor tries to expose students with basic knowledge of plant molecular biology, he is a professional plant biologist,so he can explain everything clearly, in an easy-to-learn way, even if you don't have strong backgroung of plant biology. \r\nThere are student presentation(not hard, linked to real research work) and open final exam. Grading is very fair, and all students are happy with their grades(As).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-16T19:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jianhua Zhu', 'course': 'PLSC201', 'review': "A really sweet person. He wants to give you an A. Tests, quizzes, etc are really straight forward. If you show up to class and do extra work in lab (like help clean up), he's likely to give you Extra credit at some point. Pay more attention in class then I did (I wasn't good at this), try to go to every class ( I wasn't great at this), and do your readings (I didn't read so closely), and I have to imagine you'll get at least an A-. Labs are long and not thrilling, but that's labs, if this is class you'd like to take it he's a great guy, a solid teacher, and he'll grade nicely. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-23T15:14:01Z'}], 'name': 'Jianhua Zhu', 'slug': 'zhu_jianhua'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM353'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jiankun Guo', 'slug': 'guo_jiankun'}, {'courses': ['HLSA601', 'HLSA711', 'HLSA709', 'HLSA798', 'HLSA785', 'HLSA791', 'PUAF798G', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'HLSA712', 'EXST030', 'HLSA778', 'HLSA798', 'HLSA766', 'HLSA711', 'HLSA765', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA711', 'HLSA765'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jie Chen', 'slug': 'chen_jie'}, {'courses': ['BMGT353', 'BUMK706', 'BUSI778F', 'BUMK758M', 'BUSM710', 'BMGT858M', 'GEOG579B', 'BUMK758K', 'BUSI735', 'BMGT858P', 'BMGT353', 'BMGT858P', 'BUSI735', 'BUSM710', 'BMGT453'], 'average_rating': 4.5556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jie Zhang', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': "She is a really caring professor. The material is really straightforward, and the exams are fairly easy. She actually allows you up to 4 multiple choice questions where you can choose an answer and then back it up with your own reasoning, and you can either earn full or partial credit. DON'T NEED THE BOOK AT ALL. Her powerpoint slides tell you what you need for your exam. In fact, all the information you need in the study guide can be found on her slides. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-18T04:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jie Zhang', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': "For some reason, marketing classes bore me out of my mind. To put it frankly, over 90% of the material taught in marketing classes are common sense. I have no clue why this is even a major. This class was no different. Typical boring book and lectures that conveys common sense material packaged together with vocabulary words that aren't used by every day people to make it seem like a subject worth learning. Meh. I only took the class because the textbook was so cheap, but didn't open it once throughout the entire semester and still got an A. The only thing about the class that I would say was positive was that the professor was enthusiastic.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-19T21:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jie Zhang', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': "other reviews are spot on. great teacher, actually learns all her students' names. tries to make the class fun, reacts to student feedback, kinda boring lecture though.\n\r\nDon't bother buying the book.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-29T20:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jie Zhang', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': "Awesome professor. Loves to chat and chat, and chat some more. But she does make things easy so that anyone could pass.\n\r\nIn addition she gets flustered when you look at her so don't be alarmed if she turns beet red or starts to blabber about nonsense.\n\r\nChoose her 5/5 times over any other professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-14T18:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jie Zhang', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': "Zhang is AMAZING. She is by far one of the best professors I've had in my college career. She's smart, she knows her stuff, she's INCREDIBLY nice, and she tries so hard to make class fun and engaging; she really values student input from the bottom of her heart, and she tries to reach out to students in a very personal way. \n\r\nThe class itself is extremely easy. There's only 1 midterm exam, 3 Field Studies, a semester long group project, and the Final. The Midterm was very easy; I just reviewed the lecture notes and got an A+ on it. The field studies are really simple and you basically get credit just for doing them! All they consist of is 2-3 double spaced pages about some retail topic. She even says you don't need to worry about making the writing that great. The group project isn't bad at all; it's just a paper and a presentation. As long as you get a good group of people, you should be able to do it very easily. Plus you choose your topic and ours was really interesting, so I had fun doing it. Finally, the final isn't bad either. \n\r\nYou learn a lot from this class about retail concepts and I loved the material. I thought Zhang was very understanding and approachable, and she can explain any concept with ease! If you take 353, TAKE IT WITH ZHANG!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T23:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jie Zhang', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': 'Professor Zhang is extremely nice. The only problem is that she LOVES to talk, which makes lectures boring. if she didnt take attendance, class would be pointless.\r\nDO NOT BUY THE BOOK. literally nothing from the book is on the exams or discussed in class. im not sure why we have one. you just have to buy a small case packet for $10. the class isnt hard, it isnt exciting, but the teacher really wants you to do well.\r\nits basically two tests and one big project with 3 little projects graded 100% if you do them.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T00:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jie Zhang', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': 'Take her for this class. Not only is she a great professor but the kindest one I’ve ever had at UMD. Class is very manageable and would highly recommend ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-19T15:18:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Jie Zhang', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': 'This professor was the sweetest, most caring professor I have had. Course content is easy to follow, and the professor always ensures extra practice with the class as a whole if it appears as though the class is not fully understanding the content.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-28T17:51:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Jie Zhang', 'course': 'BMGT353', 'review': "The sweetest most caring professor I've ever had. The class material itself isn't the most interesting and classes can feel long, but the class overall is not bad at all. Attendance is taken though. There are two case studies(one individual and one with a group you can choose) a final project and paper, and a final exam. All were not difficult and Zhang is extremely responsive to email if you ever need help or have questions. No textbook needed for this class and if you ever need to miss class just send her an email and you'll be excused.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-11T05:23:33.115214Z'}], 'name': 'Jie Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_jie'}, {'courses': ['EDCP630', 'EDCP632', 'EDCP738', 'EDCP888C', 'EDCP789N', 'EDCP889I', 'EDCP635'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jill Jacobson', 'slug': 'jacobson_jill'}, {'courses': ['FREN203', 'FREN204', 'EXST030'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jillian Bruns', 'slug': 'bruns'}, {'courses': ['INFM603', 'INFM718G', 'INST767', 'CMSC828G', 'INST810', 'CMSC798'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jimmy Lin', 'slug': 'lin_jimmy'}, {'courses': ['ENME462', 'ENME808B', 'ENME605', 'ENME808R', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS497', 'ENME750', 'ENME751', 'ENME462', 'ENME605'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jin-Oh Hahn', 'slug': 'hahn_jin-oh'}, {'courses': ['EDHI607', 'EDHI681', 'EDHI750', 'EDHI488E', 'EDHI488A', 'EDHI682', 'EDHI488V', 'EDHI788V', 'EDHI488C', 'EDHI898', 'EDHI788F', 'EDHI750', 'EDHI788F', 'EDHI607', 'EDHI683', 'EDHI898', 'EDHI488V', 'EDHI788V', 'EDHI488V', 'EDHI788V', 'EDHI488F', 'EDHI750', 'EDHI788F'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jing Lin', 'course': 'CMSC723', 'review': "His slides are too verbal (and too many) and his grading is not at all transparent. You can expect any grade even if you do well. Teaches fairly well, but I felt he has superficial knowledge about the field. Tries to give intuitions, but couldn't give us indepth insight of topics.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-02-22T12:37:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jing Lin', 'slug': 'lin_jing'}, {'courses': ['EPIB300', 'EPIB652', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB315', 'HLTH300', 'HLTH300H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jing Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_jing'}, {'courses': ['FMSC498D', 'FMSC111', 'FMSC789'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jinhee Kim', 'course': 'FMSC111', 'review': "Honestly, she doesn't really do much as a professor. But, for a one credit finance class, it was harder than I expected. The quizzes and tests were somewhat easy (they're all online and timed) and the one project was a lot of work, but overall this class is manageable. However, while this class is a joke, it's harder than other one credit classes. I would rate the difficulty of FMSC111 as a 3/5, because it's harder than a one credit class should be, but you'll get an A if you do all the quizzes, exams, papers, and discussion board posts while also following the rubric. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-01-29T14:40:12Z'}], 'name': 'Jinhee Kim', 'slug': 'kim_jinhee'}, {'courses': ['BIOM688E', 'BIOM603', 'ANSC627', 'BIOM688A', 'BIOM602', 'ANSC327', 'BIOM603', 'BIOM688E', 'ANSC327', 'BIOM688E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jiuzhou Song', 'slug': 'song_jiuzhou'}, {'courses': ['AMST386', 'AMST450', 'AMST498B', 'AMST428E', 'AMST428F', 'AMST428G', 'AMST628A', 'AMST628F', 'AMST628G', 'AMST628I'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jo Paoletti', 'course': 'AMST498B', 'review': "Jo Jo Jo...well...She's very passionate about HER topic. lol. This class, Fashion and Consumer Culture was SOOO NOT what i expected. We talked about everything, not that much fashion and it always kept me wondering exactly what the premise of the class was? Moreover, the class had a midterm and a final paper. The midterm was about the final paper which caught me ALL of guard because the test was in October and the paper wasn't due til the final day of class? Back to Jo though: She teaches this class like an english class and it can get really confusing. She's a nice lady, but i don't think she's all that great of a professor. Would I take a class with her again...probably not. But i would say to you don't knock her til you try her. lol", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '??', 'created': '2012-01-05T14:19:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jo Paoletti', 'slug': 'paoletti'}, {'courses': ['EDCI618', 'EDCI691', 'EDCI643', 'EDCI689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jo Smallwood', 'slug': 'smallwood'}, {'courses': ['KNES497', 'KNES157O', 'KNES332', 'KNES201', 'KNES155N', 'KNES155O', 'KNES201U', 'KNES140O', 'KNES140R', 'KNES140V', 'KNES332H', 'KNES200', 'EXST030', 'KNES131Z', 'KNES389P', 'KNES161N', 'KNES161N', 'KNES332', 'KNES332H', 'KNES157N', 'KNES161N', 'KNES332', 'KNES332H', 'KNES157N', 'KNES161N', 'KNES332', 'KNES332H', 'KNES157N', 'KNES161N', 'KNES332', 'KNES332H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jo Zimmerman', 'course': 'KNES157N', 'review': "The 157N class for weightlifting is fairly new but pretty straight forward and simple. Should be an easy A as long as you show up on time workout and don't leave early. Attendance is mandatory for points. The class block is a little too long but honestly it's great to get a lift session in the private weight room in SPH without the clutter of Eppley. The instructor has a lot of insight and passion so she'll give and teach you cues if you ask. She even works with you if you're recovering from an injury. Some people don't bide well with her enthusiasm because she chats a little long but I'd prefer someone who is friendly and chatty than rude and snappy! Would recommend over most activity courses!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T16:18:00.113952Z'}], 'name': 'Jo Zimmerman', 'slug': 'zimmerman_jo'}, {'courses': ['INAG110'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jo Ellen Barnhart', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "What you came to read: \r\nHer class is really easy and straightforward. Easy grader. Easy A. Low workload. Speeches not difficult but still need preparation. Important participation points for going to classes.\r\n\r\nWhat you should also know:\r\nDr. Barnhart is one of the kindest and genuine professors I've ever had. She really creates a warm and friendly atmosphere in her class which makes it enjoyable to go to. Classes are actually fun, interesting, and enjoyable. Her class doesn't make you want to kill yourself like many other classes. One of the best professors I've ever had and highly highly highly recommend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-08T06:49:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Jo Ellen Barnhart', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Probably the easiest A ever. The speeches are straightforward, even if you have difficulties public speaking she cares about you and does not grade harshly. As long as you try your best you will get an A on the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-13T16:03:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Jo Ellen Barnhart', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'What a lovely person. Possibly the nicest professor I have met on this campus. One of the only Gen-Eds I have taken where I felt that I actually learned a lot and was able to get an easy A. Barnhart is an angel; if you get the opportunity definitely take her class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-27T21:20:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Jo Ellen Barnhart', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'MUST TAKE IT WITH HER! She has become my favorite teacher and she is absolutely amazing, she is an angel. There are really less professors who would genuinely care about you and would want you to do well. She is very lenient, I messed up one of my speeches and had anxiety, she let me retake my speech she is that nice. I am so glad i got take it with her. \r\nAlso go to her Office Hours just to talk, she is my go to person to talk to whenever I feel low. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-02T13:46:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Jo Ellen Barnhart', 'course': None, 'review': 'She is such an awesome person. Very passionate about this class, and she really cares about her students. However, she is a little bit particular when it comes to presenting, but she does that so her students can learn. \r\nOverall, there are 4 speeches and a few assignments to do. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-04-16T00:23:10Z'}], 'name': 'Jo Ellen Barnhart', 'slug': 'barnhart'}, {'courses': ['GREK388N', 'UNIV349', 'UNIV389J', 'UNIV389K', 'FGSM398', 'UNIV399', 'GREK415', 'GREK388', 'GREK604', 'HNUH398P', 'FGSM398', 'UNIV389J', 'UNIV399', 'HNUH398P', 'FGSM398', 'HNUH398P', 'UNIV389J', 'UNIV399', 'FGSM398', 'HNUH398P', 'UNIV389J', 'UNIV389K', 'UNIV399', 'UNIV389J', 'UNIV389J', 'FGSM398', 'HNUH398P', 'UNIV389J', 'UNIV399'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joan Burton', 'course': None, 'review': 'Joan is one of the most energetic people I have ever met. She has such a big desire to help students and it rubs off on everyone she comes in contact with on a daily basis. She helped me with interview preparation and any questions I had about the Federal application process, etc. She always responds as quick as she can and has a lot of wisdom to share. Reach out to her and take advantage of the resources she has available.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-30T15:03:00Z'}], 'name': 'Joan Burton', 'slug': 'burton_joan'}, {'courses': ['SOCY411', 'SOCY611', 'SOCY498D', 'SOCY635', 'SOCY413', 'SOCY201', 'SOCY335', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY298C', 'SOCY411', 'SOCY626'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joan Kahn', 'course': 'SOCY335', 'review': "Kahn is a very nice person, and is very passionate about the sociology of health and illness. There are some papers in this class, you can ask her to review your drafts and she'll give useful feedback. Her transition to online teaching this semester was the best out of all my classes. I highly recommend her class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-21T23:43:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Joan Kahn', 'course': 'SOCY335', 'review': 'dont do it its not worth the time the money or the constant fear of an A- theres reflection assignments every week, 2 short papers worth 35% of ur grade, and also multiple videos to watch and articles that you gotta know to do the quizzes. dont not for the DSSP just dont', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-14T16:49:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Joan Kahn', 'course': 'SOCY335', 'review': 'The class provides super interesting information and you will learn a lot! It really does showcase the disparities in healthcare in the US! HOWEVER, the class is NOT worth it. There are reflections due every Wednesday that require HOURS of intense reading and note taking for a 10/10 grade, and quizzes bi-weekly that are extremely weird and nuanced for no reason. You will be constantly worried about the assignments. The methodology of grading is so subjective, and differs with each student. The mandatory weekly lecture is horrifically useless, the professor literally talks and tries to get a medium/ large sized lecture to engage and discuss... not worth it, but great information learned this semester. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-12T20:46:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Joan Kahn', 'course': 'SOCY335', 'review': 'the class is interesting but it is not worth it for the time and energy you will put into this class only to be disappointed by the unclear grading rubrics. you spend a lot of time on the weekly graded assignments but they are only worth 10 points each week and the quizzes are super-specific and worth a lot more points but are very confusing. if you care about your gpa, it is not worth it. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T23:35:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Joan Kahn', 'course': 'SOCY335', 'review': 'she is nice but the quizzes were extremely confusing and unfair', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-07T21:18:49.925878Z'}], 'name': 'Joan Kahn', 'slug': 'kahn_joan'}, {'courses': ['EDSP423', 'EDSP694', 'EDSP422', 'EDSP211', 'EDSP210', 'EDSP321', 'EDSP624', 'EDSP627', 'EDSP860', 'EDSP888A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joan Lieber', 'slug': 'lieber'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joan Mooney', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE HER. I cannot stress this enough. Drop english completely and take it next following semester if you have to. This women is insane. I received a B+ on an in-class writing assignment, where we had to write a set of instructions for people who have never used a shower before, because I did not write "warning: shower may be slippery!" She did not have an issue with anything else in my paper...that was her only comment.\n\r\nYou may be thinking "oh pshh, I did well in AP English in high school, I\'m not worried." I got As in AP english and a 780 on my SATs. This woman does not believe in giving out As. When asked what it takes to get an A, she will tell you that you need to go above and beyond what she puts in the rubrics. Too bad the rubrics are incredibly vague and very unhelpful. You can lose a letter grade for not including something that she never told you to include. \n\r\nIf you do end up taking her, whenever you go to office hours to ask for help, write down everything that she says. I once went in and she told me not to worry about the page length. I lost points on the final assignment because my page length was off. She forgets everything that she tells you.\n\r\nThe final semester project is not a group project in her class Albeit, it is a shorter project than you have to do in other classes...but it is just as much work. \n\r\nFOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS. She gives out way too much work and you will get lower grades than you deserve. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-13T17:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joan Mooney', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': '\r\nAvoid this instructor at all costs. She literally has NO teaching qualifications, and the major part of her career consists of writing articles for the auto industry. There are many assignments, including 2 presentations, 3 memos, an individual final project, and lots of little assignments in between. Oh and you have to attend every class because she keeps track of attendance and participation (10% of you final grade). Expect harsh grading, she will knock you a 1-2 letter grades down for "poor formatting" on an IN-CLASS writing assignment, despite having excellent content. Comments on returned assignments are not helpful, leading you to make the same mistakes again. Sometimes she just tells you to visit the writing center, instead of providing useful advice on how to improve your writing. \r\nAs you can see by her stats, Mooney believes that everyone should get a B, and doesn\'t explain how to get an A. With no teaching ability whatsoever, she stands at the front of the class and informs you of upcoming assignments for 50 minutes. Once in a while, there is assigned reading, in-class writing assignments, or poorly explained grammar exercises. For some reason, she gives out a ton of paperwork in addition to posting assignments on elms. Towards the end of the semester, there are a LOT of due dates one after another, so it becomes very difficult to keep up with the work. More than half of your grade is determined in the last ~4 weeks, with 3 drafts for your final project, an oral presentation and 2 memos.\r\nOverall, this class was way too much work. And I definitely have not improved my writing skills at all.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-05-22T22:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joan Mooney', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Avoid this professor. You will be doing more work in this professional writing course than in the other ones for the same grade. This class has a lot of busywork. It is very monotonous. Do yourself a favor and find another professor so that you can focus on the classes that actually matter.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-02T21:58:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Joan Mooney', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "I would not recommend taking this class if this is your instructor. You will be completing a lot of unnecessary work in a fast-paced manner and it is incredibly hard to keep up, especially during the last three weeks of class. In addition to the final project, you must complete multiple drafts beforehand that will significantly impact the grade you receive on the final project if the drafts are not completed in the way that she wants. The rubrics for these drafts are not very clear, and the only thing that really helped me were the examples that she provided of final drafts that were completed by previous students. Not to mention, she takes points off of assignments for absurd reasons even if you do follow exactly what is written in the incredibly vague rubrics that she provides, if you can even call it that. The lectures do not feel meaningful at all. You'll likely spend 50 minutes of your time listening to what assignments are due that week, which is something that is quite clearly stated on the syllabus. Please do yourself a favor and find another professor for this class, otherwise you will without a doubt be stressed in trying to keep up with the assignments while completing them in the manner that she wants. It is not worth it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-12T01:30:55.515812Z'}], 'name': 'Joan Mooney', 'slug': 'mooney'}, {'courses': ['STAT401', 'STAT750', 'STAT770', 'STAT818L', 'STAT420', 'STAT400', 'STAT798R', 'SURV420', 'STAT700', 'STAT701', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'STAT401', 'STAT702', 'STAT401', 'STAT818P', 'STAT420', 'STAT700'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joan Ren', 'slug': 'ren_joan'}, {'courses': ['ENSP102', 'ENSP330', 'ENSP400', 'ENSP340', 'ENSP342', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS396', 'ENSP399E', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENSP370', 'ENSP330', 'ENSP330', 'ENSP400', 'ENSP102', 'ENSP330', 'ENSP370', 'ENSP330', 'ENSP400'], 'average_rating': 4.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP400', 'review': "Easy, sort of a pushover. Very interested in policy, obviously. Her tests are a breeze. Values participation and attendance, but it won't make or break your grade. Take advantage of extra credit if you want an A+, I guess. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-19T13:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP102', 'review': "I've had Dr. Goger for Ensp102, and capstone, and she's great. She makes everything interesting, gets the class to participate, and you really learn. In her policy class, she did a great job of incorporating very current news in environmental science. I wish I could fit her environmental law class into my schedule as well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-10-25T12:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP102', 'review': 'Awesome teacher. She is a really nice professor who knows what she is talking about. The course is not very challenging if you go to lecture. There are a few easy homework assignments and a research paper and also the opportunity for extra credit. Take this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-19T15:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP330', 'review': "Professor goger is a fantastic teacher who really cares about policy and law. She's very fair about what she expects and while her tests are a lot of writing, if you show up to class and actually do the work and pay attention, you should do well. One of my favorite teachers and courses. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-03-28T15:59:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP400', 'review': 'Goger is my inspiration for joining ENSP and teaches in a way where law is actually fascinating. She is super approachable, exams in ENSP330/ENSP102 are fair, and has clear expectations for all of her courses (including ENSP400). ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-11T22:52:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP102', 'review': 'Professor Goger was a great professor for environmental policy, even during online lectures. She was constantly engaging with the class by asking questions, doing polls, and asking for our opinions on current events relating to environmental policy and politics. I would say you definitely need to pay attention to everything as her tests are application-based. The memo assignment that stretches throughout the semester is simple enough as long as you keep up with the work. She was very understanding of how we felt about being online the entire semester and managed to make the class seem interesting. Overall, she’s a great professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-17T01:04:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP102', 'review': 'Goger is a great professor. She is always keeping the class engaged with the class. She encourages discussion during lecture (so much that we usually had to rush to finish the rest of the lecture) and updated her slides as news came out. I wasn’t 100% I wanted to be an ENSP major before this class, but Goger’s interest in the materials convinced me to stay an ENSP major. I’m excited to take her 330 class in a couple of years :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-17T16:12:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP102', 'review': "LOVE PROFESSOR GOGER! Super interesting class and she is so sweet. TA's are also really helpful and the tests are easy if you go to the review sessions and take notes. Take this class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-28T01:30:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP102', 'review': 'Knows her stuff, always willing to help', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-15T01:22:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Joanna Goger', 'course': 'ENSP102', 'review': "Professor Goger's ENSP102 is very easy to do and does not expect much of you. It is so nice to have a light class. She is a very nice professor and is very fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-26T23:33:17.403948Z'}], 'name': 'Joanna Goger', 'slug': 'goger'}, {'courses': ['CPMS101', 'CPMS230', 'CPMS240'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joanna Margueritte Nurmis', 'slug': 'nurmis'}, {'courses': ['KNES497', 'KNES282', 'KNES689T', 'KNES405', 'EXST030', 'KNES282', 'KNES497', 'KNES405H', 'SPHL399', 'KNES282', 'KNES405', 'KNES405H', 'KNES497', 'KNES282', 'KNES405', 'KNES405H', 'SPHL399', 'KNES282', 'KNES405', 'KNES405H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joanne Klossner', 'course': 'KNES405', 'review': "KNES405 is hard and will absolutely require studying for the 4-5 oral practicals. The practicals are split between the five units based on body section, you draw two random and demonstrate your ability to find origin, insertion, nerve innervation and actions it does as well as a muscle test on a partner in 10 mins. If you're a PA, PT, Nursing or Pre-med major, ect. I would highly recommend this class, but be prepared to memorize a lot! Written exams are online and at home with lockdown. Dr. Plotkins and Dr. Klossner teach this class together and they are both awesome. They really want you to learn and understand the material and can be flexible in ensuring you succeed. You only fail this class if you don't show up or continuously fail to study for OPs. Grading is fair and the TA (shoutout Sammy!) we had this semester really gave his all in ensuring the written papers (one group and one short individual) and exam prep were helpful! As hard as I found it to be at times I really do value this course and how passionate the entire teaching team was. Students claim having Dr. P was easier for the practicals but I believe both professors expressed fairness in grading and flexibility so don't be shy to do an OP with Dr. Klossner.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-13T16:29:43.948044Z'}], 'name': 'Joanne Klossner', 'slug': 'klossner'}, {'courses': ['ENCE605', 'ENCE665', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE665', 'ENCE665', 'ENCE665'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jocelyn Davis', 'slug': 'davis_jocelyn'}, {'courses': ['MATH220', 'MATH734', 'MATH130', 'MATH432', 'MATH131', 'MATH402', 'MATH730', 'MATH406', 'MATH136'], 'average_rating': 2.4211, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "This man is SOOOOO nice! I wish he was my grandpa! With that being said he isn't the best lecturer. His lectures are pretty boring and no one shows up but his exams are fair. His final however was exceptionally hard", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-19T01:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "I loved this class! So easy! A lot of people will tell you he is horrible at lecturing in this class, and they are correct, but he also doesn't use clickers which means that you literally don't have to show up to lecture unless there is a test. His practice exams look exactly like the actual exam and you can easily learn all the material from the textbook. It saves your time, gets you a good grade, and you can sleep in. I went to this lecture maybe 5 times all semester and I have a 95% going into the final. Just make sure to show up to all your discussions and do the practice problems in the textbook! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-14T22:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Very nice teacher and always willing to answer questions, but his teaching style was all over the place. Explained every single concept in a way that went way over everyone's heads. He had a habit of naming the actual concept/formula AFTER five minutes of explaining it and giving examples, which made everything all the more confusing. Horrible handwriting, tons of mistakes and backtracking, lectures were a complete waste of time and no one went (you really don't have to, it makes no difference).\n\r\nThat being said, it wasn't that hard to pull an A - I read the textbook but I learned from the TAs (who were AMAZING). The TAs knew no one went to lecture so they took time at the beginning of every discussion section to go over exactly what you needed to know in a way that was a million times clearer than Cohen's lectures. The TAs also held review sessions right before each test that were super helpful.\n\r\nCohen gives very reasonable/straightforward tests, there wasn't anything tricky about them. As long as you're willing to learn from the textbook and TAs, you'll be okay. If you're looking for good lecturing, take someone else.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-22T01:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': 'This professor is a very nice man, but one of the WORST teachers I have had in my entire life. His lectures are all over the place and make no sense what so ever. He makes the simplest topic extremely complex and confusing. It doesnt help that he makes numerous mistakes on the board when doing a problem. I honestly can say I have no idea whether he just made a mistake on the board or just being confusing as usual. He LOVES to use the quadratic formula on exams which is kinda annoying', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-19T11:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': 'Mr. Cohen is an awful math teacher. Overall, I feel as though his class does not help anyone who has not taken calculus before. It is extremely unorganized and will spend the majority of the class on material that you will never need to know. I did well because I have taken Calc before and went to every discussion. When I went to lecture though I found myself in the front row not paying attention or learning a weird way of doing things that I have never learned before and overall just having me leave very confused. Take someone else! I do not have a problem with his personality but TAKE SOMEONE ELSE!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-12T02:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Basically, the only way you'll survive this course with a decent grade is if you're proficient at learning from a textbook or if you've already taken a Calculus class in high school. I took up to Calc 2 in high school, so this was all just review for me. \r\nHis lectures are unorganized. No one can follow them or even read his hand-writing. He tends to do work on the board and thinks aloud as he does it, which just serves to confuse everyone even more. His tests are somewhat unreasonable, but they are doable; the ones he has posted in Test Bank are excellent references because it's basically the same questions with a few minor changes. His T.A. is awesome though, and really helps to clarify everything. \r\nHe really is a nice guy, and brilliant; he's just not suited for teaching people.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-01T12:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH402', 'review': "I tend to look the other way when I see negative reviews on a prof., but the negative response for Cohen is accurate. He is a nice guy, cares for his students, and will help in office hours, but that is where the positive comments stop. Homeworks are on par with what you expect from 400 level courses, challenging and balanced. His exams are insane. We just got back exam one and the average is probably in the 30s (10-15% of the class got above a 60). He gives you a makeup problems worth another 20-25 points (also really difficult), but this would still leave test averages about 20 points south (best case) of where they should be. His writing is illegible and he moves too fast. I write everything he does, but he will go off to a different topic on another part of the board and screw up my notes. I look back at everything I noted on and it usually makes little to no sense.\n\r\nThe book is your teacher.\n\r\nI won't know how to study for the next test. Exam 1 was way off of test bank exams for this class (could do those fairly easily). Take someone else if you can.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-10-06T13:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "It is difficult to describe why Dr. Cohen is such a horrible math professor. He goes really really fast and skips tons and tons of steps to the point where he becomes incomprehensible. To make matters worse, his handwriting is awful. He is unprepared for lectures. Several times he has thrown terms into his lectures that we'd never heard of before, and then two classes later he would explain what they are.\n\r\nI strongly recommend not taking Cohen. Math403 has been the most challenging course I have taken as an undergraduate, and he makes it infinitely more difficult. I am graduating with Latin honors, so I am not dumb, and I have dealt with some pretty awful professors, but this guy is the absolute worst. I guarantee you will regret taking him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-11T02:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "Although he's a really nice guy and very amiable, he's not a very good math professor. He clearly cares about his students and tries hard to address questions and concerns, but he seemed to never be able to find ways to clearly explain concepts in the class. He simply walks through proof after esoteric proof, then assigns homework which the student is forced to figure out on their own. Overall, I would recommend taking any other professor for a math class if you have the option.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2010-05-20T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "He's a pretty nice guy, definitely approachable, and fairly understanding when it comes to extensions. HOWEVER, to be perfectly honest, he is not a good teacher. He rushes through proofs and skips a lot of steps, he rushes through examples and (once again) skips a lot of steps, and all in all, he simply doesn't explain what he's doing. He pretty much takes his lectures directly from the book, and doesn't know how to break things down into a more comprehensible format. If you ask him to explain something, he will stop and try to explain, but he usually just says the same thing he did before, meaning that asking him for help is ultimately not very useful. The exams are fine but you come out of the class feeling more like you memorized a bunch of tricks and rules rather than actually learning number theory well. Homework is useful and usually similar to the questions on the exam. \r\nIf you REALLY want to learn number theory, I would recommend taking the class with someone else. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-19T15:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "He's not a bad guy. In fact, if you can't get your homework in on-time, you can you email him for an extension. However, he is a crappy teacher. He does the examples that are found in the book. These examples are only helpful for a couple problems, then you get stuck. He doesn't give any insight or information other than the book. He brings the book to class, and reads it to you.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2010-02-13T21:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Cohen was a horrible teacher. He never came to lecture with a set lesson plan and changed weights and eliminated grade-boosters during the semester.\n\r\nHis tests and quizzes tested on things that you had never seen in class, but class was useless and you couldn't follow any of his work.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-04-29T12:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'Dr. Cohen is not that bad, but for me, 403 was a challenging course. The exams were hard because you had to recall a lot of the theorems from chapters that might not have been covered recently. Going to the math dept. tutor, Dr. Bhatia, helped a lot. If you do take this class, make sure you are comfortable with proofs and algebraic concepts in general.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-14T19:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'Hard to follow during the first half of the course. His lectures follow the course of the text but he will take the time in class to explain any confusions you have. Second half was better as you picked up enough of the number theory background to follow some of the proofs.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-28T22:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Cohen was one of the worst teachers I have ever had. His lectures didn't make sense, his tests were overly confusing and difficult, he constantly changed the way he weighted stuff (the weight of the final increased by like 10% over the course of the semester), and we didn't get through a lot of the material. It was much more useful to skip class and read the book then to go to his class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-24T18:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'The class was pretty easy, the test content was always well covered in class/homework, and he kept the lectures somewhat entertaining.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-08-25T16:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'MATH406 with Prof. Cohen is the only course I\'ve ever been in where you can burst out loud "I have no idea what\'s going on!" and everything will be explained to you again patiently. In contrast to the other reviews, I find his lectures very clear. If you\'re really on your stuff with math you will do fine with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-04-23T04:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'class was easy in the beginning but got harder in the end. if you have him, i would recommend reading the book and going to discussion. the TA was better at teaching than him. exams are a little difficult and take more effort in studying. some questions on the final are tricky and require some thinking.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-08T02:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Cohen', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'This is very theoretical and challenging course. It is mostly challenging because Professor Cohen does a poor job explaining concepts. Even if you ask him a question the response is still pretty unclear. \n\r\nI started off terribly in this class. Fortunately somewhere in the middle it all clicked and made sense but this professor is definitely not recommended. However the concepts in math403 are actually not complicated once you put the effort into it. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-05T01:42:00Z'}], 'name': 'Joel Cohen', 'slug': 'cohen_joel'}, {'courses': ['GVPT459D', 'GVPT459L', 'GVPT887', 'GVPT888C'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joel Simmons', 'course': 'GVPT459D', 'review': "I try to be objective with my evaluations of classes but I hated this class. \n\r\nI'm not an econ person, it's been like 2 years since I've taken macro or micro, this class is basically econ all over again with a little political science thrown in. BE WARE. The class description said NOTHING about this and by the time I figured this out, there was nothing I could do to change my schedule.\n\r\nIt's 3 hours long which can be excruciating because the room they used for this class was unbearably hot and 3 hours for an econ class is too long. He does let the class out like 20-30 min early most days, which is nice because my body is usually numb from those stupid desks by then and so is my mind from all the econ.\n\r\nJoel is kind of erratic in his manner of speaking and it takes time to get used to his bouncing around and talking way too fast. Not saying it's impossible, it's just frustrating when you're trying to follow what the fresh hell is going on. \n\r\nThere's 2-4 LONG readings for each class period and 4 surprise reading quizzes which are graded not for effort or showing up but for content, so if you did you reading early in the week, you better refresh your memory or do all the reading on the weekend before the class. \n\r\nIf you're REALLY into conflict resolution and international development, I guess you could handle this class, I thought I was interested in this subject too, but this perspective on it just wasn't what I expected.\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-14T12:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joel Simmons', 'course': 'GVPT459D', 'review': "Prof Simmons keeps things interesting even in a class that goes for almost 3 hours. He's very engaging and goes out of his way to make the material more accessible. The class itself is more focused on economic theory than it would initially seem though. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-01-08T13:47:00Z'}], 'name': 'Joel Simmons', 'slug': 'simmons_joel'}, {'courses': ['BSCI279P', 'BSCI189I', 'CPSP219L', 'BSCI348T', 'EXST155', 'BSCI150', 'BSCI150', 'CLFS609L', 'BSCI338V'], 'average_rating': 4.1333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI189I', 'review': "I'm currently taking this course and it is a total disappointment. Dr. Presson seems like a really cool person, but she cannot really teach the class. In the course you are mainly writing and that's it. She makes you write long papers for no reason and the exams are written too. Then you have irrelevant in-class assignments that don't help you learn. Dr. Presson could really change the way she teaches because due to the fact we had to write a big ass paper I didn't learn a thing from the class and neither got anything from the paper. So, if you want to take this class do know that 24/7 you are writing not learning.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-11-09T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI189I', 'review': "I love Dr. Presson. She lectures with such emotion and you can truly tell that she's so into whats she's lecturing about. There were clicker questions but she took in consideration that most people wouldn't come to class all the time and said we only had to earn 50 points of clicker questions when there were 2/3 every day worth 4 points. There was a section of three weeks that only covered biology and she said that if you had background in biology already, coming to class would not be necessary for those 3 weeks. Her TAs are really nice and the labs are really cool. She gives 30 points worth of extra credit and makes the final optional to replace one of the exams that you didn't do well on. I loved this class and would recommend it to anyone! The only down fall of the class is it's hard to get in.. But once you're in it's an easy A!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-04-11T13:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI189I', 'review': 'Great teacher. Great class. Interesting subjects. Very willing to help students. Numerous opportunities to do well in the class. Goes over material constantly to make sure everyone gets it. There is a lot of busy work though, so be prepared. It is not challenging though, so if you want an A, you can get it. It is not important to attend class, but it does reinforce the material. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-21T19:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI189I', 'review': "Presson is a condescending buffoon. She knows so little about writing (she cannot spell for her life and laughed at a student when the student mentioned MLA format) and humanities subjects but continually yells at her class about how stupid they are. Her lectures are less than pointless. She is so pompous it is frightening. Her exams test on things she has barely mentioned in class and you can write nearly a perfect essay exam and still get a D because you didn't fill the blue book. DO NOT TAKE ANY CLASS FROM HER. EVER.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-09T17:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI103', 'review': "Great professor! Very knowledgeable of the subject, take this if you need a lab course. Exams were pretty easy. Just make sure you do the review guides. Book kind of helped, but you don't really need it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-08T19:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI103', 'review': "This class is literally the most interesting and easiest lab class out there. Besides the class, Professor Presson is extremely knowledgeable and makes Bio really fun to learn. The best way to learn and study for this class is actually go to class. I can't say this better than anyone else but TAKE NOTES!!! if you wanna do good in this class. Yes, her powerpoints are on elms but she always teaches something extra which most likely is on the exams. \n\r\nIf I can remember this well, there were 2 big exams, 2 short exams throughout the semester. And the final was optional. One big project that you have to present during your lab with a 6-8 pages research paper on it. I mean come on now. It is 4 credits. Overall, amazing professor and an amazing class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T02:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI103', 'review': 'This is the easiest boi class ever!\n\r\nShe gives wordlists guides for all the test and quizes.\r\nThis makes it 120% easier because it tells you what to study.\n\r\nLectures are interesting. Some people thought it was boring, but i thought it was just fine and i HATE bio.\n\r\nshe gives extra credit and class reflections are easssyy points. There are alot of ways to earn points. Its not just a class with 3 exams and a paper. \n\r\nI am a 2.0 student. And I have a B in her class.\n\r\nAnd yeah shes a great teacher.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-11-17T22:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI103', 'review': 'Best choice for the lab science if you are a non science major! Dr. Presson is helpful, and gives a bunch of extra credit. Take this class!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-19T20:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI189I', 'review': 'Took this class this past semester, was very writing intensive and somewhat difficult because she changed the course, would not recommend', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-04-06T23:25:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI189I', 'review': "Very nice professor and helpful. Easy to get an A as long as any effort is put in. No -'s in her grading so 90% = A. 3 exams and an optional final exam to replace worst exam grade. All exams are written responses. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T07:37:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI189I', 'review': "Dr. Presson is really kind and considerate. The class online was not bad and she pushed back deadlines if we asked which was really nice. The exams for the class are all questions that you need like 5+ sentences for each and get progressively harder and you have to write a 10 page paper about your ancestry so keep that in mind if you don't like writing. The labs seemed like they would be really cool in person but online they are kind of boring.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-01T00:30:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Presson is a very kind teacher and often pushed back deadlines for assignments to give students enough time. The class itself is also very informative and positively changed how I think about race. She gives a lot of extra credit opportunities and many assignments are graded for completion. Sometimes class is a bit boring but overall interesting. The TAs are also very helpful and knowledgable about the class. This class does fill up fast so if you want to register do so quickly. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-24T20:11:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI150', 'review': "I'm in this class right now. I expect an A; Dr. Presson is great. She will talk to you. She will email you back. She truly cares. I would take this class. It's a nice intro to bio I'm taking before I take 170 and so on to see if it's meant for me. Oh, also, the TAs are excellent; overall, this is a great class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-18T21:34:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI150', 'review': 'Was a little scared taking this class because of some of the bad reviews, but this class is one of the best geneds you can take. The exams are open note, and you were also allowed to use her lecture slides. There are only two writing assignments: a 3 page paraphrasing paper where you summarize an article and an 8 page paper on your own ancestry. Dr. Presson is very kind to her students, and is also a very flexible grader. Testudo says labs are 3 hours, but never went over 2. Overall, great class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T01:59:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Joelle Presson', 'course': 'BSCI150', 'review': "Pretty straightforward class. The exams are in person, but it's also open-note and on your computer. There are two writing assignments that are pretty doable. The second writing assignment is divided into three parts, the first draft, the final draft, and the presentation. I would recommend this gen-ed for anyone. This fulfills the DVUP, SCIS, and DSSP or DSNL (Your Choice). Dr. Presson and her TAs give out constructive feedback for each writing assignment. They are also very understanding, especially during the pandemic. Just try not to be late to labs.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-16T04:48:30Z'}], 'name': 'Joelle Presson', 'slug': 'presson'}, {'courses': ['ENME392', 'ENME808B', 'ENAE202', 'ENME202', 'ENME745', 'ENME483', 'ENME656', 'ENME489J', 'ENME489M', 'ENME417', 'ENME745', 'ENME489M', 'ENES601', 'ENME417', 'ENME745'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Johan Larsson', 'course': 'ENME202', 'review': 'Very fun to listen to even though what he was talking about was mundane as hell. He will answer any questions you ask of him directly and he even gives the option of regrading. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-15T20:54:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Johan Larsson', 'course': 'ENME202', 'review': 'Larsson was a pretty good teacher. Although the material gets kinda crammed throughout the last few weeks of class, if you do the homeworks without getting help unless you absolutely need it and you try in studios, you should get an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-22T21:33:36Z'}], 'name': 'Johan Larsson', 'slug': 'larsson'}, {'courses': ['MEES608T', 'MEES626', 'MEES698C', 'MEES698M', 'MEES698M', 'MEES698M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Johan Schijf', 'slug': 'schijf'}, {'courses': ['GVPT831', 'BSST332', 'GVPT100', 'GVPT888T', 'GVPT301', 'BSST399T', 'GVPT201', 'GVPT888I', 'GVPT359I', 'GVPT201', 'GVPT729B', 'GVPT201', 'GVPT729B', 'GVPT888I'], 'average_rating': 2.5882, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "She is not a good professor. The course is not a good course. The whole thing is a hell of a problem. Because of this course, I wasn't able to graduate and my life is in ruins. Now I'm in debt and no degree. The course is statistics, not politics. If you don't get a good grade, you will be kicked out of the major. I finished all my coursework for the degree except this one, but now I'm broke and I can't take it for a third time and I'm considering claiming bankruptcy or going off the grid. All because of this class and how hard she takes it. She has ruined my life. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-04-15T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "This class is so confusing. I don't even know why it related to government. The graphs are labeled with government terms but besides that it is purely a statistics course...which sucked. \r\nThere was no problem with Birnir but I had a difficult time in the class understanding how to use the software and understanding it. \r\nMy suggestion is to get along with the TA and they can help you out. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-08-29T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "This GVPT 100 class is an easy A, as long as you have the right TA. My friend received 100% on the second midterm without showing up to 8 weeks of lecture after a study session with my TA. The final paper is a pain, mostly because it's like nothing you've ever done before and it is very open-ended. Birnir herself is very nice, and attempts to be engaging, but her subject is often boring so I showed up to about half the lectures.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-23T15:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "This class was so boring. I have taken STAT 100 and this GVPT (stat based) class was awful. Professor Birnir didn't explain the material well. She focused mainly on her own studies and projects. The lectures were useless and my TA admitted to my section that she grades us harshly because she thinks we didn't like her. I didn't learn anything in this class. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-12T13:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "This class is on statistics. It's all statistics. I didn't learn anything about government other than the statistics with research study. You'll get an A if you study, because the test are to the point, but it is a statistics class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-02T13:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "It's upsetting that Birnir gets such a bad wrap for teaching GVPT100. The decision to make 100 a statistics based class is ultimately upon the department. Their rationale is that graduate work in government is heavily based in statistics, so undergrads need better training in that area. She's a great teacher and a very nice person. Don't hate the player hate the game. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-08-27T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': None, 'review': "Johanna was super nice and cool. What a lot of people don't understand is that GVPT is all about statistics and that is what GVPT100 is supposed to be about but they turned it into some useless theory class that you won't ever apply. Stat is 100% necessary for any government major and as a senior who hasn't learned it, I wish I had someone like Johanna who cared enough and enough foresight to teach it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-01T15:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'NEVER TAKE BIRNIR IF YOU ARE GOV MAJOR OR JUST LOOKING FOR AN EASY CORE. THIS CLASS IS RIDICULOUS AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOVERNMENT. \n\r\nwe did graduate level work, there was no need for this class for the major. take KOULISH if you can. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-18T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "WARNING: THIS IS NOT A GOVERNMENT CLASS!!!\n\r\nWe did not learn a single thing about american government, at all. Instead we learned how to analyze political data by running various tests and comparisons. When we should have been learning about Hobbes and Locke, we were learning how to calculate standard deviation of z-scores, how to identify skewness, and the difference between nominal, ordinal, and interval variables (this we not even the half of it). My suggestion to everyone, do not take this class unless you are interested in this form a politics or you have no other choice. \n\r\nIf you do end up taking this class, here is what to expect:\r\nVery boring and uninteresting lectures, she tends to ramble a lot! 2 mid-terms, a final, a 10 page final paper, and at least 2 hours of homework every week. The homework uses the statistical analysis software, SPSS, which requires you to use a computer lab on campus or purchase the software yourself for about $90.00+. You will be running various statistical tests on a given set of data. It is very tedious, takes forever to do because you CAN NOT SKIM, and the homework is graded answer for answer, not just for completion. \n\r\nIf you are lucky like me and get a really good/understanding TA, this class will not be as rough for you because the T.A's are in charge of ALL the grading for their section. If not, then be prepared to work harder than the rest of the class.\n\r\nProfessor Birnir is very knowledgeable in this area of politics she just is not knowledgeable at all on how to convey this information to the class. So basically, you are on your own. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-07T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'So much statistics. No actual government.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-15T11:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'Birnir takes a completely different approach to GVPT100. Our class considers ourselves the "rogue" government course due to the amount of statistics we do. Yes, I said STATISTICS! We have yet to learn about a single governmental system and rarely use the word democracy in the class. The most frequented words are mean, median, and mode. Please do not take this course unless you enjoy statistics. And God help you if you have no other option...', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-11-11T13:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "Johanna is a wonderful lady and knows her stuff, but the course really sucked. It's half statistics half coding in R. You have to really enjoy that type of thing to enjoy the class. I figure taking it at the undergrad level also helps gov majors figure out if they'd wanna go into political science ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-16T04:19:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "Not the hardest class in the world but it's certainly challenging especially if you don't know coding. I had to go to office hours every week to get help on the weekly coding assignments. I could not have gotten through this class without my TA. They're also time consuming so manage your time. If you do that, you can make the class less overwhelming. Unless you're a GVPT major or are good at coding, I wouldn't recommend this class just because of how time consuming and complicated it can be. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-14T03:07:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "The TA's basically teach instead of her. She relies on previously recorded lectures and her in person stuff is boring. 201 is a coding class disguised as a gov class, wouldnt reccomend.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-20T05:20:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': None, 'review': "I wasn't committed to the class until hw 2 and 3 gave me a brain aneurism because I went into it knowing nothing essentially with 4 hours before the due date. After that went terribly I contemplated dropping the class and switching to finance, but that seemed to be more work than actually learning R, so I decided to take it seriously and learn r systematically (just go to early chapters and learn the commands one at a time and test them). By hw 4/5 (most weighted and supposed to be the hardest) It was easy. R seems overwhelming if you don't keep up, it's honestly not bad at all once you learn the basic commands. I hated this class but it's not so bad in hindsight.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-02-23T21:30:04.669350Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "This is probably the worst class I have ever taken at UMD. The lectures and the homework are two totally different things that are technically related so they get away with lumping these two topics into one course. The lectures are fine they are just incredibly boring and dull. The homework however is a complete nightmare. If you have never taken Statistics or any type of coding, then you will be in a world of hurt. The homework has nothing to do with research methods but is all about statistics and data analytics using R. The workbook assigned for R is an incredibly poor resource for learning how to use the software and half expects you to understand the software beforehand. The Professor never teaches you how to use R, this is up to the TA and they dont teach, it's just a quick rundown on the assignment for that week. If you dont like data analytics and dont want to have to teach yourself how to code then avoid this class at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2023-04-07T18:11:38.940594Z'}, {'professor': 'Johanna Birnir', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': 'Come into this class with a stat background. Can not stress enough. You can expect to spend multiple hours on the weekly homework assignments and being familiar with R coding language and the concepts will cut down that time significantly. Getting the R Companion to Political Analysis is a MUST but the other textbook you don\'t need. However, she does pull her midterm questions straight out of the textbook and the midterms are open notes so it can help. You will never have to read it though. While Dr. Birnir\'s in-class lectures are lacking, her pre-recorded videos of all of her lessons are infinitely better. This is not a class that takes attendance even for the "mandatory" speaker. Your TAs in this class will be your lifeline. That being said if you do the work and go to discussion you should be able to easily succeed.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-26T02:12:56.362517Z'}], 'name': 'Johanna Birnir', 'slug': 'birnir'}, {'courses': ['EDCI432', 'HESP120', 'EDCI434', 'EDCI474'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Johanna Tigert', 'slug': 'tigert'}, {'courses': ['CMSC828U', 'GEMS497', 'CMSC733', 'GEMS296', 'CMSC426', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'CMSC798F', 'CMSC828T', 'ENPM808T', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'CMSC828Y', 'ENPM673', 'CMSC798', 'NACS898', 'ENAE788M', 'ENSE799', 'NACS899', 'CMSC426', 'CMSC477', 'ENSE799', 'NACS899', 'ENSE799', 'CMSC426'], 'average_rating': 3.0909, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "He admittedly does not cover the material he is supposed to, and whenever he does, it is always a very cursory overview whereas Fawdi Emad's section comprehensively went over all of the material, yet we were all given the same exams and quizzes, all written by Fawzi. Seems pretty unfair, eh? \r\nOn the bright end, Yiannis is a very nice person who appreciates other people's input. He may not be the best professor, but thankfully this class is extremely easy to begin with and you can be fine by just teaching yourself everything from the textbook.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC426', 'review': 'Very interesting, entertaining person, which is why I didn\'t realize sooner that the class was not going to go anywhere.\r\nWe went over the basics of all topics, but so little that you never really learned more than "huh, that\'s interesting". Projects had no deadlines, and weren\'t too difficult, except that we had no basis to go off of, and it\'s just stabs in the dark to try to get something working (still haven\'t figured it out, even though he tried to help me once that wasn\'t enough and I\'m still completely lost). Take home midterm was a rehash from the grad level class 10 years ago, plus 3 more pages, and way beyond the scope of what we\'d learned in class.\r\nI wish I had noticed sooner that this class was worth dropping, because I learned nothing worthy of my tuition money and am very disappointed as I was looking forward to this class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-06T12:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "He is the most accommodating person I've ever met. If you have a problem and you address it to him, he will absolutely help you out. He is completely engrossed in the success of his students. This is an extremely rare quality in a professor.\n\r\nThere are only a few things holding me back from giving him five stars. Firstly, he goes on a lot of tangents. If you are the type of student who learns solely from lectures, it might be difficult since sometimes he does not cover all of the material. Secondly, he seems to have difficulty teaching the students who have difficulty grasping the concepts. If you really have trouble with theoretical math and logic, it might be best to take it with a different professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-05-20T15:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Dr. Aloimonos is a great guy, good teacher, and interesting to listen to in lecture. Like some of the other reviews said, he covers the material really quickly and perhaps not in as much detail as they should be, but if you do the worksheets in discussion and/or study, you'll be fine. His lectures are good to go to because he covers a lot of stuff that other professors don't, and talks about philosophy and stuff sometimes (its always somewhat relevant though). \n\r\nHe knows a lot, but if you don't want to study and don't already know some of the material, then maybe someone else would be better.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-06T11:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "He is a great professor and a teacher. I mean he may not cover the subject material in any detail (u HAVE to read book to get stuff and practice for this class). But it is a fun class with him coz' he brings in so many higher level fun topics into the discussion. he is very knowledgeable and funny. recommended if u like logic math.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-20T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC426', 'review': 'He does not cover anything that the course requires. He is arguably one of the worst professors I have ever had. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-07T17:36:28Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC426', 'review': "Great professor if you are there to actually learn real concepts and not just trying to memorize some text book. Like one of the best educational experiences I've had in all my years at UMD. He is the reason I persued a Combined BS/MS degree and was a great guy to work with.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-07-12T04:51:24Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC426', 'review': 'Lectures are great for learning concepts, clearly has a ton of knowledge and is passionate and kind. For the projects most of the learning has come from TA led overviews/course notes for projects also written by TAs. Projects done in groups of 3-4 and are challenging but I personally feel they are rewarding. Midterm was fairly tough but according to the TAs it will be curved fairly well. Would recommend for anyone with a passion for learning or interest in these topics, would recommend starting projects early with your group.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-11-07T04:10:43.579386Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC426', 'review': "Reeks of tenure. TAs did literally everything for this course. Lectures had nothing noteworthy in them, and we were not able to practice these concepts. Projects had very odd grading schemes and had no input from the instructor. Midterm exam (conceptual and explanatory) was extremely different from the one given as practice (computational and short). The only reason students did well was because he did not give installation instructions for a MATLAB package for M1 Macbooks, so after 2 weeks of no information we've been told our final project (20% of the final grade) has been made optional. Very uninteresting course and experience.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T00:06:46.931974Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC426', 'review': "ive been to a total of 2 lectures: the first day and the midterm lol. the class itself is super chill, 4 projects that mainly dictate what your grade is and only 1 exam that's worth 15%. projects can be done in groups, but make sure u guys stay on top of things. yes u are given 8 late days u can use to push back a deadline for a project, but dont rely on it too much as the projects can take an extremely long time and need a lot of assistance in OH. as for john himself as a professor, i found them very unrelated to the projects, thus y i never went. he seems like a funny guy and is nice but his thick accent was also another reason why i decided to not come. overall, not a bad class as long as u have a solid group", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-26T18:00:18.094684Z'}, {'professor': 'John Aloimonos', 'course': 'CMSC426', 'review': "I do not even know where to start with this class.\r\n\r\nThe lectures were just the professor rambling about some random bullshit. He would draw some functions and diagrams on the board and then show some math but it was all pointless. It went to the point where out of 80 students only like 20 would come to class. I came once to class just to see wtf was happening and I found half the kids watching the world cup match.\r\n\r\nThere was 1 Midterm in the class and it was worth like 10% of the grade, I studied and reviewed the slides and projects about 3/4 days before and I got a 75 on it. The class average was a 60% on it. \r\n\r\nThere was no final so there really was no point coming to class after this.\r\n\r\nThere were 4 projects in the class, all seemed pretty interesting at first glance until you actually did them. \r\nEach project was done in groups of 3-4 people, and it was all in MATLAB. You were pretty much left in the dark, the concepts from class did not help at all and your only salvation was to hope there was something online to help you. The TA's did not even look at the code, this was pretty evident because for some reason the class avg on these projects was a 90-95%. They primarily graded based off of the reports.\r\n\r\nTo add to the glory of this weird class, for the fourth project the TA's never updated installation instructions and after a week of complaints they just decided to give everyone a 100% and anyone who managed to get something working extra credit. And thus every group got between 100-220% on this project worth 20% of the grade.\r\n\r\nI cant say I really learned anything from this class tbh. It seems cool and the topics seem cool but I really didnt learn or gain anything besides maybe losing sanity. Though i will say minimal effort is required for this 3 credit 400 level cs course", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-30T05:17:03.960009Z'}], 'name': 'John Aloimonos', 'slug': 'aloimonos'}, {'courses': ['ENGL241', 'ENGL432', 'ENGL440', 'ENGL379J', 'ENGL379O'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL432', 'review': "I love Professor Auchard. He is the best English teacher I've had at UMD and I'm going to take his 440 course next semester. He is so insightful and entertaining and it's always something different when you come to class. He name drops so much and has led such an interesting life, but he also has his little quirks. Never forget your books and try to hide your yawns, if you can do that you'll get along wonderfully with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-04-30T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': "For science majors: This class really goes into each book and it tends to get old after the 4th book. Take this class with caution unless you're really into looking 10 layers deep.\n\r\nAuchard is a pretty good lecturer, he didn't necessarily impress me but the course itself was pretty boring to me in general (as a cs major). I found myself paying more attention to his life advice over hearing him talk about sexual tendencies in each book. Regardless write down everything he says, the page number and highlight the quotes he reads. These will be on the midterm/final.\n\r\nThe course is pretty much run by TA's with Auchard as the lecturer. All of your work will be graded by your TA so depending on how easy or hard your TA is will determine how good of a time you will have in this class. The term paper kind of sucks but as long as you show up to discussion, raise your hand once, and do decent on the quizzes you should be fine for discussion grade. \n\r\nOverall if you don't have much time and want an easy lit class then DO NOT take this. I've read every book which means I spent at least 10 hours out of class every 2 weeks on this course. This class is more geared towards english majors / girls who love chick-flick movies.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-12-18T00:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': "Dr. Auchard is an amazing lecturer, and you should definitely take this class if you have any interest in literature. If not, find another HL class because you will find his lectures go too in-depth into novels. \n\r\nThe class itself is super easy, as long as you go to class. The exams are short-essay format and if you go to class and just listen to him, you will ace the midterm and final. I barely took notes, and I didn't study at all for either exam, and I got an A+ in the class. Just read the books. \n\r\nAlso if Nancy Stewart is a TA, try to get into her section, she is fantastic and very funny. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-04-05T19:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': "This is not an easy core. The work load isn't bad, all you need to do is read the books and you will be fine during lecture...their is a 9 page paper which we had assigned over the thanksgiving holiday which my TA graded extremely tough on and the midterm was also graded extremely tough! STAY away if you want an easy HL....DO NOT TAKE THIS! Auchard is cool but if you get stuck with a tough grading TA...you are in deep trouble! AVOID!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-19T22:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': "Great lecturer; I was only taking this to fulfill CORE and usually hate lit courses, but he made it interesting and easy to understand. \n\r\nMidterm and final are based almost completely on passages in the book he discusses in class, so it's best to go to lecture and take good notes. (I did much better on the final than the midterm due to taking better notes during the second half.) There are also discussion quizzes (stupid easy if you've read the book, doable even if you just use Sparknotes) and attendance, as well as a 6-8 page paper, which requires a fair amount of work but isn't a huge burden.\n\r\nOverall probably one of your best options for an HL credit.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-17T22:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL432', 'review': 'This was a great class. He is a tough grader, but the work I put in to the class was completely worth it. There are a few reading quizzes (which I usually bombed), two papers, a midterm and a final. This is not a class you can skip and you really have to take good notes, but it is probably the best English class I have taken here at Maryland. Highly recommend this class and Professor Auchard!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-31T13:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': 'One of my favorite classes in college. His lectures were interesting and got me thinking. I highly recommend taking this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T21:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': "The best lecturer I've had. He's a really interesting guy (although a little self-righteous) and the books aren't the most interesting, but you can really tell he loves his job. If you go to the lectures, you'll be set for the exams, but you have to read in order to do well on the quizzes and paper.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-05T19:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': 'Dr. Auchard is a superb professor. I looked forward to every class because his lectures were so interesting and insightful. He really helped us to look past the obvious and read into the detail in the books we studies, as well as the world at large. I would highly recommend ENGL241 and Dr. Auchard!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-09T14:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': "This class is easy because not much work is required from the student. If you are willing to come to lectures and participate in discussions then you should get at least a B or higher. While this is a literature class, reading the novels is not strictly required, you can use sparknotes for most of the books. \n\r\nProfessor Auchard is an interesting person because he will note the little things you would not have paid particular attention to in the novels and explain why they are relevant. Be prepared to take notes or at least pay attention to the things he say during lecture. While he can goes on a tangent to discuss random anecdotes, those things can become the topics during the exams so better safe than sorry.\n\r\nThe exams are not hard, as long as you attend lectures and discussions, you should be fine. The term paper, though, will require actual effort from you but if you don't procrastinate and wait till last minute (which I did), you should be fine. Overall this class is highly recommended because you can learn a lot from the professor and it's interesting.\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-23T04:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': "Very good class if you're willing to come to every class and dicussion. I didnt read all the books but never missed any classes and did well. As a lecturer, he is engaging and talks about life in general. But he is also abrasive, confrontational, and will call you out if you arent paying attention or if you are late. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-24T01:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': 'Tests are graded like a *****.\r\nFuck this class.\r\nThis is not an easy A.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-15T21:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': 'easy A, just read the sparknotes. didnt even study for exam', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-03-20T01:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': 'This was my best class this semester! I always looked forward to going to class and learning new things, not only limited to the novels we read, but about life in general. Prof. Auchard is a dynamic teacher. I just love him!!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-12-10T21:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': 'Professor Auchard makes the class very interesting so you actually want to go to it. He gives you good information and if you attend lectures and discussion you should have no problem in this class. I personally am not even an english person and only took this as an elective but it is my favorite class this semester. I recommend reading the books, it will help you do better on the exams but I guess it might not be necessary until you hit the term paper.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-20T17:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Auchard', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': 'very funny laugh out loud lecture, dont need to read the books just use sparknotes and you will pass the discussion quizzes', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-30T17:45:00Z'}], 'name': 'John Auchard', 'slug': 'auchard'}, {'courses': ['ENEE661', 'ENES489P', 'ENEE660', 'ENEE765', 'ENEE762', 'ENEE488', 'ENSE799', 'ENEE769I', 'ENEE662', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'ENEE698C', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENEE660', 'ENES489P', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENEE660'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Baras', 'course': 'ENEE660', 'review': "No doubt Prof. Baras is a great researcher. Unfortunately he's not interested in teaching the students. He has his own lecture notes for ENEE660. However the notes are not user friendly. There are a lot of typos, unconventional notations, and almost zero accompanying diagrams to help better understand the concepts. There is no logical flow and it lacks actual applications or examples. In terms of teaching, he is always late for class and finishes way over time. He didn't show up for a class without prior notice and didn't apologize. He basically reads the lecture notes in verbatim and criticizes students for not reading it. It's been six weeks and we are yet to receive an assignment. I really hope I will learn something useful from him or else I'll be wasting my time and money. In short, he's terrible. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-10-09T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Baras', 'course': None, 'review': "Only teacher I have ever given a one star too. There was no syllabi, outline for any assignments and I have yet its finally and i have yet to get one grade back. He assigned up a pop 5 page pager during finals week too. He only showed up to maybe 5 of the classes all semester and make the TA teach the class but did not give the TA any control over the class. How does that work? It doesn't. He is also very disrespectful to students. During our midterm presentation he showed up late to one of the groups presentation, criticized them for not having something which they did say before he came (TA started class) and then for the rest of the presentations was playing with his smart phones then asking questions that were clearly answered in peoples presentations. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-14T14:55:00Z'}], 'name': 'John Baras', 'slug': 'baras'}, {'courses': ['MATH648J', 'MATH634', 'MATH858F', 'MATH858W', 'MAIT699', 'MATH858Q', 'MAIT699'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Benedetto', 'slug': 'benedetto'}, {'courses': ['KNES155O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Borden', 'slug': 'borden'}, {'courses': ['PHIL332', 'PHIL788'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Brown', 'course': 'PHIL332', 'review': "Professor Brown is very intelligent. The theory of beauty he puts forth in the class is highly complex and he works through each of the objections to it very clearly. \n\r\nYou will do well in this class if you enjoy philosophy AND have a background in or serious appreciation of the arts (music, literature etc). While this class isn't strictly about art, it is necessary to apply the theory of beauty to art to illustrate principles. If you haven't discovered an appreciation for the arts at all, then you will have to try to develop one during the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-12T23:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Brown', 'course': 'PHIL332', 'review': "Wow this class is by far the worst class I've ever talken at UMD and I'm a phil minor. I hate every second I spend in this class. This professor is so bad that I'm shocked this is the first review he has. Do not take this class. Hopefully the department will catch on and they will give us a better professor for this class which has potential to actually be good.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-10-18T11:24:00Z'}], 'name': 'John Brown', 'slug': 'brown_john'}, {'courses': ['BSCI223', 'BSCI283', 'BSCI348A', 'BSCI412', 'BSCI223', 'BSCI348A', 'BSCI223', 'BSCI348A', 'BSCI223', 'BSCI348A', 'BSCI223', 'BSCI348A'], 'average_rating': 3.375, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Buchner', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "Buchner makes lectures very interesting and connects material to real-life examples, which made everything easier to understand. It definitely helps to have at least a little background in biology, because a lot of it I've seen before. His first exam was really hard and I failed, but after that, I got As on the second exam and the final. Study the PAK material. His exams are so long and you have to budget your time really well if you want to finish. \r\n\r\nThe lab is a decent amount of work, but it's an easy boost to your grade if you submit everything on time. It's not super hard to get an A in the class, you just have to focus on the bigger concepts when studying. I do recommend Buchner, just be ready to put in the time for a 4 credit class! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-06T15:59:36Z'}, {'professor': 'John Buchner', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "Maybe because the course is online due to COVID, but his way of teaching does not make sense at all and he assigns too many assignments per week. His major assignments (PAKs) are genuinely useless and needs EXTRA (I mean whole new) research just for those assignments. His lecture videos are very brief and not at all detailed, so basically useless for all the assignments. His research box assignments, which we have to read a research article per week and analyze, are way out of our league and not at all related to the course. So, basically I have wasted my semester reading and doing shits that are not even related to the college-level GENERAL microbiology. I don't know who else teaches this course and about their ratings, but DO NOT (I MEAN IT) DO NOT TAKE BUCHNER IF YOU WANT TO LEARN ABOUT MICROBIOLOGY.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-19T05:57:20Z'}, {'professor': 'John Buchner', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "Loved taking Buchner's class. He is by far the coolest professor I've had yet. He seems like a very kind and understanding person and makes lots of accommodations due to COVID. His lectures can be helpful because he just goes over questions most students didn't understand. Many bad reviews I've seen said he gives too much busy work which I agree with but MOST of it is participation points. As long as you put in some effort, you will get full points for completion. For exams there are a few parts to it but you also get 1-2 weeks to complete it but some questions can be tricky.\r\n\r\nLab was good in person. Very minimal effort. You just have to read directions and follow them. I had an awesome TA and he was very lenient with grading so lab helped bring my grade up. There are a few assignments where you have to present but they are very informal and less than 5 minutes as a group.\r\n\r\nI had to take this class for my major and was super worried about it but it was pretty straightforward. A good amount of effort but easy A for the most part.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-03T03:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Buchner', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "I dont need to wait til the end of the semester to give this course a review. If there is any class or set of professors that COULD CARE LESS that you're taking other classes that also require your effort and attention. Its these guys!!!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-12T00:08:57.431571Z'}, {'professor': 'John Buchner', 'course': None, 'review': 'Boring and lectures are absolutely useless. Learned nothing. Got an A tho!', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T22:58:34.703894Z'}, {'professor': 'John Buchner', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "easiest bsci class there is, im not even gonna hold you I may end up with an A or very high B in this class and if you ask me what I've learned?????? LOL bruhhh, take this class with a friend and you're good. On your own with no friends? um maybe not so much of an easy A or B for ya but make some in class lol. \r\n\r\nBuchner is s chill and so sweet as well. Very accessible and willing to help.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T14:33:58.396566Z'}, {'professor': 'John Buchner', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': 'Dr. Buchner is a great professor who provides many resources to help you succeed in class. This class is not very difficult content-wise, but the work can be tedious and time-consuming. If you attend lectures and go over the slides, you should be able to get an A or B. Dr. Buchner is a funny professor who is extremely helpful. He goes over assignments and questions in class, and after exams, provides an opportunity for individuals to request their tests to be regarded. If you can provide evidence to back your answer he will give it to you. Buchner likes to relate a lot of the course content to current events, making this class interesting. This class is pretty straightforward, but the workload can be overwhelming sometimes. The class PAKs can take a while to complete depending on the questions. The lab is very simple, but attendance is necessary. In the lab, you follow directions and have a couple of group assignments and presentations, which are pretty simple. Overall the workload in this class can be a lot especially since you have 2 lab sections each week.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T21:58:03.212205Z'}, {'professor': 'John Buchner', 'course': 'BSCI283', 'review': 'Dr. Buchner made all of the labs for 283, while Drs. Stein and Winkler taught the lectures/made the exams.\r\nI don\'t think I\'ve ever enjoyed a lab more than this one. Culturing bacteria, looking at them under the microscope, and doing all these different tests on them was so much fun. The procedures were all available online and very clear to follow, so as long as you read it, listened to the TA, and used some common sense, you wouldn\'t have any troubles. There were a couple of labs where we had these "Microbial Olympics" where our bacteria would compete in different ways, like which one could grow the farthest in the presence of E. coli. We also got to make drawings with different colored bacteria which was super cool.\r\nThere were short 2-3 question quizzes (BLQs) due before every lab which every now and then had a notoriously difficult question, but you get multiple attempts and they\'re only worth 3 points so it\'s fine. Occasionally there were after-lab assignments (ALQs) which were longer and required a lot of explanations, but I think we only had 4 of those the entire semester.\r\nThere is a lab final that takes place over two days and requires you to demonstrate your abilities with different techniques (streak plates, dilutions, Gram staining, microscopy, etc.) and explain why you\'re doing them. We were allowed to take notes on the protocol ahead of time, though, which really helped make it less stressful.\r\nOverall, the lab for 283 (which I imagine is almost identical to the lab for 223) was incredibly well put together and organized, and let us do some really cool things with microbes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-26T17:56:41.791674Z'}], 'name': 'John Buchner', 'slug': 'buchner'}, {'courses': ['LBSC731'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Buchtel', 'slug': 'buchtel'}, {'courses': ['ENCE662', 'ENCE624'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Cable', 'course': 'ENCE662', 'review': 'ENCE 662 is probably the most miserable class among the group of PM related courses taught at the University of Maryland in College Park. This course is so badly organized and conducted that it hardly deserves to be a part of any serious graduate curriculum. Mr. Cable, who lectures ENCE 662, made this program senselessly difficult by piling up enormous amount of useless data upon students, forcing them to invest ridiculous amounts of time to keep up with the course schedule. To an average student, "The Introduction to Project Management" will take 2.5-3 times more effort to pass than any other graduate level course.\n\r\nMr. Cable\'s lectures are boring and overloaded with unnecessary information. His approach to teaching is broad and shallow without explaining things. The material that he is using for his lectures, as well as his recommended readings, are very often of questionable scientific value. He barely answers students\' questions, and he is sometimes rude. Contrary to his lectures, his exams are very difficult and the questions often require in-depth knowledge. The tests are done on-line, and each of them is 100 questions on average. It takes much more time than the three hours given to complete them. Some of the questions contain errors and many of them are copied from PMP exam preparation books.\n\r\nMr. Cable\'s teaching assistants are quite useless as they are unable or unwilling to answer anything beyond the most basic questions. They do not seem to be knowledgeable about the subject they are teaching.\n\r\nMr. Cable\'s resume does not indicate any significant project management experience, which practically makes him incompetent to teach this class. According to his professional biography, he holds a degree in architecture and had been involved in the remodeling business in the past. Additionally, there is no indication that Mr. Cable possesses a graduate degree. In one of his works published in 2004 he brings out his PhD candidacy, but further information in this regard stays unknown. It remains unclear if his level of educational achievement is sufficient to qualify him for teaching a graduate-level course.\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-27T16:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Cable', 'course': 'ENCE662', 'review': 'ENCE 662 is a bad joke at your expense. Avoid at all costs. Cable and his TA are useless morons.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-20T16:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Cable', 'course': 'ENCE662', 'review': "He is a pretty good professor. The majority of his examples come from his time doing civil engineering and construction though they are applicable to many situations. I took the online class and the TA was not very helpful and often times talked down to the class and was disrespectful. The professor's online exams were full of typos and poorly worded questions that left one spending more time determining if the professor had just made a mistake or was trying to trick you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-15T00:30:00Z'}], 'name': 'John Cable', 'slug': 'cable'}, {'courses': ['HONR219Z', 'HONR217'], 'average_rating': 3.05, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': "Avoid this class if you've taken either a basic physics or chemistry class or if you have done any research into any of the topics in the syllabus. Carlson will only briefly touch on any of the topics and you will have gone into more depth in your other classes.\r\nAvoid this class if you dislike busy work, such as watching 3 hours of dull documentaries while taking notes. Carlson assigns an assignment like this every week in addition to 2 long essays that are about purely personal views.\r\nThis class has little interaction with the other students in the class or the teacher (apart from lecturing).\r\nCarlson rambles, then goes on tangents while he's rambling. He constantly references pop culture tchotchkes he brings with him that are really just jokes for himself. He repeats information over several classes, so if you take notes or have a good memory, you'll be hearing things many many times. \r\nMost glaringly, Carlson will not allow discussion to happen in his class. I could overlook the other faults in his demeanor or teaching style, but, in a class with clearly subjective viewpoints or multiple theories, he allows little discussion and hurries on to the next point on his note sheet.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-11-29T03:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'Dr. Carlson lectures in a way where you can tell he is excited about teaching and his subject. He tends to get off topic a lot but it is never dull.\r\nThis class is a nice break from the monotony and intensity of other classes. The title of the course is pretty accurate; you learn a plethora of random information that somehow ties together a cosmoverse- everything from physics to evolution to human sensory perception. This class is more science-based than the name lets off. However it is 2.5 hours long, but he allows a ten minute break sometime around the halfway point and allows you to eat dinner during his class if you so wish to. There are two exams for this test but if you’ve paid a relative amount of attention and taken notes when he’s said “you might want to write this down” they are not difficult in the slightest (although I bombed the last test- granted I sort of stopped paying attention towards the end of the semester.) There are weekly videos to be watched but the students only really watch them if he requires notes to be taken. I actually learned quite a bit from the videos. There are two extended papers to be written for this class, one at the beginning of the semester and one near the end. I actually enjoyed writing them (and I hate English courses) because I was able to write them in a stream-of-consciousness, very informal sort of way, which Dr. Carlson enjoyed and gave me good grades for. The papers take a few hours to write but do not nearly require the effort and technical thinking expected of most writing assignments because you are writing your own opinions and thoughts. \r\nAlso you don’t really need to buy the books.. he tells you to read them but he won’t quiz you on anything other than the author’s name.\r\nThis was an easy three credit course and I recommend it if you need a humanities credit.\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-01-01T22:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': "Dr. Carlson was quite an interesting guy. He is very quirky but very knowledgeable. In my section, he always gave people the opportunity to disagree with something he said and have a discussion about it. Although he often encouraged the class to take over the lecture time with discussion, we generally didn't do that. His style of lecturing for the course was (keep in mind this is a 2.5 hour class)\n\r\n25 minutes ramble\r\n35 minutes review stuff from last class\r\n30 minutes start to learn new stuff\r\n15 minutes break\r\n40 minutes review stuff from earlier in class and attempt to learn more stuff\n\r\nThis class went until 9:30 pm, so people would sometimes end up turned off for the second half of class. Overall, the class was very intriguing and taught me quite a bit about a range of topics (since the scope of the course is life, the multiverse, and everything, after all). I enjoyed it thoroughly.\n\r\nAssignments: There were (1) a 7 page introductory essay, (2) MULTIPLE video outlines which were relatively obnoxious busy work, but simple, (3) a midterm exam on all of the random crap that we learned until then, (4) a 15 page end of semester paper that reviewed and expanded upon the first essay, and (5) a final quiz. He said he usually gives a true final exam, but he let us off easy this semester. He curved the exam and quiz heavily, such that everyone got an A or B.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-19T15:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR219Z', 'review': 'Dr. Carlson is a very sweet man, but the class was a struggle to sit through every Wednesday night. If you can avoid it, I would recommend never taking a class after 5:00 pm, especially a 3 hour one! \n\r\nHe tends to ramble and go on tangents, and he likes to test how much random information you can remember on his tests. Lots of reading, hard to sit through, and the topic, for me at least, was boring and depressing.\n\r\nTake only if you are interested in apocalyptic culture...and have a long attention span!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-08-06T09:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': "Don't take this class. Just don't. You get an insane amount of useless, redundant busy work on a wide range of unrelated topics that leaves you considerably less time to work on your real classes. Rather than being a discussion like the class is supposed to be, the professor will blatantly disagree with you if you say something intelligent, such as asserting that the ancient Greeks made great contributions to science. Their is no real topic to this class, and it basically consists of memorizing a set of utterly useless and not cohesive facts. The only plus side is that he grades the essays nicely.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-24T22:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': None, 'review': "Only take this class if you are EXTREMELY interested in ancient Maya and Aztec culture. The class name is deceiving... this class has basically nothing to do with astronomy and never once do you actually look at the stars. If you were thinking that it's at 7 oclock at night so you can actually partake in naked eye astronomy, you will be proven very wrong. Instead it is 2 and a half hours (and for most of the semester very close to 3 hours) of sitting and listening to Carlson rant about a broad range of random topics that are completely pointless. The plus side: he grades the tests on a huge curve. But the tests are on random facts that oftentimes he never even taught and the homework assignments are all pointless busy work. Avoid this class at all costs unless the topic is one that extremely interests you. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-19T03:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': None, 'review': "The worst class to sit through for this long. Has nothing to do with astronomy if that's what you're thinking. If you're really interested in talking about temples being in line, and making up random theories about why that is significant, then sure this class is for you. If you want to listen to a teacher go off on tangents every 30 seconds, then talk about getting off topic...then this is the class for you. If you want to be held over an extra 15 minutes every class period after the big snow storm, besides the fact that we had already made up all our class time.. this is the class for you (and yes he held us over 15 minutes the night of the Duke game.) If any of that doesn't sound appealing I'd highly recommend a better way to spend your Tuesday or Wednesday night and any other Honors seminar. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-12T12:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': None, 'review': 'Much of the assigned work for this class is, as others have noted, basically busywork. The general reason for this, I think, is to keep people directly involved with the material, since otherwise it\'s pretty easy to get away without doing much of anything.\n\r\nEven so, the class was very interesting to me, and Carlson is genuinely a very nice guy. He\'s opinionated, and will try to change your views sometimes, but he is civil and passionate. He likes to teach, so despite his frequent tangents, he\'s usually fun to follow in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way.\n\r\nAlso, if you take his class, please understand that he is trying to be funny, not narcissistic or paranoid. ("Favardin" is discussed often. Most of you probably don\'t know who that guy is, but if you did, you\'d find Carlson\'s jokes more humorous.)\n\r\nFinally, I did learn a lot about Mesoamerica during the class, and the experience has affected my views on the interaction between various cultures.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-18T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': "Easy class, a bit of weekly busywork, two essays, and two exams, all of which are extremely easy.\n\r\nThe professor is really nice but may tends to drift off-topic and fall well behind the syllabus (not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that).\n\r\nMost of the material may not be exactly life-changing, but you'll almost certainly learn more about the universe than you knew coming in. At the very least, you'll know plenty of random facts about it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T12:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'The course and the professor are not for everybody. The class is niche in that the students were extremely well-informed and intelligent. You will easily feel lost/confused if you do not have a serious interest to learn about the universe. The professor digresses too much and is rather self-important (as are some of the fellow classmates). You will learn a lot though.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-30T16:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'I love this professor. I think he has been misunderstood by some of the other reviewers. If you are not a science type you may not like the material of the class, but it is presented in a mind-expanding, fascinated sort of way. I you cant understand his simple sense of humor, you may perceive him as narcissistic.\n\r\nDefinitely recommend this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-22T12:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'This guy goes completely off the deep end in almost every single class. Discussion topics ranged from string theory to his near- death experience on a motorcycle.\n\r\nCarlson will certainly challenge your viewpoints, but sometimes will make you feel completely wrong about how you view a certain topic. Some of the class is interesting, but much is just useless knowledge.\n\r\nTo do well in this class, simply listen for Carlson to say "this could be on a test" when he is writing notes on the board, and copy what he writes. Then simply memorize what you have in your notes and your almost guaranteed an A. The video assignments are simple but tedious, while the paper is easy but takes a while. Overall, this class is an easy A if you do things properly.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-12T00:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': None, 'review': "The title of the course is misleading. It has almost nothing to do with astronomy, but instead it's about Mayan and Aztec culture and traditions, mixed with a bit of modern religion. However, Dr. Carlson is very knowledgeable about the subject and I thought it was an interesting class. He goes over time almost every class, but not by much. As the other reviews have stated he starts talking about irrelevant or off-topic stuff all the time, but he usually has a good sense of humor. I don't really think he was condescending to anyone like some other reviews said. Overall I recommend this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-04T22:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'Possibly the worst professor possible. Not necessarily due to a lack of knowledge, but due to a level of narcissism I have never seen in anyone. He believes he is perfect and promotes a class environment that is awkward and unpleasant. He thinks he asks the big questions and is opening your mind, but he is just asking stereotypical "I am smart" questions that are truly meaningless and almost always completely off topic.\n\r\nHe prides himself in his distrust of everyone else, as he frequently mentions "big brother" and on the first day of class shows off the large concealed blade he carries around. I thought this course would be stimulating and interesting and it is the biggest disappointment in my college career. DO NOT MAKE MY MISTAKE! Avoid this class and this professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-12T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'This professor is just about everything I dislike in a teacher or mentor. He is self-important, tries to trick students so they feel dumb, and, though he considers himself very progressive, harbors some of the most blatant biases I have encountered in a teacher. \n\r\nHe comes off as knowing a lot about the subjects he discusses (probably due to his arrogance), but ask more than one question and his "ADD" conveniently kicks in and he goes on a tangent that is totally irrelevant to the discussion.\n\r\nIf you are a true intellectual who likes a healthy competition of ideas, do not take this class. You will be very disappointed.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-10-01T23:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'I did all the assignments, participated a LOT in class, and did well on the only exam. I am one of the few (i imagine) who got a B in this class. The only reason could be the paper.\n\r\nThe paper for this class is supposed to be very open-ended, and as such I was astounded when in class, the day he handed the papers back, he openly rejected the entire premise of my paper in front of everyone, then continued to mock it several times during the class. It is one thing to challenge us to defend our views, but another to flatly reject them without providing any reasoning.\n\r\nI am disappointed in the class', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-22T18:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'Great guy. Very interesting to talk to and nothing is off the table. His classes range from scientific babble to intense debate on society. Carlson always has something to say and his whole goal is to challenge our own belief systems. Very interesting class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-28T12:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'Very fun professor with interesting experiences and perspectives to share. Work consists of readings and outlines on films found on dial-access that take a couple of hours every week but are not difficult. One paper assigned in two drafts. He has a lot of valuable information you might not learn anywhere else or on your own initiative and he makes the class fun.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-20T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': "He's a great guy to spend two and a half hours with every Tuesday night. The work he assigns is extremely easy but takes a long time. It's busy work. But the class was fun and a nice break from the tedium of other courses.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:30:33Z'}, {'professor': 'John Carlson', 'course': 'HONR217', 'review': 'This guy loves to go completely off topic in every single class. We really did not learn a whole lot about ancient astronomies, but rather, learned a lot about trivial information about random societies, and heard stories from his past visits to Mexico, etc. However, he was a really nice guy, and you do get to go on a really cool trip to the planetarium. The work for his class was not tough, but was extremely tedious. He grades fairly easily.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:30:33Z'}], 'name': 'John Carlson', 'slug': 'carlson_john'}, {'courses': ['ECON422', 'ECON623', 'ECON708', 'ECON721', 'ECON709', 'ECON808', 'ECON423', 'ECON828', 'ECON624', 'ECON722', 'ECON828', 'ECON721', 'ECON828', 'ECON423', 'ECON624', 'ECON828', 'ECON721', 'ECON828'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Chao', 'course': 'ECON422', 'review': 'Quite possibly one the worst Econ professors I have had and that is saying a lot. He teaches straight from power point and has a heavy accent. He also say "mhmkay" between every other word that makes it difficult to follow. If you are like me and statistics dont come easy, get a another professor. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2014-05-13T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Chao', 'course': 'ECON423', 'review': "This course was way more math focused than it needed to be. While he does a good job explaining concepts, there are many times where he would overexplain something simple. The material became more confusing than it needed to be. The class itself was easy as long as you're good with mathematical proofs. He only grades on four problem sets for the whole semester. No exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-10T20:18:52Z'}, {'professor': 'John Chao', 'course': 'ECON423', 'review': "This course is very theory heavy and gives a deeper background and understand in more advanced regression analysis. If you have a strong math background and understood ECON422 this class isn't too difficult. There is 4 problem sets with each containing 5 questions. The questions consist of derivations, basic regression arithmetic, and actual coding problems. The PowerPoints from class that John provides give all the understanding necessary to do the coding and math problems for homework. Overall class isn't too difficult the problem sets take roughly 5 hours each, and office hours are very useful if you're confused.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T02:52:27Z'}], 'name': 'John Chao', 'slug': 'chao_john'}, {'courses': ['ENMA482', 'ENES100', 'ENMA442', 'ENMA642', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA300', 'ENMA682', 'ENES100A', 'ENME382', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA441', 'ENMA486', 'ENMA641', 'EDSP652', 'CHSE338K', 'ENES338K', 'CHSE338K', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENES338K', 'ENMA441', 'ENMA641', 'CHSE338K', 'ENES338K', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENMA441', 'ENMA641'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Cumings', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "As a person, I genuinely liked Dr. Cumings, he's really a kind-hearted person and wants you to do well even if his teaching abilities aren't the best or the most organized. Yes, he'd spend at least a good half hour of our 1 hr 50 min lecture fiddling around trying to get his powerpoint up or figuring out what to teach us that day, so yes, his lectures were a bit useless. However, when we began working in the lab, he seemed like he genuinely cared about the success of the teams and gave our team some really good advice. My team was wildly unsuccessful, like we essentially couldn't get s**t to work. But he's extremely fair with grading and curves generously, so if you have this professor and a good hovercraft group (unlike me), you're totally set for this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-01-07T11:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Cumings', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "He's a pretty good professor, and compared to other sections of ENES100 he grades favorably. Lectures during the first half of the course were pretty boring, but they are going to be boring no matter who your professor is. For the hovercraft milestones, Cumings was fair in his expectations for our hovercraft, and extended the deadline for a few milestones. Overall I'd recommend him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-06T15:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Cumings', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Definitely not as bad as other comments make him out to be. The lectures in the first half of the course can get a little dull, but they contain some helpful information for the midterm. We had a good TA who was able to come in after-hours to work on the hovercraft. As for grading, I would say Cumings is definitely fair, especially for presentations and reports, and he does curve.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T14:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Cumings', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'The comment below pretty much sums up Professor Cumings. He does not make himself available at all to help his students succeed in the class. ENES 100 is a pretty straight forward class but his lectures are not helpful at all. He has his doctorate and makes his presentations like he is still in high school. He extends the due dates of assignments because the class cannot meet them but in the end, they become too close together and teams do not qualify for the competition.\n\r\nHope for a good TA if you have class with him.\n\r\nActually, just sign up for Evandro Calente instead because his groups are always the most prepared.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-13T23:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Cumings', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'I\'m not sure if he knows what he is talking about half the time. He stutters all through lecture and tries to explain concepts, but doesn\'t really succeed. He randomly deducted points on our papers and didn\'t expplain why they were deducted. If you were lucky, you would get and underlined sentence or two with the word "UGH" in the corner. I still haven\'t figured out what that was supposed to mean.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2009-07-24T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Cumings', 'course': 'ENMA441', 'review': 'Overall the course is pretty easy, just a survey of a bunch of characterization methods. The lectures, especially the theory, behind some of the methods were very complicated to understand, but the assignments and exam didn’t need a heavy understanding of the theory and werent that difficult, just a little time consuming. Overall, i would say the content is interesting and the final (the only exam) was very easy and practical as well', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-30T17:51:18.483366Z'}], 'name': 'John Cumings', 'slug': 'cumings'}, {'courses': ['JOUR361', 'JOUR661'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John DeDakis', 'slug': 'dedakis'}, {'courses': ['ECON808', 'ECON701', 'ECON709', 'ECON398O', 'ECON702', 'ECON602', 'ECON602', 'ECON701'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Haltiwanger', 'slug': 'haltiwanger'}, {'courses': ['FMSC381', 'FMSC477'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Hart', 'slug': 'hart_john'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL392', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL392', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL392', 'ENGL392', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL392'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Kim', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'A genuinely kind professor who cares about his students and does a lot to make the learning experience fun.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-18T04:25:12Z'}], 'name': 'John Kim', 'slug': 'kim_john'}, {'courses': ['GEOG431'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Kleman', 'slug': 'kleman'}, {'courses': ['ENSE623', 'ENSE622', 'ENSE627', 'ENES489P', 'ENPM643', 'ENSE626', 'ENPM642', 'ENPM647', 'ENPM808M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John MacCarthy', 'slug': 'maccarthy'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL212', 'ENGL265', 'ENGL241', 'LGBT265', 'CMLT277', 'ENGL250', 'WMST255', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL360', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL222', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 4.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John MacIntosh', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Very energetic and enthusiastic. Flexible with his assignments as needed for the students' benefits. The class is not difficult, just tedious. The assignments are relatively and easy and well spaced out, and the final project begins as small assignments each consecutive assignments builds on the prior assignment, culminating in cool website project. He does grade a slightly harder than I would expect, but that is a personal opinion.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-03-25T17:05:51Z'}, {'professor': 'John MacIntosh', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Classes are a bit boring, but he is a nice guy and you can tell he cares about his students. He is very flexible and an easy grader. The assignments are fairly tedious though, especially the final paper, but he'll do his best to help you work through it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-10T04:48:30Z'}, {'professor': 'John MacIntosh', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Very nice guy and he makes his lectures interesting and entertaining. Though the content can be boring, it can be important for the assignment you are working on. He graded reasonably, and you'll get an A if you write your papers using the techniques and organization that he teaches you for that assignment. There is a decent more amount of work than I anticipated, but he is a good teacher, and I'd recommend taking him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-26T00:51:55Z'}, {'professor': 'John MacIntosh', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': 'Really great guy! Dr. MacIntosh is incredibly nice and caring. He is very understanding and caring about his students and what they may be going through. He makes the classroom a very good learning environment for discussion-based classes and tries to engage meaningful conversations. He is thorough in the reviews of texts and makes sure that every students comprehends what they read. I found that he was a pretty lenient and easy grader. He leaves pretty good comments on essay assignments to know how to improve. The final was an accumulation of the semester, so it would be wise to take notes of keywords/concepts for the different units. Overall, he is a great guy that is a fantastic teacher! Definitely consider taking him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-19T16:17:20Z'}, {'professor': 'John MacIntosh', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Easy and understanding. Take him', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-22T19:01:53.951113Z'}, {'professor': 'John MacIntosh', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Great teacher. Explains all the ideas in class well and is very helpful when needed. The coursework was a bit tedious, but he graded pretty leniently. As long as you put in a little effort you will get a good grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-05T15:09:17.902166Z'}, {'professor': 'John MacIntosh', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Very friendly with students, and very understanding to any extenuating circumstances. Really puts his students first and is very approachable with any questions you could have. Work can get a bit tedious but just talk to him if you are struggling, forgiving about late work as long as you talk to him. Grading is fair and comments on work are very helpful. Assignments are due at midnight and not the start of class, meaning you have the whole day after class to finish the work and still get it in on time if you need it. Class can get boring but try to answer the things he's asking, 9 times out of ten if you think you know the answer, you likely do and if you say the wrong thing it doesn't hurt you in any way", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-12T00:23:14.391068Z'}, {'professor': 'John MacIntosh', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "I love John, he is a really kind and understanding professor who really cares about his students. English 101 can at times be a really tedious course, but if you ever need help John will be more than happy to work with you. There are a lot of back to back papers in this course, but it is manageable if you pace yourself. If you're able to take John, highly recommend you do so!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-12T16:45:19.790191Z'}, {'professor': 'John MacIntosh', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Dr. Macintosh (but he's fine with just John) is a really great guy. He definitely cares about his students and he grades everything himself, meaning if you need help, he is easy and approachable. The course itself can be fairly tedious and is a bit of work, but if you manage your time and pace yourself it is easily passable. Highly recommend you take him if you can!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T18:58:21.425868Z'}], 'name': 'John MacIntosh', 'slug': 'macintosh'}, {'courses': ['ENGL390', 'ENGL395', 'HIST204', 'ENGL378A'], 'average_rating': 2.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Matthews', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': "I am unsure why people are criticizing his grading style. He is very clear with his expectations. Also, the fact that 1pt=1% is pretty arbitrary... so I am not sure why someone is criticizing this aspect of the class. \r\nAssignment guidelines, in my opinion, are fairly clear. The actual assignment descriptions can be vague and lengthy, but he lists the grading criteria pretty clearly. If you pay attention to the grading criteria and the peer review questions you will be fine.\r\nI wouldn't say this is an easy class but it is possible for most people to get an A as long as you work hard. I spent a lot of time working on the major writing assignments but it pays off -- I never considered myself a good writer but I did very well on the writing assignments. I believe this is because the class is very well designed.\n\r\nOverall, if you are looking to really improve your writing skills then take this class. If you are looking to get an easy A, then maybe do something else. \n\r\nAlso, I cannot speak to anything about lectures because I took this class online.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-20T13:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Matthews', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': "He's a good professor overall, but I highly disliked him. Having him as a professor so far in the semester, I have NEVER felt so uncomfortable in a classroom before! He will constantly stare at you when he's not teaching like a video or in class exercises. I make one move, like scratching myself or changing my seating position, he will just stare and watch you. He also gets irritated easily. My group would simply ask him for clarification, and he answers in a rude and disrespectful manner. Also, this class is not a difficult course, but it is difficult to get an A because of how many points this course would earn. There is only 108pts in the entire semester. The 8pts is participation, and you won't receive full credit if you don't show up for class, you're not present during an in-class exercise, or you don't turn in certain assignments on time for peer review. Sometimes he's bias about point distribution, but for assignments, you have to make sure you stay on top of things and keep track of the amount of points you're losing because in this course, 1pt = 1%. So if you lose 10pts overall, you're easily down to a 90%, and there is no extra credit in the course.\r\nSide note- this class is so BS. You don't need to read what he asks you to read in order to do well in the course. It's just so you can participate in discussions. The in-class exercise is really just busy work, and you would spend once a week doing it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-26T13:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Matthews', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': "Don't take this professor. I unexpectedly went from a 97% to a 92% because of one assignment; he expected you to meet certain requirements that he didn't even mention on the assignment guidelines. Also, the way he speaks to students is very condescending and he thinks he's such a hot shot. His class is always awkward and going to class is such a waste of time. I am never one to shit on professors like this but he is an exception. Save yourself and do not take this professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-05-21T12:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Matthews', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': 'Dr. Matthews was straightforward in his expectations. It is not difficult to do well in this class if you make sure you are meeting the criteria he asks for. Class can get awkward sometimes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-30T02:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Matthews', 'course': None, 'review': 'Do not take this teacher. He grades parameters according to parameters not included in the assignment. When asked about this he only says that he will fix it later, but never does. He gives ideas that are not related at all to this class. I wish I had never taken him. It was a waste of time and I did not learn anything. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-15T20:33:00Z'}], 'name': 'John Matthews', 'slug': 'matthews_john'}, {'courses': ['GVPT884', 'GVPT282', 'GVPT484', 'GVPT289L', 'GVPT484H', 'GVPT210', 'GVPT354', 'GVPT780', 'GVPT289U', 'GVPT289U', 'GVPT210', 'GVPT354'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John McCauley', 'course': 'GVPT289L', 'review': "Prof McCauley is the man. GVPT289L was one of the favorite courses I took in college. McCauley is a very talented and charismatic lecturer. He learns the name of all the students in the class early on, despite the lecture being fairly large. Each lecture is a different topic relating to government and religion where he surveys different views and opinions and sometimes builds an argument. Often he tries to make a novel point that is interesting and thought provoking. Week to week the class has very little work. There are a couple of interesting readings each week. 25% of the grade is based on participation during discussion section. My TA made sure that everyone participated so that they got 100%. There is a midterm based on class material and readings that is pretty straightforward. The big assignment for the class is a essay on any topic you want that relates to government and religion. McCauley is genius because he basically wants to limit the amount of work in the class and just give students the ability to explore their passions and write their own essay. I thought that it was a pretty cool opportunity. However, you may not like it as much if you don't like writing. I highly recommend this class with McCauley.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-07T17:08:22Z'}, {'professor': 'John McCauley', 'course': 'GVPT210', 'review': "Professor McCauley is a great, charismatic, easy-going, and empathetic professor. Doesn't make the class harder than it needs to be and is very engaging. He very clearly cares about his students and his work and is flexible. Great guy and great class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-02-18T17:41:10Z'}, {'professor': 'John McCauley', 'course': 'GVPT354', 'review': "Wow. Not only did McCauley learn the names of everyone in our 60 person class and make sure to talk to those that came to class a bit early, but also genuinely knew so much about the topic of development and aid. He works on development professionally, so I feel there is no better source of information on how it works. It is an almost two hour lecture and I am engaged the whole time (rare; he is just that great).\r\n\r\nThe class was easygoing, but that is not to say I did not learn much; we had readings due every week (that we had a short quiz on) that covered a variety of topics and we completed multiple issue and conflict briefs on topics of our choice. We had every opportunity to explore our areas of interest.\r\n\r\nRarely am I ever given this much freedom in a class, and I appreciate Prof McCauley for that! Take a class with him if you can, you won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T15:42:36.088159Z'}], 'name': 'John McCauley', 'slug': 'mccauley_john'}, {'courses': ['HONR219D', 'GEOL212', 'GEOL342', 'GEOL431', 'CPSG230', 'CPSG250', 'GEOL331', 'CPSP359G', 'CPSG100', 'CPSP118G', 'CPSP218G', 'CPSG240', 'CPSG200', 'GEOL388I', 'BSCI392', 'BSCI393', 'GEOL391', 'GEOL392', 'BSCI333', 'CPSG100', 'CPSG200', 'GEOL212', 'GEOL331', 'CPSG230', 'CPSG240', 'CPSG250', 'CPSP359I', 'GEOL431', 'CPSG100', 'CPSG200', 'GEOL212', 'GEOL342'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Merck', 'course': 'GEOL331', 'review': 'Dr. Merck is amazing! Kind, funny, engaging lectures and he is very clear about his expectations and always happy to help out. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-11-20T06:09:20Z'}, {'professor': 'John Merck', 'course': 'CPSG200', 'review': 'Funny, engaging, and extremely reasonable. One of the nicest professors who make learning actually interesting. If you can take him, do it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-14T21:16:37Z'}, {'professor': 'John Merck', 'course': 'CPSG100', 'review': "He's a really nice, funny guy and tries to be engaging. He's also always available to help and will never shame anyone. Unfortunately, the online format of this course made it less interesting for Fall 2020, but Merck was still awesome nonetheless.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T17:56:06Z'}, {'professor': 'John Merck', 'course': 'CPSG100', 'review': "Dr. Merck was very kind and engaging! I remember that I emailed him to let him know that I wasn't going to be able to come to colloquium one day, and he made sure to check up on me afterward. Great lecturer and definitely knows his stuff", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-06T15:50:41Z'}, {'professor': 'John Merck', 'course': 'CPSG101', 'review': 'Very, very kind person. Genuinely wants to see your success, grades leniently(although this is a 1 credit course). Is a great mentor and definitely someone you can reach out to for anything. He really does care about what he is teaching and does care about his students', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-18T10:47:25Z'}, {'professor': 'John Merck', 'course': 'CPSG200', 'review': 'Very easy 1 credit course, put almost no effort into it, but still gained a lot of good knowledge. Probs the best of the 3 cpsg courses ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-24T21:31:08Z'}, {'professor': 'John Merck', 'course': 'GEOL212', 'review': 'If I could give Dr. Merck more stars I would. He seriously shines and has an evident passion for the class that made it incredibly enjoyable. He prioritized our learning and comprehension of the material and has solidified himself as my favorite professor at UMD so far with his humor and genuine zest for life. Although homework can be a bit tedious, the class content is incredibly interesting, and I think that anyone with even a slight interest in the solar system or astronomy would greatly enjoy this course. Cannot recommend Merck enough!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-18T21:17:37.399522Z'}], 'name': 'John Merck', 'slug': 'merck'}, {'courses': ['ECON305', 'ECON330', 'ECON201', 'ECON670', 'ECON488W'], 'average_rating': 3.3788, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "I get that an Econ class is never easy but this guy clearly is still teaching because he has tenure. He rudely tells you he won't reply to your emails about grades once he posts the curve at the end of the semester because you can do your own arithmetic. If you're on a borderline he will still ignore your email. \r\nHis tests were part multiple choice and the math was show your work. He gives out random extra credit points for attendance on days when no one shows up. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-18T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "I recommend this course! Though I took macroeconomics in high school, I got a 2 on the AP exam and learned almost nothing throughout the year. So, I was a little worried coming into college and taking this class. I did well above the average on both midterms (averages were 72% and 69%). He does not curve individual tests but curves at the end of the semester. Personally I think macro is pretty boring so I don't pay that much attention in lecture, but I don't mind going. He often has technical difficulties, poor man. But lectures aren't painful. He's also a totally nice guy. It's clear that he loves economics, and I think it's important for a professor to be passionate about their subject. Without paying attention in lectures, I am projected to get a B+. Honestly, you just have to study before the exam and you should be fine. You have one homework assignment once a week, and it usually takes about an hour to do. Easy workload, medium-difficulty tests, and a nice guy. Study and you'll be fine!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-12-09T23:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': 'Professor Neri did a great job preparing me for Econ305 this Summer!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2016-06-01T22:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Do not take this course. You will be extremely lucky and fortunate to get a B-. There are three tests and the average on the second and third one (final) were a 68 and 66. There are 7 quizzes but two are dropped and it is easy to cheat. There are nine problem sets and most of the answers are online but for the ones that aren't you will be spending hours trying to figure them out. Quizzes and problem sets are on Fridays which can often ruin your Thursday nights. The class is extremely boring and although Neri knows the material he is awful at keeping the class interesting. Unlike the lower level econ class there was only one bonus point lecture (oct 28). I went to class everyday after so I wouldn't miss another one only to find out there wasn't another class where bonus points were given.There was a curve at the end because of the low averages on the tests which basically boosted your grade up a letter if you were in the 60s or 70s. However, this curve is not guaranteed. The tests are two days and the short response isn't that bad because most of the questions are just algebra taken from the problem sets. Overall this was the toughest and least interesting class I've ever taken. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-23T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'He just posted the curve and it was a shit curve. He curved my B- to a B+, which sounds like a lot but wait until I tell you the averages for our exams. The first exam average was around a 64%, the second exam average was around a 71%, and the final exam average was around a 61% (and the final is worth 35% of your grade). The problem sets he gives are the only other grades for the course, so make sure you do a good job on them. Also, make sure you attend class because he gives extra credit for going to class. I had him for macroeconomics and got an A, but this class is just hard. The main advice I would give to students is to go to class and actually pay attention and write down notes on what he says. A lot of times he says some weird fact or thing that will be on the exam. Good luck in this course.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-20T00:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': 'HELP. What class is easier econ330 or econ305 please help?????????', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-17T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Professor Neri is a horrible professor. If you HAVE to sign up for his class because of a scheduling conflict then I suggest you CHANGE YOUR SCHEDULE because you will not do well in his class. He teaches off of PowerPoints and then gives extremely difficult exams. The average on his Final (spring 2015) was a 65%. Please listen to my advice and stay away from John Neri. He will make you upset and the 4 credits will kill your GPA.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2015-05-22T00:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "Because the previous reviews are good, I am taking this class. his teaching style is straight forward, and you can get all information he taught. Sometimes, you might feel that the class is boring. All assignments are easy if you go to lectures. However, the problem will be caused from each exam.\n\r\nThe average score of the first exam is about 60 out of 100. 40 multiple choices, and 4 short answer and essay questions. \n\r\nAbout 75 percent of multiple choice questions are okay if you review the book and power point. For left questions, he put the question one time he mentioned during the lecture. After the exam, one student asked him about the question, he just said that he mentioned in previous lecture. Yes, it is true, he mentioned one time in the class... \n\r\nFor essay questions, he wants specific answer he expects. Otherwise, you will lose a lot of points from an essay question.\n\r\nDon't get me wrong. His lecture is fine, and you will understand what he teaches you, and all HW are so straightforward.\n\r\nWell, some people might think that I do not study not that hard. Here is what I did for the class. I attended all class sessions and write down information that I think is important, and I met TA twice per a week to catch up what I don't understand and more information I will learn from next lecture. Every weekend, I preview for next two chapters, and review from the class, and meet TA. For the same semester, I was taking BMGT 340, which is Finance. The two classes covered really similar material, but ECON 330 is a little bit in depth material.\n\r\nOh, by the way, there is no curve at all, if you fail one of the three exam, Let's say 60s. Getting 100 percent from all HW and left exam and final, and also extra credit (which is 3 times attendance depending on the professor's mind) then you will get A-. (Except the exam, you need to get all 100 percent)\n\r\nIf you major in ECON, it would be okay. Otherwise, I recommend you to record or write all what he said during each lecture.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-23T02:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "tough tough course only take it if you are prepared to give it your all. I was not and did not do well. He knows his stuff but he work is hard and he is not not sympathetic to student problems. In fact he lets his TA's do almost all the work and they can be just as tough as he is. If you take the course focus..and good luck.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2014-07-13T13:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "Probably one of the most overhyped courses in Maryland, but that's because people think they don't need to show up to class, and end up doing terribly. I actually found this course to be very accessible, and Prof. Neri is a great lecturer, who explains everything very well, and actually knows what he is teaching (the best one I ever had among all my econ classes). Even though attendance is not required, I found it helpful to go to class, just to hear the material explained, and to get the random extra credit opportunities he gives (usually in days that a lot of people don't show up, to reward the people who actually showed up; this semester he did it 3 times). More about the course, there are 6 problems sets, which are not hard if you attend class, two midterms, and a cumulative final (which are not overly difficult, since he covers everything in class). Prof. Neri is really helpful, and always willing to help, during office hours and even after class. He also offered a bit of a curve at the end of the semester, which usually varies from semester to semester. Take him, you won't regret it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-05-29T12:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Honestly, it was one of the most boring classes I've taken here. Nothing about it was interesting and it just gets worse as the class goes on. You'll spend half an hour talking about a graph and the wonderful theory behind it. Captivating. Not an easy course either. The average in the class is a C, and on the 2nd midterm the average was a 67. The exam was also broken up into two 50 minute periods (a midterm). ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-12-18T20:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "In order to get an A: go to class (for random extra credits), take notes on what the professor says (not the power point),and go to review sessions before exams.\n\r\nTip: there are about 6 homework assignments. They are pretty hard so visit the TA's. Don't forget that only UNDERGRADUATE TA's will help you. Graduate TA's are NOT helpful.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-09-03T11:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "I'm sorry but people need to post updated reviews on here. John Neri is a upper level Econ professor that taught an INTRO class. This class was seriously like death. The slides were basically from the book but a little spiced up and the lecture was a snore. He is a very nice man but seriously shouldn't be teaching 201. I went into his office for help a few times and didn't explain things any differently. If your like me and all you have to do is read the book to understand the concept that's fine but be aware that it will not prepare for the exam! There were a few people in the class (clearly Econ majors) that were doing the most and clearly inflated the average. Sadly if there were more up to date reviews on here I would have taken Sarna. Sadly I will have to take him for my upper level Econ class and I am dreading it. His tests are just way to tricky. Please save yourself the trouble and take Sarna don't be a fool because your GPA will pay.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2013-05-17T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Neri is a great lecturer and explains concepts thoroughly. He was always enthusiastic and willing to answer questions. I know the content of 305 is dull and it's easy to skip, but if you attend lectures and pay attention, you don't have to study for the exams. Neri literally covers all aspects of his exams in his lectures and the reason so many students hate on him is because they don't pay attention. I agree the exams are challenging, but they are doable if you go to class. Neri is friendly if you approach him with questions or if you go to his hours, though I didn't find the TAs to be much help. There is occasionally a bit of a curve at the end of the semester, but don't count on it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-15T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "I really like Dr. Neri. I think he is a great lecturer and he really understands what he's teaching. \n\r\nThe class itself is very difficult. Some people say you don't have to go to lecture and do ok, but I think going was beneficial, just to hear the material explained. He also gives sporadic attendance quizzes, which are 5 points each, so that is definitely a bonus.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-13T10:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "ECON330 was my second showdown with Neri. Once again, this dude was hard. Not much to be gained from the lectures, except that he gave extra credit randomly through the semester for those who showed up. \n\r\nI don't really know what to say because you are pretty much forced to take the class with him. Go to his office hours if you have questions because he's actually really nice about helping.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-23T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "ECON305 REVIEW (Spring 2010):\n\r\nThe objective of this course is to dive a little deeper into the models that were introduced in ECON201. Thankfully, you don't need to remember any of ECON201 to do well.\n\r\nNeri teaches this course from the bottom up, and makes it so simple that even a fourth grader could understand it. \n\r\nMore often than not, the book will confuse you, so don't read it (don't even buy it, it's useless). Just go to class and write down everything Neri says and writes; that's all you need to know for exams.\n\r\nClass consists of 6 quizzes (drop the lowest 2), 6 homeworks (simple if you go to lecture), 2 midterms, and a cumulative final.\n\r\nExams are basic and straightforward. Consist of multiple choice questions (about 30% of the exam) that test surface-level understanding (i.e. they're simple), and 2-3 short-answer questions that typically involve a lot of graphs (about 70% of the exam). These graphs are based on the models that Neri drills into your head during lecture, and the graph questions on the exams are always something he has explicitly done in lecture before (or a very slight variation of it that is still easy).\n\r\nIn short, this class COULD be difficult if A. you don't go and simply rely on the book, or B. if Neri made hard exams, or C. if Neri was not a good lecturer. Go to class and don't rely on the confusing textbook (take care of A), which will immediately take care of B since you will have seen every question on the exam before in lecture. C is not the case.\n\r\nJust as I said in the ECON330 review below, great professor. Great class. Highly recommended.\n\n\n\n\n\r\nECON330 REVIEW (Fall 2009):\n\r\nEasily one of the most overhyped courses in the university. Despite the reviews, ECON330 is a very accessible course for all students. The material you learn is very far-reaching and wide in terms of practical application. You learn important things that you will actually want to learn and remember far after the course is done. \n\r\nJohn Neri is very personable and an excellent professor. He presents all of his material in a very down-to-earth way that just about anyone can understand. Complaints you see about him arise because people skip class or don't pay attention, both of which is the students' faults to begin with. If you go to class, take good notes, and skim the book if you don't understand any concepts, you will be fine.\n\r\nAssignments consist of 5 problem sets (all very easy if you attend lecture), 2 midterms, and a cumulative final exam. He gives 5 points of extra credit at least 2 times throughout the semester (in fall 09, he did it 3 times) on days when not a lot of people show up, to reward those who DID show up. \n\r\nTo study for exams, get a good grasp of ALL the material he presented in lecture. Study a few days in advance, because there is quite a bit of material on each exam. \n\r\nGreat professor. Great class. Highly recommended.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "I took Professor Neri in Fall 2011 for Econ305. I found his class to be very, very difficult. He's a good teacher and he knows a lot about the material, but he goes pretty quick and the concepts can be hard to understand. He was a pretty generous grader though; I did an extra credit assignment at the beginning of the semester, and in the end, I was a few points shy of an A and he used it to pull me up to an A, which was nice.\n\r\nThe exams are challenging. The questions can be hard, but mostly the exams are just really long. I would recommend doing the free response questions first because they take the longest, and then do the multiple choice. I had kind of middling grades on my exams, but the quizzes and problem sets boost the grades as long as you do them all.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-18T23:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'Professor Neri is a very solid lecturer. If you attend his classes and read the book, you should have absolutely no problem receiving an A in his class. His exams are based very much on what he teaches in class, and his teaching style is very straight-forward and easy to understand. He offers at least 10 points extra credit throughout the semester for attendance points, so be sure to try to attend every class if you can. Moreover, people with an 85% or higher get an A in his class, so the curve is very generous as well (taking into account the extra credit opportunities). I thought that his exams were a good deal easier than those seen in BMGT340.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-25T18:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "Neri is a genuinely nice guy and i personally think he's a fair grader. the exams are really difficult, the averages are around 65% but he gives at least 3 extra credit opportunities (2 for attendance and 1 for an optional assignment). the problem sets are pretty easy and they take 15% of your grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-23T22:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': None, 'review': 'went to every class, do the hmwk and you get guarantee points, pretty much impossible to fail the course, but getting and A is pretty tough as well. Ended up with a C because i failed every test ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-18T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "ECON330 (Grade: C)\r\nHoly crap. The hardest course I've ever taken at Maryland, by far. WAY harder than 201. Go to every lecture, because he gives occasional extra credit attendance checks and those can make or break your grades. The homework is sporadic in this class and very easy, but the exams are incredibly difficult. They ask very specific, detailed questions and the final exam is absolutely the worst. Not only is it cumulative, it's also even more detailed and specific than the other two exams. \n\r\nNeri presents the material much like he does for ECON201, he was pretty good at it but you'll probably want to read the book too. There's definitely a lot of good stuff to be learned in this class, but be prepared to put in a LOT of effort if you want to get a B or A. \r\n=========\r\nECON201 (Grade: A-)I loved Dr. Neri's class. He teaches the material very well, and he's very enthusiastic about it. Admittedly there were a few times where I spaced out but I guess that's to be expected in these kinds of lectures. He was always happy to answer students' questions. \n\r\nThe exams for the class are pretty fair in my opinion, as long as you do the reading or go to class. Homework is done online, you get two shots at each assignment and it uses the higher score so there's generally no excuse to not do well. GO TO LECTURE as well because he occasionally gives out extra credit for attending. It can make a big difference in your final grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-16T11:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'Really nice guy. Just go to class, read the chapters, do the homework and you will probably get an A. I went to about 40% of the classes and got a B. It helps to have taken BMGT340 or any course that discusses the time value of money', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-18T04:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "This guy was great and his classes were fun to attend. He taught all of the material well, posted all lectures online, and really made it fun to learn about econ by using things like vids on youtube to help teach harder topics. Granted, this is an econ class so it was somewhat tough. But, for those business majors who have to take an upper level econ, would you rather continue to talk about micro/macro theories that don't really mean anything or would you rather learn how the federal banking system works, how bonds work, and what the business section of the news is actually saying? \r\nIf you care about business and earning money, this class can actually help with knowing how and when to invest in the bonds market as well as knowing what moves the fed is going to make so that you can know how to plan your investments.That and a lot of the topics overlap with what's taught in BMGT340 so take this first and have fun with it, then go and pass through finance already knowing the material. Seriously a class that you can actually go and use to profit off of while still in college, so why not have fun with econ instead of boring yourself with more theories?", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-01-07T19:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "Not as bad as others make it sound. Prof Neri is a great guy and tries his best to make class interesting. There is a lot of material and exams can be difficult. Follow the slides posted online as a study guide along with the book and you should be fine. Attendance is not mandatory but he does give extra credit attendance a couple time through the semester. I got a B but could have gotten an A if I didn't bombed the first exam because I didn't study correctly. His curve was decent, 74% got you a B and 85% got you an A.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-02T20:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "The professor is a nice guys, he is pretty energetic and upbeat. He cares about how students do by giving out some extra credit rarely and he does curve at the end of the semester, but you won't know by how much.\n\r\nHowever, with that being said, he is really not all that great at teaching concepts and you will not learn everything you need from him for the homeworks and even test problems. I am not an econ or business major and used this class as an upper level core. \n\r\nI attended all classes, and it helped somewhat, but you really need to read and study on your own to get a good grade. \n\r\nContrary to what some people said, the curve is not the same each semester. I had an 82.5% before the curve, and ended up getting a B+, so the curve really was not enough considering I put in a moderate amount of work and I am a mostly A student.\r\nUnless you like econ, math, or finance, I highly recommend to avoid this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-24T16:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "I don't get why there are so many negative reviews for Dr. Neri. He is a very jolly professor and knows monetary and macroeconomics very well and explains terms in a way we can understand. Of course, to understand the concepts you actually have to attend class and pay attention(sometimes he gives extra credit for attendance). To do well on his challenging exams the key is to study his posted slides and use the book to clarify things that don't make sense, if you do that you should get a solid B+ or A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Neri is not the problem for these classes. I have had Neri before and I think he is a great professor. The problem is the class. The material is very hard and it's very hard to teach yourself if you don't pay attention in class because some of the concepts aren't explained well in the book.\r\nThis class consisted of 2 exams, 1 comprehensive final, 7 problem sets, and 6 quizzes (2 of which are dropped). The exams are pretty tough and test you on more than just memorization. The problem sets are pretty tricky too. Some of the answers are online verbatim, but most of them aren't online. The quizzes weren't that bad because they were only multiple choice.\r\nOverall, Neri is a good professor. This class is hard if you hate econ or find it boring, but if you really like it, it shouldn't be a bad class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-13T21:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "The absolute worst professor at the University of Maryland. DO NOT TAKE HIM.\n\r\nI attended all lectures, went to the study sessions, did extra credit, and still bombed his exams.\n\r\nHe is NOT nice, and neither are his TA's (probably because they have to deal with HIM).\n\r\nHe doodles on the chalk board and it's really easy to get lost in what he's talking about.\n\r\nI closed with a 79.9, and he wouldn't raise my grade to a B. No joke. I was appalled. \n\r\nTake ECON305 over winter or summer if you have to take this class. It's not worth it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-11-01T17:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "Just take note that all the people who give Neri bad reviews were probably the students in the class who don't understand that sometimes you have to actually STUDY to get an A. What a shocker. \n\r\nNeri is a cool guy, he makes corny jokes, he knows econ like the back of his hand, and he always has technical difficulties (poor guy). He is more than willing to help you out if you're having some trouble and if you're respectful. Don't come whining to him and expect to be received warmly. \n\r\nGo to lectures, pay attention, read the book, you'll be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-09-25T20:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Neri is a good guy and fairly funny for an ECON class, but tests are next to impossible. I honestly don't even know how to recommend studying for them because they cover a wide array of topics and many of which were not thoroughly explained in class. If you have to take ECON305 expect to do a lot of studying for tests and quizzes and work on problem sets, but if you do all the work and study a lot, you'll probably do ok.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-06-08T17:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Your typical Econ professor: not the most engaging, teaches through PowerPoint slides that are posted online. He's a nice guy, just not too far from the norm. There's no point in showing up to class because, as I mentioned earlier, all of the slides are online as are the Problem Sets.\n\r\nLots of graphs and a hint of math.\n\r\nHe often sends quiz and exam reminders, so you won't have to worry about memorizing the syllabus. I only took this class because I had to in order to fulfill my core requirement. Otherwise, I'd avoid the class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-25T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'I asked him a question after class. He told me to ask the TAs about it. \r\nI talked to the TAs, and he told me to send him and e-mail. \r\nI sent him an e-mail, and he responded that this was the type of question to ask Professor Neri. \n\r\nAside from that, this was the most extreme class I have taken on campus. Extreme, by it is extremely easy to get a B by doing nothing, and extremely difficult to get an A. Neri curved a D+ to a B. He curved a C to a B. He curved a B+ to a B+. My friend got a D and ended up with a B. I got a B and also ended up with a B. All in all, the grade distribution is a normal curve around a C. \n\r\nWatch out for the free response on all his exams, and his cumulative final. If you Neri at 8am, good luck. Problem sets were graded randomly and a few extra credit points barely made any impact', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-03-10T05:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "This class was quite challenging for me at first, but tings got better.\n\r\nNeri is a good guy. He usually isn't in a hurry so feel free to ask questions while in class. Also, going to his office hours with reasonable questions could help.\n\r\nIn terms of studying for this class, focus on the slides and notes taken in class. Had i known this earlier, i would have gotten an A in the class. His exams come directly from the slides so be careful not to skim over minute details. Also, don't just cram the slides but try to understand what is really going on. Again, he is more than willing to help if you go to office hours.\n\r\nOne more thing...the extra credit really helps so try to get the points by being in class and staying till the end. Ohhhh, and the problem sets, consult the T.A's when in doubt! I missed 10 points all together on the problem sets, the difference between the B i got and the A i wanted.\n\r\nGood luck!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'b', 'created': '2011-01-25T12:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "This class is definetely less challenging than micro economics but it still involves the same amount of analyzing graphs. But, this class should be taken after ECON200. It will make a lot more sense then.\n\r\nProfessor Neri is definetely one of the better professors at UMD. He cracks some really funny jokes at people and himself during the lecture which almost always facilitates in learning the material. This class starts out really easy and the first exam should be an easy mid B or an A. After that, the class becomes difficult exponentially. My best advice to other students is to read the chapter before and after the lecture it was taught in. It will help a lot especially while doing homework. I felt that homework was way more challenging than the exams itself because he sometimes introduced concepts which he felt that we would magically know just by taking this class. And also because the wording was too damn confusing. \n\r\nA little secret that he doesn't tell his students. MORE THAN HALF OF THE PROBLEMS IN HIS EXAMS ARE DIRECTLY FROM THE HOMEWORK PROBLEMS IN MY ECON LAB. They are literally the best way to study for the exams. I realized this days before the final exam and used the homework problems as the main studying tool. I ended up getting more than 10 percentage points above the class average. But, you should still read the book, not skim it.\n\r\nThe class consisted of 2 midterms (40 questions each), a final exam (55 questions) and the quiz sets on my econ lab (homework) which he drops the lowest 3. He also gave out 5 bonus points twice during semester to reward the students who came and stayed all the way though in his lectures. These bonus points might not seem a lot considering the class was out of 430 points. But they really do help. I ended up getting exactly 90.3% just because of the bonus points. If it weren't for them, I would end up getting somewhere around 87-88%\n\r\nAnd he curves in the end only if the overall class performance was not as good as he hoped for. \n\r\nTake this class with Neri. You will learn a lot!!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-24T16:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "Don't listen to the bad reviews. (They are just from angry students who put no effort into the class and received a low grade.)\n\r\nYes, his exams are tough, but the curve in the class is huge! An 80% is an A. If you can't get an 80% final average with 10 points of extra credit and easy problem sets, then you don't belong in college. \n\r\nNeri is an excellent teacher and will do whatever he can to help. I highly recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T16:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Really upbeat cool guy. Gives a weekly MyEconLab quiz, but he only counts your top 9 out of like 12. Exams were tough. 10 extra credit points if you went to class and stayed til the end a couple times.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-20T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "Just received my grade in the course (C). Neri is an awful professor. While he complains about students not attending class regularly, I made it to about 70% of classes but had an extremely difficult time learning anything from him.\n\r\nHe DOES curve. It's tough to not get a C because all you needed was a 58% for it. However, getting above that is very tough - based on the grades, it looks like 30% of students received B's or better while 70% received C's or worse - that's an absolutely awful curve distribution. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-19T18:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "oh boy, John Neri. He lectures, but it is so difficult to try and study from the notes I take in his class. There's no order to them, and he just randomly draws graphs without full explanations. There are 7 problem sets, 6 quizzes, 2 midterms, and 1 cumulative final. The quizzes are very detailed, the TA's pretty much give 100% on the problem sets if you make an effort, and the exams are hard as crap. They're the kind that no matter how much you study, he always tweaks the information just enough so that you have no idea where to even start.\r\nNeri truly doesn't care about his students, and displays that when going to office hours, which I hated doing because of his annoyed and rude attitude. Unfortunately, the TA's have the same attitude as Neri and had no interest in providing help.\r\nOverall, I hated this class and am dreading the fact that I have to take another class with him. Oh and I swear he has PMS all the time.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-18T21:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Don't believe some of those bad reviews you see below. John Neri is a very good professor. His lectures are pretty good. Some of the materials in this course aren't too straightforward, but that's not his fault. His exams are fair. Don't miss lectures, you'll be sorry if you do. I know I am.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Neri is one of the better professors I've had at UMD. The material is difficult to understand if you're not particularly fond of economics, and he draws a LOT of graphs! His exams are hard, but you can do well if you come to class!! Take notes, understand the homework -- I rarely used the book at all! I'd suggest maybe splitting the book costs w/ a friend because you really don't need it if you come to class. \n\r\nOverall I would recommend Neri as a teacher. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-27T12:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'awesome class. Take this class if you want to be more well-rounded in terms of knowing what is going on in the news with respect to the economy.\n\r\nThis class did take quite a lot of time and effort, but was definitely worth it in the end. Make sure to study at least a week in advance and to keep up with the material...otherwise there is no hope. Go through all of his slides and problem sets in detail(remember and understand everything). He does curve in the end, but the amount of the curve seems to vary by semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T15:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "He was a decent professor. He knows what he's doing, and he's not the typical dry econ lecturer. He draws a lot of real-world comparisons and shows examples, he occasionally cracks a joke (although they're not drop dead funny I appreciate his effort), the homeworks and the tests are reasonable. What you have to keep in mind is the subject matter. He is a decent professor, but by no means good enough to make econ enjoyable. It is dry and boring, and I ended up skipping most of the lectures (bad idea, since he occasionally gives pop quizzes to reward those in attendance). I couldn't pay attention, and ended up reading the textbook the day before the tests instead. The tests are reasonable if you understand the concepts though, and he doesn't spring anything on you just to be mean.\n\r\nSummary: He's a good professor, but to make econ anything other than dry and miserable, you need to be a really great professor. Go to class, read the book, do the homeworks, and make sure you know the concepts.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': ' B', 'created': '2010-01-18T14:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'Dr. Neri was not at all a good professor for ECON330! He needs to find another way to teach the class because he lectures straight from powerpoint slides, that are straight from the book - and it doesn\'t work. The class is offered at 8am in the fall, and it is extremely hard to absorb any type of information at that time, and Dr. Neri does not make it easier. The homeworks are given randomly throughout the semester and are out of 12 points, and does NOT help your overall grade. The homework should not even be considered as "give away points" because most students recieved 9-10 on them. The final is worth so much, its ridiculous. He gives attendance extra credit which is great. He does curve, I had a 62 and got a C. He has very strange manerisms, its almost too much to handle so early in the morning. I did learn from this class.. FROM READING THE BOOK. If you don\'t need this class as a requirement, save yourself the misery!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-01-12T16:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "I don't understand the negative reviews for this professor because to me , he was a really great teacher. While I did this class as a Business school prequisite he made economics so interesting and applicable that I will try to take more econ classes as electives, especially if he is teaching it. Just go to class, study the powerpoints, and rely on knowing the formulas and you are fine. His exams are very fair yet still a bit challenging, he gives 3 attendance quizzes a semester, and he is lenient on the MyEconLab Grades. Just go to lecture and skip the discussion because all you do is go over the MyEconLabs.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-20T22:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "Here's my opinion. Goes without saying that it should be taken with a grain of salt:\n\r\nWhile I wouldn't consider Econ330 to be a difficult class, it is very dense in subject material and requires that you remember a lot of things for the exams. Despite the previous reviews, I actually found Neri to be an okay professor, not the best but also not the diabolical creature students who wrote these reviews make him out to be.\n\r\nHe gives out extra credit over the course of the semester, mostly 3 times. Also, he tends to give out the first one after the first exam. Second one sometime before the second exam and third one after the second exam. Not definite, but tends to....\n\r\nHere's how I got an A:\r\n1) Read every chapter and understood the major concepts\r\n2) Went over the slides he uses in class before each exam\r\n3) I skipped about 35% of classes but still got 2 of the 3 extra credit points\r\n4) Completed every problem set. Read each chapter before completing it, it helps.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T20:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "this class is pretty difficult. to do well on the exams, you MUST understand the problem sets. you can't just be able to replicate them, but really understand why things are happening. the exams make you think about the concepts that the problem sets teach. going to class isn't necessary, i was unable to pay attention because the lectures were boring. but read the book, go to TA office hours if you have questions on the problem sets and study the quizzes and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-19T14:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'He is the \'hard way up\' kinds guy. Will give you a really tough time during the semester but will "curve" in the end. YES he does curve. But don\'t bank on it. I didn\'t even know there was a curve until after the final. It helps a lot.\n\r\nIf your a finance or economics guy, you will just LOVE the information the class provides (the text, his slides etc.) and the extra info. he provides (links etc.) I took a lot from this class in those terms and can use them in my other finance or economic endeavors. \n\r\nOverall, pretty good course and proff.... But you will have to WORK HARD for your grade.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-17T21:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Neri knows what he's talking about. Unfortunately it's hard to get to that point yourself. \n\r\nFollowing what he's teaching in class is relatively easy. \n\r\nThe course moves about a chapter a week which gets to be a pretty decent amount of information. There's 2 tests and a cumulative final...all of which are pretty rough. I ended up with jsut over 100% in EC200 after the curve and a solid A in EC201... but 305 ran me for a mid B first test and a low C second exam. If you had problems in the lower levels I probably wouldn't suggest this course for you. \n\r\nI only went to office hours once and Neri himself answered my question. He's personable and wants to help. It's jsut that the he expects ALOT of you and the course material is rough to master that fast. \n\r\nAs to anonymous... he only gave one attendance quiz this semester... but he hates if you leave in the middle of lecture... jsut dont go if you can't stay. And I didn't use lecture slides... I went purely off class notes I took and the latest (7th) edition of the book...although he said that all the way back to the 5th edition was still ok. \n\r\nDrops 2/6 quizes... doesnt drop any problem sets. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-17T20:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'Neri absolutely loves making his students\' lives, a living hell. really passionate about seeing us fail. the guy knows his stuff though, he conveys everything in a concise, \'to-the-point\' manner and it really isn\'t that hard to follow - until you take his exams of course. he doesn\'t curve that much. START STUDYING A WEEK IN ADVANCE - you\'ll need it. make sure you know all his slides by heart. as mentioned earlier, he loves testing his students on stupid little details, so pay attention. i found him a rather obnoxious guy when I went and asked him if there was any way I could raise my grade in the class from a C- to an A; he told me flat out, "no". the TAs are a lot nicer; although they\'re not too fluent in English, at least they\'re helpful.ATTEND CLASS. as said earlier, you really would hate yourself for skipping and then missing out on a A or a B, or even a C by a few points. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-18T01:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'Very animated teacher, very lively and humorous. Teaches off of power point slides, which are posted online. Take notes carefully and follow whatever he writes on the board, most likely it will be on an exam. Go to lecture all the time, he gives extra credit attendances at least 3 times out of the semester. Exams are on the tough side, lots of facts rather than theoretical bs that you can make up. Multiple choice though and he does give you some sample questions. Definitely have to put forth some work and take good notes. He does curve at the end.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-19T00:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'the professor: Neri is one of those few professors that make economics entertaining and bearable. He\'s animated at 8am and makes the content very easy to understand GIVEN THAT YOU GO TO LECTURE. If you sleep/doze off/ don\'t go then reading the slides to study will take longer but it is still feasible. the great thing about this class is that it is relevant to current events, he tries to start off each lecture with what has been happening in the news and how it relates to what we\'re learning. A trick to this class is to pay attention to these anecdotes, anything he says is fair game during the exams.\n\r\nthe exams: The exams are NOT difficult if you know ALL the content on the powerpoint slides. Honestly, if you pay attention in lecture, reading over the slides is a breeze. the tricky part is just memorizing certain numbers like interest rates. The exams are 85% MC 15% written and a all MC final. there are a total of 2 midterms and a cumulative final. \n\r\nThe written sections are giveaway points since most of the time they are math problems are there are only so many equations to choose from. Sometimes he may ask a "why" question, like why is this number this way or why does this answer make sense. Essentially, if you can do all the MC and support why you got the answer you did (aka not random guessing), you should be able to ace the written. When i went to collect my written part, the only part of the exams Neri let\'s you keep, i saw a lot of 0\'s and low points. Don\'t let yourself be one of them.\n\r\nThere are 5 written problem sets that do not take much time. They are easy if you go to lecture, but you need to be careful not to make careless mistakes. If you have questions, go to Neri during his office hours, he is more than willing to help or even just shoot him an email for he responds quickly. \n\r\nThe key for this class is to keep up. The textbook is only there if you don\'t understand why something in happening in the powerpoints but if you do go to class and manage to stay awake, then you will be able to take the course sans any assistance from the textbook. Study the slides, not the book. The only thing Neri will ever include on the exams NOT covered in the slides is the random anecdotes he talks about in the news or things he writes on the board. Know these small details well because he loves to test if students are paying attention. \n\r\nSince this class is usually offered fairly early (i had an 8 am), going to class can be an epic struggle. My advice: go? because you\'ll hate yourself for missing the generous 5 point attendance bonus points he randomly gives out a 2-3 times a semester.\n\r\nFinally, the curve is massive. But do not rely on it. Take the class as if there was no curve if you want to get an A, because he grades it so that most people end up right under the "A" mark and with a B+, etc. The curve during my semester was around 83% to get an A but that number could change depending on the exam averages. If you can average an 85% on all three exams you are fine. Anything lower could be risky. Also the first exam is the hardest, study every detail of the slides. Know why things are happening. UNDERSTAND and MEMORIZE. sometimes understanding concepts isn\'t enough and other times memorizing answers isn\'t enough either. you need both for this class. \n\r\nAlthough the grade curve looks daunting, it is possible to get an A in the class. Don\'t be discouraged! I learned a lot and Neri is a great professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-22T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "I had an A the entire semester. I just took the final exam and it was one of the hardest I've ever taken. It was much harder than any exam he gave during the year. Watch out for this final.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T17:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "One of the worst professors. Lectures have nothing to do with the assignments he gives and the information in the book doesn't help either. You have to really think outside the box in order to complete the homeworks which takes around 2 hours to complete despite being only 3 questions. Even if you put in the effort to complete the homework, it's impossible to get perfect score on homeworks since you were technically never taught how to do the assignment. Exams are difficult and they're essay problems. He always has that detestable smug on his face when people look to be struggling with the exams. Avoid this man.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-08T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "The Good\r\nDefinitely a funny guy. He tries to keep the class really light hearted - and he does give out extra credit. There's usually a pretty big curve too.\n\r\nThe Bad\r\nThe tests are pretty hard and don't really have anything to do with the slides and class.. most of the information comes from the books. The averages were pretty low and the homeworks are really annoying. \n\r\nOverall, great guy.. not so great class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-08T13:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'A Pain. The good thing about him is that he is talkative and cheery, and really knows what he lectures. But, you loose momentum and slowly stop going to class b/c you can only learn from the text. The bad thing was that his exams were hard, and you had to study masses of info to be able to pass his class. And there was a writing section on the exam!!! But of course, there was a curve, and it was big.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-28T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'He is nice and funny. You really need to read the book to understand the material and to succeed on the exam. I would recommend going to every class because sometimes he puts questions on the test from things that he talked about in class. One thing that really helped me was printing out the power points and taking on them while he went over them in class. Also he gives out extra credit quizzes in class. The extra credit is so crucial to your grade especially after the final which is so hard. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-01-08T02:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Strengths- He's one of the best professors in the entire department. He has a clear understanding of the material and he truly won't steer you wrong. He knows all of the concepts and if you're attentive and ask a lot of questions he won't leave you unsatisfied. He has GREAT curves. Everyone in that class will either get a B or a C. No one ever fails unless they didn't really give a crap.\n\r\nDrawbacks: That being said. This class is BUTT-HARD! Like it's ridiculous how often me and my friends (the do-gooders that sit in the front row) have to go over and over the material before even a homework assignment. The problem is not with him it's so many other factors. \r\n1) TA's: I hate THEM!! They will hardly help you if you need it \r\n2) The material itself is confusing and there is no right answer. Even Neri will admit it. You will often find some sort of conflict with the professor's answer, the TA's answer AND the book's answer.\r\n3) The exams: The exams take a lot of time and are hard even though they're like 8 multiple choice and 2 short answer. \n\r\nRemedy: GO TO CLASS!! So serious, you'll never get it doing it by yourself.\n\r\nRecommendation: Thus, if you're not into ECON and just want to take an upper level for business, DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS!! Take ECON340 or ECON306! If you want a challenging class with some really interesting material, by all means take it, but don't say you didn't know what you were getting into.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2007-12-25T13:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "Strengths\r\nDr. Neri is a decent teacher. He can be very boring at times, but I think he does the best with what he has to work with. Economic theory often tends to be a little dry. He is a very friendly and nice guy, and he wants students to do well, but he expects them to do something to earn their grades too. His tests can be tough, but they are manageable. Most of what you need to know comes straight out of the book...read it and you will be fine. Going to lecture helps to reinforce the material, plus you never know when it might help your grade in other ways. So it's definitely important to go to all lectures. Take it in the spring when it's offered at 9:30 as opposed to 8AM in the fall! Even 9:30 is early!\r\nDr. Neri hates it when people don't show up to lecture, or especially when people leave early so he sometimes gives extra credit in lecture when a lot of people aren't there, and he won't mention it on the class website. The homeworks require some time but you only have to do them about once every 4-5 weeks. Dr. Neri does generally give a fairly generous curve on final grades to help students out. I think I finished with about an 80 average and wound up being 12 points away from an A- on a 400 point scale.\r\nDrawbacks\r\nLectures can be boring. Tests can be hard. Often the average is in the 60s. Chances are that you will have to take this class if you are a Finance or Econ major so you won't have much choice in the matter, but Neri is a pretty decent teacher. I've heard there are much worse profs in the Econ dept.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-03T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'Great Professor, Provided everything you need in the powerpoints. Would recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-12-29T22:53:28Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Everyone gives him a hard time, but he is nice and his exams aren't that hard. Just do practice problems and go over past quizzes before exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-02T01:39:09Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "He's an interesting guy. He cracks jokes a lot, but the material is no joke. Lots of formulas and vocabulary, but all interesting stuff if you like learning about bonds/Federal Reserve/central banking. The test averages were low (in the 60's), but he made up for it by adjusting the final grades. A 85 was an A, a 75 a B, and so forth. Not a lot of daily homework, just some online quizzes and a weekly worksheet. He does random attendance checks for bonus points, so make sure to go to class if you take him.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-01-26T15:43:33Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "My biggest problem with Neri is that he does not use his own PowerPoint slides, and it becomes obvious when he doesn't understand what a slide says. He does not prepare you for exams well but if you study hard you still can do well. I generally like my econ classes, but hated his. Still possible to get a decent grade.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-04-08T02:32:07Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "TBH if you can't pass this class with flying colors, you should never ever go into higher level finance. I barely went to class and his slides are detailed enough that acing this class is easy. Genuinely some of the questions some kids asked made me cringe, like just remember ECON 201", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-13T04:38:58Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Make no mistake, this is a hard class. However if you show up to class everyday and do the problem sets, at least a B is pretty attainable. Neri himself is a nice guy and a decent lecturer, but you really need to show up to class since much of the stuff he teaches isn't in the book or on Google. Class average is very low so if you have a B pre-curve, you're pretty much guaranteed an A-/A", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-25T16:33:59Z'}, {'professor': 'John Neri', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': 'Dr. Neri is a great prof. but his class is very challenging. However, if you work hard and go to class, an A is possible. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-02-07T02:06:38Z'}], 'name': 'John Neri', 'slug': 'neri'}, {'courses': ['EDHI747', 'EDUC898', 'EDUC888'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Norris', 'slug': 'norris_john'}, {'courses': ['EDCI342A', 'EDCI342B', 'EDCI784', 'EDCI342', 'EDCI788C', 'EDCI488I', 'TLPL488R', 'TLPL888', 'TLPL488I', 'TLPL889', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL344', 'TLPL889', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL889', 'TLPL899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': "John O'Flahavan", 'slug': "o'flahavan"}]
[{'courses': ['CHEM131', 'CHEM474', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM131S'], 'average_rating': 2.6786, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'This professor cannot teach. All Ondov does is ramble on and on and on. Most of my daily sleep probably happens in his lectures--"Thank you for my beauty sleep, but no thank you for the mediocre teaching." His monotonous rambling only circles around his own thoughts. And he spends LECTURE time trying to figure out what he did wrong or what information he got wrong. He just doesn\'t have it together at all. Very unprepared and awkward. Just thinking about his lectures makes my blood boil. Sometimes, I just leave and take the tophat quizzes from my dorm or somewhere else because he predictably gives them either at the beginning of class, or at the end. So, yea... don\'t have Ondov. He will harm you more than help you. Just saying. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-11-11T01:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I did well in the class, but no thanks to Dr. Ondov. He's not a bad guy, and you can tell that he's trying, but his lectures are all over the place. He makes mistakes a lot and his thinking is hard to follow. His tests really aren't too bad, but if you're expecting to learn the material from lecture, you'll do poorly. Luckily, I took the AP in high school so I already knew most of the material.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-07-07T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'This is supposed to be an introductory course for students seeking to enter the engineering program. Unfortunately, the majority of this class will most likely need to retake this course. His lectures are terrible; he reads off of power points that are impossible to logically follow, and any time that there is something you want to write down he glosses over the subject and launches into another incoherent rant. The home work is way too advanced, and the book isn\'t much help either. For the most part, students are on their own. "His" tests usually consist of half of another professor\'s test and a few problems that would take a good 15 minutes to solve alone. You\'ll also probably only get about half an hour for the exams because he screwed up the seating chart or something stupid like that. Our last exam was about a 57% average.\n\r\nThe takeaway: look for another professor. If there isn\'t another one available, hold off for the next semester.\n\r\nOne more thing; if you intend to be a civil engineer, just know that he especially despises civil engineers.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2014-04-05T17:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I love chemistry, and all the gen chem stuff I learned in high school is the reason I became a chem major. However, if I were paying 100% in Dr. Ondov's lecture, I would be constantly depressed every time I attended. I don't believe Dr. Ondov is a bad person, but I agree with the reviews that as a professor with an intent in imparting information to his students, he's not doing it right. It's more like his throwing information at you instead of challenging you to think about why things are the way they are in chemistry. Without constantly asking his students questions, they aren't being engaged in the learning. There's also the problem of students not being sure what the take-away/main points are after listening to his lecture. \n\r\nA student can do well in his class if they're keeping up by reading the textbook and learning concepts as they do the online homework. The exams aren't particularly difficult and are for the most part fairly straight forward. He'll throw in one or two trivia questions that no one ever told you but you might be able to make an educated guess. Students probably struggle the most with understanding when to use certain equations or interpreting the meaning of the question. As for the homework assignments, I have some issues with the type of problems he picks to be assigned. Often times, the level of understanding goes beyond what I would expect an introductory student to grasp. My second complaint is since the homeworks due weekly, there are times when he does not get to cover concepts which students are expected to know in order to complete the homework. I think this goes to show students are really on their own and struggling to learn by this method.\n\r\nTL;DR: If you want to enjoy learning science, look for a different professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-03-09T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM474', 'review': 'Solid professor but not without flaws. Knows his subject very well but not a natural teacher. Needs to spend some time organizing his lectures better. Still, he explains the concepts well, and is extremely happy to help you or answer questions - sometimes to the detriment of his lectures, as he can get sidetracked. Friendly and a bit talkative. Best in a smaller class, like the one I took - I probably would not recommend him for a big lecture.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T00:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Ondov is a pretty poor teacher and kind of a jerk. He knows what he is talking about for the most part, but no one else in the lecture hall does. If you've taken Chem before you'd probably understand, but he doesn't really teach anything. He just does examples, which he screws up half the time. Reading on my own and doing the homework was the only way I learned anything. He doesn't use any lecture slides, but uses a bunch of blackboards, so you can't go back and visit the notes unless you spend the whole class writing them down. But I'm finally done with the class and when I asked him about the curve he had a sassy reply and reminded me how happy I am to be done with him.\n\r\nOverall chemistry is a pretty hard class and you don't need to take this prof to make it any harder. Avoid him if you can.\n\r\nOh, and the average exam score was about a 60%. I did better than the average overall and still got a 73%. There's not much grade padding, so don't expect a B if you get the average or even better.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-05-17T23:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE HIM. don't do it unless he is the last teacher available. even then you might want to wait a semester. i took ondov because the other teacher taught at 8 am which i did not want but i would have so much rather been in that class. he sucks. his lectures are him writing in a disorganized mess on the board and its hard to follow along. the only way you learn is the book. then when he gives exams the averages are about 54% and he either doesn't curve them or curves them 1% point. and he has told us he will not be curving our end grade. compared to other professors for chem131 who curve 10% or more for an exam this is horrible. he is so disorganized, doesn't show up for office hours, and doesn't respond to emails. i spent 3 times more time on this class than any other and still might not be able to get a c. just don't take him and maybe the department will fire him and save everyone their money. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-05-09T23:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Pretty much what others have said. He\'s not a bad guy from what I\'ve seen, although I haven\'t interacted with him much. \n\r\nI\'m in the class now so I\'m not sure what my final grade will be - currently I\'m hovering around an 80%. The curve on the first exam was about 4 points out of 100: not terrible, but as the class average for the first exam was a 55% it certainly could have been better.\n\r\nLet\'s get something straight: I was an excellent student in high school and in other science classes at UMD, and have no problems with science in general.\n\r\nBut Ondov is one of those teachers who manages to make the subject ridiculously, hideously complicated even if it\'s simple to begin with. He goes off on long tangents about material that\'s more suited to graduate students than to an intro course, constantly makes mistakes and corrects himself, and just generally makes a mess of everything he\'s trying to teach. I ended up not going to classes at all except for exams because my grades went UP that way instead of down, even with the extra credit clicker questions at the end of class. Studying out of the book is much more manageable than trying to decode the gibberish he\'s spouting at the front of the class. Even the exams themselves routinely have multiple mistakes on them, and he reads out corrections as people point out the mistakes, which is extremely distracting and very unprofessional.\n\r\nThe one good thing I can say about his teaching is that he clearly lists the topics covered by each exam, making them easy to study for.\n\r\nIt\'s clear that he\'s a doer instead of a teacher - not a problem in and of itself, but he REALLY shouldn\'t be teaching an introductory course. I realize that yes, this course is for science majors and thus is going to be difficult, but there\'s no reason to make the material more confusing than it already is. \n\r\njcp5383 below says "he knows what he\'s talking about," and that\'s the problem. HE knows what he\'s talking about, we don\'t. That\'s why it\'s a class and not a discussion. He\'s supposed to be TEACHING us the material, not confusing it further. He might be a professional, but he\'s certainly not a professional teacher except by definition.\n\r\nLet\'s face it, we have to judge teachers on how well they teach the material, not how well they know it, and while Ondov knows his stuff he\'s an absolutely terrible teacher. Definitely not recommended, one star.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-04-05T13:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Honestly if I had not dropped this professor for another I probably would have failed. He is aging and it clearly shows when he starts rambling during lectures in like a whole nother language. Nobody had a clue what he was saying! If you read the book then you could kind of understand him, but really who has to time to read so many chapters before the next lecture? Also his slides sucked! I was willing to drop this class for an 8AM, that's how bad it was. Avoid this professor at all costs, chemistry is hard enough as it is.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-03-27T00:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Let me start with this, I have never been motivated enough to review a teacher or class in my life. The fact that Ondov was such a pathetic excuse for a professor is testament to his ability to inspire righteous anger in even the most uninterested students like myself. Where to begin? First, his lectures. Allow me to sum up every Ondov lecture you will ever attend: He will use a combination of powerpoint slides and blackboard work to teach. The powerpoint slides are ripe with mistakes and errors that students point out merrily every class, as finding one of his ever-present screw-ups usually results in extra credit. This is also known as "bribing students to not talk about how many times I mess-up" When he turns to further explain the complicated problems on the blackboard, you might as well turn off all your senses because he is about to start sprouting gibberish and incoherent nonsense for about 5-10 minutes. Whenever you see him turn around, rest assured he is actually entering his own little world where everything he says makes perfect sense and unicorns fly across the sky on rainbow bridges. Trying to follow his thought process is almost as challenging as mustering your will to go to his class at all. In addition, his droning monotonous voice combined with the difficulty of following his spastic "teaching" results in the lecture essentially becoming a way to catch up on sleep. I\'m telling you right now, the only reason to ever attend his lectures are for the clicker questions that his TA will give at the end of class as a quiz grade. \r\nThank god for those TA\'s. Although some of them are extremely incompetent at grading your exams (which results in you having to meticulously go over your every test to get back your much-needed points) they literally carry the class on their backs with their discussion sections. Pray for a good one. \r\nHis office hours are really great if you love being talked down to and falling asleep in a chair. Here\'s a personal experience from me: I emailed him after the second exam asking to go over it with him. He responded a speedy month later. When I went there to learn how I made my mistakes, he assumed I just wanted him to look over his test for mistakes the TA\'s made when grading (a testament to the number of problems they cause and his disinterest in helping his students). He looked over my first couple problems and determined that my TA had actually given me more points then I should have. He then proceed to LOWER my grade on the exam on his computer when I came to him for HELP in UNDERSTANDING THE MATERIAL. A more obnoxious thing to do to a student who comes to you for help I cannot imagine. I shouldn\'t end this review without saying at least one positive thing about him as much as he deserves it. Unfortunately, I can\'t think of one yet.\r\nAnother one of his great habits is changing the classroom and not telling the students until the last minute, or not at all. As much fun as going back and forth across the campus is, I just want to learn Chem. \r\nI don\'t want you to think I took this class with no effort on my own either. It was the second time I was taking the class, and I have had a private chem tutor for a year and a half. I still was getting 60\'s on his exams. \r\nMy best advice for taking is class is this: I hope you are good at teaching yourself material because he sure won\'t. Read the textbooks, do the practice problems and maybe you won\'t be completely lost. That guy who posted beneath me may have the right idea about it not being high school anymore, but that doesn\'t really help when you\'re professor is incapable of getting the material across to you. He is right about another thing too, Ondov knows his chemistry. Unfortunately, that doesn\'t mean jack when he might as well be teaching the class in another language due to his total inability to teach. Also he might be Ondov himself. Don\'t take him unless you are a natural at chem who can teach yourself the entire class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '65', 'created': '2011-05-13T04:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Professor Ondov is a brilliant guy but should not be the general chem professor. I have no idea what is going on in class because HE knows what he is talking about but WE don't. \n\r\nHe goes on these tangents about an equation and does not explain what he is doing clearly. I recommend getting a tutor early in the semester if you find yourself drowning in chem. Once you have someone explain the concepts, his lectures are easier to follow and make sense. \n\r\nClicker quizzes on Thursdays are great for bonus points. You can talk to your neighbors about the answer.\n\r\nOverall, it's an obnoxious course with a lot of studying but if 131 is necessary for your major go for it, and get a tutor.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-02T20:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'honestly i have never seen a worse teacher...hes adorable dont get me wrong but his lecture is like another language. he starts a problem without explaining what it is and continues to talk about other things as he solves problems...if your good at chem you might be able to just teach yourself...but if youre as bad as i am youll fail if you wanna learn it', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2011-04-14T23:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Giving him three stars is a little too kind considering his bad teaching. His lectures are incredibly dry and poorly put together. He frequently makes mistakes but does offer extra credit if you catch him. I missed more than a few lectures (I had him at 8 AM), but read the textbook and did practice problems religiously. That said, I\'m definitely not advocating skipping class. But, if you\'d rather not go, read the book as I did, and you\'ll likely get an A. \n\r\nHe gives a small curve at the end of class only, so you never really know how well you\'re doing until the end. The online quizzes are meant "to help you" rather than "hurt you," so I guess they\'re like an extra credit. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-20T13:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I have Ondov at 8 am for an hour and 15 minutes. It is nearly impossible to stay awake during his lectures because he has such a monotone voice. In addition, he makes lots of mistakes on the blackboard; we are continually correcting him - - although he does offer extra credit for that. \r\nThe class in itself really isn't that hard. Going to discussion is more helpful for me than going to lecture, because it is so hard to pay attention. The book is slightly confusing, but has all of your needed information. Read it. If you manage to pay attention in lecture, power to you. I suggest not taking it at 8 am if you don't go to bed before 11 pm. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-29T22:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Professor Ondov may not be the most interesting lecturer, but you will come away knowing what he was talking about. His powerpoints are well done, and he moves at a good pace. His tests are a fair mix of concepts, applications, and difficulty levels. He is open to questions, and will give you extra credit if you catch a mistake. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-12T14:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'knows what he is talking about....mainly because hes been teaching this course for a while. uses powerpoint alot. expect a decent curve.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-10T18:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Makes very good, understandable slides, but his explanations are a little awkward. It is not necessary to attend class if you can understand what's on the slides, though if you can't his explanations can clear things up. He seems a little out of it and has trouble with technology and understanding questions, as well as answering them. He's worth it, though, because the material is understandable", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-16T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Professor Ondov is known as one of the worst professors that teach CHEM135. This is mainly due to the fact that his lectures are incredibly boring and cover way too much content. \r\n\r\nThe exams are bearable but you definitely need to be prepared for a decent grade. Beforehand, he gives you a study guide, which is nice, but unlike most professors who give you their exams from the previous semester, he only provides you with exams that are from other professors. He even informs you that there is content on these practice exams from other professors that will not be on his own exam. This makes absolutely no sense and it is super annoying. However, he does curve the exams by at least 7% (the class average on the exams has been curved to around 75%). \r\n\r\nIn general, CHEM135 is passable as long as you are committed to learning the material from the textbook. However, if you cannot, for whatever reason, get another professor to teach you CHEM135, I recommend that you just have to suck it up and attend the incredibly painful lectures because it can be somewhat beneficial to hear him in the background while getting work for other classes done. And if you ask me, Ondov is not a terrible professor, but I would not recommend his class to anyone that I know. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2017-11-30T21:40:25Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Atrocious lecturer. Utterly incoherent and disorganized. Avoid at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-01-23T20:02:43Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I think a lot of people exaggerate. Ondov's class is a nice introduction to college, where learning is taken into your own hands. He is a nice guy, just misunderstood. The biggest problem is his lectures are quite boring/can put you to sleep. But honestly, If you study on your own and do some practice problems, there's no reason you shouldn't get a B or higher in the class. This semester he gave out a messy exam (wasn't hard, just way too hard) but he rectified that by giving a MASSIVE curve. Even his final was easy. Honestly, the other chem135 teachers have exams that are just as bad or worse, he's not the worst you can do.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-03-01T19:24:14Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Underrated. One of the best and nicest profs out there. Actually wants students to succeed. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-03-24T06:06:31Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "I love him. He's adorable. Carl is the best! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-04-01T06:59:07Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Had him in the fall. He's friendly and talkative. Lectures are cool he tries to make jokes and stuff. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-04-02T22:56:31Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Amazing professor. Love him', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-04-03T05:13:17Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "IF YOU HAVE THE CHANCE, TAKE HIM! I'm about to get my first A in chemistry. :) ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-04-21T03:38:06Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Much more clear in office hours than lecture. Overall, a really good professor. Carl, as my friends call him, wants his students to learn and do well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-11-21T22:58:40Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Yes, he can be confusing if you don't know your stuff. But, if you can follow what he's saying without letting yourself be overwhelmed, he's actually very good with explaining concepts rather than just giving you rules/equations. Yes, it can be hard to understand the takeaway of his lectures, but read the book and take thorough notes and you'll be fine. That being said, I've heard that people say he's the worst of all the chem professors (clarity-wise), so steer clear if you can. Just don't despair if you do get him.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-15T15:19:34Z'}, {'professor': 'John Ondov', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'The worst professor or teacher I have ever had. His lectures are best used for catching up on sleep. Save yourself the hassle and pick a different professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2019-01-01T22:48:50Z'}], 'name': 'John Ondov', 'slug': 'ondov'}, {'courses': ['SOCY441', 'SOCY200', 'SOCY200H', 'SOCY699T', 'SOCY653', 'SOCY699Q'], 'average_rating': 4.3158, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY200', 'review': 'This class was boring. Straight up. I mean I learned some stuff from it, but eh. The class is graded really oddly, but since Pease is so old, he does whatever he wants and nobody argues. (I got an A- with a 93.5%. I didn’t even think that was ethical.) He is a very nice man who knows his stuff though, but honestly the TAs do all the grading and write all of the exams except for the final. If you do not study for exams, you will not do well. However, the exams are very easy to study for if you’re good at binge memorizing. I once started studying at midnight the night before an exam and got a 100. The exams are exactly based off of Gazettes (worksheets) that you fill in word for word in class- it’s just like high school. They take attendance for lecture and discussion, so if you go to all of them, that’s an easy way to boost your grade. I had Jessica Pena as my TA and she was decent. She was awesome for hinting exam questions during discussion though- she does that as a reward for the students actually showing up to a 9AM discussion. Your TA will factor in a little bit of your success in this course, but it’s mostly up to you, as are all classes. The workload isn’t that bad, it took me two months of the semester though to figure out that nobody actually does the readings regularly. You will want to read Top of the World and the articles here and there he puts in the syllabus because they can come up on exams, but don’t bother with regularly reading the course book. I didn’t read Guns Germs and Steel either and I was fine. There is no homework other than 4 or 5 easy assignments for discussion that are never more than a page long. I took this course with a heavy course load and managed fine.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-07-02T23:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY200', 'review': 'All in all, he knows the material a hundred times over. He is intelligent, but the exams are designed to trip students up. The lectures can also get a little boring', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-05-02T21:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'This class was so annoying. Going to lecture was pointless because he gives out gazettes with all the info we need to know, they took attendance though.\r\nI had a really bad TA who didn\'t seem to know much about the topics, and was really unhelpful in all aspects.\r\nThe readings were so long that i stopped doing them altogether. Like, at the very beginning of the semester, we had to read a novel called, "Top of the World" in like a week, and it never came up in lecture or on any of the tests. Totally pointless, and i read the whole thing.\r\nAlso, after each midterm (there\'s 3) instead of going to discussion they put a movie up on dial access for you to watch. I watched all the movies for the 1st 2 exams and didn\'t watch the ones for the 3rd exam and there were like 3 questions on it.\r\nAnyways, unless you need this for a core class, don\'t take it. i just took it as an elective, and let me tell you, there\'s core classes easier and more meaningful than this one.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-23T21:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'great professor. his lectures are interesting and he likes to tell jokes in the middle of lecture sometimes. hands out the gazettes, which you take notes on. his exams were mostly essay based so you have to really know what your talking about. if you keep up with the reading, you should be fine with the exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T15:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'This class is not what you think it is. It is not how people interact with people. It is a history class. \n\r\nThe exams are short answer, and all of the questions come from the reading. The readings, however, are super long. He wanted us to read 5 chapters in one night, which was probably about 3oo pages. \n\r\nIn lecture he does give "gazettes" which are worksheets and he has a powerpoint that is easy to follow along and fill in the blanks, but they are only words or phrases, and those can only help you so much when studying and writing short answers for the exams.\n\r\nOnly take if you plan to major in sociology.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-03-11T02:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'study the gazettes and attend lecture and discussion and your good. he actually makes the class fairly interesting and hes a pretty funny guy too.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-21T00:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'He is a good professor, make sure you review the worksheet and also I had a great TA all together was nice..and the final was not that hard just make sure you review the worksheet..oh yeah plus go to class everyday and discussion those will help you in your grade when the class is over...hope I helped =)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2009-05-24T00:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'While Dr. Pease is one of the kindest professors I have had, he is very overrated. The class is extraordinarily easy; he gives out the notes and his exams are based entirely off of them. On the other hand, he is not a particularly engaging lecturer, and many of his facts are biased. In a particular lecture on globalization, he essentially encouraged the class to protest the IMF, WTO and World Bank without even mentioning that another point of view existed. Instead of teaching main concepts, he teaches his opinion on those topics. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-14T18:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'I learned a lot in this class. Pease is the funniest old guy ever! He’s so sweet and so corny it’s hard not to enjoy class. However, it can get a little boring because he sometimes goes into long explanations you start to get sleepy or distracted. But, he usually ends class early so, yay! \n\r\nThe exams are essay based and if you study aren’t too bad. I usually cram the night before and I’ve gotten an A- on all three exams so far. Go to class its worth like 10% of your grade!\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-10T11:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': None, 'review': "Awesome professor! Lectures are a must because they are pretty interesting for a 100 level course and he takes attendance. Class isn't all that hard, he gives you a worksheet, he practically gives you every blank in the worksheet, study worksheet and get A-B in class. Biggest problem of the entire class was my TA grading it too hard for a 100 level course, hence the B.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-28T21:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': None, 'review': 'Pease is too adorable with his corny little jokes! The class is pretty straight forward... You pretty much get your notes on a silver platter (fill in the blank gazettes). Cram sessions can be successful. You can definitely tell he loves his job. The tests were all essays/short answers so there is a good chance that you can bs the answer with some common knowledge for certain subjects', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-12-30T00:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': "Excellent professor. Very warm and silly with his jokes. The lectures are required because he does take attendance, so id recommend going because that's an easy grade to get. The Gazette that you receive at the beginning of each class matches the lectures perfectly and often he has over-heads letting you know what to put on the gazette. exams are not cumulative and are usually straight from the gazettes. \n\r\nhe has great knowledge of the subject and really does make the material interesting and worth learning. by far one of the best teachers.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-15T20:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': "Definately a good professor. A little overrated, but still my best profesor this year. Exams are all essays so make sure you memorize all of the gazettes he gives out. The TA's were all great too.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-15T15:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'A lot of people like him but he wasn\'t my favorite. This class was unnecessarily hard for a 100 level course. Exams are all short answer and essay, and the questions are written ambiguously so it\'s difficult to tell what exactly he wants you to write. \n\r\nThe best part of his lectures are when he starts off the class saying "well I\'m happy to be here. Thank you all for comin\'," and then he tells some corny yet hilarious riddles. But then he gets pretty boring after that. Attending lectures is a must since he takes attendance, but it\'s not too bad because he passes out "gazettes" which you basically fill in blanks on a sheet of paper to take notes. \n\r\nHe is also a very liberal guy and really makes no attempt to remove his opinion from the lecture. Not a bad guy, but I\'d say he\'s overrated. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-25T17:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Pease is a great teacher. He makes students feel very comfortable coming to class. He almost always starts out the class with jokes and by saying "I\'m glad to be hear, thank you for coming." He sometimes ends the lectures earlier (Often times discussions can end early, too), and the material is really easy to follow because the lecture outline matches the gazette you receive at the beginning of class. Therefore, make you sure always go to class (attendance is taken and is part of your grade-it\'s an easy grade to get!). You can tell he really cares about students and wants to help them or wants them to learn. He doesn\'t make the class too too challenging, although sometimes it is hard to tell which information in the class is important, and what isn\'t (TA\'s can be really helpful with this though).\r\n Going to class/discussion attendance is important. A couple times a semester you will have weekly assignments due in discussion, which aren\'t too hard (but sometimes almost seem irrelevant). The great things about exams is that they aren\'t cumulative and are usually right from the gazettes, so make sure you study. Just make sure you really know your stuff because you should be able to get an A, but often times minor things can bring your grade down, so don\'t get complacent. The TA\'s are helpful if you ask them. \n\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-04-29T12:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Pease is an excellent professor. He obviously cares about his students. Make sure you go to EVERY lecture and discussion because attendance is taken at both (attendance is 10% of your final grade). Review the "gazettes"(worksheets) that he gives out in lectures and you will get an \'A\' or \'B\' on every exam. The exams are essay format and are not cumulative (even the final exam). The only problem I had with his class is that he grades kind of strangely, which makes it very hard to get an \'A\' in the class. An A=4.0, A-=3.7, B+=3.3, etc. Other than that, the class is a great CORE(SB) ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-01-13T19:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'Professor Pease is fantastic. He begins every class with "Well, I\'m happy to be here. Thank you all for comin\'," usually followed by a few jokes, some of which were actually pretty funny. He takes attendance at lectures, but he makes them interesting enough to sit through, and by the time the semester\'s over you\'ll know almost as much about his family as he does. The exams are all-essay format but they\'re easy if you take the time to memorize the gazettes (notes) and (re-)read the articles. Also, they are NOT cumulative (even the final) which I liked. My TA (Ms. Wang) was great too, and I really enjoyed this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-12-30T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': "He's an amazing teacher. He genuinely loves his subject and works to get other people interested as well. He's funny and enjoyable to listen to.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-09T15:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Pease', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'I loved professor Pease. He was by far the best professor I have had at the University of Maryland. He is funny and he makes the classes interesting. He also has a great knowledge of the material and makes it engaging. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-01T20:36:00Z'}], 'name': 'John Pease', 'slug': 'pease'}, {'courses': ['PUAF770', 'RDEV688I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Pitchford', 'slug': 'pitchford'}, {'courses': ['PHIL140'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Ritchie', 'slug': 'ritchie'}, {'courses': ['ARTT330', 'ARTT438E', 'ARTT438O', 'ARTT330H', 'ARTT438B', 'ARTT438I', 'ARTT438H', 'ARTT438A', 'ARTT638A', 'ARTT438C', 'ARTT331', 'ARTT331H', 'ARTT489K', 'ARTT489L', 'ARTT489H', 'ARTT330', 'ARTT330H', 'ARTT331', 'ARTT438A', 'ARTT330', 'ARTT330H', 'ARTT331', 'ARTT331H', 'ARTT438A', 'ARTT438C', 'ARTT330', 'ARTT330H', 'ARTT331', 'ARTT438A', 'ARTT438E', 'ARTT438H', 'ARTT489H', 'ARTT330', 'ARTT330H', 'ARTT331', 'ARTT331H', 'ARTT438A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Ruppert', 'slug': 'ruppert'}, {'courses': ['ECON401'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Sabelhaus', 'course': 'ECON401', 'review': 'This class is next to impossible if you do not go to EVERY single lecture. Dr. Sabelhaus knows his stuff but is really not a nice person when it comes to grading or late assignments. He treats his students as if they were Federal Reserve employees. Generally the course material is very tough for ECON401, and Dr. Sabelhaus makes it even tougher with his style of teaching. There is no doubt that he is knowledgeable in his field, but he is a little too intense for an undergraduate setting. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2015-10-27T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Sabelhaus', 'course': 'ECON401', 'review': 'Very knowledgeable professor teaching very relevant material. Class was really interesting.\n\r\nHowever you have to go to every class and the projects are pretty intense (not to be left for the night before).\n\r\nExams(open note) are doable if you have all the notes ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-02T17:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Sabelhaus', 'course': 'ECON401', 'review': "Great prof- I wish I could take more classes with him. Class was just lectures with three projects and two exams. Exams are open notebook- if you don't miss class and organize your notes, the exams will be simple. \n\r\nMaterial was extremely relevant and he knows his stuff. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-01T14:58:00Z'}], 'name': 'John Sabelhaus', 'slug': 'sabelhaus'}, {'courses': ['EDCI450', 'EDCI451', 'EDCI689', 'MATH312', 'EDCI355'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Seelke', 'slug': 'seelke'}, {'courses': ['ECON201', 'ECON330', 'ECON601', 'ECON709', 'ECON808', 'ECON698', 'ECON201', 'ECON709', 'ECON201', 'ECON601', 'ECON709', 'ECON709', 'ECON698', 'ECON698', 'ECON201', 'ECON601', 'ECON709'], 'average_rating': 4.2619, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "If you have to take this class, take it with Shea! You can tell that he is very intellectual and really knows what he is talking about which is so important. His exams are straight from his lectures, which are full of information. It can be tough, but the best advice I can give is to audio record the lectures and listen to them later.\r\nWhat is the best about Professor Shea is that when it comes down to it, he's a really understanding guy. If you need extra assistance, he will do anything to help you. If you are sick or have something that interferes with deadlines for legitimate reason, he will be understanding completely. He also curves really well. Getting an A in this class is totally doable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-17T15:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Overall, ECON201 is not such a boring topic. It's pretty interesting. But Shea takes a fairly good topic and makes it probably the most boring class you'll take at Maryland. \n\r\nThat's not to say he doesn't know what he's talking about. When you do find yourself paying attention, you'll see he knows his stuff. It's actually very impressive. However, the way he goes about presenting the information you need to know is abysmal and dry.\n\r\nHe really doesn't go by the textbook at all (I haven't opened it once all year and my final is next week.) Having said that, it means you have to go to class and take really good notes because the exams do come straight from what he writes down, which is a plus I guess. Although, none of the in-class notes are electronic (no powerpoints, nothing on ELMS besides practice exams or problem set answers), so when you inevitably tune him out, you're going to fall behind. He will only write on the chalkboard, which can be brutal when you can't read the handwriting/tune out for a few minutes and fall behind.\n\r\nAs for the class, he's solid as a grader, and this is why I gave him a 3 star rating. Two exams, a final, and problem sets. The problem sets are very easy to get full points on, which translates to 15% of your final grade. The exams, while they can be tough, are very similar to his old exams and are curved, which is really nice.\n\r\nIf you can bear to pay attention twice a week for an hour and fifteen minutes, it shouldn't be too bad and you can do very well. But that can be very, very difficult to do.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-08T19:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Great professor. Extremely intellectual, very obvious that he legitimately earned his graduate degree(s). Do not buy the book, he will write down everything you need to know in class on the board. This in mind, go to lecture since lecture notes are your only source of information (or at least get them from someone else). Must know not only main ideas and key points, but also details and specific facts. The economic history he goes over in class is not just for fun; he puts many questions on exams about it. The only way to succeed in this class is to read over your lecture notes and know them front to back because the exam questions are way too detail-oriented for a "general concept" understanding. If you have questions that your friends cannot answer, email him or go to office hours (don\'t do office hours the week before the exam, since his office is packed with people and he gets extremely peevish, like any normal person would). ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR! ECON201 is not a terrible class but do not take it with Shea... take it with Sarna! He never ends the class on time and his tests are so hard. Class ends at 315 but on a good day youll get out at 316. He started teaching us the first day of class!!!! He sucks get Sarna!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-17T23:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Overall opinion: that man knows his stuff by heart. I respect him for being able to lecture and write on the chalkboard for an hour and 15 min straight. (He will go until the very last minute, and sometimes will go over.)Be ready for solidly and furiously writing for the entire class.\n\r\nHe tends to be redundant in his lectures (A good thing, because he likes to emphasize important points). He goes over points in a somewhat logical manner and tries to tie them in to current events. He'll even crack the occasional joke or two. \n\r\nTips to do really well:\r\n1) Sometimes his notes on the board aren't very organized. I would take the time to rewrite, or type (which I did) your notes. \r\n2) Do not simply memorize, but understand the logic behind it. He usually explains the logic verbally, so try to listen as you're writing. I was never a verbal learner, so I kind of found it difficult to follow him when he talked. *This is more important for the new material he teaches for the final.*\r\n3) Highlight/mark up important dates. There are always 2-3 questions on the exams that ask for those dates. It hurts if you miss those, since each exam is 30 questions. (Final is 40)\r\n4) Do all your homework. Don't be lazy. It's an easy 100% because it's graded for effort. And they help you study for the exams. He does drop the lowest score out of all of them.\r\n5)The format of his practice exams are very similar to the actual midterms. The questions aren't, because his lectures slightly differ from year to year. But it's a great study tool, because you can see what concepts are behind each question.\r\n6)Don't rely on the curve too much. But by god, I love the curves for this class. He does it by aiming for his target distribution of grades.\r\nNote: I don't think students can fail this class... unless they put in 0 effort. Effort will be rewarded accordingly. \n\r\nEasy to pull off a B, and an A is definitely not out of reach. If you have a curved/projected B after both midterms, do well on the final, and that A can be reached.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-22T05:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Shea is by far one of the best professors I have had on campus. His lectures are very thorough and he is willing to go over any material a student is confused on whether it be in lecture or during his office hours. He also relates the material to today's economy so you have a better understanding of whats going on. His exams are difficult, but if you study for them you will be fine. My best suggestion is to learn the concepts and processes instead of just memorizing formulas. Shea designs his tests to make sure you know the entire process instead of just definitions. I'd also write down any dates he writes on the board because those show up on the exams. I managed to get a 29/30 on the first exam, a 26/30 on the second, a 34/40 on the final and a 15/15 on the problem sets (graded on completion). This totaled to a 90.58 which curved to an A+. I think the cut off for an A was an 81. This class is definitely easy to pass if you put the effort into it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-08T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "This class is pretty terrible. The material is very basic and not very challenging, however Shea cannot teach and/or explain macroeconomics for his life. He teaches to his students as if they already know the material/definitions and does not help them acquire a proper understanding. He applies a very broad advisory curve to the midterms and then does not necessarily follow through with this scale. Shea does nothing to help out his students. There is no reason for such a steep advisory curve in a basic economics class. Additionally, do not buy the book as it is very expensive and does not assist you in the course (you will use it) . Try to avoid ECON201 with Shea at all costs, as taking the course with any other professor would result in a better understanding of the topic. By the way, he let's you out of class 3 minutes late every lecture. Enjoy", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2011-12-21T23:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Shea is one of the best lecturers at the University. He does right a lot each lecture, but he is very thorough. The textbook is not needed at all to get an A in the course. The course is also curved significantly.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T19:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "This is one of the easier ECON classes, to me. Pro Shea is SO thorough (to the point of redundancy) in his notes, it is impossible not to do well if you just study what he rights. Also, he plans his lectures in a very linear way, so I personally think that it's easy to understand what he's talking about.\r\nThat being said, I took like 6+ pages of notes every class, which was 2.5 hours once a week. So he really goes HAM when it comes to writing on the board. If you miss one class, you are screwed. I mean, you can get the notes from other people, but you wont actually be there when he explains what he's writing.\n\r\nThe tests are heavily weighted but they are curved. I believe my 74 on the first exam was turned into a B+, so that was good. I haven't taken the final yet but I expect to get a B in this class because of his advisory curves.\n\r\nTo be honest, this class is easier to excel in than ECON200 or 201. The material is more about concepts than arithmetic, and only a portion of the class focused on those dreaded supply/demand curves. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-15T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'This class is not too bad if you go to class and take notes. It is really easy to get a B since he curves every exam. There is homework due once a week which is written. It is not too hard but you are graded for completion not correctness so thats a nice boost. Exams are very similar to the practice exams which he posts.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-07T15:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Great Professor. Very knowledgeable, and explains concepts thoroughly. This is a challenging course, but completely worth it. Pay attention in lecture, study lecture notes, problem sets, and past exams and you'll be fine. You will learn a lot of valuable material because Professor Shea is the man.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-02T18:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'This was a great professer. Only a midterm and a final and 10 homework problem sets.they are easy Exams were difficult.your grade was basically decided by 60 questions for the year. Although i have learned more in this class than any other class at md. He is a true professional', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-10-20T10:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "This class is not fun. Shea starts his lecture and does not stop talking until the minute the class is over. He writes everything on the board, which is helpful. However, it is nearly impossible to follow what he is saying while scrambling to copy what he writes down. I wrote four to five pages of notes every lecture. You must attend class to get notes because he does not test you on what is in the book.\n\r\nThe problem sets helped a lot in the midterm and the final, so study those! However, I felt that he just gave us the problems and expected us to know how to do them (when it was clear that we did not.)\n\r\nThe midterm and the final are really, really hard exams. The best way to prepare for these is to go over your problem sets and the questions from his practice exams. Thankfully, there is a HUGE curve at the end. I ended with an 81% and got an A, so I'm happy. \n\r\nDon't buy the book - its unnecessary and a waste of money unless you know that you will not be able to come to a lot of classes. I really wouldn't advise skipping lectures because it is so easy to fall behind!\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-23T11:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "An amazing professor! I wasn't fond of Econ 200, but Professor Shea made this class very very enjoyable. He has a great sense of humor, writes very clear notes, and provides very good detailed explanations of key concepts during class, so you are never confused. It's unbelievable the amount of information I gained by the end. He is also very nice, and willing to help students out with any of their concerns throughout the semester. \n\r\nThe tests are tricky. They are all multiple choice, and about half the test consists of questions that are on the challenging side. However, the curve is pretty generous, so if you go to class, take good notes and pay attention to everything he says (memorizing the dates and Presidents is super important), and get a full grade on your homework, you have a very high chance of getting an A. When I took the class, a 79 got you an A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-23T10:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "One of the best professor I've had! Shea's really adept at instilling the materials in his students. He stresses and rewords key points over and over again and breaks things down into digestible parts. I always come out of lecture fully understanding every single concept covered in lecture! \n\r\nNo need to buy the textbook. Study from his notes and sit in the front row, as the chalkboard could be hard to read from the back. \n\r\nThere're a dozen problem sets (we had 9, each comprises 3-6 problems. They're graded for effort.) In addition, there're two mid-terms and one final. Just remember to review the old mid-terms and finals and you'll be all set. \n\r\nBottom line: A great great professor! Just take good notes and try to follow closely in class, and you're almost guaranteed an A! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-25T18:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'the stuff you learn in this class is actually applicable to real life. very good teacher, i definetly recommend shea if you have to take econ201, tests are tricky but really not that bad. literally memorizing ahttp://www.ourumd.com/books/ll of his notes is the key to an A.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-15T16:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Prof Shea is extremely impressive. He can teach an entire lecture by looking at notes at most twice. Make sure you take notes because everything from the test comes from the notes, making it no need to buy the book. Granted this is basic macro and something hard to make interesting but he manages to make it less painful. Mixes in history that you must know for the tests. Tests are difficult but the curve works things out (~80% is an A).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-02T01:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "This guy is one of the BEST professors at UMD. I can honestly say he inspired me to really pursue economics, something I was only mildly interested in before having him as a professor. He explains things SO well in layman terms, covers the material in just the right amount of detail: in other words, not too detailed but not too general either. He lectures purely from his head and writes everything on the board while speaking it, making the class and the information so easy to follow. He is super organized, super clear, and it is apparent that he understands economics like the back of his hand.\n\r\nYou don't need to buy the textbook. Just go to EVERY class (you CANNOT miss one), pay attention! (a lot of people would come to class and read the Diamondback or play computer games on their laptops), and actually THINK about what he's saying while you're writing it down (in other words, don't just mindlessly take notes). \r\nShea makes the class really interesting by applying what we're learning to current events, and occasionaly he'll crack a surprisingly funny joke. I just hope that I get to take another econ class with him later on. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-27T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "In my opinion, ECON sucks. It's hard and it takes me awhile to understand concepts.\n\r\nBUT, I have to admit Shea made me understand better. In lectures, I actually understood what he was teaching. The class is based on notes so you have to go to lectures but you don't have to buy a textbook. \r\nShea's tests are hard so you should study. You should also complete the problem sets they will help your grade at the end of the semester.\r\nOverall hard class, but HUGE curve at the end. I definitely recommend Shea if you have the chance and need this requirement. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-21T13:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Shea is an awesome teacher. He could go a whole lecture without looking at his notes. He is also very interesting and very helpful with questions. You will have to write a lot, but it is worth it. Also, there is no powerpoint so you have to go to class. It is not smart to just copy someone else's notes as it is much easier to learn by going to class. Discussion is only if you need extra help. Tests are hard, but there is a curve. If you are an ECON major, definitely take his class. If not, still take his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-07-22T20:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "He knows his stuff, but unfortunately he writes all his notes on the chalkboard so you have to go to lecture. \r\nDon't buy the book, it's useless. \r\nHe doesn't use Aplia, instead he has easy homework assignments that are graded for effort. \r\nThe tests are really hard so you have to study. Especially the random history questions. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-07-22T15:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "This professor writes an entire lecture on the chalkboard without using his notes. That's pretty darn impressive. By the way, don't skip class because the material on the exams are base on notes and they are not posted online. \n\r\nDo not be intimidated by this class. There is a lenient grade curve. The final grade was 80% for an A. Do not over analyze the notes, just grasp the main concept i.e. AS/AD graphs, Keynesian model, classical model. \n\r\nThere will be a substantial amount of memorization of formulas. The key is to use mnemonic devices or break big formulas into smaller formulas. \n\r\nOh yeah, the discussions are pointless and are just reiterations of the week's material. You might as well take the time yourself to review the notes. Don't go unless you want to collect homework assignments. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-06-05T11:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "He is a great lecturer with very thorough notes. I walk out of his class completely understanding what he lectured about. BUT... when I look at his exams, its like I've never gone to class. SO SO HARD. Thankfully his homeworks are based on completion and you can even do it during class, and sometimes he would go over some problems of the homework while we are doing the homework b/c its due at the end of the class. Also, the curve is good. As a student that took intermediate Macro, this is a good beginner macro course. The history that he spends a min on is actually necessary. At first, I didnt see the point, but now I get that we had to know it. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-28T20:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "I liked Shea because there was no aplia... there we're handed in problem sets that were relatively easy and were graded very leniently. Econ is going to suck no matter who you have so I guess Shea is okay. Dont bother with the book. You will need to go to class or get notes if you miss class. And the curve is pretty sweet.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-17T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "I had Prof. Shea for Econ201 and he was one of the best teachers I've ever had. He is very smart and clear in presenting the material. You must attend the (huge) lecture because the material on the test comes straight from Prof. Shea's lectures. He never required that we read from the textbook but I found it useful as a supplement sometimes; if you're trying to save money, you can get by without it probably. He made a lot of connections between theory and historical anecdote (as well as current politics/economics), which made the material much more interesting. Highly recommended for econ majors.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-16T14:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Hard to learn material. Does not use the book at all (don't bother buying it). Exams are based on class notes only, which he writes on the chalkboard and are not available online. Uses long drawn out examples that don't seem relevant to the material. Focuses alot on history and dates. \r\nOverall not that hard though because of a huge curve at the end of the semester but I didnt learn anything.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-10-23T17:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Does a good job for a class as boring as Macroeconomics. Lectures aren't mandatory but still go because what he says is helpful for the notes. Homeworks are easy for effort but class is graded mostly on exams and they can be tough. Overall good guy to take for macroeconomics.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-10T19:27:10Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Shea really knows what he is talking about. I strongly suggest going to class, you'll learn more that way and have a better understanding of the material you need to know. He has a generous curve but his exams are extremely difficult. There were a few issues this semester when it came to testing because of covid and him not having a set format for tests. I never understood why his tests were THAT difficult, made me feel like I never actually learned anything. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-19T23:16:26Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "You can tell Shea is very knowledgeable and his lectures are filled with information. I didn't think the exams weren't that bad just make sure you attend all of his lectures and do the practice exams. I honestly learned a lot in the class and I definitely recommend him. There's a generous curve and the homeworks are easy As so you have to do well on the exams. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T19:11:36Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Most of what I learned in this class was reading off the slides and being 3-4 slides ahead from live lectures because I couldn't write the notes at the same speed Dr. Shea taught. But the small instances I would stop taking notes and listen to Shea explain concepts, he seemed pretty thorough and I found the topics interesting but I don't know how interesting it would be people that don't care for econ (I also took econ in high school). I never read the textbook, and his tests are only based on slides, but I would recommend writing at least a couple slides before lecture so that you can listen rather than scramble to write notes. Personally, I felt his test curves and grading were pretty generous, and an A is definitely not out of reach. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-28T21:28:53Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Awesome professor! I took it online, and the exams were open-note, but even if they weren't this would be a really well-taught and fair class. He's a little quick so you won't have a lot of down time during the lectures but if you write fast you can keep up. (I'm usually a slow writer but I realized pretty quickly with this class it's either sloppy notes or missing a lot of stuff). The lectures are really info-heavy though, so get ready to start learning on the FIRST DAY and for a 75-minute information dump every class. Some say the exams are tough but I personally thought they accurately reflected the rigor of the class, and the curve is more than generous. He covers everything you need in class, the weekly problem sets are graded on effort (but are really helpful anyway) and the review sessions and practice exams are spot-on. If you pay attention, take notes, and do the practice exams, an A is totally doable. The textbook is free but not mandatory. I personally never read a word of it and still pulled an A on the exams. \r\nProfessor Shea is a really solid choice for this class. He explains everything clearly and thoroughly and prepares you well for the exams. I also found the material interesting because it's so easy to apply it to the real world, and it's nice to understand how these things work (unemployment, inflation, business cycles, etc). Definitely take Professor Shea, you won't regret it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-19T18:50:42Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Prof Shea teaches pretty traditionally in the sense that this class is extremely lecture heavy. If you're not a good note taker or struggle to pay attention during long lectures, you might struggle in his class. Every week there were two 1 hour 15 min classes where he lectures from a long PowerPoint presentation that's posted on ELMS (he would often go overtime too so be mindful of that) and then a problem set that was graded on completion due at the end of the week. Lectures can be pretty dry and monotonous at times but Shea is very thorough and clear at explaining the material. The textbook was free and optional but I never read it and honestly you don't need to read it to understand the material. Just make sure that you're good at taking quick notes during lecture (pretty much anything he says in lecture, including historical background and examples are fair game for exams) and you know how to do every problem on the HW and you'll do fine. Tests are not too difficult as long as you study and he grades them on a curve. If you pay attention and take good notes during lecture, this class is not difficult to get an A in.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-20T16:37:16Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'I loved having professor Shea. I think he presents the information in maybe not the most intriguing way but I dont think it can much more interesting with this content, he tries to integrate some real life implications. He is the most fair teacher ive had and just an all around good person. I would 100% take a class with him again. I have really bad testing anxiety and school anxiety and with this course I always felt like i was in control of my grade. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-18T02:08:56Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Professor Shea is the most caring, knowledgeable, and passionate professor. He is always willing to reexplain concepts and his tests are very fair and reflect the material and weekly problem sets. Nothing should be a surprise. If you do the work and keep up, you should not have trouble getting at least a B. If you get the opportunity to take Professor Shea, DO IT. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-09T06:18:39Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'The most kind, funny, intelligent, thorough, and knowledgeable professor. I feel so lucky to have been taught by him. He can explain math, history very well as it relates to economics. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-11T17:05:47Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Made a class I was really nervous to take genuinely engaging and informative. I felt like I actually learned a LOT. Tests are more than fair. Really glad I took this class with Prof. Shea!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-15T00:07:40Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'I love Professor Shea! He’s incredibly caring, knowledgeable, and thorough. Nothing on exams should be a surprise because they’re worded exactly like the practice exams and problem sets. I thought the exams were very reasonable and reflected the course. Plus there’s a great curve. You can tell he loves what he teaches and he’s brilliant. One of the best at UMD. TAKE HIM!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-16T17:30:20Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'The best. Take him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-16T17:31:09Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Dr. Shea is a super nice professor and sets you up for success. The content can be challenging but the tests were very fair and there is a generous curve. Entire grade is based off of two midterms, a final, and weekly problem sets graded for completion. Only reason I didn't give 5 stars was because the lectures were pretty dry. Take ECON201 with him!!!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T18:28:47Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Really great professor. His knowledge and passion for Econ is clear in the way he gives his lectures. The material is pretty dry most of the time, but easy to learn. Grading is also super fair, we had problem sets every week graded for completion and two midterms + a final. You get to make a double-sided formula sheet for both midterms and two double sided formula sheets for the final. There are also discussion boards on ELMS for all of the chapters where you can post questions for him to answer, which is super helpful for the exams. The curve at the end of class is also very, very generous. Highly recommend taking Prof. Shea!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-22T02:10:24Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Only reason I don't give him 5 stars is because the lectures are on the dry side. That being said, he really sets you up for success and clearly explains relevant concepts. Make sure to study practice exams and you will do well. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-25T19:10:41Z'}, {'professor': 'John Shea', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Go to lecture and you can't do worse then a B-. Exams are like 15-20 m/c and a couple short answers, but the practice exams and TA review sessions make them not that bad. Also a big curve. Buddy of mine got a C with like under a 50% in the course.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-22T19:04:31.301558Z'}], 'name': 'John Shea', 'slug': 'shea_john'}, {'courses': ['HISP600', 'HISP680', 'HISP630', 'HISP619M', 'HISP690', 'HISP600', 'HISP611', 'HISP690', 'HISP600', 'HISP611'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Sprinkle', 'slug': 'sprinkle_john'}, {'courses': ['ECON200', 'ECON424', 'ECON422', 'ECON396', 'ECON397', 'ECON641', 'ECON643', 'ECON699', 'ECON643', 'ECON643', 'ECON643', 'ECON643'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Straub', 'slug': 'straub'}, {'courses': ['ASTR100', 'ASTR101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Vanlandingham', 'slug': 'vanlandingham'}, {'courses': ['ECON312', 'ECON311', 'ECON412', 'ECON613', 'ECON611', 'ECON709', 'ECON848', 'ECON878', 'ECON311', 'ECON613', 'ECON611', 'ECON311'], 'average_rating': 3.9444, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': "Professor Wallis is a very knowledgeable individual. The course is an interesting one. It is important you do well on the exams because there is no extra credit and only two online assignments. As most have said, 80% and above gets you an A. However, because the test are mostly essay based, this is not an easy A. Make sure you know the review sheet (you may be asked questions that are not on the review sheet so be prepared). No math involved and you don't need the book to pass. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-19T12:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': "One of my favorite lecturers at UMD and definitely the most interesting and relevant ECON lecturer I've had. I wish UMD offered more ECON history courses. In this class, there are two online quizzes, two midterms, and the final, so not much work outside of class. He puts the slides online, but I highly recommend coming to class. It isn't necessary to do the readings - usually his explanation makes more sense - but it helps to do the important ones, like Callender and Bailyn. All exams are written or mostly written. An 80 percent is an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-16T23:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': 'One of the best professors I\'ve had. I looked forward to going to his lectures, and they were interesting enough that I was rarely distracted.\n\r\nLike everyone else said, he\'s really opinionated but that just manifests itself through him relating the concepts of the course to relevant current affairs. When we got to talking about "the pitfalls of democracy" he referenced Trump a lot, things like that.\n\r\nLectures are super interesting and I\'d say mandatory if you want to get a decent grade in the class. I missed a grand total of 2 lectures over the semester and wound up with an A overall. Other than attending lecture and studying for 1-2 days before each exam, there\'s no other major work you have to do in the class. 90% of your class grade is determined by the midterms and final.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-21T20:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': "One of my favorite professors at Maryland. Nobody knows more about the economy before the Civil War than he does. Tests are essay and impossible to BS because he is very picky about what he expects you to say. 80 is an A, 50 is a C,and somewhere around 65 is a B. Only thing I don't like is he doesn't use the +/- system so if you get a 63 like me you are shit out of luck ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-12-28T04:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': "Very strong minded but pretty cool. The material is interesting but somewhat borderline interesting. I haven't read a single page of the textbook and went to lectures got B on my first exam, A on my second. Just know every single material on the review sheet and you should be golden. But remember to be extra specific.. He grades tough but 80% is an A, 65% is a B and so on.. so Not impossible to get a high grade. I haven't been to his office hours but I heard he's pretty cool to talk to about grades. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-09T02:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON312', 'review': "He's very boring. Some topics are interesting but he talks about mostly history not really the econ side to things. He loves talking about the railroads. I never read the books which is probably why I barely passed. I would not recommend this class. \n\r\nHe loves giving pop quizzes and hates when people leave after them. His exams are all essay which you think they'd be easy to BS but no...he looks for specific things and if you don't got them you do poorly on them", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2012-12-12T14:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON312', 'review': "Wallis is a pretty cool guy. He's an old school, tells-it-like-it-is kind of a professor, and his class was spent mostly with him lecturing. However, he had a knack for keeping you interested in lecture, and attending class never felt like a chore. He gives 6 pop quizzes throughout the semester and counts your top 4, so attending class is a must. In addition, the class had one midterm and one final, so a combination of reading the book and his notes is important to do well. \n\r\nOverall Wallis is a down to earth guy and if you pay attention and put in an consistent effort, there's no reason you can't get at least a B. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-24T09:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': "Professor Wallis is an excellent professor. He's hugely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the subject and this translates into very interesting lectures. It's awesome to be talking about economic history and then relate that to plate tectonics.\n\r\nOverall, the class isn't hard as long as you go to class and take notes. If you do this you will get an A. Reading the textbook is pretty optional.\n\r\nHe's also got a pretty cool grading scheme where if you get 80% of all possible points in the class you get an A and if you get 50% of all possible points you get a C.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-08T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON412', 'review': "I really like Dr. Wallis's teaching style, which rarely consists of him reading from a slide or writing on the board, but rather is oral and story like.\n\r\nHe seems really knowledgeable about anything even slightly related to the course topic and makes class interesting. He's not afraid to tell a joke or two. Very glad I took him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-26T20:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': 'The class is not nearly as hard as people would have you believe. To do well all you have to do is read over his notes a few times before you expect to have a quiz or before the midterms/final. Like everyone says an 80 is an A and just by reading his notes you can get 100s on all quizzes and near perfect scores on the exams. As a human being he is definitely a jerk to put it lightly, but he really knows the subject and you do actually learn a lot.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-19T19:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': "Wallis is a great lecturer. If you don't like the math aspects of econ, this class is for you. It's basically a history class and if you can follow the story of what's happening, you will do well. If you want a class that you don't have to go to lecture and can just read the book, then don't take this class. If you GO TO LECTURE and actually bother to LISTEN and TAKE NOTES, the exams and quizzes are fairly easy. The exams are based on the lectures, so reading the book is good really just for reinforcement. Do the review sheets and go through the notes- yours and his slides he posts online, and you'll be good. Make sure to answer each part of the questions he asks for the essays. An 80 is an A, which is nice. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-11T20:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': 'Wallis is one of the craziest econ professor here with the biggest ego ever. His unneccessary jokes/comments are what is keeping me awake in lectures. There are popquiz in lectures, do the review sheets and 2 midterms/1 final--all essays and MCs. Its not as easy as it looks, just be sure to answer the questions that he is asking. The fixed curve for this class is 80% is an A. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-06T20:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': "The biggest thing I hate about professors is ther negative attitues and judgemental behavior. He takes it to a whole new level. Every other word that comes out of his mouth is a jon (like in jonning), for people that dont get that word, he is constantly dissing a certain orientation, from Chinese Asians, to African American, to practically everyone except himself. Constantly being a Predujuce bigot. I don't want to even give you examples of what he had said in class. It made me extremely unconfortable and discusted. But probably people would take his course because there is a set curve of B being an A. Which becomes irrelevant because he never gave out A's. But 'he sucked' and was extremely rude.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-03-27T22:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': 'Right off the bat, a 50 is a C in this class and an 80 is an A. That being said, the ONLY grades in this class are 2 online quizzes and 2 in-class essay tests. The tests are super subjective to grading, and you basically lose/gain points pretty randomly. The lectures are little bit boring, as Wallis usually just reads right off the slides. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-03T22:40:42Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': "Super easy class, but only take if you like essays. He doesn't do plus minus grading and there is a huge curve. It's easy to get a B but harder to get an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-03-27T17:59:41Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': 'Very interesting class, but its extremely hard to get an A unless you take extensive notes and read every article. He is a little old school and his powerpoints are too cumbersome. The exams are essay-based so just understand the frameworks of each article and you should be fine. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-19T18:36:38Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': 'Professor Wallis knows his content like the back of his hand and I really enjoyed going to his lectures. This was an interesting class and as the other reviews below me have mentioned you only need 50 percent to pass, an 80 percent for an A while a B is somewhere in between.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T20:05:19Z'}, {'professor': 'John Wallis', 'course': 'ECON311', 'review': "The topics are interesting and you would gain a lot of knowledge from it. There is also a huge curve as people have mentioned. However, the grading this semester was awful. The TA is extremely rude and disrespectful and he grades harshly- even the professor admitted that he grades unfairly. The professor should take grading seriously and not play with students' GPA ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-14T01:40:00Z'}], 'name': 'John Wallis', 'slug': 'wallis'}, {'courses': ['CHEM684', 'CHEM687', 'CHEM889E', 'CHPH709B', 'PHYS709', 'CHEM889F', 'CHPH709A', 'CHPH709B', 'PHYS709', 'CHPH709B', 'PHYS709'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Weeks', 'slug': 'weeks_john'}, {'courses': ['MUET676', 'MUET438X', 'MUSC677', 'MUSC676', 'MUSC679F', 'MUSC438X', 'MUSC679P', 'MUSC289I', 'MUSC620', 'MUSC448F', 'MUET679F', 'MUET679E', 'MUSC438A', 'MUSC679E', 'MUSC438S', 'MUSC436', 'MUSC448N', 'MUSC260', 'MUSC438O', 'MUSC679R', 'MUSC677', 'MUSC438P'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'John Witzleben', 'course': None, 'review': "I really liked this class. But one thing I would like to stress to anyone thinking about taking this course is that you should have some interest in music from around the world b/c unfortunately in lecture I did sometimes sit near people who would make extremely rude and immature comments about the music and videos we had in lecture. \r\nYour grade is basically based on the tests and papers, all of which are very easy. The tests are straightforward information form lecture, i hardly took notes in lecture and did fine. I wouldn't waste money on buying the CDs or book because neither were necessary. \r\nLucky for me my TA's english wasn't the best, so she didn't grade our papers on grammar :)", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-07-22T15:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'John Witzleben', 'course': None, 'review': "He's an okay teacher, definitly knows what he's talking about and very interested in it. There are easier cores though..such as musc130 or muet200. So unless you're genuinely interested in tribal music of other countries, this isnt the best class for you. But it is possible to at least get a b if you give it some effort, because 50% of your grade is between 2 papers and participaton in discussion.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-17T16:16:00Z'}], 'name': 'John Witzleben', 'slug': 'witzleben'}, {'courses': ['EDCP888A', 'EDCP788', 'EDCP788'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'John Zacker', 'slug': 'zacker_john'}, {'courses': ['ARHU319A', 'ARHU318', 'ARHU320', 'ARHU309', 'ARHU338', 'ARHU298J', 'ARHU338', 'ARHU318B', 'ARHU309', 'ARHU338'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Johnna Schmidt', 'course': 'EDCP619B', 'review': 'obnoxious! Writers House is a waste', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-02-25T08:36:00Z'}], 'name': 'Johnna Schmidt', 'slug': 'schmidt_johnna'}, {'courses': ['PHYS375', 'PHYS838C', 'PHYS739', 'PHYS199M', 'PHYS738', 'ENMA460', 'PHYS431', 'PHYS738', 'PHYS838C', 'ENMA460', 'PHYS431', 'PHYS738', 'PHYS838C', 'PHYS738', 'PHYS838C', 'ENMA460', 'PHYS431', 'PHYS738', 'PHYS838C'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Johnpierre Paglione', 'course': 'PHYS199M', 'review': 'An extremely friendly and humble professor. 10/10 would take classes with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-08-10T06:42:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Johnpierre Paglione', 'course': 'ENMA460', 'review': "Very chill professor. However, the lectures don't always help all too much when doing some of the homeworks, theres a lot of researching that needs to be done for some of the problems since nothing related was covered in class. Additionally, a lot of the concepts just dont make sense, probably because us ENMA students havent taken quantum before this class, and the analogies and explanations used for those arent too helpful in understanding them. Exams were very fair, probably easier than they should have been.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-21T20:29:26.833690Z'}], 'name': 'Johnpierre Paglione', 'slug': 'paglione'}, {'courses': ['CMSC434', 'CMSC838F', 'CMSC498', 'INST799', 'INFM799', 'CMSC798'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jon Froehlich', 'slug': 'froehlich'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM230', 'COMM401', 'COMM450', 'COMM398O', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jon Hoffman', 'slug': 'hoffman_jon'}, {'courses': ['HIST224', 'HIST419J', 'HIST225', 'HIST619Q', 'HIST433', 'HIST428J'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': None, 'review': "Sumida is hands down one of the greatest professors at this school. His courses are excellent, well taught, and fascinating... Yet be warned, if you want an 'A' you will need to put in the work. This review is for Clausewitz's strategic military theory however I recommend everyone take one of his 224/225 military history classes. \n\r\nLecture based classes, attendance is mandatory. Readings are essential", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-08-21T19:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': "An amazing professor that goes really in-depth into alternative ways to analyze military history. He takes a lot of effort into stressing important concepts or terms that you can expect to be on the quiz (since TAs like asking anything that he stressed in lectures) or it'll be on the midterm/final. Going to his lectures is absolutely necessary and so is actually reading through the text. Going to his Friday sessions is very helpful if you have any questions. He shows various interesting things such as movie clips and one time he brought a replica of a centuries old trombone that had no slides and played a couple songs with it. There are 12 quizzes (pass/fail) with 2 failed quizzes dropped so 10 count. Each one you pass is +1 on the final so you can be up an entire letter grade for the final. If you get a higher grade on the final than the midterm which Dr. Sumida says is highly likely your grade will just be the final. If you're interested in the military or history then this is definitely a class to take.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-21T17:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': "Everyone here says he's a great teacher but he just reads notes from his notebook in a drowsy monotoned voice. He goes through important material quickly and can not say 3 works without saying uh. If you are a history major, maybe take this, if not, do not even consider taking it! It's way too much work for a humanities credit. There's so much useless reading tat you're quizzed on every friday in discussion. Discussion classes don't go over hardly anything learned in lecture that you need for the exam but instead focus on the 100 pages of reading you have to do every week. And if you don't pass at least 10 of these ridiculously hard and tedious quizzes, you receive a 10 pt deduction on your final exam grade that basically determines your grade for the semester. Class is such a gpa killer.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2012-12-12T16:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': 'An absolutely brilliant scholar and fantastic lecturer. His voice is faint and weak but you will want to strain your ears to catch every word. Knows his subject backward and forward, is very willing to answer every possible question, asks for excellence and thorough knowledge from his students. There may not be a better professor at UMD.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T00:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': 'Sumida is great. Some stuttering in his lectures, and his voice is very faint, but he does use a microphone most of the time. Has complete mastery of the material and presents it very well. Grade was entirely the final with up to a single letter grade modification based on the quizzes. Short weekly readings (~100 pages), should be easy to handle. Course and professor are strongly recommended to everyone.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-14T20:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': 'A challenging course, but also very interesting for those who are trully interested in pre-industrial millitary. Not many battles are refered, nor are specific characters or weapons, but certain turning point concepts are required to understand if you want to get a good grade. Weekly readings and quiz, a little time consuming but enlightening. Usually there are Friday reviews, in which Sumida will show some scenes of movies about pre-industrial combat, really interesting for a review session. \r\nIn conclusion, it is not very difficult to get an A if you want to get it right, but more importantly, you will have a clear grasp of the most distinct questions of this course: who fight, how and why? Who pay, how much and why?', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-05T16:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': "really knows his stuff about anything early military history. Excellent teacher, lectures the whole class without slides and writes ID's, Key Dates/Battles on the board. I'd recommend using a laptop to actually write down everything. Midterm is designed to be almost impossible to get an A on. Reading the books assigned is a must to pass the reading quizzes in discussion which depending on how many you pass can hurt/help your grade on the final. Final overrides Midterm if final is higher grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-12T13:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': "Professor Sumida's class isn't particularly challenging as he describes. He just expects what every professor should-- that you read the books and attend lecture. If you want to skip class, borrow notes, and read powerpoints, this class is not for you. If you want to learn interesting and useful history that will help you be a better citizen, then take this class. Professor Sumida is engaging and his lecturing top notch. The grading is in your favor. You don't have to write papers; you only have a midterm and a final, and a higher grade on the final cancels you previous grade on the midterm. There are weekly quizzes based on the reading, which takes about an hour or two each week.\n\r\nThe knowledge you gain in the class is gold. I will take as many of his courses as I can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-29T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': "Professor Sumida redefined my approach to learning in a college environment. He is an excellent professor who truly cares about his students but at the same time, motivates them to succeed and work hard. His lectures are critical to performance in the class as there is no online aspects or recordings/slides. If you do the reading, the discussion quizzes can boost your final grade. Often, since he values improvement, he'll use your final grade for the class without calculating the midterm if you did poorly. The class is worth every second.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-04-12T10:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': "A very interesting class. It is not an easy A at all, but if you're willing to put in the effort, it's worth it.\r\nLectures are mostly verbal, occasionally he will write important words or diagrams on the board.\r\nQuizzes in discussion (based on readings) gives you points for the final if you pass them.\r\nThe final is your only real grade in the class. The mid-term exists, but it is graded harshly and if you improve on the final, than it is dropped.\r\nHe had optional lectures where he either showed neat movie clips or gave very valuable hints on the final.\n\r\nIf you want to do well in this class, you have to go to lectures (and be able to pick out the important points), do most of the readings, and be able to write all this information into essays on the final.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-01-03T17:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST225', 'review': 'solidly voice based lecture. he is impressive with his knowledge on the subject matter.\r\nYou must come to class as there is no online material and he covers alot, quickly.\r\nHe is generous with final grades although the exams can be a bit tricky. However, if he wants you to remember something, he WILL emphasize it.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-09-01T23:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST225', 'review': 'Dr. Sumida is very knowledgeable about his subject matter. Class consists of a Midterm and a Final and 10 quizzes which add to your final grade. The readings are imperative because they not only add to the lectures but cover details that he is going to make sure you know. Lectures are IMPERATIVE because there is no visual aids or power points, he simply lectures. Take home message: Go to lectures, do the readings and the tests, although intimidating, are extremely doable. \n\r\nCame out of this class learning more then I ever thought I would about military history.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-01T08:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST225', 'review': 'Great professor, very smart and really wants you to get the info and understand the connections. He has experience and gives real life examples of what he or others have done and thus interesting.\n\r\nRead the books, go to discussion as it can help your final grade, and def go to class. Tests are a little long... but if you understand the material you will be okay.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-08T13:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jon Sumida', 'course': 'HIST224', 'review': "Voice-based lecture, which means no slides or little visual aids for this professor. Highly disapproves of recordings of his lectures, so attention is required for this professor as the only visual things you will see is terms and basic topics of the day's lecture on the blackboard.\n\r\nHowever I found his lectures to be highly informative and well done, and feels that he really wants to educate and have his students understand the material.\n\r\nTests are rather detailed based, and since there is no online material, coming to class is imperative.\n\r\nOverall, a good professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-11-21T22:37:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jon Sumida', 'slug': 'sumida'}, {'courses': ['BMGT289E', 'BUMO752', 'BUSI771', 'BUMO753', 'BUMO758F', 'BUMO732', 'BUMO758A'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jonathan Aberman', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': "There are a lot of group projects but he gave us time to work with our group during class times. The midterm was graded much harder than any of the work leading up to it and had some trick questions so that came as a shock but everything else was graded pretty fairly. \r\nJonathan Aberman is overall an excellent teacher who loves helping his students learn even if it isn't on topic. He talked about politics a lot just because he thought it was important for us to be informed! I really appreciated how much he cared about us. He often cancelled classes or let us out early and was very understanding about everything. \r\nThis is not a difficult class. I do not recommend it if you are hoping to learn how to start a business (it is a class for non business majors) but if you just want to learn a little about business I think it is a great and easy way to start. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-04T15:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Aberman', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': 'Professor is very wrapped up in his outside work. He obviously has extensive background with the subject matter but cannot cleanly translate it into teaching ability. For such a right winged conservative, his belief in personal responsibility in the classroom is lacking as far as grading is concerned. Group projects dominate the grading scheme, leaving individuals with a lack of control over their own grade. A fun class. BMGT289E was not very informative, though. Targeted for very elementary students, not those who want to learn.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-01-03T00:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Aberman', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "I love this professor! He is entertaining and funny, but he's also smart and has the ability to engage his students with active participation in discussion of business topics. He has an extensive educational background, but he's down to earth cool, knows his material well, and is an expert at off-the-cuff remarks and humor, which makes class delightful. Awesome class. Brilliant!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-17T10:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Aberman', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "LOVE LOVE LOVE this course. Professor Aberman relates the topics to the real world to stress the importance of truly understanding and being able to apply them. He treats us like adults, with more respect than I've ever received from any other professor. And, he's fun; class is fun to go to. I wish I could take more classes with him - he's phenomenal!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-06T10:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Aberman', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'Best 495 teacher ever!! You will not be disappointed. He is hilarious, and his lectures are interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-21T09:50:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jonathan Aberman', 'slug': 'aberman'}, {'courses': ['ENGL809', 'HHUM106', 'ENGL468D', 'ENGL313', 'ENGL379N', 'FILM301', 'ENGL289T', 'ENGL428Z', 'ENGL150', 'FILM451'], 'average_rating': 3.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jonathan Auerbach', 'course': 'ENGL344', 'review': "This class was very interesting and I would recommend it as an average class in the English dept. The class focused on the role of technology through many interesting books. I enjoyed about half of the books and the assignment load is manageable. If you need a random credit, or course I's say go for it. I was just happy to read Frankenstein...", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-13T14:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Auerbach', 'course': 'ENGL344', 'review': 'This class was not what I expected. It probably should have been titled "Science Fiction and Technology in 19th Century American Literature" instead, and then I never would have taken it. Someone who likes robots and androids would probably enjoy this class more than I did. His focus on technology in each book we read was sometimes a stretch, and the repeated themes definitely got old by the end of the semester. There are online reading quizzes every Sunday night (which makes them easy to forget about), three 2-3 page papers, two 5-7 page papers, and a midterm and final. We read a mix of novels and short stories, some of which were only available online so be prepared to print a lot. Also, he doesn\'t let you use laptops in lecture, if that matters to you. If you take this class, be prepared to read some pieces of questionable literary value (typos, generally bad writing) because he wanted to emphasize some of the technological/futuristic themes of the course. My TA (Amanda Dykema) was great and I definitely recommend her. Just know what you are signing up for, because I didn\'t!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-31T11:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Auerbach', 'course': 'ENGL313', 'review': 'Auerbach is a great professor! His lectures are extremely interesting and he seems really down to earth. But it is a difficult class and involves a lot of reading in a short amount of time. Overall though it is a great class and I would definitely recommend it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-10T20:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Auerbach', 'course': 'ENGL313', 'review': "I really liked Auerbach--had him for a large, lecture class, so I didn't interact with him much one-on-one, but he's brilliant. Assignments weren't too bad (two 5-page papers, a midterm and a final, plus four 2-3 page papers), though the midterm was hard--basically everyone bombed it, but there was an extra credit assignment to make up for some of it. I recommend Auerbach, he was a great professor who provided unusual insight into the texts.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-11T19:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Auerbach', 'course': None, 'review': "Avoid this guy at all costs! In all my years as a student I've never met a professor with as little respect for his students' time and lives outside of class. On the first day, not only did he keep us 40 minutes past our scheduled end time (who cares that we might have another class or other obligations that are starting) but he springs on us, totally out of the blue, that we are required to give up 3 hours every Friday night (in addition to our 2.5 scheduled class hours on Thursday) to watch & discuss films with him. My schedule is set months in advance - I teach, take other graduate courses, and work - if you need 2 days to conduct your class then state that up front during registration. How presumptuous of this professor to assume he can pull this kind of sham on adult students! I dropped the course like a rock (as did 4 others). Anyone thinking of taking Auerbach in the future BEWARE!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-01T18:23:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jonathan Auerbach', 'slug': 'auerbach'}, {'courses': ['PSYC789R', 'PSYC489C', 'PSYC455', 'PSYC455H', 'PSYC888A', 'PSYC611', 'NACS728G', 'PSYC798C', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC789D', 'PSYC355'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jonathan Beier', 'slug': 'beier'}, {'courses': ['SOCY105'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jonathan Cox', 'slug': 'cox_jonathan'}, {'courses': ['BSCI437', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'CBMG688F', 'CBMG699Z', 'MOCB608', 'BISI799', 'CBMG899', 'BISI899', 'BSCI238D', 'HONR299V', 'BISI632', 'BSCI238D', 'BSCI238D', 'CBMG699Z', 'MOCB608', 'BISI632', 'BSCI436', 'BISI899', 'CBMG899', 'BISI899', 'CBMG899', 'CBMG699Z', 'HNUH278V', 'MOCB608'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jonathan Dinman', 'course': 'BSCI437', 'review': 'I would like to warn you guys before you take this class. I made my ourumd account today just to write this review. I agree that Dr.Dinman is a cool professor, and sadly that is it. rnrnConsidering myself as \'not a smart kid\' but \'a decent average hard working student\' (got an A in chem271 with Jason Kahn, B- in orgo and BCHM461&462, A in bsci201&202, A in bsci424..etc), I got a C in this class. And this time I only got a C because of the stupid TA and stupid test structure. rnrnIn my opinion, grading was NOT fair at all because it was super subjective. rnEach midterm was 50pts consisted of approximately 25 questions. He will sometimes ask 3~4 sub questions in one question that still makes up of total 2pts. Well suppose I did not answer one sub question or my answer was somewhat ambiguous ? There you lose 50% of total credit no matter how your other answers were right within that one question.rnrnAs a result, She would take off every single point from every single question based on her inconsistent grading method. Why do i call this inconsistent grading method? Later I found out that my friend and I had identical answers, he did not lose point while I did. WTF? rnrnSince one TA is grades so many exams, she doesnt even remember herself how she was grading to what extent. I was one of the unlucky students who fell a victim of her stupid inconsistency.rnrnOne day I talked to the professor directly, I got a right answer for sure for this one, he looked over it and said "oh yea it looks like you got right, i dont know. TA grades it HA HA Ha " After he lol, he told me its not going to matter because he will curve and statistically one point does not do anything. Well.. Suppose this happens every single question and every single midterm till the end, these 1 point differences can accumulate and produced a letter grade difference. rnrnWatch out if TA does not like you. you cannot ask for regrade either, because thats what makes TA recognize you and she will start grading even harsher next time. rn\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-19T19:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Dinman', 'course': 'BSCI437', 'review': "Great class/professor. Extra credit if you write a paper, attend 32/35 lectures, and get a flu shot. (15 pts total). He gives out about 50% A's. \r\nHis exams are hard to get used to - he emphasizes concepts and not as much detail. If you get around average or above and do all the extra credits you should get an A-.\r\nMaterial is dense but he really just wants you to know main ideas, so when looking at his lectures, summarize it in your own words and pick out the main point he is trying to emphasize.\r\nDefinately recommend", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-20T15:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Dinman', 'course': 'BSCI437', 'review': 'AMAZING PROFESSOR!!! Learned so much info from theis class and if you put in work, exams are not too bad. Also, he is a fantastic lecturer! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-03T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Dinman', 'course': 'BSCI437', 'review': "Great class by an even better lecturer. I was a little hesitant about taking virology because such a class runs the risk of getting bogged down by memorizing endless facts about endless viruses. However, I could not have been more pleasantly surprised.\n\r\nThe class is one of the most entertaining I have taken at UMD. Because the class itself is clearly organized and because Dr. Dinman is very confident about his knowledge in virology and is very witty, it turns into a thoroughly enjoyable course. And I feel like I have come out having learned and retained a lot. \n\r\nGrading is generous. Not missing more than three classes gives you 5 points. Writing a short review (1 page) on a classical virology paper gives you 10 points. For a class with three tests worth 50 points each and a final worth 100 points, those extra credit points give a big boost. He even said at the beginning of the semester that around 50% of us would get an A. Dr. Dinman hates pre-med point-pushers, and in designing the course has made it possible to allow students with a real interest in virology to leave with a decent grade without having to fight other students for it. That being said, you do have to learn the material. It's not a fluff class at all.\n\r\nIf you get the chance to take this course, I would highly recommend it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-19T15:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Dinman', 'course': 'BSCI437', 'review': "Oh my god, he gave extra credit for just for attending 32/35 lectures and more extra credit for writing a 5 pg max paper on a journal article. He gives at least 50% of the class A's. In the class basically an 80% is an A because he does not factor the top 10% into the average.\n\r\nThe way he organized the course was highly logical. Dinman brings in guests speakers from NIH, FDA, HIV experts, HPV experts to enrich the classroom experience. The lady that lectures on vaccines gave out free shirts!\n\r\nDinman as a lecturer was the best lecturer i ever had. He comes in with a bright attitude always smiling. In the lecture slides he wants us to learn the concepts first then examples. Whenever there was a slide with one of those complex molecular cascades he says don't memorize this just understand this...\n\r\nattend his reviews even though they are optional and take place during the class time. He gets his ideas for questions to write on the exam from these reviews. 75% of the questions asked on the exam were from the review and the rest were on concepts he repeated like 10 times.\n\r\nHighly suggest taking this class with Dinman \n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-18T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Dinman', 'course': 'BSCI437', 'review': 'Really enjoyed taking this class. Dinman makes it easy to understand and is very entertaining, often making jokes throughout the class. His exams do not test your ability to memorize, but instead require you to know the main concepts and ideas. Extra credit is also available, plus he curves at the end of the semester. Dinman does not want to punish students that are interesting in virology by making it hard for them to get a good grade; instead, he wants everyone to do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:03:44Z'}], 'name': 'Jonathan Dinman', 'slug': 'dinman'}, {'courses': ['AASP100', 'AASP100H', 'AASP101', 'AASP498W', 'AASP499P', 'AASP396', 'AASP498R', 'AASP499F', 'GVPT368L', 'PLCY388B', 'AASP298G', 'AASP499Y', 'AASP499D', 'AASP211', 'AASP399'], 'average_rating': 4.8947, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "Great lecturer. One of those classes where you'll learn a ton and won't mind going to class in the process. Excellent!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-04-16T20:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'WOW. What can i say? by far the best professor i have had in college. not only does he know his stuff but he cares about his students too. He is extremely nice, and spends time to get to know everyone in the class. He will share stories about his family and crazy, funny life. He makes every class enjoyable to the point where i can actually convince myself to go to a class. Very funny, very easy going, very nice. Cannot say enough good things about him. Take his class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-11T23:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100H', 'review': 'England is the man. You will seriously learn a lot more than you plan to in this class, and his class material is kept interesting and relevant by talking about current events. You will have a great time in this class if you come to lecture and pay attention, which is also the best way to do well on the exams. Sometimes he\'ll even say "this will be a quiz question".\n\r\nHe\'s genuinely exciting about teaching and interested in what his students think. He will often ask the class for their opinion. Answer him! It makes for a more interesting discussion.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-03-24T20:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100H', 'review': 'Jonathan is an amazing professor. He\'s super personable, hilarious, and likes to make every class interesting. \n\r\nThe class material is fascinating, and he teaches it in a way that keeps you engaged and actually makes you want to learn and retain the information. \n\r\n4-6 easy quizzes, technically "required" readings, but you don\'t have to read (I never did), he doesn\'t test on the readings.\n\r\nTake this class, soooo worth it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-30T22:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': '', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-01-13T21:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'This class is a huge eye-opener for anyone. Jon exposes you to the academic side of African American studies, which should help you view racial relations from a new perspective.\n\r\nHis class consists of a midterm, final exam, 4 short papers (you can instead do 2 short papers and 1 long one), 2 "random assignments" which will likely be short papers, 4 mini quizzes that are announced ahead of time, and class participation. \n\r\nThere is a lot of reading, but you don\'t really have to do any of it to succeed in the class, but you will get much more out of the lectures if you at least skim them.\n\r\nOverall extremely easy class to do well in, and given Jon\'s sociable and lively attitude, you\'ll never want to skip class.\n\r\nHighly recommended.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100H', 'review': "Johnathan is awesome. You'll be laughing in every class. There's not a lot of work involved.\r\na midterm and final and 2 small reaction papers.\r\nHe also gives out a few pop quizzes throughout the semester but they don't count as a significant portion of your grade.\r\nIf you need an SH take this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-26T09:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "You have to take this teacher and class. Teacher is funny, chill, cool. I've only been in class for like 2 weeks and he's a boss. \n\r\nIf your a nerd and are used to deadlines and an organized schedule dont take this class because you won't like it. \n\r\nBut if your an average joe take this. Easy, fun, best teacher. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-02-13T00:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'Jonathan is such a laid back person and he is totally engaging. He\'s extremely funny and his class is great. You do learn a lot and if you need a SH core I would highly recommend his class. He gives "pop" quizzes that he mentions beforehand. For example, he\'ll say there\'s a quiz this week and it\'s not today; so u know it\'ll be the next class. There are three papers about 3-4 pages. Not bad to write at all and he gives you plenty of options. There is a midterm and a final. All of the quizzes and exams incorporate multiple choice and short answer. He allows you to choose between a set of dates to turn in your paper. The only down side to his class is that you really have to work hard to do well on the exams and papers. He gives out review sheets for the exams and buying the books are not necessary for the class', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-01-01T04:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "He is the most awesome professor that I have ever had!!!!!! he's so hilarious and he's got such a awesome personality!!!!!!!!!!! I love him so much.\r\nalso he does not give a lot of works that is ridiculously meaningless. He doesn't try to teach us, but make us learn something from real life, which i loved the most!\n\n\r\nTAKE HIS CLASS!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-18T12:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP498W', 'review': "The best professor I've ever had at Maryland. He's very funny and entertaining. He relates his topics to current events and makes his subject matter very interesting to study. He's very understanding and a great instructor. In addition to having great personality, he doesn't give a lot of work. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-03-26T18:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "Great professor!!! Made me absolutely love this class! Im a science major and this class was my favorite this semester. I was tempted to skip a few classes since i had it at 9:30am, but his humor made me want to go. Hes very funny and keeps you up to date on the pop culture - its very refreshing when you attend classes like organic chemistry. You dont even have to do the readings and he gives you hints when a quiz is coming up. Also you have 2 write 4, 2-page essays but the due dates are up to you and you can pick your own topic. He grades very easy as well. I barely put any time into writing those essays and the lowest i got was a 90. As for the exams, theres only two (mid-term and final) and he gives you review sheets for both. The exams themselves aren't that hard and if you study enough you could probably get a 100% on them.\n\r\nI would definitely recommend this class with this professor!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-16T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100H', 'review': 'i got stuck in this class and wasnt excited until i met the professor. he is a great teacher and a hilarious guy that actually manages to take a history related topic (AKA boring to the max) and make it fun and interesting. and as a bonus he does girl scout cookies for his daughter. THIN MINTS FOR THE WIN.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-30T17:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP101', 'review': "Like everyone else has said, he's a very good teacher. AASP101 in general will be any easy A for you, but beyond that he really gives you an interest for politics and afroamerican studies if you are just entering the field as a freshman or sophomore. He encourages you to think about things from a wider perspective. You will never be bored in class. I also had him for an online course that was really interesting. Though more demanding. Still got an A though. Definitely take him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-28T09:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP101', 'review': 'Great teacher. I had the chance to take this class during the 2008 election cycle, which led to some great discussions. Really knows what hes talking about and provides a lot of information on the policy process and some key issues. I would definitely take another class by him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-04T19:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP498W', 'review': 'He was an excellent professor. Really took the time to talk to students when they needed his help. Would highly recomend taking his class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-24T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'Really great teacher. I highly recommend taking his classes. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-10T00:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'Easily the most entertaining professor I had at UMD. Makes class interesting and is very helpful to students. Highly recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-17T20:01:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan England', 'course': 'AASP100H', 'review': "I'm a senior and Professor England is easily one of the best teachers I've had at university. He's hilarious and makes every class interesting/easy to learn from. You do have to put in work to succeed but he is understanding with student needs and I've definitely found myself motivated to do well on his assignments (he gives you a lot of personal freedom).\r\n\r\nCan't hype this guy up enough, he is the real deal", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-17T23:17:17Z'}], 'name': 'Jonathan England', 'slug': 'england'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jonathan Geense', 'slug': 'geense'}, {'courses': ['MATH115', 'MATH113'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jonathan Huang', 'slug': 'huang_jonathan'}, {'courses': ['UMEI006', 'UMEI004', 'UMEI001', 'UMEI028A', 'UNIV100', 'UMEI028X', 'UMEI028C', 'UMEI028E', 'UMEI006'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jonathan Malone', 'slug': 'malone'}, {'courses': ['UNIV389F', 'FGSM370', 'HONR378D', 'FGSM390', 'HONR378M', 'HNUH378T', 'HNUH398T', 'FGSM370', 'FGSM390', 'HNUH378T', 'HNUH398T', 'FGSM370', 'HNUH378T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jonathan Margolis', 'slug': 'margolis'}, {'courses': ['PHYS420', 'PHYS675', 'PHYS474'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jonathan McKinney', 'slug': 'mckinney_jonathan'}, {'courses': ['PSYC200', 'PSYC695', 'PSYC690', 'PSYC433', 'PSYC692', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC692', 'PSYC433', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC692'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jonathan Mohr', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Coming into class while already having taken a stats class will make the first part of the material very easy. \r\nAll tests are open book, including the final. Homework assignments will help your grade have a little boost. \r\nLab is annoying, but you have to go to turn in homework.\r\nUnfortunately this class was so early (8am) and boring. He tries to make it funny, but honestly there's no fixing that the class gets dead boring, and often too. \r\nBut he's a really nice professor, and answers all your questions. \n\r\nOne issue are the tests. It's not necessarily 'hard' but he is very picky about answers. To make sure you don't get points off you must write everything and anything. and I don't just mean showing work, you have to say why you are doing what you are doing. Printing PP slides is so helpful for tests. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-02T22:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Mohr', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Dr. Mohr is an excellent professor. He was fair, responded promptly to emails and tried to make the class interesting. He posts his lectures online which was really helpful when it came to studying for tests. There's a homework assignment each week, which isn't hard but usually it can take 3-4 hours. But don't worry about that, because as long as you attempt the homework, you will receive full credit. The exams are open notes. I definitely recommend Mohr to others.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-27T19:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Mohr', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "I want to tell you that I'm not done taking this course. However I've completed around 70% of it and can tell you that overall he's a very chill man and overall likes his subject. \r\nHis grading scheme is out of 200 points overall with 2 tests + final + hwk + a paper, 186+ = A. He also has ~4 extra credit points and if you've taken stat100/math111 you'll find most of the material pretty manageable. \r\nTL;DR take him, he'll make Psyc200 easier for you. Oh and he's pretty flamboyant.. So he's pretty lively and what not.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-11T23:57:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jonathan Mohr', 'slug': 'mohr'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 4.5556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jonathan Rick', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'I can’t believe I have to take him. My father saw us on zoom and heard a snippet of class, and was shocked and amused with how he stated subjective things as fact in such an arrogant manner. I feel like I will do well in his class, but he is an annoying teacher to have- not someone I would want to know in a personal or professional setting. And he does love talking about himself.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-20T14:51:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Rick', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Professor Rick equips you with practical tools needed in the real world. He’s passionate & informative about what he teaches!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-06-14T23:37:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Rick', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "This course makes you think and gives you a chance to learn real life job skills. This course from any other prof is useless and boring. He runs this course like a workshop which makes it more engaging and participation-based than a regular class. \r\n\r\nHis bad reviews are from people who don't read his (detailed, and very clear) hw instructions.\r\nSorry, in the real world, you need to read instructions, or you don't get paid. \r\n\r\nWant to goof off and get an easy A? Want to waste your time and not learn? \r\nTake a different course. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-06-23T12:42:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Rick', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Professor Rick is an extremely entertaining and engaging professor. He made a 3 hour long 6-9pm English class bearable and interesting. This class is not a cakewalk however and professor rick has very clear expectations that are outlined in his assignment instructions. If you follow his instructions and take his feedback to heart and apply it to future assignments then you're golden. Every time I met with him after class he would outline each and every thing I did right and wrong and how to improve in a respectful and kind manner. \r\n\r\nProfessor Rick also provides you with valuable writing skills that have helped me in all of my future classes and even with landing a job.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-02-02T16:19:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Rick', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Rick’s class was by far the most helpful in preparing me for post college, professional life. His guidance on résumé writing, cover letters, and email etiquette stand out as things I will carry with me for years to come. Students must put in the work to succeed, but those who do will find a great professional connection moving forward.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-13T22:58:50.649270Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Rick', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Rick’s class was by far the most helpful in preparing me for post college, professional life. His guidance on résumé writing, cover letters, and email etiquette stand out as things I will carry with me for years to come. Students must put in the work to succeed, but those who do will find a great professional connection moving forward.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-14T22:19:30.436067Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Rick', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Professor Rick provides everything you need and more as a business writing professor. His interactive lectures teach you in depth tactics to create a resume, produce a proper email/memo, and enhance your overall writing ten fold in just a semester. He uses gives his students the same advice that he would give to his professional peers.\r\n\r\nThe grading is extremely clear but tedious. If you pay attention to details it wont be a problem.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-10-24T02:25:25.432124Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Rick', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Great professor! His knowledge and enthusiasm for Business Writing is legitimately off the charts. He wants you to succeed as much as possible, as well. Though, his teaching style can strike you the wrong way (at first) if you're not ready for it. He constantly calls on random individuals to read/participate whether they want to or not. Personally, I did not find this to be a problem (as it's really not a big deal if you mess up). Though, this caught me off guard the first couple of lectures.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-11T21:40:11.153495Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Rick', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Professor Rick is easily one of the best professors at UMD. He openly admits that he is a stickler for details, but if you really try on the assignments that are only due once or every other week, it's not hard to get an A on every assignment. There's no busy work, the readings take 10 mins max to do, and the class itself is extremely engaging. He is a great speaker and does an awesome job at not making the 3 hour class feel so daunting. Professor Rick is extremely knowledgeable and makes the course content really stick. The class was honestly fun, there was never a dull moment and he is relatable! I got so much out of his class, he really wants you to do well and learn. An easy A if you take his feedback with a grain of salt, pay attention, and show genuine interest.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-25T23:51:18.993760Z'}], 'name': 'Jonathan Rick', 'slug': 'rick_jonathan'}, {'courses': ['JOUR203', 'JOUR370', 'JOUR670', 'JOUR368N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jonathan Sham', 'slug': 'sham_jonathan'}, {'courses': ['ENEE222', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE488', 'BSCI474', 'NACS899', 'ENEE324', 'BIOL708L', 'NACS728B', 'BIOL667', 'BSCI374', 'BSCI374H', 'HLSC374', 'BIOL667', 'BSCI374', 'BSCI374H', 'HLSC374'], 'average_rating': 3.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jonathan Simon', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "Avoid Simon for 222. He starts off the semester telling you how much of the class has a GPA below a 3.0 and other statistics to make you feel bad about yourself. He's an absolute AWFUL teacher. All he does is write equations up on the board with symbols that he never explains. He'll do examples for about 10% of the concepts but then usually the other 90% is on the homework and all you can do is hope that your TA knows it. The exams are very similar to the testbank but he always puts a different twist on the question and no one knows how to do it. The 2nd exam and the final had to be curved about 20%. The first couple of labs are very easy but after that, the provided information is no help and you just have to guess and hope for the best. I highly advise that you take Papamarcou. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-23T10:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Simon', 'course': None, 'review': 'This class only seemed to encourage my pattern of poor performance in (only!) HLSC courses. Dr. Simon is a nice guy but a poor teacher. I spent way too much time in office hours and got little out of the class as a whole. The material is interesting, but once again, ILS seems to ruin that factor by overcomplicating course material. Maybe I’m just bitter because I continually scored in the bottom 20% of class grades, but the effort I put into this course was not reflected in my grade (same thing happened in HLSC322… hmmmmmmmm) The only good thing is that the lab is pass/fail, but you could bang things on the keyboard for answers and he’d still pass you, so who cares? He made the final this year all based on theory when all previous work has been on application, so everyone scored lower than he expected. I still don’t really get what an eigenvector is. I was initially excited about this class as it was the only math class I would have to take at UMD, but I was pretty disappointed with it in the end.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-17T12:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Simon', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "Professor Simon means well but he is not a good teacher. His lectures are boring, dense and often don't help at all in the understanding of the material. I had to look to the book to learn anything at all for this class, and even the book is not that helpful. His homework assignments are very difficult and are graded for completion AND are 30% of the final grade (this portion of the grade is not curved). What's worse, his solutions to the homework are often not helpful for some of the more difficult homework questions as they tend to skip steps and make assumptions about what you know, which is terrible when most of the material being taught in the class is new to pretty much all the students. You get weekly matlab assignments which are supposed to help demonstrate the concepts taught in class, but these are often difficult, and usually cannot be done based on what was covered in the lab or the lecture. I honestly haven't learned anything at all about matlab this past semester, and we've had 12 matlab assignments (and i didn't even fail any of these assignments; I averaged a B on all of them). The only redeeming quality about this professors class is that he gives a huge curve for the exams. There was as much as a 15pt curve for the first exam, and he usually reevaluates the curves for the exams after the final, meaning he makes them bigger. \n\r\nOverall, I would not recommend this professor if you can avoid him. Take papamarcou if you can, take Simon only if you have to.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-06T12:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Simon', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': "Simon is an okay professor. His class is set up exactly like Papamarcous. He uses the same exact exams as Papamarcou from the testbank, so run through those and you will do very well. I'd say his exams are as predictable as Silio's if you look at the testbank. Labs were unrelated to lecture, but they have some interesting applications. His lecture near the end can start becoming confusing. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-02-23T05:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Simon', 'course': None, 'review': "I legitimately forgot this man's name less than one day after my finals are complete. He has good intentions but he's just not a very good teacher. Homework assignments are graded toughly and are usually given straight from the book. The book's pretty dense also. I didn't feel this class added to my education in biology at all. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-18T13:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Simon', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "Dr. Simon is an excellent professor for ENEE322. He gives weekly homework assignments (of his own creation, not from the book) without fail and although they start out reviewing many old concepts they get harder and more time consuming as the semester goes on. The good news is that if you actually do the homeworks you are prepared to get an A on the tests. I strongly believe that the only reason not to get an A in this class is if you didn't finish a significant portion of the homework. This class relies heavily on math and math requires practice. His lecture style is also consistently thorough. If you can maintain focus for the entire class period than you should be able to understand everything. I left the class with a feeling that I saw some of the deep math, but really understood the meaning and application of signals and systems math. There won't be too many proofs or long calculations that don't seem relevant.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-29T21:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jonathan Simon', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "Simon was an excellent professor for 322. He gave dense and difficult homework, however, if you understood the concepts in the homework you were well prepared for the exams. His lectures were dense but they were very organized. His homework solutions as others have pointed out aren't the best, but he was more than willing to clarify anything during office hours.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-11-26T21:16:12Z'}], 'name': 'Jonathan Simon', 'slug': 'simon_jonathan'}, {'courses': ['HESP305'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joni Williams', 'slug': 'williams_joni'}, {'courses': ['HONR238W', 'HONR378N', 'PHYS105', 'PHYS174', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS499P', 'PHYS105', 'PHYS106', 'PHYS105', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS106', 'PHYS105'], 'average_rating': 4.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jordan Goodman', 'course': 'PHYS105', 'review': 'Dr. Goodman is one of the best, if not the best professor at the University of Maryland. He is an outstanding lecturer who makes every lesson interesting and fun, while still incredibly informative. I learn a multitude of news things every week and always get a few laughs. He is also very approachable and the TA for my course was also great.\n\r\nThe course overall is not a ton of work, although it is slightly challenging. If you put in the work it can definitely get you an A. It also fulfills GenEd requirements, and is an I-series course. This is the only class I have taken so far that I look forward to going to each week. I absolutely loved it.\n\r\nPlease take this course, you will not regret it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-27T02:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jordan Goodman', 'course': 'PHYS105', 'review': "Awesome professor. Dr. Goodman knows a LOT about science, in particular climate science. He's a super enthusiastic professor who managed to keep me engaged at every lecture. He also had a few substitutes who were also very good, the man knows how to keep a class going.\n\r\nPHYS105 itself is not very difficult either. It's an interesting course and you learn a lot, but it's not too hard. There is a fair bit of work involved, mainly group projects, so keep that in mind. The exams are all short-answer based and they actually have very few equation-based problems. This isn't so much memorizing physics equations as it is understanding physical concepts as they relate to climate change and energy. I learned quite a bit from this course, it's an excellent choice for CORE non-lab science.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T12:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jordan Goodman', 'course': 'PHYS106', 'review': "Possibly the best class that I've ever taken. Professor Goodman always kept the class entertained and focused. Very interesting and enlightening, I recommend everyone to take this class. Book is not necessary. Class is very easy with a minimal amount of work.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-18T14:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jordan Goodman', 'course': 'PHYS106', 'review': "I was worried about having to take a science lab for CORE, as I normally hate science classes, but PHYS106 was amazing! The lab itself was really, really easy. And Professor Goodman's lectures were very interesting and relevant to what I care about. One of my majors is Studio Art, so it was great to be in a science class where you get to learn about illusions and how your brain perceives color. The only slightly annoying bit is that he uses clickers, but then again, going to class was seldom a hassle. You have to write a short paper, but it could be about nearly ANYTHING related to the subject, so it's not bad at all. I highly recommend this class to anyone looking for a good lab for non-science majors. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-10T14:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jordan Goodman', 'course': None, 'review': 'I absolutely loved this class! I\'m so glad that it was offered this year, and I would recommend it to almost anyone who wants to learn about some important issues and to know how to make a difference in this world-there was a lot of interesting stuff presented, and I\'m really glad I took it. The material covered was very interesting and very relevant. The work was not very hard at all, most of it was reading or group work (of course, there are always challenges working with others). The class was kept engaging by clicker questions, occasional experiments or fun tasks (including a mini field trip), and discussions about interesting issues. Goodman showed his knowledge in the area, and really wanted us to understand his work. He presented things well and even had a good sense of humor. The only downside of the class was that discussion sometimes seemed very "scattered" and sometimes my TA was a bit hard to understand. I think though, that all the "bad" moments in class were only because the class was new so adjustments need to be made. All and all though, a thumbs up!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-21T03:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jordan Goodman', 'course': 'PHYS106', 'review': 'J. Goodman is an awesome professor! He is very personable and down to earth with his students. He encourages people to come to his office hours and helps them with their homework. Course material is actally pretty interesting and is presented in an understandable and applicable way. Professor is funny and loves what he does and wants to share his excitment. However, attendance is really important because clicker questions ( $50 clicker btw) are in every class and 15% of the grade. Tests and homework are challenging but fair and come directly from lectures. overall A+', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-20T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jordan Goodman', 'course': 'PHYS105', 'review': "This course is unorganized. There were many quizzes that we didn't even know existed until the deadline passed. Assignments kept randomly popping up with due dates the next days. The group projects in this class were tedious, several group members just did not show up, and I ended up doing most of the work by myself. This class is a lot of self-study.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-01T23:32:51.126918Z'}], 'name': 'Jordan Goodman', 'slug': 'goodman_jordan'}, {'courses': ['GREK101', 'CLAS170', 'CLAS180', 'GREK672', 'CLAS305', 'GREK472', 'CLAS315', 'GREK488E', 'LATN102', 'GREK102', 'GREK201', 'GREK388', 'GREK488B', 'RELS370', 'ANTH305', 'ARTH305', 'GREK606', 'GREK488K', 'CLAS190', 'LATN405', 'LATN688L', 'HIST328V', 'RELS170', 'CLAS190', 'GREK201', 'GREK488', 'CLAS330', 'GREK301', 'CLAS190'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jorge Bravo', 'slug': 'bravo_jorge'}, {'courses': ['AREC200', 'ECON785', 'AREC785', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC610', 'AREC610', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jorge Holzer Bilbao', 'course': 'AREC200', 'review': "Dr. Holzer is a decent professor for an easy class. The lectures can be a bit boring but the assignments are easy. Dr. Holzer taught the second half of the semester which focused on economics. The first half, on ecology, was taught by Dr. Sara Lombardi. Show up, do the assignments, and do a minimal amount of studying for exams and you'll get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-12-21T13:51:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Jorge Holzer Bilbao', 'course': 'AREC200', 'review': 'Covers the material thoroughly. Very open to discussing topic in depth at Office Hours if something was not understood. Goes a little fast but not too fast to manage, and usually let the class out 5-10 minutes early.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-25T16:51:11Z'}], 'name': 'Jorge Holzer Bilbao', 'slug': 'bilbao'}, {'courses': ['BMGT301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jorge Mejia', 'slug': 'mejia'}, {'courses': ['BIOE332', 'GEMS397', 'BIOE689J', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'BIOE604', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'BIOE489H', 'BIOE489M', 'BIOE605', 'GEMS396', 'BIOE689C', 'BIOE331', 'BIOE232', 'BIOE606', 'BIOE371', 'BIOE371', 'BIOE605', 'BIOE610', 'BIOE371', 'BIOE610'], 'average_rating': 2.0556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE332', 'review': "The worst professor in the world. How does the department even let the guy teach??? Not only is he horrible at conveying the material, he expects you to have a very solid math foundation and even expects you to know how to solve partial differential equations. This is the most math intensive class I took in college and no one was prepared for it. After the second exam, about 60% of the class was failing (NO JOKE)!!! Not to mention, this was even with making the exams open notes/book! As a result, he made the third exam a take home exam, and the project and extra credit also helped to boost some peoples grades. In the end I would approximate about 50% of the class got a C or lower. Don't do it to yourself, he's the worst!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-05-15T23:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE332', 'review': 'Helim is a horrible professor for undergrad classes. Avoid him at ALL costs. He completely goes back on what he says, he "clarifies" things and makes them more confusing, is useless in class, and is totally disrespectful when you try to contact him for any help. He literally only cares about his grad students. He\'s the most unorganized professor I\'ve ever had and has literally no schedule to speak of. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-12T21:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE332', 'review': "I would like to start this review by noting that in all my undergraduate career, I have never given a professor or TA a poor course evaluation. This does not mean that I did not feel I had professors who were not very good professors but I never felt so inclined to give a poor evaluation. I know that Dr. Helim is a great researcher and incredibly intelligent person. But a great teacher he is not. This course was by far the worst learning experience I have had in my life. I'm honestly not sure how to put all my frustrations and anger into a written statement but this is my best effort. I understand that Transport is a difficult course. However, the difficulty with this subject was not my issue with this course; I have taken math intensive and difficult courses before. My issue was the lack of sufficient teaching or resources for the students to learn the material. The lectures were either Dr. Helim reading off a pdf filled with errors too quickly for anyone to follow or Dr. Helim writing illegibly on the board. The material he went over in class were derivations. Both the textbook and Helim's lectures were filled with various typos and errors, a mystery puzzle left for the students to figure out themselves. In almost every class I have ever taken at UMD, solutions to the homework were posted on elms after the due date or gone over in class or discussion. None of this happened. We never learned how to do the problems in class and even after we tried our best to figure out if they were done correctly, there was no way of knowing if we had done them correctly. Moreover, there was no way to really practice for this exam and study problem which we were tested on. Even worse, the first two midterms we had in this class tested on material that we never learned in class or went over in the textbook on our own. In fact, about half the points on the first midterm were on Bessel functions which we didn't learn in class, was not on the textbook, and our TA did not know how to do it. How were students were expected to be able to do these exams are beyond me. Multiple students went to other faculty in the department seeking answers and were told to do the extra credit in the class and were basically brushed off. Dr. Helim told us himself in class that the extra credit will not have much of an impact on our failing grades. Students were also told to try to gain point on the class project. I don't know how other projects went, but for our group project, what the Dr. Helim wanted on this project was unclear. Despite doing our best and asking him in person, we still do not know. We also brought our project to Dr. Helim ahead of time to see if what we did was sufficient. We were told that our project was boring. What that means for the project grade of this ten person project group is beyond me. In the end, my frustration as a student is not nearly as much with Dr. Helim (although I am extremely angry with how he taught and administered this course) but with the Fischell department and its negligence. Students went to other faculty seeking answers and were basically brushed off. I don't think that when 63% of the class is failing, the fault is completely on the students. I learned how to use COMSOL in this class. But that was it. I honestly don't know anything about transport design. This class was a waste of my time and the money I put towards tuition, and a testament to how the department failed its students. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-09T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE121', 'review': 'The review below is correct- Helim was a terrible teacher. He has an accent, is incredibly monotone and speaks really soft (which is 10x worse if you have him for an 8am class) so everyone either falls asleep or brings a laptop and just messes around the whole time\r\nHowever, this is an extremely easy class, as long as you do well on the lab reports', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-21T23:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE689M', 'review': 'Terrible teacher', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-21T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE121', 'review': 'BIOE121 was a very good course. Professor Aranda is a nice guy, but he does not help students directly when he is not asked to do so. The work load was slightly high for a one credit course, but an A is very easy to earn; complete all the lab reports and go to lab! This is possibly the easiest science course during freshman year. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T12:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': "Absolutely the worst professor in the world I can assure you. Never take him because you will end up learning nothing from him. He may be a nice person, but he cannot teach. He has zero passion for teaching and if you take his class he has ridiculous standards for every student. Unless if you're phenomenally good at math, you will struggle if he's the professor for 371. Avoid at all costs. I am not even a bad student but the semester I took his class affected my grades, solely because he was the professor for 371.\r\nHe doesn't teach, he just reads the textbook to us, and even when he attempts to teach, he never really explains anything and assumes we all understand. Even when you go to his office hours he is frustrating to talk to.\r\n I would never advise my worst enemy to take his class, that's how horrible he is as a professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-03-18T03:23:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': "If I can give him less than a star, I would. He doesn't teach. His notes (which he reads off of) are straight from the textbook so there's no point in going to class. Even when he tries to do examples of problems, he only focuses on the ones already in the book. The way the grading system work is really messed up. Quizzes are 25% of your grade, and the lowest one isn't dropped. This is very frustrating because the class is at 9am and the quizzes are given the first 10 minutes of class. So if you miss one, you're screwed. Only way I can probably pass this class is if he curves. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-03-25T19:33:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': 'Avoid if you can. He made 371 harder and more difficult than it\'s supposed to be. He has ridiculously high standards and he claims he is not curving. Gives extra credit as a "curve" but he usually picks the most difficult questions for extra cred, making it nearly impossible to get. It doesn\'t even boost your grade. We had a take-home exam due the day before finals that was extremely difficult and took up so much time.\r\nif there was a 0-star rating I would give him that.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-05-21T11:21:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'Helim is a nice dude. People giving him a one-star cuz they mad they did not do well. This course is not easy and you definitely have to take things more into your own hands. He does not give HW often so you NEED TO REVIEW AND PRACTICE A LOT ON YOUR OWN and make do with whatever problems he does do. His exams were very doable if you put in the work. It is very easy to ignore this class until it is too late to do anything so stay on top of it.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-11-24T17:54:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': "Response to the review below: Helim is a nice dude, agreed. I am not mad that I did not do well, I have an A+ right now. Helim is a terrible professor absolutely horrible. For his lecture, he reads the textbook and goes over the examples that are already done in the book and his explanations usually contribute nothing to the our understanding of the materials. His lecture is borderline useless I don't know why I even show up. The only way to succeed in this class is to read the text book. And even then, it is hard because this textbook sucks. It will prove something or solve an example and show absolutely no work, skipping from the first step to the last for any given 5 step problem. It makes absolutely no sense for someone trying to learn something for the first time. To make matters worse, the assigned homeworks take concepts in class and multiply the difficult 10x over, leaving you struggling to understand what the hell is happening or how to even begin. The TA's in this class (especially Martha) have been incredibly helpful, they are by far the best material provided to us. All in all, avoid at all costs. You will have to read a textbook multiple hours a day, and maybe even multiple times before you begin to understand anything. In this is coming from someone who is doing very well so far. Just take it another semester if you can or you will hate this class and be sad with how much work you have to do.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-03-08T20:41:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': "Helim should not be allowed to teach anymore. The only reason I performed well in this class is that I never attended lectures. The lectures are pointless repetition from the textbook. He also randomly calls on students. All in all, he just seems like the kind of professor that's out to get students. I do not align with this teaching style because it is ineffective. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-04-05T14:08:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': "Yes, lecture is pretty much repeating the textbook. I thought he made more sense than the text and if he didn't you could just ask questions in class, so you don't have to open the text if you go to class. He also hints at what questions will and won't be tested.\r\n\r\nHomework is completion. Classwork is graded, but collaborative and you can ask him or TAs for help.\r\n\r\nExams were very fair. Questions taken straight from hw or lecture notes or were very similar. Allowed equation sheet.\r\n\r\nLowest two non-exam grades were dropped. Lots of opportunity for extra credit applied to exam grades. Final is optional, don't count on taking the final.\r\n\r\nTAs were very useful. We worked on hw in discussions. They led review sessions leading up to every test.\r\n\r\nOverall, I felt like he wanted us to succeed and was accommodating. He even tried new teaching style of working out problems and taking questions/problems from students during class, but the class voted to return to his old lecture style.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-20T05:05:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': "I am not sure why everyone rates Helim so low, but his class was very fair and I felt that I learned a lot. Forst, it was an 8 AM class which did make it difficult to focus, and his lectures are basically him going through the textbook in his own handwriting. However, I thought he made more sense than the textbook, and he skipped over things in the text that you wouldn't have known if you didn't go to lecture.\r\n\r\nThe homework was very long (6 + pages), and was only graded for completion. However, the reason I rate this class so highly was that our exams always had only problems from the homework, discussion, or class with minor modifications. So basically, if you show up to class, discussion, and at least go over the homework answers (which he posts), you should do extremely well on the exams.\r\n\r\nOn top of that, he gave many opportunities for extra credit on each exam, and the discussion was a great tool to teach you how to solve specific problems that would almost always show up on the exam.\r\n\r\nTL;DR Go to class, do the homework, and go to discussions and there is no reason you shouldn't get at least an A- ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-29T03:44:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': 'He simply has copy-pasted the textbook for his lecture slides...how is this not plagiarism? His handwritten notes leave much to be deserved in terms of understandability and legibility. He speaks so quiet sometimes you don\'t even know he is in the room. He randomly assigns "classwork" giving you 5 minutes to submit something hastily handwritten at the end of class. The only good thing is that he grades homework for completion so you can actually check the answers and learn without panicking. This is where you will actually learn the material. The exams, contrary to what people are posting below, are not simply practice homework problems. You should look at examples from the textbook he mentions to "Study" in class as well. Apparently he also doesn\'t allow examples on reference sheets for exams? Strange. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-30T01:27:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': 'His lectures are terrible. The hw is terrible. The exams are okay. Help from the TAs were the only thing that made this class bearable. Do not take this professor if you have any other choice. His notes arent very helpful and his class is not engaging AT ALL. One of the worst ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-18T21:12:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': 'Although Helim can be a bit soft spoken in class and does go really fast some days, he will listen if you tell him to speak up and is pretty accommodating. I still thought he was a great professor and taught diff eq way better than my actual diff eq prof. He is also funny and relates things to actual bio and engineering concepts if you listen carefully. He’s also great in office hours. To get a good grade, go to every discussion and every class. It’s ok if you miss some class days, but definitely don’t miss discussion. The TAs go over HW problems due that week and will help with any example you ask. Both Helim and the TAs also will basically tell you exactly how the exam will be set up and what each question is going to be (it’s category). Helim also gives a practice exam the lecture before every exam and the TAs hold an exam review after this answering the whole thing. The practice exam is usually exactly like the actual exam (represents each category of question that will be asked). Extra credit is also great. Does give classwork “quizzes” in class but will help you so that you solve the problem correctly, just ask. Overall great class and great prof! Not an easy A but definitely doable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-02T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'course': 'BIOE371', 'review': 'This guy is trash but I\'m giving him 2 stars instead of 1 because there isn\'t a better option than him (as of 2023). \r\n\r\nAbout the professor:\r\n- He is incredibly rude to his students and really doesn\'t seem to care about them either. For example, when we asked when the homework answer keys will be posted, he responded with "when you see them on elms." Or someone will ask for him to go over an example and he says, "no... there are examples in the textbook." It\'s almost comedic how disconnected he is with his students. \r\n\r\nAbout his teaching:\r\n-This man pulls out a pdf of hand-written notes (riddled with mistakes) from whenever he started teaching this course and mumbles through this pdf the entire class. He says "this goes here and then you do this and then you have the answer... moving on" all while scrolling through this confusing pdf of notes and very rarely writing things on the board. This goes back to him not giving a flying f*ck about his students because he\'s too lazy to write out the examples on the white board. Although, when he does muster up the energy to go through something on the board, it makes sense and is easy to follow. \r\n- He also gives pop quizzes on the same material covered in class that day. You can just see the panic and confusion in most people\'s faces when he gives these pop quizzes... he calls them "independent classwork." \r\n- The homework is incredibly difficult and you need to go to the TAs office hours AND discussion sections in order to complete it. On the bright side, it\'s graded for completion. \r\n- The exams are brutal and he does not give that much partial credit. It\'s not even the concepts that are difficult, he just finds a way to make "easy" material very difficult by making the algebra for most questions incredibly long and tedious (time crunch). He does not curve the exams but he does give out extra credit (in the form of confusing pop-quizzes). \r\n\r\nThe other teacher for this class, Dr. Koh, is even worse so I would take Espinoza but just beware and make sure you prioritize it if you want a good grade. Both teachers are awful but at least Espinoza makes the final optional. Good luck, you\'ll need it for this class :)', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-15T04:29:12.454560Z'}], 'name': 'Jose Aranda-Espinoza', 'slug': 'aranda-espinoza'}, {'courses': ['SPAN204', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN359C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jose Contreras', 'slug': 'contreras_jose'}, {'courses': ['CBMG688D', 'CBMG688O', 'PLSC400', 'BSCI442', 'BSCI442', 'PLSC400', 'BISI899', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jose Feijo', 'course': 'BSCI442', 'review': 'I had Dr. Feijo for a BSCI442 lecture section and really enjoyed them. He really puts energy and clear passion into his discussions, I would highly recommend him. Plus grading is fair and well communicated so as long as you put in some work, you can succeed in one of his sections. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-03-31T19:08:45Z'}], 'name': 'Jose Feijo', 'slug': 'feijo'}, {'courses': ['SPAN333', 'SPAN408E', 'SPAN699B', 'SPAN798W', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN427', 'SPAN408O', 'SPAN798L', 'FILM427', 'SPAN798Y', 'SPAN408R', 'SPAN798P', 'SPAN449D', 'SPAN798Z', 'SPAN333', 'SPAN408G', 'SPAN439G', 'CINE467', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN467', 'SPAN333'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jose Naharro-Calderon', 'course': 'SPAN333', 'review': 'Oh dear lord. If you respect yourself, I wouldn\'t take this course. It\'s not that I\'m doing badly; it\'s the fact that I really don\'t feel like this professor respects his students. \n\r\nHe is, admittedly, a great lecturer. He knows exactly what he is talking about, and he will give you that information. His class is interesting, he is not boring, and I have no doubt that he is knowledgeable about his subject. He is even quite funny at times.\n\r\nHowever, his class structure is such a clusterfuck that I can\'t advise anyone to take this course. He is routinely late to class by at least 3 minutes, and he routinely holds the entire class after by 5-10 minutes. I have had him keep a class 13 minutes after the class had officially ended, just because he wasn\'t ready to stop talking.\n\r\nHis syllabus is horrific. It is 16 pages long, single spaced, and extremely unclear. It liberally intersperses random bold and italicized words. It is nigh impossible to tell the difference between an assigned book and an assigned movie on his calendar. The whole thing is about 2 days off of what we\'re actually doing in the class. The due date for the final paper is not even on the thing, and he couldn\'t tell us until two weeks before finals when it would actually be due.\n\r\nWhen our class asked him what would be on our first exam, he would not tell us. It might be reasonable if he had something on the syllabus about it, or if he just gave us some broad topics that would be most explored. However, he just answered "Everything." He said everything would be on the exam. Supremely unhelpful. He also would not tell us the format of the exam. If you\'re not okay with not knowing anything about the test you\'re about to take, don\'t take his class.\n\r\nI have received multiple grades from him that i have NO idea how I got. His grading is mysterious, to say the least. His writing is illegible, so there\'s no way to read his comments without going to his office hours. I have no idea what he\'s looking for as far as tests, essay, and quiz answers... even after having taken the class.\n\r\nTo top it all off, he is a huge luddite. I\'ve seen him yell curse words at a computer before. If something goes wrong, he blames it on technology. He got mad at our class for not knowing the name of a specific brand of typewriters, because it was the title of a poem and he thought we would all get the reference instead of being massively confused. He refuses to stream films from Hornbake library onto Canvas because he says he wants us to get the film experience. This means you have to physically travel to the library to watch every movie for his class (where you watch the films on a TV screen that\'s probably smaller than your laptop or desktop screen... film experience). He makes frequent comments about how something is very wrong with \'your generation\' because students today like technology. \n\r\nYou cannot use any technology in his class, even for any of the books, papers, or films that are assigned. You must buy every book and print out every reading. I went through a full ink cartridge just from his class. If you take this class, make sure you have a laser printer.\n\r\nHis exams are not hard, but they are comprised entirely of essays and he does give pop quizzes. If you managed to slog through the syllabus to find what you were supposed to do for that day, and you managed to choose the right day and the right work for that day (because it may well not be on track with the syllabus) AND you found the reading or bought the right edition of the book or went to the library to do the assignment, then his quizzes are easy. The final essay at the end of the course was 5-8 pages long. \n\r\nI would avoid taking this class with him if you can. He knows what he\'s doing, and I like him as a lecturer, but his arrogance about technology, his awful syllabus, the heaps of assignments, and his general lack of respect for his student\'s time make me wish I had been able to drop and take this with someone who at least pretended that they cared about their students as people.\n\r\nAs a last note: If you are weird like I am, you will notice that when he has talked for about 15 minutes, his saliva starts to froth around the edges of his mouth. He rarely wipes it away. I\'m super uncomfortable with things like that, and I have literally gagged in class before. Sometimes I just stare at my notes and avoid looking up. If that would bother you too, be warned.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-12-03T07:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Naharro-Calderon', 'course': 'SPAN333', 'review': "Dr. Naharro-Calderon is an excellent profesor. I must say there were times during the semester that I felt like dropping the class because it was so much reading and because his tests weren't always in the same format each time. Participation is a must in this calss, and although this class is a lot of work, you'll come out feeling like you learned something! Take it but stick it out of it becomes too hard.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2013-01-10T18:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Naharro-Calderon', 'course': 'SPAN333', 'review': "Dr. Naharro pretty much knows everything about everything. He's an AMAZING lecturer (like chills down your spine amazing) and really, truly has a passion for what he's teaching. \n\r\nThe difference between an amazingly interesting class and a horribly uncomfortable class is how many people have done the reading. (Also, he asks very specific questions in class, and 20% of the final grade is class participation.)\r\nThey're actually pretty amazing readings. \n\r\nAll his test questions are straight from his lectures. He shows several videos in class, but they're basically an excuse for him to skip class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-12-10T17:25:00Z'}], 'name': 'Jose Naharro-Calderon', 'slug': 'naharro-calderon'}, {'courses': ['BMGT363', 'BMGT364', 'BMGT390H', 'BMGT463', 'BMGT468Z', 'HONR258E', 'ENES390H', 'BUMO758W'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'ENES390H', 'review': 'Here\'s some advice from an alum pulling six figures: open your fucking mind. I had Suarez years ago - and I am reading some shit advice from the current students:\n\r\n"your grade was just random chance"\r\n"doesn\'t teach you anything really valuable"\r\n"make sure to laugh at his jokes and tell him how great his speeches are"\n\r\nPeople who talk about assignments, exams, grades -- you didn\'t learn SHIT from him. You might as well have stayed home, because your brain was checked the fuck out in class. What were you doing, checking your Facebook feed?\n\r\nHere\'s the real deal: when you get out in industry, no one gives a SHIT what your GPA was -- they care about what you can deliver when things go bad. That\'s why you get hired: to solve problems; not because you got an A, passed a test or sucked up to your professor.\n\r\nIf you expect your professor to spoon feed you what you need to know, then you\'re a tool and you\'ll get played until you learn to think for yourself.\n\n\r\nSo how do you succeed in a Suarez class?\n\r\nFIRST. Go to class and approach what he presents like theory. It\'s abstract and that\'s the point: you need to figure out how to apply it to solve different kinds of problems. He\'s not going to give you a step-by-step, he\'s going to give you a compass heading.\n\r\nSECOND. If you think something is valuable, say so. If you think something is irrelevant, say so. Discuss your ideas and challenge your professor. You get what you put in. He told me some of the realest shit that is relevant YEARS later because I actually thought about where it came from.\n\r\nTHIRD. Who gives a shit about your grade? You\'ll get an A. This is one class where you can actually focus on learning something rather than spinning your hamster wheel and churning out a grade that doesn\'t really matter. School is a game and no one cares about your score after you graduate.\n\r\nDon\'t like Steps 1-3? Quit and start a dead-end job because you lack the critical thinking to be in college.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-11-15T19:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT390H', 'review': 'Dr. Suarez was the most inspirational teacher I have had thus far at UMD. His lectures are all influenced by his past (amazing) experiences, working at top companies and serving in the White House. All of his speeches leave the students with a lesson learned and piece of wisdom; it makes you forget that you are simply in a college class. \n\r\nHe has accomplished so much and has been connected with so many influential people; he has the incredible ability of touching you, broadening your perspectives, and changing the way you think about life. He is an absolutely amazing professor and if you have the chance to have him in a class, I would not let that go for granted!! He cares about the students, is extremely flexible, and will do whatever he can to support you and any of your endeavors. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-26T15:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT363', 'review': 'This is all not true about Professor Suarez. I took BMGT 363 and I loved it and am taking another class with him because he is an amazing teacher. He knows his stuff, and the class is very interesting too. He is a great speaker and if someone is saying that he does not know his English..., then he is off his head!! Class syllabus changed only a bit, and I have seen this happening in any other class. All the life stories were tied with the topic, and it made us easy to remember the key terms with those stories. I fully recommend this class because you will learn a lot. A very easy class and he makes things easy for us. Very nice professor who cares for students and flexible too! Take this class and you will not regret at all! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-09-07T12:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT390H', 'review': "Dr. Saurez was one of the most transformational professors I had at Maryland. His lessons are based on his years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies and in the White House with 2 past Presidents of the United States. Ie. he doesn't just regurgitate a textbook, he brings real insight from things he has uncovered in the real world. \n\r\nDr. Suarez has the ability to change the way you think about both your life, and your academic projects - but you have to put in the dedication to learn. It's clear from the reviews below that students were not interested in opening their mind and being a part of their own education. They lost out on a great opportunity to learn from a brilliant professor.\n\r\nIf you are driven, ambitious and want to become more innovative in the way you about think and tackle problems, take his classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-08-09T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT363', 'review': "Dr. Suarez is by far the best professor that UMD RH SMITH School of business put before us. Not only is he very knowledgeable, but he is also very professional, organized, well mannered, approachable, patient, determined, caring, and very easy to talk too. \n\r\nHe doesn't bore you with death by power point like most other teachers, instead he provides real life insight that one can use post graduation. He teaches based on actual knowledge and also incorporates theories, which is good, because lets be honest, how many people actually use useless theories in the real world (Pythagorean theorem)? would much rather learn things that can be applicable to every day life. Thank you for not killing us with useless information, and actually preparing for our future. \n\r\nIn regards to his expectations, he outlines them day one of class, and then its up to the students to be adults and know when things are due. Just like in the real world, no one will come up to you 2 times a week and remind you that you have something due. \n\r\nI honestly think that Dr. Suarez is the best instructor, professor, leader, advisor, and role model that UMD has. I am thankful that I was able to learn so much from him, in the short time that i had him as a teacher, and hope that now that I am in the MBA program I will be able to have him once again, as I know that there are a lot of things that I can learn from a guy of his Caliber ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-08-08T19:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT363', 'review': 'He was a great professor very passionate about his class but I don\'t think he was as engaging as he should be.\n\r\nThis is not a hand-out class where all you\'ll have to do is show up and turn in your assignments and it will be an easy "A". You get what you put in with this class. Dr. Suarez doesn\'t teach; he more so guides/shares his honest experiences and situations he has encountered in the past. DON\'T bash him because he actually treats student like adults. Grow up and learn to realize that not every Professor will use the same teaching style. If you\'re real business students you will learn to adapt and still excel in any given environment. \n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-08-08T16:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "He is one of the most disorganized professors ever. His expectations for assignments were not clear, he would forget when they were due, and then expect you to have them. His exams were completely random and pretty impossible to study for. There was a huge spread on all of the exams because your grade was just random chance. \n\r\nThe only positive thing I can say about the class is that it wasn't too much work. The exams were multiple choice, there were a few short written assignments, and one group project throughout the semester.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-06-20T11:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT363', 'review': 'What can I say about Suarez, to start nothing good. He is disorganized, unprofessional, and often times rude. When students had questions he would say sharply "Did I open the floor for questions?" I am surprised with his head being so big he can actually walk into the classroom. He is about as disorganized as a 5 year old and that\'s a compliment. What I find so comical is the fact that he calls himself a leader yet he has no idea what\'s going on. He doesn\'t even know when assignments are due and he created another syallbus to add to the already established confusion. His life stories back when he was a Democrat with Bill "The Cheater" Clinton and George Busch got old, grow up and stop living in the past. Shouldn\'t a leader plan for the future and not live in the past? His exams are off the wall. Every answer choice could be the answer, he tries to trick you. He constantly says "Don\'t worry about grades" but still decides to be a hard grader and fail everyone. He assigns the same grades to the whole class so I guess he is lazy and doesn\'t take the time to read our assignments. His GA was MIA (I guess the idiot took an extended spring break) so that was Suarez\'s excuse. I had to day dream in this worthless class to stay sane. Listening to his bad English and dealing with his unprofessionalism was mind blowing, which is not in a good way. Trust me when I say this that he is just another bad professor at the Smith School. Like most professor here, they think they know everything and they don\'t. Just a fool in a suit. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-15T09:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "You have to really feel bad for this guy. He's truly an amazing person, who comes into class every day and gives us these inspiring messages and stories from his life experience. It's really a very enjoyable experience -- until you get to the graded assignments.\r\nThe Management Department is the actual professor of the class. They decide what assignments to give, what questions should go on the test, how the syllabus and grading works... They basically tell the professors what to do, and the professors have no choice but to follow.\r\nBecause of this, the class:\r\n1) Is out of 563 points. Yeah, you heard me. Try calculating your grades in this *****. Hint: you can't.\r\n2) Is based entirely on the slides, which are usually not based on the book. Which is fine, but Suarez knows as well as we all do that the slides don't impart actual valuable information, so he doesn't bother teaching them.\r\n3) Has an exam written to include questions based on class discussions that each class was supposed to have, whether or not the classes had the discussions.\r\n4) Includes ridiculous assignments with no clear guidance, no clear grading scheme, and no method to question grades received.\r\n5) Takes attendance in every lecture.\r\n6) Doesn't teach you anything really valuable.\n\r\nEveryone has to take 364, which sucks. But don't take it with Suarez; he's a nice guy, but isn't actually a professor.\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T06:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'jose is a nice guy, tries hard and means well for his students. that being said his slideshows are useless and lectures cover his life story, nothing related to the book. his exams are challenging and vague he expects you to magically know all the material. he is also terribly disorganized. avoid him', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-12T11:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'Please do not take BMGT364 with this man. While he is a nice guy, he is not very good at teaching and often gets off topic, trying to give motivational speeches about why we were accepted into the business school and how we should want to learn.\n\r\nIf you think that this will be easy because he give 93% A\'s, that is for his engineering seminars and very high level business courses, not 364. This is the kind of class where the disorganization and ambiguity of the teacher works against the students. He often does not notify us when certain"in-class assignments" are do, as well as different case write-ups. He calls them in-class assignments, but he says to finish them before class and turn them in at the beginning class. And if you don\'t turn one of these in, you\'re SOL, because he accepts nothing late for a portion of the grade. If it is late, it doesn\'t get graded and you get a zero.\n\r\nHis tests are also pretty difficult. The short answer/essay portion is rather straightforward and predictable, but the multiple choice answers can sometimes come from nowhere and often have more than one answer.\n\r\nI think I am going to get a C in this class, and I can honestly say that it is not my fault. I studied for the first exam for about two hours, thinking that the material was basically common sense (it is), but he found a way to make it difficult. I studied for the second exam for six hours, and walked out of it feeling negligibly better than after the first one.\n\r\nAll in all, Jose is a great guy and his heart is in the right place, but his disorganization and poorly written tests ultimately hurt the students.\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-04-10T22:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT390H', 'review': "Suarez 's ability to keep you engaged with his glorious stories and above-average sense of humor makes him a decent lecturer, in the sense that you at least won't be asleep for 75 minutes. However, he has this hint of superiority around him at all times and that really annoyyed the shit out of me. Like the reviews below me, make sure to laugh at his jokes and tell him how great his speeches are. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-25T17:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT390H', 'review': 'Hey, the guy below me. Your review is a bit extreme and we can think of only one person who would write like that. Yeah, that\'s right. Neighbors know your name.\n\r\nIf I may add my few cents, it\'s absurd for us to judge him based on our conventional way of thinking. Dr. Suarez comes from a new school of thought called systems thinking. If you hadn\'t noticed, he has been teaching us systems thinking since day 1. Some of us found it a tad difficult to comprehend it at first. However, once you think outside the box and actually try to understand, you will realize that it makes sense and acquire a new way to approach problems, thereby opening yourself up to a whole new world of opportunities. \n\r\nOn a different note, it is very obscene and incongruent to compare Dr. Suarez with Mr. Hitler. Whereas Mr. Hitler was a fine political orator but a terrible military commander who had no idea what he was talking about, Dr. Suarez is not only an eloquent speaker but also fully understands his knowledge and comes to his lectures prepared. (And why are you suddenly mentioning about President Obama? I think it was very inappropriate for you to bring politics here.)\n\r\nHowever, as many others pointed out, he does have a huge ego, perhaps "one too big for the classroom." In addition, he picks favors in the class and gets upset when he disagrees with (or dislikes) the answer or presentation. This trait probably comes from the 12 years of his tenure at the White House and/or his reputation in his field; this is common for people who are well-established in their careers. Nevertheless, it could come as very annoying and would certainly make students feel like the class is about nothing but his career. It\'s like listening to a war veteran\'s stories.\n\r\nOverall, I would give him a 4 out of 5. Although some of his stories were discordant with the overall course and his pride certainly came as a bit disturbing to some of us, his class was an invaluable experience for me. Systems thinking really taught me how to approach problems holistically. This new way of thinking has allowed me to understand issues more comprehensively and more clearly. Some of his lectures were also very inspirational. \n\r\nProtip #1: He cares about his students. Try to visit him during his office hours or stay after class. \n\r\nProtip #2: Write down his quotes. They come in quite handy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-14T02:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT390H', 'review': "Totally agree with the review below me. Hitler gave great speeches (and does Obama), but I wouldn't ever pay tuition dollars to either one of those two to teach me one of the more educational classes in the QUEST program. I really hate the way he teaches, and although there's no way around taking BMGT390H with him, be sure to kiss his ass like everyone else does in order to get a good grade. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-09T12:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'ENES390H', 'review': 'Dr. Suarez is great presenter and speaker but that\'s about it. He spent a majority of the semester giving motivational speeches and left only less than a month for the "semester long" project. He also picks favors in the class and left a few teams hanging with no help whatsoever. He does have a HUGE ego and perhaps one too big for the classroom. Get ready for HIS stories and HIS experiences and tell him how great and important HE is if you want to be on his good side. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-26T02:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'ENES190H', 'review': "Dr. Suarez is a really good speaker. He knows his stuff, and he presents it well. He has a HUGE ego and he talks about himself and how important he is, and everything he's done (he does know how to cover it by saying he's given up all that fame to teach... but yeah...). Anyway he does have some inspirational lectures and he does get you to think differently. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-26T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Suarez is one of the wisest teachers on this campus. I definitely recommend this class, not because of the grade I will get, but because of the invaluable insight I gained from his wisdom.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-16T22:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jose Suarez', 'course': 'BMGT463', 'review': 'Professor Suarez is the most incredible professor the Smith School has to offer. He cares about his students, he is very passionate, very experienced, well spoken, and knowledgeable. I rave about him and his courses to all those that will listen. He is by far the most inspirational and transformational professor you will ever take. If you participate, contribute, and try hard you will undoubtedly succeed. But the best thing about his courses is that you learn material with substance, value, and real world application. DO not take this man for granted, he is incredible. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-10-15T00:21:17Z'}], 'name': 'Jose Suarez', 'slug': 'suarez'}, {'courses': ['ENST281', 'ENST100', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST410', 'ENST689J', 'ENST499W', 'ENST389', 'ENST486', 'ENST499', 'ENST389', 'ENST472', 'ENST486', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST281', 'ENST360', 'ENST389', 'ENST472', 'ENST486', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST100', 'ENST389', 'ENST472', 'ENST486', 'ENST499O', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST389', 'ENST499', 'ENST281', 'ENST360', 'ENST389', 'ENST472', 'ENST486', 'ENST499Y'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jose-Luis Izursa', 'course': 'ENST281', 'review': "He didn't really teach, and he wasn't amazing at making the information pertinent to the class. One class, we had a guest bring us around campus to show us some green stuff, and we asked him if he used CAD in his career. Nope.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-30T20:38:33Z'}], 'name': 'Jose-Luis Izursa', 'slug': 'izursa'}, {'courses': ['ENGL395', 'ENGL394', 'ARHU275', 'ENGL275', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL272', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joseph Angelella', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': "Fantastic professor!He tells you exactly what he wants from you, and doesn't grade outside the rubric. His class is also really fun for an ENGL class, so much so, that I enjoy going to it. Take him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-03T13:15:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Angelella', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': 'BEST PROFESSOR. Ross is fantastic! Even though this class was online this semester, Ross was very accommodating and encouraging throughout and would always give personalized feedback. Definitely a decent workload but he structures the class so that everything throughout the semester contributes to the final project. Always quick to respond to questions and emails. Great guy and awesome professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-09T22:16:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Angelella', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': "The most amazing professor at UMD, hands down. He has so much respect for his students and really gives everyone room to grow on their own and is extremely understanding and caring. Ross is really inspiring and hysterical and has taught me so much about professional writing and even life! Highly recommend that you take this course (or any course) with him, even if you aren't necessarily planning on being in the healthcare profession. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-09T16:45:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Angelella', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': 'Prof. Angelella was awesome. Super nice guy and very accessible by email or zoom if you needed. Also very understanding when I had some late assignments. 100% recommend him. Online in the summer btw but I would take him in person in the school year too.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-04T22:40:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Angelella', 'course': 'ENGL272', 'review': 'A really fun, lively teacher. He understands the struggle of college students and gives us extensions when we need them. He is also really open about his family and likes to hear the class talk before a session begins. He teaches really well too, bringing in personal experiences to make us understand better. Recommend 100%', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-01T19:09:25.272394Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Angelella', 'course': 'ENGL272', 'review': "Professor Ross is AWESOME. He is so supportive and understanding of his students, and he truly does his best to make each and every student feel welcomed and valued. I had him for an 8AM class, so nearly every class period we would all walk in like zombies, but his enthusiasm and energy was infectious. He inspired really interesting and thoughtful class discussions, and was present in these discussions without talking over his students. He is very intelligent yet incredibly down to earth, authoritative but not arrogant. He is really open about himself and his life, and seemed genuinely interested in getting to know all of us. I've never had a professor who seemed to care so deeply for their students. Please, if you get the chance, take a class with Professor Ross. You absolutely will not regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-03T01:54:59.743832Z'}], 'name': 'Joseph Angelella', 'slug': 'angelella'}, {'courses': ['LARC320', 'LARC720'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joseph Burkhardt', 'slug': 'burkhardt'}, {'courses': ['BUFN772'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joseph Colantuoni', 'slug': 'colantuoni'}, {'courses': ['ITAL411', 'ITAL473', 'ITAL478C', 'ITAL478D', 'ITAL421', 'ITAL471', 'ITAL478F', 'ITAL351', 'ITAL204', 'ITAL241', 'HONR218K', 'ITAL478R', 'SLLC299P', 'ITAL215', 'ITAL207', 'ITAL499R', 'WMST298K', 'ITAL103', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'ITAL203', 'ITAL411', 'ITAL478D', 'ITAL478P', 'ITAL499P', 'ITAL103', 'ITAL478I', 'ITAL499I'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joseph Falvo', 'course': 'ITAL204', 'review': "204 is basically a review of 103 and 203, but the parts that get confusing are when you learn the exceptions to the rules you always followed before. If you never do any other work for the class, which is very possible because he gives very little homework that is actually due, keep up with the new vocab. The quizzes and tests always have a couple sections on vocab and it's an easy way to get points. Whereas after 3 semesters of learning the same verb tenses, you either know them or you don't. He tries to call on everyone in class once a day, so if you pay enough attention to be able to answer correctly when he calls on you, you can do other stuff the rest of the time. 204 is when I get my homework for other classes done.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-05T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Falvo', 'course': 'ITAL204', 'review': 'He is a very nice teacher and doesnt talk too fast to understand. However his lessons are just a routine reading straight from the book and doing exercises, relatively boring.\n\r\nHe is very friendly with the students and easily approachable, though not always helpful. Hes about five minutes late for class every day but still lets us out on time which is nice. A relatively easy class, with a very boring lesson plan', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-17T18:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Falvo', 'course': 'ITAL473', 'review': "Very good class. Very good teacher. He knows what he's talking about, he's very nice to everyone in the class, he's understanding, and the material is enjoyable as well. While Ital471 was way better due to the films, I recommend anyone to take this class and take Falvo for any class they can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-04T04:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Falvo', 'course': 'ITAL204', 'review': "I'm an Italian Language minor, so this class was pretty easy for me, considering it was a complete review of everything we learned in 103 and 203. He assigns readings and exercises, but doesn't check them, so I personally did little to no work in the class. I give the other people credit who actually did the work, especially the ones who struggled through the class, simply because it just didn't come that easy to them or some other reason.\n\r\nThat being said, Falvo is an awesome professor. He usually comes to class 5 minutes late (on average), doesn't speak a mile a minute so he's easy to understand. A couple days during class we would bring in cookies and stuff and make espresso in class.\n\r\nOverall, a great guy and a great professor. Get to know him personally, and you'll have an indispensable reference.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-25T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Falvo', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': 'Just a truly awesome professor and human. Is passionate about his country and wants to share it. He is very flexible about the grades he gives and caters to his students. All around a great guy. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-06T22:01:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Falvo', 'course': 'ITAL103', 'review': "Professor Falvo is a great guy and very funny. His lectures are interesting if you're really into learning Italian, if not, then he is not the professor for you. Every class he will call on every student to answer the questions in the textbook in Italian, which is nerve wracking at first, but speaking a foreign language and messing up is the most efficient way to learn it. He is very lenient with late assignments. He does speak Italian kind of fast, but he will repeat himself slower if he knows you didn't understand him. Overall, Professor Falvo is a great guy and instructor, and I would've taken him for ITAL203 if it would have fit in my schedule.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-19T03:29:03Z'}], 'name': 'Joseph Falvo', 'slug': 'falvo'}, {'courses': ['HLSA745', 'HLSA770', 'HLSA745', 'HLSA770'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joseph Flannery', 'slug': 'flannery'}, {'courses': ['CHEM231', 'CHEM272', 'CHEM277'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joseph Houck', 'slug': 'houck'}, {'courses': ['ENEE244', 'ENEE101', 'ENEE698Q', 'ENEE436', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE698Q', 'CMSC828Y', 'ENEE698Q', 'ENEE759G', 'ENEE290'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joseph JaJa', 'course': 'ENEE633', 'review': "He is very nice and you can learn much from his class. I got a B because I didn't put much effort on this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-01-06T17:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph JaJa', 'course': 'ENEE436', 'review': "I came into class excited about machine learning but Dr. Jaja made it painfully boring. He lectures in a monotone, and rather than explaining concepts he just uses math equations. I know machine learning involves math but would it kill him to actually explain concepts like what is a support vector etc His notes are terrible as he writes them beforehand and he expects you to memorize complicated equations for exams. You can't even use the book as he goes beyond the textbook. \r\nOverall horrible class. Do yourself a favor and DON'T TAKE HIM!!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-22T02:56:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph JaJa', 'course': 'ENEE436', 'review': "Jaja is one of the worst professors I have had. You don't learn anything from him and he doesn't put any effort in explaining the concepts. You are expected to solve complicated homework problems and you have to teach yourself everything.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-14T23:22:03Z'}], 'name': 'Joseph JaJa', 'slug': 'jaja'}, {'courses': ['EXST059B', 'COMM659G', 'COMM639', 'COMM639A', 'COMM639M', 'COMM649M', 'COMM639M', 'COMM659G', 'COMM659G', 'COMM649M', 'COMM659G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joseph Mazza', 'slug': 'mazza'}, {'courses': ['EDCI246', 'EDCI698', 'EDCI788Y', 'EDCI788D'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joseph McCaleb', 'course': 'EDCI246', 'review': "Easy class; as long as you put in the work and make some degree of effort you will get an A. There's a good amount of work, but it is just busy work and it doesn't take too much time. He is very abstract and an easy grader. I didn't give him 5 stars because other than telling stories, this class is a complete snoozefest and a waste of time. He likes to ramble on about some cognitive theories and other bullshit. The stories, however, were entertaining, and while the digital media projects were tedious and a pain in the ass, they were fun to some extent. Overall, I did enjoy this class. (P.S. The readings aren't mandatory. The book is required for exams/journals, but I never did any of the required reading and I did fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-22T13:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph McCaleb', 'course': 'EDCI246', 'review': "Took EDCI246 back in Spring 2013. One of the best classes that I have taken so far (I'm a junior). Do the required work and you get an A. \n\r\nDuring lectures, he tells his student folk tale stories. And sometimes you draw pictures based on the stories. It's a really fun class that you should take before graduating. It's the best class I have taken. Professor McCaleb really cares about his students and is open for extensions on projects if you need them. \n\r\nThere are three projects for the course that are a large part of your grade. They are pretty easy and fun because you make up your own story to tell. It really opens up a window for creativity. \n\r\nThe midterm (one) and final are also very straight forward. The midterm was open book. The final for what I can remember was half open book. The written portion of the final was done at home which was given a week before the scheduled final. The final itself was at 8am which sucked. I got there at 9am. It was 8 multiple choice questions which took me 2 mins to complete. \n\r\nI don't believe in easy A classes maybe that's because I am a engineer. But if there was such thing as an easy A then this class would be considered one. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-07T04:38:00Z'}], 'name': 'Joseph McCaleb', 'slug': 'mccaleb'}, {'courses': ['HDCC209C', 'UNIV100', 'HDCC106'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joseph Meyer', 'slug': 'meyer_joseph'}, {'courses': ['BMGT443', 'BUFN760', 'BUSO758V', 'BUSO758P', 'BMGT443', 'BUSO758P', 'BMGT443', 'BMGT443', 'BUSO758P', 'BMGT443'], 'average_rating': 4.6429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "Perfetti is great professor, with tons of knowledge and experience. However, in order to enjoy this course, you really need to enjoy finance. If you do, this will be one of the best classes you'll ever take!!! The material covered is this course is very really world, interest, and very useful, even for other classes. You'll also learn some high-level Excel modeling and how to use Bloomberg. There are a lot of assignments, some individual, some in group, but there are not very hard, and the grading is pretty lenient. The exams are also all take-home, and done online. Overall, this was one of the best classes I ever took, and an A is very easily attainable. I highly recommend this class to everyone!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-25T13:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "Let me preface this by saying that you need to really enjoy finance to appreciate Perfetti and this course. I can say that this was the one of the best classes I've taken in the business school. Perfetti is a great lecturer and does a great job of simplifying complex material, and making it interesting. I learned a ton, which sadly I can't say for many of my other courses.\n\r\nThis class did require a good amount of work, but everything I got out of it was worth it. Also grading is fairly lenient.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-14T18:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': 'This was an okay class, if you like the material and you enjoy the "finance personality." A lot of the class is spent listening to Professor Perfetti emphasize how smart he is, and how important it is to be smart like him. \r\nI went to about half the classes, and usually showed up late. In spite of that, I would have gotten an A but my group was dinged 6 points for failing to submit a spreadsheet with our final paper. The exams were both take-home and all of the homeworks are pretty much the same and exactly what we did in class; in order to do badly, you have to really try (as I did). \r\nSo, again, if you enjoy stock stuff, think valuation is interesting, want to learn some high-level Excel modeling, or just really enjoy being in a room full of Finance people, take this class.\r\nIf none of these apply to you (and besides the Excel practice, none of them applied to me), I suggest finding a different Finance elective. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-01-09T17:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "Professor Perfetti is one of the best Finance professors in the business school. He is extremely knowledgeable in the subject matter and does a great job of presenting the material in an easy-to-understand manner. His classes are very practical and give you great experience in valuing real-world companies using a valuation model that you create in class.\n\r\nThe class is pretty easy to get an A in as long as you do all of the work that is assigned to you. The midterm threw some people off as it was slightly more difficult than many were probably expecting, but it was pretty fair if you took the time to read the multiple choice questions carefully. The homework assignments are all easy, and Professor Perfetti provides videos on how to do all of the homework assignments properly. The group valuation project just gives you experience valuing a real-world company in a group setting using the valuation model that you construct in Excel, while the StockTrak assignment is really a hit or miss. The final exam is take-home and is also pretty easy.\n\r\nOverall, this is probably the most practical Finance class offered in the business school as it gives you great experience in valuing real-world companies using McKinsey's economic format and DCF. If possible, try to take this class with Perfetti.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-23T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "Perfetti is one of the better professors I have had at UMD. He gets down to business and doesn't mess around or waste anyone's time. Don't leave the final group project until the last second or else it will be the bane of your existence if you try to balance it with finals.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-23T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "Perfetti is awesome. He really knows what he is talking about and knows how to explain everything to make it understandable to undergrads.\n\r\nThe course is about valuing companies and throughout the year you will go about building a model.\n\r\nThe course consists of attendance, homeworks, stock portfolio, a midterm, a final, and a final project. Everything is take home and open notes which makes it really easy. There is no excuse to not get an A in the class.\n\r\nAttendance is pretty self-explanatory. The homeworks are relatively easy and for almost all of them, he posts videos that if you follow step by step you will do well on the homework. The midterm and final are like longer homeworks with some multiple choice questions thrown in. They are relatively easy too since you have a lot of time to do them and they're open notes and open book. The other parts of the class are the stock portfolio and the final project which is an analysis and valuation of a company that you choose in an industry he chooses. The stock portfolio is hit or miss since it seems to be mostly luck. You're graded against your classmates in this. The final project is a complete analysis and valuation of a company and he tells you everything that needs to be included in it.\n\r\nThis class is very easy and interesting. Perfetti is one of the best professors in the business school and finance department by far.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-20T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': 'Perfetti is THE man. Despite the fact that the teaches at UMD and Wharton while concurrently owning a management consulting firm, he still shows up to class in a polo, jeans, and sneakers.\n\r\nThe goal of this class is to teach you the DCF as viewed by consultants, as well as a few bits about multiples and economic profit valuations. Each lecture consists of you going over one small part of the valuation. \n\r\nGrades consist of periodic homework assignments, a midterm, a final, attendance, stocktrack performance (i.e. a stock portfolio), and final group project (a formal valuation of some company). All assignments, including exams, are take-home. He gives at least 2 points of extra credit during the semester. He grades leniently, and getting an A is very easy.\n\r\nPerfetti really knows this subject in and out, and he drills important concepts into your head better than most professors. \n\r\nProbably the most important course for a finance major.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': 'Good course, really teaches you something that matters. I should have gotten the A in the class, but I missed 4 classes (each miss after the first takes 2 pts off your final grade). Show up to all the classes and make sure to do the homeworks and keep up to date.\n\r\nThis is not a class you can teach yourself. Go to class and pay attention, Perfetti will get you there.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-22T01:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "Best Finance course you probably ever take at Smith school. he knows what he's talking about.I felt like I am actually learning something.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-14T23:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': 'Professor Perfetti has tons of industry experience and really know what he\'s talking about. His lecture is what I think, without a doubt, the best finance course in Smith, and I\'ve learned from him a lot. However, he is very strict on assignment rules and he can be harsh in grading, given the fact that the course is very easy, and an overwhelming proportion of students got an "A" from his class. His rules on final exam opt out is truly awesome and make my life in finals week much easier. \r\n\r\n*However*, he admits that people “hate” him for that as well. Since some grading on cases and projects are just totally by LUCK. Yes, by luck! Apart from the Bloomberg challenge, there is a group case that asks you to pick two companies to outperform S&P500 in 2.5 months, otherwise you’re gonna to be deducted by 2.5 points. Our team missed both. Seriously if I can predict the future by this why I’m I even in this university? I should be sitting in JPMorgan or Morgan Stanley, or even writing a book to tell people which stock they should invest, and everybody who knows this will become rich. It is totally ridiculous. I would say be very careful in picking a team/selecting your teammates since unreliable teammates will result you unable to be opt out from the tedious final exam that will be potentially destroying your final grade.\r\n\r\nThis is a course you can really learn a lot about finance but you can also get end up with a bad grade easily if you have made some careless mistakes. But I still gotta say, Perfetti is a great lecturer and BMGT443 is a perfect course for those who are interested in finance, it will definitely exceed your expectations.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-11T03:01:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "Perfetti is an extremely knowledge professor, but can be intimating to some students. He expects a lot from his students but not anything that is too complicated. Everything is outlined on the syllabus and if you don't follow it exactly you have the potential to get your grade lower or receive no credit on assignments. He teaches the Bloomberg software which is very confusing (but extremely useful) so listening to lecture really helps complete assignments and understand what is going on in the class. There is a lot of extra credit to make up from a bad grade on like 3 different assignments. Group project also account for 50% of your grade, so you should hope you get put in a good group were everyone does their fair share", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T06:45:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "This guy is great. Everyone is a senior and everyone just wants to graduate so the class is made to be super doable. Honestly it is a decent amount of work and I feel really overwhelmed about the homeworks sometimes but the second I go to office hours the TA's help me immedietaly and it gets done in the next hour. Honestly so many people were stressed about this class and missed class and thought that they wouldn't get a good grade but everyone ends up opting out of the final (another great feature an automatic 10%) and gets an A in the class. Really easy class first one on my transcript and definitely a good requirement for finance majors ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-14T14:03:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "I will say the way he structures his class is a 10/10. He makes you show up to every class by taking attendance but you are rewarded with opting out of the final. His homework's were really annoying at first because they could only be completed in the Bloomberg labs on campus but you get the hang of it. Definitely take this class. However, the only down side to this class isn't the class itself but the professor. Perfetti doesn't bother nor care to learn anyones names or faces. He's kind of just there to teach and move on. I know someone that was going through personal troubles and asked for an extension and he basically said no its unfair to give one student additional time. Yikes.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-11T04:31:26.383805Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'course': 'BMGT443', 'review': "Absolutely no BS professor. No BS work, everything he assigns is for a reason. Absolutely no credit for late work (even just 1 minute late). And if you have a mild cold you're probably going to have to show up to class. But regardless, any finance major should take this class, you'll learn so much and it's probably the best finance class in the Smith School. Don't bother with the textbook. You're probably going to have to dedicate on average 2-4 hours a week working outside of his lectures. Everything I learned is also heavily applicable to the financial world. Take the class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-25T13:13:01.134850Z'}], 'name': 'Joseph Perfetti', 'slug': 'perfetti'}, {'courses': ['AASP297', 'AASP499T', 'AASP187I', 'AASP396', 'AASP399', 'ANTH789', 'AASP187', 'AASP187', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789', 'AASP301'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joseph Richardson', 'course': 'AASP187', 'review': "This is honestly the worst course I have taken during my time at UMD. First of all, we were required to be reading SIX books simultaneously and somehow know the minute details from them for quizzes and exams, in addition to discussions in lecture. Professor Richardson yelled at the class like we were children after we turned in our first paper because the quality apparently wasn't to his liking. There were three papers but the third one got changed to be a video assignment because a student suggested it...I think it was actually because they were so slow with grading. It took over a month for the grade for the second paper to be returned. We just got it back today after we took the final - five assignments had not been returned when we took the final by the way, not including the quiz they decided not to include in our grade because everyone failed it. At least have of the classes were guest lectures and it seemed like Professor Richardson had given up on teaching himself. The elms messages/announcements were often rude and condescending. I don't think I really learned anything new after the first month.\r\nProfessor Richardson is very passionate but not a very good teacher and the TA was even worse. The class just seemed so disorganized even though it was not the first time it was being taught. I hated basically every minute of this class by the end of the semester and went into it thinking I was signing up for a fairly easy GenEd that was about a topic I am very interested in. I have not yet received my final grade but went into the class expecting an A and most likely will get a B (which is absolutely ridiculous....and I am a senior, by the way). Do not take this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-16T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Richardson', 'course': 'AASP499T', 'review': "Richardson can come off as scary (there were a few times where he yelled at our class when he was not impressed with the quality of our writing), but if you put effort into the assignments,he will appreciate it and it will show in your grade. We had reaction papers to films due every week or sometimes every other week, but its only 3 pages, so not that bad at all. If you turn in A level work (which, if you are in a 400+ level class, you should be able to do) you will get an A in the class, simple as that. If you do the reaction papers right before class and put no effort into it, I almost guarantee you will get a C or below on the assignment. You don't necessarily need to keep up with the readings week after week, just be able to find relevant passages from the books to relate to the main themes of the class. Also, he got upset when we went over page limits for the reaction papers, but his prompts asked for SO MUCH information that I totally understood why we all went over the 3 page limit.\n\r\nOverall a great professor who makes you change the way you see the problems that face the black community. Very knowledgable professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-02T17:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Richardson', 'course': 'AASP499T', 'review': "He's a great prof. Really knowledgeable about the juvenile justice system. Liked the class but we had to write a paper nearly every week so that sucked. Overall I would recommend this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-16T22:25:00Z'}], 'name': 'Joseph Richardson', 'slug': 'richardson_joseph'}, {'courses': ['PLSC471', 'PLSC685', 'PLSC201', 'PLSC489E', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'ENSP400', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC481', 'PLSC689D', 'ENSP489Z', 'PLSC489Z', 'ENSP489Z', 'PLSC489Z', 'AGNR388', 'AGNR499'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joseph Sullivan', 'slug': 'sullivan_joseph'}, {'courses': ['ENGL395', 'ENGL398C', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL398C', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL398C', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL398C', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL398C', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joseph Wappel', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': "Really nice guy. Overall I didn't learn that much specifically on health writing, but learned a lot about grammar and consision/cohesiveness and how to cater my writing to different kinds of audiences. He's really intent on grading based on grammar/concision/cohesion so make sure to focus on what he says in class. Make sure to get 100% on his quizzes and they will help your grade a lot. Not that much work throughout the semester but do not procrastinate on the final project which is a pretty long paper. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-25T09:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Wappel', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': 'Great professor as long as you respect him and his assignments. Highly recommended.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-09-06T21:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Joseph Wappel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "This is not a hard course if you don't procrastinate. As long as you write decent papers you will get an A. He didn't even grade my final assignment (technically worth 25% of the grade) because I had an A already. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-24T22:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Joseph Wappel', 'slug': 'wappel'}, {'courses': ['ENGL398C', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL297', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL398C'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joshua Buursma', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "He is a great laid back teacher. The once a week 6:30 to 9:15 PM class was sometimes dry, but not too terrible. There are extra credit opportunities at the end of the semester as well. There is no reason you shouldn't be able to get an A in this class with ~2 hours of work per week.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-13T21:49:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Buursma', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "A lot of the class seems to be commonalities you probably have already picked up or learned in the past - not a reflection on him though so much as the course. He is very laid back, somewhat dry of a lecturer but grades very fairly and cares about the well-being of students. He accounts for personal life problems and will accommodate you as necessary. He will also review any piece of writing you send to him if you do so before the due date (and if he has time that is) so there really is no reason you shouldn't get a good grade in this class. For the big group project (proposal) he lets you select whatever RFP you want, so pick something you like to write about and are interested in and it will feel less taxing.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-10T08:10:47Z'}], 'name': 'Joshua Buursma', 'slug': 'buursma'}, {'courses': ['JOUR361', 'JOUR368K', 'JOUR203', 'JOUR661', 'JOUR668K', 'JOUR504', 'JOUR480', 'JOUR368X', 'JOUR668X', 'JOUR361', 'JOUR368X', 'JOUR661', 'JOUR668X', 'JOUR361', 'JOUR368K', 'JOUR368X', 'JOUR620', 'JOUR661', 'JOUR668K', 'JOUR668X', 'JOUR361', 'JOUR368K', 'JOUR368X', 'JOUR661', 'JOUR668K', 'JOUR668X', 'JOUR361', 'JOUR368X', 'JOUR620', 'JOUR661', 'JOUR668X'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joshua Davidsburg', 'course': 'JOUR368K', 'review': "This professor's JOUR 368K: Broadcast Innovation does not do anything to help journalism students find employment in the television news journalism industry. Josh only cares about 360 degree and is not there of his students. He attempted to force one of his students to accept their first job after college in a rural, high- poverty US state. He also knows more about this business than what he is really letting on in both JOUR 361 and JOUR 368K. He is associated with a demo reel company, Reel Media Group and hurt one of his students resulted in their professional career being destroyed.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-11-10T02:06:48Z'}], 'name': 'Joshua Davidsburg', 'slug': 'davidsburg'}, {'courses': ['KNES140A', 'KNES140O', 'KNES140R', 'KNES140R', 'KNES140V', 'KNES140R', 'KNES140V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joshua Montfort', 'slug': 'montfort'}, {'courses': ['ARTH465', 'ARTH351', 'ARTH489B', 'ARTH759', 'ARTH692', 'ARTH759B', 'ARTH759F', 'HIST428M', 'ARTH201', 'ARTH759E', 'ARTH488G', 'ARTH759J', 'ARTH759G', 'ARTH265', 'ARTH351', 'ARTH488A', 'ARTH265', 'ARTH759I', 'ARTH201'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joshua Shannon', 'course': 'ARTH265', 'review': 'Okay class. I had to take it for an elective. It was an easy A but a lot more reading and writing than I thought.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-11T01:59:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Shannon', 'course': 'ARTH265', 'review': 'Professor Shannon is very passionate and knowledgeable about art history. I would add more assignments to this class because the grade is based off like 3 really big assignments and discussion attendance so grades can be hard to bring up. He definitely makes it an inclusive learning environment and tries to connect with students personally. I would recommend this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-11T02:00:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Shannon', 'course': 'ARTH265', 'review': "Professor Shannon is a very caring professor. He engages with his students and takes the time to know their ideas about the content his teaches and even tries to learn everyone's name. He also cares about the classes' well being; each class starts with two minutes of silence to clear up our minds. \r\nThe class was also genuinely interesting. Each week was around a different idea, and he was good at explaining the art. There is a lot of reading, though a lot of it gets discussed in class and you wont be penalized for skipping one or two.\r\n\r\nThe only thing I would change is adding more assignments. It was essentially two projects and discussion. Nonetheless this might be my favorite class I've taken at UMD. Would I take this class again? Yes? Would I recommend this professor? Without a doubt.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-18T04:33:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Shannon', 'course': 'ARTH265', 'review': "Loved this professor - Dr. Shannon made the class really engaging. I am interested in climate science, so I enjoyed the content of the class. I don't enjoy reading, however, and there were about two readings assigned per week, so I definitely did not keep up with all of the content. Dr. Shannon is great for that though since he would always summarize the readings well in the following lecture. Dr. Shannon really gives the impression that he cares about his students, which can be difficult to find in college classes where there are hundreds of students. I had him read over one of my essays and definitely recommend going to his office hours.\r\n\r\nWhile I loved Dr. Shannon's teaching style, this class should have had more assignments. I barely scraped away with an A, and considering it is a Gen-Ed class I did not like how I was not sure for a while whether I would get an A or B. We only had four assignments, and while one was a revision of a previous assignment, the assignments were not graded super easily. The averages would usually be around an 85 for the assignments, so other than discussion there really was no easy A's. If you're worried about getting an A, I probably wouldn't recommend this class since the grading is very variable (no rubrics), so points are not clearly assigned. It is up to your TA's direction. The final was also in-person, at 8 AM, and we had to memorize like 50 artworks, so if you cannot memorize that is something to keep in mind.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T18:07:44Z'}], 'name': 'Joshua Shannon', 'slug': 'shannon'}, {'courses': ['BSCI440', 'BSCI338N', 'BSCI339G', 'BIOL708N', 'BIOL708E', 'NACS728N', 'NACS644', 'NACS898', 'NACS799', 'NACS640', 'BSCI440', 'BSCI450', 'NACS899', 'BIOL708M', 'BSCI450'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joshua Singer', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Terrible lectures, hard exams, shitty personality. Avoid like the plague ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-12-14T00:49:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Singer', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "Is a weedwhacker with a poor personality, not horrifying, but not recommended. Record lectures if you have him, and don't expect an easy semester.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-01-02T19:37:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Singer', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'If you have another option, take them instead. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-21T18:12:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Singer', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Open ended questions without much guidance, rough semester especially for neurodivergent students. Avoid if possible. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-13T19:58:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Singer', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "Alright so I took him last semester (Fall 2020) and he was definitely not as bad as people make him out to be. I think people thought that they were going to get away with a lot more bullshit since it was online and Dr. Singer really wasn't entertaining that. He made himself super accessible via Zoom and he held discussion-like twice a week in addition to about 3 longish lectures per unit. Overall there was a lot of material and a lot of detail but there were a lot of resources available to help us succeed- he even went through old exam questions with us that were pretty similar to the actual exams. This class was definitely not easy and he caught/reported roughly 20% of the class blatantly cheating on our exams so that wasn't fun but he wasn't being unreasonable or anything. I would say that this class definitely requires a full 12-15 hours a week of studying regardless of who you take it with (the other section was Speer and their averages were actually lower than ours). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-03-22T15:26:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Singer', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Don’t take this class w/ Singer unless you absolutely have to. He’s nice after class but his ego is pretty big at all other times. Don’t ask what your letter grade in the class is, you won’t know until after the final. The grade on ELMS was inaccurate as he didn’t weigh assignments correctly according to his own rubric, he just gave them an arbitrary point value. Exams are hard, but not bc the content itself is impossible. He’ll lecture about something for three classes but choose to ask a hard question about something he mentioned in passing for 2 minutes. Questions can be randomly specific or a mix from textbook chapter review questions. He said he assigns grades based off the median, and he uses the median after everyone drops the class. That means your grade “decays” weekly. As more people withdraw, the better performers stay in the class, raising the averages on the exams. Even the Chem profs don’t do that. So the only way to do good is to beat the curve, by A LOT, for the exams as they weigh the most on your overall letter grade. Exam averages trend from 60-70%. Check your exam points after you get your exam back. He has his younger daughter count your exam points for the total score you get. One time she miscounted mine and I had to get a regrade. He ended up taking more points away from my exam. Even regrades are risky to ask for. If you agitate him, it might not end well for you as he seems to grade depending on his mood. In summary, the class itself isn’t hard. Singer makes it harder for no reason. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-19T16:18:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Singer', 'course': 'BSCI450', 'review': "I will say, he is a funny guy. I would've liked him outside of a classroom setting. He's brilliant and he knows his stuff for sure. Problem is, I think he teaches to show off his knowledge and not to actually teach us. He has no interest in students succeeding. The average in the class in 70ish. If you think a curve will carry you, it wont. Everyone drops the class and if you were 10% above average, you are now 1% above average. You slowly watch your grade suffer as more people drop the class. There are homework in the class but they are barely weighted so you better be a great test taker. I was told by many people to not take the class with Dr. Singer but I didn't listen (spoiler, that was a mistake). He has so much potential to be a great professor but I wish he listened to the feedback of the students. But he's definitely the type to think EVERYONE is the problem before he thinks that the common denominator is him. Not to mention, the waitlist for next semester is flooded because he's not teaching the class in comparison to him having 167 seats open. Don't take him unless you don't care about your GPA or your mental well being.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-21T00:55:38.497890Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Singer', 'course': 'BSCI450', 'review': "Prof: He is funny and loves answering questions. Has very high expectations (he asked us to start reading the book the week before school!). Got to office hours, he's a nice guy outside of class.\r\nClass: BSCI450 is hard (comparable to bchm463). Remember, this is a physiology class, not an anatomy class. There is a lot of memorizing you need to do, but also a lot of problem solving. This class is much easier with a study group.\r\nLectures: The first half of each unit is him talking about the book readings (which are very dense). He is not a good lecturer, so I learned the content from the homework. The second half of each unit is review questions. He is much better at explaining how to solve problems than teaching you things from the book.\r\nExams: there are 10 questions, each worth 0/5/10 points. But you don't need a 100% correct answer to get full points. Despite what he says, he is looking for key words. Half of the questions are straight from the book. The other half includes questions he goes over in class during review. So go over the book problems and the review problems again and again and again.\r\nCurve: I wouldn't count on it. Averages are low but the upper quartile is pretty high. I guess some people catch on to the predictable exams.\r\nVerdict: He's not the best professor, but not the worst either. He gets the job done. Good luck.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-05T20:47:23.591688Z'}], 'name': 'Joshua Singer', 'slug': 'singer_joshua'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL101C', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL101S', 'CINE280', 'CMLT280', 'ENGL101C', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL101C'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Joshua Weiss', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Joshua Weiss is an excellent teacher and seriously cared about his students improvement. Take his ENGL101 class for fair grading and excellent support. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-01-23T20:25:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Weiss', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Dr. Weiss is a fantastic professor! Not only does he readily engage with his students, but it is clear that he cared about all of us. He is also funny and his class is fun to attend. I didn't think I needed English 101 but he taught me that I can't just phone in my essays anymore. I cannot recommend him enough. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-16T22:00:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Weiss', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Dr. Weiss is an excellent person- he is very engaging and fun to talk to! I enjoyed all my conversations with him and it was obvious that he cared about his students. However, I felt like he graded on the harsher side (I would say I am a mediocre writer however I write well enough to scrape by with an A in a lot of other courses). If you want an A you either need to be an above average writer or willing to spend A LOT of time towards the course. I had an extremely heavy course load this semester and could not spend hours upon hours pouring through and improving my papers. He is always willing to help and improve writing, however this class is not an "easy" A. If you are looking to improve writing definitely take this professor! However, if you do not have a lot of time to spare or are not passionate about writing I do not recommend taking this professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-14T19:04:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Weiss', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Dr. Weiss is a good professor. He is open and honest with his students, which makes for a good classroom environment. He really does care about his students!! The coursework can be overwhelming, but make sure to balance your time wisely. He is always willing to help improve writing and leaves good feedback, but his class is not an "easy A". ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-19T02:37:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Weiss', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': "Dr. Weiss is a very passionate and engaging professor. He genuinely cares about his students improving on their writing skills and how engaged we are with our writing topics. That being said this is a very demanding class and he has high expectations for all of his assignments. He is a pretty tough grader so an A in this class won't be easy but he is willing to help you work for it. The comments he leaves on papers are hit or miss in terms of helping you improve and some of his comments are copy and pastes from other assignments. Overall this is a good class to improve your writing but it will be demanding in terms of work and grading.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-19T20:02:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Joshua Weiss', 'course': 'ENGL101C', 'review': "Dr.Weiss is a great guy and he's very passionate about his topics. He is pretty laid back but you shouldn't really take advantage of that because i'm pretty sure he secretly keeps track of people who are late to class or like doesn't show up. He is very welcoming but also manages to give you harsh but good criticism. He is not for the weak!!!! BUT, he is very accommodating and will give you extensions if you just ASK. I got a B+ in every single assignment but class participation and the last project got me an overall A- in that class (WHICH I'M HAPPY WITH).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-01T14:25:00.954917Z'}], 'name': 'Joshua Weiss', 'slug': 'weiss'}, {'courses': ['ARTT110', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jowita Wyszomirska', 'course': 'ARTT110', 'review': "She's a pretty good professor; you mostly spend the class working on different drawings, while she circulates around the room and gives individual feedback. I found the grading to be pretty easy and fair; I enjoyed her class!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-27T16:21:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Jowita Wyszomirska', 'course': 'ARTT110', 'review': 'Professor Wyszomirska was great in person. Her feedback in class was helpful and helped me grow my knowledge in the different drawing styles. The portfolios you create throughout the semester really matter and can impact your grade, so remember to save all your work until the end. She gives at home assignments to do which can be tricky since we are not at home and in a small dorm. When she would grade at home assignments, her feedback was not the best and very vague. I wish she would explain how to improve our at home art work better. Our final was to do research on an artist and write about them and some of their art; it was not too hard. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-18T18:05:24Z'}], 'name': 'Jowita Wyszomirska', 'slug': 'wyszomirska'}, {'courses': ['BUMK701', 'BUSI650', 'BUMK758L', 'BMGT452', 'BMGT858D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Joydeep Srivastava', 'slug': 'srivastava_joydeep'}, {'courses': ['BSCI105', 'ENTM788C', 'BSCI105M', 'TOXI609'], 'average_rating': 4.2424, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Honestly Nelson is the cutest thing, that being said he's a horrible lecturer. He reads right off the slides and makes you not want to come to class. However for my semester he started doing random weekly quizzes, that either helped your grade or messed it up. He really wants everyone to succeed, so he had this deal if you have an A average in the class (including lab) then you don't have to take the final. Our semester and 86% was a A-. I got out of it, but I heard the final was easy, only 20 multiple choice questions.\n\r\nHis tests aren't that bad. The second one was the hardest, but just look through his notes, the book is there for reference, but mainly stick to the lecture notes. Also his tests are multiple multiple choice, which means there was more than one answer. Sometimes it screwed you over, other times you received partial credit for the question.\n\r\nIf you only care about the grade, take Nelson. If you actually want to learn something then take someone else. \r\nOther than that, Nelson was the man and he's funny and adorable and makes the material easy and straightforward.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-28T23:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Nelson is the epitome of boring lecturer, and it\'s not at all necessary to attend class as long as you keep up with his powerpoints.\n\r\nHOWEVER, the review by bamak93 is 100% accurate. I\'ve essentially taken this class twice already too (regular bio and AP Bio in high school), and I scraped an A- by 1.2 points. For introductory bio, this class should not have been this hard.\n\r\nThe material wasn\'t necessarily difficult to understand, but it was way too in-depth. A lot of the material should have been saved for later BSCI courses. It was just a weird experience - people I knew in 300-level BSCI courses would ask me, "Wow you learned about this already?" while my lab TA would constantly remind us that most students in the class were only taking 105 to get graduation reqs out of the way.\n\r\nThe trick is probably to actively keep up with lectures each week and don\'t attempt to cram a few days before an exam. That being said, his multiple-multiple choice tests sucked. There were always a handful of questions that were focused on easily-missed minute details. Test averages weren\'t great, some lab mates legitimately failed one or two, and there\'s 0 curve because he grades by the amount of points you have in the class, not percentage (720/800 is an A-).\n\r\nThe exams were the most annoying part about this class. Overall, probably wouldn\'t recommend.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-12-22T23:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Anyone giving this man less than 5 stars is crazy. Nelson is the man. He gives a 40 point extra credit boost! Basically an A=86%. That includes the extra credit which is incredibly easy to get. The labs are easy but it still does depend on the TA. Mine was fantastic. The tests are multiple multiple choice. Basically if you go over the slides in and out, you're guaranteed to do well. Plus, if you have around an A average before the final (includes lab points and exam points), you don't have to take the final. If you have to take the final, i heard its still incredibly easy. Nelson wants you to succeed and is really nice. Sure he's not the best lecturer but who cares! Its just into bio folks, straight up memorization. Study the slides and you're golden. Nelson is the way to go for BSCI 105", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-07-15T23:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Alright. I'm going to go ahead and preface this review with the fact that I spent 3 years of high school taking upper level bio classes, so in essence, I walked into this class more or less having taken it about twice previously. That being said, my experience with this class has been absurd. The TAs this semester were generally AWFUL (mine was one of the worst, I essentially got screwed out of an A because she nitpicked SO many points whenever possible in lab), and the tests were freakishly difficult, AND there was no curve. Even though the averages were pretty low.\r\nAnd his lectures are absolutely mundane. I went pretty religiously up until halfway through the semester until I realized my time was better spent reading the powerpoints and taking notes on them outside of class and getting back an hour on MWF.\r\nI understand that the professors tried to make 105 harder this semester since so many people took it as an easy lab elective, but between the work I put into the class and the fact that I knew all the content before coming into class, me getting a B was totally unwarranted.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-05-23T21:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Like others have said, he's a sweet guy and he does try to make it all interesting, but his lecturing skills are lacking. That being said, if you take him, his lecturing skills shouldn't really matter to you all that much. The material isn't too hard to understand as long as you read and study the powerpoints (which he posts online), and the book is also a good resource if you don't understand something. You do end up having to teach yourself most of the material though. He does make it fairly easy for you to do well in the class, grading wise. I liked his test style, where you could basically get partial credit for everything, even the multiple choice. He also curves the class a decent amount at the end of the semester (around 5%), so as long as you keep a solid C or C+ in class, you would pretty much have to get less than a 50% on the final to not get a B. Overall, I've heard worse things about other Bsci105 professors. I would take him if you get the chance.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-16T10:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Professor Nelson is extremely sweet and adorable, but he isn't a very good lecturer. He's very scatterbrained and hard to follow. He posts all of his powerpoints on ELMS, though, so if you read the textbook and look at the powerpoints, going to lecture isn't always necessary. It does help if you're confused about something, though. His tests are difficult to do well on because they're multiple multiple choice, which means each question can always have multiple answers. I found this hard because you can't use process of elimination. He's obviously passionate about Biology but just isn't very good at driving in the information. You have to teach yourself a lot.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-01T11:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Nelson is the cutest prof ever. He is such a grandpa and is just adorable. The class can be boring since his slides are basically notes from the textbook, but sometimes he gives you hints as to what will be on the exams (esp day before the test). Exams are easy if you study for them, and there's a 40 point buffer so it's possible to get more than 100%. Lab boosts you up a lot too. Low stress class, definitely take it for BSCI105.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-16T12:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Professor Nelson really wants his students to succeed and is very understanding if you forget to do a masteringbio, or have email him with a question. It helps to go to the GSS, and to lecture, but all the slides are online and he doesn't deviate from them much.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-02T23:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Professor Nelson is the one of the nicest professors that i have ever had. He genuinely cares about his students, and that is hard to find. The class itself is not easy. I thought the exams were challenging because it covers so much material. The lectures are a bit boring, but its biology, so it will be boring with any professor. Grading is pretty generous. However, the lab fucking sucks. My TA was awful, but its easy. I got C's and D's on the midterms, a B on the final and still came out with a B. Professor Nelson is definitely the way to go for BSCI105.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-22T17:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Nelson is the best teacher to pick for this course. His teaching style is reading from a powerpoint; which could get boring, but he is a good teacher. His exams are not hard. I never studied and I ended up with a B in the class, so if you study you should get an A. He was a nice man who enjoyed talking about his family. Out of all the professors for this course you should definitely go with Nelson. He made bio fun and easy. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-21T07:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "I love Dr. Nelson. He is one of the nicest professors I have met. If you're going to take BSCI105, take him. There were four exams, MasteringBiology homework, plus the assignments in lab. I unfortunately had a hard TA. An A in BSCI105 is definately feasible, but because my TA was such a hard grader I received about an 89% in the course. You don't have to attend lecture since Dr. Nelson posts the powerpoints online. However, I recommend going since he gives good information about material that will be on the exam. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T23:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Awesome guy. Actually kind of funny. Gives so much extra credit it basically curves you up a letter grade.\n\r\nIn all seriousness though, BSCI105 is a tough class. The material is interesting but it is ALOT to cover. Nelson's exam format helps alot because you can get partial credit on everything, even the multiple choice. If you must take it, take it with Nelson.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T18:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Just take him honestly. Not only will you learn alot but hes a very generous grader. I hear people sturggling with all the other professors and I was sooo hapy i took Nelson. Oh and did I mention the massive extra credit?', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Nelson makes this class ridiculously easy, he posts all of his slides online and bases them off of his exams.\r\nIn all honesty, I only showed up to a few of his classes throughout the whole semester and studied for exams only the night before and got 70-80% grades. He also gives extra credit points and makes grading so easy to pass his class. If I actually put in more effort and went to class or studied a few days before exam I would have definitely received an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-12T00:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'I LOVE PROFESSOR NELSON! he makes the class easy and you can understand. Also he post slides and his test come from the slides. TAKE NELSON!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-05T01:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Dr Nelson was a great professor. His powerpoints were preetty organized and easy to understand. He would have extra credit quizzes in lecture that was really helpful and his exams were decent. As long as you studied off his powerpoint and understood the points he stressed in lecture youd do fine. I definetly recommend him for BSCI105', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-10-25T15:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Anyone who doesn't give this man 5 stars is crazy. BSCI 105 is an extremely difficult class, and kids with other professors who saw my exam were shocked at how easy they were. HIS EXAMS ARE ALL MULTIPLE CHOICE. If you take BSCI 105 and don't take his class you're just stupid. He gives out 40 extra credit points. I got a 76, 69, and 60 on my midterms, and a 76 on my final. I got a B in the class.... enough said. He even uses a water-downed book that's easier to use than other professors do.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-08-04T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Prof Nelson is the best professor for this class, and its actually really easy if you attend every lecture. Its not necessary to pay attention but the extra credit quizzes boost your grade 40 points in the end. Depending on your TA lab can be tough or really easy. exams are fair, read the textbook through once but mainly study the slides and you will be fine.\n\r\nHis lectures are really boring, but having had little bio experience and not being a bio related major, I felt that this class was somewhat useful and definitely fair', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-14T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Most of you are probably taking this course because you have to (majors, pre-med, etc.)\n\r\nDo yourselves a favor and take it with Nelson.\n\r\nBSCI105 is not an easy class, and Nelson makes it easy for you to score well. His tests are challenging and cover a lot of material, but he gives you 4-10 point extra credit quizzes which are added to your grade. As long as you had a low B average (which is very achievable if you try hard), his extra credit put you at an A. Comparatively to what I've heard about other BSCI105 teachers, Nelson is the way to go.\n\r\nAlthough his lectures are dry and peripatetic, you must go to take the quizzes, and who knows, maybe you do learn some stuff from lecture. But for the most part, I just studied the lecture slides and textbook chapters 4-5 days before each test, and didn't pay too much attention in lecture. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-01T18:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Dr. Nelson's class is a very chill class. Studying the lecture ppt slides are generally good preparation for the exams. However, reading the book is recommended if you dont have a strong background in bio. Labs are very easy if you took bio AP or equivalent. The extra credits quizzes will make your life a lot easier. Simple class, nice prof. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T22:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Professor Nelso is a really nice guy! He lectures from powerpoints which are pretty detailed, so you don't really even need the book. There are 3 exams and the final, the exams weren't too bad, but they covered a lot of material. The tests were multiple-multiple choice and short answer. he gave 4, 10 point each extra credit quzzes throughout the semester which really helpful to your grade!! Overall he was a good teacher and it was an okay class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-04T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "I'm extremely horrible in taking multiple multiple choice exams. I like one direct answer. I'm couting on my lab grade to really boost up my grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-04-30T11:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "He is one of the nicest professors you will ever meet. Tests weren't difficult but covered a lot of material. He gives 4 really easy extra credit quizzes which he gives 1-3 days after every exam. Make sure you go over the powerpoint lectures he posts online 4-5 days before the exam. The sheer volume of information can be daunting. Also, he doesn't mention it but there is a small curve in the end. In my section, an 88% was an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-21T02:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Very Easy! Read the textbook before class (he puts the pages that each lecture is based on in the syllabus), listen in class and then after class take notes on the text book and concentrate on the topics in the powerpoint. EASY LECTURE QUIZZES. EASY TESTS.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T11:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Dr. Nelson was a pretty good lecturer. He is a very nice guy who wants everyone to do well. He goes over every point he makes on his powerpoint slides clearly and succinctly.\n\r\nHe does stutter when he lectures, and it seems like he's always out of breath. But they're not that distracting. His tests were very reasonable and can be very easy if you pay close attention in lecture, take very good notes, and corroborate your notes with the facts in the textbook.\n\r\nOverall, he's a good lecturer and person. He can improve his speaking and his ability to give straightforward answers when answering questions, but he's a very decent professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-05T16:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Really nice and personable. Lectures are straight from the textbook and all notes are online. But u got to go because he gives really easy extra credit quizzes during class that really helps your grade. Lab is easy. Exams are fine as long as you read the text book.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-06-05T02:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "I am not a science person at all and only took this class to fulfill a major requirement. He is a little awkward when lecturing, which can be cute but the material is just really boring. I guess the lab wasn't too bad since my TA was pretty nice. He usually gives a generous curve on tests. I was happy to get a C because I just don't like science and I am not good at it. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-30T18:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "LOVED Nelson! He is just such a nice guy. Lectures can be a bit boring, but it's just because the material is extremely boring. He tries to make them interesting by telling a joke every now and then that I thought were really funny.\n\r\nI disagree that the multiple-multiple questions are harder than multiple choice. I actually thought it was way easier.\n\r\nI'm not even a science major, but I still got a solid A because he was very reasonable. Overall, take Nelson. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-24T00:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "He is so nice! And you can tell he is just such a happy person! He always walks into class with a huge smile on his face. Lectures aren't really necessary because the slides are from the book. He does do 4 extra credit quizzes that are helpful. Tests are easy. Just a really nice man.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-05-17T21:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "BSCI 105 is generally considered to be a hard class and most people take it because they have no other choice. If you have to take it Nelson's class is pretty reasonable. Reading the text book made my grade, but all students are really different.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-10T17:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Nelson wasn't too bad of a teacher. He teaches from slides that summarize the book pretty well. The only problems were the amount of information covered for each test--it was a lot-- and that his tests are multiple-multiple choice which are WAY harder than regular multiple choice.\n\r\nGoing to class is important if you like extra credit! He gives out four super easy 10-point extra credit quizzes, usually after an exam. It may not seem like a lot, but 10 points can turn a C into a B on an exam! However, paying attention in class isn't really necessary as long as you study on your own.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-10T11:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105S', 'review': "He was boring. I tried to go to lectures for awhile, but I just wasn't getting anything out of them and fell asleep more often then not. I stopped going and taught myself off of the powerpoints that he posted online and got A's on his tests (Which are annoying - multiple-multiple choice...). I did not buy the book and did not ever feel like I needed it. \n\r\nDespite all of this, he really seems like a nice, friendly guy who genuinely wants his students to do well. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-10T20:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judd Nelson', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Very easy exam format. \r\nExample question:\r\nSelect all that apply:\r\nCats...\r\nA. Say Meow\r\nB. Can purr\r\nC. Bark\r\nD. Know calculus\r\nE. Like tuna\n\r\nIf you said A B C you would get 3/5... If you selected them all you get 3/5... Basically you get partial credit on every exam question even if you have no idea. I disagree with the reviewer above saying you have to go to class to take these extra credit quizzes. There are 30 pts of extra credit avaliable and the class is out of 800... Its not really worth going to every class. the lectures are incredibly boring, and readin the book is actually more entertaining because the book is written well/', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-11-18T04:42:00Z'}], 'name': 'Judd Nelson', 'slug': 'nelson_judd'}, {'courses': ['PSYC456', 'PSYC789D', 'PSYC888A', 'PSYC309J', 'PSYC819A', 'PSYC889A', 'PSYC819D', 'PSYC611', 'PSYC416', 'PSYC819E', 'NACS728C', 'PSYC489B', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC819D', 'PSYC888A', 'PSYC426', 'PSYC888A', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC888A'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jude Cassidy', 'course': 'PSYC416', 'review': 'Dr. Cassidy is an awful and manipulative professor. She sets ridiculous standards for her students and does not tell you what they are until after the grade is returned to you. Interesting material, NOT WORTH IT', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-20T04:08:56Z'}], 'name': 'Jude Cassidy', 'slug': 'cassidy'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jude Dizon', 'slug': 'dizon_jude'}, {'courses': ['ANTH368L', 'ANTH468M', 'ANTH601', 'BSGC398L', 'ANTH492', 'ANTH472', 'ANTH689N', 'ANTH856', 'ANTH398D', 'ANTH398F', 'ANTH672', 'ANTH689M', 'ANTH692', 'ANTH857', 'AMST856', 'HIST810', 'AMST857', 'HIST811', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Judith Freidenberg', 'course': 'ANTH472', 'review': 'Excellent course. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-09-04T21:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Freidenberg', 'course': 'ANTH472', 'review': "I am a pre-med and thought this course was very doable even with a larger courseload. There is a good deal of reading, but a lot of it is really interesting - i.e. ethnographies like The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. The midterm was not bad at all, and the short essays the other reviewer talked about were critical reviews of the ethnography where you could just talk about what you liked and did not like about the ethnography. The final paper is a substantial amount of work but if you start early, it shouldn't be a problem. I took it in Spring 2014 and it was a very small class so there's a lot of interaction with classmates and the professor and a lot of discussion. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-06T11:33:00Z'}], 'name': 'Judith Freidenberg', 'slug': 'freidenberg'}, {'courses': ['BUMO796', 'BMGT364'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Judith Gebhardt', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'Professor Gebhardt:\r\n*An expert in the course material\r\n*Not fit to be a professor\r\n*Requires attendance, prohibits laptops and other electronics\r\n*Rude to students that seek clarification\r\n*Hard to understand \r\n*Mind-numbingly boring\n\r\nPlease save this course for another semester if you have to, but do not take it with Gebhardt. This course was such a depressing part of my day and I wish no other student would have to suffer through this.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-17T03:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Gebhardt', 'course': 'PSYC361', 'review': 'Honestly cares about her students, constantly going out of her way to post internships and helpful material. The class is a "survey class" so its kind of confusing moving through everything quickly and only covering the surface. But Professor Gebhardt is awesome, really flexible and the material is not difficult to understand.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-31T15:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Gebhardt', 'course': 'PSYC361', 'review': "Great professor, really experienced and knows her stuff. Plenty of extra credit available (2% if she learns your name!). On top of this being an easy A that you don't have to read anything for (just go to class), she is EXTREMELY well connected. \r\nShe can help you get internships you didn't know existed, and she is willing to go out of her way for you. Just knowing her is a good step for networking.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-28T13:36:00Z'}], 'name': 'Judith Gebhardt', 'slug': 'gebhardt'}, {'courses': ['CLAS409C', 'LATN351', 'LATN488P', 'LATN201', 'LATN472', 'LATN672', 'HONR229O', 'LATN302', 'LATN688O', 'CLAS409', 'LATN303', 'LATN620', 'LATN120', 'LATN301', 'LATN688R', 'LATN640', 'LATN488O', 'LATN488A', 'LATN488R'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Judith Hallett', 'course': 'HONR229O', 'review': "I took this class to fulfill my literature requirement with a subject that interests me. While classes like CLAS170 are out there, I feel like the large lecture hall setting takes away a lot from the experience. Let me start off my saying that I am glad that I took this course and would recommend it to anyone with even the slightest interest in ancient Rome.\n\r\nOne of the main benefits of this class is that Dr. Hallett knows that a lot of students are in other majors and does not treat this class like it should be the students' center of attention. It is the polar opposite of another course I took (HONR217) where there was essentially pages of busy work assigned each week for seemingly no purpose. Luckily I was a freshman then, but as a junior engineering student with a lot of work in other classes, this course was the perfect fit.\n\r\nThere were three pretty short papers (2-4 pages) throughout the semester and for each one, the deadline was extended. I think by the third paper, the dates were ahead of the syllabus by a couple of weeks due to extensions. In addition, the papers can be rewritten to improve the student's grade until the desired grade is achieved. These papers as a whole were straight forward and involved either reading an article or book and relating it in some way to the I, Claudius television series.\n\r\nAround half of the classes are spent simply watching the I, Claudius television series with the other half for discussions / presentations (for a short final project at the end of the semester.) The class rarely went the full 100 minutes and a lot of the time we would watch an episode of the show and have class dismissed within an hour.\n\r\nAll-in-all, I highly recommend this course and would gladly take a similar course solely for my interests in the subject.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-07-23T23:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Hallett', 'course': 'LATN302', 'review': 'I had a lot of fun auditing this class. Dr. Hallett very clearly knew what she was doing, and managed the class in seminar format very well.\n\r\nIn class, we would go around the table translating portions of passages by Ovid. Out-of-class assignments consisted either of reading a scholarly article and answering questions, which would then be discussed in class, or one of three larger assignments based on Latin texts and scholarly articles. The final project for the class was the performance of a dramatic adaptation of a story by Ovid.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'AU', 'created': '2013-06-03T12:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Hallett', 'course': 'HONR229O', 'review': 'Certainly one of the best honors seminars to take at umd! Fantastic way to fulfill honors seminar requirements. Great professor!\r\nThere are three 2-4 page papers along with two group presentations at the end of the semester. No final or exams. Spent 80% of the semester watching the I, Claudius tv series which can be very entertaining. She even brings snacks like brownies for the class to eat every week while watching the tv shows. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2010-05-14T13:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Hallett', 'course': 'HONR229O', 'review': "professor hallett is the definition of what honors program professors should aspire to be. This class is both interesting and entertaining. Hallett's course includes three essays with online discussion about every other week and a final group presentation. The essays are interesting and are short (around 3 pages each). They are also corrected and rewrites are accepted to improve your grade which is huge. Not recieving an A in this class is due simply to laziness. Professor hallett is a very nice woman who is no doubt passionate about julio-claudian history. I highly recommend this class which also includes the reading of two interesting novels and the weakly viewing of the I claudius tv show. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-07-08T17:49:00Z'}], 'name': 'Judith Hallett', 'slug': 'hallett'}, {'courses': ['ECON200', 'ECON470', 'ECON772', 'ECON771', 'ECON878', 'ECON708', 'ECON471', 'ECON326'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Judith Hellerstein', 'course': 'ECON470', 'review': "Lectures are interesting, so definitely go to class and take notes. There are a bunch of readings/papers, but you can always read the abstract and skim the rest. Exams are split into short and long answers. You don't need to study that much for them as long as you paid attention in class. If want to go deeper into topics such as jobs report, min wage, discrimination, then you'll find this class very satisfying.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-02-20T13:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Hellerstein', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "A wonderful teacher. Lectures, though long, were always interesting (though somewhat less so if I'd already read the textbook chapter for that day). Coming to class was important - she often deviated from the text, and that material would be on the exams.\r\nThe exams were all multiple choice, and didn't require excessive preparation. \r\nIt's probably a bad idea to bring a laptop to this class - you'll be better off taking notes by hand than staring at the PowerPoint on your screen. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-30T14:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Hellerstein', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "A decent lecturer. All her lectures are powerpoints which are online but that being said, there are many aspects of the lecture that are not obvious from the slides, and that she asks questions about on exams. So go to class. She does a good job of explaining concepts and providing good examples. Keep up with the readings and practice problems online, because they really help prepare you for the tests. They are all multiple choice, but not necessarily easy. All the problems require you to think a step further than the homework and practice problems expect you to. The homework walks you through answers, so don't be surprised when tests are more difficult than the assignments. The discussion sessions provide more difficult practice questions that you work through as a class, and is worth attending. I am not an economics major, but the class was pretty interesting, overall. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-10-25T12:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Hellerstein', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': "Great lecturer and knows how to teach. Exams are kinda difficult; some theoretical questions are very broad and if you don't explain exactly what the answer key will say, you only get partial credit. However, the curve for the class was decent so no complaints here.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-11T23:39:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Hellerstein', 'course': 'ECON470', 'review': "I am one of those people who always fall asleep in class, but her lectures were genuinely so engaging and fun I loved it so much. She also does a terrific job relating class materials/theory to a real life examples and/or current economy which made it super interesting. (she's also a very nice person)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-08-23T23:39:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Hellerstein', 'course': 'ECON470', 'review': 'While the class was really difficult, Prof. Hellerstein was extremely engaging during her lectures. After doing poorly on the midterm, she was extremely accommodating to meet with me outside of her regular office hours (since I had another class at that time). She said she made the problem set and exams challenging on purpose, which was kind of frustrating, but she was really kind and had a generous curve at the end. She does a great job using current events to put theory in perspective and easier to understand. I would definitely recommend her, but make sure you can dedicate a lot of time to her class if you want to get an A. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-24T21:35:49Z'}], 'name': 'Judith Hellerstein', 'slug': 'hellerstein'}, {'courses': ['MEES621', 'MEES718G', 'MEES621'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': "Judith O'Neil", 'slug': "o'neil_judith"}, {'courses': ['COMM398I', 'COMM435', 'COMM427', 'COMM455', 'COMM424', 'COMM472', 'COMM324', 'COMM422'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Judith Tenney', 'course': 'COMM424', 'review': 'I actually like Tenney a lot, both as a person and as a professor. What throws most people off about her is how thorough her assignments are and how strict her grading policy is. "Mini" assignments take 4-8 working hours to complete. This is not a joke. They are also graded somewhat harshly. Let\'s not even talk about regular assignments. Your conduct in her class will make or break you -- in other words, BE PREPARED! Do your reading, do a good job on the assignments, PARTICIPATE, and you should be okay. Plus, Tenney loves helping her students succeed. If you ever need help writing a resume or cover letter or are in need of a letter of recommendation, she genuinely wants to see you succeed and will help you out with these kinds of things. Just don\'t expect your grade to come easily.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-04-24T01:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Tenney', 'course': 'COMM472', 'review': "Tenney is a nice professor, and she has a lot of experience and stories and she uses these to lull you into a false sense of security; you think she's a nice old lady and this class is going to be easy BUT because she teaches you nothing in class, it's a royal pain.\n\r\nYou learn nothing, the tests are very very hard, and her grading system is completely effed up. She's also not willing to give any extra credit, any lee-way on grades, or any help at the end of the semester. Don't take a class with her and expect to learn anything or get a good grade. Nice lady, horrible teacher. Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-19T18:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Tenney', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'She\'s nice and her class is easy going but her grading and tests are so hard.\r\nAll she does in class is sit there and talk, and the stuff she\'s talkign about seems so easy and straight forward but them the tests are all fill in the blank and True/false and they ask you about the most random details in text book like "how many avg hours do kids watch tv in the us" and the word bank has like 7 different numbers so you just have to guess. \r\nas far as grading goes every times I turned in a paper to her it came back to me covered in red marks with her "corrections" but really most of the time i hadn\'t done anything wrong, she just preferred things I said to be stated in her own style which really annoyed me. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-07-22T15:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Tenney', 'course': 'COMM398C', 'review': "She's a really nice person and a good teacher, but her tests are very hard. I took crisis communication with her and she was very helpful and personable. Good teacher, but hard course", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-04-15T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Judith Tenney', 'course': 'COMM398C', 'review': 'Tenney is great. I had her in Spring \'07 for crisis communication when the Virginia Tech shootings happened. The school\'s response had a lot to do with what we were talking about all semester, and she sent us all this email that was just very consoling. She ended it with "I\'ll be thinking of all of you tonight. Take care! Be safe!" That\'s just to give you an idea of what she\'s like.\n\r\nTeaching wise, she\'ll sit in the front of the class room and just speak. No powerpoints or reading from a book, she just talks and relates it all back to her and our experiences. I learned a lot in that class...but do be warned, it\'s not an easy A. The tests are craazy. \n\r\nTests were very very hard, but she gave plenty of extra credit opportunity so most people got B\'s or A\'s. \n\r\nI think if you have the chance to take a class with her you definitely should.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-05T11:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Judith Tenney', 'slug': 'tenney'}, {'courses': ['BUSI650', 'BUSM612', 'BUSO700', 'BUSO758Z', 'BUMK720', 'BUSO701', 'BUSI787', 'BUSM758Z', 'BMGT198C', 'BMGT612', 'BUSI798F', 'BUSM788F', 'BUSO788F', 'BUSO701', 'BMGT612', 'BUMK720', 'BUSI787', 'BUSM612', 'BUSO701', 'BMGT198C', 'BUSI787', 'BUSO701', 'BMGT198C', 'BUSI758M', 'BUSI786', 'BUSI787', 'BMGT612', 'BUMK720', 'BUSI650', 'BUSM612'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Judy Frels', 'course': 'BUMK720', 'review': "I personally didn't mind her class. She goes over case studies and has class-wide discussions which make you want to participate. The first half of her class was based off of cases and actual material. (She takes attendance and it's part of your grade). However, the second half was all Markstrat. I personally had a horrible group that placed poorly and was all over the place, but she gives you class time to work with them on decisions. I did really well on her midterm and there is no final. The Markstrat stuff is what threw me off but her as a professor she is fine. I would recommend her but if there was another professor who was a bit more personable I would suggest them.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-11T04:48:07.796400Z'}], 'name': 'Judy Frels', 'slug': 'frels'}, {'courses': ['ENTS632', 'BMGT451', 'BUMK717', 'BMGT457', 'BUMK715'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Juhi Naithani', 'slug': 'naithani'}, {'courses': ['PSYC622', 'PSYC632', 'PSYC651', 'PSYC629', 'PSYC625'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Julia Felton', 'slug': 'felton_julia'}, {'courses': ['DANC228', 'DANC229', 'DANC328', 'DANC148', 'DANC329'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Julia Smith', 'slug': 'smith_julia'}, {'courses': ['HESP407', 'HESP311', 'HESP307'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Julie Cohen', 'slug': 'cohen_julie'}, {'courses': ['MATH110', 'MATH107', 'MATH107', 'MATH107', 'MATH107'], 'average_rating': 4.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julie Daberkow', 'course': 'MATH110', 'review': 'Great professor- she moves quickly but makes sure the class understands before moving on. She also NEVER checks homework or takes attendance. If you want an A, take her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-03T16:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Daberkow', 'course': 'MATH110', 'review': 'so nice and understanding!! she gives you so many different ways to raise your grade, and reviews the tests the day before almost exactly the same as the real test. take it with her!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-12T22:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Daberkow', 'course': 'MATH110', 'review': 'great teacher who makes a boring topic interesting and easy to learn', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-11-12T12:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Daberkow', 'course': 'MATH110', 'review': "this is a great teacher! all through high school ive had high C's or low B's but i find math 110 easy because shes just a great teacher!! she is very sweet, understanding and best of all SHE NEVER CHECKS HW!!!!!!!she goes through previous tests before each test which are almost exactly the same and doesn't check attendance=) ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-23T17:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Daberkow', 'course': 'MATH107', 'review': 'Easy course if you need a quick elective to pass the time or to satisfy a math credit. She will answer any questions you have and will give you extra points on quizzes at times just for trying.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-05T19:06:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Daberkow', 'course': 'MATH107', 'review': 'As someone who dislikes math and has never been good at math, I found this course helpful! It was related to real-world scenarios which helped my understanding of the subject. She always thoroughly reviewed our assignments and gave us plenty of opportunities to ask questions. Overall, a wonderful teacher & a very kind person!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-06T02:32:10.741704Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Daberkow', 'course': 'MATH107', 'review': "If you need a math credit and want it to be easy, take this class. You can still pretty well if you don't show up except for the days where you have quizzes, and even then, she drops the lowest two scores. It can be pretty boring at times, however, that is not Professor's Daberkow's fault.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-14T17:49:30.689396Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Daberkow', 'course': 'MATH107', 'review': "Easy class, easy work, it's pretty much like high school with a good professor. It's boring, but doable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-20T00:05:47.104464Z'}], 'name': 'Julie Daberkow', 'slug': 'daberkow'}, {'courses': ['COMM386', 'COMM107', 'COMM288', 'COMM288', 'COMM386', 'COMM288', 'COMM386', 'COMM288', 'COMM386', 'COMM288', 'COMM386', 'COMM288', 'COMM386', 'COMM288', 'COMM386', 'COMM288', 'COMM386'], 'average_rating': 2.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julie Gowin', 'course': None, 'review': "SHE IS TERRIBLE!!!! She is super rude and is a terrible professor. Her guidelines are terrible and when you ask her a question, she totally attacks you. She attacked my character at one point. I wish the Comm department would realize how terrible she is to students and stop letting her teach this class because it's not fair for anyone!! Nothing that she wants from you is clear and like I said, when you ask for clarification or if something you did was acceptable, she attacks you and makes you feel like crap about it. There are two reviews on here dating back to the past 3 years and she hasn't changed a thing and is still terrible to students. I say this is a power trip and she does what she wants because she doesn't care or doesn't have to worry about it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-07-05T20:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Gowin', 'course': None, 'review': "Gowin is without question the worst professor I have come in contact with throughout my entire time in college. She is unnecessarily and excessively rude, passive aggressive, asks questions to purposefully make you feel stupid, and feels superior to her students. She is unreasonable and is easily the most bitter person I've ever met. The idea of the course is great, the coordinator is not.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-02-21T12:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Gowin', 'course': 'COMM386', 'review': 'Julie Gowin is probably the worst intern coordinators on campus. Not only did she yell at my supervisor on my internship site, she also changes assignments without notice. If there are conflicting "last day of classes" dates to go by, she should clarify with a definitive answer. She did not. Moreover, her attitude and superiority complex are not needed here. Take the course, but be ready for administrative miscommunication that could potenitally lower your grade.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-20T10:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Gowin', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "I'm confused by the over reviews listed below because I thought she was an excellent prof. She was so sweet and actually made the class entertaining with her fun anecdotes. I really enjoyed her class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-13T06:49:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Gowin', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Not sure what changed between the older reviews and now, but Prof. Gowin has been a great instructor and I would highly recommend her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T05:02:16.839812Z'}], 'name': 'Julie Gowin', 'slug': 'gowin'}, {'courses': ['GERM828A', 'GERM322', 'GERM302', 'GERM689V', 'GERM436', 'GERM299K', 'GERM289K', 'GERM289G', 'GERM255', 'GERM689A', 'GERM322H', 'GERM828V', 'GERM689J', 'FREN699M', 'GERM689M', 'SPAN798M', 'GERM383', 'GERM689P', 'GERM403', 'GERM403H', 'GERM620', 'GERM442', 'GERM689L', 'GERM488C', 'GERM798', 'GERM315', 'GERM439M', 'GERM689Q', 'GERM255', 'GERM302', 'GERM441', 'GERM689B', 'GERM255', 'GERM255', 'GERS322', 'GERS322H', 'GERS436', 'GERS689J'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julie Koser', 'course': None, 'review': 'This class is a decent amount of work for an lower level course. Not exactly in assignments but heavy in reading. And you HAVE to do the reading. There is a quiz every week and there are some 2-3 page papers but those aren\'t bad at all in size, but she is a really content based person. She is extremely well educated and it shows. She expects a lot of you, not in a bad way but a "I know you can do better an I want to help you get there" way. Don\'t take the papers as a joke, or your grade will be a joke. But she is awesome, she makes fairy tales into something that isn\'t just a story. She really shows how it is real literature and not a bedtime story. It kind of ruins it as something to read to your kids though, you know too much. She also is very receptive to students, and their ideas on how the course should be ran. Also she is very helpful and tries to make herself available to students. She might seem kind of intimidating at first but she is really cool at the end. Your grade will reflect the amount of work you put in at the end of the day. Highly suggest! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-03-30T15:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Koser', 'course': 'GERM255', 'review': "Dr. Koser is an amazing teacher her and very passionate about the material she has selected for readings and discussion. However, she does want people to try their absolute best in a lower level class and grades accordingly. She expects a lot, however she also understands that the class may not be your main priority. That being said you do nerd to prioritize this class sometimes as there are many readings from both the book (Grimm) and other readings she'll select for you to read. Normally they're no more than 6 to 10 pages a week. However there may be a reading many orders of magnitude longer, although she will give you more time to get the reading done or will be more lenient on the material she tests. She's very flexible if you talk to her about an assignment or something akin and will help you if you make the effort ahead of time. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-01-02T02:42:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Koser', 'course': 'GERM255', 'review': "Dr.Koser is amazing. There is about two readings a week and the ones given at the beginning of the class is all theory and really dry to read. They took me forever to get done because it was so hard to concentrate. The other readings are stories and are interesting and fun to learn. Highlighting important information and writing notes for readings is very helpful and she loves to see that you annotate and are engaged with the readings. \r\n\r\nShe does weekly group discussions which are for participation points. The final isn't too bad with an essay and written response parts to it. Review notes on the stories and know key information from her lectures for this. you need to write summaries and include the main points in the weekly summary essays. there is also a few papers on movies you watch and compare to original stories. Overall she is a great teacher and the class is super interesting and not too challenging. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-16T17:26:56Z'}], 'name': 'Julie Koser', 'slug': 'koser'}, {'courses': ['AAST200', 'EDCP776', 'SOCY410', 'EDCP498A', 'EDCP772', 'EDCP775', 'SOCY627', 'EDCP741', 'AAST222', 'AMST298C', 'SOCY699V', 'AAST378', 'AAST388', 'EDCP799A', 'AAST498A', 'EDCP798A', 'EDCP798D', 'AAST498B', 'SOCY498G', 'EDCP655', 'EDCP888A', 'HESI202', 'EDCP788', 'SOCY380', 'AAST378', 'AAST388', 'EDCP742', 'EDCP772', 'HESI202', 'EDCP788', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP798G', 'AAST222', 'AAST388', 'EDCP772', 'SOCY222'], 'average_rating': 2.625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julie Park', 'course': 'AAST200', 'review': 'Professor Park is a very reasonable professor. She is willing to adjust her expectations based on class feedback and performance. She expects you to do the readings and contribute in class, but other than that there is not consistently much work you have to put in.\n\r\nAssignments:\r\n3-4 pop quizzes, sometimes open book/open note\r\n1 final paper (5-7 pages)\r\n1 midterm\r\n1 final.\n\r\nShe has extra credit opportunities as well. \n\r\nIt is pretty critical that you pay attention and take notes in class, as all of her exams/quizzes are based heavily on this material.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-20T18:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Park', 'course': 'SOCY410', 'review': "I can't believe Dr. Park only has 2 stars.\n\r\nWorkload:\r\n-Readings\r\n-Min. 5 Page Paper\r\n-2 Small assignments that supplement the project\r\n-Project poster board and presentation\r\n-Midterm\r\n-Final\n\r\nHer syllabus was very clear in what she expected of her students. On the 2nd day of class she presented us with the requirements of the project and paper, which weren't due until near the end of the semester. She was very well prepared and always professional. Her power points are great, but she doesn't share them. She wants you to show up to class!!!\n\r\nGO TO CLASS!!! She isn't a boring professor. The concepts are a little tough, but she explains and relates them in a manner that makes sense and questions you to think. Like any SOCY class, discussion is always demanded.\n\r\nI LOVED how Dr. Park split us into small groups to come up with our collective ideas and then brought us all back together to go through everything as a class. She then took our group notes and made copies so that everyone could have an identical set.\n\r\nHer tests are all short answer (2-6 sentences). She always has an excellent review to prepare those that have been paying attention and taking notes.\n\r\nShe is VERY friendly, nice, and has a sense of humor...unless you're constantly hounding her. She does her best to make sure her students succeed and grasp the ideas, and does it in a great way. She is very good about replying to emails. \n\r\n**** RECOMMENDED PROFESSOR**** ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-19T17:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Park', 'course': None, 'review': 'Grads extremely hard, does not matter whether you understand materials or not, she wants you to regurgitate every word she says.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-02T03:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Park', 'course': 'AAST200', 'review': 'Prof Park really isn\'t bad for AAST200. The key to getting a good grade is to pay attention to the the points she brings up over and over again as she will most likely test you on those (e.g. 1965 Immigration Act, Paper Sons...etc) There is a midterm, oral history paper, and final. She "takes attendance" by making you do these group assignments during class to turn in at the end. \n\r\nYou don\'t have to read any book except Asian American X. Show up and listen somewhat and you\'ll be fine.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-24T03:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Park', 'course': 'AAST200', 'review': "The readings assigned every class are at times boring but pretty manageable. The lectures are a little scattered and unorganized which makes it hard to follow but Professor Park is pretty nice. The midterm consists of 11 short answers and if you know the material, you'll do well. There aren't that many grades so if you do poorly on one of them it's really hard to get a good grade in the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-09T22:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Park', 'course': 'AAST222', 'review': 'First of all, this lady takes ATTENDANCE so you have to go to class. She wont tell you that she is. \r\nThe class isnt boring but, this is the worst class anyone can take just because of the tests and paper. IT IS USELESS! AND THE PROFESSOR SUCKS! Granted she is new. There arent many homework assignments. You do not need to buy the books. DO NOT BUY THE BOOKS! I wasted my money on them! I only used one and that was for a project. Her project is easy. She grades hard for the midterm and final. FOR NO REASON! You have to study lecture notes for the exams. The notes consist of dates and definitions. AND there is a TEN PAGE PAPER for this useless class. This class doesnt teach you anything. Im not a sociology major so i dont care, but if you are this class is pointless. Shes not teaching aast222 anymore but this should be known. \n\r\n1-8-10 - i have to say...again... THIS LADY SUCKS!. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-08T18:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Park', 'course': 'AAST222', 'review': "One of the least professional teachers i have ever had in my college experience. She knew literally nothing about the subject, horribly ineffective in teaching the material. If you can put up with her stupidity and attend every single class you'll do well, otherwise i suggest never taking any class with her. Her finals cover more about the movies you watch then the information she teaches, leading me to believe that she thinks it is a film class. If you are taking this as a supporting course for sociology, DO NOT, because it is not taught from a sociological perspective whatsoever. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-26T15:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Park', 'course': 'AAST222', 'review': 'Worst professor. Truly unprofessional and takes grades away from students from her ego. Lectures are hours of constant note taking and assignment grades are given not based off of proper measure. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-05T19:32:19Z'}], 'name': 'Julie Park', 'slug': 'park_julie'}, {'courses': ['BMGT498G', 'BMGT398W', 'BMGT341', 'BMGT341F', 'BMGT448F', 'BMGT342F', 'BMGT341', 'BMGT341', 'BMGT342F', 'BMGT341', 'BMGT341F', 'BMGT398W', 'BMGT341', 'BMGT342F'], 'average_rating': 4.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julie Pavlovsky', 'course': 'BMGT341', 'review': "Professor Pavlovsky is an excellent professor. She can come across as a little stern, but honestly it's completely warranted given that her courses are mostly for juniors and seniors who have lost interest in school. She really pushes you to learn and pay attention, which can be hard, but her exams take heavily from the lecture. Many times she'll say things in class that aren't on the slides, which she'll then write into the exam, so pay attention and take notes if you want an A. All-in-all, she's a fair grader and a nice person but definitely not a pushover. I would recommend taking her class, but you will have to work for that A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-21T19:05:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Pavlovsky', 'course': 'BMGT341', 'review': 'Every lecture is right off the slides, a lot of people stopped coming to class when they realized that. Not really any homework at all, just one stock presentation, and two exams, and participation, so your grade is based off of just those things. Exams really werent too bad if you went to class and studied.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-02-21T15:06:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Pavlovsky', 'course': 'BMGT341', 'review': 'Pavlovsky surely worked in Wall Street before and has vast industry experience in finance. But she talks way too fast and her lectures can be very hard to follow especially for those who are not familiar with financial markets. Also the best way to study this course by not going to class because her exam are all from the slides and there will be almost no difference by going to the class or not, you can learn everything about this course better by reading the slides. You can’t really learn anything extra from sitting in her lectures which what she did is basically reading the slides at 100km/h. A lot of people know this and they never show up unless they’re there for her market update or there’s a “pop” quiz – ironically that everybody knows there’s gonna be one so I don’t know why it has a “pop” before it. The first one is pretty easy but the last two are slightly harder, beware and try to attend as much class in the first half of the semester as possible to drop the final and the hardest quiz (The mean of the final two quizzes was 2.9/5 and 2.1/5! Means on average the class failed!).\r\n\r\nExams are not hard, but also not easy. In order to receive a good grade, you need to study her slides, especially some details in every topic. However, the overall grading is quite lenient compared to ECON330. \r\n\r\nOverall, I would still strongly recommend her class. You can learn something from this course and she is a fair grader. Some of my friends also benefited from her advice giving to them in internship searching. Your effort will truly be paid off if you studied hard and prepared well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-25T03:06:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Pavlovsky', 'course': 'BMGT341F', 'review': "Nice lady, fair grader. The class seems intimidating at first but it's actually super manageable as long as you show up to class. She talks fast but most of the exam was from her slides. No homework except the market update which is nice.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-03-28T23:12:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Pavlovsky', 'course': 'BMGT341', 'review': 'This class us super interesting and this professor helps a lot with that. She goes quite fast and includes A LOT of information, but she is fair and a nice lady. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-27T16:40:37Z'}], 'name': 'Julie Pavlovsky', 'slug': 'pavlovsky'}, {'courses': ['BSCV182', 'BSCV181', 'BSCV301', 'BSCV181', 'BSCV191', 'BSCV301', 'EDCP108I', 'BSCV182', 'BSCV191', 'EDCP108I'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julie Randolph', 'course': 'BSCV181', 'review': 'I love her so much!!! She is one of the best professors and one of the nicest people ever! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-02T04:17:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Randolph', 'course': 'BSCV191', 'review': "she is such a sweetheart is very accommodating. you can tell she's actually here to listen to and learn from the students which is super cool of her. the assignments and quizzes can be annoying, but they're super easy!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:31:29.852800Z'}], 'name': 'Julie Randolph', 'slug': 'randolph'}, {'courses': ['GEOG332', 'GEOG632', 'GEOG498P', 'GEOG422', 'GEOG331', 'HONR219W', 'GEOG202', 'GEOG601', 'GEOG332', 'GEOG601', 'GEOG202'], 'average_rating': 3.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julie Silva', 'course': 'GEOG202', 'review': 'Dr. Silva is a really great teacher. She does tend to ramble and go off on tangents during class, but the content of the class is very interesting. From my personal interactions, she is extremely open to constructive criticism for her lectures and work, and really wants every student to succeed and learn. Super down to earth, and very approachable.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-04-30T22:50:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Silva', 'course': 'GEOG332', 'review': 'Dr. Silva is without a doubt one of the best professors at UMD. She is very organized and knowledgeable. Other professors and instructors could stand to learn a lot from her. In geog 332, we used one textbook (available as a PDF online) and three short books, they were all purposeful and necessary for doing assignments.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-15T22:46:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Silva', 'course': 'GEOG202', 'review': "I really enjoy this course, so at the beginning, I was totally fine with how Dr. Silva's class was structure. I liked the readings, they're very intentional, but I'm starting to question why she structured the class this way during the pandemic. We have assigned readings and reading quizzes, which are usually fine, but then there are her lectures which are total rehashes of the text -- there's honestly no additional insight or nuance. I don't really get the point of them besides the fact that there are lecture quizzes embedded. It's probably helpful for those people that skim the readings and need more in depth discussion, but if you actually read it, there's no point. She also makes it so lectures are gone within 24 hours, which I've been okay with so far, but it just seems unnecessary.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-28T22:27:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Silva', 'course': 'GEOG202', 'review': "Dr. Silva is a nice woman but a terrible teacher. I never had her in person but her online class was structured very poorly with unreasonable morning deadlines and unnecessary quizzes that were graded harshly. The books were very boring and didn't teach me what I thought geography should be like. The lecture stated exactly what was in the book that you had to read before, so things got repetitive. She muted all the quiz questions so you are not able to see what you got right or wrong, and deleted all her lectures after 24 hours which did not make sense. Paper was graded toughly and was sometimes vague with what the prompt was asking for. Overall the class wasn't doable, it just kinda sucked. The only good thing that came out of this class was that i got 2 gen eds out of the way.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-10T04:31:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Silva', 'course': 'GEOG202', 'review': "The class was centered around 3 books. This class was more work than I thought it would be and she wasn't flexible as she would only give you 24 hours to watch lectures and complete the imbedded quizzes. There were also reading quizzes that were muted after they were submitted. The lectures were boring and just a repeat of the book. The term paper was easy as long as you read the books. I almost never went to the discussions unless it was close to a big assignment. Overall, an okay class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-24T22:28:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Silva', 'course': 'GEOG332', 'review': 'Dr. Silva is a great lecturer, I would definitely take her again! She does assign a lot of reading tho', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-21T18:56:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Silva', 'course': 'GEOG332', 'review': 'Dr. Silva is a good lecturer and a great person. Her lectures are engaging and she usually tries to get people involved in some discussion. I took both GEOG202 and GEOG332 with her and both classes are very reading heavy. The readings are pretty long and she usually just goes over them again in lecture. I wish she mixed in more facts/traditional teaching into her lectures rather than just repeating what we just read. GEOG332 is a little better than GEOG202 in this sense, 202 is pretty much just a book club. Exams and writing assignments are all about the right difficulty and fairly graded. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T16:42:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Silva', 'course': 'GEOG202', 'review': "Dr.Silva is an extremely knowledgeable and passionate professor. The content of the course is 100% based on the readings (about 30-50 pages a week from 4 different books throughout the semester). The reading quiz questions are fair and are easily found in the readings and she aims for everyone in class to get the clicker questions right (so they're always easy). Overall Dr.Silva is a super nice and super fair professor. The class is an easy A if you go to class and pay attention.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-25T19:39:54.801802Z'}], 'name': 'Julie Silva', 'slug': 'silva_julie'}, {'courses': ['HIST236', 'HIST408J', 'HIST429A', 'UNIV101', 'HIST408X', 'HIST329P', 'HIST419A', 'FILM359J', 'SLLC368J', 'HIST236', 'HIST236', 'HIST429A', 'HIST217', 'HIST419A', 'HIST329P', 'HIST329P', 'HIST386', 'HIST329P', 'HIST386', 'HIST236', 'HIST429A'], 'average_rating': 4.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julie Taddeo', 'course': 'HIST235', 'review': 'Definitely take her if you need history to fulfill requirements!! 4 inclass essays and 2 exams, as long as you goto class and take good notes, and read the books, she is an easy grader and awesome lecturer ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-15T18:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Taddeo', 'course': 'HIST236', 'review': 'I loved Professor Taddeo. She is funny in class and makes her lectures interesting. The in-class essays are pretty easy as long as you do a majority of the reading, and her exams are right from lectures. As long as you pay attention and put in some effort this class is pretty easy and really interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-09-23T20:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Taddeo', 'course': 'HIST236', 'review': 'Personally I love British History, so this class was defiantly for me. Professor Taddeo definitely has a passion for what she teaches and if you do the readings you should honestly be fine. \n\r\nHer exams are almost directly from her lecture along with the in class papers. If I had just worked a little hard I would have gotten A, it is not impossible. \n\r\nThe class was well run, a lot of relevant information and fair grader. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-07-31T23:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Taddeo', 'course': 'HIST419A', 'review': 'I LOVE Professor Taddeo. She is so passionate about what she teaches and makes her classes engaging. She is really funny and clearly knows what she is talking about. When the pandemic hit she was by far the most understanding about it and modified almost all of our assignments to fit the new climate. She does a good job at balancing readings with fun videos and her assignments really allow for students to be creative. I learned so much in my British pop culture class and I highly recommend it to everyone.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-10T16:26:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Taddeo', 'course': 'HIST236', 'review': "I don't know why anyone said this class is good. The lectures are long and boring, the class content does not apply to the assessments, and the assessments are graded ridiculously hard. I would only recommend this class if you really like the topic or if you really need to take it, but it is so annoying. The only good thing about it is that there aren't a lot of assignments, but it kind of sucks for your grade because there isn't much you can do to bring it up after she grades the papers so roughly. Avoid, avoid, avoid!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-04-20T16:07:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Taddeo', 'course': 'HIST236', 'review': "I'd say that Professor Taddeo is one of the best professors I have had. She is very passionate about the subject that she teaches and makes lectures fun and interesting. She provides a lot of feedback on assignments and is a very fair grader, which shows that she cares about her students. I would definitely take one of her classes again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-23T22:11:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Julie Taddeo', 'course': 'HIST236', 'review': "One of my favorite professors. She keeps lectures very fun and interesting, and I feel like I left the class with knowledge that (oddly enough) has been relevant in other classes I've taken, as well as just life in general. She is a fair grader and can also be very understanding if you need an extension.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-22T06:51:48.345067Z'}], 'name': 'Julie Taddeo', 'slug': 'taddeo'}, {'courses': ['HLTH234', 'HLTH671', 'HLTH371', 'HLTH371H', 'HLTH200', 'HLTH898', 'EXST030'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Juliette Christie', 'slug': 'christie'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM351'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Julio Bermejo', 'slug': 'bermejo'}, {'courses': ['ENGL368G', 'ENGL471', 'ENGL317', 'ENGL628C', 'AASP478N', 'AASP398C', 'ENGL368K', 'ENGL628F', 'ENGL472', 'AMST328G', 'AMST328U', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL479B', 'ENGL749N', 'AASP478B', 'ENGL470', 'HNUH288A', 'ENGL373', 'ENGL370', 'HNUH288A', 'HNUH288A', 'ENGL370', 'HNUH288A', 'ENGL373', 'ENGL749N'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julius Fleming', 'course': 'HNUH288A', 'review': 'When I took this course, it was extremely disorganized, although that is forgivable because when I took this course, it was the first semester the course was available, so both the prof and the students figured out how to work the course as we went through the semester. Professor Fleming is a harsh grader, no cap. However, he is EXTREMELY forgiving with deadlines, provides extra credit, and dropped many assignments for the betterment of our mental health. One thing I must note is that although he consistently claimed to be quite available to students, I generally noticed from my peers that it was extremely difficult to contact him through email, phone, or office hours near the end of the semester. However, his personality, aura, and forgiveness make him a pretty good guy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-28T20:08:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Fleming', 'course': 'HNUH288A', 'review': "This course was honestly one of the most interesting courses I've ever taken. Professor Fleming cares about his students, however, nothing was really consistent throughout the course. Even then, he dropped many assignments and changed deadlines whenever necessary which is something that all of us appreciated. Contacting him was a bit hard especially with the final paper, but with how many students he has and how stressful the final season is, I can't be mad at him. \r\nThe course has a heavy amount of work but it's usually super interesting, however, you don't have to read every single thing; skimming will be your best friend. The midterm exam was difficult if you didn't know what to look towards but the extra credit helped bring up that score. The final paper allowed for a lot of creative freedom as long as it still related to the class, however, without a provided rubric it was hard to really know what was being graded. Along with that, it was 8-10 pages even though in class he said it was 6-8. \r\nI can't deny there were points where I was frustrated with the class due to the lack of communication at some points, but it was overall a fairly fun course and I would recommend it to those who are actually interested in the topic. Do not take this if you don't think you'll be interested or won't put the work in though.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-06T21:03:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Fleming', 'course': 'HNUH288A', 'review': "I feel like it's very easy that Dr. Fleming may be misunderstood. He is genuinely one of the best professors I've gotten to have. He cares deeply about the class, and makes sure that the class understands the content. He is thoughtful, relatable, and kind. As a professor and a human being, he is extraordinary! However, he is a pretty tough grader and sometimes assigns a lot of reading. This is why many students may view him negatively. But he ultimately challenges you to become a better thinker and writer—especially the latter. He is really committed to improving everyone's writing, and leaves constructive feedback to do this when the situation arises. He offers a bunch of extra credit, and is very flexible in dropping assignments and class meetings for students to improve their health and their work. One thing I will stress is to FOCUS on the FINAL PAPER. There is a lot of liberty in this paper, and it accounts for a lot of your grade (there's not many grades in the class). He stresses to spend a great deal of time on it, and I can attest that this is essential. Do yourself a favor and really craft a well thought-out paper that engages with the course material. Also, I know that many people had difficulty reaching out to him via email, so do keep that in mind also. Much of the course is very interesting and educates you on something that certainly rarely gets talked about otherwise. As a person, Dr. Fleming is phenomenal. As a professor, he is also amazing, but make sure that you are prepared, put time into the class, and give it your all!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-19T17:23:06Z'}], 'name': 'Julius Fleming', 'slug': 'fleming_julius'}, {'courses': ['ENEE205', 'ENEE791', 'ENEE489Q', 'ENEE380H', 'ENEE101', 'ENEE381', 'ENEE488', 'ENEE790', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE789Q', 'ENEE380', 'ENEE205', 'ENEE101'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE380H', 'review': 'Very difficult to follow his lectures. However, his homeworks and exams are relatively easy. He also allows cheat sheets so I pretty much memorized how to do problems instead of learning anything. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-09-30T21:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': None, 'review': "Lectures are very bad, but he posts his powerpoint online and those are good to study for the exam. He's very nice with grading I got a 40 on the 1st exam, 85 on the 2nd, and 89 on the 3rd and ended up with an A. He is also a genuinely nice person. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-01T18:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE380H', 'review': "Honestly, hes a pretty bad professor. His lectures are practically worthless because they're too disorganized to follow, and if you're in the honors section, you don't even have the benefit of getting a TA to help you because he leads the discussion himself. The only reason I'm giving him 3 stars is because his tests are pretty easy. He grades very easily and will often give you full credit on a problem so long as you have the right idea, even if you made a couple computational errors. Overall I'd say his class isn't too bad but I'd try and find another professor if I was you.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-12-07T01:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': 'Goldhar was a very poor professor. His lectures were poorly put together, he was too scatterbrained to follow, and often made mistakes which he would not correct. His homework assignments were too long, and were much more intensive than what we "learned" in class, making them impossible without office hours. Labs were long and poorly put together; even the TA\'s didn\'t always know what was going on or understand why he put things a certain way. \n\r\nExams were doable but frustrating nonetheless. He walked into our second exam and said "I think I made this too easy." The average for this exam was a 67%. In general, you can understand nothing that is going on in the class and cram for the exam and still do decent.\n\r\nThat being said, Goldhar is not the worst teacher at the University of Maryland, and his class is curved so that an 86% is a guaranteed A- (unless he curves more).\n\r\nI would not recommend Goldhar to a friend, nor would I take a class with him again.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-12-11T14:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': "Goldhar's lectures are pretty bad. He's very disorganized and make a lot of mistakes and doesn't explain stuff too well. However, his homework problems are good and they're usually interesting to do. He gives matlab assignments which I thought was good because it's important to know how to use matlab. He is pretty good in office hours also. It's definitely important to have a good TA. Goldhar gives very reasonable tests though. They test you on relevant concepts and they're not pointlessly difficult. Definitely an easily passable class, but he's not that great of a teacher.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-28T23:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': "Goldhar constantly makes mistakes. everything he tells you is false. It is impossible to take notes on his lectures. If you do, you will not learn the material correctly. He posts slides (which he doesn't use in lecture) that are *mostly* correct, but not always. He gives out a lot of A's, but you dont learn anything. My understanding of the class is that a big part of what you are supposed to get out of it is how to use/read smith charts which Goldhar did not get to till half way through the semester. I would advise putting this class off till some other time if Goldhar is your only option. He is a nice guy at least... The book for the class is.. ok.. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-10-28T17:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': 'He doesn’t teach well in class. Going to class is useless. His class is basically a self-teaching class. Plus the problems on the exams are confusing. Avoid this Professor at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-01-13T02:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': "Not the best professor teaching wise but he is amazing person. He respects you and will help you out during office hours. If you can't make it, he will accommodate at another time convenient for you. The homeworks are harder than the exams. The exams though are relatively straightforward and he doesn't throw in tricks in the problems. Review the lecture slides and the homework assignements and you will be fine.\r\nHe also holds a review before each exam so make sure you attend them since the exams questions are somewhat based on the concepts he emphasizes.\r\nHe also posts practice exams and problems which can help in exam prep. If you are willing to put in the work I would recommend taking him", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-01-26T17:59:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': "Moves very quickly through material, doesn't give ample time for difficult concepts to really sink in, and doesn't explain things clearly enough. Maybe he's a decent professor for higher numbered courses, but for an intro to circuitry class, he's not a good professor. He is a great person and really does want to be helpful, but he is not good at bringing himself down to a level appropriate for a sophomore class where most of us are really thinking about circuits for the first time. Everything is trivial to him, so he does in general think that everything is pretty trivial to us too. This is a common issue with professors that really know their stuff, and are very intelligent, but can be very difficult in a class where there is no textbook, and self-study isn't really an option either.\r\n\r\nAlso, his homework is quite heavy, and exams were weighted very heavily.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-27T15:12:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': "He moves through material quickly, but that's to be expected from an engineering professor. He is very accessible outside of class, and if you have questions he loves to answer them. Make it clear you want to understand more, and he'll make the concepts very clear. Also, your TA makes a huge impact on your success in this class. Overall he's a good professor, not the best, but someone who I would take again. His exams are very, very fair. The homework is a pain, but you can get by through the help of the professor and the TAs. \r\n\r\nReally the highlight of Dr. Goldhar is the fact that his exams are just like problems he gives, they're straightforward, and specifically NOT tricky. As long as you know the tools he's given you to solve problems, the exams are more than doable. Also, they're usually graded in 24-48 hours which is insane. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-14T15:59:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': 'Some people here are saying this class is straightforward and easy, however in my experience with this professor nothing was straightforward and nothing was easy. The saving grace with this class was my ta offering much easier processes on doing the difficult problems. The homework’s in this class each took easily 5-6 hours each week and were only 4 or 5 questions. If there is another professor please save yourself and take them.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-09-11T21:55:53.147428Z'}, {'professor': 'Julius Goldhar', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': 'this professor is the most incompetent professor I have ever taken so far. His lectures are messy and disorganized. Multiple times the slide sets he gives have errors in them that he only catches sometimes. This class should be easy, but with him it is not. Do anything in your power to not take this guy.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-10T15:33:00.056677Z'}], 'name': 'Julius Goldhar', 'slug': 'goldhar'}, {'courses': ['PHIL261', 'PHIL140', 'PHIL309C', 'PHIL408V', 'PHIL418C', 'PHIL204'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Julius Schoenherr', 'slug': 'schoenherr'}, {'courses': ['MEES498T', 'MEES608O', 'MEES698T', 'MEES608O', 'MEES498T', 'MEES698T', 'MEES608O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jum Sook Chung', 'slug': 'chung_jum_sook'}, {'courses': ['EDCI288B', 'INST800', 'LBSC642', 'EDCI687', 'LBSC810', 'INST810', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'June Ahn', 'slug': 'ahn_june'}, {'courses': ['ARTH346', 'ARTH488E', 'ARTH201', 'ARTH749', 'ARTH345', 'ARTH488B', 'ARTH749A', 'ARTH488F', 'ARTH749B', 'ARTH749C'], 'average_rating': 4.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'June Hargrove', 'course': 'ARTH346', 'review': "I highly recommend this professor and class. I am an econ major and know next to nothing about art or art history, but Professor Hargrove made the class very interesting. She is genuinely interested in this subject and is extremely knowledgeable. \n\r\nThe exams involve alot of memorizing, but other than that, there is not a whole lot of work involved. She does keep track of attendance, but if you show up regularly and pay attention, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to walk away with an A. Overall, Hargrove is great and I would definitely recommend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-05-19T14:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'June Hargrove', 'course': 'ARTH346', 'review': 'If you are not an art history major do not take Professor Hargrove. She starts the first day of class assuming everyone already has some form of knowledge on the subject. She is notorious for picking favorites. The work load and level of detail required to get an A is a bit much . Although a B is not hard to get. Lastly for a GenEd this course requires ALOT of time the final has 200+ items even though she only well test you on about 10 which is insane and inconsiderate.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-05-15T20:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'June Hargrove', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': "Professor Hargrove's a good lecturer! She really cares about the subject and about teaching. They tell you to read the book, but honestly you can probably get an A as long as you go to every lecture and take good notes. You memorize a crap load of paintings, but the test only covers a few--pay attention to the ones she goes on about the most in class, she's more likely to pick those. Grade comes down to two midterms, an essay that involves a visit to the Gallery, participation in discussion, a few quizzes, and the final. Very reasonable workload if you want to get rid of a GenEd. TA's (Abby and Kathleen) are good", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-27T01:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'June Hargrove', 'course': 'ARTH346', 'review': "Dr. Hargrove is divine (almost as divine as the pieces we studied). She's a gifted and knowledgable lecturer as well as a genuinely wonderful person. She wants her students to succeed and always makes herself available to those who are hoping to improve. \n\r\nThe class itself requires a moderate amount of work: attending lecture regularly, reviewing the textbook before exams, etc. There is a research paper due at the end of the semester that counts for 25% of your final grade, so take it seriously.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-19T15:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'June Hargrove', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': "If you like art &/or history this is the class for you. As a CORE, it is a reasonable amount of work, while maintaining its integrity as a very interesting and engaging class. Keep in mind there is a lot of memorization- if you aren't interested in art, this part can get old very fast. Hargrove is great though- and TA's are, for the most part, great. \n\r\nps-DO NOT let your phone ring/ open cans of soda/ open the door at the front of the hall during lecture. Lecturer will not be happy. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T19:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'June Hargrove', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': 'Lectures are extremely boring. Gives a guideline of the painters and terms that you need to know. TA (Suzy) was great. Go to discussion for the valuable stuff. Grade comes down to 2 tests, a few quizzes, participation in discussion, and one paper where you have to go to the National Gallery. If you study well for the tests and cram in memorizing the paintings you will do well. The book is helpful but Hargrove is a very dry, annoyng lecturer. Very nice lady though. I rarely went to lectures and will get atleast a B (an A if i do well on the final) ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-20T05:29:00Z'}], 'name': 'June Hargrove', 'slug': 'hargrove'}, {'courses': ['EDCP619D', 'EDCP616', 'EDCP665', 'EDCP888G', 'AMST205', 'AMST203', 'EDCP789X', 'EDCP615', 'EDCP789T', 'AMST101', 'AMST203'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jung Kim', 'slug': 'kim_jung'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Jung Kyu Lim', 'slug': 'lim'}]
[{'courses': ['ENME350', 'ENME647', 'ENME632', 'ENES232', 'ENME350', 'ENME350', 'ENME350', 'ENES102', 'ENME350'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': None, 'review': "Great teacher. Occasionally gets lost in his lectures, but it's not usually a big deal. He looks mean/aggressive, but he's alright. When you ask him a question, it's either a stupid question or good question to him. His patience decreases exponentially the more stupid questions you ask. \r\nMy class has been weird in that our average midterm grades were 75% but with a 19% std. dev.\n\r\nLecturing: 4.5/5\r\nHandwriting: 3.5/5", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-04-18T12:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': 'He is probably the best lecturer in the Mech E department, but perhaps one of the worst outside of class. He is not available at times he says he will be, will not respond to email, and will try to shoo you away when he is in office. It is better to try and talk to the lab professor, Liu.\n\r\nHe grades pretty harshly, but the entire class is curved against itself, so everyone is in the same boat. He is certainly intelligent but also rather arrogant. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-01-19T14:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': 'Not easy but no impossible either. This was a fair class but Kim is a fantastic professor. I came into the class with no knowledge of electronics and came out with a lot of knowledge and am not very comfortable with circuits. However this class is a lot of work and there is homework due each lecture. The class is curved but not enough. Would still recommend him though!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-13T17:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': "Hard, but good. He expects a lot out of students, but he's a good lecturer and a fair grader. Tests were hard, but he curved if the average was too low.\r\nFriendly, intelligent, and helpful. Sometimes if I went to his office with a question, he'd get a little impatient if I didn't understand right away, but I could tell that he was trying to be patient and not show it. Perhaps just a touch of ego, but it doesn't come through much.\r\nDon't take his class for an easy A, but I think I would recommend him if you want to learn it thoroughly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-09T13:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': 'Good lecturer, but tests are extremely difficult and partial credit is very hard to come by.\r\nHomework is due twice a week as well.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-11-23T23:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': "I did not find him very effective as a lecturer. Wasn't very clear when explaining complicated topics and did practically everything from the book. Graded far too harshly for anything other than the exact right answer.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2013-12-21T13:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME351', 'review': 'Good teacher, very intelligent and funny. \r\nThe material in 351 is not hard but is incredibly useful for learning how to properly set up, run, and analyze real world experiments.\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME351', 'review': 'Kim taught ENME351 along Sarah Bergbreiter. He is very clear and easy to follow, but the things he lectures about (in this class) tend to get a little boring. He is a funny guy and very organized in addition to being very friendly.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-25T11:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "Kim is a pretty oldschool teacher. He used his tablet pc to write out his lecture notes which can sometimes be messy. Maybe he's gotten the hang of it by now.\r\nHis grading was pretty fair. Tests were hard but whatever the raw grades were he made the average a B and one standard deviation up/down a A/C.\r\nAs usual we had a pretty tedious group project, but we didn't have to learn some awful program like fluent.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T16:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "To be fair, my grade would probably be closer to a 1.5 than a 1. \n\r\nThe class is brutal, plain and simple. His expectations of the class as far as the exams and (to an extent) the homework is extremely high. The class will feel relatively mellow until the first exam (the fact that nobody scored a perfect and the average was a 33/80 should tell you something) and will really come heavily down in the last two weeks.\n\r\nThe design project was given to us the week of Thanksgiving (that week being the only time given in class to work on it... my discussion fell on a Thursday so I wasn't able to do it) and the rest of the discussions spent in a monotonous 2 hours of straight problem solving, none of which will help you on the homeworks or reviews for exams. Grades were... harsh for the project, to say the least.\n\r\nIf you're good at iterating, you should be fine in the class, frankly. He expects a lot of it on the first exam. Just don't expect his help in anything.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-20T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': 'Dr. Kim shows no interest in having his students succeed. I visited his office hours on multiple occasions and felt as if he was unwilling to help me learn the material. He dedicates most of his time to his research and often had guest lecturers as a result of his frequent "out of town trips." He spent a lot of time bragging about his research for NASA. He put down University of Maryland saying that their undergraduate engineering program is just as good as any other. Averages on examinations were very low 50% which reflect upon the quality and structure of his curriculum and teaching style. He has very poor handwriting students often have to ask him to read his notes off the board. Additionally in the last week of school before finals, we had a lab/ lab report, a long hw assignment and a project due.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2009-12-13T15:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': None, 'review': "This class was pretty tough. The professor lectured straight out of the book, which was ok but honestly, I could have just read it and taught it to myself. I think I killed my back since we had to drag the gigantic book to class everyday due to the excessive amount of pop quizzes. No one had time to finish any of the tests because the problems took forever. Visiting his office hours wasn't too helpful either--he seemed to have the attitude that I should figure stuff out on my own and stop bothering him about study tips. The two hour discussion was also worthless since the TA just droned on about example problems that weren't very helpful and wouldn't help with any of the online homework questions. Not a fun class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-19T01:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': "Material is very difficult, but he explains it well. Homework is somewhat original so you will have to do some of it on your own. (I know y'all like to chegg everything) Also it is due at 8:05:00 AM on the dot in class and I twisted my ankle trying to turn the homework in on time once. (Got it in though)\r\n\r\nAt the end, he grades on a bell curve, so it doesn't matter that the exam averages are in the 60's - I believe I had a 79 at the end and that became a B+.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-22T19:10:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': "Jungho, gonna Jungho tbh. Fair professor, tough grader, lots of work due each week, but you do learn a lot. Dr. Kim is a worthy adversary. 25 HW's, 10Labs, and 3 exams. Since class avg on exams are almost always failing, class is curved, but this means that 10-12% will fail each semester by default :)", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-01-04T13:36:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': 'This class caused me so much pain. I took this class in the Spring of 2021. He\'s the only professor who teaches 350. He is a good lecturer and I understand he wants his students to learn and understand the material but he is very harsh and is not so nice. In order to do well in this class, you HAVE to understand the concepts which is where I struggled. The amount of practice problems I spent in this class did not matter because I did not understand the concept. I went to his office hours multiple times and he would get mad at me for not understanding the material so I just went to the TA\'s office hours instead. The exams were difficult for me, no matter how much I studied, I would still do poorly on exams. He barely gives credit on exams, either you got the question correct or you did not. If you attempted the problem "correctly" he would give 2 points, if you attempted the problem but did not have the right work it\'s a 0. There was so much work in this class that I had to drop one of my other classes and I still didn\'t pass. I was 3 percentage points away from passing the class so I emailed him hoping he could boost my grade up a little but he did not. This was one of the worst classes I have taken. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2021-08-16T15:20:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': "This course is taught much harder than it has to be, and sadly, Kim is the only lecturer for it. The lectures and notes that Kim writes are easy to follow, but the homework is more difficult than what is taught in the lecture, and then the exams are twice as hard/confusing as the homework was. From the notes to the homework, to the exams, it gets exponentially harder. The exam scores are just below 50% so they apply a heavy curve at the end of the semester. As long as you are at the average or within the standard deviation, you will pass. Labs are doable, but the TAs may not be the most helpful. They also do not understand the program needed for the labs, so they will probably know just as much as you do (as in not much). The pre-labs take a fair amount of time, so do not wait until the night before to get started.\r\n\r\nYou can review the material as much as you want, and attempt the practice problems, but the exam questions will be much more complicated somehow. Kim appears nice, but is difficult one on one, and is very strict with turning in homework. You HAVE to turn it in in person, and no later than 5 minutes after class starts, otherwise, he will not accept it. The course is UNNECCSSAIRLY hard, but if you're at the mean/within the standard deviation, you will pass.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-27T18:30:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': 'Kim is a very good lecturer. He goes slowly with the notes, making sure students have time to copy everything down and when he makes a mistake in his notes, he acknowledges and corrects them when students call him out for it. But this course is harder than it probably needs to be. Sometimes the homeworks are very straight forward and come straight from lecture note, and sometimes they require a lot of self-teaching. The exams remind of physics where everyone is expected to fail. The average for our first exam was 25/60. And sometimes the questions on exams go beyond what we learned in class and require us to figure out stuff on the fly, during the exam.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-04T12:07:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': 'I really enjoyed this class but it is needlessly difficult. Labs are easy enough, you need to do them all and get 100s because that will save your grade. I actually really liked doing the labs, very cool to see how these things work. Also you really don\'t need to attend lab, I stopped halfway through the semester. You can do it all from home. Homework ranges from being a total joke to complete frustration.\r\n\r\nHe\'s a good lecturer to a point. He explains things well, but it\'s very common for the homework to be incredibly difficult to anything shown in class. Textbook is basically useless.\r\n\r\nExams are.. interesting. I\'d say they\'re graded somewhat leniently based on how lost I felt the whole time. He\'s going to give you stuff that just makes you say "WTF." Somehow a lot of kids ace the tests. I really wish I knew how they did so much better. I never felt like I had enough practice material to really do well in this class. The practice material given was equally WTF so I had a really hard time learning. Really needed some more material of medium difficulty. I could do the easy stuff, but I feel that there\'s a massive divide between the easy stuff and the exam questions with nothing to help you broach that gap.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-15T23:15:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': "I have had experience with electronics, so this class was easy. That said, if you do not have previous experience, I would say give yourself more time to figure things out. That is why he lost a star; he assumes you have more context than lots of people have. I have that context, but other people don't.\r\nOne thing that helped is that I learned how to make complex circuits in CircuitLab, but I had to be careful because sometimes CircuitLab got some problems wrong.\r\nFor harder/longer questions on exams, I got few correct numerical answers, but I still got plenty of partial credit. He cares a lot about exactly correct setup for your equations, which is a decent way to approach grading.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-02T17:25:01.040496Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': 'You will learn a lot in this class but gauged by your own effort. Jungho is seen as a great teacher but is not useful. He disappeared before both of our midterms during the semester. Grades on midterms are unbearable and there is no true way to gauge your actual grade until the end of the semester. Get a good edition of the book and hold it dear. Also, if you don’t do well on exams, try your best to get above average on labs and homeworks and you may yet stand a chance.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-21T13:48:35.244132Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungho Kim', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': "Dr. Kim is a very good lecturer, but he takes pride in his class being really hard, which is a problematic educational philosophy. He tries to scare you into thinking you will fail his class, but if you put in effort, you will pass (it's very hard to get an A, but I don't think it's that hard to get a C-). Despite his scary demeanor, I do think he cares on the inside and wants people who try hard to succeed. The exams are extremely difficult but heavily curved -- I got a 19/60 on the first exam and still got a B in the class. Overall, it's just one of those classes you kinda have to suffer through, but it's not as bad as it could be.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-28T23:44:00.190872Z'}], 'name': 'Jungho Kim', 'slug': 'kim_jungho'}, {'courses': ['CHIN103', 'CHIN204', 'CHIN202', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN205', 'CHIN302', 'CHIN201', 'CHIN411', 'CHIN306', 'CHIN301', 'CHIN203', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN202', 'CHIN411', 'CHIN203', 'CHIN302', 'CHIN306', 'CHIN201', 'CHIN202', 'CHIN415', 'CHIN201', 'CHIN202', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN202', 'CHIN411'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Jungjung Lee-Heitz', 'course': 'CHIN306', 'review': "Her class is pretty intensive but she's a nice teacher and pushes you hard. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-04-30T03:41:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungjung Lee-Heitz', 'course': 'CHIN411', 'review': 'She prepares her classes very well, has interesting and engaging discussions, and expects a reasonable amount of effort from students. Quizzes are reasonable and preparing for them helps you understand the material a lot better. Would recommend taking her class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-10-19T14:55:46.304856Z'}, {'professor': 'Jungjung Lee-Heitz', 'course': 'CHIN101', 'review': "CHIN 101 is not kidding about being 6 credits! That being said, if you're prepared for very intensive workload, CHIN 101 is so rewarding, and Lee Laoshi is very kind and funny. She has high expectations but is also very understanding and will help you out if you come talk to her. Again, sometimes I thought the workload in this class was a little crazy (especially for a 100 level class!), but it is six credits, and I do feel like I've learned a ton of the language in just one semester! Recommend her and recommend the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-09T04:33:59.075196Z'}], 'name': 'Jungjung Lee-Heitz', 'slug': 'lee-heitz'}, {'courses': ['BSCI201', 'BSCI447', 'BSCI440', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI342', 'BSCI202', 'BIOL709I', 'WMST326', 'BSCI201', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI201', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI447', 'BSCI201', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI450', 'BSCI342', 'WGSS326', 'BSCI201', 'BSCI450', 'BSCI201', 'BSCI329', 'BSCI447'], 'average_rating': 3.7727, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': '*Dr. Opoku is a solid OK* This is a review for her summer course \n\r\nTemperament: \r\n1.Dr. Opoku is pretty nice unless you have a question regarding her lecture. Like a reviewer below me said -- she will shut you down REAL quick. She can get kind of mean if you question her in the slightest. \r\n2.She has some serious issues regarding body image. She makes some pretty awful jokes regarding skinny girls such as "oh, well you\'ll get osteoporosis meanwhile us big boned girls wont." It really made me and the rest of the class uncomfortable-- considering most of the class was girls. \r\n3. Unless you\'re willing to sit through her ranting for 30 min, do NOT ask her about basic research. You\'ve been warned. \n\r\nGrading/Lecture: \r\n1.She does not curve. Her class is out of 1000 points. With two exams and a final. (final is not cumulative.) She also has these "summary sheets" that are 30+ easy points. DO THESE. \r\nHalf of the class points come from lab, which has a MASSIVE amount of information. Learn the diagrams by heart and use the power points given by the TA\'s during lab. \r\n3. She writes her notes on an overhead projector like in middle school. Her handwriting is AWFUL and she writes unbelievably fast. I would suggest either bringing a laptop or prepare to get wrist cramps. \r\n4. Her exams are fairly ok, if you went to class. They come straight from her notes. so no book necessary here. \r\n5. Her exams consist of multiple choice, T/F, short answer, and a matching that creates a phrase. \r\n5. She has tons of extra credit points! (hence no curve) \n\r\nStudy Tips:\r\nThis class has a lot of material and she will ask you on everything she talked about in class. She hates the book(even though she uses it) and usually has slides that are from the book just to say "NOPE this is not the right thing. " So, I would suggest going to class. This class is totally doable and not really that hard if you take the time necessary to look at her notes. She\'s nothing special, a 3/5. \n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-07-06T15:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': 'OPOKU IS BAE. Literally this woman is a queen, and her outfits slay the game. On point every single class. Lecture exams aren\'t bad, just be on top of your stuff. I got A\'s on all of them. I think my lowest test grade was a 91 on the final. Yeah, so they\'re not hard, just study and you\'ll be fine hahah I don\'t understand how people were getting D\'s an F\'s on them when they\'re really not difficult as long as you prepared yourself. Overall, lecture is pretty good and it\'s a fun environment. Opoku likes to make jokes and talk about her kids and her life in general, so you always left lecture with a smile even if you were learning about atherosclerotic plaques or synchondroses or some other seemingly boring topic. \n\r\nLab, however, is a different story. I\'ve gotten the general gist that with Opoku, Lecture is okay, and lab is awful, and with Lombardi it\'s the opposite. This is very true for Opoku, but not as bad as it seems. With lab, you just have to know a LOT more information for the practicals than you do for lecture exams. There are 4 practicals: tissues and cells, skin and bones, muscles, and the nervous system/senses + endocrine system. I got a 94, 83, 86, and 100, respectively. Know. Your. Shit. There is no way else that you\'ll be able to make it through. Your lab experience will also be defined by your TA. My TA was very sweet and lenient when appropriate. Instead of asking us to identify more challenging muscle origins/insertions like the brachioradialis or tensor fasciae latae, she\'d give "easier" ones like....deltoid or gluteus maximus, that everyone knows haha. The first practical is a piece of cake. Once it gets to the skeletal/muscular practicals, the volume of information to know SKYROCKETS, but you can do it. Honestly, above all, this is a bio course, and ALL of biology is just memorization. So if you\'re good at that, this class isn\'t a problem. Also, don\'t forget to do the 7 online prelab quizzes. They\'re online and open note, and probably the easiest 70 points to earn in this 1000-point class. I think I ended up with a 56/70 cus I got 8/10 on a few and I forgot to do one before the deadline. But honestly, don\'t lose petty points on easy things like prelab quizzes. ALSO, she doesn\'t curve at the ended since literally 1/5 of every exam/assignment is extra credit. So if you\'re at a 89.999999% in the end, and your TA isn\'t nice, expect to get a B+. I had a 92.95% (which is an A-) and thank GOD my TA gave me a straight A, but some aren\'t so nice. \n\r\nOverall, you can get an A in this class if you put in the work. It\'s not that big of a commitment for a 4-credit course. And Opoku is the queen of everything, so that makes it 10x more enjoyable. I highly recommend taking this! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-06-06T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "At first I freaked out about this class because there were a lot of reviews saying it was really hard BUT, the class isn't hard, you just need to put in the effort. The first exam is a wake up call because you realize just how much information you are expected to know for the exam. After that, alter your studying style appropriately and put in enough time and you'll do well! She gives SO much extra credit on tests and in lab, I ended up having over 100% in the class which i never thought was possible. Make sure you study a lot, about a week before the exam at the very least. My studying style was to go through class notes and the lecture slides and make index cards for every topic/term and then go through them a bunch until i knew everything. Making the index cards takes up half of the studying time but trust me its worth it in the end and makes studying so much more effective and easier. Make sure to go to class or you will miss important notes! And study just as much for the lab practical! they have alot of info on them. The third practical nearly killed my brain. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-10T22:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Dr. Opoku is a really cool teacher and always made me smile in class. She knows a lot about the material and says everything at least twice in lecture, which helps you remember it. She handwrites notes rather than putting it all on a powerpoint, which is good and bad. It's good because you can see the thought process that goes into something rather than just a solid block of text to look at. It's also good for any diagrams that she needs to show us. However, sometimes it's hard to read her handwriting or if you miss something you can't go look on the slides later. It also sucks when you can't make it to lecture, because she puts most of the important information into the parts that she handwrites.\r\nShe will tell you questions that she always asks on the exams and she does not try to trick you on them. They have a matching section that spells out a phrase which is awesome. \r\nAlso, the final is not cumulative which is very helpful in a course that has as much information as this. \r\nThe lab was the hardest part of this course. The info wasn't lined up with the lecture info, so you were basically teaching yourself names and processes and then two weeks later Opoku goes over it in lecture and you finally understand it, after you've already taken the practical. I think the amount of information you need to know for the last couple practicals is entirely too much, I got B+ on the first two and a D+ on the third, and I don't feel very confident for the 4th.\r\nOverall, this is a tough course but I think Dr. Opoku does a really great job with it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-05T16:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "she's a very definite OK. The class itself is very time consuming, and her lecture style is weird. Her handwriting is terrible, i repeat, TERRIBLE. Shes a fair tester, HOWEVER if you every disagree with anything she'll immediately shut you down, and even laugh in your face. Like i said prior, a very firm mediocre. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-04-15T01:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "Stay away from this woman. Whoever gave the 1 star had it absolutely right. I cannot say anything about the 201 experience, but 447 was a nightmare. I took 17 credits the semester I had Dr. Opoku and received high A’s in all of my classes except this one. She purposely picks a TA with no background in the field to grade your exams so they can’t justify why they took off points beyond saying “it’s not on the key.” There were arithmetic errors in my grade calculation on each exam. The entire class had to go to her office hours to argue about each question on the exam, but she was very dismissive about each argument, especially if the whole class had an issue with a question, which contrary to conventional practices. Even if you wrote answers that were verbatim from the slides (which are the only answers she says she will accept), you will get a lot of points off without explanation. The extra 10 points set up on each exam are virtually worthless because it is nearly impossible to finish her exams. The questions are ambiguous in terms of what is being asked and the grading is worse. There is no grading rubric, and points are taken off subjectively and unevenly from test to test. In other words, there is no amount of preparation and readiness that you can demonstrate to do well on the exams. It is completely out of your control. I don’t know where her grading distribution is coming from because most of the class was failing or had low C’s coming into the final. The average on the final was a 75% (153/200). So considering the class average was already in the low C range, and about 50% of the class scored less than a 75%, a great portion of her class obtained failing marks. I had more anxiety about this class than for my MCAT. Even people who had A’s in her class hated the exam grading/teaching style. When exams were compared side-by-side, some people had a lot of points taken off for the exact same answers that received full credit, but appeals for regrades were dismissed with little to no explanation. Her accent is difficult to understand sometimes and her handwriting is atrocious, which becomes an issue when you have to understand big vocabulary words and have no idea what she’s saying or writing. It is also an issue when you have to distinguish hyper/hypofunction and cannot understand which one she said. There is a slight 2-3% curve in the class to account for +/- grades, but it is not 10% like the person was saying below. That 10% is in reference to the extra 10pts on each exam. The material is actually pretty easy, but the grading is frustrating and insufferable. So even if you know the material backwards and forwards and put up correct answers on the exam, you will still get failing grades (60’s) on your tests. Take this class with any other professor than Dr. Opoku. \n\r\nIf you do get stuck into taking this class, she emphasizes hormonal effects on hypertension/hypotension (what caused it, why, what’s the mechanism of action, how do you treat or manage it). She loves GH, cortisol, and insulin. Our final had a few sections (about 20% of the test) on adrenergic receptors in terms of where they act, so BSCI440 was helpful for this class. She hinted at diseases we were going to see again for final, which helps prepare for cumulative review. Make sure you know the distinction between management and treatment. She favored D and E in her multiple choices, so if you don’t know, go with one of those. In general, we had to know symptoms of diseases well because her prompts included minute differences that indicated what the disease was. She used large vocabulary words, both medically pertinent and grammatically, on her exams. Make sure to know both (they will be in her slides) so you understand what will be asked. Sometimes we were asked to define the words, sometimes they were just used and we had to explain how the phenomena occurred. But if you didn’t know what the word meant, you were out of luck, even if the word had nothing to do with biology. We only needed to know signal transduction in detail for the 1st exam. After that (including the final), the most we had to know about it is what type of path it takes, but not the actual process for it. Your best bet is to memorize the slides and regurgitate what they said. Do not deviate from them or you will get the whole question wrong (-10pts) per problem. The final also asked about the same diseases over and over, so don't be concerned if you end up describing the same disease 3 times in 3 different sections on the final. Acromegally, anything cortisol related, and ADH related was heavily emphasized. (She might hint at what she will emphasize for your final in the few weeks approaching it, so be sure to go to class then.)\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-02-20T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "Extremely chilled for a 400-level bio class. Just take good notes, have a good level of understanding, and the exams should be simple. The final was rough, but still doable. I do not think she curves but has built-in extra credits on every exam. But given how well the class was doing this semester, curving should be unnecessary. \n\r\nDr. Opoku is also super nice, has a good sense of humor, and is very knowledgable about the subject. This class is also very clinically relevant. You'll learn a lot about several different endo diseases. Should be interesting if you are planning to go into medicine. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-21T23:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "I love Dr. Opoku! I had her for Summer Term I and am expecting B+ (hopefully an A-). Opoku is a very fair professor, and although she doesn't curve, she gives a lot of extra credit on her exams and take home assignments. I definitely put a little more effort into this class than I did in some of my other science courses - just because getting an A in this class is very possible. Attend all her lectures and keep up with your notes. Personally, I typed up, re-organized, and printed my notes toward the end of each week and reviewed the info days before each exam/practical. Study everything before you look at the review sheets and do the practice exams - the study sheets were helpful in highlighting key areas of focus, but I felt more comfortable studying everything. \n\r\nLike I said, Opoku doesn't curve, but she does help you out. She adds like 10-20 extra credit points onto each exam and the matching section spells out a phrase, making it almost impossible to eff up. And her handwriting sucks at first, but you get used to it.\n\r\nThe practicals were a little harder to study for. They were mostly straight up memorization (ID'ing structures and functions) so pneumonic devices will definitely help. Considering there aren't review sheets for these - study everything. \n\r\nAlso, I didn't buy the textbook, and I don't recommend that you do. Just write good notes and save yourself like $100! :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-07-08T21:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Opoku is a great for bsci201 and i wish she still taught bsci202 because obrien is horrible for 202.\n\r\nopoku's exams are straight from the powerpoints so just memorize those and you are good to go. she has matching on her exams for 20 points which also spells out a word so if you are stuck on 2 and have some blanks you can figure it out based on the word which makes for an easy 20 points.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-06-08T00:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "Great professor I took BSCI447 and BSCI 342 with her, got A's in both. She'll lecture with powerpoints up, but make sure you listen; the powerpoints alone aren't enough. I suggest taking notes with a computer because she talks quickly, and gives you a lot of information.\n\r\nShe likes to make exams with built-in curves (120 possible points, but your grade will be out of 100 so you can get a 120%). \n\r\nAll in all, she's great and you'll learn a lot from her. I'd like to clarify about concerns in the statement below though:\n\r\n1) the TA for that semester was terrible. I agree, and I hated him. But if you go back to her and actually talk to her, she'll give you points back if you deserve it (you need to write in DETAIL, not just main points for exams). \r\n2) she doesn't like giving curves, but what the poster below didn't mention was that she did give a 10% final grade curve because the final exam was difficult. So not only did she give ~100 cumulative points of extra credit built into exams, she also gave an overall 10% curve. I would call that generous. \r\n3) powerpoints aren't that bad... you just have to listen in class also", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-24T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': '...i don\'t know who wrote the previous reviews or how the grade distribution for A\'s for her course is so high, but do not take this class. i have never gotten less than an A in any course in college. i took 4 other 400 level bio courses this semester, 70% of my studying time alone went to endo.. i got A+\'s in all my other courses but struggled for a c in this course...even if your answers on your exam are correct there is a 50/50 chance that it will be marked wrong (no joke). she purposely chooses a ta who has never taken endo and has no knowledge of the course whatsoever so that he follows her answer key to the T so expect no partial credit. when i say that your answers will be marked wrong even if they are right, and you can prove it using her own powerpoints or the internet, i mean it... workwise the class is only 3 exams and a final. the average on the final (which is worth 40% of your grade) in my semester was a 40%.. she "does not believe in curves". think about that.. bottom line do not take this class. i would compare her teaching and grading style to bhagats except she has poorly made powerpoints.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'c-', 'created': '2012-01-02T20:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Get ready to write... a LOT. Dr Opoku basically has the powerpoint up in lecture and writes down allll her notes by marker directly onto the screen. By the end of lecture you'll have like 3 pages of handwritten notes. You have to be paying attention, or you'll miss important info.. or you can just be like 1 of those people who mass email the whole class lol. Opoku's exams are okay if you really know the exam outline she posts. \r\nBeware of lab. Lab is incredibly overwhelming at times and will absolutely suck if you have a bad TA. Be ready to memorize a lot of terms and locations on the body (muscles and bones practicals were hardest) and don't wait til the last minute to study.\n\r\nGoodluck!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-26T20:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "absolutely nicest professor, hands down. she gives so many chances for extra credit. review her slides/notes and you'll be fine on her exams. like everyone said, lab is a big part so make sure you study ALOT for lab practicals.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T18:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Dr. Opoku is a great professor. You must come to class, however, to take the notes (or ask a classmate for the notes you missed). By studying from the notes, you can easily get a high A on her lecture exams. That doesn't mean that the material is easy!\r\nWorry more the lab practicals because you have to memorize, for instance, 80 muscles and their respective origins, insertions, and functions for one practical. You will likely be getting A's on the lecture exams, B's/C's on the lab practicals.\r\nHer accent is confusing at first, but easier to understand as the year goes on. In all honesty, you don't even have to listen to what she says--just write down what she writes on the slides and you're good to go! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-12T21:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "I love Dr. Opoku! She doesn't overwhelm students with too much material but instead focuses on student's knowing the topics well. She's friendly and really easy-going. She gives you all the resources you need (without a textbook) to do well on the exams. She is very reasonable; you get the grade you deserve based on how much you study and how much you come to class. Coming to class is a must though!\n\r\nOne flaw is that class can get boring and sometimes she writes her notes too fast so it can get annoying to keep up but you can always record the lectures to get any notes you missed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-04T12:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': " I love Dr. Opoku! She is much easier than professor O'brien, maybe not in terms of content, but Opoku's exams are easier. She gives a review sheet and practice exam before every exam which really helps! Not the mention she has a good sense of humor and charm.\r\n She recently started using powerpoints in class, along with the notes she writes down on the overhead.\r\nEven though she says you must get the notes she writes down and come to class everyday, its not THAT important. Majority of the info comes from powerpoints...so study the powerpoints word for word too! \r\nAny anatomy class is a lot of work, so just give yourself time to study...because this stuff isn't difficult, its pure memorization!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-07T18:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Opoku is a great teacher. She wants all of her students to succeed. If you utilize her office hours and get to know her she will definitely push you up and help you if you are on the borderline. Start this early though because she really does make a difference and lets you know what you need to study.\n\r\nYes, at first her accent is tough to understand, but if you have any background knowledge about anatomy you will understand. If you are confused ask her about it in office hours or ask a TA. TA's dont really help in this class because none of them usually are human anatomy grad students. Mine was a flower evolutionist...but she did help anyone to her best ability.\n\r\nThe textbook is not necessary but the lab manual is. I also suggest you take pictures of the models in lab for the lab practicals. For both the test and the lab, do not leave studying until the last minute, especially if this is not your only lab class. I took micro with this class (7 hours of lab a week total) and the tests often fell within the same week. If you start studying and memorizing early you should do fine. \n\r\nAll in all, the class can be tough but very interesting. And just like all classes utilize the teacher and you will do great, especially with Opoku", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-25T17:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Yeah, yeah, everyone knows how amazing Dr. Opoku is - she's nice, warm, funny, intelligent, and all-in-all, a great teacher. You should take her over anyone else for any class you might take with her.\r\nONE IMPORTANT THING I WANT TO MAKE CLEAR is about the LAB PORTION of the class. The class is 4 credits, but really, at least 2 of them should be lab. Spend time in lab going over lab models and memorizing EVERYTHING. Do a little bit each week to prepare for the 3 lab practicals. I got like a 75 on the first one and was devastated, but I ended up getting a 98 on the last one. WORK HARD ON LAB and be prepared for its' difficulty. Its a lot harder than lecture. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-24T00:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Dr. Opoku is the best. Take BSCI201 with her! I have never had a teacher who actually wanted his/her students to succeed as much as Dr. Opoku did. I often went to her during office hours and she was extremely helpful. Although there is not real curve in the class, her tests are pretty much just spit-back, so memorize the notes she puts up on the board and you'll succeed. She is an amazingly warm teacher who really wants her students to do well. I would take her in a heartbeat if she taught other classes which I need. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-19T05:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Opoku was a better choice overall (other choice was O'Brien, and that wasn't going to be any better). She basically writes on the projector the ENTIRE class, but I suggest you buy the whole semester of notes from Terpnotes or something. Your hand will be sooooo tired by the end class that I see people constantly having to stop to take a break! Also, her handwriting is illegible, so you're bound to have gaps in your notes (make sure to sit next to a friend to decipher what she is writing).\r\nAnyways, her accent is super annoying and takes some getting used to (I never did). Yes, she may be nice, but I really don't see what the other reviewers are talking about. She's just OK. \r\nThe course material is very interesting, but there is A LOT of information so don't cram! The labs are easy, and same goes for the practicals during labs, do NOT cram. Don't waste your money on the textbook either, but the Lab manual is a must. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-17T00:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': 'Opoku is one of the most intelligent professors in Maryland. She lectures based on knowledge instead of using pre-made powerpoint slides. Most professors come to class prepared with powerpoint slides, and spend most of their time reading directly off the slides. Opoku does not need to do this because she knows the material. \r\nThere are a few cons to her class though. First off, she writes very quickly, and sometimes, her handwriting is illegible. \r\nYou would obviously have to attend class because she does not post her notes online. Take her class with a friend in case you miss class and need to obtain notes. \r\nHer exam questions come directly from her notes, so it is unnecessary to purchase the textbook. Unfortunately, some of her exam questions are quite detailed so understanding the "big picture" is not sufficient enough to do well on her exams. You need to know the little details too. \r\nOverall, Opoku is very willing to help. Her accent takes some time to get used to, but eventually, you\'ll adjust to it. Do not cram for this class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-13T23:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': 'I really enjoyed the class, just make sure you review her notes and you will be fine for the exam and the final...one got me was the lab, it was very hard but I even prepared a week before the lab practical, I suggest you start way earlier then that. I really enjoyed the nervous system lab(my favorite) and the bone practical and muscle practical were very hard but please study really hard for it Good Luck! :) she is a great professor ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-04T20:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': 'I really enjoyed taking Endocrinology w/Dr. Opoku. As other students have said, she really knows her stuff and she has a great sense of humor. She also adds some extra credit points to her exams, making a good grade in the course very attainable.\n\r\nThe course is much more clinically relevant than most biology courses I have taken. Dr. Opoku focuses on signs and symptoms of endocrine diseases as well as diagnostic testing and treatment. \n\r\nI would recommend becoming friends w/whoever you sit next to b/c Dr. Opoku writes fast and you need to make sure you write down everything she does in order to be ready for the exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-14T17:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Opoku is one of the best professors I've had so far in college. She is incredibly nice and the most willing person I've ever come across to help with her students' concerns. She will stay way after lecture to discuss exam questions and corrections. She has an accent, so it takes a few days to get used to the way she pronounces words. However, she basically nullifies this fact by writing out every word that comes out of her mouth...you can't possibly miss a piece of information if you pay attention. A piece of advice: DON'T TAKE YOUR NOTES ON A COMPUTER!!! Yes, the class is INTENSE amounts of hand-written notes and your hand will hurt for the first couple of lectures, but you will thank yourself later in the course if you take notes by hand. Opoku is extremely organized, and knows practically everything about human anatomy and physiology. The best thing about her teaching style is that she makes her own comments about everything, explaining why and how things happen beyond what she expects you to know. It is true you really don't NEED the textbook, but it is a fabulous text and explains things extremely well--it's more of a reference book for studying--I highly recommend it. Her exams are all multiple choice and short answer, so you need to own the information to do well. If you DO NOT PROCRASTINATE on studying and pay a lot of attention to her in class, you will do very well. Lastly, DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT MAKE FLASHCARDS TO HELP YOU STUDY. Your stack of cards will be miles high in 2 seconds. Instead, re-write your notes and draw pictures to help remember things. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-01T21:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "She's a great professor! She has a great sense of humor, and if you're interested in endocrinology, then this class is definitely for you. Her exams are literally word for word from her lectures, so you HAVE to go to class to do well. Exams are half multiple choice, half short answer. If you start studying for the exams a couple of days in advance, you're pretty much guaranteed an A (but DON'T wait until the last minute to start studying, you WILL NOT do well!!!). One of the easiest 400 level classes I've taken.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-04T09:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "So here's how you get an A in 201 and 202 without working very hard... First off, don't waste your money buying the textbook because the course is based on lecture notes. Next, go to bookholders and pay for the entire semesters notes (going to class is pretty pointless and if you've read any of the reviews we are not lying about taking notes the entire lecture). About 3 or 4 days before the exam start memorizing. The exams are very simple in that there are no trick questions and almost no thinking outside the box. Dr. Opoku basically wants to see how much information you can retain and then regurgitate in 50 minutes. The science is very basic for a 200 level course but the volume of information is what can make this class difficult. With that being said, DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT procrastinate. If you give yourself 3 days of memorizing you will ace the exams.\r\nDr. Opoku is incredibly nice and easy to talk to so I definitely recommend going to her office hours to get to know her. She is incredibly intelligent and loves to discuss physiology and medicine so if you have a question, chances are she can answer it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-25T22:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': "Opoku literally knows everything about Anatomy. Dont worry about the book, Exams are strictly from lecture so study hard and you will get an A. Coming to class is imperative because If you don't, Opoku is a machine and writes so much that you miss alot so make sure you have a friend who has your back. Lab manual you need though.\r\n Both lecture and lab require insane amounts of memorizing but Im assuming if youre taking BSCI201/202 you have to because otherwise this class as an elective would make you the dumbest person alive. Just make sure to study about 3 - 4 days in advance and you will be fine!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-28T14:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "She is amazing you get everything you need in lecture word for word. She knows her stuff. She will test on her lecture and you dont need the textbook. I dont know anyone who even bought the book. One of the easier upper level A's.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'b', 'created': '2009-02-02T13:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': 'This professor is really great. She is intense and it is alot of work, but I really enjoyed the class. She literally writes on the overhead for the whole class and you copy it down. It makes your hand tired, but she is intersting. The lab is alot of work too... tonnnnns of memorizing, but if you put in the time, it is doable. The book is unnecessary. The lab manual is necessary.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-15T15:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': 'She is a great teacher. I would take any course she taught. She is funny and really makes the subject interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-02-05T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': 'If you have to take this class for your major and need a good grade, Opoku is very much fine as her exams are fair and have plenty of easy extra credit questions. HOWEVER, her lecture style is drier than the Sahara Desert and if you cannot endure the idea of looking at her absolutely terrible hand written notes on a projector that goes faster than you can type for EVERY SINGLE LECTURE, do not take this class. To give you an idea of how horrible the lecture experience is, my TA recommended me to record every lecture while writing down notes, then listen back to the lecture again and fill out the unavoidable blanks you will have on your notes because she writes in supersonic speeds. A&P is already a dry subject, but my god Opoku\'s lectures suck even the smallest molecule of water out of the content and what you have left is literally just copying words from the projector to your notes.\r\n\r\nALSO, everything she hand writes will be on the exam, but when she lectures and writes at the same time her sentences are fragmented to hell, with long pauses between each word as she speaks while she writes. Imagine, instead of "mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell", you get "mitochondria -- is -- the -- powerhouse -- of -- the -- cell". This makes the lecture very disorienting as the most important parts of the contents are spoken in a way that is hard to comprehend as one whole sentence, especially when she\'s talking about cause and effect stuff like functions of mechanisms.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-11-13T18:12:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "The worst professor I've ever had at UMD. She is very arrogant and thinks that she is right about everything. During our first exam, a fire alarm went off and she told the class we could retake the exam another time. A couple of days later, she told the class she never said we could retake the exam and so everyone had to fight to get her to allow us to retake it. A student called her out on this, she got offended, and took extra credit away from every student on the next exam because of it. She's really a terrible lady, and will give you a lot more stress than you need. Exams are also ridiculously hard. Do yourself a favor and avoid her. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-19T20:34:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Opoku is an okay professor. The class itself isn't that bad, but her exams can be really tricky. The multiple-choice, which is 1/3 of the exams, is tricky as you have to pay attention to the wording. However, if you take notes on what she writes, you should do okay on the exam. Also, there are bonus points embedded within her exam. \r\nOn a different note, her handwriting is terrible, so it is hard to read. Also, she talks extremely fast and has an accent, so it's difficult to understand what she is saying. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-04-16T00:20:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Okay heres the deal. For anyone on the fence between Opoku or Lombardi, either is a good choice but it depends on your learning style. Opoku does not do lecture well at all BUT all the stuff you need to know on the exam is in her powerpoints/from notes you take during class. So if you don't have a problem with self-study, this is a super easy class. TBH all the bad reviews are probably bc their teaching style is more of a lecture type (nothing wrong with that) but with Opoku you need to take time to study and quiz yourself on the material and you will do fine. On my exams I got 89 to 95s and all I did was cram 4-3 days before (I don't recommend doing this) but all i would do is take notes from the powerpoint and use quizlet and thats it lol.\r\nAlthough I didn't have Lombardi I went to her lectures before I had to switch out and she does lecture really well BUT her exams are less memorization and more application (so I've heard) so if that's more of your style then you should probably take Lombardi.\r\n\r\nFor my Opoku gang, I was forced to take her bc of schedule conflicts and i was so upset abt it but I ended up really liking it just bc I find straight memorization easier than application. Literally everything on the exam will be straight from the powerpoints and its straight memorization. STRAIGHT MEMORIZAION. I promise. there's multiple choice, true/false, short answer, and matching (the letters form a sentence). As long as you get the gist of how some things relate to each other and how she words it on the powerpoints you will do fine. The class in general learned how her exams are formatted and the average went from a 60 to an 80. So if you start studying the first time and you will do fine on the first exam and get ahead of the class.\r\nLab wise it depends on the TA, mine would take half the lab time and she was really lenient with answers so unfortunately you cant really control that but overall the lab practicals are also straight memorization but you NEED to study. Just reviewing wont be enough. Its hard. I got 90s on all of mine but I also studied on quizlet throughout the week and tried to connect information together. If you can push yourself to study as much as you can and have some self-control to set aside time to study, you can probably get 80-90s on each practical. Its definitely not impossible.\r\nOverall, its an okay class but if you are not willing to put in the work, you're gonna end up regretting taking the class. Its doable I promise. I wish I could answer any questions you guys might have bc it was a rollercoaster for me and I wish I could help you guys more. But for now, you got this. GOOD LUCK!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-02T19:36:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "Dr. Opoku has very little regard for the well-being of her students and teaches with a large sense of entitlement. Her exams are unreasonably long, and she has a TA without any biology background grade from a rigid answer key and she almost never gives partial credit if your answer doesn't exactly match it. She speaks so quickly it's near impossible to take notes in class, and I honestly learned next to nothing at every lecture because she made the material so dense. It's a shame really because endocrinology is an interesting subject, but unless you're planning on going to med or grad school please save yourself the energy and take an easier upper-level bio course.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T22:59:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': 'Dr. Opoku has a very distinct lecture style and once you get used to it, you’ll be golden. Her exams all follow exactly the same format so after the first one, you’ll know what to expect there too. She’s the most knowledgeable (about her own field) professor I’ve ever met. You could ask her questions that are only very peripherally related and she’ll know the answer. She’s very receptive to people coming to her with questions or just for conversation. I took 440 with her as well and did not regret it. The one drawback is is that you will likely do poorly on your first exam with her bc they’re very difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s okay tho because most of her exams also have bonus points built in. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-09T21:14:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': 'Bro... one of the worst professors I\'ve had. The way the class is structured, she reads straight from the PowerPoints (which are very disorganized) and then writes down "relevant" information (which is really just reiterating what was on the PowerPoint) on paper. The amount of paper she uses has probably killed an entire forest. The information she writes down is also very disorganized. There are no supplemental assignments, so your entire grade rests on the lecture exams, lab practicals, and pre-lab quizzes. Her exams are based on memory but you really need to memorize EVERYTHING because they are so specific. There is a huge amount of material as well so this is not that easy. She may be very knowledgeable but she is not a good lecturer at all.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-30T20:43:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'She knows her stuff. Unfortunately she writes on a paper in extremely messy font, does not show all of the stuff she writes, and then moves forward without letting students capture the material. She narrates the content, but it is hard to follow and understand as she speaks way too fast and with an accent. Though I did well, exams are way too long, and are keyword based. Very disorganized overall, too specific, huge amounts of material, frustrating lectures. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-09T21:26:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'If you are able to avoid this class with this Professor, do so. I have never gotten a C before. Now, I’m struggling to just pass this class and I’ve already done well in A&P . Her exams heavily focus on material she will show you 2 days prior to the exam. Also, the TA I had always rushed through discussion and ended up changing a quiz question after I took the quiz which then caused my entire answer to be wrong. So be careful. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-11T20:06:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "this class ruined my mental health. the rubrics were so specific she was basically asking us to read her mind. don't take bsci440 with her ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-14T03:05:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Do NOT recommend her. One of the worst professors I had at UMD!\r\nLecture: Her slides are dense and messy so reviewing them before the exam is nearly impossible. She narrates her lectures but it’s very hard to understand with her thick accent. She hand-writes her notes during lectures with unbelievably messy handwriting and a speech that is faster than typing. Opoku REFUSED to provide lecture recordings THAT SHE ALREADY HAS when I got COVID so you better not get sick during the 15-weeks of her lectures.\r\nExams: Her exams are inhumanely long (8 muti-parts problems for 50 mins). Grading rubrics look for VERY specific phrases/explanations so you need memorize exactly how she explained in class. TAs take forever to grade and hand back exams. Since the majority of your grade (~80%) is exams and the final, getting one shitty exam grade is done. She does curve slightly (about 5%) for my semester.\r\nDiscussion: Discussion and quizzes focus on different things than lecture. Very hit or miss depending on TAs. They are getting rid of it going forward so that’s good. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-24T03:14:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': 'honestly i really like this class. i feel like im able to teach myself the content in decent time, and i really appreciate that the topics between lab and lecture so heavily overlap. since theyre considered one class, you have quite a few exams. but, i really have no major issues w the course or dr. opoku. the slides are always easy to understand. and opoku does give you everything you need to succeed for the lecture exams.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-03T15:42:53.693613Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI450', 'review': 'Currently taking her hybrid class. Absolutely terrible lecturer, so robotic and not engaging. Does not provide practice problems and does not leave room for questions during lectures. Class is just a verbatim repeat of her 2+ hour-long asynchronous lectures. Do not recommend her unless you want to self-teach one of the hardest UMD bio classes.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-09T18:05:41.995581Z'}, {'professor': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "I was skeptical coming into her class because of all the mixed reviews but it's honestly MID rating. She gives SOLID 3-star vibes. \r\nI think she is very knowledgable, she knows what she's talking about but it is impossible to listen to her. I'm in her hybrid class so it is videos MW and then the lecture on Friday, and she literally spits out the same things that she goes over in the lecture videos. EXACTLY the same. Honestly it's impressive how she can do it, it's honestly robotic like the person below me has said about the hybrid class but it is so boring. \r\nHer lecture exams are literally you study every single detail on the slides and also be able to understand concepts, basically know everything to do good. Our first exam average was so bad that she had to add extra points...\r\nIf you do well memorizing and you have no other stem classes or a social life you will do well.\r\nI agree with others on the lab portion of this class. You need a good TA and just study and memorize and you're good to go. Lab is easier than lecture if you are better at memorizing diagrams and facts vs the concepts of lecture.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-01T21:45:17.247068Z'}], 'name': 'Justicia Opoku-Edusei', 'slug': 'opoku-edusei'}, {'courses': ['JOUR200', 'JOUR200U', 'JOUR150'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Justin Hudson', 'slug': 'hudson_justin'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101H', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL101X', 'ENGL292', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL388C', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL297', 'IDEA101', 'ARHU380', 'ENGL378Q', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL292', 'ENGL388C', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Justin Lohr', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': "Professor Lohr is great!!!!!!! Honestly I didn't know he had that many bad reviews on here. He is very relaxed but he knows exactly what he is talking about. He is very passionate about what he teaches and its obvious. I think that's a GREAT quality for an english teacher to have especially for a Freshman Writing Class. I would definitely recommend him. Professor Lohr is so helpful he is blunt which helps. He alway gives great feedback and he writes nice letters on the comments sheet when he grades your paper. I love professor Lohr and trust me I do not like writing. God blessed me with Professor Lohr! I love him I would certainly recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-01-10T22:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Lohr', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': "First I'll give you the good: He's an excellent teacher and a fun guy. Lectures are generally interesting and you can tell he really cares about teaching you writing, and he's definitely really passionate about it himself. He outlines what he expects from you fairly clearly and the activities we do in class are really relevant to the course material. The homework helps also, though it's a little excessive. The class is interesting in general, and you get to pick your own topic to write about, which is nice. \n\r\nNow the bad: He's an evil grader. He literally never gives higher than an A- and only 2% of his students even get that much. I wanted a 4.0 for this semester and this class ruined my chance at that, otherwise I would have gotten it. I worked like hell for this class too, I spent six hours just editing some of my papers, I don't even know how long I spent writing them. Like I said before the homework is also excessive, it helps for the most part and most of it ties into the bigger assignments but there's way more than any other section gets. When you have four other classes it's hard to fit in that much extra stuff, even if they're smaller assignments. I'm a bio major, I want to focus most on my other classes more related to my major but this class takes up so much time. Even if I didn't do A level work, I know some of the other people in my class definitely did. It's just plain mean to outright not give anything above an A-.\n\r\nIn summary: If you really need to get better at writing and you're not too worried about your gpa, this is a good class. But otherwise stay far away from it, it's far too much work for little pay off. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-20T23:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Lohr', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': "Take Lohr if you are looking for: an exciting English class that allows you to follow your interests in-depth and become a truly better writer. You will feel like you learned a lot about writing and improved tremendously over the course of the semester.\n\r\nDon't take this class if you are looking for: An easy A and a manageable workload. Lohr is a harsh grader (w/ justification given for why he takes points off always) that demands a lot in his assignments. Lots of essential reading to do every week and the big projects take serious time to do well. \n\r\nOverall, it depends on what you are looking for. If you have the attitude of wanting to learn over getting a 4.0 GPA, then Lohr is your guy - the class, I am confident, will help in the long-term much more than any other ENGL101 class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-12-14T17:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Lohr', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': 'Lohr was by far the best and most caring English teacher I have ever had. Granted, his class had a significant amount of more work than other sections had, but the work rarely ever seemed completely pointless. In other words, just about every single assignment he gives is geared to hone your skills in a specific area of writing. His lectures are always crystal clear, and he covers all the main points in the reading out of Engagements for each class. \r\nAlso, he is so helpful in his office hours and is very generous in the amount of time he gives up to help students - you can even email him over the weekend and he\'d get back to you in no time. He basically handed me my ideas for my final two papers.\r\nFinally, he has some of the best character traits I have ever seen. Not only is he very nice and respectful in class, but he also responds to joking and side topics very positively - to a reasonable extent, of course. And his mannerisms are always entertaining, to the point where it becomes fun to joke about what a character he is outside of class with other classmates.\r\nFinally, he reads every single word of your papers and is always willing to write comments in the margins, sometimes even stretching from the top to the bottom of the page. And his love notes at the end are always pleasant, following the format: "Dear ---, thank you for submitting this draft. In it, you....Work on these skills in future projects. I look forward to reading them".\n\r\nOverall, great guy, great teacher, great class. I highly recommend him.\n\r\nOh, and PS: He does grade fairly harshly, but it is very manageable to get a high grade in the class as long as you put in a fair amount of effort. Don\'t let that 2% A distribution scare you away.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-15T11:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Lohr', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': "Lohr made me like Englich class. All throughout high school I hated English so much and had an awful foundation in writing, etc. Lohr made the class so engaged and current that I actually (for the first time ever) looked forward to going to English. He is a bit of a tough grader, but it was Honors; that's to be expected. I definitely could have put forth more effort than I did, but I feel that I got the grade I deserved. Lohr is an amazing professor, and is very approachable. I highly recommend him to anyone in the Honors College!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2013-04-29T12:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Lohr', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': "Lohr's class was more difficult than most writing courses I've taken in the past, but he made it generally pleasant. While he graded somewhat harshly, I was more driven to put significant effort into my essays, and I think my writing improved as a result.\n\r\nInterestingly, he never particularly cared about the tiny details of formatting or citations, nor was he particularly harsh regarding style. He graded essays mostly based on their content and arrangement, rather than anything else.\n\r\nOverall, he kept class fairly interesting. When I'm next forced to take a writing class, I'll try to find one that he teaches.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-01-01T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Lohr', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': 'Lohr is a great teacher. You will learn a lot and improve your writing. I felt like he was the only professor who cared about teaching me the entire semester. \n\r\nThat being said, he is a harsh grader. Do not expect an A unless you are Shakespeare. \n\r\nI would recommend him for improving your writing and a pretty worthwhile class, but not for raising your GPA. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-07T03:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Lohr', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "The good stuff:\r\nOne of the wisest and knowledgeable professors I've had. Really cares about his subject and cares that his students learn and grow as writers. He is always willing to help and will always work with you to improve your writing skills and confidence. I learned more about writing in his class than any other English class. Really nice and respectful guy. Also cracks some funny jokes in class too.\r\n\r\nThe not so good stuff:\r\nHe is a tough grader. This is because his standards are high and expects good work from his students. It makes sense because he puts in lots of effort to teaching and expects the same from his students. He gives more homework than the average ENGL 101 professor but it's mostly readings I never bothered to read.\r\n\r\nAdvice:\r\nIf you work hard, show him you care, and don't procrastinate - you will get the grade you want.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-08T06:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Lohr', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Professor Lohr provides some of the best feedback I've ever received on a paper and also loves to help his students improve their writing. So long as you actually read the instructions for each assignment and meet all the assignments requirements you'll get an A. It's as simple as that. \r\n\r\nPro tip: don't wait until the last minute to do the major assignments, trust me; It's not worth it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-07-09T17:54:06Z'}], 'name': 'Justin Lohr', 'slug': 'lohr'}, {'courses': ['PLSC235', 'PLSC305', 'INAG231', 'INAG235', 'PLSC205', 'INAG199', 'INAG214', 'INAG215', 'INAG107', 'INAG226', 'INAG104', 'INAG237'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Justin Mathias', 'slug': 'mathias'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100H', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Justin Nero', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very relaxed (and easy!) course. Small class, so you get to know everyone pretty well. Hardly any work is required, but you do learn a few useful things about UMD.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-07-02T18:06:00Z'}], 'name': 'Justin Nero', 'slug': 'nero'}, {'courses': ['BMGT380', 'BUSI764', 'BMGT380H', 'BMGT381', 'BMGT496', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT380N', 'BMGT380', 'BUSI758L', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT380N'], 'average_rating': 2.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Funny guy! Pay attention and come prepared for class to do well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-08-13T00:03:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'To be honest, Reyna has a good personality; he is funny and loves to talk about related cases in class, but he is not as supportive while it comes to learning the course materials. Reyna is a smart guy, and he has VERY high expectations for his students. I understand this is a challenging course, especially during the pandemic, but additional help for the students could mean so much. He does not have any TA in this class, and there is nothing else to help you study besides reading the book and cases and listen to his lecture. The reading is confusing, but you can learn something from it if you put enough time to read through it. \r\nThe exams wroth 80% of the total grade, but there are SO many typos in the exams, making the complicated exam questions even more difficult to understand.\r\n10% of quizzes are not helpful either; it has nothing to do with the exams; it contains some basic knowledge and a writing prompt, and it could cause you to get points off if you mess up ( FYI, he is a harsh grader on the writing portion of the quiz and exams). \r\nAnother 10% would be presenting cases in class. Rayna encourages students to do so because, in that way, we will have a "conversation" directly with him. I understand that he is trying to get people to engage in class, but I also believe that he is not considerate enough for all students. I am not a person who would give up easily, but the current situation makes me feel like I have no hope in this course.\r\nLastly, If you are good in Law stuff and willing to challenge yourself, you should take him. But for a student who speaks English as a second language and or wants an easy A, you might want to reconsider your options. \r\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2020-12-03T20:26:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Professor Reyna is a harsh grader and doesn’t explain the material well. He expects his students to be like law students and know the material before getting to class so he doesn’t have to teach. He tries to be funny but comes off as condescending and does not try to help students pass the course. He grades unnecessarily hard as he says not to go off of the book but to do it his way which he doesn’t explain well. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2021-01-05T04:40:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Fantastic Smith Professor. Challenges students and makes youengaged in the material. The class is extremely difficult, but it would be unfair to say the professor is not good. Tough grader - avoid if you are trying for an easy A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-18T02:06:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Brutal class. Took in the winter semester which made it somewhat easier since we left off chapters and had a crib sheet for the exams. Reyna is passionate about the subject and is always willing to help students understand the material but his exams are so tough. Doing well requires reading chapters before the class and doing the practice questions that are on the end of the chapters. The cases help provide context on how to apply law but dont need to remember specific cases for the exam. This class wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't for the dumb grading system set by Smith. All in all, dont take his class if you only expect to attend lectures and get by with notes, this class requires much more effort than any other Smith class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-25T17:13:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'Great professor. Motivates students and pushes them to be better. He expects you to know concepts and materials before you come to class and treats class as a review session to better understand concepts. He may seem hard to talk to at first, but is extremely willing to meet with students after class or one-on-one to discuss student performance.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-23T21:36:12.472179Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "His lectures make you feel like you will fail at life. His lectures often go on tangents and it's confusing how they relate back to the content. However, the few times in class when you get to make paper airplanes to model the operations process is super fun and a great experience. It's bearable if you have to take him, especially if you have a good group for your project, but I would not recommend taking him unless you had to.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T16:00:46.737703Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR AT ALL!!! Justin Reyna is the worst professor in the entire Smith School. He expects everyone to be experts on business before they come in to class and he expects perfection on every assignment. Do not expect to get more than a 1 out of 2 on your discussions unless you are willing to write 600 word essays twice a week. Take literally any other professor than him. He spends most of the class lecturing us about how amazing his businesses are and how he is a literal god send. Never ever take him.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2022-12-25T03:19:54.458183Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Every business major has to take Business Law. Unfortunately, I decided to take it with Reyna because it fit best in my schedule. Big mistake. Basically, he will assign readings and supplemental readings to discuss in class. He will write on his iPad or whatever it is in the MESSIEST handwriting where no one knows what he\'s saying and barely stops for questions. If he gets side tracked for one second, it\'s game over and the next thing you know he\'s ranting. He has a super strong personality and will tell you when you\'re wrong but kind of in the way like he wants to humiliate you. Everyone has to do a case study in front of the class and one time the student didn\'t know how to answer his question and Reyna said, "Did you even READ the case?". It was super embarrassing and awkward. I honestly stopped going to class halfway through because 1. he would waste over half the class talking about nonsense that he thinks is relevant but doesn\'t help with the exams at all. 2. I read the textbook on my own and did better than most people in the class. My biggest advice would be just to read the textbook and you will be fine. But the professor himself is not the best and extremely intimidating.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-11T04:36:58.540421Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Reyna', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "For an introductory class, Reyna expects a lot from his students. His lectures were not helpful and he didn't cover the material well. His tests were also much more challenging than other classes and some questions covered material we hadn't learned yet. Also talked a lot about his personal life and experiences during lectures even though they weren't applicable.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-21T06:57:51.133349Z'}], 'name': 'Justin Reyna', 'slug': 'reyna'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'LGBT200', 'WMST400'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Justin Sprague', 'course': 'WMST250', 'review': 'I took this course online over the summer. It had short lectures that we could read over and some readings including a few books. There was a lot of readings but most were interesting besides a few specific ones. We had to write weekly reading responses and post in the discussion boards 3-5 times per week for participation points. There was also weekly reading checks which were short multiple choice quizzes. The final was an essay. Dr. Sprague was very encouraging and engaging for the discussions and enjoyed it when you came to your own conclusion or tied a reading to your personal experience. It was a very informative class and interesting concepts were taught. I recommend the online version I had no problems with it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-16T17:34:09Z'}], 'name': 'Justin Sprague', 'slug': 'sprague'}, {'courses': ['ARTT343', 'ARTT448D', 'ARTT448H', 'ARTT480H', 'ARTT768', 'ARTT343H', 'ARTT648', 'ARTT489Q', 'ARTT489H', 'ARTT343', 'ARTT343H', 'ARTT343', 'ARTT343H', 'ARTT489Q', 'ARTT343', 'ARTT343H', 'ARTT448E', 'ARTT489H', 'ARTT698A', 'ARTT343', 'ARTT343H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Justin Strom', 'course': None, 'review': "Extremely intelligent professor. If you are serious about a career in the art field, take a class with strom. He knows what he's talking about", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-07-31T13:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Strom', 'course': 'ARTT343', 'review': 'Professor Strom is highly knowledgeable, gives meaningful feedback, and is a very cool guy! I enjoyed his class so much because there is absolutely no limit to what you can create. I surprised myself with my own artworks. His insight and guidance has helped me create some of my best works. \r\nBeware of the extra time you have to spend for this class. Screen-printing is hard work but it payed off well, in my opinion. The TAs host monitor hours outside of the class timings to help students catch up and finish their projects. I ended up working 15 hours on one project. \r\nMake sure you clean up after yourselves and be considerate because there are other students also using the studio and equipment. \r\nOverall, I highly recommend taking his class because I made some great memories!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-10T20:51:44.928358Z'}], 'name': 'Justin Strom', 'slug': 'strom_justin'}, {'courses': ['MATH206', 'MATH241', 'MATH410', 'MATH695', 'HONR219O', 'MATH411', 'MATH445', 'STAT400', 'MATH246', 'MATH403', 'MATH406', 'MATH274', 'MATH401', 'MATH310', 'MATH431', 'CMSC351', 'CMSC250', 'MATH299Y', 'MATH206', 'CMSC456', 'ENEE456', 'MATH241', 'MATH299Y', 'MATH405', 'MATH456', 'CMSC351', 'CMSC398E', 'CMSC420', 'MATH206', 'MATH241', 'MATH403', 'CMSC250', 'CMSC420', 'MATH206', 'MATH241', 'MATH406', 'CMSC351', 'MATH206', 'CMSC398E', 'CMSC351', 'CMSC420'], 'average_rating': 4.8276, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Best Math professor I've ever had at UMD, hands down. If this guy is available for any Math course that you are taking, ENROLL FOR JUSTIN'S CLASS. You will definitely not regret it. He teaches in such a clear and precise manner, and he is also a very nice guy that is willing to help you after class. He genuinely loves to teach to students, and it really shows. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-08-25T17:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'He is a great teacher I highly recommend him, but you can obviously tell that by his rating. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-06-03T11:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin is one of the best, if not the best professor I have had at UMD. He always comes in prepared, and since he has been teaching this class for years, he knows and stresses all the places where people tend to make mistakes, so you won't make them. He has a step-by-step approach to solving every problem you will run into. In addition, he is also very kind and makes jokes throughout the lecture. If you ever have the chance to take him, do it. I promise you won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-02-02T03:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "Didn't think he would live up to the hype, but goddamn, he did. I took Math 206 with him and sat in on his Math 241 class, and most of my experience with him was for 241. I had already taken 241 in high school, but I felt like I learned the course entirely anew. Incredible, incredible guy. He reminded me why I pay for college.\n\r\nIf there is an option to take your class with Justin, work the rest of your schedule around it. Make this a priority.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-01-28T02:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin is awesome! I had the pleasure of him being my TA as well as lecture teacher. He is by far the best math professor I have ever had. He is understanding about making up quizzes, and makes his lectures interesting. He wants his students to do well. Justin answers e-mails so quickly, and can always provide helpful answers. He always gives 2 study guides with the solutions for each exam. His exams were all fair. Not easy, but everything that was on the exam was thoroughly taught. I can't stress how awesome of a professor he is.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-12T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'I had him for the online MATLAB course over the summer. I never once met him in person, but for an online class, it was great. He had all of his PDFs laid out and available. They were concise and had plenty of examples. The assignments were overall fairly straightforward, though you may have to think for a few minutes about a couple of the later ones. You get a second chance to get a 100% if your code is incorrect after the first submission, which was a nice bonus. He always got back to my e-mails pretty quickly and did his best to help with any errors I was having in my code just through e-mail. I got a 100% in the class and would definitely recommend his intro to MATLAB course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-12-03T18:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin is the best professor I've ever had in my entire life. He teaches step-by-step and makes otherwise difficult concepts easy to understand. He also makes me laugh every single lecture.\n\r\nBest professor I've had the pleasure of working with.\n\r\n11/10", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-03T18:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "One of the best, if not the best professors.\r\nHe presents the materials in ways that anyone (even with poor background and fundamentals in math) can understand if he/she puts some effort.\r\nHe tells students what to focus for the exams.\r\nTA was extremely nice and helpful as well.\r\nWyss-Gallifent is just a really cool professor. \r\nHis exams were fair (more on easy side since i falied Calc 1 once and re-took it during spring semester).\r\nHe's extremely nice guy.\r\nWhen Levermore had a class before us, and left the board messy and ended late (about 2~3 minutes before our class time), Justin never lost his cool. Not even once.\r\nTake him. If you put in a little bit of effort, you're gonna pass.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-08-25T12:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin is a little overrated as a professor, but he's so highly rated that that still means he's awesome! He's cool, he's funny and he's an engaging speaker. You'll come out of the course really understanding the material and his tests aren't super easy but they're very straightforward and lots of practice tests let you know what to expect. If Justin is available TAKE HIS CLASS!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-07-07T14:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Justin is the ideal professor- knowledgable, understanding, and entertaining. He makes the subject easy and simple. Exams are very reasonable. Definitely take Calc III with Justin if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-03T12:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great prof. Works through examples in depth and is easy to follow. If you go to discussion and do the homework/MATLAB you should be fine. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-08-19T00:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': "He really cares about his students. He explains concepts extremely clearly and encourages you to think about what's going on in class. I never had to use the textbook because his notes are so clear. Tests are difficult enough to let you see if you actually are understanding the material, but not so difficult that you feel like crap after taking them.\n\r\nI also took the MATLAB course. The tutorial was really helpful and clear. I spent maybe 10 hours total the entire semester on this class, and that includes learning MATLAB from scratch and doing the projects. Take this class as early as possible; it's easy, not a lot of work, and a decent introduction to MATLAB.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-13T18:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin is more or less the ideal math professor. Energetic, engaging, and interesting, his lectures proceed at the perfect pace with exactly the right balance between examples and theory. \n\r\nJust take him already. Think of a complimentary adjective that could apply to a professor and it probably applies to Justin. Seriously, if it's a choice between Justin and someone else, it's not a choice. Justin all the way. Why are you still reading this? Go to Testudo and register for his class already.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-09T17:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "Justin is amazing if you don't already know.\n\r\nI had him for calc3 and he was boss. \n\r\nMy review is more for the Matlab course. If you need a GPA booster, take this class. Justin is really helpful, and provides awesome tutorials. Also, the TA is amazing. If I wasn't sure about something, I just emailed the TA, and he made things really clear, so definitely take advantage of him (he's grading your projects anyways). There are only three projects and Justin gives you a lot of time to do them. The last project is a little tricky but the TA offers a lot of guidance. Take this course, you won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-03-17T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "TAKE JUSTIN FOR ANY CLASS! He is literally the best professor I've had at Maryland by far! He explains concepts really well and he even adds some math humor into the lectures sometimes. Even though calc 3 wasn't always easy, he explained things very well and there was never a moment in class where I felt lost. \n\r\nHis exams are very fair if you pay attention in lecture, and do the suggested but optional homework problems he posts online. Definitely go to discussions because there is a quiz at least once a week in discussion. \n\r\nThe quizzes in discussions are 10 points each and add up to be 100 points of the total point value of the class. There are also 3 Matlab projects throughout the semester and 1 Matlab quiz, each worth 25 points, also adding up to 100 points. We had four exams in the semester, each exam worth 100 points each. The final exam this year was written by Justin and was also fair, no surprises. \n\r\nOverall, I really enjoyed Calc 3 with Justin and I would retake another class with him if I could. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-14T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "MATH206 was a very easy class. There were 3 online project using matlab, and all of them are posted on the first week, so if you finish all of them, you're basically done.\n\r\nThis is an online class so you never actually see the professor, but the T.A.'s are very helpful, and Justin's online is very interesting/easy to read and understand.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-30T00:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Great person, even better professor.\n\r\nYou don't need to get the textbook, he will teach you everything you need to know in class and dumb it down for the people who really know nothing about math (which is not the best for some people because if you go into higher math later, it is possible that you won't able to deal with some of the complex proofs and derivations since justin's version of 241 is so simplified). Very reasonable exams; he only gives you problems you have seen before. Has weekly quizzes in discussions, four matlab projects (actually 3 and then 1 matlab quiz), four exams, and a final. Nothing is too hard in this class; everyone should be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'Never actually met him because this is an online course. But it was a great class. A great introduction to MATLAB. He explained things on his website very clearly and had plenty of examples and practice problems. He was also always willing to answer questions through email and was very respectful. There were three projects I think. They were pretty easy but last one took a little bit of time to do but was still very doable. I felt like the class was extremely helpful especially since I was taking differential equations at the same time which uses MATLAB. Plus the class is only like three months long. I highly recommend the class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-19T02:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "I took Justin for Math 241 fall of '11, and have to say that he brought back a love of math I thought UMD math teachers had sufficiently killed off in me.\n\r\nJustin is a great math teacher. He is not only approachable but a genuinely nice guy who teaches because he loves to teach. He is a lecturer, NOT someone who is being forced to take time away from their work to teach the class.\n\r\nMy biggest recommendation is a simple one. Swing by his office hours and say hello. I found myself practically living out of his office once I started going. It was a great place to get math work done, get extra problems, or just chat, and Justin is a great source for math help as well as random facts and entertainment.\n\r\nIn addition to everything I've already said, I want to point out that for anyone afraid of Matlab, Justin's are very reasonable, and his guides will get you through most of them without any problem. Justin is also very fast about answering emails with questions, especially as MATLAB assignments approach their deadlines.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-31T01:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Justin is hands-down the best math professor I have had at this university. He knows how to explain the topics without confusing the class with worthless proofs and MATLAB. His sense of humor is great and it is apparent he really cares for his students. I recommend going out of your way to have Justin as a professor before you graduate.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-16T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "One of the best teachers I've ever had in my life. (Possibly this will hold true for the rest of college!) He writes precise notes with great handwriting and pictures and explains topics in great detail. Doesn't grade homeworks but they are helpful! Has about one quiz per week in discussion but they're mostly up to the TA. Assigns three MATLABs where he gives tutorials for all of them so it's basically an application of it and there's one super easy quiz on it as well. Four tests and a final and his tests should be easy since you get a cheat sheet as well", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-04T20:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Love him. Everyone would attend his lecture even at 9am. His style of his exams are exactly the same thing as his review sheets. No webassign and only matlab which he gives tutorials on. This guy is the best. Take any math class with him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-22T20:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "He's #1 on this site for a reason. His exams are fair, he makes sure you know the material inside and out, he's really nice and funny, always willing to answer questions and explain things thoroughly. Whether you are an A student or an F student, take his class. He is a wonderful person and an intelligent professor. Also, the lowest 7 webassigns being dropped doesn't hurt either, ha haha", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-11-15T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "I have never actually seen the man teach as I'm taking his online MATLAB course, but I love him. \n\r\nHe's so accessible, even to his online kids. And everyone on campus seems to use his guides for all their math classes!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-11T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'This guy is clearly THE best professor you can have at UMD. Also, for a guy with PhD, he is really humble and really laid back. His notes are very clear and organized. He teaches the class with theory and lots of examples. His notes were so good that I only opened my book to do the hw. His pace with the syllabus is reasonable but faster compared to other professors because Justin wants to spend more time in the latter chapters. Those chapters are crazy so it will benefit in the long run. His exams are easy and follows the sample exams he posts before the exams. There are three easy matlab assignments. The fourth one is a short matlab quiz. All matlab related hw/quiz is easy. The final was not that bad. But do not underestimate the finals. You still need to work hard. Do not miss out on taking a course with Justin. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-08-19T23:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Prof. Justin teaches the material by going step-by-step through each example and he even goes over examples of harder problems (which other profs rarely do). He is very down to earth for a person who holds a PhD. Assignments: 4 exams (none dropped), 4 matlabs (the last was a quiz counted as a matlab to make sure we were actually doing our own matlab assignments), 12 quizzes (2 dropped), and the final. Doesn't really curve grades since the average is usually high for a math course (low 80's).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-07-29T18:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin was as good a math teacher as I could have expected. Not only was his class entertaining, he also was an excellent teacher. If possible, you should try to take a class of his. You won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-15T16:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Not only is he the best math professor I've ever had, but he is the best overall teacher that I have ever met or had the pleasure of being a student to. Great class, great professor. Take it with Justin.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-06-01T18:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Probably one of the best professors you can have at the University. If you get the chance sign up for one of his classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-22T12:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Justin is a GREAT teacher. He's funny, engaging, and his pace in the class was perfect. During lectures, he writes out (in words) what his steps are. He also points out common mistakes.\r\nThere's a little homework, but nothing over the top. It just helps you stay caught up.\r\nAt office hours, he's extremely helpful and also just really fun to talk to\r\nTAKE HIM if you can!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-19T16:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Look at all the reviews...\r\nThis guy is a rockstar with a piece of chalk. He's really understanding, approachable, nice, and really funny. I actually LIKED to sit up front (everyone tries to get to class first to sit up front). This guy is arguably the best professor on campus.\r\nTake his class, even if it means changing your whole schedule. You will NOT regret it.\r\nJustin - You are the man\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T06:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Good teacher. He explains concepts well and goes at a reasonable pace. Lectures are primarily example driven, which makes concepts easier to understand. Weekly quizzes and monthly(ish) MATLAB assignments which he gives a full tutorial for. 4 exams, which is more than average, but it is for good reason, as the last chapter is the hardest, and therefore gets its own test. Curve is very light, 4 percent this year, but class was easy.\n\r\nAnd you don't really need the textbook. He gives example exams which are close to the real thing, and the discussions help too. I didn't buy one and got an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-14T00:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Justin is one of the best professors by far at UMD. Stop looking at any others and just take him! I had him for MATH220 and even though I did terrible in 140, I ended up aceing his class no sweat. He's great to talk to in office hours or via e-mail, very understanding and a very fair grader (he even dropped a question from one of our exams because it was confusing and a lot of people did poorly on it).\n\r\nGreat guy - just take him and you'll see!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-09T17:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin is a fantastic professor, the best I've had so far at Maryland. He is really engaging and he makes the class understandable and manageable. His tests are straightforward and easy to study for, as many of the questions are modeled off ones from practice exams posted online. He covers a lot of material in every lecture, but not so much that you ever feel overwhelmed. As long as you put in the necessary effort, this class should be no problem.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-28T10:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH475', 'review': "Really good teacher, especially compared to other math professors at UMD. One of the things I love about Justin is that he is humble. If he felt one of his lectures wasn't perfectly clear, he'll spend some of next class clarifying the tougher bits. Many professors just move on and leave the stragglers behind.\n\r\nI'm not a huge fan of the group works, but they're fairly infrequent. He grades very easily on them because they're tough.\n\r\nPlus he brought us bagels!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-20T02:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': 'I am going to compare Cremins vs Justin\n\r\nSo I took MATH130 with Cremins first. He is not a bad professor at all, but if I had a choice, I would have definitely waited one semester to take it with Justin. Cremins teaches relatively well, but at a quick pace so taking his lectures would be beneficial to you if you took calculus before in high school or somewhere else. His exams are challenging sometimes. If you have never seen calculus before in your life, then take it with Justin. Unlike Cremins, Justin really takes everything step by step to make sure you know whatever he is teaching means and why he is doing whatever he is doing. Justin also puts out sample tests that are pretty much verbatim, (except for variables and etc.) to the actual exams. The grading system he has is also good because you can either concentrate on your exam grades, or your group work, quizzes, and final and take the higher grade. Meaning if you get an overall C on your midterms and get an overall B on group work, quizzes, and the final, you get a B in the class. This is much more flexible than Cremins, where you get what you get out of the entire total of quizzes, mid terms, etc.\n\r\nJustin sometimes writes useless transitions like "lets think about this" or "think about it!" but that doesn\'t really bother me too much. His handwriting is also very neat, which sometimes Cremins lacks.\n\r\nSo in a nutshell, if you have taken calculus before, are really good at math, Cremins is a good choice. If you are not so great at math and want a slightly easier grading policy, Justin\'s the way to go.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-31T01:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'awesome guy, great teacher!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-03T18:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "One of my favorite teachers last semester, and definitely the best math teacher I've ever had. He is very entertaining and makes the information and the class interesting. He goes in-depth and explains everything very subtly. The exams are not difficult -- as long as you pay attention in class and do the practice exams posted online, you should be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-06T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': None, 'review': "I am in love with Justin! He's a math GOD..and I mean that! He not only writes down every little detail on the board but is such an approachable and nice guy! He genuinely wants his students to learn! If you go to class, take notes, and study a little..you will surely get an A! Besides his awesome teaching skills...he makes super cute jokes and has a nice accent. You'll want to marry him-trust me! He is too good to be true. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-09T03:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Justin is one of the best professors I've encountered at this university. He's very easy to relate to with his young spirited style (always wearing chucks to class). The accent is a nice touch to whatever he has to say, as well, along with his sense of humor. His lectures are VERY organized, as he writes from left to right on the board, and NEATLY. You won't miss a thing he's saying, and if you do, he's always happy to answer your questions. I had him first thing in the morning, and it was a very nice class to wake up to (:", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-19T21:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'This guy is the greatest! He writes everything down on the board and explains all the concepts throuroughly. His exams are extremely fair and he posts sample exams up. He is a very down to earth guy that you can talk to. He also has the best accent ever and is super cute : ) I took Math130 and 131 with him and he made it easy to understand. You wil have to work and practice calculus no matter who you take, but Justin makes class very interesting and he throws little jokes around during lecture!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-17T22:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'I took this course with Cremins in Spring 2010, but got a D so had to retake it. I wish I had taken it with Justin in the first place.\n\r\nJustin writes out his notes neatly in 4 columns on the board, so that they are easy to understand, and when you go back to study your notes everything makes sense. He also gives 2 sample exams prior to every exam that basically prepare you. The quizzes and bio worksheets depend on the TAs, so hopefully you have nice ones.\n\r\nI absolutely loved him, plus I think I was motivated to go to his lecture because of his accent.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-17T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "well for one. i am in love with him. i tell my friends about justin all the time.\r\nbut all jokes aside he is the best math teacher i have ever had. i took calculus in highschool and failed it miserably. he makes calculus doable. you can tell he really enjoys teaching as well. the lectures are great. he writes down EVERYTHING and he writes down similar problems that will be on the hw, not just the easy ones. he is just great. he says little jokes every once in a while just to make people laugh. hes just really chill. i want him for 221 next semester but i don't have time. so i will wait until he teaches it again.\r\nseriously you are a fool if you don't take him and you have the opportunity. he is that great\r\ndid i mention i am in love with him", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-13T17:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Greatest math teacher ever!\r\nSeriously, he is really good. He goes through everything step by step, explains what everything mean. Gives sample exams and throughly goes over it!\r\nPossibly the best math teacher anywhere. ALso, he tells a lot of jokes, which is a rarity with math teachers. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-10T22:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Justin is one of the best professors I've had during my years here. He breaks everything down so it's easily understandable and the exams, for the most part, are very straight forward since he provides you with a sample exam and goes over it in class. He's funny and very receptive to questions. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-09T20:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "If you have an opportunity to take him, do it. You will love yourself for it\n\r\nI had him for 130 and 131. They work the same way:\r\n-you gotta go to the hour and 15 min lecture. It rarely ever feels that long and he writes EVERYTHING on the board [so spacing out for a few won't kill you].\r\n-one math discussion a week with a 10 point quiz. he only counts 10. there are 13 or 14. win.\r\n-one bio discussion a week with an easy 10 point group work. same deal: only counts 10. win again.\r\n-you'll only need the textbook for [optional] homework or extra review problems.\r\n- he gives one or two sample exams. he gives an ENTIRE lecture before a test as a review day. go to it,do the sample exams, and YOU CAN'T FAIL.\n\r\nThis man was born to teach calculus. And he has a sweet accent. That's the formula for a great professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-01T22:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I kind of want to marry Justin. Or be him. Yeah, he's that good.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-09T02:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "I would give this dude a 10/5 if I could, he's that great. Literally could answer any question anyone had immediately. Has such an all-encompassing handle on the material he's able to teach it to you in his sleep. He is a phenomenal teacher and I am so glad I took his course, just to see what a good teacher is like!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-10-27T00:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I had taken calc1 3 weeks later the previous semester with Okijo *he had a longer name* and i learned nothing in the course. But Justin taught everything perfectly. He did a amazing job explaining concepts and, unlike most professors, started out like you knew nothing. He would explain things that you thought you knew, but he would give you a deeper understanding about it. He is a really cool guy and makes lecture fun with his jokes.If your taking calc, make sure you have him as your professor and no one else. He is hands down the best teacher I've ever had. lol I wish he taught calc 3 lol", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-09-21T11:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I also took Gulick's 140 my first semester here and although he was a great teacher, I still had a difficulty learning and understanding the material. Justin made it really simple and easy to understand. By writting literally every word on the board taking notes was easy. His sense of humor and cool accent are an added bonus!\n\r\nI really wish he taught all of my math classes!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-11T15:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'There\'s a reason Justin is the highest rated professor on this site: he is the absolute man. I had the privilege to take MATH140 with him this semester and understood the material 10 times better than when I did in high school. He teaches the material with such clarity that it is impossible to not understand what is going on (no matter how dumb you may be). What separates him from every other professor here at UMD is his teaching style. He is incredibly fun and engaging with the students. He always goes off topic with a joke or random topic at least once per class and it just makes you think to yourself "this guy is so cool." This may sound like a strange love story, but I guarantee you that if you take this class (or any class) with Justin, you will feel the same way. One day I saw him walking around campus in his red converse sneakers enjoying the awesome weather outside and I feel like that sums up who he is completely: the best professor I\'ve ever had. Thank you Justin!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-06T15:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "Justin is a really great professor! His lectures are really easy to follow, and actually makes the lecture a little more fun. He does everything in a way that is really easy to understand, but even if you still can't grasp the concept, he is always willing to talk to you after lecture, at office hours, or whenever. You still need to study, but most of the time, a lot of the problems are right from the old exams, or from class problems. I would recommend Justin to anyone who needs to take a math course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-06T13:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Great professor. Teaches on a good pace for everyone to follow and understand the content. Justin gets his students well prepared for the exams. If student gets a bad grade, there's no excuse because Justin does everything he possibly could to get the students prepared for the exams. A really good professor and I wouldn't want any other math professor other than Justin.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-06T09:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I took Gulicks 140 and failed with a D. He is by no means a bad proff however. He just doesnt teach it the way Justin does. Justin thoroughly enjoys the nuances and implications of what he teaches and puts everything in terms that non math majors can understand. He starts with a non proof driven explaination and follows it up with the reasoning/proof. Drastically simplifies the overwhelming material in the book. I have not opened it once this semester. every question i've had could be answered by my notes. Ive definately needed to study for the exams but my work has been rewarded. The exact same amount of work in Gulicks earned me a D but i fully expect an A or B+ this go-round.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-22T22:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': 'LOVE HIM!!!!!! If you have a choice definitely choose him as your professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-02T21:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "I am certainly not a math person, but I actually did really well in Justin's class. He was such a GREAT teacher. Studying for exams was very doable because he always gave practice exams so you knew what to prepare for. He was also hilarious in class and just an all around nice guy. DEFINITELY take him if you can!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-19T02:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'Single best professor that I had last semester. I cant really add much beyond what the other reviewers have said. He is just truly that excellent. He really made math fun, and the only way that he could have made the class easier was to take the exam for you. Beyond that, he really explained things well, so that the stuff that I learned in AP Stat and AP Calc finally clicked into place and made sense in the context of the world. Try to get Justin as your prof if at all possible. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-02-08T18:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'Im sure hereally donesnt need anyone else say how great of a teacher he is but for anyone that is thinking about taking one of his classes think no more do it! He is one of the best teachers UMD has to offer!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-24T13:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'Took justin for 130 and 131 he is the best math teacher I have ever had, not only is he a really awesome teacher, he is soooo chill. the environment in class is fun and loose and he actually cares about his students! Take justin if u can he is the man!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-01-13T03:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Abstract Algebra was probably the most difficult course I have taken so far in college, but it was all worth it because I learned an incredible amount thanks to Justin's awesome teaching skills!\n\r\nI had him for 246 last semester, so I decided to give this class a try because he was teaching it. 403 was a very tough course for me, but I'm sure I would have failed the class if any other professor had taught it. Justin lectures is such a straightforward, easy-to-follow manner and explains everything he writes of the chalkboard. He provides plenty of examples so that everyone can comprehend the meaning of theorems, definitions, and proofs he writes on the board. \n\r\nUnlike most of the professors in the math department, Justin actually cares about his students and doesn't brush them off. He responds to emails very quickly and has numerous office hours available if you need extra help, since many of us did need it. \n\r\nThe exams were pretty hard, but straightforward nonetheless, with averages/medians usually in the 50s. He does give an appropriate curve so if you think you're failing, don't worry, all hope is not lost!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-23T14:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Justin was an amazing teacher. He took the time to explain things to you in an engaging way. His lectures were never boring and they never seemed as long as they really were. He always uses real life examples relating to our field of study so that we could feel as though we were actually learning something. He not only teaches you how to do something, but often teaches you why you are doing it that way and how the formula was derived. His tests were very straight forward and closely resembled the practice exams, so you always knew what to study. He was an amazing teacher who really loved to teach. He also computes your grade two different ways at the end of the 131 course and takes the higher of the two grades. I highly recommend taking Justin's classes, you won't regret it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T13:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Justin is a fantastic professor. He is extremely knowledgeable, but teaches in a format that is conducive for all students to succeed. He is extremely fun and all students actually enjoy going to his classes. The workload is perfect and his tests, quizzes, and group works couldn't be more fair. He is ALWAYS available for help outside of class. He is the best and funniest professor I have ever met. TAKE THIS CLASS. I promise you that you will do amazing (if you work hard) and you will actually want to go to class.\n\r\nJustin clearly cares about all his students and I think the good ratings below me vouch that he is an amazing professor.\n\r\nHe gives sample exams to help you prep for his exams and he drops 3 quizzes and 3 group works. The homework is good practice for the exams so I really advise you do it. However, it is not collected/graded so it is not mandatory.\n\r\nMy only regret is not failing this class so I could take him again!!!\n\n\r\nOverall, the best professor UMD has!\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-23T12:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'Highly recommended. Justin is one of the best professors - funny, engaging, and organized. He teaches in a way where even the most struggling student can understand. He takes everything step-by-step in a very organized and simple way. I did not even have to look in my book for help once. The only time I opened the book was when I was doing the homework problems. Also, the sample exams are very similar to the actual exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-09T15:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH141H', 'review': "Justin is by far the best teacher in the math department. He covers everything you need to know in depth and focuses on things that each class is having trouble with. He takes it personally if his class does poorly on his exams and really puts in the effort to make sure they don't. That being said, his exams aren't easy but aren't impossible either. If you do the work and go to class you will do fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-24T03:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Justin is a great professor. he doesnt make you learn all of the unnecessary things that the other 246 teachers make you learn. his tests are basic and there is nothing that is on there to try to trick you. they are basically the same as the practice tests he gives, which really help a lot. the final exam was a little bit more difficult because it is a uniform exam and there are things that he did not cover, as far as i know. (i did not go to many classes at the end of the semester) he probably would have curved it, but he had taught the other material so well, our class did better than the classes who covered more material. Overall, if you put any effort into this class, there is no reason to not get an A', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-08-04T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'I had Justin for Diff eq, which on its own is moderately hard. He was different from wolfe who i had the semester prior in that he didnt just write up all the formulas on the board or derive them, he went through step by step to show you the methods you needed to know, and his tests clearly followed his lectures. im taking him again for math403!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-07-09T15:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "Great professor. Made the material easy to understand. I didn't even need to buy the book because the notes were so clear. However his curve isn't really generous so don't expect a free A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-24T21:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Great class. Exams were like the samples. Screw the MATLAB book...guides were always posted. Excellent professor who broke MATH246 down into the simplest of terms. As long as you do the MATLABs, do well on the exams, and take a decent amount of quizzes, you have the A on lockdown. The final was VERY similar to the ones on testbank.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-23T03:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Justin is a great professor. MATH246 is a very hard class, and the book they give you is not very good at explaining, so lectures are very important when learning the material. He was pretty flexible with missed MATLAB assignments, which were pretty frustrating. Additionally there are weekly quizzes in discussion but he drops a few of them. I missed many lectures and quizzes and still have a chance to get a B. As long as you go to lectures and take all the notes, you will have no problem getting a good grade in Justin's class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-28T15:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "By far the best math professor I've had. If you go to class and write down all the notes he writes on the board, the only time you will open your book is to see what the homework problems are. Lectures are very organized, starts with the theory and then shows a couple of examples. The best thing is that he only teaches what you need to know for the tests and the tests themselves are really easy. He doesn't try to trick you with the tests and the sample exams he gives are very similar to the actual tests. Basically, if you can do the sample exams you will know how to do the entire test. Weekly quizzes are a pain, but he only takes the top ten. MATLAB is similarly a pain, but he posts guides to the MATLAB assignments that are pretty much a step by step guide to the problems. If you can, take Justin for any math class that you have to take.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-20T02:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'The best professor I have had at UMD. If you are taking 220, you need to have him. He teaches the material so clearly and what he writes on the board is what you need to know. My roommate and I took 220 at the same time, and with his professor (one of the authors of the textbook) he suffered a lot and did so much more work. The webassigns are tough, but he dropped your 4 lowest ones. He is known to be the best 220 lecturer. I got an A+ and I know 5 other ppl in my discussion did too.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-04-19T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "Justin is amazing. I was considering taking 220 for my required calculus course, because it's the easiest. However, everyone raved about Justin, so I decided to take 130. I'm no math person, but he makes this class easy. I am definitely taking him again for 131!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-12T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'You know? I would write an amazing review, but it seems like everything I could have said about him (all good) has already been said multiple times. I just felt like reinforcing the positive ratings anyway. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-06T14:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Very nice guy. I missed a scheduled exam and he let me re-take it without question. Great professor. Makes calculus concepts simple and easy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-01-23T00:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "I flunked Diff Eq twice, and had to beg for special permission to take it again. I took Justin's 246 one summer, and finally understood everything and got an A. Absolutely wonderful professor, can't recommend highly enough. \n\r\nAlso, I just read this comments page after reading Wolfe's. Total opposites, haha.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-24T03:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Genuinely wants to help students.\n\r\nHe posts study guides and sample exams to help...\n\r\nArguably, one of the best math professors in the university. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-23T23:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Class is relaxed, tough material but Justin makes lectures fun and easy to follow - he writes in complete sentences :) Lectures and discussions are necessary, sometimes missing one makes it hard to catch up.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T02:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140H', 'review': "Justin is my favorite teacher this semester by far. He's funny and explains everything really well. I never have fallen asleep in this class because he makes class interesting. Before the tests, he gives out sample exams which are really good to study from. He's really good at clarifying everything that anyone might have a problem with. I never figured a calculus class would be my favorite class, but Justin is awesome and I was pleasantly surprised.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-14T11:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': None, 'review': 'Explains everything in details. Instead of forcing us to memorize formulas, he taught us how to derive them. His notes are so good, you\'ll understand everything without even open the textbook(btw, I suggest the math department make copies for the hw problems on the textbook only for Justin\'s class. So that we don\'t have to spend so much $ on a piece of brick). Justin is great, and I completely agree with the person who said "i once was lost but now am found!" ......', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-10T18:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH141H', 'review': "This teacher is really awesome. His notes are really great and organized so I have a sweet notebook for review. If you have to take Calc 2, Justin is the best teacher to objectively help you understand the material and prepare for the tests. I'm taking my final on monday and I'm nervous about it but I feel like Justin made me more prepared than any other teacher could have. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-12-10T18:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "I wanna say that he's a really bad teacher so that his classes won't be full when I have to register!! \n\r\nBut he is the BEST mathematics teacher ever. Unlike other professors, he is very detailed and uses simple analogies and other forms of explanations that makes it easier to understand the material. He doesn't regurgitate the textbook to you at all. You just sit in his lectures and the material will just seep into your brain. \n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-08T04:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140H', 'review': 'explains everything really well. tests are hard - but fair granted he teaches really well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-05T22:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "OMG! hes an awesome prof!!! i had pilachowski last year and had a D in calc. but i retook it with Gallifent and may i say i once was lost but now am found!. hes the awesomest prof ever! explains everything!!!! i am usually the C student but this case the teacher was fair. he doesnt put mean problems on his exams and has an awesome sense of humor!!! the homeworks prepare you for the exam and the TA's can be really helpful.\r\noverall i would really recommend him to average students (especially bio majors who have other more important classes to worry about) =)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-01T12:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Best teacher ever! He explains everything thoroughly and makes a lot of jokes which makes lecture helpful and enjoyable. He doesn't curve but he explains everything so well you won't need a curve anyway. Definitely take him for any and every math class you can! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-11-12T21:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin = GOD. \r\nthis guy is amazing, i would recommend him over ANY math professor. he is so organized, the sample exams are very similar to the actual ones. He's very humble, and does not assume you to know more than you should know. If he's offering a class, take it! The whole 'Justin' experience is something you should not miss out on!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-10T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'One of the best math professors at UMD. He did a wonderful job explaining the material to us and was more the willing to help us whenever he could. Like other people said, write down the stuff he writes on the board. It\'s enough info to study with. The textbook you use is crap anyway, so don\'t rely on it. We didn\'t even have to address him formally, he just told us to call him "Justin". He\'s so cool. I wish he could teach all of my classes. \n\r\nThe material for MATH240 is still quite difficult, however. You have to pay attention and do the assigned homework. But Justin will help you as much as he can. TAKE HIS CLASS WHENEVER POSSIBLE. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-07-28T15:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Amazing professor. Is very approachable and teaches in a very relaxed and fun style. Always welcomes questions in class and attendance at office hours. He posts sample exams for each exam in the course. They're similar to the actual exams, but not verbatim. Analyze the sample exam questions and try to think of ways of re-phrasing the questions as some of the actual exam questions can be a bit tricky. Write down everything he says in lecture and you'll never need to open the book except to do homework problems. Studied right off of my class notes. I would definitely recommend taking a math course with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-05-20T01:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "By far, the greatest math teacher I've ever had. Very clear and straight forward, easy to understand. He is also very kind and approachable and he prepares you well for exams. People do well on the exams not because they're easy, but because everyone actually learns the material. I completely agree with one of the comments below....if you are a girl, you will want to marry him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-19T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Best. Teacher. Ever. He makes math interesting and fairly understandable. Just like someone else said, you can copy down what he writes on the board verbatim and that will be more than enough material to study from. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-15T10:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Best Math teacher ever. His lectures are awesome. He has a great sense of humor which makes the lectures so much fun. He puts up 2 sample exams for each exam which is really helpful. And the MATLAB assignments are pretty easy too. Overall a great professor and an easy class .', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-24T11:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Go to the Lectures and just write down everything he writes even if you aren't paying attention because you will be able to read the notes and understand exactly how to do everything. Make sure you look at the homework every once and a while because he will explain the concepts so well that you will understand the problems in class but then when it gets to a quiz you might not remember. He also makes MATLAB simple and easy, you should have no problem with matlab even if you hate it and if you do, email him and most likely he will give you a hint.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-22T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': None, 'review': "greatest math teacher ever. he explains one concept in lots of different ways so that you'll eventually understand one way of it. unlike the guy who said his overelaborating was bad, i think it was an excellent technique. it made it stick in your head, and he reeeally helped u understand the really hard stuff. very good teaching skills. hes funny too, which is hard to be when your a math professor. he keeps u interested.\n\r\nexams are very fair. he always gives 2 sample exams. u review one in lecture and one in discussion. the questions on the exam will be some type of integrated version of those questions. helps a LOT. MATLABs are also fairly easy. he'll help if u go to him for help on them.\n\r\noh, and the BO is because the armory smells like crap ALL the time, no matter what room ur in. its not justin.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-04-17T21:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "Amazing professor. I had a really good Calc teacher in High School and his teaching style was very similar so I had no problem with the material. He is very detailed in his lectures, and probably is the only math teacher who writes full sentences on the blackboard. The intense detail can get a little boring sometimes, but I would prefer that than a quick overview and then not understand what he's saying. He has a great sense of humor and is very upbeat. I highly recommend his class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-31T01:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "Really good teacher but it was soooo elementary at times. I guess thats why the course is elementary calculus. Its good if you don't understand math at all, but can be kind of pointless if you do.\r\nHis tests are exactly like the review sheets, if you can understand them, the tests will be a piece of cake.\r\nAlso drops like the lowest 7 webassigns which was amazing!!\r\nWorst part about the class was discussion, the hardest little quizes ever, maybe just my T.A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-01-07T00:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Justin was by far the best math professor I've ever had. He teaches math in a way that people who aren't actually geniuses can understand it. He was the only good experience I've had with the math department, adn was basically just amazing. He was phenomenal and awesome in every way shape and form and you should all go out of your way to take his class. He also had a great sense of humor which helped a lot. And to the person who said he has BO, I have no clue what he's talking about. I had to go to him for help and talk tohim after class a lot and never had an issue. I'm guessing that the anonymous person was anonymous because the BO is actually theirs and were trying to cover it up!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-18T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH140H', 'review': "Horrible teacher. \r\nOver-elaborates things that should come as common sense to people. Tests are a ridiculous waste of time.\r\nNice guy, but horrible as a teacher.\r\nAnd if you're going to be in his class, I suggest bringing yourself a scented candle or something. Massive BO.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-18T13:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "Best teacher ever. period. you will want to go to class, and if you're a girl, marry him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-17T16:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'He teaches in a way that makes everyone understand everything, and is very receptive to questions. He also has a great sense of humor, so it makes it bearable to do math at 8am. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-29T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin Wyss-Gallifent is a god. No one shall attempt to defy Justin Wyss-Gallifent. You shall say Justin Wyss-Gallifent's full name when referring to him or else you'll be punished by Justin Wyss-Gallifent himself. It is said that even Chuck Norris has kneeled down to Justin Wyss-Gallifent. Take Justin Wyss-Gallifent's class to succeed and learn Math. Justin Wyss-Gallifent has already taken his own gracious time to step out of heaven to teach math to plebeians like us. Please consider his time and efforts.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-30T09:17:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "Honestly, if you're a CS major who's taken 132 or is in 216 or higher, you can pass this class no problemo. It's very very basic coding. You follow the project description step by step, and use the MATLAB pdfs he provides on each topic to do it. I only put in at most 2 hours of work on each project, and he gives you 3 weeks to do each project. Would recommend for easy grade booster, or if you want to know programming in MATLAB basics.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:07:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "Everyone pretty much says to take MATH206, but I'll give a contrasting opinion here. I would recommend to take the class, but be wary of the grading scheme used. The grading scale is: Project 1 - 100 pts, Project 2 - 100 pts, Project 3 - 200 pts. After you submit a project, you have 1 day to fix the project in order to get full points, otherwise you can only get 80% of points. Because the grading scheme is lopsided, I got 100% on the first two projects, and got an 80% on the third project, giving me a 90% in the class. You can't see what errors you have unless you submit the project, so you only have one chance to redo the project.\r\n\r\nJustin is great at responding to emails, but is fully strict in following what is on the syllabus without leeway.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-01-04T19:22:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Best math professor on campus.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-06T16:04:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "I've had Justin for MATH241, MATH401, and MATH410. He's been incredible for all three. He is such a nice guy and simply knows how to each. He also runs his classes in a professional, organized fashion. His expectations are always very clear and his willingness to help students is unparalleled by any other professor I've had at this university. He seems to always know exactly what students are thinking. Because I've had him for three classes, I've seen how he adapts his style to best suit different types of classes. Especially for MATH410, where the material gives students a lot of trouble, Justin is so good at explaining things clearly and patiently.\r\n\r\nI cannot even fathom the notion that there could be a better professor on this campus than Justin.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-04-14T23:24:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'This class was entirely digital and lasted less than half the semester, but I have absolutely no complaints. If you know MATLAB, then the class is extremely easy, and it takes a sum total of three hours to complete all work for the course. If you don’t know MATLAB already, then there is a collection of helpful (and humorous) tutorial documents provided on Canvas to help you teach yourself, and there is a very forgiving resubmission policy to help you out if you make some small mistakes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-25T00:22:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Justin consistently comes to class prepared to teach the material, and his expertise combined with his clarity of instruction enables him to be an excellent lecturer. He is always professional and down-to-earth with his students, especially during office hours. He deserves his consistently high ratings and I strongly recommend taking him when given the chance. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-05-27T02:34:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "MATH206 is a great course! Easy 1 credit online class that took maybe 3 hours to finish and a great way to add that you know Matlab on your resume. Most other math courses use Matlab as a supplemental tool where you learn the commands useful for that course but you never actually learn the basic framework. Math206 is a great way to do that. Don't worry about this course, the tutorials are great, the professor is great, the TA is great, and the resubmit policy will make it hard to not get a good grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-10-09T17:39:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'Multiple opportunities to turn in the assignments. 3 very easy matlab projects. Can get it done in the first week of classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-10-25T17:21:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin is the best human being on the planet. As a great communicator, each lecture is planned exceptionally well and each concept is explained thoroughly. He's charming and relatable, and manages to crack some jokes in each lecture. The assignments are easy; the class is no harder than it needs to be. I didn't do any of the optional practice problems from the book and pulled off a 97. The exams are straightforward, just study well and put in the time to succeed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-17T05:54:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Justin is great! As long as you do the homework, attend lecture, and review concepts here and there, I firmly believe it’s possible for anyone to get an A under this man. He is prepared every lecture and explains concepts in a simple and clear way. His drawings are neat and really enable you to understand 3-D space. The way the class is setup with group work also helps reinforce concepts. Quizzes and midterms are super straightforward without any curveballs. He is also very approachable and helpful during office hours.\r\n\r\nBasically, if you have the opportunity to take a class with him, do it. He always shows up as TBA, so check reddit if he’s teaching that sem and sign up!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-18T05:38:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'MATH206 course was very, very easy. 3 projects, each of which take less than an hour. I also took MATH401, of which he wrote the curriculum, though it was taught by a different professor. It was a very interesting course and the textbook/homeworks are very well written.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:26:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "Pretty simple class if you've done any type of programming before. He gives you 2 tries to submit each assignment for full credit, so you can fix any mistakes you made on your first submission", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-06T09:40:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "An absolute gem of a professor and human. Couldn't have learned more in this one semester. I would take a class I didn't need to just to take it with him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-01-28T18:08:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Best. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-02-18T21:37:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'His explanations are super thorough and easy to understand. The course is supper easy and goes at a reasonable pace. I came in with no coding knowledge and left with a 100% in the class and knowledge on the basics of MatLab in 6 short weeks', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-13T18:47:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'lots of hw sets every week. Cant understand why he has good reviews.\r\nThe worst instructor at umd That ive ever met.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-15T13:52:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'everything great about justin has already been said, but he was especially great this semester w COVID -- super understanding, lenient deaadlines (3 days for the final), and excellent lecture videos. absolute tank', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-18T01:59:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': None, 'review': "I never had Justin as my professor. Why am I rating him, then? Well, during Spring 2020, he recorded and uploaded all the MATH241 lectures, so I did learn from him for half a semester. He's clear, organized, concise, and overall a great lecturer. I can't speak to his exams or homeworks, but his lectures are amazing.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-08-12T23:27:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'He is not overhyped. Best math professor I’ve ever had.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-09-05T04:10:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': 'He is the coolest prof! No exams when classes moving online. And I have to say the project "cryptography" was so much fun to do. Such a surprise when seeing the original image was my id photo. Gotta give him 5 stars! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-19T05:38:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Just absolutely fantastic. Extremely accommodating and wants all of his students to do well. His lectures are amazing. We need more professors like Justin. He's extremely approachable and always answers questions. The amount of work that he assigns is reasonable and his matlab projects have some of the best documentation I've ever seen.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-24T19:31:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "Very good lecturer, definitely lives up to his reputation. I don't really need to go into much more, the rest of the 100+ reviews tell the rest of his story. He is one of the best lecturers I've seen at UMD. If you can take a class with him, DO IT!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-13T01:36:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Perfect. Both live and recorded lectures. Exams were challenging, but they were take home.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-22T00:09:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Very hard class but his explanations made them doable. Exams were timed, but not on Zoom.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-22T00:12:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Even though it was his first time teaching this course, he was very knowledgable about the material and his lectures were very interesting and helped prepare us for exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-29T03:35:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "Justin didn't teach this class really since it was very much do work at your own pace. The class itself, especially if you have previous coding experience, is really easy and you get as many tries as you want for every problem. If you really wanted to, you could finish the class in a day, but for me it only took about a week and then I never had to worry about it again with was nice, but a lot of people waited to the last minute for deadlines and didn't have enough time to figure everything out, so the TA begrudgingly extended some deadlines", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-01T00:36:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Exams were all take-home during the pandemic. The lectures were very easy to understand and told you what you needed to know.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-03T19:34:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'MATH206 with Justin Wyss-Gallifent is one of the best one credit courses offered at UMD. It is a very reasonable amount of work and is not too difficult.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T05:32:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': 'Amazing!! you could literally not know any linear algebra and get a B or better in this class. He gives you all the information that you need to know. Super nice guy, chill.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-12T20:54:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'For MATH206, you have unlimited tries and instant feedback. This is probably the best 1-credit course at UMD, and is pretty much just MATLAB practice.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-27T22:57:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Justin was a lifesaver during Zoom U. He was very knowledgeable and taught everything clearly. He was very good at engaging with his s tudents during lecture and they could ask questions. 100% the best professor in the CS/Math dept.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-02-08T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Justin was fantastic. He clearly cared about us and wanted us to learn the material without truly worrying about grades. His exams were super fair based on what he taught us in class. The homework was tricky but he designed them so that we would learn the material and think about it in an abstract manner.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-11T14:08:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "By far one of the best professors I've met at UMD. I was skeptical about joining his class as it was his first time teaching CMSC351 but he went above and beyond during the semester we were learning online. Justin spent a lot of time coming up with online class notes on his own time to explain difficult concepts, and spent a lot of time in lecture going through examples to help clarify content in the notes. Grading and exam timing-wise, Justin was very empathetic and reasonable with students. Do the homework and review his notes before exams and you'll do well in the course!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-11T14:57:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Made arguably the hardest CS class at UMD into one of the most interesting, useful, and honestly kind of easy class there is. Has such detailed notes for each topic that is publicly available (look up immortal umd for his umd website with the links to notes). These were absolute lifesavers and also just demonstrated how much he enjoys what he does, which is another reason why I gave him 5 stars. He is definitely one of the best professors I have ever seen. He is nice in office hours and with questions, but he will come across extremely blunt and sometimes rude in piaza and emails, but he explains that it's the fact he has so many questions and has to go through them. So I was taken aback at first since he seemed a little rude in emails and posts but he is really nice in office hours and just when he is able to actually spend time on answers. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-14T20:36:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "I feel like reviewing Justin is kinda pointless because it's so clear he's literally the best prof in this school. I have never had anyone explain anything to me as clearly as Justin teaches math, and on top of that he's a caring and understanding person. Really could not ask for anything more.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-21T15:31:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'He lives up to the hype!\r\nLectures were interesting and he was super understanding about due dates & exams given that everything was online.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T16:25:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "Given the format of this course he's more of a manager than an actual instructor—the course itself is pretty easy, however.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-26T14:14:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Excellent professor and is understanding of student's concerns and was flexible with due dates if students thought something was wrong with the class pacing and the homework. His exams are relatively straightforward if you practice his old exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-30T11:47:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'I cannot imagine any other professor has ever taught CMSC351 at the same high level quality as Justin. As someone who took the course with Clyde Kruskal and failed, retaking it with Justin was the biggest blessing in my computer science degree. His notes for this course are so good that I plan on using them for interview preparation and beyond. He made the class exciting, interesting, and erased the dread about algorithms which was instilled in me by Kruskal.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-10-08T14:01:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Amazing teacher. Super engaging and explains everything really well. He handles any student questions really well too, not only answering them but going into depth so everyone gets a better understanding. Uploads the notes for the class so you can see everything and review it. In addition, he has his own typed up LaTeX notes he uploads which are also really good. Workload is good too, just a weekly assignment. Would highly recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-09T22:56:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "This probably doesn't need to be written again but Justin is one of the best at UMD. If you have the opportunity to take him, take him. Lectures were engaging and super organized. He provided all of the notes that he used for lectures. Exam expectations were very clear. Homework tracked well with the material in the lectures and was helped reinforce concepts. Everything was graded in a timely manner and everything was well communicated.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-16T16:40:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Great lecturer, hard to pay attention at times with the 75 minute lectures but that's a personal problem. Only thing I can complain about is the absolutely atrocious organization of the course. Every released practice has at least 13 mistakes on the answer key, 50% of my homework had to be regraded because the TAs misread and marked my answers as incorrect when they were correct. Overall, probably one of the best lecturers out there but not great at organizing courses.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-18T18:00:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "One of the best if not THE best professor in the entire department. Possibly the entire university. You don't need me to convince you, just look down at the hundreds of reviews that say he is amazing.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T03:11:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Fantastic lecturer, makes concepts easy to understand and apply. His notes on his website are a life saver and are remarkably thorough. His exams were fair and straightforward if you were prepared, and the homework problems were extremely relevant to the exams. Greatly enjoyed taking this class with JWG; even if math is not quite your thing, pay attention and do the homework and you'll succeed. Highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-22T09:58:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'As everyone likes to say, the best professor at UMD. He taught extraordinarily well, communicated everything, forgiving grading with tests that weren’t overly challenging. As a math major I wish I could have him for all my math classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-22T22:22:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH431', 'review': 'Honestly with the way the class is setup, he wants you to succeed. Some homeworks can be challenging but he offers a lot of help during office hours. The class itself itself is really interesting, mainly because of how Justin teaches it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-23T13:43:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'He is the GOAT! Take him at all cost!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-26T17:14:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'The best professor in UMD! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-27T04:47:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'His rating speaks for itself. Take Justin if possible.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-27T20:50:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Had Justin for MATH241 and used his notes for CMSC351 this past semester. He's the hardest working and probably best prof I think I've ever seen. Definitely take if you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-02T02:13:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': None, 'review': "He's so good, you should deregister if you're taking him so that a spot opens for me :). Haha just kidding, he's perfect. I feel so lucky to have had a professor like him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-07T21:31:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "He is very good at public speaking but he seems to not be able to empathize with the students that are struggling through the course. This tells me a lot more about who he is as a teacher than what his lecturing style lets on. To be a good teacher who have to know what it is like to fail and then the endurance needed to overcome that failure and sadly I don't think he understands that yet.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-03-17T18:48:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': None, 'review': "I have never had Justin for a class, and I feel like I have already been taught by him on multiple subjects. I have never even met him in person and I find his online lectures/notes to be more clear and easy to understand than my actual professors' lectures. From what I can tell, the only qualm people have with him is that he does not curve much. Such is to be expected when you teach at such a high level. Goat.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-14T04:11:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Great professor as ratings suggest. I had a few cons to how 351 was managed.\r\n\r\n1. No recorded lectures. \r\n2. Never can get an extension on homeworks (no exceptions). \r\n\r\n\r\nOther than that, amazing. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-04T11:36:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Best professor at UMD. If you are going to take 250 or 351, do it with Justin', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-05T20:03:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin deserves his reputation as the best UMD professor. He isn't overhyped. In fact, he should be hyped up even more than he is already. His quizzes and exams are challenging, but since he's such a phenomenal teacher, it doesn't even matter how difficult his assessments are because you'll have learned the content thoroughly. He has a gift for explaining things clearly and is excellent at visual demonstration. He makes the course content seem simple because he doesn't needlessly convolute or overcomplicate anything. I pity anyone who graduates from UMD and has never taken a class with Justin. He is a world class professor and must be protected at all costs. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-06T00:48:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'God of the math department, take his class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-06T19:29:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'best 351 professor ever. Exams are super fair and he is amazing at explaining. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-07T21:12:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Lives up to the hype! If you're not an engineering/math major though I will say there's a bit of a learning curve when it comes to figuring out how to study and make time for this class. You don't necessarily have to go to lecture because Justin's YouTube videos are just as good, if not better (there are more examples on them since he doesn't have a time limit). But you should because he explains things very clearly and isn't boring. Also has a cool accent. \r\n\r\nDropped the 4 lowest group works and quizzes. MatLab projects are super beginner-friendly but I would recommend starting them early just in case you need to work out tiny bugs in your code. They are easy 100s though! For exams, DO THE PRACTICE EXAMS! They are so helpful and he has solutions uploaded for most of them. Couldn't recommend him more!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-10T00:54:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin has way higher averages on every exam than other professors, so he doesn't curve. however, this is because he makes course content easy to understand. Justin has discussions and quizzes down to a T and it really helped my understanding of the course material. I'm sure you already know this but if you CAN take justin, then you should.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-10T17:54:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH456', 'review': "This was Justin's first time teaching this course and he smashed it. The course structure was excellent and I could tell how everything built on previous content and tied together. I felt we spent an appropriate amount of time on each subject and were able to learn how everything functioned without getting to caught up or rushing through it. I was glad we got the opportunity to touch on hash functions and cryptocurrencies as well as elliptic curve encryption and holomorphic encryption. You could always count on one homework assignment every week with a coding assignment. It was very reasonable and the homework definitely improved my understanding of the content.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-11T15:09:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "Unsurprisingly a great class. Nothing less expected from Justin.\r\n\r\nPros: \r\n+ Outstanding lectures\r\n+ Reasonable homeworks and coding assignments\r\n+ Fair exams\r\n+ Good grade distribution - nothing is too heavily weighted\r\n+ Responsive on Piazza\r\n+ Helpful overview of materials, was an appropriate amount of breadth\r\n\r\nCons (these are really meant to be constructive feedback):\r\n- There were some nontrivial mistakes on homeworks/notes/exams, which wasn't the end of the world, but did cost me time while taking the exam\r\n- Some of the Piazza responses could have been more civil\r\n\r\nTake a class with Justin if he's teaching it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-15T21:41:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Good notes and his exams are very similar to past exams and he provides answer keys for them too. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-15T22:32:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "The best teacher ever!!! Form your entire schedule around taking his class--it's worth it! \r\n\r\nAbout the class:\r\n- Weekly groupworks on Tuesdays: these are worksheets based on material from the previous few lectures and you work in groups to complete them\r\n- Weekly quizzes on Thursdays: these are based on the worksheets from earlier in the week and are fairly straight forward\r\n- MATLAB assignments: there are 4 assignments on MATLAB grader which are very easy to complete if you read the instructions \r\n- Homework (optional): the textbook problems from every section are a good way to reinforce the material taught in class (do them if you have time)\r\n\r\nAbout Justin:\r\n- He is a very funny and caring, which makes his lectures very entertaining and informational. He gives the best examples to reinforce the topics he taught and structures all his lessons in a way which is very easy to follow. Even some of the more difficult topics were a breeze because of Justin's phenomenal explanations. Some of my friends who almost failed Calc 2 last semester got an A in Calc 3 this semester because of Justin! As for his exams, be prepared because they are not easy. But he has all his previous midterms posted on his website, so if you do at least 4 or 5 of them as practice before your exam, you are more or less guaranteed a good grade on the exam. On the rare occasion you might be confused in his class, you can watch his youtube videos in which he goes over every chapter topic in even more detail (and with more examples). \r\n- He does not curve because his exam averages are high (range from a 75% to 85%) but he does drop your lowest 4 quizzes and group works, as well as replace your lowest scoring midterm with your final exam (only if it helps your grade).\r\n\r\nThese is a reason his man has almost a 5 star rating with 161 reviews. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T22:23:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "as we all know Justin is a great professor and that was the case with cryptography. definitely learned a lot and he didn't make it harder or easier than it needed to be, which is amazing considering it's his first time teaching the course. as a teacher, there is nothing that I can complain about. there is a fair amount of work but I think it's reasonable for a 400 level course. \r\nI'm giving him 4 stars because I felt there were instances where he was rather curt/rude when responding on Piazza. maybe that wasn't his intention because he's always very kind in class, but that is how it came across on Piazza. also no recorded lectures which was kind of annoying (i think he just really hates anything to do with online school) but at least he posts his notes from class online.\r\noverall, great in terms of teaching so I would recommend", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-19T01:53:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Coming off of 250 with Justin, I was expecting to get torn to shreds with 351, especially with the stigma around the class. Given that I don't think Justin is the best at organizing courses, I think he and Erika had a great duo with her taking most of the nitty-gritty details like Piazza answering and course announcements. The class ran extremely well (definitely some improvements needed on the TAs and their grading in this course, but that's not on Justin) and I can still vouch for Justin's lecturing. Guy is one of the best at UMD, he could explain Dijkstra's to a 5-year-old. Tests and homework were extremely fair, an issue I found sometimes with the 250 homework, and both Erika and Justin made the course extremely enjoyable.\r\n\r\nI also had him for 241 this semester. Relatively smaller course, pumped out grading and got the concepts where they needed to be. Could definitely tell he was in his comfort zone with this course as his lectures were spot on every time. Tests were extremely fair and grading was good. Overall, 10/10 professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T04:43:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Lectures were great of course. It's Justin. However, the course could've been managed better, and rubrics for homework's and exam solutions could have been much less ambiguous, as well as the questions on the exam. \r\n\r\nThere can be a time where you work with your friend on a homework, then you receive a 0/15 on a homework problem while your friend receives a 15/15 because the rubric is not as definitive and TA's judge based off their intuition and subjectivity. Same goes for exam problems, besides the fact that you obviously do the exam independently, you can have a solution that follows the gradescope rubric to earn a specific amount of points, but the TA can be subjective and not go off of what the rubric says and even give you a 0 for the problem for what should have been partial credit atleast. This may be a TA problem sure, but Justin leads the TAs and instructs them on what to do, so I feel there's a bit on him too as he could make the rubrics for homework problems and exams more definitive so TAs can't be as subjective. Exam problems were ambiguous as well to an extent, mainly the true/false portion, but some written responses as well, but the true/false was only a few points (typically 10 points an exam). Essentially, there could be multiple interpretations of a question which could make you believe either true or false based on the interpretation you go with.\r\n\r\nOverall, great professor along with his lectures of course. No doubt about that. He needs to be more straight forward about a few things though. The course wasn't difficult to manage so he did amazing with that, but there would be confusion on the ambiguity from the student and TA side, in terms of grading and interpreting problems.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-21T10:31:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'This class is super easy. Everyone can get an A/A+ if you learn. I know Prof. Wyss-Gallifent is super popular and busy, but he replies email really quickly.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-25T01:54:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'The actual GOAT. Really made sure we understood the concepts he was teaching. He and Erika cotaught this semester, and they did a fantastic job of making 351 a much better experience than I was anticipating. Would recommend!! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-25T15:52:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Really great lectures, he\'s very caring and truly worries about his students and if you come up to him with questions he will be very nice when explaining and explains topics in a very straightforward and easy to understand way.\r\n\r\nHowever as great as he is, I had a very stressful time in 351 because of the grading issues that came with basically every assignment. TA\'s most of the time if you had something not resembling the rubric in a homework assignment, or just because based on their own judgement, will not take their time to read your answer and will not hesitate to slash off as many points as you can as possible (Many times I have gotten back as much as 20%-25% of my assignment just because the TA did not read my answer entirely, and I\'ve had to explain very thoroughly in my regrades). \r\n\r\nI know this is not his fault, but he was very aware of the grading issue because we would get multiple announcements about how there would be over 100s of regrade requests for each assignment and exams. This would not be an issue if the grading was more careful in seeing if the student truly understands the topic instead of how close it is to the rubric, or even something as small if simplifying 1 more step would give the same answer. Oh and what the other reviewer below said is absolutely correct, sometimes I would compare homework answers after grades came out on grade scope, and classmates who wrote the exact same I did would get full credit while I would get -50% off or even the entire question wrong. Same thing if they had the same reasoning for more deep thought questions. Mind you sometimes you would have to regrade this multiple times to get your points back if the TA\'s were unwilling to check, and it wasn\'t for sure that you would get your points back. \r\n\r\nLastly the reason that also made me give him a not so great review even though I enjoyed having him a lot as my instructor, the above issue of getting massive hundreds of regrades because of extremely inconsistent grading, got so bad that during the last weeks of school after the final they said that since regrade request numbers are always hundreds, they would not allow regrade requests for hw12,hw13 and the final exam. Our homework is worth 28% of our grade and people were relying on this to bring up their averages if they didn\'t drop them, and they even admitted they graded the hw "leniently" and the rubric would even say "anything reasonable even if not correct". My questions were not read, marked off points without explaining any reason because of the shortness of time with regrades from past assignments, and the final exam also had some grading inconsistencies.\r\n\r\nMy final point, Justin throughout the semester said that the cut-offs would be lowered slightly below the regular cut offs to account for the grading inconsistencies, the ambiguous writing of questions on exams and etc. This was only 1% or so when confirming when my friends, which if I will be honest, 1% of the entire class is not enough to account to how extremely bad and up to the TA grading your assignments judgement is. And even if Justin offered to contact him regarding grading on hw12,hw13 and the final exam, he would only do this if you were borderline. Which, is kind of extremely hard to figure out when we did not have cutoffs published. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-29T17:10:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "This class is very easy, and as long as you do the work you should get an A/A+. Most people tend to forget the assignments because they're asynchronous, so don't forget to do them. The only thing I dislike about this class is MATLAB grader as it's hard to debug compared to MATLAB because the errors that MATLAB grader show cannot be easily traced, so I recommend writing code on MATLAB and then just copy-pasting it into MATLAB grader. In my opinion, learning MATLAB code and finishing the assignments can be a little bit annoying, but the TAs and Prof. Justin are very accessible, so make sure to reach out to them if needed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-31T02:16:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "Super easy class if you've coded before (even just in Java). Never directly interacted with Justin because the course was pretty much self-taught, but I do recommend taking the course for an easy A and MATLAB experience.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-03T12:24:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Justin is the GOAT', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-07-28T23:01:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "This class is not as easy as people claim to be honest, especially if you have no programming or math background. Please read carefully if that's you and don't let the other reviews sway your judgement. Matlab is a programming language comparable to Java and C++, maybe even C. Heck, it was built with C. I didn't know anything about programming when taking this class, and I had to essentially teach myself C first, and dweldge into some nasty low level operating systems concepts (which is in the scope of CMSC 412, the hardest undergraduate computer science course offered here) to even comprehend how to do those complicated math equations in MATLAB.\r\nThis course sucked up so much time - I came in thinking it's an easy 1 credit, but boy oh boy oh no. It warranted weekly office hours - that is - whenever I had the time. This class, for each week's assignment, would suck up more like 10-20 hours a week and living at office hours. The fact that there is no lecture for this class doesn't help. The one saving grace of MATH 206 is the generous curve - I passed with a 49%", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-09-23T03:30:21.053923Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "It's Justin. Enough said", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-09-24T15:29:33.179176Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "If you have coded before, this class should be fairly easy. If not, you will still find this to be fairly simple as long as you put in some effort learning MATLAB and basic programming principles. It's essentially a free A because you can contact your TA or Justin if you have any questions MATLAB or non-MATLAB related.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-07T02:07:04.525697Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Justin's teaching has probably saved me a big headache while taking this class. Most people have said that this class is one of the hardest classes were required to take for the CS major. But with this professor I actually really understand what is going on. Whether or not my grades reflect it is another issue but thats on my studying. Going to his lectures and not just reading his notes that he posts really helps me understand the concepts and I'm really glad for that.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-19T21:09:39.323561Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Very good lecturer, however, made this course seem like 4 credits instead of 3. \r\n\r\nExams were fair and averages were good, however the projects were insane. During Thanksgiving break he modified a Mount project which only had 3 required methods to implement, and instead required us to do 8, along with ML which was a topic not previously discussed in the course--hence the 2/5 stars. \r\n\r\nI would not recommend him for this particular course. He also wasn't very helpful if you had coding questions and was curt on Piazza sometimes. \r\n\r\nStick with him for MATH courses, not CMSC.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-11-20T21:03:05.777714Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Justin is THE king of teaching. Literally, make your entire schedule around taking his class-it's worth it! Lectures were great since he made complicated topics very easy to understand. He did thorough examples and answered questions well. He was also excellent and telling people with off-topic questions to go to his office hours and didn't waste class time. Don't skip lectures, but if you have to miss class, all of his covid youtube videos are up! Or if you need to review examples again, the youtube videos are awesome. His exams were very fair but challenging. Do all the old exams if you can. He didn't curve since the averages were all very high. The optional hw questions from the textbook were also very helpful, especially to build up to being able to do the practice exams. There were group worksheets every Tuesday which were doable in a group and by asking the TA questions. The weekly Thursday quizzes were challenging but fair, plus the lowest 4 were dropped.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-28T01:36:42.864520Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'One of the sole brightspots in UMD STEM undergrad.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-02T21:26:40.150001Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Brilliant lecturer and extremely fair exams', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-08T05:43:38.636344Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'This class was only good because of Justin.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-12T19:03:19.477292Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'my grade is my own fault, Justin is the goat.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-13T03:14:27.829637Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Along with 95% of what people said here, fair class, fair lectures, amazing personality. Provides entertainment with learning and professionalism, a combo that is difficult to find in the university. As stated earlier take him whenever you get the chance.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-14T07:23:48.633239Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "What can I say that hasn't been said already? He's that guy! \r\n\r\nBrilliant personality and lecturer, very grateful for the experience.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-17T01:26:53.240031Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'PLEASE TAKE HIM as Justin is really the only competent calc III professor UMD has. Also, while his exams are fair and his teaching style is amazing, the final is going to be very hard so some examples he never went through like problems involving trig subsitution, integration by parts could be on the final. DEFINETLY REMEMBER YOUR CALC II STUFF FOR THE FINAL.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-17T04:15:02.180392Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "I'm a simple guy. I see Justin teaching, I take Justin. One of the most dreaded CS courses made entertaining and actually understandable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-17T05:52:34.132871Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Great instructor. Clear lectures. Engaging, funny, charismatic guy. Homework clearly translates to the exams. Homework is harder than exams. Exams are easier and really test ideas directly from the homework. True/False section he's a fan of always, could, most type questions here: read carefully. Exam questions are usually variants of homework question principles. Lots of tracing through the algorithms, forwards and back. High exam averages because the exams are FAIR AND REPRESENTATIVE of learning. Actively works to improve. Knowledgeable. Sometimes he makes the equivalent of a typo in his hand written notes but always goes back and fixes it. Breaks up notes into these wonderful sections. Doesn't record because he wants attendance. Overall great experience. I will say that during office hours there's always 3-5 students there. Thus, you kind of get 3-4 minutes with Justin and then wait 5-10 minutes for the next question. This makes sense because he has over 500 students a semester and over 3-5 classes. Approachable. Insightful. Highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T03:52:53.301083Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Genuinely the best lectures on campus. Have no hesitations in taking him if he is available. In-depth, beneficial, and entertaining lectures. As long as you show up to lectures and discussions, any student has the opportunity for an A in this class. Deserves all of the positive reviews he has received, and I wish I could have him in future courses. Brilliant lecturer', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-19T15:02:28.892918Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Love this guy. \r\nGreat lectures and explanations. The notes are very detailed and helpful. \r\nI recommend reviewing his notes before lecture to cement your understanding. \r\nExams were fair and his revierws were helpful. \r\n\r\nOnly complaint is that some of the homework questions are hit or miss. \r\nSometimes they are unclear or ambigous.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-20T14:14:50.498412Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Communicative doesn't keep anyone in the dark. Fair exams. Top-tier professor overall. \r\n\r\nOnly problems: \r\nEach exam has a small mistake or two but they are either dropped or corrected. \r\nLectures can be a bit tricky at times IF you are rusty in math (i might be a special case though)\r\nOtherwise honestly still also TOP tier lecturing.\r\n\r\nOverall just a good experience with him and highly recommend taking him if you are lucky enough to have the option.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-21T01:11:51.168985Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "the fact that he ended every class ~15 minutes early and still managed to get through all the material speaks to his prowess as a lecturer, and i have no problem with that. his course organization, however, was disappointing. countless mistakes on both homeworks and lectures were constant sources of confusion. \r\n\r\nalmost every homework had some sort of typo or confusion, needing a midweek announcement for clarification, pretty much undoing a lot of the progress students had in that question. we even had some questions that were completely dropped (looking at you, nim game tree) or some that were never fully clarified (looking at you, floating-point multiplication). tas are also unreasonable with regrade requests, and won't give points back for things justin clarified. \r\n\r\nexams were mostly fair, but also filled with the same mistakes that plagued the homework. every exam had several typo corrections, and one question was completely taken off. justin said something about how not all tas could be trusted with proofreading, but at least having herve (cotaught) or someone else look at it would help. the final had 3 (out of 15) questions on a topic we covered only for a week, which is poor topic choice for a supposedly cumulative final exam. \r\n\r\nhis exams also involve a lot more wordplay and reading (so little slip-ups will lose you big points), which is certainly a valid thing to do, but i don't think it's that relevant for the course. \r\n\r\nthe two also taught an incorrect version of dft. while i understand that version's easier to analyze, the correct version was just a slight change away and yet there was not even a mention of the tweak in class. \r\n\r\nthat being said, he's a great lecturer and a pretty nice person. i remember submitting a homework late because of a technical issue and still getting credit for that homework.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T21:10:39.517001Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': "Easy 1-credit class to fill 120 credits. TA was responsive and helpful. All assignments were posted within the first week of classes, so I could get them all done then I didn't need to care about it after that. MATH206 was an online class, so I didn't have a chance to meet Justin. I will take MATH241/406 with him next semester to see how good he is. If you have programming experience, then take it. If not, it's good for practice but would be time-consuming", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:31:54.089728Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "very good curve but so many homework sets\r\nyou have to learn 20 chapters of material, so sometimes you will have 2 homework sets due a week\r\nhe drops homeworks though so it's fine i guess", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-24T06:51:30.894742Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Love Justin, but he's definitely still working out some kinks for lecturing for the CS department. The few qualms I had regarding my semester with him included:\r\n1) Some homeworks were graded very unfairly at times. Like a -20 came outta nowhere every once in a while\r\n2) His exams were many times riddled with typos/errors. On the 3rd midterm, he even had to throw out an entire question\r\n3) He's constantly trying to improve the way he teaches many concepts, but that can lead to him teachning some of them incorrectly/more confusingly\r\n\r\nOverall, Justin's a great guy. His lectures are engaging, and his lecture notes are some of the nicest I've ever seen. I'm absolutely certain that as he teaches this course more and more, many of the qualms I listed above will significantly diminish if not disappear. I absolutely loved him as a UMD math legend (had him for 241) and he's on his way to being a UMD CS legend as well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T16:20:09.274994Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'Self paced course where the grade is based off of public tests so you know your grade. Can knock out the entire course in a couple days.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-27T18:32:59.244669Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'Easy class, chill prof.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-05T06:04:16.124418Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Obviously Justin has a very good reputation. I think that's mostly from his personality so students tend to overrate him a tiny bit just because he is relatable. That being said, he is still a smart professor and a good teacher that knows what hes talking about.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n- Easyish exams all things considered that are not hard to finish on time\r\n- good lecturer. Easy to follow, takes great notes, don't have to attend class\r\n- very engaging and fun to listen to\r\n- drops lowest 3 out of 13 homeworks.\r\n- the class is very straightforward which i liked\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- homeworks can be hard so start them early\r\n- not many TA's available to help with homework", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-19T21:00:12.371693Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'Extremely easy course if you have programming experience, finished in less than a day', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-24T16:36:52.004517Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great professor that makes all of his content easy to understand. Posts his notes online as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-02-02T23:10:05.801663Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'MATH206', 'review': 'Great course design! Modules were helpfully written with adequate instruction to figure out the project. Projects were extremely manageable with my limited programming experience. Never had any contact with Justin, but the course runs so smoothly. Highly recommend taking this course in preparation for future math classes needing matlab. Just stay on top of deadlines!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-18T06:58:58.512301Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "I had Justin for MATH206, which I was able to finish in the 2 days before the semester started, and I also have him for CMSC250. He's a really great guy; I'd probably give him 4.69 stars if I could though, simply because I think he babies the class a little bit. Our first exam was ludicrously short and a ton of people were finishing with a full 40 minutes left. His lectures and notes are extremely organized, and you can get ahead of the game if you absolutely wanted to. Homeworks don't take more than 3 hours a week. Very talented at explaining concepts in a simple and concise manner.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-04T02:37:06.267682Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "great lecturer but the course just becomes cmsc351 part 2 and sinks heavily into theory so if you didn't like that then take cmsc420 with mount", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-04-03T01:57:50.476789Z'}, {'professor': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'course': None, 'review': "Very good at explaining concepts, fair homework and exams, but absolutely cold and heartless. If you have any disabilities, avoid taking any classes with him. He refused to extend deadlines for me when I was in the ICU, despite my ADS letter and multiple doctor's notes.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-14T04:55:42.891851Z'}], 'name': 'Justin Wyss-Gallifent', 'slug': 'wyss-gallifent'}, {'courses': ['ENTS689N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Justin Yackoski', 'slug': 'yackoski'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL206', 'ENGL201', 'CPJT100', 'CPJT200', 'CPJT101', 'CPJT230', 'CPJT240', 'CPJT250', 'ENGL250', 'WGSS255', 'CPJT105', 'MLAW101', 'CPJT100', 'CPJT200', 'CPJT101', 'CPJT230', 'CPJT240', 'CPJT250', 'CPJT100', 'CPJT200'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Justine DeCamillis', 'course': 'CPJT100', 'review': "Dr. DeCamillis is great! She keeps the class interesting with the activities we engage in, and she is very outgoing and friendly. She is also very understanding if you can't make it to class and when you are unable to attend certain events.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-07T00:58:35.376665Z'}], 'name': 'Justine DeCamillis', 'slug': 'decamillis'}, {'courses': ['CCJS100', 'CCJS452', 'CCJS498G', 'CCJS350', 'CCJS418A', 'CCJS450', 'CCJS342', 'CCJS100', 'CCJS418A', 'CCJS450', 'CCJS100', 'CCJS450', 'CCJS498G', 'CCJS100', 'CCJS342', 'CCJS450', 'CCJS498G', 'CCJS342', 'CCJS342', 'CCJS342', 'CCJS450', 'CCJS100', 'CCJS450'], 'average_rating': 4.7, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'They say hindsight is 20/20. I say I made a great decision taking CCJS100 with Dr. Madoo. Her lectures include info not in the textbook that are on the exam, but she also gives tips for the exams. There are only 3 exams and then, there is discussion. I recommend reading the book for her class and going to lecture. This course is not intensive. She brings in guest speakers and they share their experiences on the job... and then, she puts questions about the guest speaker on the exam. The exams are straightforward. Some of her lectures bore me, while most keep focused because they are so interesting. She tells her personal experiences that relate to the topic, which keeps me engaged in lecture.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-03T15:50:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Great personality, stright forward tests where you know exactly what is expected. Good stories in lecture.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-10T16:06:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Dr. Madoo was the highlight of my Monday and Wednesday mornings! Her research made me respect her more than I already did; she’s truly committed to this subject. She’s very empathetic when it comes to discussing the problems of the criminal justice system. Her exams are very fair, and she prepares students to do well. I always liked how she had personal experiences to relate back to the topic; she was a great storyteller. I loved her energy and knowledge about the topics, I hope to take her again in the future.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-17T21:19:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Dr.Madoo was helpful and tests are multiple choices. NO quiz and participation grades. Her special experience is COOL', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-01-29T21:35:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'best prof to take for this class, so interesting and entertaining', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-14T23:14:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'The lectures are great and concepts are straightfoward. As long as you do the assignments and readings, it should be an easy A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-20T21:50:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Literally my favorite professor at UMD!!! I’ve had her both in-person and online. Lectures are interesting. Make sure you do what she tells you to do and you’ll be getting an A without any difficulty.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-05T07:25:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS342', 'review': 'Love her!!! Planning to every class she teaches at UMD!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-05T07:26:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "One of the nicest people you'll ever meet. It's very clear she enjoys what she does which makes the class very enjoyable! \r\n\r\nThere are 4 exams that are very easy if you actually pay attention. The topics are interesting too! The discussions got boring very quickly but there aren't too many points in the class so they are a must. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-23T05:09:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Lectures are fine, exams are easy so class is a free A, but its not the most educational.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-17T05:57:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Fantastic professor. Very engaging and clearly well-versed in her field.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-10-22T14:23:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': None, 'review': 'Not very understanding of human mistakes. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-04T03:21:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Professor Madoo keeps the lectures super interesting. I'm not majoring in Criminal Justice so it seemed like the perfect amount of information needed. Her exams were understanding and she went over almost every question. Super interesting course and really nice professor. As long as you participate in discussion and study/ look over info before exam you should be completely fine. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-06T02:38:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Dr. Madoo is by far the best professor I've had at UMD. Her classes go by in MINUTES. She shows true passion for what she does and is very approachable. She brings guest speakers and tells stories about her experience in the field! Her lectures are so interactive even when she has so many students in the lecture hall! She gives and welcomes opportunities to ask questions during lecture so if you like interacting in class she's amazing! She is strict with going to discussion and participating but there are no quizzes or worksheets so it makes sense. She is a no technology class but it made me pay attention more so I liked it. This year her exams were online so that was AMAZING. You should definitely take her class if you have the chance.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-06T15:44:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Why on earth would she force students to start the online final at 8am with only 2 days notice!! She was a great professor besides this backstab ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-15T05:05:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Amazing professor. I am a computer science student taking this class for fun, but I thoroughly enjoyed the class. Madoo is one of the most engaging professors I have ever had, and she is able to tie in the content with her own experiences in the field. She is super funny, and doesn't take any BS from people disobeying her class rules (shoutout to the multiple times she called people out for wearing their mask wrong). Her exams are extremely fair - if you took notes during class you are more than fine. She encourages you to do the readings but to be honest I never did and got by just fine. The only assignments are the exams and discussion points (as long as you show up and participate you're fine). \r\n\r\nIn reference to the comment saying she gave an 8am final with only 2 days notice, thats absolutely not true. She told us the final would be at 8am probably 3-4 weeks before the semester ended, and then made several announcements in class after that. Overall, Madoo is super understanding and a great professor. Easy A!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-23T20:16:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'If Dr. Madoo was teaching a class on how to draw with Crayons, I would take it. She’s that good. Her teaching style is laid back but specific - telling you everything you need to know without it feeling overwhelming. Dr. Madoo will share her wealth of experience with you, ranging from juvenile detention center visits to interviewing gang members. Dr. Madoo has done it all, and it shows in her lectures. Every student, including myself, was glued to watching her lecture and attendance stayed strong throughout the semester. That’s a telltale sign of a good professor, one who could teach just about anything and attract a full roster. Take this.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-24T19:24:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Overall, easy class with this professor. Due to covid, she made the exams online which makes them very easy to do. Lectures are somewhat interesting, and they are required to attend if you want to do well on the exams since she doesn't post her slides online. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-23T03:32:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Super nice and kept class interesting! One of my favorites :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-13T21:06:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Dr. Madoo is an amazing woman and is a fantastic lecturer. There are 3 exams, including the final that are all multiple choice. Each exam is 25% of your grade and the other 25% comes from discussion participation. Exams are very straight forward with her going over everything that will be on the test in a review session before it. Discussion is required because of how much of your grade it is worth, but its only 50 minutes and usually very entertaining, and your lowest discussion score is dropped at the end. Very lengthy process to prove absences are excused which can be very frustrating, but I love this woman otherwise. Definitely take this class with her', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-13T19:54:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Hands down the easiest and most interesting class I've ever taken. There were only weekly discussion grades that you have to participate in and then 3 exams which were online, open note, and extremely straightforward as long as you take notes in class. Dr. Madoo is funny, very experienced and knowledgeable, and genuinely cares about what she is lecturing. Her teaching style is engaging and it made me look forward to that class every day.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-14T23:32:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'This professor have strange policies. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-14T23:42:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Dr. Madoo was fantastic at lecturing. Her lectures were engaging, easy to understand, and interesting. I liked how she told us about her own experiences in the criminal justice field. This class is really insightful and was easy for a gen ed requirement. There are three exams that occur but they were all online, open note and the last one is NOT cumulative. I did find that the discussions were silly and it felt like we were back in high school. They were unnecessary and felt like a waste of time. There is minimal homework, except reading the chapter and taking notes, other than that there are no other assignments except the ones that you complete in class during the discussions. Overall, this is a very easy gen ed, and I highly recommend Dr. Madoo! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-23T01:09:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Professor Madoo is amazing! She has the best personality and her lectures are always interesting and engaging. There is never any homework. The class is all graded on going to discussion once a week and 3 tests throughout the semester which are very easy. The tests were open note and were on everything that we learned. I highly recommend taking this class with Professor Madoo because she is the best!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-25T22:22:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Madoo is super cool and makes the class easy to follow. Exams are online and hella easy if you just go to class. An A should be expected if you put in any kind of effort', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-22T19:06:02.939911Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "As a STEM major with other hard classes TAKE HER!!!!!!! Literally the easiest class ever considering all the exams are online and its open note bla bla. And, its a fun elective because she manages to cooperate at least one relevant story about her life into every lecture and keeps class interesting. It's a pretty relaxing class and the easiest GEN-ED ever.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-01T14:28:28.671483Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Professor Madoo is the best professor I have ever taken at UMD. Exams are extremely fair, as long as you go to class and take notes you will succeed in this course. Class was so interesting, I actually looked forward to going to this class every week. I would recommend this course to everyone I know. No homework, fair easy exams and interesting class! Take this, you will NOT regret!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-05T20:29:55.976955Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Dr. Madoo is AMAZING!!!!!!! She is easily one of the best professors I've had so far. She really only grades based on how you do on the exams (online and usually very easy since they are open note) and how you do in discussion. She keeps class interesting with life stories related to what we learn in class. If you take CCJS100, PLEASE make sure you have her as the lecturer. SHE'S AWESOME!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-06T00:51:50.949061Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Dr. Madoo was a fantastic professor to have. She incorporates her own experience into the class, which enhances the material. She is very helpful and always willing to talk with her students. Definitely recommend her class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-06T03:10:02.853737Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Expect an A+ in the class if you read the chapters. I took this class in Fall of 2022, and all our exams were online. Professor Madoo makes that class very engaging and interesting. I would recommend taking this class and all the other classes she teaches :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-06T20:41:59.331076Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Possibly one of the best instructors I have ever had throughout my academic career. She's extremely passionate about her work, as you would be able to tell through the stories about her personal life, and the class is extremely easy to pass overall. Discussions are worth 25% of your grade, and the other 75% is made up of three online exams. It's practically impossible to fail the class as long as you live up to the bare minimum.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-10T22:52:25.349493Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Professor Madoo was great! Her lectures were always so engaging and interesting. She even brought in a guest speaker that was super interesting. There are 3 exams, all online and open note so as long as you take good notes you will be fine! She doesn't take attendance so it's up to you whether you attend class or not but I highly recommend you do! Overall would recommend this class with Madoo to anyone interested in criminal justice!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-12T20:42:19.689050Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "She's the GOAT. Hoping to get into one of her classes next semester......and then maybe every semester after that. I am actually in love with this woman. Don't let her no phones/laptops/technology rule scare you off, because she will hold your attention for the entire time, every class. She adds amazing stories from her life into basically every lesson which makes the content easier/more personable (the content is already cool though, everyone should take this class just because it's essential knowledge.) Exams are all online, multiple choice, open note/textbook with no lockdown browser, with a range of a few hours for you to begin it (only 50 minutes after you start the exam but still) - aka super easy. Keep up with your chapter readings and discussion sections and you'll have everything you need to succeed. Run don't walk to register for her", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T20:52:33.090687Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Easiest Gen Ed ever. I would say this class can be compared to UNIV100 by how easy it was. I literally skipped class every day and scored below average on all 3 exams yet still passed with an A lol. (She doesn't post her notes btw). Her class is interesting, and her many stories keeps me awake. She brings in guest speakers which I think is pretty nice. If I were to redo this class, I would actually pay attention since this class is pretty relevant to what's happening in our society. There is no curve in this class since the average on the exam is always an A. She rounds .50 and up which is pretty nice. If she didn't round, I'd have an A-", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-17T15:51:17.447035Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "Dr. Madoo is definitely one of the funniest professors I have ever had at UMD. She talks about her personal life during lectures which makes them so interesting! However, she doesn't post notes so you NEED to attend lectures because the exams are based off the lectures. If you show up to class you'll do great. There are three exams, including the final, that are online and open-note with no lockdown browser (so easy). She also always tries to get guest speakers to come which is awesome for networking. I highly recommend taking her class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-18T01:44:17.195261Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': "She is a good teacher, although she does have annoying policies. You aren't allowed to have laptops in class and she doesn't upload the slides. This is just to offset how easy the class is, however. Your grades are based on three exams (one of them being the final) and your discussion grade. Exams are online and multiple choice. You don't need to go to lecture to score well on the exams, since you can find everything in the textbook and online. The average for every exam was in the 90s. Discussion section was annoying since we had to do high school things like Kahoot, but my TA basically said as long as we show up she would give us a 100. It wasn't one of those discussions where you had to raise your hand to get a good grade. Although you don't have to go to lectures, Madoo is a good lecturer and really personable. She shared lots of stories and had a guest speaker.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-11T23:29:48.190933Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Dr. Madoo is an excellent professor. Her lectures are always very interesting. The discussions can tend to be a little boring, but for the most part they are interesting, considering that they are mandatory and a large portion of your final grade. This is a warning, though, to people who want to take this course with her for semesters after Spring 2023. Dr. Madoo recently told my class that she is changing the course structure to have in-person closed-book exams. This is very different than how it is now as the exams are open book/note and online. The content is pretty easy to understand, but I have put very little time into this class outside of exams and going to lectures/discussions, so I am not sure how time-consuming it will be with in-person exams. I also took this class because I heard it is an easy gened, so if you are a criminology major, the in-person exams may be in your favor in the long run anyways, but I would consider the change in exam structure before choosing this as a gened.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-13T19:02:59.075676Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS342', 'review': "Took Madoo last semester for 100 and had to get her again for 342, especially since this is the last time she'll be teaching this class over a fall/spring semester. She said 342 is usually a summer/winter class which I think would be totally fine considering we're moving at a very slow pace over this semester. And that's not a bad thing, we move slowly through content because she spends a lot of time talking about her personal research experience (as corrections, specifically reentry, is her area of expertise) and having class discussions on the material which are really engaging. We had two papers due which weren't bad, one was literally a movie review. Three exams overall, including the final, which are all online/open-note. Since she's about to step up as the head of the crim department she's a bit bummed that she'll have to reduce her class load for at least the next one or two semesters, so be on the lookout for her classes as I'm sure they'll be a hot ticket. Coolest crim professor that I know of!!!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-24T20:14:28.509792Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Justine is an amazing professor and kept our lectures so fun! If you have the opportunity to take one of her CCJS classes you definitely should. As long as you show up to lectures and read the readings you should do very well on the exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-26T23:04:58.552539Z'}, {'professor': 'Justine Madoo', 'course': 'CCJS100', 'review': 'Amazing professor and super easy class! She is a very kind and interesting professor, so the lectures are engaging and not boring. The discussions might seem boring and a waste of time, but they are worth 25% of your grade so not worth skipping. The three exams (including the final) are extremely easy and online, so it is very easy to do well in this class. However, she does not allow laptops during class and does not post the notes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-27T02:02:58.065174Z'}], 'name': 'Justine Madoo', 'slug': 'madoo'}, {'courses': ['ENEE631', 'ENEE425', 'ENEE634', 'ENEE420', 'ENEE630', 'ENEE408G', 'EDSP652'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'KJ Ray Liu', 'course': 'ENEE425', 'review': 'Lectures are very boring and he follows exactly from the book. You can honestly skip class and read the book. The homework are very difficult and time consuming. A lot of the questions he assigns are advanced problems and he believes that you\'ll finish them in 2-3 hours but you should expect to take much more than that. There are 2 projects in the class which you can work with partners on and aren\'t too difficult (there are no right or wrong answers) but be sure to show your output and explain what you did. There is only 1 midterm and 1 final. They are both as he says "basic" questions but they are worded weirdly so you may think its one thing while its another. The sample exams he puts doesnt help you except show you the layout of what the exam might look like. Overall I would not recommend him for this class or maybe any class. He is rude at times, even when you go to his office hours he doesn\'t seem to be helpful and rushes you to get out. If you did really well in 322 then this maybe the class for you. If you just want an elective then you should pick another class!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-03-02T18:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'KJ Ray Liu', 'course': 'ENEE425', 'review': 'Lectures from the stock slides provided by the textbook publishers and are often lacking in terms of examples, making homework difficult. This class would really benefit from having a discussion section for that reason. Homework problems vary between difficult and tedious. Weekly problem sets from the textbook result in a pretty heavy workload and the assigned textbook (Mitra) is not great.\n\r\nHe likes to play coy when asked about the content of upcoming exams. This is very frustrating, as there is some overlap of material with practice exams given, but many topics that seem to be unimportant or not as emphasized in the homework show up as well. He does emphasize concepts over performing calculations, which is a definite plus.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-01-02T21:47:00Z'}], 'name': 'KJ Ray Liu', 'slug': 'liu_kj_ray'}, {'courses': ['HESI217'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kahlin McKeown', 'slug': 'mckeown'}, {'courses': ['AMST101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kalima Young', 'slug': 'young_kalima'}, {'courses': ['CPSP222', 'CPSP239J', 'CPSP249J', 'CPSP118J', 'CPSP218J', 'JOUR698M', 'CPSP259J', 'JOUR601', 'JOUR801', 'JOUR200U', 'JOUR698L', 'CPMS100', 'CPMS101', 'CPMS230', 'CPSP339J', 'CPMS225', 'JOUR800', 'CPMS240', 'JOUR289F'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kalyani Chadha', 'course': None, 'review': 'LOVE THIS LADY!! She is funny and smart, and makes class interesting. I love the discussions we have. Definitely recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-10T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kalyani Chadha', 'course': None, 'review': 'hahahah the other review for dr. chadha is on point. I concur. Chadha is awesome', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-10T20:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kalyani Chadha', 'course': None, 'review': 'Chadha is the best. She is really sweet and someone you could totally hang with. Class is fun when it\'s just Chadha. It\'s really engaging and she knows everyone\'s name right away. Class sucks, however, when Joanna is also in class. Joanna is the TA and is known as "simply the worst". Joanna always assigns more work than any class needs, especially when Chadha lays out such a chill semester. Joanna seeks to make your life miserable. As long as you never speak to her, you\'ll be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-19T16:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kalyani Chadha', 'course': 'CPMS100', 'review': 'Chadha is the absolute best. She is amazing and will do anything to help out her students. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-22T23:30:52Z'}], 'name': 'Kalyani Chadha', 'slug': 'chadha'}, {'courses': ['ENTS759A', 'ENPM808B', 'ENPM616', 'ENTS699K', 'ENTS699A', 'ENTS699', 'ENTS759F', 'ENTS759G', 'ENPM616', 'ENTS759F', 'ENTS759I', 'ENPM808B', 'ENTS759G', 'ENPM616', 'ENTS759I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kamran Etemad', 'slug': 'etemad'}, {'courses': ['GVPT456', 'GVPT700', 'GVPT808C', 'GVPT888F', 'GVPT459W', 'GVPT459M'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kanisha Bond', 'course': 'GVPT456', 'review': "Dr. Bond is one of the best professors I've ever had. She's extremely smart and has a ton of research experience in the field of terrorism.\n\r\nBut she's so much more than her resume. She encourages some of the best and most open-minded class discussions I've ever experienced. After the Paris attacks during this semester, we spent a few classes speaking solely about that, using everything we'd learned previously. She threw out her original material, and we talked about that.\n\r\nShe gives her students A TON of control over what gets discussed in class, and she really cares about each of her students' viewpoints.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-12-03T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kanisha Bond', 'course': 'GVPT459M', 'review': 'Dr. Bond is very passionate and knowledgeable about social movement. She likes to incorporate and talk about relevant social justice issues/current events in the class. Sometimes the readings are a bit dense and scientific but her powerpoints are really good. She is a fairly easy grader if you put in the work and I got an A+', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-20T03:09:15Z'}], 'name': 'Kanisha Bond', 'slug': 'bond_kanisha'}, {'courses': ['GEOG211'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kanna Siripurapu', 'slug': 'siripurapu'}, {'courses': ['GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kara Duffy', 'slug': 'duffy_kara'}, {'courses': ['PHYS106', 'PHYS420', 'PHYS407', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS758E', 'PHYS171', 'PHYS171H', 'PHYS275', 'PHYS758E', 'PHYS276', 'PHYS758E', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS276'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kara Hoffman', 'course': 'PHYS276', 'review': "As a course, PHYS276 was very easy. Just read and understand the pre-lab material before class and you'll have the easiest time. Dr. Hoffman, however, wasn't the most helpful professor. I found the TA to be much more useful. This class was easy, but I wouldn't take a more difficult course with her. You would be fine in the lower level labs though.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-05-11T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kara Hoffman', 'course': 'PHYS276', 'review': 'Dr. Hoffman has a clear lack of understanding about the information taught in the class. Her tests were very difficult, and not an accurate measure of the course. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-03T00:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kara Hoffman', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': ' Dr. Hoffman is one of the better professors at MD. Her lectures are very useful, and her demonstrations in class are very interesting. The only problem is that not-too-uncommon questions catch her by surprise. Therefore, she isn\'t able to answer them until a day or more later. However, she is very easy to talk to, because she doesn\'t have an ego that dominates her personality.\r\n Her tests are a little harder than most (Hence our average test score for the spring 2009 semester was a 60%) However, she gives generous curves (1/3 As, 1/3 Bs, 1/3 C\'s, and some "stragglers" get Ds and Fs ) If you do well on the webassign and homework, none of which are too hard, then you should really enjoy her class.\r\n As a side note, GO TO RECITATIONS EVERY FRIDAY since not doing so can take up to 10% off your final grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-09T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kara Hoffman', 'course': 'PHYS171', 'review': 'Dr. Hoffman is one of those professors who is a wonderful person and a great scientist but not a stellar teacher. My main quibble is that she teaches off of slides but reads them word for word, without adding much during lecture. She often struggles to convey what she wants to say as well. If I hadn’t taken AP Physics in high school, I doubt I would’ve done nearly as well in her class. That said, she truly cares about her students and I personally thought that her exams were quite good for a physics course.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-06T00:20:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Kara Hoffman', 'course': 'PHYS171', 'review': 'Extremely inconsiderate and completely devoid of any empathy. Lectures were boring and monotonous, and there’s lots of homework (it’s all hard.) would not recommend even though I currently have an A in the class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-06T09:26:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Kara Hoffman', 'course': 'PHYS171', 'review': 'Her TA is the only reason I’m surviving this class. She missed our last final review session and was unable to coordinate a sub. Very nonchalant about the worries or successes of her students ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-16T13:07:48Z'}], 'name': 'Kara Hoffman', 'slug': 'hoffman_kara'}, {'courses': ['ENGL391', 'ENGL398N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kara Pleasants', 'slug': 'pleasants'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 3.9091, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Easily one of the best professors for ENGL394. Took it online, so very difficult to be in touch but when you are - exceptional. Straight forward advice and a curriculum for a class which really makes you think about how to intellectually become a better writer.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-17T21:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'I took this course the first semester she taught it online. There were some glitches at points in the semester, but overall she did a really good job teaching us. There was some busy work here and there, but it was a very relaxing professional writing course. The only thing I would suggest is that, during the beginning of the class, we had barely any work for about a month to 2 months. However, for the last month and a half, we had a major assignment due every 2 weeks. She is a very relaxed grader, so just make sure you follow her directions. I highly recommend taking her, this class was a very relaxed business writing class that did not require a lot of work, and I received an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-20T00:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Professor Angeline is one of the best professors at UMD and definitely the best writing professor I've ever had. She's extremely helpful and wants you to do well. She gives you practical advice that will actually be relevant to your career, and the workload is not overwhelming. Take this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-02-17T20:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Professor Angeline is a very nice woman. If you pay attention in her class, you will get an A. Four 2-3 page papers all year and the assignment sheet is very specific so you can do well.\n\r\nThe final seems daunting because it's 10 pages but it's actually very easy to write because of the format and topic. \n\r\nHighly recommended.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-23T02:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "This class is a lot different than a lot of other junior english classes. You don't have to work with a group at all, which is nice. You have to think of a problem which exists at the university, then spend all semester writing different papers in different formats about the same topic. Professor Angeline is really nice, and wants you to be succesful. Take this class!!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "I definitely recommend Prof. Angeline for ENGL394 without a doubt. This was one of the most useful and informative classes I've taken at UMD. Prof. Angeline gave many opportunities to receive REAL feedback on your work to maximize your learning experience, and you can resubmit work for a higher grade once you've learned from your mistakes. If you put in effort and choose harder topics that challenge you to make the most out of the class, you can come out with a lot more knowledge and experience in business writing. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-07-10T14:25:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Taking this course over the summer has been quite a ride but Professor Angeline has made the experience informative and better. She gives very helpful feedback and allows you to re-write your essays to get a better score. I found using the peer-edit methods she presented to us allowed us to also learn where we went wrong from other classmates point of view. By the end of this class, you have learned and gained so much skills and leave as a better writing overall. Definitely take her class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-08-18T17:24:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Excellent professor! The lectures are very clear. The best part of taking her class is the feedback. She is really good at giving feedback and providing you with an opportunity to learn from her feedback.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-31T15:21:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "This is an easy class but the professor is just rude. Terrible feedback on projects and doesn't even try to help. Honestly don't even know what her problem is. Course work is easy but I feel like the reviews on the professor as a person are a little outdated. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-25T16:39:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "These reviews are most certainly outdated. Karen is just that... a Karen. She's so incredibly rude and i almost never leave reviews but I haven't met someone so devoid of compassion. Like the work for 394 is fine, but this professor is awful. Just so rude and tries to gaslight you and says honestly incredibly rude things in private.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T16:51:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Angeline', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "This lady is an absolute bozo. She has no idea what she is doing. Doesn't explain any of her assignments. Then gives zeros and isn't willing to help amend it. I have no idea how her reviews are so high. She literally has pre-recorded lectures that you have to watch and make 1 useless comment on. She has the best job in the world where she doesn't have to do any work and just gives whatever grade she wants. She forces peer editing so that she doesn't have to read anything herself. Classic Karen. Classic English teacher that is mad at the world.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-09-09T20:26:41.151188Z'}], 'name': 'Karen Angeline', 'slug': 'angeline'}, {'courses': ['DANC305', 'DANC485', 'DANC679', 'EDCI688V', 'DANC304', 'DANC488', 'DANC604', 'DANC405', 'DANC766', 'EDCI688Z', 'DANC678', 'TDPS458J', 'DANC777', 'DANC789', 'DANC719', 'DANC647', 'EDCI689', 'DANC705', 'TDPS458M', 'DANC689I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Karen Bradley', 'slug': 'bradley_karen'}, {'courses': ['BSCI338C', 'BSCI338V', 'BSCI207', 'BSCI403', 'BSCI402', 'BIOL708C', 'BIOL608A', 'BEES608A', 'BIOL608D', 'BISI678B', 'HLSC207', 'BIOL608A', 'BISI610', 'BSCI207', 'HLSC207', 'BSCI426', 'BSCI207'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I took BSCI207 with Dr. Karen and with Dr. Eric Haag and I already aired my grievances about the class itself over in Dr. Eric's reviews but I just wanted to drop by here and say that Dr. Karen can teach neurons really darn well. I properly understood one unit in this whole class and it was the neurons unit and it was her doing. One review says her slides are long and this is true, I wish she just had more classes to teach her stuff. But she makes the slides so you can understand them when you go back through them, which is nice because that's pretty much the only way to study for this class from the fiery depths. \n\r\nDr. Karen is very nice and I think a good teacher when she's not forced to teach the 207 material.Overall not a bad professor to have a course with. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-01-02T05:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Wayy to much information on her powerpoint slides. Over 50 slides for each of her presentations for a 50 minute class. She's really nice but not a great teacher", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-01-01T12:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Carlton is an amazing professor! She was happy to answer questions about assignments and really knows her stuff! She keeps things interesting and opens up the class mainly to group/peer discussions. This was a 2 credit class but I found the work-load very reasonable. Besides the few homework assignments there is a midterm project and final project. The final project was easy because you get to choose your own topic. All in all, this class is perfect if you like a small class size ~20 people, and a really intelligent, helpful professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-31T17:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': None, 'review': "For a 2 credit class, this class was more work than I had expected. We had homework assignments every week and a midterm and final project. The class was small, only about 20 kids. She's very enthusiastic about the subject, and tries to make lecture interesting. She's insanely nice and is always around to get help with homework assignments and projects and will basically walk you through everything. But overall, she's a great professor and really knows her stuff. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T00:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Wow, probably the best teacher I've had this semester and that's even though it was mostly asynchronous.\r\nIt's definitely not an easy class, you really have to work for it if you want a good grade. I don't mean that there were a lot of difficult assignments, I mean that the material itself is quite difficult, but I learned so much from it. She has each lecture (approx 50 minutes) broken up into 3-4 different smaller videos which is so awesome. It makes it so much easier do digest and absorb the material because of the smaller bite sized lectures.\r\nDr. Karen is also just very nice. She gets back to emails relatively quickly, and she also is just a very sweet person. I really enjoyed the class and definitely recommend it. I've heard that the BSCI207 teachers are generally very good, but Dr. Karen was just awesome.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-18T17:33:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': 'Dr Karen is honestly the only reason 207 was tolerable. The class itself is not conceptually difficult but there is a LOT of information you have to learn. Dr Karen allowed us to have a cheat sheet for every exam which was super kind of her. Her exams were always fair, and she truly wanted her students to learn. She ended up dropping out lowest midterm score which was also a really nice surprise. If you have to take 207 take it with Dr. Karen! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-21T02:27:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': "Dr. Karen is one of the kindest professors, and she knows her stuff. HLSC207/BSCI207 is just an information dump, and thus the exams are the same. There's not much to complain about... the lectures were very fast paced, but all slides were posted after the lectures, and most of the times, recordings were too. Dr. Karen also provided many resources to help understand the knowledge and do well on the exams, including concept check quizzes (zero points) and the homework assignments. I believe my semester was the last semester of the HLSC section, but if you are going to take BSCI207, I highly recommend Dr. Karen!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-24T16:33:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': "She is SUPER KIND. She is super understanding. She really couldn't help that the class itself is just jam-packed with information we have to learn, but she does give support in learning all of it. Some class periods consisted of more than 60 slides. But, for my class, she had recordings of the lectures which really helped to absorb all of the information. She basically did everything in her power to help you on the test. Very good teacher, but I think me section was the last section fo HLSC207 that was ever going to be given, so if you have to take BSCI207, take her. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-05T15:02:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': 'Definitely a great professor in terms of teaching and compassion. However, I feel that the course itself was just too dense and that preparation for exams could have been easier with a simple study guide or more direct review sessions. I still would def recommend to anyone on the fence on taker her.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-25T03:31:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': 'Super sweet professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-02-05T01:20:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': 'Great professor, and even dropped an exam for us when it was not originally in the syllabus. Even though I was not a fan of the content of the class (basically all straight memorization), Dr. Karen made the information as bearable as it could be. If you have to take 207, take her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-05T21:30:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'HLSC207', 'review': 'Super nice professor who really cares. Lets students have cheat sheets for the exams (which is great considering the class is straight memorization), and decided to drop an exam at the end of the semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-07T03:13:32.465183Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Very nice professor! Lectures are very easy to understand if you pay attention. She records her lectures and posts her slides so that students can look back on whatever we missed, which is really helpful for when we review for exams. She had 3 exams and dropped the lowest one, so she keeps the best 2 exams. For exams, she lets us have a cheat sheet which is really helpful because it forces us to actually review the material. For the first 2 exams, she gave us opportunity to bring the score up by a couple of points. I always went to office hours and she would always be very helpful and breakdown anything I was confused about. She's probably my favorite professor!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-16T16:00:26.801919Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Like everyone says, she’s a kind and sincere professor. I just feel the lectures are her reading off the 50 or so slides where we don’t even have time to write much of anything down. Each lecture is pretty loosely related to each other so it doesn’t really matter too much if you skip one because you can watch the recording. I felt she was an alright prof and attribute most of my success to the cheat sheet for exams and just reviewing lecture recordings because I skipped a decent amount of lectures.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-27T07:25:20.046809Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I loved Dr. Karen. She is the sweetest professor I've had so far and she clearly cares about what she's teaching. The only reason I took off a star is because classes are boring and she kinda just reads from the slide. I also had a hard time telling what to study or telling how specific the exams would get about the content. But other than that it was chill. There are concept checks that are ungraded practice DO THEM literally like 30% of the first exam multiple choice I already knew because I did the checks. Could have gotten an A if I studied more and went to class :/", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-03-12T03:36:42.660746Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Carleton', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Dr. Carleton is one of the best teachers I have had. She broke down the content into well-organized lectures. She was very clear with what will be tested and made the memorization-heavy content digestible. She allowed us to make and have a cheat sheet which was a lifesaver. DO THE CONCEPT CHECKS! The concept checks are going to be very helpful. She genuinely is a good teacher and wants you to do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-25T00:26:25.517027Z'}], 'name': 'Karen Carleton', 'slug': 'carleton'}, {'courses': ['JOUR201', 'JOUR320', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR625', 'JOUR199', 'JOUR396', 'JOUR199', 'JOUR396', 'JOUR199', 'JOUR396', 'JOUR199', 'JOUR199', 'JOUR396', 'JOUR199', 'JOUR396', 'JOUR199', 'JOUR396'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Karen Denny', 'slug': 'denny'}, {'courses': ['HESP616'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Karen Fallon', 'slug': 'fallon'}, {'courses': ['BMGT340', 'BMGT446', 'BUFN750', 'BMGT340N', 'BMGT345', 'BMGT448P', 'BMGT440F', 'BMGT340', 'BMGT340N', 'BMGT340', 'BMGT340N'], 'average_rating': 3.35, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Prof. Hallows makes this class interesting. Like many people already said, she's nice and in my opinion good for those who don't like math as she takes almost elementary approach and solves problems on the board step-by-step. This class required a lot of work however (video lectures, video quizzes, hw, chapter quizzes, project). Clickers are used in this class. Attendance wasn't taken. Tests are crazy difficult, it helps to go over the ones from past semesters which will be posted on ELMS for you. Only 3 out of 4 tests count so final is technically optional. There's also some extra credit.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-06-03T10:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'Professor Hallows is a really nice professor, who treats everybody with respect. She is a great lecturer, and wants to make sure everybody understands Finance. In class, she will work many problems for each chapter, which are similar to what is on the exams. Even though the exams are done among all the 340 teachers, I still found them to be quite accessible. The projects are not difficult, but require some time (there are 3 of them). It is also important that you do all the homework, quizzes, video quizzes, and the extra credit assignments, which can really help your grade. If you have the opportunity to take her, I highly recommend that you do!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-29T12:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "This class is extremely difficult. I don't blame Dr. Hallows for the unfairness of this class because all of the finance professors work together to structure the class so it's not her fault how difficult it is. She does a decent enough job of presenting material and really does care about her students. The problem of this class lies on how hard the exams are. You can literally go over every practice exam, Myfinance lab quiz/HW and you will still see questions on the exams that literally no one in the class knows how to answer. Often the TA's will even struggle to solve them. I assume they do this to bring the averages of the exams down and its really unfair. The best way to study is to look through all of the practice exams and do problems over and over and over since those questions will best prepare you for the exams. \n\r\nThe one plus of the class is how awesome the TA's are. Some of them are not too great at teaching material but some of them are really great and can teach you the concepts really well. They will even help you with the quizzes and project. Before exams, go to the TA's with any questions you have. They will help you out alot and let you know what to expect on the exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-05-23T20:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "I was deciding between a three and a four. She is a nice lady who knows a lot about finance. I think her weak spot is in understanding questions from students and then explaining concepts. \n\r\nShe's not the best teacher but she's also far from the worst", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-04-30T13:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'Professor Hallows is a great teacher and will do whatever she can to make sure her students understand Finance. She is very patient and work the problems over and over. She always returned by emails usually in a couple of hours, and I wrote her quite frequently, let me tell you.\n\r\nThe exams are fair, I guess it depends on the subject. I got an A on the first, C on the second, and was able to get a B+ on the third and avoid the final. Make sure to do all homework and extra credit assignments; they will certainly help you out. The projects require some work, but are not so difficult. Watch the videos and you should be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-17T16:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Hallows is really nice and tries to do everything she can to help you understand finance. She will even fall a little behind because she does so many practice problems and tries to help you out for the exams. Overall, the course is run together among all of the 340 teachers, so the tests don't come from just her. I found them mildly tough. They curved a couple and presented you with a ton of extra credit opportunities. No real excuse to get under a B if you do them and homeworks.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-20T01:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'Professor Hallows is a solid lecturer and really tries to help students grasp the concepts presented in corporate finance. She often goes out of her way to bring real-world examples into the lecture, which is good for students interested in finance. The difficulty of the exams is not really up to her, but she is open to answer any questions that you may have.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-16T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Hallows is a tough lady who doesn't sugar coat how hard finance is, which I appreciated. However, she is a nice person who treats all of her students with respect. She goes over questions anyone has about the subject clearly, and will continue to explain until you get the concept. I never felt lost in her class because of her teaching style. \r\nMy advice for 340 is definitely do all of the extra credit. It's not that hard but it absolutely saved my grade this semester. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-24T19:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'Her first name describes her demeanor. She gets frustrated when you do not know the content as well as her, and flies through concepts. She knows the content well, and there are a lot of resources to do well, however, I would feel stressed and sad in her class. For teaching, I would say a rating of 2-3 is more appropriate but I have never dreaded going to a class as much as 340. Her attitude is just that bad and draining.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-04-22T17:54:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Unaccommodating, rude, sociopathic piece of sh*t. Didn't even consider decreasing workload; felt like a lot of class concepts weren't that bad but the busywork/HW was insane on top of projects. A student's father died and her sad excuse of a response is all over MD news. Hope she loses all of her investment portfolio in this pandemic! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-04T19:39:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'No empathy or compassion for students. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-05-07T13:54:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Hallows wasn't as bad as a lot of people say she is, but she isn't great. She's a pretty average teacher for a somewhat boring class. She does get frustrated during class if students aren't understanding the concepts. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-15T18:08:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "She is good at teaching, she is rude though. The workload is heavy but that's not her fault. Wish she had a more kind attitude.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-27T15:56:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "really lives up to her name. be prepared to teach yourself and attend office hours. at least there's some extra credit. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-19T02:00:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Professor Hallows is pretty good at teaching Finance, but she really isn't open to questions. The class requires a lot of studying both for grades and just to practice the concepts because without practice you can't pass. She and professor Padhi worked together to create exams, which are pretty much like the sample exams they provide, but still difficult. They also cram chapters a few days before the exam, so you really need to work ahead on your own so you have time to study. Overall, Hallows herself isn't a bad professor. The class is just pretty hard and stressful. Definitely don't take this with any other difficult classes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-20T19:42:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'Not a good professor. She is not effective at teaching the content, and then when you ask a question she will get frustrated and angry. Professor Padhi also teacher this class and they both work together, which means all students take the same quizzes and tests. The difference in grades between the two professors is astounding. Definitely avoid Hallows if possible. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-06T02:48:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'Do not understand why she gets such bad reviews. She is a great lecturer and know the content inside out, just show up to class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-15T19:53:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "It was fine. If you can't do great in this class... idk. it is by no means hard and she curves fairly generously, gives you a cheat sheet etc.. She's super boring and sometimes mixes stuff up in class, I believe Padhi's class had significantly higher average grades. Just pay attention or look the stuff up yourself. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-31T17:49:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "She moves through concepts way too fast and doesn't give you a chance to actually understand them during lectures. She does provide a bunch of different materials to help with class but it can sometimes be overwhelming. She gets frustrated when people don't understand topics in class and when she is asked a question she get's mad that the student is confused. I would recommend taking Padhi's section instead.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-05-07T20:40:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Hallows', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "I was really struggling at first in this class because she was so fast with concepts but then I realized most of the learning was going to be done on my own account. Once I did this, everything turned out to be better. I suggest doing homework and quizzes a couple of days before it is due and do the study plan as you go through the semester. You don't have to do every single one. If you do it AS YOU GO, you get extra credit at the end. You should do all extra credit opportunities because they are easy. For exams, practice at least 2 exams and practice what you get wrong and you'll be ready, the exams are very similar to the practice exams. \r\nOverall, I suggest going to class to get the Learning Catalytics credits and to work on your homework in advance. \r\nP.S it is reversed course so you watch a lecture before class and have to do a quiz with it so take good notes and pay attention.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-06-03T16:02:41Z'}], 'name': 'Karen Hallows', 'slug': 'hallows'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM107M'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Karen Lamb', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'She grades rather harshly and is extremely picky about pedantic stuff. Her class also has attendance/participation points each day. On speech days she gives you vocal feedback in front of the entire class which can be extremely humiliating. Most of her criticism is valid but do you really want to let your GPA suffer because of her.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-03-10T17:36:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Lamb', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Amazing instructor. Cares about students. You need to put a bit effort in class to get grades but otherwise it's excellent", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-09-29T16:35:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Lamb', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "One of my favorite professors this semester, she is such a sweet professor. She is extremely accommodating and great to work with. She doesn't give a ton of homework only 2 weekly assignments. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-15T18:33:52Z'}], 'name': 'Karen Lamb', 'slug': 'lamb_karen'}, {'courses': ['ENES151', 'ENGL388P', 'ENGL388P', 'ENGL388P', 'ENGL388P', 'ENGL388P', 'ENGL388P', 'ENGL388P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Karen Lewis', 'slug': 'lewis_karen'}, {'courses': ['BSCI363', 'CONS609I', 'CONS680', 'HONR278Q', 'BIOL708R', 'BSCI462', 'BISI899', 'BISI708A', 'BSCI339A'], 'average_rating': 2.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Karen Lips', 'course': 'BSCI363', 'review': 'She definitely should be in research and not teaching. She is a pretty boring lecturer and does not get the class into the subject matter at all. In fact, I left with a bad taste in my mouth for conservation biology. \n\r\nThe "dossier" projects were ridiculous. We all chose species to do our projects on from a list which she created. Many of these species had little to no information available on them. So many of the students who, by chance, picked a species with no information available, faced terrible grades.\n\r\nHer exams were pretty bad too. They were big 7-page packets of short answer questions. In the beginning of the year, she stated that her exams would focus on big ideas. But, in fact, her exams ended up being all the nit-picky details from her slides. Most of the class did horrible on her three exams and she had to curve heavily. \n\r\nThe final wasn\'t too bad. Thats the good news. I think she used it to bring up grades. Pretty easy. But, I definitely would avoid this class overall if you can.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-08-23T15:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Lips', 'course': 'BSCI363', 'review': "So I ended up getting an A in this class, but I have to say that she was far from an ideal professor of conservation biology. She's not terrible, but I think she's more suited to research than teaching (not an insult, just sort of ironic). She's the only professor who I'd give under a 4 even though I got an A, which is saying something!\n\r\nThe subject material - as a whole - seemed pretty straightforward heading into the first (and only) midterm. I studied like crazy and ended up with a 52%. Funny thing is that 52% was right around the class average. She didn't take any blame for the incredibly long exam and said we could have studied more. Alright then. The final was a joke, lots of writing, but very easy overall. \n\r\nThe major assignments (both were dossiers) weren't too bad. She graded them easily (as in the average was around 75%), likely because the midterm was so brutal. I ended up killing both dossiers which is why I got an A. There are also random homework assignments and in-class activities. Do them, because she retrospectively decided that since only half the class completed them, a couple would be for extra credit. I actually skipped ~30% the lectures (which she keeps tabs on yet doesn't count for points, which may explain why she had it in for me since I did well despite skipping all the time). \n\r\nDirections on assignments were vague, redundant, and unclear. You may feel like you're answering the same question over and over again - because you are. Just do it. She always started class early.\n\r\nOne more gripe. Any time I emailed her with a fair question about something, she'd give me an unnecessarily sassy response. I don't know if she just enjoyed sassing me, but they came off as sort of rude and uncalled for. \n\r\nTo be fair, she was understanding enough to curve the class to make >80% an A. But trust me, that's not as easy as it sounds - in a class of 40 or so students, I was one of less than 10 to score above 80% overall, and probably one of 3-4 at most to have at least an 85%. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-17T19:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Lips', 'course': 'BSCI462', 'review': 'Requires an insane amount of work for no reason. There\'s a weekly assignment to read 6-10+ articles and write a 1-2 page paper finding common themes between them. The lecture then goes over these papers, but the focus is on the methodologies. The midterm asked questions from the methodologies only - no bigger picture questions. Think "what species of tuna did they catch" instead of "why was it important they caught tuna". In a room of 16 senior biology undergrad and graduate students, the average was a 73%. There was no hint of a curve.\r\n\r\nThe in-class assignments are all the same - design an experiment within the narrowly defined example provided. Is your idea outside of the box? Not technology-focused? Did you not spend 90% of the write-up discussing how you would collect data? Too bad - instead you get a follow-up email asking you to review the assignment.\r\n\r\nI still haven\'t learned anything about population ecology. \r\n\r\nThe final project is 30% of our grade. Its due date was set two weeks after the rubric/description was released, and is absolutely insane. Prepare for a major lab report where you have to find and analyze data relating to species\' population. A big chunk of students had their project proposals rejected, even after sitting down with her to verify they were on the right track. \r\n\r\nHer expectation that we have nothing else but this class is consistent and frankly there\'s a group of us prepared to fail the project. We cannot put in the time for a 15+ page lab report within the last two weeks of the semester.\r\n\r\nShe\'s nice in person, but should not be teaching. Avoid.\r\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-04-25T18:18:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Lips', 'course': 'BSCI462', 'review': 'I definitely think Lips has improved since the past reviews. I really liked the structure of BSCI462. Each week you read 3-6ish recent scientific papers and have to write a 1 page summary paper which is graded for completion. That took me about 3 hours each week. Then there are “activities” each week that I didn’t think were that useful, but they didn’t take too long and were supposed to be completed during class (usually had to finish them for homework). So about 4 hours each week of homework. \r\n\r\nThen there is the research paper assignment which is a huge chunk of the grade, but you have lots of freedom to do whatever you want which was fun. It took me about 30 hours of work on the paper. I did find it very frustrating that it was due so close to finals. \r\n\r\nThe single exam was not too bad. Just study the concepts of the weekly papers and make sure to have lots of examples memorized. \r\n\r\nKaren Lips was very kind and forgiving. She loves biology. She wasn’t always super engaging, but most days were decent especially since it was a small class. I’d recommend BSCI462 with Lips. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-28T01:43:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Lips', 'course': 'BSCI462', 'review': 'I’ve had her for two classes during the pandemic and she was very encouraging and created a good, stress-free environment. She assigned weekly papers, videos or recording to write about but they were all very interesting and taught me a lot on the work done in the field. In both of my classes with her she also made a point of bringing guest speakers to talk to the students about what they do and how they tackle projects, which also taught us about their daily work routines and the good and the bad of the field. \r\nI strongly recommend this teacher, she listens to the students and makes sure to better her class throughout the semester using the feedback making her very accommodating during the difficult times. I’m very thankful to have had her as her understanding and support during the semester was something that I needed during some very difficult times at home.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-18T01:49:28Z'}], 'name': 'Karen Lips', 'slug': 'lips_karen'}, {'courses': ['MATH213', 'MATH212', 'MATH315', 'MATH482', 'MATH498K', 'MATH113', 'MATH214', 'MATH214', 'MATH214', 'MATH113', 'MATH214', 'MATH113'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Karen McLaren', 'course': 'MATH212', 'review': 'Math212 is the easiest class you will ever take. We go over addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, but we learn why we use certain algorithms to solve them. Some of it is interesting, but people tend to fall asleep in her classes because she has a very soothing voice. Not too many projects, but there is a quiz every Friday. The tests can be tricky if you have trouble explaining math. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-12-09T00:47:00Z'}], 'name': 'Karen McLaren', 'slug': 'mclaren'}, {'courses': ['ENGL377', 'ENGL304', 'ENGL403', 'ENGL404', 'ENGL379N', 'ENGL305', 'ENGL460'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Karen Nelson', 'slug': 'nelson_karen'}, {'courses': ['PSYC319D', 'PSYC318D', 'PSYC638', 'WMST498A', 'PSYC639', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC489L', 'PSYC346', 'WGSS498A', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC381', 'PSYC468H', 'WGSS498A', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC346', 'PSYC346', 'PSYC381', 'WGSS498A'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': "Karen O'Brien", 'course': 'PSYC318D', 'review': "Dr. O'Brien is one of my favorite professors in the PSYC department. She responds to emails quickly, is extremely friendly, and encourages introspection. I took her course on domestic violence prevention and came out of it even more of a victims advocate. Def take her class if you're interested in women's issues, human rights, etc!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T13:55:59Z'}, {'professor': "Karen O'Brien", 'course': 'PSYC318D', 'review': "Dr. O'Brien is one of the best professors I've had at UMD so far (I'm a sophomore); she cares about her students and puts a lot of work into making the course easy to learn. It's a discussion based class which I loved and as long as you participate and do the readings and the work you should be able to get an A. This class also is really applicable to real life which was my favorite aspect.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-14T14:57:00Z'}], 'name': "Karen O'Brien", 'slug': "o'brien_karen"}, {'courses': ['GEOL340', 'GEOL452', 'GEOL654', 'GEOL451', 'GEOL652', 'GEOL452', 'GEOL652', 'GEOL340', 'GEOL654', 'GEOL452', 'GEOL652'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Karen Prestegaard', 'course': 'GEOL340', 'review': 'I honestly felt like I had zero foundation for a lot of the info we learned. Instead of learning a subject by starting at a fundamental level, learning terms, and building your way up to major concepts/conclusions, you were handed equations that you were told are true. And then, you\'re told what the result means depending on the number you get out of it. I wasn\'t learning for the sake of learning the subject - I was only learning so I knew what equations I was going to use on this week\'s lab. Her class just felt like it was a graduate course dumbed down for undergrads where you\'re expected to have already heard of the main concepts and how we got there. However, when it was dumbed down for us, it means that we were missing crucial pieces of info and derivations because we didn\'t see how we got to the conclusions. Most of the info seemed to be taken from papers, and there wasn\'t a helpful textbook for self-study.\n\r\nLabs are ridiculously easy. You take measurements (usually just with a ruler or from the computer), and then record everything in Excel where you plug in your equations to make tables. At the end, you then have a couple random questions that you\'re expected to answer despite having very little fundamental grasp of the topic; so you often have no intuition when trying to begin. The labs were graded very generously, and made up most of your grade (other than a midterm, a final, and a couple (2-3) small group "presentations" of your labs for participation credit). \n\r\nDr. Prestegaard is super nice and very approachable. She clearly knows what she\'s doing in this subject, but her lectures are dry and the slides are a disorganized mess. If you come in and do your work, it\'s a fairly easy A, if not a B. But it was just a disappointing class since I was hoping for much more.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-07T21:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Prestegaard', 'course': 'GEOL451', 'review': 'Prestegaard was one of the worst professors I have ever had. Nobody learned ANYTHING from her course because she wouldn\'t give you any foundation for what she was "teaching". The only reason I gave her a 2 was because she grades so easily that even if you don\'t know anything you can pass her class. Hardly anyone showed up and there was no book for you to teach yourself.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-03-27T00:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karen Prestegaard', 'course': 'GEOL452', 'review': 'Dr. Prestegaard is very nice and her courses are fairly interesting. You can tell she is very passionate about her work, but that passion does not carry over well into her lectures. She is a very lenient grader, but you do learn a lot from her class. One complaint I have with her is she took a very long time to submit grades to ELMS and to return work back to students. Other than that, Dr. Prestegaard was a pretty good professor and I did feel like I learned a lot without putting forth tons of effort. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-02-07T10:02:00Z'}], 'name': 'Karen Prestegaard', 'slug': 'prestegaard'}, {'courses': ['EDCI689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Karen Rehder', 'slug': 'rehder'}, {'courses': ['EXST039G', 'EXST049J', 'EXST049K', 'COMM639I', 'COMM639J', 'COMM659E', 'COMM649I', 'COMM649J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Karen Riechert', 'slug': 'riechert'}, {'courses': ['LBSC888', 'ENGL758B', 'LBSC751', 'ENGL888D', 'LBSC773', 'ENGL379E', 'ENGL467', 'INST644', 'INST800', 'ENGL488L', 'INST728C', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'ENGL609A', 'HDCC208Y', 'CMLT679E', 'ENGL702', 'INST408C', 'ENGL699', 'ENGL378R', 'ENGL378R', 'ENGL378R', 'INST644', 'ENGL378R'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kari Kraus', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "Kari is as intelligent as she is enthusiastic. Her projects are interesting, her book selections are excellent and there is a scholarly atmosphere in all she teaches. Her field of study is wide ranging and if you give her a chance, she'll find a way to get her hook into you so that you'll find them fascinating too.\n\r\nQuick note: Participate if you wish to get a high grade!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-18T12:05:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kari Kraus', 'slug': 'kraus_kari'}, {'courses': ['ENPM635', 'ENPM625', 'ENPM625', 'ENPM625'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Karim Amrane', 'slug': 'amrane'}, {'courses': ['HIST601', 'HIST251', 'HIST429E', 'HIST329I', 'HIST408Q', 'HIST428I', 'HIST608J', 'HIST639I', 'HIST619R', 'SPAN788R', 'LASC248R', 'LASC448E', 'LASC348I', 'LASC251', 'LASC448M', 'WMST498G', 'HHUM205', 'HIST819Y'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Karin Rosemblatt', 'slug': 'rosemblatt'}, {'courses': ['GVPT439A', 'GVPT459G', 'GVPT459I', 'GVPT101', 'HONR218G', 'MLAW100', 'HONR238U', 'GVPT439D', 'GVPT319J', 'GVPT459H', 'GVPT439A', 'GVPT459I'], 'average_rating': 3.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT439A', 'review': 'Professor Soltan is a really smart guy who is really focused on an end goal of civic engagement. I found little hints of his motivations in his lectures which I loved. Regardless of it you agree with him, he is a great teacher and has experience with constitution making. He really likes to move through lectures and expects you to do the readings. They are really interesting and are easy to follow so if you can manage those you are in the clear for the entire class. I seemed to be one of the few who read them or participated in class. I think he became annoyed with me that I answered most of the in class questions, but oh well. He leaves the work and how you want to do it completely up to you. So if you are a student that likes everything laid out for you for papers, etc. do not take his courses. However, he basically feeds you the midterm questions and final questions. So all you have to do for the class is literally read the assignments and write a paper on basically anything at the end of the semester. Interesting topic, motivated teacher, class worth taking. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-07-14T12:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great, interesting, very friendly guy, but not the greatest lecturer. The material he presents is incredibly broad and abstract, and I often had trouble getting a grasp on it. Someone in my class made a Google Doc before each exam and they helped a lot. Make sure you understand Game Theory, and USE THE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES HE PROVIDES YOU WITH in your essays (e.g. mention "the old lady from Sarajevo"-you\'ll know what I\'m talking about when you take the course). ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-27T03:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': None, 'review': 'I love this guy. He is genuinely interested in his students, has a great knowledge base, and has brilliant conversations. If anything, that is his greatest flaw. He teaches his class like a brilliant conversations, which can sometimes be tough to follow in the format of an introductory lecture.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-09-21T04:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': None, 'review': "I didn't love his teaching style. His lectures were hard to follow, and I often took less than half a page of notes per class. However, his grading system makes the class easy to get an A or B in, so if you have to take this class and aren't a gov major, he isn't too bad.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-12T20:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "I really liked Professor Soltan's class! He made GVPT100 very easy to understand, and my TA was great too.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-17T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "Professor Soltan is a good guy and can be entertaining at times. You don't need to go to lecture; the things he says don't follow in a clear train of thought, so it's almost impossible to take notes. He puts his own notes up before each exam and if you look at them, you'll do well. I had a good TA who made it unnecessary for me to read most of the readings, but you can do that at your own discretion. There is a generous curve and it overall is a good class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-13T20:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'Unless you are interested in the philosophical side of government, DO NOT take this class. Lectures with Professor Soltan are unbearable. While Soltan is very well educated and often funny man, he is unable to covey his ideas in an efficient manner. It’s almost impossible to follow his train of thought and translate it into coherent notes. Most times, I walked away from lecture with more questions than answers and a TON of readings. Discussions did not help much either. While I cannot speak for the other TAs, my TA struggled to communicate his ideas. In addition, the grading was extremely unclear and sometimes harsh. Grades were only given for exams and participation in discussion. Even though we got our exams back once they were graded, I could never understand the comments given or the pattern of grading. Also, the levels required to receive an A seemed impossible at best. It often felt like they were just looking for trivial bits in essays to mark you off for. Finally, the professor was extremely disorganized. He refused to use blackboard to post grades and made you reach his syllabus by Googling it. There is no doubt that Soltan is a genius when it comes to this subject, but he struggles to teach the material. As a student who was interested in the actual workings of government verses the philosophical workings of government, I was very disappointed with this chore of a class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-03T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': None, 'review': "To be honest I hated this class. But to be fair I think it was only because I took it to fulfill both honors and core and don't actually have much of an interest in gvpt. There are a lot of long, tedious readings that I didn't care to do. Classes are very unstructured and I usually left asking myself what in the world I was supposed to have learned from them. If you can manage not to zone off (he's got a lovely accent that tended to be more meditative than engaging) and take notes, the class is probably not too difficult. But I would recommend that if you are not majoring in gvpt, have limited interest in gvpt, or very little background in the area, just stick to the regular version and get your honors credit elsewhere. It'll save you and the teacher a semester-long headache.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-10-19T02:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT459H', 'review': 'Dr. Soltan was a great professor this semester! I really enjoyed learning about the cases with him and I appreciated how much he had to say about each topic. It was clear he was very knowledgeable about the topics we learned. It was difficult to understand some of the harder topics in the course, so it was hard to know what he was looking for in the exams, but otherwise, I loved this course! Having never had a background in law, it was interesting learning about some of these topics.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-09T01:57:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT439A', 'review': 'Great professor and great class. The lectures are easy to follow as long as you do the reading. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-21T20:16:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT439A', 'review': 'Save yourselves a semester of misery and DO NOT take his class!!!!!! Professor Soltan seems like a sweet guy, and at times he tries to be comical - but he is the most ineffective teacher I have ever head. His lectures are intolerable and I was completely lost the entire semester. I attended EVERY single class, and each class - without fail - would open my laptop to take notes, and then lose him completely 2 min into his lecture. He rambles on and on and goes on tangents about only God knows what. The material is already difficult and abstract to begin with, and he does a terrible job of explaining it. He seems knowledgable on the course, he is just horrible at teaching it. Not to mention, you have no idea where you stand grade wise - until the day teachers have to submit final grades. This class was a nightmare. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-14T18:18:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT439A', 'review': "Soltan is a knowledgeable professor and really knows his stuff but there were a few issues I had with the class. Firstly, there was just no clear rubric for the assignments (the paper prompt was really vague too). The lectures were also boring at times, and it was really hard to maintain attention towards the subject. One thing I did like about the class, however, was the fact he would give out extremely thorough reviews of each lecture and they were really helpful with studying for the midterm and final. And finally, the class also stressed me out because the class was graded by just a few things. That in itself not uncommon but here, the final was worth HALF the grade. If the assignments were worth a third of the grade each, I certainly wouldn't have been as stressed.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-24T19:20:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT439A', 'review': 'I do NOT recommend taking this class at all. The class is based around three assignments: midterm (25%), paper (25%) & final (50%). There are no guidelines for the paper whatsoever. There was not a prompt given nor a rubric. Students were told to pick a topic and write. There were not justifications for the paper grade nor either exam grade. Exams were not graded using the traditional number grading system, rather only letter grades that were never posted in ELMS. This class is extremely frustrating and not worth the headache of receiving an unjustified grade.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-22T01:33:21.946428Z'}, {'professor': 'Karol Soltan', 'course': 'GVPT439A', 'review': "Soltan himself is a nice professor and a pretty understanding guy. He has a pretty dry sense of humor that he incorporates into his lectures, and the lectures themselves are not the easiest to follow but he posts very clear and detailed notes after each one. He was understanding about questions and absences, and as a person is a perfectly nice guy. \r\nThe class itself, though, is not structured well. There are three assignments that make up your grade (25% each midterm and final, 50% paper), and you don't know your grade or the feedback on the last two unless you come in over break and collect it. Also, he doesn't operate on numerical grades so you can't really know where you stand until final grades are in. The paper guidelines are pretty vague and there is not a clear direction of what he wants out of you. The class itself is manageable, but you have to be prepared to come to him with questions because he will not outright explain things very clearly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-27T02:53:40.838932Z'}], 'name': 'Karol Soltan', 'slug': 'soltan'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'EDUC388U', 'EDSP652', 'EDUC388C', 'EDUC388U'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kasey Ezzat', 'slug': 'ezzat'}, {'courses': ['ANSC101', 'ANSC103', 'ANSC443'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kasey Moyes', 'slug': 'moyes'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kasey Shrader', 'slug': 'shrader'}, {'courses': ['MATH141', 'MATH140', 'MATH630', 'MATH631', 'MATH858G', 'MATH410', 'MATH464', 'MATH463', 'MATH416', 'MATH270'], 'average_rating': 3.84, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Okoudjou's class is NOT easy. He's probably one of the hardest professors for Calc 1, but I definitely do recommend taking him. For most of the semester your grade will make you really depressed, but Okoudjou teaches you calculus in depth and far more than any of the other professors do. Our class average for the final was significantly higher than the students of other classes so really our grades even out. If you take his class you'll learn a lot and develop great thinking and math skills but it will not be easy at all. You will need to put a lot of effort into this class. He does curve at the end by a little, he also drops the lowest quiz and webassign (online hw assignment), and he decreases the weight of your lowest exam so that really helped my grade. Okoudjou is super nice and funny in class unlike Chadwick who is so monotone and hard to listen to (although I know that his exams are a LOT easier than Okoudjou's, but think about that final exam and actually learning!). I think those that take Okoudjou's class will be a lot more prepared for Calc2. It's a good investment and I highly consider going to his office hours and going online and using the practice exams to study because they all help a lot. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-01-05T18:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I highly recommend talking Kasso's class he is a great teacher and you will surely have a laugh everyday in his class. He is really understanding about quizzes and test and makes them reasonable. I had already gotten a 5 in Calc 1 but i wanted to take it again because I am doing engineering. I would assume many people with little to no Calc experience might find his class hard but overall i believe he is worth it especially if you are in the STEM field\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-03T11:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "So here's the thing about Kasso: the dude's super nice, super smart and very willing to go out of his way to help you understand the content of the course. But he's too smart.\n\r\nIn lecture he often makes jumps or skips steps that the rest of the class can't follow, and it usually takes a little while before he clears it up after a student answers a question. On a related note, and maybe one that sort of applies to all 140 lectures, he moves pretty fast. His accent isn't really hard to understand (you get it in your head after a class or two), but his handwriting makes notetaking a headache. If you only go to lecture and discussion you could probably get a B if you're a typical student, but a higher grade really requires you to go to his or a TA's office hours, because those 3 45 minute periods just aren't enough.\n\r\nI'd be willing to take him for Calc 3, but for a harder class like calc 2 I've gone out of my way to get Denny. Overall he's a good teacher worthy of respect, but his handwriting and intelligence makes it harder to understand the material than I would like.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-12-13T01:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Nice guy, but is a little too smart for his own good. When I say that, I mean he is so smart that he has trouble realizing that many students do not understand the mathematical concepts. If you go to his office hours, he tries to help, but it is nearly impossible to succeed if you did not take calculus in high school.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-07-15T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I think very highly of professor Okoudjou. He cares about the students and wants them to understand the material. His accent is not difficult to understand so I don't know why people are saying it is. His handwriting is pretty bad, but he is more than happy to re-write something and go over anything again until it is understood. \r\nHe has unannounced quizzes which are not hard. As long as you pay attention in lecture and actually do the webassign, then you'll do fine. His exams are not bad really if you pay attention.\r\nHe makes random jokes in class, which really are not funny, but they make you laugh regardless. He is very approachable and nice to anyone who wants to learn. If you go to his office hours once, he knows your name for 2 semesters, so he is good with names and likes to interact with students. I also am taking 141 now with him and it is not terrible. The material is harder, so you'll have to study on your own for exams. Overall, I highly recommend Okoudjou for 140 and 141 because he is a good lecturer who keeps you entertained and his exams are pretty fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-15T15:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Really, really hard class. In order to follow along during the lectures, I found it necessary to read and outline the textbook before coming to class. \r\nWorksheets during discussion were not straightforward at all. Fortunately, the TA was there to provide answers when nobody in the room could figure out a problem. \r\nI got used to his accent within the first couple weeks, and his handwriting is not a problem if you sit in the front of the room.\r\nI felt that his exams were always harder than those of the other MATH140 professors, but I also felt prepared for them since we got so much practice between having class 5 days and week and regular homework assignments. Doing really hard problems for practice made moderately hard test problems manageable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-30T14:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "I don't know why there are any negative reviews for this professor.\n\r\nOkoudjou teaches you the basics and goes through a sufficient amount of examples for you to get what's going on. His exams are beyond simple as they test the easiest aspects of material. \n\r\nGrades consist of 3 midterm exams, a cumulative final, weekly homeworks, and online quizzes.\n\r\nThe material covered in the course is easily accessible for anyone with a basic understanding of linear algebra. There are a few obscure concepts here and there, but he never tests you on them.\n\r\nProbably the easiest A I have ever gotten in a 400-level Math course. Highly recommended.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH464', 'review': "First of all: accent and handwriting are difficult at first, but most people were able to get used to it; if you can't, find a different prof. Otherwise, Prof Okoudjou is excellent. Explains fully, very helpful with questions. Exams extremely straightforward and he did a ton of practice for them. Strongly recommended.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T00:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Professor Okodjou is a wonderful teacher. I definitely struggle with math, and this class is far from easy,but I would definitely recommend taking Professor Okoudjou. His practice tests are a lot like the actual tests he gives, so study those a lot! Other than that, put it the effort and he will definitely try to help you out. He is a nice guy and cares about all of his students. I took him for MATH140 and MATH141.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-16T21:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I came in to this class with zero high school calculus experience, and it was not at all easy. Being successful in this class requires a previous understanding of calculus because even when he does examples, he shows you what to do with an individual problem, rather than how to do all problems that are like it. The man is ridiculously intelligent, but I think that makes it harder for him to empathize with those who are having trouble with his course. Good luck if you're taking his 140 class, and hope for a good TA.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-23T14:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Yeah, yeah, yeah his accent takes a little getting used to and his handwriting isn't always the best but he's always happy to clarify for you.\n\r\nPoint of the matter is, he's a good teacher. He's not too abstract, and I thought he hit a good balance between computation and concepts. And he cares -- he remembers names and faces and tries to help you out.\n\r\nIf you actually do the WebAssigns and not just WolframAlpha everything, your computational skills will be good enough for the quizzes. And make sure you utilize the Kirwan TA's throuhgout the year because sometimes he glosses over parts that the Gulick's go over. And guess who writes the finals? The Gulicks, good guess :)\n\r\nHis exams are rough though. Sometimes he'll throw in a conceptual curveball but if you do the worksheets in discussion you should be pretty well rehearsed in these kind of problems. And yes, that means you have to go to discussion. \n\r\nAll in all, if you can take Denny Gulick, take him but Okoudjou is good too. Much of a lesser evil than Frances Gulick IMO.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-11T20:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Professor Okoudjou is a great professor who cares that his students understand the concepts presented. His accent may prove hard the first day of classes, and his handwriting may prove hard the first week. But nothing he can't clarify if you ask him during lecture. \r\nEven though Okoudjou is a reasonably good teacher who knows his mathemagic, since most of the students who enter MATH140 are entering freshmen from high-school, his rapid style may prove detrimental in their understanding of Calculus. So, I ask a student not to take Calculus1 under him, unless they have already taken calculus once before, and they've felt comfortable with it. \r\nHe tended to dwell more on proofs and theoretical justifications, rather than applications. I didn't expect it to turn quite that way, since this is a Calculus course for Scientists and Engineers. \n\r\nAdam Ross is one of the best teaching assistants in the department. Discussions may prove crucial if one is experiencing difficulty in lecture. He is willing to take time off to ensure that what you miss in lecture, will not be done so again in discussion. Even if the concept is too rudimentary to be explained in Calc 1, Adam will go over them. I recommend either/or both of them. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-02-05T17:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Unfortunately, I did not need to take this class because I APed out of Calc. However, I thought that I wanted to be an engineer so I took this class. He is the hardest of all Calc teachers. I advise you to take Denny Gulick. He is the best math teacher I have seen.\n\r\nOkoudjou is a definitely the man. He is very smart. His biography states that he is a Georgia Tech graduate. Sometimes, I felt that he was too smart to teach us. His pace is very fast. There is also this stupid assignment online that screw up your grade because it is so hard. I got a B, D, D, C, and C on the exams respectively. I ended up with a B. You make the decision. Engineering is the hardest major out there at UMD. If you're business major, consider yourself lucky because you won't have to take this class. You would be stupid to take this class and screw up your GPA. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T14:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Kasso is hard to understand. I would have been completely lost if I had not taken Calc AB in high school. If you have had experience with calculus, this class may be easier, but if you haven't I would recommend Dr. Denny Gulick.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-16T02:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Very hard class to get an A but very easy to get a B. His teaching style is pretty bad. Rambles on in a heavily accented drone but his tests are very easy if you look at the practice tests. I would probably recommend him because this class is hard regardless of the teacher who teaches it and his tests seemed to be the easiest compared to the teachers's.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-02T03:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Had him for both 140/141. Cool dude, good teacher. People rag on him for his accent & handwriting, but they're honestly not that bad. He'll gladly read and rewrite any word that you don't understand, and his accent just sounds like he's cheerful all the time - even if we aren't. \n\r\nA little bit of a secret: his exams are usually (all but one of the eight he gave) very, very similar to the practice exams he gives, and they are, for the most part, relatively easier than the other exams. \n\r\nPut in some effort - go to reviews, do the practice exams, go to office hours - and you'll do just fine. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-05-19T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'I personally liked Okoudjou way better than D. Gulick, who I had for MATH140. I don\'t know if it was because class was at 12pm instead of 8am or if there was that much of a difference between professors, but I absorbed so much more information in 141 than I did in 140. \r\nThe tests were ok, and the webassign sometimes took forever, but if you have a good TA (or excellent one like Joe Altman, who actually won TA of the year during my semester) that can explain the material more thoroughly in discussion, then you should be fine.\r\nI recommend going to every single review session before tests, from both D. Gulick and the TA\'s (usually Brad Sanders, also a great TA). They really help because all you need to do is keep doing practice problems and tests so that you can get out all of our little mistakes on those problems and know exactly what to do or not do on the actual exam.\r\nOverall, I think Okoudjou is a really good professor who explains the material well and if you don\'t get it, he won\'t give up until you do. Also, his accent is the cutest ever, and the way he writes his letter "f" is so beautiful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-04T21:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Gives good notes - very precise and clear - but there's a major discrepancy between what we go over in class and what's on the homework and tests. A lot of his tests don't follow the homework OR the examples he covers in class, and he also doesn't curve the class very much. Really hard to get an A unless you ace all four midterms and do fairly well on the final. If you've taken calc before and understood it thoroughly, then he's not a bad prof to take. If you're looking to learn calc for the very first time, I recommend taking Prof. D. Gulick. Much better, and much more patient and thorough with the information, plus his tests are actually on the material gone over in class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-07T05:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'if you havent taken calculus before, i strongly suggest you do not get him. He is extremely hard to follow in lecture, and since he does example problems from the book, going isnt a necessity. Although he does occasionally have pop quizzes. His accent makes him kind of hard to understand, but discussion is very helpful. I took AP calc in high school and got a B. If youre looking for an A i strongly suggest you try and get D. Gulick. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-23T01:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "He is a pretty good teacher; he always tries to get the class to understand, accepts any question in lec and is in general a nice guy. He posts prac test with answer keys (unlike other prof) and these are pretty close to the actual tests, which are fairly easy. 1 quiz/2 weeks, which actually help towards exams. Lectures aren't thrilling however.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-20T15:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'He doesn\'t grade homeworks, and like the previous review said, he drops the lowest 3 quiz scores and exam. He let us use a page of notes for each of our exams except the first one, not that anyone needed one. I liked his accent, and his lectures were pretty straight foward. He gives practice exams a week or so before the actual exam and they are pretty similar. If you spend the time to do the homeworks, you should pass his pop quizzes with ease. He is a pretty average professor, but I would say he is one of the better ones. He was always willing to answer questions (except when he was short on time) and seemed like he actually wanted the students to understand. I always found it funny when he asked us if he should finish doing a computation, like Calc 1 integrals. He almost always got no response from the class, then he would walk away from the problem, then walk back and finish it anyway, or get halfway through it and just write "do it". ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-19T03:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "After having a professor who wanted his students to cry for Calc141, Okoudjou was a reminder that some professors actually want you to learn. His hand writing is hard to read at first, but you get better at reading it pretty soon. He also gives reasonable tests (and allowed us to have an equation sheet!) and was very willing to stop and answer questions during lecture. He also drops one test grade and 3 quiz grades and offered 20 points in extra credit with MatLab assignments. \n\r\nAlso, I LOVED his accent; it's so bouncy and it just makes me happy to listen to him talk.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-24T00:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'His lectures consist of writing theorems on the board and proving the theorem. He never actually used the theorem to do an actual example problem, which made homework impossible. If you take his class you better just pray that your TA is good.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-19T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Worst professor ever. He will present the theorem on the board, without adequately explaining the concept or the application, which, ya know, is pretty essential to doing well on the tests. \r\nThere was a big disconnect between what was covered in class, what was on the classwork, and what was on the tests. \r\nHe's really not good at explaining things. You may do well in this class if you have previous experience in calculus. If you haven't, then you're screwed. Don't expect to learn a thing from this professor. \r\nHe moves extremely fast in lectures, and he doesn't stop to explain his mathematical process. I don't get the sense he cares about his students at all. Compared to the other teachers of this class, his tests are much harder. \r\nIf you want to learn anything about calculus, stay far away from his lecture. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-03T02:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Okoudjou is a fantastic instructor. He is very passionate and energetic during his lectures, which keeps students engaged. He is also very understanding of the difficulty of the course - while he did not make the course easy, he took time for group work in class to make sure everyone was really on the same page with the material. Would recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-09-29T18:07:40Z'}], 'name': 'Kasso Okoudjou', 'slug': 'okoudjou'}, {'courses': ['HIST356', 'HIST408B', 'HIST201', 'HIST289R', 'HIST319V', 'HIST211', 'WMST211', 'IMMR399', 'HIST408F', 'HIST339N', 'HIST289R', 'IMMR399', 'HIST211', 'HIST319V', 'IMMR399', 'WGSS211', 'HIST289R', 'IMMR399'], 'average_rating': 4.619, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': 'I loved this lecture. Professor Keane seems to be a very sweet and genuine person. She is engaging and passionate about the subject. There is practically no homework for this class. Two essays, one debate, a final exam (short answer definitions and two essays), and some reading for each discussion. Before taking the final, I would have recommended skimming the readings just enough to talk about them. But you will actually need to cite them in your final exam essays, so I would take enough notes on each reading to be able to remember what they discussed so you can reference them later. She will provide you with the 8-10ish possible prompts for the final, as well as all possible terms you may have to define to help prepare you, so there will be no surprises. I was fortunate enough to have an amazing TA (Slavik) who made discussion very engaging. He also helped me a ton on essays-which he graded. Work hard on the few assignments you have and GO TO LECTURE. Her powerpoints (which she does post online) have very few words so it is important that you go to class and write down what she says. Skipping class and later referencing the powerpoints will not do too much for you. Overall I highly recommend this class, and I am not someone who traditionally likes history courses. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-07-13T11:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'She is a great teacher! Take this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-26T00:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': 'Professor Keane is an awesome professor. I had her for HIST289R. Just the right amount of work, as there were 2 essays, some busy work, participation in discussion and the final. Seriously, she is so nice, and makes lectures so interesting and relevant. \n\r\nAny class she is teaching, I would 100% take again. GREAT GREAT GREAT professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-17T12:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': "Prof. Keane is a fun lecturer and very nice person. My only problem with her lectures are that she has a powerpoint but not many words to take notes on. Going to lectures isn't necessary but there are some interesting/important things in there. \n\r\nThe classwork isn't very bad. There are 2 big essays, 1 final, participation in discussion grades, and a few small assignments. There is A LOT of reading every week that you should do for discussion but it isn't necessary to do all of it. Just do some so you can participate somewhat in discussion. The essays are the only hard part of this class, but overall the class is pretty easy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-06T01:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': 'Dr. Keane has been fabulous. Her lectures are well organized, engaging, and filled with fun video clips and pop culture reference. The assignments were pretty easy, as well. A few quizzes, two papers, a debate, and a final exam. \n\r\nHer TAs, however, are atrocious. One can barely string a coherent sentence together, while the other jumps wildly between the "cool, relatable TA" model and a no nonsense, strict as all get out crazy person. They are the only serious drawbacks to taking the course.\n\r\n If Dr. Keane can find some new TAs, she\'ll have a close to perfect class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-04T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Dr. Keane is a great professor and lecturer. She is always available for help if you need it and her lectures are just interesting. 2 papers, a midterm and a final, as well as attending discussion, are what the grade is based on. I would 100% take another class with Dr. Keane if it would count towards my major. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-18T11:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST357', 'review': "There are only a couple of history professors that are bearable, and Prof. Keane is DEFINITELY one of them!! She is very nice, and really tries to make the class interesting! Study for the 2 exams, spend a little extra time on the 2 papers, raise your hand once in a while and you're golden. Love Prof. Keane!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-17T19:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Keane is an outstanding professor. The only reason I'm not getting an A is because my participation grade was low, and she counts discussions. She really makes History interesting and wants each of her students to do well. Definitely take her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-14T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great lecturer, makes history interstinge. Tests are fair, she gives you study guide before the test.\r\nGreat class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-20T18:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST357', 'review': 'This was a great class! Her lectures move fast and are supplemented by lots of cool audio-visual clips from the time period of speeches, music and occasionally documentaries. The readings were not too much, and lots of them are primary sources. It is not a hard class to do well in, but also really interesting at the same time. Professor Keane is engaging and really knows her stuff, take a class with her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-31T13:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Keane is a great professor! She works very hard and is very passionate about what she teaches. A decent amount of reading was assigned. However, you will be able to pass on the reading if you pay attention and take notes during class.\n\r\n If you want to skip a bunch of classes and Facebook all the time while you are in class....well this class isn't for you. \n\r\nIf you intend to come to most of the classes, pay attention and participate then you can probably be sure you will at least get a B out of this. \n\r\nAll in all I really enjoyed and learned a lot in this class! I would recommend her to any student willing who is willing to put in their work.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-20T18:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very enthusiastic and cares about the needs of her students. The work load is manageable and she gives very helpful study guides for the midterms and finals Do the readings and participate in class and you will do well in the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-09T22:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': 'Dr. Keane is a great lecturer and HIST289R is a very interesting course. It was one lecture I really enjoyed going to. The only work in the class is 2 essays which are not that hard. I found it a little difficult to get higher than an A- because the grading is a little hard. Would definitely recommend this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-06T18:47:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST319V', 'review': 'This was a.. mixed bag. Bear in mind that unlike the other classes that this professor has reviews for, this is for a 300 level class during the pandemic online classes era. So *maybe* this isn\'t representative of her actual nature as a professor.\r\n\r\nThe recorded lectures, selected readings, and content of the class is done quite well. I found it quite engaging and if we just went by that, my review would be sitting at 5 stars. But, it\'s not. My experience with this professor has honestly made me feel horrible. \r\n\r\nThe content is interesting, but it is quite a LOT of reading and note taking to do. It\'s definitely possible to wing it if you just want to get the discussion post out of the way, but this has been one of those classes that\'ll often feel like I\'m putting in the work of two classes for one just to churn out a single discussion post and some zoom meeting contributions. I would not advise taking this course if your other courses also have heavy loads and if you don\'t like to BS your work. \r\n\r\nI have a learning disability among some other mental health issues during this already tough semester of online classes. So, I\'m sometimes going to need some help or extra time to get my things for this class and my other classes done on time. Especially if I also want time to be able to take basic care of myself. Despite detailing the fact that I at one point was quite literally working myself to exhaustion, mentioning my conditions, and the fact that I was technically cleared for ADS accommodations to this professor, she flat out refuses to budge on the due dates for weekly discussion posts and other assignments. Instead, the only accommodation she was willing to give me is giving me course content ahead of time. In theory this gives me a good amount of extra time. In practice, she\'s essentially raised her expectations of what I\'m to do even higher as I\'d need to grind even harder and for a time give up what little semblance of breathing room I had to get ahead enough to actually be able to make meaningful use of this. \r\n\r\nThere has also been other instances of me asking this professor for extensions on other things, only to be met with a hostile sounding "no" that blatantly disregards my own issues and makes me feel like I\'m the lazy one. Among a few other things, one instance where I asked for extra time was because of me taking a night medication during the day by accident. My other professors responded and gave me the OK for extra time, while this one seems to have waited on responding until I ended up having to do everything anyway because of of a lack of a response.\r\n\r\nMy therapist has also contacted her about this, and has gotten no response from her. \r\n\r\nIf you don\'t have any disability or mental health issues that could slow down the rate at which you work, then professor Keane is probably great. But if you do, you might want to think twice before taking her class. Fortunately, I\'ve been able to keep up better lately and be able to live a little. But, that\'s also because I recently dropped a class from another very unaccommodating professor to help free up time and energy. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-02T06:51:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': 'Both the professor and the TA were kind people who I felt like took current circumstances into consideration and adapted well to it. I personally loved this class and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting elective to open their mind to new ideas.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-06T20:01:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST319V', 'review': "hated this teacher. not sympathetic in the slightest and I learned nothing on zoom. Worst upper-level history course I have taken. We didn't even talk about JFK in a class about the 60s!!!!!!!\r\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-10T20:02:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': 'Loved this class. Dr. Keane is an amazing lecturer and the content was really interesting. Grading was based off of 2 papers, a final project, weekly discussion posts, and participation in discussion section. To be successful in this class, you have to attend the lectures (they are engaging so it is worth going to anyways). I was fortunate to have an amazing TA but a lot of the grading is done by the TA so that could potentially impact the course. Take this class!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T18:26:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': 'Professor Keane is so great and interesting. She fully knows the course and does not waste your time! I am usually not a big fan of history courses, but this class is so interesting and has affected the way I shop and look at our society now. Professor Keane is super understanding if you ever need an extension and she knows that we have busy schedules and can always accommodate for her students. I cannot recommend her enough!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-06-03T15:46:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': "I 100% recommend this course to anybody who's slightly interested in humanities/history and needs a HU credit. it was such an insightful class and she really knows her stuff. She knows what she's talking about, was super nice, and she really likes and appreciates it when you reach out to her outside of class. She's really willing to answer a lot of questions and help you on any of the 2 papers we had to write. other than the papers we just had to do a discussion board once a week which was chill, but those are the bulk of you grades and are 3 points so you need to really clutch those 3 points each week.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:38:01.032663Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST289R', 'review': "An Overall great professor very caring and kind with a very manageable workload. There is not much to say other than if you're thinking about taking her take her she's an easy A as long as you put in the work which isn't a lot maybe a discussion board post once a week and a 2-3 essays the entire semester.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T20:42:30.867395Z'}, {'professor': 'Katarina Keane', 'course': 'HIST211', 'review': 'OMG Best class ever! I loved it so so so sooooo much. Theres like next to no work, just two short essays which were like only 2 pages long and a final! totally take it hehehehe. Reading material is quite short and concise so it takes no time at all. Great class for comm majors and history majors alike. I LUVVVVVV this professor! Wears a mask during lecture so considerate!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-14T03:04:56.303523Z'}], 'name': 'Katarina Keane', 'slug': 'keane'}, {'courses': ['GVPT200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katayoun Kishi', 'slug': 'kishi'}, {'courses': ['PLSC303', 'PLSC405', 'PLSC619', 'PLSC125', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC605', 'ENST472', 'ENTM699P', 'PLSC689F', 'PLSC412', 'PLSC612', 'ENTM699P', 'PLSC689F', 'ENTM699P', 'PLSC412', 'PLSC612', 'PLSC689F', 'ENST472', 'ENTM699P', 'PLSC303', 'PLSC689F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kate Tully', 'slug': 'tully'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kate Wilson', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'Do not take her if you do not wish to be drowning in an unnecessary amount of work weekly. I have never written a review of anyone before and created an account to specifically beg you not to take her. Not only a tough grader, but assigns tedious work that takes hours. Compared to other professional writing classes (ENGL391), our class has much more work than other students enrolled in the same course.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-03T14:46:41.701451Z'}], 'name': 'Kate Wilson', 'slug': 'wilson_kate'}, {'courses': ['BSCI279C', 'BSCI289', 'BSCI334', 'BSCI335', 'GEMS497', 'BIOL608X', 'BSCI279H', 'EXST020', 'BSCI279B', 'UNIV100', 'BSCI289', 'BSCI289', 'BSCI279B', 'BSCI279C', 'BSCI279H', 'BSCI289', 'BSCI334', 'BSCI335', 'BSCI289', 'BSCI289', 'BSCI289'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Katerina Thompson', 'course': 'BSCI334', 'review': "This professor is one of the best I've ever had. She actually cares about teaching a class and is passionate about the material. Lectures can be tedious sometimes (what ones aren't?), but she mixes it up with videos and pictures. Exams are appropriately difficult but do-able if you have studied hard. Like most zoology (mammalology, herp, ornithology) courses, this class requires a lot of memorization. However, the exams are not tricky, don't have questions on topics that weren't covered in class, and draw HEAVILY on old exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-31T09:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katerina Thompson', 'course': 'BSCI334', 'review': "Her exams are obtuse and the wording is vague so when in doubt, just fill the page up with everything you seem to know about the topic or else you'd lose points. (And you'd lose points for saying the wrong thing too.) \n\r\nmultiple choice seems easy enough, but the questions are tricky to say the least. there was one question that was word for word taken from one of the practice finals and she changed ONE option in the selection and all of the sudden, she nailed you on that one because you chose the same answer as the practice exam. \n\r\nthe topic is not difficult, its just a lot of memorization which means flash cards and tables everybodyyyyy... brush up on your latin and maybe you'll be able to remember Order names for more than 12 hours. I'd say it'd probably be beneficial to take her lab to study the specimens because she'd ask minutia about that too and its hard to remember every stinkin detail about skulls in lecture alone. \n\r\nBut in the end, she is a very nice person and gave us freebies for the final. :) ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-22T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katerina Thompson', 'course': 'BSCI279H', 'review': "This was probably one of the most pointless classes ever. It was not a lot of work at all and we never took up the whole hour and a half. But the things we were learning was mostly just things I had already stumbled upon online while looking for research opportunities. On the bright side, the faculty presentations are interesting (although 90% are biology related while I'm a chemistry major). The professors are all excited to show us what research they are doing. In fact, I contacted one of the professors after her presentation and she offered me a position in her lab! So it's a great way to establish contacts with researchers on campus but you don't learn too much.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-19T12:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katerina Thompson', 'course': 'BSCI279C', 'review': "you didn't have to go to like half of the classes because they were faculty research presentations and this would be an easy way to fulfill an honors credit/ boost up the number of credits you're taking.\r\nit's really not that much work, but she hasn't graded our group projects and the peer review wasn't graded by her and we haven't turned in the final yet so i don't know how easily she grades...but i don't see why i wouldn't get an A in this class. \r\ni wish we could have learned more, but i think the faculty presenters give you plenty of opportunities to get involved in research, so going to those classes would be beneficial, while not required.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-01T18:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katerina Thompson', 'course': 'BSCI279C', 'review': "Doesn't do anything. Learned nothing. Lots of useless busy work. Terrible at posting grades, you know how you're doing when your grade appears on transcript. Two group projects. I did well on the individual stuff and basically did the group stuff. She failed ME on one group project, but gave the other 3 kids a 100%. I tried to talk to her after class, stalk her at her office, and email her because I thought surely this was just a slip up. She evaded me, told me she didn't have time, and didn't respond to any emails. Easy class but got a B because of her mistake. You get NOTHING out of this class. Do not take, just a waste, not even worth the minimal work you do. Terrible woman and class, in my opinion. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-04-19T18:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katerina Thompson', 'course': 'BSCI279C', 'review': "Easy class, not very much work. Great use of one credit. There's not much to learn but it can be very helpful to have opportunities to talk with professors who want research. She also helped introduce me into other useful off-campus research opportunities.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-19T03:26:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Katerina Thompson', 'course': 'BSCI279H', 'review': "Very weird class, never interacted with the teacher so it was kinda weird. Idk what else to say, it was a very easy class though, almost no work involved so take it if you're feeling the extra 1 credit?", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-01T17:00:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Katerina Thompson', 'course': 'BSCI334', 'review': "Dr. Thompson is a great professor and carries an extensive knowledge on mammals. There may be a lot of information on the outline, but Dr. Thompson wants you to focus on the essential details rather than memorizing everything. I really enjoyed the in-class group activities: worksheets and jigsaw (we would be assigned to read an article for homework and discuss with a group during class). The quizzes are great as long as you carefully review the lecture material (which is recorded). The challenging part of this class are exams which contain six short answer questions, and you are required to answer only 5 of them. Here's the thing, the exam questions are fine but to do well you have to make sure that your answer is almost identical to her answer key. So, these are not really open-ended questions but very closed ended questions. Even if your answer is right, if you miss a detail or two you could lose a lot of points. She did end up curving the class due to our low exam averages. I did learn a lot from this class. The most surprising thing that I learned from this class was that rabbits are not rodents but in fact are lagomorphs lol.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-22T12:26:36Z'}], 'name': 'Katerina Thompson', 'slug': 'thompson_katerina'}, {'courses': ['MUSC202', 'MUSC203', 'MUSC128'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katerina Zaitseva', 'slug': 'zaitseva'}, {'courses': ['MEES608W', 'MEES718W', 'MEES608C', 'MEES718I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katharina Engelhardt', 'slug': 'engelhardt'}, {'courses': ['SURV650', 'SURV672', 'SURV640', 'ECON401H', 'SURV641', 'ECON708', 'SURV621', 'ECON878', 'ECON498A', 'SURV622', 'SURV829', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'ECON401', 'SURV829', 'ECON401', 'SURV650', 'SURV829', 'SURV829', 'ECON401', 'SURV829'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Katharine Abraham', 'course': 'ECON401', 'review': "BEST CLASS EVER. Professor Abraham is probably the best professor I've had in college so far. She reviewed the material in a really organized, clear, and straightforward way, and there were never any surprises on the exams. She was really kind and understanding, and she's extremely knowledgable and experienced. I came out of the class truly feeling like I learned a lot. Really glad I took this class. Strongly recommend!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:41:23.980240Z'}], 'name': 'Katharine Abraham', 'slug': 'abraham'}, {'courses': ['GEOL423'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katherine Bermingham', 'slug': 'bermingham'}, {'courses': ['BMGT367', 'BMGT367F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katherine Bosch', 'slug': 'bosch_katherine'}, {'courses': ['BSST331', 'ENGL393H', 'BSST230', 'BSST338E', 'BSST389G', 'BSST389T', 'BSST399X', 'BSST399Y', 'BSST334', 'BSST338V', 'HACS208C', 'BSST399T', 'BSST631', 'BSST499A', 'BSST389J', 'BSST399L', 'BSST399Z', 'BSST399I', 'BSST399W', 'HACS287', 'BSST399J', 'BSST399O', 'ANTH468P', 'ANTH688P', 'LBSC742', 'LBSC745', 'INST709', 'INST414', 'INST462', 'INST878N', 'LBSC745', 'INST811', 'LBSC745', 'INST728A'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Katherine Izsak', 'course': 'ENGL393H', 'review': "This is an awful professor. \n\r\nAfter going through the entire course, I didn't learn anything about technical writing. She never actually taught us anything aside from really basic stuff like grammar and formatting. \n\r\nTo top it off, she has really high standards. \n\r\nThere are weekly writing assignments which form parts of a huge culminating final project. You have to create a training module in the form of a power point of at least 50 slides,and send it out to 6 to 8 people to test the usability. Then you have to give a 15 minute presentation on the results of the usability testing. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-21T23:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Izsak', 'course': None, 'review': 'This is an awful class. \n\r\nThere is way too much work for a three credit class.\n\r\nThere is a ridiculous number of horrible group assignments (1-2 per week) -- thats not including the two "big" group presentations\n\r\nThere is a ton of reading. And almost all of the assignments are busywork where the students learn absolutely nothing.\n\r\nTo top it off, almost the entire course is about natural disasters...not terrorist events. \n\r\nThis is one of the most annoying course I have taken at UMD for its horrible structure, its inability to be focused on terrorism (what the course should be about), the group projects, the never ending busy work, and the fact that after all this annoyance I still have learned nothing.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '?', 'created': '2013-03-01T17:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Katherine Izsak', 'slug': 'izsak'}, {'courses': ['ANTH298F', 'ANTH260', 'ANTH266'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katherine Johnson', 'slug': 'johnson_katherine'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL297', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL272', 'ENGL101H'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': "Prof Joshi is the best! Not a hard grader and answers emails super quickly. You do need the textbook for her class, but the reading isn't ridiculous. I'm a STEM major and her class made me strongly consider an English minor. She really appreciates when you use her comments from old papers on the next ones, and she's happy to answer questions. One of the best profs I've had at UMD.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-05T21:32:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': "She's very sweet and provides helpful feedback. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-10T21:02:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': 'I loved her! really sweet and funny! She is super helpful and will go out of her way to assist you if you ask for it which kinda balances out the fact that she is a tough grader. Was really cool if people needed extensions or additional accommodations. I loved her and would definitely recommend her for a professor and I wish she taught professional writing so i could have her again.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-10T21:00:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': "Prof. Joshi is one of the best professors I've had at UMD. I had her in Spring 2020, and she handled the move to virtual classes so well. You can tell she genuinely cares about her students and wants them to do well. Going to her office hours was actually so enjoyable, she made me less scared of office hours in general. Also, unlike some professors, she doesn't give more assignments because it's a scholars/honors section which was nice. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-20T22:54:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Prof. Joshi is one of the nicest professors at UMD. She responds to emails quickly and considers her students the most to help them. Just to be clear, I am majoring in biological sciences: physiology and neurobiology with a premed track and taking courses to consider double majoring in Chemistry in the future. I had her for ENGL 101, and I know that I didn't put much effort to write the papers than other students because I really didn't have much time (this is not an excuse, you will know if you are double majoring in a STEM field), but I tried my best to not fall behind. So, my grade for every paper that I wrote is between B- to B+. All I am saying is that if you are a STEM major and if you are taking more than 16 credits, I do not recommend taking her class. But, if you do have a lot of time to write papers and go to the writing center and all, then take her class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-20T16:34:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'As a STEM major, I picked this class because it met once a week and I figured with my schedule of hard STEM classes that this would be easier for me. It was not. I personally thought that she graded everything very harshly. Her response time to grading papers and giving feedback was poor and took forever which made improving your grade hard as most assingments and papers built off the previous. She does respond to emails promptly (although I did have to ask her a few times and she told me she completely forgot) and is willing to meet outside of class time to go over questions that you might have. I think if you like English and are willing to put in a lot of effort this class would be good for you but if you are looking to get an easy A in English101 I do not suggest this class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-08T17:42:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Super considerate and explains things really well but such. a. tough. grader. had me on the edge all semester and I know I'm not an English major and stuff but I'd consider myself a decent writer. Her grading seemed super nit-picky cause she would take a bunch of points off just for things she said she wanted worded differently. If you have to take her class I'd recommend emailing her and asking her opinion on assignments as well as going to the writing center. Love her as a person but she will def make you work for the A so just be careful.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-12T00:36:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Difficult grader but very understanding with assignments and she explains everything in detail. As a STEM major, her class was challenging but not impossible. The trick to earning an A is to email her and ask her to review your papers before submission. Overall would recommend her class, but she does expect a lot of effort. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-19T00:34:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Professor Joshi was overall a very good teacher. She explains things in way that’s easy to comprehend, she clearly lays out all expectations, she structures the course in a way that makes completing even big assignments manageable. She is very understanding if you need extra time on deadlines or extra help, and gives thorough feedback. She is a bit of a tough grader - I’m not sure 100% on anything is possible. However, I still felt her grading was fair and there are plenty of other activities for points that boosts grades. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T22:19:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Are you a teacher's pet? Are you a Suck up? Do you have no life?\r\n\r\nIf you answered yes to any of the above questions, then by all means take Joshi. However if you are normal person looking for a Professor with whom to take English 101, Joshi is not your person. In fact, stay away from her at all costs. I will mention despite rating her like this, she is no monster. She seems like a relatively decent person, her grading standards are just insane. Joshi takes this class, which most students have clearly only taken for the sake of getting their gen ed class for English, and treats it as some kind of upper level english class that is meant for English Majors. Like for gods sake, I am a STEM Major why do you have to take this class so seriously. For example why should you write 3 paragraph responses to her bi weekly discussion boards, and spend countless hours on papers that any other English 101 teacher would have given a 98 for, while Joshi- being the strict grader that she is - gives it a 70. Stay away from Joshi by all means, and for the sake of your GPA, please take another professor. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-02T03:08:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': None, 'review': "Negative mid-semester review woohoo! I do not get excited to come to her class. It is so bland and boring and is slowly ruining the subject for me. She feels the need to push her political views on her students, which has absolutely no place in a writing class. Each day is the same thing and the class is structured exactly like a high school English class when it is not actually an English class. Couldn't be more disappointed with this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-09-22T14:21:36.680824Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Joshi', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': 'I had her for an 8am class, and I do not regret it. She is understanding if you need more time, and she will give you detailed feedback on your major assignments if you send them to her. Every assignment I sent to her (all but one), I got the highest or one of the highest grades in the class. The only reason I did not get an A+ is because I was unable to get detailed feedback for the position paper (the largest grade). I still got over a 95%, which is great considering I am a stem person.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T20:07:49.961308Z'}], 'name': 'Katherine Joshi', 'slug': 'joshi_katherine'}, {'courses': ['AOSC201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katherine Junghenn', 'slug': 'junghenn'}, {'courses': ['RUSS301', 'RUSS221'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katherine Moskver', 'slug': 'moskver'}, {'courses': ['ENGL390', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Katherine Oneill', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': 'very reasonable grader. If you do the work you should easily be able to get an A. Class its self is rather boring and a number of times she just had us do homework during class', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-03T19:38:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Katherine Oneill', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': "To me, she comes off as distant and judgmental. She writes comments/annotations for your essays very bluntly. She's not very talkative and pretty much reads off her slides in class. Boring as hell.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-12T20:59:10.233332Z'}], 'name': 'Katherine Oneill', 'slug': 'oneill'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394', 'ENGL398N', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL398B'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Katherine Robinson', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "She's nice and sweet. The work load in the class is not overwhelming. The group project was to put on a fake fundraising event for a non-profit organization. There's a big research proposal due at the end of the semester which had to be 2500 words long. \r\nOnly thing that annoyed me about the class was that she doesn't post grades online so you're left wondering where you stand in the class. \r\nMake sure you come to class because attendance is a part of your grade. And like any English class you write journal entries almost every day. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-18T23:21:00Z'}], 'name': 'Katherine Robinson', 'slug': 'robinson_katherine'}, {'courses': ['HLTH420', 'HLTH665', 'HLTH498T', 'EXST030', 'HLTH432', 'HLTH665', 'HLTH432', 'HLTH432', 'HLTH432'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Katherine Sharp', 'course': 'HLTH432', 'review': "Professor Sharp was very accomodating! Course was online and asynchronous but there are some guidelines on ELMS to help you pace the content, which there is a lot of. There are completion-based practice quizzes with a bunch of questions which you do before the actual quizzes. The actual quizzes then pull a selection of the exact questions from the practice quizzes so if you review and know your stuff, you'll do well. Only exam was the final, which is multiple choice and accounts for 50% of your grade. Found the class to be helpful for my job.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-08T02:58:44.737233Z'}], 'name': 'Katherine Sharp', 'slug': 'sharp'}, {'courses': ['EDCI470'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katherine Shirey', 'slug': 'shirey'}, {'courses': ['ENGL221', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL255', 'ENGL244', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL313', 'ENGL433', 'HONR219L', 'HNUH268J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katherine Stanutz', 'slug': 'stanutz'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM324', 'HHUM206'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kathleen Brown', 'slug': 'brown_kathleen'}, {'courses': ['GVPT355', 'GVPT409M', 'GVPT808C', 'GVPT409I', 'GVPT831', 'GVPT599', 'GVPT808B', 'GVPT409H', 'GVPT708A', 'GVPT409N', 'GVPT700', 'GVPT600', 'GVPT600', 'GVPT412H', 'GVPT600'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kathleen Cunningham', 'course': 'GVPT409M', 'review': "Professor Cunningham was incredible at making complex material easy to understand. She's definitely one of my favorite in the department.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T04:32:03Z'}], 'name': 'Kathleen Cunningham', 'slug': 'cunningham_kathleen'}, {'courses': ['ENMA180'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kathleen Hart', 'slug': 'hart_kathleen'}, {'courses': ['HESP202', 'HESP404', 'HESP403', 'HESP498D', 'HESP120', 'HESP400', 'HESP406', 'HESP202', 'HESP498D'], 'average_rating': 4.1111, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "Kate is excellent. She's a great lecturer. She's funny, experienced, and such a sweet person.\r\nIf you get above a 90, she gives you an A, not an A-. \r\nThe class was a good taste of hearing and speech sciences, while not being too much work.\r\nThere was one paper, it was short and easy. You watch a movie for it.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-07-21T13:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "Kate is a fantastic professor. She has been in the profession for years, so she knows what she's talking about. She has a lot of examples of all of the different disorders we learned about, which really helped me understand everything she was talking about. I would recommend going to lecture, but missing one or two is fine, you can get notes from a friend. If you do have to miss lecture, I'd recommend reading the corresponding text. All of her lectures come directly from the book, so just study lecture notes when studying for tests. Basically if you show up to class you'll do fine. Definitely a good class and one of my favorite professors.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-05-24T18:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "This class wasn't as easy I anticipated. I had heard that it was an easy A. \n\r\nThere aren't many graded assignments. Fall 2011 there were 5 quizzes (1 dropped), 2 tests, and a non cumulative final. Plus we were required to do experimental participation. That was easy though. \n\r\nThe quizzes are multiple choice based entirely off the reading, which is in the book. She announces a few days before each quiz when it will be and what it will be on. And although she says that she chooses the biggest points and if you read you shouldn't have a problem on the quizzes, I always read for the quizzes and still failed 2 of the 4 we've had thus far. \n\r\nThe material isn't very hard, but you do have to study to remember it all. Because there aren't many graded assignments one bad grade can really bring you down. \n\r\nI really liked Kate and the class was really interesting, I just wish I had been more on top of it from the beginning. It can be an easy class if you stay on top of the material. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-06T12:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "Good professor, cares about how students perform in the class. Tests are not too bad as long as you study. I recommend using a laptop because you need to take a lot of notes. \r\nFor all the lazy people that don't go to class, they do not get as good grades. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T18:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': 'Required to go to lecture, but if you miss one you can copy notes from someone or meet with the TAs. Slides are self-explanatory, but professor adds things in class that helped me remember the information (examples, videos, demonstrations). \r\nDropped one quiz, gave extra credit to those who were there the day before Thanksgiving, gave extra credit if over 95% of class filled out course evaluation, extra credit to 10 people in the hearing section if you get to the front of the class first.\r\nExams are multiple choice, true/false, matching, and fill-in the blank. I thought the first exam would be easier--need to know the information well and memorize what terms belong in which category to get an A. After first exam you can figure out how to study for her exams. Final was not cumulative. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T17:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "This class was very interesting. Kate is so knowledgable about the subject.\r\nThere's not too much to your grade- 5 quizzes, 1 two page paper, and 3 non cumulative exams. You do have to go to lecture becuase she never posts slides on elms, and tests are almost 100% based off of lecture notes. The class is quite time consuming, but isn't bad compared to many other electives.\r\nI did learn a lot too.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-23T21:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "I didn't really like this class- you really have to pay attention all the time in order to do well. I'm not a bad student, but I don't have that many hours to devote to this one class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-11T00:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "I loved Kate. Her voice is not bad at all and she's perfectly intelligible. Her tests are straight from the powerpoints, but she doesn't post them online so you have to go to class. There's one two page paper which was a review on a movie with a person with a developmental disorder (I watched I Am Sam). There are 2 experiential requirements. She gives quizzes but tells you in class and emails you exactly when they are and exactly what you need to read (which isn't much) to pass them. I took this class as an elective but loved it so much I'm thinking about majoring in hearing and speech. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-27T12:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': 'Her voice drove me out of my mind and the class was early so I basically never went. All of the quizzes are 5 questions mult. choice but she tells you when they are. Tests are straight from the notes so all you need to do is copy someones notes and your fine. This class is easy but if you take it too easy you can get screwed.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-01-14T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "Kate is a great teacher. She is really animated and keeps you on your toes. She wants you to do well, and proves it by throwing out questions on tests that too many people get wrong. Really interesting class (HESP202) and she's a great person to take it with", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-15T13:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "Kate is a great professor. Show up to class, do the readings and the quizzes, and you can't get less than a B. Sometimes the material is a little dry but she does her best to make it interesting. Sitting in the front is worth it because she will recognize you. \r\nSeveral quizzes (5?), 2 exams + non cumulative final, easy and quick project summarizing child language development. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-02-08T17:20:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': 'Kind of annoying, and not as accommodating as she tries to make herself seem. Has high expectations for students, and is not understanding when students cannot meet them.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-05-02T18:24:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': 'Ridiculously easy, stopped attending class in the first month and just watched the recorded lectures on 2x a couple days before exams and got an A. Pretty interesting information but lectures were boring.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T05:20:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "This class was ridiculously easy. If you show up to class and pay attention you literally cannot get below a 90%. Kate is super quirky and nice and tlaking to her always brightened my day. TBH i loved her and can't wait to take another class of hers", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-10T21:03:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP400', 'review': 'Kate is always all over the place, but being online makes it worse. The lectures were discombobulated, but everything is relatively easy and straightforward except for the final project. I felt unprepared to do such a large and time consuming final project since there were few assignments due before this and the feedback was not helpful. No need to buy the textbook, she posted all the sections you need. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-19T16:01:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP400', 'review': 'Professor Skinker will have organized ppt, but the information is not the most exciting, and she knows it. She does her best to tech it in a manner that at least makes it interesting. Her quizzes were mainly online, until the last one which was in class, but that was due to her feeling the class was not grasping the concept she was teaching. Not sure if that was on the part of her teaching or us as a class. Instead of a final, we had a major project due at the end of the semester. All of the homework correlated with the information given in class, just make sure to take good notes because she requires you do so via an actual notebook and not your computer. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-21T18:56:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP400', 'review': 'I had Skinker for an entry level HESP class and really enjoyed her. I was excited to have her for 400, however I was very disappointed in her teaching this semester. She never posted a class schedule and would always change up the syllabus. She would also get mad anytime anyone asked a question and just acted like she didn’t want to be there. The class felt very unorganized, she didn’t know how to have Canvas show our overall grade and took forever to grade things and didn’t respond to emails. It is now 12/24 and we still do not have our final project grade or final overall grade. The class is overall easy and straight forward, but I think they need a more organized and patient professor.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-25T07:11:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'course': 'HESP202', 'review': "Kate is a great professor. I think this may have been her last semester teaching, but I want to leave a review in case she continues. Lectures can be slow and tiring, especially because class was at 9am in a hot lecture hall. Most, if not all, of the material on exams was covered in lecture. If you show up to class (or at least watch the lecture videos when provided) then it's hard to get lower than a B.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-18T01:34:41Z'}], 'name': 'Kathleen Skinker', 'slug': 'skinker'}, {'courses': ['EDCI673', 'EDCI698', 'EDCI640'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kathleen Travers', 'slug': 'travers'}, {'courses': ['BUMO725', 'BMGT868L', 'BMGT868T', 'BMGT828E', 'BUSM758O', 'BUSO711'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kathryn Bartol', 'slug': 'bartol'}, {'courses': ['HESP417', 'HESP648A', 'HESP648B', 'EXST030', 'HESP648B', 'HESP648A', 'HESP648B', 'HESP648B', 'HESP648B', 'HESP648B', 'HESP648A', 'HESP648B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kathryn Dow-Burger', 'slug': 'dow-burger'}, {'courses': ['ENGL293', 'ENGL256', 'ENGL101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kathryn Frew', 'slug': 'frew'}, {'courses': ['ANTH360', 'ANTH464', 'ANTH664', 'ANTH760', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH435', 'ANTH635', 'ANTH749', 'ANTH799', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH464', 'ANTH664', 'ANTH749', 'ANTH799', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH464', 'ANTH664', 'HNUH268B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels', 'slug': 'samuels_kathryn_lafrenz'}, {'courses': ['BSCI330H', 'HLSC322'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kathryn Monzo', 'course': 'HLSC322', 'review': 'Lectures are confusing and not engaging at all. Slides are not helpful either. Does not seem to care or put any prep into making effective lectures. Textbook does not help much; is also confusing and overly complicated.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-03-14T01:15:12Z'}], 'name': 'Kathryn Monzo', 'slug': 'monzo'}, {'courses': ['MATH310', 'MATH113', 'MATH310', 'MATH310', 'MATH310', 'MATH310'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "I mostly agree with the other reviews. Kate is very energetic and knowledgeable. She is normally very clear with her explanations (written and spoken). With just those things, she's already better than most of the other math teachers I've had at UMD which were terrible at communicating course material. What's scary is how much of the two textbooks she has memorized including questions and question numbers.\n\r\nHowever, the class was too much work (for me at least). If anyone is to blame, it's the math department's (ludicrously?) high standards. If she didn't jam as much in as possible, then students wouldn't be prepared for Math410. But, because there was so much material, she could hardly give us a brief explanation and short example for each topic. So now after finishing the class, I feel like a Jack of all trades but master of none, and spending so little time on each topic means I'll probably forget almost everything (except broad topics) over the summer. If there was less material, I could have mastered more of it, and it would likely stick longer. But I guess for a cursory preview/review of a bunch of math topics, Math310 served its purpose.\n\r\nIt's funny how I put more way effort into my math classes (including Math310) than my 4xx level comp sci classes, and I get a B in math and A in comp sci (without even having to take the final in comp sci). It's hard to say if comp sci is a bit too easy or if math is a bit too hard, but I'm leaning towards math being too hard. It's great that Kate (and the other math teachers) drop a bunch of assignments and nudge grades so the class averages work out, but I'd rather they curve things around student performance than what percentage of the content they can cram into their brains and regurgitate onto paper in an hour. For example, comp sci classes might set the B/C cutoff at the median for the class, and have the other grades based on standard deviations from the median. (median - 2(std dev) = D, median - 1(std dev) = C, median = B, median + 1(std dev) = A). That means you have to do well compared to your classmates which is mostly independent of how well the teacher is at preparing the students for tests. If the teacher's style doesn't fit with how the students learn (on average), then students can still do well compared to each other. With the math department's system, if the teacher's style doesn't fit with how the students learn on average, then the students won't know all of the material, so they will do poorly on average. So for math, a student can put in way more effort than others and get a better grade than most of them and still get a bad grade in the class if the class average was low (or a B when they put in a ton of effort). Dropping and nudging scores helps, but it can still leave students that put in a ton of effort with a less-than-ideal grade. \n\r\nThis problem wasn't as severe with Kate's Math310, but I wish she did something to curve tests with low averages, or did an overhaul to compare students vs each other instead of vs the textbook. \n\r\nIn general, I spent nearly all of every Saturday working on Math310 homework and several hours throughout the week on the other assignments. This felt overwhelming, but it didn't even feel like enough practice for all the content. \n\r\nSo, if you have to rush and sacrifice quality for quantity to pack material into a class, is there too much material? Does the math department want its 3xx classes to be more work than other majors' 4xx classes? (Not to mention Math1xx and 2xx tend to feel like 3xx or 4xx classes). And the icing on the cake is that taking CMSC250 places you out of Math310, but Math310 is unarguably much more difficult. \n\r\nThat was a lot of complaining, but at least Kate tried her best and was better than other math teachers. (Hmm, what a useful metric comparing people against their peers is).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2016-05-18T12:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'I don\'t know how you guys are bringing yourselves to give her high ratings. This class is an asinine waste of time and money; the last 30-40 percent of it is basically math410 REALLY poorly explained and rushed at a ridiculous pace. The rest of the class is really easy material and studying various proof techniques, which is actually fairly useful. \n\r\nShe has really lost most of the class at this point with the 410 stuff. She assigns ungodly long homework assignments, and then she uses class time to go over the answers. This is great and all, but it leaves her with little time to explain the material for the subsequent hw assignments. My grades are suffering miserably because of the 410 rush, so I\'m planning on getting a C at this point. I would say pick up a book like Daniel Vellman\'s "how to prove it", or the book for the class by Zhang, read over it, learn proof techniques, and avoid this stupid class all-together. I\'m trying not to get discouraged from 410 because I really want to know it, but she\'s doing a very fine job of making me lose my interest in the subject.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-05-05T01:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "As has been said, Dr. Truman is great. Very conscious of students' needs. Exams are easy. Homeworks can be a bit daunting at times and only having <1hr office hours once per week doesn't help.\n\r\nHowever, I found the class to be a bit of a waste of time. Roughly 80% of the course is easy. I'd say the other 20% is manageable at worst. The only reason I'm getting a B is because I missed one of the exams. If you're confident with your mathematical skill, I'd say either take 307 during the summer with her or don't take it at all.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-01T00:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Dr. Truman is a very energetic and knowledgeable instructor. She is also an academic adviser, so if you take class with her she will know your strengths and really know what kind of schedule you can handle. \n\r\nTeaching wise she knows what she is doing and she makes herself available via email if you ever need extra help. 310 was a pretty easy class up until the last section when we started calculus proofs. \n\r\nShe is definitely one of the best 310 instructors at CP, I am going to try and get her to teach me 406', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-04-30T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Kate was one of the best math instructors i have ever had. She went over anything and everything that was on tests. Tests were straight forward and about 90% of test questions were hw\'s. she gives 15 free points before exams with "group quizzes." If you stay on top of hw\'s you will completely fine and get an A', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-03T03:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'she is awesome. if you are taking math406 take her class.\n\r\ngo over your homeworks and any theorems that she says you have to know!! do the work and you will do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-02-02T19:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "Professor Truman is energetic and really cares about her class but unfortunately, that means having a lot of work and assignments. I took this class because I am pursuing a math minor and this class was more work than my major requirement courses. \r\nShe does not post homework, exam, group work, or quiz solutions. The only time you can get an idea of what the solution may be is if you go to office hours or email her with an attempt to the question in which she will give you tips on how to get to the solution but never tell you the solution itself.\r\nShe would give a quiz a day after the homework was due meaning we wouldn't get our graded homework back in time to study for the quiz and see what mistakes we were making. Since there were no homework solutions posted, there were many ocassions where people would do poorly on the homework and the quiz because we didn't get feedback on time.\r\nYou can tell she cares about students really learning the concepts because this is an important class for MATH410 but that meant getting a lot of work in and outside of class. \r\nI personally think this class was too much work for what it is worth and multiple people dropped from our class before our second midterm (some of them dropping the course for a second time). We also did not have enough time to complete our midterms with more than half of the class not fully completing the exams.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-05-15T04:12:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Probably the best instructor for MATH310. She would assign quick 5-10 minute videos containing definitions to watch before class when needed (not that often), otherwise we only had to attend live lecture. Most, if not all, of live lecture time was dedicated to student understanding of concepts and the homework. She would have two or three examples, but would build in time for students to ask questions or allow them to interject their own questions instead of the prepared examples. She was also really responsive and helpful on Piazza - you\'d often get a response within 10 minutes, regardless of the time or day. Only reason that this a 4 and not 5 star review is the time allotted for quizzes and especially exams felt unrealistic since we were supposed to stop ~10 minutes earlier to scan and submit.\r\nCLASS TIPS (Regardless of teacher):\r\n1. Start the HW early! She doesn\'t give you a week to do it because she\'s nice (which she is), she does it because it takes a week(or at least a weekend) to do it! Seriously. Except for the first HW, I would consider it a godsend to finish a HW in six hours or less.\r\n2. When studying for an exam, I recommend writing all the terms and definitions you learned that unit on two sheets of paper. That way you have everything you need to look at when studying in one place. Also very good when cramming. Also, it\'s obvious but bears saying, study by doing problems! Specifically, the problems you got wrong or had trouble with on HW and quizzes.\r\n3. Start doing math at least thirty minutes prior to an exam. That way when it starts you\'re already in "math mode".\r\n4. (This one might be more Truman and/or online-specific, but is still useful). Finally, you should be in a blitzkrieg mindset during this exam. You really do not have time for mistakes. If you read a problem and after thirty seconds still don\'t know how to approach it, SKIP IT.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-13T21:57:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'I really liked Dr. Truman, She\'s super nice and approachable. Even if you ask her a "dumb" question, she doesn\'t react like it\'s dumb, and often jokes like "oh, we all forget algebra here and there." I would recommend her, but her class definitely has a hard workload so plan accordingly. You know how every semester you have that "one" class that takes up most of your time? This is that class. I don\'t think it matters if you have other hard courses, this one will dominate your time. Also, get a copy of "the Book of Proof" by Richard Hammack, it\'s free and WAY better than the crappy textbook this course uses. \r\n\r\nHow to succeed in her class: start homework the day the topics are covered. The homework is long and hard because she wants you to spend time on it. You can\'t do it in one day, I promise. A good week was an 8 hour long homework, worse was maybe 16 hours, but it did take a bit for me to understand some stuff so I may be on the longer side. \r\n\r\nWhen doing the homework, write all the relevant definitions and theorems down on a notecard and only reference that for homework. You\'ll memorize it, eventually. Go to office hours and ask every single question you could possibly think of. My exam grades had an upward trend once I started going to every single office hours (D first exam, C- second exam, A+ on 3rd exam and B+ on final). Email her any questions you have, she really doesn\'t mind. \r\n\r\nExams are almost identical to homework, even in the online environment. The best way to prepare for these are to redo the homework and check with her to make sure you did proofs correctly. Only select homework problems are graded, so if 1, 3, and 9 are graded, you have no idea if you did 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 right or not. She\'s not going to put anything harder than the homework on an exam or quiz. Quizzes also have almost identical homework content, but the question is often disguised a bit-- if you really know and understand the homework, you\'ll realize it\'s the same question.\r\n\r\nThe hardest weeks in this class are week 2 and week 10. Week 2 is when you\'re thrown into proof writing with a very long homework and only about 5 days to do it. Week 10 is when you start the advanced calculus (math 410) content. That was pretty hard for me, but eventually it all clicked after spending a lot of time in office hours and watching various YouTube videos. Exam 3 content is nothing worse than the respective homework, in fact I found it to be some of the easiest questions from the homework, but it may vary semester to semester. \r\n\r\nI think if you do all of the above, you\'ll do well in her course. Take it with other light courses so you can spend adequate time on the content. I think if you enjoy the content, it\'s actually a kind of fun class. Proofs are really cool once you get the basic intuition for it :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-23T23:45:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "I took this course in 2020 Spring. I like Dr. Truman and she is nice. But the course experience is really bad, Midterm 1 was too difficult and the average is 59. The materials are not Math theorems, you just recite the proof and write it down. I don't like it at all. I got 70+ as the final grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2022-03-09T05:01:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "I'm only getting a C because I bombed my first midterm. The homework feels like a lot of work because it's due right when you finish learning the material that is covered in the homework and you're not able to solve it easily just yet. But I promise when you look back at the homework questions to study for the final, you'll realize how easy it is to solve them and laugh at yourself for spending so much time than necessary. It took me a lot of self-studying to fully understand how to write proofs, but once you understand everything the material becomes fun. \r\n\r\nDr Truman is a great professor, she'll do anything to help you understand the material, so don't worry too much !", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-05-17T06:17:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathryn Truman', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "I'm not a fan of Truman. Homework assignments took hours and weren't similar to any of the problems we covered in class. The averages for the exams were all around 50%. I would go for a different professor when taking 310. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-05-25T12:22:04Z'}], 'name': 'Kathryn Truman', 'slug': 'truman'}, {'courses': ['INFM737', 'INFM736', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST362', 'INFM711', 'INST309', 'INST352', 'INST354', 'INST208M', 'LBSC671', 'INST389', 'INST608F', 'INST228', 'LBSC671', 'INST354', 'LBSC671'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kathy Weaver', 'course': 'INST354', 'review': "Not the most organized professor, assignments are not clear, class took a hard left and didn't follow the same track as other 354 classes.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-18T07:04:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Kathy Weaver', 'course': 'INST354', 'review': 'Dr. Weaver is a kind person that is passionate about teaching. While I did not personally agree with some of her teaching styles (no phones/laptops in class, mandatory check-in at the beginning of each class, etc.), she still does a decent job of conveying material and is receptive to the needs of her students.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T13:32:30Z'}], 'name': 'Kathy Weaver', 'slug': 'weaver'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'WMST300', 'WMST601', 'HONR209X', 'WMST498Q', 'WMST468K', 'WMST621', 'WMST494', 'WMST618', 'WMST319A', 'WMST400', 'WMST488K', 'WMST709', 'ENGL479A', 'WMST698Q', 'WMST498R', 'WMST698F', 'LGBT494'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katie King', 'slug': 'king_katie'}, {'courses': ['EDCP108B', 'HESI318E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katie Koo', 'slug': 'koo'}, {'courses': ['INST612', 'LBSC605', 'INST610', 'INST641', 'INST810', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST899', 'INST888', 'INST441', 'INST104', 'INST104', 'INST104', 'INST818'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katie Shilton', 'slug': 'shilton'}, {'courses': ['DANC179', 'DANC371', 'DANC218', 'DANC219', 'DANC466', 'HONR239C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katie Sopoci Drake', 'slug': 'drake_katie_sopoci'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'UNIV100I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Katrina Knudsen', 'slug': 'knudsen'}, {'courses': ['INFM736', 'LBSC670', 'LBSC690', 'LBSC671', 'INFM600', 'INFM700', 'INST733', 'INST311', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST490', 'INST208C', 'INST490', 'INST208C', 'INST210', 'INST335', 'INST208C', 'INST210', 'INST210', 'INST210', 'INST311', 'INST210', 'INST210'], 'average_rating': 3.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Katy Lawley', 'course': 'INST311', 'review': 'I took her summer course and she is a great professor. She is a hard grader but you will actually learn in this class. She is always available and will answer your emails quickly. There are a lot of assignments but all of the exams and quizzes are open-book. I wish she would let us pick our team members.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-08-08T04:56:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Katy Lawley', 'course': 'INST311', 'review': "Her class is great. She's a great professor and everything is explained extremely well. There's rubrics for almost every assignment, so if you follow them, it's practically guaranteed As. Everything is open book, open course, open note, open internet, buy you just can't collaborate with others, so exams and quizzes are easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-07-11T16:11:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Katy Lawley', 'course': 'INST490', 'review': "She's an amazing professor. Throughout the semester, she regularly met with our team and provided detailed feedback and recommendations on various aspects of our capstone project, enabling us to successfully hand over our project deliverables to our client. Prof. Lawley was also really accessible outside of class and responded to messages very quickly. Her lectures were really informative, especially those on professional development. She is very knowledgeable on this topic, so I would strongly encourage you to visit her office hours, especially if you need help with resumes or job interviews. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-18T05:25:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Katy Lawley', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': "She's a nice professor and the course is... what it is. But it's her first time teaching this course and the class seems very misdirected. Course pages don't get published until the lecture starts and she realizes we can't access the slides or information. I would recommend taking this course with someone more experienced in teaching it for a smoother experience.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-06T16:36:15.080834Z'}, {'professor': 'Katy Lawley', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': 'This class is legit useless, and Dr. Lawley is super unorganized. We find out about new assignments at the last minute.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-13T20:12:25.184443Z'}, {'professor': 'Katy Lawley', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': "I am being more lenient in my review because she was told she was teaching the course 2 days before classes started, hence the disorganization within the course for the entire semester. However, Dr. Lawley is very understanding and self-aware that the course was not taught very well, leading her to be more lenient in grading this semester. Her office hours really helped me understand a group project, was able to help me brainstorm ideas and allowed me to actually be successful during the project. I would say if you would want to take it with her, take it since I think it'll be better for future semesters.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-16T18:20:02.132831Z'}, {'professor': 'Katy Lawley', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': 'Very unorganized and pointless course. Dr. Lawley was very unprepared throughout the semester.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-25T22:44:08.506119Z'}], 'name': 'Katy Lawley', 'slug': 'lawley'}, {'courses': ['RDEV350', 'RDEV688I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kaufman Robert', 'slug': 'robert'}, {'courses': ['PHYS752', 'PHYS759', 'PHYS411', 'PHYS373', 'PHYS601', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS622', 'PHYS612', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS759', 'PHYS373', 'PHYS759', 'PHYS759', 'PHYS752', 'PHYS373', 'PHYS759'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kaustubh Agashe', 'course': 'PHYS373', 'review': 'Had a good time taking PHYS373 with Prof. Agashe. He is very lenient with the homework deadlines and lets you submit up to a few days late without notice. He holds a review session before each exam, this really helped people. The exams themselves were not too difficult. Whatever be the case, you need to put in the effort to get a good grade in math methods ii.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-22T01:44:23.062791Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaustubh Agashe', 'course': 'PHYS752', 'review': 'Great professor. Focuses on learning.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-27T06:21:23.580221Z'}], 'name': 'Kaustubh Agashe', 'slug': 'agashe'}, {'courses': ['ENEE407', 'ENEE489J', 'ENEE489J'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kawthar Zaki', 'course': 'ENEE407', 'review': "She is the kindest, and sweetest professor I've had in a long time. She genuinely cares for her students, and she wants them to do well. \n\r\nThe class is a tough class. I have spent upwards of 8-12 hours on each lab report, but each lab report is due every other week. The lectures and the Lab packets will help you with the lab, and usually they will have instructions and hints on how to accomplish the lab. \n\r\nAlthough the class may be tough, I thought it was relatively easy to get an A or B in the class. Just make sure you show up to every lecture and lab hour and you should be golden.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-23T15:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kawthar Zaki', 'slug': 'zaki_kawthar'}, {'courses': ['ENCE100', 'ENCE200', 'ENCE635', 'ENCE305', 'ENCE688K', 'GEMS296', 'ENCE688D', 'GEMS297', 'ENCE432', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS497', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE431', 'ENCE305', 'ENCE631', 'ENCE305', 'ENCE432', 'ENCE431', 'ENCE635', 'ENCE432'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': "Brubaker has upped her game. Realizing that this class was never taken seriously, she decided to find a book to use for this class. It is still a fair courseload for a 1 credit class, but there was a final based on all the readings. Each class there was a quiz for attendance based on readings and the lecture. She must have known our names and marked us down if we weren't paying attention, though. I got some bad quiz grades even if I completed it. I'm pretty sure I got A's on the assignments and final, but because of the quizzes and attendance, my grade was brought down to a high B. Take this class seriously, and don't waste your time if you aren't seriously considering civil engineering.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-07-15T22:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': None, 'review': "Very sweet lady. She has a very mother like approach to her teaching, she doesn't like going forward if anyone is stuck. \n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-08-12T10:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': "This is a required course for all civil engineers. Brubaker was nice and helpful. There are two assignments and she takes attendance. It's an easy A, don't stress about it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-24T14:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': None, 'review': "The tests were pretty tricky.\n\r\nMake sure you go to class, pay attention, and take notes. Try to really have a good understanding of whats going on, don't just click along.\n\r\nDo all homework! \n\r\nI would say this was a pretty intense class for this course, but she doesn't make it seem that way in the beginning... but don't be fooled. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-27T01:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': "This class is an easy A+. Show up for every lecture, do the two assignments, and final project. \n\r\nShe's nice and helpful.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-24T01:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': None, 'review': 'she was good. tests are a little long for the time in class, but if you spend enough time on homeworks and projects, ur pretty much set for an A', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-21T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': "Show up, pay attention, don't talk, did i mention don't talk, do the few assignments, and you will get an A. Ended the semester with 105%.\n\r\nGood professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-18T19:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': "Good teacher for an intro course, Takes attendance so make sure you go to class. The class holds true to a 1 credit class as it should. Even though its a required class for all ENCE majors, you don't need to worry to much about any additional workload. Show up, listen, get a feel for civil engineering, and do the 1 or 2 small assignments she gives you. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-01T08:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': 'Easy class (attendance required), friendly prof.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-19T00:52:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "The class was difficult, but the lectures were very engaging and she did here best to answer any and all questions. Very friendly. Exams were hard but fair, she posted plenty of study materials beforehand. She also gave out problem sets/homework assignments that were due every other day. Lots of people didn't like them but I thought they really helped me understand the material and prepared me for the exams", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-20T00:10:30.200925Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': 'This class was hard at times (especially at 8 AM), but Dr. Brubaker made it so you were engaged and absorbing as much information as possible. She attempted to answer every question asked during class and made herself available multiple times a week if you needed any extra help with problem sets. These homework assignments, despite being frequent, made me understand the material better and mirrored the exam material well. The three midterms given during the semester were a little difficult, but fair. She gives partial credit if you manage to write down your thought process for a question (just shows that you understood something about the problem). You could even make up the score on one of your midterms with the final exam (if you did well enough)!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-31T01:17:05.651390Z'}, {'professor': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "Besides the fact that this class was at 8 AM, I have no complaints. Her slides are helpful and relevant to homework sets and exams. She is approachable and easy to ask questions in class as she ensures everyone understands the material before moving on. The exams were not that bad. I studied the night before and easily got B's on all the exams. I was expecting a B in the class until the final where if you did better on questions from a certain unit she would replace one of the midterms which bumped me to an A-. (From around an 84% to 90)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-03-08T03:15:52.311401Z'}], 'name': 'Kaye Brubaker', 'slug': 'brubaker'}, {'courses': ['EDCP217', 'UNIV100', 'UNIV104'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kaye Guidugli', 'slug': 'guidugli'}, {'courses': ['ENGL206', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL212', 'ENGL255', 'ENGL250', 'WMST255'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kayla Harr', 'slug': 'harr_kayla'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN315', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN415', 'SPAN224'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kayla Watson', 'slug': 'watson_kayla'}, {'courses': ['BMGT230H', 'BMGT332', 'BMGT385', 'BMGT435', 'BMGT430', 'BMGT230', 'ENTS635', 'ENTS673', 'BMGT230B', 'BMGT332', 'BMGT385', 'BMGT332', 'BMGT385', 'ENTS635', 'BMGT332', 'BMGT385', 'BMGT332', 'ENTS635', 'BMGT385'], 'average_rating': 3.0345, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT385', 'review': "Professor Ruhi is one of the best teachers I've ever had. He is funny, kind, and truly cares about his students. I went to his office hours and he patiently took the time to discuss difficult topics with me. He really wants his students to succeed! Yes, he has an accent, but so do tons of professors...it never bothered me or affected my learning. \n\r\nOverall, Prof Ruhi is great!! Take his classes, go to them, do your assignments, and ask for help when you need it. He will work with you so that you do well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-09-01T11:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT385', 'review': 'Where to begin with Kazim Ruhi..\n\r\nPersonality: Can be nice and welcoming at times but other times is completely rude and uncaring towards students. He doesn\'t care much for his students and he often comes off as someone who thinks he\'s better than all of his students(which may be true academic wise but a good professor never looks down on students). \n\r\nTeaching Style: Possibly the worst teacher I\'ve had in all of my academic life. He doesn\'t know how to present concepts and most students sit in his class bored or are on their phones because he isn\'t interesting. He teaches way too heavily from the book and all of his powerpoints are made from the book publisher. He literally just has the book memorized and repeats the book material during lecture. If you are one of those students that can read the book and learn the material than you probably won\'t care. But if your someone like me that needs relevant examples of qualitative and quantitative problems, then don\'t take this guy. \n\r\nLastly, His accent: The issue isn\'t necessarily with his accent but more due to his broken English. He doesn\'t know how to structure sentences properly and his vocabulary isn\'t very good. This often leaves him stumbling over his words and confusing students even more. The worst part is when he is going over quantitative problems. You can never follow him because he goes too fast and no one can understand what hes saying. This class is pretty much a math class so you have to understand the quantitative aspects to do well on the exams. \n\r\nPS. I\'m not a bitter student that never attended class and is writing a bad review. I attended every single class and passed with a good grade at the end because I had to put in long hours of studying to understand the material. If you want a "teacher", don\'t take him. If your alright with reading the book and learning, it won\'t matter if you take him or not. \n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-23T20:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Solid teacher; not nearly as bad as some people make him out to be. His accent is not so difficult to understand and can make the class funny at times.\r\nProfessor Ruhi seems to care about his students. He holds a lot of office hours and, while he won't bend over backwards for his students, he does genuinely want them to succeed and will help them if necessary.\r\nI found his lectures to be boring but if you stay focused on the material they actually help quite a bit.\r\nOverall, Professor Ruhi is a good teacher. I would recommend taking his class for B Stat.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-19T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT385', 'review': "The other reviewers saying that he is not a very good teacher are correct. He is not the most effective teacher. The examples he gives to help you understand are right out of the book. He uses the textbook slides but really just loosely covers them. To make this worse, he is hard to understand at times. What is good however, is that he and the TA will help you significantly with the homeworks, even verifying your answers. I go to class, but half of the students don't. He's not terrible, but if there's a better option, take it. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-02T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': 'This class was not very difficult at all, but I have already taken stat before. Many other students with no stat background were lost and Ruhi was of little help. His accent makes him very difficult to understand, his handwriting is sloppy and his class is painfully boring. Spent a good deal of class advocating for other classes he teaches in the business school.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-12T13:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "Great professor. Very funny (usually not on purpose), knows what he's talking about, gives lots of examples, and answers all of your questions. I suck at statistics, but he made the course bearable. His accent wasn't a problem. If anything, it made the class more fun", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2012-11-26T19:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': "Honestly I took this class because I heard it was a pretty easy Supply Chain upper level class. The material is pretty simple but Ruhi is a horrendous professor. Potentially the worst I've ever had at Maryland. He is a stubborn prick who does not make his own powerpoints, instead teaching directly out of the book. He takes lots of points off both tests and homeworks for little reason at all. He said that if we had a 175/200 combined on the first two tests we should be good to get A's. I had a 174.5 and then got a 94 on the final and got a B in the class. When I asked him about this he stated that he never said this and yelled at me for implying he was a liar. Absolute dickhead, DO NO TAKE THIS GUY FOR THIS CLASS.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-24T22:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT385', 'review': "Ruhi's a nice guy but he's a bad teacher, and this class has some pretty complex material. Most of the issue is due to his broken English. Its tough to follow him when he is doing practice problems. Be prepared to teach yourself a lot of the chapters from the book.If you know the material in the book, you will do fine on his tests.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-26T09:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': 'Lazy\r\nToo lazy to make a damn Powerpoint\r\nU cannot read what he is writing down on the board.......\n\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'AA', 'created': '2012-01-31T14:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT385', 'review': "Not a fan of Ruhi...at all. \n\r\nI have him for two classes this semester...don't do this to yourself! He does have an accent, but that's not the problem. He's just not a good teacher. \n\r\nHis quizzes and exams are difficult...expect to spend a LOT of time outside of class studying and teaching yourself the material if you want to do well!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-15T22:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT385', 'review': "Awful. \r\nI am a hardworking student who generally does really well (I'm graduating early with a 3.7 GPA), so trust me when I tell you not to take any classes with him. \r\nHe is NOT an effective educator. He does NOT explain the concepts well, and they are just confusing and overwhelming - and then on the exams, you have no idea what to do because you never understood the concepts in the first place.\r\nI think he's a nice guy who tries, but he does not relay the information well. And if you go to talk to him about it, he's stuck in his ways and won't budge!\r\nJust Terrible... I am counting down the days (literally) until this class ends.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-06T10:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': "The material in this class is so easy it's ridiculous. You can study this material and think you mastered it, take the exam and get a C. Professor Ruhi takes off points for the most unnecessary things. It's basic math, but somehow you will find yourself with 15 points taken off your grade for silly mistakes. Ruhi is a nice guy though, fairly pleasant, but his grading is unfair. Also this is one of this classes you can't miss. If you miss one class your screwed because we cover so much in one class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-11-29T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "Professor Ruhi is absolutely AMAZING. Who gives a #*%# about his accent? Its so immature to blame the fact that English is his second language for poor grades. \n\r\nHe's always happy to answer questions and will explain the concepts to you over and over and OVER until you understand. I recommended him to my friends in the business school and they all got As. The concepts are hard and you still have to study, but Ruhi made it a lot easier.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-15T15:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': "Literally the worst professor in the Smith School. He goes out of his way to screw students over. I don't understand how there's a single positive review for this man. It doesn't matter how well you know the material (which is unbelievably easy), he will take points off anyway. His grading is so inconsistent and arbitrary, its amazing that he still has a job.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-21T14:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': "Wow, Professor Ruhi is great. His quizzes and exams can be difficult. The key is to go to class. He may go a bit fast, but all the information he goes over will be on the quizzes and exams. If you don't go to class, there is a lot of information in the text that won't be covered in the exams, and you'll have no idea what will be covered. Don't miss a class. Do the HW and put in work and you should be fine. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-21T10:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT385', 'review': "Worst professor I've ever had.\r\nI would give him no stars if I could. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-19T13:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "Alright, before I say anything about this professor, I want everyone to know that I took this class with him during the summer session which is slightly different than taking it during Fall/Spring.\n\r\nThis was the first stats course in my life and I was nervous about it coming into this class. But, this professor is the best Smith school can offer you for this course. He is ridiculously generous and wants everyone in his class to get good grades. He does plenty of examples in class which is an excellent practice for the exams. He also tells the students what electives they should take in the future so they can easily get hired and with a better salary. Tests are fair with little or no trick questions at all. He does have a pretty thick accent but it really isn't a problem. His excellent teaching skills and sense of humor makes up for it. And honestly, if you really want to learn the material then his accent shouldn't be a problem at all.\n\r\nFor the summer class, this was the grade breakdown (Remember it might be different for Fall/Spring semester)\n\r\n. Test 1 (22.5%)\r\n. Test 2 (22.5%)\r\n. Test 3 (22.5%)\r\n. Test 4 (22.5%)\r\n. Participation (10%)\n\r\nIf you want to get an A which is very possible when taking this professor, just practice a lot of problems out of the book and you will be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-08-19T02:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "Coming into this class, I've heard a lot of bad things about Professor Ruhi (mainly his accent.) But if you're serious about learning the material and doing well in the class, you learn to get used to it. He's a great guy; really cares about how his students do and what we will take and use from the class in the real world. Uses plenty of examples, and his tests are pretty straightforward. His projects teaches us how to use software like Minitab and Excel.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T20:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'I enjoyed this class. Took it with Ruhi during winter because Pr.Gold failed to succeed teaching 230 in fall.(Read the reviews for Gold ). Ruhi has an accent but it was never a problem . He is a great professor and he cares about his students. I would def. recommend taking one of his classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-26T16:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "He is a nice guy but he's a horrible teacher. His english is very very very very hard to understand. I was doing really horribly in his class because I refuse to teach myself such an easy subject. Dropped his class and took Studer-Ellis (who unfortunately left) and had over a 100%. I do hear Ruhi curves to make up for his poor teaching (as his GPA distribution suggests) but I couldn't stand taking a class like that.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-14T19:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "The first thing you'll notice about Prof Ruhi is his accent. That does get in the way at times but he is a very thorough teacher. He wants his students to do well and does plenty of examples to ensure that you understand the material. He's very approachable if you have a problem. I've heard great things about Studer-Ellis but I think getting the H (only extra work is 3 easy projects) on the end of the course by taking it with Ruhi was worth it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-02T01:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "Avoid taking class with him if you can, especially BMGT230H. You can take BMGT230 with Studer-Ellis who is an incredible teacher, especially compared to Ruhi. Ruhi does not know how to get his point across, which is usually not a good thing when you are teaching a class. Meeting with him outside of class is pointless because he has the same attitude all the time - he doesn't care about his students at all. I took BMGT230H and learned almost nothing. I dropped the class and took it with Studer-Ellis and got an A+. Ruhi is terrible.\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-15T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "Professor Ruhi is very nice, and really wants you to learn, but language is definitely a barrier, e.g. he says proBOBlity instead of probability, which throws you off. If you take the time to work through extra problems and practice, you'll be fine. The only reason I got a B was because I was really sick the week before one of the exams, and didn't study for it. So, be healthy, do the work, ask him questions when you need to, and you'll be set. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-04-10T14:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "He definitely knows the subject extremely well, but also is pretty tough on his students. Exams are all problems, and if you mess up the first part of the problem you get no credit, which means you'll generally either do very well or very bad. From what I've heard, taking the regular 230 is a better option.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-03-01T20:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "Pros: \r\nProfessor Ruhi is a VERY VERY knowledgeable professor. He really wants his students to do well. He is well accessible for help with assignment, test questions, anything. Only assignments: weekly quizes, only 2-3 projects, and 4 tests.\n\r\nCons:\r\nHe is WAY TOO demanding. English is EXTREEMLY broken resulting in constantly not understanding his lectures & sheer boredom in class. \r\nAssinments: WEEKLY quizes, long projects, difficult tests.\n\r\nMaybe he was so much 'extra' because this was an Honors Version course.... but regardless....BE CAUTIOUS ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2008-12-02T14:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT435', 'review': "Dr. Ruhi is a VERY helpful teacher. He wants all of his students to do well and if you put in the time you should be able to earn an A in this class. However, I want to warn anyone who is thinking about taking this class, it is VERY demanding. In order to understand MANY of your assignments you will have to go get help from the TA or Dr. Ruhi. If you are not comfortable with going to get help MULTIPLE times throughout the semester, I would not recommend taking this course. \n\r\nAlso... make sure you have your own laptop (WINDOWS) with Microsoft Excel 2003 installed. This is essential for the course.\n\r\nIf you don't have a laptop you will have to get a laptop from OIT, which will be a major pain in the butt!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-11-12T12:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT385', 'review': 'Professor Ruhi does have a thick accent (which can be difficult to understand at times), but everything he teaches are straight out of his lecture. I found the course materials he provided to be very straight forward (lectures, homework, practice sheets) and were ample in preparing for the exams. The book was helpful (for additional practice/supplemental concept explanations), but the lecture slides are sufficient enough. This course does require a LOT of time investment in studying (I estimated my weekly studying & hw time to be ~3-4 hours in addition to class time). If you study the material given very well, take your time on fully understanding the concepts, and coming up with strategies on solving the problems, you can achieve the A to B range.\r\n\r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-25T15:51:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT385', 'review': "Ruhi's truly a great prof. Yeah his accent is a bit hard to understand in the beginning, but if you actually go to class after a few classes you'll get the hang of it. He's very knowledgeable and you'll learn a lot from him. You need to go to class, take notes, and do all the practice, and you'll be fine. He comes off a little mean sometimes and he's strict about his expectations but he truly wants his students to succeed and gives a lot of real-world advice. Course is exam heavy but exams and course content get MUCH easier as the course goes on. You NEED to go to class though don't miss lectures!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-03T21:27:05.178786Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'course': 'BMGT332', 'review': "I took BMGT 332 and BMGT 385 with Professor Ruhi. I think that he is a good professor. He does not reward laziness, so you have to work from day 1 to earn a decent grade for his classes. I do feel like I learned a lot from his classes, and he also will teach you skills that you will use for your professional life. I also liked that he does an exam review for every exam, which from my experience is very similar to the actual exam. He might sound rude at times, but don't take it personal, that is just his personality. BTW, go to office hours with him because the TAs suck. Peace!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-04-10T02:17:32.253721Z'}], 'name': 'Kazim Ruhi', 'slug': 'ruhi'}, {'courses': ['ENEE245', 'ENEE408C', 'ENEE244', 'ENEE644', 'ENEE359F', 'ENEE750', 'ENEE200'], 'average_rating': 2.36, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE641', 'review': 'B-\r\nWaste money and waste your time. \r\nDo no choose any course of this professor. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-01-06T17:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'Nakajima might be a smart guy, but he does not appear so in class. His English is shaky, he says "right" or "okay" and giggles so often that you often lose track of what he is saying. He is adamant about students attending class. He started off the class by posting homework and lectures online (like any sensible prof would), but when attendance started to fall, he abandoned all use of online resources, opting instead to hand out all homework assignments and some lecture notes. His exams are off topic and do not demonstrate knowledge of the course. The only reason to attend class is for the attendance grade. He grades lecture by participation, which is outlandish given the lecture is 75+ so there is no way to participate every lecture. All knowledge comes for the textbook, the prof adds little extra information. Pray you have a good TA.\n\r\nTL;DR. Do not take Nakajima.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-21T18:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': None, 'review': 'This professor has little to no experience on what he teaches. It is very rare the university allows an instructor do something outside one\'s specialty. Go to Google and you will figure out his field is on chemistry and device physics, relating over 400 published papers in about 40 years. Yet he has been teaching computer science such as digital logic and FPGA courses at this school for, yes, decades. \n\r\nI have taken several courses from him and he showed lack of knowledge on either trends or insights into the field. All he does during class is developing mathematical equations and, ironically, making up with his mistakes in the equations. The materials covered in his lecture and the textbooks he uses can date back to several decades ago. I should accept this if I was in a theory class like physics or maths, where textbooks should be "classic" and good. But in an engineering course, especially a computer engineering course, even a newbie into this field knows things older than 5 years are rubbish. I learned nothing from his courses. \n\r\nHe explains his lack of precision as "IM" (Intentional Mistakes) and a following 10-second laugh, after figuring out the error in one single line of simple maths in 5 minutes. That\'s the usual! If you ever dared to point out his mistake, for most of the time he would persuade everyone that you are wrong. \r\nHe never talked about programming and software engineering issues in a programming course. The true reason for this is simply he knew nothing about programming language. His lecture notes only has pseudo codes. The references he handed out are also decades-old, weakly related to the course material. That\'s insane as the whole purpose of that course was to write code in a specific language. \r\nYet he didn\'t fail to assign teams for weekly projects which pushed everyone writing code and report day and night. He threatens his students that they will fail - if they disobey him. Once he told to the class that a student was in his last semester in senior but "didn\'t do well" in his course, and he failed him, thus making him unable to graduate - and he was proud of doing so. Just hard to imagine a senior guy will do anything not well enough to pass a course. He will deduct a large amount of points for being absent in class for no matter what reason unless you give him an official letter from your doctor. \n\r\nHe treats student visitors who has not been enrolled his course but explained their willing to audit with extreme rudeness and even yelling, stating they are noisy and annoying and must leave - otherwise he will call the police to get them out. \n\r\nBe warned - he only makes (and enjoys making) you suffer and does not bring you any help in your academic career at all and you should avoid this professor. You will learn much more from your TA or if you simply buy a book and teach yourself. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-03-22T12:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': None, 'review': "It was a sham of a course taught by a charlatan of a professor. Throughout the course, it was pretty clear that the instructor knew that what he was teaching was absolute bullshit, but he never seemed to care. I guess he was there to cheat and not teach. The instructor neither has the technical competence nor the communication skills required to teach this course. If the university is serious about imparting quality education to its students, it should seriously consider assigning an independent auditor to the courses taught by this professor to gauge how atrocious and ridiculous his teaching actually is.\n\r\nComing to the specifics, \r\n1. The instructor doesn't upload/give the powerpoint presentations which he uses to teach in the class. Imagine this, fellow students were using their mobile phones to take pictures of the slides projected in the classroom. Can anything be worse than this? Are we suppose to take pictures of the electronically prepared powerpoint slides using the camera on our mobile and use these pictures to study?\n\r\n2. Powerpoint slides full of blatant mistakes. I have lost count of the number of blunders that were taught by the instructor in this course. Some of them were caught by the students but a whole lot of them went unnoticed. Everybody makes mistakes, but what shocks me most is the way the instructor shamelessly justifies making them. He conveniently covers up every blunder made by saying that it was an Intentional Mistake(IM) and continuous on with his sarcastic laugh.\n\r\n3. Threatening on grades : Threatening the students on grades is the way this instructor functions. That thing that saddens me the most is that he enjoys doing so. He constantly tries to scare students into dropping the course and I believe he has been successful in doing so. It begs the question, are we here to learn or to only get grades? The instructor doesn't teach anything in the first place, has no knowledge of the subject and yet he talks in an extremely demeaning and disrespectful manner when a student scores less marks. In addition he constantly threatens the students into dropping the course with his disrespectful talk. I believe he uses grades as a weapon to control students. Moreover, his grading of examinations is pedagogical, whimsical and ridiculous. Grading is often not objective and arbitrary. He cuts marks for the most ridiculous reasons.\n\r\n4. A CAD course with no coding : There was not even a single software project in this course inspite of the name of the course containing Computer Aided Design.\n\r\n5. Atrocious teaching : The instructor often resorted to reading the powerpoint slides verbatim. He had no clue about the topics of state encoding or multi-level logic and resorted to reading the powerpoint slides verbatim. That surely cannot be called teaching.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-09-04T03:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'I can\'t necessarily speak for how Nakajima is as a regular semester professor, but if you have the option of taking him during the summer, don\'t. But if you have to, or want a good start in his class in general, here\'s what you need to know.\n\r\nTo begin, he has a thick Japanese accent, so he speaks fluent "engrish". If you\'re bad at deciphering broken English, that\'s going to be a huge hurdle. Also he has like one tooth in the front of his mouth that is rotten and hanging by a thread that is really distracting, try not to look at it. Also, be aware that he plays favorites, and picks them very early on. So sit in the front of the class, laugh at his dumb jokes and whatever you do, DON\'T ASK QUESTIONS. I can\'t stress this enough, if you ask too many questions in that class, your life will become hell.\n\r\nHere\'s the reality, he likes to pick on the students that he feels are not cut out for his class. So he initially tries to scare off the weak with talk of dropping and failing his course. So ANY sign of weakness or confusion will make you a target for future criticism and condescension. He picks his punching bag fairly early on and will make you feel like the town idiot if given the chance. To avoid this, make friends with the smartest kid in the class at all costs, and know that he teaches straight out of the book, so you pretty much don\'t need him to teach you squat. He likes to say "right" and "okay" constantly, so rather than asking a question when asked, just nod your head and let him move on in the lecture.\n\r\nHis homeworks are the stuff of nightmares. Many a nights I was awake just doing his assignments non-stop till the sun came up. This is where being friends with the smartest kid comes into play, because there is going to be at least one guy who knows what he\'s doing. Also he lets you work together on homework in a way that other professors would consider cheating. Its pretty strange, but don\'t complain. \n\r\nHe is very picky about partial credit, and most of the time rewards you with a fraction of what a question was weighted with for a slight mistake. This means if you take his quizzes lightly, you\'ll get under 15% on them easily. His tests are pretty brutal because of this too, and he likes to throw curves balls and test things he knows the students aren\'t confident about. This isn\'t much prep for this besides doing his old practice exams and getting a feel for the kinds of questions he asks. He isn\'t Silio, though, so it is more than possible he\'ll give you question that will leave you completely dumbfounded. Finally, he will only curve an exam or assignment if no ones get an A, which makes your life difficult to say the least.\n\r\nAfter all this, I can\'t say he\'s a bad professor. He certainly isn\'t good, but he isn\'t the worst and is actually a pretty nice guy. The key is getting on his good side, figuring out how to efficiently get decent grades on his homework, not failing his quizzes or midterms and praying to Testudo at McKeldin before the final. If you can do all that, you can pass his class. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2014-07-29T15:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': None, 'review': "I took Nakajima for 245 and didn't like him, but this class was entirely different. In 245 I felt like he enjoyed watching his students suffer, but in this class he was very responsive to student concerns, and he actually cared how well we were doing and if we were learning the material. I enjoyed the class as well - we got to do a project on Floating Point Units and on RSA. It was a good learning experience.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-25T01:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'This class takes a lot of effort. For one, there is soooo much homework. All quizzes are unannounced and in our semester he gave so many quizzes that we began expecting one every week. The first test is long and it is very easy to make mistakes. The second test is super easy. Our final, however, was not as easy as those of previous semesters, but it was not that bad. I thought I was going to get an A-, but there was a slight curve, so I got an A. As everyone says, getting an A is hard and is no walk in the park. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-22T02:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': 'The labs are difficult but doable (with help from your TA). Dr. Nakajima kept scaring students by telling them that they should drop/withdraw and that they may fail but grading was pretty lenient. \n\r\nI think he did that in order to motivate students to work harder. I believe that the only way to fail his class was to not show up for a lab and not do any work at all (but then you will fail a lab taught by any professor). He curves final grades but to get an A (or above) you need to work hard. \n\r\nI had no problem understanding his accent (which is pretty thick) but I am too not a native speaker of English myself:>', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-02-02T21:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': "Easily the worst professor I've ever had. Organized the class so poorly and gave way too much work for a 2-credit class. He also enforced super-harsh grading and had absolutely zero leniency for minor mistakes.\n\r\nWARNING: Never write on the back of an exam page, he won't count it and won't even entertain the idea of giving a few points back.\n\r\nIn general, I never went to lecture and learned the majority of the class material from Google (since almost every assignment is online somewhere). I was lucky enough to have an awesome TA who taught me everything I didn't pick up from Google. If it wasn't for Nakajima's super-harsh grading policies I would have almost 100% in this class, so it isn't hard material, he just makes it nearly impossible to do that well.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-11T20:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': 'When taking Nakajima\'s class, just keep this in mind, "Nakajima is a robot programmed to be your teacher". If you do not give him a valid input, he will not give you your desired output, no matter what you do. He has no feelings. If you are ever in his class, make sure you are very very very careful. He will not tolerate anything; like I said he has no feelings. He is like a "Segfault".\r\nPlease do not be deceived; he laughs and smiles all the time in class, but deep down inside he is as cold as zero degrees Kelvin. All that smiling and laughing that he puts up is just a camouflage.\n\r\nAbout Lectures and Lab:\r\nHis lectures are hard to understand due to the way he speaks, but if you can understand what he is saying, you will get so much out of it. \r\nFor the lab, please make sure you start your prelab early as possible, so you can utilize your lab assistant\'s office hours. \r\nMake sure to ask Nakajima to post how to write lab reports before the first lab report. He waits after three lab reports to post that, and by that time most people have lost so many points because they did not know what he wants.\n\r\nFor the first exam, make sure you know everything about the labs and memorize the "Testbench" format even though it is generated by the computer.\n\r\nOverall, Nakajima wants you to learn and make your parents proud from what I see. However his approach to doing this is hellish.\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-04-06T23:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': "Dr. Nakajima actually impressed me as a professor. You won't find many professors around here as dedicated and organized as he is. The lab assignments can be tough, but he didn't make them and they should be the same regardless of the professor. He was pretty good about extending the due date for assignments that a lot of students didn't finish. The way it worked out is that for any given week, the lab assignment is usually about 90% of your grade, and the prelab was the other 10%. We had two quizzes throughout the course, which were 50-100 points each, but they weren't too bad. The course was worth ~1500 points total, so the impact of the quizzes was minimal. Prelabs generally entail a Verilog coding assignment where you design something that may be helpful for that weeks lab. They are usually not too bad, but there were a few towards the end of the course which were difficult. The lab each week was a 3 hour block which was usually just Verilog coding, simulation, and testing the design on an FPGA. If you know what you're doing, you might get out of lab early pretty often. The grading for this class was very lenient, and if you got your lab working, you usually received pretty close to 100% on your report. Lab reports are long and take a while, but they shouldn't be difficult if you got your design working. Lectures are once a week for 50 minutes, and he tries to cover the upcoming prelab or introduce a few ideas that you need to know for the lab. There was no final exam for our class, but he did mention the possibility of adding one for future semesters. Overall, I would take another class with this professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-27T14:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Everyone else has pretty much hit the nail on the head. He says "uhh" and "right" every other word. He laughs at his own jokes. His lectures slides are LITERALLY pages from the book scanned onto a powerpoint. Literally. He scares you by saying he doesn\'t curve if even one person gets an A on the exam, BUT HE DOES. Do not believe his lies. One time he even said he would curve downwards.\n\r\nI swear he just loves to troll students. He heavily favors those who sit in the front, so do that if you want to get on his good side. By the end of the class, I\'m pretty sure he hated me, but I got an A so who cares. His exams aren\'t too bad. His homework is RIDICULOUS. He gives a homework which is graded for correctness, and then an "optional" SPS (Selected Problem Set), which is in fact not optional at all, but mostly graded for completion. Don\'t stress those too much on the SPSs. In fact, I think homework only counts for at most 10% of your grade, so don\'t stress it at all too much.\n\r\nOverall, this guys a joke. He\'ll come in rockin athletic shorts and a Hawaiian button down shirt like its nothing, proceed to mumble incoherently in engrish and laugh at his own jokes for 15 minutes, and then proceed to read lecture slides that are scanned imaged of the book. The only reason you\'ll go to class is because he threatens with pop quizzes, of which there might have been 2-3 the whole semester.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T17:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Professor Nakajima is a nice guy if you go talk to him. He will never turn away your questions or interest to learn. However, his exams are very unforgiving. His HW are very long. He is incompetent in explaining material. I don't like his class or his grading policy, but he is a nice guy who if you build a good relationship with, could be depended upon to help you with research opportunities, etc.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-06T01:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Difficult exams, 10+ hours of HW, and my favorite: He says "right" & "ok" & "uhhhhh" at least a 100 times each class period. \n\r\nMy advice: Take the other guy; silo gives same exams every semester (easy), and Barua exams are straight forward and he does teach the material fairly well.\n\r\nThe choice is yours. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-04T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Run for your life! This guy is the worst professor at UMD. EE professors are horrible. And this guy would be horrible even by EE standards. Has no teaching abilities whatsoever. Teaches from slides, which he doesn't post online. Uses different means to force students to attend is torture of lectures, by taking attendance, unannounced quizzes etc. Exams are extremely hard.\n\r\nAnother thing is that this guy is very hard to understand. He has a thick Asian accent (which I personally don't mind, lot of professors here are from foreign countries). But the bigger problem is that his English grammar is horrible. And even if this guy had Morgan Freeman's voice with perfect grammar, his lectures would still be horrible since he just does not know how to teach.\n\r\nAlso, this guy is very biased. He is nice with students he likes, and really mean to students he doesn't.\n\r\nI'll say the same thing as another reviewer below me did. Taking this guy's class was the biggest mistake in my life. Avoid this guy at any cost. Trust me, any professor is better than Nakajima. If two professors are taking this class, pick the other guy. If Nakajima's the only choice, wait a semester.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T19:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "This guy will try to scare you into dropping his class, because if you don't, you FAIL. ALOT of work, and homework is barely part of your overall grade. The differences between him and Silio are: Nakajima gives partial credit (not much though), and Silio's tests are slightly easier. Good luck. Try not to FAIILLL", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2010-11-16T02:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Took ENEE244 with him and that was the biggest mistake in my life at umd.\n\r\nDon't take the class if you are not Japa****. I am dead serious. All Japa* students got A in the class. In class you will understand only 10% materials. You have to learn 90% on your own or from TA or buddies. Avoid at all costs even if you have no other choices (delay your graduation 6 months) but don't take him.\r\nWith due respect, he is very old guy, mind set is similar to military, countdowns in seconds when he collects quiz in class. If you are one second late then he won't accept it.\n\r\nLaughs at his own jokes. Sometime you will get it sometime not. I always laughed just to make him happy.\n\r\nQuestions (half page each) on the exams are similar to history essay. You need 10 min to read the question and 10 more min to understand it, but usually japa** students get it quick :)\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-19T23:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'Great class. Fair exams. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-31T17:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "This class was cake. People need to relax. Nakajima is a very easy professor, all his antics are just for show. And he is actually very good. Do the homework and you'll breeze through this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-31T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "This class is a cinch. I studied my butt off for the first test, I got a 50.9%. Didn't study for the last exam and final, got an A on both exams.\n\r\nWhat I learned from this class, studying makes it worse. The problems are always very tedious though. So learn some time management or something.\n\r\nQuizzes are random. Either way, by the time you finish the class(hopefully passing) you will evolve into your next form via the Nakajima stone. \n\r\nGood luck.\n\r\nP.S. He has corny jokes. And speaks Engrish. Not English.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-31T01:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "You will learn a lot in Nakajima's 244 class from the book and the TA's.\r\nYou will not learn very much from Nakajima. \n\r\nHis English is not that great, so the first few classes it's basically impossible to understand what's going on. \r\nAfter a while you will get used to this though and you will be able to discern sentences from what he is saying.\r\nOnce you can actually understand him, you will realize that he is not presenting the information very well at all and that you should probably just read the book during class. \n\r\nSo you basically have to learn the material by going to the TA's and by doing problems and looking at the solutions he hands out and by reading the book (although the book is very long-winded and hard to read).\n\r\nThat being said, you can do well in his class. He is a very tough grader because he wants students to work hard, but I think there is a curve in the end, so your grade will turn out better than you thought.\n\r\nHis exams are hit or miss. Our first exam was really long and had some very unfair questions on it (two 5-variable Karnaugh map questions which basically test how well you can circle groups of 1's, which is not a very useful skill to test students on). However, our second exam and the final were very fair based on what we practiced on the hw and he gave extra time to make sure people could finish. The key factor was that if you did all the hw and worked out all the problems that you got wrong until you understood them and then made sure you knew how to do all the problems before the exam, then you were very well-prepared to do well on the exam. So if you work hard, it is very possible to do well in this class.\n\r\nOne thing that I liked about Nakajima, which a lot of people hated actually, was that he would take class time to explain important practical things about getting a job and about various programs in the ECE department that can give you some great opportunities, such as the BS/MS program. \n\r\nAlso, Nakajima is a pretty nice guy, and it's apparent that he cares about his students and wants them to learn, which is good.\n\r\nI am rating Nakajima pretty low because he really isn't that great at explaining the material. However, he will force you to learn the material by making the class hard, so it's good to know that you will come out of it with a lot of new knowledge. And it is possible to do well if you work hard. \n\r\nBut really you should try to find a professor who is better at explaining the topics. Petrov seems to be a good bet. He taught one of our lectures when Nakajima was away traveling and I thought his lecture was excellent, so I would recommend Petrov based on that.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-28T21:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "One of the nicest and most inspiring professors I have yet. He really teaches you that hard work pays off. If you are one of those students that likes getting 1 point above the average and expects a B, you are in the wrong class. However, if you are a student who is interesting in really working hard, going to office hours, actually reading the book and learning the material in conjunction with attending lecture you're in the right place! Nakajima is a very nice professor who will help you if you have decent questions in office hours. Don't come in saying 'I don't understand anything help me!' Instead come in and ask, 'I am having trouble with this concept.' \n\r\nI will admit he does have a habit of predicting which students will do well, but that doesn't mean that he is putting the rest of the students down. If you prove to him that you work hard and care about his class a little bit, you will be okay in this class. \n\r\nBTW, he does curve. He curves the final grades of everyone. He doesn't say he curves because he wants students to work very hard, but he does indeed curve. \n\r\nEarning an A in his class isn't easy, but as long as you are in the top 15% of the class you have a set A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-27T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "The worst professor I have ever had at UMD. Avoid him at all costs. It seems like Nakajima almost tries to screw everyone over in the class. Studying for the final exam is difficult because he doesn't post any practice materials. The last day of class included a ridiculous pop quiz that took about an hour to complete. Basically going to lecture is like reading the book since he literally scans the book page by page and puts the scans on the powerpoint presentation with little supplement. I learned more about Digital Logic from reading the book than attending lectures -- and the book cost a whole lot less. Horrible Experience.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-16T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'This professor is horrible. His most recent stunt left 44 of 60 people in the class not passing the exam according to university standards(D{18 people} or F{26 people}) and he will not curve exams if one person gets an A on the exam. Well, 1 person got an 89.5 and he said that was an A meaning no curve. 8 B\'s and 7 C\'s were scores of the other students. He spends an average of 15-30 minutes of each class talking about terrible jokes and statistics to try and scare you into dropping the class instead of actually teaching the material to help you pass it. His idea of teaching is taking worked-out examples from the book and putting them on powerpoint to talk about/run through during class. He assigns "suggested"(still graded for completion) homework out of the book for almost every class, and there are no answers in the back of the book, so you have no idea whether you are doing it right or not and have no opportunity to learn from it. After you hand that in during class, he then assigns a HW assignment graded for correctness which he writes on the same material; however, the catch is that he hands out solutions for both assignments a week later - AFTER you had to complete the HW for correctness. The process ends up as that you have no idea whether you\'re doing anything right on the book-hw because you can\'t check your answers anywhere, and then you find out you were doing it all wrong on the correctness-hw and the pop-quizes and end up with horrible scores for 20% of your grade (hw + pop quizes). The worst part about all the homework is that you don\'t get your homeworks back until a week before the exam. Listening to him talk is also tough to get through because he has extremely poor English and says the word "right" every other word. A friend of mine held a counter one class and tallied a little over 300 times in an hour and a half class. I can\'t say much about Silio (the other professor who teaches 244), but from what I understand, he uses the same tests every year with different numbers but gives no partial credit on anything; you either have it 100% correct or its all wrong. You have a choice to make if you have to take this class between a horrible professor and tough grading. Overall 244 with Nakajima has so far been a horrific experience and I\'m just trying to survive through his antics. Hope for a good TA like I have.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-10-28T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'course': 'ENEE408C', 'review': "This guy is just a person who does not respect to his student. He yells at the student whom he doesn't like, and smile to those he likes. He has such a bad attitude. And, he doesn't speak English at all. I would suggest not to take his class. If you have no other choice, good luck then.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-19T18:04:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kazuo Nakajima', 'slug': 'nakajima'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN203', 'ENGL101', 'CMLT235', 'AMST298Q', 'ENGL235', 'CMLT275', 'WMST275', 'ENGL234', 'CMLT270', 'LASC234', 'LASC458', 'LASC235', 'SPAN235', 'LACS234', 'LACS458', 'LACS235', 'SPAN235'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Keisha Allan', 'course': 'LASC235', 'review': 'Pretty disorganized, it is leaning towards the end of the semester and she has yet to put in grades for the class. Nice professor but lessons are more so just watching videos and briefly discussing readings. Take her just to get some gen eds out of the way.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-09T19:13:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Keisha Allan', 'course': None, 'review': 'Excellent class!!! I learned so much throughout the semester :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-08-05T16:08:33Z'}], 'name': 'Keisha Allan', 'slug': 'allan'}, {'courses': ['BIOE232', 'BIOE604', 'BIOE689R', 'BIOE332', 'BIOE489D', 'BIOE689I', 'BIOE331', 'BIOE689Q', 'BIOE689E', 'BIOE689F', 'BIOE689X', 'BIOE658F'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Keith Herold', 'course': 'BIOE331', 'review': "He is the worst professor I have ever had so far in bioe. He gave weekly matlab homeworks that started easy and became incredibly hard by the end of the semester, not to mention he did little to nothing to help with it. His exams were hard and had no reviews (other than him coming to the discussion and asking if there is anything people didn't understand from lecture). Speaking of lecture, it was all on power point and when it wasn't his explanations didn't come through any better. He also gave weekly quizzes that depended on recent poorly taught lectures so if you missed any you were pretty much screwed. Avoid this professor unless you really want to find out how miserable fluids can be. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-11-03T23:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Herold', 'course': 'BIOE331', 'review': "Herold struck me as a teacher who is trying really hard to be good, and just falls short. He tries to explain things but it often goes over students' heads. And then when we ask him to explain it again, he doesn't really change the way he explained it. Basically, if you didn't understand it the first time, he is not going to be able to help you.\r\nHe also goes way too fast through the lecture slides and doesn't allow us to understand enough. Instead of going through the slides once at an appropriate pace, he instead goes through them twice, but too fast both times. This is not an effective way to teach the material.\r\nThe homework took soooooo long. I probably spent 8 hours a week on it, which is an insane amount of time. I would complain about it more, except I actually think I learned a lot from it and it contributed to my success.\r\nThe standards set for this course and the depth at which we were expected to understand the material were higher than any other course I have taken here. I don't think that most of us in the class are ever going to need to know fluids at that depth, and it would be better to lower the standards slightly in favor of ensuring that the majority of the class understand the material moderately instead of only the top of the class understanding the material at the highest level possible.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-10-31T13:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Herold', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': "Herold's a pretty mediocre teacher. He's a nice guy and he'll definitely do his best to make sure you understand, but his lectures generally aren't that helpful. If you don't get something don't be afraid to ask, he's willing to put the time in to help you. In our class there was a huge range of scores on exams. Basically, the kids who understood the material right away found the tests easy and got A's, and the kids who didn't get it but probably could have learned the material with better instruction did very poorly. The key to this class is to put a lot of time into the homework. There are solution guides out there but I wouldn't use them. I did all the reading and spent a ton of time on the homework, and I found the quizzes and tests to be easy without having to study that much. If you don't have time I recommend doing the homework during class (don't skip because he gives quizzes), you'll benefit more from that than from paying attention. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-02T10:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Herold', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': "We were supposed to have quizzes every Thursday but we ended up having 5 all semester. We were supposed to have only 2 exams and a final but the average on the second exam was really low (like 60), so we convinced him to give us a 3rd.\r\nFor homework, he expected us to 'think' about the problem and find ways it connected to other problems, which none of us had time for.\r\nHis first exam was almost identical to the practice exam but some parts were confusing.\r\nWe did not cover like 3 chapters because he was really disorganized. He is a really nice guy and cares about his students but he is not a great professor. He tried really hard to change the course as the semester went along but hopefully he will have better luck teaching it next semester.\r\nAn important thing to remember is that if there are too many exams in one week (like the week before spring break), then you can ask him to move the exam. I had a BSCI330 exam, this class and a core class exam in the same week. core and thermo I would have been fine but BSCI is really hard and requires a lot of memorization so everyone focused on that first and then when it was time for Thermo, we did not have enough time to study and so our second exam scores were really terrible.\r\nGood Luck!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-21T14:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Herold', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'He tries, but he fails. Nice guy, but believes a student should be able to extrapolate quantitative skills from being just taught the more conceptual information. Homework-like examples would have been helpful...but he\'s very passive aggressive and takes offense to any criticism made about his teaching style. He believes everything he writes to be "straight-forward" while in fact he couldn\'t be further from the truth. Also, he wants students to "think" about and "apply" the problems in the real-world while doing homeworks....but this is too much to ask for since the homework is already extremely demanding, and takes way too much time...and most of us have 15-18 credit schedules and can\'t put the heart into a homework assignment. He basically needs to understand we have other classes to focus on as well, and to be a little less uptight about the course.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-04T19:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Keith Herold', 'slug': 'herold'}, {'courses': ['BSCI223', 'BSCI222', 'BSCI222'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Keith Lampel', 'slug': 'lampel'}, {'courses': ['GEOG100', 'GEOG140', 'GEOG201', 'GEOG788T', 'GEOG345', 'GEOG211', 'GEOG398H', 'GEOG792', 'GEOG340', 'EXST030', 'GEOG384', 'GEOG384H', 'GEOG385', 'GEOG385H', 'HONR219W', 'GEOG298C', 'GEOG140', 'GEOG384', 'GEOG384H', 'GEOG385', 'GEOG385H', 'GEOG140', 'GEOG384', 'GEOG384H', 'GEOG385', 'GEOG385H', 'GEOG212', 'GEOG384', 'GEOG384H', 'GEOG385', 'GEOG385H', 'GEOG441', 'GEOG140', 'GEOG384', 'GEOG385', 'GEOG140', 'GEOG384', 'GEOG385'], 'average_rating': 3.3043, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG201', 'review': 'The class is easy but he is the worst professor possible. Really hated how he taught the class. Exams questions are so confusing. Multiple choice questions will have more than one choice, and because of this a lot of people fail the exams. He makes a lot of mistakes when he grades the exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-22T05:38:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG201', 'review': 'Boring professor. Will test you on little details that he barely covers in class. Class is not organized ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2018-12-22T17:01:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG201', 'review': "There were only three exams and several online assignments. The online assignments were spaced out oddly, as sometimes we would have 2-3 quizzes due on Monday and Wednesday and other weeks we wouldn't have anything due. This threw me off quite often: he doesn't give late credit so if you miss one assignment, you get a zero and it will hurt your grade a ton.\r\n\r\nI also didn't like how he taught the course. The lectures would be anywhere from 60-300+ slides long, with some pictures and walls of text. It almost looked as if he copied and pasted information from an essay or a textbook and put them in bullet points. Usually, professors try to cover the important information - not every little tiny tiny detail. A 300+ slide long lecture is way too long.\r\n\r\nThe textbook is useless and I would advise to not waste your money on it. You will still have to buy an access code for the online exercises. \r\n\r\nHis exam reviews were helpful and fair. Most of the information in the exam reviews wound up being on the exams, although he occasionally put bizarre questions on the exams anyways.\r\n\r\nAlso as a warning, it seems that Dr. Yearwood didn't know how to enter grade weights into ELMS, meaning that people's grades appeared to be inflated for the entire semester. He had several months to fix this issue and kept refusing to fix the grade weights (or does not know how to), as he kept telling students to just calculate the grades themselves. I admit that I should've noticed earlier, but considering that all my other professors always enter the grade weights correctly at the beginning of the year, I wrongly assumed that he would do the same.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-01-17T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG201', 'review': "Please avoid him at ALL COST!!! There are only 3 exams that account for 85% of your total grade (the rest are from reading assignments online) and if you screw one up, you are doomed. The material itself is really not that hard, but his exams are extremely confusing because of the way he worded certain questions and answer. \r\nDefinitely study his study guide before the exams AND the details about the topics he specifically mentioned because they will show up on them for sure.\r\nAlso, go to his lectures because he gives out questions he might ask on the exams or answers to specific questions. Although he sometimes complains about students' absences and/or how easy and straightforward his exams are(which is not true), just hang on there.\r\nJust a final note, sit closer to the front on the day of exams so you can get the test paper earlier (He hands them out ONE BY ONE and still missed some of us...)", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-05-28T20:17:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'great teacher to have', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-08T02:18:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'After the switch to online classes, the online exams are 4-5 short question open responses but he grades them super strictly. He shows absolutely no leniency. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-05-19T18:02:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'After the semester was moved online, the exams were changed to open response questions. A lot of students agreed that he graded the exams too strictly. He got angry with the class for writing detailed responses and sent out a passive-aggressive ELMS announcement. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-09-13T11:54:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "After the course went online, our exams went from simple multiple choice to essay responses. He graded them super harshly––if you didn't put exactly what he was looking for, you'd get like no points.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-09-26T01:39:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'god awful. harsh grader, doesnt do any form of lecture just sends out slides. The gpa for this class is fat but this guy is just not the teacher you want.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-04T19:34:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'Do NOT take a class with this professor. Not sure about in-person classes with him, but online was an absolute nightmare. No matter how much studying you do, you won\'t get full points on exams. Then, students complained to him and he got angry and sent passive-aggressive announcements to us saying that none of us study or retain any info from the slides. (He also added that regardless of the pandemic, we all have to cope, so that felt like a "basically, get over it") We complained to department heads about his grading and stuff and they said it was taken care of... but did my grade change? no. \r\nI am in my 3rd year of college. I have had many iffy professors, but nothing like this guy. I wish him the best, but please do not take his class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2020-12-21T19:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "Dr. Yearwood isnt a bad teacher, but he also isnt a good teacher. His lectures were funny and I liked that the class itself wasnt really stressful, since we had basically no assignments or work outside of class. Depending on the TA, you might have some work but still nothing too unmanageable.\r\n\r\nOf course that brings us to the exams. It's pretty ridiculous that 3 exams make up 75% of our grade, and the exams are so short that if you get like 3 or 4 questions wrong, you're already at a B. On top of that, the questions in the exam are horribly designed - you could pick an answer that is technically correct but he will mark you wrong because its not the EXACT definition he said in class. Its almost worse when he adds more questions to the exam though, because the more questions he adds, the more random and ambiguous and weird the questions become. \r\n\r\nI would recommend going to lecture and just waiting for him to tell you when to write things down because that's what you will need to study. Also thoroughly study the exam reviews because his exams are entirely based on those questions. Honestly, I wouldnt take this class again, but it wasnt the worst thing ever, at least not in person.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T23:41:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "I liked Dr. Yearwood. His lectures were a little boring, but he made them more entertaining by his random tangents he would sometimes go on. There was like 0 homework which was nice, and he tells you exactly what's gonna be on the test (all MC). Pretty easy class. I took it for my major, but it'd be a good gen ed credit too.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-21T14:43:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "I took this class because of Reddit but I'm pretty sure there are easier classes you could take for GenEds. Dr. Yearwood's lectures are pretty boring but he tries to make them funny by telling jokes or going on tangents.\r\n\r\n3 EXAMS MAKE UP 75% OF YOUR GRADE and the other 25% is participation from attending discussion. If you are a terrible test taker, DO NOT take this class because if you don't do well on the exams, there aren't any other assignments to boost your grade. That being said, the exams aren't bad because they're all multiple choice and he gives you a very thorough list of what you need to know. If you memorize all the answers to the exam review and know most of the slides, you can definitely pass. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-22T23:13:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'Dr. Yearwood was my favorite professor last semester. He knew his lecture could get boring at times so he often made hilarious remarks to keep us engaged. The curriculum was not difficult and he told us the questions he was going to ask on the all multiple choice exams. He assigned 0 hw and only gave us 3 non-cumulative exams throughout the entire semester. If you study what he tells you will be on the test you should get an A/A+ ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-25T19:55:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "Don't take this class with Dr. Yearwood. I took this class for an easy A and it is nothing like that because the exams are hard and annoying and they make up 75% your grade. He claims to be straightforward and not trick you on the exam, but then puts random information you haven't learned on it which makes it difficult. I regret taking this class. The exams are no notes, in person, and contain information that we just didn't go over. His exams are also horribly designed; he loves to make every option choice extremely similar and uses a lot of all of the above. His exams are tricky and if you don't put down exactly the answer he wants then you are wrong. His lectures are useless because he goes off on random tangents all the time and his slides most of the time are either pictures or lots of words. You definitely can pass this class, but it is just annoying and if you can avoid then please do in my opinion. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-04-11T22:17:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "Great teacher kept his discussions interesting and was funny. Geog140 is a very easy class if you show up to class or put a little bit of effort in before the exams. Almost all of the hate he gets is from when he was teaching online so if you have him in person he's great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-05T19:50:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "This class is an easy class. If you are good at memorization, then this class should be a breeze. If you are not good at memorization, I would not take this class. Exams and discussions are all weighted 25% which I really hate. He gives out study guide questions that we should know before taking the exam. We had three in class presentations in our discussions that we had to present. They were really easy. I also had a good TA. I heard discussions are getting removed in this class, but I am not too sure about that. Our class average is around a (83-84). The professor also curved our grade. Also, his exam questions were not coherent. Lecture can get very boring at times, but he knows how to make jokes. I honestly skipped class a lot since this class isn't a priority for me and I still did well. He doesn't give homework.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-21T13:57:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "To be honest, I think this wasn't too bad of a class compared to what others have been saying. There is no homework, exams are worth 75%, and there is no final cumulative exam. He also did boost everyone's grade by around 3% which I did appreciate. I would say that it is pretty easy to attain an A in this class without attending a single lecture. However, there are a couple of caveats. He will post an exam review for the topics and sample questions that he may ask so you need to go through each of those. It is also important to take notes through every slide packet he puts on the elms website, and lastly, if he tells you to watch a video and answer some questions make sure to watch the documentaries and answer the questions because they will 100% be on the exam. Those questions are super free, so don't miss the opportunity, and the documentaries (3 required this semester) range from 30-90 minutes. Another problem with the exams is that there may be questions that may not be covered on the slide packets and exam review, so this is where it's helpful to go to lecture as he draws diagrams or specifically says things that may show up on the exams. These questions only make up about 10% of the exam though, and if you are solid at MC exams, then you don't have to worry about this. Yearwood lets us go early sometimes and is a chill professor at the end of the day.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-31T02:02:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "Pretty fun and probably the easiest class I've taken. There are 3 exams (including the non-cumulative final), and he sends out a study guide stating exactly what's on the exam. The exams don't cover that much content, and he tells you in class what you need to write down and what you should just listen to. I found the content interesting plus Yearwood is funny and entertaining, and we'd get let out of lecture early pretty consistently. Some lectures we'd just watch a documentary.\r\n\r\nThere is no homework in the class besides a pretty easy project that took a few hours to complete, and a couple required documentary viewings (only like 3 or 4). Each exam is 25% of our grade plus 25% for the project. Even if you struggle with exams/memorization you'll probably still be fine, the study guides are super detailed and there's not a ton of content on each exam.\r\n\r\nFun class, easy I-Series/gened.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T02:43:48.861881Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'Insanely easy class. Do not need to show up, just do the exam review. Also a fun lecturer who is funny', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T03:22:32.135246Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'Dr. Yearwood is one of the most engaging lecturers I’ve ever had. Despite what some people may say, I would highly recommend going to class because he’s really funny and tells you exactly what you need to know for the exams. I also appreciated that there was no homework except for a single project. Overall I’d definitely recommend his class; any negative reviews on here are from the rough patch when classes went virtual.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T20:44:52.816154Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'Funny and cares about his students. As long as you study using the study guide he gives you and do the one project exactly as he tells you to, it is almost impossible not to get an A. you do not have to attend his lectures but it helps and he is a good lecturer. Even gave everyone an extra 0.7 points at the end for no reason.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T01:42:45.790816Z'}, {'professor': 'Keith Yearwood', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "Interesting lectures, but all slides and necessary materials are uploaded to elms along with study guides for each of the exams so as long as you study the exact information you need to know from the guides for the tests it is super easy to get an A without much effort and is not a big deal if you miss lectures. your entire grade is 3 tests and a project that are each 25% of your grade, but they are all pretty simple so apart from being a little bit stressful they are only a little bit stressful because they're easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-08T23:19:45.582836Z'}], 'name': 'Keith Yearwood', 'slug': 'yearwood'}, {'courses': ['PSYC123'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kelley Bishop', 'slug': 'bishop'}, {'courses': ['EDSP413', 'EDSP415', 'EDSP615', 'EDSP613', 'EDSP670', 'EDSP289I', 'EDSP872', 'EDSP417', 'EDSP652', 'EDSP671', 'EDSP413', 'EDSP613', 'EDSP872', 'EDSP415', 'EDSP615'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kelli Cummings', 'slug': 'cummings_kelli'}]
[{'courses': ['ENGL466', 'ENGL302', 'ENGL809', 'ENGL718B', 'ENGL428Y', 'ENGL718C', 'ENGL718D', 'ENGL759D', 'ENGL402'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kellie Robertson', 'slug': 'robertson_kellie'}, {'courses': ['EDCI638', 'EDCI633', 'EDCI732', 'EDCI436', 'EDPS788K', 'EDCI434', 'EDCI634', 'EDCI488J', 'TLPL446', 'TLPL662', 'TLPL288K', 'TLPL661', 'TLPL666', 'TLPL788M', 'TLPL444', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL453', 'TLPL446', 'TLPL488B', 'TLPL657', 'TLPL666', 'TLPL288K', 'TLPL444', 'TLPL453', 'TLPL488B', 'TLPL666', 'TLPL288K', 'TLPL288K', 'TLPL446', 'TLPL488B', 'TLPL657', 'TLPL666'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kellie Rolstad', 'slug': 'rolstad'}, {'courses': ['LARC141', 'LARC263', 'LARC670', 'LARC160', 'LARC663', 'LARC470'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kelly Cook', 'slug': 'cook_kelly'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 3.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kelly Cresap', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "I took this course with him over the summer which was great because he really reduced the amount of work we had to do. He's really nice and approachable, and it's quite easy to do well in his class. Just follow the textbook's examples and don't make stupid grammatical errors and you'll do fine. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-14T23:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelly Cresap', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Dr. Cresap is a great teacher! He keeps things light and moving. He's not that harsh of a grader. Just don't be lazy... make a solid effort, and you'll be fine. He's very approachable and easy to get along with. Awesome class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-13T11:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelly Cresap', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "he nit picks at everything. doesn't show that he really knows the technical atmosphere as much as an engineering professor would. grades really hard bc of his nit picking. tries to be funny :/", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-03-31T02:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelly Cresap', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Great teacher! He is kind of a harsh grader but very nice, approachable, and helpful. He wants you to do well and does whatever he can to make sure to you are successful. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-23T21:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelly Cresap', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Very nice guy who makes the class very interesting. His classes may be long, but he gives you a 10 minute break, and has interesting short stories to tell each class. He is willing to work with you to meet deadlines if you give him enough warning.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:02:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelly Cresap', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'As nice as Cresap was trying to be, it was extremely difficult trying to understand what he’d want from us for any assignment. There’s no rubric, no sense of organization, along with the fact that you don’t know your grade unless you email or ask in person. I’m taking his course that was originally in person, now online due to the pandemic, and this situation goes to show that he’s truly not for online teaching. He took feedback on his spamming us with ELMs announcements (and us struggling to find what assignments were due that day within those 10+ announcements) and he minimized the amount and made them a bit more organized by listing everything due that day under one announcement. That was the only upside to this class. Otherwise, his critiques on my final drafts, although they should be helpful, I don’t read them because there’s no incentive for us to redo our papers when those are the final grades anyways. Whatever paper you edited after your peer review and submit to him the following week is the final draft you get graded on. He gives no direct feedback to your draft until it’s graded, so you just have to hope you magically wrote an A paper. Your grade relies on you knowing what he wants without him explicitly telling you, and hoping that the peer review somewhat helps you, and at the end only to get a nice B- for an assignment you thought you put a decent amount of effort on. I thought I could enjoy his class and get something out of it but it’s the most useless class I’ve taken. He’s also pretty good at responding fairly quickly to emails. If you’re looking for an easy A or some class to ease up your schedule a bit, I don’t recommend taking it with Cresap.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-01T15:25:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelly Cresap', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Please avoid taking ENGL393 with Cresap!! There is no rubric at all, and you will not know your grade unless you ask him or estimate based on your previous assignments. He asked us to fill out a mid-semester course evaluation and lots of students put that we wanted a rubric so we know what he expects for each assignment. However, he told us that "he doesn\'t believe in rubrics", so essentially it\'s just hoping that he likes your paper enough for it to be an A (which was a very slim chance after talking to other people in my class). The only chunk of feedback you can get is from peer reviews, but still they are unhelpful since they also don\'t know what he expects. The only perk to this class was that he lists out all things expected within the ELMS announcements, but there are a lot so you need to keep track of them. He might be helpful to take if you are a junior because of the resume and cover letter assignments. I am a senior, and he graded mine poorly (even though I got hired at a top company with both!!) just because it didn\'t meet his standard of the outdated textbook. If you\'d like transparency in your grading and helpful feedback to actually learn professional writing, avoid him at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-08T15:45:15Z'}], 'name': 'Kelly Cresap', 'slug': 'cresap'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL394', 'ARHU318A', 'ARHU318'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kelly Forsythe', 'slug': 'forsythe_kelly'}, {'courses': ['HESP311', 'HESP632'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kelly King', 'slug': 'king_kelly'}, {'courses': ['EDCI411', 'TLPL321', 'TLPL620'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kelly Mills', 'slug': 'mills_kelly'}, {'courses': ['HISP635', 'HIST319K', 'HIST255', 'HIST419C', 'AASP298A', 'AASP498V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kelly Quinn', 'slug': 'quinn_kelly'}, {'courses': ['JOUR451', 'JOUR130'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kelly Stepno', 'course': 'JOUR130', 'review': 'JOUR130 is a great class to take and as long as you put some effort in, you should get an A. Professor Stepno is really knowledgeable in her field of work and it helps a lot in trying to understand the topic presented in this class. You will definitely learn a lot of useful information too.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-19T06:26:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelly Stepno', 'course': 'JOUR130', 'review': 'Really a great teacher, class with her was fun and enjoyable. would take her again if I needed another class in the area', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-06T21:52:11Z'}], 'name': 'Kelly Stepno', 'slug': 'stepno'}, {'courses': ['MATH003'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kelly Watson', 'slug': 'watson_kelly'}, {'courses': ['MATH310', 'MATH246H', 'MATH452', 'MATH140H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kelly Yancey', 'slug': 'yancey'}, {'courses': ['PHIL408Q', 'PHIL310', 'PHIL209A', 'PHIL140', 'PHIL412', 'PHIL338C', 'PHIL443'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kelsey Gipe', 'course': 'PHIL209A', 'review': "This class was a pleasure to take, by far my favorite gen ed at UMD so far. This was the only class I've ever done all of the readings for because they were super interesting. Kelsey is such an easy grader that I would have felt bad for taking advantage of her if I didn't give the class my full effort. She's also very responsive to emails.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-23T18:54:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelsey Gipe', 'course': 'PHIL412', 'review': 'This was an online course, but i had the experience of having her as a TA for PHIL310 so I knew who she was and what she was like. For this term, she was my instructor for the online class PHIL412 The works of Plato. \r\n\r\nThere is one big conference style paper she wants you to write and she even suggests a thesis to work on if you do not have one of your own. She was really encouraging about mine. I emailed her quite a bit and she was pretty responsive towards the beginning but I guess as the assignments were getting closer to the due dates she might have overlooked my messages.\r\n\r\nShe requires you post a thought in a discussion forum on elms 10 times during the semester. In addition you have to respond to other peoples posts with a little more substance 10 times as well.\r\n\r\nSince this was the works of plato it was imperative to keep up with the readings of the republic to participate in the discussions. She was very helpful and nice on the writing of the papers. There is no problem with Dr. Gipe. Take a class with her in confidence.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-11T02:17:09Z'}], 'name': 'Kelsey Gipe', 'slug': 'gipe'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL271', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL101X'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kelsey Kerr', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "One of my favorite professors at UMD! She's great at teaching-- as long as you're willing to put forth a little effort in the class, she'll teach you a ton. Not a harsh grader, but also not an easy grader..", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-12-30T20:32:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelsey Kerr', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "I had Professor Kerr this semester for ENGL101. Her class was one of my favorite classes this semester, since she found a way to make the material engaging and interesting by encouraging in-class discussions. She can grade a little hard but I highly recommend attending office hours if you're feeling unsure bout the assignments in the class. Also, we had a few pop quizzes throughout the semester, but if you do the reading and review it a little bit before class you should be fine.\r\n\r\nOverall, one of my favorite professors I've had. Highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-12T20:42:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Kelsey Kerr', 'course': None, 'review': "Her grading criteria ensures that you suffer throughout the semester, and hardly provides any explanation on her grading. Her pop quizzes are the worst as they are very specific questions from the text. She also makes you buy a tons of book that other professor don't require. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-19T03:19:34Z'}], 'name': 'Kelsey Kerr', 'slug': 'kerr'}, {'courses': ['ASTR380'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kenji Hamaguchi', 'slug': 'hamaguchi'}, {'courses': ['HLTH106', 'HLTH371', 'HLTH710', 'HLTH374', 'HLTH688D', 'HLTH106H', 'HLTH374H', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH899', 'HLTH899'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kenneth Beck', 'course': 'HLTH106', 'review': 'I strongly recommend AGAINST taking a class with Kenneth Beck. I feel I did not receive a fair grade in his class. I am actually writing this more than a year after I graduated because the grade I got still bothers me. \n\r\nI took Professor Beck’s HLTH106 class the last semester of my senior year in chemical engineering. I needed an extra class so I could stay full-time and thought the topics in HLTH106 would be interesting. I made every effort to be in class everyday. PROFESSOR BECK TAKES ATTENDANCE EVERYDAY, so when I needed to be out of class for the career fair, I gave him advanced notice. I carefully completed every homework assignment, I participated in class by asking thoughtful questions, and I studied for the tests by reading the book and reviewing my class notes. I even went to his office hours to discuss test questions I got wrong so I could learn from my mistakes.\n\r\nI thought I put a more-than-adequate amount of effort into his 100 level class, especially when my other responsibilities were upper-level engineering classes (including my capstone design course) and career searching in a tough engineering job market. \n\r\nI got a B+ in HLTH106, and my final undergraduate GPA was a 3.795. After all the back-breaking work I put into my engineering degree, to miss a 3.8 because of a B+ in a 100 level class was really disappointing. I’m guessing I missed an A- by just a few multiple choice questions on his all-multiple-choice exams. \n\r\nIn conclusion, I have to point to Kenneth Beck’s grade distribution. It’s currently 25 % A’s. That’s way too low for a class like HLTH106. \n\r\nPLEASE DON’T REGISTER FOR KENNETH BECK, YOU PROBABLY WON’T GET A FAIR GRADE!\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-06-16T03:26:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kenneth Beck', 'slug': 'beck_kenneth'}, {'courses': ['MATH141', 'MATH141H'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kenneth Berg', 'course': None, 'review': "Berg knows his stuff but he isn't the greatest lecturer. That being said, I still recommend him over other professors because he is generous when it comes to his tests. \n\r\nHis tests tend to be the easiest among the MATH141 professors. But MATH141 is still an extremely hard course regardless of who you take it with. It seems he's a lot better at explaining things one on one in office hours. My TA was also extremely helpful. Often the TA's explanations were clearer than Dr. Berg's. \n\r\nI went to the math success program in oakland every week for help on the webassigns which also helped me to better comprehend the material. This class is very time consuming and even though I got a C , I was putting more work into this class than any other class I was taking this semester. \n\r\nThere was no curve at the end, but he did make the lowest test count for 30% of a normal exam since everyone didn't do so well on the one of the tests. Take Berg if you can!!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-05-09T10:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Berg', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Berg, overall, was a pretty good math instructor. His lectures were, at times, hard to follow (especially because he has a tendency to make arithmetic errors and/or forget what he's doing) but he still covers everything and is always willing to take questions and clarify a point.\n\r\nHowever, the best aspect of Berg as a professor is his willingness to help people outside of class. I probably spent roughly three hours going over stuff solo with Berg this semester and it helped a lot.\n\r\nHere's the thing: 141 is a hard class regardless of who you take it with. Berg's exams were pretty straightforward overall and he made the exam that everyone bombed worth only 30% of a normal exam grade so that it didn't hurt people's grades as much as it should have.\n\r\nOh, and one more thing, Berg is REALLY good about typing up and printing reviews for all the exams and quizzes for everybody in class. I've never had another professor do this; even for a non-technical class.\n\r\nBerg actually cares about your progress and success in his class. Which, honestly, is worth a great deal. He's a great professor, and I'd recommend him for 141 in the future. (Definitely either him or Denny Gulick. Avoid F Gulick and Okodjou at ALL COSTS including if D Gulick has all 8 AMs. Trust me, it's worth it).\n\r\nFinal note (literally): The final was really hard this semester but in retrospect Berg prepared us for it pretty well. The truth about 141 is that you're doomed no matter what if you don't work hard both in and out of class. Berg is a great option because you can see him in office hours or email him with questions and he will always respond. Don't make the mistake of a lot of my classmates and not do any work on your own outside of class. If you do that and have a capacity for self-teaching then with a bit of luck you'll get the A in this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T12:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Berg', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Berg is a nice man, and he certainly makes classes entertaining. However his teaching styles leaves something to be desired. There are times where he explains concepts really well, and other times where he couldn't explain why a paper bag is brown. The TAs really help. Berg also grades super lightly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-08T01:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Berg', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'I thought Professor Berg was very good. He explained concepts thoroughly and was anxious to help students understand problems. He seems like a really nice guy (kinda reminded me of Santa Claus with his white hair and belly). Exams were graded VERY generously and were very straightforward. He gave out lots of printed notes during lectures which explained step-by-step ways to approach problems. Overall, easy course and MUCH better than MATH141.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-14T02:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Berg', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Dr. Berg is a really nice, sweet old man, but he is really a poor instructor. The things he teaches doesn't make sense at all, so I learned everything from the textbook and my TA. However, the reason why I give him 4 stars is because the class is really easy. If he was a poor instructor and the class was really hard, he would have gotten really bad ratings. \n\r\nIn my experiences with math, I had to learn and study the concepts behind everything I did to well rather than just knowing the procedures because that always screwed me over during tests. However for this class, you can get away just by memorizing the procedure to solve specific problems. He does not teach clearly on the concepts so it is often confusing. Just memorize the process of how you get the answer and you will be very successful in this class. If you just can't do it, the TA's will help you a lot. All of them are very nice and very smart.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-28T17:04:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kenneth Berg', 'slug': 'berg_kenneth'}, {'courses': ['BUFN758M', 'BMGT448L', 'BUFN758L', 'BUFN759', 'BMGT448L', 'BUFN758M', 'BMGT448L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kenneth Brodkowitz', 'slug': 'brodkowitz'}, {'courses': ['ECON454', 'ECON401'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kenneth Coriale', 'slug': 'coriale'}, {'courses': ['MUED472', 'MUED489C', 'MUED691', 'MUSC329W', 'MUED333', 'MUED690', 'MUED474', 'MUED484', 'MUED494', 'MUSC649W', 'MUED790', 'MUED698V', 'MUED729', 'MUED433', 'MUSC329W', 'MUSC649W', 'MUED333', 'MUED698V', 'MUED790', 'MUSC329W', 'MUSC649W', 'MUED433', 'MUSC329W', 'MUSC649W', 'MUED698V', 'MUED499C', 'MUED698V', 'MUED333', 'MUED698V', 'MUED790', 'MUSC329W', 'MUSC649W', 'MUED690'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kenneth Elpus', 'slug': 'elpus'}, {'courses': ['BSCI422', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI424', 'BSCI105', 'BSCI423', 'CLFS609E', 'BSCI105M', 'CBMG699W', 'CBMG688Q', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'CBMG688R', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI424', 'HNUH228V', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI422', 'CBMG699W', 'BSCI422', 'CLFS609E', 'BSCI422', 'CLFS609E', 'BSCI330', 'HNUH228V'], 'average_rating': 3.85, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI422', 'review': "He's a really great professor because he clearly cares about this material. Like the others have said, the material can get boring at times but he does his best to insert some humour here and there. He always, always answers question so raise your hand!\n\r\nFor the exams, the best way to study is to know those slides! A ton of the figures from the slides are from the book but I personally didn't think you needed the book. Pay attention to the things in red on the slides and you can also just ask him what he expects us to know from the particular slide and he will gladly tell you.\n\r\nI also recommend recording the lectures, because the material can get pretty dense at times. Overall, highly recommend this class if you are pre-med. Kind of disappointed in the A- but he doesn't curve in the summer :/ ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-08-19T14:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Dr. Frauwirth is exceptionally knowledgeable. He goes very fast through lecture material and it may seem overwhelming but he ALWAYS answers questions. That's the secret to his class: don't be afraid to raise your hand mid-lecture and ask the dumb question everyone is thinking. Seriously, it will help a ton. \r\nDr. Frauwirth also is reasonable about regrades and gives extra review sessions that are very helpful.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-04-21T10:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Frauwirth and Dr. Jose teach this class together in the Fall. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEM. Dr. Ades' class has way harder grading/tests/time. Do yourself a favor and take them! they don't change the format of the exams which is nice. the exams are off the slides and if you study, you will do fine. go to office hours just to meet some of the coolest people you will ever meet! Dr. F is a swing dancer and is aka bio-ken and Dr. Jose has done ground breaking research ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-05-27T00:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI422', 'review': "Loved this class and loved Frauwirth. He's really good at lecturing and I felt he conveyed the course information well. Material was really interesting and relevant if you are pursuing med. Tests were hard but reasonable. If you study, you will most likely do fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-08-23T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': None, 'review': "The class itself is very interesting, especially if you're interested in a medical career. We looked at four topics all semester, and most of the class was discussion based. Before each topic, we had a couple of days of lectures just to gain background information, but other than that, the students run the class and Dr. Frauwirth actively participates in all the activities and discussions. Great class, great professor. Put in the effort, and you'll get the grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-07T04:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Frauwirth defines the term BORING. Unless you're really interested in the subject, don't waste your time. As mentioned earlier, he tries to lighten up the class with his dull and dry sense of humour; it clearly never worked, since almost everybody was dozing off... LITERALLY. If u need a core requirement in LS, i am positive that there are better seminars you could take instead of this one. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T23:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': None, 'review': 'The class is pretty easy, you write four three page opinion papers and a final ten page paper. The class is mostly discussion and debate. The lectures can be boring but the professor tries to use his dry sense of humor to lighten the topics a bit.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-01-21T12:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "This class is pretty boring, but as long as you watch the lectures and study the lecture material you'll do fine. He said we would need the textbook for quizzes but they are always based heavily on his lectures. He can be inconsistent with posting lectures so make sure to stay on top of them; sometimes he'll randomly post 3 videos at once and not again for 2 weeks. The tests were not hard and there are old exams of his available that he recycles questions from.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-09T22:13:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Frauwirth class is an easy A. His lectures are just reading off the slides, so studying the lecture material is a great way to prep for exams. He gives a small amount of exam prep via 10-12 sample questions. This semester he did video recordings so I barely went to class and he posted them regularly. He tries to make lectures fun to listen to with his jokes and enthusiasm, but tbh I could not retain much information because of how early the class was. I think he's a great teacher and the exams are fair (in my opinion easy if you take the time to study). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-16T17:29:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI422', 'review': "He is the worst professor I ever had. He is a bad lecturer and he grades by few things. Also he doesn't seem to care about the students unless you go to his office hours, which I never did cause I took him in the summer. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-11-17T22:48:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'whoever said frauwirth’s class is an easy A is a huge capper. his exams are highly specific and graded pretty strictly. he refused to make the final online because he was worried about cheating and “simply the desire to avoid the possibility of exposure is not reason enough at this time” and proceeded to give us the same exact final he gave to his online spring 2021 class. don’t forget that some people had access to that and studied off of that! kenneth is mids at best. take someone else', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-20T16:55:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "do not take. he isn't as nice as he was in his previous semester. no curve. no drop exam. less than 10 extra credits. Extra points only because he screwed up and didn't teach all the required materials for the final exam and speeded through 2 to 3 days worth of lecture materials last minute on the last day of class. Those 2 to 3 days' worth of lecture materials were 50 percent of the final exam. Also, his exam is not really straight from the lecture. His slides are limited with a lot of pathway systems that going to confuse you and aren't really on your exam. For your exam, if your answer is right, but it is not on his exam's answer key or lecture, it is wrong. Zero points, even though you are right. Thus, do not take knowledge from other biology classes into this class due to how he does the grading. He doesn't give you the answer key to his exam either, so you are stuck not knowing the right answer until the very end if you are a shy or a very business person that can't go to office hours. Overall, he is not a great professor when the weather, students' issue, covid, or college have other plans for his classes or exam. He does not change his plan or sympathizes with you. He is only a great professor when he screwed his own plan.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-12-21T00:47:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Not an easy A. I had to pull lots of all-nighters to remember every sentence he ever said because everything was fair game for exams (started studying everyday 1-2 weeks before exams). He is a nice guy & it is nice that there is some extra easy points built in so you can get an A with getting a mid B average on the exams. But, I suffered. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-31T18:29:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'boring class. focus on big pictures and form study groups! difficult class but not impossible, you got this! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-18T00:35:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Make sure to show up for tophats since they are easy points. Otherwise, memorize the slides and pay attention if he says "on the exam" or "expect to see" because he will put a question on the exam on that topic. He likes asking very precise and detail-oriented questions, especially for his written/short response, so make sure to start reviewing early and memorize, memorize, memorize. Otherwise, a lot of the course only covers the surface level information on a wide breadth of topics so expect to see a fair amount of review. Unfortunately, this meant sometimes lectures were boring but at least that unit\'s exam is easy. Study smart and review early!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-17T22:45:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "I like Dr. Frauwirth! Clearly finds his own course interesting and explains everything in depth (sometimes, a bit too on depth), which is refreshing. He makes a lot of awkward jokes that I personally find hilarious. That said, the class is super boring and rehashes a lot of stuff learned in previous bio classes. He reuses exam questions and is pretty good about giving TopHat questions, even if you miss them during class you can email him to make them up. Some of the exam questions are super easy but some are fairly esoteric and you will get points off because you didn't state EXACTLY what the question asked for. Overall would not take again, but it's not the worst class in the world (like many required classes for the bio major).", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-10-31T19:04:51.780245Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': None, 'review': "Very nice guy, above average lecturer, records everything (but attendance top hat questions). Very accountable for himself, reuses weekly quizzes each semester. Tests aren't too bad. 6 MC, ~9 short answer, 2 essay questions (like 2-4 paragraphs). Tells jokes sometimes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T16:25:21.626601Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Difficult class..basically all of it is memorization. Frauwirth is a good lecturerer and he records so you can always go back if you missed something. There were 3 midterms which were pretty fair since they contained info from his lecture slides. Lab portion was pretty easy if you had good groupmates. He reuses exam questions from previous semesters so try to find people that have taken him before. I had a B average on the midterms and final and ended with an A', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T02:21:17.549061Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Frauwirth is such a great guy, where do I start. When you hear him in lecture it is clear that he is experienced and passionate about the subject. He is always willing to answer any question and explain it to you in many different ways. If you ever have extenuating circumstances he won't be one to immediately shut you down like other professors. You should choose him has your teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-26T03:21:20.426322Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'During the semester I took this course, I had a lot going on and ended up having to make up 3 of the 4 exams. Dr. Frauwirth was always incredibly understanding. He also records lectures, so if you miss any or were just confused, you could still keep up with the class. I found his lecture style incredibly helpful and could not recommend him more!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-31T04:14:45.357847Z'}], 'name': 'Kenneth Frauwirth', 'slug': 'frauwirth'}, {'courses': ['LBSC684', 'LBSC781', 'LBSC703', 'LBSC782', 'INST728B', 'INST782', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST448', 'INST746', 'INST747'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kenneth Heger', 'slug': 'heger'}, {'courses': ['INAG242', 'PLSC272', 'INAG201', 'INAG114', 'INAG199', 'INAG244', 'INAG100', 'INAG224', 'INAG222', 'INAG105', 'INAG299A', 'INAG299B', 'INAG288', 'INAG272', 'INAG289', 'INAG199', 'INAG100', 'INAG199', 'INAG201', 'INAG242', 'INAG288', 'INAG104', 'INAG105', 'INAG199', 'INAG224', 'INAG272', 'INAG100', 'INAG199', 'INAG201', 'INAG242', 'INAG288'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kenneth Ingram', 'course': 'INAG105', 'review': "kenny is the best. lectures are chill, not mandatory to go to but they are helpful. super sweet guy and cares about students, and very accommodating. 3 exams with a final and a 'land use project' which is not too hard to do. labs are kinda fun, he will help with answers as well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-14T19:16:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Ingram', 'course': 'INAG272', 'review': 'All around great guy. I took this class thinking it would be a free gen ed and while it is a free gen ed I learned a lot and really came away with a deeper and more appreciate understanding of trees. Kenneth is just so understanding, he makes funny jokes in class, and you can really tell he knows his stuff.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-26T00:51:35.426595Z'}], 'name': 'Kenneth Ingram', 'slug': 'ingram'}, {'courses': ['ENFP250', 'ENFP310', 'ENFP410', 'ENFP440', 'ENFP413', 'ENFP627', 'ENFP613', 'ENFP102', 'ENFP653', 'ENFP601', 'ENFP250', 'ENFP410', 'ENFP601', 'ENFP653', 'ENFP310', 'ENFP411', 'ENFP461', 'ENFP250', 'ENFP410', 'ENFP601', 'ENFP610'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kenneth Isman', 'slug': 'isman'}, {'courses': ['ENME201', 'ENME331', 'ENME712', 'BIOE331', 'ENES221', 'ENES305', 'ENES304'], 'average_rating': 3.4444, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': 'Taught the class theoretically, examined the class with complicated problems that left a good amount of people confused as to how to tackle problems. Did not help that he rarely did example problems. I would not recommend him', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-21T13:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': "he's too smart for his own good and in fact for the students. he spends most of the class time doing proofs that only he will be able to understand and makes everyone feel stupid in the process. it doesnt take much effort to pass but in order to get an A you really need to dedicate your life to understanding him otherwise you'll be caught off guard when the test is given ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-01-26T04:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'Dynamics is a relatively difficult course, but Dr. Kiger taught it in a way that encouraged understanding the governing equations, instead of just plug-and-chug. He challenges the class a bit and often asks questions, which is ultimately for the better. His lectures are clear and simple enough. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T19:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': 'Kiger is the worst professor you could possibly have! He makes your life unnecessarily hard and thinks that the world revolves around him. \r\nHe lives completely in his own fluid world and does not understand what he puts his students through. \r\nI strongly advise anyone who is about to sign up for his classes to switch professors!!!\r\nI think he enjoys making our lives hard.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-19T17:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "I took Kiger for ENES221 and ENME331. When i took him for ENES221, he was just about the most knowledgeable professor I encountered at UMD. He goes through his lectures well and has great example problems. The only problem is that he writes over his lecture slides through the computer to finish problems and proofs, but when he posts the slides online he doesn't include what he wrote over the slides. Therefore going to class and taking notes is a must.\n\r\nFor ENME331 he was basically the same interesting lecturer, however he did not teach my discussion section.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-22T12:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "Best professor ever.\n\r\nThe workload is heavy, but heavy for a good reason. It really prepares you for the exams.\n\r\nIf there's one thing that he needs to work on, it's his choice of vehicle.\n\r\nWho drives 4WD cars these days? Comn Kiger, get a proper sports car!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-07-08T19:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'course': 'ENME641', 'review': "This guys is really smart and VERY fair. He answered every question I had and he's an amazing teacher. On the flip side, he's really hard and makes you work your ass off!!!!!!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-07-09T12:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'This guy is amazingly smart. He really belongs somewhere other than teaching crappy undergrad courses. Beware, Dynamics is quite tough, but Kiger really knows his stuff and will try to clearly answer any questions. It\'s a lot of information to process in one short semester but he tries to be clear and fair about it. The grading policy is a little weird, they will take points off for lots of minor details like not putting coordinate systems on every single problem and not writing a "problem statement" but once you get used to the grading, it\'s tolerable. There\'s also a huge curve for this class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-09T19:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'course': 'ENME331', 'review': "KENNY KIGER THE TIGER!!!\n\r\nThis man is legenDARY. He's hard but he knows his stuff. In discussion and office hours he will clarify anything you need to know. You will be overwhelmed by his amazing knowledge. You will work your ass off, but he's fair overall compared to the other professors. \n\n\r\nPS. Get Nikolaos as your TA, he owns. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-02-27T13:36:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kenneth Kiger', 'slug': 'kiger'}, {'courses': ['KNES144Q', 'KNES144R', 'KNES144T', 'KNES144Q', 'KNES144T', 'KNES144Q', 'KNES144T', 'KNES144Q', 'KNES144T', 'KNES144T', 'KNES144T', 'KNES144Q', 'KNES144T'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kenneth Klotz', 'course': 'KNES144T', 'review': "I took self-defense with Mr. Klotz. I am definitely not one of the best at karate, my skills are in fact pretty bad. However, I found the class to be mostly enjoyable and a learning experience. As long as you come to class everyday, practice a little outside of class, and do the extra credit you should manage an A. \n\r\nHe definitely likes to see people succeed and is always willing to help you perfect your moves. I would recommend this class and instructor, however it's not for the lazy people that regularly miss class or come late.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-18T11:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Klotz', 'course': 'KNES144R', 'review': "Ken Klotz is, in short, one of best instructors I've ever had. Learning karate was fun in itself, but the way he taught the class truly inspired me to study martial arts for the rest of my life. He's got an answer for any question you could think of and he always makes time to help you work on your skills. He cares more about you learning how to intelligently defend yourself than just learning forms and getting a passing grade.\n\r\nThe class itself is treated as a lab and attendance is almost 50% of your grade. You're graded on traditional forms, fighting combinations, basic motion, Jujitsu, one-step sparring, and free-sparring, but most of all on effort. If your don't get an A, it's because you've miss a lot of classes. My only gripe with this course is that it's too short (only about an hour or so of actual physical activity). Other than that, I highly recommend it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-20T13:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Klotz', 'course': 'KNES144Q', 'review': "easy A, nice and good karate instructor. just show up to class since that's most of the points. the written exams aren't difficult and there are extra credit opportunities during the semester. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-21T02:44:17Z'}], 'name': 'Kenneth Klotz', 'slug': 'klotz'}, {'courses': ['AREC365', 'AREC345', 'AREC846', 'AREC489G', 'AREC388', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC847', 'AREC260', 'AREC365', 'AREC847', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC260', 'AREC365'], 'average_rating': 3.1, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "I really enjoy this class. All of the assignments and quizzes are online. The professor also uses tophat, which is instead of the clickers for participation.\n\r\nTophat: if you download it on your phone, that's the best way to use it. When you send the texts in it sometimes doesn't show up. If you actually participate and it didn't go through, make sure you see him right after class or you won't get credit.\n\r\nThe class itself if super interesting! I love the book, and how it progresses through how hunger impacts everyone and what to do with it.\n\r\nHe gives ample options to supplement your grade, so as long as you've done all of the assignments you'll be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-12-22T13:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "He's funny and OK in person but that doesn't excuse his terrible teaching. I don't give my rating based on his personality. I give my rating based on his ability to teach or grade responsibly. I personally did very well in this class but I seriously hate his condescending attitude when it comes to grading or academics. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-14T03:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "I signed up for his class late and he wouldn't let me make up the participation and homework grades lost... It's university policy to excuse new students for any previous assignments or to give them an opportunity for a makeup. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-14T03:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'Professor Leonard is an absolutely terrible professor. He is extremely unreasonable with his grading methods, and he continuously tries to reason and argue with your answers, even if your answers agree with the book. \n\r\nEven if the extent of your understanding for the class is enough to get an A, his BS still not be able to get enough. \n\r\nThe class was easy but he was a real jerk. Talking to him via email is extremely annoying. He flat out rejected my health excuse documentation. Why? I have a form from the health center and he said "No makeups, sorry." What? I don\'t understand this. \n\r\nHe is also obsessive over attendance in his class. He makes you buy TopHat in order to record attendance. Not only that, but he sent us an email explaining that those that skip the lecture will be reported for academic dishonesty. It\'s totally understandable that people shouldn\'t skip class, but when have you ever had a teacher do this? Do you really want to sign up for a teacher that does this? I\'ve had three professors use TopHat and they all don\'t care if you skip lecture and answer TopHat. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-14T03:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'Professor Leonard is a nice guy who makes a relatively boring subject interesting. He has a lot of personal experience and his stories are funny and relevant to the topics covered in class. He provides all the notes for the semester on ELMS, and Top Hat is used for participation points. The chapter quizzes on ELMS are incredibly easy if you skim through the book, but the homework assignments are very hard. Even if you know the material well, it is difficult to get even half credit because the questions are tricky and worded very awkwardly. I would have an A in the class if it were not for the homework assignments. He provides a lot of materials to help you study for the three exams, and will drop the lowest great, which is great. The exams are of average difficulty but like the homework, have some tricky and weirdly worded questions, especially these awful multiple answer questions. There is one "essay" at the end, but they are meant to be short and he provides the prompts in advance. Overall, an interesting and fun class, but I would not say this class is an easy A. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-11-19T13:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC345', 'review': "Prof. Leonard was extremely approachable, very knowledgable and excited about the topic, and very fair. The exams were of average difficulty, but his lectures and the readings more than covered what was necessary to pass. He utilized Top Hat for in-class questions and participation, which I found efficient. Overall, he was just a likable guy and he made a boring subject interesting with his personal passion for the topic. If you're looking for an upper level elective, this is a great choice.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-21T13:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC345', 'review': "Do you need a non-major 300 level elective? AREC345 is for you!\n\r\nMinimal work, laughably easy exams (the lowest of which is dropped, by the way, so don't even worry about a final), copy-answers-from-the-book homework and free points abound just for attending class (sadly not free in the monetary sense, you'll have to purchase the TopHat service for a semester to do them). \n\r\nProtip about TopHat by the way: Because it works via the internet, you don't need to be in the room to answer questions. Feel free to skip lecture and have the TopHat window open back in the dorm and just answer the questions there for credit. You don't need to be correct, just put in anything for participation points. \n\r\nExams are based almost exclusively on lecture notes which he posts in a relatively complete form. He'll talk a little bit more on specifics during lecture, but nothing that's not directly cited in the readings (which you WILL need to do for homework, though they're just a few pages a pop). \n\r\nAttending the discussion section was optional. Provided nothing really in terms of new information. Got an extra credit point or two for attending but when there are hundreds of points in the class, it never mattered terribly much.\n\r\nAn easy class, overall. Material was sort of interesting. No economics background needed. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-18T02:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'NOT AN EASY CLASS!! TRICKY QUESTIONS, hard grader.\n\r\nMany of these reviews aren\'t from after 2010, so I thought I\'d clear the score. I picked this class cuz of the positive reviews on here. THESE ARE NOT TRUE. You do not need a 70% to get an A, you need like a 92.5%, which isn\'t bad, but definitely is NOT easy in this class. \n\r\nHere\'s the layout\r\n- 11 HW assignments (online) worth 25 points each. Extremely hard and tricky questions, almost impossible to get a 100% on even when going to office hours to get massive help.\r\n- 22 short chapter quizzes (online) worth 7 pts each. These are SUPER easy, but small help compared the 25 point HWs that WILL wreck your grade. \r\n- 20-25 participation scores (online) worth 5 pts each and not for every class. He drops the lowest 5. \r\n- 3 exams, each 250 points, but he DROPS THE LOWEST EXAM SCORE, which is good, since the averages are around a 77-80%. These are HARD exams; tricky questions (though he reuses the mult choice from HWs) and even harder "select all that fit" questions. Also an essay, but he gives you the essay options a few days before exam to study from. \n\r\nHe is not an easy grader. He is funny in class, and a really nice guy to go to during office hours, but this is NOT AN EASY CLASS. I am an over-achiever who needs to keep a perfect GPA, and I barely scraped by a 92.5 percent in this class. BARELY. If you are an economics major or such, it\'ll probably be easier for you than for me, but seriously, this is not an easy A. This is an easy C or D.\n\r\nSo think hard about whether you want to take this class. If you\'re just taking it for the sake of taking it, do it pass/fail (apparently that\'s what the majority of students to), but for people who are taking this for minors or majors, that\'s not an option for us. Sadly. \n\r\nHonest to god, not an easy course. Interesting at some points - though you don\'t have to pay attention too much since he posts the notes online. He is also rather a jerk when it comes to debating his exam questions with him. He will write them extremely tricky (though he doesn\'t think so) and have more than one answer that works MANY times. Absolute jerk when it comes to HW and exam questions. \n\r\nIf you have to take it, take it with him, but work hard on the HWs and the chapter quizzes, cuz they are what will save your grade if you mess up on exams. Good luck!!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-06T17:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "Exams are hard but you need like a 70% to get an A. Lots of quizzes and homework's that are easy and you have to go to class since attendance is around 10% of final grade. Material is interesting at first and at the end but the agriculture portion in the middle of the course can get a bit boring. Really interesting if you are a fan of the subject. Leonard is a smart, nice, approachable professor. I recommend the course. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-14T21:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'Leonard is a great teacher. He makes the class fun and interesting and has a very lenient grading method. His exams can be somewhat hard, but even if you average a 70% on the exams you can still get an A in the class. Surveys are handed out in class as extra credit. Quizzes are posted every week and are painstakingly easy, along with the homeworks. I highly advise this class it is interesting material and an easy A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-09T22:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "This was a great class! Prof. Leonard keeps the material interesting and the class isn't too challenging (and there's no arec/econ prerequisite). The whole semester is based out of 1100 points and you need 900 to get an A. Therefore, there's plenty of opportunities to do well even if you mess up a bit at some points. \r\nIt's important to go to class because Prof. Leonard hands out random surveys that you get (easy!) points for if you are present. Also, the homework and quizzes are all done online but aren't very challenging-in fact, they are fairly simple ways to get points, so take advantage of them (don't forget the deadlines!). There are three examinations the entire semester (700 of the 1100 points available). The nice aspect of the class is that even though there's no curve, if you complete all the assignments and attend class, you don't have to do super well on the exams to get an A. All the class notes are online (although they might not be updated until later in the semester) and you are given a lot of material (ie: previous exams) to prepare for the exams (take advantage of them!). Also, collaboration with others-both in regards to completing assignments and with studying for exams-is encouraged. There's no discussion sections-only three lectures/week-and the book is required (and not too difficult to manage). \r\nI highly recommend this class-I learned a lot from it and it's very interesting material that can be very useful/applicable. Good luck!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-04T18:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'The material is boring but he can be pretty funny at times. you have to go to class atleast the majority of the time because attendance counts. he periodically hand out surveys (not quizzes) to check attendance. you can miss two but after that it deducts from your attendance grade. hes a fair guy, makes things very obvious for you. you can work together on most assignments and he does not mind. the notes are online so no worries about paying attention.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-23T13:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'Very very very boring lectures and he made everyone buy a tophat account and take attendance with that. Quiz and classwork are all online. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-27T04:08:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'Avoid this professor at all costs. He does not care about his students at all. He made an easy gen ed hard for no reason.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-12T00:32:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'Leonard is an awful teacher. The content is very disorganized and emailing him for help is useless as he shows no respect for his students. Honestly it seemed like his goal was to make this course difficult. I am a straight A student and very much struggled in this class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-12-17T16:33:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. biggest waste of time for an elective and leonard does not actually teach the information in his lectures, just rambles and makes the exams impossible for no reason in such a short time period. on top of that he is just plain rude and unhelpful to students. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T01:50:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC260', 'review': "He tends to ramble but the class is over all an easy A. The only thing is that it is a decent amount of reading but if you get a good TA you'll do fine and he is loose with deadlines and drops your worst paper. If you do the reading and review his slides you don't really need to go to class to do well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-11T23:53:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "I like Leonard. He's pretty funny and does a decent job expanding on topics discussed in the weekly reading. The readings can be long but you'll be fine skimming them. Discussion was very relaxed and all we had was a group presentation. Weekly group problem sets and individual reading quizzes made up your grade. There were 3 exams based on lecture content but he drops the lowest grade. He uses TopHat so that's the best way to contact him. Overall I enjoyed his class and wish I got to know him better!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-02-04T17:32:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': 'I loved this class, Leonard tells funny stories and really gets you interested in the subject. The readings can be a lot but he uploads his own class notes for the entire year on canvas which is super helpful. He gives tons of participation points and drops a lot of your lowest grades which really gives you a boost. No complaints at all, I loved this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-06T04:04:48.604417Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'course': 'AREC365', 'review': "This class is a GPA dropper. Do not take this class. I studied and went to class every day and the exams were still impossible. The professor covers a lot of material and asks questions in class that are not going to be asked again during the exam so it was extremely difficult to study for exams and predict what would actually be on the exams. Choose another elective if you can. I probably will not get into my dream grad school now over an elective that isn't even related to my major.\r\n\r\nThe exams were nothing like what the professor taught during class. The class was at least interesting but not worth the many hours I spent on this class compared to my other senior level classes.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-05T08:53:47.961834Z'}], 'name': 'Kenneth Leonard', 'slug': 'leonard_kenneth'}, {'courses': ['ENCE423', 'ENCE320', 'ENCE606', 'ENCE623', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE423', 'ENCE423', 'ENCE606', 'ENCE423', 'ENCE423', 'ENCE623', 'ENCE423', 'ENCE623', 'ENCE423', 'ENCE606'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': "Kenneth O'Connell", 'course': 'ENCE423', 'review': 'Great professor. Easy ass class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-08-18T05:23:44Z'}], 'name': "Kenneth O'Connell", 'slug': "o'connell"}, {'courses': ['EDHD498L', 'EDHD711', 'EDHD720', 'EDHD421', 'EDHD498R', 'EDHD402', 'EDHD498Y', 'EDHD498V', 'EDHD498W', 'EDHD498A', 'EDHD498C', 'EDHD498N', 'EDHD498E', 'EDHD498I', 'EDHD228', 'EDHD498Q', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC468H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kenneth Rubin', 'slug': 'rubin_kenneth'}, {'courses': ['MUSC831S', 'MUSC830S', 'MUSC448C', 'MUSC639B', 'MUSC639J', 'MUSC699C', 'MUSC448J', 'MUSC129A', 'MUSC830S'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kenneth Slowik', 'slug': 'slowik'}, {'courses': ['BSOS388F', 'GVPT388B', 'BSOS388X', 'BSOS388F', 'GVPT388B', 'BSOS388F', 'GVPT388B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kenneth Ulman', 'slug': 'ulman_kenneth'}, {'courses': ['ENAE455', 'ENAE665', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE488B', 'ENAE455', 'ENAE488B', 'ENAE665', 'ENAE455'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kenneth Yu', 'course': 'ENAE455', 'review': 'Dr. Yu tries to help his students whenever they need it. His lectures are also generally easy to follow. We skipped a bunch of the material on the syllabus. He "dumbed-down" the second half of the course because we all failed the first midterm, which was nice. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-14T19:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Yu', 'course': 'ENAE464', 'review': 'For this class, ENAE464, I would recommend taking it over Dr. Winkelnmann. Dr. Yu is overall a good professor, and is very helpful during off-class hours if you have questions. The grading system (keeps the best 4 lab grades) allows you to skip doing labs during busy weeks, but I highly recommend you do as much as the early labs as possible to secure getting an A in the class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-09-22T13:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Yu', 'course': 'ENAE455', 'review': 'Dr. Yu is a pretty good professor, though his lectures can be impossible to pay attention to at times. The best part about Dr. Yu is that he definitely cares about his students and is very helpful if you have any questions regarding his homeworks. His tests are somewhat difficult, but not impossible. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-22T05:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Yu', 'course': 'ENAE464', 'review': 'Dr. Yu is a nice person, and will definitely help you if you need help. His lectures can get dry sometimes, but for ENAE464, the lecture material is important for the lab write-ups. The labs take a long time (on the order of 6-10 hours), so plan accordingly. If he gives you the option of choosing the best 4/8 labs, do the first 4 right away, because the last 4 tend to come all at once.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-05-16T22:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Yu', 'course': 'ENAE455', 'review': "Extremely helpful and knowledgeable. Out of all the professors I've taken, it's clear that Yu is the one that will help you the most to get an A. He often goes over exams extensively before giving them, and helps with tough homeworks in class. 10/10", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-04T20:20:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Kenneth Yu', 'course': 'ENAE665', 'review': 'A slight departure from his 455 teaching style, Yu sits back slightly more in 665, letting the student figure concepts out on their own. Which is to be expected for a grad level course. Still extremely helpful when you need help though ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-04T20:22:25Z'}], 'name': 'Kenneth Yu', 'slug': 'yu_kenneth'}, {'courses': ['HONR288Q', 'PSYC444', 'PSYC445', 'PSYC488H', 'PSYC798J', 'PSYC779A', 'PSYC489Q', 'INST728E', 'INST709', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661'], 'average_rating': 3.375, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kent Norman', 'course': 'PSYC445', 'review': 'The short version: if you\'re looking for an easy A, this is the right class for you. However, if you actually enjoy playing video games and consider yourself a gamer, prepare to hate this class.\n\r\nThe long version: Dr. Norman will happily give you an A, but that\'s mostly because he has no idea what he\'s doing. This class is a complete mess and I learned pretty much nothing from it (and saying "pretty much nothing" is being kind). \n\r\nThis guy has NO IDEA what\'s doing and I\'m just truly amazed that he\'s allowed to teach at this university. Some of the things he says are not only complete bullshit, but are downright offensive. Some examples of bullshit he has said: vaccines can cause ADHD, the girls in the class need to consult their boyfriends in order to do well on assignments, and global warming is something people "believe" in or don\'t. \n\r\nAlso, he uses his own website separate from Canvas called Hypercourseware... it\'s terrible, buggy, and the server goes down if more than 5 people refresh the page at a time. \n\r\nBasically, take this class at your own risk and if you decide to take it, good luck and may the Game Master watch over you and protect you (more bullshit he says).', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-18T17:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kent Norman', 'course': 'PSYC444', 'review': 'So material-wise class consists of pop quizzes on the readings, 2 exams, a group project, and a lot of discussions and homeworks. Exams are mostly memorization so they\'re a little tough but they\'re very fair, no tricks involved. He gives you a study guide and tests you what\'s on it. The homeworks are easy / can be fun. The project is a group project... so it kinda sucks. It can be fun if you get a good group. \n\r\nClass is more about the "cyber" than the "psychology." Normal clearly prefers one subject to the other. It is neat to see how some psyc concepts can be applied to the technology world but Normal makes it clear that he\'s most passionate about the technological side. He also does not believe in therapy so you don\'t talk about that a whole lot.\n\r\nNorman includes many different ways of learning, though. Textbook, lecture, videos, discussions, projects... take your pick. He wants to make sure everyone has a chance to learn in their favorite way. \n\r\nTextbook is kinda boring and he uses a lot of technological language in it.\n\r\nOverall I\'d recommend this class for an upper level psyc elective. As long as you keep up with the work and study a bit for the exams you can get an A. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-13T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kent Norman', 'course': 'PSYC444', 'review': "This is a good class for review if you didn't take psyc100 in college. The text goes over a very wide range of material, so reading over it is great if you want to relearn some stuff that wasn't clear from previous psych classes. If you want a class focused on certain aspects of psychology and technology, I suggest taking another class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-14T16:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kent Norman', 'course': 'PSYC444', 'review': "Norman is a nice person and a good teacher (in that he clearly communicates the material he wishes to).\n\r\nThe problem with him is that his course design sucks, and he doesn't seem to know much about computer science, which makes PSYC444 somewhat useless.\n\r\nHe seems to be a professor that has fun and gives easy As. If you are in college to get a diploma and optionally a GPA, take it. If you're here to learn useful things, this class is not the place for you.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-11T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kent Norman', 'course': 'PSYC444', 'review': "Norman is a great guy. He really cares about what he does. He tries to be funny in class; most of the time its not a bad joke but the class is so small and everyone is so distracted by the computers in front of them that no one notices and he's left in an awkward position. I felt kinda sorry for him.\n\r\nBut anyways, class is really easy. If you miss class it doesn't really matter. But its good to show up every now and then and participate a little bit because if he knows you better he will help you at the end of the semester. You will have online discussions and a few online projects. They're very easy and give you easy points. The exams are very simple as long as you go by his study guide. They're all on the computer as well. You also have a group project that isn't hard either. If you want an A, do well on the project and make sure you do all the discussions and projects, and try to do reasonably well on the midterm and final. \n\r\nThe final grade is based on assignments (projects & discussions), the project, the midterm, and the final, each worth 25% of your grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T18:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kent Norman', 'course': 'PSYC444', 'review': 'Class can get a little dull but it was pretty easy. Dr. Norman is a nice guy. Recommend for a 400 level psychology class...', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-08T21:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kent Norman', 'course': None, 'review': 'If you actually want to learn about real psychology do NOT take this class. I was so annoyed to find out that the honors version is actually "cyberpsychology" which is not exactly what they test you on on nursing entrance tests... The class is really easy though. It\'s just annoying to keep track of everything that\'s due. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-23T16:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kent Norman', 'course': 'PSYC444', 'review': "What a cool guy! You dont have to go class to do well, but go every once in a while because he really cares about students. Material is very easy and interesting. Test are EASY! You get a review guide, and you just study what's on it. Homeworks are a bunch of little projects that are pretty much completion based. Gives extra credit. Tries to be funny and usually isn't but you can't fault him for trying. The material is interesting and so is the cool computer lab. Take this class for a 400 nonlab!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-12-21T23:16:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kent Norman', 'slug': 'norman_kent'}, {'courses': ['ENSE621', 'ENPM641'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kent de Jong', 'slug': 'jong'}, {'courses': ['HLTH711', 'HLTH301', 'HONR238N', 'HLTH410', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH899', 'HLTH898', 'HLTH410', 'HLTH711', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'HLTH410'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kerry Green', 'course': 'HLTH301', 'review': 'Dr. Green\'s class has definitely changed since the other girl posted in 2011. Her class consists of two exams, a final, and some assignments. Each exam is worth 25% of your grade and all of the assignments combined are worth the last 25%. There is not "dropping" exams now, assignments are for accuracy, and no online quizzes. She also does not give a formula sheet. Her exams are not easy! They are not impossible, but just memorizing her slides and reading the book will not help. You must actually understand and think because her questions on exams are ALL conceptual. I ended up getting a B in the class but it took a decent amount of effort.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-18T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Green', 'course': 'HLTH300', 'review': "Dr. Green is an amazing professor. She really wants to help her students pass. She gives 4 exams, all non-cumulative, and drops the lowest one. She grades homework for completeness instead of accuracy, and she gives 5 online quizzes that you have 3 tries to take. She gives you formula sheets for the exams and allows you to write anything you want on them to help you during the exam. She is always available to go to if you have trouble. \r\nBut, don't think that the exams are easy. You have to put in some effort if you want to do well. Don't skip class because it REALLY helps if you attend and listen. She posts all her slides, but it makes so much more sense when she explains it and does examples in class. I definitely recommend taking this class with her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-14T14:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kerry Green', 'slug': 'green_kerry'}, {'courses': ['FMSC487', 'FMSC760', 'FMSC498M', 'FMSC647', 'EXST030', 'FMSC186', 'SPHL399', 'FMSC286', 'FMSC215', 'FMSC382', 'FMSC487', 'FMSC215', 'SPHL399', 'FMSC186', 'FMSC286', 'FMSC487', 'FMSC215', 'FMSC382', 'FMSC487', 'FMSC647', 'SPHL399', 'FMSC487', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC487', 'FMSC487', 'FMSC186', 'FMSC286', 'FMSC487', 'HNUH288W'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC487', 'review': 'I absolutely enjoyed taking this class with Dr. Tripp. Even though I took it over the summer, which is online and only 3 weeks, making it really intense, I really enjoyed it. All the work and grading is fair, and the topics covered are really interesting. She also never imposes her views on you. She wants to hear your opinion, but since this is a law class, you have to back it up with cases or principles. Overall, I feel this is not a difficult class, as long as you do all the work, including the readings, and take notes. If you are considering taking it, I highly suggest it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-06-22T10:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC487', 'review': "Dr. Tripp is the only one who teaches the course for the department (as of Spring 2013), so you won't really have a choice but to take it with her. But no worries!\n\r\nYeah, it takes some time to get used to her teaching style and method of lecturing, but the information is interesting, the exams are fair, and the term paper is doable. Also, Dr. Tripp is funny/entertaining to say the least, not to mention intelligent and very respectable. I really like her.\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-05-20T12:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC487', 'review': "i am actually really surprised at the negative reviews for this professor. Tripp has her views but she would never impose them on anyone else and does not grade anything subjectively. This is a family law course and yes, she ask for your opinion. However, its a LAW course, meaning you need to back up your opinion with legal cases, or principles (she always shows two extreme cases on the same topic and explains why/how they came to opposite conclusions). \n\r\nWhen it comes to her syllabus, yea she may be off sometimes, but her GA revises the syallbus each semester. If there are any issues, she is willing to move exam dates, etc if it is beneficial for everyone. She was always very friendly with students and everyone I knew loved her course. \n\r\nOne downfall: she tends to go through slides fairly quickly and doesn't post them online. But she tells you exactly what you need, so its not the biggest deal on earth unless you are the students that jots each pointless word/phrase down. \n\r\nI really appreciated her as a professor and has been my favorite in all my time here (i'm a senior). She is very open and honest and helps you in any way possible (if you ask). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-03-25T03:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC487', 'review': "I'm honestly surprised to see such horrible reviews on this professor. I am currently a senior at UMD and of my four years at this school believe that Dr. Tripp has been one of my favorite professors. She keeps the class extremely interesting, and allows for lots of discussion. She never imposes her own views when presenting the course material; instead she presents both sides of an argument and then lets the class discuss the topic. I really appreciate this because I feel like so many professors try to persuade students towards their own views/opinions. \n\r\nSo if you are considering taking this class, I would highly recommend it. As long as you actually show up to class and take notes, it's a pretty easy course. Dr. Tripp tells you exactly which cases/information will be on the exams so you don't have to worry about memorizing tons of irrelevant material. Other than the tests there is one paper (about 5 pages) that is on a book. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-29T03:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC487', 'review': 'She is rude, condescending and bigot. I dropped her class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-08-23T14:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC487', 'review': 'She is rude and stuck up. Just like the previous post says, she claims to be open to opinions but she is in fact completely narrow minded and because of this comes off as being ignorant. She thinks her syllabus is like the constitution and has the answers to all the questions a student could ask- FALSE. I couldn\'t find a video posting and she rudely replied the answer was on the syllabus, which by the way it was not, and then had to end up emailing the entire class to let everyone know where they could find it. Although the cases and readings were extremely interesting, she sabotaged the class with her dictator like lecturing. She always asked for our opinion and then marked us wrong when the opinions did not match historically made decisions, aka her opinions. I remember when I asked her to reconsider my grade for a posting I believed to be extremely well and she replied that "in law classes, we are really looking for the law--that is the correct answer"...... Well that is fine but do not ask for my opinion and then tell me you were looking for a previously made decision. That day she also insulted some social science/ literature majors claiming that they probably are more tolerant of wrong opinions, but not her law class. (Even though she is teaching a FAMILY law class. The irony in her stuffyness) Dr. Tripp, and she made it clear from the beginning she was a "Dr", reminds me of a judge who would be inconsiderate of changing a bad law because it has always been tradition. Oh and she talks down to you as if you are not worthy of her time and will respond to emails in the poorest dictation to prove how much she doesn\'t care about your inquiry. Anyways, I think you have a good idea of what she is like now. She is extremely bigot and I dropped her class before she could ruin my gpa. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-08-10T12:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC487', 'review': "The professor claims to be professional and open to various opinions, but she has tolerance for any opinion that's different than hers. After working really hard throughout the semester, she still refused to give me the grade I deserved because she didn't agree with my opinions. I had a 4.00 GPA, and now because of her all my efforts went down the drain :(", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-06-20T16:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC382', 'review': 'Professor Tripp is extremely disorganized. Every single week it was a struggle to figure out what we were supposed to be doing and if we were missing any assignments. The syllabus and ELMS calendar are always wrong, she sends out a "to do list" but then the assignments are either locked or don\'t exist, and it is impossible to tell where any of the materials are. The class is super easy and I did enjoy what I learned, but keeping up with things took a lot of effort. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-28T15:08:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC487', 'review': "I honestly really enjoyed this class!! I felt like I learned a ton, and all of the assignments were very interesting and manageable. I am honestly sad that this class is over. Dr. Tripp is really cool, but really disorganized. Luckily, if you email for clarification she's pretty responsive. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-05T19:50:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC215', 'review': 'This class was alright. It was not that interesting but Dr. Tripp is a GOAT and is such a nice person and really wants her students to do well. The assignments are very easy and there are not too many of them. I recommend taking this class for the easy A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-25T22:47:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC186', 'review': 'took this as a 1 credit asynchronous course. super easy, took less than 20 minutes a week. you don’t have to watch the lectures or do the readings to do the assignments. literally easiest class ever and kinda interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-18T03:10:55.247591Z'}, {'professor': 'Kerry Tripp', 'course': 'FMSC215', 'review': 'It can be hard to focus over zoom but Dr. Tripp tries to talk about relevant hot topic issues and ties in current events. Most of the class is participation which is graded based on zoom attendance. Cameras can be off. Assignments are very easy and there is one final project. Super cool idea for a class and a great way to learn more about Fostering and Adoption. Also brings in some really great guest speakers like Taylor Bendlin and a woman who runs a foster agency. Recommend if you need a GPA boost or are interested in learning more about the world around you.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-26T02:35:03.899924Z'}], 'name': 'Kerry Tripp', 'slug': 'tripp'}, {'courses': ['EDHI666', 'EDHI653', 'EDHI667', 'EDCP870', 'EDHI895', 'EDHI788', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI666', 'EDHI677', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI677'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': "KerryAnn O'Meara", 'slug': "o'meara"}, {'courses': ['CONS670', 'BSCI338Q', 'BSCI363', 'AREC200', 'CONS608G', 'BSCI215', 'MEES708G', 'MEES670', 'BIOL608R', 'MEES608G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Keryn Gedan', 'slug': 'gedan'}, {'courses': ['KNES134O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kevin Alexander', 'slug': 'alexander_kevin'}, {'courses': ['JOUR328B', 'JOUR458G', 'JOUR458M', 'JOUR628B', 'JOUR382', 'JOUR458M', 'JOUR382', 'JOUR682', 'JOUR447'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kevin Blackistone', 'slug': 'blackistone'}, {'courses': ['ENES100', 'ENES221', 'ENES100A', 'ENES232', 'ENES499', 'ENES478', 'ENES102', 'HONR288O', 'EDSP652', 'ENES102H', 'ENES102', 'ENES221', 'ENES220', 'ENES102', 'ENES102', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENES192', 'ENES102', 'ENES220'], 'average_rating': 4.3704, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': "Kevin (because that's what he wants you to call him) is by far the best teacher I have had at UMD. His teaching style, note-taking style (exactly what you need, neatly organized, and nothing more or less), and general care about his students as people made him an amazing teacher. I am not one of those people who goes to office hours and tries to talk to my professor because frankly I don't usually need to and don't care, but Kevin is someone who I know actually cares about how well I do and how much I learn and is approachable and helpful. He is one of the few engineering professors who is actually a good person as well as amazing teacher and I 100% recommend him to anyone for any course that he teaches.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-04-25T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Super organized and very friendly. He teaches the material really well and does plenty of example problems. If you do your homework and plan ahead for the truss project, you'll get an A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-18T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': "Kevin is a great lecturer and I really felt comfortable with the material learned from Thermodynamics. However, he is a rather strict grader and gave almost no curve in the class even though there was one exam where our class average was 10% lower than both the other teacher's class averages. I ended up getting a B despite doing very well throughout the semester and I would've imagined I was at least top 15% in the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-07-31T14:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Calabro is a pretty good lecturer. He knows how to teach the material very well. This thing is that he is a bit quiet and dry at times, especially if you have prior knowledge of the material. \r\nCalabro gives out a lot of 4/5’s on parts of reports if they are not perfect, which, in almost all cases, they aren’t. Our team got a 77 percent on the first report, and that was the highest grade in the class. He will rip apart your report and presentation for all possible flaws. Its for your own good though. You have been warned…\n\r\nDon't think that just because there are 50% A's, doesn't mean you can slack off in this class. The hovercraft project is a pain at first. You will easily spend hours with your team planning the hovercraft, building it, and testing it. It helps a lot to have someone who can program on your team because it is difficult to learn about programming if you have no knowledge. \n\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-11T23:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'Kevin is a great dynamics teacher. I also had him for statics and he was great at teaching that as well. His notes are precise and easy to follow. He works plenty of examples in class that are extremely helpful. Exams were tough but fair. Just do the homework and you will be successful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-11T17:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "This class is quite easy and Calabro is a pretty good teacher. I should have gotten an A in the class, but I played the points game and really didn't care about doing the homeworks, when I should have and it has come back to haunt me... Anyway, Calabro is a nice guy and easy to talk to about any questions or concerns you have. He is, however, as stated in another review extremely harsh when grading presentations and design reports, you most likely will not get an A on these assignments, because he is very nit-picky. For example, in my preliminary design report, I got so many points taken off for formatting in regards to where captions should be for a table versus a figure. But overall, nice guy, and you should at least learn the necessaries of the courses, not really detailed material", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-11-30T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': '"Calibro" is a really nice guy, and a decent teacher. He really cares about his students, and is very down to earth. He almost seems more like a TA than an actual lecturer at times, but he is definitely well qualified to teach the class. He does, however, grade very harsh on presentations and the Design Reports.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T06:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Good teacher. Really cares about his students which is nice. He focuses more on getting you prepared for the mid-term than the hovercraft, but he's reasonably helpful with the hovercraft as well. He's very thorough on design reports, which is nice because you get a ton of helpful feedback for future reports. Homework was gradely a little harshly but it doesn't affect your grade to much in the end.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-10-03T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Kevin's a pretty good statics teacher. his notes are easy to follow and understand. he also explains concepts pretty well. for the most part, if you do the hw and the practice problems, you should do fine in the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-09-12T09:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Calabro is definitely a decent statics teacher. Lectures are pretty helpful even though it was hard to stay awake (I had his class at 9 am). ENES 102 is a fair amount of work towards the end of the semester. Do not underestimate the class just because the majority of material on the first exam is mostly review. Also, make sure you do as many practice problems as possible before the exam to get a good grade.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-01T07:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "The course material isn't very hard and Kevin does do a good job explaining everything. \r\nHe does go the extra mile to help you on your hovercraft. As other people have said the presentations are graded pretty harshly, for me I got a B on every single one but I still ended up with an A+ in the class. \r\nAs long as you work hard in the class you should be able to get an A.\r\nJust a note he is a mechanical or aerospace engineer, I forget so he isn't very proficient on programing or electronics design however he will try his best to help answer your question or refer you to someone who knows the material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-02-21T14:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Be ready to work hard in this class.\r\nThe first half of the semester in enes100 was very time consuming between required special lectures (outside of class), homework, and team meetings (designing the hovercraft). Depending on how productive your team is, meetings can take huge chunks of your time. When the midterm comes around, study hard, it is important.\n\r\nThe second half of the semester is great. Class time is reserved for working on your hovercraft, and you probably need very few, if any, team meetings.\n\r\nKevin really cares about how well your team does and is happy to help if you ask him. He grades presentations and the PDR harshly because there is plenty of room for improvement. Regardless, it doesn't really destroy your grade. If you put in the effort on your team and show that you care about the project, you'll do well, and probably enjoy the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-01-03T17:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'he grades really hard on your group presentations. plus the midterm is extremely hard. I failed the midterm and did average on the presentations. I got a B in the class. he emphasizes how your hovercraft team and their evaluations have a huge impact on your grade but it really doesnt affect it that much. He is the hardest enes100 teacher. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-23T00:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Calabro is a relatively good statics teacher, but some people have a hard time with him. He talks in a monotone, but if you pay attention, his lectures are really good and you can learn everything in class. I have never had to study outside of class. The exams are not that difficult if you know the material. If you can get Fourney, go for him, but otherwise Calabro is good choice.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-24T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Arguably the most difficult ENES100 teacher. Just do your HW, do decent on the midterm, and well on your hovercraft.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-17T02:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Probably the hardest ENES100 teacher. Grade really depends on how well your Hovercraft group does on its presentations. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-02-01T14:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'He is a good teacher. He does grade much harder and thoroughly than the other teachers. Kevin (as he asks to be called) probably prepares you best for the midterm, which is a major chunk of your grade. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-01-21T12:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': 'Kevin is probably one of the best engineering professors I’ve had the pleasure of taking. Understand, however, that Thermodynamics is not by any means a pushover class, and so expect to struggle through problems that sometimes take hours. Kevin’s philosophy about homework’s is that if you struggle through it and complete harder questions on your own then you’ll be very well prepared for the exams, which could not be more true. Throughout the class I thought to myself “man this is just a huge pain in the ass why do I have to do this?” Then came the first midterm and I got an A. Material ramps up in difficulty, homework’s are even more irritating and challenging, then came the second midterm and I got an even higher grade. I honestly don’t think I would’ve done half as well in this class had I had any other professor. Always take Kevin if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-06-02T09:49:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'HONR288O', 'review': 'content is interesting but mans calibro is way too harsh on grading...\r\n\r\nyou also wont know your grade for this class, i have anywhere from a C to an A- depending on how generous calibro is feeling', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-12T02:42:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Kevin is awesome. He cares about all his students and wanted us to still do well, even when our OSV had about a million problems. He makes a hard class fun, and if you truly deserve an A you will get one.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-25T01:19:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "I definitely recommend Kevin for any class he's teaching. For this class, his notes and examples were clear and he taught very well. 221 is not easy, but if you put in effort and take the time to learn the material and ask questions, you will do fine. The last 232 review does a great job describing him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-05T23:40:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "Calabro was a fairly good teacher for this extremely challenging course. He always was thorough with his examples in class, and his lecture videos and notes were posted shortly after class ended. Calabro did the best he could with an online course by providing ways to review for exams and being helpful during his office hours. Calabro's exams seemed fairer than the other professors teaching this Fall semester.\r\n\r\nFor the course as a whole, they switched the grading system to be the same way as ENES 232, and that brought a whole load of challenges. The most frustrating thing is the strictness of what they consider partial credit which is the reason most students scored low on exams. Due to the change in grading, teachers and TAs ended up taking much longer to grade group works and homework assignments and grades were not updated as frequently as students would like. \r\n\r\nThis semester, they also switched the homework website to a new website. Although it was free, the website regenerates the problem after each attempt. The homework problems sometimes required a lot of work, so if you get it wrong, you have to start all over again. Also, homework was much harder than the exams and examples in the notes. My advice: find a group to work and study together with and you will be okay", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-30T01:10:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Kevin's an extremely approachable guy and you can tell he loves what he does. He was always adamant that if we do good work, the good grades will follow.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T19:40:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "He's a great professor. The only issue is when I took the class they were trying to implement the conceptual fluency approach and it did not go well for the class. Grades were all over the place. Other than that he's a great professor who is good at explaining the concepts and cares about his students.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-11-11T22:27:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'HONR288O', 'review': "Great professor, really approachable, and genuinely cares about teaching. I learned a lot from the class and had a fun time. I took this class Fall 2018 so I don't remember a lot about the workload, but towards the end we got to create a bridge in the woodshop and test it which was really fun. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-21T19:37:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "A fantastic professor who really cares about his students. Although the course can be fast-paced at times, he's very approachable and will go through the time to explain concepts if you shoot him an email or attend office hours. You can tell that he loves and really cares about teaching. He also peppers in content from future keystone classes to show you why you're learning the things you are, making the content more digestible and exciting. Highly recommend him for ENES102", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-27T17:12:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Calabro', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Professor Calabro has been one of the most thorough and dedicated professors I have had during my time here at the University of Maryland. He is incredibly devoted to working through practice problems and clearly cares about how well his students retain the course's information. Some of the best lectures on campus and is incredibly easy to approach after/before class with any questions. Highly recommended.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-19T14:59:04.097633Z'}], 'name': 'Kevin Calabro', 'slug': 'calabro'}, {'courses': ['ECON321', 'ECON424'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kevin Dayaratna', 'course': 'ECON321', 'review': 'Honestly you hav3 to study a bit but the dude is nice and fair! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-23T22:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Dayaratna', 'course': 'ECON321', 'review': 'He is not a good teacher at all, however the way the class is laid out makes it possible to get an A.\n\r\nAll of his slides are online, and homework is from the textbook which makes lectures not that important to go to. \n\r\nGrading scheme: 2 midterms, if you get higher on midterm 2 than on midterm 1, the midterm 2 grade counts for both. Final, if you get higher on the final than on midterm 2, the final will replace midterm 2.\n\r\nThere are 8 HW sets, top 5 count. 1 group project at the end which is easy.\n\r\nI did poorly on both midterms (in the 70s), did good on HW, got a good project grade, and aced the final, which gave me an A.\n\r\nNot a good teacher, but the grading scheme makes it possible to do well.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T16:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Dayaratna', 'course': 'ECON321', 'review': "Dayaratna isn't a great professor in terms of explaining the material and making it make sense to you. You'll find yourself in class not really getting what he is saying. I resorted to just teaching it to myself from the book. I ended up not even going to most classes just because it was so difficult to listen to him. It almost seems like he doesn't come to class prepared. He hasn't thought through how he wants to teach the material and how to get the material across to you.\n\r\nOn the other hand, I found this class unbelievably easy. I know people have said that Econ Stat is a really hard class, but at least with him, I thought it was easy. Not necessarily because of the material, though, mostly because it's easy to do well in his class. The homeworks aren't hard to do well on because you basically just have to look in the book for the correct formula to use and know how to use it. Then, on the tests, you're allowed back and front cheat sheet, which means you can literally just write down every formula you'll need. You can do this my just looking at all the highlighted stuff in the book. I literally didn't even study, I just wrote all that stuff down and that was good enough. I got a 99.5 on the first midterm and a 100 on the second. Also, he formats your grade so that your Exam 1 grade is the higher between your first and second exam scores. Your Exam 2 grade is the higher between your second exam score and your final exam score. So that works in your favor.\n\r\nOverall, I can say that I didn't really learn much from the class because I could get by without learning it so much. Also, I didn't learn anything from going to class itself and that was frustrating. I didn't think he was a good teacher overall in terms of coming out of the semester knowing the material well. But I thought it was easy, for what that's worth.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-20T18:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Dayaratna', 'course': 'ECON321', 'review': "This guy is so funny. He makes the funniest faces in lecture so sometimes it's hard to pay attention to what he is talking about. He is obviously a stat wiz, but he has a problem getting students to understand the material. He wasn't a bad professor but he wasn't great either. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-29T12:39:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kevin Dayaratna', 'slug': 'dayaratna'}, {'courses': ['EDHD498Z', 'EDHD414', 'EDHD780', 'EDHD420', 'EDHD231', 'EDHD775', 'NACS898', 'EDHD228'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kevin Dunbar', 'slug': 'dunbar_kevin'}, {'courses': ['JOUR262', 'JOUR361'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kevin Johnson', 'slug': 'johnson_kevin'}, {'courses': ['JOUR456', 'HONR218B', 'JOUR300', 'JOUR458L', 'JOUR200'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kevin Klose', 'course': 'HONR218B', 'review': 'Interesting guy, but class can sometimes be a bit dry. Incredibly lenient and understanding for graded papers. Had the occasional guest speaker which was quite enjoyable. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-10T20:04:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Klose', 'course': 'JOUR458L', 'review': "LOVED this class! This is a great class to take, the content was engaging and learning about professor klose's past experiences was so interesting. The TA for the class is also very responsive and great with addressing student concerns. The prompts for the papers were all easy and straightforward, and several class periods we watched movies. I actually enjoyed going to class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-07T13:02:24Z'}], 'name': 'Kevin Klose', 'slug': 'klose'}, {'courses': ['PSYC309C', 'PSYC100H', 'PSYC303', 'UNIV100', 'PSYC332'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kevin McGann', 'slug': 'mcgann'}, {'courses': ['BSCI417', 'BSCI223', 'CBMG688L', 'CBMG688A', 'CBMG688C', 'BISI899', 'CBMG688L', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kevin McIver', 'slug': 'mciver'}, {'courses': ['FMSC381', 'FMSC780', 'FMSC600', 'FMSC190', 'FMSC750', 'EXST030', 'FMSC810', 'FMSC606', 'FMSC190', 'FMSC601', 'FMSC190', 'FMSC381', 'FMSC190', 'FMSC601', 'FMSC780', 'FMSC810', 'FMSC190', 'FMSC601', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC190', 'FMSC190', 'FMSC190', 'FMSC381'], 'average_rating': 4.8889, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kevin Roy', 'course': 'FMSC381', 'review': "I'm just gonna throw this out there - Kevin Roy changed my life. Ok, maybe not. \r\nBut FMSC381 with Dr. Roy *was* one of my favorite classes of college - it opened me eyes to so many new aspects of our society that I was simply unexposed to for the first 20+ years of my life. \r\nAlso, Professor Roy is just a great lecturer. He brings in a lot of statistics and relevant, practical examples that really highlight the points he is trying to convey through out the course, Plus, he really keeps your attention, if you know what I mean. The only downside of the class is that it's at 9am. But honestly - it's worth it. \r\nThere are a bunch of assignments and papers, but they are all very doable if you give yourself enough time. Also, Dr. Roy is a very fair grader, so if you put in the work, you'll likely do well.\n\r\nA genuinely sweet professor, really interesting course content, and a class that changed my outlook forever. Takeittakeittakeit!\n\n\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-19T11:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Roy', 'course': 'FMSC381', 'review': 'Dr. Roy is a great lecturer, he lectures outside of his power point slides. If you pay attention in class and keep up with the readings this class should not be difficult. There are two projects in this class but if you start them early you will be fine. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-07-20T12:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Roy', 'course': 'FMSC190', 'review': 'My favorite. Just a kind, chill dude. You will not regret taking a class with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-03T15:49:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Roy', 'course': 'FMSC190', 'review': 'Awesome guy. Class is super easy. Guaranteed A- or more if you put literally the slightest bit of effort.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T20:53:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Roy', 'course': 'FMSC190', 'review': 'Take any class you can with Dr. Roy!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-04T15:04:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Roy', 'course': 'FMSC190', 'review': 'Great teacher, super understanding, class was very fun and easy, especially the father interview.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-12T22:03:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Roy', 'course': 'FMSC190', 'review': 'AMAZING CLASS!!!!!! SO INTERESTING!!!!!!! if you put in enough work, the assignments are meaningful and easy to do well in. PAY ATTENTION IN CLASS AND FILL OUT THE REVIEW SHEETS and you will be SET for the exams. The class has an essay, project , exams, and discussion posts to complete your grade. This is helpful because no particular assignment is determines your grade. TAKE THIS CLASS W PROF ROY!!!!!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T04:57:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Roy', 'course': 'FMSC190', 'review': 'This class is very easy and you honestly don’t really need to go to the lectures as the information is common knowledge usually. However, he does not believe in giving on 100s. He also does not give out A+. You will have to write two papers, one midterm, final, five movie discussions, and Friday quizzes. There is no class on Fridays and he’ll give you a 5 question quiz instead. There is a group project that was really easy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-09T14:52:51.433326Z'}, {'professor': 'Kevin Roy', 'course': 'FMSC190', 'review': "Learned so much in just three weeks. Genuinely considering adding Family Science as a major because of him and this class. If you need SCIS or whatever other gen eds this class does TAKE IT because it will totally change how you view men, no matter what your gender is. You can do a week's worth of work in one day. He has only one weekly zoom meeting at a random time and it's not required just extra credit, totally doable with whatever you've got going on during break. Fits in really well with a lot of different disciplines, like crim, psych, soc, health, public policy, etc just a really engaging topic no matter what you study.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-30T17:52:17.951198Z'}], 'name': 'Kevin Roy', 'slug': 'roy_kevin'}, {'courses': ['EDPS301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kevin Shindel', 'slug': 'shindel'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338B', 'EDHI338M', 'EDHI338A', 'EDHI338C', 'EDHI338W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kevin Webb', 'slug': 'webb'}, {'courses': ['THET291', 'THET293', 'THET110', 'THET294', 'HHUM206'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Khalid Long', 'course': 'HHUM206', 'review': 'Khalid is a great dude. Will miss him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-04-11T22:33:35Z'}], 'name': 'Khalid Long', 'slug': 'long_khalid'}, {'courses': ['PHYS171', 'PHYS122', 'PHYS275', 'PHYS373', 'PHYS276', 'PHYS485', 'PHYS685', 'PHYS121', 'PHYS274', 'PHYS174'], 'average_rating': 2.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ki-Yong Kim', 'course': 'PHYS122', 'review': "Dr. Kim is a great professor! I don't know what these other reviews are talking about. Yes, he has an accent. So what? He does explain well, and he genuinely cares about how well his students do. He makes himself very accessible with multiple office hours and quick responses via email. He does the coolest demos ever! Sometimes I felt more like I was watching a magic show than sitting in physics lecture. I was actually excited to go to class, and I don't even like physics! Just go to class! He even made the class before every exam a review session and told us exactly what to study. If you go to class, pay attention, and do what he says you will do well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-23T18:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ki-Yong Kim', 'course': 'PHYS122', 'review': 'He was not very good at conveying information for the course. Boring lectures. Thick accent. I learned from the book. Big curve though.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-08-23T15:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ki-Yong Kim', 'course': 'PHYS171', 'review': 'He is one of the worst teachers I have ever had. When he is teaching he makes too many mistakes in his equations and does not give good explanations. The book is twice the teacher he is. You must have the book required because that is where you actually will learn. Do not get this professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-16T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ki-Yong Kim', 'course': 'PHYS174', 'review': "You won't learn anything from this guy, seems to hate teaching/answering questions. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-18T08:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ki-Yong Kim', 'course': 'PHYS142', 'review': "He's not the best lecturer. He likes to prove theories and doesn't test on them. Doesn't really encourage questions.\r\nIt's amusing to watch him try to figure out how to make the demos work. He's also a really nice person.\r\nBasically, if you study really hard and write good cards (you're allowed one for the first test and additional one for subsequent tests), you'll be fine. He curves a lot.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-18T21:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ki-Yong Kim', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'I have never taken physics and I am disappointed with this. He is a sweet guy but the problems on the exams and homework make you infer so much... If you come into his class with no background knowledge in physics you will do poorly. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-10-29T02:16:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Ki-Yong Kim', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "I had never taken a Physics class before, and the amount of knowledge he expected you to know ahead of time didnt seem fair. He has a very thick accent, which I feel like isnt that big of a problem, but his way of explaining does not come off as very helpful. In my eyes, he's almost TOO smart to be teaching a basic physics class. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-07T20:37:35Z'}], 'name': 'Ki-Yong Kim', 'slug': 'kim_ki-yong'}, {'courses': ['ENGL301', 'ENGL728', 'ENGL130', 'ENGL410', 'ARHU158I', 'ENGL403', 'ENGL408B', 'ENGL414', 'ENGL478N', 'ENGL719B', 'ENGL308B', 'ENGL308B', 'ENGL373', 'ENGL408C', 'ENGL403', 'ENGL414', 'ENGL308B', 'ENGL130'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kim Coles', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': 'Kim Coles is an incredible, incredible professor! ENGL301 is a notoriously useless, disliked class, but Coles\' version was my favorite class since starting at UMD. Professor Coles is incredibly knowledgable and passionate about what she teaches, and she is a very understanding professor. For example, I emailed her after the submission deadline had passed asking to redo a paper, and she allowed me an extension to improve it. She also pushed back the reading schedule when most of us had not done the reading one day, no penalization. She isn\'t an "easy" professor, but she understands being a student is hard, and she prioritizes learning and discussions over her pre-set format. Class is way more fun if you do the readings, which in my opinion were always very rich and interesting! (We read Love songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and Felon: Poems by Reginald Dwayne Betts, for some examples!)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-05T17:13:56Z'}], 'name': 'Kim Coles', 'slug': 'coles_kim'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM324', 'COMM398A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kimberley Hannah-Prater', 'slug': 'hannah-prater'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kimberly Bethke', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "Kim is funny and doesn't want to grade all the bs work as much as you don't want to do it. Basically in every class you sit down, listen to a guest speaker's presentation, and sometimes reflect. The final project? Anything you want on something we did in the class. \n\r\nThe last class? A pizza party. 'Nuff said.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-17T12:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kimberly Bethke', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'She is awesome. take her univ. other ones are annoying and boring with a lot of useless work but her class is so much fun.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-24T04:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kimberly Bethke', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Plan on listening to her talk forever and ever. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-08T20:48:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Kimberly Bethke', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "Ms. Bethke is a fine teacher. She loves to talk and tell stories about being an advisor, but the class is not hard and she gives enough time to do assignments. She is incredibly unorganized but it doesn't really matter as the class is so simple with so few assignments. I can't imagine you can go wrong with any UNIV100 section and Kim is no exception", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-18T02:02:18.126667Z'}], 'name': 'Kimberly Bethke', 'slug': 'bethke'}, {'courses': ['EDCP870', 'EDCP771', 'EDCP671', 'EDCP774', 'EDCP655', 'EDCP789W', 'EDCP772', 'HESI489', 'EDCP798A', 'EDCP799A', 'EDCP776', 'EDCP788', 'EDCP788', 'HESI489'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kimberly Griffin', 'slug': 'griffin_kimberly'}, {'courses': ['FMSC170'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kimberly Van Putten-Gardner', 'course': None, 'review': "She's great. It was such a fun class. It was a great environment where the class can discuss relevant topics openly. You do need to do some work, but not hard at all. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-09T00:52:02Z'}], 'name': 'Kimberly Van Putten-Gardner', 'slug': 'putten-gardner'}, {'courses': ['CCJS105', 'CCJS653', 'CCJS452', 'CCJS451', 'CCJS621', 'CCJS342', 'CCJS632'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kiminori Nakamura', 'slug': 'nakamura'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101S', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL101C', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL281'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kirk Greenwood', 'slug': 'greenwood'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL211', 'ENGL278T', 'ENGL255', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kisa Lape', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'good', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-18T23:42:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Kisa Lape', 'course': 'ENGL395', 'review': 'She was such an amazing professor and really cared about her students. She has given students extensions if they needed them and was willing to meet with you if you needed extra help. I highly recommend taking her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-01T17:24:24.112767Z'}, {'professor': 'Kisa Lape', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Super understanding, kind and accessible.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-27T01:03:05.246537Z'}], 'name': 'Kisa Lape', 'slug': 'lape'}, {'courses': ['GEMS397', 'BUDT733', 'BUSI630', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'BMGT808G', 'BUDT758T', 'BUSI681', 'BUSM761', 'BMSO603', 'BUSO759', 'BUSI798P', 'BUSM788P', 'BUSO788P', 'BMGT808G', 'BUDT758T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kislaya Prasad', 'slug': 'prasad_kislaya'}, {'courses': ['GEOG498N', 'GEOG798', 'GEOG331', 'SOCY498B', 'GEOG738D', 'GEOG788N', 'GEOG601', 'GEOG738E', 'GEOG788D', 'GEOG498B', 'GEOG614', 'MEES620'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Klaus Hubacek', 'slug': 'hubacek'}, {'courses': ['BMGT392', 'BMGT477', 'BMGT110F', 'BULM758B'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Koki Nagata', 'course': 'BMGT477', 'review': 'Koki is nice, however NICE DOES NOT EQUATE TO A GOOD PROFESSOR. He is terribly disorganized and does not have any idea of how the structure of the course works. I understand he has a bit of a language barrier, however he CANNOT articulate the course material effectively. He made all the groups redo completely the group project 3 different times because he could not make up his mind on what he wanted from us. Also his exams were overly specific on random topics of material. I WISH GARY COHEN STILL TAUGHT THIS COURSE. Koki is neither engaging nor a professor I found to learn meaningful content from. AVOID', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-29T20:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Koki Nagata', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great teacher, has a strong accent so its kind of hard to understand him. The exams are unbelievably easy. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-23T21:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Koki Nagata', 'course': 'BMGT298F', 'review': "Really nice guy, very smart and knowledgeable. Final was ridiculously difficult, especially for a one-credit.\r\nHe said that he didn't curve, but my raw score in the class was an 83.5, and I ended up with an A, but I wouldn't expect that anymore, with the business school ratcheting up it's expectations. Just read the case studies, show up to every class, and get ready for a tough final. Good luck!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-25T16:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Koki Nagata', 'course': None, 'review': "professor is a nice person. he's understanding and always willing to help. exams are difficult. you need to read the textbook and know the powerpoint slides inside and out to do well on the exams... bleh. this class is a challenge but i dont think it's impossible to do well. \n\r\nextra credit assignment worth 2% to the final grade. group project. one individual case study due. if you do bad on this one, he gives you a second chance with an optional case study. he gives practices quizzes. the questions are: which of these statements are false? which of these statements are not false?... i didnt find the quizzes helpful for the obvious reason. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-12T13:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Koki Nagata', 'course': 'BMGT477', 'review': "Prof. Nagata is awesome. He always smiles and is willing to listen to students. He teaches classes by powerpoints. Do go to the class and take notes especially when he gives answers to the questions on the powerpoints. The class can be boring sometimes but the material he covered in class will be on the exam.\r\nThe two exams can be challenge. Focus more on the powerpoints and lectures notes and less on the book for exam preparation. \r\nI didn't like the course at first because I am an International student and don't have much knowledge about supply chain management. Mr. Nagata gives me a lot of help.He is the best prof. I have ever had.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-12-25T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Koki Nagata', 'course': None, 'review': 'Helpful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-04-09T23:07:19Z'}], 'name': 'Koki Nagata', 'slug': 'nagata'}, {'courses': ['MATH461', 'MATH673', 'AMSC762', 'AMSC760', 'AMSC673', 'AMSC674', 'MATH674', 'MATH424', 'MATH462', 'MATH462', 'AMSC762'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Konstantina Trivisa', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': 'She is a really good professor. I recommend to take her class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-12-19T10:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Konstantina Trivisa', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Really good teacher made class really easy. No curve at the end though. needed .5 to get an A in the class but she didn't give", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:40:51Z'}], 'name': 'Konstantina Trivisa', 'slug': 'trivisa'}, {'courses': ['HONR238A', 'HONR238D', 'THET110', 'HHUM106', 'BSCV302', 'BSCV191', 'BSCV309', 'BSCV309C', 'EDCP108I', 'BSCV181', 'BSCV191', 'BSCV301', 'EDCP108I', 'BSCV302', 'BSCV181'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': "Rothman is a really nice professor and the class is interesting. The musicals and work she gives aren't time consuming, but it can get a little repetitive to always be watching musicals and reading 5 pages about said musical. The thing I dislike most is how harshly she grades; this is an honors course, so you would expect it, but she takes off a LOT on essays without having given you a rubric to guide you through the writing process. There aren't very many assignments, however, which is a plus. I would recommend this class if you're a strong writer, but still be wary even if you think you're amazing. I was used to As on papers and got a B on the very first paper I wrote for this class since she grades like an English teacher.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-12T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Dr. Rothman is very engaging. Although I only took this class for the GenEd, I ended up sort of liking theatre... and I am a chemistry major. I am actually really embarassed that I got an A- in this class because it was so simple. The first half of the course, in my opinion was more fun. We learned about what theatre was. The second half, however, was extremely boring and dense. She talked about the history of theatre, which was EXTREMELY boring and dense. So due to that, my grade dropped from an A+ to an A-. Then again, I procrastinated a lot too during the second half of the semester. Anyways, I recommend taking Dr. Rothman. She's great! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-08-24T18:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Rothman was a very engaging professor. She obviously knew a lot about theatre and had a lot of connections in the DC theatre world, so we got to meet and hear from several theatre professionals over the course of the semester. The seminar was much more involved than most of my other classes--there were field trips, almost weekly quizzes, and group projects--but most honors seminars are pretty involved, and the trips were pretty fun. There's a lot of participation in the class, but Dr. Rothman encourages everyone to talk and is very open to all different points of view. If you have time and some interest in theatre, I would definitely recommend her theatre classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-27T14:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "It's a really great class. It's a decent amount of work, but the information is easy to understand and it's fun. I actually became a Theatre major after taking this class because it was so great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-13T15:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'Take Thet110 with Rothman! shes an amazing professor and she really makes it interesting.\r\nThe class is relatively easy.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-20T19:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Dr. Rothman is a good teacher and she makes Theater as interesting as possible for someone that doesn't particularly love theatre. But she isn't very involved in how you do in this class, rather, it's all about your TA. Some of the TAs are good but some can make your life hard.\n\r\nThe course is not as easy as it seems and is actually frustrating. There are 2 exams, 2 papers about plays you have to see, 1 group performance (where you memorize lines and do costumes), and weekly quizzes. There are also various extra credit opportunities.\n\r\nI took this course to fulfill a humanities credit and it was pretty frustrating overall. The performance was a lot of work and the papers were annoying. Not a hard course, but definitely not easy.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-06T00:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'Prof Rothman is an awesome professor. She is hilarious and always keeps the class interested. This semester she made Thet110 much harder than it should be.\r\nAwesome prof but class is much harder than it should be', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-19T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "If you need to wipe out an arts requirement, THET110 with Rothman will probably do the job.\n\r\nRothman herself makes lecture interesting enough but a good amount of the material is kind of bland. You'll constantly wonder when you can finally get to the kind of 20th century theater that made you take the class in the first place (hint: it's not until the last week of class).\n\r\nExpect weekly quizzes in discussion that are manageable but annoying nonetheless. Throw in a couple quizzes in lecture at the end of the semester for good measure (read whatever needs to be read and you'll probably be fine). \n\r\nShe gives lots of extra credit and the exams are pretty easy if you show up to class and take anything vaguely resembling notes. Old exams are similar to the current exams so finding someone who took the class prior or checking out Koofers will probably help.\n\r\nA little more work than I'd like for getting rid of an art requirement but it's easy nonetheless. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-18T18:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': None, 'review': "So long as you do nothing but agree with her all the time and have no opinion, you'll pass. It seems the only way to get an A is if she likes you and she will definitely make it obvious who she does and does not like. Extremely time consuming and definitely not worth taking.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-06-26T11:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': "Okay, seriously, I made an OurUMD account just so that I could rant about Rothman. That's how much I disliked her. The class itself is interesting if, like me, you enjoy musical theatre. You can do other homework or something during the mandatory movies she makes you watch, so its not too much of a waste of time, and most of them are pretty good. The thing that I hated in this class was that you were forced to agree with her all the time in class. Protip: She loves Stephen Sondheim so much that she would go straight for him (too bad he's gay!). So if you happen to like something that she hates she will rip your response apart. Just trust me, agree with everything that crazy woman says. The only way to get out of class is to have a signed note from the health center or your doctor. Any other reason is inexcusable. And don't even think about leaving early or arriving late, even for a legitimate reason. She will take off all your participation for the day.\n\r\nMy advice is to just try to speak once to twice a class period, never have an original opinion and have an extremely open mind. You will watch the most God-awful musical ever about this gay transsexual he/she trying to escape Berlin. It is ALARMING. Just be prepared. I got an A because I can write well and I know how to keep my mouth shut about my opinions. Good luck.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-13T17:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': "Dr. Rothman wants you to engage in the material and be involved in class. However, you should only take this class if you enjoy musical theater already, or want to enjoy musical theater. It's not a class that requires much thinking, as all of your homework assignments are to watch musicals and read articles, but this can take between 2-5 hours a week, depending on how many musicals are assigned. I think the grade distribution (93% A) is a bit misleading, as no one slacked off and didn't put a significant amount of time and effort into the class. That being said, I would strongly recommend this class to anyone who intends to watch musicals. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T13:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'She is pretty cool and quirky. There is a lot of material in this course but it\'s not too bad if you study a little bit before the exams. You are "forced" to see 2 plays during the semester at CSPAC and write an assignment on each. 2 exams, quizzes, 2 play assignments, and there is a lot of extra credit opportunities. Easy A if you do the extra credit. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-19T13:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': "Prof. Rothman is a really good professor. She is genuinely interested in this course and makes it pretty fun.\n\r\nHowever, to be honest, I personally didn't like the class. Make sure that if you're signing up for HONR238D that you thoroughly enjoy musical theatre. Its a big time commitment. You have to watch 2 hour musicals twice a week. She's a pretty easy grader, but it is completely possible to get a B in this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-31T07:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': "Dr. Rothman is super nice, a great speaker, and a lot of fun to talk to. Make sure to show up to class everyday to get participation points (you can lost 2% for every class you miss), and make sure to have interest in musicals before signing up for this class, because it won't be awfully fun if you have zero interests. The homework generally consists of watching a musical every week, which honestly isn't stressful at all. The class consists of an in class presentation, about 3 very short papers, and a final presentation. Not too much work, but these few things do take up a bit of time, especially since their are very few guidelines for these assignments. Also their is a lot of extra credit available!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T18:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': None, 'review': 'Awesome Professor. She is very understanding, and excels at creating thoughtful class discussions. One of the easier honors seminars. However the many theatre trips over the course of the semester become time consuming, although fun. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-07T19:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'Initially, the only reason I took this class was to get credit for my HA Core.\r\nIn the end, it was the same reason, but I actually learned interesting material in here.\r\nI was in the 3:30 class, so I did fall asleep occasionally, but since I sat in the front, it wasn\'t too bad.\r\nThey give points based on attendance, so unfortunately you do have to come to EVERY single class.\r\nReally - COME, because the TA\'s have a paper with the student\'s faces on it, so once they know your face and don\'t see you are there, they will mark it down.\r\nShe\'s really strict on the "no technology rule", so make sure that once class starts you put your phones away and iPods because she\'ll call you out.\r\nOverall it was a good class, she\'s funny, doesn\'t mind dropping a few curse words here and there, and you\'ll walk out feeling like you learned something.\n\r\nOh - 2 papers on 2 plays, extra credit, quizzes every other week, about 5 or 6 plays to read.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-19T14:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "I hated/survived this class. I really don't have any interest in theatre. Rothman is really passionate about the subject, however. There is absolutely no texting in class and she enforces it very well. \n\r\nSo the class is a decent A. I mean people say that it's the easiest A, but it actually isn't. You have to put in considerable amount of effort to get an A. Doing the extra credits, reading the plays, and etc. \n\r\nHonestly, if you are looking for an easy HA course, take MUET210 with Rios. Amazingly easy. I can guarantee that if you have any interest in music, this will be a better choice. If you have any interest in theatre, take Rothman. \n\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-16T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Quite the pleasant instructor. I'll admit her course was light and at the same time interesting. It was overall one of he few courses I took this semester which kept me sane. \r\nCourse requirements : 2 papers, need to see 2 plays( Varies on what UMD is putting on at the time), roughtly 10 short stories and 2 books ( Combined in total it should only be 10 hours of reading). Furthermore there is a potential of 40 extra credit points and 60 points are participation. \r\nIt is overall if you come to class an easy A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-15T13:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': '\r\nI have mixed feelings about Dr. Rothman and this class. Overall, I would recommend 238D for anyone who really enjoys musical theatre or needs a seminar and an HA, but there are a couple things that prevent me from giving her five stars.\n\r\nYes, the semiweekly homework is usually watching a musical and reading a couple articles. But these musicals aren\'t selected for being good or fun to watch; they\'re chosen for representing topics discussed in class. And when they aren\'t fun to watch, they\'re obnoxious timesinks if you want to do well on the quizzes. Dr. Rothman tends to ask a couple pretty specific questions on each one.\n\r\nThe worst part of the class is the big assignments. Dr. Rothman isn\'t very good at having clear expectations for presentations and papers, and the assignments themselves are surprisingly boring. They include a presentation on an assigned musical, a "process paper" about your research on the musical, a review of a live musical, and the final. The final is kind of strange, the only things she requires you do are write another "process paper" and present for 15 minutes. How you present your musical is entirely up to your group. Maybe I\'m just a whiny engineering major, but this kind of work thoroughly upsets me. The only thing I sort of had fun with was the review. Seriously, what the hell is a process paper? None of this stuff contributes to my understanding of musical theatre.\n\r\nNegativity aside, the class discussions were generally quite interesting, and Dr. Rothman is funny and enthusiastic. 20 points of extra credit (to 500 total class points) can be earned in a number of ways. She\'s also very caring, I went to a scheduled "office hour" with none of the work I was supposed to have and she played therapist for a while instead of being annoyed with me.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-07T17:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "This is a pretty easy A is you attend class. The lectures can be boring at times but it isn't too bad. Professor Rothman is engaging and pretty funny. There are a lot of extra credit opportunities which is really helpful. Overall, I recommend taking this class if you need to fulfill a HA core!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-09T22:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Really awesome professor. She makes the class really interesting and I would recomend her to anyone. the downside is that there's a lot of reading and quizzes but with all the extra credit given its almost impossible not to get an A. Do the extra credit and skim the readings and you'll be fine! I got over a 100% with all my extra credit but I did go to every class. I didn't like all the guest lecturers but the class overall was really great and the midterm and exam were fairly easy (if you did the readings and paid attention). I didn't study for the midterm and i got a 99% so don't worry this class is a really easy A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-10T18:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Don't get why everyone was so upset with Prof. Rothman - for such an easy A it's worth at least a little effort. Sure it's not like CCJS or something but for an HA with loads of extra credit, it beats taking a lit class.\n\r\nQuizzes can be annoying at times and she has strict class etiquette (no cell phones and laptops only if you are taking notes and she has her TAs walk around the room to check) but the class isn't that bad. Got through the whole thing and never once opened the book, just SparkNotes for every reading 15 min before class or skim it on ELMS and your'e good.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-25T16:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'Dr. Rothman was one of the most enjoyable teachers I have ever taken. The material in the class is interesting but not difficult. The tests and quizzes are extremely easy and there is enough extra credit to sink ship. The only downside is that the TAs are the ones in control of your grade. I was lucky enough to get a TA who was understanding and an easy grader (Kate Spanos is her name... I highly recommend her), I think the TAs who are actual theatre majors might be a little bit of harsher graders when it comes to the 2 performance papers. \n\r\nOverall, great class that I will dearly miss. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-01-10T15:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': None, 'review': "Awesome class, Dr. Rothman really knows how to manage a discussion in class. In my other honors seminars I have been let down by the more or less terrible discussions, but Rothman asks good questions to get the discussion rolling and then it just takes off.\n\r\nHowever, note that the discussions can be about very disturbing topics. She really challenges you to think outside the box that society has locked us into. At times thinking outside of this box is difficult, but in the end I was really glad that she forced me to think outside of this box. \n\r\nas for workload you have to do one presentation of one of the plays the class has to read, one 10 page play, (which isn't that long if you think about it), lots of mini-quizzes, a response paper to a play you have to see at CSPAC or in DC, and two research papers (one about your research on the play you presented and one about the play you wrote). These research papers are only 3 pages or so. \n\r\nThe class is about a medium on a difficulty scale, but you won't mind doing the work for this class because it is a great class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-08T00:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Honestly this is the worst damn class I've ever taken. Yes, it is the easiest A in the entire world, the tests are a joke, you easily cheat on the quizes without reading, and there is so much extra credit you can get way over 100. On the downside Rothman sucks. I hate her, she's a terrible teacher. She constantly will tell you not to pack up before the end of class and yell and shit. She also goes around the room and picks on students in a lecture class, like stop. Also her wardrobe is a total laughing stock as she owns more button downs that a frat boy. To top it off, the majority of the TA's suck. The only exception is Ann Marie as she is awesome. Erin boone Stelle will yell at you for doing anything, when honestly no on cares about theatre at all. Easy A, but to much goes along with it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-27T13:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': 'I LOVE Professor Rothman! She is absolutely hilarious and very knowledgeable about theatre! Her enthusiasm makes the class fun and interesting. HONR238D took up a fair bit of time outside of class (watching musicals) but a homework assignment to watch a movie is always fine in my books! If you enjoy theatre then you will definitely enjoy her class, and you most likely will not find it difficult. She really cares about her classes, offers a lot of extra credit, and is just generally a fun professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-07T17:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'easy A but never have i been more angry at a professor. during the hour and 15 minutes of hell you could call thet110 professor rothman spends it reading off slides and SCANNING the room looking for people talking, on cell phones, eating, anything that dosent involve paying attntion to her terrible teaching. i think the a is worth it but i promise u she cares more about catching people messing around than teaching the class', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'a', 'created': '2010-03-03T18:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': "Best class I have ever taken! Dr. Rothman is funny, super nice, and knows what she is talking about. You get easy extra credit (10 points for dressing up for Halloween) and your homework is basically watching musicals. The quizzes can be a little tough, but you'll do fine if you pay attention during the movie. The only quizzes I did badly on were the ones where I barely paid attention and only wikipedia'd the plot. There's also extra credit on all the quizzes. You have a couple of presentations and papers, and you have to go see two shows, but it's really not a big deal. As long as you put in a little bit of time (and start your papers early--don't do it the night before or you'll be up til 6 am), you're likely to get an A. Dr. Rothman is honestly the best, and this class was super interesting and really really fun! I looked forward to every class. Take it!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-26T14:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': "Absolutely amazing professor! She cares about all her students and makes the class extremely fun and interesting. Class is almost entirely discussion based, but that is part of what made it so engaging. Dr. Rothman is very knowledgeable and fun. You will learn a lot from this class. Ignore that bad ratings of her because she is one of the best teachers there is.\n\r\nThis class requires a good deal of time, but it is worth every minute. If you don't love musicals at the beginning of the class, you will love them by the end!!\n\r\nTAKE THIS CLASS!!! You will LOVE it!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-24T02:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "This is such a wonderful class. I don't really like theatre but definately did like this class. Dr. Rothman is extremely funny and she keeps students enertained while teaching them the material that they need to know. She knows what she is talking about, and so do the TAs and the guest lecturers. The class mainly consists of a speaker (whether it's Dr. Rothman or a guest), a powerpoint presentation, and discussion of the material. As long as you write down what is on the powerpoint slides and write down things that Dr. Rothman saysare important and will be on exams, you will do fine in this class (I woul sleep half of the time in class and I still got an A). Do the readings assigned also because she does give pop quizzes (the readings are easy and short). The class consists of 13 quizzes (4 of which are pop quizzes) but they are extremely easy if you review your notes (some of the pop quizzes are so easy-like putting your name and birthday on a piece of paper and that's it!). You also have to go see 2 plays and write 2 play reviews, but if you put an appropriate amount of effort into writing these you will get a good grade. There is 1 midterm and 1 final, and they consist of true/false, fill in the blank, short answer, and multiple choice (pretty easy if you actually study your notes and have a basic understanding of the readings). There is also an INSANE amount of extra credit given in this class. You can earn up to 60 extra credit points, so there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to do well in this class if you want to.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T17:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': "I put more time into this class than I did into orgo 2!! This class generally requires about 6 hours of time each week outside of class watching musicals and reading about them. Also, 2% of your grade will be taken away for every class period you miss (or even if you show up late). Her papers require you to follow strict 5 paragraph format with annotated bibliographies (like middle/high school). The only good point about the class was that it got me HA and D core credits.\r\nAnd a word of advice, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU AREN'T INTERESTED IN THEATER", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-23T15:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'This is an easy A if you do the reading and show up. She gives enough extra credit points where you have to not work to not get an A', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-21T14:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'HONR238D', 'review': "Dr. Rothman is the best teacher ever!!! She made the class really fun and she always has the best stories! From Hair to Hairspray will definitely be my favorite class my whole time here at Maryland. Most of your homework is watching musicals and reading articles about them. You have a quiz on every musical, but if you watched it, you'll do fine. She has an extra credit question on every quiz also. You have class discussions on the musical every class, which are very open. I always felt comfortable talking, and I used to hate seminars. You have a presentation on one of the musicals and you have to go see two shows, and a few papers. There's no final for the class. You have to come up with an original idea for a musical and pitch it to the class in groups. There's also a lot of other extra credit opportunities. We got ten points for dressing up like a character from a musical for Halloween. Seriously, just take this class. It's awesome and it counts for two CORE credits (HA and D)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-14T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Awesome class!!!\n\r\nI have no background in theater, never really liked watching or reading plays, and still don't.\r\nHowever, Professor Rothman is great. She's hilarious. There were readings due almost every class, and a quiz every Monday. Some of the readings were long, but there are sparknotes for most of them if you don't have time that week. However, it's better to actually read them if you have time because you'll do a lot better on the quizzes.\n\r\nThere were many extra credit opportunities. I went to see 2 plays at Roundhouse Theater and they were 25 pts each. It was fun going with my friends & the plays were actually very good.\n\r\nI didn't like some of the guest lecturers.\n\r\nAs for the 2 play review papers, they were a little challenging, and were graded a little harshly. And as for the exams, some of the questions were easy, but some required thinking deeply.\n\r\nOverall, greattt CORE humanities credit, I strongly recommend it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-06T06:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Funny and enthusiastic teacher! She tells great stories and the class is a breeze. Don't skip many though b/c she as pop quizzes based on the readings. Still, the plays are short and the quizzes are cake walks. I had a great time!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-25T17:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "If you really want to take THET110, make sure to take it later than 9am..and if you do take it at 9am (which i strongly suggest you don't) make sure you have someone other than Rothman. She will make you sit through the entire lecture...till the last possibly second, and if you leave early there will surely be a question on an quiz/exam that you miss. All of the questions on the exam are those she asks in class, at the very end.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-19T11:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'I enjoyed this class tremendously. Those who are writing the 1-star and 2-star reviews below did not put any time or effort into this class.\n\r\nIf you give a little bit to this class (READ AND TAKE NOTES) you will get a great deal out of it. If you go to every lecture, take decent notes, read the readings and study for 15 minutes before every quiz, you will get an easy A in her class. Good extra credit opportunities as well!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-21T15:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': None, 'review': "To some, the subject matter of the plays in this class may be a turn-off; the more off-kilter topics ranged from bestiality to cross-dressing, but keep in mind that this is a class about those who feel like they are outsiders in American society. Assignments are very reading- and discussion-intense, so if you find that the topics do not interest you (whether you support or are against the topic is, fortunately, not consequential), I'd stay away from this class. The final project was to write a short play and act in someone else's--something else to consider and potentially avoid. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-02-11T02:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'Overall, I did enjoy the class; I haven\'t had much exposure to theater and this opened my eyes to it. However, she is overtly liberal and it was a little distracting to me (not that I\'m a hardcore conservative or anything). I liked her idea for guest lecturers, however they all had different lecturing styles so it was hard to keep up with. She is very frank with what is going to be on the exam, and the tests are very fair. Towards the beginning of the semester there were a lot of readings, but they were interesting and relevant to the class. What mostly broke the deal for me was when she showed something called "Public Cervix Announcement"...if you haven\'t heard of it, be thankful. It was lewd and unnecessary and an example of how her die-hard liberalness got in the way of the class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-20T01:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "WORST CLASS EVER!!! There are 2 pop quizzes in the course as well as readings assigned to each lecture. There are quizzes about the readings and the lectures approx every other lecture. You are required to attend 2 plays and write reviews about them (Harshly graded). On the first day you are told that you MUST attend each lecture and that the TA's have your picture and threaten to deduct points for any missed lectures. This is NOT an easy class to take unless you like readings into specific details about plays. There is also NO curve in the class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-25T18:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Bad teacher. She is mean and does not care about her students unless you are one of a very select few that she decided to like. Lots of quizzes - many have harder questions on them. Class with her is very boring. If you don't like theater or reading or anything involving trying to interpret plays, DON'T TAKE HER! THE CLASS SUCKS WITH HER!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-12-22T15:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Professor Rothman made Thet110 my most fun class this semester.\n\r\nThis class is not a lot of work, there are two required performances to go see at CSPAC, and two-three page papers to write on them. There are also most weeks plays to read, but the quizzes on them are 5 questions long and multiple choice so you don't need to read the plays that in-depth. \n\r\nThe lectures are fun and interesting. She brings in guest lecturers that are directors, actors, dramaturgs. I have a new appreciation for theater and an HA credit. :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-22T00:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "I came into Thet110 somewhat unsure what we'd learn, or how interesting it'd be, but I quickly found it to be a greatly enjoyable class. The lectures are big, so make sure you sit near the front, and stay involved, because if she gets to know you it can be really helpful if you have to makeup a quiz or anything like that, and she's just so nice overall that you just want her to like you.\n\r\nWorkload wasn't too bad - one midterm and one final (non-cumulative), and as long as you take good notes and study them you should be fine. Quizzes about every week, but as long as you at least know vaguely what the play you were supposed to have read was, and you listened in class, you should be fine. For the tests, make sure you've read the plays, though, because they'll be more comprehensive.\n\r\nYou also have to write two reviews on plays put on at CSPAC, but I found those interesting to write also. They're only 2-3 pages, so as long as you take a few notes during the play you'll have plenty to write about, and it won't take you long at all.\n\r\nReally great class, and I look forward to taking her again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-20T16:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'she is great.\r\nmakes class fun and interesting and hilarious.\r\nmany guest lectures which is a drag because she is such a great lecturer. \r\ntake her class if you can.\r\nits easy and she is very entertaining.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-17T18:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'She doesnt teach at all. She has people teach for her. She gives quizes but they are graded unfairly because you never get them back so you have NO idea what answers you got right if you forget what you put. And if your grade is different you cant even prove it! Participation grade is based on if she likes you or knows you from previous classes. there are 200 students so not everyone can get called on! so you better hope your the lucky one who gets called on. Dont take attendence but if they think you are absent they take ten points off! Never take this class with her unless you know her!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-17T14:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': 'Overall I thought the course was simple material. Rothman is an entertaining teacher and she doesn\'t expect you to memorize much. Reading the plays can be a pain because there are quizzes on them, but she isn\'t out to trick you. \n\r\nThe class consisted of 2 play reviews, 8 or so quizzes, 2 pop quizzes, a midterm, and a final. LOTS of extra credit opportunities offered. Very straight forward class.\n\r\nThe only issue I had was that she brought in A LOT of guest lecturers and had the TAs teach some material because it wasn\'t something she was an "expert" on. While I agree with that, some of these guest lecturers were bland or boring and it was not fun to listen to them speak for an hour and fifteen minutes. \n\r\nOverall, a great class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-12T03:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'THET110', 'review': "Awesome teacher. Lots of guest lectures, which can sometimes make the class a bit dull if they're uninteresting, but having a new voice and a new persective on theatre makes this class an easy HA credit. Not too much work. Lots of quizzes (easy, used sparknotes for a lot of the plays and did fine), attendence is a must. She's very animated and has a great sense of humor. LOVED her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-21T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Rothman is the best! Love her teaching style, love the class, even the work made you think as opposed to the usual busy work. For those looking for an actual thought/conversation based honors seminar, look no further.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-01-15T22:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Rothman is really great. She is reasonable, funny, and definitely knowledgeable. She'll help you out if you are ever unclear about assignments and she facilitates discussion very well.\n\r\nHONR219P class assignments included five two-page journals, a presentation and paper, and a ten-page play on a topic of choice that concerns outsider-ship. Most of the non-written work is in reading plays. There are a lot of them, and there are short quizzes on them. Grading is more than fair, but you have to do the reading. The class is almost entirely discussion based.\n\r\nThe class itself is kind of different when it comes to subject matter. The class can really push you to think about what is and isn't acceptable to you and why. If that isn't your cup of tea, I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but overall I think the class is pretty good and that the professor is great. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-29T16:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'BSCV191', 'review': 'I love Dr.Korey, she has made Civicus this year so engaging, if you take the time to email her about your situation then she will accommodate you and be understanding. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-02T04:28:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Korey Rothman', 'course': 'BSCV181', 'review': "CIVICUS has its perks and is not the worst living learning ever. This class is the UNIV100 equivalent and regardless its always going to be an annoying class. However Korey was really annoying and takes points off for every little thing. Being on your phone to check the time, coming in a minute late, etc. she always had a problem with. The assignments weren't crazy and it was a very easy class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:28:57.978438Z'}], 'name': 'Korey Rothman', 'slug': 'rothman'}, {'courses': ['SOCY202', 'SOCY424', 'HONR219K', 'SOCY398B', 'SOCY789D', 'SOCY498M', 'SOCY498B', 'SOCY241', 'SOCY498T', 'AAST424', 'SOCY699R', 'SOCY699E', 'SOCY749', 'SOCY682', 'SOCY442', 'SOCY499', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY498D', 'SOCY224', 'SOCY676', 'SOCY224', 'SOCY310', 'SOCY224', 'SOCY616'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kris Marsh', 'course': 'SOCY224', 'review': 'Best professor ever!!!! All we did in this class was watch the Boondocks and talk about it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-02-15T17:36:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Kris Marsh', 'course': None, 'review': 'The same thing as the last review, all we did was watch boondocks and post 1 discussion board a week and you get a free A. Attendance is mandatory though which is a hassle for an 8 AM class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-09-15T05:43:46.873167Z'}], 'name': 'Kris Marsh', 'slug': 'marsh_kris'}, {'courses': ['ENME489L', 'ENME444', 'ENPM808C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Krishnanand Kaipa Narasimha', 'slug': 'narasimha'}, {'courses': ['HDCC209B', 'HDCC208G', 'HDCC209D', 'HDCC106', 'HDCC208L', 'HDCC208M', 'HDCC105', 'HDCC379', 'ARHU338'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Krista Caballero', 'course': 'HDCC105', 'review': "Krista is a good instructor. She teaches well and is verrrrry artsy, so if you work that to your advantage, you're golden.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-02-15T02:22:47Z'}], 'name': 'Krista Caballero', 'slug': 'caballero_krista'}, {'courses': ['EDHI672', 'GEMS202', 'GEMS102', 'GEMS208T', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS208E', 'GEMS100', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS208F', 'GEMS497', 'GEMS208A', 'GEMS208B', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS496', 'EDCP789', 'GEMS208C', 'GEMS208D', 'GEMS104', 'EDCP888A', 'HESI672', 'GEMS208Q', 'GEMS208R', 'CHSE338P', 'EDHI338P', 'GEMS208Z', 'GEMS208M', 'GEMS208Q', 'GEMS208R', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'EDCP888A', 'HESI672', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP888A', 'HESI672'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kristan Skendall', 'slug': 'skendall'}, {'courses': ['ENES100', 'ENES232', 'ENPM672', 'ENES100A'], 'average_rating': 1.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kristen Hines', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': 'Hands down once of the worst women I have ever encountered. She was incredibly condesending, insulting, and unprofessional throughout the whole course. She once told me I reminded her of her old boss, because he "was retook thermo and was stupid too." She would insult and gossip about students when they left the room to go to the bathroom, and once spent ten minutes of class explaining how affermative action is the only reason UMD has female engineering students. She is a living walking nightmare; aviod at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-08-18T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kristen Hines', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': "I had Hines for 232 and yes she definitely knows what she's talking about but she is very condescending. I went into office hours for the very first time on the first week to ask for help, and when I asked my question she looked at me like I was crazy and that I should've known the answer. If a student asks for help I think that a professor should be wiling to help and not criticize. On top of that, she told me in front of several students that she think I should drop the class. I ended up getting a 92% and therefore a 79.7 in the class, but she still gave me a C. And when I asked her about it, she sent a mass email to all of her sections pointing me out and saying that students like me should not be begging for a grade. I wasn't begging, I just thought that because of my improvement I at least deserved a B in the class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-09T16:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kristen Hines', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Kristen was only okay. She is an extremely nice woman, and I do feel like she cared about the class. However, the first 6 weeks of lecturing were insufferably boring and I felt totally unprepared for the weekly homeworks. Some of this is due to the class structure, but I still think she could've done a better job of teaching us. Once we got to the build stage of the class she was significantly better, offering encouragement and making us care more about the assignment. I love the enthusiasm she brought to the 2nd half. I would've given her a 5 star review for the 2nd half of the class, but that first half was so brutal and boring I had to settle with a 3. Still a pretty easy A though.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-04T01:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kristen Hines', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': "She's a quirky teacher with a cool personality who clearly loves to teach thermo and wants to see her students succeed. That being said, she is not a great lecturer and her notes are very messy. I find it hard to follow her and consequently feel unprepared and lost when doing homework assignments.\n\r\nI would try to take other professors like Calabro, but she is the only one teaching this semester.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-10-17T23:25:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kristen Hines', 'slug': 'hines'}, {'courses': ['HESI315', 'HESI318W', 'HESI418E', 'HESI318A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kristen Rupert', 'slug': 'rupert'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kristi Adams', 'slug': 'adams_kristi'}, {'courses': ['KNES155N', 'KNES155O', 'KNES157N', 'KNES132N', 'KNES487'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kristi Tredway', 'slug': 'tredway'}, {'courses': ['SPHL498F', 'PHSC389', 'PHSC491', 'PHSC497', 'SPHL389', 'MIEH309', 'PHSC389', 'PHSC399'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kristin Cipriani', 'slug': 'cipriani'}, {'courses': ['BMGT298F', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kristin LaRiviere', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "Kristen is an unbelievable UNIV100 instructor. She is energetic and engaged, and you can really tell that she cares about her class. She really understands student life, and is full of great tips and advise. Just do the weekly assignments (they're not hard at all) and speak up in class and it's very easy to get an A+.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-17T21:19:12Z'}], 'name': 'Kristin LaRiviere', 'slug': 'lariviere'}, {'courses': ['EDCI288L', 'EDCI424', 'EDCI425', 'TLPL475', 'EDPS301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kristin Sinclair', 'slug': 'sinclair_kristin'}, {'courses': ['HESP406', 'HESP648B', 'HESP648A', 'HESP422', 'HESP620', 'HESP639B', 'EXST030', 'HESP648B', 'HESP418B', 'HESP422', 'HESP648A', 'HESP648B', 'HESP418B', 'HESP620', 'HESP648B', 'HESP639B', 'HESP648B', 'HESP648B', 'HESP728', 'HESP422', 'HESP648A', 'HESP648B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kristin Slawson', 'slug': 'slawson'}, {'courses': ['AAST498I', 'HESI418A', 'AAST378', 'EDHI338T', 'EDHI338B', 'EDHI338I', 'CHSE338N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kristina Mascarenas', 'slug': 'mascarenas'}, {'courses': ['GVPT170', 'GVPT473H', 'GVPT479H', 'GVPT473', 'GVPT479G', 'GVPT770', 'GVPT808C', 'GVPT873', 'GVPT770', 'GVPT170', 'GVPT870', 'GVPT473H', 'GVPT479G'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kristina Miler', 'course': 'GVPT473', 'review': 'Reasonable. Would probably take any class taught by her so long as the subject matter was of interest to me. Assessments are fair, grading is more or less 20% participation, a midterm, a final, and 1 paper. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-11T06:49:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Kristina Miler', 'course': None, 'review': 'Look, Miller is not bad, she has decent lectures, but there are some minor but annoying issues. One, I know that we are doing work online, but her lectures are all prerecorded on Panopto in such horrible quality that you might as well ignore them, just like I did. You get 2 textbooks, if you read them properly and take even the most basic notes you will pass. We did not have a midterm due to online school, but 2 papers. For me they were easy, but for many kind of difficult. Discussion was not really necessary, but did not detract from the class overall. Not a bad class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-26T13:57:47Z'}], 'name': 'Kristina Miler', 'slug': 'miler'}, {'courses': ['HESP624'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kristine Pietsch', 'slug': 'pietsch'}, {'courses': ['COMM401', 'COMM661', 'COMM458C', 'COMM700', 'COMM698F', 'ARHU158J', 'COMM760', 'COMM304', 'COMM458E', 'COMM469G', 'COMM428D', 'COMM458E', 'COMM304', 'COMM711', 'COMM304', 'COMM760', 'COMM711', 'HNUH278B'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kristjana Maddux', 'course': 'COMM304', 'review': 'Professor Maddux is great. She has personality during lecture, & understands her students. The class is very straightforward & easy to do well in. Read the articles, & do the in class assignments & the class is nothing to stress about.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-10-27T18:08:45.833879Z'}, {'professor': 'Kristjana Maddux', 'course': 'COMM304', 'review': "Great person, super understanding, and wants you to succeed. Don't be afraid to participate and ask questions. The material can be a lot but the lack of solo, in person exams makes up for it. I appreciate how everything is with a group and/or online.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-11T21:25:44.708928Z'}], 'name': 'Kristjana Maddux', 'slug': 'maddux'}, {'courses': ['ENGL272', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL352', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kshiti Vaghela', 'slug': 'vaghela'}, {'courses': ['GEOG415', 'GEOG788J', 'GEOG416', 'GEOG431', 'GEOG788N', 'GEOG788F', 'GEOG202', 'GEOG788F', 'GEOG431', 'GEOG431', 'GEOG788F'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kuishuang Feng', 'course': 'GEOG202', 'review': "Really nice professor. He's straightforward with his explanations and really cares about his students. There's only one midterm which is honestly pretty easy and no homework except for making two presentations throughout the semester with the addition of a final paper. There's also another essay that can be completed for a bonus of 5% and two quizzes throughout the semester as well. The final is also easy (no trick questions) and I would highly recommend this class as it's really interesting!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-18T05:33:08.476442Z'}, {'professor': 'Kuishuang Feng', 'course': 'GEOG202', 'review': "Dr. Feng is okay. He cares very much and his main goal is to help each student succeed, and he is very flexible and reachable. The reason that he's only okay is that he has a thick accent, which makes him very hard to understand. The content he teaches, the content in the textbook, and the content on exams are not completely parallel. Personally I chose to focus on the textbook material, and that got me an A-. As long as you spend some time studying the material, it's super easy.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-25T19:32:34.483414Z'}], 'name': 'Kuishuang Feng', 'slug': 'feng_kuishuang'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338A', 'EDHI338C', 'EDHI338W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kumea Shorter-Gooden', 'slug': 'shorter-gooden'}, {'courses': ['JAPN102', 'JAPN101', 'JAPN201', 'SLLC199J', 'JAPN202', 'JAPN301', 'JAPN302', 'JAPN201', 'JAPN202', 'JAPN101', 'JAPN101', 'JAPN201'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kumiko Akikawa', 'course': 'JAPN102', 'review': "I had her for JAPN102, and she was cool. Her personality is a bit serious, so you may not have as much fun as in other Japanese classes, but her grading is *very very* reasonable! She's also very cool if you talk to her outside of class. You may feel a bit pressured in her ACT classes, because she usually makes you(and your partner) perform in front of the whole class instead of being able to do it from your seat. She will also cut you off if you didn't memorize the CC well enough, or get nervous, but she will give you a chance to re-do it usually. Like I said though, her grading is very reasonable, so you most likely won't have to worry if you take some time to prepare. You can tell she tries to make things fun sometimes, but she's very serious about her work so she can come off as a bit strict/serious compared to Seya or Inoue. Overall she's cool, and definitely fun to talk to outside of class. If your class is lively and energetic, she'll loosen up a bit as well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-09-30T01:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kumiko Akikawa', 'slug': 'akikawa'}, {'courses': ['BUDT758B', 'BMGT404', 'BMGT808Q', 'BUDT758X', 'BMGT808X', 'BUDT737', 'BUDT704', 'BMGT808X', 'BUDT704', 'BUDT737', 'BMGT404'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kunpeng Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_kunpeng'}, {'courses': ['SOCY305', 'SOCY431', 'SOCY220', 'SOCY405', 'SOCY699M', 'SOCY839', 'SOCY671'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kurt Finsterbusch', 'course': 'SOCY305', 'review': "Finsterbusch is a nice enough guy, but his readings are horribly outdated and he's a boring lecturer.\n\r\nHaving said that, it's incredibly easy to get an 'A' in his class. All you have to do is praise his work (which he assigns and spends most of the semester teaching). Seriously. It's impossible to overpraise him.\n\r\nI made a bunch of mistakes on my midterm (for example, I constantly attributed quotes and ideas to the wrong authors), but because I stuck in mindless praise for Finsterbusch's work throughout my essays, I got a 'B'. I'm pretty sure this technique helped me in my final paper and the final exam, too.\n\r\nSo take this class if you know how to suck up and are looking for an easy 'A'. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-27T12:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kurt Finsterbusch', 'course': 'SOCY305', 'review': "All who commented before me are dumb...this guy is old, he is boring, and he makes it hard to attend class...BUT he is the man. He doesnt care if you show up or not, as long as you semi-know what your talking about he gives you a good grade. He feels that its YOUR job to attend class and its YOUR education, he could care less whether you go or not. So dont bash him saying hes boring. I just took his class and yeah i went like half the time, and it was boring, but he knows what hes talking about if you just listen. This is a good guy and is a good teacher, ya'll just dont respect or appreciate your own education enough, therefor dont respect him enough.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'b+', 'created': '2011-12-15T23:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kurt Finsterbusch', 'course': 'SOCY431', 'review': 'I am absolutely offended that the University of Maryland prides itself on being an elite public university and tries to pass off this course as "education." This course is a complete joke. The professor rambles for an 1 1/2 hours two times a week about material completely irrelevant to sociology. Attendance is atrocious in class, the times I actually decided to waste my time by going to class there was always less than 10 out of 30 students present. I received a B on the midterm, in which I did not study or do any required readings. I simply rambled writing down senseless gibberish. The professor, who clearly needs to retire, did not even comment on my work and simply gave me a grade I absolutely did not deserve. I laughed out loud when I got that exam back. I feel robbed of my education by being required to take this class and the University of Maryland should be ashamed that this class even exists. Utterly disgraceful.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-01T11:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kurt Finsterbusch', 'course': 'SOCY431', 'review': 'HORRIBLE CLASS. Loves to hear himself talk, and what he says is only interesting to himself. The first review summed up the class perfectly. \r\nThis class may count for multiple requirements within the sociology major, but DO NOT TAKE IT. One of the worst classes I have taken at UMD, and I am a second semester senior.\r\nOnly teaches from his own papers and puts down all other ideas. It seems like the only way to get an A is to praise his work, even if you disagree.\r\nI stopped attending lecture after the first few weeks because I became so aggrivated.\r\nThe only good thing is that he is not a super strict grader, but I think he does this because he knows everyone would fail on his standards.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-02T14:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Kurt Finsterbusch', 'course': 'SOCY305', 'review': "This guy is older and more boring than dirt. The subject material is very interesting, but he presents in the most boring way. He is like 80 years old and just needs to retire. Don't take a class with him!\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-13T11:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Kurt Finsterbusch', 'slug': 'finsterbusch'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kyle Stephan', 'slug': 'stephan'}, {'courses': ['BMGT438D', 'BMGT491', 'BMGT438G', 'BMGT490H', 'ENES490H', 'ENES489Q', 'ENES491', 'ENES478A', 'BMGT438A', 'ENES489A', 'BMGT438A', 'ENES489A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kylie King', 'slug': 'king_kylie'}, {'courses': ['MUSC129K', 'MUSC129L', 'MUSC629K', 'MUSC629L', 'MUSC129K', 'MUSC129L', 'MUSC629K', 'MUSC629L', 'MUSC129K', 'MUSC129L', 'MUSC629K', 'MUSC629L', 'MUSC129K', 'MUSC129L', 'MUSC629K', 'MUSC629L', 'MUSC129K', 'MUSC129L', 'MUSC629K', 'MUSC629L'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kyoko Okamoto', 'course': 'MUSC129K', 'review': 'Overall a rather difficult instructor. Although knowledgeable, she expects about 2 or 3 credits of work/time for a 1 credit class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-23T22:55:25Z'}], 'name': 'Kyoko Okamoto', 'slug': 'okamoto'}, {'courses': ['ENCH640', 'ENCH490', 'CHBE442', 'CHBE333', 'CHBE490', 'ENCH781', 'ENES602', 'EDSP652', 'CHBE442', 'CHBE490', 'CHBE640', 'CHBE781', 'CHBE690', 'CHBE442'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Kyu Yong Choi', 'slug': 'choi_kyu_yong'}, {'courses': ['BMGT302', 'BUDT758T', 'FIRE170', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE270', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE298', 'CMSC320', 'MSML640', 'MSML640'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Kyungjin Yoo', 'course': 'FIRE270', 'review': 'Pretty harsh grader for no damn reason. Don\'t choose this stream, drop it as soon as you possibly can. This is the first class where people are getting grades in the 50s range when they work their butts off. If you work hard enough to be the teacher\'s pet, you might do fine if you make this class your priority over every of your other major classes. Oh, also, he basically doesn\'t care about the fact that you take other classes too, and that your other classes are much harder, because this class is supposed to be your life and if you can\'t handle the time commitment, he will only keep grilling you and subtly threaten to fail you for "not doing anything"\r\n\r\nIn other words, this is your first and final warning.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-22T03:51:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Kyungjin Yoo', 'course': 'FIRE198', 'review': "I have not experienced any of the things mentioned in the other review. Sometimes he doesn't make expectations clear and he can be a little bit intimidating at first but he's chill and will pretty much give you 100% as long as you do what you're supposed to. I have not been frustrated with him at all.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-02T22:11:41Z'}], 'name': 'Kyungjin Yoo', 'slug': 'yoo'}, {'courses': ['AMST328N', 'COMM107', 'COMM200', 'ANTH468F', 'RELS319N'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'L Gordon', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Dr. Gordon is a tough grader but is a lot of fun. She's crazy but it keeps the class interesting. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-22T23:33:42Z'}, {'professor': 'L Gordon', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Tough grader. Fun but also has no filter, and can come off very rude sometimes. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-16T00:56:37Z'}, {'professor': 'L Gordon', 'course': None, 'review': 'Tough grader, but she has no filter and is a little crazy. at least the class is fun? ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-07-21T16:37:01Z'}, {'professor': 'L Gordon', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Really bias grader. you kinda have to sell yourself to her (and the class) so she likes you. Goes off on really long tangents and is all over the place but doesn't give too much work, watch out for the writing center visit requirement. sometimes you can get other work done in her class too.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-07-28T13:32:38Z'}], 'name': 'L Gordon', 'slug': 'gordon_l'}, {'courses': ['ANTH689C', 'ANTH220', 'ANTH266', 'ANTH468O', 'ANTH222', 'ANTH498O', 'ANTH452', 'ANTH467', 'ANTH468C', 'ANTH688O', 'ANTH689O', 'ANTH652', 'ANTH322', 'ANTH667', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH722', 'ANTH222', 'ANTH322', 'ANTH452', 'ANTH467', 'ANTH652', 'ANTH722', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH266', 'ANTH322'], 'average_rating': 4.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'L Jen Shaffer', 'course': 'ANTH266', 'review': 'She is a really fun professor. Talks about the material and loves when students come to office hours just to talk. Easy class if you follow the rubric for papers, and no exams!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-04-18T22:50:45Z'}, {'professor': 'L Jen Shaffer', 'course': 'ANTH266', 'review': "She's passionate about the material that she teaches, I love that. No final exam... just a large project. In class participation is a large portion of your grade so attendance is required. Loved this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-01T16:58:52Z'}, {'professor': 'L Jen Shaffer', 'course': 'ANTH222', 'review': 'I get the impression Dr. Schaffer is trying to be relatable, hip, and cool -- she curses in lecture, jokes about sex, etc. -- in reality this often makes lecture incredibly awkward. I don\'t mind "cool" instructors, but Schaffer tries so hard it\'s uncomfortable.\r\n\r\nLecture style aside (it\'s bearable, but annoying), there were other problems with the course: the weekly quizzes often expected outright wrong answers, the labs had vague questions or questions that didn\'t reflect the materials we were given, TAs didn\'t have enough time to prepare for the labs, we were issued the wrong book, and lectures disagreed with the book.\r\n\r\nThe most difficult parts of the course were when I was struggling against Dr. Schaffer\'s course design, not when I was struggling to remember the material. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-18T22:00:43Z'}, {'professor': 'L Jen Shaffer', 'course': 'ANTH266', 'review': 'I just finished a semester with Dr. Shaffer and honestly she was one of the nicest professors that I have had at umd. Her class weighs heavily on discussions which for a subject such as climate change, it should have more of a discussion based lecture. She is very passionate about her work and is very welcoming when going to office hours. As long as you put in effort in her class you should get a good grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-08-31T19:31:40Z'}, {'professor': 'L Jen Shaffer', 'course': 'ANTH222', 'review': 'Shes really knowledgeable and clearly cares about the material shes teaching and her students. She includes relevant videos to better explain the information. Also, having all of the lectures on elms was really helpful, whether I missed a class or needed a refresher on the materials. Sometimes can be a little awkward, but otherwise the material is interesting. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-08T01:45:05Z'}], 'name': 'L Jen Shaffer', 'slug': 'shaffer_l_jen'}, {'courses': ['ANSC255', 'MEES698V', 'ANSC688Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'L Woods', 'slug': 'woods_l'}, {'courses': ['AMST429R', 'AMST450', 'AMST418M', 'AMST603', 'AMST418O', 'AMST628B', 'AMST628K', 'WMST698O', 'HONR258R', 'AMST340', 'AMST328T', 'AMST628M', 'AMST878A', 'AMST878B', 'AMST878C', 'HNUH218Z', 'AMST498L', 'AMST601', 'AMST878A', 'AMST878B', 'AMST878C', 'AMST878A', 'AMST878B', 'AMST878C', 'AMST878A', 'AMST878B', 'AMST878C', 'AMST601'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'La Marr Bruce', 'course': 'HNUH218Z', 'review': 'I wouldn\'t say that Dr. Bruce is a terrible professor, but nor would I call him a good one. He did not use ELMS to enter grades of any sort. He insinuates that a significant portion of your grade is based off of in-class participation (or his perception of it anyway—he didn\'t keep any sort of tally). However, at the very end of the semester he told us that everyone could still get an A depending on how their final essay went, essentially completely discrediting the fact that some students hardly participated during class. The only way to gauge how you were doing in his class was during the "mid-semester" 1-on-1s he had with every student. During these 1-on-1s, I believe he told every single person to talk more during class, which (believe it or not) wasn\'t actually possible because the entire class was already filled with discussion. Grades and real-time feedback would have been more helpful. Responses to emails, if you were lucky enough to get one at all, were extremely brief and unhelpful.\r\nLa Marr isn\'t a BAD professor, and I did fine in the course, but I still wouldn\'t recommend anyone take classes with him.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-03T01:02:45.124673Z'}], 'name': 'La Marr Bruce', 'slug': 'bruce'}, {'courses': ['HESP701', 'HESP700'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'LaGuinn Sherlock', 'slug': 'sherlock'}, {'courses': ['ENES152', 'UNIV100', 'ENES108'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'LaWanda Kamalidiin', 'slug': 'kamalidiin'}, {'courses': ['CHEM648K', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM648G', 'CHEM898', 'BCHM889A', 'CHEM889C', 'CHEM889D', 'CHEM648P', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM648P'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lai-Xi Wang', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "For starters, Dr. Wang is a very nice professor and clearly cares for his students which I appreciated throughout this semester. However, I will say that his class was challenging especially given the language barrier that exists. Over time, it got easier to understand what he was saying but with a subject like orgo, communication is essential. Nevertheless, I appreciated how he gave us homework assignments (granted the textbook questions are difficult) and had clicker questions. I would say his exams are harder than average for 241 but he keeps the format for each exam the same so you know what types of problems to anticipate. If you do the homework problems (in Dr. Wang's words) and use Orgo as a Second Language, you will be able to succeed if the subject does not come naturally to you. The TA Steven is very knowledgeable and discussion is typically helpful so I would advise attending. The curve is always dependent on the semester but I had an 82% with the class average being a ~61%. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-18T14:56:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Lai-Xi Wang', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Approachable professor who wants to help his students succeed. Dr. Wang's lectures are a little dry but very thorough and closely follow the textbook. Exams are very predictable and consist of nomenclature, reactions, mechanisms, synthesis and a few questions on general concepts. His exams are almost the exact same as the practice exams he gives out. Take his class if you wanna coast and get a good grade, but he doesn't teach as much content or as in depth as Stocker/MS. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-01-03T01:13:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Lai-Xi Wang', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. Wang is a fantastic professor who is very willing to help us. His lectures are exactly as straightforward and packed with information as you could expect for such a dense course. He does occasionally speed through lecture slides, but he always posts them after class so you can go back through and take notes on what you missed. That being said, the mechanisms are usually not in the lecture slides, he'll just draw them on the chalkboard so make sure you always copy them down. He also will post a couple pages of homework problems from the textbook after each lecture; these aren't graded but they're very helpful. GSS practice problems were also super helpful (and sometimes were almost identical to what was on the exams).\r\nYour grade is entirely based on exams: 3 midterms and the final, that's it. That definitely puts a lot more pressure on the exams, but I felt that they weren't excessively difficult, and they never had any surprises. They were graded insanely fast too, usually by the end of the day, and the averages were typically in the high 60s/low 70s. Dr. Wang also gives us practice exams for the midterms, and always lets you know beforehand which mechanisms you should focus on. One big tip: don't think that certain things won't be on the exam because they seem trivial or random. Chances are, there will be one question about it. \r\nThere is a lot of memorization in orgo, regardless of what professor you have. So be prepared for that.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-18T16:51:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Lai-Xi Wang', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "honestly, best professor I have ever had. His practice exams are extremely helpful, but make sure you truly mastered each question on the exam to be able to apply the material to a similar problem. He gives optional homework which may help your understanding of the material. Carefully review his lecture slides, because he may give a hint to topics that are important. His curve was generous and the TA's discussion is very important. Mechanisms are also important to take note of, they are not on the slides. TAKE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but remember, this is organic chemistry two, it requires a LOT of work. So if you don't put in that work, the professor does not matter, it is up to you to practice and master the material. there is usually free orgo 2 tutoring from AXS 2x/wk, so take advantage! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T04:41:42Z'}], 'name': 'Lai-Xi Wang', 'slug': 'wang_lai-xi'}, {'courses': ['GEOG432', 'GEOG498L', 'GEOG331', 'GEOG732', 'GEOG788L', 'GEOG333', 'GEOG421', 'GEOG202', 'GEOG333', 'GEOG732', 'GEOG202'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Laixiang Sun', 'slug': 'sun_laixiang'}, {'courses': ['WMST263', 'WMST496', 'WMST468B', 'WMST621', 'WMST298D', 'WMST628', 'AASP298I', 'AASP498F', 'THET428W', 'WMST379A', 'WMST379B', 'WMST618'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lamonda Horton-Stallings', 'slug': 'horton-stallings'}]
[{'courses': ['ENST233', 'ENST434', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Z', 'ENST689Z', 'ENST689', 'ENST689I', 'ENST689E', 'ENST388', 'ENST334', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST233', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'GEMS396', 'ENST334', 'ENST388', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'GEMS397', 'ENST233', 'ENST472', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': 4.9091, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': "Professor Yonkos is awesome. The class is extremely straightforward and moderately interesting. Theres a ton of content each unit (the book isn't necessary, just go to lecture and discussion), but the tests are easy if you know the big picture concepts and pretty much follow his study guides word for word. The group research project (7-10 page paper and group presentation) is annoying but they grade it very leniently. Definitely take this class if you're an environmental studies student looking for an elective", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-10T12:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': "Professor Yonkos is amazing. You can tell he really cares about his students. He was always positive and energetic. Although the information for this class could be tedious to get through, he always tried to make it interesting.\r\nHis office hours were by appointment so I was hesitant to make an appointment if I only had one question, therefore I never did. However I wish I did because he seems like a great professor to have a connection with for references and whatnot.\n\r\nOnto the class itself. I'll admit I didn't try hard at all in this class, yet I still managed to get a B (83.3%). I attended lectures for the first third of the semester then stopped because he put his lectures online (however I rarely looked at them). For the exams, the only studying I did was look at the google doc based on the review sheets he provided. I never even purchased the book and everything on the exam, he had on his slides so if you want to save money, don't bother buying it.\r\nThe class had three exams--2 midterms and a cumulative final (which was mainly content from the last third of the semester, then ~5 repeat questions from the first two exams). I got a 78%, 84%, and 74% respectively.\n\r\nOnto discussion. Discussion is mandatory; you receive participation points for attending/reading assigned texts prior to it. There are small (2-3 questions) pop quizzes based on discussion readings assigned. However, these weren't posted on ELMS so I think they're just factored into your TA's opinion on whether you were doing your job or not. The discussion readings were interesting and discussion was fun when people were actively engaged. I got a 4/5, though I only ever said one thing in that class.\r\nThere was also a 7-10 paged research paper and a group presentation based on it to do. Never been fond of writing--I complain when I have to write more than 2 pages. I got a 90% on it with most points taken off for formatting, so don't worry about it; especially if your topic is interesting (your group gets to select). Got a 91.5% on the group presentation as a group and a 92.5% as an individual with little preparation so don't sweat that either.\n\r\nOverall, this class is great, especially with Yonkos. If you actually attend class and go over notes, you'll likely get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-18T22:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': 'Yonkos is an overall solid professor. ENST 233 was far from challenging but he did what he could to make it interesting. If you need a GPA booster, this class is a good choice.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-08-20T03:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': "I love Dr. Yonkos! He's approachable, friendly, and can be funny. His lectures are a bit boring but he does try hard to make the material interesting - most of it is.\n\r\nUnfortunately most of this class is straight-up memorization. I got an A+ by going to lectures (though he does post slides online) and just memorizing the concepts on the study guides he gives out for every test, including the final.\n\r\nDiscussion is a bore but oh well. Don't worry about the 7-10 page term paper - usually your topic is mildly interesting so it's not too hard to write. Anyone who honestly tried hard got an A in my class.\n\r\nDO NOT buy the book for this class. It is USELESS. You will never, ever use it and he will never, ever test you on what's in it, though he encourages you to read it. It's incredibly dry and uninformative.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-04-25T23:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': 'Most of the reviews are pretty accurate. He cares about whether students are learning or not and he is very energetic and appears to be enthusiastic about the subject. His slides have a lot of information and yes he does post all of it online, however taking notes on what he says in class or paying attention makes the difference between an A and a B. \n\r\nThe class is a decent amount of work, but it is graded fairly leniently. 15minute group presentation, 7page research paper, 3 easy tests, random attendance quizzes and discussion is a waste of time. I recommend doing the discussion readings so that you can enjoy that class since participation is mandatory.\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-05-18T11:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': "I agree with everything that has been said by the others. Yonkos is a really good guy, and ENST233 was very interesting. \n\r\nHe packs a lot into his powerpoints, so that can be a bit of an issue when it comes to studying for the test. Still, I really enjoyed the class and recommend it to those who don't care much for the sciences. I really learned a lot. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T23:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': 'The professor is a decent guy--get to know him and he\'ll teach you lots! He\'s one of the most approachable instructors on campus. He actually cares about whether or not kids learn a thing or two from his lectures. Very understanding. \n\r\nHe\'s a great speaker, enjoyed listening to his presentations, but his teaching style overall is a bit bland. Taught straight from the slides (and graciously posted them up after every class)--which was both good and bad. Good because it\'s a straightforward study tool. Bad because it didn\'t excite me as much as I would have liked. \n\r\nIn general, test averages ranged from B+ - A-. Half of the final grade is based on a group presentation graded by fellow discussion members and TA. \n\r\nNot a bad experience, just didn\'t like the course content itself--focused too much on problems/theory and not enough on solutions. Also, the main evidence for most of the claims were based on "biased statistics" (the professor\'s exact words); pretty disappointing. \n\r\nBut, if you need a class to boost your GPA, take one with Professor Yonkos. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-07T23:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': "This class is pretty straightforward, and Dr. Yonkos is a nice professor. He puts his Powerpoint slides online, which is nice, but I still recommend you attend lecture because then the slides make more sense and it helps reinforce the material.\n\r\nThe material itself isn't too challenging. There are three exams-two midterms and a final, with the final being cumulative-though Dr. Yonkos does provide review sheets for the exams. The exams consist of a combination of multiple choice and short answer/definitions. Some of the questions can be somewhat tricky, but Dr. Yonkos is pretty generous with the grading, so no need to worry too much. If you pay attention in class and study, you should be fine.\n\r\nIn addition to the exams, there is a group project (later in the semester) involving a presentation and a paper-as well as the fact that you have to attend the other presentations (for participation grade). The group projects aren't terribly difficult, and even though Prof. Yonkos decides the groups, you still have a choice of topic. My advice would be not to procrastinate and to just try to be as fair as possible when dividing up the work.\n\r\nAll in all, this should be a good, straightforward class. I took it purely as an elective, although many students in the class take it as an ENST requirement. The class covers a lot of different topics on a general, basic level, but nontheless, it's interesting, relevant, and important material especially in regards to current environmental issues.\n\r\nGood luck!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-27T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': "Dr. Yonkos is great. He's a very effective lecturer (keeps it interesting and tells you just a little bit more than you need to know). Also, his exams are pretty easy as long as you pay attention to the class-- the book won't help you much if at all because he tests based off of his lectures. The discussion was a little boring, but my TA did her best. The paper isn't that bad; as long as you don't obviously add fluff, you should get an easy A on it.I spent a solid 3 hours on a 9 page paper and got a 98.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-30T20:36:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': "Dr. Yonkos is an amazing professor. He clearly explains the concepts and uses his time wisely. He takes up the entire class time but he doesn't require a textbook. So he uses up all his time to cover everything so we don't need to take time outside of class to read a textbook. He adapted well to the online environment. He cares about his students and is willing to work with them. I liked the class a lot because I learned a lot and it wasn't stressful. I would take another one of his classes if I could. I recommend taking his class over another professor if there is one.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-22T22:31:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Lance Yonkos', 'course': 'ENST233', 'review': 'Dr. Yonkos is a very knowledgeable professor who enjoys teaching this class, making it much more interesting. A lot of material in this class can seem pretty repetitive and boring, but Dr. Yonkos makes it all seem more interesting. Exams this semester were online and pretty easy if you either went to the lectures or at least looked over the slides he posted.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-04T03:28:02.204038Z'}], 'name': 'Lance Yonkos', 'slug': 'yonkos'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM331'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lara Hollenczer', 'slug': 'hollenczer'}, {'courses': ['INAG204', 'INAG102', 'INAG203', 'INAG104', 'INAG199', 'INAG132', 'INAG299A', 'INAG299B', 'INAG253', 'INAG252', 'INAG110'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Larisa Cioaca', 'slug': 'cioaca'}, {'courses': ['THET223'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Laronika Thomas', 'slug': 'thomas_laronika'}, {'courses': ['CMSC420', 'CMSC828B', 'CMSC426', 'CMSC498I', 'CMSC798F', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC389Y', 'CMSC389M', 'CMSC828J', 'ENEE899'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Larry Davis', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "This class was the worst class I have taken at the University of Maryland. The teaching style is horrible. Larry Davis simply reads off the slides and rarely has an example of what the data structure looks like and how it should behave. And if there is an example, it's just pictures in the slides that are missing all the steps. I put in a significant amount of work into this class and the grades I received were too low. You receive no sympathy whatsoever. If you have been having trouble in another class and been overwhelmed with work you will not receive any consideration. I spent hours and hours every week teaching myself the material so I have put significant effort in this class. In addition, the projects have a 30% late penalty, meaning that the highest you can get is a 70%, it is a pointless late deadline, you would actually do worse if you kept trying. This was a horrible experience and I do not wish to go through this again. This has confirmed to me that professors are not meant to teach. It's reflected in their attitude towards the class. It's only a few that do actually enjoy teaching but from my experience here at the CS department most profesor like Larry Davis should not teach. I taught myself everything this semester. I should not be paying so much money to teach myself everything. I highly recommend the department to consider hiring Lecturers instead. When I was taught by a lecturer there was a significant difference, they actually enjoy their job and better convey the material. Professors like Larry Davis should remain focused on their research instead of making students suffer through this. Just because you have a higher degree or a tenure does not allow you to treat students the way you treat them. I am extremely upset about this class, I was really excited about this class but Larry Davis turned it into a nightmare. If you can avoid taking this class with him please do.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-11T18:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Davis', 'course': 'AAST233', 'review': "I'm a science major and I only took this class because I had to fulfill my gened requirement, but I ended up enjoying it. It wasn't boring and Professor Davis is really engaging and makes you comfortable about participating in discussions. Even if you don't like to talk in class, he also gives you a chance to save your participation grade by participating in discussions on ELMS. He's also very approachable and has office hours before each class. Exams are reasonable, and he even gave us the questions beforehand for the final to give us all a break. He is kind of a hard grader, but gives good feedback on how you can improve on your next paper. He does assign a lot of reading, but it's doable. Very cool professor. Plus he has an awesome sense of style. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-12-12T03:49:00Z'}], 'name': 'Larry Davis', 'slug': 'davis_larry'}, {'courses': ['KNES498T', 'KNES405', 'KNES305', 'KNES305H', 'KNES305', 'KNES305H', 'KNES405H', 'KNES305', 'KNES305H', 'KNES405', 'KNES405H', 'KNES305', 'KNES305H', 'KNES405', 'KNES405H', 'KNES305', 'KNES305H', 'KNES405', 'KNES405H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Larry Plotkin', 'course': 'KNES498T', 'review': "Plotkin is a great instructor because he not only teaches you the material that you need to know for this class, but also shares with the students his knowledge from being in the work force as a chiropractor, CSCS, and a few other titles. He teaches the material in a easy going manner and is very personable in terms of approaching him for questions and concerns. I am in his 498T class now and I can definitely say that it is one of if not my favorite class I have taken in the KNES dept. The material is dense and very anatomy based, but you walk out of the class every day knowing you've learned something new that you can use even just in your everyday life. The only draw back of the class is that it is at 8am because he works at his practice afterwards, but the tests and quizzes are all very fair and he has a great teaching style. Great class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-11-01T11:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Plotkin', 'course': 'KNES405', 'review': "KNES405 is hard and will absolutely require studying for the 4-5 oral practicals. The practicals are split between the five units based on body section, you draw two random and demonstrate your ability to find origin, insertion, nerve innervation and actions it does as well as a muscle test on a partner in 10 mins. If you're a PA, PT, Nursing or Pre-med major, ect. I would highly recommend this class, but be prepared to memorize a lot! Written exams are online and at home with lockdown. Dr. Plotkins and Dr. Klossner teach this class together and they are both awesome. They really want you to learn and understand the material and can be flexible in ensuring you succeed. You only fail this class if you don't show up or continuously fail to study for OPs. Grading is fair and the TA (shoutout Sammy!) we had this semester really gave his all in ensuring the written papers (one group and one short individual) and exam prep were helpful! As hard as I found it to be at times I really do value this course and how passionate the entire teaching team was. Not an easy A but well worth it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-13T16:27:08.024212Z'}], 'name': 'Larry Plotkin', 'slug': 'plotkin'}, {'courses': ['UNIV389A', 'ARMY105', 'ARMY202', 'ARMY302', 'ARMY201', 'ARMY301', 'ARMY401', 'ARMY106', 'ARMY402'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Larry Rentz', 'slug': 'rentz'}, {'courses': ['AREC620', 'AREC240', 'AREC241', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'HNUH258A', 'AREC620', 'HNUH258A', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC280', 'AREC620'], 'average_rating': 2.1, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'AREC241', 'review': 'Lars was great and very passionate about the course material, but the lectures were very dry and hard to watch. I enjoyed learning from him but he also grades very strictly on papers.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-04T02:20:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'HNUH258A', 'review': 'Lars is clearly very passionate and helpful with assisting students, but good god is the coursework terrible. I was legitimately so close to dropping this class in the first week because of the amount of homework he assigned us. The pacing of the class leaves much to be desired, and it doesn\'t help that his lectures are incredibly dry and devoid of personality. I think Lars should take an oral communications class because he has the most monotonous voice I\'ve ever heard. I can only imagine him overjoyed at the birth of his first grandchild, only for him to say "Yeah, I think that looks good, keep it up" in the most flat tone ever. This is in addition to the papers in the class which are graded harshly and somehow make up the bulk of your grade. If you have the option, DON\'T take this professor.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-11T05:24:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'HNUH258A', 'review': "This is the worst course, and professor I have ever taken in my time at UMD. Starting with the course: I learned nothing about agriculture, and we were expected to teach ourselves R language entirely on our own using a website that was a knockoff of CodeAcademy. Lars Olson added ZERO value to the course, and is an ineffective and incompetent teacher. I have learned nothing from this course and I would encourage the honors college to discontinue this course in its entirety. It is a waste of everyone's time, and I have gained nothing from my time in this course. With regard to Lars, he is unmotivated, cold, uncaring, and could not possibly care less about his students if he tried. The entire fate of this course depends who is in your group, and on how badly he will tank you on an IMPOSSIBLE final research paper. I know that the course options for STEM students in the honors college is slim, and this course appears to be a good choice since it involves data, but PLEASE, I am begging you for your own good, DO NOT take this professor, or this course.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-23T23:30:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'HNUH258A', 'review': "The class was more work than I anticipated for a UH course, but it was doable, and Lars and Derek (the TA) do their best if you have issues with the assignments. That being said though, we had a research paper and research poster due within a day or so of one another for our final grade, so make sure you space out your work instead of leaving things for the last minute (like me) because things will get ROUGH otherwise. I also wouldn't recommend taking the class unless you have some background in coding and you have an interest in agriculture and such already. It's also worth noting this was the first time the course has been offered, so things may change for the better the next time the course is offered. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-29T17:49:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'HNUH258A', 'review': 'This class is absolutely horrid, and I would tell myself a hundred times over last year to not sign up. I was expecting a tolerable Gen Ed with a respectable course load, decent lecturing and pacing, and with interesting concepts but it could not have been more of the opposite. Genuinely some of the most tedious, mind-numbing, pointless work I\'ve done with subpar grades for each due to some ridiculous expectations. Thank the UH department for phasing out this course after this year, because this is NOT IT.\r\nStarting with the coursework, it starts off decently, with the idea that you will need to learn the language R. We then have our workload build up, because we are expected to read "scientific literature" through the "Web of Science" and are expected to utilize this research in our assignments. In detail. this class is learning an entire language for which there are "exercises" where we fill in blanks for some random website, come up with our own topics to research, find our own data for said topic, and come up with the code to clean through all the data and write up the research in a professional manner. For an honors gened, this is absolutely intolerable and inane for work and their expectations are absurd (even with a couple of hours I only got a C on a big assignment), and the fact is an assignment that\'s worth 30% of my grade is still not graded (it\'s been a month since submission) is a display of how unequivocal their standards are for us as opposed to themselves. This doesn\'t even discuss Lars, who I found to be one of the most monotone and mind-numbing lecturers who made going to class made me almost instantly fall asleep. His method of communication is through writing on an "activity log" that he only comments on after class and by walking around in class and asking us about what we\'re doing in our project, without being clear about what he expects. He mostly gives comments about what he thinks is right but hardly gives us direction in what to do or how he grades. This makes the entirety of the course feel both overwhelming and unrewarding, because we have no idea how we can do well on assignments besides putting in more work and hoping he\'s nice on grading.\r\nPersonally, the only thing I have left this class with is a lower GPA and disdain from courses that promise a STEM aspect of research. Overall, this class is an utter waste of time where the lectures provide little benefit, the material is uninteresting, the assignments take too long to do, aren\'t graded in a timely fashion, and have unclear rubrics so if you aren\'t careful then your grade falls in a swift swoop. My best piece of advice is to avoid this course if you care for your grades and mental health.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-14T07:16:11.756398Z'}, {'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'HNUH258A', 'review': 'The pacing on this course if awful. Lars is a really boring lecturer and he expects you to understand things after going through the arguable useless datacamp and his really poorly designed slides. It is impossible to learn R if you are following the schedule of the syllabus and there are huge, time consuming projects that he expects you to use R and do your own research on Web of Science. Major assignments are graded slowly. He even put the final group presentation on a Saturday. Overall, a huge waste of time with nothing gained. Grade is unknown since huge assignments worth 30% of my grade is still not graded after months.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-16T18:32:06.629473Z'}, {'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'HNUH258A', 'review': 'Lars as a lecturer was incredibly monotone and unhelpful as a lecturer. The content for the course was also extremely odd as the majority of class time is spent doing r projects in class that do not help us with assignments and are near meaningless in the long run. The majority of the class are two assignments that you get no help on and are graded rather harshly which is unjust given the lack of support you receive for these individual assignments. I also expected a nice Gen Ed and the course load was definitely higher than I thought, especially with the two large assignments. I still do not know the majority of my grade as the majority of my grade even after it has been over a month since submission. Overall the in-class work was extremely uninteresting and provided little benefit for the most part, the grading was slow and odd, and you are provided with little help on the important assignments in the class. I will say that I was happy with the help and feedback I received while working on the final group project.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T04:49:10.698784Z'}, {'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'HNUH258A', 'review': "The class was extremely boring; major assignments were thrown at us and we were expected to do them even though the things we were taught in class didn't really help at all. The only reason I'm giving three stars is that Lars was helpful to me during office hours when I went and that I somehow got an A in this class after all that struggle.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T17:35:28.690872Z'}, {'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'HNUH258A', 'review': "I hate to say it, but Lars could not get more boring. The course material could have been decently interesting at least, but his presentation of it in an emotionless, droning manner made it absolutely undesirable. The course itself also definitely needs some serious rework to make the workload fair and to make the course content more continuous and fluid. You're expected to have an understanding of statistics only achievable through prior coursework, and you spend the majority of the first half of class learning the coding language, R, from scratch. By the way, R is a super counter-intuitive language, and learning it casually as only a precursor to this class is nearly impossible. On top of this, the way that you learn it is entirely through assignments on a website designed to help learn programming languages, but I feel as if I learned absolutely nothing from the website. After the dreadful, ineffective attempts at learning R, you spend the rest of the class working on three assignments that act as the majority of your grade, which are graded very harshly-- a fact sheet, an egregious research paper that I probably spent 20-30 hours on, and a group project. I was lucky to have a wonderful group, but it's completely random assignment, so good luck with that. \r\n\r\nTo my knowledge, this course is going to continue in the Carillon Communities LLP, so hopefully, those of you in that community will find this and know what you're getting into. The reason I give this two stars instead of one is that I personally enjoyed the content to an extent, but that's just because I'm a computer science/data science nerd and it was only meagerly enjoyable to me personally, and I can assure you that I was that one kid in the class who seemed like he put way too much effort into the class. So take it from me, and don't take this class unless you really enjoy computer science and data science, and have some understanding of statistics already, because otherwise you'll loathe this course and it will tank your GPA.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-30T16:31:41.731752Z'}, {'professor': 'Lars Olson', 'course': 'AREC280', 'review': "Just to let you Carillon people know, AREC280 used to be part of the UH LLP, and was listed as HNUH258A; if you're reading these reviews, AREC280 is identical to HNUH258A, so all the reviews are directly related to the class you will be taking. And just to make it brief, do NOT take this course if you can help it, it's awful and the teacher is awful.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-13T00:52:51.066116Z'}], 'name': 'Lars Olson', 'slug': 'olson_lars'}, {'courses': ['SPAN408O', 'SPAN408J', 'SPAN408D', 'SPAN408A', 'SPAN362', 'SPAN798L', 'SPAN361', 'SPAN798A', 'SPAN408X', 'SPAN798E', 'SPAN698O', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN408F', 'SPAN408T', 'SPAN798Q', 'SPAN408K', 'SPAN798T', 'SPAN798X', 'SPAN363', 'SPAN408K', 'SPAN798D'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Laura Demaria', 'course': 'SPAN408O', 'review': 'very tough course with some long, boring readings and some interesting ones. I was at the top of the class til I turned in an assignment a day late in the last month of the semester, which dropped me to a C. not very sympathetic... ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-22T17:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Demaria', 'course': 'SPAN362', 'review': 'This professor is one of the most difficult and disrespectful teachers Ive ever had. I would literally spend hours working on the readings each night but I would come to class and get horrible grades on the pop quiz. Its not like I didnt study because I spent quite a bit of time making sure I understood what was going on. As far as hos unbelievably disrespectful she is, its absurd. She once told someone that theyre acting like a high schooler because they read the syllabus wrong and did the incorrect reading, and thats just the beginning of how rude she really is. There have been several other instances where shes called people out in front of the class for doing something incorrectly. Telling them they did the wrong thing isnt a big deal but the fact that she does it in front of the class makes her one of the most appallingly impolite teachers I have ever had.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-04-27T13:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Demaria', 'course': 'SPAN362', 'review': "Laura Demaria is one of the best professors I've had at Maryland. The course (like span361 and span363) required a lot of reading of both primary texts and supplemental secondary sources. Demaria did a great job of extracting the most useful information from each text and covered a lot of information in a clear organized fashion. The subjects covered in the course can get a little dry at times but Demaria manages to keep your attention. She does not lecture with powerpoints and such, but mostly uses class discussion to highlight important points needed for the exam. She does expect everyone to come prepared to every class and doesn't do well with people who slack. Through my experience, she has given a pop quiz or 2 because students didn't read the assigned materials.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-09T21:59:00Z'}], 'name': 'Laura Demaria', 'slug': 'demaria'}, {'courses': ['CCJS200', 'CCJS621', 'CCJS620', 'CCJS225', 'CCJS699N', 'CCJS710', 'PUAF689T'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Laura Dugan', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': 'Dr. Dugan herself is brilliant, but I learned very little from lecture. She uses slides that she did not make herself and explains things a little too quickly. I learned most of the material in discussion (shout out to the TA Zach, he was awesome). To study for exams I would recommend going over the discussion worksheets and the practice tests that are posted on ELMS. If you understand how to do these problems, you can easily get an A or A+ in the class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-26T20:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Dugan', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': "This course was super easy and Dr. Dugan was great at presenting the material so it made sense. She gave many real life examples in lecture. However her lectures are on powerpoint. I am used to having my math professors writing on the board, but the powerpoints were easy to follow if already printed out the lectures. Discussion was extremely helpful in preparing for exams. Exams are extremely easy especially because you're given all the formulas needed for the test. They are however written so you just have enough time to finish so you need to know what you're doing on the exams. I was actually surprised that we didn't used any calculus based formulas because those would have made the exams go by quicker, but then again ccjs majors don't take calculus. Overall great professor, TA, and easy course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-06T12:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Dugan', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': "This was a fantastic course and I loved Dr. Dugan. She is a little hair brained at times, but her class is comprehensible and her exams are fair. Her TA's were also fantastic; read through the exams and made sure they were fair and short enough for the time slot. If you go to class and pay attention, or even really just go to discussion for a quick review of the week, you'll do fine. I'm someone who's always hated math and sucked at it, but somehow with very little work in the class I got over a 100 for every exam. Go to discussion, do practice problems and do a few before the exam and you'll do great. Dugan is an amazing professor!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-05-15T18:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Laura Dugan', 'slug': 'dugan'}, {'courses': ['MATH113', 'MATH107', 'MATH240', 'MATH141', 'MATH213'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Laura Iosip', 'course': 'MATH135', 'review': 'Best teaching assistant ever! quite literally would not be getting through math 135 without her. So sweet and uploads the worksheets and answer keys to a website and that becomes super helpful around exam time. She makes everything so clear and does example problems before the quizzes. I wish she could be the professor instead of Casey Cremmins. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-11-20T21:11:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Iosip', 'course': 'MATH135', 'review': 'Learning is easy with her\r\nAlways does practice problems before quiz\r\nUnderstanding\r\nReally teaches the material so you understand\r\nAn awesome person. She is so nice and helpful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-25T22:43:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Iosip', 'course': None, 'review': 'No office hours. Didn’t respond to messages. Seemed like other people were graded more leniently. Seemed like discrimination.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-07-25T17:38:26Z'}], 'name': 'Laura Iosip', 'slug': 'iosip'}, {'courses': ['ARHU319', 'ARHU319B', 'ARHU319B', 'ARHU319B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Laura Lauth', 'slug': 'lauth'}, {'courses': ['PSYC630', 'PSYC624', 'PSYC437', 'PSYC622'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Laura MacPherson', 'slug': 'macpherson'}, {'courses': ['KNES157O', 'KNES161G', 'KNES161K', 'KNES157N', 'KNES161F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Laura Rush', 'slug': 'rush_laura'}, {'courses': ['MUET200', 'MUSC215', 'MUSC215', 'MUSC215', 'MUSC215', 'MUSC215'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': 'Very good professor. Really tries to make lectures interesting. Only issue was papers that she assigned but would still definitely recommend for a good elective class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-10T19:15:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': 'Dr. Schnitker is a very nice, understanding, and helpful teacher. Her lectures go by fast, but are interesting to know and learn. Weekly readings/videos are brief and interesting. There are weekly quizzes based off the readings/videos, but she sends an announcement every week as to what to look for when reading/watching that will be relevant for the quizzes. There are 2 major papers and 2 exams, but all are very fair and straighforward as long as you put in the work.\r\n\r\nShe is very accommodating if you have an issue, so if you talk to her and explain the situation, she will help you. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-26T22:27:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': "One of the best professors and classes at Maryland! If you're interested in music history, take this class. The material and lectures are engaging.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-13T12:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': 'I took this class online. I had no interactions with the professor because her Lectures were-pre-recorded and most of the grading was done by the TA’s. Her TA’s are TERRIBLE. They grade papers harshly and barely communicate with you when you need help with clarifying directions. As an online class...I wouldn’t take it. It seems like an easy A but its not. There’s two papers that will either make or break your grade. Two exams that if you pass barely increases your grade but if you do bad, will drastically decrease your grade. There’s a quiz and weekly discussion per week.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-20T21:01:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': 'Schnitker is a decent professor and the lectures are pretty interesting, but I would only take it if you know you already enjoy the topic. This class was so much more work than it was worth. Literally only got good grades on the 2 papers because I spent an insane amount of time on them. They legitimately seem to think that everyone in the class is a music major or wants to research ethnomusicology with how harshly they grade. The exams were open note, but you definitely need to watch the lectures and take good notes for that to actually help.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T04:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': "I barely interacted with Schnitker because I took this course online, however, this class is so frustrating to take as a non-music major. I took this course to fill a gen ed requirement but it has literally ended up being my worst grade. You'll only get decent grades on the papers if you spend hours on them, and even if you do super well on the exams, it barely helps your grade. The TAs are the WORST, they grade you so harshly- I was excited to take this class at first and learn about the course material but over time it just became more frustrating and annoying more than anything else.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-04-19T19:00:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': "She's so nice. This class was a bit much for a gen ed. The two papers are worth a lot, and they take some time to write. On one hand, this class is nice because you only have to put real effort in for a few weeks here and there. I think it would be a lot more frustrating to take in person than it was to take online. Not the easiest gened, but by far not the worst. As far as a professor goes, Dr. Schnitker is grear. Very considerate and approachable. One thing that bothered me is that the A/A- cutoff in the syllabus was a 94. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-20T00:39:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': "She is a wonderful lecturer. I don't understand the reviews on here. Her TA's were great, and discussions were fun to go to. While the essays were definitely a bit much for a GenEd, they were only tedious, not hard. Great class, interesting topics.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-14T23:56:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': "Engaging professor, fun class. Very minimal effort required most weeks, the only real work I needed to do was for the two papers and reviewing for each exam. If you have decent-to-solid essay-writing skills and are capable of following a rubric, you will do fine on papers. The time I spent on them was reasonable and I found them pretty straightforward. Some found grading to be slightly harsh but I thought my TA was more than fair. Favorite class I've taken at UMD so far. Would absolutely recommend!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-21T16:27:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': 'she is very passionate about her teaching. She is super engaging. She makes the class very very fun.\r\n\r\nthe class itself has a few papers and short quizzes each week that she basically gives us the answers for. I highly recommend', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-11T19:40:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': 'The lectures are very fun and engaging but for the course (MUSC215), it is very demanding to be a GenEd. You have to attend a live performance and write a paper on it. In the whole semester, you write two papers and have quizzes every week along with a mid term and final.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-05T21:57:26.539479Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': 'Very organized and intentional about her teaching which is very much appreciated. Content is interesting if you like music. This course has weekly quizzes given in discussion based on a short article or video, a midterm and final exam, and two papers. I found that everything was very manageable/easy/fairly graded.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-07T13:47:25.966411Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': 'Dr. Schnitker was amazing. She is straightforward, well-spoken, prepared, flexible, and aware of her students’ needs. The workload for this course was much lighter than I’d anticipated; most weeks, the time I spent on this course was <20 minutes outside of class. \r\nDiscussions were fun, my TA was absolutely amazing, and the papers were straightforward. Thoroughly covering everything in the rubrics for the papers was the key.\r\nThe exams were super basic. Write down everything Dr. Schnitker says in class (especially the things the pauses before saying, or repeats multiple times), then fill out the study guide based on those notes. Do this, and you’ll be golden.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-29T04:54:54.590200Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': "Very good lecturer was engaging. This was my only class that I reliably showed up to and wanted to go to. Topics in the class are really interesting. She's a great professor highly recommend", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-04T01:31:26.041718Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Schnitker', 'course': 'MUSC215', 'review': 'Although the professor is great and passionate about her class, this GenEd is way too demanding. There were two papers, the first was 3 full pages and the second was 6 full pages. WAY TOO MUCH. We had two exams and I got a D on both of them. I spent over 5 hours studying for the second exam and still got a bad grade. MUSC215 was my lowest grade out of all my classes this semester. This GenEd is way too much, especially for non-music majors.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-01-22T00:29:44.940887Z'}], 'name': 'Laura Schnitker', 'slug': 'schnitker'}, {'courses': ['EDMS769S', 'EDMS451', 'EDMS657', 'EDMS722', 'EDMS769V', 'EDMS769C', 'EDMS645', 'EDMS655', 'EDMS647', 'EDMS769D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Laura Stapleton', 'slug': 'stapleton'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL471', 'AASP298L', 'ENGL234', 'ENGL472', 'ENGL101X', 'ENGL393', 'AASP478K', 'AASP478N', 'ENGL348B', 'ENGL368D', 'ENGL393X', 'ENGL101X', 'CMLT235', 'ENGL101X', 'ENGL101X', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL101X'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Laura Williams', 'course': 'ENGL101X', 'review': 'The best professor you could have. She was easy in grading and flexible on deadlines. She made the class as easy as it could be. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-08T19:46:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Laura Williams', 'course': 'ENGL101X', 'review': "Really flexible teacher with regard to deadlines. You can submit up to 3-4 hours after a deadline and you'll be fine. Although, ENGL101X is a tough course Dr. Williams does her best to help you. I would advise you to go to her office hours to see what is expected in the assignments. Make sure to read her rubric carefully. The average grade in my class with consistent work is about a B+.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-08T21:36:16.605219Z'}], 'name': 'Laura Williams', 'slug': 'williams_laura'}, {'courses': ['CCJS300', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS300'], 'average_rating': 4.8889, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "I had Dr. Brooks for CCJS 300 and CCJS 340. She is one of the best professors I had here at UMD. Her teaching model should be a blueprint. Her tests contain no tricks. She tells you exactly what sections to go over in the book so you don't read the entire chapter. The rest of the test comes from the clear lecture notes that she presents. She's nice, straightforward, and she cares about her students. I highly recommend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2016-05-19T12:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'Dr. Brooks is amazing! She is one of the best professors I have had at UMD. Her class is very straightforward, and the exams require maybe 2 hours of studying if you attend lecture regularly. She offers extra credit and grades very fairly. I had her for 300 and 340 concurrently, and she was wonderful for both. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-12-04T15:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'SO nice, straightforward, extra credit, exams are simple if you study', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-20T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': 'Excellent professor, I found lectures pretty interesting and on topic. You need to go to class to do well and easy extra credit quizzes. The tests are easy especially if you go to class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T10:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "Dr. Brooks is INCREDIBLE. I had the pleasure of taking two classes with her (CCJS340 and CCJS300) in one semester and I LOVED it. \n\r\nHer exams are very straightforward--they are based right off the notes and the few readings (if you wait until right before an exam to read the textbook, you'll be done within a few hours). \n\r\nFor CCJS300, there really isn't an excuse to not get an A. The computer assignments boost your grade significantly AND you can take them to her before she grades them to make sure it's correct.\n\r\nFor CCJS340, Dr. Brooks makes the material very easy to understand and gives the best notes! Also, there are 5 extra credit points you can get off the quizzes and another extra 5 points you can get from a ride-along.\n\r\nOverall, she is OUTSTANDING. I only wish she taught more CCJS classes!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-15T15:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': 'Professor Brooks is semi-interesting. Some days I can really pay attention, but others I fall asleep. The guest speakers are really interesting and I like that she offers a ride-along as extra credit. However, I think there should be some kind of assignment besides the exams and attendance to contribute to the final grade. I got an A on the first exam and a C+ on the second one, so even though I did the extra credit and barely missed any classes, I might get a B which is frustrating. I also had her for CCJ300, which was a lot better because there are four computer assignments which really boost your grade.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-17T03:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': "Very easy class, but you do HAVE to go to the lectures - there are open note quizzes at the end of every lecture, but they're also very easy and help to pad your grade. Notes are done in an outline format and tests are very easy. She outlines exactly what you need to know from the textbook readings, so don't bother reading the whole sections unless they really interest you.\n\r\nThere are five extra credit points awarded if you are in class the entire semester and take the extra quizzes (she gives thirty and only counts twenty five towards your grade). There are also five extra credit points given for going on a ride-along.\n\r\nWe had six guest speakers this semester and they were all varied and interesting! SWAT, death investigations, K-9, Undercover, Guns and Hostage Negotiation.\n\r\nDr. Brooks is also very approachable and willing to help out any students. She tells a lot of stories that really help the material stick in your head. She takes what sounds like a boring class and makes it very entertaining!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-10T16:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': 'Dr. Brooks is thee most amazing professor ever!\n\r\nShe give the best notes, they are easy to take and easy to study.\n\r\nTests are pretty easy, as long as you go to class.\n\r\nThe readings are not hard either, they have to do with what your learning in class and she tells you what part of the book you will be tested on.\n\r\nAND! she gives a bunch of extra credit! This helps ALOT! if you have a B in the class it can bring you up to an A! She has open book extra credit quizes that are worth 1 point each, and there are 10 quizes in all. And a 2 page ride along paper which is worth 5 points.\n\r\nShe has a bunch of quest speakers that come in who are supposed to be pretty good also. I took the class in the winter so we didnt have them.\n\r\nCrim majors will greatly enjoy this class. Its easy and you actuallyy learn!\n\r\nBtw, I got a 97% in the class! \n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-01-21T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "Professor Brooks was GREAT!!\n\r\nShe gives like 10 extra credit quizzes which can be really helpful...They helped me get a B instead of a C...I missed the first 3 and after I realized we had them, I never missed another one because I never knew when they were coming, but knew I needed the extra grade boost!\n\r\nShe keeps the class interesting and fun, knows how to keep us engaged. Her notes are very thorough and organized which helped me A LOT! \n\r\nI'd take her class again if I had the opportunity", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-23T02:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'There is one thing she does that MAY at first annoy you, but TRUST ME on this, it will help A LOT. There are open-note quizzes during class (once a week, I think) that are short that REALLY help keep the knowledge fresh in your head, give you an easy padding on your grade, and force you to keep taking notes.\n\r\nThe way she structures her notes is also commendable because it makes it SO much easier to study later. She numbers and sub-headers everything. And each section is divided VERY clearly.\n\r\nAdditionally, she gives EXTREMELY helpful review sheets that give exact page ranges of reading that will be assessed on the exam from the book. This makes studying 200 times easier.\n\r\nThis way, you learn a lot and never feel pressured to over-study in case the teacher sneaks something onto the exam. She is very meticulous and specific about what you will be assessed on.\n\r\nOverall, she is very upbeat, has a great personality, covers the material very clearly and effectively, and makes it easy to pay attention and take good notes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-19T14:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'I had her for CCJS300 and CCJS340 and loved her! She makes her notes easy to follow and tells you which sections from the readings will be on exams. She makes an effort to get to know and help her students. I definitely recommend taking her class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-01T15:43:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': 'Awesome professor, very easy lectures to follow, tests are easy to prepare for. Take notes and read and you’ll have no problem!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-20T21:31:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': "Dr. Brooks is one of the best professors I've had! She is very organized and this is the second semester I'm taking one of her classes. She posts all the lectures for an exam ahead of time so you can go ahead if you want, and also you can send her your assignments ahead of time so you can get feedback before the deadline. She is very responsive and cares for her students, so I recommend taking her for every class you can!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-08T16:04:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'I took two classes, both 340 and 300, with her. She is a great professor. The exams are easy and clear, and she provide helps about the projects and homework as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-08-31T16:07:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'I had Dr. Brooks for 300 and 340 this semester. I cannot say enough good things about her. She is the best professor I have had at UMD so far. She wants all of her students to succeed. She holds office hours and offers help on the research assignments, so there really is no excuse not to get 100 on them. If you go to class, take the notes, and read the textbook, you should get an A in both 300 and 340. She also offers extra credit, and is very fair with grading. There are no surprises on her exams - everything that she tells you is on it, will be on it. She keeps even the boring material interesting in class. The guest speakers in 340 are very interesting, and so is the other material she teaches. I really recommend you take 300 and 340 with Dr. Brooks if you want to get an A and have a professor that genuinely cares for her students and respects them.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-25T17:14:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'Dr. Brooks rocks. Super organized, engaging, and adds just the right amount of humor to keep class fun. You will do well in this class, and Dr. Brooks makes sure of that by taking care of her students through office hours and in-class Q&A. Yes, her CCJS300 sections are MWF and I’m not a fan of Friday classes either. But if I had to have class Saturday and Sunday just to have Dr. Brooks as my professor, I would. Seriously, she’s that good.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-08T19:22:44.741569Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS340', 'review': "Such a great professor. I had her for both 300 & 340 and both went well. Dr. Brooks is extremely organized and very clear about assignments/exams. Exams do involve a lot of memorization of class concepts, and some textbook material, but it's all very straightforward. If you take notes in class and do the textbook review guides for 340, there's no reason you shouldn't get an A. Also a lot of great guest speakers in 340, so if you're interested in police work, you have a ton of opportunities to network.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-11T05:07:13.178572Z'}, {'professor': 'Laure Brooks', 'course': 'CCJS300', 'review': 'Professor Brooks is a very good lecturer and keeps a good pace of time between assignments and exams. She is always available if you have any questions or need help. If you are a student who is organized and will read the textbook, you will do great in the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-13T16:15:15.279414Z'}], 'name': 'Laure Brooks', 'slug': 'brooks_laure'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lauren Bach', 'slug': 'bach_lauren'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM324'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lauren Bender', 'slug': 'bender'}, {'courses': ['COMM425', 'COMM426', 'COMM789', 'SPHL611', 'COMM425', 'COMM426', 'SPHL611', 'COMM425', 'COMM426', 'HLSA770', 'COMM425', 'COMM426', 'COMM426', 'COMM425', 'COMM426', 'HLSA770'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lauren Edelstein', 'course': 'COMM426', 'review': 'Pretty forgiving grader, really understanding, and generally more concerned about students learning than performing. Also a really kind person in general! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-24T21:09:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Lauren Edelstein', 'course': 'COMM426', 'review': "She's an awesome person and tries to make the class as easy to understand as possible! The class is fairly easy with the in-person midterm being the most difficult thing. As long as you do her weekly participation assignments, you'll do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-11T21:23:44.027298Z'}], 'name': 'Lauren Edelstein', 'slug': 'edelstein'}, {'courses': ['ENGL245', 'ENGL101', 'FILM245'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lauren Flanigan', 'slug': 'flanigan'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM398X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lauren Hunter', 'slug': 'hunter_lauren'}, {'courses': ['EDUC388', 'UNIV100Q', 'UNIV100', 'EDCP318O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lauren Norris', 'slug': 'norris_lauren'}, {'courses': ['CCJS452', 'CCJS699I', 'CCJS418Q', 'CCJS342', 'CCJS700', 'CCJS663', 'CCJS632', 'CCJS342', 'CCJS632', 'CCJS653', 'CCJS700', 'CCJS632'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lauren Porter', 'course': 'CCJS342', 'review': 'I had Dr. Porter for CCJS342 and thought she was decent. Class never lasted the full time and it was slightly slow but it was easy and she definitely knows what she is talking about.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-01T15:44:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Lauren Porter', 'course': 'CCJS342', 'review': "If you have adult responsibilities (work, etc.) don't expect any understanding. Also, expect your grade to be low because in-class assignments have the same impact as an exam on your overall grade.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-06T19:42:17.075580Z'}], 'name': 'Lauren Porter', 'slug': 'porter_lauren'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lauren Singer', 'slug': 'singer_lauren'}, {'courses': ['CMSC102', 'CMSC216', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC330', 'CMSC132H', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC216', 'CMSC216'], 'average_rating': 3.1602, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Very un-engaging lecturer. Lots of self-studying required.\n\r\nTests and quizzes are nit-picky and unexpectedly difficult, and grading can be inconsistent and unfair at times.\n\r\nProjects are too time-consuming, changed at the last minute a lot of the times, and graded in a way so as to maximize the points you lose. \n\r\nDoesn't grade in a timely manner at all. Focuses too much on just insisting everyone stick to his banal policies and strict expectations.\n\r\nUnapproachable and abrasive at times.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-13T18:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE THIS MAN.\r\nDisclaimer: I understand that many like his style; he's very clear on course expectations, covers almost all content in class, and is a good programmer, conveying concepts clearly and effectively. \r\nSTILL: He's boring. Beyond monotonous and un-engaging. I know that sounds like a me problem, but it's nigh impossible to focus on him for the whole 90-ish minutes, and so many times the tested material is in the small details of what he says, or the tools/materials he explains briefly - and then you find yourself playing catchup. \r\nAlso - always changing project requirements, sometimes to the last day or so. He jokes that this is the only class you should worry about in your semester, but it's painfully true - projects are a pain in the ass if you don't start right away and know what you're doing each time. \r\nTests are a little unfair - practice material either isn't sufficient or doesn't reflect the difficulty of quizzes, etc. \r\nUnapproachable AF.\r\nLots of self-studying is required despite his teaching style. \r\nThis semester they added a lot of material, and so he just kind of charged onwards, covering all these complex threading, library function, etc. concepts and making them a significant portion of the final.\r\nDon't expect any grade-related leniency, or leniency in general beyond one excused absence. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2016-12-13T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Herman is NOT my kind of professor. He is too by the book, uptight and relies on you to learn the material by reading a text book (again not my style). Personality wise he is a great guy. I would like to work WITH him some day but I have no intentions of taking him for a CS course again. His projects were fairly simple. I finished them well before they were due all the time, he always has the best TA's as well. His quizzes and exams are designed to trick you (a methodology I do not advocate) and his lectures tend to be a little dry. He uses the slides like a script. I am relying heavily on the curve just to make it out of his class. Take that for what it's worth. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-12-08T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': '', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-01-18T11:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "He's awesome, but his timing of assignments often left the class scrambling to get things done. \n\r\nIf you can figure out how he runs his class and writes his tests, then you're good.\n\r\nWork hard and you'll do fine", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-12-21T20:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Larry Herman has his pros and cons, but overall I thought he taught the material well.\n\r\nPROS:\r\n-Very detailed and course oriented. Almost never goes off on tangents.\r\n-Likes to use funny analogies to explain concepts in class, which helped me remember more clearly.\r\n-Projects were fair and were more practical than the ones I did last semester for 131.\r\n-Exams were generally easy, and stuck to the practice problems he posts on ELMS.\r\n-His obsession with koalas is hilarious.\n\r\nCONS:\n\r\n-Tends to be abrasive and mean in class sometimes. God help you if he catches you with your phone more than once.\r\n-Typically doesn't fully answer questions from people in lecture because he claims he needs to rush through material, leaving people even more confused sometimes.\r\n-Not exactly the most approachable or nicest person around, which might discourage people from going to office hours.\n\r\nYou'll learn in his course, and you'll learn a lot. But Larry isn't the nicest guy around.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-06T10:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I’ve only taken 2 comp sci classes at Maryland but I definitely learned a lot from Mr. Herman. Starting with the cons:\n\r\nMr. Herman means well but seems to lack skill in social interaction (unless he is disciplining someone). He never seemed to want to look me in the eye when I tried to ask him questions before or after lecture, and talks like a robot at times. He is not the greatest lecturer: he repeats himself often and kept saying that he was "behind" for the last 5 weeks or so of the semester. During that time he didn\'t really ask if there were questions on the new material, but is very responsive if you go to his office hours or ask for help outside of class. Very strict about the "No laptops or electronics" policy...he kicks people out of class for texting during lecture. I think he got his count up to 20 between two of his three lecture periods when I was in 132 with him. \n\r\nSwitching gears though, Mr. Herman is very knowledgeable about Java and the computer programming paradigm. His lecture slides are an amazing resource, sometimes better than the textbook (which, for 132, I highly recommend you get, even if you’re a Java expert, as it contains a lot of powerful concepts and goes into detail on some foggy areas beyond the 132 curriculum that are still good to know).\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-04-06T01:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I would like to start off by saying that Herman is not as bad as many people say. I feel that most of the low reviews he gets are from freshmen who are not prepared for the amount of work this class will take. With that being said, I will give you as honest a review of him as I can. Keep in mind that this is my second high level programming class (I'm an EE major so I already saw many of the concepts presented in this class in my 150 class)\n\r\nI'll start off with the bad. Herman can be kind of an asshole at times. He follows his syllabus to the letter, so if he specifies that he will only answer programming questions in office hours, HE WILL ONLY ANSWER THEM IN OFFICE HOURS. Like even for simple yes or no questions, he will only answer them during office hours which can get really annoying.\n\r\nHis exams are another negative point. For a 100 level programming class, I felt that there were unnecessarily difficult, and this was having already seen most of these concepts in another class already. His exams are often extremely specific, sometimes testing concepts that were only vaguely mentioned during a lecture and are often unnecessary to know for practical programming purposes.\n\r\nWith that being said, Herman is an extremely good teacher. I honestly thought he was a good lecturer, may not have been the most interesting but hey, you try and keep this stuff interesting through 5 different lectures of the same topic. If you want to be successful in this class, go to his lectures as much as possible. I would also recommend using his office hours a lot, not because he will only answer questions during them but also if you ask him a question then you will get a detailed and thorough answer that will almost surely help you. \n\r\nLike I said, I have seen most of the programming concepts presented in this class in a previous coding class, however, I still found his projects to be rather straight forward. If this is your first high level programming class I would suggest starting early, but you should not have difficulty completing them on time and getting a good score on the project.\n\r\nOverall, I would recommend Herman if you really want to learn the topics presented in 132. Yes he is an asshole, but it will be worth putting up with because you will learn a lot.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-14T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "People give Larry a hard time, but I don't think he's too bad. I find his expectations reasonable, and I think he does a pretty good job of teaching the material. That said, he's kind of a jerk. His classroom rules are ridiculously strict, and he wastes a solid 5-10 minutes of every class yelling at people for using cellphones in class or telling people who walk in late that they should attend later lectures. He's not a particularly approachable teacher, and even discourages asking questions because he fell behind on the course material. I feel like I'm learning a lot from Larry, but the actual classroom experience is pretty annoying. \n\r\nDespite my objections to the way Larry approaches his teachers, I disagree with the reviews that say that the class is too difficult or that the workload is too much. The projects give me a greater understanding of the material and the tests seemed like a good barometer of my knowledge. Not an easy class but appropriate for the subject matter. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-04T02:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "At first, I really didn't like him, and I never really got over annoying things that he does such as go over administrative stuff at the start of each lecture and calling out anyone on their cell phone during class.\n\r\nHe's not necessarily the nicest person ever, but he is an extremely smart person and does a good job explaining things. He posts 3 old exams before each midterm, and the tests are fair and not hard if you prepare for them.\n\r\nIf you regularly attend lecture and did well in 131 you should be fine even if you get 'stuck' with Larry in 132. At the end of the day he's a smart guy and good teacher", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-25T19:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I had a problem with Larry Herman\'s lectures. \n\r\n(1) He lectures off slides that are sketchy and incomplete, speeds through them, often flipping before students who write really quickly can jot down notes, and refuses to post slides in advance so that students can prepare for how he speeds through them and take notes on the slides themselves.\n\r\n(2) He uses vague ambiguous, conceptual verbiage that doesn\'t convey the underlying technical specifics so that you can learn the material in a concrete way from his lecture delivery. \n\r\nFor example, on joining concurrent threads: "A thread can wait for another one to terminate by calling join(). public final void join() returns when the thread it\'s called on quits" There is no specific technical information in that passage that tells you what to do or what is happening in the software. \n\r\nHere is the kind of specific, technical language that is more helpful, from in the tutorials on docs.oracle.com: "The join method allows one thread to wait for the completion of another. If t is a Thread object whose thread is currently executing, t.join(); causes the current thread to pause execution until its thread terminates." \n\r\nYet, Herman teaches with fuzzy, untechnical language but tests to a much higher level of technical rifor than he lectures with.\n\r\n(3) All the students in the class who have language disabilities or communication disorders are completely swamped with trying to make sense out of his terrible lectures off sped-through slides and ambiguous language, and finding alternative instructional materials/spending days in the tutoring lab inorder to compensate sucks time that is frankly unavailable to CS students.\n\r\n(4) HIs tests are unreasonable to an absurd degree. He tests on variable names that are in example code that come as side downloads to his lectures. His use of variable names in such side code downloads is nonstandard. The amount of pedantic memorization he requires is excessive.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-08-23T16:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Way too much work for a 4 credit 100 level class. Larry seems to forget that some of us are taking other classes. I am seriously not one to complain about work overload as I am usually pretty good at time management but good god this is another level of crazy.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-06-24T19:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Herman is possibly one of the worst computer science "instructors" at UMD. From day one, I came into the class not expecting much after reading most of the reviews on here and on Course Eval. Larry is one of the rudest people in the entire computer science department and always has a smug look of discontent on his face when he teaches in his monotone voice. His tests border on unfair. He gave our section a test in which the average was 15 points lower than the other sections yet he didn\'t curve it or even acknowledge it. He takes attendance by forcing students to sign a sheet which in the end did nothing, he punished students for asking questions which were on the "course information posted on ELMS," he talks about rules and guidelines for 20 minutes every class and then complains about not having enough time for questions. Overall, I would NOT recommend Herman and ask that you stay away, as far away from this man as possible if you want to do well in CMSC132.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-05-29T11:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Decent professor in terms of communicating the material. Most of the other reviews cover his unique style like the no electronics policy, taking attendance every lecture, and not letting students sit in the back.\n\r\nAt first I hated his style, but later on I realized that the way he teaches drills the material into your head and forces you to pay attention. If you attend most of his lectures and sit in the front and pay attention, I guarantee you'll get an A. His exams were fairly straightforward, but the only thing I didn't like about them were the extremely specific details to which questions were asked. He would change one little obscure thing to see if you really knew your stuff. Annoying, but manageable.\n\r\nOverall, Herman is decent at teaching. Sure, he's not the best or most exciting professor out there, but he gets his job done provided you, the student, do your part.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-25T22:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'There is a reason larry has the worst average gpa for this class. He is a very bad teacher and your best hope is to get a good TA. Dont take him if there is another option. His exams are impossible and the average for the final was a D. He will try to trick you or put long instructions, MAKE SURE YOU READ THEM CAREFULLY. Even if you miss one detail that could make you end up with a C. Avoid this guy at all costs. He is monotone as well. People who say he is good for 216, well he should teach that class then. \n\r\nTo the guy above me. \n\r\nWHATS YOUR POINT?\n\r\n1) All the professors in universities teach as much or more than herman does. There no excuse for him reading off slides the whole lecture and then testing on one concept he went over for 30 seconds. He cant teach period. \n\r\n2) You got a B so you have no right to say his exams arent hard or tricky and people should have done better. Why dont you try taking a good professor who can actually teach like fawzi or nelson and then compare them with herman.\n\r\n3) Again you got a B. Maybe you shouldnt be in CS by your own standards. Try taking a guy who is actually interested in teaching his/her students like fawzi and nelson. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-02-02T14:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Here are the points against him, and I\'m going to give you reasons why those things are not true, or don\'t matter. \n\r\n1) He is boring. \n\r\nYeah, YOU try teaching 9 lectures a week and tell me if you can keep all of them interesting. What are you expecting? Entertainment? He\'s here to teach you and it\'s your responsibility to learn. \n\r\nHe\'s nice and is always helpful in office hours. He moves deadlines if the class says they need more time. That more than makes up for class being "boring." \n\r\n2) He tries to "trick" you on exams. \n\r\nThey\'re not tricks if you know what you\'re doing. Do you think you\'ll get hired anywhere if you don\'t know what you\'re doing? \n\r\n3) He makes you work "too hard" for an A. \n\r\nPeople who don\'t like Larry are either not good at working hard or don\'t want to. If you don\'t want to, you probably shouldn\'t be in CS. \n\r\nHis exams are just difficult enough that you have to study the material and understand it on a deeper level, and that\'s not a crime. If you want to coast through classes, you probably shouldn\'t be in CS. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-01-27T12:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Two semesters ago I took CMSC 132 with Larry Herman. I hated it. Every word that came out of his mouth filled me with aggravation and contempt. I thought he was an egotistical, straight edged jerk not to mention being completely boring and seemingly condescending to students. I was dreading the previous semester knowing that he was the only teacher for CMSC 216.\n\r\n As every other reviewer has mentioned he does in fact take attendance, force people to sit in the front, prohibit electronic devices during lecture, etc. He will also ask the trickiest, exception-to-the-rule questions on tests that are generally the difference between an A and a B. \n\r\nSome of the projects can also take a pretty good amount of time and probably average to about 20 hours or so but can be done in a lot less time with good planning/understanding. However, if you don’t know what you’re doing, he tends to not include some of the key details on his slides so you will not be able to get a lot of the practical information unless you are regularly attending lecture even though he says that the “lecture notes will be posted on line so you don’t need to take notes” which most students mistakenly interpret as “you don’t need to come to class”. \n\r\nYet as the semester went on I slowly came to the realization that he was actually doing almost all of these things to the benefit of the students. \n\r\nAs was noted in a reviewer below me noted, the no-electronic policy forces you to pay attention with the exception of an occasional text. \n\r\nPreventing students from sitting in the back gets them closer to the material and allows him to police for devices better. \n\r\nHis stringency on the honesty policy is annoying on face value, but definitely one of the most annoying things are when people who have no understanding of material get credit for things other people came up with, so his strictness could be out of respect for the students that are actually doing their own work. \n\r\nHis attendance taking is also not in the grading policy, so lack of attendance will not directly affect your grade. He claims to use it simply as a statistical study on the grades earned versus attendance, but I also suspect that he uses it for curving. For example, he will be much more likely to curve up a grade from a B+ to at least and A- if he sees that they have attended almost every lecture. \n\r\nAlmost any time a good portion of the class is in jeopardy of missing the project deadline, he will extend it even though if the whole class wouldn’t have been remiss in their responsibilities as students and started even a few days earlier they would have been fine. He always assigns them with ample time in the first place. Ample.\n\r\nAlso, early in the semester I discovered that I had a scheduling conflict with the final exam and he said that it wasn’t a problem and let me take it with three other people at a later date. \n\r\nI also missed a quiz and hadn’t notified him or the TA until the day of and he still allowed the zero to be replaced with the average of my other quiz grades.\n\r\nConcerning the lecture material, he is good. He is always well prepared and he always drills the important parts that you need to remember. Always. Drills. Knowing these drilled points should secure you a B in the class. \n\r\nTo achieve an A in the class, Larry expects a mastery of the subject material. He expects an A to signify Excellence, unlike other classes where A stands for Average and anything below that stands for Stupid.\n\r\nTherefore, Larry is a great teacher. Anyone who argues otherwise is either too stupid to get the grade they want, or too arrogant to put in the work he requires. In short, if you are smart and willing to work, you will like him and you will do well. Or even if you don’t like him, you will at least respect him, and he will do the same for you. No question about it.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-07-24T13:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Despite what other reviews here say, I Larry Herman is one of the best teacher I\'ve had in the CS major.\n\r\nIt\'s fair to say that Larry can be strict and "by the book". He does forbid electronic devices during his lecture, doesn\'t allow students to sit in the back, and taking attendance at every lecture. If you\'re looking for a class to sleepwalk through, you aren\'t going to do well under Larry. He fully intends to educate you, whether you like it or not.\n\r\nFor those who put in the effort, Larry will "go the extra mile" (his words) for making sure you understand the content. This desire to help students took the form of extensions on half of the projects this semester as well as providing extra TA office hours as project deadlines approached. Both in lecture and office hours, Larry could be extremely friendly (not to mention downright funny). Throughout his lectures, Larry also made it clear where he was going with the content. One never failed to understand why he was illustrating a topic.\n\r\nCMSC216 can be a difficult course. However, Larry makes it seem a lot easier. It was a pleasure to take the course with him. I wish he was teaching CMSC330 this fall.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-21T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "STAY MILES AWAY FROM HIM. It doesn't matter how smart you are. You will get stupid points taken off because he is so nit-picky. He is the most unfair professor I have ever seen. He is so disorganized and doesn't keep his word about anything. He is the devil. I wish I could give him zero stars.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-30T22:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "I can understand the people who really dislike him, because he can be quite harsh. However, in the end he is quite competent as a teacher, and provides good resources online through worksheets and slides. He also teaches pretty well. If you have to take him over a mediocre professor, it'll be fine as long as you use the resources available.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-03-02T23:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'The short review is as follows: Larry Herman is good at teaching but terrible at conveying his expectations. You need to understand and memorize EVERYTHING he mentions, even in passing, to excel in the class, and you need to start on programming projects much sooner rather than later because they are deceptive when you first read the description.\n\r\nIn detail:\r\nMr. Herman is the best lecturer I have had in the past five semesters. In addition to knowing the course material, he is typically capable of conveying it to the class. His M.O. is to lecture using PowerPoint slides, asking the class if they understand before he discusses examples. MOST of these slides are posted on Blackboard a few days later, but they often have questions without answers on them. The examples that he presents in class are always basic illustrations of the topic at hand. He also maintains the class\'s interest when he talks about the more pedantic aspects of OOP by seamlessly working brief, amusing comments into his lectures.\n\r\nOn the other hand, however, I must remark that the class is heavily geared toward audial instruction. That is, the "learn by doing" aspect of the class is lacking. I was disappointed that there was little middle ground when it came to the difficulty of assignments. While the worksheets in discussion were similar in difficulty to the lecture examples, projects were significantly time-consuming. Part of this may have been because while I personally learn best by reading the book/writing code, the text for the class only discusses data structures, and not other topics covered in the class (Out of five, only the second and third projects focused predominantly on creating data structures. The first was a review of CMSC131, the fourth was about graph traversal, and the fifth was about multithreading, I/O, and connecting to the Internet).\n\r\nFurthermore, tests were obnoxious, in the sense that perhaps 20% of each test dealt with trivia. In the case of the final, this took the form of, "Do you happen to remember this fact about Java that I mentioned offhand halfway through the semester, and that you probably never used when you were completing the projects?" The rest of each test was either writing code or tracing a program. The grading is stringent - I recall losing 8% on the second exam because I implemented (correctly) an O(n^2) algorithm instead of an O(n log(n)) algorithm. Basically, in most cases, it does not suffice in this class to get your program to compile and function correctly; you must also write it efficiently and know other ways you could have achieved the same functionality.\n\r\nAll in all, Mr. Herman has been my second-favorite teacher at UMD (after Prof. James Schafer of the Math department), and a few, but not all, of my complaints about the class are not his fault. I was actually signed up for Mr. Emad\'s section of 132 at the beginning of the semester, but I switched out immediately after sitting in on one of Mr. Herman\'s lectures. Best decision so far of my college career.\n\r\nOne final note: as you progress through the class, make a condensed version of your notes to serve as a rudimentary study guide for exams. It will be very helpful.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-12T23:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'DO NO GLOSS OVER THIS REVIEW BECAUSE IT\'S LONG! I\'ve been right where a lot of you are right now. I\'m sure there are a lot of you reading this review to see if "Mr. Herman" (don\'t call him Dr or Professor) isn\'t terrible and you can suffer through his class. The answer is no. Look there are some cases where Larry has shown some compassion to individuals, but I haven\'t witnessed it. I\'ve had him for both 216 and 330 and both classes were made more difficult just for the sake of being difficult. Project descriptions will range from about 10 to 15 pages that is mostly filler that will take you over an hour to sift through. Somehow, the descriptions still end up being vague and don\'t bother emailing him or asking on piazza. Instead of just giving you a simple yes or no for what is usually a simple question, you will most likely be told to look somewhere in the project description that doesn\'t help you, or give you an answer that is completely vague. He\'s just a stereotypical awkward computer science professor that\'s liked by some stereotypically awkward computer science kids. Some of his exam questions will focus on a topic from lecture that was covered on a single slide for five minutes in lecture. All that most of us should be trying to take from these programming classes are better programming skills. We shouldn\'t give two s#!t$ about some of the obscure topics that his exams can and will likely focus on. Don\'t expect to get any grades back for months and you may not until the end of the semester. Most likely I\'m going to get a high B in his 330 class and I got the same in his 216 class the previous semester. I\'m not bashing him because I\'m going to get a bad grade. I\'m not even bashing him because he\'s a terrible lecturer. I\'m writing this because he should never be put in charge of a class. He can lecture fine but he is terrible in regards to every other aspect of being a professor. Anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. To sum this up with a simple comment: DON\'T TAKE HERMAN! WAIT A SEMESTER TO TAKE THE CLASS!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-08T01:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Larry Herman is a very kind-hearted guy, as much as you think otherwise. The poor guy shattered his vertebrae last semester (for those who had him for CMSC216 Spring2012) and missed the first 3 weeks of class. He might have been a bit cross last semester, but that would be due to all that stuff he was under (medicines, etc.). I tore my ACL this semester, and I have him for CMSC330, and he was more than understanding of my plight, allowing me generous extensions on almost all the assignments that I turned in. I hated to try to push the deadlines for him, but there were times I had to. However, he is a wonderful teacher, and will answer your questions during the lecture at a specific time. When you ask a question and he says "We\'ll get to that", mark my words, he will "get to that". And far from being a douche or a dick, as many comments here described, Herman is doing his job as a low-level CS Professor, being harsh on the kids who are in the weed-out classes, those who think Computer Science is something easy you can BS your way through. I highly recommend this professor for future classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-11-12T23:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Herman is a fine instructor. Not great, but far from the terrible instructor that some of the reviewers suggest he is.\n\r\nHe did a good job teaching CMSC216 and didn't really rely on the slides. He doesn't get 5 stars because he's somewhat boring and can act a little harsh at times.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-23T15:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'I had him last year for a class and did poorly, and back then I would have given him one or two stars.. this semester though, he seems to have improved a lot. \n\r\nHe definitely intelligent, and knows the coursework and material really well. He often asks questions and encourages students to participate, and his lectures are a lot more entertaining now than they were back then. \n\r\nHowever, he can be dickish and may be hard to approach, but he\'s far from the "useless lecher" that the other reviews make him out to be. \n\r\nThings to remember: \r\n1) if you go in there expecting to hate the class because he\'s cocky, monotone, etc, you\'ve pretty much just made a self-fulfilling prophecy.\r\n2) he\'s not the "best teacher ever", but he\'s really far from the worst. \r\n3) Call him MISTER Herman. He is not a professor, and he is not a doctor. He gets surprisingly touchy about this. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-03T19:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "If you have to take a sequence course for your major that is not related to Computer Science. Do NOT take CMSC102 with Larry Herman. First off, this was his first year teach this course so he didn't know what he was doing or how to present the material. Just like the other reviews state, he start off rambling on and on about something in his life (which of course is fine if he actually presented the material in a way we were paying attention). His monotone voice will just drag you away from the lecture.\n\r\nThe material itself is interesting, but no where near interesting presented by Herman. He just jumps everywhere and the notes he posts online aren't even what he explains in class or goes into detail about. Then when it comes to exam time, the material there were things he never went through. Btw, don't expect reviews by him for the exams. \n\r\nThe only thing that will save your grade in this class are the 6 projects in class, just because you can't get them wrong. He doesn't grade anything, its all the TA (who you never meet). \n\r\nThe only thing that makes you come to class are his clickers, which are irrelevant questions. \n\r\nThere was one point where everyone complained about his way of teaching and the difficulty of the course because of how he taught, but he laughed it off and didn't address it. \n\r\nJust save yourself a semester of a 1hr30min class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-04-28T19:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC106', 'review': "I read the reviews below before taking 106 with herman and was very surprised. I thought he did an excellent job teaching the course. Granted 106 is supposed to be easy so maybe that is why I thought he did a good job. \r\nI almost never had to open the textbook because all I had to do was listen to lecture and then I would have everything I needed to do the projects. He was mildly funny and kept the class engaging. To be honest if you actually go to class arrive on time and pay attention you should be able to learn from him. \r\nThe projects were nit-picky, but that is because he has a program grade them to ensure accuracy (But I must say most of the projects were pretty easy for me, although many of my classmates struggled).\r\nThe tests were a little more difficult just because I find it hard to write code on paper (you have to write a short program for most tests).\r\nQuizzes in discussion were announced and generally just quickly reviewing the previous two lectures would give you enough information to get ~36/40 on the quiz.\r\nSeriously if Herman is the worst lecturer in the CS department then the department must have the best lecturers on campus because he really wasn't that bad.\r\nP.S. go to class and pay attention it really helps even if you don't think it does.\n\r\nI also took CMSC131 with Herman:\r\nSame as above pretty much, a lot of people just have no logic and do not belong in computer programming classes (or the major). Logic cannot be taught, and if you don't have any then go away, you are annoying to the rest of us that can actually figure things out. Seriously, he does a good job, if you don't excel in his class it's not his fault, you just aren't capable of the programming logic approaches, which is okay, just change majors.\n\r\nFor CMSC131 Do not buy the textbook, I always buy my textbooks, but the Java book is a waste of money, EVERYTHING IS ONLINE:\r\nhttp://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/index.html", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T19:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Insufferable prick.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-04T17:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Wow - these reviews are funny to read. Larry is extremely precise with the material (reason for long project descriptions, too), which makes learning what the code does really easy, and he's very clear about how he wants to be interacted with as an instructor and what he expects of you. If you keep your cell phone away, come to class and actually pay attention, and go to his office hours when you want to talk to him, he's just fine. He seemed a bit harsh on students with certain types of questions at first, but if you get used to the fact that that's just his manner and don't ask questions that he's already answered when you weren't paying attention, no big deal. He's pretty amusing as well, just has a dry sense of humor and is a little bit awkward. I would definitely take a class with him again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-11-02T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Lectures:\r\nIn most of his classes, he starts out by talking about something in his life (or ends up talking about it), which is fine - if I weren't paying for classes! It takes up time, and sometimes he doesn't go over as much as he wanted. He absolutely hates if someone's using a laptop or phone in class, which is understandable...but he sounds like a douchebag when he asks someone to put it away. He usually goes over his slides by reading them, and not really adding to them. If he does add to them, write it down, cause his quizzes and tests are nitpicky. He rarely writes on the board, and if he does, make sure you're in the front, cause he writes small ! \n\r\nQuizzes:\r\nI don't think he writes his own quizzes. The set up of the worksheets usually have nothing to do with the quizzes. Don't focus on what the worksheets are on, cause most likely, it's not gonna be on the quiz. There were only 2 times where the class knew what the quizzes were on. He doesn't even really give the TAs a heads up on anything, so the TAs are clueless until the day of the quizzes. Also, most of the time, the average on the quizzes are around 20-25 points out of 40, so don't give up...\n\r\nHomework & Projects:\r\nDon't ever ever turn anything in the night it's due. If the server goes down, he may or may not give an extension. Try to get all the points on the Homework, cause that will help your grade. Even though you only need to get HALF of your tests working on the projects, try to get 60-70%, cause his TAs might rule out some of the public tests that you *thought* you passed. Plus, going above the minimum means you'll probably be above the curve. Try to get some secret tests done, too....cause some people don't do those, and that's about 30 points.\n\r\nTA:\r\nTry not to get Gleneesha, cause she'll just point on the board at code and expect you to understand what it does. She doesn't really explain anything, and if she does, it's not thorough. It makes me think she doesn't know anything. Granted, I heard all TAs sucked, especially for CS, but it'd be nice to have someone who DIDN'T have to Google some answers in front of you...\n\r\nBooks:\r\nDon't bother buying them. I bought them halfway through the semester thinking they'll help, but I have yet to actually use them. Half the class didn't buy any, and they're doing fine. He also asked the class (of those who bought them) if they were useful, and everyone said no. Don't bother.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-24T12:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': 'A friend of mine put it really well: He\'s not a bad guy. He\'s not trying to make his students fail. He just has an inherent, undeniable need for everything to be rigid and exact.\n\r\nProjects were easy. Tests were nitpicky and thus difficult. Lectures weren\'t difficult to follow, but were difficult to learn from, if that makes any sense.\n\r\nTo do well in his classes you have to adapt to how he teaches. Pay a lot of attention to detail. Don\'t dismiss anything as something that he "probably won\'t test" because he probably will. Just understanding the concepts won\'t get you very far. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-16T22:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I'd taken this class before in high school, so I was decently well off. If I hadn't taken the class before, it wouldn't have gone so well. Herman is a very dry teacher, who doesn't teach very well. He knows his stuff, he just doesn't know how to convey it very well. I'd advise against taking him for higher level classes. Book is not neccessary, just look things up on the internet.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-21T17:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Larry Herman is THE WORST Comp. Sci. teacher I have ever had. Please stay away from him, and avoid him at all costs. He has a very monotone voice and he will put you to sleep no matter what. He is a very cocky professor and expects the worst from students. He would always expect students to answer his questions wrong, but they would say the right answer so then he would reword the question so no one would understand it. He always emphasized that the Honors class did way better than us, but the fact is that they did better because he was not teaching the Honors section. Quizzes averaged around the 50-60% in our class, and it was solely because he does not explain concepts well. If you have no choice but to take the class with him, expect a lot of self-teaching and expect a lot of stress. He assigns projects that are always half-assed and is always revising them up to the last second.\n\r\nHe says "Umm...um...um..." a lot, and he makes awkward comments to girls. Overall, he is a very awkward person and he seems to be the only uninteresting Comp. Sci. professor. Quizzes are easy if you learn everything by yourself. Exams are graded in a strict manner so it is really hard to get a decent grade on the exams (1 midterm, and the final).\n\r\nBesides wasting time trying to figure out how the projection boards work, he goes off in tangents. Most of the class stopped attending his lectures, so he started taking attendance. So people went to the lectures just to sign the attendance sheet.\n\r\nHe will call you out if you have your laptop out, if you are sitting in the very back, if you come to class late, or if you leave early. He is extremely annoying and rarely sympathizes with you (except if you are a girl). ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2011-01-26T15:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Herman is a good lecturer. I had taken AP Comp Sci AB and gotten a 5 coming into this class, so I knew a decent amount of the material beforehand. His lectures are generally well done and he knows what he is talking about. He has some weird habits though. Whenever something goes wrong he will always make up like 100 excuses as to why it's not his fault. He's kind of pompous, but class was pretty enjoyable.\n\r\nThe quizzes were pretty easy imo, but the class averages were always terrible (25-30). Look over the past couple lecture slides before the quiz!!! The midterm and final were both very fair.\n\r\nHomework & Projects: Do NOT wait until the night before it's due to start. Seriously, don't. The projects and homework are all doable, but they will take serious effort on your part. You will get stuck, you will have to redesign code, you will have to use the debugger, and you will have to read all the specifications beforehand. That being said, it is possible to do well on all the projects. I got 100% on all the public tests for projects. I can't comment on how the office hours works, I never had to go to them.\n\r\nTA: Gleneesha was a pretty terrible TA imo. I went to most of the discussion sections, but I only learned a couple things from them. The worksheets that they give you in discussion are useless, I would just use the time to study notes and work on projects. \n\r\nBooks: Overpriced and not needed. The internet is the only resource you need. \n\r\nOverall: I thought the class was pretty good. Herman has gotten some pretty awful reviews but I think a lot of them are frustrated students who didn't put enough effort in the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-17T19:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Boring... Pedantic... Out of touch with students... Laurence is a crap CS teacher and avoid him if possible. He turned me off to the field of compsci and after his class I changed my major.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-13T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Larry is easily one of the most boring professors the CS department has to offer. While some professors' tangents can be a nice break and funny...Larry's are not funny. He teaches in a way that, I think, is very hard to understand--and Java is already a very abstract concept. With less examples, and more powerpoint slides, you're almost on your own. If you end up with a crap TA...good luck.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-19T22:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "So larry is NOT a bad guy at all and he is sometimes very funny in class with his jokes during lecture, but beware if you have him prepare for lots and lots of stress.\r\nThe beginning of this course proved to be very easy because before the midterm exam (end of october) all we had were 2 quizzes, 1 homework, and 1 project. Note that the grading system is sooooooo stupid that if you make a mistake that doesnt even make an impact on your work, you WILL lose alot of points. So be careful and read the directions because even if you show that you understand the problem and explain it very well, you will lose full credit if you dont follow the exact directions. That is what happened to me, i lost 2 letter grades on a quiz on something that stupid even though i clearly understood the problem. \n\r\nAfter the midterm he just threw everything at us at once, all the hws, projs, and quizzes giving us barely anytime, he had to give a hw and a prog at the same time over thanksgiving because he had to fit it all before the semester is over! I had no problem with this because i knew the material already but for those who dont know the material, your pretty much screwed. Also office hrs are always packed so go early if you need help.\n\r\nI took ap programming in high school and i understood every single topic in the class but yet i still couldnt get an A+. The reason is because of the grading again. It is just terrible and he is very slow at getting your work back. It is december 17 and only 40% of our grades have been posted. We still havent gotten back our proj 2,3,4 and hw 2,3 back yet which is the majority of our grade. Plus the TAs do not know what they are doing. Most of the time i think im smarter than them. If you want an A or even a B you must know the topic before you take the class, or else you are pretty much screwed.\n\r\nI had to go into office hours many times to correct some stuff they weren't clear on. One of the secret test was written wrong for project one and i had to argue it too and i still dont know if he changed it because he hasnt updated the grades yet.\r\nAll programmers know that when comparing objects you either return a negative or postive number or zero. On the stupid secret test they wrote it so that it checked to see if you did -1,1 and 0. That is wrong and i had to tell Mr. Herman. Plus the submit server doesn't work all the time so turn in your projects early.\n\r\nThe problem with not getting our many projs and hws back is the fact that we cant go in to see Mr. Herman to see what we did wrong cuz the semester is over!! so if i find out that they graded something wrong (which is very likely) contacting and arguing will prove to be so much pain.\n\r\nSo over all this class will be easy yet stressful for those who know the subject and a horrible nightmare for those who dont know it well. So good luck to those taking this class!! You're going to need it haha\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-17T23:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "While it is obvious that Larry Herman knows his stuff, classes weren't all that interesting and sometimes dragged on. His examples seem almost insulting - I think he would be able to get his points across quicker if he explained concepts using graphs and diagrams rather than drawing reluctant volunteers to the front to do something for him.\n\r\nHe isn't a terrible person, not at all, but I also wish he would answer simple questions (such as small questions about the syllabus) via email. But I think he has the right to ask that project-related questions are asked during office hours, since it takes a while to sit down with someone and debug a program.\n\r\nMy biggest problem with him though is that he started giving the projects late, meaning that we're getting one less project than the syllabus indicated and having back to back projects. \n\r\nAnd he takes forever to put up the lecture slides! I think it'd be better to put the slides up BEFORE the lecture and then editing them after! It would make it much easier for everyone.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-01T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': 'The way this guy lectures is not a problem. If you\'re focused and got enough sleep, you will probably be able to follow along well enough. It\'s the way he operates the class that is the problem. \n\r\nHe does not answer emails. What business does this guy have teaching in a Computer Science department when he refuses to use one of the most basic facilities of a computer: email? It\'s not like he doesn\'t know how. He sends the style scores for your project and he will sometimes actually reply just to tell you NOT to send him emails. It doesn\'t really make much sense.\n\r\nHis course web site is not very helpful. The syllabus is on there with the exam dates, but if he changes them you won\'t know unless you go to class. And he probably will change them. He won\'t announce it on the page. He won\'t send an email about it. So if you skip a few classes you can end up missing an exam. I suppose it\'s somewhat clever to passively force students to go to class, but what boggles my mind is that he does update the front page with info that has nothing to do with the class like "Techfest in CSI lobby." \n\r\nHis lecture slides are useless. Which brings me to another point about the web page - You need a password to get in. You need a password to look at his useless slides. When the semester is over, the password stops working so you can\'t look at projects or anything from the previous semester as a reference. He puts a half-useless web page on lock down for no good reason. \n\r\nHis tests and quizzes are essentially designed to make you lose points. They are filled with multiple choice or short answer trick questions that you pretty much have to memorize the answers to. You are NOT going to remember everything. It\'s impossible unless you dedicate your entire life to every word that comes out of his mouth and every trick question that could possibly be on the test.\n\r\nThe projects are rough and time consuming, which is understandable. But this guy makes it worse. He sometimes doesn\'t post a project on the submit server or the public tests until a couple of days before it\'s due. He also changes the due dates and details, or corrects mistakes about the project almost at the last minute. I have a feeling he is probably procrastinating and making it all up as he goes along. Teachers for other programming classes don\'t seem to do this. This is the only programming teacher I\'ve had so far who constantly has this problem. \n\r\nHe takes too long to grade stuff. He leaves the responsibility of grading everything on the TAs, and they take forever to grade the project style worth 15% of the project grade. I don\'t blame them. They are students. They have their own classes to worry about too. This guy could at least grade some of them to speed things up. He curves everything at the end, but he takes forever to post stuff on the grade server. You wont have any idea what your true grade is. He doesn\'t post the class average. If what you currently see as your grade doesn\'t look good, you won\'t be able to know whether you are failing or not until the semester is over and there\'s nothing more you can do about it.\n\r\nSo all in all, it\'s like he wants to make sure that everyone is as stressed out and in the dark as possible. And whatever research or non-teaching activities this guy is involved in is obviously far higher on his priority list than this class. Quite frankly, this is not a good learning environment. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-03T20:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Herman did not make the class enjoyable whatsoever! I slept every single class until I discovered the Diamondback crossword puzzle. He needs to show more enthusiasm and be able to effectively teach the class. Also, he wasted a lot of time pulling teeth for random questions directed at the class. There was only one person in my class who actually was able to keep his eyes awake long enough to pay attention. And that guy just happens to be the biggest computer geek I've ever seen. He literally had the projects done two days after they were released. Everyone else just quietly and miserably failed.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-28T02:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': 'Herman is an ok lecturer. As someone as said below, the material itself is very boring as you are just learning the C language, because a language is just a language, there\'s not really any way to make it exciting. \n\r\nHerman is also pretty fair in terms of the curve at the end of the semester. I had a low B according to my grades, but he ended up giving me an A. So it is definitely possible to do well in his course even if it seems like you are doing pretty bad, which it will.\n\r\nSo you\'re probably wondering why I gave him 2 stars because so far my review has been ok. The reason is that he is probably the rudest teacher I have had so far in my time at CP. If you try to contact him in any way he will most likely come up with some terse, scathing reply that basically says "I hate you for contacting me. Just go away, you\'re wasting my time". I have heard so many stories from my friends of emails they have received from him that were completely out of line or times when they\'ve gone to office hours and he blew them off or didn\'t help them at all. \n\r\nAlso, Herman will try to make you fail at every possible chance. His quizzes and tests often have very specific questions designed to make people get the wrong answer. His project specs are almost always at least 8 pages long, all in paragraph format, just to make sure you miss some details that he can catch you on in the secret tests. For style grading, he tells the TA\'s that they can only take points off in increments of 2. So if you made some small mistake it\'s automatically at least 2 points off, not 1.\n\r\nThe bottom line:\r\nPros: In the end, your grade in Herman\'s class will probably be better than you expected since he curves a lot. Also, you will learn a lot of practical knowledge about makefiles and low level programming that will be useful in internships and you will become pretty good at C programming.\n\r\nCons: You will be miserable throughout the entire semester because you will be working on 212 projects all the time, and you will get at most a C on all the quizzes, and you probably won\'t do as well on the tests as you do in other classes. And Herman will be there all the time, acting immature and being as rude and sneaky as possible.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-28T20:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "This professor is the worse professor I have ever had. Its great that 212 will be discontinued after spring semester. If you are in 212 for the spring semester I beg you to GET OUT. He makes it hard to do well in your class. This semester he decided to put multiple-multiple choice on the test, everyone fails the quizzes, projects build (and you have to fix the prior one for the second to work), discussions don't help, and doesn't post the statistics of the class so you dont know if your failing above or below the curve.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-24T08:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "Having taken the same class with him twice, I think some of the reviews here are probably out of sheer bitterness. Despite failing once and retaking the course, I really don't have any angst for the guy. The sexist remarks from other reviewers are unfounded. I'd say there's more difficulty in the material and lack of enthusiasm one can have for the material, but I wouldn't fault Larry for that.\n\r\nIn all honesty, I think Larry was an okay lecturer. 212's material itself is pretty dry and bland (or at least low-level programming isn't that interesting to me). He really doesn't read completely off the slides, I think. I went to all of his lectures this semester vs. the previous semester and there definitely was a lot of stuff he mentioned verbally that shows up on quizzes and exams. This semester he had a no laptop in class policy which I do applaud him on. He really wants you to focus on the lectures which I'd say are pretty key to passing. Just reading the slides without going to class isn't going to work well. Oh, and be sure to actually read the textbook (unlike 131/132). It's quite helpful.\n\r\nThe projects were pretty tough to get into. They aren't exactly interesting either. Gone are the days of the 131/132 pretty interfaces. He's very specific in his specs, and they turn out to be VERY long reads (pages of information). I find working backwards from the public tests he gives you and re-reading the sections specific to each individual functions help. And of course there's office hours which is unfortunately usually busier as the deadlines for the projects approach. The projects do consume quite a bit of time, so start early.\n\r\nExams aren't too bad. He definitely asks random questions about things he might have barely touched on in class. These questions aren't worth a lot, but it is still annoying to lose those small points. This semester, he seemed to test less topics than we actually went over, which wasn't exactly a bad thing. I just wish some of the other things we learned had more purpose than just learning it for the sake of learning it. Some stuff didn't even show up in projects, for example. However, during lecture he does ask the class these random questions once in a while that nobody answers which often show up on quizzes or exams, so be alert for that.\n\r\nHe prefers seeing you in person to ask even the simplest questions. Often you can ask him a question in lecture or via e-mail that could be answered in a sentence, but he says to come to office hours anyway. I've also heard of people who were told to come back later when they come to office hours, so he sometimes is hard to reach (allegedly, haven't witnessed it myself).\n\r\nThe curve at the end of the semester is pretty generous though. Even getting a low 60's could possibly turn out to be a C. Of course the curve varies each semester, so your mileage may very.\n\r\nIn all fairness, yes he's a bit rough around the edges and the material isn't exciting, but he and the class are basically the gatekeepers of you reaching the 300-level courses so learn to deal.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-23T14:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC106', 'review': "1. Larry Herman teaches at a snail's pace. And by that, I mean an elderly snail that has trouble being mobile. This class is a non-majors CS course, so it goes slower than most CS classes. But the pace at which Larry Herman explains things is simply intolerable, even for someone who has never encountered computer programming. Yet Herman does not even teach effectively. He follows the book closely but does not present the material in an effective manner. He writes long explanatory sentences on the board but does not actually describe what they mean.\n\r\n2. He loves to make the class more irritating than necessary. He doesn't care about his students at all. I found discussion useless since I program in C and Java at my job but didn't feel prepared enough to test out of 131. However since unannounced quizzes were given in discussion, so I had to go. Yet Herman forbade the TA from telling ANYONE when the quizzes were. So each student was forced to either (a) go to every single discussion where the TA (who was horrendous, by the way) mumbled insensibly for an hour or (b) try to guess when the quizzes were and attend discussion on those days. Personally, I thought professors and TAs were supposed to make learning easier, NOT harder. \n\r\n3. Tests and quizzes are fair and well written. \n\r\n4. Projects are fair, but he has an annoying way of saying important things during lecture. For example, due date changes announced the day before Thanksgiving break. Too bad I had a plane to catch. And he never, EVER e-mails out these important little details. He WANTS you to come to class for some obscure reason (aka feed his pride), since his lectures are useless and boring. Clearly he cares more about you coming to his lecture than about you succeeding. \n\r\n5. Projects and quizzes are not returned in a timely manner. Herman doesn't seem to realize that his TA is the worst grader possible, and when told so, he takes no action on it. \n\r\n6. Class website is easy to use and well-organized. The textbook is useful. \n\r\n7. He is a fair grader. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-05T16:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': 'This class is terrible. He is so boring and is just so proud of what little power he has, it is disgusting. I mean, every class is boring, so you can power through that, but the disrespect that comes with this man is intolerable. A few examples of his pompous nature:\n\r\n1. We talked about revising a project due date, but never actually confirmed because he does not like to give the impression that he\'ll listen to our concerns. He never changed the due date anywhere, because he only wants people who come to class to know. So in desperation to finally know when it is due, a student emails him asking to confirm the due date, (a simple administrative question), he responds, "We discussed this in lecture. Don\'t email me." Well, how about you just answer the question? \n\r\n2. Deducting points from your final grade for not picking up graded materials. Honestly, who cares? This is just another power trip for him.\n\r\n3. The overall requirements. I have lost 10 points for minor errors in style(1 character past the 80 limit), and different versions of the compiler from the submit server can seriously mess your grade up, but that\'s something you can\'t really control.\n\r\nIt\'s hard to avoid Herman, so just prepare yourself.\n\n\n\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-21T14:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': 'Jesus. He is quite possibly THE absolute worst and most boring professor in the history of western civilization. Reads right off the lecture slides and does not really teach that effectively to say the least. Favors girls, probably because he cannot hide his lecherous tendencies. Projects were so freaking boring but the tests were fair. As other posters said, he is the definition of being inept socially, so do not approach him during office hours.\n\r\nI bear no hatred towards the man, but honestly - he is quite unassuming and horrendous at managing this course. If you are a girl (hot or not) you will get an A, no questions asked. \n\r\nTry to take this course with another professor... taking it with Herman is the definition of FOOLISH! ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-01T18:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "This guy is awful. Problem is, he owns 212. I went to the first 3-4 lectures, and that was it for the semester. He reads straight from his lecture slides, which are not updated anually. Quizzes for the most part were very bad because he focused on very specific issues. However, the tests weren't too bad, as they tended to cover the bulk of the material. Projects were okay except for the long project specs (14 pages +, easy to miss some of the details, and hard to get motivated to start them). Also, he updates project reqs right up until the project is due without pushing back the due date.\n\r\nMOST IMPORTANTLY: Larry Herman is NOT approachable. Don't bother going to his officer hours, sending him an email, or even talking to him after class. Stick with talking to the TA's.\n\r\nRecommendation: Avoid Larry Herman.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-01-12T18:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "I don't know if it is possible to make 212 interesting, but I found his class to be incredibly boring. Too boring to pay attention more than half the time. You have to memorize a lot of stuff for the tests. Most of the stuff you learn will be reused when you take 311, so I would suggest actually taking the time to learn it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-17T21:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC106', 'review': "I thought he was great. His exams were fair, no trickery, and he gave many practice questions and all his old exams. The projects weren't hard, and he was extremely approachable during office hours. If you went to class and he knew you worked hard he was willing to help with anything. Although sometimes on the boring side, he is an effective instructor and taught difficult material to us non-computer types clearly.\r\nOther posters say he is partial to girls...I am a girl, which could have been the reason for my positive experience\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-17T18:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "terrible teacher and completely unapproachable. don't bother sending him emails or even asking him questions in office hours. the exams often included small details that he only mentioned once in class and was maybe on the lecture slides. the projects are revised many many times after they are posted and the secret tests, which are released after a project is due (or, a lot of times, are not released at all) are petty much impossible to pass (because the project descriptions are 15 pages long and the secret tests might test one small aspect barely mentioned in the project specs). AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-16T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'I second that the guy is anal. You should avoid him as much as possible ...trust me , start planning your schedule from avoiding any of his classes ... You will regret the day you decided "Oh, well, this class fit into my schedule"', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-08-06T19:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "The GPA distribution doesn't really reflect the difficulty of his class. To compensate for the horrendous grades, he curves a C to around a 50%.\r\nHerman creates a sizeable portion of his tests on material he mentions in passing. The projects are often revised, many times uncomfortably close to the deadline. Unless you are either a girl or happen to personally know Herman, it is unlikely you will receive helpful information from him. Unless you nag him to death.\r\nIts not really possible to avoid his class, but I would be prepared to compensate with any of the above. Also, listen *closely* to his lecture slides. I hear most of the exam material is covered when nobody is listening.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-05-27T21:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'He was pretty good at teaching the material. However, appraoching him outside of class is out of the question. He just does not seem to want to help people, and even gets angry when you send him emails asking about the homework. Tests and quizzes were pretty fair though.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-17T19:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': 'Herman is not a bad teacher; you will likely understand some material from lectures and take some solid knowledge away from the class. His tests were also quite fair in this class.\n\r\nHe is, however, completely unapproachable before class, many times shrugs people off during office hours. He wouldn\'t even let me ask him if I could come to an earlier lecture session, because he was "too busy."\n\r\nHe is also VERY partial to girls, often fawning and flirting.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-13T12:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "I found his projects fair, but his tests were difficult because he tests you on non-important, very subtle things about the C language. Public tests for projects were sometimes incorrect. Was not very approachable before class. Takes him forever to get graded assignments returned. His lectures are boring and monotone. I wouldn't recommend him.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-25T08:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "Just had Herman this semester, and he was OK...Previous poster is right about him being anal, but his class wasn't hard. The most annoying part was the projects - they were really time-consuming and he would change the specs even up to the day before the project was due. I learned a fair amount. Aced his exams, but only did average on the projects because there's no release testing and the secret tests are graded AFTER the final due date of the projects...made me miss 132 a little bit, lol.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-12T19:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I've found Larry to be fairly entertaining and his lectures are useful. His project descriptions are extremely in-depth, so you have to read a lot, but I think that makes them fantastic. I think his exams and quizzes are fair once you start to figure him out and what he's looking for you to know. It seems like people either love him or hate him, but I love him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-11-19T22:33:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'If someone actually gives herman a 1/5, they are in for a rude awakening as the program continues. Herman is a strong lecturer if a little dry, and has very clear project descriptions. His exams are fair and do not try to trick you, if you do well on the projects and pay attention in class you will have little trouble with them. Likely one of the best professors throughout the CS program as a whole.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-21T15:41:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Full disclosure, I was initially biased against Herman at the start of the semester due to a few exchanges I perceived as callous and unnecessarily severe. As a few other reviewers have said, he can come off as unapproachable and abrasive. But since taking his class, it's obvious that he is a good professor that puts a lot of effort into teaching. If you pay attention in lecture, take notes, and do the readings, you will do great. Herman simply demands that you put effort into the course to get a good grade.\r\n\r\nHis exams are fair if you've been taking notes and doing the readings, and projects are a non-issue if you start them early enough, and pay attention in discussion when debugging tools are covered. \r\n\r\nEssentially, attend class as expected, learn, do the readings, and you'll do fine and learn a great deal in the process. If that much effort is too much, then take another professor who may have lower standards.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-30T03:43:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Gives ample resources to study with (lengthy practice exams before every exam and the final) along with detailed solution guides.\r\n\r\nI don't think anybody could possibly write better project descriptions. They can be upwards of 10 pages long, and cover literally everything you could want to know about how to write it. I have never had any confusion in terms of not knowing how to handle a certain case in a project due to this.\r\n\r\nExams aren't difficult if you study, but you will certainly have to know some small little details for each exam if you want to get an A or above on them.\r\n\r\nDefinitely recommend Herman for 132/216/anything else he's teaching", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-12-14T02:39:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Nice guy but as a teacher, very ineffective. He's too by the book, doesn't explain things in a conceptual way but instead the technical way. He made CMSC 216 a painful experience for me. Tried to befriend him and he wasn't having it. I followed his advice on how I could be successful in his class and I missed the curve by half a point...\r\n\r\nHe likes to cite studies that were done that show how to improve students learning and I followed every single one of them. I sat in the front row, I got to know him on a first name basis, I asked questions (and sometimes he would answer in a condescending way), and participated as much as I could with his worksheets.\r\n\r\nFind a better option. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2017-12-23T06:37:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Not the most entertaining professor and a bit dry but overall learned a lot during the class. The project guidelines are extremely detailed and specific which is very nice. Exams are fair. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-30T02:17:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Overall he's a pretty good professor that knows the material, however that being said the way he does tests is completely arbitrary with one having to know some minute detail that he covered for a brief time during his monotonous lectures. His projects are actually extremely well done and are very straightforward with him having a project description for each several pages long. But even if you pass all of the projects 100%, while it should give you insight into his testing methods, it does not. Herman I'd also completely unapproachable and hates being bothered for anything other than administrative reasons (which he will reiterate almost every lecture, yes really). If you had to choose between Herman and another teacher, Herman is actually a solid choice but be wary that his tests while not overtly difficult, are extremely roundabout and arbitrary. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2018-01-02T02:35:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "He makes silly jokes, feels very passionately about very specific things (like sitting in the frontest row possible), but overall he's a good instructor. His project descriptions are super clear and that's fantastic.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-02-15T02:20:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Although he does yell at students to move up to the front row, cites random studies that have little relevance to the class, and prevents students using their laptops and phones, Herman is overall a really good professor. Believe it or not, he does these annoying things because he cares about making students doing their best. If you genuinely care about learning the material and pay attention during the lectures, you can definitely succeed. His jokes and humor are different, but he does this to make his class as interesting as he can. Before the exams, he always posts ungraded homeworks and practice exams, and for our 3 exams, the review material was similar to the real thing. \r\n\r\nBetween taking Pedram and Herman for CMSC132, I got stuck with Herman due to scheduling and was initially upset, but looking back, I am glad that I was and would take Herman over Pedram if I had to do it again.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-03T03:29:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Very mean guy. Would not recommend. I passed his course, but I hated going to lectures.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:08:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Teaches well and wants students to succeed but is an asshole to anyone who doesn't sit in the front. Detailed project notes but difficult tests.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-05-11T19:33:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Herman is honestly one of the best professors ive had. I thoroughly enjoyed his class and teaching style. His tests were difficult but very fair. And his projects are so detailed, they can be very easy. His lectures are boring but like what do u expect, its a lecture... But i do learn a lot. I highly recommend just sitting there and listening. I barley took notes in this class just cuz his slides are so detailed, u dont need to. He also recommends to read chapters ahead of time which really helps. The worksheets are all similar to his tests. Its not that hard to pass, u just gotta try', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-06-03T05:13:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "people who complain about his no phone or laptop policy should just try to take a different professor, i mean how hard is it to spend 50 -75 mins not using your phone? i personally like this policy as it helps me focus during class better. \r\n\r\nhe can be strict at times, but he is overall a nice and funny guy. his lectures can get boring but that's just because the material is dry at times. his tests are EXTREMELY fair, as they are exactly like the practice exams. the projects (this semester at least) heavily relied on your ability to test your own program which is a practically skill in an actual job, but may seem annoying when doing actual projects. \r\n\r\noverall, i recommend herman for 216", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-19T18:40:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Herman is a great instructor. Sure, his policies initially can seem pedantic, but they are intended to help you learn. Herman not only knows his CS stuff very well, he also knows how to run a class so that the students learn the material effectively. He doesn't want you to use your electronics during lecture because research has shown that it impedes your learning, and from my personal experience, I found that I have been able to focus in lecture a lot better, and have followed this policy in my other classes. Additionally, he wants students to sit in the front and actively participate and answer questions because it actually helps you learn the material better. Everything he does is for a reason, and people who criticize him for these policies is not understanding the point of what he's trying do.\r\n\r\nIn regards to his teaching style, I personally think he's a funny dude, and he does a really good job at explaining the material comprehensively and thoroughly. There are worksheets in discussion that you really should do, and he provides really comprehensive project guides that pretty much give you all the information you could ever need. His administrative procedures are very refined, so you should have all the information you need about that. His tests are also very fair; they follow a similar format to his practice exams but sometimes with some curveball questions, but you should be capable of answering those.\r\n\r\nIf you want to succeed in his class, just pay attention in lecture, do his discussion worksheets, and start projects early. He's a great instructor, and you'll definitely get a thorough understanding of the material if you take him.\r\n\r\nPlus he's such a meme.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-21T18:23:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Larry is a solid lecturer. He is tough but extremely fair when it comes to grading.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-13T20:46:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I had him for both 216 and 132. He's one of the best lecturers ever, but the classes are HARD. You're going to have to study a lot in order to do well in the class. For reference, I didn't pass 216 even while working a lot.\r\n\r\nProjects are only public test and secret test based, no release tests.\r\n\r\nExams are fair, make sure you study from the practice exams and HWs often in order to do well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2019-01-04T19:07:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Herman is a straightforward, clear instructor who makes lectures boring, yet comprehensible. He is very picky about coding style and his exams are very short, so it is easy to lose a lot of points. You can still earn a good grade if you do the exam practice and review the worksheets. Overall, he's not as bad as people say he is, but he is annoying.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-05-10T21:25:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Larry is a fun and hilarious teacher, and I must recommend taking his class. His projects have very clear expectations and his tests are straightforward (with lots of review material provided). He is also extremely careful about what he says and takes the class very seriously. (He will correct himself in the next class if you let him know about a mistake he made in lecture.)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-06-09T03:43:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He is unapproachable and can be very rude at times. His grading scheme is very nit-picky, and he is very unforgiving. For example, if you don't write your name on every other page in an exam, you instantly lose 10% of that exam grade. In addition, he never releases how much he's curving, but if you ask him, the curve is based on your attendance to his class (he takes attendance everyday). I would advise staying away.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-06-20T01:59:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Herman is an okay lecturer. The main things he has going for him are that his exams are fair, and the graded worksheets are basically free real estate. The lecture slides skim important information, and his lectures are styled so that he asks questions, and the half-dead students give inaccurate answers three, four times, and he needs to clarify the whole concept again. It's inefficient. Just do CMSC132 under Nelson or Fawzi. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-09-09T02:28:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Larry is highkey boring and unapproachable. For 80% of lectures I attended, I would fall asleep. He doesn't allow cell phones or laptops in class and will call you out every single time he sees it and then complains about how he has to rush through material. It probably adds up to like 10 mins of lecture in addition the times he tells people to not sit in the back rows like every 5 minutes. Also he doesn't record lectures which sucks because I learn better when I rewatch lectures and his posted powerpoints can be vague. I'm currently taking him for 216 and i still hate it lmao.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-09-22T18:25:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Really good lecturer. Some of his antics can be annoying, and his insistence that students sit close to the front of the lecture hall and not use electronic devices and that contact with TAs or instructors must be done in person were all silly or somewhat annoying, but otherwise he's great at explaining the material and his project descriptions are very clear, outlining every single edge case for students so that there isn't much of a need for a forum like Piazza. You'll have a very good understanding of the material by the end of semester. Would definitely recommend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-17T20:37:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Extremely harsh and unreasonable teacher. His curriculum doesn't make sense and makes time management extremely difficult. He assigns project due dates the day after exams and breaks. He focuses more on people not emailing him and not sitting in the back of the class more than he teaches. Very bland and hard to understand lecturer. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-02T14:11:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'He is a fun and knowledgeable instructor. He tries to make jokes in class and explain things in an interesting way. He might be boring and strict on administrative stuff, but his teaching is beyond doubt fantastic. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-12T02:28:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Larry is awesome, and underrated as hell. Never had a better professor than him. Yeah, he doesn’t let you use electronics, and yeah, he doesn't let you sit in the very back. Who cares? That’s to your benefit.\r\n\r\nLarry is the best teacher I’ve had at this school. Nobody can explain concepts like him. He just makes everything make sense.\r\n\r\nHis assignment descriptions are fantastic. Long, yes. But the few extra minutes it takes to read could save you hours of work compared to professors who don’t really make it clear what they want.\r\n\r\nHe provides practice exams that include every single topic that could possibly be on the exam, so if there’s anything you don’t know, you now know that you should study it. Compare it to, say, Jason, whose practice exams inevitably leave something off that appeared on the real exam, and include something that isn’t on the exam, wasting everyone’s time. The point of the practice exam is to let me know what I don’t know! I don’t know that I don’t know something unless there’s a question asking me about it!\r\n\r\nLarry is underrated. The GOAT, if you ask me.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:00:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Herman may seem unapproachable, but if you understand and like his odd sense of humor then you'll have an easier time approaching him. He does talk very fast, but if he repeats something he says it's probably very important. His slides are super detailed, but reading the books and going to office hours will help fill in the gaps. I repeat, go to office hours, because you're going to need all the help you can get for his projects. The projects are tough but the descriptions are very detailed, so read those before you even touch your keyboard. As for his exams, you either know the answer or you don't, since you can't really look at one part of the exam to help you answer another part. And yes, Herman does have laser vision and will see through the tables to find you on your cellphone, so use your phone at your own risk.\r\nAll in all, this class is challenging and Herman does a good job of explaining it. As a bonus, he gave out chocolate to random people for several lectures in a row. Additionally, he made his Halloween lecture about zombies, so if you want to learn more take him in the fall when lecture falls on Halloween.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:49:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Go to class, do the midterm reviews and discussion worksheets to study for exams and you should be fine. Also, start early on projects so you can get an idea of what is asked of you before the stress of a deadline.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-18T04:40:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Solid lecturer. Awkward and strict about things but good guy. Attendance is important. He repeats key things in lectures a lot. Slides are kinda incomplete. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-18T07:34:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I had him before for 132 and I hated him. I only picked him again for 216 because he was better than Shankar. Herman is completely boring once again and makes me fall asleep with his monotone voice. So I would have to go home and review his powerpoints and examples (since he doesn't record nor allow phones/laptops in class), which are extremely vague. I even read the textbook for goodness sake and was still confused in a class because there is so much information in the textbook that I don't know what he wants us to know for class.\r\n\r\nBy far the worse lecturer I've had. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:31:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Larry can be very monotonous, which may make it tough for people to pay attention, but he does try to make 216 easy to understand. He may seem unapproachable but if you go to his office hours, you will find out that he is a pretty nice guy. Overall, I would say he's not great, but good.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-01-09T01:32:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Great lecturer, has very reasonable exams and practice material, and INCREDIBLY CLEAR project descriptions. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-04-10T19:59:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Although some of his rules may be annoying (no electronics, sitting in the front row always), he is a good lecturer. You just need to pay attention in class, write down the things he repeats, and *thoroughly* study for the exam. I would definitely recommend him as a teacher.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-23T22:18:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'I love herman. He is arguably the best lecturer we have in the CS dept', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-09-15T22:05:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "This professor has been THE LEAST accomodating professor during this pandemic. He assumes so much about his students. He assumes that if you aren't on top of everything 24/7, then you don't care about the class and you don't care about your grade. Although the university is telling their professors to be accommodating, his policies are still incredibly strict. He's also the most condescending professor I've ever had. Don't take a class with him if you value your mental health.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-10-27T16:37:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'He does try to make lecture engaging, albeit not very successfully. It is possible to do well in this class, but be prepared to spend an obscene amount of time studying and reading from the textbook. He is not accommodating despite having an online semester and feels that only his class matters.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-09T19:54:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "The worst professor I've had at UMD so far. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-11-16T22:48:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Truly the worst professor I've had at UMD. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-16T22:49:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Honestly, Herman is probably the worst professor I've ever had. He's not a bad lecturer but he's not great either, he shuts down students asking questions and has such a rigid structure to lectures is pretty annoying. Also the way he's formatted the class virtually is kinda annoying too, from requiring a password to access any files to how office hours work. I do feel like he'd be a better professor with an in person class but he hasn't made a good transition to online classes and expects too much out of students.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-18T10:31:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Honestly, Herman is probably the worst professor I've ever had. He's not a bad lecturer but he's not great either, he shuts down students asking questions and has such a rigid structure to lectures is pretty annoying. Also the way he's formatted the class virtually is kinda annoying too, from requiring a password to access any files to how office hours work. I do feel like he'd be a better professor with an in person class but he hasn't made a good transition to online classes and expects too much out of students.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-18T10:31:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "He is the textbook definition of a lecturer that does it because they have to and not because they like it. If he does enjoy his job it is not reflected at all in his lectures. He frequently interrupted his students when they tried to ask simple questions and told them instead to go to office hours (which I was told were super busy). There were times where the questions were too in-depth for him to answer quickly, but often times he didn't give students a chance to ask the question. You can do well in this course, and if it was in person I feel like it would be a better experience, but he was almost harming accomodation for students rather than helping by restricting lectures to certain sections earlier in the semester and only lecturing once a day instead of 3 times a day like he was supposed to, which meant that if you had class during the time that he decided to hold lecture, you had to then accomodate another 75 minutes out of the day to watch his lecture. There are better lecturers than him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-10T20:24:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Tought in joint with Shankar.\r\n\r\nHe's a knowledgeable guy as a CS teacher, but he never let students ask questions, and his lectures were so boring. \r\n\r\nThere were a LOT of projects, and the PDF descriptions seemed as if he went out of his way to make them hard to interpret. The exams were hard, but I suspect that's standard across CMSC216 sections. \r\n\r\nWouldn't recommend him to anyone.\r\n\r\nPS,\r\nStart your projects early. It often took students 1-2 days just to understand what the project was asking for.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2020-12-10T21:42:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I am so torn. I have come to really like Larry over the past two semesters with him (216 and 132), but I will admit he is 100% not for everyone. His project descriptions are legendary, and the projects were delightfully challenging. His exams can be difficult, but he'll curve accordingly. I think he is understanding of students when the students' sentiment is widespread. The discussion work is graded for participation which is such a nice change. He's quirky, and weird, but works really hard for his students. I see why he gets the bad rep (I did not like him at first, even completely after 132), but I personally have come to like him. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-19T16:23:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Not a great choice, slow grader, everything gets graded the last second. Everything is self-taught which has a change on grades. If you know everything pick him, otherwise stay away', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-29T15:14:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'HES THE WORST, If you have him game over', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-31T16:54:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Disclaimer: I took these courses in 2018. I'm a senior now.\r\n\r\nHerman was pretty much the epitome of a hard but fair professor. He can come off as kind of a dick and he certainly has his quirks but he is by far the fairest professor I've had in CS. His exams are pretty much identical to the practice exams and there are generally little to no trick questions involved. His project descriptions are extremely thorough and well written, which any upper classman would know is a rarity in this department. I don't know how he handled the transition to online but as an in-person professor he's my absolute favorite. If you're willing to put in the work for his class, you will do good. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-11T22:30:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Actually the GOAT! I could see how some other people don\'t like him because he\'s very pedantic, especially with projects. However, because he\'s very exact, you know exactly what to do and there\'s "what if\'s" to worry about. Also, he provides tons of study material that, if you do and understand them, you will get at least a B on the exam. When taking him, the amount of work you put in correlates to the grade you receive. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-11T17:24:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'I had him this semester and was nervous but he turned out to be a really good teacher. The class is just time consuming, but he teaches the material really well because everything on the exams and projects is always covered in a clear and straightforward way in the lectures. I loved his lectures. His lectures waste 0 time and are super direct and packed with material (useful in online learning where you can just note everything he says, and use that note sheet as most of your studying). He is always very clear in his lectures to its easy to follow along. He gives tons of resources to prepare for exams (practice exams, homework and worksheets which are usually optional) and he really seems like he wants us to do well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-04-05T15:17:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Genuinely the worst professor I have ever had. His lectures are completely useless and boring to watch. The exams are completely unfair, with one small trivial question on each exam (minimal partial credit) corresponding to 3-5% of your ENTIRE grade. If I could give negative 5 stars, I certainly would. I would not recommend this class to anyone, even my worst enemy.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-04-15T01:07:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'The class can be difficult at times but if you start the projects 1-2 days after they are assigned you will be fine. Project descriptions are very long but reading every sentence is important if you want to get a good grade. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-04-18T21:02:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'OK lecturer but is highly pedantic and nitpicks projects/exams. Helps students as minimally as he possibly can in lectures and office hours, moreso in online than in person', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-04-19T20:36:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'The way Larry formats his online classes is very unpleasant. The class is time-consuming and unforgiving. His lectures are OK, very boring but they get the job done. He is not great at answering student questions, cutting students off often, so go to office hours for help. His projects are fair, just make sure to read every sentence of the wordy document very carefully. The problem is that exams are very unforgiving and weighted very heavily compared to projects in the class. He is a slow grader. If you want to do well, make sure you pour in 110% of your effort.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-04-26T19:09:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Larry is a great teacher. He teaches concepts well and gives very detailed explanations of why it's so. However the reason why this review is a 3 star is because of the exams. They are completely unfair and do not accurately test one's learning in this course. Many questions are multi select and test over obscure one off questions rather than the high level concepts that are very well explained. The most you will learn in this class is from the projects where you get to implement the ideas that are discussed in class and in discussion. This class could be great if the exams were a bit more fair. In my opinion if Larry dropped the lowest scoring test and raised the project weight, this class would be a 4 or 5 star.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-29T22:20:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': "I believe the way he teaches is honestly pretty good. If you actually pay attention to the lectures, do the worksheets and homework you'll succeed. The 3 stars comes from his inability to create an efficient grading system. I got my exam #1 nearly 1.5 months after I took it. We got it back the week before exam #2. The projects are even worse because they are returned out of order or not at all. The course is very large but if my CMSC250 lecture can grade 200+ proofs in 2 weeks I don't see why 200+ projects/exams can't be graded in less than 1.5 months. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-04T14:10:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "He's honestly a pretty good lecturer, except for the fact that he seems super against people asking questions. And sometimes I don't really feel like I understand a lot of concepts until I watch the lectures over again, but that might just be me. Like people said, his project descriptions can seem super dense and overwhelming, but they're pretty helpful and I found the projects here to be easier than 132 (since you're doing a lot of basic stuff, just in C). His grading is pretty ridiculous, the first exam was returned over a month later and many projects are still ungraded even though we're coming close to the P/F deadline. He did, however, grade the last exam in about a week, so I'll give him that. His online tests are pretty ridiculous because of the brutal multiple choice (each question have multiple answers and you have to choose all) that he claims is only graded harshly because that's how ELMS says it has to. The averages on all our exams have been around 68%, I think. He does come off as rude and condescending, probably due to his voice, but he's honestly a nice guy. He does have lots of annoying policies like no emails, limiting questions in lectures, only submit projects once, etc. though. If you have him, it's definitely going to be a challenging and annoying class/semester, but there are certainly far worse teachers here. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-07T21:13:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'This man will make you hate computer science. He will also make you hate yourself and the entire university.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-07T22:15:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': '• Having a good grade in a class doesn’t mean an instructor was good \r\n• Being able to manage a trash prof- oh I meant lecturer, doesn’t suddenly make them good \r\n\r\nJust had to put that out there towards the students who, in their reviews and group me’s, like to downplay just how shitty this instructor is. \r\n\r\nFor one, he restricts the kind of material that you can use when completing projects, so that the only way to know the acceptable concepts you can use, is to watch is lectures, where he frequently cuts students with questions and says “come to my office hours” to pertinent questions.\r\n\r\nManaged to find alternative, clever ways to arrive at an answer during your projects? How cute, can’t use it, wasn’t covered in class.\r\n\r\nImagine i asked you to compute the roots of a polynomials; anyone who’s taken precalc knows that there are *several* ways to do this, and everyone has a preference for which method to use. Imagine i told you: oh, you only have to do it one particular way, and it turned out to be the way that hasn’t clicked for you. Well tough luck\r\n\r\nThis is only beneficial to students who have little programming experience, because, otherwise, you start filtering out *lots of concepts* you’d naturally internalized over your years of programming.\r\n\r\nNever in my life have I seen such idiotic modus operandi for a course, not even Intro to DS which is a super difficult course. His excuse? I dOnT wAnT sTudEnts to make mistakes that are hard to debug , as if students don’t already struggle with the concepts taught HIS way!\r\n\r\nThis means that you can’t rely on learning from SO or YouTube, unless you can *ensure* that their methods of teaching, illustrating a concept or constructing an algorithm are pedantically similar to his ways.\r\n\r\nTell me again how such a “lecturer” manages to earn the “hE’s hOneSTLy gOoD” review. Again having a good grade in the class doesn’t make the instructor a good one. \r\n\r\nThe icing? You blow this fuss over projects that will end up having so little weight towards your overall grade. Can’t even skip some of them though, because GFA will give you to complete them. His excuse? We want you to make sure to understand the concepts as following topics will rely on them. Guess what? It’s possible to understand concepts and do poorly on projects, especially given the insanely long descriptions (that magnify the likelihood of\r\nMissing crucial details) and the self indulgently silly requirements. But who cares? Do as Larry says\r\n\r\nNow the tests: ah, ain’t it beautiful that the last question of every test is not only the longest, but also weight 1/4 of the overall test’s grade? Not only are the projects insanely painstaking (with *little* reward), but the exams are set up for you to fail.\r\n\r\nAnd he has the audacity to pretend to be shocked at the consistently low averages in the class\r\n\r\nThe kicker? With all this perfectionism of his, he has no qualms about cancelling lectures/discussions to “go to a doctor appointment”, no qualms about making mistakes in project descriptions, no qualms about missing certain topics in lectures. Basically a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of person \r\n\r\nHe is honestly the kind of person you’re sl disgusted at that not a single word or rant can describe how *pointlessly* despicable he is, and for *no* reason! ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-12T19:42:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "People obviously have a lot of strong opinions about Herman. He definitely isn't the best, but I thought he was fine.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n1. Informative lectures. He explains things pretty well. If you don't like going to lecture though, his slides are informative enough.\r\n2. He's easy to talk to in office hours if you don't mind his sarcasm and bluntness. I didn't mind it, but I know some people might.\r\n3. Curves pretty generously.\r\n4. The Good Faith Attempt for every project was to just pass half the public tests, which I liked much more than how it was in 131/132.\r\n5. He has a lot of memorable quotes lol\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n1. Grading takes way too long. Project and exam grades easily take over a month.\r\n2. Exams were insane. He gives several multiple choice where you need to pick all the answers that apply. If you pick a wrong answer you lose points for that question. He also gives a debugging problem that's worth 20-25% of the exam grade, and if you can't find the bug or change it correctly then say goodbye to a good amount of points.\r\n3. For some reason, the release date for a new project always seemed to be a day or 2 before another exam, so you're stuck studying but you also have to worry about a new project. Unless you procrastinated, I would STRONGLY advise putting off studying and trying to finish whatever new project is released before an exam. His debugging questions are usually related to whatever new topic the project covers.\r\n\r\nOverall I don't think he's a bad professor, but I can definitely see why a lot of people don't like the way he teaches.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-16T20:11:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'I really do not get all the 4 and 5 star reviews below, at most he gets a 3 star. So for starters his lectures are very dry, this may be due to online semester, I do not know completely. I may stun a lot of people by saying this but I believe his exams in terms of content are quite fair, almost all the topics are touched upon in the review guide and I was never like "oh wow i have never seen this before". \r\nNow the problem with his exams is:\r\n1) Multiple choice questions with like e options where there are multiple answers and say you picked A and D when the Answer is A and E, you would in that case gain 0pts because when you pick a wrong option, you lose points.\r\n2) He made us install lockdown and join a live zoom call, now I understand why he does this, but its important to note how extremely intrusive lockdown browser is\r\n3) Every exam has a 50pt "find the error" type problem which is great if you find the error, but obviously if you cannot, there goes 50pts on a 200pt exam\r\n\r\nNow that isnt the only problem with this class. His projects have almost 1% weight in the class. For the hours of work required to finish these projects, they have almost no significance on your grade at all. Speaking of grades, he takes a century to grade exams and projects and then uses the "TA\'s are busy people" excuse. Like we have not received grades on projects we completed over a MONTH ago. Not to mention there is NO Piazza, so I can see how easily it is for students to fall when they do fall because their is a lack of help. The TA\'s also are most of the time complete and utterly useless when it comes to project help, not to mention the wait times were quite long. Herman also has this extremely weird obsession with the book for this class, like he will make you read like 40 page chapters of it and then test you content that was covered on the book.\r\n\r\nHerman himself seems like a Nice guy, he comes across as condescending a lot , he is very thorough in his project descriptions (the pdf handout for the projects are like 20 pages minimum). He however, does not understand his students very well and if their are other options for professors, i\'d gravitate towards them, however, if you get herman it really isnt the end of the world and I am sure you will make it out fine.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-18T10:32:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I get that his teaching style doesn't please everyone, he can be somewhat harsh and it's hard to ask questions. Still, he is a great lecturer and has a sense of humor. The exams are fair, project assignments are very clear. The grading does take forever though.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T17:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'These reviewers be like "I got a good grade, therefore herman is 5 stars!" If you can avoid him, avoid him, if you can\'t then I guess fight for your grade. He grades SLOWLY, his project descriptions are probably the only good thing about him. His lectures are useless, his slides for the lectures are incomplete and barely help. Exams are tough, projects are worth next to null in this class, despite taking days to complete. The TA\'s in this class were almost as bad as him, this class was an awful experience and I cannot wish this upon my worst enemies.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-25T01:49:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Lectures are very dry and pedantic. He gives generally fair (though difficult) exams and a lot of practice material to go along with it, and his project descriptions are great. Grading takes absolutely forever and isn't always accurate on the first run-through, but I'm not sure how much of this is his fault specifically vs. his TAs. Absolutely refuses to answer any questions by course-mail/e-mail/some other online means like Piazza - he always expects you to attend office hours if you want to ask something, even if it is a simple clarification question. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-25T03:14:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "This class will take up so much of your time, from projects to preparing for exams, there are literally no breaks. You'll seriously be tested on how well you are able to study for exams and actually look at material outside of class. If you don't understand something, there are always resources to help you, it's just a matter of making time to use them outside of lecture and discussion. This is relevant regardless of any person teaching the class. \r\n\r\nAs a lecturer(don't call him professor meme), Herman can only do so much although there are some critiques of him in the other reviews that can be accurate. The class is hard, but it's not like Herman makes it harder. He explains concepts well and the worksheets and homework are a must if you really want to get a concept down. \r\n\r\nExpect the outcome of this class to be a function of how much work you put in. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-05-25T15:25:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': '*Disclaimer- this review was done during online instruction so it may not be entirely accurate when it comes to in person, but please read because it can give you a general sense about who Larry is.*\r\n\r\nThis man is the worst professor that you could ever have. People who review 4 or 5 star must be on something or just naturally gifted at cs.\r\n\r\n\r\nClass setup: You only got to go to lecture once every 2 weeks. I even got lecture zoom links for times when I was in other classes, so I couldn’t go. The rest was watch the lecture videos which are posted roughly 8-16 hrs later. Worst experience ever, literally COULDN’T go to live lecture for a whole month. Had to schedule other classes around finding time to watch lecture videos whenever they got posted out of the blue, screwing up any relative organization of my classes. He often cuts of students asking questions and just says come to my office hours. No Piazza, cannot email him and regular office hours with TAs are a mess. Also have fun seeing your exam and project grades a month after completing them. Very hard to guess where you grade is at for 80% of the semester. \r\n\r\nProjects: First off, only public and secret. Can only submit up to I think it was 6 times before you were penalized. Have to run tests using Grace. Oh that’s another thing, the super ancient system and the way that everything is taught using emacs. Just use vscode. There should be a document floating around about how to set it up. Content wise they are fair ngl. The project descriptions are about 10 pages long so I’d say 95% of common errors and edge cases are explained. If you follow the documentation and code to covers those cases the projects will still be hard but you will be fine passing the public tests and probably some of the secret tests. DO NOT procrastinate on them. They are weighted incredibly low so they do jacksht for you grade. \r\n\r\nExams: These are basically the do or die of this class. I think majority of averages were around 68%, with one at 56%. The way you have to answer the multiple choice which pretty much usually has more than one answer is super stupid. Let’s say there are two answers out of 5. Suppose that A & B are correct but you put down A & C and, so the points gained and lost for that question equal out to zero, so it is like you never attempted the question. You have to be super confident to get points on these because any incorrect answers will lower your grade. Don’t even try to guess on these questions because you will just hurt your grade. If that wasn’t enough there is a question at the end which takes the longest, but also in a sense is a simple you get it or you don’t. It is worth 25% of the test grade and around 3-5% of you course grade so prey that you know the answer or your grade will hurt just from that.\r\n\r\nPlease avoid taking him at any cost. Then again, have heard that he is better in person.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-06-02T17:02:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'I found his lectures to be very clear. He is a good instructor and also quite reasonable when it comes to handling issues. The only issue I found with his class was that project descriptions were overcomplicated and unnecessarily long.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-07-09T02:31:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Took him in Spring 2021. I've seen so many negative reviews on him, but honestly, he was one of the best CS professors I've ever had. His class is extremely clear. Lectures go through all necessary content, project descriptions detail everything you need to know, and exam practice questions are really similar to what is on the exam. If you follow his direction, you will do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-13T18:35:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Herman was a pretty good professor honestly. His exams were really hard and and it took his TAs forever to grade anything, but he explained things well and his project descriptions, while really long and tedious, covered any edge case questions people had. Just study well and you'll be fine", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-11-29T17:54:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I think Herman is good. He seems to care and some of his jokes can be funny. I am very thankful that he records our lectures because he goes kind of fast in class and he gets mad if you take notes on the lecture instead of listening to everything he says.\r\n\r\nI would've preferred taking Pedram for 132 as I had him for 131 and I think he is more of an actual person. He is a nice guy and helped me a lot throughout last semester. Herman just kind of feels like a hermit crab to me. Hes a good teacher but I dont think hes anything special.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-12-05T19:44:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I am a Larry enjoyer. While his lectures can sometimes be a little dry, his jokes are funny and the content is always delivered well. I found that studying from the discussion worksheets and lecture notes was the way to go, since the exams resemble the homework very closely. A lot of material gets covered quickly, so make sure to stay on top of it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-07T04:43:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I attended 3 lectures with friend he seems like cool dude. Kinda boring though. xoxo Sheena Sheep.\r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-13T23:40:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Let me begin this review by saying that Herman\'s teaching style is a bit of an acquired taste. If you don\'t think you can acquire the "taste," then you will likely not agree with the rest of this review.\r\n\r\nThat said, although at times I did feel myself starting to fall asleep in class, Herman generally made lectures un-boring enough to thoroughly absorb the content. Lectures even sometimes included interesting off-color dry humor, such as casually referring to "the almighty above" whilst describing algorithm complexity. Herman\'s exams were generally fair, you just have to read (a fact that my expected A- shows that I can\'t always do). Projects were equally fair, as long as you are not scared away by an 8-page password-protected PDF as your assignment description.\r\n\r\nThe complaints about grading turn-around time aren\'t unfounded, but it isn\'t as bad as some horror stories that I have heard from other instructors/professors. I am still giving Herman 5 stars because this really isn\'t his fault, it\'s the TA system\'s fault.\r\n\r\nFinally, I just want to say if you can bare some quirkiness in an instructor (Herman isn\'t a professor, he will make this abundantly clear) and possibly one too many sheep references, take Herman.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-14T04:01:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Mr. Herman is a really good professor. He knows what he's talking about and he explains complicated topics extremely well during lecture, in such a way that I don't even feel the need to ask questions. He gave us so much practice with the discussion worksheets and exam prep, and it made taking the actual exam not too hard because the style was very similar. You learn the fundamentals of CS in this course and Herman is a great professor to get that knowledge from. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T00:37:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I think Mr. Herman is a very good instructor (though he makes it very clear that he is NOT a professor; he once gave us a mini quiz at the beginning of a lecture about this)! \r\n\r\nNow, I should mention that I did have some programming background prior to the course, so I cannot say for sure what your learning experience will be like if you are new to programming besides taking CMSC131. However, I really enjoyed his teaching style. He gives plenty of examples of concepts, and he puts a significant amount of effort into making comprehensive practice exams and homework assignments so that you are well prepared for the midterms. You can also download his slides and (some) code examples after class to further examine them. \r\n\r\nHe does not allow electronic devices in class, and if he catches you using one, he will not hesitate to call you out. I thought that was annoying at first, but his philosophy is that you should be actively listening to his commentary rather than writing everything down on the slides. In fact, when he sees people writing slide material in their notebooks, he won\'t stop them but he will interject with something like "you don\'t have to write this stuff down because the slides will be on ELMS later." I think that his philosophy worked well for me, but your mileage may vary of course. He is also very knowledgeable about Java and the Object-Oriented paradigm and will write notes to himself to correct unclear information in his slides or to investigate the answer to a question he was asked.\r\n\r\nThe homework comes in the form of coding projects. His project descriptions are very well defined (albeit lengthy) and help reinforce the material covered in lectures. However, they are graded pretty slowly (the last four projects have not been graded yet as I write this review), but maybe that will change in the future. \r\n\r\nHe also makes a good attempt to engage with his students. He frequently asks questions throughout the lecture to his students and corrects them if necessary. As a bonus, I think he genuinely wants to entertain us and be friendly. For one, he always suggested saying your name when you answered a question. During the last half of the semester, he raffled chocolate and other candy using a specialized program he made. And lastly, you can count on him to try to crack a few jokes every lecture (and even in his assignments too). Yes, they are definitely "dad jokes," but nonetheless they still made me chuckle and I appreciated it.\r\n\r\nOh yeah and the sheep thing. He likes sheep. But apparently his favorite animal changes from semester to semester, so look forward to that I guess.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T02:41:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Larry is a fairly good instructor (not professor). His lectures can be a little dry at times (somewhat unavoidable in an intro course), but he is very good at teaching you what you need to know. His project descriptions are remarkably thorough, making it fairly easy to do well on them (provided you put in the work). His exams can be a little tricky, but provided you study you ought to do well. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-17T03:30:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Great instructor. Explains difficult concepts well and learned a lot of material this semester. Made computer science interesting and I look forward to taking 216 with him next semester. Also, great project descriptions. Overall, Herman is incredible and I encourage you to take him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T14:48:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "When I took this class (Fall 2019), I didn't enjoy it mainly because I hate C. However, Larry is a really good intructor and does a good job of explaining concepts, even if his lectures are really dry. His teaching style may not work for everyone, which is probably why he has a lot of negative reviews, but after taking some 400 level classes with professors who don't know how to teach, I think that Larry did a great job. He can be very particular about seemingly random things, like sitting in the back row or using tech in class, but overall you can tell he cares about the class (unlike a lot of CS profs at this university). His slides are comprehensive and he gives good review materials for the exams. The only thing I didn't like was that he took attendance and had 2 participation points (which means you had to ask 2 questions or answer his questions at some point throughout the semester). ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T19:50:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He's ok, but I wouldn't recommend if you had other options tbh. \r\n\r\nHis lectures are dull and I fell asleep a third of the time. He tries to be engaging during lecture by telling jokes and asking questions (which I appreciate), so I honestly think its his voice/how he speaks that makes me sleepy. Another thing about lecture is that he doesn't allow use of technology and will call you out if he sees you using your phone or if its on your desk. You should def still try to pay attention during lecture, especially when he's writing on paper. \r\n\r\nHis project descriptions are great though. Make sure to closely read and (I recommend) take notes on project restrictions, edge cases mentioned in method descriptions, etc., especially considering how I've been told incorrect information multiple times by his TAs this semester (don't think this is a Larry issue tho). \r\n\r\nIf you have to take him, I highly recommend doing all the worksheets, practice exams, and HOMEWORKS (they're optional but you will likely see questions similar to or on the material covered in them). His exams are very Larry-y, but once you get used to his exam question style, you can do well. Overall, his class is doable, but you really need to study and get familiar with his tests/worksheets if you want to succeed. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-25T20:55:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Larry is a good professor if you're willing to learn. His pace is slow, and he cares about you actually learning the material. He is very strict and rather boring, but he will get you the information.\r\n\r\nI recommend him if you can sit through boring lectures without using your phone and are genuinely willing to learn the content thoroughly.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-24T01:23:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Larry can be boring but he's very great at explaining difficult concepts very clearly. He goes slow which gives you time to understand the material really well. He also gives a lot of practice for exams. and he uploads all of his presentation pdfs. His project descriptions are very detailed and cover pretty much every edge case you have to consider. He can be a bit strict about the rules but as long as you wear your mask and don't use electronics, you're fine. I would highly recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-02-24T01:23:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "(And CMSC216.) He talks fast but he goes at a slow/followable pace given how much material he has to cover each lecture. He's one of the most organized professors I've had. His project descriptions are notoriously long, but they detail the entire project so I wouldn't complain much. His practice exams are very good practice for the actual exams. He's a bit strict on rules like masks and no electronics but honestly we all need a professor to put their foot down for the students that are distracting to the rest of the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-03-22T15:12:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "(Obligatory disclaimer: I took this course with Larry Herman in Spring 2021 when it was taught fully online. However, I currently tutor students in CMSC216 and from what they tell me, nothing is different now with in-person instruction.)\r\n\r\nAs someone who studies pedagogy and is looking to be a professor, I can confidently say that Larry Herman does not know how to teach, especially in computer science. The fact that he will not allow any electronics (even for note-taking) during lectures on computer programming should tell you enough about what kind of instructor Herman is.\r\n\r\nExams are simply excruciating. While other instructors are moving to exam formats that function more like open-note timed projects (a more realistic scenario in software development), Herman insists on the practice of writing and debugging computer software using a pencil and paper... Additionally, exams often involve questions needing a specific process not covered in the course, and the multiple choice questions are outrageously formatted and graded. During online instruction, Herman insisted on Zoom proctored exams that required invasive lockdown browsers (I love taking exams with a TA staring directly at my face 24/7. Really calms me down).\r\n\r\nProjects are mostly fair in terms of what they cover, but the administration over them is needlessly awful. Firstly, project descriptions are convoluted and unnecessarily long. This may help to uncover some edge-cases, but it takes about a day just to digest everything. Secondly and most importantly, you will be penalized if you submit too often before the deadline. No more convenient project backups or even just seeing if you're passing all public tests.\r\n\r\nCourse structure and lectures are not the worst, but Herman is weirdly against answering questions during lecture and fully embracing things like ELMS and Piazza so there's that.\r\n\r\nOverall, Herman makes this course much harder than it needs to be and for absolutely no payoff whatsoever.\r\nI will say that he is understanding if you need an extension and have a valid reason, and he does at least seem to like what he covers. However, this does not change the fact that you should avoid him if you like having a good GPA.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-04-22T03:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Larry gives a lot of practice through homeworks and worksheets. Also, his projects are thoroughly detailed, but extremely annoying to read.\r\n\r\nThe thing is, Larry is extremely boring. Most people sleep throughout his class and are forced to rewatch the lectures. Also, his exams don\'t test you on most of the material in the class, they only test you on some very specific topics. Like for example, for the second exam in the semester, we only had one small problem on processing that we had to correct as the "test" for that unit. That was a MAJOR unit, and we didn\'t even have to trace any fork calls or anything. The coverage in the exams is horrendous.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-08T23:22:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Herman is a decent lecturer. His projects are difficult. And, he has a lot of silly rules that get annoying. Herman's teaching style is Draconianly strict. He gives you a 12 page list of directions detailing exactly how he wants you to do every little detail of an assignment. You'll do fine with Herman, but you'd probably rather take someone else. If it means anything, Herman taught CMSC216 better than CMSC132.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-09T23:48:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "He is a good professor. \r\n\r\nHis exams are fair and are much easier than the review guides. If you attempt all the questions on the review and spend time understanding each question's solution, you will do fine on the exams. \r\nThe exam questions are typically simplified versions of study guide questions. Maybe not for the multiple-choice, that will be the same difficulty. \r\nAlso, I suggest rewatching lectures and taking notes on topics you do not fill comfortable with. \r\n\r\nFor the projects, use office hours and START EARLY!! \r\nIf you know you usually do badly on projects, spend some time before the class starts to remake a 132 project for example in C. (Also, I highly suggest understanding the basics of malloc() before the class starts)\r\n\r\n\r\n ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-15T21:55:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I took both 132 and 216 with Larry and he is an amazing lecturer who keeps his class engaged with jokes and fun activities. You do have to be there for every lecture/discussion because you never know when he's going to have a graded in-class worksheet but he doesn't really care if you're not paying attention as long as you don't use any electronics in class. \r\n\r\nHe's also super considerate about assignments and deadlines - he gave extensions on almost all the projects and if you talked to him, then he pretty much gives you as much time as you need to finish the project. His worksheets/slides/homeworks/practice questions are a godsend when you're reviewing for an exam and his project descriptions are super useful when you're trying to come up with edge cases for secret tests (because he literally writes them out for you). \r\n\r\nOne last thing - no release tests! You pass all the public tests, write some student tests if you want, and submit your project. Sometimes, if you submit 48 hours early and only use one submission to pass all the public tests, he gives you extra credit (up to 10 points depending on the project).\r\n\r\nHis class isn't exactly easy but as long as you put the work in, you should do well. Expect to spend 4-6 hours a week in his class if you want to do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-16T19:55:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I did not have good expectations of Larry coming into this course, however so far, he has been one of the best CS instructors i've learned from at UMD. One pro about him is that he provides countless of opportunities to gauge your understanding of the course material through ungraded homeworks and graded worksheets. The worksheets are graded on completion, and are given randomly during lectures and/or discussions. Another pro is that he provides extremely detailed project descriptions. He is also very kind and helpful in office hours. Highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-16T20:05:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Had Herman for 132 and enjoyed him again for 216. I really just like the way he delivers the course content. It is straightforward, but he also sprinkles some humor to make the class more engaging. I thought his lecture examples were very clear and well detailed, and his exams were pretty fair. Projects were very challenging, but Herman's detailed descriptions helped quite a bit. Overall great INSTRUCTOR and def recommend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-17T00:36:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I've gotta say coming into this semester I was not a huge Herman fan. 1st lecture drops all of these what seems to be outdated stupid rules with a voice that could put you to sleep in seconds, I thought he was going to be the worst. I kept coming back lecture after lecture and I gotta say even though he will bore you to sleep, he is a great lecturer. His code examples and slides are amazing resources, the projects were clear, office hours with him were great, and his occasional humor in his lectures will *sometimes* bring you back to life.\r\n\r\nI'd give him 5 stars if he had gotten things back on time which I'm honestly surprised he hasn't. So far it's a week and a day after the final and I only have 3/10 of my project grades in and no grade for the final. My A- is a very rough estimate since I don't know how half of my assignments went which is definitely a pretty annoying grievance if you do something incorrect on project 3 for example and continue it up until project 10.\r\n\r\nAnyways, take him if there's no other great options available. As someone who has now had both Pedram and Herman, I would say take Herman. He gives far better exams than Pedram and far better resources to prepare. He very clearly also cares for his students despite his sometimes what seems like random unhinged rules", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-20T04:50:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Honestly one of the more underrated professors in the CS department imo.\r\nHis exams are very fair if you’ve covered the practice exams and the homeworks. \r\nThe projects are usually not too difficult if you start early and reference the example code; the project descriptions are usually very long but I think they do a good job providing all the necessary information so I never felt like anything was too ambiguous.\r\nHe uses worksheets in lectures and discussions to keep track of attendance but they’re largely graded on completion so that’s like free points to me.\r\nHe has his quirks, usually strict about wearing masks and using devices in class. His lectures can also be boring at times but they were recorded so it wasn’t a big deal. Exams are usually given back promptly but we didn’t get back projects until the end of the semester. \r\nUltimately the class structure is fair and Larry gives his students ample opportunity to pass and do good in the class. Highly recommend.\r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-23T14:13:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "*Do not listen to positive reviews of this professor, almost all that are positive are because they have programming experience outside of class. This professor is not worth it for those who are beginners in programming, do not be deceived into taking his class. Please sign up for another professor instead! This is from my perspective as a transfer student. *\r\n\r\nI don't know why everyone says Larry is such a good professor. I took him last semester in my first semester at UMD from transferring from cc. I noticed right away that his lectures are incredibly boring and he is very rude to his students. His overall demeanor comes off very negatively and he doesn't seem friendly like other professors. His projects are insanely long and require you to know practically every word by heart if you want to do well. I would spend entire days doing projects to no avail, and when I came into the office hours I was yelled at instead of helped. His class was an absolute nightmare and was one of the hardest classes I've taken. I think the exams were the worst part by far, they were complete nonsense and there's way too much information crammed into them. Of course he's one of those professors that makes you physically write down code with a pencil and paper which doesn't make sense for a computer science class. Exams have a lot of weight to them and really have a big impact on your grade as well, and they're just too hard for what they are. This class felt like 2 or more classes crammed into one. He assigns way too much work way too quickly, so you will be coding everyday until the class ends. You likely will not have enough time for your other classes while you are taking this class, there will be so much work that you can't divert your attention anywhere else. This class made me switch out of computer science, I'm not sure about the other professors but don't take him if you want to pass and if you want to keep your sanity. Most people in my class dropped quickly and that was the right decision.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-09-14T02:17:01.259950Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'If you asked me last semester what I would give Larry Herman, I would have said a 2. He essentially makes attending lectures mandatory because of the unannounced classwork. He is a stickler for the rules, like having KN95 mask instead of the generic blue mask (last semester when it was mandatory). He puts a password for all his attachments which is really inconvenient. His projects are probably the hardest among any other classes I have taken and the deadline is not generous (compared to other classes at least). His lectures are extremmmelllllyyyy boring. He essentially didn\'t curve at all last semester for like the first time because of "over-performance." He doesn\'t like being called a professor because of the technicalities of the word (lol). I could go on and on about him.\r\n\r\nBut when you take the other CS classes, you\'ll start to appreciate him. The biggest issue I have with the current CS classes I take is the inconsistencies in practice content and real exam content. The cheating that goes around doesn\'t make things any better. In this respect, Larry Herman is tough but fair. Occasionally, yes, you\'ll get a question that you would not know if you strictly did the practice exam, however, this was rare and often would not take you down too much in points. Also, the amount of time he gives for his exams is more than enough. For the final, it seemed like more than half of the people finished early and left.\r\n\r\nAlso, Larry rarely makes grading mistakes, at least not to the degree other professors do. For the current classes, I am taking, to put into perspective, I have to make a regrade request almost every single time. I only had to fix a mistake with him once. \r\n\r\nAdmittedly, as one of the reviewers here pointed out, I have learned programming outside of the class. And if I didn\'t have prior experience, I probably would not be as successful in this class, or at the least, I would have had to put more effort to achieve the same result. But honestly, if you genuinely have a passion for coding, that is the only way you can possibly succeed in this major for the average person. And if you have a genuine passion for something, you should have prior experience. And even if you are just here pursuing a CS major for the bank, you gotta admit, there is no CS lecturer fairer than Larry Herman. \r\n\r\nOf course, because I mentioned his flaws with him at the beginning, I had to take a star away. I wish he was a bit more lenient in many respects than I listed above; trust me, I\'m not happy that he did not curve grades at all when I took 132 with him. But when you advanced further into the CS major, you\'ll soon come to realize what a privilege it was to learn from a fair person and the things you complained about are minor inconveniences that even have some sense to it (for instance, he wants people to come to class so learning is more effective, hence unannounced classwork). As one person mentioned in my GroupMe recently, "You don\'t know what you had until it is gone." Don\'t take Larry Herman for granted.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-10-17T05:58:21.837288Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Soooooooooooooo Maryland law requires me to inform you that Larry Herman is actually a pretty decent not-professor.\r\n\r\nIn all seriousness, he has his personality quirks, but I haven't found any faults in his teaching style or in his knowledge of the course material. The lecture slides cover pretty much everything you need to know and they include very helpful examples for Eclipse. Lectures are recorded and put on canvas.\r\n\r\nProjects are reasonable, his instructions are pretty long but they cover pretty much every edge case you need to consider. They are due roughly every week and a half or two weeks. I usually dedicated around 10 hours for each project, but of course this depends on its length. And he gives extra credit on a few of them if you just turn it in early.\r\n\r\nI disagree with the bottom review. I didn't do programming at all outside of class and I did fine. Of course, you should remember material from CMSC131/AP Comp Sci A/whatever, but he gives a pretty detailed review sheet and dedicates a few lectures at the beginning for this.\r\n\r\nHe doesn't allow electronics in class, going so far as to point people out from across the room who he thinks are on their phone, which a lot of people don't like. He also doesn't really like it when people take notes word-for-word off the lecture slides (this is not a good way to take notes, anyway). And his lectures can put people to sleep, but at least he's funny. If you can get past these things, though, and work diligently on the projects and studying for exams, you will do well.\r\n\r\nOverall, I'd highly recommend him, especially over a professor that's confusing but nice.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-19T02:22:31.150301Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I took Larry in Spring 2022 fearing the worst as he had 3 stars on PlanetTerp. Honestly, he really is a prof- sorry lecturer that is an acquired taste. Some of you will absolutely hate him but I really liked him. His lectures are boring as hell but he is really good at explaining things and he seems like he just wants everyone to succeed. Sure, his pedagogy may be old-fashioned (don't use electronics, always come to class, etc) but the statistics don't lie. Those who came to his class were more likely to get an A. He cracks some really out of pocket jokes sometimes but his jokes keep you from falling asleep. If you go to his office hours he actually is a chill guy, even though he seems like a hardass in lecture. His project descriptions are super detailed and practically tell you how to do the project, which I didn't realize I'd miss so much in CMSC330. The exams were very fair in my opinion and matched the difficulty of the practice exams. The only annoying questions are the multiple choice ones that can give you negative points if you pick the wrong ones. I recommend overall and definitely don't take him for granted.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-19T16:34:49.198353Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'He makes me want to fall asleep in his lecture. His projects are so complicated unnecessarily when compared to other professors.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-31T14:49:56.441092Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Honestly, Larry is pretty underrated. \r\n\r\nPretty good lecturer, can be boring at times. He's strict about masks and electronic usage, but once you learn to really focus on the lecture it doesn't make much of a difference. He can be funny and does his best to make the class interesting.\r\n\r\nThe projects can be tedious but his descriptions are very good. The exams are very fair as long as you do the practice exams, worksheets, and stay on top of lectures. \r\n\r\nIf you're self-motivated, I highly recommend him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-07T04:07:42.227397Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Like a lot of people mentioned, he has his quirks. Very strict when it comes to certain things and can be a little boring as a lecturer. However, he teaches very well. I learned so much in this class and I felt like he really wanted his students to succeed. I also had to go to his office hours a few times to discuss something unrelated to the course material and he was very nice and accommodating. His exams and grading are also very fair. Projects are fair too with mostly public tests. I would definitely take him again for another class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-10T01:18:50.064456Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Good teacher explains stuff well but doesn't u let use phone during class", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-18T03:09:04.206561Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'I love Larry. People don’t like him because he’s hard, but I enjoyed his lectures. Yes, his tests are hard. And the material is hard, but if you READ THE TEXTBOOK and go to class, you’ll do well. The projects were fun and actually very creative. Definitely recommend taking classes with Larry.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-01T01:16:17.207240Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Larry’s alright at lecturing and he’s obviously knowledgeable and been teaching for a while. He sometimes goes a bit too in depth(or repeats himself 3-5 times) and quickly falls behind. I find myself falling asleep in his lectures from time to time. \r\n\r\nThe content in 132 is fairly easy as long as you have a basic grasp on programming. However, I’ve found that his TAs will do anything to avoid giving a perfect score. They are petty and believe no one should get a perfect score. On all of my projects I have gotten -1% because of “lack of detailed comments.” This isn’t the case. Herman in office hours said he’d get them regraded but he has not done so. \r\n\r\nIt’s an alright class and you will do well if you know the content, but don’t expect a 100% on anything.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T23:20:20.772201Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Larry beary is a quality instructor (not professor). Exams were very fair and reflective of course material. He puts a lot of effort into his projects and lectures. 10/10 would recommend. Quality Guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T02:27:44.260823Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I feel like people hate Larry because of his strict no phone policy and his required discussion worksheets. However, I thought he was a great lecturer with a cute and quirky personality. He is very organized, good at explaining concepts, and gives us plenty of resources to help understand the material. His labs may seem intimidating at first because of the lengthy project guidelines, but you'll realize that it's better to have more information about the lab than less; you'll never be confused about what you have to do. As long as you attend lectures/watch the recordings, the labs are extremely fair and doable (takes 4-10 hours). He also offers 3-10 extra credit points on some labs for turning it in early. His exams are extremely easy compared to other classes and the upper quartile has consistently scored over 90. He is an amazing teacher and I would really recommend taking this course with him. The only complaint I would have is that projects take a long time to be graded, but that is probably just because of the size of the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T03:12:29.985207Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "This guy is the GOAT. The only people that don't like him are the ones who can't resist the urge to check their phone every 5 minutes. As long as you go to class and put the work in, you will succeed in his class. World class instructor. Would recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T00:00:53.124132Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Herman gets a lot of flack because he doesn't allow electronics in lecture, he has graded worksheets in discussion, and he is a very monotone, boring, lecturer. With that being said, the dude can teach. His notes and lectures are unbelievably thorough, and so if you can stay awake, you'll walk away with a really good understanding of the material. The projects and exams are both very fair as well. If you can get around his idiosyncrasies, he's ultimately just a really fair, thorough, instructor, which is dope. Love you Larry", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-21T06:21:08.803887Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Larry is an amazing instructor and a great lecturer. All of his slides are clear with plenty of examples and are provided to you very soon after each lecture along with a recording. The topics in 132 can be confusing the first time you hear them but Larry always did an excellent job of using examples to explain them. Additionally, in every discussion section there are worksheets that are essentially graded on completion, but are SO helpful. The problems on the worksheet really help you understand the lecture material and are representative of the exam questions. When the exam comes around these worksheets alone are usually enough to help you get practice but Larry also provides a 20 page practice set with exam questions. AND on top of that there are optional homework to do to get even more practice. All of these materials have solutions that are thoroughly explained. The projects in this class were challenging but doable and the project descriptions are more than clear. There was also always enough time to complete them, and the TAs were very helpful. The class is organized and Larry keeps everyone updated regularly with his news feed. He couldn't be more clear about instructions and what's going on in class. I can't say enough great things about Larry's teaching style, if you have the opportunity you HAVE to take Larry. In addition to being a great lecturer he is also funny and this semester gave away chocolate every single class to two random people. TAKE LARRY!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T16:11:10.493095Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I liked the way he taught the class, since he taught it in a way that helped you programs run on a fundamental level, so I felt like I had a better foundation from this class than 131. However, his class was quite boring. This might not be his fault, since the material he's working with isn't exactly riveting in my opinion, but the class is not engaging and I never really wanted to go to class. He also is very strict about his policies, which are genuinely pretty antiquated (no electronics of any kind in class, etc.). I found the projects fair, but there was some material that wasn't covered in any project. If you're a cs major (which I'm not), he's likely a good professor to have since he is good at explaining how it all works, but he doesn't make it very fun.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-21T22:37:38.121449Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Larry is alright but will make the class more of weed-out than it has to be. The project guidelines are detailed but the style requirements can be pretty stupid. The discussion sections are alright but there graded attendance worksheets are worth too much of your grade and are pretty useless and annoying. His lecture slides are alright but he never really addresses non-obvious student questions and can be a little intimidating and unkind (unintentionally or otherwise). The tests aren't terrible but there was always 1 or 2 really specific and trivia-like MC questions. He does do very well in giving large practice tests and optional HWs. \r\n\r\nOverall, he's not a bad option but he won't wow you with charisma, passion, kindness, or competency. If you're taking Larry, you'll get a dependable, bland, quality education.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-22T01:47:14.052525Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Can't deny that he's a great lecturer and he gives you all the tools (optional homework, practice worksheets, exam prep) to succeed and learn a lot. He has a lot of rules, both for assignments and being in class, that he's very strict about. Super slow grader, though - we took our final a week ago and only 4/9 projects have been graded so far.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:33:55.420349Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Larry can be boring but he is a great instructor. Everything in the class is very fair. If you have the opportunity to take him please do :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T18:56:34.370306Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He's a very slow teacher, but good at explaining things. If you already know what he's talking about you will be bored out of your mind. I think I fell asleep in 80% of his classes. Also he has random graded worksheets in the discussions(why is 2 discussions a week neccesary) which suck when you have discussion at 8 and it's 30 degrees outside.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-26T19:57:55.182150Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He's a great teacher and explains all the concepts and algorithms really well. You basically have to go to lecture because he screws up the recordings and sometimes forgets to record the stuff he does on paper. Not having electronic devices is more of a pro than a con but you can always go to office hours and ask for permission to use it (as long as you have a decent reason). Projects are fairly easy, received almost a 100 on all of them. Exams are mostly easy, just don't screw up the programming question because it is often worth half of the exam grade (I screwed it up because I was so uncomfortable writing code on paper, hence my grade). Make sure to read/skim over the textbook because some of the information that he briefly mentioned in lecture shows up on the exam and shows up in the textbook (My friend made quizlets and they were super helpful). PRACTICE WRITING CODE ON PAPER BEFORE YOU TAKE EXAMS! Never take your phone out in class even if you're in the back (Herman has a hawk eye for phones) because he will call you out and the entire lecture hall will look at you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-26T21:26:36.357866Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Larry's a good teacher with very fair and doable exams. A lot of people complain about his lengthy project guidelines, but I kinda liked them. He basically tells you every edge case and addresses any possible point of confusion in those directions. He's annoyingly strict about certain things (like calling him professor as opposed to instructor) and kinda came off as unapproachable, but after talking to him a couple of times during office hours I realized he means well. I would give him a higher rating if he didn't grade so slowly. The semester ended a week ago and he still hasn't graded our final exams and given us our final grades. In fact, it wasn't until this week that the majority of our project grades were put into canvas. I get that its a large class and grading projects are difficult, but I feel like this was slow for even CS.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-28T03:14:49.430088Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'He’s good. He makes it tricky sometimes. Final is much harder than the rest of the course high basically tanked by grade 10%.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-30T04:54:07.069079Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Sometimes boring, but in my opinion he's quite funny. Good lecturer that can explain things well. Only thing that's annoying is how long the project descriptions are and how specific his requirements are. Make sure you go to lecture and discussions because they sometimes have graded coursework (which is based on completion - just make sure you're there).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T07:11:11.147514Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Professor Herman will provide you with good resources to teach yourself the content, but he is boring and lacks basic social etiquette.\r\n\r\nHis slides, practice exams, projects, and other resources are really clear and helpful. His grading is also quite lenient. It's quite an easy A if I'm being honest.\r\n\r\nHowever, that's where his positives end. His TAs are horrible in my experience. I'm not sure if he selected them, but if he did, he focused more on choosing TAs that would obey him rather than those who will teach well.\r\n\r\nHis lectures are extremely boring. They do not help at all. He repeats everything thrice and talks incredibly slowly. He then complains about the CS department putting too much content in the course. This would've all been excused, but he gives worksheets that are graded for completion randomly in lectures, effectively making attendance mandatory.\r\n\r\nHowever, that's all irrelevant compared to his social etiquette. I'd strongly recommend avoiding office hours. Every time I've been to office hours, which is only when I needed to receive credit for an excused absence, he always makes me feel uncomfortable. He has many quirks. He makes a thing about calling him instructor and not professor. He doesn't let you email or message him. If you need a graded worksheet excused, you will have to go to the one office hour block he set at a reasonable time and wait over an hour to meet with him to have him excuse the absence.\r\n\r\nIn short, Larry will make the learning experience very easy, but will undeniably be a pain to deal with.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-07T03:18:39.936888Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Herman is literally awful. DO NOT TAKE HIM. The good reviews on here are from people who have been coding for years. Herman's class will strain you to another level. His exams are AWFUL and you can study all the course material for weeks and still leave with a failing grade. He is incredibly rude and condescending and will never respect you as a person. He requires you to meet with him if you have an excused absence, which seems fine until you realize he has no ordering system so in a class of 500 students you'll likely never be able to get his attention. Same with the TA's office hours are absolute chaos. His projects are maybe his only good aspect. They are very detailed and you either know it or don't. However, his TA's will find any little thing for your code to be wrong. You'll never get a 100 unlike Pedram or Fawzi who rely on public and release tests. Herman should be your last option and even then I would suggest waiting until another professor comes available. DO NOT TAKE LARRY HERMAN. His 216 course is only doable if you really know what you are getting into.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-01-09T19:30:32.605355Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Pros:\r\n- Good lecturer\r\n- Answers all questions\r\n- Covers content well\r\n- Well organized\r\n- By the book\r\n- Old fashionedish professor that is very straight forward\r\n- Knows his stuff\r\nCons:\r\n- Sooooo boring\r\n- Is not generous with points\r\n- Attendance is part of your grade', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-19T20:44:24.891622Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Had Larry for 132 as well so I went into this class knowing what to expect, and it was exactly what I expected.\r\nPros:\r\n- Good lecturer\r\n- Answers all questions\r\n- Covers content well\r\n- Well organized\r\n- By the book\r\n- Old fashionedish professor that is very straight forward\r\n- Knows his stuff\r\nCons:\r\n- Sooooo boring\r\n- Is not generous with points\r\n- Attendance is part of your grade', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-19T20:45:26.613735Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Honestly wasn't that bad of a professor. His project descriptions are very thorough about what is required of you, and as long as you follow them you should be good. The final exam was definitely waaaaay harder than any of the previous exams and definitely tanked most people's grades down atleast a little bit", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-21T04:50:20.912227Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Larry receives too much hatred. He runs a very tight ship, and admittedly has a few faults that can be really annoying, but he is a really, really good teacher as long as you take the time to pay attention during his lectures and devote some time to making sure your projects are up to par. If you're looking to blow off this class or just get it out of the way, don't take it with Larry. He doesn't allow any sort of technology in his class, and that includes laptops, so all notes need to be handwritten. Larry is also 100% unreachable outside of class or office hours, but honestly, every single thing that he does, says, or writes is so unbelievably thorough that as long as you pay attention to what he provides you with, you won't need to contact him anyway.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-30T16:37:29.005990Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "There are so many reviews about Herman's teaching and while that's great and all, I just want to share this:\r\n\r\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/UMD/comments/ilwf1k/cs_department_at_umd/\r\n\r\nAnd honestly, not surprised", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-02T01:06:39.682759Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'This dude is a literal boomer he teaches 216 using emacs only instead of vs code', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2023-02-25T01:19:25.773247Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': None, 'review': 'I LOVE THIS GUY', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-02T20:44:33.101589Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Worst professor I've ever had it's not even close.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-16T20:42:25.711185Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Easy to fall asleep to. But other than that good professor and provides substantial practice material', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-25T17:53:58.517783Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I think Larry Herman is a great instructor. His lectures can get pretty boring, but he covers everything you'll need to know and explains it all very well. His textbook readings are long and more boring than the lectures, but they are very helpful in learning the material. He gives graded worksheets in lectures and discussions, which means attendance is required if you want a good grade, but they weren't very hard, they covered relevant material and they were only graded for completion. His projects are not easy and they take a long time, but they are doable if you pay attention in lecture and do the assigned readings. The project instructions are very, very long, but they cover everything you'll be graded on and the expectations are very clear. His exams are fair, and he gives a lot of helpful preparation and study material. This class was a lot of work, but I learned a lot from it and thought Larry did a great job.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-22T03:09:41.370750Z'}, {'professor': 'Larry Herman', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'He is a fine instructor and explains the topics thoroughly and well. His project descriptions are very lengthy but very descriptive, so you can easily tell what the secret tests will check, making it very easy to thoroughly test your program. However, he is incredibly boring and makes sure you do not miss any lecture or discussion because he has random graded worksheets. His exams are also not easy because his multiple choice may have multiple answers and are on random small details you had one slide on in a random lecture. It is not easy to contact him or TAs outside of class because office hours take forever, and they do not accept any emails.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-27T02:06:34.186427Z'}], 'name': 'Larry Herman', 'slug': 'herman_larry'}, {'courses': ['BUFN750', 'BUSI640', 'BMGT848A', 'BMGT828A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Laurent Fresard', 'slug': 'fresard'}, {'courses': ['GEOL200', 'GEOL457', 'GEOL110', 'GEOL489A', 'GEOL789M', 'GEOL412', 'GEOL680', 'GEOL657', 'GEOL789A', 'GEOL612', 'GEOL682', 'GEOL789J', 'GEOL899', 'GEOL680', 'GEOL789J', 'GEOL899'], 'average_rating': 1.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Laurent Montesi', 'course': 'GEOL200', 'review': 'Montesi was an average/slightly below average professor. The French accent isn\'t a problem, it\'s his teaching style. The class was not inherently difficult, but the "flipped lecture" format of this class is just so that he doesn\'t have to give lectures. Students are expected to watch 5-6, 20-30 minute videos per week on the material. His grammar isn\'t great and there are a lot of typos in his videos. His test questions often had typos, etc and he would have to make like 5-6 announcements during tests to correct them. All the tests are in class, open notes, and online which makes them easy to do good on, right? Not really, sometimes he asks questions on the smallest details possible and the wording is sometimes downright impossible to understand. He gives kahoot quizzes every other lecture, same story as the tests here. There isn\'t enough time to read and think about the questions because kahoot only gives you 30 seconds to answer. 40% of your grade is a project on a geological event of your choosing (from a list) and this is done over the whole semester. Overall easy project but his guidelines can be vague and he\'ll take off points for stuff that he didn\'t say he wanted in the first place. I got an A- because like I said it\'s not inherently hard it\'s just really tedious and annoying and not worth your time for a gen-ed. TL;DR don\'t take this class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-01-02T04:28:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Laurent Montesi', 'course': 'GEOL200', 'review': 'The flipped class format was a disaster. This flipped class format was supposed to make class more fun and help make learning easier and fun for students. For me it just seems like the professor is too lazy to actually teach his course. Class is just 1hr 15 min of the professor answering questions that students ask. Practically one giant Q and A, 2 times per week, that are also mandatory to go to since he gives out quizzes at the beginning of each class. Montesi also requires students to spend hours each week looking at videos of his online prerecorded lectures. Class seems like a complete waste of time since all of our learning is done by ourselves. 40% of your final grade is also determined by your group project which can either really help you or really hurt you. For me, it really hurt my grade since I got 2 non cooperative group mates and after complaining to the professor, nothing was done to help me. What I expected to be a relatively straightforward, and fun class to satisfy my gen eds turned into a extremely dull, and work heavy class that took up a large chunk of my time that I wanted to spend on other major related courses. I would not recommend anybody to take this course with Montesi.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-10-31T14:17:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Laurent Montesi', 'course': 'GEOL200', 'review': 'horrible teacher. assignments are easy but all busywork. you do not actually learn anything. He should know there is an issue with making exams too hard when there are 120 points total to put out of 100 and STILL need to curve the exam. Exams are extremely difficult and the TA grades really harshly.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T16:43:11Z'}], 'name': 'Laurent Montesi', 'slug': 'montesi'}, {'courses': ['THET408N', 'THET608P', 'THET289I', 'THET713', 'THET614', 'TDPS458I', 'THET408W', 'LASC458', 'THET499', 'ANTH468P', 'ANTH688P', 'THET608G', 'ANTH298I', 'ANTH688C', 'ANTH688O', 'THET286', 'THET408E', 'ANTH468W', 'ANTH614', 'THET399'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Laurie Frederik Meer', 'slug': 'meer'}, {'courses': ['JWST345', 'AASP478K', 'BSCI238D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Laurie Koehler', 'slug': 'koehler'}, {'courses': ['ECON704', 'ECON603', 'ECON603', 'ECON704', 'ECON603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lawrence Ausubel', 'slug': 'ausubel'}, {'courses': ['EDCI752', 'EDCI457', 'EDCI689', 'EDCI488M', 'EDCI657', 'TLPL488M', 'TLPL889', 'TLPL414', 'TLPL889'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lawrence Clark', 'slug': 'clark_lawrence'}, {'courses': ['BMGT828N', 'BUAC711', 'BUAC788P', 'BUAC788Q', 'HACS208A', 'BMGT818G', 'BUAC758Q', 'BMGT821', 'BMGT818N', 'BMGT818R', 'BMGT818B', 'BMGT818Y', 'BUAC758Q', 'HACS208A', 'BUAC758Q'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lawrence Gordon', 'course': None, 'review': 'This guy LOVES to hear himself talk. He could go on and on and on and not pause once. And when we had presenters from the business world, which was pretty often, he would talk over them and interrupt a lot. However this class is very easy, there are hardly any assignments, and i found the material surprisingly interesting. Plus the trip to London over spring break was an awesome experience and made the course worth taking for me. If he is offering the London experience in addition to the class, sign up for the class and go on the trip!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-25T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Gordon', 'course': None, 'review': 'Extremely easy class. While the guy means well, he just talks the entire seminar and repeats himself a lot. If you are a business/accounting major (especially not a freshman) it will be REALLY easy and repetitive. If you are a freshman or not a business major, it probably would have been much more exciting. Tons of guest speakers and presentations, which were interesting most of the time.\n\r\nTwo take home midterms which are graded very leniently. Class participation is 20% so speak up when you can, even though its hard to get a word in over him. Final project worth 40%, which is pretty easy divided among 5 people. Definitely recommend it as an easy honors seminar ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-16T15:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Gordon', 'course': 'HACS208A', 'review': "Clearly knowledgeable about the material, but he doesn't always present it in a great way -- I found lectures kinda uninteresting. But he obviously knows his stuff. Not too much work outside of class though and it was pretty easy, just not the most fun for me. Also agree with the others -- really likes to talk a lot.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-06-25T00:13:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Gordon', 'course': 'HACS208A', 'review': 'The class is not a lot of work, just make sure you participate. Prof Gordon is really nice and passionate about the material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T17:11:01Z'}], 'name': 'Lawrence Gordon', 'slug': 'gordon_lawrence'}, {'courses': ['MEES608A', 'MEES708D', 'MEES708E', 'MEES708V', 'MEES607', 'MEES607'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lawrence Sanford', 'slug': 'sanford'}, {'courses': ['CHEM601', 'CHEM247', 'CHEM401', 'CHEM608P', 'CHEM602', 'CHEM247'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lawrence Sita', 'course': 'CHEM247', 'review': 'Literally, the best professor I have taken so far. No... he IS the best professor that I will ever have. Dr. Sita is charismatic, approachable and a very good lecturer. I went to his office hours once and I completely regret not going to him more often. He is the nicest man you will ever meet and his exams ARE fair. If you EVER have the chance to have him as your professor, take him before the seats fill up!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-18T01:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Sita', 'course': 'CHEM401', 'review': "Really good professor, who always has his students' best interests at heart. Exams were very fair and came directly from lecture notes (so go to class, pay attention, and take good notes). Don't panic if you do poorly on the first exam...I failed the first two and still managed to get an A-.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-22T12:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Sita', 'course': 'CHEM401', 'review': 'Hes a great teacher and he really tries hard to make the students understand inorganic chemistry.All the questions from the exams are pretty much straight from the notes. Its not an easy A but it isnt too difficult if you go to every class. The book did not really help a lot. Only four tests and a final, which was take home.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-20T12:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Sita', 'course': 'CHEM247', 'review': "Dr. Sita as a professor is not the best. He cares a lot more about his research than about teaching, but he is very accommodating/understanding and his lectures have all the necessary information that you need for his exams. His TA, Charlotte Wentz, was the best TA that I have ever had and helped us understand the material so much better. Sita is the type of lecturer to go off on tangents about unimportant information (he talks a lot about real-life applications) and then rush through the slides that have information that will be on the exams. If you go to lecture and lab, you will most likely get an A. He curves the class really well and his test averages are higher compared to other orgo professors. If you're a Chemistry/Biochemistry major and debating taking CHEM247, do it! It is so much better than regular Orgo II, especially since your lab grade and lecture grade are one. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-06T18:00:01Z'}], 'name': 'Lawrence Sita', 'slug': 'sita'}, {'courses': ['MATH456', 'MATH620', 'MATH406', 'MATH808N', 'MATH220', 'MATH299N', 'MATH808L', 'CMSC456', 'MATH120', 'MATH299P', 'ENEE456', 'MATH299O', 'MATH299E', 'CMSC456', 'ENEE456', 'MATH456', 'MATH621'], 'average_rating': 4.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'If you have to take Math220 Larry is the way to go!!! He takes plenty of time to explain things and is very patient with all students. He does not require you to do discussion worksheets like other math professors but instead each discussion is used to ask questions and get further clarification with a 2 question quiz at the end about stuff you literally just went over. There are 2-3 homeworks due per week which arent too bad. Overall he is really great and always so positive and helpful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-25T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "Dr. Washington was great and the nicest professor. He was interesting everyday and had his material ready. Unfortunately, he had generally low standards for how much material to cover in the class, and if you really want to take cryptology to know the material at an advanced level, don't take it with him. If you want to take it for fun and to learn a few things about cryptology, take it with him, because you will learn!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-23T19:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH456', 'review': "Lecture:\r\nIf you buy the book you probably don't need to go to lecture since he pretty much just teaches from the book. HOWEVER, he was great at explaining things, this is one of the first courses I have taken where I can come home from class and do the homework without having to read the book first, sometimes I didn't even need to look at my notes!\r\nHe is also really nice and not uptight like some of the other professors. \r\nProtip: He brought us chocolate on the ~3rd to last day of class when we were doing secret sharing schemes, if you cracked the code you got chocolate. Be there!\r\nAlso he has some good stories/history of crypto stuff. So go to class! Use the book as a backup.\n\r\nBook:\r\nIt was written by him, so if you miss class no real need to fret. No answers in the back of the book though, but you can find some of them online. \n\r\nHW (~25% of final grade):\r\nWasn't too bad, generally one or two challenge problems, the rest were straightforward. There are MATLAB/MATHEMATICA problems for about half of the homeworks. They are also very straightforward (Tip: the back of the book has an appendix that tells you exactly how to do most of these kinds of problems).\n\r\nExams:\r\n2 Midterms ~40%\r\nFinal ~35%\r\nHe posts about 4-6 exams from past years so you can study for each exam. If you can do all of those and the HW you are good to go for the exam. I feel that the final was a little easier than the midterms, but none of them were truly difficult if you did the previous years exams without struggling. He lets you be a tiny bit less rigorous compared to most math professors.\n\r\nTaking this course before/after/concurrently with CMSC414 seems to be a good combo as one will reinforce/prepare you for the other.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-16T20:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': 'Awesome Professor,\r\nIf you are planing on taking this class, you should take it with Dr.Washington.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-13T19:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': 'Nicest teacher ever! He is very engaged and is always there to help with any questions. For the exams he posts past exams that show the exact same format for the actual exam..the questions are exactly the same except the numbers are changed. i suggest doing the homework problems since the quizzes take 2 or 3 problems from the assigned homework', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-05T21:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "Love this professor! He is easy as long as you go to class, take notes, review the notes before exams, do the assigned book problems for the quizzes, do the practice exams, then you will be fine. \n\r\nI took notes in class and used them to study, I didn't even need to look at the book!\n\r\nThere are quizzes in every discussion (except for the week after the exam). The problems are from the assigned book problems, about ~3 questions on each quiz. As long as you do it before your discussion section, you will be fine. Also, book problems are great practice for exams. \n\r\nBefore the exam, he gives out 1~3 practice exams which have about the same format as the actual exam, so make you know how to do them! The averages were about the mid 80s. \n\r\nFor the final, he also gives out ~2 practices. He reviewed the 2010 final on the last day of class, and the final was also the exact same format!\n\r\nAs long as you take sometime to study and know what he taught, you will be fine :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-24T02:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH456', 'review': "This class is very easy to get an A if you put in the work. Dr. Washington gives 3 past exams before each midterm. The homeworks are long but really help and are good practice for exams. Dr. Washington is an excellent lecture, funny, responsive to students' needs and knows the history behind crypto which is really interesting. He wrote the book so your notes look just like the book. If you missed a class just read that section in the book. Great elective course. Awesome prof.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-24T12:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': 'Five star lecturer! Easy class and take it with Larry!!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-14T23:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "Very nice guy and a pretty good professor. His tests are very reasonable and he gives you practice tests too. He is very approachable during office hours.\n\r\nHe assigns homework bi-weekly. He collects 2 or 3 problems and then quizzes you on another 2. However, in class before the quiz, you can ask him ANY homework problem and he will do it. There's usually enough time to do all of them, so you're set for the quiz. He'll also do problems in office hours. With a little effort, you can get a 100% in homework and quizzes.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-02T00:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': 'Larry is an awesome professor!He is always trying his best to make math interesting. The TAs are awesome too!\n\r\nVery easy class.As long as you go to class(actually I skipped most of them ^_^) and take notes, you will get an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T10:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': 'Decent class. Information can get tricky, but he gives out practice tests which have the EXACT same format as the actual exam. Getting an A is manageable with a moderate amount of work.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-23T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH456', 'review': "Larry Washington is a great professor. He makes everything engaging and makes it easy for students to learn. \n\r\nExams in this class were very fair. They were easy to get a B on if you knew the material at all; getting an A generally required thinking outside of the box, as there was usually a question that was a bit of a curveball. Homework was a little time consuming, but definitely helped you understand the concepts you needed to know for the exams. \n\r\nMost importantly, the class was fun and I think our entire class learned a lot. You're probably at a little bit of an advantage if you've taken number theory, but if you haven't it's definitely not a big deal as it's covered quickly during the course. \n\r\nDefinitely take his classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-20T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': "Dr. Washington is an amazing professor!\r\n\r\nHe teaches concepts very clearly, is a super nice guy. He's very understanding about workload and will give you any extensions you need. Exams are very fair, and I had fun putting in what work I could to learn the material (I was also taking cmsc414 and cmsc320 that semester). Definitely take a class with him before you graduate!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-06-11T16:38:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': None, 'review': "Honestly, amazing professor!\r\nHe's so kind and authentic. I was scared of math but he made it easy. Just make sure you take notes and go to class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-09T01:01:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'CMSC456', 'review': 'Best professor I ever had. Posts Panopto recordings and uploads his notes onto ELMS, very fair exams and not a lot of HW. Such a nice guy as well. 10/10 recommend', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-19T06:09:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Dr. Washington has been the best math professor I've had so far here! He does an awesome job of explaining the material during lecture. That being said, as long as you come to class and take notes (as well as study on your own time) then you should pass this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-11-21T02:23:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'Best teacher I’ve EVER had for math. I don’t ever leave reviews but I actually adored and loved his teaching style and passion! Amazing person and teacher inside and out ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-07T02:05:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Amazing professor, the best math teacher I've ever had. He really cares about his students and teaches everything in a way that's easy to understand.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-17T19:31:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH456', 'review': "Amazing professor and amazing class! He is a world renowned expert in number theory and cryptography and he ensures you learn the material on a deep level. At the same time, he is incredibly nice and doesn't make the class too hard - the tests are very fair and often ask questions from the homework. Also it's worth mentioning that because Dr. Washington is a math professor, he does not assign any programming tasks/projects, unlike some CS professors who teach this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-24T16:40:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Absolute legend if math isn't for you. If you took BC calc in high school you'll be fine. If you didn't, he goes out of his way to answer any and every student question and goes over the same concept 100 times until there's no more questions on it. Very nice guy and exams have been slight.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-08T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Dr. Washington is a fantastic professor. He's patient, will go at your speed, and is very understanding. Truly a gem! 10/10 recommend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-09T02:51:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Prof Washington is the most caring and kind professor definitely recommend. The only difficult part of the class was...calculus lol. (Im not a math person) If you follow along in lecture and take notes you should be ok. He doesn't trying to make exams difficult....usually straightforward.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-10T18:32:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'BEST PROFESSOR EVER!!! As long as you go to lecture, understand his notes, and do the review questions before the exams, you should get an A every test and most even close to 100!!. He also counts an 80% on homework and worksheets as 100%. you have to go to the lectures because there are clicker questions that count towards your grade but his lecture is interesting. Overall, best professor I had this semester as a freshman!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-31T16:47:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'He is the best professor in the world!! if you review the review sheets before the exam, you should get an A on every exam! he explains everything extremely clearly and is just a super sweet guy', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-03T20:37:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'I do not usually consider myself a math person. I got 100% on the final exam. \r\nI really think it’s due to the way he taught the class. He made the textbook, which is super simple, easy to read, and has just enough information and examples to teach off of without being overwhelming. His lectures are concise yet comprehensive, and he is open to all questions. He does have some mandatory “clicker” questions to answer during most lecture sections, but they are usually very easy. Other than that, most of your grades come from worksheets and practice problems, which can be discussed with a TA and are usually fairly straightforward. Exams are fair, and if you do the work and a little studying you’ll do well. (not one exam had a class mean of under 87%) Grading policy is very lenient, difficult to explain shortly but he basically drops a section of scores you did poorly on, whether it be a bombed exam or missing worksheets or something similar (or if you just want to skip all the clicker questions)\r\nHIGHLY recommend this professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-13T19:50:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'I am definitely not a math person and usually struggle within any math class I take, however, I barely struggled in this course. He is an excellent teacher and explains everything very clearly. He is super approachable and easygoing. He makes the hour and fifteen-minute lectures actually entertaining and easy to listen to. Most of your grades come from the quizzes every week and 3 exams, which are only 3 questions and based on the homework and algebra review questions (which he gives you at the beginning of the course). He also drops the lowest 2 quiz grades at the end of the semester. I HIGHLY recommend that if you decide to take a math class you have him as a professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-01T01:46:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Professor Washington is the best professor at UMD. Periodt. He is the most caring and patient professor. He encourages students to ask questions and never makes anyone feel dumb for not knowing something. He will happily go over the problem until everyone gets it. He is approachable outside of class and responds to emails within a couple of hours. His exams are reasonable and he never tries to trick anyone. His lectures are clear and concise and don't try to overwhelm you. I would be a math major if he taught every math class. Bottom line is, if you have the opportunity to take him, do it. You won't regret it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-15T21:15:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Amazing professor! Lectures are very easy to understand and engaging despite it being 1 hour and 15 minutes of calculus. Professor Washington always makes sure students are really understanding the material and can apply it rather than just memorizing formulas. Homeworks will probably be the hardest assignment you will get but they help immensely on quizzes and exams so I'd definitely keep up with them if you can. Plus, they don't take that long overall. Also, if you review past exams before the final you should do well as the formatting is basically the same and he writes it! Overall, a great guy. Take Math120 with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-16T16:30:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'Great professor, explains things well. Lectures are easy to understand.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T20:17:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Literally one of the best math teachers I have ever had, if not, the best. Such a caring, thoughtful professor. Very approachable and friendly. Lectures can get boring sometimes but he throws in a few jokes every now and then to keep you interested. He is extremely knowledgeable and a great professor. He takes is time and does his best to make sure everyone understands the concepts. If you do well and work hard on the homeworks/practice exams, you should do great on the exams. He is not out to get you at all and genuinely wants his students to succeed and enjoy math. The final is cumulative, but he gives you a ton of resources to study for it. There are three midterms. Discussion has quizzes but you get a majority of the discussion to go over problems for the quiz and practice. Homeworks are online and help you prepare for the quiz, you also have multiple attempts to get the homework questions right. Responds quickly to emails and posts lectures online to look over if you missed something in class. You don't have to pay for textbooks but the online homework software is $30 or something along the line of that. At the end, he drops your lowest 50 points whether it be from quizzes/homeworks, midterm, or final. I love this man, he is such a nice fellow and made me like math again. Probably the best professor at UMD.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-17T19:24:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'MY FAVORITE PROFESSOR AT UMD. Literally the most amazing person I have ever met. He teaches course material at a good pace and as long as you keep up with the information, you will end with an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-09-23T01:46:59.035908Z'}, {'professor': 'Lawrence Washington', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "He didn't teach my MATH120 class, but he did substitute for Danul, who was my lecturer for MATH120 in Fall 2022. Dr. Washington is GREAT. His notes are easy to follow, and he really takes the time to explain as he goes along. He is also super friendly and does an excellent job with keeping the class engaged. He is also great at answering questions, and if people are still confused at the end of lecture, he makes himself available and takes the time to explain concepts people struggle to grasp. Overall, he is a great lecturer and great guy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-08T03:00:14.316191Z'}], 'name': 'Lawrence Washington', 'slug': 'washington_lawrence'}, {'courses': ['AAST233', 'AAST498X', 'AAST398B', 'AAST398L', 'AAST498Y', 'AAST398T', 'ENGL233', 'ENGL349P', 'ENGL349B', 'AMST418W', 'AAST498G', 'ENGL349T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lawrence-Minh Davis', 'slug': 'davis_lawrence-minh'}, {'courses': ['PSYC330', 'PSYC623', 'PSYC622', 'PSYC629', 'PSYC888D', 'PSYC629C', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC639', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC629A', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC639', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC639', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC639', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC638', 'PSYC639'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lea Dougherty', 'course': 'PSYC330', 'review': 'Great professor. She is very understanding and accommodating. Her assignments are straightforward and she seems to genuinely care about her students. Take her!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-19T04:03:18Z'}], 'name': 'Lea Dougherty', 'slug': 'dougherty_lea'}, {'courses': ['PLSC253', 'PLSC254', 'PLSC480', 'PLSC689Z', 'PLSC399'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lea Johnson', 'slug': 'johnson_lea'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lea Landrus', 'slug': 'landrus'}, {'courses': ['LBSC790', 'INST630', 'INST776', 'INST728L', 'INST631', 'INST888', 'INST728Z', 'INST704', 'INFM718B', 'CMSC838L', 'INST799', 'INST709', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'CMSC798'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Leah Findlater', 'slug': 'findlater'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Leah Grosse', 'slug': 'grosse'}, {'courses': ['GEMS208J', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS100', 'GEMS208C', 'GEMS208E', 'GEMS208K', 'GEMS208L', 'GEMS104', 'GEMS208G', 'GEMS208D', 'GEMS208I', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS208T', 'GEMS208M', 'GEMS102', 'GEMS208F', 'GEMS208P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Leah Kreimer Tobin', 'slug': 'tobin_leah_kreimer'}, {'courses': ['COMM398L', 'COMM399', 'COMM288', 'COMM386', 'COMM489', 'COMM421', 'COMM498G', 'COMM398K', 'COMM398N', 'COMM398J', 'COMM398P', 'COMM288', 'COMM399', 'COMM288', 'COMM399', 'COMM288', 'COMM399', 'COMM386', 'COMM386', 'COMM288', 'COMM399'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Leah Waks', 'slug': 'waks_leah'}, {'courses': ['UNIV107', 'MATH003', 'UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lee Ann Lewis', 'slug': 'lewis_lee_ann'}, {'courses': ['EXST009D', 'EXST048D', 'EXST049L', 'COMM609J', 'COMM639L', 'COMM619I', 'COMM619J', 'COMM719G', 'COMM609I'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lee Boese', 'course': None, 'review': 'No syllabus/exam grades/feedback from the professor during the entire semester.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-07-08T13:37:04Z'}], 'name': 'Lee Boese', 'slug': 'boese'}, {'courses': ['MEES698R', 'MEES608Q', 'MEES498Q', 'MEES698C', 'MEES698Q', 'MEES698R', 'MEES498Q', 'MEES698Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lee Cooper', 'slug': 'cooper_lee'}, {'courses': ['CHEM131', 'CHEM272', 'CHEM277', 'CHEM242', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM399X', 'CHEM391', 'CHEM389A', 'CHEM389B', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM241', 'CPSP218L', 'BCHM111Y', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM242', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM242', 'CHEM399X', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM242', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM242', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM242', 'CHEM399X', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM242'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Probably the most dedicated professor there is for Orgo1. He is so passionate about the material and super funny. However, his exams are extremely tough... so you definitely have to put in the work and effort for this class. Pretty sure averages are in the low 50's or so. Make sure you're on top of things and never study the night before his exams. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-11-15T04:26:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM242', 'review': 'The first time I met this man was asking for help understanding NMR for CHEM242, as my Organic Chem I class did not cover it (I transferred the credit). I brought the assignment with me (I received a 20/40) to go over the things I did not understand by frantic Google searching. He quickly became frustrated with all of my questions, because I did not understand any of the terminology he was using. He started being very short with me as he was re-explaining things, until he started ignoring my questions all together for another student who walked in with the same assignment. I ended up crying in his office and he told me to hope for a curve. The other student actually hugged me in the hallway. \r\nThat was my first semester at UMD and it caused a lot of anxiety just going to lab after that incident. His office is full of memes, but he has very little bedside manner or empathy.\r\n\r\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-11T22:44:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Awesome guy, makes class extremely enjoyable. Known for having pretty tough tests, but they are not unreasonable whatsoever. study hard and show up to class and you will do well. its not the hardest class ever, but definitely need to put time in. Professor Freidman is a great guy though, and has a unique sense of humor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-18T20:20:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Friedman is epic, I had him at 8 am and while I was very tired because of the morning, he would understand and do his best to keep the class lively and exciting. I love organic chemistry because he is such a good professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-15T14:14:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM242', 'review': "I took this class online, and let me just say he acts like a child. He is so unprofessional, and when students would email him with valid concerns, his responses would be snarky and demeaning. His exam was completely unrelated to the class material, and frankly, if he took it himself, I don't think he would have passed. It seems that he wants to see everybody fail, and in a time where our world is quite literally falling apart, he seems to think his class is the only thing that matters. Buckle down for a semester of immaturity and irrationality if you take this class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-02T20:12:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM242', 'review': "I think Friedman is a dedicated professor who teaches a difficult class. CHEM242 online was highly organized, and assignments and grades were posted promptly. He was very helpful in office hours and responds promptly to emails. But his exams hardly test you on the experiments, instead they test whether you've been paying attention in CHEM241/231/131 lecture. Yes, he tests some material from prior classes. In other words they're not really reflective of what you're supposed to learn in CHEM242. Although he curves to compensate for his exams, they're just hard to study for. Good luck.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-25T19:17:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM242', 'review': 'His labs and post labs are very doable if you go to his office hours or just keep in touch with your TA. This course lines up well with the lecture which allowed me to further apply what we learned. He also responds VERY quickly to emails and has a very witty and sarcastic humor which not everyone might enjoy, but keeps things interesting. If you put in the time and are interested in chemistry, you can learn a lot from him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-15T01:37:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Friedman is an okay professor. Personally, I feel he gives too much invaluable information when teaching and focusing on things that aren't the most important for us to know. Going to GSS and being somewhat consistent in reviewing information is important to succeed. Making sure you understand concepts and practice consistently before exams are important. Putting in the work and learning the foundation is important.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-22T18:03:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM242', 'review': "There are some good things that Friedman does in 242 that prevent me from giving him one star, so I'll start with that. The lab manual is very clear and easy to follow. He posts videos of him doing each of the labs, which are very useful and often have small tips to help you do better that aren't in the lab manual. There are online prelab quizzes each week with 3 easy questions about the protocol or the basic premise of the lab. Grading on the lab reports was lenient, just don't forget to attach your calculations.\r\nUnfortunately, though, there are a lot of bad things about 242. First, the post lab questions are very difficult to figure out, and often make you come up with some complicated mechanism that seems to have no relation to the experiment itself. Secondly, the first assignment consists of four monstrously challenging spectroscopy problems, with highly complex structures and abnormal splitting and chemical shift patterns. Friedman knows that all his spectroscopy problems are hard, he intentionally makes them that way for no apparent reason. My orgo 1 professor spent almost no time on spectroscopy, so a lot of students are already at a severe disadvantage right when the course starts.\r\nNext, the midterm. Oh, how woefully unprepared we all were. Yes, he gives us a couple practice exams, but are they really that helpful? No. The midterm is taken in the lab, before the experiment with nylon/bakelite, and has 15 questions, 5 points apiece, with virtually no room for partial credit. Most are multiple choice, but a couple will have you draw a molecule or do a calculation. Now when I say multiple choice, don't assume that there will be only 4 or 5 options. Some questions will have up to 10 different choices, with some answers being combinations of previous choices, meaning no process of elimination. There will always be some questions on spectroscopy (IR, NMR, and mass), some on mechanisms, some on stoichiometry (generally the only easy ones), some on lab protocol, and some on general chemistry theory. You also have to memorize several pKa values, which was particularly frustrating. The questions on theory are almost comically difficult, requiring a level of intuition that no second-year student could possibly possess. The sheer variety in the questions he could ask render any amount of practice exams useless, because there is no way Friedman would ask the same or even a similar question from a practice exam. The average on the midterm was a 40.5%.\r\nThe lab practical is very different; it tests your general lab skills, like setting up glassware or taking measurements, which isn't too bad. But of course, Friedman has to put a spectroscopy problem on it that yes, is very difficult. Not everyone gets the same problem, though, with some being notably harder than others. The average here was slightly higher, at 70.8%.\r\nLastly, the final exam. The format and types of questions asked are identical to that of the midterm, but are about the latter half of the labs. The final is not taken in the lab, but rather in a filled lecture hall. Again, there are practice exams but Friedman will put some very weird theoretical questions that you simply cannot prepare for without being clairvoyant. The final was marginally easier than the midterm, but that was likely just due to random chance. The average on the final was a 47.3%.\r\nFriedman is basically the only professor for orgo 2 lab, so good luck.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-18T17:42:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM242', 'review': "go to office hours to help you complete the PLQs, carefully read the prelab to take the prelab quizzes. Also, there are a lot of components to the lab, observations, procedure, PLQs, and calulations. SO MAKE SURE YOU HAND EVERYTHING IN BEFORE THE LAB, you don't want to miss out on any points. The midterms are impossible, redo the practice ones, but they're so hard. The practical is not terrible, bt understand how to set up important procedures. Good luck! it will be fine! ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-21T05:01:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM242', 'review': "Didn't really interact with Friedman but the mid-term and final are balls hard but that's a constant no matter who the prof is. TA Victoria Hayes was goated. Practical was pretty easy.\r\n\r\nPLQ's are borderline impossible but idk if that even changes with the professor. Go to TA office hours for sure.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-09T04:52:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "First of all, this is a very difficult course no matter what professor you have, it is a weed-out course and you should expect to work very hard if you want to do well. That being said, I think Friedman was a great professor, he explains every topic in-depth and offers different ways of getting points beyond just exams. I will say that Friedman goes much more in-depth on some topics than he needs to for this course, but I actually appreciated understanding why some things work as opposed to simply understanding that it works. Friedman's exams also tend to have very low averages, most of which were in the low 50%s. However, do not be scared away by the low averages, the exams were really not particularly difficult, and if you were properly prepared, it was honestly not that difficult to stay above the averages; many people just underestimate the difficulty. Additionally, there is a massive curve in this class, I believe I had an 83% in the class before curve and ended with an A. The exams are normally around 6-8 questions, most of which allow for partial credit. If you want to do well in this course, my advice is to go to every class, go to discussion every week and definitely take advantage of GSS, there is a lot of material in this course, so you are never really going to see practice questions in class, but you will in discussion and GSS. There is almost no way to predict how some material would get implemented into exam questions just going to class alone. Also, do practice (previous year) exams that Friedman provides on canvas to help prepare for exams. In terms of homework, my class had a total of 10 homework assignments, which were generally 15 questions, taking normally about 2 hours total, and you should do all of them, they are designed to be easy points and are just good practice. Additionally, you should try and know small details about different topics, just read over your notes as there is usually a technical short answer question on each exam. Finally, KNOW RESONANCE, I can not stress enough how important it is to understand resonance and how it affects different parts of chemistry. If you receive a technical question, I would say there is a solid 90% chance the answer is somehow resonance.\r\nOverall, get points wherever you can, prepare for exams, a lot of people went into the first exam underprepared, not knowing what to expect and dug themselves a hole, the first exam has probably the easiest material, don't miss the opportunity get those points and prepare more than you think you should. If you keep up with material, this class honestly will not take as much of your time as you are probably expecting. I probably spent 3-5 hours on a normal week (outside of class and discussion) on this material and then probably around 10 hours on the weeks leading up to an exam. Either way, I enjoyed the way Friedman taught, if you actually want to learn chemistry (which will help you do well in this class) than I think Friedman is a great professor. Friedman is also super helpful and actually really wants you to succeed, I promise you he notices when you are putting in an effort, I am fairly certain that he keeps track of who actually goes to class (through clicker question points) and he somehow manages to remember an entire lecture hall's worth of names despite having only interacted with each person maybe once. He is also very passionate about the material and knows how to at least not make it completely unbearable to pay attention to at 8:00 in the morning. Friedman actually made me enjoy the material, and I think that his grading was completely reasonable considering that this is meant to be a difficult course, so that is why I am giving him 5 stars.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-01T19:48:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dr. Friedman is misunderstood in my eyes, there are a lot of people who simply don't like him because he gives hard exams and grades unfairly. I don't agree he has never once turned me down when I had a question, he makes lectures enjoyable and makes funny remarks. Even though he does not curve, you want to learn orgo the right way to set yourself up for success in orgo to and MCAT material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-30T21:13:39.573135Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Friedman is fine! He gets a bad rep because his exams are tough, but if you have him for Orgo and are willing to put in a decent amount of work, you can do well in his class. He gives clicker points, is extremely helpful, and his exams are usually fairly similar to his old exams, though they usually have tricky questions. He also had a very good curve when I took him- I ended up with an A and had a two As and one C on the midterms and a B on the final.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-09T20:50:29.243077Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "First off, orgo is difficult. No matter what teacher you have, it will always be challenging. Dr. Friedman is nice. Although I never attended office hours, his lectures were easy to follow. I think his exams reflected what he taught in lecture, but it is still challenging and makes you think critically. At first he doesn't curve, but in the end he will take final grades into account.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-10T16:15:33.602829Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Dont take this professor, it is simply just not worth it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-12T17:54:00.174466Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM242', 'review': "The lab reports are not hard to do but the exams in this class are ridiculous. Insanely tough spec questions, and a lot of free response on midterm and final that are all or nothing. I wish there was an option to take another professor, but he's the one lab coordinator", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-16T02:19:56.967892Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Orgo is hard, which is why Friedman has a low rating, but honestly I really liked his class. He tells you exactly how to prepare for exams and has helpful office hours. Lectures were easy to follow and had a great structure. The discussions weren't as helpful but that's just my personal learning style. This is a class where you have to go to lectures, you have to study outside of class, and you have to go to as many outside resources as possible. \r\n\r\nMost people's issues with Friedman come from his exams being incredibly difficult, which is very true, averages were around 50%. However he does end up curving everything at the end, so it'll end up being fine. If you get a lot of anxiety about grades being curved and not knowing your grade, I'd take somebody else.\r\n\r\nFriedman is very easy to reach out to outside of class and he genuinely wants you to understand the material. In all of my classes this semester he was the only one who knew people's names when they asked questions in class. \r\n\r\nThis is a very difficult class and the bad reviewers blame it on the professor, when in reality it's just the material that's really difficult. Get ready to buckle down and learn some tough but interesting concepts, as well as develop better study habits and problem solving skills.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T23:10:51.123870Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Listen, I got a C-. I don't blame anyone or anything but myself. It wasn't until the very end that I realized that Dr. Friedman is willing to help if you ever have difficulty with the material and that there are endless resources at your disposal. He posts prior exams and answer keys, which are fantastic study tools. Yes, his exams are difficult, however if you wish to be prepared for Orgo II, he's a good bet. I quite regret not appreciating his resources sooner, but quite frankly I'm not taking Orgo II, so it is what it is. He's misunderstood, and I realized well too late.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-20T18:14:20.232314Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Friedman', 'course': 'CHEM242', 'review': "This 1 credit course may have taken up more of my time than lecture did. Labs always take ~2-3 hours (except for like the 2nd week of Grignard which takes about an hour) and lab reports took me about ~3 hours to complete (going to TA office hours, figuring out the answers, then writing them down). Then, I would probably spend another hour completing pre-lab stuff (watching videos, reading, pre-lab writeup, and pre-lab quiz). The midterm and final have obscure questions and the past exams he provides are not very helpful since there are always new types of questions that show up on the real one. However, that is the case with every lower-level CHEM lab. The practical was pretty fair except for the hard spec question. He loves putting spec everywhere including post-labs so knowing how to work with IR, NMR (HEAVY on NMR), and mass (not as prominent, but still shows up) is crucial if you want to do well in this class. I honestly enjoyed the experiments in 242 more than 232 and Friedman is VERY organized. He responds quickly to emails and has a very nice ELMS layout so it's really easy to find everything you need. The lab manual is also really well written. He also curves at the end of semester which really helped everyone's grades. Friedman definitely knows what he's doing which is why I'm giving him 3 stars, but this was one of the hardest classes I have ever gone through. Basically, I would never want to go through this class ever again. However, Friedman is a pretty decent lab coordinator. Good luck and always go to office hours!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-20T20:57:32.692565Z'}], 'name': 'Lee Friedman', 'slug': 'friedman_lee'}, {'courses': ['MUED216', 'MUSC129P', 'MUSC289I', 'MUSC448E', 'MUSC629P', 'MUSC129', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC699E', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'ARHU340'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lee Hinkle', 'course': 'MUSC289I', 'review': 'I love Dr. Hinkle class even though you have to write three concert paper in a semester! Grading is high with efforts. I recommend this class to your best Gen-ed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-20T20:36:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Hinkle', 'course': 'MUSC289I', 'review': "It's cool to see how passionate Dr. Hinkle is about the topics in this course. He brought in some really interesting guest lecturers and performers even despite the pandemic. I do give full disclosure however that he shifts a lot of the course logistics including grading to his TA!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-13T07:20:28Z'}], 'name': 'Lee Hinkle', 'slug': 'hinkle'}, {'courses': ['ENGL346', 'ENGL475', 'HONR278J', 'ENGL631', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL748G', 'ENGL379Y', 'ENGL488J', 'ENGL648', 'ENGL321', 'HONR238O', 'ENGL437', 'ENGL441', 'ENGL699', 'ENGL376', 'ENGL601', 'ENGL146', 'ENGL702', 'ENGL321', 'ENGL376', 'ENGL601', 'ENGL378Y', 'ENGL428R', 'ENGL437', 'ENGL437'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lee Konstantinou', 'course': None, 'review': 'Had him for a Sci-fi literature course, was very knowledgeable on the subject and was one of my favorite courses in college', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-18T16:24:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Konstantinou', 'course': 'ENGL321', 'review': 'I liked his class pretty good job overall it was just tough because of the winter session ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-07-21T16:34:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Lee Konstantinou', 'course': 'ENGL321', 'review': 'My favorite professor at UMD so far. All assignments were due more or less at the end of the semester so we had time to do work at our own pace. The lectures/class discussions were also engaging and interesting. He is also very friendly/reasonable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-07-09T02:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Lee Konstantinou', 'slug': 'konstantinou'}, {'courses': ['BUAC782', 'BMGT221H', 'BMGT326', 'BUAC758P', 'BUAC758G', 'BUSO782', 'BUAC710', 'BUAC742', 'BMGT326', 'BUSO782', 'BMGT326', 'BUAC742', 'BUSI611', 'BMGT326', 'BUSO782'], 'average_rating': 2.3636, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT221H', 'review': 'Her class is not challenging at all, and tends to be a bit boring during lectures. However, if you manage to pay attention, her lectures are definitely more helpful than the textbook. She is a fair grader, and a very nice and helpful professor. All in all, the course itself is the issue, not the professor, but she speaks quietly and has an accent, so it can be easy to lose focus in class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-15T12:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT221H', 'review': "The online homework was very helpful for this class. She does have an accent, but it's not a problem. She definitely cares about the students. The material can be a bit bland but it seems pretty useful in real life.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-14T03:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BUAC782', 'review': "Honestly, she's not good at teaching MS program. The short answers she gave on mid-term exam were more meaningless to this course. Her teaching is more Chinese style even if she's glad to help. Anyway, she is nice but need much improve in teaching MS course. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-10-14T17:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT221H', 'review': 'Really great teacher because she cares about students learning not grades. She tries her best to get everyone an A (she was disappointed when the class average was a 88). Downside is her lectures are boring because she speaks softly. Still she makes sure everyone understands the material. Highly recommend taking bmgt221h over bmgt221.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-17T03:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': '\r\nThe class is not meant to be incredibly hard, but the textbook is almost completely useless, so unless you can figure out things with very little help this class will be a pain. Also, her heavy accent makes it hard to understand and she moves very quickly in class. Its three exams (non cumulative final), one group project, homework and participation. Fairly graded and lots of partial credit on exams, but they are hard and are not really cognizant of the ridiculously easy homework assignments. Get perfect scores on everything and average a mid B on tests and you could get an A easily ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T18:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "The course was based on 3 tests (2 midterms and a final) which were each 20% of your grade, 10% in-class exercises and participation, 20% homework, and 2 group projects (each 5%). It moved quickly and covered a lot of material. The projects, class participation, and homework were all easy 100%'s given you do the work, but the tests were fairly difficult. They consisted of a few multiple choice and problems. You have to read the chapters once or twice and do lots of practice problems in order to do well on the tests. Expect to reproduce financial statements from memory.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T18:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT326', 'review': "Lost 100% of the class and still kept going through material 98 miles/second. and no its not lazy American work ethic. SHE DOESNT KNOW HOW TO TEACH. AT LEAST RECORD THE LECTURE IF YOU'RE GOING TO GO THAT FAST. You cannot look away from her screen for more than three seconds or you're screwed.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-02-13T19:42:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT326', 'review': "I agree with the previous comment. She goes over the content way too fast. By the time she asked if we had questions, most of us were trying to figure out what she had explained. She also goes over very complex problems in class and tells us that we need to understand the material well for the exam, which seems difficult considering that she doesn't take the time to clearly explain the fundamental concepts. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-02-21T19:14:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT326', 'review': 'Class goes from 0-100 from week 2 to week 4-5', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-17T19:17:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT326', 'review': "One of the worst professors I have ever taken. Literally interrupts you while talking to shush you and simply does not help any student who is falling behind. The class moves too quickly and she doesn't attend to any of the students' needs. DO NOT TAKE HER IF POSSIBLE!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-03-02T16:07:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Lei Zhou', 'course': 'BMGT326', 'review': "Teaches very quickly and doesn't know how to help students. Do NOT take her if you can help it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-03-09T16:03:48Z'}], 'name': 'Lei Zhou', 'slug': 'zhou_lei'}, {'courses': ['FMSC745', 'FMSC652', 'FMSC658', 'FMSC330', 'FMSC642', 'FMSC430', 'FMSC651'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leigh Leslie', 'course': 'FMSC330', 'review': "Dr. Leslie is fantastic. She's very organized and approachable, and all of her lectures are interesting. The material in the class is very practical and often covers things you encounter in everyday life, so it's not hard to participate in discussion. There are two papers and 3 exams, plus readings for each class, but it's all very manageable.\n\r\nBest professor I've had at Maryland. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-11T12:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leigh Leslie', 'course': 'FMSC330', 'review': "The tests might trip you up a little but they are fair. Moderate amount of reading.\n\r\nDr. Leslie is a fantastic professor. She is incredibly knowledgeable and friendly. She is each to talk to. I will actually take the things I've learned and apply them to my life. I highly recommend her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-18T01:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leigh Leslie', 'course': None, 'review': 'This review is for Teresa Leslie, not the other Leslie. This class is horrible and so unfair. Her grading is rediculous. The grading data saying that 65% of people get As in this class is not true, atleast not anymore, she may have made the grading more difficult this year. You have to get a 94% in this class to get an A which is impossible with her tests and lab requirements. She is a complete idiot, and can never answer any questions when asked. I am a junior, and an A-B student, and I am barely getting a D. She wont listen to any of your concerns. She shows videos all the time. The lab homeworks are rediculous, like watch a video and write a 4 page single spaced review. She doesnt care about the students learning or grades, she just cares about making the teaching experience easy for her. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-09T13:59:00Z'}], 'name': 'Leigh Leslie', 'slug': 'leslie_leigh'}, {'courses': ['ENGL348P', 'ENGL388W', 'ENGL348F', 'WMST348P', 'WMST348F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Leigh Ryan', 'slug': 'ryan_leigh'}, {'courses': ['THET420', 'THET360', 'THET310', 'TDPS358P', 'THET499', 'THET623', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET606', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TDPS458A', 'THET222', 'THET325', 'THET429', 'THET669', 'THET386', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET789'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Leigh Smiley', 'slug': 'smiley'}, {'courses': ['AASP499N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Leila Batties', 'slug': 'batties'}, {'courses': ['BMGT372', 'BMGT289L', 'BMGT370', 'BMGT470', 'BMGT478C', 'BULM758R', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT392', 'BUSO713', 'BMGT475', 'BMGT374', 'BULM721', 'BMGT370', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT370', 'BMGT372', 'BMGT375', 'BMGT475', 'BULM721', 'BMGT375', 'BUSO713', 'BUSO713', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT370', 'BMGT372', 'BMGT375', 'BMGT475', 'BULM721'], 'average_rating': 4.8462, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT370', 'review': "Professor Gardner is awesome--if you show him you care about the class. I went to class and participated and he was very nice and willing to help me out with course material and other career related questions. I can't say he did the same for students who didn't show or who didn't participate. He gives out A LOT of extra credit for showing up and will explicitly say things are on the exam. Which is good because his exams are tricky and long. Overall, great professor and great guy. The topic is somewhat dry, however he adds modern examples. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-25T00:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT289L', 'review': "This professor is so amazing. I really wish my semester was not overloaded so that I could have done better in his class. The guy is hilarious and extremely knowledgeable in government. He is very kind and understanding so if you're having difficulty with anything do not be afraid to approach him. Good luck and study for those exams! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-04-23T10:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT370', 'review': "Very nice guy, always willing to help. He's got a good sense of humor and presents the material well. If you don't get something, go to office hours.\n\r\nHis exams can be a bit tricky but overall they're pretty easy if you just fill out the review packets. Great professor, I'd gladly take another class of his.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-02-23T19:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT370', 'review': "Professor Gardner is GREAT! I have recommended him to friends. He is very funny and super friendly and UNBELIEVABLY willing to help you. He answers student questions always - fully. He is VERY knowledgeable in the subject and he really relates concepts to real life. I love going to this class!! He's great! I wish he taught more classes. He's a super fast grader too.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-01T23:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Genuine guy who wants to see you succeed in a business environment, lecture heavy class with tests being worth 70% of the class. If you didn't know about majoring in supply chain before this class, you will for sure afterwards", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-22T10:19:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT370', 'review': "He is such a great professor! He makes his lectures interesting even if its on a boring subject and he genuinely wants to help his students if he can. I was definitely disappointed when his other class wouldn't fit into my schedule. His exams are surprisingly tough though. I really studied for the exams and thought I knew all the topics but I still didn't do too well on the exam. He definitely made it easier to get up for an early morning class though so I would take him again if I could", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-07-24T19:40:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT475', 'review': "He is one of the nicest professor I have had in the business school. I will always go out of my way to take one of his classes, and he singlehandedly help me complete my supply chain major. All his classes are structured the same (all-MC midterm, all-MC final, easy group project, and some easy discussion posts). In terms of the projects and discussions posts, as long as you do them with minimal effort, you will get over an 85% on each assignment. Leland truly cares about his students and will take the time to learn everyone's name and follow up to concerns that students have. The only drawback is he will cold-call during lectures but not knowing the answer (or not paying attention) will not negatively effect your grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T06:38:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT370', 'review': "Really, really nice guy and an excellent lecturer. I don't have any trouble staying engaged in class. We had two exams total over the semester: one midterm and one non-cumulative final. All multiple choice. If you attend class, pay attention, and study from the study guide, his exams are an easy A, plus he's reasonable with his curve and throw-out questions. When I saw he was teaching 374 next semester I structured my entire schedule around it so I could take him again. Highly, highly recommend! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-01T02:05:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'He is a really nice professor. He answers questions and really likes to interact with the class. He goes through the powerpoints at a really fast speed, so make sure to type fast. His lectures cover every material that the book does as well. His exams are a lot harder than the actual class. However, the curve is pretty nice. I got a 72% on the midterm and that was curved up to an 84%. The best way to study for this class is to review materials, go over and answer the study guide, and try to find application problems to practice.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-03T21:40:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT370', 'review': 'I am a junior Accounting and IS double major and taking this class was one of the best classes I have taken The other reviews are accurate to what he does now (small writing assignments and 2 noncumulative exams total) and I would recommend any business student to take this as an elective, who wants to get a small taste of supply chain, or wants an easy class to boost your GPA. I really really enjoyed the class it does get dry sometimes (it is about transportation) but if you pay attention and participate the class goes by fast ( I have him at 9:30 am and the class still participates). I did not think the exams were hard, he does try to curve/explain questions, and even does a review that covers some exam questions with a review sheet that helps you study. It is a cool non-business class that helps you connect to a topic you do not really study and to the real world. If he taught more classes I would take him again. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-25T14:27:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "I loved Prof Gardner. He is genuinely such a nice man and very understanding. Sometimes he makes jokes in class and is able to engage the students by asking questions. He does go through the powerpoints fast but he posts them and explains every concept very well. The exams can be confusing, but if u review your notes you'll be fine because most of it is just knowing the vocab. He curves a lot too. And he offers extra credit assignments that can give you 2 extra points on the exam.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T00:25:51.240167Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "Prof Gardner is one of the nicest professors I've had at UMD. He is extremely understanding and genuinely wants the best for his students. He structures his class around powerpoint's which can be boring at times but they are the key to his exams. He curved our midterm 9% and went over every question in class for chances for us to redeem why the majority now understands the correct answer. It was a bit sad when a lot of people stopped coming to class because he is a really sweet professor. His final was a huge curveball though and was really difficult for some reason. He still curved it but I wasn't able to make the cut off for an A. Overall, he's super knowledgable, kind, and I highly recommend to take any classes with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-11T04:43:45.320419Z'}, {'professor': 'Leland Gardner', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Prof Gardner is in my opinion the best professor for 110F. His class was really chill, you just take notes while he speeds through the slides for each chapter, and he usually ends class 15-30 min early. The assignments were a SmartBook assignment and a discussion post once a week. The bigger assignment throughout the semester is a group project. He wasn't very clear on what he expected from us for the project so my team missed the mark on a few things and it ended up bringing our grades down a bit. The exams are a little confusing but he curved tf out of the midterm and made my 86 a 99. Overall really nice person, probably will choose to have him again in an upper level course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-13T04:58:42.301958Z'}], 'name': 'Leland Gardner', 'slug': 'gardner_leland'}, {'courses': ['CHEM131', 'CHEM132', 'CHEM132C', 'CHEM132S', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM177', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM242', 'CHEM232', 'CHEM132V', 'CHEM134', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM232', 'CHEM231'], 'average_rating': 3.5439, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Amazing professor. She's super nice, teaches material well, and cares about her students. Go to office hours and look at past exams and you'll be set. Also DO HER PROBLEM SETS!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-08-14T18:52:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Love her! One of the best chem teachers I have ever had. Chem is hard so the class is still difficult but she makes it bearable', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-20T17:09:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': None, 'review': 'Good professor.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-01-28T00:04:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Fantastic at teaching, I'm just bad at Orgo. She's a great professor, and has interesting ways at explaining complex subjects. There's not too much out-of-class work, so long as you understand what's going on. Her tests are Time Dependent, as in; You WILL run out of time. The Final wasn't time restricted, however, so less stress there.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2019-05-18T02:46:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "If you can, you should take her class. She's a bit old-school since she generally hates technology (and she sends everything out by email, as opposed to uploading things to ELMS), but she's a fantastic lecturer and has a nice personality. The class is all memorization (even though she claims otherwise), which can be time-consuming. The only thing I disliked as the use of clicker questions, as I would have preferred quizzes or simply no in-class assignments at all. Her TA's are pretty good too, and the grading is very fair. Although I would have liked an A in the class, I can admit I did not study the reactions well enough to deserve it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-19T07:05:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': None, 'review': "Stocker does cover less material than the other orgo professors, which helps if you're just looking to pass. But you're going to have to go to office hours frequently to ask her for exam answers, which she didn't post online during this semester. That meant there were 20-30 students in her online office hours at a time asking for exam answers, when time could have been same by distributing the keys. Now, Orgo is a hard class, and you'll have to put a lot of effort into it regardless. But I just didn't have a great experience in her class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-21T23:35:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dr. Stocker is great at teaching and is super nice. The best way to do well in this class is to keep up with the material and not let yourself fall behind. There's a lot of content in this class, but if you go through it slowly, it's much more manageable. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-08T21:27:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Pros: Genuinely covers less material. Lectures are not hard to follow. Will help you in office hours.\r\nCons: Refuses to post practice exams, you have to go to her office and take pictures of them. Doesn't post exam solutions, you have to go to her office hours for those. What is the point of practice exams without answers? Her office hours tend to be crowded so it's hard to ask questions. Doesn't follow the book - she is practically the only official source in her class.\r\n\r\nOverall a good professor if you just want to get by. Getting an A will be a lot harder due to lack of professorial support.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-08-11T01:23:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Great lecturer and makes class engaging. When we moved online her video lectures were super thorough and helpful. You have to keep up to the material and study everyday to do well, especially if you're not an O chem person. A lot of people in this class were the super smart people so there was not much of a curve. Take Dixon if you want a bigger curve and have a friend in Stocker send you her video lectures. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-08-16T03:25:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Stocker seems like a great person, but this class just wasn't it. Maybe it was the fact that it was online, or maybe just this course in general, but this class sucked. The tests were horrible, and that was pretty much all that was graded. There was no partial credit, and they were harder than anything we saw in lecture or in problem sets.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-19T02:29:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': '-10/10 made me cry many times ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-03T02:21:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Though I understand during this pandemic things are tough and circumstances are hard she has not adjusted to the online environment and being understanding to her students by any means. She has 800 students, which should have never happened, but access to resources is unavailable, she explicitly states to not email her concerning questions. Her tests are extremely hard and she gives us a time limit where answering all the questions is essentially unachievable. She does not release the answers to her practice exams, which I get, there are numerous professors that do that, however, her practice exams are nothing like the ones we take. She will make corrections to the test and change the numbers of a question within the last 20 minutes and will only notify through email, so good luck making the corrections. She has redone her tests but not given us the resources to study for them. GSS sessions all have over 50 students in them and aren't effective in helping everyone's situations, in fact, the last GSS session I went to had 169 students. This being said her lectures are not bad, she covers examples and material and is fairly thorough.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2020-12-03T03:00:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "While her lecture videos are easily understandable and clearly explain concepts, her exams are infinitely more difficult. It seems like she is more concerned about making sure that cheaters won't be able to succeed that she hurts honest students too. All the exams have been impossible to finish due to lack of time. It seems like if you don't intrinsically know the answer to all the problems and actually have to think them through, it is impossible to finish within the 50 minutes given for the exam.\r\nIt is also extremely hard to contact her as all her classes are asynchronous and her office hours can fall during some of your other classes.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2020-12-05T18:39:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "People love to hate on her because the course is difficult but really that should be expected for any chem class. She puts a lot of emphasis on speed so I advise practicing problems sets with a time limit so you get used to rushing through problems and picking out important information. Go into exams with a plan for what order to complete problems to get as many points as you can, you will run out of time so plan for that. GO TO OFFICE HOURS. She gives more exam level questions at office hours. Even if you don't have a question just go and listen and learn. She's not typically available via email which can be frustrating since she has limited office hours. In that regard I suggest relying on the GSS sessions or your TA. \r\n\r\nOverall not the greatest teacher but if you put in the work it is possible to do well in the class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-08T16:40:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'EVIL. Created a cheating trap that could easily be triggered by miscounting a carbon or remembering a formula commonly used in the homework. she accused 152 students of cheating on exam 2 in fall 2020, causing a ton of stress for students right around the time of final exams.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-12T17:12:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM132', 'review': "Pros: One of the easier STEM labs you'll take. I'm not saying it's easy, but in comparison to other poop courses, it is. The exams are manageable and fair if you study and review your notes.\r\nCons: A lot of work. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-15T19:09:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "She's very nice and very straightforward in lectures, which were usually not hard to follow. Always emphasizes the most important material making it easier to study for exams. The exams were definitely tough but fair, and she always gives a generous curve. She's also lenient with make-up exams when necessary.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T18:06:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Had her for fall 2020. Goes way too far to catch cheaters and is very happy to make accusations. No trust between her and students, and created a terrible environment. Only reason she gets two stars and not one is because she is an average at best lecturer.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-06T02:54:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "*class was fully online due to covid*\r\nThis class was a mess, and you're probably seeing a lot of conflicting reviews, so i'm going to do my best to explain everything.\r\nTl;dr- Dr. Stocker was dealt a bad hand by the university, but the way she handled the circumstances made it actively worse for her students this semester.\r\nThe circumstances: 800+ students, 4 TAs, 1 professor. Dr. Stocker got stuck teaching every single one of the 21 sections of chem 135 offered fall 2020. As a result, it was nearly impossible to get individual help from her or the TAs, leaving many students to turn (unsuccessfully) to GSS. Dr. Stocker also all but banned students from emailing her directly, which seems harsh at first, but after reading so many stupid questions in the groupmes from people who were just oblivious to the syllabus or her emails, seems fair. Also as a result of all the sections, Dr. Stocker released lectures MWF (even for people who signed up for TuTh sections, but it was pre recorded, so whatever), and the TAs moved their discussion times.\r\nTeaching style: The lectures themselves were pretty good. All were pre recorded and uploaded to panopto, and she tended to stick within the 50 minute time frame. They could be a bit boring at times, and a bit heavy on organic chemistry (she wants to be an orgo teacher, and it shows), but overall better than what you'd expect considering the rest of the class. The discussions were lowkey useless, and I started skipping pretty early on. Dr. Stocker also released practice sets for every topic. DO THEM!!!\r\nGrading: The chem department likes to give impossible tests and then a crazy curve, and Stocker is no exception. My 82% turned into an A. Unfortunately, info about the curve is very poorly communicated. She doesn't release estimates of final grade cutoffs. After each exam, she releases 2 sample grade cutoffs. One tells you an estimated letter grade of the exam you just took, based on points. These give students the illusion of hope, since exam grades tend to have means around 50-60%, but since only the overall grade is curved, these are functionally useless. The other set of grade cutoffs tells you your estimated letter grade in the class as of that exam. For some reason, she makes you manually add up points on just some assignments, instead of just using the percentages that elms auto generates. It's just annoying.\r\nExams: Since Stocker had 800 students, she couldn't manually grade exams. Instead, she used the quiz feature on elms to give exams that were all multiple choice/drop down/check all/etc. Anything that could auto grade. This meant you got your grade instantly, but there was no partial credit. All exams were on an insane time crunch designed to make the averages low. Exams were given at 7 PM EST, regardless of section, unless you had another class at that time. She didn't proctor the exams (too many students for zoom), which led to more creative (read: annoying) ways to catch cheating.\r\nThe cheating allegations: THIS IS WHAT BROKE THE CLASS!!! Exam 2 had 2 bait questions, where she gave a real chemical name, but changed the formula. This was designed to catch students googling answers. Unfortunately, a tiny mistake on the math and/or a miscount could get you the same answer as google. Every student who got the google answer was reported to OSC for cheating, and their cases were still being processed even after finals. All in all, 152 students got accused of cheating. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO now facing an XF. WTF\r\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-06T02:57:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Had her for CHEM135 online, fall 2020. As many others have said, this class was a mess. It's not her fault that they gave her every section, forcing the lectures to be asynchronous, but it is her fault that the class was extremely disorganized, the tests were impossible, and she was very unsympathetic to the difficult nature of this semester. I choose to give her the benefit of the doubt that she's a good person who was overwhelmed by an insane amount of responsibility, but I can't recommend taking her class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-12T03:02:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Dr. Stocker is a good lecturer and helps when you ask questions. Office hours are helpful to go to. As for her teaching style, there are not really resources you can use outside her class since she just picks her own topic order. \r\nI gave her 4 stars because I think future classes with her will be better off (where she does not have 800 students). As a professor, she explains concepts well and gives practice problems that reflect the test. You need to work on the problem sets she sends out they are one of the best ways to prepare for tests. \r\nThere were a lot of issues for Fall 2020 that made the class more difficult as a lot of other reviews say but Chem135 is also designed to be a rough class. \r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-19T05:01:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "For fall 2020 I took this. The first thing I'd say was she is a fantastic lecturer, honestly one of the best I've seen. She explains concepts very well and teaches everything you need to know, I didn't look in the textbook a single time. I just watched the lectures and did the practice worksheets, and I felt like I understood all the material.\r\n\r\nMy main problem with the class was the organization. Every discussion session was moved from whatever you signed up with, ie my section discussion was suppose to be on Wednesday, but they decided to hold it on Monday. The lectures were all just posted videos as well, but that didn't bother me too much.\r\n\r\nThe exams were difficult, but if you knew the material you'd do well after the generous curve, AVERAGE test score was around a 60%. They were made short on time purposely but open book so that if you had to go looking for every answer, you'd run out of time quickly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-20T00:46:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Dr. Stocker is a very good lecturer and her class material was very good given the circumstances. But those exams and the weight of said exams were utter B.S. Those exams were universally struggled upon, with averages being around 55% overall.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-01-28T00:16:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'CHEM135 Fall 2020. Professor Stocker did a really good job teaching this class and I know that a lot of students are salty bc it was an open-note class, but the exams were pretty much fine if you actually paid attention, took notes, and studied. She was a good lecturer and the concepts were really well taught, plus she does a lot of practice problems.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-28T22:47:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Great professor, another perspective on her cheating "trap"- it wasn\'t really a trap. There were questions that have a chemical name, and where you can google the name to get the formula for the chemical. There was no chance that you could get the answer that you can find on google, as the correct answer with the different constants that she provided you with. And with almost 20% of the class getting caught, it\'s pretty clear that it wasn\'t "by chance" that they all made the same error and magically got the googled answer. Her lectures, though asynchronous, were well made, and released usually well ahead of time so we can get started on the lectures early. They were clear, provided many examples, and organized. Her exams on the other hand was definitely a bit more difficult, however your grade is relative to the other people in the class. If everyone were to get around a 20/100 on the test, around 25% or whatever % of students would get an A in the class. If everyone were to get around a 95/100, the same 25% would get an A. I personally did not get an A in the class because I honestly did not put as much effort into the class as I would have liked, but the majority of these people here (as seen in the groupme), are complaining about their grades even though they put minimal effort in the class. (didn\'t proofread, may have grammar mistakes)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-02-06T01:39:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I took this in fall 2020, it was alright at best. I can only say it was alright in hindsight because all the curves landed me an A. My biggest piece of advice is to keep up with the lectures as they're uploaded, do not put them off in any capacity if at all possible. As for the content of the lectures? She's great at explaining concepts, but none of that matters when you take her exams. She is good at explaining things, that does NOT mean she is a good professor. A good professor would prepare you for the exam content. Instead, stocker talks about organic chemistry for 15 minutes of the lecture, and the actual thing being tested for the other 10. Did a lot of people cheat? Yes, undeniably. Was Stockers method of baiting cheaters annoying? Yes, undeniably.\r\nAvoid her if at all possible, if not, just try your best, most students struggle in this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-16T04:33:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "This class was the worst. Stocker's lectures were hard to understand and often did not give her students the full picture of what she was trying to explain. Some of the content she covered in her class was not meant for an entry-level chemistry class, which only made the class more stressful. On top of all that, her problem sets were nowhere near as challenging as the exam questions were. The exams were strenuous and ridiculously complicated, as she often made the questions multiple parts and did not provide enough time to adequately complete all the problems. She also tried to set trap problems to catch people who were cheating on her test, and ended up falsely accusing a lot of people of cheating. Unless you absolutely have to take this class, I would recommend getting a tutor or attending as many GSS sessions as possible, because just attending lectures alone will not be enough to pass. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-04T20:58:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Stocker was a really great lecturer. I had her fall 2020, and all of our lectures were asynchronous but very helpful. She also provided lots of examples and opportunities to practice the material which lined up fairly well with exam material. Her midterms were brutal, with averages of about 60%, but the final was actually really easy. The curve is super nice, so it's easier to snag an A than you might expect. You do need to put in the work to get an A though. Again, her midterms are brutal.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-03-24T01:14:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Lenea had an attitude from the start. She shuts down students and instills a sense of fear into them. The class was very uncomfortable, to say. She definitely has her intentions. Also, exams are NUTS and extremely difficult.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-04-02T03:35:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Stocker is a really great professor. She does a really good job at explaining concepts clearly and her exams are difficult but not impossible, CHEM135 is just a lot of material so there's a lot to memorize and understand. She also gives a lot of really good material to study for the exam; many worksheets and practice exams. If you put the work in to understand the concepts and study before the exam, you can get an A, but 135 is a weed out class for engineers and covers a lot b/c it's the only chem class a lot of engineers have to take, it's not her fault there's so much to teach.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-20T18:42:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "-Her class was completely asynchronous (because of her child). \r\n-So learning a HUGE load of material was hard. Although at first the amount of work seems okay, it is a lot more and very much difficult for a 1 credit course. \r\n-The quizzes too were either above average hard or just straight up hard. She does give a curve I believe so wouldn't completely say this is her downfall. \r\n-Also, she only had 1 office hours. This was also annoying as it was during my calc discussion class so could never ask for help on the new material she taught.\r\n-She has a strict work/exam policy. She apparently reported a bunch of people last semester for cheating so be aware she takes it serious and like will accuse you if she thinks even a sliver that you cheated.\r\n-She seems nice (literally talked to her once) and will go over stuff you don't understand in office hours \r\n\r\nIf you only took CHEM131 last semester and now have to take 134, I'm sorry. Probably should've taken 135 even though I haven't heard great things about that class either. But she's okay, definitely not a top professor but just okay", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-29T20:57:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM132V', 'review': "-lab videos were confusing and inaccurate\r\n-pre quizzes didn't match material\r\n-didn't respond to emails and when she did respond, she was condescending \r\n-didn't prep the TAs\r\n-no study session or practice questions for final (setting us up to fail) \r\n-way too much work for 1 credit class\r\n-paranoid of cheating (took it out on current students) ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-11T03:05:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM132V', 'review': "Asynchronous class.\r\nPROFESSOR:\r\nTo be honest, not even sure what her involvement with the class was. TAs graded everything. Lab videos were recorded last year by another professor. I'm not even sure what her voice sounds like. Is incredibly strict and encourages TAs to be quick to take points. Seems completely unconcerned with whether or not you learn anything in her class.\r\n\r\nLABS:\r\nTook anywhere from 5-10 hours per week to complete and the prelabs took 2 hours. So 7-12 hours total per week on labs despite this being a 1 credit course. Also it might as well have been written in another language because of how mind-numbingly confusing it was. The lab book had multiple scientific errors in every experiment and was incredibly tedious. I had no clue what I was supposed to be learning and basically just winged every single question. So I was hopelessly confused when submitting the labs but was just glad that it was finally over for that brief moment. For one lab, they just had us write out dozens of chemical equations for a few hours. Also the lab videos had tons of mistakes, like for one experiment they just spill chemicals all over, completely confounding the results. They don't tell you why your explanations were wrong so learning is minimized.\r\n\r\nEXAM:\r\nThere is only one exam (the final) and she does not give partial credit. She did not provide us with any material to use to study for it and did not even get 2 of our labs back to us before we took the exam. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-18T18:49:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM132V', 'review': "I have never interacted with the professor, but she did have hundreds and hundreds of students, so I think that's fair. The course was completely asynchronous, and the background videos, pre-lab videos, and lab videos were all done by TAs or another professor. \r\n\r\nCons\r\n- TAs (your first point of contact) do not respond quickly or at all sometimes to the discussion board for student's questions. So, email your TA directly\r\nA different TA graded-Every every week, your lab, so some weeks they might be more stringent with points, and other weeks questions that should've been marked wrong weren't??\r\n- Not given a review guide for the final (which is the only exam in this class)\r\n- 2 of the 11 labs that the final was based on were not returned in time for the exam, so you didn't really know if you understood those concepts before you were tested on them \r\n- You're kind of on your own for this course cause it virtual, so you don't have classmates to reach out to, the TAs are slow, and there was only one time for office hours a week, so if you have another class at that time, you're screwed \r\n- The prelab and labs were very time-intensive for a 1 credit class\r\n\r\nPros\r\n- Most of the labs were not that hard, but they just took up a lot of time\r\n- She dropped your lowest experiment grade (prelab and lab together)\r\n- Good curve (but it depends on your class average)\r\n\r\n\r\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-28T01:27:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I LOVE Dr. Stocker. She is such an amazing professor and makes organic chemistry much more manageable to learn. She is very charismatic and genuinely likes helping students (meaning: go to her office hours!!). Compared to other Orgo I professors, she actually is far less technical and legitimately doesn't expect students to know as much material. This makes things a lot easier; you still learn a LOT of content, but it's less than other professors will teach (especially Dixon). Her lectures are definitely fast-paced, but that's just the nature of orgo. I would recommend writing down every single thing she says during lecture. Like, everything. It's really helpful when you go back through your notes and you have her comments written down, because sometimes just looking at the stuff she wrote down doesn't fully explain every concept. She will mention a lot of really helpful details/tips and tricks. She likes to try and explain concepts, especially the more difficult ones, in multiple ways to try and accommodate for the fact that every student is going to understand things a little differently. If you don't understand something from lecture, just go to her office hours, she will help. Her office hours tend to get a bit crowded, especially close to exams, but that's not really her fault, just come to office hours prepared with your questions (or you can sit in them just to listen to other people's questions, I know some people did that).\r\n\r\nHer exams are also pretty fair. They're not easy exams by any means, but they don't ask questions beyond what we learn in class. The midterms are designed to have a time-crunch, which can be tough. She also posts practice exams for every midterm on ELMS, which I would definitely check out. Her exams are typically formatted the same way every semester, so they're a good way of seeing what kinds of questions to expect. She doesn't post keys for them though, you have to go to office hours and ask about specific questions. She also has MANY problem sets on ELMS, and those have answer keys. I would absolutely recommend going through those, both as supplemental work alongside lectures and as exam review. They have several examples of problems for every concept you learn in that class. \r\n\r\nThere are also a handful of homework worksheets in the class, which are the only grades aside from the exams. The homework really won't budge your grade that much, but they're useful for practicing content. The grade for the homeworks is split in two, with turning in a homework answer sheet for 3 points and a quiz that pulls random questions from the homework worksheet that is 12 points. In total, each homework assignment is worth 15 points. Turning in the (completed) answer sheet gets you an automatic 3 points (that part is just graded on completion) and the quiz is graded on accuracy. If you are confused on any homework, I'd go to office hours or ask your TA. I also think it's really helpful to find a group of friends in that class, it definitely helped me a lot this last semester (Fall 2021).\r\n\r\nStocker's lectures are straightforward and fast. Sometimes, her organization does get a little confusing. She won't always be clear on exactly what she is teaching and how it connects to a previous concept. This never really impacted the quality of her lectures too much, but she usually posted her lecture slides and had a lecture schedule on ELMS, which would help with organization. Even though orgo is hard, I really enjoyed her class. She is a great professor and made lectures enjoyable (she's pretty funny, and uses her cats/sons as analogies ALL the time lol). The curve is always nice in this class and the key to doing well is getting above average on each exam. I was very scared of orgo (I'm not good at chemistry), but orgo involved very, very little math and is almost entirely conceptual. The content is not too challenging, it's just a matter of keeping up with the pace of the class. I would recommend memorizing functional groups and pKas VERY early. Also, making flashcards or a comprehensive list of all of the reaction mechanisms as you go is super useful. This class is more memorization than Stocker will claim, but as long as you start memorizing/self-assessing early, then you will be set. \r\n\r\nOverall, I would 1,000% recommend Dr. Stocker. She's one of the best professors I've had.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T21:47:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Although I suspect she may be better then the rest of the professors, I did not enjoy this class and it mentally drained me to tears. She goes way too fast, expects us to know exactly what she\'s talking about the second she teaches. I don\'t know if its any different for the 1hr 15 min classes, but she rushed through all our 50min sessions and kept teaching and writing on her ipad until exactly 12:50 as if we were able to retain the complex stuff she tried to switch to at the end of class. She can be very hype and energetic about orgo, but her jokes aren\'t funny. The final is not timed so you may have less stress, but its still hard. Do not wait until the last minute tot study and if you can, take this at a time where you dont have to take other classes that are heavy workloads/ heavy memorization. My class generally was doing well so there wasn\'t much of a curve. You will have to calculate your own grades throughout the semester because she doesn\'t update them. Make sure you have at least a 50% or better if you want to be in the curve. And PLEASE drop the course by the deadline once you feel like you\'ve lost it or don\'t know what you\'re doing because they purposely will try to screw you over by making the "drop with a W" BEFORE the second exam. So even if you have hope and don\'t want to give up, you\'re screwed regardless. That\'s what the chem department does. Good luck, ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2021-12-23T19:59:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'TAKE STOCKER. love the way she teaches!!! the curve saved me big time. orgo is about knowing more information than the rest of the students, just score better than average on the tests and you will be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-26T21:20:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Take Stocker fr from what i've heard she is the best teacher and I liked her for orgo a lot. Her curve gave me a B- in the class and my highest test grade was a 67%. I didn't give her 5 stars cause orgo is terrible.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-01-26T02:41:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Considering how hard orgo can be, Stocker makes it as painless as possible. She can go pretty fast in lecture, but I personally didn't struggle too much with keeping up. I feel like she simplifies the material more than other professors, and she even joked about how the other professors tend to make things harder than her. If you take advantage of all the resources/practice sets she gives and don't cheat on the HWs and exams (she can be very strict about cheating), you should be okay. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-03-02T00:39:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Stocker is the best organic chemistry professor at UMD. She is kind, cares about her students, and is always willing to have open office hours to answer questions. Yes, her exams are challenging, however if you study using her problem sets and practice exams, they are doable. Her lectures are well-structured and she doesn't test you on anything she didn't teach. I loved taking orgo with her, I would high recommend Dr. Stocker!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-22T15:22:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Found her tests extremely fair. I'm aware that many people find her lecture style rather fast, but I feel that she went over all the content in a very coherent manner, that was easy to understand. Her homeworks weren't too bad, as she would post a MCQ quiz that would atleast give you a good opportunity to guess. Although she expects you to remember things like pKa, IR, NMR ranges, it gave for a lot of easy points on tests as long as you reviewed the numbers for them. Overall, would definitely recommend you take Stocker if given the opportunity as her tests are fair, and theres a number of practise questions and old exams on Canvas(but she doesn't give you the answer). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-07T01:02:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Like I mentioned in ratemyprof, The biggest regret I have in this class is not fostering as much of a personal connection with her as I could have. On the plus side, she let me help choose the final exam's meme for the front page! But in terms of her class here are a few bullet points. \r\n\r\n- Go to lecture. This semester I missed one lecture and I fell behind for a few days, but because I had someone record it for me and send the notes I was fine for the exam. All of the material you are tested on is in lecture. if you don't understand something in lecture, simply raise your hand and ask. she doesn't shame you, she doesn't act like youre a burden. she will simply try her best to answer your question and confirm that she answered it well. If for some reason you still don't understand the topic, go to her many office hours and read the supporting material in the textbook. If you understand the material in class, don't bother with the textbook whatsoever. \r\n\r\n- Grading: Stocker uses the class average to set cutoffs for grade estimates. I have yet to see final grade estimates, but I'm sure she will be very fair. Her goal is not to make a low average!!! in fact she congratulates the class for achieving high averages. You can expect her to be very fair and reasonable with grade cutoffs, and they are almost always somewhat curved but only to represent an even distribution of grades. I am in-between an A- and a B+, but I'm not stressed. I feel that the grade I am getting is due to my studying and not due to Stocker's grading criteria. In sum, try your best and you will be proud of your grade. \r\n\r\n- Lecture style: Stocker is the ABSOLUTE BEST LECTURER I have ever seen. She emphasizes similar reactions rather than grouping of the same category of reactions, which helps a lot in learning similar mechanisms. She doesn't rush you. If the class is behind on a topic for an exam, she won't rush to pack it in, she'll simply take it out of the exam. this rarely happened for us. \r\n\r\n- Exam style: Expect a certain level of cumulative topics, but she won't surprise you with something that isn't important for your current material. For example, pKa's, you will learn, are extremely important for every topic in organic chemistry 1, and you can expect to see her have 3pts per exam at least dedicated to pKa's. you can expect roughly 1/4 of the exam to be easy questions, 2/4 mid-range questions that challenge you but are certainly possible, and 1/4 challenging / high point-value questions. these fractions are based off of points towards your exam grade. I earned a B+, B+, and A- on the three exams and have yet to take the final. I did average in general chemistry 1, so please don't get too scared about Orgo with Stocker. \r\n\r\nI was going to make a pro's and con's list for Dr. Stocker but decided to do a bullet list of all of the good things you should know. The only bad thing I saw about the class was that it's HUGE, and people tend to talk a little loud in her class so I would sit in the front if I were you. There is nothing bad I can even think of with Stocker. She has a low rating because she found out a lot of people were cheating a few years before this review and did what was in her job description as a lecturer and reported them. Seriously don't cheat guys. It may seem like it will help you but I mean this when I say that your'e risking far more than what you could possibly ever gain from cheating. You can also get an A without cheating!!! \r\n\r\nto wrap up this already long review, I wanted to just stronglyyyy urge you to take stocker even if you have to rearrange your schedule completely. You will NOT regret it and maybe if you do, you can meet her kids who are almost as sweet and fun as she is. Best of luck in orgo! don't get intimidated by it, just work hard and you'll be fine. And most importantly: TAKE DR. STOCKER!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-10T15:19:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I really enjoyed the material in orgo but Dr Stocker was not a good teacher. She is very knowledgeable and the materials etc provided are helpful, but her lectures are so hard to follow. She doesn't teach at all, instead seems to assume that her students automatically know what she's talking about. She speeds through lectures, introduces really complex concepts with less than 5 minutes left in class, is pretty inflexible with remote lectures unless you explicitly have covid, and will make your life incredibly stressful if you are sick and miss a midterm. She jokes about how strict she is but she is not joking lol. She doesn't email back after 4pm, and is not particularly helpful once she does. I think this is universal for orgo, but she only gives a week's notice for exams, meaning her averages are really low. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T23:10:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dr. Stocker is a good orgo professor. She teaches the material well but be prepared to study hard outside of class as just going to lecture won't be enough to understand orgo. Be cautious as she fills up fast and because most people know to take her, all the premed and honors students will fill up the class and for my section the averages were extremely high because of this. The averages for my section were usually around a 70 which is extremely high for orgo considering the other section she taught had averages in the 50's and at highest low 60's. This may just be an issue with my section as I haven't heard of averages this high from present and past students. Although the semester hasn't ended and we don't know the cutoffs for the final, the cutoffs for an A before was an 87 which is barely a curve. I am averaging around a B/B- in the class which would likely be at least an A- in any other orgo class except for this one. While this was an annoying issue in my class and prevented many students from getting the grade they wanted I will still say she is a good professor. Her exams are pretty fair if you take all the old exams as they are the same format. She is also very open to asking questions and is very helpful during office hours. Overall, I would recommend Dr. Stocker but be cautious about the grade distributions. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-15T15:15:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Stocker is the BEST orgo professor you can have. She's an absolute sweetheart who glows when she teaches organic chemistry. It's great seeing someone passionate about the topic teach it. She also uses a lot of animal references to help with understanding and a meme on every single exam. I can happily say I adore her. As others said, my biggest regret is probably not being able to form a bond with her earlier on. In terms of the lecture, Stocker tended to speed through information and you were essentially REQUIRED to go to class. No zoom option, no lecture recordings, slides with almost 0 information being posted. GO TO CLASS or find friends who will give you their notes. Even with that, she's still an incredible professor.\r\nNow into the schmeat of orgo....\r\nOrgo at first seems incredibly terrifying, especially with the amount of memorization required to understand a lot of it. Stocker provides a lot of practice work and old exams to get you through that so you can recognize what she uses. She doesn't post the answer keys for old exams, but it encourages everyone to work together or to go to office hours for it. She does have homework as well, which is honestly harder than the exams but students always tend to work together through zoom calls prior to when it's due. She drops the lowest one (which was below a 50 for me) but still keeps the points from them in the final grade. \r\nHer exams themselves are very similar to the old exams, however, there always seems to be that ONE trick question. My biggest mistake was taking the first exam thinking I didn't need to study that much. YOU DO NEED TO STUDY FOR ORGO. I scored (with the grade ranges she posted) a low C for the first exam, high Bs for the second two, and a pretty low B for the final. I can absolutely blame myself for the first exam because I didn't really worry about it too much. I mainly thought I could just ride the curve for orgo, but my class tended to have 65s and up as their averages for exams, which is higher than usual for Stocker and made it impossible for me to just ride the curve.\r\nIf you're struggling, I highly suggest watching Leah4Sci on youtube for help! She helped me get through the reactions part of the class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-18T00:55:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Very good lecturer and fair exams. She gives you past exams but not the answer keys. Plus, if you have questions over HW and go to office hours, she doesn't give clear responses since she doesn't want to outright give you the answer. From a professor standpoint, I understand why she does this but, as a student, it can be really annoying. It can also be difficult to properly ask her questions during office hours since they are always packed and it can just be students goofing around with her which is frustrating if you just want help. But overall, I don't regret taking her because her enthusiasm made the class really enjoyable! As the other review said, be cautious though because her curves are insanely high compared to other professors. This is a good indicator that she teaches well but it really screws you over with the curve. I definitely had to put a lot of work into the class to get the grade I got but I'm glad I took her.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T04:42:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I really enjoyed the content of this Orgo, more so than Gen Chem because the class was very cumulative in the sense that you would continuously use what you had learned in the previous unit. This made the class a lot easier. In terms of professors though, take Dr. Stocker. My roommate had Koppel and barely ever received partial credit on exams, while Stocker's TA was very lenient on partial credit and grading in general. She is the best Orgo 1 professor by far and a really great lecturer, probably one of the best lecturers I've had at UMD. She does handwrite her lectures though and doesn't post them, so make sure to go to lecture and get an iPad or some kind of tablet. I never went to her office hours but I've heard they were helpful, they just fill up really fast. \r\n\r\nHer class also fills up fast, and because people know to take her a lot of pre-meds and honors students are in her class, which can make the averages a lot higher. My section had this issue, where our average was around a 70 for each exam. This is really high for an Orgo class. For context, the other section (Tues/Thurs) had averages around the 60s/50s. Each class is curved individually, which screwed over a lot of people in my section since they had pretty high test scores for Orgo, but our class didn't have a huge curve, so the grade you got on exams was pretty close to the grade you got in the class. Despite this, I would still take Stocker because Koppel and Friedman are way worse. In order to succeed on exams, I recommend starting studying a week before. Do the problem sets and then ALL of the practice exams- her exams are pretty similar to the practice.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T19:06:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "better lecturer than koppel (she's dogshit) but harder tests. If you're the type of person who's able to self-study take koppel cause the curve is larger in that class. Bc all the smart kids take stocker and they all decided to take my section for some reason (mon weds fri) there was little to no curve. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-15T13:36:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "i took Dr. Stocker in the summer. Honestly, if you're worried about orgo or you're retaking it like i did, take it ALONE in the summer if you can. Dr. Stocker was super helpful during office hours and she made lectures easy to understand. taking her practice exams and doing the practice sheets are a must to pass; memorization by itself doesn't really work for this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-08-31T00:07:21.033405Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'It’s orgo so its going to take up alot of time. Period. Stocker does a good job providing homeworks that are exam level questions, but they can take a lot of time(never do them the night before, try doing what you can after every lecture). She also tells you common mistakes students make so pay attention to those and write that down. Also write down any questions you have and clarify them ASAP in her office hours or after class she’s happy to help, don’t email her. Discussion isn’t mandatory, but its mandatory if you want to pass. The class is curved, not exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T02:44:16.959948Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I hated orgo throughout, but I ended with a good grade so I gave her 4 stars. I got an 82, 71, and 77 on the midterms and then an 86 on the final, so I was above the curve on each exam. I ended with an A- which was a pleasant surprise. I probably could have pulled an A if I didn't start studying two days in advance for each exam.\r\nTips: The problem sets are everything, they help so much! You should be able to get every problem correct before the exams. I never went to GSS but I heard it was super helpful. Form a study group with people you can help and who can help you and start studying hardcore at least 4 days before each exam. GSS exam review was helpful too. Take good notes in class because she does not post them and try not to skip class. You have to put in effort and time for this class and you will do above average, which is all you need to get a B. The B cuttoff is usually reallllly low compared to other classes.\r\nI found Stocker to be a little unforgiving to students who deserved some slack but at least she is consistent. She's probably better than the others.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-20T20:51:40.120514Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Amazing teacher. I feel like I wouldnt of gotten the grade I got if I took someone else. I struggled with gen chem really bad and I can confidently say orgo is much easier and funner than gen chem. Once you understand things it becomes fun. Im kind of sad because at first I just wanted to pass this class with a C because I am bad with chem. But when I have been doing above average on every single exam and I scored really high on the final I thought to myself I should of been shooting higher than a C. I really didnt think I would get a B+. To pass this class you need to practice problems after every class session. If you think you got it, you dont. Stocker has a lot of practice problems that were helpful. She doesnt teach off of a book and we dont have homework on online websites. The other 2 orgo teacher had homework on online websites which looked hard. One thing I hate is how packed her office hours were and sometimes she would talk with the GSS about some random nonsense instead of helping us with our questions. And she did this in the middle of me asking a question which I thought was rude... But that would be the only downside. I would recommend this teacher! If you are above average on every single assignment you are guaranteed a B+ or higher no doubt about it.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-20T20:54:57.305006Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Dr Stocker is a really amazing professor. To be clear: orgo will still be difficult even with her as a professor, and it mainly just requires doing lots of practice questions and previous exams. Office hours are super helpful because there is often a group of students there that you can workshop the homeworks with (which usually took me 2ish days to complete) and stocker makes herself super accessible for questions, although she doesn't always answer them very straightforward since she doesn't want to answer the homework questions for you. She explains things very clearly in lecture and, although its easy to feel lost because of the complexity, I often found I would understand what she was saying after trying a few practice questions. She provides LOTS of resources for practice. She uploads problem sets for each topic (with the answer keys) and lots of previous exams. Super kind and a great professor overall.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T06:47:39.361245Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I'd like to start this by saying orgo is a tough class no matter who you take it with. It will not be a walk in the park but Stocker does her best to make things relevant for us and really does want us to succeed. She holds office hours all the time for questions and it's also a great time to work with other students that show up. She's super nice and a great teacher considering how difficult the subject matter is.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-23T20:51:35.127947Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'If you put in the work (which is a must!), the grade you want to get is very achievable since her tests are straight-forward and predictable. Really liked how the class was structured. As a professor, Dr Stocker seems to be in love with her profession! She can definitely help if you reach out, but that is on your end.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-28T04:16:01.483319Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'TAKE HER FOR ORGO!!! if you go to class, pay attention, and study examples a lot you will do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-07T21:20:53.917979Z'}, {'professor': 'Lenea Stocker', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "If you need a reference: My ending grade was a 44% and that translated to a C-(TuTh section) Good luck guys. If you do all her examples on canvas and memorize the material, you can do it! I somehow did. Overall, she is a good lecturer but goes fast and doesn't record.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2023-01-20T21:55:35.786237Z'}], 'name': 'Lenea Stocker', 'slug': 'stocker_lenea'}, {'courses': ['ASTR606', 'ASTR380', 'ASTR100', 'ASTR498X', 'ASTR435', 'ASTR399'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leo Deming', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Professor Deming is amazing! His lectures are extremely thorough and it is very clear he loves the topic and wants to share his interests. The lectures are easy to follow and entertaining and his exams are more than fair. Definitely a great professor for people who are not science majors and taking his class for a gen-ed requirement. He does a lot to make sure you get the material', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-06T17:37:15Z'}], 'name': 'Leo Deming', 'slug': 'deming_leo'}, {'courses': ['BSCI207', 'BSCI106', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI161', 'BSCI161C', 'BSCI161S', 'ENTM788C', 'BSCI337', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI337', 'BSCI207', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI366'], 'average_rating': 3.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'You need to teach yourself in this class. Going to class seemed like a waste of my time, because Dr. Shapiro would go too fast for me to read (let alone write anything) from the slides. His slides contain all the information for the exams, and he focuses heavily on diagrams for exams. If you study the slides, you will do fine on the tests. There are four exams and a final, but he drops one of the exams. I can tell he cares about his students a lot and wants us to succeed, but I just wish his lectures were more interesting and he organized the topics a little better. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-04-15T12:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He is not the best teacher, he doesn't know how to explain some of the most important topics in the course. He often confused his students even himself. He reads off the slides which I did not like. He often seemed unprepared. Sometimes he wouldn't even know what he meant by his slides. Terrible. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-01-04T11:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Shapiro is not a great professor for BSCI207. He went way too fast in lectures, so I had to teach myself most of the information after the fact. I know that Dr. Shapiro covers something like twice as much material as the other BSCI207 professors. He was not very good at explaining concepts either; he tends to obfuscate just about everything. And, as much as I hate to say it, I question his understanding of some of the more difficult topics--he is an insect biologist after all, not a biophysicist.\n\r\nOn the upside, Dr. Shapiro cares about his students and tried his best to teach the course well. The tests are fair. Also, I learned A LOT of biology as a result of this class. To summarize: if you want to learn a lot of stuff but teach yourself, take him. Otherwise, look elsewhere.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-24T20:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI363', 'review': 'I was aware that he was a stand-in for the normal professor who was out this semester, but he did a reasonably good job. He is very interested in current events and genuinely interested in conservation. Some lectures seemed to drag on as he read from slides and the TA was strict on grading.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-05-20T22:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI363', 'review': 'I took both the lecture and lab sections of the class. The lecture section was interesting, but he went through really fast and relies on you going back through the lecture notes for everything. He included guest lecturers and grad student presentations in throughout the semester which made for a good change of pace. At the beginning of each lecture, he presents current events in conservation. Make sure you go back and read these after class because they will be on the exams!!!\r\nThe lab portion of the class was fun and engaging. Each class was either with a guest speaker or a field trip. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-13T10:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': "Such a great professor! You can really tell how passionate he is about the material and is eager to talk during his office hours. The work load was very manageable too. Don't hesitate to take him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-09T03:01:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': "Amazing lecturer. Makes this class very interesting even if you're not a Bio major. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-07T04:05:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'I really enjoyed Dr. Shapiro. He had hands-down the most well organized class during my first semester in COVID online classes. He tells you every upcoming due date at the beginning of every lecture and lets students watch lectures at their own pace. The exams were exactly what was taught. As long as you listen to the lectures and complete the assigned LaunchPad activity you will be fine. You do not need to infer anything or do supplemental learning outside of what he assigns. I really appreciated having him as a prof for BSCI160 when most of my other classes were so mixed up and unorganized. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-26T17:26:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Very, very boring. If you do not have a passion for ecology or evolution, I do not recommend taking this class. It was extremely hard to stay awake in this class, let alone take notes that are useful for the exams. Dr Shapiro is knowledgeable and passionate about the topics covered in the class, but he is not very personable and his lectures are often confusing. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-04-16T04:29:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Dr. Shapiro is a very intelligent professor who really has a passion for teaching. He does give plenty of notice when things are due. HOWEVER, lectures are basic lecture styles off slides and are very boring. The worst part is the homework/launchpad/quizzes which is also a ridiculous amount of work for the level of class this is. Would definitely not recommend taking this class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-16T21:06:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': "Leo reads nearly word for word off of the slide. Although slides are posted after class, you've lost the chance to take notes on what he is actually saying since you have to scribble down whatever the slide said to make your notes somewhat relevant. Exam Pts were taken off for the smallest of mistakes. I had to self-teach myself most of this class. HW (LearningCurves) are very tedious. I don't recommend Leo at all.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-18T00:34:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'I love this professor and I loved his class. I would 100% recommend him to everyone for BSCI 160. He is very straightforward with his assignments and due dates. He is extremely enthusiastic and intelligent in his lectures although some of them might be long winded. Some people say his lectures are boring, but I disagree I think it is what you make it. I would advise sitting closer to him in the lecture as its easier to stay engaged, and don’t hesitate to participate as it makes it more interesting! He is easily one of my favorite professors of all time.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T16:57:02.517582Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': "Even though I'm expecting a B in this class, I absolutely LOVED it. He is extremely passionate about the subject. I have to admit, it's pretty boring at times. However, the TA's do great with exam prep and if you do bad on the tests it's honestly your fault at that point. Literally the only studying I do is going to the zoom calls and making a few flashcards on quizlet. Also matches up pretty well with ENSP101 (not related but I think will help some people)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-11T18:38:29.204517Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Dr. Shapiro is a very intelligent and passionate professor, and he clearly loves the content he teaches. However, the slides are often disorganized, his lectures drag, and he often rambles in circles which confuses the class and often himself as well. The "textbook" work is essentially a 40 minute quiz on material we do not need to know for the exam, which doesn\'t help in learning the material. He tries to post the lecture slides before class so that he can go very quickly, but oftentimes he forgets and you can\'t follow along. The slides are difficult to follow without a lecture alongside them, so going back to get the notes is also difficult. However, the class itself was pretty easy and his exams were fair. It\'s a bit of a nuisance class if you have harder courses like chemistry or calculus, so if you can find a better teacher without ruining your schedule, I\'d do it.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T23:00:14.283992Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Great professor. He makes the class super straight forward.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T00:37:52.357873Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'I thought that overall, he did a good job. He reads off of slides and goes over them pretty fast. Taking pictures as he goes over them is helpful. He also posts the slides after class, so you can review any topics you do not understand later. Also, the TAs are knowledgeable and can help with understanding tricky homework questions and topics. The midterms were not bad, and the final exam included questions similar to previous midterms. He does tend to get passionate about topics he cares about, which can lead to him rambling for quite some time. The Achieve quizzes were easy as well.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-22T17:48:08.489771Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Pretty chill class overall. Lectures are posted on classroom, very straightforward exams. \r\n\r\nHomeworks are a bit of a drag, especially if it stacks up with other classes. For Adaptive quizzes, keep in mind that the content on this is minimally helpful in helping you for the exams.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T00:24:50.303963Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Dr. Shapiro is extremely passionate. His exams are based on his lecture slides. He also bases questions on figures/graphs on his slides. He only explains those graphs during lecture (he doesn’t record) so if you missed lecture, then you may not understand what the graphs/figures mean. There are weekly quizzes and homework worksheets. Homework is graded extremely hard..very difficult to get 100% since they grade for accuracy. Best resources for this class were GSS and TA review sessions. Overall, this class was quite time consuming and a lot of memorization. I enjoyed the content in this class the most out of my other classes.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T02:04:28.551505Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': None, 'review': 'I literally found him so boring. He was so monotonous. His hws are atrocious because the TA takes off points for every single minor thing and the first test average was a D (so he had to curve up 10%. The other two exams got better and the final was also much better. All you have to use is the slides. they are MCQ fill-in and free responses. Use the review videos because the questions are sometimes reused. The organismal diversity project is chill I got an A. Oh also he gets rid of the lowest midterm or downweights the final and lowest midterm to help the grade since there are no curves applied to the final grade. Im just glad I got an A- because as a neuroscience major there was no point taking this stupid class on ecology and evolution.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-01T02:43:12.537414Z'}, {'professor': 'Leo Shapiro', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Great professor! He really cares about all of his students and listens to any concerns we have about exams, homework, due dates, etc. The class is definitely hard, but the work and exams are fair. you should definitely go to lecture, he posts the slides on canvas, but he talks about them and adds a lot more info that isn’t on the power point. He adds in humor which keeps the class engaging and fun.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-04-11T19:13:31.626429Z'}], 'name': 'Leo Shapiro', 'slug': 'shapiro_leo'}, {'courses': ['ENME489P', 'ENPM656', 'ENME408', 'ENPM622', 'ENME408', 'ENME408', 'ENME408', 'ENME408'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Leonard Hamilton', 'slug': 'hamilton_leonard'}, {'courses': ['ENEE381', 'ENEE380'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leonard Taylor', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': "Pros:\n\r\n- First three exams are graded pretty easily, and the homeworks and quizzes basically count as extra credit onto your exam grades\r\n- Homeworks can be long, but the solutions are around, I'm sure someone in your class will find them within the first few weeks of school\r\n- Pretty easy to get an A or a B in a class that would otherwise be quite difficult\n\r\nCons: \r\n- Chances are, you'll learn nothing from Dr. Taylor. Hes a horrible professor\r\n- If you can't find the homework solutions, doing the homeworks is next to impossible\r\n- Dr. Taylor grades the final exams himself, and he grades very strictly. Expect 20-30 points lower on your final than on your first 3 midterms\n\r\nOverall, I'd try and avoid Taylor if you can. I'd only recommend him if you really don't care about transmission line theory or antennas, which is basically what 381 is about, and want an easy A.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-20T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonard Taylor', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "To get a good grade in this class:\r\n-Start the homeworks EARLY. There are only 6 assignments, but some of them are 50+ problems long, and take multiple hours to finish. \r\n-Bring ANYTHING (including a computer) for the exams. His 4 exams are each worth 125 points and are 5 questions long. Use the homeworks and textbook!\r\n-He determines your final grade out of 500 points, so the quizzes and homeworks are essentially bonus points, but also serve to help you for the exam.\r\n-He like to give bonus points for finding errors, let him know if you find one \n\r\nHis lectures comprise of:\r\n-Rewriting equations found in the text\r\n-Writing a problem on the board then showing you the solution\r\n-Giving you surprise quizzes you get to grade yourself\r\n-Indimitating students about how hard the tests are\r\n-Showing pictures of historians (usually for about 20 minutes)\r\n-Telling personal stories \n\r\nI feel like I didn't learn anything in this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-23T01:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonard Taylor', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': 'Even though he says grades are based on points, he actually curves. My class went into final with half the class having a good chance at A, and he graded the final EXTREMELY strict (~30% average below previous tests) which bumped ALOT of people from A to B, and a good amount from B to C. \n\r\nAnyways, :\n\r\nPros:\r\n-Class follows book very closely\r\n-Book is very good for tests\r\n-Tests are easy if you understand everything in the book\r\n-He tries to make class entertaining with jokes (some are actually good)\n\r\nCons:\r\n-Lectures are pointless. I only went to get quiz points but brought my book and studied. This worked well, as his lectures are often off-topic.\r\n-Book has a handful of mistakes\n\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-14T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonard Taylor', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "Taylor is awesome. He is a really nice guy and a pretty good professor. He focuses on the stuff that you really need to know. I didn't think his exams were that hard, especially since he gives you tons of extra time to complete them and you get to use anything, even a laptop if you wish. Most of the exam questions are very similar to hw problems, so if you get those, it's easy to get a decent score on the exams. There are usually 1 or 2 tricky problems, but you can figure out what method to use from the way he words the question and what kind of answer you think he expects. If you're finding the class to be tough, just start asking him questions about anything (hw, examples problems, concepts) because he ids very open to answering questions in class or by email or before and after class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-23T19:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonard Taylor', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "Professor Taylor is a little better than awful, but a little worse than good. His book is not the worst textbook ever, but parts are hard to decipher. his tests are pretty tricky, but are open book. He has a lot of trouble hearing and seeing you so it is difficult to get his attention when you have a question. He does not have office hours which is my biggest issue with him. he will come early or leave late to talk to you but only for that little 15 minute window. Also, he doesn't ever answer questions via e-mail (as he is only barely able to use a computer it seems) so if you have a question that isnt answered in class, or need individual help with something, you are out of luck. All that aside, Taylor is not bad at explaining things, and is a very nice guy with a good sense of humor for someone as ancient as he is. He is reasonable and likes to talk about the history behind the people that discovered the things you are doing which makes for a nice break in lecture, and it is pretty interesting (i think at least) ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-04-08T21:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonard Taylor', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "Not a bad at teacher but is def. not the best. Uses a book that he made on his own and it is horrible and has a lot of mistakes in it. But it is very easy to get an A or a B in his class. The HW's are extra credit and you have to get to 450 points to get an A. With three 100 point tests and one 200 point final and lots of extra credit from HW this is not that hard to do. Also in 380 we covered everything for 381 as well so it was somewhat hard to keep up with the fast pace but now I'm enjoying the benefits as 381 is very very easy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-02T22:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Leonard Taylor', 'slug': 'taylor_leonard'}, {'courses': ['MATH410', 'STAT410', 'STAT600', 'STAT601', 'MATH411', 'SURV410', 'DATA601', 'MSML601', 'SPHL610', 'DATA601', 'MATH411', 'MSML601', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'DATA601', 'MSML601', 'STAT600'], 'average_rating': 3.1765, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "Great professor, he was very thorough. People complaining about him are simply angry that they didn't get a good grade, despite not understanding the material.\n\r\nExams were fair.\n\r\nDo your homework thoroughly, it's 410 that's what the class is about.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-10-03T21:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Foreword: reviews complaining about "spending way too much time on proofs" are obviously from people who have no business taking a 400-level course in the math department; upper-level math /is/ proofs.\n\r\nSo, Leonid Koralov: Super-nice professor, always smiling, lots of office-hours, will always stay after to help you through a problem. Reasonable homework assignments, though they edge on the lengthy side. Very flexible re: late homework if you miss a lecture, which is refreshing.\n\r\nVery good lecturer. None of the material in the course was at all difficult to understand if you showed up and paid attention in lecture. All proofs done in satisfactory detail and explained lucidly. He occasionally goes on tangents, but they generally cover material you\'ll see in subsequent courses and I\'ve found that many of them were quite helpful.\n\r\nHe does assume a level of student competence with formal proof-based math in his lectures; if you are not yet comfortable with lectures consisting of definition -> claim -> proof -> repeat and little else, avoid. If you are, you will find that he\'s one of the better lecturers out there.\n\r\nYes, he is a tough grader, but fair with partial credit. Be sure to write your proofs cleanly. Yes, his exams are fairly difficult (median grade was below 50% on both midterms, but most of this was due to many people in the class who simply were not ready to take a rigorous theory course). Little-to-no curve, but he will bump your grade up if you put in a fair effort and show a good grasp of the material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-10-04T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "I was in the same class as the other Fall 2011 students that posted and yes this guy to put it bluntly, sucks. I received an F in the class. It was my first semester at UMD, and I should have known better that in this school, most professors don't teach. I should have dropped the class rather than risk my gpa for this nonsense. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-23T10:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Koralov is by far the worst professor I've had on campus. He spends way too much time going over proofs and half the time he realizes he made a mistake early on which screws up everything you just learned. The examples he gives in class do not relate to what shows up on exams and he'll generally screw up on explaining them more than once so don't write in pen. Actually you're probably better off not writing anything he writes on the board because its most likely wrong. The average on the first test was somewhere in the 40's and he couldn't understand why everyone did so bad. When I went to his office hours to ask about a curve he said there might be a small one, but he was ok with failing the whole class because obviously we didn't study hard enough. The only days I learned something were the two days we had subs. Basically, avoid this man at all costs. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-15T20:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Ok heads up guys this man is a nice guy. Office hours are three times a week, however he is not a good professor. His lectures usually involve proving the material being taught then afterwards at max expect one lecture he will go over 2 problems. O and dont get me started on the exams....The first exam the average was a 35 out of 85 second was a lot higher 60/100. So now what happens with the hordes of people who are still in the class they suffer from a higher curve. (in Fall 2011 31% of the class dropped.....) So yea if you like proofs and don't mind learning on your own from the cryptic book by all means take this professor with unreasonable exams.... If you want an easy A... Look somewhere else .... ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-12T16:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "He is definitely a nice guy, and has office hours three times a week (more than any other professor I've ever had).\r\nHowever, he does not curve at all, he barely gives partial credit, his exams are very difficult, and there were MANY people in the class who did not pass. Furthermore, his specialty is statistics, so having him teach MATH410 was a strange decision on the part of the math department. \n\r\nI don't recommend taking this particular class with him if proofs don't come easily to you. He tries to help, but he is only partially effective at doing so. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-02-25T20:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "Nice guy, but pretty much just writes the book on the board. Although he usually makes some insightful comments which I usually found made it worth it to go to class. I dunno if he was just out of his element teaching MATH410 since he had only taught STAT classes before. He is a really smart guy, but a hard grader and no curve. Everyone failed the first test, and a lot of people failed the second one. \n\r\nHe does want to help though, he tries very hard to help, but he just can't.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-18T10:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'The best professor. \r\nSmiles always and tells funny stories about his children.\r\nExam grades sometimes rough (uniform distribution between 0 and 100) but fair.\r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-15T04:50:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'I took this course 2 semesters ago with this professor and received a B. He was not helpful whatsoever. Wrote word for word from the book with very few examples (no examples outside of the book). I essentially read each section and taught myself the material. Exams were difficult with absolutely no partial credit given. I would never take a course with this professor again. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-03-27T21:20:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "He's alright. Doesn't put a lot of preparation into the course, but he's good at explaining stuff so that somewhat makes up for it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:33:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'Unreasonably difficult exams with no curve', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-20T21:46:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'He is a very nice professor. He is good at explaining things and he is pretty much always available as scheduled to entertain questions. He is very smart (he solved a question I was pondering for a week in around 30 seconds). \r\n\r\nAdmittedly, he does "teach out of the book", in the literal sense: his lecture preparation consists of opening the book where we last left off and then lecturing some more. His exams are fairly difficult, but his grading for them is lenient if you demonstrate understanding of how to solve the problem. I also think his discussion on the beginning of the book (field axioms and natural numbers) was way too slow. \r\n\r\nOverall I would recommend him. For students who struggle more with the material I might not recommend him. For students who want their 410 experience to be extra spicy I would recommend Levermore instead.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-10T01:55:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "He strictly follow the book in his lectures. Lectures are helpful, but is the same as reading the book yourself. \r\n\r\nHis exams are difficult with little curve, it's usually the case that you can't complete the exams on time. The grade cutoffs are rather low, but not cover up the difficulty of the exams. If you know the material well but don't have time to finish exams, midterms are extremely horrible while final is fine.\r\n\r\nHe is extremely nice and knowledgeable, and he is very careful and serious as a mathematician(I guess).\r\n\r\nHints: some midterm problems are similar to past final exams, don't wait till the end of semester to study them. I saw many problems about Mean Value Theorem, seems like he like it very much. I saw a problem on exam about Darboux Theorem (you can solve it with MVT, but very hard), you can try that. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-28T17:04:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "He is a good professor. Usually he is available as scheduled so that you can ask him questions. Usually, his exams are somewhat on the difficult side, but he is a fairly forgiving grader.\r\n\r\nIt might be that he doesn't prepare the class with the problem solving skills to do the problems in the exam (as in our section over half the students ended up dropping the course). So his course is somewhat sink or swim. However, for 410 his cutoffs are very generous (85+ for at least an A-).\r\n\r\nOverall I would recommend him to others looking to take this course.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-02-03T22:23:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': "Koralov is nice and is always available to answer questions. He'll try to go deeper into the material and make sure you really understand the course. His exams are fair, and although he grades them a bit tough, he will curve the class to make up for it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-27T21:51:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Above average. Besides reading from the book, he only gives slightly different proofs. He gives a lot of homework. His exams are difficult, especially the midterms, because of a shortage of time. The final is easier, with double time and 1.5 times as many questions as midterms. \r\nA difficult question in midterm 1 is similar to a homework problem. Another difficult question in midterm 2 is related to the Darboux theorem (which is not included in the textbook).', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-07-29T01:03:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Leonid Koralov', 'course': 'DATA601', 'review': 'He is alright. Struggled with the pandemic online structure. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-21T19:38:37Z'}], 'name': 'Leonid Koralov', 'slug': 'koralov'}, {'courses': ['ECON454', 'ECON652', 'ECON708', 'ECON878', 'ECON468E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lesley Turner', 'slug': 'turner_lesley'}, {'courses': ['MIEH780', 'MIEH480', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH780', 'MIEH780'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lesliam Quiros Alcala', 'slug': 'alcala'}, {'courses': ['ARTT100', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT150', 'ARTT110S', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT428H'], 'average_rating': 4.5556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leslie Berns', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "Professor Berns is one of the coolest professors at MD. I had her for Art Theory and Studio Art. She's really flexible and is a really nice person overall. In Theory, it's clear that she knows exactly what she's talking about (she went to Yale) but she has some trouble explaining it. For Studio, it was only a 100-level class so she graded on how much effort you put into it, not on how talented you are. \n\r\nDefinitely take a class with her if you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-18T14:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Berns', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': ' She doesnt follow the syllabus and is extremely easy. You dont have to read the book unless she tells you to take notes which she will collect or a quiz. As long as you show up and dont fall asleep, you should get a minimum of a B. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-08T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Berns', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "She is amazing. I really do love her.\n\r\nBerns understands that Art isn't the only thing we're doing, and she is so flexible with due dates and assignments. Very easy to talk to, and she gives good feedback and insight. Some of the concepts are strange, but she clarifies if you ask her to do so. \n\r\nMake sure you put some effort into the projects and assignments. She praises effort, not necessarily good work. Just relax and enjoy, because you'll probably not have another class as great as this one.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-03-25T02:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Berns', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Best teacher ever. Hands down very understanding and listens to her students. You can have a personal relationship with her because she really cares for her students. BEST TEACHER EVER!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-15T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Berns', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Prof. Berns is a great teacher. I went into this class not expecting it to be easy or interesting. Turns out, it was probably my best and easiest class this semester. The class is really laid back, and she does everything in her power to help you out. The midterm and final were really easy, as long as you review your notes you should get an A. There are 2 museum visits over the course of the semester which kinda sucked, but if you go they are easy points. I highly recommend this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T14:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Berns', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "She's awesome. Take her class if you can. The class is so laid back and to get an a, just participate in the discussions and read the readings.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-13T13:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Berns', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "Nice teacher.\r\nIf you're gonna take ART150, I would take it with her.\r\nShe is very easy.. you barely have any quizzes during the week, but you do have to do the reading so you can discuss it in class. You have the option to stay quiet,but talking about it makes her like you more!\r\nThe textbook is everything you need to know for the tests and the textbook is not difficult to understand either.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-04T04:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Berns', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "She doesn't really follow the syllabus so it is a very easygoing class where you complete projects as assigned. even if you get Bs on some projects don't be afraid, effort is important, attend class (attendance points) and you should come out with an A. be careful with craftmanship because it counts! Try, go to class, have fun, speak up!!!! and you will be golden.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-25T14:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Berns', 'course': 'ARTT110', 'review': "Berns is a good teacher for beginners who may not know the technicalities of the art world. She'll provide helpful feedback on your pieces and is easy to approach and talk to. She grades on effort that is put into art pieces rather than accuracy or high level of mastery.\r\n\r\nLectures on introductory topics, like shape/perspective/etc, by Leslie Berns may seem dry and sometimes, the thoughts she shares are repetitive or take her a while to formulate into a sentence (only because she's trying to explain in the best way possible).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-21T16:35:12Z'}], 'name': 'Leslie Berns', 'slug': 'berns'}, {'courses': ['THET399J', 'THET629A', 'THET324', 'THET499O', 'THET362', 'THET499C', 'THET424', 'TDPS458T', 'TDPS458B', 'TDPS362', 'THET328T', 'THET285', 'THET499', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'TDPS358L', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'THET328N', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TDPS458C', 'THET120', 'THET429', 'THET669', 'TDPS362', 'THET285', 'THET324', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET429', 'THET285', 'THET285', 'THET285', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET788'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leslie Felbain', 'course': 'THET285', 'review': 'Dr. Felbain is a very personable and understanding professor. Course materials were relevant to the course, and the assignments given were of an appropriate workload. Though my introverted self was uncomfortable at times (considering this is a more interactive course), the professor was very understanding and encouraging, which was much appreciated. I also liked how, despite being virtual, I got to get to know my classmates the same way I would have been able to if we were in person. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-26T15:31:19Z'}], 'name': 'Leslie Felbain', 'slug': 'felbain'}, {'courses': ['EDCI481', 'EDCI489B', 'TLPL418', 'TLPL479G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Leslie Gettier', 'slug': 'gettier'}, {'courses': ['BMGT311', 'BMGT310', 'BMGT323', 'RDEV688K', 'BUAC758V', 'BUAC780', 'RDEV270', 'RDEV605', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'BUAC762', 'BMGT323', 'BMGT417', 'BUSO781', 'BMGT323', 'BUAC762', 'BUAC764', 'RDEV270', 'RDEV605', 'BMGT323', 'BUSO781', 'BUAC762', 'BUAC764', 'RDEV270', 'RDEV605'], 'average_rating': 3.3636, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': "Do not take this class with this professor- Leslie Mostow. He doesn't teach anything. TA does most of the work. TA made up questions for midterms and final. TA graded exams and submitted grades. TA prepare tax project. TA worked out problems in class. TA answered emails and discussion. The professor was pretty much let TA do whatever in class. Even though the professor lectured but TA gave exams so things were like: teach A, test B... didn't work out for students. We (me and other classmates) dont even know what the professor do in the class. He does not teach anything, You are on your own 99% of the time.\r\nAlmost forget to mention, the 1st midterm was given during the 2nd week of the semester, so be prepare to fail if you want this kind of challenge!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-06T20:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': "Professor Mostow is a pretty funny and interesting guy. The material is not by any means easy, but the class is structured well enough that you can learn a lot and do well. You have homework on Connect practically every week and in the end there is a tax project, which is very good to put into practice what you've learned. He grades the project pretty leniently. The exams (4) are not easy, but not overly difficult, and he'll be sure to tell you in advance what's going to be on it during the review sessions right before the exam. In class, he basically just reads of the power points and does some exercises, so it's not the most interesting thing, but it's still useful to attend. Overall, I really enjoyed taking this class with this professor, and I think you will also if you decide to take it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-01-06T19:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': "Professor Mostow was a pretty funny and interesting teacher, although the class material was a bit dry. The class was really structured, with homework every week, so if you studied on your own you might not have to pay that much attention in class. I would definitely pay attention during the class period right before the exams because he pretty much goes through the exam questions and tells you what topics to study. He also gave a lot of opportunities for extra credit and graded the final project very, very leniently. Overall, he wasn't an overly difficult professor, and he made the class interesting and pretty easy to do well in.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-01-27T13:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': 'I have had Professor Mostow for two different courses (BMGT323 and BMGT310), and his teaching style was very similar for both courses. He typically reads off of the PowerPoint presentations that are provided to him by the book publisher in one lecture, and does practice problems in the next lecture. He does not like to use the board to explain problems, but is friendly in trying to help students with any questions.\n\r\nI did not like his teaching style, but if you read the book and do the homework, you should be fine. His review sessions before the exams go over exactly what you need to know, so make sure you go to reviews. If the class did not have any points awarded for attendance, I would have only showed up for the review sessions.\n\r\nOverall, it is clear that he is extremely knowledgeable in the field of accounting, but I felt that he was not particularly good in conveying his knowledge to the class effectively. If you are able to learn from the book, you will do fine in his class. If not, I would suggest taking this class with another professor.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-01-25T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': "Class is really hard not going to lie. Accounting is a hard subject so you can't really blame this guy. He tries his best in teaching the subject, but its better you don't attend his lectures because he reads off powerpoints. If you want to learn accounting you have to read the book otherwise find a different professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-25T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': "Professor is the best teacher I ever met!!! Very funny guy and we end up being very good friend!\n\r\nLet's put aside all the other good things about him, just one thing you need to know about his class:\n\r\nMake sure you go to the class right before midterms and the final, then you will get something.... that is extremely useful for your exams!\n\r\nHaha, just go to the review class before his exams, you will know what I mean!\n\n\r\nTake his class!!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': 'If you thought Pfieffer was bad, then wait till you get this guy. Just the same boring guy as Pfieffer, only his tests are completely different from any of the homework or practice problems. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-09-28T02:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Honestly, you have to read and attempt to understand the material before you arrive to class. If you do, you will find his lecture actually helpful. Being the second semester taking Mostow, i do see going to class useful. He is very knowledgeable, maybe not the best professor but he does know what he's talking about. If you have a question, the best option is to approach him personally. His test are parallel to the material, they are hard but if you're going for the CPA then you'd be prepared. The homework takes a long time to do but if you do them before he finishes lecturing a chapter then its easier to get the hang of it. Overall, accounting is a hard subject don't blame the professor for it!!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-12T23:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': "His tests are very easy if you know your material. He doesn't really teach, just reads the power-points that Wiley has provided. You honestly have to teach yourself. Out of 1004 points, the curve was only 25 points; which equates to 2.49%", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-28T19:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT417', 'review': 'He reads directly from slides and the online textbook to us during class. So you are 100% on your own to understand the material. He also just decided that our exam I is next week without any other advance notice so yikes. If you are ok learning on your own and doing nothing/other stuff during class then this is the class for you. I would not recommend this professor at all. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-21T17:47:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Mostow', 'course': 'BMGT323', 'review': "Pretty solid professor. Class is pretty straightforward and consists of just lecturing from the slides. The class is heavily based on the textbook just because you can't really memorize tax, so you just look up whatever you need to know. That being said make sure to read the chapter at least once so you know where to look. Assignments are just connect smartbook and connect HW assignments. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-04T22:46:31Z'}], 'name': 'Leslie Mostow', 'slug': 'mostow'}, {'courses': ['EDSP470', 'EDSP682', 'EDCI474', 'EDCI488R', 'EDSP210', 'EDSP888A', 'EDSP600', 'EDSP615'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leslie Page-Voth', 'course': 'EDSP470', 'review': 'Great professor. Super easy grader and does a good job teaching a thought-provoking subject.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-08-03T03:03:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Page-Voth', 'course': 'EDSP470', 'review': 'Great professor who makes a subject interesting. The work was challenging but definitely one of the best classes I have ever taken.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-06-13T04:20:11Z'}], 'name': 'Leslie Page-Voth', 'slug': 'page-voth'}, {'courses': ['CBMG688B', 'CPSP218L', 'BSCI410', 'BISI688B', 'BISI899', 'BISI712', 'HLSC322', 'BSCI337', 'ENTM701', 'HLSC322'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leslie Pick', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'She is really nice. probably one of the best professors I have ever had. I got a B in the class though, because her multiple choice questions were tough. However, she truly care about her student and curves at the end. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-19T20:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Pick', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "I second the review below; Dr. Pick is a fantastic professor who actually cares about her students understanding the material. This class is definitely a step above BSCI222 and the homeworks can be challenging. Whatever you do, make sure you go to office hours, she is very helpful there. The difficulty of the exams is what you would expect and the exams are fair (not to mention you get to drop your lowest midterm). Also, her tests are heavily problem-based so make sure that you do ALL of the practice problems she assigns. The only real downside is that she goes really fast in lecture (~60-70 slides in 75 minutes) so not only is there a lot of material, but it is also difficult to keep up with it. If you have to choose between Dr. Pick and Dr. Mount, from what I've heard, you have to be foolish to choose Mount. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-20T13:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Pick', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Dr. Pick is an amazing professor. In the upper level bios its pretty hard to find a professor who actually wants their students to learn and doesn't just go through the motions in order to do research. This is pretty difficult genetics but she really tries her best to help you to understand. She gives you 3 homeworks and 2 midterms but only your higher grade midterm counts so the class isn't based purely off of exams. She also really considers peoples answers other than the ones she originally thought of in the answer key. If what you say makes sense she will mark you right. Honestly though her lectures are purely based on her slides so going to class isn't quite as mandatory as others. She's also a really nice person so stopping by for office hours is recommended if you don't understand something because she'll really try to help you to understand. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-19T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Pick', 'course': 'HLSC322', 'review': 'She goes very fast during lectures, covering 50 slides in one lecture. However, the TAs make this class much more manageable in terms of help on homework and before exams. The grading is mitigated by the fcat that one Graded HW and one Exam are dropped by the end of class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-08T00:57:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Pick', 'course': 'HLSC322', 'review': 'I had Dr. Pick online for Genetics and I enjoyed her passion throughout the course. I liked how she gave examples from her own research and research from UMD that directly tied to the concepts she taught. Her lectures sometimes were a bit roundabout - there probably were more simpler ways to say some of the things she wanted to say but she was extremely helpful during office hours. She gives plenty of practice problems, homework, and lecture quizzes that boost your grade and help you prepare for the exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-13T21:41:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Pick', 'course': 'HLSC322', 'review': 'Good professor in the sense that she does really want her students to succeed. Was not a fan of the flipped classroom format though, and I felt that some of the exams were unfair (pulled specific material from previous units). Her exams are very specific, so you do really need to know the material well and I recommend studying at least a week in advance. Very sweet professor though and will do her best to help if you reach out. Also drops a lot of assignments which was a plus, and exams are not worth a huge part of your grade (~50%).', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T18:51:35Z'}], 'name': 'Leslie Pick', 'slug': 'pick'}, {'courses': ['HIST462', 'HIST819V', 'HIST408W', 'HIST689', 'HIST880', 'HIST408M', 'HIST619R', 'HIST819M', 'HIST619L', 'HIST463', 'HIST319J', 'HIST619V', 'HIST319J', 'HIST462', 'HIST319J'], 'average_rating': 1.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leslie Rowland', 'course': None, 'review': "I honestly wish I read this person's review before setting foot in this class. I have NEVER struggled through a class as much as HIST 462 but put in so much effort! I am currently enrolled in the class and counting down the seconds until it is over. We have finals in 3 weeks and I still read over 350 pages in 3 different books this past weekend!! If you have any kind of life, do NOT take this class. Prof. Rowland is very nice, and she knows absolutely everything about the Civil War. So basically, the only thing that matters is if you agree with everything she already knows. She will rip all 3 papers apart, and you'll need to start studying at least a week before exams if you want any hope of getting a good grade. Save yourself the headache. Take. Something. Else. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-04-17T19:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Rowland', 'course': None, 'review': "Although it may look like Dr. Rowland gives A's and B's, you should know that to actually receive either of these grades is an extremely difficult feat. The amount of reading required for this class, as well as the stringent grading curve that Dr. Rowland uses, are completely not worth your time. As a predominantly A student I was shocked to realize that I was putting triple the amount of effort into this class, yet only receiving B's on the assignments. Plus, Dr. Rowland's in class writing assignments are a total B*--she grades them from Check minus minus (yes, 2 minuses) to check minus, to check, to check plus, to check plus plus. Talk about subjectivity. Yes, the Civil War is fascinating. But is it really worth at least 200 pages of reading a week? Is it really worth staying up extremely late hours to just receive a B? In those situations, one would usually expect an A. If you want some really good advice,and I mean the best advice out there, here it is: it will cost much less anxiety, frustration, and harm to your GPA if you do not take this class.\r\nOh and just a heads up: On our midterm, out of 36 students in the class, there were 4 A's in total. (That is--4 A and A minuses included)", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-05-11T18:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Rowland', 'course': 'HIST462', 'review': 'Just stay away , she’s extremely boring and all she does is give tons of meaningless readings that she makes you do quick writes over them and not to mention she grades so ruthlessly, if you want to save your GPA and not fall asleep during class \r\navoid her at all costs \r\nI very much wish I checked the ratings for her class before I signed up ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2021-04-26T17:00:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Rowland', 'course': 'HIST408W', 'review': "I am currently sitting in class contemplating leaving. These reviews that I have been reading are not lying nor are they being hyperbolic. Rowland administers harsh grading that cant be read. You'd expect someone this pretentious to be able to grade things online like a normal person. Also, considering how picky she is as a teacher she never saves any papers that students can use as a guide. Do not take her because you will not learn anything from her. She thinks shes Noam Chomsky but not even close.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-24T19:28:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Leslie Rowland', 'course': 'HIST319J', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE HER. I read the reviews and decided to take the class anyway. Worst mistake of my life. I currently have a 36%, she assigns SO MUCH pointless reading and makes you do quick-writes on them every single class. She grades so harshly and honestly I'll be surprised if I pass. She is truly the worst Professor at UMD and needs to be fired immediately. She's also extremely rude and boring.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-10-25T14:06:33.773165Z'}], 'name': 'Leslie Rowland', 'slug': 'rowland'}, {'courses': ['HONR229F', 'JOUR459E', 'JOUR352', 'JOUR289F', 'JOUR480', 'JOUR381', 'JOUR652'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Leslie Walker', 'course': 'JOUR352', 'review': "She is a nice lady, but VERY out of touch. She made us buy GoDaddy accounts, and then tried to get us to buy a textbook too! She said it was necessary, but I didn't buy it and I got an A on the midterm.\r\nShe is rarely prepared, and often gets sidetracked. She also messes up her HTML codes pretty often. I would not recommend this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-13T00:45:00Z'}], 'name': 'Leslie Walker', 'slug': 'walker_leslie'}, {'courses': ['ARCH242'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lester Escobal', 'course': 'ARCH242', 'review': "Lester was one of my favorite professors that I've had at Maryland, However ARCH242 is simply impossible unless you have previous drawing experience.\n\r\nI took this class with no prior drawing experience and it was, well, awful. I put more work into ARCH242 than I did with any other class I've ever taken here (Its a crime that this isn't 4 credits) and received the worst grade I've ever gotten. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-11T21:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lester Escobal', 'course': 'ARCH242', 'review': "For those who don't see it, ARCH242 frankly is one of the weed out classes before studio.\n\r\nThe expectations and breakdown of the course have already been talked about by others so I'm not going to go there.\n\r\nThe one thing I do want to warn you about is that it's difficult to get an A in this course.\n\r\nSometimes you'll think that you did well and followed every single instruction but get back an 87, which will irk you to no end. Frankly, it is hard to go beyond the 90 borderline (a grade in the 80's isn't bad either, considering a 94 for the course is an A+)\n\r\nThe key to going beyond the 90 borderline is to BREAK THE RULES. Your drawings should be about communicating a certain idea and you, as the author, need to decide what's necessary and what isn't. Lester and the TAs love it, or at least endorse it, when you break rules. Instructions are often open-ended. Lester wants to see just how creative you could get. But do note that breaking rules doesn't mean to shade when the assignment explicitly states no shading. Don't miss the point of the assignment!\n\r\nLike I said, very little instructions are given in this course, even in lectures and labs unless you actively seek help. Often in lecture you just sit there and watch Lester flip through slides. They are a good source of inspiration. The TAs don't give very specific instructions either unless you personally ask for help. \n\r\nThis course is about making it on your own. Friday day morning's pinups are a good way to get exposed to others' ideas. Flip through books of architects to get inspirations. Employ your sketchbook and do lots of exploratory sketches before starting each assignment to consolidate exactly what you're trying to communicate. \n\r\nStudio's going to be crazy and 242 gets you ready for that. If you don't want it, nobody can help you get there. Before you whine, architecture is a lifestyle.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-21T19:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lester Escobal', 'course': 'ARCH242', 'review': "If you're reading this, you probably don't have a choice as to whether to take it or not, but for this class it is good to know what to expect. Essentially, this class has four major weekly components: the project, the lecture, the lab and the sketchbook. \n\r\nThe projects comprise the bulk of the class (79% of your grade) and are weighted based on difficulty and time-intensiveness. Each week has a specific drawing concept that is taught (figure-ground, orthographic drawings, light logic, etc.) and the drawing you submit directly assesses your comprehension and execution of the week's technique (0ccasionally each drawing requires more than one drawing, though). Unfortunately, the drawings are extremely time consuming, and aside from the first couple of drawings and one later on in the course which only take about three hours, expect to spend 10+ hours on each assignment, i.e. don't start every Thursday night like many people do (although you inevitably will some weeks). Every Friday morning, you pin up your drawings and Lester discusses the ones he finds intriguing (usually because they did something unique and it either failed or succeeded dramatically), highly encouraging class input. Occasionally he switches up the structure from pure review. \n\r\nThe lectures tend to repeat a lot of material from ARCH170 or simply don't really go into very much depth on the topic. The only useful parts of the lectures come when he shows examples of that week's project, which are good to pay attention to. \n\r\nThe lab's are normally useful, however at two hours often feel far too long. Essentially, you TA has you practice whatever technique you're learning that week and provides feedback - occasionally you have two-week projects, in which case the TA has another review (since only a sixth of the drawings are talked about in the earlier review) in which he critiques your project personally. The work you do in lab is collected every few weeks and accounts for 9% of your grade. \n\r\nThe final aspect of the course is your sketchbook. Your sketchbook is used primarily as a means to quickly mess around with various ideas you might have for that week's project. This is fairly difficult early on as a lot of the drawings don't really involve that much creativity, but later the sketchbook is very useful. TAs may also require you to take notes on the week's readings (which can be helpful if you don't understand the technique), the lectures, the reviews, or other architecture books in your sketchbook, or you might want to do so on your own just to beef your sketchbook up. Sketchbooks are collected with the lab work to form your portfolio and account for 12% of your grade. \n\r\nNow, as a whole the class is an unbelievable amount of work and should absolutely be four credits, and you will complain about that fact constantly, however there is a lot to be learned in this class, and it wasn't until the end of the semester that I realized this. Lester is an extremely knowledgeable and affable professor who wants nothing more than for his students to succeed, and is therefore a very good resource (he usually comes back to the arch building sometime during the week to offer his help). It wasn't until the end of the semester that I started to get to know him and I regretted that, so I urge you not to make the same mistake. This class truly exemplifies getting back only as much as you put in.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-21T00:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lester Escobal', 'course': 'ARCH242', 'review': 'This course is one of the most demanding 3 credit courses, time wise. Be prepared to spend 5-10 hours every week on the drawing assignments. Your grades depend solely on these assignments, as there are no tests (well, we had one pop quiz during lecture). Also, having the class on Friday mornings at 8am only ensured that half the class would go sleepless due to the high workload. You must schedule your time extremely well in order to have a class. Your grades also depend a lot more on your TA than Lester himself. They tend to nitpick a lot, finding everything wrong with a drawing, taking off 15-20 points while only describing one small error in the drawing which you spent most of the past 2 days on. All in all, a pain in the a** class, and the only good thing is that you can take a couple of the drawings to use for your portfolio.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2009-04-30T00:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lester Escobal', 'course': 'ARCH242', 'review': 'This course can be very difficult in the beginning if you don\'t know what to expect. If you don\'t start applying some of the principles very quickly, your grade will definitely suffer. Some of the things to remember are: composition (fill your page!), line quality (slightly squiggly but mostly straight lines are better than "sketched" lines), line weight, and sloppiness (visible erase marks are frowned upon). If this sounds too picky, I would go talk to some people who\'ve taken this class about the projects and the critiques they\'ve gotten. In my opinion, you learn A LOT from having to abide by these fairly specific guidelines, and Lester is great at teaching, demonstrating, and enforcing these. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-02-11T02:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lester Escobal', 'course': 'ARCH242', 'review': 'Lester is truly the master of what he teaches and he does a good job explaining the notes. The class is extremely challenging and takes a lot of work but is worth it in the end. Some of the assignments take a really long time. He’s often late to class, which usually goes over its allotted time, but he’s great teacher when he’s there. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-08T22:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lester Escobal', 'course': 'ARCH242', 'review': "Took this class Fall 2006. You must be very interested and passionate about architecture design in order to take this class. The assignments are intensive, one every week, due every Fridays for review. Your grade really depends on your TA not Lester. Get ready to work hard, assignments are time consuming and your ego will get crushed when you see other people's work on Fridays. Drawing supplies are extremely expensive. If you know Arch students, ask them for help. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-23T03:11:00Z'}], 'name': 'Lester Escobal', 'slug': 'escobal'}, {'courses': ['PHYS305', 'PHYS605'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lester Putnam', 'slug': 'putnam_lester'}, {'courses': ['ENGL202', 'ENGL234', 'ENGL222', 'ENGL101', 'AASP298L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lewis Gleich', 'slug': 'gleich'}, {'courses': ['BIOM601', 'ANSC627', 'BIOM405', 'ANSC327', 'ANSC327', 'BIOM405', 'BIOM601', 'BIOM688E', 'BIOM405', 'BIOM601'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Li Ma', 'slug': 'ma_li'}, {'courses': ['ENAE404', 'ENAE441', 'ENAE788L', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE441', 'ENAE788L', 'ENAE441'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Liam Healy', 'course': 'ENAE441', 'review': "Not a great professor. He doesn't really teach and his exams can cover any number of topics that you probably didn't study because he did not go over it in class. Good luck.\n\r\nLess of a review of Healy: Take the aero track because you will avoid Akin. If you want to do space in your career going aero will still be the better choice.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-06-27T15:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Liam Healy', 'course': 'ENAE441', 'review': 'Not a good professor. Just reads from his book, which is not very well organized. You spend a lot of time re-learning material from ENAE404 in ways that are a lot less clear. Exams are open book but unfair and include material not covered in class, in the book, or in homework.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-11-12T17:45:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Liam Healy', 'course': 'ENAE441', 'review': "Dr. Healy is one of those professors who I think splits their time between being a professor here and working at a different location for research/testing. He therefore, albeit very responsive to emails and was very reasonable with me to his credit, seems to be less focused on teaching, which comes across as he simply writes main points from his textbook on the chalkboard as his lecture style. Homeworks in this class are typically deviously simple, where you will absolutely trip up is on the midterm. No amount of studying helped me significantly with that midterm and it really caused quite a stir in our class once grades were released. He isn't the best professor in terms of conveying the material in his book, and often times the concepts that were pretty well defined in 404 become a lot more confusing. This is especially true for HCW relative motion maneuvers (not the state definitions, calculating delta-v here is not in his textbook and the method he presents will only become clear to you once you do it a few times) and once you get to probability and Kalman filters and least squares it gets kinda wild. \r\n\r\nAll things considered though, the class content is interesting, and if you're one of the people who completely bombs the midterm outright there is a slight chance you will have the opportunity to take the much more lenient and simplified version taught by Dr. Marcus", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-06-10T08:05:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Liam Healy', 'course': 'ENAE441', 'review': 'This class had the lowest in-person and total attendance I have ever seen. I believe this is because Dr. Healy was not an effective teacher. The way to succeed in this course is to write out MATLAB code before each exam based on what you believe might be on it. Because the grading on exams is sometimes quite brutal, you must make sure you do not make errors. The exams are not a measure of your intelligence but rather a measure of how well you can navigate through the book and how much code you wrote before the exam. For example, if you believe there may be a trilateration question on an exam, write out working trilateration code before the exam. Make sure to have the textbook open for the whole exam and get ready to hit ctrl+f quite a bit as you search for specific equations in the book. The homeworks are of a large range of difficulty with some of them being a breeze and others being close to impossible. The range of time I personally spent on completing them were between 1 hour and 14 hours. The MATLAB "application" called SNAG-app that Dr. Healy made is very difficult to use and has servers that sometimes go down. The final project in the class has a MATLAB code portion that took me 25 minutes to run each time which wouldn\'t be an issue if his app didn\'t keep timing out and causing errors halfway through running. I have never considered a course to be painful until now, but this course was that for me. Not very hard but extremely brutal and unforgiving. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-23T15:59:56Z'}], 'name': 'Liam Healy', 'slug': 'healy_liam'}, {'courses': ['SOCY498X', 'SOCY325', 'SOCY699P', 'SOCY644', 'SOCY445', 'SOCY616', 'WMST325', 'SOCY699F', 'SOCY858', 'SOCY699R', 'SOCY236', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY699O', 'SOCY673', 'SOCY236', 'SOCY325', 'SOCY858', 'SOCY225', 'SOCY225'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Liana Sayer', 'course': 'SOCY325', 'review': 'Liana is a great professor. You can tell she really knows the material and likes engaging in discussions about it. The coursework is very straightforward and easy if you know the material. I found the textbook online for free. Half of lectures were synchronous and the other half were asynchronous. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-19T23:19:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Liana Sayer', 'course': 'SOCY236', 'review': "Interesting topics discussed in this class but her voice is very monotonous so it is easy to fall asleep. Advice: do not mess up on the midterm or Assignment one so you're not in the same position as me, hoping that the final will bring you to an A (it is only worth 15 points).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-17T22:38:50.036603Z'}], 'name': 'Liana Sayer', 'slug': 'sayer'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM350'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Liang Ma', 'slug': 'ma_liang'}, {'courses': ['FIRE150', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE250'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Liang-Chun Wang', 'slug': 'wang_liang-chun'}, {'courses': ['ENMA698N', 'ENMA489I', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA411', 'ENMA300', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'CHPH618B', 'ENME382', 'ENMA486', 'ENMA476', 'ENMA476', 'ENMA411'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Liangbing Hu', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Dr. Hu is such a cool guy. He’s so chill and relaxed and has this air around him of fame and importance because he has accomplished so many amazing things both just throughout his career and in his materials lab. It’s weird because you’d expect him to be a little more drab and information heavy, but for my class he emphasized the importance of brainstorming and teamwork and just let us go basically. There were a lot of people in my class that said they didn’t learn a whole lot, but really in ENES100 you don’t get a ton of useful lecture material, it’s all about learning the Engineering Design Process through the OSV project - something which, in my opinion, he did extraordinarily well. By the end of the course, he knew most of us by name and what majors we were and would check up with each group frequently to make sure they’re meeting their milestones. He would host several late afternoon/night lab sessions for us to catch up on building our OSVs. He even helped us in troubleshooting for why we couldn’t turn properly at one point. All in all, would recommend to anyone - though I’m not too sure he’ll be teaching this course again very soon, as he seemed to suggest he felt very overwhelmed by all that was happening and by the structure of the course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-06-02T10:03:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Liangbing Hu', 'course': 'ENMA411', 'review': 'This class was great. I am actually a different engineering major but took this class as an out of major elective. It was super interesting every day, although sometimes he would repeat certain topics to make sure we understood them. We just had a long reading, 3 homeworks that we did on paper, and 1 big group project in the middle, but like the ENES100 review said, he was most concerned that we could come up with a solid pitch and clearly present information and understand the concepts. I liked talking to him after class and will probably ask him for career advice at some point. I was worried about the final but as long as you go to class and note what he says is important and attempt to at least semi-understand the concepts you will be good on the final (dont be scared its worth 50% of the grade just work quickly!). It ended up being not that much time investment for a LOT of learning. 10/10 would recommend. Beware the first month is semi conductor physics (and the reading) and that is a little bit tricky conceptually but if you read it once or twice and go to class youll be fine. Also he didnt post any grades on canvas but i dont think anyone really cared lol', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-13T21:51:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Liangbing Hu', 'course': 'ENMA411', 'review': 'Very chill class, not many assignments, just a few easy homeworks, one final and a midterm presentation. Lectures were interesting but sometimes he would repeat a lot of the content from the previous lecture. Make sure your presentation is the best that it can be in terms of visuals and organization because he looks at those a lot. The final is also a fuck ton of questions so I agree with the other reviewer that you should work quick. The class might seem easy going up to the final but the final and midterm presentation together can easily get you a B instead of the A you might have been expecting from such a chill class', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-23T19:48:57.372269Z'}, {'professor': 'Liangbing Hu', 'course': 'ENMA476', 'review': 'the last review (mine) was meant to be for enma476 (he only taught 476 this sem), can that be changed? thanks', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-02T04:43:28.891881Z'}], 'name': 'Liangbing Hu', 'slug': 'hu_liangbing'}, {'courses': ['NFSC421', 'NFSC423', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC498G', 'NFSC678G', 'NFSC498J', 'NFSC679J', 'NFSC421', 'NFSC498J', 'NFSC679J', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC421', 'NFSC679J'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Liangli Yu', 'course': 'NFSC421', 'review': "Food chem is a really complex field. Theres no way you're going to learn everything about it in this one class. Make sure to go to lecture and write down the key points and anything she draws on the board is fair game for exams. Don't be intimidated by Dr. Yu's accent, she's extremely knowledgable not only about the material in this class but organic and other chemistries so ask her to repeat stuff if you didn't catch it the first time. Also, you better be fresh on your orgo.\n\r\nThe book was not mandatory and a bit difficult to dive into, but most of her slides come from there verbatum. It would be good to at least look at the figures and reactions.\n\r\nGroup presentation at the end was pretty smooth. She gives you four topics to choose from, you should pick one that interests you, I'll make researching a lot less tedious. Exams were rather difficult, but doable if you study correctly. Basically anything presented in a cluster or a list you have to know and be able to explain in detail. For our class she made the final optional if you took the other two midterms and were satisfied with your grade.\n\r\nGood luck!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-15T17:58:00Z'}], 'name': 'Liangli Yu', 'slug': 'yu_liangli'}, {'courses': ['ARTT355', 'ARTT457', 'ARTT357', 'ARTT458', 'ARTT356', 'ARTT456', 'ARTT489Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Liese Zahabi', 'slug': 'zahabi'}, {'courses': ['GREK102', 'GREK201', 'GREK415', 'GREK604', 'CLAS170', 'CLAS320', 'GREK488B', 'RELS170', 'WMST320', 'GREK301', 'CLAS699', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'HIST328W', 'CLAS470', 'GREK101', 'WGSS320', 'CLAS470', 'GREK201', 'GREK415', 'GREK488', 'GREK604', 'CLAS320', 'CLAS699', 'WGSS320', 'GREK301'], 'average_rating': 3.7059, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "The class had so much writing. Each assignment was worth 3 points and 1 was due every week. There is a lot of motivation not to do them because they're worth so little but it all adds up in the end. \n\r\nThe discussion was really interesting but that entirely depends on your TA. Professor Doherty is really really nice and really really boring. Though she may be passionate, she literally lectures like those history classes you see in movies where they exaggerate a typical history class...but this time...you're in the movie. I went to maybe 4-5 lectures and skipped the rest and still got an A. I worked really hard on the writing assignments though. \n\r\nI thought the readings were interesting, but if you have a big work load this class will be really annoying. Also, you'll spend hours studying for the exam because there's so much material, but the exam itself is soooooo easy. It's beyond easy. You still have to study but you'll definitely overstudy for them. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-29T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "This class is awesome. The prof is extremely understanding and knowledgeable about the subject. I like to read stuff so the hw for this class is chill. Exams do require a certain in-depth knowledge about the gods, heroes, etc. But if you read everything, its kinda similar to knowing characters in a novel. It's almost natural. Plus, how many people do you know actually read Virgil, Ovid, Hesiod in addition to Homer? This is what an HL is all about. Reading dense stuff but enjoying it at the same time. \n\r\nTA can make a difference depending on how hard he/she grades on essays. But thats luck of the draw...", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T13:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "I happen to be the lone person who disagrees with the vast majority of comments here.\n\r\nWhile I do agree that Professor Doherty is extremely compassionate about the subject and tries to keep things as interesting as possible, I think she structures the course fairly badly.\n\r\nThe amount of reading is tremendous, absolutely tremendous, and this is coming from somebody that enjoys reading and used to do so quite frequently.\n\r\nI wasn't an avid mythology fan before hand, but I thought it was interesting and it fulfilled core for me. Note: The readings were NOT as interesting as I thought they would be. The vast, vast majority of readings fell greatly below my expectations. Definitely not as interesting as I thought they would be and other people here have made them seem.\n\r\nThe amount of information she can ask on the exams is ridiculous, there is so much material to cover per exam. While the exams end up not being that hard, it is frustrating that she would assign so much additional information that never makes it onto the exam. And I mean ALOT of information. Information that a decent student would probably spend studying and stressing out about for an upwards of an additional two hours per exam. It pretty much all comes down to blatant memorization of way too many names, then their roman names as well, then their attributes, then who are they related too, etc. etc. etc.\n\r\nThe study guides she gives you are not very helpful, they in essence tell you to study everything. There are parts of the study guides which single out specific events and learnings to study, and sometimes they do not even appear on the exam! Very frustrating.\n\r\nI however do feel like the minority in my judgement of this class. I feel like everyone that took this is either a Classics major or came into the class with a great deal of prior knowledge about mythology (more than your typical high school learnings go). Maybe I'm just a total dumbass. Who knows.\n\r\nThe only thing that made it bearable was my T.A. He was funny and interesting and keep us all in good spirits. If you're considering this class get Sepulva for a T.A.\n\r\nFinal Note: I felt like for the vast majority of this class, spark notes/ cliff notes are just not going to cut it. She changed the exam up for our second one where we would have to identify exact quotes from characters, who was talking, who was listening, and what it was about. They were moderately difficult even for someone that has read all the required material. \n\r\nI definitely put the most work into this class this semester and I thought it was more difficult than than ECON201 and accounting I.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T16:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Professor Doherty is very very nice and knows a lot about the class. The lectures are boring and halfway through the year I pretty much stopped going to them. It didn't matter though because she posts the lectures online and I learned everything from my TA in discussion. There is a lot of reading for this class, but most of it is very interesting and the work is very doable. The tests are easy if you study and memorize key names in the works. A good class overall.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-14T19:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'Professor Doherty is amazing. She is so passionate about her course topic and always makes the class interesting. She is very kind and always wants students to raise their hands and participate in lecture so do so! She cares what we think. Our whole lecture applauded her at the end of the semester and no professor has ever deserved it more.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-09T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Really nice woman with a great passion for her subject. A decent amount of reading but it's interesting and mostly easy easy to get through. The slides are online but I'd recommend going because she leaves a lot off of them (you can get by off just the online slides if you are intent on skipping though). Tests are manageable and papers are short. Good way to pick up an HL.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T19:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "My TA graded papers pretty roughly, but I am a big fan of Dr. Doherty. I don't like the way she sets up lecture slides, they're basically her personal queue cards, but her lectures are always interesting. I like Mythology, so it was pretty easy to pay attention. The tests aren't horrible and the homework assignments are simple. Dr. Doherty is very fair and a very nice lady. She really is passionate about the subject and it's reflected in her lectures, attitude and assignments. She reads passages out loud in class (even in Ancient Greek sometimes). I hope to take another one of her classes soon.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-01T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "I thought I would hate the class because I don't like to do required reading but it really wasn't that bad. I did the reading in the beginning of the class which was sort of interesting. Toward the end of the class I was just reading cliff notes and did just as well on the exams so I recommend doing that. The two papers are only 3 pages and are very simple. She also posts her lecture notes which you can definitely get by on.\n\r\nThere was 4 online quizzes that weren't the easiest in the world, for those you actually had to do the required reading. There was also 5 HW assignments which were basically answering a question in about a page or less so that wasnt bad. My TA gave out mostly 100's on those if you wrote anything decent. 88 is a A- in this class which is nice. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-26T11:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "A lot of reading but it's interesting for the most part. I found it really interesting but I liked mythology going into it. Lecture is pretty boring but dicussions are useful.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-08T03:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Just go to class. She puts up notes online, but they don't help much for exams because she usually goes through other materials during lecture.\n\r\nRead the assignments. They're not novels like Jane Eyre (sorry to those who love this book, I hate it), they're epics, so there's backstabbing, killing, and sex. It's pretty sweet. Should be an A if you go to class and read.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-06T19:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "All I can say is PAY ATTENTION ON THE FIRST DAY! She will tell you exactly how to get an A in the course, and she's willing to help you if you have questions. It's a huge class, so it's lecture style, and there's a lot of reading, but she explains everything. She's also a very nice person who tries to help her students if she can. She will be tough, though, if she thinks you're slacking or people are not paying attention in class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-20T18:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'GREK301', 'review': "Dr. Doherty is great. She's very tough, and not willing to give on anything, but she will hel you get through it. Her standards are high, and she helps you reach them. Not the course to take if you're looking for hte easy way out, but a good one nonetheless.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-10-24T15:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'You will probably good grade in this class but you also will probably have a horrible experience getting the grade if you have a strict TA. Becarful', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-04-27T06:29:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'this class is horrible. It is a 100 level class but I am more concerned about it than my 400 classes. \r\n\r\nthe amount of content in the course is almost impossible to memorize.\r\n\r\nthe tests you are expected to know the smallest things\r\n-only fill in the blank and an essay. No word box or anything\r\n\r\nTHIS CLASS IS A HUGE WASTE OF TIME', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-15T14:48:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "This class is a lot for a 100 level course, it's definitely interesting but A LOT of reading and memorizaition. You're expected to complete fill-in-the-blanks (no word bank), text identification, picture identification, short response, and an essay on each test (except the final which is cumulative and longer) in 50 minutes. My TA would grade the homeworks very harshly as if this is an english class. This class is not an easy A, you will have to put in a lot of work.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-15T19:56:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "I am here to warn you about this class, for the love of god do not take it. Doherty really is a lovely professor, very very knowledgeable about class content, and a great teacher. However, the amount of work this class assigns is INSANE. There's literally artwork identification on the exams. In the span of a month, you're expected to read 6 works, including the entirety of the Odyssey and the Iliad. It's far too much for a 100 level course. I have a 3.8 GPA and this class is about to ruin it. Never got below a B+ in college but I think I'm about to get my first C. I regret taking this class so much.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-17T14:12:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Lillian Doherty', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'Professor Doherty is such a lovely professor. She really loves what she’s doing and her lectures are incredibly interesting. That being said, this class isn’t for everyone. I think that if you’re interested in Greek mythology and are willing to read (actually read and not use spark notes) then you’ll do fine in the class. The content is not too bad since it all flows together. However, there is a lot of it. I really loved this class since it acted as a break between all the stem classes I took for my major. This class isn’t what I would consider an “easy A” but it’s a class that you have to care about. So if you want an easy gened to cruise through this isn’t for you. But if you are interested and willing to put in the work then, I 100% would recommend this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-22T18:57:18Z'}], 'name': 'Lillian Doherty', 'slug': 'doherty_lillian'}, {'courses': ['ARTT150', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT418A', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT428H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lillian Hoover', 'slug': 'hoover'}, {'courses': ['GVPT423', 'GVPT422', 'GVPT429E', 'GVPT420', 'GVPT771'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lilliana Mason', 'slug': 'mason_lilliana'}, {'courses': ['ENGL478E', 'ENGL489P', 'JOUR181', 'ENGL280', 'ENGL383', 'ENGL483', 'ENGL619A', 'JOUR181U', 'ENGL489T', 'ENGL482', 'ENGL428I', 'JOUR181', 'ENGL280', 'ENGL489P', 'JOUR181', 'ENGL383', 'ENGL478E'], 'average_rating': 3.3077, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'ENGL489P', 'review': "I really just don't understand the reviews in here that are simply bashing this professor. Having had her for two different classes so far, I can easily say that she is one of my favorite professors at this institution. She is incredibly knowledgeable about her field of study, she is both pleasant and polite, she understands that her students have other classes and responsibilities to attend to and is very accommodating on that account, and she has a dry and wit-filled sense of humor that is unrivaled by anyone I've ever had the pleasure to communicate with. She expects students to put forth effort in her class, but is able to see when her framing for a particular topic has been insufficient and works to alter the class accordingly. Her class is almost guaranteed to get off-schedule, but she discusses any changes to the syllabus in class and sends out numerous notifications to ensure that even those absent are aware of what is expected in the coming week. I have never had a professor been as flexible as she is; she even provides students with the ability to use one free 2-day extension on any major assignment, no questions asked, if the student so chooses, and I have witnessed her give extensions to students who have already used this free pass as well. While she may seem slightly elderly and perhaps curmudgeony, she stays up-to-date on contemporary culture and seems to even be fascinated by it. The other day, I had a conversation with her on the strengths and weaknesses of comedy duo Key & Peele, and I'm pretty sure she's seen more of their sketches than I have. Point being, if you are looking for a class you can just coast through completely stress-free, then yes this professor might not be the one for you, but also college might not be right for you and you should re-consider your priorities. However, if you are interested in learning a great deal about a wide variety of topics and expanding your mode of thought and understanding of the English language, all while having a pretty good time, then don't hesitate to register for Professor Coleman's section. As long as you try in this class, she will recognize your effort and reward you accordingly. She is not one of those professors with lofty aspirations that her students will become experts in her field by the end of the semester; she just wants you to put in the effort and show that you care about what you are talking about (and the amount of personal choice she allows in her assignments makes it pretty easy for you to do that). If you are an English major at this university, I would argue that it would be a severe detriment to have never experienced one of Coleman's classes before graduating.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-19T23:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'ENGL280', 'review': "She's a very unfair grader. On one of my assignments she read my labels wrong, and corrected the paper based on her misperceptions. She looked like an idiot because of it. Then when I pointed out her mistake, she did not even respond or bother to regrade the assignment. Do not take her.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-12-18T00:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'ENGL489P', 'review': 'I have never in my life had a teacher like this woman and I hope I never do again. To me, she failed as a professor. I think from the beginning, she decided that she was not and did not want to help me. Therefore she didnt. I actually got punished in this class for trying to actively engage with a teacher. I put alot of effort into this class and got no effort back from her. She is very into herself and discriminated against me because I was younger than most of the class. I have never in my life experienced or heard of a teacher coming to a student and telling them to drop after they have been very aware of the enourmous effort being put forth. I will never take a class with her again.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-19T15:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': None, 'review': "There is no doubt that this is a fascinating and well run course. Coleman seems like an experienced instructor and knows how to run a classroom well.\n\r\nThat being said, there is a tremendous amount of reading (it is an HL...) and Coleman assumes that you actually read the material assigned. \n\r\nI did find Coleman's personality extremely irritating. She is very old school in a certain sense. Often, she reminded me of an old witch. She takes tremendous pride in her ability to memorize specific details from the Iliad. \r\nI found her tremendously arrogant.\r\nThis plays a role in her grading. You have to write two papers for the course. They are not long papers and not very hard to write, but she is very particular about what she is looking for in the paper. \r\nSome of the grading was pretty silly. Like all online participation the result was forced participation which never yields ideal results. And its just a pain really. We had a group project which i thought was pretty dumb at first, but our class actually had some pretty creative presentations. I think that is more credit thought to the strong group of students in my particular class, then to her as an instructor.\n\r\nAlso, you know those kinds of people who are convinced they are funny but in reality are not funny at all? Well she is one of them, and she really does not get it at all. She really is not funny and its terrible that she thinks she is, and one brave students is gonna have to save her from humiliation one day and tell her the truth.\n\r\nAll in all, the course itself is fascinating and if you can ignore the instructor's personality and try to enjoy the readings then this is a great course for you. I did learn a lot compared to the honors seminars i have taken. But her personality...yeah.\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-23T01:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': None, 'review': "Coleman's pretty awesome for an honors seminar. We had two papers. Straightforward, she grades relatively easy, like she'll mark up your paper a lot but you'll still get an A-; and out of the two papers she'll let you re-write one at the end of the semester. We had a group project, just show some effort and you'll get full points on that. You do have to participate, so you definitely need to do the readings, because if you don't do the readings then she'll know and give a pop quiz. her reading quizzes online were straightforward, but required you to do the readings. the discussion board was meh, it was 20% of our grade so make sure you actually do that and don't slack off and try to do it all at the end of the semester, because that doesn't work. But if you need an HL take coleman's just know that it's an HL so there are readings that YOU HAVE TO DO, you can't BS the readings and think you'll do okay, because you won't. But she's a nice professor and nice to speak to during office hours.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-01T14:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'JOUR181', 'review': "Journalism majors are required to take this class if they don't get an 80% or higher on the diagnostic test. I was pretty clueless when it came to grammar and I got a 72 on the diagnostic. I was optimistic about learning about grammar anyways, but it is honestly in your best interest to test out of the class!\n\r\nThe weekly quizzes are worth 10%, and the final is worth 90%. This may sound bizarre, but in the end it makes sense. The weekly quizzes test you on very specific grammar rules and very challenging. To be successful on these weekly quizzes, you'll have to put significant effort to really understand the rules, probably as much effort as a 3-credit course. The final is like the diagnostic where you have to know rules like who vs. whom, that vs. which, etc. After taking the course, getting a B or A on the final should not be hard.\n\r\nColeman herself is very knowledgeable about grammar. The only drawback is that she tries to squeeze so much content into a once-a-week class. She is very helpful outside of class and provides review sessions before the final.\n\r\nThis class was a small nuisance, but you do learn a lot about grammar. Just try to test out!\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-31T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'ENGL281', 'review': 'Professor Coleman is a kind woman, but her teaching style is bizarre. Emails would fly out throughout the week saying that homework assignments were due Thursday by 12PM, Saturday by 1PM, and various other times. Assignments were sporadic, and we had to purchase MyCompLab when we were only required to use it 3 or 4 times. Homework is weighed too heavily, and that was the reason why so many students in my class had Cs and below mid-semester. \n\r\nHomework grades are not reflective of the efforts that you put into the class, therefore you need to work much harder than you feel you need to in order to do well in this class. Although she was a nice professor, I found her to be almost cold in personal interactions. I would not take another course with her.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-10T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'ENGL383', 'review': "This class was interesting and engaging. We had to learn a lot of language/discourse specific terms and tools, but Prof. Coleman did not expect or require you to know them inside and out. As long as you make a good faith effort to understand them for discussions, she seemed satisfied. Class periods were a mix of discussions and lectures. Some days she would talk at us the whole time but there were many days where we watched/read material and analyzed it. \n\r\nThe papers weren't bad. Topic prompts were broad. Honestly, I thought she was an easy grader, but I know many of my classmates disagreed. I was surprised to receive an A in this class. I probably gave it 6 out of 10 on the effort scale.\n\r\nI think Prof. Coleman is a good teacher with high but not unreasonable expectations.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-09-18T18:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'JOUR181', 'review': "You should work as hard as possible to place out of this class. People who place out of this class and take it for better grammar knowledge end up hating their decision. The concepts are familiar enough, but there just isn't enough time to prepare for each quiz. The class should be 3 credits because it takes 3 credit time and effort to get an A. If you really know grammar the final is suppose to resemble the diagnostic so no worries and quizzes are ten percent of the grade, although the final is ninety. Coleman is a great teacher with a huge challenge. Place out the class, but if you can't study and treat this like 3 credits if you want an A. I hope i get a C.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-10T20:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'JOUR181', 'review': 'Really caring and helpful. Would definitely recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-04T01:39:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'ENGL483', 'review': "If you read no other review for Dr. Coleman, read this one: She's awesome. Don't listen to the haters. She's very funny, very knowledgeable, and very helpful. Look... you're gonna have to work in this class. There are readings to keep up with and she is so, so big on participation (make sure to talk!). But she also lowered the word count on the final essay by almost HALF because we asked her to. She also granted extensions left and right and allowed multiple rewrites on papers if you want to improve your grade. Sure, she has high expectations, but they're not unreasonable nor are they unattainable. If you do you work every week and ask a couple good questions each class to show that you're paying attention, you wont scrape by with an A, you will earn one EASILY. Take Coleman. She's a rock star. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-18T18:03:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'ENGL489P', 'review': "I'm writing this now because this is when people are registering/looking at reviews and I want the world to know how much I adore Dr. Coleman. \r\nThis is my second class with her, and she is a profoundly bright individual with a humorous flair and a passion for what she does. When you are her student, expect an understanding professor who listens to the needs or her students and adjusts class time and assignments accordingly. Expect a professor who does engaging lectures and cracks jokes with her dry humor that you'll need to listen closely to in order to understand. Expect a knowledgable professor who is an expert in her field and obviously very passionate about her studies. Expect a very real and authentic human who encourages you when you do well and pushes you when she knows you can do better. She conducts herself with empathy, professionalism, and wit. Take her courses. You'll be glad you did.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-17T01:30:37.848958Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Coleman', 'course': 'JOUR181', 'review': 'Professor Coleman means well, BUT TRY AND TEST OUT OF THIS COURSE. Being online it is horribly taught, and the final is worth 90% of the grade. This led to me giving no effort on the weekly quizzes, and not paying attention in class. Quizzes are nowhere similar to the content in class. AVOID.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2023-02-24T03:30:06.398434Z'}], 'name': 'Linda Coleman', 'slug': 'coleman_linda'}, {'courses': ['ENGL289X', 'ENGL631', 'HONR208X', 'ENGL437', 'ENGL475', 'ENGL749K', 'ENGL602', 'ENGL144'], 'average_rating': 2.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Linda Kauffman', 'course': None, 'review': 'I highly recommend not taking this class. While Professor Kauffman is very passionate about what she teaches, she could care less about her students. At the beginning of the semester she specifically asked us to "not email her" because she received so many emails a day she doesn\'t have time to answer our questions. \n\r\nThe midterm and final exam are ridiculously hard and I don\'t feel they are fair examinations based on what we learned in the course. After reading 4 novels, and over 20 other pieces of literature, more than 60% of our final exam was based off of one sentence quotation identification questions. The quotes chosen were so ambiguous it made this section of the exam nearly impossible. It is not a fair test of what has been learned in the course. \n\r\nWhile I feel Dr. Kauffman is very intelligent and does have passion when it comes to teaching, this course is not one to be taken. I would most likely not take another class with Dr. Kauffman if given the option. Without the help of the amazing TA\'s I would not have succeeded in this class what so ever. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-17T17:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Kauffman', 'course': None, 'review': 'While Professor Kauffman is brilliant and truly cares about the material that she teaches, she is not responsive to student concerns. She belittles students publicly, both in class and on the online class discussion board. She has unrealistic expectations for the amount of minute details we will pick up on from each 20+ essay we are assigned in her class. Honestly, the class did enhance my critical thinking and critical reading skills, but it was a ton of work.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-09T01:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Kauffman', 'course': None, 'review': "\r\nKauffman is definitely a bit nutty, as many professors tend to be. But her course was very engaging and I enjoyed it immensely. It is true that the essays she assigned were difficult - sometimes they were graduate-level. Her book choices were occasionally odd - not classic or even highbrow works of literature, like one would expect, but modern plays and novels. I didn't like some of them. But I did like many of the themes: we explored marginalized populations of the US, dissected American colonialism without colonies, and probed the military-industrial complex. The lectures were sometimes random, but as I studied for my final, I saw how all the readings and movies related. \n\r\nI may not have agreed with her all of the time, but she is brilliant, a fine writer, and caused me to more critically confront the world I live in. If you are an avid learner who enjoys reading, synthesizing complex themes, and world events, try taking a class with Kauffman. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-24T20:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Kauffman', 'course': None, 'review': "Easily one of the WORST classes I have ever taken in the University of Maryland. Worst professor. She expects you to be in LOVE with english and doesn't realize half the people are taking it as an elective. Requires too much from students and literally gave more work than my other 4 classes combined. She expects you to read 1 novel a week and doesn't care that you may have other, more important, classes.\n\r\nHer teaching style is awful since she just talks about other outside sources that may relate to the book, having nothing to do with her exams. She'll talk about everything but the themes and important aspects of the books which she tests on. Moreover, her tests are just a bunch of memory games since she'll pull quotes from all the novels, supplementary readings, essays, and movies that she assigns.\n\r\nIT'S TOO MUCH AND GRADING IS UNFAIR. THE TEACHER AND T.A.'S PICK FAVORITES IN THIS CLASS AND MAKE IT VERY CLEAR. DO NOT TAKE IT IF YOU ARE NOT AN ENGLISH MAJOR. IT'S HORRIBLE.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2011-05-22T23:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Kauffman', 'course': None, 'review': 'Easily the worst class I have ever taken in my life, high school included. I did not enjoy a single aspect of the material. The workload for this class was unbelievable. I absolutely do not recommend even THINKING about taking this class. Thank me later.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-16T13:37:00Z'}], 'name': 'Linda Kauffman', 'slug': 'kauffman'}, {'courses': ['MUSC601', 'MUSC644', 'MUSC831V', 'MUSP619X', 'MUSP620X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Linda Mabbs', 'slug': 'mabbs'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL611', 'ENST702', 'ENGL321', 'TLTC699A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Linda Macri', 'slug': 'macri'}, {'courses': ['SOCY467', 'SOCY699T', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY125', 'SOCY110', 'SOCY699A', 'SOCY200', 'SOCY105H', 'SOCY699W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Linda Moghadam', 'slug': 'moghadam'}, {'courses': ['ENME600', 'ENME371', 'ENME421', 'ENME472'], 'average_rating': 2.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Linda Schmidt', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': 'Dr. Schmidt is an extremely peppy and enthusiastic professor that really makes the class more enjoyable to take. She must have changed her teaching style since these last reviews because they don\'t seem like her at all. I will say she is very defensive of her opinions but I never say her "fighting with students". She does grade harder than the other 371 professors my semester, but if you follow her comments on the reports you should do well. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-22T02:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Schmidt', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': 'I totally agree with the above review. She is crazy. What kind of teacher is that obsessed with a course. Like calm down, for real. have some more professionalism when teaching a course. literally fighting with students sometimes in class. Please replace engineering department. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-11-25T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Linda Schmidt', 'course': 'ENME472', 'review': 'This woman is a fun sucker. Do not take her unless you are about to roll your eyes into oblivion for all the stupid stuff she makes you do for the project. Take another, more easy going professor. She is waayyyyy too anal for the class to be enjoyable.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-08T13:16:00Z'}], 'name': 'Linda Schmidt', 'slug': 'schmidt_linda'}, {'courses': ['JOUR698L', 'JOUR776', 'JOUR601', 'JOUR458N', 'JOUR452', 'JOUR800', 'WMST452', 'JOUR799', 'JOUR601', 'JOUR776', 'JOUR601', 'WGSS452'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Linda Steiner', 'slug': 'steiner_linda'}, {'courses': ['PSYC662'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Linda Tipton', 'slug': 'tipton_linda'}, {'courses': ['EDCI790', 'EDCI698', 'EDCI798A', 'EDPS788A', 'EDCI775', 'EDCI798B', 'EDCI788A', 'EDCI698A', 'EDCI898'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Linda Valli', 'slug': 'valli'}, {'courses': ['PHIL209B', 'PHIL458B', 'HONR269Z', 'PHIL256', 'PHIL456', 'PHIL858D', 'PHIL858C', 'PHIL428M', 'HIST404', 'PHIL688B', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL688C', 'PHIL858J', 'PHIL858F'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lindley Darden', 'course': 'PHIL256', 'review': "Great professor. She really is an expert in her field. I would recommend taking BIO105 before taking this course, but its not necessary. The lectures can be a little boring but you definitely need to go to them in order to do well in the class. She doesn't give homework every night which is nice, but there's a good amount of reading involved and all of the assignments are essays, including the midterm/final. Her grading can be a little annoying at times because she doesn't have a rubric, she just gives it a point value based on her opinion of the overall paper. However, I would recommend this course to any BIO or PHIL major. Its interesting and it doesn't really take that much effort to do well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-11-29T15:26:00Z'}], 'name': 'Lindley Darden', 'slug': 'darden'}, {'courses': ['ENGL243', 'ARHU318', 'ENGL353', 'ENGL271', 'ARHU318A', 'ENGL688', 'ENGL499'], 'average_rating': 1.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lindsay Bernal', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': "Terrible professor. This is the one class that will waste your time. Lindsay gives a lot of assignments but doesn't provide feedback or grades in a timely matter so students aren't aware of the things they should be avoiding for future assignments. She isn't descriptive about any of her comments (when she finally grades an assignment) and shouldn't be qualified to even teach. Her interpretations of poems are 'superfluous' and she's the type of professor who likes to hear herself speak instead of teach. Don't take this class if you don't have the patience.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-08-04T12:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lindsay Bernal', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': 'Quite possibly the most boring professor I have ever had while in college. We only made it through less than half the syllabus because she took 2-3 hours (literally) to explain and analyze the poems. For the dreaded close reading papers make sure you take in depth notes on what she drew from the poems because she does not appreciate your own original thoughts in the papers. You will do better if you repeat her ideas and images of the poems. The exams are knit-picky and detail oriented so be prepared to know the poems inside and out.\n\r\nShe is a stickler about using a cell phone or laptop in class. I suggest you sit in the back of the class behind someone so you can at least be on your phone somewhat as to not stab your eyes out from the pure boredeom the class is. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-07-09T15:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Lindsay Bernal', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': 'This class doesn\'t have a lot of reading. You probably waste 90% of your ink in your printer when you have to print out poems and letters.\r\nYour quizzes, memorization "exercises", and event participation, all go to your class participation.\r\nSo basically your grade consists of 2 papers, participation, and your midterm and final...so you need to do well on all of them to get an A.\n\r\nShe takes 10 years to explain one poem that could be 7 lines..which may get annoying but sometimes its great when you want to zone out.\n\r\nYou have to go to class!...all the exams are from the notes in class.\r\nThis class requires average memorization skills..and thats about it...you don\'t need to know how to analyze poems for the exams.\r\nIf u haven\'t taken poetry before..you\'ll still be okay.\r\nEASy to get a B...harder to get an A', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-04T04:12:00Z'}], 'name': 'Lindsay Bernal', 'slug': 'bernal'}, {'courses': ['JAPN438P', 'JAPN428B', 'JAPN101', 'JAPN102', 'HONR258X', 'JAPN306', 'SLLC309', 'SLLC309', 'SLLC309', 'JAPN438A', 'SLLC309'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lindsay Yotsukura', 'course': 'JAPN428B', 'review': "To be honest, this class was extremely stressful for me: there were ridiculous amounts of readings, at one point in time there were quizzes nearly every class for several weeks, and grading was very brutal. This class was three credits but it felt like the work of a six credit class. \r\n\r\nOne thing that annoyed me about this class was the number of readings that were posted online (in addition to the textbook readings) that we were required to bring to class... one reading was over 60 pages front and back. It would be one thing if we just had to read it, but the fact that we also had to print it out was too much.. Thankfully I had my own printer, but I had to purchase way more ink and printer paper than I normally needed to. Also, there were native Japanese speakers in this course so this class was an easy A for them. I don't think that was fair, especially considering that other departments like Spanish and Chinese have separate classes for heritage/native speakers.\r\n\r\nThat being said, I still think Yotsukura-sensei is a great professor. I've never had an issue with contacting her or setting up office hours appointments. My grade in this course wasn't great, but I did learn a lot from this class. One thing is for sure, she cares about her students.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-07-09T07:20:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Lindsay Yotsukura', 'course': 'SLLC309', 'review': "I think this was her first semester running the Language Partner Program and she did a great job. The two meetings over the semester were pretty interesting (although they do feel really long) and the program is pretty organized. It would have been nice to have more communication at the start of the semester (the program didn't start till end of Sept, which wasn't well communicated so a lot of people were confused) but generally well done. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-08T22:46:59Z'}], 'name': 'Lindsay Yotsukura', 'slug': 'yotsukura'}, {'courses': ['COMM724', 'COMM340', 'COMM698N', 'COMM686', 'COMM498E', 'COMM424H', 'COMM399', 'COMM715', 'COMM714', 'COMM399', 'COMM424', 'COMM399', 'COMM686', 'COMM714', 'COMM715', 'COMM399', 'COMM399', 'COMM686'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lindsey Anderson', 'slug': 'anderson_lindsey'}]
[{'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL265', 'ENGL243', 'ENGL250', 'LGBT265', 'WMST255', 'ENGL212'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': "Lindsey O'Neil", 'slug': "o'neil_lindsey"}, {'courses': ['FREN103'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lindsey Reinstrom', 'slug': 'reinstrom'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lindsey Rodkey', 'slug': 'rodkey'}, {'courses': ['COMM386'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lindsi Baltz', 'slug': 'baltz'}, {'courses': ['STAT100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lior Hilsenrath', 'slug': 'hilsenrath'}, {'courses': ['ANSC688N', 'ANSC688Y', 'MOCB708C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Liqing Yu', 'slug': 'yu_liqing'}, {'courses': ['EDCI280', 'EDCI397', 'EDCI352A', 'EDCI352B', 'EDCI352', 'TLPL251', 'TLPL489G', 'TLPL361', 'TLPL479G', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL688J', 'TLPL251', 'TLPL478I', 'TLPL251', 'TLPL478G', 'TLPL489G', 'TLPL251', 'TLPL361', 'TLPL478I', 'TLPL251', 'TLPL478G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lisa Bote', 'slug': 'bote'}, {'courses': ['EDCI620', 'EDCI622', 'EDCI322A', 'EDCI322B', 'EDCI426', 'EDCI322', 'EDPS301', 'EDPS210', 'TLPL360', 'TLPL470', 'TLPL362', 'TLPL250', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL250', 'TLPL250', 'TLPL470', 'TLPL250', 'TLPL360', 'TLPL362', 'TLPL250', 'TLPL470'], 'average_rating': 4.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lisa Eaker', 'course': 'TLPL250', 'review': "I think ill get an A in this class but she is honselty one of the best professors ever! She's very understanding and gives virtually no homework. Additionally there seem to only be 2 quizzes and a final paper which you gather information for all semester. Class is mostly discussion based but there are no participation points or anything like that. This class seems to be an easy A, and Dr Lisa makes it easy!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-29T20:59:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Lisa Eaker', 'course': 'TLPL470', 'review': 'Dr. Eaker is awesome. She is so down to earth and really cares about the students. We always had really in depth discussions, and a lot of new information was taught. She was always really fast to replying to my emails, and was a really fair grader with a lot of helpful feedback. I wish I could have her again.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-06T18:02:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Lisa Eaker', 'course': 'TLPL250', 'review': "I'm an education major... and I thought this class was pretty boring. There was a lot of information thrown to you at once each lecture and there was breakout rooms which I didn't enjoy. Your grade for the class is based off of three 10Q quizzes and one group presentation. They were open note so just make sure you take good notes and you should do well. She loves when people participate but I wasn't really about that, she never made people speak though or call people out by name which was nice.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-14T19:49:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Lisa Eaker', 'course': 'TLPL360', 'review': 'Professor Eaker is so sweet and engaging with her students. This course was extremely easy and she set you up for success. I am a History and Secondary Education double major, so this class was very interesting to me. This class was set up with 2 quizzes, which are online and open note; a group presentation; a final interview and analysis; and participation. Dr. Eaker is a fair grader and wants the best for everyone. She is clearly very passionate about the topics given and wants to make sure her students know the complexity and severity of issues. Several class periods were asynchronous, and the ones that were in person were very fun and allowed us to show our interests outside of content as well. \r\n\r\nOverall this course is very easy and fun if you are looking to go into the education field or looking more into the history of education as a whole.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-24T15:06:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Lisa Eaker', 'course': 'TLPL360', 'review': "Professor Eaker is such a kind, knowledgable, and understanding person. She is very friendly and approachable and always tries every class to engage her students in warm ways. The class is not too difficult and is very interesting (coming from an education major). I don't know how interesting this class would be to someone who is not passionate about education and teaching, however if you are an education major this class with Prof Eaker is highly recommended by me because it is both a GPA booster and personally enjoyable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-11T02:32:45.443397Z'}], 'name': 'Lisa Eaker', 'slug': 'eaker_lisa'}, {'courses': ['HESP417', 'HESP416', 'HESP615', 'HESP418A', 'HESP649A', 'HESP416', 'HESP649A', 'HESP649A', 'HESP649A', 'HESP416', 'HESP649A'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lisa Rickard', 'course': 'HESP416', 'review': 'At first I was very excited as I thought this would be a hands on clinical application course. I was met with disappointment. This class turned out to be an easier version of 411 (intro to audiology) with no actual clinical application. Every class we were meet with a 2 hour long lecture of passive aggressive gas-lighting and discrimination. From consistently being told we would never be real doctors (we know our limitations we did not need to be told every single day), favoritism towards certain people who white, times where she would go missing and neglect her class all for her personal (non emergency) meetings. Not to mention going into the clinic with her is slim to none, and how she treated her patients had me leaving the clinic in shock. If you need to take this class, and are hoping to go into audiology, you will be teaching yourself. Think you can ask questions? Nope. Get ready to be belittled. I suggest paying attention 411, make some good friends in the same major, and try your best besties.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T01:13:10.680633Z'}], 'name': 'Lisa Rickard', 'slug': 'rickard'}, {'courses': ['UNIV108', 'UNIV100', 'UNIV108', 'UNIV108', 'UNIV108', 'UNIV108'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lisa Scheeler', 'course': 'UNIV108', 'review': 'Such a hard grader for no reason, will give you feedback but even if you fix it she still marks off, not very personable. Would look for another prof for this class', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-14T23:09:14Z'}], 'name': 'Lisa Scheeler', 'slug': 'scheeler'}, {'courses': ['DANC200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lisa Traiger', 'slug': 'traiger'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688X', 'RDEV689C', 'RDEV689V', 'RDEV688Z', 'RDEV450', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lisa Wiersma', 'slug': 'wiersma'}, {'courses': ['BMGT332'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Liu Ming', 'slug': 'ming_liu'}, {'courses': ['BUSI640', 'BUFN750', 'BUFN758O', 'BMGT848F', 'BUFN610', 'BMGT848C', 'BUFN630', 'BUSI640', 'BUFN610', 'BUSI640'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Liu Yang', 'course': 'BUFN610', 'review': 'I love her so much since you will learn a lot in class but I have to admit that her class makes me stressed out. We had case for each week as group project and each of them took so many hours. Even though she explains everything clearly in class, most of us did so bad in final that we believed we would need to retake. She will assign letter grade based on the performance of the whole class so that even though I did terrible in final, I still get an A at the end.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-05T02:02:50.643066Z'}], 'name': 'Liu Yang', 'slug': 'yang_liu'}, {'courses': ['ECON703'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lixin Ye', 'slug': 'ye_lixin'}, {'courses': ['HONR100', 'HONR359L', 'HONR359P', 'HONR359A', 'ENES114', 'EDSP652', 'ENCO099', 'UNIV100', 'ENCO099', 'ENCO099', 'EDCP108I', 'ENCO099', 'ENES114', 'ENCO098', 'ENCO098', 'ENCO099', 'BSOS355'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Liza Lebrun', 'course': 'ENES114', 'review': "Extremely condescending and makes us all feel like children. Pretty ironic seeing as this is a career development class. I'd drop Virtus in a heartbeat to avoid being in class with this woman again.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-28T21:52:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Liza Lebrun', 'course': 'ENES114', 'review': 'She treats you like a child. I would not recommend what so ever. If I could give 0 stars I would. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-15T19:31:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Liza Lebrun', 'course': 'ENES114', 'review': 'I would not recommend Liza Lebrun as an instructor for ENES114. Her teaching skills are subpar and she appears to have little knowledge of engineering. Liza\'s lack of education is evident in her teaching style, as she treats students like children and struggles to explain concepts effectively. Her technological incompetence further hinders the learning process. Liza deserves one star for her inadequate performance as an instructor. She is not a professor. She is an unqualified "instructor" who majored in Latin American studies, yet attempts to portray herself as an accomplished engineer.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-21T15:27:36.419945Z'}], 'name': 'Liza Lebrun', 'slug': 'lebrun'}, {'courses': ['JOUR352', 'JOUR354', 'JOUR654'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ljiljana Ciric Hoffmann', 'slug': 'hoffmann_ljiljana_ciric'}, {'courses': ['PHIL140', 'PHIL233', 'PHIL366', 'PHIL100', 'PHIL364', 'PHIL409V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Logan Fletcher', 'slug': 'fletcher'}, {'courses': ['RDEV689F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lois Fried', 'slug': 'fried_lois'}, {'courses': ['EDCI461', 'EDCI362', 'EDCI210', 'EDCI488R', 'EDCI488L', 'TLPL488F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Loretta Holmberg-Masden', 'slug': 'holmberg-masden'}, {'courses': ['UNIV101', 'MUSC388', 'MUSC389'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lori DeBoy', 'slug': 'deboy'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lori Kader', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'To be fair, I\'m really only giving a low rating because of the class. She brings food most classes and she\'s really nice and seems caring, but her "lectures" are pretty much her telling the class life story. As long as you do all the assignments on time and show up to most classes, you\'ll do fine. But good luck trying not to die of boredom in class. In terms of UNIV100\'s course difficulty, I would give it a 1/5, because it is a really easy course, where all you need to do is show up and do a few short, simple assignments for an A.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-01-29T14:32:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Lori Kader', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'She is a nice person, but takes UNIV100 way too seriously, when it is a useless 1 credit class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T04:59:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Lori Kader', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "She's so sweet and I don't get why these reviews are low. You just have to pay attention to the lectures, do the simple assignments, and you get an easy A. She gives out snacks and is honestly a good break class that still helps freshman out. A bit boring lectures but easy 1 credit class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-29T21:48:52.155288Z'}], 'name': 'Lori Kader', 'slug': 'kader'}, {'courses': ['HLSA702', 'HLSA785', 'HLSA765', 'HLSA780', 'HLSA709', 'HLSA689', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA777', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'SPHL610', 'EXST030', 'HLSA778', 'HLSA702', 'HLSA780', 'HLSA689', 'HLSA777', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA702', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA690', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA702', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA702', 'HLSA780'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lori Simon-Rusinowitz', 'slug': 'simon-rusinowitz'}, {'courses': ['BMGT360', 'BMGT364', 'BMGT364N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lori Spina', 'slug': 'spina_lori'}, {'courses': ['BMGT402F', 'BMGT499B', 'BMGT406', 'CMSC798', 'BMGT299B', 'BMGT299B', 'BMGT406', 'BMGT402F', 'BUFN403', 'BMGT406'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': "The worst class I had ever taken at UMCP. If this class was not one of the requirements to graduate, I would never have signed up. The materials were challenging even for the professor(!). She does not seem to know the materials and very bad at lecturing. Most of the time she just rambled nonsense coding strategy. She seems to care for students but this doesn't help us success in this class. Do not ask for help with the In Class Assignment, they would take off points afterwards without prior disclosing this information.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-11-02T19:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'Horrible professor; not a very nice person; always rattles in class and you end up with nothing. Claims to teach programming ans she knows nothing about programming', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-20T13:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'Very nice and caring professor. Louiqa is one of the few professors that send out personal emails to students on a weekly basis to make sure that they are understanding the material and making good progress on the projects.\n\r\nHer teaching style consists of going over PowerPoint lecture slides and posting them online for students to review. She also provides code examples for students to download, so you can see how the lecture concepts can be applied to web programming. It would be helpful if Louiqa could code some examples from scratch and explain slowly to students how everything works piece-by-piece.\n\r\nContrary to previous reviews, she followed her syllabus very closely and did not make any unexpected changes to the course requirements.\n\r\nYou should take BMGT406 with Louiqa because you will learn a great deal about web programming (HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL).\n\r\nTo do well in the course, you must pay attention in each lecture and try to understand the concepts. Then, practice coding your own examples (be creative) to see if you truly understand the material. Only seek the TA or professor as a last resort if you are really stuck after attempting to solve the problem on your own (Google is a great resource!).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-04T23:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'Professor is TERRIBLE. PLEASE DO NOT BELIEVE ANY OF THE THE POSITIVE REVIEWS ABOUT HER. She is terribly unorganized and she does not have a real grasp on technology (in my opinion.) She needs to master organization skills.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-17T17:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'I enjoyed this class. The class is designed to provide hands on practice on web technologies. DR. Raschid has a great deal of experience and all the projects we did were not that hard at all. Besides, she and the TA were very positive and helpful and all you have to do is just ask for help. All the assignments were always briefly discussed in class and even several examples were explained. I definitely recommend this class. You will learn not only the Web but lots of related technologies and social media. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-01T20:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS.CLASS WITH HER. YOU WONT LEARN ANYTHING AND SHE WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE MISERABLE.\n\r\nThe initial syllabus said that there will be only 7 programming assignments. Towards the end of the semester she suddenly decides to hold a "non-graded" assignment to determine whether the students have mastered the material since most of the students had high grades on the 7 assignments. Some of the assignments were not challenging at all and it\'s obvious most of the students have high grades. The problem was, it was never mentioned in the syllabus and student concerns about this non-graded assignment were never taken into consideration. Also 30% of the class grade comes from the semester project, and by the time she decided that most of the students will end up getting As for this class, we havent even started on the semester project which means, eventually everyone will get As for the semester project regardless of the quality. We did a class presentation which was supposed to be 10% of the grade, was completely taken out from the grading structure. It is not fair for her to do that after we have spent our time and efforts into that project/ presentation.\n\r\nOverall her teaching style sucks. This is a programming class and she just reads out the slides which does not make sense at all. She keeps on spamming our emails by sending the same email over and over again for the slightest thing. Not professional at all. After the first couple of weeks, she asks the STUDENTS of ways to make the class more interesting. With all due respect, I dont think this professor is suitable for the Smith School and if she doesn\'t change her teaching style and remains in the Smith School, it will just bring down the standards of the Smith School. I honestly believe that she doesn\'t know her material much. If not for the TA, this class would have been an utter mess. I personally did not learn anything in the class but on my own. She is a nice person but I dont think she has enough knowledge or skills to teach this class. Afterall we all are paying to learn something but I don\'t feel I have gotten my money\'s worth.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-15T11:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'This is a great course to get some hands-on experience with programming. The course isn\'t all programming; for the latter half of the semester, you get to choose a project of your liking that doesn\'t necessarily have to involve coding. It is an interesting combination of programming, business, and tech topics like social media.\n\r\nThe professor and the TA are very helpful. For example, during lab sessions, if you\'re stuck with your code, they will come to your side and give you helpful hints (they don\'t just tell you to "google it"...maybe occasionally they might, if your question is easily searchable). \n\r\nThe majority of the students in this class earned A\'s. It wasn\'t a whole lot of work, though of course, you do need to put in some time and effort, just like every other class. We did have a final extra project for this class but it was basically just a recap of the previous projects. In fact, I found that project to be easier than the previous ones. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-01T22:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'Good IS elective, useful course content and curriculum. You need to have good problem solving skills to get the A in this class. Html css php and mysql are skills that nobody else learns in business school. Take this course if youre interested in learning some additional technical skills. Projects are fair.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-25T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'I TOTALLY AGREE WITH THE PREVIOUS COMMENTS. ON TOP OF ALL THAT, SHE IS NOT GOOD WITH CODING AT ALL! THE TA DOES ALMOST EVERYTHING FOR HER! SHE IS NOT PREPARED, TALENTED OR CONFIDENT. SHE GIVES ASSIGNMENTS THAT ARE NOT MENTIONED ON THE SYLLABUS. FIND ANOTHER PROFESSOR OR DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HER.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-14T01:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': "No idea what's going on in this class. It's useful in that it teaches you PHP and HTML, but seriously what happened between 2009 and 2011? Worst grading system ever. Because too many people were doing well in the class, she dealt out some randomass in-class assignment to be completed in three hours, as a skills test and weed out those who can't code quickly so that the grade distribution is more normal. There is also final project that is apparently not even graded but you have to do it anyway. I have never been so confused in my life. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-12T20:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'STAY AWAY THIS CLASS IS ONE OF THE MOST AGGRAVATING EXPERIENCES I HAVE HAD IN COLLEGE. SHE AND THE TA TREAT THIS CLASS LIKE A COMP SCI CLASS!!! VERY PARTICULAR IN THE CODE GRADING, WHICH IS STRAIGHT OUT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE CURRICULUM. UNLESS YOU KNOW PHP AND WEB CODING ALREADY, I REPEAT STAY AWAY. SHE ADDS ASSIGNMENTS ON TO YOUR WORKLOAD THAT ARE NOT ON THE SYLLABUS JUST TO MAKE YOUR LIFE HELL. IF YOU ARE DOING A PROJECT AND HAVE QUESTIONS, THEY TELL YOU TO GOOGLE HOW TO DO IT. ABSOLUTE WORST ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-29T23:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'This course is really interesting and perfect for students who want to learn about web development and some of the technologies behind it. The course covers basic PHP, MySQL commands, HTML, CSS, and web security. No exams or quizzes - just projects and a technical paper that was due by the end of the semester. The projects were good to show how all of the above mentioned technologies are used in unison. Projects will be challenging if you have never done any type of programming before. If you\'ve done web development or programming prior to this course, then this will be an easy course. Raschid is generous with grading, though. She allows the projects to be re-submittable if you want to raise your grade on any of them.\n\r\nThe negatives about Raschid is she doesn\'t know much about PHP or the technologies used. She knows why and how they\'re used, but doesn\'t have syntactical understanding of PHP. This is important in 406 as a lot of students will be new to programming, thus having plenty of syntax errors in their projects. The TA (graduated \'09) was excellent and pretty much ran the course. Without him, I am not sure if Raschid could effectively run the course on her own. Raschid was also abrasive at random moments. She became upset after she noticed some people habitually not appearing in class, so she made a lecture mandatory and literally said "You will not get an A grade if you don\'t attend this lecture." She had a sign-in sheet at that lecture. This kind of attitude put a sour vibe in the class and made her seem irrational and unpleasant. \n\r\nOverall, if you\'re looking for a course to learn more about web development/programming or want a course in your schedule with a light workload, then this might be a good class for you. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-23T20:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT402F', 'review': 'Worst professor I\'ve had in my three years so far at UMD. Highly rude, condescending, and unprofessional. I was anxious to come to this class every day because she always called out people like they were stupid for not understanding a concept or making an error. Does the same thing on assignments. She wrote on one of my assignments something along the lines of, "Really, this is what you put for this answer? Obviously, this is incorrect."\r\n\r\nIf you want to gain a passion for the field of information systems and you have the option, don\'t take any classes with Louiqa. It\'s a shame because she obviously is very knowledgeable but the way she presents herself completely overshadows the potential she has for being a wonderful leader and mentor in the classroom. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-03T20:06:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT402F', 'review': "Her course is a bit unorganized. She doesn't post due dates in advance or follow a syllabus. Additionally, like others have said, she lacks a bit of emotional intelligence. She will question why people are not understanding the material, or call them out via email or in class. Outside of the classroom, she was very nice and seemed to care about the future ventures of her students. The course would have probably been easier if taught by another professor. I recommend taking the course with someone else if possible. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-19T15:39:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'course': 'BMGT406', 'review': 'Worst class I have ever taken in the business school. Professor is very self centered and spiteful. She sends passive aggressive emails at 2 am. She offered a hybrid class format this semester but complained every class about the people on zoom. If you asked a question she did not like else would threaten to drop your grade in exchange for the answer but encourages students to bring questions to class. I once brought a question to class and she laughed in my face and accused me of being behind in the class even though I got an A+ on the last assessment. After laughing in my face she realized she was acting like a bitch so of course around midnight she sends me a message apologizing for it but then blames it all on me. Once my "dumb" question/issue was fixed my code worked fine. So was it really a dumb question? Do not expect her to follow any kind of rubric. She grades off her emotions alone.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-17T17:08:00.521430Z'}], 'name': 'Louiqa Raschid', 'slug': 'raschid'}, {'courses': ['CCJS498Q', 'CCJS498K', 'CCJS440', 'CCJS498N', 'CCJS498P', 'CCJS498J', 'CCJS325', 'CCJS360', 'CCJS498O', 'CCJS325', 'CCJS360', 'CCJS498K', 'CCJS498J', 'CCJS498O', 'CCJS498K'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Louis Morlier', 'slug': 'morlier'}, {'courses': ['MEES698N', 'MEES621', 'MEES663', 'MEES718F', 'MEES718J', 'MEES663', 'MEES621'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Louis Plough', 'slug': 'plough'}, {'courses': ['SURV625'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Louis Rizzo', 'slug': 'rizzo_louis'}, {'courses': ['BSCI378H', 'BSCI416', 'BSCI410', 'MOCB899', 'HLSC322', 'BSCI279W', 'BSCI279W', 'BSCI279W', 'BSCI378H', 'BSCI279W', 'BSCI410', 'MOCB899', 'MOCB899', 'BSCI279W', 'BSCI378H'], 'average_rating': 4.1176, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'HLSC322', 'review': 'Dr. Wu seems to be an intelligent scientist and good researcher but entirely lacks the ability to communicate information to her students in a way that makes the lectures completely ineffective. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-04-25T14:36:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'HLSC322', 'review': 'Very ineffective professor. She was very rude, passive aggressive, and stubborn. \r\n\r\nWhen I asked her for feedback on questions on exams, she wouldn\'t be able to provide solid answers to why she docked points, and would provide convoluted answers to questions because she herself did not know the answers. \r\n\r\nThroughout lectures, her most used phrases include: "I don\'t know", "I\'ll have to look that up", "Umm....", and "I\'m an expert on flies, not mammals". This is a genetics class, and she doesn\'t understand the material she is supposed to teach. \r\n\r\nThe only thing I can say to students taking her class is good luck, the only thing that will save your grade is the textbook. And even then, the exam questions will be full of curveballs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-06-20T18:41:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'She curves a lot!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-22T06:22:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "She was an amazing professor for BSCI410. \r\n\r\nShe was able to easily communicate the topics of the class and go into detail during her lessons. At times she does tend to talk very quickly but if you ask she will always slow down and re explain anything you don't understand. She is very approachable after class and during office hours to go over anything that you didn't understand during class.\r\n\r\nShe also curves a lot and gives back points when she feels that they are deserved and she made a mistake or did not communicate something to the full extent.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-29T02:42:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'HLSC322', 'review': "Dr. Wu cares a lot about her students and takes the time to explain things to students, especially when asked in a one-on-one setting! A lot of the reviews she recieved were unfair in my opinion, and she really did do her best to make sure we understood the material. She's very passionate about what she teaches, and if you put the work in, you will succeed in her class! She wants the best for her students! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-02-16T03:38:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'This is a very interesting class and Dr. Wu is a great teacher. I went to her office for homework help a few times and she was very helpful and explained my questions well. The course is difficult and there is a lot of material but Dr. Wu presents the information in an interesting way. She really wants all of her students to succeed and was always willing to help when I had questions. I would definitely recommend taking this course with Dr. Wu.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-11T15:29:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Dr. Wu is a really nice professor and very friendly to approach. Lectures can be dense but you can always ask questions if you're confused. She does offer some ec opportunities which really help. Studying and making sure you know the material before the exam is very important even though exams are open book. She offers lenient grade cut offs at the end of the semester curving your grade a bit! Really nice professor!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-29T15:19:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is a caring professor who is very approachable. I found office hours to be very helpful. Lectures can be dense and fast sometimes, but they are recorded, so you can always review. And again, Dr. Wu is always there for questions. The tests are open note, but you should study just like any other test. Her tests are heavy on application but are fair. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-10T02:36:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Dr. Wu is my absolute favorite professor at UMD. I've never met a professor so kind! She really cares for her students and wants them to do well. She was always accessible outside class and she creates an environment where it's so easy to ask questions! Three exams offered, but one is dropped. Difficulty is on par with other upper-level bios.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-17T04:13:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is a good professor and actually wants her students to succeed and understand the material. Her lectures are sometimes difficult to understand ( it is a tough topic overall), but she is very helpful during in-office hours. She is really nice, but to get a good grade, you really need to know how to apply the material. Dr. Wu is always reachable and is willing to help you understand the material at hand. She is caring about her students and also really want them to understand the material at hand. It is a hard class so you need to understand the material and be able to apply it to her assignments she gives out (HW and Exams). Overall Dr. Wu is a good professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-27T00:34:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is a phenomenal lecturer but most importantly a kind person. This course can definitely be a challenge, as it was for me, but Dr. Wu made sure I stuck with it and did my very best. She even requested a 1-on-1 with me when I failed the first exam to better help me. There were three exams, lowest score was dropped, and the final was optional!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-01-21T22:11:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Dr. Wu is definitely my favorite professor so far- she goes out of her way to make herself super accessible for office hours (which were moved to Zoom) because she really cares about her students. The information is definitely not easy but she doesn't expect you to memorize facts- as long as you get general mechanisms/concepts down you should be good. Her exams are really similar to her homeworks which makes studying a little easier. But there is a good amount of work in this class (clickers (basically participation), mini short answer questions, quizzes, homeworks, and exams) so definitely NOT an easy A. But if you're willing to put in the effort and watch the lectures and go to office hours, you're in good shape to do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-22T18:15:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is a very nice, friendly lady and a great professor! The material may seem overwhelming at first but she is very accessible outside the classroom. She also does give open note exams sometimes. Do the homework as this will boost your grade. Participating in class gets you on her good side. Class is difficult just because the material is dense but she does a great job teaching it! would take her again ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-03-17T21:31:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "I have taken BSCI410 with her, and I cannot tell how bad it was. She has no idea what she is teaching- slides are not organized and you have to read the textbook in order to understand something in her class. Some materials that we have learned from previous courses, she teaches in a way that you get confused, and in the middle of the lecture, every 5 min she says, I believe, I think, I am not sure.....then why do you teach this course? Homeworks are from articles, and much beyond the materials, you learn. The deadlines are crazy- no fixed deadlines for this class- you need to hire someone just to keep track of the deadlines in this class. The worst class in UMD. My GPA is 3.9 and this class makes no sense to me. Good luck! if you care about your grades or you want to learn something! don't take her.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-04-12T00:04:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "The class was one of the most interesting upper level bio classes I've taken and I enjoyed having Dr. Wu as the professor. It's not an easy class (as one would expect for a 400 level), but she truly wants her students to succeed and offers plenty of chances to boost your grade through clickers, short quizzes, homeworks, extra credit, and even dropping your lowest scores. Dr. Wu is very knowledgeable about the content and super helpful at her office hours, as even a simple 5 minute conversation with her on several instances greatly improved my understanding of the more difficult concepts. Take it from someone who got a better grade in this class than BSCI222 when I say that I honestly think Dr. Wu gives everyone a fair shot to earn an A if you are willing to work for it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-13T21:11:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "I absolutely love Dr. Wu! She is by far the sweetest professor I've had so far at UMD and she's very knowledgeable about her field. Genetics is one of my favorite subjects, so I was heavily inclined to take this class and I'm really glad I did! Having said that, I will say though that the material for this class (and generally speaking for BSCI410) can be fairly difficult to understand initially - if genetics isn't one of your strongest areas, I'd recommend reviewing a bit beforehand as a refresher on the content! Personally, I struggled a bit with the material at first since a lot of new concepts/techniques were discussed, but Dr. Wu helped clarify/answer so many of questions at office hours and on piazza - so my advice: TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THOSE OFFICE HOURS and ask as many questions as you need until you understand the concepts. The homeworks and exams are challenging to do, but they really test on your understanding of the material rather than just straight up memorizing facts and numbers. You can drop an exam, a hw, and a few quizzes. She offers a bit of a curve (one of the few professors to do so in a 400 level biology course) and extra credit opportunities, so if your grade isn't in the best spot rn, don't panic :) It's not an easy course, but it's DEFINITELY possible to get a good grade. TLDR: HIGHLY recommend Dr. Wu, but you really need to study and put in the effort if you want an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-15T01:30:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu was a really nice person, but her teaching can be kinda confusing at times. You definitely need to review the course material again after class or read the textbook to fully understand everything. You can get an A in this class, but you will need to work for it. It is not an easy A by any means. She gives a lot of extra credit opportunities and little assignments that can boost your grade. Going to office hours really helped me to clear up some of the confusion I had during lecture and Dr. Wu was always welcoming and willing to help during office hours. I struggled in the beginning of the class, but I really enjoyed it by the end.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-15T20:25:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is so caring and makes herself available through office hours and Piazza. The material can be difficult so definitely take advantage of office hours and the textbook. She also offers extra credit and just generally wants you to succeed. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-20T04:49:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Dr. Wu is a super caring professor and tries really hard not to overextend material onto her students esp in how a tough a time the pandemic has been. Her wording during lectures can be a little confusing at times, but for a 400-level professor she's extremely available and makes it easy for students to ask questions during office hours and before and after class to clarify material. The material at the beginning can be kind of dense, but she gives a lot of extra credit opportunities (which involve fun real world applications) to boost up your grade. It's definitely not easy material, but Dr. Wu does her best to make it relatively easy to get a good grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-22T17:32:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is such a caring person and she is one of my favorite profs at UMD. BSCI410 can be challenging in terms of content, but Dr. Wu does a lot to help students do their best. Lecture slides are posted and lectures were recorded, which made exam review a lot easier. Dr. Wu can go quite fast in class, so watching the recordings helped me go back and re-listen to different slides. Also, Dr. Wu is really great at answering questions in office hours or over email. Also, there are a few extra credit opportunities that I highly suggest taking advantage of because they really helped me in the end. Overall, if you study hard, ask questions in office hours, and do the extra credit, you can get an A in BSCI410.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-11T20:08:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is a very caring person and the most willing to help professor that Ive had so far at UMD. The content in BSCI410 was challenging but her putting up the notes on ELMS helped alot and there was plenty of office hours. Her and the TAs respond to emails very fast so its easy to get help on content/ HW when you are stuck. When I took it online you were able to go back and rewatch lectures which was definitely a positive. She offers extra credit for group work and other assignments and is very transparent in how the grading is done in the class. Make sure that if you have questions, ask Dr. Wu or the TAs and they will 100% help you anything. I would take this class again. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-09-07T20:38:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is a great professor! Her lectures can move a bit fast, but if you ever have any questions she is always happy to help. Not only that, she would provide the lecture recordings which was great to rewatch in case you miss any details. When I took the class, the lowest grade out of three exams (two exams and a final) was dropped and she offered extra credit which was a plus. Of course, the class is not super easy since it is an upper level, but if you put in the work and ask questions when you are confused, you should be fine. Overall, I would say it was a great class to take.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-03-14T22:04:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is one of the most responsive professors in the bio dept; she responds really quickly (and nicely!) via emails if you ever have a question. The course is pretty content-heavy and you learn a lot in a short amount of time, so office hours and reviewing lecture recordings are recommended. Exams are hard but fair- go to office hours early!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-14T21:42:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'As long as you attend lectures and keep up with material you should do well in the course. Make sure to review the exam review slides to know what topics will be tested on the exam. Dr. Wu is easy to talk to and very understanding. If you any questions or concerns she is always willing to help. She also provided lecture recordings in case you missed a lecture or need to go back and review material. I appreciated the extra credit assignments given and the opportunity to drop one exam to help your grade. Overall, I enjoyed taking the course. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-27T03:47:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is kind, patient and cares about the success of her students. Go to lecture, review all of the material, attend office hours and you will do well. The homeworks are challenging but help you learn the material. 100% recommend her if you are going to take molecular genetics. Ask for help if you need it, and she will be there. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-13T16:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is such a nice and caring professor who wants nothing but the best for all of her students! The content was definitely dense but the fact that she offers open note exams, extra credit, and allows you to drop an exam and multiple assignments shows that she really wants us to succeed! Easily my favorite professor during my time at UMD and most of the time we spent talking was about our families, Netflix shows, and how Dune is the best book series ever made (lol). Awesome course with a lot of super interesting information and I definitely recommend Dr. Wu!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T19:25:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Ok, so here\'s the thing. Louisa Wu is the sweetest nicest person. However. She is a really bad teacher. Every single class she forgets the material that she is teaching and seems to display a lack of understanding on the subject. Quotes such as "huh, I should have reviewed my slides better," or "I\'m pretty sure I explain this in my notes..." are frequently heard in the classroom while she is unable to recall the material that she is supposed to be teaching. Very often I will leave after class, rewatch the recorded lecture twice and I will still not think it makes sense, because she lacks clarity and organization.\r\nAfter the first exam, I walked out of the classroom entirely unsure of how I did because I felt like I had zero grasp on any of the material. I ended up getting a ~180/200 which was nearly 30 points above the average, which made me wonder: If I had zero grasp on the material, and got that score, then what was wrong with the test? Or maybe the entire class had so little understanding of the material also because of the class. I\'m not sure.\r\nAnyway, I feel bad saying this, because she\'s super nice and accommodating, but she is simply not a good teacher.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-15T16:58:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Wu is a great professor! She encourages learning and critical thinking. Her classes are lectures heavy, however, there are recordings of her lectures you can watch to understand the material more in-depth. She is very understanding and accessible in class if you have homework questions, test questions, or lecture questions. I recommend taking her because she is understanding and you are able to have the proper support/resources to do well in the class. There are also buffer points such as clicker questions, drop an exam, homework assignments, and an extra credit project about current molecular genetic research. 10/10 recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-19T22:30:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'The material in BSCI410 can definitely be challenging, but Dr. Wu wants her students to succeed and makes herself available to help. She cares that you actually understand the material instead of just memorizing for an exam (exams were open note/open book). There were several opportunities for extra credit and the option to drop the lowest exam score really helped take some pressure off. I appreciated the flexibility she provided, with recorded lectures as a supplemental resource. Dr. Wu was also very receptive to student feedback and suggestions, and overall is a understanding and caring professor :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-22T02:43:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Professor Wu was very sweet and accomodating all semester long! She gave extra credit opportunities and posted old lecture videos from a previous semester which I think helped a lot with reviewing! You get to drop one exam and there are a bunch of homework assignments. Overall, great class and a great professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-23T19:11:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'BSCI410 with Dr. Wu is one of the best upper level biology classes that you can take. Not only is the material interesting and relevant, but Dr. Wu is a great professor. She makes the material accessible by offering ample office hour time and uploading the notes and lecture recordings. She is also a generous grader. She drops several of the assignments, so if you do not do well on one you have several other chances to make it up (she also has extra credit!). Like any bio course, you will have to put your share of the work in, but taking 410 with Dr. Wu is one of the best choices you can make.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-28T16:14:04.292507Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "I feel like most of these reviews are very misleading. The review posted on 5/15/2022 is probably the most accurate representation of what this class really is. Is she a nice person? Yes. Is she a good professor? Absolutely not. We've been taking this class for about a month now, and we have unanimously agreed that no one understands what is going on. She is not particularly good at lecturing material in a logical, orderly, and cohesive manner, so by the time lecture is over, you are even more confused than you were at the start. I genuinely have no clue what my grade will be in this class because the first exam was a disaster even though it was open note. That being said, extra credit may be a grade boost, but I cannot say for sure. \r\nI would not recommend you take this class, or at least take it with this professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-04T19:26:41.342938Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'She has all of the good qualities you\'d want from a professor: kind, personable, etc. Can she teach? Absolutely not. This is coming from someone who did far better than the average on the first exam. She seriously needs to tidy up her lecture slides and condense the course contents to be more thematic and actually integrate information together. Her class is currently a brain dump of information which is why she probably allows for open notes. Good luck flipping through those 90 pages of notes. Dr. Wu, if you\'re reading this, I know you have the potential to be a great professor. Please condense your class and make it more thematic and review your slides beforehand, so it\'s not a bunch "ums and uh\'s". Additionally, have course CONCEPTS not random tidbits of info. If you begin to focus on concepts and actually give many questions surrounding that content, we may actually leave this class with some core ideas about molecular genetics and not a bunch of factoids of information about random ideas in the class. Get rid of open-note because it almost incentivizes you to brain dump info when it\'s completely unnecessary. TLDR I might end with an A in this class, but I can certainly say this class is unorganized and the professor lacks teaching skills.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-07T05:10:13.342727Z'}, {'professor': 'Louisa Wu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Not receptive to feedback. Not a skilled professor. Extremely snarky when valid concerns about the course are brought up. Avoid, avoid, avoid.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-05T21:57:24.148272Z'}], 'name': 'Louisa Wu', 'slug': 'wu_louisa'}, {'courses': ['ARTH200', 'ARTH320', 'ARTH488G', 'ARTH321', 'ARTH389P', 'ARTH488A'], 'average_rating': 4.5556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Louise Martinez', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': 'Honestly, this was an interesting and fun class. Lots of memorization but the material is fascinating. Three test and all based on notes. Did not even need the book. \n\r\nBe nice to the TA and you should be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-11T19:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louise Martinez', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': "This was a fun class to take. It does take time to memorize all the facts, dates and names of the art structures (use flashcards). However, it is a fun class. Ms. Martinez presents the notes in an orderly fashion. Discussion is mandatory so good, it's 20% of your grade. One paper which is not bad, however if you are like me who never toke an art history class, visit the person provided to help you with the paper. \n\r\nThe exams are fair. Overall, the class was great, your grade depends on your time and dedication. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-09-07T17:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louise Martinez', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': 'Prof Martinez is a nice teacher. You learn a lot about different cultures in this class. Be prepared to memorize in this class. Be prepared to participate in discussion classes. You write one paper and there are four quizzes. Low pressure class but attendance is mandatory. Even if you get the book, she discusses things that are not in there. Overall good professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-17T18:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louise Martinez', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': 'The class was fair and interesting at times,but every class has their boring parts. The exams are fair, but the TA quizzes seem pretty hard. Attend lecture and if you are good at memorizing, you should get an A.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-01T12:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louise Martinez', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': "This class was sooo crazy. You have to do an insane amount of memorizing and writing but it is probably easier than what other professors require. She's a nice person but her lectures can be kinda dull. There is a paper, two midterms, and a final. There are also quizzes for discussion. Discussion will be contingent upon ur TA. The class overall isn't hard; it's not really necessary to buy the book. It will be helpful to study for ur exams but it isn't needed otherwise. If u go to all the lectures u won't need the book. grades come back in a somewhat timely manner and as long as you pay attention and go to most of the lectures u are pretty much guaranteed a B. Getting an A requires a lot more effort; you basically need to get an A on most of the assignments. Overall the class isn't bad but it got kinda annoying to do all the writing and memorizing near the end but it's not a hard class and attendance isn't taken.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-01T04:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louise Martinez', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': 'She is a really good professor and a nice lady. The class is really easy with her. If you need to get your HA CORE out of the way, take her. Its an easy A. Take notes, read the book and you should do fine on the exam. The slides from lectures are pretty much the same on the exam. The unknown slides (1 or 2) during the exam that she wants us to guess is really obvious and very similar to the one seen in class. She only makes you memorize the date range of each piece of art rather than specific dates. You also have to do one three page paper, which is easy. The essays on the exam are posted online so we have ample time to prepare for it. The final exam is not cumulative, only the final exam essay is. She gives you the whole semester to prepare for the final exam essay. As long as you go to lectures, take notes, read the book you will do well in class. Let me put it this way, a friend took the same course in a community college and he said he was failing the course. Thats how crazy the course can be with other professors. So if you need a chill class and grade booster, take Dr. Martinez. With all that being said, I think your grade in class also depends partly on who you have as your TA. My TA was much better than some of the other ones who gave really difficult quizzes with weird formats. But overall you should still should not have problem getting a good grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-08-19T23:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louise Martinez', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': 'Martinez is a very nice teacher. She explains thoroughly about each artwork, so if you pay attention and take notes, you will do well as long as you take the time to memorize a lot of slides. The exams are pretty easy, since she posts the slides you need to know and the possible exam questions online. The TA is very engaging but the quizzes are harder than the test in my opinion. Overall, as long as you take the time to memorize the slides and since the material is not difficult you will do well in the class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-03T10:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louise Martinez', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': "Dr. Martinez is the best! She does a brilliant job of explaining the artistic and historical context of each object. However, she does not make you learn the exact date something was made, just the period. So you spend less time staring at a sheet of dates and more time contemplating form and meaning. Also, she gives you a list of images that might be on the exam (roughly half of the images covered in class, I think) and she lets you know the essay questions in advance. So as far as Art History goes, there is not a lot of memorization. The introductions/summaries she does at the beginning and end of each chapter are fascinating and helpful to those who appreciate her insights. This is not the easiest class at Maryland, but it's not the hardest either. If you really care about Art History then you will love it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-28T18:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Louise Martinez', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': "Dr. Martinez is really cool. She knows her art very well. She is also very fair. Only one of two midterms count (the higher one). Not much work except for the paper. But there is A LOT of memorizing! So if you're bad at that, I do not recommend this class.\n\r\nI thought I would hate this class because I'm not an artsy person at all. I was just taking it for Core. But I absolutely loved it! I found it very interesting and actually considered majoring in art history after this.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T16:44:00Z'}], 'name': 'Louise Martinez', 'slug': 'martinez_louise'}, {'courses': ['ENMA671', 'ENMA680', 'ENMA683', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA441', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA486', 'ENMA641', 'ENMA680', 'ENMA683', 'ENMA671', 'ENMA680', 'ENMA683'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lourdes Salamanca-Riba', 'slug': 'salamanca-riba'}, {'courses': ['EDHD411', 'EDHD629', 'EDHD779P', 'EDHD228', 'EDHD200', 'EDHD200', 'EDHD200', 'EDHD629', 'EDHD690', 'EDHD200', 'EDHD200', 'EDHD721'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lucas Butler', 'course': 'EDHD200', 'review': 'super cool teacher, extremely understanding, very fair grader', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-02T02:48:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Lucas Butler', 'course': 'EDHD200', 'review': 'Great teacher, really understanding. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-07T17:33:05Z'}], 'name': 'Lucas Butler', 'slug': 'butler_lucas'}, {'courses': ['LASC234', 'LASC458', 'LASC235', 'LASC448X', 'LASC234H', 'SPAN234', 'SPAN234H', 'LASC458X', 'LGBT448N', 'SPAN235', 'WMST498R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lucinda Grinnell', 'slug': 'grinnell'}, {'courses': ['CLFS609A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lucinda Jack', 'slug': 'jack'}, {'courses': ['COMM619', 'COMM609', 'COMM657', 'COMM639B', 'EXST019A', 'EXST019C', 'EXST019H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Luigi David Luccarelli', 'slug': 'luccarelli'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN362', 'SPAN315', 'SPAN363', 'SPAN316', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN316'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Luis Charry', 'course': 'SPAN362', 'review': 'Profe Charry is honestly the best teacher in the Spanish department. He gives clear grading rubrics for all major assignments, and he grades fairly easy if you put in the effort. He is also very accommodating. Do not hesitate to take him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-11T14:21:38Z'}], 'name': 'Luis Charry', 'slug': 'charry'}, {'courses': ['HLSA725', 'HLSA300', 'HLSA785', 'HLSA709', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'SPHL601', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'HLSA484', 'EXST030', 'HLSA778', 'HLSA766', 'HLSA725', 'HLSA766', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA725'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Luisa Franzini', 'slug': 'franzini'}, {'courses': ['PSYC798T', 'PSYC309N', 'PSYC411', 'NACS728F', 'PSYC888P', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC489V', 'NACS898', 'PSYC468H', 'NACS728F', 'PSYC411', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC899', 'NACS728F', 'PSYC411'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Luiz Pessoa', 'course': 'PSYC411', 'review': 'I have some mixed feelings about this professor, but feel more positive than negative. He would change the order of lectures around mid semester and would drop topics he didn’t want to talk about, which was fine as we still learned a good amount but was a little disorganized. There were only 3 grades (from 3 exams) for the entire class, but he decided at the end of the semester to drop the lowest (so many people didn’t take the last exam). Exams short answer and he does look for very specific wording, and are only 5/6 questions. (But bonus for extra credit.) He also provided online open note options after discussing with students, which was nice. His lectures were interesting and provided insight about how fMRI became a trusted/ valid research tool from a perspective of someone working in the field as it was developing. He also had some interesting ethical discussions about what we can use fMRI for. However, when trying to engage students he would often ask questions looking for very specific answers and not give enough time for students to think before asking a “clarifying question” even more convoluted than the first. This could also lead into tangents about basic statistical analysis that didn’t have much to do with the class and most students would be familiar with already. (Taking up class time without getting into new material.) Definitely an interesting class if you know you want to get into fMRI research or are doing it already, but might be worth considering other courses if you just need to fill a credit.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-26T14:37:12.573793Z'}], 'name': 'Luiz Pessoa', 'slug': 'pessoa'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM488I', 'COMM351', 'COMM498B', 'COMM353', 'COMM331'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Luke Capizzo', 'slug': 'capizzo'}, {'courses': ['LGBT350', 'EDHI338F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Luke Jensen', 'slug': 'jensen_luke'}, {'courses': ['JOUR262', 'JOUR603', 'JOUR262'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Luke Rollins', 'slug': 'rollins_luke'}, {'courses': ['ARAB205', 'ARAB650', 'ARAB104', 'ARAB204', 'ARAB499F', 'ARAB305', 'ARAB304', 'ARAB398D', 'ARAB105', 'ARAB398A', 'ARAB321', 'ARAB499T', 'ARAB499E', 'ARAB298D', 'ARAB315', 'ARAB316', 'ARAB499V', 'ARAB499X', 'ARAB499B', 'ARAB207', 'ARAB104', 'ARAB204', 'ARAB315', 'ARAB316', 'ARAB315', 'ARAB316', 'ARAB104', 'ARAB206'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Lutf Alkebsi', 'course': None, 'review': 'I have had Lutf for two classes and there are a few things that are consistent in his teaching methods. \r\n1.\tHis expectations are not realistic. He expects non-native speakers to perform like native speakers and his is a very hard grader, (leaves no room for student growth). He requires a lot but does not give ample amount of time to do quality work. \r\n2.\tHe will change his lesson plan at the drop of a dime. He is very random with his teaching techniques, and there is no clear direction of what is to be achieved in the class. \r\n3.\t His instruction are very unclear, there were some cases where he didn’t even know what he assigned in the last class. \r\n4.\tFor the content courses, his tests are completely unrelated to the topic. His test seem to be a gauge of how fast you can read and write, with very little emphasis on the content that was discussed in the class, his test are more like proficiency exams. \r\n5.\tHe is totally irresponsive to emails. \r\nWarning if you struggle with Arabic this is not the class for you.\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-02T02:04:00Z'}], 'name': 'Lutf Alkebsi', 'slug': 'alkebsi'}, {'courses': ['ENMA311', 'ENMA445', 'ENMA310', 'ENMA475', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA460', 'ENMA312', 'ENMA645', 'ENMA681', 'PHYS431', 'ENMA486', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA495', 'ENMA495', 'ENMA445', 'ENMA645', 'ENMA300', 'ENMA495'], 'average_rating': 2.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Luz Martinez-Miranda', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': 'Only take a class with her if you have no other options for teachers. The class will be easy (helped by her ridiculous grading policies), but you won\'t learn anything.\n\r\nShe\'s a mediocre teacher at best, and seems to have no clue how to "connect the dots" and tie in older material to new stuff you\'re learning. She doesn\'t really seem to care much about her students, and to top it off is pretty difficult to understand.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-25T13:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Luz Martinez-Miranda', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'The course is easy and she does try really hard to help but you will get annoyed with the word "actually" by the end of the course. As long as you show that you are trying you will get an A.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-28T21:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Luz Martinez-Miranda', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "This class was a typical intro engineering course. However, Martinez-Miranda made the class much more difficult to understand than it should have been. She was a nice enough person and gave a good percentage of A's, but she was impossible to understand. She said actually more times each lecture than a normal person would in a lifetime. I you have a choice, go with another professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-20T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Luz Martinez-Miranda', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Note: the rating is for the professor, not the course in general.\n\r\nThe course itself is your typical rite-of-passage intro engineering course. However, this is one of those classes where you have to put in WAYYY too much work outside of class (about 3-4 hours per week OUTSIDE of class). At least Martinez-Miranda was pretty lenient with the A\'s.\n\r\nNow as for her...Where do I begin? IMPOSSIBLE to understand during lectures. Repeats herself way too much. I counted one time. She said the word "actually" 120 times in the span of one hour. I literally learned nothing from her class. If you\'re doing Materials Science, I\'m sorry. If you\'re not, then STAY AWAY!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-02-25T15:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Luz Martinez-Miranda', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very nice professor, really knows what she is talking about. Pretty light grader as well which is a positive.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-17T20:50:31Z'}], 'name': 'Luz Martinez-Miranda', 'slug': 'martinez-miranda'}, {'courses': ['EDSP443'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lydia Carlis', 'slug': 'carlis'}, {'courses': ['SPHL498L', 'HESP710', 'SPHL491', 'SPHL498F', 'PHSC491', 'SPHL498G', 'HLTH371', 'SPHL389', 'PHSC389'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lynn Cook', 'slug': 'cook_lynn'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL293', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL398R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Lyra Hilliard', 'slug': 'hilliard'}, {'courses': ['BUMK753', 'BMGT454'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'M Fardanesh', 'course': 'BMGT454', 'review': "He is very nice. His accent can be difficult to understand at times. The class is not that hard if you read the book which is what his tests are based on. He also gives you the pages to read so you don't end up having to read entire chapters. The group project was easy. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-05T22:38:29Z'}], 'name': 'M Fardanesh', 'slug': 'fardanesh'}, {'courses': ['HLTH420', 'HLTH124', 'HLTH471', 'HLTH124', 'HLTH420', 'HLTH124', 'HLTH285', 'HLTH285H', 'HLTH420', 'HLTH124', 'HLTH285', 'HLTH285H', 'HLTH420', 'HLTH124', 'HLTH471', 'HLTH124', 'HLTH471', 'HLTH471H', 'WGSS471', 'HLTH124', 'HLTH124', 'HLTH285', 'HLTH285H', 'HLTH420'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'M Reynolds', 'course': 'HLTH124', 'review': "HLTH124 is an asynchronous course; you only meet Professor Reynolds in person twice. The assignments are easy and helpful if you're interested in a career in healthcare. Even better, the class finishes before the semester ends (after spring break, you no longer have any work). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-05T20:48:34Z'}], 'name': 'M Reynolds', 'slug': 'reynolds_m'}, {'courses': ['EXST009F', 'EXST039A', 'EXST019J', 'EXST049B', 'EXST049P', 'COMM609N', 'COMM639M', 'COMM639N', 'COMM619N', 'COMM649M', 'COMM649N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'M Santangelo', 'slug': 'santangelo'}, {'courses': ['SPAN316', 'SPAN318'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Macarena Garcia-Avello Fernandez-Cueto', 'slug': 'fernandez-cueto'}, {'courses': ['GREK101', 'CLAS170', 'GREK201', 'CLAS470', 'RELS170', 'LATN120', 'LATN201', 'CLAS320', 'CLAS170'], 'average_rating': 4.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Madeleine Goh', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Prof Goh was amazing! She knows what she's talking about and has passion for what she teaches. Her lectures can be long but she makes them interesting by talking about myths. She responds quickly to emails and is super nice. There's three required textbooks but I only opened one, if you go to class you don't need to read. Easy A just pay attention!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-05T23:22:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Madeleine Goh', 'course': None, 'review': 'nice\r\ntakes a year to grade your work\r\nnever posts lectures \r\nruns through slides in class', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-13T16:23:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Madeleine Goh', 'course': None, 'review': 'I have no complaints about her class. I enjoyed the content, but the lectures were kind of dull. She was very nice, although it did take a long time to get any assignments graded.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-09T20:55:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Madeleine Goh', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Professor Goh is a wonderful professor. She clearly cares about her students. Her class is both intellectually challenging and enjoyable, which is always a great combination. I've been interested in myths for a while and I learned a ton of new things I didn't know before in her class. Don't think this is a class you can blow off, though. There's a lot of reading and exams are weighted heavily and are fairly challenging. READ, go to lecture, and participate, and you will do fine in her class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-18T21:57:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Madeleine Goh', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'I took this class to fulfill a GenEd humanity credit and ended up really enjoying the course. As the other reviews have mentioned Professor Goh is a great instructor who genuinely cares about the success of her students. The topics were always interesting and she kept the coursework both organized and straightforward. In order to do well in this class just make sure to keep up with the readings and weekly short essay assignments. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-22T22:29:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Madeleine Goh', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'Professor Goh is so sweet and really cares about her students! She is also very passionate and knowledgeable about the subject! However, I bought a lot of books that I didn\'t end up needing and it was a very "reading heavy" course for a gen ed- and I took it during Freshman Connection. I recommend the professor, so if you need to take this class she\'s a great option. However, if you can take another class ot fulfill the requirement, I think that would be wise', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-04-14T19:29:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Madeleine Goh', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "TLDR: nice professor, can't keep the class' attention, lots of reading, graded things are few and far between\r\n\r\nFirst off, she is very nice. She does what she can to help you in the class, always has a positive attitude, clearly loves the material, and while I didn't reach out to her much, she was helpful when I did. Grades are split into 4 sections: 3 midterms, and homework. The lowest 4 homework grades get dropped, but she only ended up assigning 5, so I only had to do 1. Midterms are online and open note. This format unfortunately isn't good if you want to actually learn anything; I procrastinated prep for one of the midterms until 2 days before the test, did well, and have forgotten most of it by now. Having sat in the back, I could see what a lot of people were *actually* doing on their computers, and it was very rarely taking notes. She just stands there and talks at us, which I guess is her job, but she does NOTHING to get us to actually pay attention each class. If you're a little more diligent than me, you don't even have to go to class, you can just self study everything. All material covered is posted on canvas (4/5 in terms of her knowledge of how to use canvas btw), and she posts the slides anyways... which she doesn't bring to class finished. Pretty much every class, she's had to make a correction somewhere. Slides are also extremely bland, though readable. In terms of reading, there will be a lot, and most of it is the original poetry (translated of course, but still poetry). If that's not your thing, save yourself and do what I did: don't read any of it. Instead, use whatever other resources you have. Youtube, litcharts, sparknotes, you name it. This is mythology, there are resources on this everywhere. I haven't read a single line of poetry for this class (besides excerpts we read in class) and I've been doing fine. Youtube is going to be a lot more helpful earlier in the course, but don't just watch a single video and call it a day. Every video has a slightly different version of the myth, so watch a bunch and use their common ground, then correct anything you got wrong in class.\r\n\r\nI took this during freshman connection, though I don't think that affected much. This is an okay way to get a humanities gened, especially if you like Greek & Roman mythology.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-03T17:14:10.550763Z'}, {'professor': 'Madeleine Goh', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'This was one of the best classes I’ve taken so far! Professor Goh is super nice and extremely knowledgeable in her field, so it’s very easy to talk to her and ask her to clarify any topic that we go over in class. She puts all of the readings on ELMS, so you don’t need to worry about buying textbooks. She assigns readings every week, but they tend not to be super long, and you don’t really need to read them. As long as you understand the general gist of the mythology, you’re set. Lectures could be long at times, but she does her best to tell the myths like stories, and she often lets the class out pretty early. Throughout the course there were 3 midterms which each focused on only that unit of study. They had 50 MC questions and 2 free responses, but you could chose which 2 to answer out of 3 questions, which really helped me out. There were five homework’s assigned, but she drops the four lowest, so theoretically you only have to do one all semester, plus they are only supposed to be 2 pages long. I took this class out of my interest in Greek and Roman myths, and I am not disappointed! I would recommend this class to anyone with an interest in mythology, or anyone who wants an easy gen ed!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:38:47.631087Z'}], 'name': 'Madeleine Goh', 'slug': 'goh'}, {'courses': ['FREN241'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Madeleine Hage', 'slug': 'hage'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Madeline Yoder', 'slug': 'yoder'}, {'courses': ['HIST419D', 'HIST491', 'HIST492', 'HIST419Z', 'HIST779B', 'RELS419D', 'WMST456', 'HIST619E', 'RELS419W', 'HIST499Y', 'HIST619V', 'HIST619Y'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Madeline Zilfi', 'course': 'HIST419D', 'review': 'I really enjoyed the class with Prof. Zilfi. She is extremely nice and very knowledgable about the subject. The class had one midterm, one paper, and one final. Very manageable and she is a fair grader.\n\r\nTry to read and participate in class, shows up on time, and put away your computer. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-23T13:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Madeline Zilfi', 'course': 'HIST491', 'review': "Prof. Zilfi's class of the Ottoman Empire is not that difficult, though it's definitely not an easy A class. She doesn't give too many burdens for her students such as group project, presentation, or pop quizzes. She only wants one research paper which covers second mid-term exam. One mid-term exam, the paper, and final-that's it. If you just do reading and don't miss the class lecture you can handle the class and get an A. \r\np.s. she doesn't like electronic things and usually doesn't use it many times, so never expect that she's gonna give you some important informations such as study guide for your exam. You may only get the study guide directly from her in class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-24T20:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Madeline Zilfi', 'course': 'HIST491', 'review': 'Zilfi is a great professor. She is a good lecturer -- her slight Boston accent and sense of humor help to keep the class engaged -- and very knowledge about the Ottoman Empire. The work is straight forward, midterm, 8-10 pg paper, final; and she is a fair to lenient grader. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-14T13:20:00Z'}], 'name': 'Madeline Zilfi', 'slug': 'zilfi'}, {'courses': ['PUAF610', 'PUAF790', 'PUAF688T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Madiha Afzal', 'slug': 'afzal'}, {'courses': ['ARCH270', 'ARCH797', 'ARCH798', 'ARCH406', 'URSP705', 'ARCH601', 'ARCH478T', 'ARCH601', 'ARCH678T', 'ARCH270', 'ARCH601', 'ARCH270', 'ARCH468K', 'ARCH668K'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Madlen Simon', 'course': 'ARCH270', 'review': 'Set clear expectations and due dates. Grades fairly. Strongly recommend Prof. Simon and Arch270', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-19T00:47:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Madlen Simon', 'course': 'ARCH270', 'review': "IDK WTF people mean by she is a good professor because she may be the most incompetent, disorganized, strange, confusing, and backwards instructors I have had in all my years of learning. The syllabus is useless for knowing what happens in class because assignments are all bundled together and some assignments are just repeats of the previous. The lectures we have are god awful and make me want to put a bullet in my brain. This could be a good class but all the TA's have no clue what is happening. Jemimah is always on her fucking phone, Juanita is passive aggressive and power hungry, Drew is pretty cool, The other one is barely there and tries her best when she is but there is no platform of consistency in the class. We were made to buy 30 dollar cutting mats for the class (Despite that the instructors always had extras to hand out and each group only needed one) and we used them only a few times and then they went to waste. We were told halfway through the semester that we need to do the rest of our assignments on SketchUp (which you can only get through a 30 day free trial) and were then given a confusing 30 minute tutorial on how to use the program. No one knew how to use the program and it was very difficult to know what to expect for the next assignment. There were times I ask the TA for help and they don't know how to use the program or what we were assigned to do. There were other times we were told to do something and then the TA's would tell us that it is not possible to do that thing on the assignment. Our group actually tried in this class and we continually got screwed over and over again. This class is awful beyond comprehension and the professor has no idea what she is doing. Never take this class I am warning you. All I learned is how much I hate this professor and the TA's (except Drew bc he's cool as hell). There is so much pure fury in my heart right now because of this class and the way it was structured and the amount of confusion. Fuck this class and I'm sure most other people who have taken it will easily agree with me.\r\n\r\nSincerely,\r\nAn Angry fucking student", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-16T22:14:12Z'}], 'name': 'Madlen Simon', 'slug': 'simon_madlen'}, {'courses': ['UNIV348T', 'FGSM330', 'HONR378G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Magdalena Bajll', 'slug': 'bajll'}, {'courses': ['ENGL201', 'ENGL244', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL304', 'ENGL101X', 'ENGL478J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Maggie Ray', 'slug': 'ray_maggie'}, {'courses': ['COMM798B', 'EXST039D', 'EXST009N', 'EXST019I', 'EXST049D', 'EXST049M', 'COMM609C', 'COMM639B', 'COMM639C', 'COMM619C', 'COMM649B', 'COMM649C', 'COMM659A', 'COMM798L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mahmoud Elgibali', 'slug': 'elgibali'}, {'courses': ['ENNU648K', 'ENNU648F', 'ENME430', 'ENME431', 'ENME489T', 'ENME430', 'ENME431', 'ENME433', 'ENME430'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mahmoud Massoud', 'course': 'ENME430', 'review': "Mahmood is a very nice man, but not an effective teacher. Part of this is likely due to online learning since he isn't very tech savy, but he would rarely stay focused on the content of the class during lectures. If there is an option to take a class Professor Massoud is teaching with another professor I would recommend doing so", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-10-16T17:02:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Mahmoud Massoud', 'course': 'ENME430', 'review': 'Nice professor who is very passionate and knowledgeable about the nuclear engineering field. Makes an effort to answer questions promptly, once even answering an email I sent to him at 2am. Homework is marked very quickly. I tend to submit my homework on friday/saturday and would get a grade within 24hours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-18T03:22:16.015815Z'}, {'professor': 'Mahmoud Massoud', 'course': 'ENME430', 'review': "Awesome professor who really prioritized learning and performance in the class. He is unmatched in replying to emails and the same goes with his grading. He puts an enormous amount of effort in the course in presenting information, where each of his lectures probably took hours to prepare for with all information he presented. Truly an excellent teacher and couldn't recommend more, he is understanding, approachable, incredibly knowledgeable, and wants everyone to do their best.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T14:32:23.522867Z'}], 'name': 'Mahmoud Massoud', 'slug': 'massoud'}, {'courses': ['ENTS689G', 'ENTS749A', 'ENTS749B', 'ENPM694', 'ENPM693', 'ENPM694', 'ENTS749B', 'ENPM693', 'ENPM694'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Majid Raissi-Dehkordi', 'course': 'ENPM693', 'review': "Was a bit unorganized and the TA's took some time to grade the HWs. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-23T17:24:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Majid Raissi-Dehkordi', 'course': 'ENPM693', 'review': 'Professor MR is "old school" in the good way. He tailors his courses to get essence of it instead bothering you with irrelevant parts. I learned a lot from him. I highly recommend all the courses that he teaches.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-09-25T00:42:45Z'}], 'name': 'Majid Raissi-Dehkordi', 'slug': 'raissi-dehkordi'}, {'courses': ['JAPN202', 'JAPN201', 'JAPN102', 'JAPN307', 'JAPN101', 'JAPN301', 'JAPN302', 'JAPN101', 'JAPN102', 'JAPN102', 'JAPN102', 'JAPN101'], 'average_rating': 3.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN101', 'review': 'Inoue sensei is the best Japanese teacher I\'ve had. She teaches very well, she is kind, and grades fairly. I wouldn\'t call her class "easy" but as long as you do what you\'re suppose to and study, I\'m sure you can get the grade you want. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-11-14T01:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN202', 'review': "Inoue Sensei is amazing!! It's true her grading is extremely strict, but if you put in the work you'll do fine. You can tell she cares about teaching and her students. She even offered extra credit assignments in both JAPN201 and 202. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-03-13T15:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN101', 'review': "Hottest teacher on campus hands down. Granted, her mad cuteness will keep you distracted so learning may be a bit difficult, but if you can learn to assimilate her cuteness with the material, learning Japanese will be a blast. I've never had this much fun learning a new language before.\n\r\nShe's harsh not because she's evil, but because she genuinely wants her students to master the Japanese language.\n\r\nDo your work, go to ACT class everyday and you'll get an A.\n\r\nさようなら！", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-03T17:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN101', 'review': "Well, I've taken Japanese 101 wayyyyyy long ago (Fall 2006), but I gotta say the following.... Japanese is a ridiculously hard language, and frankly, if people ***** about the grading in 101, they have no place to continue forward. Yes, it is a 6 credit class, and yes, you have to put tons of time into it. Don't take out all your frustration on Inoue-sensei. She is a very hard grader, but she's extremely approachable outside of class and she will help you. Yes, ACT is difficult. I remember those days and it was kind of nerve-wracking. You just have to stick with it if you really want to learn and excel. An 89.2 -> B+. Believe me, I wasn't happy about that when I finished 101. Oh well, sucked it up, finished 302, and went to study abroad in Japan (best way to improve your language skills). Oh, and taking Japanese as an engineering student was fun. So yeah, Inoue-sensei is definitely one of the nicest people I've met, but yes, she was a really tough grader. Just so you know, though, ALL Japanese teachers at UMD are hard graders.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-03-15T23:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN101', 'review': "Inoue-sensei is a very tough grader who will correct even the smallest of errors. This is extremely good if you are a Japanese major or if you plan to become at least semi-fluent in the language. If you're lazy or looking for an easy A, don't even bother wasting her time. Inoue-sensei wants you to read, write, and (especially) speak well so she will correct you when you make errors. Simple as that. Devote at least 15-30 mins a day to studying and you will be fine. And no, she is not racist. All the Chinese in my class are being treated just the same as everyone else. I highly recommend her for the serious student of Japanese.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-05T15:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN101', 'review': "I don't know why there are so many poor reviews for Inoue-sensei. The other reviewers probably just mistakenly expected to be handed a decent grade with little effort on their part. Yes, she can be somewhat of a tough grader in ACT classes. But she just expects more out of her 101 class than the typical 101 language instructor, which is a good thing. \n\r\nAlso, her tests and quizzes are pretty fair. She'll tell you exactly what to expect on each assessment and grades them fairly. She does not unfairly deduct points.\n\r\nOverall, she's a strict but fair teacher who uses a very engaging approach to teaching. She's very personable, so classes are never boring. You will walk out of class fully understanding what was covered. \n\r\nOh, and no, she's not racist. The Chinese students make up nearly half the class this year and are treated well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-27T00:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN101', 'review': 'Hardest. Grader. Ever.\n\r\nDo NOT take her by ANY means - especially if you are a freshman. She will truly kill your grade. \n\r\nShe has no heart and no mercy. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-10T20:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN101', 'review': "DO NOT be fooled by her cuteness. She is one hard-ass grader who plays favorites all the time. \n\r\nShe enjoys taking arbitrary points off of quizzes. Forgot a consonant? Doubled up on a vowel that you weren't supposed to? Sorry, no partial credit! She'll just give you none at all. \n\r\nLook at her A percentage on UMD. 18% for 101? That means, out of all the sections she's ever taught, less than ten people have gotten A's. Well, if you want to massacre your GPA, go ahead. \n\r\nIn my class of 15, there was probably about one person who got an A. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-10T20:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN101', 'review': 'Extremely capable and animated professor. She will give you interesting cultural insights and helpful pointers that I think few teachers would give. She is very personable!\n\r\nI have heard that she is a bit of a hard grader in ACT class though (I only had her for FACT).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-29T01:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN102', 'review': "Inoue sensei is definitely a tough grader and I personally think there isn't really a reason for this much stress, she is really kind and tries to make the class fun. As long as you put effort into it everyday unlike me then you should be get a decent grade", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-11-16T18:39:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN101', 'review': "Do not take this course unless you have some basic understanding of the Japanese language beforehand. I came in expecting an introduction to Japanese but instead felt as if the professor already expected me to know the material. ACT classes are dreadful and you'll spend everyday memorizing the course content - so that when she randomly calls on you to speak you won't look like a buffoon. The majority of your grade stems off these performances so you'll spend a good amount of time going over the dialogues. Don't expect her to go over the translations either because you need to do that on your own time. Her focus is on speaking Japanese even if you have no idea what you're saying! This class is unnecessarily stressful, feels rushed, and you won't really learn anything - unless you're looking to basically teach Japanese to yourself. Im not sure if theres another professor for japn101 but if they're is? Take your chances with them.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-09T14:53:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Makiko Inoue', 'course': 'JAPN102', 'review': "Don't go in expecting to boost your GPA or just fill out credit requirements. You will have to spend a lot of time on this class, and it's not easy. The grading is tough and the material is tough. Most of your learning is done on your own, not in class, for time reasons, and you are supposed to come to class with questions about grammar points. ACT classes (which are 3x a week) have you speaking in Japanese for the entire class, and if you don't memorize your dialogues or vocabulary or you're just a nervous person, your grade will suffer. You'll have to put a lot of time in every single day (like, at least an hour or two a day just to memorize the next class's material). However, once you're done with the class, you'll be proud of how much you learned. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-11T20:07:00Z'}], 'name': 'Makiko Inoue', 'slug': 'inoue'}, {'courses': ['BSGC398A', 'BSGC100', 'BSGC386'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Malaika Serrano', 'slug': 'serrano_malaika'}, {'courses': ['ENMA466'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Malakhi Noked', 'slug': 'noked'}, {'courses': ['SPAN426', 'SPAN310', 'SPAN425', 'SLLC601', 'SPAN611', 'SPAN318', 'SPAN316', 'SPAN311', 'SPAN478A', 'SPAN478B', 'SPAN625', 'SPAN626', 'SPAN311', 'SPAN448J', 'SPAN425', 'SPAN625'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Manel Lacorte', 'slug': 'lacorte'}, {'courses': ['ENMA661', 'ENMA462', 'ENMA471', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA489', 'ENMA797', 'ENMA662', 'ENPM663', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA486'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Manfred Wuttig', 'slug': 'wuttig'}, {'courses': ['PERS211', 'PERS398R', 'PERS302', 'PERS311', 'PERS312', 'PERS498A', 'PERS386', 'PERS399C', 'PERS399D', 'PERS205', 'PERS206', 'PERS498D', 'PERS299', 'PERS301', 'PERS212', 'PERS405', 'PERS406', 'PERS201', 'PERS202', 'PERS311', 'PERS398R', 'PERS399C', 'PERS399D', 'PERS202', 'PERS312', 'PERS498A', 'PERS205', 'PERS206', 'PERS205', 'PERS206', 'PERS311', 'PERS398R', 'PERS399C', 'PERS399D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Manizhe Galledari', 'slug': 'galledari'}, {'courses': ['ENEE245', 'ENEE303', 'ENPM609', 'ENPM610', 'ENEE446', 'ENEE350', 'ENEE447', 'CMSC798', 'ENEE244', 'ENEE324', 'ENPM675', 'ENEE303H', 'ENPM607', 'EDSP652', 'ENPM676', 'ENEB353', 'MSML605', 'ENPM808', 'MSML606', 'ENEB444', 'ENEE646', 'ENEE244', 'ENEE446', 'MSML605', 'ENEB444', 'ENEE244', 'ENEE245', 'ENEE446', 'ENPM607', 'ENPM609', 'ENPM675', 'ENEB353', 'ENEE350', 'ENEE446', 'ENEE447', 'ENPM607', 'MSML605', 'ENEE244', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE350', 'ENPM676', 'MSML606', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE350', 'ENPM676', 'MSML606', 'ENEB444', 'ENEE350', 'ENEE350H', 'ENEE446', 'ENPM615', 'ENPM610'], 'average_rating': 3.5556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "His lectures are clear, and his handwriting is amazing. Only reason I did not give him 5 stars is because he doesn't give out any homework assignments, so its hard to get any practice if you don't understand the examples he does in class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-09-30T21:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': "To be honest, I didn't go to many lectures of 245, because I didn't think it was that necessary. The way that 245 is structured with Franklin, you can get away with just going over the slides and the prelab before your lab, because that's pretty much what Franklin does in lecture. \n\r\nThat being said, the lectures that I did go to were pretty alright. I'm sure you've heard that he's got the most amazing handwriting in the department, which makes taking notes from him very nice.\n\r\nIf you're thinking of taking him for 245, I'd say go for it. His labs are relatively straight forward.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-11-13T13:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': None, 'review': 'I rarely give professors 1 star reviews, but Franklin hit all the wrong places for me. He put in quite certainly no effort into the class and would always be late 5-15 minutes. The lecture wasn\'t too crucial, but it\'s at the very least extremely disrespectful to not be on time during allotted time. The class required almost nothing of him, and he wasn\'t even able to do the little it did. He NEVER responds to email and you need to track him down yourself. He seemed to have absolutely no regulation over the TAs and they all decided for themselves how they wanted to grade and how much extra credit to give, resulting in extreme discrepancies between classes. \n\r\nVery disrespectful and lazy man getting payed to "lecture" and do nothing. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-09-15T04:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Franklin is an extremely organized lecturer, which is super ironic considering he doesn't bring notes to class and his canvas is as unorganized as I've ever seen. He speaks in a clear and concise manner, answers questions effectively, and doesn't go too fast. He appears to care about students, and is reasonable.\n\r\nUnlike other reviewers have said, he never showed up to class late this semester, his accent is non-existent, and he is very organized. \n\r\nThe nature of the course is very difficult, and to compensate he removed homework from the class. This is nice, obviously, because there's no homework, but quizzes and exams count for more, which is scary. Quizzes are graded extremely easily, and exams are harsh-- half of the points are multiple choice, and even if you select the correct answer you could get less than half credit if you don't explain yourself well enough.\n\r\nIt helps my note-taking that his handwriting is so neat, and I really appreciate that he doesn't vomit information onto the board, like so many math professors I've had. I think that overall Franklin is an excellent professor. He only got 4 stars from me because his canvas is unorganized and he doesn't respond to emails.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-05-21T10:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Excellent professor. Incredibly neat and organized on the board. Lectures are somewhat slow but are very easy to follow. As long as you don't mind starting lectures ten minutes late, you'll have a great time in this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-01-13T00:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': 'Beautiful handwriting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-21T16:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'Dr. Franklin was a great professor for 303. What I like about him is that he explains everything in a clear and understandable way. This was one of the few classes where I was able to understand nearly everything he says in lecture, unlike other professors who fail to communicate those material clearly. He always shows up 10 minutes late and goes through material slowly, but I felt I learned a lot from his lectures. His teaching style just "works."\n\r\nExam questions appear to be variations of examples he did in class. The key to doing well on the dams is to understand the material intuitively by practicing a lot of problems. Averages tend to be in the high 60\'s, but it is possible to do very well if you take advantage of test bank problems. He is pretty generous on partial credit though.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-06-06T21:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Professor Franklin is an excellent professor for ENEE303. He's been teaching the class for well over 10 years, so as a student, you quickly realize he's the best the university has to offer when learning about Transistors. \n\r\nBy no means is this class an easy A. You need to understand the material or else you will find yourself struggling come exam time. I found the class to be rather easy to learn. Make sure you understand Small-Signal Analysis for BJTs, MOSFETs, & Difference Amplifiers because they will be on the exam. Understanding these concepts helped separate me from other students. \n\r\nThe class is curved initially by 3%, but as the semester goes on, you'll notice the class is curved off of where you stand against your classmates. He follows OURUMD grading distribution to the T, so use that to determine where you stand.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-20T12:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Best professor ever !!! \r\nI recommend taking 303 with him and any other classes available with him cuz he goes by every detail and his exams are pretty much from the homework and class notes (you can do hwk if u have ur class notes) I got a B in this class but if i wudve put in an extra effort, I wud've definately gotten an A ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-10-03T07:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': 'This was his first semester teaching 245, and it shows. Lectures would consist of him basically reading the lab specification to us. About halfway into the semester, the labs go from telling you exactly what to do to telling you no information at all. The last lab was copied off of the internet, but only the useless information. The final was okay, not representative of the semester at all, but the TAs graded fairly leniently.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-15T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Thorough lectures, although it can be difficult to pay attention as he speaks very softly and mentions some important concepts in passing. He can be very meticulous in writing out diagrams, which makes note-copying (and catching up) much easier.\n\r\nHe did not give pop quizzes as in previous semesters, which was a bonus. His tests were relatively straightforward and he's pretty generous with partial credit.\n\r\nMy biggest complaint with the class was with the difficulty of the homework, which often stressed concepts we were not expected to know (and often did not cover) in lecture/exams. Still, overall, this was a pretty easy class, and Franklin was pretty great. As always, look at practice exams (helps immensely).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-27T19:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Franklin is pretty good. His lectures are extremely clear as he draws everything to quantum precision. He's pretty good at explaining stuff too. I actually wish he had given us more homework because I felt like we never really got to practice the problems enough. And I wish he wouldn't do his pop quizzes because they were pointless and tested memorization more than understanding of the concepts. But his tests are fair and they count for most of the grade, so it's pretty easy to get an A in the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-28T23:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "His lectures are awesome - if you are taking 303 with Newcomb you should try to sit in on Franklin's lectures if you can. His notes are very neat and clear.\n\r\nHis lectures can become somewhat disorganized, but it's just because he always asks students questions and tries to pick apart what they don't know. Whether you think this is good or not is up to you.\n\r\nHe also has pop quizzes in his lectures. They are multiple choice and count for a substantial portion of your grade. I think quiz were like 20%, HW like 10% and the rest was midterm + final.\n\r\nHis exams are extremely hard. Prepare well, do EVERY homework, and study like mad. Show *ALL* your work, even on multiple choice questions, as he gives lots of partial credit if your reasoning is good.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-28T22:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': None, 'review': "He is boring, has a thick accent, can't teach, and is a total jesus freak. The enee206 lectures are pointless to go to. You don't learn anything at all. He posts the powerpoints online so just review them at your dorm before you go to class. He is nice though. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-25T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "AWESOME professor! \r\nFor all EE students: u'll be better off taking this prof for whatever class he teaches. He has an awesome curve. \r\nFirst of, you have to pay attention in class for the multiple choice lecture quizzes. And you have to note that these are almost the same questions on the exams. Also, you have to go over and solve the practice exam questions since the exam questions are similar to those. \r\nAlso he is a little difficult to catch for office hours. So in case you need help you have to talk to him after class. Because he takes some time before replying to emails. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-23T22:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "I took professor Franklin for both ENEE303 and ENEE313 and can honestly say that he has been one of the best professors I've ever had. What I like most about him is that he explains things in a very clear and understandable way. Also he is a really fair grader, and the problems you get on the test are usually the same or very similar problems to what was in the homework or in examples from the book.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-09-09T03:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': ' He is very organized on the board. He is very helpful at office hours. His exams are similar to homework and exams from last year. Overall, a great guy. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-08-27T08:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': "It's a shame that this class is so poorly taught and managed, because it could be a really important, fundamental class for computer engineers. The lectures are just a review of some basic ENEE244 concepts, which is a complete waste of time. It is basically assumed that you come into the class with a foundation in Verilog, a very difficult language to pick up but a crucial one to learn for anyone interested in FPGAs. If lecture was changed to just teach Verilog and the lecture were actually informative and helpful (Franklin was not a good lecturer. He was vague and hard to understand), the class might have been one of my favorites.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-11-17T20:32:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "This is one of those courses that is so needlessly made challenging and stressful by how inept the teacher is at organizing it. Manoj Franklin does not directly teach material from the textbook, most of his notes are oral (and he has a thick accent), and there is no syllabus that describes what to learn. So, there is a lot of stressful guesswork that goes into learning the curriculum. It would be completely unlearnable if not for the hardworking TF's that have learned from the previous semester what Manoj intends for us to learn.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-29T16:25:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Hopefully my reign with this professor is over. I've taken ENEE324, ENEE244 and ENEE245 with him, and each class varied a lot in terms of how difficult he made it. 324 was a nightmare because it was all math and he really did not try to make the material interesting through lecture. Exams were extremely unpredictable in terms of what he could test us on; he referenced the textbook several times however the problems from the book ended up being different in terms of content compared to what was on the exam. This class will be difficult no matter who you take it with, and he will not make it any easier. However, I had a good experience with him for 244; he tried to relate the material to real world concepts as much as possible and made fair exams that covered everything he talked about in class. 245 was another nightmare though, where Verilog was barely taught in class but tested rigorously through the prelabs which is a shame because it is a very interesting class. What's even more crazy is that you are expected to know the language and associated concepts thoroughly for the exams... this was evident especially through the final exam. Overall Franklin will always be a mixed bag in terms of his exams as it is difficult to prepare for them. Expect to work super hard if you are enrolled in any of his classes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-01-14T19:27:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': "Dr. Franklin is just a really uncaring and messy professor. He cancelled lectures without notifying any of the students, he posted one practice exam from 2012 (which isn't helpful at all for the exam), and he's not good at using technology at all. Your grade in the class is also completely dependent on the TA you have. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-25T05:49:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "I've taken 245 and 350 with Dr. Franklin. Both of them were online, so they probably won't translate to a real semester. I enjoyed 245 actually - I thought the labs were fair and educational (though the prelabs took SO LONG to complete). I agree with what others said about a good TA making a big difference. I also didn't go to any of the lectures - while Dr. Franklin knows his stuff, his online lecture format was reading from powerpoints, and I just could not pay any attention at all. The final at the end of the class was kind of a crapshoot - it was 10 multiple choice questions, and most of them were VERY niche questions from individual labs. The final average was like a 40% or something ridiculous, but it counts for only like 20% of the final grade so it ended up being alright. That final was still quite annoying though, and I'm sure a lot of people were frustrated with their grades afterwards if they did particularly badly (less than like a 40% would get you an A- or a B even if you did all the labs perfectly).\r\n\r\n350 was another ballgame. Again, I could not pay any attention to his powerpoint lecture format. I watched maybe two lectures and then decided that I just couldn't pay attention anymore. Thankfully, our TA, Sidra, was amazing and helped teach us everything that we needed to know during discussions. She single-handedly saved everyone's grades. For both the midterm and the final we were given multiple practice exams, and over 50% of each exam was carbon-copy from the old tests. As a result, I (and many others) didn't attend lectures and still ended up doing well on exams just by practicing the old exams (the 3 HWs were also very relevant to the exams). I feel like this is partially due to the nature of online learning, and during a normal semester I think Franklin would be a pretty decent professor (see some of the older reviews), but online I didn't learn much in 350. Based on my impressions of this class and others, I would take Franklin over Oruc for 350, but also consider other professors if they are available.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-18T19:47:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': "This class was a ton of work and he was pretty unhelpful sometimes. Still, most people did well and you'll be fine as long as you keep up with the work, go to office hours, talk to your TA, etc. There's an exam at the end which I'm pretty sure is just designed to lower everyone's grades by a letter.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T16:33:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': "ENEE245 is not well-adapted to an online format in general, but Professor Franklin's lack of responsiveness makes it much more stressful. Extremely interesting content but the labs are way too long/confusing, especially as a 2-credit class. If you take Franklin for 245 then your TA will probably determine how you do. There was a severe lack of communication, with the most notable example being zero announcements about the date of the final exam except Franklin mentioning the date at the end of a single lecture two weeks beforehand.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-26T23:25:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Manoj is EXTREMELY knowledgeable. He comes into the lecture hall and doesn't pull any reference material out, just goes to the board and starts, because he just KNOWS. However, he is terrible at email. He has not replied to a single email of mine from 244 or 245. Also, do not take 244 with Manoj if you're not cool with a 25 minute final exam, out of a total of 15 points, that's worth 40% of your grade... Yes, one midterm (40%), one final (40%), and 6 homeworks (20%)", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-04-26T16:58:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'The worst professor I have ever taken at this university. His lectures are filled with him talking nonsense and his exams are beyond what we learned in class. The averages are extremely low and he blames it on the questions being poorly written when it was him not being able to teach his class. The whole class a week before the exam was trying to teach themselves the material but no one could help each other because everyone else was lost. Only curved 2 points on a 25 point exam when the average was a 13/25. I wanted to learn from him and I actively paid attention during lecture but I was unable to retain any of the information he would mumble on about.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-05T21:16:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoj Franklin', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': 'This class just sucked in general. But it is mandatory for engineering so suck it up.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-12T19:13:34.863564Z'}], 'name': 'Manoj Franklin', 'slug': 'franklin_manoj'}, {'courses': ['CMLT275', 'CMLT280', 'ENGL101X', 'WMST275', 'CMLT270', 'ENGL250', 'WMST255'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Manon Soulet', 'slug': 'soulet'}, {'courses': ['FMSC290', 'FMSC341', 'FMSC290', 'FMSC341', 'FMSC123', 'FMSC290', 'FMSC341', 'FMSC123', 'FMSC290', 'FMSC123', 'FMSC290', 'FMSC341', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC290', 'FMSC341', 'FMSC123', 'FMSC290', 'FMSC341'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Manouchehr Mokhtari', 'course': 'FMSC341', 'review': "Probably one of the worst lecturers I've ever had. The course is greatly structured around cengage and the lecture slides are from the same company -- never in his own words or inclusive of anything he rambles on during lecture. He is very incomprehensible and generally a terrible public speaker; the lecture slides tend to be 56 slides, which he only goes over ~20 if you're lucky. He also is very unapproachable outside of class and can never be contacted via ELMS or email. \r\n\r\nFor homework, it is weekly and you will have to purchase cengage ($130); the interface itself is also incomprehensible and the syllabus does not specifiy what you are to complete -- it just says assignments, while there are three different assessments on cengage. For this sake, 3/4ths of the class missed four homeworks. When asked, he aggressively avoided the question and said to review the syllabus -- this happened three times during class, it's actually quite scary how combative the classroom was. \r\n\r\nOverall, I would strongly recommend taking another lecturer, but FMSC341 and FMSC290 are only taught by him, so you can't escape any of these experiences. Hopefully these issues will be addressed for future courses, otherwise you will feel just as vulnerable as our class did.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-03-13T20:46:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Manouchehr Mokhtari', 'course': 'FMSC341', 'review': "Professor Mokhtari is extremely lenient on due dates and grading. At the end of the semester, he changed the due dates to every past assignment to the last day of class so we could go back and increase our grades and turn in anything we hadn't already. My only complaint is that his lectures are very boring and if you ask him a question, he will spend 20 minutes explaining his answer.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-12-27T15:16:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Manouchehr Mokhtari', 'course': 'FMSC341', 'review': 'The best prof at the UMD. Has a great passion for helping students. Thoughtful and considerate. Responds to emails real fast. A great lecturer. He makes the course easy by being there for you. Assignments and the tests follow the main topics in the course. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-13T01:25:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Manouchehr Mokhtari', 'course': 'FMSC341', 'review': "Dr. Mokhtari is a great professor overall. You can tell he truly cares about his students, he tries to make sure that his lectures are applicable, and his grading is very lenient. From my understanding, due dates are also very lenient as well. The only heads up for this class is that he makes it extremely mathematically based, so if you're not good at math, this probably is not the greatest choice for a gen ed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-22T00:14:21Z'}], 'name': 'Manouchehr Mokhtari', 'slug': 'mokhtari'}, {'courses': ['MATH401', 'MATH648M', 'MATH340', 'MATH411', 'MATH241', 'MATH462', 'MATH461', 'MATH341', 'MATH463', 'MATH410', 'AMSC673', 'MATH673', 'MATH310', 'AMSC674', 'MATH674', 'MATH246', 'DATA601', 'MSML601', 'MATH246', 'MATH410', 'MATH246', 'MATH410', 'MATH462', 'MATH246', 'MATH410'], 'average_rating': 3.0893, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': None, 'review': "I took Grillakis' class when Justin's filled up and Margetis' class could not fit with my schedule. I was a bit weary about his class because he had a good grade distribution but very average ratings, which is a sign of grade curving. When I first sat through Grillakis' lecture, I immediately noticed that he was a peculiar small man with extremely neat handwriting. Grillakis speaks very softly into the mic, half the time I thought it was off the whole time, so make sure to sit close to the front. The beginning of the class is fairly easy, Grillakis breezes through the lectures without confusing many people and the first exam is super easy. However, as the class progresses, the material gets tougher and his explanations get vague. A lot of people stopped showing up to class and instead relied on the books and their TA's, and I did this a few times because his lectures got so boring and I didn't really understand what he was saying.The bright side about attending lecture is that he takes beautiful notes, the bad part is that he goes too fast with several jumps and hardly EVER provides examples. I recall once someone asking him to do a Stokes theorem problem and he straight out refused, we were all pretty shocked since this was one of the harder topics of the class. In terms of grading and his exams, he dropped the lowest out of four exams and dropped the lowest 3 quizzes out of eight. I realized there wasn't much curving, his grading system allowed for A's and B's. His exams have straightforward problems, but can be very physics related (which I didn't like much compared to others). Grillakis also does not wait to start lecture, he arrives to the room at least 10 mins early and once he cleans the board he looks around awkwardly and begins his lecture. This was difficult for people because if you are exactly on time, chances are he already started. Another thing is that he doesn't really follow the chapters of the book, for the last half of the class I was very confused with what chapter we were on but as long as you follow his topics and match them with the ones on the book, you should be okay. In short, his class required a bit of work. I got high B's on the exams and aced all the quizzes, and that allowed me to get an A. It is not impossible to get an A but you might have to work for it by going to office hours and going to discussion. My TA was Nick Thieme and he was great!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-07-25T01:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "I found Prof. Grillakis to be quite good for MATH340. \n\r\nHis handwriting is incredibly neat, and in a small classroom his accent and volume is not an issue (I can't speak for the larger classes like MATH241). He tends to go quite fast through the notes, and sometimes it can be a tad difficult to follow, but he's very clear in office hours if you have any questions. \n\r\nThere are 8 HWK assignments but he drops the lowest score, and his grader was pretty fair. They can be pretty long, though. There are two tests and a final, with your lower score counting for only a half test grade. Overall the tests are not bad, and cover what was covered in class. There are even some hints sprinkled in on some questions. \n\r\nHe sends out reviews of notes and problems before tests, which are also in his impeccable handwriting (seriously, it's ridiculously neat). \n\r\nOverall he may not be great at lecturing, but I think he deserves five stars for his helpfulness in office hours, fairness of assignments, and the fact that in smaller settings the issues people had below (volume, accent, etc) are not really issues. \n\r\nI would gladly take another course with him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-03-24T22:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': 'Grillakis is one of the nicest professors I have ever had. He is extremely smart and can answer any complicated questions within matters of seconds. \n\r\nI would definitely recommend taking Grillakis for any math courses. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-03-13T12:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': 'One of the best professors in UMD. Extremely nice in officer hours. Has the highest average for almost any courses. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-02-21T05:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Grillakis is a wonderful professor. \n\r\nHis lectures can be a little bit dry, but he knows the material front and back. We actually finished the material in mid-November, and spent the rest of the time going over applications to physics (his math area). \n\r\nHis office hours are among the bast I've seen. He'll help you with anything, explain anything, with hardly a second's hesitation. He posts a good deal of notes and practice problems through ELMS. \n\r\nThe homework is relatively tough, however he drops the lowest score of the 8. Tests are uncurved, however he counts the lower score for half (60 pts versus 120, etc). \n\r\nThe grading system is fair - he apparently gets good TA's. Mine at least was a really nice guy who graded very fairly. \n\r\nIn short, if you are the student who wants to take 340, he's the professor you want. 340 is theoretical, and so is he. It can be tough at times, because he doesn't always explain practically, but if theory is not too daunting, his class is amazing. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-01-09T17:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Poor lecturer.\r\nBarely a curve.\r\nnice guy.\r\nhard exams\r\nno more cheat sheets given.\r\nfind another professor', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-23T22:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Very poor lecturer, I still go to lectures but I feel like there was no point going in the first place. I absorb very little information from his lectures. His notes are very unclear as well. I ended up going to D. Margetis's lectures instead, however Grillakis's test are EXTREMELY fair, he sends out a review before each test, and if you understand the review you should be able to get a good grade on test. He is lenient and easily awards you back points if you feel like you were graded harshly. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-12-22T00:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'He seemed very nice, but as mentioned before his lecturing was not great. He did focus on theory, but often gave examples. I still found them helpful and he did try to help his students succeed. My TA was great and reexplained certain topics. His exams were for the most part relatively simple and fair. He curved the grades at the end.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-12-21T18:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Very nice teacher, but a pretty poor lecturer. I learned very little and ended up going to Margetis's lectures because I didn't have class during Margetis lectures. Grillakis is a very cool dude and will give points back on your tests if you think TAs gave too little partial credit. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-15T14:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Terrible, terrible, terrible lecturer. Not worth going to lecture if you have him. If you can\'t teach yourself the material or if you do not have good friends that can teach you, you are sunk. He is a really cool guy, and is pretty approachable, but he cannot teach..period. Now, his handwriting is neat, so his drawings are always clear, but even with that you can\'t follow him at all. He will say "Is it clear what I did here" a good thousand times a semester, even though it is evident a handful of people have any idea what he did. Do yourself a huge favor and waitlist Justin, even if 40 people are ahead of you. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-16T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE GRILLAKIS!!! He is a very nice person who wants to help you out, but he is probably one of the worst lecturers that you will come across at this University. He focusses way too much on the theoretical side and the stuff that is not important. He also focuses on teaching the concepts rather than doing examples. He will also make you fall asleep with his monotone voice. \r\nOn a positive note, Tests are very fair and pretty easy. He is also VERY generous with regrades. In fact, this semester, he only gave out 550 points tests (4-100 point midterms, lowest counts for 50% and a 200 point final) and matlabs. This kind of sucks because there are no HW or quizzes to buffer your grade. The thing with Calc III is that it is pretty much easy to teach yourself all of the material. I guarentee you, IT IS NOT WORTH COMING TO CLASS IF YOU HAVE GRILLAKIS!!! It will just be a waste of your time. Try to get a good TA, or be prepared to teach yourself the material. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-10T22:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Make sure to pay attention. It'll be hard because his accent is kind of rough, and he speaks relatively quietly. However, he has incredibly neat handwriting and very nice diagrams. However, since this is multi-var calculus, it can be just gibberish if you copy down with no context. His graders were kind of harsh so make sure not to make careless mistakes. His tests were very fair, and he drops the lowest one too! Make sure to do the homework and not procrastinate. The weekly homework assignments can become huge, but they'll help with tests. I regret not trying hard enough on the homework since it would have helped me prevent harsh deductions from my test grades from simple mistakes.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-21T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Grillakis is a professor who really knows his stuff and thinks that you should be just the same. He'll often charge through problems in a satisfactory manner BUT ONLY IF YOU CAN KEEP UP. He doesn't always explain his steps and goes through his explanations very methodically but that's not a bad thing for everyone. Keep in mind that he's also kinda boring.\r\nPersonally, I almost never understand a thing he says in lectures and I usually just wait until the discussion section the next day to learn. I had Maxx Cho as a TA and you really had to be an idiot not to understand the material he teaches. \r\nOverall, the class itself isn't too difficult. There's a lot less material than there was for MATH141. No HW, no quizzes, 4 (or 5) Matlab assignments, and a couple exams. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-03-07T12:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': 'While I found Grillakis\'s lectures to be a bit boring, I was always impressed with how well he know his stuff. The moment anyone asked a question, even a difficult one, he always knew where they were going and could answer it satisfactorily.\n\r\nIn general, his tests were pretty fair. Most had only two or three questions, with several parts each. Each part of a question built up to some sort of conclusion ("What can you draw from this?", something like that), which made the questions a bit easier. As long as you could figure out a few of the parts, you could often fill in the blanks for the rest.\n\r\nHis general policy for the course was to drop one of our five tests. However, after accidentally putting content from Chapter 6 on our Chapter 5 test, he quickly agreed to drop that one as well (and actually seemed to feel bad).\n\r\nGrillakis seems like the type of professor that actually wants all of his students to succeed, and is very willing to do his best to make sure that happens.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-01-01T22:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'Grillakis is a well-dressed man who knows this class in and out. Lectures are spent proving theorems, often differently from how the book does it, which can be helpful.\n\r\nGrades are the average of your homework grade (lowest of 7 dropped), your midterm average (lowest of 3 dropped), and your final exam score.\n\r\nHomework is often either plug-n-chug application or intense proof that you may need to go to office hours for help on. However, there is at least a week and a half between due dates, so you always have enough time to complete the assignments. \n\r\nExams are basically a practical application of the material you learn. He does not put dense proofs on exams, but rather he tests your basic and superficial understanding of the techniques you learn in class. Exams can be tricky, but they are very doable and very much test your understanding of the material.\n\r\nJust as was said in the review below, this class is essentially a multi-dimensional extension of 410. Some of the concepts are very arcane and difficult to grasp (example, proving Stokes Theorum and boundary proofs with Jordan Contents), but Grillakis is great at explaining these concepts.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "He's an OK professor overall. My semester was the first that he taught 140. His lectures definitely aren't a thrill, but they are worth attending. Based on my friends who took other professors for this course, Grillakis is definitely one of the fairer ones in terms of the makeup of exams and the scheduling of WebAssigns. He's also a very nice and understanding guy. \n\r\nPS: I found the reviews given by other professors before exams to be very helpful for studying.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-30T22:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': 'He has the neatest handwriting in the world and his lectures are very organized. He explains concepts fairly clearly. Homeworks typically took a long time to finish, and quizzes were usually relatively simple compared to the homework. However, his final was much harder than anything we had done for homework or quizzes so you really have to know your stuff for the final.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-09-04T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "This professor has some of the neatest chalkboard handwriting I have ever seen. This really help when taking notes and drawing 3D diagrams. He is a good professor even if he does talk in monotone most of the time. He is very kind and is very approachable if you have a concern about your exams. He allows one page of notes on the exams (except the final). The matlab assignments are incredibly easy as it is mostly just copying and pasting what they give you. However some symbols don't copy over correctly and might throw an error if you don't catch them. Overall he is a very fair professor and would recommend him. He not the best professor I have seen but he is a pretty good one.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T18:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Lectures honestly put me to sleep. He wasn't engaging in the material, which made it cumbersome. However, he makes up for this with his grading policy. He drops your lowest of the four exams, and we had eight quizzes and he dropped the lowest three. Homework is graded on completion.\n\r\nA flaw in his style is that he allows one page of notes for every exam, but not on the final. So if you train yourself to rely on the notes, your setting yourself up to fail. \n\r\nAverage Professor, student-oriented grading system. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-10T02:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Compared to most of the math professors at UMD (excluding Justin, of course), he\'s great. He\'s clear, concise, and relays the information in the book well. He doesn\'t just recite the text verbatim.\n\r\nHe has very good handwriting, making the 3-d concepts easier to understand. Has a slight accent, but doesn\'t get in the way. He does tend to be a bit monotone and he likes to start every lecture with, "Let me remind you..."\n\r\nFor the exams (excluding the final), he allows you one page of notes for reference. If you have a good TA, there\'s no way you\'ll less than ace every exam.\n\r\nHe\'s extremely friendly and very laid-back when it comes to grading and his approach to teaching. I chose him as my faculty adviser this semester, and he helped me greatly. If Justin is unavailable, take 241 with Grillakis.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-25T19:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Great class, great professor, easy A.\n\r\nHe drops the lowest 2 of the 12 quizzes, and the lowest 1 test of the 4 chapter tests. He also curves this class, which makes it very easy to get an A.\n\r\nHis TA's aren't helpful at all, however, the homework is mainly graded on completion and if you have a nice TA this should be a guaranteed 100 points.\n\r\nThe first three tests are easy, but the last test is very hard, so if you need this grade you may want to study for the last test.\n\r\nThe final is okay, but luckily I needed around a 60% to get an A in the class, so no worries.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-23T22:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Grillakis is a really nice guy but for my calculus 1 class he wasn't very effective. I had trouble understanding what he was telling us because, as a calc one student, I had very limited knowledge of calculus. He's obviously brilliant but his teaching style wasn't ideal for students who were just learning fundamentals of calculus. His exams and quizzes were unpredictable but he did drop one of three exam and two of twelve quizzes. He taught us much differently than other 140 classes so when it came to the uniform 140 final, our entire class was lost.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-18T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Grillakis is a very nice guy, but not a particularly engaging or effective teacher. I went to every lecture hoping that for once, I wouldn't have to pull out my textbook and start taking notes on my own. Unfortunately, he never failed to nearly put me to sleep, and I would sit in class reading about whatever topic he was making unnecessarily complicated.\n\r\nEverything I learned was from my TA or from the book. Other than that, the quizzes and tests were very fair, as was his grading policy. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T14:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'He seemed like he knew what he was doing, the tests and homeworks were pretty standard, but he was really boring. He talks kind of softly into the board, and pretty much writes everything he says down (which is also all in the book). There was nothing particularly terrible about his class, but it was hard to pay attention for the whole 50 minutes, especially when the proofs were complicated. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-27T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': "Grillakis is an effective professor (not great, but definitely a competent teacher). He will answer your questions directly when asked, and his proofs are generally easy to follow, though there are exceptions (not that this is his fault, as some of material is simply a bit complex to get in one go during lecture). His tests were well written - they were definitely short enough to be completed in an hour, but the questions were thorough in covering the content being tested. Also, the questions ranged in difficulty, so the exams weren't devilishly hard or too easy (though the exams certainly *seemed* easy when I was taking them, because I wasn't paying enough attention to some of the subtleties of some questions).\n\r\nAlso, importantly, Grillakis was very responsive to student concerns about the shifting homework schedule after the week of snow, and the work load was never impossibly heavy.\n\r\nMATH411 isn't too bad, basically an extension of 410 into multiple dimensions. You can pretty much expect to do as well in 411 as you did in 410.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-04-29T12:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "There is no way this guy is a 5 star professor. He is an average math professor, not the best, not the worst, just average. I learned little to nothing in the lectures I stayed awake in...I learned most of the material on my own. There is a quiz every week in discussion which usually isn't too bad. The exams have been mostly fair...just do the suggested homework problems on the syllabus. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-01T01:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "suggested hw only. easy quizes. drops lowest test. tests are fair but might be long. look for simplification tricks. classes are all proofs with abstract examples. some number examples would help a lot but that's done in recitation so you really can't ask for anything more from him. he's a good prof with a well run class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-02T03:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Exams and hw were fair.\n\r\nSlightly heavy accent but very helpful teaching sytle.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-01T17:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'I went into this class a little worried because of its reputation as one of the hardest at UMD. But Dr. Grillakis made this class both fun and simple. \n\r\nThere is homework every week and 3 tests. The homework can be challenging sometimes but Dr. Grillakis is very helpful and alot of students go to him weekly for help. He also was very clear for what we had to know for tests.\n\r\nOverall if you found 410 easy, 411 with Grillakis is just a little bit harder but it is definitely not hard to get an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-05T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Grillakis uses the textbook so everything you need to learn in 410 is in the book. His class is droll but informative and he is very understanding about sickness and family matters. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-03-29T01:12:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'The worst professor I’ve had at this school, and that’s saying a lot because most professors here have been really bad. He comes to class without a mic in a large lecture hallway in the armory, practically whispers, writes illegibly on the board, and seems to directly take definitions from the book and write them down without a single example. Really bad. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-09-11T18:51:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'Grillakis uses the textbook heavily, so if you read that you should be fine. He is very generous in his grading, offers extra credit assignments, and drops your lowest exam grade. Not a fantastic lecturer, as lectures can be dry and uninteresting. Overall though, he is a decent professor and I would take him again.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-11-21T00:12:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Grillakis gets a lot of average reviews because he gives easy tests and a nice curve. However, if you want to actually learn something, and you're not in the top 1-2% of students who pick up material instantly, then expect to do a lot of work yourself. For MATH461, he teaches in the largest lecture hall in the Armory, without a microphone, and speaks at barely above a whisper. For comparison, there's some guy who sits in the fifth row or so who always eats takeout during class and his chewing and burping is louder than Grillakis's lecturing.\r\n\r\nFurthermore, Grillakis is unclear about what material he teaches simply because it's cool to know and the material he expects us to know for exams. His lectures seem like he's just rambling and he does not indicate clearly when switching between topics. He also does very few practice problems. Although some of the TAs are actually very good, Grillakis does not communicate well with the TAs about what material is being covered in lecture and what might be on the test. We also were not provided with sample or practice exams. It's impossible to know the difficulty, length, and even what concepts will be tested on the exams. Like another review said, the grades are only based on three midterms (lowest gets dropped) and the final. Later in the semester, he informed us there would be MATLAB assignments for extra credit. If you want to learn the material on your own and get a pretty easy A, take Grillakis. Otherwise, avoid Grillakis for MATH461.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-21T22:32:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'Very poor instructor, does not explain what he is doing when teaching a new subject. Tests are very difficult with many true false questions in which you have to prove why it is true or false. He will teach out of order from the text book and will be teaching many sections ahead of what is relevant for an upcoming exam. I highly recommend choosing another instructor. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-12-13T03:30:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "the guy's smart, but his lectures are way too theoretical and boring. i mean yeah linear algebra is pretty conceptually based, but his lectures were so boring and counter intuitive. like the first thing we should learn is how to RREF, but one the first day he basically just did RREF examples without even explaining what the hell was going on. honestly one of the worst lecturers for a MATH240 equivalent, seems much better at teaching real math400s\r\n\r\nhis grading is the nicest part, and there was extra credit as well. but as of now, the averages for the tests were high 60s, and then one below a 50%. he literally put a problem that was from the next chapter on one of his tests, and even with the generous grading the class should still be technically curved, considering that if you got the average on every test you'd have a 60% in the class, which is barely passing by most standards(C-). \r\n\r\ntake this class if you're willing to really learn on your own and get a really good grasp of linear algebra. otherwise,go take 240 and have better professors actually teach you how to do most of the crap. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-13T17:38:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "guys bruh like I literally got a 29% on his exam bruh, the class average was literally 48%, I left like 3 questions blank basically.\r\nGood news is the class is curved like Messi curves his freekicks so it'll bring my absolute poop grade to passing. Man is a nice and responsive guy but does not teach in his lectures.\r\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-12-15T05:23:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "Not a great lecturer; talks really quietly into the board as he writes in his (truly impeccable) handwriting. He also is not good at communicating information effectively to the class. Probably the only good thing about his teaching is that he is somewhat helpful in office hours. Even so, he merely tells you the answer. He seems pretty uninterested in actually helping students get a deep understanding of the material. His exams are hard, not completely reflective of homeworks, and he is stingy with partial credit. He also maintained almost no contact with his grader, who sucked - didn't finish grading the last 2 homeworks before the last midterm or the final.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-16T04:39:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "This guy is a terrible prof. I took an intro level linear algebra in high school and enjoyed it greatly but i was unable to get credit for it because it wasn't ap. Then i took math461 expecting to further my knowledge on a topic i already enjoyed. I start the semester going to every lecture but it soon became apparent there was nothing to be learned from this man. I now skip every lecture relying completely on teaching myself.\r\n\r\nAdmittedly the tests aren't hard and the hw is very easy, but don't expect to learn much. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-15T22:02:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'Lectures can be a bit hard to follow, but class is easy. No required attendance or quizzes. 3 exams during semester, lowest of which is dropped. Exams are very easy', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-21T18:43:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Terrible lecturer. He knows what he's talking about but he keeps everything way too theoretical. By the end of the semester, only around 10% of the class was going to lecture. The only saving grace was that the exams weren't too hard", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-11-27T20:23:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Very fair grader, but his lectures are useless unless you are math major as they are very theory heavy and more complicated than they need to be.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-16T01:28:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Personally, I learned absolutely nothing from his lectures. He added in a lot of extra physics applications that were irrelavant. I never paid attention in class, I just watched Justin's youtube videos to learn the material and then used the practice problems from my TA to study. \r\nHowever, he is a pretty easy grader and I still got very high grades in the class so depending on your style it may be worth it. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-20T19:13:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "His lectures are somewhat hard to follow, I ended up watching Justin's videos and reading the textbook, but the exams were fair and graded somewhat easy", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-20T00:28:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Avoid at all costs for diffeq. Does not do a single numerical example all year. Exclusively does symbolic examples. TA's and prof are never on same page. Lectures are useless and you'll just end up teaching yourself everything. Also the matlab assignments have 0 guidance or relevancy to the material all year.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-03T13:03:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Truly do not understand any positive review here. DiffEQ is supposed to be an easier math class. This man does not teach you ANYTHING. No examples, no guidance, matlab projects are irrelevant and unnecessarily difficult, TA\'s do not teach nor do they even have a fucking clock in their classrooms. By the end of September, half of the people still attend the lectures. By the end of October, 10% do. He will finish talking about (not teaching) the material for your next exam by the time you are taking the current one. Too bad Justin isn\'t teaching this class. His notes are helpful but do not align with Levermore\'s shitty textbook. Levermore\'s textbook is what you will be using and it is too convoluted and is written in a demeanor that feels like this mans was trying too hard to make it "difficult." This class should be taught in a straight-to-the-point fashion. Instead, you are left to teach yourself shit that you won\'t end up understanding. Exam 1 and 2 are awful but Exam 3 is fucking terrible. We took exam 2 right before thanksgiving break and exam 3 the week that we got back. I fucking hate teachers that coast their ways to a decent salary. A good teacher should try their best so that their students succeed. All of us come from rigorous majors and know how to tackle difficult courseloads... but everyone in this class, except for the 10 kids who are either retaking this class or have no social life, is struggling. Don\'t fucking tell me that I should have studied more because, like everyone else, I know how to fucking apply myself. I am extremely disappointed with the way this class was "taught." Take this class at Montgomery College if you want to survive. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T05:57:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'The professor is a nice guy but I recommend finding another professor if your going to take this class. The exams are easy(they are mostly similar to what you will see in the homework) but he just reads off from the online notes(which is our textbook) in lecture and to be honest I think I have learned more from the TA.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-10T18:26:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Terrible professor. Exams are nothing like what is taught in the class. Watched 10 minutes of Alice Wang's review and learned more than Grillakis teaches in 2 months.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-15T21:54:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Don't consider Grill for 246. His lectures are absolutely pointless to go to, as he spends the entire class deriving formulas and barely goes over any actual examples. Difficulty on exams and quizzes ranges from stupid easy to stupid difficult and you never know what you're gonna get. Doing well in this class was pretty much entirely based off of how well you can teach yourself the concepts. The Matlabs are also insanely difficult with neither the professor nor the TAs offering much help or guidance with them. The only redeeming thing about the class was the generous grading scale, where a 55 is a C-, a 75 is a B, and an 85 is an A-, but with the difficulty of this class, you'll probably find it saving your grade more than it allowing you to get an easy A.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-15T23:26:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Absolutely avoid for diffy q. Lectures are completely pointless as he speaks quietly and doesn\'t go over a single example problem. Doesn\'t help at all when the course is already very theoretical. By October lecture attendance was about 25% of the start of the semester. Exams and quizzes vary so much where some are extremely easy and some are extremely difficult. It basically comes down to how well you can teach yourself the material. Textbook (online notes) is very hard to read so I would recommend using Justin\'s notes. Only problem is that not all of the course is covered in Justin\'s notes. They usually suffice but sometimes you\'ll have to bite the bullet and read the online notes. Overall Grillakis did the bare minimum throughout the entire sem. ELMS was hardly ever up to date (syllabus said exams 1 2 3 would cover "??"), grades took months to get posted, a complete mess. I believe Fall 2021 was Grillakis\' first time teaching 246 because he had no reviews or grade data at the start of the semester but he certainly fumbled on this one. Absolutely avoid. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-18T05:53:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "The only reason I am expecting the grade I am is because I thought the exam material was easier than everything he did in class. If you are very capable of teaching yourself all of the content required, then I would recommend this class because of the relatively easy exams. If you require your professor to put any ounce of effort into the class (which is entirely reasonable and shouldn't be too much to ask for), do your best to find someone else. This man did not care about our class at all. Any communication that he had with us would be a maximum of 5 one syllable words. The review that he gave to us and posted for the final exam was just a compilation of all of the non-graded homeworks that he had already given us throughout the class, and they didn't even have any answers attached to them. He read word for word from someone else's notes for the entire class and called it teaching. Some reviews say he didn't go over any examples, which I would have to disagree with. He did go over examples, they were just rarely helpful. I went to every single lecture and consider it a huge waste of time. I never walked out of the lecture understanding anything that he went over. There are plenty of online resources that you can use, so if you think you can teach yourself all of the content, then I would recommend this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-19T20:28:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Not a great professor. Lectures were barely relevant to the homework and he put way to much time into topics that never were covered in exams. ELMS was horribly managed, with Grillakis just uploading notes and writing down what was talked about in class on the front page. Exams aren't bad and the grading scale is generous, but that doesn't make up for how miserable your experience will be with this guy.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-25T21:47:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Certainly not the greatest professor I have had but I found him to be better than what most of these other reviewers described. First of all he is very generous with his curve with 85% being an A-, 70% being a B- and 55% being a C- on top of dropping 1/8 HW’s and 1/3 exams. The exams were not crazy difficult with a lot of problems being very similar to either the hw or the (ungraded quizzes he gives out). The final was extremely easy too in comparison to the exams. His lectures are definitely the worst part however. His handwriting is good and his accent is pretty mild in my opinion but he tends to go on tangents and can be pretty confusing. For the homework I felt I had to teach myself from the book and learn from online resources often as I had not learned from class. It’s definitely a doable class though and if you put in a reasonable amount of time then you should be able to get a decent grade with the aforementioned curving.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T07:44:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "He was a terrible professor. His lectures were straight from the textbook and were dense and very hard to understand and he would get upset if you asked clarifying questions or didn't know how to answer his questions during lecture. By the end of the semester only 10 people in my 200 person lecture were regularly showing up. I learned more from other professors' lectures that they posted online than him. The problem is diff eq is super important for many other classes and I've had to relearn/learn a lot of new concepts because I never really got a good understanding of them from Grillakis.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-03-02T14:05:17.050301Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "He's a bad lecturer. LITERALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND 99% OF WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT. I didn't give him a one-star because of three reasons. His exams and his quizzes are fair meaning that they arn't rediculous. Also, he he curves to where you need a 55% to get a C- and an 85 for an A-. He also is willing to answer questions during lecture and answer emails, though it may take a few days. You can self teach yourself through professor leonard, JG, and other helpful YouTube content creators for diff Eqs.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-03-11T01:15:11.291608Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Sure the exams are easy, but please never take this professor. It’s honestly baffling to me how he got this job. He obviously knows what he’s doing, but also doesn’t know how to teach. If I could give 0 stars I would.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-17T14:53:46.428441Z'}, {'professor': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Grillakas is a very nice person and is obviously very smart, but the way he teaches is pretty confusing. He spends a lot of time proving theorems and a lot of his examples are not numerical, which can be pretty confusing. Also, the textbook for the class of just some other professor’s notes, which aren’t helpful at all. Even though he’s not the best lecturer, I think his other reviews are pretty harsh. Overall, even though he’s not the greatest professor, you should be fine in the class if you think you can teach yourself some of the material.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-29T15:34:36.794656Z'}], 'name': 'Manoussos Grillakis', 'slug': 'grillakis'}, {'courses': ['BSST330', 'BSST338M', 'SOCY498I', 'SOCY498E', 'BSST338G', 'BSST399T', 'SOCY699B', 'BSST638M', 'BSST337', 'SOCY480', 'SOCY699L', 'SOCY481', 'GVPT459U', 'SOCY499', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY105', 'SOCY699U', 'SOCY480', 'SOCY100', 'SOCY105', 'SOCY201', 'SOCY480', 'SOCY105', 'SOCY201', 'SOCY480', 'SOCY105', 'SOCY201'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mansoor Moaddel', 'course': 'SOCY105', 'review': 'Lectures could be a little bit boring at times, and he has a little bit of a thick accent so it was somewhat difficult to understand him at times, but overall great class and great Professor. He was very clear about what we needed to know for our exams. Everything on the exams were exactly what was on the slides. He gives you a variety of questions to prepare before hand, and picks a select few of those to test you on. Also the work load was super light. Only 4 Reports over the course of the entire semester, and it was group reports so you pretty much write a page or less for each report. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-10T17:02:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Mansoor Moaddel', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': "Professor is extremely kind and seems like he cares about what he's teaching, but lectures do tend to be lengthy and boring. He spends all of lecture basically reading from slides, and it's not easy at all to really learn what he's trying to teach. TA grades very harshly on student reports (writing assignment) considering a lot of the info isn't in the textbook like they say it is, and it's not easy to understand what the slides mean. Workload is very light considering you do a writing assignment every other week or so and that's the only assignment outside of the exams. In terms of exams, he gives you 30 questions, and 10 of them will be on the exam, so you pretty much have to study a lot to be prepared. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-12T13:47:02Z'}], 'name': 'Mansoor Moaddel', 'slug': 'moaddel'}, {'courses': ['DANC229', 'DANC328', 'DANC329'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mané Rebelo-Plaut', 'slug': 'rebelo-plaut'}, {'courses': ['KNES360', 'KNES466', 'KNES498F', 'KNES460', 'KNES360H', 'KNES466H', 'KNES460H'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marc Rogers', 'course': 'KNES360', 'review': "Dr. Rogers is totally cool! He gets a bad rep because of how he is in KNES360, but when you take an upper-level course with him (in that much smaller setting) you realize that he's actually really funny and he cares to see his students do well. That being said, his classes and assignments are not easy. He specifically designs them to test your complete mastery of the material. As long as you put maximal effort into his classes, you will do well. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-03-26T11:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marc Rogers', 'course': 'KNES466', 'review': 'Took 466 and 498F with him and came to the conclusion he is one of the worst teachers in SPH. Teaching style is boring and grading is very hard. He will try to trick you on exams and nitpick on written assignments. He is sometimes disrespectful towards students and will not help those who need it most.\n\r\nStrongly recommend NOT taking a Rogers class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-22T19:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marc Rogers', 'course': 'KNES360', 'review': 'The man will literally break your spirit. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2008-12-16T16:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Marc Rogers', 'slug': 'rogers_marc'}, {'courses': ['BSST386', 'BSST399V', 'BSST399D', 'BSST399E', 'BSST399R', 'BSST399Z', 'BSST399A', 'BSST399Q', 'BSST399B', 'BSST399P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marcella Morris', 'slug': 'morris_marcella'}, {'courses': ['BSCI106', 'CPSP219L', 'BSCI105', 'BSCI338R', 'BSCI106C', 'BSCI106S', 'CLFS665', 'CPSP218L', 'ENTM710', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI279T', 'BSCI105M', 'BSCI106M', 'CLFS660', 'BSCI361', 'ENTM769', 'HONR289A', 'BSCI207', 'ENTM701', 'BSCI160', 'ENTM701', 'ENTM710', 'BSCI207', 'CLFS665', 'BSCI361', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI361', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI361', 'BSCI160', 'ENTM710'], 'average_rating': 4.037, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Take Shofner. She's interesting and she is enthusiastic in her teaching. Her LA activities are engaging and helpful. Just remember to STUDY, STUDY, STUDY. It's not rocket science, so as long as you remember the vocab, the meanings, and their applications, you will be just fine. I went into that class thinking I was going to hate it. But I enjoyed it very much. The only complaint is that I took mine at 9 am and it's too hard to even get up in the morning. Bleh.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-11-11T01:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Dr. Shofner was an excellent professor - she is incredibly kind... A genuinely good person that I wish everyone in this world would be like. She gives you more than enough resources to pass her class with an A - you just have to put in the work. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-01-08T19:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'This class is seriously a lot of works. I had to spend 6~7 hours outside of class weekly. However, this will be the same case for every other bsci106 class as well. Therefore, taking 106 with Dr.Shofner is definitely recommended because she is good at explaining concepts and cares about her students. I never got bored during her lectures either. Most importantly, she is really generous when it comes to regrade. She is willing to help out students and wants students to earn their points back. Seriously, who does this? most professors hate students when they try to ask for regrade. She also gives extra credit opportunities throughout the semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-19T20:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Nicest professor I have ever had! She cares about her students and the material. However, the course is way harder than expected and the tests require you to study a wide range of material and then remember every little detail.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-06T17:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106S', 'review': "nice lady. only take her if you acutally care about evolution, ecology, animals, etc. If you're like me and have no interest whatsoever in these topics, dont take this professor, because you wont do well. if you care about your grade more than learning about these topics, take someone else. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-12-30T21:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Professor Shofner was the nicest professor. She managed to teach a class of 250 students and not bore them death, because she constantly asks for students feedback during lecture. Her powerpoints are very difficult to follow, however, and you should show up to every class because she will often cover material not online or in the textbook that will be on the exams and a several times she assigned in class worksheets to do for points. Andrew Keppel was my TA and he was great. He really seemed to know his stuff and recognized that the labs don't actually take 3 hours so he didn't make us stay the full time. We never stayed more than an hour and a half. Easy class but don't underestimate the exams! Only complaint is about the lecture assignments that she assigned very late into the semester. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-05T17:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'best professor for bsci106\r\ntake this class with shofner\n\r\nshe is so nice and approachable\r\nshe engages students in a 300 person lecture\r\nher powerpoints are very helpful for exams\r\nif you can get past exams from a friend you are golden\r\nshe is really nice in office hours\n\r\nmake sure you do good in lab\r\nhopefully you have a good/ easy TA', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-08T01:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Shofner is definitely a nice professor! So nice that if you started cursing at her, she would still genuinely love you.\n\r\nHowever, I went into the class thinking that it was going to be an easy A, which it really wasn't because the exams were pretty difficult. She tests on details usually and essays are graded harshly. \n\r\nI had Melissa Meyer as a TA and she was just some girl from Texas. \n\r\nSo, just run away if you have Melissa. One of the worst TA's I ever had in college. Get one of the guy TA's. One thing I learned in college is that male TA's are so much nicer and chill. They don't take off random shit points on reports or tests. Andy Simpson is the coolest TA for this class. \n\r\nIn the end, Shofner is nice, so study hard. I had orgo and physics with this class, so obviously I was going to spend less time in this class. \n\r\nAnyways, my advice is that good luck. TA's matter so much. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-11T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "I loved Dr. Shofner. She is extremely knowledgeable on the topic, but not in a show-offy way like some professors - she uses her knowledge to make lectures really interesting with lots of examples and stories. Thought grading was fair - one test gets dropped out of three. Don't buy the book! She only tests on things in her powerpoints and things she talked about in lecture. Attendance is not mandatory (no clickers), slides are posted online. She's one of the nicest and most personable professors I've had. Would definitely recommend moving around your schedule so that you have her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-05T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106S', 'review': "She is nice professor and all but sometimes I don't bother going to lectures because she posts them all online anyway. Tests are fair (lowest midterm dropped). I totally expected to get an A in this class and was at 90% but I got a 85 on my final and ended up with a B+. The final exam wasn't even that bad but I feel like the TA's were just looking everywhere for places to take off points.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-21T13:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr. Shofner is so nice and definitely willing to help her students. She is the one professor whose class I didn't get an A in but I can still say that I like her as a professor. That's saying a lot. Anyways, in terms of grading, take the lab quizzes (and lab practical) serious [they're what brought me down to a B]. For the exams, study every little detail on the slides and you'll get 100%'s on the exams. She drops the lowest of the three non-cumulative exams though. Lab is easy, not much to say there. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-06-20T00:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr. Shofner is wonderful. She is so nice and very approachable. The lab for this course isn't too difficult, either. As long as you study hard and turn in all of your assignments, you should expect to get an A. I thought BSCI106 was easier than BSCI105. If you're going to take 106, take it with Shofner! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-06T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr. Shofner is a really nice professor, and if you have to, or want to take this class, I definitely recommend trying to take it with her!! She puts all her powerpoint slides online, which is nice, and you can tell she really enjoys teaching. She even provided an extra credit opportunity as well as review sessions for the exams. She's very approachable and very on top of everything (administratively, ELMS, etc.).\n\r\nAt the same time though, unless you are a biology major, or really pick it up quickly, this class might not be easy. Especially at the beginning, I found the material to be somewhat challenging. You should go to lecture and be prepared to study, ask questions, go to lab, etc. The nice thing is that Prof. Shofner allows you to drop one of the three exams (not including the final, which is the fourth exam). Another nice thing is that 20/150 points on the final are based on a zoo/Museum visit, so it can help you out a bit (should be an easy 20 points).\n\r\n The laboratories aren't too bad, just make sure you stay on top of the quizzes and really pay attention so you can do well on the assignments/practical. Don't procrastinate and don't be afraid to ask your TA questions!!! I was lucky and had the head TA for my discussion- that's the only part that's kind of out of your hands-yours might or not be good. A good part of the labs is that they compliment lectures (or follow them very closely), so it can be helpful in learning the material.\n\r\n All in all, I would recommend Dr. Shofner! She's a nice professor and makes the class interesting. Just be forewarned, the material might be somewhat difficult. DON'T GIVE UP though...keep working hard and learn from mistakes/previous exams...I found that I got used to what to expect on the exams and the class got a less difficult as it went along. Good luck!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-28T00:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr. Shofner is surprisingly a good teacher. It's hard to tell because she doesn't seem very confident, although knowledgeable. \n\r\nIf you're going to take BSCI106, take it with Shofner. She doesn't even require that you buy a clicker!\n\r\nHer tests are fair; she drops the lowest.\n\r\nThis class is a lot of work [memorization/studying for exams] but it's not impossible to get an A.\n\r\nDon't buy the books. Only buy the lab manual.\n\r\nBrian Davidson, aka Bubba, was the best TA.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-19T16:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr. Shofner has to be the sweetest professor ever! She has a very pleasant demeanor, and her lectures usually tie in some interesting topic to keep us engaged. Don't assume this is an easy A because it is most definitely not. You still need to put in the effort for an A. Nothing is really difficult to understand, but there is a ton of info covered on exams. A lot of people come in assuming it's easy and end up doing pretty badly. \n\r\nSome notes about the class:\r\n1. You'll benefit a lot from lectures. She emphasizes certain material that will help you a lot for exams. Some exam material is ONLY covered in lecture.\r\n2. She posts up a study guide outline before each exam. Use this as a guide to help you figure out what to study--it'll cut down on your studying immensely. I got As on all the exams by just using this outline to help me write out a study sheet. Her exams only cover what's outlined, but you still need to refer to the slides to get the major details. Make sure you study the relevant slides!\r\n3. Don't buy the book. Waste of money. I literally opened it once and read 1 single paragraph in the beginning of the semester. Never opened it again and still got an A.\r\n4. Other reviewers are spot-on about being careful of the TAs. Consider yourself lucky if you have a good one. If you're not so lucky, don't be afraid to challenge a grade or even challenge the TA. My TA often gave us wrong info and didn't seem to understand what we were doing in lab half the time. Go to Dr. Shofner if you have to.\n\r\nOverall, great class, very interesting material, very kind and fair professor. Highly recommended!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-15T20:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "I personally think Dr. Shofner is the nicest lady ever. She is so sweet, and I could not stand when the students in lecture would talk over her or start packing up while she was still talking, because she's not the most assertive or authoritative figure. She is a really good teacher and knows her material extremely well. The tests were pretty straight-forward and you do get to drop the lowest of 3. My TA, Brian Davidson, was really good! He was laid-back, an easy grader, and always let us get out of lab early. Even though he was so chill, he still managed to get the material through to us and explained everything very well.\r\nI really enjoyed this class and highly recommend Dr. Shofner!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-04T21:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr. Shofner can be a bit boring and monotonous sometimes but she is a good teacher. Her tests are extremely easy; so easy that in my class there was no curve cause most people's grades were very high. You do not have to go to lecture cause she posts everything online. I definately recommend her...oh and watch out for the TA's.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-24T11:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr Shofner is extremely nice and a good lecturer but the TA's can be impossible. If your TA is Jenny Allen, DROP IMMEDIATELY! Save yourself the bad grade in a seemingly easy class", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-20T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "This class is really difficult, much more than it seems. Lots and lots of ecology and evolution terms/concepts. Shofner is fine, nice enough, and seems accessible to students after lectures. Make sure you pick a good TA for lab though, especially one that is accessible, because that makes a big difference (mine wasn't and it sucked). Shofner doesn't really use the book, so you probably don't need to buy it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-10T13:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Dr. Shofner is incredibly kind. She is very interested in Biology and you can tell from the way she lectures. All important facts from a test standpoint are based on her lectures, so there is not much need to read the book, although it is helpful. \n\r\nLab is incredibly easy, but can be a lot of work at times. Only one lab report all semester, but some writing assignments too.\n\r\nOverall great biology class and very kind and talented professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-26T21:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'I definitely recommend Shofner over other professors. She is passionate about the materials as well as teaching. Very approachable during class and office hours. She does go through the slides VERY quickly and would sometime skip materials that would be on the test later. She does drop the lowest test grade and her tests are like most other BSCI 160 tests.\r\nBSCI 160, like many BSCI courses, has a lot of materials to memorize and to understand so be sure to keep up-to-date with the material. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-13T02:41:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Nice professor. Exams are straightforward. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-16T14:07:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Dr. Shofner is a very sweet person, and it\'s obvious that she cares about her students and is really invested in the subject. That being said, I took BSCI160 with her in Fall 2020 and it was one of the worst classes I took that semester. The class was unfortunately asynchronous, and while I can\'t blame her for that decision, she did not adapt to the format well at all. For one thing, she did not have a syllabus, which was incredibly annoying, and instead had all material on her lecture schedule on ELMS. The problem with that is that this lecture schedule wasn\'t very well put together, it was incredibly disorganized and made it difficult to locate assignments sometimes. She would also sometimes post more than one lecture video for the day, exceeding the time that the class was originally meant to be. She hosted office hours during these originally scheduled class times, so you either had to watch her lectures before her office hours (and sometimes she wouldn\'t even upload the lectures until late in the afternoon) or hold onto your questions until the next time she had them. The lectures themselves were even more disorganized than her lecture schedule. They were not structured well and seemed to jump back and forth between broader topics and more specific topics. It\'s hard to truly explain how bad these lectures were, but it was very frustrating trying to take decent notes from them. The bulk of the assignments for her class were LAs (Learning Activities) and her worksheets. The LAs were super, super easy group assignments that were never an issue, and the worksheets were larger assignments that were probably better at teaching the subject than her lectures were. She didn\'t have any quizzes and would often have extra-credit activities that could get you a few additional points. She also technically assigned textbook reading, but since the textbook is an overall biology textbook, the readings would often go much more in depth than what was being taught in the lectures and didn\'t always line up that well; I stopped reading the textbook about a month in. The class had three midterms, with one being a week before the final exam. She drops one of the midterms and the final exam is optional, which was nice. Definitely study for the midterms! They were genuinely a little challenging. \r\n\r\nAgain, she definitely cares about her students and wants them to succeed. I somehow got an A in this class when I was bordering between a B+ and an A- for almost the entire semester, so it\'s not a difficult class to succeed in. But, if you\'re very "Type A" like me, this class might also prove to be pretty frustrating with how extremely disorganized it is. I\'m literally an Evolutionary Biology and Ecology major, so I find it impressive that she managed to make me hate this class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-12T23:29:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'HONR289A', 'review': 'Like the other reviews say, she is a really sweet person. Makybe it was because this class was online or because it was an honors class and teachers usually have a more laid-back attitude towards honors classes where it isn\'t as important as regular classes, but this class was a hot mess. \r\nIn the first phase of the class, an ungodly amount of terms and biology information (it was like reading from a medical journal) were thrown at us in asynchronous lecture. However, that wasn\'t very concerning, as all we had were reading quizzes. We would also review the material during our weekly meeting on Zoom. After the first few weeks, however, these Zoom meetings started to simply degenerate into students talking politics. They also stopped teaching us new material, but we (at least those of us who weren\'t bio students) never really learned anything in the first place. Finally, we had the final project. First, it required an extraordinary amount of work, far more than any other group project I\'ve ever done, especially when you look at the fact that we were expected to do it in just a week or two. Additionally, the requirements for the project were unclear and constantly changing. The requirements and guidelines were split onto two different documents instead of one ELMS page for some reason, and they were completely unorganized without being split into sections. While this may not sound that bad, it meant that if you wanted to know if something was or wasn\'t in the rules or required, you would have to read through BOTH documents COMPLETELY. There were also often contradictory instructions and requirements in the documents, and the teachers themselves (two teachers, but Dr. Shofner was the one in charge) were unresponsive to questions, taking a few days to respond by email - and even when they did respond they often said "I am not sure. Let me ask the other teacher". Sweet teacher, but a dumpster fire of a class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-13T21:29:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'She is such a sweet person. I got very sick with COVID last semester and she was more accommodating and worried about my well-being more than all of my other professors combined. Her tests are pretty straight forward. Definitely go to her office hours if you have any questions, especially on the exam. She is very understanding.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-25T16:33:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': "Although her assignments are relatively easy, as well as the homework. She hasn't been present for any of the lectures for this semester and has had a sub. The sub goes too fast, and is a bit difficult to understand, but her exams are okay as long as you understand the material completely.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-03T22:16:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Marcia Shofner', 'course': 'BSCI361', 'review': 'I absolutely loved this class. I took it over the winter session, which I was a bit worried about. But the professor made it fun and laid back. Obviously, it was intense as a three-week course, but the assignments were fun and engaging. I would definitely recommend this professor. She seemed to get involved in getting to know her students even though everything was asynchronous. She really helped me to get a good grade in the class by offering extra help and extra credit.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-21T19:31:46.714114Z'}], 'name': 'Marcia Shofner', 'slug': 'shofner'}, {'courses': ['KNES370', 'KNES385', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'KNES370H', 'KNES385H', 'TLTC798'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marcio Oliveira', 'slug': 'oliveira'}, {'courses': ['BSCI327', 'BSCI426', 'HONR299J', 'PHYS131', 'PHYS132', 'PHYS331', 'BSCI329', 'BIOL622', 'PHYS332'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marco Colombini', 'course': None, 'review': "I do not recommend taking this class. The material is very interesting, but the class is taught in an extremely unorganized fashion. Professor colombini did not make any real effort in preparing students for the exams. When you try to ask him a question, rather than explaining the concept, he will keep asking you questions to try to get you to get to the answer yourself. Its really hard to get any information out of him. What's worse is that most of the topics discussed cannot be found online for in a text book, so you're really stuck. I would avoid this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-15T17:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marco Colombini', 'course': None, 'review': "He's a great teacher. That said, BSCI426 is a hard class. Well, maybe not for everyone in the class. The grad students seemed to know everything. But Colombini did everything in his power to make sure I succeeded.\n\r\nIf you take membrane, do the following: HW! Redoing HW! Emailing him for helping on the HW! Not study for any of the exams since they're open note and based on the HW!\n\r\nSo if you like HW! take this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-17T13:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marco Colombini', 'course': None, 'review': 'Do your grade a favor, take another professor. Trust me!!!! He is very bad with teaching. Seems to lack knowledge in physic. Half of the class dropped. The class rather covered some chemistry, which was out of topic. He is a very unfair grader and rude. I submitted my report/complain to the departmental dean ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-12T21:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marco Colombini', 'course': None, 'review': "Wow, he is horrible. He changed the policy in the middle of the class without telling any students. Seemed to be somewhat discriminatory when comes to grading. Avoid his class as much as possible. I thought he understood material but he doesn't. His lecture materials were out of sync from time to time. And he's lazy too. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-08-22T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marco Colombini', 'course': None, 'review': "This is a great course and one I would highly recommend to anyone as an elective. \r\nIt is really intellectually stimulating. A lot of the information that is taught in the course does not have a convenient wikipedia page or other source from which you can teach yourself. So it is important to go to every class and pay attention and take lots of notes. \n\r\nThe format is hw due every week (30%), 1 paper(30%), and 1 final (40%). \n\r\nThe homework is not too hard if you pay attention in class but it can be close to impossible if you do not. Regardless, Dr. Colombini is very helpful during his office hours as long as you put in some effort beforehand. I ended up having to go to him almost every week. Although the homeworks are hard, he lets you redo them to correct your mistakes so at the end of the semester you should have a 100% for your homework grades unless you are lazy. \n\r\nThe paper is not too bad, the directions are just to give an opinion on something new for one of the topics given in class. There is no requirement on length. Mine ended up being about 8 pages but as long as you include all necessary information you should be fine for this.\n\r\nThe final can be easy or hard depending on how much effort you have put in to taking notes and making sure your homework is correct. It is open notes so print out computer notes and whatever else you might need. I felt it was a very fair test because I was able to find the topic the questions asked in my notes. Overall if you understand the hw then just review the topics not covered by them and you will be fine. There are actually not too many outside the hw so it shouldn't take too long. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-02-24T16:27:00Z'}], 'name': 'Marco Colombini', 'slug': 'colombini'}, {'courses': ['LING240', 'LING321', 'LING200', 'LING330', 'LING698T', 'LING499C', 'LING888', 'LING499C', 'LING200', 'LING321', 'LING499C', 'LING698T', 'LING888', 'LING240', 'LING321', 'LING499C', 'LING200', 'LING240', 'LING321', 'LING499C', 'LING698T', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': 3.8421, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "Dr. Antonisse is a pretty good teacher. She covers a LOT of information throughout the semester, so attending class is necessary if you want to do well. There are a decent number of assignments, but it's really difficult to work ahead. She doesn't really post stuff on ELMS when she says she will, and even if she does, a revised assignment will be posted the next day. This class is frustrating if you have a heavy courseload from your other classes", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-04T15:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': 'Dr. Antonisse is a thorough professor. She knows her stuff and mostly expands on what is in the book. She is a bit of a stickler though, so make sure to not miss any assignments.\n\r\nThe weekly prep work is sort of annoying. And for the most part you can get full points for them, but only if you have a TA who grades it that way. I had one who took points off for things. A very informative class, just make sure to keep on track with things and meet with the TA if you get lost. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-05-21T19:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': "Dr. Antonisse is a decent lecturer, but sometimes explains straightforward concepts in a more complicated way than necessary (she's reasonably accessible for out-of-class clarification). Regardless, the content of 240 is awesome- the concepts are interesting, useful, and helpful in understanding modern human communication. Prof could be better, TAs were average, but the class is great.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-08T12:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING321', 'review': "The other reviews on here are pretty accurate; I'm mostly posting because I had Dr. Antonisse for a different class. My only real complaint is that the criteria for the final presentation were a bit unclear. If you take LING321, make sure you speak up in class, because a lot of the time the questions she asks tend to go dead otherwise.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-03-21T17:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "The class wasn't bad but Dr. Antonisse isn't a great professor. She accuses students of not doing the homework if they ask a question in class and tends to belittle students with her answers. Though she is helpful when you ask her one on one, she tends assume the entire class is trying to pull something on her and makes resources unavailable except through the TAs office hours. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-10T01:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "Dr. Antonisse is a fantastic professor and great at relaying the information to students. She does take the course a little too seriously though.\n\r\nThere are two simple quizzes, a midterm, and a final.\n\r\nEach week there is a discussion preparation that is basically a 100 if you do it.\n\r\nThere are 6 homeworks, 2 of which are basically papers and a bit ridiculous. The other homeworks are just linguistics problems and are very easy.\n\r\nIf you do work in this class and pay attention, you will do well.\n\r\nIt's a very interesting class, and I am glad I took it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-23T13:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': 'Dr. Antonisse is a great professor. She is very straightforward and makes the material very easy to understand. Always personable and helpful. Really interesting class if you are interested in learning more about language. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-26T15:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "\r\nGreat professor! She's very helpful and approachable. I plan on taking more linguistics courses with her. Everything in the class in extremely doable, so it's no problem getting an A. LING200 is really good to get a SB core out of the way. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-20T16:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "Not a bad course, but I'm not sure I would have taken it if it weren't a requirement. It's not too hard, and TAs are always open for office hours, and I recommend using them. Dr. Antonisse is nice enough, but is not really going to cut you any breaks. Could definitely be worse, though.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-19T20:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': 'She is an excellent professor with great examples and is willing to help one-on-one, even with a lecture of 200 people! She is incredibly helpful, and breaks everything down into easy to understand units. This class is easy but truly stimulating. A good non lab science and, as long as you do the work, an easy A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-31T10:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': 'I’ve had Dr. Antonisse for several classes now. She’s fantastic. Very friendly, very good at explaining things overall, though occasionally she can be a little unclear. The only other issue is that she occasionally has trouble getting a slightly confused class back on track. But overall Dr. Antonisse is one of the best profs I’ve had at UMD.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-11-19T22:28:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': None, 'review': "Very good professor. She's very organized and very professional but friendly at the same time. The material isn't too hard and the preps each week help you prepare for the exams. The homework can be tedious, however. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-09T01:08:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "Dr. Antonisse was a responsive professor and gave thorough lectures and course materials even during the online fall 2020 semester. She was responsive to student concerns, especially from those that were having trouble in the course. If I wasn't graduating, I'd try take her again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T02:16:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING321', 'review': "She's a good professor but I don't really like her style in zoom. There's sometimes pointless breakout rooms that don't really help the learning process.\r\nOther than that she knows a lot and cares a lot about her students.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-01T07:33:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': "Dr. Antonisse is a great professor who cares about her students and wants you to do well. She carved out time before and after each class to answer questions and chat. Online classes were sometimes rough with technical difficulties and she usually went over time by at least a few minutes. Not a huge deal, but worth considering if you have a class directly after. Attendance was marked with clicker quizzes (marked for participation, not accuracy). Homework and other assignments didn't take too much time. Exams were fair and not too difficult. A great, interesting class with a good professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-19T13:55:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': 'Makes this courses harder than it should be. Treats it like we’ll all majors in linguistics. Would not recommend for any easy elective.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-13T01:29:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': 'Worst class / teacher ive ever had. Course work harder than any 400 level course at UMD ive taken. Seems like this woman has no life and expects us to have no life too besides her class, to learn about irrelevant phonetics. Very bad at technology as well.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-16T21:41:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': "This is NOT an easy A class! Dr. Antonisse is a very nice prof and the material is pretty easy to understand but her exams are ridiculously hard and the TAs all grade inconsistently so random points are always taken off. Everything is weighted really heavily so once your grade drops it's really hard to bring up. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T00:50:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'course': 'LING321', 'review': 'I had Dr. Antonisse for LING200, 240, and 321. I find her teaching style effective, and she clearly cares about her students and wants them to do as well as possible in her class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T22:23:09.021867Z'}], 'name': 'Margaret Antonisse', 'slug': 'antonisse'}, {'courses': ['EDCI433', 'EDCI613'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Margaret Ditter', 'slug': 'ditter'}, {'courses': ['ARTH201', 'ARTH200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Margaret Harrington', 'slug': 'harrington_margaret'}, {'courses': ['EDCI463', 'EDCI461', 'EDCI665', 'EDCI488R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Margaret Jenkins', 'slug': 'jenkins_margaret'}, {'courses': ['AOSC652'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Margaret Marvin', 'slug': 'marvin'}, {'courses': ['HESP729', 'HESP829', 'HESP700', 'HESP701'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Margaret McCabe', 'slug': 'mccabe'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688I', 'RDEV688P', 'RDEV688A', 'RDEV688T', 'RDEV471', 'RDEV630', 'RDEV688X', 'RDEV689D', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV150', 'URSP118R', 'RDEV689C', 'RDEV688F', 'RDEV688C', 'RDEV688V', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'RDEV615'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Margaret McFarland', 'slug': 'mcfarland'}, {'courses': ['EDUC888', 'EDUC888B', 'EDUC898', 'EDSP888A', 'EDSP652', 'EDUC888'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Margaret McLaughlin', 'slug': 'mclaughlin_margaret'}, {'courses': ['GVPT280', 'GVPT309L', 'GVPT454', 'GVPT487', 'GVPT780', 'GVPT409H', 'GVPT889E', 'GVPT454H', 'GVPT454', 'GVPT487', 'GVPT454'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Margaret Pearson', 'course': 'GVPT487', 'review': 'Great class, no complaints, content presented interestingly. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-12T01:55:32Z'}], 'name': 'Margaret Pearson', 'slug': 'pearson_margaret'}, {'courses': ['EDCI280', 'EDCI397', 'EDCI342', 'EDCI488B', 'EDCI443', 'EDCI489C', 'EDCI488G', 'EDCI488I', 'TLPL340', 'EDCI246', 'TLPL202', 'TLPL488I', 'TLPL457', 'TLPL344', 'TLPL340', 'TLPL340', 'TLPL457', 'TLPL763', 'TLPL287', 'TLPL344', 'TLPL340', 'TLPL457', 'TLPL762'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Margaret Peterson', 'course': None, 'review': "Really fun and easy class (if you don't mind using computers and video software.) She's also really nice. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-11-09T00:59:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Peterson', 'course': 'TLPL202', 'review': 'I literally love Maggie. She is the most amazing professor. She is so understanding and genuinely cares so much about her students. I would recommend everyone take her. She makes an effort to get to know her students and know them beyond the classroom setting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-05T13:45:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Peterson', 'course': 'TLPL457', 'review': "Maggie is super chill. She's a great teacher and makes the class interesting. Warning: this class does require a lot of reading (which many people avoided and just read summaries) but it is worth it. I would say that this class best helped me to be prepared to teach English lit by allowing us to be exposed to a lot of teaching material and content. The class was mostly group work in which we would talk about our book and then rotate. Through this method, Every student was able to gain insight into 3-4x as many books. \r\n\r\nDef recommend taking this class as there were not a lot of assignments and your peers are bound to become new friends. \r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-04T19:35:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Peterson', 'course': 'TLPL340', 'review': 'I LOVED Maggie. She is such a great teacher. You do have to show up to class but it really is a fun class. Maggie is extremely smart and knows what she is talking about. It was a super chill class. Honestly, if you show up and do the work you will get an A. Definitely recommend taking a class with her!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-29T03:08:46.657999Z'}], 'name': 'Margaret Peterson', 'slug': 'peterson_margaret'}, {'courses': ['NFSC350', 'NFSC460', 'NFSC380', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC230', 'NFSC456', 'NFSC230', 'NFSC350', 'NFSC380', 'NFSC456', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC350', 'NFSC380'], 'average_rating': 1.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Margaret Udahogora', 'course': 'NFSC380', 'review': 'To start off, if I had Dr. U earlier in my college career I honestly probably would have changed my major. This entire course was a MESS, and I know I was not alone because the class often talked about how horrible this course was. \r\n\r\n1) If your TA is chill, then lab may be an easy A. But, my TA (Manisha) was extremely nitpicky. The extremely detailed grading (more often than not, there was no rubric posted) really ruined the enjoyment of learning in lab. Not to mention, everything is group work, so if you get a lazy group you will suffer! \r\n\r\n2) I learned nothing from the lecture itself, even though I tried really hard. Dr. U makes no sense at all and is boring. Not to mention, the exam questions were also worded so STRANGE. I have never experienced a class like this before -- so unorganized and ambiguous. Also, there is NO consistency, she randomly releases quizzes sometimes there are multiple attempts, sometimes there are not. Good luck getting in contact with her via email!\r\n\r\n3) She releases QTPs (review sheets for the exams). Do them, and basically understand everything from the chapter about it because there will be a randomly detailed question on it. \r\n\r\n4) Dr. U asked for feedback about the class, but was extremely defensive and rude to a student who respectfully pointed out the ambiguity in the course. I really am dreading the fact that I have to take future courses with her. I hope they are not as bad as this one. It is really frustrating when a professor ruins the experience for a subject that you are genuinely passionate about. \r\n\r\nGoodluck -- we are all going through it together. It is truly disappointing that UMD is supposed to have a good program, but this is the program director. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-30T16:39:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Udahogora', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "My Gosh, how I regret paying an additional fee to take this class during the Winter!!!! It is just a slide reading, you must pay $95 for an e-book (which access is valid to July 2022 only), otherwise you cannot answer some quizzes (they are linked). Trying to reach the teacher by email? Well, good luck with that! And once she replies, it is in a very rude manner. I had some concerns throughout the course, and every time I tried to reach her I either had no reply or an unclear answer. It seems she is doing a favor to you. Very disappointing and frustrating. I was so excited, because I do really enjoy the subject (I was even considering nutrition for my major) but after that, I won't pursue it anymore. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-22T17:13:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Udahogora', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': 'Well, let\'s start off with Dr.U... probably the worst teacher I have ever had. First of all, whenever you have questions or concerns, just email your teacher... right? Well, good luck with that! Because with her, you can email her as many times as you want, and she will probably not answer your email. And if by some unexpected miracle she decides to respond to you, she responds in an extremely rude way; and not only that, she simply doesn\'t answer your questions and concerns! COMPLETELY UNPROFESSIONAL! Let\'s talk about the lectures themselves, shall we? She literally doesn\'t teach you. All she does during the ENTIRE LECTURE is read slides WORD BY WORD. I don\'t need teachers to do that for me... I think I could handle reading slides by myself, instead of having someone read them for me. She made a course, in which I was excited to learn about and super interested in COMPLETELY BORING. If you ask me right now "what have you learned throughout the course", my answer would be NOTHING, even though I tried hard in the course and did everything I could to try to pay attention to her utterly boring and senseless lectures. When taking exams/quizzes, questions were worded completely strangely and made no sense, just like the teacher. We would do assignments in triads( I was lucky to get a good group), and she would take points off for EVERYTHING! We would do our work, add not only what she was asking for, but also extra stuff because everyone in the group was tired of getting points off, and she still would find a way to take off some points because she was unable to give us 100% on assignments. Dr. U is COMPLETELY UNORGANIZED as well. I can\'t wrap my head around HOW A UNIVERSITY LIKE UMD CAN ALLOW HER TO BE A TEACHER THERE! TERRIBLE TEACHER AND COMPLETELY UNPROFESSIONAL! Made people who already had copies of the book pay $95 dollars to buy another book just to use for a week, including me. I told her I only needed access to the questions she wanted us to answer by reading the book... her answer " I explained to everyone how to buy the book". If you have a choice, and still decide to go with her, I don\'t know know what you are doing...', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-23T18:20:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Udahogora', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "I felt like the exams were pretty fair. If you listen closely in lecture, Dr. U tells you what concepts to highlight which helps to know what is certainly going to be on the exams. There is a lot of content, but for a winter class, I felt it was manageable. The extra credit assignments are very helpful. I think the critique here is pretty harsh, I felt Dr. U was a fair professor and cared a lot about the material she taught. If you do the work, you'll be fine as it's a very straightforward course. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-24T04:56:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Udahogora', 'course': None, 'review': 'I was gonna write all my complaints here, but the other reviews pretty much summarize everything I was gonna say about how terrible this professor is...', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-25T20:36:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Udahogora', 'course': 'NFSC380', 'review': 'Not a good teacher to be completely honest', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-28T18:36:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Margaret Udahogora', 'course': None, 'review': "Doesn't answer emails and only reads from slides, instead of actually explaining the theory...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-23T02:30:47Z'}], 'name': 'Margaret Udahogora', 'slug': 'udahogora'}, {'courses': ['EDCI404', 'EDCI407', 'EDCI403', 'EDCI406', 'EDCI601', 'EDCI602', 'EDCI488V', 'EDCI488C', 'EDCI688I', 'TLPL433', 'TLPL436', 'TLPL631', 'EDCI688W', 'TLPL306', 'TLPL332', 'TLPL437', 'TLPL478A', 'TLPL688I', 'TLPL632', 'TLPL488Q', 'TLPL688Q', 'TLPL447', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL435', 'TLPL688W', 'TLPL433', 'TLPL436', 'TLPL488V', 'TLPL631', 'TLPL435', 'TLPL898', 'TLPL688I', 'TLPL688I', 'TLPL433', 'TLPL436', 'TLPL632'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Margaret Walker', 'course': 'EDCI488C', 'review': "She is probably the nicest professor I have ever met in college. Many students, including myself, weren't really familiar with art at all, so we would sometimes make the most ignorant comments about art in class. But she was nice enough to take it seriously and go along with it. \n\r\nHonestly, the workload is pretty heavy, in terms of reading and writing. But considering that her class is held once a week and that she's an extremely lenient grader, it is honestly not bad at all.\n\r\nShe attempts her best to make her class engaging and fun. Her class did not only consist of discussion and lectures, but we also got to paint and build things occasionally. We also had a class field trip to an art museum in DC, which was very eye-opening as well. \n\r\nSo, in conclusion, her class was awesome and I would definitely recommend it to anyone. \n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-18T12:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Margaret Walker', 'slug': 'walker_margaret'}, {'courses': ['HLTH301', 'HLTH301H'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Margaret Wrobleski', 'course': 'NFSC380', 'review': 'Where do I start. Probably the most under-qualified faculty in the department. Not to mention incredibly rude and unprofessional. Particularly disturbed when listening to her lecture about the deteriorating health of diabetes patients while using unacademic and insensitive terms, repeating how their organs "poop out" and then they\'re "*hand motion* dead" WITH a member of that demographic present and participating in the class. Not to mention she doesn\'t even know how to pronounce simple medical terms like "diabetes mellitus" and biochemical terminology correctly. Throughout multiple lectures she reads off the slides word for word and anything else she has to contribute to the presentation comes from notes she carries on sheets of paper. \n\r\nExams are poorly worded. She seems to love NHANES so watch out for those questions on the exams. The first exam was simple. If you attended class you\'ll be able to do well on it. The second exam required a little more studying and included calculations. You\'ll need to know how to convert height and weight units for BMI, etc. \n\r\nWeekly quizes were also a horrible idea. Dr. Wrobleski requires you to meticulously read the whole chapter(s) sometimes >60 pgs and any supplemental readings posted on elms in order get 5/5. \n\r\nLab TA\'s were Monica and Jayme. They are the only good thing about the class. They are super understanding and will give you the benefit of the doubt where Dr. Wrobleski will not even consider that college students are honest. Both TA\'s are incredibly knowledgable and professional in their role, so use them and get to know them. They will be your ticket into doing well. Lab sessions were pretty chill. Probably will get a lot of free points if you take time to complete the lab reports which just require you to fill charts and answer a few questions.\n\r\nAnother component of the class is the Team Assessment Research Project (TARP). It\'s an assignment completed throughout the semester where you design and conduct your own research project investigating nutritional status. Most likely your subjects will be college students and have something to do with their eating habits and anthropometric measurements. Brainstorm a good project really hard because if you choose arbitrary measurements, you will end up with non-conclusive results and would have wasted an entire semester working on it. For the assignment, you\'ll need to turn in an IRB application, abstract of the project as if it were to be published in a scientific journal, and a final presentation on the last lab in front of the TA\'s and Dr. Wrobleski. \n\r\nI was looking forward to taking medical nutrition (NFSC460) ever since I entered the major, but seeing as how Dr. Wrobleski would be the one facilitating, I\'d rather spend my time learning from a more credible professor.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-09T03:41:00Z'}], 'name': 'Margaret Wrobleski', 'slug': 'wrobleski'}, {'courses': ['ITAL204', 'ITAL207', 'ITAL103', 'ITAL301', 'ITAL203', 'ITAL399R', 'ITAL401', 'ITAL399T', 'ITAL399V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Margherita Morando', 'slug': 'morando'}, {'courses': ['ARTT340', 'ARTT344', 'ARTT340H', 'ARTT344H', 'ARTT448H', 'ARTT448A', 'ARTT448B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Margo Humphrey', 'slug': 'humphrey_margo'}, {'courses': ['MATH111', 'MATH003', 'MATH011', 'MATH115', 'MATH015'], 'average_rating': 4.7273, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "Mrs. Jarchow was the best thing to happen freshman year! She was so sweet, had group quizzes, homework's were so easy, tests were a breeze, and maybe had to go to class once a week. Easy class, great teacher, i would take her in a second", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-09-26T14:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH003', 'review': "MATH003 is a computer based, self-paced class. Because of this, the professor didn't really do too much aside from grading your tests while the TA was in charge of grading the homework.\r\nIt was an extremely easy class for me because 99% of the material was a review of everything I've learned. You have the option of finishing it in 5 weeks instead of taking up the full semester if you take all 3 tests and the final before the 5 weeks are up (there's an official last day to take the final).\r\nThe few times I did have questions, I could ask her or the TA, and they were both very courteous and willing to help.\r\nNot really any more to say about her since it was a computer class and her presence was largely unnoticed. She seems really nice though.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-11-23T19:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "From what I can tell, she is a great prof. Unfortunately I haven't been to lecture much because the material is insanely easy. But she is never condescending to her students and always makes sure every last question is answered.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-08T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'She is the nicest woman alive. she makes the class really easy, teaches right out of the textbook, and you never have to go to class. take her class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-24T04:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "As the other reviews stated she is the sweetest professor I have ever had. She provides any extra help all you have to do is ask. She would allow us to turn our homework in late if we didn't understand because she said it was better to grasp an understanding than to just get a grade. Most times she graded for completion anyways. If you have a choice take this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-11-22T16:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "As the others here have said, she's very sweet and listens to what you have to say if you ask her stuff after class. She always ended class 5-10 minutes early in out lecture (dunno y). She makes the class simple and drops several quizzes so you have a chance for an easy A. Very lenient and teaches directly out of the book which is good because that's what you're tested on.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T13:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH011', 'review': "She is the best professor/nicest lady. Homework is accepted whenever you feel like turning it in and the tests are graded really easily. If you aren't good at math, or you are good at math you should take this course", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-09T14:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "If this is an option for the CORE math requirement for your major, take this course.\n\r\nProfessor Jarchow is the nicest woman in the world. She teaches straight out of the book, sure, but you have to be absolutely braindead to do poorly in this course. She will explain any problem you have, is very lenient with regard to homework and quizzes, and just makes the class very simple.\n\r\nThe TA's don't do the best job of explaining the material, but the course is easy enough regardless.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-01T22:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'She is one of the sweetest women I know... she really takes time with explaining the problems and she really does care about her students unlike some other professors. Take her class!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-03-26T20:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH011', 'review': 'shes super easy with homework, and will even take it up to a day before the final. the only problem is that she teaches right. out. of. the. book. however if you ask her for help on any group quiz or regular quiz she will walk you right through it. a very nice and sweet lady otherwise.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-15T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "Jarchow is a really great professor -- she's clear and teaches really well, but she is also really lenient about turning in homework late and about doing make up exams and quizzes. She also let me take MATH111 when I had failed the diagnostic exam. If you fail the diagnostic DEFINITELY ask her to put you in the class anyway because she usually will and MATH111 had nothing to do with what was on the diagnostic exam. I'm terrible at math and I'm getting an A so that should tell you something. She's a good teacher and really easy to get an A from.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-20T21:34:00Z'}], 'name': 'Marguerite Jarchow', 'slug': 'jarchow'}, {'courses': ['PHYS115', 'PHYS270'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marguerite Tonjes', 'slug': 'tonjes'}, {'courses': ['SPAN301', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN311', 'SPAN333'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mariluz Bort Caballero', 'slug': 'caballero_mariluz_bort'}, {'courses': ['BMGT848F', 'BUFN750', 'BUSM733', 'BMGT841', 'BMGT848T', 'BUFN630', 'BMGT365', 'BUFN717', 'BMGT758V', 'BMGT841', 'BMGT848T', 'BUFN630', 'BMGT365', 'BMGT758V', 'BUFN717', 'BUSI740', 'BUSM733', 'BUFN630'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Maria Bustamante', 'course': 'BUFN630', 'review': 'Very friendly professor and really knowledgeable in her field. The course assignments were difficult but open to interpretation, so as long as there is some logic to the analysis, the grading was lenient. The professor explains well but talks really fast and doesn’t record her lectures, so its very important to pay attention to her explanations and to ask questions. She will answer a hundred questions a week and never get annoyed. She genuinely cares that you understand.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T03:06:30.330389Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Bustamante', 'course': 'BUFN630', 'review': "This professor does a great job teaching BUFN630. The grading for the class consists of case studies, participation, a case study presentation and a final exam. The case studies can be a little tedious but they are mostly straightforward and if you have questions definitely go to office hours. For participation just show up to class and ask a question every once in awhile to get full credit. For the case study presentation you'll be assigned a group and present what you found from the case study. Even if your group doesn't do the entire case study properly you'll still get full credit for the presentation. Finally for the final it is extremely similar to the practice final. Overall Maria does a good job teaching the class and its mostly straightforward.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-12T23:22:16.710289Z'}], 'name': 'Maria Bustamante', 'slug': 'bustamante'}, {'courses': ['AMSC667', 'AMSC666', 'AMSC466', 'MATH246', 'MATH405', 'MATH240', 'MATH858T', 'AMSC660', 'AMSC661', 'MATH858D', 'STAT410', 'CMSC667', 'CMSC666', 'CMSC466', 'CMSC660', 'CMSC661', 'SURV410', 'AMSC664', 'CMSC664', 'AMSC460', 'AMSC663', 'CMSC460', 'CMSC663', 'AMSC808N', 'CMSC828V', 'DATA603', 'MSML603', 'DATA698', 'AMSC466', 'AMSC808N', 'CMSC466', 'CMSC828V', 'AMSC661', 'CMSC661'], 'average_rating': 2.1579, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Cameron was the worst teacher I've ever had. It was so hard to understand her during lecture since she had a heavy accent and didn't really explain the things she wrote on the board. I stopped going to Tuesday lectures and only came to the other lecture because she had weekly quizzes on this day. I had to learn everything from discussion, but 50 minutes a week is not enough to cover all the material taught in Diff Eq. Therefore, I had to teach myself a lot of the material, which is really hard considering the fact that quizzes were every week, and I had other things to do. She also assigned a LOT of Matlab projects, which were very difficult considering a lot of people had no prior experience with it. I actually wish I didn't look at the ourumd grade curve for Cameron so I could've taken a teacher that explains the material better.\n\r\nIf you're taking Diff Eq, I recommend NOT taking Cameron. You won't learn anything in lecture and the weekly quizzes will wear down your grade unless you're willing to put in a lot of effort outside of class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-04-25T22:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'CMSC466', 'review': "She's a LOT better than people give her credit for. It can be difficult to understand her because of her accident, but that is where her faults end.\n\r\nShe puts a tremendous amount of effort into the course: she is even willing to print your homework out for you if you email it to her, and lets you turn it in overnight. She gives very reasonable test problems: if you practice with her provided material, the tests are easy. She makes it a very reasonable class.\n\r\nIf you cannot learn from her, read over the optional book instead. She goes over a lot of material, and makes you learn, while making it reasonable to learn.\n\r\nThe only other thing is she has a LOT of homework. It can be pretty annoying, but you'll get through it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-23T19:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "I seriously do not understand why everyone hates her so much. I mean, I can see why her teaching style (which involved rigorous theoretical proofs and only very complex examples) doesn't work for some people--especially those who aren't math majors--but this backlash is a tad strong. \n\r\nShe has an accent. It's pretty darn understandable. If you can't deal with an accent, go elsewhere. Otherwise, it's not a big deal and it shouldn't affect your understanding of the material.\n\r\nIf you're used to either writing down nothing or writing everything the professor writes, you need to reconsider. The material is complex enough that you can't get away with paying no attention (or not going to lecture because they don't like it). She also will do entire proofs which are not necessary for applying the concepts, but may help your understanding or come in handy in later proof-based classes. If you're smart, you'll know when to stop taking notes (around the time imaginary numbers show up) and just try to absorb it.\n\r\nThe quizzes were quite difficult and I do think she should have lightened up on them a bit once the averages dropped significantly). The Matlabs were pretty hard, but such is the nature of Matlab for those who aren't fluent in it. I think they should be removed from the course entirely, but I don't think that's her decision.\n\r\nThe exams were entirely fair. Nothing was unexpected. If you knew what you were doing, you would get a good grade. Sure, the averages were low, but getting that just means that what's considered good has shifted. It doesn't feel great to have an 85 and not know what is going to happen to your grade, but now I can tell you that an 85 is at least a solid A.\n\r\nThe TAs were absolutely wonderful and complemented her theoretical style by giving step-by-step instructions.\n\r\nIf you're into theoretical math and proofs, go ahead and take Cameron. You're going to have the stress of a low grade throughout the class, but know that it will be improved by a curve at the end. If you do well on the midterms or the final, you're golden.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-11T18:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'They need to fire her.\n\r\nFirst of all she has a thick russian accent.\n\r\nSecond the online book that levermore made is full of errors so when we want to check a solution to see if we got the right answer on the homework, literally half the time the solution is wrong.\n\r\nLearning nothing from lecture and not being able to trust the book is not a good way to learn diffiQ and I dont know why they think this method of teaching is acceptable. If we are paying all this money for college they should not have such low standards.\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-10-24T18:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "There were several issues with this class. The major ones:\n\r\nTime management. The first chapters were covered in 2-3 weeks, the last chapters were covered one per week (or more, if you include discussion). I imagine this will improve in future classes.\n\r\nThe MATLAB assignments. This was barely covered in class and the book less than helpful. On one hand, they were graded EXTREMELY leniently. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure they did not in the least improve my MATLAB skills.\n\r\nShe has an accent. Not much to say other than it's there.\n\r\nThe pros:\n\r\nExamples. This professor did more step by step example problems than any other professor I have ever had. Everywhere around me people *****ed and moaned when a problem took two pages to write. But now I'm reading your reviews, and apparently skipping steps (after she had done several of one type of problem) is bad too? \n\r\nShe is amazing in office hours. I felt like an idiot struggling with problems at home. When I went to see her, she explained them to me in five minutes. \n\r\nOverall the class consisted of tests, weekly quizzes based on hw problems (hw is not graded), and MATLAB projects (which in my section received full mark for submission). I went to lecture every day, took notes, did homework and studied for tests, and I got a B+. I put in a decent effort, a solid effort would have gotten me an A.\n\r\nAs a side note - if any engineering student in Cameron's class thought she has bad handwriting - you are in for a rude awakening. Engineering professors are second only to doctors in bad penmanship.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-06-10T19:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "I feel bad for the lady looking at all of these reviews, she was so nice to everyone. I wish she had more command over the classroom, it was a very noisy lecture. Everyone is giving terrible reviews because they couldn't keep up with her lecture. She structured her class badly because her lecture was always at least a section ahead of the homework. I think if people kept up they would have found that she was a decent lecturer. I couldn't keep up, so I just learned from Levermore's notes that are on his website. I did a little above the class average on everything, but absolutely crushed the final, so she just gave me an A in the class. She ended up grading the last 3 matlabs for completion, so there's that. Overall, not the end of the world if you take her.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-29T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "She is just terrible.\n\r\nI remember the first day of class a substitute came in and taught for us and I thought to myself diff eq ain't bad as all of my friends and advisor had told me. The following week when Cameron finally showed up I knew the moment she opened her mouth that I couldn't understand what she was saying. Her handwriting is so atrocious and she tends to skip steps to cut off time but leaves us confused. Anytime someone asks a question she answers in a way no one can decipher. After a week of this nonsense I just skipped lecture and learned off the book. \n\r\nThe quizzes were similar to our homework at first but then she drifted off to just things she made up. I went to scoring an average of 8/10 at first to around 3/10 by the end of the semester. It wasn't just me as I saw my friend and fellow classmates go down this way.\n\r\nMatlab was too hard for this class. The matlab questions for this class requires you to know a large amount of knowledge about matlab beforehand. I have only been acquainted with the copy and paste method I have learned in MATH241. If you do the matlab projects alone, you are gonna have a bad time.\n\r\nThe tests that she give out are not hard and I even found out the test comes from another professor. There is matlab involved and she does not cover well most of the questions that are on the tests. Then again, she doesn't cover most things well.\n\r\nThe TA for this class will make or break your experience. Luckily, I had Hana Ueda who dissected the topics Cameron will talk about for the following lecture into steps to solve. The math discussion basically became my lecture time. Other than the book and the internet, I learned diff eq from my TA. \n\r\nFor anyone that is looking into taking this class, take my advice. Read the book, find an online homework help source, attend all the discussions if your TA is good, skip all lecture except the last 20 minutes on thursday since she gives out quizzes at the end of class, and form a matlab group! If you do all of the steps you will definitely get at least a C like I did. Lecture is definitely a waste of time when you can actually learn Diff Eq off the book.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-05-17T11:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Here is MY problem with this professor. I went to class, read the book, beat the curve on nearly all the quizzes and all but one test (the one test i barely missed the curve), and I still got a C in the class. I can\'t argue that my raw grade in the class was a literal 70%, because thats what it was from a strict (points earned)/(points possible) standpoint. Lets first establish that diff eq is a hard class, there\'s no two ways about that (not sure what the person below me is talking about...). Due to this fact, I expected to come out with a B, because teachers typically curve the class by giving the majority of the students C+ or B-.\r\nHowever..... If I beat the curve on most assignments and got a C (so lets say that pulls me from 70% to 75%) what happned to the rest of the class? Did you SERIOUSLY pass half of the class and fail the other half?\n\r\nI personally thought she was bad at lecturing, and if she didn\'t put you to sleep then she just confused the daylights out of you. Questions usually went unaddressed, and even when she did finally see someone with their hand up she always managed to make everyones comprehension worse. She has a thick (Russian I believe?) accent and its hard to understand her sometimes, her handwriting isn\'t great. I even went to her office hours a couple times, and just stopped going because she was never of any help. \n\r\nSo.... if for scheduling reasons, or some other circumstances you are forced to take this professor (I feel for you, by the way) then here\'s what I believe helped me survive and things I probably could have done better : 1) Whenever she gives out quizzes, they are usually based on homework. If you are doing homework and think "oh this problem is insane, she wouldn\'t give us that" then you\'ve just found the quiz question. 2)The TA\'s are remarkable. They will be your only lifeboat in this class, and typically you\'ll only get once a week discussion where they are forced to cover excessive amounts of material in a short amount of time, but they are good at it and will get it done. Go to discussion and TA office hours for questions, it is vital to your survival. \r\nDon\'t take her. Please. It\'s GPA poison. I learned all the material, scored above average, and I still got screwed. I\'m more in shock that she did this as opposed to upset', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-15T17:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': "I'm sure she is a nice lady but it’s really hard to follow her lecture. It's not just her accent. She teaches undergraduates like she teaches graduate students. I'm sure more than half of the class stopped listening to her after few weeks. I had to rely on my TA for everything. \n\r\nThere is a quiz every week and she said they are from book problems but I've never seen anyone getting a perfect score on it. I studied hard every week and the highest score I've ever gotten was an 8 out of 10.\n\r\nThere are two exams, the first one was a joke the average was like 83% but the second was 63%, and the final was 67% \n\r\nThere are 5 matlab projects and they are brutal. This was my first time dealing with matlab and I expected her to teach us something but she never did. I had to learn everything from the book. She graded the first two projects but she never even bothered to grade the other 3. Final grades are in so I guess they are just not graded even though I spent so much time doing them. \n\r\nI agree with everyone else here. I don't recommend her but if you have to take her, never miss discussion.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-15T12:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Cameron did a terrible job of managing this class. I understand that this is the first time she has taught this course, but she could have done a much better job on many levels.\n\r\nShe spent the majority of the semester going over the first three chapters (which contain the easiest material covered in the course) and did the last three chapters in the last 3-4 weeks of the semester. My roommate took a different professor for this class and he was having tests on material that our class hadn't even covered yet in lecture. Considering the fact that our class was learning the last chapter less that a week before the final really put our class at a disadvantage compared to the other sections.\n\r\nHer classroom lectures mostly consisted of copying the lectures that Prof. Levermore posted online. The tests and quizzes were also very similar to the ones posted on Levermore's site. She even assigned the exact Matlab projects that he posted. If you are severely unfortunate and get stuck with Cameron as a teacher, just google 'umd math246 levermore' to find all of Levermore's material. \n\r\nBesides the fact that she sounds like the Count from Sesame Street, her teaching style is awful. Even if you focus really hard to understand what she is saying, it is impossible to keep up with her lecture. She consistently skips essential steps in problems that makes it extremely difficult for anybody to understand how the problems are being done. For example: When learning about linear systems, she would routinely skip the steps when you have to multiply matrices together or do other matrix related functions. So unless you have taken linear algebra you would have no idea how she got the answer.\n\r\nClass attendance was a joke. After the first two weeks a large majority of people stopped going to class with an exception to the weekly quizzes, with the averages being around 40-50%. \n\r\nTake another MATH246 teacher. If this is not an option for you, skip class and use your time to teach yourself this course, because it will help you more than actually going her lectures. \n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-14T13:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'She is really bad at lecturing. Lectures are rarely helpful, so you will be learning most of the material in discussion and on your own. Her weekly quizzes are moderately difficult. They are not impossible but are difficult given that you only have 10 minutes to complete them at the end of class. Her exams were reasonable, and she does curve them (unfortunately this includes curving DOWN). Overall, I would NOT recommend this professor. If you have to choose between her and Lipsman, I would go with Lipsman because he is the better lecturer. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-05-12T21:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'I wish I could give this teacher negative stars. \r\nWhen I say I expect an A, I mean I taught my self everything and understand all the material, and can do all the book problems, but the quizzes are literally impossible. She picks the most ridiculous questions from each chapter and adds another part that makes it 10 times as hard. Not only are the quizzes impossible, but she is a terrible professor. I stopped going to class after the first couple weeks, except to take the quizzes because she writes things on he board that make 0 sense, doesn\'t explain them, and then erases them. When she works out problems she skips 3 steps at a time and says "hence" like we are all supposed to know the methods before going to class and shes reviewing it to us. She barely speaks English and it took her more then half the semester just to tell the class a proper grade distribution and she doesn\'t grade the Matlabs at all so i have no idea if all the work i put in is necessary. The 50 percent A\'s is such bull shit, I know no one with above a 75% in this class. I hope she gets fired.\r\nWith that being said Dif Eq is probably the easiest of all math classes so if you can teach yourself and don\'t mind ridiculous quizzes then she is the professor for you.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-09T03:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'By far the worst teacher I have ever had.\n\r\nHer Syllabus was constantly changed 2 weeks into the class because she had forgotten to take account for things. \n\r\nHer handwriting is god awful and the notations she uses confuse people to no end. I know this is her first time teaching this course but there is no excuse for the confusion her course brought me. \n\r\nI agree with the person who says that they regret taking her and would never reccomend her for any class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-08T17:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': "I'm not going to say she is awful, I am just going to present my case.\n\r\nWe had three grades in her class: homework, midterm, final.\r\nThe average for the midterm was around 62%.\r\nThe first couple of homeworks were fine, but then she gave us crazy computational stuff and if you would get it wrong and ask for solutions, she would say please see me. I never went to see her because then I'd have a question about all the things I got wrong because I didn't understand them.\r\nHer lectures are basically a recitation of the book.\r\nBUT she chose the strangest book. I've never seen a textbook like this. She also lectures off of her own notes on Linear Algebra where she uses completely strange notation. And then does not even explain the notation.\r\nI can't believe she is teaching again next fall, and I would not take her again. I regret taking her every day.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-04T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'DATA603', 'review': 'Prof Cameron is an excellent professor. She puts lot of efforts in designing the course, quick to respond, is very approachable and helpful in office hours. She is a subject-matter expert. I never found her accent hard to follow. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-13T17:42:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'MSML603', 'review': 'Too much focus on theory, in a subject which would helped with more practical applications. Deriving multi page formulas was not helpful in any way.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-21T19:40:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'DATA603', 'review': 'This class was extremely difficult. I really really really wish she used more examples. I think maybe about 3 examples out of the whole semester, she focused a lot on theories and proofs. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-05-27T23:44:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'AMSC808N', 'review': 'Her lecture is really not great. You can tell she is passionate about the material but it doesn\'t help if she just reads and copies her notes. Proof and theories take needs understanding not purely reading/writing off her notes... Naturally, the class pace feels fast because she is sort of just reading off her notes with some occasional improvising. I have had much more theoretical courses but they are too hard to follow because the instructors focuses on how to let students "understand" instead of just reading/writing notes on the board. Besides lectures, you have to give her credits for her notes. They are comprehensive and make much more sense when you take time to read and think about it rather than just hearing her read. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-14T16:08:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Maria Cameron', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': "There are plenty of positive and negative things to say about Dr. Cameron, but I think her 2-star average is pretty harsh. Her lectures are very theoretical and she doesn't provide many examples. She also assumes you have a lot of prerequisite knowledge going into the course, and I certainly did not have some of that knowledge. I would NOT recommend taking this class if you don't have much coding experience. I had never used MATLAB before and had only taken CMSC131 before this class, and that set me back a lot from the get-go. However, she is very responsive to student concerns. She would respond to Piazza within ten minutes of any comment consistently, and she was very helpful when I needed to figure out how to even get started doing coding for mathematical problems like the ones in the homework assignments. The midterm exams were pretty fair, but there was a homework due the same night as the exam for both of them, which made it harder to study. The final, however, was considerably harder than either midterm. This class is extremely difficult without a lot of experience in both math and computer science, so I definitely would not recommend taking it until you've taken several classes in both.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-21T22:46:05.396674Z'}], 'name': 'Maria Cameron', 'slug': 'cameron_maria'}, {'courses': ['RDEV635', 'RDEV690', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV690', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV690'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Maria Day-Marshall', 'slug': 'day-marshall'}, {'courses': ['SPAN203', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN318', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN316'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Maria Gomez-Martin', 'slug': 'gomez-martin'}]
[{'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN316', 'SPAN362', 'SPAN359A', 'SPAN301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Maria Monsalve', 'slug': 'monsalve'}, {'courses': ['LING819P', 'LING678', 'LING262', 'LING659M', 'LING888', 'LING678B', 'LING819M', 'LING611', 'LING888', 'LING888', 'LING819E', 'LING888', 'LING262', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Maria Polinsky', 'slug': 'polinsky'}, {'courses': ['EDCI666', 'EDCI660', 'EDCI663', 'EDCI685', 'EDCI463', 'EDCI661', 'EDCI769', 'EDCI788C', 'TLPL650', 'TLPL788I', 'TLPL645', 'TLPL651'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mariam Dreher', 'slug': 'dreher_mariam'}, {'courses': ['FMSC383', 'FMSC498A', 'FMSC730', 'FMSC410', 'HIST619G', 'PHSC401', 'FMSC310', 'FMSC789'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marian Jones', 'slug': 'jones_marian'}, {'courses': ['RUSS204', 'RUSS303', 'RUSS361', 'RUSS221', 'RUSS298L', 'RUSS439L', 'RUSS203', 'RUSS439A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marianna Landa', 'slug': 'landa_marianna'}, {'courses': ['ENGL245', 'ENGL468M', 'ENGL329P', 'ENGL329E', 'ENGL329J', 'FILM302', 'ENGL329D', 'CMLT245', 'FILM359M', 'FILM359P', 'FILM359E', 'FILM345', 'ENGL329Q', 'FILM359V', 'CINE302', 'CINE359P', 'ENGL329P', 'CINE359E', 'ENGL329E', 'CINE345', 'ENGL329J'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marianne Conroy', 'course': 'ENGL245', 'review': "The class is definitely fun and you only need the powerpoints from lecture to ace the exams. No need to buy the book. Only reason it's missing one star is because of the essays assigned in discussion. Don't know why, but my exam essays received far more points than those in disccussion. I'd like to say it was my TA, but she was really nice. Regardless, this is a CORE that you will actually enjoy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-07-27T11:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marianne Conroy', 'course': None, 'review': 'I took this class because my friend who took it when Metcalf taught said it was really easy and interesting. I loved the movies we have watched, and the lectures are easy enough to sit through. The discussions are great as the TA is awesome. Grades are based on midterm, final, group project, and 2 papers. The topics for the papers are ridiculous, but other than that a very easy and fun class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-10T20:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marianne Conroy', 'course': 'ENGL329J', 'review': 'Terrible professor, for a film class, it is extremely boring. No motivation to attend. Plus, she is an unfair and excessively hard grader.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-16T20:43:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Marianne Conroy', 'course': 'ENGL329P', 'review': "Probably my least favorite professor I've had at this school. The class is about the films of Martin Scorsese, and she somehow found a way to make that boring. Lectures are almost unbearable to sit through. Her assignments also have very unreasonable requirements, and she grades like she expects us to be professional film critics. She just doesn't seem like she wants the best for her students. I think she only teaches elective classes, so there's really no reason to take anything with her.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-11-21T15:18:52.576026Z'}], 'name': 'Marianne Conroy', 'slug': 'conroy_marianne'}, {'courses': ['URSP810', 'URSP708', 'URSP606', 'URSP661'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marie Howland', 'slug': 'howland'}, {'courses': ['UMEI004', 'UMEI003', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI006', 'UMEI001', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI004', 'UMEI005', 'UMEI004'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marilena Draganescu', 'course': 'UMEI005', 'review': 'My professor put off 100percent effort in teaching us. She is a proficient teacher with great time management and skills.Classroom is full of different enjoyable class activities. Only students with poor time management and attitute will not handle the class. She strict and kind. Her classroom is well-structured and deciplined. Her students proved her teaching with great outcome.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-15T17:56:20.075831Z'}], 'name': 'Marilena Draganescu', 'slug': 'draganescu'}, {'courses': ['ANTH429A', 'ANTH429C', 'ANTH429B', 'SPHL402', 'ANTH221', 'PHSC402', 'ANTH429D', 'ANTH323', 'ANTH424'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marilyn London', 'slug': 'london'}, {'courses': ['CMSC723', 'CMSC422', 'INST735', 'LING723', 'CMSC828B', 'CMSC828I', 'CMSC421', 'CMSC470', 'CMSC848D'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marine Carpuat', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "She's okay, some things are a little confusing and the projects so far are acceptable. Sometimes her accents make things a little hard to understand. However, the slides are nice and clear, you just have to download them before hand and take notes while she teaches. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-21T22:17:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Marine Carpuat', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': 'Insanely generous professor. We had a dropped homework and PROJECT. Incredible!\r\n\r\nHowever, the lectures are unengaging and I found it faster and more effective just to review lecture slides.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-09T18:59:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Marine Carpuat', 'course': 'CMSC421', 'review': "The course was well planned. All projects were all public tests so you knew your grade when you turned it in. Lectures at times were unengaging. Recorded all lectures so you didn't have to attend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T18:22:08Z'}], 'name': 'Marine Carpuat', 'slug': 'carpuat'}, {'courses': ['ENME331', 'HONR288P', 'ENFP312', 'ENME332', 'BIOE331', 'ENFP201'], 'average_rating': 4.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marino diMarzo', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "I actually found DiMarzo's lectures very useful unlike the other reviews here. He really wants students to succeed in the class and is very receptive to student concerns. The midterms and final were very fair. If you did the review problems supplied by the professor before the midterms and finals you were very prepared for it. \n\r\nMy TA Daniel Bae was also extremely helpful in the studio periods, which basically involved solving example problems for the class. So many peopl skipped the studios but they were the most helpful part of the class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-22T15:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marino diMarzo', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': 'Lectures are not always the most useful material, but most can be learned from the homework. Exams are generally easy with high averages, also graded very leniently.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-07-29T12:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marino diMarzo', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "Lecture can be difficult to follow because his voice is pretty flat and the course itself has a fair share of derivations, but once he's done slogging through that he gets straight to what you actually need to know. He definitely knows what he is talking about and is very willing to help students.\n\r\nHomework can be pretty brutal, but the exams and labs are laughably easy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-19T14:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marino diMarzo', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': 'Great professor. He can make the material a lot easier to understand, and goes through solid examples to make the class more intuitive and applicable beyond the class. I only wish he taught the lecture as well as the discussion sections.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-23T10:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marino diMarzo', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': 'Probably my favorite professor at UMD. Can make heat transfer a fun class, yes some days are filled with boring derivations, but he keeps the class interesting. In studio is really where he really shines. He has more time to explain the topics and he really breaks down all of the concepts so they can be understood. On quizzes and exams if you have the right thought process but not the right numerical answer you will usually only lose one point if any as DiMarzo harps on knowing the principals behind your decision. Also, he never chose an overly complicated problem for the exams, quizzes or final. I really enjoyed having Dr. DiMarzo for this class he can be a pretty funny guy as well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-16T04:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marino diMarzo', 'course': 'HONR288P', 'review': 'This class is honestly ridiculous. He is VERY picky when it comes to grading. The rubric is basically his mood and I can tell you that earning an A in calc2 is a thousand times easier than this class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-20T02:33:11Z'}], 'name': 'Marino diMarzo', 'slug': 'dimarzo'}, {'courses': ['ENEE496', 'ENEE691', 'ENEE486', 'ENEE380', 'ENEE648D', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE692', 'ENEE486', 'ENEE648D', 'ENEE381', 'ENEE692', 'ENEE486'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mario Dagenais', 'slug': 'dagenais'}, {'courses': ['GEOL423'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marion Le Voyer', 'slug': 'voyer'}, {'courses': ['ARCH170', 'ARCH101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marisa Allen', 'slug': 'allen_marisa'}, {'courses': ['HESP624'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marissa Simpson', 'slug': 'simpson_marissa'}, {'courses': ['CMLT280', 'ENGL245', 'ENGL329T', 'FILM245', 'FILM359T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marit Knollmueller', 'slug': 'knollmueller'}, {'courses': ['PUAF712', 'PUAF716'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marita Brown', 'slug': 'brown_marita'}, {'courses': ['LARC265'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marita Roos', 'slug': 'roos'}, {'courses': ['BMGT451', 'BUMK715', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT350N', 'BMGT450', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT450', 'BMGT451', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT451', 'BMGT354', 'BMGT450'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT451', 'review': "Professor Bonavia is a two sided coin.\n\r\nOne one hand, she knows her material well. She's been in the industry and generally gives good examples that make understanding the material easier.\n\r\nHOWEVER, as a person, she is very self absorbed. You will learn everything about how she and her husband have a lot of money and how they like to spend it. She's also really anal about not using technology which is infuriating. We live in the 21st century and whether she likes it or not, there are many people who learn by taking notes on a laptop but because she doesn't like that, no laptops allowed in her class.\n\r\nOverall, I would not take her unless you're really passionate about Consumer Research.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-12T17:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT451', 'review': 'A real teacher that knows her material and teaches it well. Attendance taken every day and powerpoints are not online so you have to take notes. Class is interactive and if you are a marketing major it should be interesting material. She tells you 90% of the exam concepts the class before the test. You actually have to read 5 or 6 of the chapters in the book.\n\r\nAs a person she is a nice lady but really self obsessed. You will hear more about her personal life than you ever have from any of your teachers. I guarantee that. Strangely she prefers to be phone called rather than emailed. Pretty accessible and will work with you. Good teacher in the Smith School', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-12-19T09:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "As a TA she is very helpful. She makes every effort to make sure her students excel above those of the other TAs. She spells out exactly what she expects from every student, including the topic of each paragraph of the paper - something people in other sections struggle with. I highly recommend her as a TA, but I've heard horror stories of her as a teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-05T20:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'The way the class was structured was weird... she recorded herself giving the lecture with a projector. When we would tell her the slides were blurry because she was too far, she would disagree and not upload the class powerpoints.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-04T03:47:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Her lectures are GREAT and straight to the point. She's very experienced in the field and shares that rich information with us. She is great at listening to any concerns students might have. She does honestly care about her students and does want us to do good., \r\n\r\nPay attention to her lectures and take good notes, rarely read the textbook. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-05T23:27:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Professor B's lectures are really engaging and informative. She is extremely knowledgeable in the field and is an excellent professor. She is also very compassionate and wants students to do well. Definitely pay attention in class (really try to avoid missing lectures) and take good notes from the textbook. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T20:03:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT451', 'review': "SHE IS GOATED! Very knowledgable in her field, genuinely wants her students to succeed always there to answer any questions. Love her lectures, definitely got my money's worth from this class. Her lectures will take you far within the marketing industry! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-11T02:18:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Bonavia is really a solid professor. She's well-rounded and is beyond passionate about what she's teaching. The real-life examples that she uses in class make her lectures unforgettable. Her lectures are also really valuable because the weekly quizzes and exams will always ask questions on the examples she uses in class. \r\n\r\nOne thing that is slightly annoying are the in-class assignments she gives just because I don't really feel like it adds to my knowledge or help me grasp the concepts in any way.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-25T00:38:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT451', 'review': "One of the best professors that I have had at Smith. She is so knowledgeable and you can't help from learning so much from her. The class is set up extremely well, with weekly quizzes, no exams, and three individual projects throughout the semester that is based on what we learn. I rarely did any outside-of-class work other than the projects, and her lectures are engaging. The quizzes are very closely based on the lectures, so make sure you take good notes. You have to do facilitation once in the entire semester, but those are pretty painless and are just there to check your notes from the previous classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-30T19:38:55.165364Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Her weekly quizzes and videos are way too hard for no reason. They are timed and you actually stress about them. Her exams are challenging because you really need to understand the topics and there is just so much information to learn. The one good thing is there is no final and you only meet once a week. She's a very nice lady but come on its marketing, it should be fun!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-04-25T19:28:08.728602Z'}], 'name': 'Marjorie Bonavia', 'slug': 'bonavia'}, {'courses': ['BSCI398H', 'BSCI473', 'BSCI338B', 'BSCI106', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI361', 'BSCI338B', 'BSCI160', 'BSCI338B'], 'average_rating': 2.2381, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "HOLY CRAP! After being taught BSCI106 by this lady, I wanted to kill myself. I am a good student but don't expect to get a good grade if you are. It's all about sheer memorization in this class. \n\r\nNow her teaching style=sucky\r\nIf you have sleeping issues, her class is a sure cure for insomnia. It consists of her reading word for word off a powerpoint (which is poorly laid out). She does not engage students. In fact, I feel as if I did not pay for a teacher in this course. I paid for the powerpoints. \n\r\nWhat a waste of money!! I seriously do not know how this lady is allowed to teach here at UMD. Do yourself and the University a favor and do not take one of her classes. You'll be sorry you did.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-08-17T15:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "I thought it would be a good idea to take BSCI106 over the summer to get ahead with my classes, and is was def a good idea except for one thing, Marjorie Reaka. She is one of those teachers who cannot teach and expects you to know everything. She gave a great amount of biased information from her marine biology studies, which was very boring to say the least. She is a very boring person herself. Her lecture are very dry and she has no sense of humor. She does not help out her students and she does not care for her students. Honestly, maryland has her around so they can boost their research standings, as she is more of a researcher than she is a professor. She has a very deep monotone voice that can put the even most avid listener to sleep. Overall, to say it nicely, one of the worst decisions in my life was taking her class. Please do not waste your time. Oh btw, she doesn't curve... at all. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-20T00:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Her class was pretty boring. Especially since I had her in the morning. Her tests are solely based off of her powerpoints so make sure to pay attention to those. Reading the book definitely helps, but it isn't required to get a perfect score on her tests. Her tests are definitely some of the easiest compared to the other professors'.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-17T00:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "She was very boring and didn't work well with students concerns. It seemed like she could have known what she was talking about but she didn't convey any of it to the class. Avoid taking her at all costs. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-16T22:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Hands down. She is the best and easiest professor I have ever talk to or associate myself with. I had an average of 96.5 in the end and did not even try at all. she tries to make her exams trickery but does a bad job on it. IS TOO EASY. STRAIGHT UP FROM POWERPOINTS. PLS, DONT EVER READ DA TEXTBOOK. Guys igonore every comment below me and take her. you will never regret it. Promise you.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-08-25T12:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI338B', 'review': "Dr. Reaka knows the material extremely well, which means that this course covers ALL major marine animals from a billion years ago - which REALLY means that the lectures are very very dense and often contain personal diving stories. \r\nOnly about 20% of the class showed up to lectures because she posted her complete slides online. \r\nGrade-wise a B isn't difficult as long as you study for the STRAIGHTFORWARD midterm and cumulative final. There was an optional paper if you wanted to raise your grade - NOT extra credit, the weight of the midterm and final were decreased so that the paper would be like a third assignment. \r\nI would highly recommend this class - probably one of the easier bio courses.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-20T16:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "The good:\r\n1. Very open to questions, especially after class.\r\n2. Notices those who ask questions and try hard; this actually helps her determine your final grade. If you have 88% and have been trying very hard, she'll throw you a bone and give you the A.\r\n3. Exams are fair - if you've been attending lecture and paying attention, then you'll certainly get the A. \r\n4. Hands down, knows her stuff\n\r\nThe bad:\r\n1. Overly detailed lectures make studying a living hell. Make sure to approach her after class to sift through the crap and get the meat of the lecture. \r\n2. Beware: you'll know more about her days in Berkley and her Cornell-attending, lacrosse playing sons than you've ever wanted to. \r\n3. She's boring. VERY boring. \n\r\nOverall: avoid if you can, but don't be too bummed out if you get her. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-26T12:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "people aren't lying when they say she is boring. my notebook is filled with doodles just because I could not pay attention. She talks about random stuff during lecture and tests you on stuff entirely different. If you have to take her, she's not so so bad. Don't waste your time reading the book. Most test questions come from the lecture notes and the other questions come from out of no where. But the book probably wouldn't help you anyway. Also, make sure you do well in lab because it'll really pull your grade up in the end. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-23T16:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "I had a bad experience with Reaka as my bsci106 professor. She only responded to 1 out of my ~10 emails and her excuse at the end of the semester was that she never received any of my emails. She also said at the beginning of the semester that she was going to curve the class, but in the end, she decided not to. Well, she did curve 2 points but that doesn't help at all. 2 points is like a 0.02% additional to your grade. I needed 5 more points to get a B (had a 78.8%), but she refused. She is monotoned and is so boring. Avoid her if you can. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-22T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'The course content was appropriate and on topic and I did learn from My TA and lab section. However, I did not learn from the lecture portion of the course. the instructor went off topic a considerable amount and did not follow the syllabus that was given at the beginning of the semester. Only take her if you have to and there is no other choice.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-04T11:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Very very boring teacher who will put you to sleep. Not willing to cooperate with students to have review sessions or put lecture slides online. Tests are very confusing and made more difficult than they should be. Horrible professor do not take her. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-03-10T13:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Although her lectures may be dry, some are interesting and she really enjoys some of the lectures. I've seen other bsci106 tests and by far hers are the easiest. Tests are straight forward. No book reading is necessary; only lecture notes. I recommend going to class to hear the lectures - makes the class easier, but you can get the notes online.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-11-17T02:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Knows what she's talking about, but extremely boring. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-19T23:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI361', 'review': "Marjorie Reaka is so unbelievably boring. Incredibly boring. She is a very traditional lecturer, meaning her lectures are extremely bland and dry. It is so difficult to maintain focus during her lectures, she makes no effort to keep anyone engaged. \r\n\r\nWhen it comes to content, the lectures still suck. Her slides were almost always 100+ pages and filled to the brim with excessive text, images, and random/unimportant information. She makes it very difficult to differentiate between what the important points of each topic are and what is just extraneous information. She will spend a lot of unnecessary time describing examples and experiments in detail that are really not that relevant to the class. She was was never on schedule because she is not an effective or efficient lecturer in any single way. In essence: her lectures Suck. I never retained any piece of information from hearing her talk. Her slides are so difficult to follow; they're not concise, they're ugly, wordy, hard on the eyes (this seems like an unimportant thing to note, but there are SO many bright colors in her slides and overlapping texts and images--they're really hard to read and follow along with). A lot of times her lecturing would involve so much rambling that she wouldn't match up with her slides, causing her to stay on one slide for a long time and then skip ahead several slides. On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes she would fly through the slides super quickly. I cannot emphasize how bad these lectures were, I did not learn a thing from them.\r\n\r\nI would personally recommend pulling up her lecture slides on your own laptop/tablet during the class and just go through that at your own pace. Like I said, the slides aren't easy to decipher and synthesize, but her teaching doesn't contribute in any single way. I would just take note of any examples that she Really emphasizes in class, she will occasionally say what concepts are really important to remember. Her slides are also pulled straight from the textbook (some of the topics were altered), but the textbook is pretty useless too. The textbook is full of even more examples, but it might be useful to use as a way to explain some concepts better than Reaka's slides do. I didn't ever use the textbook though (for lecture, I did use it for discussion). I downloaded the textbook off of Libgen--don't buy it. The textbook was only useful in the sense that it had the answer key for all of the textbook questions that were assignments for discussion. \r\n\r\nReaka is gonna say that her exams mostly cover broad concepts and that you mostly need to know general concepts. That's a lie. Her exams are specific, I really had to study for them. All of the information IS in the slides, which is one good thing, but I would really review and go through all of the content in the slides, because her exams are challenging. She will usually mention a few things to focus your studying on for each exam, which is useful. I had two midterms for this class and the final was (mostly) not cumulative. It had a few questions on topics that were tested on the midterms, but it was mostly testing on the last third of the course. The only grades in the class are the exams and the discussion assignments, which for my class (Fall 2021) were twenty points each and super, super easy. I got 100% on every single discussion assignment (but this is dependent on your TA) and I didn't need to attend discussion to be able to do the questions. Also, the assignments I had were barely tied to lecture and not helpful for learning the content in any way.\r\n\r\nReaka is nice, she's just boring and a bad lecturer. She will kindly answer any questions (but not necessarily well) and will recognize the students that are more engaged in class/put in more effort. I wish I liked her more, but I just hated that class. It's not the end of the world if she's your professor, but she's not ideal (however, I don't know who else teaches BSCI361). I think she was an awful professor, but if you put in some work, it's not impossible to do well in that class. I like ecology, it's part of my major, but holy hell did she make it boring.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-15T16:52:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': "This professor is probably the worst professor teaching at UMD. Her slides are filled with text that doesn't even make sense. I cannot begin to explain how horrible trying to understand what is on her slides is. Do not take this professor if you have other options.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-04-20T01:30:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'TERRIBLE PROFESSOR. do not take. exams are extremely unfair. 0/5 rating. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T01:07:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Good fucking lord. \r\nI thought I had my fair share of bad teachers in high school and MAN was I wrong. I attended two lectures of this class ever because there is literally NO POINT in attending lecture. Her ENTIRE lecture is just her reading off a powerpoint slide WORD FOR WORD with incoherent rambling mixed in. Half the time she won\'t tell you ways to remember them but rather go on some completely unrelated and irrelevant tangent. If you ever wonder why communications is a gen ed requirement, the average Reaka lecture is your answer. You can get a rock fuckin solid 10 hours of sleep the night before one of her lectures and you will still nod off. Shit, she should stop being a professor and be an anethesiologist so she be paid for putting people to sleep on purpose. Shit dude, I am more invested in writing this dumbass fucking review than I was in this class for the entirety of the semester. You will gain nothing from her lectures. You don\'t even have to be there for the first lecture because they. are. all. the. same.\r\n\r\nSo ok, she reads her powerpoints out loud. So what? Well, here\'s the kicker. In my last year of high school, I downloaded some of my textbooks because covid and whatnot. HER SLIDES FOR ONE TOPIC ARE BIGGER THAN A FUCKING TEXTBOOK. Now, to be fair, images take up more space than text, but look, on average, this shit is roughly 60 to 70 slides long. It takes multiple lectures to get through one topic. The individual slides look like shitposts for a biology meme group and are crammed with the skimmings of a wikipedia article. As for her tests, she will usually release a "study guide" a few days before the test. Your best bet is to study from the slides or the study guide by writing copious notes on whatever is mentioned. It\'s not just that she is a horrible lecturer, she can\'t be bothered to make the material remotely learnable. Heck, I don\'t think she even tries to cut out shit that\'s not relevant. \r\n\r\nSo overall, you may notice other reviews that say you have to work hard to earn an A in this class. If you do things right and be very smart about what you study, it\'s almost like an async class. But I\'ll be honest, it\'s not worth your time. You will walk away from this class with less than you started, because you will have spent your sanity studying whether or not a certain species of bacteria grows a second anus before or after it grows a mouth because she mentioned it in half a sentence on her slide on a whim.\r\n\r\nDogshit "professor" and I hope I never take a class with her again. Don\'t take this class, enjoy college.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-13T04:15:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': 'Do not recommend. Her lecture is pretty boring. The final exam weights too much. She drops 1 midterm. Her exams are short but hard and detailed. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-25T17:21:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': "This is class EXTREMELY BORING. Like all the other reviews have said, she literally reads from the slides word for word. There is absolutely no attempt in order to keep students engaged in the activity. So I wouldn't recommend students, especially people new to biology to take this class. However, if there aren't any other teachers available, here are some major tips to help you succeed. \r\n1. There is a LOT of information in this course, so make sure you stay organized and understand the general ideas of the topics.\r\n2. She points out a lot of examples in class that are also on the PowerPoint slides. These are vital pieces of information, as she very often cherrypicks one of those examples and puts them on a test.\r\n3. Exams require a lot of understanding and critical thinking. Many questions are full of words that you have to be able to decipher like a secret code. Don't overthink the questions.\r\nThis class requires time and effort in order to earn an A, but it isn't hard to pass since the weight of tests is smaller in comparison to other classes. Best of luck to future students.\r\n-", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-27T17:04:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI160', 'review': "IGNORE the reviews take Reaka. Class is so easy and she's nice and willing to help. Barely studied and got an A. Used lectures to de-stress and look at cool animal pictures. Have to say her graphic design skills need some work. Yellow on a blue gradient background is not the move but this class was a fun time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-12T22:31:49.022580Z'}, {'professor': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'course': 'BSCI338B', 'review': 'Dr. Reaka is a very knowledgeable person when it comes to this course. She could talk for hours about the topics, and more which is the issue with her teaching. She’s one of those great person, but not so great teachers.\r\n\r\nShe talks on and on about other bio material not relevant to the course and go on tangents a lot. Lots of ecology based talk and evolution to know about the time periods. We would spend so much time on one single slide for 10 minutes but then breeze through a bunch of others. Towards the end of the semester she would skip parts of lectures and say “we will cover these in a later lecture”, but when we got to the later lecture she skipped it all claiming we already covered it. This was due to us being 2-3 lectures behind because of how slow paced she talks and we had to rush through 3 whole lectures in 75 minutes skipping lots of info. That being said, her exams aren’t hard, but there is WAY TOO MUCH content covered in this course to study for exams. She chooses certain topics that would be easy for the midterms, but you wouldn’t focus on them because you have so much other content to worry about. Not only that, but on midterms she claimed she would NEVER trick us. She added lots of trick questions on the second midterm by having lengthy answers which were correct except for 1 word in the end. \r\n\r\nStudy hard and you can do fine, but this is not at all marine biology it is more like her marine ecology class instead. We didn’t get to any real marine bio until the last third of the class sadly.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-13T05:34:58.574389Z'}], 'name': 'Marjorie Reaka', 'slug': 'reaka'}, {'courses': ['ENCE688R', 'ENSE622', 'ENES489P', 'ENSE623', 'ENCE353', 'ENPM642', 'ENPM643', 'ENSE799', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE688P', 'ENCE353', 'ENCE688P', 'ENCE353', 'ENCE688P', 'ENCE353', 'ENCE688P', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENCE353'], 'average_rating': 2.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Austin', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': "Cons:\r\n-Can't teach\r\n-Bad attitude\r\n-Does not know how to use a PC\n\r\nPros:\r\n-Easy tests/homework assignments\n\n\r\nTry to study Java before you start taking this class. The course goes very very fast. \n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-24T01:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Austin', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': "Austin is a nice guy and he can be very funny. He can come across as grumpy or arrogant in class some times but he is usually just kidding. \n\r\nHis lectures can be very interesting but he doesn't teach you all you need to know about programing. He makes you figure it out on your own. After all, isn't this what engineers are supposed to do? Your best bet is to either use the internet and look up how things work or go see him in his office. I heard he is very helpful but make sure you have some work to show. \n\r\nThe first exam is fairly easy if you get some practice exams but don't give up on java because you did well on the first exam. The final is a killer but if you learn java (do the homework yourself, not your comp. sci. friend) and look at the diagrams in his notes you should get an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T19:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Austin', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': 'Austin is a nice guy, and is very flexible with his office hours, but the lectures are often boring, and do not really reflect what is on the homework, but are necessary for exam preparation (especially the ones that are open notes). The homeworks are extremely long and complicated, it is useful to know somebody that is a computer science major, especially if its your first exposure to programing. \r\nThe exams are very similar to the old ones. He is always looking for a very specific answer, often just one word in the answer, for full credit. The diagrams he draws on the board are crucial, most of them he will want you to replicate on the exams. \n\r\nAnd lastly, he loves macs.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-08T17:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Austin', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': "Not the most amazing teacher I've ever had. The tests are almost identical to past exams, which are in the course reader (which is now 40 bucks!). Material isn't too hard, but can be tricky if it's your first exposure to it (like it was for me) because he doesn't always explain things very well. \r\nAnother thing you should know about him is that he's practically a walking, talking Mac advertisement. If you're a PC person (like me), he doesn't even know how to help you sometimes, much less be willing to. \r\nClass is alright, but I can't say the same for him.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-06T14:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Austin', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': "overall mediocre teaching; lecture wasn't always helpful for homework and exams. However, Austin is usually lenient in grading and tends to give VERY similar exams from year to year (if not identical), so study the old exams that he includes in the blue course reader and you will be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-20T02:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Austin', 'course': 'ENCE200', 'review': 'the class really wasnt that hard, although he is literally no help to anyone on the homework assignments. the class reader he uses may seem like its not worth 30 bucks, but it actually is. the book contains copies of past exams that he gave. study and master those exams and you will do well. also network with people on the homework.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-11T04:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Austin', 'course': 'ENCE353', 'review': "This class was one of the most difficult classes I have ever taken. The only way to survive is to utilize ALL of the office hours. Exams are take at home, 12 hour, open-note. The problems are hard. There is a lot of deriving equations and using a hybridized form of linear algebra and calculus. Austin's class is not based on ENES220. All homework and exams have two types of problems. Half of them are usually based on the lecture material, but the other half is not taught... you have to figure it out yourself.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T14:22:31Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Austin', 'slug': 'austin'}, {'courses': ['PLSC305', 'PLSC410', 'PLSC789F', 'PLSC618', 'LARC389', 'PLSC205', 'PLSC389', 'INAG107', 'PLSC489P', 'PLSC608T', 'PLSC399', 'ENSP400', 'ENSP250', 'PLSC250', 'ENSP400', 'LARC389', 'PLSC205', 'PLSC389', 'PLSC608T', 'ENSP250', 'PLSC250', 'ENSP400', 'LARC389', 'PLSC205', 'PLSC389', 'PLSC608T'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Carroll', 'course': 'ENSP250', 'review': 'While I believe that Dr. Carroll knows a ton about his subject, he is not an effective professor. I only had his class over zoom but he put in little to no effort in changin the way he taught this class to make it more interesting over zoom. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-06-16T22:04:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Carroll', 'course': 'ENSP250', 'review': 'Mr. Carroll was one of the most thought provoking and enlightening professors I have had during my time at the University of Maryland. He is very knowledgeable on the topic of plant biology and I thoroughly enjoyed this course. I would highly recommend this professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-10-26T01:49:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Carroll', 'course': 'PLSC205', 'review': "Dr. Carroll is a very well-intended and knowledgeable professor. Students that expect the easy A and don't want to show up will obviously fail. This is a 4 credit lab that I took to satisfy my Natural Science Lab credit. While professor Carroll is a good and understanding professor, the course material is quite intense and rigorous. Despite few students, even ones in the major struggled. The material is very dense, but you learn a lot. Overall this is not the worst gen ed lab, and Dr. Carroll does his best. Show up to class and he will show up for you.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-21T02:42:20.344060Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Carroll', 'slug': 'carroll_mark'}, {'courses': ['JOUR412', 'JOUR716', 'JOUR360', 'JOUR610', 'HONR239J', 'JOUR363', 'JOUR289P', 'JOUR661', 'AMST498Z', 'AMST629Z', 'JOUR660', 'JOUR361', 'JOUR663', 'JOUR284', 'JOUR459I', 'JOUR779I', 'JOUR284', 'JOUR284', 'JOUR459I', 'JOUR779I', 'JOUR284', 'JOUR360', 'JOUR284', 'JOUR610'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Feldstein', 'course': 'HONR239J', 'review': "It's really cool that he worked in the field he teaches. He brings some guests speakers in who are pretty cool as well. The class has a bit of reading every week but it's not hard.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-10-10T23:01:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Feldstein', 'course': 'HONR239J', 'review': "He's an interesting professor and I learned some pretty cool content in the class--even though I'm not a journalism major, I was tempted to study the field because of the class! It was also nice that the seminar was small; I learned everyone's name by the end of the semester, and it felt very personal and nice.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-27T16:19:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Feldstein', 'course': 'JOUR289P', 'review': "I'm not even a journalism major, but this was probably one of the most interesting classes I've taken at UMD. Prof Feldstein was really chill and understanding (not to mention, he has a ton of cool experiences as a journalist to share w/ the class). If you don't mind the occasional writing assignment (which weren't even that difficult if you took notes on the short articles/readings), take the class--you might enjoy it more than you think.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T07:47:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Feldstein', 'course': 'JOUR284', 'review': "this class was really interesting and a nice break from all of the other stem classes i had to take. the prof is really chill (sometimes he's unorganized and changes up the syllabus but when he does do that he sends out an announcement to let everyone know) and has super cool stories to tell. the lectures are very engaging and the discussions were always rly good, considering this class was completely online. the ta was strict but if you emailed him asking for feedback, he took his time to give thorough and meaningful comments about where you went wrong in your paper, what you can do to improve next time, and why he graded your paper the way he did. his grading was fair (sometimes a little harsh), but it's expected for a class of this level. to do really well in this class, all you have to do is read the articles posted, participate in lecture, and be able to take constructive feedback. the discussions were my favorite part! would definitely take this class again. if you're a stem major, this is a great i-series credit that lets you learn about other really cool and relevant stuff going on!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-29T18:17:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Feldstein', 'course': 'JOUR284', 'review': 'Find another gen ed! This class was a disaster. Although I took it online during the pandemic, it was extremely disorganized and probably would be disorganized in person as well. Prof. Feldstein changed the syllabus several times, usually giving notice but also too late that the class had already done the readings/assignments. Prof. Feldstein was rude to students, often shutting off their microphones on Zoom while they were in the middle of speaking because he did not want to hear it or had something else to say. The amount of reading for homework needed to be done for this class was outrageous and it was as if he assumed his class was the only class we were all taking. He gave "pop quizzes" on these readings about once a week, if not twice. There was an essay due the right before class began again after spring break (which was still break) and a pop quiz the next morning on the first day back of classes.The TA graded our essays and presentations, and although it was possible to do well, the majority of the class usually didn\'t. It was almost as if there was no way to do the assignments correctly. The final paper was worth 600 points which was ridiculous for a 200 level journalism gen ed. The majority of the class was extremely frustrated throughout the entire semester and it is unfortunate because the material we learned was actually interesting. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-24T16:02:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Feldstein', 'course': 'JOUR284', 'review': 'Feldstein was very unprepared and unprofessional with teaching this course in an online format. He had no accommodations for students who required extra time on quizzes and was constantly changing the syllabus because he couldn’t decisively make up his mind on what topic to cover for the day. Every student is scheduled for a student presentation during class and some will be unlucky to have to prepare their presentation all of a sudden with little notice because Feldstein changed the order in the schedule. If you miss class, you were required to write an additional 300 word essay on the assigned readings for the day while the people in class just took 5-10 question easy pop quizzes. It was as if to punish you for being absent even if you couldn’t help it because you were sick or observing a religious holiday.\r\nWhen students were called to give their comments or speak in class, Feldstein’s response back would just be an “Okay,” “Alright,” or “Thank you,” and move on to the next person. So pretty much, this course was reading numerous articles before class and then sitting for an hour to give your quick 2 cents on your thoughts with the cycle repeating over and over. \r\nHe and his TA do the bare minimum for letting the class know each of their own specific and grading criteria. For example, the average grades for writing assignments and the midterm were so low because the TA immediately docked all points if a student mentioned a subject that was discussed in class but did not specifically word or state it how the the TA would have liked it to be. Grading on essays was usually agreeable because you were either a good writer or not. But overall , grading seemed quite subjective and Feldstein didn’t provide clear measurements for how our work would be evaluated. \r\nThe course had interesting topics but unless you like journalism or like to write, the stress of this class was incredibly unnecessary for a general ed credit. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-06-15T02:52:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Feldstein', 'course': 'JOUR360', 'review': "I have loved Professor Feldstein's class. Definitely a more difficult grader but he is always willing to adjust the syllabus and give you more time on any assignment if you ask for it. His experience in the field really contributes well to his teaching, and he is very patient and willing to spend more time than he allotted for to make sure we understand the material. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-09T17:26:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Feldstein', 'course': 'JOUR284', 'review': 'Lots of readings, lots of quizzes, but they help cushion your grade for the papers. Professor Feldstein has lots of knowledge to share from being in the business, but also makes lectures engaging and interesting! Participation is a big chunk of your grade, but the discussions are chill and open-ended. I loved this class, Feldstein, and TA Ivy!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T21:30:38.571746Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Feldstein', 'course': 'JOUR284', 'review': "Don't let the online reviews scare you. This professor is incredible when his class is taken in person. He's very knowledgeable and loves when students participate. He has tons and tons of interesting stories to add on to the already very interesting course material. There are daily quizzes, but they're incredibly easy and grade boosting as long as you do the readings. Participation is key, though, and I wouldn't recommend this class to shyer students. Your participation is around a third of your grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-14T01:10:59.897929Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Feldstein', 'slug': 'feldstein'}, {'courses': ['ENGL391', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL398A'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Fitzgerald', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Taken over a winter semester.\r\n\r\nThere were three core assignments (100pts) all split over the duration of the semester, with small (1-10pt) tasks thrown in. He's a super light grader; If you submitted something, you got a passing grade on it.\r\n\r\nThere were plenty of sections, and a lot of work for him to grade, yet he managed to provide real feedback on papers and writing discussions within ~1-2 days (even over the weekend). Fast response to emails as well. Overall, really a great guy, I would 100% take him again in a heartbeat. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-19T19:26:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fitzgerald', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'Avoid this professor if you can! Firstly he takes forever to grade, I would often be waiting 2 weeks or more for feedback on assignments. Secondly, he does not tell you why he takes certain points off, he just does under the guise of a "flexible rubric". Thirdly, this course has insane amounts of work, compared to other FSPW classes my friends are taking. Fourthly, the content of the course is absolutely awful in general, it\'s just reading about a bunch of spoiled rich people prance about the world living rich people fantasies, and is completely insufferable to read about constantly. DO NOT TAKE THIS ENGL391 WITH HIM.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-04-20T03:49:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fitzgerald', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'This professor talks so slow it makes me want to put him on 2x speed in real life. He appears to wing every class and does not actually have a formal plan. He gives students undescriptive rubrics and expects them to succeed. Does not offer one on one help with your writing and will not work with students on personal improvement. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-13T20:52:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fitzgerald', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'There was little to no formal direction with each assignment, so many of them consisted of guessing what he was looking for. He would not work one-on-one with students, and his feedback on papers was cryptic and usually boiled down to buzzwords. He sometimes lashed out at students during lectures for asking questions. This course was intended to be a general/argumentative writing course, and he changed the topic to travel writing without any indication of this during course registration. I would not recommend risking it with this professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-09T03:35:40.615524Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fitzgerald', 'course': 'ENGL398A', 'review': "If you're artsy and don't want to take a professional writing course that's stale, take this class. His lectures are definitely easy to be distracted from and class is skippable at times. All you have to do is 3 major assignments, write 2 paragraphs about a reading passage every week and do a few peer reviews that require low effort. You get enough time to turn in assignments and he's flexible in terms of turning in assignments late and extending work. \r\n\r\nClass discussions are nice discussions about art that you can follow and contribute to and I can say my writing has improved from this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-03T01:53:59.392569Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Fitzgerald', 'slug': 'fitzgerald'}, {'courses': ['ENGL391H', 'ENGL398L', 'ARHU158B', 'ENGL391', 'ARHU158O', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL388V', 'HHUM205', 'ENGL391H', 'ENGL398L', 'ENGL391H', 'ENGL398L', 'ENGL391H', 'ENGL398L', 'ARHU158G', 'ENGL391H', 'ENGL398L'], 'average_rating': 4.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': "LOVE PROFESSOR FORRESTER! Do yourself a favor and take him! He is one of the best, most receptive, caring and professional teachers out there. \r\nHe's a very fair grader, really cares about his students and goes the extra mile. Do the rewrites and go to office hours if you're stuck. He is extremely approachable and helpful during office hours! HE'S THE MAN. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-27T00:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': "These 5 star reviews are no joke. Take this class. It's probably the best version of junior English available.\n\r\nIt's a class for all majors, but I seriously found it useful, even as a science major. Forrester makes it super bearable, is one of the nicest teachers I've had at UMD, and has a sense of humor. Loved taking this class. The only regret I had is that all of the writing assignments coincided with my exam days (just my luck) - but one time he even pushed back a due date to Wednesday because several people in my bio class had an exam that Monday. SUCHHH a nice guy.\n\r\nHe's kind of picky/particular, but he gives a ton of helpful feedback. And as long as you fix exactly what he tells you to, he gives you an A on rewrites.\n\r\nYou have to put in work, but it really wasn't too bad. I never went to office hours or spent too long on papers (whoops) and still got B+'s and A's on my papers. A's on papers are hard to get, but A's in the class are handed out generously, so don't be discouraged if you get like a B on 3 papers or something - DO THE REWRITES THOUGH.\n\r\nAnyway, Mark is literally the man. Do yourself a favor and take him, you'll enjoy this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-29T10:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL398L', 'review': "Mark is an excellent professor and really cares about his students! You have to have some interest in the humanities (movies, literature, history, languages, etc.) to truly appreciate the class, but overall his grading is fair and he's committed to making sure your writing is the best it can be.\n\r\nYou'll learn how to write more concisely and how to sustain an argument through a long paper, as well as how to write a resume, cover letter, grad school app essay/personal statement, etc.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-06-16T21:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': "I LOVED Professional Writing with Mark. I learned so much from this class, and I'm so glad I took it with him. \n\r\nThe class isn't easy, but you will learn so much if you actually put in the work and try to do well on the papers. Take advantage of the rewrites, and DEFINITELY go to his office hours. I think that's the main reason I got an A, is because I went to his office hours repeatedly for help, and to ask questions on how I could improve. \n\r\nHe's a funny guy, and class discussion are engaging. I would definitely recommend taking professional writing with him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-05T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': "Great professor, especially for a mandatory course. Take the H-version and knock it out; it's not a complete cake-walk, but it's not too hard.\n\r\nForrester is a great teacher who takes time to connect with his students, and is always available for extra help. He is a tough grader, but gives re-writes where you can usually get an A just by changing exactly what he said was wrong on the original. All in all, a great professor for a course that most of us would not take if we had a choice.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-19T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': "Forrester is great. Advanced Comp is a pain, but he made it bearable. He's a very kind man who genuinely wants his students to learn, and will help students in any way he can. I'm SO glad I took the honors version of this class-i can't imagine it was harder than the regular version, and since it's such a group-based course, having other honors kids was clutch. Forrester is picky about grammar, formatting, etc, but that's what the class is about and you learn a ton about professional writing. Absolutely would recommend this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-10T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Really swell guy,, i followed the reviews posted by these guys below and i dont regret it. He's a tough grader yes, but he is fair,,take him..always willing to help,, did i say he was a swell guy?", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-22T11:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': "I would definitely recommend taking Junior English with Professor Forrester. He is, however, a tough grader, so I recommend editing/reviewing any of the papers before turning it in. Certain little things (like font serif/color) could cost you valuable brownie points. \r\nThe resume/cover letter workshop is extremely helpful, and because it is in the beginning of the year, it will definitely help you as you search for jobs/internships during fall semester. \r\nThere are also a series of papers that feeds into a larger proposal. However, you can choose the topic as well as your partners, so make sure you choose something you're genuinely interested about!\r\nHe is a fair, subtly funny professor who you will come to like more as the year progresses!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-12T21:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': "This was an excellent class, and not nearly as scary as it looks from the syllabus so don't drop after the first day! Professional writing classes are notoriously dull, but he did a good job keeping the class moving and I actually feel like I learned something. Assignments are not difficult, and the final paper comes together pretty easily because of the way he structured the course. Funny guy, too!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-02T14:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "I absolutely love Mark! Not only he is an incredibly nice guy, he is also very funny in a subtle way. He is invested in his students and in English, and he is always more than willing to help you perform to the best of your ability in his class. And he does learn your name quickly and is personable. All-around great guy, great class...he tends not to give A's on assignments that often, but I like him so much that I can't hold that against him! Would highly recommend taking this class with him for your Junior English. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-08T19:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "The class expectations are outlined extremely well in his syllabus. Just do the work and you'll get the grade you expect. He's somewhat of a tough grader when it comes to all the papers, but only because he wants you to actually try and not BS the work. Real nice guy, but talks forever. Easy class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-08-29T15:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL398L', 'review': 'Very nice and funny guy. Easy to talk to. Assignments not too difficult, he lets you pretty much pick whatever topic you want. Grading is pretty consistent. Good professor for JuniorEnglish.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-17T01:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "I really enjoyed this class. You have to do a career portfolio, which includes a cover letter, a resume, and a personal statement, which can come in really handy for graduate programs. The rest of the course is devoted to coming up and writing about with a proposal to a problem that you could help solve. \n\r\nHe expects good work, but doesn't set the bar so high that it's impossible. You can tell that he enjoys teaching English and that he knows what he's talking about. He's super nice, learns your name very fast, and is readily available if you need to get in touch with him. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-30T18:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL398L', 'review': "I was expecting to hate my professional writing class, but it was one of the best classes I've taken. There are a couple of big assignments due throughout the semester leading up to the final paper. The paper can be about anything you want, and he grades fairly for all the assignments. He also allows rewrites for a couple of them, but as long as you put in some effort you shouldn't have to do the rewrites. The highest grade he gives is a 95% but for final grades, a 92% is an A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-21T00:30:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Best English professor ever. Assignments are reasonable and enough time is given to finish them. He doesn't grade harshly either and wants you to succeed. He realizes everyone is a junior/senior and that we're lazy so he actually makes class fun and not stressful. All assignments are connected and are about the same topic. They lead up to the final paper which combines all the work you already did throughout the semester. Most papers aren't more than two pages, last paper is around 10. He's not strict about page or word count either. Haven't gotten below a 95% on anything", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-11-13T01:18:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': 'Professor Forrester is a great instructor and a great person in general. He is clearly passionate about his job and wants students to learn.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-11T19:48:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': 'Mark is a great English teacher. He has fair expectations, and encourages to students improve their writing while keeping their own style. I enjoyed how Mark creates a lot of discussions during lecture. The discussions keep everyone engaged, and help everyone stay focused.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-06-08T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': 'The goat himself. Honestly such a nice, caring individual who took the time and effort to help us develop different styles of writing. Many of his lectures regarding different writing topics were also quite engaging and informative. We also did a variety of in-class activities including student led discussions, and overall the diversity of coursework made this class interesting over the entire semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T16:25:21.765458Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391H', 'review': 'Absolute legend. Really nice guy, super understanding and encouraging, and a light grader. He really does make an effort to help students improve their writing, and even though the class itself may not be the most interesting he definitely does his part. There is a good amount of work (not particularly hard, just frequent), but this seems to be one of the easier professional writing classes that are available. If you get a chance, Forrester is a great guy and the class is easy. Highly recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-27T02:55:26.602287Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Forrester', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "One of the best professors I've had at UMD so far. Incredibly helpful and understanding. He explains all assignments clearly and gives plenty of examples of what he's looking for. If I could I'd take another one of his classes just for fun.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-11T16:58:25.234220Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Forrester', 'slug': 'forrester'}, {'courses': ['STAT798F', 'STAT798E', 'STAT600', 'STAT601', 'STAT818E', 'STAT818C', 'STAT410', 'STAT818S', 'SURV410', 'STAT818D', 'STAT650', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SPHL610'], 'average_rating': 1.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Freidlin', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "He is not the best teacher. He just write on the board. He does not follow the book. He gives quizzes however when he realizes that everyone did poorly on the first one, he made the quizzes into take home quizzes. His reviews for midterm and final are not helpful at all. However He is not unreasonable. He is very helpful and also He is not a harsh grader. He didn't not fail anyone on the midterm. He allows a formula sheet on the final so it is not that bad. His final and midterm are very much like his take home quizzes and homework. If you know how to do the take home quizzes and homework, you should be fine in the exam and final. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-16T00:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Freidlin', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "Avoid this professor if possible. He does not use electronic devices, all his material is handwritten, make terrible mistakes all the time, etc, etc. He teaches a concept closely related to Markov Chain before introducing what random variable is. He also has very, very high expectations for students (though he put little effort on helping students meet his standards), so the problems he gives are not solvable if you only look at the textbook and his notes (we have a student pursuing her Ph.D., even she needs to google when doing the hw problems). He could not explain the concepts clearly as well. Everyone is struggling, All in all, don't. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-05-23T23:22:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Freidlin', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "Incredibly difficult class and was definitely treated more as a graduate course than something usually taught in undergrand. Things were constantly wrong in the notes and were never fixed, leaving students vulnerable to many mistakes on the exams which had averages in the 40's. I ended up with a B- in the end and I really don't know how, course was near impossible. No electronic presence at all for the course, spelling errors on our official syllabus. Very very disorganized and not to mention the fact that he most times doesn't explain the necessary precursors to the content he's going into. Jumped straight into random walks and brownian motion before even touching distributions like the exponential and poisson. Don't take his courses, they're a living nightmare.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-01-12T04:46:35Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Freidlin', 'slug': 'freidlin'}, {'courses': ['ENME440', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'ENME808E', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'ENME743', 'GEMS496', 'ENME472', 'GEMS497', 'ENME392', 'ENME440', 'ENME743'], 'average_rating': 1.8182, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'Weak professor. He has been consistently behind in lecture meaning we need to learn how to do most of the HW on our own then have him go over it the following week. Only upside is that for my class each lecture was streamed and saved so we could access it later.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-04-04T16:08:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'Dr. Fuge is a really interesting professor and extremely friendly. This class is very difficult but he does his best to explain the material. He is definitely better than most of the other stat professors in the department in my opinion.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-23T19:48:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "One of the more poorly set-up classes I've taken. Not the best teaching style to try and implement in an online environment. Maybe he is better in person, but it was hard to understand these concepts over Zoom.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-13T16:34:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Possibly the worst setup class taken, ever. I was awfully surprised at the lack of organization and support. At least the TA's and TF's are good. \r\nDr. Fuge is friendly, helpful at times, but goes on way too many tangents that can lead to more confusion. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-19T00:29:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'This was baaaaad. Asynchronous time made students even more confused and feedback was ignored. The averages on our exams were well below passing and I learned very little this semester.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-02T04:26:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'This is by far the worst course I’ve taken at UMD. The professors are incompetent, constantly retracting their own statements and overall a complete disgrace to the university. The course layout is awful and inefficient. We are expected to watch all lecture videos and do homework before coming to class which begs the question, Why even come to class? Furthermore the professors instruct us to asks further questions on Piazza, which they have frequently neglected to answers for multiple days on pressing issues. Cuckier is frequently wrong in his demonstrations which only further confuses students, while Fuge insults is by only asking for “high level questions” Lastly, no one can ever seem to give a straight answer without having to “confer” which in other words means they will never tell you the answer and are dodging the question. The worst part of all is the use of prarie learn. Each question must be completed twice to get full credit but if a student doesn’t complete one single part of a question, they have no way of earning any points on the second attempt. Furthermore the exams use instant feedback which i will admit is nice, but the professors don’t even bother with partial credit which destroys all hope of earning credit for displaying what you know.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-10T22:30:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "I really wish I could give zero stars for this, but I can't. This course allowed me to get a glimpse of what Hell actually looks like. There is no organization for this class. This semester was a flipped classroom setting which was just awful. Many of the homework processes that they show in class are wrong, but Fuge will deny that it's wrong. The exams were online and there was no partial credit. The averages on the exams were around a D every time, and there are too many long questions on the exams for the small amount of time given. Also, if you ask a question through Piazza or via email you won't get a response ever or you have to wait 3-5 business days. I believe that this course was meant to set students up for failure. Welcome to Hell if you're going to take this course.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-13T14:52:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "They were delusional to believe that there setup for the course was good. Horrendous setup. Fuge seems like a nice guy in person, but the approach for this class was terrible. \r\nThis class should have doubled for Matlab credit given how heavily we had to use it. So if you ain't have a clue to use it, you're out of luck.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-22T03:50:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Nice Professor, patient and will answer questions - but the course layout for his class is really bad. For example, if going over a new topic he doesn't give it a name and kinda just dives into describing how it works. So it never really feels like the lessons had a beginning middle or end. It feels kind of like he just talks at you.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-16T18:15:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'Literally one of the worst professors in the ENME department. Seems like a pretty nice guy but does not teach the class at all. Have fun scrambling to teach this to yourself and especially teaching yourself Matlab. All the examples he goes over in class are irrelevant to the homework, which are then worthless for exam preparation. I wish this class was taught that you were rewarded for conceptual fluency, not if your answer is incorrect because you are .0000001 off from the actual correct answer.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-16T21:28:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Fuge', 'course': 'ENME440', 'review': "Best class I have ever taken at UMD\r\n\r\nI get everyone hates the stats class which I didn't have him for but for enme440 is helpful, enthusiastic, and very intelligent. This class has changed my career path for the better. The class itself is kinda difficult but completely project based - no tests. \r\n\r\nIf you have any small interest in ML take this class! It will teach you the important parts of the theory but is much more focused on the application. I fully believe you could do an entry machine learning job just based on the information learned in this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-28T00:26:29.677860Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Fuge', 'slug': 'fuge'}, {'courses': ['GVPT217', 'GVPT317', 'GVPT388M'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Graber', 'course': 'GVPT217', 'review': 'Mock trial is unlike any class I have ever taken. Youll meet for way more time that the 3 hour time slot on testudo, but it is sooooooo worth it. I learned so much in this class, made a lot of friends and got to compete in tournaments all over the east coast. Take this "class". Best class at maryland and youll just want to keep taking it ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-06-10T11:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Graber', 'course': 'GVPT432', 'review': 'Follows formal sequitur logic too closely. Difficult teacher- for a good grade, you must pay attention to the lecture details very carefully to understand the relevant issues surrounding constitutional law.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-07-14T09:11:00Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Graber', 'slug': 'graber_mark'}, {'courses': ['JOUR389B', 'JOUR130', 'JOUR130', 'JOUR130'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Gray', 'course': 'JOUR130', 'review': "He did not receive our syllabus for around a month because he was experiencing issues with Canvas. After Canvas had been restored, assignment due dates were a mess. Lecture was interesting for a while, then it began to feel like he was repeating the same topics. That said, you can tell he's passionate about speech and all students received an A in the course (all students received the same grade on each assignment, with maybe a 2 point difference). It wasn't horrible to take, but it did stress me out as I wasn't sure when certain assignments were due or my grade. Also, he tends to take while to respond to student messages (whether through email or text).", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-07T12:56:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Gray', 'course': 'JOUR130', 'review': 'Every class was repetitive and boring. No one knew what was going on in the class. The only reason why I am not giving him a one-star review is that he gave good grades.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-31T21:16:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Gray', 'course': 'JOUR130', 'review': 'Easy A, but a bit disorganized (no Canvas until 2 weeks in, unclear due dates)\r\n\r\nLectures got a bit repetitive so we created a bingo chart for what would be stated in class:\r\n"Secure the bag"\r\n"I may not agree with Donald Trump politically, but he is a great influencer"\r\n"I got BEEF"\r\n"Climate Change is Real"\r\n"You guys need to chillll"\r\n"There *may* have been some lack of communication on my end"\r\n"SECURE THE BAG"', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T21:27:10.127981Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Gray', 'course': 'JOUR130', 'review': "Very helpful. Every class was the same. Probably cared less about the class than the students, didn't have an in-person class for over 5 weeks due to class cancellations or being switched to virtual lectures. Every lecture was the same that we made a bingo chart for same exact quotes he would mention in class. I am pretty sure that all the assignment grades were randomly generated between a 95-98. Gave everyone good grades so it's all good.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T21:27:27.253501Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Gray', 'slug': 'gray_mark'}, {'courses': ['EXST059A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Green', 'slug': 'green_mark'}, {'courses': ['ENCE664', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE664', 'ENCE664', 'ENCE664'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Groff', 'slug': 'groff_mark'}, {'courses': ['BMGT448B', 'BMGT349F', 'BUFN758B', 'BUSM738B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Grovic', 'slug': 'grovic'}, {'courses': ['MUSC129B', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC129B', 'MUSC129B', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC129B', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Hill', 'slug': 'hill_mark'}, {'courses': ['CCJS352'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Janney', 'slug': 'janney'}, {'courses': ['ENES672', 'ENES460', 'ENES672', 'ENES672', 'ENES672'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Komisky', 'slug': 'komisky'}, {'courses': ['ANTH448P', 'ANTH240', 'ANTH740', 'ANTH434', 'ANTH433', 'ANTH398D', 'ANTH634', 'ARCH428A', 'ARCH628A', 'AASP498T', 'AMST428D', 'ANTH633', 'ARCH428L', 'ARCH628L', 'HIST428L', 'ANTH432', 'ANTH445', 'ANTH496', 'ANTH498Y', 'ANTH688Y', 'ANTH696', 'SUMM015', 'ARCH428R', 'ARCH628R', 'ANTH358A', 'HISP619B', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH240', 'ANTH433', 'ANTH633', 'ANTH240', 'ANTH433', 'ANTH444', 'ANTH633', 'ANTH240', 'ANTH740', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH240', 'ANTH433', 'ANTH633'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Leone', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': "Class is easy, you don't need to go to class but I think that he could make class more interesting to those that actually have a passion of Archaeology. All you have to do is read and write papers. You'll have worksheets that are simple, and will have three exams, essay form. But I think that something is missing. It is hard to follow him in lecture. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-01-04T11:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Leone', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Leone is odd. At once he can be easy-going and intense. I think he is working on a different intellectual level than mere mortals. \n\r\nThis class consisted mostly of the students doing the readings, discussing them amongst themselves, and him occasionally chiming in from the back of the room. \n\r\nThe grade consists of a single paper worked on over the course of the term and a presentation in front of the class. Class participation likely has some effect, too. The readings are many and obtuse, but do not be discouraged by them. It is possible to do well without fully comprehending them. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-06-09T15:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Leone', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': 'I was not expecting to like this class when I walked in. But his lectures are always very clear, and he makes the ties behind archeology interesting and relevant. It is important to take thorough notes, and do well on the exams, because that is his only basis for grades, and he does not post anything online. However, he is clearly intelligent with a a good sense of humor, and I wanted to go to class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-06T17:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Leone', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': "This class is interesting and his lectures are pretty great. He doesn't have slides or write much down, but the TAs take notes for the class, and the lectures are recorded. It's an easy A if you try at all.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-02-15T02:19:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Leone', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': "The class itself and the material was very interesting. Professor Leone was a little boring though, the class is only 50 minutes so its not bad but since he talks really slow and monotoned its kind of boring. You don't really need to go to class because he posts lecture notes that the TA's write up and he also posts the lectures online so if you watch those lectures, read the lecture notes, and read the assigned readings the class is super easy. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-29T20:05:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Leone', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': 'Professor Leone is a fine professor who clearly knows what he is teaching, the man is old school and has had a hell of a career in the anthropology field. However, I took this INTRO course as a gen ed requirement and the UTAs made it feel like anything but that. The "leader" UTA was Adam, and god this guy sucked and was the most unorganized and unprofessional person. Nobody knew what they were doing, or learning and would have to do hours of bullshit research for a 5 question weekly quiz. Half that stuff wasn\'t even taught in the class. Do not take this course, it was one of the worst mistakes in my college career. I don\'t think Professor Leone knew much about how the UTAs ran this course, but god it was awful', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-15T07:13:15.398812Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Leone', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': 'great professor\r\nterrible TAs and connection between discussions/quizzes and actual lecture and exams', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-05T17:13:16.633837Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Leone', 'slug': 'leone_mark'}, {'courses': ['GVPT780', 'GVPT700', 'GVPT888E', 'GVPT459H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Lichbach', 'slug': 'lichbach'}, {'courses': ['BMGT843', 'BUFN763', 'BMGT343', 'BUFN740', 'BUFN766', 'BUFN734', 'BUFN742', 'BUFN670', 'BUFN768F', 'BUFN734', 'BUFN741', 'BUSI758K', 'BMGT843', 'BUFN670', 'BUFN734', 'BUSI758K'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Loewenstein', 'course': 'BMGT343', 'review': "Fantastic teacher, as the other review said. Do the homework problems, they are the key to doing well on his exams. You don't have to worry about going to the review sessions because they are posted online in video format - but make sure to watch them because he goes through every step. Also, pay attention in class because he goes over really advanced techniques that make the simple math methods easy to comprehend. Really intelligent, great teacher! Also, start on the project early, and ask him for help.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-24T08:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Loewenstein', 'course': 'BMGT343', 'review': "Probably the best Investments professor. Homework is not collected and he gives you the answers so you can figure out the problems on your own. One project at the end of the semester, one midterm and one final. Make sure to pay attention when he goes over the projects becasue it will help a lot. The exams aren't too bad becasue the questions are the same as the homework, so make sure you know how to do all of the problems, even if there is only one question in the homework on a particular concept. You also might have to write in explanations for your answers on the exam. 10% of the grade is participation, but only a few kids in my class participated much. Class isn't exciting and doing the homework is usually more helpful. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-16T14:30:00Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Loewenstein', 'slug': 'loewenstein'}, {'courses': ['EDCP108M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Montgomery', 'slug': 'montgomery_mark'}, {'courses': ['ENES604', 'ENEE426', 'ENEE420', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE324H', 'ENEE322', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE425', 'ENEE425', 'ENEE420', 'ENEE425', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE426', 'ENEE425', 'ENEE420', 'ENEE425'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Shayman', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': 'Pretty good professor overall. Homeworks were very reasonable and he was very clear on what to expect on exams. Only downside is that his lectures will put you to sleep, although any professor teaching 324 might do the same. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-09-30T21:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Shayman', 'course': 'ENEE324H', 'review': "He's not a bad professor honestly. He does a good job of teaching you the material and can be quite helpful in his office hours. His lectures can be kind of dense, but that's just because of the nature of the course; there's a lot of material to cover.\n\r\nMy biggest problem with this guy is that he gives absolutely no partial credit, which can really hurt you on the exams. The average in my honors section was a D going into the final because of this. If you get stuck with Shayman, you will learn a lot, but if you're worried about your GPA, I'd recommend someone else.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-20T19:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Shayman', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "Found his lectures difficult to follow and he's a little condescending when you ask questions. I heard this from a lot of people I talked to in my class as well. He doesn't seem to know how to explain things to students who don't immediately get it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-11-21T23:05:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Shayman', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'Shayman is pretty decent. Lectures are followable and neatly written if a bit dry (like his throat). Homework was doable and kept you paced. Exams were fair/a bit tough but if you knew the material well you could do well. His pop quizzes were annoying, but they basically counted for nothing so it was no big deal. Plus his curve was pretty good. There might be better choices for 322 like Marcus, but I think Shayman is a pretty good option.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-20T14:56:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Shayman', 'course': 'ENEE426', 'review': 'He puts no effort in, just reads off slides, assigns hw without teaching us how to solve problems. HORRIBLE', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-13T20:06:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Shayman', 'course': 'ENEE420', 'review': "Pretty happy overall with Shayman's teaching. Grading was fair. Wish more examples were worked in class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-04T17:25:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Shayman', 'course': 'ENEE426', 'review': "He's alright, he mostly just read off slides. Looking at testbanks for other professors for this course, his exams are significantly, significantly easier in terms of content being tested, but also be warned that he gives very little partial credit. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-23T23:30:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Shayman', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "My biggest complaint with Dr. Shayman would be the homework/exam content. Lectures are mainly based off of concepts/definitions but the homework is generally tedious and barely covered by lecture. Discussion is essential to be able to even start some of the homework problems. Exams were not terrible but are similar to the homework with some question topics only being taught conceptually with little to no prior practice. To succeed you'll probably need to grind out problems similar to the ones on the homework.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-27T00:01:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Shayman', 'course': 'ENEE425', 'review': "It's clear that he cares very much about the subject and prepares for class by going through the textbook and creating his own slides, and even finding programming projects to go along with the material. However, lectures end up just being him reading off of the slides without really explaining much. You can get more out of just reading the textbook on your own. Homeworks and exams felt completely different than lecture material, but they were straightforward and are essentially from the textbook examples. I would recommend watching Oppenheim's MIT lectures to get the most out of the material (no offense to Dr. Shayman, but the author of the book just does it better). \r\n\r\nOverall, nice guy but could be a much better lecturer.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T06:05:28Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Shayman', 'slug': 'shayman'}, {'courses': ['JOUR352', 'JOUR652', 'JOUR328A', 'JOUR479A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Smith', 'slug': 'smith_mark'}, {'courses': ['BUFN762', 'BUFN765', 'BUFN766', 'BMGT448A', 'BMGT448E', 'BMGT441', 'BMGT340H', 'BMGT447', 'BUFN761'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Taranto', 'course': None, 'review': "NEVER take a class from this guy. Hands down worst professor I've ever had. Just rambles on about nothing that you'll understand, or his entire medical history.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '?', 'created': '2016-10-15T18:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Taranto', 'course': 'BMGT448E', 'review': 'Professor Taranto is great. He is extremely knowledgeable in the field of finance, mathematics, and financial engineering, and he is very excited to teach the material to his students. He is sometimes a little hard to follow during lectures, however, because he often assumes that the students have more background knowledge of the subject matter than we actually do. However, he is more than happy to explain the concepts in a more understandable manner if you shoot him an e-mail with a question or visit him during office hours.\n\r\nOverall, BMGT448E (Computational Finance) was not too bad. The class consisted of two take-home assignments, both of which are pretty easy and have clear directions. Professor Taranto gives you a good idea of what to expect on the midterm, so follow his suggestions and understand his review questions to get a good grade. The final exam did not have an official review sheet with questions, so my suggestion is to try to understand the concepts covered after the midterm by talking with Professor Taranto. Overall, the class is quite interesting and gives undergraduates a good taste of what the field of financial engineering involves.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-23T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Taranto', 'course': 'BUFN750', 'review': "How has no one reviewed Taranto!? Mark is great, he has a ton of knowledge of financial history and theory all the celeb nobel laureates, etc, and has plenty of good stories. He is also a nice person. He has a lot of Wall Street experience and a varied history. Expect class to be full of case lectures, and Mark will talk a lot. If you take him early in your program, ask him who the good professors or what the good courses are and he will steer you right!\n\r\nYou don't use a book in the course per se, but refer to a previous course's book. It's not a breeze, but it won't be a nightmare. You'll get out mostly unscathed if you apply yourself. \n\r\nYou will definitely see at least 1 diet pepsi consumed by Professor Taranto each class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-03-26T00:03:00Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Taranto', 'slug': 'taranto'}, {'courses': ['BMGT364H', 'BUMO796', 'CPSP119B', 'CPSP239B', 'CPSP249B', 'CPSP279B', 'CPSP388B', 'BMGT289I', 'BUMO720', 'BUMO758Z', 'CPSP118B', 'CPSP218B', 'HONR208I', 'BMGT289B', 'BMGT466', 'CPSP259B', 'HONR289P', 'CPSP220', 'HONR378I', 'CPBE100', 'CPBE225', 'CPBE230', 'CPBE240', 'CPBE250', 'CPBE270', 'BMGT468L', 'BMGT466F', 'CPSP388D', 'BMGT468P', 'BUSI788M', 'BUSM778M', 'BMGT289J', 'HONR298A', 'BMGT289B', 'BMGT466', 'HNUH239T'], 'average_rating': 3.8367, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289B', 'review': 'Got an A in this guy\'s class but it was a terrible class. Others mention that he assigns class times that he says are listed on testudo but are not... this is totally true. He is obsessed with making the class the "level of work" required for a 3 credit class and he went well over that and made it a ridiculous class. 50 page reflection paper at the end.\n\r\nThis was by far my least favorite class I have taken at UMD. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-10-23T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289B', 'review': 'Worst professor ever. Assigns extra class times that were clearly not labeled in the syllabus or in the class times. He claims it was written on testudo, but that is a fallacy.\n\r\nHe assigns too much busy work. Instead of meaningful work that teaches you how innovators think, he is obsessed with making the class as much work as a 3 credit class "should be".', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-10-31T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': None, 'review': 'This is a 1 credit course, its not going to meet all the time and its not that hard thats why its 1 credit. Here is what you do to get an A: go to the required speakers (5), read the book Startup of You, go to class. I actually do not think he graded our take-home final, it was never submitted to elms!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '-A', 'created': '2013-12-27T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': None, 'review': "Easy A Class. It's only a few short reflections and attendance at lectures (recorded by reflection sheets done while at lecture). These lectures are done by guest speakers. E.g. GE LDP and Goodwill CEO. Very interesting lectures. Be careful though, make sure you attend all the lectures required, there are make up lectures but you are required to have a set # of lectures a semester or else you get a 0 for some of them. At the end of the semester (there is like 135 pts total), he all the sudden adds like an additional 70 points worth of assignments to help people who skipped a lecture. There is no excuse for you not to get an A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-30T14:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'Very good professor, very tough course. Dr. Wellman is really into business and management and he teaches the material with a lot of enthusiasm. Some of the lectures get a bit boring but overall they\'re interesting. As others have said, there are the "one minute memos" at each lecture which add up to quite a lot of points, so make sure you go to class. There were two special projects/assignments we had to do which also made a big part of our grade, but they were pretty easy to do.\n\r\nThe exams were the only very hard part of this class. The multiple choice questions are incredibly specific and you definitely need to study your ass off to do well on them.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-27T17:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "I usually don't even bother to fill out the course evaluations for UMD, but I feel the need to give a review for Professor Wellman. Simply put he is one of the best professors that I have experienced so far at UMD, he truly cares about both his students and his class. You will likely learn more from this class than all your other classes combined.\n\r\nWhy do I say this? Because everything you learn from this class is applicable to both your life as a student and more so how to be successful once your out in the real world job market. Understanding what it takes to be successful and what the difference is between unsuccessful and successful companies may sound boring, but Wellman makes it one of the most interesting topics at this school. His ability to tie in current events with his class is excellent and keeps you interested in the class. \n\r\nTrust me, this should be a required class before everyone graduates! The out of class assignments are actually useful and don't simply seem like the professor has you do it so they can give you a grade. These assignments are actually interesting and helpful. \n\r\nProfessor Wellman is extremely easy to talk to, teaches an excellent class, and gives you real world knowledge that is more useful than almost everything else you will learn at this university.\n\r\nTake this class with Professor Wellman, you won't regret it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T03:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': 'The class is very interesting so even if you are not a business major, you should still take it. Professor Wellman is one of the few outstanding professors I have encountered in the years I have been here. \n\r\nLectures attendance is mandatory because you will be doing a small review of the lecture called "one minute memo" and turn them in at the end of class for points. If you miss more than 4 memos, you will be REQUIRED to take a VERY HARD final exam. Personally I did not have to take it but judging from the difficulty of the midterm, it is not a bluff. \n\r\nHowever, lectures and exams are not the only things in this class. The professor does try to expose students new concepts and ideas by actually making us do it. One of those you should be aware is that you will be required to do something called Iliad Assessment, where you have to go through a day as a corporate executive. The assessment include giving a presentation, working on memos, and participate in meetings. Afterward you will be given results and write a development plan for it. \n\r\nAnother one is an online management simulation where you are trying to get people to adopt the initiative. It\'s not as hard as it sounds, it\'s really more like a game. You just have to write reviews and analysis of the simulation afterward. \n\r\nOne thing I really like is that he tries to stay on current business events. With the passing of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, the professor assigned the biography of Steve Jobs as our reading assignment. It\'s actually a great book so I read it anyway. \n\r\nAs long as you come to lectures and do all the assignments and projects, you will get an A. I highly recommend this class for both the information and the experience.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-02T18:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "Professor Wellman is one of the best professors I have ever had. Some people do not like his class because he makes you do one minute memos everyday, but I love them, they allow me to follow the lecture and get lots of easy points! His tests are hard but you can get C's on them and still get an A in the class if you do everything else. I have learned so much from his class, I actually look forward to going because his lectures are really interesting and he is an excellent speaker. All in all I would highly recommend taking a course with Wellman as the professor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-22T00:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289I', 'review': "Professor Wellman is a good professor in the sense that he has been in the business school for a long time and therefore has created strong relationships with other faculty and staff. His teaching style is the only thing that prevents me from giving him a 5 star rating. Although, he knows the material very well, it seemed like he wasn't delivering it effectively. Maybe it was because our class was a 3 hour evening class. \n\r\nOverall, this class wasn't too hard. There were very thick packets that he gave out which I never read and still managed to pull away with an A-. Exams were really tricky. The best way to do well on the exams is by reading the power point slides several times and paying attention when he plays the video clips in class about current events. \n\r\nHe also gave out extra credit several times in class which definitely helped out. I definitely recommend taking this class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-25T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Professor Wellman in my opinion is one of the best professors in the Smith School-He really knows how to teach and keeps his students engaged in the class. He's also a cool guy since he allows flexibility in doing classes whichever time you want despite the section you are registered for. I was registered for the 9:30am class but attended the 12:30 one throughout the entire semester (other than on the test days). \r\nThe breakdown of his class: \r\nInclass assignments every class(which are really there for participation points)-(it's like taking notes in class)\r\nIlliad Assessment\r\nA simulation\r\n2 exams \r\nThe final is comprehensive and you don't need to take it if u don't miss more than 4 classes-and that shouldn't be a problem since his classes are so interesting that you wouldn't wanna miss them. \r\nHis tests are freaking easy-i only studied his powerpoints and never read the book other than the first chapter(the book seems interesting though). I don't think I studied more than 2 hours right b4 the exam and did pretty fair on the exams. If only I had studied a lil more I wouldve gotten a B on both exams and that wouldve been enuf for me to get an A in the class. I missed an A by 2% but I thought that was fair given the amount of work I put in for the class. Really interesting&easy class-great professor-the only thing is that Fall2010 was his last term for teaching bmgt 364:(\r\nHe did say he was going to be teaching 364H though.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-12T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "The class was alright. You don't learn much about management. Wellman makes you go to every class, but 4 of them. TESTS are ridiculous!! I cannot stress that enough. You need to know every minute detail that are in the videos in order to succeed. DON'T BUY THE BOOK: YOU WILL NOT NEED IT! It is not a thinking test...it is pure memorization. Given this, half of the class does get As because of the other assignments throughout the semester. MAKE SURE TO TAKE EACH ONE SERIOUSLY. They will make or break your grade. Wellman doesn't truly care about any student in the class. He is slow to answer e-mails and very unresponsive at times. Luckily, there are other teachers to take besides him. He is not recommended. It is possible to do well in the class, but you will not get anything out of it. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-21T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Overall a really interesting class. Can't stress how important it is to pay serious attention, because small details can come up on the test. \n\r\nYou don't need the book at all, I never once looked at mine and I still got an A in the class...\n\r\nWhen studying for the exams, rewatch any videos you're unfamiliar with, they are fairgame for exam essays\n\r\nGreat teacher overall, but terrible about getting grades back quickly. Make sure you know where your grades are coming from, there was an inclass assignment that was graded for accuracy and most people didn't realize it would be", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T01:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "This is the one class that you truly should go to every class. Not to say the content is overly important, but you are graded on attendance. If you go to every class, you'll get about 23% of your overall grade for free and about 2% extra credit, PLUS you won't have to take the final.\n\r\nThe tests are challenging especially if you don't take additional notes during the lectures. I made the mistake of just answering the in-class questions thinking that would be sufficient.\n\r\nYou do have to do a lot of additional stuff, like a three hour business competency assessment and a group simulation project, but those are fairly painless.\n\r\nOverall, Wellman was a good enough Professor. I fell asleep every class but that was more due to it being at 9:30am because the videos he shows every class are pretty interesting.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-14T21:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364N', 'review': "Wellman is a brilliant, fun, and interesting man and teacher. He legitimately cares about his students and has funny little quirks that end up being endearing. His exams are pretty rough, you really have to remember everything you cover so if you have a good memory you'll be fine, but if you're a person that has to learn through repetition or comprehension start studying early. Don't expect an A, but DO EXPECT TO COME OUT FEELING LIKE YOUVE TAKEN SOMETHING FROM THE CLASS. I've definitely learned more from this class than most of my other SEMESTERS as a whole. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-23T20:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'This guy is a great lecturer who shows a lot of interesting videos in class. There are in class assignments worth points, and a discussion section you should go to.\n\r\nExams are very challenging. There are going to be a lot of multiple choice questions that make you think "lol what?" He offers 8 extra credit points in a semester, and you do need them. I got an A by 0.3 points, but i did average a C on exams. \n\r\nOn a side note, this guy is really wordy. His syllabus is really long. Wellman is a nice guy though. You are exempted from his final if you miss 4 or less classes. Don\'t take his final. Its 150 MC and several essays in 2 hours. Punishment for people who skip class', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-22T11:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'This was an amazing class. He is a really cool guy and shows lots of videos in class. The videos really make the class interesting. I suggest going to every class because the information on the videos will be on the exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-09T15:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "I don't work that hard, and I got an A in this class. Here's how: GO TO CLASS. The tests are challenging, so you need those clicker points. I found Wellman to be a boring dude, but the videos that he shows are interesting, so try to get into them, they will show up on the exams. The class is ALL memorization, so if you have trouble with that, don't wait until the last second to study everything - its a lot of info. I didn't have the textbook, I don't think anybody did, but after I took the exam I looked through a friends and realized that it had A LOT of relevent info in there. What a surprise, the textbook might help you. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T19:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'This course is academically rigorous. Wellman is a fair grader but his tests are miserable. However, you can easily make up for the tests with the other work in the class. Lectures are actually interesting because we watch videos instead of listening to Wellman talk the whole time. Whether it is because he is smart or too lazy to talk, I have not yet figured out - but it works out for the best either way. I could not think of a better teacher for the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T19:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Just received an A in this course. Gave the professor a 5 even though i thought he was not very approachable because it does what a class is intended to do: teaches you and grades you based on that knowledge. some questions on the exam were a bit tricky but as long as you attend every lecture, do the few readings (do NOT need to read from the textbook do not know anyone who did), and study for about 3-6 hours, you will do fine. I honestly don't know who studied for 20 hours (like the person who posted above me) because either you skipped allt he classes and had to cram in the notes/readings last minute or youre just a SLOW learner. Go to class, do the 1 or 2 article readings a week (less than 30 min of reading a week), and just study for 3 hours before the exam. Guaranteed A. \n\r\nclasses were fun/interesting", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-21T12:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Very good professor. Material is very interesting and you actually learn a lot of things that can be applied to real life. \r\nThings to note: 1) this class is by no means an easy A. you really have to study your butt off in order to do well on the two exams. (20+ hours) \r\n2) very bad about grading. Getting grades back, TA's, and even fairness on certain things. \r\n3) not very responsive. emails to him were addressed about 50% of the time and emails to TA's were addressed about 10% of the time. so if you have an issue with something - good luck. \r\n4) you only go to fourfriday sections - one for team building, one for illiad, one for everest, and one for the first test (second one is in class). he understands students' want to not have friday discussions \n\r\nAll in all, I recommend going to every class, taking a crapload of notes, studying hard for the exams, and try to get a lot out of it", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-16T15:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'This class is interesting with good lecture content mixed in with videos. All of the content of the course is fairly interesting. The exams require extensive preparation if you do not keep up. Some of the questions come out of the pictures that he posts on the slides, so study them also. Overall for grade distributions it comes out to a 3.3 which is 41% A 52% B rest C D or F. Definately recomended. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-15T21:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'Wellman is a great professor. The course is interesting, lectures are entertaining, and you can tell he genuinely enjoys teaching.\n\r\nThe one problem I had with this class were the tests. The multiple choice questions were very difficult - even on topics that I had studied over and over and knew very well, the questions were still difficult because of how they are designed and worded. Almost all the questions had "A and B" or "All of the Above" answers which, in my opinion, just make the test "tricky" and don\'t do a good job of testing you on how well you understand the material.\n\r\nDespite the problems I had with the tests, I would recommend taking this class with Wellman. I still think I will get an A in the class because I attended all the lectures and discussions. Also, don\'t worry too much about the Iliad or Everest assignments. They are both a good amount of work, but not tough to score well on. Take Iliad seriously, the results are helpful.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-15T19:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Great professor. Teaches using lots of videos. Take lots of notes on lecture, you don't really need to read the book. I recommend bringing a laptop to class so you can keep up with notes. The illiad assignment is really cool because it shows you your strengths and weaknesses. Make sure you go to class every day to get your 4 points. If you go to every class he will give you some extra credit at the end of the semester. Very interesting class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-02-26T01:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Professor Wellman is an amazing teacher. Here is my advice for the class:\r\n1) Go to class, he gives points for attending, and he shows a lot of videos, 90% of which are pretty interesting. \r\n2) Don't worry too much about taking notes, he posts the lectures after class.\r\n3) Read the articles he gives you. They compile a good part of the tests. \r\n4) Don't worry about the Illiad. Dress up, do your best, and attend the right meetings. Even if you do bad in the meetings/memos, you will get good grade for the assignment.\r\nOverall Wellman is great. I wish all classes were as interesting as his. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-29T20:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "GO TO CLASS! The in-class assignments(basically attendance)are about 25% of your grade. NEVER sign in for your friends, he tracks your handwriting and signature lol and you'll get in major trouble. Has a group type of project and an assessment of your managerial skills which sucks. 2 exams(50% of total grade) , mc and essays, do read the articles, the exam is prolly 70% based on them. The good thing is that if you average B on the exams, you get an A in the class. Final is optional if you missed less than 3 classes. Class is ok actually, lots of videos, pretty interesting at times. I learned a lot about real companies not just boring manag theory.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-22T01:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "I didn't like him at first, but by the end of the semester I really did enjoy his class.\r\nDon't be fooled by the 2-hour discussion, you never have to go to a 2-hour discussion the entire semester. Rather there are three project: challenge course, everest ,and iliad, that you have to do outside of lecture time and those count for the hours you would have spent in discussion instead.\r\nThe class is pretty straightforward. You go to lecture take notes on the videos, so the in class assignment, and you'll be set for the exam. He puts up all his slides, articles, and video transcripts on blackboard so studying for the exam is that much easier.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-04T20:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Fun and engaging course. I was dreading taking a course in 'management and organization' because it sounded boring and mind-numbing but Wellman is an alright guy. As long as you go to class and, as the other reviews suggest, take religious notes on the cool videos (most taken from YouTube) like one on the pornography industry and one on Whole Foods you'll do fine. \n\r\nAnticipate his test questions and don't try to copy down the slides during class (he doesn't post them before class but does afterward). Don't expect to ace the exams (pulled an 88 on the first one and am happy) but there are many other assignments offered.\n\r\nDiscussion sections are almost never held because of fun activities (like climbing the ropes course and doing a simulation of an Everest climb). The Iliad assessment is not really fun but the class itself is engaging and completely grounded in the actual business world outside the walls of the Smith School. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-10T01:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "This was one of the better business classes I have taken. I actually wanted to attend every class because I learned so much. I really enjoyed watching almost daily videos learning how other companies choose to manage their employees. I must emphasize again, I really learned alot and would highly recommend taking this class.\n\r\nTests are very challenging, but the system is set up that one can get an A if you attend all the classes and do the easy assignments...even if you get low b's on the tests.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-28T00:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'He is a very nice, willing to listen to students, and doesnt say "no" to much. Lectures were mostly of ppt slides and video clips. TAs from Navy are great! Attend all lectures and discussions, points do add up! You dont have to take the final exam, get a B in both exams and do well in the activities he planned (Mt. Everest simulation & Iliad Assessment Center Activity (its 3 hrs long & $40!) ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-20T13:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "This class was one of the best experiences of my life, though I wished that I had taken advantage of the resources there. If it's hard for you to attend class, I have one thing to say to you:\n\r\nMAKE AN EFFORT TO ATTEND EACH CLASS\n\r\nThe points add up and though you may miss one and think you're okay, you'll get a C (from experience) just off of classroom points. SO GO!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-16T13:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "I haven't taken many business courses, but I liked Wellman's class a lot. In order to help you understand the material better, he provides interesting articles and case studies to read and keeps lecture interesting by showing videos in class. Studying for tests was easy with the slides he posted online, though the tests were challenging. This class actually teaches you stuff that you could use in real life.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-15T10:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364N', 'review': 'Class is made interesting by relating the text material to real life experiences and cases. Be sure to pay attention and take detailed notes on the videos because his tests can be very detailed oriented. Overall, informative class, and fair workload. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'a-', 'created': '2008-05-04T16:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'Truly a fantastic lecturer. Used lots case studies. Drew on his own experience as a Smith School administrator, providing insightful and often funny anecdotes. Outside work consisted almost entirely of reading the text and case studies. Exams are pretty fair, mixed multiple choice and short essays', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-30T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Professor Wellman was an awesome instructor. I took 364 over winter and he made it a lot of fun. At first the 4 hour classes were rough, but he made it bearable by mixing up the class with movies, group work, Iliad assessment, lecture and a simulation. If you attend class and read the chapters, you'll be fine for the exams. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'a', 'created': '2008-03-21T14:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "Great person and interesting topics and readings. Incredible procrastinator, and will take forever to respond to emails if at all. Plays too many videos and doesn't do enough instruction and lecture. Also, is terribly inconsistent standards of grading.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-02-19T22:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT110S', 'review': 'Great guy, really nice and wants to give scholars kids good grades. videos in every class-60 minutes or some type of case study type news broadcast. hes laid back and buys pizza for cambridge before exams for a "study snack". an overall enjoyable class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-05T12:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289B', 'review': "This guy's BSE Scholars class is a complete joke. He makes no contribution to class and does not teach actual material. The midterm is strict memorization from books and this was the most useless class I've ever taken in my life. He tries to rank students and the bottom 20% sits in the front as a form of humiliation. Terrible professor, highly do NOT recommend Wellman. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-17T05:45:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289B', 'review': 'This was definitely a hard class, but I think it could be one of the most important ones you take in your college career. Some of the assignments are strange such as having to go to DC or partake in design thinking sessions, but if you have the right attitude for these kinds of activities, you will learn a lot of valuable skills that you can apply anywhere. I currently do CS research at UMD partially because I was told to try something crazy as a part of this course. Whenever I start a new project, I think back to this class and try to think about any way I can make my user\'s life easier. There are a lot of readings for this class, but it has taught me skills such as "always showing up to a meeting with a prototype" that allow me to stand out wherever I go. Mark Wellman will really work with you if you have some kind of idea or need assistance with something. He took my entire class to go see a Cirque du Soleil show for free and even wrote my recommendation letter. Remarkable professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-03-05T00:11:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT466', 'review': "I took Wellman's class in Fall of 2018 and can say without a doubt that is shaped my career choice, when I graduated that December, for the better. Wellman focuses on bringing relevant, well-connected speakers to the classroom. If taken seriously, the speakers (and the information they share) can be priceless connections. I have used examples from these speakers during critical interviews and have used the business assessment we took to demonstrate to my current company my ability to perform under high stress situations. I highly, highly advise taking this course!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-28T20:13:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289B', 'review': 'BMGT-289b is the best class at UMD. The course is challenging and you will need to manage your time effectively to complete assignments during the semester. Dr. Mark Wellman is the premier professor at UMD and his teaching style brings out the best in engaged students. The course covers a wide range of material and you will get out what you put in. BMGT-289b promotes individual reflection and growth as you learn best practices from some of the best innovators our world has ever seen. A couple of my favorite memories from the course were the unit on design thinking and the Iliad Assessment exercise. I highly recommend BMGT-289b to all students at UMD. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-27T23:21:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289J', 'review': "Dr. Wellman is a caring professor who wants his students to succeed. That said, he gives a lot of work to help his students learn as much as possible, and this can become a bit repetitive at times in my opinion. The class itself is a study of leadership and good leadership practices, and the many simulations we completed allowed the application of material that we learned. It is one of the first semester classes for the BSE Scholars program, and were I not in the program I wouldn't have taken the class, but I am glad that I did for the experience.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-18T19:08:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289B', 'review': 'THIS IS THE WORST CLASS OFFERED AT UMD. Professor Wellman is so unorganized and clearly makes up random assignments 2 minutes before class. He gives so many busy work assignments that take so long to complete. You have to attend 7 outside events which is nearly impossible to do since he only offers around 10, and all of them are around 6 pm on Mondays or Thursdays. The end of the year assignment is a 13 page SINGLE SPACED paper talking about what you learned in this class, which was nearly impossible to do since we learned nothing of substance. He also grades things so aggressively and has no right doing so. Do not take this class if you want to enjoy school.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-13T15:57:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289B', 'review': "I'm not sure how this class is run in person, but it was very frustrating virtually. Dr. Wellman knew what he was talking about, but he was not organized. There was a weekly reading schedule posted, but Wellman began the semester going over the assignments. Then he stopped being sending reminders on time and sent reminders a day or two before they were due. Dr. Wellman and the TA were difficult to contact during the semester, so it was a hit or miss with them. The class met once a week, and Dr. Wellman assigned a TON of reading to do. There were barely any reading quizzes which was nice but if you did not do the readings, you will fall behind. There were required speakers throughout the semester, which Dr. Wellman did not really share until a day or so before, again unorganized. \r\n\r\nHowever, if you stay on top of the work and do the readings, they grade lightly and should get an A. The assignments are annoying but the requirements are stated and straightforward. The content is very useful and applicable, and it is worth going through in the long run.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-21T19:00:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289B', 'review': "Dr. Wellman is very unorganized. There were a lot of readings and if you do not read, you will fall behind. His class itself is boring and he does not teach like other professors. The concepts learned are through readings rather than lectures. He grades pretty harshly and overall is not the best class to be in. It is not hard to contact and communicate with Dr. Wellman and the TA, but the class itself does not make sense. The substance he teaches is hard to pick up on and some lessons don't even relate to being an innovator. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-10-13T02:19:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289J', 'review': 'Dr. Wellman\'s class has an extreme and disorganized workload. The class consists of multiple "simulations" and subsequent "reflections" and, if it is a group project, "evaluations." The timelines of all of these projects overlap heavily, causing students to have several concurrent simulation projects and papers at once. Every week, there is a discussion post due on Wednesday, in which he assigns a module from the textbook and numerous articles and/or videos for you to go through and then answer several questions about. It is clear that these resources are what he considers to be the "meat" of the class. For our class, he gave a midterm that was extremely specific based on readings, articles, and modules that he assigned. The specifics went down into quotes from specific people in one of the countless articles that he assigned to read. The class in and of itself is extremely hard to pay attention to as his in-class examples are vague, long, and rather droning. The TA is also absolutely worthless, is always late, has a bad attitude in class, and generally is extremely unhelpful. \r\nOverall, I would not recommend taking this class, as I find it to be more work than it is worth and generally there is not a lot of learning accomplished in it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-14T00:30:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289J', 'review': 'Dr. Wellman is very disorganized and has his TA grade most of his assignments. Even if you work very hard in his class and take notes on all the articles and all the modules and pay attention in class, you can still do very badly on his midterm (which he does not curve by the way). The average was a 60% and dropped grades significantly (this was the difference between this year and the previous year). There was no reason to test on 20 articles where we had to point out specifically what one specific "stakeholder" said. I tried to turbocharge my decision making on this test but ultimately it did not serve me well. All in all, would not take Dr. Wellman again. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-09T19:45:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289J', 'review': 'The worst class offered here at UMD. His subpar teaching along with the heavy amount of work leave students feeling overworked. This is class is offered to first years in a program. For what it is, Dr. Wellman had way too high of an expectation for first years who are taking this in the first semester. He has no empathy and would be passive aggressive to students. The lectures were long and hard to listen to. All he does is sit and read off the slides. The TA doesn’t even help because he is late majority of the time.\r\nThis class has been a waste of time and nothing valuable came out of it. Dr. Wellman assigns busy work but massive amounts of it. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-11T08:51:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289J', 'review': "The expectations Dr. Wellman has for his students are unreasonable and the workload is way too much. Dr. Wellman is very specific about page/word count and I often find myself repeating the same ideas just to fill up to the page count. You're expected to read tons of articles every week and write long reflections after them. The class itself is extremely boring as Dr. Wellman just lectures off of his slides. Worst of all, on exams, he expects you to know very specific details from the huge pile of readings or modules that you have read from the past months and he refuses to curve the grades when the whole class did poorly on the exams. \r\nDefinitely do not recommend.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T00:18:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Mark Wellman', 'course': 'BMGT289J', 'review': 'The pedestal some students put him on is bewildering. Wellman masks his rudeness with arrogance, and his “reputation.” He assigns an personal reflection that is 13 pages single spaced, heavy emphasis on personal. He does not understand the word “personal” as he has specific ideas about what should be included. He and his TA play favorites too. He also cannot use proper grammar but let a student makes the same mistake, he would not read your paper and then criticize you for not being proper. He’s an arrogant and hypocritical professor. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-19T21:53:26Z'}], 'name': 'Mark Wellman', 'slug': 'wellman_mark'}, {'courses': ['MUSC250', 'MUSC470', 'MUSC688', 'MUSC486', 'MUSC629I', 'MUSC672', 'MUSC250', 'MUSC470', 'MUSC486', 'MUSC672', 'MUSC250'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Wilson', 'slug': 'wilson_mark'}, {'courses': ['JOUR652', 'JOUR352', 'PLCY790', 'PLCY699W', 'PLCY699X', 'PLCY699W', 'PLCY699X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mark Young', 'slug': 'young_mark'}, {'courses': ['BMGT364', 'BMGT868C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marko Pitesa', 'slug': 'pitesa'}, {'courses': ['JOUR328M', 'JOUR371', 'JOUR328X', 'JOUR628X'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marlene Cimons', 'course': 'JOUR328M', 'review': "She's an easy A as long as you do your work (and if she likes you). However, she is the most opinionated professor I've ever had. By the second week of class, one could already guess that she is an extreme liberal and feminist. She squashes contrasting opinions; she asks for discussions but her own opinions never encourage it. She thinks she's being creative by making us present every little article we write about = waste of time. She always changes around the syllabus, which got very annoying. I couldn't handle that - but if you're looking to cruise through a course, take her. P.S. suck up to her shamelessly and she'll love you.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-17T11:10:00Z'}], 'name': 'Marlene Cimons', 'slug': 'cimons'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'EDCP418G', 'HESI489', 'HESI418G', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP888A', 'HESI422', 'HESI489', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP888A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marsha Guenzler-Stevens', 'slug': 'guenzler-stevens'}, {'courses': ['HIST307', 'HIST418A', 'HIST375', 'HIST607', 'HIST106', 'HIST798B', 'JWST345', 'JWST429A', 'JWST648B', 'JWST344', 'JWST141', 'JWST648', 'HIST408C', 'JWST409Y', 'JWST699', 'HIST329F', 'JWST319V', 'JWST619', 'HIST408Y', 'JWST409G', 'HIST339B', 'JWST319F', 'HIST418F', 'HIST339B', 'HIST375', 'JWST319F', 'JWST344', 'HIST307', 'HIST408K', 'JWST345', 'JWST409K', 'HIST106', 'HIST329F', 'JWST141', 'JWST319V'], 'average_rating': 2.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marsha Rozenblit', 'course': 'HIST307', 'review': 'I do not recommend this teacher. She goes on rants and gives you too much information to ever learn for a written essay exam and then tests you on random things. She grades so harshly its impossible to pass.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-08T18:39:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Marsha Rozenblit', 'course': 'JWST141', 'review': "I wish I could write a positive review for Professor Rozenblit. Unfortunately, JWST141 is not an introductory level class and nor is it worth the effort. I attended close to every lecture, took thoughtful notes, and submitted assignments on time. In a separate course in the same semester, I earned A's and B's on papers. In Marsha's class, I was lucky to get a C, and with four assignment's throughout the semester, that does not leave much room for improvement. I took the class as an elective, hoping to expand my Jewish learning and to embrace Jewish history in America. Instead, I received my lowest grade in my undergraduate career. And this is coming from someone who has taken intro Biology and Chemistry.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-04T16:16:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Marsha Rozenblit', 'course': 'JWST141', 'review': "Professor Rozenblit is a traditional lecturer. This may be a bit of an adjustment to first-year students, but if one takes good notes and asks thoughtful questions in class, they will succeed. She is very knowledgeable about her field and presents the information in an organized way, usually giving an overview of every lecture's content before delving in. She assigns readings that more reinforce what she teaches, as the meat of the content is in her lectures. To succeed on exams, a lot of prep and memorization of details is necessary, but it's an easy A if the time is spent.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-09-12T14:31:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Marsha Rozenblit', 'course': 'JWST345', 'review': "I was worried about how much information this course was going to cover. Rozenblit started with a unit on the history of antisemitism that provided really important context for how the Holocaust came about. After the midterm, the information was not needed on the final, which was really nice. She doesn't assume you know any background of the Holocaust (so if you're coming in with nothing, you'll be fine), but she also keeps the information complex enough that if you've already been educated on the Holocaust, you won't feel like you're wasting your time. The class was a lot of work for exams, but her lectures were organized well and the readings were not too intense. She does assign these papers that take a lot of work, but if you ask her for help or guidance, she'll have your back. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-09-12T14:35:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Marsha Rozenblit', 'course': 'JWST141', 'review': 'JWST 141 is just not it if your looking for an easy elective course. This class pretty much only has four grades that you have to spend a lot of time on so you don’t screw your final grade. I’ve taken other history classes and I’ve done really well in and gotten A’s but taking this class I’ve gotten C+ at best. She nitpicks everything and requires you to be incredibly specific with examples from her lectures which have too much information at times and are incredibly monotonous. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T15:54:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Marsha Rozenblit', 'course': 'HIST106', 'review': 'I know Dr. Rozenblit is a really sweet lady and cares a lot about her students, but do not take this class. It is way too hard for a gen ed / elective, so please do yourself a favor and take another history class. There are four assignments for the entire semester, and she can be a very tough grader, not necessarily with just the history aspects of your paper but also English conventions, too. Also, her exams are entirely essays - no multiple choice / true false / fill in the blank / etc. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-26T16:53:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Marsha Rozenblit', 'course': 'JWST345', 'review': 'Please save urself and don’t take this class she is literally so mean belittles students makes you feel like everything you know/what you’re saying is wrong. She expects too much for an elective class and her tests r impossible she wants stuff straight from lectures. Also gives so much shit about missing class it’s not normal even for religious reasons. Her lectures are HORRIBLE I cannot stress enough do not take this class', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2022-05-12T13:58:50Z'}], 'name': 'Marsha Rozenblit', 'slug': 'rozenblit'}, {'courses': ['INFM605', 'INST776', 'INST632', 'INST631', 'CMSC498V', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marshini Chetty', 'slug': 'chetty'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL271'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Martha Hunter', 'slug': 'hunter_martha'}, {'courses': ['ENGL601', 'ENGL359C', 'ENGL379K', 'ENGL388D', 'ENGL435', 'ENGL602', 'ENGL439A', 'ENGL758A', 'ENGL439D', 'ENGL439G', 'LGBT359M', 'LGBT359K', 'LGBT459M', 'LGBT459B', 'LGBT448Y', 'WMST498Y', 'WMST498B', 'WMST348B', 'AMST429G', 'ENGL748C', 'ENGL699', 'ENGL428B', 'ENGL458B', 'WGSS498Y', 'LGBT459C', 'WGSS498C', 'ENGL459C', 'ENGL388D', 'LGBT459D', 'ENGL359A', 'ENGL388D', 'ENGL439D', 'LGBT359A', 'LGBT448Y', 'WGSS348B', 'WGSS498Y', 'ENGL388D', 'ENGL435', 'ENGL749B', 'LGBT459M', 'ENGL388D', 'ENGL439D', 'ENGL459C', 'LGBT448Y', 'LGBT459D', 'WGSS498Y'], 'average_rating': 2.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Martha Nell Smith', 'course': 'ENGL250', 'review': "If you come across this class for some reason, let me save you a semester of HELL. RUN THE OTHER WAY! AND NEVER LOOK BACK! I initially thought I was registering for Engl250, not knowing that it was also referred as WMST255- it makes a HUGE difference. I have never regretted a class like this one since I've been at the university. The professor is just a closed minded bigot- if it's not her opinion, a. its wrongs, b. it doesn't matter and c. you WILL FAIL!! No consideration for the fact that students have other classes. This should not be considered a CORE- this is a freaking 400level class, i swear! 3 papers (10%, 15%, 25%), a final (25%), discussion- including random quizzes in disc sec and lecture when she's mad cuz no one shows up to class, or someone leaves early, and 5 discussion posts(25%). T.A.'s are fickle- one minute their helping you, the next, they don't even respond to your emails. Don't even bother emailing the professor-she won't respond.She openly discriminates against the guys in the class, and it's just sick! I'm a girl, and I kept an open mind about women's studies but honestly-it's a bunch of bull, common sense that's spun into nice little themes and lessons designed to fool the students into believing that there's actually some profound thought, and critical thinking going on. The Amount of reading- surpassed all my other classes combined! One of the books we had to purchase- Norton's anthology of literature by women: all I ask is that you look this book up, and see how many pages it has, and I promise you, no page will go unturned!!! Never mind the fact that she doesn't go over half of the lecture slides in lecture, but still holds you accountable. This teacher definitely ruined any hopes of me liking the subject. I'm telling you- RUN FOR THE HILLS!!! Don't say I didn't warn you. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-27T06:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martha Nell Smith', 'course': 'ENGL250', 'review': 'Dr. Smith knows what she\'s talking about, but the whole class seems to have no main message. There is an insane amount of reading including very long critic articles required, and at least 5 pop quizzes are given throughout the semester so you\'ve got to make sure you do the readings. There were so many "themes" in the class and readings that studying for the final (pretty much our only grade next to 3 papers) became very difficult. Discussion class is fun and really helps understand the reading outside of the unclear power points presented in class, but sadly that was only 50 minutes once a week. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-17T16:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martha Nell Smith', 'course': 'ENGL250', 'review': "This class was boring, but not as terrible as the other comments make it sound. She does teach one-sided, but it's kind of your fault if you didn't expect that when you signed up for a WOMENS LIT course. Grades depend entirely on your TA, so try and switch to a good one during the first week of classes. There is a lot of reading, but you can definitely sparknotes and skim things and still keep up. Some of the literature is a little graphic, but there is a pretty good mix of readings. It isn't the easiest CORE class, but if you can write decent papers you should be fine. Also, if it is in KEY 0106 like it was last Fall be prepared for some extreme temperatures, it was always really hot or really cold.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-02T14:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martha Nell Smith', 'course': 'ENGL250', 'review': "Professor Smith wasn't so bad, although she was almost always late to class. She has really high expectations for her students yet rarely even got through more than 2 or 3 slides in her 10-15 slide powerpoints. And yes, you are still responsible for the material on the other slides. She doesn't grade anything and doesn't respond to e-mails so don't even bother. Basically everything is up to your TA. Definitely make the effort to go to office hours and participate in discussions. I don't really recommend this course, there is so much reading that it is nearly impossible to keep up with. Basically don't take it unless you are willing and have the time to put considerable effort into it. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-16T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martha Nell Smith', 'course': 'ENGL250', 'review': "Interesting class but not worth it if you are looking to get a good grade. Prof. Smith is very one sided with the information given and if you don't agree then your grade will be greatly affected. 3 papers, each having difficult prompts that you will either understand or you will completely write off topic. We had 2 TAs for the class one was an easy grader and the other was very difficult to please. There are random pop quizzes that start off only in discussion, but once people start not showing up to lecture many were in lecture. She puts the power points on blackboard, but they are hardly notes mostly just general questions of what it is like to read the readings. There is an unbelievable amount of readings that is very difficult to keep up with even if you read a couple each day, the understanding of having other classes is not seen here. The final is based off all of the readings on the syllabus even if we never went over them in class and it consists of identifications, short answer, short essay, and a longer one. Avoid if possible!!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-12T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martha Nell Smith', 'course': 'WMST255', 'review': 'this class may be the worst thing in the entire world. the teacher is not only a huge ***** and not understanding, but a complete moron. She is extermely black and white and does not care about anything but her class. She seems to think that her class is the most important. She gives tons of readings and no one ever does well on the papers. There are 3 papers and most people got Cs. She freaks out if you miss a lecture and gives pop quizes. I really suggest you dont take this class. She is the enemy!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2010-05-03T21:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martha Nell Smith', 'course': 'WMST255', 'review': "This is what i said for my course evaluation. I WOULD ADVISE YOU NOT TO TAKE THIS COURSE FOR THE REASONS I LIST BELOW!\r\nThe teaching style of the course was abysmal, it is completely unfair to base so much of our grade on such short papers. Having a 1 page paper be worth 10% of our grade (a 2-3 page paper worth 15% of our grade), is an unfair way of evaluating our knowledge of the readings. Furthermore, we were supposed to have writing workshops before our papers were due and we haven't had any and we aren't having one on our last paper. Without writing workshops, I have been unable to improve my writing thus I have received bad grades on both of my papers. I wish the criteria for the papers was clear, so that we could know what we are being evaluated on. The grading seems to be very random, and it seems unfair that I was penalized for following the assignment on my second paper. Also, having a final exam and pop quizzes in a literature class is annoying because the class should be more about papers and less about memorizing which poet wrote which poem. Overall, I would NEVER recommend this course to another student. I think the course needs to be revamped first, by limited the number of students who enroll. Having a literature class with 180 students is stupid. In lectures with such a large number of students, it is impossible to really discuss the readings. Also, when we don't start class until 2:10 when the class is supposed to start at 2:00 we lose out on much needed time. The readings were entirely too long and were often boring. It is crazy to assume that we will remember the names, authors, and summaries for so many poems. Furthermore, they were difficult to understand and we did not have adequate class time to discuss all of the readings. Having class twice a week for 50 minutes just isn't enough time given the amount of readings we have to go over. We often didn't have time to get through all of the slides, but we were still responsible for the material? That's just insane because it isn't our fault that the lecture time is so limited. Overall, the expectations for this course are way too high for an intro level class, and I hope that the course can be changed to make it better because I feel that this topic is extremely important.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-29T20:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martha Nell Smith', 'course': 'ENGL439D', 'review': 'Smith really knows her stuff. She is involved with anything to do with Emily Dickinson. She is truly so knowledgeable about all her works and life. Going into this class, I knew nothing about Dickinson. I left this class with so much knowledge about her, her works, and the way her image was falsely crafted by publishers. If you want an author study, this is it. Smith created or helped create all the databases, books, museums, movies, and tv shows about Dickinson. There is no better person to learn about Dickinson from.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-09T22:09:46.086974Z'}], 'name': 'Martha Nell Smith', 'slug': 'nell_smith'}, {'courses': ['MUSC645', 'MUSC800V', 'MUSC801V', 'MUSP619X', 'MUSP620X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Martha Randall', 'slug': 'randall'}, {'courses': ['ENGL395', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Martha Thomas', 'slug': 'thomas_martha'}, {'courses': ['BULM758B', 'BULM733', 'BULM758A', 'BUSI788Y', 'BMGT888W', 'BMGT888L', 'BMGT828I', 'BUSM778Y', 'BMGT477', 'BULM756', 'BUSO752', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT888W', 'BUSO752', 'BMGT888W', 'BULM756', 'BMGT888W', 'BUSO752', 'BMGT758J', 'BUSI718B', 'BMGT386', 'BMGT888W', 'BULM756', 'BMGT475'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Martin Dresner', 'course': 'BMGT298F', 'review': "Professor Dresner comes off rather timid, but he's really nice and I enjoyed 298F. Shows a video nearly every class. Class discussions can be rather slow, but I feel like that was because the students spaced out all class instead of forming opinions on the subject, and Professor Dresner wasn't at fault. Also, the case studies were actually interesting, and I think he grades on effort more than on content.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-10T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Dresner', 'course': 'BMGT477', 'review': 'Great professor. Always willing to answer questions and take time out of his day to help. Exams are hard but fair- study the slides and you’ll be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-17T23:16:46Z'}], 'name': 'Martin Dresner', 'slug': 'dresner'}, {'courses': ['ENEE601', 'ENEE480', 'ENEE416', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE303'], 'average_rating': 2.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': "Anyone calling him a douchebag because his lecture is too hard to follow, may got to look in the mirror and realize that the problem isn't with the professor. Peckerar comes to class without notes because he is smart, intelligent, and knows the course plan by heart. If he is lazy, he would have reused a powerpoint presentation and gave you the same exam from previous years. \r\nPeckerar is absolutely the most passionate professor in the ECE who actually cares about his students. Two short anecdotes about Peckerar. I once asked him my grade in the hall way when he was ready to go back home. He plopped down on the hall way floor to open up his labtop in order to look up my grade for me. He once had a medical issue in front of the class while teaching. He asked us to give him 5 min break while he knelt on the floor. He then proceeded to finish the lecture sitting on a chair. \r\nWeather his handwritting is legible or not, or at what level he teaches his class, his is not a bad professor and definitely not a douchebag. It should be us, students, to step up our game when professors have a higher expectation of us. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-09-03T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': "Prof Peckerar is not a bad professor. His handwriting isn't that messy..he just goes through the material very quickly. In general if you want to well in the class you need to relatively proactive. The textbook for the most part is useless, you need to actually go in for office hours and you need to use the internet to learn the materials. If you're someone who doesn't like to go to class and you don't like keeping up with the class as it goes along...then don't take him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T14:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': "This guy's definitely not as bad as people make him out to be. His class is very difficult, no doubt about it but he's most certainly not a bad professor. It just depends what you're looking for. \n\r\nCons: Studying the book, doing homework and practicing for 30 hours may still not be enough to (without the curve) get you an A. Let's face it, the man ideally wants you to know everything.\r\nAlso, I can guarantee you that he NEVER repeats exam questions. Every exam is brand new, with at least one new twist/situation or never-before-seen scenario that can seriously mess with your head. \n\r\nPros: Hard test = Low average = HUGE CURVE, a famous EE equation. It's no different here. Got an A without ever actually getting an A on an exam. His curve is pretty sweet: a B- if you're at the average (which is quite often a 45-50%). Moreover, he puts you at a graduate school level. Yes, that seems like it should be a con but again, you need to figure out what you want. \n\r\nBottom line is you must give yourself A LOT OF TIME otherwise you'll just find a C on testudo and come rage on ourumd.\n\r\nTo put it bluntly:\r\n15-18 cr. workload = No time = Iliadis\r\n12-14 cr. workload = some time = Peckerar", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-17T10:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE303H', 'review': 'He is a good professor. He is certainly not as bad as other reviewers have posted comments about him. No doubt his handwriting is bad but if you pay a little attention you will understand what he is trying to teach. He really teaches microelectronics well. I would suggest to take this professor for ENEE303 if you really want to learn Microelectronics.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T14:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Listen to the reviewers before me, because they're all correct. He is a very intelligent man. He definitely knows what he's talking about, but he can't teach for crap. I've never seen anyone with a low-volume, high-pitched mumble like he has. It was kind of like having Milton from Office Space teach you electronics. Sound like fun? Yeah, I didn't think so.\n\r\nIt's a real pity that a large group of the ECE professors can't even teach to save their lives. The man's handwriting is indecipherable. Like one of the reviewers said, most times I couldn't tell if that little squiggle is supposed to be a resistor or a ground. As a result, I barely paid any attention in lecture and learned everything from the book. Which sucks, because half of the stuff in the book he doesn't even test you on. That being said, if I didn't have the book I would have already failed the class.\n\r\nNow, I will say that this class is tough in itself, and there wasn't the best choice of professors teaching it this semester. However, I know that there are ECE professors who can teach. Bottom line is do what you can, and if you can, avoid Peckerar.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T04:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'Avoid this douchebag at all costs just like the other reviewer said. He comes to class without any preparation and scribbles some circuits on the board. He assigns homework that does not relate to his lectures nor his exams. Half the time, im trying to figure out if the part of the circuit is a resistor or a ground. If you can read the book, learn on your own go a head and take him. If you need a little lecture to serve as an introduction to the material, this guy is not for you. you will fail.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-21T15:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': 'People need to relax. He is a good professor. These people who didn\'t like him are obviously not in college for the degree. He is a GOOD PROFESSOR, he teaches you what you need to know and is a really nice guy. He is enthusiastic about making sure everyone knows the "basics" that engineers *need* to know upon graduating. The "A" material is NOT hard, he\'s just looking for a little extra research on the topic to add on the end of the lab, I did mine from wikipedia and got A\'s on most of my labs. \n\r\nSo RELAX. The only thing I didn\'t like about the class wasn\'t him, it was the 9am start time.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-17T22:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': "The worst professor I have ever chanced upon in a university. This guy just redefines bad in every way. Messy, minuscule writing on the board, he talks quietly, and really high pitched (which is INCREDIBLY annoying), and he is just a total douchebag when it comes to assignments. He forces people to do extra work for a TWO CREDIT class, by which I mean you have to come in on your own time, and do an extra experiment and discuss it for an A on your labs.\n\r\nThe lab was another horrifying experience; the equipment was mostly broken, 90% of the shit in there doesn't work. We had a total of ONE lab bench in the entire place that worked consistently for the whole semester, and it was pretty much a first come first serve all-out war to get it every week.\n\r\nPeckerar also kept us working up until finals actually started. He actually MADE UP A LAB because we should have finished 1 week early (as was common for every other semester).\n\r\nOverall, this was the worst collegiate experience of my life aside from Francis Goochlick.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-02T20:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'Avoid this douchebag at all costs. His lectures are extremely boring and not approachable, he threatened to fail anyone who leaves early, he gives pop-quizzes just to force people to show up, and its hard to get an A. The other reviewer is right, you need to do "something extra" to earn an A, but you have to decide what the "extra" will be on your own, Peckerar doesnt make suggestions.\n\r\nBottom line, do not take this class with Peckerar.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-20T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Martin Peckerar', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': '-Threatened to fail anyone who leaves his lectures before he finishes (he actually went 5 minutes over when someone left)\r\n-Excerpt from his syllabus:\r\n"The grading policy is as follows. Performing all necessary measurements and providing “hard copy documentation” of these measurements is satisfactory and, by itself, assures the student of a C grade. An inability to perform required measurements places a lab in the D-F range. Correctly answering the “interpretation” questions as presented in the lab moves the lab into the B scoring range.\n\r\nTo get an A, the laboratory must contain some “unique” element, not specifically called for in the lab text. As an example, in lab 0, students may examine the concepts of “measurement accuracy and precision.” An interesting project would be to look up the definitions of these terms and find ways to quantify these concepts (using statistical concepts, like standard deviation). A REALLY interesting project would be to quantify the measurement uncertainty (for the measurement of a resistance, R), and from that extract the degree to which the component parameter ACTUALLY varies in light of measurement uncertainty."\n\r\nIf you want an easy A, Id suggest avoiding this guy at all costs. He makes life way harder than it needs to be.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-13T12:19:00Z'}], 'name': 'Martin Peckerar', 'slug': 'peckerar'}, {'courses': ['ENST309', 'ENST430', 'ENST798', 'ENST301', 'ENST472', 'ENST630', 'ENST302', 'ENST303', 'ENST388', 'ENST689', 'ENST608A', 'ENST761', 'ENST388', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST798', 'ENST309', 'ENST301', 'ENST302', 'ENST303', 'ENST388', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST761', 'ENST798', 'ENST388', 'ENST430', 'ENST472', 'ENST630', 'ENST689', 'ENST798', 'ENST608A', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST798'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Martin Rabenhorst', 'course': 'ENST430', 'review': "Dr. Rabenhorst is an excellent professor. He makes sure we all stay awake in lecture by asking a lot of questions. He also emails us print-outs for every lecture that are basically fill-in-the-blanks with all of the stuff you need to know for quizzes and exams.\r\nIf you don't like getting dirty, don't take this class, because the lab can get pretty messy when you go out in the field.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-10-09T02:46:00Z'}], 'name': 'Martin Rabenhorst', 'slug': 'rabenhorst'}, {'courses': ['ECON325', 'ECON330', 'ECON407', 'ECON305', 'ECON317', 'ECON305', 'ECON305', 'ECON330', 'ECON305', 'ECON407', 'ECON305', 'ECON442'], 'average_rating': 2.85, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': 'Tough, but a good professor. You have to go to class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-16T02:41:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "A pretty good professor that knows her stuff. The course was challenging but definitely manageable. She's always extremely helpful/friendly at office hours.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-24T05:17:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "she's passionate and experienced with econ. however her teaching style is dry and boring. you must show up to class to earn learning catalytics poitns. her TA's were something else. her exams are extremely tough, but she curves and provides extra credit options. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-20T18:32:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': 'She curved backwards at the end of the semester even though the final average was a 65, take anybody else', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-22T02:36:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': 'good teacher but CURVED BACKWARDS?', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-04T04:02:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Blatantly Rude & no self-awareness. Had her for more than 1 course at a time and both classes had a failing average for exams, yet she'd blame the students for poor preparation. Puts insanely quick time limits on exams & gives no partial-credit. Complains about lack of participation but always talks down to students who ask 4 help. 0/100 - would not recommend. \r\n\r\nappears talking down to students may be a genuine hobby of her's. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-18T15:02:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'Do NOT take her. She is extremely disrespectful of her students and has extremely high expectations with zero preparation for them. In a forced-online environment, she does not give us any chances to succeed at all and holds zero accountability in terms of admitting her own mistakes. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-18T21:02:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Please do not take her unless you want to fail. She is terrible... I've never had such a low grade in any class ever. Her exams are extremely difficult and her grading scale is unreasonable. On top of that, she is not understanding at all and blames the students for her incompetency. Sad I had to pay to deal with this..", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-11T14:46:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'Clearly very knowledgeable and experienced, but struggles with the online format and fails to understand why students don’t immediately grasp concepts. Students teaching one another (such as myself) have contributed much more to finer details on topics than her short video quizzes and homework assignments. Far from the worst professor I’ve ever had, but if you don’t have any prior interest or experience in banking or finance, you may find yourself treading water.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-03-21T17:09:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Listen, do yourself a favor and don't take her. She has easily become one of the WORST professors I've ever taken. This is the first time I'm compelled to write a thorough review because I don't want anyone to have to pay to deal with this absolute joke of a class and her lack of self awareness. I have PTSD from this class and it's not even over yet.\r\nBackground: I'm a Business student and this is easily the hardest class I've taken this semester, Econ isn't even my major but I've done well on past courses.\r\nStructure:\r\n1. Exams: Her exams are an absolute nightmare. This semester we have 5 exams (75% of the grade) which is a little extra but not too bad right? WRONG. These exams are extremely difficult. We don't even have enough time to think through the concepts because she expects you to know the answer right after you see the question. It's a 30 minute exam with material that we haven't even learned with many parts questions and honestly, an absolute nightmare.\r\n2. Professor's lack of accountability: She makes a Groupme for every class to listen to the students? no. She reportedly says she will ignore it because we are becoming little babies and complaining too much. The first exam was fairly simple concepts but the class average was 50% because nobody had enough time. She agreed it was a little rough, but we aren't studying enough. She basically sugarcoated it and called us all stupid. And she didn't curve the exam. It seems like she has no self awareness, she thinks she's right and we're all wrong and will not listen to any suggestions and is not accommodating AT ALL. \r\n3. Course load: The course load isn't too bad to be honest, it's all HW on Pearson and some video quizzes that are pretty straightforward. Attendance is mandatory because there are LC questions going on during class in which you get participation grade. But you know what sucks? She had class when the university specifically closed all classes due to snow and bad weather and had the audacity to still grade the class because we're all babies and she's doesn't care. \r\nSummary: I get good grades and this is the first time I'm basically failing every exam. Well, the whole class is but the exams aren't curved. We're basically just waiting till the end of the semester to see if she can find it in her cold heart to give us a curve. She curved backwards last semester apparently so.... maybe I shouldn't be too hopeful. This class will make you 100% more stressed than you need to be, college is already so hard and nobody needs this in their life. I'm not being dramatic, I'm really trying to help whoever is reading this. Literally I don't think I know anyone who had a positive experience with her. I'm thinking of dropping this class..... and I don't ever do that. If you can avoid taking her, avoid her at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-08T14:15:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "You're going to have to put in LOTS of work – she isn't the best at teaching and her lectures alone will not be anywhere enough for exams and assignments. Save your ECON200 or AP Macro notes, you're gonna need them. If you're a BMGT major, I suggest looking for another ECON class to satisfy the economics requirement. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-19T01:54:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Great professor! Professor Copelman is very friendly and always willing to help you if you're not 100% on a topic. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-21T03:10:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'The class is fairly hard but the professor is pretty good. Definitely not a class you can skip regularly or sleep through.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-08-02T02:52:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "This class is a really hard class. You need to put a lot of work to pass this class. The exams were ridiculously hard the average was 50% on the first exam. The exams are completely different than the learning catalytics and the homework we do in class. You only get an hour to do 25 questions that have calculations. She comes off as rude when she talks to her students but at the end of the semester she had a major curve that's what made me pass her class. If you can avoid her at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-01-25T20:54:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': 'This class requires a lot of effort. If you want to get a decent grade, you must read the book, practice problems, and go to office hours. Dr. Copelman is an okay professor. She offer a lot of options for office hours. On the exam, some questions made no sense. Some questions were on the exam were very different to what you have study in class. The exams average are low 60s. Expect no extra credit opportunities, but she had a big grade curve at the end of the class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-07-17T01:23:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': 'Her slides are very confusing and have paragraphs pasted on them, and the home work and practice exams are not relevant to the actual exams. Be ready to read the book cover to cover and do independent studying on google if you want a good grade.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-11-09T18:11:01.978760Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON330', 'review': "So she's alright. The class has a lot of information that you have to understand. Attending the lectures are helpful bc she gave extra context and examples that helps with understanding. But I wouldn't say 100% necessary. I could teach myself the material using slides and the textbook; however, she grades attendance using in class questions. Going to office hours is helpful.\r\n\r\nA lot of people say she's rude but I didn't experience/notice that. It's more like she's not super careful about hurting student's feelings and laughs about things a lot. BUTTTTT during the exams, she and the TAs would literally talk and giggle and it was so distracting and inconsiderate. During the final, she was literally watching a football match, reacting out loud and constantly laughing with the TAs. \r\n\r\nAll the exams are MC but are incredibly tricky even when you study a lot. The average for the first exam was a D and the second was a C. \r\nI'd say overall she's definitely not terrible and the class is doable if you study a lot.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:34:54.369378Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': 'I read her reviews before taking the class and thought to myself, "I can do it - it\'ll be fine!" I was mistaken. Please avoid Martina Copelman at all costs. She is rude, inconsiderate, and expresses little care for how her students perform overall. I will also list some positives: she has a lot of inclass questions that even if you answer incorrectly, you get 0.5 points for which allow you to get full points for that section of the grade at the end of the semester. That was a huge help. The homework is tough, the exams are tougher, and the averages are usually around the lower end of 60%. There is a large curve at the end of about 5% points, give or take, but she is not willing to hear you out if you are close to the cut-off.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-30T02:48:00.925722Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': 'I love dr martina, she is the coolest professor at UMD. Class is hard though', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-31T21:02:22.845686Z'}, {'professor': 'Martina Copelman', 'course': 'ECON305', 'review': "Class is tough but professor Copelman is really good at what she teaches. There's extra credit and curve. Not an easy professor if that's what you are looking for. If you want to learn this is the way ;)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-13T00:24:02.375328Z'}], 'name': 'Martina Copelman', 'slug': 'copelman'}, {'courses': ['KNES240', 'KNES386', 'KNES457', 'KNES286'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Marvin Scott', 'course': None, 'review': "I am not quick to dislike a teacher, but I am definitely not a fan of this professor. Throughout class he discusses very general themes and ideas and then he tests on specifics. There is little if any out-of-class work to help drill the class content into our brains. And I can't resist quoting him. I recently recorded a part of a lecture and this is word for word what he said: “This week we discussed deviant over-performing as being people who buy into the concept that looking at things such as sport ethic and we also talked about the people who are more likely to be impacted.” I'm pretty sure it's not just me, but this sentenced makes very little sense. How can a professor expect much from students when he struggles to form coherent sentences in his lectures. \n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-11-21T23:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marvin Scott', 'course': 'KNES386', 'review': 'It was not stated when I signed up for this class that you would have to put in three hours a week outside of class at a volunteer site. Being expected to get to a volunteer site that was not in walking distance was sometimes a struggle. There are two midterms and a final and if you can choose not to take the final if you do well on the first two exams. Every week you have to write a reflection from what you did at your service site and Scott grades these harder than they need to be graded. There is also a six page paper on a research question of your choosing. Overall, this class was made more difficult than it needed to be. There was more work than I would have expected. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-04-28T13:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marvin Scott', 'course': 'KNES457', 'review': "He makes sure to take off points on tests for wording instead of content. Make sure you argue with him for test points because his questions are vague and allow for multiple answers where the only one that's right is in his head. He tests a lot on what he has said so you have to write down all of his analogies instead of the actual content. Have to do weekly journals which isn't too bad, but also assigns busy work that takes a while and is worth nothing.Wish the class was more balanced for the amount of work you put in. Disappointing class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-15T00:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Marvin Scott', 'course': 'KNES386', 'review': 'Dr Scott grades subjective material like an objective test. He assigns reflections and evaluates them based on the class material. He worries too much about the wording of your work than the content. Its frustrating receiving mediocre grades when yo understand the class. Make sure you use exact wording on tests and papers or he will deduct points no mercy. He makes an interesting, fun class dissapointing.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-13T21:52:00Z'}], 'name': 'Marvin Scott', 'slug': 'scott_marvin'}, {'courses': ['EDHI755', 'EDHI754', 'EDHI895', 'EDHI752', 'EDHI788M', 'EDHI788Y', 'EDCP870', 'EDHI788C', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI652', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI788Y', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI754', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI788Y'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Marvin Titus', 'slug': 'titus'}, {'courses': ['EDCP618', 'EDCP685', 'EDCP616', 'EDCP691', 'EDCP789E', 'EDCP698'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Ann Hoffman', 'slug': 'hoffman_mary_ann'}, {'courses': ['ENAE324', 'ENAE283', 'ENES220', 'ENAE484', 'ENES215', 'GEMS296', 'ENES216', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'EDSP652', 'GEMS497', 'ENES102H', 'ENES102', 'ENAE283', 'ENES102', 'ENES195', 'ENAE283'], 'average_rating': 4.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Bowden is hands down the best professor you can have for 220. She is super nice, teaches at a pace so that everyone understands the material, and wants everyone in her class to succeed. She is very smart, but also super approachable. If you do the homework and put a little effort into the class, you should get an A.\n\r\n220 builds on the topics taught in 102, but she goes over the concepts learned in that class before adding to them. She understands that you will not remember everything, and if you struggled in that class, she will help you learn what you need to know for 220.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-11-07T13:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Picture the perfect professor, and that's Bowden. She is hands down one of the best professors in this University as well as one of the nicest. She is an excellent lecturer who is very clear and easy to understand. She is one of few teachers who care about their student's grades and wants them to succeed. She is also probably the only statics professor who gives EC and also curves. The first 2 midterms are pretty easy, the final is pretty hard, so don't get cocky after the first 2 midterms. Honestly THERE IS NO OTHER TEACHER U SHOULD TAKE FOR STATICS OTHER THAN BOWDEN!!! In fact, if you don't have Bowden, Statics will be a hard class. Again, TAKE BOWDEN, or regret it!!!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-26T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENAE324', 'review': 'She\'s an excellent professor and an excellent person, I honestly don\'t have the patience to say enough good things about her. \n\r\nShe\'s very understanding, very knowledgeable, personable, and explains things in a way that is easy to digest. I\'m personally going aero track, but this professor makes me rethink "If all professors in space track are this awesome maybe I should reconsider...."\n\r\nAnyway, she\'s awesome and the only thing you\'ll regret is NOT taking her for you class (be it for statics, mechanics, whatever). \r\nAlso, its fun to count the number of times she says "standby" during class haha', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-15T18:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Honestly this women is angel sent from God to teach us all about engineering. If I didn't have her as a teacher I probably would have cried myself to sleep every night because I believed that I did not have the brainpower and the aptitude to be cut out for an Engineer, however she proved me wrong.\n\r\nDr. Bowden does an amazing job teaching the material both in her class and at office hours (I recommend going to). She hands out plenty of extra credit opportunities that are great sample/mock problems for upcoming tests, though a little difficult to say the least. The homework for this class is not fun, and I would never have gotten through it without having a friend help/work with me. The tests dare I say were pretty straightforward, and matched the problem solving techniques for the homework. So basically understand the homework, and work on all of the practice exam problems you should do decently at least an 80% on both the tests. Bridge building with Bowden was fun because she allowed our class to use different materials than the other ENES102 classes, which produced interesting bridges with metal plates or made out of bamboo. The only problem about this class is the final, so a word to the wise DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE FINAL. That is all, and enjoy engineering :D", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-07-09T02:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENAE324', 'review': 'Excellent professor. Her teaching style is a little bizarre and it takes a while to get used to. She writes very little on the board, but everything she writes is normally very important so try to pay attention. Exams/quizzes were always very fair and straightforward. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-03T18:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Bowden teaches the first half of ENAE324. At the beginning of the semester I wasn't used to her teaching style but I got used to it as time went on. She's actually not a bad teacher at all like I first thought. The material that she teaches can be a little convoluted but that's not her fault. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-23T12:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "ENES102H -- I really enjoyed the class and thought Bowden was a good professor. Sadly, I got a little overconfident and did not study enough for the final.\n\r\nENAE283 -- The structure of this class pretty much means you don't need to go to class. She allows a formula sheet which makes tests and quizzes simple.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-13T20:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Very nice woman, makes material easy to understand. She's very approachable and good at answering emails if you have questions. Lots of extra credit opportunities so even if you mess up on the easy exams you can still get a good grade as long as you put the effort in. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T17:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'P. Bowden is a great teacher. She explains the material very clearly, is always willing to answer questions, and is genuinely interested in her students understanding the material. She offers tons of extra credit. She is extremely nice and patient, especially in office hours. top choice for ENES102.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-17T16:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Bowden is great. She's very relaxed with deadlines and dates to turn in things, and she's very understanding. She also tries her best to make sure her students get good grades (theres extra credit!!). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-13T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Professor Bowden is a competent teacher, who tries her best to ensure that her students understand the subject matter.She is also very approachable and gives extra-credit problems.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-16T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Bowden is a very kind professor and she wants you to learn all the material. The class may get difficult, but she is always helpful in office hours. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-05T23:37:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENAE324', 'review': 'Honestly one of the best professors in the Aerospace Department at UMD. She genuinely cares for all her students and will make a sincere effort to ensure that all of her students can succeed in the course. Although lectures often have very few notes associated with it, you still end up understanding most of it due to her teaching style. Whether the class is ENES102 or ENAE324 she is a wonderful professor and would recommend taking her. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-04-28T18:02:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENAE283', 'review': "Bowden is an amazing lecturer and did a fantastic job teaching this introductory ENAE course. Her lectures contain all of the formulas and concepts necessary to do the homework. Also don't be afraid to read the book its amazing and can clear up any concepts or formulas you don't understand. Exams are straightforward and similar to the practice exams she posts. Also there is a lot of extra credit which can earn you a 3-4% boost to your grade. Overall this course isn't too difficult and if I had studied a bit more before exams I could of gotten an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-05T23:39:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': None, 'review': 'I had Dr. Bowden for both ENAE283 and ENES220 this semester. She really is one of the nicest lecturers around! Very personable and really cares about her students. Gives plenty of opportunities for extra credit. My only gripe is that she is notoriously slow at grading—exams take weeks to get back and final grades took even longer!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-13T07:16:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENAE283', 'review': "I had Dr. Bowden for ENES220 and ENAE283 for Fall 2020. She is easily one of the nicest and caring professors I have ever had. She truly cares about her students and wants them to do well. HW's are reasonable and Exams are not do bad but you definitely need to prepare for them. She gives ample opportunities for extra credit. Only thing I have a slight issue with is how long she takes to grade exams but she does teach quite a few other classes I believe. One other thing I had an issue with is she can sort of fall behind in lecture and rush with the material before an exam. Anyway, I would highly recommend taking her for any class she teaches!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-01-17T18:53:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Dr. Bowden is a wonderful person as well as a competent professor. 10/10 would recommend to anyone taking ENES102!\r\n\r\nAbout Bowden:\r\n- She is one of the sweetest and most caring people I have ever met. She is very approachable and encourages you to talk to her if need more guidance, always reminding us about her office hours. \r\n- Dr. Bowden is also very understanding and will try her best to help you in whatever way possible so that you never feel intimidated by a test or assignment. \r\n- She is very very knowledgeable about the material she is teaching and is very passionate about the class. Did you know she helped design spacecraft for the international space station at NASA! \r\n- She is my favorite professor so far!\r\n\r\nTeaching style:\r\n- She goes over concepts at a very good pace. I never felt rushed learning the material (considering this was my first time seeing anything related to mechanics) and she makes sure to stop and ask for clarifying questions along the way. \r\n- I also adored the examples she gives during class to solidify the abstract concepts she previously taught, not to mention she goes over homework problems she thinks are difficult to make sure we don\'t spend too long trying to solve them on our own. \r\n\r\nENES102H itself:\r\n- There are three midterms and one final (no quizzes). The midterms and the final are not easy, so be prepared. They post about 18 or so review practice problems a week before the test which are a good way to study for the test and I highly recommend you do all or most of them. These practice problems go over all the concepts you will need to know for the exam (bottom line: if you can do the review practice problems, you are more or less guaranteed a B or an A on the exam so long as you avoid silly mistakes). We also get a "cheat sheet" were we can write down anything we need and use it while taking our exam. \r\n- We also have a truss project. I personally didn\'t like it because spanned over the two weeks before finals and we didn\'t really receive much guidance. If you don\'t have a good group in which everyone is willing to pull their weight (which unfortunately didn\'t happen for me), you are more or less screwed. \r\n- This class, for all I know, is not curved. BUT there is extra credit. If you compile all the practice problems you have done in preparation for the exams, you con get up to 3 or 4 percent boost in your grade. \r\n\r\nGood luck and try to have some fun with this class :)\r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-21T03:17:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENAE283', 'review': "Dr. Bowden was a very effective lecturer and made extremely fair exams that were much like the homework and practice exams. The exams definitely require a bit more preparation due to the vast number of concepts on them, but while additional preparation is necessary it isn't a ridiculous amount like you find studying for MATH 241 or 246. Overall, Dr. Bowden's class is fun and easy, and my only gripe is that exams took an inordinate period to finish grading, being about a month in both cases. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-23T16:08:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "I love Dr. Bowden with all my heart. Go to her office hours (even if you aren't in her class) she is so sweet, helpful, and really wants you to do well. I really enjoyed her class though sometimes she would go off topic and she would take a whole class just to go over one example. She offered a lot of extra credit and doubled sided cheat sheets so definitely use those to your advantage. Do the practice problems they give out before exams because the midterms tended to have tricky problems.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-07T20:04:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENAE324', 'review': 'Dr. Bowden is one of the most caring professors in all of aero. She always makes fun of 432 and understands the struggles we are going through in relation to the course load of other classes. While she tends to be a little slow with uploading files or grading exams/homework, she will always try and be prompt with emails and answer any questions. If you go to her office hours, she genuinely helps you out a lot with the homework or practice exams and guides you to the right direction every time. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-02T13:35:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Bowden', 'course': 'ENAE283', 'review': 'Amazing lecturer, very kind and helpful, understanding and wants her students to succeed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-28T21:50:59.647300Z'}], 'name': 'Mary Bowden', 'slug': 'bowden_mary'}, {'courses': ['CPMS101', 'CPMS230', 'CPMS240', 'CPSP259J', 'JOUR130', 'CPMS100', 'CPMS225', 'JOUR660', 'JOUR360', 'CPMS230', 'JOUR360', 'JOUR660', 'CPMS100', 'CPMS225', 'CPMS230', 'JOUR360', 'JOUR660', 'CPMS101', 'CPMS230', 'CPMS240', 'CPSP259J', 'JOUR360', 'JOUR660', 'CPMS100', 'CPMS225', 'CPMS230', 'JOUR360', 'JOUR660'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Alison Burns', 'course': 'JOUR130', 'review': 'Best teacher, class was relaxed and did not have a lot of work.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-11-20T00:56:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Alison Burns', 'course': 'JOUR360', 'review': "She's super awesome. She goes by Allison and not Mary and she still freelances for Cox Media Bureau. She brings in tons of stories from outside. She really cares about all of her students and is really good at helping you become a better writer. There is a ton of participation and sharing to the rest of class. We watch a lot of videos and almost all our writing assignments will have rewrites. She rules and is a great teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-11-19T11:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Alison Burns', 'course': 'CPMS101', 'review': "She is the kindest person you will ever meet. She genuinely cares about her students and their experience in her class. I only took her for the 1-credit Media Scholars colloquium so I can't say much about her teaching skills. With that being said, if you're looking for a good grade, all of the assignments in that class were very easy and basically completion grades.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-26T22:51:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Alison Burns', 'course': 'CPMS100', 'review': "Alison is one of the sweetest people I've ever met! I had her for all of Media Scholars and loved the experience. She's very open and relatable with her students, and does a great job of making them passionate about media through plenty of diverse guest speakers and discussion activity. When I was having a hard time with the death of a loved one, she went out of her way to make sure that not only I could come to the Scholars field trip in the midst of the tragedy, but she also invited my parents to help them have a nice distraction.\r\n\r\nAwesome human being, very open, caring, and altruistic. I can't stop singing her praises, she's the best.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-19T19:40:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Alison Burns', 'course': 'CPMS225', 'review': "There are not enough words to describe how great of a professor and person Alison is! You truly will not find a professor on campus who is as caring, thoughtful, and genuinely kind as her. She goes out of her way to develop individual bonds and connections with each of her students and always checks in and keeps up with what her students are doing outside of class. Very supportive and goes above and beyond for her students, and we love her for it!! I've had her as a professor since my first semester of college, and am going to miss seeing her every week, next semester when I won't have a class with her anymore.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-03T01:45:15.040423Z'}, {'professor': 'Alison Burns', 'course': 'CPMS225', 'review': 'So incredibly sweet and caring, she really is so kind and wants to get to know each of her students well!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-12T03:35:14.458489Z'}, {'professor': 'Alison Burns', 'course': 'CPMS100', 'review': "Sweetest professor you'll ever meet. Literally went to a play with her. Always concerned with you as a person, not just a student. Easy grader and one of the nicest professors I've ever met.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-16T05:49:49.392920Z'}, {'professor': 'Alison Burns', 'course': 'CPMS100', 'review': 'As a class, it is one of the most chill classes with not much work. In order to make the most out of the class, it is crucial that you are active during discussions. As a professor, Prof Burns absolutely loves connecting with her students and has the biggest smile. If you are struggling with anything, be sure to reach out to her as she genuinely cares.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-28T04:19:36.901119Z'}], 'name': 'Alison Burns', 'slug': 'burns'}, {'courses': ['ANTH601', 'ANTH606'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Butler', 'slug': 'butler_mary'}, {'courses': ['PSYC436', 'PSYC643', 'PSYC629', 'PSYC629D', 'PSYC629A', 'PSYC629C', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC629B', 'PSYC629F', 'PSYC629B', 'PSYC629D', 'PSYC643', 'PSYC629B', 'PSYC643', 'PSYC629A', 'PSYC629F', 'PSYC629A', 'PSYC629B', 'PSYC629F', 'PSYC629D', 'PSYC643'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mary Byrne', 'course': 'PSYC436', 'review': 'Easy class, great professor! If you study the slides, you will do well on the exams. The projects are informative and fun. Byrne connects all the lessons to real life events and tells you about all of her experiences. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-10-28T17:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Byrne', 'course': 'PSYC436', 'review': 'Colleen is AMAZING. Take any class you can with her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-09T02:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Byrne', 'course': 'PSYC436', 'review': "The class only has 4 homework assignments and 2 exams, so you really cannot mess up on anything. Overall, the material was interesting and the exams weren't too bad as long as you studied the PowerPoint slides. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-17T18:10:02Z'}], 'name': 'Mary Byrne', 'slug': 'byrne'}, {'courses': ['THET420', 'THET222', 'THET310', 'THET285'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Coy', 'slug': 'coy_mary'}, {'courses': ['SLLC309', 'FREN103', 'FREN601', 'FREN407', 'FREN709', 'FREN203', 'FREN499L', 'FREN611', 'FREN203', 'FREN709', 'FREN499L', 'FREN611'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mary Ellen Scullen', 'course': 'FREN103', 'review': 'Best/coolest French teacher!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-19T01:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Ellen Scullen', 'course': 'FREN203', 'review': 'Mme. Scullen was an awesome teacher. This class was a lot of work, but she is super understanding and flexible, and was honestly a great teacher who graded more based on your personal improvement, rather than completion of task. Helped me learn more French than I ever did through high school!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-02T02:47:58Z'}], 'name': 'Mary Ellen Scullen', 'slug': 'scullen'}, {'courses': ['BSCI279B', 'EDUC388', 'EDUC388', 'EDUC388'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Gallagher', 'slug': 'gallagher_mary'}, {'courses': ['HLTH460', 'HLTH391', 'HLTH460H', 'HONR238N', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH688'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Garza', 'slug': 'garza'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338K'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Graham-Fisher', 'slug': 'graham-fisher'}, {'courses': ['BMGT458A', 'BMGT484', 'BMGT457', 'BMGT498B', 'BMGT355', 'BMGT353', 'BMGT357', 'BMGT299A', 'BUMK757', 'BMGT457', 'BMGT457', 'BMGT458A', 'BMGT457', 'BMGT484', 'BMGT357', 'BMGT357'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mary Harms', 'course': 'BMGT484', 'review': "Professor Harms is a fantastic professor. She isn't your run of the mill professor who lectures, gives exams and group projects. She really engages the class and genuinely cares about her students. I would recommend getting to know her well, she is really insightful and eager to help you in any way. I am really glad I took the course too--it was very interesting and relevant to many majors. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-25T00:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Harms', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Harms is incredibly nice and very knowledgable on the subject. Her class is very interesting and the work is never too much to handle.\n\r\nThe only reason I wont give her 5 stars is that I felt it was very difficult to figure what was going to be on the exams. Even though she gave us a study guide of all of the important points of the chapter, there were numerous slides that had no words on them, so unless you got the important info (which was hard sometimes if she moved to fast) you were ut of luck.\n\r\nThat said I am gladly taking her again next semester and would do this class with her again.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-01-10T12:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Harms', 'course': 'BMGT484', 'review': 'Super lady. Real nice and will occasionally cancel class for reasons such as "its too nice out" or "spring break is almost here anyway". study guides for all multiple choice finals. takes attendance but pretty chill class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T20:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Harms', 'course': 'BMGT451', 'review': 'Harms is one the best professor I had at Maryland. I really enjoyed her class. As long as you read the book and articles, you should be fine. She loves students participating in the class. I think the book is very interesting and easy to read. She also has a few short papers for student to write, it they are all pretty easy. Highly recommend if you want to take BMGT451.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-11T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Harms', 'course': 'BMGT451', 'review': "Professor Harms is not only a great professor, she is a really nice person. Her class was interesting and really tied into the real world. She expects you to read the book and participate in class but I really didn't find that difficult. She made me want to learn and I could really tell she wanted everyone to do well and learn in her class. Definitely take her if you are a marketing major.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-04T20:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Harms', 'course': 'BMGT484', 'review': 'Very nice and knowledgeable in this field. However, I felt like I had to scramble a lot throughout the class to figure out what was going on. Barely taught any of the content needed for the exams, rather it was all placed on slides. Provides study guides but they barley mirror the exam. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-21T20:39:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Harms', 'course': 'BMGT484', 'review': 'Such a nice and experienced professor. Her industry knowledge is really rich and valuable. The con would be that most of the time I found myself having run ins when it came to assignment directions. These directions were not clear or concise and when I asked for further direction it contradicted what she had stated in the directions. This happened quite frequently and it was really frustrating. Course load is moderate tp high. A huge absence in lectures which did not help at all when it came to preping for exams. "Lectures" included guest speakers. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-09T17:05:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Harms', 'course': 'BMGT457', 'review': 'I\'m sure Harms used to be a great professor, and while her class includes such crucial marketing info, she\'s just not the best person to be teaching it. There\'s SO much work in and out of class and she does not do a great job explaining what she is looking for. After many doing many case studies in class, she decided towards the end of the semester to give bad grades on all without previously giving feedback that could\'ve helped my group improve. There are a ton of videos to watch before class that contain content for her "exams". Her exams are quizzes that have a super short time limit and she\'ll ask questions about the most random info she mentions in a 45 minute long video. Save yourself the trouble and take this class with a different professor who can give more clear assignment directions and won\'t give exams every two weeks that don\'t actually test on class content, but on random content she thinks is important.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-02T06:11:21.938413Z'}], 'name': 'Mary Harms', 'slug': 'harms'}, {'courses': ['SPAN203', 'SPAN204'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Hernandez-Gordillo', 'slug': 'hernandez-gordillo'}, {'courses': ['EDCP871'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Hummel', 'slug': 'hummel'}, {'courses': ['BMGT310', 'BMGT321', 'BMGT422', 'BUSI610', 'BUAC758A', 'BUAC758G', 'BUSI759', 'BMGT411', 'BMGT411', 'BMGT411', 'BMGT422', 'BMGT311', 'BMGT411', 'BMGT422', 'BMGT411'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mary Keim', 'course': 'BMGT422', 'review': "I wouldn't advise taking this course with her due to the demanding workload and needing to write down practically every word she says to have good notes. Her powerpoints barely mention the concepts you need to know, and the questions you'll get asked require a much deeper understanding of the material. She also assigns a 3,500 word paper and I don't believe the other professors do that. She also 1) yells at people every day for wearing hats or not acting with chivalry 2) Outright bans laptops from her classroom 3) Is painfully boring. I feel like I'm definitely learning but I don't think the exams are fair and fear for my grade.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-10-28T18:34:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Keim', 'course': 'BMGT411', 'review': "If I could give her 0 stars I would. She is genuinely one of the worst professors at the business school. Has absolutely no regard for getting student grades back on time, no clue how to run a classroom or use ELMS, and doesn't even respond to emails. Needs to be fired ASAP", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T16:58:29.572167Z'}], 'name': 'Mary Keim', 'slug': 'keim'}, {'courses': ['CLAS309C', 'CLAS309A'], 'average_rating': 3.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mary Pittas-Herschbach', 'course': None, 'review': 'I found this class to be quite boring and really couldn’t engage with the material. She largely focuses on Modern Greek poetry that has some of the same themes and characters as ancient Greek literature, e.g. Homer, Sophocles, Aeschylus, etc, but the quality of these, in my opinion, seemed to be hit or miss. It was like seeing one of your favorite books turned into a movie that completely falls short.\n\r\nAs for the teaching style, the first half of the class was a small group of students that would have to read their responses to questions she had given; it’s a new group each class where no one reads more than once, but everyone has to read one time. This was exciting as it sounds, as students are there to learn, not teach, and many, including myself, kind of rambled through them. The last half of class she taught, but never really talking in depth about plots, themes, or characters for an extended period of time, but meandering about with various cursory facts about Greece and the Modern Greek authors. \n\r\nAttendance is a big part of this course, and I think I know why. She will also single out people who don’t come in very often, usually making some quip to them. The syllabus also stated you can miss class twice and a little after the halfway mark she alerted us to the fact that since this class was only once a week, each class would retroactively count as the two and started taking attendance twice per class, the beginning and end, rather than just the beginning.\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-31T11:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Pittas-Herschbach', 'course': 'CLAS309C', 'review': 'Avoid this professor at all costs. While her course was easy enough, she is a horrible teacher and person. Her lectures were so boring that they were practically painful. She lacks any understanding of human emotion and will crush your soul because she feels like it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-03T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Pittas-Herschbach', 'course': 'GREK111', 'review': 'Thought I would get an A but ended up getting a B but then again the material for this intro to Greek class can be a little challenging at times. Like learning any new language, it just takes practice and you end up learning a lot in the semester. She grades fairly and is almost always pleasant so overall not a bad prof to take Greek with.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-25T16:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Pittas-Herschbach', 'course': 'GREK211', 'review': 'great proffesser. gives help when needed. goes at pace of class. if you want to learn greek this is a good class to take. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'a', 'created': '2010-12-09T17:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mary Pittas-Herschbach', 'course': 'GREK111', 'review': 'Shes a nice, very stereotypical greek lady. She goes at whatever pace the class needs to and having no exposure to Greek at all before, I am doing fine. Grading is pretty lenient, material isnt really too hard, I think what she expects from people taking an intro level language class is pretty fair.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-28T22:14:00Z'}], 'name': 'Mary Pittas-Herschbach', 'slug': 'pittas-herschbach'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Sirianni', 'slug': 'sirianni'}, {'courses': ['EDPS635', 'TLPL693'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Snyder', 'slug': 'snyder_mary'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mary Turner', 'slug': 'turner_mary'}, {'courses': ['AREC250', 'AREC489O', 'AREC699', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC426'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mary Zaki', 'course': 'AREC250', 'review': 'quite possibly the worst teacher for an economics class, especially if it’s your first time taking one. online was very difficult and stressful. Lectures were also not recorded. While a very nice lady who would take her time to try and listen to what was confusing students and help, her explanations were just not good. Nice person, not a great teacher. Also barely any assignments were put in which is unfortunate to try and get better grades. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-17T22:04:26Z'}], 'name': 'Mary Zaki', 'slug': 'zaki_mary'}, {'courses': ['ARTH200', 'ARTH709', 'ARTH303', 'ARTH488A', 'ARTH708A', 'ARTH488P', 'HONR238Z', 'ARTH608', 'ARTH708', 'ARTH708D', 'ARTH708F', 'ARTH200', 'ARTH708B', 'ARTH708D'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Maryl Gensheimer', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': 'As a CMSC major with no interest in the arts whatsoever, this class was actually pretty interesting. Great lecturer, always kept me engaged in class. She dimmers the lights so that you can read the slides easier (which I personally like) but a few of my friends said that it made it hard for them to take notes so keep that in mind. Tests were extremely fair. If you pay attention in class, you should be able do well on exams without much extra work. You can also do well on the exams without being extremely intuitive / knowledgeable about art and symbolism. My only complaints for this class were that the textbook was required (I managed to go through the entire semester and get an A without reading one of the "required" reading assignments) and the discussions are kind of boring, but also required as they check attendance.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-08-15T06:22:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Maryl Gensheimer', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': "Dr. Gensheimer is a well-informed, organized, consistent professor. However, lectures tend to be pretty dry, and the dim lights in her room are pretty annoying when you're trying to stay awake. Do not take ARTH200 as an easy 'A' class, because it requires a good modicum of effort to even hover at a B+.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-09-09T02:20:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Maryl Gensheimer', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': "Professor Gensheimer's lectures are information-heavy and fast-paced but contain all the information you need to know to do well in the course, The quizzes are straightforward, and the grading is fairly lenient. I began with no interest in art but the class was inspiring in the importance of Art in human history and to society, as well as immensely relatable to engineering. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-27T17:47:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Maryl Gensheimer', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': "I took this class Spring 2021 when we were online. Her lectures were a bit boring and hard to get through. Though I like art history, I found this class dull. I did like the discussion sections though. I don't recommend doing the textbook reading. I went without it, and I got an A. Just review the power points and your notes. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-19T01:26:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Maryl Gensheimer', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': 'Professor Gensheimer was a great lecturer. Her lectures are kind of fast-paced but her lectures and the content she taught were relevant and interesting. She tells the class her expectations at the beginning of the semester and is consistent all throughout. She posts an announcement each week explaining what we will be learning during the week and what needs to be completed. I highly recommend taking this course with her! There is a quiz every other week in this class and they are not too hard but she does not allow retakes. \r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-17T01:33:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Maryl Gensheimer', 'course': 'ARTH200', 'review': 'Dr.Gensheimer is an extremely engaging and knowledgeable professor. The lectures are decently fast-paced, but are very entertaining and the time passes quickly. The quizzes and assignments are all very fair and easy to do if you go to lecture and do the readings. Outside of class, I only did like an hour of work for the class weekly. I really enjoyed the course and think it was an easy A if you attend lectures.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-25T19:43:46.862270Z'}], 'name': 'Maryl Gensheimer', 'slug': 'gensheimer'}, {'courses': ['ENST489Z', 'ENST689P', 'ENST689', 'ENST485', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST485', 'ENST689', 'ENST689', 'ENST689P', 'ENST472', 'ENST485', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Masoud Negahban-Azar', 'slug': 'negahban-azar'}, {'courses': ['ASTR622', 'ASTR601', 'ASTR320', 'ASTR340', 'ASTR688C', 'ASTR300', 'ASTR406', 'ASTR101', 'ASTR415', 'ASTR615', 'ASTR399', 'ASTR415', 'ASTR421', 'ASTR622'], 'average_rating': 4.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Massimo Ricotti', 'course': 'ASTR340', 'review': 'Pros: Knows what he\'s talking about, gives out copies of the lecture, very friendly and always willing to answer questions. Curve was set first day of class (100-85 A, 84-70 B, ...) and homework was 40% of the final grade. \n\r\nCons: If you aren\'t super interested in some of the topics of the course, then some lectures can be pretty boring. The math involved in the homework gave some people problems, but overall it really was not that difficult if you could use the given equations and can convert units (high school level stuff).\n\r\nOverall: While I did enjoy the course a lot, it is "designed primarily for non-science majors" and therefore didn\'t go as in depth with physics as I personally would have liked. Regardless, I learned a lot and recommend both the course and the professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-15T17:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Massimo Ricotti', 'course': 'ASTR415', 'review': "While I can't say Dr. Ricotti is a bad teacher, I can't say he's excellent either. As a person, he is excellent. Really, really nice and funny, and even brought us cookies and cake a couple of times. While his lectures are extremely dry, that may have been just because the material, computational astrophysics, can be pretty dull when you study the algorithms closely. He is an extremely fair grader, however. He is very willing to give extensions, and really tries very hard to give good grades. The homework was very difficult, but again, that was probably because the material is difficult.\r\nTo summarize - if you are interested in the subject, take his class. Otherwise you may find lectures to be very boring.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-07T18:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Massimo Ricotti', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Dr. Ricotti hadn't taught the class before, which was very clear in the structure and how the material was presented. The lecture, discussion, lab, and reading components of the class were almost totally decoupled. Despite this, the class was simple and the assignments were straightforward and didn't require much time. He did emphasize math and physics more than expected for a class that doesn't necessarily contain STEM majors. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-19T03:32:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Massimo Ricotti', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': "Really great guy, super nice. He sometimes talks quietly (compared to the noises the people in lecture sometimes makes), which can make it hard to hear. I recommend going to the front row, that's what I did. I can see how people may find his lectures to be boring, but you have to make sure that you're paying attention and read the material prior to know what he's talking about. I definitely recommend reading through the textbook, since all of the lectures are based on these chapters. However, the book does go more in detail and covers some stuff that's on assignments/exams that are more thoroughly explained in the textbook. If you read the textbook, you'll be fine. He had some really fun and engaging demos throughout the semester, which added some liveliness to the lectures. Don't worry about the discussion or the lab parts, they are both pretty easy, and if there are some difficulties, the GAs are extremely kind in helping the students. The GAs offer a lot of assistance and review sessions for exams—they are a great resource! Overall, a great course that is interesting and not too hard. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-19T16:43:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Massimo Ricotti', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'Dr. Ricotti was a great prof for a 100-level course. My only complaint is that he can be a bit dry sometimes and lose your attention easily. Otherwise, his exams and assignments were well thought out. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T23:50:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Massimo Ricotti', 'course': 'ASTR101', 'review': 'This was this professors first time teaching ASTR101, and he put a lot of effort into making sure people understood the material. I would definitely recommend this professor. Do the reading and if you’re confused about something go to office hours, and you’ll be fine.\r\n\r\nPros: \r\n- The class was graded on a lot of things, which was helpful because if you don’t do well on one assignment you can easily make it up. \r\n- In class there were a lot of mini-experiments that helped demonstrate difficult concepts, so if you’re a visual learner (like me) that will help you a lot. \r\n- The TA’s meet with the professor then hold exam reviews and put review slides up online that you can use as a study guide.\r\n\r\nPro or Con depending on preference:\r\n- As the other reviews mention, there was a curve, but for ASTR101 they curved every exam individually instead of curving everyone at the end of class.\r\n\r\nCon:\r\n- This wasn’t the professors fault, but if you take the class sit toward the front of the room. The experiments can be hard to see from the back.\r\n- The homework can be rough, but the lowest score is dropped and it isn’t a large part of your grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-20T20:48:35Z'}], 'name': 'Massimo Ricotti', 'slug': 'ricotti'}, {'courses': ['MATH674', 'MATH246', 'MATH410', 'MATH411', 'MATH673', 'MATH341', 'AMSC674', 'AMSC673', 'MATH241', 'MATH462', 'MATH405', 'MATH461', 'MATH411', 'MATH858E', 'MATH411', 'MATH630'], 'average_rating': 3.7045, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Machedon is a decent teacher. He tends to drone on and is extremely vague in his explanations in class. I don't feel like I gain very much from going to lecture. That being said, his expectations are very reasonable. His tests are fair, as are the quizzes. You can learn it all from the internet and by doing the problems from the textbook before the tests. He puts a relatively small emphasis on matlab, which I appreciate because I've never really been taught matlab and feel like i have no idea how to use the software. I'd suggest you take matlab if you want to put minimal effort into this class and you don't expect to gain much of an understanding of the material out of the experience.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-04T02:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Machedon's lectures are boring and his accent and handwriting can be hard to understand at times. The tests were pretty difficult and the textbook was hard to understand and in my opinion focused too much on derivations rather than how to get solutions to problems. He does curve the class about 10% which is helpful.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-11-05T18:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Overall, not a great lecturer, he goes through the material quite fast and is not great at explaining things. Using the online notes by Levermore supplemented with Paul's notes plus the occasional patrickJMT/Khanacademy youtube video was enough to get me through most of the material. I also had a fantastic TA (Jacky Chong), definitely take him if available, he's kind of eccentric but really knows his stuff! His tests are quite fair not easy but not impossible either.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-07-31T14:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Taking Diff Eq with Machedon, I only went to class for his assessments (3 quizzes, each a week before each of the 3 midterms), and instead of going to class taught myself from the online textbook. Before each assessment, he sends out an email reminding you about it, which sections it covers, and usually a few hints about its content. They were all fairly straightforward, though the midterm with LaPlace was bad, an average of 59, the other two exams had B averages. He curves significantly at the end, 10% for me. The matlab was not bad, and only was on one exam, unlike some other Diff Eq teachers. Paul's Online Notes are great for when the textbook is too wordy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-28T21:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "I loved taking DiffEQ with Machedon. He is really friendly (the friendliest professor I've had). While the material can sometimes be unclear during lecture, he is approachable and you can clear up the issues you have. \n\r\nSome of the differences in reviews may have been the different TA's that we had. I had Summer as my TA and she was fantastic, and always explained everything clearly that Dr. Machedon may have been unclear on. Those with the other TA may not have had that and thus were unable to clarify a few things. \n\r\nAs far as tests go, they are on a curve and fair for the most part. The only issue is the one trick question he likes to put on each test. If you get lucky its only worth a few points, but on one for us it was worth 20/100 and very few people actually knew what to do. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-24T22:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Dr.Machedon isn't the best teacher, but he makes up for it. His grade curve for the class is awesome! Automatically, above a 50% is a C- . Then the rest of the grades are determined based on how well the rest of the class did. Averages were real low for first 2 tests, but the 3rd test was ridiculously easy. But by choosing to take Machedon, prepared to get demolished on the final because the other teacher makes up the majority of the test. As a person, Machedon is probably the nicest math teacher, in which he is always willing to help you and clarify things. So if you don't understand somethin, just stop by his office during office hours and you'll be good.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-12-21T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Dr. Machedon is a great professor! He is really nice and always approachable. It is clear he cares a lot about teaching, and enjoys congratulating students for getting certain problems correct. He teaches very well, and often presents material in a better way than the book. His tests tend to require true understanding of the material instead of memorization, though many questions are "tricky". The test averages for 410 were very low, but he understands this and curves the class fairly in the end. I would highly recommend him as a teacher. You will end up understanding the class material extremely well at the end of it all.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-19T21:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "This review is more about Machedon's class than his teaching. I never really went to lecture so I can't say whether or not he was good. But he drops 5 out of 15 hwk. We had three exams and one was extremely easy, the other two were fine and definitely doable. I would advise taking his class if you usually don't go to lecture because you can teach yourself from the book and still get a good grade in this course.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-13T18:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': None, 'review': "The folks below me who are complaining about machedon this semester have nothing to complain about. I am a B student in math (I have even got a C once a long time ago) and this class is a joke. His first and third exam were a total joke, almost 10 people in my section got a 100 percent on the last exam(me included, and I bombed the second exam). His second exam (the one with laplace) was killer for me, but overall this class is very easy. One of his problems on the second exam was even from the homework! (and yet stupid people like me still missed it). Machedon is an incredibly nice and funny professor (Love his accent!). Those who fail in this class don't belong in engineering. I see people who get 7% on the first exam, where they ask basic diff eq calc (separable equations). idiots. Master laplace transforms and everything else should be a joke. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-10T22:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "I have to agree with the review below this one. I am a good student who is pretty good at math (Usually get A's) but as a teacher Machedon is not very helpful. He is a nice guy, but he doesn't really teach important concepts.. he gets more caught up on the details of the material.\n\r\nI have never really intentionally skipped a class before this one, but reading the dense book was more helpful than attending lecture. And that says something especially for a math textbook. I wouldn't recommend him as a professor for this class :/", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-03T01:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Machedon is a really nice man, and he seems to genuinely care about his students, but he is not a great teacher. \n\r\nHis handwriting is difficult to read and his lectures are not very well-organized. He runs through lessons very quickly, and I personally find it difficult learning Diff Eq from him. I have watched Khan Academy videos and have had to read sections in the textbook (which is mediocre) repeatedly just to catch up to him.\n\r\nI'm also really confused by the comments about his tests being really easy. I guess he's changed his test format since then, because his tests are so ridiculously and unnecessariy complicated. They're long for a 50-minute time period, and the questions are far from direct. I've done all the homeworks and recommended practice problems and I feel like they don't help me with the tests at all. For the first exam, the average was around a 67/100. He does curve the tests, but if you score under a 50, you're out of luck. This seems like a fair grading system at first, until you realize how much the TA's don't like giving out partial credit. \n\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-06T10:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'If you have a TA named Safa, switch out immediately. He grades homework very randomly (takes random points off for not having "neater handwriting", when both he and the professor write in hieroglyphics). The class overall is not too terrible, but there was no curve and I got a B because of the TA\'s grading based on neatness and quantity of the work you show as opposed to the correctness. If you turn in 10 pages of work, you get a perfect score. If you turn in 2 pages, but get the right answer, you lose points for "not showing enough work" ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-06T09:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Excellent professor. Lectures are good. He does a lot of examples. And exams are very easy. If you attend all his lectures and do all the hw, there's no reason for you to not get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T19:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "The median grades for the 3 exams in my section: 80/100, 94/100, 98/100. Seriously, they were that easy. Professor Machedon was a very efficient lecturer, so as long as you paid attention in class there was little to no reason not to do well. The final was apparently written by the other professor but I didn't find it that difficult at all. Just review the homeworks and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-28T14:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'I found Machedon to be an excellent teacher as well as a great guy. His lectures were clear and very focused. He taught very straight forward, only covering subjects we needed to know and talked about theory only a few times. He was approachable and responded well to students concerns. His hws were helpful and exams were basically hw problems.\r\nTry to take a class with him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-06-01T13:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Sooooooo...\n\r\nHis exams are easy, nevertheless, final exam will bring you back to earth. So just be prepared. \n\r\nOther than that he is a very good math professor. I Recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2010-05-22T22:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'His tests are a joke. The only thing is if you make one mistake it could cost you. Final was unfortunately not written by him, so that was a bit rough. However, if you have the option, definitely take Machedon. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-18T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Diffeq is a joke with him, take it with him. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-09T21:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Personally, I love Matei. He is very approachable and helpful, but the reason I gave him a 4/5 and not 5/5 is because to be truthful he is not particularly user-friendly at times. This is because he has handwriting that American students aren't used to, i.e. cursive, and he doesn't write all that largely. He does indeed have a Russian accent, but it's not difficult to understand after the first class or so...but then again, I know many non-native speakers and may just be used to it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-05T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "I've taken Math461 and currently 246 with Machedon. No joke, as others have said, he is pretty much the nicest guy in the whole CMPS college. He really goes out of his way to explain things outside of class if you want extra help.\n\r\nHis exams are fair, homework is generally minimal(in collection, at least), but covers what you really need to know. You will definitely want to do something extra, or review that homework, if you expect to understand the material, though.\n\r\nHe does have an accent, but it's not hard to understand, and he really does lecture excellently. I'm really hoping to have more classes with him in the future.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-27T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Aliesh pretty much nailed it. The guy is a brilliant professor and an overall nice guy. The 1 homework per week is a bit annoying, only because I hate going to discussions.\n\r\nThe exams will be easy if you understand the practice exams and attend the review sessions. In every exam, 70% of the points will be for basic problems that are absolutely pre-requisite. The next 20% is a bit more challenging but not too hard. 10% will be hard as ajkhdajlkshd. He uses this to weed out people who actually understand the material and those two regurgitate formulas well (such as myself). The final was incredibly hard for those who didn't do the practice exams. Those who did the practice exams, found it a cakewalk.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T22:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "His class was a bit too easy in hindsight, but seeing as this was my last semester here and I was juggling a job, interviews, research and coursework, it's probably a good thing.\n\r\nMachedon knows his audience; if you take him for a general level math or engineering course (200 level and 461 etc) he is NOT really going to challenge you very much. If you take him for a pure math course, however, he will expect a lot more out of you.\n\r\nHe assigns homework every week which I essentially copy pasted from the solutions manual (many times without looking twice at it) and there was one laughably easy MATLAB assignment.\n\r\nAside from being incredibly intelligent, Matei is a really nice guy and it will come across clear as day the moment you are in class with him. He is devoted to the subject and if you put in an effort, it will be rewarded.\n\r\nNot a bad class, but I would have liked a bit more of a challenge.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T17:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "I can't believe how many good reviews there are of this professor! He just down right does not know how to teach. You MUST go to lecture to even try to have a shot at a good grade and it is impossible to get an A. Whoever the other professors are take them, cause they have to be better then Machedon!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-14T14:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Sometimes lectures are difficult to follow but the fact that he is probably the nicest professor you will ever meet makes up for it. If you ever need extra time on homework or something just talk to him he'll probably allow you to do so. \n\r\nSometimes he requires you to solve matrix equations using tricks that he teaches in class, so go. \n\r\nFYI his final was also somewhat difficult.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-10-01T21:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Not the best teacher but the material is not that hard. If you read the book you should have no problem grasping the concepts with the help of your TA's, dont expect much help from the professor. Grading is fair, if you get higher than 50%, you get a C. Then the passing grades are divided up ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-29T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'The lectures are at times tough to understand, but overall a decent lecturer. There was very little MATLAB for this course and his exams were usually pretty fair.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-22T06:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Professor Machedon definitely knows what he is talking about and while he does have an eastern European accent, his diction and grammar is better than almost any native English speaker that I know. I can understand every word, it is just not as easy on the ears as Sean Connery. \n\r\nIn this class, the homework assignments are graded by the TA's and we have two mid-term exams and a final. The material comes across as abstract and without applications, but I realized that he is giving us is the theory and we will apply it in later engineering classes.\n\r\nThe material is also very different from previous math courses because a lot of it cannot be visualized, which made it difficult for me at first. But with study and practice it is not impossible to do well on the exams. I am glad that I took this class.\n\r\nAlso, the author of the book has video lectures on iTunes U and on the MIT website, where there is also other practice material. This is extremely useful and I would definitely recommend using this resource!!\n\r\nI decided not to take MATH240 because it met almost everyday, whereas 461 only has lecture twice a week.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-19T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "I wasn't a fan of his teaching style but his exams were generally easy. No quizzes and his grade breakdown was fairly simple. The book he uses is horrible. If you could take the other professor Lay, I would. His exams were really straight up but his final was difficult...so conceptual.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-17T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Even though he has a thick accent and horrible handwriting, go to class and just see what you're supposed to know. The written homework is not graded, but you should do it because it's the best way to prepare for weekly quizzes. The TAs do really good jobs at explaining stuff from lecture but it's not enough. Exams are fair but MATLAB hw was a bit hard. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-19T22:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Very very confusing when he teaches, but you should go to the classes and try to just get the general flow of what is going on because you have to make it click during discussion because there is a quiz almost every week. he often goes ahead in the book right before tests when it would be better if he just reviewed. he is bearable but if you don't understand make sure you go to your ta\r\nand the matlabs for this class are horrible", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-22T23:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH341', 'review': 'He is an average profession with average expectations. He does want the best for his students, but lectures can be boring. Some topics he does not explain in depth enough for students who are new to certain topics. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-03-29T01:22:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'He explained the concepts pretty well and his exams were similar to practice problems and previous exams. He was helpful during office hours as well.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-01-09T00:07:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': 'He\'s perhaps the nicest professor I\'ve taken a class with in the math department. \r\n\r\nOne complaint I have about the class in general is that it was too easy. Before the exam he would post "practice problems" and then when we got the exams we would discover that the exams basically had the exact same problems word for word. Essentially by the end of the course we have some students left who do not understand the basics very well as to ask questions which are either straight up incoherent or seemingly "are you seriously asking that at this point in the course?"\r\n\r\nThe textbook for the class kind of sucks.\r\n\r\nHe was very willing to entertain some of my brief after-class discussions of some alternative and wacky ways to prove certain things.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-10T02:07:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Professor Machedon is a nice person that cares a lot about his students. However, he can be a little hard to follow while explaining the more complicated Calc III concepts. MATH241 with him wasn't bad, but having a condescending and ineffective TA (Maia) made it a lot harder.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:07:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Doing the book problems and previous exams from the testbank are the best way to study. You could probably get buy with these instead of attending lecture tbh.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-18T04:42:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': 'Super nice guy, maybe even too nice. He made the class very easy, and gave us exam questions beforehand for practice. We spent a lot of time on basic linear algebra topics, but overall still covered a fair amount of new and challenging material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-19T06:43:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Professor Machedon has an incredibly thick accent and his handwriting resembles the writing of a 2nd grader. His Calc 3 exams consisted of 5 questions each worth 20 points(4 realistic ones and 1 problem which he considered "fun"). The "fun" one was incredibly difficult and I would just chuck down as many formulas that I could remember to hope and pray that I\'d earn a few points. Luckily, my TA was great so I found discussion, office hours with TA, and constant practice problems to scrape out a 75%. I got 95 percents in calc 1 and calc 2(that was in high school and I know college courses are harder) however, there was no reason this class should\'ve been so hard for me. Try your best to avoid him(I\'ve heard great things about Wisely Wong and Terrance Long).', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-23T02:01:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': 'Professor Machedon is by far one of the nicest professors one could ever take at the university. I think he really takes time to help you succeed if you ask for it.\r\nEven so, there were some things that could be improved about the course. I think he lectured a little too slowly. The exams were also really easy, which concerned me, both the people who scored abysmally on them and the people who did well on the exams and did not understand anything that went on in the class.\r\nThe textbook he uses for 405 (Curtis) I feel is pretty crummy as well.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-02-03T22:31:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'Knowledgeable professor. He almost never makes mistakes. Took the class during a pandemic, exams are slightly easier than usual. Exams are similar to practice problems. If an exam question is not on the practice, it is usually either an application of the proved theorems or a modification of some proving process.\r\nHowever, he does expect you to read the textbook on your own, otherwise, his classes are too fast to follow.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-02-03T03:13:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': "I've taken this guy for several courses including an entirely in person class (math241). For 411 it was entirely online, but since I know this professor in person I'll base my review on that as well. First off he's a good dude for real. He genuinely cares abouts his students, you can tell in the way he interacts with students. He's also the nicest professor I've had my entire time at umd. The only real con with this guy is that he sometimes explains things poorly during lecture. If you read the book and do suggested problems/ homework problems you should be okay. Also he gives a generous curve every semester, and I've had him 3 semesters and it's been the same every semester, though he grades much less harshly in person. I knew one of the TlAs before quarantine and he told me that professor machedon always said not to grade too harshly. I guess if I had to summarize I'd say take this guy. He doesn't like to fail people unnecessary, and isn't too bad, for lower or upper level classes or math 411. Also he doesn't have much of an accent. Maybe if you ate a native English speaker you'd have trouble understanding him but otherwise his accent is mild at most.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-30T05:16:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'First of all, he is a great professor. He definitely treats students with respect and wants the best for them. For the most part, his lectures are clear and easy to understand after going through the notes (understandable for a proof based course where it might be difficult to digest everything during lecture). He follows the textbook for the most part, and says when he differs from the textbook. If he does differ, it is usually for a good reason. Exams are quite fair: not too hard and not too easy. If people do worse than expected, he is willing to curve a good amount. Homework is easy (maybe too easy and short, but not a major complaint). Also, in reply to others, his accent is barely noticeable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-14T01:14:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': 'Professor Machedon is one of the best professors I have encountered at UMD. He makes a difficult class like Math411 digestible and he is also just a really nice and kind person all around. I really enjoyed going to his lectures. Also like the previous poster said, his exams are more than fair and his curve is a fair as well. I would highly recommend him for 411!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-19T13:28:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': 'Dr. Machedon is one of the best math professors at UMD. He makes exams straightforward, assigns homework that helps learn the concepts and applications, and has an incredibly fair grading strategy. He made a fairly complex class straightforward, and focused on applications more than theoretical knowledge which was excellent for a course full of engineers, not mathematicians. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-23T15:50:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Matei Machedon', 'course': 'MATH674', 'review': "Great professor. He's super smart and knowledgable, but he stays humble and answers every question patiently.\r\nWe covered chapter 5-6 in Evans and did a bit more on Littlewood-Paley/Strichartz estimates. I personally love the functional analysis aspect of things.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-09T22:52:23Z'}], 'name': 'Matei Machedon', 'slug': 'machedon'}, {'courses': ['HLSA720'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mathew Swinburne', 'slug': 'swinburne'}, {'courses': ['CPSP249T', 'CPSP269T', 'CPSP118T', 'CPSP239T', 'CPSP349T', 'CPSS230', 'CPSS240', 'HONR218Q', 'CPSS260', 'CPSS225', 'ARTH369E', 'CPSS225', 'CPSS240', 'CPSS225', 'CPSS240', 'CPSS225'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Matthew Aruch', 'course': 'CPSS240', 'review': "Not exactly sure why Matt doesn't have any reviews yet. One of the nicest guys you'll meet and really cares about his students", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-12T22:05:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Aruch', 'course': 'CPSS225', 'review': 'Best and most lenient professor ever. He is son funny and kind', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-18T18:32:12Z'}], 'name': 'Matthew Aruch', 'slug': 'aruch'}, {'courses': ['ARCH700', 'ARCH654', 'ARCH678W', 'ARCH435', 'ARCH635', 'ARCH428F', 'ARCH700', 'ARCH428F', 'ARCH635', 'ARCH655', 'ARCH678W', 'ARCH700', 'ARCH655'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Bell', 'slug': 'bell_matthew'}, {'courses': ['BUFN772', 'BMGT445'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Canzater', 'slug': 'canzater'}, {'courses': ['HESP407', 'HESP722', 'HESP600', 'HESP724', 'HESP634', 'HESP859', 'EXST030', 'NACS898', 'HESP468H', 'NACS798', 'HESP468H', 'HESP639E', 'HESP468H', 'HESP600', 'HESP712', 'HESP722', 'HESP407', 'HESP468H', 'HESP639E', 'HESP634', 'HESP859', 'HESP634', 'HESP859', 'HESP468H', 'HESP712', 'HESP722'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Goupell', 'slug': 'goupell'}, {'courses': ['MUSC129T', 'MUSC629T', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Guilford', 'slug': 'guilford'}, {'courses': ['GEOG498R', 'GEOG328C', 'GEOG472', 'GEOG422', 'GEOG788R', 'GEOG417', 'GEOG617', 'GEOG172', 'GEOG172'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Matthew Hansen', 'course': 'GEOG172', 'review': "If you want an easy A this is it. There was 3 very easy discussion posts, 2 quizzes, a project and a final. All very easy. I never had to worry about this class at all. Quizzes were curved like crazy. I think I got a 60% on one and it became a 100%. Dr. Hansen is a nice guy and clearly likes the material but is not a good teacher and you can tell he doesn't want to even be teaching the class. That being said, he doesn't want anyone to fail just wants to share some stuff about satellites. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-17T04:09:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Hansen', 'course': 'GEOG172', 'review': 'Pros:\r\n- You will learn a lot in this class if you put the smallest bit of effort into it.\r\n- The professor is a good guy, and he seems to want students to succeed and grasp the material.\r\n\r\nPros or cons depending on your preferences:\r\n- There are a LOT of guest lecturers, some are amazing some are not.\r\n- The exams have massive curves (15-20%+ curves).\r\n- When lecturing, the professor talks like he’s speaking to colleagues instead of undergrads. It’s extremely overwhelming at first, but when you start to understand the vocabulary you’ll learn a lot more because of it. \r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- The professor doesn’t respond to emails consistently, and he doesn’t meet with students without going through a long difficult scheduling process.\r\n- You are graded on very few things with the final exam being 35% of your grade.\r\n- Grading policies can be unclear, and that can cause a lot of stress. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-22T07:55:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Hansen', 'course': 'GEOG172', 'review': "This is a super easy class, just half-listen to the lectures and you'll easily get a c, if not a b or a. The professor doesn't really care about that class, he just teaches it so he can work with UMD for his own projects, but the TA's are nice and they all know A LOT of stuff. Overall, it's a good gen-ed to take.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-05-25T23:21:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Hansen', 'course': 'GEOG172', 'review': 'Professor never lectured... or when he did he just read straight from PPT. He had guest lecturers over Zoom who were really hard to understand. The final was horrific and even those with As were brought to a C. Do not recommend.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-07-15T23:01:34Z'}], 'name': 'Matthew Hansen', 'slug': 'hansen'}, {'courses': ['SURV623'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Jans', 'slug': 'jans'}, {'courses': ['ENGL475', 'ENGL668K', 'ENGL631', 'ENGL467', 'ENGL702', 'MITH729', 'MITH610', 'ENGL758D', 'ENGL798D', 'ENGL378C', 'ENGL759C', 'ENGL479P', 'ENGL428M', 'ENGL438P', 'ENGL759D', 'ENGL798D', 'MITH729', 'ENGL477', 'MITH729', 'ENGL388E', 'ENGL428V', 'ENGL477'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Matthew Kirschenbaum', 'course': None, 'review': "Kirschenbaum gives interesting and insightful lectures. The course was unfortunately unfocused and unorganized, and his lack of clear expectations had bad implications of the students' grades.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-03-19T14:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Kirschenbaum', 'course': None, 'review': "I can't believe another review called the midterm hard - it was more like ridiculously easy. I had this class the first time the DCC program began, when the program didn't really know what path it was going on. What we learned was irrelevant to the program, really, but the class was pretty easy (midterm/final was just a list of terms, you choose X amount to define).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-10T21:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Kirschenbaum', 'course': None, 'review': 'This is by far the worst class I have ever taken. Do not join the Digital Cultures and Creativity program. This class is terrible. It is 2 credits but has homework and an actually difficult midterm. There is a project which is time consuming and stupid. Do not take this class for the free iPad like I did. Avoid at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-21T20:58:00Z'}], 'name': 'Matthew Kirschenbaum', 'slug': 'kirschenbaum'}, {'courses': ['SPAN204', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN415', 'SPAN315', 'SPAN363', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN302', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN316'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Lewis', 'slug': 'lewis_matthew'}, {'courses': ['ARTT100', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT210', 'HONR239D', 'ARTT341', 'ARTT344', 'ARTT343H', 'ARTT340', 'ARTT343', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT448B', 'ARTT448F', 'ARTT341H', 'ARTT340H', 'ARTT448A', 'ARTT448H', 'ARTT418', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT448E', 'ARTT489N', 'HONR209G', 'ARHU158Y', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT100', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT418', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H'], 'average_rating': 3.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Matthew McLaughlin', 'course': 'ARTT110', 'review': 'Matt McLaughlin is an experienced and respectable art professor. I took ARTT110 during the winter semester, and found that he worked well to encourage constructive criticism between students, not just dislike or praise on their own. \r\nIn an online environment, he went the extra mile to set up still life sculptures and pieces for us to view and recreate, as well as always be available during the day to ask questions and receive feedback on padlet. The feedback was always honest, and technical. He did not necessarily comment on our ideas to change them, but our execution to bring them to fruition. I think this is a very good balance for an art professor to strike, and it was reflected in the attitude of the students as well. We were encouraged to go further out with our ideas, sometimes maybe too far away from the intended form, but to fully realize them nonetheless. \r\nHe is also pleasant just to listen to, and hear about the people/places/pieces he draws his own inspiration from. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-19T19:12:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew McLaughlin', 'course': 'ARTT110', 'review': "Professor McLaughlin is a decent prof because the assignments are very reasonable. He's nice about giving extensions on projects if you email him. \r\n\r\nI gave him 2 stars because I can tell from elms that he did not give a single person above a 94 on any assignment!!! And the cutoff for an A is a 94, so nobody got an A in the class! This is honestly just rude of him considering it's a gen ed introductory course for non majors. Because of this, I wouldn't recommend taking this class. It's a real bummer to work very hard in a gen ed and still receive consistently low scores. Art is supposed to be subjective.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-21T15:24:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew McLaughlin', 'course': 'ARTT110', 'review': "Prof McLaughlin is a really chill person who knows what he's doing. Our class was a very calm environment, but he does grade a bit more harsh than you might expect for an intro art class. His grading isn't unfair though, and you still can get an A in the class if you put the effort in. He doesn't really give above 94s on the drawings, but with other smaller assignments you can def manage. I wish he gave us a bit more direct instruction - during class he will walk around and give pointers but not always. I really liked his class anyway, it was def a good type of challenging. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-19T23:35:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew McLaughlin', 'course': None, 'review': 'When I signed up for this course, by the description I thought it would be an introduction to drawing class, where we would learn how to draw, learn different techniques, etc. It is none of that. We had little to no explanations/demonstrations on how to do the assignments; instead, we were just expected how to draw, expected to know how to use the right techniques, etc. AND when the teacher graded assignments, he almost never give A\'s to students and would NEVER give 100% as according to him "there is no perfect drawing". In my opinion, this is completely ridiculous because 1: He is basically saying that you can have as much talent, you can work as hard as you can and you still will not get an A+; and 2: When I signed up for the course, I thought I would LEARN how to draw, not be expected to be a Picasso or a Monet.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-11T17:28:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew McLaughlin', 'course': None, 'review': 'Rude and unprofessional!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T22:55:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew McLaughlin', 'course': 'ARTT110', 'review': 'Professor McLaughlin was a pretty good professor, and when he did give feedback it helped a lot -- but I often had to ask for it, rather than it being freely given. So if I didn\'t see the issues in my work on my own, I just didn\'t find out there was anything wrong with it until I received my grade (and he wouldn\'t explain why I got points off in the comments on ELMS). He also has the mentality that "nobody ever gets a perfect score because there\'s no such thing as perfect art," which was a bit infuriating given the lack of feedback. Overall, I liked the assignments and curriculum, but you\'ll have to try pretty hard to get an A in this class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T00:00:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew McLaughlin', 'course': 'ARTT210', 'review': 'Great professor! Very chill and friendly. Matt is always looking to give constructive feedback and will laugh at your jokes. Going to his class always made my day. You will get a good grade if you ask for help and take his advice. Would 100% recommend this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T20:45:29.678372Z'}], 'name': 'Matthew McLaughlin', 'slug': 'mclaughlin_matthew'}, {'courses': ['EDCP692', 'EDCP697', 'EDCP693', 'EDCP611', 'PERS398M', 'PERS371', 'EDCP612', 'SLLC499I', 'EDCP618', 'FREN499W', 'GERM489W', 'HEBR498W', 'JAPN498W', 'SLLC499W', 'ARAB499W', 'HIST429G', 'PERS498W', 'EDCP789', 'HIST619C', 'WMST498D', 'EDCP789F', 'EDCP614', 'HIST619E', 'PERS398L', 'PERS398N', 'PERS689D', 'PERS386', 'CMLT398G', 'RELS319M', 'SLLC698I', 'FILM298B', 'PERS283', 'PERS110', 'AMST110', 'CMLT679D', 'HIST419C', 'PERS498M', 'PERS689M', 'RELS429B', 'WGSS498D', 'WMST698D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Miller', 'slug': 'miller_matthew'}, {'courses': ['KNES335', 'KNES154O', 'KNES154W', 'KNES154P', 'KNES154T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Quigley', 'slug': 'quigley'}, {'courses': ['DANC200', 'DANC409', 'DANC148', 'DANC398Y'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Reeves', 'slug': 'reeves_matthew'}, {'courses': ['GEMS297', 'PSYC309F', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'PSYC302', 'GEMS497', 'PSYC798X', 'GEMS296', 'PSYC889', 'NACS728L', 'PSYC789', 'NACS898', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'PSYC407', 'PSYC407', 'PSYC889', 'PSYC302', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC889', 'PSYC407', 'PSYC889'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Matthew Roesch', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Roesch is a great professor. The material (learning and behavior) isn't the most interesting unless you're a fan of neuroscience, but he makes it easy enough to understand and learn. The course isn't too difficult, as long as you pay attention. Attendance isn't mandatory, but there are in-class activities that help you understand the material and are a part of your grade. The exams are okay; you definitely have to study, but it's mostly memorization. He is more than willing to help you if you don't understand something. He also shows a lot of pictures of his golden retriever, which is awesome. Overall, I'd recommend this course. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-15T00:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Roesch', 'course': None, 'review': "Don't get me wrong, the professor is a great guy. But the course is for what it is worth at times very dry and boring.\r\nThe material-wise the course likely is one of the most useful a psych and behavioral neuroscience major can take. However his examples on more than one occasion suck, he goes very fast in class, and his tests are hard.\n\r\nIn the end I'd say take it because it's a good course. But be prepared to be self-motivating and stare at his powerpoints for prolonged periods of time until they 'click'. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-20T18:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Roesch', 'course': 'GEMS396', 'review': 'Matt is my Gemstone team mentor, and he is a great guy to work with. He gave a guest lecture in BSCI338N on addiction, and his lecture was by far the most informative and entertaining of all the guest lectures. He is very patient and approachable, so my advice to his future students is this: go to his office hours, because he will drop anything he is doing to help you out.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-05-09T20:38:00Z'}], 'name': 'Matthew Roesch', 'slug': 'roesch'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'UNIV104'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Matthew Smedley', 'slug': 'smedley'}, {'courses': ['JWST262', 'JWST225', 'JWST289J', 'JWST409D', 'JWST409B', 'JWST324', 'ENGL262', 'HEBR298A', 'JWST260', 'RELS219A', 'HIST219I', 'HIST321', 'RELS289J', 'JWST619B', 'JWST648L', 'JWST600', 'ANTH305', 'JWST468C', 'JWST699', 'ARTH489J', 'HIST408Q', 'JWST409F', 'JWST619', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'HEBR298B', 'JWST274', 'RELS274', 'RELS225', 'ARTH305', 'CLAS305', 'ENGL262', 'HEBR298B', 'JWST262', 'JWST274', 'JWST319Y', 'RELS274', 'HIST219I', 'HIST321', 'JWST225', 'JWST324', 'RELS225', 'ENGL262', 'HEBR298B', 'JWST262', 'JWST274', 'RELS274'], 'average_rating': 4.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Matthew Suriano', 'course': 'JWST225', 'review': "Prof. Suriano made this class interesting and fun at the same time, while still teaching us a lot. I didn't feel like I needed the textbooks very often, but I enjoyed coming to class every day and learning, which is rare for a gen-ed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-31T17:13:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Suriano', 'course': 'JWST289J', 'review': 'Prof. Suriano is a very knowledgeable teacher on the topic. If you are interested in comparative religion and the history of jerusalem, this class is perfect for you. I took this class online in the fall 2020. there are weekly quizzes that are very easy and you can have the reading up next to you. the discussion is annoying but isnt that long so it isnt that bad but you have to show up to get attendance points. The midterm and final are both so easy as long as you take notes and watch the lectures. the averages were a 94 and 95. the final paper is annoying so I suggest meeting with the TA because they are the one grading it and not the professor if you have questions. Overall, a good class!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-31T17:00:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Suriano', 'course': 'JWST289J', 'review': 'I took JWST289J online in Fall 2020. Dr. Suriano is a genuinely good person who cares about his students and is really excited for them to learn the material. The asynchronous nature of the class made it a bit impersonal, but you could tell he was sad about this too and really wants a personal connection with his students. There was not too much work, but the paper did take a good chunk of time to write. Overall, I highly recommend taking any classes taught by Dr. Suriano!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T03:16:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Suriano', 'course': 'JWST324', 'review': "Professor Suriano is an excellent professor. He is very respected in his field, and the lectures highlight his breadth of knowledge. Suriano is very friendly and accommodating to his students. The class is only based on a few assignments, quizzes, and exams, but all are fair and not too much work. Only complaint I have about this specific course was that it was crosslisted as a history course, despite not really being about history but moreso about archaeology (Professor Suriano's field, not history). Despite not expecting the course to be structured like that, Professor Suriano has great lectures and made me interested in the material despite that. Highly recommend taking any of his courses if you're remotely interested in the subject(s).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-22T22:19:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Suriano', 'course': 'JWST262', 'review': 'Suriano never disappoints. He loves seeing and talking to students and I can tell he is very passionate about his profession. He is very fair with grading and is willing to work with you and answer all questions. The only complaint about this class was the massive amount of materials we had to learn. Since it was in person, I felt rushed but he made sure to slow down and explain things. Since there was a lot of materials, the good thing was that he had reasonable expectations from us so he would tell us exactly what he was looking for in essays or exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T04:53:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Suriano', 'course': 'ENGL262', 'review': 'He is so awesome, he loves what he does and you can tell. He wants everyone to do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-07T17:24:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Matthew Suriano', 'course': 'ENGL262', 'review': "Prof Suriano is extremely knowledgeable on the subject and you will learn so much from the class. The class is very lecture heavy and assigns a lot of readings, but there aren't many grades and the exams are easy. Overall, this is a pretty easy and enjoyable class if you're interested in the subject.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-27T00:48:04.088230Z'}], 'name': 'Matthew Suriano', 'slug': 'suriano'}]
[{'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Maureen Shader', 'slug': 'shader'}, {'courses': ['ITAL473', 'ITAL478C', 'FILM302', 'ITAL436', 'FILM319C', 'FILM369A', 'ITAL478J', 'ITAL499J', 'ENGL245', 'FILM441', 'FILM431', 'SLLC368C', 'CMLT788M', 'SLLC698M', 'FILM245', 'CMLT679I', 'FILM329R', 'FREN699C', 'GERM689C', 'SLLC468C', 'SLLC698C', 'FILM319D', 'FILM429J', 'ITAL478F', 'ITAL478Y', 'ITAL207', 'ITAL478M', 'ITAL499M', 'ITAL478A', 'CINE245', 'CINE429R', 'ENGL245', 'ITAL478M', 'ITAL499M', 'CINE359K', 'SLLC368O', 'CINE441', 'ITAL436', 'ITAL478Y', 'CINE319C'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mauro Resmini', 'course': 'FILM245', 'review': "This class was extremely low maintenance, I did more work for my 1 credit course. There are only 4 grades in this class; 2 essays, a final essay and attendance. There is a lecture and a discussion every week that give you movies to watch and discuss in class, which I didn't do. All I did in this class was watch the movies for the 3 essays, wrote them and passed with an A. Most of the teaching and all the grading is done by the TAs.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-27T15:21:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Mauro Resmini', 'course': 'CINE245', 'review': 'great class for people into film to learn about the culture and the technicalities of it. very interesting lectures twice a week and one dicussion. we had to write 3 scene analysis papers which were pretty easy, and then 3 3 question quizzes plus a midterm. very low maintenance class that was actually engaging and i learned a lot. definitely recommend for an HU credit!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-19T01:34:24.780789Z'}], 'name': 'Mauro Resmini', 'slug': 'resmini'}, {'courses': ['THET377', 'THET328L', 'THET428L', 'THET328P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Max Doolittle', 'slug': 'doolittle'}, {'courses': ['JWST419W', 'RELS289I', 'JWST219Q', 'JWST419O', 'JWST491', 'JWST262', 'RELS400', 'JWST492', 'JWST409E', 'JWST430', 'JWST419V', 'RELS499', 'WMST498W', 'RELS219Q', 'RELS419O', 'WMST498T', 'ENGL262', 'RELS600', 'LGBT448W', 'RELS430', 'JWST418', 'JWST658M', 'RELS419V', 'RELS619D', 'WMST491', 'HONR279K', 'JWST409V', 'JWST678D', 'JWST619', 'JWST699', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'JWST171', 'RELS171', 'RELS271', 'JWST171', 'RELS171', 'RELS271', 'JWST171'], 'average_rating': 4.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Maxine Grossman', 'course': 'RELS289I', 'review': 'I feel that I gained a lot from taking this class with professor Grossman. The class is formatted well, and she is both highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about what she teaches. I’m not religious, so I was worried that I would feel out of place, but that didn’t end up being an issue at all. The tests and workload were fair. It’s definitely a bit more time consuming and difficult than your average gen ed, though. As long as you are genuinely interested in learning something about religion (it’s not just fact memorisation, rejoice), I highly recommend this class and professor Grossman.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-12-16T17:23:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Maxine Grossman', 'course': 'HONR279K', 'review': "This was a super super fun course. You talk about magic, science, and religion in really interesting ways. In terms of coursework, there are readings every class (they can be a lil long, but they're super interesting), 5 response papers (worth 30% of your grade), 1 research paper, a final, and 2 presentations. If you stay on top of the readings and write well, you'll do fine in this class. It's super fun and Professor Grossman always made herself available. I changed my paper topic and did a bunch of random changes to my research paper, but she was willing to help every step of the way. Definitely recommend!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-15T18:36:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Maxine Grossman', 'course': 'HONR279K', 'review': "She's awesome! Such a fun and engaging professor who clearly cares so much about her students. The class is very interesting and completely discussion-based, which was something I liked, but if you're not comfortable talking in class, it wouldn't be for you. I cannot speak highly enough about Prof. Grossman.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-07T16:09:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Maxine Grossman', 'course': 'JWST171', 'review': 'I have very mixed feelings about Professor Grossman. I think she is nice and the class itself isn\'t hard. I am just personally not a big fan of her grading methods. The entire course is just weekly response assignments, a research paper, and a final paper. The response assignments are all 120 words where you pick one sentence from the readings and write about it. It\'s difficult because she wants you to go to deep detail and make connections to other readings but limits you to 120 words and gets mad when you go over. Nothing is ever really good enough for her regarding the response assignments. The research paper is a topic of your choice and it\'s paced through the semester which I like. The downside is she\'s very unclear about what she wants for the research paper. She emailed the whole class after we submitted our sample paragraphs saying that most of them were C- material and not once did she think "hmm maybe I\'m the problem instead of the entire class." In the end, it\'s not a hard course and it fulfills a lot of credits so I say take it but be prepared to be annoyed by a lot of things. Oh and the structure of the class was full attendance for the lecture on Tuesday and on Thursdays half the class meets for the first 40 minutes and the other half meets for the last 40 minutes for discussion. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-25T18:19:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Maxine Grossman', 'course': 'RELS271', 'review': "Honestly, RELS271 is probably one of the top classes I've taken ever. Prof Grossman, as other reviews have said, is very engaging, has high expectations, will give so much help when you ask for it, and provides genuinely interesting readings/assignments. You come out of 271 with a general but still nuanced understanding of religions, theories of religion, and how to communicate well about it.\r\n\r\nIf you're not interested in the subject though? Or perhaps interested, but not great at putting in effort into readings/asking for help/talking in class? This class may not quite be your vibe, nor may Prof Grossman. But if you're interested and willing to struggle with the material a bit, you'll get SO much out of this course. Would recommend!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-24T00:19:35.830684Z'}], 'name': 'Maxine Grossman', 'slug': 'grossman'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Maya Aduba', 'slug': 'aduba_maya'}, {'courses': ['HESI315'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Maya Graham', 'slug': 'graham_maya'}, {'courses': ['MATH240', 'MATH411', 'MATH410', 'MATH130', 'MATH463', 'MATH416', 'MATH131', 'MATH402'], 'average_rating': 2.9615, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Boyle isn't that bad of a teacher and Calc II isn't too bad of a class if you apply yourself. For me personally, I did not put the effort that I should have into the class and that is why my grade ended up being so low.\n\r\nBoyle is not the best teacher in the world, but in lectures I feel a bit bad for him because he is super nice and you can tell he genuinely wants the kids to understand the lesson. He is a bit of a dry teacher and he pulls teeth to get kids to participate in his 9:30 am, but he gives a lot of examples and explains things in great detail. When I did go to lecture, only about 50 kids would be there, but about 200 kids were enrolled :/ Let's just say exam day, I could barely find a seat whereas any other lecture, I had the entire back half of the classroom to myself.\n\r\nI did not have the pleasure of knowing Boyle personally, but his grading scale is: 85% = A, 75% = B, 65% = C. It might fluctuate a bit, but maybe by 1-2% percentage points. I had a 68% in the class and got a flat C. He also drops 6 of your lowest quizzes/biomodules. \n\r\nThe discussions are ok. The TAs urge you to come to office hours, but I couldn't because of scheduling conflicts.\n\r\nOverall, I had to abide by the textbook and YT vids the night before the exam during my cram sessions. The average on the final was in the mid-60s, if I remember correctly. \n\r\nDo I recommend Boyle? Yes. His exams are straightforward and moderately easy if you do the homework he assigns and old exams. He also writes the final (which is taken by all math sections), so you are at an advantage since you know his exam style.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-05-17T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': None, 'review': "Never in my life have i seen an educator who confuses you more by teaching than Boyle. Worst math professor i have ever had. I have no idea how or why he is still teaching here. I didn't learn a single thing from him, it was all from the textbook and the TAs. He spends more time writing paragraphs on the board than he does actually solving any math problems. Everything he ever talks about is theoretical stuff he never actually does any of the problems. His exams are extremely unfair. He picks tiny details to test you on that are hidden somewhere deep in the book. He made the final this semester and this was the most unfair final that i have ever taken. He tested on things that he discussed for maybe 5 mins through out the semester. This final was in no way representative of anything we learned through out the semester. It was little details that have 0 significance to the course. He is very slow to respond to students concerns. I emailed him a few times asking questions and he either got back to me too late for it to be of any use or he gave me really vague answers that are in no way helpful. All in all, DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. He curves at the end but at this point you have already been screwed enough to where it won't help. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-12-19T17:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Boyle is a friendly guy and you can tell that he tries, but his teaching is not very effective. He tends to get sidetracked and it feels like he just really loves math and wants to show us cool theorems instead of actually staying on topic. This would be great if we weren\'t so restricted on time and trying to keep our grades up. One of my major problems with his teaching is he wont tell you what he\'s doing he\'ll just do it. He\'ll never stop to write a theorem or tell you "so this is how this works and here\'s an example" he\'ll just give you examples and you have to figure out what they mean, which can be really confusing. \n\r\nHis tests are not very well put together, and are sometimes graded unreasonably. It\'s also really hard to tell what\'s going to be on them. He says it\'s based on the homework but even people that do the homework do badly. The test averages for this semester were really low, though I managed to do well because I\'ve taken calc 1 already. If this had been the first time I was learning a lot of this material, I think I would be completely lost. His test reviews are also pretty much useless, he\'ll start teaching us new stuff instead of just reviewing what\'s going to be on the test. There are no practice tests, I\'ve gotten by with Kahn Academy videos.\n\r\nHis TA\'s were great. The discussion sessions are a little easier than what is actually asked on the tests, but they\'re still really helpful. The biology section of discussion got unreasonably complicated and strange at one point in the semester but I think it\'s challenging to put that stuff in terms of calculus 1 anyway and the TA graded leniently. I found that I could mostly skip or not pay attention in lectures, and then go to all the discussions and still do fine. But like I said I\'ve taken calc 1 already.\n\r\nOverall he\'s a nice guy, but maybe not suited for teaching Calculus 1. Don\'t take Professor Boyle if you really want to understand the material or if it\'s your first time taking calc 1 and you have trouble with math. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-10T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Bar none the WORST PROFESSOR IVE EVER HAD. If you are not a math major DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. If you are a CS major deciding whether to take linear or calc 3 and boyle is your only choice..take calc 3.\n\r\nI'm not sure if it was just my semester but every practice test we were given was VERY different from the actual exam. It was actually quite depressing as me and my friends actually studied the practice exams and would know how to do each computation problem on the exams (and homeworks) and then his exams would turn out to be 30% t/f, 20% proofs (which are from the chapters), 20% easy problems, and 30% random bullshit he just made up while creating it. The class averages on each exam (except the first exam which was the only exam that actually stuck true to the practice exams) were around 50% and he couldn't understand why. Simply put: he does not teach the material, he just goes over random proofs that you will never have to know and then attempts to teach the material (which he ends up failing at doing). Since he fails at teaching the material you will have to resort to paying very close attention to discussion along with doing the homework and reading the chapters. I did all 3 of those things and still ended up with a C+. \n\r\nThe only reason why I gave him 2 stars was because he was very understanding when I told him I wouldn't be able to make the final exam 6 hours prior (due to illness) and let me take the alternate exam the day after.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2013-08-05T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "I was not a very big fan of his teaching at all. He took a very long time to explain anything, and even after I couldn't really understand what he was going for. The lectures weren't very helpful at all, so a lot of times I brought my textbook and just listened to him in case he mentioned anything not in the book. I guess I could DO linear algebra at the end of the course, but I did not UNDERSTAND linear algebra or what I was actually doing. \n\r\nAnother complaint I had was the excessive True/False on tests. Unless you memorized everything he has ever said word for word (and more) they are very difficult, and make up literally about 30% of the entire exam. There obviously is no partial credit for these, so on every exam it is really easy to get 10-20 points slashed off right off the bat just for not memorizing some simple and often irrelevant fact. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-20T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "I got a B-, and realistically that's on me. I was hoping for a little help from the curve to get the dreaded 2.7 GPA, but no such luck(which is an awful system by the way, why would a professor ever bring this upon someones GPA), but i digress. \n\r\nBoyle isn't the worst professor I've ever taken, but I stopped going to his lecture because he has a tendency to beat a dead horse and I was falling asleep in his class. Discussion and self study helped me well enough, and I aced nearly all the quizzes.\r\nMy bigger issue lies with how the test-homework format is so different. For homework, you'll be given large amounts of numerical problems to work out, and a couple of theory questions as the last couple for questions. DON'T skip these!!!!! The exams are LOADED with theory questions!!!!!! Know the theory, it is crucial!!!!!!! ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-15T18:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Boyle made the material a lot more confusing than linear algebra should be. I had to learn everything from discussion, since lecture only confused the few people that still showed up. And what's more, he loves true or false. So much so that it became 36% of our exams. And it's not easy true or false, it's bullshit logic errors that can somehow make something that doesn't make any sense true, which by the way he doesn't go over in class.\n\r\nIn short, don't try to take this class with him if you can. The exams aren't fair, lecture is confusing, and he is overall a jackass to anyone that's not a math major.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-06T23:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "Boyle is a great teacher, the only problem I find is his exams. I would say they are not truly fair. He doesn't focus on the stuff that is most important or he asks stuff in a very strange way. He is teaching 411 next semester and I was going to take it with him, but I know if I take it with someone else there will at least be a chance that I will get a B, maybe even an A. I feel like with Boyle my grade would be a C.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-12-13T18:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': None, 'review': 'If saying Grillakis is one of the best profs at UMD, then I would say Mike Boyle is slightly better than him. Grillakis presents his lecture in a very clear way and his handwriting is extremely beautiful, and what\'s better is, his exam is easy and pretty much following from what he taught in class. But I don\'t think smart students can learn a lot from Grillakis\' class, simply because he makes his class "easy". Mike has almost all Grillakis\' advantage, excluding his handwriting is a little bit worse..:D\r\nbut I really you can learn a lot from Mike\'s class. He is one of very few profs that can cover Jordan measure and surface/line integral at UMD. Moreover, Mike\'s exames are fair, only if you read the book, go the lecture and do your homework. \r\nIn general, take all classes from BOTH Grillakis and Mike Boyle at ALL COST, they worth it! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-08-27T15:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Dr. Boyle is a genuinely sweet guy that knows what he's doing. That fact that he often lectured without notes shows how knowledgeable he is in his field. During lecture, it can get a bit confusing because he isn't the best at presenting the material in a way thats easy for someone that's not a math major to understand. Lecture can get a bit boring, especially if you don't follow is logic. He does try to engage the class and ask questions. His exams are completely reasonable because many of the problems come from old exams. Having said that, it's really easy to lose points on proofs and true/false questions if you don't know the material well. \n\n\r\nQuizes depend on your TA - mostly based off homework, easy points. \r\nFour MATLABs, easy points. \r\nFinal is not so easy. \n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-15T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "I liked Boyle; he wasn't a boring professor, and he tried to keep the class engaged by going around and asking people questions about the material during lectures. The content wasn't that difficult, but he doesn't always explain the concepts that well. Then he puts concept based questions on the test that are worth a lot of points with no partial credit. Over all though, I learned a lot and would definitely recommend taking this class with Boyle. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-06T16:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Boyle is the only teacher whose lectures make the material more confusing. I actually learned more for the first few months by reading the book for half an hour than by going to class. About halfway through the semester he realized he could be slightly entertaining so he would occassionally throw in a joke which did make the class non-worthless.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-06T01:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'If you\'re a math major or at least comfortable following logic throughout lecture, he\'s great. He is good at engaging the class, not out of touch like many. And he appreciates enthusiasm, is responsive to emails and answers extra questions after class. I have no complaints about Boyle.\n\r\nHe does like his T/F, and sometimes asks them during class to keep you on your toes. He wants you to know the concepts well enough to be able to confidently apply logic to them; that\'s all.\n\r\nAs for his handwriting, it\'s fine, don\'t listen to that guy. You try writing "diagonalizable" 5 times in chalk.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-01-12T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Was not the biggest fan of Boyle. Took 240 with him and I'm pretty sure I understood 3 of the lectures or something. He would be much better if he had a written plan of what he was going to talk about/write on the board and followed it exactly. I've always been pretty good at math, I'm a math major and have never gotten less than an A in a math class. Scraped by with an A in this one by like half a percent. He's a nice guy and is willing to answer questions during lecture. He definitely knows math well, just not great at teaching it. I pretty much learned out of the book for this class. If you have to take him, you'll be fine if you read the book before or after lecture and take notes on that. I still suggest going to lecture because he loves to test on proofs and true or false questions, many of which are taken from his lectures. The tests are very similar to his other ones on testbank, so study those. VERY important: if your TA gives hard quizzes, switch TA's. He does not curve by TA, and the TA's make their own quizzes so that can really screw you over. Highest grade in my section was like 90 or something, and highest grade in other sections was 97 or 98. Overall, if he's your best option go ahead and take him, but he's not the greatest.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-05T17:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "He definitely knows the material REALLY well, but he didn't do a very good job explaining it. It was quite hard to pay attention for more than 10 or 15 minutes. Also, the tests seemed much harder than they should have been given that he only ended up curving the final.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-19T22:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': "He is really good at teaching, and thoroughly enjoys it. Even in an upper level class, no question was too basic, and the lectures were given at a reasonable pace with full explanation. In other words, all assumptions and previous assertions or connections to previous parts of the problem were made clear at each step. Homework was also very reasonable but helpful, and he strikes a nice balance between proofs and applications (i.e. USING the concepts). Lectures were very helpful, and focused on a lot of examples of methods used to prove and solve things. He is also very helpful (and always present) at office hours.\n\r\nI might say that the class is a little less rigorous than I remember 410 and being and than other 411 classes I've heard about, but he does a healthy amount of relating the material to topo and linear. I would definitely say that even a very introductory view of set theory/topo is extremely useful the first unit in his class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-11-02T17:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "he is a great professor. he prefer to test his student on definitions, which is good for students. b/c some of the teachers just show students how to solve the question, as the result, students can give formula and solve the question, but they have no idea why it's work.\n\r\nbefore the class he always give us true and false question. be careful on those question, it may on your test.\n\r\nevery week, it will have quiz,I think different TA has different quiz. homework is easy, make sure to solve them. there are so many true and false questions in the test, thus, to do the old test will really helpful, especially, the question on true and false!\r\nMatlab is not so bad, very easy, it should not take so much time on those problems.\n\r\nHe is the great one, and very kind, if you have question, just ask him, don't be afraid.\n\r\ngood luck ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-21T03:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "As others have noted, his lectures are very proof-based. If you're a math major interested in pure mathematics, take any course he's teaching. He's an above average professor that is very knowledgeable in the subject.\n\r\nOne drawback is that his handwriting tends to be rather sloppy, so adjusting may be an issue. He rarely lectures with notes, so there many instances of long pauses as he tries to work out the next few sentences.\n\r\nHis exams have a lot of True/False questions, which can be a double-edged sword. Make sure to know properties of proofs and definitions of terms.\n\r\n240 isn't a difficult subject in general, as long as you do the HW problems. It's one of those courses that you'll kick yourself for not getting an A in.\n\r\nOverall, if Justin W-G or Grillakis are teaching 240, I'd take it with them (in that order) before Boyle.\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-25T15:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH140H', 'review': 'Dr. Boyle is an extremely intelligent and nice guy. However, like they say, "those who can, CANT teach". Most of his teaching was by spending the whole class writing proofs on the board, with no one in the class having any idea what was going on. He did not take much time to simply explain the basic underlying idea of most concepts. Tests were sometimes challenging but reasonable, and he drops your lowest exam, and some quizzes/hw. I do not recommend taking this class with Boyle unless you\'ve had calculus before and did well. Even with that, you may still struggle.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-17T19:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH140H', 'review': "Mike Boyle knows a lot about calculus . Mike Boyle knows nothing about how to teach calculus. Many times I would find myself confused in his lectures when he went off into tangents of yet ANOTHER proof , and then while doing the impossible homework problems find that he never actually taught us how to do the problem , only the theory behind the math. Many a times it was hard for everyone to stay awake, as his lectures can get very very boring very very fast. I often never understood his answers when I asked him a question and found his tests to be extraordinarily unfair. Out of our entire class there were only two A's. Good news is however he curves the class at the end. On another good note , he is very willing to help you out and is easily contactable. And every now and then he will crack a corny joke to keep you awake. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-01T12:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I'm sure he knew what he was talking about, but the way that he presented the material was not helpful at all. He'll put the equations on the board and the proofs, but doesn't take the time to explain them and make sure that you understand.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-29T16:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Ok, I'm going to say this very bluntly. \r\nDon't take this class with Mike Boyle.\n\r\nVery smart man, terrrrrrrrible professor. Anything I learned that semester was from my TA. He goes on and on in lecture on the stupidest, most nuance-oriented problems on one specific topic, then his tests are ridiculously difficult and are not even on what we learned in lecture.\n\r\nThis class sucked hard-core. Take it with anyone else, not Boyle.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-17T15:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Agree with previous reviewers on Boyle as a teacher, final was pretty tough, but the dropped test and quizzes helped with grades. Didn't do any of the written homework but kept up on webassign, go to the lectures and discussions", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-15T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'He knows the material, but prefers to focus on the history and proofs more than the actually formulas. For someone who likes to learn from their professor do not take his class. The only advantages are he drops several grades(in my class one test, two quizzes, and four homeworks)I think there are much better professors out there for MATH141', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-09T05:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I'll start with this: Mike Boyle knows Calculus very well, and knows what he's talking about. So much, in fact, that we never learn in lecture what ends up being on the tests. I can't tell you how many times I left lecture knowing the proof of why an equation worked, and not how the equation worked.\n\r\nHowever, he is very easy to get in touch with, and he does make a few dry jokes here and there to keep you interested.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-11-03T13:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Took Linear Algebra with Boyle a few semesters ago, and he was a really great teacher. Broke the material down, and gave a bunch of examples. I would definitely suggest taking a class with him, he's pretty good.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-06T18:34:00Z'}], 'name': 'McBlaine Boyle', 'slug': 'boyle_mcblaine'}, {'courses': ['EXST039C', 'COMM798B', 'EXST049C', 'COMM639K', 'COMM659F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'McDonald Hyunju', 'slug': 'hyunju'}, {'courses': ['LBSC622', 'LBSC742', 'LBSC744', 'LBSC640', 'LBSC620', 'INST800', 'INST810', 'INST809', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST650', 'INST652', 'INST794', 'LBSC707', 'LBSC708X', 'INST651', 'INST809', 'INST818', 'INST651', 'LBSC708X', 'INST809'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mega Subramaniam', 'slug': 'subramaniam'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM230', 'COMM360'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Megan Fitzmaurice', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'LOVE her! SO enthusiastic and interesting and happy to help with anything. She is super accessible ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-11-20T06:12:16Z'}], 'name': 'Megan Fitzmaurice', 'slug': 'fitzmaurice'}, {'courses': ['ARHU319A', 'HHUM206', 'ARHU318', 'ARHU309'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Megan Kuyatt', 'slug': 'kuyatt'}, {'courses': ['EDCI636', 'EDCI613', 'EDCI734', 'EDCI638', 'EDCI788R', 'EDCI775', 'EDCI634', 'EDCI788W', 'TLPL743', 'EDCI788M', 'EDCI898', 'TLPL788Y', 'TLPL788Q', 'TLPL898'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Megan Peercy', 'slug': 'peercy'}, {'courses': ['BMGT458Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Megan Rhee', 'slug': 'rhee_megan'}, {'courses': ['ANTH265'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Megan Springate', 'slug': 'springate'}, {'courses': ['DANC148', 'DANC149', 'DANC200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Meghan Bowden', 'slug': 'bowden_meghan'}, {'courses': ['FREN204'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Meghan Cleereman', 'slug': 'cleereman'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Meghan DeFord', 'slug': 'deford'}, {'courses': ['SPAN207'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Meghan Hamorsky', 'slug': 'hamorsky'}, {'courses': ['ENTS641', 'ENTS641', 'ENTS641'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mehdi Kalantari Khandani', 'slug': 'khandani'}, {'courses': ['SPAN332', 'SPAN408P', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN408V', 'SPAN333', 'SPAN408B', 'SPAN798B', 'GERM689M', 'SLLC309', 'SPAN798P', 'FREN699M', 'SPAN798M', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'SPAN460', 'SPAN798Y', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN333', 'SPAN333', 'SPAN798C', 'SPAN461'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mehl Penrose', 'course': 'SPAN303', 'review': "He was great! SPAN303 class may seem like a lot to some but that'll be the case w any teacher. The first two weeks I thought it was going to be dull but he keeps it interesting and is funny and vocal. Very understanding professor and wants everyone to do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-07-21T21:10:35Z'}], 'name': 'Mehl Penrose', 'slug': 'penrose'}, {'courses': ['CHIN203', 'CHIN306', 'CHIN411', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN105', 'CHIN412', 'CHIN321', 'CHIN102', 'CHIN403', 'CHIN201', 'CHIN401', 'CHIN402', 'CHIN202', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN401', 'CHIN102', 'CHIN402', 'CHIN403', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN201', 'CHIN401'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mei Kong', 'course': 'CHIN203', 'review': "Kong is a solid teacher- I took two semesters of Chinese with her, and deliberately chose the sections she was teaching. \r\nHer best asset is the genuine desire for her students to learn the language.\r\nIf you take the time to participate, and even visit her office hours (she works hard to make herself available for help), you will get a lot out of her classes.\r\nUnfortunately, I did not get to be as involved as I really wanted to be due to my major classes dividing my attention. Regardless, I learned a lot with her teaching. She wants to challenge students, but she is by no means unreasonable or unfair- there's typically consistent homework and weekly quizzes, along with a midterm and final. \r\nA very kind and understanding person as well, though she can seem shy or uncertain of herself at times. Patient too- we'd often make the same mistakes or errors, but she'd never hang it over our heads- she'd just correct us and continue onward.\n\r\nTo my understanding, her one pet peeve is her students not trying- so if the class has been slacking, she can get frustrated/angry, but that's only understandable for an instructor. \n\r\nIf you really want to learn Chinese, I highly recommend her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-12T02:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mei Kong', 'course': 'CHIN411', 'review': "As I am studying for her final right now, I can't help thinking how much I have learned from this class. it's probably the most important class I'll ever take in my college career. \n\r\nI am an Economics and Finance double major who signed up for this class by random luck (nothing else fit my schedule). I couldn't have gotten luckier with the professor. She is very understanding and in a 12 people class, it's hard not to participate and develop a strong relationship with her. A great teacher to ask for a recommendation letter from as well. \n\r\nThere was one midterm and one final, together contributing to 40% of your grade. The other 60% come from homework, class contribution (so come to class), and vocab quizzes (give you several words in Chinese from the textbook chapter and you have to write the pinyin and translate), and a group project. An important part of the her class is outside required reading - a short news article about some business in China. Most of them were pretty interesting and since they are current news, they force you to stay in touch with what's happening in the business world. \n\r\nIf you are a business major and you have the language ability to take this class, do it. Your resume will thank you later. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T09:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mei Kong', 'course': 'CHIN205', 'review': "Professor Kong is the only Chinese professor i've had thus far. I took both 205 and 305 with her and she is amazing. \n\r\nThe class is definitely a significant amount of work because there are two quizzes per week, one character quiz, one pin yin/chinese to english quiz.\n\r\nif you are 205 you will also be graded on character sheets (a grade booster imo).\n\r\nthere are two exams: a midterm and a final. the exams are exactly what you covered in terms of sentence structures and vocabulary. the key is keeping up with the vocab. if you have time don't just memorize the vocab for that week, go back and rewrite old vocab. for anyone who's ever taken chinese, you should know that characters and hard to memorize and easy to forget. \r\ngiven that the exams are always cumulative, it is imperative you keep up with the vocab because its impossible to cram 1000+ characters the night before the final.\n\r\nthere are also oral presentations which she grades very easily as long as you try. \n\r\nthe only downside is that she does assign essays (2-3) and they are quite tedious. if your parents are chinese, have them look over it. otherwise, go to her before they are due and have her read them over. she usually grades the essays rather hard, so make sure you're grammar is correct. for essays she only awards A's for analysis on the topic and original ideas. think of it as an english essay. don't slack. you will be penalized.\n\r\noverall\r\nkeep up with the work. i cannot stress this enough. chinese is something learned over time, not something that can be crammed overnight.\r\nKong is an incredibly nice woman and will help you if you need it.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-20T07:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mei Kong', 'course': 'CHIN101', 'review': 'Incredibly nice woman, and one of the nicest teachers I have ever had. She understands that Chinese is a tough language for native English speakers and grades accordingly. Very effective and teaching Chinese grammar and draws comparisons between Chinese and English for a more complete understanding.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-11T22:52:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Mei Kong', 'course': 'CHIN402', 'review': "She's a very nice woman and exceptionally patient with students. However, this course is brutal even for native/heritage speakers of Chinese. Expect to be hit with tricky SAT level reading comprehension questions on quizzes and exams all within a different language. If you're looking to obtain an A in this course, your work will need to be close to flawless. To be honest, I found the jump in expectations from the 300 level courses and even CHIN401 to be a little too severe, but I felt that my time in this course was valuable, improving my Chinese composition skills significantly. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-16T23:50:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Mei Kong', 'course': 'CHIN101', 'review': "All the other reviews are correct, Professor Kong is incredibly sweet! I had no prior experience with the Chinese language, so CHIN 101 was my first time speaking Mandarin, and I feel like I've learned so much in just one semester! The workload IS very very intense, especially for a 100 level class. That being said, the class is also six credits, and that is no joke! Sometimes I felt the workload was a little too much, which is the only reason I'm giving 4 stars instead of 5. Otherwise, Professor Kong is incredibly kind and understanding and does a very good job explaining the language as she teaches! I would recommend her and CHIN 101.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-09T04:43:51.535341Z'}], 'name': 'Mei Kong', 'slug': 'kong'}, {'courses': ['VMSC698', 'VMSC760', 'VMSC760', 'VMSC899', 'VMSC899', 'VMSC760'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Meiqing Shi', 'slug': 'shi_meiqing'}, {'courses': ['ENGL391'], 'average_rating': 2.3636, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'I just started taking this class after having to drop another ENGL391 class. I switched into the class a week into the semester (not normally a big deal) but the second I emailed Dr. Faith about making up missed work in a timely fashion, she replied with a very rude and blunt email. I then showed up to class the second week and introduced myself before the class started and asked what I could do to get myself back up to speed and she, for lack of better words, "embarrassed me" in front of my peers by saying that I should have contacted her even before switching into her class and got caught up on a plethora of assignments before I came to the second class meeting when I was not even positive I was switching classes nor did she email me back useful information regarding makeup work. Then, she instructed me to talk to the TA about catching up after I apparently made her too frustrated (although I may have said about 10 words) to continue our conversation. The TA, did not have the ability to explain the work to me because he couldn\'t find all of the work to make up since the ELMS page is a mess and very hard to navigate. Although her grade distribution may be favorable, I already would not recommend taking this class with her unless you plan on getting shredded to pieces every time you miss a class or do not understand how to complete an assignment. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-02-03T15:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'WORST PROFESSOR EVER\n\r\nThought I\'d leave a review since there aren\'t any recent ones for her. She was my junior English professor this past semester (Fall 2014). Worst professor I have had in my 3 years at the University of Maryland. I have honestly not had a professor or TA who came close to being as terrible as she was. \n\r\nDidn\'t know how to use ELMs at all, or any technology for that matter. She forced us to use online technology that she didn\'t have a clue how to use, such as Microsoft OneDrive and an online web site creator. \n\r\nIn regards to ELMs, She set up her ELMs in the most confusing, nonsensical way possible. We couldn\'t even view our grades, which didn\'t make a difference anyway as she graded about 80% of our assignments on Christmas Eve, including assignments from September and October... DID NOT HAVE A SYLLABUS! She had one at first, did not stick to it at all, and then ended up deleting it from ELMs because as she said, "some students were going ahead and doing assignments before they were due" or in other words, they were being good students....\n\r\nAs other reviewers have said, she was also very rude and sometimes would yell at us when we were confused with her directions. She made the most random due dates, with an assignment due almost every Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Also made a research assignment to be due the day after Thanksgiving, saying that we have to talk to our relatives at Thanksgiving dinner to learn about their careers or something...after a few students complained she moved the due date ahead two days to the day before Thanksgiving. I failed to mention that she would not release assignments until a day or a few days before they were due, for no reason at all.\n\r\nWhile I received an A in the class, her grading was extremely strange, and seemed to be subjectively given. For example, she would write a decent number of criticisms on assignments and then give an A on the paper, while another paper would have one or two grammar errors and receive a C...\n\r\nDefinitely agree with the person below who said she pries into students\' personal lives. Completely unprofessional, and would also make rude comments on students who weren\'t in class, especially on their personal lives. She would also be very rude to her TA. One class the TA got the attendance wrong and after she left Faith spent 5 minutes talking trash about her and how the University doesn\'t offer good TAs for English. \n\r\nWhile I feel bad giving her 1 star while receiving an A in the class, she is without a doubt the worst professor I have ever had or even heard of at the University of Maryland. There would be times when she would give ridiculous explanations or when she would yell at us, and the class would be shaking their heads and looking at each other incredulously. Seriously do not take a class with this professor. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-26T16:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Dr. Faith is one of the worst professors I have ever had. Do not take a class with her. Even though I am expecting an A, I don't think she should be teaching. She didn't post due dates until the day before, and was extremely disorganized. Her personality is very blunt and sarcastic. She actually screamed at our class one day because none of us understood what she expected of an assignment. Stay away! I promise that you will thank me later. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-09T22:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'I absolutely loved Dr. Faith. It breaks my heart to read these bad reviews because I honestly believe she cares about her students. She is a GREAT teacher. I learned so much from her that I actually needed to learn for the professional world. The class is also easy. Luckily I am pretty decent at writing, but if you are not then she will help you along the way. If you ask her for anything she will help you. She cares less about grading than she does about her students learning. She was also bullied by several students in my class for some really weird reason. I guess they did not like her but she handled it well and professionally. I LOVE Dr. Faith. Take this class with her! Easy A if you simply do the work or ask her how you can improve AND you learn really useful information.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-07-14T12:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "STAY AWAY FROM THIS PROFESSOR!\n\r\nI agree wholeheartedly with the other reviews of Dr. Faith even though they are from years ago. I took this professor my last semester at UMD and it was horrific. Unlike all other professors, Dr. Faith does not have a completed syllabus ready at the beginning of the semester to predict future assignments and due dates. She literally makes it up as the semester proceeds. After the first maybe 2 weeks of her class, for all other assignments she expects not a single error in any writing assignment and trust me you WILL be writing the ENTIRE SEMESTER; if a holiday is around the corner, rest assure, YOU WILL NOT BE RELAXING, YOU WILL BE WRITING OR RESEARCHING!\r\nAnother issues is that Dr. Faith, not once has looked presentable as a professor. She will constantly wear velour suits and ragged sneakers. She is repeated prying through her students' personal lives when they do not feel the need to share information. \n\r\nIf you are signed up for her class, word of advice, FIND A NEW PROFESSOR!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-06-19T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'Great teacher once you really get to know her. Just do your work and do whatever she asks of you and the class will be fun!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-10T20:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE ANY CLASS WITH THIS PROFESSOR!\n\r\nI will be very honest. I recieved an A in this class. However, I would have gladly gotten a C in this course if I could have had another professor. \r\nProf. Faith is a horrible teacher. She is not organized and often blames the students for her bad days. For example, she still had not changed her clock for daylights savings time even though it had been 3 days since daylights savings. Because of this, she missed one of the classes and so all the students, after waiting for almost 30 minutes for her to show up, went home. Next thing we know, we all get this scathing email from her in which she calls US irresponsible for not reminding her about daylights savings!!! Sorry...didn't realize it was the students' responsibility to make sure the teacher was aware of when to show up to teach. \n\r\nShe is also a very biased teacher/ grader. She picks on some students unnecessarily while ignoring others. She is never clear in her expectations for her assignments and often changes her mind about what she wants. And then she gets angry at the students for not doing the assignment like she had wanted it. \n\r\nI have never met such an irresponsible, unprofessional, and frankly, inept professor such as her. Like I said, I got an A in her class and I would still never take her class if I could do it over again. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-07T00:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'Professor Faith was rarely appropriate or helpful as an instructor. On the first day of class she told us that we were all probably in her Junior Engilsh class because we were too stupid to pass freshman english with an A. Those of us who were there because our English major required it were, needless to say, fairly offended. \r\nLater on the first day when she was calling roll, she mispronounced one of the girls names, the girl corrected her every day for the first two weeks. Faith proceeded to mispronounce her name every day for the rest of the semester.\r\nEverytime we were supposed to turn in a project,we would ask her what order things needed to be in, and every day for a week she would change her mind about how she wanted things. \r\nDespite the fact that I was there all but one day of class, and was a leader in our group project, she gave me a B as my participation grade. \r\nShe took forever to grade everything we turned in, and was even a day late for turning in our final grades to Testudo.\r\nDr. Faith had her funny moments, but mostly, she was a huge dissapointment as a teacher.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T11:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "I had a horrible experience with Dr. Faith.\n\r\nFirst day, she started class early and she assigned work based on books that weren't in any of the three stores near College Park for the start of term. I wrote her a polite email asking about the class time and the assignments, and she was extremely rude in response. She told me I had a faulty watch and that I would just have to deal with what happened if I didn't do the work because it wasn't her fault the bookstores in the area didn't have her books. I was appalled and dropped her class immediately after receiving her entirely obnoxious and unsympathetic response.\n\r\nI went out of my way to research and find a 301 teacher with a more reasonable attitude for this coming term.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-30T19:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL310', 'review': "Not a bad professor. The problem in general with her is she rarely sticks to the syllabus. She will change reading assignments and deadlines constantly. She also can give an unfair amount of reading during a week when an essay is due.\n\r\nI had two essays to write and three 1-2 papers to write. She does expect you to write with few/none grammatical mistakes so use the Writing Center! She gives you leeway in what to write about and can help you choose a topic.\n\r\nYou also might do a group project where each member of your group writes about a topic pertaining to the group topic. Then those papers are condensed into five minute presentations. It's a nice change of pace but she takes it a little too seriously (for example, you have to dress nice on the day you present!)\n\r\nYou will be expected to talk. Every class is a circle where people just talk about the previous night's readings. BE PREPARED TO TALK! She takes the participation seriously.\n\r\nBtw...you do have a final in the class but it's easy! It's on plot material and she curves it. I got a 64 on the final which was a B+ (I did not even try to be honest). In her defense she is required to give a final (dunno why).", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-23T02:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Faith', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Melanie was super nice and an easy teacher. Take a little time the first few classes to establish a relationship with her and you'll have a great class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-08-22T20:29:53Z'}], 'name': 'Melanie Faith', 'slug': 'faith'}, {'courses': ['EDHD411', 'EDHD629', 'EDHD690', 'EDHD779M', 'EDHD850', 'EDHD820', 'EDHD720', 'EDHD750', 'EDHD228', 'EDHD411', 'EDHD720', 'EDHD411', 'EDHD750', 'EDHD720'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Melanie Killen', 'course': 'EDHD690', 'review': 'Dr. Killen is one of those smart professors whose brilliance radiates in her talking. She commands incredible expertise of developmental psychology, as evidenced by her knowledge of all aspects of human development as a field. She is also a nice person.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-06T14:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Killen', 'course': 'EDHD210', 'review': 'Dr. Killen is awesome!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-13T23:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melanie Killen', 'course': None, 'review': 'THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-29T05:02:16.451600Z'}], 'name': 'Melanie Killen', 'slug': 'killen'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'UNIV326', 'IDEA101', 'IDEA398C', 'CHSE338P', 'IDEA398C', 'CHSE338P', 'IDEA398C'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Melissa Del Rios', 'course': 'IDEA101', 'review': 'I had her last semester, and she is incredible. She is very friendly and interactive with other students. Also, she is fast in responding to emails. I am actually applying for a peer mentor for this fall semester, hoping I could work with her real soon! DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-05T17:50:07Z'}], 'name': 'Melissa Del Rios', 'slug': 'del_rios_melissa'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN207', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN316', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN301', 'SPAN362', 'SPAN363'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Melissa Gonzalez-Contreras', 'slug': 'gonzalez-contreras'}, {'courses': ['ASTR100', 'ASTR220', 'ASTR300', 'ASTR315', 'ASTR310', 'ASTR288I', 'ASTR498', 'ASTR288I', 'ASTR310', 'ASTR315', 'ASTR498', 'ASTR498', 'ASTR288I', 'ASTR310'], 'average_rating': 3.4857, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': 'This course was not too difficult in general, but will require a little bit of time each week spent on it. This IS a science course - you\'re not going to be getting an A+ from just spending 20 minutes per week on it. If you come to class (mandatory anyway), actually try, and be as interested as you can, you\'re going to feel like you got a lot out of it.\n\r\nDr. Hayes-Gehrke is very nice and a good speaker. She\'s knowledgeable and keeps everyone involved during class.\n\r\n-----\n\r\nThe rest of this review is what to expect from ASTR220 with her teaching:\n\r\nThere\'s pre-lecture videos (anywhere from 20-45 minutes generally) followed by a quick multiple choice quiz. TAKE NOTES WHILE WATCHING THE VIDEOS!! You will be hating life later if you don\'t because you\'ll have no notes to study from for the exams. I had groupmates that took zero notes and were complaining about having to watch the videos again to study for the exam. These are your homework (alongside projects). No textbook.\n\r\nThe pre-lecture videos prevent you from being lectured during class. Instead, you\'re going to be doing rapid fire multiple choice questions, class discussions on the topics, and a calculation here and there with your groups. She does this to prevent the typical "lecture until you\'re bored" style of class, and it works in my opinion.\n\r\nSpeaking of groupmates...you will have them for the entire semester. You\'re going to be assigned them in the beginning of the semester - some you will be ok with, some you will dislike. Learn to get along and distribute work instead of complaining, and your life will be a lot easier. Use Google Docs to get your work done, add comments to papers, etc. to make your life so much easier. Set deadlines, and start early! If you follow those guidelines, you\'ll never receive less than an A on the projects. And if anyone isn\'t pulling their weight, you get to grade your teammates based on work effort after the project is submitted.\n\r\nYou\'ll have multiple projects: \r\n1) a research paper about a specific asteroid\r\n2) a poster (large powerpoint slide) project on a random astronomy topic/event, which you\'ll have printed and present to multiple people/groups\r\n3) a paper where you design a spacecraft to accomplish a specific goal/mission\r\n4) a debate (group vs group) about a random topic that you\'ll do in front of the class\r\nThese projects span across weeks, giving you tons of time to take your time on them and not make you feel overwhelmed. I do feel that projects were graded a little harshly though. They weren\'t unfair, but it just seemed that we lost a few points here or there for minor things, which was making it impossible to get the A instead of A- or B+. \n\r\nThe grading also seemed to get MUCH harsher as the semester went on. I felt that she was being overly picky on many aspects of grading projects and exams towards the end of the semester, especially given how busy you are juggling all of your classes.\n\r\nTwo midterms, which are average difficulty (35 multiple choice questions that are exactly like the in-class multiple choice questions she posts on the slides) and 6 or so short answer questions (sometimes involving a quick calculation or explanation). Equations are provided, you\'ll just be expected to understand concepts like "If this asteroid has properties A, B, and C, and I do "this" to it, what will happen?" You get re-tests though: You take the exam, and then you get another week or so to take the exact exam at home with all of your resources, classmates, etc. and bring it back in. Your score will be the average of the two scores, and any additional points that you got from your average compared to your original score will be added as bonus points to your final exam score (since there\'s no re-test for the final). i.e. if you got a 90, then re-test you got a 100, your average score is 95. So 5 points are added to your final exam score. Final exam was all essay/short answer questions. Felt easy after finishing, but the grade was A LOT lower than I expected, again due to extremely nit-picky grading.\n\r\nDiscussion section is fine. We had to get an assignment done each time (pretty easy) and just go over with our groupmates what we\'re doing/any progress on projects and such. It\'s what you would expect.\n\r\nExcluding studying for exams, you\'ll likely spend about 2-4 hours per week on this class (1-2 hours on pre-lecture stuff and another 1-2 hours on projects, depending on how hard you\'re working). Overall, most people learned a ton from this course and want to take ASTR315 with her next semester (and are considering Astronomy minors). ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-18T19:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR310', 'review': 'If you focus on lectures alone, Hayes-Gehrke is a fantastic professor. She\'s clear, patient with students, and open to student concerns and questions.\n\r\nWith that said, the workload for the number of credits that the course is worth is absolutely atrocious. In terms of what I\'d consider to be assignments done out of class, there were "Pre-Lecture Quizzes" for nearly every lecture, "Homework" assignments for which there were 5, and "Projects" for which there were 3. \n\r\nThe "Pre-Lecture Quizzes" are exactly as they sound like and take about 30 minutes each to complete. "HW" assignments could very easily be called projects in any other classes as they were fairly difficult and took a significant amount of time (upwards of 4 hours each). The 3 "Projects" we were assigned were even worse in terms of difficulty and time required for completion, and the last of the projects could well be considered 2 projects with a single due date. Any one of these 4 assignments would constitute a "Final Project" in another class.\n\r\nAnother caveat of the class is group work. You have to make resumes to post online to your classmates, against your classmates so that you can hurry and make fairly permanent groups in 10 minute scramble. This group is probably going to be with you for the rest of the semester working on each project. This can be both a good and a bad thing, as it\'s encouraged that you work with classmates on the HW assignments. Having a group you\'re comfortable with can make the HW process easier, but you\'re also stuck with them for 4 months. \n\r\nI\'ve definitely learned a significant amount in this course, but not nearly as much as the work requirement should indicate. I would take the course again, but only if I were warned ahead of time of how much of a time Hayes-Gehrke demands.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-17T16:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "I've taken three courses with this professor. When I was a freshman in ASTR100, I hated her. I felt like she babied her students and was condescending.\n\r\nAfter taking two more classes with her (ASTR220 and ASTR300), she became my favorite teacher. She's written me multiple recommendations, and has been very helpful to me. She was always willing to listen to questions about grading, and after getting over myself I realized that her methods, while slightly babying, are amazingly helpful for learning the material.\n\r\nYou'll never find a professor more committed to helping every single student do well. If you are willing to actually do the homework (rarely more than half an hour) and do some group projects, you'll come out of it with a lot more knowledge and a professor who will write you great recommendations.\n\r\nI fully recommend all three of the courses I have taken with her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-12-03T07:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Let me start by saying that I am NOT one to write reviews but after taking this course im sorry to say that professor gherke made me feel the need to warn people about her class.im not kidding when I say that this professor does not lecture. She forces you to watch pre-lecture videos of her talking before coming to class (most upwards of 25-30 minutes) which you then take a quiz on. This is horrible for learning as much as she thinks otherwise. I know she doesn’t believe in “traditional teaching styles” but her version of teaching is terrible (because she DOESN’T teach). Imagine teaching yourself and then coming to class and being quizzed everyday --- this is astr100 in a nutshell. Mind you, the grading in this course is insanely harsh. I am a physics major taking this course for a minor and I was completely floored by the grades I was receiving in this class. She asks incredibly specific questions that ask you to apply what you know (often times trying to trick you) and will not hesitate to give you a 0/5 for a less than perfect answer. Her questions are sometimes so watered down and baby-ish that you will actually get them wrong just by second-guessing yourself. I loved astronomy before this but this professor has been incredibly frustrating. No matter how hard you study, she will never actually test you on anything but repetitive equations and hypothetical scenarios which you’ve never talked about. This class needs to SERIOUSLY be changed. Please save yourself the headache and do not take any course with this professor. Your gpa will thank you i absolutely promise.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-04-23T15:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "After a few semesters, I've realized that professor Hayes-Gehrke is the best professor I think I've had here at UMD. She really, really wants you to learn the material, and teaches it to you how she thinks is best. If you do all the work she assigns (which really isn't that time consuming), I guarantee you will get an A in this class. She teaches you the information that you need to know before lecture in a pre-lecture video and then teaches you the same material with examples in lecture. This really drills the information into your brain. It was because of her teaching style that I got an A+ in the class and over 100 on the final exam, and frankly, I wish more teachers would teach like Hayes-Gehrke does.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-03-12T20:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': 'Professor Hayes-Ghehrke is a pretty solid professor. She taught the class very clearly, and almost always had an interesting picture or story related to the topic at the beginning of every class.\r\nShe does have her students do a little "topic briefing" and attendance slip that they have to pick up at the beginning of class and turn in on the way out, which means you have to attend most of her lectures unless you find a way to slip your attendance paper into the box at the beginning and leave. Her classes are very interesting though, so I recommend just going to them.\n\r\nThe biggest downfall to this class is probably the group work. There is a lot of it. You usually end up doing a little group worksheet in most discussions, and there is a large "poster project" at the end of the semester that you must do in a group of around four. As someone who despises group work, this aspect of the class sucked, but overall, it\'s a very fascinating class that you learn a lot of interesting things in, and Hayes-Gehrke herself is a very clear and easy to listen to professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-10T22:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': 'I think Hayes-Gehrke is a really cool professor. Like others have said, she talks to you like your a kid and babys you through every single activity, but that only slightly takes away from her overall success as a lecturer. She really knows her stuff. \n\r\nThe work, however is a different story. Before every single lecture, she posts mandatory "prelecture" videos that are often more than 30mins long. This can be super annoying. However, I find that I can skip through the videos in 5-10mins and still get a 100 on the quizzes. \n\r\nShe is really a stickler on grading group projects. She takes points off in random places and I often found myself getting Bs when i thought i deserved at least an A-.\n\r\nThe one redeeming quality to the coursework is the exams. They are a complete joke. The way she works it is that you go to the exam and take it, and when youre done you pick up a second copy of the exam which you take home and complete with youre notes. You hand in the second copy and she averages the two grades together! You really have to be an idiot to get less than a B on the exams because what ever grade you get is averaged with a 100 (which I got on both midterm ReTests). \n\r\nOverall, the class can be kind of annoying sometimes, but I think the material is interesting and it really doesnt take that much effort to get a good grade. I would recommend taking it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-29T15:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Makes what should be a very easy class, very difficult. The workload was fairly large for a 100-level class. Also, a lot of the work that you submit for this class will be graded very harshly. Take another teacher.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-21T02:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': "I'm not really positive how I feel about Hayes-Gehrke and this class. I went back and forth between really liking her as a professor and really disliking her as a professor. I think by the end of the class, I settled into liking her quite a bit.\n\r\nThe class had a ton of group work, which became insanely frustrating at times. She did make a pretty solid effort to match the teams well, and my team was decent. Still, the class definitely could have done without a project or two, since I often felt like I was doing more work in this class than in some of my 400-level computer science courses. The exams were very easy, but they were not worth very much.\n\r\nShe kind of taught like she was speaking to a bunch of five year-olds. At the beginning of the course I thought it was a huge relief, since I'm sick of being held to a stupidly high standard in so many of my courses. After a while it became kind of annoying, and then frustrating since there was a stark contrast between how she spoke and what she expected of us in some projects, like the research poster. By the end of the course I began to appreciate it again. I don't think she does it to be demeaning, I think she is just a very kind and caring person to the point of sometimes sounding like a kindergarten teacher.\n\r\nIn the end I did well and learned a ton. I was surprised at how much I could learn while feeling like I was in a kindergarten classroom. I went from completely space-ignorant to being able to hold a serious conversation about pretty much anything related to our space program, especially if it concerned a threat of impact. I also feel like this class was among one of the most practical I took at the university, even though I only really took it because it had a badass name and I needed a core science. I feel like I'm highly informed if I ever have the chance to vote about space issues or make a case to anybody else. Overall, a valuable course, just gets super annoying at times.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-11T03:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'This class was lot of fun. She had completely new style of teaching. So many activities in the classroom (no problem if you are shy); even planetarium like displays. But there is lot of work to do. You have to watch a pre lecture video before every lecture and do a quiz on that. Then you also have to write a post lecture summary every time. They seemed hard in the beginning but then you get use to it. One can get a in this class, if you devote that time here. Also, I would like to mention I learned so many new things from this course. Its completely wonderful and the only class in the week which I look forward to. TAs are one the best (extremely helpful) and professor is very sweet. There are 3 midterms and a final. There is a "retest" paper in all three midterms where you boost your score by doing the same exam you did the classroom now at home. She usually gives 3-4 days for that, and encourages discussing with fellow students. All exams are half multiple choice and half essay types. Scoring policies are extremely fair. Recommended!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-09T00:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': "Professor Hayes-Gehrke is an interesting professor and definitely one-of-a-kind.\n\r\nBasically, here are the main points about her that really (in my opinion) define her teaching style:\n\r\n1) She is VERY patient with students' questions which leads me to believe that she has done a lot of research about teaching styles. Honestly, this can get pretty annoying if you have a head on your shoulders as there were a couple of people in my class who would literally ask her a question that she had just explained thoroughly and she would jump right in without a thought (and waste time).\n\r\n2) As implicitly stated above, she likes to baby her students. She takes attendance, has mandatory rough draft editing for papers and never, ever refrains from answering a terrible question.\n\r\n3) This might sound harsh, but she's a fairly poor quiz/exam writer. She has a tendency to say something in class and then put an oddly worded question on an online quiz that correlates to what she said but has a slightly different answer than what you'd expect based on her wording. Her exam questions are also pretty tricky.\n\r\n4) This is the most important point of all: She somehow manages to make the class very interesting from start to finish. I think it's her delivery style but I had little trouble in following her throughout the entire lecture (unless I was exhausted). She definitely made this course a fun experience for me.\n\r\nBased on all of the above I recommend taking ASTR220 with Dr. Hayes-Gehrke. She's got her quirks but the class is pretty interesting and the exams and quizzes are easy enough where getting an A in the class isn't too much trouble. Oh, one more thing, if you like group projects than take this class -- We had to do ~5 (and they were graded fairly easily).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-20T15:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'She\'s definitely excited about the material, I\'ll giver her that. The way this class is currently structured is also really nice. I took this class once before, and it has really been streamlined since then. The textbook has been scrapped, and has been replaced by online "pre-lecture summaries" and "pre-lecture quizzes". All you gotta do is watch the pre-lecture summary and then take the 8-point or so multiple choice quiz. Sounds easy enough, but it can get aggravating when the pre-lectures are easily as long as the in-class lectures themselves. Plus you gotta do the darn things three times a week. On top of that, each in-class lecture is followed by an online "post-lecture summary" that is related to the lecture material, but oftentimes requires you to think outside the box more.\n\r\nThe exams are also easy (I can\'t say much about the final, I haven\'t taken that yet). The attendance policy is forgiving and the lectures are by no means boring. You can tell Ms. Hayes - Gerhke is really trying to find the "perfect formula" for getting students to remember information. \n\r\nOne thing I wish she would stop doing is treating the class like little kids. She has a habit of stating something that is blatantly wrong, then asking "do you agree? Or... is that not the case?" or something to that effect. Then she waits for people to say WHY her statement is incorrect, and all the while people just sit there going "durr... do we really have to spell it out for you? Again?". It might just be another weapon in her arsenal of learning techniques (specifically, the weapon of mindless repetition), and if it is, I don\'t like it. The flash cards she uses are also kind of lame. The colors of the cards are generic and not at all what I\'d expect from a college-level astronomy class.\n\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-12-15T17:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'She is a great person, nice, and never judges students or makes them feel bad. But she does baby the students around, I felt like I was in middle school. I thought this class would be a breeze because of her teaching style but I was wrong. She screwed us all over with the midterms. Yes, there is a curve, and I thought I would be fine, but I ended up getting a B and so did everyone else. She is nice but she is an unfair grader and has a TA that is the most clueless and dumb TAI have ever seen in my life. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-08-20T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "She was an okay teacher. She dumbed it down which is good if you are not a science person. On the exams, particularly the exam 3, she totally screwed us over. She made all the essays tricky and worded them badly. Basically in discussion the entire class was talking about how terrible she worded the questions to purposefully mess us up. She's a nice person and lectures aren't too bad. \n\r\nIF you wanna take this class..just remember to STUDY YOUR BUTT off for midterm 3. For a core class it could be a lot worse. Overall, I personally I am not extremely fond of her but for science she's not too bad. Just expect a lot of work. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-04T23:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': 'She\'s an excellent teacher. She is very friendly and open to questions. She never patronizes a student for answering a "stupid" question as many professors here at Maryland do (based off personal experience). \n\r\nThis class is NOT easy though. It is not an easy A at all and does require a lot of work. There is a post-lecture quiz after every lecture, 2 tests, 1 final, 1 research paper, 1 project, 1 team debate, discussion and attendance. I suggest having taken Astr100 because you do jump right into Astronomy. I recommend the teacher, not the class if you\'re looking to satisfy an easy CORE class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-21T00:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Interesting class, easy A, lots of work. You might be turned off by her ridiculous demanding of extremely large amount of time for a simple 100 level class, but you get to learn a LOT. You\'ll be tempted to skip lectures, but she takes attendance. For both lectures and discussion. \n\r\nMy TA on the other hand was useless, condescending, and self-absorbed. She would make herself sound smart by saying terms that we don\'t even need to know for the exams. Things that she\'s learned in her "upper" level Astr class. I mean, really though? I didn\'t enjoy the discussion portion mainly because of her.\n\r\nOverall, this class made me decide to minor in Astronomy. If you think it\'s interesting, or just need a PS core, then I would definitely recommend you taking it with Dr. H', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-10T12:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'I am not a science person at all, but the professor made the course material pretty interesting with examples and demonstrations of concepts in class. Some of the material can be difficult, but if you do all the work and study at least a little, you\'ll do fine. \r\nExams can be graded pretty unfairly on the short answer sections, because sometimes it seems like A LOT more points are taken off than should be for whatever little mistake was made. BUT after every midterm, you can choose to do an easy "mid-term analysis", explaining why you got each wrong answer wrong (which you can discuss with your TA) and that will give you an automatic 10% added back onto your midterm.\r\nShe takes attendance every class with a slip you have to personally hand to a TA, and attendance is a good portion of your grade. There is also a pretty time consuming "pre-lecture video" (usually about 30 min) accompanied by a "pre-lecture quiz" before EVERY lecture, and a "post-lecture summary" after EVERY lecture. If you do the quizzes and go to lecture, you never have to read. It\'s not hard work, but this class does take A LOT of time. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-01T00:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': "She is a fantastic professor. I am always amazing how enthusiastically she will answer people's stupid questions or questions that she had answered like 2 seconds before. She is very nice and engaging. \n\r\nThe class is extremely easy but also really awesome. I mean it's a class on saving the Earth from an asteroid collision, what could be more interesting. There is a online quiz after every lecture that you can do anytime and questions are right from the lecture which are on elms and you can use. I have not gotten lower than a 100 on one and they take maybe 5 minutes. No homework or in class quizzes. \n\r\nThere are three projects, a 4 page research paper and 8 minute presentation on an interesting topic. A mission to build a spacecraft to study an asteroid with a budget. And finally an in class debate. All these projects are done with a group that was picked for you at the beginning of the year. Have not really met with my group once except to watch Deep Impact, and still get good grades. \n\r\nThere are three exams, two midterms and a final. All very easy, with the ability to get ten points extra on the exam if you do corrections.\n\r\nOverall, one of the easiest and most satisfying classes I have taken at UMD. I would recommend it to everyone.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-11-23T13:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'The professor is very engaging and interesting. She makes astronomy seem fun, and makes you want to learn. However, she is an extremely unfair grader. You can write a textbook answer on a test, and she will take off 90% of the credit because you skipped one word that did not even pertain to the question. It is still relatively easy to do well in this class, because you get a lot of points for coming to class and completing the homework, but do not expect to do well on any of the tests', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-10-27T13:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': "Unprofessional and unfair grader. Even though answers are written correctly and explained in appropriate fashion, she cuts the points. You would think, you have given complete answer, but wait til you get grades back. I'm sure, she loves to cherry pick on your answers. I went to her office to explain grading, but she already made up her mind. (DON'T BOTHER ARGUING, YOU ARE NOT GETTING WHAT YOU DESERVE). I have answer key of her homework, I wrote it from it, still cuts the points. UNPROFESSIONAL, BIAS, AND UNFAIR. She makes fun class, confusing and complicated. She does not deserve to teach.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-09-14T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'I hate astronomy and do not find this class that difficult. Yeah you have to go to class and discussion but thats like 20% of your grade and can help you a lot. Also my TA was amazing so that helped. No matter how bad you do there is always a 10% increase. So if you get a 80% on a test or homework it becomes a 90%. The teacher is enthusiastic so that is nice, she actually loves the subject. And there is only 8 hw for the entire semester and one is dropped. I would recommend this for someones non lab.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-27T11:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "This class is not that bad if you go to class and do the work. Attendance is mandatory; everyday you have to write your name on a colored slip of paper that she makes.\n\r\nHomeworks are time-consuming, but not that difficult. You don't have to read the book.\n\r\nThe class may seem hard at first, but it gets easier. Your TA can make or break the class, but discussions are very helpful because you always do this multiple choice worksheet which exam questions often come from.\n\r\nThe class is very organized. She teaches until the end of class. The professor is always willing to answer questions. She posts the lectures online. The slides are very informative, not broad like other professors' slides may be.\n\r\nOne of the best professors I have had.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-05T00:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'I did not like her. The material in class was as easy as you would expect from a 100 level course, but the complicated and downright childish way she does things makes it ridiculous. I haven\'t been told "you cannot use a calculator and you must show all of your work in this specific format" since High School. Get real, lady. Also, the tests are only worth 45% of the grade, the rest is a random mix of homeworks, quizzes, and lecture and discussion attendance. I did not like the fact that only 50% of the points on the tests were multiple choice. Those were easy. The rest were short answer Qs that were graded harshly. I got 3 out of 10 points taken off my answer to one question because I forgot to include the words "low density." \n\r\nAlso, the 2 times I communicated with her, once via email and once in her office, she seemed very snippy and not that willing to help. I really would not recommend taking ASTR-100 with her if you are looking for something that is as easy as a 100 level class should be.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-23T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "Really easy class with very generous curves on the exams and interesting material, but a ton of homework and mandatory attendence in lecture and discussion. For me, the big downside was the textbook/CD. It costs $120 and the bookstores won't buy it back once its been opened. The book is only alright and the CD is required for access to online homework. If you want either one cheap, e-mail me: alangwor@umd.edu", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-21T20:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR220', 'review': 'This class is hard for no reason. The homeworks are graded harshly and there are alot of them. Only take if you love astronomy.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-23T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "This class is ridiculous. She is extremely nice and a good teacher, but if you are looking for an easy class DO NOT TAKE IT. She takes attendence at lecutre, and their is a ton of crazy busy work (online quizzes) which aren't hard but annoying. There are also 9 homeworks, which are pretty tough and graded hard. I wouldn't reccomend this class to anyone unless you are just really in love with astronomy.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-14T20:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "She is an amazing teacher. She is especially good if you are bad at science, because she explains the material in a really clear way and makes it easy to understand. The course material is extremely interesting. The homeworks count for a big part of your final grade, and a lot of what is on the tests comes from the homeworks. There are 3 midterms and 11 homeworks. Overall, a really good class, especially if science isn't your thing.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-28T02:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Very nice professor. exams are straightforward and are based on lectures and homework. lectures are online but she makes lecture mandatory. homework is time consuming. the online text book is a complete waste of money.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-28T01:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "She's an okay teacher, its hard to get an A in that class-you have to really focus and work on it. She's good in trying to explain things and its very helpful to go her and her TA's office hours. The discussion and textbook is very unnecessary. Its important to study the homeworks and lecture notes", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-07T16:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "This class was way too hard for a 100-level class. I really don't think it was fair that we couldn't even use a hand help calculator on exams. She was nice, but it was very very hard.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-13T19:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Awesome teacher! She lectures extremely well, and going to class and copying down her notes is very helpful. Her homeworks are a little time-consuming, but doing them will help you learn a lot about the material. She gives quizzes once in a while, but theyre extremely easy (rewards for coming to class).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-17T18:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR310', 'review': 'ASTR310 is a class that takes in a lot of effort in terms of workload and textbook use, but Dr. Hayes-Gehrke is a fantastic professor who works harder than most professors to make sure everyone understands the material and is getting the work done.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-20T01:36:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': "This class is awful. I took this class thinking it would be interesting and fun but it's not. It's a flipped format class and Gehrke doesn't teach at all practically. You have to watch lectures outside of class and lectures are pretty much a waste of your time. The quizzes and other assignments are not hard if you are watching the pre lectures but the exam questions are much more difficult because she doesn't stress what is actually important in for the test. Awful class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-04-23T19:41:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'THIS IS A REVIEW FOR ONLINE INSTRUCTION:\r\n\r\nI enjoyed the asynchronous nature of the course but the way the professor decided to restructure the course was WAY overcomplicated. There were no grades, just "badges" that you get after completing assignments. It was nearly impossible to remember what amount of badges correspond to what grade. There\'s more about this but it\'s going to be irrelevant soon anyway. This is my only reason for 4/5 stars. \r\n\r\nAs for the professor herself, she\'s an incredibly nice person who\'s clearly enthusiastic about space and teaching it to students. She\'s very generous when it comes to grading and seems to genuinely strive for student success. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-04T14:17:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Dr. H-G is a really kind professor. She cares about her students well-being and tries her best to make an online environment as best as it could possibly be. There were three parts to this class: chapter quizzes, discussions, and lectures. The chapters were fine but you had to complete them on your own time. The discussions were easy. The lectures were fun. The structure of this course was really confusing.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-02T01:30:46Z'}], 'name': 'Melissa Hayes-Gehrke', 'slug': 'hayes-gehrke'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'UNIV106', 'UNIV108', 'UNIV106', 'UNIV106', 'UNIV108', 'UNIV106', 'UNIV106'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Melissa Hyre', 'slug': 'hyre'}, {'courses': ['ECON397', 'ECON454', 'ECON752', 'ECON326', 'ECON878', 'ECON708', 'ECON752'], 'average_rating': 2.5333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': "She's so energetic and excited to teach us about Economics!\n\r\nPros: She explains things very well, writes down essential points on the board, and is willing to help anyone that needs it. Her TA's are extremely helpful as well. There are only 4 problem sets and 2 exams, the midterm that I have taken so far was exactly like the type of questions I would assume she'd ask based on the notes that we took during class and was not too difficult because of that.\n\r\nCons: She goes a tad bit fast and when she actually uses powerpoints, there's no point in trying to write things down she changes from slide to slide half way through writing it down. Just have to listen and go along for the ride and she posts those slides later on. She also is late a little bit everyday.\n\r\nOverall, I definitely recommend her for anyone who needs to take any Economics course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-11-10T16:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'ECON454', 'review': "One if, if not the, best teachers I've had at UMD. She cares a lot about the subject and is extremely knowledgeable. From what I gathered she is a pretty highly respected academic and has a bunch of papers out on various topics. Really wants her students to learn the material and to express interest in the subject. She also takes an interest in students' futures and is willing to talk and help with life in econ beyond college.\n\r\nOn top of all that, Public Finance is a very interesting class and offers a ton of important information that every econ major should be familiar with. Extremely happy that I took this class and would recommend it to anyone.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-30T02:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "Kearney's lectures are pointless to go to. He spent more than half the lecture talking about computer/technology complications. Discussion is a very easy part of the class with quizzes that you literally have to be retarded to fail. His tests are ALL multiple choice, but don't let that fool you. They are not that easy and his notes/ powerpoints contradict one another. Overall it was a minimal amount of work and I got a good grade because I studied. Don't buy the textbook, you don't use it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-14T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': " ATTN: This review is meant for Prof. Melissa Kearney, the ECON professor, NOT the other Kearney, the GEOG professor.\n\r\n Kearney is a very good teacher. She presents the material in a very straightforward way and even puts her notes online via ELMS (although sometimes there is a bit of a delay). If you go to class, read through important parts of the book, do some of the practice exercises, and attend the discussions you should be able to do fine. I ended up with an A- in the class even though I received a B- on the first midterm. For grading: 80% of this class is exams-30% for the first exam, 50%(!!) for the final-the other 20% is based on 4 problem sets. There is a curve on the exams, but the problem sets are graded on a 1-3 scale based on effort and accuracy. \r\n The problem sets aren't too terribly challenging and you generally have enough time to work through them (don't be late!). I highly recommend working with someone else on them (although each must be handed in separately). Attending discussion is a big help (most of the time) and in general, the TAs and Prof Kearney are helpful if you ask questions and need some assistance. My advice would be to study hard (don't fall behind), don't get discouraged (the material might seem tough at first), and understand your mistakes/confusions about materials that you might have. You will definitely need to study in this class, but if you really try to learn the material and understand it (not just memorize!), you should pull through. Good luck!\n\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-05T15:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "If you don't have to take this class, don't. Professor Kearney is not a good professor; he is boring, unorganized, and always seems to have technology problems. No one really attends lecture and for good reason. You aren't going to learn much about the subject of Coastal Environments because his lectures mostly don't pertain to the subject. The discussion sections have no correlation to lectures, so it's hard to keep up with the material if you don't understand Professor Kearney's lectures, which you probably won't. You also have to read 100+ page articles for discussion quizzes, but the TAs usually give you the answers before the quiz so you don't really have to read.\n\r\nI could go on, but I think you get the idea if you're reading this. This class sucks, don't take it if you don't have to.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-17T21:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "never take this class.\n\r\nit is awful.\n\r\nARCH majors: I know this is an option to fill your science requirement, and I took this because it was the only one available at the time, but if you are in this situation, do yourself a favor, and put it off another semester in order to take one of the other course options.\n\r\nseriously, worst class ever: boring, useless, and difficult to do well in because exam questions are ridiculously worded and irrelevant to topics covered in class, not that you'd bother actually showing up to this class anyway.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-10T11:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "Terrible class. Kearney (The GEOG teacher) is a poor lecturer who tends to go on talking about nothing in particular. Posts slides with too much text to even try to write down, and doesn't even reference them in his incoherent ramblings.\n\r\nWorst part: A number of test questions aren't in any of the notes. He seems to think he taught things he never even mentioned.\n\r\nNonetheless, still a manageable class. The Discussion section (worth 35% of your grade) is an absolute joke. You're given all the answers to the quizzes beforehand. No point in attending lectures, btw.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-01T22:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': 'This teacher will keep your attention, especially if you are a male student. She is a good teacher but also a serious academic so you will have to study to do well in this class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-05T09:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "Kearndy is a horrible professor. Had to take the class as an option for architecture requirements thinking the class would be interesting. Test are pretty difficult and based mostly on his lectures which nobody goes to because they are incredibly boring. Has a very negative out look on the world and talks about how the world's going to flood one day, killing all of us. Spends at least 10 minutes at the beginning of every class attempting to fix computer problems (which are pretty simple problems). The class description said there was going to be a trip to Ocean City which never happened.\n\r\nOverall horrible class and if you can avoid kearney do so at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2009-05-04T12:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': "I think this website got this professor mixed up with some other professor. First of all, from the other comments I read, Professor Melissa Kearney is a female and an econ prof not geography. \n\r\nShe's wonderful, makes class very interesting, even though her final exam is 50% of your grade. She will spend outside time with you if you ask her too. She's one of the best econ professor I ever had, and econ is my major! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-26T21:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "I urge you not to take this class. I took it thinking it would be an easy A, but the man is so boring. He spent 20 minutes at the beginning of every class talking about how macs are better than pcs. I'm not sure if he stopped after the second week because I stopped going and withdrew. The class average for the first test was a 69 after the curve. The TA was completely unhelpful. Don't take this class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-10-27T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "He's an incredibly boring professor. Virtually no one will attend lectures, and with good reason. You won't learn much, just that everything will be flooded and we're going to lose a lot of money. He seems bitter and angry. The only redeeming quality is he posts everything online. I took this thinking it would be an interesting elective- it wasn't.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-04-25T18:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': 'His lectures are boring and difficult to follow. Going to lecture is not mandatory but he occationally gives test questions. His exams are pretty fair but you never really know how well you are doing until the end of the class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-20T15:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "I would say that if you don't have to take this class for any of your requirements, then don't. The subject is interesting, and is unfortunately made uninteresting by this man. He assumes that the class already knows a lot about geography (or he doesn't care about what the class knows), so he fails to fully explain some of the more basic details of the material. He does not encourage questions, and his discussion sessions are conducted complete and apart from lecture, so there is little opportunity there to reinforce the material (and the T.A.'s are generally not coastal geography experts so they can't help much on the topic either).", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-15T13:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Kearney', 'course': 'GEOG140', 'review': "This is a terrible class, with a terrible professor. He can't teach for beans -- you can't understand anything that he says or how it relates to the course. And after the really crappy lectures, he gives relatively hard exams. He really likes to go off on tangents and rants that have nothing to do with the class. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. If you're looking for a class on coastal environments, take something like the Chesapeake Bay class that's offered. It can't be worse, and I bet its better.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-20T21:32:00Z'}], 'name': 'Melissa Kearney', 'slug': 'kearney_melissa'}, {'courses': ['EDCI243', 'EDCI443', 'EDCI342A', 'EDCI342', 'EDCI288M'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': 'EDCI243', 'review': 'Professor is nice\r\nYou could learn something from the class\r\nEasy grading', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-04-23T23:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': None, 'review': "Lots of great reviews for Melissa Landa, but take it from someone she took a distinct disliking to.. beware if she does dislike you. \n\r\nShe becomes unapproachable and impossible to contact regarding any assignment confusion. Leave it to her to spread the word to your supervisors and coordinators that she had a personal problem with you. I've never encountered a more unprofessional professor in my 4 years at the University. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-07T16:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': 'EDCI243', 'review': 'Very laid back course with a kind and nice professor. If you do all the assignments and work, you will get a 100% grade no joke. She even gives bonus assignments if you really need it which I highly doubt. While this is one of the easier classes at UMD, it is also one of the most enlightening. Since there isn\'t a lot of work involved, you get to pay attention to the course material and actually enjoy learning about it. There are no tests but rather short answer quizes, a media presentation you have to make, and a book review project. All are easy manageable. She does take attendance and participation grade so don\'t think you can skip lecture. Watched a lot of movies as well. The only "bad" thing I would say is that we got very delayed in the schedule and you could sense that there was a lack of organization in terms of scheduling. But I did learn an awful lot and I think that\'s what matters the most. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-02T14:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': 'EDCI243', 'review': 'She is great! I absolutely love her! I have never written a review on ourumd before but felt obligated to give her one because she is very deserving! She is so understanding of your every need and hip and fun. If you can, take this class with her. It is super easy to get an A (if not finish the class with a 100%) SHES THE BEST!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-18T19:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': 'EDCI443', 'review': "Apparently there are two M. Landas, so this one is for MELISSA LANDA (EDCI443). \n\r\nEasy class. Great way to acquire materials to use in your own classroom in the future. Dr. Landa is very approachable and nice, but her class is just very dull. Often found myself doing other work in the class. There are a few projects throughout the year. Straightforward and easy, but BEWARE.. I put considerable effort into these projects and then realized they were only worth 5-10 points. Approximately 6 quizzes on readings. In-class final exam, NOT during finals week. \n\r\nWish the class wasn't so dull! She's a great person.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-02T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': 'RUSS203', 'review': 'This review is for Professor Marianna Landa. She is a very approachable, knowledgeable, and understanding professor. It is clear that she knows the material very well, and she communicates it very clearly to her students. In addition, she helps to incorporate different aspects of the Russian culture into her class, which makes the class more interesting. She assigns homework everyday, and expects students to do it. She genuinely wants to see students succeed, and thus will give you an almost guaranteed A if you put effort into the course. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-09T23:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': 'RUSS203', 'review': 'This review is for Marianna Landa, the Russian professor. I have very few positive things to say about her, but I will start with them. She is really nice. It goes without saying that if you are actually a native Russian speaker this class will be an automatic A. Now for the bad. So much work. She assigns these annoying homework assignments that are absolutely trivial if you are a native speaker, but still take forever to do, and for those who are not native speakers they are also difficult. The most annoying thing she does is she talks to her students like we are five years old. She spent 10 minutes one lecture telling us how to use notecards to study: "If you remember a word, put the notecard aside. If you don\'t remember a word, put the notecard in the back of your pile so that you get to see it again". It\'s incredibly annoying and insulting.\r\nMy recommendation: If you are a native speaker, this is an easy A, but its not a class you can skip, because homework is assigned every lecture. Expect to want to shoot yourself 2 weeks into classes. If you are not a native speaker, I can\'t guarantee that your Russian will improve. She doesn\'t lecture very clearly, although she really tries. Expect a lot of work.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-25T02:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': 'RUSS221', 'review': 'BEWARE!! There are two different people that are M. Landa... this one sounds good but Marianna Landa (who also teaches russ classes) is not even close to good or easy... she likes it her way or tells you to go to the writing center... you can do all the reading but you may still get a B or even a C in the class..... be prepared', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '?', 'created': '2010-04-06T16:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': None, 'review': 'Sooo easy. She is such a nice lady and very approachable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Landa', 'course': 'EDCI443', 'review': "Dr. Landa is so much fun and so interesting. I never wanted to miss her class and I loved coming every day. She kept class interesting with lots of talking and activities. We were always laughing and discussing and enjoying ourselves. The topic (Children's Literature) can be so much fun with a great teacher, and she truly made us appreciate and understand literature for kids. I would have never thought I could learn so much about kids' books, but I feel like an expert at choosing quality literature now. The readings are fun, the class is so much fun and very low key, and she is a joy as a teacher. I definitely recommend her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-11T04:30:00Z'}], 'name': 'Melissa Landa', 'slug': 'landa_melissa'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM324', 'BUSO705', 'COMM107B', 'COMM469G', 'COMM107B', 'BUMK762', 'COMM107B', 'BUSO705', 'BUMK764', 'COMM107B', 'BUSO705', 'COMM107B'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Melissa Lucas', 'course': 'COMM107B', 'review': 'Dr. Lucas is down to earth and teaches you exactly how to succeed in her class. If you put in the effort, there is no way to end the semester below an A. I Love her and the class, highly recommended. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T16:37:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Lucas', 'course': 'COMM107B', 'review': 'Dr. Lucas is a very easygoing teacher and is also open to changing dates as long as the class asks. Almost everyone in the class has an A and as long as you put in a little bit of effort you should do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-06T21:29:46.193436Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Lucas', 'course': 'COMM107B', 'review': 'I love Dr. Lucas! She is so understanding and accommodating for her students, and she almost always lets you out early. She is a great teacher who gives really helpful feedback. I feel like she has actually helped me improve as a presenter. As long as she sees that you are putting in effort, you will get an A. Dr. Lucas is a great professor and I definitely recommend her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T14:19:57.775253Z'}], 'name': 'Melissa Lucas', 'slug': 'lucas_melissa'}, {'courses': ['MATH241', 'MATH406', 'MATH461', 'MATH130', 'MATH430', 'MATH401', 'MATH403', 'STAT410'], 'average_rating': 3.0909, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Melissa Macasieb is an okay professor. I had her for calc 3 this past semester. She is extremely hesitant as she teaches, and makes at least 2-3 mistakes each lecture. She is organized, but teaches directly out of the book. I mean it. The examples she uses in class are literally straight from the book. Her exams are pretty straight-forward and are parallel to her practice exams. Overall, she is an okay teacher, but she does not seem to have much confidence in front of the class, which always made me question her knowledge of the material as she was teaching it. I don't recommend her, but she isn't the worst. Hope this helped.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-05-19T20:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Easily the worst teacher I have had in my life. She refuses to answer questions during office hours if you ask about something that was ever covered in lecture. She messes up 5-6 times every lecture because she is going too fast for the class and herself. Very rude to students during lecture, overall a poor teacher. I highly do not recommend her!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-17T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': 'Macasieb is very organized but speaks with a monotone. Her exams r easy if you studied. She frequently makes mistakes on the board.\r\nOverall the class is not hard if you put in the work', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-05-20T19:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': 'I liked Dr. Macasieb alot. She was very organized with her lectures and made sure everybody was able to see. Her exams were just like the practice ones she gave us and were extremely similar if not exactly the same to the homework problems in the book. If you go to lecture, you will do well', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-01T17:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "I took her for both MATH241 and MATH461. I received a C and a B, respectively. \n\r\nTeaching Style\r\n- Extremely structured and organized, which is something I highly appreciated\r\n- Uses a chalkboard and writes very large, ensuring you can clearly see and have time to write everything down in your notes\r\n- Dry and no nonsense. There is literally no personality inserted. I liked it. \n\r\nTesting Style\r\n- I never got the hang of her exams. \r\n- Always seemed more difficult or trickier than her practice problems\r\n- In MATH461 ridiculous amounts of justification (citing theorems) were needed in exams. Just plain annoying and not a good reason to get points taken off. Also, not something she emphasized, so beware that it is, in fact, expected of you.\n\r\nGrading\r\n- grades are not uploaded on canvas, as the math department thinks it's special and uses it's own website\r\n- I would suggest making an excel spreadsheet to keep track of your grades for yourself\n\r\nA note about MATH241\r\n-it is very difficult material\r\n-beware of matlab\r\n-I struggled with this class and ended up getting a C. I'm not fantastic at math, though. \n\r\nA note about MATH461\r\n-the material is ridiculously easy\r\n- I paid no attention to this class whatsoever and still got a B \n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-01T16:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "She's pretty clear during lectures, although she writes at a rapid-fire pace. Took me most of the semester to realize that it's better to just pay attention and write down useful examples since she (mostly) teaches straight from the book's chapters.\n\r\nExams are pretty straightforward and similar to practice exams, although they may emphasize different topics. Homework collected only for completion. Overall, this is probably one of the easiest math courses available for scientists/engineers to take.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-02T21:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "I'm not going to give a very long review for Dr. Macasieb because I stopped going to lecture after the first month but here goes:\n\r\nAs far as her skill as a lecturer, I thought that Dr. Macasieb was pretty good; a 3.9/5. She has a normal accent which counts for a lot and she's pretty dry (follows the book and the concepts in a pretty straightforward) so she's not really bad, per se. That being said, I didn't find her lectures to be very interesting and she did tend to make mistakes often enough where it made some things confusing. It got to the point where I figured (correctly) that I could just learn the material out of the book and not really miss out on anything I would have learned in lecture so that's what I did and I ended up with an A no problem.\n\r\nAs far as homeworks go, her assignments took quite a while...I'm talking a minimum of 2.5 hours if you didn't put much effort into them and around 4 if you did. They all came straight out of the textbook so they definitely helped to strengthen the concepts of the class. Basically, it ended up being the same thing as getting points for studying. The Matlabs were also really easy and most of them took me around an hour (where a decent part of that was making it look nice and revising it). Her exams were straightforward and, as far as math exams go, pretty easy.\n\r\nOverall I definitely recommend her for a linear (or any) class. Her lectures were a bit boring in my opinion but other than that she was an awesome professor. If you're good at math then you'll probably get a B with almost no effort and probably an A if you put in the time that any class deserves.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-26T01:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'She obviously knows number theory really well but her lectures were devoted more to proving theorems which really weren\'t tested at all. Also all of the proofs were in the book anyway so she could have just said "for details on the proof for theorem x consult the book." Also her grader was quite draconian and if you said something like "I lost 8/10 points for an arithmetic error", she would say "if you want I could maybe give you a few points back" and then spend a few minutes continuing to expand on how you were wrong which was quite annoying.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-18T04:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "Macasieb is great. She understands number theory in and out, and communicates it very well to her students. Lectures are focused on going through basic proofs of the material, and a sufficient number of examples for you to understand what's going on. If you skip class, you can just read the book; it's essentially the same thing.\n\r\nGrades consist of weekly homework from the book (lowest 1-2 grades dropped), weekly quizzes that are homework problems verbatim (again, lowest few dropped), two midterms, and a cumulative final. \n\r\nExam questions are either computational (and thus simple) or proof-based (almost always come from problems in the textbook that are recommended but not explicitly assigned).\n\r\nExam averages suck (we're talking 55-65ish), so she will obviously curve a bit in the end. \n\r\nAdvice to do well: keep up with the material (early concepts such as Fermat's theorem and modulo arithmetic definitely impact the later material substantially), do extra practice problems from the book.\n\r\nThis class requires a bit of work, but if you put in the effort, you'll be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Okay I am reviewing Dr. Macasieb because I read GoTestudo!\'s post, and thought to myself "Hmm D. Macasieb was not great, and going to class made me seem stupid." \n\r\nShe does allow one page of notes (front only) for each calc 3 test and one page notes (front and back) for the final, but believe me that did not make taking the tests a sure shot of getting an A in the class. To be honest some of her tests had quite the curve ball, or a little trick that needed to be understood in order to solve the problems, but like GoTestudo! said her tests were straightforward, and at least 75% of the problems were easy that means 3/4 problems. So don\'t mess up one problem or you are down to a C. It is true that this course drops your lowest test score, but I wouldn\'t count on only getting one low score because like I said the course isn\'t easy.\n\r\nIn my case the class was not easy, and I found myself learning more from the TA than from Dr. Macasieb because she writes too fast on the chalkboard while explaining the concepts, so it makes it to get a thorough understanment while you are frantically jotting down proofs.\n\r\nDr. Macasieb\'s matlabs are dated exercises from another UMD Professor\'s matlabs, but they are not that simple. Most of the matlabs are very thorough, and require a considerable amount of time. Take my word I had an indian friend help me, which I am grateful of. The quizzes are generally homework problems straight from the book. If you want to do well in this class I cannot stress more than practicing the homework problems, it is vital to your health and grade in this class if you want to come out decently on top with a B or A. But if you want a C forget about doing anything in this class because you most likely will get it with Zero effort. \n\r\nWhy?\n\r\nWell fortunately there is a curve at the end of the class that revitalizes everyone\'s demeanor and restores happiness at the end of the semester. My advice for the final is to fully understand the last chapters of the book and do all of the practice exams.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-07-09T02:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "Like most math, number theory is not difficult to understand once you learn to mentally adopt new methods of abstract visualization. How this is best done probably depends on the student.\n\r\nThis branch of math really amounts to little more than a massive game of pattern-finding, which can be a lot of fun. My issue with Macasieb is that she takes the fun out of it. She fails to communicate any enthusiasm for the material, or math and problem solving in general, lecturing purely from the book, proof after proof. She makes superficial attempts to engage the class, by occasionally prompting for part of a proof or example, but has no real sense of how to harness classroom energy.\n\r\nUltimately, there is no reason to go to class if you learn well from books. She uses a good text, and reading it let me focus on the math without the awkward tension of the classroom. YMMV, but for me the point of math is that's it's fun, and this is not a fun class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-25T02:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Dr. Macasieb was great. Her tests were super easy and straightforward, thanks to open notes policy that went into effect for Calc III students this semester (Spring 2012). Either way, she made the class less intimidating than I thought it would be. \n\r\nOverall, she does a great job at teaching the material. I often found myself going to class because it was easier than learning from the book. She teaches what you ought to know without going too much into theory and all that jazz. \n\r\nExcellent teacher, I would definitely recommend her. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-01T00:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "I would definitely recommend Prof. Macasieb. This class is relatively easy if you have taken calculus before. Prof. Macasieb gives a lot of examples in class which is really helpful. Homework is optional which is nice, always go to discussion because that's where most of the points are earned. Tests are moderately hard, but there is a curve on the final grade. Overall good class and good teacher.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-17T01:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'Macasieb was a great professor, but that comes with a slight catch. She really only wants to help the students who seem serious and study the material often enough to never fall behind on the small things. She gets rather annoyed during lecture if she needs to explain something that we went over last week. That being said if you are on top of things you will do fine. \n\r\nHomework/Quizzes:\r\nWas somewhat difficult, but manageable most of the time. 4 questions were often turned in for grading and all the other questions were possibilities to be seen on a quiz the day the homework was due. The quizzes were just redoing the hw problem w/o the book or notes, which wasn\'t hard to do. \n\r\nThe Book:\r\n"Intro to Number Theory" by Dudley or something like that. It was a pretty good book. It was short, but effective. Although I must say that the author starts to get impatient and lazy around section 12, but nothing really to worry about.\n\r\nTests:\r\n2 Midterms and a final (ALL are cumulative, despite what she might say). Number Theory is one of those classes where if you fall behind you stay behind, because there isn\'t any concept that you can just say "I just wont bother learning that and I can scrape by with a B" because everything builds on the previous stuff. \r\nThe Midterms were about 75% computation and 25% proofs\r\nThe Final was about 60/40 computation to proof.\r\nOverall I would say make sure you know all the theorems that took a while to prove during class or that she emphasizes, because those are sure to show up on the tests. \n\r\nFINAL NOTES:\r\n-MAKE SURE TO GET MODULAR ARITHMETIC DOWN SUPER FAST OR YOU WILL BE LOST.\r\n-FERMAT\'S THEOREM IS VERY IMPORTANT, AS IS PRETTY MUCH ANY THEOREM PROVED BY EULER OR EUCLID (THERE ARE MANY)\r\n-THE ONLY WAY THAT SHE WILL HELP YOU IS IF IT SEEMS AS THOUGH YOU HAVE PUT A LOT OF EFFORT INTO FIGURING SOMETHING OUT AND HAVE A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF THE MATERIAL. IF YOU SEEM LOST SHE WILL NOT HELP, SHE EXPECTS YOU TO BE ABLE TO FIGURE "SIMPLE" THINGS OUT BY YOURSELF BY NOW. (Here "simple" means stuff we did last week) \n\r\nAlso I managed an A+ because I destroyed the final, I studied for it for pretty much 4 days straight.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-24T01:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH130', 'review': "She actually isn't as bad as the other reviews say. She explains everything very clearly, although sometimes she goes too in depth in proving a concept that it becomes a bit confusing. Good for math majors though.\n\r\nHomework is not collected although the quizzes are based off of hw questions. I already took calc in high school so this class was a bit redundant. I never did hw nor did I even open the book, just studied notes. However, if you did not take calc before, you better do the hw and study for this class!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-02T02:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH241H', 'review': "Good teacher. Gives suggested homework problems that aren't collected, but are extremely similar to quiz questions. Quizzes are weekly, and the lowest two are dropped, but are fair. 4 Matlab assignments which are pretty easy, and she tells you all the commands you need to know to complete them. Tests are straightforward and should be easy if you did the homework and have done well on the quizzes. Gives a worksheet every Wednesday to make the 2 hour block a lot more bearable. She is nice and willing to help if you ask for it. If you need an honors version math, I recommend taking her. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T22:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH241H', 'review': "Good teacher. Definitely only got poor reviews because the students in the MATH220 class don't have a strong background or don't want to put in the work. Went quickly (because it was an honors class) but covers difficult material well, gives very good notes, and is very accessible for questions. No mandatory homework for 241H but problems are provided, as well as a practice test before each test and a Matlab (fairly simple) every few weeks.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-05T10:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Terrible teacher, by far the worst math teacher I have ever had, and I've had plenty bad math teachers. She spoke way to fast that it sounded like a pidgin and screwed up on nearly every example, to the point that I could barely understand the material. Granted I do not have a heavy mathematic background (but that does not mean I'm fucking retarded at math) regardless she incapable of teaching me anything in this ELEMENTARY calculus course. Her homeworks were annoyingly tedious and her review guides for the tests were terrible/practically nonexistent, to say the least. And i am saying the least here, personally i wish i could retake the course with anyone else, anyyyyone else.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2011-04-04T12:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH241H', 'review': 'Like some people have said, I don\'t know why she has gotten so many bad ratings. The only explanation I can fathom for her being a bad teacher is if you have no solid background in math. Sadly, lots of people think they\'re "good" at math even though they aren\'t.\n\r\nShe is very easy to take notes from and is very nice overall. She does her best to explain things to students, but usually she won\'t explain things if only one or two students are confused. She expects you to come to her during office hours if you\'re confused, so take advantage of that if you do get lost. Definitely do the homework -- the quizzes are extremely similar if not the same.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-02-01T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH241H', 'review': "She's an adequate professor. She knows the material, but she speaks quickly. You have to listen and take notes really well to catch everything. Do your homework. The quizzes are basically the homework. She's flexible with making appointments which is great. And she's very amiable out of class. And study for the final. You can get an A in the class if you get an A on the final. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-20T14:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "I have no idea why she's rated so lowly. People complain about how bad of a teacher she is, but that's not true. She made math really straight forward. \n\r\nShe teaches by example, which is one of the best ways to learn for me (but probably not for others), which is why I did so well in her class. \n\r\nTests are straight forward and come right of the practice problems in the book. Her ample examples make sure you don't get confused. The weekly discussion quizzes are not easy and I think they do a good job preparing you for the midterms. \n\r\nShe's a rather nice lady but don't expect somebody very personable. She does her job and that's about it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T13:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "What everyone said is mostly true. She makes tons of errors on the board, and at least for 410, she basically wrote the book on the board with little extra explanation. Sometimes she is helpful in office hours and other times she isn't depending on her mood. Just sit on her till she gives you a good enough hint. \n\r\nOverall, she was okay. Test questions came out of no where sometimes and you don't even see a glimpse of the difficulty of the test problems till the class before where she gives a practice exam, and those are never indicative to how the test will be. The first one was hard and the test was okay. The second one was easier and the test was impossible (average dropped 10 points), and the final practice test was ridiculous but the final was very easy. Go figure.\n\r\nIt's just a very mixed up class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "I feel bad because she's a nice lady and she's really smart but she screws up during lecture so much that you just become extremely lost. And she didn't curve our class either. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-20T09:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "I'm really not sure why Macasieb gets horrible reviews. I think she teaches well, and the fact that everyone who has left reviews is expecting an A can attest to her capability as a professor. I like her and she's very flexible.\n\r\nHere exams are pretty easy, problems are similar to ones gone over in class. Weekly quizzes and 2-3 webassigns due on Weds. every week.\n\r\nMy only complaint is that sometimes she will skip explaining basic algebra like say foiling out something, but if you have basic logic abilities it's easy to figure out what she did.\n\r\nThis class is easy, and I'd like to mention that this is my first time taking calculus.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-14T13:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "I sometimes think about shooting myself in the head after having to take in the amount of crap that comes out this lady's mouth. She does give good notes, but SHE DOESNT EXPLAIN ANYTHING...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-27T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "She is by far the worst math teacher I have ever had. I had never taken Calculus before, and she was almost impossible to follow or to learn from because she would move extremely fast, not respond well to student questions,and I dont think she made it through a problem the entire semester without making a mistake or being corrected by a student at some point or the other. My TA didn't even speak english which didn't help things either. I hear most of the other math220 teachers are a lot better so Try to avoid taking her class if you can", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-16T03:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Dr. Macasieb has her knowledge of calculus. I understand her making mistakes on lectures because she's a human being as well. But here is the problem. She did not provide her students (or at least me) a proper instruction on the exams that resulted in point deduction. I had the numerical answers correct but because I forgot to put the units of measure, I was deducted of points. I mean...it could've been my stupidity but I was kind of on the run as time ticked away...an exam that could've been an A turned out a B because I did not put units...it really made me think twice about this lady...\n\r\nI hope she realizes that it's NOT O.K. to assume that her students would know things she knows because we sometimes (or most of the time) DON'T unless told.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-12T01:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "A background of me, I've always excelled in math, i'm passionate about it, love it, and it comes easy to me. Ms Macasieb is highly knowledgabele on the subject she teaches, there's no question. But as a teacher, she is just terrible. She can't explain really what she does, get's impatient as if we should already know, and she's merely reminding us of the content. I breezed through online homework, and always helped my friends do their homework, and i think it's safe to say that i taught better than she did, for the mere fact of explaining. Just today, i had a question on a webassign homework, that i wasn't able to finish, and she asked if we wanted to see anything. I told her I'd like to see how to do it, and when other students said they did it, she just said you should've been able to as well. How helpful of her. Because of her teaching habits, I failed to maintain an A as I hoped I would. I recommend a different teacher if this is your first calculus course or if you aren't a quick learner. Because she covers so much content, rarely explaining it. Another thing i disliked was that when she would introduce a new topic, she would do example problems out of the book, which didn't help me, because I already look through the book when reviewing the content. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-11T13:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Wow, not much to say.\r\nFirst, I'll say that I am getting an A in the course only because i had a fantastic calculus teacher in High School. Second, if i hadn't taken this course in HS, i would be failing, because this woman, CAN NOT TEACH. She runs through almost 20 full chalkboards a lecture and loses the majority of the class within 5 minutes, she does not encourage students helping other students because she feels that she is smarter than everyone, which i guarentee, is NOT TRUE. Macasieb IS THE WORST TEACHER I HAVE EVER HAD FOR MATHEMATICS. If this is your first time taking calculus, I highly recommend not taking it with her.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-09T18:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Overall, she knows her stuff. But she does not present the material well. She makes a lot of error on the board and is very impatient with the students. I took calc. in high school and this is why I am doing well. If I was learning this info. for the first time, I would be lost. If you are new to calc., find a new teacher. There are quizzes weekly during discussion sections and web assign homework weekly. If you have experience with calc. this is an easy course.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-09T01:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "I took a very simple calc in high school and we only went over simple derivatives. If I hadn't had the background, I agree that this class would be hard because she isn't the best, most engaging teacher. But it's not like I learned everything from the course in high school. You just have to take notes and look in your book. It's not that hard if you really try.\n\r\nA quiz in every discussion. WebAssign due every week. 3 Midterms, 1 Final. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-08T17:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'she makes too many errors and glosses over the subject like she were reading it off of a report. there is very little engagement between students and professor. you find a better teacher in your calc textbook. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-03T12:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "She was the worst teacher for Calculus. She writes good notes on the board, but she is always impatient and doesn't explain herself. Thank God I took Calc in high school or I would have absolutely no idea what was going on in class. If you already took Calc, she will give you really nice notes, but if you haven't taken Calc already... I suggest another Calc teacher. \n\r\nShe posts her homework online, its generally 2-3 assignments due every Friday.\n\r\n2-3 Midterms and a Final. Midterms are 100 points each, and Final is 200. You must go to the Discussion sections.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-02T15:06:00Z'}], 'name': 'Melissa Macasieb', 'slug': 'macasieb'}, {'courses': ['NFSC350'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Melissa Roberts', 'slug': 'roberts_melissa'}, {'courses': ['EDCP315', 'HESI315', 'HESI217', 'HESI320', 'HESI321', 'EDCP774', 'EDCP417', 'HESI318A', 'HESI418E', 'EDCP672', 'HESI417', 'EDCP694', 'HESI489', 'HESI318W', 'HESI417', 'EDCP774', 'HESI320', 'HESI418V', 'HESI321', 'HESI417', 'HESI489', 'EDCP694', 'HESI489', 'HESI489'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Melissa Rocco', 'slug': 'rocco'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'LGBT200', 'WMST200', 'WGSS250', 'WGSS250', 'WGSS250', 'WGSS250', 'ANTH260', 'ANTH357', 'ANTH657', 'ANTH357', 'ANTH657'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Melissa Stevens', 'slug': 'stevens_melissa'}, {'courses': ['FREN312', 'FILM329Q', 'FREN401', 'FREN301', 'FREN699Z', 'FREN398Q', 'FREN699N', 'WMST698V', 'FREN498Q', 'FREN303', 'FREN498C', 'FREN302', 'FILM429K', 'FREN250', 'FREN250H', 'FREN499C', 'FREN387', 'FREN498M', 'FREN351', 'FREN351H', 'CINE429K', 'FREN474', 'FREN699Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mercedes Baillargeon', 'slug': 'baillargeon'}, {'courses': ['BSCI441', 'BSCI454', 'BSCI201', 'ENST434', 'BSCI339C', 'ENST333', 'ENST334', 'BSCI447'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Meredith Bohannon', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "So Dr. Bohannon picked up this class on extremely short notice due to an incident with Dr. Opoku being out mid-semester due to an emergency. Overall, Dr. Bohannon did an excellent job picking up where we left off mid-semester, she even attempted to copy Dr. Opoku's teaching method/curriculum and exam format. This made the transition a lot easier as her material reflected Dr. Opoku's. The only downside was that Dr. Bohannon's slides were a bit disorganized with extremely dense material. But overall, pretty good professor!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-22T08:11:30.078224Z'}], 'name': 'Meredith Bohannon', 'slug': 'bohannon'}, {'courses': ['INAG123', 'INAG248', 'INAG199', 'INAG205', 'INAG102', 'INAG103', 'INAG204', 'INAG213', 'INAG099', 'INAG199D', 'INAG299A', 'INAG299B', 'INAG131', 'EXST030', 'INAG288', 'INAG289', 'INAG099', 'INAG199', 'INAG099', 'INAG103', 'INAG123', 'INAG199', 'INAG288', 'INAG199', 'INAG213', 'INAG248', 'INAG103', 'INAG123', 'INAG199', 'INAG288'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Meredith Epstein', 'slug': 'epstein_meredith'}, {'courses': ['ARTH324', 'HONR208R', 'ARTH323', 'ARTH619', 'ARTH719', 'ARTH619A', 'ARTH619B', 'RELS319B'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Meredith Gill', 'course': None, 'review': "Ms. Gill is nice to the point of kind of treating you like a child. Which is great, but if someone's asking a dumb question, I feel bad that she has to pretend like it's brilliant. Her Saturday tour of the National Gallery was the highlight of the class. I didn't like that her exams were based on only a couple works, even though we studied a lot. It made it hard to study for the exams, because you were expected to memorize a lot about works that sometimes were pretty unmemorable.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-16T23:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Meredith Gill', 'course': None, 'review': "Take any class you possibly can with Dr. Gill! There aren't enough good words to describe her and the class. She's very knowledgeable in the subject and is very encouraging of learning. You could say something silly in class and she will never make you feel like an idiot. I really learned a lot from her - it was one of the best classes I've ever taken at UMD.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-22T14:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Meredith Gill', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Gill is the BEST art history professor I've had so far. She is one of the kindest and most understanding professors and she makes her lectures very interesting. The exams are straightforward and I truly did enjoy her class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-15T15:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Meredith Gill', 'course': None, 'review': 'Take any class you can with this professor! She is such a sweet person, very nice and approachable! Lectures can get a bit boring, but the class in general is fun and interesting. I learned a lot, and did not have any stress from this class. There is one group project which is easy, and exams are very easy as well as long as you study the images she tells you to. There is a lot of freedom on the exams in terms of the required answer. Overall, a very rewarding class and an excellent professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-07T00:42:00Z'}], 'name': 'Meredith Gill', 'slug': 'gill'}, {'courses': ['SOCY601', 'SOCY699L', 'SOCY699Z', 'SOCY410', 'SOCY464', 'SOCY699M', 'SOCY120', 'SOCY699K', 'SOCY869', 'SOCY664', 'SOCY605', 'SOCY441', 'SOCY699A', 'SOCY607', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY241', 'SOCY120', 'SOCY467', 'SOCY869'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Meredith Kleykamp', 'course': 'SOCY464', 'review': "I cannot recommend this class enough! At first I thought it would be a hard class, but with moderate effort put into it, it was not hard at all! As a professor, Kleykamp is awesome! She doesn't give boring lectures and makes the material relatable and easy to understand. The first 2-3 weeks of class were a bit intimidating, but once you get past that part, it is a great class. \n\r\nThere are readings for every class, and sometimes it is a lot of reading but mostly interesting. There are also 2 short papers (4 pages) and 2 exams (non-cumulative final). There is also a graded journal entry every week, but it is just a 1 page reflection on the material for that week and it is graded on completion. As long as you put in the effort, it is an easy A. \n\r\nMy only complaint is that it takes her FOREVER to grade papers!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-17T13:30:00Z'}], 'name': 'Meredith Kleykamp', 'slug': 'kleykamp'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM360', 'COMM401', 'COMM330'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Meridith Styer', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Stay as far away from her as possible! Her mental state is volatile at best; anger mgt issues; expects everyone to agree with her man-hating warped views that she tells inappropriately. When classes were delayed bc of weather, a commuter kid quietly walked in about 5 min late and sat silently in the back of the room. When Meridith got mad when no one volunteered to read their report (prob bc she skewers them), this kid quietly raised his hand. She flipped out at him bc he "dared to think" he would be called on when he was already given a 0 for the assignment bc he "disrupted" class by walking in late. How about: glad you made it ... Sorry to hear your car was hit on the way in. Hope you\'re ok. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-03-27T13:24:35Z'}], 'name': 'Meridith Styer', 'slug': 'styer'}, {'courses': ['ENGL362', 'ENGL448A', 'ENGL631', 'ENGL749G', 'ENGL261', 'ENGL368C', 'ENGL361', 'AASP478A', 'AASP398J', 'LASC348R', 'LASC448A', 'WMST448A', 'LASC348E', 'LASC648'], 'average_rating': 3.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Merle Collins', 'course': 'ENGL448A', 'review': 'I LOVED this class! Professor Collins is responsive to student concerns, patient, and lenient. She is an immensely impressive teacher and does not assign more work than reasonable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-15T15:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Merle Collins', 'course': 'ENGL362', 'review': 'I took ENGL362 with Professor Collins. The readings were interesting and the discussions were enlightening, which is why I gave the class two stars. Collins was extremely disorganized. I like to take my time with papers, which was impossible to do because she assigned the papers a week in advance. Then she graded really hard with little to no comments. How can she expect to have overly-exemplary work when she sets students up for failure?\n\r\nMy advice: choose a different class for diversity or Group 2 credits. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-10-29T21:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Merle Collins', 'course': 'ENGL448A', 'review': 'I would not recommend this professor. Her class is rediculously boring, and she has no structured course plan at all. She doesnt try to make the class fun either. She also expects you to approach the class like a graduate student. She assigns 15 page papers, and wont tell you what the paper topics are until like a week before the paper is due. Shes nice, but I think its time for her to retire. If you dont like caribbean literature, dont take this class. If you are a women studies major, this class is perfect for you.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-14T16:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Merle Collins', 'course': 'ENGL448A', 'review': 'Very nice professor. Is willing to help her students. Sometimes her class can be a little boring but the literature she assigns is appealing. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-03-26T18:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Merle Collins', 'course': 'ENGL362', 'review': 'Professor Collins was by far one of the best professors I have ever had at UMD. She is extremely passionate about Caribbean literature, she is always so happy and funny, and I learned so much from her great lectures. She creates a very open dialogue in class and is VERY knowledgeable. If you are going to read the books and take time on the papers, you will get an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-24T02:50:00Z'}], 'name': 'Merle Collins', 'slug': 'collins_merle'}, {'courses': ['JOUR201', 'JOUR300', 'JOUR200', 'JOUR501', 'JOUR200', 'JOUR201'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Merrilee Cox', 'course': 'JOUR201', 'review': "I love her! She's great & wants us to do well in this weed out class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-11T12:40:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Merrilee Cox', 'course': 'JOUR201', 'review': 'Nicest professor ever! Is straight to the point, lays out expectations, and is always helpful. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-01-08T02:50:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Merrilee Cox', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': 'One of my favorite professors! She is so nice and very helpful. She is straight to the point when it comes to the assignments and her expectations and she wants you to do well. She is very knowledgeable about journalism and always willing to help if you need it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-29T22:48:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Merrilee Cox', 'course': 'JOUR201', 'review': "My favorite professor thus far in the J-School. She's very kind and understanding and supports you to the best of her abilities! She always responds to emails promptly (and she even apologized to me once when she didn't answer my email immediately, rather within a few hours - that tells you something) with good information. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-03T13:43:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Merrilee Cox', 'course': 'JOUR200', 'review': 'Amazing professor! Professor Cox knows her stuff and is always understanding when it comes to deadlines and is very responsive with emails and if you need help in the class or an extension on any assignment and even just general journalism advice, professor Cox is always willing to listen. I have her for 201 this semester and I have full faith that she will continue to be an outstanding professor and amazing example of excellence at UMD’s J school', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-24T03:39:21.822884Z'}], 'name': 'Merrilee Cox', 'slug': 'cox_merrilee'}, {'courses': ['SOCY498Y', 'SOCY465', 'SOCY699K', 'SOCY203', 'SOCY699I', 'SOCY620', 'HONR298F', 'SOCY829', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY614', 'SOCY227', 'SOCY620', 'SOCY829', 'SOCY203', 'SOCY465', 'SOCY365', 'SOCY620', 'SOCY265'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Meyer Kestnbaum', 'course': 'SOCY465', 'review': 'This guy is the goat. He is very intelligent and cares a lot about this class. He gives a lot of readings but they are all very interesting if you love history. I loved this class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T17:47:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Meyer Kestnbaum', 'course': 'SOCY227', 'review': 'He has a system where if you put in the work, you get at least a B, if not an A. Engages with his students well, really enjoyed this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-23T05:14:13.917356Z'}], 'name': 'Meyer Kestnbaum', 'slug': 'kestnbaum'}, {'courses': ['FMSC330', 'FMSC420', 'EXST030', 'HNUH248A', 'FMSC606', 'HNUH248A', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC606'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mia A Smith-Bynum', 'course': 'FMSC330', 'review': 'Very nice professor and an easy going class. Tests are mostly from power point slides and a little from the book. Other assignments include three short papers. Participation is based on "clickers" you use in class which makes getting participation points easy. I would recommend this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-19T12:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mia A Smith-Bynum', 'course': 'HNUH248A', 'review': 'Easygoing professor and interesting class, would recommend. Minimal coursework for the class too.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-11T00:49:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Mia A Smith-Bynum', 'course': 'HNUH248A', 'review': 'Easy A. The class itself has some interesting information but gets a little preachy. The structure is quite repetitive: the only real work (besides the final project) is weekly introspective journals, give or take a few book readings. Prof. Smith-Bynum was very nice and gave our group tips for the final project as well as let people present unfinished ones but still give full credit if they met the time expectation. There were no finals or midterms so this class is definitely manageable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-17T14:15:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Mia A Smith-Bynum', 'course': 'HNUH248A', 'review': "Such a sweet and cool professor, I definitely enjoyed her class. And it's a class that, so long as you read, is an A. She does a great job of taking a topic that some people find discussing uncomfortable, and making it pretty comfortable. However, be prepared for group projects and discussions, as that is prominent in the class. Would recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-02-06T22:22:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Mia A Smith-Bynum', 'course': 'HNUH248A', 'review': 'She’s completely biased in her examination of social structures. Likewise, she clearly holds a grudge against certain demographics in the class. The class feels unsafe and not inclusive :(', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-16T07:19:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Mia A Smith-Bynum', 'course': 'HNUH248A', 'review': 'She was open to different ideas shared during class discussions, and simply asked students to elaborate if they said something that was misguided or unfounded. She promoted a healthy class environment that was completely inclusive, and I felt perfectly safe to share my thoughts, takeaways, and ideas during discussions. The workload was incredibly light and was basically just a journal detailing what was learned each week. Overall, great class, great professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-10T16:50:54Z'}], 'name': 'Mia A Smith-Bynum', 'slug': 'smith-bynum'}, {'courses': ['ENME361', 'GEMS297', 'ENME489R', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENME611', 'ENME808R', 'ENME361', 'ENME472', 'ENME361'], 'average_rating': 3.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Miao Yu', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': 'Dr. Yu is a fairly effective teacher that really tries to help students succeed in the class. She is a very reasonable teacher and teaches from a powerpoint she uploads online. She also works through example problems on the board. She taught the material for the first midterm extremely well, but for the second midterm and finals, the material got really dense and hard to understand.\r\nOverall though, I would recommend taking Yu for 361 if you have the option to.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-06-04T16:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miao Yu', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': "Dr. Yu really wants you to succeed in the class, she is very approachable and a really nice person. She can get a little flustered when students can't grasp the concepts sometimes, but for the most part she does a good job explaining the concepts. Grading is very fair, the course is very well organized, she is helpful in office hours, exams are difficult but fair. Recommend her if you have a choice. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-19T22:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miao Yu', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': "She's a good professor. Vibrations 1 is a hard class, but she is very nice and friendly. Her exams are fair and in my opinion, alittle easier than others which is a good thing. Whatever you do, Avoid Vince Nyguen at all costs. He is the worst teacher there is, and his exams are extremely difficult. Miao Yu is pretty good, just take her", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-03T22:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miao Yu', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': 'Dr. Yu is a good teacher for the vibrations course. Clear hand writing on board, well organized teaching schedule and material. She saves my time for reading the textbook again and again. Overall, good learning experience. \n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-01T13:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miao Yu', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': "Dr. Yu is a good vibrations teacher. Vibrations is not an easy class to teach and requires a great deal of effort (on the students half) to learn effectively. Dr. Yu's grading is very fair and she does curve. \n\r\nOut of all the professors who currently teach vibrations, I would choose her hand down. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T17:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miao Yu', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': 'Dry lecturer, does not speak english very well. Avoid her if you have the option as she makes the class more difficult than it needs to be.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-17T03:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miao Yu', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': 'Miao Yu loves to feed on the souls of those that cannot succeed in vibrations.\n\r\nThe class is very hard in the first place. On top of that Yu moves through the material very quickly, has unclear handwriting, and a hard to understand accent.\n\r\nSometimes it seems like she wants you to fail. I suggest avoiding Yu if possible.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-04-25T11:38:00Z'}], 'name': 'Miao Yu', 'slug': 'yu_miao'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Micaela Cameron', 'slug': 'cameron_micaela'}, {'courses': ['PHIL140'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Micah Tillman', 'slug': 'tillman_micah'}, {'courses': ['ARCH400', 'ARCH401', 'ARCH445', 'ARCH200', 'ARCH150', 'ARCH300', 'ARCH655', 'ARCH300', 'ARCH401', 'ARCH435', 'ARCH443', 'ARCH200', 'ARCH400', 'ARCH655', 'ARCH150', 'ARCH200', 'ARCH200', 'ARCH401', 'ARCH443', 'HNUH259P'], 'average_rating': 2.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Abrams', 'course': 'ARCH200', 'review': 'Makes you buy his textbook as required reading (find a free pdf because I hardly ever used it except for the drawing exercises in it that count towards a grade (which is how he guarantees you buy his textbook)), plays favorites with students and the art/projects they make+present. The TAs were previously his favorite students, also. Vague project instructions (with vague clarifications), with errors in them that TAs and the professor did not catch, despite him having taught at UMD since 2015, and having previously taught this class before. Big discrepancies between what he expected in projects vs what TAs expected/liked in projects. Obviously could only pander to him or the TA, not both. Very disorganized. Was 20 minutes late to class once, blamed traffic. Almost a 1k materials list, a lot of which we barely used. Made us buy 1/8" wooden dowels, didn\'t include a way of cutting them. Will do "warm up sketches" in class (ungraded) of ridiculous things, expects you to use a whole page on it, will grab your textbook, flip to a new page, and tell you to "draw big!" if he sees you drawing on a page with other sketches. The absolute worst class I have ever taken at UMD. Ridiculous that I paid money for this. I have taken community college classes set up better than this.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-26T21:45:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Abrams', 'course': 'ARCH400', 'review': "I have had Abrams for arch200, 300, and 400. Overall, what he teaches and the feedback he gives is very useful. Its clear he's knowledgeable on the subject and you can learn a lot from him. He can be a harsh grader at times and has high expectations but nothing too unreasonable. Make sure you do not miss class, even with justified reasoning it'll really set you behind. But in general I would say he is a good professor to have. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-06-12T00:40:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Abrams', 'course': 'ARCH200', 'review': "I think Professor Abrams does genuinely care about his students and gives great feedback either by asking or during critique. He's also pretty nice and is fun to listen to at times. His lectures are simple and easy to follow along and though it was annoying to have to get the textbook he wrote (theres a free pdf online), it was pretty useful especially the tables telling you which lineweights to use per drawing type. I find myself using it time to time in other arch classes. Missing class is definitely a no no because it really sets you back. In terms of purely lectures and personality, great. But what sets this class back in rating is HOW UNORGANIZED IT IS!!! The pacing of the class is horrendous because its so slow in the beginning and so much time is spent on one of the projects so then theres no time left for the others and everything becomes rushed in the end. I really liked that he wrote out assignment briefs to let you know what is expected in each assignment, but there would be errors in it. Like telling you the wrong dimensions needed or what to scale to which just makes it more work for you to ask the TA and what they want. The communication between TA and the prof is absolutely zero (most arch classes anyways), so its all different and up to each individual TA on what they want the projects should have which sometimes went against what the prof wanted. And just a heads up, there's a TON of drawing to do. Drawing exercises, drawing warmups, drawing homework, drawing projects, drawing drawing drawing. Overall I think the information being taught and Professor Abrams has lovely intentions, but the details of the class needs to be smoothened out because the class was hectic week after week. Goodluck!!!!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-20T19:42:20.422441Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Abrams', 'slug': 'abrams_michael'}, {'courses': ['EPIB301', 'PHSC412', 'MIEH321', 'MIEH321', 'PHSC412', 'PHSC412', 'MIEH321'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Bazaco', 'slug': 'bazaco_michael'}, {'courses': ['ARCH412', 'ARCH411', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'ARCH463', 'ARCH465', 'ARCH464', 'ARCH600', 'ARCH611', 'ARCH464', 'ARCH600', 'ARCH611', 'ARCH463', 'ARCH465', 'ARCH464', 'ARCH600', 'ARCH611'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Binder', 'course': 'ARCH464', 'review': 'He will not share the slides with notes for you. So make sure you write notes, he will be rude when you ask a question especially if it’s outside of class or via email. The exams are much more difficult than what you learn in class, make sure you visit your TAs often so they can actually explain to you what could be the content on an exam. Overall, he is very old school and should consider retiring.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-14T21:06:06.600835Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Binder', 'course': 'ARCH464', 'review': 'I had Professor Binder this semester for structures I and learned a lot. This class is hard but everyone knows going in, that’s to be expected. If you aren’t comfortable with algebra the class may be harder for you but with practice and studying it’s doable to do well. The exams are hard but as long as you take good notes and do the homework problems/review them you can do good on the exams. I didn’t have any issues and felt I learned a great deal. He has a strong engineering background which a lot of other professors lack, making this class very unique. I had an incident where I was sick and had to reschedule an exam and he was more the accommodating too. Overall I enjoyed this class, just put in the effort.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:21:26.544645Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Binder', 'slug': 'binder_michael'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Breckon', 'slug': 'breckon'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'ARCH386', 'HESI217', 'ARCH449'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Brick', 'slug': 'brick'}, {'courses': ['PUAF610', 'PUAF640', 'PUAF782', 'PLCY304', 'PLCY640', 'PLCY640', 'PLCY304', 'PLCY304', 'PLCY640', 'PLCY304', 'PLCY610', 'PLCY640', 'PLCY640', 'PLCY640', 'PLCY304', 'PLCY610'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Busse', 'course': 'PLCY304', 'review': 'somehow the most confusing lecturer ive ever listened to', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-09-01T16:56:27.812855Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Busse', 'course': 'PLCY304', 'review': 'Love him just up up to class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-27T16:59:08.422684Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Busse', 'course': 'PLCY304', 'review': "Dr. Busse is an interesting teacher. He's brilliant, you can't deny it. You actually will learn a lot more from him than you might think you do. I found that just copying what he writes on the board verbatim helps a lot because trying to follow along with what he's saying can be difficult due to how fast he speaks and how quiet he can be sometimes. He also cares a lot about attendance. He said he didn't when I took PLCY304, but everyone who came everyday or even just most of the time wound up getting their grade boosted and he brought in baked goods for us at the end of the class(which were actually pretty good). Essentially, what you put into the class is what you get out of it. You don't have to come, or at least you didn't when I took it, but coming regularly helped a lot and wound up getting me an A that I wasn't counting on getting. Also, the TA was really good when it came to helping us understand concepts (Miranda if you ever read this, you're a lifesaver).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-04-11T18:46:40.219339Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Busse', 'slug': 'busse'}, {'courses': ['ANTH322'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Campana', 'slug': 'campana'}, {'courses': ['CMLT277', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL202', 'ENGL222', 'ENGL255', 'CMLT275', 'WMST275', 'ENGL101S'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Colson', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Accommodating when necessary. Clear lectures. Comprehensive feedback on writing assignments. Very helpful during office hours. Fair grade (Maybe even a little light for the final paper).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-31T02:50:44Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Colson', 'slug': 'colson'}, {'courses': ['PHYS485', 'PHYS405', 'ENME432', 'PHYS685', 'ENMA432'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Coplan', 'course': 'PHYS405', 'review': "Phys 405 is difficult. It just is. Now that we got the obvious statement out of the way, let me just say that sometimes Prof. Coplan can be a bit pedantic, which means homework assignments that are his creation are pretty awful, but for the most part, he's a rather good professor. He is VERY responsive to student concerns and treats them with a great deal of respect (Mr or Ms LastName).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-12T20:27:00Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Coplan', 'slug': 'coplan'}, {'courses': ['BSCI471', 'CBMG688Y', 'BIOL671', 'BISI899', 'CMSC798', 'BISI799', 'BISI678Z', 'DATA698', 'DATA699', 'BISI620', 'BIOL671', 'BISI620', 'BSCI471', 'DATA699', 'DATA698', 'DATA698', 'BISI620'], 'average_rating': 2.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Cummings', 'course': 'BSCI471', 'review': "He is the epitome of a stuck up professor. He assigns far too many assignments per week and communicates with language that feels very demeaning. He isn't mean or anything (he is pretty nice in general). Didn't like the class either: he assumed we knew way more than we actually did. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-11-20T17:11:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Cummings', 'course': 'BSCI471', 'review': 'Hands down the worst professor I’ve ever had in my life. \r\n\r\nHe uses pre-made lecture videos which are very short and cover only a tiny fraction of the material that appears on quizzes and exams. This way he doesn’t have to actually interact with the class in any way or teach anything. Also there are no TAs and no office hours. \r\n\r\nEvery week you are assigned roughly 60 or so pages of reading mostly from an extremely dense textbook filled with complicated equations. You are then supposed to retain all this material in order to take a 5 question quiz every week based on this text where you only get 1 minute per question and when you finish 1 problem, you can’t go back later and change an answer. Ridiculous. \r\n\r\nIt seems he is immensely lazy and doesn’t want to actually teach the subject, which is incredibly discouraging considering this class is a very interesting subject. I have had straight A’s all the way up into my junior year but I have a strong feeling this class is going to change that. \r\n\r\nAvoid this guy at all costs', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-09-23T02:09:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Cummings', 'course': 'DATA698', 'review': "He practically has nothing to teach more than a 5 min pre-recorded lecture per week. Deliberately avoids interactive communications with students that makes him an extremely ineffective and inefficient instructor. IRONY is, in this course, he suggests communication is key whereas himself setup the worst example of a communicator one can imagine. \r\nFails to articulate the quality of work he expects from students, leaving it to your assumption. And then comes back with a page long of feedback comments that are often demeaning. I doubt you can learn anything from this course with such a horrible professor!!!\r\nTo attend this kind of a lecture format after registering for an in-class graduate program, I feel cheated. This course resembles poor standards and controls on UMD's part, comparable with cheap online courses available on internet based learning platforms. \r\n ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-07-25T19:22:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Cummings', 'course': 'BSCI471', 'review': 'Dr. Cummings for sure has the energy of an instructor that is here to do research and teaches to fulfill requirements. However, during my time in his section of 471, I found the expected effort was reasonable with my only major gripe being how the quizzes are structured. Each week a chapter is assigned and can be as long as 65 pages with material that is at times denser than uranium. All of this reading to than take a 10pt, 5 question quiz within 10 minutes that wont even touch on over 95% of your reading, its a bit frustrating. I generally found if I skimmed the start and ending of the paragraphs, took a look at the tables and pretty pictures, I would be able to survive the quizzes. From there the exams were honestly fine, he only tests on the material in his brief weekly lectures and literally spells out the learning outcomes, so as long as you do ok on the quizzes and read the slides you should be good to go. As a final note, there are weekly write ups on literature we had to do, I found they could be clicked off in a matter of 3 or 4 hours of work and for a lot of them I just did the "undergrad literature shuffle" of reading the abstract, discussion and conclusions and skimming the methods to get the gyst of how they did the study. Occasionally there will be no weekly write up with a project of a short paper (and I do mean short, sub 2 page) or making a presentation of voice over slides that takes about the same if not less time than the write ups. \r\n\r\nAs a person, Dr. Cummings was nothing but kind and accommodating during my interactions with him. While in person (Zoom) communication was rare, he was quick to respond on canvas, a particular highlight was the 6 minute response time I got after sending a question at 12:30 AM. Also he would readily give points back if you had a valid reason like a question was confusing or otherwise. In summary, professional professor that was communicative and reasonable to work with. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-06T19:16:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Cummings', 'course': 'BSCI471', 'review': "This class was my favorite the semester I took it. The content is interesting and I really appreciate that it was fully remote. The semester I took it (Fall 2022) Dr. Cummings was the ONLY prof teaching a fully online BSCI class. There are too many classes in this dept that don't expect any writing from students and instead expect them to memorize the entire process of glycolysis. It was refreshing to take a class that actually wanted students to learn content. 4 hour writing assignments are nothing compared to what I had to do for CHEM241 or BSCI330. Only con of this class is that the reading assignments are really long.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-04T22:21:52.134032Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Cummings', 'slug': 'cummings_michael'}, {'courses': ['ENTS654', 'ENTS656', 'ENTS653', 'ENTS759C', 'ENTS689K', 'ENTS659B', 'ENTM699M', 'ENTS699M', 'ENTS699L', 'ENTS669G', 'ENTS669J', 'ENTS699', 'ENTS656', 'ENTS656', 'ENTS657', 'ENTS669G', 'ENTS699', 'ENTS699M', 'ENTS656', 'ENTS669J', 'ENTS699M', 'ENTS656', 'ENTS657', 'ENTS699M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Dellomo', 'slug': 'dellomo'}, {'courses': ['PSYC601', 'PSYC889', 'PSYC341', 'PSYC778D', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC498H', 'PSYC498H', 'PSYC607', 'PSYC899'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Dougherty', 'course': 'PSYC341', 'review': 'I liked him a lot. He was funny and tried to engage the class, even when the material was somewhat dull. The assignments were interesting and fairly graded.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-09T16:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Dougherty', 'course': 'PSYC341', 'review': 'Dr. Dougherty is a pretty funny guy, and the class is very straight forward. Grades are pretty much proportional to effort put in. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-24T20:02:00Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Dougherty', 'slug': 'dougherty_michael'}, {'courses': ['EDSP476', 'EDSP376', 'EDSP376'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Dunham', 'course': 'EDSP376', 'review': 'Do not take this class if you do not have to and do not trust the data for this professor. The class is extremely unorganized and moves at a way too fast pace. The professor is horrible about responding to emails and is always MIA. If you want to take a class where you get the review packets the night before a test and can never get in contact with the professor then this is the class for you. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-01-12T22:01:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Dunham', 'course': 'EDSP376', 'review': 'I took EDSP376 online over the winter. The main content of the course is taught through recorded lectures, and there are biweekly synchronous lectures with some basic participation activities. We didn\'t have any exams but there were a few untimed quizzes and homework assignments, as well as an easy final project.\r\n\r\nIt\'s intended to be a "full immersion" class so there\'s no speaking in class or in the recorded lectures. That\'s not really a problem though, since he\'s patient and writes what he\'s signing in the zoom chat, and the videos have pictures to describe whatever he\'s talking about. It\'s rarely, if ever, unclear. There was only about an hour or two of recorded lectures a week (not bad for a 3-week class) so it\'s pretty easy to rewatch them before/during a quiz.\r\n\r\nOverall, it\'s an easy class if you put in literally any effort at all and you\'ll probably have a bit of fun with it too. He was good about responding to emails (despite what the other reviewer says) and other concerns. Easy five stars.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-26T20:58:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Dunham', 'course': 'EDSP376', 'review': "I took this class during Fall 2020 when it was online due to covid. Michael was always very friendly and considerate of different signing paces and receptive to any feedback.\r\n\r\nThe course material was taught via short pre-recorded lecture videos. These videos are completely in ASL and don't have captions or voiceovers, but most of the time his facial expressions and pictures/animations make the meanings pretty clear. You do have to be pro-active if there's anything you don't understand, and that means either emailing him separately or asking a question during the live class. But, he encourages people to interrupt and ask what signs are, so it's totally okay if you don't understand the video lectures entirely.\r\n\r\nThere were live classes for 1-hour once a week. On Testudo, it shows up as two sessions a week, but before the semester starts, he lets you pick one of three times that meet once a week in smaller groups (not sure if this was just because of the online format or not). These live classes were fully immersive, so everyone was muted and any questions would be asked via chat. He would prepare some sort of activity that involved using signs taught in the previous week's lecture videos in order to practice them and gauge comprehension. There was never too much pressure to know every sign beforehand, because, as I mentioned, it was completely okay to be reminded of the signs or even learn new signs by just asking.\r\n\r\nOverall, Michael really cares about helping students learn the material, and this is a great class to take with him if you're interested in learning some basic ASL directly from someone in the deaf community.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-10T01:22:01Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Dunham', 'slug': 'dunham'}, {'courses': ['FIRE120', 'FIRE254', 'FIRE154', 'BSST338O', 'BSST399N', 'BSST631', 'BSST645', 'BSST631', 'BSST645', 'BSST399N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Egnoto', 'slug': 'egnoto'}, {'courses': ['BUSI640', 'BUFN751', 'BMGT848B', 'BUSM610', 'BUFN758C', 'BUSI640', 'BUFN610', 'BUSI640', 'BUFN610'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Faulkender', 'course': 'BUSI640', 'review': 'Ego takes over the room. He knows his stuff, but be prepared to listen to his political agenda. Probably the worst class I have taken since potty training. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-09-25T21:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Faulkender', 'course': 'BUFN610', 'review': 'You can tell he thinks highly of himself, and loves the sound of his own voice, but it doesn’t reach the level of "arrogance". \r\nHe is helpful, friendly, and approachable. He explains the concepts really well, and delivers the lecture in a way where its hard not to pay attention. He grades fairly, open to requests of re-grading, replies really fast to emails. His assignments are hard and his slides are messy. You need to write notes and pay attention to class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T02:42:04.948070Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Faulkender', 'course': 'BUFN610', 'review': "This class consists of weekly homework's, case studies, a presentation, midterm, and a final. The homework is through an online service and is rather straightforward but can take awhile. There are four case studies they are all straightforward for the most part as well but definitely go to office hours. The midterm is take-home and similar to the practice midterm it takes awhile to do but you can get a good grade on it. The final is the hardest part of the class since its 3 hours and in-person however, it is open note. Mike overall does a good job teaching the material just be expected to spend a decent amount of time on the class each week and study a lot for the final it will make your life easier.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-12T23:25:13.707863Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Faulkender', 'slug': 'faulkender'}, {'courses': ['BMGT221H', 'BMGT321', 'BUSI611', 'BUAC758M', 'BUSI610', 'BMGT311', 'BMGT313', 'BMGT313F', 'BUAC743', 'BUAC710'], 'average_rating': 3.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "This guys reviews are surprisingly positive, I had him 2 semesters ago and he is literally the worst professor I have ever had at Smith.\n\r\nHe seems like a nice person, but he kinda sucks at teaching. He didn't use power points of any kind. He pretty much just stood up there and lectured. His exams were tough. He did give partial credit for stuff, so that was kinda nice.\n\r\nIf you don't mind teaching yourself by reading the text, by all means go ahead and take his class. Just keep in mind that you are paying for this whole college education thing, so if you wanna get your money's worth, take this class with literally anyone else. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-11-15T20:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT313F', 'review': "Finch is a nice and entertaining guy and a good professor, who doesn't waste time teaching you irrelevant stuff. However, he is by no means an easy professor, like others have mentioned. If you want to do well, you need to put in the effort, or else you'll do badly. For this class, we had 5 quizzes, one cumulative final, and a valuation project. They are not overly difficult, but you need to study well for them. The project itself wasn't hard. It was mainly just going through a company's 10K and calculating some ratios and answering questions, but ended up being very time consuming. Overall, I really enjoyed this course, more than 321, which I also took with him. If you put in the effort, the class won't be too hard, and you'll get a good grade. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-25T13:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "Prof. Finch is a really good professor, who knows his stuff, but he isn't by any means easy. You really have to put in the effort to do well in his class. There are 3 exams, which can be difficult, as compared to what is done in class, so you really need to know your stuff. Also, a note... don't forget to write down and label everything on the exam, or you might get a surprise in the end, because he will take off points if you forget. If you really want to learn and are willing to put in the effort, I highly suggest that you take him. If not, I highly suggest that you look for a different professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-07-03T22:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT313', 'review': "Finch is an interesting guy. His personality is great, and is always entertaining. His class is certainly not boring. Too often though he is extremely laid back and tends to waste a great deal of class time. He is also a very stringent grader, and takes off points for very minor things.\n\r\nI definitely learned a good amount in his class, but only because I put in the effort. Most of the students rarely did the readings, and his class was often slowed down by that. Still, I can recommend him just based on his personality, and the fact that he made the material somewhat interesting. I would probably rather have taken it with another professor, but I can't say I hated this course either.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-30T18:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "This was definitely the hardest class I've taken at the business school. The course material was pretty dry and Professor Finch's teaching style wasn't really effective for me personally. But I think he was a good teacher and he was very willing to give help outside of class and spend a lot of time explaining things I didn't understand. It's not the most fun class, so be prepared to put in a lot of work, but in the end it's worth it and Finch can give a lot of help if you ask for it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-01-27T13:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "This is a complicated review. \r\nI took Finch in Spring 2013. He was the hardest professor I've ever had at UMD, and I've never worked harder for a single class, nor been happier with the B I earned. It was not easy.\r\nBut the thing is, I've never learned more in any class at UMD. Finch forces you to learn the material, because you cannot do well in the class unless you do. And it's not just out-of-class learning (though you do have to read the textbook on your own); Finch spends a lot of time in class going through problems similar to those you'll see on the tests (and, more importantly, on the CPA). He makes sure you really know what he's doing, and takes questions better than anyone else I've ever seen. \r\nThe trick with him is to actually do the readings in advance, and actually participate in lectures. If you do, you'll learn more than in any other class at UMD. \r\nIf this doesn't sound like something you want, you should probably take a different professor. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-01-09T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "He is an alright professor. You basically have to teach yourself in this class by reading and doing the homework. The homework isn't checked or anything, but since he doesn't lecture in class, just goes over homework problems that anyone has, you should probably attempt the homework. \r\nThis class also goes pretty fast, we covered a chapter a class, so halfway through the semester people would just stop doing the homework because they didn't have time to read and do all the homework. \r\nIf you want a good grade you really have to make this class a priority. \r\nAlso he doesn't check his email, he doesn't put grades up on elms, and it's 1 day before the deadline to submit final grades on Testudo and he still hasn't uploaded anything.\r\nAll in all, he's a nice guy, but I wouldn't recommend taking him. \n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-01-01T17:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "I took Finch in the Spring of 2011. Professor Finch is a GREAT professor. Don't let these other reviews fool you. Of course he has high expectations for students and his exams are challenging. And I think that is how it ought to be. You are paying a tuition to learn not to just get an A. Finch forces you to learn the material.\n\r\nYour responsibility as a student is to DO THE READING. Your Intermediate book is NOT a decorative element. It is meant to be read. When I mean read, I mean read EVERY page not skim through it. And do the homework problems he assigns even though he doesn't grade them or check it. Hold yourself accountable to getting an education you paid for.\n\r\nHe can't possibly cover EVERYTHING in the book during lecture so it helps if you've read the material beforehand and done some of the problems. That way, you can have questions as he is explaining the material... not just sit there gazing into space. \n\r\nPeople complain about his exams being too hard and undoable. I don't think they were. They were challenging but the exams are doable. It is possible to do well on them. I did well on them. When the average was a 50. I was getting an 88. If I could do it, you can to. Just work hard, believe and hope in God!\n\r\nIf you take Finch and you are prepared to buckle down, discipline yourself and read that book, you will be very glad you did. You will discover Accounting to be much more interesting than you could have possibly ever imagined and you will leave that class learning so much. And you will get an A. That A will be the best A you've ever gotten and you will be proud of your accomplishment. It is a great feeling! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-09T10:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "Honestly this was one of the hardest classes I took at the B school. Finch is a nightmare. He doesn't teach the material properly and goes off tangents on movies. His exams are extremely hard because he doesn't teach anything, so this course is basically a teach it yourself one. He takes forever to grade material. Honestly avoid Finch at all cost, unless you want to struggle to get your A. The only good thing I see out of this course is that his class really nit picks out the destined accountants. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-02T09:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!\r\nThis guy does not actually teach the material but assumes students have read the chapter before hand and does a few 20 minute long problems in class which thoroughly confused the class because we didn't read/teach ourselves the chapters. Tests were miserable, exam 1 average was 65 and exam 2 average was 47. No one in the class finished the exam and pages were left blank. The final exam was just as hard. Final grades have not yet been posted, but he keeps saying there will be no curve which I just don't see to be possible. WAY harder than 310 and 311, literally take any other professor. Finch is actually a really great guy and is hilarious, but is an awful/hard teacher.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-05-21T13:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT221H', 'review': 'DO NOT LISTEN TO THE REVIEW BELOW. Finch is a great professor, one who doesn\'t bore your with stupid power points and who doesn\'t put you to sleep in class. To most people, including myself, financial statements and ledgers and what not are not fun, but the way Finch explains things make the stuff seem so "obvious". You will learn more from his class than you realize. \n\r\nHis midterms were fair. If you attend class (he doesn\'t post anything online) and do all the suggested homework (or just listen in class when he goes over them), no one should do poorly. If you don\'t know how to study, that\'s another problem entirely. \n\r\nFinch\'s lectures generally consistent of going over the chapter for half a class, ask students for homework questions, and a lot of random facts in between about random movies that no one has ever seen before. For our final, the extra credit is a question about What About Bob. \n\r\nThe only downside is that our final was ridiculously hard, but he warned us it would be so because our class averages were too high. Which I still don\'t understand why it\'s a bad thing...\n\r\nTake the class with him if you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-15T09:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Oh Mike Finch. He truly didn't care about making sure his students were comfortable with material. He got mad when we didn't read chapter beforehand, so he punished us by only half teaching the subject. His exams were hardest ones I've ever taken. The averages were horrible, and insisted that he was not going to curve course (even though in end he did). This was a complete nightmare of a class, and a whole ton more stressful than 310. For sure take with different Professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-09T17:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': 'Finch is the best accounting professor I have ever had in UMD. He really knows how to teach and is very very engaging (he remembers our names by the second day of class). The exams are very challenging but you really get a lot of of his class. If you really want to learn accounting, take classes with Finch. Again, not the easiest professor but great learning experience!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-25T18:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "A very good lecturer (probably the best I've had in my accounting classes). If you're looking for a class you can go and just look at the internet because the powerpoints are online he is not the guy for you. He really teaches students, writing on the board rather than using power points given to him by the textbook. Does not check homework, but bases class off questions from the homework so it is a good idea to come in with some questions.\n\r\nYou will usually get out off class about 15 minutes early because he makes very effective use of class time. The tests are challenging and he has said that he does not curve. He is a HUGE movie buff and likes to quote movies in class. Also tells some funny stories.\n\r\nReally tough to get an A in his class, but you will walk away feeling as though you have learned something. A really great professor, but not an easy class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-15T01:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': 'Challenging professor and solid lecturer. Will weed out those who are destined not to be accountants (like myself). ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2011-04-25T16:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "The entire grade for the class was based on 3 exams and an arbitrary 10% participation grade. The exams were much tougher than the practice homework problems or what was taught in class. The material was pretty dry and so were the lectures. I personally don't know of anyone who received an A in this class. I would STRONGLY suggest taking this class with a different professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-26T12:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "I understand that he wants to challenge students to really think about the material, but when you got 90% of the class lined up during the final to ask questions, there's a good chance you're overdoing it. He takes off points for labels and other small details which can really impact your exam score. He would say certain types of questions were on the exam, then come exam time only a couple of those would be on there. These questions were 2x harder than in-class examples.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-02-26T19:53:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Finch', 'course': 'BMGT321', 'review': "I would advise anyone reading this to take this course elsewhere if you can. Finch is a hard-ass and does nothing to make the class nor the content easier to understand. He gives out hw assignments which take many hours to complete. Since they are graded for completion by the grad TA, you do not know if you even did it correctly. He only uses a chalkboard in class, no powerpoints whatsoever. His exams are ludicrous; the problems are so much harder than the ones practiced in class. In fact, every exam we had a line of students waiting to ask him to clarify questions, but he did a shit job of helping us out. We consistently went over the allotted time for the exams only to delay the following section from taking theirs and so on and so forth. \r\n\r\nDon't stick around hoping that things get better in this class, because they don't.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-09-25T18:30:42Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Finch', 'slug': 'finch'}, {'courses': ['JOUR262'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael French', 'slug': 'french'}, {'courses': ['KNES287', 'KNES293', 'KNES484', 'KNES389C', 'KNES497', 'KNES689K', 'KNES389I', 'KNES289B', 'KNES347', 'KNES389I', 'KNES285', 'KNES484', 'KNES289B', 'KNES347', 'KNES689J'], 'average_rating': 2.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Friedman', 'course': 'KNES293', 'review': "Unexpectedly difficult class. After taking the very well taught Sport in American Society, I was very disappointed in Friedman's course. The work load was very manageable but the few major assignments we had were graded extremely harshly. The highest grades on papers were very low A's; there seemed to be a disconnect between stated rubric expectations and what the prof/TA actually looked for while grading as a good grade on papers was next to impossible. The lectures were not very engaging and after the first week it was evident that this was the overall consensus as attendance dwindled intensely. Friedman also had many concepts that he failed to concretely define, leaving the responsibility to a disinterested and incompetent TA. I think Friedmans biggest fault was the way in which he employed his TA; he left too much of the course teaching responsibilities to him and did not seem to have a solid amount of communication with him. Often the TA had a very different understanding of assignment requirements and course material significance. Disappointed in this course as I love both sport and history. Sport in American Society had very similar concepts however was a far superior course simply because of its outstanding prof and TAs. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-05-04T01:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Friedman', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': "Friedman's class is definitely not on my list of favorites, but I did not hate it. I had to take it as a kinesiology major. Initially I wanted to drop the class, but after the first couple of lectures, the material actually got interesting. He posts his notes online with blanks that you are able to fill in by attending lecture. He has about 5 pop quizzes a semester, all of which are very easy if you go to lecture on a regular basis. His tests are difficult, but really challenge you. I have definitely learned a lot in this class, and it has changed my perspective of sport for the better.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-08T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Friedman', 'course': 'KNES293', 'review': 'Interesting enough class, however, Friedman is one of the worst professors I have experienced thus far. He is extremely opinionated and if your opinion differs from him you might struggle. Additionally, the papers seem to have no real grading structure. I received some great grades, and other terrible grades while putting in the same amount of effort and with no explanation as to how they were graded. Quizzes are easy which helps boost the grade.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-02-05T21:23:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Friedman', 'course': 'KNES484', 'review': 'Garbage professor. His expectations of this class are that of a grad level course. his personal opinion overly influence his grading and biases his lectures. If you do not agree with his opinion he will force unrealistic expectations upon your critiques. Absolutely avoid this class. Work load is not difficult however there is no rational conversation with Friedman has he is right an any opinion that challenges him is wrong. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-11-15T17:38:09Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Friedman', 'slug': 'friedman_michael'}, {'courses': ['BMGT835', 'BMGT830', 'HONR229Q', 'ENSE799', 'BMGT834', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Fu', 'slug': 'fu_michael'}, {'courses': ['ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENES113', 'ENES102', 'ENES102H', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE305', 'ENCE305', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENCE305', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENES102H', 'ENCE305', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENES102', 'ENCE305'], 'average_rating': 4.9859, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100A', 'review': 'I have Mike right now for ENES100 and he is a great guy. His lectures are very entertaining and fun. There is never a dull moment. He also gives great advice and seems to care about his students. Only negative is that he makes his own homework and they are very difficult. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-05T22:25:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "Mike is so far the best professor I've had at UMD. All of his lectures are entertaining and informative. He does great presentations and demonstrations that make his class always fun to go to. He also makes really good cookies!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-11T18:12:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Professor Galczynski is a fantastic teacher who makes the class fun and engaging with his lectures. He has a great sense of humor and is able to help with any questions you have about the material. Mike provides many opportunities for extra credit and uses Canvas far more efficiently and reliably than the other professors teaching ENES102.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-01-15T00:40:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'ENES100 is still one of my favorite courses that I have taken at UMD. Mike cares about his students and takes steps to keep the material engaging and relevant. Have fun with the class and put forth an effort and you will gain valuable experience and a good grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-24T15:39:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'I also had Mike for ENES102. Mike is a great guy who cares a lot about his students. He brought in candy and baked goods for the class on several occasions, and he generally worked hard to make sure everyone was having a good time in class. The ENES100 classes in general are all fairly disorganized and can be a lot of work, but Mike made the best of the situation and tried to keep everybody happy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-26T20:32:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Mike is amazing. One of the best lecturers and is very entertaining and informative. Exams are fair and he gives you a formula sheet. Homeworks are online and are annoying but not impossible. He really cares about students and is extremely helpful at office hours . I highly recommend him as a teacher in ENES100 and ENES102', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-16T17:21:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Mike is such a good professor, he makes class so much fun and he clearly cares so much about his students. He gives more time for homework assignments than the other professors for 102 and he also is definitely the best teacher you could get for 102!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-03-27T06:00:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': '50% Statics / 50% dad jokes', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-24T21:49:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Mike was an amazing professor. He cares about his students and tries to make the course interesting. 102 isn't a cake walk, but he made the summer session manageable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-09-02T14:48:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "I am shocked that Mike doesn't have a 5.00 overall. He is such an amazing professor and absolutely hilarious. He is willing and happy to help any student in need and teaches very effectively. Mike makes this class fun. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T16:42:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Mike is the GOAT god of professors. He truly cares about all of his students and will treat you just like a close friend. His lecture videos were interesting and full of bloopers that resemble a full-on movie saga like the MCU. He is one of those professors who would be willing to take the time to make sure you understood the material, but then go on to talk about fantasy football or other activities that you may do in your life. He is the best professor for a transition to college and please take him if you want to succeed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-24T16:23:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike is an outstanding professor and provides the best for his students. He manages to make virtual ENES100, a class reliant on group work, a rousing success. I’d highly recommend taking Mike if at all possible, his jokes and attitude are infectious in the best way possible.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-24T16:31:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike is the best professor you could possibly get for any course. He has a great sense of humor and is happy to assist students in their work and any way possible. 6 stars out of 5 for sure; you’d be crazy to take this course with any other professor. I’ve signed up to have ENES102 with him next semester. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-24T17:23:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'awesome teacher, really cares about his students. his lectures are interesting, easy to follow, and funny. offered extra credit for different things too. would definitely recommend him to anyone!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-26T17:47:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Very enjoyable and interactive class, despite being online during the pandemic. Mike's videos and lectures are both entertaining and informative, and he often responds quickly to questions.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-26T21:06:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Mike is an amazing professor and is hands down the best in the engineering department. He makes sure all his students understand the concepts and truly tries to make every lecture new and interesting. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-28T20:11:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "I looked forward more to ENES102 than I did any other class last semester, and that was largely in part due to Mike. He definitely knows his stuff, and will always take the time to make sure you understand what exactly it is you're learning before moving on to another group. He is the only professor I've had this semester who I would say exceeded expectations when switching to a virtual environment, he truly made the video format enjoyable. Couldn't recommend him enough, and don't be afraid to have a chat with him if you ever catch him at Eppley (final point, you'll never find a professor who will proudly wear an entire Guy Fieri outfit for Halloween at the gym like Mike will). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-30T22:55:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'His lecture videos are very engaging, unlike a lot of other professors. He does good examples on the subjects and the group work is helpful for preparing for the exams. He was well prepared for online learning. He is a great professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-05T14:39:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "*class was fully online due to covid*\r\nMike is a fun, knowledgeable, and entertaining professor, who truly made the class enjoyable. All lectures were pre recorded and put on his youtube channel, and it's clear that he spent a ton of time putting together lectures and filming funny videos. If you want a better sense of his teaching style (or want to get a head start on class content) (or have a terrible professor now), I highly recommend looking him up on youtube. The class itself was pretty good, with weekly group work sessions to help us practice the concepts. The homework was unnecessarily difficult, but it was assigned by the department. Mike had no control over it. He also gave out an insane amount of extra credit, which was really helpful.\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-06T02:55:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Mike is the best professor I had in my first semester at UMD. He put a lot of time and effort into his online lectures that made them very enjoyable to watch, and gave plenty of optional opportunities for students to receive help, allowing for students of all skill levels to excel as efficiently as possible.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-24T20:35:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "I chose to take ENES102 with Mike after having him for ENES100 the previous semester, and he was just as amazing. Mike's class is very well organized, and his lecture videos are timestamped and incredibly informative, which makes studying any specific topic easily accessible and at whatever pace a student desires. His sense of humor is unique and engaging, and he gives out great tips not just for engineering, but also for test-taking and life.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-06-02T06:09:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Mike is a great and engaging professor. He teaches the material really well with lectures that are actually fun to watch. He's funny and can bake really well. I highly recommend taking his class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-03T17:42:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Mike lives up to his almost 5 star rating, which wholly reflects his positive teaching and charisma. I could really tell that he not only wanted us to succeed, but also to be engaged and have fun doing it. He had a great sense of humor in person and in his self-paced lecture videos, which made me want to be more active in class. I highly recommend taking his courses!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-06-11T00:49:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Mike was a wonderful professor, and I would recommend him to anyone. He made a tough class interesting and it was obvious that he was on your side as a student. Things weren't easy in the class, but Mike was very accessible if you needed any form of assistance. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-08-27T19:26:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "If you ever wanted to meet someone who figured out what they were born to do, its Prof. Michael G. He's got it all, showmanship, expertise, and compassion. Keep it up Mike!.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-08-27T19:56:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Mike is authentically on his student's side; he wants them to succeed. He knows exactly how to break down complex concepts without making them dull. He is an extremely engaging, helpful, and talented teacher. I wholeheartedly recommend taking his class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-08-28T01:17:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Mike's passion for teaching is infectious, and his ability to communicate material in a fun and effective manner is honestly unmatched. His expectations were articulated very well, and he seemed to be willing to do anything to help you meet and exceed those expectations. His assignments are very fair and he provides excellent feedback on exams. Do yourself a favor and register for the classes he teaches!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-28T16:21:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike creates great videos to help keep you engaged in the content. He also gives grate feed back, is accessible outside of class, and is eager to communicated with his students. Great teaching style. %100 recommend you take what ever classes you can with Galczynski.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-29T19:43:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike was an amazing teacher. He was very clear in all descriptions for assignments. He grades based on the efforts you put in. If you BS, you will get BS back. He encourages participation and works to ensure that all students understand the material. Even if it takes him 8 hours to video edit for the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-29T23:11:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Mike is a truly special instructor. He is extremely knowledgeable and is able to teach course material with great enthusiasm which undoubtedly rubs off on his students. In my opinion, his online lectures are the highlight of the course. They are thoughtful, entertaining, and a breath of fresh air in an online environment. The course material is easy to understand and if you have questions Mike is always there for help. He is also quick to recognize hard work and will reward you for it. I could not recommend taking one of Mike's classes more. He is one of the greats. \r\n\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-09-08T00:03:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': '5 star but notes about enes100 for future students!!\r\n\r\nMike is a great guy, really fun personality, fun lectures, cares about his students. He brings in baked goods and held a pizza party at the end of the semester. He also has online video lectures that are interesting and engaging. Overall a wonderful guy.\r\n\r\nIf you\'re taking enes100, it\'s going to surprise you with assignments. I recommend that as soon as your teams form you start looking at the next two "Milestone" assignments, otherwise you\'ll get sidelined and quickly have to rush to put something together. This class is fairly easy to get a high grade in, but it\'s not so easy to actually have a working autonomous vehicle. Another piece of advice: have a robot that drives as early as you can so that the people who program can start coding it ASAP. Code is the #1 fail factor on vehicles except for physical failure (i.e. a burnt arduino).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-19T09:24:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Mike is an awesome guy!\r\n\r\nI love his teaching style and sense of humor. He got great video editing skills and ofc baking skills! This class is quite a lot of work so don't underestimate it cuz it's 100 lvl. But Mike was there for students at all times. He is very understanding and was not too strict on deadlines as the class was pretty fast-paced.\r\n\r\nThe only tip I can give future ENES100 students is, don't slack off!\r\nAnd make sure to stay on top of paperwork, not just the project!\r\nYou will have to spend extra time in the lab to make sure that your OSV moves before each deadline. It is what it is.\r\n\r\nIf you try your best you will get the grade you want and a good end of semester pizza party ;)\r\n\r\nsincerely,\r\nGreen Goblin\r\nFire Team (THE BEST PERFORMING SECTION OF ALL ENES100!!!!!!)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-30T05:38:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': 'Mike is a great professor! It was his first time teaching fluids but he taught the material very well! His lectures were great and the examples really helped you understand the material. He did a great job making sure everyone understood concepts especially since the class is hard overall. I would recommend taking any class with Mike that you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-30T21:12:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "Mike was a great professor. Super personable guy and his lectures were interesting and great to use to learn the material. It didn't feel like a chore going to class and typically time flew with him teaching. There weren't many HWs, but even then, they were great tools to practice to prepare for exams and to just generally learn the material better. He had a ton of ways to help prepare for exams, from HWs to in-class examples, to supplemental problems, etc. He helped prepare you as best he could for the exams. Now since its fluids, the material was still semi-difficult, but Mike was great in helping me understand the material and enjoy it as well. Fluids is probably one of my more favorite courses taken in college because of him and his teaching.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-30T22:14:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': 'Mike is a great teacher, I truly enjoyed his class. His teaching and personality actually made class enjoyable so that I wasn’t checking my watch to see if it was 10:50 already. Oftentimes the end of class snuck up on me because I lost track of time. He also is very fair and reasonable in the course load that he gives his students, he encourages feedback so he can improve, and he offers extra credit. I wish he taught more classes because he is very good and if you have the chance you should take him', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-03T23:32:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike is very personable and energetic. ENES100 is basically a giant group project and he gives his students a lot of support and advice for how to succeed. Our group was struggling a lot near the end and he took the time to help us redesign parts of our OTV. Make sure you ask him and the TFs questions because they have a lot of useful knowledge and are always happy to help.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-04T18:03:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "Mike is of the two best professors I've ever had at UMD. Fluids was a course that he has never taught before and from the first day of class he laid out his plan simple. This was historically a challenging class for all CE students that is taught rather harshly and dry with many derivations, textbook readings, and excessive assignments. With every lecture I attended, every slide he posted, every joke (that was almost always related to the material) that was cracked, he made the course very engaging, easy to comprehend, and overall fun. Mike is a guy who works with his students, wanting to see us succeed in the classroom and far beyond. He is truly an educator ahead of his time. Of the many things he valued (including baking....giving us many delicious goods through the year,) one of them is the point that our time in college should be about cultivating our minds from what we learn, instead of just jamming and dumping it for the exam. This went into his wisdom lecture at the end of the semester that truly set my visions and goals for myself and my career on a better, accelerated path. I digress, this outstanding approacgh was clear for me to see by the end of the year, as he didnt drown us in homeworks or confusing concepts like other professors for this course do, but taught the material in with a simple and very managable approach that left me with far much more value in what I learned than just dreading the exam and hating the course, not caring that I forgot what I learned. My semester with Mike made me find my passion for being an engineer that I have not been able to find in a long time, and I thank you for that Mike. Take him as a professor and take the wisdom he loves to share to his students. I use this website for every class and professor I've ever taken, and this is the only review I've ever left. Take my word for it", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-06T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Mike is an amazing teacher and always happy to help! Incredibly easy going and chill (that's not to say he's an easy grader, so make sure to still put effort into all your assignments)!\r\nJust an overall great professor and person, you should definitely take him!! \r\nHe also gives a lot of opportunities for you to do well in the class. Apart from providing you with the material you need to succeed, he also offers a lot of extra credit so take advantage of that! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-07T17:06:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "Mike was a great and amazing professor for 305! He definitely takes time to explain things and kept exams to be done in a reasonable amount of time within a 50 minute time limit. The course was very engaging with Mike's great real-world examples that went along with concepts learned in lecture. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-11T04:47:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Mike is a truly special professor. Almost all of the reviews you read about him are spot on. He loves to teach, and you can tell by listening to just his first lecture. Mike has tons of knowledge to share and is always willing to lend a helping hand, no matter the time. Even better, Mike loves to bake and brings treats into class. \r\nWhile the course itself was time consuming and sometimes frustrating, knowing that you could always go to Mike for help was very encouraging. In addition, Mike turned many of the boring, lengthy assignments into shorter, easier assignments. He even offered numerous opportunities for extra credit (So take them!).\r\nFor someone who is looking for not only an A, but also a fantastic classroom environment, Mike is the way to go. His laugh is infectious and he's an all-round great person and professor. Do yourself a favor and take Mike!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-12T23:09:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Mike deserves an extra star. I have heard so many engineering students with other professors saying they wanted to drop engineering because of this class alone, but any student who has witnessed just one of Mike's lectures would know that engineering is an exciting place to be. Mike brings his positive energy everywhere he goes and you can tell how passionate for teaching. He is also incredibly knowledgable and if you ever have a problem, he will almost surely be able to solve it. He can take a complicated topic and explain it to someone who has never heard of engineering in their life. \r\n\r\nIn ENES100, you get to apply yourself and watch your ideas come to life. Don't hesitate to ask your UTF or peers for help, this is an introductory class so make sure you take advantage of the learning opportunities. If you want to be successful in your project, I recommend alotting a decent amount of time on testing and editing code. Time will catch up with you before you know it. Also, try to keep things as simple as you can but be creative! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-16T18:51:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'great prof! nuff said', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-03-28T17:58:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike is one of the best teachers I have ever had. The passion he has for the class and the energy he puts into teaching is incredible. Because of the difficulty of the class project, it is important for the professor and TA to be able to help the students when they run into an inevitable snag. Mike did this and then sum. Without asking, he would give the class hints for how to code for their OTV, or possible design ideas to help us in the design process. He was a fantastic professor and I would recommend him to anyone taking this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-09T16:51:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100A', 'review': 'If you are taking ENES100, take him. He was so much better than every other professor. He stripped the course down to the essential assignments and content. He goes out of his way to improve the quality of his course and assignments, he even recorded an exhilarating YouTube lecture series (subscribe to Michael Galczynski). The only complaint I can have about him is that you can tell that he is a bit full of himself which can get a bit old at times, but he does truly back up his ego with an excellent course and excellent teaching.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-11T15:12:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike is a very passionate professor and is truly one of a kind. I don’t think I will ever have a professor who is as interesting and knowledgeable ever again. You can tell he loves to teach, and every class period he came in with the same infectious up beat energy and dedication to helping us succeed. The class itself is not the easiest because you are essentially thrown into a major project that requires creativity, electrical wiring, building, and programming with little to no experience, but being in mike’s section definitely turned the difficult class into a fun and memorable experience that I will remember for the rest of my engineering journey and life. He was always very helpful in helping each team when we ran into design issues and strongly encouraged creativity in his classes. He also fuels education with his signature lemon bars. If you have the opportunity, choose mike’s section!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-16T06:22:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100A', 'review': "Mike is a stellar professor. For anyone who doesn't know what the course is about, you build a vehicles to do various missions and compete against all the section. His sections this year took the top 3 highest scoring spots, which they did last year as well. The reason his sections do well is an extremely good professor and really values his students success. Mike makes class extremely entertaining and is extremely laid back.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T03:11:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100A', 'review': "Professor Mike is probably the best professor I've ever taken or will ever take again! Compared to other ENES100 professors he's in another universe. Super funny, super helpful and understanding. Really pushes students to interact with each other and strive for excellence. 10/10 !", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T03:16:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike is an amazing teacher, no question about it. Every day in class he comes with an incredibly positive attitude and is genuinely very excited to be with us to teach us course material. Even if I may have had a bad day, going to his class cheers me up entirely. He has made the class so fun and interactive because of his enthusiasm. He also knows how to challenge us every day in class, as he makes us think about solving problems in a new way when it comes to completing the ENES100 project, which is to make the OTV work. He has also been greatly supportive of all our ideas as students trying to experiment with the concepts we learned in class as we built our OTV. Every day in class he shows up and checks with us to make sure we are all on track, working with us on how we can improve our ideas and move to the next steps. In addition, I, like many other ENES100 students, believe that this class is oftentimes difficult and can be stressful at certain times, either because of the workload, or because of having to deal with the frustration resulting from something not working. As such, I do not believe that just any engineering professor would have the skill to teach this class. Mike is one of the few people who truly has that ability, and I think that it is partly because of him that our section won the competition. He has really been amazing in so many ways, and if it were not for the 5 star limit, I would give him 6 stars. That is how great he was!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-06T14:44:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike is an incredible professor, and is probably one of the best educators I have had in my entire career as a student. Mike is the master of using fun metaphors to explain rather complicated concepts and topics, and he makes you feel smart just by listening to him. His scores for the group project are far far higher than the other sections of the class and for a good reason. THIS DUDE IS A LEGEND', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-06T17:46:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Mike is such an amazing professor and undoubtedly the best professor/teacher I've ever had in my entire academic career. His lectures are actually fun to sit through, something that is pretty rare to find nowadays. Mike combines his lessons with an incredible amount of humor that I found kept me thoroughly engaged and actually looking forward to class. Not to mention, it's obvious he cares about each and every one of his students, and will go miles out of his way to ensure his students find success. If you can, please take any of Mike's classes and I promise you're going to enjoy it. Also, don't miss his end-of-semester Wisdom Lecture!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-07T00:51:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike genuinely cares about each and every one of his students. You really do get out what you put into his class, so work hard and always ask for help. His lectures are always full of great stories and are very informative--make the two hours fly by! He has lots of group activities to have you get to know your team better and make great friends!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-07T01:45:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': 'Mike provides very interactive lectures that are entertaining and fun. The examples in class are very valuable because he explains every step of the process and they help build your own understanding of the material. Homework load is every week and is very manageable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-06-07T02:00:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "THE RATING IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. Professor Mike is without a doubt one of the best professors I've ever had. His lectures are extremely enjoyable and interactive, he can easily explain harder concepts in a way that everyone understands. He communicates so well with students and gives amazing life advice, and just makes a very interesting and interactive environment to learn in. DEFINITELY WOULD TAKE FUTURE CLASSES WITH HIM IF I COULD. highly recommend fitting professor Mike in your schedule if you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-07T04:11:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "If you are looking for a fruitful experience Mike is definitely the professor to go with. His ability and knowledge shows in how successful his teams are compared to other professors. This class is basically a big group project meant to give you experience in many aspects of engineering. Mike promotes a social and engaging atmosphere early on. So, whether you're nervous about working on a team or have no prior experience in engineering related skills. Mike operates and provides the means for you to be successful if you want to be. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-08T00:16:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike is such a fun teacher to have I cannot say enough good things about him (plus he would bake desserts for us). ENES100 is a class where you will only get as much out as you put in, and Mike really encourages us to think outside the box. Overall, take Mike for any class you can, he is one of the rare professors where you can really tell how passionate he is about teaching', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-08T01:12:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Such a cool and honest guy! Mike truly wants all of his students to succeed. Without him, I still wouldn't understand coding and Arduino circuits. I promise if you take Mike's Class you won't regret it! Mike taught us that engineering is more than just math and science, and that's what motivated to remain at the Clark School. You will forever remember his funny stories, lectures and energy!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-08T03:24:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Professor Mike is an amazing professor who is truly passionate about the engineering and design process. His energy during every class session motivated my team and I to work as hard as we could. Professor Mike is also helpful, easy to talk to, and very considerate of everyone's particular situation. Professor Mike also pushes us to do our best in anything we do. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-08T17:37:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Mike is the best professor I've taken so far. He's very kind, knowledgable, and always makes class fun and interesting. Nothing but great things to say, if you see him for ENES100, take his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-08T23:03:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "Fluid mechanics has a reputation as maybe the hardest civil engineering class, but Mike went out of his way to make it accessible and easy to understand. Lots of good examples, clear lecture notes available online, and a very forgiving extra credit system to help you with the exams.\r\n\r\nThe only thing I'd say is definitely don't schedule another class starting 10min after the end of his, because he definitely doesn't always finish on time and you'll be late to your next class a lot. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-09T15:41:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Enroll in his section, I beg you. It's truly a life changing decision. It was more or less by chance that I ended up in his class, but I am forever grateful for it. Mike is deeply passionate about engineering and cares about his students very much. He is often more like a friend than a professor and I really appreciated that dynamic.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-10T23:58:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "BEST professor. Inspired me to become an engineering major. I came into ENES100 with no prior experience with any engineering concepts; Mike made such a wonderful environment where we all learned from each other and friends with all of your classmates. He is a fair professor and a true mentor. He makes great baked goods so you'll be fed too!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-11T16:50:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Mike was an excellent professor. He really took the time to design the class to be as immersive as possible. I never felt like I was doing busy work or wasting my time, I always felt like I was learning. I had a lot of fun in this class, even though the task at hand was very difficult. Truly recommend taking his class!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-14T15:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Very fun class and THE prof to take for ENES100. You will get the most out of this class with Mike as your prof and have fun doing it. He could be a comedian so it is a very entertaining class. Most entertaining and caring prof I will probably ever have. Also, easy class. You learn a lot. Extra credit. He brings in homemade baked goods too!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-14T20:15:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "MIKE IS MY GOD!!! I will build a shrine for him if possible. Take him, I beg you. This will be the most amazing best decision you have ever made in your entire college life. He teaches as if his students have no idea what they are being taught about, and this is the best thing possible. With absolutely no background in mechanics or physics, you will still excel in this class because of Mike's teaching. He is a very friendly, and approachable person. He is very invested in making the class fun and entertaining. All my friends in other sections struggled with this class, but I was able to really help them cuz I understood the concepts very easily. Mike also has a very goated youtube channel (Michael Galcyznski) that he posts lecture videos and other fun videos on. If you miss a lecture, you can catch up very easily by watching the lecture videos. My friends found this very helpful.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T23:49:46.428968Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "The man to take for ENES100. The class over all is an easy A as long as you do the assignments in the first half of class and show up (which is easy because Mike is the GOAT) you will do good. The difference between Mike's section and all the other sections is that you get so much more out of this class if you have Mike. Towards the end you might need to spend a decent amount of time in lab hours with your team but the environment Mike creates makes that easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-09T04:04:00.350965Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "When I say I've never met a better professor, I mean it. You really can't go wrong with Mike. Literally. He is probably the best professor on campus. He explains everything in a way that's easy to comprehend, and he always wants what's best for you. His sections usually get the highest average score on exams, and there's a reason why. He's super approachable out of class, and in class, he is one of the funniest and charismatic professors out there. He is a huge baking guy too, so except some baked good the next lecture if your class scores well on an exam. He has a YouTube channel which has every video on every topic you will ever need. These videos are also not just him reading off a slide or something boring, but he actually puts lot of effort into them (he also has side videos like bloopers and Into the Mikeverse). If you can, take him for ENES102. You really won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-10T22:45:08.480987Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Extremely good professor for ENES100, and should definitely be a primary choice. The first half of the class is pretty straightforward and there's never a boring moment in his class as he's always very energetic and engaging. There's also a lot of easy extra credit you can earn and the assignments are very forgiving. For the second half of the class, building the OSV was extremely fun and I definitely learned a lot. Mike was extremely helpful in answering any questions you may have and for any troubleshooting you may have to do.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T19:43:22.447270Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Literally the best professor I have ever had for anything. Mike has changed my life and I would genuinely recommend switching your entire schedule around just to have him. He built such a great community for ENES100 and created a class culture that was collaborative, and extremely successful. All of his sections score highly every single year because of the way he runs his class. Expect baked goods and lots of stories if you take his class. He puts so much time into his classes and caring for his students which is unlike any other professor I've seen before.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T03:31:09.822512Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Couldn't ask for more. Greatest enes100 teacher ever. Honestly probably one of the best professors as this school. I will be taking his 102 and any other courses he teaches.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T17:35:02.535096Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Nice professor and baked cookies for the class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T17:41:27.135889Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Galczynski', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'mike is the man the myth AND the legend all in one. he is the cultivator of the most brilliant minds in the engineering school, as well as supportive of all the dumb ideas that we could come up with during this class. for the osv project some teams came up with greatness like creating lightning mcqueen and amazing class shirts/team bonding materials.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-22T07:02:17.406134Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Galczynski', 'slug': 'galczynski'}, {'courses': ['ENFP300', 'ENFP630', 'ENFP350', 'ENFP489W', 'ENFP629W', 'ENFP611'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Gollner', 'slug': 'gollner'}, {'courses': ['MIEH321', 'SPHL415', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH786'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Grantham', 'slug': 'grantham'}, {'courses': ['GVPT878D', 'GVPT729A', 'GVPT722', 'GVPT479A', 'GVPT477', 'GVPT479M', 'GVPT479M', 'GVPT771', 'GVPT729A', 'GVPT771', 'GVPT729A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Hanmer', 'slug': 'hanmer'}, {'courses': ['MUED217', 'MUED311', 'MUED489I', 'MUED420', 'MUED785', 'MUED484', 'MUED494', 'MUED474', 'MUED692', 'MUSC388', 'MUSC389', 'MUED780', 'MUED186', 'MUED320', 'MUED729'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Hewitt', 'slug': 'hewitt'}, {'courses': ['CMSC330', 'CMSC433', 'CMSC838G', 'CMSC396H', 'CMSC631', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC389N', 'CMSC388A', 'CMSC388B', 'CMSC388I', 'CMSC388N', 'CMSC388O', 'CMSC388Y', 'CMSC388Z'], 'average_rating': 4.0909, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Lecture: \r\nDr. Hicks rarely used the lecture slides, but posted them online. Most of lecture was going over the concepts and answering questions, he likes questions. \n\r\nProjects:\r\nWe had 5 projects, 2 with Ruby, 2 with Ocaml and 1 using Prolog. Overall they were pretty difficult, except for the first project, it wasn't very hard, but was very long. You really need to start the projects within a couple days of them being due, the concepts are more theoretical in this class, in 131/132/216 everything was fairly straightforward. \n\r\nDiscussion:\r\nWe had 5 quizzes (announced) and they were generally on the easy side, just testing basic knowledge of what was going on during lecture. I had Richard Johnson as my TA, he was very helpful.\r\nNo discussion programming projects. \n\r\nExams:\r\nWe had one exam on Ruby/NFA/DFA/Regex/CFG and maybe some other stuff. This exam was pretty straightforward and easy. The second midterm was on Ocaml/Operational Sematics/Multithreading, this exam was pretty hard. The final was a little easier than the second exam.\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-16T20:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': 'Great professor, excellent teaching style and attitude. Very helpful with in class examples and study guides for exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-28T17:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC433', 'review': 'Hicks is a nice person and a very reasonable professor who knows his stuff.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-02T18:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'Professor Hicks is, in my opinion, one of the best professors the computer science department has to offer. He is interactive and engaging with students by focusing more on sample code and examples generated in class rather than simply reading off the lecture slides. He even makes the boring material seem interesting. Also, he is very receptive to his students and will try to answer most questions in class, or will come back the next lecture with a solution to a question. Hicks focuses his material around student needs rather then curriculum requirements. I really enjoyed his CMSC330 class, and though it was very difficult, in my opinion, his teaching style was very effective and helpful. I will definitely be taking other classes with this professor including CMSC433. Highly Recommended!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-07T16:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Professor Hicks spends the lecture showing examples of code (which he generates during lecture) of what he tries to teach, while also posting lecture slides (which he doesn't really use in class).\n\r\nUltimately, I found this style really helpful. It promotes attendance and understanding because you get to see the concepts in action if you attend class, but you also have the slides to refer back to.\n\r\nI enjoyed Hicks as a professor and plan to have him as a professor again.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-15T02:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Lecture:\r\nProf. Hicks uses slides mostly as an outline, and occasionally uses the whiteboard as well. In some cases he edits a slide temporarily for examples. He's really helpful in clarifying concepts to those who ask.\r\n\r\nAs of spring 2018, Prolog is being replaced by Rust in 330. I believe Dr. Hicks had a major role in this decision, and for that I'm bumping this to 5 stars. \r\n\r\nWhile I didn't find the material too challenging or interesting, going to lecture did not feel like a chore at all. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-04-19T01:06:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Great lecturer - he's very clear and easy to understand. He wants the best for his students. If you reach out to him when the workload is unreasonable, he will try to adjust the coursework/scores accordingly to help his students succeed. However, do not expect him to help you if you are slacking.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-07-11T16:14:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "His lecture is boring, and you wouldn't understand anything. Anwar Mamat is way better ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-04T20:22:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'The class is pretty chill, but I have a feeling he lectures way too quickly to try and cover alot of material. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-06T20:23:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': 'Hicks lectures very quickly, but is willing to field every question. Project expectations and due dates were clear and fair, although some of them could be quite time consuming. Exams were easy enough and from lecture, and quizzes were announced and were challenging.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-17T06:00:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Hicks', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "Dr. Hicks is nice enough but lectures too quickly IMHO. Maybe he was different before COVID tho. The TA's however are amazing, especially Shilpa, and got me through projects, quizzes, and exams. Projects are difficult but not too bad if you start early. My advice, watch the discussion videos", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-07-28T13:08:32Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Hicks', 'slug': 'hicks_michael'}, {'courses': ['ENGL385', 'ENGL489R', 'ENGL384', 'ENGL489C', 'ENGL489E', 'ENGL605', 'ENGL482', 'ENGL779B', 'ENGL489N', 'ENGL383', 'EDSP652', 'ENGL280', 'ENGL384', 'ENGL282', 'ENGL385', 'ENGL484', 'ENGL280', 'ENGL384', 'ENGL280'], 'average_rating': 2.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Israel', 'course': 'ENGL384', 'review': "You should definitely take ENG384 if you hate yourself. Nothing against Professor Israel. He's an ok guy and I guess he does what he can to teach such an awful subject but the class is probably the equivalent of torture. Concepts of Grammar is the biggest waste of time I have ever sat through for an entire semester. I've never hated linguistics more than I do after completing this course. Not that I ever liked linguistics, but I didn't really have a problem with it until now. \n\r\nLet me be clear, you think you know grammar but you don't. I promise you that. This class isn't just commas and apostrophes, it's words I've never even heard of in my life. Sentence constructs that even google can't explain. Unless this all sounds super fun to you (I could never understand why), do NOT take this class. Trust me, you will regret it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-09T00:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Israel', 'course': 'ENGL385', 'review': "I refuse to believe that anyone but Israel himself wrote the reviews below me, because no one in my class save maybe 4-5 people (it's a 30 person class) would say these things, ever.\r\nTo start with, Israel, while a nice guy, cannot explain anything to save his life. Our class gets sidetracked so horrendously by RANDOM subjects that by the end of the class we'll have gone from point A and end at point 8g9b. Does that make sense? No? Well that's my point. \n\r\nMost students realize that going to his actual class is a waste of time since nothing is explained well at all, and so the 30 person class has about 50% attendance at most at any given day. You're required to turn in a written assignment every week, but he takes them late at full credit so most of the people around me in the class are behind by about 2 or 3 assignments at any given time. You can also turn them in via email, which doesn't exactly motivate anyone to show up to class either. \n\r\nThe person a few comments below me stated that the assignments take around 6 hours long. Child, if you spend 6 hours on these writing assignments you're doing something wrong. 1 hour tops, and that timeframe includes skimming the book because you didn't go to class and need to know the basics of whatever you need to write about. \n\r\nTo put it bluntly, don't take this class. Teacher isn't helpful, class is useless, and it's not an easy A so there's no point in suffering through it for an entire semester.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-05-13T17:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Israel', 'course': 'ENGL385', 'review': "I love Prof. Israel! He is so intelligent and an expert in his field. He works hard to clarify topics for his students. He expects you to come to class prepared but honestly, what professor doesn't? The class is very thought provoking and challenges you, but Prof. Israel is always available in office hours and he is SO HELPFUL especially in one on one setting. Overall, really interesting class, and Prof. Israel is great!\n\r\nHe does have a nervous twitch/cough which drives some people crazy but I think it just comes with being a genius (since he is one)", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-01T13:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Israel', 'course': 'ENGL385', 'review': 'Mr. Israel is an excellent professor. he keeps the class engaged and he does his best to explain things that i can imagine some other professors screwing up terribly. He makes the class interesting by drawing evidence and info. from other academic fields as well as movies and other social situations that students would be familiar with. HOWEVER, this class is tough and the homework(s) will take A LONG TIME.(minimum 6hours) each. I do not recommend this class for your senior year and you should take this class if you are planning on having 12/13 total credits for the semester. If you take this class and your total credits is 15+, you WILL be EXHAUSTED.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-22T16:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Israel', 'course': 'ENGL384', 'review': 'This was the most utterly pointless class I have ever taken. I feel bad for Professor Israel because he seems so interested in a subject nobody else cares about in the slightest. This class supposedly had a whopping 5 students, although only 1-3 ever showed up. Do NOT take this class unless you have a keen interest in grammar as it relates to linguistics, otherwise it will do more harm than good.\r\n\r\nIf for some reason you do take this class, be warned that the assignments are extremely tedious, take hours, are under-explained in class, and have very little to do with what you actually discuss in class.\r\n\r\nThe assignments are torturous, the lectures are incomprehensible, and my life is no better off having taken this course. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-05T01:10:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Israel', 'course': 'ENGL280', 'review': "Easily the worst class I've taken at this institution. Professor Israel is a very unprepared and unorganized instructor. Classes had no structure and literally no one ever showed up (there were maybe 4 or 5 people who came to class consistently). Professor Israel would get so sidetracked and ramble about the most irrelevant topics, leaving us with no actual notes or useful information pertaining to the planned topic for the week. I couldn't tell you a single thing I learned about linguistics, which sucks because this class was a major requirement for me and because the subject is fairly interesting. If you show up to class and participate kind of regularly, you should be fine. He says himself that grades aren't too much of a worry, though he is prone to harshly criticizing your work but still giving you a decent grade (make it make sense). Ultimately, do not take this class with this professor unless you ABSOLUTELY have to. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T03:20:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Israel', 'course': 'ENGL282', 'review': 'Very hard to follow and got sidetracked often, there were not really any notes (which is hard to prepare for exams, etc.) for students to use because he would get so sidetracked', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-12T03:34:01.196611Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Israel', 'course': 'ENGL282', 'review': 'Incredibly confusing to follow, would go on tangents and then never teach us material that he expected us to know for the exams', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-15T14:19:58.196378Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Israel', 'slug': 'israel_michael'}, {'courses': ['GEOG441', 'GEOG340', 'ENST453', 'ENST472', 'ENST471', 'ENST689C', 'ENST653', 'MEES698D', 'ENST489L', 'ENST689', 'ENST689', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Kearney', 'slug': 'kearney_michael'}, {'courses': ['BSCI105', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI105M', 'EXST155', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170'], 'average_rating': 4.0204, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Keller is definitely enthusiastic about the subject he teaches, but he's not the best lecturer. His lectures were probably only good before the 1st exam and then it went downhill. The Wednesday activities were sometimes just a waste of time, but sometimes they were good. It annoys me that he doesn't do + or - grading, which just sucks when you try to hard to get an A and if you are a point or two off, he will not curve or bump you up to get an A. Your grade really depends on the TA and whether or not they grade harshly in lab. Lab is basically a way to get most points unless your TA is just rude. I don't know, Keller was a nice person in general, but he has certain teaching practices that were just not considerate---like no plus or minus grading and Wednesday activities (which include clicker quizzes) that really contribute to getting a lower grade than you rightfully deserve. However, he does offer a couple of extra credit opportunities--usually only a point or two here and there, though. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-17T23:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Did not like this professor much. \r\nAlthough Dr. Shields was probably the real villain behind all of this, I absolutely hated this class because of these professors. This is supposed to be an introductory course. They said in the beginning of this course that they did not want it to be a weed-out class, but they structured the class to be JUST THAT. This was not an accurate representation of what biology classes are usually like, and it made students reconsider their major. \r\nHe used my section as the guinea pig section to do some experimentation that the department wanted. Totally not fair because we were not able to choose which one we were in, and as a result, our grades suffered. Yes, he did curve in the end to make up for it, but the added stress and extra assignments we were given probably impacted the time and effort we were able to put into our other classes.\r\nHe was pretty nice about office hours and make up points and stuff, but other times he was pretty snarky and sassy. \r\nWish I took this with a different professor. \r\nDefinitely possible to get an A. It's jsut really annoyingly/unnecessarily difficult. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-06-08T14:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Keller is one of those teachers that thinks the material is easy because he has been teaching it for so long and expects you to know the material well. He says that he only asks about general concepts and doesn't want you to get caught up on the little details, but come the exam you will have to answer very specific questions. its also not helpful that his notes are 10% words and 90% diagrams that you have to be in class learning intently to understand. Lab is not to bad, except my TA Randi is psycho and would kick kids out of class left and right. If you want to take BSCI105 avoid Keller ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-24T13:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Dr. Keller recently changed the structures of his exams. They are directed towards a more application-based testing rather than rote memorization. He does not know how to write these types of questions. You will encounter very vague questions that can have multiple correct answers but his answer will take precedence, even though he doesn't ask for a best answer. Pray your TA is forgiving, but they mostly do not know what the man is doing. The lab and quizzes will help you a lot, but unless you're getting his style of questioning you will find yourself frustrated. Test averages for the last four exams were D's, including the final exam. He does not do +/- grading, which is nice unless you're close to the border where he will not be forgiving (0.7% curve). I recommend another teacher. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-20T14:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'I have no idea what the person below is talking about... Dr. Keller is such a nice guys and prepares you SO well for the tests. He never tries to trick you and is super generous when it comes to giving points back and giving you materials to study from. He gives you study guides online for every single chapter, and you just make sure you know everything on those study guides. Take the class seriously, it can be very difficult at times with the amount of studying required for tests. Make sure you read the chapters and take notes so you can later study from those notes. His exams are straight from his powerpoints and the book, so you have to read. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-03-06T00:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Keller is the absolute worst person. He is not responsive to student concerns and problems. In the lab report that you write for this class if you follow the instructions you where given to write essays by your high school english teachers you will get an XF. Using quotes and citing the lab manual is not ok. Having more than 3 words from the lab manual in a row will earn you an XF, even if its cited. Never ask for a regrade from this man. Avoid all interactions with him, if you do not want your semester to turn into misery.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2013-06-01T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': None, 'review': "Don't really need to read the book for his class, but it may help you if you don't understand something. He posts the lecture slides on elms and his tests are really easy if you study his power point slides. To do well, pay attention in his lectures because he tells you what is on the test and what is not on the test. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-05T18:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "obviously bsci105 isn't an easy class, but i think Keller really made the class easy enough that if you really worked for that A, you could get it. \n\r\nAs the class went on he made the tests easier than I think they were meant to be, which is really nice on his part, but kids will always complain. \n\r\nI'd definately recommend taking him", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-17T02:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Keller isn't the best professor around, but as long as you show up to class and study hard for exams, you should be fine. Take advantage of GSS and make sure to look over your exams because sometimes the TA's take off points for no reason", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-12-19T18:28:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Keller is an interesting professor. His exams aren't necessarily tough, but you definitely have to get used to the way he wants you to answer the question. For example, in his class, he does not want you to think that glucous is a product of photosynthesis. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-11-10T17:02:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "For an introductory biology course, this class really requires you to put in three times the effort. Dr. Keller is very tedious with his assignments and exams; your answers can never be too general even if they're right, so pay attention to every little word that man says during lectures or you're gonna lose points. I really feel like this course was designed to trick you, so be careful. Even some of the homework assignments and quizzes can be hard and require you to think twice about your answers. If you're able to pay attention to every little detail and remember every one of them for the exams, then you may be fine.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-11-12T00:14:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "I really hated this class. It put me through so much grief. The homework assignments are ridiculously hard. Dr. Keller looks for answers so specific to what he wants; if it is not worded to his exact specifications, it is wrong, even if it is scientifically technically correct. Some of the Wednesday activity sessions are pointless, only the question review sessions help. Both Keller and Shields get off topic very easily and cannot take control of their classes. The entire course was made so much harder than it needed to be. I'm sure a lot of the BS was because of Dr. Shields. Keller is really enthusiastic and I'm sure he's a nice person, but in terms of a professor that will help set you up for the future, you can do much better.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-09T15:43:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Doctor Keller is a nice guy however, his exams are quite difficult. He is very knowledgeable but if I had to do it all over again I wouldn't take his course or recommend it to anyone.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-12-18T18:07:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Personality wise- Dr. Keller is a great professor. He makes corny jokes sometimes. Very understanding if you need an extension or miss an assignment, just make sure you tell him in advance bc communication is key. His exams are not TOO hard but he does look for specific wording or details that he has gone over in class. This also goes for the HWs so you need to be careful bc i would get several points off for not being thorough. Topic wise, this class isn't hard if you put in effort or have background knowledge of biology. Dr. Shield's class was exactly the same as Dr. Keller's for spring 2020. All the hw, quizzes, tests etc", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-08-16T03:30:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Really cool teacher. His exams are okay if you study and understand concepts thouroughly. Reasonably difficult but most concepts in the test are in his lectures/study materials. Moderate workload/homeworks. (Virtual class)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-09T21:11:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Dr. Keller was a solid professor who did a good job teaching things in his lecture videos. There is quite a bit of material in the class, but as long as you take good notes from his videos and modules, you can easily do well on all of the quizzes, exams, and the final. We also never read from the textbook, since the videos included everything we would need to know for the class, so that was a plus.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-18T14:13:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Professor Keller is a nice guy, but his class is quite hard. Lectures can be very long but very informative and helpful. The weekly quizzes sometimes ask questions that are too specific to what was in the lecture, making it much harder. Exams have been pretty hard. He expects your answer to be exact to words he expects; if not, you get it wrong.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-18T23:16:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Great professor! Even with asynchronous classes, he clearly demonstrated what we needed to know for his tests.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-17T18:15:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Dr. Keller is a great professor!! He's an incredibly nice person and an understanding teacher. He's very considerate of students' time and other possible concerns (he was always flexible with due dates). More importantly, his teaching is very thorough yet straightforward. He always makes assignments and quizzes/exams on the concepts discussed/covered in class, so if you pay attention during lectures and take good notes you'll do very well in the class. I absolutely recommend his class!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-07T17:30:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "This class is very doable if you put in the work and study a couple of days before the exam. Making sure you understand the information presented in lecture and understanding the assignments is key for learning and doing well in the course. Keller is extremely nice and understanding as well, so taking the course with him is recommended. However, I will say sometimes I didn't enjoy his teaching style but overall it was still effective.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-22T18:14:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Dr. Keller is a great guy. He really cares about his students and is incredibly nice. I would say there is an average amount of work for a bio class. A fair amount of assignments can be completed reasonably late without penalty. The tests are fine for the most part as long as you study. Much of the studying is memorization, understanding the material is key. The good news is he has a lot of places to find that information such as powerpoints, modules, and extra videos. Sometimes his lecture style can be a little boring, but he very clearly communicates what is meant to be known for his tests. If you want to succeed in this class it is incredibly doable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-20T17:49:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Dr. Keller is such a great and funny professor. He teaches relevant information during lecture and wants to see all of his students succeed. He also gives out extra credit through clickers so definitely show up to class for a grade booster. Exams are fairly simple especially compared to the other professors. Study for the exams using his resources provided and you will succeed. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-05T01:39:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'GOAT', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-06T00:53:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Great professor. Heard a lot of bad things going into the class about him and I can't imagine how they came up with bad thoughts about him. Tests are super easy if you take notes in lecture and pay attention. Clicker points boost avg by about 3 percent if all completed. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-06T04:17:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'I strongly recommend taking Dr. Keller. I feel that he really cares for his students, and his tests are easier than high school exams. take advantage of gss meetings and make sure to study the modules, because they are quite literally the exams. He does not go into too much detail for anything and keeps things pretty simple. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-06T17:45:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Dr. Keller is a great professor. He wants all his students to do well and teaches information that you need in order to do good on the exams. The exams are straight from the lectures and by studying the content a little, you are guaranteed to get a good grade. He gives about 20 points extra credit through clickers and lots of opportunities other than exams to boost your grade. Definitely recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-07T22:45:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Pros\r\n- Dr. Keller is a decent lecturer, information is conveyed clearly through his own speaking and his slides\r\n- Lectures are relatively engaging, with light humor\r\n\r\nCons\r\n- Bad at communication (i.e. emails)\r\n- Highly passive-aggressive\r\n- As of the Fall 2021 semester, it is CLEAR that he does not care about the health and well-being of his students. Some context: there is currently a massive uptick in COVID-19 cases, and President Pines has mandated the wearing of KN95 masks (which will do little to negate the spread, considering how students must sit elbow-to-elbow for two hours for a single final exam). Dr. Keller has aggressively refused to move his final online despite other professors doing so.\r\n\r\nFor the last point alone, he nets a single star out of five. He is an actively immoral human being.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-17T01:57:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Dr. Keller isn't an awful professor, but its glaringly obvious he could not care less about any individual student. He constantly seems annoyed by students emailing him and makes people feel bad for asking questions about concepts he glazes over. Highly recommend taking Compton instead if you have the option.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-17T02:52:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Dr. Keller is a great professor to have for this class. The course load consists of worksheets, weekly quizzes, practice exam problems, four midterm exams, and a final. The amount of midterms can seem overwhelming, but Dr. Keller provides study guides that perfectly outline the material you need to know. GSS worksheets are also available to study from as well.\r\n\r\nI decided to give Dr. Keller a 4/5 rating due how he handled the current Omicron situation. Students were very concerned about sitting shoulder to shoulder with others while having to take this exam, and he was very passive aggressive in his remarks to those with concerns.\r\n\r\nOverall, the class is pretty straightforward, and he gives out a lot of extra credit! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-17T18:06:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'this class was pretty easy if you put in the work and study for the exams. the exams were really straightforward and easy. i recommend going to gss, reading the modules, and looking over the study guides he posts on elms because they were extremely helpful when studying for exams. dr. keller himself is nice and sometimes funny. lectures can be boring sometimes but you NEED to attend to get the extra credit clicker points! clickers rlly carried my grade. this would have been a 5 star review but it is 4 stars since he is pretty passive-aggressive. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-19T17:58:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'I am seeing all of these negative reviews and am taken aback. Dr. Keller is a great teacher and gives very easy and straightforward exams. (They are super similar to the gss worksheets so do those!). He is a very nice man and cares about making sure everyone is learning well. If you try to do well in this class and study, you will do well, it is that straightforward. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-20T07:14:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Dr. Keller is a great professor. He gets the class very engaged in the lecture and never just reads off the slides. He makes good analogies that better the understanding of the topics when he could tell some people can't understand. I would recommend never missing a lecture and always taking notes. If you just pay attention for every lecture the exams will be very easy and minimal studying will be required to do well. He gives out a ton of studying resources which are very similar to the exams. Beside his poor communication with the students and passive aggressive responses, he is an amazing professor. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T21:19:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Great professor, gives not much homework but when he does, it's pretty helpful and relevant to the upcoming test. His modules on ELMS are top notch, especially the study guides he posts before exams. Pretty nice overall and attend his classes for extra points! This can really help your grade ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-27T05:59:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Keller was an awesome professor. His lectures were were very clear and he followed a slide show which he showed on the projector and posted on ELMS. He was pretty funny too which helped make the class more engaging. The coursework is pretty light with some worksheets every couple weeks and easy online quizzes. Tests were pretty easy and tested you on exactly what he said in lecture and put in the notes on ELMS. He also had clicker questions in class that were free bonus points for participation. It's an easy class if you pay attention in class and are actually interested in the material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-11T23:11:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'He is an amazing teacher who really knows his stuff. As long as you listen in class you should be fine. The tests are very fair but the weekly quizzes are a bit tricky. Overall, I had an amazing experience taking Dr. Keller.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-24T23:47:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Dr. Keller is an amazing professor who has open discussion boards for specific questions (where he personally responds to you), detailed slides that he shows during the lecture and posted on ELMS, and records his lectures. He speaks loud and clear for the entire room to hear and he cares about all of his students. It is worth an early time slot and/or a Friday class in order to have Dr. Keller. I have not heard anything good about other BSCI170 teachers and would even wait until Dr. Keller's class is open to take BSCI170. Amazing teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-23T15:51:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Keller is one of my favorite professors at UMD thus far based on his teaching. I always felt engaged and understanding with the content. His exams get progressively harder just study and go to the GSS if possible and you should do fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-13T02:11:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': None, 'review': 'The best professor. He makes class so enjoyable and engaging. He gives extra credit and drops some assignments to help your grade. His tests are very fair, and you will do well as long as you study his material posted on ELMS. I would highly recommend Dr. Keller, he is amazing!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-22T15:17:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "great class. lectures are super engaging and makes really good examples to relate content to stuff you know. I'd say tests are pretty fair he gives weekly quizzes and practice exam questions that really help out. Sometimes he does talk a little fast and goes over complicated concepts like they're nothing so I recommend watching a quick crash course video before his lecture to kind of get a better sense of what he's referring to. he also gives lots of clicker question credit and posts all his slides", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-12T00:41:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'I thought Dr. Keller was a pretty good teacher, but he definitely could have done a better job explaining some concepts. He does have amazing recourses to learn and understand everything, and a lot of extra credit from clickers. As long as you show up to class and study from his modules, you will do well', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-13T01:00:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Dr. Keller teaches off of slides every class, but he manages make it not a monotone lecture. He also creates modules for every lesson which I strongly encourage looking over. The information he provides in the modules is not overwhelming, and definitely helps build a clearer picture. His test are pretty straight forward as long as you listen to what he says during lecture. He is also a fair grader, and puts in the effort to explain concepts during office hours. You will honestly be fine. (And just to be clear, I expected a B- in this course; however, I received an A-. And in the beginning, I thought it would be hard too).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-08-25T04:49:53.619259Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'great professor overall', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-06T15:21:44.166775Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Dr. Keller is an alright professor if you're looking to learn biology. He teaches from the slides and doesn't really give much insight past that so attending lecture isn't that big of a deal. The exams are not what you'd expect either. The lectures teach the material to you in an elementary fashion, but the exams are much more than that. If you're looking to pass the class with a decent grade you'll have to do a lot of outside studying on the basic material.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-09T16:29:32.638149Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'I really like Keller. He simplifies as much as possible and will do visual demonstrations that are helpful. He also supplies lots of resources that are in easy access on canvas. You don’t need a textbook for his class. Exams are pretty easy but you do not get practice exams. Great class and professor overall.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-09T17:26:34.342157Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "He's a goat; his class is not easy, so don't think it is, but if you work hard, you can get an A, He's a lot of fun, and I plan to TA for the class, I need a 69% on the final to get an A and a 75 for an A+. Keller is fair and gives back many points if you ask I remember I got an exam regraded from 81 to a 90 if you can prove you are right, he will not trip. He gives really good study guides he's really fair he's so good. If u want to learn, take Keller. If u want an easy A, then look at fletcher (Idk if that's how you spell his name lol), But his class is just easy it will not help you if you have more Bio to take. All this to say, go take Keller he's good he really cares about his kids. gives extra credit, and always had a smile when class started. I wish he taught more bio I would keep taking his classes", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-14T22:48:52.785187Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'his exams are fairly easy. Just study his modules.. His slides contain nothing so you have to take notes as he lecture. There are quizzes and worksheets every week but he drops many stuffs. Extra credits from clickers', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T22:05:48.228108Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "I liked Keller's style of lecturing. Unlike the other review, I thought that his slides did contain a lot of information that was relevant for notes, but definitely pay attention to what he says because he gives a lot of little hints about stuff that will be on quizzes or that will be important for you to know. His clicker questions end up being quiz questions too, so write those down. I ended with an A in the class, didn't really study much for the exams because GSS was so helpful in their reviews. There wasn't a final GSS session, but you can go back and redo the old GSS worksheets to review. I got a 97% on the final by doing that.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T14:31:04.080975Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Dr. Keller is a pretty good professor. His style of lecturing is easy to understand and follow along with. He makes it very easy to review and study for the exams. His clicker questions test you on stuff that will be on the exam. He uploads his slides and other very helpful resources on canvas that I would definitely recommend studying.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-11T22:18:34.334584Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Keller', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Dr. Keller was great. He projected so everyone could hear him. He was lively during his lectures, which made them easier for me to concentrate on. He's also very approachable and nice, so don't be afraid to ask him questions. His exams are also not bad, if you study the material and go through the modules. I really don't have a single complaint about this professor, he was amazing. 10/10 would recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-02-09T18:59:30.464932Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Keller', 'slug': 'keller'}, {'courses': ['LING429', 'LING320', 'LING322'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Key', 'slug': 'key_michael'}, {'courses': ['BUSI610', 'BUAC758R', 'BMGT818Y', 'BUSI611', 'BUSM616', 'BMGT818B', 'BMGT818M', 'BUAC737', 'BMGT818R', 'BMGT818R', 'BMGT818R', 'BMGT818R', 'BMGT818R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Kimbrough', 'slug': 'kimbrough'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL222', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL132', 'ENGL344', 'ENGL313', 'ENGL379Q', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': 4.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Kolakoski', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'He was a pretty good professor. He made his expectations clear and was always available to his students. Make sure to go to lectures regularly because he does give pop quizzes on the readings. Also, make it a point to go to the writing center. He can see which students have gone and he takes that into consideration when grading assignments sometimes! Overall, great professor and pretty funny!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-06-14T18:35:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Kolakoski', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Mike's a great professor. He is very clear about his expectations for each essay, and he gives very detailed outlines/examples of what he wants to see in the assignments. Make sure you attend lecture regularly to catch his notes and helpful tips when writing essays.\r\n\r\nMAKE SURE YOU GO TO OFFICE HOURS FOR EVERY LITTLE QUESTION. I cannot stress this enough. Mike cares a lot about the effort students put in. You can be an amazing writer, and the kid next to you might be an average writer, but if Mike sees the other kid put more work in, regularly attend lecture, go to office hours, etc, then that kid will get the higher grade. Mike is very friendly and gives great feedback at office hours and it is your one-on-one time to really improve your essay.\r\n\r\nWith that being said, he is a hard grader, but if you put the work in and actively engage yourself in class as much as possible, you will be successful! Mike may seem intimidating at first, but don't let that scare you.\r\n\r\nSide note for all professors of ENGL101: if you go to the writing center for help, they will email your professor letting them know you can came in. This is a great way to show your professor that you are putting in solid effort outside of class for a big assignment. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-09T09:39:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Kolakoski', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Very good teacher. His expectations are clear, he responded to emails quickly even when having a baby, and his feedback is very helpful. He definitely helped me improve my writing skills. Also I was scared that he would be a tough grader, but he really wasn't?", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-13T02:45:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Kolakoski', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': "I'm not sure how he is in-person but I felt like I didn't learn much from his class online. However, this may just be the strict ENGL 101 curriculum and not his fault. There are a lot of busy work participation assignments and then a few major writing assignments which make up the majority of your grade. He is an extremely generous grader so long as you follow his assignment sheet closely and pay attention to the rubric. He is very lenient on due dates and offered extensions to anyone who needed it on almost every major assignment. Unfortunately, he's a bit of a slow grader and it'll take a few weeks for you to receive your grades on the first few major assignments. \r\n\r\nOverall, not the best teacher in my opinion but a really nice guy who cares about his students. If you put in even a bit of effort, you'll do fine in his class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-26T22:42:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Kolakoski', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'Great professor, told you exactly what he expected on all assignments and although the curriculum restricts him, he does a great job keeping students engaged.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-25T17:35:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Kolakoski', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Okay, I don't really understand where all these stellar reviews for Kolakoski are coming from. I took several classes that were 400-level or supposedly much more difficult, but Kolakoski's ENGL101 assigned more work than all of them combined. The sheer amount of work he assigned was plain unreasonable - there was something due almost every single day. Sure, he's lenient with deadlines and grades on effort for most of the assignments, but the overall quantity of assignments began to feel like a backlog eventually. He's a pretty harsh grader on the major writing assignments too, of which there are about four or five during the semester.\r\nAvoid Kolakoski, take a different professor that won't assign more work than all of your other classes combined.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T23:19:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Kolakoski', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': "In my opinion, he is a great option, since he's very accommodating and lenient on deadlines and clear what he expects from assignments. He gives a lot of options before the final deadlines to get help on assignments and get peer review and his review. To me, it wasn't a ton of work, but there are 4-5 major assignments between 5-10 pages each during the semester, so can see how it would be a lot of work for some people. I didn't think he was a super harsh grader, as long as you follow the rubric.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T20:50:22.716069Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Kolakoski', 'slug': 'kolakoski'}, {'courses': ['MATH712', 'MATH713', 'MATH818C', 'MATH446', 'STAT410', 'MATH410', 'MATH241', 'MATH718M', 'MATH241H', 'MATH405', 'MATH712', 'MATH405', 'MATH446', 'MATH712', 'MATH818E'], 'average_rating': 4.2222, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Laskowski', 'course': 'MATH712', 'review': 'Extremely friendly professor, always smiling and enthusiastic about the subject matter. Flexible office hours. Reasonable homework load. Both exams were take-home, and were fairly straightforward. Homework and exam problems often involved results that would prove important in later lectures, which was nice. \n\r\nHe has a fairly idiosyncratic lecturing style, but I enjoyed it. Proofs are done in full rigor, but he often pauses to summarize what\'s going on in informal "slang," which is for the most part very helpful though occasionally his choice of terms is a bit perplexing. He gives a lot of context and motivation for the material, which is very nice.\n\r\nThe only gripe I have (and it\'s a minor one) is that his constructions for a few of the major results were quite different than those given in most reference materials. I do find his approach rather more appealing than what appears to be the "standard," but this was a bit problematic at times.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-27T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Laskowski', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "good prof. I would have had an A if i went to more lec and stayed up with the book. The material is not very interesting and sometimes confusing but his tests are fair and the quizzes and MATLAB's really help pull ur grade up in the class. He is one of the better prof in the MATH department. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-21T17:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Laskowski', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Really a great professor.. def knows how to teach... really awesome lecture... has a diff way of teaching tho :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-19T09:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Laskowski', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "I did not appreciate the way that he just made up random terms, and used very strange definitions of theories. He did not just dumb down the calculus concepts; it seemed as though he dumbed down the english language as well. Lecture was especially painful to sit through, but the tests were not too bad. Five tests (plus final), five matlabs (one is a freebie) and quizzes are left up to the TA, so it was not a very difficult class.\n\r\nHe seems very nice, and always (somewhat overly) excited to teach. Unfortunately, I just did not like him as a teacher. Sure, it's a dull subject. But I would rather learn the material than spend a semester talking in fake terms.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-02T21:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Laskowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': 'A very clear and insightful teacher. Three tests and and exam, plus weekly quizzes in discussion. I would recommend him to anyone who needs to take a math course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-11-14T02:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Laskowski', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Very good professor. Clear in his explanations, and he really seemed to enjoy teaching the material. The subject matter is dry so there's only so much he can do, but he tried. Fair tests and grading.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-10-31T22:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Laskowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': 'Good lecturer (as far as math lecturers go), but he really does care that you understand the material, and will go out of his way to respond to your questions. \r\nI had to miss his final exam, and he was an absolute dear in accomodating me. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-21T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Laskowski', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Knows his material, entertaining lectures, typical MATH241 exams. Best of the bunch, I'd say.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:07:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Laskowski', 'course': 'MATH446', 'review': 'Excellent lecturer. Proofs were always formal and rarely handwaved (and when they were, we were warned ahead of time). This comes down to personal preference, but I quite liked his proof style and often only made minor wording changes when copying down proofs into my own notes.\r\n\r\nHe knows his stuff by heart too. Only had to look at his notes while lecturing a handful of times over the course of the entire semester, and always had an insightful answer, counterexample, or proof ready for questions or when going over homework problems.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-30T22:58:57Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Laskowski', 'slug': 'laskowski'}, {'courses': ['SLAA750', 'SLAA888R', 'SLAA749C', 'SLAA610', 'SLAA754', 'SLAA410', 'SLAA649R', 'LING499G', 'UNIV102', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'SLAA749D', 'SLAA759I'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Long', 'course': 'SLAA410', 'review': "He passed away recently, so this won't help anyone. But I want to leave this here since he was my favorite professor of all time. He was one of the smartest people I've ever met, and an extremely influential figure in his field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). He opened my mind on the topic in many ways and made me love it. I could have listened to his lectures for hours. Great man.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-26T00:12:24Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Long', 'slug': 'long_michael'}, {'courses': ['BSCI447', 'BSCI420', 'BSCI421', 'CPSP219L', 'BIOL620', 'ENTM788C'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Ma', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "His exams are impossible. Well that's not true, there are plenty of people who get As. But the material seems easy, but when you get to the exam, you'll realize you're not the approaching the material correctly. Just remember to always go to class and take notes on everything that comes out of his mouth. The things he says are what he's going to test you on.\n\r\nAnd he's a bit of a hardass, but he's hilarious, and he's fair.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-21T15:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ma', 'course': 'BSCI421', 'review': "The Bad: Dr. Ma is not very knowledgeable about Cell Biology. Prior to this semester, he had not taught the course in over 20 years. He frequently gave us the wrong information, or got confused in the middle of giving the lecture about what the subject he was talking about. He did not do a very good job of answering questions that the students had about course material. He was pretty ambiguous when it came to defining what is a B and a C in the class. He's pretty clear that the only A's will be those who get above a 90% which is virtually impossible because his exams are hard as hell and require an extreme amount of detail in a very short amount of time. For the final exam there were quite a few subjects he said we wouldn't have to know that were on the Final.\n\r\nThe Good: Dr. Ma has a great personality. He is absolutely hilarious (he made the class laugh out loud on more than a few occasions) and he really does try to help students IF YOU GO TO HIS OFFICE HOURS. He tries to make the lecture material fun by incorporating jokes and real-life examples. He pics on people in the class for humor (this is good if he's not picking on you. lol). He will pass all of the exams back in class and call out the names of people who got A's so that they can be acknowledged (sort of like an impromptu awards ceremony) He'll tell you to double check everything he says with what is in the book and GET A STUDY GROUP and to review the lectures everyday. He comes off has a hard ass, but if you meet with him and he gets to know you he's actually really nice and a great source of advice for like life and career choices.\n\r\nThe only way I got a B- in this class is because I had a study group that met weekly AND I recorded and transcribed his lectures word for word. Cell Bio isn't my thing but I found Dr. Ma's exams to tricky, his true/false and matching sections are worth 6-8 points per question and each one is only one word off. This is extremely hard because of the magnitude of information we must memorize coupled with the fact that he often gives us inaccurate information and stumbles through many lectures.\n\r\nAlso if you want an A in the class the lab will not help your grade. The lab did help my grade be a 'B'\n\r\nI would recommend this class if you've taken the senior level biochemistry and genetics courses already and if you are a good notetaker. If not don't take this class. Spare yourself the stress and take something else.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-12-28T20:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ma', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "Dr. Ma is a pretty funny guy. He had us laughing to tears a few times. \r\nThe trick to earning an A in his class is to be a damn good note taker. I actually recorded his lectures so that I could get everything down. His exams are all straight from lecture. I didn't even buy the book. He is somewhat of a hard ass so don't even bother trying to bullsh*t him because he'll see right through it. He likes his questions answered in a very specific way, usually exactly how he words it in lecture which is why it's a good idea to record the lectures. His exams will have a question from EVERY single lecture. At least one question each. So if you miss a day it would be wise to get a recording from someone else or their lecture notes. DON'T wait until the day before an exam to catch up. It's WAY too much material and you won't do well. \r\nThis isn't an easy class. It's more work than you think and you can't wait until a few days before the exam to start studying. \r\nIf his exam scores are somewhat low he'll start offering extra credit. On our second exam he offered 10 extra credit points which helped a lot. His exam questions are very tricky so read very carefully. He also tried to trick us with a long T/F section where all but 2 of them were false. You really have to know your stuff to get those T/F questions. \r\nWhat I really liked about his class is that he makes some references to the MCAT and what to expect. That was very helpful. \r\nI did notice that he does tend to pick favorites in the class based on the scores of the first exam. With that being said, don't even bother asking for a letter of recommendation unless you have an A in his class. \r\nThe one thing I didn't like is that he doesn't make himself available outside of class. If you have questions you have to ask the TA. He doesn't hold office hours. \r\nHe's a great teacher and he's very straight forward with what he expects from you. Take him seriously and don't screw around. He can pick out exactly what kind of student you are very quickly. He even has enough nerve to pick on you in front of the class. Make sure you have thick skin because he'll get you. When he hands back your exams he does it in order of top score to bottom score so basically everyone knows where you rank.\r\nI really enjoyed this subject. It was very interesting and Dr. Ma has some great stories to tell. \n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-16T15:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ma', 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': " Dr. Ma is by far one of the most engaging professors I have had. Whatever he writes and says in class is what is on the exam. Do not bother reading the textbook. Although pay attention to the handouts that are given out b/c some of the stuff Dr. Ma says in class might be inaccurate. \r\n He is not very helpful outside of class. He is also very judgemental. He can say offensive things and cites his old age for his ossified viewpoints. \r\n He gave out alot of extra credit this semester. So getting a good grade is possible. Just go to lecture and you will be fine. \r\n His exams are different than those I have had in the past. For example, he likes to screw with ppl's minds and so he will have 20 T/F and will make them all false except the last one. So pay attention to the wording. On the free response portion, there is no need to write alot, JUST answer the question, Usually 2 sentences at most. Alot of ppl do not finish b/c they write too much. Trust me, he had students grade the exams, and I was one of them, we only look for a couple of words in those portions to see if the person gets the full marks or not. Another point: if he emphasizes a word, use it in the answer! He has a guest lecturer come and teach you. And you get quizzed on them. Pay attention! \r\n The grading was interesing. 20% coems from quizzes; 35% mid-term; 45% from final exam. You have to do well on all of them or else you are screwed!\r\n He is a very interesting man and created the course so he knows what he is doing!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-27T13:12:00Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Ma', 'slug': 'ma_michael'}, {'courses': ['ENME489V', 'ENME489V', 'ENME489V'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Mack', 'course': 'ENME489V', 'review': "Mr. Mack is a nice guy, an older, retired guy with years of experience in the mechanical contracting industry. Every week is a guest lecture and the following class is a quiz about the lecture content. The slides are posted, but sometimes the quiz questions don't match what was covered in the guest speaker's lecture. Mr. Mack isn't the most tech-savvy, so it's a bit of a challenge to talk to him about issues on elms or anything. This course has a group project element, but it's okay if you have a bad group, as Mr. Mack requires a peer evaluation form. The only annoying aspect of this course is how they don't post rubrics or questions to answer for assignments, but he will go over it in class or if you ask over email.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-25T17:46:37.454745Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Mack', 'slug': 'mack_michael'}, {'courses': ['HONR229X', 'LBSC680', 'ASTR601', 'ASTR695', 'HONR218D', 'ASTR120', 'ASTR688B', 'ASTR121', 'ASTR688S', 'ASTR288A', 'ASTR688C', 'ASTR350', 'ASTR680', 'ASTR695', 'ASTR406', 'ASTR399', 'ASTR680', 'ASTR601'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Miller', 'course': 'ASTR120', 'review': "He's a fantastic professor for anyone who is genuinely interested in the subject and wants to learn more, and he's super engaged in making sure everyone understands the material (including designating time to answer student questions every lecture). He is very smart but it's not daunting once you get used to him and relax a little bit. Definitely glad I had him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-18T04:31:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Miller', 'course': 'ASTR350', 'review': 'Don\'t let testudo fool you by saying "for Non-astronomy majors". Yes, some basic concepts are explained that likely wouldn\'t be explained in an astro course for astro majors, but there\'s a ton of math and hard-to-conceptualize topics that require a solid amount of studying. Don\'t take this course simply because you think black holes are cool. This course is difficult. The homeworks are difficult but the exams are actually pretty fair. The only problem is, the homework problems are way more complex than what\'s on the exams and the lectures are SO dense it\'s nearly impossible to adequately prepare for exams. Oh, and there\'s a paper you\'re gonna need to write on top of a final exam. \r\n\r\nProfessor Miller is among the nicest professors you\'ll meet. He\'s genuinely excited about astronomy, is happy to answer questions, and has very entertaining lecture demonstrations (he can do magic!). My only issue is, he knows so much about this topic he often forgets he\'s teaching non-astro majors and doesn\'t explain things too well and leaves us to figure things out ourselves. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-03-28T23:57:00Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Miller', 'slug': 'miller_michael'}, {'courses': ['CHEM241', 'CHEM395', 'CHEM231', 'CPSP218L', 'CHEM399X', 'CHEM399B', 'CHEM399C', 'BCHM464', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM399X', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM399X', 'CHEM399X'], 'average_rating': 4.2857, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I had to drop the course, what does this mean? nothing but, I just couldn't learn with him. \n\r\n The other reviews say he is funny, yes. He has lots of Dad jokes. \n\r\n Energetic, yes, he is certainly passionate and very smart in the subject.\n\r\n Good teacher? To each his own. he was not for me, I did try and I had to drop after the second exam. He is straightforward on his exam, they are long but I thought they were difficult. Not unfair but difficult. He told the class if you do not have X amount of points by now on the exams, drop the class. So I did. I now have to take it over the summer. I do not resent Dr. MS or anything like that. Just be aware that his lectures are fast, there is a lot of material in REALLY BAD handwriting. Do not close your eyes for even a second. I wish I took a different professor but, he is not bad, he is not scary but he is intimidating. I felt like I could not go to office hours without being judged, so I did not go. Other Chem prof have open office hours which are extremely helpful. He is not personable which is a shame, he does not want to make friends with his students and that's fine but, it's not my style. Be prepared to work and practice, he is not going to hold your hand. He dies not help out by giving you practice problems or anything like that and of course no answer keys to his old exams. The old exams are truly the only way to study and without an answer key I find them very difficult even when studying with others. \n\r\nThe bottom line is this, take this prof if you know you work hard because those who do not will not take him. If you are below average on exams, drop the class because people will only get smarter as the class goes on and odds are you are already behind. The exams are long but they are fair. they are complex reaction problems that warrants basically no partial credit. The NMR on the first exam was so easy but the second exam impossible, if I had gotten those right I would have stayed in the class. Just an honest opinion her, great guy, ok teacher but the fact of the matter is he does not care about his students, he does not care how you feel about him and he does not care if you fail or succeed. He would rater see you leave than fail and he tells you that. So listen to him. I thought I could get a C in his class and chalk it up as I did ok but, honestly I did not have a chance.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-04-05T18:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I had MS for CHEM231 and CHEM241, so this review is for both. Love him. I would take an orgo III with him if I could.\n\r\nPros:\n\r\n- Straightforward exams\r\n- Lecture style (easy to follow)\r\n- Generally humorous\r\n- Very predictable\r\n- Clicker questions to boost your grade (for attendance, not correctness)\r\n- Practice exams from the chem frat are very similar to his current exams\r\n- HUGE curve\n\r\nCons:\n\r\n- Terrible handwriting (you'll get over it)\r\n- No matter who you take, orgo is based solely on your ability to rote memorize so try not to suck at it\n\r\nMS's best feature is his predictability. I'll give you the full story on how your experience in his class is going to go: You sign up for the class. You get a mass email from him welcoming you to CHEM2X1 (which he reuses every year, and just changes a few numbers). First day of class, he attempts to butter you up so that you either think you've scored the golden professor by the end of it, or you hate him because you like more serious professors. Second day of class and onward, you'll have 1-3 clicker questions (you don't have to get it right, they're attendance points). You'll be astounded by how bad his handwriting is, but quickly get over it. The difference between whether you like MS or not lies in how much you like his lecture style.\n\r\nMS keeps his energy up, whether it's 9 AM or 2 PM. He tells personal life stories to make you laugh (predictably, he reuses those too). It won't seem like it, but he's actually a very straightforward lecturer, especially in 241 - he literally just gives you the reactions and mechanisms you need to know, in addition to clear-cut reasons why they run the way they do. He had what I considered to be a fairly organized and simple system, which is why studying for exams wasn't too bad (by the time an exam rolls around and you start studying, you see the method to his madness). He also makes sure to emphasize nuances that appear on the test (like acetals don't react in base).\n\r\nYour grade consists of 1 quiz (multiple choice test on either gen chem I material or CHEM231 material, depending on which class you're in), 3 exams, 1 final, and clickers.\n\r\nThe format of exams is generally always the same. For CHEM231, there's some funky stuff (chair conformation, Newman projection, etc.), some reactions, a mechanism or 2, and multiple choice. For CHEM241, he gets even more predictable: 3-4 pages of reactions, 1-2 mechanisms, 1-2 synthesis, 1-2 NMR. He sends out a list on what you'll be tested on, so there's no surprises. As long as you know every reaction he ever gave and all the mechanisms on the list, you should be fine. He even picks from a set stock of NMRs. There's no surprises/tricks on his exams.\n\r\nThe curve is massive as well, like 20-25% (although he'll maintain that it's around 15-20%, don't be fooled). Top 25% of the class gets an A/A-.\n\r\nAlso I went to his office hours a couple of times, he was quite nice to me so I don't know why other people had bad experiences but let's be real, it doesn't even matter. He always gets the best TAs (Liz or David) so you can ask them questions instead anyway.\n\r\nThis review is getting too long, but save yourself the trouble of taking Dixon or any other teacher and just take him, you'll live. He makes orgo super doable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-07-02T03:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "You have to take Orgo 2 with MS. He's funny, always tells interesting stories when he was in grad school, and has molecule of the day section that relates orgo to our everyday lives. \r\nHis tests are very hard and the avg is usually in the high 50's but they're very straight forward. Its just all reactions. Everyone knows whats a going to be on his test. Its just a matter of knowing how to do it. \r\nDefinitely take MS for orgo 2, i guarantee you won't regret it. Theres a reason his sections always fill up fastest", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-05-19T17:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Here's the low-down on 241 with Montag. He's hilarious and extremely entertaining, even at 8AM in the morning.\n\r\nHe gives you the reactions straight up, and only what he gives you is on the exam. Plus, if you pay attention in class he often emphasizes what he will and will not put on exams (very helpful).\n\r\nYou do not need to use your book (looked at it only when I missed lecture). His TA Liz is the bomb dot com. She helps with labs if you ask for it, explains things very well, is merciful, and responds to all inquiries, e-mailed, in class, or in person.\n\r\nClickers are 100 points...\n\r\nThe final is a joke and a half (for an orgo exam).\n\r\nDon't worry about the grading distribution...he said an 85 was an A- but I ended with an 82 and got an A. If you get a 60 I'm pretty sure that'll still be a B-. THE CURVE IS HUGE PEOPLE. You will be okay. I recommend him.\n\r\nOnly problem is his chicken scratch handwriting. I'd write things down in my notebook wrong all the time. Just check with friends and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-06-06T10:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Teaching ability: I had him for organic 2 which, as everyone knows, is not an easy class to teach. I ended up getting a B. I felt he was easy to follow, and provided clear explanations as far as reaction mechanisms and such. However, he rarely provides a comprehensive view of how all of the reactions relate in the grand scheme. You could say he paints the trees rather than the woods. I think it's unlikely you will get a B or higher in this class if you don't attend GSS (a weekly meeting where a previous student provides practice problems and clarifications)\n\r\nTesting: Tests are extremely long and difficult, so time management is key! Do not underestimate this. His tests strictly adhere the material covered in class. If the book has a section that he just glossed over, then it's not going to play a huge role in the exam.\n\r\nPersonality: In one word, BIPOLAR. I have emailed him questions before and he was very rude in reply. Seriously talks to you like you are a piece of crap. Really really awful. He also was my advisor for some time, and was extremely hot and cold. The majority of time, he is so personable in class, but is randomly very grumpy. I also find him to be a little arrogant. I started out loving him, but over time his true colors have emerged. \n\r\nA note about Organic Chemistry 2: This subject has some inherent properties that can't be blamed on the instructor. For example, the heavy reliance on memorizing, the almost impossible to master infinite number of details, etc etc. Please know what you're getting into before you take this class. It is not easy for some people. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-01T16:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'He is a very good professor and makes the material relatable to real life. He always started class with a molecule/substance that we use in everyday life that also relates to what we are leaning that day. He doesn\'t expect you to memorize the 240 or so reactions that you will know by the end of the semester.. rather he actually teaches you the chemistry behind everything. I am in higher level chem classes right now and i still look back at his old notes. \n\r\nOverall he is an amazing teacher... one of the best on campus. I try to convince all my friends to take his class because it is truly worth it. \n\r\n* his class also goes hand in hand with the laboratory. you learn the same things at the same time.. unlike alot of other orgo II teachers. \n\r\nHis exams are hard but fair. He will never put anything on an exam that he has not gone over in class. His final is also very VERY fair. I would recommend buying the "orgo II as a second language" book because it goes hand in hand with his class (better than the actual text book)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-06T00:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I dropped out middle of the semester. Before I continue, I just want to clarify that I am not bitter about the professor, just on his teaching style. Of course there are a lot of things I personally could have improved on to do better but I really believe the major influence of me dropping was Smith's teaching style. As another reviewer pointed out, Smith is shockingly childish but very enthusiastic about subject material. He went on unnecessary tangents or stories from his personal life that really took focus away from what we were learning at the time even though the stories were slightly related to the material. His illustrations are awful and there were many instances where students had to butt in and tell him they can't read what he is writing. I also found that his extremely high level of energy was ironically distracting. \n\r\nI also suggest you do not take this class at the 1 hour and 15 minute slots. At least for me, the amount of information given in that span of time is overwhelming and it is unbearable once 45 minutes goes by and the only thing you think about is when the class if finally over. Grades were curved and averages fell at the F/D/ or C cutoff for the exams. \n\r\nAt the same time, there were many students who did well, like a student who got a 100% raw on one of the exams so don't be discouraged if you are a stellar student. For me, his teaching style didn't really mesh, As a result, I had little motivation for studying and fell back on material (which as anyone in Orgo can tell you is the point of no return on catching up on material), forcing me to drop out. Again, I could have taken initiative and done better, but I don't think I would ever do well or get an A in a Montague classroom. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-02-02T14:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "This guy is very funny and a very good professor. By the end of the semester he had practically trained the whole class to boo and cheer on command. I didn't look at the book once during the semester and still did well. He has difficult exams but he will never put something on an exam he didn't cover before. His spectroscopy questions for the exam are usually much simpler than the ones you'll see in CHEM242. He wont give partial credit for some problems unless you clearly show your thought process. Also, as a side note you can get a synthesis entirely incorrect on the exam but still have it be correct. If you did it in a way that was not on the answer key you can still get full credit if you just explain your way to the professor. Your synthesis must be functionally correct though to receive credit.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-07T18:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Overall he's a very good professor, has a good sense of humor, practice tests are very similar to current tests, and overall approachable. However it's pretty difficult to get an A in his class, but that can be said about all organic 2 classes. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-20T15:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Dr. M-S is a great prof. He's funny, very nice and helpful in office hours, and does not have unrealistic expectations of his students as some other orgo profs do. My only criticism of him is that he does not give much partial credit. AT ALL. You have to have things pretty much close to perfect on his exams to get points. I highly recommend you copy his old exams - they are more helpful than the textbook.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-28T15:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I love Dr. MS!!! He's the first entertaining chemistry professor I've ever had, and he teaches well. Every lecture we were all interested, even though it was at 8:00 in the morning. I feel like I'm actually learning chemistry this time around. (I dropped Khachick's class last semester because although I though I learned the material, the exam had nothing to do with what we covered in class). If you have the opportunity, definitely take Montague-Smith. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-02-23T17:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': '2 words The Man... Funny as hell... still orgo tho so u gotta put a lot of work into the class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-14T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Montague is engaging and funny, but he did not seem to be particularly fond of teaching freshman. I learned almost nothing in lecture, and did all of my learning from the book. His lectures were really not helpful, and he got off on many tangents. That said, though, his tests were pretty straightforward - if you do practice problems in the book you'll be more than prepared. Towards the end of the semester, he started showing us some interesting molecules at the beginning of class which made the class more interesting. He makes a lot of awkward sexual chemistry jokes, which I guess requires a degree of talent, but if that kind of stuff doesnt offend you you should be fine. Given that he didnt require us to memorize a lot, or force through the end of the book because we didnt have time, he might be one of the better professors for CHEM135. But, be warned, do not let the simplicity of his lectures fool you - many calculations that he does not even mention in lecture, but are in the book, show up on the test.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-22T15:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "If you've taken AP Chem, this class is too easy with MS. Like the others said, hardly any memorization is needed. Skim through the chapters, make sure you can do the Mastering Chem hw, and you're good to go. Lectures become a waste of time (I just gave my clicker to my friends), and I never went to discussion/GSS. The final was 1/3 directly copied and pasted, and he gave us the titration problem beforehand. If you haven't had any chemistry for awhile, you're in trouble. Be prepared to teach yourself and study like crazyy!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T23:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. M-S is super fair. His tests were exactly what we were prepared for: he very rarely had trick questions, and he tested the same concepts that he talked about in lecture. His jokes can be a little awkward at times, but he makes up for it by not expecting us to memorize any useless information.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "One of the better professors for Chem135. He doesn't require his students to memorize much; if it is found in a table in the book somewhere, chances are it will be given to you on the test. The tests are pretty straightforward, and you will do well if you study. A lot of my friends had other professors, and their tests were much harder, plus they were required to memorize a lot that I wasn't required to.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-06T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Pretty good professor. He doesn't make you memorize as many things like polyatomic ions, constants, formulas etc., and his tests are easier than other professors. Clicker questions almost every class, MasteringChemistry HW every week (completion grade), and he curves. Only (possible) downside is that he goes off on tangents in class and tells stories, which is entertaining to some and a waste of time to others.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-02T14:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'As much as I dreaded Organic, Dr. M-S was a fantastic teacher. His teaching method seemed slightly erratic but it was ultimately effective for me. He sprinkled his lectures with hilarious stories which helped make him one of the best overall lecturers I have had to date.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-08-08T09:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'This guy is a real windbag. For starters, his lecture notes would serve better purpose as back-up toilet paper. They are basically random molecules or reactions that he pulls out of a hat all scrambled down onto a piece of paper - poorly with no apparenty logic or reason. This man killed any possible inherent interest in the chemical sciences I ever had. He is like this big goofy 57 year old clown who isnt funny at all. I consider myself a good student (90 transfer credits on a 3.8 GPA) and this guy blew my f*cking mind. He is a real self esteem killer - and his tests are unreasonable as he gives you no way of practicing for them. He gives out a piece of paper with "recommended problems" on it from the book, all of which I did and still felt remarkably unprepared for his tests. I got a B somehow, and I can sit here and honestly say that I know no more about orgo than I did when I walked in. He is the most disorganized moron of a teacher I have ever had the displeasure of having, and his ass needs to retire. I basically wanted to kick him in the fatch on a daily basis. If you have no other choice but to sign up for this guy then I\'d recommend setting CHEM231 aside for the time being and staring at your ass in the mirror for 50 minutes three times a week - you would learn just as much about orgo as coming to this jerks class. I feel as if I wasted my money and time, and I did put in an honestly diligent effort to learn the material. INFURIATING. \n\n\r\nPS - if you really want to piss him off tell him that chemists are people that flaked out on a physics degree (the only real scientist). ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-07-20T12:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "This guy was the reason for my only B. Haha actually, well I can take part for that. Montague-Smith is awesome. But his handwriting is bad and his lectures are all over the place. Discussion helps and so did GSS. You learn a lot from this class; my biggest advice is to study reactions and reagents. \r\nMontague-Smith doesn't lie about what is gonna be exams, but he is also not that specific. Don't get the wrong impression when he tells you that a lot of the final is copy and pasted questions from the previous exams. Though there are some, its not as much as I thought there would be. \r\nI would pick Montague-Smith though, he is the man", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-06-08T18:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'The Man.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-25T23:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I was initially not quite used to Dr. M-S's style of teaching, but in retrospect, I think he was an effective, straightforward teacher who was reasonable and most of all, very fun. His exams are challenging, yes, but definitely manageable with adequate studying. Also, he gives you a mechanism list to memorize. His test format is always the same, with 15-20 reactions, 1-2 mechanisms, 1-2 syntheses and 1-2 specs. He obviously knows a whole lot about orgo and biochem, and you can tell that he's really excited about this stuff. At the end of the semester he gives a very generous curve, with the high 70s being an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T20:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Professor Montague-Smith is a fantastic professor for a difficult class. He gives you 5 minute breaks during the one hour and 15 minute class, tells jokes and anecdotes to help you remember reactions, and explains mechanisms thoroughly. Also, if you take the time out to meet with him, if you improve throughout the semester you will get a good grade. His tests are difficult but as long as you review your notes, he tells you exactly what to study for the exams. My only complaint is that he writes his notes on the overhead projector and sometimes it is difficult to read what he writes. However, if you ask what he just wrote, he will attempt to correct it so it is easier to read.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-18T15:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "Great professor. Fun to attend lecture. I love his thing about including a break in this 1.25 hour long classes. Really helps. His exams are ok, not too bad. He tells you exactly what mechanism is going to be on it so you know what to study. Oh, also you may want to check his structures. He tends to get them wrong in little places because he's so excited about teaching it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T12:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "I really liked Dr. MS's style of teaching biochemistry, which is his actual specialty. He writes out notes on the overhead, so its easy to take notes with him throughout lecture. He was very clear as to which mechanisms would be tested and he often gave examples of test questions after finishing various topics. He added humor to what could otherwise be a dull topic. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-03T15:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': 'Dr. M-S is a really cool, funny, and an easily approachable professor. His lectures were very clear and he always writes everything he says up on the overhead projector so it should be very easy to copy notes in his class. However, he does say some important stuff (what will be on the next exam or on the final, what you HAVE to know, and any other side information) that he does not write on the overhead. I highly recommend him for ANY chemistry course, whether it may be General Chemistry I (CHEM131), Organic Chemistry I or II (CHEM231, CHEM241), General Chemistry II (CHEM271), or Biochemistry I (BCHM461). You will not regret it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-12-26T01:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Taught Orgo I really well. Really funny and makes the class enjoyable. His tests are hard but doable. He gave a really generous curve at the end. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-12-29T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "He's an excellent Orgo teacher; I've heard otherwise for his CHEM 2 class. Anyway, he's engaging, interesting, and knows his stuff. His tests are somewhat difficult, but not unnecessarily hard. It is a difficult class, but that's the nature of the class. He really pushes you, so be ready to work if you're taking the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-15T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'He is my favorite professor ever!!! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-03-22T18:37:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "He's my favorite! \r\nPros: Lectures are structured and include a break in the middle, expectations/exams are straightforward, and he's passionate and so delightful.\r\nCons: You'll get used to his handwriting it's not that bad; some say he's intimidating but it's not his fault he's super tall. \r\nVerdict: Take him you will love him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-04-02T22:59:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Fantastic orgo professor. My favorite teacher at the university yet. Love this guy. Hilarious, and tells everything that you need to know about what you’ll be tested on. he doesn’t keep you in the dark and he is very transparent about what he expects from you, which I appreciated. He tells stories before and during class, with a molecule of the day in the beginning. He’s got some great stories. The man is one of the most interesting guys out there. You have to work hard of course, but I believe that anyone can succeed in MS’s class if you put the time in. that’s the key to orgo 2: time. If you’re not willing to give time, then you will not get the grade you want. He is very systematic in the way that he tests, meaning the format of his tests have not changed a bit since 2011. That’s the other great thing about this semester: he posted all of his old exams since 2011! So all I did was practice those and then got A’s on the test. Sounds easy now, but doing ALL those tests takes time and perseverance . There’s also no answer keys for them so you have to check with friends. TA andrea was amazing and I loved her commentary during discussion…”we’ll just jones up this bad boy.” Stuff like that. really classic and genuine person. He’s definitely your best bet for orgo 2 and I would be so down to take bchm with him in the future if he ever teaches it. I came from having Dixon for orgo 1, so I was used to the office hours ‘fun’. It’s not like that with MS. He likes his space and sees students one at a time at office hours, so you don’t really get to know him on that personal level like you would if you took Dixon and were hardworking enough to be part of her squad. Overall, highly recommend MS. You’ll have to work hard, but remember that most pre med kids know to take him, so getting around 85% of the total points in his class usually serves to get you an A-. this means the curve is quite small. it’ll be a competitive group, but you can do it. goodluck', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-15T17:30:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Love him. The key to success is his practice exams. Accidentally YOLOed last night and missed class? No worries, just go through his old exams. Super animated professor and tells funny stories and jokes too.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-19T04:02:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I thought his online lectures were very boring and monotone. He was not sympathetic to student concerns. Online exams are entirely multiple choice, so there's no chance of getting partial credit. Maybe he's better for live class, but I would not recommend him for online class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-25T18:54:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Dr. MS is a terrific professor. Although the material and the exams are difficult, he is such a nice guy and a is very compassionate towards his students and his job as a professor. I would HIGHLY recommend taking his class for Orgo 2, he is one of the most genuine and passionate professors out there. (p.s. He tells some of the best stories and shares some of the coolest information throughout the semester)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-07T18:46:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Dr. MS is super passionate about teaching and even cracks some funny stories and jokes in lecture. He keeps his lectures engaging and his exams are straightforward and are very relevant to what he teaches. \r\nThe biggest downside is that there’s only 4 grades and nothing gets dropped (3 midterms and a final). Overall, he’s a great professor and I highly recommend ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-22T20:24:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "MS was very enthusiastic and engaging during class so I do appreciate that. Although I could follow what he was saying during class for the most part it was hard to understand on my own as he didn't write explanations, only reactions. I tried attending GSS but couldn't go as often as when it was online due to conflicts with time (physics and orgo labs) plus not living on campus made it hard. (I strongly recommend GSS!) With our grade only based on 3 exams + a final it is very stressful. I would appreciate if he assigned homework to practice and help our grade. On exams he barely assigned partial credit. He wouldn't always respond to emails and if he did they were dry and he seemed bothered. Although he is a funny guy I don't feel he really cared about his students.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-01-08T20:49:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "MS seems like a great guy and has really funny stories during lecture, but beware--you have to put work in in order to do well in this class. He didn't record lectures, but he did post his written notes on ELMS; his handwriting is pretty messy, so I would suggest just going to lecture to ask if you're confused about any words he wrote. In terms of studying, honestly discussion was kinda a waste of time (not saying you shouldn't go, but while you're there ask any questions that you have to make the most out of your time), GSS can be pretty helpful, and he posts old exams. I would say the old exams are the best practice materials you have for the midterms: he reused some of the questions from the old exams, and it's a great way to anticipate how he might ask questions on the midterms. Like the review before me said, he only has 3 midterms and a final--no homework, no buffer points. I'd say honestly that if you want an easier time in Orgo 2 and have a higher chance of getting a good grade, Dr. Davis is the prof to go with. Otherwise, MS is a hard but good teacher. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-23T16:22:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Rapid Fire\r\n \r\nPros: Pretty funny guy, gives a 5 min break, teaching is good and above average, good stories also give you a mental break, the material he teaches is exactly what on the test, tons of old test material, tells you exactly the format and what to expect\r\n\r\nCons: lotta memorization, hates regrades, you'll prob lose points if you try, No HW, only test points (good-sized curve though), HANDWRITING is pretty bad but you get used to it IMO, can feel like you're lost in all the material but you eventually get it after doing practice and realizing you're wrong.\r\n\r\nThe course is hard, it's Orgo 2 so...but deff the lesser of two evils between him and Dixon. P.S. get Edward as a TA if possible, he's the best.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-09T04:50:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Dr. M-S is a good lecturer and fair professor. He ensures students who put in work succeed in the class. I worked pretty hard for my B but I have had to in every single chemistry course I have taken. Students are given ample resources to succeed in this course such as the GSS and discussions. If I were a professor, I personally would add in a few “buffer points” for either participation or homework but generally I didn’t think bombing one exam led to a failing grade in Dr. Montague-Smith’s class. I had some friends who did it and got Cs and Bs as their final grade. If you’re reading this Dr. M-S, have a great retirement!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-06T19:31:30.780141Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "This man is one of the best people ever. He cares for your education and it's so sad to see he is retiring.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-07T03:05:00.779766Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': None, 'review': "Such an awesome prof!! He's so nice, tells funny stories every class, jokes around with his students, and his exams are pretty manageable. I did study a lot for them, but I think the way he teaches is very straightforward. Just review your notes, practice the old exams, and you'll be fine. Unfortunately he's retiring but I cannot recommend him enough. One of the best professors at UMD.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-09T20:47:08.997329Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'END OF AN ERA\r\n\r\n\r\nREST IN PEACE KING', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T19:18:33.860700Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Montague-Smith', 'slug': 'montague-smith'}, {'courses': ['MUSC150', 'MUSC250', 'MUSC151', 'MUSC450', 'MUSC140'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Oberhauser', 'slug': 'oberhauser'}, {'courses': ['ENEE698T', 'BUSI758T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Oblon', 'slug': 'oblon'}, {'courses': ['ENME489K', 'ENME808W', 'ENME436', 'ENPM808W', 'ENPM670', 'ENME489N', 'ENPM808G', 'ENPM624', 'ENME489I', 'ENME423', 'ENME808Q', 'ENPM624', 'ENPM670', 'ENME420', 'ENME489I', 'ENME808M', 'ENPM808G', 'ENME423', 'ENME808Q'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Ohadi', 'course': None, 'review': 'Pretty laid back professor that knows his stuff. Your grade normally depends on your exam grades and project grades. He is a fairly easy grader. He allows 1 page of notes for each exam. There are a few homework assignments which are fairly easy. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-03-13T11:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Ohadi', 'slug': 'ohadi'}, {'courses': ['ENGL379T', 'ENGL454', 'ENGL311', 'ENGL289P', 'ENGL379M', 'ENGL451', 'ENGL312', 'ENGL479F', 'ENGL304', 'ENGL346', 'HONR228A', 'ENGL354', 'ENGL439K', 'ENGL409M', 'THET428E', 'ENGL379B', 'ENGL439K', 'ENGL354', 'ENGL454', 'ENGL244', 'ENGL439K'], 'average_rating': 4.0769, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL310', 'review': "I also had Olmert for ENGL241. \n\r\nAnyone who gives this guy less than a five will not be please with any professor at UMD. This guy is the real deal. He knows so much about English lit, and yes he does go off on tangents and sometimes says random things but that's just who he is, and it's endearing. \n\r\nHe's taught at UMD forever, and cares a lot about his students. I highly recommend his classes, or just meeting him in general. It's a real treat. And that's coming from someone who isn't a lit. nerd. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-21T00:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': 'Olmert is the best. He is hilarious, engaging, and his lectures are always interesting. He uses the novels as a starting-off point to discuss other things, which can sometimes get off topic, but in a nice way. Discussion was easy if you spoke up, and there were tons of extra credit opportunities. The novels are interesting and easy to read and understand. Take ENGL241 with Olmert!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T20:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL311', 'review': 'B.S. class. He talks too much about irrelevant things, and none of it was intersting. AVOID THIS CLASS AT ALL COST UNLESS YOU ARE A VERRYY INTO BRITISH LITERATURE!!! Worst class ever for me. And hope you do not end up with the worst TA to ever exist.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-28T16:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': "Olmert is so far my favorite professor on campus. He is funny, and awesome. This class was one you definitely have to work in if you want an A. There are 8 novels you have to read, and you're going to fail if you don't read them. However olmert offers over 15 extra credit assignments a semester and you can get up to 10 points each... if you do them you can really get an A. A lot of the extra credits are movies, and sometimes they require reading more novels, but obviously they are optional. \n\r\nOlmert just talks about life and stuff that applies to everyone. He's a really cool guy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-11T13:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL311', 'review': "Olmert has a cult of personality that has grown around him, and I can't really understand why so many people like him. His lectures are so peppered with tangents that it's hard to tell what's important, the readings were stuffy and boring, and he blatantly plays favorites in the class. Don't expect to be called on much if you're not in Olmert's little club of followers who have already taken a class with him. Also, for the tests, he basically expects you to memorize dates, names, and ESPECIALLY his ideas. Admittedly, he knows the time period and its literature very well, but that's no reason to quash individual interpretation of the works. This class was a very cursory , reductive overview of 18th century literature. Good for people who don’t really like to read or come up with their own ideas.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-23T21:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL244', 'review': 'he is the man. i got in because he filled one of my cores... best decision ever! the plays he chose were awesome, not the same stuff you read every year.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-29T02:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL244', 'review': "He's an awesome professor! The plays you read are actually really interesting. I took this class because it was the only one I could get into at the last minute and I actually enjoyed this class the most.\n\r\nThere is so much extra credit that its hard not to get an A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-21T02:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL244', 'review': "Great teacher! He makes you actually enjoy the assigned plays and coming to class. Lectures are always interesting. Papers and exams are graded by TAs. None of the work is very hard. Gives a ridiculous amount of really easy extra credit, so the only way you can fail is if you don't even try. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-08T17:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL241', 'review': "Professor Olmert is an awesome teacher and you will enjoy going to class. The only problem was in ENGL 241 you arent graded by your professor but by your TA's(so dont end up with the TA who gives only Cs Ds and Fs). I ended up scraping by with a B- because I did a lot of extra credit.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-09-19T01:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL379T', 'review': "Olmert picks favorites and lets his favorite students get away with anything. To become a favorite though all you need to do is demonstrate genuine interest in the subject, talk to him outside of class a couple times, and sit near the front and speak up in class. If he sees that you are engaging with the materials for the course, and genuinely interested in learning, then he'll give you a good grade regardless of how you do on the essays and tests (or if you even do them.) The tests are annoying and require you to memorize lots of dates, but once you know the format they aren't that hard. He's a pretty easy grader on essays.\r\nTake a class with Olmert only if you are interested in the topic. He knows a ton about what he teaches, and he genuinely loves what he is teaching, and his students. If you like the topic you'll have a great time. If you aren't interested and engaged it'll be really bad. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-18T17:23:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL439K', 'review': "While Olmert is enthusiastic about his course material, a lenient grader, and encourages students to be a part of the conversation, he is incredibly disorganized, forgetful, and not great at technology. He doesn't know how to use ELMS and only uses Facebook. You will have to keep a master document of all the study terms for the exams yourself because he does not know how to organize the study terms all in one place. \r\n\r\nAdditionally, he has a tendency to suddenly go SUPER LOUD and start shouting when he gets particularly excited, which is something to keep in mind if you're sensitive to loud noises and/or have hearing issues. He is also not very careful when he speaks and ends up spitting his words out. Unfortunately, this means that if you're trying to talk to him in close quarters in settings like office hours, you could end up getting spit on. One time, he almost forgot to come to the right time that we agreed I would meet him for office hours. Though Olmert's casual attitude means that it's easy to open up and talk to him, he sometimes crosses the boundaries and gets too close- I am uncomfortable with being touched by others and he kept touching my arms in these tapping motions in office hours every time he was trying to make a point.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-10T21:26:17.165208Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL439K', 'review': 'Without a doubt, Olmert is the single greatest professor I have EVER had at this university. Seriously. He is so kind, so funny, so approachable, and so much fun. I actually loved going to class. The 75 minutes never ever felt like a chore. His enthusiasm is infectious and he knows so, so much. (You’ll probably learn more from him than another professor). But more importantly than that, he cares so deeply about your performance in class and your interest in the material. In fact, he would tell us at least once a week, “I’m on your side.” He really is. Take any class he teaches. You will not regret it. Take the promise from a perfect stranger: You will LOVE Olmert. I could not offer higher praise to anybody at this university.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-14T17:29:05.145099Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Olmert', 'course': 'ENGL439K', 'review': "Olmert has been the most influential professor I have had so far in college. He is extremely passionate and knows what he is talking about. I have never met someone so knowledgeable about the world. I looked forward to class every week and would fill my roommates in on what I learned after class. If you have the chance, take his course. I promise it will change the way you view how professors teach. Olmert is different. His class runs off a Facebook page and he gets loud and excited. He genuinely cares and wants everyone to succeed. No matter what the topic is he will be there to talk it through with you and offer literature to learn more. The information in this class was very interesting but Olmert made the course what it was. Had anyone else been teaching, I do not think I would have been as focused. The fast pace of the class forces you to pay attention. However, if you miss anything Olmert will happily go back through it. This truly was an amazing course and I plan on taking another one of Olmert's classes next semester.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-09T21:59:35.679788Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Olmert', 'slug': 'olmert'}, {'courses': ['BMGT340', 'BUFN740', 'BMGT343', 'BMGT340N', 'BMGT446', 'BMGT365', 'BMGT345', 'BMGT445', 'BMGT340F', 'BMGT340', 'BMGT340', 'BMGT340F', 'BMGT345', 'BMGT340', 'BMGT345', 'BMGT445', 'BMGT340', 'BMGT340', 'BMGT340', 'BMGT345'], 'average_rating': 4.1818, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Not sure why Padhi has no reviews yet but I guess I will write one for him. If you're choosing between him and Hallows, I'd say choose the lesser of 2 evils and pick Padhi. I'm sure he would never show the lack of respect and empathy Hallows showed after a student's family member was affected by covid-19.\r\n\r\nNow for the actual course, it wasn't bad. Padhi himself is a boring lecturer and you do most of the learning from the textbook anyways. Classes are only for doing example exercises and doing clicker questions for participation credit.\r\n\r\nThe exams are complete trash and I say this as someone who managed to get an overall A-. I can only imagine how those who did worse felt. The 1st exam was good. But the 2nd, 3rd, and final were terribly written. One question didn't even have a correct answer and he didn't realize this until midway thru the exam, forcing many students to waste time figuring out what was wrong. \r\n\r\nThere are also live cases hosted by visiting banks/firms, but I can say most people found them completely useless. And the worst part is they even asked questions about the cases on the exams.\r\n\r\nOverall UMD definitely needs to change up this course, make it more like BMGT230 where you actually do learning in class. Or remove Padhi and Hallows and actually hire competent professors to teach business finance. Either option would improve this class tremendously. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-02-09T22:17:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "y'all take padhi for summer finance classes! I took BMGT340 with Padhi for Summer 2020 and it was honestly the best decision I've made for classes so far (that and taking COMM107 over the summer). Padhi was engaging and he made tough topics make sense. The volume of work was pretty intense, especially with a condensed class, but we got to meet his the service dog he's training (Dole) and he genuinely cared about his students. In my class, exams were open-note but he encouraged us to make one formula sheet and that helped so much. Exams were tough and every exam had an oral portion where you meet with the TA or Prof Padhi for fifteen minutes and solve a question. Padhi told us exactly what the oral question would be and the things we had to study, so as stressful as being on a Zoom call with just the prof is, he did his best to prepare us. Also, grading for oral portion is super lenient as long as you just explain how you got there well, even the wrong answer will get you pretty decent partial credit. \r\n\r\nI was terrified of taking BMGT340 but I would highly encourage anyone who can to take it over the summer with Padhi, you'll have to grind, but it's really better than taking it during the semester.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-02-11T21:14:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Padhi is one of the best business professors i've encountered. He knows the material inside-out. The flipped classroom is not my favorite model but this course makes it work extremely well - you are expected to watch a short video lecture and complete basic review before attending the live lecture, where Padhi works out several examples and goes over each concept and formula. Very receptive to questions (I've never been to office hours but asked questions in class) and doesn't assume that his first method of explanation is going to work for everyone. Zoom U was great with Padhi because he shows his dogs and kids sometimes. The course provides a good amount of weekly work but each assignment is valuable and does not feel like busywork. There is adequate extra practice if you want to prepare for an exam or if you don't understand a particular concept. Exam questions can be tricky but similar practice is always provided beforehand. Real-world examples keep the course interesting and applicable. All around a fantastic course and professor. I literally made a planetterp account to write this review because this was great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-03-23T16:19:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Padhi is a great professor. This is a tough class but he makes it manageable. Clearly cares about his students and does his best to give us the resources to do well in the class. Exams are hard but if you study using past exams you will probably be fine. We do a ton of practice problems in class which makes it easier to learn. He is receptive to questions in class and doesn't talk down to students like other professor's do sometimes. Definitely recommend taking him for 340!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-19T15:35:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "He spends the entire class oversharing about his personal life. Speeds through the practice problems and is overall not helpful. His jokes are not funny. Students chuckle because they're just that bad. He pretends to be approachable but truly does not care. Exams are very difficult for some. You pretty much have to rely on the TA's for help. Super unorganized and the recent grading structure makes it so that exams are the biggest indicator for passing/failing. Nothing else you do for points matters. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-21T20:34:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340F', 'review': 'Nice dude, goes too fast to let him know. Extra credit is helpful, go to TA hours!\r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-03T14:57:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "The course is straightforward, if you do your work and study it's easy to get a high grade. Padhi is a nice guy and genuinely cares about his students.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-04T17:32:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT445', 'review': "Honestly with everything I've heard about other professors, this class is definitely worth taking with him. He's a really nice guy and we're all seniors and after the first exam he said I promise this class won't be the reason anyone doesn't graduate like don't worry if you didn't do well. He's given extra credit and is super lenient with the quiz/project grading so the A's are automatic in that category. I'm taking 6 classes this sem and this one is my favorite, the material is learnable and if you reach out he is willing to help you whenever you need. Man has office hours every single day just in case students need to talk to him that exact day. Great guy ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-14T14:01:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'I took Padhi second half of summer. He tries his best to make us understand the basic concepts within the short period we had together. His TAs were amazing and they both tried their best to answer every question as best as they could.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-09-12T19:31:41.653341Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "I absolutely loved Dr. Pahdi. For each chapter I would watch the video, take notes and just pay attention in class. Everything done during class and most of the homework assignments are directly related to the material. Overall I did minimal work for this class, just did all the practice exams and did very well on all the exams. Dr. Padhi cares about you as a student and your success in this class. As a senior graduating this spring, Dr. Padhi was one of my favorite professors I've ever had at UMD.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T07:04:52.801777Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Padhi', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Incredible professor. He was extremely understanding when it came to having to miss class for religious observances or health issues, and he truly cares about each and every one of his students. He makes an effort to answer emails quickly and is happy to help however he can. He also gives many opportunities for extra credit and his TA's are incredibly helpful as well. Would 100% recommend him to anyone taking BMGT340.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-23T15:45:20.211973Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Padhi', 'slug': 'padhi'}, {'courses': ['ANTH630', 'ANTH469P', 'ANTH450', 'ANTH760', 'ANTH601', 'ANTH398D', 'ANTH689P', 'ANTH650', 'ANTH620', 'MEES620', 'ANTH722', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Paolisso', 'slug': 'paolisso'}, {'courses': ['EDCP318R', 'HESI318R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Phaneuf', 'slug': 'phaneuf_michael'}, {'courses': ['BMGT367F', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT367'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Poerksen', 'slug': 'poerksen'}, {'courses': ['ENES466', 'ENES461', 'ENES670', 'ENES140', 'ENES460', 'ENES462', 'ENES140', 'ENES210', 'ENES670', 'ENES670', 'ENES210', 'ENES140', 'ENES210', 'ENES673'], 'average_rating': 4.5455, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'This class is usually an online class but I had to take it in person since I was in FC. It is a complete waste of time to show up to class since all the material is online.\r\n\r\nThe final group presentation sucks. I had lazy group members and did all the work bc I really wanted an A. Any analysis I did with my "group" was terrible. The other assignments are cake though. Don\'t slack on those quizzes as I did; aim for perfects so you don\'t have to worry much of your group analyses and presentation.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-19T22:44:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "The FC version is by far an easy A class, and you don't have to always show up to class, though sometimes he would assign attendance activities. You have to communicate well with your groupmates and spread out the work evenly. Almost everything after the first unit is group-based, so make sure your teammates know what they're responsible for and when you expect them to finish it. Everything is really easy in the class, but it's based on luck whether you're assigned to a compatible group.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-03-17T00:32:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "You have to show up when final projects are being presented at the end of the semester, however, you don't before that. Prof Pratt is kind, the class is huge, recccomend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T21:43:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "There is a textbook for this class and some self based quizzes (meaning no right or wrong answers) for each chapter. Prof Pratt goes through the textbook in his slides during class so you don't really have to show up to class until the end of the semester during the final projects. A majority of your grade depends on the project so make sure you pick a good group but the project is relatively easy. Also, use the review slides in the modules when you take the weekly quizzes. Good class for someone who needs easy credits and Prof Pratt has a lot of good network connections if you ask him about internships. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-27T18:47:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "Course is really easy, Mr. Pratt knows what he's talking about.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-02T03:03:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "Easiest A+ ever. It's actually interesting too, and Mr. Pratt knows his stuff- definitely recommend this course for an elective.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-21T18:09:56.038615Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Course is easy. Mr. Pratt is good at teaching what needs to be taught and giving good personal anecdotes about his life. He let us out of class almost everyday after 40 ish minutes. The one big assignment you have is the group project for the final which you have the whole semester to work on. Definitely and easy A. Weekly quizzes but easy if you do the reading or have the book with you while doing it. Would definitely recommend taking this class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-27T16:43:59.711211Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Course is super easy, as expected. The course is taught on an online textbook that costs $35, with some self-evaluations (no studying needed, likert scale questions). The quizzes posted on canvas sometimes have things that aren\'t covered in the book, as far as I could tell, but are overall pretty easy. You don\'t have to actually show up to class for a while, until you need groups for the group project.\r\n\r\nPratt just isn\'t a good lecturer though. He often prods for definitions of specific terms until he gets the one he\'s expecting, which can get tiring. He also can get pretty "rambly/make it up as you go" sometimes, since there isn\'t a ton of content to cover, but about half way through he usually lets out.\r\n\r\nThere\'s also times where he comes off pretty self-righteous. As an example, when someone was calmly walking out during class, Pratt repeatedly asked him "am I boring you?" multiple times, to which the student replied that he had a meeting. Pratt then said "that\'s how you make a bad impression on your professor."', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-02T07:37:00.226514Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': "Course is easy. I was like .7 away from an A at the end of the semester and he said no to giving me extra credit or anything to help. That's the only bad thing I have to say- other than that he's a great person and his class is worth taking", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-08T21:21:29.701821Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES140', 'review': 'Course was easy other than the final project which is a solid amount of work but you have plenty of time to do it. After talking to friends in the asynch version I think this is definitely a better option. Professor Pratt keeps things interesting with personal stories and although he sometimes rambles he definitely knows what he is talking about.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-13T04:56:16.786433Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Pratt', 'course': 'ENES210', 'review': 'I know absolutely nothing about business or engineering and this course was SO easy. His lectures are ok but lectures are mainly time for you and your team to submit a weekly assignment and you can leave after that. BE CAREFUL tho and do not leave class before you’ve been there for like 25-30ish minutes because he will give you a zero or knock some points off. The final project was pretty easy as you work on bits of it all semester. It’s a 4k word paper but it’s split between 6 people and it’s so easy so don’t let that scare you away from this course. If you need it for your gen eds I literally could not recommend this course more as it’s a GPA booster!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-14T00:11:14.399758Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Pratt', 'slug': 'pratt'}, {'courses': ['HIST289K', 'HIST455', 'HIST454', 'HIST619R', 'HIST131', 'HIST134', 'HIST201', 'HIST134S', 'HIST619M', 'HIST462', 'EXST030', 'HIST289V', 'HIST319Q', 'HIST134', 'HIST134S', 'HIST619M', 'HIST131', 'HIST455', 'HIST134', 'HIST134', 'HIST319Q', 'HIST134', 'HIST134S', 'HIST454'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': "Dr. Ross is the BEST professor I have ever had at UMD. I originally took this class because I needed an I-Series gen-ed, but I was scared of taking a history class, since I've never really done well in history before, let alone enjoyed it. Dr. Ross made the subject matter so engaging and interesting! This was the one class I never even considered skipping for a second. I wish all my teachers made my courses as interesting as Dr. Ross did. Do yourself a favor and take whatever class he's teaching!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-07T13:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST455', 'review': "Dr. Ross is easily one of my favorite professors I've ever had at this university. He is clearly well-versed in history; it's actually remarkable how in depth he can go on each and every topic. It honestly feels like I'm being told a story every time I'm in class - like in a really good way. He makes everything so interesting and easy to remember. Aside from academics he's has a lot of great jokes and doesn't take himself too seriously. I really really recommend taking a class with him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-03-10T01:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Professor Ross is an extremely knowledgeable professor! He has a lot to say about History, but he also says it in a very interesting manner. The way he approaches is lectures kept me interested the whole time and I would suggest everyone take at least one of his classes!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-07T18:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': "the Good: He is very passionate and very knowledgeable. he did inspire me to want to know more about the civil war.\r\nthe Bad: harsh grader who doesnt grade quickly so you (or I at least) dont know where you stand in the course. Also his tests are tough, there are 3 i.d. questions and an essay. doesnt sound hard except for 2 things, first the list he gives you of possible i.d.'s to study from is at least a 100 i.d.'s long and when you learn them you better learn every detail (even then I thought I gave really complete answers and the best i got was 18/20) and second the essay is tough because he wants a ton of details and if they're not there expect a bad grade. I also felt like he should keep a timeline in the class to help you keep track of where you are in history because he jumps around and sometimes you have no idea about when he is talking about.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B?', 'created': '2014-07-13T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': 'I took HIST157 my first semester, and I was blown away by how this class was. His power points could use a little bit of an improvement, but just listening to the man speak his knowledge made up for it. he was one of the best history teachers that I ever had, and honestly makes you know the material in an engaging way that never bores you. I never skipped a class and I finished with a pretty good grade.\n\r\nHe is the standard I hold teachers to at UMD. I recommend taking a class with him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-08-22T15:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST455', 'review': 'Prof. Ross is a great professor. He is funny and very engaging. The material is very interesting.\n\r\nTake a class of his.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-12T16:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': 'This is one of my all time favorite classes and professors at maryland. He makes the material so interesting. tAKE ANY CLASS WITH THIS PROFESSOR!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-10T11:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': "I took this class in fall 2011, and it was a last minute decision because I needed more credits. It turned out to be my favorite class. Professor Ross was a funny yet informative lecturer and very happy to be teaching. He presented material in a memorable way with lots of slides, so it was very easy to recall things come exam time. Take good notes and you will be fine. I was surprised I didn't get an A, but most people in the class didn't. He is fair though. Most of all, I learned so much about American History and it has served me well in other classes. I would recommend this class to everyone. There is also only one midterm, a term paper and a final so it is not a lot of work. This class was awesome", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-05-13T22:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Ross is a phenomenal speaker! Usually I really don't like history, but could I never not pay attention to his lectures. He made the latter part of American History very interesting. If you just pay attention in lecture, you really don't need to read the textbook. The workload consisted of a few articles to read for discussion every week (really easy) and 2 medium length papers, that weren't too much hassle. The midterm and final were both simple enough - Write 3 IDS out of a choice of 5 and 1 essay for the midterm and 2 essays for the final. Take this class if you can!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T18:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Ross was an awesome professor. I am actually sad the class is over. I highly recommend going to lecture; other than it being really interesting, it is necessary. Dr. Ross is pretty funny and passionate about the subject. LOVED the class. My TA, Allison Finkelstein was good too. Discussion is required and is a big part of your grade. To get an A in it, all you really need to do is participate. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T19:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': 'This was an awesome class! It was very interesting and Dr. Ross was very engaging. There are two papers (not too hard), a midterm (choose 3 out of 5 IDs, choose 1 out of 2 essays) and a final (choose 6 IDs out of 10, choose 1 non cumulative essay out of two, choose 1 cumulative essay out of 2)Take this class if you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-12T13:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': 'Prof. Ross is an outstanding teacher who brings enthusiasm and passion to each lecture. He has an amazing mastery of the material and covers very interesting topics. The class had two exams and two papers- both not too difficult- however, I had a TA who royally screwed me over, accused me of cheating, and consequently I got a B despite getting over a 90 on every assignment.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-03-15T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': 'Warning this is coming from a history major.\n\r\nAmazing professor!! Is really engaging and most people are at lecture because it is interesting. I really recommend going to lecture. Two books assigned: Text Book and "Voices of America." You only need to read the voices book to participate in lecture you are never tested on it, and the text isn\'t really needed if u go to lecture and take notes but it could help. Take Ross he is great!! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-25T15:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': 'Dr. Ross is a fantastic lecturer, undoubtably one of the best at UMD. However, you have to be willing to work hard for his class. He gives over 100 IDs to study for each exam and his "short" papers are actually 8 pages long. Would audit if possible', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-20T04:07:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST131', 'review': "Undoubtedly my favorite professor of all time. Dr. Ross is approachable and down-to-earth and he LOVES his job; he really wants you to succeed. His class was incredibly entertaining and informative, plus he's hilarious. Exams are a little tricky though--over 100 IDs to study from. But if you pay attention in class and participate a little in discussion, you'll be just fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-02-19T07:22:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST131', 'review': "You would be doing yourself a HUGE disservice if you had the opportunity to take one of Dr. Ross' classes and didn't. He's so interesting so you'll no trouble paying attention. There are a lot of IDs to review before an exam, but he only selects a handful for the test. Everyone does well in his classes. Seriously... take Dr. Ross", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-27T18:32:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': "Dr. Ross is an engaging professor who is entertaining but if you're looking to take HIS134 as an easy GenEd, run. DO NOT DO IT. You have to read 3-4 books and write 3-4 papers and the final paper requires you to include hundreds of terms synthesizing all the cases and themes. The final paper is worth 40% of your final grade. Yeah. FORTY PERCENT. My entire class was in over their head with the workload. There is also a required discussion section each week about outside material and you must participate for points to boost your grade. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-05-10T19:50:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': 'I took this thinking it was interesting and would be an easy GenEd. Neither were true since Ross is unfair with his assignments and is overall just boring. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-05-11T15:50:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': "Definitely not an easy gen-ed, it's an I-series for a reason. However, the class itself is super interesting and Dr. Ross is a great lecturer, you will not be bored and class is almost like getting told stories for an hour. You will have to write several long papers and the TAs grade fairly harshly. For some reason the final paper is worth 40% of your grade and you have to include over 100 terms from the class in it, making it a fairly difficult assignment. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-19T03:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST455', 'review': "Amazing class and amazing professor. He makes learning history and usually dry topics fun and enjoyable. He teaches history like a fun story, and leads some really interesting discussions during class about cases and our own takes on legal/constitutional interpretations, which I find really fun. He gave us plenty of notice for readings, quizzes, exams, etc., and is a really fair grader. This has been one of the most interesting classes I've taken at UMD, and it's probably my favorite class (even though it's outside my major haha)! I highly encourage this class or any class with Dr. Ross. He's such a funny and engaging guy", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-21T04:20:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': 'Loved the way every lecture felt like a story more than a lecture itself. The essays we wrote, although still essays, were fun and exciting. I loved this class and anyone, either into history or not, will love it too. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-16T22:03:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Ross is literally such an amazing lecturer. His lectures are so interesting and immersive. Although he moves through the lecture slides very quickly and doesn't upload the slides, his class is definitely worth it. He makes confusing historical events very digestible and I strongly recommend the class!! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-06T00:07:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': 'the class itself was particularly interesting and i really enjoyed the content. the issue was the speed he went through the lectures and the minimal amount of grades that do not give much opportunity to excel. nothing to do with the professor in that regard since he did not grade them but overall the class was okay. my only issue was the TA but otherwise i would say think twice about taking the class and be sure you’re good at retaining information. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-17T15:56:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': "History has always been my least favorite subject and I had been dreading filling my remaining history credit, however Dr. Ross taught this class in such an amazing way ended up I looking forward to every class. His classes were more like a story than a boring lecture and he was so thorough in setting up the context that led to the historical events we were discussing that by the time we got to the actual event the actions of everyone involved made sense for the context of the time. And just the way and passion with which he discussed history was so refreshing and there were times where things he said changed my entire perspective. Our discussion topics each week invited a deep conversation surrounding issues discussed in class with enough room for forming opinions and our TA did a great job of balancing everyone who wanted to talk. I will say that his final paper was very tedious, but I put in a little extra work and ended up with a 100% on the paper. As long as you're willing to put in some effort you shouldn't have any problem in this class, and the workload was still far less than any of my in major classes so it was a nice break from my more STEM heavy classes. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-14T01:53:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': "Fun class, he's great at making the lectures interesting and something I look forward to. The only thing is though theres like 5 grades for the entire year, two exams, two essays, and participation. This makes it very stressful and unclear if I will get an A or not.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-08T16:13:24.922317Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': "Very interesting lectures but definitely makes it very clear where he stand on certain issues, almost enough to make it annoying (we get it, you don't like communism). Grading was fair but there are only a few grades for the course, so if you mess up on one thing it would be easy to get screwed over.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-09T16:39:40.232267Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': "He's awesome! He makes jokes throughout the lectures and engages with students to make sure the class is not all boring notes. He's very chill and personable but also gets through the material pretty clearly. This class not a breeze, but definitely manageable and the discussion section I had with my TA was always one of my favorite classes to go to. Take this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-09T17:49:39.364370Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': 'Professor Ross was the best lecturer I had for the fall semester. Very funny and very informative. The only issue with the class is that there are really only 4 assignments for the whole semester plus the participation grade for attendance. Grading is completely fair imo, the assignments I did not do so well on were the two essays in which I did not read the books.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-27T22:39:01.461302Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': "HIST134 was my favorite course this semester! Professor Ross is a pro at making lectures fun and immersive whilst keeping them informative. This class covers a lot of different historical time periods and Prof. Ross does a great job of equipping you with all the context you need to know for all of them in the lectures. With all of that said, this is a time-consuming course, not an easy gen-ed. You will have to do a lot of reading, and there are only a few assignments in the class so doing poorly on one can dock your grade by a lot. TA's also take a while to grade so you may not know where you stand in the course until very late in the semester. It's not easy, but its worth the effort you put into it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-25T23:53:29.305709Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Ross', 'course': 'HIST134', 'review': "He's an incredibly nice teacher and honestly, my favorite from last semester. He makes class so interesting to follow and he's just really good at talking. The class itself was a little difficult, as it is a lot of history and he throws so many unnecessary facts at you. You will know more than just the story, which can be overwhelming for exams or papers. But I think it's better to be overprepared than underprepared. And the stories he picks are truly so fun and interesting. I ;pve his teaching style and if you want a GenEd or a History course, make this your one", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-04-11T15:15:53.418743Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Ross', 'slug': 'ross_michael'}, {'courses': ['ENEE324', 'ENEE769F', 'ENEE698C', 'ENEE662', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE664'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Rotkowitz', 'slug': 'rotkowitz'}, {'courses': ['ANTH437', 'ANTH637'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Schiffer', 'slug': 'schiffer'}, {'courses': ['ENGL395', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL398N', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL398N', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL398N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Schmidt', 'slug': 'schmidt_michael'}, {'courses': ['GVPT432', 'GVPT431', 'GVPT260', 'GVPT331', 'GVPT439C', 'MLAW377', 'MLAW358F', 'GVPT439B', 'MLAW358R', 'MLAW358C', 'MLAW404', 'MLAW304', 'MLAW358W', 'MLAW358Y', 'GVPT439T', 'MLAW358V', 'MLAW358X', 'MLAW411', 'MLAW412', 'GVPT439B', 'GVPT439C', 'GVPT439M', 'MLAW358C', 'MLAW358F', 'GVPT331', 'GVPT432', 'MLAW358W', 'MLAW358Y', 'GVPT439C', 'GVPT439M', 'GVPT439N'], 'average_rating': 4.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Spivey', 'course': 'GVPT431', 'review': "Best professor I've ever had in my collegiate life. You'll never be bored in lecture. Never. He'll get everyone involved, even in a 250-seat lecture hall. You'll learn more in this class than any other you've ever had.\n\r\nExams and assignments are more than fair, and very straight-forward. If you go to class and listen to his world-famous hypotheticals, you'll be fine.\n\r\nHe's had a ton of experience with the law, and is an insanely smart dude. Has more degrees than I can count, and just earned his PhD from Maryland a few months ago.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-03T16:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Spivey', 'course': 'GVPT431', 'review': 'Prof. Spivey is a tricky guy to evaluate. The discussions during class are fun and very informative. You will learn a lot about topics that relate to daily life, and learn to assess and evaluate case law. Exams are fair and test to see if you know the general idea of what is going on in the class. \n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-17T23:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Spivey', 'course': 'GVPT431', 'review': "Awesome professor. Very intelligent, actually an attorney with a lot of law and political experience out in the field which he tells the class about when it's relevant. Very friendly and open, has weekly scheduled lunches with students in the dining hall in an effort to get to know them. \n\r\nThe material is good stuff too, you learn about a LOT of Supreme Court cases, though it might not seem like it all the time, but all the material falls together like a puzzle to make his larger point about govt structure and SCOTUS. \n\r\nSpeak up in class! But be ready to think on your feet, he doesn't wait for you to get your thoughts together, things move fast and he challenges anyone who speaks up, there's no bsing or intellectually 'getting away with it.' It can be a little unnerving and embarrassing at first, but he's a really nice guy, so it's not personal, he's just trying to get you to think.\n\r\nDon't know why first review made a big deal about Bush v. Gore - he reads these reviews and he made an effort to not be biased after reading that.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-04T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Spivey', 'course': 'GVPT431', 'review': "As a Government and Politics major this was easily one of the best classes I have ever taken. It's not a great class because it's easy, it's a great class because of Professor Spivey. He constantly challenges you on your beliefs and makes you really think about what you believe and how you think this country should be run according to the Constitution. If you have ever had any question about the Constitution or not, take this class because afterwards it may be answered, but you might start questioning it more yourself and whether it can be improved. Amazing class that I highly recommend for anyone who enjoys law.\n\r\nAnd yes while he hates Bush v. Gore, he's right it's a stupid case. But you won't do poorly if you get it as a case, he's not that biased.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-01T17:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Spivey', 'course': 'GVPT439C', 'review': "Hands down one of the best professors I've ever had. If you are thinking about law school, definitely take one of his classes, he's a great resource and gives a great introduction to Constitutional law.\r\nI've taken both 431 and 439C with him and they have been my favorite classes to go do. Same structure of the class- two papers (usually one brief and one opinion), a midterm and a final, with one presentation of a case during the semester for participation. Also, sometimes a random 1 page or a couple paragraphs asking us what we think of a case or a decision. You will not regret taking his class, and its worth going to lecture for, although I suppose you could skip if that's your thing. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T12:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Spivey', 'course': 'GVPT431', 'review': "Dr. Spivey is a great teacher with a balanced approach to the law. In 431, American Constitutional Law, you'll spend about 1/3 of the course looking over the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. \n\r\nThe rest of the course is spent reviewing and arguing Supreme Court cases which contain some sort of constitutional question. You have somewhat of a choice, but ultimately you are assigned one of these cases and expected to present, as a petitioner or respondent, an oral argument before the class. Bush v. Gore is an option, but don't pick it. If you have to argue Bush's side, you're in for it; Spivey hates that court decision (with good reason).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-10T00:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Spivey', 'course': 'GVPT431', 'review': "Massively overrated, but still a good teacher. I simply don't understand the cult of personality around this man. Class isn't too hard if you just show up and listen/take notes, grading expectations are reasonable. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-11T12:16:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Spivey', 'course': 'MLAW358F', 'review': 'I took this over COVID. In my op, i think this a good class to take if you havent tasted some of the law classes at school. itll be a bit of a curve to get used to his style but its possible. really interesting cases. be prepared to present!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-18T05:57:59.552070Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Spivey', 'slug': 'spivey'}, {'courses': ['HONR269Y', 'MUSC229D', 'MUSC229E', 'MUSC757', 'MUSC758', 'MUSC229A', 'MUSC659C', 'MUSC629W', 'MUSC689', 'MUSC491', 'MUSC659B', 'MUSC629C', 'MUSP679', 'MUSC629A', 'MUSC659', 'MUSC388', 'MUSC229D', 'MUSC629W', 'MUSC659C', 'MUSC229D', 'MUSC629W', 'MUSC659C', 'MUSC689', 'MUSC229D', 'MUSC629W', 'MUSC659C', 'MUSC229D', 'MUSC629W', 'MUSC659C', 'MUSC689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michael Votta', 'slug': 'votta'}]
[{'courses': ['ENGL392', 'ENGL398E', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL392', 'ENGL398E', 'ENGL392'], 'average_rating': 2.2308, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'For those of you who want to go to law school, close your ears during class, go home, and study for the LSATs. I honestly have no idea how this man has a job. He tries to teach you how to be clear and concise by enabling readability statistics on Microsoft word. If you use too big of a word, you will have to change it to a more basic word because that really makes you a better writer (sarcasm). Stupid class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-08-31T00:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'Winett is a terrible professor and did very little, if anything at all, to help improve my professional writing. For every assignment we had to do these "rhetorical analyses" that weren\'t based on any sort of rhetoric, but were instead a pointless and arbitrary outline we had to fill out. The only purpose these served were to show him how much effort we put into our work, because apparently he couldn\'t figure that out from the quality of our writing. His instructions were vague at best. One time I was trying to understand an assignment and he simply said, "well the point is very subtle." When I asked him for more guidance, he just smiled and walked away. Seriously, if you can avoid taking a class with him, do.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-01-28T20:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'DON\'T TAKE THIS CLASS. LISTEN TO ALL OF THE REVIEWS. IT IS THE WORST MISTAKE YOU WILL EVER MAKE. Most of the time, I just assume that negative reviews are students who slack off. I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE STUDENTS, AND I HATE THIS CLASS. It was the worst decision I\'ve made at UMD. Almost 10% of his students drop the class; how is he still an instructor here!!!!!! He doesn\'t teach ever, and he only care about his stupid "rhetorical analysis" which he made up entirely himself. If he marks you off for grammar, it\'s based on his own subjective interpretation of his preferred writing style. MOST IMPORTANTLY, he claims that the goal of professional writing is to write at an 8th grade level WHAT THE ACTUAL F. YOU WILL LEARN NOTHING TAKING THIS CLASS.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-03-08T19:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL398E', 'review': 'Pretty terrible and the class did nothing to improve my "professional writing". Takes months to grade your assignments and when you get it back it has very little feedback on the actual quality of the paper...all he does is grade on grammar and comma usage. He takes off points from your participation grade if you send him emails in the wrong format. Seriously. I felt like I was in the 6th grade again or something. Also the grade distribution here is not accurate whatsoever alot of the class ended up with C\'s', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-18T20:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "I am pretty sure he is one of the worst professor's that I have had. Finals have just started and I honestly have no idea what grade I will be getting in this class. He does NOT give assignments back in a timely manner and when he does give them back his grading is absurd. I sincerely wish that I had not taken ENGL392 with him. Even if I get an A, I will still agree that he is a horrible teacher. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-15T12:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL398E', 'review': 'Winett is by far the worst professor I have had at Maryland. Since it is an English class, attendance is mandatory (and boy is it painful). Most of his classes consist of him half-heartedly going over the assignments and then talking about nothing for the rest of the class. He is extremely meek and soft spoken. He is also very indirect when asking people to do things. He has an extremely specific way of sending him emails and assignments and if you don\'t follow his format perfectly, you get points off, which is ridiculous.\n\r\nAt the beginning of the year, he said he would focus on the content of your writing, not the grammar or little mistakes. HOW WRONG THIS IS. In all of the assignments, he took off for the small things such as missed commas or a misspelled word. This leads me to my next point. Out of the 6 assignments in the class, we only got the grades back from 2 of them before the class ended. How are we supposed to know where to improve if we have no feedback?\n\r\nThe class consisted of 6 assignments.\n\r\nThe first assignment was a rhetorical analysis of a paper that you had written prior to the class. Let me start by saying Winett is obsessed with these rhetorical analyses. I believe they are some of the most pointless assignments I have done in my 3 years at Maryland. They are hard to explain without you seeing them, but they are basically just restating what the purpose of the original assignment is.\n\r\nThe second assignment is an analysis of a peer-reviewed journal article. Luckily, the article doesn\'t have to be about economics and can be about anything. This assignment wasn\'t that bad. Basically, it was just an analysis of the different parts of a journal article based on the criteria that Winett created.\n\r\nThe third assignment was a planning memo. This was another one of those stupid rhetorical analysis papers. This time, it was related to the final paper, which I will get to in a little bit.\n\r\nThe fourth assignment was a resume and cover letter. I thought this would be easy because I already had a resume and cover letter that had gotten me multiple interviews and offers with some of the biggest names on Wall St and in the accounting world, but in all actuality, it was completely different than what I thought. I had a resume and cover letter based on the templates provided by the Office of Career Services at the business school. However, this was not sufficient for Winett. Unless our job experience was directly related to the job we were applying for, Winett wanted us to delete our work experience and instead put in statements of what we had done in our classes. For the last 3 years, I have been taught to NEVER EVER do that because everyone takes the same classes and does the same thing. I have been taught that any work experience is good to put on the resume because it shows you can hold a job and can ultimately relate to a different job (ie. restaurant job = experience in a fast paced environment, working with deadlines, etc). Also, we had to do a stupid rhetorical analysis for our resume and cover letter too, which was again completely pointless.\n\r\nThe fifth assignment was a persuasive presentation. It might as well have been any kind of presentation you want, because ultimately Winett didn\'t give two shits about what you talked about as long as you gave the audience an "experience". I honestly think Winett didn\'t care if it was persuasive or not. Every time we talked about the presentations in class, he always talked about giving the audience an "experience", but never about how to persuade the audience. Most of the presentations ended up being informative presentations about some hobby that the student was interested in, but he seemed to love them because they got the audience involved and gave them an "experience". Don\'t forget, we had to write a freaking rhetorical analysis for this too.\n\r\nLast but not least, the sixth assignment was a journal document. This meant we were to write an article that would be published in an undergraduate peer-reviewed journal. This is the biggest assignment of the course, and he spent forever talking about it. However when he talked about it, he never really said anything useful. This project was such a pain. Of course, lest you forget, we had to write a rhetorical analysis for this too.\n\r\nOverall, DO NOT EVER TAKE A COURSE WITH WINETT. He is a terrible professor. The assignments are totally pointless. This class sucked.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T22:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Yeah this guy will definitely make you want to kill yourself when you listen to him talk for long enough. \n\r\nThe class itself was actually really straight forward, and I found it to be very easy overall especially for a summer class. I would have given him a higher rating but I am sitting here, it is the last week of the class, we have had 4/5 assignments, and I have no idea how I am doing. He only returned grades for the first assignment, and then he just flaked off. \n\r\nOverall a really nice guy though, I'd definitely recommend 110 percent for technical writing. Easy!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-10-30T05:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "Horrible professor, at an intellectual and professional level. It's true that it's easy to get a good grade but he is also inconsistent with his grading (It is obvious he doesn't put any effort into grading). He makes things unclear and unnecessarily boring, and is not ashamed to be blatantly ignorant about the subjects he teaches. By far worst professor I've had at UMD. Take someone else if you care to learn something. If you want an easy A, just know you'll be miserable for three hours a week .", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-25T15:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL398E', 'review': "He changed the content of the course. Often, his expectations were unclear and students were frequently confused about what he wanted. He was willing to help clear things up though.\n\r\nHe doesn't teach that much about writing itself, more about rhetoric.\n\r\nHe required that the major semester paper be published in a journal. For a undergrade, this can be very difficult.\n\r\nOverall, he's a nice guy and he grades pretty leniently. Now that he has taught 398E, he may have a better feel for it in the future.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-16T10:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': None, 'review': "cakewalk professor. he's a weird guy, but he lets you re-write papers for higher grades after going over it with you step by step. if you take advantage of this, youre almost guaranteed an A or B. I'm a decent writer at best and know next to nothing about law and i got an A- in legal writing. the final project is the most important thing, make sure he likes what youre doing and do a good job at it and you'll end up with an A without a doubt. \n\r\nif possible, take your professional writing class with winett, you won't regret it, instant gpa booster", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-10-30T14:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Although this professor gives the majority of his students good grades, as far as I am concerned he is a disgrace to the english staff. He gave me a bad grade in his class for no reason. According to his grading scale, I am in his bottom 3% As far as I am concerned, he is a horrible person and a horrible grader and should be removed from teaching at the english department because he contributed to the lowering of my gpa! I would not take his class again if he paid me to.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-27T02:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'Okay I get everyones concerns like I really do but at the same time this class was cake if you just moderetly pretend you care. I have absolutely no idea what happened and learned basically nothing but got an A because if you just ask him to explain stuff and email him and ask questions privately he remembers your name and wants you to do well. Like I read these reviews and was so convinced I was going to fail but I did completely fine and put like 0% effort in. Take him because its easy if you just try to pretend lol ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-24T22:01:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Michael Winett', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "Hes a very kind man, and he has the best intentions for his class, but his lectures got to be unbelievably frustrating at times. He's one of those people that will never outright answer your question, hell answer it with a question or just you a hint and prompt you to answer your own question. I would highly recommend you read the material for the module before you come to class because he prompts discussions on it and my class looked like a bunch of idiots when clearly only 2 of us had read the material before class. Its not even that much, like 10-15 minutes maximum. He remembers your name after a few weeks if you participate and he definitely seems to care about the success of his students. I don't understand why people give his such a hard time. If you show up to class, do the work, and take the critiques, you'll get an A, guaranteed. The class is barely any work at all, Im not even pre-law, or a polisci or journalism major, I'm a finance major and I got an A+ in his class. The people writing bad reviews are just lazy or have never had an ACTUAL bad professor before.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-18T15:46:07.526262Z'}], 'name': 'Michael Winett', 'slug': 'winett'}, {'courses': ['HLSA714', 'HLSA601', 'HLSA721', 'HLSA785', 'HLSA766', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'EXST030', 'HLSA778', 'HLSA727', 'HLSA727', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA727'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michel Boudreaux', 'slug': 'boudreaux'}, {'courses': ['ENME392', 'ENME442', 'ENPM808E', 'HACS279', 'HACS100', 'ENPM686', 'HACS102', 'ENRE684', 'HACS289', 'HACS298', 'HACS299', 'HACS287', 'HACS479', 'HACS318A', 'HACS498', 'CMSC798', 'HACS200', 'HACS202', 'ENME392', 'ENME442', 'ENRE684', 'HACS100', 'HACS200', 'ENME392', 'ENME442', 'ENRE684', 'HACS100', 'HACS200'], 'average_rating': 1.2632, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "This is by far the worst professor I have ever taken. \n\r\nHomework assignment on the second half of the semester to up to 10 hours to do. And they had nothing to do with the exams because you cant use excel on the exams, but he expects you to know how excel calculated it and for you to show it on the exam. \n\r\nHe did not give ANY practice exams. We all just groped in the dark, guessing for questions for practice. I think he's lazy and tries to recycle materials from semester to semester and doesn't want students to see the past ones. \n\r\nAlso he does not give you your exams back. If grading was incorrect you will never know about it. He makes the exams cumulative but he doesn't give you back exams so you have no idea what you need to work on more for the next exam.\n\r\nThe formal sheet he gives you for the exams have nothing labeled. If you don't know what the equation is for already you are pretty much screwed.\n\r\nSummary: Way too much work for a 3 credit class. Hard exams that are even harder to study for. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-11T21:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Wow Frostea took the words straight out of my mouth... \n\r\nHis own HW problems are horrendously awful and take incredibly long to complete (HW is worth 25% of your grade). Like Frostea said, you *waste* half your time figuring out what he wants!\n\r\nThe TA's were such a blessing. I wish Mary was teaching the class.. \n\r\nThis is the worst class I've ever taken and statistics is an incredibly important subject. Its a shame this guy is so awful, avoid him like the plague. \n\r\nDr. Barker teaches this class sometimes, he's an excellent professor. \n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-23T19:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'I honestly get the impression he is teaching this course not out of desire, but necessity. \n\r\nBe *very* careful with this teacher; he purposefully quickly glosses over information and AVOIDS explaining it when he intended to have a clicker question on it or emphasize it on the exam. This isn\'t always the case, but often is. \n\r\nHe is very passive aggressive in his teaching style. When he makes a mistake on his custom made homework problems since he worded it unnecessarily vaguely, he says it\'s your fault for not assuming X, Y, or Z, when it could very well be that the assumption could be invalid if you interpret the data differently. \n\r\nStudents actively argue with him about his homework problems, which are often UNNESSARY. If he assigned just book problems, they would be bearable. But a HUGE amount of time always goes into trying to interpret his custom problems, NOT into actually applying the material. \n\r\nI did very well on the first exam but awful on the second exam as I had ZERO sleep due to staying up all night trying to play catch up for my other classes after one of his god awful homeworks that I had to spend my entire weekend + monday in order to complete with some understanding of the material. So I was a complete wreck for his exam. \n\r\nIn a nutshell: he has a very typical professor-complex where he considers his class the only one in existance and expects you to "get rid of conflicts" if you can\'t attend the problem solving sessions on friday. Sorry sir, you cannot ask a student to drop classes just to attend the friday sessions. That is not only egotistical but also unethical. This a 3 credit class that you assign 6-9 credits worth of work per week. \n\r\nI\'ve researching the necessary paperwork to report this teacher to the academic board; his unethical practices are negligent and destructive. If you do not like to teach, please leave. I shouldn\'t pay you tons of money to berate us in class. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-13T15:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'This guy is a horrible lecturer. His lectures don\'t help (learning from the book is better) and he is bad at answering questions. When asking questions during class, he will be easily confused with your question and probably give you a BS answer like "it depends what you\'re doing" and continue on with lecture. \n\r\nHe gives the worst clicker questions at the end of his lectures (usually 2 or 3 questions) which are on some mundane detail of his lecture he went over for 30 seconds. These count for 5% of your grade (syllabus is not clear). \n\r\nHe gives more homework than my other engineering classes (like 12-20 problems per week along with analyzing raw data). Also, he\'ll take off 2% of your final grade if you don\'t pick up your homework from his office. Seriously, wtf??\n\r\nTests are tricky on purpose, so you\'ll need to be very careful reading the problem over and over. They are long and you\'ll need to be proficient to finish on time.\n\r\nHe does hold problem solving sessions on Fridays (can\'t go to them because of class), but I hear they are largely useless like his lectures. \n\r\nOverall, one of the worst professors I\'ve had, especially for a course that needs a lot of careful explanation.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-02T16:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'Michel is a difficult professor to put a grade to.\n\r\nHis lectures are largely useless even though he does put them online. They are very scattered and doesn\'t show work, so often it looks like he just jumps to the answer with no explanation. \n\r\nThe worst part of the lectures was the clickers at the end. There are 2 questions that are graded as quizzes. The questions are usually about some very minuscule detail and his wording is sometimes very unclear. If you have him, I recommend bringing the textbook or his lecture notes and looking up the answers because he allows this.\n\r\nSample exams: "How do you mean sample exams?" was one of his quotes from the year. He does not give sample exams and his regular exams are very hard and curves them to around a 75% average.\n\r\nHomework: Gives a lot of homework but pays more attention to effort, though the correct answer does count.\n\r\nAvailability: He makes himself very available to students and is very approachable and a nice guy, and is always willing to help out students.\n\r\nHis accent was somewhat of a barrier, but once you learn what certain words are, it\'s not too bad.\n\r\nThe curve at the end seemed pretty large because the average grade was very low. I\'m sure you could do worse than Cukier, but I\'m sure you could do better as well.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-08-29T14:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'HACS200', 'review': '"Dumpster fire" barely suffices to describe the horror of this course.\r\n\r\nTLDR: \r\ncourse: absolute train-wreck, 0/10 would not take again. The students being so happy that a course is over is really something.\r\ninstructor: performance beyond awful in running the course and for encouraging p-hacking. Would rate 0 stars if I could.\r\n\r\nFirst and foremost, this was way to much work for a 2cr 200-lv course.\r\n\r\nLack of documentation / spec doesn\'t help either. \r\nUsing MITM software provided by the course staff is virtually required, which wouldn\'t be too bad except for the fact that it\'s broken and lacks documentation.\r\nImportant bug fixes to it were made multiple weeks into the semester, and the entire setup relies on deprecated packages, so updating breaks it.\r\nEven after those fixes, it\'s still bugged. (This is treating the "it\'s a feature, not a bug" aspects as features)\r\n\r\nNext up is asinine / lack of grading criteria. \r\nInitially, assignments at least had rubrics provided. (Marking in adherence to the rubrics, not so much)\r\nPeer reviews were used to give feedback (rather than instructional staff) for a large assignment early on, which wouldn\'t be an issue if the peer review comments correlated with the marks given.\r\nGrades were assigned here pretty arbitrarily, using justifications like \'this section was not 2 pages\' (paraphrased) to deduct points from groups that had slightly above 2 pages as well as those with slightly below.\r\nWith margins though, no group could possibly have exactly 2 pages. \r\n\r\nEarly on, there were also marks for more subjective things like presentations, for which grades were not released until months later.\r\nThe thing is, no rubric was used in grading these -- just "a general feel[ing]" (direct quote). (???) This is MONTHS after the actual presentation! \r\nI barely remember what my teammates talked about, much less little details of other groups; there is no way the course staff remembers details sufficient to assign meaningful grades months later.\r\n\r\nWhen confronted about this, though, they doubled down and refused to provide grading criteria for the final presentation/paper.\r\nNow, rumor has it that Dr. Cukier was attempting (successfully?) to make the course appear "rigorous" by assigning low grades.\r\nI personally have no evidence of this one way or another, but consider this case:\r\n\r\nThe course staff told students that our proposals (worth about 20% of the overall grade) would be rejected and we would be asked to repeatedly revise them if they were not sufficiently well written.\r\nHowever, one entire group\'s proposal was accepted and subsequently scored 11.3/20 (probably 11.25 actually due to ELMS rounding) -- an F (mean was 15.3/20). \r\n"F denotes failure to understand the subject and unsatisfactory performance." An unsatisfactory proposal should have been rejected, no? \r\n\r\nWhile other students undoubtedly have a long list of grievances about this course, I\'ll just touch on this one.\r\nHe actively encouraged p-hacking (see https://xkcd.com/882/) to groups who initially failed to reject their null hypotheses.\r\nThis included suggesting "regrouping the data" and even as far as "just looking at one week [of 1-2 months worth]" (paraphrased).\r\nThis is questionable at best, and most researchers view it as cheating in the experiment -- perhaps just shy of scientific fraud.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-13T22:53:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'This is by far the worst course I’ve taken at UMD. The professors are incompetent, constantly retracting their own statements and overall a complete disgrace to the university. The course layout is awful and inefficient. We are expected to watch all lecture videos and do homework before coming to class which begs the question, Why even come to class? Furthermore the professors instruct us to asks further questions on Piazza, which they have frequently neglected to answers for multiple days on pressing issues. Cuckier is frequently wrong in his demonstrations which only further confuses students, while Fuge insults is by only asking for “high level questions” Lastly, no one can ever seem to give a straight answer without having to “confer” which in other words means they will never tell you the answer and are dodging the question. The worst part of all is the use of prarie learn. Each question must be completed twice to get full credit but if a student doesn’t compete one single part of a question, they have no way of earning any points on the second attempt. Furthermore the exams use instant feedback which i will admit is nice, but the professors don’t even bother with partial credit which destroys all hope of earning credit for displaying what you know.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-30T05:15:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Let this be a warning to anyone that has to take it with either Cukier or Fuge. Granted they may teach it differently once things are back in person, but being taught through zoom and asynchronous videos was just a huge mess to deal with it. Cukier, you won't understand his notes at all unless you've been keeping up with lecture to the dot. The notes that he does during lecture are a joke, typing out the solution makes interpreting his work difficult since this class is heavy on the notations. Its quite the headache. \r\nThe HW you have to do is extremely tedious and time consuming, granted I didn't expect it to be a walk in the park, but they are very long and take time too. \r\nBy the way, they also catch you off guard with how heavily emphasized MATLAB is used in the course. So if you haven't coded before or barely utilized it you're in for a great time. \r\nTests are extremely challenging, there's a reason why the averages are low, you can't get partial credit, unlike a normal practical exam you can still get some sort of credit for attempting it. Here however, you only can salvage some credit when you get the question RIGHT. So really its either all or nothing with these exams.\r\nUltimately you're gonna take an L with whichever statistics professor you have. This department needs to be investigated.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-22T03:44:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME442', 'review': 'Everything everyone has said about Cukier is true. He is not the professor to take for any class. I don\'t care if you really want to take the class, I promise he will ruin it for you. He doesn\'t lecture well. His notes are useless to follow. He doesn\'t give clear expectations on assignments and then grades with scrutiny. He doesn\'t provide rubrics. It took him an entire semester to grade our midterms. We received our 1st midterm grade after we already took the 2nd midterm. The 2nd midterm had repeat content from the first so I got it wrong twice not knowing my error until I spoke to my friend about it. He is definitely passive aggressive about the way he teaches. He will not give you a full picture of the course content that will be on the exam and try putting in "gotchas" on the exams to lower our grades. All of his 442 exam questions are written in a way which lets him subjectively grade them and the exams are not returned for you to review where you lost points.\r\n\r\nAvoid this professor at all costs!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-15T03:42:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME442', 'review': 'This class is abysmal. He sold it as one thing in the beginning of the semester and the class ended up being totally different to how he described it. We had to use security tools for our homework and he never mentioned how to use them once during the entire course. I literally had to Youtube how to do every homework assignment and some of them took way longer than they should have just trying to figure out how to use them. He spent every lecture talking about nonsense for the first 20 minutes at least and when he was teaching his lecture slides were harder to decipher than hieroglyphics. His tests are dumb and usually had barely anything to do with what we learned in class. A trainwreck is a generous description of this abomination of a class. If you need any more convincing, he literally spent half of one lecture talking about how one of his former students who works in IT emailed him and roasted him because his class is not useful for learning about information security at all. I put in so much effort into this course and still feel like I’ve barely learned anything useful. It’s a god damn shame because I like the subject material and find informaton security interesting, but this class made me question why I’m paying for a college education. Avoid this class and this professor like the plague, at least for your own sanity!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-15T03:55:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "A genuinely awful professor. I seriously have no idea how he is allowed to teach.\r\n\r\nHe has no idea what is going on half the time. He teaches the course so that you are forced to utilize Matlab, but he never teaches you how to use Matlab. He does not even know himself how to use Matlab. His office hours are useless. He does not know how to answer any sort of question unless it is a question that he has an answer key for. The exams are at least pretty easy. The homework rely on Matlab. but even the TA's do not know hot to grade them properly. We did not know any of our homework grades for a large chunk of the semester. He uses the tiny whiteboard in the class to write notes on, but all his notes are irrelevant and useless because they are all already on the screen.\r\n\r\nAvoid this guy if possible.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-27T05:38:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'HACS100', 'review': "He doesn't actually teach this class, he just takes credit for it", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T05:05:40.535542Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'HACS100', 'review': "He does not actually teach this class - everything he is supposed to be teaching is taught through asynchronous videos that don't cover everything you need to know to complete the assignments. The person in the videos isn't even him - it is another professor that you never meet.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T18:19:25.913705Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': 'A terrible terrible terrible teacher, does not teach class at all. Taking class with him is just a waste of time and money.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T19:51:13.521026Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "This is a terrible and awful professor. Don't take any class with him, that's a waste of time and money. Lazy and doesn't know what he is doing. University should not allow him to teach", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T02:10:50.658112Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "Cukier really wants to be a good professor, but he can't seem to do anything right. He makes mistakes in lectures, gets confused whenever he is asked a question, and has no confidence in his own teaching style. The homework for this class is absurdly difficult and requires you to do complicated things in matlab despite them not teaching a single thing about how to do things in matlab and the matlab class not even being a prerequisite. I wish the ENME department would get rid of this course and just require STAT400 instead.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-12-28T23:57:15.324630Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'ENME392', 'review': "This guy really does not know what is going on in this course. He is a terrible professor, and people rarely go to his class just because you can't learn anything in this class. Finding a good study group or using the textbook is much more helpful.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2023-01-03T11:40:25.641719Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'HACS200', 'review': "Cukier has way too high expectations. He expects all students to come in with an understanding of statistics as if that's a prerequisite for this course (which it's not at all). He complained about the way we did our statistics despite not actually teaching us anything. Thankfully it didn't end up impacting our grade, but it made the course unbearable entirely. We had to repeatedly explain our entire research project every time we spoke with him and it required multiple people explaining it each time before he understood. Literally a waste of time.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T17:31:44.074255Z'}, {'professor': 'Michel Cukier', 'course': 'HACS100', 'review': "I don't know why he's listed as an instructor for this course since I have never seen him. He doesn't teach anything, we just watch prerecorded lectures from another individual. These videos are not very informative, and quite a few of the homework assignments had errors in the instructions. Everything was graded by TAs who didn't really know what they were doing, and I feel like I didn't really learn anything from this course.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-22T02:51:52.835975Z'}], 'name': 'Michel Cukier', 'slug': 'cukier'}, {'courses': ['BUMK706', 'BMGT828M', 'BUMK758K', 'BMGT858W', 'BUMK742', 'BUSI735', 'BMSO758E', 'BMSO758E', 'BUMK742', 'BMSO758E', 'BUMK758C'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michel Wedel', 'course': 'BUMK742', 'review': "Professor Wedel is one of the nicest professors that I have ever had. He is so knowledgeable about the topic and has so much experience in the field. The class is difficult, but he is super responsive to students' questions throughout the week. There are bi-weekly quizzes and memos, and some quizzes especially the final one are super difficult even if you pay attention in class and think you understand the material.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-22T16:49:06Z'}], 'name': 'Michel Wedel', 'slug': 'wedel'}, {'courses': ['MATH410', 'MATH411', 'MATH130', 'MATH131'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michele Coti Zelati', 'slug': 'zelati'}, {'courses': ['KNES131V', 'KNES100O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michele Fox', 'slug': 'fox_michele'}, {'courses': ['JAPN498A', 'JAPN315', 'JAPN402', 'JAPN401', 'JAPN498B', 'JAPN325', 'JAPN407', 'JAPN425', 'JAPN335', 'CMLT679Z', 'GERM689Z', 'SLLC698Z', 'FREN699Z', 'FILM329K', 'JAPN498N', 'JAPN401', 'JAPN424', 'JAPN498A', 'WGSS498B', 'JAPN325', 'JAPN407'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michele Mason', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Mason is the best professor I have EVER had! Her lectures are interesting, her discussions are fascinating and she treats her students like equals in a conversation rather than someone she is "teaching." No matter what she is teaching, she tries to make sure that the class is going to benefit you as a person for the rest of your life, which I really appreciate. Take her classes UNDER ANY AND ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, because she is too fantastic to miss! There was a lot of reading in JAPN498B, but it was all interesting and was totally worth it to experience such a great class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-12T23:12:00Z'}], 'name': 'Michele Mason', 'slug': 'mason_michele'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'WMST200', 'WMST400', 'WMST298N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michele Prince', 'slug': 'prince'}, {'courses': ['CLFS520', 'CLFS619D', 'CHEM131', 'CBMG688Z', 'BISI688Z', 'BISI701'], 'average_rating': 2.4706, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': None, 'review': 'I agree Dr. Brooks was an unusual character but she was somewhat helpful. I took the course during the spring and failed lol. But when i took it in the summer i got a B. Point of the story is that taking this class during the summer is much easier and you have more time to focus on the material and more time to study. It is faster paced during the summer but the advantage is that some original course material can be skipped. For example during the spring semester their was Organic and inorganic chemistry involved in Chem135 but in the summer she took out all of the organic chemistry!!!! WARNING this happened only when i took the class with her and during the summer. Not saying other professors don\'t do this either but in general during summer classes the professors only having a limited amount of time to teach the material so they usually only pick out the "important stuff" so they can teach it on time. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-20T07:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': 'Dr. Brooks is an unusual character. Some days she seems so nice and is willing to help you out any way possible, and some days it seems like she has pms and hates the world and wants you to get an F. All I can say is that I worked by @$$ off to get an A in this class, and it was the most workload I had out of any class. She curved the class so that if you had an 85% or higher, you would get an A. The three exams were difficult, especially the multiple choice part. Although the final was really easy, just make sure you write all the procedures and every chart from the lab manual. Overall if you really want to get A, get ready to work.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-20T13:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': "Epic fail class. 3 exams + final for a 2 credit class. There is a ridiculous amount of work for this class as well. Lab reports aren't short and the grading is VERY VERY inconsistent. I've compared my lab reports with others and some people will get points deducted and others won't for the same answer. It was difficult to study for exams. It was strongly based on application of the material. There was 1000 points total. CHEM271, the corresponding lecture, had only 500 points total and the work load was very small. \n\n\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-17T18:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM277', 'review': "Lab report grading was pretty rough due almost entirely to significant figures and graph/table details. I did the most work for this class out of all of my classes due to all of the extra projects that 272 did not have (e.g. wiki page and oral presentation) and the 2 labs a week.\n\r\nDr. Brooks creates challenging exams, but if you actually do any of the assigned reading (requires less than an hour to review all experiments' reading on an exam) and look over returned lab reports they are quite manageable- just memorizing calculations from reports is not enough. Chem272 would have undoubtably been easier, but 277 gives some insight into writing abstracts, writing reports, and scientific presentations. \n\r\nDr. Brooks can be intimidating at times, but I think is overall responsive to concerns and reasonable.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-16T07:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': "I have mixed feelings about Dr. Brooks and this course. The course has way too much work for a 2 credit course (3 exams, a lab every week, and a final vs. 2 exams, a final, 2 quizzes, and 2 problem sets for 271). I had more work in this course than any of my other courses. On the other hand, I have never learned so much from a chemistry lab. I feel like I actually did take something away from this course and have a better understanding of certain things. \n\r\nThe lectures are somewhat unnecessary to attend especially if you can follow the powerpoints on your own. However, during some lectures, she gave you hints and answers to things you wouldn't normally get. \n\r\nI didn't interact with her too much throughout the semester, but I had a couple of problems and I never had anything bad to say about any interaction with her. I thought she was pleasant and helpful and was really there to teach you. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-03T16:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM277', 'review': 'She was very patient with our class and also entertaining in lecture. She sometimes was impatient or seemed like she had better things to do, but was overall very helpful outside of class with individual questions as well. Grading was a ***** at first but the class got used to it. Several people in the class had an uncurved A, but she nonetheless curved more anyway.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-23T02:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM277', 'review': 'Hard class. 272 would have been a breeze.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-08T10:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "I took AP Chem in high school and got a 4, which I thought was pretty good. The School of Engineering only gives credit for 5's, so they still made me take 135, which was basically everything I learned in high school. As you can obviously tell, this class was an incredible waste of my time. I will say, Dr. Brook's patience with our class was impressive, considering how downright rude we were. That being said, her lectures were still mediocre, and I learned way more in high school than in this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-25T15:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': 'Her lectures were at best mediocre. They sometimes helped me with doing my laboratory reports, but usually they gave too much extraneous information that we would never have to remember or use for our exams. Overall, her exams were VERY difficult. To get full credit on all questions, you\'ll have to have in-depth knowledge of what\'s going on "backstage" and know EXACTLY what you did in lab, what happened, why you performed a certain procedure, and why you obtained your specific data/results.\n\r\nIn other words, her class was informative, but was much too demanding for a 2 credit course. The co-requisite course (CHEM 271), which is also 2 credits, is MUCH MUCH easier compared to this class, especially if you take Dr. Brooks.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-26T01:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': "Dr. Brooks is a horrible teacher. As people have said before, she seems like she is nice but she is a straight up mean person. Her lectures suck, she tries to be cool and talk about drugs and sex but picturing her having sex just makes me gag. All she does in lecture is review over her slides, which she posts online anyways and are only slightly helpful when doing the labs. The labs take forever. Taking this class will seriously ruin your academic and social life. Assuming you are taking 14-16 credits, you basically have to spend as much time on this worthless 2 credit class as ALL of your other classes combined. The labs are graded horribly. You can do nothing wrong and get questions completely wrong because you do not do the problem exactly the way she wants you to, or just get points off of every question because your sig figs aren't perfect. Apparently half of the lab manual is copied straight out of wikipedia and also some of the lab procedures are written incorrectly. Several people had to re-do large portions of labs because of the TA's were incapable/uninformed of this. When I told Dr. Brooks that one of the lab procedures was wrong she insinuated that I am an idiot and should have known that the procedure was wrong just from reading it. The TA's suck. She's given horrible TA's purposely, and she tells them that they can't really help you if you go to their office hours. The fact that this two credit class has a lab due every week, prelabs, 3 exams and a final is bullshit. This class is such a waste of time and a GPA killer because of the ways she does the grades. I feel bad for anyone who has to take this class with Brooks in the future, too bad she's the only one teaching it next semester. \n\r\nFor the record, I have a 3.8 GPA as a chem major, so I am not just some idiot who writes shit like this about every teacher.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-20T14:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': "will fuck up your GPA and probably laugh about it to her cats. Doesn't care that shes messing with your future. Tried to give us a 2% curve until there was an uproar.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-18T00:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': "'alyz's' review is spot on...\r\nHer slides are sometimes helpful with answering the post-lab questions. Her exams are pretty challenging and difficult to study for. She seems like she would be a pain to deal with individually (I avoided this)...but she is entertaining and seems nice enough in lecture. \n\r\nThe titration labs are really frustrating. So many trials..so many data points...uugh. On the whole, it is an annoying lab. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-10T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': "Teaches from slides, sometimes helpful with labs\r\nLab exams hard\r\nSuper picky with sig figs (ugh!)\r\nSeems nice but when you talk to her she's just plain mean\r\nTries too hard to be cool (aka drugs + tattoos)\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-13T02:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': "She's a good teacher, very approachable outside of class, goes out of her way to make the assignments as fair as possible. Lab reports are honestly not that hard; if you go to lecture, she practically does the whole report for you anyway. \n\r\nBut her exams are absolutely ridiculous. \r\nThey are unlike anything on the lab reports, and require an incredibly deep understanding of the material. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-07-01T23:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "Dr. Brooks is eclectic and amusing. She does her best to get through a large amount of material in this course, and sometimes has trouble getting it all out in an effective manner. This is largely due to the requirements placed on the course by the engineering department. \n\r\nI thought she was remarkably patient with our class considering how disrespectful it was. Any pause was immediately filled with talking from all corners of the auditorium, making it very hard for me to hear her, even from the third row. \n\r\nShe is approachable and willing to help students during office hours or outside them. You can generally get a few more points out of her on tests. \n\r\nYou will get through this course if you try. It isn't supposed to be easy, it is intended to weed out people who don't want to be engineers. Once it's done, you don't have to take any more chemistry if you don't want to. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-06-09T16:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM272', 'review': 'Class was extremely difficult. Most labs take a long time. The lab reports took forever and were hard. Some were graded easily while some were graded really harshly. She made her midterm and final almost impossible. Overall, very bad lab. She did curve in the end but not that much.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-06-02T17:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Brooks', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "She tries to make everything harder in this class because she doesn't like having to teach engineering students and she feels as though they should be put through hell. In general, she is a ***** and I would definately not recommend her at all. Her tests are extremely hard (averages around a 50) and the grading is usually messed up on them. Homework is also hard. Try and get another teacher...", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-22T12:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Michelle Brooks', 'slug': 'brooks_michelle'}, {'courses': ['HONR208P', 'HDCC208I', 'HONR209F', 'HONR228D', 'HONR279Q', 'HDCC106', 'HDCC208P', 'HHUM205'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michelle Butler', 'slug': 'butler_michelle'}, {'courses': ['BMGT367', 'BMGT367F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michelle Doan', 'slug': 'doan_michelle'}, {'courses': ['EDCP610', 'EDCP773', 'EDCP799A', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP789R', 'EDCP798A', 'EDCP798L', 'EDCP870', 'EDCP798D', 'HESI655', 'EDCP789R', 'EDCP610', 'EDCP789R', 'EDCP798A', 'EDCP870', 'EDCP789R', 'EDCP888A', 'EDCP798E', 'HESI655', 'EDCP789R', 'EDCP798A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michelle Espino', 'slug': 'espino'}, {'courses': ['PHYS798D', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS260H', 'PHYS615', 'PHYS798T', 'CHPH709B', 'PHYS709', 'PHYS798N', 'PHYS798U', 'PHYS899', 'PHYS781', 'PHYS780', 'PHYS782', 'PHYS798Z', 'CMSC828O', 'PHYS165', 'PHYS781', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS780', 'PHYS782', 'CMSC828O', 'PHYS798Z', 'PHYS899', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michelle Girvan', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "She's kind of hard to follow when doing examples since her writing is kind of small and disorganized. She also hands out pretty hard exams. That said, she's pretty nice and cares for her students. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-21T03:07:16Z'}], 'name': 'Michelle Girvan', 'slug': 'girvan'}, {'courses': ['LBSC620', 'LBSC631', 'LBSC724', 'LBSC741'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michelle Hamiel', 'slug': 'hamiel'}, {'courses': ['CMSC250', 'CMSC420', 'CMSC411', 'CMSC798'], 'average_rating': 2.4615, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Meesh... I have no idea how I feel about her as a professor and whether or not I recommend her for 420. \n\r\nPros\r\n- You may not have to attend a single class besides exams\r\n- She gives out project extensions always\r\n- She genuinely cares about her students and about you succeeding\r\n- The exams are really fair - since they cover a lot of material you are bound to do well unless you don't know anything at all\r\n- She calculates your grade a bunch of different ways and picks the best one\r\n- If you do well on the first two parts of the project and both midterms you can skip the third part of the project as well as the final and still get a good grade\n\r\nCons\r\n- The project is pretty hard and time consuming\r\n- You won't learn that much from going to lectures due to her ADD/Dislexia. Wish she recorded her lectures because she actually is really good at it when she's lecturing and not telling stories\r\n- You won't learn that much about data structures if you take it with her\n\r\nOverall, it depends if you like teaching yourself everything or if you like learning by going to lectures. I prefer the latter and think I may have been happier if I took the course with someone else. I will say that Meesh is an awesome person and with a few small modifications I think she could improve the class. It wasn't necessarily hard but it definitely wasn't easy either. You'll have to put in considerable work (at least on the project) to do well", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-12-18T13:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'She is responsible to her students and is always willing to help. The project was ambitious but interesting! Design a Google Map by yourself!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-22T14:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Ok first let me say I am graduating right now and I am currently working for Google and I took Meesh for my CMSC 411(fall 2013) and 420 (summer 2014). On my job interview( for Google) the interviewer asked me about how did i do in Meesh classes? I am just telling that to let you know guys she is really famous. Yea she has ADD and she is talking about her life during the class but trust me all of the material she is covering are going to help you a loooooooot. Yes her Exam are really long and long and long but there are lots of materials that you know about them and you can get points for that. trust me take her class go to the lectures and study the materials she is giving to you!\r\n(Also there are some links like UNIX tutorial which I found it really useful take advantage of those too in your free time.\n\r\nIf you are not working hard and dont try to teach yourself trust me you dont have any place in computer science world ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-08-02T22:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Lecture: \r\nSo Meesh has ADD and at first you might think "Why bother coming to lecture since she just goes off on random tangents all the time?" Well you should go to lecture because:\r\n1) I actually learned a lot during lecture, not sure how, but I learned, the ADD moments might have actually kept me somewhat engaged and \r\n2) the ADD (at least for my semester) seemed to start off terrible and get better as the semester progressed. \n\r\nProjects:\r\nSo you are essentially writing MapQuest (well a low key version anyway). The project is broken into 3 parts and builds on itself throughout the semester. You really need to do well on the first part so that you have a good idea of what is going on, people who slacked on Part I were at a great disadvantage for Parts II and III. \r\nThe project will take a lot of time, but won\'t be particularly difficult so long as you do the readings and understand the data structures you are creating. I can\'t stress this enough: THE PROJECT WILL TAKE UP A LOT OF TIME!!!\n\r\nExams:\r\nIf you read the other reviews you will notice that her exams are really really long. Use this to your advantage, if you don\'t understand a question just skip it, there is no point wasting time trying to decipher a question. I would also suggest never asking questions during the exam, it takes too much time and you could be answering questions you know the answer to instead of waiting for an explanation from the TAs or Meesh. Don\'t worry, she curves like crazy, I had something like a 78% and got an A.\n\r\nBook:\r\nMeesh posts a lot of stuff on her website. Use those resources, they are very helpful. Do the readings, they will really help you understand the intricacies of the data structures (and sometimes provide pseudocode).\n\r\nMisc:\r\nI took the summer version of the course, which had the projects shortened slightly, but topic coverage was the same. I also worked 20 hours a week at my job while taking this course and managed an A (although I spent almost all my non-work/non-class time working on the projects). ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-08-14T21:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'This professor does not teach,she uses years worth of material stored and maintained by TA\'s in lieu of teaching. Time is spent performing administrative tasks in class, telling stories, cancelling class, and talking about how much she "cares." The truth is she doesn\'t care because students are walking away from her class thinking they have a good understanding of the concepts taught. With a general bit of knowledge and the heavy curving on the tests you would have a tough time failing tests even if you tried. Don\'t waste your time with this professor if you want to be successful in the field, use your time with professors like Dave Mount or Samir Khuller. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-08-12T17:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "This class was one of the more boring/frustrating ones that I have taken here at UMD. It seemed like the curriculum we covered was just all over the place, and I didnt feel like I learned much at all from this class. The graduate teaching assistants for this class were not good at all; they didnt care very much about the students and were horrible at grading exams. A lot of people found 5-10 points worth of mistakes on each of the exams, in addition to the fact that many of the points awarded were subject to the grader's own opinion, rather than actually getting a right/wrong answer. \r\nAs for Dr. Hugue, most of the stuff mentioned below is true. She is pretty crazy, which can make the class funny at times but will also annoy you to no end if you actually are confused about something and want to learn the material. In lecture it seemed as though she just went over random topics with no real sense of organization or purpose. I had to teach myself everything for the assignments and exams. She is a really nice person who will listen to you after class and respond promptly to email. If I had to choose over again Id take this class with Perlis, because I learned more from him the one time I was in his lecture than I did all year in Dr. Hugue's lecture.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-01-26T17:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC250', 'review': "Hugue...oh boy. I thought the subject matter of 250 was pretty boring to begin with, and Hugue didn't change my mind. Lectures start off with a TA teaching for the first few minutes, then Hugue going over slides mixed in with random stories about her life. \n\r\nHomework is easy, about 20 minutes a week, and quizzes are just as easy, as long as you've done the homework and stayed semi-conscious in lecture.\n\r\nTests are okay, alot of partial credit, which is great if you mess up on a proof.\n\r\nHugue isn't great but compared to the other professors I'd prefer her. From what I hear the other 250 professors are like Hugue minus the stories in lecture, and that's the only thing keeping me from falling into comas during lecture. Also, she's much nicer than the other professors. She wants the class to do well and promises to curve/give partial credit/etc. if it will help the class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-20T02:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "She's just not a good teacher. I'll agree she's a very understanding person and I like her exam style, but we should have gotten way more out of 351 than we did. I didn't enroll in 351 to hear Meesh talk about random stories from her life for the entire class. It's great when professors can provide relevant anecdotes to the material that they're teaching, but Meesh just provided anecdotes about whatever happened to pop into her strange mind at the time.\r\nAt least the class is really easy though. I mean we only had 4 hws and one small project, which just goes to show you how little we learned.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-21T23:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "This was my second time having Meesh. She is complicated. I'm a firm believer that a professor is not defined purely by his or her lecture skills, and since she's not your average professor, I have to break this down a little.\n\r\nLectures: Tough to follow. If you learn purely through lectures, you might want to avoid her classes.\n\r\nExams: Long, but fair. She does not penalize you very much for missing small details. Just don't ever get caught up on one problem. If it takes you too long, skip it.\n\r\nHomework and projects: Also pretty fair. She doesn't seem to believe in secret tests. She isn't as forgiving about stupid mistakes on homework as she is on exams.\n\r\nAccommodations: Seriously amazing. Is your life hard? Do you have other things going on? Do you mess up sometimes, and does that one bad day sometimes ruin your entire grade for a class? Congratulations, Meesh acknowledges that you are human! That test you took half-asleep and sick and stressed beyond belief? Dropped. That homework you couldn't do because you had so much going on outside of this class? Dropped. That day you have two projects due and two homework assignments due and two exams? Meesh is the professor who will give you an extension.\n\r\nDisabilities: If you have any sort of disability it is really nice to have a professor who understands. Meesh will be the first person to realize that you're not stupid; your brain just works differently. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-16T23:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'really guys! I am puzzled, how could anyone give Meesh 5 stars?? Granted her "lectures" can be entertaining but you don\'t learn anything. She just sits on her fat ass and tells you stories. Her rare efforts to actually teach result in a tirade of nonsense. The only times I\'ve learned anything in her class are when the TA took over.\n\r\nShe often comes to class late, and occasionally even misses the entire class. She doesn\'t even write up her own notes. \n\r\nI am a math, physics, and cs major and in all my classes I\'ve learned one thing - that the CS department needs to do an overhaul of their professors. And the first thing they should do is fire Dr. Hugue.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-08T22:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "She doesn't teach anything. She just sends an email before every midterm listing what you're supposed to have taught yourself. And she isn't that generous with partial credit. I got zero points on one page even though I showed work. Just saying.\n\r\nI'm not one to go to office hours just to buddy up with a teacher. I just don't have time or heart for that. So I can tell you that she actually doesn't give a damn about you unless do that. Won't even answer your emails. \n\r\nAnyway, I read the book, did my best on the labs, and still failed. Just another perspective. Thanks for reading.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2010-12-23T19:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Hugue, like any other professor will not 'hold your hand' through the coursework. You'll be expected to study the course material and apply it in projects and tests. However, unlike most professors, Dr. Hugue spends most of the class period telling stories about former students who now work for big software companies (google, microsoft, etc) and other irrelevant information. My advice is to go to class for the quizzes but not to expect anything out of her.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-06T19:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "It's funny how many times people can say this, but be forewarned: Meesh does not teach you by holding your hand in lecture. You are expected to *gasp* read the friendly book! \n\r\nNow I know this is crazy for us computer science majors, and some of us get frustrated initially by Meesh's style. But know this: Meesh does have your best interests in mind. \n\r\nIf you like your predictable, vanilla boring professor don't take Meesh. If you want an adventure and can motivate yourself to learn the material on your own with pointers from an instructor -- go for Meesh.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-24T09:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "Meesh doesn't teach much, but she cares about students. Tests are long but not too hard, and OMG at the partial credits she gave. Imagine a 3 point true false question, its funny that you could get 1 point for getting the wrong answer...", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-18T23:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "I have had Meesh for 3 classes CMSC311, CMSC351 and CMSC420. Yeah that's right 3! And if she taught any others I would take them.\n\r\nFirst to address the complaints from people\r\n1) She doesn't teach - Oh god she doesn't stand in front and read from the slides THE HORROR. She actually teaches you to learn on your own. She doesn't leave you totally helpless. She gives you all the resources you will ever need and tells you what to look at and what you need to know. She even sends out emails before a test or quiz telling you what you need to study. Also if you didn't talk about it in class it wont be on the test, simple as that.\r\n2) She is crazy - If you are taking a computer science class with Meesh then you are in a major with a lot of crazy people, deal with it. Besides it makes the class more interesting.\r\n3) Her exams are looooong - Her average 311 exam is about 1.4 times the length of what it would normally be to finish in a normal amount of time. This is actually to your advantage because say her test is out of 200 points originally and you got a 120. What she does is let you keep that 120 but adjusts the total to say 130 and now you have an A+. She has adjusted the totals to a point where some people get above 100% and they get to keep that grade. Her long exams also allow you to answer what you know. Don't know anything on page 2 of the exam? Skip it, you have 18 other pages to possibly answer a question. \n\r\nOther positives\r\n1) Her TA's - because many students love Meesh they will come back to TA for her. She usually knows these students very well. This means they are the best TA's in computer science. I'm talking about nice people you can talk to and they can generate the implementation for an entire PR quadtree in their heads (420 structure)\r\n2) Her Grading - PARTIAL CREDIT, omg the level of partial credit is amazing. I have gotten points for writing totally wrong answers that other teachers would give a 0 for. This goes for projects and almost anything else as well. If you have three tests she also drops the lowest one (this also applies to HW's and quizzes)\r\n3) The projects - They are real world things you might actually do once you get out of school. Designing structures, reverse engineering programs, efficiency of different searches. Actual useful things; not the theory stuff that some teachers try to put in their class.\n\r\nShe knows her stuff and loves teaching, and loves her students. Best teacher I will have at UMD", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-03-08T20:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Terrible. She may be a nice lady but shes a nervous wreck half the time and I just could not deal with her, so I switched teachers. Do not take her class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-07T19:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Meesh is an awesome woman with a great personality. Take her Math220 class if you've already taken calculus or you are good at learning on your own. Though I attended every class, only 50 people would show up on average out of 150 students.\n\r\nMeesh says she has ADD and dyslexia, which I believe from listening to her lectures. It was almost impossible to learn from her notes, so I did a lot of outside studying which wasn't difficult. \n\r\nShe really does care about her students and enjoys making us laugh and making us happy. I would recommend her for those who have taken calc before and have a good basis for learning more. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-03T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "She is an extremely nice woman and wants her students to do well BUT!!!!! she is the worst math teacher I have ever had. If you're good at teaching yourself math than this is a good class for you. She claims to have ADD and be Dyslexic. She really doesn't teach, she is all over the board, and I really don't have clear notes from the class. She tells funny stories and is really nice. She wants her students to do well, she drops a lot of quizzes and homeworks. However, I would have been able to do much better with a different teacher. I got to the point where after the second exam i started going to different lectures because hers were useless. \n\r\nShe has the potential to be a good teacher, but definitely not for math.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-01T15:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Read all the posts below. She is fun, knowledgeable, cares about her students, and works with you if you don't understand certain concepts.\n\r\nHer teaching style isn't for everyone, but I find you can extrapolate your compatibility with her from the prior reviews.\n\r\nBottom line is: SHE CARES. She wants you to succeed and she'll fight tooth and nail for her students.\n\r\nThis review isn't nearly as long or as passionate as it should be, but I think the others get it across nicely.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-08-19T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "The things that people get scared of with Meesh is:\n\r\n1). She doesn't teach\r\n2). Her exams\r\n3). She's crazy\n\r\n1). She does get sidetracked often with stories, most of which have some life-meaning to them (other times she's just being silly). Yet don't think you won't get ANYTHING out of her. She does know the material but you are expected to learn most of it from the book. If you go to class she'll help you. Oh, and don't be intimidated by her snide-ness. Most of the time it's not because of you!\n\r\n2). Her exams...midterm was about 25 pages of questions and final was about 35 pages. Yes it's painful. However she follows her format of easy questions first, hard questions last. Her exams are two packets, one of which she grades herself. She reads everything you write, so always write something for her questions! The only way to get a zero on a question is if you don't answer it! The point of the exams is to show what you know and she often asks the same question in different ways, so there's lots of opportunities to get points for knowing your bits :) She is referred to as the queen of partial credit.\n\r\nOh and she curves...usually a 60% is an A on her exams.\n\r\n3). Yes she's crazy...but she cares for her students. I promise that.\n\n\r\nMisc: The book is helpful. Often problems on quizzes and exams come right from the book's problems! The labs (projects) are pretty cool IMO. Sometimes they can be downright frustrating, but Meesh and the TAs keep that in mind.\n\r\nAll in all Meesh is a professor who wants her students to do well in the field. She gives great advice and knows a lot of people who work in Google, Microsoft, etc.\n\r\nYou can never get screwed over by Meesh in terms of grades.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-26T12:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "I agree with everyone here, in that she cares about her students and wants them to do well. I would like to give a good review, but unfortunately I'm unable to delude myself enough to do so.\n\r\nHer lectures usually comprised of the following : 10-30 minutes of content, 30-50 minutes of unrelated stories, 15 minutes talking about her teaching philosophy. The content was explained relatively well. However questions usually resulted in mockery (although not in mean way). The unrelated stories were really not useful in any way for me and I'm surprised that other people here took something away from them. She seemed hell bent on divulging every last bit of personal information about herself and others, almost always unprompted. On several occasions she made the entire class pretty uncomfortable with her stories. The part of the lectures which I disliked the most was when she talked about her teaching style. Her philosophy is based on the idea that not everyone learns the same way. While this is a valid point, her solution was essentially to all but eliminate the lecture aspect of the course. Her goal was to shift more of the learning responsibility onto the individual. However, she mostly succeeded in wasting the time of those who went to lecture and in stripping the students of a valuable resource (a teacher!). It especially bothered me how often she would bash the teaching methods of other (specific) profs and glorify those of her own, during the time when she should actually be teaching!!\n\r\nThat said, I loved the projects (labs) for this course. The quizzes were pretty fair. The tests were rather difficult and long, and I'm not really sure how I feel about them.\n\r\nCould have been be a great class if the teacher had actually made use of the lecture time.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-22T18:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "As a number of reviewers have pointed out, much of her lectures seem to be spent on stories about her life or her former students. Yet I found myself learning the required material from the lectures too, all the while enjoying the stories along the way. While at times lectures may seem 'wasted', her teaching style worked well for me in the end. I got along well with her as a professor, and I enjoyed going to class. I also found myself paying more attention to her lectures (be it during stories or actual teaching moments) than I did other professors, which probably contributed to being able to learn more from her than others.\n\r\nBeyond her lectures, she was hands down the most helpful professor I have had, both within class/office hours and outside of these times, when she is easily accessible through a number of means. Her replies are always speedy and helpful, and you can tell that she truly does care about her students.\n\r\nWhile her style of teaching may not be a good fit for everyone, she is easily one of the best professors I have had at this University.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-01T12:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "Projects aren't too tough - 4 throughout the semester. Quizzes and exams aren't difficult, but they require you to think fast and to write fast. If you're a careful test-taker and like to look over your work numerous times, then you'll have a difficult time adjusting to her exams because they are huge packets. To maximize your chances of doing well, you need to spam the exams as much as possible as she gives plenty of partial credit - don't waste time checking over your answers and attempt every single page. Didn't learn much from lectures - learned most of the material from the book or doing her/TA's worksheets. She's a nice person who wants you to do well, and she's very fair.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-26T04:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "You will not learn anything from her lectures, except about her personal life and former students who now work for Google and Microsoft. She uses CMU's slides, CMU's textbook, and her TAs write the projects. However, she really does want her students to do well and she's really fair with grading. Unfortunately, for slow, careful test-takers such as myself, her extremely long tests and quizzes are hell.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-05-17T19:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': 'One of the few teachers in the department that really cares about her students. She will do far more for you in class and out just to make sure you are generally doing well. Her stories are hilarious and her lectures are entertaining. Awesome teacher!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-22T11:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': 'Unorthodox but very worthwhile teacher--I learned a ton. You will have to read the textbook sometimes, but the lectures are not as wasteful as they may seem.\n\r\nI personally feel that I learn better when I have a rapport with the professor, which is easy to do with Dr. Hugue.\n\r\nStrongly recommended.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-16T23:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': 'Meesh is a great professor. She keeps class interesting, she keeps class entertaining, and most of all, she manages to teach the material (as a previous reviewer said, "somehow.")\n\r\nYes, a lot of the class will be spent on jokes and her personal life. But in the end, you will learn more than with 75% of the other professors, and you will actually like going to class.\n\r\nAlso, her exams are very long. If you\'re a fast test taker, then this is fine. If you\'re not that fast, then this might be a little scary, but they\'re not too bad (they are very sharply curved.)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-16T22:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': 'Michelle Hugue is one of my favorite teachers at the University of Maryland so far, and is, along with Nelson Padua-Perez, probably tied for my favorite computer science teacher. By keeping class entertaining, in a way that only she could, "Meesh" has taught me, and the rest of the class, an enormous amount about low level programming, without most of us even realizing it happened. Additionally, she has been very responsive every time I talked to her after class. She never ceases to amuse and is always enlightening. Have fun!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-04T01:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "Pretty interesting person but that is about it. You will not learn anything from her... you will have to learn it on your own. This isn't so much a bad thing, but it makes you feel like you waste going to class. Half of her class time is spent telling stories while the other half is spent with her somewhat teaching the material.\n\r\nTests are extremely long and hard... she curves the test using a bell curve pretty much. Projects are interesting but she isn't very helpful if you need help, use the TAs. Quizzes are very easy but do not prepare you well for her exams. One more thing: read the instructions on her assignments and exams, and answer every possible question you can on the exam (she gives some partial credit for somewhat sensible answers)!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:06:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "One of the most interesting professors I have had at Maryland. She knows the material well and she cares a lot about how her students do, both in the class and in life. However, she often goes off on tangents and talks about her personal life. Some people like this and some hate it. Her tests are very strange; she gives you extremely long tests that almost no one finishes and curves them insanely. For example, about a 60% is an A. So as long as you focus on what you know, and know most of the material, you'll do fine. There are also a lot of pretty fun projects.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:06:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': None, 'review': "Great professor. Don't let the stories bother you, you actually learn a lot. Somehow.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:06:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'You will not learn anything by taking this class. Past exams saved my life. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:48:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "this class is hard as hell. She doesn't come to class. So all of the lectures were on google hangout. Really struggled in class", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:49:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Perfect professor to take if you want to simply pass the class. I studied 3 days before both midterms and did perfectly fine. The exams are very long and you aren't expected to finish them. However, you should attempt to write something for every single question because you will get partial credit as long as it's not blank. The class is online now so you are given a ton of readings/videos and one homework to turn in each week. I never read any articles or watched any videos. The homeworks are graded for completion and are worth 5% of your grade. To study, simply read over the answers to the homeworks. As long as you know a little bit of the material, you should be completely fine. To pass, you need a 55%, which is incredibly easy to achieve. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-12T00:15:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Meesh is not a teacher. Meesh is a course coordinator. She sends students on a scavenger hunt looking for course material and then expects them to complete massive exam packets as if we learned enough from her to be able to complete even a portion of them. Instead of providing recorded lectures or even lecture notes, she links to other professors' lectures (I don't think she got permission), and random articles that are completely irrelevant to the questions she asks on examinations. She is very lazy and refuses to answer small questions because she answered them before, and you have to find them on her out of date ELMS pages. When I asked her a question about how things were being handled due to the move online (COVID-19), she gave an extremely rude response, giving the excuse that these things should be obvious when they are clearly not. Just the worst experience I have ever had in a class at Maryland. In fact its not a class, its paying close to 2000$ for the right to take exams. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-13T18:21:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'Meesh is an enigma. This was the first semester that 411 was fully taught online. We weren\'t able to learn anything in the first week of classes because she didn\'t know how to hyperlink her files in ELMS. All Piazza questions were answered vaguely and in long mistyped formats that usually included her having conversations with herself before arriving at an "answer" which was usually copied and pasted from the syllabus (which was also confusing and vague). She had weekly worksheet assignments that you would submit on Gradescope. All her weekly "lectures" were readings from the book and YouTube videos. She never actually lectured or recorded herself lecturing and when students asked about this and if she could lecture she would respond with a very long and confusing post ultimately saying that she didn\'t think it was necessary and we should use our skills as students to use our resources (YouTube) to teach ourselves. \r\n\r\nIf you actually watch the YouTube videos, you will learn something. I found it interesting and actually learned a bit but there was no real use for it as the exams were almost copy and paste from her practice exam and the weekly worksheets. However, you won\'t have enough time to finish the exams because they are 30 pages long. She doesn\'t expect anyone to finish the exam and grades it based on the highest score. She also drops an exam including the final. You won\'t fail this class, but you might not learn from it and more than likely will be confused and get a headache if you actually have questions for her. I spent a solid 4 weeks not knowing what was going on and I\'m pretty sure she didn\'t know what was going on either.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-05-15T04:24:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Pros:\r\n* prof answers questions on piazza\r\n* prof provides good practice problems\r\n* easy to get an A in the class (or at least very difficult to fail) because there's five different grading methods (your final grade in the class is max of all five possible final grades) and you will get at least one point for each question that is answered on an exam (ie you can only get a zero for a question if you leave it completely blank).\r\n* class is curved\r\n\r\nCon:\r\n* in lieu of lectures, the prof provides several links to mostly relevant material so this course is purely self-taught", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-17T00:59:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Awesome teacher all around. Overall great class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-10-29T06:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'She is not a teacher but a photocopier, or this class should be "How to use search engines" but not "Computer Systems Architecture". She just gives out tons of youtube links and that will be the class. No lecture! You have no idea what the test will be on. We post a poll on piazza and 95% of students agree that the class material is not enough to take the test. IF you are good at GOOGLE, then choose her!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-08T14:31:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Don't take this class unless your a fan of 20 page exams full of poorly taught information that take literal days to complete.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-11-22T03:09:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Meesh is an awful teacher. I went in knowing that the class was at least a little disorganized, but it was beyond that. Grading was slow, the tests (6 of them) were all about 20 pages long and take home over three days, and the questions were always somewhere between confusing and trivia. Course materials weren't much better, and piazza responses to fair questions were rude, if they were answered at all. I don't recommend you take any class with Meesh. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-03T18:26:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'We took a poll on piazza:\r\nDo you feel that the class materials adequately prepare you for the exams? \r\nOut of the 75 votes, 95% said No and 5% said Yes.\r\nWe then asked for some instructor commentary on the post after it closed. \r\nIt has been 1 month now and we still have not received a response.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-04T02:40:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'This is the first time that 411 was taught fully online from start to finish and..... It was not a fun time at all. Friends of mine said this was a relatively easy class because you just go to lecture and take the 2 exams. But this class is online. From the beginning, Dr.Hugue posts weekly short worksheets with the answers, youtube videos by another professor at a different university, 5-10 pages from the textbook that won\'t help you on the exam at all, quizzes that are very vague and don\'t really cover the material on the exam, and with a cherry on top, doesn\'t lecture at all. Within the first week many students including myself had asked her how we were supposed to study for the exams, and many students including myself either were told to look at the given course material, or never received a response. There were 6 "short tests" (In reality they were 6 part tests with 1 being 20 multiple choice questions and the other 5 were 8-15 open response questions with a sentence or more each). She only grades the 5 highest tests too. I will at least say that the course material does help you to answer 3-5 questions on the exam. But that leaves pretty much 90% of the exam to be answered by googling questions for 8-12 hours in order to get a B on each test. I have to assume that if she would just hold lectures that it wouldn\'t be this bad, but since she either doesn\'t know how to do remote lectures or make lecture videos, your pretty much left to google all the answers for the tests. On the bright side you can pass the class with a 55% because that is her cut off for a C-.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-04T03:36:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'The absolute worst professor I have ever had for any course. Unbearably long exams, horrible communication skills with her students, questions on exams that make no sense, "short" semester exams being 22 pages (we had 6 exams). She is not a professor. She simply writes exams and grades them, that is it. The TAs do nothing, she does not lecture, and she is rude as hell in piazza responses. Avoid her and this class. Take it if you want an easy A, though it may cost you your sanity', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-09T17:29:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'Do not ever take a class with her if you value your time or sanity even the slightest bit. I would say "this is by far the worst professor I have ever had," but she doesn\'t really even qualify as a "professor" in any real sense of the word. There\'s no lecture, and she gives 30-page exams based on material she never taught, riddled with typos and logic errors because they are never proofread, usually with massive sections plagiarized from other courses at other universities. The exams take hours to complete, if you want an A then be prepared to spend well over 80 hours doing independent research to complete them through the semester. Also be prepared to be yelled at if you ask a reasonable question on Piazza, if she deigns to answer at all.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-13T01:25:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'She is not good at all. Like please, don\'t take her if you don\'t have to. You will not learn much at all. My knowledge of comp arch is very scattered because of this "self teaching" approach, and with no real structured lectures or anything it makes it hard since there\'s a lot of seemingly conflicting information. Speaking of conflicting information, her notes/worksheet answers are just straight up incorrect sometimes. \r\n\r\nOverall, a very disorganized course, and if you want to learn something you should probably take it with a different professor. I don\'t really know why she still teaches. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-13T01:31:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'If you want to waste your time doing a bunch of 15+ page exams filled with typos, this is your professor. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-13T01:50:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': '6 exams, each like 20 pages, no lectures (actually zero), just YouTube videos and stolen slides. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-13T03:37:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "This course should have been foundational to my computer science learning but the way the course was executed was below average. The grading policy was changed from the syllabus after the she discovered the one on the syllabus was not an accurate reflection of our scores (it would curve us down). Worksheets used for learning had answer keys with several mistakes. There were no concrete course materials to rely on as each week we were sent links (some of which didn't work) and those links did not help very much with the worksheets or tests. I'd say we were actually taught nothing through this course and that the process of doing the exams (which were open note and internet) was the only way a student could learn and students would have to google their own resources because the given class resources were hardly helpful aside from SOME of the worksheet answer keys (which as I mentioned earlier were poorly explained examples and contained several inaccuracies). Her responses to genuine questions on piazza were rather defensive which made many students not want to ask her questions. The tests determined 90% of our grades were so long-- I spent over 24 hours working on the last test and at least 12 hours on all the other ones (there were 6 short tests that were all 12+ pages). I guess I could summarize the course in that it wasn't necessarily hard but it required students to go far above what they needed to. It felt like she was not the professor of this course and that we did not have a professor at all. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-13T04:32:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': ' This semester we had 6 "short" exams that ranged from 12-22 pages long each. Class materials were given to us via youtube links. She also was too lazy to fix mistakes in the exams and material she gave us. Overall, not too hard to get a good grade, but the tests do take a considerable amount of time.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-13T21:29:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'Terrible. I don\'t care that I got a decent grade. What\'s the point if I did not learn anything? I don\'t even know what Prof. Hugue looks or even sounds like. All of the class materials uploaded for the course were from a Youtube Channel "Prof. Dr. Ben H. Juurlink" or random websites that contained somewhat "relevant" information. Even the slides she uploads are not hers! The "short" semester tests are anything but short -- the tests got progressively longer, starting from 12 pages to 23 pages (really?!). Would never recommend this class to anyone that wants to actually learn something. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-13T22:48:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'Completely fails to teach anything- uses other universities lecture slides and gives exam questions which have nothing to do with the provided notes. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-14T01:18:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Complete joke of a class. There are no lectures, just links to youtube videos from other random sources online. There is no communication with students. The tests are painfully long and the questions are sometimes pure nonsense. They are also filled with typos (including due dates because they are copied and pasted from previous semesters) that won't be addressed for days if at all. Anyone on here giving above a 1 star is just happy to pass the class with minimal effort, but as someone who also wanted to learn a little bit this was a complete waste of my time and tuition. I was warned all of this before taking the class but ignored it all because I wanted an easy passing grade, and here I am writing the only review I have ever felt the need to write. If you want to learn computer architecture I recommend doing it on your own, you will be much more successful that way.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-31T16:57:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Taking this class with Meesh was an incredibly disappointing experience. I knew going in that it wasn't supposed to be a hard class and that it could be a bit disorganized, and those things are both fair enough. This class had a LOT of work - six exams, of which only one was dropped, which gave an exam pretty much every other week. Each of them were about 20 pages, and finding the information was difficult. Grading took forever as well, so it was hard to know how you were doing in the course. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-04T00:09:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Worst professor I've ever had. She literally doesn't teach at all!!! If you have any thoughts of taking a class with her, you should look at the tons of 1 star reviews below this to show how terrible of an instructor she was. DO NOT TAKE HER.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-04-06T14:37:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'Horrible. Absolutely horrible. No idea how the department still has her on staff, given the abysmal experiences in her classes. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-04-08T14:57:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Avoid taking this course with Meesh at all costs. You won't learn a single thing and you will waste your precious time doing 20+ page long exams multiple times per month. Even Yoon is a better option than this professor. Stay clear! Not taking 411 at all is better than 411 with Meesh. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-04-26T15:01:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Meesh doesn't teach. Simple as that. You're on your own to learn the material for this course. It's not hard to get an A because the grading for the exams is so weird (as long as you write something down, you'll get at least 1 point for a problem) and the projects are pretty easy. But if you have the option to take literally anyone else, do it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-13T14:50:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Simple put, a terrible professor. I regretted taking this class with her - worst decision I ever made. Don't be like me because even if you get a good grade, you will literally have no free time and not learn a single thing. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-18T20:26:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "The course structure is confusing but she did check Piazza quite often. The exams are long but are graded leniently. Projects are pretty straightforward (mostly because of Mount's lecture note). ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-22T11:49:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': 'If you are trying to take any class with this prof, you are making the biggest mistake of your life. To simply put it, \r\n1: you waste your time 2: you waste your money(tuition) 3: you learn nothing whatsoever \r\n4: you will stress out trying to do a 20-page long exam(6 of them) without being thought anything. \r\n\r\nComputer architecture(CMSC411) is good for computer science students, however, if it comes to taking it with this professor, you are better of noting taking this course. \r\nTHE WORST PROFESSOR EVER EXISTED. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-22T01:07:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC411', 'review': "Life was made difficult and inconvenient by the 20-page examinations issued over the course of the semester. Resources were lacking and the professor would post videos that were sometimes not even in English. You think the class is synchronous as it is listed like that, well think again its asynchronous, does not have actual lectures just bootlegged youtube videos. You won't learn, you'll probably pass though.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-11-23T00:18:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "She doesn't teach anything. She simply uses other teachers lectures and YouTube videos. Her exams are INSANELY long (20 pages) and take insanely long to actually complete. If I had the decision to go back in time, even if other professors didn't have space, I would choose another class to completely stay clear of this professor. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-20T22:33:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'This lady is very rude and condescending to her students who are simply trying to ask questions. Her attitude made it an environment that was difficult to learn- or want to learn for that matter. I did well in the class, only because I worked hard; she was not a good resource whatsoever!! Exams were absurd and incredibly long. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-03-12T20:49:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Hugue', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': 'Stay away unless you are only choosing her class for the semester.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-14T01:23:17Z'}], 'name': 'Michelle Hugue', 'slug': 'hugue'}, {'courses': ['CMSC818D', 'CMSC414', 'CMSC634', 'INST799', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC388N', 'CMSC389P', 'CMSC732', 'CMSC389P', 'CMSC634', 'CMSC414'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michelle Mazurek', 'course': 'CMSC414', 'review': "Professor who clearly knows her stuff. However, I'm not sure if it was the long class block or the presentation, but I struggled staying awake every class - especially about private and public keys. The programming assignments are kinda fun, but can be really challenging if you don't have the right mindset. Exams were alright, she allowed cheat sheets, but still lots of potential material. I'd maybe recommend to a final semester senior.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-24T06:51:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Mazurek', 'course': 'CMSC414', 'review': 'Knows her stuff, but is quite boring. Her exam questions are also not up my alley. Nice person though.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-06-11T18:00:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Mazurek', 'course': 'CMSC414', 'review': 'She is not a good lecturer.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\nClass cover a lot of interesting topics\r\nMaterial is genuinely interesting for the most part\r\n\r\nCons:\r\nShe is a very boring an ineffective lecturer\r\nShe is a harsh grader\r\nExams are tough\r\nProjects are tough\r\nBad at communicating/grading\r\n\r\nI would avoid taking class with her. I recommend taking Dave Levin if you can', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-07-08T15:31:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Mazurek', 'course': 'CMSC388N', 'review': "The class had the wrong prerequisites, and they don't teach you how to break and secure software. The project we made was over 2000 lines of code. The class was more of software engineering and debugging than securing software.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2020-02-19T14:27:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Mazurek', 'course': 'CMSC414', 'review': "Idk what the rest of these reviews are saying. When I took the class this year, I thought Mazurek to be very organized, the class structure to be good, and the class as breezy. She's a good lecturer too, she explains what is happening security wise very high level but yeah her voice is very soothing and if you're not paying attention then yeah, you might fall asleep. The late days on project policy is awesome. \r\n\r\nFor reference, I think I went to about 60% of the lectures, and would binge watch a couple before exam time, and get decent B grades. Even then, I was able to get a pretty good grade in the class. One qualm that is valid that I see echoed here, however, is that the projects sometimes do not have enough set up or foundation for someone who is new to these security concepts to finish thoroughly. I am biased because I came into this class with some general knowledge and experience with how security worked, so the buffer overflow project, the XSS project, and other projects were pretty good. Still, others that I knew who didn't have security experience did pretty well on the projects when they went to office hours. \r\n\r\nThe class is chill, and I would compare its difficulty to 1/3-2/3 difficulty of 250 with Jason Filippou; and 1/4-1/2 the difficulty of 216 with Herman. I personally had a lot of security concepts solidified in this class, and learned a lot about the way security does work, and have come away with a greater appreciation of the technical aspects of security to the high level design and concept-wise approach to security. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-12T03:46:48Z'}], 'name': 'Michelle Mazurek', 'slug': 'mazurek'}, {'courses': ['INAG110'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michelle Molinaro', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "What can I say its a silly, easy class that most people only take for the comm credit. It's been a year and I genuinely have forgotten everything I learned when taking it. If I ever need to put into practice communication skills in any setting I can just watch a youtube video or read a book instead of wasting my money on a class like this.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-01-24T15:36:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Molinaro', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Perhaps the greatest professor I've ever had at UMD. Her lectures are interactive (as opposed to most) which kept me engaged with the material. The bulk of the grades were based on speeches instead of remembering definitions and principles. She graded speeches fairly and gave genuine feedback which dramatically helped my public speaking ability", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-25T00:42:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Molinaro', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Michelle was a great professor for this class. I took this course to get the comm credit and was expecting it to be really boring, but Michelle knew most of us were in that boat and tried to keep the material engaging. Most of your grade comes from your speeches and she is a pretty fair grader who gives helpful feedback for you to improve next time. She's approachable and normally very nice in office hours as well. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-02T20:26:39Z'}], 'name': 'Michelle Molinaro', 'slug': 'molinaro'}, {'courses': ['HESP120', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT367F', 'LING200', 'LING200', 'LING200'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michelle Morrison', 'course': 'HESP120', 'review': "Michelle was the BEST teacher I've ever had at the university. Her office hours were always so helpful and a great way to get to know her. I have ZERO complaints about this woman because she is really the best. She gives so many opportunities to keep up a good grade but really teaches you the material so that you remember it for the future. Highly recommend ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-29T01:57:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Morrison', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "Dr. Morrison is an amazing professor. She teachers in a way that is efficient and to the point, while still being detailed and interesting. You should be prepared to work hard in the class to get a good grade (you can't slack off), but she'll never make anything unreasonably hard. She's also super helpful if you need extra help or have any questions. Overall, I'd say that she is a great professor and you'll learn a lot from her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-25T03:27:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Morrison', 'course': 'HESP120', 'review': 'Dr. Morrison is a great professor. She is super sweet and tries really hard to make boring material interesting. There are a lot of homework assignments that are like 5-7 pages long, but she makes sure you know how to do them through practicing in class with her and the TAs. The tests are big but very, very fair. She posts a great study guide and makes them similar to the homework. She has endless opportunities for help and is just an easy person to talk to and listen to. Definitely recommend her as a professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-25T18:29:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Morrison', 'course': 'HESP120', 'review': 'Super helpful and very kind to her students; she really cares about her work and making sure everyone understands it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-03T23:42:25Z'}], 'name': 'Michelle Morrison', 'slug': 'morrison'}, {'courses': ['WMST370', 'WMST628', 'WMST488J', 'WMST602', 'WMST263', 'WMST601', 'WMST488D', 'WMST250', 'WMST709', 'WMST618', 'WMST379A', 'AASP498D', 'WMST360', 'AASP398Y', 'WMST379B', 'WMST379E', 'AASP298B', 'WMST265', 'WMST368', 'WGSS368', 'WGSS265', 'WGSS250', 'AASP298B', 'WGSS265', 'WGSS360', 'WGSS368', 'WMST601', 'WGSS250', 'WGSS378', 'WGSS488F', 'WGSS250', 'WGSS368', 'WMST618'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michelle Rowley', 'course': 'WMST200', 'review': "Professor Rowley's WMST 200 class is a huge bore. you sit in class for an hour and forty minutes. i personally facebooked the whole time but for multiple lectures she lets the TAs teach and she sits in the back and watches everyone...so you cant text or be on your computer without her saying something about it. class was easy but you had to do EXACTLY what they were looking for in the in-class activities. discussion was an easy way to boost your grade and the midterm and final were both take-home. final was a reflection of the class...easy easy", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-15T16:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Rowley', 'course': 'WMST200', 'review': "easy class, it's beyond me if you go to lectures and not get an A. engaging professor, reviews concepts of the material in class so that you understand (even if you didn't read the material.) as long as you understand the concepts you'll fly right through the class. rowley is passionate about what she teaches and memorizes everyone's names without even haven spoken to you (somewhat creepy?). ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-14T11:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Rowley', 'course': None, 'review': "One of the best professors ever. She is extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about her field which makes class very interesting. It was a reading intensive course, but that was to be expected since it's a senior seminar. She was also great at getting discussions going and clarifying concecpts. I would take any class with her again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-31T21:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Rowley', 'course': 'WMST250', 'review': "Very nice lady but EXTREMELY hard grader. Took this class because i heard it was easy but Professor Rowley makes it 10 times harder. If you're looking for an easy A, do NOT take this class with her.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-24T16:05:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Rowley', 'course': 'WMST250', 'review': 'Extremely hard grader, unreasonable, crazy. Class is a big waste of time, you will learn absolutely nothing. Class is a trap for white people. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-30T21:20:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Rowley', 'course': 'WMST250', 'review': 'Class has essays due every other week, 2 main writing assignments about 7-9 pages each. Overall, class material is really easy to understand but Rowley is an extremely hard grader. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-01-08T05:04:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Rowley', 'course': 'WMST250', 'review': 'Tough grader, would look for another professor. All the projects are fairly simple so she’s got to make the class look legit somehow I guess. She rambles a lot during class. Most of the time no one knows what she’s talking about.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-01-15T19:24:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Rowley', 'course': 'WGSS250', 'review': 'I had to take this class because I needed a last minute gened that was online but i’d recommend you not take this class at all. Rowley is very rude and expects so much out of the class. She makes you log your participation throughout the class on a point system that’s extremely confusing and if you make a mistake, she gives you a snarky comment. She’s not understanding because even though i joined the class a week late, she was not helpful in getting me on track and rather took off points and told me i was wrong. I didn’t have my camera on for one small portion of the class and me and someone else in a breakout room were muted when she came in and she made a rude comment about us not talking. Don’t take this class. Definitely not worth the effort given it’s level and topic.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-14T14:27:23.023667Z'}], 'name': 'Michelle Rowley', 'slug': 'rowley_michelle'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338D', 'EDHI338C', 'EDHI338W', 'EDHI338A', 'EDHI338B', 'EDHI338E', 'EDHI338L', 'EDHI338T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michelle Strange', 'slug': 'strange'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'ENES108', 'ENES107', 'UNIV107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Michelle Udeli', 'slug': 'udeli'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393'], 'average_rating': 1.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "This is without a doubt the worst, most useless class I've ever taken at UMD. She forces you to do a project where you have to pick a real problem at one of the organizations you're involved in outside the university, and present a technical report/manual providing solutions to this problem. You are forced to interview people or give out surveys to a lot of people to get a passing grade. You are completely out of luck if you either don't have a problem or people to interview.\r\n\r\nThere were a few assignments on cover letters, resumes and memos, which are great and what ENGL393 should be, but the biggest project is a completely stupid source of anxiety. I wish she would focus more on just writing formally than forcing you to bring your own life into this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-04-03T22:01:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Absolutely awful. You write a paper for the class to bring a solution to a real world problem. \r\n\r\nThis is fine, but she is very bad at communicating what she wants and the actual timeline of assignments. Her feedback was never helpful and overall you aren't going to gain anything meaningful from this class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-13T06:04:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Everyone seems to not like her, but I thought this class was very self explanatory and she was very responsive. Read the announcements every week and you'll be set. Throughout the semester you do smaller assignments that lead up to a final research paper. Overall the assignments were pretty straight forward, but she was always willing to clarify through email if there was confusion. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-19T15:45:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "This class was a lot of work and everything was graded harshly. She didn't actually have lectures, just links to readings and occasional videos. With that being said, she didn't actually teach us anything we needed to know for assignments. Most assignments were unclear and she sometimes grades based on criteria that you didn't know about. Also, her elms page is not well organized. She is very supportive of your ideas, but what she says is inconsistent and she can be very mean. I had an issue where she approved my project topic, but after I wrote the proposal, she told me the topic was no longer valid. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-10-15T19:32:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Avoid her. She accepts late work but it's because she doesn't make everything clear. It is very difficult to get in contact with her as she doesn't reply most of the time. Every assignment is unclear. There is a lot of work that helps make your final better though. Overall, I would not recommend this to someone who isn't willing to put in the work for this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-22T23:47:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "I thought Michelle was a great teacher, and the work wasn't overwhelming. The final project isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Just put in a little work and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-26T20:35:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Horrible. The class does not focus on technical writing and instead focuses on a useless end of semester project that has students creating their own problems just so they can write about solving one. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-27T22:36:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Please save yourself months of trouble and take another professor! This class is very unorganized and the teacher is not skilled in explaining assignment guidelines. She had us create an ELMS profile the first week of class, and I completed all of the guidelines, wrote 3 paragraphs of information on my profile, and added my pronouns (all information she told us to include). But she gave me 0/10 because for some reason my email wasn't showing up, despite my adding it. This is just an example of her overall attitude to the class. She often does not grade on a rubric, which means she hands out 0s if you do not do the assignment perfectly to her liking. I brought my concerns to her attention and she responded by saying that she made everything clear and that I should have read the assignment better. Considering that this is an online class, there should be more grace for misunderstandings. But practically speaking, adding a rubric would have alleviated any confusion. I have a feeling she may enjoy giving out 0s for some reason.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-10-13T16:55:19.124800Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'I would give her zero stars if I could. No focus on technical writing whatsoever, the entirety of the course is basically focused around a making up a problem and writing a paper on how to solve it requiring interviews and/or sending out surveys. Two things which are extremely difficult to find time to do for basically anyone taking a near full slate of technical courses.\r\n\r\nHer feedback is unhelpful and unclear, her standards are vague and amorphous at best and completely absent at worst. She demands that you bring your personal life into this class for no legitimate reason, and the workload here relative to the usefulness of the information makes you want to just quit of the whole thing and focus on your real classes. \r\n\r\nAvoid her at basically all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-18T02:50:09.691394Z'}, {'professor': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "avoid at all costs. don't learn a single thing about technical writing, the entire semester is focused on some random project that has nothing to do with technical writing. annoying assignments that aren't hard but she gives no feedback to improve your work from before and expects you to know what you did wrong based on powerpoints she provides. only took it with her because all other slots were full.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-21T04:36:22.718841Z'}], 'name': 'Michelle Von Euw', 'slug': 'euw'}, {'courses': ['COMM711', 'COMM498V', 'COMM768V', 'COMM469O', 'COMM661', 'COMM401', 'COMM460', 'COMM478', 'COMM399', 'COMM454', 'COMM738V'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Michelle Yang', 'course': 'COMM498V', 'review': 'Dr. Murray-Yang is probably one of the best professors I have had the pleasure of learning from in college. I took COMM498V and loved it, so I decided to take COMM454 just so I could be in one of her classes again. She is very responsive, a fair grader, leads great discussions, and always encourages students to share their perspectives. You can tell she is so enthusiastic about the material she teaches which makes her class so much better. She made me want to be a better student, writer, and communicator. 10 out of 10 would recommend to a friend, I wish she taught more classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-03T21:47:12Z'}], 'name': 'Michelle Yang', 'slug': 'yang_michelle'}, {'courses': ['SURV623'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mick Couper', 'slug': 'couper'}, {'courses': ['PUAF650', 'PUAF688A', 'PUAF620', 'PUAF688E', 'PLCY300', 'PLCY688E', 'PUAF798F', 'PLCY688G', 'HONR299B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Miguel Gonzalez-Marcos', 'slug': 'gonzalez-marcos'}, {'courses': ['CMSC701', 'CMSC424', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC423', 'CMSC828Q', 'CMSC798', 'BISI899', 'CMSC423', 'BISI899', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': 4.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mihai Pop', 'course': 'CMSC423', 'review': "Great professor who cares a lot about bioinformatics and the success of his students. Fun (well, as fun as lectures can be) classes and interesting presentation. Lots of tiny programming assignments that weren't harder than 330, but the last two can be a little bit of a pain. His exams are really fair, pretty much only covers what has been said in course unless he explicitly stated it. I'd recommend to final semester seniors.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-24T06:48:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Mihai Pop', 'course': 'CMSC423', 'review': 'Dr. Pop was a wonderful professor this online semester. He spent the whole summer planning for the class and it showed. His lectures helped clarify the confusing parts of the textbook. He had a generous late policy for programming assignments and quizzes and was very helpful in office hours. Highly recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-25T19:03:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Mihai Pop', 'course': 'CMSC423', 'review': 'Passionate teacher and very understanding about stress and potential extenuating circumstances during online classes. He provided many ways for us to manage deadlines for projects and exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-30T06:57:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Mihai Pop', 'course': 'CMSC423', 'review': "As someone who has mental health problems and turns things in late a lot, pop's class was perfect for me. His class is a decent amount of work, but I excelled at it because of the way he taught and walked away learning a lot. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-02-01T18:40:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Mihai Pop', 'course': 'CMSC423', 'review': 'Probably the most understanding professor I\'ve ever had. The entire class was basically asynchronous, every week we had a online "mini-exam" (called End Of Module Assessment) that wasn\'t too bad, you could easily get full points on a lot of them. The in-person lectures themselves are review of the videos we have to watch before class, but he goes in more depth and they are helpful for the end of module assessments and the final exam. Has a great late policy for projects (you\'re allowed to turn them in late if you write a reflection as to why you failed to turn them in on time). The projects themselves weren\'t too bad, most of them you can complete in less than two hours. My only problem with this class is the amount of quizzes each week. It\'s not a lot, but they were all due on Tuesday, even for material that he wasn\'t going to cover in class until Thursday. The final was somewhat difficult, but in the end he curved pretty well after accounting for this. Overall, Mihai Pop is a great professor to take for CMSC423 and I heavily recommend him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-16T00:31:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Mihai Pop', 'course': 'CMSC423', 'review': 'Professor Pop was very accommodating to students: he offered both in-person and Zoom recorded/streamed classes and allowed you to propose your own deadline for some assignments. The workload was also very reasonable. Make sure to study for the final; it was a bit difficult. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-17T15:20:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Mihai Pop', 'course': 'CMSC423', 'review': 'The good: Professor Pop is lenient with deadlines and as a student with health issues, this is very helpful.\r\n\r\nThe bad: Professor Pop gives us a choice between watching pre-recorded lecture videos or doing a reading prior to coming to class in person. This way we learn the material outside of class then he reviews in person. I personally am against this teaching style.\r\n\r\nLastly, sometimes coming to lecture in person feels like a waste of time because it’s hard to follow along with what he’s saying. He’s clearly super smart but makes things harder than they really are', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2023-03-06T17:11:12.575065Z'}], 'name': 'Mihai Pop', 'slug': 'pop'}, {'courses': ['MUSC102', 'MUSC103', 'MUSC102B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mijail Tumanov Pavlov', 'slug': 'pavlov'}, {'courses': ['HIST425', 'HIST619D', 'HIST408D', 'HIST419P', 'HIST408T', 'HIST237', 'HIST429R', 'HONR268X', 'HIST429W', 'HIST237', 'HIST419P', 'HIST429R', 'HIST429W', 'HIST237', 'HIST408D', 'HIST419P'], 'average_rating': 2.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST237', 'review': "Dolbilov is ok. He has a noticeable accent, but it's understandable. He stutters a lot. The class itself is your basic survey course of Russian History, so you namely hit the highlight leaders and revolts. There's a lot of reading to do. He'll write a lot of comments on essays you write, but grades nicely, which is cool. Unless you're genuinely interested in Russian History, I would recommend taking something else. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-03-27T19:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST419P', 'review': "i dont know what the other reviews are talking about but this might be one of the worst professors in umd. he doesn't seem to care much about the topic or just simply can't explain it in a understandable way. he stands in front of a powerpoint, which consists of a picture, and talks. lectures are useless and some people fall asleep. it is true, however, that he grades relatively easy. but this was one of the worst classes i've ever taken", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-14T17:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST419P', 'review': "He makes class pretty interesting, but if you don't do the readings, you'll have no idea what's going on in class. He does seem to be making a conscious effort to remind himself that we're American students with no prior Russian history knowledge, but did a good job of explaining things. That being said, he's a reasonably easy grader, especially on the term paper. \n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-16T18:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST419P', 'review': 'This class was a complete mystery the whole time. So I knew NOTHING about Russian history, and the way he teaches the class is like you know the stuff already (which gets me cause there were not prerequisites). Anyways, I spent most of the class lost, but by reading up on the stuff he said a little i was able to get a B??? How: He is a VERY easy grader! LOVE HIM!!! lol\r\nSoo my recommendation is if you need a class like this take it with him because you will more than likely be satisfied with your grade...maybe not the class...but DEFINITELY your grade. lol', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-05T14:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST237', 'review': 'Easy A but he is a terrible lecturer. Very boring presentations, and this is coming from someone who is interested in Russian history. I would say that there are other easy A gen eds that are more interesting and productive. Would not recommend him', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-07T01:45:32.829971Z'}, {'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST237', 'review': 'His lectures are very difficult to understand because of the lack of organization. Would not take another class with him. He does offer helpful comments on assignments though', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-17T21:15:00.812482Z'}, {'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST237', 'review': 'It was very hard to understand him and he was quite rude when you asked questions but simultaneously got annoyed by the lack of participation. The only things I learned from the class were from the readings themselves and the lectures, which were very difficult to follow. Would not reccomend', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-19T19:53:52.844211Z'}, {'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST419P', 'review': "Hard to rate the professor and the class overall. Class wise it was very easy- a midterm and a final that you can do whenever online, but are reading heavy and analysis focused. They do take a few hours to do because of the essays. We did have one paper to do, and that was annoying. The class itself was extremely boring. The guy definitely knows a lot, but the lecture is very dry. Out of our 19 people, only 7-10 would show up, and everyone would do just whatever. The professor would always rant about the war in Ukraine even though it had nothing to do with the class material (18th-mid 20th century in Russia/USSR). Dolbilov is very flexible and very chill overall, so it's not that bad. Only recommend it if you are a history major, or know a lot/are legitimately interested in Russia.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-16T16:51:09.188415Z'}, {'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST419P', 'review': "Easy class and can be interesting when the professor stays on task, he does tend to ramble but as long as you have at least some of the material you can keep up with what's going on. Pretty lax grading, cite a quote or two to show you actually read. Even though the final paper was a bit annoying, it was enjoyable to learn about other events and tie them back to class. If you looking for an easy class and don't mind writing, take this class, if you hate writing and do not have much patience then I recommend to avoid. I am taking him again this semester, he is a nice professor, just not for everyone.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-07T01:29:55.837922Z'}, {'professor': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'course': 'HIST419P', 'review': "Easy class and can be interesting when the professor stays on task, he does tend to ramble but as long as you have at least some of the material you can keep up with what's going on. Pretty lax grading, cite a quote or two to show you actually read. Even though the final paper was a bit annoying, it was enjoyable to learn about other events and tie them back to class. If you looking for an easy class and don't mind writing, take this class, if you hate writing and do not have much patience then I recommend to avoid. I am taking him again this semester, he is a nice professor, just not for everyone.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-07T01:29:55.863454Z'}], 'name': 'Mikhail Dolbilov', 'slug': 'dolbilov'}, {'courses': ['THET475', 'THET371', 'THET465', 'THET383', 'HONR228E', 'HONR299C', 'THET499', 'THET670', 'THET678', 'THET669A', 'THET639', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'THET669', 'THET606', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET471', 'THET672', 'THET669C', 'THET639D', 'ARHU158A', 'THET789'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mikhail Kachman', 'slug': 'kachman'}, {'courses': ['GEOG410', 'GEOG435', 'GEOG437', 'GEOG456', 'GEOG498H', 'GEOG398C', 'URSP289Q', 'GEOG333', 'GEOG335', 'GEOG421', 'GEOG396', 'GEOG397'], 'average_rating': 2.6429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "Don't take this class. Ever. She is completely unclear about deadlines and details concerning projects. That is, if you can stay awake long enough to listen to them. Her course is scattered and everything she teaches can easily be found by typing it into a google search box. The information was mostly common knowledge. If you misunderstood her confusing deadlines and schedules or project details, her response emails were rude and uncalled for. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-04-27T00:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': 'Some of these reviews are outrageous. Her classes are certainly hard. However, she made herself available for any help I needed and her stories are relevant when you consider the concept she is discussing. If you want an easy A, don\'t take her class. I\'m sure she\'ll be thankful for it. If you want to put in work similar to what you\'ll deal with outside of the hand-holding of college, take her class. You\'ll be thankful for it. She is an "old-school" professor. Sure, she uses Powerpoints, but she expects you to work for the grade you want and a Powerpoint is one of the many tools you\'ll need. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-02-12T00:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "She may be one of the worst organized individuals I've met. She is never able to stay on topic and rarely finishes a powerpoint. Since English is not her first language, her tests and assignments are poorly written. Unfortunately, this causes students great confusion and makes it nearly impossible to complete an assignment to her liking. If you enjoy hearing about how great Yugoslavia was then I highly suggest Zlatic. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2012-12-14T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "I had Zlatic for Populations Geography, and while the material is very interesting, the professor will put you right to sleep. She goes on quite a bit of random tangents. It is amazing how much international experience she has had, but none of the personal stories she tells go along with any class material. \n\r\nI sometimes had trouble understanding her because she is Croatian, but the language barrier isn't too bad. What was very hard for me is every assignment she gives has countless grammatical/spelling/content errors. For one of my assignments, she had made the assignment completely wrong, and didn't even make an attempt to correct it even though it was addressed in class. So, as a result because I had already done the project, I had to completely redo it based on her mistake. Her emails are impossible to understand because she misses words and spells words wrong all the time. \n\r\nOne other thing that was an issue for me was her exams. She told our class constantly that there would be NO exact numbers or questions about specific population trends for a nation, but the questions would be about concepts and applying them to a general population trend. That was a lie, and she has several questions on the test that she says will not be tested. \n\r\nOverall, she isn't the worst I've had, but if you have the option to, I'd say don't take her. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-17T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Zlatic is good at giving you the international perspective on whatever she lectures about. She worked for the World Bank and has much experience overseas. However, her interpersonal skills are a bit lacking, so you have to be forgiving and have a thick skin when in her class. She has the ability to single out a student and make him or her feel awkward and embarrassed. I don't think she intends to do that. She wasn't born here, so her social skills are not geared for here. GEOG435 has three papers that make you scour the internet for random data (birthrate for Hispanics in Montana in 1970). However, it's not difficult to get an A and you will walk away with some useful factoids.\n\r\nWhen I mention it is not difficult to get an A, that is assuming you care to write a good research paper. Even at the senior level, too many UMD students are lazy and don't care about learning. I did the research, read the articles, and spent time thinking before I wrote. I am fully convinced that lazy or cowardly students are the ones doing poorly in Zlatic's classes. I didn't lose one point on any of my papers, and another student had the same experience.\n\r\nThe reason why the GPA for her class is a 2.9 is because she doesn't give anything to you. You have to take the initiative if you don't understand what is required of you. If you want to be spoon-fed information, don't go to this class. Otherwise, stay and get an A+.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-07T05:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "She is really not as bad as people say. There are some cultural differences that people need to factor in. Yes, the lectures will go off in tangents, but I found most of them interesting. You can access powerpoints online so class isn't stressful. Although the papers are pretty time consuming, if you follow directions you should be getting near perfect grades on them. The tests are very challenging, but the final is easiest one in my opinion. \n\r\nA lot of people do not go to class, they definitely pay for it because attendance and participation are 10%. If she doesn't recognize your face when she is putting grades in then you lazy people will get one letter grade lower :D. \r\nAbout the confrontations, there has been some tension between several students and teacher, however these were backed-up with research on her end. She was definitely not discriminating against people as some previous reviews have stated.\n\r\nOverall, not an easy class, but you can do well if you try your best. You'll learn some good information. I plan to take another class with this professor in the future.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T18:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "She is the worst professor I have ever had. If you don't have to do not take this class. There are 3 assignments that are not clearly described in the syllabus or on blackboard. She tries to act helpful by letting you email her with questions but she sends back completely irrelevant information that has nothing to do with what you needed help with. If you don't agree with her in class she yells at you and just ignores your comments. Do not take this professor, she is awful.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-15T22:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "Terrible professor. Exams are impossible to understand grammatically. If students disagree with her, she becomes defensive and argumentative. Offensive to some students, and directly confrontational, when discussing tangentially related topics, like Mormonism and Islam. Doesn't even seem to realize it when she does so, yet will criticize students if they make equally ignorant comments.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-26T12:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "I really did not like this seminar. there are MUCH easier seminars. just avoid this one.\r\n She took on a lot of responsibilities this semester, so she took out a lot of things from this seminar like the debates and papers (easy points). This meant that your grade was based only on 1 research paper (and outline), the two exams (kinda hard because you don't know what to remember from her 600 slides), and a presentation. She expects a lot from her students, yet gives us so little. \r\nHer presentations are so dry that even with a computer you still fall asleep. She grades things very harshly for no reason. Her grading is SUPER subjective..even though she says otherwise...you never know with her...\r\nShes not helpful during office hours either.\r\nI didn't learn anything particularly new. This class was a waste of time.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-07T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': " I have very mixed opinions about this class, so I'll try to be objective as possible. Most of the lectures consisted of Professor Zlatic presenting material from her powerpoint slides. A lot of times, she would get distracted and not end up finishing her discussions of them though. Most of the time in fact, she would end up telling a lot of her own personal experiences and/or sharing her opinions about certain topics. The class itself wasn't too challenging-I struggled a bit at first and started off not doing too well, but I recovered by the end of the end of the semester and pulled through with a high B (I also went from disliking the class a lot to not minding it too much in the end). The grading in this class consisted of two examinations, participation, research presentation (powerpoint), research paper, research progress report, and research outline. \r\nOne criticism I have of the class is that the class itself felt very disorganized and Prof. Zlatic also sometimes seemed disorganized and vague-the syllabus wasn't always accurate and it changed throughout the semester. For example, it didn't say we were ALL going to present our powerpoints the last few weeks of class-until she made it that way. In addition, I wasn't 100% sure what chapters we had covered until the week before the final. The exams weren't too bad, and the lecture powerpoints were posted online-for a while anyway-which was helpful. Most of the material for exams comes from her slides but also from the textbook, so make sure you do READ.\n\r\n The biggest part of the class was the research paper, which was a semester long project on a political geography issue in your country of choice-which we later presented to the class via powerpoint. My advice would be to pick a country and a topic that interests you and is manageable so that you remain enthusiastic about it throughout the semester. Also, don't fall behind and be sure take advantage of the chance to submit drafts and meet with Dr. Zlatic. Although the class can be a bit frustrating and although Prof. Zlatic isn't really the best lecturer, she's very knowledgable and is willing to help you if you ask. If you participate/show up to class/show enthusiasm, she's more willing to help you out (plus, your participation grade-10%-will be higher). If you stay on top of this class, you should be able to do okay-just beware, there isn't a curve-so your grades on exam stand as is so make sure you get it right (as much as possible) the first time (there are a few SMALL chances for some rewrites on some of the written assignments-but don't depend on them). Finally, make sure you follow the assignment requirements. Good luck!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-05T16:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "Boring.LOTS OF WRITING.DO NOT BUY THE BOOKS. You will never read them. She Will put you to sleep, bring your laptop to class. Won't let you sleep, but will let you use laptop. I am not quite sure how to study for exams, as the questions asked were a bit random. Also, while she may say that she grades based on quality and not on whether or not she agrees with you, this is not true. If she does not agree with you, then you will get points docked off. If you write a bad paper and she agrees with you and you still get points docked off, that's your fault. However, if you get a really bad grade on a paper, she may allow you to re- do it. Easy grader overall. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-24T23:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "I have her for GEOG437 and GEOG456. GEOG437 was not a bad class. It contains a semester long project on an issue within a country of your choice. It seems all of her classes are based on the same system. Unless its a special occasion, every lecture is just slides... most however gets off-topic. When she gets off topic however, she talks about her own experiences, which I found pretty interesting. This class is good for stories, but kinda hard to learn the facts you need to learn. She does learn everyone's names and faces. So it is a good idea to show up to class, especially when other classmates have a project they are displaying. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-18T06:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "This isn't an easy Honors seminar, but it was well worth all the work. I really loved the debates the class held, plus I thought every lecture was really interesting. Professor Zlatic is very knowledgeable, but she's not there to pump up your interest for the topic, so take this class only if you're actually interested in globalization and urbanization issues. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-10T14:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mila Zlatic', 'course': None, 'review': "I took this class, Urbanization and Globalization wanting to learn about how modern cities grow, or urbanization, however the vast majority of the class was about globalization.\n\r\nI don't think anyone in my class is very excited about class. Professor Zlatic has prepared power-points that are very dry, but has very interesting stories from her own experiences. However everything you will learn from the class will be through the research you will have to do for 3 papers, Economic, Political, and Cultural globalization. There is also a team debate on each paper. \n\r\nThere have to be easier ways to fulfill an SB req as well as easier Honors Seminars. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-31T19:14:00Z'}], 'name': 'Mila Zlatic', 'slug': 'zlatic'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Milagros Schwartz', 'course': None, 'review': 'Ms. Schwartz is a true ESOL educator with amazing methodology and highly effective teaching skills. I highly recommend this professor; she will make your skills sky-rocket! ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-26T14:05:00Z'}], 'name': 'Milagros Schwartz', 'slug': 'schwartz_milagros'}, {'courses': ['HIST156', 'HIST408K', 'HIST200', 'HIST352', 'HIST306', 'HIST429T', 'HIST428V', 'RELS346', 'RELS419T', 'RELS429A', 'HIST328J', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661'], 'average_rating': 2.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': None, 'review': "Yes, Bradbury is horrible professor, but overall the class was not too bad because I actually put effort into the class. I hate history, and am horrible at it, and managed t get an A in the class.\n\r\nBradbury's lectures are dry and dull. not only is he barely audible, but it is very easy to let your mind wander. Sometimes, he would say something insightful, and it really did help to actually go to lecture because the textbook is loaded with a lot of crap, and most of it you can ignore, and just focus on what is emphasized in lecture and discussion.\n\r\nYou must, must, MUST go to discussion (and actually participate)! Your TAs grade the final, and it is all essays, so you need to get on your TA's good side and actually put some effort into the class. Participating in discussion, understanding the themes, and taking notes in discussion is the key to getting a good grade in the class!\n\r\nIf you can take a different class, do so because there is a lot of information in this class, and you do a lot of pointless reading that you will not be tested on. This class focuses more on themes, so if you like memorizing timelines and names of historical figures, this is not a good class for you. If you like boring professors, reading a lot, and taking a final exam that is worth 40% of your grade, then i recommend this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-30T20:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': None, 'review': 'Those of you complaining are not really listening to him. He is not going to read the book to you!! He is reviewing the themes in the book. My TA is amazing and I have learned a lot about American History, but I go to most of the classes and all the discussions. Go to discussion and actually listen, read your text, review the notes for the tests and you will get an easy A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-11T20:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': 'HIST352', 'review': 'the only reason i gave him one star was bec zero stars is not an option. its honestly not fair that he is still teaching. i know it sounds harsh, but i did not learn a single thing all semester. It a waist of time and money if you enroll in any classes taught by him. his lectures were boring and he talks 43 words per minute (yes i actually counted once). \n\r\nhis midterms were take home essays, but they are extremely vague and you can literally talk about anything. i know that sounds easy but when you actually care about your grade its not. \n\r\nbottom line, hes the worst and avoid any classes he teaches\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-14T18:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': 'HIST352', 'review': "don't do it. i promise, this will be the worst experience of your life. it isn't interesting and because you don't have the ability to listen to him speak, everything takes more time. i can guarantee you are wasting your money by taking this course and you will not walk out knowing anything new. sorry bradbury.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T18:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': None, 'review': "I don't understand all the hate for Bradbury. All of the other history professors insist on giving their students 100+ identifications to memorize for exams and Bradbury gives, like, 30. \n\r\nSure, he talks VERY slowly, but he actually has some pretty interesting stuff to talk about.\n\r\nIf you're looking for a history teacher who isn't a slow-speaking old man, then you're out of luck, because they don't exist at UMD. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-07T22:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': None, 'review': 'This class is utterly miserable.\r\nThe professor speaks maybe one sentence per minute.\r\nI learned absolutely nothing that I didn\'t know about U.S. history already.\r\nDiscussion participation is worth 30% of your grade so you need to go. My TA, Alda, was also really strict about her "point system" for discussion participation and sometimes you would be involved in the discussion and she still wouldn\'t give you credit. \r\nGet a different class if at all possible. This is miserable', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-18T13:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': None, 'review': 'Boring. A lot of reading. A 7 page paper on a book you have to read and nothing else. Also 2 essay exams.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2009-06-28T23:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': None, 'review': "WOW he sucks. Save yourself the sleep and never attend lecture. He speaks a total of 3 sentences on nothing for the duration of class because he speaks so slow. He'll spend more time hitting on that one old person who is in your class. Your read the worst books and you have to outline every chapter every week. You have a retarded paper to do too.\r\nAvoid this teacher. Discussion is where you learn. Class will be easy if you just put in the time.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-29T02:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': None, 'review': 'I went to all of 3 lectures after joining the class 2 wks late. He speaks a word a minute and there simply isnt a point to going to class - All but 20 of 150 ppl thought so too. My TA was amazing - Stephen - and discussion is the only reason I got an A-. I got a 91 on the midterm, 95 on the final, and a B+ on the essay. This was bc the TA would give us a list of about 50 events/people/terms, 10 of which would be asked about on the test. He hinted as to which major event might be asked about as the essay. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-07-14T19:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miles Bradbury', 'course': None, 'review': 'If you are deciding whether or not to take this class. DO NOT TAKE IT.\n\r\n1)Lots of reading.\r\n2)7 page paper.\r\n3)Have to buy lots of books\r\n -Textbook\r\n -Document book(which they make you use, but barely)\r\n -3 Other independent reading books.(All of which are very boring and uninteresting. One of which you will write your paper on.)\r\n4)Professor generally walks in/starts class 10 minutes late.\r\n5)After the first couple of lectures, the attendance must drop to like 1/5.\r\n6)Halfway through the semester you will want to kill yourself.\n\r\nIf you have any other alternatives, take them. Do not take this class unless its your absolutely last option.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-06T11:15:00Z'}], 'name': 'Miles Bradbury', 'slug': 'bradbury'}, {'courses': ['CHEM691', 'CHEM481', 'CHEM482'], 'average_rating': 2.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Millard Alexander', 'course': 'CHEM481', 'review': "wow, absolutely fuck millard alexander. \n\r\nto start: his lecturing skills were abysmal. he was unable to explain anything without making a gross number of mistakes. his concepts are incredibly difficult to grasp the way he presents them. they're convoluted and without direction so you can be sitting there and wondering 'what the fuck is the point of this' many times. \n\r\nhis personality is also terrible. he's rude, makes snide comments to people who have some more obvious questions and if you walk into office hours like i did, it always seemed as if he was on the path to discovering the cure to cancer, and you just interrupted him. very rude and not very helpful in anyway. \n\r\nthe textbook used in his class was near impossible for me to understand. \n\r\ndo not be surprised when the exams average out in the 40's. \n\r\n0/10 would not recommend ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-01-29T12:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Millard Alexander', 'course': 'CHEM481', 'review': 'This is one of the hardest classes you\'ll take as an undergrad, but you can survive, I promise! Dr. Alexander is a brilliant man; anyone who can get a Ph.D. in physical chemistry has to be. He wasn\'t the best lecturer, in terms of explaining topics conceptually or explaining how a lecture connected to previous lectures. He pretty much expected us to do that on our own; see below. But with diligence, you can get an A in his class!\n\r\nMy tips for success in CHEM 481 with Dr. Alexander:\n\r\n1) Always go to class, be punctual, and sit near the front\r\nThis will accomplish several things:\r\n- You\'ll be aware of the material he\'s covering. Dr. Alexander didn\'t always stick to the book and often included supplemental topics in lecture. The homeworks reflect the lecture material, and the exams reflect the homeworks.\r\n- Dr. Alexander will recognize you, and therefore like you. He had no respect for people who regularly skipped class, and he said he thought they deserved to fail the class, even if they got passing grades. Don\'t be someone he doesn\'t like. On the other hand, if he knows you and knows you put effort into the class, he\'ll really really like you and care about what you have to say. That just might help if you\'re submitting an exam regrade or if you\'re on the border between two grades.\n\r\n2) Read the textbook\r\nLike I said above, Dr. Alexander focused less on teaching concepts in lecture and more on showing us the difficult derivations and problems we would be responsible for. He expected us to fill in the easier, connecting-the-dots conceptual understanding on our own. So READ THE TEXTBOOK. Take notes. The McQuarrie textbook is incredibly reader-friendly and a life-saver.\n\r\n3) Get as close to 100% as possible on the homeworks\r\nDr. Alexander gave roughly one homework per week (excluding exam weeks) and each was worth 25 points, or a quarter of an exam. That\'s a lot of points. Don\'t lose many of them. His homeworks were partially assigned problems from the book and partially supplemental problems he wrote on his own.\r\n- For the textbook problems: you can reference the solutions manual to the textbook, but make sure you actually do the work out correctly. There were frequently small errors in the solutions manual, and the TA took off points heavily for a mistake that was clearly just copied from the solutions.\r\n- For the supplemental problems: ALWAYS do these early. My self-imposed deadline was to have the homework done by the class before the class that it was due; that way if I had trouble with a certain part, as I usually did, then I\r\ncould go to Dr. Alexander\'s office hours after class and ask him. The ten minutes for him to explain whatever had confused me was well, well worth the hour I would have otherwise spent agonizing over a difficult problem. There was one week I didn\'t get around to the homework until the night before it was due because I\'d had other exams that week, and it was awful. Spare yourself the pain.\r\n(Bonus: regularly seeking his help on homework will not only improve your homework grade, it will also help ensure Dr. Alexander knows and likes you. See above.)\n\r\n4) Studying for exams\r\n- First, review all lecture and textbook notes until you understand what was going on in retrospect. (You may not have understood what was going on in a lecture if you hadn\'t read the corresponding textbook sections yet.)\r\n- Second, redo ALL the homeworks since the last exam. Each of our exams usually had a problem identical to a homework problem, and given that he posts solutions to homeworks, that means that\'s just easy points. Also, since this class is all about the curve, don\'t risk putting yourself behind the rest of the class just because they reviewed the homeworks and you didn\'t.\r\n- Finally, review your calc 2!! It may have been a while, so make sure you\'re really comfortable and speedy with differentiation, integration, partial derivatives, and power series/geometric series/Taylor series. The exams were very math-heavy, and you\'re more likely to miss points from a math error than a chemistry error.\n\r\nIn the words of Monica Geller: "Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You\'re gonna love it." Dr. Alexander will make you work, but you won\'t ever have been as proud of an A as the A you get in his class!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-26T18:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Millard Alexander', 'course': 'CHEM481', 'review': "Dr Alexander would most of the time show a youtube video, an online model or some other things on the internet for at least fifteen minutes. He makes a lot of mistakes with his notes during class. He would derive equations on the board with minimal explanation. He doesn't go over or explain how to do homework problems so basically if you can't go to the problem solving session then you are really screwed. His exams are crazy. sometimes it will ask you to solve problems similar to the ones in the homework. sometimes it will ask you to derive equations. He did that thing where you would either get full credit, half credit, or no credit on a problem. The grading of the exams is ambiguous. Two people can have the same answers with different amount of points awarded. He lets you have a formula sheet, so that's good. write everything down.\n\r\nI did not learn anything from the course and it was a waste of my time. If you had to take a course with him, DON'T. Just take it over the summer. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-03-08T02:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Millard Alexander', 'course': 'CHEM481', 'review': "Dr. Alexander is not good at communicating the content of the course in an organized and coherent manner. Frequently he would start a problem on the board and then not finish it, and it was difficult to follow him. He would go off on tangents, or not spend the class time in a useful manner. Also, the tests weren't consistent so it was hard to know how to study for them. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-26T22:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Millard Alexander', 'course': 'CHEM481', 'review': "Dr. Alexander is a really nice guy, but he isn't that great in teaching. I mean you can follow him in class, but most of the stuff he goes through in class won't show up on exams. The bulk of what shows up is homework problems. But still, it is unpredictable what he will put on the exam. The TA was awesome and held problem solving sessions that were very helpful. The curve was small, even when the average on each test was ~65%. Don't mess up early, cause it will be hard to catch up.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-24T00:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Millard Alexander', 'course': 'CHEM481', 'review': "He constantly lectures off topic. He does base questions on his exams after homework problems....sometimes. If he says something in class about what's going to be on the exam, don't take it heart. He told us that there were going to be more questions from material covered recently than material covered earlier on the exam....then when the exam showed up, most of the material was from stuff covered earlier. His exam formats are very unpredictable. Every exam felt like it was written by a different professor and not just one professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-22T10:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Millard Alexander', 'slug': 'alexander_millard'}, {'courses': ['BIOE689V', 'BIOE437', 'BIOE437', 'BIOE437'], 'average_rating': 1.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Milton Davis', 'course': 'BIOE437', 'review': 'I do not recommend taking this course. Mr. Davis assigns a massive amount of homework and in-class modules, without providing any instruction or guidance . His slides, which take up about 5 minutes of class, are irrelevant to the practical exams, in which he does not provide enough time. The grading is atrocious and he grades based on favoritism.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-06T20:57:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Milton Davis', 'course': 'BIOE437', 'review': 'Absolutely terrible professor. Although the class is not too difficult and he is a nice person, he is terrible at explaining concepts or giving any clarity on his assignments. He also is completely unresponsive to emails and concerns. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-28T16:36:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Milton Davis', 'course': 'BIOE437', 'review': "Fair grader (used an automated system), gave a lot of times for exams and quizzes. A lot of the class he did not teach and just posted slides and videos for us to watch. The slides were not useful for the class for the most part, and the textbook or just YouTube was very useful for the exams. He is a nice guy, but a lot of class time is wasted on things that don't relate much to the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-27T22:47:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Milton Davis', 'course': 'BIOE437', 'review': 'Thankfully the class is not too difficult because the professor has no clue how to teach this course. He fumbles on tutorials, relies on TAs, and is slow to respond to emails. Most of the course content is not taught in class but is taught via videos. The videos are time-consuming and not helpful. The ELMS page is an organizational disaster with hundreds of files not sorted into folders. The volume of work is insane for a class that is only three credits. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-17T22:40:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Milton Davis', 'course': 'BIOE437', 'review': "Grading is done with an automatic computer system. The professor is nice but is hard to reach and not responsive to student concerns. Videos are the primary way to learn. No need to attend class (unless there is a quiz) because it's a waste of time. Instructions are not clear on assignments. Try to avoid the professor if you actually want to learn. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-11-30T21:06:24Z'}], 'name': 'Milton Davis', 'slug': 'davis_milton'}, {'courses': ['EXST039B', 'EXST049G', 'COMM639D', 'COMM659B', 'COMM649D', 'COMM619D', 'COMM619E', 'COMM649E', 'COMM719B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Min Eu', 'slug': 'eu_min'}, {'courses': ['PHYS270', 'PHYS275', 'PHYS499M', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'PHYS738', 'ENMA489X', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS497', 'PHYS276', 'PHYS375', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS375', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS276'], 'average_rating': 3.2857, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Min Ouyang', 'course': 'PHYS271', 'review': "It takes a while to get used to his accent, but once you do he's a pretty good teachers. Lectures can be boring; i often did homework during lecture. However, he uses detailed powerpoints and will post them online so you can look over them. There are random lecture quizzes, but just for completing them you get a 9/15 so they help boost your grade a little. Also the weekly problems you get for hw are often taken right from the book, so take a look in the book to see if there is anything in there that might help you solve the problem. Also Min makes sure that students know he cares about their grade and wants to help them succeed, and this was good to have from a professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-25T22:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Min Ouyang', 'course': 'PHYS261', 'review': "It really depends on who you get for your ta. My ta was not at all useful, didn't answer questions and explained things poorly. But he curved well. Use what you learn from the first lab (error propagation) and use it for all the other labs (for error calculations). ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-01-01T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Min Ouyang', 'course': 'PHYS261', 'review': 'Lab is very tedious and boring. Too much error analysis and not enough seeing actual applications of real world problems. The class depends on your TA.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-19T02:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Min Ouyang', 'course': 'PHYS261', 'review': 'The difficulty of this class really depends on your TA. My TA explained everything about the lab and answered any questions which arose. Once again, this class really depends on your TA.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-02T03:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Min Ouyang', 'course': 'PHYS261', 'review': "This lab is pretty decent. Once you get the experiment going, it's pretty easy to see how the concepts from 260 apply, so it is beneficial in terms of providing a real-world example. However, the technicalities of the course can be confusing--how to use the random equipment they have set up each week, how to enter difficult formulas into the excel spreadsheets, how to calculate errors, etc. Overall, not that bad, but the explanations need to be a bit clearer on some things.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-18T14:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Min Ouyang', 'course': 'PHYS271', 'review': 'This class was very tedious and time consuming but I had an awesome TA who made it bearable. The culminating labs were not bad since we all worked together.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-01-19T03:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Min Ouyang', 'course': 'PHYS271', 'review': "For a what can be a tough class, a pretty good professor. He's really helpful whenever you ask him questions, and his exams are of middling difficulty.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-22T06:09:00Z'}], 'name': 'Min Ouyang', 'slug': 'ouyang'}, {'courses': ['EDHD420', 'EDHD425', 'HLTH652', 'HLTH653', 'EDHD460', 'EDHD840', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'EDHD228', 'EDHD320', 'HLTH710', 'EDHD320', 'EDHD425', 'HLTH652', 'HLTH710', 'EDHD241', 'EDHD320', 'HLTH653', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'EDHD320', 'EDHD425', 'HLTH652', 'EDHD629'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Min Wang', 'course': 'EDHD425', 'review': 'Honestly, one of the most boring classes I have ever taken. I took this class as an elective/easy A, and ended up with a B+ in the class. There is a HUGE communication barrier between Min Wang and her students. For Instance, on our exam one of the questions stated to "list" an answer, but we all got points taken off because she wanted us to "list and define." If you can find another elective, take that class. I would not recommend this class unless it\'s required for your major. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-01-05T13:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Min Wang', 'course': 'EDHD425', 'review': 'Class is made up of:\r\n2 midterm exams\r\n2 papers (1 5-page paper on a CYC visit, 1 8-page Case study where you create a research project on a child you must find like a relative)\r\n1 presentation on your case study\r\n4 concept maps & 4 video clips (these are easy but you pretty much have one every week) \n\r\nIt was an easy class but I thought the exams were hard because Im not an education/psychology major, Im not used to memorizing (Im an econ major so I do math) , and half the exam was written on definitions and exams of the terms. But the multiple choice was not too bad.\r\n all the busy work (homework once a week, both papers, presentation) was super easy got 100% but that exam brought me down =( It was probably cuz I never paid attention in class. She is so boring to listen to.\r\nAlso she does take attendance.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-12T14:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Min Wang', 'course': 'EDHD425', 'review': 'she is a very nice professor, however her lectures are so boring. she assigns concept maps to do each week which is just like busy work but they are easy grades. she is sometimes hard to understand with her accent, it can be really annoying to try and listen to her talk when you cant understand her. she is a very fair grader and also will help you in anyway if you ask for it. \n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'a', 'created': '2010-04-23T14:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Min Wang', 'course': 'EDHD320', 'review': 'Amazing professor and provides the best feedback. Exams were a bit hard, but fair. Highly recommend her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-23T23:29:28Z'}], 'name': 'Min Wang', 'slug': 'wang_min'}, {'courses': ['CHIN428W', 'CHIN422', 'CHIN307', 'CHIN429E', 'CHIN202', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN204', 'CHIN429G', 'CHIN425', 'CHIN307', 'CHIN425'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Minglang Zhou', 'slug': 'zhou_minglang'}, {'courses': ['ARTT455', 'ARTT356', 'CPET240', 'CPSP249E', 'IDEA258A', 'CPSP369E', 'IDEA210', 'EXST030', 'IDEA258C', 'IDEA247', 'IDEA258U', 'IDEA369', 'IDEA398A', 'IDEA469', 'IDEA258F', 'IDEA200', 'PLCY200', 'UNIV110', 'IDEA247', 'IDEA258A', 'CPSP349T', 'IDEA258C', 'IDEA258U', 'IDEA698', 'IDEA258A', 'IDEA258C', 'IDEA258U', 'IDEA698', 'IDEA258A', 'IDEA258C', 'IDEA258U', 'IDEA459', 'IDEA659', 'IDEA698', 'IDEA258A', 'IDEA459', 'IDEA659'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mira Azarm', 'course': 'IDEA258C', 'review': 'Cecelia and Poojia were really amazing throughout the entire semester. The class was really well designed, and I was able to learn a lot. I originally took this class because I was going to be working on a campaign during the semester and wanted to learn how I can better design their campaign. But the class was really about designing something you care and advocate for own ideas which was really cool. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-28T03:08:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Mira Azarm', 'course': 'IDEA258A', 'review': "Mira and Christina made this course at least somewhat enjoyable. If you need one credit of almost no effort, then I highly recommend IDEA258A with these two. We were always let out early, and had < 10 mins of HW per night (you can easily BS the longer assignments).\r\nBoth instructors were very nice and understanding, and tried to make all students get the most out of the course, even if after a whole semester I still couldn't explain what the point of the class is. My only comment is this course will give no gen-eds, so don't expect anything more than a free credit-hour.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-20T21:02:13Z'}], 'name': 'Mira Azarm', 'slug': 'azarm_mira'}, {'courses': ['DANC283', 'DANC489F', 'DANC766', 'DANC784', 'DANC138F', 'DANC338F', 'DANC488', 'DANC679', 'DANC689F', 'DANC789', 'DANC600', 'DANC647'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Miriam Phillips', 'slug': 'phillips_miriam'}, {'courses': ['ENCE420', 'ENCE626', 'ENCE421', 'ENCE688E', 'ENCE625', 'ENCE325', 'ENCE622', 'ARCH688C', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE320', 'ENCE320', 'ENCE420', 'ENCE622', 'ENCE320', 'ENCE421', 'ENCE320', 'ENCE622'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Miroslaw Skibniewski', 'course': 'ENCE421', 'review': 'Not as bad as the others said. 421 is an interesting class. Skibniewski talks a lot about his funny experiences during his career. There is also a wonderful field trip in 420. Basically really nice!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-09-03T18:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miroslaw Skibniewski', 'course': 'ENCE420', 'review': "This is NOT a class you will want to take as an elective. Especially if Skibniewski is teaching it. He has a great passion for the construction industry; however, he does not teach you anything. \n\r\nI HIGHLY RECOMMEND not taking any course with him as he reads over power points, the homework assignments are hard and does't teach you what he expects to be completed on the homework. The book is not much help either. \n\r\nThe class is also extremely boring. \n\r\nSTAY AWAY FROM 420! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-23T14:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miroslaw Skibniewski', 'course': 'ENCE420', 'review': '2.5 hours of him reading off the powerpoints, none of which is related to the homework. Homeworks and tests are hard. No cheat sheet and he expects you to know memorize the book. \n\r\nIf i had the chance, I would not take this class again. \n\r\nClass average ended up being a C. He did nothing to curve it. Since this class was an elective, it was a little irritating that he was being such a harsh grader.\n\r\nTAKE ANY OTHER PROJECT MANAGEMENT CLASS OTHER THAN THIS.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-01-14T14:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Miroslaw Skibniewski', 'course': 'ENCE320', 'review': "I'm generally the kind of student that thinks the professor is great when everyone else in the class hates them, but this is the first and only pretty bad one I've had. It's just the general lack of effort and clear communication on his part. Some things:\r\n\r\n- The whole course is a textbook on project management. The lectures are 2.5 hours (he occasionally lets out early, but far from always) of just reading the slides. Guy has some decent anecdotes, but there's no content beyond what you'll just get from reading the textbook. It's not surprising that class attendance dwindled to about 10 people.\r\n- The homeworks are all auto-generated textbook assignments, which quite commonly contain errors. He doesn't grade anything. The homework schedule got out of alignment with the chapter readings because he didn't factor in spring break. It took him several weeks of students nagging him to fix that.\r\n- 25% of the grade is a paper on an example of project management. There's no clear rubric or grading criteria nor any examples given of what he's looking for.\r\n- There were a bunch of chapters in the book that had homework assignments due which we didn't get to. He wasn't very clear on which were still due or not which led me to get a zero on some assignments that I didn't realize were still due.\r\n- There were questions on the final from parts of the textbook that we hadn't been assigned. \r\n- He rarely responds to emails, instead handing every inquiry off to his grad student assistant.\r\n- The final was supposedly closed book, but again the grad student was invigilating the exam and spent the whole thing on her phone at the front of the class, so I saw a bunch of people just looking up all the answers.\r\n\r\nIn general, he just gives the impression that teaching effectively or putting together a well-functioning course is not a very high priority to him. The guy is clearly highly regarded in the world of construction management, but if he's such a big deal and teaching undergrads is such an annoying distraction to him, why is he still a professor? Wouldn't recommend very much.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-09T15:38:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Miroslaw Skibniewski', 'course': 'ENCE320', 'review': 'ENCE320 taught by Skibniewski was a joke. First off, there was no real syllabus - nothing on how the class would be graded, what his expectations were, the course policies etc. Second off, everything in the class was based off the textbook, which was a mandatory $50. He held lectures from 5-7:30 that were essentially him just reading off of the slides provided by the textbook publisher. Because the slides/lecture contained absolutely nothing that wasn\'t provided in the textbook, it was pretty much pointless to go. There were weekly reading assignments and homeworks that were also only based off the textbook, and many of the homeworks contained errors. There were two exams, a final and a midterm, that were both multiple choice only and that, again, contained errors. He didn\'t actually attend to help with exams himself, and never specified the format of these exams, leaving everyone in the class confused and unprepared. Studying for the final (cumulative) was especially hard given that feedback and correct answers for the midterm were not released, making it impossible to know what you did well on and what you needed to study more. In addition, because the exams were open-book multiple choice questions that were, again, based off only off the textbook, the exams tested how good you were at memorizing the book and looking up answers over anything else. Finally, a term paper was assigned that had no clear grading rubric other than "write about a specific project". This paper was worth a 25% of our grade. The class taught me absolutely nothing and the lack of effort put in by Skibniewski was appalling.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-20T00:01:15.391443Z'}], 'name': 'Miroslaw Skibniewski', 'slug': 'skibniewski'}, {'courses': ['THET425', 'THET325', 'THET499E', 'THET669B', 'THET363', 'TDPS458M', 'THET328O', 'THET430', 'THET499', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET285', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET669'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mitchell Hebert', 'course': 'THET285', 'review': "i learned so much from Mitch this semester. could have been the most useful course I'll ever take at the university honestly. highly recommend Mitch. You will learn really cool things.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-15T17:32:22Z'}], 'name': 'Mitchell Hebert', 'slug': 'hebert_mitchell'}, {'courses': ['ENMA620', 'ENMA495', 'ENNU655', 'ENMA300', 'ENMA422', 'GEMS296', 'BIOE640', 'ENNU648A', 'ENME382', 'ENMA624', 'ENMA688', 'ENNU899', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENMA620', 'ENMA422', 'GEMS496', 'ENMA620', 'GEMS497', 'ENNU899', 'ENNU899', 'ENMA422'], 'average_rating': 2.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mohamad Al-Sheikhly', 'course': 'ENMA422', 'review': "ENMA422 itself is an easy class. Three homeworks, a take home midterm, a final and most of the assignments are partner work. Getting an A was pretty easy. \r\nAl-Sheikhly doesn't allow any electronics in class and always takes attendance, which kinda sucks because his lecturing is extremely sub-par and fairly repetitional. He also had a really large focus on polymers for the second part of the course.\r\nAs for the man himself, he's pretty much just a cranky old man. He can be mean and yell for no reason, and rarely answers questions adequately if he even tolerates them. Getting on his good side is hard and may not help that much, but should still be attempted. \r\nIf he still does a project in the future, just go to his office hours and ask him for a topic. Otherwise you risk public humiliation as he rips apart your preliminary presentation in front of the whole class, without any response allowed. \r\nOf course if you're a girl, this doesn't apply. He'll love you regardless. \n\r\nOverall if you can stomach his personality, the class is easy enough that I would recommend it. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-27T14:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mohamad Al-Sheikhly', 'course': 'ENME382', 'review': 'The teaching was pretty poor. Professor was condescending to students, and it was hard to take notes during class because he would just talk and it was unclear what we should write. He took off points on exams for what it seems emotional reasons--stating that the answer wasn\'t good enough, without actually looking at what some of us wrote. He also took off full points on some questions because we wrote exactly what he wrote on a slide, and he thinks that we should "read the book"(which I did/do), not just look at the slides. Nevertheless the answer was correct, but his irrational reasoning led to getting full points off. \n\r\nHe is also just a very difficult person to deal with. Not very available after class and he gives no respect to any student. He says we should discuss together during class, because that is the point of class, but many times he will tell people to put their hands down or just shut them down by saying, "Are you even paying attention??". So overall, the professor is disrespectful, doesn\'t teach well, and is irrational.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-05-04T13:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mohamad Al-Sheikhly', 'course': 'ENMA422', 'review': 'Not sure what the previous review is about, he wasn\'t mean in class or yelled for no reason. He takes his time answering our questions and if you say you do not understand, he will attempt to go through the concept again. Getting on his good side definitely helps, he has mentioned in our class that he likes "this class".\r\n\r\nFor projects, be very well informed about your presentation. He will question the details in your project and \'rip you apart\' if you are not well prepared, but do note that "I do not know" is an acceptable answer, especially for the preliminary presentation. The point is to find areas for you to research further into the project.\r\n\r\nThere is a large focus on polymers in the 2nd half of the course which I was not expecting, but that is his expertise.\r\n\r\nOverall, I really like his teaching style he\'s kind of funny, and my favourite professor this term.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-18T03:28:38.263489Z'}], 'name': 'Mohamad Al-Sheikhly', 'slug': 'al-sheikhly'}, {'courses': ['ENCE641', 'ENCE441', 'ENCE741', 'ENCE743', 'ENCE444', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE441', 'ENCE641', 'ENCE444', 'ENCE741', 'ENCE441', 'ENCE743'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mohamed Aggour', 'course': 'ENCE441', 'review': "The best professor I have had at UMD yet. He has a range of office hours to go to if you don't understand the material and is very willing to help. The tests are straight forward and not really trying to trick you.\n\r\nThe class was interesting and he made it even better by being a great teacher!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-28T14:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mohamed Aggour', 'course': 'ENCE641', 'review': 'My first professor at UMD for Masters. And I got a good one. Explains really well, easily available, patient, funny, knowledgeable and friendly. I am taking ENCE 741 with him next semester. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-14T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mohamed Aggour', 'course': 'ENCE441', 'review': "one of the better civil professors ive ever had. his classes are probably the only classes where i haven't needed to buy the book because everything in his lectures are helpful for the homework and tests. the tests are long and there are 1 or 2 tricky problems, but if you put enough time in, you should do fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-26T22:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mohamed Aggour', 'course': 'ENCE641', 'review': 'Very knowledgeable', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-18T21:41:16.819565Z'}], 'name': 'Mohamed Aggour', 'slug': 'aggour'}, {'courses': ['CMSC351', 'CMSC474', 'CMSC858F', 'CMSC858M', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC420', 'CMSC351H', 'CMSC858F', 'DATA602', 'GEMS296', 'MSML602', 'GEMS297', 'BIOI602', 'CMSC858J', 'DATA602', 'GEMS396', 'MSML602'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mohammad Hajiaghayi', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'I actually liked this course with Mohammad. Sometimes the homework seems impossibly hard, but just go to office hours with the TAs and you get through it much quicker. To get do well on the exam, just memorize the homework problems and study the lecture notes.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-31T13:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Mohammad Hajiaghayi', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Entertaining lectures and fun homeworks/exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-03-15T14:57:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Mohammad Hajiaghayi', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Entertaining, very good lecturer. Provides a reasonable amount of work that is easily doable and leniently graded. Take his class for CMSC351 & CMSC474.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:12:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Mohammad Hajiaghayi', 'course': 'CMSC351H', 'review': 'Great class. Professor Hajiaghayi focused on big picture of algorithms. In the beginning, the class felt pretty theory heavy, but it got much more interesting when we started applying them in problems. I hope he will teach this class again. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-06-17T18:49:48Z'}], 'name': 'Mohammad Hajiaghayi', 'slug': 'hajiaghayi'}, {'courses': ['ENRE641', 'ENRE602', 'ENRE447', 'ENRE670', 'ENRE655', 'ENRE899', 'ENRE620', 'ENRE641', 'ENRE670', 'ENRE655', 'ENRE899', 'ENRE648L', 'ENRE648L', 'ENRE641', 'ENRE670'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mohammad Modarres', 'slug': 'modarres'}, {'courses': ['CHBE333', 'ENCH610', 'CHBE472', 'ENCH672'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mohammad Soltanieh', 'slug': 'soltanieh'}, {'courses': ['EDPS301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Molly Dunn', 'slug': 'dunn_molly'}, {'courses': ['FMSC432', 'FMSC610', 'FMSC651', 'FMSC658', 'FMSC898', 'FMSC652', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'FMSC789', 'GEMS396', 'FMSC698A', 'FMSC431', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'FMSC652', 'FMSC698A', 'FMSC789', 'FMSC652', 'FMSC698A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mona Mittal', 'slug': 'mittal'}, {'courses': ['EXST028D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Mona Tahar', 'slug': 'tahar'}, {'courses': ['SPAN203', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN207'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Monica Ocasio', 'slug': 'ocasio'}, {'courses': ['ENRE645', 'ENRE648C', 'ENME489A', 'ENME472', 'ENSE698G', 'ENME489B', 'ENAE202', 'ENME202', 'ENAE202'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Monifa Vaughn-Cooke', 'course': 'ENME202', 'review': 'Just fine is what I can say. Lectures are pretty basic, the slides are somewhat useful. Early on the homework is very easy, but as the semester goes the homework and studios get harder. Studios are wildly hit or miss, in my section the one TA would spend the entire class helping one student, and the other would basically say "you don\'t understand the problem, you need to reread." Yea no s*** that\'s why people are asking for help. \r\n\r\nStudio is automatic 100% if you go in person, regardless of correctness or completion, but you have to put in effort. There is mandatory attendance via clicker quizzes that are graded only on completion.\r\n\r\nDo the homework early, do the studio early or go in person. Exam review was insufficient. I think to get an A you need to find practice material outside what\'s provided in the class, or come in with prior programming knowledge. You can easily get a B if you do all assigned work and review problems, even if you have no prior experience.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-02-24T17:45:26Z'}], 'name': 'Monifa Vaughn-Cooke', 'slug': 'vaughn-cooke'}, {'courses': ['COMM669', 'COMM789', 'COMM683'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Monika Roske', 'slug': 'roske'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Monique Brown-Ransom', 'slug': 'brown-ransom'}, {'courses': ['CHEM231', 'CHEM232', 'CHEM232S', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM241', 'CHEM242', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM232V', 'CPSP218L', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM232', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM232', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM232', 'CHEM232S', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM232', 'CHEM237', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM232', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM232'], 'average_rating': 3.0625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': "She's average - not the best but not horrific either. Just understand as many of the given problems as you can, and you'll pass for sure.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-09-19T17:28:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "I took AP Chemistry in high school, so this class came easier to me than others. Koppel does a good job of what you need to know for the exams and warns us about what we will need to know for organic chemistry. She comes off a bit sassy at times, but it's important to ask her questions during office hours if you're confused or else you'll fall behind. She does a lot of practice problems during class, which I would pay close attention to because those questions are very similar to the questions on the exams. I recommend doing all the extra practice problems and previous exams that she posts online. The class is curved but only at the end of the semester and it depends on the class average. Overall, if you go to lecture and understand how to do practice problems, you will do fine in the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:03:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Great professor for Chem 131! As long as you work for it you’re fine. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-09T15:10:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Dr. Koppel is one of the better teachers offered for CHEM 131. Her lectures tend to be slow, but as long as you do the textbook readings, homework, and attend discussions, it should be a manageable class. Exams are fair and accurately reflect practice tests, and what is learned in class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-02-12T15:13:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Dr. Koppel was a pretty good professor. She moved very slowly at the beginning, but after we transitioned to online learning she went pretty fast to "catch up". In the beginning she did a really good job at explaining the basics, but possibly too much time. After transitioning to online learning, she uploaded multiple lectures at once sporadically to watch at our own pace, which was nice because her lectures are usually fast paced. Her online lectures very good most of the time. It was much harder to learn online personally because discussions and GSS (which are super necessary!!) were not at the usual times and did not feel the same. There is 8 online homework assignments due at the end of the semester which helped me understand concepts and they were not too difficult Dr. Koppel will tell you that you need to put in the work outside of lecture, which is very very true!! I put in about 3 hours/week in person and probably 6-10 hours/week after the online transition. Organic Chemistry is not as intimidating as it seems if you put in the hard work and Koppel was a pretty good professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-26T21:35:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': "Dr. Koppel's lab was a mess! The lab videos were not helpful. You had to go to several office hours to understand how to do the labs. The final was AWFUL (less than 50% average) and not on anything we covered. She's super strict so don't think about cheating. Thankfully she did a huge curve at the end because she knew everyone failed her final. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-24T17:58:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': 'The online lab was a mess. Super disorganized and whenever people were confused she had a lot of attitude. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-05T20:16:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Fall of 2020 lab wasn’t bad. Took about 6 hrs a week including the lab video you had to watch to “do” the experiment. Must attend office hours (hers and/or the TAs) to do well. Some TAs were more helpful than others. Definitely a doable class but had to go to office hours or else you won’t do well on the lab reports. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-24T20:16:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': "Labs weren't too bad however the TAs could be very picky with answers to post lab questions. Overall not too bad, the final is challenging so make sure to study and get a high enough score so it doesn't completely ruin your grade. Office hours are very helpful for any confusion to labs. Make sure to do the prep work for labs because it will make everything easier for you. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-22T17:59:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': 'Labs were difficult but TA office hours were very helpful. I was on track to receiving an A this semester, but went down to a B with the absolutely unnecessary final. The final was extremely difficult and it was very disappointing to be assigned one despite the fact that we have been home for a year due to the pandemic. Koppel was very reluctant to give any sort of leniency. Try to do well on the labs, because the final will bring you down a few percentage points. Again not sure why it was at all necessary, especially considering the fact that we were able to demonstrate our understanding of the material with our labs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-25T18:17:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': 'The labs were generally fair and she modified them well to let us get out early. There were tons of office hours with the Tis, which are essential to getting the Post Lab questions answered. However, you should try to good really good on the lab reports, because the final is very hard. Since it is multiple choice (for chemistry), you can lose a lot of points quickly and it will bring your grade down. There was a pretty good curve at the end (4%) though, to account for this.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-29T18:38:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232V', 'review': "It was kinda annoying that it was online, she seemed like a good teacher but because it was online it was annoying. Some labs were really great and you could do independently pretty well, but some were pretty vague and could not be done without office hours. So it ended up being kind of annoying that some labs I aced 50/50 but others were just randomly like a 30 which just is weird. Like the grades for a consistent class shouldn't be so inconsistent, but that's because the labs really were not so consistent. I do think that Koppel was good though, and Orgo lab is probably best with her.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-06-01T16:51:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Worst professor at UMD. Very strict on grading and is very disrespectful to her students. Took this course online during peak COVID and she had no remorse or sympathy for her students who were trying to learn organic chemistry ONLINE. Her lab videos were poor quality half of the time so it was difficult to record correct measurements which lead to getting poor lab grades on the report. Avoid this processor at all costs! ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2021-08-31T18:30:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': "the lab this semester was a mess, and she kept making decisions that made it more so. \r\nthis class is meant to supplement what we're doing in 231, which is a great idea in theory. in practice, all of the professors are covering the concepts on a different timeline. which would be fine, but there is hardly an explanation of the concepts in the lab manual. sometimes you get videos to watch before the lab, which are really helpful, but they can range from being over 2 hours in total to maybe 5 minutes for the week. and sometimes they don't even cover theory, just how to do the actual lab. a ta also called the recommended textbook useless. which would be fine since we can just go to office hours. but halfway into the semester she's limited how much the ta's can say when they answer a question. which would be fine, you don't want your ta's just giving out answers. but it's to the point where i've seen people ask basic questions on theory and the ta's still can't answer. there's literally not a single source to find the theory we NEED to know, considering it's almost all of what's on the midterm/final/PLQ's, which are HUGE parts of the grade. \r\nthe lab is ran so poorly, for being just 1 credit i find myself putting in a stupid amount of effort for disappointing results. if the lab manual that she wrote was just slightly more extensive, that would be so helpful. if the ta's weren't kept away from explaining even basic theory, that would be so helpful! i know there's no other choice for the lab, but be prepared for a really difficult, frustrating semester if you do have to take it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-13T02:48:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': "Lab coordinators are usually barely involved with the actual lab, so I can't really fault Koppel for that. However, she still made this lab far more difficult than it needs to be. She's essentially the only person who teaches CHEM232, so there isn't really a chance of avoiding her, it's more about knowing how to approach her lab.\r\n\r\nThe number one thing is that her post-lab questions are ridiculously difficult. These are the questions that she will post on ELMS in addition to the post-lab questions that are already in the lab manual. They will ask hard questions that barely relate to the content of the lab and ask about content that most students don't learn in lecture. Usually, it's not hard to get full points on every other part of the experiments. Those are always graded by your TA (so it's pretty nice to have a chill TA in the class). A lot of times, the pre-lab component is only graded on completion. The post-lab questions (PLQs) are graded on rotation, so they're graded by different TAs every time. Every TA grades a little bit different, and they all grade at different paces, so do not expect to receive your labs back periodically/be able to use your graded labs to help with the future ones. If you want to ensure that you do well on the PLQs, GO TO OFFICE HOURS. Or find a friend who does. A lot of the questions are near impossible to answer unless the TAs tell you the answer. Also, the TAs for my class (Fall 2021) had the answer keys for each lab, so the literal answers were given out at office hours. Koppel eventually realized this and stopped giving them the answer keys, and so the TAs stopped being as helpful, but they were still better than nothing.\r\n\r\nI always saved doing my lab stuff until the night before, which I really regret. This lab has SO much more work than a one-credit course should have, and it's a good idea to get started on that stuff early so you have time to go to office hours. Also, try and find a TA you like or that other students like, they're likely to be more helpful. I never personally found the pre-lab videos that helpful, but definitely try to watch them, especially for the more complicated labs. Just read the manual closely for each lab and know the directions, it'll make everything go a lot faster (you're gonna wanna get out of those labs as fast as possible, some of them WILL take the full three hours).\r\n\r\nBesides the lab, there are a few additional assignments, which aren't hard. The midterm in this lab is excessively difficult. There is simply no way to study for it. Koppel published a review guide and it didn't help in any single way. As for the final, Koppel, hosted a review session for the exam, and it was so, so helpful. If she does that again, GO TO IT!! The final felt a lot easier than the midterm for me, and it also wasn't cumulative (just on the second half of the experiments in the course). In a way, there isn't a way to control your grade in this lab. It's impossible to answer questions exactly how Koppel expects. You just have to get through it, unfortunately, there isn't really a way to avoid Koppel.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-18T18:00:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': "While I'm not sure how Dr. Koppel is with lecture, I can say that her lab is difficult, but also passable. I do think that this course was too difficult for a 1 credit course. The actual lab manual is not difficult, but her post lab questions are extremely difficult, and you will need to go to TA office hours for help. I think the most frustrating past of the post labs were the article searches, as it seems pointless to make students waste their times finding a specific article that she could just attach to the assignment. Along with that, she decided to stop giving the TA's answer keys, which meant that it was very difficult for students to get help. Not all TAs knew what to do for all of those post lab questions. \r\n\r\nHer exams are known for being unpassable, especially the midterm. However, for the final, she will have an in-person review session, and that was extremely helpful in my opinion. I really like her lecture style, she is actually very easy to listen to, and she does a great job of keeping the lecture on topic. Don't panic if you do poorly on the midterm -- everyone does (including me). \r\n\r\nYou will learn a lot from this class, but the class can be very frustrating at times. To be honest, your enjoyment of this class will be determined by your TA. Make sure not to miss any labs!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T00:28:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': 'I personally never actually met with Dr. Koppel- labs are run by your section TA. I will not review my TA here, though he was awesome.\r\n\r\nOther than the ten labs you will complete, there are two separate assignments (literature and IR spectroscopy), which are basically 60 free points.\r\nThe lab manual is your saving grace. Almost everything you need in the semester is in there. Labs are straightforward- just follow the manual. Post-lab questions are the only difficult parts of the labs, and sometimes you will have to attend office hours in order to understand them. Otherwise, the labs constitute 490 of your ~860 points in the semester, so they are very important. Why? See the next section.\r\n\r\nThe rest of the points come from the midterm and final exams. Each exam is 128 points, and the average is always around 50%. My TA told me that these exams are designed to bring the class average down, which makes sense. After taking the exams, they feel like they were designed that way. You will be fine, as long as you work hard on the post-lab questions. Again, all you can really study off of for the final is the lab manual. Good luck :)', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T16:44:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "I don't know why people give her bad reviews. She is by far the most knowledgeable, respectful, and straightforward prof ive had at UMD. Her exams are fair but challenging and I think overall it is a great experience as long as you keep up, go to class, and study hard. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-03-03T01:08:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Honestly please take Stocker if you have the chance. Koppel explains okay but the examples she chooses in class are always stupidly easy compared to the ones she gives on homeworks and tests. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-26T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Not the worst. I would always feel super prepared for exams, but she always purposefully put questions to trick you. Homework/quizzes were hard, but did help my grade. In the end, the curve is generous. If you put in the time, you will pass. \r\nIn terms of teaching style, she never worked through complicated examples during class, so trying to do them on your own or on an exam felt unfair. She seemed nice and understanding, but definitely doesn't take an BS from anyone so don't offend her lol. \r\nI never felt that I was doing bad because of her teaching, it was because her exams were ridiculously hard. Then again, it is orgo so it is different for everyone! ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-18T22:25:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Overall really good professor. Her teaching style is very modern, and her exams are very similar to practice/old ones. You have to attend office hours if you want help with homework or concepts, but an A in her class is not impossible. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-19T00:38:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "Had Koppel for Lab and Lecture. In lecture she is pretty good at explaining concepts but she does spend time on theory and topics that are pretty mundane and not helpful with what we're learning. In terms of exams we had 3 with each being 125 points so higher than most professors. Averages ranged from 50-60 usually but each exam is 100% doable and she often pulls questions from homework and practice exams so constantly doing practice problems with the materials she gives you is a huge necessity, do these practice problems as well as the second language book religiously and you should be fine, GSS is also a huge help. Graders are also pretty stingy with partial credit so make sure to double check all exam answers. The final was much easier and works best for people who review practice exams. Overall very time consuming but completely doable once you find good study techniques.\r\n\r\nLab had no contact with Dr. Koppel besides for a 2 hour review session before the final which was very helpful. Lab manual is super helpful at explaining topics but tons of procedures had some typos which caused a lot of people in lab to ruin their experiments completely and be left with no results. Midterms and final are 128 points with each average being around a 66. Going to review sessions are helpful but the only thing you can really do is hope to stay above the class average. Pre-labs and the labs themselves aren't too difficult but they are time consuming so leaving lab early isn't that common. Post-labs are very difficult and you definitely need to go to TA office hours for help. Some TA's genuinely don't know whats going on but there are amazing TA's who care about what your learning and are super helpful. On top of lab reports there is a 50 point practical quiz which tests on lab apparatus' and two 30 point literature and IR workshops which are easy points. As long as you do solid on lab reports you will be fine in class because the workshops help counteract the low exam averages. \r\n\r\nOverall Koppel isn't the best lecturer or coordinator but her classes are super doable if you find time to attend office hours for lab and grind out practice problems for the lecture midterms and final.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-19T20:22:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': "Labs were pretty organized, but the midterm and final were brutal, especially the midterm. There were some free points but this class was so much work for one credit. Hated that the exams also had no partial credit, just 8-point multiple choice questions. Your lab report grades also heavily depend on your TA, and same goes for the pre-lab quizzes since TA's get to pick the questions. You kinda just have to get lucky, with your TA and on the exams. I personally did better in lecture than this class, but I will say the class does have a huge curve which is the only benefit. Good luck!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-23T19:12:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "GO TO HER OFFICE HOURS!!! If you actually show up to her office hours and ask her about things you are confused about, you can do well in this class. She does rush through material during class, but she can't help that the class itself is so heavy on content. You will be frustrated at many points in time during this class... but if you truly put in the time and effort you can succeed. ORGO itself isn't hard, its actually quite enjoyable once you get the hang of it. Practice problems and flashcards will be your bestie. Koppel is a very genuine, funny, and caring professor, and I wish I got to know her even better. She truly loves what she does and wants to help. Yes, Stocker is a great professor, but Koppel is also great in her own way! You will not be at a disadvantage with her as a teacher, if anything you will be at an advantage when it comes to the lab because you will be familiar with her style.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-24T15:56:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Do not recommend. She goes over everything pretty fast. Her tests are somewhat similar to the old tests. You pretty much have to do the readings and go to classes every single time to understand her notes. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-25T17:30:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Definitely the best orgo 1 professor there is in my opinion. Her class consists of 3 midterm exams, 1 final, and a couple homeworks. It is orgo so it obviously will be very difficult, but if you go to class and review your notes everyday after class and do a bunch of practice problems you will be fine. Koppel is always willing to help you if you have any questions in office hours and it is definitely helpful that she runs the lab as well. Yes, her exams are challenging, and there are a couple curveballs on every exam, but there was a great curve (at least when I took it). However do not miss class, missing one class will feel like you missed two months of lecture. Just go to class and OFFICE HOURS and practice everyday and you will be fine. I will say, do not take this class with any other extremely difficult classes. This class will require tremendous amounts of time and efforts and must be prioritized in order to do well. She is a very nice, caring, and funny professor in my opinion!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-07-13T09:35:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': 'Love her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-04T00:22:53.704257Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM231', 'review': "i love her, i really like her way of teaching and she explains things very well. she offers a lot of resources for learning outside of lecture (late night shows, practice problems, past exams with answer keys) and i found them to be really helpful! this semester she used an online system for the homework and extra credit assignments and i also found those to be good ways of understanding the material. the only issue with them is that the e-book explains concepts differently from her, which is confusing sometimes. her method of teaching might not work for everyone as ive heard complaints from others in the class, but for me i feel like with practice and using lecture notes im able to understand the subject. it is unfortunately a Huge amount of material and has overwhelmed me multiple times, but if you're able to understand the simpler concepts early on it helps you a lot as you get to the end of the course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-13T17:16:50.067390Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': "Lab reports are graded harshly and even if you go to office hours and work through problems with TAs and other students, you can still fail the reports. Instructions aren't always clear. Midterm and final want students to have a deeper understanding of the material that you cannot get from the lab book or Koppel's prelab videos.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-19T20:43:54.367342Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': "Labs (particularly the post-lab questions) are hard. Make sure to go to office hours!! Everyone says that because it is truly imperative for getting a good grade. The midterm and final are hard - I got ~60% on the midterm and ~50% on the final. But, all of my lab grades were high Bs or As, which saved me. There is a big curve. I had an 82% before the curve and I ended up with an A in the class, which is +/-. Don't rely on this curve, though. Work hard to keep your grade up, but don't cry if you do badly on the midterm and final, because almost everyone does. Also, lab reports are graded by all TAs, so your grade on them does not depend on one TA's grading tendencies. Good luck!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T17:13:22.001403Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': 'I hated this class. I had the best TA and I made friends which made it a little bit bearable. You must go to office hours to get above average on the lab reports. We literally have no knowledge on how to do the post lab like idk why she even made those questions. Our lecture doesnt cover what the lab cover. What the heck is an E1CB mechanism anyways? what happened to e1/e2/sn1/sn2??? But dont sweat this class. I got a 18% on the midterm and a 37% on the final. They are both way below average btw which is like a 50. And I still got a B. LOL. The curve is something else man.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-21T22:55:09.902475Z'}, {'professor': 'Monique Koppel', 'course': 'CHEM232', 'review': "Not a fan of her lab. However, if you want to do well then go to office hours, the TAs will essentially tell you what you need to know to get an A on the post lab questions, which sometimes are impossible to answer correctly without a TA because the information necessary was just not taught. The exams are designed to lower the average, and it's very clear that they are. The questions are written to trip you up and go into aspects of the lab techniques that are not mentioned at any other time. The lab practical is also 50 points but only two questions and only 10 minutes long. The two questions are randomly given so each student is basically taking a different practical, and you have to hope you get a question thats simple. I can understand making a lab difficult, but she just doesn't prepare her students or test them on what she teaches them.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-22T06:58:00.256022Z'}], 'name': 'Monique Koppel', 'slug': 'koppel'}, {'courses': ['ENME462'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Monther Hasouneh', 'slug': 'hasouneh'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM230'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Morgan Hess', 'slug': 'hess_morgan'}, {'courses': ['ENFP411', 'ENFP662', 'ENFP662'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Morgan Hurley', 'slug': 'hurley_morgan'}, {'courses': ['ENGL398B', 'BMGT468U', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B'], 'average_rating': 4.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Mrim Boutla', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Don't take Boutla for ENGL393. She thinks the class is an Entrepreneurship course. In the past, she has taught ENGL398B (Writing for Social Entrepreneurship) and she is too lazy to adapt the course or materials, so she teaches ENGL393 as if it were that class. I'm not learning the topic I signed up for and it's very frustrating. She is not a very strict grader, but there are definitely easier options out there for this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-03-26T00:46:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Mrim Boutla', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Great Professor. Expect to put in moderate work, but the skills you will learn in this class are immense.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-06T17:39:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Mrim Boutla', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Great teacher, super knowledgeable, and the class helped immensely', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-23T15:11:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Mrim Boutla', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'A STEM perspective on Boutla\'s 393 class:\r\n\r\nDr Boutla does not teach this class like other professors. The review on this page from 2019 is pretty on-the-mark by claiming that her class is basically just an entrepreneurship writing course. That\'s not a bad thing. Allow me to elucidate.\r\n\r\nI took tech writing with Dr Boutla in Fall 2019. My peers in aerospace engineering are taking 393 now (Spring 2020) with other professors, so I have a decent data set to compare with.\r\n\r\nWith most instructors, English 393 is a horrible class. The papers are long, tedious, pointless, joyless trash that will leave you more confused and agitated than anything, and the biggest assignments always seem to line up with the parts of the semester when you should be studying for exams for your major courses. I\'ve had multiple peers miss several days of exam study to write pointless dreck like "annotated bibliographies" and impossibly detailed peer reviews. All to have the teacher give them a middling grade with copy-pasted feedback.\r\n\r\nDr Boutla does none of that. She approaches the class from a goal-oriented perspective, challenging students to consider the professional path they most wish to pursue and tailoring their assignments to that end. She gives a handful of reasonable assignments throughout the semester and grades fairly. It is easy to get full credit on every assignment as long as you meet the posted requirements. My class had to do the following:\r\n\r\n- Resume and cover letter (write, and rewrite based on instructor feedback)\r\n- Industry paper (Write about the field and companies you intend to work for, focusing on a key industry issue)\r\n- Slide deck/Presentation (Prepare a powerpoint based on your industry paper, present it, and answer questions from your peers)\r\n- Some in-class participation exercises\r\n\r\nThese are all reasonable assignments that mostly teach useful skills. Dr Boutla\'s lectures are laced with premium professional advice whether you\'re interested in grad school or employment post-grad. She\'s a neuroscientist and professional career coach which makes her highly qualified to discuss the course content, and I believe she\'s genuinely invested in her students\' success. Also, she\'s just a very nice person.\r\n\r\nI strongly recommend Dr Boutla\'s section. I would even go as far as recommending shuffling your schedule around to get into it if necessary/possible. The horror stories from your peers in traditional 393 sections should be enough to prove you made the right choice.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-03-28T23:04:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Mrim Boutla', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Dr. Boutla is the only professor i've felt the need to write a review for in my three years i've been at the University of Maryland. Being Mech E, i really didn't care about taking ENGL393 at all but Dr. Boutla made me enjoy going to class. She realized that most of my class were stem majors and tailored a lot of the lectures to have stem-based writing samples, making the assignments much easier to understand. Dr. Boutla cares for her students and genuinely cares about teaching you. She doesn't grade hard and as long as you put in noticeable effort you'll get an A. She gives in-depth feedback on every assignment you do, and allows you to resubmit them for re-grading. Overall, phenomenal professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-17T13:56:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Mrim Boutla', 'course': 'ENGL398B', 'review': 'Wonderful Professor. While the class itself may not be the most interesting. She is clear about assignments and how to do them. She is clear about the grading criteria. Additionally she will actually let you improve your grade if you improve your work by taking her comments and recommendations and resubmitting your assignments to be regraded. Just do what you’re supposed to for each assignment and the final paper will be super easy to write. All of the smaller assignments throughout the semester are a piece of the final paper. She is helpful in answering questions. Do show up though and don’t leave early. While she is understanding that things can come up, it became a trend in my class and it was clear she was frustrated once it was happening regularly with multiple students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-17T19:07:06.440210Z'}, {'professor': 'Mrim Boutla', 'course': 'ENGL398B', 'review': 'Mrim Boutla is one of the most understanding and nice professors I have had in college yet. She treats all her students with respect, while still teaching a very interesting class. If you are going to take this class, HAVE HER AS YOUR PROFESSOR!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-19T22:40:10.438853Z'}], 'name': 'Mrim Boutla', 'slug': 'boutla'}, {'courses': ['CPSP119F', 'SPHL610', 'CPSP218F', 'SPHL400', 'SPHL600', 'MIEH400', 'CPGH200', 'MIEH605', 'MIEH606', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH786', 'EPIB632', 'CPGH100', 'CPGH101', 'CPGH230', 'CPGH240', 'CPGH250', 'CPGH270', 'MIEH620', 'MIEH607', 'MIEH309', 'CPGH100', 'CPGH200', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH605', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH620', 'MIEH407', 'MIEH607', 'MIEH407', 'MIEH607', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH605'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Muhiuddin Haider', 'slug': 'haider'}, {'courses': ['BMGT310', 'BMGT818B', 'BMGT818N', 'BUSI610', 'BMGT310', 'BMGT818D', 'BUSI610'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Musa Subasi', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': 'Definitely a good teacher, but definitely a horrible grading system. Our semester grade completely depended on our "rank" in the class, so nobody had a clue what their grade was until the end of the semester. His final was also insanely unfair, but he curved it a lot to make up for it. I think you\'ll learn a lot in the class and hopefully he changed his grading system by now.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-10-28T18:37:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Musa Subasi', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is nice and listens to students. He is understanding of when we have other exams. His explanations are clear. His lectures and methods of teaching are kind of dry and boring. I have found professors who are energetic make classes easier and more fun. At the end of the day, you can get a good grade in his class. Also, I like his use of smartbook and connect assignments.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-12T16:33:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Musa Subasi', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': 'I took this professor last spring and I can assure you he is the best so far. He always listen to his students and he knows when his students are confused.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-09-12T19:28:17.447998Z'}], 'name': 'Musa Subasi', 'slug': 'subasi'}, {'courses': ['BMGT363', 'BUMO720', 'BUMO721', 'BUMO758M', 'BMGT363F', 'BMGT868E', 'BUSM755', 'BMGT828O', 'BMGT868P', 'BUSM758Y', 'BUSM758N', 'BUSO706', 'BUSM708', 'BMGT363', 'BUSM758N', 'BUSO706', 'BUSO706', 'BMGT758K', 'BUSI718C', 'BMGT363', 'BUSM758N', 'BMSO778O'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Myeong-Gu Seo', 'course': 'BMGT363', 'review': "One of the best professors I have ever had the pleasure of learning under. He is extremely gracious and has a genuine interest in ensuring you have a handle on the material he teaches. He wants to make sure you understand the value of leadership and leaves you with skills you can take and apply in the workplace as soon as you leave the room. He grades very leniently because he is more interested in seeing your effort to grasp the material and interest in the coursework than he is in destroying your GPA. Plus he's just a really nice guy. Never saw him get upset or flustered once this semester. HIGHLY recommended. I only took 363 because it fit my schedule and does not required a textbook, but I am SO glad I took it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-24T02:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Myeong-Gu Seo', 'course': 'BMGT363', 'review': 'Dr. Seo is a fantastic professor. He truly cares about the subject and his students. The class is a mix of lectures and hands-on activities. There is a semester-long individual project and group project that aren’t too bad. As long as you pay attention and stay on track, this class is super chill, interesting, and manageable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-22T13:29:29Z'}], 'name': 'Myeong-Gu Seo', 'slug': 'seo_myeong-gu'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL281', 'JOUR181', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL388W', 'CMLT275', 'WMST275', 'ENGL393X', 'ENGL101S', 'HNUH268H', 'HNUH300'], 'average_rating': 4.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nabila Hijazi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Great professor. Really enjoyed her class this semester. I took the blended learning version of her class. 4 or 5 major papers throughout the semester and I knew exactly what was expected for the assignment. There are weekly assignments online, but they are very simple, just tedious. Not many people in my class participated, so it was easy to get points. \n\r\nBe sure to see Mrs. Hijazi during her office hours to receive extra help with assignments. Go to the writing center! She is an assistant director and it means a lot to her... \n\r\nI got an A+ in the class... Just be sure to act like you care in class, do what is asked of you, and improve in your writing throughout the semester! \n\r\nTake Hijazi!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-19T14:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nabila Hijazi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "She is a really great professor. If you try hard, she's going to see that and appreciate it. Extremely hard, but she expects you to take your writing seriously as you should. A is never a guarantee so if you're looking for an easy teacher, switch to another class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-02-01T13:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nabila Hijazi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'She is a genuinely nice teacher, but won\'t give out free "A"s. If you go to her office hours and show that you are taking her course seriously she will note of it and it can benefit you later. The argumentative papers are actually interesting to write since you write two papers each about opposing stances on a topic. All in all, you have to put a lot of effort into the class but you\'ll have an ease of mind with her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-07-27T11:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nabila Hijazi', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'very sweet and helpful however participation is a big factor (Covid times review)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-08T19:11:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Nabila Hijazi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Nice teacher and pretty chill class. However, she never gives any good feedback and does not tell you what is wrong with your papers. You will pretty much know your grade after the first assignment. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-17T21:36:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Nabila Hijazi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Professor Hijazi taught things clearly. Everything was structured. I enjoyed the course and the line of thinking. She was always helpful and understanding.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-23T20:47:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Nabila Hijazi', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Professor Hijazi is an amazing professor. Her class is interesting and it is easy to understand her lessons. She always provides feedback and offers help which has definitely improved my writing this semester. She won't give you a free A+, but if you work hard and put in effort you will definitely get consistent As. Also, make sure to participate in the discussion posts and assignments because they are all completion grades and will help you get easy points. If her class is available, TAKE HIJAZI!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-03-23T14:43:21Z'}], 'name': 'Nabila Hijazi', 'slug': 'hijazi'}, {'courses': ['GEMS397', 'NFSC470', 'GEMS496', 'NFSC690', 'GEMS497', 'NFSC680', 'NFSC688', 'ENCE489G', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC690', 'NFSC470', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC690'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nadine Sahyoun', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': 'She was a very nice professor. Not the best professor, but out of the 4 professors I had, she was the "best". Presented her slides well and answered questions well.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-02-28T15:14:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Nadine Sahyoun', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "It really doesn't matter what professor you have in this class because you will be taught by all 4 of them. They all do the same thing where they just read off the lecture slides, which are posted online before class. However, it is important to go to class because there are a total of 5 pop quizzes that are extra credit that will boost your grade a lot. This is a pure memorization class, so the exams can be tricky. It almost all multiple choice that's 2 point each, so it's easy to loose points quickly if you don't pay attention to every little detail on the powerpoints. They do posts study guides for the exams, but those only cover a portion of what will be on the exam. To study for exams, its best to do the study guides and memorize the slides by making quizlets. Sometimes nobody gets a 100% on the exams, but the class is not curved, so whatever you get is the real score. There are a good amount of discussion worksheets that will help with your grades and there is a term project at the end of the semester that isn't hard. Overall, I would just make sure you get all the points you can get and find ways to memorize the powerpoints.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:15:51Z'}], 'name': 'Nadine Sahyoun', 'slug': 'sahyoun'}, {'courses': ['BULM758L', 'BULM758V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nadya Ramel-Barnes', 'slug': 'ramel-barnes'}, {'courses': ['PERS632', 'PERS201', 'PERS211', 'PERS202', 'PERS311', 'PERS212', 'PERS312', 'PERS789', 'PERS789A', 'PERS398P', 'PERS788A', 'PERS399B', 'PERS399F', 'PERS498E', 'PERS399C', 'PERS302', 'ARAB104', 'ARAB105', 'PERS301', 'PERS398Q', 'PERS301', 'PERS399D', 'PERS498E', 'PERS301'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nahal Akbari-Saneh', 'course': None, 'review': 'Awesome professor. She is so passionate teaching the course, and emphasizes class discussion instead of paperwork. Our class was pretty small with barely over 10 students taking the course. But we had been together since PERS101, so it was fun still being with them.\n\r\nWould take it again with her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-20T14:09:00Z'}], 'name': 'Nahal Akbari-Saneh', 'slug': 'akbari-saneh'}, {'courses': ['GEOG373', 'GEOG473', 'GEOG674', 'PUAF689G', 'GEOG306', 'GEOG475', 'GEOG498K', 'EXST030', 'GEOG474', 'GEOG498J', 'GEOG652', 'GEOG655', 'GEOG170', 'GEOG170', 'GEOG373', 'GEOG170', 'GEOG373', 'GEOG306', 'GEOG373', 'GEOG473', 'GEOG373', 'GEOG473', 'GEOG306', 'GEOG373', 'GEOG473', 'GEOG306', 'GEOG373', 'GEOG473', 'GEOG170', 'GEOG373'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG373', 'review': "Professor Zhou is a great professor! He is very difficult to understand at times but all his lectures are posted online so even if you don't understand him in speaking you can still follow along on the slides. \n\r\nHis labs are really straight forward with easy to follow step by step directions, If you actually show up and try for the labs you're gonna end up doing pretty good on them.\n\r\nHis exams are worth only 10 points each, they barely effect the overall grade but are still very important to do good on. He gives awesome study guides that make studying super easy. \n\r\nOh did I mention that for his GIS technical classes an 85+ is an A? FYI, I'm a GIS major so I may find this easier then someone who has never been introduced to the topic. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-12T15:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG373', 'review': "I think professor Zhou is very good and helpful professor. You can tell he actually wants you to understand the subject. Although he does have an accent he really isn't that hard to understand. He explains things well and is good overall", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-27T00:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG373', 'review': "This course is pretty simple. Dr. Zhou is a little hard to understand because of his accent, but he is a very nice professor. Lecture can drag on and at times be very boring, but it is important to attend. Dr. Zhou sometimes does calculations on the board that he does not include in his PowerPoints, and these calculations are usually on the exams. There are two midterms and a final, plus lab assignments. Lab is held every other week, so you have plenty of time to work on the assignments. There is a take home lab practical at the end of the semester, but it's not difficult. The TA's are readily available if you need any help on anything. An 85% or higher in this course is considered an A, so there is a nice curve. Dr. Zhou posts exams for previous semesters, of which he reuses some questions. Attend lecture, take time on your labs, and you will do well in this class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T18:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG373', 'review': "Zhou is a pleasant professor. The other reviews are pretty accurate in that the material isn't too difficult, but you will definitely need to attend class and study if you want to understand the calculation/methods for the exams. He does his best to make sure everyone learns and will go through something again if people don't understand.\n\r\nThe lab portion of the class involves pretty much following instructions to do a lab, then doing a homework based on the lab. The lab practical is pretty difficult and in general most of the class has no idea how to do half of the practical because the labs don't prepare you for it all that well.\n\r\nI would take another class with him though.\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T14:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG373', 'review': "The class is pretty straightforward-3 exams, each one non cumulative, plus the lab work. Prof. Zhou can be a bit hard to understand and can drag on sometimes, but it's not too demanding of a class. He posts the slides online, and he does give random quizzes in class, so make sure you attend as much as possible. TA was pretty helpful, and labs aren't too bad if you put time into it. Be prepared to spend a good chunk of time on the practical. Quizzes are good hints for what will be on the exams. I started out by not doing too well but managed to pull up my grade to an A after catching on to the class. \n\r\nSince I can't post two separate reviews, I'll just say a little bit about GEOG473, which is very similar. The only difference is that there is no practical, there are only two exams, each of which is worth a little bit more individually (44%, 22% each). The labs are a little bit simpler actually and you don't have one due each week-instead there are five homeworks, with each homework consisting of several different labs. Be sure to attend the labs so you can receive assistant from the TA, who was very helpful. Also, even though powerpoints are posted on ELMS, attending lecture can be helpful, especially since there are random pop quizzes which provide hints of what is to come on the exams. As in Geog373, Zhou providse previous exams and outlines to guide your studies, which I recommend using. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-30T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG306', 'review': 'Tough to understand a lot of the time. Gave "attendance" quizzes. Pretty liberal on the exams, open books, open notes, even OPEN LAPTOP. Course was graded with a curve, 85% was an A.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-11T20:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG170', 'review': 'Class is very easy, but can be boring at times. He is super nice and understanding, but his accent is a little hard to understand at times (especially with a mask). Lectures are him teaching off of slides which are all posted online anyway.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-08T07:40:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG373', 'review': 'Definitely take this class with Dr. Zhou! He is a good teacher and wants to make everything clear to his students. He is very helpful and you can tell he really cares about his students and their understanding of the subjects.\r\nThe class grade is made up of only the lab homeworks and then the practical test and final exam. He also curves the final grades so an 85 is an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-15T01:25:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG373', 'review': 'Engaging lecturer, he thoroughly explains concepts and connects material with its real-life application. In addition, he has a great personality.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-17T12:57:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG373', 'review': 'Engaging lecturer who cares about his students and their success. Labs are not too difficult and are based on just following the instructions, and then applying the tools learned to solve problems. The practical is a bit difficult, but is very doable, but does require some knowledge outside of what was done in lecture and lab.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-10T22:06:13.027220Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG373', 'review': 'Lectures were informative on the topic we had to go over for that week. Lab work and homework assignments are not too difficult to complete, so long as you spend a couple hours doing the lab first and applying that knowledge to the homework assignment. Assignment details are vague in every homework assignment, creating some conflict at times when completing the homework. The practical exam is irritating to do, as the information is vague in details. The final exam mainly focused on one aspect of the topics that we barely did in class. Majority of the exam was doing math problems with a few multiple choice questions.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-23T16:15:43.331466Z'}, {'professor': 'Naijun Zhou', 'course': 'GEOG170', 'review': 'Went to in-person class a total of 3 times all semester, including exams, and pulled an A-. With a few weeks left in the semester he added clickers, which was really annoying because it meant I had to start going to class on Zoom. His lecturing is very hard to understand because of his accent, which is admittedly not his fault, but it warrants mentioning. His saving grace is his homeworks and exams are fairly easy and his grading scale is generous, an 85-89 was an A-. Overall, not too upset with an A- considering how little effort I put into this class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-23T03:09:19.064418Z'}], 'name': 'Naijun Zhou', 'slug': 'zhou_naijun'}, {'courses': ['FOLA158X', 'FOLA159X', 'FOLA138X', 'FOLA139X', 'FOLA138R', 'FOLA139R', 'FOLA148R', 'FOLA149R', 'FOLA158R', 'FOLA159R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Naime Yaramanoglu', 'slug': 'yaramanoglu'}, {'courses': ['BSCI411', 'CBMG688Y', 'BSCI348R', 'CBMG688P', 'BISI899', 'BSCI411H', 'BSCI329H', 'BSCI238E', 'BISI620', 'HLSC227', 'BISI620', 'CBMG688P', 'HLSC208', 'BSCI348R', 'HLSC227', 'BISI620', 'HLSC280', 'BIOI604', 'CBMG688P'], 'average_rating': 2.8824, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': None, 'review': "Best biology professor I have had so far.\n\r\nHe is so nice (bringing in chocolate for no reason), and is extremely intelligent. His lab on campus is one of the leading in bioinformatics/genomics & he used to work at TIGR, so he definitely knows his stuff.\n\r\nDr El-Sayed is funny, charming, understanding, and really wants you to get it. Going to lectures is a must--the tests are only on slides and any few homework problems he gives you (not worth too many points, but problems on the test are identical). He says there isn't a curve, but there might be like a 1-2% curve.\n\r\nThe lab for this class sucked, but that's because the T.A. expected us to know computer science and was hard to understand.\n\r\nThe first test is always the hardest, so really pay attention and memorize everything. The second half of the class isn't so hard. \n\r\nThere were 2 tests, participation (he makes sure that you go & participate), labs in PLS computer lab(including a lab midterm & final project), and a few random homework problems and two quizzes.\n\r\nI loved this class and recommend it for anyone interested in bionformatics/genomics/metagenomics, sequencing, etc. It offers a new and more applicable perspective to the Biology that we learn in all the other classes (also, everything but the lab final project was done in class in team work, so it's not a stressful as a normal bio lab).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-02-02T23:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': 'Good lecturer, he really cares about his subjects. Tests were unfair but you could drop one. Lab was easy. No study guides or practice questions for exams, so you go into it blind. Still, he taught pretty well and was always open to questions. Easy to approach and has good lectures. Exams are tricky as some focus on lecture content and others focus on textbook content.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-07T17:15:03.571626Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "Good person, really passionate about his research, and open to discussing it whenever. Sometimes, lectures felt a bit disorganized with the professor jumping from topic to topic. Exams, as well, had questions on content never covered in class. The majority of exams, for instance, initially, were on textbook content that was never discussed by him. Still learned a lot, just don't know how relevant it will be to my major and other bio-related majors. Great TAs though, really helped us understand tough material! Good luck future ILSers :)", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-12T20:33:14.840034Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': 'As long as this is the intro course, do not do ILS. Dr. El-Sayed is nice but this was a horribly disorganized class and exams covered material that was not even discussed in class. Expectations were constantly vague and professor refused to listen to student concerns. Better off doing some other honors program and taking normal bio courses.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T17:11:21.794455Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "drop ils this instant. i hate this class so much and the program isn't worth it. the professor makes exams unreasonably difficult and takes points off for assignments without any explanation, so we aren't able to actually learn from our mistakes. i went in to see where i got points taken off on my exams and i lost dozens of points on my free response questions, without any explanation or rubric. the lectures are very poorly structured and even if you go in for office hours you can't do well in the class. he doesn't provide rubrics for any assignments (enrichment reflections, homeworks) so we don't know what he's looking for so he takes away points unreasonably afterwards. the ta's were incredible but there's a certain extent to which they can do for our class and the core problem here is the professor and the way he grades/makes the exams. i feel wronged and upset because i did my absolute best in the class and had a solid understanding of the content we learned but i can't do anything because he doesn't curve the class at all.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-16T17:18:52.561932Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "Nice person, but grading was very unfair - exams had poorly worded questions and FRQ's were graded harshly. Lectures are pretty much repeat slideshows, and they are the only resources you have to review for exams, including some additional textbook material/online articles. This class has interesting content, but so many students were bogged down by grades than genuinely enjoying what they were learning.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T17:56:15.717319Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': 'El Sayed is a nice and friendly guy and is super smart, but Exam 2 and the Final were unfair both with class avg of D. His grading was inconsistent and the class structure was no good.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T20:17:58.563204Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': 'Dr. El-Sayed is probably the smartest person I have ever been taught by, but that does not necessarily make him a good professor. He is a super nice guy who does very successful and important research; however, I feel like he hasn’t learned how to teach undergrads yet. His exams are very confusing and overly specific. As a lecturer he doesn’t explain concepts in the best way. While studying for the exams I noticed that 5 minute videos explained the concepts better than he could in class. Overall I am kind of scratching my head as to why this has become the intro ILS class. I think they should take a hard look at going back to 207.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T21:07:36.728174Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': 'Great professor and I feel as if I learned a ton of information from him about the course material. The class was overall very interesting, and he is a great lecturer. Only problem was that some of his exams(exam 2 and 4) were extremely difficult, and he would take off unnessecary points with no context. I feel blind going into every exam, evenif I felt as if I knew all the course material extremely well before every exam.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-24T16:17:11.910158Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "Dr. El Sayed is extremely passionate about bioinformatics and his research. This was honestly one of the first classes where I found biology interesting and not just memorizing random stuff. We learned about biological concepts that are applied to research daily which made the class much more fun. The tests were somewhat difficult because although he can teach very well, his test-making is a bit over the place. The 2nd and 4th midterms were awful because they tested on us some stuff we had never learned and the 2nd test was very textbook heavy. Average for those tests was 67%. The 1st and 3rd tests had a good balance of textbook and lecture material and that's what you can expect normally from the tests. Avg was 85% (yea it's really high but it's ILS so everyone wants to do well and does well). The lab is very easy and is free points and if you don't understand something the TA's are very helpful with lab and lecture content. There is a also a good ~5% curve at the end. Overall, if you honestly just commit the lecture notes to heart and memorize some of the relevant textbook, an A shouldn't be too troublesome.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-25T17:37:03.668172Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "His lectures are pretty disorganized and hard to understand for students with solely an AP bio background. Exams were another issue; two of the four exams had an average of a D (including the final!!). No matter how much you studied for the exams, at the end of the day they were too poorly worded and too specific for you to do well. Exam 2 crushed everyone's souls (and grades) and when we gave him feedback on the tricky question types and poor wording of exam 2, he continued to pose the same types of questions on the final. As expected, the average for the final was a D and he ended up curving last minute. I wish ILSers the best of luck and hope the ILS program takes student input when structuring this course for next year's freshmen.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-30T04:16:14.390701Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "Really nice guy, but not a great professor. He is very harsh with grading FRQs, comes up with random detail-oriented questions on exams, and doesn't curve despite the class average being a D for two of them. This was the only class that I struggled through for my first semester in ILS, and it's a little upsetting knowing that this is an elective class that will be dropping my GPA, and it's staying on my transcript. If you are considering honors college and 208 is still a requirement, I would consider a different honors college and just taking your bio classes as needed. We all need the same science core classes as every other student, but without an additional elective that only stresses you out.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-08T17:17:51.787986Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "Professor El-Sayed has easily been the best professor I've had at UMD thus far. He is extremely passionate about what he teaches and makes lectures very interesting by being interactive with students. It is true that his lack of experience with undergraduates made the class harder, with his somewhat harsh grading and high expectations, but he did try to accommodate us. For instance, after seeing that we did not understand much from his first lectures about Sanger sequencing, he intentionally slowed down the pace of the course and began shifting his lectures into becoming more freshman-friendly. While the exams had less-than-ideal results, he definitely listened to student complaints to try and change his class for the better. Given that this was the first time the course was available, I would say he did the best that he could. Overall, I enjoyed his class and feel like I gained a good amount of knowledge from it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-18T05:11:35.381058Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "That was an absolute warcrime of a class. im not trying to scare anyone but srsly this class was so unexpected and tedious! He's a very smart prof, but maybe too smart to teach undergrad freshmen. The tests had averages within the 60s (2 of them). The TAs are very nice tho and they tried to help as much as they could, while learning the content with us. We were the pilot year, so it may be easier next time!! Good luck next year ILSers!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-19T22:20:53.351407Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "Pretty fun class, don't trust the other review, as long as you study and go to office hours, you'll be fine", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-02T19:47:34.973075Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "I think the other reviews do not show the full picture of Dr. El-Sayed's style of teaching. The only reason this course was difficult was because there was a lack of consistency with the content on each of the exams and the textbooks were not related to class lectures. Since this was the first time this class was taught, Dr. El-Sayed was required to write tests based on what he believed students would know, kind of blindly. The tests were either really easy or way too hard with averages being in the low 60s. However, that being said, Dr. El-Sayed is an amazing lecturer and a really nice guy. There was also a lot of dropped assignments and the final exam could also be dropped.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-03-02T19:58:26.564658Z'}, {'professor': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'course': 'HLSC208', 'review': "He is a really nice guy and tries to make the lectures fun. I liked being in the class, but not so much when it came to exams. The exams were a lot harder than I expected, and at times it felt a little unfair. Labs were easy. Then again, the exams could be because this was his first time teaching the class since it's a new class. The material is cool, but the exams were hard, which wasn't so great for me because I'm not good with exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-24T22:41:09.530131Z'}], 'name': 'Najib El-Sayed', 'slug': 'el-sayed'}, {'courses': ['EDCP418K', 'HESI418K', 'SOCY100', 'SOCY105H', 'SOCY105', 'ARHU319C', 'ARHU309', 'ARHU309'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Naliyah Kaya', 'slug': 'kaya_naliyah'}, {'courses': ['CHBE250', 'ENCH333', 'GEMS397', 'ENCH620', 'GEMS496', 'ENCH446', 'ENCH482', 'GEMS497', 'CHBE301', 'CHBE446', 'CHBE482', 'GEMS296', 'CHBE424', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'ENCH648B', 'CHBE333', 'CHBE620', 'CHBE333', 'CHBE446', 'CHBE333', 'CHBE620'], 'average_rating': 2.1818, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': None, 'review': "I made an account just to review this guy. I've been unfortunate enough to have him as my professor in multiple chemE classes. He is among the worst professors I have ever had and is one of the reasons I have seriously considered transferring. The below reviews are absolutely correct until you get to 2008 at which point he must've been in some serious accident and transformed into a horrible professor.\n\r\nDon't get me wrong, he's a nice guy. But you'll never want him to teach you anything. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-09-02T17:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': None, 'review': "He's a horrible professor. He cannot teach to save his life. The sad part is that he thinks he can teach. Avoid him completely. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-23T19:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': None, 'review': "Hr knows about what hes talking about, but noone else does. my ta's pretty much told me that we should retake the course with the next guy if we wanted to learn anything. hes a nice guy, but unfortunately his homeworks are noway related to his notes and theres no textbook. hes one of those professors who you better hope are researching something important to humankind because he teaches worse then the teachers youve had in high school", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2012-04-11T02:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': None, 'review': 'I\'ll admit, he\'s hard to take seriously some times. He makes a lot of corny jokes. He\'s a really smart guy but he cannot relay the information for beans! The stuff we learned really isnt that hard to learn if taught correctly, which as you can guess, wasn\'t. If you were to ask me what I learned in the class, I would say "I don\'t know". Cuz I really don\'t know what I learned. The quizzes and tests were no where near as hard as the homeworks ( I never knew what was going on in the textbook, which reminds me-- it sucks! get another textbook that fits you better. Its so cryptic I really don\'t know how anyone can understand anything in it.) The tests and quizzes are basically just like the basic info he presents in the slideshows. I recommend you also really analyze any graphs in the chapter or powerpoints because he will probably quiz you on it. Um I didn\'t go to class that much and it didn\'t make a difference, I don\'t think you\'ll pay attention much if you go to class either. Yeah so don\'t freak out if the book or the homework looks like a foreign language, don\'t study from it and just focus on the lectures. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-24T01:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': None, 'review': "I totally agree with the last review. so try as much as you can to take another class like bionano, at least you'll feel you are learning something ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-24T11:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': None, 'review': 'Hmm...WTF?!?! All of the previous reviews of this professor must have been by people tripping on acid. This is probably the WORST class I have ever taken. Nam Wang is the most scatter-brained professor I have ever had. Although he knows the material very well, he is absolutely AWFUL at conveying that knowledge. We spend 3 minutes on a subject and we\'ll have both a homework assignment and an exam question on it. I learned jack-shit in this class and am so fucking happy that I don\'t need to take another bio-heavy class. \r\nAs a requirement, we had to go on a field trip to a bio research facility. Although the tour was well done, it confirmed the idea that I have no interest in the bio field. I chose chemical engineering NOT biochemical engineering for a reason. \r\nHow the fuck do people think this class is interesting?!?!? It\'s a really poorly taught kinetics class with "enzymes" instead of "catalysts." On our exams, we had to go through 3000 base pairs of DNA and look for a combination of 3 letters. This obnoxiously long analysis took so long that most people did not finish the exam.\r\nWith respect to the TA, she was very nice but she never held office hours because she didn\'t live near campus. Her only responsibility was to come into class and do random "industrial series" lectures. They were interesting and I was excited when i got to hear the TA speak rather than Wang. \r\nFinally, I know this isn\'t an issue most of the time, but Wang\'s son was in our class. Because of this, Dr. Wang wasn\'t allowed to grade anything. He let students grade homeworks and exams. He would have several people grading assignments and because people had different grading policies, people with the exact same mistake would lose different amounts of points. WTF?!\n\r\nThat is all...this class blows A LOT and i cannot believe that I didn\'t listen to people warning me about it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-03T15:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': None, 'review': 'This was an awesome course. It covers lots of interesting topics, from biology, math, and many aspects of fundamental chemical engineering (especially material balance, kinetic, and mass transfer). Prof. Wang draws from the simplest principles to solve complicated, yet practical problems. No fancy mathematical derivations nor convoluted logic; just plain 1-2-3. To a casual observer, his materials may seem very mathematical, but in actuality there is very little math. All the emphasis is on conceptual understanding, and let a computer/calculator crank out the numerical answers; so you had better know Matlab or Mathcad. Most importantly, Prof. Wang teaches how to attack a problem by combining common sense with critical analytical thinking. I especially love his "bucket science" in-class demonstrations.\n\r\nThe homeworks have a lot of number crunching; you are screwed if you do not know how to use a calculator. But the exams has absolutely none of that. The exam questions come straight out of his lectures; half of the problems you see in exams he has already told you so in his lectures.\n\r\nProf. Wang is the best professor I have had at Maryland; now I see why he has many teaching awards displayed at the front entrance to Martin Hall. He is very knowledgeable about what he teaches. He is fair but passionate. He even offers to take his students on canoeing trips. Take his course even if you are not interested in bio.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-17T11:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': None, 'review': 'This was an interesting course -- biology for chemical engineers. It covers a lot of relevant and interesting topics. Dr. Wang is very knowledgeable, and it\'s clear that he has a lot of experience. He is also very flexible and understanding: he has pushed back homework due dates many times because people have e-mailed him and explained some extenuating circumstance.\n\r\nHowever, he uses MathCAD as his primary teaching tool - he has pre-made files with solutions to most of the problems he discusses in class. I wish he spent more time actually showing us how to derive different equations (which is what we have to know) and a little less time showing us what happens to the solution when you play with the different operating parameters.\n\r\nHis exams are very conceptual. There is very little "math" in the traditional sense - they\'re all about knowing which equations apply and how to set them up to achieve a solution. The content on the exams doesn\'t mirror the homework at all, and somewhat resembles what he discusses in class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-01-28T17:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': None, 'review': "Very easygoing yet knowledgable professor.\n\r\nWork consisted of:\r\n1 HW a week- 25%\r\n3 quizzes (really tests)- 25%\r\n1 Final- 50% \r\nOR 1 Paper- 25% and 1 Final -25%\n\r\nTopics were mainly focused on kinetics, some introductory bio, and deriving material balance equations. Wang is an amazing guy who you can tell really likes what he is teaching. Lectures can get a little dull when he's working on MATHCAD. Quizzes are very tough but there is a steep curve in the class. The paper can be on anything you want related to biochemical engineering. Overall, would very highly recommend as an elective just because of the professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-03T19:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': 'ENCH620', 'review': 'It\'s been 7 years, so time to let everyone know: not much has changed. Probably the reason he hasn\'t gotten any other reviews during this time is that every CHBE/ENCH course only has one prof per semester, so there\'s not much point in giving reviews anyway. I suppose the one use of reading these bad reviews would be to warn students away from taking his tech elective, or encourage professional Masters students to take PDE instead since that also fills the requirement, but honestly at that point you\'ve already taken 250 and are probably already aware of what this dude is like. He obviously doesn\'t do that much lesson planning, lectures with MathCad files that he writes on the fly (often getting stuck because he ends up having to debug in the middle of class), goes back to material from previous lectures to say that he made a mistake and that we have to change our notes, segues between topics in a nonsensical way etc. In both 250 and 620, there is an assumption that you are familiar with linear algebra. Since neither of these classes have linear algebra as prereqs, that\'s obviously not the case for most students. In my opinion, saying "students who haven\'t taken these courses are expected to do extra work to keep up" in the syllabus is a lazy cop out. Either require the course as a prerequisite or make the effort to teach the students the material as part of the course, especially when the course in question (LinAlg) has not been taken by the majority of students in his class. His explanations of fundamental concepts behind the applications that 250/620 are focused on are very poor. \r\n\r\nHomeworks: A high percentage of your grade. The one time his lectures are useful is when he does examples in class. If you see him coding, YOU MUST COPY DOWN EXACTLY WHAT HE WRITES IN HIS MATHCAD FILE! (And relatedly, make sure you have a functioning laptop before taking one of his classes) Those examples will often be identical to homework problems, and for that reason going to lectures can be incredibly useful. You likely won\'t be able to finish that homework problem without going to office hours otherwise. Office Hours are all but mandatory. The prof will stay late to help students out, but you will probably end up sacrificing one day of your week in office hours to get the homeworks done. I won\'t say they\'re impossible to do on your own (especially those in the first half of the semester), but the number of students capable of doing so make up a small minority of the class. He is not flexible on homeworks to individual students, but is usually very flexible if he perceives a consensus between all classmates. This is also true for take-home finals: if the class collectively votes for one, he\'s more than happy to accommodate. \r\n\r\nExams: Extremely difficult. In both 250 and 620, focus on picking up the guaranteed easy points on the Gaussian Elimination/LU decomposition question (he takes off points for pivoting on that question by the way) on Midterm 1, and on everything else just do your best, but recognize that the averages are very low. For my class he graded exams fairly quickly, but that\'s atypical: normally, he returns exams much much later than when they are taken. Other than that, it\'s pretty easy to keep track of where you stand in the class, even if you don\'t get the material at all.\r\n\r\nFor both the graduate and undergraduate programs, his class serves as a weedout/hazing course. If you are an undergrad: things get slightly better after 250 and 301. I doubt the faculty actually care about the fact that students aren\'t going to learn much in these classes, as long as its existence allows them to claim that UMD\'s programs are tough and have high workloads. I learned far more about what 250 was SUPPOSED to teach me when I took Dif E Q because of the Math department\'s superior professors, and through various YouTube videos on using MATLAB that I watched when taking other CHBE classes over the years. I\'ve only ever found Prof. Wang to be respectful and friendly to students. I don\'t think he actively wants students to do badly in his class... he\'s just an atrociously bad teacher. The second worst professor I\'ve ever had. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-12T20:27:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'course': 'CHBE446', 'review': "Had the MISFORTUNE to have this guy as a professor TWICE during my time at UMD. HATED every second I had to spend in his classes. I've got no advice for y'all, just deal with it -- make sure to really evaluate if you really want to stay in chemical engineering though LMAO.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-13T22:03:59Z'}], 'name': 'Nam Sun Wang', 'slug': 'wang_nam_sun'}, {'courses': ['SLAA742', 'SLAA888R', 'SLAA749P', 'SLAA640', 'SLAA650', 'SLAA798', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'SLAA749R', 'SLAA899', 'SLAA640', 'SLAA649R', 'SLAA749P', 'SLAA650', 'SLAA742', 'SLAA899', 'SLAA899', 'SLAA649R', 'SLAA742'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nan Jiang', 'slug': 'jiang_nan'}, {'courses': ['PUAF720', 'PUAF798M', 'PLCY798M', 'PLCY720', 'PLCY899', 'PLCY798M', 'PLCY720', 'PLCY798M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nancy Gallagher', 'slug': 'gallagher_nancy'}, {'courses': ['AMST629K', 'USLT488B', 'IMMR200', 'USLT319A', 'AMST628C', 'USLT219A', 'AMST328E', 'USLT320', 'AMST628B', 'AMST289A', 'AMST202', 'AMST601', 'AMST878A', 'AMST878B', 'AMST878C', 'AMST498B', 'AMST878A', 'USLT498R', 'AMST603', 'USLT488B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nancy Mirabal', 'slug': 'mirabal'}, {'courses': ['SPAN203'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nancy Naranjo Garcia', 'slug': 'garcia_nancy_naranjo'}, {'courses': ['LBSC713', 'INST728F', 'LBSC707', 'INST680', 'LBSC737', 'INST408B', 'LBSC631'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nancy Roderer', 'slug': 'roderer'}, {'courses': ['LING321', 'LING620', 'ECON645', 'LING698C', 'CMSC289J', 'LING499J', 'LING449W', 'LING689B', 'LING889B', 'CMSC828W', 'LING848I', 'CMSC828F', 'LING889C', 'NACS728P', 'MLSC410', 'LING888', 'LING849C', 'ENEE698G', 'LING889D', 'NACS728W', 'NACS645', 'LING689C', 'NACS898', 'LING849D', 'LING849D', 'LING888', 'NACS728D', 'CMSC828F', 'LING689C', 'LING849C', 'LING888', 'NACS728W', 'LING240', 'LING888', 'LING240', 'LING620', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Naomi Feldman', 'slug': 'feldman_naomi'}, {'courses': ['ARTT354', 'ARTT489I', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT479B', 'FILM370', 'FILM361', 'EXST030', 'FILM319A', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT255'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Narendra Ratnapala', 'course': 'ARTT255', 'review': 'He is very, I mean VERY chill. Knowledgeable about all the software we cover and always has good suggestions during the critiques. His voice put me to sleep at times, but other than that he is a good professor and a nice guy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-08T11:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Narendra Ratnapala', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great, chill professor. Always open to answering questions and to help you when you need it. As far as the class itself, it is a very heavy workload, and expect to spend a lot of time on the projects. It was definitely challenging at times, even though I have a pretty good background in Adobe and digital but he will help you when you need it. I definitely learned a lot this semester.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-08T18:44:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Narendra Ratnapala', 'course': 'ARTT255', 'review': "Class spent mostly going through tutorials (very slowly) of Adobe software basics. It feels very boring at times, but I did enjoy some of the content. However, he is not very clear with expectations at times and never responds to emails (quite literally never but will blame you for not using terpmail or ELMS even if that's not the case). Also quite passive aggressive, but the class is a necessary course for many upper level reqs. Main point: could be better could be worse.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-03-31T06:21:38Z'}], 'name': 'Narendra Ratnapala', 'slug': 'ratnapala'}, {'courses': ['UMEI007', 'UMEI005'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nasreen Abbas', 'slug': 'abbas'}, {'courses': ['EDCI474', 'EDCI631', 'TLPL446', 'TLPL655'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Natalia Guzman', 'slug': 'guzman_natalia'}, {'courses': ['STAT100', 'STAT440', 'STAT401', 'SURV440', 'STAT430', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SPHL610', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'STAT401', 'STAT440', 'STAT400', 'STAT401', 'STAT440', 'STAT470', 'STAT401', 'STAT440', 'STAT470', 'STAT440', 'STAT470'], 'average_rating': 4.2857, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Natalia Tchetcherina', 'course': 'STAT440', 'review': 'The exam and final were fair. She taught by going over slides she created and posted on elms and working examples on the board (not posted anywhere else). She was a good teacher overall and I found going to lecture very useful.\r\n\r\nHomework is tedious, but not very difficult. She has a very strong accent, but I had no difficulty understanding her after the 3rd lecture. \r\n\r\nThe final project was fun, but very long. \r\n\r\nInteresting class and good professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-01T23:05:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia Tchetcherina', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Natalia's lectures consisted of her reading slides from a board. She has difficult to understand and I absorbed very little of the material from her, the only reason I went to class was due to her attendance requirements. (I do not believe she made the slides)\r\n\r\nThe homework was the most challenging parts of the course and did a good job expanding on what was done in class.\r\n\r\nThe exams deviated very little from the practice exams, so while some of the questions should have been challenging, they were not.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-24T23:01:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia Tchetcherina', 'course': 'STAT401', 'review': 'Natalia was a fine professor, and she recorded all of the zoom lectures which was helpful. There were daily classwork assignments at the start of the semester, which were graded pretty harshly, which I found frustrating. She also used WebAssign for homeworks, so there was always at least a bit of work. Tests were fair though, and if you got an A on the cumulative final you got an A no matter how you did before, which felt fair to me. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-04T00:11:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia Tchetcherina', 'course': 'STAT440', 'review': 'Class consisted (online format) of daily assignments, weekly homeworks, and a very long class project that she supports you with. Concepts are not too hard, she teaches them well. Very friendly and cares about her students. Very happy I took this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-12T11:44:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia Tchetcherina', 'course': 'STAT440', 'review': 'She is a really sweet person and makes Stat440 very easy (honestly too easy). There were no exams, but weekly homeworks, "concept checks", and a semester long project. But she lets you resubmit your reports for a better grade. Really great format for the course and a great semester with her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-19T13:30:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia Tchetcherina', 'course': 'STAT440', 'review': "Assigns a lot of busy work (but it's usually pretty simple). There were no exams in this class, but there was a semester long group project. She mostly taught stuff off the slides while deriving some aspects or going over examples on the board. She has a heavy accent.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-15T03:02:08.923284Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia Tchetcherina', 'course': 'STAT401', 'review': 'It can be difficult to understand her because she is not a native English speaker, however, all the slides she provides are straightforward to follow. The homework and classwork can be tedious but for the most part, they are fair and follow the examples she does in class and I think they are good resources that allow you to teach yourself; personally, I taught myself mostly through the work given out. There were times that I felt that the content in class did not completely line up with the homework, but since the homework was WebAssign, it is pretty simple to just quickly read the relevant part of the book that allows you to complete the homework. Since attendance isn\'t mandatory, it is totally feasible to get a good grade simply by completing the given work and understanding that.\r\n\r\nAs for exams, I felt her practice exams gave you a good idea of what it would look like. There were some tricky parts and things you can easily lose points on (like not using the hat symbol), but for the most part, there were no "gotcha" questions. You are allowed to have a cheat sheet during the test and it becomes essentially a plug-and-chug if your notes are good.\r\n\r\nFor the final, if you get an A, you automatically get an A regardless of what you got previously. I think this is a fair policy that should apply to many classes. Her grading can be a bit picky for Classworks but she is willing to hear you out and give you back points here and there if it is reasonable. From my experience, she is one of the kindest teachers I have had and I would take her again. I feel like if you do all the work she gives, getting an A- for this class is guaranteed. I would take her in the future.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T23:30:00.140473Z'}], 'name': 'Natalia Tchetcherina', 'slug': 'tchetcherina'}, {'courses': ['CHEM136', 'CHEM425', 'CHEM272', 'CHEM135', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM132', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM136', 'CHEM425', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM134', 'CHEM136', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM136', 'CHEM271', 'CHEM425', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM132', 'CHEM131', 'CHEM132', 'CHEM136', 'CHEM425'], 'average_rating': 2.65, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM135', 'review': 'Not a good teacher. Reads directly from powerpoint. Puts questions on tests and homeworks that the TAs have never seen before, let alone the students. \n\r\nOften will put things on tests that were not mentioned in review. Most tests, the average was very low, below B- and not lenient on grading. \n\r\nOverall, read the book and powerpoint slides (she posts them online) on your own and you will do just as good as if you went to class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-14T19:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': None, 'review': 'She may seem a bit awkward, but she\'s really nice.\r\nShe helped me a lot during the office hours. \r\nEven when i just stopped by her office after the class (which was much earlier than the regular office hours), she was nice and helped me.\r\nThat being said, she\'s quite disorganized. She prepared a lot for the lecture, but made a lot of mistakes on the board and sorta "rushed through".\r\nCAUTION: Do not underestimate.\r\nIt\'s definitely easier than Orgo, because you learned some things in Gen Chem. \r\nIt, however, gets more difficult very soon.\r\nRead the book, go to the discussion, and you\'ll be okay.\r\nPosted book problems are nothing like what\'s on the exam.\r\nFor the exam, you have to know the concept and be able to apply it.\n\r\nP.S. Curve is HUGE! so don\'t stress out too much.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-08-25T10:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM425', 'review': 'CHEM 425 is the most difficult class at the University of Maryland period. Mrs. White is the lab coordinator for this course, which has 10, 12+ instrument printouts page lab report due every week on a new laboratory instrument. There are prelabs every week. The biggest problem I had with Mrs. White was that the answers for the prelabs were not given. This is a problem because you have to write a 12+ page lab report on the topic of the prelab. \n\r\nThe grading of the lab reports is very strict, when I was in this class I spent approximately 40 hours a week doing work for the laboratory portion of the course. There is also a lecture portion of top of the lab. The course is not curved.\n\r\nThis class was extremely helpful in teaching me how to write lab reports. For that I am very thankful.\n\r\nIf you are not an expert scientific writer go to the writing center every week! Read scientific papers to see how it is done. Grading is tough.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2013-05-19T15:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Really fun, vibrant, kind respectful professor. Gives extracredit which come in handy 30+ credit. 2 really fair exams 100ea, final exam 200 pts. 5 easy quizzes, 20 pts each. Out of 500 pts.. loved the class, learned a lot,, super impressed..', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-21T16:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM136', 'review': "One of the most disorganized courses i have ever taken. prelabs were near impossible to get 10's on cause some of them had questions about sigfigs and others had q's tht had no answers just clickable buttons and u had to just guess what was being asked. The grading rubric for labs asked for parts in answers that was required by the actual question so you lost points for really stupid crap. Overall idk if this was the professor or the course but it was awful. I know friends in 132 did not have the same issues with prelabs as we did. DO THE EXTRA CREDIT ON BLACKBOARD IF U WANT TO GET AN A.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-29T14:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM136', 'review': "You don't really get to see much of her as she only comes in to explain the concept behind the experiment you'll be performing for 10-15 minutes. For the most part, you'll see your TA for most of the lab. Lab reports tended to be between 6-8 pages long. Lab midterms weren't so bad, but you have to watch out for sig figs because there will be answers on the midterm that will essentially be the same. For example, it could be 29.05g, 29.051g, or 29.0510g. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-23T19:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM136', 'review': "Not sure if professor or course, but chem lab stressed me out a lot. Some of the questions on prelabs and tests seem like complete non-sequiturs. Kinda frustrating because CHEM135 lecture didn't align with lab, so I always had to teach myself the concepts for lab before learning them in lecture. But, if you go to office hours and the review sessions, she will basically give you the answers to the lab report / upcoming test, so I managed a good grade.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-15T15:27:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM136', 'review': "You will never see her in any of the labs. I saw her once on the very first day and then the TA's just run the rest. Also when the labs are going on and the TA doesn't know something they can't even get ahold of her. Then when it comes to the material it doesn't align with CHEM 135 and she assumes that it does so she thinks that we know how to do the math and understand the material when most of us don't. Then when it comes to the pre-labs they are a joke and most of the time they don't even match what was written in the background etc so most of the time you just have to guess unless you have prior knowledge from previous chem classes. This class causes a lot more stress than there should be for a one credit class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-11-18T00:48:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM136', 'review': 'There are no good professors for CHEM136 that I am aware of, so take this review with a grain of salt. \r\n\r\nDr. White is clearly passionate about Chemistry and is knowledgeable on the subject. BUT... she is not an understanding professor and does not care about her students, making this class very unfair. I spend more time doing work for this class than CHEM135 (I ended CHEM135 with a 95% and CHEM136 with a 82%... make that make sense). The labs are extremely stressful because they don\'t make sense and the TA\'s have zero clue what\'s going on. Also, before each lab, you have to take a short "pre-lab quiz", for which they pull questions out of thin air and slap them onto a piece of paper (you\'ll be happy to get a 6 out of 10). Then comes the lab report. It\'s a living hell trying to figure out what the questions are asking, especially if you haven\'t taken AP Chem in high school. Each lab report takes me a minimum of 5 or 6 hours to complete (I once spent a good 8 hours on one and many tears were shed). Then comes the grades. The rubric for our lab reports is out of this world ridiculous. She takes off points if you don\'t draw the axis of your graphs with a ruler!!! And I got a 9 points off on a lab report which was 100% correct... all because I used 3 sig figs instead of 2 for my final answer calculations! And if this wasn\'t enough, you have a midterm and a final which are more of a guessing game than an actual test on knowledge (average lies around a 60%). Moving on... the only way you will manage to pass this class is if you go to her office hours and ask her as many questions about the lab as you can possible think of. I almost forgot to mention that because the grades are so bad in this class, she rounds the highest person up to an A+ and everyone else accordingly. \r\n\r\nGood luck and remember that C\'s get degrees :)\r\n\r\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-21T04:01:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM136', 'review': 'Prof. White takes a hands-off approach to running the lab. She implemented Friday review sessions that were phenomenal; I finally began to understand the experiments. She is a great teacher, so attend her office hours and review sessions. Exams are extremely difficult. Reports are graded harshly. However, the course is curved 8-10%.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-23T17:13:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM136', 'review': 'There is not much you can do to make sure you do well in this class except try your best and remember it is a one credit class. The instructor is pretty nice in office hours but your TA may be a problem. You will spend hours on lab reports just to get low grades because things are unclear but if you stay ahead and go to office hours before a report is due they are very helpful in answering questions and clearing up confusion. The curve is great, I went from a 77 to an A-. Try and stay above average on everything and double check your submissions and make sure not to submit at 11:59 pm the day it is due because they do not give you anything if your submission is wrong or late. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-18T16:33:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "To be honest there is no cons with this teacher. She teaches nicely. She lets you know what will be on the exam. She responds to emails. She had a 10-point curve which was really nice. And we had a nice TA. It is chemistry so of course it will be hard. But if you score above average on every exam then you should be fine. The average in this class is probably a B because of her nice curve. I only give her a 4 out of 5 stars because I am an above average student, and I should have gotten an A. I'm the smartest person I know.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-07-10T14:49:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "I'm sure the professor is passionate about chemistry, but the way the class was structured was horrible. Even though most of this class should be review (as most people taking it have taken AP Chem or an equivalent) it was unfair that she put material on the exams that she hadn't even covered in lecture yet which she then proceeded to teach after the exam. Communication is decent but she doesn't give much info about what's on the exams and usually posts review guides extremely close to exam dates. The exam difficulty is fair in my opinion, although there are no practice exams given to help you prepare. The one nice thing about this class is there's a lot of free points from the homeworks (about 30% of the final grade) and the homeworks are really forgiving so you should average 90%+ on them.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-12T19:31:18.759671Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "Literally the slowest talker. I appreciated her letting us know what is on the exam and she seems like a nice person. However, we never finish the notes in class, meaning that either she pushes back the homework (leading to 2 homework assignments to start and finish in the last week of class) or you're responsible for finishing them on your own.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-15T02:55:09.541175Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'Will do nothing more for you then the university requires her too.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-16T01:43:57.691385Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "I'm not sure if my experience with Dr. White was horrible because of her or the class. CHEM134 is only 50 minutes a week and Dr. White went too slow so we ended up only covering 40% of the content, then leaving us to teach ourselves the rest. That's not her issue. Where I have an issue with her is how she fails to answer questions asked, she frequently would chastise the question asker and would never give a clear response. She also just made her exams super hard, with midterm averages of 50%. I strongly disliked this class and Dr. White did not do much to actually teach.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-12-18T20:11:24.831387Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "Professor White is a nice woman who is clearly very knowledgeable about chemistry. However, Professor White + CHEM134? Every single day I came to class I wished I had studied harder to get a 5 on AP Chem. This is a 3 credit course disguised as a 1 credit course. The content is hard and there is a lot of it to cover, and Professor White's organization of the course is its downfall. How can you expect to cover 60 slides a week with one 50 minute class and no discussion? Every class she would run over time and only cover half of the content. She would frequently push back her schedule or just downright never finish the content in lecture. I stopped going to sleep in and just took the notes on my own time. The homework is a lot of work but nice padding to your grade. The exams were not awful but often included content that we had not even covered yet! And there were no review resources, practice exams, none. Steer clear or buckle up, read the textbook and be ready to study hard.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T21:15:44.851142Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': 'I hate chemistry and this class was definitely not worth going to at 8am. The posted powerpoints and homeworks are more than enough to make it through the class if you are just taking 134 to be done with your chem credit.\r\n\r\nShe did curve for those worried about their grade.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-30T07:55:02.199422Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM134', 'review': "While other people said this professor was a nice person, I think the opposite. She was not accommodating of an exam conflict with an ENES final that a handful of students had, claiming she did not want her (1 credit) class to be treated less than (even though there were make up days). \r\nShe never finished the material on time, so we always an abundant amount of leftover homework to complete. I'm glad my high school AP Chem curriculum covered all the units well, so I did really well, but for those who barely got to titrations in high school, my condolences. She barely taught anything past titrations. Her electrochemistry lecture barely got to the actual electrochemistry.\r\nThe homework wasn't extremely difficult, but as someone who liked chemistry in high school, it was not enjoyable at all, especially since it isn't my major. It was on Pearson, which deducts points for incorrect answers.\r\nHer exams were also extremely difficult, with extremely low averages, like another student said. Sometimes the problems on the exams were from topics not yet covered in class (how is that fair!). None of the individual exams were curved, but I ended with an A- and it curved to an A+.\r\nThis course may be the bigger issue. With only 50 minutes a week to learn half of AP Chem, you're not set up for success. Tied in with this professor, good luck!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-17T15:45:31.905670Z'}, {'professor': 'Natalia White', 'course': 'CHEM136', 'review': 'So I will say that the reviews stating that you never see the teacher are true, but that is true for any lab, and not indicative of the teacher. However, there are several other reasons that I have decided to score Dr. White low. Firstly, her labs are incredibly poorly worded, both in the instructions, pre-lab, and post-lab questions. However, I think most people’s saving grace was the move of pre-lab questions to a virtual format, which included 30 minutes each attempt and 3 attempts. However, I know several people did not even get full points with this, as these are often her own designed labs, and she expected us to know the right calculations and conclusions to the labs already (which, in my opinion, should be the point of doing the lab in the first place). And the labs themselves were designed poorly, for example, our second lab had us doing analysis, and according to our TA, one of the first things she told them was that everyone who got X chemical would have several lab errors, yet I know she took points off those groups for said errors. In addition, another lab’s post-lab was entirely calculations, which she spelled out everything to do in the instructions. However, the instructions did not align with the rubric and neither aligned with how she phrased certain things. Plus, she was out during this entire week and TAs are not allowed to send out announcements without permission, so anyone unable to go to TA office hours got that wrong. In addition, my TAs sections were told to use a particular number of significant figures, which apparently did not align with the rubric (but how were we supposed to know that?) and so got points of for following our TA and she refused to give points back for that. \r\nIn addition, in her review session (the day before the final exam), she told us that we needed to memorize the common names, formulas, reactions, colors, smells, etc for every single product and reactant over the course (probably about 50 reactions, although some compounds overlap). Now I would be annoyed but it would be reasonable if she told us this ahead of time. But the day before the final is not the time to do so. The only reason I gave two stars instead of one is that she was occasionally decently helpful when I emailed with questions.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-19T18:55:18.127573Z'}], 'name': 'Natalia White', 'slug': 'white_natalia'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'KNES154O', 'KNES154P', 'LBSC741', 'KNES335', 'KNES154N', 'KNES154T', 'KNES235', 'KNES154O', 'KNES235', 'KNES235'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Natalie Taylor', 'slug': 'taylor_natalie'}, {'courses': ['BSGC100', 'BSGC398A', 'EDHI338R', 'HGLO100', 'BSGC398A', 'BSGC398A', 'BSGC398A', 'HGLO100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Natalie Vinski Ibrahim', 'slug': 'ibrahim_natalie_vinski'}, {'courses': ['EDCI372'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Natalie Ylizarde', 'slug': 'ylizarde'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101X', 'CMLT270', 'CMLT275', 'ENGL101', 'WMST275', 'ENGL101S'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nataliya Pratsovyta', 'slug': 'pratsovyta'}, {'courses': ['ENCE310', 'GEMS296', 'ENCE411', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE100', 'ENCE215', 'ENCE100', 'ENCE215', 'ENCE100', 'ENCE215', 'ENCE100', 'ENCE215', 'ENCE100', 'ENCE215'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Natasha Andrade', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': "At first you may think Dr. Andrade is a nice professor, but don't be fooled. She will tell you she is for good things like the environment and helping people, but she does not show this alleged compassion in the classroom. For the final group project, she makes all students submit peer evaluations. If you get below the class average, regardless of how high the average is (i.e the class average is 9.5/10) and you get a 9.4 she will dock your grade by a whole letter. During this project you have to do things like defend emitting CO2 into the atmosphere in a debate. She consistently picks the side with the generally accepted argument of global warming is bad to win the debate. If you get the less popular view, count on your grade dropping a letter grade. If you go to office hours, she will act like you are wasting her time and will not help you at all. Dr. Andrade also blatantly picks a small group of students to be her favorites. Keep in mind the class has 35 students not a lecture hall of over 100. Favorites are helped during office hours at the expense of other students. If you are a favorite, she will explain exactly what to do during quizzes. If you are not a favorite, she will stand over you and stare at your quiz then tell you you are wrong with 30 seconds left in the quiz with no further explanation. I would not recommend Dr. Andrade, nor would I voluntarily take her courses. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-08-25T02:07:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Natasha Andrade', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': 'Dont llisten to that guy. Dr Andrade is a great professor that takes care of the environment and the knowledge of her students. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-10T01:02:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Natasha Andrade', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': "Dr. Andrade was a great professor. I had her last year and in retrospect, I wish I could've had her for longer! Her lectures weren't boring, different speakers were sometimes brought in every other week, and she will actually help you during office hours (unlike some professors). I never really felt stupid for asking a question and felt respected and like an equal person in her classroom.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-03T02:57:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Natasha Andrade', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': 'I am only half way through the semester. we are doing it online because of COVID but i wanted to originally take her because i had her as a guest lecturer in ENCE100 and shes adorable. Absolutely the cutest nicest person every shes so sweet. BUT MY GOD... when she grades... Its horrible. its just horrible. i would suggest not taking her because im used to getting As in my classes and I really try on my work but her homeworks are so unreasonable and the tests are the exact same. Its just a nightmare. theres way to much work for 200 level course and while she does give alot of partial credit (which is why my grade is still barely a B) her class is a nightmare. Honestly one of the most stressful classes im taking rn and i have two other 300 level classes. Its actually ridiculous. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-11-05T18:40:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Natasha Andrade', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': 'I took Natasha Andrade\'s class in the fall of 2020. Because, she is the only professor who teaches ENCE215 at UMD, if it is a required course, you have to take her, there\'s no choice. Thereby, I hope this review can allow you to prepare for the twists and turns.\r\n\r\nFirst of all, Professor Andrade is a very nice person, but that isn\'t what most of us prioritize, it\'s good grades. The class focuses on a new subject each week: nuclear physics, chemistry, fluids (you name it). However, she does provide you with nearly all of the required equations so it isn\'t as impossible as it sounds. The weekly homework gives the final numerical answer in the problem, so that you can verify with yourself whether or not you completed the question correctly. She will not give you the solution to the problem, but she will answer your questions on how to get on the right track.\r\n\r\nNow for the bad aspects of her course. She holds only two exams, which are a large chunk of your final grade. Both exams are cumulative. While you receive the necessary equations, you barely receive enough time. The questions are split between calculations, multiple choice, and thought questions. The thought questions have the same grade weight as the calculations, so don\'t make the same mistake I did in prioritizing one over the other. She does NOT offer extra credit and claims that she never will. Also, the teaching assistant she employed was terrible. If you don\'t label each calculation step with each sub-solution, you will get a bad grade and have to fight to get it fixed.\r\n\r\nFinally, the group debate. Is it as bad as it sounds? Yes.\r\nOur class was split into two teams, due to our section having only around nine students at the time of the debate. There were dozens of options for the debate, but my team made the mistake of allowing the other team to choose the topic and the side. As others have mentioned in reviews, there is usually one side of the debate which is "environmental". From a completely scientific standpoint, it might be hard to figure this out, but with a keen eye you should be able to determine which has more mainstream environmentalism embedded in it than the other.\r\n\r\nIf you are on the side with the anti-environmental side, you already lost the debate. The best thing you can do to salvage your grade is gather as much scientific evidence as possible. The pro-environment side will have a large selection of glamorous online articles to use as sources, usually with no data. Your side, the opposition, usually doesn\'t have any bias articles in its favor, but you are usually given a lot of data. Drown the opposition in data and question all of their parameters, and your team will survive. Also, don\'t act confrontational either in words or body language. The other team has a free pass to use emotions or ethics, you don\'t.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-17T14:23:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Natasha Andrade', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': "ENCE100 might as well be a zero credit class. We've had five assignments over the course of the semester and there is no exam or quizzes. Dr. Andrade seems very nice and down-to-earth, but after the second class she had guest lecturers for each class and it got very boring and hard to stay engaged.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-22T17:27:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Natasha Andrade', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': "ENCE215 was very similar to ENCE100 in the sense that you discuss a new civil engineering topic each week. We covered various types of renewable energy, wastewater system design, and the world population. Each of these sections involved new formulas that were pretty easy to grasp. The homework is based on completion and helps you prepare for the questions you might see on the exams. The quizzes (each week or so) are easier versions of homework questions. The most difficult part of this class is thinking like Natasha. On her critical thinking questions on exams, she wants you to think about sustainability and environmental protection. This mindset is hard to learn when you don't already follow it in your day-to-day life. And answering her thinking questions like she would means the difference between a 50% and a 95%.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-28T19:27:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Natasha Andrade', 'course': 'ENCE215', 'review': 'I think a lot of people go into ENCE215 thinking it\'s gonna be easy to bullshit their way through because it has "sustainability" in the name. Actually it\'s 80% applied physics and applied chemistry, and 20% writing/critical thinking skills.\r\n\r\nAll the exam and homework problems are in the format of a paragraph which lays out some hypothetical real-world application for you. You have to identify how it relates to the equations for different types of energy generation (or population growth or stormwater management) and then solve. If you\'re good at extracting the relevant info from text, ID\'ing what you have to find, and putting all that into equations, you\'ll do well. Also you HAVE to be good at dimensional analysis because there is TONS of converting units. in the homework and exam problems.\r\n\r\nProfessor Andrade is very nice, a good lecturer, and very available with office hours, but she\'s not what you\'d call a generous grader. I still really liked this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-20T00:23:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Natasha Andrade', 'course': 'ENCE100', 'review': 'Gonna have to agree with the 3-star review. ENCE 100 was definitely not like a class as literally most of the time was just guest speakers and very few assignments. It was boring for the most part as many people did not seem to have an interest in the speakers. This class will be an easy A if you are in civil!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-06T20:09:33.815384Z'}], 'name': 'Natasha Andrade', 'slug': 'andrade_natasha'}, {'courses': ['HESI417', 'HESI418T', 'EDCP789', 'HESI320', 'ENES424', 'ENES472', 'HESI318I', 'HESI321', 'ENES317', 'HESI318W', 'EXST030', 'ENES305', 'ENES304'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Natasha Chapman', 'course': 'ENES317', 'review': 'The course was completely online and pretty structured, very rarely interacted with the professor at all. We had weekly discussion posts and quizzes, and a couple of short papers to write. However, there was an unnecessarily enormous amount of reading assigned every week, which sucked because the reading tended to cover redundant content.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-13T07:09:38Z'}], 'name': 'Natasha Chapman', 'slug': 'chapman'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Natasha Criss', 'slug': 'criss'}, {'courses': ['EDCP615', 'EDCP619D', 'EDCP610', 'EDCP888G', 'EDCP789T', 'EDCP797', 'EDCP610', 'EDCP610'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Natasha Mitchell', 'slug': 'mitchell_natasha'}, {'courses': ['MUSC102'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Natasha Stollmack', 'slug': 'stollmack'}, {'courses': ['FREN203', 'FREN250', 'FREN204', 'FREN250H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nathan Dize', 'slug': 'dize'}, {'courses': ['BSCI361', 'BIOL608E', 'BIOL608O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nathan Kraft', 'slug': 'kraft'}, {'courses': ['LBSC671'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nathan Putnam', 'slug': 'putnam_nathan'}, {'courses': ['BSCI460', 'BIOL708G', 'BSCI361', 'BIOL709B', 'BISI899', 'BISI678B', 'BISI898', 'BIOL608X', 'BIOL608E', 'BISI898', 'BISI899', 'BISI898', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nathan Swenson', 'slug': 'swenson'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'CMLT270', 'ENGL101X', 'ENGL201', 'ENGL398C', 'ENGL280'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nathan Tillman', 'course': 'ENGL101X', 'review': "Dr. Tillam is really kind and helpful, always cares about his students. He's not a hard grader at all, check his grading data and take his course. :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-09T22:07:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Nathan Tillman', 'course': 'ENGL280', 'review': "Dr. Tillman is an amazing educator! His class is incredibly interesting and you'll absolutely learn a lot. More importantly, he is an incredibly kind person who truly cares about you. You'd be crazy not to take one of his classes", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-09-15T21:42:44Z'}], 'name': 'Nathan Tillman', 'slug': 'tillman_nathan'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nathaniel Stoltz', 'slug': 'stoltz_nathaniel'}, {'courses': ['ANSC398V', 'ANSC489A', 'HONR268Z', 'VMSC700', 'ANSC436', 'VMSC670', 'VMSC758', 'VMSC758', 'VMSC758', 'ANSC436', 'VMSC436', 'VMSC758', 'VMSC277'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nathaniel Tablante', 'course': 'HONR268Z', 'review': "Super nice professor that can make discussions about zoonotic diseases interesting. Most of the course only consists of lectures and super short quizzes which are a breeze if you attend lecture. The course can require a decent amount of time closer to the end of the semester but the take-home second midterm and the final project/paper are reasonable. I'd recommend taking Dr. Tablante regardless of the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-27T00:08:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Nathaniel Tablante', 'course': 'VMSC277', 'review': 'Awesome class and professor! We spend most of the time watching and discussing videos, which is engaging and usually pretty fun. homework is super minimal, usually only two quizzes per week (they are like two questions and take 5 mins to complete). the exams are very fair and as long as you go to class and pay attention, you should be completely fine. he is a great professor and makes the content interesting to learn about. he seems to really care about his students which i appreciated throughout the semester. overall, i really recommend him and this course, especially for an easy gen ed!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-11T19:07:34.018121Z'}], 'name': 'Nathaniel Tablante', 'slug': 'tablante'}, {'courses': ['ENGL265', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL202', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL425', 'ENGL346', 'LGBT265', 'ENGL445'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nathaniel Underland', 'slug': 'underland_nathaniel'}, {'courses': ['ECON201', 'ECON317', 'ECON201', 'ECON317', 'ECON201', 'ECON317', 'ECON201', 'ECON317', 'ECON201', 'ECON317'], 'average_rating': 3.65, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON317', 'review': "Sarna is boring and talks quietly. I found it very difficult to pay attention in class. He posts all of the slides online and the review slides closely correspond with the exams. Because of this, most people didn't come to class except to give their presentations. There is no homework except for a big presentation/group paper, which he grades leniently. DO NOT BUY THE BOOK. He never uses it. This course is a glorified intermediate macroeconomics course. Although I did not like Sarna's teaching, he is very helpful and cares about what he is saying. If you can bring yourself to come to class and pay attention, you'll probably do fine.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-05-16T23:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Professor Sarna is by far the best teacher I have had at The University of Maryland, he does an excellent job making sometimes challenging concepts about ECON easy to understand, he goes over concepts multiple times and draws out tons of examples. Further, he is very responsive to students needs, for example he made us a mock exam and the TA's gave it too us in class for each exam and that was insanely helpful and was similar to the questions on the regular exam. In addition he has review sessions in class. The only thing I would recommend is that you sit in the front because he writes on the board a lot and is hard to see in the big lecture hall. You cannot rely on the power points in order to get an A because the on board examples is where you do a lot of learning. Excellent teacher, take him not Neri! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-05T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON317', 'review': "I took this class my senior year at UMD and I wish I had taken it earlier. Sarna's class is one of the few econ classes where i learned concrete info about how world economics work and allowed me to understand and easily interpret changes in the world economy or even simply reading the WSJ or the Economist. Its not an easy A as his tests are tricky and are often frustrating because of hazey wording. However, the material itself is straightforward once you understand how the different variables effect each other. I learnt the most about actual econ in my entire time at UMD in this class, instead of just how to move curves around and take derivatives. Also econonmetrics with Vlaicu is a great class but im not sure he teaches at umd anymore. anyways, take this class, study hard, you will be grateful once you graduate. also keep the textbook its helpful for me to refer to sometimes to brush up my knowledge. this class should be required after econ 200/201. and it should be broken up into two classes so as not to cram so much into one semester and allow time to really drill the concepts in.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-07-06T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Made the class very easy to understand. One of the best professors I've had so far. He is very knowledgeable in economics. Explains concepts simply and makes sure students understand the fundamentals. Exams were fair", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-06-29T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Just got my grade for the class and wanted to write a review for Professor Sarna because he definitely deserves one. \n\r\nEconomics is my major so I'm very into the material. Lectures were enjoyable for me. Professor Sarna knows his stuff. He teaches in a manner that forces you to understand the models and apply them when tested. He doesn't want his students to memorize and then just regurgitate the material come exam time. And his teaching style reflects that. He is VERY approachable and very nice. He really wants his students to understand the material and do well in his classes.\n\r\nI didn't go to a single discussion and found that reading the chapters in the book prior to lectures was very beneficial. Midterms and the final averaged B/B- for the class. Final grade was curved by 3%. \n\r\nFairly easy class though it will require some diligence as it is a 4 credit class. Bottom line if you have to take ECON201 take it with Professor Sarna. He is an excellent professor.\n\r\nUpdate: I took his ECON317 policies class. He has to be one of the best econ professors I've had. He has lots of real world experience and he brings that knowledge into the classroom. Great lecturer, great class. The class does require considerable effort though if you want an A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-02-13T02:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON317', 'review': 'He really knows what he is teaching and wants students to learn things for the real world. He is a nice guy and very approachable. It was hard for me to get an A because I am not a great test taker. There is 2 quizzes, 2 exams(MCQ & short answer), group projects, 6 article summaries (easy). He is straight forward on what exactly he tests on.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-02T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON317', 'review': 'Dr. Sarna is definitely in my top list of professors at UMD. He really makes the material very interesting and explains the material very well. He is an absolute genius when it comes to economics and turns explains material with easy to understand stories. I would recommend this professor!!! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-20T02:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "One of the best professors I've had at UMD. He explains very complex charts and relations in a very simple manner that makes them seem common sense. He tries to make lectures enjoyable and is very good at what he does. The book is not that boring either so if you get lost, reading up won't be too bad, although the book isn't absolutely necessary because his slides are very good", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-27T00:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Best econ class ever. he is funny, explains the material in a very comprehensible manner, and the tests are very very very easy... as long as you have actually somewhat paid attention to lecture/read the text book you'll do just fine. the only problem was the aplia problems. i thought they were more difficult than the exam questions but when i went to get help the TAs weren't allowed to answer our questions. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-02-03T23:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Sarna is a great professor but the class is difficult. He's very approachable and will go to every length to help a student. He relates the class to real life and keeps it interesting. However, the TAs are absolutely useless. I went to discussion once and it was a true waste of time.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-10T02:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Great professor. Really no complaints. Clear explanations, clear powerpoints, easier tests than the other sections (i think). Wants everyone to do well and he tells us that he is our "friend". Has a slight accent which may be unclear at times but just listen carefully and you will be fine. If you need to take micro definitely take Sarna. \n\r\nI actually ended up with a B in this class but that\'s because I stopped studying the material towards the end of the final. THat was a mistake. If you keep up with the material there is no reason why you should get less than an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-25T15:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Sarna is a really great professor! Unlike other professors I've had in the past, he really cares about how well his students do in the class and wants them to really understand economics. \n\r\nI ended up getting a C+ in the class (78!!) because i get really bad test anxiety but thats a whole other issue. \n\r\nIf you take your time with the course and look at it simplistically (microeconomics is a pretty simple subject that can get confusing if you think too much about it)you should do fine. His exams are not even directly from any readings from the textbook so mainly pay attention in lecture and/or go to his office hours you should get a B or higher.\n\r\nThe only thing I didnt like was that the other class got to do an extra credit assignment and we didnt! It probably would have brought my borderline C to a B. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-20T13:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Professor Sarna has a great sense of humor! For Micro, it wasn't really necessary to go to lecture though, because he posts his lecture powerpoints online after class, and they include information that's all in the textbook. \n\r\nHe genuinely cares about his students though! On the first exam, I guess many people didn't do very well, so he dedicated twenty minutes of the next lecture asking the lecture (of over 200) what could make a difference for them on the next exam. We also have mock exams before every exam.\n\r\nHe was a little rude a few times when people asked questions in class, but I think it was mostly unintentional. Overall, good professor and easy class!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-09T22:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Awesome professor, awesome class. Challenging at times, but it's really not that hard at all as long as you keep up with the content. All the topics build upon each other as you progress through the course so just make sure to keep up. Sarna is great at teaching and I definitely learned a lot. If you have an interest or need the course, take it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-01T15:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON317', 'review': "If you are not familiar with macro concepts this class might be a little tricky for you. There were 3 quizzes, a midterm, a paper/presentation, and the final. Paper/presentation was easy, around 20 pages split between 4 people and a presentation that lasts ~20 minutes. \n\r\nHe explained things clearly and kept things relevant, using the first few minutes of class to discuss world economic events and how we could use what we've been learning to explain what's going on. Funny guy too. Be prepared to put in a good amount of time for the class, there's a lot of info to cover/understand.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-20T09:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "The material is straight forward and he follows the textbook very closely. I definitely would have skipped lectures if another professor was teaching but he's too funny. If you actually listen to his lectures, he's a really funny guy, although not always intentionally. For the first few weeks, he somehow managed to mention Georgetown cupcakes in every lecture. If you need to take an econ course and he's teaching it, definitely take him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-01T23:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "How well you perform in this class depends on how much you understand the concepts presented in the lectures. Therefore, attending class is mandatory. Having said that, this class will teach you a lot of things about the world of economics and how they relate to every day's life. \n\r\nThe professor is nice and knows his material. He has an accent but that factor will not stop you from learning what you need to. The power points slides are equally helpful in explaining concepts that are difficult to understand. \n\r\nDiscussions in general are optional. The professor encourages students to attend discussions but I find them very boring and merely reiteration of the concepts the professor has talked about during lectures. Nevertheless, if you don't understand something in lecture, come to discussions for clarification.\n\r\nYou will have several problem sets during the course which will be online. I suggest you start them early as some questions might take up a bit of time. The course has a midterm and a final, they are straightforward and cover the topics have been talked about during lectures. \n\r\nI personally recommend this class because it can be very interesting once you understand the concepts and able to make the connections from the classroom to everyday's life.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-29T02:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Professor Sarna was a great teacher. For my first time taking Economics, I definitely learned a lot and it was not at all difficult. In this class, we had homework every other Sunday and only 2 tests throughout the year and one final. The final wasn't cumulative. All of his lecture slides are online. I never went to discussion because I didn't need to because he taught everything well in class. This class did not give me any stress. Definitely take him for Economics!!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-12T02:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Professor Sarna was great for my first experience learning economics. He explains the material clearly, and always adds in little jokes to keep the class intresting. All the matrial can also be learned from reading the textbook and reviewing his powerpoint slides which he posts online, so its not a big deal if you miss a class or space out. His tests are very fair and if you understand all his powerpoints, you will do fine. I'm definitely taking him for ECON201 next semester. Discussion is pointless. I only went once this semester. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T21:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Professor Sarna did a great job of making economics interesting and understandable. He takes difficult concepts and breaks them down into simpler analogies that are easier to understand and relatable. His tests are generally 45 multiple choice questions and very straightforward. He genuinely wants everyone to do well. In addition to the tests there are online assignments through aplia every other week which are worth 25% of the your grade. These are also generally very straightforward and it is not hard to do well. He posts all his lecture slides online, and his lectures follow the textbook. I really enjoyed going to lectures. Overall i really enjoyed this course and would highly recommend Professor Sarna. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T18:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON317', 'review': "Professor Sarna explains economic models with simple analogies that help you better understand them. I wish I had him for 200 and 201 rather than bad lectures. The material I failed to learn in my fundamental courses, he reviews in class. He curves at the end. There is a presentation and paper that is easy. If I did not have a heavy schedule, I would have received a B in his class. There are 2 quizzes 1 midterm 1 project (presentation & paper) and 1 final. He's not as boring as other economic professors, which is a plus. He has a slight accent but it does not affect his teaching style/ability. Overall I enjoyed the course.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-06-01T14:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON317', 'review': "REALLY easy to not pay attention, but you have to try. Don't take unless you have a solid macro background", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-05-16T02:45:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "SO BORING. It is honestly impossible to pay attention in this class. When I was able to pay attention he was a good teacher but just brutal for a long lecture. You're signing up to teach yourself the course. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2018-05-22T23:36:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Easy material in general, I knocked a star off because his lectures can be rather dry, and you have to sit in the front of the class to understand his graphs. With that said he's funny and gives interesting analogies related to real life economics. The material isn't difficult, and he doesn't complicate the material making it a relatively easy class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-09-06T16:53:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Kind've a GOAT, makes a lot of jokes about food. Hard to pay attention in class though, ended up using the textbook ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-05-16T04:13:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON317', 'review': 'A great prof. Lectures are kinda boring but he cares about students and willing to answer questions. The final is hard. I thought I can get an A but I end up with B+ so study hard before exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-10-12T22:11:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Such a good professor, only a few assignments per semester, and the exams are very fair. Lectures can be a little boring, but overall a great professor! Take him', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-29T15:31:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Excellent professor. Economics is not exactly my main area of interest, but Sarna's lectures were engaging, and he did a great job explaining things in a relatable and understandable manner. The only criticism I can think of is that he had trouble understanding students' questions, but he always did his best to answer them.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-24T01:21:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'literally 8 assignment the entire semester, lectures are slow and then when he finally puts information on the board to takes notes of, he clicks by it too quick to take notes. He poorly prepares students for the exams and overall just doesnt give students enough content to review. I BEG YOU PLEASE DONT TAKE SARNA! YOU WILL REGRET IT.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-03-25T02:37:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'He gives boring, sleep inducing lectures that do very little in preparing you for the exams. I am a straight A student that came up short in his class because of his lack of effort. He did little to help us prepare for exams, giving s a half baked mock exam that reflected NONE of the themes of the actual exam! I have only ever had ONE bad teacher before in my scholastic career, Naveen Sarna has increased that number to 2! Avoid him!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-03-25T02:38:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Everyone's reviews are very bipolar, either saying he is very engaging or very boring, and that he is both a bad and good lecturer.\r\nI took his class this semester, and have friends who also took his class. Here are my thoughts, coupled with theirs as well:\r\n(1) Sarna can be EITHER boring or engaging, depending on your attention span and willingness to focus. \r\n(2) He gives EVERYTHING needed for exams and your success (anyone who says otherwise just didn't use the resources presented to them).\r\n\r\nTo address (1), if you have a short attention span, you'll have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. For me, I thoroughly enjoyed his lectures, and thought he was quite engaging. He has a slight (Indian) accent – which doesn't inhibit his ability to lecture!! – but his tone is soft and rather monotonous, so it is easy to lose focus espeeeeeciiially if you use a computer for notes. While I indeed liked his lectures, I also cannot count the amount of times I got sidetracked playing tetris. Side-note: he isn't monotone in a way that suggests he's not passionate about his course (the reality is the opposite), and he makes subtle jokes here and there.\r\n***My biggest suggestion is if you get distracted easily,*** take notes on a notebook and don't worry about making them look pretty. Sarna gives EVERYTHING you need on his powerpoints, which are all linked in Canvas; but he doesn't link the drawings and figures he puts alongside the powerpoints, which can be helpful for review (hence why notebooks are also good, since you can scribble the figures down). \r\n\r\nAs for (2), do not underestimate the class content. I took this class as a gen ed, and came in thinking I wouldn't have to ever review content. This was absolutely wrong, and I was surprised & disheartened at my first exam score. Understand the big-picture concepts, and memorize the equations. As with what the other reviews said, his exam review materials aren't great. His mock exams don't reflect the real exam at all, but I was lucky to have helpful TA's who made a mock exam that I believe will help me on the upcoming 2nd exam. Again, his EXAM REVIEW materials suck. NOT the powerpoints, which you can easily use as review material.\r\n\r\nTry to attend class IRL, and not over Zoom (which he gives an option for at the same hour). If you attend his lectures over Zoom, you can't ask questions since he mutes the students and doesn't look at the chat since he's in-tune with the IRL classroom.\r\n\r\nOverall, a good class. 7 homework assignments (the lowest 2 are dropped), 2 midterms, and a final. Lightly study, and don't be afraid to ask Sarna for help. Good luck!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-04-12T18:22:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Really boring lectures. Very slow moving class. I had to teach myself everything, but if you put in the work you can get a decent grade.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-04-27T21:35:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'While there is very little homework and readings assigned, lectures are very unhelpful and exams can be tricky with wording and graphs. I found that not attending class and understanding the textbook well was what allowed me to get by, but I would recommend taking another professor if you actually want to learn the material.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-28T18:18:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Dont take Sarna, Shea seems to be the better option. Sarna gives boring, monotonous lectures. He really does not seem to care. Mock exams and review materials are half baked and don't reflect whats on the exam what so ever. He's probably tenured so I doubt he really cares at all. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-17T18:23:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "DON'T TAKE SARNA. Just don't. He isn't a great teacher for this class - his lectures are quite boring and he also doesn't really prepare us well for the exams. The mock exams also don't help. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-06-23T14:56:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "No one ever went to his lectures. Very boring and gives no information in class. He repeats the book content but more vaguely during class. His test info sessions are useless as well. Few exams throughout and they were all in-person, multiple-choice tests on paper. Much more difficult than the content he talks about. I would definitely recommend really understanding the macro econ concepts before taking the exam. They're not that difficult tbh just a bit confusing. The class was very boring though. Only read the book content. No assignments except for an occasional online bookwork that was graded for correction.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-07-25T13:20:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'horrible teacher. So slow, quiet, monotone, and boring. He rambles on about random topics not related to class like goldy locks (not kidding). I have not been to a single class since early October (it is finals week now). I teach myself everything from the textbook. I am expecting an A-. It is not too difficult of a course but requires so much outside effort because Pr. Sarna is so bad. Avoid him at all costs if you can!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-15T02:23:31.508438Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': 'Just not good at teaching. His practice exams are super short and have little representation of the actual exams.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-21T16:33:50.766358Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "He is an incredibly smart and nice man. But his skills as a professor are lacking, especially with the content of the lectures lining up with the textbook and the test materials. Exam reviews were not helpful in any manner and were hard for students to stay focused and engaged in lectures, so a ton of people opted out. I am retaking this course currently and the content I am receiving in this lecture/ textbook is worlds different from what was given in Sarna's lecture. Again, great man, but bad teaching style/ set up.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2023-01-04T21:28:21.938322Z'}, {'professor': 'Naveen Sarna', 'course': 'ECON201', 'review': "Dr. Sarna gives very long winded explanations and makes everything appear more complicated than it is. I was way more successful in this class when I had to thoroughly teach myself all of the concepts and not even look at class notes. Learning it myself made everything more simple than his explanations! Exams weren't too difficult if you understood the material but it took a lot of effort outside of class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-26T23:12:37.068024Z'}], 'name': 'Naveen Sarna', 'slug': 'sarna'}]
[{'courses': ['GEOG211'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nayoung Jo', 'slug': 'jo_nayoung'}, {'courses': ['PSYC336', 'PSYC432', 'PSYC289D', 'PSYC354', 'PSYC309P', 'WMST336', 'PSYC309G', 'PSYC309R', 'PSYC309N', 'PSYC309F', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC432', 'PSYC309F', 'PSYC432', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC309P', 'PSYC432', 'PSYC309R', 'PSYC432'], 'average_rating': 4.5882, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC354', 'review': "LOVE DR. NAZ! She is so awesome and funny and actually engages people in lecture by making it kind of discussion based, she isn't just sitting there reading info off of slides the whole time. She brings up real world topics and examples and people share their opinions while Dr. Naz shares hers too, it helps to understand certain psych concepts by relating them to real world stuff.\n\r\nYou have 1 midterm exam and 1 final. She gives you the chance to earn some points back on your midterm (super nice of her). You also have a couple papers to write, and some activities that are to be completed by the end of class time on fridays...because she doesn't make you come on friday, just the activities have to be done which is super awesome.\n\r\nWould definitely recommend this class or any class with Dr. Naz!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-10-19T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC289D', 'review': "This class was pretty easy. You could get by without putting in toooo much effort, but it still is required. Just study the notes from class and the exams are based off of those exactly. Dr. Naz is super nice as for the class itself, it is interesting material most of the time, but personally I dreaded coming to the class. I don't know what it was exactly. It might have been the gross classroom we were in or that I wasn't very interested in all the lectures, but I really didn't like it. I did enjoy discovering more about myself through this class and applying what I learned to real life. I wouldn't NOT recommend it, I guess it really depends on the person.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-01-05T18:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC289D', 'review': "Dr. Naz is the best! The class material is interesting and actually had me thinking a lot about it outside of the class as it related to my everyday life. Make sure to show up to class but if you pay decent attention and do the work there's no reason you can't get an A. The class consisted of 4 small 2 page papers, a midterm and final, and a group project that runs throughout the semester", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-04-28T18:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC336', 'review': "Love Dr. Naz! Recommend taking this class as an upper level elective (i'm not a psych major but made friends in the class who were psych majors so i could study with them)\n\r\nmake sure you attend lectures to take notes as the exams are almost all solely based on lecture material. They are multiple choice exams but can get tricky so make sure you study\n\r\nAn A in the class is very doable", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-16T04:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC336', 'review': 'course material is dry at beginning of the semester, similar topics as social psych so it was boring. 2nd half of the semester was much more interesting. we had SARPP presentations (google them immediately if you havent heard of them). \n\r\noverall a good class, she is open to student concerns and is the material is not hard. tests were tricky because she asks very open ended questions, that combined with multiple choice didnt make test Qs easy. discussion board posts are easy (5 of them). papers (2 pages each, 4 of them) were easy. 1 group presentation, wasnt hard.\n\r\nclass discussions (when they occurred, like 5 times this semester unfortunately...) were interesting. lecture was informative. i think this was an off semester for her but i would definitely recommend her!!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-21T02:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC336', 'review': 'As another reviewer says, psyc336 can be incredibly raw. The only thing I disliked about this class is that Naz was too nice when these topics came up and asshole men in the class decided it would be a good time to say how Disney princesses *should* be drawn the way they are, and even harder things like overt victim-blaming.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-11T20:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC336', 'review': 'TAKE THIS CLASS.\r\nbest teacher\r\ninteresting subject\r\ninvolves students in interesting discussions\r\ngives good notes\r\ntests coordinate properly with what she teaches\r\nnot hard material', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-08T00:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC432', 'review': '-really nice; responds to concerns via email pretty quickly\r\n-syllabus is pretty thorough of what is expected\r\n-lecture slides are VERY helpful\r\n-really engaging and enthusiastic lecturer\r\n-papers are very specific', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-26T21:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC336', 'review': 'Overall the course is very interesting and can be a very good application of other psych classes information, most notably psyc221.\r\nBut, I will give a word of warning, a majority of this classes material is not easy to swallow and is depressing. You will spend around 50% of the semester learning about how the media, culture, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and rape, are all very serious problems affecting women. \r\nHowever, that being said, I will admittedly say that this class is not difficult. In fact the average grade is an A-. So, if you need a relaxed upper level elective or a diversity credit, go for it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-19T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC336', 'review': "This class is awesome. I will definitely suggest that all psyc majors and all wmst majors take this. Naz is awesome and great to talk to. If you ever have any problems with any of your grades like on an exam or on any of the papers just go talk to her about it, she really is great about speaking to students. The class is also pretty straight forward. Just write exactly whats asked for the papers and you'll get full credit. The exams, just do the study guide and you'll have zero problems. Definitely a great upper level to take!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-06-01T14:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC432', 'review': 'Interestingly enough, my favorite part about this class was the end of the year paper we had to write! The paper combined all the information we learned that semester in a fun way! \n\r\nDr. Naz is a great teacher! She always double checks with her students to make sure everyone understands her teachings. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-05T11:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC432', 'review': 'Naz is the best professor in the psychology department. She is friendly, intelligent, engaging, and a great professor. Her classes are informative but not too heavy on the workload. Take a class with her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-02T15:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC336', 'review': "Love her! Dr. Naz is not only really pretty but she's also very nice and cares about her students. She encourages discussion in class and always provides us with online lectures in addition to videos to help us remember the material. She offers extra credit and her tests are straightforward. We had guest speakers as well. I think this is a good psychology course to take because it is not difficult if you study and come to class. It's also informative and you will never feel overwhelmed by the workload. Just do it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-25T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC336', 'review': "She's so adorable! Her lectures are interesting and she shows really intriguing videos/clips to help further understanding of the material. Take her for any class if you get the chance to :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-11-30T14:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC354', 'review': "I've taken two classes with her and have received A's in both. Most of her classes tend to be blended learning, so we come to class on Monday and Wednesday, but only have an assignment due on Friday. Her exams were pretty straightforward, and all I did to study for them was look over the slides. She's also really approachable and understanding.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-17T18:05:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC432', 'review': "I love her, she is always accommodating and takes student feedback into consideration. She's very sweet and the class is incredibly interesting. If you go over her mini-lectures and are able to apply all the concepts you are all set for the exams. She gives helpful examples of everything we learn as it is a very application-based class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T03:47:02.978256Z'}, {'professor': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'course': 'PSYC432', 'review': 'Everyone that gave 5 starts must be white. As a counseling psychology professor she was not understanding and almost pushed me to my limit. I had to explain my entire life story just for a 6 point assignment. If you take her be careful of the TA’s as well as they gave me different responses on everything. I thought I was going to get an A- in the class and ended with a B because of the final paper I was told I did well on by a TA but received a D. Many of my other colored friends had problems with her as well… If I was a sally or emily maybe my problems would have been taken more serious.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-24T23:37:46.688364Z'}], 'name': 'Nazish Salahuddin', 'slug': 'salahuddin'}, {'courses': ['HLSA601', 'HLSA785', 'MIEH400', 'HLSA300', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA740', 'HLSA778', 'EXST030', 'HLSA775', 'HLSA720', 'MIEH400', 'HLSA300', 'HLSA601', 'HLSA740', 'MIEH400', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA775', 'HLSA778', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA775', 'HLSA778', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA300', 'HLSA601'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Negin Fouladi', 'slug': 'fouladi'}, {'courses': ['CHEM131', 'CHEM425', 'CHEM623', 'CHEM399A', 'CHEM399C', 'CHEM277', 'CHEM611', 'CHEM612', 'CHEM889A', 'CHEM277', 'CHEM611', 'CHEM612', 'CHEM623', 'CHEM612', 'CHEM277'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Neil Blough', 'course': 'CHEM425', 'review': "Dr. Blough is an excellent professor, and potentially the best one I have had at Maryland as a biochem & neurophys double degree. His lecturing style is the clearest of any professor I've had thus far (in 7 semesters), he's enthusiastic, and I could readily and easily recall all of the material he lectured about during exams, even if I hadn't studied a particular topic intensely.\r\nYour TAs are usually sympathetic towards you (you're taking 6 hours of lab a week for this one class, after all) - just make sure you keep up with the lab reports (which are VERY time intensive), attend lecture, and the lecture will basically do the work for you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-23T14:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Blough', 'course': 'CHEM425', 'review': "Amazing professor. You dont need the textbook. Just attend lecture and take notes. exams are super straight forward. There's a curve. Our year an 84% was an A. Lab reports are the killer just make sure you see a Ta before submission. Start strong, thats the trick.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-18T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Blough', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'I did not find this class to be that hard. My basic chemistry knowledge from high school helped me out for the first couple of months and then we started going in depth. Blough just reads straight off the powerpoint slides. He is not really helpful as a professor. However, my TA (Chris Simms) was by far the best TA I ever had. Discussion sections are vital! GO TO THEM! It is very hard to depend on Blough when he rehearses the textbook verbatim. Overall, easy class, take good notes, and everything will go well. I even though CHEM 132(lab) was harder than CHEM 131, but thats a different story...', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-13T00:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Blough', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "This class was pretty simple and you don't need to do too much to do well. He's a good guy and cares about his students, but he isn't very engaging when it comes to lectures. However, going to lecture is worth it since he gives out extra credit through clicker questions. All of his powerpoints are straight from the book, and his tests are fairly easy if you just study and practice. Easy class!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-15T16:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Blough', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "Dr. Blough is alright. Nothing special. His tests aren't too bad if you know the material. The first test is mostly conceptual, and the 2nd and 3rd are all solving equations. He gives 20 extra credit points through clickers at the end of class. Make sure you go to class and do them. Overall, if you work you can get whatever grade you want. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-13T02:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Blough', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': 'Prof. Blough uses Powerpoint slides with examples (directly from the book). He went through the slides incredibly fast...you\'d be lucky if you could jot down one or two things on the slide. So he wasn\'t all that helpful in learning the material but basically if you can read the book, you\'re good to go. Honestly, I thought he was awful at teaching, but his exams were fairly easy and he gave "extra points" through clicker questions. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-10T21:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Blough', 'course': 'CHEM131', 'review': "There is nothing particularly good or bad about this professor. His lectures are not very engaging but informative and I found myself getting distracted. However, he posts all his presentations online so the only reason you would want to go to lecture is to get extra credit with the clicker questions which are abundant. The exams are not overly difficult. Just know your stuff and you're good. Just doing the homework is enough to get you through the exams. I'm not crazy about this class but I don't mind it at all and recommend it because it is easy with this professor. I cannot say much about his explanatory power becaue I never really listened to his lectures but I am getting an A which says a lot about the amount of effort you need to put into his class! :) Hope this helps!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-05T02:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Blough', 'course': 'CHEM277', 'review': "Dr. Blough is a great professor and I would recommend him! His lectures are clean and concise, and he always comes to class in a cheerful mood. He doesn't seem like much help during the semester which is typical for a lab course (277 is going to depend on your TA a LOT) and you'll feel like you have absolutely no idea what you're doing writing lab reports because you're just dropped into assignments once it starts. By the end, you will feel like you have learned a lot. The exams are very reasonable and similar to past exams, and most students did very well on his exams without curve. However, the lab reports were not so great since there was absolutely no guidance. There is no rubric published to students, but you are certainly graded on one. Ultimately, there was an insane curve (almost 10 points from where I was), but this lab took at least 20-25 hours a week between lab and the reports. 277 may be a 3 credit course but treat it like a 5 credit course. If you can take the class with Blough, I would recommend doing so.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-03T02:22:15.361605Z'}], 'name': 'Neil Blough', 'slug': 'blough'}, {'courses': ['ENGL738T', 'ENGL388T', 'ENGL388R', 'ENGL702', 'ENGL699'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Neil Fraistat', 'slug': 'fraistat'}, {'courses': ['ENEE313', 'ENEE307', 'ENEE704', 'ENEE614', 'ENEE488', 'ENEE313H', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE307', 'ENEE614', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE313H', 'ENEE304'], 'average_rating': 4.2222, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Neil Goldsman', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': "Goldsman is awesome! 307 is a pretty laidback class. There were labs due every two weeks, but if you work hard one week, you don't have to come the next week, which is nice if you have an 8 am lab. Lectures are pretty useful, even moreso than the 245 lectures, where Goldman basically reviews 303 stuff, so it is recommended you go if you don't have a grasp of the material. Midterm and final were pretty straightforward, he has review sessions and posts old exams. \n\r\nOverall a relatively pain-free class class, try to take him over Newcomb if you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-31T02:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Goldsman', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': "He seems like a cool guy, and he lectures at a reasonably pace at review sessions, but during the normal 50-min lectures, he tends to rush and go through material at a dizzying rate. His notes can become an incoherent scrawl and he tries to race through his notes and diagrams. He's also a bit touchy about students talking during his lectures.\n\r\nThe actual lab is pretty easy, and of course, depends mainly on how your TA is. Malfunctioning parts/breadboards/probes were an issue though. The midterm and final are straightforward, and basically test the same material as the posted practice exams. \n\r\nHis lectures vary in usefulness, especially since, due to lab scheduling, you may be covering topics in lecture that you've already encountered in the lab itself, but going to reviews is vital.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-27T19:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Goldsman', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': 'He is a good professor who knows how to teach this course. He explains the material well and his exams are straight forward. But he really need to pick up right TAs for this course. My TA graded lab reports not on the quality of work but his gradidng formula depended on if he liked the student or not. Other than that Prof. Goldsman is a very good teacher. Highly recommend him for ENEE307. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T15:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Goldsman', 'course': 'ENEE704', 'review': "I thought I understood microelectronic device physics but after taking this course, I realized my prior understanding was superficial. Goldsman is really good at conveying material in both a conceptual and detailed manner. He doesn't use any notes, yet his lectures stayed organized and focused, and he writes everything on the board so it was easy to follow him and still take good notes. The projects were challenging and time-consuming, but they were specifically designed to complement and apply the core material without redundancy. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-09-09T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Goldsman', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'I had goldsman for 307 and 313. He is pretty reasonable about moving things around and stuff if there are conflicting tests in other classes or anything like that. Sometimes it is hard to keep up in lecture because he makes a lot of little mistakes when writing things down (even while he explains them correctly) He does not speak in a cryptic way like out of a textbook and is not bad at explaining concepts. he makes an effort to learn peoples names that participate or whatever which is nice. Tests are not that bad, they are for the most part very straightforward and he doesnt try to trick you or anything. for 307 his lectures didnt keep up with the labs so i stopped going because he was lecturing on the stuff we had learned the week before, but hey. its a lab. its mostly on you to figure it all out anyways. it did help that i had an excellent TA for both 307 and 313. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-08T21:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Goldsman', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': "He definitely knows his stuff, but I never went to lectures enough to greatly benefit from them. Very often the lab equipment was faulty (shorted-out breadboards, wires, etc), but none of that was his fault. It was an OK class, but he is a harsh grader for a 2-credit course. At least he's not as bad as Peckerar.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-17T21:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Goldsman', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': 'Knows his material but takes forever to review labs in lecture.\n\r\nThe grading for the midterm was extremely harsh and the grading for the final is very similar. Averages hovered around the mid 40s.\n\r\nWhen these supposedly "trivial" midterms and finals add up to half your grade, and the material is difficult stuff to absolute memorize and master, there is an issue with the course management.\n\r\nThis is a 2-credit course for goodness sakes, how can half the class get Cs????? He grades on a bell curve, so so disastrous and unreasonable.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-15T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Goldsman', 'course': None, 'review': "Goldsman is super nice, know his stuff, and is good at teaching it. I retained almost nothing from 303, but his lab manual/textbook presents almost all of the same info from 303 in a much more concise and easier to understand way. The labs were online for F20 in SPICE which took some getting used to. The labs took a while to complete and people tended to fall behind. Genuinely don't know how people did them in person since building circuits in a simulation seems like it would take much less time. He got rid of exams and instead added one or two additional parts to the labs that were challenging but interesting. Overall, highly recommend taking 307 with Goldsman", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T04:09:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Goldsman', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'Goldsman is in general a solid teacher and a very nice guy. His homework and CAD assignments (while lengthy) helped with learning the material well. His exams were decently straightforward, without any confusing or gotcha questions. One gripe I had about the exams was that they were quite long, so I ended up taking up almost all of the allotted time. I appreciated that he got rid of the final exam this semester and made the final assignment a short MOSFET CAD assignment instead. \r\n\r\nHis handwriting is mostly readable, but gets worse over the course of the lecture as he begins to up the pace of his writing. And as others have noted, he sometimes says the correct thing while writing something else on the board. But he would generally fix it promptly if someone brought it up. The pacing of the lectures was mostly followable, but he would sometimes think that he was explaining things too slowly and try to speed things up. Not many people agreed that he was going too slowly, so we were able to keep his pacing manageable. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-15T21:30:13Z'}], 'name': 'Neil Goldsman', 'slug': 'goldsman'}, {'courses': ['GVPT100', 'GVPT241', 'GVPT170', 'GVPT479P', 'CPSN100', 'GVPT620'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Neil Lund', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': 'Such an easy class, basically APUSH pt 2. Dont buy the book lol and honestly dont show up', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-06T21:43:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Lund', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': 'easy class but damn, he moved the dates of every assignment and his TAs never knew what he was up to. Easy A though', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-11T17:18:13Z'}], 'name': 'Neil Lund', 'slug': 'lund'}, {'courses': ['ENCE625', 'ENCE666', 'ENCE604', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE666', 'ENCE604', 'ENCE625', 'ENCE625', 'ENCE666'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Neil Schulman', 'slug': 'schulman'}, {'courses': ['CMSC216', 'CMSC412', 'CMSC417', 'CMSC396H', 'CMSC216H', 'CMSC389L', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC389Q', 'CMSC389A'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Neil Spring', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I don't know about others. But I would definitely not recommend him to my friends. He teaches really fast and he just seems to be too smart to explain much things. May 216 is a very hard class but honestly I don't think Neil Spring did a good job lecturing. \r\nI got both A's in CMSC131 and CMSC132; but I found following Neil Spring in lecture very hard. I might do better in other professor's class. Reading books at home or going to TA's are a lot more helpful than sitting in his lecture and feeling awful for not following. \r\nThe worst part is, I don't even know what is it that I don't understand. \r\nChallenge yourself if you think you are a pretty smart guy and have experience with C and linux before. \r\nGood luck! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-11-21T23:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Spring', 'course': 'CMSC412', 'review': "Neil Spring is a pretty legit instructor. He clearly knows the material and the labs are actually quite helpful. The reason I'm giving him a 4/5 is because I strongly believe that the content of the class can really improve. We spent too much time learning synchronization primitives, and not a lot of time learning cool things like log-structured filesystems/networked filesystems, or the inner details of how a context switch actually takes place (something that I believe to be extremely important, yet this detail never really gets covered).\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-05-12T03:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Spring', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Neil is the best teacher I've had at UMD.\n\r\nI'll preface the rest of this by saying that I'm a pretty competent programmer, and pick up CS-related information quite quickly. For students like myself, Neil is the ideal professor. He really knows his stuff, and likes to do a lot of his teaching by working through code examples (he doesn't like the slideshows).\n\r\nFor those that aren't as familiar with the course content, I can see Neil getting a bit confusing. His way of jumping around on the terminal and in vi might be a bit to take in at first, but I think it gets easier as the semester goes on.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-01-01T22:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Spring', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Lecture:\r\nI honestly don't know how we are supposed to learn from a compsci lecture. Instead of paying attention during class I would just go through Dr. Spring's lecture file and if I was going at the same pace as him I could ask questions. Otherwise I would just figure things out by myself. It was nice that he allowed laptops during lecture. If you want to keep up with Spring during lecture you either have to be a genius, already know C really well, or study the lecture slides the night before (Note: Spring doesn't use lecture slides, but we had access to Nelson's lecture slides.) \n\r\nDiscussion:\r\nWas somewhat useful I guess. We had about five quizzes and two unannounced graded lab projects. The quizzes and lab projects were fairly easy. If we didn't have a project or quiz the TA would go over something useful for the current project. \n\r\nProjects:\r\nRange of difficulty on the projects. We had six projects and the most difficult one was probably the Shell project (#5 for my class). I was lazy about testing and would fail a couple of secret tests on the projects. The secret tests are much more in depth than they were in CMSC132. \n\r\nAssembly:\r\nThis class is on C and Assembly. I thought Assembly was fun and not that hard. If you are one of those people that rely on compilation and debugging to see if your code works you are going to have a hard time with assembly. My advice is just to go slow and keep very careful track of the registers. Debugging in Assembly is very hard, so your goal is to not have to debug. For our assembly project I wrote 2/3 files perfectly on the first try because I was VERY careful and coded very slowly. \n\r\nTests:\r\nThe first exam and the final were very hard multiple-multiple choice questions (like circle all correct answers, not just circle one letter). I think they made the 2nd and 3rd exam a little easier to account for the fact that the average on the first exam was like a 60%. They liked to make you code parts of the project on the exams to make sure you knew what you were doing on the project and that you weren't just guessing on the project. \n\r\nLast Remarks:\r\nI didn't treat this class with enough respect, which is why I got an A-. I didn't really study for the first exam and got a 63%. Studying before lecture (even just for 20 minutes) would have been very helpful.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-22T12:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Spring', 'course': None, 'review': "This was a new course, Ruby on Rails.\n\r\nHe does a good job, but class moves quickly. It seemed like most students got lost. I ended up doing most of my learning by working on the project, then asking Dr Spring how to do something.\n\r\nThe tests and homeworks can be confusing, and he doesn't post the correct answers for tests, so you may never know what you got wrong.\n\r\nOverall, it's a good course that will give you a huge advantage if you have to do web development in another class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-04-20T10:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Spring', 'course': 'CMSC412', 'review': "Now, Neil is a great guy and a somewhat competent teacher. His teaching style takes getting used to; he basically walks into class everyday, opens up VI and just types notes, which you are expected to copy down and know. If you take notes on paper, learn to do it by computer, or you will get crazy pissed when he hops all over the place modifying what he wrote. My personal suggestion is Microsoft OneNote. Of course, he posts the notes file online, so you don't really need to take notes, but I would advise you do so, particularly if you're not that familiar with the subject.\n\r\nHe involves the class by basically asking us questions and writing the answers in his VI file. He writes it very colloquially which is nice, but sometimes he uses really obnoxiously large, outmoded words (draconian, pathological etc.).\n\r\nThe way the lectures go will be entirely up to you and your classmates. In my case, my classmates were total geniuses. We have 1 guy who got a diploma from MIT, half the robotics team, and a bunch of other people who basically know everything there is to know about linux.\n\r\nThese people will be the bane of your existence if you are not one of them. They will side track the class, ask really convoluted and (in my opinion) irrelevant questions, and basically confuse the HELL out of you.\n\r\nIt is basically your job to slow these people down and make sure they don't get too many opportunities to derail the class.\n\r\nNeil also gives quizzes if someone's cell phone goes off in the class. So, study your notes every night basically. He also has a huge vocab sheet he posts at the beginning of the semester, with words that will be covered on his multiple choice exams.\n\r\nNow some of you may have seen me say multiple choice, and grinned happily; set aside that notion, Neil's exams are pretty damn bad. His questions are more tricks than tests of knowledge, there are several that can be interpreted to mean different things, and it's really anyone's guess as to what they truly ask. Other questions can sometimes reword the answers in such a way that even if you know what the answer is, finding them among the choices is tricky.\n\r\nThe projects in this course are pure hell for the most part with 1 or 2 exceptions. This isn't really Neil's fault, he delegated it all to his TA, who mismanaged time a fair amount (routinely showed lecture slides for projects 3 weeks before they were ASSIGNED).\n\r\nOverall, it's not easy to review this course, as I don't know if it's me, the TA, the professor, or the course itself that's the problem, but I do put in 40 ish hours a week for out of class work, and I have a C-.\n\r\nNeil is a fair guy though, so I am not too worried about failing/passing.\n\r\nIf you want an A in this class, and haven't been weaned on linux, then you will need to start reading the book weeks before the semester begins. Make sure you have flashcards ready from a previous semester on DAY ONE of the class.\n\r\nLook over previous semester's projects.\n\r\nThis class is more demanding than any other I have ever taken, and it's in no small part because of the disparity in intelligence of the individuals who take it.\n\r\nIt's going to be a tough, long, hard semester, but keep your head up, and prepare well, and you will get the grade you earn. If your time management sucks, however, prepare for a real shock to the system; this is one of the hardest courses offered at UMD, and you will find out why.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'BC', 'created': '2008-11-09T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Spring', 'course': 'CMSC216H', 'review': 'Really nice person, but fails to have an organized teaching strategy. I was often lost in his class, and many of my peers felt the same but he is really great if you have a ton of questions. He knows so much about C and has so many ideas about how to approach a problem it is really cool. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-17T22:44:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Spring', 'course': 'CMSC216H', 'review': 'He is a nice guy, and when I was confused over something dumb he took some time to help me get things right. \r\n\r\nClass seemed to be distracting. We were in the new building (IRB) in the room with several projectors on each side and it was easy to get distracted or tune out. \r\n\r\nSome of the code examples were a little bit wonky. I tried to run some in the earlier weeks and it was clear that they were made on his downright strange mac setup (who aliases "vi" to emacs??)\r\n\r\nIf you are good at programming then you will probably find this class easier than I did. I suffered through the assembly project, the shell project, and the optimization project.\r\n\r\nAdvice for future students: Make sure to check the submit server (mainly snow.cs.umd.edu) and gitlab test result output to make sure you are passing the tests. I lost 2.5 percent of my grade (the TOTAL grade) because the gitlab test aborted despite displaying a checkmark.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-05-12T19:25:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Neil Spring', 'course': 'CMSC216H', 'review': 'Positive:\r\nHe knows his stuff, and if you pay attention you’ll learn a lot. The TAs were really good at responding to students and clearing things up. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, and he’s a generally nice guy. There was a pretty good curve at the end of the semester.\r\n\r\nNegative:\r\nHe isn’t very prepared and he’s bad at responding to student questions. A lot of material on the exams is stuff he barely mentions in class, if at all. He is terrible with communication, and he had the wrong due date listed for almost every project. Project specifications are unclear.\r\n\r\nOverall:\r\nClass: 5/10\r\nTeaching: 4/10\r\nCommunication: 3/10\r\nExams: 3/10\r\nTAs: 8/10\r\nLearning: 8/10\r\nCurve: Almost a full letter grade\r\nAverage response time on Piazza: 10 minutes\r\nNeil’s motto: If it’s stupid and it works it’s not stupid.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-03T17:50:41Z'}], 'name': 'Neil Spring', 'slug': 'spring'}, {'courses': ['EDHI788J', 'EDHI713', 'EDHI605', 'EDHI710', 'EDHI608', 'EDHI788K', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI788'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nelly Stromquist', 'slug': 'stromquist'}, {'courses': ['CMSC132', 'CMSC106', 'CMSC216', 'INFM743', 'CMSC132H', 'INFM603', 'CMSC330', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC389K', 'CMSC389N', 'CMSC198R', 'CMSC389J', 'CMSC389P', 'CMSC133', 'CMSC335', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC133', 'CMSC335', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC335', 'CMSC198R', 'CMSC216', 'CMSC122', 'CMSC216', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC133', 'CMSC335'], 'average_rating': 4.1901, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson is a great guy! His personality is so nice and he\'s HILARIOUS in class. He makes it fun to learn and a lot easier to pay attention in class. I am a newbie to computer science so the class itself was a little difficult. Nelson is a good guy for people new to computer science because he will make your introduction to compsci very fun. \r\nThe first midterm for us was really easy and was just like the practice study guide they gave us. The second midterm was ridiculously difficult. It was impossible for anyone with no experience prior to have done well on that exam. Even people that were experienced were depressed after the exam. As for the final, it was a lot better. It wasn\'t too difficult like the first one but it was still challenging. Make sure to study a lot and go to all the discussions and lectures and to try to learn on your own time because class time is not enough. This class is tailored more for the experienced kids so being a newbie is quite the disadvantage. The whole "you don\'t need any experience prior" was one of the biggest lies I was told. Also be aware of cheating and copying other people\'s projects or even collaborating. There was a whole thing this year where the professors are going to prosecute those who cheated on projects which will result in an XF (failure and cheating mark) that will stay with you forever even if you retake the class. It\'s also better to do it on your own because you learn a lot more that way. \r\nBTW: TA hours are a HUGE mess. It\'s always packed in the TA office and you have to wait a long time for the TA to even come to you to help you. Kinda why I don\'t understand why the rules for even talking about the projects together are so strict, but can\'t really do anything about it. Don\'t show anyone your code and don\'t ask anyone for theirs. It\'s a serious issue.\r\nTIP: Do really well on the projects because those were the only things holding my grade up (as well as the quizzes). You can bomb the exams and still get a decent grade if you do extremely well on quizzes and projects. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-01-05T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Nelson is absolutely and unequivocally the worst instructor I have ever had the misfortune of taking a class with. He is decent at lecturing most of the time, but that is not too much of a merit, since he just reads off slides. I have asked questions both in class, and in office hours, and I have never received a satisfactory answer. For example, one time in class, he offered an opportunity for us to ask questions about the current project we were working on. When I asked a question, he told me my question was too complicated to understand, and instead of letting me clarify, he instead told me that he wouldn\'t answer my question, and would be moving on to the next topic. I decided to go to his office hours to try and clarify my question. However, he would not even let me finish my question before interrupting, and repeatedly telling me my confusion regarding the project was because I had not read the public tests (which is a solution not remotely related to my original question). He was very rude and discourteous the entire time I was in his office.\n\r\nHe uses Piazza (sort of like a forum), under the pretense of having TAs or fellow students being able to help answer questions regarding the class. However, he only uses Piazza as a way to avoid answering nuanced questions himself. This was quite obvious the other times I had attended his office hours, when he would simply tell me to ask my question to the TAs instead.\n\r\nAs noted in other reviews, he stops lecture to call out students unnecessarily for the most ridiculous things. Aside from it not being funny, it is quite embarrassing to be put on the spot like that.\n\r\nHe is able to still be popular among students because he makes frequent jokes all throughout class. While some of them can be funny, a lot of the jokes I find to be annoying. He jokes about marijuana, cocaine, drinking, etc., in order to project a "chill" image which the typical college student will find hysterical.\n\r\nTo summarize this review, Nelson has repeatedly proven he is rude, unable to answer questions that are nuanced, and desperate to be liked. Those genuinely are the three most dangerous traits an instructor can have, as he will find opportunities to belittle you throughout the semester if he knows you don\'t like him. Stay away from his class at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-30T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "People told me Nelson was awesome before I chose his class, but honestly I'm a little disappointed now. He jokes a lot during the lecture, with makes the class seems easy, but I just feel like I cannot really learn from him. Also I don't like him making fun of students in the lecture. \n\r\nI think his exams and quizzes are fair, but the projects are really hard. I personally won't recommend him. In my opinion, he might be a good guy but just an okay professor.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-12-02T02:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Nelson is a wonderfully funny professor who really values his students. I would certainly recommend that you take him, if possible, because he makes his classes very enjoyable. His exams can be fairly tricky, but if you study well you will be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-22T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "In my opinion, Nelson is a solid CS professor. I took 216 with him, and he made it a point to ensure us that it wasn't a weeder course. \n\r\nOnce you get around the accent, he's great at explaining the topics at hand. He keeps his lectures fairly lighthearted and relaxed, and he also has a sense of humor. He, along with his TAs, are stationed on Piazza to help students with any problems or concerns, and this is very convenient and helpful. \n\r\nProjects take longer to complete than those in 131 and 132, and starting early is essential. Quizzes and Exams are fair, and he provides a test bank from previous semesters. The final was challenging, so be prepared. \n\r\nRegarding the cons of a class with Nelson - he can be very annoying. The amount of times he will stop the lecture just to call out a student fooling around is just unnecessary and it also distracts everyone in the class. His humor also doesn't appeal to everyone. In addition, be prepared for your inbox to be flooded with his email updates on the course material. I once remember receiving six emails in a 15 minute span from him alone.\n\r\nOverall, he's a great CS prof, and the only professor I would take over him is Fawzi Emad. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-19T02:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Here's the thing with Nelson: he's a great guy and fun to be around, but sometimes that gets in the way of his teaching. He jokes a lot, which makes lecture interesting, but I feel as if I could've gotten a lot more out of 216 with someone else. His projects and quizzes are fair. The tests are fair too, although he likes to test very nit-picky, minor details that any normal person would just test out in a dummy program rather than memorize.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-15T12:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'I think he is an amazing professor. He is a pretty decent lecturer, but I think what makes him stand out is how receptive he is to student concerns. Every decision he makes is meant to help us succeed and have a better understanding of the material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-04T18:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "He's a pretty good professor.\n\r\nHis lectures are extremely boring and he sticks unfunny jokes in them, but all of the slides and recordings of his lectures were available online. I needed to start my projects right away because the last half of them were given back-to-back with little time to work on them and I couldn't get any help from TAs. If enough students were confused about some part of an assignment, he would explain it in detail during lectures, but individualized assistance was hard to find. He never gave any of the pop quizzes he threatened to give, but if he says that something will be on a test or quiz, it will be.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-09T21:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Nelson's class was very disappointing. The first half was challenging and interesting. The second half died for me. The projects were super simplistic but overly complicated with external obfuscation/unclear specification. He seemed to claim this was some kind of test of character or professional challenge. But it just made the last 1/3 of the course into a technically inadequate, stressful game.\n\r\nHe is funny but that's not why I'm in school. Nor am I in school to be stressed and have my character tested. There were way too many cheaters, collaborators and brown-nosers who had their strategies for getting their projects done, and they really benefitted in the second half of the course during the b.s. projects. The students who were doing their own work were then at a disadvantage. Meanwhile the technical quality of the material covered during that last 1/3 was very low.\n\r\ni'd rather have a less engaging, entertaining teacher and get a good education throughout the entire class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-08-23T16:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC330', 'review': "I've taken Nelson for CMSC216/CMSC330, and he has to be one of my favorite CS professors. He explains the material well and tries to keep it fun in the process. If you are deciding between Nelson and another professor for a CMSC class - do yourself a favor and take Nelson. You will learn a bunch and have fun in the process. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-19T21:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Great professor , absolutely hilarious. Very fair in terms of exams , quizzes , and projects. You can find everything in his lectureExamples if you are confused on any topic. Would highly recommend, best teacher i've so far in CS.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-04-29T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132H', 'review': "Great professor, awesome person.\n\r\nIf computer science is not your thing, this is the best professor you can have. He explains every concept thoroughly and tests you only on what he goes over in class. I'd highly recommend going to class because if you don't, the powerpoint slides will seem really disjointed and incoherent, but in class he explains everything.\r\nProjects are extremely reasonable and are very relevant to what you're doing in class. Quizzes mimic the worksheets he gives out. If you have a problem in the class, USE YOUR RESOURCES (professor, TAs) because they can immensely help.\r\nMakes some funny jokes that lighten the mood of his class, creating a very comfortable environment.\n\r\nThe only complaint is that the end of the semester is pretty rushed in terms of material. He goes over many design patterns, sorting techniques, and algorithm strategies very quickly, and you're expected to have a basic understanding of ALL of them on the final exam. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I thought Nelson was a really nice guy, but his lectures weren't really all that good. He makes the class easy tho, so if all you're worried about is your grade, you'll be fine. I recommend taking another instructor (Fawzi Emad or Evan Golub) if you really want to learn something.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-16T19:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "In all honesty, I don't know why everyone is praising Nelson. Maybe it is because they didn't have him for CMSC122. Seriously, don't take this class. It is just a bunch of unneeded stress. \n\r\nNelson is the first teacher that I've ever had that actually discouraged asking questions. I asked him reasonable questions during lecture and he not only didn't answer them, he makes an example of me in front of the class. \n\r\nHe also teaches the class as if it is a bunch of grad students or something. He goes super fast and will once in a while ask us if he is going to fast. When I told him he was, he proceeded to go at the same pace.\n\r\nHe is also very inaccessible. He often ignores emails or sends back nasty messages saying things that frankly, I don't understand. The TA's also don't show up to class so when you go into office hours (which also suck) you don't know who they are. \n\r\nI went to a lot of the lectures, but I found myself learning more from a friend in a 2 hour period than I did all year with him.\n\r\nI noticed that computer science is a thing that comes natural to some and not to others. If you are like me and know nothing, seriously reconsider taking this class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-15T18:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "He's a good professor and will take every single question you have. His jokes are hilarious the first few days, but then he starts to recycle and it gets old and awkward fast. Which is fine because he really does break down the material into manageable pieces for someone like me who has never done a bit of programming in my life.\n\r\nThere are quizzes but he tells you when they are. He threatens pop-quizzes sometimes because a few weeks in no one listens to him anymore because he moves on to miscellaneous and useless topics after JavaScript, but he never pulled it. \n\r\nMake sure to ask him questions in class though because once that clock strikes 1:50 (or whenever the class ends), he is outta there. Won't answer your questions and isn't helpful in office hours. Go to the TA's for that, and that's what he tells you. \n\r\nI'm taking this as a programming requirement for my math major so if you need one and want to do minimal work, take this course with Nelson.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-11T20:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I took CMSC132 during the summer and I say he's not a bad professor. Lecture material was kind of boring to me as a lot I already knew, but Nelson tried to connect it to real life examples.\n\r\nThe two things I didn't like were that he would make jokes time to time and he would pay too much attention to me. I got 100% on his pop quiz, so I was actually paying attention. I understand why he makes jokes, but I didn't come to class to listen to jokes. I came to learn about OOP. So whenever he did that, I would study something else.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-08-23T01:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': None, 'review': "Nelson was funny, but eventually it got really annoying, and was a waste of time. For a DCC class, this class was a lot of work, considering that most of us don't have programming experience. He's nice and helpful though, so if you enjoy a joker and comedian, Nelson might be the professor for you.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-19T16:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "This is by far the worst class at any level of education I have ever taken in my life. The syllabus did not describe the guidelines in the class at all. It just listed that there would be projects at some time during the semester but students were not informed of when projects were due until they were assigned. The professor also assigned a major assignment each week about halfway through the semester. I never had a break from this class. I was always either working on a project or studying for a test or quiz. I understand that there will be assignments, but I never had more work in any class of college so far and I have taken some 400-level classes.\n\r\nWhen I had questions about some of the assignments, I would go to both the professor and the TA's office hours. However, once I was there, I received no help. I was told to look over the powerpoint slides again and then turned away. My questions were not answered at all.\n\r\nThe lectures for this class were incredibly boring. The teaching style was horrible. At the beginning of the semester, Nelson said he did not care what students did during his class. Yet throughout the semester, he constantly called out students for talking, texting or typing on their computer. His lecture style was not engaging at all. It was so hard to focus and he did not gear the information at all to people who are not great with computers like myself. Whenever students asked questions, his answers were not helpful at all. \n\r\nWorst class ever. Do not take this if you are not great with computers and are not a computer science major.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-11T22:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson is a very engaging and fun teacher to have. He enjoys to teach and make jokes at the same time which is very entertaining. Even though he said in the beginning that he will teach like you never did programming before, I believe that is not true. Exams are not that difficult and projects are pretty fair, where as if the class is struggling to finish it, he will extend the deadline. Overall, I would recommend him as a teacher 100%. The TA does not explain the concepts pretty well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-05-03T10:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': None, 'review': 'I had Nelson for the first time in a winter course on PHP (cmsc389p). I loved the class. I highly recommend it. Some of the reviews here complained about Nelson\'s teaching in class, but the problems with these critics are that Nelson teaches such easy topics (CMSC131, CMSC132, CMSC122 for non majors, CMSC198 for non majors), and other ridiculously easy classes that he doesn\'t have to spend all of class lecturing "int x = 3;" and basic syntax to you. He\'s funny, approachable, and will be a great teacher as long as (in his words) "they pay me enough". Great guy. Sign up quick, because his classes tend to fill up.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-04T04:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': None, 'review': 'The first day he had me laughing so hard, i knew it was going to be a good semester. Hes really great at explaining tough concepts, extremely helpful if you go to his office hours, very patient with students who do not understand the material, and very funny. Its rare to have a teacher that can make the class laugh every single lecture. Awesome professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-07T17:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': None, 'review': "Great teacher. He is very straightforward and posts all the powerpoints used in lecture online. There are also weekly study sheets on the class website that I found helpful for our quizzes and tests. Nelson also cares about his students, and he is very good at communicating via e-mail and addressing student concerns. He's also a pretty funny guy, and will tell jokes to make class more interesting. Just pay attention, because if he sees you using your phone or going on facebook he will call you out on it in front of the whole class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-06T15:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': None, 'review': "Nelson is an excellent teacher for thsi class if you have programmed before. Otherwise, the pace of the class might be rather brisk. Sometimes he does not explain certain material, and asks you to go to his office hours, which apparently he doesn't give a shit about. On the bright side, he is an extremely funny guy, but he has his days, like some days he is 100% business, and other days he is just cracking jokes and you don't learn shit. He is very understanding in projects, and will give you extra time if you truly need it. Overall, an extremely friendly guy, but if you get sidetracked, he will pick on you in front of everybody.\n\r\nMy opinion? Take this dude, for whatever class he teaches.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-30T00:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Guy says he teaches the class as if none of the students have had programming experience before but that's so false ....... guy sits there and writes code and just gives little explanation. Majority of the class already had programming experience so they understood so the class was clearly catered toward them. Get Fawzi.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-25T12:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Nelson is a great teacher. He's very upbeat and likes to tell lots of really geeky jokes during class. He'll know if you're not paying attention and he'll call you out on it, but it's not a big deal. The class is certainly not an easy one. Make sure you have plenty of time to do the projects. Nelson is very accessible and always there to help.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-21T16:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Funny teacher whose ppt lectures are relatively more interesting. Just do not expect him to help you with any personal programming issues. Easy A. Point questions toward TA. Sometimes does not show up to classes for unknown reasons. Does not do anything he doesn't get paid for, I guess. If you have questions just be sure to ask during class so that he will actually give you an answer.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-20T20:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132H', 'review': 'Pretty easy class. Projects could get a bit tricky, but tests and quizzes were not a problem at all. Starting the projects early and getting them out of the way is a good idea.\n\r\nNelson was encouraging and helpful the few times I have approached him outside of class. As a teacher, he did a pretty good job explaining concepts. No complaints here.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-17T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Terrible professor. If you have a backround in programming you will be fine. But if you are taking the class because you are forced to take a programming class and are not a CMSC major and do not spead time programming "just for fun" you will be lost. And he is not helpful. Most of my conversations with him were as follows; I dont understand this....\r\nWell, we went over that in class.\r\nYes I remember, but I didnt understand it in class either. And I still dont understand it.\r\nWell why dont you understand it? I went over it in class.\r\nI know, but I dont understand it.\r\nOVER AND OVER AND OVER', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-13T12:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': None, 'review': 'I took CMSC198J over winter term with Nelson and absolutely loved it! He explained concepts very well and gave us a lot of time to practice programming while he was around to help us. This class was an excellent way to finish my Comp-Sci requirement, and the winter term set-up gave us a lot of face time with Nelson. He was very funny and very helpful and appreciated any student who actually made an effort to do the practice programming challenges. Some of the projects took a lot of time, but I found them fun--like solving a puzzle. \r\nNelson was an awesome professor and also wrote me a great review for study abroad. If you are a motivated student with a sense of humor, I highly recommend his class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-04-07T17:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'He likes to joke around a lot in class and its pretty funny at first but really gets old and annoying after about the first week. When asked a question in class, he\'ll most likely respond "come to my office hours" or "go to the TA office hours". Then when you go to his office hours, he gets irritated and tells you that he already went over it in class. He always emphasizes the fact that he cares about his students and wants to see them successful in class. I really question that...\n\r\nBest advice I can give you for this class is to start the homeworks and projects early and do take advantage of the TA office hours. They help out a lot. Also he posts practice quizzes and exams which are pretty good study material for the real thing. \n\r\nOh yea, and never go to his office hours asking about a project that is due soon. I went to ask a question about a project three days prior to the due date about a question the TA\'s couldn\'t even answer. He spent 10 minutes lecturing me about how "successful programmers" start projects early so that they aren\'t cramming to do it at the end. Then he told me to go to TA office hours...\n\r\nOverall not a hard class but don\'t expect too much out of Nelson. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-03T05:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'the only reason im giving nelson any stars at all is because he explains concepts pretty well during class. other than that, if you have to take 132 this semester, take it with fawzi. nelson wastes A LOT of time saying jokes that have NOTHING to do with class. he may seem funny at first, but when you really need help and he doesn\'t answer your question, it\'s not funny anymore. when people ask him questions, he either says "ask the TA", "we already went over that", or "come to my office hours". ive gone to his office hours and he just sends me back to the TAs. he also is not considerate of our time. he gave a project AND homework at the same time (homeworks are like mini projects). i also agree with the person below me about EVERYTHING they mentioned.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-24T13:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "i lot of people liked him. but to me he was very annoying and got on my nerves. he tries too hard to be funny, and most of the time isn't funny at all. he also says he does not care if u don't pay attention in class as long as you don't disrupt the class. but he himself disrupts the class every 5 min to yell/joke at some kid for not paying attention when the student wasn't even disrupting the class", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-19T14:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': None, 'review': 'This is probably the hardest I have ever worked for an "elective" course, but I really did enjoy the class. It says it is for beginners but Nelson covers a lot of difficult material. I had background in some web programming so I did alright, but the people without any experience seemed to struggle. I would take it over again just for him, he\'s worth coming to class! If nothing else, even if I was so behind I wanted to cry, Nelson made class interesting and fun.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-10-27T17:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Awesome guy. I've had better teachers, but Nelson keeps class interesting with his jokes, and the way he ran his class really helped me to get a solid grip on the material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-17T18:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I took him a few years back, he is pretty good at teaching, but goes overboard with the jokes every now and then to a point where you feel kind of embarrassed and annoyed. Some days he is on the money with his comedy show, but some days I really felt like telling him to stfu.\n\r\nThe only other complaint was that he rushed the end of the semester pretty hard, so make sure you stay on top of the material. During the last week he made us memorize details for dozens of design patterns which were all on the final.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-05-12T19:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Quite simply, Nelson is among the best professors UMD has to offer. His class is immensely interesting, he is very funny, and he is a fair grader. The work isn't very hard, but if it is, he is very helpful. No complaints.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-12-16T22:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I actually took class with Nelson in Fall 2006, but felt that he was such a good teacher he deserved a review now that this site is up. Nelson is an excellent teacher that keeps his students laughing, which keeps the material interesting. Take every class he teaches!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-04T01:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Nelson is a good teacher. Like everyone has said he tells jokes during class to keep the boring subject material interesting. He also does a good job explaining the projects. I got an A in his class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-15T21:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I took 132 with Nelson a few semesters ago, but I did want to mention that he is a great teacher. He keeps class interesting, always cracking jokes and telling stories. My only complaint is that sometimes I was in the mood to just learn what I needed to and leave, and sometimes the jokes were a little too much. Other than that, I learned a lot and had a bit of fun, too. Got an A in his class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-06T18:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Nelson is one of the best professors I have had at Maryland. He always keeps his lectures interesting with jokes and stories. He also is great at teaching the material so it's easy to understand. His projects take some time, but he gives a great explanation of exactly what you need to do. Definitely try to take your CS classes with Nelson (everyone calls him by his first name).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-11T00:09:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Nelson is a great professor. He tells jokes to make class interesting. Some may find this distracting however. I took him for 132 and 216. He's a really nice guy.\r\n\r\nThe projects are difficult but they can be rewarding.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-11-19T18:12:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Good personality with a great sense of humor but that’s about it. Complaints: \r\n+ His project descriptions do not flow well at all. They often have grammatical errors and information seems to be scattered all over the place, making projects very intimidating for beginners. Explanations do not make much sense at all unless you’re proficient with programming. Instructions for projects are simply horrible to say the least. Either too much info scattered throughout or too little. You’ll spend a lot of time trying to figure out what exactly it is you have to do, unless you’re already good at coding. \r\n+ His lectures are all over the place. Every minute, he interrupts himself to tell someone to stop talking (even if they weren’t talking). For us beginners, it doesn’t help that he keeps doing that. He should just focus on his presentation and teach us the lectures without interruption. \r\nIf you’re good at coding, take his class. He’s funny and makes class fun. But if you’re new to coding, be careful. His projects will give you constant headaches, and you’ll waste a ton of time trying to make sense of the project briefings. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-11-19T22:33:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': None, 'review': 'His project descriptions are full of grammatically errors and make absolutely no sense at all. \r\n\r\nEvery single minute of his lectures, he interrupts himself to tell someone to stop talking even if they aren’t talking. This makes it difficult for us beginners to focus on what he’s saying since he keeps on interrupting himself mid sentence. \r\nIf you’re good at coding, sure, take his class. He’s funny and makes a ton of jokes. \r\nBut if you’re a beginner, beware. His inability to teach the content in an easy-to-understand way, coupled with his convoluted project descriptions, will give you headaches and nightmares. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-11-19T22:38:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "First CS professor I've had and seems to be one of my favorite professors so far. CS material can be really confusing but Nelson uses simple analogies to make sure his students understand what's going on. Really engaging as well, both inside and outside the classroom. If you have the chance to take him, do so. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-19T22:55:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Easy to follow.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-11-20T00:10:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Amazing professor! Keeps the class entertaining while teaching the material in a well paced manner. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-11-26T05:27:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC389N', 'review': "This is my third time having Nelson as my CS professor (I had him for cmsc131 and cmsc216), and he's growing on me. He makes so many weird/painful jokes in class which makes it difficult for me to focus, but also keeps me awake so that's good haha.\r\n\r\nCMSC389N was an alright elective. Midterms were easy as hell and the final probably will be too, but there's a ton of written code required. We had a group project where we had to use php/html, javascript, and bootstrap and that was actually pretty neat and a good group learning experience.\r\n\r\nThis is a great class for anyone looking to get into php/javascript and web app platforms, or databases. I ended up despising web dev this semester, but it was a good experience to learn some php/html, JS/JQuery, and SQL in case I have to use it in the future... plus Nelson is a laugh, haha. Good luck!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-14T19:02:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC389N', 'review': 'Amazing', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-25T18:37:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'The worst thing about Nelson is that his jokes get really old.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-30T20:09:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC389N', 'review': 'Currently in his 389N class now but this is my third straight spring semester with him as a teacher. Had him two years ago in 132, and last year in 216. So this review will cover all those classes.\r\n\r\n132: First time having a class with him and my god he was crazy funny and just all around cool. People don\'t like him because of his jokes but he does that because he believes that students can only focus for a short period of time and need to take a small break before focusing on the lecture again. I find this VERY effective! He is a really effective teacher. I got a C in 131, barely survived, and when I took Nelson for 132, I had a whole new understanding of the material that was way more invaluable from studying java the previous semester. First time taking his exams at this time as well and he basically makes his real ones the same flavor as the practice exams (because they\'re all old exams). Naturally he makes the final harder and a little more different but it can be done. 132 was my favorite semester at UMD and nelson was a HUGE part of it. Made me happy to be a CS Major.\r\n\r\n216: Ok so i had to retake after fucking it up the semester before with Herman. Most of what I said about 132 can be repeated here as well. Old exams follow the same style as the ones he gives you. The projects, yes are daunting and make you stress a little bit but with a little tenacity it can be done. he made 216 a lot easier for me after Herman ruined it for me. \r\n\r\n389N: It\'s my most favorite class of the semester. Despite the time its taught in the mornings any class with Nelson is a blast and this class is his "child" so to speak. It\'s web dev which is right up my alley and his passion as well. The first exam was really really (and i mean really) easy. And the projects i can finish in a matter of 2-3 days depending on how much time i spend on them. Unless Nelson offers more classes or teaches more in the upper levels this will most likely be my last semester with him as a teacher :( It was well worth it all three times. He makes you proud to be a CS major.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-03-27T05:22:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC389N', 'review': "He's a very funny professor who actually provides a good CS course. His projects are very reasonable, and he even gives code example to help with the projects. Tests are very easy, you just have to practice his old exams that he provides. I never got lower than a B- taking 3 of his classes. CMSC131, CMSC132, CMSC389N.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:04:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC389N', 'review': "This guy is basically your favorite high school teacher as a UMD professor.\r\n\r\nReally, really good dude. If you ever have any problems while you're taking his class, you can go to his office hours and talk to him about it and he will do his best to work through those issues with you. He seriously, legitimately, actually cares about his students, which is something you don't see very often.\r\n\r\nAs much as I'm tempted to give him a 5 star review, I can't just because he's not a great lecturer. He's funny in class, but he gets a little off-topic and distracted a lot, so a lot of what you learn from him, you have to learn from his slides outside of class. He makes this super easy though, because his slides are great and he records all his lectures on panopto, so you can go back over things if you missed something.\r\n\r\nAll in all, he's one of my favorite professors I've had here and if you get a chance to take a class with him, do it. You won't be disappointed as long as you actually take the time to talk to him and get to know him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-23T15:01:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'He is not a very effective lecturer, as I end up teaching most of the material to myself outside of class. He gets distracted very easily and will look to call anyone out that is talking to their neighbor or on their phone, even if they are not bothering anyone. This ends up being a distraction to the entire class and I find it hard to focus or take him seriously. \r\nHe posts lecture slides that are very helpful and they reflect the content that will be on the exams. He is a fair teacher but I do not enjoy going to lecture. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-13T03:43:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "My only prior experience to CS was Programming 1 my senior year of HS, and all those topics were covered within the first two weeks of CMSC131 so everything was fairly new. \r\n\r\nNelson is an incredible professor! He makes the lecturers funny and engages with his students. He really cares for his students and extends projects when he sees fit. Sometimes there are 1 point assignments to boost your grade a little. His lectures are posted online but I highly recommend going to class and then going home to rewatch the lecture and taking notes. I did this for the final exam and scored really high that I wished I did this throughout the semester so that I wouldn't have been crying about the projects. Projects are hard but people are willing to help!! His exams and quizzes are no surprise if you studied and dedicate time for the materials.\r\n\r\nI ended up with an A- in the class with the small curve. I highly recommend Nelson!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-19T22:24:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Good teacher, exams can be vague. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-22T17:03:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He is funny and makes lecture interesting, but attendance isn't mandatory and he records lectures. The exams were sometimes difficult but practice exams were released. He responds to student concerns (changed the release tokens from 24 to 12 hours) and is fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-24T05:14:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Funny guy who will engage you with his demeanor and slides. If you have been doing well in 131 and 132 you should expect to do well as long as you put in the work for projects.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-01-24T15:32:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Don't know why a lot of people hate on Nelson. He's an awesome professor and I thought he explained things to beginner programming students very well compared to other 131 professors. I had experience in Java before coming in, so I didn't have to study as much I guess. I would recommend Nelson over Herman any day. He does make some weird jokes here and there, but if you have at least a little sense of humor, the 75-minute lectures fly by.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-02-28T15:01:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132H', 'review': 'Great professor. Funny and covers the material well. Class is hard though.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-04-06T16:00:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Lived up to the hype. Great and engaging lecturer who cares about his students (overused some jokes, though). Other reviews mention grammatical errors in project specifications, but this was not my experience. Receptive to student concerns.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-11T14:56:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Great professor. I was lucky enough to have him for both CMSC132 and CMSC216. Straightforward exams, great sense of humor. Encourages the making of memes on Piazza. Very approachable', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-12T23:00:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "He is really great at engaging the majority of students but I tended to find his jokes to be childish and distracting. I didn't always feel welcome in his lectures. He had a routine where he would repeatedly pretend to interrupt students while they asked a question, and I found this to be disrespectful. Well-intentioned but lacking execution. His exams and grading are fair, and he gave a decent curve.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-20T05:23:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Great exams/projects, seems to care about his students. I found myself distracted in lecture a bit by his lecture style, since he tends to go back and forth between topics. Because of this, I think Pedram might be better at conveying the information we needed to learn', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-26T23:04:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Nelson is a really good professor who explains things very well and gives you the resources you need to do well in the class (lecture videos, old exams, discussion questions). His lectures are also entertaining which is something that I miss now that I no longer have him. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-10-21T04:19:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Amazing amazing amazing. Best CS professor in the department honestly. He cares so much about his students, actually understands that we might be going through stuff and offers help. He cares. If you tell me your favorite professor is Fawzi, then I'll know you never experienced having Nelson. Sure, the class is hard. But Nelson gives you a really strong foundation, and motivates you to do the comp sci major. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-10-24T03:21:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "He's Nelson... enough said", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-11-27T20:24:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Perfect, approachable, answers questions, funny, and commands classroom ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-04T20:38:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Took him in Summer 2019. The best!!! Such positive energy and lighthearted jokes to break up the content :) Loved the way he taught the class, so now I'm about to TA for the first time for 216 (not for Nelson tho :(((( )", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-01-10T21:04:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Take nelson.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-29T02:12:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Amazing professor! Had him freshmen year fall seamster and it was a great way to begin at UMD. He cares about his students and gives them every possible tool needed to succeed. His lectures are super fun and entertaining, and projects and exams are all definitely fair. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-06T16:43:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "This class was very hard but I feel like Nelson made it bearable. He's very funny and keeps you engaged in the material. I didn't really study for the first half of the class so I didn't do so well early on but later on I payed more attention to his lectures and was able to do much better.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2020-03-07T20:06:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Great guy', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-17T20:01:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I'm an international student. My native language is not English. And I have to say, if you don't have any background on coding or if you are not an English native speaker, DO NOT TAKE Nelson because he has a thick Spanish accent. It sounds like he was shooting a machine gun. DADADADADA. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-05-18T05:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is a funny guy who makes a lot of jokes, but I didn't really learn that much from him. I wish I had taken the course with the other instructor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-10-28T19:30:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "This man knows how to keep the class engaged, and he's absolutely hilarious. Projects and exams are kind of difficult though, so make sure to really get the material down.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-12T17:37:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Hardest thing ive ever done in my life. It started soooo slow but then it got extremely hard extremely fast and ruthless after learning about objects. Nelson is cool but not for this class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2020-11-20T00:34:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "He's good at explaining concepts. It is a bit distracting when he talks to his students in the recordings (class was asynchronous so we only watched recordings of previous lectures), but it helps with having a mini break in between. His accent is a bit challenging at times, so do not rely on the auto-generated captions. Open to help on Piazza and usually assigns enough time for projects, but you will most likely be directed to a TA for help. He gives lots of time to complete quizzes.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-01T19:23:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson does a great job of making a potentially boring class, extremely fun. He explains the concepts well and adds in humor to make it bearable. This class is a lot of work, of course, but here are a lot of ways to get help if you need it. I am going to take his classes as many times as I possibly can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-12-27T15:25:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Nelson is a kind professor who will help you navigate your programming career and learning how to learn. He is decent at teaching and makes the class enjoyable. Do not be fooled by his jokes, if this is the first time that you are learning JAVA, be prepared to work hard in this class, the kids who took JAVA is high school will make it harder for you to get a good grade. I would take Nelson over Yoon for sure. Overall, if you can't get Fawzi(hard exams) then you will be ok with Nelson (he is big on giving your old exams and other resources).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-01-03T23:49:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "This is an inherently hard class but Nelson tries his best to make sure everyone is on pace. Office hours are a big help for for this class. The projects are challenging but if you've learned Java before it shouldn't be a big problem. Nelson's lectures/slides are very helpful and he usually does not test on contents he didn't teach. He also really cares about his students' mental health.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-21T00:17:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'One of the best CS professors out there. Yes the class is difficult but Nelson tried to make the material as understandable as possible. \r\nBut halfway through the semester the course feels like it suddenly sped up, so you need to stay on your game the whole time or you will get overwhelmed by new material fast.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-23T13:53:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'All in all an amazing instructor. He is funny, engaging, and gives easy exams and quizzes. I learned a lot from this CMSC132 class when I took him back in Fall 2019. Excellent choice to take. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-07-02T18:52:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Definitely one of the best professors at UMD especially because of how easy and fun he makes the lectures. He is the only professor that I have this semester whose class just seems to effortless and fun. Nelson seems more like a friend than a teacher - a great quality for someone looking to be mentored.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-19T03:12:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Just finishing up the semester and had to give Nelson a review. Out of my 3 semesters here, he’s easily one of the best professors I’ve ever had.\r\n\r\nNot only is he hilarious, but he also keeps his lectures engaging, and really tries to get his students to understand what is going on. I have had no actual prior programming experience before coming into this class, and I was able to pick up on concepts really easily, especially with all the examples he hands out. The projects definitely get challenging near the end, but you have plenty of time to finish them and the TA’s can be very helpful. This is not the easiest class, and it definitely has a decent workload, but it was overall enjoyable and a great start towards a computer science degree. Also: HE RECORDS LECTURES! It’s really useful. Fawzi doesn’t to my knowledge.\r\n\r\nSome of these 1 star reviews are upsetting me so here’s what I have to say:\r\n- His accent is so slight that you can understand everything he is saying just fine, and his occasional grammatical errors are not at all confusing, just read over the sentence again.\r\n- While this class does get harder as it goes along, as long as you pay attention a good 80% of the time and keep with the work, there is no way you would be able to call this class impossible.\r\n- As far as CMSC131 and CMSC132 go, I have heard that Nelson is one of the easier professors.\r\n- He definitely does more than read his slides. He shows several examples of code for each topic\r\n- He isn’t a big fan of when people talk loudly in his class, but he’s cool about it. I talked with my friend everyday in that class at a low volume and he didn’t mind at all.\r\n- He will ask you to clarify your questions if he doesn’t understand, so be sure to be clear about your issues. The TA’s will help you if he can’t.\r\n\r\nI highly recommend if you want to go into CS, take Nelson.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-08T00:22:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is clearly a super caring guy. He acknowledges the difficulty of CS and wants everyone to do well. His lectures are also great and he keeps you engaged with jokes and stories. Some people complain that the jokes and stories are a distraction, but they made me more engaged. Just make sure you don't blank out during lectures as you can miss important info. Projects and exams can be tricky, so make sure you are on top of everything. I came in with coding experience so I was fine, but I saw a ton of my friends really struggle.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-09T18:29:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Okay, so Nelson is a very nice guy, and if you ask for an extension on a project he normally gives it to you but tbh he isn't a good professor. I would not recommend this class to anyone who hasn't taken any programming classes before. This class is super fast-paced and if you fall behind you'll be lost. This class is extremely hard, the tests are what most people fail at because of how hard he makes them. He gives you previous exams to practice but the questions he asks on the exam are totally different. I am talking about studying for 4 days straight and still failing kinda hard. On one exam everyone did bad on and he still didn't curve it or find a way to help us out because of how badly it affected our grades. The projects aren't totally awful until you get near the end of the semester, I would say you are working on a project every day of the week through the semester. But most people do better on the projects than on the exams and that's what helps your grade. There are certain TA's that aren't really much help and it's so difficult to make a meeting with a TA for no reason. I have never seen so many people struggle with one class until I took CMSC131. I really don't recommend this class to anyone and if I could go back in time and not take this class I would. This class ruined my first semester of freshman year. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-10T06:19:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "IF YOU HAVE NEVER CODED THIS CLASS IS HARDD!!!!\r\n\r\nAdvice for Class:\r\nThere is no way around it, this class is difficult for those with no prior experience or who it doesn't come naturally. Nelson is a decent teacher, but be prepared that he moves really fast. \r\nYour first 2-3 weeks of semester should just be spent constantly coding small tasks to get familiar with java and eclipse. It will help so much. Also watch YouTube vids to try to get ahead. The tests are hard as well so prepare early to write your code instead of type. The previous tests he gives as examples are ALWAYS much easier then actual test, so know / understand them like the back of your hand. The projects help you learn the most because they take HOURS. I would have the expectation that each one will take at least 8 hours. start them as soon as they are released and bounce ideas of friends as much as you can. DO NOT CHEAT OR SHOW CODE to others. the TAs will notice if you copy. Just explain what you did and how in words and you should be okay. Use your peers as support in this class because it is easy to get stuck. \r\n\r\nNelson review:\r\nHe is good teacher will slight accent and decent humor. overall is nice and down to earth(insists you call him nelson). His lectures are not the most organized and he tends to bounce around which can be confusing. Luckily you can watch them back and try to understand. He is relatively accessible in office hours, but tends to come off as an overpowering personality in person. I suspect this is because he lectures groups more then teaches individuals. I also think he knows this and try's to improve(only somewhat successful). I am trying to take him next semester for 132. He is defiantly not perfect, but he is far better then some other shit teachers at UMD. \r\n\r\nPs. People tend to vary in their liking of him because of how much they enjoy his humor in lectures. \r\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-12T21:45:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I've never taken a coding class in my life, but I just tried to understand some basics of Java over the summer. However, I didn't really get that far. I was really stressed about taking CMSC131, in fact, I was constantly asking people at UMD how difficult it was for a newbie programmer to adjust to the class before I came here. CMSC131 will take a lot of work and time management, but it is do-able, especially if you have Nelson. He's a great teacher who cares for his students and is willing to be accommodating towards them (deadline extensions, cancellations of quizzes, etc.). He gives you all of the resources you need to do well in his class. I haven't taken the final yet, but so far, I believe that every test and project we've been given has been fair. He is a example-based lecturer and it works perfectly with my style of learning, but make sure this style fits you if you want to take him.\r\nThat said, you will only do well in this class without any previous experience if you are willing to put in the effort. Start projects early and go to TA office hours to clear concepts up. Spend a few days studying for each midterm and make sure to do all the practice exams that you are given. Reach out for help using the free I4C tutoring service or talk directly to Nelson. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-13T15:48:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is awesome, I swear he is the ideal professor for students who have no CS experience, especially those who are worried about jumping into CS without an understanding of what the major really is. Nelson creates a great environment with humor and takes time to reassure you that CS is not as intimidating as people make it to be. While you do need to be willing to put in the work, he is the most accommodating and patient instructor I've had because he really does care about his students needs. I will definitely be trying my best to take as many classes with the instructor in the future! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-13T16:53:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is a goofball for real - \r\nMy first ever programming class, and I learned a ton, and ended with a good, fair grade. I could find Nelson to be irritating though, if I don't understand a topic, he tends to joke a lot. But he made the class fun, projects were fair (most the time), and the workload was not too bad. \r\nIssues: Spelling/grammar mistakes in project descriptions, discussions being useless", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-14T23:59:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "He is a great professor in the sense that he is funny and tries to keep the class engaged. However, he goes relatively fast throughout the material and it is easy to get lost through the semester. He doesn't give us students enough time to reflect on the material and understand and just keeps going. A lot of the times when I went in for office hours or asked him questions after class, he makes me feel stupid and acts in a way that gives off the vibe that I should already know this. At times he wouldn't even answer the question I had. I have to say though, he is very generous with deadlines and is willing to extend if people request it. He doesn't curve.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T00:25:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson is a great professor, he tries to keep lectures interesting with jokes and takes small breaks every 10 minutes for the class to ask each other questions or just talk. He is good at keeping everyone interacting with each other and encourages people to talk and get to know each other. However, the course, in general, is very difficult, if you have not taken any Computer science courses before, this course is very challenging. I know people who have barely passed this class as they have had no experience, and since this class is fast-paced it is really hard to keep learning new material while also doing the projects. I would really recommend coming in with some level of experience and looking over material that is covered in this class before taking this course.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T17:49:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': None, 'review': "Nelson is a great professor who I'd really recommend for your first ever CS class. \r\n\r\nHe goes through the material throughly and provides plenty of examples during lectures to help you see the actual effect of the concept he is teaching.\r\n\r\nHowever, if you want to do well in this course, please please please start your projects early so that you have more time to submit and seek help from TAs during office hours(He also constantly emphasizes this point).\r\n\r\nUse the lecture slides to study and you'll do fine on the tests.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-21T01:43:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Context: Programmed in Java through an intro to java course in HS as well as APCS A (Not principles).\r\n\r\nHonestly, if given the choice between Fawzi and Nelson, I would recommend you take Nelson. BE PREPARED to spend time outside of class learning, digesting, and applying the information taught in class as I felt like Nelson was quick with the material during the lecture. Sources like Alex Lee or w3schools really helped me out when I was lost within the material. Especially with me coming in with prior knowledge of Java and programming, this course definitely challenges you in a good way. Be sure to manage your time well, start your projects early, and always ask questions. If you have no experience programming before, you're going to have to spend a lot of time reviewing and learning the material for the first time as it's a lot, especially with the pace. I believe my grade within the class was fair, as I know I could've applied myself more to fully understand the material. This class should be on your higher level of priority (The same level/effort as MATH140 for me at least). In the end, I learned a lot from Nelson and do not regret taking the class with him.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n- Recorded Lectures\r\n- Lectures, programs, and in-class notes are always posted online\r\n- Provides sample exams/quizzes for students to prepare for prior to midterms/finals.\r\n- Allows you to have your laptop out during class (NOTE: I have heard that Fawzi does NOT allow laptops out during class).\r\n- Always understanding/flexible with scheduling conflicts --> not afraid to move assignment/test deadlines further when asked\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Can be fast with the material he goes through\r\n- (Did not bother/affect me at all) Has a slight accent\r\n- (To some people this might be a con) Brief moments during class to reflect what was learned to classmates + ask questions\r\n- Sometimes he can joke around too much to the point where it'll take away from the class time (Did not annoy me, a review from someone earlier mentioned this and I also believe it's true).\r\n- Does not use Canvas. Nelson uses his own website for posting projects details, slides, sample programs, etc...\r\n- (Not a con for me) Uses Piazza for class announcements + addressing student questions/concerns/memes (yes there is a meme folder for the class, pretty dope).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-21T23:16:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is great!!! If you're the type of person to get kind of bored during boring old slide lectures then he's good for you! He relies on examples in the lecture and a few small concepts from the slides. He gives us one-minute breaks in between heavy topics/examples so that we can discuss it with our neighbors, which I find really helpful in keeping everyone interactive and actually paying attention esp in a morning class. His exams are doable as long as you do the past exams/practice he gives which is really helpful. His third exam; however, was overly long and challenging compared to his others so it tanked a lot of people's grades, but he just released grades and seemed to have provided a better cutoff to benefit (f.e. some A grades were considered A+ and so on), so as long as you put the work in you should be golden in terms of your grade (it's not meant to be challenging to get an A or B). Also, his projects are definitely on the challenging side sometimes especially later in the year with Recursion and the class implementations, but if you study his class lecture code and ask for help during office hours (always go early otherwise you probably won't get a chance if it's close to the project deadline). Overall, he explains things effectively for the most part and I'd recommend reading some notes on the topics before coming into class on the first day just so you have a good idea of what coding in Java is about and you aren't bombarded too fast! He does not curve, but his grades are pretty fair. I really enjoyed his class and it's insane to me how much I learned in just three months! I totally recommend Nelson", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-22T00:39:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'public static void main(String[] args) {\r\n/*\r\nNelson is a great professor. He is really laid back, chill, and constantly makes jokes and finds interesting ways to keep students engaged. This was my first time coding in Java and Nelson made it very straight forward and doable.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n- Nelson is a very funny and likable guy. On the first day of classes he will tell you that he always wants you to call him by his first name which I found interesting.\r\n- He is very good at making analogies between programming and more understandable topics. For example, he would make an analogy between a bakery and objects in java. This makes it really easy to understand his teaching, even for first time programmers like me.\r\n- His lecture slides are much more detailed than Fawsi\'s (from what I have heard)\r\n- His exams are very much like the previous exams. As long as you study those, and the additional resources that Nelson provides, you will be more than fine on the exams.\r\n- Occasionally during every lecture, Nelson likes to say "1 minute" which indicates that we can talk to our neighbor for a minute and digest the information that he just lectured about. I found this useful and made the class less fast paced— gave me time to breathe while learning new information. After this minute break, he opens the floor for a few questions before returning to his lecture.\r\n- Nelson uploads the code for every class example and provides many many resources to ensure you do well on the projects and exams.\r\n- Grading for exams is honestly pretty lenient. Because all the midterms include hand-written coding, it is easy to miss the small nuances that come with programming but the TAs that grade your tests know this. Often times when you look at the grading break down, you are given points on a segment of code just for "ATTEMPTING to _______"\r\n- Very accommodating in regards to extending deadlines for things. He even encourages that the class speaks up if we need an extension.\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- His funny personality sometimes gets in the way of the actual teaching. Yes it does lighten up the mood but often he will stop mid sentence just to pop in a joke. Additionally, some of his comedy is offensive or will get stale. For example, he once made a statement to the guys in the class about how they should not feel bad if a girl rejects them. He then goes on with his joke and says that girls are like "instance variables" and how the guys should just "pick another one" if one doesn\'t work. If you know anything about Java, you will know that he basically just called women "objects". I didn\'t think too much about this but I can see why some people would find his humor offensive. He also always makes the joke "turn to your neighbor and tell them they are a (insert random java terminology)" which literally makes no sense and gets old after the first couple times.\r\n- The third midterm was a nightmare. In the past, there have only been two midterms and the third was only added a couple years ago. This means that there is little study material and the worst part is that the second and third midterm are only 2 weeks apart since they kind of just shoved it into the curriculum. The class average for midterms is usually pretty high but dropped to a D average for this midterm. Nelson did adjust the letter grade cut offs for final grades because of this though.\r\n- Projects become very challenging towards the end of the semester. This is obviously necessary to challenge students but sometimes they are impossible to figure out without a TA.\r\n- Frankly, sometimes it is difficult to understand his accent and it leaves you to think more about what words he is saying in the first place rather than the actual content within his sentences.\r\n\r\nOverall, I think Nelson is the better option for CMSC131. He is very knowledgable and it is clear that he comes prepared for class with examples to explain complex ideas to new programmers. Just beware of his random remarks. It is clear that he is looking for validation and wants to be liked by his students so he makes jokes on topics that students our age would find "funny". If you can get past the cringe factor, this class will great.\r\n*/\r\nSystem.out.println("Chose Nelson!");\r\n}', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-24T01:29:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is a cool professor. I will try to create a pros and cons table for you, the reader, to understand my mind.\r\n\r\n[PROS]\r\n- He's funny.\r\n- Does not require attendance, so you can watch his lecture videos on Canvas. \r\n- Projects are fun.\r\n- He's nice.\r\n[CONS]\r\n- Sometimes the jokes get annoying, especially when you're trying to learn. As stated in other comments, he will sometimes just say jokes randomly (which can be funny at times), but as the days went by the jokes became old.\r\n- You really gotta pay attention if you don't know the material and talk to TAs constantly if you don't know anything. If anything, the TAs are more helpful than Nelson himself.\r\n- As anecdotal evidence, he created a 3rd exam (in the past there were only 2) which covered a bunch of topics. I went to the exam review and the TA told us not to review this one topic. Next thing you know that topic is on the exam!!! I heard that half of the class did POORLY on that exam (including me). I went from a B to a C overnight. \r\n- Projects are fun but require a ton of logic. I had to use external sources to find out topics that I did not understand.\r\n- Exams and quizzes are done on PAPER. You really have to know Java word by word or you are dead. For slow writers, good luck because you only have about 20-40 minutes to do about 3-4 methods.\r\n\r\n[CONCLUSION]\r\nIf you do not know Java, LEARN IT prior to taking this class. If you do not have ANY knowledge, you are screwed. Gladly I had some coding knowledge that helped me in the long run. Learn how to code and how to write it. Overall, great class but annoying coursework.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-05T04:21:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I think Nelson was a rather good professor, and a good lecturer. He often made jokes and gave people breaks. I must say however, some of the jokes were directed at students (Madison, if you're seeing this, I hope the U.S.S. Nelson didn't hit too hard). If you left class early, he would begin to fake cry, which admittedly was funny, but if you need to leave the class early then just expect that. He would also repeatedly tell people to be quiet, which had interrupted class a fair bit. I also felt some of the multiple choice on the tests were a little random, but other than that, he was really good. He did provide a lot of extensions (which helped a ton of people), and ended up curving the class because of one of the exams having a low average. Take him if you need breaks during lecture, want some extensions, or generally just want a funny professor to laugh with. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-07T12:50:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson does his best to keep the lectures entertaining and tries to adjust deadlines whenever possible. It's a bit hard reaching out to him or his TA for help, but the website he uses along with other instructors takes up most of that. In general you'll be all good if you took a Computer Science that covered the basics beforehand, including the ones in high school. If you're coming to this class with no prior knowledge, you might find yourself lost at some times, as he starts his lectures with the assumption that you already know the basics. You will have a project almost every week, with rising difficulty, so it is highly recommended you start your work as soon as possible. Submitting your projects last minute is difficult, since the website can go down from how many people are doing the same. There is almost no flexibility once the deadline passes, and the late penalty hits hard. Study when you should, don't hesitate to go to office hours, and don't be afraid to reach out for help, as it will be difficult to recover once you fall behind. Don't be afraid to ask for anything, since if it's possible he can push deadlines back by a week, but don't rely on it, since procrastination does hit hard in this class. Otherwise, taking the course with him isn't all too bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-12T00:06:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is one of the best cs teachers. period. If you have the option to take him, take him. He makes the course super easy to get through and he's super funny.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-02-02T03:04:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is good professor, with entertaining lectures that are relatively easy to follow. While CMSC131 is not the most beginner-friendly introductory course, that isn't really a knock on Nelson. He wasn't the most accessible for help at times, but that was the only complaint I had. Overall, still a good professor who I'd take again. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-02T17:44:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Nelson is simply fantastic! Super passionate, engaging, and offers so many resources for students to be successful! His exams are also very fair, especially if they're online. Best instructor for computer science at UMD by a mile. Had him for CMSC133 too.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-21T20:21:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Great professor likes to tell a lot of jokes. Class is easy if taken in high school if not make sure you prepare before you take it. Nelson is a great lecturer also was very helpful by giving online resources such as videos of him lecturing. Also great for freshman cares about his students and wants them to adjust to college.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-05T19:47:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I like Nelson a lot, I had him for 131, just took him for 132, and am planning on taking 216 with him. \r\nYes he can get carried away sometimes with messing around, but he teaches you absolutely everything that you need to know for projects/quizzes/exams.\r\nEveryone I've ever met who doesn't like Nelson has just been lazy and didn't care to understand what he was saying.\r\nGreat fun guy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-07T20:00:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Nelson is a super funny guy, and he really cares about preparing his students for the future. Very helpful in office hours. In addition to teaching material very efficiently and being very responsive to feedback, Nelson will teach you to advocate for yourself, a skill that is useful for the rest of your life. He is very specific about how to prepare for exams and projects and provides many resources. Amazing professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-09T20:37:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'The nicest, most understanding teacher. His classes are entertaining and he really makes an effort to get to know his students (even in a huge lecture). He presents the information clearly and the tests are very fair. The projects take time but he preps his TAs really well to help. Not an easy class, AT ALL, but Nelson goes above and beyond for his students. Also has very good slides and all classes are recorded (he posts the slides before class and the recordings the second class ends). ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-16T16:31:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC335', 'review': 'Nelson made this course easy, and he knew it. Absolute king. I went to lecture, but you could easily get away without ever watching lecture. A lot of stuff you can find on the internet or in the lecture examples. I was a bit worried about this course because I found his 131/132 courses to be tricky at times (especially with exams), but Nelson kept this course very straightforward and minimized exam difficulty. I have nothing bad to say about this course except for the fact that I wish it provided more depth on practical skills. We only got into Node towards the end. However, part of what made this course easy was the lack of depth so yk... But yeah, def a chill elective with a wonderful prof!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-21T14:59:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "This class was alright. Nelson's projects are not well-written in my opinion, and it's hard to understand what is actually wanted us to do. Sometimes, it's also hard to understand where to begin the projects, but that's different for everyone of course. Nelson made the exams pretty easy though, especially the final exam. He's also responsive through Piazza and understood if we needed deadlines pushed back for projects, so I most definitely appreciated that. Discussions are alright, but they are definitely not necessary to attend. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-31T02:27:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Genuinely a wonderful person. You can tell that he really cares about his students and wants everyone to succeed. The course itself was pretty easy, although Nelson didn't go too in depth into the particulars of most topics, just focused on an overview and how to do things without too many details. That's not my favorite way of learning information (jumping right into looking at code), but the exams and projects were fairly straightforward. I always felt like I knew what to do and like I could get help whenever I needed it. He records every class, which makes it easy to do well even if you can't make it to every lecture or discussion.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-03T12:16:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'I’ve taken CMSC131 and 132 with him and he is great. His lectures are good paired with great slides(and are recorded!), cares about students (if you ask him for extensions he will most likely give it if majority needs it), and makes the class enjoyable. He can be annoying sometimes(calling out people a lot) or fooling around, but if you don’t care about that he’s a pretty good lecturer. He gives you past quizzes and exams so you know what to expect on the midterms/quizzes (not including finals though). His code examples are really good to refer to for projects in 216. In my opinion, if 216 is the only class you’re taking in the summer you shouldn’t be too worried about the projects and exams. Just start early on the projects and do all of the practice he gives you for the exams. If you do that and try, you will at least pass with a B. If you’re willing to get ahead in the summer, I would say go for it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-06T07:10:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "216 is the only course at UMD that I've taken so far, and it was great. Nelson was awesome, it sucks a bit that the class size was ~120 students, but that's UMD I guess. This class was very fast paced during the summer but Nelson made it manageable.\r\n+ He's funny\r\n+ He's dad\r\n+ He's nice", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-08-09T20:27:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "This guy is the GOAT. He gives practice exams that closely mimic the exam you will be taking. The multiple choice is almost identical and the coding is very similar to the lecture examples and much easier than the projects. The projects are tricky though so make sure to start them early. Lectures are easy to understand and his jokes make class enjoyable. If you don't have an internship in the summerI highly recommend taking this class as he makes this difficult course so much easier. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-13T18:52:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'This dude is amazing', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-17T22:45:01.628543Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson is funny, smart, understanding, and super helpful. He is not the traditional college professor in that he really seems to care about each of our success in a deep and person way. He is super nice and gives great advice to be successful in CMSC and life in general. I would recommend this professor to anyone taking any class which he teaches. He is great so I would take him, if you have the chance.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-31T14:28:01.679573Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is an amazing professor. His lectures are very detailed and he keeps his audience engaged which is super important. He is honestly one of the most understanding professors i've ever seen as he is flexible, helpful, and will always be fair when grading. He is also super funny which helps me stay engaged in the class and genuinely want to go to office hours and every lecture. TAKE HIM if you get the chance, you will not regret it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-07T15:48:49.013455Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC335', 'review': "I am taking this course during the fall of 2022.\r\nNelson is the GOAT. Genuinely an amazing lecturer and an even better person. I wish he taught more upper-level classes so that I can take more classes with him.\r\nAlways keeps the class engaged by making funny jokes.\r\nAmazing teaching skills, he discusses a topic and then immediately shows an example.\r\nRecords lecture and immediately posts them. Attendance is not required unless it's exam day\r\nExams are extremely fair, nothing scary.\r\nProjects are not super challenging but do not wait till the last minute to implement them.\r\n\r\n\r\nAMAZING PROFESSOR MUST TAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-17T00:09:06.997413Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson is extremely student-friendly for a class that can be very challenging for beginners. He records all his lectures which is a life saver for so many. He also gives out plenty of extensions for projects and is very supportive throughout them. He is excellent and, in my opinion, a must-take for any beginner coder like myself. A very engaging, energetic, helpful, detailed, and hard-working professor that I will make sure to take whenever possible.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-01T22:47:33.052064Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Man, do I love this guy. Absolutely love him. His project descriptions are very slightly confusing at times, but you have Piazza, other students, and the TAs to clarify the descriptions. His lectures are recorded (and Nelson talks about this very often) so if you\'re feeling sick, you don\'t have to come to lecture. Honestly, because he records the lectures, you don\'t REALLY have to come to class... but I went anyway even though it was in the morning because I was absolutely stoked about his lectures. He has a nice sense of humor and he tries to take advantage of that "hip professor" image, which I guess he\'s doing well. That could be why his jokes might get a bit old by the end of semester and possibly might tick you in the wrong direction, but he\'s a nice guy. Very lenient for makeups and extensions AS LONG AS you have a valid excuse! Get familiar with him and he might call you out during lectures but it\'s good to befriend a prof. Oh and Nelson is very good at teaching. When he introduces a new topic, he makes funny descriptions and connects the material to prior knowledge so that beginner students can understand them quicker. Will be taking CMSC132 with him next semester!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-04T00:16:20.356939Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is one of the most understanding professors I have ever met in my life. Maybe it's because he's a POC, but he just gets us. He understands that we are poor, so he doesn't make us get a textbook (everything is recorded/on slides). There are endless examples of concepts. He is EXTREMELY lenient on project extensions and teaches us how to negotiate deadlines. You will not get the full experience with Nelson unless you sit in the front and ask questions. Otherwise, you'll just sit in the back and roll your eyes over how many times he cracks a joke. Paying attention in lecture was extremely difficult for me because I sat in the back and was not engaged.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-09T05:28:19.209049Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC335', 'review': 'Epic class, Epic professor. Everything is set up so perfectly. Attendance is optional. All resources in one place, reasonable exams and projects. Take this course if it all fits your plans.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-12T02:30:02.268252Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I really liked Nelsons personality because he was funny, caring, and understanding. However, I can't say I enjoyed the lectures. At the beginning I was fine because he makes lectures fun, but I got more tired of his endless banter as the semester dragged on. He interacts A LOT with students, which made lectures very distracting and hard to follow along with. Most of the lectures I went to, I found myself not paying attention because he would go off on long tangents about unrelated things. He is a very easy professor though. Keep in mind, I had taken Comp Sci A AP in high school so I understood most of the concepts, but all of the projects were manageable (and in my opinion easy). His exams weren't necessarily easy for everyone, but I never got below a C on any of the 3 midterms even though I never studied (once again, I had already learned most of the topics that were covered in class, so I'm sure people who have never taken a comp sci class had a much different experience than me). Also, he reused a lot of multiple choice questions from his past midterms. I suspect the final exam was also written by him, because the multiple choice questions were very similar if not the same as some of the questions on past midterms. I finished the final exam with about 45 minutes left, so it was extremely doable. I won't be taking him next semester because I've heard Fawzi prepares you better for future comp sci classes and is a better lecturer (and a harder professor), but if you're looking for someone easy, I would take Nelson.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-17T19:20:07.790537Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson is really funny. And he records his lectures. And he records his lectures.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T19:55:22.994578Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC133', 'review': 'Fair course, faster paced 131', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-20T04:43:47.085752Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC335', 'review': 'Nice person and good professor overall.\r\nThis lectures were good and his projects were fair.\r\nHe understands how stressful college can be and trys to accommodate.\r\n\r\nOnly complate is that sometimes his exams material we have just learned and his review guides have a lot of topics which never actually get tested.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-20T14:19:43.727451Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson is so funny and knows what he is doing.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T16:22:24.793146Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'The course is structured well, and Nelson is an honest and caring professor. There\'s a discussion board where one can ask whatever questions they have 24/7, lectures are recorded and posted; the exams and quizzes are fair, especially due to Nelson\'s explicit listing of what will be on the exam; and later in the semester, Nelson establishes two deadlines for projects, making it easier for students to pace themselves so they may complete projects in time. His lectures are great too, and he allows for "turn and talks", which can be beneficial to many. My only gripe is that Nelson would frequently go off course, which may be a huge problem to some who simply wish for instructional content only: in my case, it was a slight issue. Aside from such, his projects aren\'t as graphically appealing as other professors who teach 131 (like Fawzi), and instructions may be unclear at times. That being said, usage of the discussion board is highly recommended. Additionally, Nelson is fair with extensions on projects classwide, if you ask, so don\'t be shy — sit in the front! He\'s lovely.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-21T14:10:01.007214Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "He explains things easily, he records his lectures, his exams are easy. Overall great professor and he's way easier than Fawzi.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T20:45:00.504326Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Nelson is decent, but I do feel like he could be better. There's a website called Piazza where students can ask and answer questions, and TAs and Nelson himself are active on there too, posting announcements and answering questions. This is definitely helpful when you're working on a project and confused on wording, for instance. All lectures and discussions are recorded and available on Canvas, so if you ever miss a day or want to go back on a concept discussed in a lecture or discussion, you can always do so. The projects really weren't hard, but that might not be true for others because I have previous programming experience and many others in the class do not. Just make sure to start them early and get them done with; I usually finished projects a day or two after they were released so I could focus on other classes. That being said, I do feel like his exams were frustrating. If you misinterpret what a question is asking (you can't ask a TA or Nelson on wording either; they won't and can't really help you on that without giving you hints on it) you will lose points, even if you knew the answer to another interpretation of a question. However, I do feel like the content itself on the exams were very fair, and he did give information on possible content the exams would have. His final is pretty easy as long as you go over previous midterms and finals. The thing that annoyed me the most were lectures, because while Nelson joked around and gave us time to talk to our classmates, he spent a lot of time off-track and I felt like this could have been better used to teach us concepts from 132 and above. He does give you knowledge that you will see or need to understand later (such as memory maps, and you will need to understand how memory in a program works in 216), but I feel like he could have done more in this regard. Lectures were genuinely boring for me; I tried following what he was showing us at the start of the semester, but began to work on other assignments or projects for other classes and multitask while he was lecturing later in the semester. If I didn't do this, I genuinely dozed off.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-23T17:12:44.808528Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': '"Nelson = best teacher" has become something of its own myth at UMD. From all of these reviews you can see that he has many rabid fans. \r\n\r\nEffectively, this is a man who is SICK AND TIRED of teaching CMSC131. He gives off comments such as "I will be teaching this class till retirement" and "well, the paycheck keeps coming and that\'s what matters". \r\n\r\nNelson also has an awful way of communicating. He sends massive email blasts, often multiple times every single day. These are weirdly formatted and read like strange tweets, and often completely irrelevant. I wish he would actually put some thought into the emails he bombards his 800 students with. \r\n\r\nSure, he replies to emails and you can go to his office hours. But you will never meet with him for more than a few minutes.\r\n\r\nOne day he suddenly decided that all TA office hours would be cut short and go online. His reasoning was this: \r\n\r\n"I was walking along that building at night, when I suddenly felt this urge: I want to MUG somebody! That was when I decided that this place was too dangerous for my TAs."\r\n\r\nDuring lecture, he CONSTANTLY gets distracted, cracks lame jokes, and picks on you. It is actually better to just watch his lecture recordings. because he edits out all the wasted time. \r\n\r\nDespite his nonsense, Nelson is very lenient with project extensions and make-up exams. Apparently his exams are easier than Fauzi\'s as well. Maybe I will choose him solely based off of this fact next semester, because now I know that I should never attend lecture anyways.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-23T20:04:58.840660Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson is fair with his grading and is funny. Although he does not curve and his class is fast-paced, he is understanding, provides review for midterms through previous exams, and he records his lectures.\r\n\r\nGood professor', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-24T00:31:04.094342Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Awesome dude, taking him again for 132', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-26T03:22:16.530390Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC335', 'review': "Nelson is very understanding and lenient on due dates. Highly recommend the course. Low stress while still getting a background in web dev.\r\nDoesn't require coming to class and records all lectures", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-27T18:31:44.181013Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Absolute sweetheart, funny, and caring. Despite having hundreds of students, he makes sure to memorize people’s names during lecture and interacts with students in a way that keeps lecture lighthearted and easy to feel comfortable in. He has an interesting way of pacing his lectures- it may seem that his pauses to allow for individual discussion and jokes cut the total amount of material learned, but it doesn’t. He is still a lecturer that can teach you a lot about java while also making it digestible and not overwhelming, especially for someone like me with zero prior coding experience. His humor is wonderful and him allowing us to talk to other students at certain points of his lecture makes the material that may seem daunting at first much more manageable. His exams are fair and he gives out many practice exams that you can do to succeed. I only got a B because I slacked off in the middle of the semester- with Nelson, as long as you attend lecture and engage in the content, you will absolutely succeed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-31T07:43:36.959759Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'I think it\'s a myth that he is one of the best professors. I am switching to Fawzi next semester. For simplicity I will make a pro and con list \r\nPros\r\n- Website is easy to navigate. \r\n- Projects, once you get the hang of them after the first few, are easy and the single most helpful thing for my learning\r\n- At surface level seems a nice, personable man\r\n- Gives extensions for projects easily\r\n- Him and TAs responsive on Piazza\r\n\r\nCons\r\n- Overall, not a good lecturer: Disorganized, hard to follow examples. Even the pauses during lectures, half the time when we were supposed to discuss what he just told us, the people around would just look at each other and talk about something else because no one could pay attention long enough to understand what he said. \r\n - To follow up on that, he claimed that "I get about 20 minutes of your undivided attention per lecture, the rest is filler and jokes". I have other professors who were able to capture everyone\'s attention the entire time. He\'s just unable to keep attention because he is all over the place. He tries to make up for this and get our attention with jokes, which I will address. \r\n- The jokes were funny at first but got boring and just seems to be pandering and trying to get our attention, which he couldn\'t. \r\n- The exams are graded pretty harshly, and some of the material on the multiple choice questions was never specifically addressed in class.\r\n- My TA was awful and unhelpful in answering questions, which didn\'t help. I hope you\'re luckier in this regard.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-05T02:28:46.218778Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson is a really great professor. He keeps lectures fun and engaging and explains challenging concepts really well. His quizzes and exams are not super difficult (they’re pretty much identical to the sample exams so as long as you study those you should be fine). TA office hours ran pretty much 9-5 weekdays so it’s easy to get help. Some of the projects were challenging and they definitely require the full amount of time to work on them so don’t procrastinate! I think this class would be more difficult for someone without CS experience but still definitely doable as long as you start work early and get help when you need it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-10T02:20:40.244560Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Nelson was a great professor imo. He brought humor to lecture, although I barely went and just watched recordings. Discussions arent mandatory so I only went to one discussion session which had a quiz. The midterms were easy and were basically clones of the past midterms which he gives you to study off of. Projects werent that bad I just recommend starting them when they are released. Most of the projects were very to the example code shown in the lecture or on the class site with a bit more complexity to it. I fortunately had some prior java experience so I was fine with following the topics, but I do think without experience it could seem pretty fast for some people.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-13T04:44:59.941569Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC133', 'review': "This class is basically cmsc131 but you just meet less. I don't think it was a particularly easy course but I would say it was fair. As an average student, I did have to spend some time in office hours. Do not start the projects late. Nelson was a really kind and helpful professor for this and even extended some deadlines for us when we requested him to do so. Overall, you should be ok if you put in effort in this class", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-15T08:49:00.038458Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC335', 'review': 'You need to take this class an elective with Nelson.\r\n\r\nNelson is the best. Period.\r\n\r\nThere are 3 tests and he gives you a test from the previous year that is basically the same thing, with different numbers.\r\n\r\nThe projects are all super easy and straight-forward, while also making you learn the topic. He also gave extensions for almost every project which was always a nice surpise.\r\n\r\nI wish we spend less time on html in the beginning and spend more time with React/Angular, but overall, great class and great teacher.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-24T18:27:11.583532Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Annoying as hell. Makes stupid jokes during the class and is not good at explaining.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-27T20:50:21.063694Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Had Nelson for CMSC 131 in fall 2022 and he's the best CS professor I've ever had. Like it's not even close. He genuinely cares about his students and will do just about anything to help you succeed. I ended up doing horribly on the second midterm and when I emailed him asking for help, he told me to meet him in his office hours. I went there and the man spent over 30 minutes with me going over my entire test in detail like what I got wrong and how to avoid falling into the traps I fell into going forward (which helped big time). His lecture slides and in-class code were very helpful and enabled me to finish the projects in a timely manner. He would dig deep into different complex methods and better explain them using analogies which I also found very helpful. The projects can be challenging but are doable if you don't procrastinate and start on time. He's also very understanding and will grant extensions if necessary. Exams are a mixed bag but for the most part, if you complete the practice exams he provides, you should be fine. If there is one complaint I have about his class, it has to be the amount of unnecessary stoppages that eventually start to get pretty annoying (like a student may not be paying attention and if Nelson notices, he'll stop lecturing for a few moments and press him/her on the spot) and the sometimes corny jokes he'd blurt out during lecture. Despite this, I overlooked all of this and quite frankly didn't really care at all because I was gaining a lot out of his class despite the fact that I had prior coding experience.\r\n\r\nAll this being said, if you have the opportunity to take 131 (or any other class) with Nelson, DO IT! You won't regret it. He is very friendly and shows that he cares about his students. He will give you the necessary resources to do well in his class and he's perfect if people who have little or no coding experience.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-02-01T03:08:38.862150Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC335', 'review': "Nelson is the chillest professor. He understands students needs and teaches important material. This class was very easy though. Projects are mostly changing things from the examples he has in class. The tests are a lot of info to memorize but I found that it wasn't graded so harshly.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-06T15:26:06.609552Z'}, {'professor': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'He is a funny teacher, but he gets off topic way too much. If you are looking for an easy grade, this is a good professor, but he is not that good of a teacher.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-06T19:17:15.576197Z'}], 'name': 'Nelson Padua-Perez', 'slug': 'padua-perez'}, {'courses': ['HONR218T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nelson Pressley', 'slug': 'pressley'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Neruh Ramirez', 'slug': 'ramirez_neruh'}, {'courses': ['BUSI662', 'BUSM600', 'BUMO796', 'BUSM758W', 'BUMO758B', 'BUSM758L', 'BUSO702', 'BUSO703', 'BUSI758N', 'BUSI602', 'BUSM771', 'BUSO702', 'BUSO600', 'BUSM771', 'BUSO703', 'BUSI758Q', 'BUSO600'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Neta Moye', 'slug': 'moye'}, {'courses': ['EXST018B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ni Meggers', 'slug': 'meggers'}, {'courses': ['ENGL390', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nicholas Bujak', 'slug': 'bujak'}, {'courses': ['JOUR479D', 'JOUR479V', 'JOUR779D', 'JOUR779V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nicholas Diakopoulos', 'slug': 'diakopoulos'}, {'courses': ['COMM382', 'COMM400', 'COMM385', 'COMM478', 'COMM683'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nicholas Joyce', 'slug': 'joyce_nicholas'}, {'courses': ['ECON300', 'ECON398I', 'ECON490', 'ECON471', 'ECON463', 'ECON396', 'ECON326', 'ECON398D'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nicholas Montgomery', 'course': 'ECON490', 'review': 'Professor Montgomery knows how to teach. Not only does he make class interesting and ties in the relevant required readings, but he provides substantial out-of-classroom learning opportunities. He cares about academic honesty more about harsh grades, which really promotes active learning and encourages further study beyond the scope of the course. He tied in theory and models to real life cities and easily kept students engaged. The course is not a walk-in-the-park, but if you put in the expected effort you will definitely get your expected grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-01-02T00:00:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicholas Montgomery', 'course': 'ECON490', 'review': 'Very happy to discuss with students outside of class and eager to let you know how to improve. Always talk to him before submitting something as he is happy to look over first drafts and provide feedback -- this will practically guarantee you an A with him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-02T01:40:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicholas Montgomery', 'course': 'ECON463', 'review': 'hard grader will report you to the student code of conduct for one un-cite source from a paper. Worst professor I have ever met. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2020-03-27T20:20:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicholas Montgomery', 'course': 'ECON490', 'review': "I LOVED THIS CLASS! Not only was Professor Montgomery the best econ professor I've had so far, but I thought the content was very interesting and relevant. I still find ways to connect my life to the topics I learned in this class. His main assignment (a photo project) does a really good job of making you think about your own life experiences from an urban economic standpoint. As long as you show up to class, and show that you care about what you're learning about and not BSing the assignments, you will get a good grade! Overall a nice professor who cares about teaching.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-16T03:30:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicholas Montgomery', 'course': None, 'review': 'will report to the osc for little things', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-01T03:40:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicholas Montgomery', 'course': 'ECON326', 'review': "ECON326 is much easier than ECON325. It is more math heavy and not as theory based relative to ECON325. Montgomery does a great job covering the concepts and math behind various topics. The homework is relatively easy but does take some time to complete. The quizzes and exams are representative of examples done in class and from the homework. Montgomery also provides an enormous amount of practice problems for the exams so you are sufficiently prepared. The class is also curved so don't be alarmed if averages are low for quizzes or exams. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-13T23:56:41Z'}], 'name': 'Nicholas Montgomery', 'slug': 'montgomery_nicholas'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nicholas Richardson', 'slug': 'richardson_nicholas'}, {'courses': ['GEOL460', 'GEOL446', 'GEOL341', 'GEOL488', 'GEOL688', 'GEOL100', 'GEOL457', 'GEOL657', 'GEOL460', 'GEOL100', 'GEOL457', 'GEOL657', 'GEOL460'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nicholas Schmerr', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': 'He is a passionate professor and loves what he teaches, but sometimes the lecture outline gets confusing. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-03T23:51:27Z'}], 'name': 'Nicholas Schmerr', 'slug': 'schmerr'}, {'courses': ['BUAC780', 'BMGT818R', 'BMGT818D', 'BMGT313', 'BUAC743', 'BUSM758C', 'BUAC707', 'BMGT313F', 'BUSI700'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nicholas Seybert', 'course': 'BMGT313', 'review': "Seybert's great. He's incredibly laid-back and very accommodating to his students. He's young and a Smith grad so he's pretty good about making things relevant and relatable.\n\r\nGrade is two tests and a project. The project is not as difficult as he makes it seem, but don't leave it to the last second because if you mess something up it can take forever to figure out what it is. \n\r\nFirst test was pretty hard but had a considerable curve. Second test was easy.\n\r\nTests are about 10 multiple choice and then like 3-5 calculation-based problems. They are very true to his PowerPoints and the practice problems he posts - you will not be surprised so it is easy to prepare.\n\r\nOverall, a good experience with him. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-19T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicholas Seybert', 'course': 'BMGT313F', 'review': "Seybert was a very good professor. He provided notes at all of his lectures, which was good. He was a pretty good lecturer and kept the students interested in the class.\r\nThe course consisted of 2 exams and a final stock pitch project. The exams are not too hard if you go to class. The stock pitch was pretty tricky too because it's hard to get all of the forecasting models to match up.\r\nOverall, this was a good class and Seybert is a good professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T21:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicholas Seybert', 'course': 'BMGT313F', 'review': 'amazing professor, really organized, answers emails promptly, explains material very well overall amazing professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-11-19T00:15:39Z'}], 'name': 'Nicholas Seybert', 'slug': 'seybert'}, {'courses': ['MUSC220', 'MUSC648', 'MUSC204', 'MUSC679C', 'MUSC438E', 'MUSC633'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nicholas Tochka', 'slug': 'tochka'}, {'courses': ['BMGT463', 'BMGT364', 'BMGT391', 'BMGT468Q', 'BMGT490H', 'BUMO767', 'BUSM798Q', 'BMGT364H', 'BUMO758K', 'BMGT438C', 'BMGT364N', 'ENES490H', 'BMGT498K', 'BMGT364M', 'BMGT495M', 'BUSM798R', 'BUSO600', 'BUSM708', 'BUSI758Q', 'BUSO702', 'BUSI758R', 'BUSO703', 'BMGT600', 'BUSM600', 'BUSM758Z', 'BMGT364M', 'BMGT364N', 'BMGT758Q', 'BUSM798Q', 'BUSO702', 'BMGT364M', 'BMGT364N', 'BMGT395', 'BMGT600', 'BUSI758Q', 'BUSM600', 'BUSO600', 'BMGT395', 'BMGT758Q', 'BUSM758Z', 'BUSM798Q', 'BUSO702', 'BMGT395', 'BUSI758R', 'BUSO703', 'BUSI758Q', 'BMGT395', 'BUSM600'], 'average_rating': 4.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nicole Coomber', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'Coomber is pretty cool. The class is kind of boring but that is not her fault. She made a three-hour night class pretty fun and interactive so I give her credit for that. She loves to hang out with students as well. She bought us pizza on the night of the election while we watched the results. She is fun and she cares about all of her students. Its too bad 364 has so many sections and teachers so it has to be so standardized.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-20T12:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Coomber', 'course': 'BMGT364M', 'review': "She is a very nice teacher however didnt teach for this class. We only met once a week and she barely did any lectures. we ended up doing very useless group/team activities that never seemed to have a point. this class is required for business minors so you have to take it but Dr. Coomber isn't the worst. the exams are tricky and not as straight forward as you want, so do the other assignments. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-05-14T16:03:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Coomber', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': "I loved this class! It was different than the other classes offered at Smith. Nicole's activities and lectures don't seem to line up with the course material; however, if you read the book you will realize that the stories she tells align well with the concepts we are learning. She is also very understanding of student needs.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-24T00:24:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Coomber', 'course': 'BMGT364M', 'review': 'I had Professor Coomber for BMGT364M and she was very accommodating. During the pandemic, she made the course a lot easier for students, which was very nice of her. Although it felt like the class had a lot of busy work, it was not that difficult.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T05:30:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Coomber', 'course': 'BMGT364', 'review': 'Shes the best! very accomodating, class is super straight forward she makes it very interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-20T15:57:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Coomber', 'course': 'BMGT364M', 'review': 'She is a really sweet professor and is super accommodating, but there are some assignments that are not very useful and feel like time-pass activities. there is a decent amount of group work and activities so hopefully, you get a good group but she gives you time to make sure your group gells well and is understanding if there are problems. the class is required for gen business minors so it does not really matter but it is a decent class overall. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T23:39:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Coomber', 'course': 'BMGT395', 'review': 'Use the website and do questions. Easy A and it takes 2-3hrs a week.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-23T23:32:17.783969Z'}], 'name': 'Nicole Coomber', 'slug': 'coomber'}, {'courses': ['BCHM671', 'BCHM669X', 'BCHM461', 'BCHM669L', 'CHEM399B', 'BCHM677', 'BCHM463'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nicole LaRonde', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'I made a typo in my previous review. Here\'s an updated version. \r\n\r\n+ Really nice, even in office hours \r\n+ HW & clickers are grade boosters, you only need to meet a certain threshold to get full credit \r\n+ 1 of our 3 midterms was take-home \r\n+ We get a notecard for exams and she even gave us the notecard in class \r\n+ Puts "things to know" on the end of her lecture slides which serves as a study guide \r\n+ Posts powerpoints & old exams \r\n\r\n*Sit in the front b/c it\'s hard to hear in the back \r\n*This class is taught slightly differently depending on the prof. I think she incorporated more bio than gen chem, but this could be a pro if you like bio better. \r\n*We had this awful group protein project, but it\'s because another professor is obsessed with 3D printing. The project was being piloted the semester I took 461, so it might be easier for you all. \r\n\r\nBiochem is a traditionally hard subject, but Dr. LaRonde makes it possible to do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-03-31T21:35:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole LaRonde', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "I don't know what to say about laronde. Her teaching is not very good, her exams are meh, and her final was completely odd. I did fine in her class, but I came out feeling like I knew less than I started with. 50% of the class was asleep or on their phones during her lectures. If you are good at learning on your own, take laronde, cause her tests are easy. But if you need a lecturer or want to actually learn something, take someone else.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-19T22:11:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole LaRonde', 'course': 'BCHM463', 'review': 'Please no, pick another professor. Having her online in Spring 2021 was HORRENDOUS. She was rude, avoided our questions and concerns, and just gave up it felt. The readings/lectures and the homeworks DID NOT line up with the exams. GSS was extremely helpful and actually prepped me well for the exams. That doesn\'t mean to skip the readings and homeworks because that is where you learn the ideas (if you can figure out what\'s important because she won\'t really tell you) and GSS applies them as problems and helps you understand them(which is what the exams are; applying concepts to problems). The group project was great and gave a lot of weight towards the final grade (which she refused to share about consistently through the course since she doesn\'t know how to use ELMS despite saying she can). I don\'t know how to fully describe the vibe of the class other than "secrecy"; like everything had to be kept a secret from us until the last minute. I\'m not sure if because she was lazy or more so worried about cheating, but it was rough on the mind and soul. The class online was flipped were we had to do lecture videos every week with quizzes, homework every week, and then meet once a week for breakout room discussion assignments that were just a flop (if the class wasn\'t taken up by complaints and questions about the course & its structure- but you had to go for participation points). The group project was to design a website blog on a metabolic problem. I did learn many thing towards the end, but I wouldn\'t say it was because of LaRonde, more so Khan Academy (search the MCAT section because that\'s where most of the topics came from). She did do a massive curve at the end so props to her on that. But the semester before she rounded down and her exams were take homes while ours were timed so who knows what curveball she\'ll throw next.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-08-09T21:06:37Z'}], 'name': 'Nicole LaRonde', 'slug': 'laronde'}, {'courses': ['EDCP318L', 'BSCV301', 'HESI220', 'BSCV301', 'HESI220', 'CPSP300', 'HONR300', 'WEID300'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nicole Mehta', 'slug': 'mehta'}, {'courses': ['CPSP227', 'ENEE200', 'CPSS225', 'CPSP249E', 'CPET240', 'CPSP369E', 'CPSS220', 'IDEA258A', 'CPSS100', 'CPSS101', 'EDSP652', 'CPSP349T', 'ENEE200', 'ENES214', 'ENES216', 'CPSS100', 'CPSS220', 'ENEE200', 'CPSS101', 'CPSS340', 'ENEE200', 'ENEE200', 'CPSS100', 'ENEE200', 'ENES440'], 'average_rating': 2.8824, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "ENEE200 isn't really a class to worry that much about in general, but it was very enjoyable wunder Nicole's instruction. She creates a great atmosphere every lecture, and it's a nice change of pace from all of the equations and circuits that we have to deal with in every other major requirement course. Interesting lectures, including a lot of video content, and a lot of thought-provoking conversatio about Ethics in Engineering. Great class!\n\nShort essay due every week (Friday night for my class), but they're pretty simple to do. There is a bit of reading to do for the class, but that's just characteristic of ENEE200. Nicole pushed her final to the last day of class so that there wasn't a final during finals week, so that was nice. She also handed out candy the class before halloween, which was also nice.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-13T08:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "Nicole is great. Initially I thought having engineers taking an ethics class was kind of ridiculous, but after taking her class I have to say that if anyone was going to make the class worthwhile it's her. She creates an excellent atmosphere in the classroom that encourages people to participate and think in a new way. She is passionate about the material, and that passion translates to everyone else in the class. The class is not very much work and her expectations are totally reasonable. I'm really glad that I took this class with Dr. Mogul and I hope that more people get the opportunity to take this class with her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-03T21:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "Fine lady honestly. Funny at times. Long and boring lectures. Lots of assignments although no final exam but a long paper. Tries to do fun things but don't turn out to be so. Reading each week and assignment each Friday (hated this assignment). Stupid skit at the end of the semester which is pointless and stupid for an ethics class imo. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-13T18:55:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'Dr. Mogul is an extremely unintelligent woman, who tries to be relatable but comes off as ingenuine. While it may seem that she has the best intentions, it is clear that the entire coursework is BS. I would take the course if you want an easy Gen Ed and are an engineering major, but there are plenty of better and easier Gen Ed classes to take. Honestly, this class is a lot of writing and extremely easy, but it was a struggle to take her seriously during lectures, especially when she cuts of students answers mid-sentence, embarrassingly directs her anger at the Assistant Dean of the Engineering IT Staff for her technology not working, and for her ridiculously useless assignments. All this class has taught me about ethics is stuff I already know. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-10T21:30:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "Definitely one of the more interesting classes that the ENEE department offers. The UTFs are all pretty good and getting a good grade isn't hard if you put effort into your writing. Dr. Mogul was flexible when we moved online and was receptive to students if they needed extra time on an assignment. Her instructions for assignments can be confusing at times, so small warning.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-19T17:46:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'Dr. Mogul made us do several somewhat irritating activities, in which we had to walk around our house or go outside (in the\r\nmiddle of winter) to listen to sounds, smell random items, and draw random objects. The last time I did this much smelling and drawing, I was in Elementary School. Professor Mogul definitely had good intentions with these activities, but most of the time came across as childish and inconvenient. I also did not like that the details of the CEC paper were not revealed until a few days before the first draft had to be complete. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-09T05:30:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': " I did not appreciate being required to pay over $30 for the digital coursepack, which contained only two articles that easily could have been uploaded to Elms. This felt like a complete waste of money. I also just believe that there was a lot of unnecessary material in this course. A lot of activities we did felt more like ice breakers that didn't have a clear connection to ethics.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-09T05:34:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS especially do not take the winter or summer session. Stupid activities in class and read a lot, Almost tons of boring reading materials and also the reports that 1-1.5 single spaced long(everyday). If u r not engineering students, don't take her class; if yes, take the regular sessions or another prof. GRADES are fine tho.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-02-09T05:36:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "She's super nice and I found the class pretty interesting. There's a lot of writing for an engineering class. She made us do all sorts of activities moving around and doing stuff, some were fun and some were random.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T17:47:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'tldr, WORST PROFESSOR AND WORST CLASS I’VE EVER HAD.\r\n\r\nI’m my three years of taking classes at UMD, this class and this professor are by far the most unenjoyable, unproductive, and irritating course I’ve had the displeasure of taking. ENEE200 is a waste of time and a big one at that. You are assigned 2+ readings/videos a week that simultaneously say nothing interesting and talk down to you. The authors are either nobodies, overrated academia stars, or both. You are also assigned 2 to 3 writing assignments a week, sometimes due the same day that they are assigned (so good luck if you had any other plans Thursday night cause that assignment needs to get done). Expect to put in 2-3 hours+ a week of your own time into this time waster that just leaves you irritated after completing the assignments filled with condescending questions that you have to answer. If being “woke” was a major, this would be a core requirement.\r\n\r\nClass time itself is a mess. Lectures and discussions are mandatory (of course). You learn nothing and are instead divided into groups to discuss whatever ridiculous question is posted on the board, while the professor walks around and somehow contributes a negative amount to your group when she comes to speak with you. Discussions are somehow even more pointless, we’re asked to do these ridiculous activities like copying the actions your partner does, or writing down what your anthropomorphized phone you’ll say to you. Discussion activities are humiliating and degrading. We’re in college not kindergarten for God’s sake!\r\n\r\nOnly plus side is that as long as you turn in assignments and attend lecture and discussion, you will get an A. But I urge you to take a class that’s actually interesting, or at least any professor that isn’t Mogul, who is the least interesting, most shallow, and most unintelligent person I’ve run into during my time at UMD. Is it really an easy A if you need to put in 6+ hours a week into it, if you count lecture, discussion, and impromptu assignments? I think that the only reason Mogul is still around is that the material she’s pushing the -20 IQ slogans that academia has come to love in recent years. Avoid her and this class at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-10-14T19:14:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'CPSS100', 'review': 'Dr. Mogul is probably the worst professor I have yet to encounter at this university. The only thing you will gain out of her teaching is a despise for her character and mannerisms. I would elaborate on why her method of teaching is so poor but it is already perfectly described by some of the other 1-2 star reviews in this list.\r\n\r\nIt is clear that the university only hired her as a means to fulfill some quota.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-07T18:19:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "Honestly these reviews are a bit much, and I would disregard them. I had Mogul for Fall 2021 semester. Anyone who couldn't digest the material or her method of teaching really needs to look inwards at themselves instead of pointing fingers at the professor. Mogul spends so much time preparing for lectures and really cares about her students. You can tell this class is her passion and and the effort she puts into this is also admirable. You have to take this class anyways probably so go with her, she's really nice. Easy A, too.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-17T03:07:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'CPSS220', 'review': "These reviews make her seem like a terrible person but that is simply not the case. She genuinely cares about her students and is very nice/funny. She likes to bring people out of their comfort zone and super into mindfulness. She ran this class with a thing called the Grading Contract. Which essentially says, you will get an A if you make an attempt at every assignment. Very easy A class, in class she always does some fun or quirky activities, which is nice cause i feel like those tend to be very rare in college classes. Sometimes the assignments felt really dumb or like busy work but I honestly didn't need to spend too much time in the class cause i knew i was gonna get an A with the contract. She also does care about the content of the course. Overall not a bad course to fulfill the Practicum with.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T21:27:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'This professor assigns an absolutely absurd amount of work. As an Electrical/Computer engineer, I already have other difficult classes conceptually, this class is immensely time-consuming and the professor does not seem to understand that it is a 3 credit course. Out of all my classes right now, on ELMS I have 6 assignments due in the next week and 5 of them are for this class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-12T18:12:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'Trash professor. Makes us do stupid abstract unrelated skits in discussion sections that have little to no relations to the course topics. Forces us to do a land declaration in the first class and say how we stole the land we live in from Native Americans. Made a very poorly supported and unprofessional brochoure that serves as a basis for discussion topics. My TA gave her some feedbacks from my section containing some concerns regarding the workload, she dismissed it instantly.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-21T02:43:31.101685Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "I agree with other users that the work load is a little bit too much and lectures/assignments can be little boring. But she's a great professor and a great human being. She genuinely puts in a lot of effort into the class. My TA was super chill and gave us extensions when we needed it. You will unfortunately meet people in the class who lack the emotional maturity to fully appreciate what is being taught and the importance of it. Their fragile egos cause them to point fingers at the teacher instead of taking a step back and let some of the ideas sink in. All in all it should be an easy A as long as you put in the time to do the work and participate.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-30T01:13:23.679305Z'}, {'professor': 'Nicole Mogul', 'course': 'CPSS340', 'review': 'If you are choosing a scholars program, do not choose STS. Nicole is a very ~annoying~ professor. Most of the assignments and activities you do are not at all related to the course, and feel like things you would do in elementary school. With that being said though, the work is very easy, and for 340 she uses contract grading, so basically as long as you turn in the work and go to class you will get an A. BUT, you will have to do her pointless improv and skit activities so do with that what you will.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-17T20:43:42.437563Z'}], 'name': 'Nicole Mogul', 'slug': 'mogul'}, {'courses': ['HESP848', 'HESP712', 'HESP729', 'HESP829', 'HESP701', 'HESP498C', 'HESP639C', 'EXST030', 'HESP649A', 'HESP731', 'HESP729', 'HESP829', 'HESP712', 'HESP729', 'HESP829', 'HESP498C', 'HESP639C', 'HESP649A', 'HESP729', 'HESP731', 'HESP829', 'HESP729', 'HESP829', 'HESP729', 'HESP829', 'HESP649A', 'HESP712', 'HESP729', 'HESP829'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nicole Nguyen', 'slug': 'nguyen_nicole'}, {'courses': ['CCJS498Y', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS346', 'CCJS418Q', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS346', 'CCJS340', 'CCJS310'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nicole Romeiser', 'slug': 'romeiser'}, {'courses': ['ENES478'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nicole Roop', 'slug': 'roop'}, {'courses': ['ENSE626', 'ENPM646', 'ENPM808M', 'ENSE626', 'ENSE626'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nidak Sumrean', 'slug': 'sumrean'}, {'courses': ['ENME605', 'ENME462', 'ENME808T', 'ENME808E', 'ENPM808A', 'ENME480', 'ENME480', 'ENPM808A', 'ENME808E', 'ENPM808A'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nikhil Chopra', 'course': None, 'review': "This class is quite intellectually challenging. I strongly advise against taking this course as an entry-level graduate student without having a thorough knowledge of robotic and control systems concepts as well as a good knowledge of linear algebra. While Prof. Chopra puts effort to help students understand the material, the lecture sometimes seem to be scattered; most of the time, what he says is as important or more important that what he writes, and so you miss a lot of stuff if you're just copying, or just listening. Also it would be helpful if the lectures were properly outlined, as you can be in class for a week and not know what is actually going on, despite your keen attention. He also tends to assume a great deal of prior knowledge, and terms/equations keep flying on the board with few people -if any- understanding what they mean. You should also be very comfortable with Matlab and Simulink since you will use it in the homeworks without being walked through in class. Expect to spend 15-20 hours on homeworks easily. Overall Dr. Chopra is a nice professor, but his classes are generally difficult. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-15T03:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Nikhil Chopra', 'course': 'ENME462', 'review': 'Class is not terribly tough, but understanding the professor is tough. I ended up having to rely on online lecture recordings of the other professor teach at the time. This class could be much easier with a better professor. Grading is tough also, with no partial credit possible on the exams.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-19T21:42:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Nikhil Chopra', 'course': 'ENME480', 'review': 'Interesting class. Lectures were kind of jumbled but considering this was the first time this class was taught I thought he did a very good job. Very nice guy. He seems to care about his students. We spent the last class just talking about how he could improve the course because he wants what is best for his students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-17T01:11:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Nikhil Chopra', 'course': 'ENME480', 'review': "Dr. Chopra is a nice guy, but it's pretty clear that he rarely teaches undergrads. The lectures were all over the place and I never felt that I had a concrete understanding core concepts until relatively late in the class. The class started offering tutoring about halfway through the semester, and the grad students who taught those tutoring sessions (along with some concept explanation videos I found on YouTube) were what got me through this course. Overall, I think a lot of the issues from this class stem from the fact that it has never been run before and I think many of the issues with the course (disorganized lectures, unmotivated labs, very long/confusing homeworks) will get ironed out in the future, and I appreciate that Dr. Chopra took the last class to have a discussion about how the course could be improved. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-27T22:30:35Z'}], 'name': 'Nikhil Chopra', 'slug': 'chopra_nikhil'}, {'courses': ['INST630', 'INST728V', 'INST728Q', 'INST760', 'INST462', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'CMSC798', 'INST762', 'INST728E', 'INST608J', 'INST408J', 'INST899', 'INST705', 'INST408J', 'INST760', 'INST705', 'INST405'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Niklas Elmqvist', 'slug': 'elmqvist'}, {'courses': ['EXST009O', 'EXST009P', 'EXST019N', 'EXST019P', 'EXST029F', 'COMM609O', 'COMM609P', 'COMM719D', 'COMM729D', 'COMM749D', 'COMM719R', 'COMM729R', 'COMM619O', 'COMM619P', 'COMM629N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nikolai Sorokin', 'slug': 'sorokin'}, {'courses': ['BSST332', 'BSST633'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nil Satana', 'slug': 'satana'}, {'courses': ['EXST028D', 'EXST019E', 'EXST029C', 'COMM609B', 'COMM729A', 'COMM619B', 'COMM629B', 'COMM749A', 'COMM719A', 'COMM719A', 'COMM798I', 'COMM719A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nina Behrens', 'slug': 'behrens'}, {'courses': ['PUAF349', 'PUAF388T', 'PUAF699F', 'CPSP118P', 'PUAF302', 'PUAF388', 'PUAF386', 'PUAF396', 'CPSP239P', 'CPSP259P', 'PLCY386', 'PLCY388', 'PLCY388T', 'PLCY699D', 'PLCY302', 'EXST030', 'PLCY309', 'PLCY386', 'PLCY388N', 'PLCY388N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nina Harris', 'slug': 'harris_nina'}, {'courses': ['BMGT495'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nina Sirola', 'slug': 'sirola'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ning Xie', 'slug': 'xie_ning'}, {'courses': ['AOSC675', 'AOSC431', 'AOSC684', 'AOSC494', 'AOSC499', 'AOSC658E', 'AOSC484', 'AOSC475', 'AOSC431', 'AOSC475', 'AOSC484', 'AOSC675', 'AOSC684', 'AOSC499', 'AOSC499'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ning Zeng', 'slug': 'zeng_ning'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nma Obike', 'slug': 'obike'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL280', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL273'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Noa Saunders', 'slug': 'saunders'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338N', 'HESI217'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Noah Henry-Darwish', 'slug': 'henry-darwish'}, {'courses': ['ENFP489N', 'ENFP629N', 'ENFP489I', 'ENFP490', 'ENFP629I', 'ENFP465', 'ENFP665', 'ENFP664', 'ENFP664'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Noah Ryder', 'slug': 'ryder'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM230'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nora Murphy', 'slug': 'murphy_nora'}, {'courses': ['HONR218A', 'BSCI105', 'BSCI105C', 'BSCI105S', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI105M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Norma Allewell', 'slug': 'allewell'}, {'courses': ['BSCI420', 'BIOL620', 'BISI899', 'CBMG688C', 'BSCI420', 'CBMG688C', 'BSCI420', 'CBMG688C'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Norma Andrews', 'course': 'BSCI420', 'review': "The class teaches you about innovative and important biological technology and procedures. the lectures can be a little boring because Dr. Andrews speaks a little monotonously from the slides, but overall, it is not a super hard course and she kept our exams online and open-note even with in-person classes. there's a weekly video and quiz but its super straightforward and usually graded more for completion than accuracy. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T23:43:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Norma Andrews', 'course': 'BSCI420', 'review': "Took this class during fall 2021. If you enjoyed BSCI 330, then you will definitely enjoy this class. It's pretty much a follow up from BSCI 330. We learned a lot about cancer, osteoporosis, adenoma, melanocytes, stem cells, and IPSC technology (which was the most interesting one). We had weekly video quizzes which were easy. Although we were on campus, we took the exams online due to COVID. As long as you review the lecture material, you will do well on her exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-22T11:58:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Norma Andrews', 'course': 'BSCI420', 'review': 'Dr. Andrews is very knowledgeable on the subject matter. She was always willing to the take time to help you understand concepts and clear up any confusion you might have. The course dives deeper into topics covered in BSCI330.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T18:31:38.976321Z'}, {'professor': 'Norma Andrews', 'course': 'BSCI420', 'review': 'Dr. Andrews is a sweetheart of a person and professor. Most people come to lecture for the first few weeks and then slowly come less and less. I recommended going to lecture since she covers many interesting topics. Make sure to do every SINGLE assignment since you will not get many chances to make up points. Overall, definitely a fantastic professor to talk to and learn from.\r\n\r\nAlso: we had two scientific debates in class that were a great deal of fun.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-26T04:40:31.782339Z'}], 'name': 'Norma Andrews', 'slug': 'andrews_norma'}, {'courses': ['ENPM808Q', 'ENPM627', 'ENPM660', 'ENPM655'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Norman Eisenberg', 'slug': 'eisenberg'}, {'courses': ['FMSC431', 'FMSC641', 'FMSC650', 'FMSC658', 'FMSC610', 'FMSC810', 'FMSC698B', 'FMSC498T', 'FMSC445', 'FMSC645'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Norman Epstein', 'slug': 'epstein_norman'}, {'courses': ['SPAN103', 'SPAN203', 'SPAN204'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Norman Mora Quintero', 'slug': 'quintero'}, {'courses': ['ENAE654', 'ENAE788W', 'ENAE100', 'ENAE200', 'ENES221', 'ENAE425', 'ENME672', 'ENES603', 'ENAE788E', 'EDSP652', 'ENES220', 'ENES603', 'ENAE100', 'ENAE423H', 'ENAE425', 'ENAE654', 'ENES603', 'ENAE899', 'ENES220', 'ENAE100', 'ENAE423H'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Norman Wereley', 'course': 'ENAE423H', 'review': 'I agree with the other review that he is helpful but very prone to mistakes during lecture. It is necessary to read the notes he puts on Blackboard to do the homework and understand everything. \n\r\nThe first few homeworks were a real pain in the ass. He would ask you to do something like derive a formula that is similar to but a lot more complicated than the one derived in class. However, the last few homeworks were a lot more reasonable. \n\r\nThe midterm was a breeze--the median was a 95. The final is a lot harder but if you do well, he will overwrite your overall grade with your final grade. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-13T14:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Norman Wereley', 'course': 'ENAE423H', 'review': "Dr. Wereley is a decent professor, who definitely cares about his students. He's always available for questions on the homework, and is usually pretty helpful. His exams were of moderate difficulty, but you definitely need to put in a lot of time to study for them. Dr. Wereley lectures fast and prone to mistakes during lecture, which was my biggest problem with him. Thankfully, he puts pdfs of his lectures online so you can compare while doing the homework to make sure you're using the right formulas. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-22T05:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Norman Wereley', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "He's a very nice guy; passionate about engineering and stays engaged with the class. Sometimes he makes mistakes on lectures, but still not a bad professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-18T04:26:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Norman Wereley', 'course': 'ENAE100', 'review': 'This class had far too much busy work and the discussion section was painful to attend. The research project was cool and the showcase was very interesting. Some of the lectures were interesting, but as a whole this class should be reworked.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T21:18:29.179506Z'}], 'name': 'Norman Wereley', 'slug': 'wereley'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'CMLT270', 'CMLT235', 'ENGL234', 'AASP298L', 'ENGL101S', 'CMLT275', 'WMST275'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Norrell Edwards', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Awful teacher', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-02-26T17:25:36Z'}], 'name': 'Norrell Edwards', 'slug': 'edwards_norrell'}, {'courses': ['ECON414', 'ECON742', 'ECON396', 'ECON397', 'ECON396', 'ECON742'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nuno Limao', 'course': None, 'review': ' By far one of the worst professors in ECON. Lectures are dry and extremely boring, most of the time the students have no idea what is going on. Problem sets are random and graded harshly. I think the class average is about a 10/20 on each one. He is only one of the only professors that I know of that grade problem sets for accuracy instead of completion.\r\n Avoid him at all costs, he does not seem to care about students and is uninterested/lazy in teaching the class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-15T15:20:00Z'}], 'name': 'Nuno Limao', 'slug': 'limao'}, {'courses': ['ENEE324H', 'ENEE660', 'ENEE324', 'ENPM808Q', 'ENEE769E', 'ENEE662', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE661', 'ENEE324H', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE662'], 'average_rating': 2.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Nuno Martins', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': 'Very fair and reasonable professor. He extends deadlines if needed and pretty good at teaching the material. He is a little vague though on what is on exams sometimes until a few days before so you have to ask him. But if you end up taking him you will be fine. 324 is in general a hard class due to the concepts. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-15T20:55:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Nuno Martins', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "It's the last day of classes, and we have just been told that grade cutoffs have still not been determined; not even a vague prediction was given. Since this is the last day to decide whether you want to drop or do p/f, this is a little problematic. At the very least, it would be good to have some expectation of the C- cutoff, but even that is too much. The way exams in this class go, I don't even have an idea of whether the final will end up with me getting an A or D. In short, this is the most uncertain grading system I've ever had to deal with, which has caused me some frustration. The only clue I have is that we're graded based on how the overall class does, but that's not enough to work with. Does the average performance in this class merit a B? A C? Who knows? I don't even know if the minimum for a C- might somehow end up being higher than a 70%.\r\n\r\nIn my opinion, the concepts we are tested on are not always adequately explained in class. I understand that these concepts are difficult, but you'd expect midterms consisting of 10-11 multiple choice questions, 6-7 of which are true/false, to go fairly well. This was not my experience. Some questions certainly feel unfair in the topics they cover or the edge cases we need to consider for the true/false questions. This is already a difficult class to conceptualize, so this does not help matters. Ironically, luck is a significant factor on these exams. I'm not certain why Martins believes a large grade distribution is a good indicator of people's knowledge relative to each other when even he acknowledged that the benefit of all-or-nothing multiple choice questions is the ability to guess.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-11T15:09:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Nuno Martins', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "I took this class online and his grading criteria is a strange, to say the least. He mentions how it is based on what the class on average gets, so there are no hard traditional cutoffs like 70% being a C-. So the cutoffs can move up. The exams are unreasonable. There are 10 true/false and multiple choice problems worth 10 points each, and missing one problem means losing 2-2.5% of your entire grade, which is silly. There is no partial credit so it may as well be you just guessing an answer (which is pretty ironic for a class on probability). You don't know your grade throughout the semester, so even if you have an 85%, that doesn't really mean you have a B if the rest of the class was doing better than you.\r\n\r\nIn terms of teaching, it is easy to follow what he teaches in the class. He is a decent lecturer. But what he asks on the exams is very different from what he teaches. Lectures are usually derivations of formulas but the exams require you to make a lot of assumptions to use those formulas, but those assumptions were not covered in the lecture. Problems during discussion sessions were examples from the textbook, so they don't do an adequate job of preparing you for what Martins is going to ask you on the exam.\r\n\r\nOnly take this class with him if you have don't have a lot of workload so you can study a lot of probability material outside of class to do well.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-05-11T15:20:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Nuno Martins', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "First time reviewing a professor because the structure of this course and exam format is so bad that I had to say something. The format of the exams is covered in other reviews and I can confirm they are as bad as people said. Exams are worth 75% of your final grade, but about 60-70% of the exam is true or false problems that seem to be designed to trick you. That means that roughly 50% of your final grade is determined by 21 true or false questions that you may as well guess on. The actual problems are very different from what is taught in class and the homework assignments so it is hard to study for the exams as some of it is stuff that is vaguely related to what you've been doing, so doing practice problems from the book doesn't seem to help. He is a pretty decent professor, however, but he does not prepare you for what is on the exams. Since classes are going back to being in person the exam format will probably change so it could be better the following semesters. I would not recommend taking this course with Martins with his current course structure and exam format.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-05-14T01:51:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Nuno Martins', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': 'I think you can disregard a lot of the things that have been said in the past. His admits that his exam style during COVID was not good and already has changed it back to a standard exam format (problems, not MC). He explains concepts clearly and you can tell he cares about his students. He extends deadlines when students tell him that the homeworks are difficult because he wants you to be able to do them earnestly. He cracks jokes and teaches in a very reasonable pace (if not a bit slow sometimes).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-13T20:35:39.632913Z'}], 'name': 'Nuno Martins', 'slug': 'martins'}, {'courses': ['HESP403'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Nur Karatas', 'slug': 'karatas'}, {'courses': ['ENMA301', 'ENMA300', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA660', 'ENMA430', 'ENME382', 'ENMA630', 'ENMA661', 'ENMA660', 'ENMA660'], 'average_rating': 3.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Oded Rabin', 'course': 'ENMA301', 'review': 'His teaching was decent and his tests were challenging but (barely) reasonable, but his TAs graded the homework really harshly (75 average for the homeworks) and he was rude and disrespectful, both during class and in person. Plus in an email to the entire class discussing the paper we wrote he said, "The other common problem was that the opening paragraph of the paper was truly poorly written (to the extent of inspiring suicidal thoughts)."\r\nMake of that what you will. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-26T16:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oded Rabin', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': 'Dr. Rabin is a very friendly, soft-spoken individual who cares about students learning the material well. He\'s not the most exciting lecturer in the world, but he does a good job of covering the most important topics and spending time to explain certain concepts that are more involved.\n\r\nI found Dr. Rabin to be responsive to e-mails, and he tried hard to make time to see students outside of class. Seeing him in his office was nice, because although it is painfully obvious how intelligent he is, he does not come off as condescending whatsoever. There isn\'t a lot to say because 300 isn\'t a super intense class, but I\'m glad to have Rabin for 301 next semester.\n\r\nEdit for students figuring out when to take 301: Workload varies a bit throughout the semester, but I\'d figure an average of about five hours per week. There is a three page (single spaced) paper due before the final exam that can be time consuming. Exams were harder than in 300; despite the class being all materials students, averages were slightly lower (65-75%).\n\r\nThe actual content is focused more on applications, which is refreshing. Also, I don\'t know if Rabin was trying to be mean this semester, but he was very misleading when it came to informing the class about the midterms. "Midterm two will focus mainly on the biomaterial journal articles." Everyone pores through long, complex journal articles. Midterm two has no questions concerning the biomaterial journal articles. "Yes, you will get a formula sheet for midterm three." Midterm three has no formula sheet, and primarily tests knowledge of new formulas. Seriously balls.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-24T20:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oded Rabin', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': 'He is an interesting teacher to say the least. Generally about half of the class is asleep during his power point lectures. He really knows his stuff but has trouble teaching it to his students. Not a terrible class, but not a fun class either.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-12T19:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oded Rabin', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': 'Smart guy, good teacher, boring lecturer. Based on other students complaining about their ENMA300 professor, I would suggest taking this guy for intro to materials as he is not a bad teacher at all.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-12T04:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oded Rabin', 'course': None, 'review': 'I took this course with a bunch of grad students and undergrads and he gives the same tests to both groups. The class itself was really interesting, an Rabin did a decent job of teaching it but he would never give you a clear idea of what your grade was throughout the class. Sometimes he would just give you a letter grade, and other times it would be a number. It also seems as though he graded both the undergrads and grads at the same level. He was approachable though and made time to help students, but at time when you had a question via email, he just wouldnt respond if he didnt feel like it. Overall class is interesting but he isnt the best of teachers.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-21T14:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oded Rabin', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': "I expect to hear about Dr. Rabin in the news one day as a recipient of the Nobel Prize. Man is way smart, but can't teach. Very nice and approachable, and the class was really interesting, but a struggle since it was difficult for him to teach it to us.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-06-17T15:09:00Z'}], 'name': 'Oded Rabin', 'slug': 'rabin'}, {'courses': ['MUSC445', 'MUSC685', 'MUSC330', 'MUSC484', 'MUSC639S', 'MUSC639T', 'MUSC448E', 'MUSC485', 'MUSC646', 'MUSC699Q', 'MUSC699L', 'MUSC699E', 'MUSC699B', 'MUSC699R', 'MUSC360', 'MUSC646', 'MUSC360', 'MUSC445', 'MUSC699J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Olga Haldey', 'slug': 'haldey'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'ENES108', 'ENES107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Olive Reid', 'slug': 'reid_olive'}, {'courses': ['BMGT311', 'BMGT808V'], 'average_rating': 2.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': 'If you put your effort, not hard to get an A. He gives generous help for all students and replies email very quick.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-07T22:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Let me preface by saying that I took this class a couple semesters back and decided to just get around to reviewing him.\n\r\nKim is a nice guy, and he knows his stuff. It is hard to pay attention to him because he is hard to understand, but if you do pay attention then you are going to do fine. He also has some funny stories and anecdotes to add. \n\r\nThe tests are practically based off the notes, and his homework assignments are literally past exams so if you go over those you will do decently on the exam. The reason I say decently and not that you'll ace it is because he throws a curve ball at you in each exam. So you have to study the homework assignment, and then prepare for an unexpected trick question that he puts in that distinguishes the A students from the B students. If you aren't prepared for that question and you mess up another portion, you are doing poorly on the exam. BMGT311 is a tough course regardless of who you take it with, so I don't think Kim is any worse than any other professor for this course, but you may want to consider whether you are prepared for those kinds of tests.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-11-06T02:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': 'If you put in the effort, you will get an A. The people I know who struggled with Kim did not attend a lot of his lectures. If you attend the lectures then you should be fine since his exam comes from the notes. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-07-03T13:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': 'He is a terrible professor. He does an awful job of teaching. He is impossible to understand. If you want to learn, then take it with a different professor.\n\r\nFall 2013', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-06-18T12:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Okay, seriously the people who are posting below are basically admitting that they are lazy students.\n\r\nKim is an adorable professor who really knows the material. He distills the information to digestible bits, even if he is sometimes a little hard to understand. The lecture style is old-school, but as long as you pay attention, his course is the best-kept secret in 311. Very manageable as long as you dedicate the time. THE EXAMS COME RIGHT FROM THE NOTES. You hardly have to read the book, no required homework, and the exams are just like the practice problems.\n\r\nIf you expect to take 311 without having to put in the work, then you're in college for the wrong reason. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-05T12:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': 'do not take any class with Oliver Kim. He is a smiling korean guy and will teach you NOTHING. I took his BMGT311 class in spring 2010, paid attention in class, and felt like i still didnt know what he was talking about. \n\r\nIf you...\r\n1. have lots of money, dont mind to waste some\r\n2. dont want to learn anything about accounting and dont care about the grade (even a "C" or "D")\r\nplease take BMGT311 with Oliver Kim.\n\r\nIf you want to learn something and have a good grade after working hard, take BMGT311 with some one else. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-09-26T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "not a good professor. does a lot of theory, no examples. moreover, he likes to see students do poorly so he gives only 2 examples thus giving you nothing to work with. come the exam he'll add a twist of some sort and you'll have no idea how to do it because you never practiced. the book doesn't help. going to his office hours doesn't help. going to class doesn't help. you have to print out your class notes and he often makes typos on them. there are 2 midterms and a final each worth 32% then 4% is homework. you don't learn a thing and i knew a lot of people who literally got less than 20/32 on the exams. little to no curve. take it with someone else if you can", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-12T15:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Please if you care to learn anything...DO NOT take a class with this man. He is about the worse prof on campus. He walks in cracks jokes for 30mins that no one even gets, and then he enjoys to see people fail. The Dean and Chair have to review his crdentials or capability. His teaching startegy is RIDICULOUS. You would regret every bit of his class....I promise you...Many of my colleagues are retaking it, just cos he's so bad....I hope he leaves soon. I feel sorry for other students....He doesnt know how to answer questions, AT ALL. He's TERRIBLE. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-27T21:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "His class was kinda frustrating. You practically know what's gonna be on the exam because it's so similar to the homework. He gives you notes with 1 or 2 examples, so with the homework you have 3 practice problems for each chapter to focus on. However, on the exam he'll have something extra that wasn't in the examples but it was a small memo in the notes. I just didn't like the guy, he always seemed to be happy about us getting stuff wrong. Also, he never taught any theory, just technical stuff, many of us didn't know why we're doing what we're doing. I wouldn't take him again.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-22T07:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': "Kim is an old-school teacher! He walks into the room and starts writing notes on the board for about a half hour. He explains it for another half-hour. Then 15 minutes is for his funny/awkward stories. The exams are almost entirely from his notes, plus a customary curve-ball question which isn't in the notes. You gotta go to class and take notes!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-08-26T20:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Not my favorite teacher ever, but I would take him again. The only grades in the class are his 4 exams, all worth 25% and none of them are cumulative. This means absolutely no homework or outside work which I loved, but could be a pain when it came to studying. You really only had 2 examples to learn the concepts from because there are no answers provided for the textbook. He goes through all of the information that you need to know by going over packets in class, just make sure you understand the logic of it instead of memorizing the steps. Sometimes he will switch things up on you for the exams but if you actually understand what's going on in class they shouldn't derail you too bad.\r\nI didn't realize the importance of going to class, I probably went to 3 the entire first half of the semester so I had a 50 something percent at midterm. He has a good method of weighing your highest and lowest exam grades, though, so after studying like crazy for the last 2 exams I ended up with an A-. \r\nHe means very well and is a really sweet man, my main complaint is that he should provide more practice. Overall you can expect to get a decent grade in a class that is known to be difficult.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-03-11T19:18:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Kim', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Despite claiming to have lived in America the past 11 years, he has an elementary grasp on the English language. He speaks in endless, incoherent sentences. The whole class revolves around memorizing the two problem types he provides each month. If you have a photographic memory this class is a breeze. If you're used to working out problems logically, good luck learning from him. I have learned a lot this semester simply because I have had to teach myself *absolutely* everything. I have not missed a class. \r\n\r\nI'd say avoid but he's the only choice for intermediate II. Don't buy the textbook, it's online for free and he had not used it for the first 3 exams. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-04-24T23:14:18Z'}], 'name': 'Oliver Kim', 'slug': 'kim_oliver'}, {'courses': ['BUSI661', 'BMGT361', 'BMGT461', 'BMGT465', 'BUMO751', 'BUMO756', 'BUSI660', 'BUMO761', 'BMGT495', 'ENTS670', 'BMGT468T', 'BMGT468E', 'EMBA759', 'BMGT461N', 'BMGT289E', 'BUMO758P', 'BMGT468R', 'ENES498R', 'BMGT366', 'BUMO732', 'BMGT467', 'BUSO758C', 'BUSI721', 'BUSI712', 'BMGT289E', 'BMGT289E', 'BMGT289J', 'BMGT366', 'BMGT461', 'BMGT468G', 'BMGT468X', 'BUSI712', 'CPBE100', 'BMGT110S', 'BMGT289E', 'BMGT468T', 'BMGT758L', 'BUSI718V', 'BUSO758C', 'BUSI721', 'BMGT468G', 'BMGT468X', 'CPBE230', 'CPBE240', 'CPBE250', 'BMGT289E', 'BMGT298S', 'BMGT468G', 'BMGT468X', 'CPBE100'], 'average_rating': 2.1538, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Schlake is a very interesting professor who uses tons of real life examples. He is extremely outgoing and easy to get along with. Schlake is also very approachable and is truly invested in his students and their future endeavors. \n\r\nHowever, like stated before, Schlake is not clear with class expectations or how he is grading materials. There are no due dates listed and as I sit here and prepare for the final, there is currently one grade on elms. I have no idea where I stand in the course and find it extremely frustrating that he has yet to grade a damn thing. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-12-14T00:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT461N', 'review': "The worst prof ever. I'm the type of student that is fine with a class being difficult if the expectations are clearly outlined. This is the opposite of prof. Schlake. While he is not a difficult prof. you have no idea when things are due or how he is really grading them. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-08-10T15:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': ' doesn’t grade assignments til the end of the semester. Ramble for an hour and a half and says nothing of substance. Would not recommend ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-19T17:26:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': 'Schlake\'s a funny guy to talk to, but his class was organized horribly, and his lectures were pretty boring. Maybe it\'s just the content of the course, which feels so much like "common sense" that you rarely ever feel like you\'re actually learning something new. His grading seems really arbitrary and he\'s not at all transparent about it. I managed an A but it was definitely not an easy A.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T19:29:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': "The nicest professor I have ever had. Don't listen to any of these bad reviews, he does wait to grade until pretty late and is not super clear about everything he wants done, but he is very flexible with due dates, responds quickly, and is very attentive and responsive to students concerns. He extended deadlines, changed assignments, and was always available in office hours and by appointment to help students. He emphasized his support for business ideas and encouraged students to pursue their ideas and keep in contact with him after the class ended for recommendation letters and anything else we might need. With the exception of some confusing classes and unclear expectations for some assignments, he is an amazing teacher and you can definitely expect an A if you try at all. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-07T17:01:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': "He's a cool guy but his lectures can be very boring. The way he organizes his projects can be very confusing and unclear at times. However, what I dislike the most about his course is that the midterm/final is more-or-less similar to trivia from past discussions. Overall, if you try to put in effort you can manage an easy A.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-05T17:17:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': "I was not a fan of this class. I took it as a Gen Ed class and was hoping for some practical business knowledge. Instead it was basically the professor talking about his own life experiences and a few world examples. He waits until the last moment for grades and isn't clear with why you got certain grades. The midterm/ final wasn't great for me because it's all multiple choice trivia, so it's easy to miss a few questions and end with a C or low B for the exam portion. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-31T00:16:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': "Not a lot of actual information learned in the lectures. They are very boring. He grades everything at the end of the semester so you have no clue how you're doing in the class the whole time. Just make sure to actually participate in the group projects and study the slides before the exam.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T22:37:45.993493Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': "Honestly, nothing really goes on in the class and everything is easy, but lectures are boring. The only good times lectures occur are when it's presentations at the end of the semester and maybe the first lecture of the class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T04:10:40.187246Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289J', 'review': 'Prof. Schlake is sooo nice, but he’s a horrible professor. He method of teaching is all over the place, we never actually learnt anything relevant. He doesn’t grade fast enough, but he grades very tough for some reason. He has too high expectations for his students, as well as the work you do, which isn’t bad but it puts a lot of pressure on you which confuses you in the process. The final made no sense, the whole thing was entirely subjective and the questions were worded wierd. It was just not a pleasant class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-16T14:05:35.200121Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': "Writing this review right after I took the final exam. Nothing in this course is practical what so ever. I'd argue that all that was taught was a few of Schlake's own life experiences with a few corporate buzz words sprinkled in for good measure. He doesn't respond when you try and contact him. Hell, the TA was my buddy, and he would bitch about how Schlake wouldn't even respond to him. I genuinely have no idea what my grade for the class is going to be, because the only grades that have been released as of 3 days into finals week are 4 discussion posts. Do yourself a favor, find yourself another GenEd/support course.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T19:42:35.276052Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': 'He is the worst grader ever. None of the information is applicable and he waited past the deadline to release all the grades so you have no idea how you’re doing the entire semester until it’s too late. Grades way too harshly and is bad at communicating. Questions on exams are ridiculous and it’s impossible to prepare for them. Do not take him', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-28T22:44:54.140174Z'}, {'professor': 'Oliver Schlake', 'course': 'BMGT289E', 'review': 'My least favorite class of the semester. The lectures are common sense formulations combined with the professors personal experience. He does not grade anything until after the semester has ended, makes you do work after the semester has ended, and does not respond to messages. Gave me an 88% on a major project with zero comments or recommendations. Considering this is a class for non-business majors that are most likely signed up for a gen ed, find a different one to take.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-04T17:48:38.468468Z'}], 'name': 'Oliver Schlake', 'slug': 'schlake_oliver'}, {'courses': ['EPIB610', 'EPIB620', 'EPIB330', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'EPIB489A', 'EPIB689A', 'MIEH698A', 'EPIB636', 'SPHL399', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB620', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB620'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Olivia Carter-Pokras', 'slug': 'carter-pokras'}, {'courses': ['EDCI464', 'EDCI362A', 'EDCI362B', 'EDCI463', 'TLPL462', 'TLPL650', 'TLPL340', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL645', 'TLPL341', 'TLPL342', 'TLPL462', 'TLPL341', 'TLPL462', 'TLPL340', 'TLPL342', 'TLPL462', 'TLPL341', 'TLPL462'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Olivia Saracho', 'slug': 'saracho'}, {'courses': ['ENAE788Q', 'ENAE757', 'ENAE423H', 'ENAE788P', 'ENAE324', 'ENAE425', 'ENAE655', 'ENAE654', 'ENME808Z', 'ENAE647', 'ENAE646', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE646', 'ENAE423H', 'ENAE655'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Olivier Bauchau', 'course': 'ENAE324', 'review': "Dr. Bauchau's lectures, homework, and exams are all presented a bit oddly. The course jumps around from lecture to lecture, and Bauchau will often repeat himself, go off on tangents, and answer questions with more theory than practical answers, leaving students to muddle through solving the problems he writes. His book is almost as confusing, with the solution process often missing important steps for students who haven't studied the topic before. Most of the exam questions are written in a confusing description of a simple scenario, and will at times address topics that aren't well discussed in the books or in class. This isn't bad in itself, except the lack of and concrete procedure for solving any problems results in an inferior comprehension of the class. Once you figure out how to learn this content yourself, it isn't a bad class and Bauchau isn't a bad teacher, but he certainly wouldn't be my first choice of professor for this class with an option.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T03:50:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Olivier Bauchau', 'course': 'ENAE324', 'review': 'This class was relatively straightforward and a continuation of ENES220. The most significant difference between the two was the application of differential equations and the more advanced theories discussed in this class. Dr. Bauchau presented the information for this class in a confusing way, and his book, which he used as a resource, was the same way. Going to class and completing the homework and practice problems will give a sufficient understanding. The class also had a significant curve at the end, with the ELMS grade of C+ turning into an A- for the final grade.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-24T16:21:31Z'}], 'name': 'Olivier Bauchau', 'slug': 'bauchau'}, {'courses': ['CCJS105', 'BSST633', 'BSST638P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Omi Hodwitz', 'slug': 'hodwitz'}, {'courses': ['ENGL420', 'ENGL453', 'ENGL798B', 'ENGL312', 'ENGL479G', 'ENGL479T', 'ENGL428A', 'ENGL738A', 'ENGL602', 'CMLT679K', 'ENGL478O', 'ENGL702', 'CMLT679A', 'ENGL738B', 'ENGL312', 'ENGL478O', 'ENGL319C', 'ENGL624', 'ENGL319C', 'ENGL420'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Orrin Wang', 'course': 'ENGL420', 'review': "He's a great professor. The class is difficult, especially for someone like me who doesn't respond well to poetry, but I found myself more simply out of my comfort zone rather than really disliking the class. It's an upper-level class and he treats it as such while managing to still be really funny. Two papers, one research paper, and a final. The only bad thing, as with all Lit classes, is that the lectures tend to get really convoluted. If you're into English though, it shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. Would definitely recommend him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-04-24T12:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Orrin Wang', 'course': 'ENGL312', 'review': "During mid semester, the highest grade in the entire class was around an A-.\r\n\r\nPreaches his opinions during class and tests you on them. Says he welcomes discussion, but class time is really just him preaching his opinions. He grades extremely subjectively and is overall pretty difficult. I get that the class he teaches may sound interesting, but it's really not worth it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-10T19:41:26.616991Z'}], 'name': 'Orrin Wang', 'slug': 'wang_orrin'}, {'courses': ['EXST059A', 'COMM659A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Osama Sadick', 'slug': 'sadick'}, {'courses': ['THET116', 'THET481'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paige Hathaway', 'slug': 'hathaway'}, {'courses': ['ENES116', 'ENES215', 'ENES114', 'CHSE338K', 'ENES338K', 'CHSE338K', 'ENES338K', 'CHSE338K', 'ENES115', 'ENES338K', 'CHSE338K', 'ENES214', 'ENES216', 'ENES338K', 'ENES115'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paige Smith', 'course': 'ENES338K', 'review': 'ENES338K is a relatively new course but I cannot recommend it enough. I honestly looked forward to it every week because it was almost like a philosophy class where we just had discussions about different important topics within engineering. There was almost never any work outside of class minus a final paper and 2-3 reflections. While it was a 2 hr it was easy to stay awake because of the engaging conversations and because Paige always made it interesting and relevant. This was such a fun and easy way to fulfill a gen ed requirement. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-08T01:42:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Paige Smith', 'course': 'ENES338K', 'review': 'The course itself is very little work, but there are also very few grades, so if you don\'t learn exactly what they want from you (which at least in my eyes is not intuitive) then you\'re sorta screwed. Instructors have their own "definitions" for what depth is in your writing, that you have to learn and lean into. Just be prepared to sort of cater your writing to what is wanted, and you\'ll be fine.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T06:12:40.457466Z'}], 'name': 'Paige Smith', 'slug': 'smith_paige'}, {'courses': ['BUMK706', 'BUMK758J', 'BUMK722', 'BUMK758E', 'BMGT858R', 'BUSI650', 'BMGT858P', 'BUMK758Q', 'BMGT458K', 'BUMK758O', 'BUMK758Z', 'BUSM711', 'BUSM758T', 'BUMK758R', 'BUSO740', 'BUSO758L', 'BUSO603', 'BUSI734', 'BUSM715', 'BMSO758G', 'BUSO740', 'BMSO758G', 'BUSI734', 'BUSI758J', 'BUSM715', 'BMSO758A', 'BUSI758V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Pallassana Kannan', 'slug': 'kannan'}, {'courses': ['JOUR200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Pallavi Guha', 'slug': 'guha'}, {'courses': ['EDPS210', 'EDPS888', 'TLPL888'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Pam Splaine', 'course': None, 'review': 'Absolutely awesome professor. Class was chill and required NO WORK WHATSOEVER. take this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T02:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pam Splaine', 'course': 'EDPS210', 'review': "Overall, Professor Splaine is a nice lady but she definitely does not have any structure in her class. If you want to calculate your own grade during the semester, it is almost impossible to do because she mentions little about how much everthing is weighted. \n\r\nThis class is ridiculously an easy A. I almost ended up getting a B but that's only because I didn't do the readings on time and therefore, bombed her pop quizzes. The exams were easy as long as you were paying attention in class and read the chapters the night before. The final exam was take home and the final project had no rubric at all. \n\r\nMy advice, only read the introductory sections of each chapter (philosophers). Don't read the actual articles that follow them. They were lengthy and were written in a very philosophical way. You can find the same information on google and youtube where it's a lot easier to understand.\n\r\nTake this class!! It's an easy A!!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-24T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pam Splaine', 'course': None, 'review': 'very easy.\r\napproachable, cares about her students and loves it when you are a creative thinker and participate. Exams, if you want to call them that, help you understand your own philosophies as well as the philosophers you will study.\r\nshe is great', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-17T18:40:00Z'}], 'name': 'Pam Splaine', 'slug': 'splaine'}, {'courses': ['ENEE408D', 'GEMS297', 'ENEE419A', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENEE411', 'ENEE614', 'GEMS296', 'ENCE688D', 'ENSE698E', 'ENSE799', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE411', 'ENEE408D', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799'], 'average_rating': 4.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Pamela Abshire', 'course': None, 'review': 'Abshire is a pretty good professor. She lectures off of powerpoint so you don\'t really have to go to class, but lectures are valuable because she does a good job at giving new ways of thinking about the material. This class wasn\'t too hard if you did well in ENEE303. A lot of the course material is "review" in the sense that most of it is built off of what you learned in 303. Don\'t expect the homework\'s and exams to be graded for a while though.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-03-04T02:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Abshire', 'course': None, 'review': "Note: ENEE419A is now ENEE411.\n\r\nAbshire is a great teacher who wants nothing more than for students to understand the material. She uses powerpoint slides, which aren't my favorite, but I'll admit that they're probably the right way to go to convey the large amount of material in the course. \n\r\nThe class is tough, and the homeworks are super challenging. The tests are doable but you're expected to do several pretty big problems per exam / final, so come practiced and prepared. Partial credit is important on the exams, so write down everything you know. She does an ELMS quiz per lecture. \n\r\nOverall, one of the most fun and useful EE classes I've taken so far.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-31T22:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Abshire', 'course': 'ENEE408D', 'review': "Abshire is great at teaching the material and answering questions. She is very knowledgeable and extremely nice, however she is a horrible professor. She doesn't grade anything despite making promises every lecture that grades will be in. Reports and presentations built off of each other in 408D but she stopped grading two months before the semester ended. She also fell asleep during the final presentations of our class even though the majority of the class had pulled an all nighter and managed to stay awake. Take this class with Abshire if you do not care if you know your grade and if you are fine with a professor who blatantly does not care about the course. That being said you can learn Cadence on your own, this capstone is not necessary for anyone interested in microelectronics.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-23T10:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Abshire', 'course': None, 'review': 'I believe she taught this course very well. She assigns comprehensive homeworks that would require a lot of time to complete, fortunately, she makes herself available to students almost everyday for questions relating to homeworks and projects. The tests are fairly straight forward. The average on our first midterm was in the low 70s, and the average on the final was also in the 70s. The only problem I have with this class is that she would sometimes go over slides too quickly, and this would result in learning the material on your own through the book (not the easiest read). Overall, I recommend taking this course if you enjoy topics in microelectronics/Integrated circuits. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-11T12:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Abshire', 'course': None, 'review': "Overall, she's been one of my favorite professors here at UMD. Prof. Abshire's a very good lecturer, and she tries very hard to make herself available to students with questions about the course material. The only slightly negative thing about her is that she will sometimes go a little fast through her Power Point slides. If you are ever unclear on something, or just want to stall so you can grasp the concept she just presented, just ask her a question. She usually gives really good explanations, and this will slow the pace of the class. Moreover, she happens to be a really nice person and her research is really cool, so if you ever want to do a 499 with someone, I would definitely recommend her over most other professors. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-18T01:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Abshire', 'course': 'ENEE411', 'review': "Professor Abshire is a pretty good professor. She teaches with PowerPoint slides (which some people prefer), so you're better off not taking notes but instead printing out the slides and annotating them during the lecture. I can definitely say that I learned a lot from this course.\r\n\r\nThe biggest complaint I have about her is the grading. She took over a month to grade the midterm, and three weeks to grade the final exam. By the time of the final day to withdraw from a course with a W, we only had quiz grades (automatically graded) and one or two homework grades. Basically, you had no idea where you were in the course until near the end.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-11T04:29:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Abshire', 'course': 'ENEE411', 'review': "Professor Abshire is a great teacher in class and is pretty helpful outside of class. She also held a review session for all the exams we had (and ordered pizza for us). She was very approachable and was generous with giving help to those who needed it. If it weren't for the downsides, I would probably take her again. \r\n\r\nI didn't like how the quizzes and homework assignments would sometimes require knowledge of material that she hadn't covered yet (I assume she wrote all of them before the start of the semester). She never changed any quizzes or homeworks to reflect where she had actually gotten to in class. So if she got a bit behind in class, then the homework would be much harder to complete. The class was very heavy in workload (long homework assignments for most weeks) and had pretty challenging exams. On the exams, there were some short answer questions followed by 2 pairs of long-answer questions. For the long-answer questions, you could just pick one from each pair, and do the other ones for extra credit. I appreciated the extra credit, because I would have gotten a much lower score without it. \r\n\r\nAs others have said before me, she is very, very slow at grading. Our homework assignments were graded by the TA, so they were usually in within 1-2 weeks. However, the midterm (graded by her) was given on October 20th, and was not graded until the last day of class. A minor-to-medium gripe I had while we were giving presentations was that she initially said she would cut people off after 5 minutes, in order to leave enough time for everyone to present before the end of class. However, several people gave presentations that were much longer (10 minutes), and she did not cut any of them off. This led to the last 3-4 people having to present after class. I just didn't like how she was generally bad at keeping her word. \r\n\r\nYou will learn a lot from this course, but expect to be spending a lot of time and effort on it. Her grading cutoffs are pretty generous though (80 percent for A-, 50 percent for C-). ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-14T00:17:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Abshire', 'course': 'ENEE411', 'review': 'Professor Abshire is a decent professor as in all the information is on her slides. Her slides are exactly like the textbook so if you dont like reading the textbook, all the info is on her slides. However, her class is heavy in workload and she grades very harshly. I would not recommend taking her class, She grades extemely slowly. Our midterms were graded one day before the last day of classes! So you wont know how you are truly doing. Quizzes are hard. Homework is extremely difficult. She does not communicate with her TA so sometimes the TA will give you the wrong answer or will be different than her expectations. She is a nice person...when her personal life isnt getting in the way of her attitude. She gets easily frustrated if you come to her with a question when her personal life is in a crisis so beware. you may be demoralized. \r\n\r\nHer grading scheme though is extremely fair. You will pass this class as long as you put in effort. You will learn a lot, but that learning is dependent on the effort YOU put in, she does NOT hold your hand and you need to understand the matieral inside and out otherwise you will fail. This class should be 4 credits and will take up and consume your life. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-20T23:49:55Z'}], 'name': 'Pamela Abshire', 'slug': 'abshire'}, {'courses': ['BUSI634', 'BUDT732', 'BUSI785', 'BMGT485', 'BUDT758R', 'ENTS673', 'ENTS635', 'BMGT190H', 'BMGT398D', 'BMGT397', 'BMGT491', 'IDEA258A', 'ENES190H', 'ENES397', 'ENES491', 'BMGT298B', 'BMGT434', 'BMGT438A', 'ENES489A', 'BMGT198C', 'BMGT190H', 'BMGT397', 'BMGT438A', 'ENES190H', 'ENES397', 'ENES489A', 'BMGT438N', 'BMGT190H', 'BMGT397', 'ENES190H', 'ENES397', 'BMGT190H', 'BMGT397', 'BMGT438N', 'ENES190H', 'ENES397', 'BMGT190H', 'BMGT397', 'ENES190H', 'ENES397'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Pamela Armstrong', 'course': 'BMGT190H', 'review': 'The class was very interesting in that it was mostly team based. Dr. Armstrong also brings in some guest speakers, which was good to learn about different opportunities and network. However, the lectures she gave were pretty lengthy and hard to focus through. They were useful, but could have been presented in a more interesting way. Additionally, the grading is pretty harsh on the papers and presentations, though this is the first QUEST class so the expectations are not known yet.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-29T18:49:10Z'}], 'name': 'Pamela Armstrong', 'slug': 'armstrong'}, {'courses': ['ENGL398R', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL398R'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Pamela Gerhardt', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'Great teacher. Fun, interesting, and very well taught class. Would highly recommend her for professional writing', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-08-21T19:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Gerhardt', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'I took it over the summer, and my writing has never improved so much in so little time. she is kind and smart, so take it with her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-22T17:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Gerhardt', 'course': 'ENGL398R', 'review': "This is the best professional writing class you can take! Everyone writes a 5 page nonfiction narrative - meaning a story about something that happened to you - and then we workshop them in class. You get to read people's crazy stories, like one guy who proposed after 5 months. It's fun and you learn stuff you will need to know in any business - like how to write about yourself, give a presentation, a memo, a resume, etc. If you have to take Junior English, take it with Gerhardt!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-13T10:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Pamela Gerhardt', 'course': 'ENGL398R', 'review': 'Really fun class, for sure the best of all the professional writing options. The entire class was just mini completion assignments, a 500-word essay, a five-page essay, and this portfolio thing. Spread out so the workload is really manageable, actually interesting and engaging. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-27T00:04:39Z'}], 'name': 'Pamela Gerhardt', 'slug': 'gerhardt'}, {'courses': ['COMM232', 'COMM351', 'COMM498G', 'COMM332'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Pamela Grant', 'course': 'COMM332', 'review': "Genuinely the worst professor I've ever had. Professor Grant is, for lack of a better word, crazy. She gives vague assignments that are at times impossible to complete and at others are impossible to understand. Her grading scheme is all over the place, saying one student's answer is wrong and another's is right even when they put the same answers. She's inconsistent and was frankly a bad teacher. The class content was SIMPLE, but most people got a B or lower just because nothing is explained correctly. Our class constantly complained about her up until the very last day of class because she was, in essence, THE WORST. Don't take her if you have the opportunity.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-01-03T03:21:43Z'}], 'name': 'Pamela Grant', 'slug': 'grant'}, {'courses': ['AREC345', 'AREC815', 'ECON626', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Pamela Jakiela', 'slug': 'jakiela'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Pamela Orel', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'Very nice professor but so much work... :( \r\n5 stars for her personality, 1 star for the unnecessary work', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-01T23:41:29Z'}], 'name': 'Pamela Orel', 'slug': 'orel'}, {'courses': ['ENCH609', 'ENCH630', 'ENCH468W', 'CHBE250', 'CHBE333', 'CHBE481', 'CHBE422', 'CHPH618W', 'ENCH648W', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE369', 'EDSP652', 'CHBE481', 'CHBE681', 'CHBE630', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE422'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Panagiotis Dimitrakopoulos', 'slug': 'dimitrakopoulos'}, {'courses': ['SURV798Z', 'SURV798B', 'SURV829', 'SURV699X', 'SURV615', 'STAT798B', 'SURV440', 'STAT818Z', 'SURV699L', 'STAT440', 'STAT818X', 'STAT818M', 'SURV616', 'SURV699W', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'STAT818B', 'SURV740', 'SURV699', 'SURV662', 'SURV699', 'STAT818B', 'SURV699', 'STAT750', 'SURV699'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Partha Lahiri', 'course': 'STAT440', 'review': 'Partha Lahiri believes in formulas and nothing else. You will spend your time in lecture writing down at a minimum 50 formulas without a single example to demonstrate them. His deck of slides have no explanations and information that cannot be found anywhere else. He uses different syntax on the board and slides. Group project with no instructions.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-11-14T20:49:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Partha Lahiri', 'course': 'SURV740', 'review': "Partha's lectures are pretty typical as a math professor, but he knows what he's talking about. In the course I took with him, he didn't try to make things more difficult than they needed to be, and he was receptive of questions in class and during office hours outside of class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-12T22:09:58Z'}], 'name': 'Partha Lahiri', 'slug': 'lahiri_partha'}, {'courses': ['BUAC743'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Partha Sengupta', 'slug': 'sengupta'}, {'courses': ['EXST009M', 'EXST039E', 'COMM719C', 'COMM729C', 'COMM619F', 'COMM749C', 'COMM619G', 'COMM609F', 'COMM629F', 'COMM639F', 'COMM649F', 'COMM609F', 'COMM629F', 'COMM639F', 'COMM659C', 'COMM719C', 'COMM729C', 'COMM798I', 'COMM659C', 'COMM719C', 'COMM749C', 'COMM629F', 'COMM659C', 'COMM719C', 'COMM729C', 'COMM798I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Pascale Kraus', 'slug': 'kraus_pascale'}, {'courses': ['AMST101', 'AMST205', 'AMST203', 'CPSA200', 'CPSA101', 'CPSA201', 'CPSA250', 'CPSA260', 'CPSA100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Patricia Akinbola', 'slug': 'akinbola'}, {'courses': ['EDHD460', 'EDHD760', 'EDHD722', 'EDHD201', 'EDHD228', 'EDHD231', 'EDHD201', 'EDHD201', 'EDHD760', 'EDHD201', 'EDHD201', 'EDHD722'], 'average_rating': 4.2857, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patricia Alexander', 'course': 'EDHD460', 'review': "Prof. Alexander is awesome! There are four exams (one which you have to write yourself but it's not hard) a little project you have to do. There are opportunities for extra credit so don't fret. She's very animated and really wants people to do well. So speak up and say intelligent things. Not a hard class at all. Very easy to get an A. I studied the night before for every exam, including the final and got high A's on all of them. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T22:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Alexander', 'course': 'EDHD460', 'review': "Dr. Alexander (prefers to be called Dr. A) is a very loving and enthusiastic professor who will brighten up your day. Her lectures are engaging and fun to be a part of. The lectures themselves are a little unorganized in terms of following along with the syllabus. She might not cover everything in one lecture so she probably will not test you on it. PowerPoint slides are posted on ELMS. I recommend printing these out because Alexander flies right through them during lecture. Dr. A makes an effort to learn many of her student's names (so watch out if you get called on in class). The class material is pretty straightforward and boring. Discussion sections are mandatory (turn in assignments and stuff). 3 midterms, 1 final, and 1 behaviorism project. No excuse not to get an A in this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Alexander', 'course': 'EDHD460', 'review': "Good class. Alexander is awesome - she's a great lecturer and she literally remembers everyone's name eventually. She studies the class roster pictures and tries to learn as many names as she can before the class even starts. Her book is REALLY boring which is weird because her lecturing is interesting / funny. No cell phones or laptops allowed in her lectures though. Sometimes the topics are boring but she makes it as interesting as possible. Discussion is fun too- her TAs have been with her for years and are very helpful! There are exams, but not normal exams at all. A different style of test. Many assignments but they aren't that difficult and are sometimes fun. A couple projects as well. Recommended!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-07T09:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Alexander', 'course': 'EDHD460', 'review': 'i expected to get an A in this course that i heard was very easy. this class is an absolute joke. she experiments with all her assignments and directions are never clear. she only rounds grades for people who get As on the last two exams. she gave me a C and i had a 79.9 in her class. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. all exams are written worth around 18 points a page and if you forget one word they take off major points. AVOID this class unless you really need to take it. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T12:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Alexander', 'course': 'EDHD460', 'review': "She is a great professor! I don't know how else to say it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-07T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Alexander', 'course': 'EDHD201', 'review': 'Take this course! The material is very relevant and interesting. Professor Alexander is amazing and so are the TAs. Highly recommend this course to anybody.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-04-15T22:38:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Alexander', 'course': 'EDHD201', 'review': "Dr. A is an amazing professor! I really enjoyed the class and the material. It is all super interesting and personal. Everything you learn you tie back to yourself which is super cool. \r\nYou definitely have to put in a good amount of time, there are readings twice a week which take up a while, but if you're interested in the material it's super worth it. If you already have a busy semester maybe save this course for next semester, but if you don't have the craziest schedule I HIGHLY recommend this class!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-20T19:26:52Z'}], 'name': 'Patricia Alexander', 'slug': 'alexander_patricia'}, {'courses': ['EDCI650', 'EDCI754', 'EDCI858', 'EDCI758'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Patricia Campbell', 'slug': 'campbell_patricia'}, {'courses': ['BMGT364', 'BMGT468X', 'BMGT364H', 'BMGT463F', 'BMGT468P', 'BMGT463', 'BMGT364N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Patricia Cleveland', 'slug': 'cleveland_patricia'}, {'courses': ['SOCY729C', 'SOCY498Q', 'SOCY729B', 'SOCY622', 'SOCY498B', 'SOCY699E'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patricia Collins', 'course': 'SOCY498M', 'review': "Patricia Hill Collins is the best teacher at the University of Maryland, very excellent style you have to show up and pay attention but the more you get involved in the class the more interesting and fun it becomes. She is a smart person and so long as you don't need things spoon fed to you this class is very interesting and will allow you to learn in an environment which you truly love as long as your ready to think take any class possible with this professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-10T12:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Patricia Collins', 'slug': 'collins_patricia'}, {'courses': ['PHIL308R', 'PHIL640', 'PHIL341', 'PHIL848M', 'PHIL282', 'PHIL408P', 'PHIL848O', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL688P', 'PHIL848J', 'PHIL848F', 'PHIL848P', 'PHIL848G'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patricia Greenspan', 'course': 'PHIL341', 'review': "Professor Greenspan's lectures are dry, boring and incredibly verbose. She teaches the class as though she was giving a seminar to a classroom full of philosophy professors.\n\r\nShe teaches from a power point that is posted online, so lectures are almost completely pointless. In order to get an A, you just need to follow slides at home and attend the weekly discussion section, which is a godsend. \n\r\nDespite the dry and boring lectures, however, Professor Greenspan is incredibly friendly and more than willing to try and help if you ask. She makes an honest attempt to learn names. \n\r\nExpect HEAVY reading for this course, with chapters of rather difficult reads assigned for each lecture: Hume, Kant, Mill, Rawls, etc.\n\r\nLane, the TA, was funny, helpful and a fair grader. I thoroughly enjoyed discussion section.\n\r\nPerhaps the best aspect of this course is that the Professor avoids off-topic questions that some overzealous philosophy students seem to spew. \n\r\nTake this course as a Philosophy Major, but not as an elective or advanced core (its not as interesting as it seems.) \n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-01-08T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Greenspan', 'course': 'PHIL341', 'review': "I'm not saying that Professor Greenspan isn't bright or anything, but she is definitely one of the weak links in the philosophy department.\r\n\r\nHer lectures were incredibly boring, and loaded with her interpretations of the material rather than purely the material itself. \r\n\r\nShe clearly had something against men. She regularly ignored their contributions and attempted to subtly belittle them while giving clear preferential treatment to the women of the class. \r\n\r\nOverall, would not recommend. Boring lectures, not great at conveying material, hard grading, bias toward students. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-12-29T20:57:56Z'}], 'name': 'Patricia Greenspan', 'slug': 'greenspan'}, {'courses': ['EDCP499L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Patricia Mielke', 'slug': 'mielke'}, {'courses': ['EDUC888C', 'EDCI661', 'EDUC888'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Patricia Richardson', 'slug': 'richardson_patricia'}, {'courses': ['BSCI105', 'BSCI105S', 'BSCI348P', 'BSCI222', 'CPSP218L', 'CPSP219L', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI348Q', 'BSCI105M'], 'average_rating': 4.0435, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "I came into her class on the first day scared out of my mind. After reading the reviews on here, I was convinced she was the worst professor to have for BSCI105. But now I think quite the opposite.\r\nPatty is hilarious and she give you an entire book of notes to follow in lecture for the entire semester, along with clicker points that factor into your final grade for extra credit. She doesn't curve, but the extra credit makes up for it. I went from a 78 to a 85% with the extra credit. The exams are fair and not extremely hard.\r\nI recommend taking her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-19T21:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "PATTY IS THE BEST! While at first she seems like a ***** during lecture, if you go to her office hours and get to know her she is the nicest most helpful professor i've ever had!! after failing multiple exams, I decided to make a change and met with her on a weekly basis to answer questions and review material. My score for the next test increased by a solid 30-40 points. Also GO TO LECTURE, it will make a HUGE difference in your grade come end of semester. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-13T12:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "I had Shields for BSCI105 then definitely signed up for BSCI222 when I saw she was teaching it. My favorite thing about her is that she genuinely cares and wants her students to do well. She's an exceptional lecturer and is very knowledgeable. She has a bright personality which makes her class fun and spontaneous. Can be a ***** at timessssss but just don't get on her bad side. With Shields, there ARE such things as stupid questions.\r\nAltogether, if you're looking to actually LEARN, she's the one. If you're looking for a class to bullshit and get an A in, She's not the one.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-16T02:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'I loved having Dr. Shields but if you are not willing to put in the effort do not take her. Her exams as she says are fair, but they are very hard and do require you to study a lot. I took both 222 and 105 with her and I enjoyed both course and learned a lot. Only take theses course if you want to work hard you will learn a lot but you must work hard ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-12T15:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Dr. Shields is a wonderful professor and a wonderful human being. She explains concepts very clearly, and really cares that her students understand. She provides lots of opportunities for extra credit and offers weekly reviews for the materials. You also have the option of not taking the final if you do well enough on the first 3 exams. Go to class and do the clickers. \n\r\nShe will teach you the material, and will make it interesting. She is also hilarious.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-07T16:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Well, well, well,\n\r\nTo be honest I was not even going to take Genetics in the Fall of 2012, but I believe God told me to take Genetics. The other professor Dr. Kocher was also teaching but he did not fit into my schedule and/or his classes were full...so Dr. Shields was the only genetics professor I could take fall 2012.\n\r\nFor the most part, was I thoroughly blessed being in her class lectures..she seems to be one of those people that for the most part seemed to maybe know how to "be" themselves\n\r\nShe would make the class laugh..I mean it was a blessing.. there are many students from all different walks of life who may be going through problems etc such as myself..and it was great to come out of her lectures..feeling refreshed revived.\n\r\nNow on to the technical side of it-\r\nshe does tend to rush at times when teaching .Not always though;\r\nlike when she was teaching about something that might be harder to understand she did take her time and went over it twice and more slower, which was helpful. \n\r\nShe seemed to be a bit loving ...nevertheless I remember once in class while a student was asking a question and/or she was answering it, the class was starting to talk a bit loud and she got angry/pissed and said something (not vulgar,) just maybe something like "I am trying to answer a question "- I can\'t remember what she said exactly, but I remember from the tone that it was clear how she felt - and the class got quiet real fast.\n\r\nHer test were not easy, of course but thank God for the other assignments and extra credit available. I think she also drops one exam from the three taken in he semester if you take the final ..but then your final grade would be included in your final grade whether you do good or bad on it along with the two best other exams (check up on that -I am not completely sure of this but I think this was probably the way it was done from what I remember)\n\r\nI mean it can seem annoying having to do the different assignments she assigns (what are we in high school again ?!?!) but in the end it could help your grade if you have not done so well on the exams with that being said , that\'s not to says don\'t take the tests seriously, obviously its still important to do well on them. The extra credit also can help.\n\r\non another note, sometime she her jokes or humor can get dirty...\n\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-27T20:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'I understand that she is OK lecturer but still.... Very mean all the time, gets annoyed by students so easily, incredible load of works, hard exams and likes to condescend her students. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-06T14:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "She really needs to calm down in general and stop freaking out about cheating and dishonesty on 10 point homework assignments. Overall pretty hard, but doable. She's brutally honest and doesn't back down about anything. I wish I tried a little harder, but hey, we were all freshmen once...", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-12-19T13:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'I liked Professor Shields a lot. She is very entertaining in lecture and presents material in a fun and simple way. She gives you a big book of notes at the beginning of the semester, so take your own notes in that book. She does not curve, but gives A LOT of extra credit, so do all of it and you should be fine. The extra credit took me from an 88 to a 92, so it does help a lot. Her exams are not difficult if you go to lecture and study a little the night before. The people who say otherwise are just angry that they did not do well enough in her class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-15T15:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Most likely one of the best professor's I've had at UMD and I've been here for a while and seen a LOT of professors. There is a ton of busy work, I agree, but almost all of the assigned work has helped me in one way or another on exams and just understanding genetics in general.\n\r\nI don't think the concepts are difficult if you just take the time to review them, or go to her office hours, as she is always there and always willing to help. TA's can be a hit or miss, but all in all I learned quite a bit from this class. I wish Dr. Shields taught more upper level genetics classes, as I would definitely take her again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-29T19:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Do not take bsci105 with shields. there are a lot of other professors that you can take it with instead. i think Nelson also teaches during spring instead of shields. she makes her exams extremely difficult unnecessarily. she even apologized the semester after i took her class about how hard she made the final for us.\n\r\nAlso do not take her for bsci222. if you need to take that class take Kocher or Straney', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-06-08T00:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'well first off, this class is hard. SHe has a lower grade distribution than the other teacher who taught it my semester koucher. I couldn\'t fit koucher into my schedule so i took patty. First of all she is interesting, out-there professor (alcoholic) or as many say shes "Patty". The class is hard to get an A in, but possible if you do all of her study guide questions and homeworks. THe way her exams work there are at least two big response questions that were close to or exactly the same as the homework questions. I remember on the second exam the average as a 58, but the two free response questions most people did wrongly were almost verbatim from homework questions she answered. If you can do pretty well of the three exams 85 and above, and you do well of other work, you can get an A i think. Also if you have an A before the final, you don\'t have to take the final (you can leave with your A). I would recommend taking patty if your actually more interested in genetics, but other than that, if you can get an easier professor you can do so. but if your stuck with patty REMEMBER: DO THE ASSIGNED HOMEWORKS. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T12:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'I chose to take Shields over Kochner after reading many reviews about what an interesting and relatable teacher Shields was. Looking back, I would not take genetics with Shields. That being said, I am not a bio major. I\'m a biochem major who thought taking genetics would be interesting and an "easier" A than other science classes. \n\r\nAfter talking to other students in Kochner\'s class, I do believe I understand the material more. If you are looking to truly learn genetics and possibly get a B instead of A, then I would take Shields. \n\r\nLastly, do realize this is a 4 credit class. There is a ton of work that goes along with this class. Weekly quizzes and HW assignments, not to mention the other random assignments due certain weeks.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-23T12:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Shields is a great professor. She may be harder than the other teachers and her exams may be more difficult, but in the end, you feel good about how much you have learned. She goes really in depth in the material and this material overlaps with BSCI222 so you're more prepared for genetics. Shields is an awesome lecturer. You HAVE to understand every single little thing. DEFINATELY go to GSS sessions and review sessions - she holds them before exams and you can ask her anything you have trouble with and she will explain it to you. \r\nSo all in all if you have to take Shields, you have to go into it knowing you're gonna spend a lot of time with the material. And remember - she NEVER curves. I honestly didn't think I'd get an A but somehow I aced the final and that bumped my grade. So just try hard and ask for help!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-23T00:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Dr. Shields is a good professor, but is very difficult. A tremendous amount of effort is needed in order to get a decent grade. She tries to trick you on her exams and even brags about how difficult her exams are. If you ask a question in lecture that she thinks is "stupid" then she will not hesitate to patronize you and tell you that your question does not make sense. However, she does provide about thirty points of extra credit, and you are not required to take the final if you are satisfied with your grade. If you want to take the final, you are allowed to drop your lowest exam score. Overall, I would recommend taking the other professor.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-18T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Dr. Shields was amazing. She was a great lecturer (funny, engaging, etc) and was very responsive to student needs. The tests were hard, multiple choice, short answers then 2-4 long answers. There were weekly quizzes and homeworks for discussions which were not too bad, just annoying. My TA was awesome and before each test had ~40 questions for us to do to help us prep. I loved this class, which I needed for Pre-Med, and I absolutely recommend Dr. Shields. She also does "take the grade or take the final", most people take the grade and you have one less final to study for!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-17T15:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "If I had to do it over again, I would not take Shields. Compare Shields and Kochner's GPA distribution. 10% of the class gets more As in Kochner's class than in Shields. I don't know how to study for her tests. My second and third test scores have gone down even though I do well on the online quizzes and have done all the HW assignments, gone through the clicker questions, lecture notes, and read the book at least three times. This is the only class that my test scores have gone down the more I study. \n\r\nShields is a good lecturer and does seem to relate to her students as long as you don't piss her off with stupid questions. \n\r\nHer tests aren't hard, but she grades really strictly so it's hard to get a good grade. You need to write the specific words/ reasoning or she won't give you credit. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-04T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr. Shields is an incredibly brilliant and knowledgeable professor. She herself is awesome and definitely cares more about her students than most of the other professors I've had so far. That being said...if you are one of the really forgetful flaky types(like me) this is not the class for you. There are lots of busy-work assignments to keep up with and with other classes to worry about, I and other students have missed the deadlines for a bit of them. I gave her a high rating because she is truly an excellent teacher, but I would have probably still taken it with a different professor, looking back. She is a harsh grader, and her exams are very difficult. There were 7 TA's helping to teach our class. I had a good TA, but some of my friends had this clueless TA who didn't know how to answer ANY questions relating to genetics at all, so if your TA sucks, then you're gonna have a harder time with the class than others. Shields is a great professor, but her class was HARD and I'll be glad to be done with it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-03T23:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'She was a tremendous professor. Biology is a hard class, and she warns you of that. But she makes so many resources available to you and really wants to help you learn.\n\r\nIf you have to take BSCI105, take Shields. No question!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-08-04T21:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'While she is very entertaining in lecture, she is very pretentious and condescending and has expectations for the course that are far too high for a 100-level course. She said so herself that only 12% of the students in the class were biology majors, yet she expected us all to be fully invested in HER class (like every high school teacher who thinks only their class is important).\r\nShe also almost considered herself Mother Theresa for the clicker requirements and the Mastering Biology quizzes, the ladder of which were not as easy as she though and weren\'t as helpful to our grades as she boasted. And if we didn\'t do them (like on the 2 times I forgot) she\'d go off on a rant of "This many students are just throwing away their points, right into the trash." My roommate who was also in the course was having some clicker issues even though she went to most lectures. What was Dr. Shield\'s opinion of people who didn\'t have any clicker credit? "You\'re all skipping my class, saying \'Screw Dr. Shields\'" like it was personal. While the extra credit opportunities she gave were extremely helpful, not all of us taking the course have a goal of curing cancer. As a psychology student in that class, it would have been nice of her to acknowledge that there are some topics (photosynthesis, for example) that not all of us need to know on an expert level.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-17T13:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105S', 'review': "One of the funnier teachers I've had. I'm not huge into cell bio, so I didn't like the class very much, but Shields made it interesting every day.\r\nGo to class and do the clicker questions. Even if you get it wrong you get points, and a lot of her questions on exams are from the clicker questions.\r\nLab grades will really help your grades too. I got an A in lab, and that brought my overall grade up by a whole letter.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-11T17:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Shields' is an awesome professor. She is one of the most entertaining lecturers you'll ever have the pleasure of hearing. She makes the material easily digestible and puts a lot of effort into forcing everyone to understand what's going on (regular clicker questions, Guided Study Sessions, her own reviews, accessible office hours). That said, it's possible to come out of the class knowing nothing at all (but not doing very well on the exams).\n\r\nThe class itself is somewhat difficult. Like all huge intro lectures, there's a lot of annoying work that you have to do, and it's hard to get A's on all of them. You've got 13 homework assignments, 3 tests and a final, in-class clicker questions (you just have to answer them, it doesn't matter if you got the answer correct) and a plethora of work you've got to do for lab. Whatever. You could do way worse than taking this class with Patty Shields.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-25T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Dr. Shields is a very engaging lecturer. However, she may go fast sometimes and will even cram material up until the day before the test. You MUST attend every lecture because you will feel lost if you skip one. Reading the book may help somewhat, but she will often mention things that are not found in the book.\n\r\nShe is very willing to help you understand concepts at any time. Even though she may seem mean sometimes in lecture, she just wants respect like any other professor. Her office hours are helpful and she truly wants you to learn the material. But you must help yourself! She truly makes you work for it.\n\r\nThere is a tonnnn of material that she covers. Her exams will cover almost everything she goes over in class. They are difficult, but fair. This is why you must go to every lecture. \n\r\nLab was okay, but the lab report was a pain in the ass because I had never written one before. If you get Seth as your TA, you're in good shape; he is not a hard grader and is pretty chill and laid back.\n\r\nDr. Shields truly makes you work for your grade. But you come out feeling like you actually learned something. I worked fairly hard in this class but I will probably end up with a low B. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-04-19T17:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'I do not understand why people seem to like Patty Shields so much. Maybe they took her for genetics, because for 105 she isn\'t all that great.\r\nShe\'s not a bad lecturer and she\'s a nice person, but she doesn\'t really seem like she knows what she\'s talking about beyond what she teaches.\n\r\nIf you don\'t know chemistry very well, don\'t take Shields. She doesn\'t feel the need to explain any chem because she "already had to take orgo and now it\'s your turn."\n\r\nHer tests aren\'t hard - with a minimal amount of studying you can understand the material. But her exam questions are always poorly worded. The hardest part of the class is figuring out what she wants, even on her clicker questions.\n\r\nI\'m not a big fan of Patty. She thinks she\'s really funny and all but if you actually want to learn I would take Simon.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-21T23:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Exams are really hard. She is a good teacher but she has a weird attitude (somewhat condescending). Her exams are very unclear at times and she basically teaches this course as if everyone in her class is going to be a doctor. UMD BIO DEPARTMENT (REALITY CHECK) NOT EVERYONE IN BSCI105 is going to be a doctor. SOME OF US NEED IT JUST TO FULFILL A 100 LEVEL REQUIREMENT. It is an introductory bio course 100 level. Sheilds definitely does not treat it like one. She makes it extra difficult. I could have gotten an A but the workload and amount of information on the exams made it difficult for me so I ended up with a B. If you are a bio person who works really hard and enjoys studying take her. If not....stay away from shields', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-14T21:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Awesome professor. She is approachable, will be straightforward with your concerns, keeps the class entertained, etc. There is busy work, but it helps boost your grade. Her tests are reasonable with half being MC and the other half being problems (which are usually easy to guess beforehand). You buy the lecture notes at the beginning of the semester and the exams and weekly quizzes are based off of that. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-11T20:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Even though there were many who complained that her tests were too long, or too hard, I found her tests reasonable. There are busy work that you will have to do, but I feel that it helped with some of the materials that are covered in class. Quizzes are usually from the outline she provides in class, and as long as you read, and go over her notes, there is no way you will not get an A in this class.\n\r\nShe does not curve, so I hope you do not rely on a curve. Dr. Shields is very nice, and approachable!\n\r\nI give her A++++ :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-05T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Shields is a very entertaining professor. Her snide remarks and chirpy voice will surely keep you awake during class. She is a very clear lecturer and explains concepts well. Unfortunately, there is a trade off: her exams are really difficult and she does not curve. \n\r\nWhile the grades you earn on the exams make up the majority of the total points in the class, your grade can also depend on your TA. Each TA writes their own quizzes, which you have once a week in discussion. Some TAs give ridiculously easy quizzes, while others give incredibly hard quizzes. But, that's just luck. I found the textbook to be very helpful when studying for the quizzes, as well as the exams. \n\r\nIf you want to learn and enjoy genetics, take Shields. If you are not a very diligent student and just want to boost or maintain your GPA, take the other professor (Kocher).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-01T03:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'P. Shields is by far one of the best biology professors at UMD. Although she may be a bit tough, and her tests a bit hard with no curve, if you study for two or three days and do the things she tells you to in order to prepare, you will get a great grade. \n\r\nShe warns you in the beginning of the class, if you are not a bio major get out now. So, she means business. But if there is ever something you have a question about take advantage of her office hours. She is always open to meeting with students, sooner rather than later. I went to her to review after every test to see how I would pan out in the class and she even gave me some points back!\n\r\nP. Shields also is a great lecturer. This class is phenomenal and she gives you every opportunity to pass, but still makes you earn it. The class has clicker questions and a lot of small tasks but they just boost your grade in the end. She prints out a notebook of $18 in the beginning of the year and if you attend lecture and use the notebook and text book to study along with the clicker questions you will pass.\n\r\nAll in all, hilarious teacher, keeps you engaged and really wants her students to pass. If you have to take BSCI105 take it with her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-29T19:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "She's a great lecturer and she's funny, but her tests are HARD! You have to really understand everything to do well. There's no curve, but she does give some extra credit opportunities and easy exercises that you should get 100% on. Lab is supposed to help your grade, but if your TA is hard, then lab would barely help your grade. Unless you're a pre-med student or a biology major, you probably won't get an A in the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-16T12:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "BSCI105: Same deal as 222. clickers, lectures posted, fair exams. I took Ap in high school but just didnt take the test. Easy A. \r\nBSCI222: Took her because I did well in her 105. REALLY knows her stuff. Confident woman that doesn't take crap from anyone. You have to go to discussion, which is lame, but an easy way to boost a grade. Drop an exam or skip the final. clickers. buying the notes helps A LOT \r\nYeah she can be inappropriate, but she's always well intentioned and always funny. Usually what she says is what we are all thinking, or ends up being how you remember something. High A in both classes", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-19T18:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Interesting class. She good and nice one-on-one (especially when it comes to grade calculations), but if you are mean, she'll be mean right back. She does not curve (every point counts!) and has some extra credit points. She uses clickers: first question (which you have to be on-time to class for) is graded by correctness and all others are just participation. There are weekly quizzes and other assignments due (considered busy work). there are 3 tests OR 2 tests+final (one can be dropped, but if you drop it you have to take the final). Tests are hard and you need to take her basic lecture notes and put them in detail on your own.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-03-02T15:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Outstanding professor. One of the very best biology professors at UMD!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T04:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "She is a very good instructor. Her notes are organized, clear, and succinct. She compiled her notes in a notebook that you can purchase at the beginning of the semester for $13, so that you do not have to waste paper and ink to print the notes. I thought it was a very generous gesture, and it's well worth it. She has a witty sense of humor, and her voice is anything BUT monotonous. The subject of genetics is already interesting, and Shields does a fabulous job explaining all the concepts. The class is a lot of busy work though. In addition to lectures, there is a 2 hour discussion that meets once a week. During every discussion, you have a quiz and usually some form of assignment due, whether it's a mathbench quiz or a homework assignment. The discussions are fairly helpful to review what is taught in lecture. Shields also uses clickers, so make sure you attend class. She does NOT curve; in fact, an 89.5% is still a B. You must get a 90% flat to get an A, 80% for a B, 70% for a C, and so forth. However, she does provide around 20 points of extra credit. She also gives you the option of not taking the final exam if you are satisfied with your grade. However, if you are unsatisfied (i.e. on the borderline), she allows you to drop your lowest exam and replace that grade with the final. It is not easy to get an A, but it is not hard to get a B. Great professor- I highly recommend her. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-18T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Shields was the only good bio professor I had back when I was still a microbiology major. I took BSCI105 in spring 2008 and I loved the class with her. She explains things really well, her exams are hard but fair (I mean come on, don't expect cell bio to be an easy class!), and she has these cool videos that reinforce a lot of major topics learned in class (like DNA synthesis, transcription and translation). \n\r\nYou HAVE to read the book to fully understand everything. This is NOT because Shields is a bad professor. It's because cell bio and its processes are really detailed, and there's just no way she can teach it all in the limited amount of class time that there is. I had to work really hard in Shields' class, but it's worth it. With Shields, you end up really learning a lot and feeling good about it. \r\nDefinitely take Shields.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-27T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Excellent Professor! Showed every concept and was very engaging. The discussions did have some busy work but it did help me understand some of the material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-10T23:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'As a lecturer, Dr. Shields is great. She is really engaging and she makes learning about genetics really interesting. Her tests are really hard. I got 2 Cs and a B and expected to get a B in the course and then came the final. The final is comprehensive and was impossibly long. I had a very hard time finishing the exam in two hours. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-17T21:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'When I read these reviews I was intimidated but I absolutely loved this class and Dr. Shields. \n\r\nShe is an amazing teacher and does a great job explaining material and giving you the tools you need to understand it. She is very receptive to questions in and out of class, and I thought her exams were fair (though I believe she did say she shortened them from previous years). \n\r\nThere can be quite a bit of work, but if you just go to class, pay attention, and do the required work, you can easily get by. I think it may also depend on how good your TA is at reviewing the material. Discussion can be long and boring but overall it is extremely helpful and cut down on a lot of my study time. \n\r\nShields also holds review sessions once per week, and her guaranteed grade system was awesome. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-12T03:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'WAAAAY too much busy work. its like high school all over again. \r\nExams are hard and she does not give enough time. She does not curve. Do not listen to all the reviews saying she is good.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-19T03:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Clickers used\r\nStraight forward exams\r\nOverly excited teaching\r\nInappropriate comments sometimes (funny though)\r\nReview session every week\n\r\nShe seems happy to be teaching! :) ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-13T02:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Excellent teacher\r\nfunny, very energetic and inspiring\n\r\nall lectures outlines were on blackboard and were very helpful\n\r\nclickers were used in class\r\nnot much work at all\n\r\nfair exams', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-01T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Excellent professor, posts lecture notes online, and tests straight from the outlines. Doesn't offer much extra credit and DOES NOT curve. Lab isn't too bad if you have the right TA. A good grade is possible but you'll have to work for it. She wants all of her students to get A's, but won't just hand them out. She's very receptive if you have questions or need help. Reviews every week at various times", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-28T00:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Excellent professor. I really learned a lot in this class. She can be a little rude when you interact with her face-to-face, but her excellent teaching skills make up for her personality.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-26T15:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'One of the happiest professors that I have had at Maryland. Dr. Shields seems to love teaching students and it shows in her lectures. She was also always willing to help students if they needed it.\n\r\nI wish I could have taken more classes from her!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-05T17:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Dr. Shields reminds me of a cracked out drag queen. If I would have taken the class freshman year I probably would have loved her coddling style but as an upperclassman I thought the busywork was extremely ridiculous. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-24T20:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patricia Shields', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Very engaging and dynamic teacher, although a little in-your-face and shocking at times. The workload is not bad, and discussion isn't horrible, depending on your TA.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-10-21T15:37:00Z'}], 'name': 'Patricia Shields', 'slug': 'shields'}, {'courses': ['EDSP693', 'EDSP696', 'EDSP692', 'EDSP695', 'EDSP210', 'EDSP452', 'EDSP434', 'EDSP495', 'EDSP496', 'EDSP470'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Patricia Ulf', 'slug': 'ulf'}, {'courses': ['MATH608J', 'MATH406', 'MATH608E', 'MATH602', 'MATH403', 'MATH404', 'MATH808C', 'MATH405', 'MATH411', 'MATH808E', 'MATH140', 'MATH808K', 'MATH141', 'MATH603', 'MATH241', 'MATH241', 'MATH606', 'MATH607', 'MATH600'], 'average_rating': 3.4167, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Easy exams, but doesn't teach", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-12-22T17:03:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'An awesome professor. Although MATH403 is a hard class, Patrick made the content enjoyable and easy to understand. He is super helpful during office hours and is looking out for his students. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-26T00:53:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Super chilled prof, thinking of him makes me giggle. I learned so much from him! What's really cool about his teaching style is that he's pretty personal about the stuffs he teaches, so the emphasis on the material is heavily flavored with an algebraist's perspective. The whole class was keen and fun and backed by solid motivations. Wish we had a longer semester to cover more.\r\n\r\nIf you're taking classes with him, please take good care of him. Go to class and envision his brilliancy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-07T00:25:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I enjoyed his class. His exams were far easier than the other professors. He is not the best teacher but definitely worth taking him for those easy exams. He also drops 1 midterm, 2 quizzes, and like 4 homeworks... (Fall '19)", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-11-17T22:34:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Makes Calc 2 doable. He drops a midterm, like half of the quizzes, and 5 or 6 homeworks. Lectures are a bit proof-heavy, but the midterms are easier than some other professors'. Final is rough, but he does curve.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-19T07:59:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "My failing grade is mostly due to me being a bad student and going through a rough patch but I also have stuff to say about his class.\r\nHe's a pretty okay person and his tests were decently easy but he just goes on and on about proofs when we could be doing examples and actually learning how to solve the problems. So I guess take his class if proofs help you.\r\nAlso I felt severely under prepared for the final and bombed it. I went from a C+ to a D-.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D-', 'created': '2020-03-07T20:02:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH405', 'review': 'He\'s a really nice guy, but he has this really annoying habit of deciding he\'s "bored" halfway through a proof during lectures. Harsh grading in exams but curves at the end of the semester. I would recommend him overall for 405 since he\'s an algebraist so he has a lot of interesting things to say about the subject.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-03-29T19:15:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'His exams throughout the semester are not difficult at all. But that’s the only thing he has going for him. His lectures are really confusing and he does not prepare you for the final exam which determines way too much of your grade. I had an A before the exam and ended up with a B-.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-09-05T04:06:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Brosnan managed to switch to an online format with little to no hassle and he cares a lot about his students and their performance. The notes were quite organized and easy to follow as well. The only reason he's 4 stars out of 5 is because he does this thing where he goes through a proof and in some parts says the result is obvious when the jump to a conclusion is not so clear. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-04T23:42:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Fantastic man, you can tell he really has a passion for mathematics and he brings energy to his lectures. However, the quality of learning you might get from his lectures for calc 3 are far below the quality of the videos posted on youtube by Prof Justin on exactly the same topics. Often I find myself skipping lecture just to go straight to watching a 50 min video at 1.75x speed. In class there is a lot of waiting around for examples that don't show too much, and often are hard to even keep track of because of his handwriting. It's not so bad for me because I also have screenwriting but some other students may struggle. \r\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-17T15:54:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Good dude, he is really knowledgeable in mathematics but has a hard time expressing his ideas. Watching another profs videos on the topic was more beneficial than attending his lecture but he's not a bad choice. He's really nice though which is always a plus.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T21:22:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH603', 'review': 'Great prof. Very lenient.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-31T23:08:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Dr. Brosnan is a really nice professor. He assigned few homeworks. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-31T15:27:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great guy very smart his lectures were a bit confusing he literally teaches pretty much straight from the text book so if you wanna do the best skim it before class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-05T19:52:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH404', 'review': "He's really nice and has a sense of humor. We didn't use a textbook but his lecturing style makes it easy to take notes as he writes everything he says on the board. The homeworks were generally short and not too difficult. We had two exams which together were worth something like 80% of the grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-06-21T20:21:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH404', 'review': "I enjoyed him as a person, but his teaching style could be a bit disorganized. In particular, we didn't have our the majority of our homework graded until the last week of class. Also, he wrote pdf of lecture notes on the class material but only released them about two weeks before the final.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-08-19T01:04:12.216585Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "He's an alright professor. I mainly learned the content by watching Professor Justin's videos and reading the textbook because his lectures can be slightly confusing and his handwriting is sometimes hard to read. However, his exams are extremely straightforward and are often directly based on the suggested homework problems (all of the homework problems were optional). The MATLABs are also extremely easy and never took me more than 30 minutes to complete, and the weekly quizzes helped boost my grade.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-01T15:04:14.590631Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Do not take Professor Brosnan's class. He deviates from the standard math curriculum of four exams, worksheets, and homework. Instead, he only does two exams and jam-packs the material into those two exams. The reviews previously stated that although he only has two exams, they are relatively easy to make up for the sheer amount of content in each exam. However, the average for the second exam was around 60%, and he refused to admit or curve the exam. This left the students extremely vulnerable going into the final, which is weighted 50%, unlike the students who have other professors. He refuses to add more exams claiming that it is easier for the students, which in reality, reflects his laziness as a professor. With that, there are difficult quizzes every Thursday created by the TAs, so there is no standard on which everyone is being graded on. These should be helpful to our grades to outweigh the exams, but, instead, they do the exact opposite. His in-person lectures are disorganized. He rarely can complete examples of the content and then expects students to be able to know the entire process. His ego and laziness get in the way of recognizing his mistakes, and he does little to combat that. He tries to tell the students not to worry about grades and there will be some kind of curve at the end, but he does nothing actually to provide actual comfort to students. He refuses and is unwilling to accept his mistakes and recognize that he is making this entire process horrible for all students. He is, for the most part, unavailable for students outside of class, and it is apparent that he does not really care about students' success. I am truly shocked that he has managed to get this high of a rating with how catastrophically horrible this semester has been with this class. Even though he comes off as friendly and funny in the beginning, he is the worst professor I have ever had. If you end up having him, I would recommend not ever going to class as it makes everything more confusing, and instead, watch Justin's youtube lectures. I", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-11T23:03:22.064257Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'While Dr.Brosnan is an extremely kind and charismatic professor, he has been one of the worst professors I have ever had. He is the only MATH241 professor (to my knowledge) that changed the structure of the class to two midterms (15% each), weekly quizzes (15%), A matlab assignment (5%), and a final (50%). Both midterms were only 4 questions because he "didn\'t want to have to grade another question". The first midterm was taken the same week as the other class\' first midterm and the second was a combination of the second and third midterms. Our class average for the first midterm was around a 88% and the average for the second exam was a 63% (with the median being 61% meaning more than half the class received a failing grade). While taking the second midterm, NO ONE (out of a 150 person class) had finished at the 45 minute mark and everyone was visibly struggling, Dr.Brosnan then announced to the room he was leaving for another class and left before the exam was over. This struck me as incredibly unprofessional and cowardly of him to leave so he could not be confronted about the unfair exam. I am an engineering major and have taken hard/unfair exams before, but the professor always had the decency to talk to the class about it with the students. When confronted about the exam in class, Dr.Brosnan justified the exam by saying it "wasn\'t that bad" and when someone mentioned that the average was a D he said that "a few students did very well". I do not recommend Dr.Brosnan as a professor to anyone. Most people end up not going to lecture and watching Justin\'s video lectures off of youtube (the average attendance every class is around 40 students). You\'re much better off with a professor who cares about the success of their students and is dedicated to their work.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-11T23:24:50.055787Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Professor Brosnan is a nice guy, however, he can be a very unorganized professor and frequently goes on tangents. He focuses mostly on the proofs that bore you, slaps an equation on the board, circles it, and never explains how to actually do the problems. I learned 90% of the content from Justin\'s videos and just grinding the homework. Most of the class quickly stopped attending lectures because we realized he didn\'t actually teach us the content. His final was 50% of the grade which was also rough as the average was a 65, however he did curve all of our grade by 10%. Only two midterms with the second covering way too much material, I\'m a A/B student and if it wasn\'t for the curve I would have ended with a C-. Not because I didn\'t understand the content, but because he does not curve midterms because "its too much work" and fails to prepare us for what he puts on his exams.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-18T20:06:35.939549Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Professor Brosnan is a weird but really fun guy. However, for non-math majors, his lectures are difficult. They are full of proofs and very few examples. I just watched Justin Wyss-Gallifent's lectures on YouTube after our first exam, and I did great and had less of a headache doing the homework each week. Overall, we only had 2 exams which were comparatively the easiest out of all of the 241 professors this semester. If you do the homework, you will do fine on his exams and TA quizzes. Matlab was also simple--each of the three took a total of maybe 10 mins each, which had my friends in the other 241 classes cursing at me over their 5 hour matlabs. Would recommend for the easy tests and quizzes (and no graded HW) as long as you are disciplined enough to do the suggested HW problems and sit down with some classmates during class time to watch the lecture videos on YouTube.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T20:56:11.289835Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Nice and funny guy in class, but his lectures were very confusing so I stopped attending them. As many will tell you, the Justin Wyss-Gallifent videos are 100% the way to complete this class. If you watch them and actually do homework problems until you understand the material, you will be fine. His exams were pretty easy and the Matlab assignments are practically nonexistent. Just make sure you prepare yourself well for the final as it will not necessarily be the same difficulty as the midterms.\r\n\r\nFrom my experience, this class requires some self-control to actually make yourself watch the video lectures and complete the optional homework. Which if you are coming in as a freshman student with AP Calc credit might be a new experience. Overall, I think you get out what you put into this class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-30T07:50:53.383909Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Professor Brosnan is a very nice and well meaning guy, he does genuinely care about his students performance. This being said, I found his lectures a little scattered and confusing and oftentimes had few examples. I used his lectures alongside Justin Wyss-Gallifent YouTube videos which I found helped clear any confusion. He does make lectures light-hearted as he makes a lot of jokes and will tell some brief stories every now and again. \r\n\r\nHis exams are almost exactly like the homework so if you do the recommended problems you should be familiar with the exam content. He does give 1 or 2 of his previous exams as practice for each midterm and held several review sessions during class before the final. The Matlab assignments are extremely easy and could be done in a few minutes. \r\n\r\nThis semester (Fall 2022) Brosnan decided to only have 2 Midterms instead of the usual 4. This was meant to reduce the number of stressful exams across the semester, but in reality it just made the 2 midterms worth more and harder to study for as they covered more content. This was his first semester trying this so it may not happen in the future. Our final grade was curved.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-03T19:00:57.427712Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Pretty quirky professor but he's not bad. Honestly just used Justin's video the entire time, but the best thing about Brosnan is that his MatLab are extremely simple and are the easiest of the Calc 3 professors. No assigned homework, but I would highly recommend looking over them before taking quizzes. Exams aren't too bad either as long as you study the review and understand the content.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-27T19:44:10.330803Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick Brosnan', 'slug': 'brosnan'}, {'courses': ['ENPM622', 'ENPM656', 'ENPM626', 'ENPM622', 'ENPM626', 'ENPM622'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Patrick Caton', 'slug': 'caton'}, {'courses': ['ARTT418B', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT418H', 'HONR209G', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT428H', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT428H', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT320'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick Craig', 'course': 'ARTT418B', 'review': 'Prof. Craig is SOOOOOOOOO knowledgable and really helped me expand in my creating original works. He enforces thinking outside the box and combining materials and his structure for his classes are so great, you can really see your progression throughout the semester! I don\'t know what that person was talking about in the first review saying "don\'t take craig"...hes super nice, helpful and not a pervert at all!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-18T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Craig', 'course': 'ARTT428', 'review': 'Awesome professor, really knows his stuff! Very helpful and knowledgeable, highly recommend taking his courses. Class attendance matters.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-03-25T22:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Craig', 'course': 'ARTT418B', 'review': 'Excellent class, excellent teacher. Also taking him for ARTT428 - highly recommend Prof. Craig for painting and drawing classes. Top notch professor in the department.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-17T23:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Craig', 'course': 'ARTT428', 'review': "Do not take Craig. He is a pervy arrogant jerk who won't teach you damn thing. He is not there to teach, he is only there to make himself feel bigger by putting his students down. I got a B- because I hurt his fragile ego. Apparently he thinks he is his students' employer and we must paint exactly what and how he wants. Do not take this class if you want to learn about painting. However if you enjoy perverted nasty man staring you up and down, well then be my guest. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2010-05-20T23:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Craig', 'course': 'ARTT320', 'review': 'Professor Craig is knowledgeable, caring, and encouraging. He will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, give feedback that will make your artwork better, and also give meaningful life advice. I highly recommend taking him for any course he teaches because he is passionate about art. He is also very understanding about your personal issues. \r\nThe review from 2010 is very out of context. You will have a great time making friends in his class. He plays awesome Spotify music, and even let us watch the Soccer world cup on the projector! \r\nI am looking forward to taking ARTT428 with him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-10T20:41:16.576228Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Craig', 'course': 'ARTT428', 'review': "Prof. Craig is an outstanding painting instructor. I took him for ARTT320 (Beginning Painting) and I'm now in his advanced painting course, ARTT428. He really knowledgeable with both technical skills as well as keeping up with contemporary art. He provides constructive feedback so that I can improve my paintings. He plays a wild variety of music in class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-15T22:04:46.757451Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick Craig', 'slug': 'craig'}, {'courses': ['MATH631', 'MATH220', 'MATH632', 'MATH630', 'MATH463', 'MATH411', 'MATH410', 'MATH858N'], 'average_rating': 4.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': "I am sad to say Fitzpatrick has probably fallen out of his prime. He is definitely not the same man as in these reviews.\n\r\nI'd say he is generally very unorganized in class. The way he writes on the black board is just not organized. Most math professors are organized and provide separate discussions of definition, lemmas, and then theorems. He will just write things scattered across the board. \n\r\nAlso, he is unable to do any slightly complex proof without making errors. He probably makes at least 1 error for every proof he does which is extremely confusing because you don't know if you can trust what he writes. Finally, I'd say his handwriting is very hard to read at times. He will omit letters in words and words just become scribbles.\n\r\nHe's definitely a kind person, I respect him a lot. He's the guy who wrote the MATH410 textbook, which is just excellent. But I felt this section deserved an update. One thing I noticed is that he seems very pale in class. I think his health may be affecting his teaching.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-10-22T23:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH630', 'review': 'Let me qualify this review: THE BEST EVER OF ALL TIME was Prof. Seymour Goldberg (who, tragically, is no longer with us). Today, the best in the Math department is Prof. Fitzpatrick. Rigorous and very clear. Very professional, he makes is clear, but does not dumb it down. No surprises on the exams. Sit up front in class, if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-10-11T10:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Amazing, amazing, amazing professor! I took this class after Math113 and after having a miserable time with Calculus in High School. He could not have taught the material in a more easy to understand way. So many good examples that were right on the test, always easy to contact via email, and just a sweethearted, nice guy. My TA was bad, but I feel like half the time that is just luck of the draw anyways. Sit in the first couple of rows, I promise it will make the extra difference!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-21T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Incredible, incredible professor!!! I'm not a particularly math inclined student, but I decided to go the extra mile and take calculus anyway. The reviews seemed too good to be true, but any praise Professor Fitzpatrick gets is not enough! He is one of the best teachers I have ever had. I have received As on all of my exams!\n\r\nHe makes a pretty good amount of mistakes, but never in his practice, only because he will forget what he wrote on another side of the board. The students always catch these minor mistakes though, and he thanks them and continues. He knows all of his math in and out, is incredibly sweet, and his lectures are easy to follow and very thorough. \n\r\nHis TAs are also really wonderful. I would recommend this class to ANYONE, but especially to people who need to take calculus and are worried about not doing well. Be prepared to put in some time for Webassigns, but other than that the class was an absolute joy to take. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-09T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "I loved Professor Fitzpatrick! 2 years later, he is still the best professor I've had at UMD. It was the first Math class I took where I actually enjoyed going to class! He explained concepts so thoroughly and gave you the real world applications so that what he was telling you made sense. Previously, I thought Calc would be hard - but with him, it was easy and enjoyable! I miss him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-07T02:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "If you took calculus in high school, take this class. It is essentially the same thing. He breaks down everything in lecture with such detail, that this class is almost too easy. \r\nwebassign (100 pts)\r\nweekly quizzes(100 pts)\r\n3 tests (100 pts)\r\nfinal (200 pts)\n\r\nTake this class. You want regret it. Put in a little bit of study time, and you'll get an A no problem", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T18:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'If the ratings can exceed to infinity then this professor deserves to be rated in infinity. I absolutely love this professor. His teaching style, his sincerity, his right on point attitude, and his sense of humor makes the subject easy to learn. I walked into this class thinking that I would struggle in calculus but he proved me wrong. Instead, he made me love it and now I registered for MATH221 all because of him. BIG TIP: If you want to do well in this class, sit on the first 3 rows. I say this because his hand writing is sometimes hard to understand and he gives more attention to the front of the class like all professors. \n\r\nAssignments Breakdown:\n\r\nWebassign (100 points)\r\nWeekly Dis. Quizzes (100 points)\r\n3 exams (100 points each)\r\nFinal exam (200 points)\n\r\nHe randomly drops a certain amount of quizzes and webassigns to make life even more easier. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-05-16T02:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'The best professor I have ever had. He is charming and magnificent, but even better the way he explains the math is perfect. I had never taken calculus before in my life and had a general hatred toward math, but after this class I love math and especially calculus. I would consider changing my major to math if I could take all classes with Fitzpatrick, or fitzy is what I like to call him. \n\r\nIn addition to his great teaching skills he has a great sense of humor. He cracks jokes and does not even know it and has so many quotable moments you should probably write them down.\n\r\nMy friend and I wanted to take a picture with him at the end of the course because we loved him that much and he said "Of course, as long as I get a copy." So he has a great attitude about interacting with students.\n\r\nAs far as tests, quizzes and homework go. Quizzes are super easy only got lower than 100 on one, the TAs literally go over the quiz and then give you a quiz in class. Tests are 5 quizzes long and little harder but use lots of example from class. The webassign is actually the hardest part of the class and often takes 45 minutes to an hour but prepares you well for the tests.\n\r\nOverall if you have a chance take a class with fitzy, best decision ever!\n\r\nIf you have a spare moment, my friend and I created a video about fitzpatrick to showcase his general awesomeness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5s7em0vzaE', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-14T02:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH630', 'review': 'Fitzpatrick is a terrific lecturer. His German accent is rarely a problem. He presents and motivates the theory well and is just fun to listen to. The tests were straightforward.\n\r\nThe course went more slowly than other graduate courses, but we seem to have covered all the intended material. He seems to have something against abstracting too much, which can make some of the proofs more tedious than necessary. But on the whole his style is very good.\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-06T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "He is awesome. Very professional and made Calculus clear. Very detailed lectures and did a great job of explaining the material. Go to lecture and sit up front (his voice is very soft) and your do well. His test are based off his previous tests and lecture problems. TA's are awesome. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-23T01:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Amazing teacher! He explains everything thoroughly in lecture and is very approachable. His tests are very reasonable and straight forward.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T01:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'A must take class.. especially if u dislike calc as much as i do.. awesome teacher... examples used in lecture are identical to those on test...No Tricks. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T00:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Fitzpatrick is one of the most thorough teachers i have ever had. I have never taken calc before and i learned sooo much. He is very clear and does tons of examples. His tests are very fair. The only reason i didnt give him five stars is because he is not very apathetic. Like i said it was my first time taking calc so i didnt always do amazing on tests and when i went to discuss some issues i had, he didnt care at all. The other thing is that his webassigns have no order. They are very sporadic and sometimes 2 at a time. I would definitely recommend his class especially if you are to calc. I you have taken calc before, this class is probably a no brainer. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-16T04:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'AMAZING calc teacher!! i took AP calc in high school so i guess that could have contributed, but even without it im sure i would have done well in this class. he teaches things step by step, goes through everything with tons of examples, and my TA was excellent as well which definitely helped. his tests are straightforward and pretty easy and he goes over all the types of questions that will be on the test beforehand. i honestly stopped going to lecture after the first few weeks except for the reviews before exams, and im getting an A because his exams/quizzes/webassigns arent too difficult at all.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-12T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Best calc teacher ever.. exams are straight forward.. No tricks. Go to class because he reviews problems that are identical to the ones on the test. exams are only 5 problems- all which again are straight from lecture. Also, very good responder to e-mails: something a lot of professors lack. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-07T12:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "GREAT TEACHER. I'm not really sure how he could have taught Calculus any better. I've never taken Calc before and I was nervous about how well I would do in this class. \n\r\nProfessor Fitzpatrick teaches in a way that is simple and makes sense. Also, each lecture before the exams he tells you exactly what kind of problems will be on the exam. I suggest going to lectures. I actually felt like I was learning something.\n\r\nMake sure you do the webassigns. At the end of the semester the average is the equivalent to a test grade. Also go to discussion because the average of the quizzes are also worth a test grade. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-05-22T15:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'This guy is simply awesome! Once you can get past his German accent and sometimes messy handwriting (like when he writes a "d" thing for partial derivatives) you will be so glad you took him. HE is very patient and he selected some great TA\'s (Get Doug Galagate if you can) The Bad: He doesn\'t drop any tests. The GOOD: His tests are 5 questions long and can be done WELL within the hour limit. He drops a random amount of HW\'s and quizzes (I guess it is cycle dependent). He spends all the time going through equations on the board that you WILL SEE on your web assign and more importantly, YOUR TESTS! I CANNOT stress this enough. I just finished my final and there was not one "trick" problem there! It was all straightforward, the same thing and situations we studied throughout the class were the ones we were tested on. Isn\'t that kinda refreshing?\n\r\nYou have to go to your discussions though. You get a quiz in each one and they count for a hundred points overall in fact... \n\r\nTest X 3 (100pts each) = 300\r\nQuizzes (10pts each) = 100\r\nWebassign = 100\r\nFinal Exam = 200\n\r\nSo it is all out of 700pts\r\nAnyway, this guy is fair, is super helpful (he responds QUICKLY to email and will adjust your grade within the hour) and really likes what he does. I don\'t think there is a curve to this class because there is no need for one. Trust me, THIS IS A GOOD THING. PM me if you want to know the reason why teachers HAVE to curve..', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-15T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "He made some errors but not as bad as some other reviewers claim. He's also a very generous grader. I felt like his office hours were much more helpful than going to class, but some of his lectures were quite helpful for the denser material. I would recommend reading the material a day or two in advance that way you know what to expect. Also if you email him ahead of time he with questions he'll give a bit of extra time towards it in class. If not for technical limitations I would take another course taught by professor Fitzpatrick.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-23T23:57:21Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick Fitzpatrick', 'slug': 'fitzpatrick_patrick'}, {'courses': ['ENST389', 'ENST443', 'ENST479', 'ENST373', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Q', 'ENST643', 'MEES698J', 'BSCI373', 'ENST689B', 'ENST689N', 'ENST689', 'ENST499B', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick Kangas', 'course': 'BSCI373', 'review': "Favorite professor I've had in College. He really likes what he does. I learned a ton in this class. I only took the final, which did involve a lot of studying but it paid off. However, I would recommend taking the two optional mid-terms. It gives more cushion on your grade. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-29T14:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Kangas', 'course': 'BSCI373', 'review': "Please do not take this course unless you really have to or you are interested in the material. I am a bio major (not interested in ecology) and this was a tough class for me. What you think this class will be about...is probably not what you think. It is not simply learning about the different species of the chesapeake/evolution/ecology. You should also be interested in environmental engineering and good at math calculations. You must be able to understand and produce what are known as energy circuit diagrams...I had no clue how to do this even after the course and kind of lucked out by memorizing every one he put in lecture...without really understanding how to produce one. It is not easy...but the differential equations that come along with them are not too bad to understand.\n\r\nThere are 3 possible grades in the class. 2 midterms and a final. You don't have to take either midterm...it's a little game he likes to play. The final you must take. If I were you, I'd take one of the midterms, whichever material you feel most comfortable with and the final. \n\r\nTests: MC, T/F, reproducing graphs, calculations, matching. The matching is probably the worst part, because he allows for multiple answers. This is quite difficult when you have a list of 70 species and have to categorize them by various subjects...points are easily taken off if you do not know everything about each species. So basically his tests are not easy...but you can succeed if you study very hard!\n\r\nI got an A in this class...but I'm probably one of not many who did. He doesn't curve this class...it doesn't matter how many As are in the distribution...there is no curve. So do well on all exams.\n\r\nHint: GO TO LECTURE. Record him and write down EVERYTHING he says. Lectures consist of all pictures, not much text...so if you miss lecture, it will be hard for you to understand the lectures. DO the homeworks. I repeat: GO TO LECTURE. He takes in consideration people who put a lot of effort and this may or may not help your grade as far as I know!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-14T15:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Kangas', 'course': 'ENST373', 'review': "Really cool professor, his teaching style: only three grades, 2 optional midterm exams (you can show up take the test and decide if you want to turn it in or not) and one final exam. The final was based largely on the first two tests. The hardest part of the class is trying to figure out what he's going to test you on.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-12T14:35:00Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick Kangas', 'slug': 'kangas'}, {'courses': ['BSCI453', 'NACS728I', 'BSCI353', 'BIOL709J', 'BIOL708V', 'BIOL608Q', 'BIOL608T', 'BIOL708Z', 'HESP639I', 'BSCI457', 'NACS728V', 'BISI899', 'BSCI279Q', 'NACS898', 'BIOL608V', 'BISI899', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick Kanold', 'course': 'BSCI353', 'review': "I thought this class was pretty boring but on the easier side, if you have a little neuro background and some first year physics background. I had a friend who didn't have that background and she struggled a lot, eventually dropping. I studied a lot for this class - but unlike other classes, the studying paid off. There's a reasonable curve and if you use his slides supplemented with the textbook, you'll do well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-07-31T09:29:00Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick Kanold', 'slug': 'kanold'}, {'courses': ['UNIV150', 'FIRE120H', 'HONR238V', 'FIRE120'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick Killion', 'course': 'FIRE120H', 'review': "Such a nice guy. Class was an easy A - as long as you show improvement on each project (taking all his comments into account) you get 100%. Really good way to enter the university even though the class itself was boring and a waste if you have no interest in research. Still a really good opportunity even if you don't want to do research forever.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-03-20T18:56:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Killion', 'course': 'HONR238V', 'review': 'Dr. Killion is an outstanding professor and just a really nice guy. He always tried to make class interesting and offered good feedback to us during the semester-long project. The class is mainly graded on effort which allowed me to focus on my major-required courses', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-23T19:55:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Killion', 'course': 'FIRE120H', 'review': 'Killion is a nice guy and very passionate about the FIRE program. He has some cool stories about his experiences as a researcher. He just introduces you to research and gives you some small assignments. Mainly, the class is a large group research project which can be cool and a good experience. Overall, a pretty easy class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-07T16:50:40Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick Killion', 'slug': 'killion'}, {'courses': ['ENEE473', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENES221', 'ENES221', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENES221', 'ENES102H', 'ENES221', 'ENES221', 'ENES221', 'ENES221', 'ENES221'], 'average_rating': 4.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'He is a great professor! Really chill guy and is super nice to all of his students. He is very understanding and has pushed back deadlines for our class multiple times because he knew that no one could get it done in such a small amount of time. I recommend his classes to anyone. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-30T21:46:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'He really loves the material and cares about the students. If you put forth the effort to seek help and do the problems, you will do well. Overall, this class is known to be pretty challenging, so prepare for exams well in advance. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-04-18T22:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'Professor McAvoy is a great teacher who obviously knows a great deal about the subject matter. He is able to answer any questions you have, and he understands the common mistakes students make and how to resolve them. I definitely recommend taking his class if given the option!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-08-15T00:42:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'Gonna ignore how hard this course is for this review. \r\n\r\nProf McAvoy is a genuinely nice person and wants us all to succeed. Says every question is a "really great question and brings up an excellent point" even if it\'s dumb. Prepares theory as well as example problems and is very smart. However, going to his office hours are sometimes a waste of time because he can talk forever. He might spend his whole office hour talking with one student to answer a question. And if you were looking for a simple answer or a quick question than you\'ll be with him for at least 10 minutes.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-21T23:25:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'I absolutely recommend you to take Prof McAvoy if you possibly can! He is SOOOOO nice and very clear in his explanations. I took ENES221 over winter and was really nervous going into it. He kept the course very well organized with lots of well made pre-recorded lectures and consistent class schedules. I agree with previous reviews that he genuinely wants everyone to succeed. ENES221 is no joke and taking the condensed version over the winter is tough, but at the same time McAvoy takes that into account and gives problems that are at reasonable difficulty for students who have to learn a chapter a day. If you have the time to dedicate three weeks straight to studying (I had to take off work during this timespan just to keep up), I recommend getting dynamics out of the way over winter with this awesome instructor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-24T05:14:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "Just take him! One of the best professors in engineering department and really caring for every student. I think he is really knowledgeable and was able to solve all my questions during office hours so just take him you won't regret.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-07-11T19:56:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'Seriously great professor. He is super passionate about physics and engineering and his lectures are great--he gives good notes with derivations and the follows it up with examples every lecture. He can answer any question you ask him. Literally any question. Office hours are super helpful too!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-07T03:29:36.169830Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "Lectures: Goes really slow so you can understand concepts. Really easy if you've already taken AP Physics C Mechanics. \r\n\r\nTests: Tests are standardized for the whole course, they're way easier than the homeworks and are very similar to the groupworks. \r\n\r\nOffice hours: Don't bother going to his office hours, he has good intentions but often just talks for a long time and you don't get much out of it. Sometimes he felt a little disorganized but I can't blame the guy he was always kind and enthusiastic. Go to the TA office hours instead, find a TA you like and then just keep going to their office hours.\r\n\r\nTips: Understand the intuition behind a cross product and program your calculator to be able to do a cross product. Will make your life so much easier.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-20T18:18:49.642934Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'THE BEST PROFESSOR IN THE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT. Take him. I highly highly recommend you take 221 over winter. He gives a lot of partial credit making it easy to pass this difficult course. If you take it during the semester, you aren’t awarded partial credit for anything. The midterm and final over winter had exam averages in the high Bs. It’s a lot to take it over winter, but Dr. McAvoy makes it interesting and tolerable. Take him over the winter and you want be sorry. He values every question, stays late to answer everyone’s question, and spends a lot of time explaining topics in ways that make it easy to understand.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-25T14:41:27.002025Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'I took this class in Fall 2022. He was a very nice professor who is happy to help students. He didn\'t curve the class at all (maybe 1 or 2 percent) and didn\'t give extra credit like the other ENES102H class for homework. The class environment also feels very "elite" and everyone seems to know what they were doing and doesn\'t seem like asking questions even if they\'re confused. Definitely go to discussion because you\'ll learn a lot doing problems on your own.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2023-04-27T04:08:06.850903Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick McAvoy', 'slug': 'mcavoy'}, {'courses': ['ENME780', 'ENME242', 'ENME473', 'ENMA300', 'ENME427', 'ENME690', 'ENME382', 'ENMA300', 'ENME201', 'ENME382', 'ENME201', 'ENMA300', 'ENME382'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick McCluskey', 'course': 'ENMA300', 'review': "This guy is probably the best ENMA300/ENME382 professor UMD has. His slideshows and lectures are good, he always brings in stuff so you can see that the materials actually act the way that he's talking about. I'm not going to lie, I never really payed much attention (you have to go to class- there are pop quizzes) and I studied from the book and slideshows and was able to do well on tests and quizzes, even though I probably payed about 5 min attention in total throughout the semester. So take this guy, you won't regret it.... oh yeah he was also out often so sometimes he has lectures as videos online... so sometimes there's no class. Yay!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-14T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick McCluskey', 'course': 'ENME382', 'review': "Dr. McCluskey is a very nice guy, but his class is extremely disorganized. Lectures are super boring -- he just reads from the slides, but too quickly for you to take good notes. There is a ridiculous amount of content in this class. I found it really hard to study for the midterm and final because I couldn't distinguish which content he would actually test us on out of the hundreds of slides he went through. The homeworks were too long and were graded harshly. If you have a choice to take 382 with a different professor, I would not choose McCluskey, but if you do have to take it with him, it is definitely survivable.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-28T23:52:41.665072Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick McCluskey', 'slug': 'mccluskey'}]
[{'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick Nelson', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'great ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-24T15:46:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Nelson', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Prof. Patrick was fantastic! He was really accommodating and understanding during the virtual semester and made sure that we weren't being overwhelmed with material. His lectures were very short, concise, and entertaining while still getting the point across. I felt like I learned a lot about how to write better in his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-29T23:24:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Nelson', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'This class was generally a mess. Prof. Nelson would frequently announce assignments that were never actually opened on Canvas, and would arbitrarily cancel class. There were also long waits for grades on assignments. However, he seemed like a nice guy in class, and the assignments are generally not that difficult.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-22T04:56:12.573463Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick Nelson', 'slug': 'nelson_patrick'}, {'courses': ['MUSC130', 'MUSC130H', 'MUSC699P', 'MUSC310', 'MUSC204', 'MUSC435', 'MUSC205', 'MUSC699I', 'MUSC699A', 'MUSC448D', 'MUSC130S', 'MUSC448U'], 'average_rating': 4.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Awesome lecturer. He really knows music, but keeps it simple. The first test was the only one that required you to apply simple music theory. His tests are completely based on lectures, so the book (only $30 rented) is unnecessary as long as you know someone who has it (its needed for 2/3 papers). If you do bad on a paper, you can redo the last paper. Grades are based on letters, not percentages. Tests require you to identify a song based on a section. The sections are usually indicative of the song if you listened to the song a few times and usually have the title of the song in it. It's a fun and pretty easy class, as long as you are willing to go to lectures and discussion and put in effort for tests and papers. There is no homework so the tests and papers are the only time this class has work. I would recommend it if you are willing to put study for a few hours before the tests and pay attention to lecture. Dr. Warfield is really an amazing, passionate guy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-23T02:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC130H', 'review': "Warfield was an interesting lecturer, but the class material was nothing what I was expecting it to be. While we did get to listen to a few fun songs (1960's, Lady Gaga), we also listened to a lot of music that I personally was not a fan of (atonal pieces that last 10-15 minutes. Think nails on a chalkboard for that amount of time). While it was nice to not have to buy a textbook, the 45 min-1hr long listenings 2-3 times a week was a bit excessive and time consuming. The papers are graded according to a standard that is inconsistent. The exams are mostly regurgitating what he said in class in addition to adding a little something extra. Overall, this class wasn't hard, it just took a lot of time that I would rather have put to a different/more interesting class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-25T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': "Warfield is an AMAZING lecturer, he captivates his audience and I loved every minute of lecture. His expectations, however, are way to high, the exams are really difficult, and you have to work your butt off studying. I am a pretty good student, and I had to spend more time studying for this class than any other class I was taking. \r\nI would take the class again, however I wouldn't sign up for it if i wasn't up for the work load.\r\nDefinitely not an easy A", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-26T20:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': "I would not recommend this course with professor Warfield if you want an easy HA. You have to be absolutely in love with music in order to enjoy this class. I wasn't so I was very miserable completing this course. It's not that I was being lazy, I took good notes and spent hours studying for the 3 exams. It's not that professor Warfield is bad at teaching. It's the reform of course and his high expectations that ruin it. \r\nBoth the professor and the TAs expect students to go above and beyond what was taught in class in order to get As, that's just very unreasonable for non-music major. The TAs grade the papers very harshly. For me, even though I met all the requirements of the essay prompt and had a thesis, an intro, a conclusion, a bibliography and even a CD with it, the TA still gave me a B-. I just don't know what more I can do. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-24T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': 'Dr. Warfield is an incredible professor. He teaches very well and keeps the class engaged. However, his exams are very difficult and long, and it is not possible to finish in only fifty minutes. If you simply answer the question, you get a C, if you provide more information, you get a B, but in order to get an A you have to add information about other concepts that are related to the concept that the question is about and make it an eclectic answer. This class required more work than a lot of courses that I am taking for my major (Biology) and, although I would recommend taking Dr. Warfield for a different class, I would not recommend this class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-18T20:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC130H', 'review': "No discernible difference between honors and regular section except there's only one honors discussion on Fridays. Lectures and assignments are all the same. Even the workload. (unfortunately)\n\r\nHe calculates grades by letter grades on each assignment. Mildly complicated process... (A = 4.0, A-= 3.7, etc) And an overall point value of 3.6 or above is the cutoff for an A in this class.\n\r\nThat being said, the workload was borderline excessive. This is supposed to be an introductory course for non-music majors with little to no background in music. Yeah, no. You might get a little lost during some lectures. PowerPoints are sparse, but he does talk about everything in detail, so TAKE DOWN DETAILED NOTES. They will really help on exams, etc. Around the last unit, he does more background history before delving into actual topic of interest. Write down some background history. \n\r\n3 exams (60%), 4 papers (30%), and around 5 short 1 page reaction papers (this towards participation grade, 10%). He'll also make you go to at least two performances at CSPAC. Not bad, but can be inconveniently timed. Do not procrastinate on papers, make sure you go through and edit them. TA's are really helpful so ask them questions for clarification for papers or study guides for exams. \n\r\nAs said before, TA's do grade everything, and some might be easier graders than others. Depends. Hit or miss really, but fight for those points. The +/- make a huge difference. \n\r\nTo study for exams, go through all your notes, go to outside review sessions if they have any, make your own study guide and write everything out. Then set aside at least 3-4 hours. It's basically rote memorization and identifying songs. To get an A on the exam, not only do you have to list all the important details, but somehow go above and beyond it in a way. After 50 min of writing during the exam, your hands will cramp so badly. And you will always walk out feeling like you didn't write enough information . . . \n\r\nOverall. It's not a bad class. It was interesting. Knew nothing about music history, so what I learned were new revelations to me. It can be fun sometimes, and Warfield gives really animated lectures. He'll even break out into a waltz depending on the song he plays. \n\r\nIf you pick this class, just be prepared to work hard for the grade. It's not an easy A. (In retrospect, I think I had put more work into this class than all my others such as my Bus Statistics, but I cared more about this class because it was interesting.)\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-18T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': "Professor Warfield is one of the most entertaining professors at UMD that I have had so far. His teaching style is exciting and engaging. However, the way the class is structured is total BS. His TA's are very strict grades when it comes to 4 major paper assignments. His 3 exams (no final exam) are taken during discussion and is essentially you just spitting out everything you learned from the previous month. The exams are not that difficult as long as you do the listenings a few nights before the exam and really take detailed notes (not posted online) to have a good idea of what the history is. The music you study is somewhat interesting. Start off the semester with the basic structure of music (melody, pitch, etc) and then you get into a more historical perspective and discussing the significance of particular pieces of music in its period of history.\n\r\nOverall, fun lecture to attend but the material could be a drag and the discussion section and all the TA's suck.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-12-17T14:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': "Warfield is interesting to listen to in class, because he is very animated and interested in the material. You SHOULD take as many notes as possible. The tests are nearly impossible to get a good grade on. You take them in discussion sessions, so in a 50 minute time period. The tests are always too long to finish properly, especially with the expectations they have. This is a 100 level course that boasts that you do not need a background in music to complete. You can pass, but you won't get an A. To get an A on the tests and papers, you need to regurgitate all of the information he gave you, and more. To get a B, you have to perfectly restate the information he gave you. This is ridiculous for the type of class it is. Since the tests are most of your grade, you can not really make up for it in other areas. I do not recommend taking this course if you have no background in music theory. Even if you do, it is not an easy class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-04T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': 'I only took this class because MUSC130 was supposed to be an easy HA core...before Warfield became the professor, that is. On the first day of lecture he tells the students, "I don\'t know what you heard about this class, but if you heard about this class being super easy and that is the only reason you are in this class, drop out right now." \n\r\nWarfield asks way too much for the students in this course. This course is not available for music students, so only non-music students can take it. With that said, Warfield expects us to know and memorize excruciating details about music from 1100 all the way to the present. In addition to that, you need to memorize about 50 songs and know the musical forms for everything. The only good thing about this class is that there is no final exam. However, the two mid-terms in this class are really difficult. You have to know 15 songs that are about 3 - 15 minutes long by heart, with the translation (if it\'s foreign), musical form, artist, composer, and the year it was produced. You need a lot of time to study for this class. Unless music is something you really want to study and are willing to spend a lot of time, do not take this class. \n\r\nAnother thing, all the exams are graded by your own TA. The problem is that some TA\'s grade MUCH easier than other TA\'s. One of the TA\'s mark something wrong on the exam for no reason; when you go up and ask her why she marked it wrong, she has no idea and gives you the points back. Make sure you look through the exam when you get it back because the chances are that you will get points back. \n\r\nGetting an A in this class is not impossible at all; it just takes unnecessary amount of time and work to get it for a HA core class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2011-11-28T16:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "His lectures are phenomenal, the material is interesting, and it isn't a tough class. Grades for our class were 3 exams (none cumulative and no final), 4 short papers (2-3 pages at most), and participation in discussion. His exams are heavily lecture-based, so I would highly recommend attending and taking good notes. If you need an HA CORE credit this is probably one of your best options.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-17T22:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "This class is already filled with interesting content, Professor Warfield makes it even better. He's extremely knowledgeable, and makes lectures really interesting. The last lecture wasn't mandatory as we had already taken the last exam(there is no final), but the lecture was still full, and he got a round of applause at the end to thank him for a great semester.\n\r\nYour grade is based on 4 papers and 3 exams. The exams are multiple choice and short answer. As long as you go to lecture and do the listenings you'll be fine. The papers are only 2-3 papers each.\n\r\nIn all, best class I've taken.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-09T20:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "I only went to lecture once but I really loved the professor. My TA was a space cadet but was nice. The tests were pretty hard considering I didn't go to lecture but everyone else seemed to enjoy it. Also, when my TA was unavailable at the end of the year prof Warfield graded my late assignment so I could get credit. SO NICE!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-02-17T17:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': 'Awesome teacher! I absolutely loved the class! I never missed a lecture because each and every class was so entertaining. He made an already exciting topic even more fun to learn about. I also had a great TA which made discussions enjoyable too. \n\r\nDefinitely take this class -no doubts about it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-17T15:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC330', 'review': 'Dr. Warfield is a great professor. Had him for two semesters of music history, and he keeps the class very engaging and interesting. Some cheesy humor too, thanks. Studying for his exams is HARD, but it pays off. Loved the classes. We tried to talk him into teaching MUSC331 too, but alas...', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-09-13T11:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': 'Awesome teacher! Really knows his material and easily makes the class interesting. TA does all of the grading; the class has 3 exams (none of them cumulative) and 5 papers (about 2-3 pages each) based on music but they are really not that much work. Definitely recommend this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-03T01:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Warfield', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Great professor for MUSC205! One of my favorite classes this semester. He keeps the class entertaining and offers a lot different and sometimes strange points of views on songs. Although he sometimes expects a bit too much out of students the course load isn't all that bad. Tests are very lecture based so as long as you go to lecture and take good notes, you should be fine. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-30T03:50:00Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick Warfield', 'slug': 'warfield'}, {'courses': ['GVPT170', 'GVPT479F', 'GVPT622', 'GVPT722', 'GVPT808C', 'GVPT202', 'GVPT729B', 'GVPT878J', 'GVPT600', 'GVPT170', 'GVPT202', 'GVPT600', 'GVPT170', 'GVPT600'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': 'really great teacher who wants you to succeed. super approachable, and always responded to my emails quickly. the content is relatively easy to understand, and he does a great job of clarifying confusing topics and only covering important info', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-30T22:52:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': 'Good professor and lecturer. Really knows his stuff and has fair exams ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-15T18:56:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': 'Great guy, nice class content, fantastic lectures. He is patient with his students even when they ask stupid questions ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-16T04:21:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT202', 'review': 'Not a bad class. Midterm and a final and three papers. 4 pretty easy quizzes. Really nice guy, interesting class, definitely worth it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-04T13:14:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT202', 'review': "Thought he was a great guy till his and his TA's lack of communication f*cked me over and now I'm getting a shit grade. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-07T16:40:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT202', 'review': 'This was an excellent class. Dr. Wohlfarth is super enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the Supreme Court. The exams, papers, and quizzes were straight forward and fair. I highly recommend this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-03-23T00:47:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT202', 'review': "Great lecturer and 202 is a great class. Dr. Wohlfarth knows what he is talking about, is a fantastic lecturer, and is always willing to answer questions. He assigns a reasonable amount of readings and doesn't give reading quizzes. The 4 quizzes were pretty easy and you have plenty of time to work on the papers. The midterm was a little more difficult than expected but straightforward and focused on lecture material. Dr. Wohlfarth lets you know exactly what he is expecting and doesn't throw any curveballs. GVPT 202 is one of the best classes I've taken. Highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-01T13:54:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': "I liked Prof. Wohlfarth. Lectures and tests are strongly correlated which is a plus, but wording on MC exam q's was confusing sometimes. A few quizzes throughout the semester, three exams, and a paper. Overall not much work except studying, and lectures were clear and helpful for exams. Attendance not mandatory, but definitely helpful for knowing as much as possible going into exams. A good professor and I signed up for another class with him so I definitely recommend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-14T20:00:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': "Professor Wohlfarth and his TA's were very knowledgable about the content and a huge help. He is a great professor and explains ideas in a way that is easy to grasp with relevant examples. Downside is that there is a TON of reading for this class, which is great if you're really into this content, but beware it will take up a bit of your time. There will be material from the readings and lecture on all of the exams and I wouldn't recommend skipping his lecture (not even one) because you will fall behind quickly. He prefaces this in the beginning of the class - DO NOT FALL BEHIND ON THE READING AND ATTEND ALL LECTURES. Otherwise, it will be difficult to catch up. Most of his slides contain minimal wording as he verbally explains most of the underlying ideas and facts about each topic so copying the slides verbatim isn't helpful either. Quizzes in discussion just about every other week as well but he will tell you when there is a quiz in lecture - so make sure you go. Studying is a must as well. This isn't the type of class where you can get A or B+ even without putting in some extra study time on the side. Overall, very nice professor and interesting content just plan accordingly if you intend on taking this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-22T17:20:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': 'Extremely good lecturer, I did not do any of the basic textbook readings and I was still fully equipped for the class. However, you should read the discussion readings because there are 5 pop-quizes throughout the semester to make sure you do those readings. My discussions did not seem to add anything to help me succeed in class, but that could have just been my TAs. The wording on exams may not be perfect but they are still pretty well written.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-05T18:33:38.209035Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': None, 'review': 'Just NO unless you took AP GOV in high school or you super like goverment', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-06T21:36:49.583643Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT202', 'review': 'Loved having him as a professor. The class is also really interesting if you enjoy government and the U.S. Supreme Court.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T02:46:00.341792Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT202', 'review': 'I loved this class and this professor. Wohlfarth is very passionate about the government which makes this class more interesting. If you are interested the U.S. Supreme Court you would love this class. The class focuses on the current Supreme Court and current court cases. This class does have pop quizzes during discussion however I found them easy if you just re read your notes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T02:56:59.969816Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT202', 'review': "Such an interesting class to take if you want to learn more about the Supreme Court. It does cover a lot of content though, so if you aren't interested in the course material I would not recommend taking it. There are 5 pop quizzes throughout the semester so you have to go to discussion. Exams are fair and there was extra credit offered in the midterm.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T21:48:55.641726Z'}, {'professor': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'course': 'GVPT202', 'review': 'Very interesting class. Quite a bit of reading and you need to actually do them in order to get a good grade on the weekly quizzes. I worked hard for my grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-22T21:05:01.331351Z'}], 'name': 'Patrick Wohlfarth', 'slug': 'wohlfarth'}, {'courses': ['DANC348', 'DANC207', 'DANC318', 'DANC448', 'DANC349', 'DANC679', 'DANC789', 'DANC319', 'DANC608', 'DANC708', 'TDPS358C', 'DANC647', 'DANC449', 'DANC648', 'DANC649', 'DANC398', 'DANC678', 'DANC777', 'DANC218', 'DANC219', 'DANC399', 'DANC499', 'DANC698', 'DANC788', 'DANC799', 'HONR239C', 'DANC148', 'DANC689M', 'ARHU158Z', 'ARHU158Z', 'DANC218', 'DANC219', 'DANC318', 'DANC319', 'DANC398', 'DANC448', 'DANC449', 'DANC499', 'DANC648', 'DANC649', 'DANC679', 'DANC698', 'DANC788', 'DANC468', 'DANC488', 'DANC779', 'DANC148', 'DANC499', 'DANC679', 'DANC788'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Patrik Widrig', 'slug': 'widrig'}, {'courses': ['CLFS620'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Bottino', 'slug': 'bottino'}, {'courses': ['CPGH100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Bueno de Mesquita', 'slug': 'mesquita'}, {'courses': ['ENGL202', 'ENGL222', 'ENGL245', 'CMLT280', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL295', 'ENGL329A', 'ENGL329R', 'ENGL329I', 'ENGL329L', 'FILM419B', 'FILM245', 'CMLT398C', 'FILM359Q', 'FILM344', 'FILM359L', 'ENGL433', 'ARHU275', 'ARHU375', 'ENGL275', 'ENGL280', 'ENGL144', 'ENGL329F', 'FILM319A', 'ENGL329G', 'ENGL391', 'FILM319B', 'ENGL101C', 'ENGL293', 'SLLC368A', 'FILM319K', 'ENGL329B', 'FILM319F', 'FILM319L', 'SLLC368L', 'ENGL101S', 'CINE319L', 'ARHU375', 'CINE319F', 'ENGL256', 'ENGL329B', 'CINE319K', 'CINE369K', 'ENGL329K', 'ENGL329L', 'CINE319L', 'SLLC368L', 'CINE319B', 'SLLC368A', 'CINE319B', 'SLLC368A', 'ARHU375', 'ENGL101H', 'CINE319A', 'CINE344'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL222', 'review': "Cote is great... Yeah it can get boring, but you can tell he's trying to help and not punish you with info, or be a tryhard like other grad students. You're crazy if you don't take a class with him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-02-04T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "hes a nice a guy but let me just say Paul Cote's class was sooooo boring. the work was mostly just the research papers which every engl101 class has, but attendance was mandatory and even though there wasnt ever work in class i kind of wish there was because he sat there and talked the full hour and 15 minutes and reviewed stuff that we read in a book that was common sense. i had to prevent myself from falling asleep all the time", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-01-02T22:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL245', 'review': "Honestly, I took this class because I thought it was going to be a joke. But, the class is basically analyzing films just like analyzing English literature. Basically, if you're good at English and love watching film, this is the class for you. Cote's lectures were discussion-based, but still enjoyable and informative, especially with film theory. As for the class's difficulty level, I would give ENGL245 with him a 3/5, since it's not necessarily hard, but work still needs to be put in to get a decent grade. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-29T14:29:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL280', 'review': "one of the nicest professors I've had. his expectations are very reasonable and his exams aren't made to trick you -- he says this himself. Though I took this class to fulfill a gen ed requirement, I'd definitely take more classes with him if I was more interested in English.\r\n\r\nFor 280, the structure with him worked like this:\r\n4(!) exams\r\n1 final\r\n1 paper proposal\r\n4 homework assignments\r\n5 online discussions\r\n\r\nthe midterms come quick, but they aren't hard. They're basically half multiple choice (super common sense questions, too), and half short answer or fill in the blank.\r\n\r\nThe final he was nice enough to make online as he figured it would help people do better on it, and openly said to feel free to use your notes or any other resource.\r\n\r\nThe paper proposal was his way of bringing some form of writing into the class, as this is a class on the history/structure of English rather than a literature or film class. We basically had to choose a topic that we talked about in class and think of a thesis that we could argue. We only had to write an abstract, and then also have two sources which we wrote an annotated bibliography for. Again, not hard at all.\r\n\r\nThe homeworks were essentially mini exams, honestly. Super easy and he would sometimes hint at what some of the answers were. The problems were super similar to things that we did in class, so there were no surprises.\r\n\r\nThe online discussions were kind of annoying, but not difficult. We had to write discussion posts on ELMS that were sometimes way too long for what the topic was (250 words for something that you can talk about in 3 sentences) so a lot of it ended up being fluff. Not hard, but kind of stupid.\r\n\r\nOverall this class was a 5/5 for me, especially with Cote.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-16T20:11:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Professor Cote's the best. He is super accommodating & understanding, and directs the content and papers so that they're based on your interests. Reading isn't heavy at all either. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-04T21:46:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'more like paul goat, enough said', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-10T01:49:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'So nice and caring about his students. He was great with zoom and really understanding about the pandemic, and class is directed towards your interests as well. Best English prof i’ve had', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-15T00:25:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': "If you need to complete an academic writing requirement, PLEASE take it with Paul. You will not regret it. He genuinely cares about his students and does everything in his power to make the course as easy and stress-free as possible. 85% of the course is graded pass/fail based on completion, and the other 15% is graded based on effort, not perfection. He never expects perfection, so as long as he can see that you put effort into the assignment, you will get a 100. And due dates are not strict an there is no penalty for turning in assignments late, so you could turn in every assignment on the last day of class and still get a 100 in the class. Paul (he says we are allowed to call him by his first name) really is the sweetest man. He frequently ends class early if he thinks most students in the class are tired or stressed out, and there is very little work in his class compared to other ENGL101 classes. What's more is he spent a couple sessions talking to us about how he can make the class even easier than it already is, and he eliminated two or three papers and extended due dates. And his feedback on papers are very uplifting. In his feedback for my papers he always emphasizes that my writing and analysis was extremely impressive, and then he follows it up with constructive feedback in a very non-harsh way. And he has a great sense of humor, which makes classes very entertaining. I actually don't want the semester to end because I don't want to never see him again. I don't think there are many other professors as caring as he is.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-04T20:06:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'One of the best english teachers! He actually allows you to explore your interests in writing without having to worry about your grade. Extremely understanding as well! I highly recommend!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-19T16:41:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'Very understanding professor and wants you to succeed. Gives feedback in a timely and fair manner. Definitely would recommend taking him if you can!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-28T18:22:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'Super easy class and professor! Minimum effort class to get an A but he still gives great feedback and is very approachable. I felt that while it was a minimum work class, I was still able to learn how to make good arguments in my writing. It would be a mistake not to take him if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T15:57:39.537203Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Cote', 'course': 'ARHU375', 'review': 'This is by far the best class I have ever taken and Professor Cote is by far the best professor I have ever had. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about him or this class. I highly recommend taking this class if you are interested in scriptwriting. Best class decision I have made. He is very understanding and supports creativity in his class. If you have the opportunity to take any class with him, DO IT. I have never met a teacher who actually understands how to TEACH, and do so in a way that drives students to retain and want to learn information. This class felt like a breath of fresh air in a sea of stress. I could go on and on about my experience but I will my ranting here. Thank You Mr. Cote.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-09T05:17:06.275517Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Cote', 'slug': 'cote'}, {'courses': ['MUSC220', 'MUSC648'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Covey', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': "I took MUSC130 because I heard it is an easy A.\n\r\nI did get an A, but it was a ton of annoying, tedious work that angered me and all my classmates as we did all of it through out the semester. \n\r\nLectures were painful and always under-attended. \n\n\r\nIf you need an HA core and can fit this class in, I'd say take it, because it is easy to do well, you just need to do a lot of really simple, but annoying and TIME CONSUMING (!!) work. ugh.\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-01T18:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Covey', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': 'This class and professor were both terrible. Would not take it again if you payed me. Should be an easy core class to get an A in. Its not. The way it is taught makes it difficult and much more work than it needs to be. Also Covey is a very boring lecturer and painful to listen to. I never went to lectures and have to credit my A to my TA who was easy to connect with and helped me whenever I needed it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T22:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Covey', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': "Covey does not appear very professional. His behavior is a little strange for a professor and it sometimes makes it hard to take the class seriously. However this is a course that doesn't have to be taken seriously. Grading is very generous and it is not too difficult to get an A. That being said there are a LOT of assignments. You can BS the majority of it and get away with it but it is still an annoying waste of time. You need to go to lecture because attendance is taken but generally you don't have to pay attention too much. If you are looking for an easy HA then this is a fair choice. Final warning though: although it is easy, it is also very boring and Covey assigns more work than he should for a CORE class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-17T11:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Covey', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': 'This guy has got to be the most boring lecturer in the world. He just rambles on and on making it impossible to pay attention even if you are interested in the subject. The best way I could describe him is as a socially inept kid who can’t speak and is teaching a course. Occasionaly he will jump up and down and do something so awkward its funny but thats about it. His class isn’t that hard but he takes attendance so you have to be bored to tears every class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-06T23:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Covey', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': "Covey is an interesting teacher. Since lectures are kind of pointless, but you still need to go because the attendance grade counts for a lot. There was a lot of busy work for this class, like listening journals and chapter review questions. But they were ALL graded easily!! The tests and quizzes were all multiple choice, and they provided you with a review sheet..so if you study the material on there you're all set. There is a term paper at the end of the semester which wasn't too bad either. Overall this class is pretty good and really easy - definitely take it if you're looking for an easy HA core to take.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-04T16:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Covey', 'course': 'MUSC130', 'review': "Prof. Covey is unconventional is every sense of the word, but he is still a great professor. His quirkiness makes the class much more interesting. Musc130 is actually a lot of work but if you do it you will get an A. TA's are very helpful.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-25T19:40:00Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Covey', 'slug': 'covey_paul'}, {'courses': ['MUSC830W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC129C', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Gekker', 'slug': 'gekker'}, {'courses': ['AREC489K', 'AREC430', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC430'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Goeringer', 'course': 'AREC430', 'review': "He's a great professor. His class is interesting and not too difficult. He's super nice. When you ask for help, he's always willing to help.\r\nHe has extra points in all exams. \r\nAnd his quiz is graded based on your completeness so it's a good way to help you review the exam. And his exam is not cumulative. So if you didn't perform well in the first exam, you can still get a good grade. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-10T20:54:29Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Goeringer', 'slug': 'goeringer'}, {'courses': ['EDCP625', 'EDCP616', 'EDCP870', 'EDCP652', 'EDCP789A', 'EDCP789X', 'EDCP717', 'EDCP789W', 'EDCP888G', 'EDCP622', 'EDCP622', 'EDCP652', 'EDCP625', 'EDCP870', 'EDCP622', 'EDCP652'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Gold', 'slug': 'gold_paul'}, {'courses': ['PSYC460', 'PSYC732', 'PSYC737', 'PSYC888E', 'PSYC656', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC464', 'PSYC738L', 'PSYC654', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC708', 'PSYC460', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC601', 'PSYC708', 'PSYC732', 'PSYC602', 'PSYC732', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC601'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Hanges', 'course': 'PSYC460', 'review': 'Very interesting class. He is a great professor, just takes a while to grade the projects. He grades the exams very quickly. The exams and projects are fair.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-12T16:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Hanges', 'course': 'PSYC460', 'review': 'Great class. Exams are fair, and he is a really good professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-10-10T18:11:00Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Hanges', 'slug': 'hanges'}, {'courses': ['GVPT808B', 'GVPT708A', 'GVPT808A', 'GVPT368J', 'GVPT718A', 'GVPT808C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Huth', 'slug': 'huth'}, {'courses': ['THET380', 'TDPS358V', 'DANC488', 'DANC610', 'DANC611', 'DANC679', 'DANC789', 'DANC310', 'DANC410', 'DANC398', 'DANC399', 'DANC499', 'DANC698', 'DANC788', 'DANC799'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Jackson', 'slug': 'jackson_paul'}, {'courses': ['INST728B', 'LBSC620', 'INST613', 'INST614', 'INST888', 'LBSC791', 'INST728G', 'INFM799', 'INST810', 'INST809', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'HIST811', 'INST612', 'INST728I', 'INST878B', 'LBSC724', 'AMST857', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811', 'INST728I', 'AMST857', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811', 'INST613', 'INST728I', 'INST787', 'INST878B', 'LBSC724', 'AMST857', 'INST612', 'INST787', 'AMST857', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811', 'AMST857', 'AMST857', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811', 'INST613', 'INST787'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Jaeger', 'slug': 'jaeger'}, {'courses': ['MUSC129U', 'MUSC629O', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Kellner', 'slug': 'kellner'}, {'courses': ['HIST289A', 'HIST601', 'HIST130', 'HIST310', 'HIST123', 'HIST413', 'HIST416', 'HIST408A', 'HIST419E', 'HIST319P', 'HIST219O', 'HIST619O', 'HIST619N', 'HIST428B', 'HIST319T', 'HIST122', 'HIST310', 'HIST419W', 'HIST428B', 'HIST122', 'HIST310'], 'average_rating': 2.8889, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Landau', 'course': None, 'review': "I thought this class was pretty easy. The class met 2x a week plus 1x with our TA. So the first day Landau lectured on one specific topic, then you would read 1 or 2 documents for homework. The next lecture was someone in that field of expertise. For that Saturday, you would write a 1-2 page paper (double-spaced) connecting the current event to its historical background. The TA is usually really helpful at providing more notes to incorporate into your paper. Each topic was mostly just one week long, while others were two weeks. It was great because if you didn't like a topic you just had to deal with it for a short period of time. I loved the class and Prof. Landau is really helpful during office hours. There is a ten-page paper at the end of the class, and he is generally a generous grader.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-05-01T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Landau', 'course': None, 'review': 'Every week you have to print out and read around 100 pages of historical text, and then write a 2-3 page paper on the current event. However, if you like current events it is a worthwhile class. After the first few weeks I stopped reading the 100 pages and only skimmed. I still managed to average B\'s on the papers. Participation in discussion is worth 25% of your grade, so you have to read the assigned newspaper articles, but those aren\'t long and are usually interesting. Landau himself is a fairly interesting professor and a nice guy. So if you are interested in current "hot spots" and are up for doing a lot of reading, go ahead and take the class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-02-17T22:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Landau', 'course': None, 'review': "If you're good at history and can follow a teacher who doesn't use PowerPoint, this class shouldn't be a problem. He jumps around a bit with lectures, but if you actual attend lecture and discussion, overall this course isn't too hard.\n\r\nPlus I learned a lot about Africa, which is pretty cool.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T13:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Landau', 'course': 'HIST419E', 'review': "Extremely choppy lectures, many of the times doesn't even make sense. The assignments and tests are just a reflection of his own thoughts, which are unorganized. Lectures from his unpublished book and makes students read material that makes little to no sense. Not very accessible, does not provide great feedback. Avoid if you can!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-03-20T01:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Landau', 'course': None, 'review': "The man is obviously brilliant... does every single lecture off the top of his head, because he just knows his shit. Teaches the course from a Eurocentric viewpoint, because yes, it's about the colonial era. If you don't like that, go hit a bong at the co-op. There's no rhyme or reason to the flow of the course... he'll jump from Gambia to Kenya to the Congo within two sentences, and probably cross as many centuries within a lecture. Go figure, he used to teach at Yale, where students are probably used to his game of intellectual catch-me-if-you-can. A very rewarding class if you can keep up with him.\n\r\nDon't fall asleep, and DO NOT COME TO CLASS LATE. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-24T03:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Landau', 'course': None, 'review': 'I got an A in this course...very suprising but if you are able to take part in the discussions...have a clue on the geography of Africa and its recent history... you should do well\n\r\nProf Landau is okay as a lecturer, there are some things I disagreed with him as he looked at them from a biased Eurocentric viewpoint, but he does know his material overall', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-02T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Landau', 'course': None, 'review': "This course is not easy, and unfortunately, Landau keeps himself very distant from his students. His lectures can sometimes be very choppy, and notes are very hard to take for most of them. TA's do a good job of trying to make up for it, but when it comes to exam time, you (nor your TA) will really know what to expect (regarding what material will be covered).", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-11-18T22:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Landau', 'course': 'HIST123', 'review': 'Prof is passionate about the class but is very disorganized, posted lectures and ELMS announcements at 10pm and expected them to be done by next class (which we only learned by him telling us through another announcement about not having many responses rather than putting a due date on the assignment) and it was this way for half the semester. Course content itself was not hard but the disorganized nature of the class and lectures is what makes it difficult.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-18T16:21:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Landau', 'course': 'HIST122', 'review': 'Possibly one of the worst teachers I have had, did not post the final exam review until two nights before the final. Was not understanding of people\'s lives and would consistently stop the class to stare at people and call them out for being late and then proceeded to say "but I would rather you come late than not at all". He called out a student for being late to class on voting day. His topics were all over the place and it was very hard to organize my notes to fit what we were studying because he would go off on tangents. He did not like when people would offer their differing opinions about topics but would then backtrack and say that we need take all the sources we read for the class with a grain of salt. The midterm was easy but the final was ridiculous compared to the midterm in terms of difficulty. He assigned a final paper and presentation (have to present it by yourself in front of the class) on top of the final exam already, in the last two-three weeks of class after being vague about what was expected of us. His ELMS page was set up but he put all discussions and assignments out of 0 points so you couldn\'t see your real grade the entire semester. Did not put in final grades until practically midnight on the deadline. Overall very disorganized. Subject was interesting to learn about and I tried really hard to like the Prof but he constantly did little things that irked the entire class. Class is not mandatory but without the notes you\'re pretty much doomed. But prepare to spend a lot of time learning off the internet outside of class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-03-01T21:07:14.918621Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Landau', 'slug': 'landau'}, {'courses': ['ENST436', 'ENST798', 'ENST689F', 'ENST689R', 'ENST472', 'ENST689E', 'ENST499F', 'ENST689', 'ENST403', 'ENST603', 'ENST388', 'ENST606', 'ENST689U', 'ENST388', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST388', 'ENST403', 'ENST472', 'ENST603', 'ENST606', 'ENST689', 'ENST388', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST689U', 'ENST499', 'ENST499', 'ENST403', 'ENST472', 'ENST603', 'ENST606', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Leisnham', 'course': 'ENST436', 'review': 'The professor is very nice and well-organized. The format of the class consists of daily powerpoint presentations on different environmental issues (ranging from climate change, to biodiversity) with occasional lectures by guest speakers. The class is very interactive, and the content is simple enough to be easily understood.\n\r\nThe exams are very straightforward, and are straight from lecture. There are 3 group projects that are worth the bulk of the grade, and pop quizes throughout the semester. If you spend a little bit of time everyday reviewing the material, the class is a breeze. The group projects themselves were pretty enjoyable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-23T10:46:00Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Leisnham', 'slug': 'leisnham'}, {'courses': ['CLFS001', 'CLFS619A', 'CLFS680'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Mazzocchi', 'slug': 'mazzocchi_paul'}, {'courses': ['BCHM461', 'BCHM661', 'BCHM662', 'BCHM465', 'BCHM698', 'CHEM399A', 'CHEM399B', 'BCHM464', 'BCHM889A', 'BCHM465', 'BCHM461'], 'average_rating': 3.8889, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': 'This is an intense class with a lot of material. While some concepts can simply be memorized, you will need to be able to connect concepts together to do well on the exams. Two lecture videos were uploaded weekly. I found the lectures hard to get through in one sitting, but they provided most of the material needed to do well on the exams. I definitely recommend using office hours and discussion to ask questions. Dr. Paukstelis and the TAs were both very nice and approachable. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-22T22:46:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "This is a difficult class with very little support available to students. Paukstelis is not helpful, his lectures are messy and unorganized, he seems to put the bare minimum of effort into teaching this class. In fact, the only effort he does put forth is whenever he can make life more challenging for students, he seems to enjoy when students are having a difficult time and when exam averages are unreasonably low. He records online lectures which may be the only redeeming thing about taking him since you don't have to sit through the boring lectures. From what I've heard his 461 class does nothing to prepare you for 462. If possible, avoid him and take someone else. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T21:33:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "This semester was pretty ok. The curve was around 8% (pretty normal). I think Paukstelis is a great lecturer but his notes were a bit messy and unorganized. Exams were pretty fair in my opinion and were made to make you truely understand biochem. Paukstelis even provided recorded lectures which were a big help. If you are planning to take BCHM642, I wouldn't recommend taking Paukstelis because I'm fairly certain the stuff Paukstelis teaches is different than other BCHM professors such as Julin (which you should take if you're going to take 462 because he teaches it). ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-20T21:22:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "This is an expected 400 level class. Lots of information needs to be absorbed quickly from lecture to lecture, which is arguably the hardest part of the class. However, the information itself is not inherently difficult and should be easy to understand. What really irked me was the lack of study material in the form of past exams or questions. Past exams were provided but without a key which meant that it would be difficult to know what a complete answer should be. That being said, Dr. Paukstelis was great during office hours and available to answer questions quickly. The curve for this semester was also quite heavy (9% ish) but that's probably because this was the first semester in person and people were still adjusting from online exams to in-person ones. Overall compared to other BCHM461 professors he would be your best bet, and while lectures can sometimes be dull he does record them and posts them the same day. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T13:22:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'course': 'BCHM461', 'review': "My favorite professor in the chem department I have ever had! He truly wants you to understand course content. His research is in nucleic acids, so he teaches this more in depth compared to other 461 professors I think. Exams were fair and some questions were similar to old exams or GSS content. He records his lectures which was super helpful for review. In live lectures he does a good job at answering student questions. His lectures provide all you need to know for exams, you don't need a textbook. Class had a big curve in the end. Would take him again!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T22:11:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': 'Each of Dr. Paukstelis’ classes consisted of a 10-15 minute review portion before he introduced new content, which is usually presented through him hand-writing his notes on his laptop. \r\n\r\nThe lectures themselves have always been recorded, but the microphone quality for a lot of his lectures are pretty bad. His handwriting isn’t very legible, and often I find myself struggling to make out what he writes. \r\n\r\nGenerally, Dr. Paukstelis’ notes consist of broadly encompassing points (which can often be scatterbrained and disorganized), but the details of the topics presented are left to his spoken words, so be sure to pay attention to the questions he asks as well.\r\n\r\nBCHM 465 feels much closer to a biology class than a chemistry or biochemistry course. If memorizing facts over reaction mechanisms is your strength, this class will probably be easier for you than it was for me. The chemistry which was discussed in this course was simple, but the topics were more focused on the structural aspects of biological macromolecules, which personally I did not find particularly interesting.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-11T00:57:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': 'This professor is one of the best lecturers I’ve had- he’s very thorough in explaining material and linking concepts to make them make sense. The exams are fair if you memorized and understood the material, and study guides really help to know how to think on exams. Would take again!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-18T13:16:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': 'He’s a great professor and an excellent lecturer. He even made a discord for us where we could ask him questions (which he was pretty good at responding to). I will say his tests are difficult at first but once you get used to them, they become much easier.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-12T05:54:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': "Lectures can get pretty dry with just him writing on his iPad or whatever he uses but it seems like he really puts a lot of effort into making us understand DNA/RNA biochemistry. In fact, during our first exam he actually 3-D printed models of DNA base pairs for each of us to use to answer some of the questions in the exam. He lets you keep them too! He records his lectures but his handwriting is not the best and the microphone quality isn't the best either. I would still recommend attending lecture every day. Paul is very personable, having a broad range in music taste which is not too surprising given that he played music at the start of his lectures for like the first few weeks. If you're a fan of Fugazi I bet you could strike up a nice conversation with him about it, he seems pretty passionate about music. His exams were generally reflective of what he taught in class. There was never a question which made me feel blindsided. For our last midterm he gave us a test bank of like 50 or 60 questions and essentially said that he would choose 6 or 7 of those questions to ask us on the midterm, which is a pretty cool system if you ask me. There was a significant curve at the end of the semester. He didn't do plus minus grading the semester I took the class, which was nice since I would have ended with an A- otherwise. Additionally, his class has 4 total exams weighted equally (including the final) and he drops one of those exams at the end of the semester, which means if you do well enough on all the midterms, you won't have another final to worry about.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-15T01:59:51.017203Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Paukstelis', 'slug': 'paukstelis'}, {'courses': ['PHIL100', 'PHIL660', 'LING849', 'PHIL362', 'LING660', 'PHIL808D', 'PHIL364', 'LING410', 'PHIL808B', 'LING879', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL688T', 'LING419N', 'LING888', 'LING888', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Pietroski', 'course': 'PHIL100', 'review': "This class requires you to do the readings, and understand them too, which takes a lot of time. The grade breakdown is 10% each for 2 quizzes, 25% each for 2 papers, and 30% for the final. The quizzes are based on the readings, and they're tricky at first. The secret is to write a good paragraph for each answer, even if you can answer some questions with just 1 sentence. The papers are just analyzing some philosopher's ideas, but you have to go into deep thinking mode for an A. The TA's are pretty nice with the grading, and even let you rewrite your first paper after they give it back. Lecture is boring, but it's important to go to understand the concepts. Also, professor focuses on certain parts of the readings and tells you what's important, so you don't have to get every single bit when studying. I had a C+ at the beginning of the year, but managed to get an A- through a lot of work. Decent class, but it's not for everyone. Requires a lot of work, but you do learn a lot about philosophy.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-27T16:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Pietroski', 'course': 'PHIL100', 'review': "I came into the class thinking it was going to be super awesome. It wasn't what I thought. The class is all about the history of philosophy and if you're just looking for an elective/core, take something else. The class isn't necessarily hard, but even having it at 11 it was hard to stay up. MMH1400 is fairly warm and Pietroski pretty much just talks.\r\nWe were allowed to use our notes for the exams. The exams aren't that hard, but they get harder as the semester goes. If you come to class, you'll be fine; I didn't read any of the stuff. The papers are kinda hard to push to 6 pages if you're not interested in the material, so keep that as a heads up. Overall, the workload isn't too bad.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-06-08T18:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Pietroski', 'course': 'PHIL100', 'review': 'Got a B+ in the course and was expecting an A, kinda blew off studying for the final. Lectures are extremely boring and I could only pay attention for 3-5 minutes at a time. He tends to just talk "at" the class rather than trying to engage them or make the material interesting. Skipped lectures from a week before Thanksgiving break until the final. Papers are very easy, basically just read sparknotes for the section of reading and it\'s straightforward from there, no extra thinking required. Midterm and final required a bit of studying but TA\'s, sparknotes or actually doing the reading, and review sheets make an A on them obtainable.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-01-25T22:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Pietroski', 'slug': 'pietroski'}, {'courses': ['ISRL448D', 'ISRL289I', 'ISRL359A', 'HONR338A', 'HIST428V', 'HIST329Z', 'ISRL618E', 'ISRL618F', 'ISRL329D', 'HIST329D', 'JWST619', 'JWST699', 'JWST386', 'ISRL349D', 'HIST328F', 'HIST376', 'ISRL342', 'ISRL349E', 'ISRL283', 'ISRL289I', 'ISRL350', 'HIST376', 'ISRL342', 'ISRL350', 'HIST328F', 'ISRL283', 'ISRL349D'], 'average_rating': 3.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Scham', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Scham is very helpful in terms of sending out emails with a lot of detailed information and links on them. The lectures are not very helpful in my view, as he speaks extremely slowly and the powerpoints don't have a lot of good information to copy down, but there was one or two pop quizzes, so you should go anyways. Discussion is very helpful, though. \n\r\nThere was a lot of writing in this class, and it was back loaded towards the end of things, but there were also extra credit opportunities, so it wasn't all bad. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-01-04T15:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Scham', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Scham is a very smart dude, but his lectures were not the strong part of the course. If you were lucky like me, you will get Andrew Chadwick as your TA. Andrew is what made the class worth it in the end. Scham can crack a solid joke here and there, and its important to understand that while you can do much better than this class, you can also do much worse', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-12T14:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Scham', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Scham is the head of the Israel Studies department. He in tenured, a very smart man, and comes laden with high awards and credentials. \r\nUnfortunately, Dr. Scham has some sort of medical malady that prevents him from being an affective or dynamic lecturer. He speaks very slowly and with a bit of a stutter. Class time was often painful, and highly soporific.\r\nHe teaches a lot of the Israel Studies courses, and it is easy to do well if you do the readings and prepare for the exams and papers as you would in any other class. However, be warned: there is a lot of academic reading that is often verbose and difficult to understand.\r\nHe offered a lot of extra credit for this class which really brought up a lot of people's grades. He also is more than willing to meet in his office to go over things. \r\nHe is a nice guy, but often gets frustrated if people seem uninterested or don't participate in class. Is you read, understand the material, participate, and ask questions, he will like you and grade you favorably. \n\r\nBottom line, he's not great. So don't rush to take him. But if you need to take an ISRL course and it seems mildly interesting, it wouldn't be the worse thing to take him. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-23T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Scham', 'course': 'ISRL289I', 'review': "Not a very effective lecturer, but he is very nice and he wants his students to learn above all. Keep up with the readings, take advantage of the extra credit, and speak up in class. He will like that, and doing the extra credit can really help alleviate some pressure when finals comes around.\r\nThere is a fair amount of writing, but Professor Scham prefers quality over quantity. If you don't fall behind or procrastinate, and you're a semi-decent writer, you should have no problem with it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-20T04:18:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Scham', 'course': 'ISRL289I', 'review': "He isn't a effective lecturer, which makes the class very boring and uninteresting. Although if you do the readings, participate, and ask questions you'll be fine. \r\nBe aware that his pop quizzes are based off many of the readings of the past two weeks. This class is stressful, and as a freshman myself; I would kindly say not to take this guy if you want a general education that can get out of your way. Although there were like 4 total, I screwed up on one quiz. Which was pretty bad for my reputation. This isn't an easy A class, this is a class that needs effort to be put in.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-11-15T01:34:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Scham', 'course': 'ISRL342', 'review': 'Hes very knowledgeable, but has some sort of medical condition that makes it difficult for him to be an good lecturer. The class itself is very interesting. It is very reading heavy, so be prepared to read a lot and discuss them in class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-13T22:28:44Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Scham', 'slug': 'scham'}, {'courses': ['ENCE472', 'ENCE674', 'ENCE466', 'ENCE672', 'ENCE675', 'ENCE370', 'ENCE681', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE370', 'ENCE672', 'ENCE472', 'ENCE674', 'ENCE672', 'ENCE681'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Schonfeld', 'course': 'ENCE370', 'review': "I have never had a worse professor in my entire life. DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASSES unless you don't have an option. He tells us he's fine with the averages of his exams being 30s and 40s and doesn't really care for anyone to do any better. His teaching style is absolutely terrible. He makes notes and just talks the whole time in a totally random order and unorganized way and i never had a clue what he was talking about. The only good thing about him is that apparently he doesn't really fail anyone so there must be a MASSIVE curve. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-15T17:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Schonfeld', 'course': 'ENCE370', 'review': "Don't take a class with this guy unless you absolutely have to for your degree. He taught the class totally unorganized, expected way too much out of the students, and was completely not willing to take criticism or help those that asked for it. The average grades on his exams were in 40's and he was content with that. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-22T02:08:00Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Schonfeld', 'slug': 'schonfeld'}, {'courses': ['ANTH398D', 'ANTH445', 'ANTH496', 'ANTH498Y', 'ANTH688Y', 'ANTH696', 'ANTH701', 'SUMM015', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH440', 'ANTH466', 'ANTH640', 'ANTH666', 'AMST857', 'ANTH857', 'ANTH789', 'HIST811', 'INST728I', 'AMST857', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811', 'INST728I', 'AMST857', 'ANTH440', 'ANTH466', 'ANTH640', 'ANTH666', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811', 'INST728I', 'INST787', 'AMST857', 'ANTH240', 'ANTH466', 'ANTH666', 'INST787', 'ANTH701', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811', 'ANTH701', 'ANTH789', 'AMST857', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811', 'INST787'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Shackel', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Shackel is knowledgeable and experienced in archaeology. His lectures are easy to comprehend, if occasionally a bit repetitive, but necessary to do well on the exams. These exams may be either take-home or in-class, and are thorough but fair. \n\r\nMy only issue with him is his demeanor. I found him brusque and distant at times, but he is clearly a very busy man. \n\r\nThere is significant reading in this class, and you will be expected to do your share of the intellectual legwork. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-06-09T15:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Shackel', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': "Gives hardly any work. Just go to lecture and take notes and you'll get 100% on the at home, asynchronous tests. \r\n\r\nHis slides are okay to read but he's very repetitive, feels like he took the worst notes possible on the textbook and is presenting them to you. He can't pronounce a single thing that's not European, makes you wonder how much he knows about those topics.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-19T16:41:33.845831Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Shackel', 'slug': 'shackel'}, {'courses': ['STAT741', 'STAT740', 'STAT386', 'STAT401', 'STAT689', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'STAT420', 'STAT400', 'STAT440', 'STAT386', 'STAT440', 'STAT770', 'STAT689', 'STAT400', 'STAT386'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paul Smith', 'course': 'STAT401', 'review': 'Professor Smith focuses heavily on formulas, and the majority of class time was focused on proving or using formulas. This made his exams and final easy, because as long as you had the formula written down (he allowed one page of notes) then it was plug and chug to get the answers. \r\n\r\nHowever he assigned homework that was often too long and repetitive, so expect to spend 2+ hours a week solving the same problems but with different numbers. Also he refuses to use ELMS to post student grades, so prepare to be guessing at how well you are doing compared to other students.\r\n\r\nEasy A if you can put in the time and not get too frustrated at the homework.\r\n\r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-23T20:55:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Smith', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Horrible professor. Is obviously very intelligent but does not know how to teach. Talks about one thing while presenting notes about another thing, goes over no examples in class, and expects you to learn the problems based on loose theory presented in class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-08-21T16:52:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Paul Smith', 'course': 'STAT440', 'review': 'Grades are not updated regularly. Lecture is not worth going to as he often spends lots of time on proofs not needed for homeworks or exams. Strange class, feels very outdated.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-12T02:27:58.071635Z'}], 'name': 'Paul Smith', 'slug': 'smith_paul'}, {'courses': ['MIEH600', 'MIEH720', 'MIEH688', 'MIEH688A', 'MIEH735', 'MIEH785', 'MIEH786', 'NFSC735', 'MIEH309', 'GVPT355', 'MIEH609', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH771', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH735', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'NFSC735', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH720', 'MIEH771', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH785', 'MIEH786', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH600', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH600', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH735', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'NFSC735'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Turner', 'slug': 'turner_paul'}, {'courses': ['LBSC680', 'LBSC631'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paul Wester', 'slug': 'wester'}, {'courses': ['EDSP489', 'EDSP420', 'EDSP798E', 'EDSP430', 'EDSP798J', 'EDSP671', 'EDSP433', 'EDSP415', 'EDSP615', 'EDSP631', 'EDSP626', 'EDSP665', 'EDSP888A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paula Beckman', 'slug': 'beckman_paula'}, {'courses': ['ARHU386', 'ARHU486', 'COMM107', 'UNIV101', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU489', 'ARHU158P', 'COMM382', 'ARHU458', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU486', 'ARHU489', 'COMM382', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU458', 'ARHU486', 'ARHU489', 'ARHU158P', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU458', 'ARHU486', 'ARHU489', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU486', 'ARHU489', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU486', 'ARHU489', 'ARHU286', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU458', 'ARHU486', 'ARHU489'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paula Nadler', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "I originally had Vandenbosch as my professor for this course, but she ultimately fell ill and was replaced by Nadler.\n\r\nDespite the other reviews, I enjoyed having Nadler as my professor. She stuck very close to the text (she lectured by reading her notes from the text itself) and her exams were often open note. She also made lectures very interesting and open to discussion. She has a sarcastic sense of humor, but she never means to insult anybody. She actually praises people in the course that had speech anxiety because she notices how hard they work to overcome it.\n\r\nThat being said, I had an extensive theatrical and speaking background and received B's on most of my presentations. She does grade semi-harshly. However, she left extensive notes on our grades on ELMS (BIG PLUS--she sticks to ELMS quite closely, very convenient). She also replies to emails very quickly, so it's easy to get in touch with her.\n\r\nDefinitely socialize with her before and after class. She's a sweet woman! It will also get you on her good side. I missed probably close to 10 classes and the entire second exam, but she bumped my grade up from a C+ to a B- after an email asking her for help. She understands how important grades look on a transcript and will sympathize.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2015-05-14T09:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paula Nadler', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Prof. Nadler generally was a decent grader and did seem to take into account people's natural skill level entering the course, which was fair and helpful. \n\r\nShe did however have a tendency to nitpick on written assignments. She also definitely gave off a passive aggressive personality at times.\n\r\nThat being said, she was helpful when you asked her things before and after class. \n\r\nShe was notably open with her progressive political beliefs, which I suppose is to be expected on a college campus, and knowing this will help you when picking a speech topic. Talking about microaggressions will go over a lot better than talking about the perils of affirmative action. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-07T23:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paula Nadler', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE PAULA NADLER! I know this looks like a long review but PLEASE READ AND DO NOT TAKE THIS LIGHTLY.\n\r\nI should have taken my roommate\'s advice more seriously: He had Nadler when she began teaching 107 sections last Spring semester, and according to my roommate, she TOLD his class, "I WAS ASSIGNED TO BEGIN TEACHING COMM 107 TO LOWER THE OVERALL GPA FOR THIS COURSE." I could not believe him at first, but as it turns out, he (and she) were right. There are 2 people in my class who have A- \'s and one who has an A. The rest of the students\' grades range from B to F. That just should not happen in an INTRODUCTORY LEVEL, GENERAL EDUCATION COURSE. In speaking with friends who took the same course this semester, I have heard that almost everyone in every class has an A or a B. \n\r\nAs said from previous reviewers, she plays favorites LIKE YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE. I actually thought I was one of her favorites, but that seemed to change about midway through the semester as I started getting more and more points taken off of my assignments and speeches. Your skills are supposed to improve in this class, not degrade! It did not help having her at 8am three days each week, as she marked me off for coming in only 5 minutes late...and did not care about student who slept in. She does give you 3 free absences as per dept standards, but as it was my only 8am class, these 3 freebies evaporated all too quickly for me--and every class you miss after the first 3 basically removes from a half to a whole PERCENT off of your grade. Course is comprised of 200 points, and the participation grade is like 15 points or something like that. Every bit you miss will hurt you. NADLER LIKE TO NIT PICK ON EVERYTHING, BE AWARE. \n\r\nShe is a terrible lecturer, and will start the year by going through the chapter assigned for that day\'s reading and then will progressively cover less and less information than is on the exams. I received a 100, an 88, and a 55 on Exams 1, 2, and 3, respectively. For the main presentations, I received a 4.5/5, a 25/30, a 24/30, and then a 32/41 on the final. Did I become a worse student? I really doubt that.... given that I am in the Engineering school and got straight A\'s in all my other classes, and I also gave a most memorable speech at my High School graduation. \n\r\nIf you think you are a good public speaker, you are probably right. Don\'t let this woman\'s class tell you otherwise. Take anyone else and you should get a solid A just by showing up and trying your best. BUT NOT HERE. DROP IF POSSIBLE. Another section will likely open up. If you absolutely cannot drop her, HEED MY WARNINGS AND GOOD LUCK.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-13T19:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paula Nadler', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very annoying, worst kind of professor you could have. She would invite people to contribute with input, but then she would find a way to refute their thoughts and opinions, or maybe even embarrass them in front of the class. I\'ve heard someone say that she just loves to categorize everyone into MBTI acronyms, and got miffed when students called her out on it (saying that they "disrupted class"). I will do anything to avoid ever taking this professor again. If you like her, you are probably her favorite, or the type that doesn\'t question authority at all. She picks favorites a little too much.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-03-27T13:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paula Nadler', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'This professor does play favorites (as the reviewer below mentioned) with athletes. She takes her personal feelings into the classroom, she also is plain mean to individual students. Try not to take this professor. She made everyone dread coming to class everyday. She sees everything as a challenge and does not like students who think/have ideas. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-17T13:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paula Nadler', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Nadler is disrespectful to students. She cops an attitude when people ask questions, rolls her eyes, and sighs at the class. One student said to me "I am scared to ask questions anymore in class". For a COMM107 teacher, I would hope she would know the impact of her verbal and nonverbal communication. She laughed at a students hair one day. She is not engaging at all. We have to use power points, and hand gestures, and move around during our speeches, but when she lectures for the class she just sits in a chair at the front, sometimes eating food. Are we supposed to do what she does? Or do what she tells us to do? She does not like to be challenged. She refused to repeat a vocabulary word for a student. I do not respect her as a teacher and do not think she should be allowed to teach an 100 level COMM class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-07T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paula Nadler', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Terrible professor, she definitely plays favorites among the athletes. She grades rather harshly on the group presentations. Her review sessions are not helpful, answering everything with "We discussed it in class." Does not like to be challenged. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-15T02:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paula Nadler', 'course': None, 'review': 'Sweet professor. Overenthusiastic about her job. You may or may not like that. Easy to talk to and very knowledgeable with the university. Definitely take UNIV101; it is an easy A and a GPA booster. 2 journals, a professor interview, current event report (read a short article and talk about it for 2 minutes), and go to first look fair and write some things down. Easy. Recommended. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-01-26T22:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paula Nadler', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Dr. Nadler is probably one of the worst teachers I have ever had. All of the other negative reviews about her are very accurate. She is completely closed off to any idea that isn't her own. She is a very harsh grader and plays favorites. Students who she likes will get very high grades on all their speeches, even if they clearly have an off day. Students who she does not like will never be able to get the same scores, no matter how skilled they are at public speaking and how hard they try. She is condescending and mean. She will take an opportunity to embarrass students in class and make them feel stupid when they try and answer her questions. She is very short tempered. If you pick a speech topic that she doesn't agree with, you can expect a bad grade. Any time you ask ANY question she will treat you like you are stupid and wasting her time. I could go on and on about her, but long story short, avoid her at all costs if you can.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-08T17:57:04Z'}], 'name': 'Paula Nadler', 'slug': 'nadler'}, {'courses': ['BSCI497', 'ENTM798D', 'ENTM788C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paula Shrewsbury', 'slug': 'shrewsbury'}, {'courses': ['PHYS402', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS371', 'PHYS603', 'PHYS272H', 'CHPH718F', 'PHYS404', 'PHYS749', 'PHYS601', 'PHYS612', 'PHYS747', 'PHYS412', 'PHYS612', 'PHYS412', 'PHYS749', 'PHYS413'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Paulo Bedaque', 'slug': 'bedaque'}, {'courses': ['BUMO756', 'BUMO751', 'BUSI690', 'BMGT495', 'BUMO754', 'BMGT495H', 'BUSM614', 'BUSM775', 'BUSM778B', 'ENTS625', 'BUSO778B', 'EMBA778B', 'BUSO614', 'BUSO700', 'BUSI600', 'BUSI602', 'BUSI713', 'BMGT495', 'BUSI690', 'BMGT614', 'BUSO614', 'BUSO700', 'BMGT466', 'BMGT495', 'BUSI600', 'BUSI602', 'BUSI690', 'BUSI713', 'BUSI758D', 'BUSI758E', 'BUSI788B', 'BUSM788B', 'BUSO614', 'BUSO700', 'BUSO788B', 'EMBA788B', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT614', 'BUSI690', 'BUSI758D', 'BUSI758E', 'BUSI788C', 'BUSM614', 'BUSM775', 'BUSO614', 'EMBA788C', 'BUSI758D', 'BUSI758E', 'BUSO788C', 'BMGT466', 'BUSI758D', 'BUSI758E', 'BUSI788B', 'BUSM788B', 'BUSO788B', 'EMBA788B', 'BUSI602'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Paulo Prochno', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'He is really relaxed, so much so that he barely teaches us. Half the classes we just met up with our group and talked about our final project, which is only going to be a 6-minute presentation. The tests are really easy, because there are so few terms for the course.\n\r\nHowever, he does get a little particular about the case reflection papers. Be careful to think through them and not just throw useless information, because you will lose points. He also compares your paper to the rest of the class, which is weird.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-06T03:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paulo Prochno', 'course': 'BMGT466', 'review': "Funny, cool, chill...basically the MAN!. Do your work, show up to class and prepapare the final. Group project is big, do it well. That's it..he is pretty chill.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-30T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paulo Prochno', 'course': 'BMGT466', 'review': 'This guy is just awesome. 466 is easy an its interesting. he interjects humor that alleviates some of the boredom of the class. the whole class is just a simulation and case studies. i would definitely recommend this class with this teacher. If you do your work, put in moderate effort into your three case write ups, and prepare for the final, you will get an A with relatively little effort. not only that, youll actually want to go to class. well, at least compared to your other classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T00:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Paulo Prochno', 'course': 'BMGT614', 'review': "His grading is brainless. Discussions are out of 2.5 points (??) but only one person gets a 2.5/2.5. The rest of the class gets between a 2.0 and 2.2. Odds aren't in your favor so you're already gonna start off by having to claw your way back up and if he doesn't like your exam responses, you simply won't get a good grade. \r\n\r\nHe did make class kinda entertaining tho which was nice", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-25T18:36:05.516570Z'}], 'name': 'Paulo Prochno', 'slug': 'prochno'}, {'courses': ['CMSC122', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC216', 'CMSC389N', 'CMSC389W', 'MATH299M', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC122', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC122', 'CMSC131'], 'average_rating': 3.5636, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "What you would expect from a professor. He goes through the material relatively well, but fails to engage the class in any way. I was fortunate enough to have Nelson post his lectures for the class so I don't go to lectures anymore, but overall I feel the class is still manageable by just reading the power point slides posted online. \r\nCMSC132, in general:\r\nQuizzes can be annoying I recommend taking them seriously because they can really impact your grade if you don't do well.\r\nProjects: Projects were relatively easy I would just give yourself enough time to do them.\r\nMidterms: Overall, were generally fair but have very nitpicky questions in some cases, doing the practice midterms that are posted is more than sufficient study material. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-19T22:41:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Pedram is really good at balancing teaching concepts and explains the actual code that goes into the course. The only caveat I’d say about pedram is his discussion sections aren’t always relevant.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-11-19T23:17:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Class wasn't too boring for an intro course. He tried his best to teach to the lowest common denominator, since it is an intro course. Grading is fair, didn't always know everything in lecture but he tried his best to answer what he could. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-03-20T18:53:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "A good professor overall with answers to all your questions and willing to admit if he doesn't know the answer off the top of his head. Entertained every question a student threw at him, even if he had to defer to later in the class to answer it. Many felt his midterms were extremely difficult, but they're fair tests of your knowledge in the class. They're challenging, but they're not impossible if you study all the content and can write the code. For all the exams, Pedram said what the coding section would be on (of course not the specific question but the general topic) to make sure you knew going in. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:01:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'No Piazza forum to ask questions only TA hours. When I asked the TA why he doesn\'t set up a piazza forum, he quoted Pedram and said "I\'m too lazy." Average on the midterms were about a ~60%. Pedram has a very monotone voice and as a result is very boring. Projects were alright, start early and you should be straight. Going to TA hours on the day a project is due is like waiting in line at a yeezy shoe release. I wouldn\'t take him if I were you. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-11T02:59:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He knows his stuff but does not know how to test on knowledge. Midterm averages were pretty low, and about 15-20% of the class had to drop the class just because of those. He's definitely a nice guy, but the TAs weren't great, and the lack of TA office hours will leave you scrambling if you need help on a project. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-16T15:03:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Pedram is an excellent lecturer. Class is super well structured, and he considers when it might be more effective to show you example code, then slides, or the slides and then the example code. In general, though Nelson is the one posting Piazza updates, he is simply there in lecture, teaching like he always does.\r\n\r\nI've heard when he is not co-teaching with someone like Nelson, his exams are very difficult, so take that into consideration. He is also very boring. A good majority of my section stopped showing up to either lecture or discussion because of this.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-09T01:05:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "I had Pedram for 216 and for 132. I think Pedram is a great lecturer and does a good job of explaining concepts. He tries to spend most of his time going over live coding examples as opposed to just reading off of the slides. For 216, Pedram co-taught with Herman so we had Herman's exams and projects. If Pedram is co-teaching definintely take him. However, if Pedram is not co-teaching like he was for my 132 class, his exams are definitely way more difficult, but not impossible. I recommend him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-10T17:56:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': 'Very boring. Does not engage the class very well. His voice has a habit of putting half the class to sleep and his lectures do not keep your attention. He goes over concepts pretty well, and his diagrams/drawings in class are helpful at times. When he makes his own exams, he is very pedantic about specific concepts, which is guaranteed to trip up most students, including those who have a strong grasp of computer science.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-11T22:44:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Great, effective lecturer. He can be boring, but I think that can be overlooked when considering how well he can explain the concepts taught. However, I took this class when Nelson was co-teaching. I'm not sure how well he fares on his own", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-24T04:54:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Very good lecturing. It helped that he was co-lecturing with nelson so I think the exams were easier.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-11-27T20:19:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': 'Terrible teacher. not engaging at all and regurgitates the slides. this was an intro class yet our exam averages were in the 50% range. do not take this unless you absolutely have to', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-10T19:06:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "His lectures are fine, he sticks closely to the slides and may elaborate with examples. If you understand the slides there's no need to go to class. Pedram is great, super understanding and accommodating whenever I spoke to him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-19T21:37:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': None, 'review': 'Fine lecturer', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-03T16:52:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He's pretty monotone when he talks, but he explains things well, and his projects are okay. The quizzes are brutal though.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-14T17:28:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Clear and thorough lecturer. Modified the class (exams/quizzes) to fit online learning well. Nothing really to complain about. (Some people dislike his monotone lecturing style but I think it sounds fine at 2x speed)\r\n\r\nThe TAs really do most of the office hours, grading, synchronous teaching, but that's not a problem because CS TAs are mostly pretty cool.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-20T05:12:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Great lecturer, gave reasonable workload and challenging but rewarding and thought-provoking tests and projects. Only small thing is that he didn't exactly go out of his way to show himself on camera or talk to students directly, but overall I can't blame him during a pandemic. Never felt like his work was busy work and always gave us access to the slides and notes we needed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-11-29T22:59:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Lecturing skills were overall okay. The format, however, was just going over what's next in the course until 50m is up. It felt a bit unorganized and the class felt dry as a whole.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-09T23:27:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Pedram's lectures are super boring and monotone, but he is a good professor who explains his concepts very clearly. Watching his lectures on a faster speed is essential. CMSC132 was organized super well online (lectures, slides, and code examples always uploaded), although discussions often felt like a mixed bag because we would often just go over random Java topics that we weren't tested on. Around halfway through the semester, the difficulty of the projects and quizzes/tests (especially quizzes/tests) did spike a lot. You did have 8 hours for every quizz/test, though which was very generous. The first half of the course is pretty laidback 131 review.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-18T04:06:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Extremely difficult exams. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-18T18:30:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "His lectures are fine, but can be unbearably slow and monotone. Tests and quizzes were OK as long as you kept up with your lectures. He didn't really interact with students much, but the class was fully online so I can't say that I expected anything different. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-21T19:04:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I took this course in Fall 2019\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ Competent and informative lecturer. A lot of people say he's boring, but I honestly disagree, he makes extensive use of example code to ensure students understand what's going on.\r\n+ Projects are good applications of what you are learning.\r\n+ Tests are fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-22T01:17:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Had him for online semester. The lectures were pretty slow but he definitely knew what he was talking about. The exams were a bit tougher than usual but I do feel that they were fair. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-23T23:22:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'His exams are extremely difficult and take nearly 8 hours to complete. Although he may brush over exam concepts in lecture, he doesn’t provide any examples of how to actually use the concepts. If you do not have programming experience before college, good luck. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-09T14:22:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': 'Lectures are on the boring side but the course was run will completely remote. The exams were mental difficulty because they were take home. The three midterms were supposed to take 1 hour but they took me 3-5 hours.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-11T22:21:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Exams were extremely hard, had to spend almost the entire day on them. He was a fine lecturer considering the asynchronous nature of the class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T16:22:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': None, 'review': "I don't know why everyone keeps giving him 4+ stars even though the consensus is that his exams are really hard? Unless you're a super coder (coded before) or this is your only hard class, don't take this guy. His lectures a dry, his midterms are BRUTAL and he barely curves. Especially for online, he makes the exams 10x harder than previous years, which would be fine if he curved each exam or curved the class more than like 1%, which he doesn't", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-12T20:51:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "He sounds like Ben Shapiro if you put his lectures on 1.5x speed but he is very hands off with the online format. You will pretty much only talk to the TAs and there is no live interaction at all with Pedram. His exams weren't that hard imo, but the projects were difficult not because they were hard to implement but because it was difficult to understand what needed to be implemented from the instructions. I've had bettter CS teachers and I've had worse. Decent.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-19T17:35:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Took this class Fall 2020. Pedram is a good lecturer. He might be a little boring, but he runs through plenty of examples and is very clear. The online exams are very fair, not very difficult but a little time-consuming. Start on them early and you can definitely finish in the allotted time. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-11T22:40:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Pedram's lectures are slow but he explains things really well. His exams are super challenging though, and they cost me big time.\r\nI wish I had some prior knowledge of data structures before I took this class with Pedram because I quickly got overwhelmed by so much new material.\r\nIf you have some previous knowledge though, I don't think the class will be too bad for you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-23T13:57:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC122', 'review': "His lectures can be a bit dry, and it's a little bit of a struggle to pay attention sometimes, but that's totally not his fault. He's a really informative lecturer and all the examples he does in class are great for helping to illustrate the concepts. The projects are pretty fun, and he gives plenty of time for you to work on them. The quizzes and tests are always on exactly what he says they will be -- no surprises there. If you study (do the worksheets he posts!) you'll be fine. The TAs were great, and Pedram says he's always pretty picky about who he lets TA his courses, so I trust that it would be the same in other semesters. This was the first coding class I've ever taken and it was my favorite this semester. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-06T02:06:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "I took 131 with no coding experience during Spring 21 sem. His class was extremely difficult for me because of the difference in content covered on exams vs in the lectures. Projects and exams took me all day and I struggled really hard with this class. You won't interact with him at all so be prepared to teach yourself and always attend discussion.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-06T20:41:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Took 131 with him (with zero coding experience) which was brutal, figured the online nature of it made it harder and gave him another short in person. It was pretty much just as brutal, his exams and quizzes are horribly written and super unclear. He gives practice exams but they are absolutely nothing like what the actual exam will be like. If you haven’t coded in highschool don’t even bother.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-12-15T02:57:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Great guy, but I'll be the first to admit that his lectures are dry and his voice is very monotone. I think the difficulty and projects are fair. The TAs he has more than make up for any gaps due to Pedram, honestly the best TAs out of any class I've taken. Quizzes and tests were fair, I don't know what these people are talking about when they said the practice was nothing like the actual exam (obviously he has to change it up from the practice somehow). Only time where this was especially evident was studying for the final since there was legitimately no resources to help practice, but it's due to the CS department not Pedram specifically I believe. Overall, not the worst option, but for sure not the best for 132.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-18T17:57:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Pedram was a good person to take CMSC132 with. He and the TAs worked hard to make the class a good experience, and it showed. There were a lot of projects, sure, but Pedram's lectures and positive attitude made the class more enjoyable. A little boring during some of the lectures, but still good.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-23T00:07:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Had him Fall 2020.\r\nAs other reviews state, his lectures are incredibly dry, but informative. He drones on even at 2x speed. The class is structured well. Projects, exams, and grading are all pretty fair. The third exam was absolutely brutal though. Still, if you keep up with everything (and practice advanced recursion) you'll be fine. Didn't interact with students much if at all, I'm still not even sure what he looks like.\r\nA remarkably average, bland professor.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-04-22T02:30:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Horrible. No help for students who are behind though attending all lectures. Terrible at responding to students with legitimate problems understanding and doesn't care for the improvement of students. No help from him. Terrible at conveying topics and concepts to students. TA office hours are your best bet at understanding anything. Teach yourself or suffer the consequences.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-25T23:54:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'He is ... ok! That is the best thing I can say in terms of lecturing. He is a very nice man, incredibly receptive to any questions and very flexible with extensions regarding religious holidays. He is a bit monotone but thats honestly fine. His TAs were good - when they actually showed up to office hours or discussion sections. The projects were fine with the exception of a few and the DS/A part of the course was a nice introduction to it. I recommend if you already have familiarity with programming and data structures, Fawzi would be better teaching you from the ground up if you wanted something more comprehensive. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-02T19:33:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "TLDR: boring lectures, hard projects, but nice guy.\r\n\r\nIt me say that if you know what to expect he's not so bad however my first time with him was a bit of a headace.\r\n\r\nHe said his class is beginner friendly which i don't think is true.\r\n(I had a semester of computer science classes at a community college)\r\n\r\nUsing eclipse for the first time was a bit tricky. I wish he had spent more time explaining.\r\nHis projects were a bit on the hard side.\r\n\r\nI often found the descriptions long and vague. things have to be done in a certain way to test certain skills.\r\n\r\nHis exams were a fair although is online exams were just mini projects which were a pain.\r\n\r\nIf you understand the topics then the projects aren't so bad, if you don't you could spend several hours struggling.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-09T01:27:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Is he the best lecturer out there? Probably not. But Pedram is an extremely effective lecturer who teaches very clearly if you put in the work required. Starting projects on time, studying properly will make this class very feasible. His exams are extremely fair and his prep/schedule helps you succeed a lot. He's also a great guy who truly cares about his students... happy to have had him for my intro CS course. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T18:44:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Pedrams lectures are very boring, his project descriptions are extremely vague and hard to follow, and his exams are somewhat difficult. In addition, there was plenty of content on the final exam that he only mentioned briefly in class but never went in depth about. He isn't the worst choice, but definitely not great.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-16T02:49:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': "Pedram's exams and quizzes are extremely fair. In particular, his TA's this semester were exceptional. Some advice: start the projects THE DAY THEY ARE ASSIGNED and JOIN A STUDY GROUP!! Overall I had a much better experience taking CMSC131 with him this spring than I had taking CMSC131 with Fawzi in the fall. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-05-20T00:33:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I really enjoyed having Pedram for 132 this semester. Lectures were really helpful and material was interesting. Projects weren't too difficult when started early, and quizzes felt honestly somewhat easy. However, I will note that this semester he co-taught 132 with Nelson, so I can't speak to his class when it's not cotaught. Very nice and approachable as well, would definitely recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-21T18:58:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "I understand why he's rated the lowest compared to all the other professors, but he isn't too bad. If he's the only one available, you should be fine.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-25T23:18:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'High quality lecturer, posts lecture videos to Panopto. He explains the important concepts in detail. He explains code visually using drawings, which made sense for me since I am a visual learner. \r\n\r\nExams are fair and are reflective of the material he emphasizes in both lecture and discussion. A few days before the exam he will give the topics and hints, write them down. If you can do the practice exams and worksheets, you should be fine. There are some tricks, but you can prepare for these by doing the practice material.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-11T15:41:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'I struggled a bit with 131 as it was my first time coding so I was nervous going into 132 knowing it would be more difficult and cover far more complex topics. I thought Pedram did a great job explaining it and his code examples helped me learn it pretty seamlessly. I had to put way more time into the projects but it paid off because they were instrumental in how well I was able to understand concepts. He was also very helpful in the Q&A sessions and reviewed all the important material that we needed to know for tests and projects. Very great option in my opinion. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-08-07T19:15:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Pedram was an excellent lecturer. Slides are very organized, great code examples, good explainer, provides ample context for programming practices, concepts, principles etc. Posts lecture videos to Panopto, which are exactly like in-person lectures. Projects are very well constructed, and if you start them early and put effort into them, you'll enjoy and gain A LOT from them. Pedram's TAs this semester were also excellent, very helpful. Make use of Piazza; even if not asking questions, make sure to read it regularly to hear useful discussion and tips for the current project or upcoming exam.\r\n\r\nNot the most captivating lecturer, but certainly one of the best explainers.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T18:59:33.673427Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Had Pedram for 131 and 132, very solid experience. Exams are challenging but not unfair. Best way to prepare is to use the practice exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T21:41:55.371895Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Pedram is not a good Java lecturer to say the least. Besides Java having particularly poor design for some elements, his lectures in the first half of the course weren't all too useful: particularly regarding generics. However, he's a pretty decent data structures lecturer. He usually draws out the concepts in conjunction with reading the slides. The provided material was top-notch, and some of the TAs' contributions made it even better. The exams are challenging but not overwhelming (the vocab stuff can be pretty obscure sometimes, but that's to be expected). I would recommend this professor, but not overwhelmingly.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-23T03:45:38.493661Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Pedram’s lecturing style is good overall. He’s a bit of a slow talker, but he does an excellent job of drawing out visually how each data structure/algorithm works. He records every lecture and posts it on Panopto, so if you need to skip class you can just watch the recording. \r\n\r\nQuizzes and exams were fair. Pedram makes old assessments available as practice, which are definitely worthwhile to do. For exams, he also gives a summary of what’s going to be on it, which is helpful for targeting your study. Additionally, Pedram is a fan of remixing questions which have appeared earlier on quizzes/exams or elsewhere in the practice.\r\n\r\nProjects were my favorite part of the course. The project descriptions, public tests, and questions posted to Piazza are sufficient to get a full understanding of the project. As long as you complete them and do a decent job, they’re an easy A. It was doable but stressful for me to do most of the projects in the 48 hours before they’re due.\r\n\r\nHis TAs were uniformly of high quality and a great resource during office hours. Pedram himself is a little harder to reach: his office hours are by appointment only.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-23T05:34:10.420169Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Pedram is a good professor and very accommodating too. But one thing that makes his class stand out the most compared to others are his TA's. His class has one of the best groups of TA's ive ever encountered. Matthew, Sandeep, Alec, Brian, Daniel, Jason, Alexis, Gabriel and Syed do an amazing job at assessing to students needs and helping them with what ever problem they encounter. Helping and educating them in the process too. Projects are reasonable, exams are fair, and the final was nothing out of the ordinary. Definitely a class you could get an A in if you put in the effort.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-24T04:46:34.866452Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Pedram is a great professor and was good for my first CS class here at UMD. He always recorded lectures so you could go back after or if you weren't in class. Was also super responsive to emails and agreed to meet with me early in the semester when I felt I wasn't doing as well as I could be. Exams were very fair and he gave good specifications beforehand so you knew which subjects to focus on. Everything was very well organized and well put together and the TA team for my semester was amazing.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-26T18:46:37.308164Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': "Solid professor. Some of the practice exams don't reflect what the actual test has format wise but you get 3 years of practice for each test and quiz. Lectures make you want to fall asleep but solid at explaining and records all of his lectures. Just go to office hours for any project you're struggling with and they'll help you out.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-30T17:51:10.467366Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC132', 'review': 'Does his job of making both CMSC131 and CMSC132 weed out classes.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2023-01-11T01:38:08.296706Z'}, {'professor': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'course': 'CMSC131', 'review': 'Horrible lectures. Does not care about his students and absolutely rude.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-04T15:39:11.038704Z'}], 'name': 'Pedram Sadeghian', 'slug': 'sadeghian'}, {'courses': ['EDCI440', 'EDCI441', 'EDCI689', 'EDCI416', 'EDCI447', 'TLPL451', 'TLPL479C', 'TLPL478C', 'TLPL489C', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL451', 'TLPL479C', 'TLPL478C', 'TLPL489C', 'TLPL451', 'TLPL479C'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peggy Wilson', 'course': 'EDCI416', 'review': 'Great professor who puts a lot of effort into preparing for class and she is extremely helpful and (too) understanding. A lot of students take advantage of her generosity (submitting late assignments, not attending classes, etc.). All around, one of the best education professors at UM.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-26T00:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peggy Wilson', 'course': 'EDCI416', 'review': 'Peggy is wonderful, dont hesitate to take her class. Like most teachers in the ED department, she is caring and basically the most amazing person ever. Beware that you will have to get fingerprinted ($62.00) and go to observe at schools for 30 hours. You need a day off from classes, or at least a morning off or two a week. Try to do the observation at Northwestern Highschool also if you dont have a car because its so much easier. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-13T14:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peggy Wilson', 'course': 'EDCI416', 'review': "Peggy is a wonderful professor. She's goofy and down to earth and very helpful. The workload was fairly light, just a chapter reading every week. The only hard part of the class was that you had to do 30 hours of observation at a local high school over the course of the semester. But, again, Peggy is very helpful in making sure you can get it done and in helping you contact the school and whatnot. \r\nOverall, a pretty easy course, very great professor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-14T22:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peggy Wilson', 'course': 'TLPL451', 'review': "Peggy is a rockstar. Literally zero negative things have ever been said about her by anybody ever. You'll love her. She's def the kind of professor you'll tell future students about.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-16T01:17:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Peggy Wilson', 'course': 'TLPL451', 'review': "I LOVE Peggy. She's a super chill teacher that is very relatable and does everything to make sure that class is enjoyable. She is very honest and you can tell that she loves her job. She writes amazing recommendation letters and does a good job at helping to place you for your teaching internship. She makes the class about learning about the career, not about grades. \r\nOverall, very easy class as she is lenient with due dates. 100% reccomend", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-04T19:26:46Z'}], 'name': 'Peggy Wilson', 'slug': 'wilson_peggy'}, {'courses': ['BMGT302', 'BMGT302F', 'BMGT808V', 'BMGT302', 'BMGT302F', 'BMGT808V', 'BUDT704', 'BMGT302F', 'BUDT704'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302', 'review': "Dr. Huang is a great professor! Coding is difficult and he explains the concepts in-depth in class. He's understanding and accommodating and makes himself available for assistance before HW (codes) are due. I've learned a lot in this course and I really liked it! The content is challenging but the course is not difficult to get an A in if you do the assignments.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-11T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302', 'review': "Very good teacher with Visual Basic. Makes BMGT302 such an easy class. Very easy projects (I was able to do them starting at 8 P.M. the night they were due and finishing by midnight). Very easy in class quizzes (which he announces the dates of on the syllabus, so his class is also very easy to skip as long as you don't skip a quiz). His exams are also very easy. Got a 100% on the final just by spending 2 hours studying the slides. It's a very easy class with this professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-21T02:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302', 'review': "He tries really hard to teach you, but this is a coding class and it needs to be more hands on and computer based. Also, it doesn't help that you can't understand a damn word he says. I would recommend taking someone else if you have the chance. He give big homeworks every two weeks and they get increasingly difficult as time goes on. Don't fall be hind at the beginning of the semester or you might as well quit", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-20T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302', 'review': '', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-08-08T12:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302', 'review': "He doesn't teach in a very interesting way but if you put in effort to stay awake during class you'll learn a lot and succeed on the quizzes and tests, which are straightforward. Projects can be difficult later on but if you start early and go to the TA's office you'll be fine. Not hard to get an A in this class since the cutoff is a 90", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-25T00:22:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302', 'review': 'Very knowledgeable professor. Helpful and learned a lot. Course materials were organized and lecture was engaging.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-08-28T01:10:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302F', 'review': 'Not very helpful, boring professor, hard to understand. Everyone in this class is on their phones while he teaches. Not engaging at all. I do not look forward to asking him for help because he explains the topics without enough clarity. When my group asked him for help about a certain concept, he just said "You really don\'t know how to do this?" and giggled and ridiculed at us for two minutes instead of providing a straightforward answer. \r\n\r\nI had to take him for BMGT302F. I\'ve heard great things about Bono, and if you have the option, I would definitely take him instead. I\'ve overheard Bono in conversations with students encouraging them sincerely even if they come to him saying that they are struggling. Huang is the opposite of Bono. Neither he nor his lectures motivate the students in the class to learn the material.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-19T19:31:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302F', 'review': "Terrible prof, had to take him because there was no other teacher for 302F. Lectures are extremely boring and you learn nothing. He's not approachable and makes fun of you when you make mistakes which ??? His TA was useless and screwed a bunch of students over because they didn't grade assignments fairly and didn't follow any rubric. You have to learn all material on your own. Textbook is super helpful and your key to success in this course. Just read the slides and textbooks before exams and you'll be fine I guess.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-03T21:30:26.004549Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302F', 'review': 'This was by far my favorite course this semester. Professor Huang made my first coding course fun and engaging. I really enjoyed his teaching style and the structure of the course. Especially with coding, you really have to do it yourself to learn. We coded a lot in this class so I really feel like I learned a lot. Professor Huang clearly cared about his students and held us to a high standard while also being very understanding.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-11T13:40:54.182009Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302F', 'review': "I really liked Professor Huang. Not sure what people are talking about when it comes to him making fun of you. I went to him many times after class and on Zoom if I needed extra help which he was very willing to give. He clearly explains the course material and I liked the structure of the Hw's and the in-class codings. Only thing is lectures can be dry, but I feel like that's just because this is a coding class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T03:12:15.026112Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302F', 'review': 'Personally, I very much liked Prof. Huang. The way he laid out assignments were very helpful to learn, yet also saved lots of time but not having us write out a blank code for each. The tests and quizzes were fair, and overall this course was not too time consuming. I would recommend taking him. Also for the course work, the fellowship section is virtually the same as the other sections from what I could tell.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T22:02:02.644669Z'}, {'professor': 'Peng Huang', 'course': 'BMGT302F', 'review': "If its your first time taking a Python course good luck! The professor shows no mercy. He is very kind though and helpful if you ask questions. You must know everything on the ppt slides to do well on the quizzes. As for the midterm it was hard and no practice exams or examples to prep. I didn't get the textbook so that may be why. His TA was awful and very unfair. She took points off and was not consistent across the board. Not sure if she had a rubric but it was absolutely ridiculous. I would take another with this professor if I had to.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-22T04:54:00.141693Z'}], 'name': 'Peng Huang', 'slug': 'huang_peng'}, {'courses': ['COMM610', 'COMM639', 'COMM649', 'COMM641', 'COMM683', 'COMM729', 'COMM719', 'COMM619', 'COMM639A', 'COMM659', 'COMM710', 'COMM609', 'COMM609A', 'COMM798B', 'EXST019B', 'EXST029C', 'EXST049A', 'EXST049B', 'EXST049E', 'EXST009A', 'EXST009B', 'EXST028A', 'EXST058A', 'EXST048B', 'EXST058B', 'COMM713', 'EXST019A', 'COMM609G', 'COMM639F', 'COMM639G', 'COMM659C', 'COMM798J', 'COMM798K', 'COMM398V', 'COMM619A', 'COMM637', 'COMM657'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Peng Wang', 'slug': 'wang_peng'}, {'courses': ['ENEE664', 'ENEE769R', 'ENEE661', 'ENEE765', 'ENEE762', 'ENEE460', 'ENEE488', 'ENEE698C', 'ENEE324H', 'ENEE762', 'ENEE661', 'ENEE765'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Perinkulam Krishnaprasad', 'slug': 'krishnaprasad'}, {'courses': ['EDCI689', 'EDCI410', 'EDCI433', 'EDCI438', 'EDCI688A', 'EDCI430', 'EDCI431', 'EDCI688K', 'TLPL445', 'TLPL450', 'TLPL479J', 'TLPL688K', 'TLPL689', 'TLPL696', 'TLPL478K', 'TLPL489J', 'TLPL695', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Perla Blejer', 'slug': 'blejer'}, {'courses': ['USLT488B', 'USLT498I', 'USLT201', 'USLT498K', 'USLT202', 'AMST629N', 'USLT498N', 'AMST498N', 'AMST498O', 'IMMR419D', 'IMMR219B', 'AMST498W', 'IMMR419J', 'AMST603', 'AMST262', 'AMST101', 'USLT403', 'AMST878A', 'AMST878B', 'AMST878C', 'USLT430', 'AMST857', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811', 'INST728I', 'AMST262', 'AMST328D', 'AMST628C', 'USLT328D', 'AMST262', 'AMST328D', 'USLT328D'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Perla Guerrero', 'course': 'AMST498N', 'review': "Took this class with Dr. Guerrero in Spring '21. She is super passionate and a super-smart professor. Be prepared to do A LOT of DENSE reading. Chances are your class size for this course will be pretty small as well, be prepared to participate in discussion. As a humanities course, assessments/assignments are obviously writing-based; getting an A- and above in this course is non-trivial. If you put in the work, read the required readings, and contribute discussion you will be fine. My only complaint was that sometimes her prompts for essays/discussions posts were vague and hard to understand. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T05:49:26Z'}], 'name': 'Perla Guerrero', 'slug': 'guerrero'}, {'courses': ['SOCY325', 'SOCY105', 'SOCY100', 'WMST325'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Perry Threlfall', 'slug': 'threlfall'}, {'courses': ['EDCI464', 'EDCI612', 'EDCI362A', 'EDCI660', 'EDCI661', 'EDCI362', 'EDCI488F', 'TLPL488L', 'TLPL643', 'TLPL644', 'TLPL488F', 'TLPL488R', 'TLPL341', 'TLPL343'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Peter Afflerbach', 'slug': 'afflerbach'}, {'courses': ['GERM285', 'GERM320', 'GERM689L', 'GERM322', 'GERM403', 'GERM439Q', 'HONR348K', 'GERM401', 'GERM439D', 'GERM439N', 'GERM489Y', 'GERM320H', 'GERM839L', 'GERM322H', 'GERM403H', 'GERM689Q', 'GERM689D', 'GERM689N', 'GERM689Y', 'GERM331', 'GERM488B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Peter Beicken', 'slug': 'beicken'}, {'courses': ['ENME640', 'ENME656', 'ENME489I', 'ENME632', 'ENME271', 'ENME657', 'ENME483', 'ENME484', 'ENME331'], 'average_rating': 3.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Bernard', 'course': 'ENME657', 'review': 'Prof. Bernard is an excellent, highly underrated, professor at UMD. He comes across as a very humble, yet incredibly intelligent, professor and is always glad to help students. He thoroughly walks you through the derivations of fundamental equations and, most importantly, explains their physical meaning. He\'s not interested in your ability to plug-n-chug engineering "problems" but rather your physical understanding of the material - thank God engineering teachers like this still exist. His HW\'s, exams, and grading are always incredibly fair.\n\r\nBernard\'s forte is turbulence (i.e., real flows) and his book is incredibly well written - buy it. Out of the many classes I\'ve had with him, his turbulence class was the one I enjoyed most and some of his stories were absolutely hilarious. Great Professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-10T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Bernard', 'course': None, 'review': "He's so boring. A friendly guy, but he is clearly very lazy. I did not deserve to pass the course but I did any way. He didn't give us homework and we only had 3 exams for our grade. My best grade on an exam was a 70. I got 60's on the other 2 exams but still managed to pass the class (didn't make sense to me). All in all, if you actually want to learn MATLAB then take a different professor. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-12T16:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Bernard', 'course': None, 'review': "Like the person below me said, there is no graded work in this class other than the 3 exams (2 midterms and a final). I never went to the discussion and didn't do any work until about 2 days before each exam. I just read through the diaries and then did 50-75% of the practice problems he posted and ended up getting an A on every exam. Overall funny guy and not a bad lecturer at all. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-28T14:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Bernard', 'course': None, 'review': "Bernard does in fact cook up tasty matlab.\n\r\nHe is what he is - a programmer. He does teach you matlab and he gives you all the tools to learn it, except some of us never do. The class is set up in such a way that you are not required to do ANYTHING at all. No HW's, no quizzes, just 3 exams that define your existence in his class.\n\r\nHonestly, I did absolutely nothing for the entire semester. All I did do is go to lectures, but even that did not matter, because he posts all his diaries online anyway. I pulled out an 80 on the final just by studying for 24 hours straight. \n\r\nIf you turn in a blank piece of paper you will get a 50, (I wrote nonsense on my second exam I got 60). He curves like crazy.\r\nBernard is a cool person, except he does not make you do anything. So if you just do his practice problems regularly then you will do great, like most people in this class. If you don't, then you will end up like me.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-05-22T22:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Bernard', 'course': None, 'review': "This dude is WEIRD! Bernard has the disposition and looks of Bob Ross and told the class that he was going to cook us up a tasty meal of matlab on the first day. It was impossible to study for the tests because the test format was never the same and the questions were poorly worded. However, Bernard does curve everything majorly and seems to miss a lot of mistakes while grading. Your grade in this class will depend entirely upon luck. One time I thought I did terrible and got an A, another time I thought I did well and got a C. I have no idea what his grading criteria is but the curves seem to help an awful lot. You probably won't much useful stuff but you'll get an ok grade.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-19T01:21:00Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Bernard', 'slug': 'bernard'}, {'courses': ['ENCE455', 'ENES102', 'ENCE610', 'ENES220', 'ENCE201', 'ENES100', 'ENCE689', 'ENCE453', 'ENES459', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE201', 'ENCE201', 'ENCE610', 'ENCE201', 'ENCE455', 'ENES459', 'ENCE689', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE899', 'ENCE201', 'ENCE201', 'ENCE201'], 'average_rating': 1.963, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': 'This is my second semester taking Chang and I am enjoying it. \r\nI took ENES220 last semester, and did not go to lecture because the textbook (which everyone must buy access due to pass the class across all professors) was helpful and I did the homeworks with the TF\'s in Keystone. He posted the solutions for the homeworks which was helpful for the test, but I\'m not sure he still does that - so just ask him to if you\'re in his class. In my class now he posts the answers to the homeworks after they are due, and the answers to optional problems only a few times (I think people specially requested them). Anyway, somehow the classes are both about 20% A\'s (so far in my current class, ENCE201), which is surprising to me because he curves and this semester gives a lot of partial credit.\r\nI really appreciated not having to go to lecture last semester, but this semester he gives in class assignments worth 10% of the grade, so make sure you know which policy he\'s going to go by with you. In both classes I\'ve been doing well by reading the book. He teaches from it and posts his notes online which is nice, but not necessary.\r\nI\'ve heard mixed reviews about going to his office hours (go prepared), but I have not been, because I go to the TA when I need to.\r\nAlso, when he makes a mistake and somebody catches him or he catches himself, he has this laugh that always makes me smile. He can be a little rough sometimes, and definitely tries to intimidate people to drop his class at the beginning of the semester by giving in class quizzes/assignments. Right before one of them he said "Do you get it? Because you\'re gonna need to know it. For the quiz! That I\'m going to give you! Today!" The whole class was rolling.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-11T16:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "STOP. TURN AROUND. RUN.\n\r\nPF Chang the type of dude to throw a child at you to make you catch it so he can steal your wallet.\n\r\nCOMPLETE lack of communication regarding project, horrible at answering questions,no curve, teaches you how to do the homework the hour before it's due, not clear about....anything. Ever. \n\r\nThat being said, he has one of the best note-taking styles ever, he uses OneNote to take notes that are projected on the screen and immediately uploads all the notes after class. His notes are fairly organized and are the only redeeming quality about this professor. The book SUCKS so don't expect to teach yourself the material, although going to other teachers' lectures is always a viable option since exams and other graded things take place during Friday studio sessions. \n\r\nUnless you are very good at staying on top of everything very well yourself and teaching yourself from the internet or from friends, find another teacher!!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2015-12-12T01:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': "Peter Chang is an odd man. He can say something and you have not idea if he is joking or serious. He can do a problem, but you miss a fundamental point, not because you were not paying attention but because he never said it. He speaks quietly at the front of the class, but refuses to wear a microphone. He allowed us only one side of a paper for our formula sheet which was not enough, and seemed an arbitrary distinction he made. But he never actually check if we only had one side. He posted the solutions to the homeworks before they were due, but we were never sure if he meant to. He cancelled lecture once every few weeks, unpredictably, because this was a blended learning class and we watched weekly video lectures.\n\r\nThat said, between his in class examples, the helpful textbook (buy it!) and recorded Schwartz lectures (you do REALLY have to watch the video lectures) you will learn the material. It is helpful if you have some prior experience programming, but not necessary. He managed to make a large lecture hall (~70 students) feel small enough to ask questions. If you had a question about a video lectures, he will happily do an example problem on them for you an clear it up. His exams seem hard, but he curves them SO much. The first one was terrible, but he was reasonable and did an in-class retake for it. He has the most transparent grading system I have ever seen. After ever midterm (3 of them, 1 final), he released a spreadsheet with all the grades by ID number, with averages and standard deviations like I wish ELMS had.\n\r\nDon't be afraid to take Chang. Watch the videos, go to class (he does graded in class problems), work through the homeworks rather than just typing in the posted answers and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-24T20:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': "By far, the worst professor I've had so far at UMD. He's unapproachable, condescending, overly difficult tests and homework, not much I can say that was good about him. \n\r\nI head rumors about how bad Chang was, and my biggest regret this class was not instantly dropping when saw I got stuck with Chang. There were about 60 people in the class, 40 got C's and 7 got D's. \n\r\nThe class itself is difficult but I've seen professors on OurUMD who grade much easier in 201 than Chang. Don't take this class, or any class, with Chang, just wait for a semester where someone easier is teaching it, it'll save your GPA. \n\r\nOverall, the most important thing I learned from this class is to avoid Chang at all costs in the future. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-22T16:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'If you signed up for Peter Chang\'s section of ENES 102, DROP IT. SAVE YOURSELVES. Hands down the worst class I have ever taken. I made an OurUMD account for the express purpose of warning my peers. However, I in no way blame him for my grade in this class. Here goes nothing....\n\r\nFirst, he begins lecture on the hour, without giving any kind of overview about what he will be covering, so check the syllabus before class. His lectures are quiet and confusing. The only phrase he says loudly and articulately is "Do you understand?"; no one in the class answers and he continues to lecture. He gives graded classwork during lecture, despite none of the other 102 Professors doing this. The examples he does in class are in no way indicative of the work you will see on the homework or on exams. Lecture usually goes over by a few minutes.\n\r\nAnd now, the end of the year group project. The end of the year project is to make truss out of wood and glue. As the lucky little guinea pigs we are, Chang\'s section created a truss using a CNC machine to eliminate the need for glue and gusset plates. Sounds great right, WRONG. Chang gave little information on how our project specifications would differ from the other sections. He also didn\'t indicate all of the data we needed to collect from materials testing, leading to skewed calculations.\n\r\nHis only redeeming quality is that his lecture notes are online.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2015-05-11T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'I do not like how he teaches. He spends what seems like 95% of class going over the most simple concepts, and then a tiny fraction going over the complex concepts which are what we actually need in order to complete the homework. I also feel like he wastes so much time constantly asking us if we understand, over and over again, but no one ever answers, but he still always does it. He also never responds to emails, and does not always follow up with things he says he will do in class. So if you have a choice, I would suggest not to take him. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-04T18:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Okay. I read reviews on Chang prior to taking his class and I thought, "what the heck. He can\'t be that bad". I was wrong. \n\r\nAt first, I thought it seemed alittle strange that Dr. Fourney "sat" in every lecture and watched Chang teach us but I realized after talking to other students later in the semester that Chang was under review because his teaching was so poor. I wish Fourney had saved my class because Chang did not teach it well. Every minute he asks "do you understand?" And I want to say "no" but nobody answers anyway. \n\r\nChang\'s idea of extra credit was assigning random problems at the end of lecture that noone rly knew how to complete and out of everyone who turned it in, one person would be picked at random and given credit. In addition, he literally did one practice problem about entire topics that were expected to be on the final exam (pressure vessels and 3D loading). \n\r\nOne day I had to approach him because I missed a quiz because my bus to campus broke down and although the story seems fake it was 100% true. I didnt expect him to give me mercy but it was worth a try. He didn\'t even look me in the eye as I pleaded my case and just said ,"oh well we drop one". (He never dropped it) \n\r\nAt the start of the final exam he ordered everyone to sit in alternating rows and in every other seat. It was impossible to do bc the lecture hall wasnt big enough but for 5 minutes he would not budge, making ppl rearrange their seating. \n\r\nAll in all, he actually was the worst professor I\'ve ever had and after my entire high school career plus 4.5 years of college (because of transferring and entering the engineering school) I got my first C in his class. That should tell you something about Peter Chang. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-25T23:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'I don\'t resent Professor Chang, but I would not recommend taking his class. What follows is a description meant to warn you, not bitter libel. Take it seriously.\n\r\nThis is the sort of professor that you only take if you are highly confident in your skill and don\'t anticipate any difficulty with material. Even then, his teaching style will cripple you. If you do not learn well from the textbook then you are probably in trouble.\n\r\nAs others have mentioned, he presents the material in a convoluted fashion. The way he solves problems is different from the other professors and different than what is taught in the book. He also grades harshly.\n\r\nWhat shocked me most about Professor Chang was his lack of professionalism, which probably stems from a spiteful streak under his overlying impersonal demeanor. I went to turn in a problem set late after class within the first few weeks - it stated in the syllabus that they would be accepted tardy with a point deduction. He looked at me blankly and said I had to give it to the TA. When I asked him where the TA was, he actually told me word for word "You have to go find him." I was taken aback by how petty this was. I think it says a lot about how he looks at his students. Very reprehensible behavior for a supposed professional.\n\r\nIf you remain unconvinced, here is my final anecdote. During a discussion one day I was working in a group to solve a problem set. I could not solve the last one of the three, and nobody in my group could either. I asked the TA for help and he made a mistake. I pointed it out and he tried for a few more minutes before saying to ask the professor. When I did so, I presented Professor Chang with the work I had done so far and the answer I had gotten. I told him the answer was clearly wrong (it was far too small, obviously erroneous) and he agreed with me. I asked if he could see the flaw in my work and he said he wasn\'t sure. Then he just walked off.... No help from the professor or the TA on a graded in-class problem set. Utterly preposterous.\n\r\nI think this may be the only teacher I\'ve had, including ones in high school, that I honestly don\'t think should even be allowed to teach.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-09-03T12:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Professor Chang is a downright shitty person and an even shittier professor. I have never been around an individual with less respect for his students. He has as much personality as a spiral notebook and is totally unapproachable. I would ask my eight year old cousin for help before I would ever go to professor Chang. Needless to say, I would give him negative stars if possible. \n\r\nProfessor Chang often decides to institute his own methods into the lectures, making it even more difficult to learn. He is the Ratsie's Pizza of professors. He does the absolute bare minimum for his students and goes out of his way to embarrass them and make them feel totally inadequate. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-14T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "After the first day of my winter class with this professor, I had serious thoughts about dropping it. He did not explain any of the material required for the homework, assigned an absurd amount of homework each night (6+ hours), and expected us to know all the material for next class plus how to do the problem sets before we came in. I'm not sure why I am paying this professor to be honest. Not only does he fail at teaching, he uses a different textbook for his winter class than the required Mechanics textbook during the semester. He failed to mention this not only to his students, but also to the Book Center, till the first day of class. This made the textbook unavailable for another week out of a three week class that meets every day, thus forcing the students to buy it online and pay an extra $15 for overnight shipping. He uses methods I have never seen taught before that are ambiguous and confuse the entire class, making problems much harder than they truly are and does not understand students well at all. I would never recommend this professor to anyone and he should not be teaching.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-02T20:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Professor Chang is the worst engineering professor at Maryland. I literally made this account on ourumd just to warn you not to take him. In my case, I had heard the horror stories about Chang, but took his class anyway due to the lack of flexibility in my schedule. If I could do it again, I would fight tooth and nail NOT to be in his class. Beigel, Bonenberger, any other teacher in for this class will be better than Chang. I\'m not trying to blame my score on him, because I really don\'t like to do that. I admit I could have worked even harder than I did to earn a better grade, but this teacher, without a doubt, hurt whatever chances I had in some way shape or form on every assignment. For homework, he always teaches his way, not the books way. I had to go to office hours to learn how to do the homework at ALL, usually doubling the intended amount of time it takes to finish homework. For tests, if you put down wrong units on ANYTHING, final answer, scratchwork, anything, he\'ll take 10 points (a full letter grade) off your test. Extra credit was only presented in the form of a "real life scenario" noone in the class could complete. All I ever heard from other classes was "wow why are you doing it like that?" we all answer "Chang" and they instantly know, wow you guys are screwed. \r\nAgain, I dont like to put the blame on teachers, but the C I got in his class HAS to be a 76-79 raw. He\'s not the kind of professor to curve in favor of anyone, if he curves at all. I could write all day about how much you SHOULD NOT take him, but I believe I\'ve made my point', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-12-21T21:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "Dr. Chang is one of the most frustrating people I have ever met or worked with. He is certainly a good engineer and knows the material, but he makes almost no second effort to teach the material if students don't understand and is not very receptive to questions during lecture.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T20:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'I have nothing to say that cannot be seen in the other reviews. Chang is a good engineer, but is the absolute worst professor/teacher I have ever had. I would recommend taking any other professor at 4am over him at 11am. (obviously that is not possible, but you get my point). Avoid him at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-01T12:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENCE453', 'review': 'Taking Dr. Chang is a mistake. Unless you plan on neglecting all of your other classes, I would highly advise against it. The man does not know how to teach and this course is taught differently than how the recommended book teaches it, so it cannot be used as a viable resource unless you are willing to completely scrap everything that Chang has "taught" you. If you do end up taking this course, don\'t do any assignments until you see them in writing, because they are very likely to change and he will take any opportunity available to screw you over.\r\nI have also been a teachers assistant for Chang. This is a horrible choice. All of his incompetency as an instructor will fall directly on you. Bottom line is, avoid this man whenever possible.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-17T11:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENCE453', 'review': "dr. chang is....interesting. what infuriated most people in the class was that he listed the textbook as being recommended, when in reality it should have been listed as required. he teaches using technology in the class which does allow me to pay attention, but most of the concepts are taught in a very complex and confusing way that only a few students aside from himself are able to understand. overall, his expectations for how much the students should know and be able to do were way too high, particular with MATLAB programming assignments, where very few people were able to complete them. he was also very vague with a lot of things and wasn't really much help with problems. if you can avoid him, by all means do so.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-26T22:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Dr. Chang was awful. He did not take the class seriously yet graded us harshly. He would find a problem during class for our quiz and give us 5 minutes to complete it. Our final review for statics was him saying "sum of all forces equals zero". He didn\'t teach well at all.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-02-16T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "His class is incredibly frustrating- he makes Statics much harder than it needs to be, and when comparing notes with students in the other Statics classes, its clear that his methods of solving problems are often extremely convoluted. He also doesn't like explaining his work, so the class leaves confused on a regular basis.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-18T18:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "He is the worst teacher to have ever taught the class. He doesn't prepare you for exams like the other professors do, and the only way you have a chance of passing is if you go to Biegel's review sessions, and learn to teach the material to yourself. Do not take this class with him!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-15T21:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Chang's lectures were never terribly interesting, and he seemed to enjoy bringing students' grades down with clicker questions immediately following the introduction of a new concept. His method of curving was to grant extra points based on the fourth highest score on individual questions so it would be 20/20. That is to say, there was never a curve because for each question, four people in the class would have managed to get it 100% correct.\n\r\nDr. Chang was pretty friendly, though, and he had a really corny sense of humor that I enjoyed. He was pretty helpful outside of class and liked to share tricks and new ways of thinking about problems. If I remember correctly, anyone who received an A on the final would get an A in the class regardless of their current grade.\n\r\nHe was probably the worst professor teaching statics when I took it, but there isn't too much to learn in this class, so learning the material on your own is not a major time sink.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-12T13:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'A quite unapproachable teacher who has his own way of doing things compared to the other teachers of this course. Found myself learning a lot of the material on my own and never wanting to take a class with him again', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-25T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'He has a very stupid sense of humor. I had to learn everything by myself but it was not a hard course. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-06-02T02:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENCE455', 'review': 'Dr. Chang is ... interesting. He has high expectations, and the exams, though not tricky are difficult; there is also little in the way of curving grades, but he does had a standard (albeit odd) system of doing it. On the other hand, he is a very good teacher and sometimes adds a sense of humor.\n\r\nMy biggest complaint is the textbook situation. The required materials for this class (a $100 textbook, a $125+ AISC manual, and a clicker) were announced only the first day of class, which is not only infuriating for trying to find it cheap, but I think is also illegal due to recent textbook laws.\n\r\nI would check my workload before taking another of his classes.\n\r\nIt was also awkward and silly to have to buy a clicker for a class of 20.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-26T21:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': 'A good professor and he has a fun sense of humor which makes an otherwise dull and boring class fun to attend. At times he seems to not fully go over the material and he expects you to know something ahead of time, but he has some neat tricks to make problems easier which makes up for it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-11T00:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENCE353', 'review': 'Decent teacher. He usually has some kind of trick to do problems that wont be in the book so its important to go to class. He also gives class problems that are basically open note quizes but another reason not to miss class. Exams are hard but he will give you a practice exam the day before. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-29T17:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Dr. Chang is perhaps the worst professor that I have ever had at the University of Maryland. The one glaring flaw is that he does not care about the joint nature of the keystone classes. The keystone classes, since they represent the baseline of knowledge needed for most engineers were supposed to be a uniform class among all the other instructors. Chang shows this the same level of respect that he shows his students, which is none. He will routinely brake from the shared syllabus, and go against what the other instructors are doing in their class rooms. He would not conform to uniform testing procedures, and furthermore whenever any of these violations were brought up, he would address them in the most disrespectful manner possible. During these periods he would not only disrespect the students, which plenty of other reviews have mentioned, he would disrespect the other instructors. From an academic stand point, he is not utterly hopeless, as it is clear that he is aware of the information. However, he is utterly incapable of teaching this information, never mind teaching it in a respectful manner. Several times during the semester he would embarrass and make fun of students asking legitimate questions, failing to due his basic responsibility as a teacher to educate his students. \r\n\r\nDuring lectures, when no one is willing to respond due to the fear of being disrespected by Chang, he would routinely say that if you don't want to listen to me teach, then don't come to class. So naturally students stopped coming to class, as it was not helpful. Chang decided that the syllabus, that only allowed him to have quizzes on Friday's if attendance is lacking, to start issuing them during the Monday and Friday sections. When this violation of the syllabus was brought up he simply refused to address it, and continued to violate the shared syllabus for the class. \r\n\r\nDo not take Chang even as a last resort. In addition to the issues I talked about above, his grading scheme is inane. Dr. Chang, despite university policy does not believe in giving out plus or minus grades. The simply reason for this was that he found it too difficult to draw the lines, so he just decided to ignore the lines. This too is another symptom of Dr. Chang's horrible lack of respect for his students and anyone who is not Dr. Chang\r\n\r\nDr. Chang is not only the worst teacher that I have encountered, he is one of the worst people that I have ever had the displeasure of meeting, let alone being forced to be in a room for over an hour with.\r\nIF YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO NOT TAKE ANY CLASS WITH DR. CHANG TAKE IT.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-19T02:01:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': 'Hands down the worst professor in the entire civil engineering department. The class is already difficult enough, but he makes it a million times worse. As another review mentions, he is extremely unapproachable and condescending. He is very difficult to work with as he is skilled in making any student feel like their questions are extremely dumb within the first 60 seconds that you are speaking with him. He is rude and I would highly suggest going with any other teacher if given the opportunity because he will ruin your semester.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-07-19T13:22:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chang', 'course': 'ENCE201', 'review': "Dr. Chang gets a really bad wrap, and I think a lot of this stems from the fact that the course content of 201 is very difficult to grasp right off the bat (which students then blame on his teaching). Personally, I think that Chang does a great job of providing students will all the resources that they need to pass the class. His exam grading was very fair, his homeworks were graded for completion to encourage you to actually learn the content instead of stressing about grades, the textbook he recommended for the course was fairly useful when you needed extra help, and the notesheets that he made were incredibly useful. The content he taught and the content he assigned in homework and projects was very relevant to what we saw on exams, so if you put in the work to study it, you could do well. He was also very approachable in office hours, and incredibly accommodating. I once showed up 1 hour late to a 1 hour long exam retake session due to traffic troubles, and he still let me take the exam and was willing to sit with me for as much time as I needed (though it should be noted that I gave him advanced notice that I had an appointment scheduled prior to the retake that was an hour away). \r\nThough thus far this has been a rather glowing review, I'm not going to sugarcoat the course. ENCE201 will wipe the floor with you if you do not put in a ton of work. You need to really try on the homeworks and talk to him about any questions you have, make sure to write down any code that he write in class (!!!!!!) because you will likely see something similar on the exams, go to every class, and make full use of the notesheets that he makes for each chapter. Practicing old exams is also very useful for this class, but pay close attention to/ask him about the topics that he says will be on the exam because what he says is what you will see. Also, he can be rather negligent about checking his email, so the best way to contact him is to talk to him after class or during office hours.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-06T23:26:24.634511Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Chang', 'slug': 'chang_peter'}, {'courses': ['ENME392', 'ENAE652', 'ENME470', 'ENME674', 'ENME470', 'ENME808F', 'ENME470'], 'average_rating': 2.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Chung', 'course': 'ENME470', 'review': "The FEA course has been redesigned starting Spring 2019, and it is significantly harder now that the course is half theory, half software. Peter Chung teaches it all as if you know everything about FEA already, and in particular the theory is very dense and hard to understand. The class itself isn't too bad, but the exams are well beyond the difficulty level of the homeworks or anything done in class. I would not recommend this class to anyone, and I would warn against it now, especially if you have heard it is an easy A.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-05-21T18:35:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chung', 'course': 'ENME470', 'review': "Chung's FEA class is nowhere near easy. I agree with the below comment that Chung teaches this class as if students already have good understanding of FEA. However, he is very well-prepared every lecture. Exams can be long and difficult even though Chung would tell you he can do it in 30 minutes. His homework assignments with the software part are the worst. He would have you watch his videos that have no audio and not many written instructions to do FEA stuff in SolidWorks, ANSYS, CREO, and etc... Sometimes he doesn't even know what he was doing in those videos. He would click on things and close them out without making any changes or click through many things until he finds the function/option he is looking for.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-01-17T05:37:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chung', 'course': 'ENME470', 'review': 'Dr. Chung is a very hard professor, but he tries his best to teach students in class. His main motto through his classes is "you must figure it out yourself", so just be prepared to learn material on your own.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-09-22T04:31:16.534722Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chung', 'course': 'ENME470', 'review': "This is an extremely challenging course. If you happen to have the time to succeed in the course you will gain a good skillset, however the course lacks tools which help students do well. There are no practice exams, review sessions, or any kind of guidance from the professor about topics on the exam. The final is exceptionally difficult to prepare for because the last three homework's are very software heavy. Since the tests are all about theoretical problems you don't really know what to expect.\r\n\r\nPeter Chung is a very knowledgeable, and empathetic professor. He has fairly good notes and releases them after class so you can review material while doing the homework. I feel like he enjoys making the class harder on the students though. From his own admission, our class was ahead a lecture. He did not use this time to have a review session of the topics before the exam.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-17T04:51:44.623213Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Chung', 'course': 'ENME470', 'review': "He's a nice guy. Course started off well but then he just stopped actually writing out example problems, making it very difficult to learn. The only option is to use his textbook which is very disorganized, theory-heavy (i.e. very few worked our example problems), and not in line with the breakdown of the course at all. Haven't had a class since freshman year where I actually felt like I didn't have adequate materials to prepare myself for exams. Homework is graded on completion, but each one takes at least 8 hours so be prepared for that. Overall, would not recommend this class, there is too much material that I do not think I can actually master anything FEA related no matter how much time I put in.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-18T00:05:27.026969Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Chung', 'slug': 'chung_peter'}, {'courses': ['BUAC758V', 'BMGT323', 'BMGT417'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Peter Ford', 'slug': 'ford_peter'}, {'courses': ['ARAB305', 'ARAB499D', 'ARAB499X', 'ARAB499R', 'ARAB104', 'ARAB499K', 'ARAB499P', 'ARAB204', 'ARAB499A', 'ARAB105', 'ARAB298M', 'ARAB499L', 'ARAB101', 'ARAB304', 'ARAB205'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Peter Glanville', 'slug': 'glanville'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101A', 'UNIV104', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL101H', 'ARHU158K', 'ENGL391', 'ARHU158E', 'ENGL101H'], 'average_rating': 4.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Grybauskas', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Haven't finished the semester yet but he is funny and makes the class interesting. There's a moderate amount of work (not much when compared to what I've heard from friends with other professors). If you're unsure of which professer to take for ENGL101 I would definitely reccomend Prof G.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-10-16T18:29:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Grybauskas', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Prof G. is the man!\r\n\r\nI didn't really know what to expect when I took ENGL391. I thought it would be your run of the mill English class with reading and writing. However it turns out the course was centered around food themes. Who doesn't like food?\r\nThe readings that were assigned were very engaging and surprisingly so were the assignments. He brought in some interesting speakers as well.\r\n\r\nConclusion: if I had to take an english class again I would take him as an instructor for sure.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-15T01:13:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Grybauskas', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Prof. G is a really cool guy. Yeah he's quirky, but it works! Also, the food writing aspect of this class is TOP TIER. Other 391 classes have to write full on essays and stuff while we write recipes, interview chefs, and review restaurants. As a con, I guess he isn't always super clear on what he's looking for in his assignments. But if you just ask him questions in class he's always willing to guide you. Overall, I highly recommend his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T00:01:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Grybauskas', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Prof G was awesome! He does not give you lots of unnecessary work, instead letting you focus on the actual papers and projects that matter. He can be a little wonky in class, but he is always helpful and does not set unrealistic expectations. I love this guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-01-24T19:51:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Grybauskas', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "He's a very passionate, fun, high-energy, Tolkien-loving dude. His class wasn't really for me bc I'm avoidant, so the highly social energy just scared the shit out of me. But if you're not super skittish and love literature then I'd def recommend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-30T14:21:39.526759Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Grybauskas', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'He is amazing. His food writing class in Italy is so much fun - literally the best study abroad program. He’s really intelligent and is a great teacher, and knows so much about Italian food and culture. If you want to go on vacation for 3 credits, this is your class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-03-06T14:31:18.598992Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Grybauskas', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Best professor you could ever have. The workload is very small and he is a goofball who is fun and entertaining every class. poof!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-10T02:23:17.768509Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Grybauskas', 'slug': 'grybauskas'}, {'courses': ['CMSC818B', 'CMSC414', 'CMSC424', 'CMSC818E', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC436', 'CMSC424', 'CMSC398B', 'CMSC398G', 'CMSC424', 'CMSC818E'], 'average_rating': 2.7391, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "A lot of people say he's a douche or a jackass or w/e, so I was a bit worried when the class first started. In my opinion there's nothing to worry about. Yes, there are times when he gets a little impatient with people, but to me it didn't seem any more extreme than any other professor. His responses on piazza were always curt, but I feel like most professors give super short/curt responses that could be seen as rude when it comes to written communication. \n\r\nAs far as teaching style, he's your average CS prof. Go to class, he pulls up slides and goes through them. He seemed to actually care whether or not students were understanding the material as he would stop and check often if people were keeping up. He would also encourage people fairly often to ask questions. \n\r\nIn my case, it seemed like any of the few signs there may have been of him not enjoying teaching the class stemmed from the lack of class participation when he would encourage it (which was often) so he would be left talking at us, or there would be a dialogue between only him and a couple students. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-08-20T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC414', 'review': "Summary: Very average professor.\n\r\nLecture:\r\nMostly off of power-points which he posts online. Going to class is optional, but questions on the quizzes will sometimes come from things he says during class that are not on the power-points. The actual material was usually very interesting, but there was so much material to cover most of the time we just brushed over topics without really learning how they worked. Taking CMSC456 before this class will give you a slight advantage (very slight).\n\r\nQuizzes:\r\nThere were 3 quizzes which were pretty hard. They are all short answer or diagram drawing. I felt the quizzes would emphasize a random subset of the material covered, so if you are weak on a certain topic and it shows up on the exam you are screwed. On the other hand it could not show up at all and you get lucky.\n\r\nProjects:\r\nThe projects were actually pretty fun as we got to carry out things like buffer overflows, dictionary attacks, and XSS attacks. They also more or less got easier as the semester went on. Languages used were C, Java, and Javascript. He provides resources and examples if you don't know Javascript, I taught myself everything I needed to know for the Javascript coding in less than an hour.\n\r\nFinal:\r\nIt was a little harder than the quizzes I thought. But it is only worth 12% of your grade, which was a weird concept as I am used to it being between 30% and 40%.\n\r\nGrading:\r\n5 projects 11% each\r\n3 quizzes 11% each\r\n1 final worth 12%\n\r\nOverall the material was interesting, but it seemed crammed. I think this would be a good first 400 level course as it gives you a nice overview so you can think about concentrations you would like to focus on in future courses. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-21T23:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC216', 'review': "Teaches reasonably on the current subjects but makes quizzes ridiculously difficult. Instead of putting the topics we've covered and practiced on the quizzes, he not only puts the most recent material but also the most abstract and picky questions.\r\nProjects were very difficult like any other teacher in 216.\r\nVery full of himself and difficult to approach. If you read all of the readings yourself and start the projects early, it's a manageable class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-02-25T23:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': None, 'review': 'Keleher is a knowledgeable professor, but does not seem enthusiastic about teaching students. He reads off slides and sometimes adds in comments.\n\r\nNot the most exciting teacher, and tough, but he gives plenty of practice exams. Sometimes these practice problems are even the actual problems on the exam.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-03-02T00:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': None, 'review': "He's an okay teacher. He's kind of your typical cs jackass, i asked for help on one project and he told me that it wasn't that difficult and he could do it in 25 minutes. If you bug him for help, he'll help you, just be prepared to feel like an idiot. His lecture slides aren't bad, and if you go to class you should be fine. But be prepared to work a lot. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-10-22T13:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': None, 'review': "He is an adequate professor. at times it seems that he doesn't try very much with the class though, taking most of the material that he is using to teach directly from the material prepared for the previous semester. It's nice however, that he skips over the specifics that you can look up on you own in order to cover more material.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-17T22:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC818E', 'review': "He's the most irresponsible professor I have ever seen. Honestly he puts on a project with little specification and ends up changing it over and over for the next week. The deadline is not extended of course so if you started working then sorry you wasted your time.\r\n\r\nAlso he doesn't even know the papers he is making you read so if you have any question then too bad; you won't get an answer.\r\n\r\nCourse was a waste of time I learned nothing.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-19T19:29:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "This is a good class overall, especially in an online setting. The content is definitely relevant and need-to-know, and Keleher is a good and straightforward lecturer - doesn't meander or BS around at all. Some might consider him too curt but I honestly prefer that to a professor that's distracting or all over the place. \r\nSlides are good, although I wish he could post slides before lecture and also record them, but that's mainly to give us incentive to show up to class. \r\nProjects aren't too bad, we have a week to do each and each are worth a good chunk of the grade. Speaking of which, I'm glad that the grade distribution for this class is balanced, so that no one assignment / exam is worth an insane amount (looking at you 351). Exams and quizzes are also fair. \r\nOverall, I'd recommend taking this class with Pete if you can. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-01T19:49:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "Mediocre prof. Reads of the PowerPoint rather than teaching. Posts quizzes and makes them due before he actually teaches the material. Refuses to post lecture recordings. Projects aren't bad. Very vague on information relating to exams. Pushes students to participate.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-04-13T19:07:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "Other than this class being useless, Peter is an awful teacher. He doesn't record lectures, reads off of slides, and seems to have no passion for teaching the material. Avoid if you can.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-04-28T21:57:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "Not a great experience. I took the course while it was online and it was harder for unnecessary reasons. Keleher refused to upload lecture recordings to us so we only had the book and slides. His reasoning being we should be reading the textbook in advance and come to class for clarification, but he never told us the chapters we should be reading. On top of that he was giving us quizzes on material he hadn't taught yet. He justified it by saying that he offered a total of 20 late days for assignments, but that point is kind of moot when you have a hard enough time preparing yourself", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-05-05T01:11:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "Mediocore professor. The lecture and slides are somehow vague and disorganized. But do cares about students' needs. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-10T11:53:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "I did well in his class but I basically self taught the entire curriculum. The textbook is your friend if you can't get anything from the lectures. He wouldn't upload lecture recordings which I found quite annoying, and spending so much extra time reading the textbook for quizzes on material we didn't even learn in class yet was also quite annoying. The late days, exams, and assignments were fair but the assignments sometimes had vague descriptions. Overall, if you want to take CMSC424 and you have to take it with Peter, do it. I wouldn't avoid him for the sake of avoiding him, but don't expect it to be the best class....", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-11T03:05:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "Worst professor I've had at umd. His lectures are boring and useless. He doesn't even upload them and refuses to send them to anyone even if they were sick (although he records them!). His quizzes are due at noon (before lecture) and the material on the quiz is taught after the quiz's deadline (in lecture). He doesn't care about his students and only answers piazza questions selectively. He does not respond to emails and does not make ANY sort of accommodations/exceptions to help his students. Even though I did well in the class, I genuinely believe that he wants students to fail and doesn't give a f**** about them. Do NOT take him for any class!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-12T20:57:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "He's an average professor, but the class was pretty good overall. We had weekly quizzes and project assignments, and we had three exams (no final). The lectures were kinda boring, but the lecture slides were useful and a good resource for studying for exams. The most annoying thing about the class is that the quizzes were based on content that we didn't learn yet, which meant that we had to learn topics ourselves using the textbook. I still think overall the class and the coursework was pretty fair, and the class isn't any better or worse than other 400 level cs classes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-13T19:01:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "Do not take this professor. If he is the only one available, take the class next semester. Boring lectures, which he recorded but refused to share with anyone. His quizzes tested us on material that had not been taught yet. Also, he is the most difficult person to communicate with. He will only answer piazza posts if he feels like it and his answers will be at most a few words. You have a follow-up question to his 4-word answer? Good luck getting another response. In the syllabus, he says to email him if he does not respond on piazza. I sent him at least 4 emails this semester and he didn't respond to any of them. He really doesn't care about his students and he definitely wasn't there for them during this difficult online semester.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-16T21:48:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': "I don't think Pete is as bad as some of the reviews below state. First, I will say yes, he is not responsive on Piazza, and him not releasing recorded lectures is annoying, along with his refusal to post the slides beforehand. Some quizzes were hard, and he could have released answers sooner to some. The query optimizing part of the class was needlessly difficult and not very useful.\r\nHowever, I thought his lectures were ok- I've definitely seen waaaay worse. His exams were quite easy, with high averages, and were a lot like the quizzes. No final, too, which is a big relief. Projects were also reasonable, and I appreciate that they were worth a lot of the grade. Considering that other classes like CMSC351 and CMSC451 place an undue grade emphasis like 2 exams, this is a major relief. He also gave a total of 20 late days across all assignments, no penalties, which is also great. The content is also very useful to learn, especially in the first half. Like a review below said, if you plan on taking CMSC424 and see Pete is teaching it, you should be fine with him.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-18T19:48:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': "Lectures were very boring, but projects were pretty easy. We didn't really know what was going to be on the test. Not a hard class to get a good grade in however. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-01T15:35:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': 'I\'m not sure what grade I\'m expecting since this was written before the final and the final is worth 20% of our grade so I could end up with a C if I bomb it. The lectures are very boring and aren\'t recorded. The projects were easy; Only one of the projects took me a long time to do. This class shouldn\'t take too much of your time so taking it with another project heavy class should be ok. \r\n\r\nThe professor doesn\'t really listen to students\' complaints. For example, someone asked the professor to record the lectures but he said "no" because he believed that people would stop coming to class and he also said recording through Panapto was difficult. Doesn\'t really make sense because only like maybe 20% of students come to class now and he doesn\'t record lectures so there isn\'t a difference. Project descriptions were pretty vague and TAs didn\'t seem to be much help. \r\n\r\nIn general, this class is more of a teach yourself type of a class. I still recommend taking it but maybe not with Keleher. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-13T01:19:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC436', 'review': 'His lectures are pretty boring besides showing off a few demos. Did not want record the class and only posted slides. \r\nOverall, pretty easy class and projects are not too hard. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-23T03:24:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'I took this course in Spring 2022\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ He really got his act together for the final, after one of the most disastrous midterms I have ever taken. He gave an exact topic breakdown of each question on the final to ensure you knew what was coming.\r\n+ All topics on the first midterm were taught and covered really well. \r\n+ The projects from this part of the course were also really manageable and conveyed the topics taught well.\r\n+ The first midterm as a whole was very fair and manageable\r\n+ Late day policy is extremely generous: 20 no penalty late days shared across all assignments\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Everything after the first midterm went to complete shit. Lectures suddenly became extremely dry, and it was hard to know what concepts to focus on and would become important later. Much less people stopped coming.\r\n- Topics in this part of the class were significantly more lower level and seemed to have less relevance to what you might be asked to do in real life\r\n- The second midterm went poorly as a result of this, with no one knowing how to answer the questions or having a good grasp on the topics\r\n- Projects in the later half of the course were exclusively instructor written but had almost no documentation. Since they were in Python, it was impossible to know what each function was asking for and was returning. This made coding the projects nigh impossible\r\n- Oftentimes, concepts were taught AFTER the weekly quiz corresponding to that topic was due, with the idea being you would use a late day. While the late day policy is generous, it contributed to an environment that encouraged hard quizzes, with the expectation that you would simply turn it in late after lecture', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-21T21:13:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'Organization of the course was good, weekly quizzes covered content taught in the past two weeks or so, outlines for exam content were specific and exams were pretty similar to the provided sample exams and representative of the content taught/quizzes provided. I thought about 70-80% of the content in this class was pretty applicable to real life, the first 6 weeks focus on SQL and E/R diagrams/schema design. The rest of the course goes farther into indexes, query planning/optimization and more "under the hood" stuff about how databases work, which is still applicable although sometimes it felt we spent a lot of time studying one very protocol/algorithm that is only sometimes utilized in real life.\r\n\r\nAlso thought the projects in this class were fair. There\'s about one every week or two and they\'re fairly focused on one specific topic, meaning once you understand what you\'re doing they go by pretty quickly. \r\n\r\nThe reason for 3 stars is because mostly of the lectures/slides. There were more than a few times the slides were outdated and incorrect. The slides are also ambiguous and sometime difficult to understand/follow along. I also felt as if the lectures weren\'t very helpful, I still went to all of them but found myself needing to teach myself a lot of the content using the slides/textbook (the textbook is really good btw). The TAs are helpful and they had plenty of office hours, although the professor had no dedicated office hours. TAs/professor were pretty responsive on Piazza.\r\n\r\nOverall I\'d recommend mostly for the usefulness of the content. From reading other reviews it sounds like this semester was a lot better than previous ones.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T18:39:55.092227Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Keleher', 'course': 'CMSC424', 'review': 'I had an amazing experience in CMSC424 with Prof Keleher. I think many of the 1-2 star reviews judge Keleher a little too negatively. I liked this class and the way Keleher taught it.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n1) Keleher actively responds to Piazza posts and answers student questions in office hours and is very understanding if you communicate with him proactively\r\n2) Weekly lecture quizzes had questions and solutions that helped prepare for the exams and final\r\n3) Assignments were well-explained and not too difficult to implement\r\n4) He posted practice exams with problems, detailed answer keys, and topic lists to prepare\r\n5) He answered questions in lecture and recommends good resources and sections in the textbook\r\n6) TAs are responsive and had both online/in-person OH and responded to my Piazza questions quickly and private posts\r\n7) Cutoffs for the overall grades were pretty generous\r\n8) Well organized, good logistics and regular announcements on Piazza\r\n9) Topics covered in class are very applicable to real-life database engineering\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n1) Doesn’t record lectures which I found a little challenging at times as hearing his personal commentary would have helped supplement my understanding of the material\r\n\r\nOther than that, this was an excellent course that I learned a lot from and I would definitely recommend taking it with Keleher.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-17T18:32:48.165751Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Keleher', 'slug': 'keleher'}, {'courses': ['BIOE606', 'ENES100', 'GEMS296', 'ENES604', 'GEMS297', 'ENES100A', 'BIOE453', 'BIOE399H', 'BIOE653', 'ENMA425', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE457', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'ENCH648L', 'GEMS497', 'CHBE301', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE301', 'CHBE609'], 'average_rating': 4.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'BIOE453', 'review': "The content was oddly specific, and there was a lot of memorization of seemingly pointless things that we should be able to look up in the real world.\r\nIn general, it was hard to understand what was important in the course content and why it was important.\r\nKofinas was an ok lecturer, somewhat boring, but the biggest issue is just not knowing how to study for tests.\r\nVery helpful method of giving us the homework solutions before the homework was due. I actually learned a lot more from looking at the homework solutions than from the class, and if he had put up the solutions after the homework was due, I probably wouldn't have checked the solutions as carefully.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-10-31T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'BIOE453', 'review': "He's a good guy, but he can be a real tough ass sometimes. His class starts off fairly easy, but it gets significantly harder with a bunch of polymer math. He's not the most engaging in lecture which makes it hard to follow. There a lot of things which aren't on the slides that he tests you on, so recording lectures can be a good idea. The one thing I like about his class is that he spends a good amount of time talking about applications of biomaterials in medical devices. This was really interesting and unlike other BIOE classes where a bunch of useless equations are shoved down your throat, I feel that I learned something useful in this class. His class isn't all that easy and you are going to have to work if you want to get an A. Overall I feel that Kofinas was a pretty good professor and that I did learn a lot from taking his class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-15T23:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Kofinas is a very nice professor. This year's project had nothing to do with oder designs. Kofinas helped a lot, he will give you a good grade if you show you contribute to your team and work hard on the project", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-12T23:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Kofinas wasn't a great professor, but he wasn't bad either. Would try to help all of his students, but didn't do well at actually helping. In this class though, that didn't really matter to much as he didn't actually have to teach us anything.\n\r\nEasy class, not difficult by any means, and has a major curve.\n\r\nWhen it comes to building your hovercraft, be creative, and make sure you stay involved in your group. Present your ideas clearly in your presentation and you will be set. Kofinas' biggest pet peeve was when people copied older designs. He would rather you built a totally new design that didn't work as well.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-09T21:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "If you have the opportunity, I would definitely suggest taking ENES100 with Dr. Kofinas. Go out of your way to talk to him occasionally, because you want him to know your name and that you're contributing to your group.\n\r\nPROS:\r\na really nice guy, very willing to help when he can (or at least tell you which other professor to ask), and very reasonable with assigning milestone and final grades.\n\r\nCONS:\r\nlectures are long and not very exciting (but what can you expect when a professor is expected to cover everything from physics, to electronics and programming), at least 2/5 questions on the ENES100 midterms always seem to be awful (in-depth questions on topics covered for a week), and the success of your group really depends on how lucky you are with members (i.e. how many good computer/electrical engineers you get)... but those last two are just related to the course as a whole", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-17T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Kofinas is a really nice guy and I enjoyed having him as a professor. He was very helpful and friendly throughout the semester, especially during the hovercraft project.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-31T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'The previous reviewer is wrong. Kofinas has been extremely helpful during assembly room hours. When he does not know the solution to our problem, he always makes sure to point out to the right resource for us to get an answer, whether this is Chris, Evandro or some other teaching assistant. He is also vey accessible and helpful outside class hours. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-21T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "He just seems so confused. He constantly walks around just watching us and then we have to ask him if he has any questions. Then he'll usually just say what we're doing is wrong, but isn't able to help us fix it. We have to go to Chris to get more help. \n\r\nHis lectures aren't exciting, but I feel like it's like that anywhere. He knows that though so he tries to joke around. He's nice, he just doesn't know how to communicate with the students when it comes to shop hours.\n\r\nHe's also an easy grader and admits that this class gets curved majorly. It's very hard not to get an A with him.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-05T12:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Dr. Kofinas is a cheerful person and will try to help you on your design. He's also a pretty easy grader on top of that. However, his lectures are pretty boring, but they tend to have most everything you'll need to know for the class in them. Other than that, as long as you do your work, it's pretty much impossible to not get an A in his class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-23T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'This teacher is extremely lenient. Though his lectures can be boring, he is very understanding when it comes to grading. Overall i would recommend taking the class with him if given the opportunity.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-31T04:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'This professor is really nice. The lectures in the beginning of the class are dull, but important and easy to follow. When building starts he is very helpful and what seems like him being really harsh is really his way of saying, "from my experience that won\'t work".', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-11T21:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "He is awesome! He is very fair. Go to class, do work during the hovercraft construction time, and you'll get an A. He is very positive and optimistic, and he wants you to succeed.\r\nI was very impressed how well he knows his stuff on fluid mechanics and general hovercraft design. Very friendly and personable, open to giving advice on variety of engineering majors. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-12T19:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Only gives homework for the first couple weeks (which you are allowed to work on with your hovercraft group). Curves a lot and only one test, a midterm which is easy. Attendance is important. Show you are contributing to the hovercraft and you should be fine. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-20T05:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "This guy is really good, the previous comment is very true. Show him that you're working, and WORKING IN YOUR TEAM and you will exceed in this class. The man is also very knowledgeable about Engineering as a whole and I ask him for advice concerning things beyond ENES100.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-11-25T16:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Best professor ever!\r\nKnows his stuff on hovercraft design, especially fluids. He is personable, funny, always willing to help. If you attend class, and show him you are participating in the construction of the hovercraft, you are guaranteed an A\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-02-06T12:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Kofinas', 'course': 'CHBE457', 'review': "While the class was fairly easy and the TA's were incredibly helpful, Professor Kofinas was not accommodating and provided zero support outside of asking for help with homeworks. I also felt as though I didn't learn much in the class and lectures were only helpful if direct answers to the homework was given (rarely). Overall a very arrogant professor and it did not feel like he cared much about his students. However, I took this as a non chemical engineering major so this may have something to do with it. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-15T18:21:33Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Kofinas', 'slug': 'kofinas'}, {'courses': ['EDSP289H', 'EDSP289I', 'EDSP481', 'HONR248H', 'EDSP489', 'EDSP681', 'EDSP499', 'EDSP888A', 'EDSP413', 'EDSP613'], 'average_rating': 3.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Leone', 'course': 'HONR248H', 'review': 'He is a great professor who is extremely knowledgeable about the course material. The discussions are engaging. Some of the things we discussed about were: crime, the justice system, adults and juveniles in prisons and jails, inmates with disabilities, involuntary distribution of medicine, and much more.\r\nWe read 5 interesting books - 1 every 2 weeks. There were only 2 reaction papers (about 1-2 pages each), and a 10-12 page position paper about a topic of your choice that is relevant to the class. The midterm was very easy - just some terms to define and several short answer opinion questions. Also, we took a trip to a correctional facility.\r\nOverall, I highly recommend this class if you are interested in criminal justice. It is an easy and interesting SB/D CORE and honors seminar course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-09T16:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Leone', 'course': 'HONR248H', 'review': "This is by far the easiest honors seminar you can take. There were maybe 4 1-2 page reaction papers and the midterm was all opinion questions.\n\r\nNo need to study... and the books are really good (except mismeasure of man...but i didn't read that one).\n\r\nOne thing...the final is a 15 page paper. But, he is an incredibly easy grader.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-12-04T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Leone', 'course': 'EDSP289I', 'review': "Easy course, interesting lectures, but had poor organization, which meant that often times we sometimes did nothing in class, or had 2-3 assignments due within a week. It was not a joke class like I was expecting, and did have to work a bit for some assignments. Often times, the grading scales felt odd, or unfair. For example, many ~2-3 page assignments were a measly 2 points, while simultaneously, I've lost 2 points for not including a specific statistic on my term paper (not mentioned on the rubric at all). Lots of busy work given as well. Not my favorite class to take in the slightest. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-24T04:36:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Leone', 'course': 'EDSP289I', 'review': 'The course is easy in the sense that there isn\'t a lot of brainwork involved in the class. However, this class is not an easy A because TA\'s take off points for the pettiest things such as "confusing" grammar and not specifying something that they never talked about in class. You basically have to suck up to the Professor and TA\'s in order to do well. The class is poorly organized and the weight of assignments are ridiculous because they never match the true value of the assignments (a kahoot quiz that takes 3 minutes will be a higher value than a two page assignment). I despise this class and would not recommend it to anyone. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-05-21T03:54:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Leone', 'course': 'EDSP289I', 'review': 'The course is pretty easy. Weekly readings, films, and podcasts to listen to. Course material was interesting, and the small quizzes are fair as long as you read and do the work. Only downside is if you have TAs that grade more harshly than Dr. Leone himself. The papers and presentation assignments are not easy, but nothing to stress about. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-02-12T15:21:03Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Leone', 'slug': 'leone_peter'}, {'courses': ['ENGL222', 'ENGL433', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'ENGL289Y', 'ENGL602', 'GEMS497', 'ENGL313', 'ENGL631', 'ENGL140', 'ENGL346', 'ENGL432', 'ENGL748D', 'ENGL379D', 'ENGL699', 'ENGL373', 'ENGL388B', 'HONR338B'], 'average_rating': 4.6429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL289Y', 'review': "Literature is not really my favorite subject, but even I enjoyed Dr. Mallios' lectures. He has a calming voice and has interesting things to say. There really isn't too much work for the class and the grading is pretty lenient. Too be honest I didn't really enjoy the subject of the class (I needed it for Gen-Ed but I'm a science guy) but Dr. Mallios definitely made it enjoyable. A recommended professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-07-07T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL289Y', 'review': "He's the best! You can tell how passionate he is about the material, and really helps to translate this excitement to the students as well. His explanation are clear and insightful. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-05T15:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL433', 'review': "I didn't expect an A in this class, but it turns out that Mallios is one of those professors who takes improvement into consideration and (probably) weighs paper writing higher than he suggests.\n\r\nProf. Mallios loves the material and appreciates any and all input/perspective. He is very respectful of students. \n\r\nThe readings were very manageable for a 400 level course. Usually around 100 pages a week. I found many of the books boring, but he covered classics (Great Gatsby, In Our Time, etc.)\n\r\nWasn't thrilled about the class, but I'd recommend Prof. Mallios.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-20T19:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL289Y', 'review': "Pretty much agree with what everyone else has said here. Mallios is a solid professor, no doubt about it. He comes well-prepared to class everyday and clearly has a ton of knowledge about literature in general. \n\r\nLots of reading but some of the books were actually interesting (Grapes of Wrath, Lathe of Heaven etc.). I would highly recommend you go to lecture considering the midterm and final pretty much comes from whatever he talked about in lecture. He basically rewarded anyone that came to lecture by telling us what passages to look at, what ideas to take away etc. for the midterm and final which definitely helped me get the A in the class.\n\r\nAssignment breakdown is participation, two papers (one 2-3 pages and the other 4-5 pages), 50 minute compare/contrast midterm, and final. TA plays a big role in your grade for the class as he/she grades everything and luckily I got a great one in Lew.\n\r\nSo overall, a great class to fulfill your HL course (assuming it gets offered again since it's an I-course) with a great professor teaching it. I'm glad I picked it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T22:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL289Y', 'review': 'Man, this guy LOVES literature. He goes into every lecture prepared and tries to get you to think about a lot of different things you would never have picked up on. He is very passionate and easy to comprehend.\n\r\nThe course involves a lot of reading and you have to attend both lecture and discussion, but both are pretty interesting. The reading list includes some classics, some duds, and some very interesting and not very well known works. \n\r\nThe class is based on a mid-term that he prepares you very well for, two papers, and a final, all of which were graded very fairly.\n\r\nOverall, a great course to take to fulfill your HL CORE and a good course if you are interested in literature as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-13T04:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL289Y', 'review': "Professor Mallios is a soft-spoken and approachable instructor, overall nice guy but his lectures were generally difficult to follow (he never took a breath in between his sentences which for some reason made me feel sleepy). On the flip side, he sincerely wants his students to understand the material and think for themselves. At the same time, he makes his tests and assignments easy to do. Definitely one of the better HL instructors. There were a LOT of readings to do but other than that--ENGL289Y wasn't a difficult class. But, in case you're wondering, it emphasizes more literature than politics. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-12T20:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL289Y', 'review': 'This was a brand new I series course that filled CORE HL so I gave it a shot. Was not disappointed at all. Where as some english HLs can be boring, this guy was great and talked about aspects of books that I had never even thought about. The whole point of the course was connecting literature with politics and cultures. We discussed everything from gender to class to race in everything we read. That being said, there was a lot of reading since we went through 8 books during the semester but they were all great and included classics such as Huck Finn. This professor is so open to ideas and he\'s really interested in hearing different perspectives on what\'s being read. he\'s laid back and is very well prepared; he talked for the full 50 minutes every lecture and his favorite phrase was "we have a lot of material to cover today". He made the midterm and the final easy by basing them directly off of what we went over in lecture and he even gave a handout of what questions would be on the final a week before the exam. Such a great guy to talk to and a truly enjoyable and fairly easy HL, 2 papers and 2 exams but the first paper was only 2-3 pages and the second was 4-5, both double spaced.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-08T16:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL289Y', 'review': 'This is by far the best professor i have had at UMD so far! He is very invested in what he does and this transfers to some of the most engaging lectures ever. His style of teaching is very easy to understand. Lecture is him talking the whole time, presenting his views and ideas of the the novel the class is currently reading. This sounds really boring but it is most definitely not! Discussion is just the opposite where you formulate your own ideas. If you take either of his courses (which i highly suggest) go to both lecture and discussion. If you take really good notes and pay attention it is a sure A in the class. Also, i read may about 3 of the 5 assigned books and am still earning an A. For my class we had 2 essays, one test, a few quizzes, and a final and each one of these were graded very leniently. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-07T17:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL222', 'review': "This guy LOVES American literature. I've never seen a professor care more about what he/she is teaching. That being said, most of the lecture is really just him presenting interesting ideas. If you care about literature, or you actually read the books (and not Sparknotes) you'll have a ball in lecture.\n\r\nOtherwise, only a few things in lecture are important to know for the papers and exams. Discussion is very important. Not only are there mini-assignments given most classes, the information for what the TAs are looking for in the papers is given in discussion.\n\r\nExpect about 4-5 hours of reading/week if you're reading the books, much less if you're using Sparknotes. About 5 hours of study and work per month should be enough for papers and exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-10-13T14:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL222', 'review': "Great professor to take ENGL222 with. He's clearly passionate about the literature of the class and makes several interesting points. He always kept me engaged in the material. The class overall wasn't that hard as long as you went to lecture and took notes there. Although I only read 2 of the assigned 6 books, I still managed to pull off an A so if you need an HL take it with Mallios! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-30T03:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL222', 'review': "A very good professor. It's evident that he is extremely passionate about literature, and loves receiving feedback and opinions from his students. Lecture can sometimes be boring because he talks a lot and it's hard to take notes because he jumps from one topic to another. But the material is interesting and he emphasizes what information you need to know. Work for the semester consisted of one timed writing and two short papers. There is a lot of reading involved, but the texts are not too complicated. Attendance in discussion makes a big difference in your grade, so be sure to show up! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-08T17:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL222', 'review': "This was one of the best classes I have taken so far at UMD. I'm not an English major by any means, but I had to take the class as an HL. I thought it would suck because of all the novels we have to read. But in all honesty, Sparknotes had 80% of the books and I didn't really read any of it. Lectures are pretty good. There like a large discussion section. Make sure you go to your discussions too, there a big part of the grade. I just loved this class not challenging and a lot of fun.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-19T12:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL222', 'review': "Profesor's Mallios is a really nice guy, and his insights on texts are nice and refreshing. I didn't really approach him for any special help so I can't speak on that aspect of him but he gives very little assignments, (two papers, one 3 page and one 4-5 page) and he only gives a midterm and a final. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-16T04:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Mallios', 'course': 'ENGL222', 'review': 'He is a very nice man, and has a lot of great insight into the readings. However, his lectures are very haphazard; he proposes many different points at once, making the original line of thought difficult to follow. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed Dr. Mallios and this course. If you like literary analysis at all, you will like Dr. Mallios.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-02T20:54:00Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Mallios', 'slug': 'mallios'}, {'courses': ['ENST360', 'ENST451', 'ENST499R', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST499P', 'ENST499M', 'ENST472', 'LARC455', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST481', 'ENST689', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST472', 'ENST481', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Y'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Peter May', 'slug': 'may_peter'}, {'courses': ['BUAC782'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter McPhun', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': "New Professor... connects well with his students and tries to simplify a dfficult course. Also, he's very easy t get along with! U'll get an A easily if u do as he says...", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-01-28T00:09:00Z'}], 'name': 'Peter McPhun', 'slug': 'mcphun'}, {'courses': ['BUSI761', 'BMGT392'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Morici', 'course': None, 'review': "The other reviewers were right; this is a pretty easy course and if you're an MBA candidate, it'll be a significant difference in mental and work load--you'll be able to sleep through this. But only if you can shut out Morici yakking on and on about being on TV, being rich and being the smartest man in the world. If you want to learn relevant issues in international business, this is not the class for you. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-08-14T11:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Morici', 'course': 'BMGT392', 'review': 'This is a sweet class, Professor Morici is a good speaker and makes this class interesting. His tests are very reasonable and as you can tell, the grading is generous. I highly suggest this class with Professor Morici.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T13:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Morici', 'course': 'BMGT392', 'review': "Really easy course. Sucks if you're an Internat'l Bus major & want to actually get something out of the class, because all Prof Morici does is talk about himself.\n\r\nIf he didn't spend so much time bragging about which news program he was making a five minute appearance on EVERYDAY, maybe I would've actually gone to class. It was pointless, though, since he only kept us there for 25 minutes to go over 8 PowerPoint slides &, again, to keep us very informed of his news appearances.\n\r\nSo, if you want an easy A in the business school, Peter Morici is your guy.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-15T20:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Morici', 'slug': 'morici'}, {'courses': ['ECON111', 'ECON681', 'ECON848', 'ECON410', 'ECON708', 'ECON410', 'ECON848', 'ECON111', 'ECON410', 'ECON848', 'ECON410', 'ECON848', 'ECON111', 'ECON410', 'ECON848'], 'average_rating': 2.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Murrell', 'course': None, 'review': "I didn't have to go to class to pass this class basically. It's the dumbest Gened class ever and i regret taking it because he makes the Midterm and Final so hard for no reason. He is also a petty teacher. He calls students out for using phones or laptops. Unnecessary class with an unnecessary prof ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-19T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Murrell', 'course': 'ECON111', 'review': "Word of warning: There's no point in showing up to lectures. I showed up every class with the printed powerpoints (as instructed by him) and found myself hardly ever annotating them because he hardly elaborated on his slides, he just reads straight off of them. The homework is only 15 mins worth of reading for discussion every week (Heath was my TA and he did an excellent job elaborating on the concepts). Honestly though if it wasn't for Econ200 I would have done worse, which is why I only recommend this GenEd if 200 is taken alongside it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2017-12-22T01:57:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Murrell', 'course': 'ECON111', 'review': 'Easy class to get a B in, slightly hard to an A. There are 5 grades. 1st grade: participation quizzes. Once a week in discussion there is an easy quiz based on the assigned readings for the week. Make sure you do the readings. The reading usually took me around half an hour per week. My TA was Heath and he was great and messaged us once a week on what readings to do. 2nd grade: presentation. You make a short presentation with a partner in discussion and present it in discussion. I’m awful at public speaking and blanked at one point and somehow still got a B on it. So dw too much. 3rd grade: midterm. The best way to study for his exams is to do all the practice problems he has available in files on elms. Going over slides can help too but it’s mostly the practice problems. He provides solutions. 4th grade: paper. This is a bit difficult and took me some time but there’s only 1 per semester and it’s due at the end of the semester. Make sure you pick a good article and make a plan. 5th grade: Final. Do the same thing as the midterm. I only studied for each Econ exam for 2-3 hours where I just did his practice problems and got an above average grade each time. And I went to 2 lectures total! His lectures are useless and there’s no point in going. Just make sure to go to discussions.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-22T15:30:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Murrell', 'course': 'ECON111', 'review': "Prof Murrell is a nice guy and is knowledgeable about the subject but the class is a major headache for a gen ed 100 level course. I thought I could get through this class without a great deal of stress since I took introductory econ courses in the past but that wasn't the case. The lectures aren't particularly helpful and the tests are hard and graded harshly to the point where I needed curves to get a semi decent grade on them. If you need an i series course, look somewhere else.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T21:43:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Murrell', 'course': 'ECON111', 'review': 'Murrell is a great guy and treats students with respect. I thought the course was interesting, however, it is hard for a 100-level gen ed class. It is kind of hard to get an A.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-06T02:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Murrell', 'course': 'ECON111', 'review': 'Honestly, I liked Prof Murrell. If you attend the lecture and participate he will like you and you will like the class. Tests basically make up your grade, so definitely study for them and you will be fine. I took AP Econ in high school, got an A, and took this class and got a higher grade. This class also rarely has homework, just studying and a presentation once a semester.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-05T21:40:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Murrell', 'course': 'ECON111', 'review': 'His lectures are vague and the out of class work is mainly watching videos. Attend lecture and participate and he will like you. Its really not that difficult of a course if you have common sense', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T21:29:07.564436Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Murrell', 'course': 'ECON111', 'review': 'This professor is terrible. The worst teacher and class that I have ever taken in my life. The most boring lectures I have ever attended. He expects you to read countless articles and watch hours of recordings outside of class. Not even close to worth it for an I-series. DO NOT TAKE.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-17T04:25:38.310019Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Murrell', 'slug': 'murrell'}, {'courses': ['STAT401', 'MATH141H', 'MATH241', 'MATH401', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'MATH410', 'STAT400', 'STAT498'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Nandori', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "His lectures were clear, and all of his examples were well defined. Overall, he was a good person, and seemed to really care about the success of his students, even in such a large class. On the days he couldn't physically make it to office hours, which was only once or twice I believe, he would set them up through Skype so people could still ask him questions as needed. We did have required homeworks, but for someone like me who won't do work unless it's graded (no matter how much I try to think otherwise) it's incredibly useful.\r\nWe were not allowed to have a cheat sheet for the midterms, but this meant we were able to get a lot of partial credit for things like writing down formulas and showing our steps. For our final, we were allowed to use a cheat sheet, since he thought it would be unfair to test us on our rote memorization skills for things that we learned back in the beginnings of class.\r\nIf you prefer a rigid class structure with useful lectures, and don't want to teach yourself out of the book, this is a great teacher to have.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-04-03T14:16:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Nandori', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "his lectures are weird..like the problems he puts on the lecture slides and midterm practice are way harder than the actual midterms. i was always freaking out before exams because i would never be able to do most of the midterm practice problems. also he barely puts any points for each exam, so if you lose like 3 points you're already almost down a letter grade. \r\n\r\ni didn't really like his teaching style at all. he's not the worst professor by any means but there are definitely better professors out there for this class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-11-06T18:33:40Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Nandori', 'slug': 'nandori'}, {'courses': ['ARCH600', 'ARCH678Z', 'ARCH678J', 'ARCH678V', 'ARCH678C', 'ARCH601', 'ARCH478D', 'ARCH678D', 'ARCH478C', 'ARCH678M', 'ARCH478V', 'ARCH478T', 'ARCH678T', 'ARCH478V', 'ARCH678C', 'ARCH678V', 'ARCH678M', 'ARCH468G', 'ARCH668G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Peter Noonan', 'slug': 'noonan'}, {'courses': ['CCJS418D', 'PUAF734', 'PUAF798Z', 'CCJS699X', 'PUAF688V', 'PLCY798Z', 'PLCY734', 'PLCY899', 'PLCY798Z', 'PLCY899', 'PLCY798Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Peter Reuter', 'slug': 'reuter_peter'}, {'courses': ['ENES221', 'ENME464', 'ENME770', 'ENRE648B', 'ENME809F', 'PLCY798J', 'ENES221', 'ENME464', 'ENME808J', 'ENME770'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Sandborn', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "Sandborn seems to overestimate the knowledge you should have when lecturing. He doesn't explain fully concepts and spends a good amount of time deriving equations then doing a couple of examples. A lot of outside work needs to be done to do well in this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-16T15:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sandborn', 'course': 'ENME770', 'review': "Sandborn is a very good professor. His lectures are clearly spoken and sometimes a bit too slow for my liking. A couple of us often fell asleep in class but we still got A's. Hahaha. His textbook is self authored. Very well written in simple english. The material is unique unlike anything you have ever seen in engineering topics, not too much math. A lot of Excel homeworks.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-20T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sandborn', 'course': None, 'review': "This class wasn't structured very well. I thought the subject itself was very interesting, but there was little incentive to learn because there was almost no homework, he didn't test us, and attendance was not required. Basically, Professor Sandborn was too nice. We watched a LOT of TED lectures. 50% of your grade was a video that you had to make, and the assignment didn't make much sense. Then again, I was glad to get away with such a painless PS CORE, and I really did like Professor Sandborn as a person.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-10T15:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sandborn', 'course': None, 'review': 'Good teacher, very straight forward. Comes to class and does 3-4 examples every day. Do the HW, understand the HW, practice the HW and the tests are easy. I got an A by studying the HW really hard.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-08-05T15:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sandborn', 'course': 'ENME464', 'review': 'Excellent professor, covers examples similar to exam questions during lectures (recorded too). Weekly homeworks are manageable. All around pleasant guy, very helpful in office hours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-03-14T03:30:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sandborn', 'course': 'ENME464', 'review': "Not the best professor but also not the worst, he is very reasonable and the exams aren't bad. Worst thing about him is that he makes you buy his overpriced textbook to do the homeworks that don't really help that much on exams. Best thing about this class is that you don't need to attend lectures (he records everything) and the exams are open-notes. If you're looking for a chill elective I would recommend this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-02T03:12:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sandborn', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "Comes to class and just does example questions, which in imo is the best way to learn dynamics. He doesn't upload notes on elms so u have to come to class if u want notes. Besides that he's super nice during class and office hours when you ask questions. He basically gives u the answers to the HW if u ask him. 11/10 would recommend", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-05T22:26:54.188530Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sandborn', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': 'A very solid professor, class is structured so you get taught a dynamics concept like a new formula (sometimes he derives it on the board, other times not, you don\'t really need to understand the derivation to understand how to use the formula) then the rest of class is example problems for that concept. I recommend studying by doing textbook problems and then checking the answer key. The HW was frustrating, as a minor mistake can make the online grading system mark you simply as "wrong" without you being able to tell if it\'s something small, or a slight error somewhere. This is compounded by the fact that the HW problems have a lot more steps and complications than the exams or quizzes. However, all the professors share the same HW so you can\'t dodge this by choosing a different prof, at least you get infinite tries I guess. \r\n\r\nBut again, overall solid professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-20T23:09:06.506205Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sandborn', 'course': 'ENES221', 'review': "Dr. Sandborn was a decent professor but his lectures were not always enough on their own to understand the material without reading the textbook/watching youtube videos/going to office hours, making the class very time consuming. Assessments were fair and he's a nice guy who genuinely cares. If you take 221 with him, I cannot emphasize enough how much going to office hours helps -- he explains homework problems to you in a way that will also help you understand what to do on quizzes/exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-28T23:37:48.646426Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Sandborn', 'slug': 'sandborn'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Peter Shapiro', 'slug': 'shapiro_peter'}, {'courses': ['PHYS121', 'PHYS375', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS171', 'PHYS779A', 'PHYS171H', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS273H', 'PHYS115', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS172', 'PHYS172', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS410', 'PHYS758E', 'PHYS172', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS273H', 'PHYS410', 'PHYS172', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS273H', 'PHYS758E'], 'average_rating': 3.6842, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "Beware, his homework is impossible. I would always go to the physics help classroom and spend 3 hours there with other students from this class. However his tests are not bad and he's a nice guy so if you know what he lectures on you will do fine on the tests. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-29T15:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "Professor Shawhan is a great teacher. He doesn't do that many problems in class and the homework is difficult but in the end, that's how you learn. I really came out of this course with a solid understanding of the basic concepts, which is key to doing well on the MCAT. Take Shawhan! An A is definitely doable as long as you can follow the textbook, which is pretty good. He posts all of his notes online after class which is a really big plus. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-03-02T08:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "Shawhan is one of the few professors I've had (in the three years I've been at UMD) that genuinely cares about his students; I would definitely take another class with him.\n\r\nI feel that most of the poor reviews he's gotten are from younger students who are just looking to get an easy A, and fulfill a physics requirement. \n\r\nWhile most of the material is complicated for someone with no exposure to physics, he realizes that 121 is for non-majors, and does everything in his power to make it as painless as possible:\n\r\nHe has a tablet computer which he uses to annotate his lecture slides before posting online, clicker questions are not graded for correctness (despite the fact that they are a large portion of the grade), and he allows for note sheets during exams. \n\r\nHis homeworks can be challenging, but that's the point of the homework; there is an abundance of resources to help with it; the homeworks are very straight forward. \n\r\nAnyone who thinks that Shawhan is not an excellent professor is in for an unpleasant surprise when they take any course beyond freshman level. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-16T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': "I've had Prof. Shawhan for two different courses, PHYS171 and PHYS410, and I can say that he is one my most favorite professor I've had here at Maryland. Contrary to what others have said, his exams reflect the lectures/homework really well. I've never been surprised by one of his exams, but that doesn't mean they aren't difficult. He truly does challenge you to think, and not just mechanically produce an answer.\n\r\nHe posts all the notes, which are extremely good by the way, online. Always has tests reviews, weights heavily on homework (which is nice), and truly wants you to understand the material. I feel the people who criticize Prof. Shawhan is because they're bitter about receiving a bad grade in which they probably deserve. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-01T19:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': "Professor Shawhan is pretty good at explaining concepts, has great lecture slides that he writes into a pdf program as he projects it during class, and is quite genuinely EXTREMELY nice.\n\r\nI almost gave a rating of a 4 simply because his lecturing style could still use a bit of work--entertaining student questions is usually good, but occasionally he lets a student go on too long or spends too much time on a small detail. Also, since what he writes into the program he later posts, he tries to be careful about his spelling/etc., which probably takes a minute or two cumulative out of every 50 minute lecture, but not exactly a big deal, so I decided it didn't merit a lower rating.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-20T23:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'I wish Dr. Shawhan was teaching 122 because I would take a class taught by him again in a heartbeat! He\'s a great professor who really does care about his students. While he focuses more on theory, he does go over actual equations in his lectures (as opposed to some professors). His homework is hard, but if you try it and then go to office hours, the TAs will help you. I don\'t think I ever got more than a point off on homework if I went to the TAs for help. Tests were definitely tricky, but very doable. His final was harder than the semester tests, or maybe just trickier. I got tripped up, and our class exam average was way below other test averages from the semester. He doesn\'t waste a lot of time on experiments, but when he pulls them out they\'re a nice way to break up the lecture. He gives clicker questions in lecture, but will give you exceptions if your clicker is broken for that day. He also carries extra clicker batteries with him to class.\n\r\nLabs can be graded a bit harshly. I felt that there wasn\'t a lot of guidance as to what they really wanted in a lab report. They felt like a waste of time, as did the discussions, which are actually "tutorials". ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-02-11T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'Dr. Shawhan utilizes technology really well and is always open to questions or review. He assigns a lot of homework, but it keeps you on top of the material. If you go to office hours, Dr. Shawhan or the TAs help a lot on homework or in general. I never had physics before this class, but I put in the effort and learned a lot. Overall, I really enjoyed his class. Tutorial and lab were pointless though.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-11T19:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "This class was one of the most stressful classes I've ever taken (that includes orgos I & II). Dr. Shawhan gives a lot of homework every week. While he says it should only take about 1.5hrs/assignment, my study group found that it took us about 4-5 on average. Be prepared to spend a lot of time on this course, and look to do practice problems outside of what he assigns. The test questions are not always things you've seen before. His lectures are heavy on theory, but all the test questions are application questions. In short, this class is a lot of work, and Dr. Shawhan doesn't necessarily make physics easy to learn. If it weren't for my fiance having a masters in aerospace engineering, I would be sunk in this course. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'CB', 'created': '2011-11-10T11:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'Professor Shawhan is a rare example of a professor who truly cares about his students. He is incredibly passionate about physics and provides you with all of the resources you need to do well. There is a lot of homework and sometimes the lab and tutorial can be pretty pointless, but all in all it is pretty helpful in learning the material. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-10-26T18:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "It really pains me to have to give this man a bad review. He's honestly a really nice man. I just don't think he understands that this is an INTRO to physics course. This means that a lot of people hadn't seen this material before. He gave weekly homeworks that required at least 3-5 hours of work. And yes you would think that would help you on the exams. However, all of his exams were at least 3 times harder than the homework he gave out. People did so terribly on the exams that he allowed people to redo 2 problems (~8-10% points) so that his curve wasn't so that people who received less than 50% got a C. Each test was worth 10%, homework was worth 20% and clicker questions were worth 10%. That is the ONLY reason why people got B's in this class. Other things besides your exam grade factored in. If you have to take Shawhan, if you get A's on the labs and homeworks and go to every class (for the clicker) and get C's on the exams, you'll get a B for your final grade.\n\r\nLike I said, he's a really nice man. You could tell he was really passionate about physics because he got so excited up there. However, it's in a HUGE lecture hall and he insisted on taking up half of the class time doing experiments that NOONE except the first few rows could see. They often didn't work. \n\r\nIf you have the chance to take someone else, DO IT!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-21T13:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "Sad to say, I agree with the other reviews. People who are just generally good at physics did well in the class. I hadn't seen physics in years so its safe to say it was new to me. He spends lectures going over proofs for the formulas, teaching concepts, and doing demonstrations. But when it came to exam time, it was all calculations of problems. The tests were so hard. He tried really hard to teach us and you can tell that he truly cares that you learn the material. He gave tons of practice problems to do before the exams but they didn't seem to help me at all. \r\nHe gives an A LOT of homework. BY FAR, the most work I have ever done for a class. The reason he's not a good lecturer is because he tries to say too much in such a short period of time. It's way too much to keep up with. It's almost impossible to take notes when he's talking so fast. \r\nIn my opinion, if you have to take Professor Shawhan, just make sure you have the ability to teach yourself from the book. And unless you are just inherently a genius, you shouldn't expect more than a B in this class. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T16:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'Dr. Shawhan is honestly one of the most engaging, enthusiastic, and passionate professors I have had at Maryland, as a junior, I have had a fair share of rotten ones. He does awesome demonstrations, and explains concepts but also does examples (which always tend to show up on the exams). The exams are short, 50 points, and he gives you the chance to "re-do" problems for more credit, this is his idea of the curve. It\'s really not that bad, just find a group of friends to do homework with every week (since it\'s work like a quarter of your grade and is easy points). Take good notes, don\'t bother using the textbook, the online homework and classnotes are perfect for studying. Relax, and remember he wants to CHALLENGE you to THINK. Unlike the other rotten Phys professors who ask you to memorize. Yeah it may suck, but if you plan on succeeding in life, taking the MCAT, or any other test, you\'re gonna need to know HOW to do physics, not just to memorize an equation, and he teaches you that! HIGHLY recommended.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-18T15:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "Professor Shawhan is probably one of the worst teachers I have had at UMD. He is a very nice person, but he cannot teach very well at all. He will teach a lot of concept based information in class, and give completely calculation based exams, without going over examples thoroughly. His tests are very difficult, and although he does curve, it does not help everyone out. If you have a background in physics, and are good at it, then he might be the one for you, but if you are new to the subject, I would avoid him, unless you are very good at teaching yourself out of the book (which still probably won't help you).\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-07T00:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': "I would definitely avoid taking Shawhan. He is very nice guy but is one of the worst professors I've ever had. I read the textbook, did the homeworks, attended a weekly GSS session, went to every lecture, studied extremely hard for every exam and never got above a C on any exam. This is because the test questions are 100% unrelated to anything he ever gives you before the exam. He spends too much class time going over demonstrations but not enough time explaining what the demo should be teaching us so that we can then apply it to physics problems. His tests do not accurately display your knowledge of the material presented to you. He does curve every exam but not enough to get you the grade you would like. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-30T00:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': "Shawhan is a professor that I would recommend avoiding, especially if you are hoping to get an A in the class. While he does curve, it is not the most generous curve. He assigns a LOT of homework, and it is rather difficult to do it since he doesn't do a very good job presenting the material. He is a really nice guy though, and he will often give extensions on assignments if you simply ask for it. This does not make up for the fact that he is awful at presenting material, assigns a lot of homework, and writes very difficult exams because he does not do a good job of assessing the difficulty of his assignments.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-19T20:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS171H', 'review': "Best lecturer I've ever experienced in both high school and college thus far. Get him if you can. I have no idea why he's rated so low.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-31T08:09:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': 'Prof. Shawhan was fantastic. He managed to navigate the switch to online classes relatively seamlessly, and I still feel like I learned a lot in the class and feel ready for next semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-31T17:11:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS273', 'review': 'Great Lecturer, very organized. Kind and understanding. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-29T16:13:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Shawhan', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': "I've had Shawhan for 273 and now 410; he is the nicest and most understanding physics professor I've met, and he made my life a lot less stressful. No lie, both of these classes were difficult and took a bit of time, but I'm pretty sure that'd be true regardless of professor. The great thing about Shawhan is that he will work with you and around your schedule to make things work. I was out sick for a week around midterms, when I came back he was really the only professor that was flexible about makeup times, letting me take the midterm 1.5 weeks later and turn in the homework a week late. I'd email him about missing class or something and he'd be actually concerned and wanting to help out; he genuinely cares about his students and wants to see them achieve.\r\nHe's very organized, records lectures and posts notes, and 410 followed pretty closely with the textbook which made it easier to learn and study outside of class. Homeworks are fair, a lot of practice so sometimes it's a bit tedious just having to do it. He does take attendance ~every other day, but it makes up only 4% of your grade I think. There isn't a lot to say about lectures, if you've made it this far you'll probably get the material (and 410 isn't as bad as other courses like 402); he's an average lecturer but goes through examples in class which is helpful. If it's an intro physics course I can understand the complaints about material going over the head. Overall good professor and love the guy, helped me a ton this semester and I won't forget it", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-01T20:08:16.643929Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Shawhan', 'slug': 'shawhan'}, {'courses': ['ENFP310', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENFP320', 'ENFP300', 'ENFP350', 'ENFP101', 'ENFP420', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENFP415', 'ENFP630', 'ENFP651', 'GEMS296', 'ENFP420', 'ENFP101'], 'average_rating': 2.9333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Peter is a great guy. You really only experience his teaching for the first half of the semester, but even then you can tell he is a good professor. If I were to take a ENFP class, I would take Peter.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-02-02T03:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Fair grader and really nice guy. Good teacher for the material in the first half of the semester but once you start actually building your hovercraft he really is of no help. But he does try to get you the highest grade possible so I would recommend him. Just don't expect him to do anything once you are building the hovercraft except stand towards the side of the classroom and look awkward.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-14T01:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Good teacher that does really care if your understanding the material. ENES 100 is supposed to be a class you struggle through because it teaches you the basics of team design in engineering. Sunderland helps you through this process and always have many review sessions for homework and the such. \n\r\nLoves to give A's for those who both try their hardest and simply know the material. Great teacher", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-01T08:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'He is excellent and cares alot about his students. He is very helpful and a fair grader. \n\r\nChose him over all the other teachers if you have the chance. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-17T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "He was overall a very nice and understanding teacher. When it was clear that most hovercraft teams were stuggling with stuctural or technical components of the project he was forgiving and extended the deadline for a critical milestone. His explanations of the Friday technical lectures were fairly clear. The only downside is that for an engineering professor, he's very tough on grammar. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-16T17:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Dr. Sunderland is a really nice guy. Many of the other engineering teachers are nasty and arrogant in my opinion. Peter also takes the time to go over lecture material from Fridays during class and he is very encouraging. I sometimes find him annoying, though, when he constantly demands how your hovercraft is coming along. Overall, though, I would take Dr. Sunderland over many of the other teachers for ENES100!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-02T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENFP415', 'review': "The homework had nothing to do with the course. There would usually be about four problems where you had to derive equations. These problems had nothing to do with what was taught in class or the exams. Peter enjoys math theory, but it doesn't have anything to do with our course. The homework was impossible unless you sat in his office and basically had him walk you through it. The only students that did well sat in his office for 2-3 hours and then the other members of the group would copy from each other. There was complete separation between the book and what was taught in class. Peter would give many equations during lectures that weren't in the book. The book itself was terrible. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-12-11T14:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Sunderland's grading is pretty lax for the Milestone parts of your grade which is good, but his quizzes are not really fair for the content he had taught to the class. With the quizzes being 15% of your final grade and with the average on those quizzes to be about 60%, 60% of that 15 is already losing 6 percent of your grade assuming you score average. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-22T21:30:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'I had him for ENES100 and I would say avoid him. He is a really nice guy and he does care about his students. However, if you are expecting the historical easy A from ENES 100, prepare to struggle. His quiz average was 60% and it was 15% of the final grade so you already are down a bit. And unless you have a very technical adept team (or a team that actually does their work on time without excessive reminders), you will struggle with accomplishing the milestones towards the end for the OSV. I have heard from other ENES 100 students in other classes that even though they were unable to achieve the final milestones, you still got credit for showing effort. But nope not with Sunderland. Take note of his ENES 100 grade distribution and it is almost a bell where 40% people get Bs. Anyway, choose your professor wisely. This class is a time sink as it is and with this professor it is not an easy A. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-08-22T01:20:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Dr. Sunderland is a really nice professor and wants to see every person in ENES100 gain practical engineering skills. In my opinion, Dr. Sunderland is much better suited to teaching 300 level courses rather than a 100 level simply because of how high his expectations are. Except for his last quiz about Arduino programming, his quizzes are very easy to fail simply because the questions are 100x harder than any class material. He is not really forgiving with the milestone deadlines, so expect to get low grades on a ton of them unless your group is unusually good. Even with a great TA, taking ENES100 with Dr. Sunderland can be overly stressful.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:23:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "*Sigh* He is so so nice in lecture, but can be really difficult with his assignments. I am so grateful I had him during an online semester, because it seems he is way worse in person. When I took ENES100, all profs were TBA, so I was frustrated when I realized I had Sunderland. I can't really recommend him, but I also can't shit on him much. He does things a little differently from the other enes100 profs, so if possible, maybe take one that has better grade data. He was pretty good with the online thing. Very responsive to email. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-19T16:29:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "He is a nice guy but he is truly one of the worst teachers I have ever had in my life. The man does not help you with your project at all, and he makes us do the most irrelevant work and grades it so harshly for no reason. Acts like ENES100 is an academic writing class every time we have to write anything and it gets to the point where you can't stand him. Stands around idly every class period doing absolutely nothing I have no idea how he does not get bored.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-14T20:31:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Nice guy, but a very harsh grader when it comes to writing. He's helpful when trying to give ideas to your team. When comparing his grade data to other ENES100 professors, it is clear that he gives out much fewer A's and that I find that slightly unfair because when registering each section has TBA listed as the prof and you just have to get lucky.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-19T15:21:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Peter is a nice person, and the assignments are easy, but the first two quizzes will melt your brain. Nobody on the first quiz got a 10. The last arduino quiz is very easy though. He is easy on you at first on the milestones, but eventually becomes tougher, and he does not like to push back milestone assignments like a few of the other ENES100 professors. What is listed is the due date. Sometimes I don't know if he's an English professor or an engineering professor. Tiny formatting errors will dock huge points on written reports. Sometimes the advice given is not practical cost-wise. He ultimately curved many people down (as well as me), contradicting everyone's statements that this class would be an easy A. Find another professor if you care about your grade. \r\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-02-04T05:46:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Sunderland', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Peter was not a great professor. He was not able to answer some very important questions when it came to building and coding the robots. He relied completely on the TF and never had good criticism. He was lazy, boring and unhelpful. I would not recommend taking his course. Take someone else.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-08T00:52:14.734951Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Sunderland', 'slug': 'sunderland'}, {'courses': ['HIST419G', 'HIST219W', 'HIST245', 'HIST779C', 'HIST429K', 'HIST619E', 'HIST639V', 'HIST329O', 'ARAB298K', 'HIST428G', 'RELS219K', 'HIST339L', 'RELS319B', 'RELS439A', 'HIST339L', 'HIST339T', 'RELS319B', 'HIST329O', 'HIST429K', 'HIST429V', 'HIST619E', 'HIST779D', 'HIST339T', 'HIST329O', 'HIST428G', 'HIST779C', 'RELS439A'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Wien', 'course': None, 'review': 'Wein is incredibly knowledge about the Middle East. However, he is not very effective at communicating his knowledge. His lectures are very long winded and often go over time. Expect to do a lot of reading in this course. A fair but tough grader. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-27T01:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Wien', 'course': 'HIST339L', 'review': "Professor Wein is a pretty good professor and is knowledgeable about the topics relating to the Middle East but can really go on confusing tangents sometimes, the workload was pretty easy just read the text for that days lecture and attend the class and finish the small reading journals assigned for that week plus the small projects due here and there you'll have a good grade he can be tough sometimes on the grading but is always fair. The only reason he doesn't get a 5 star from me is the amount of reading that's required for this course got to be a bit to much for me at times especially when you're told to read 200+ pages in a week that may not be a deal breaker for most but I struggled with paying attention to the verbose books we would be assigned weekly and it would take me hours to get through them. Overall if you need to take a history class Wien is a pretty decent pick.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-19T08:29:16.787289Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Wien', 'slug': 'wien'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL272', 'ENGL398N', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL393H', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL398A', 'ARHU158V', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL321', 'ENGL246', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL257', 'ENGL246', 'ENGL321', 'ENGL257'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Peter Witte', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "I took this class over summer session 2. He's a pretty easy grader and seemed like a cool guy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-23T21:36:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Witte', 'course': 'ENGL398A', 'review': "I really enjoyed this class, probably because Peter was such a great professor. He's super understanding, outlines assignments in a really thorough and helpful way, and conducts peer review so that everyone gets both positive and constructive feedback. I definitely recommend taking this class, especially if you're an artist or enjoy interested in art.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-02T00:03:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Witte', 'course': 'ARHU158V', 'review': 'He was very nice at all times. He was a bit clumsy but the course was extremely interesting and he was very encouraging and always had a lot of enthusiasm. The course did have a lot of essays however and two of them were back to back which was a bit annoying. But he was still a cool guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T03:36:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Witte', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'Professor Witte is like that fun, chill dad everyone just likes. He teaches conversationally, encouraging you to speak (and write) your mind. The course is mostly made up of readings and weekly writing responses, which are about 1 page and again, allow you to say what you want without there being a right answer. And contrary to what Testudo says, the class is asynchronous one day a week and synchronous the other. The live in-person day is a casual class discussion that you’ll genuinely look forward to. Highly recommend Witte. An awesome guy and even better professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-08T19:28:57.154837Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Witte', 'course': 'ENGL257', 'review': "Peter Witte is one of the best teachers/professor I've ever had! He is super caring, fun, and chill. His classes were always engaging and fun, never boring. If you have the opportunity to take one of his course, I definitely recommend! There is not much work, other than reading the books he assigns, which are always fun and interesting reads.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T21:58:35.011928Z'}, {'professor': 'Peter Witte', 'course': 'ENGL257', 'review': 'I adore Peter! He is so down to earth, conversational, and genuinely fun to talk to. ENGL257 felt like more of a book club than an actual class, and I really enjoyed the conversational structure of his class because I was able to read all the books on the syllabus freely without worrying about being quizzed on every small detail. I wish more English professors were like him! The structure of his class is amazing and helps you learn a lot and get a lot overall out of the class without worrying a ton about your grades, especially since there are no quizzes or exams, only essays (which he lets you peer review in class!) I would love to take an English class with him again.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T23:31:48.805056Z'}], 'name': 'Peter Witte', 'slug': 'witte'}, {'courses': ['GEOG372'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Petr Potapov', 'slug': 'potapov'}, {'courses': ['EDSP875', 'EDSP470', 'EDSP605', 'EDSP600', 'EDSP675', 'EDSP888A', 'EDSP652', 'EDSP875', 'EDSP675', 'EDSP875'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Philip Burke', 'slug': 'burke_philip'}, {'courses': ['GEOL310', 'GEOL393', 'GEOL393H', 'GEOL653', 'GEOL614', 'GEOL463', 'GEOL789I', 'GEOL489Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Philip Candela', 'slug': 'candela'}, {'courses': ['SOCY661', 'SOCY699P', 'SOCY443', 'SOCY699V', 'SOCY699D', 'SOCY653', 'SOCY699F', 'SOCY858', 'SOCY889', 'SOCY623', 'SOCY105', 'SOCY498F', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY616', 'SOCY243', 'SOCY616', 'SOCY889', 'SOCY100', 'SOCY243', 'SOCY644', 'SOCY243', 'SOCY653'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Philip Cohen', 'course': 'SOCY105', 'review': "Prof Cohen is very nice and extremely knowledgeable, but he's very awkward and is so lenient that people in class take advantage of him by not doing homework and not coming to class. I was genuinely interested but the class was just not engaging enough to make me want to keep going. I ended up going to most of the lectures online. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-02T18:05:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Cohen', 'course': 'SOCY243', 'review': 'Professor Cohen was the greatest professor I ever had. You have to take this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-09-25T20:14:39.646259Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Cohen', 'course': 'SOCY243', 'review': 'Professor Cohen is fantastic. The course was very interesting; I learned a lot about society.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T18:22:00.290677Z'}], 'name': 'Philip Cohen', 'slug': 'cohen_philip'}, {'courses': ['BIOL600', 'CHEM647', 'CHEM247', 'CHEM889D', 'CHEM241', 'HONR218O', 'CHEM650', 'NACS600', 'PSYC788B', 'CHEM648E', 'CHEM889C'], 'average_rating': 3.7692, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Often heard very harsh things about Professor Deshong but it is not always true. I like to think that negative feedback most times come from lazy students. So I enjoyed his class. He is as many have said a great lecturer. He knows what he is talking about, you will def learn a great deal about Orgo 2. He does expect his students to have a solid background in Orgo 1. So make sure that you know your SN1, SN2, E1,E2 Concepts very well. His test often did caught me off guard but I didn't think that they were impossible. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-01-04T11:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "DeShong is great! All I ever want from professors is for them to be clear and teach what they test and DeShong meets that perfectly. His lectures are well organized and he has central concepts that he holds through the whole class, which really gives you an understanding of orgo and not just a random set of mechanisms to memorize. \n\r\nI also just want to stress how great his test set up is. The first page always has exactly the same kind of material so you know exactly what to study and know and exactly what to work on. The weighting is fair, and the questions are always things that you would expect based on how much time he spend on it in lecture. There were a few confusing issues with grading done by other graders but they were at least consistent, and he has very clear instructions and reminders for submitting regrades if you need it. \n\r\nHe includes biochem in his lectures and other cool stories and facts about chemistry which is super fun! If you're someone who hates all of it you'll probably find it less interesting but it definitely kept lecture engaging and kept the class interesting, which is especially important for an 8am class.\n\r\ntl;dr TAKE DESHONG!! You'll learn orgo, it'll be interesting, and you won't get screwed over", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-01-02T05:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Unlike in the math department, professors in the chem department are allowed to write their own finals emphasizing whatever they think is important, so regardless of how the professor is themselves it's important to consider what sort of test taker you are.\n\r\nIn De Shong's case, there is less emphasis on procedural thinking (synthesis isn't as present as it was on my Orgo I prof's tests) and more on memorization of biochemical processes and structures. That's not to say things like mechanisms aren't the meat and potatoes of the course because that's gonna be the case with ANY professor, but you'll probably prefer De Shong if you are a pre-med memorization machine or biochem major because it'll give you an edge over the other students. Also, if you don't learn through lecture and just skip it, I wouldn't recommend taking De Shong because participation points via clicker questions can make a pretty big difference. He doesn't care if you stay after the first 5 minutes, but showing up in the first place can be a pain.\n\r\nAs for the man himself, he was alright. Has a funny rude sort of humor and sometimes tells cool anecdotes related to that day's lecture. I thought he spent too much time focusing on biochem, but that's something that comes down to your preference. Overall, I personally would have chosen another professor for this course because I'm not biochem but he is not bad to have by any means. \n\r\n(And that comment by that other reviewer about orgo as a second is spot on. USE THAT BOOK.)", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-12-16T20:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "DeShong is absolutely hilarious and is the best lecturer I have ever had at UMD. His exams are soooooooo fair and there are no synthesis problems! Also, his NMR problems are soooo simple compared to other orgo professors. He mainly cares about mechanisms and reagents. HOWEVER, this class is inherently difficult no matter who you take it with. To do well in Dr.DeShong's class, I had to put in a little bit of work almost every day and read the orgo 2 bible (a.k.a orgo as a second language). Take this class with him, put in the work, and you won't regret it! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-02-26T18:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "This man. omg. Phillip is my homeboy and if you don't take him, you are making a big mistake! He is great at teaching, always keeps things interesting, and loves to touch on biochem at least once each lecture, which is nice because you see it in your later bio classes and it's mindblowing because you first saw it from DeShong. I have no idea why, but our 8 am sections scored like 50% averages on the tests. The tests were honestly not that hard. They were very fair, and after the first exam, you know EXACTLY what to expect on future exams - format is always consistent. If you want ridiculous tests, and synth problems, see Dixon.\n\r\nDeShong is very approachable, super friendly, and is HILARIOUS. Seriously, I couldn't have had a better 8 am. Clicker questions were kinda annoying because of glitches with setup and losing credit for stuff like that...but DeShong's attitude totally made up for it. He has great handwriting!! Also he is the sassiest man to have roamed the chem building and genuinely wants his students to do well, even if some dudes on here are saying that he's impossible or whatever. Honestly, it is okay. Just practice problems on your own time and you are A-ok! DeShong 4 eva.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-07T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Dr. DeShong is the best Chem lecturer I have had so far. I really looked forward to his lectures. But his test are a real challenge and the grading on his tests is unforgiving. But there is the curve.\n\r\nMy only complaints: I wish he gave a list of all the reactions he expected us to know from day one. The department needs to find a better textbook.\n\r\nOrgo II is a VERY time consuming course. Tons of reactions to memorize and many challenging concepts. You need to do lots of problems. So I would highly recommend that you do not have any other classes which are time consuming when taking this course.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-23T08:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Class sucks some serious b*tt. Do not EVER take this man. Averages on each exam was about 45-49% range. UMD is probably putting his @$$ on probation after this semester. He teaches too much biochem in a organic course and he also does not care about student concerns. Don't believe me? Well take the class, get a 49% and screw yourself over. Goodbye. If I could give this troll 0 stars I would.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2013-11-18T00:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM237', 'review': "He is a GREAT lecturer and very approachable. He welcomes questions and really wants you to participate in lecture. He also has weekly review sessions where you can ask questions and do practice problems. However, he does push you hard! He expects a lot out of his students. His tests were very, very hard. I think our test average was in the fifties or sixties. He also doesn't drop any hints about his exams. The questions are really unpredictable.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-06-19T12:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "Take Orgo with Dr. DeShong if you can.\n\r\nDr. DeShong is extremely knowledgeable in organic chemistry. He explains everything very well, and really only tested us on stuff he taught in lecture; the book was only used as a guide and for practice problems. \n\r\nHe also made the class interesting - even though I did better in orgo 1, I truly appreciated the subject matter and really understood what was going on.\n\r\nDr. DeShong is also hilarious. His commentary and funny verbal musings made every lecture enjoyable. I rarely left class without laughing at least once. \n\r\nThe curve wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad either. I think a 75% was an A. \n\r\nDr. DeShong's knowledge, fairness, humor, and overall ability to relay his chemical passion to his students makes him a fine professor. take him take him take him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-07-13T17:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'Great teacher, has weekly reviews and is clear about whats going to be on the tests, curve is pretty good to.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-06-01T01:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'He is one of the best professors for chemistry. His tests are extremely fair. He only tests you on stuff that he teaches in lecture. The book is just there for practice problems and to reinforce the information. He can be a little pretentious, but I thought he was kind of funny in that rude way. He is definitely helpful if you ask him for it. He is extremely knowledgeable in o-chem and definitely knows what he is talking about. He made the class really interesting. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-23T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': "I don't know who terpterp is referring to, since Dr. DeShong is the best chemistry teacher I've had yet. He really goes into depth with the material, and is fair (mostly) on the exams as well as with the grading curve.\n\r\nHighly recommend you take o-chem1 or 2 with him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-19T22:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip DeShong', 'course': 'CHEM241', 'review': 'He is an AWFUL professor and person. He only seems to care about himself and could care less about his students. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-10T18:39:00Z'}], 'name': 'Philip DeShong', 'slug': 'deshong'}, {'courses': ['BMGT472', 'BMGT488X', 'BULM742', 'BULM758N', 'BMGT499C', 'BUSM785', 'BULM758T', 'BMGT888C', 'BUSM758V', 'BULM754', 'BMGT472', 'BULM742', 'BMGT370', 'BULM754', 'BMGT472', 'BULM742'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Philip Evers', 'course': 'BMGT488A', 'review': "This is a very enjoyable course if you are interested in the business side of sports. Most of the lectures are made by guest speakers, with Dr. Evers giving 2 or 3 lectures himself. We got to do some pretty cool things like good to the Under Armour distribution center, sit in a suite for a Capitals game and hear from Dr. Debbie Yow.\n\r\nMake sure you take some kind of notes from each lecture because you will need to remember key points for the final, which is 8 short essays from various broad topics addressed by the speakers and Dr. Evers. The other grades are a current event presentation (done with a partner), guest speaker introduction to give class background on the guest speaker and his/her profession (done in a group of 3-4), a case study which is pretty much opinion based so if you do it you will get a good grade and class participation, as long as you go to class and ask questions you will get 100% for class participation. \n\r\nHe grades everything generously so you basically just have to do it and you'll be fine. Each assignment is 20% of your grade.\n\r\nThe only drawbacks are that the class is 2 hours and 40 minutes long once a week, mine was Tuesday night 7-9:40pm. Also, its not always clear what to take note of during the guest speaker lectures, but if you pay attention you will probably remember enough to do well on the final.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T01:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Evers', 'course': 'BMGT472', 'review': 'This course is math heavy and he provides lots of problems but never clearly walks us through how to tackle the problem. He just scribbles really tiny the answer to each part alongside some other data that was calculated but not really explaining throughly how he got the number for each step. Wish he would be more clear about that. Really nice professor tho.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-10-11T02:23:46.702473Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Evers', 'course': 'BMGT472', 'review': 'Dr. Evers is a fun, knowledgeable guy who is great to work with once you understand his teaching style. You don’t have to do much outside of class, except for two cases and reading an occasional study. \r\nHowever, you have to pay very, very close attention in class, and take thorough notes. Do this, and you’ll be fine. You also have to make sure you understand the math in the course—all of it! Dr. Evers is happy to help outside of class, even though you won’t need to go to office hours if you pay attention.\r\nSuper fun class, but the exams were a little stressful because there were several questions worth a lot of points.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-29T04:41:17.723460Z'}], 'name': 'Philip Evers', 'slug': 'evers'}, {'courses': ['INST733', 'BMGT403', 'BUDT706', 'BMGT301', 'BUDT758M', 'BUDT758N', 'INFM600', 'INST335', 'LBSC671', 'INFM700', 'INST309', 'INST728V', 'LBSC631', 'INST709', 'INST408E', 'INST126', 'INST490', 'INST706', 'INST208M', 'INST651', 'INST466', 'INST335'], 'average_rating': 1.3684, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': "Tries way too hard to be relatable and isn't a interesting lecturer. Still calls on students like a middle school teacher. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-17T20:03:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': 'Really arrogant guy', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-02-12T17:14:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': 'https://old.reddit.com/r/UMD/comments/apmmeg/professor_reported_all_of_bad_reviews_on/\r\n\r\nHe got all his negative reviews removed from ratemyprofessor', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-02-14T19:17:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': 'Piety is without a doubt, one of the worst professors I have ever had at UMD. Piety refuses to acknowledge when he makes a mistake and won\'t listen to anyone who may be even insinuating that he may have done some wrong (even if it\'s something as small as asking clarification about a rubric). He refused to respond to any of my emails with my concerns about a grade on an assignment under the excuse of "only the group project leader can email me" and then ignored my project leader when she attempted to contact him.\r\n\r\nHe even refused to accept doctors notes from students who had diseases such as the hand foot and mouth disease. He gave people with valid doctors notes 0s and acted defiant when confronted about how this is completely in violation of university policy.\r\n\r\nRecently, I found out that professors can report and have negative reviews about themselves deleted from RateMyProfessor. I submit a negative review about him back in December, which was approved and posted to his page. His page used to have several negative reviews, and I learned recently (through a UMD subreddit post) that they were all deleted.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-02-19T02:00:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': "https://old.reddit.com/r/UMD/comments/apmmeg/professor_reported_all_of_bad_reviews_on/\r\n\r\nI got an A- in his class, but only because God was on my side. He's a horrible professor + deleted all of his bad reviews on ratemyprofessor. I made the post on reddit exposing him, dm if you want more information about him + his class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-02-20T23:49:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': None, 'review': 'Got all negative ratings and reviews striked and removed from RateMyProfessor = extremely shady and unwilling to accept any criticism or negative feedback. DO NOT TAKE!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-08T13:52:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST126', 'review': "Not sure why he has all these awful reviews, I haven's had any of these problems. He's been very responsive, reasonable, and understanding. Some assignments seemed a little sloppy, but I think they were made mostly by the TA. He lectures relatively well, somewhat engaging but makes some mistakes occsaionally.\r\nOverall, one of the more engaging and reasonable professors I've had, but execution is slightly sloppy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-02-28T17:39:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': "Most arrogant professor I've run into that can't provide well thought out rubrics for projects", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-01T20:10:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST126', 'review': "he is a horrible professor. don't take him. he drops your letter grade by 1. he does that every semester", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-08-30T23:26:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': None, 'review': "the worst professor in the infosci department. a terrible lecturer who doesn't even understand what he's doing. also so rude and mean to students. doesn't prepare students for future class. taught myself. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-13T19:40:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST126', 'review': 'He hardly knows the subject matter at all and when it was time for us to work on assignments he threw us into hard assignments with little to no guidance. He also had a poor attitude especially when people had a hard time understanding the course work. In these cases he would belittle you as if you were stupid. I was not the only one from my class who had to retake INST126. Now, I am at the end of my second semester in this class with a different instructor and currently have a 97%. That should show you how much of a horrible professor he was and it not just being the course work. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2021-11-22T22:33:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST651', 'review': 'Piety is arrogant, out of touch, and disorganized. Rich learning is meaningless jargon. Course is not user-friendly because he refuses to use Canvas. Lectures are unstructured complaints about student work quality. Will only explain expectations and feedback over individual meeting where he rambles for an hour. Uses derogatory language to describe students (“fresh off the boat”). Vindictive and arbitrary grader. Acts like he’s doing you a favor by dealing with his lack of organization. Changes assignments last minute. Most readings are 20 years old. Lowest quality, most irrelevant course in the school library specialization. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T11:00:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': 'This class is a complete joke. Worst teacher I’ve experienced in UMD. INST335 is already a bullshit course…but with Piety it’s intolerable bullshit. Everything about his class is unprofessional and his lack of awareness in how ineffective his lectures and assignments are is unreal. At least 35% of the lecture is pointless babble and his assignments are easy, but extremely mind numbing. I can appreciate a bullshit course knowing I’m getting credit and an A for it, but I can’t appreciate a course that’s unbearably miserable to follow in its useless gander knowing I’m paying for this. There’s weeks where we do this “teamwork simulation” which winds down to a barely functioning multiplayer game in which you play a game of checkers. He assigns groupwork on a thursday and expects it done on a sunday despite knowing students rely on weekends to do their part time jobs. This class prepares you for nothing and his merit as a communicative instructor is the worst as he never communicates things properly when it comes to instructions, and when you try to clarify, he gives you an attitude. His grading scale and assignments aren’t even insurable to secure a good grade, even if you tried. I’ve gotten A’s in much harder INST classes, and i’m appalled that i’ve gotten an A- in this course knowing it’s a joke.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-27T02:39:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': 'By far the worst experience I have had in a class during my time at UMD. I originally registered for his specific section, despite the negative reviews, because it was the only available online section of the course. During the summer, Piety requested for it to be in person. I was pretty upset about this but there was nothing I could do. At the beginning of the semester, he opened up a Zoom room where students who were sick could still be in class without having to come in person. Piety asked how many of us came to campus just for his class, a pretty high number of us raised our hands. This was strike one.\r\n\r\nPiety\'s lectures were absolutely boring. You could tell that he attempted to be interesting and "fun" in the delivery of his lectures, but the content was terrible. On top of that, the first 15 minutes of EVERY SINGLE CLASS was him complaining about how students were "abusing" the Zoom classroom and how those on Zoom did not want to participate. He never tried to understand peoples\' situations.\r\n\r\nThe majority of my poor experience with Piety was in how he resolved conflicts. There were times during the class where I did not receive points I should have. Logically, I would email him on ELMS to ask why I did not receive those points. He would respond as if he was hurt that I noticed his mistake, and would often times not even speak to me about the point over email. He would always say "meet with me during office hours." Why should I have to meet with you to speak about it when I have screenshot proof of the work being completed and turned in on time?\r\n\r\nOn top of that, his deadlines for group work was ridiculous. He would often assign group assignments where you had to meet and record your Zoom meeting and would expect them to be due in the next 3 days. This is not enough time for students to organize to meet. His class is not the only one we are taking.\r\n\r\nOh yeah, he also had his negative reviews removed a couple years ago and actually addressed it in our class saying that he didn\'t understand why he had them and that, essentially, they were made up/not applicable.\r\n\r\nOverall, Piety is not organized, arrogant, unreliable, and just a bad professor. If you can manage to stay away from his section, do so. If not, be prepared to have to fight with him about grades and deadlines until the last day of classes.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-04T16:51:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': None, 'review': 'Really wishing I had read these reviews sooner. Believe what you see about this professor. Avoid at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-14T21:41:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST466', 'review': 'Had piety for 335 and 466, terrible experience that comes with constant nagging and personal criticism from him. Will waste your time and give you busy work assignments.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-03-07T19:10:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST126', 'review': "So I had 335 with him as well, and after reading a lot of the reviews here I can definitely understand why people feel negative about him. Personally, I never had any issues with elms assignments or him being responsive to me even though I am a pretty lazy student. I would definitely agree that 335 was questionable at times as it's own class, also the bronze falls simulation didn't really seem to be worth the time we put into it, the scoring system and limited moves made very little sense. \r\nA lot of people struggled with 126, and he seemed totally willing to work one-on-one with students. I personally worked on coding with him at least 3-4 times and he was only harsh once (but he was right). He tried his best to make sure I actually understood why things worked and I appreciate that. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-22T14:48:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': 'INST466', 'review': 'These reviews speak for themselves. If you can, please do not register for any of this mans classes. It will save you a lot of unnecessary stress. Would give 0 stars if I could. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-12T02:13:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Piety', 'course': None, 'review': 'INST-651\r\nDr. Piety is very unclear in what he expects from his students. I had to redo my final project twice and both times I couldn’t figure out what he wanted me to change or do. I ended up having to write a Letter of Arbitrary and Capricious Grading, waiting for the judgement, and still getting a C+ because I didn’t know what he wanted in the first place. Worst professor I’ve ever had and he’s the only bad one in the program. All of my other teachers have been awesome. Dr. Piety should not be teaching- he’s horrible.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-01T22:53:25.041344Z'}], 'name': 'Philip Piety', 'slug': 'piety'}, {'courses': ['LING773', 'CMSC773', 'INST728C', 'INST736', 'CMSC798', 'LING888', 'LING848A', 'DATA641', 'MSML641', 'LING848C', 'LING848C', 'LING888', 'LING848', 'LING888', 'LING499R', 'LING888', 'LING499D', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Philip Resnik', 'course': 'CMSC773', 'review': "Prof. Resnik is an awesome teacher! He masters natural language processing and teaches it in an easy-understanding way. He is very nice to students and his class is organized very well. Go for his class and you'll enjoy it. Our final project is Learning Depression Patterns from Facebook and Reddit data, which is a lot of fun. His homework has only 3 grades, high-pass, middle-pass and low-pass; of course you will have high-pass given enough efforts! Great teacher!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-21T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Resnik', 'course': 'DATA641', 'review': 'This is the standard all professors should try to achieve. He balances his lectures between theory and real world application well. He is well known in his area od expertise and it shows in his lectures.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-21T19:43:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Philip Resnik', 'course': 'DATA641', 'review': 'Great professor, he really takes the time to explain his material and often checked with the class on what we need clarification or further explaining on. The class was very interesting and I definitely learned a lot. Strongly considering a career in NLP now. This class was a bit difficult for me though because my understanding with American grammar is not that good and was never really good at English. I very often got confused with some terminology and labeling the words. I also was not very good at python, so I had a lot of trouble with the homework assignments, but he does offer a lot ALOT of extra credit, so its hard not to do well. I actually did not do much of the extra credit. I probably would have gotten an A if I tried to do more, but personal reasons stopped me.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-27T23:31:43Z'}], 'name': 'Philip Resnik', 'slug': 'resnik'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL393H'], 'average_rating': 3.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Phillip Moses', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "This is not a good class. It's not Scott's fault. Scott is largely a fair grader and a nice guy teaching a class forced on students by the University. He expects effort, and he's happy to address concerns and questions and to give advice to his students. If you can show that you put effort into your work, he'll grade accordingly.\r\nMy main criticism is that Scott tends to read verbatim from presentations and handouts in class, using time that would be better spent peer-reviewing, and he has some odd criteria for some assignments.\r\nI'd advise taking the blended section if it's available; less time in class means more time to get the work done.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-04T15:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Phillip Moses', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "I took the Blended Learning section of this course, which was awesome because we only had class once a week for 75 minutes and then just had to do online reading and stuff instead of going to class the other day.\n\r\nLecture:\r\nWhen we went we usually did in class peer review or Moses spoke more specifically about the current paper requirements. You are graded on attendance, but you don't get points for going, you only lose points for not going.\n\r\nBook:\r\nThe book is MyTechCommLab which is an online book type thing. It is rather annoying, and is in desperate need of a competent webmaster to revise the site. Other than that I would say that about 50% of the assigned reading and activities were helpful, and all the rest were stupid (like stuff I knew in 5th grade, or repetitive stuff). Also it's mostly a completion grade, if your quiz grades are too low he takes off points.\n\r\nPapers and stuff:\r\nI thought he was a somewhat lenient grader, just compared to who I had for ENGL101. He was pedantic as other reviewers have said, but I didn't feel that he took off a lot of points, he just critiques everything.\n\r\nSuggestions:\r\nStart early on the final project, like start during spring break or in the fall semester start in October. I'm not kidding, just send some emails to your audiences and ask to interview them, it will REALLY help out.\r\nAlso, I got a lot out of this class because I did all the readings and put a lot of effort in. Most of my classmates didn't, but I really do think that this class actually taught some important concepts. Despite being an English class, the content is very useful.\n\r\nGrading:\r\nOnline stuff (turning things in on time and MyTechCommLab stuff): 25%\r\nResume/Cover Letter: 10%\r\nDefinition: 10%\r\nProposal: 20%\r\nInstructions: 10%\r\nFinal Project: 25% ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-28T08:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Phillip Moses', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "This class is English 101 so you will have quite a bit of writing to do. Moses does a fine job in teaching how to write these papers with samples of his own writing. There are only 5 papers in the class with the final paper worth the most. It's best to start your readings and do your best on early (easy, short) papers so you won't be dragged down by later (long, research) papers.\n\r\nAs for the class itself, he takes attendance so you HAVE to come to class. If you miss more than 6 classes, he might dock your grade by one letter grade if I remember correctly. When you do peer review, make sure to actually write your rough draft because your classmates will be able to help you point out structural and grammar mistakes you missed. \n\r\nOverall this should be a manageable class if you do your readings and start your papers early. You can definitely get an A in this class if you really work for it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-09-20T11:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Phillip Moses', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Moses is a relatively nice guy, but definitely pedantic and can come across as a bit uptight. His criticisms are on point, but he does hold the bar rather high given the demographic of students taking his courses (non-English majors coupled with the average student writing level at Maryland). If we weren't upperclassmen, I'd say his class stands a chance at improving you writing. But as is, it just brings out the already-existing discrepancies in everyone's writing abilities. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-09-16T18:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Phillip Moses', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "This class is a bit of a drag. As the other review says, the entire course revolves around one single project that makes up about 40% of your grade (the final paper is 25%). I would advise anyone taking ENGL393 with Moses to take this class seriously. When he asked the first day of class what people had heard about it, many said it was an easy A. To this day, I think he made it his mission to prove that fact wrong. \n\r\nHe can be pedantic, fussy, and annoying at times with his comments but he was always right. Once you learn how he grades, you should do fine. As he always says, your audience is the most important aspect of your writing. He's your audience, so figure out how he likes things done to do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-24T00:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Phillip Moses', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'I sort of went into the class with the mentality that it was just a stupid requirement, that the professor would be laid-back, and it would be a pretty easy A. Not quite the case.\n\r\nThis guy will make you work. The entire course revolves around a giant semester-long recommendation report. Come to think of it, it\'s a really useful assignment, and it does a fabulous job of preparing you for the "real world," but I\'m just too lazy for that. So far I\'ve learned quite a bit, but most of the subject matter is about functioning in a corporate desk job and dealing with an administration. What a drag.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-04-05T03:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Phillip Moses', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Philip (Scott) Moses is a well-organized teacher. He taught ENGL 393 asynchronously and it was very easy to keep up with assignments and know when due dates are approaching. All assignments were input at the start of the semester, so one could plan/write out when everything is due. Scott sends out weekly announcements on Mondays for when assignments are due, but if you wait until these announcements, it may be a lot of work to complete if you wait. He grades relatively fairly and mostly focused on how you improved between the rough draft and the final submission. As long as you do the work, and put effort into each assignment, you will be successful. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-20T14:57:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Phillip Moses', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Phillip (goes by Scott) Moses is a fairly easy going teacher for an asynchronous course. He posts every assignment at the start of the semester (with due dates), so I was able to map out the whole semester early on. He sends reminders on Monday about items due that week which is helpful to stay on top of tasks. The assignments are not short, so time management is key to stay on top of the work.\r\n\r\nMoses is a reasonable grader focused on how you improve between your draft and final. No matter how your draft is, if you get a lot of (good) feedback, and make changes from the feedback, you should do fine. In regards to weekly tasks, they are easy two point assignments that are quick. Usually Moses did not give out 100% on rough drafts, but those few points don't really matter. Peer feedback is key, so be sure to give constructive feedback for your peers to improve so others will do the same!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-08-04T17:29:35Z'}], 'name': 'Phillip Moses', 'slug': 'moses'}, {'courses': ['ENEE698D', 'ENEE381', 'PHYS798E', 'ENEE681', 'ENEE680', 'PHYS411', 'PHYS761', 'PHYS611'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Phillip Sprangle', 'slug': 'sprangle'}, {'courses': ['AOSC201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Phillip Stratton', 'slug': 'stratton'}, {'courses': ['PUAF781', 'PUAF641', 'PUAF688I', 'PLCY401', 'PLCY688I', 'PLCY899', 'PLCY641', 'PLCY781', 'PLCY641'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Phillip Swagel', 'slug': 'swagel'}, {'courses': ['MATH401', 'MATH673', 'MATH674', 'AMSC466', 'AMSC662', 'AMSC673', 'AMSC674', 'CMSC466', 'MATH742', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Pierre-Emmanuel Jabin', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': "Very engaging, fair professor. Often times, if he's assigned homework that's a bit too tough, you can ask him for some help/hints which is very useful. He grades exams harshly, so make sure you justify every step.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-26T23:15:01Z'}], 'name': 'Pierre-Emmanuel Jabin', 'slug': 'jabin'}, {'courses': ['INST888', 'LBSC603', 'INST603', 'INFM718Z', 'INFM612', 'INST621', 'INST335', 'INFM613', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST309', 'INFM600', 'INFM620', 'INST808', 'INST408K', 'INFM600', 'INFM620', 'INST363', 'INFM612', 'INFM620'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ping Wang', 'course': 'INST335', 'review': "The class is very boring and he does grade attendance so you have to show up. There is also group presentations throughout the semester about every other week. His quizzes are also very difficult. He quizzes on a large amount of topics but the questions are very specific. However I wouldn't say the class is difficult as long as you put in the effort. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-12-30T00:42:40Z'}], 'name': 'Ping Wang', 'slug': 'wang_ping'}, {'courses': ['ENAE676', 'ENAE311', 'ENAE673', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE673', 'ENAE676', 'ENAE673'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Pino Martin', 'course': 'ENAE311', 'review': "Pino is a very odd teacher. She gets nervous easily and makes mistakes (fundamental mistakes, like the writing down an equation that implies the total opposite of physical laws). As such, it can be difficult to trust your notes. She doesn't show up to tests, frequently misses class, and 8AM office hours. Her Exam problems are worded in the most confusing way. Our TA had to call her multiple times to figure out what her questions were asking. All in all it doesn't seem like she enjoys teaching and the amount of effort she puts into her class reflects that. Maybe she is more interested in higher level courses but her inability to teach easy material of ENAE311 is upsetting. Just read the book, its better explained than anything she lectures.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-01-09T11:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Pino Martin', 'slug': 'martin_pino'}, {'courses': ['HIST408P', 'HIST419V', 'HIST437', 'HIST113', 'HIST720', 'HIST419B', 'HONR218R', 'HIST408V', 'HIST328L', 'HIST428J', 'HIST638J', 'HIST328E', 'EXST030', 'HIST419G', 'HIST328L', 'HIST419G', 'HIST608C', 'HIST720', 'HIST113', 'HIST428J', 'HIST638J', 'HIST328E', 'HIST328E', 'HIST328E'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Piotr H Kosicki', 'course': 'HIST113', 'review': "first of all, kosicki is honestly one of the kindest people i've ever met in my entire life - and towards the end of the year when he told the class that he was canadian, everything made sense. but yeah easy course and i still learned a lot ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-31T16:34:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr H Kosicki', 'course': 'HIST419B', 'review': 'I had Professor Kosicki for both HIST419B and HIST113. He is a really kind person and really cares about his students. He is also very passionate about the class, as well. For both of these classes, the assignments/quizzes/exams were always fair and covered things that were gone over in class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-02T22:23:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr H Kosicki', 'course': 'HIST328E', 'review': "Super cool guy, definitely knows what he's talking about. He's passionate about the subject and teaches it in an interesting way through good movies and readings. Also very nice and gives good feedback on assignments.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-15T21:23:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr H Kosicki', 'course': 'HIST328L', 'review': 'Loved kosicki! This guy really knows his stuff and is one of the most kind professors I have ever had. Some weeks have a lot of reading, but it is super important to do them because it really adds to the course. Exams were fair. Grades quickly and always leaves a lot of feedback. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-22T22:32:27Z'}], 'name': 'Piotr H Kosicki', 'slug': 'kosicki'}, {'courses': ['GVPT390', 'GVPT391', 'GVPT834', 'GVPT221', 'HONR229D', 'GVPT831', 'GVPT289D', 'GVPT390', 'GVPT428M', 'GVPT390', 'GVPT429D', 'GVPT390', 'GVPT429D', 'GVPT221', 'GVPT390'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT390', 'review': "Class can be pretty boring as he tends to talk a lot, and the material is often times difficult. That said, he puts a lot of things into place to make it so that everyone can do well enough in the class, and to make sure the grading is completely impartial. There's a lot of problems in class for extra credit to keep you engaged and thinking about the problems, although it seemed like mostly three students got all of the extra credit.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-05-06T10:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': None, 'review': "Swistak prides himself on the fact that half the kids drop this class halfway through the semester. Obviously, this should not be the case, if the class is inaccessible for most students he should revise it to make it accessible. I hated this class so much and had to drop it despite really WANTING to learn the material simply because he was so full of himself. He doesn't understand that we're not all prodigies who will ace this class like him, and he doesn't understand how to be an effective teacher. He should have to take a class on how to teach and on what it means to be a teacher not just a smart, pompous know-it-all. \r\nFinally, he grades with negatives, so if you get something wrong, you get points off. This is totally ineffective, as we are not taught this way in other classes and shouldn't have to learn a new grading method just to take a class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-14T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'I took this class freshman year.. I had a low B before the final and after the final i got a D! HATED this class. the true/false was so confusing.. I had to read the question so many times before I understood what it meant. Focuses too much on game theory. get an easier prof if you can! gvpt 100 is not supposed to be this hard!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-07-05T08:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': None, 'review': "If you're pretty good at math, this class should be very easy. Definitely not very insightful material, the course was really watered down. The course seems to just be for GVPT majors to be exposed to a little math before they graduate. Wouldn't recommend this course, but if it is a requirement toward graduation, here are some tips: Make weekly visits to the TA's and do your homework with them, do the practice exams he gives out, and brush up on your basic algebra.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-13T21:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': None, 'review': "Probably the smartest guy in the Government department. He's hilarious too, if you're smart and at least average at math the class is easy. \r\nThis class alone made me glad I stayed as a GVPT major. Best teacher in College Park", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-21T17:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Swistak is probably the most intelligent person I know. 399A requires math/logic and can be difficult for people who are not quantitatively competent. Swistak knows what he's talking about because he has contributed to a great deal of the literature in the field.\n\r\nAlthough some people think he does not relay information very well, I think it's just because he comes from Europe where the people are mathematically more learned than Americans. Thus, he moves fast.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-01-13T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': None, 'review': "Swistak is one of the most brilliant people on this campus. Game theory will change the way you think about the world. The class is definitely not easy but is worth taking. His tests were difficult but never tricky, and he gives opportunities to get points back. The homeworks were difficult, but if you go to the TA sessions, you'll do fine", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2009-12-16T23:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': None, 'review': '399a is not a normal government course, it requires a lot of math and logic skill. the class can be very difficult, but is made much easier if you attend the weekly TA sessions. the homework is tricky, but doable if you work in a group or attend the TA sessions. take this course if you are gov major who likes math', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-21T20:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "fairly easy course. all you have to do is read the assigned texts along with the lecture notes, which are posted online, and you'll do fine on the tests. the tests are true/false/idk questions. although he has an accent, you can understand him perfectly and he is very knowledgeable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-08T23:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'Swistak is certainly a professor worth avoiding if you have the chance. Just reviewing his overall class GPA for GVPT100 will show you that he can be more difficult than other professors. Tests can be prepared for by taking notes on his lecture powerpoints. The test questions are often verbatim what was on the powerpoint. However, assignments were what killed me in this course. They almost certainly require the help of a TA.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-07T16:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'terrible class, is more of a philosophy class than anything, no one goes to lectures until test days. the tests are basically true false but really confusing. cant really understand him because his accent and most people do pretty bad, the last test avg for the class was a 65. I dont know how people like this get jobs at the university', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'c', 'created': '2008-11-26T19:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT390', 'review': 'Best professor I have had at UMD. He is a genius when it comes to math and Game Theory. His classes will definitely change the way you think about daily interactions in life. Very fun and interesting and he is hilarious. Definitely take a Swistak class before you graduate. It is an experience that you should not miss out on.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-22T18:57:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT390', 'review': 'Swistak has a long, drawn-out teaching style that leaves you on the verge of sleep and then proceeds to give you some of the longest homework. Definitely the type of professor that takes pride in how "challenging" he makes his course.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-09-06T15:30:46.337396Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT390', 'review': "It's a hard class if you're not mathematically inclined (which I am not), and his lectures can be a little boring, but he is hands-down one of my favorite professors at UMD. I find him easy-going and funny. The homeworks are more difficult than the exams and are weighted lower. He understands that many students who take the course are in the social sciences and makes allowances for that. One thing I would have liked is to have more TA office hours, but if you're even marginally interested in game theory, I would take this class. It's not necessarily an easy A, but it can teach you to think a little differently.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-10-25T17:09:18.072753Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT390', 'review': "Professor Swistak is kind, witty, and definitely a smart person who knows what he's teaching. That's just the thing - he teaches as if all the students have also spent years studying game theory. Because of his teaching style and inability to provide further, clearer explanations on concepts that make sense to him but not to students, the class is a definite struggle to pass. If you're interested in game theory, you're better off watching YouTube videos on it. I wouldn't recommend this class to anyone, especially if math isn't your strong suit.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-01T19:12:34.726134Z'}, {'professor': 'Piotr Swistak', 'course': 'GVPT390', 'review': 'The man is an absolute genius, but I enrolled in GVPT390 under the impression that he would use Game Theory within the realm of current events as they relate to Government and Politics… It is falsely advertised as a GVPT course and is more of an economics class. Swistak knows exactly what he’s talking about, but has a way of taking the most basic of concepts and making them nearly impossible to comprehend. Given that he makes it a priority to “make the course challenging,” he provides little to no guidance when it comes to the long, extensive homeworks. That said, definitely utilize the TAs, as they will be of great help. Do NOT register for this course unless you are mathematically inclined. There were four exams (excluding the final which is optional) during the semester, and the average score across all four was around a 64. Swistak has a fair makeup policy, however. If you go to his office hours and redo the problems you got incorrect, he will award half of your missed points back to you. With this policy in place, though, it is incredibly difficult to escape the B range. Again, Swistak is arguably one of the best in the world at what he does, but there’s a difference between personally understanding the material and being able to convey it to others. He only has a grasp on the former.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:49:53.223661Z'}], 'name': 'Piotr Swistak', 'slug': 'swistak'}, {'courses': ['ENEE630', 'ENEE739E', 'ENEE425'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Piya Pal', 'slug': 'pal_piya'}, {'courses': ['ISRL449M', 'ISRL449W', 'ISRL349C', 'ISRL349F', 'ISRL349K', 'ISRL349W', 'ISRL349J', 'ISRL349M', 'ISRL343', 'WMST498G', 'SOCY398E', 'WMST498E', 'SOCY398I', 'GVPT368G', 'SOCY398F', 'WMST498F', 'SOCY398J', 'SOCY398Q', 'SOCY398G', 'SOCY398V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Pnina Peri', 'slug': 'peri_pnina'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Polly Sebastian Schurer', 'slug': 'schurer'}, {'courses': ['GREK112', 'GREK212', 'GREK111', 'GREK211', 'GREK398A', 'GREK398B', 'GREK398', 'GREK399', 'GREK411', 'GREK311', 'GREK399A', 'GREK399B', 'CLAS309M', 'CLAS312', 'CLAS312', 'GREK111', 'GREK211', 'GREK398', 'GREK112', 'GREK212', 'GREK399A', 'GREK411', 'CLAS312', 'GREK111', 'GREK211', 'GREK398'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Polyvia Parara', 'slug': 'parara'}, {'courses': ['HDCC209A', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL293', 'ENGL294', 'CMLT280', 'HDCC209B', 'HDCC209E', 'FILM298D', 'CINE245', 'ENGL245', 'HDCC209D', 'ENGL245', 'HDCC208B', 'ENGL290', 'HDCC208B', 'ENGL256'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Porter Olsen', 'course': None, 'review': 'Good teacher, easy material. Honestly the discussions in class most of them you are able to get through without ever reading the material. It is just common knowledge. However, he has a great personality and keeps you entertained throughout the class. I would recommend him to anyone needing to take an english class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-09T22:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Porter Olsen', 'course': 'HDCC208B', 'review': "Pretty good for a DCC class; although we didn't go over some forms of digital storytelling that I'd hoped we would, I still learned some interesting things. He does give legit (sometimes harsh) feedback when you're doing your project proposals, but that's because he genuinely wants your project to succeed and be interesting.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-27T16:06:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Porter Olsen', 'course': 'CINE245', 'review': 'This class was so boring and do not take him if you want your grades to be in quickly. It took him a month and a half to grade the midterm paper. I took this class thinking it would not be much work, but you have to watch a 2 hour movie every week and readings. There are also 2 papers with one of them being 8 pages and a midterm and final. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-28T14:35:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Porter Olsen', 'course': 'CINE245', 'review': 'Professor Olsen does care about the material and is knowledgeable, but his execution of explanations falls short sometimes. The class was pretty alright, but I think it could have been better. Definitely not just an easy gen-ed, he treats it like a real cinema/film course. He can be accommodating and willing to listen, but will ultimately be fair. He does grade a bit more harshly than you would imagine for a 2xx level class. He also does take a long time to grade', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-14T21:50:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Porter Olsen', 'course': 'CINE245', 'review': "Very nice professor, but I don't feel like I learned much. The grading was fair, but the professor is simply not the best lecturer which was frustrating. Also, a lot of people didn't participate because he didn't facilitate participation. Often when someone would participate, he wouldn't say much, so the discussion started and ended with that one person. Exams were easy. He is very accommodating so that was nice. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-21T15:02:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Porter Olsen', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'Wanted to give five stars especially because he listens and has meaningful discussions with students. He also gives good feedback on written work.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-28T04:10:29.656147Z'}], 'name': 'Porter Olsen', 'slug': 'olsen'}, {'courses': ['PLSC120', 'PLSC689F', 'PLSC399'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Priscila Chaverri', 'slug': 'chaverri'}, {'courses': ['BMGT313', 'BMGT220', 'BMGT398C', 'BUAC743', 'BUSI610', 'BMGT398X', 'BUSI788G', 'BUSM778G', 'BUSI758E', 'BUSO602', 'BMGT220', 'BUSO602', 'BMGT220', 'BMGT398C', 'BUSO602', 'BMGT220', 'BUSO602', 'BMGT220', 'BMGT398C', 'BMSO778A'], 'average_rating': 3.4948, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'It is clear that Basu is very knowledgeable about accounting, but for struggling students, he is little help. It seemed that students either got it immediately or they didn\'t, and be prepared to be called on in class without volunteering and embarrassed if you are totally clueless. For the exams, he provides packets of 60-80 practice problems for each chapter. If you aren\'t the type of student who is understanding it all traditionally, learn how to do ALL of those problems and memorize how. Even if you don\'t understand the concepts, memorize the patterns of how to do the problems and you should be able to replicate them on exams. Basu will tell you "there is no memorization in accounting," but if that\'s what you\'re good at you can do it! I ended up with an A+ in this class but it certainly was a struggle. Find what works for you. Having a quiz every Friday was stressful for me, but it forces you to keep up with material. The exams were hard but similar to those practice problems, and the final lowers almost everyone\'s grades so make sure you create enough buffer for that. He is decently generous with grades and essentially builds in a curve. Professor Basu is very nice but make no mistake, you are on your own for this class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-07-13T11:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Professor Basu is a nice guy with very high expectations for his students. The course material is difficult and is taught in a way that makes it clear that 220 is a weed out class, which it is. Sometimes, his accent is hard to understand and it genuinely did affect my ability to learn at times, but everything you need in the course is in the textbook. \n\r\nWord of advice, don't get behind, and make sure that in your discussion sessions you ask the TA's for help, as they make things easier to understand. \n\r\nGoing back and looking over past powerpoint slides is useful. \n\r\nThe bottom line is that this class is one where the curve makes a difference. Get every point you possibly can, take nothing for granted. The final is extremely hard, but the study sessions in class do help. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-09-01T23:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "He is a pretty good professor, he is clear and tries to make the material interesting but unfortunately accounting is about as bland as it gets..If you are willing to put in the effort you will get a good grade. The final was very difficult and dropped by grade down quite a bit. There is A LOT of work for this class. Pre lecture quiz, friday discussion quiz, and homework due every week. It's a lot of work, but hey accountants are very successful. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-06-03T11:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Do not believe the reviews below. BMGT220 is easily the hardest business class you will ever take, and Basu does little to alleviate the difficulty. \r\nThe lecture itself is dry and boring. Basu does try to make it fun, although I don\'t see how calling out people constantly for not being able to answer problems is "fun". Also, Basu is very impatient. He goes through the slides faster as the semester passes, so have fun taking notes in class. The reason for this is because he expects you to print out EVERY POWERPOINT SLIDE for his lectures since he doesn\'t allow computers in his class. So basically you\'re forced to do this or not learn anything from lecture. \r\nDon\'t bother reading the book, it is god awful and confusing, as you\'ll find out with the homework and pre-lecture quizzes which by the way are completely different from what Basu teaches you in class\r\nDiscussion is only useful because the TAs do a pretty good job explaining what you "learned" in lecture. However, the in-class quizzes are a joke. Most of the time you won\'t be prepared for them because they include problems you\'ve never seen before.\r\nFinally, the exams...easily the most frustrating portion of the class. Yes you have practice problems from previous exams, but they are nothing compared to the difficulty of the actual exam. \r\nHonestly, the only people I\'ve heard get A\'s are those who took retake it...and there\'s PLENTY of them. Don\'t believe the grade distribution you see on here. More than half of those A\'s are from students who retake the class . \r\nThe positive light I can give is that yes there is a massive curve. However, this curve does not make up for the hours of effort you will put into this class.\r\nDon\'t get me wrong Basu is not incompetent as a professor, but his teaching methods do not mix well with material this hard, especially if this is supposed to be an introductory class. The class is hell, so good luck to those who take it. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-12-18T19:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Like all the rest of the reviews said, Basu is a great professor. Do not be afraid to take this class just because it is supposed to be difficult - it is definitely possible to pull an A if you do everything that Basu tells you to at the beginning of the course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-18T00:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is the man. He's a funny guy and he keeps accounting as interesting as possible. That being said, introductory accounting isn't a very interesting subject and you could easily lose focus from it. The TAs for this course are usually pretty good.\n\r\nThe class itself is pretty hard and you need to put work into it. Read chapters before class, go to lectures, and do practice problems. Weekly homework and discussion quizzes can very from easy to really hard. Tests are tough because the wording can trip you up.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-06T00:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Professor Basu is a very fair and good teacher. He keeps his lectures interesting and he's a very reasonable man. \n\r\nA tip I'd give to any student who plans on taking Accounting I is to pay attention to the wording on all the quizzes and midterms. It's very easy to calculate the wrong thing if you're not paying attention. \n\r\nAll in all, I easily got an A in Accounting I because I read the textbook chapters prior to every lecture, attended every lecture, did practice questions in addition to homework problems, formed a study group and actively asked my TA questions. Most students won't do this, so a lot of people did poorly. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-01-18T18:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu was a great teacher and he engaged his class and still taught the material. However, the class is challenging, especially if you know nothing about Accounting. The concepts are difficult to grasp so I'd recommend going to every class and taking notes, and going to the TAs regularly. A complaint I had about this course was the weekly graded quizzes, which was a change implemented this semester. The quizzes were difficult and stressful, and the discussion became more about preparing for the quiz than asking questions or clarifying what we learned that week. You need to put in a lot of time and effort! Be ready to study hard from Day 1. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-12-17T14:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "If you have to take BMGT220, take it with him! He is a great teacher who is very senstive about students' concerns. There are 12 quizzes (100 points, lowest two drop), 12 homeworks assignments (100 points, lowest two drop), two midterms (each 240 points with 10 extra credit opportunity, each), and cumulative final (320 points with 10 extra credit opportunity). The most important thing is to attend all the lectures! If you attend all of them, you do not need to read the textbook (but please skim through the things you do not understand). The quizzes and homeworks are doable as long as you pay attention to the professor and TAs. Tests are generally tough so study at least a week in advance (BMGT220 is meant to be hard).\n\r\nOverall, great professor and nice TAs! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-16T22:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Professor Basu was a very good teacher. He was well prepared, knew his subject, gave great, relevant examples to clarify concepts, and easily kept the class engaged for the entire class period. \n\r\nHe was not only well prepared in class, but his guidance for what was expected of students was wonderful. Before class even started, we were all contacted and directed to the site where we could find all of our homework assignments and study guides. Everything we might need for the class was already available to us before the class even began. He gave us each control of our own learning process. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-07-13T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "He makes a difficult and dry subject like accounting seem fun and interesting! Very jolly guy, very understanding, very helpful! The best BMGT professor I've had so far!\n\r\nThis guy should be made the Dean of the Business school, really! Very intellectual, and really fabulous! You will never ever be bored by accounting in his class, and if you work hard you can definitely earn an A, even if you don't have any background with the subject.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-07T09:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'This class is not easy if you have no prior experience with accounting material. You should definitely attend all the lectures because most of the material will be covered during the lectures. You can do the readings on your own time but the most efficient way is to simply pay attention during lectures. The problem sets online and the exams will be based very heavily on your understanding of the concepts presented in class. Discussions participation are needed because they are part of your grade and the quizzes will help you with problem sets. As long as you work hard to understand the material you should be okay in this class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-02-29T13:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Pretty good professor in my opinion. Was clear in his explanations and I don't recall him ever stumbling on his words. Wants everyone to do well. Exams were pretty tricky though. To get A's on the exams, I suggest going through the old exams he puts up and making sure you know how to solve every single one of them. The material gets more difficult as the semester goes on so it is important to keep up and not slack off. Accounting can be a dry subject at times so just keep up with your work and if you put in honest effort you will turn out okay. The 3 exams (including final) are worth 80% of your grade so you must be very careful not to screw up. One exam question is basically worth 1% of your total grade.. so be extremely careful. \n\r\nThe final exam was ridiculously hard this year, the average was a 65%. So make sure that you do well on the first two exams so you can afford to mess up on the final. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-25T18:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is a Great professor. Only problem is that this class is very hard. It took me awhile to get the hang of his teaching style, and the way he makes his exams.\n\r\nOnly complaints: The slideshows are missing the answers to the questions and the examples we did in class, so if you don't write it down you are SOL. Also it is hard to gauge the questions for the exams becaue he doesn't reuse problems so you truly have to master concepts and not just how to do problems.\n\r\nI went to every class and discussion and struggled to pull out a C, but that wasn't because of Basu.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-22T21:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': None, 'review': "Not difficult. If you go to class, look at the book while doing homework, read the book and do the study questions before the final, you'll be fine. Most people won't take this advice so the average will be low, so there is a significant curve. I didn't particularly care for him as a professor, I felt he moved too slowly but I understand why he did. Overall a nice guy though. The exams do make you think about your answers so try and read the book beforehand.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-21T05:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Don't take this class unless you can really put a lot of time and commitment to it. Yes, he says funny jokes in class but that still dosen't mean hell be nice to you when you go to his office hours and try to talk to him after class. Test questions are very very very hard, you have to do the past exams and friday discussion questions to master the type of questions you will see on the exam. TA's are crucial if you are struggling, Go to them and they'll help you because they are perfectionists in accounting. Overall I did not like Basu as a Professor I feel like a professor should always let you know what to expect on an exam and with him some concepts he wont even say a word about in class will show up on the exam. Take advantage of the 100 points on Friday Discussions and Online HW. Study hard for the exams, they get harder but don't panic if you do bad on your first exam just make sure you study harder for the next two.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-17T19:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Professor Basu is a good guy and a good teacher. He makes the class as interesting as possible. The subject material gets progressively more difficult as the semester goes on. The beginning of the class is deceivingly easy, but you'd be lucky not get confused by the end of the semester. The material is dry, but if you work at it you can get through it. If you have to take this class, Basu is the man to take it with. He is ultimately fair, although his exams are extremely tricky. Even an exorbitant amount of studying can land you a D", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'BC', 'created': '2011-12-16T01:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "This class is very difficult. You need to put in a lot of effort to get a B. Some of my friends didn't need to study it just kind of came to them, but me on the other hand struggled. There are 2 exams and a cumulative final. Theres homework every week due on sunday at 11pm and friday discussion is mandatory. You can miss 2 homeworks and 2 discussions. I would not recommend this class for fun.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-07T15:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is awesome! The material in the class is challenging, however he does his best to simplify it. He always throws in past exam questions in his notes and gives great explanations. In addition, he really cares about his students and is open to helping them in all ways possible. You don't have much of a choice in who you take, but he is great. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-20T21:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Good guy\r\nI should have got an A....\r\nStudy guys\n\r\nPretty simple formatted test...not many tricks\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-10-10T15:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "As previous reviews have stated: BASU IS THE MAN. This class is tough, and you need to put the work in, but if you do, you can get an A. Big positive: this semester, 86.5% or above got you an A. He generally will curve to fit the historic distribution for the class. But don't work with that in mind, because it is easy to mess up an exam, which aren't very forgiving. All in all, this is the hardest class I have taken so far at UMD, but also by far the most gratifying. Take this class!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-20T14:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is an excellent professor. You can probably just go to lecture and not read and get a B, but I'd definitely do the reading if you want an A. There's weekly homework which is not very difficult and a weekly quiz in discussion (the quiz itself isn't graded, but your attendance is, so make sure you don't miss more than 2 discussions!). There are two exams and a final, the exams have 24 questions and they can be tricky. Definitely do all the review questions online before, and go over your notes and ask him any other questions you might have.\n\r\nThe class isn't a cakewalk but with a little effort youcan definitely get a B+ or higher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-19T20:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Not going to lie, this class is tough.\n\r\nNot to mention that high school accounting, and college accounting DO NOT compare.\r\nI got A+'s in high school accounting, but B's in this class, and I worked twice as hard.\n\r\nThe course gets increasingly difficult as the semester goes on, so it really is important to go to class, ask questions, and go to discussion. \r\nEspecially discussions because we get points for that (only have to go to 10/12 discussions to get 100% in discussion).\r\nAlso, don't wait until the last minute to do the online homework - it can be really tough and difficult to understand, so you might want to ask your TA for help on it in discussion.\n\r\nProfessor Basu is a nice guy - he likes talking about sports and pop culture which I find to be hilarious. But at the same time, he knows his stuff. As long as you ask a coherent question, he'll find the best possible way to answer it, and usually shows examples.\r\nI was an idiot and stopped going to class at the end of the semester - don't be hard. The last 3/4 chapters are the HARDEST in the book.\n\r\nAnd with curves he does a significant one in the end. I think he added at least 3% to my final grade at the end.\r\nDon't rely on the curves though, still put in as much effort as you can.\n\r\nSo: Go to class, Ask questions, Do the online homework, and Go to discussion.\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-05-19T14:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Professor Basu was great at explaining the accounting concepts, always willing to field questions, and really friendly. When I had a question on one of the homework problems and emailed him, he responded almost immediately with an in-depth and clear explanation. He was also very good at listening to student concerns - many students did not like the unforgiving homework format, so he modified it to make it better.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-28T14:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Basu is a wonderful professor who loves to teach. He is very funny and really knows what he is talking about. He has weekly homework which are easy after his lectures and weekly discussion assignments(aka quizzes but they tell you all the answers at the end of discussion). His 2 exams are easy just do the Questions and Do it! Review online and your good.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-27T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Dr.Basu is one of the best professors I have had so far at UMD. He presents the concepts in his powerpoints very efficiently. He posts powerpoints from the book on ELMS but I just took notes in class. He assigns weekly homework assignments, weekly discussion section assignments(he calls them quizzes but all you have to do is show up and you get 10/10), and there are 2 midterms(24 multiple choice each) and a final(32 multiple choice). Basu is an excellent professor with lots of knowledge about accounting. He is pretty funny at times as well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-04-13T22:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "I took this class in Spring 2010.\n\r\nvery easy A...I got a 210/240, 170/240, and 310/320 on the tests and ended up 20 points short of an A+ (I got an 890, the cutoff for an A+ was 910).\n\r\nJust do the online accounting homeworks, don't go to class unless you're stupid (sorry, unless you can't learn from doing homework), and make sure you go to at least 10 discussions (the more the better, that way you get to study for the test in discussion without having to study on your own time).\n\r\nAs a double major in Computer Science and Accounting, Accounting is by far an extremely easy major, which is evident with this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-23T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Great teacher. He has a little accent, kinda like Apu from the Simpsons, but he's not like some weird foreigner; he knows his stuff. Exams were tough but manageable. \n\r\nGo to class. He tells jokes and stuff which are terrible unless you are still drunk from the night before. Not as boring as I expected for an accounting lecture though.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'yeah he is a cool teacher but the material that we learn in the class and the stuff on the exams are different which is not cool.and no curve', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-19T08:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is a great teacher. He has a little bit of an accent but it definitely does not interfere with his communication skills. He is very interactive with his lectures which helps alot. Also, he simplfies the more difficult material during the lecture to give you a better grasp. The TA I had for discussion was extremely helpful in explaining how to do homework problems. You get attendance points for discussions ( allowed to miss 2) and 2 out of 12 online homeworks are dropped (there's one each week). Practice exams are posted for each midterm (2) and the final which helped so much. Overall, Basu is a great teacher, Accounting is a useful course. If i had to take it again I would without any hesitation.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-15T15:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Basu is the man, hands down. Yeah, this class is extremely aggravating and very time consuming, and you will have to work hard, but Basu makes it manageable and is very approachable if you have a problem understanding something. \n\r\nOverall, tough class that is by no means an "easy A", but one where you will learn a lot and enjoy what you do learn.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-15T03:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Basu is a good teacher, he is personable and a funny guy. His quizes are easy, but the final is pretty difficult. make sure to study hard for it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-07-08T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Basu was a great man. He explained things very thoroughly and makes accounting fun. Starting from his corny jokes, to active engagement that he wants from the class, it made it easier for me to understand, and also to enjoy his class. However, the grade reflects how much effort into the class. And certainly, the curve is based on the top 20% getting As. So essentially varies year to year. You just got to hope that there are no smart students at the time you are taking accounting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-27T09:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu was probably my favorite and best professor this past semester. Going to class is VERY IMPORTANT (at least for me) He put up a PowerPoint for each chapter each week and instead of haphazardly going through the PP, he went through each slide in detail and explained each concept thoroughly. He constantly was asking us throughout class whether we had questions and seemed to have no problem answering any of them. He also cracked jokes once in a while, keeping class loose and focused (which is necessary for a not-so-entertaining subject like accounting). \n\r\nHis tests were sightly tricky (2 midterms and one fina) with 24 MC on each midterm and 32 on the final. The key is to just read each question carefully and you should be fine. I studied simply by reading the chapters alongside looking over his PP slides. Then I took the 2 practice exams from previous semesters that he posts on BB (which helped A LOT). One homework manager assignment a week which took about 2-2.5 hours on average to do. Some people thought this was a helpful tool for studing for the test, I personally didn't think so.\n\r\nOverall a great class with an even better teacher. I'm interested in majoring in accounting and Basu definitely helped me get off on the right track. Remember, GO TO CLASS. Here's why: Around 12-13 kids I know took accounting this past semester. Only about 3 of us went to class everyday. I think we were the only ones to get A's out of the group. Yeah, go to class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T23:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is a really funny teacher, but he also conveys the material really well. He has an accent, but you can still understand him. I thought it was a tough class, and the exams always were tricky. But, there was a considerable curve. The discussions sections are guaranteed 100% so go! You can only submit the HW once so go through and make sure it's right.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-20T23:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is a good professor. The lecture slides are all online, but to get answers to the questions in lecture you have to go. I didn't go to lecture after the first few weeks, but my TA was good so I learned it in discussion. I also have taken Accounting in high school so I kind of already understood most of it. Read the chapter before doing the homework and you'll do fine. You only need like an 87% on each hw to get a 100 on the homework part because he only puts it out of 100 when you have 120 points possible. To study for the tests I highly recommend going over previous exams that he posts, they are VERY useful!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-18T18:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is the best professor I've had at Maryland. He's knowledge, polite, and very funny. His exams are fair and really easy if you do the homework and review the lectures.\n\r\nAlso, his grading system is very fair in that the curve can only help you. For instance, if half the class earns a 90% or higher, he'll still give half the class A's. If however, only 20% of the classes earns above a 70%, then he'll make a 70% the cutoff for an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is an outstanding professor. His lectures are great and he is very entertaining. He posts all the notes online, but if you want answers to the examples you have to go to lecture.\n\r\nDiscussion sections are mandatory and there is a quiz every week in discussion, but the TA goes over it and gives you the answers so it is a surefire 100%.\n\r\nThere was a homework every week, and they weren't too hard, but they always took in between 1 and 2 hours. The regular exams weren't too hard either, and he curves them so that the grade distribution is equal to the prior grade distributions that are on ourumd. The final exam was very hard though, but everybody does bad on it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-16T15:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'He is a very good professor that makes sure his students understand the material thoroughly. If you put in the work and generally just "get" accounting then it is a very enjoyable class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-31T10:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Basu was a great teacher!! No need to really even do much work outside of clasa as long as you pay attention in lecture.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-07T20:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'you get what you put in. as long as you pay attention in class and study the material out of class, its an easy A. dont cram!! basu is a very good teacher!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-15T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'While many people think he is unfair, his tests are very fair and generally very easy if you just read the book and the notes over once before the test. The final was alot harder than the other two tests during the semester but it was not unbearable. Now your material and he is very pleasant and not hard ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-05-18T16:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Ummm to me this class wasn't very hard. It was definitely helpful and learnable experience. Overall though, if ever took Physics AP, Chem AP, or BC Calc in Highschool, than this class should be no where near the level of those AP classes. Just put some time and effort in to doing homework. What some of my friends felt helpful was that they learned the chapter the day before it was going to be lectured. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-11T16:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'He is a great professor, though it is a hard class. Just study really hard and do as many practice problems as you can...you should read over the chapter before the exam.It really helps on some of the questions. And there was a curve at the end of the semester. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-24T18:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'I worked hard & studied harder but I found that he did little to contribute to the material beyond what I could, and had already, read on my own. And when Homework manager malfunctioned on my account he did nothing but shrug. That is my biggest complaint.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-19T13:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is the greatest! Very nice guy, but I will admit the material is quite difficult to grasp!! The exams are very difficult, but if you study and do everything else you should be fine!! I came into this class assuming it was an easy A, I was misinformed, if you want an A you have to work for it, but it's not impossible!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-11T16:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "This was a great class and Dr. Basu is a great professor. You must study hard, but if you attend lectures and review the powerpoints/practice problems, a definite A or B. Class attendence is a must. Notes are downloaded from Blackboard and very helpful. \n\r\nExams are all multiple choice but exam questions are very fair. Know the material. Study the quiz questions and the practice problems in homework manager, and you'll get a lot out of this class.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-10-30T20:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Dr. Basu was the best professor I have had since I enrolled at Maryland. He is a great guy. He explains things very well and is very clear on his expectations. If you work hard, study, and do the homework on Homework Manager, you should do very well. He uses clickers, but if you print out the slides before class, they are not too bad. He curves the tests a little, although he does not really need to since they are very fair. Also, he is very approachable and quick to get back to you if you have a problem.\n\r\nI highly recommend him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-07-22T20:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is a good teacher, but don't expect any extra help from him. Accounting is a hard class!! You have to do a lot of extra work to make sure you understand course concepts. If you're doing well on the in class quizzes that does NOT necessarily mean you will do well on the exams- study study study!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-05-22T23:32:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is a complete shitter. His jokes are not funny and he wastes so much time talking to people in class. He doesn't even teach anything, he just asks you do solve problems during class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-01T00:01:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is an alright teacher. He expects answers quickly and doesn't seem to care much about struggling students. The TA's this semester were also average and didn't teach material in discussion the same ways as Basu did in lecture, which messed up some students. Exams are all multiple choice which can be hit or miss. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-19T17:49:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Good professor and funny at times for a class this tough. Sometimes what he explains in class isn't the same as on exams. Overall good guy", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-12-10T19:24:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu is great, my grade isn't. But I highly recommend his course. He really helped me conceptually. His exams are hard, but my dearest Basu tried his hardest to not let me fail but he was unsuccessful. I pulled a B in the end tho.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2020-02-04T20:04:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Great professor if you actually put the work in. Read the textbook over the weekend, and actually PAY ATTENTION to the examples in the book-don't just skim over them and expect to know what's going on. Print out the powerpoints! Some people are complaining that he goes too fast to take your own notes but he makes it clear from day 1 that you have to print them. Lectures are long and info-heavy so you really have to focus, but he's a good lecturer and explains things well. Sometimes he does go a little fast, but if you miss something it's probably in the textbook anyway. Exams are all multiple-choice and you have to pay attention wording, but the questions were always fair. This is not an easy-A class but it is 100% doable if you're willing to put some effort in. Basu is funny and engaging and I never had a problem understanding him with his accent. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-03T01:08:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': None, 'review': 'Not funny or interesting, but great at teaching. Totally understood accounting after this class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-15T23:50:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "big talker, bad at explaining things. he's a good person, but not the best professor. you really need to study hard to do decent in his class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-20T18:27:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Worst excuse of a professor I have ever encountered. Does not teach anything in class, and recorded online lectures are not helpful whatsoever. Weekly quizzes and exams questions are triple as hard as the examples done in class, and half the exam questions are information/question he did not cover a single time. I average at least 8 hours of studying and homework every week, and I still do not have a remote shot of doing well on any of the weekly quizzes or exams. I am sorry if you have the misfortune of having him as a professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-13T17:08:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Accounting is definitely not an easy class by any means and requires a considerable amount of work, but Basu provides plenty of study questions before each quiz and exam. Definitely tries his best to explain everything but not always the best at explaining, but an A is doable if you put in the work. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T03:23:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "For online, Basu would make you watch 1-2 hrs worth of lectures (watching + taking notes) on the weekends before his class at the beginning of the week. He would then spend the two live classes working through practice problems. These live sessions are not recorded. TA office hours are available, but there are no discussion sections as listed on the schedule. Homework was time-consuming but doable, but quizzes and exams were another story. Most quizzes had an average of 50-70%, and some of the content wasn't like how Basu had taught it. He did at least provide practice questions to study with, though I would have preferred if he had worked out the problems instead of read out the answers. Also, a decent amount of the quizzes and exams had typos on them. Overall, this class wasn't overly hard, but to do well takes a lot of outside time. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-12T17:09:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "For online, the worst professor I've ever had. His synchronous lectures were just him doing examples so you had to watch his pre-recorded lectures on top of going to class. That's ridiculous that a professor is giving me double the amount of class time, and not to mention that you're lucky to get out of doing a homework assignment in under an hour and a half. This class is the weed-out class for the business school so I suggest taking it at your community college and transferring the credits. Like others say this class isn't very hard material, but it takes way too much time outside of class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-05-30T03:58:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'his exams are nothing like the homework. The homework will take you a whole day to finish and the videos he makes you watch weekly are like 1-2 hours.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-08T15:17:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Really, REALLY snarky in his office hours. Almost like he despises being there and helping out students. TAs this semester were helpful in actually explaining how to do things. Basu has this thing where he'll have a review session the lecture before an exam, but he does not explain any of the work. You'll start seeing calculations happening and have no idea where the numbers come from. I'm not applying to the business school nor am I a business major. Felt like the quality of education was pretty awful. Exams have a bunch of red herrings and questions that focus on minute details of his lectures. Class isn't hard by any means (like biochem, etc), but man oh man was it a terrible use of my time. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-11-10T20:14:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Worst professor, but sadly the only professor for Accounting 1. The weekly homework assignments are extremely time consuming and have nothing to do with the exams. The weekly quizzes are almost impossible and he assigns 1-2 hours of lectures to watch per week. This class is very difficult and if you have the opportunity to take it elsewhere, you should do so. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-11-30T20:59:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': None, 'review': " The worst professor I've ever had. Unless this class is a prerequisite class, simply don't take it. EVERY WEEK you are required to watch three lecture videos, finish chapter homework assignment as well as Analysis homework, test every Friday, do practice problems for that test, and many more. His classes are not attendance mandatory, but his lectures in his class isn't even helpful. He goes through practice problems, but it's not even helpful because it's nothing like the tests or the exams. I don't get what the point is then...because he doesn't even explain how he got what he got. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-01T16:42:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Really awful professor honestly. Only reason I got through this class was because of his TAs. You have to watch hours of lectures every Sunday BEFORE CLASS because he doesn't teach any content in class. And the videos aren't even helpful for the weekly homeworks so you have to read the textbook and take notes on that too which takes another 2 hours MINIMUM. The weekly homeworks are long and annoying, also take minimum an hour. Don't even get me started on the weekly quizzes, it's literally impossible to get 100%. Terrible professor for a class that's already so boring. Since he's the only prof I'd say try to take this class anywhere else, or just really buckle in for spending an unholy amount of time for this ONE CLASS. Lectures are useless lmao, don't waste your time. He sucks dookie.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-14T00:07:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Basu is a terrible professor. Take this course somewhere else if you’re able to. It’s not worth the amount of stress.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-12-17T18:18:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "If you don't have to take this course at UMD... don't. This class is unnecessarily hard, the weekly quizzes are nothing like the homework or the in classwork. As an accounting major, it sucks because taking his class has made me want to change my entire major. After the second semester, half of the entire class dropped (about 300 students out of 600!) This class is very challenging, if you take it make sure you can put about 5 hours into the class between the at-home lectures, homework, and all the studying you will need to do to teach yourself all the material.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-21T20:50:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Please help yourself and DO NOT TAKE this class with PROF BASU.\r\nNothing against him, but the class. Please take it at community college if you are applying for Smith because its a gateway requirement and you definitely need a good grade.\r\nWORK LOAD:\r\n- Two homework assignments each week (5-6 hours)\r\n- 1 horrible quiz each week\r\n- Lecture is nothing about accounting, it is just review/practice. You have to watch approximately 60 mins of video for each chapter before class to be prepared and read the book.\r\n- 2 midterms and 1 final exam. EXAMS ARE HARD. Although final exam replaces all your grades as a percentage if they are lower. For example, you had received 6/10 on a quiz but your final exam average was 80%, your quiz grade will be upgraded to an 8/10 = 80%.\r\nThere is NO CURVE in this class. Please please please say NO to taking this class with him.\r\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-23T01:06:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Professor Basu is a good person, but not a good professor. His inability to teach clearly makes a confusing subject for many students more difficult than it needs to be. Lectures, homework, and discussions are not aligned and do not prepare you well for exams, which are extremely challenging. Basu is usually the only professor for this course, so if you are not willing to teach yourself and put in hours of work, take it elsewhere. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-23T15:55:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "I put in 15-16 hours per week for this class, came to class, went to TA and Basu's office hours, and I still didn't do well in the class. Make no mistake; I did really well on all of the homework, classwork, and on most of the weekly quizzes... it's just the exams that killed my grade. I came to Basu after I underperformed on my first midterm asking for tips on what I could do to better prepare for the future, and I was simply told that if I was stressed about my grade I just shouldn't look at it. Huh?? How is that helpful?? Other than that all he said was that I just needed to get a C in his class and I would get credit for the course. I understand C's get degrees, but my goal is to not do the bare minimum in my classes. I'm not concerned about being the highest achieving in my class, but I want to be proud of the work and effort I'm putting into a class. It's absolutely shameful and pathetic that his response -as an educator- to my concerns was that I should stop caring about my grades as long as I was technically passing. Do I think I deserved an A in this class? No. I put in the work in this class that should have deserved an A, but overall I think a B would have been accurate of my work and overall performance. It's just the lack of curves and the stark differences between his exams and the other work for his class that led to me barely even scraping up a C. If you can avoid it, do not take this class, or at the very least not with Basu. If needed for any context, I've never been bad with math; I didn't come into this course expecting to be a wizard at accounting, but know that I also didn't come into this course without any skills in related topics. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-12-24T23:10:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Pretty sure all of these 1 star reviews are from people who didn't go to class and put a lot of effort in (classroom was about 25% full by the end of the year). Although exams were on the difficult side, I think they were fairly manageable if you read the textbook and did the practice quizzes (exam 2 was identical the practice exam- but I don’t think a lot of people even did this practice exam to know that). It was pretty annoying to have online lectures to watch each week on top of the in person lectures, and discussions are mandatory due to the 15 minute quiz at the end of each one. Online assignments are an easy 100%, but they aren't worth that much of your grade. \r\n\r\nIn canvas, my grade was an 89.01, but in testudo he gave me an A (slightly curved, since 90 is an A). If you put in the effort, you will receive an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-10T03:39:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Basu himself is not a horrible professor. You can tell he loves what he does and tries his best to make the in-person lectures funny and engaging. He\'s not very responsive to students reaching out, but he has enough TA\'s to talk for us peasants for him, so I guess it balances out. PEMDAS, right? That being said, accounting isn\'t easy, and the structure of Basu\'s class doesn\'t do much to make it any easier.\r\n\r\nThere\'s a lot of work for this class, much of which is pretty useless in the way of helping you get the grade you desire. For example, the connect homework assignments were long and based on the textbook readings. You\'ll find yourself reading a chapter from start to end, taking notes, and doing the connect homework assignments for hours on end in the first few weeks... just to find out that they\'ll do virtually nothing in the way of helping you practice for the weekly quizzes or even the Exams.\r\n\r\n Okay, fine. So you turn to practice problems. The practice problems aren\'t chill either. In doing them, you\'ll find that Basu has a strong affinity for "gotcha" questions. That\'s fair, accounting is hard, and you\'re here to gain mastery (or at least satisfactory understanding) of the subject, but does an entry-level accounting class have to be this hard? Probably not. You\'ll hear from many students who go on to take accounting 2 (whether at UMD or community college) that Basu\'s class didn\'t have to be as hard as it was.\r\n\r\nFinally, you sit down at your first exam. By this point, you\'ve spent an ungodly amount of time studying for this class every week. I\'m serious. If you\'ve put in 100% effort (went to all the lectures, watched lecture videos, did the homework, read the textbook, did practice problems, and went to office hours/ study sessions), you\'ll be happy to maybe pull off a B or a C on the first exam. Kudos to you. You\'ve spent-- at the bare minimum-- 12 hours every week preparing for this moment. That\'s at least 2 hours 6 days a week. Any less than that, and I\'ll be sending you my best wishes.\r\n\r\nNow, if you\'re already in Smith, you\'re probably reading this and saying "C\'s get degrees" and to that I say, get it how you live dude. For those of you transferring into Smith, though, I\'d highly recommend taking this requirement at a community college or testing out of it if you can. An A requires a lot of hard work and discipline. I\'m not saying those aren\'t skills worth building, I\'m just recommending that you put that energy towards a more low-stakes endeavor. It\'d be in your best interest to work smarter, not harder (especially if you have no intentions of majoring in Accounting or Finance).', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-26T19:29:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': '\r\nExams are too hard. The class average for the first exam was a 65% , and then for the final it was a 66%. Save your grade and take Accounting one at your community college. This class is hard ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-02-07T21:18:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'This guy might be a funny and likeable guy in class, but his homework is unbelievable. We spend the entire class working on multiple choice questions just to be tasked with filling out entire statements for the homework. Workload is heavy. The data analytics are way more time consuming than they should be. Definitely take this class with another teacher.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-24T18:04:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "He's nice but this class is very difficult. Easily requires 6 hours of study time per week. Take at community college if you can", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2022-04-19T17:58:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "The amount of work I put in for this class is mindboggling. As a CS major trying to get into the business school, I can categorically tell you that this one accounting class is my biggest time commitment, more work than CMSC216. Watching 45-minute lectures before actual class, actually attending class, doing homework on a platform you paid $80 for, and studying for the weekly quizzes took over 10 hours a week for me. The homeworks also were nothing like the quizzes or exams. I don't really see anything changing either because Professor Basu is the only 220 teacher and this is clearly how he has been doing it for a while. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-29T01:35:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "I think this class is difficult but if you put in the work, you can do well. He gives you lots of practice quizzes and problems in practice videos and if you do those and the homework, the weekly quizzes aren't super different. TA hours are also helpful. This class will be one of your heavier course load classes so maybe take some other light ones but I do think it's manageable and not as bad as people say. He slowed down his teaching style this semester in order to help students stay caught up which I think has been super helpful and why people are doing a lot better. Just put in the work and you will be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-09T18:39:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Dr. Basu is an amazing professor. BMGT220 is a challenging course but he does a great job at teaching the material and providing resources to help you practice. The downside to this course is the time commitment, I easily spent 7+ hours a week on this course outside of class time but it pays off. His lecture videos do take a while to watch, but it allows for all of class time to be application and practice. He is very dedicated to helping students learn the material and he makes classes fun. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T18:42:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'I have never been more proud of a B. Professor Basu is a spectacular professor and genuinely cares about your knowledge of the course. The class is hard, and it is a lot of new information, but Basu offers many study opportunities and teaches the class well. I only doc a point off, because his exams are all multiple choice which doesnt give you a lot of wiggle room to do bad, and his exams have questions that you will never have seen before, but if you truly understand the concepts you can eventually figure it out. Best of luck to anyone who takes BMGT220 and if you take it with Basu, you will be in good hands, just study!!!!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-06-09T02:56:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "The way the class is structured makes this class a huge time commitment. He expects students to watch an hour long prerecorded lecture outside of class. The homework follows the textbook and does not prepare you for the weekly quizzes and exams. The homework consists of debiting and crediting and doing ACTUAL accounting whereas in class we are doing multiple choice problems which more accurately reflect what we are tested on. So when quiz time comes around everything feels like a waste of time because of all the additional studying you have to do on top of all the homework. I genuinely would get so frustrated and mad about this class every Thursday while studying. I put in a lot of effort and I still managed to get a C+. If you have to take this class because you want to transfer into the business school, good luck. I would recommend going to TA office hours strongly. The TAs for this class were incredibly helpful, they were good at explaining practice test questions that I got wrong.\r\n\r\nI've seen many other people say dual enroll and take accounting I at community college since they say Basu makes this class unnecessarily difficult for an intro course. I'm taking accounting II at community college over the summer because I have had it with accounting at UMD.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-06-17T14:58:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "This class is not something that you should take at UMD. I would definitely recommend taking it at a local community college over summer or winter break and then transferring the credit over. With enough work and practice, you can get a decent grade in the class, however you really don't have time for that with the other coursework you have going on. Granted, I could have gotten a better grade if I put in more effort, but this is not something that I liked in the first place. The structure of the class makes you put in a lot of effort outside the class which really isn't feasible unless you dedicate A LOT of your free time into solving the problems. Also, keep in mind that all of the questions are word problems and multiple choice, so take that as you will. If you do decide to take this class, go to TA office hours since you will definitely need the help.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-06-23T14:44:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'You’re going to have to teach yourself everything on your own', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-08-05T20:37:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Nice man but you basically have to teach yourself the course. He has taught us things that were conceptually inaccurate. types of questions and info needed for homeworks do not correlate with quizzes nor exams. Structure of the class is absolutely awful.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-08-21T05:03:04.369022Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'This class was unnecessarily difficult. You essentially teach all of the material to yourself. He expects the students to watch hour long pre-recorded lectures each week before class. If you take notes on the lectures, they easily take up to 4 hours to get everything down because he goes over it all very quickly. The actual class consists of him going over practice problems that reflect the weekly quizzes and the midterms. The homework is absolutely nothing like the quizzes. It consists of like actual accounting and none of the multiple choice questions that you will actually be quizzed or tested on. Yet the homework can take up to 5 hours to complete because he question has 7+ parts and all very intricate. It was an incredibly difficult course and the fact that he is the only teacher is ridiculous.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-11-30T02:38:52.293501Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Horrible professor. Does not teach in class. Expects you to watch hour-long videos that are beyond boring outside of class. Be prepared to teach yourself everything on your own. Homework takes ridiculously long (up to 5+ hours), and they are nothing like quizzes. Quiz and exam questions are worded purposely confusing and with words we never mentioned before in class but are just synonyms to topics we covered (but how are we supposed to know that?). Everything about this class is horrible. He is a nice person, but he is a horrendous teacher. Take this course at a community college and transfer the credit. You will thank yourself.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-15T02:21:01.958545Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Requires a lot of work outside of class, best thing is to do many practice problems', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T13:15:00.054497Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'basu is actually useless. considering the amount of time the lecture videos and in person lectures are, it was so difficult to learn concepts from him. he spends zero time actually teaching concepts and just expects you to magically know them, which is challenging in such a difficult course. as someone who found bstat incredibly easy, this class was the absolute worst', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-18T15:40:34.239077Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Professor Basu just goes through the motions of teaching without ever actually teaching his students anything. I spent so many hours studying for Friday quizzes (upwards of 5 hours in addition to normal time dedicated to this class). My biggest disappointment with this class is the grading system. Each question on the quiz is worth 20% of the quiz. As for the exams, each multiple choice question is worth almost 1% of your final grade for the class. I had to teach myself almost all the material in this class through the textbook and practice questions. If you do take this class with Basu (which you will have to because he is the only option for BMGT220) go to the office hours. I cannot emphasize this enough. The TA’s are the only reason that I did well in this class. There are a ton of office hours so take advantage of it.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-18T17:57:12.837942Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "The reviews are harsh. Accounting is a hard subject to teach in general because the concepts are not intuitive. But he definitely teaches in class and he provides you with all the resources you need. Each exam there's 4 practice ones from previous years, same with the quizzes. In class he goes over practice problems and posts the answer key after. Along with that there's a video of him going over 25-30 practice questions from every chapter. Most people just don't watch this but if you do the quiz should be easy. The quiz and exams are not worded weirdly they're literally worded the same as on the practice ones. At the end of the semester there's an extra credit opportunity. Was this class challenging? Yes. Is accounting challenging? Yes. But he honestly gives you everything you need. TAs are beyond helpful and he genuinely cares about teaching. He's a great professor but he doesn't lower his expectations, you have to meet him halfway. I learned so much in such a short amount of time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T21:26:14.760687Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'One of the worst professor you can have. Since this class is a requirement for business school so you have no choice but take it. He expects you to teach yourself and do well on exams. Exams are extremely hard and it is designed to fail students. Practices exams are not even close to the real one. Just take it somewhere else and transfer the credits fr guys. If you think BMGT230 bstat is bad this is way way worse than that I can assure you.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-18T22:02:43.994858Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Basu isn't the best professor but he's far from the worst. You will need to study a lot for this class and review the material either through videos, old quizzes, old midterms or the problem sets. He provides all the materials you need to succeed but knowing how to utilize them is the main downfall for many students.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T02:30:27.065295Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "He doesn't really teach and you really have to teach yourself through the course of this class. There is a good amount of work you get every week too.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-16T00:01:39.773865Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Expect to dedicate a lot of time outside to understanding the concepts, especially if you have never had previous exposure to accounting. With each week, there is roughly a 40 minute lecture you have to watch beforehand as he dives into the class with a brief review of the main topics in the chapter and then spends most of the lecture covering practice problems similar to those which you will see on quizzes (though they tend to be easier than the problem in quizzes). Each quiz was quite difficult and getting one wrong meant losing 20% of your grade (as they're only 5 questions worth 2 points each). No partial credit is given either. I can not stress enough to go to office hours, as this truly helped me get through the class and also to review the old quizzes/exams which are provided from previous semesters, as they most accurately reflect the questions that will appear on exams which make up most of your grade", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-16T21:41:30.660500Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Terrible teacher, but easy class. Does not explain anything into depth in lecture, but provides enough resources to do well.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-06T19:21:07.757983Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': "Definitely a unique class to say the least. Yes, it is possible to receive an A in this class, but don't expect to be an accounting genius since the hardest thing you will need to do, math wise, is knowing percentages as Professor Basu states himself. With that being said, I found this class to be extremely concept driven and required a dedicated day to do my homework and review for this class. There is a lot of time out of class that you'll be using to watch his pre-lecture videos and studying/ working on the 2 homework assignments each week while also having a fairly tough quiz at the end of the week if you did not prepare for it. Fortunately, all grades in this class, excluding exams, can be replaced with your grade on your final exam which definitely helped me in the end since I got a 68 on my first exam. In sum, I would advise utilizing all resources available to succeed since it is likely he will be testing you on everything he's taught in class and in the textbook, but I would say the most important study tips for exams would be to review the slides he uploads first to get good general knowledge and then practicing old exams/ quizzes for specifics.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-02-11T04:40:15.746227Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Dr. Basu is very in depth with his teaching. He will make sure that you understand the material as long as you ask questions and put in a reasonable amount of effort. The class is some work, but honestly not too much and he makes it relevant to the course material so as to help reinforce what we learned in class. His exams are fair and overall he is a great professor. Highly recommend taking him if you get a chance.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-16T00:50:25.200475Z'}, {'professor': 'Progyan Basu', 'course': 'BMGT220', 'review': 'Very good professor! He is a big motivator to continue studying accounting. The course inherently can get boring and challenging but Dr. Basu does a great job keeping engagement. GO TO LECTURES!!! You will not do well otherwise. Also, this class is a huge time commitment so be ready to spend time doing homework. Exams and quizzes were always very fair and if you were comfortable with the practice exams you could easily get an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-11T22:16:45.496739Z'}], 'name': 'Progyan Basu', 'slug': 'basu'}, {'courses': ['BMGT495', 'BMGT495H', 'BUMO758K', 'BMGT369A', 'BMGT369B', 'BMGT497', 'BMGT495M', 'BUSO702', 'BUSO703', 'BMGT198C', 'BMGT495', 'BUSO702', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT298E', 'BMGT495', 'BUSO702', 'BUSO703', 'BUSO703', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT298E'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Protiti Dastidar', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'Great professor! The class was super engaging and thought-provoking. Definitely among my favorite Smith School courses. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-20T01:42:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Protiti Dastidar', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'This teacher takes the class seriously and was great at preparing us for the real world. This class was a lot of work, some assignments graded easily while others strictly with many assignments due on Sundays, and massive group projects. Compared to friends of mine taking this course with other professors, their workload was significantly less, but it also seems they got less out of the class than I did. This class is great for real-life preparation, while it sounds as though other BMGT495 professors are an easier route to take, but you will not get the same experience.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-28T17:49:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Protiti Dastidar', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'This professor creates an environment where you gain a lot that is applicable to the real world. The only issues are that: (1) grading takes very long for assignments, (2) your participation grade (20% weight) is unknown until the day grades are due which makes it difficult to improve, and (3) there is very little guidance for the semester-long group projects aside from a couple of example projects from past classes.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-24T01:09:26.301859Z'}, {'professor': 'Protiti Dastidar', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "Prof. Dastidar was a great professor. 495 with her is a *hard* class, there is a lot of work involved, both group and individual work. But it's also been one of the most valuable I've taken. She does a lot of prepping you for the real world.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T19:54:16.814058Z'}], 'name': 'Protiti Dastidar', 'slug': 'dastidar'}, {'courses': ['AMST603', 'AMST498Q', 'AMST628B', 'AMST418G', 'AMST629D', 'AMST601', 'AMST799', 'AMST628D'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Psyche Williams-Forson', 'course': 'AMST498P', 'review': 'Great Professor. Very understanding, entertaining and informative. I highly recommend any of her classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-03-26T22:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Psyche Williams-Forson', 'course': 'AMST498P', 'review': "She's so awesome!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-22T02:09:00Z'}], 'name': 'Psyche Williams-Forson', 'slug': 'williams-forson'}, {'courses': ['NFSC398', 'NFSC688', 'NFSC422', 'NFSC423', 'NFSC112', 'NFSC633', 'NFSC388', 'NFSC679P', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC112', 'NFSC388', 'NFSC422', 'NFSC398', 'NFSC633', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC112', 'NFSC388', 'NFSC422'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Qin Wang', 'course': 'NFSC112', 'review': "Super chill class, do the study guide slides and you'll get an A easily ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-31T18:34:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Qin Wang', 'course': 'NFSC112', 'review': "She's alright. Kinda boring since all she does is read from a PowerPoint in a monotone voice. Also, attendance is mandatory even though all powerpoints are available online. Other than that it's not that bad of class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-11T04:16:47.292924Z'}, {'professor': 'Qin Wang', 'course': 'NFSC112', 'review': 'Very chill class, meets once a week for "discussion", but the discussion sections are just presentations made by your classmates. They are mandatory though, and you have to take a quiz after every group presentation that was made by the group. As long as you get a 3/5, you earn full credit for that week. Lectures are asynchronous, and can get pretty confusing when it comes to the different terms and topics that she discusses. GO TO THE EXAM REVIEW SESSIONS, the TA basically lists what is going to be on the exams. There are 3 exams, one group presentation, one group paper, and 10 group assignments. The group work really depends on your group members, and my group was horrible, so I ended up having to do all of the work for the paper, presentation and assignments. Overall, not a bad gen-ed, but there really shouldn\'t be as much group work as there was.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T01:18:56.307058Z'}, {'professor': 'Qin Wang', 'course': 'NFSC112', 'review': 'super chill and easy class... lectures are online and only have to attend discussion which is once a week. Assignments in class are exams, homework (group assignment), group presentation and a term paper. Overall a really easy class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-28T23:14:00.298131Z'}], 'name': 'Qin Wang', 'slug': 'wang_qin'}, {'courses': ['ENCE602', 'ENCE688Y', 'ENCE422', 'ENCE688A', 'ENCE799', 'ENPM808', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE422', 'ENCE602', 'ENCE422', 'ENCE602', 'ENCE422', 'ENCE602', 'ENCE688Y', 'ENCE799', 'ENCE422', 'ENCE422', 'ENCE422', 'ENCE602'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Qingbin Cui', 'course': 'ENCE602', 'review': "Professor Cui is extremely nice. He is genuinely interested in the project procurement, as well as his students' understanding of the topics. He takes the time to address all questions and creates interesting discussions during class. His assignments are fairly open-ended so you can put in as much work as you want. He seems to care a lot about class participation so be ready to speak up if you're taking one of his classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-04-22T12:15:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Qingbin Cui', 'course': 'ENCE422', 'review': "Took the summer offering of this course, which is nice because it cut out the group project and only has one exam. Cui had a synchronous meeting once a week but it always felt really redundant because he would lecture on topics that we had already learned about in the online pre-recorded lectures that he would have us watch. That being said you do get bonus points for attending these meetings, so it's worth going just for that.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-13T07:03:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Qingbin Cui', 'course': 'ENCE688Y', 'review': 'He is the best of the best. He is really nice personality. Always caring about his students and help them to understand better. with no doubt take his course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-29T22:39:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Qingbin Cui', 'course': 'ENCE422', 'review': 'Professor Cui always cares about students even more than themselves. He is so nice. Take his course with no doubt!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-09-20T03:47:50Z'}], 'name': 'Qingbin Cui', 'slug': 'cui'}, {'courses': ['BSCI338N', 'NACS640', 'BSCI452', 'BIOL708E', 'NACS728N', 'NACS644', 'NACS898'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Quentin Gaudry', 'course': 'BSCI452', 'review': "Awesome professor. This class is pretty tough but he is by far one of the most qualified professors in the bio department. He does a lot of research but equally cares about his class. Exams are tough but if you look through material before class and dont cram you'll be fine", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-02-02T04:32:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Quentin Gaudry', 'course': 'BSCI452', 'review': "Professor Gaudry is one of the greatest professors I have had at the University of Maryland. He is funny and entertaining which helped keep me engaged in this class and also clearly conveys the material. He sometimes puts weird questions on the exam and I don't remember discussing them in class but otherwise the exams were fair and honestly could have been a lot harder, so I was grateful for that. The class itself is very difficult but very rewarding if you spend the necessary time on it. My advice would be to spend time every week reviewing the anatomy at the very least. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-06-01T21:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Quentin Gaudry', 'course': 'BSCI452', 'review': 'Honestly cannot think of a better professor in the Bio department. His class is definitely challenging and requires effort but he makes it very interesting and he genuinely cares about his students. Take the time to get to know him and put in the effort for his class. If you do, the class will be super rewarding and enjoyable. Cannot emphasize enough how great of a professor he is. He makes this class worth it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-17T15:34:24Z'}], 'name': 'Quentin Gaudry', 'slug': 'gaudry'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL271', 'ENGL273'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Quinn McCracken', 'slug': 'mccracken'}, {'courses': ['ANSC220', 'ANSC236', 'ANSC237', 'ANSC227', 'ANSC233', 'ANSC455', 'ANSC110', 'ANSC270', 'HONR238I', 'ANSC444', 'ANSC390', 'ANSC330', 'ANSC282', 'ANSC453', 'ANSC688W', 'ANSC227', 'ANSC220', 'ANSC227', 'ANSC270', 'ANSC455', 'ANSC227', 'ANSC282', 'ANSC453', 'ANSC688W', 'ANSC227', 'ANSC455', 'ANSC270'], 'average_rating': 4.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'R Apter', 'course': 'ANSC453', 'review': "Amazing and easy to talk to! Caring, kind, interesting. Really engages with students. I've taken 3 of his classes and did well in all!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-02-05T00:19:54Z'}, {'professor': 'R Apter', 'course': 'ANSC227', 'review': "i really enjoyed this class even though it was asynchronous, highly recommend for a gen ed! i learned so much but at the same time it was manageable. Took it as asynchronous, so it would've been more fun with synchronous labs (making food..) The most tedious part was the multiple short JE responses (3 page papers throughout the course), but not bad. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-14T23:53:48Z'}, {'professor': 'R Apter', 'course': 'ANSC227', 'review': 'He definitely seems checked out during this online session. Lots of auto-generated emails with the wrong dates, wrong semester, wrong assignments. I liked the class, the material was interesting, the quizzes were easy, and the journal entries were graded generously. Definitely recommend as an I-Series Gen Ed BUT never take this class online (if it is even offered that way again). You miss out on the best parts of the class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-19T14:22:22Z'}, {'professor': 'R Apter', 'course': 'ANSC455', 'review': "He's a nice guy, but lecture can be boring. He just reads off the slides. Sometimes the lab assignments can be confusing because his directions are often confusing and are usually gone over a couple weeks before the due date. Read the directions carefully. The midterms are straight forward and there is a big paper due at the end. I'd say that attendance is mandatory because if you don't turn in a notecard (which is basically a grade for participation) you'll get a zero and it definitely drops your grade. You will also be using excel in this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-29T02:08:59.508458Z'}, {'professor': 'R Apter', 'course': 'ANSC270', 'review': "Super nice guy, teaches classes that he wants you to pass in. 227 is easier then 270 so if you took one don't expect the other to be the same. Is he the greatest lecturer ever....no. But if you show up and do what he asks, you will get a good grade. This is certainly a teacher where if you try very hard you will learn something and get an A+. If you do the bare minimum you may not retain much (you'll still have to at least temporarily learn a good amount of material) and still get a decent grade. Good guy, good classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-15T16:37:09.531546Z'}], 'name': 'R Apter', 'slug': 'apter'}, {'courses': ['PHYS141', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS142', 'PHYS374', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS260H', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS260H'], 'average_rating': 3.1667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': None, 'review': "He was not the best lecturer. He had a somewhat convoluted teaching style without a lot of examples incorporated. In the end, I learned everything from the book. However, he was incredibly nice and helpful. Also, his demonstrations (which almost never worked) were always amusing. Overall, I would definitely recommend Mohaptra. He's definitely one of the better physics professors here. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-18T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': None, 'review': "I had mixed feelings about the class. Mohapatra was an extremely sweet and nice man who is willing to help you when you go into office hours. During lecture though he tends to teach more of the theory and proof behind why things are the way they are. I know that since I struggle with physics that wasn't too helpful for me. He has announced weekly quizzes based off the chapter you recently learned. His tests were very fair and I was never caught off guard by a question - I just sucked at physics. \n\r\nOther reviews say his accent was hard to understand, but only a few times was I unsure about what he was saying. He's very funny in class because he'll do demos to help teach a concept to the class and a lot of the times they don't work and a student helps him figure it out. They're pretty funny because he's such a happy older man who loves physics.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-18T13:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': None, 'review': "PHYS260 is a difficult class, but Dr. Mohapatra tries his best to help his students understand every concepts taught. The reviews below say that his accent is what gets you and he has pop quizzes. These are all incorrect statements. His accent is fine... he has one, but that is not an issue at all. He welcomes and encourages all students to his office with open arms and tries his best to teach you anything you are confused on. I am horrible at physics (I got a B in PHYS161) but I managed to get an A in this class. If I took a different professor, I defintely would not have gotten the grade I received. Saying this, I am not saying that Mohapatra's exams are easier (I would say they were harder than the other class) but he teaches concepts pretty darn well. He also gave a 10% curve WITH the PHYS261 grade added to your total grade. He's also very funny, so it's hard to fall asleep in class. Great guy!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-21T23:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "Dr. Mohapatra is a fine lecturer and teacher, but he's not really given much to work with - the material covered in PHYS270 feels disjointed and would likely be difficult regardless of the professor. Our class was apparently two weeks ahead of the other one, so I'm thankful for that. There appears to be a hefty curve in the class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T19:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "Mohapatra is an average lecturer, and class notes were either somewhat disorganized or not thorough. However, he's really nice and helpful in office hours. The weekly quizzes he gave were fair for the most part, and helped to indicate what topics were most important.\n\r\nTests were not too difficult, but don't expect to get anywhere without reading the book. The Mastering Physics assignments ranged a bit in difficulty, but were probably the single most useful part of the course. Doing well in this class is all about practicing a variety of problems, and Dr. Mohapatra didn't assign a bunch of single bar problems like the other teacher (Bantu) did.\n\r\nI personally found his accent entertaining and very easy to understand, and I also thought he was pretty funny. He's very responsive by e-mail, and is extremely understanding about grading concerns. You probably won't find much better teachers for PHYS270.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-03T02:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Funny dude in lecture, but is very difficult to understand. Take a different teacher.\n\r\nWants to get to know students, so he's good in his limited office hours, but that's the best I can say.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-26T22:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "If you've taken some form of physics before then the class will be pretty straightforward, but Mohapatra's accent made it near impossible to learn anything from the lecture. However, he's a nice enough guy and seemed willing to help if you took the time to go to him and ask questions. Quizzes and homework were annoying, but I probably learned more from those than the lectures. Sad thing is, he's probably one of the better physics professors on campus (the least bad of the physics professors if that makes sense) and I would take him over most of the other physics professors.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-04-20T02:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Go to discussion. I made the mistake of not going and learned nothing. His teaching style and accent aren't helpful either. The book won't help you either.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-24T04:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Giving weekly quizzes isn't such a bad thing. You actually learn under this guy, and he is a riot. His demonstrations and explanations are very entertaining. He was also really nice and approachable in his office hours and help me make up they exams I missed. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-25T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'I did not really get much out of his lectures. They were so boring and his accent got on my nerves. I learned by doing the written homework and masteringphysics. Even though masteringphysics was a huge pain, I actually did get something out of it. He did make jokes occasionally and some were actually funny. The first midterm was easy but the second and third ones were kind of difficult. The final was not that bad. \n\r\nBest advice is to go to office hours, go to discussion class, do the homework in a timely manner, and try to do as many other practice problems from the book. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-06-02T23:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Mohapatra in my opinion should stick to teaching grad courses. Not only are his lectures extremely boring, but he makes it a nuisance for students to not go to class. He gives a weekly quiz, which is good and all, but gives them on sporadic times to his whim. \r\nIn addition, his accent does put a large barrier in terms of learning. If you don't like powerpoints, or find yourself falling asleep while looking at them, do not join his class. He's not a very good teacher. Nice guy, but he definitely doesn't know how to convey the information over to students.\r\nHe's also quite unreasonable when it comes to problems with the online homework. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-21T02:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Although Mohapatra appears to know his stuff, he doesn't teach very clearly. His accent is an unfortunate barrier, it took me half the semester to get used to it. He used masteringphysics which was a disaster because there were glitches with the program. Despite many complaints, he remained indifferent to the fact that many people had low homework grades because the online homework wasn't working correctly. He usually just gives confusing proofs in class and doesn't always point out which forumlas are worth knowing. He is, however, very eager to help anyone who comes to office hours or makes an appointment so if you don't understand something, take some time to see him after class. Despite his confusing explanations, he is happy to help anyone who is truely interested.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-02T14:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'He was the sweetest man. I always went to his office hours because he would spend time with me, explain things to the best of his ability and truly care if i learned the material. Now I was not very good at physics but he def curved fairly and somehow had me pass', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2018-10-06T03:44:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS260H', 'review': "This dude was hilarious, especially when he did the demos for any topics we covered. He's one of the greatest professors of all time, and 260 was one of the best classes I've taken at UMD. I absolutely would not take the class again since I learned the content so well, but I would take another of his classes again in a heartbeat. The only thing I disliked was mastering physics, but I guess they don't really have any other way of assigning homework for these huge lecture classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-11-06T21:17:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'Really bad lectures. Very nice guy but seems out of touch. Tell you something that will be on a test and the test will have something completely different.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-05-22T20:01:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Mohapatra is a really sweet old man, and I'm sure he would've been a great lecturer had we been in-person. Unfortunately, he's simply not a very effective teacher online, and teaches off PowerPoints with the most atrocious formatting you've ever seen. He attempts to show solutions to example problems but it just isn't the same effect as seeing one being solved handwritten. Gives quizzes and exams that I would say were mostly fair.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-13T07:24:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "His lectures didn't cover everything in the textbook, but I think they were easy to follow. He tried to make sure every person understood each concept, and seemed excited to teach and enjoyed talking to students. His quizzes were fair and he usually would give hints as to what questions and topics were on them, and they were usually similar to the example problems he showed during lectures.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-20T00:33:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'course': 'PHYS260H', 'review': 'He is a sweet guy, but in the online format he did not use the technology well and taught purely off slides. His lectures covered derivations and concepts and we did not do that many practice problems in class. The exams were fair except for the final, but there was a huge curve at the end of the class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-27T22:51:29Z'}], 'name': 'Rabindra Mohapatra', 'slug': 'mohapatra'}, {'courses': ['GEOG110', 'GEOG798', 'GEOG330', 'GEOG384H', 'GEOG385H', 'GEOG396', 'GEOG397', 'GEOG398H', 'GEOG498H', 'EXST030', 'CMSC498Q', 'GEOG498I', 'GEOG676', 'GEOG788I', 'GEOG110'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rachel Berndtson', 'course': 'GEOG212', 'review': 'Very good doctoral program teacher. You will learn a lot, without having to take notes in class. Workload is definitely manageable. Must go to class, or your grade will severely suffer as participation is about 1/3 of your grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T18:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rachel Berndtson', 'course': 'GEOG110', 'review': "Dr. Berndtson is great! She made the class very engaging and enjoyable. The class was mostly debates and group presentations, with 2 midterms and 1 group final paper + presentation. \r\n\r\nAttend every lecture! While Dr. Berndtson posts her lecture slides on ELMS, she blocks out a lot of the important information that's only shown in class. Also, she gives the exam layouts and debate/presentation formats only during lecture. Also, there are reading quizzes that are free points since they are participation. Lastly, during finals, if you skip class on days that other groups are presenting, she will knock your grade down hard (happened to one of my group members). \r\n\r\nOverall the class is easy, but there aren't many assignments, so make sure you and your group puts full effort in every assignment. Also, study well for the exams! They are completely based on what's taught in lecture so review the notes well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-01-09T09:48:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Rachel Berndtson', 'course': 'GEOG330', 'review': 'Her lectures were really well done. Her exams were quite fair , the only issue is some of the essays and sources required for example felt quite excessive. She assigned alot of readings too, but you did not really need to do them to do well.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-23T22:41:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Rachel Berndtson', 'course': 'GEOG330', 'review': "Dr. Berndtson is amazing! I definitely recommend this class to students who want to fulfill GenEd requirements (DSHS, DVUP, SCIS) but don't want to do a final exam. Her class was very enjoyable or at least manageable: group assignments in discussions on Friday (aka reflection activities) that is due before the next discussion, short lecture responses that she posted at the end of the class (just write your opinion using terms or knowledge you learn from the lecture), a big debate, a video assignment, a long paper, 2 midterms, and 1 final paper. This year the final paper is optional!\r\n\r\nAttend every lecture and discussion and you will pass the class! Although Dr. Berndtson posts her lecture slides on ELMS, she blocks out important info written in red that's only shown in class. Also, she gives the exam layouts and debate/presentation formats only during lectures. This year, Dr. Berndton didn't seem to take attendance during lectures, but the TAs in the discussion do (and you lose lots of points for it). The TAs are also awesome (Natalie and Jeff). Ask questions when you don't know! Don't be shy because they will help you until you get it.\r\n\r\nOverall the class is easy, but make sure you and your group communicate well, divide the work clearly, and put full effort into every assignment. Watch out for small mistakes (the TAs will deduct points for missing page numbers, in-text citation, etc). Also, study well for the exams! They are completely based on what's taught in lectures so review the notes well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-06T18:51:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Rachel Berndtson', 'course': 'GEOG330', 'review': 'This class was fairly easy, and the material is mostly common sense revolving around sustainability. There are a lot of readings every week, but you don\'t really need to read them to do well. She also usually goes the information from the readings in the lectures, and specifies what readings you will need to go back to for assignments. There were only two exams the whole year and she provided a review for both. Her lectures are really thorough and they are all posted online. However she withholds some info on the ones she posts, so you will only get the full information if you come to lecture. There are also lecture responses that you can only respond to in class which can impact your grade. There were three big papers throughout the semester, but they were not that hard, and they do require a lot of scholarly sources. There is also a lot of group work and writing in this class. There is usually a group paper due every week, so if you have a good group it is not that hard. If you enjoy learning about climate change this class is definitely very interesting and fun. Attendance is only "mandatory" for discussion, they required you to fill out a form every week in discussion, but you can also do that at home since the link doesn\'t change. Overall I really enjoyed the class, loved the professor and TA\'s, and would recommend it to everyone. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-06T19:47:26Z'}], 'name': 'Rachel Berndtson', 'slug': 'berndtson'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rachel Carlson', 'slug': 'carlson_rachel'}, {'courses': ['BMGT367', 'BMGT367F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rachel Henderson', 'slug': 'henderson_rachel'}]
[{'courses': ['HIST283', 'JWST409A', 'JWST419E', 'JWST347', 'JWST478M', 'JWST370', 'HIST283H', 'HIST418D', 'JWST235', 'JWST235H', 'HIST408Y', 'HIST419Q', 'JWST418', 'HIST429X', 'JWST619M', 'RELS419R', 'HIST408R', 'HIST408I', 'JWST478N', 'JWST619', 'JWST699', 'JWST429'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rachel Manekin', 'slug': 'manekin_rachel'}, {'courses': ['CLAS170'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rachel Mullervy', 'slug': 'mullervy'}, {'courses': ['ENGL212', 'ENGL250', 'ENGL265', 'ENGL101', 'WMST255', 'LGBT265'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rachel Penman', 'slug': 'penman'}, {'courses': ['AOSC624', 'AOSC400', 'GEOL123', 'AOSC123', 'AOSC200', 'AOSC201', 'AOSC499', 'AOSC658E', 'AOSC494', 'AOSC400', 'AOSC424', 'AOSC499', 'AOSC499'], 'average_rating': 3.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rachel Pinker', 'course': 'GEOL123', 'review': 'This class is really not too challenging at all. Almost all the lecture material is posted online and the exams aren\'t too overwhelming. The only downside to this class is that is usually work done in discussion, so you really should attend-there\'s also quizzes every couple of weeks, too. However, most of the time discussion will at least be an opportunity to boost your grade and depending on who your TA is, it might not be a lot of work. The only big discussion assignment was the Kyoto project near the end, but that wasn\'t even bad.\n\r\nAlthough most of this class is okay, a big negative about this class is that it\'s co-taught by 3 professors, so it seems a big "scattered" and overwhelming at times. Just make sure you go through the slides before exams (there are two midterms and a final) and ask any questions about the material and you should be okay...Pinker is not the greatest lecturer at all though, so my advice is sit near the front when she lectures so you can pay close enough attention to what she says...and make sure you look at her material very closely......good luck!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-01T22:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rachel Pinker', 'course': 'AOSC123', 'review': "It's pretty clear that her main problem is that she's not very tech-savvy. Unfortunately, since many times require technology these days sometimes it does seem like she's a little scattered. I personally found her slides very helpful when studying for exams so I didn't attend lectures as much since the slides were posted online. There are clickers for participation so remember to show up for the class!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-06T19:57:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Rachel Pinker', 'course': 'AOSC123', 'review': "Homework takes an unnecessary amount of time, exams are very difficult. I'm only taking this class to fulfill my non-lab requirement, and this class has more work than my major accounting classes. Only take if you have absolutely no other options", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-08T21:32:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Rachel Pinker', 'course': 'AOSC123', 'review': 'This has been one of my favorite courses at UMD. This lady is like a cute grandma. She makes jokes and laughs at them herself which is so cute to watch. Her lectures can get boring because they are so long, but the topics are interesting and apply to your life. As long as you do your work, you should get an A', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-15T23:44:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Rachel Pinker', 'course': 'AOSC400', 'review': 'Professor Pinker is a nice lady that cares about her students. She wants her students to interact with her and ask questions. Those who ask questions often get detailed replies that help reinforce course material. However, I took this course online (asynchronously) and it is easy to tell that she is not super comfortable using technology. She got much better at uploading and recording videos as the semester progressed, but there were still some technological lapses that impeded learning. In her lectures, she was often just reading from the slides and putting random formulas without an explanation for them. Slides were unorganized and not easy to follow. The course itself is not difficult in content, as it does not require an extensive math background and is mostly conceptual. The homework and exams were fairly straightforward, provided that you read the textbook. Overall, an interesting course that could be taught better with more enthusiasm from the professor and better technology skills.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-11T23:50:26Z'}], 'name': 'Rachel Pinker', 'slug': 'pinker'}, {'courses': ['BUSI681', 'BMGT878O', 'BULM758F', 'HONR248R', 'BMGT878C', 'BUSM604', 'BUSI758K', 'BUSM758F', 'BMGT828X', 'BUSO758E', 'BMGT888I', 'BMGT604', 'BUSO604', 'BMGT604', 'BUSM604', 'BUSO604', 'BMGT878C', 'BMGT888I', 'BUSM604', 'BUSO604'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rachelle Sampson', 'course': 'BUSI681', 'review': 'Prof. Sampson really cares about the students and the subject matter. The class is difficult if you are not a quant person, but she has an open door policy and wants you to learn. Your success is her success and I think she really buys into that. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-09-25T22:00:00Z'}], 'name': 'Rachelle Sampson', 'slug': 'sampson'}, {'courses': ['HLSA710', 'HLSA775', 'HLSA790', 'HLSA785'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rada Dagher', 'slug': 'dagher'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL297', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL294', 'ENGL243', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL243', 'ARHU275', 'ENGL275'], 'average_rating': 4.2857, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Radford Skudrna', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "I'm a STEM major and usually don't enjoy english classes, but Professor Skudrna was engaging, open, and welcoming. He always gives people the opportunity to engage in class but never forces anyone to which I appreciate. He was one of my nicest professors this semester and always brings good energy even if the class seems tired. If you complete the assignments you generally get good scores. I highly recommend taking his class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-07T15:43:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Radford Skudrna', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Professor Skudrna is a great professor for ENGL101. He is thougtful, engaging, welcoming, and friendly and he is always going to help you be the best that you can be. Fair warning, his class does include a lot of work, so be prepared to spend a couple hours a week on different weeks working on major assignments. However, he is incredibly helpful when it comes to questions or comments about major assignments, and I 100% recommend meeting with him before you submit any final drafts. This way, you can have the guy who is grading your paper a chance to look over your paper before you officially submit it. I truly recommend Radford as an ENGL101 professor, you cannot go wrong by taking his class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-06T01:22:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Radford Skudrna', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Radford is an amazing professor to have for English. I was expecting the class to be a bunch of liberal propaganda like others have told me but as a politically moderate STEM student, the class was great with Radford. He genuinely cares about his students. He is willing to give extensions if you're having a personal issue or if the draft of your paper needs to be reorganized completely like with what happened to me. He really wants to see you succeed. You can even take your drafts to him to look over before they're due and he will give you all the feedback you need to get an A on the assignment.\r\n\r\nThe first few assignments were on social justice but they were really just to teach you rhetorical strategies for you to use in the writing you'll do later. Later in the semester you get to choose your own topic to write on which is great. Let me make something clear though, the class is not easy. However, it's also not hard. It's really just a lot of work and if you put in the work and you have him look at your drafts before they're due, you will be fine. The only issue I think I had with the class was sometimes not understanding how to start some of the assignments but if you ask him he will get you through any misunderstandings you might have.\r\n\r\nAlso, don't buy the textbook. There's a pdf version online you can find. Just google the name of it with pdf at the end.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T23:41:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Radford Skudrna', 'course': None, 'review': 'Not understanding at all and rude', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T21:26:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Radford Skudrna', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Great choice for ENGL394. Not too many assignments, and provides great feedback. As long as you put in the time and don't procrastinate, his business writing course is very manageable. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-20T16:22:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Radford Skudrna', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Chill, cool professor who's understandable. However can be a tough grader on assignments.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-20T00:13:21.983657Z'}, {'professor': 'Radford Skudrna', 'course': 'ENGL275', 'review': "Radford is a fantastic professor. Really passionate about what he teaches and he's eager to work with each student during class in order to get them more comfortable with sharing their writing and giving and receiving constructive criticism. Very personable, dude loves icebreakers for the first few weeks, and they really help you to get more relaxed when it comes time to share and workshop your writing with peers.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-23T07:56:36.337190Z'}], 'name': 'Radford Skudrna', 'slug': 'skudrna'}, {'courses': ['MATH464', 'AMSC663', 'MATH463', 'AMSC808R', 'MATH858R', 'MATH416', 'MATH630', 'CMSC663', 'MATH632', 'AMSC420', 'MATH420', 'MATH631', 'MATH858D', 'MATH858P', 'MATH634', 'AMSC420', 'MATH420', 'AMSC699', 'AMSC699', 'MATH634'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Radu Balan', 'course': 'AMSC420', 'review': "Amazing professor that really knows how to teach content at a high level while also making it simple enough for beginners to learn anything. Really nice and gets to know his students well enough to support them throughout the course, even ran my code for my final project because my computer wasn't able to handle it. No problem for him, ran it as soon as I emailed and immediately got back with my code results. Helps his students out wherever possible, and definitely cares more about his students learning than handing out grades. Awesome guy, couldn't recommend him enough.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T04:48:56Z'}], 'name': 'Radu Balan', 'slug': 'balan'}, {'courses': ['BMGT230', 'BMGT230B', 'BMGT430', 'BMGT230H', 'BMGT431', 'BMGT230M', 'BMGT430', 'BMGT431', 'BMGT230', 'BMGT430', 'BMGT431', 'BMGT430', 'BMGT431', 'BMGT230', 'BMGT430', 'BMGT431'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230B', 'review': "I am TOTALLY not a math person, but I actually really enjoyed this course. Radu is funny and chill, and he seems to care about his students. His accent is also fun to listen to, and in no way impedes his ability to teach. The lectures go fast (we usually take notes and do a few practice problems), and then discussion is really helpful if you need any extra review. There's a quiz once a week in discussion (out of 5 points, usually pretty easy), one homework assignment, and one pre-lecture quiz. This means that you have to learn the info beforehand and take a quiz on it, all before he lectures. This sounds waaaaay worse than it, and most people get 100s on them. Don't leave class early, but other than that Radu is really laid back. I highly recommend this course! When I took stats in high school, I hated it because my teacher made it way harder than it needed to be. Radu breaks it down in the simplest way. Find someone to teach you the calculator tricks if you don't already know them, it'll save you a ton of time and effort!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-12-10T00:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "As long as your do all your homework, and I mean doing them without using the show answer feature, you should be fine. He's not the best professor in the world, but his expectations are very reasonable. People only complain about this class because they expect an easy A without having to go to class or do the homework. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-09-30T21:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Lazar is a funny guy, but he can definitely be intimidating if you are lost or don't want to follow his rules. (For example, NEVER walk out of lecture early. He will yell at you for being rude). Otherwise, he explains he is just talking loudly and normally tries to make a lot of jokes. I was fortunate enough to have taken AP Statistics in high school so none of the material was new to me. If you can, find a prior AP-stat student who can teach you all the calculator tricks that will practically do the problems for you. It saves a ton of time. He allows you to make exam cheat sheets so take advantage of that! The weekly quizzes are all multiple choice and pretty easy. Try to keep up because by mid-semester all the material will start building on itself. He provides practice exams and the TAs tend to be very helpful at explaining concepts. If you have taken AP Stats before this class should not be difficult at all, but I do really feel for those who do not have this background. Study and practice and it should be okay!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-07-13T11:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230B', 'review': 'Professor Lazar gets a bad wrap, but it is honestly not his fault. It is more the class that is less interesting than him. Professor Lazar may seem to some to be forceful and mean, which he can be if you act disrespectfully (leaving class early, talking, being on your phone), but overall he wants to make a large lecture style class more engaging for students. He has started letting TA\'s write on the board, and our TA Katherine Feng was superb, and was a wealth of knowledge if you didn\'t understand something. Lazar, is not mean, and he is very effective in helping students understand the content. The only thing I did not like him for is when you ask questions he often is like "well thats not really correct" when it is usually almost exactly correct, but not the way he would want you to say it. So to summarize the class is hard and you have to put in A LOT of work to get an A, but he does what he can to help you learn the concepts and he will curve the test average to about a 75 which can be nice. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-05-05T15:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'This is possibly the worst teacher I have ever had. He\'s horrible at explaining simple questions and the whole lecture is confusing. The only was I survived was going to my TA every week. When I went to him for help and asked about concepts he yelled and said "I don\'t know why so many students come here asking that, if you don\'t get it then you don\'t". If everyone asks you haven\'t explained it right -__-.Take this at your local community college over the summer.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-01-20T14:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "I was scared heading into this class especially after never taking a statistics class before. Radu a good professor but I see why some students don't like him. He can be intimidating to the point where you don't want to ask questions in class. I will say that he does go over examples a lot and you will know if an idea is important. \n\r\nAs the other reviews say, he does want you to do well in his class. The tests are challenging but he curves. DO NOT SLEEP on the first test. It's supposed to be the easiest but questions can be tricky and it will be curved the least if at all. The second test is the hardest. I did the best on the final with a B.\n\r\n1)Attend lectures and SIT CLOSE. His handwriting can be hard to read. \n\r\n2)ATTEND DISCUSSIONS. These are easy points and the questions can help understand concepts. \n\r\n3) Make a GREAT Exam sheet for the tests. My cheat sheets for the first two exams were unorganized and I paid for it. For the final I made one organized with the formulas and it helped. \n\r\nStudy, practice and you should be fine. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2015-05-17T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'I know a lot of my friends have struggled in this class, but if you take the time and effort to do lots of practice problems on your own, you should be able to do well on the exams. I have never taken stat before and I did well. Lazar cares so much about his students and he is so sweet and supportive towards his students and he truly wants you to do well. Radu does have an accent, but he is not difficult to understand. \n\r\nExams: First exam is not curved, my second exam was curved 16%, and the final was curved 11%. Overall, the exams are pretty much like the practice exam that he sends out a week before the exam.\n\r\nDiscussion: Go to discussion! My TA was super helpful and she held review sessions all the time before exams and was willing to answer all questions. Be sure to go on time, otherwise you lose points.\n\r\nClass: Go to class, because while he vaguely follows the slides, he adds a lot of additional information and his work on the whiteboards helps a lot with understanding the problems. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-04-20T13:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'Overall: A lot of students in this class find it to be very difficult, but one of the biggest things you can do to help your grade is by doing problems on your own and making sure you understand how to use your cheat sheet. A lot of students do not do well, because they think that if they just have the formulas and definitions than they will be fine. My key for anyone taking this class is to do a lot of problems outside of class. I skimmed the book and barely went to class after the first couple of weeks; the only reason I received an A was by doing a lot of practice outside of class.\n\r\nCurves: His curves are so generous for this class. He did not curve the first exam for my class, but he curved the second exam by 16% and then curved the final exam by 14%. On top of that he curved the class as a whole so that the cutoff between a B+ and an A- was an 88%.\n\r\nFinal thoughts: Just do a lot of practice in preparation for exams and make sure you really understand how to find the answer on the practice exams he gives you. These exams are a big help, but you still have to understand the concepts to do well. The way he teaches in class is more for understanding the concept, but you have to do work outside of class in order to really understand how to apply the concepts.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-17T15:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "1. He really wants you to do well in his class. Don't take the negative reviews too seriously - it's a difficult course, but he explains the concepts thoroughly and he reviews every lesson at least 3x. \n\r\n2. If you didn't take stat in high school, be prepared to study. a lot. a lot a lot. This is a fast-paced course with a lot of material - he has to go over the lessons pretty quickly. Know your fundamentals - the course builds on itself. You'll see, it actually gets easier toward the end. \n\r\n3. He has really nice arms and a nice tapered back. wuow. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-15T19:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230B', 'review': "I took stats in high school. It's pretty much the same thing, except all multiple choice. There are two midterms and a final, not cumulative. He genuinely wants you to do well. He does get upset if you get a question wrong in class or in office hours, but it's mostly just his tone. He teaches extensively in class and gives good examples, so go to class. Discussions apply concepts taught during the week. You can have a formula sheet for theoretical notions, no assumptions, so there's no memorization. You just need to know when to apply a certain formula/concept. This is a weed out class, so it is hard. I did poorly on the first exam because I thought knowing the math was enough. It is not. You have to be very careful because his true/false questions are pretty hard. Do the practice tests and take note of the questions you get wrong. The first exam is easiest and got no curve. The second got 16%, and I assume the final will be curved by a little less. That's what he implied.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-23T02:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "This is a difficult class and Lazar is not a good professor. His accent is difficult to understand, he screams when he lectures, and faces the board half the time. He writes very fast and has terrible handwriting, which is frustrating to read. \n\r\nHe teaches way to fast, and much of his style is just throwing formulas, without explaining anything conceptually. He doesn't go over examples, and to learn the concepts you have to go to your TA or learn it yourself. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-11-12T04:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'He teaches extremely fast and I almost never understood anything (chapter 6-7+) after his lectures. You have to supplement his lectures with your own studying. Your TA is a very good resource. The discussions are key to helping you understand everything. Just by listening to Lazar\'s lectures I understood maybe 15-25% of the material, then 30%-50% from the homework/textbook and the rest was due to a good TA who taught in a much more straightforward step by step fashion.\r\nIn all honesty, past chapter 9, everything is essentially the same, and you have to recognize that in order to o well. For example, you will have to do Z-test/T-Test/CI and do it for a variety of situations, the rules are just slightly different. Somethings I wish were different was that he would post answers to his review slides and make his lecture slides more reader friendly as if you didn\'t attend class. Do not let yourself fall behind, I skipped a week of classes and I had to study twice as much to get an A on the final exam. \n\r\nAs for curves:\r\n1st Exam: No Curve\r\n2nd Exam: 12-14% (forgot)\r\n3rd Exam; 125\r\nEnd of Semester "curve": 88% = A- ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-30T14:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "After having just taken the final today, here are my thoughts:\n\r\n1) It's such a cop out when everyone blames Radu for this class being so hard. He's a good guy who makes it clear that he wants students to do well. The only reason why he may appear to be condescending and cynical is because he knows the material is hard and expects students to work hard at getting the concepts down. He seems tough because he blows through lecture material at 100 mph, but that's only because the business school designed the course to be a weed out class, and so it was designed to pack an absurdly large amount of difficult material into one semester. Also, all of the complaints about his accent and handwriting are bullshit. You can understand his voice just fine and if you don't sit in the very back row of the lecture hall then you can clearly understand his handwriting. \n\r\n2) There's no getting around it: this class is hard. Like some other reviewers have said, statistics is unlike any other field of study. Half of it is really tedious math formulas and the other half of it is inference and vague concepts. The material is even more difficult if you don't read the book and skip lecture. Each chapter also usually builds on the previous one, so don't fall behind otherwise you'll sorely regret it come exam time.\n\r\nSome people get stat and some people don't. It was easily one of the hardest classes I've taken during my three years as a terp so far. College is hard as hell in general though.\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-14T02:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Lazar continually mentions that this class is a weed out class, and taking the course, I now know why. This class will be a nightmare if you do not put your effort into it. It is very difficult, however, I actually found it very interesting (I guess I'm in the minority). And please, it really is quite doable. I did not take Stat before yet I have an A right now. \n\r\nIt is true that he really does go fast during his lectures but it REALLY helps if you have the powerpoint slides with you during the lecture. \n\r\nAlso, NEVER LET YOURSELF GET BEHIND IN CLASS. Keep your phones in your backpack for just one hour because a couple seconds of not paying attention could cost you a lot!\n\r\nHe is not a mean guy really. He comes off as a bit loud and judgmental (he's not though) but he really wants his students to do well. He knows this stuff by heart. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-18T23:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "One of the hardest classes if not the hardest class I took in college. Only reason I took this class was because it's a requirement for business majors and he's the only teacher for the course.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-11-06T17:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'PLEASE: Read these reviews as a student, meaning someone who is going to school for the purpose of learning and gaining new knowledge. If your idea of being a student does not include the will to learn, you will find this class difficult.\n\r\nThe concepts are not difficult if you put your cell phone down for an hour, pay attention in class, and go to most of the discussions. His slides are great, although he doesn\'t usually follow them. Take the initiative to have them in front of you so that you have what\'s relevant in front of you at all times while he\'s writing on the board.\n\r\nHomework is pretty simple. You get a couple of tries, there are identical problems to practice (with different data sets) if you\'re really struggling with a concept.\n\r\nPractice exams are a GREAT tool to use to study. As mentioned by others, curving is usually very generous. I took this Spring 2012: \n\r\nThe first exam had a class average of B+ without any curve, so it wasn\'t curved in the end.\n\r\nThe second exam was curved 13%, the third was about 10%. After these curves, FINAL GRADES were then curved once again. So, if after all the exams and their included curves, you have an 88%, you would get an A.\n\r\nThis class is pretty much laid out for you in terms of what you need to know. There are NO surprises. There are TONS of opportunities for "extra credit" via Lazar\'s heavy curving policies.\n\r\nIf you can\'t squeeze out a B in this class, something is wrong with your focus. \n\r\nYOU GET A CHEAT SHEET, front and back of a printer paper, that you can write almost anything on -- if this isn\'t enough, I don\'t know what is.\n\r\nProfessor Lazar is a smart, funny guy who WILL call you out in front of lectures of 300+ if you claim that 2 squared is 6, or if you ask a question when the answer to it was on the previous slide that was up for 5 minutes.\n\r\nCome to class to learn, not to sit there and listen half-heartedly while you\'re on your phone. Don\'t come if you\'re going to leave early. Sit closer to the front because everything is written on the dry erase boards.\n\r\nIf you go to lecture and discussion, spend an hour or two a WEEK on the homework, and start studying the practice exam a week or so ahead of the exam itself, you\'ll be fine.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-09-01T10:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'Radu is not a good or bad teacher, however be aware that the curves can save you. I got Ds on two tests and failed the final, but I was still able to pass the class(just barely)because I went to all the discussions and got the points there, while doing well on the online homework. You can tell it is a weed out class so be prepared. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2012-06-12T12:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'This class is doable, but definitely a huge pain, unnecessarily.\n\r\nRadu\'s accent isn\'t what bothers me. It\'s his handwriting. He scribbles complicated formulas on the board and speeds up his talking speed 3x whenever he\'s writing a formula, and unless you sit in the first two rows good luck getting it down. Between that and his 500 rhetorical questions during lecture, prepare to be completely disengaged from the lecture. His condescending tone when no one has the guts to answer makes him totally unapproachable. \n\r\nHomeworks can be a *****, depending on your skill level with the online tools, and the textbook style is really annoying and gives you a ton of info you don\'t need to know. \n\r\nAt the end of the day, I don\'t care how much of a master of statistics this guy is. If you\'re teaching business students who 99% won\'t go a step further in the field of stats I don\'t see why there isn\'t a more relatable professor. \n\r\nthe only way I eked out a B was through the help of a beastly TA who gave a review the night before and actually controlled the attention of a packed lecture hall.\n\r\nIt\'s no wonder that when I met with Radu after adding the class a week into the semester, he said "you cannot avoid me unless you take this class in the summer"', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-16T17:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Radu is the man. I don't understand all the hate he gets. I think his accent is awesome, it reminds me of Borat.\n\r\nHe truly wants you to do well, he says this all the time before an exam. He knows the material extremely well - and I think he conveys it pretty clearly. Everyone that complains about his handwriting should sit closer to the front.. it's definitely not neat, but you can read it.\n\r\nTruly try to understand the material. I got a 66 on the first exam somehow and was feeling low, but that motivated me to do better. Second exam I got a 81 with the curve. At this point I'm sitting at a C. The final is easier than the second exam and you should do your best to ace it. I got a 90 without the curve (102 with the curve) and received an A- in the class. Did I mention that he curves it so that an 88 is an A?\n\r\nStudy the practice exams that Dr. Lazar gives out! They are very similar to the exams! I studied the practice final until I knew it like the back of my hand. That is how I got an A in the class. \n\r\nDr. Lazar does not deserve all the hate he deserves. Come to class and pay attention, and if you don't understand something, go ask him. He may seem intimidating but he honestly wants you to succeed.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-15T13:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'I finished the year with an 88.02 and everything above an 88 was an A, so I got lucky. Overall the course was pretty difficult. This was my first time taking stat. Make sure you go to all the discussion so you get a 100% on 10% of your grade. Same principle applies to homework. If you follow the examples that are provided, a 100% is not out of reach. The rest of the 80% of the grade is determined by exams. Make sure your cheat sheet is good, and practice as many problems as you can before the test. The first test is not curved at all, but the second two tests are curved about 12 points each. Radu is a good guy, but sometimes his teaching style is confusing. I went to most of the classes and took good notes, but found myself more helped by just doing the homework. Overall if you spend about 8 hours in total studying for each test and make sure that you get a very high grade in homework and discussion, an A is reasonable. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-15T12:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Something you need to keep in mind before taking this class: Statistics as a field is unlike anything a normal student will have encountered in high school before taking it in college. The rules and ways of thinking that apply for math and other sciences are not the same that you need to develop for statistics. So don't think you'll be able to ace the class because you're a math whiz (although that would probably help.)\n\r\nThe second thing you need to know is that this class is a gateway course for the Smith School of Business. What does that mean? It means that this class is inherently difficult to weed out the kids who don't want to work as hard or aren't as good students. There are reasons that not everyone gets into the business school. This class is one of them.\n\r\nThe third thing you need to know is that this class is entirely what you make of it. If you put in the time to go to class, listen to Radu, take notes, go home, review your notes once or twice a week, do the homework, study for the tests (ACTUALLY study), you'll be fine. You need to put a lot of effort to get that A, but the curves should help you.\n\r\nThat being said, I would rate Radu as an above-average teacher. He's definitely not the best I've had, but he's absolutely not the worst. Almost all of the complains that have been posted here are problems with the class itself, not with Radu's teaching style. HIS ACCENT DOES NOT GET IN THE WAY OF HIS TEACHING AT ALL. If you think his accent is hard to understand you need to wake the fuck up, get your head out of your ass and welcome yourself to the real world, because in real life there are people who are a lot harder to understand than him. \n\r\nRadu does teach quickly, but again, this class is hard and there's a lot to cover. His handwriting isn't the best but he'll always clarify what he wrote or any question if you just have the balls to ask it in front of a lecture of 150 people. Sit close and you can read everything. The power-points are hit-or-miss in terms of helpfulness.\n\r\nIf you don't understand something, though, Radu will always meet with you during office hours and is pretty good at explaining things one-on-one. YOU need to take the initiative and go ask him, though. If you resign yourself to failing in this class that's exactly what will happen.\n\r\nA new calculator will not help you at all. The math in this class is pretty basic-it's the concepts that are hard. The book is not really helpful, and is most of the time more confusing than the way Radu teaches it. \n\r\nAsk yourself honestly if you're willing to put the time and effort into taking the class, because the majority of you reading this don't have a choice. It's really not that bad, but your only alternative is taking it at community college. The rest of you shut the fuck up about hating on Radu and just accept that your lazy, retarded asses didn't try hard enough to get a good grade and move on with your life. Sheesh.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-02T21:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "I really don't know why people ride Radu so hard. Yeah, he has an accent, but it's not a detriment to his teaching. He goes fast, but that's because there is such a large breadth of material to cover. Plus his curves are absolutely ridiculous, which overrides the difficulty of the material somewhat. Tips to do well:\n\r\n1.) Come to class. You don't have to show up all the time, but at least once a week, just to keep up with the material that he emphasizes. \n\r\n2.) Do the homework. You can use the View an Example tool, but don't rely on it to get the answer. It can help you understand the process for sure.\n\r\n3.) Make a kick-ass cheat-sheet. Seriously, this is all I really did to study for the exams, and there's plenty of room to really have everything you need.\n\r\n4.) Do well on the first exam. He didn't curve it at all. I got 100 on it, and it gave me some nice cushion. Second exam is the hardest, but he also curved it by 18% this semester, and he curved the final by 14%. Additionally, 88% and above got an A I think, so the curves really help, so much that I actually ended up with over a 100% in the entire class. \n\r\nThe class is doable, if you pay attention when you do go to class, really try to the understand the material, and make a good cheat sheet. Good luck!\n\r\nYou can buy a TI-84 calculator if you want, it can come in handy in a pinch. \n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-25T15:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'Professor Lazar is hilarious, and a VERY nice guy. He was very understanding of my situation, (I\'m a commuting student who worked two jobs this past semester), and switched me to a different discussion mid-semester because of a work conflict.\n\r\nI\'d recommend this class to anyone because of the curving. I\'m just terrible at math as it is, and was not trying to get into the business school. I wanted to "challenge" myself by not taking elementary statistics- and I\'d call that a big mistake, if not for the curving Prof. Lazar did. The required avg. GPA for the class is 2.7-2.9, so grade curves are adjusted based on that. \n\r\nLearn how to use a TI-83 or 84, because it\'ll save a LOT of time. Do all the homework, too, and never miss discussion, and you\'ll be golden.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-23T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "This was arguably the hardest class I have ever taken in my life. Radu didn't really connect with the students that well so it was hard to follow his lectures. His writing was incredibly sloppy so it was another reason that it was more challenging. The only positive thing I can say is that his curves were incredibly lenient.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-21T16:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Overall I thought radu was good at presenting the material, after each class you kinda get a idea of what he's talking about. hw and discussion are meant to boost your grade so make sure that you complete all those. The only problem I had with this class are the exams i thought they were extremely challenging. I studied hard for every test and pretty much knew all the concepts and barely passed every exam. the important thing is to not fall benhind in this class. even though radu curves like crazy, if you have no idea what your doing you will fail. The exams consitute pretty much your entire grade so try not to fail too bad.\n\r\nStudying from mymathlab seldomly works. study the worksheets from discussion and review questions he gives on slides this is why going to lecture is imnportant he gives you answers to the review questions. The most important thing to study are the past exams that he gives you that's the only thing i felt helped. The problem with this class was that I felt as if i was never prepared for the exams no matter how much i studied.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-20T14:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "This class sucks so much. Professor Lazar has good intentions and trys his hardest to help you understand. But the fact of the matter is that you can barely read what he writes on the board and you won't understand any concepts he explains in class.\r\nHe goes off of his power points which are long and full of information which is impossible to write all down. He tries to put up the equations on the board, but he never explains what certain variables and symbols really mean. If you have to solve one variable to put into a second or even third equation for an answer, you have no idea how to find or compute the first variable. He also never gives examples to problem sets. He just shows you an equation and moves on. Extremely confusing class, and his tests and just as bad. I do not recommend taking this class to anyone who doesn't have to. Its boring, and might be the hardest class i've ever taken throughout my whole time in school. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-14T17:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': '\n\r\nFirst of all, this class is horribly dry and boring. That being said, Prof. Lazar MAKES THE BEST OF IT!! There is only so much you can do to make business statistics exciting and engaging. He has a lot of material to cover in a really short period of time, so class seems like it is constantly rushed. Which is pretty much is. Also, his accent is not that bad. People on this site are just whining because they didn\'t put the effort in and they didn\'t get good grades. Seriously, I don\'t feel bad at all because it\'s not impossible to get an A or B in this class! ***NOT TO MENTION HE CURVES AN UNBELIEVABLE AMOUNT***\n\r\nI am not one to cut corners when it comes to studying because I actually want to make something of my $32,000 a year education, so I put in my fair share of work and I will definitely get an A in this class (WITHOUT the curve) and I\'ve never seen stat before this class in my life. ***IT IS POSSIBLE TO GET AN A IN THIS CLASS WITHOUT THE CURVE IF YOU DO THE WORK****\n\r\nMy advice:\n\r\n1. Attend lecture. He sometimes gives out helpful hints about what to expect on the exams, and he always does extra examples on the board -- MANY of which are similar to exam questions.\n\r\n2. Do the homework, and try not to use "show an example." It sucks, but think of the extra hour or two on stat as time put forth towards studying for the exam. Because that time will add up, and it\'ll be 20 hours you already put into trying to learn it over the course of the semester rather than the night before. Easy solution. \n\r\n3. I know a kid who never went to class, (took AP stat though in high school), knew how to use his calculator, and passed every exam with an A - no curve. So... I guess if you\'ve taken it before in high school, you won\'t have to work as hard as the other students who\'ve never seen stat in their lives. Good news for those kids.\n\r\n4. Read the chapters before class! They are usually pretty short and they make his lecture soooooooooo much easier to follow.\n\r\n5. Study using your cheat sheet so you know where to find the information quickly on the exam. \n\r\n6. I used a basic scientific calculator on every exam. You\'ll probably spend more time learning how to use a TI-84 (if you\'re not familiar with it) than learning how to do the material by hand.... which isn\'t that much. I can\'t help but laugh at people who seriously think a TI-84 will help them pass this class when over half of the exam is testing concepts and understanding, not hard math.\n\r\nI never once used a TI-83 or TI-84 in this class and I got an A without the curve. Seriously, this class is doable. Also, he makes corny jokes in class and they\'re actually kind of entertaining so it isn\'t so bad.\n\r\nAgain, people who complain about it are just admitting they\'re lazy students! THIS IS A REQUIRED COURSE FOR THE BUSINESS SCHOOL, SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL GET IT OVER WITH AND BE PREPARED TO WORK HARD! \n\r\nThe book is super helpful, his accent has nothing to do with people failing this course, the class is terribly boring, but it\'s NOT impossible! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-12T00:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "First thing you need to do: Buy a TI-84 Calculator.\n\r\nJust in case that wasn't big enough for you to see...\n\r\nBUY A TI-84 CALCULATOR!!!\n\r\nYour grades in this class will be directly correlated to how well you can use the TI-84 to do the problems on the tests. If you do not know how to use the calculator, take the time to search for tutorials online or ask a friend who knew how to teach you. I wish I was kidding about how much you will need the calculator for the tests but I'm completely serious. \n\r\nNow that the most vital piece of information is noted, let's move on to the structure of the class. The lectures will start with some very easy statistic stuff in the beginning but the difficulty will ramp up steeply after the drop date is over, no coincidence there. Try not to miss the lectures even if you are bored in the class, missing one will put you behind significantly. Learning stuff from the lectures the first time will be difficult so make sure to do practice problems from the book to understand the concepts right away. \n\r\nDiscussion sections are NOT optional. You need to go to all of them. Although he will give you 2 free days, I recommend saving them up for when you REALLY need to skip them. You're going to need every points you can get. Same goes for homeworks, he will drop the lowest 2. The thing with homeworks is that you do them online and can view similar problems that basically tells you how to do the problem. So there's no reason you should get anything other than at least 90% in every single homework. \n\r\nNow we come to the most important part of the class, the exams. I will tell you now that the exams are VERY HARD. He will give out a sample exam before the exam and I highly recommend you understand everything in the sample exam. If you do not understand some questions, DO NOT put them off. Try to learn how to solve them as soon as possible. This is where the TI-84 will be your savior. If you try to do problems manually from the way he teach, you will waste a lot of time and prone to making errors. The TI-84 is designed to solve those problems, USE IT! The good news is that he curves the exam and it should help out with your grades a lot. \n\r\nIf you didn't bother to read my review, here's the shortened version:\n\r\nBUY A TI-84 AND LEARN HOW TO USE IT!!!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-10T16:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "I'll make it short and simple with a full list of pros and cons. I hate to sound like a snobby *$#!, but I'm a pretty smart guy who currently has nearly a 100% in the class, and this is just how I see things:\n\r\nPROS:\r\n-Knows his material\r\n-Homework helps a lot\r\n-Tests are unimaginably simple\r\n-My TA was pretty good, idk about the others\r\n-Actively uses boards and powerpoints at the same time\r\n-Open to questions, help, convenience, etc.\n\r\nCons: This will be a long list.\r\n-Strong accent to get used to\r\n-Absolutely horrid handwriting. He writes small, slanted, crooked, even when paying attention it's hard to concentrate.\r\n-Stat Crunch is useful if you know how to use it. Plenty of people go through the class without knowing how to use it at all, and as a consequence, they don't do well. He needs to teach you how to use this instead of rushing through it in class and not showing you how things work.\r\n-Knows material a bit too well, sometimes what he says doesn't make sense at all. I can read the book for 5 minutes and understand more than what's taught in 35 minutes of the lecture.\r\n-Homework is online and has many glitches. You could end up losing points on bad rounding, missing symbols, or things that shouldn't give you no credit for. \n\r\nAnd finally:\r\nThis class doesn't help much at all. Since he allows us to use one page cheat sheets (two page for final) front and back, I can make a very elaborate cheat sheet, give it to a 5th grader, and that 5th grader could probably get an A or B. At the end of this course, most people won't walk out with much knowledge of statistics. They'll know a few things, but they'll learn them [b]using stat-crunch or technology, things we can't use in the real world without looking like an inexperienced college student.[/b]\n\r\nThough sometimes tests focus too much on small things. Half of one of the midterms focused on something we spent 2 classes on. The other half is something we spent almost 10 classes on. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-07T13:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230B', 'review': "He's not a bad teacher, Radu curves things like crazy. It's mainly on the student to learn the material though since he cannot take too much time to cover it in class. There's a lot to learn, so he flies during class. -There's nothing he can do about it.- \n\r\nWord of advise, DO NOT GET BEHIND ON READING. I failed the first midterm with a 53% thinking I would be good with my reference sheet. WRONG. I had no idea how to use the formulas. AP stat is nothing like this, you can get an understanding of the material from prior stat classes, but do not understand it to the degree he tests you on. \n\r\nRead the book daily. He is not kidding when he tells you to study at least 5 hours a week. Just read the book, take notes, and do the mystatlab homeworks and a few practice problems and you'll be good. \n\r\nBe prepared to work. Learn how to use your calculator for all of your T-test, and interval tests, it's your best friend. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-11-30T22:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Radu is not only a terrible professor but also a terrible person. He breezes through material in class, and though most people blame his thick accent, it is his indifference to his students success that makes people hate him. I went to his office hours countless times and he became offensive about my character and commitment to success. The TA's were terrible. Mine did not add any sort of help whatsoever. AVOID HIM TAKE THIS CLASS AT COMMUNITY COLLEGE/ELSEWHERE HE SUCKS. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-11-20T20:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Most people complain about this guy, though he is really not that bad. Sure he has an accent, but he knows what hes talking about. Hes definitely not the best professor but certainly not the worst. Actually, he's really generous when it comes to grades. Like people before me said, make sure to do well on the first test, it can carry you the rest of the semester. I got a 100 with the curve on the first test and 60s without the curve on the second test and final and managed to come out of the class with an A-, so really anyone can do it. The class is hard, just read the book, know how to use your calculator and write everything on the reference sheets!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-20T19:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230B', 'review': "I hated this class.\r\nHonestly the WORST class I've taken at Maryland, and that is saying a lot.\n\r\nHis notes in lecture are so sloppy you feel like you're looking at a 2 year old's writing\r\nThe exams are so hard. Actually, they are extremely hard - and that is because he bases them off whatever is running through his mind at the time. They do not relate to the homework, and do not relate to the discussions either. \n\r\nI never took statistics prior to coming to this class, but was told that its not that bad of a class - that was until I got Radu.\n\r\nHis accent isn't bad, you can understand him well, that's not the problem.\r\nIt's just his tests.\r\nEven the cheat sheets that he allows does not really help because yes we can have formula's on there, but the way he writes his questions makes it hard for us to know when to use the formula's.\n\r\nI went to every class, BUT fell asleep 8 out of 10 times.\n\r\nGlad I never have to take statistics again *wipes head*", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2011-05-19T14:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "One of the big themes you may have realized by reading other people’s reviews is that Radu frequently complains how all of his students think he’s bad/horrible at teaching. In my opinion, he’s definitely not the best professor at teaching, but he’s certainly not the worst. To his credit, Stat is a difficult course to teach and learn, because Stat is ALL formulas and numbers, so unless students devote some attention to the class, there’s no way to do well. However, because students often don’t give a lot of attention to classes, students typically do badly, and then start blaming the professor for their performance. Also, I think a huge thing that contributed to people’s bad review about him first semester was that he didn’t give practice exams because it was his first semester teaching at UMD. In my semester though, he gave our class first semester’s exams, giving us a good idea of what the exams will be on. Having never taken Stat before in my life though and getting an A (and I’m not good at math or anything), I can personally say that Radu is not bad. \n\r\nOne thing Radu is REALLY good at is CURVES. He curves A LOT. My semester, he curved the first exam by 3/35 points (~9%), the second exam by 3/25 points (12%), and the final exam by 3/30 points (10%). On top of that, he even curved the entire class, making an A anything above 87% in the class, a B from 78-87%, a C from 64-78%, a D from 48-64%, and an F below 48%. With this much curve, he certainly eliminates any wrongdoing on his part in my opinion. I certainly don’t think that he’s so bad that even with his curves it’s still his fault of doing bad. He actually really does respect his students performance and cares about how well his students do.\n\r\nIn terms of what you’ll be doing during the semester, the three things that make up your grade are homework, discussion, and the exams. Homework is due every week, with 11 assignments in total (the lowest two are dropped). The homework can take anywhere between 30 minutes for easy ones and 90 minutes for hard ones, average is about an hour. The homework is REALLY easy to get a 100% on by looking at examples, therefore you should automatically get 10% of your grade. Discussion is also really easy to get 100%, but it is mandatory. You’re two lowest grades are dropped (so you’re able to not go twice), but after that you’ll start losing points. So as long as you go every time, you’ll get another 10% of your grade. That leaves the rest of your 80% of your grade to exams. Since there were a total of 90 questions between all 3 exams and the exams are worth 80% of your grade, each question on an exam is worth slightly less than 1% of your total grade. By doing the math, that means the class is ultimately curved by about 11% (8.137% from exams and about ~3% by lowering the grade requirements). \n\r\nTo do well in this class, I HIGHLY recommend you follow these tips: \n\r\n1. DON’T EVEN TRY TO LEARN STAT THE WAY HE TEACHES IT. BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO LEARN IN THIS CLASS IS HOW TO USE A CALCULATOR TO DO ALL THE THINGS HE TEACHES. I cannot stress how important this is. You need at least a TI-84 to do everything he teaches, I bought a TI-Nspire though which was really helpful. What calculator you have is critical. If you only have a TI-83, BUY a new calculator. As a matter of fact, I would definitely say that you should buy a new calculator before you buy the textbook. If you want to try and learn stat the way I did (by just learning how to use a calculator) then you won’t need the textbook at all. However, the code to get access to the homework comes with the textbook, so sometimes it’s worth it to get the textbook too. To be able to learn how to use a calculator though, it is really helpful to have someone you know who took AP Stat and can help you with how to use a calculator. It would be REALLY difficult to teach yourself how to use a calculator without someone helping you. Even more difficult would be teaching yourself stat the way Radu has to teach it (obviously he can’t just teach students how to use a calculator). I don’t think I would’ve had ANY chance at all getting an A by learning stat the academic way (by using formulas and stuff), I would've probably actually gotten a C. \n\r\n2. Make sure to do well on the first exam. This exam will require the least amount of calculations and is mostly conceptual (making it the easiest exam for most people). Because it’s the easiest exam, Radu curves it the least. That’s why it’s important to not screw up. \n\r\n3. Even if you want to teach yourself by just using a calculator, you should still sometimes go to class. For some reason, it definitely helps to go to class. You certainly don’t need to go to every class (unless you want to learn stat the way Radu teaches it) but you should at LEAST go to class 50% of the time if you’ve never taken stat before, trust me, it helps.\n\r\nAnd just to give some other miscellaneous information, you get to have a reference sheet where you can put anything on it (front and back) for the first two exams and for the final you get to have 2 reference sheets. Also, you get to write your answers down on those reference sheets while taking the exam and then he emails the exam answers an hour after the end of the exam so you can instantly see how you did on the exam. He uploads all the powerpoints during lecture in class too. \n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-17T01:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'He is a good guy but the class is very hard. He does make a good amount of effort to teach the material to his students, though. You really just have to go to class and read the book constantly to get a good grade, but if you do not have time because of other hard classes, you may fall behind like I did', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-15T02:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "This guy is an incredible business statistics professor. The guy knows his stuff by heart and can spell everything out for you on the board, which he does daily in class. He's got a romanian accent so he can sound like he's yelling sometimes but as he says on the first day of class and many days after, he's not yelling its just his accent. Another thing that he says many times over is that this class takes effort and honestly he's right because this is probably the hardest of the business school prerequisites to master and understand. He posts all of his lectures online on ELMS before the class so definitely print those out and bring them to class, it's so much easier than trying to write it all down and it's how I earned my A.\r\nTips to pass:\r\n1. Do all of the homework even though he drops the lowest 2, you'll understand the material much better\r\n2. Come to every class and pay attention. Like I said the man knows his stuff and if you want to do well, he's the guy to pay attention to.\r\n3. Make good reference sheets for the exam! These are very important since he lets you use sheets front and back for the tests. I made me reference sheets out of the review sessions that he did before each exam and earned As on every test. They make the difference\r\n4. Most importantly, do the practice/old exams! These pretty closely resemble the current tests and help show what you need to know greatly! Make your reference sheet first and then use it to take the practice finals and to do practice problems. It's not cheating or not helping you study since you are going to use that sheet when taking the test anyway!\n\r\nOverall, this guy is great and since you gotta take the class to get into the business school, you might as well take it with someone who cares and writes out everything you need to know. Be prepared to work hard and don't fall behind. Good luck!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-14T19:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "People need to relax with all the bad reviews about this guy. Dr. Lazar is a really chill teacher who really wants to help his students out in this class. Business statistics is really boring and can be a lot of material at times, but it's not all that bad.\n\r\nThe two midterms are difficult compared to other classes, but there were 8%-12% curves. There's weekly homework which is a really good way to review and make sure you understand what's going on.\n\r\nBe ready to work when taking this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-14T02:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'The work I put in this class is average compared to other students, but I end up getting high As in both midterms and the final, I think this is because I went to 98% of his lectures. You can\'t just think oh his accent is horrible so I\'ll skip class and teach yourself the materials later. Unless you are a super genius, it is very very hard to self-teach Stat especially after the first midterm, the long formulas in later chapters are throw you off. \r\nYes his lectures are dry, and I didn\'t quite understand any concepts during lectures, I kinda just blindly copied down his PowerPoint and his side notes, but these notes help A LOT for me to refer back when I do homework. \n\r\nTips for this class:\r\n1. Go to as many lectures as possible and write down not only the slides but also his comments on the slides (sometimes he\'ll say "this type of problem will definitely be on the exam" and it is true)\r\n2. Try to do at least part of the homework before you go to your Friday discussion so you don\'t feel like an idiot staring blankly at the practice quiz\r\n3. Make sure you know how to do every practice quiz because they are very similar to the problems on the actual test.\r\n4. Make GOOD reference sheet for the test. It\'s the worst feeling when you leave some formulas out and then you find yourself in desperate need of those formulas for a bunch of problems on the test. \n\r\nThe class isn\'t that bad. People really complain too much. I think Professor Lazar is fine, he IS trying his best to teach, so give him a break and use that energy to find out what you wrong.\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-13T15:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230B', 'review': "Radu is a really nice guy and is sincerely interested in his students but he is just not a very good teacher. I do almost everything I can do to do well in the class but the way the homework and presentations are given there just doesn't seem to be a way to study efficiently. When you do the homework try not to use stat crunch or the examples because you will have neither of these on the exam. Try not to study from mymathlab and use the ta's office hours instead of radu's because he will just talk to you about all the terrible reviews he's gotten online. If you must take this class then go into it knowing that you will have to work extremely hard just to gain a basic understanding of the material. Good luck, you'll need it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-04-26T21:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230B', 'review': '1) I have never taken Statistics before.\r\n2) I went to 70% of the lectures.\n\r\nHe\'s new, and really does care about his students. STAT overall as a subject is dry, but the discussion problems and annoying homeworks really ARE related to the exam. I have fallen asleep.\n\r\nHe moves FAST in lecture, yes. But there is too much material to cover. If you manage to keep up, it turns out he makes a lot of sense. So pre-read AND post-read and review his informative slides!\n\r\nThe Honors version of STAT gives out much, much more work. \n\r\nTips to pass:\r\n1) COMPLETE HW without "viewing example" or notes. If you can do that, you\'re set. Although, I almost always completed with notes. \r\n2) SIT IN THE FRONT. I fell asleep a couple times, and 97% of the class stares at him vacantly/on FB. Stay engaged from minute 1 and be ready when he asks for an answer. \r\n3) My TA was not good, but the discussion was great. Discussion, you work on problem sets in groups for points. Get someone smart/who took AP STAT in group. \r\n4) THE BOOK helped me close to the final. It gives a different perspective from what Lazar gives in class. \r\n5) Score big on the 1st exam, it gets harder after that.\n\r\nGood luck! If you do all this, with his curves you\'ll do fine.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-17T12:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Worse class I have ever taken in my entire life. Unfortunately it is a Gateway course otherwise I would have dropped it. Professor Lazar does not follow his lecture notes and writes sloppy notes all over the board during lecture. He flies through material making it impossible to follow what he's writing. You cannot write and listen at the same time because you're trying to distinguish what it is he's writing. The second test and final are ridiculously difficult. Yeah you're allowed reference sheets but that means nothing when you see the test. \r\nThe only bright spot in the class is that showing up to discussion gives you points and you're allowed 2 tries on each homework problem online. I went to Lazar himself for help at his office and he makes it seem like you're inconvieniencing him. When I asked a question he talks to you like you're retarded and should know the answer already. He means well but in reality he doesn't do much to simplify the material, just throws it at you and expects you to retain everything.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-14T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Terrible professor. Poor lecturer so retaining hardly any information is nearly impossible. If you take this course read every chapter and go to every single class. Whatever you do DON'T STUDY FROM MY STAT LAB. RADU makes the test in a manner in which there are almost no useful ways to study because the test questions are so different from the homework and stat lab problems. \n\r\nOverall one of the worst classes I ever taken with one of the worst professors. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-14T15:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Radu cares about his students, but he FAILS in all respects.\r\nThe test questions are completely different from what is assigned for homework or given in discussions. Therefore, you can study as long as you like, but since you don't have the proper resources to prepare (no study guide or recommended problems!), it is FUTILE.\n\r\nIn addition, the class has a focus on completing random formulas and doesn't actually enhance understanding of business statistics. It needs a major restructuring.\n\r\nLectures are an incomprehensible waste of time, so don't bother going. It won't help you out on the tests.\n\r\nAdvice: avoid him at all costs!!! This man doesn't know a thing about teaching and really won't help you understand statistics, which is truly an important thing to understand in the business world. \r\nIf you are in honors, get into the honors section. \n\n\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-14T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'Lazar is not great, but he is not awful either. I found his lectures somewhat useful, once you got passed his thick accent. The course starts out very slow and simple and finishes at a rapid and difficult pace, so you have to keep up and not fall behind. His first test was very easy, but his second had an average around a 60, which he curved to an 80. He responds well when students do not too great. Homeworks once a week were repetitive and did not offer much help for his exams, which were fairly tricky. Overall, the dislike expressed toward Lazar is more of a product of BMGT230 and not him.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-13T04:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'HARDEST CLASS I EVER TOOK! At first it seemed easy, then I realized the class covers a chapter ever week, next thing I knew we had all these equations to know which made no sense to me. The homework is not hard, but completely useless because you use stat crunch which you are not allowed to use on the exams. Luckily the class grade is curved, so even though I earned a D I will get a C. Radu goes very quickly, and you need to sit in the front row to be able to read what he writes on the board. Attendance is not mandatory which is good for those who like to skip class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-10T15:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Worse. Professor. Ever. It's so hard to pay attention to this guy with his accent. He takes a long time talking useless stuff to get to the main concept and when he does, he blazes through and expect students to understand. Everyone in the lecture is either 1. Sleeping, 2. Have no clue what's going on, 3. Feel dumber every lecture\n\r\nOh and the homework is very annoying. You have to Stats Crunch, a very difficult tool that you have to use to calculate some answers. What's the point of using stat crunch when you can't even use it on the exam? Why bother require students to use stat crunch at all?\n\r\nThe only way you learn in this class is by teaching yourself. This guy is horrible at teaching. I've had enough with Business school professors.\n\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-09T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Professor: Radu really knows his stuff and he's always repeating that his office hours are open. He doesn't really try to engage the students during class though. He puts powerpoints online as well as review problems for that chapter. Answers are not posted online so you do have to go to lecture to get those if you want. Somedays he'll go through the powerpoint fast and it's hard to learn that way but it's manageable. \r\nCourse overall: I really took a liking to stats and Radu really brought that out of me. The course overall isn't that hard if you read the textbook or find some online supplementary information regarding the lesson he's covering. Stats overall is concept wise and isn't much of a equation-plug-and-chug course. \r\nGrades/Exams: There are 2 exams, both of which were not that hard as long as you really read the question carefully and know the concepts. If you don't know the material, it's somewhat doable as some of the questions are 'common sense'. (Ex: chances of getting an even number on a dice) He curved the second exam though because the ranges were so widely spread. Helped a lot. He also allows a 'cheat sheet' where you can post any equations or concepts on a loose-leaf paper but no example problems. Comes in handy during the tests. \r\nThere are also online homeworks but he drops the lowest 2 grades out of either 11 or 12 assignments. (Right now we have 11 total). These online homeworks have a 'view an example' which is almost exactly like the problem you have to solve and really helps to give you guidelines as to how to solve the problem. These really helped me in studying for the exam. \r\nDiscussions are mandatory because attendance is taken but as long as you show up on-time to 10-15 minutes late, you can get the full attendance points. TA's also give you a worksheet you get to keep and go over it in class. These worksheets helped a lot too in studying for the exams. \r\nDaily class life: Looked at powerpoints as he went through them during class and took notes on that specific slide. Although I recommend bringing paper and pencil as well for any graphs or tables which may be hard to type at the speed he's teaching/going.\r\nOverall impression: I learned a lot and I know that I'll be using statistics later on in my academic career. Radu really knew his material and I'm glad I took it with him. To me, this is one of those work decently hard classes and get an A. Fall behind a little bit, 1-3 chapters, and you could still manage a B, granted you catch up before the exam.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-07T22:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'statistics in general was very hard for me to understand at first, especially because of the wide variety of notation. Radu moves fairly quickly through his powerpoints. several times i had to go online to check what i hadnt had time to write down. BMGT230 took alot of work but he curved both the second midterm, which most of the class bombed, and the final grade. he wants you to do well, but the subject is very tough', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-11-23T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'An online homework is assigned each week for 10% of final grade, it\'s difficult to score under a 90%. Just showing up to discussion every week is worth 10%, and he allows you to miss 2 without a reduction of the grade. 2 Midterms account for 23% each, and a final for 34%. Radu allows students a double sided 8.5x11" reference sheet for each exam, and 2 for the final. Overall, with decent amount of input and good work ethic, an A shouldn\'t be out of reach.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-11-07T18:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': "Radu is a good guy. If you attend lectures and pay attention you will learn a lot in his classes. This course is not particularly easy but it isn't too difficult if you are willing to put in a bit of work to understand the concepts.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-05-24T00:18:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': "Dr. Lazar is a hilarious teacher and really wants his students to succeed in class. Definitely take this class instead of the regular version, it's much easier.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-19T16:06:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230H', 'review': 'Professor Lazar is a great guy. He makes his class much more engaging and the concepts are easier to grasp than the regular version of 230. The tests are all multiple choice, compared to the regular class which has short answer questions. Highly recommend this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-12T15:38:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT431', 'review': 'He’s a pretty good teacher and the class is interesting. Grading is pretty tough, but he’s great at responding to student concerns.\r\n\r\nThe final was an ELMS quiz and my work disappeared right before I could submit (accidentally put the page in read-only mode). He was really understanding and reopened the exam for me. Very nice and understanding dude.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-16T14:24:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT431', 'review': "Very interesting class and Prof. Lazar genuinely cares about their students during office hours. However, this class sucked during covid as he would just upload videos and you were supposed to grasp all the content in one take,. It felt as if he was reviewing content for himself during the pre recorded lectures, for someone taking in the concepts for the first time is very hard if you don't rely on the TAs or prof office hours for help, which is not always possible to keep up when running a packed course load. I'd loved to take this class in person ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-19T20:23:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': 'I took BMGT430 and 431 with Radu during online classes, and I thought he did a great job. The courses were entirely asynchronous, so you could watch the lectures and do the homework on your own time. Sure, the class was pretty dry since it was async and Radu talks pretty slow, but I thought he did a great job of explaining different concepts. The homeworks and exams were straightforward, and you get to learn R and XL Miner for the class. I recently finished a machine learning class (CMSC422) where we learned a lot of similar topics to BMGT431, and I thought Radu really prepared me well for it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T00:19:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': "he's good at teaching and you'll do well as long as you go to class. I personally put in a lot of time into this class and I know people who put in less and did as well as me. If you feel for even a little bit that you don't know what you're doing, promise yourself that you are going to attend class regularly because it'll save you a lot of time and energy than trying to learn it yourself. He tells you what information is relevant and what isn't, so if you try to teach yourself everything, you'll waste time. TLDR go to class, study, and try.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-24T22:12:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': "Excellent no BS professor that will teach you exactly what you need to know. Don't be afraid of him, it feels like he's taking it personally when no one answers his question correctly. But he will like you if you try. Gives a cheat sheet for each exam. If you did fine in BMGT230 there's no reason you can't get at least a B in this class if you show up to class and pay attention. Homework is easy if you follow him do the stuff in R in class and his videos on ELMS. \r\n\r\nHe is a pretty funny and intelligent guy and it was a pleasure to take his class. He knows his stuff 100% (although this stuff is very basic to him, so it may seem he gets annoyed or tired of the class when people don't follow). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-31T17:47:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': 'If you have taken AP stats, the majority of the content is review content until about the last 3 weeks of the semester. He can be intimidating, however, he ultimately wants his students to learn and understand the concepts. He can be blunt, but he teaches well enough to do well on every exam. He did curve all the exams, ranging from a couple of percentages to 10%. He also allowed a cheat sheet on each exam. Making sure that you review the slides before class and attend all lectures is important in understanding the concepts, especially later on. I would recommend taking this class with Radu. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-15T16:31:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT431', 'review': "The class feels slightly less structured than his 430 class does, but just come to class and keep up with the slides. He goes over practice exams the class before every exam that are really helpful and the exams really aren't difficult. The R that's involved in the course is also pretty basic and you can just copy off of the examples he posts online. \r\n\r\nRadu comes off a little scary/harsh at first but he's actually a super nice guy-he cares about teaching the material well and explains everything pretty thoroughly. The exams are easy to do well on (in person but open note) if you study the examples he goes over and he curves them a lot.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-11T18:04:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': "Professor Lazar was a good professor, seems scary but isn't so bad. But I did terrible on the exams so take it as you will.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-05-26T00:32:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "I think he's a great guy and his principles are pretty good too. My problem was just how the class was structured. It's different than the normal Bstat with Eric in the way it's formatted. For example, we have Pearson online homework which honestly doesn't help. In addition, we cover different units than the other Bstat class. I tried getting help from a couple of friends in the other Bstat, and they didn't know what some of the stuff we were doing was. We have to learn from the Textbook before going to lecture, and it's hard to learn math from textbooks. I remember the first practice exam I took was very easy, but I got 20% below that in the actual exam. He does curve his exams, but I just think the class wasn't structured right. Took Stat100 later, and I found that many of the concepts Bstat had are very easy, but I didn't understand them when I took Bstat because it wasn't taught how they should have been.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-10-03T09:47:52.226014Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT431', 'review': "I feel like this class was pretty well-run. Professor can come off as intimidating at times, but if you show effort in the class, he becomes a lot more approachable. The exams were open-note, which was very nice. The course grade is pretty dependent on those exam scores though, so don't slack off because it is open-note.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-10T04:37:14.771901Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': "he's a good guy and means well. lectures are extremely hard to follow and blames students when the entire class is lost at the same time. spends more time explaining the math than the fundamental concepts we need to know which makes it difficult to follow. its like explaining the answer without explaining the process of getting there. wish he would slow down especially when he realizes students are not following", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2023-02-20T23:18:58.195243Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': "The worst professor at UMD. He cannot explain anything clearly and blames the students. Go to his office hours and he will act annoyed. He offers no help outside of class and you cannot read anything he writes on the board. If you ever asks questions, he will tell you he doesn't understand you. Please take someone else, I had my first ever F in a class because of him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-01T23:56:34.851825Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': 'He is the most arrogant person I ever met in UMD. He does not know how to respect students at all. Went to his OH before, he was so annoyed when I was asking him questions that he started to do some other random things. Witnessed him saying something like "I don\'t understand what you\'re talking about" for multiple times when students don\'t even finish asking their question.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-13T00:21:13.679701Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': 'Worst teacher I have ever had at UMD. He degrades students and insults them when they ask him simple questions.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-13T04:48:03.642147Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT230', 'review': "Exams are open note but obviously if you don't study you will fail. His curves are amazing and the only reason I got an A. He is intimating and moves super fast. But if you keep up with the material, do and understand the practice exams, go over and understand the practice problems you did in class, and have the formulas with you, you will be fine. Took this as a first semester freshman in freshman connection and I am not a math genius by any means and I did fine. You will be fine too if you put in the work, don't let the reviews scare you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-19T19:39:44.648388Z'}, {'professor': 'Radu Lazar', 'course': 'BMGT430', 'review': 'Yall need to relax. He knows what he is doing and is very knowledgable in the topic. He just moves quick and you cant skip class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-04-26T20:53:39.856579Z'}], 'name': 'Radu Lazar', 'slug': 'lazar_radu'}, {'courses': ['ENEE425', 'ENEE623', 'ENEE631'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Raghuveer Rao', 'slug': 'rao_raghuveer'}, {'courses': ['HONR269X', 'PHYS165', 'PHYS276', 'PHYS171', 'PHYS171H', 'PHYS798D', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS275', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H'], 'average_rating': 4.7, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': None, 'review': 'I loved this seminar!!! Class discussions were thought-provoking and interesting. The workload is very light: a one-page paper is due each week, and there is a final research paper (and 10 minute presentation) on a topic of your choosing that relates to science and religion. Professor Roy is a wonderful teacher who makes class enjoyable by inviting various guest speakers (such as Nobel Laureate Bill Phillips) to come and speak about their views on science and religion. Would highly recommend this seminar!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-07-02T18:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': None, 'review': 'this class was such an easy A....readings were assigned every week, but just to discuss during class and you can comment on someone elses comments so reading wasnt necessary....the one page papers due every week took me about a half hour to do and the presentation/paper at the end of the semester is on a topic of your choice and is not a big deal...\r\ngreat easy class!\r\nsuper nice very approachable professor!\r\ni highly recommend it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-23T20:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': None, 'review': 'One of my favorite professors my freshman year. Workload for HONR269X consisted of some reading (technically not checked or graded, but very good to at least not look awkward during discussions), and one short paper a week. The paper always asked for a brief summary of the last reading/presentation while incorporating your own thoughts on the matter. Professor Roy brings many guest speakers in to talk. One pet peeve I ran into was that the word "interesting" was used all-around the room at least 6 times a day.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-01T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': None, 'review': "Great professor, really nice and approachable. Class structure in a typical week was discussing assigned readings one day and listening to guest lecturers on the other day. It was beneficial to at least skim the readings for each class because a lot of the class was discussion, but reading the material is definitely manageable. The final was a paper/presentation on a topic of your choice. Overall, a good class to take if you don't mind discussion and the subject matter itself.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-19T23:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': 'PHYS171', 'review': "His reviews can get a bit dry sometimes because he reads straight from the book and covers the easy material slowly but the difficult material quickly, but he's a very approachable and nice guy, and he always treats his students with respect.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-31T00:50:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': 'PHYS171', 'review': "Great & friendly, def recc talking in class bc he's nice and does fun demos", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-16T04:31:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': 'PHYS272', 'review': 'Excellent professor, and very kind too. He curved generously and accommodated students\' needs. Be sure to take the homework seriously as it featured heavily in the exams and was used in extra credit "quizzes."', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-13T21:42:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': 'PHYS272', 'review': "Professor Raj is the best physics professor I've had YTD. He's a very kind guy, very accommodating, and does fun demonstrations during his lectures. If you just show up to class and do the homework (without putting in much more work), you can easily expect a B in 272. With regard to exams - he has a unique and refreshing take on them. He cares much more that you understand stuff conceptually than he does your ability to plug stuff in or recite formulas. Because of that, all of his exams, quizzes, etc. were open note/textbook/internet. Professor Raj would pick one question from your homework set and offer it as an extra credit quiz every Friday. I cannot stress how awesome of a professor he is.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-09T22:39:22.926002Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': 'PHYS272', 'review': 'The most pure human being I have ever met. He truly cares about students and even memorized all our names! His demonstrations are also very fun. The main downside of this class for me was that I pretty much had to teach myself everything. Dr. Roy didn’t do as much barebones teaching of the material, so there were definitely some gaps in learning. His TA was also pretty useless, so I actually ended up learning everything from the textbook, which Dr. Roy made sure was very accessible! Overall I’d recommend his class but be prepared to do some self-teaching.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T20:49:24.151021Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'course': 'PHYS272H', 'review': "I agree with everything the previous review said, so instead of reiterating that, I'll just talk about my experience in the Honors version of 272 for anyone who's curious.\r\n\r\nThe only thing that makes this different from the regular 272 class is that we have to research a specific topic related to E&M and eventually write a paper and do a presentation of what we found at the end of the semester. That's it! Every week the Honors group would meet together with Raj and our TA and we would simply share a small summary/report of our new findings that week. The schedule is very flexible and he canceled the meetings the week before a midterm so that we could study. It was a very fun experience where I learned a lot about what I like, and Raj was visibly very supportive of everyone, which was motivating. \r\n\r\nWhether you take Honors or not, Raj would be your best choice for any physics class. He is the kindest and most understanding professor I have ever had as of yet.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-20T21:50:45.424648Z'}], 'name': 'Rajarshi Roy', 'slug': 'roy_rajarshi'}, {'courses': ['ENEE645', 'ENEE446', 'ENEE350', 'ENEE244', 'ENEE350H', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE899', 'ENEE350', 'ENEE350', 'ENEE350H', 'ENEE645'], 'average_rating': 3.7273, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Rajeev is the man. He always shows 5 mins late to lecture and usually goes over but it's still chill. \n\r\nHe is the first teacher I had for any ENEE class and he made me fall in love with the material. He's a fantastic lecturer and keeps you engaged the whole time. I never got bored.\n\r\nHis exams and homeworks are fair and he works straight out of the textbook which makes it easy to get ahead in class if you desire or to look over anything you didn't understand. I personally never had to because he's a dope teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-25T19:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Had Prof. Barua for both 244 and 350, and the experience was very much similar in both. The only difference for 350 was that he did not go over concrete examples of the concepts he explained in lecture, which he reserved largely for discussions.\n\r\nHomework assignments were fair and straightforward, and exams generally were not terribly difficult, although select problems could get a bit tricky. Past exams are a must to get a look at the kind of questions he can ask.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-27T20:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': "Dr. Barua was good at explaining the material. Make sure you make it to all lectures, they are very worth it. He does, however, not repeat anything under almost any circumstance. So make sure you're awake throughout lecture.\n\r\nThe grade consists of homework (15%) , two midterms (25% each), and the final (35%). Grading is dependent on your TA; we had an awesome, fair TA this semester. Good luck! Definitely one of the best professors for this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-24T00:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE244', 'review': 'So Rajeev likes to come into lectures one minute late day after day. You can expect the same routine from his class everyday, he spends the first few minutes reviewing what you did the previous class and then moves forward from there. And he follows the order of the book, so if u miss something it is not difficult to find in the book.\r\nAs a lecturer, he is very good. He explains everything thoroughly, and uses visual aids often. \n\r\nI thought he was the best teacher ever, until i went to his office hours a couple times. He does not help at all! In lecture he explains things well, but if you cannot follow the way he explains it he just keeps explaining the EXACT same way until you say you understand.\n\r\nOverall, good lecturer and in class teacher. But not very helpful outside, and addiionally he can be very moody certain days and doesnt call on people for questions when he is ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-17T22:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Solid professor, much, much easier course than if taken with other professors. Virtually 0 workload or stress involved.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:14:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "Rajeev Barua is a good lecturer but a bad professor. \r\n\r\nPros:\r\n=>easy grader (depends on TA since I don't think he graded any of the papers)\r\n=>Good lectures (need to go to every class since the assigned book doesn't really help in studying, and 90% of what he asked in the exam were from his lectures).\r\n=>average of the class was around 80% in all the exams ( idk how though, I personally didn't too great)\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n=>not punctual (always 5 mins late to the class)\r\n=>really bad and small handwriting (had to sit in the front of the class to make sure I don't miss anything he writes since he doesn't post his notes on elms ).\r\n=>straight up disses the students if they get the answer wrong during the lecture.\r\n=>gave only 2 or 3 days to finish homework. Most of the time, he assigns the homework a week before but tells you the martial in it is not covered, and there is no way to finish the homework early. Also, he gave the last homework, which was due on the day of the final exam.\r\n\r\nformat of the class: 7 homework (2 coding and 5 problem solving), 2 midterms (covered the lecture notes), 1 final (cumulative)\r\n\r\noverall this class wasn't bad, but it definitely felt hectic because of the lack of understanding this professor had for his students.\r\n\r\n\r\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-23T18:44:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "Dr. Barua is an extremely uncaring and unmotivated professor who comes off as unprofessional. I don't know if it's because of the switch to a completely online format, but he does not respond to emails, posts lectures and assignments only a few days before they're due, and is either eating or yawning or both in all of his lecture videos.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-25T05:34:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Probably one of the most unprofessional instructors I\'ve ever had. He was always several minutes late for class, answered phone calls during lectures and let his phone ring during exams, and failed to treat students with respect when they asked or answered questions. The homework and exams usually were tangentially related to lecture, requiring you to think critically about a "shortcut" needed to solve the question, which was pretty difficult under time pressure unless you knew it right away. Additionally, most of the topics asked about on homework or on exams were not discussed during lecture, and only scratched the surface if they were taught. \r\n\r\nAs an EE major, I had very little previous knowledge on computer organization coming into the course, so Barua\'s lack of explanation and his assumptions that students knew everything already made this class much more difficult than it should be. However, I will say that his lectures were enjoyable. He is a very intelligent man, clearly has passion for computer organization and compilers, and uses many analogies to explain topics, which were useful. You success in this class will depend on your TA and asking questions during discussion. Barua views this course as an opportunity to lecture on computers, not so much explain the material for students to understand. Lectures scratch the surface, and homework and exams require complex assumptions without any prior exposure to similar questions.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-14T15:21:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "He's great! I found lectures pretty entertaining. Homeworks sometimes make you think a bit but never that hard. The final was tough but he curved appropriately.\r\nYes he does tend to come late to class but honestly it's fine, gives you a few minutes to chill and we always got through all the material anyway.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-23T02:33:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Yikes. This class turned out to be such a huge headache. Meanwhile, peers that were taking 350 at the same time but with a different professor were straight up coasting. As the previous comments mentioned, his lectures are very interesting and he is a good professor. The main problem was his exams were beyond the material he taught and he lacked compassion for students. The exam style was harsh and studying for this class really took away from time I should have spent on other classes. If you are EE major, stay away. trust.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-02-09T03:16:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Rajeev Barua', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Just a note, ENEE350 is my least ENEE course I have every taken content wise, so I will try to be mindful of that in my review. Barua was a good lecturer and is very passionate about the course, although the other reviews are true about his attitude and lateness to class. He is very direct which can come off as rude, but he genuinely wants the best for each of his students. The homeworks however were very frustrating, as they are not very relevant to the lectures and ended up feeling like a guessing game from the information from the slides. The exams were also very challenging. His lectures, while informative, never covered any type of example problems, which made the course much harder than necessary. Office hours were helpful, but you need to make sure you at least attempted the homework before hand and come with questions, and in addition he will never tell you anything close to the answers, he will just go over the necessary information and MAYBE the process. It is also worth noting that he teaches Assembly itself which is more beneficial compared to some of the other professors who teach their own coding languages imo.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-01-09T13:25:09.534963Z'}], 'name': 'Rajeev Barua', 'slug': 'barua'}, {'courses': ['BMGT878I', 'BMGT878P', 'BMGT868C', 'BMGT828P', 'BMGT878E', 'BMGT868P', 'BMGT198B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rajshree Tronetti', 'slug': 'tronetti'}, {'courses': ['MEES621', 'MEES621'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Raleigh Hood', 'slug': 'hood_raleigh'}, {'courses': ['ENGL339A', 'ENGL430', 'ENGL748E', 'ENGL289B', 'ENGL601', 'AMST328K', 'ENGL679', 'ENGL699'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ralph Bauer', 'course': 'ENGL289B', 'review': "He is a really nice guy, but his class has far too much reading. Don't take his class if you aren't going to read. I've read barely anything and am really struggling because of it. Its an interesting class but unless you want to sometimes read over 100 pages for a single class don't take this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-10-10T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ralph Bauer', 'course': 'ENGL289B', 'review': 'There is so much reading for this class. I do not recommend it. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-24T17:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ralph Bauer', 'course': 'ENGL430', 'review': 'Dr. Bauer is extremely smart and the lectures are very insightful which was surprising since the readings were so long and dry...which brings me into the content of the class.\n\r\nThe required reading for each class can be extremely hefty at times. There were a few weeks where the reading was eight hours (I read every single word), no exaggeration. The texts are also very boring narratives; if you like conservative Americans talking about conservative American things then this is definitely your class.\n\r\nTake the class, and you will learn a lot of vocabulary, history and you will adopt a new perspective on reading American texts.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-21T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ralph Bauer', 'course': 'ENGL430', 'review': "My rating would be lower but this guy is so incredibly nice. He really knows his stuff. I learned more about history sitting in his literature class than I did in some high school history classes. \n\r\nThis was a 400-level class, but I still think he expected too much from us reading wise. They were painfully long at many points during the semester. Over 100 pages a week was not out of the ordinary. The text had really small print too. He will call on you even if you don't raise your hand so try not to go to class unprepared. Every few classes we would have to answer a question and turn it in.\n\r\nIt was a class about colonial literature, but it focused too much on Spanish colonization for my tastes. We didn't get to people like Franklin until the last few weeks of the semester.\n\r\nHe gave nice leeway on paper due dates. I'd say he's a tough grader too. He required us to argue our points from a rhetoric perspective as opposed to thematic elements. I definitely did not give this class supreme effort and still managed a B.\n\r\nOh yeah, our mid-term and final were open notes and open book, but they were still intense. He required you to remember a lot of information about a lot of texts and then compare them to one another.\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-09-18T19:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ralph Bauer', 'course': 'CMLT277', 'review': 'i thought he was a decent professor but really really boring class. he knows a lot of what hes talking about, is good for answering questions, but unfortunately requires you to go to class because participation is part of your grade (20%!!!) the way they do participation is by making you answer a question near the end of lecture and handing it in. and my TA was pretty bad, i didn\'t like him at all, he tried to make lame jokes and tried to "scare" us into answering questions during discussion, it was weird. overall didn\'t really like the class, and there was WAYYYY too much reading!! [atleast 5 books, and that was only during the second half of the semester... one of the books was 700+ pages long]', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-17T21:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ralph Bauer', 'course': 'CMLT277', 'review': "I don't like reading at all, but when you come out of this class you learn a lot about history. Bauer is very helpful if you go to his O.H; he is also extremely smart so ask any questions, inc. Qs about the 2 essays and terms regarding the 2 tests. If you read and can write standard essays, you'll do fine; don't read then pay careful attention.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2008-12-29T16:01:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ralph Bauer', 'slug': 'bauer'}, {'courses': ['MATH113', 'MATH241', 'MATH341', 'MATH463', 'MATH115', 'MATH240', 'MATH461', 'MATH401', 'STAT464', 'MATH274', 'MATH241H', 'SPHL610', 'MATH115', 'STAT464', 'MATH115', 'MATH401', 'STAT464', 'MATH115', 'MATH401', 'STAT464', 'MATH401', 'STAT464', 'MATH115'], 'average_rating': 2.1463, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Absolutely the worst teaching experience I’ve had in my life. Dr. Rosca’s research better be damn good, because her teaching could not be worse. She excels at leaving students confused, upset, and totally lost. You could get an A without ever attending lecture, and by the same token you can attend every lecture and still fail if the material confuses you, as it did me. Avoid at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-17T14:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH463', 'review': "Dr. Rosca is a very good teacher. She explains very difficult concepts systematically and is always available if you have any questions or concerns. Some of the other reviews said her exams were atrocious; I don't think that's fair. Her class is all about mastery and gaining mathematical maturity. If you do the homework and THINK, you'll be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-09-01T22:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "The actual class isn't that hard, in my opinion. However, I think Rosca could have done a better job with engaging the class. She reads off PowerPoints for most of her lectures, which I thought was a bit obscure. Some of the material that was a bit confusing wasn't taught very well by her, so I had to rely on YouTube to teach me some of the concepts. She's very nice at office hours though, so go to those if you need additional one-to-one help. Although not terrible, you should probably see if you can get a different professor for Linear Algebra.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-12T20:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "She's pretty mediocre as an instructor. She does have the slides that have a good deal of the most important info in the book displayed for you, so it's a good way to guide your notes. Bring the book with you to class so you can write in notes if you fall behind the lecture. She's got an accent(surprise, surprise) and has a drab monotone, and isn't particularly good at communicating material, but she can help you in office hours. \r\nA good TA will help tremendously, but one with yet another accent, that moves through material very quickly, like mine, will leave you reeling for your book to study yourself. It's not a bad idea, anyway, since just about everything you need to know in the course is in it, and all the homework exercises are in it. \r\nI think this is in every 240 section, but watch out for the MATLAB projects. If you go in with no MATLAB experience and little to no CompSci experience, prepare for long nights of figuring things out. If you've never used MATLAB before, maybe try MATH206 or play around with it before you take this course.\r\nOne more thing: 100 points are for quizzes in discussion based on homework(12 total, 2 dropped, 10 points each), 100 for four MATLAB projects(graded out of 25), 300 for three 100 point midterms, and 200 for the final, for 700 total. One nice thing she did is if you do better on the final than on your lowest midterm (going by percentages), then 1/2 of the points you earn on the final will replace your lowest midterm, in addition to your final grade out of 200. Great for a final-exam recovery if one of your exams sucked.\r\nIn summary, she's not that good of a teacher, but she does a good job setting up the course to help you succeed if you put in the work. I couldn't avoid Rosca, as she taught every 240 section this semester, but shop around and see if there's someone better. If not, at least she's not so bad that it would worth putting off a required course that only she teaches that particular semester.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-12-23T00:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Dr. Rosca was an all around good professor. Her midterms were fair and her final was easy. She also replaces your lowest midterm with your percentage from your final if higher and drops two of the weekly quizzes. Many people do not show up to class since she teaches out of the book and uses Powerpoints also on Elms, but she was a decent lecturer. Rosca had a bad reputation from being hard the previous semester and especially hardly curving, but this semester her grades were overall higher. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-12-22T12:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': None, 'review': 'Avoid this professor however you can. A majority of people I have asked have said the same thing about her: she is a terrible teacher. Her introductions to topics give you no better understanding of the material and she often leaves you confused. If you do well in this class, it will have had nothing to do with this professor. You could miss 95% of the lectures and still get an A. I prefer a professor that could at least help me out in starting to understand the material. Only take her class if her section is the only one that fits into your schedule, otherwise, steer clear of her.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-09T03:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Dr. Rosca gets a bit of a bad rap. Halfway through the semester, she began allowing us to bring notes for the quizzes and exams. She's very responsive to concerns and set up an online forum to discuss previous exams from the testbank. Still, not much gets done during lecture. As with ANY math class, you have to study outside of class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-12-21T13:52:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'The worst teacher I have ever had. If you can avoid taking her class you probably should because she will teach you nothing and punish you for it. Had to drop the class mid-semester.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2018-11-24T03:44:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Attendance is required through daily quizzes. That wouldn't be a problem if they were worth going too. Attending lecture is no better than just reading the book and watching a Youtube video.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-01-19T00:58:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "She was a terrible professor. She has a thick accent (tee-tah!) and doesn't really teach concepts well. She is so bad at making online quizzes and has many mistakes in her pre-lecture quiz keys. Webassign was some shit too. She lets you have a cheat sheet (front and back) for exams though.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-03-14T03:29:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "This professor can't teach at all. Every time we are doing a problem from previous midterm/final exam, she always struggled to explain how to do it. I am completely loss during the lecture and review session. Only few students who are above average could follow her. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-06T18:42:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "terrible, no words to describe this lady just god awful at her job. she just doesn't even try and relies on the TAs to save the students. Save urself while you can! I would give 0 stars if I could.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2019-12-10T07:16:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "This professor is SO confusing and far from helpful when you have an issue or are confused. The only reason I am getting an A is because it is precalc and I took calculus in high school, so if you took it before it is bearable but if not, good luck. The only good thing is that after we stress out about quizzes or tests and take them, she will just cross them off and they won't count in the final grade, but it is still frustrating seeing grades of 10/10 not be accounted for. The actual course content and assignments are easy and you have multiple attempts on the majority of them so that is a plus but as for her as a professor, she is awful. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-19T21:01:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "TBH this class was pretty rough in the beginning because it was so disorganized and the syllabus was so hard to understand. Rosca was not very undrrstanding at all. And I quite frankly got a C on the 1st exam. BUT, besides all that happened before the first exam, the class started getting better! Rosca actually compensated for our needs and asks for our opinion on the format of the exam (we even got a test that was supposed to be wednesday pushes back to friday). The TA's were all extremely helpful as well as the GSS sessions were extremely beneficial especially right before an exam. On the second exam I got a 97.5 (I woulda gotten a 100 but I made stupid mistakes) and the third exam I got a 88 (there were two questions I wasnt very confident in and those were the ones I lost points on) So overall, I give a solide 4 stars to her as a professor. If it wasn't for usthe students voicing our concerns out to her a few times during lecture I dont really think those changes would actually have happened. Just make sure you study like at least a week before the exam, complete all the practice test provided, and ask questions the TA office hours because there are litterally there to help you. Lastly, she gives many opportunties for bonus points like surveys, posting on piazza, little freebie assignments. So if you fail this class its on you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-08T19:41:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Rosca wasn't a bad teacher. She knew what she was talking about, but didn't know how to explain some things so the students would understand. Most of the students taking this class already took pre-calculus or calculus before so she expects you to know or have a general understanding of the material before she teaches it. There are plenty of resources for you to pass this class. Definitely email your TA if you have any questions! ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-17T19:53:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Rosca has a bad rep, which is understandable. Her accent makes it really hard to understand her, and sometimes when she explains things it becomes even more confusing. But to anyone who has to take her class, I really recommend going to her office hours. She's really great one-on-one, and many of the confusing concepts that are presented in lectures are easily explained if you just ask. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-02-06T16:23:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Rosca is alriiiiight. Her accent is difficult to understand. The grade distribution was CRAZY. There were so many homework that counted toward like almost nothing % of your grade. She was disorganized all the time, but exams were fair, I'd say.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-04-02T03:23:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Rosca isn\'t a bad teacher... but let\'s be real, I hated this class. I don\'t think this kind of stuff needs to be taught. Once you have pre-calc 1 and 2 you should be good to move on to calc, I have no idea why a "calc prep" class is needed exclusively for UMD and I feel bad for everyone involved.\r\n\r\nI don\'t find her accent distracting. She\'ll pronounce "these" like "zees" and "those" like "zhose" and I find it kind of charming, like I\'m at Oxford or something. \r\nThere are a LOT of assignments in this class, but its ok. I bombed almost all of my tests and did the WA/Exam Prep and got 90s-95s on those and wound up managing. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-04-05T00:07:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': 'She just reads off the textbook. What she covers in 3 lectures I usually covered in 30 minutes. Stopped going to the lecture after the first week. The class is easy though, which is nice.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-27T20:13:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "The material in the class has been more like Algebra II than Precalculus from what I remember learning in high school, so take that as you will.\r\nHer accent is fine, it is hard to understand at times but mostly okay. The bigger issue is her handwriting. She does some practice problems during lecture but writes in all-caps and it's really really hard to decipher. Also since she writes with pen, if there is a mistake she'll scribble it out and it just makes everything even more difficult to understand.\r\nLecture is better off not going to. There's some quizzes in lecture but the dates are listed in the syllabus so just go then, otherwise, you're probably better off learning from Khan Academy or something else.\r\nI think that having a TA who is nice and can explain the concepts well is helpful, so if you aren't feeling good about them during the first week, definitely try switching into a different section if possible.\r\nI'd recommend to avoid Dr. Rosca for math classes if possible, but it seems like she's the only one that teaches 115...", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-24T03:25:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'Worst teacher i have ever had. Lectures are confusing and all over the place. Exams are all trick questions and her study guides are terrible for preparing for exams. Her handwriting is illegible. If you can make sure to avoid this class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2021-11-23T02:25:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "She is probably one of the worst professors you could get. Like many others have said, her handwriting is messy, the problems on her exams do not match the problems on the practice exams, the solution keys for the practice exams have multiple incorrect answers, and so on. She also has a thick accent (which I really don't mind, but if English is already not your first language you may struggle to understand what she is saying). As well, when you try to voice your concerns to her, she is very dismissive. I tried to tell her once that the solutions on the answer key were wrong and this was very misleading to students who are relying on her answers to check their work and prepare for the exam. She just seemed very annoyed and claimed that you should be able to check your work by yourself and that you shouldn't rely on her keys for the right answers. So yeah, try to avoid her class at all costs. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-04T20:08:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "Rosca is terrible at lecturing - she just reads from the textbook and whatever extra analysis or computation she provides is pretty unorganized. Thankfully, though, the textbook itself - written by the legendary Justin Wyss-Gallifent - is incredible. It's comprehensive, written well, and very simple to understand. The course content itself is really fun and interesting, and with a better lecturer the class itself would be great. I actually really enjoyed the class, but that was mainly because the content was really interesting and the groupworks/exams were relatively easy. Lectures are skippable if you time them right - there are groupworks assigned during class that are only announced during previous lectures. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-09T23:11:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'STAT464', 'review': "Not a huge fan. She's a nice lady, but I frequently leave class not understanding what we just did. Her accent isn't an issue, but she does use odd terms of speech that can complicate your understanding of topics. Her handwriting is definitely not great. On the brighter side, she did give us exams that were very similar to previous practice exams which made taking tests easier even if you have little clue what is going on. She took 4-5 weeks to return our first test to us, which was really annoying as I had no idea what my grade was until literally the drop-add with a W deadline. Overall, would definitely not take again, the class is much harder than the grade average indicates. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-15T02:02:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'She’s not as bad as most people say- the hardest part of this class is trying to understand her handwriting(which you get the hang of) and her thick accent. She records her lectures and posts them so lecture isn’t mandatory except when there are the 2-part quizzes which are in the syllabus. If you have a question she is nice to explain it, not petty like some other teachers. Home work is a bit much but helpful, Rosca is definitely a good choice.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-15T18:06:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "To be completely honest, she is not that bad of a lecturer, but people do find her lecture difficult to understand. She does tend to teach by the book and sometimes people get confused as to where she gets a certain variable and number from. But these things are clarified during the discussion lab. The two-part quizzes are not that bad as long as you study the related content. The exams are fair since most of the content is covered during exam reviews. So, I highly recommend you to participate in exam reviews sessions and don't just look at the video recordings.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-16T02:21:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Rosca as a person is not bad, but her class is the most difficult. The exams are the majority of your grade so good luck passing if you even slightly pass those. She posts the lectures online so that's a plus, but everyone in this class is down bad. We're struggling as a whole. Make sure to peer study.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-05-11T05:04:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'There are many problems with this course and the way it is structured. Rosca is difficult to follow in lecture often, and if you do not have a good TA leading your discussion session and have schedule conflicts preventing you from attending the guided study sessions - buckle up. You absolutely will need extra resources and outside help to understand the content. \r\n\r\nOutside of how difficult the material is and that you may end up teaching yourself, this course was very disorganized. Last minute changes were a regular occurrence, grading took so long I did not know how I did on one test before moving onto the next. Also the expectations of tests/assignments to receive full credit was never clearly defined and so again unless you received your test/assignment back you did not know why you had points deducted. \r\n\r\nLastly, expect strange wording of problems on assignments and tests. Some were in the textbook, but never covered in lecture or on any homework, and some were just bizarre and confusing. I can say this with confidence as I had several math TAs and another mathematics Professor say so. \r\n\r\nI did well in the course because I am naturally math inclined and I put in 100% effort. A lot of people had to drop out, many were taking it for the second time with this Professor, and many had to just accept any passing grade. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-23T22:02:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "I genuinely believe that Dr. Rosca is a nice lady, however, she is very difficult to understand at times and her handwriting is often hard to read. Sometimes she'll throw problems on tests that are not like anything on the practice exams, which sometimes makes studying feel useless. Tests are the majority of the grade, so you have to do well on them", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2022-05-23T22:10:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Rosca is by far the worst professor I've ever had in my life. Her grading policies are absolutely ridiculous, Her exams will single-handedly pass you or fail you, nothing else in the class even matters. Her lectures are completely unintelligible, she will spend 10 minutes working on one problem to get the answer wrong and have to start over. I would estimate that 60% of the class was on the brink of not passing this semester. If you can take Math120 over Math115 I would HIGHLY recommend doing so. If you do have to take Math115, do NOT take it with Rosca. I would rather take this as a summer class than tank my GPA intentionally ever taking this class in person again. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-05-24T18:24:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Rosca is a lovely lady but a terrible teacher. I retook this class because of how horrible the curriculum is with her teaching style. Lectures consist of 50 minutes of her just writing down problems followed by 3 or 4 questions from students. The lectures don't give you time to reflect on any of the work, and the homework assignments seem alien compared to what was taught in class and the discussion. This class is passable, but you have to do extremely well on all of the exams in the course since it's 20% of your grade. That's the only way to stay above water in this class, or you'll need an insane score on the final to even get up to a B. So if you can take anyone but Rosca for this class, please save yourself and do it. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-06-07T18:48:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Rosca is not a bad person, but a bad teacher. The class is very fast-paced and she skips steps when demonstrating problems, which can lead to a lot of confusion. There is also always work to do. There are pre and post-lecture work needed to be done after each lecture and exam-preps which are so annoying and can take up to hours to do. She does not curve for exams but you can have a full page, front and back, formula sheet. The discussions aren't too bad but there are quizzes in them that are apart of your grade.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-05T17:40:29.382917Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Like mentioned before. Rosca herself is not a bad person but I will most definitely say I struggled a lot when it came to her lectures. She is not clear when it comes to explaining anything at all. Its very difficult to understand her thought process and even when asking other friends they were struggling as well. The workload is a lot for this class, you are given post lectures, prelectures, and exam preps. There was no curving at all. The grading system she uses is very harsh on you. She requires you to spend 9 hours outside of lectures to study for this course. Her accent isn't that strong and its not that difficult to understand her, but her handwriting is atrocious. Extremely DIFFICULT TO READ. I really despised this class to be honest and it was the only class I did poorly in during my 1st semester. Granted I will give her the benefit of the doubt, the practice exams are extremely useful when it comes to upcoming exams. If you are taking this class (unfortunate) using the practice exams to study are extremely beneficial. GOOD LUCK IF YOU'RE TAKING THIS CLASS.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-06T21:31:37.520130Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Prof Rosca is not a bad person, but she is a TERRIBLE lecturer, her handwriting is horrible, she is hard to understand, and she often over complicates things that aren't even relevant to course material or what will be on exams. By the end of the semester, no one comes to her class because she posts lecture videos online. There are 2 part quizzes that you HAVE to attend lecture for and you only get about 5 minutes for 3 or so problems. You will spend hours doing homework on WebAssign that is a small portion of your grade, and is alien compared to actual exam and discussion quiz material. Her lectures do not line up to what is on Exams and Discussion Quizzes, the only saving grace is the study modules she releases before exams. They contain practice exams from previous semesters with solutions, and they are very similar to the actual exam, so your best bet is to study those. If you can avoid taking this class with Rosca, please do. My best advice would be to stay away from any lower level course that she teaches. (I've heard that she isn't as bad in higher level courses)", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-11T17:52:55.655819Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'She is genuinely a nice person and tries to add little math jokes here and there, and I will say she definitely knows her stuff. She is very smart. The textbook we used was great, too. However, she is really not made to be a lecturer. I think, since she\'s taught higher level math before, she might expect you to know more than you actually do. This class is definitely possible, but you don’t really learn anything in lectures. You’ll have better luck using something like khan academy to learn basic concepts, and then review the lecture recordings or use discussion time to really find out how to solve problems in the specific way she teaches it. But, my biggest mistake was that, since I already took calculus in HS and assumed I knew the material, I didn\'t try harder. You are truly on your own. If you don\'t solidify your study/practice habits before the first exam, don\'t expect to do well. It\'s crucial to understand the unit in entirety before moving on (i.e. you can\'t just study something "later" or "before the exam"). I STRONGLY suggest doing the exams she gives you or provides to you on elms; 70% of the time it\'s the EXACT same format as the exams. If you understand the basic concepts and how to do problems, as long as you do the practice exams, you will be ok. It was a frustrating experience and I was consistently frustrated following lectures, which would then lead me to give up, stop attending lecture, etc. If you\'re like me, you definitely have to be disciplined. If you learned precalculus/calculus before, don\'t expect this to be the same. I strongly recommend taking the class with a different professor. It will save you hours of outside studying if you have a professor that can teach during lectures. If you can\'t get a different professor and if you can\'t decode the answer keys (i.e. if you can\'t look at a problem and know what\'s going on without someone there telling you what\'s happening mathematically)... I really don\'t think you can pass this course. Half the reason I was able to pass was because I had prior math experience and could look at the answer keys to understand why or how something was happening. \r\n\r\nI will say that if you plan to go past MATH115, taking the class with Rosca (with it being frustrating, busy work, etc.) might not be a terrible choice avoiding entirely. Her teaching style (minus the lectures... I can\'t recall a time where I actually learned anything) will give you the critical thinking skills, time management at a college level, and definitely train you to do hard math, study, etc. I really don\'t think Rosca deserves the ABSOLUTE lowest rating because I didn\'t know how to study. She is a bad lecturer, assigns a lot of busy work, etc., but this class will teach you how to be accountable for your own learning. But then again, this is tuition money down the drain if you have to retake it.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-14T23:03:28.577344Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "Very nice person, kind-hearted, and often has a bit of humor. She clearly understands the material, but it seemed a few weeks in the class started to die down and her reviews started to make sense. Although for MATH401, the class is not particularly difficult (due to easy material and maybe Justin's notes (which the course is run on) being fantastic, so it does not matter the teacher), she made it quite frustrating. We were told to expect some 200 points of homework assigned (one every other week or so), but we were only given 3 assignments and they were all at the start and only on the first few topics. We also were told to have 2 exams with in-person and take-home portions, which we did get, however, the take-home portions were released weeks after she said they would be and the second one was due 4 days before the final. She was extremely lenient with the due dates, but that does not matter as NO EXAM GRADES WERE POSTED for the entire semester. I am not sure if this was her fault or that she did not have enough help, either way extremely aggravating.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T16:07:07.648103Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': 'After a few weeks, the entire class went downhill. I went to the lectures, but you do not need to. Very easy class. She started getting lost in lectures while reading from the textbook and sometimes just showed the textbook on the projector and read from it. We were expected to have 200 points of homework, but we were only assigned 2 or 3 in the first month, and then she stopped doing that. 2 exams, with in-person and take-home portions. Group works were fine, just had to go to them, and almost always got full credit. The exams were extremely fair compared to previous exams for the course, but we were always assigned the in-person portion weeks later than expected. The second take-home portion was released late and made due on reading day. The worst part of this class was that no exam grades have been released and I just took the final. Not one. Weird.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T16:13:42.316665Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Rosca is a very nice lady and very intelligent. But she does not know how to teach. She will often talk in circles and confuse you. She doesn't know how to simplify information so that people can understand. I HATED how much work was assigned in class that didn't help for exams and was only about 5% of your grade. For the exams, utilize the practice exams that she offers - those will help you TREMEDOUSLY on tests. IF and only IF you have to take this class, watch videos on YouTube to help explain the material. The TA's are somewhat helpful. Just be prepared to look elsewhere for proper teaching of the material. The actual Precalculus material is not difficult, its the professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-18T05:41:42.481512Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Does not teach the class accurate information at all and attending lectures is a waste of time. If you have Rosca, you will have to teach yourself every single concept. Exams are light however as they are always a synthesis of the practice exams she give yous on ELMS. TA's will be your best friend, and Rosca is still a nice person, but quite literally dog as a teacher. Put in the work and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T22:20:09.465814Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': 'Final grades were due days ago and she still has yet to grade our first 4 exams… the whole class went into the final only having homework and geoupwork grades in :(', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-28T16:29:03.103046Z'}, {'professor': 'Raluca Rosca', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': "Dr. Rosca's class was honestly a very humbling experience. Take it from someone who always earned a A- or B+ in their math classes in high school, failing the first exam was not something I took lightly. Saying you have to put in the work simply isn't enough to pass the class. You have to breathe, eat and sleep MATH115. Overall, what I recommend you do to pass the class is to average at least a 65% on all ur midterm exams and final. Also, ATTEND HER OFFICE HOURS!!! The sole reason I passed the class was due to Rosca's generous curve after she saw the amount of hard work I demonstrated every time I attended her office hours (which was about once a week). This class is definitely passable. Don't let the low star reviews intimidate you. Unfortunately you may find yourself dropping other classes for this one, but if this is a gateway math course to another one It's definitely worth it in the end.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-29T04:14:32.186645Z'}], 'name': 'Raluca Rosca', 'slug': 'rosca'}, {'courses': ['ENEE698Q', 'ENES603', 'GEMS497', 'ENEE731', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'ENEE633', 'GEMS396', 'ENEE698A', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'ENEE101', 'ENEE439M', 'CMSC828G', 'CMSC828C', 'CMSC498M', 'ENTS669D', 'ENTS669E', 'CMSC798', 'ENEE899'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ramalingam Chellappa', 'course': 'ENEE633', 'review': 'B', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-01-06T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ramalingam Chellappa', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "This guy is serious. My gripe with him is that he is not a great teacher, but aside from that, his workload and exams will test the thoroughness of your understanding of the material and really make you push your limits.\n\r\nI got a B because I didn't really do too much for the class, but to get an A you need to be exemplary. It's good, imo, it forces you to become a more analytical thinker and challenges you to rise above your comfort zone.\n\r\nBS'ing homeworks and studying the day before the exam is not going to fly here.\n\r\nI would, honestly, highly recommend this professor, but BE READY FOR SOME WORK!!!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-17T17:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ramalingam Chellappa', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': "This is just a horrible teacher but not a bad guy deal. He rushes through the material, never really takes any questions, and doesn't ever really involve the class. It's basically him just rushing through his lecture, in which he asks questions and answers them himself (though the questions really shouldn't be rhetorical).\n\r\nOne blessing is that he lets you drop your lowest test grade, and the TAs are really helpful. He also lets you use a cheat sheet on the exam, but this is pretty worthless because every probability problem is different, and unless you get lucky enough to put an exact problem on your sheet that shows up on the exam, it won't help you at all.\n\r\nI thought the book was reasonably good for this class too, but it only helps so much. From things I've heard from other students in previous semesters, though, our problems were a lot harder than theirs.\n\r\nIn brutal honesty, this is a class where you are going to either have to be born with the skill of probability or just do a shit ton of problems (over and above the homework) if you want an A.\n\r\nIt's not a bad class, but the professor could definitely do more to involve students.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-03-01T14:08:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ramalingam Chellappa', 'slug': 'chellappa'}, {'courses': ['PHYS851', 'PHYS859', 'PHYS859B', 'PHYS274', 'PHYS859', 'PHYS859D', 'PHYS859D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Raman Sundrum', 'slug': 'sundrum'}, {'courses': ['AMSC460', 'AMSC660', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'CMSC878', 'GEMS496', 'AMSC662', 'GEMS497', 'CMSC422', 'CMSC460', 'CMSC660', 'CMSC662', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC798F', 'CMSC798E', 'CMSC800', 'CMSC801', 'CMSC828R', 'CMSC828R', 'AMSC698D', 'CMSC801', 'CMSC878B'], 'average_rating': 3.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ramani Duraiswami', 'course': 'AMSC460', 'review': "Duraiswami is a VERY friendly person and a great professor (almost an Indian Winnie the Pooh!). Class periods are spent going through powerpoints of the material. He explains the material in a very down-to-earth way so that everyone can understand it easily. \n\r\nHomework tests your ability to apply the concepts in class in MATLAB. All homework is from the book, so if you don't understand either the lecture slides or the book, you can use the other one as a second resource. Homework is not BS-able, and every question is graded. \n\r\nExams do not have many questions, and thus each question is weighed heavily. The material tested is straight out of the powerpoint slides, so put as much of the slides as you can on your notesheet(s).\n\r\nGrades are as follows:\r\n25% Midterm (use one note sheet), 35% Final Exam (use two note sheets), 40% homework assignments.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ramani Duraiswami', 'course': 'AMSC460', 'review': 'make sure you know matlab before you take a class with him. his exams are straight out of his notes and not from the book. so make sure you make cheat sheets from his notes. \n\r\nhe is a very nice guy and does his best to teach you. he will extend homework due dates as long as you give him a reason a couple of days before it. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-13T12:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ramani Duraiswami', 'course': 'CMSC422', 'review': 'Friendly guy, not the best teacher or course. Curves well', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-18T07:26:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Ramani Duraiswami', 'course': 'CMSC422', 'review': "Ramani is a friendly teacher, but I don't think he taught 422 that well. Lectures were sort of boring, and he doesn't really explain concepts in an intuitive, understandable way.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-19T00:42:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Ramani Duraiswami', 'course': 'CMSC422', 'review': 'Worst taught course ever. This course was co-taught by him and David Jacobs, and I ended up skipping my other CS class to go to Jacobs\' discussions. If you have the option please take Jacobs instead. Dr. Duraiswami simply reads over slides, didn\'t truly teach anything, especially if it related to the weekly quizzes or the final, and wouldn\'t go over quiz answers because somehow we\'re magically supposed to "understand" what we were never actually taught. He also would make a lot of errors, which is perfectly human, but it was never corrected, and some of us can\'t tell what\'s right/wrong to be able to immediately correct him. As a result, I never had any real material to study off of and didn\'t learn enough to know whether what he did was actually correct or not. Also, office hours were very limiting and didn\'t help much with problem sets. Overall, poorly taught class, and would not take a course with him again.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-14T21:46:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Ramani Duraiswami', 'course': 'CMSC422', 'review': 'Lectures are handwritten, which is horrible. They request you read the textbook before the lecture, but then review it verbatim, therefore making reading the textbook feel a little frustrating. However, he is quite knowledgeable and communicates content pretty effectively.\r\n\r\nHe combines his lectures with the other professor, and it just ended up being really annoying. Especially since the other professor was significantly worse at teaching than he was.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-09T19:02:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Ramani Duraiswami', 'course': 'CMSC422', 'review': "I took this course in Fall 2021\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ Generally nice guy\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Is a meh lecturer, I do not feel as though his explanations of concepts were sufficient\r\n- Lectures are handwritten, and is often hard to read\r\n- Lecture notes are not easily available in one place, they were on Piazza but not readily organized, and half of them weren't even there.\r\n- Lecture barely helps with coding assignments\r\n- THE CLASS IS VERY DISORGANIZED! Along with what I've already said, lectures were delivered during the Tuesday morning section and the Thursday afternoon section. However, since you are only scheduled for either the morning or afternoon section, you would either have to find some way to get there in time, or (most likely), watch the lecture videos which are extremely long. They did not make it clear how exactly content was split up between both of those classes, or what quizzes were on what concepts, and it took me about a month and a half to figure out how the class was organized.\r\n- Workload is very high, even for a 3 credit CS class", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-23T19:03:29Z'}], 'name': 'Ramani Duraiswami', 'slug': 'duraiswami'}, {'courses': ['ENES317', 'ENES424', 'ENES304', 'ENES475', 'ENES099', 'ENES304'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ramsey Jabaji', 'course': 'ENES317', 'review': 'Awesome class! Ramsey offers a lot of great advice in the leadership. He is very enthusiastic and engages the class very well. He is probably the most confident and poised lecturer I have ever had here. Class consisted of group presentations and activities pertaining to leadership. Ramsey sometimes gets distracted but he is very entertaining to listen to. The 2 1/2 hour classes are rarely boring. Its pretty much a guaranteed A since Ramsey is a very easy grader, unless you don’t show up to class and don’t do the assignments. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-08T03:06:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ramsey Jabaji', 'slug': 'jabaji'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Randall Phyall', 'slug': 'phyall'}, {'courses': ['ENGL437', 'ENGL748A', 'ENGL373', 'ENGL370', 'ENGL358A', 'ENGL428X', 'ENGL327', 'ENGL289M', 'ENGL142', 'ENGL658A', 'AMST328Q', 'USLT498G', 'CMLT679F', 'ENGL301', 'HHUM329', 'HHUM105', 'HHUM206', 'HHUM328', 'HHUM329', 'ENGL358F', 'HHUM105', 'HHUM329', 'ENGL142', 'HHUM206', 'HHUM105', 'HHUM329'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "Great great teacher! I will admit at first I signed up for his class because he had the highest percentage of A's AND best reviews, but after the first essay, you find that he has made his engl301 class more difficult. It really is not an easy A. After my first submission, I was sorely tempted to drop the class, but he promised to teach us a lot, so I stuck with it. Best decision ever. He taught me so much in one semester and made it seem as though the grade really wasn't important. If a teacher can make students care more about learning than what they got in the class, then that's just amazing. I highly recommend this class! By the end, you will have improved your writing and come out still loving English. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-08-15T15:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "Ontiveros is a fantastic teacher. Be warned, though, he has made his 301 class a bit more difficult, so don't expect an easy A (the grade breakdown is therefore inaccurate, as he will warn the students on the first day of this.) I still don't regret taking this class (even though I might not get an A) just because I have learned a great deal about writing from him. He's super knowledgeable and a great teacher. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-13T03:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL437', 'review': "I loved this class and LOVED Ontiveros. He picked great texts, taught them incredibly well, and he is just an insanely intelligent, friendly, AWESOME guy. One of my favorite classes I've taken at UMD.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-18T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "Professor Ontiveros is by far one of the best professors i have had at UMD. He seriously cares about his students, and LOVES when people come to office hours. In the Literary subculture, I have found that many people take themselves too seriously and would rather hide behind a facade of intelligence than actually explain the things they think and believe -- Ontiveros is everything BUT that. He never tries to intimidate students, and seems to really love what he teaches. That said, 301 being a gateway course, he couldn't take that much liberty with the curriculum... but when he could, he did (making literary comparisons to Eminem and The Hills... unheard of, but AWESOME). Take any class with him you can, I absolutely plan on it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-08-02T18:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL479F', 'review': 'No one\'s reviewed Dr. Ontiveros yet!? Wow, he\'s a really good professor. He does everything he can to make the course inclusive by refraining from use of jargon, making grades a secondary concern, and encouraging discussion. "Literature of the Chicano Movement" is definitely one of my favorite courses at UMD. It was a real eye-opener and shifted my English concentration from Shakespeare Studies to Latino/a Studies. Ontiveros is the man. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-20T19:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'HHUM105', 'review': "Dr. Ontiveros is absolutely wonderful, and one of the nicest, most approachable, and most understanding professors you can get. This was his first semester as a part of Hohum, and I think he did a great job. Hhum105 can be a lot of work, but none of it is particularly difficult. Dr. Ontiveros actually restructured the course partway through the semester to make it easier on us, and occasionally would cancel/postpone readings or assignments to lessen our work load. The only downside to this class was the reading. The main textbook is very dense and drags on a lot. There are also many supplemental readings throughout the semester, but as long as you just push through them you're good. Other than that, hhum105 was a lot of fun, and people were always willing to participate and discuss in class. There are a couple of smaller projects and then one big capstone at the end of the semester, which counts as the final, and they are only as hard as you make them. The grading was super easy, so as long as you turn things in on time, you'll probably get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-16T21:18:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'HHUM105', 'review': "The class was pretty easy. The material was pretty interesting, but there was very little order to it. He often just kinda had assignments that were pretty random and didn't have to do much with the course itself. It seemed a lot like just having an assignment so that we don't ever not have an assignment.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-18T17:27:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'HHUM105', 'review': 'Awesome professor! He obviously cares about his students and about the course material. He offered to take students out to lunch and just talk about life, which is a really cool way to make a connection especially during online learning. \r\nThe class itself is not too difficult, and as long as you do the work and keep up with the readings (so that you can speak up in class) you should be fine. Love Dr. Onitveros, and if you have a chance to take one of his classes before you graduate do it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-20T04:20:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL142', 'review': "Professor Ontiveros is amazing! He really cares about his students and is just so open and honest that it's refreshing compared to other professors who act like their the only ones with busy lives. I also just loved the ENGL142 course but I definitely believe that it is Ontiveros who made it so interesting and engaging. I 100% recommend taking any course he teaches!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-05T00:44:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL142', 'review': "When I tell you that this guy is the goat I MEAN IT! Overall a wonderful Gen Ed to take if you are looking for an i-series. His class was really chill and I learned a lot more about maryland history and its iconic characters than I originally thought I would. He also includes a lot of discussion time in his class which makes it very easy to stay engaged. There is a pretty big capstone project at the end of the semester, however, he is very very lenient with what you do with it and he's very encouraging with that whole process. 10/10 Randy is the man.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-13T16:34:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'HHUM105', 'review': 'AMAZING PROFESSOR! SO FREAKING COOL! he is always so hip and vibey with his class. There are literally no words I could say to describe how chill this man is. Do yourself a favor, and TAKE HIS CLASSES. Although I only had him for my honors program class, I can just tell he is such a fantastic human being and would be a good professor in any course that he teachers. Randy, if you read this I just wanted to let you know that you have really nice hands. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-17T05:52:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL142', 'review': "This man might be one of the most chill professors i've had. Although the class (ENGL142) wasn't that interesting, each lecture with Randy was like listening to a ted talk (which kind of grows old tbh). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-23T21:05:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'HHUM105', 'review': "(took class Fall 2021)\r\nDr. O is really an amazing professor. I took this as a part of my Honors Humanities program (so I didn't really have a choice), but I really encourage that anyone take his classes. He is one of the kindest professors I've had at UMD. Despite having over 100 people in the class, he took the time to speak to every student one-on-one just to get to know them. It is also a very easy class, I think I ended up with something like a 99.5%, but the material is very interesting, and he took time to draw relations with the humanities and other disciplines. He is a fun guy, jokes with his students, but also respects our needs (he made the final open book).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-27T18:09:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL142', 'review': "You can tell he definitely is passionate about the class and gets really into the material. He's a nice and caring guy. Amazing professor\r\n\r\nThe class itself isn't too bad for 3 gen eds worth but compared to a normal 100 level class it is a lot of work. Mostly small assignment but a lot of them.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-11T19:39:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL142', 'review': "Class is easy, if you do the work.\r\n\r\nWork every week, but it's easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-18T03:47:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL142', 'review': "Professor Ontiveros is a really nice professor who is definitely passionate about Maryland literature and history. Unfortunately, I was often bored in this class. We spent too much time analyzing and reanalyzing the same work of fiction until we all ran out of things to say. Then the silence dragged on. \r\n\r\nWe had a few long-term assignments, but they were not difficult. As long as you do the readings, take notes in class, and watch the videos, you'll do fine on the final exam. The final is composed of multiple choice questions and one long-essay question that focuses on an overarching theme in the class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-05T21:22:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL358F', 'review': "Prof. Ontiveros is a great professor, he's really passionate about what he teaches and he gives you a good selection of material. Class isn't hard, work-wise, but make sure not to fall behind on readings.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-16T00:50:46.968421Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'ENGL142', 'review': "Quizzes are easy and you have unlimited time, to do 5 question quizzes where the answers are directly in the readings/videos. Everything else is just basic classwork, and discussions/lecture are mandatory. Had a 100 in the class before the final project brought my grade down. Final project isn't hard either", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-28T02:52:42.822315Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'HHUM105', 'review': "Prof. Ontiveros is an enthusiastic lecturer and I could tell that a lot of care went into this class. The readings were interesting and wasn't too much work. However, I often found myself frustrated by the class' disorganization. Discussion boards were not graded according to any kind of rubric/varied across TAs in the beginning which was frustrating. Throughout the semester, I also had no idea what grade to expect on each project I turned in which was not something I've experienced with previous professors. The content was also not reinforced within assignments and much of it felt randomly assigned. \r\n\r\nIn saying this, also I appreciate Prof. O's openness to talk with students about the course. I'd consider taking another, smaller class with him.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-19T19:38:12.234529Z'}, {'professor': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'course': 'HHUM105', 'review': "I took this class fall 2022. He's a cool guy. the only criticism i have is that grading, especially with discussion boards, was a little bit inconsistent. but as long as you put effort in and really do your best with your responses, i don't think it's anything too wildly concerning. otherwise, he's a cool guy and he does make an effort to ease you into academic college life. just keep up in this class (the material is a little random; i don't necessarily agree with how it's formatted but it's possible to learn all the necessary content for the exam) and make sure you study, and im sure you'll do fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-26T00:54:03.185523Z'}], 'name': 'Randy Ontiveros', 'slug': 'ontiveros'}, {'courses': ['SOCY424', 'SOCY645', 'SOCY660', 'SOCY498A', 'SOCY224', 'SOCY498R', 'SOCY230', 'AAST424', 'SOCY699E', 'MLAW100', 'SOCY699V', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY224', 'SOCY699X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rashawn Ray', 'slug': 'ray_rashawn'}, {'courses': ['EPIB698C', 'EPIB698D', 'HLTH653', 'EPIB698E', 'EPIB650', 'HLTH300', 'EPIB300', 'EPIB697', 'EPIB651', 'EPIB331', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'EPIB315', 'HLTH300H', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB463', 'EXST030', 'SPHL601', 'EPIB315', 'EPIB697', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB697', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB697', 'EPIB697'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Raul Cruz-Cano', 'slug': 'cruz-cano'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL273', 'ENGL271'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ravenna Komar', 'slug': 'komar'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rawn Boulden', 'slug': 'boulden'}, {'courses': ['THET499B', 'THET669F', 'THET499'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Raye Leith', 'slug': 'leith'}, {'courses': ['ENCH446', 'GEMS497', 'CHBE250', 'ENCH468J', 'ENCH468L', 'ENCH648L', 'ENMA489Q', 'CHBE446', 'ENES489P', 'CHBE451', 'ENSE799', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS397', 'ENCH648', 'ENCH648', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Raymond Adomaitis', 'course': None, 'review': 'he is a really good professor that care about the students. He explains everything very clearly, and make sure everyone understand the course contents. The exam is very easy, too. I THINK if your take math246 before, this course can be really easy A!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-28T20:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Adomaitis', 'course': None, 'review': "I personally thing thermodynamics is pretty hard, but with that being said, Dr. Adomaitis is a great teacher for this course because of his enthusiasm for the subject and his vast knowledge. The final exam was pretty tough, which probably dropped me to a B, but I still like him a lot and enjoy his lectures, even if I don't understand them.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-18T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Adomaitis', 'course': None, 'review': "Good professor + boring material = Boring Semester\n\r\nHe makes a sincere effort to teach the material, but when the material and the TA are both crap ass, it's near impossible to get anything out of the course. \n\r\nIt's a bullshit course, but I highly recommend taking Adomaitis over anyone else.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-19T22:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Adomaitis', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very good teacher. He always listens to the class and makes a good effort to implement what we suggest. Grades generously but still covers the required material. Very good professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-28T11:15:00Z'}], 'name': 'Raymond Adomaitis', 'slug': 'adomaitis'}, {'courses': ['ECON708', 'ECON416', 'ECON626', 'ECON878'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Raymond Guiteras', 'course': 'ECON416', 'review': "I liked Guiteras. He was a good lecturer, and I though his exams were pretty fair as well. Pretty funny guy too. Keeps the lectures interesting. \n\r\nThe only thing that pissed me off is that he would floor all test grades at a C-. That means that the moron who got a 6/70 on the first test got a C-. The tests really aren't that hard, and those idiots should just be allowed to fail. If the average is too low, just curve up the kids who actually studied and did well. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-27T15:06:00Z'}], 'name': 'Raymond Guiteras', 'slug': 'guiteras'}, {'courses': ['CCJS200', 'CCJS654', 'CCJS699A'], 'average_rating': 4.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Raymond Paternoster', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': "Paternoster is excellent!!! He's engaging and hilarious, so I thoroughly enjoyed attending his lectures. The material itself was somewhat challenging, so it takes effort to receive a good grade... Unlike other classes, however, it's not a pain to attend the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-05-19T18:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Paternoster', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': 'Professor Paternoster is AWESOME! He is hilarious and he passionate about stats. I was never really good at math but this class was easy for me. He makes it really easy to understand. I would definitely recommend him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-15T12:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Paternoster', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': "Pretty cool guy, but since its stat, not a great class. Not his fault though. As mentioned, he trips over things a lot and uses profanity which actually helps keep you involved with the material. Exams aren't too hard, just time consuming. I would recommend taking stat with Paternoster. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-06T19:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Paternoster', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': "Professor Paternoster is the Man to say the least...He makes lecture's fun through the use of his humor, interactions with students, and not to forget the occasional F word every class...As far as the course material, it is not overly difficult, but again I have a strong background in mathematics and stats so this class seemed easy to me...BUT even if you are not good at math and have never seen Stats before, trust me, you will succeed in this class as he gives practice exams before every exam, which are basically a mirror image of the actual exam...he even has a review in lecture before each exam...Overall, take Paternoster, one of the best professor's I have come across at UMD", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-01T21:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Paternoster', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': 'Well, I think he was a great math teacher, I mean I am not the best in Math but he really made it easy to understand. He tries to make the class fun! His TAs graded very leniently. Better than Johnson\'s TAs. with Paternoster TAs you got so many points for just trying. Even if you just used the complete wrong formula. They clearly arent trying to fail anyone. He was a very good teacher and I think ppl are being too harsh for him "trying" to be funny. What\'s wrong with a little entertainment in math?! Anyways, take him and you will def pass.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-22T11:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Paternoster', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': 'I really didnt like this professor at all...He isnt funny..The only thing he does that might seem a bit finny is use profanity during lecture...But when your not understanding the material you really wont find anything a laughing matter...Choose another teacher...I heard Johnson was the best...My T.A. was great though...I hate math and learning math in a big lecture like this isnt the best strategy!!! ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T14:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Paternoster', 'course': 'CCJS200', 'review': ' He has lots of funny stories, and brought his ten year old son to class once. He is a really nice guy, but his lectures are hard to understand because he gets off topic a lot (but he thinks he is on topic). And he trips over things a lot. If you are not good at math, this will be a hard class for you.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-16T23:58:00Z'}], 'name': 'Raymond Paternoster', 'slug': 'paternoster'}, {'courses': ['ENMA490', 'ENMA471', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA441', 'ENMA487', 'ENMA641', 'ENMA797', 'ENPM663', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA471', 'ENMA487', 'ENMA661', 'ENMA471', 'ENMA487'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Raymond Phaneuf', 'slug': 'phaneuf_raymond'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Raymond Ranker', 'slug': 'ranker'}, {'courses': ['ENAE464', 'ENAE663', 'ENAE457', 'ENAE667', 'ENES232', 'ENAE398H', 'ENAE488I', 'EDSP652', 'GEMS296'], 'average_rating': 3.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'course': 'ENAE457', 'review': "Had him for both 464 and 457. His 457 is excellent. His notes are self-contained and you really learn alot in his propulsions course. As long as you put the effort in this course you should get an A. \n\r\nfor 464, it was his first time teaching it and it was a bit rough. He tried to go off Dr. Yu's syllabus but didn't seem to do to well at that. The lab reports were long and tedious. However, grading was generous and more than 3/4's of the class got A's. Definitely worth the effort. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T02:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'course': 'ENAE457', 'review': 'Average professor, really. Not great, but not bad. He gets an extra star for not making us take a final exam, which was nice.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-14T02:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'course': 'ENAE414', 'review': 'Dr. Sedwick is a overall a great professor. His lectures were pretty clear and he was very helpful if you needed help on homeworks. His exams were thorough, but graded on a nice curve.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-22T05:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': 'Dr. Sedwick was overall a pretty good professor and nice guy. His lectures were sometimes difficult to follow, but he was willing to help students out in class by answering questions. I sometimes felt that I had to teach myself some of the material. The homework assignments were the most useful tool for learning the material. He gave the numerical answers to the homeworks, but not solutions. This was helpful in checking work. Quizzes were given during discussion. Most of them were pretty difficult and had low averages. Exams were fair and slightly easier than the homework problems. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-01-02T19:14:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'course': 'ENAE663', 'review': "Dr. Sedwick is one of the best professor's I've experienced. I had him for ENAE 663 as an independent study and he was very helpful whenever I asked questions concerning his lecture notes. He even set time aside to answer questions via zoom. I can tell he actually cares about his students.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-04T04:23:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'course': 'ENAE457', 'review': 'He can come off a bit snarky but understand that he really is quite helpful and is receptive to student concerns and questions. Very concise and to-the-point notes from lecture. He doesn’t really big you down with things you don’t need. The only thing is the homeworks are pretty hard but exams are significantly easier.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-17T04:00:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': 'I have a good grade in this course in spite, not because, of his teaching, and I am shocked that he has any positive reviews, since my experience with Raymond was terrible. He is an incompetent lecturer and grader, rude, and refuses to answer basic questions, telling students to just look at their notes again. Of course, if they had the answer in their notes, the wouldn\'t ask! Additionally, he has this extremely annoying policy of forcing students to take notes on his mind-numbingly boring video lectures, and then submit pictures of those notes, and still forces us to come to class where he not only takes attendance, but also gives useless, slow paced lectures which cover the exact same material as the video lectures. All of these are just some examples of his infuriating behavior. I would give this "professor" 0/5 stars if I could and 5/5 for wasting my time. Avoid him at all costs if you want a professor that actually teaches anything and doesn\'t assign endless busywork. Thank you Sedwick for making thermodynamics my least favorite class of my college career.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-07T23:08:32.840232Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': 'I had a terrible experience with this professor. Snarky doesn\'t begin to describe how arrogant he is. He was very rude and unprofessional towards me, including with direct insults. Furthermore, he had a policy where he would force us to take notes on his lecture videos and then force us to submit pictures of those notes twice a week, while still making us come to class by taking attendance. In class, he said nothing of value, only inefficiently explained example problems that he already thoroughly covered in the video lectures. He also refused to answer my questions in class about the material, instead replying, "look at your notes again," several times. If I had the answer in my notes I wouldn\'t have asked! If you want a professor who wastes your time, is rude and mean-spirited, and is generally unhelpful and wants nothing more than to satisfy his own enormous ego, this is the professor for you.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-03-22T22:10:53.504344Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'course': 'ENES232', 'review': "Sedwick, from what I can understand from friends in other sections, runs the class a bit differently. Other professors have the class set up so that you have two lectures, and a discussion with graded group work. Sedwick has it set up so that you only have one lecture and one discussion with no graded discussion worksheet. Instead, he has it so that you watch and write notes for two ~50 minute videos a week due before lecture. This comes with both upsides and downsides which I'll get to later.\r\n\r\nAs far as a lecturer, professor Sedwick has a high expectation for student engagement in the course and material, he is a strong believer in deriving formulas and understanding where they came from opposed to memorizing just the formulas. As such do not expect a formula sheet in any of the exams.\r\n\r\n His lectures mostly review the content from the lecture videos, and provide an opportunity for questions. He answers questions very thoroughly, what I would think were quick questions have gotten lengthy explanations. This means you'll definitely not come away with any misunderstandings if you pay attention, but also slows down the pace of class a bit.\r\n\r\nAs for the upsides and downsides I mentioned earlier, the lecture videos mean 12% of your grade is free points for writing notes, and you don't have to go to class one day a week. The downside is they can be very tedious and take about 40-80% longer than the videos themselves since he expects you to write all the writing on the slides verbatim for full credit, and there is a lot to copy down (granted I do tend to write slow). \r\n\r\nI think overall I have put in more time in Sedwick's class than I would have put in other sections, but came away with a better understanding of thermo as a result. Overall i'd recommend him if you are OK with a more no-nonsense type professor and want a good understanding of thermo and are willing to put in the requisite time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-20T21:20:28.380883Z'}], 'name': 'Raymond Sedwick', 'slug': 'sedwick'}, {'courses': ['UMEI005', 'UMEI001', 'UMEI002', 'UMEI004', 'UMEI028I', 'UMEI008', 'UMEI028V', 'UMEI028A', 'UMEI013', 'UMEI006', 'UMEI003', 'UMEI011', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI006', 'UMEI028V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Raymond Smith', 'slug': 'smith_raymond'}, {'courses': ['HLSC322', 'ENTM788C', 'ENTM756', 'ENTM788R', 'BSCI222', 'ENTM715', 'BSCI222', 'ENTM756'], 'average_rating': 3.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "He is extremely knowledgable in Genetics and knows almost everything. He talks very quickly and lecture is fast-paced. It's very intimidating to ask questions because he's very unapproachable. Keep up in this class- it's a lot of material to know. Exams are difficult but manageable if you study for a few hours each day the week before.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-03T12:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'hard course but he had me engaged the whole time. never boring', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-04-22T17:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "This man is so smart, it's intimidating to the point that you won't want to ask questions. He answers your questions in a way that makes you wonder why you asked him in the first place. He comes off as a cold cold person but you can tell he loves what he does. Tests are not easy but not impossible. Study well in advance because there's absolutely no room to fall behind. He talks really fast but the course has so much material that you have to stay on top of things. \n\r\nQuizes every week based on lecture, drop the three lowest scores. \r\nLabs/Case Studies/Homework - one due every week, doesn't always coincide with lecture but easy points. \r\nTwo exams and a final. \n\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-15T18:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Professor St. Leger is genius. I took BSCI222 with him last spring and I thought he was hilarious. His British accent and commentary/jokes made the material 10x more interesting. This man is incredibly smart. Tests were fair and of appropriate difficulty. Overall, I'm glad I took St. Leger. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-13T23:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'took him a couple of years ago.\r\nhe is a very effective teacher. pay attention during lecture and review your notes. he is very helpful if you go to his office hours or after class. i think this will be his last semester teaching this course so definitely take his class if you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-11T14:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr. St Leger is one of my favorite professors ever. He's a wonderful lecturer, and was very accommodating about meeting for alternative office hours. He's nice, funny, and almost intimidatingly intelligent. \n\r\nI recorded all his lectures and recopied them later, which proved extremely helpful. There's no room to get behind in this class, because there's a lot of material and he tests you on details. That being said, if you attend lectures and keep up with studying and practice problems, there's no reason not to do well in his class. Discussion was difficult, but they are coordinated by different people than the lecturers. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-07T22:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'I found it hard to pay attention, especially whenever he wore an open collar shirt. Meow.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-10-11T17:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'this man is a genius.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-29T14:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "I'd say if you need to take genetics, you should take it with StLedger. He is Amazing hands down. Knows what he's doing, entertaining, cares, is a little hyper at times, and gets a large volume of material across very easily. \n\r\nHe's a fantastic lecturer. I do agree with anonymous that he writes and talked extremely fast, but that's because he's got so much to share. He puts the skeleton of his lecture notes online so if you print or copy that out before class you can take notes on that and save yourself some wrist. \n\r\nTests weren't so bad once you figured out what exactly he's asking for. Remember case studies. Discussion actually kinda screwed me over. I had a hard TA so wound up with a lower averaging discussion than on my exams, but hey it happens. \n\r\nI actually like how there are weekly quizzes it keeps you on track since 222 is a class that's really easy to fall behind in. \n\r\nAlso, I think its fairly safe to say that at least 1/5 of the girls who go into that class had a crush on him by the end of it... \n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T12:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "I would recommend not taking st. leger for genetics. If there is another prof teaching the course, take that one. Although a lot of people like his lectures, he talks way too fast and its hard to take notes in class. he does have the lecture outlines online but do not rely only on them. There are quizzes almost every week and something due in discussion every week. The two hour discussions are pretty pointless. Quiz difficulty depends on your TA. Exam difficulty goes up from the first exam and is about equal on the 2nd and 3rd exam. On the exams there are essays, short answers, multiple choice etc. Don't start to study the night before the exam maybe a week or two before and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-05T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Professor StLeger is an excellent professor. He really knows his stuff when it comes to lecturing and he talks about current events that may (or may not) pertain to the topic at hand. He is very witty and funny; he makes a few jokes during lecture that gets the entire class laughing. Out of class, he is a very nice person, though he is a bit insane (in a good and funny way).\n\r\nHis tests were rather hard, though. All the material in his exams come STRAIGHT out of his mouth during lecture, so it will behoove you to tape record his lectures and rewrite your notes afterwards since he talks VERY fast. But, if you think you can keep up, then just make sure you write down almost everything he says (including the examples he gives in class - he will ask questions about specific examples in his exams). He usually posts his lecture notes online before lecture, so these will definitely help you take notes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-21T18:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Entertaining, goes realllly fast. Exams are from notes over the textbook. No room to get behind; sometimes two hour discussion isn't even helpful.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-27T23:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "I loved Dr. St. Leger's class. He was extremely entertaining and clear during lectures, and always included very interesting current events. He is very strict about people attending class so he will purposely include questions from class not originally on the note outlines to reward those who come to class. He recommends using a tape recorder b/c he speaks quickly. The exams are difficult but doable, just study the material well and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T00:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "He knows everything there is to know about genetics. \r\nExtremely well-read in anything remotely scientific and quotes everything from Alice in Wonderland to Proust in class. \r\nEvery lecture is extremely interesting, but also chockfull of information. You'd best be good at taking notes and a recorder has never been more appropriate. \r\nExams are not ridiculously hard, only one or two questions require any amount of writing, and they are always straight out of his lectures. If he says something is important or spends more than 10 minutes on something, it'll be on the exam for sure. And you drop your lowest grade anyway. \r\nThe final exam was unbelievably specific. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-04-25T01:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'I loved Dr. StLeger. If you have a choice, TAKE HIM! He is the most engaging professor. He gives plenty of examples and tells lots of jokes. His first exam was an easy freebie, it was 75% stuff we have learned before and I got a 95.5% (my in GPA avg as a Bio major is 2.5). I just studied once a week with a classmate. Second test was harder, I got an 80.5, but he drops one. I take the third test tomorrow, and he is like all teachers and has a ton of material on his exams, but he does honestly make them interesting. He also has LECTURE OUTLINES ready before class, and takes notes on overhead copies so if you are a bad notetaker you have a place to start. Ive never missed a class and dont plan to!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-04-17T01:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'I love this man . He is super knowledgable and his exams are very straight forward. A lot of people may say hes mean , but they just dont understand his snarky british humour ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-12T20:55:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'I love him so much and genetics . He may seem condescending but I believe it is just his british humor. He really wants kids to learn and his exams are super manageable. I made a quizlet for each one and went to his review and was fine. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-09-17T19:59:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Probably a good guy and definitely smart and organized, but I just didn't get the point of him being there. I had him in conjunction with Dr. Obrien we only had one lecture from him a week and each lecture seemed pretty disconnected from the actual course material. At a certain point I just straight up stopped showing up and it had zero impact on my grade.\r\nIt is pretty enjoyable to hear him talk though, proper British accent talking about evolution and whatnot. He says some things that still crack me up but not because he was trying to be funny. Take from that what you will.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-01T16:32:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Idk what these reviews are talking about but this man actually SUCKS. The lectures are so disorganized and impossible to keep up with, a million assignments a week, and the exams are HORRENDOUS and ask for the most minuscule details. Literally take anyone else. He’s also so so rude and unhelpful. No class has ever stressed me out as much as this one.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-04T22:25:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': None, 'review': 'Look, St Leger is smart asf. But he is such an interesting professor to have. Such a weird british dude. Exams are fine if you study through all the content. Best way is to form a study group, talk through all the material a week before the exam. As long as you know everything youll do amazing', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-09T22:23:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'i read these reviews before registering for Leger this semester and was actually excited to take his course - i was HIGHLY disappointed. genetics is my favorite topic in bio and all of the information was interesting but his disorganization and detailed exams make the whole course so stressful. during lecture he switches back and forth between two different presentations, making it difficult to take fluid and organized notes. his exams pay attention to the smallest details mentioned in lecture one time. the only way to do well on his exams are to memorize every word thats come out of his mouth. he also brings examples up in lecture and goes into the most miniscule detail, spending at least 10 minutes on them, then never brings them up again in exams or homework. the extra assignments for the class are a lot but they help your grade a TON if you can spend a decent amount of time thinking them through. my best advice would be to make friends with your TA and ask them for as much help as you can get - they did well in his class and probably have the best advice as to how to learn from someone so disorganized. i would recommend any other professor if you really enjoy or are interested in the topics of genetics because leger has seriously made me rethink my major', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-12T14:56:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "So I don't know who said st leger was a good professor because the way he teaches is just all over the place. I think half the reviews on here were students who took him well into the past, so I'm not sure if he was a better teacher back then. However, when I took him I had to do a lot , a LOT of self studying. And thank god he records his lectures because you basically have to remember everything he says. I also found it really helpful whenever he starts drawing diagrams to focus on those. One more thing is he really likes to include some history into his lectures, and the content does show up for a few questions on his exams, so either memorize those historical events or try to use common sense to figure them out, which is what I did because I literally had no time to learn about the American eugenics movement or whatever on top of all the content I had to memorize. \r\nThe good thing about him is he does give chances for free points like exam corrections and really is the only indication he doesn't want his students to completely fail.\r\nOverall, if you already have great memorization skills and enjoy dry British humor you should take this professor. For me, this class was just not it. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-18T23:54:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'St Leger is a very smart and funny chap. He enjoys calling out people in class (mainly in the front rows) for not "keeping up with the material" and things like that. All of his quirks and idiosyncrasies made class very entertaining. However, the lectures were remarkably difficult to follow. He would have two screens set up, one with Powerpoint slides and one with a document camera that showed an outline of notes, but the information between the slides and the outline often did not line up well at all. It was a scramble to keep up with these two sets of information, as well as with whatever random facts that St Leger might mention that very well could wind up on an exam. To make matters worse, he would post all the slides and outlines on ELMS, but they would be numbered in an arbitrary way that didn\'t line up with the lecture numbers. In fact, when you\'d click on the link for "Topic 11 Material," for instance, it would take you to a page titled "Topic 10 Material," so not only were the topics not well defined, but the links to the pages were all mislabeled. Trying to go back and find the slides from a specific lecture was quite the challenge.\r\n\r\nAside from the poor organization of lecture material, the biggest problem with 222 was actually not really St Leger\'s fault, but rather the fault of whoever designed the course. While St Leger taught lectures, a separate professor (Dr. Paczolt) organized the discussions. As a result, the assignments for discussion often didn\'t coincide with material from the lecture, which was incredibly frustrating. There\'d be weekly quizzes that would have questions about stuff St Leger simply had never said. The pre-exam review discussion quizzes were especially terrible, and required an excessive amount of time to figure out what was going on with them. That being said, the days when the TAs would review for the exams in discussion were very beneficial, and helped to clarify so much stuff that St Leger didn\'t explain too well. But they would sometimes introduce new stuff (like the 5 groups of amino acids) that wouldn\'t have shown up on the exams, as if it was critical for us to study.\r\n\r\nAs for the exams themselves, they were tough and certainly required a lot of studying. There is an insane amount of material in this course, and some of the questions St Leger wrote would ask very specific things about specific genes he may have only mentioned once or twice. He did provide some practice exams though, which were useful for seeing what small details might be important to study. There were no curves on the exams (nor on the overall grade), but there were extra credit questions on them, and there was also a 10 points extra credit assignment just for watching a bunch of videos he created for his online Coursera course. And on the final exam, he actually added 32 extra points from the original 200 it was supposed to be out of, so we basically got an 8-question buffer of things we could get wrong without dropping below 100%. There\'s no guarantee that he\'ll do all of these things in the future, but it\'s clear that St Leger has no issue giving a bunch of extra credit.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-21T14:57:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Raymond StLeger', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'He\'s smart but honestly too smart. He expected us to understand things we didn\'t, and never went into enough detail. Also, his rule for exams was "Anything that comes out of [his] mouth can and will be on the exam" and boy oh boy was that true. Take anyone else', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-06-22T04:06:10Z'}], 'name': 'Raymond StLeger', 'slug': 'stleger'}, {'courses': ['ENST200', 'ENST411', 'ENST441', 'ENST611', 'ENST472', 'ENST499X', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST689X', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST689', 'ENST200', 'ENST411', 'ENST441', 'ENST472', 'ENST499X', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST611', 'ENST689', 'ENST689X', 'ENST388', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST689', 'ENST200', 'ENST411', 'ENST472', 'ENST499X', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST611', 'ENST689', 'ENST689X'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Raymond Weil', 'course': 'ENST200', 'review': "My favorite professor so far, and taught my favorite class so far. He has so much experience in the field, and he brings that into the classroom to help make it engaging. However, I think that you do have to think that studying soil is fun to have fun in his class (It's something I didn't expect to do, but I definitely do now!)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-12-30T20:33:47Z'}], 'name': 'Raymond Weil', 'slug': 'weil_raymond'}, {'courses': ['GVPT388P', 'SOCY398P', 'GVPT685'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Raymond Williams', 'slug': 'williams_raymond'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM398B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rebecca Alt', 'slug': 'alt_rebecca'}, {'courses': ['BUSI610', 'BMGT818B', 'BUSM602', 'BMGT808B', 'BMGT818N', 'BMGT811', 'BMGT818R', 'BMGT818M', 'BMGT602', 'BMGT602', 'BUSM602', 'BMGT220L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rebecca Hann', 'slug': 'hann_rebecca'}, {'courses': ['ENGL398N', 'ARHU158T', 'ENGL398N', 'ARHU158T', 'ENGL398N', 'ENGL398N', 'ARHU158T', 'ENGL398N'], 'average_rating': 3.625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rebecca Holden', 'course': 'ENGL398N', 'review': 'Professor Holden was a great professor I highly recommend her class! \n\r\nAlthough there are assignments due almost every class she returns assignments in a timely manner, with feedback and is always open for discussing work.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-01-08T01:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Holden', 'course': 'ENGL398N', 'review': 'Do not take this class. She is a nice enough teacher but not when it comes to grading. She bombards you with so many writing assignments the entire semester that you are writing almost every class. She even takes attendance every class and takes points off for being late. This class took so much of my time. This class sucked.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-08T22:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Holden', 'course': 'ENGL398N', 'review': 'This is an amazing course, and Professor Holden is an excellent professor. Yes, there is an assignment due nearly every time the class meets. But the assignments build on each other and it makes sense why they are part of the course. Holden is a clear speaker and speaks with purpose in class. I learned a lot of applicable information for future jobs.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-01-02T00:19:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Holden', 'course': 'ARHU158T', 'review': 'She was very nice and helpful. The class was interesting, but the course load was somewhat heavy at times. If you love science fiction, definitely take it. I personally don’t enjoy science fiction but I ended up liking this class. She grades pretty averagely, as long as you do everything on time, participate, and follow the rubrics you will be fine. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-09T03:41:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Holden', 'course': 'ARHU158T', 'review': "I loved her and she's a great prof, but also an EXTREMELY harsh grader.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-14T17:40:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Holden', 'course': 'ENGL398N', 'review': 'Gives way too much work for a gened', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-03-09T23:20:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Holden', 'course': 'ENGL398N', 'review': 'She is a very nice professor and she is lenient with due dates due to COVID (Not sure how she will be in the future). Obviously, there is a lot of writing in this class but Holden gives ample time to complete the work in my opinion and lays out due dates that help you along the way to each final draft. Very helpful with questions and takes the time to work with each student if you need help.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T15:00:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Holden', 'course': 'ENGL398N', 'review': "it's only the third week of class and i already hate it here tbh. holden's a really nice professor but there's just SO MANY assignments, each with super long and complicated instructions that it makes it confusing for me and others with learning disabilities. i've come to dread having to do each assignment that's due almost everyday with inconsistent times. this honestly feels like a high school class but wayyy more work.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-09T04:50:24.640437Z'}], 'name': 'Rebecca Holden', 'slug': 'holden_rebecca'}, {'courses': ['HESP648A', 'HESP648B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rebecca Lower', 'slug': 'lower'}, {'courses': ['BUAC784', 'BMGT310', 'BUAC758O', 'BMGT422', 'BUAC758A', 'BUAC723', 'BUAC735'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rebecca Martin', 'slug': 'martin_rebecca'}, {'courses': ['CCJS360', 'PSYC355', 'CCJS498A', 'PSYC334', 'CCJS330', 'PSYC309Z', 'CCJS498J', 'CCJS461', 'PSYC353', 'PSYC356'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rebecca Morse', 'slug': 'morse_rebecca'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL398A'], 'average_rating': 2.7273, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "shes not a good professor...as an adjunct she works in the day and at night came in to class...sometimes late...i had her last year in the fall and i see that nothing has changed (in the reviews below)..i recieved a c- for no reason at all...she would use my work as examples and yet i got this grade, she just doesn't care and UMD should honestly fire her.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'c-', 'created': '2015-12-18T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Worst professor i had.\r\nShe had a high expectation and she didn't even show half of the professionalism she asked.\r\nShe's always late to class yet wants the students to be in their seats with the books open.\r\nFor the summer, she easily could have just scanned the book page and upload it on the elms so that we can just print or save it on the tablet for the class.\r\nThe incompetence just made us buy the book without notifying us beforehand. With 11 weeks of the first session, we had to buy the books which we barely used.\r\nShe is also a horrible teacher with horrendous chicken scratch on the board.\r\nI didn't learn anything.\r\nOverall she's just so painful and the waste of time and money.\r\nDon't ever take her.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2015-08-28T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': '☆☆☆☆☆\r\n0/5 I put 1 star because that\'s the minimum requirement to leave the review.\r\nShe is terrible.\r\nShe nearly always came late, and was unapologetic.\r\nFrom the first day, it seemed as though she expected a lot from the student and that she\'d show same kind of professionalism. \r\nHer excuse was, "It takes at least 50 minutes to get to the school".\r\nFor a few times, she came late and just walked out of the class to get something.\r\nHer teaching style is so awkward as well. She uses a board when it\'s better taught by other method. She types things when it\'s better taught by other method, etc.\r\nYou\'ll have a difficult time deciphering her chicken scratch on board and on your graded paper.\r\nShe boasts that she is a tough grader, but is never fair.\r\nWhen i asked her why i lost points, she couldn\'t justify them (which i never got any point back).\r\nEvery time i\'d ask, she had the attitude of \'Oh i don\'t wanna deal with this\'.\r\nOne time i asked what grade i received (because she rarely updates on Myelms). She said, "I can tell you that you didn\'t follow the basic requirement, which was clearly stated in the instruction".\r\nShe\'s so arrogant and insulting that even when i asked where it was stated in the instruction, she just ignored.\r\nShe returned the papers few weeks into the semester, when we already handed in quite a few, so you do not get to find out until it\'s too late how her style is.\r\nShe is so late in updating (or uploading the grades).\r\nAlso, i followed the rules and turned my phone off, never had a side conversation, was never late. \r\nShe gave me a C- for participation grade for not answering a few times.\r\nI asked her, and she said "There are many others who got that grade. Just be glad that you got some credit".\r\nShe seems to favor those who just talk a lot (and not helpfully contribute to the class). \r\nAdditionally, she occasionally sparks up a side conversation that is totally unrelated to the class material.\r\nSo, for the participation grade, just disregard your classmates and talk a lot.\r\nMany times she\'d say "Guys, i\'m an adjunct, so i\'ll be busy writing for the Washington Post, so don\'t send me an email about the assignment".\r\nShe also requires the textbook that she rarely uses.\r\nLastly, she cancelled the class because she had a silly accident in the building, and told us to come on "reading day".\r\nOn that day, she said, "Well, i hope you had a good extra time to work on your final paper. I hope no one complains about the extended day". Needless to say, she never even apologize.\r\nOn that day, she barely came on time and said "Yay~ i\'m not late!".\r\nI wouldn\'t dislike her so much if she showed a little bit of respect, but she has none. \r\nShe doesn\'t take this job seriously at all. \r\nWithout a doubt, she\'s the most horrendous professor i have ever had.\r\nShe shouldn\'t be teaching.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-08-25T11:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': '- Sit in the front\r\n- Participate\r\n- Do a good job on the light/fair amount of work that is given (it is fun work too since she will let you be creative. No papers either, just sweet projects)\r\n- Come to all the classes on time (she is lenient if you miss one or two) \r\n- Turn off your phone\n\r\nDoing all of that will lead to a good grade in the class.\n\r\nIt is also a lot of fun for an English class. In my four years at UMD this is the only class in which I have never missed a day, and not because of the attendance policy, but it was because I actually wanted to go!\n\r\nI wish I could take this class all over again. Highly recommended. \n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-04T07:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'I feel like the reviews for Ritzel are extremely mixed, which made it hard for me to choose her as a professor. From my experience, she is not biased towards women (I have no idea where that came from) and while she is consistently late for class and assignments take weeks to be returned, she grades fairly and tries her best to make class bearable. If you put effort into the class (and actually attend class), you will understand assignments and do well.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-26T00:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Worst Professor I have ever had at UMD. She doesn't grade fairly at all. When you ask her what you do wrong, she can't even tell you what is wrong with the paper. She just makes up excuses. When working in groups and the group had to pick the better example of the assignment, mine would be chosen and she would give me the lowest grade. \n\r\nI felt like I was back in high school with all of the presenting we did in front of the class. Points deducted for having your phone on your desk. \n\r\nOverall, she's just not a fair grader and definitely has her favorites in the class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-10-10T23:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "STAY AWAY!!!\n\r\nMy worst professor at UMD. She doesn't describe what she wants for her assignments but is a tough grader. If she was debating to give you a 89 or a 90, she will give you the 89 without a doubt. She was constantly late coming to class and returning assignments. She was bad in retuning emails. She has a poor teaching style. She is not helpful when providing feedback and anything I learned from this class was from the book. She is just the worst!\n\r\nSTAY AWAY!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-04T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "I'm not usually critical of professors; I do the work and get the A and I'm happy. But Ritzel's kind of a *****. It's not a dealbreaker if you need to take her section to fit your schedule but if you have a choice I'd recommend picking a different instructor.\n\r\nTo give you an idea of what I mean, she actually deducts points for showing your phone in class or coming in late. Various such zero tolerance policies are frostily written all throughout her syllabus. This is really tedious in my senior year and makes me feel like a freshman.\n\r\nAttendance is absolutely mandatory, which is ridiculous since the useful content of 393 is stretched pretty thin- unlike technical classes the X on the attendance sheet is the only thing you'll miss if you skip, but there's still a grade tied to it.\n\r\nEvery week or so there's some little thing you need to present to the class or your group. Like high school there's not really a grade attached to it; you just get an annoyed clucking and a careful Nurse Ratched scratch in the gradebook.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-27T20:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Ritzel was an amazing professor. Her comments were critical, but very fair. The same can be said about the grading for assignments. As long as decent work was produced, fair grades resulted. With music and an occasional joke, she made the class very captivating and worth attending. She does drill certain grammar items, but only to improve writing. Overall, one of my favorite professors. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-23T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "Ritzel was a great professor! She's a lot of fun and is really laid back. She tries to make the class fun with candy, videos, etc. There's not a lot of work to the class, and we always peer review each others work when there are assignments. If you want, she'll look over all of your work before you submit it so that you do well. Pretty much as long as you show up, you'll do well. Take her!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-17T03:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "I didn't have the same experience as the other reviewer that says she is sexist. I am a male too, and felt no such vibe from her. She is a great teacher, and I learned a lot from her. As a Mech E. major, i generally don't like English at all, but this class was my favorite class this semester, even though it was in Tawes. It was worth, the walk, and i looked forward to class each day. She brings many interesting aspects to the course to keep your attention, and she makes the class fun, to the point it doesn't seem like class, yet you still learn. Great teach, my favorite at UMD yet.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-12T13:17:00Z'}], 'name': 'Rebecca Ritzel', 'slug': 'ritzel'}, {'courses': ['BSGC398A', 'HACS297', 'GEMS102', 'GEMS208E', 'GEMS208F', 'EXST030'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rebecca Thomas', 'slug': 'thomas_rebecca'}, {'courses': ['ASTR380'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Reggie Hudson', 'slug': 'hudson_reggie'}, {'courses': ['GERM204', 'GERM203', 'SLLC601', 'GERM403', 'GERM302', 'GERM403H', 'GERM103', 'GERM319B', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'EXST030', 'GERM401', 'GERM386', 'GERM301', 'GERM399O', 'GERM402', 'GERM356', 'GERM204', 'GERM301', 'GERM618', 'GERM204', 'GERM301', 'GERM302', 'GERM402', 'GERM204', 'GERM301', 'GERM356', 'GERM203'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM204', 'review': 'I saw all the positive reviews, and thought this is probably how most of my classmates see/saw her. But I didn\'t have the same experience. She hated me, like I felt like she decided to pick on one student at random to hate for the semester and I was the "lucky" one. None of my classmates understood why either. She was very reluctant to teach me and often would not. I also found that I learned more from the text book and going to tutoring hours than I ever learned or could learned from her. Sometimes it was cool and she would bring us treats and once we went outside. But sometimes her teaching was very unethical. Also beware she will try and change you to a German major if not a minor at all cost, I feel like she gets a bonus of something for it. Her grading wasn\'t that bad, it was harsh but fair. Don\'t expect any sympathy or much understanding from her though and she will never coddle you. Which isn\'t a bad thing, but she isn\'t a warm or friendly person. Overall you will probably get along with her well enough after some adjustment, unless you are the "lucky" one then good luck, you will need it. If you are just coming into 204 without any previous German classes at UMD don\'t expect her to be understanding and willing to teach you things because she will just say you should have learned it in a previous class, but the tutoring hours with the TAs help with it. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-03-30T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': None, 'review': 'Excellent at her job. Highly recommend. Language classes can be such a hodgepodge of students. She is great at keeping everyone engaged and focused.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-16T09:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM302', 'review': 'I took several classes with Regina and would highly recommend her as a teacher. She clearly has a passion for teaching, which makes all the difference when engaging people at varying ability levels simultaneously. \n\r\nRegina is extremely personable and is very good at keeping students interested in the material. This was accomplished by fostering a very open environment, in which all students were highly encouraged to participate. This classroom experience allowed for a constant exchange of ideas and different perspectives. \n\r\nIf you are willing to put the effort in and genuinely want to learn, then you will definitely enjoy any class with Regina. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-06T17:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM302', 'review': "I had German 302 and German 204 with Regina in 2011, and made extraordinary progress during this time thanks to her teaching. Today, two years later, I use the language professionally. We had fascinating reading material, got an excellent overview of German literary history, and had every opportunity to expand our knowledge of the language.\n\r\nAs several commenters below have mentioned, she is quite good at managing a class with students on varying German levels so that no one is bored or completely lost. You'll notice that the only negative commenters are people who haven't mastered English; perhaps language learning wasn't their calling. You should take her classes if you are truly interested in learning the language, not if you're just lazily checking boxes on the way to graduation, because you will really be expected to apply yourself. The effort pays dividends, and is also be a genuine enjoyment.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-03-04T17:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM204', 'review': 'Regina is a good teacher! I took several German courses before. She is one of my favor, even what she taught me was actually something boring -- german grammar. So when I signed up GERM204, I thought it would be very boring at the beginning. But in fact, you will learn stuffs other than just grammar: german history, fairy tale, music, etc. You will also see she has well prepared for the topics she teach you in class.\r\nRegina did have a high standard for students, but that’s because she want you to challenge yourself. She would patiently pick up your mistakes in your writing assignment. That’s because she wants you to learn from your mistakes. Frankly, her reviews on my writing assignments helped me become more confident in writing german.\r\nRegina is fair in grading. She will talk with each student personally after the midterm exam. Tell you what to do to improve your grading. I think she is a good teacher!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-20T19:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': None, 'review': "Regina is a very knowledgeable and passionate person who very obviously loves her subject and is an expert at teaching it. She gets openly excited about certain topics in class and her excitement is contagious. She also goes great lengths to make sure she is always available to give extra help or a few words of advice. \n\r\nKnow though that while she is absolutely fair, she does expect you to apply yourself in class. You'll have to earn your grade whether you're fluent or can barely pronounce Scheiße. On that note though, she does take into account your current level, not punishing those that arn't quite as far, but are doing their best and not letting those that are quite good just glide by. \n\r\nAlso, as a side note, Regina's background just makes her more awesome. She speaks at least three languages fluently and is truly a global citizen who's seen quite a lot. A fascinating woman and a great teacher, take Regina for the course or at least get to know her. You won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-12T09:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': None, 'review': "Regina is a great teacher- I'm very surprised to see negative reviews. First of all, although her ethnicity should be irrelevant, I thought her background really benefited the class because she provided some really interesting perspectives about what it was like to grow up in a Soviet state, which is definitely important to understand if you want to fully understand modern German history. \r\nShe tries so hard to make sure everyone understands the material. There was definitely a wide range of language abilities in the class and she did her best to make sure everyone was accommodated. I wish every teacher were more like her. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-11-08T00:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': None, 'review': "I took two courses with Regina, GERM322 and German 302. Regina does have high standards for her students, but I must say Regina is very concerned about her students understanding of the material and will always make time if a student requests it. If I had a question or didn't understand a concept, she would always help me. Her lectures are never boring and you can tell she enjoys teaching. They are well researched and she made them interesting. She also has a great sense of humor and is a very happy person (which makes going to class fun). I am shocked to read the negative reviews since they personally attack her. They could not be farther from the truth and I sense jealously behind them. In sum, I would highly recommend taking a course with Regina! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-07T15:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM302', 'review': "Regina was one of the best German teachers I ever had. She spoke and taught German extremely well and was truly passionate about all of her subject material. The German literature she chose was always interesting to read, and she was really good at being available for office hours or after class for extra help. Class participation is very important to her because she wants to make sure people are really learning and comprehending the material. Her classes are not easy, expect to earn your grade! But there is no reason you shouldn't be able to succeed if you put in the effort. Also it just needs to be said that the fact that she is Russian is irrelevant and the idea that she hates Germans is honestly crazy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-02T17:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM302', 'review': "Regina is a great teacher. She has a firm handle on the material and high expectations for her students. She is very nice and open to feedback, and she grades fairly. She also has a strong passion for the language, which shines through in her lessons. I took both 302 and 322 with Regina, so I got to see her teaching both a Conversation and Composition class and a Literature class. \n\r\nThe best thing about Regina was that she pushed me to potential when I honestly wasn't working as hard as I could have been in the literature. She encouraged me to put more effort into class preparation and studying, and it really paid off for me. I feel like it was a lesson I needed at the time, and my German improved as a direct result. I wish other teachers had pushed me similarly!\n\r\nYou do need to come prepared to class (when don't you?), but what you need to have is spelled out in her syllabus. Overall I was glad to take Regina's classes and they helped prepare me for studying abroad.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-02T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM204', 'review': "Regina is a great teacher for anyone to have, and it is shocking to me to find negative reviews for her on this site. She was one of the nicest teachers I've had in any of my classes here: always understanding of circumstances, willing to help with any problems you have, and fair with regard to what she expects out of the class.\n\r\nWhen I had her for 322, it was plain that there were a few people in the class on a higher proficiency level in German than others, but she worked around that very well . Yes, she does expect the basics - attendance, attention, participation, and work/reading to be done before class - but she is not harsh about it and when you don't have the fully-correct answer to a question at first asking, she will help try to guide you to the answer if it looks like you have the idea. Even at the times where our class was not-so-good and hadn't done our reading or work as asked, she remained remarkably patient with us.\n\r\nThe German department at UMD is stocked full of great TAs and professors, and Regina is definitely one of them.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-02T16:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM302', 'review': "Well, Regina is a very incompetent teacher. I know her well (former classmate of mine). She sure doesn't know what she is talking about and I am shocked that she is really teaching. I remember several classes with her. Fact is, that she is very nervous because she doesn't know her teaching material well. I am sorry to say this, but I don't really think that you guys will learn intense enough. Yes, she is not German she is Russian and honestly I really don't understand why she is teaching German knowing that she shows hatred toward the German nation. She can be very nice, but I don't think that this characteristic will help you in your studies. Sorry, that I can't give any positive annotations. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-10-09T11:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM203', 'review': 'Germ203 is by no means an easy class, but for those interested in the German language it will be a lot of fun. The grammar and vocabulary you learn is incredibly useful. \xa0Asking for directions, checking in at a hotel and even current events are just some of the topics you will learn.\xa0\r\nI took the class during the summer, it was \xa02 hours a day for 4 days a week for 6 weeks. It was more of a German203 bootcamp rather than a class, but it was truly the most fun I have had in any class. I also learned so much in a very short amount of time. The amount of work was a lot, but once you get used to the workload it made learning the material much easier.\xa0\r\nRegina Ianozi was a great professor and made the 2+ hours everyday fun and interactive. The small class size made it an excellent learning environment. \xa0I was honestly sad when the class was over, it was truly a great experience. \r\nI highly recommend taking this class, especially during the summer, if you are interested in German or need a language class. It is an interesting language that is quite similar to English. The class teaches useful things that anyone interested in visiting or living in a german-speaking country could most definitely use.\xa0', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-09-15T11:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM204', 'review': "Regina is a sweet person. She just can't always convey the more difficult topics in a way we will understand them, like passive voice or challenging modal sentence constructions. My class was good at participating, so she liked us. She does expect you to know the chapter's material and vocab before class, so be prepared and do the relevant homework beforehand. She always told us when we would have quizzes, and we always knew what to expect on the tests. She took exercises straight from the book! I never could finish the essay part of the tests due to time, so know the chapters well to breeze through the exercises. I'm really shocked to get a B+, considering she never posts anything on elms, but she is a fair, even lenient grader. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-05-30T20:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM204', 'review': "I found Ina to be unhelpful. We had quizzes almost every day, and she would expect us to come in knowing the material for the new chapters. Her tests were too long for us to finish on time, and while she gave us extra time, it was stressful to have to rush. I did poorly on both tests, despite understanding the topics, and doing well on the homework and in-class exercises. She is open to suggestions though, and wants us to do well, so it's like she just doesn't know how to properly teach us grammar, or prepare us for her exams. Hopefully, she will ease up on us by the end of the semester, because most of us are struggling in what should not be a horribly difficult class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-11-08T23:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM302', 'review': 'A truly professional and nice teacher, but does have high expectations when it comes to being punctual and prepared for class. Tests are usually easy and she grades fairly. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-29T00:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM302', 'review': "HORRIBLE TEACHER! Firstly, shes not even a professor, she's just a TA that has too much power and little teaching skills to be giving grades. She is so insecure about her teaching skills. She stutters so much b/c she is nervous and then gets angry at the class if you dont participate. She doesnt know what she is talking about, and is very biased towards Germans. Its like she doesnt like them, but yet teaches a GERM class. (oh btw she is not german).Then she doesnt tell you what is due for homework until two days before it is due. NO organized syllabus! She would email the class on Sunday night what was due for homework on the folowing Tuesday. Also, she would extend class 10-15mins every day cause she never kept track of time. Totally selfish, like ppl dont have more classes than hers. Then the lecture consists of her reading from a powerpoint WORD FOR WORD!\n\r\nTake Moyer for this class, she knows her stuff, she is very confident, she speaks Germ beautifully and she gives you a syllabus with the homework for throughout the semester. Iaonzi is just a nervous reck that needs to pick a different career!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-22T11:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Ianozi overall is one of the more charismatic teachers I've ever had, which has its benefits and its drawbacks. She does a number of things well including being accessible outside of class (she'll give you her phone number), she also understands we're busy, stressed college students with regard to extension requests, and this was not my favorite but many people appreciate her acting as pseduo-therapist during class time. I have had Professor Ianozi my entire time at UMD, and feel that her classes are somewhere between average and hard. She generally grades fairly but all you need to do to secure a B+ is review your work and go to class. That being said, time for the negative. Professor Ianozi will attempt to convince you to declare a minor or major no matter through heaping praise on you (my case), supporting your extracurricular events, and just worming her way into your personal life. I assume this is to keep the Germ dept student numbers healthy, but looking back I regret declaring a major and feel like she swindled me. Professor Ianozi also frequently takes class time to gossip about current and former students, sometimes its about a former student who works in Germany now or a current one that doesn't hand in homework. Either way its highly inappropriate and off-topic. As one reviewer from 5 years ago noticed, she picks favorites and least favorites, and this is something you notice almost immediately. Personally having been on both sides of this its incredibly embarrassing as a favorite and leaves you feeling shitty about yourself and your German as the least favorite. For example, I have personally heard of a student being accused of plagiarism without proof for writing a good paper, and despite having her for 3 years Regina failed to remember my name. Regina also has a track record of inventing new grading methods halfway through the semester, since she assigns homework to be completed before class and then teaches that same material a number of students end up skipping. If you are one of those students that would rather not waste your time going through powerpoints you can find online you will receive an email from her detailing how you can only miss X amount of classes before you fail. Overall, I believe Regina is a caring person that knows her stuff and has love for German culture and society. However, whether it comes down to disorganization or intentional malice her classes can leave a sour taste in your mouth at the end of the semester. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-06T22:16:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM356', 'review': 'I have had Professor Ianozi (Regina) for the duration of my time at the University of Maryland (three years). I started as a German major in GERM204 with Professor Ianozi. Since then, she has left a profound impact on my college experience (as an instructor for multiple classes and an academic advisor). Professor Ianozi is kind, compassionate, and welcoming. Every semester, she highlights the importance of balancing academic/work life and personal life to her students, and this carries out into the way she conducts her courses. Professor Ianozi is talented at engaging students and making class time enjoyable. Learning a foreign language can be a daunting (and humbling) experience. Professor Ianozi creates a good balance of pushing her students outside of their comfort zones, but maintaining a safe space. Mistakes are not only acceptable, but encouraged. Professor Ianozi has a passion for educating, but tends to (purposefully) steer away from "traditional" methods such as harsh exams, impossible quizzes, and rigid assignments. These measures of progress are necessary and standard for university-level courses, but Professor Ianozi manages to intertwine less conventional approaches that emphasize the value of experiential learning (examples include conversational role-plays, self-evaluation practices, and so on). Some may not favor the autonomy Professor Ianozi offers her students. However, most find it highly rewarding (and not too difficult to succeed). Professor Ianozi is always available to provide extra help. She will go the extra mile to assist her students, IF they take the initiative. Like the majority of college classes, what you get out of Professor Ianozi\'s courses will be exactly what you put in. If you have a passion for foreign language, or even just some level of curiosity, I would highly recommend you take Professor Ianozi. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T15:50:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Ianozi', 'course': 'GERM356', 'review': "Regina is an amazing teacher, she caters to her students throughout the entire semester and clearly understands when their workload is too much. She is very flexible with assignments and she works to ensure that all her students are engaged within the classroom. I really love how sometimes she'll have class outside because otherwise we're stuck in the dark basement of Jimenez.\r\nRegina does ask a lot of her students but it's work that's doable when you're not procrastinating or pushing to the side. I personally love how she assigns worksheets and homework about the next lecture because it ensures that I come to class prepared to discuss the topic of the day. Her standards are clearly set in stone and she'll of course remind you of them if you have any questions.\r\nIn the end, Regina is looking for students who put in the work and come to class ready to participate. Learning a second (third, fourth, etc.) language is extremely difficult for some students but Regina's classroom setting and structure ensures that a hardworking student who is actively trying to learn the material will easily pass the class with a deeper understanding of the German language (& professions in the case of GERM356).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-13T18:26:56Z'}], 'name': 'Regina Ianozi', 'slug': 'ianozi'}, {'courses': ['PORT221', 'PORT378', 'PORT399B', 'PORT205', 'PORT223', 'PORT230', 'PORT207', 'PORT332', 'PORT104', 'FILM332', 'PORT228I', 'PORT405', 'PORT224', 'PORT388C', 'LASC248E', 'PORT699', 'PORT204', 'SLLC386', 'PORT409A'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Regina Igel', 'course': None, 'review': "2nd time I've had and she's awesome!! Take any class with her", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-17T19:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Igel', 'course': 'PORT223', 'review': "Professor Igel is nice beyond words. She's very understanding, and takes her time to talk to you if you need help. I will definitely take classes with her in the future.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-02T13:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Igel', 'course': 'PORT204', 'review': "Not always the most punctual professor, but certainly one who knows the material and teaches it well. I've never felt unfairly treated in her classes, and despite being ungraceful at learning new languages to say the least, I'm almost always able to follow along in class. I've learned something new every day I've been in class with Dr. Igel. Very funny, very personable professor, one of the best I've had at UMD.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-14T14:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Igel', 'course': 'PORT223', 'review': 'It is an easy A. Meaning if you go to all the classes and pay attention the A will come with limited studying. She is funny (unique sense of humor)and nice. VERY understanding person! Fun class even if your not interested in portuguese history. Easy grader and little homework. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-04T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Regina Igel', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very nice, funny sometimes too. Gives a decent amount of work for a HONR seminar (journals, quizzes, final paper, presentation midterm, and final). Easy grader as long as you write a lot. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-24T22:30:00Z'}], 'name': 'Regina Igel', 'slug': 'igel_regina'}, {'courses': ['ENST314', 'ENST214', 'ENST602', 'ENST404', 'ENST604', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST689', 'ENST689E', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST689', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST499Y', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Reginal Harrell', 'slug': 'harrell'}, {'courses': ['ECON683', 'PLCY781'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rehim Kilic', 'slug': 'kilic'}, {'courses': ['BSCI105', 'BSCI258', 'BSCI434', 'CPSP119L', 'CPSP219L', 'CPSP118L', 'CPSP218L', 'CPSF100', 'CPSF101', 'BSCI339K', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI105M', 'CPSP249L', 'CPSP259L', 'CPSP239L', 'BIOL701', 'BSCI399', 'BSCI399L', 'BIOL608V', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170', 'BSCI170'], 'average_rating': 2.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Very difficult exams. He gives a little curve before the exams but none after even if everyone failed. I do not recommend him at all. His lectures don't help except for clicker questions. You have to teach yourself using the book, and reviewing the powerpoint slides.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2015-01-30T01:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'tl;dr - Compton\'s lectures are pointless, but useful for clicker points. Read the textbook and go through past exams to do well on his exams. Do not only memorize, but also understand - he asks a lot of "what if" questions. He does curve the class. \n\r\nThe first week of class I loved Compton\'s class. I thought his lectures were interesting until I realized that his lectures were just the textbook information put straight on to a powerpoint. From that point on, I found lectures pretty pointless. I only went for the clicker points, which are super easy points because you don\'t even have to get the question right to get the points. Just attend most of the lectures. \n\r\nCompton does intentionally make his exams difficult, but they are not impossible. Contrary to what other reviews say, his exams do not require you to just memorize everything. He asks a lot of application questions as well so you really need to understand how things work as well. The best way to study in my opinion is the read the textbook chapters that will be covered on the exam and take notes (he expects you to know things in the chapter that he does not include in the powerpoint). In addition, go through his past exams and try to reason out answers and go through with a TA if you can (he doesn\'t put up the answer key for them). \n\r\nGood news is that most of his exams have a built in curve to them, and he established a curve in the being of the semester in the syllabus. I think he curved our class additionally by a few points after grading the finals.\n\r\nTips:\r\n-If they give you the option to sign up for a one credit bio discussion, you should. That was very helpful.\r\n-GSS is very helpful especially right before an exams\r\n-Read the textbook chapters\r\n-Go through past exams\r\n-Don\'t forget the MasteringBio quizzes and get the easy clicker points\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-28T19:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "He's honestly a nice guy, however he's terrible. IMO his lectures were really boring as he reads through his powerpoint. (He may add a few thing or two, and powerpoints are online). Clickers are a joke. If the 60-80% of the class gets the answer right, he would repoll and make everyone think their wrong, and then he reveals the right answer. Made no sense. (Clickers were for attendence) His tests, were hard as hell. Everything on his test requires you to know the little details of the things you have learned. You can spend hours/days studying and you'll probably get less than 60%. Even the TAs question the questions that he has on the test. (A good chunk of these questions were what ifs) I don't think he curved for our class, since I was 1% away from an B, yet my final was B-. Take only if you really love bio or if you're just good. Otherwise avoid him at all cost. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-25T19:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Compton is definitely the most difficult BSCI105 professor. That being said, his class is not difficult if you put work into it. I got a 79% on the first exam after not studying that much; however, I started studying a little bit every day and ended up with a 94.5 on the second exam, 99 on the third exam, and a 98 on the final. Walked out of the class with an A+. You have to memorize the material, but his lectures were always very interesting. If you're a bio/biochem major take him, if you're looking for an easy A then go elsewhere. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-12-28T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Many questions on his exams are tricky and aren't specifically covered in his lectures, or study guides, so it's hard to prepare for his exams. There aren't many multiple choice questions either. Gives big curve at the end of class, so just stay relatively near the class average.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-09T11:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Seriously, Compton is not as bad as people below say he is. His exams really aren't difficult at all...answering the questions does not require a deep understanding of the material. If you read the book and/or notes and can manage to remember and regurgitate the information, you will be fine. The only issue I have with his tests is that while selecting topics, he sometimes neglects the important information in favor of the less crucial, more obscure details that you might overlook. This can be a little frustrating, since you do lose a couple of points here and there on foolish things (this is offset by the curve). But overall, his expectations are fair, and his exams and grading reflect this. If you can manage a mere cursory level of understanding of all the concepts, you should earn at least a B in the class. \n\r\nOh, and as others have mentioned, he did give a substantial curve (almost too generous). I don't know what the cutoffs were, but an 81% was an A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-17T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'As everyone has said, Compton is a decent guy but his exams are RIDICULOUSLY difficult! The first exam we had, the class average was like a 50%! He tests on application of knowledge alot(like "What if" kinds of questions).He does hold reviews before each exam but I, personally, never found them useful. What I do recommend is attending GSS (guided study session) provided by a TA or getting a tutor. Do this early in the semester because if not you\'ll just be lost throughout the rest of the course!', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-15T23:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Dr. Compton is extremely hard. He covers a tremendous amount of material and really expects you to memorize it all and understand it well enough to apply it. His tests were very challenging as they were all application questions for which you really had to apply and often compare class material. He did give a decent curve, and lab does help your grade out, but his tests were just on a tremendous amount of material. If you need to take him, make sure to stay on top of your material and make sure you understand it, going through it throughout the semester. Don't wait till the day before or two his tests. Avoid him if you can, but if you can't then study hard!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-19T05:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "He was nice and easy to talk to, but covered an insane amount of information. He went through his powerpoints too fast, and expected us to learn any information he didn't teach for the tests. I would suggest taking 105 with another teacher.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-23T16:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "Dr Compton's class is a lot of fun and he is a good lecturer. His tests are really hard, but he curves a lot at the end, and all of his clickers are extra credit. He is really nice and funny if you get to know him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-06-01T18:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "I liked Compton. Struggled a bit in his class, it was kind of hard figuring out exactly what he wanted for answers on his exams but he was a good lecturer, keep you awake and listening. Very entertaining and educational. ( Likes to ask the audience questions to keep us engaged. Don't make eye contact if you don't want to answer a question...)\n\r\nHe says he does't curve. And I don't think he does, but he builds in extra credit to his exams so its essentially a curve that you have to earn. He's a very good and fair professor. Cares about his students and is realistic with his expectations. \n\r\nOverall Compton is a great professor, be ready to work though!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T12:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': None, 'review': 'Fair exams, study lecture notes.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-01T17:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Goes through lectures way too fast, it\'s really hard to glean any information. Our first midterm average was a 59 and he said we needed to "study harder," despite his poor teaching. He\'s a really nice guy, very approachable, but his exams are way too difficult given the information he presents to the class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-26T22:04:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "He's a great lecturer (albeit monotone) and knows what he's talking about BUT his exams are way too difficult. We only learn course information in the class, never how to apply it the way he wants us to in the exams. Going to multiple GSS sessions is CRUCIAL if you want to get above a 75 on his exams. Even then, his exams are just unnecessarily difficult--I highly recommend taking another professor for BSCI170.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-11-07T01:56:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "Dr. Compton means well as a professor, but can come off harsh. His lectures are a little boring but they go over everything you need to know for every exam. The class wasn't hard, just put in time before and after class, and you should know the concepts. As long as you are constantly reviewing the material, you won't have to study a lot for the exam. I never got lower than a B on his exams. Also he tests your knowledge on the concepts, not just memorization of them because he will Gove you random scenarios where you will have to apply what you've learned to correctly answer. ALSO GSS SESSIONS ARE VERY VERY HELPFUL. HIGHLY RECOMMEND--ESPECIALLY THE GSS LEADER, SAAD.\r\n\r\nHonestly I was very scared to take the class, but if you want an A and work for it, you will get it. Also there was a slight curve at the end of the semester and he dropped the three lowest grades from the little quizzes we had. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-27T17:07:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'Like many of the other reviewers have said, Dr. Compton is a nice guy but not a good professor at all. He is very monotone and just goes through slide after slide way too fast, and gets mad when no one wants to participate. He makes studying for exams difficult, as he will upload ones from previous semesters but not a key to see if you actually did well. His exams also consist of applying knowledge that is taught in lecture, but he never actually teaches how to apply in the first place. Would recommend taking a different professor.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-08T19:49:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "His lectures can be a little boring but he is very passionate about the material. The class is very easy if you put in time to study and do your homework. I highly recommend going to GSS sessions and studying the formats of his past exams since they can be challenging. There are no keys but you can email your practice answers to a TA or GSS leader to see how well you did. He also tends to give bonus points on the exams to boost your grade. Quizzes are open note and easy to get full points on. I recommend doing all the small work he gives because it will really help lower exam grades. He likes to have participation in the lectures so do not be surprised if he comes up and asks you a question, he is not mean about it either. It felt like he truly cared about his students' learning.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-02T14:56:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "When I originally signed up for Professor Comptons section of BSCI170 I was hesitant considering the reviews here and after taking his class I can reassure you all those bad reviews are right. No curves on exams, extremely hard exams, a very small amount of resources to use for studying, and very boring lectures that have me panic typing notes at a 100mph because he goes so fast. I would reccommend anyone who has to take this class to honestly try and get another one of the other BSCI professors, this guy prides himself on having class average grades be from 45% to 60% and then gives no curves because he claims you didn't study hard enough. I wouldn't consider myself a try hard student but when I am in the library 4-6 hours a day, the week leading up to Professor Comptons exams following his review guides all day something has got to give. And trust me I didn't do bad on his exams and quizzes but the structure that this class was taught in honestly made trying to learn about something interesting more of a hassle and super boring. Don't take this mans sections, even if the only other option is an 8am with a different professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-10-31T01:19:12.212357Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': "I was scared to take him after all the reviews I read. However, in my opinion, his class is merely not as bad as others describe it to be. Although the slides aren't the most interesting thing in the world, he records most of his presentations, so you can always go back and watch them which I found to be extremely helpful for exams because his exams are super specific to his presentations. Maybe his exams aren't as straight-forward as other professors, but by no means are they impossible. He gives a small curve on each exam and if you know how to study properly for them (and ahead of time), you should be completely fine. You need to put in a substantial amount of time into this class, but it is completely doable and Professor Compton definitely knows his stuff and loves biology. He can come off as a little harsh, but when you talk to him, he is very kind and reasonable.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-06T21:29:48.756603Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': None, 'review': "Rushes through slides, difficult exams, doesn't provide answer keys for past exams. He's smart but unless you have prior knowledge in bio, this class will be very difficult. Watching the recorded lectures is the only reason why I did even half-decent in his course.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-11T03:56:02.060463Z'}, {'professor': 'Reid Compton', 'course': 'BSCI170', 'review': 'The exams were very difficult but if you put in a lot of time and effort you could start to see the types of questions he was going to ask. Additionally, Dr. Compton was always available during office hours and even let you stay after they were over to answer all your questions. He was very approachable and responded to emails within hours even on weekends. GSS was very important so I would not recommend neglecting that, especially in the beginning of the course', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T19:57:02.359327Z'}], 'name': 'Reid Compton', 'slug': 'compton_reid'}, {'courses': ['HIST208B', 'LASC234', 'LASC235', 'LASC234H', 'SPAN234', 'SPAN234H', 'LASC235H', 'SPAN235'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Reid Gustafson', 'course': 'HIST208K', 'review': 'This class is not fun being honest, but he tries hard to make it as painless as possible. He is a forgiving grader and is really helpful if you have questions. From what I hear about other 208 classes, he is far nicer than most professors for this class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-12T20:14:00Z'}], 'name': 'Reid Gustafson', 'slug': 'gustafson'}, {'courses': ['BUMO714', 'BUMO794', 'BULM724', 'BMGT868D', 'BMGT868C', 'BUAC723', 'BUSI758X', 'BUSI758R', 'BUSI710', 'BUSO711', 'BMGT758E', 'BMGT758N', 'BMGT758N', 'BMGT758X', 'BMGT868D', 'BUSI710', 'BUSO711', 'BMGT758E', 'BMGT758Y', 'BUSO711', 'BMGT758N', 'BMGT758X', 'BUSI710', 'BUSO711', 'BMSO778N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rellie Rozin', 'slug': 'rozin'}, {'courses': ['ARTH360', 'ARTH466', 'ARTH275', 'ARTH658', 'ARTH488D', 'ARTH758', 'ARTH221', 'HONR248T', 'ARTH658A', 'ARTH361', 'ARTH689A', 'ARTH489C', 'WMST498B', 'ARTH221S', 'ARTH899'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH221', 'review': "She was an awesome professor. I loved this class it was very interesting. Proffesor Ater always came prepared, and had various different ways of teaching the material. She would show different videos, diagrams, a hands on demonstration, lecture, and power point. She had such passion and really made this an enjoyable class. I recommend it to anyone, and it fufills a Gen-Ed! I think the only reason I didn't get an A is because I chose a topic for my research paper that was hard to find research. When I Was having troubles though both Professor Ater and the T.A. helped me immensely. Definitely take this class if you can! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-06-03T11:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH275', 'review': "I'm surprised about all the negative reviews. The class was easy as long as you did the work, although the reading summaries were frustrating. PowerPoint slides and study guides for finals are placed online so it doesn't hurt if you miss a lecture or two and there is no textbook for this class, only a few online readings that you don't have to do. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH275', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS AS A CORE. Although Dr. Ater is very passionate about her field, this class is overwhelming & extremely excessive in the workload if you are not equally interested in African Art. For each test you are expected to remember around 40-60 vocabulary words & 30 images with all their identification information for a test that only has 5 vocabulary definitions & 5 identifications of the images, along with an essay. Not only is studying for the tests insane, but you also have reading summaries to do which can be extremely long like 20-30 pgs of reading to summarize them in 1 page, which is ridiculous. 3 tests including the final(final not cumulative), 1 paper (3 pgs), 4 reading summaries (1 pg each) are your grades. Like I said before, if you LOVE African art, take this...otherwise STAY AWAY unless you want to spend hours on this class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-14T19:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH275', 'review': "Do not take this class unless you have a very VERY large interest in African Art!!! There is a lot of memorization on a lot of slides for the exams. Plus, it doesn't help that the Professor and the TAs are extremely tough graders. I spent hours studying and memorizing the book just to do poorly on all my exams. \n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-05-14T22:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH275', 'review': "Professor Ater is very paasionate about this class. She presents everything she tests on in lecture so if you miss lecture you HAVE to take notes from someone. She moves a little fast and it's hard sometimes to keep up with her. The TA's teach on disccusions which you HAVE to attend also. Grading is very fair and is not that hard to succed since everything you're being tested/quized on is mentioned in lecture. My advice DON'T PROCRASTINATE... try and write the notes again each week so that you have an idea of the artifacts. Take this CORE it's an interesting one. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-06T17:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH360', 'review': "Her lectures are clear and she explains things very well, however she goes into so much detail and expects you to remember every bit of it. She made the class memorize a ridiculous amount of slides, and only actually used about 6 in her exam. So a lot of effort is wasted attempting to memorize the name, date, title and significance of a ton of paintings, when only a handful show up on the exam. Problem is, which ones will she choose to include? Don't know, so u gotta memorize all of them. Also a harsh grader. Details are extremely important to her.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-02-06T04:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH360', 'review': "I had her for my ARTH275 class, and when I saw she was teaching the American art history course, I immediately signed up! She always uploaded images that were going to be on the exams, and she gave great lectures (she's very well-spoken). \n\r\nThe 360 course was not as easy as her ARTH275. A reading assignment was given each week, and she expected you to know the material. Her exams were fair, and she was gracious enough to once again, give out the images on a ppt ahead of time. She also checks attendance, and since it's a smaller class, will eventually get to know your face and know whether you've been to class or not. The class was fair, and if you did the work, it was pretty straightforward. \n\r\nAter was not only extremely knowledgeable, but she was also passionate about art. She demonstrated this through her lectures, and genuinely cared about the students understanding of the topics. While other professors couldn't care less about a student's grades, she went far and beyond to offer her time and suggestions to help students improve and achieve good grades in her class. I strongly recommend her for any class!\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-01-05T17:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH275', 'review': "This was one of the easiest classes that i have ever taken. I very rarely went to class and have gotten 100% on every quiz, A's on both exams (Final exam not in yet), And a high A on the extended essay. There is really very little effort involved in the class, i only read about 1 hour prior to quizzes which follow the same format every time, as for the test 2 or 3 hours of study was sufficient for me to pass with high grades. The only thing you really must do is go to discussion, not only is it required but this is where i got most of my information that i later used for the test/quizzes. As for Dr. Ater i do not like at all. She believes that her class is the only one that matters, and refuses to give make up exams for finals, basically meaning that even if you have a viable excuse or have two exams at the same time, she does not care. For the lectures that I did go to while the information did help and was presented very well, she constantly stated how important her class was and how if you were to miss a lecture you were going to fail. She tries to use big vocab words to sound more intelligent, and comes off as arrogant. I also heard from classmates that she once gave extra credit to everyone who went to lecture the day before thanksgiving, i very much doubt that this was meant to be a reward, but more out of spite for those who did not go to her class. That being said i am taking this as a CORE class, arth not being my major and i found it to be an easy elective and would recommend it to anyone who wants to get an easy A. Also to be noted she does not post her lectures up on Elms any more.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-17T12:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH275', 'review': "she really is a great teacher and you can tell that she enjoys what she's teaching. You really do need to come to class and go to your discussions. If you come to class regularly and study for the quizzes you'll do well. most of the time studying for the quizzes helps you wiht the exam in the end. overall cool class with a cool teacher. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-12-02T13:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Renee Ater', 'course': 'ARTH275', 'review': 'I thought the class would be an easy A going into it and it does fulfill 2 CORE req. However you MUST go to lecture. The tests follow the same formula- slide identifications, vocab, and essays. Dr. Ater posts all powerpoints and vocab on ELMS and even creates a study guide before each exam. Vocab and slide IDs can be memorized farily easily. But you MUST go to lectures to be able to answer the essays, Ater looks for specifics. I recommend laptop for class its easier making study guides. There are quizzes every week in discussion where you need to memorize slides and attendance is taken. If you go to discussion, do decent on the quizzes and raise your hand and comment every now and then you will take care of a large portion of your grade. Do well on the two papers and you can get high Cs and low Bs on exams and some how still walk away with an A-. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2008-01-11T12:33:00Z'}], 'name': 'Renee Ater', 'slug': 'ater_renee'}, {'courses': ['JOUR130', 'JOUR360', 'JOUR452', 'WMST452'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Renee Poussaint', 'slug': 'poussaint'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'AASP202', 'AASP498Z', 'AASP202', 'AASP202', 'AASP202'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Renina Jarmon', 'course': 'AASP202', 'review': "Prof.Jarmon is very insightful and engaging in class but be prepared to do a lot of reading and writing. If you're not interested in the content you'll struggle to finish all of the work she asigns because it's a lot. If you take her classes be direct with her and ask questions! She's very responsive to feedback. Beware! She takes forever to grade, so if you get anxious about that sort of thing don't take the class. Overall she was quite caring and loves what she teaches so you won't be bored by her! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-19T00:50:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Renina Jarmon', 'course': 'AASP202', 'review': "Do not take her class. Jarmon is very unorganized. She assigns a lot of work and expects you to refer to her documents to know what is due and when it is due, but she had the dates from last semester on her documents so you couldn't know when stuff was due. She also moves her class onto zoom after a couple weeks which is annoying for a class where most of the class time is spent discussing course content. Also, right now we are two weeks from the last day of classes and she hasn't given a grade on any assignment. She also wastes a lot of class time. In several instances she will spend the first 5-15 minutes not saying anything or talking about something that is irrelevant. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-26T15:21:30Z'}], 'name': 'Renina Jarmon', 'slug': 'jarmon'}, {'courses': ['ARTT150', 'ARTT768', 'HONR349T', 'ARTT489C', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT489G', 'ARTT361', 'ARTT260', 'ARTH489V', 'ARTT150', 'ARTH489V', 'ARTT150', 'ARTT489C', 'ARTT150', 'ARTT361'], 'average_rating': 3.9048, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "If you're taking this for gen ed you might feel like the topics have nothing to do with anything, but try paying attention and see if you don't learn something really interesting. Worst case scenario you'll learn something to say on a date that will make you seem halfway cultured. \n\r\nThe lectures are dense with information, but once you get used to the flow, you will get a lot out of them. \n\r\nFor art majors, you must take this class with Prof. Weil. \n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-09T15:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'This class is undoubtedly the MOST BORING POINTLESS CLASS EVERRRR. \n\r\nFirst of all, he makes you purchase a special edition textbook that HE specifically created with his "quotable quotes" so that if you don\'t have the text, you either have to spend the $90 to get it, or just try to skim by without it. There\'s no alternative.\n\r\nSecondly, in lecture he may be knowledgable but I wouldn\'t know it because he speaks so slow and in a boring tone, it\'s a real struggle not to just zone out. \n\r\nI ended up hardly ever attending class just because every time I went it just seemed like a true waste of my time. His quizzes in discussion are easy, but only if you\'ve read the text. He gives out two 2 hour midterms which are very "words-used-in-the-text" based. He wants you to say exactly what is in the text. It\'s annoying. \n\r\nHe also requires you to take 2 trips to DC and take selfies in front of 20 different paintings/sculpture that he specifically picked out. \n\n\r\ntl;dr\r\nThis is the worst class I\'ve ever taken, just because it is SO FRIGGIN BORRRINGGGG. \r\nOn a lighter note, if you are a person who enjoys debating about an art piece for weeks on end and never really coming to any conclusion, you\'ll like this class a lot.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2016-05-09T19:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "Professor Weil was an extremely knowledgeable lecturer. He had a great, dry sense of humor that kept the subject matter interesting so that it felt more like a conversation rather than a lecture. His grading was fair, and as long as you take notes, you'll be golden for the quizzes and tests, for he rarely asks in depth questions regarding the texts; it's more overarching themes. Overall, I very much enjoyed this class and suggest it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-09-02T23:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Let me start out with "TAKE THIS GUY\'S CLASS." It\'s easy, it\'s interesting, it\'s enlightening, and it just may change your life. Do the reading, go to class, and go to discussion. There is so much extra credit you\'d be a fool to not get AT LEAST a B (I got an A+, easily). Now, the deets.\n\r\nRex is absolutely delightful. His penchant for turtlenecks and oval eyeglasses, his shaved head and pursing of the lips, his snarky and pretentious yet non-intimidating way of explaining things is exactly what I would have wanted from an art professor. (I urge you to youtube "Sprockets SNL" but imagine an American if you want a preview of what I\'m talking about.) I signed up for this class because it filled one of my CORE requirements. I was not expecting much, but I know the things I learned in this course will continue to benefit me throughout the rest of my life.\n\r\nI came into this class having no formal training in art, philosophy, or art appreciation. I left feeling like I had a baseline understanding in all fields, and with a passion to learn more. I have always enjoyed going to museums (there are two museum assignments in this course; go and enjoy the free museums of DC! This is a luxury!), but when on outings with more artsy friends I was without the vocabulary or historical context to contribute meaningfully to our conversations. Now, I feel like an art boss. And you can, too.\n\r\nThis class isn\'t about memorization, but without going to lecture it is (very hard to get full credit, attendance is mandatory) and hard to digest the readings unless you pore over them. Rex\'s explanations and summaries are crucial to understanding the material and enjoying the course. The exams focus on broadish facts, but there are essay questions that ask the test taker to elaborate on the themes of each writer. As long as you explain what you\'re doing with an informed modicum of intelligence you will do well.\n\r\nSo, in closing, do you like art? Do you need a CORE? Are you an art major? Have you always loved art but felt deficient in your conversations with "art" friends in the context of your own life or in historical context? If you ANY any of these things, take this class. It changed my life for the better, and it might change yours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-08-09T20:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "Prof. Weil's Art Theory class was definitely interesting. This class is very lecture-based and you must do the readings on time in order to do well. Some of the readings are more difficult to understand, but he is very good at explaining meaning and letting the class know what we need to focus on and remember. If you come to class, discussion, and do the readings accordingly, you should have no problem earning a A or a B.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-07-11T11:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Intelligent and funny, Prof. Weil is by far, the best! Rex’s teaching style builds on these attributes, as he gradually proceeds to make a dense subject thoroughly interesting, easily digestible, and thought provoking. The sensitivity displayed to his students is unparalleled, as he is always available to assist you, either after class, office hours, or via e-mail. Trust me on this one folks – don’t miss this class – it will have a lasting impact.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-06-13T12:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ENST411', 'review': 'Dr. Weil is a merciless and pitiless grader who takes off points for anything and everything. And with 100% of your grade coming from 3 exams and 1 paper, every single point counts. Also, he lectures with the lights off and offers few chances for student participation, which makes this class a real snoozer.\r\nOtherwise, the content is actually extremely interesting and Dr. Weil is a fascinating man with a lot to say and some great stories.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-10-09T02:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "The course packet can be intimidating at first, but if you do the assigned readings, go to class and actually listen to what he is saying, you will do fine with minimal studying. Take care not to fall behind though, because the packet is quite difficult to pore through on your own due to its volume as well as some of the unfamiliar language that is used.\n\r\nAs for Professor Weil, he is very chill and his manner of speaking is likewise. It may be too chill for some who can get lost in his droning rhetoric, but I appreciated it because it gave me time to jot down notes and often write down what he was saying word-for-word if it seemed super important. He's got a great sense of humor, doesn't take the material too seriously and is also very understanding. I had an unfortunate situation where I missed a LOT of class throughout the second week of the semester but he was nice enough to not completely annihilate my grade as per the course policy. He makes himself available despite his busy schedule to answer questions, administer make-ups and tend to other official business such as nailing you if you use the Internet on your art gallery assignments. Overall great class, great guy. Take art theory with him and you won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-05-15T17:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "Weil is a great teacher and keeps the lecture interesting with his humor. I don't regret taking the class even with the monster size course packet. All the topics and people we went over in class constantly comes up in ALL of the classes I have now and I'm sure will appear in the future.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-26T15:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'A wonderful course. Professor Weil is a phenomenal teacher. He never condescends and is extremely understanding. I recommend this class for anyone looking to expand their aesthetic consciousness or for anyone who just wants to understand art a little better. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-08T15:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Professor Rex is a wonderful professor. Class is quite boring but discussions help tie to together the concepts. Its good to at least try to read and then wait for him to review everything at some point to drill the information in. The 2 museum assignments arent too bad at all. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-07T19:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Rex is the best professor I have had so far. He is funny and interesting. I love his sense of humor and his exams were easy. The class has a lot of required reading and the reading is dense, but he goes through it in lecture to really help you understand. I highly recommend taking this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-04T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'This course is incredibly boring. You will be expected to go to 2 museums in DC and do extensive reports on them. the midterm was 2 parts & closed book. \n\r\nProf. Weil is a very nice guy but he talks very slowly and it is very easy to space out and not listen at all. If you enjoy debating the definition of "art" for 15 weeks, then you will be a happy camper. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'a', 'created': '2011-04-16T15:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'I got an A+ in this class. Before taking the class, I did not think it would be a very interesting class just by the name "Art theory", but it actually was very interesting. At times you may not understand the reading assignments for homework but, Prof. weil does a great job of going over the reading. DEF go to the lectures otherwise you will fail this class. I got a A+ in this class, I did well on the exams, not so well on the quizzes. And he gives up to 8% extra credit, hard class if you don\'t pay attention and do your work, easy class if you do. PS at times class may seem a little boring but it actually is more of a philosopy class than it is art', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-12-10T16:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "Definitely one of my favorite professors at UMD so far. I don't think everyone got his sense of humor, but his dry, subtle remarks were hilarious. He's really into old school rap. You should go to class because the reading is hard to understand without Rex going over it in lecture. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-10T14:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "He is a really good professor, although sometimes his monotone voice put me to sleep. He's a pretty cool guy, gives lots of extra credit, open book/note exams, etc. It's a reallly easy A. You'll like it if you're into philosophy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-08T04:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Boring class, but he lets you use your notes on the tests so you cant complain about that. Real easy. Gives out extra credit alot so go to class. I think perfect attendance gives you an extra 5% at the end of the semester so it really helps your grade', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-08-06T13:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "Going to class will help you do well. Even though his lecturing is boring, if you take notes and listen, you'll do fine.\r\nHe gives a bunch of little extra credit things, so go to all of those and they'll really boost your grade, since the class is out of such few points", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-30T18:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "One of the most boring professors I've had. The lecture is designed so dull that it is impossible to pay attention. Harsh Grader, made the exams and quizzes unnecessarily hard. DO NOT take this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-05-18T04:06:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "Absolutely horrible professor, I have no idea why he's rated so highly. The reviews lie to you. Do NOT take this guy, he so boring and tech-incompetent I wonder how UMD even hired him. His lectures are super boring with his monotone voice and he makes you buy a super expensive textbook that he just reads off of all lecture. There's no visual aid in his lectures at all and you bet he makes attendance mandatory. Also, no phones or laptops in class, good luck not falling asleep. Do. Not. Take. This. Professor. I warned you.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-05-25T23:15:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Rex Weil', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "I did not enjoy this class too much due to the subjects not interesting me and although the professor is not a bad one, his monotone voice on top of the interesting subject caused a class that was hard to stay awake in. Honestly, you don't really have to attend lectures, though I recommend at least attending some due for the attendance grade. The discussions I do recommend attending since quiz reviews happen and the lectures/information is easier to understand than in the lecture or the book. The quizzes aren't too bad but the exams are annoying, have those study guides and notes prepared to check quickly because you will have no time to take on questions. Some of the questions are worded weirdly or have no reason to be there, easy grade but just annoying. Also, DO NOT BUY THE BOOK, it will be discussed in class n can be discussed elsewhere. Only buy it if you really prefer having an in-person copy to mark up!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-02-07T01:48:04.583921Z'}], 'name': 'Rex Weil', 'slug': 'weil_rex'}, {'courses': ['ENTS649A', 'ENTS649B', 'ENTS629C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Reza Eftekari', 'slug': 'eftekari'}, {'courses': ['ENEE605', 'ENEE416', 'ENSE799', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE313H', 'ENEE605', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENEE416'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Reza Ghodssi', 'course': 'ENEE416', 'review': "I never worked so hard for a 3 credit lab before. He's the ISR director so he's extremely smart but has extremely high standards. On day 1 we thought he had a stick up his ass for harping on people being late but he completely won us over by week 4. Talking to another student in his 605 class, he's even harder on grad students. Highly recommend taking this class (or any class) with him, you'll learn a lot. Bare in mind, if you are a Computer Engineer just looking to get your undergraduate lab credit, stay away. Attendance counts for him so don't skip if you can possibly manage it. Can't overstate this though, it's a lot of work.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-15T12:08:00Z'}], 'name': 'Reza Ghodssi', 'slug': 'ghodssi'}, {'courses': ['ENRE602', 'ENRE655', 'ENRE640'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Reza Kazemi-Tabriz', 'slug': 'kazemi-tabriz'}, {'courses': ['UNIV389B', 'FGSM380', 'HONR378B', 'HNUH388T', 'FGSM380', 'HNUH388T', 'FGSM380', 'HNUH388T'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rhoda Margesson', 'course': 'FGSM380', 'review': "I really enjoyed this professor at first. very cool lady with experiences about the world. but I felt like she was way too harsh with her grading... especially considering that she put all of the work and responsibility on the TAs. but when I tried to talk to her about my grade at the end of the semester, I felt like she didn't really care. since this class is part of a program sequence, I don't think it should be this harsh.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-02-18T06:12:01.429203Z'}], 'name': 'Rhoda Margesson', 'slug': 'margesson'}, {'courses': ['CLAS170'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rian Sirkus', 'slug': 'sirkus'}, {'courses': ['BSCI440', 'NACS608', 'BIOL708Q', 'BSCI446', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS497', 'BSCI339D', 'BIOL708M', 'NACS728J', 'BIOL899', 'BSCI279Q', 'NACS898', 'BISI678P', 'NACS899', 'BSCI279Q', 'NACS608', 'BIOL708Q', 'BSCI279Q', 'BSCI357', 'NACS608', 'NACS728J', 'BSCI279Q', 'BSCI446', 'NACS608', 'NACS898', 'BIOL899', 'BIOL899', 'BIOL708Q', 'BSCI279Q', 'BSCI357', 'NACS608', 'NACS728J'], 'average_rating': 2.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ricardo Araneda', 'course': 'BSCI446', 'review': "BSCI446 was a good expansion on the concepts introduced in BSCI353. 446 essentially covers all of the ideas discussed in 353 - but it spends equal time on all of them (353 seemed to have very biased focus on certain concepts depending on what the professor did research in). While the textbook is not necessary to do well in 446, Dr. Araneda seemed to use the Purves textbook heavily in his powerpoints and lectures, so reading the textbook made the course pretty straightforward.\n\r\nDr. Araneda was also very receptive to questions. He does expect students to come prepared to his office hours (this is an upper level neuroscience course so he wouldn't discuss basic neuro concepts, like action potentials and nernst), but he was more than willing (in my experience) to sit down and spend time discussing the concepts he lectured on.\n\r\nOverall, I'd recommend taking this course under Dr. Araneda if you thought 353 was interesting but wanted to explore all of the concepts a bit more thoroughly. If you read the textbook and come to class/office hours with relevant questions, the course will be a cinch.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-09-16T11:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ricardo Araneda', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'This is by far the worst professor I have had in my 7semesters at UMD. Im a cell bio and molecular genetics major and I love this stuff. I loved the content of the class but he is a terrible professor. I cannot stress more to never take this guy. He cant teach. He expects you to know everything and doesnt explain well, if at all. I stopped going to lecture after the first exam because I got so mad at how every other sentence he would say, "Do you guys know that? (2 second pause) Well you should. Look it up." That got me so angry I just stopped going. I read the book and things made sense. That\'s how I passed the class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-10-12T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ricardo Araneda', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "I made it a point to go to every single lecture at the start of the semester. 9 am class. After a week, I realized how useless they were. But I still went. 3 weeks in, I gave up. Lectures are pointless. He doesn't clearly explain things, he goes over things that don't show up on the exams, and he glides over important parts of the book. So Just read the book. If you want to do well in this class, you have to be vigilant about learning everything yourself. There was a curve at the end though.\n\r\nThe discussions were useful in that you could ask questions to TAs who've taken this class before and have a better idea of what's important to cover. \n\r\nExams were difficult because the material is so dense, the only way to do well is to read the chapters over and over and try your best to synthesize the stuff with his slides. Also, there's stuff that's covered that's not on his slides or in the books, so yeah, enjoy if you're lucky enough to have him.\n\r\nTeaching is not his calling.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '74', 'created': '2012-09-26T16:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ricardo Araneda', 'course': 'BSCI446', 'review': "Ricardo is a poor professor. Plain and simple. Does not communicate expectations to students and then gets angry when these unspoken expectations are not met. Unenthusiastic with teaching; seems like he is being forced to do this as a component of his contract with the university. Condescending when asked questions; if he decides he's above answering a question of yours, he won't do it and will instead try to make you feel bad by indirectly insulting your intelligence. Overall, not a people person, no teaching ability, and little interest in the well-being of students.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-08T17:34:31Z'}], 'name': 'Ricardo Araneda', 'slug': 'araneda'}, {'courses': ['AMSC614', 'MATH462', 'AMSC612', 'MATH673', 'MATH401', 'AMSC714', 'AMSC673', 'AMSC715', 'AMSC666', 'CMSC666', 'MATH411', 'AMSC714', 'MATH401', 'AMSC715', 'AMSC808A', 'AMSC808A'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ricardo Nochetto', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': 'One of the worst professor you can take, particularly for MATH462. You will have difficulty studying with his answer sheets, since either, most have typos or the wrong way to approach a problem. No need to go to his lectures, he just iterates what is said in the book, and explains it in a much difficult way then the book would. Just as reading the book, is like going to his lectures, you barely learn much about PDE. I suggest you watch videos on youtube, and get a different book that has more examples and better explanations if you have to take this course. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-19T14:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ricardo Nochetto', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': "Professor Nochetto is not really the most exciting professor. He basically reads out of the book and assigns hw from the end of the chapter. Still, You will probably need help frequently and depending on his mood he can either be a complete jackass or very patient. For grading there were 3 tests, hw every week, and a final. \n\r\nOverall I would recommend this class if you are an engineer and have learned some of the concepts that are covered. Waves, Heat transfer, and other concepts from physics or transport process classes are covered. So if you already know the concepts its actually pretty interesting to see the math behind it.\n\r\nIf you are just a math major, the math theory is pretty simple but picturing the concepts might be a little challenging. The only reason I got a B was because I didn't study and bombed the final to drop my grade. So as long as you make good decisions you should get a good grade. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-12-04T17:31:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ricardo Nochetto', 'slug': 'nochetto'}, {'courses': ['INST701', 'INST640', 'LBSC785', 'LBSC605', 'INST604', 'INST888', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'AMST655', 'ANTH655', 'HIST610', 'INST785', 'AMST857', 'ANTH857', 'HIST811'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ricardo Punzalan', 'slug': 'punzalan'}, {'courses': ['CPSP118P', 'PUAF201', 'CPPL100', 'AASP301', 'AASP305', 'PLCY201', 'PLCY302', 'AASP499F', 'AASP411', 'AASP499B', 'PLCY699G', 'PLCY302', 'PLCY699D', 'AASP301', 'CPPL100'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ricco Hall', 'course': 'CPPL100', 'review': '90% of the class was run by either the students of the TA and most weeks were just current events discussions. It was minimal work all semester but then had multiple assignments within the last few weeks of the semester out of nowhere. Very nice guy and responsive if you email him with questions but the assignments tended to be unclear and prompts were often revised after we emailed him to clarify. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-08T15:36:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Ricco Hall', 'course': 'AASP301', 'review': "I strongly believe this class should be a requirement, especially in our current society. Not only does Dr. Hall (he will most likely have the Dr title by now) make discussions super comfortable and easy for you to talk about experiences and current issues but the material really makes you understand society for minorities. The assignments don't take much time but are applicable for discussions so make sure your work is something you know how to present. I never thought the work was overwhelming and actually looked forward to this class. Also I'm a bio major and never feel comfortable in policy classes but I actually enjoyed and understood this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-13T17:30:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Ricco Hall', 'course': 'CPPL100', 'review': 'Professor Hall is a nice guy and he means well, but this class was my least favorite class I have ever taken. The class is a struggle to sit through as the only thing we did all semester was talk about current events. Ultimately, this class is such a waste of time, but it is the easiest A you will ever get.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-23T03:34:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Ricco Hall', 'course': 'CPPL100', 'review': 'Professor Hall isn\'t a bad prof, I\'m giving three stars mostly for the class itself. I know it\'s a requirement for most of us who take it, but it\'s nonetheless very, very dull. Mostly discussions, lead almost exclusively by the TA\'s, on current events (sometimes discussions of personal experience and whatnot - therapy circle type deal) and activities consisting of making a website, writing discussion posts, resume prep. etc. Like the other comments said, it\'s the easiest A you\'ll ever get (of course, assuming you do all the work, which is very little). \r\n\r\nI will say the most annoying thing about this class is they designed it so all the "big" assignments were loaded at the end. Obviously, this is a huge inconvenience because the last thing I needed to worry about during finals week was writing an essay for CPPL100. But, the assignments were still very straightforward and pretty effortless. So if there is any advice I can offer, it\'s just to do the end-of-term project/essays ASAP to avoid unnecessary stress. But yeah. Overall, super, super easy. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-28T19:20:36Z'}], 'name': 'Ricco Hall', 'slug': 'hall_ricco'}, {'courses': ['HIST289E', 'HIST396', 'HIST137', 'HIST608A', 'HONR218X', 'HIST200', 'HIST189C', 'HONR258F', 'HIST819N', 'HIST408A', 'EXST030', 'HIST132', 'HIST108A', 'HIST132C', 'HNUH218A', 'HIST619C', 'HIST219K', 'HONR249B', 'HIST399', 'HNUH218A', 'HIST200', 'HIST137', 'HIST137', 'HIST137', 'HIST132'], 'average_rating': 4.4737, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HIST396', 'review': 'Pros: Smart, well-read, accommodating\n\r\nCons: Tough grader, places far too much emphasis on participation, not afraid to showboat (which makes him kind of a pill)', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-06-03T23:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Bell is absolutely the best. \n\r\nI needed a core history credit for what was my government major at the time, so I looked up random courses and took 289E solely on Bell's amazing reviews. I have no interest in the American Revolution or early American history in general. \n\r\nBut I am so glad I took that course. Professor Bell could make any course come alive, ANY COURSE, and that's what made 289E one of my favorite classes thus far. Professor Bell and I met a few times and he convinced me to become a history major, which I am today. I took his 156 course this semester. \n\r\nYeah, I have no interest in early American history and I've now taken 2 semesters in a row of it, that covers mostly the same time period. I'd take any class Professor Bell teaches. He gets to know every student's name (in a large lecture hall) and thinks highly of his students and their intellectual capabilities. \n\r\nCannot recommend him enough. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-23T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': None, 'review': "One of the best teachers I've ever had. Lecture was fun to go to, as he was very funny and engaging. Routinely makes jokes at the expense of students (in a harmless way.) \n\r\nClass itself wasn't too bad. 2 essays, around 5-6 pages each. One on some readings; one involving you going to the Smithsonian (!) to look at some paintings and to write down things about them, and then relate them to the course. Exams were not easy, mainly because the pool of possible IDs was so large. \n\r\nDiscussion was key, participate at least twice a day for full credit. My TA was also good and always helpful (Allison), especially regarding the Smithsonian visit.\n\r\nIf you are looking for an easy A, I do not recommend this class. However, if you are looking to take a class with one of the best professors at Maryland, I highly recommend it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-20T10:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': None, 'review': "Looks like I'm the first person to review him for this class. First off, he is a WONDERFUL teacher. His lectures are awesome and engaging. He tells a story every time, and the class material is actually very interesting (note class to left).\n\r\nHowever, I was taking this class as a core, and I would say definitely don't do that if you are looking for an easy A. He only gives out 3 big assignments (3 essays) but they are some of the hardest essays I have ever had to write. They require a lot of research, and a lot of time there is no clear answer to the question, and the TA's standards were not very clear.\n\r\nThe final exam is going to seem impossible (He'll give you a list of 80+ IDs to remember, a possible 8 essay questions, of which he'll pick 5 and 1, repectively), but in reality, it wasn't too bad.\n\r\nAdvice if you are going to take the class: Attending lecture isn't pertinent, but will help you remember things. Take very organized notes, I would recommend typing them, as when he gives you the list of IDs, you can just Control-F to find them for the final.\n\r\nHe has occasional guest speakers; some a re good, others not so much, but this is a new class so I expect it will get better in that regard.\n\r\nOverall, awesome teacher, hard essays, weird grading scale (grades on like a 9 point system instead of 10), seemingly impossible final but just take good notes during the semester and it won't be too bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-17T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Bell is by far the best professor I've had at Maryland. As mentioned previously, his tests aren't easy but if you go to office hours and do the reading, it will help you a lot.Participation in discussion is key, as it counts as much or more than an exam or assignment.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-01-23T16:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': None, 'review': "I loved Professor Bell. He's hysterical and really made history interesting for me. However, his tests are not easy. You really need to be prepared to spend a lot of time studying because sometimes he chooses really small and insignificant things for ID's and if you don't know them you're kinda screwed. You're grade will depend on your TA though, mine was great. This is not an easy class so be prepared to put in a solid amount of time studying, even though Bell is great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-15T16:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Bell is the best professor I've had so far at UMD. He is a phenomenal lecturer and made the material very interesting. I also liked that he tried to emphasis social change and the impact of major events as opposed to the repetitive drone about early American wars that many American history teachers turn to. The class had two papers, a midterm, and a final. The work was challenging, but very manageable. My only complaint is that there was a substantial amount of assigned reading for the class (mostly writings by historians or primary sources, but also a novel), although I was able to get away with skimming most of it. I would definitely recommend taking this class with Professor Bell.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-11T19:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': None, 'review': "It's already been said, but Professor Bell was excellent for HIST156 and I'm really glad I took his class. The semester was based on two written assignments, a midterm, class participation, and a final. The papers weren't that bad, and for one of them we got to go to the Smithsonian in DC and look at American art which was actually pretty interesting. For the midterm and final we had to identify terms and write and essay, which wasn't too hard because we got study sheets for them. My TA was really cool too, which made discussion actually worth attending. I recommend this class to anyone who wants a fun a interesting semester. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T02:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HIST428N', 'review': 'Professor Bell is an excellent professor. The reason I took this course is because I had him for Hist156 and like him a lot. He is an excellent lecturer. It is the only class where I pay full attention the entire lecture. You definitely need to take notes and do the readings because a lot of his grading is based on participation, but in general the readings are not to bad and they are different from what you typically have to read in history classes. You will truly get a unique experience in this class and it is TOTALLY worth the work you put in. (Plus he has a very nice british accent and a good sense of humor)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-11T14:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': None, 'review': "This was an excellent class. Professor Bell's lectures were interesting, informative and fun. The class made history more than an exercise in memorization. Professor regularly threw in interesting side notes, discussed art from the period, and even some relevant economics and sociology, among other things. He has high expectations -- there really is a lot of reading and the grading system does not leave much fudge room since there are so few assignments -- but he is more than fair and with a bit of effort there is no reason for anyone to do poorly. I definitely recommend his class. It's been one of my favorite classes yet.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-11-29T15:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Bell is an excellent professor -- he makes American history interesting because while we've all been studying American history since we were about 5, he looks at different aspects of American history instead of just the battles and George Washington. He's funny and is a really great lecturer. The two assignments (papers) he gave us were challenging but definitely doable -- and he's a really fair grader. There's a lot of reading but in my discussion you can get by with doing parts and skimming. The exams weren't hard either. Basically if you go to lecture and do some/most of the readings you will do well in the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-20T21:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': 'Bell is awesome. The class atmosphere is fun and his lectures are interesting. He knows his stuff and is a great guy. The class though stinks. A lot of reading, two difficult essays and a big final. He is awesome though and almost makes the class worthwhile. If you like history, this is the class for you. If you want an easy A, this is not. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-13T07:43:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HNUH218A', 'review': "Pros: Very good lecturer, he's engaging and interesting, if you like history. You actually learn a lot.\r\nCons: The papers and discussions just suck. There's 3 papers that you have to write, and all of them require you to use at least 15 primary sources from newspapers. No online resources allowed. You can use lecture slides and discussion readings though. Discussion section participation is also a quarter of your grade, and the readings are usually very long (10+ pages).", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-11-15T07:08:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HNUH218A', 'review': "Professor Bell is great. He's very engaging. The papers and discussion sections are pretty chill. The graduate TA that grades the papers is pretty chill. The sources that you are stuck on using are difficult to use since it's pretty much all primary sources or the slides. After the first paper, the others should not be so difficult.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-15T03:35:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HNUH218A', 'review': "Professor Bell is hands down one of the best lecturers I've ever had. His lectures are well prepared and thorough and engaging. The workload is probably what you would expect from an honors course, and it was very much appropriate in my opinion. The first paper might have a steep learning curve for some as far as finding and analyzing appropriate and adequate sources, but the subsequent papers felt more comfortable to me. readings can sometimes be a headache, but the discussions are chill and as long as you actively participate a few times each meeting you'll be fine. The TA was very fair and not harsh in grading. Professor Bell overall clearly cares about his students.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-14T02:57:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HNUH218A', 'review': 'Rick is a very talented lecturer. They feel more like story times than anything; he does a great job telling narratives of whatever concept you learn about. However, his assignments for HNUH218A could be so much better. There were 4 papers in total, two of them requiring ~15 newspaper sources. These were extremely draining and difficult to write. Other than his assignments, Bell is a really cool guy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-06-02T01:16:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HNUH218A', 'review': 'Big Rick is undoubtedly one of the best lecturers I\'ve ever had. Each of his classes was clearly well planned out, engaging, and surprisingly enjoyable. With any other professor I\'m sure I would\'ve had trouble staying awake in this 9am class, but Bell made it easy. As others have pointed out, there is a fair amount of reading in this course—around 30 pages or so a week—but as long as you don\'t wait until the night before to start reading, I think it\'s pretty manageable (other than one week where we were supposed to read 180 pages of a novel). Bell sets high expectations for his students since they\'re UMD\'s "best and brightest," as he likes to say, but he also cares a lot about them and values their input on assignments. Despite Big Rick\'s tall height, he\'s very friendly and approachable and always willing to answer any questions students have about course material. All in all, I definitely enjoyed his class and appreciated him as a professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-11T03:59:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HNUH218A', 'review': " Don't have to memorize any content until the final which is fairly easy. The majority of the grade comes from essays which are graded by the TA who helps you improve your essay during office hours before you submit it. Make sure you participate in discussions as that's a big part of your grade. As for Professor Bell, he's an extremely interesting lecturer and even moved our final online and made it open note due to rising covid cases. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-15T17:46:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Bell', 'course': 'HIST132', 'review': 'An engaging professor!! One of my favorites. Just expect to be writing some hefty papers for an intro level course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-18T05:50:51.917024Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Bell', 'slug': 'bell_richard'}, {'courses': ['GVPT205S'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Boyd', 'course': 'GVPT205S', 'review': 'Great Guy. Very enjoyable lecturer. Reasonable expectations.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-11T07:17:42Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Boyd', 'slug': 'boyd_richard'}, {'courses': ['ENCH333', 'ENCH424', 'CHBE422', 'CHBE424', 'CHBE338N', 'CHBE492', 'HONR238Q', 'ENCH648X'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Calabrese', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor:\r\nVery smart and knowledgable. He teaches using the chalkboard - with some special lectures via powerpoint towards the end of the semester. A lot of my friends don't like him, but I think he is one of the best Chem-E professors at UMD. However, you need to pay attention in class. A lot of people complain that he goes to fast and that the material is hard to understand, but if you pay attention, and take good notes, then you will be fine with understanding the concepts and homeworks.\r\nClass:\r\nVery interesting subject; quickly became my favorite class. There are three (3) tests: two (2) midterms and one (1) final. Each test is worth 30 % of your grade. The final 10 % comes from homeworks and clicker questions. The clickers are geared more towards attendence then right/wrong answers. Generally, his curve is > 70% = A.\r\nBefore each exam, he posts two past semester's exams to help you know what to expect. The exams are open book, but not open note. I generally only used my notes for the homeworks - but when I learned that the tests were open book, I tried to become more familiar with it to help me find things quickly during the test. You can tab things in the book, but don't write anything in an obvious place because he will take the book away during the test. Be quick on the tests; if you can't finish a problem that's ok - he gives more points for setting it up correctly rather then having the algebra done. The book was helpful for learning some things, but I generally focused more on my notes (I take good notes). Regarding the homeworks: don't be afraid to go to office hours. However, I recommend that you attempt the homework yourself first - at least how to set it up (that's the hardest part!). Office hours will be helpful in determining if you are on the right track.\r\nOverall:\r\nI loved this class. Sit in the front rows, pay attention, ask questions, study and you will definately pass.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-17T14:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Calabrese', 'course': None, 'review': "Yes, very difficult. His exams would probably really take 3 hours to do, however he gives you 1.25 hours and he grades hard. 50-69 on a test is a B, and anything above is an A. Hws are hard and take a long time. Calabrese is kind of witty, and his notes are all over the place on the board, but they're good if you look at them. I know this is nearly impossible with a chbe schedule, but if you can look at the textbook section ahead of the class period, this will help you understand what he's talking about. The textbook takes time to get used to, but then it gets kind of funny. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-31T21:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Calabrese', 'course': None, 'review': "Very difficult professor. I find his lectures impossible to pay attention in. He goes very fast so you can't take effective notes, all you can do is write down the important equations and try learn what else you can, if you can pay attention. The book is not great and he doesn't always follow it so it can be very difficult when you don't pay attention. Very hard tests. 70% is an A, and most people don't get A's. The homeworks are very long and difficult and continually ruin my monday nights. He grades fairly, but he makes the class more difficult than it actually needs to be. If his lectures we more organized, explained, and a little slowerm the class would be easier and we'd learn just as much. Not the worst professor ever, but both classes are very difficult.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-28T11:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Calabrese', 'slug': 'calabrese'}, {'courses': ['BMGT221H', 'BMGT221'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Costantino', 'slug': 'costantino'}, {'courses': ['BMGT380', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT380'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'I almost always agree with the OurUMD ratings but in this case, I completely do not understand these reviews. He is a horrible teacher. Daniels is terribly unorganized and all over the place. The class has no routine. Every day feels like it\'s his first day ever teaching. Even by the last month of the semester, you\'ll have no idea how class is going to run. He loves to talk about himself and his cases, and he loves to show videos from movies that are completely irrelevant to what we\'re learning. Basically, class involves sitting in class and listening to him rant about law, then trying to write down as much as you can so you can look up the key words and concepts later. Students who ask questions in class are often told, "look it up on your own later." The guy is a horrendous teacher. He constantly tells us not to become lawyers because it\'s horrible. He seems quite miserable. He also does not believe in holding office hours in Smith, so if you want to talk to him you have to take a trip to his law office. He\'s a jerk. He\'s one of those teachers who you look at and wonder, how did you get a job at this university?\n\r\nAlso, a tip to students taking him, READ THE SYLLABUS BEFORE THE FIRST CLASS. He expects that on the first class, you\'ve read chapter one. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-03-25T18:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'This is the first time I\'ve felt compelled to write a review on a teacher. I signed up for Daniels because of the great reviews he had below. They were extremely misleading. Here\'s how Daniels and his class actually is (btw this isn\'t a review being written by a bitter student, I got a B in the class):\n\r\nTo sum Daniels up in 2 words would be arrogant a$$h0le.\n\r\nPros:\r\n- reading the book is helpful, but not mandatory. he spends most of class lecturing, so you end up having in your notes everything you need to know for the exams (that is if you can write fast enough to catch everything he\'s saying).\r\n- he lets you take the exams at home. if you email him a week before the exam and tell him you\'re overwhelmed and have a lot of other exams that same week, he\'ll email you the exam for you to take at home. 2 midterms and a final. obviously you can\'t do this for all exams. \r\n- he does sometimes have interesting stories about cases he\'s had or court room stories\r\n- he shows movie clips in the beginning of class (except he starts them 15 min before class actually starts. if you\'re early to class, you\'re on time. if you\'re on time, you\'re late. if you\'re late, he\'ll embarrass you in front of the class)\r\n- sometimes it\'s funny when he embarrasses people in front of the class..unless you\'re the one he\'s calling out\n\r\nCons (oh god, where to start):\r\n- sooo disrespectful. If you ask him a question, he\'ll make you feel like an idiot and make you regret ever asking.\r\n- it\'s hard to keep up with taking notes. i had a lot of half finished bullet points because you don\'t want to miss what he\'s about to say.\r\n- the 1st half of the semester, he\'ll randomly call on people to play the attorneys on both sides for a case that you have to read for homework. aka stand in front of the class and be criticized by daniels. Sometimes there\'ll be 4 different cases in a chapter and you won\'t know which one he\'s going to use the following class. \r\n- the exams have an essay portion, which is fine, but he looks for a certain number of phrases and definitions. for each phrase you include, you get points. for each phrase you don\'t include, you lose points. How are you supposed to know which phrases/words he wants to see in your essay response? Good question. He seems to forget that we\'re not law students.\r\n- Participation is 10% of the grade. You don\'t know what your grade is until the end of the semester and he doesn\'t have a system for giving out these grades. He\'ll give you anywhere from a 1 to a 10. He bases the grade on how much he likes or dislikes you. I attended every single class but got under a 5 for participation because "going to class is expected." I\'m not really a raise my hand and voice my opinion type of student, so someone who came to class 5 times and participated each time probably got a higher grade than me, even though I never once missed class. \n\r\nIt\'s really just frustrating to sit through a class being taught by such a disrespectful and rude individual. He never once called me out in class or did any of those obnoxious things to me, so that\'s not why this review is being written. I just think people should know what they\'re actually getting themselves into. \n\r\nOh and when did grades come up? Final exam was December 19. Grades were officially due December 22 or 23, but rules don\'t apply to the almighty Professor Daniels. Several people emailed him asking when grades would come up, he never answered those emails. Grades finally went up January 2, 2013.\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-01-05T01:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Fantastic teacher! Always keeps lecture very interesting and uses a lot of stories from real cases. He's a big fan of movies related to courtroom cases and law and will show a lot of clips. If you put in the effort to memorize terms, you'll have no problem doing well. It's a good idea sitting up front so he gets to know you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-13T17:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Excellent professor. The lectures are very interesting since he will use real life examples. The best thing is he will tell you exactly what is on the exam so you dont even need to read the book. His exams are very easy since he goes over everything during the review. This is my favorite class so far.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-07T11:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Professor Daniels is easily my favorite teacher. He actually makes me enjoy class and makes it really easy to learn the material. Tests are hard but he will tell you exactly what is on them if you go to class. This is the first class that I've cared enough to write a review for, seriously, you should take this.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-15T21:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Excellent professor. Lectures are very interesting. He does well at interacting with the class. I agree with the previous comment. He does pick favorites but do not get discouraged because he DOES pay attention on who is engaged and whether you are listening during lecture. My best advice would be to sit in the front. I used to record his lectures and listen to them. Managed to get A's in all his exams since he goes over everything on the exams during class. Excellent professor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-19T14:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Professor Daniels is an excellent teacher. He is a real practicing lawyer, and brings his knowledge to the classroom. He keeps class interesting by showing clips from movies and telling hilarious stories from the courtroom. \n\r\nSome people may find the test hard because they are mostly essay. \n\r\nHe does pick favorites very early on in the semester. He will remember these few people's names and no one else's and mostly call on them. This can be discouraging at times if, like me, you are not one of his favorites.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-22T23:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Daniels is a funny guy and a great professor. Just go to class and get to know him. Additionally it helps to skim the book before class to reinforce the material. He will also go over the exam material before the test so make sure you go to class. He is very generous and understanding- I would take him again. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-07T04:24:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "This professor was great! I took this class online so I can't confirm any of the negative reviews because he always seamed respectful and helpful to all his students. To begin, I recommend getting the book because a lot of what you will need for class and the exams comes directly from the text and he references it quite a bit. There are free versions of the text online. He prepares you well for the exams in terms of content but the questions can get confusing, as law by nature is extremely confusing. Please attend lecture as he will reiterate important topics that you may see on the exam. When in-person, I am unsure if the class will be regularly scheduled as our lectures were recorded and there were only 4-6 recorded lectures before each exam. He is honestly not trying to trick you and any questions or concerns are answered, but I know that B-law is hard, especially if essays need to be written in specific language. The up-side is there are no assignments due, which leaves time to prepare for class and study hard for the 3 exams, weighted equally. Overall, the professor is nice, provides examples for complicated topics, and I recommend for you to please please study hard because these topics can be difficult to remember. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-17T17:25:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "I despise his class a lot. I'm not sure if this is just a common style of teaching at UMD however I'm not a big fan of it. He literally just sits there without anything on the board/projector to help categorize our writing and talks about specific business law scenarios and vocabulary. And that makes writing and organizing topics written down difficult and harder to comprehend in my opinion. His teaching style is not for me. I know he’s very skilled in business law but as a professor, he’s not ideal. But if that's your style of teaching I'm sure he's a good professor for you then. (not graded yet)", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-09-28T22:10:13.674019Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Very good teacher. Goes over the concepts in depth and is open to any questions. Definitely need to read the textbook cases before class. Exams are online.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-16T03:20:27.729411Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Daniels', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Professor Daniels makes business law difficult to learn. He sits at the front of the classroom without a powerpoint and just talks at you the entire time. You have to be good at quick typing notes if you want to succeed in this course. He also cold calls people to give a summary of the cases you must read before class. I would advise against taking BMGT380 with Professor Daniels.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-09T21:08:25.562819Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Daniels', 'slug': 'daniels_richard'}, {'courses': ['ANSC315', 'ANSC242', 'ANSC688F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Erdman', 'slug': 'erdman'}, {'courses': ['CMSC396H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Gerber', 'slug': 'gerber'}, {'courses': ['PHYS104', 'PHYS838C', 'PHYS174', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H', 'PHYS838C', 'PHYS272', 'PHYS272H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Greene', 'course': None, 'review': "I'd like to preface this review by saying that I'm an english major, and that I can't handle basic math and the concept of physics blows my mind in general.\n\r\nThat being said, Professor Greene made physics one of my easier classes of my semester. He's extremely helpful in class as long as you ask questions (he can't read minds), and even if you don't particularly understand lecture he always does demonstrations of the concepts he's going over which REALLY help, especially like me if you're more of a visual and hands-on learner. \n\r\nHomework grades are based on effort rather than whether you're right or wrong (occasionally I wrote a paragraph of straight gibberish because I had no idea what the answer was and still got full credit). \n\r\nThere's a quiz every week on the homework, but it's only 3 multiple choice questions and you get 1 point for just taking the quiz. He takes the quiz grades for each student and adds them all up at the end of the semester and puts a giant curve on them, so getting a 1/4 doesn't hurt you. The average is usually a 2/4 or so which ends up being around a B at the end of the semester. \n\r\nEveryone fails the exams, but some exam questions are the same as the ones he puts on the quizzes so those are free points, plus he has a review session before the exams where he'll hint at things that'll be on the exam that he doesn't mention in class, so go to those. Like the person below me said, the exams get a HUGE curve because as I said everyone fails. The average on our final was a 20/35 which ended up being around an 85% or so.\n\r\nBasically, if you're going to take any non-lab for CORE, take this class with Greene. It was the only class I didn't skip all semester because I actually enjoyed it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-13T17:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Greene', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great class; great teacher,if you put in 40 minutes a week doing your homework assignment you will get an A. You will need yo attend class 75% of the time. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-03T14:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Greene', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Greene is an amazing professor and he really makes the class engaging through his demonstrations. One demonstration I still remember was when he accidentally or purposefully exploded a thick pipe by exposing it to liquid nitrogen. The entire class jumped. Lol. Another one was when he popped a hydrogen balloon.\n\r\nAll in all, this class is pretty easy as long as you attend the discussions, pay attention in class and read the book. The homework were an easy give-away points. He graded those based on completion. Quizzes and exams were tough but he followed it up by giving a massive curve in the class. I don't know how big the curve was but he said that average for exams and quizzes counted as a B+ even though if the average was in 40s or 50s. So, just hope to do better than the class average and you should walk away with an A.\n\r\nI definitely recommend everyone to take this class with Professor Greene.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-21T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Greene', 'course': 'PHYS272', 'review': 'Amazing professor! He made a hard class easy to understand, and covered topics in a way that kept me constantly engaged. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-20T01:35:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Greene', 'course': 'PHYS272', 'review': 'Probably the first teacher to make super complicated ideas seem so simple and then make them really hard on the test again if you do not study properly. Otherwise he is an amazing professor that makes the subject actually interesting!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-12-16T01:30:41Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Greene', 'slug': 'greene_richard'}, {'courses': ['MATH481', 'EDCI455', 'EDCI654', 'EDCI657'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Hollenbeck', 'course': 'EDCI457', 'review': "Unlike the other reviewer I found Rick to be a great prof. The class was a little too long but that's kind of out of his control. He was willing to meet with everyone and anyone to look over and work on developing lesson plans. The class was tues/thurs 3-5 and every thurs was a tutoring program at Buck Lodge Middle School- so you'll need a car or find someone with a car. The class was also concentrated on special education which I found important and helpful. (Others found this boring, but it is a reality that all teachers will have to deal with) \r\nHe only wanted to review tech standards with students who missed thursdays and didn't let him know, or give excuses.\r\nHe let's you redo any assignment. Just follow rubrics when doing assignments and they're not a problem.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-04T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hollenbeck', 'course': 'EDCI457', 'review': 'He gives alot of work and alot of readings. The readings are required but there are no tests and they don\'t really help with anything so you can skate them.\n\r\nHe changed how the class was graded mid semester and started using rubrics that were very ridged to grade assignments giving most people averages in the C\'s. He lets you redo any assignment to get a better grade but it\'s very frustrating.\n\r\nHis methods of student centric teaching really get annoying during the class because for a 2 hour class it is not applicable. We spend more of the time sitting and staring at each other. I wish he would have just lectured.\n\r\nDoesn\'t warrant a 1 right? Here\'s the 1. He treats the class as if they were middle schoolers in some of his "rules." For example, if you miss a class, you will be invited in to his office at a non-class time and be read the technical standards of the College of Education. The same paper we already saw when the class started and they force you to sign... So it is very redundant and if nothing more a pathetic attempt at a punishment with a secondary school mentality on how to go about it.\n\r\nHe says to think of the class as a job, but the problem is you\'re paying him to be there, and if you want to miss a class, you miss a class. Not with him, apparently. \n\r\nMiserably boring too. Avoid at all costs. I\'m dropping education because of this class. It\'s all busy work.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-14T19:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Hollenbeck', 'slug': 'hollenbeck'}, {'courses': ['BMGT198F', 'BMGT110F', 'BMGT372', 'BMGT392', 'BUSO713', 'BMGT372', 'BMGT392'], 'average_rating': 2.4667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'Hutchins was one of the most interesting classes in the business school. I was usually eager to attend his class. \r\nHe does not teach so you have to take notes from the textbook on your own. He generally lectures on current business events which can be useful to anyone looking for a path in business. \r\nIf you participate once every 2 or 3 classes you will get 100% for that category.\r\nHe curves his tests a lot but still study the docs on ELMS and vocab from the textbook.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-02-03T21:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Hutchins's class was probably the most fun I've ever had in a classroom setting. I actually looked forward to his class, knowing that current events and ancillary stories were on the agenda. \n\r\nHowever, as a teacher, the guy did not really help all that much. We fell chronically behind, and while the group project was something to help your grade provided you put effort into it (he left a lot a criticism on every group's work, yet gave everyone good grades), your grade really comes down to two heavily curved tests, and the reason they were curved so heavily is that we covered scant amounts of the information in class. \n\r\nEssentially, this guy has a lot to tell you about life and real world experience in business, but I'd recommend forming a study group early and meet often to do well on the tests. \n\r\nAlso, participate. He actually does take notice of who does and who doesn't, and it will affect grades. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-09-01T23:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Hutchins is a nice guy and genuinely cares about his students, but I just don't think he knows how to do that appropriately. He doesn't teach, wasting countless hours going over business stories shared by students in class and speaking about his kids and how many times he got sued (but never lost!). I retained absolutely no information that the course is supposed to teach you, as the most teaching he will do is mumbling back exactly what the textbook says (he will actually take out the textbook and just read it all class). The lectures lack any structure, with no PowerPoints and no notes to follow. There is additionally no work outside of the class except for the group project, which at first seems like a great thing, but only comes to screw you when 75% of the grade is based on 2 tests and you have no way to get the information to stick in your head.\n\r\nIf you take Hutchins, you're really opting to have no teacher, and to just take the course entirely on your own.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-22T12:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'for my first business class i was extremely disappointed. he didn\'t really teach. he would tell stories about his Princeton son, his other high leveled positions, and about Louisiana. never gave us any material for exam review, in fact, we didn\'t even review in class on what was going to be on the exam. exams contained T/F questions and questions on documents he uploads on elms. don\'t bother reading the textbook because he doesn\'t want us to get "bogged down in the weeds." ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'b', 'created': '2013-12-05T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'Unfortunately, this site does not allow you to award zero stars... \r\nFrom the name of the course, you\'ll probably expect it to be an easy A. If you have Hutchins, you are dead wrong. Now, this is not because the material is terribly complex or difficult. It\'s because of the fact that this "course" hardly has any structure. You\'ll come to class, listen to some rambling about business stories in the news or stock prices, hear some more rambling about his Ivy League sons, past careers, etc., and then about halfway through class, some random quotes from your textbook will be directly read/paraphrased. No lecture, no slideshow, nothing to formally delineate the objectives of that class\'s lesson. Hutchins repeats himself over and over again about small tedious facts, such as the three main exports of the United States, or the fact that Maryland has tax-free gold. Expect to hear these facts mentioned in at least one in three classes. \r\nNow these aspects of the course may lead you to believe that the class is a joke (you\'re right) and you do not need to attend lecture (you\'re WRONG). When the midterm rolled around, those who did not attend class were basically screwed. This is because the majority of the test content comes from his "witty" remarks in class and obscure documents posted on Blackboard rather than substantive material. Also, despite numerous requests, Hutchins will not give you any resources to prepare for this exam, such as a study guide, review session or practice test. Despite numerous requests for such materials, his response was "go over your notes, the book, and Blackboard." Umm, okay....\r\nBecause of the unanticipated difficulty/obscurity of the questions on the midterm, I took prepping for the final very seriously and attended every lecture. However, when I got to the test, I felt like I was looking at a bunch of trivia questions. The test featured true or false questions about whether or not a specific quote was featured in a particular article he\'d posted on Blackboard and questions that were very opinion-driven regarding ethical dilemmas. After the test, I heard that 87.5 was the second highest grade! No wonder Hutchins\'s average differs so much from that of other professors.\r\nAlso, there is a business plan project that you are required to work on throughout the semester. Despite the amount of time and effort required for this project, it only comprises 15% of your grade. Therefore, I suggest you don\'t look to a good grade on this as a "saving grace" for poor test grades. Together, the midterm and the final comprise 75% of your final average, so poor grades here will clearly dominate your average.\r\nAt the end of Hutchins\' course, I went to look back at the course objectives on his syllabus, because I felt like I hadn\'t learned anything of substance class. Could I give an in depth description for any of these objectives? Nope. Could I tell you the careers and alma maters of Hutchins\' sons, his home state, and his favorite place to buy gold? You bet.\r\nIn short, don\'t take this professor for 110, and if you must, don\'t take the course as a joke (even though it is.)', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-24T12:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': None, 'review': "Hutchins' class was a joke as too was the actual course. Literally did nothing and he talked about New Orleans and his son at Princeton. Entertaining class and an easy A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-06T17:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT110', 'review': "Horrible Teacher. Says one thing, does the other. Very unfair teacher. Provides no curve for final (even though best grade is a C). Don't take this teacher if you have a chance!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-12-27T02:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': 'This guy is absolutely hilarious. Very knowledgeable and an expert in logistics.\n\r\nBook = unneeded. Case studies cost $$ but are a breeze to write.\n\r\nPay attention in class, ask questions, and listen to his proud bragging of his princeton graduate son.\n\r\nThe A or B should be easy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-07T16:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': None, 'review': "Hutchins is honestly the strangest professor I've ever had. He seems normal at first, but after you've heard about his son's achievements or the number of times he's been to Panama about 3000 times you'll start to realize that this class is a waste of time. If you have any choice of getting out of Hutchin's section for fellows i would try as hard as possible to do so. If not, just sit back and read the stuff he gives you and try to be entertained by his weirdness.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-26T21:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': "Don't buy the book.\r\nYou don't need it.\r\nAll you have to do is read the powerpoint slides and the case studies.\r\nThe exams are completely based off of that.\r\nThere is a group paper and presentation.\r\nOverall I enjoyed the class and he is definitely helpful.\r\nThe material is quite easy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-14T17:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT392', 'review': 'Prof. Hutchins is a very fair grader. Most of us did horribly on the quizzes and he have us generous curves for them. He also knows his stuff about international business and uses real life examples such as current events and ties them into the course material. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-11T10:23:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "taking Hutchins means taking the class with no teacher. You'll learn way more about his personal life and opinions than you will about the course. There's a big group project that you put a ton of effort into but ultimately doesn't affect your grade, tests are crazy hard considering if you just sat in lecture you wouldn't think there was any material to the course. DON'T TAKE HUTCHINS", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2018-05-22T23:28:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT372', 'review': 'You will learn many things that do not relate to supply chain management. The mid-term is easy if you pay attention in class. The final is on everything you never learned about supply chain management and will tank your grade.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-21T21:35:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': "Do not let Richard Hutchins fool you into thinking he knows what he's talking about. He will say the exact same things everyday and act like you are lucky to have him as a teacher. I learned more from wikipedia than I did Richard Hutchins during that semester. If you want a teacher who undeservingly gasses himself up, this is your guy, but I advise you to just read Robinhood and gain twice the knowledge.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-14T07:28:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Hutchins', 'course': 'BMGT110F', 'review': 'Do NOT take this class with Hutchins unless you are prepared to read the entire textbook cover to cover. He does not lecture, he does not even BRING UP the material in the class. Most classes are spent looking at the stocks on Wall Street Journal and learning about his personal life. I cannot stress enough how extremely difficult his exams are, and if you don\'t read every word of that textbook, you are screwed. Going to class is not even close to necessary, except for the "participation points", which you earn by raising your hand and asking him a question about his personal life. If you are taking this class for any reason than a major requirement, don\'t do it unless you want to read a 500 page textbook cover to cover. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-12-16T00:50:15Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Hutchins', 'slug': 'hutchins'}, {'courses': ['MUSC205', 'MUSC230', 'HONR209Z', 'MUSC639H', 'MUSC320', 'MUSC682', 'MUSC683', 'MUSC248D', 'MUSC699O', 'MUSC699N'], 'average_rating': 4.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "First, this professor is not that bad the reason I give this low grading is that this course is a nightmare for international students!! If you don't grow up in the states or don't have any background of American music about the 18s then this course should be your last option. \n\r\nThis class has a paper every week and it's almost impossible for international students to get an A on it. I went to writing center three times for my first and second paper. And I only got B+ on those. \n\r\nAs for the test, if you don't want to remember 50 songs that sound very similar in a week, then you probably don't want to choose this course. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2016-11-11T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Best class I've had, and probably will have. I like music a lot, and it will help your experience if you do as well. Really interesting material, and the discussions are fun. You listen to music and discuss a little bit. Lectures are actually enjoyable. I would voluntarily go to lectures, even if I wasn't in the class. I probably will do that. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-04T19:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': 'One of my favorite classes here at Maryland. Dr. King is very entertaining, and is knowledgeable about the subject. The course is not an easy A. However, attending lectures and discussions is very enjoyable. I recommend creating a Spotify playlist containing each of the songs on the listening list. This is an easy way to review for the exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-22T14:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': 'King is an amazing professor. Short 2 page paper every other week. 3 exams and no final. 45 songs that need to know by clips...know song and artist. class is not hard at all and fulfills humanities requirement', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-14T03:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "A lot of people told me that MUSC205 is an easy A. Found out it's more of an easy B. The essays are graded as if the TAs are from English class. Near impossible to get an A for the essays. The exams are not hard as long as you know the book inside and out and you know every song by heart. Talking during the discussion classes is a necessity as nodding and talking once in a while does not cut it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-01T13:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': 'Whoever gave that 2 star review below me... you must not be very bright. Going to grad school means nothing as there are some pretty awful grad schools out there. I\'m not sure why you\'re complaining about rock music being on the exam when the bloody course description says it\'s "A historical survey of rock music."\n\r\nTAKE THIS CLASS. Dr. King knows what the hell he\'s talking about and presents all the material in an easy to understand format. The lectures are really interesting and worth going to. The papers are incredibly easy, you get to write about bands you love and as long as you make your points clear you\'ll get As. The exams are really only tricky if you don\'t do the listening... it takes like 1.5 hours to listen to all the songs that could be on an exam, that is not that long! And they\'re mostly good songs! And they play the hooks more often than not.\n\r\nI\'ve always been a pretty big "rocker" but I definitely learned a lot from this class. One of the best I\'ve taken at Maryland.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-16T11:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': 'Horrible course, even worse (boring, dry, rude, sarcastic) professor! Avoid like the plague!\r\nThis is NOT an easy A, granted you only have a few papers and minimal reading, BUT the exams will kill your grade because they require you to be able to recognize song titles and artists from 10 second clips, the hardest exam is the second one because you will be listening to heavy metal, rock, (ew) personally my taste is popular music, I mean come on, we\'re college students. But I swear the people who enjoy that music are so weird and even they did not do well on that test. It\'s difficult because al the music sounds the same. He has dense lectures where he will pick ONE LINE of a fact and smack it on the test and you have to know it for example "who was the lead guitarist for this band?" or "what was the name of that one producer that i mentioned in class for ONE MILLISECOND" or better yet "which artist sold the most records of this time period...of which we studied over 30 artists for an exam"....\n\r\nIN CONCLUSION, good luck guys when taking this course...really tho you will need it it is NOT an easy core. I am a senior and will be going to grad school next year so obviously I\'ve done well in all my classes and this course is killing me. So, good luck! Avoid King, he is NOT helpful at all. Don\'t know how he is still teaching honestly. And he\'s boring, and doesn\'t care about his students. He\'s a moron.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-02T23:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Dr. King is very passionate about what he teaches and very good at it. The course material is lots of fun (the homework is listening to pop music) and the TAs were also very good. There are 5 papers and an album review required, but the prompts tend to be broad and creativity is encouraged. The tests are a bit tough, so make sure to keep up with the required listening and readings.\n\r\nI can't recommend this class or Doc King enough.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-03-21T17:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': 'Incredible class, awesome professor. Everyone should take this for their HA credit! Lecture was completely unnecessary to attend because everything is posted online, but everyone still went because he presents a lot of cool material/videos and is entertaining to listen to.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-01-26T17:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "King is great, great class and taught well. Only complaint is we didn't get through all of the material and only made it to the beginning of modern rap instead of to today's music. But he even apologized on the last day, so, yea, take him if you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-22T21:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': 'Dr King is an amazing professor. Even though he posts all of his lecture outlines online, his lectures are so good, that it is hard not to go. He is extremely knowledgeable about music and can throw in a funny story every once in a while. The class itself only consists of a few papers and a few tests. So far, this has been the best class I have taken at UMD, and suggest it to everyone', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-16T23:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Dr. King is an excellent professor, definitely one of the best at UMD. The class itself is pretty laid back and relaxed, and covers a surprisingly wide range of music, from doo-wop to punk to rap, so there is something for everyone. Most of your grades come from short papers (about 5 or 6 throughout the semester) and you can pretty much write about whatever you want, and as long as it is coherent and well-written, you'll get a good grade. I got to write about artists I loved for a grade and it was awesome! \r\nTests include listening portions and multiple choice, but if you took decent notes in class they aren't too hard. He has online notes, but often includes questions from things he says in class, so make sure not to just rely on the online notes. I think I have learned more from this class than any other I have taken.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-15T21:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': 'I took MUSC205 with Prof. King this past fall 2010, and I liked it. I am an immigrant, I\'ve lived in America since I was 10 - I didn\'t know much about American "oldies." If you know your basic music history, you will succeed. I expect an A-, and I knew very little at the beginning of the semester. Papers are easy and discussions are very laid back. Take this class, even if you\'re a freshman.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-02T15:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Best teacher at the University of Maryland! He is highly entertaining and you always leave smiling. You must go to the lectures because you have to get the notes, but trust me this is no chore. Also the tests are not as easy as you would think. They are all multiple choice but the questions are usually pretty specific and you need to memorize music for the listening portion of the test. DO NOT try to put your desks down early even by one minute. He hates the sound of people packing up and will assign extra work because of it. Also don't fall asleep in his class! Overall amazing class and a must take at UMD!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-14T18:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Take the class during a winter or summer session when you will actually be able to get in. I took it during summer 2008. Three weeks long, only had to write 2 papers and had 2 tests (if I remember correctly). You really need to go to class to listen to the songs, or you probably won't do as well on the exams, but the songs were also available in the PAC library for listening. Take notes on what he says, don't just rely on the power points. \n\n\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-11-08T02:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Greatest class I've taken at Maryland so far. Dr. King is a very funny man, and the lectures are very enjoyable. You go over a small reading assignment during discussion, as well as take the tests, which there are 3 of not including the final. You have to keep up with the listening list though, or you will bomb the tests. If you read all the lecture notes (posted online) and go through the listening lists at least a couple days before the tests, you'll get an A. Great class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-24T00:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "This class was great... King was a great professor, kept class interesting, and he kept class fun. The music was great, and when it wasn't, King still brought life to the class.\n\r\nOf course, be sure to study extra hard for the exams. I'm not used to getting B's, but I did in this class due to bad performances on the multiple choice exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2007-12-17T12:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "I am not a music buff... i had never heard stairway to heaven before taking this class. But it was still incredibly easy. I went just to sit and watch the crazy pictures he posted during lecture. All the notes are posted on line, and as long as you know the notes and the songs he gives you are guaranteed an A.\n\r\nI the studying isn't fun... but there are only 3 tests and no final!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-04T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Strengths\r\nDr. King is a great professor and history of rock has been one of my favorite classes. If you love rock/popular music this class will be a favorite of yours. Even if you don't it isn't too difficult and how can you not like learning about it? I never missed a lecture except for one I couldn't make it to and I had no problem with attending them and taking good notes because it was just that interesting. WARNING: Don't make the mistake of not going to lecture because the outlines to the notes are posted online. They are not as complete as what he says in class and also it isn't as effective. The grading is very fair. 55% is based on things such as 6 1 page papers, participation/attendance in discussion, an album review, and a group project. The other 45% is from tests each are worth 15% (there is not one on finals day). Make sure you study the notes very thoroughly because the tests can be very specific in some of it's questions. Also make sure you keep up with the listening of the songs which isn't hard if you download them and listen to them. (I took this class in the spring of 2006 and now without DC++ I don't know what people will do to get all of those songs). My TA Lindsey was very nice and knowledgeable too and wasn't too difficult of a grader. Overall I highly recommend you take this class for your HA core course. I always tell people that I loved it so much, I'd take it again if I could. This along with human sexuality with Dr. Sawyer have to be two of the most popular classes at the University and are must take classes for everyone before they graduate!\r\nDrawbacks\r\nThe only drawback is that the tests could sometimes contain very specific questions and you really had to know your notes inside out. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-03T02:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Professor King is great! He's very knowledgeable about the history of blues and rock n' roll, and we just watched videos/listened to music clips every lecture - very entertaining! \r\n\r\nThis class is a bit deceiving, grade-wise. The exams were trickier than I expected, and the 3 papers we were assigned were impossible to get As on (Briana Nave was my TA and she was super anal about everything). It's a fascinating class overall, but be careful about those papers and make Spotify playlists to help you study for the exams. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-06-11T17:50:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard King', 'course': 'MUSC205', 'review': "Professor King is a great professor, he is really passionate about music and lectures are fun and interesting (if you're a big music fan). The class is very memorize heavy and it also really depends on the TA.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-01T02:01:51Z'}], 'name': 'Richard King', 'slug': 'king_richard'}, {'courses': ['ARTT150', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT428H', 'ARTT699', 'ARTT208W', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT428A', 'ARTT468B', 'ARTT628', 'ARTT698W', 'ARTT489V', 'ARTT489W', 'ARTT689W', 'ARTT150', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT428H', 'ARTT150', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT428H', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT428H', 'ARTT320', 'ARTT428', 'ARTT428H'], 'average_rating': 2.6875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': None, 'review': 'Richard Klank is the best art teacher I have ever had. He is knowledgeable, great artist and he is always there for his students. He is one of the most interesting human beings I have ever met in my life. 10 years has past since my graduation and I still think he is the best. The ones who gave him a bad review do not know who he is and must know little about art,for sure. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-07-31T01:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "I hace known him through a few classes, and both theoretical and studio work. Klank is a materialistic ego maniac with a dwarf complex that has left him baffled for the simple fact that he never made it to anything of artistic worth. It's simple: he made it to the art scene of abstract-expressionism when the movement was well out of the picture and very well saturated. In this sense, he could never possibily be an original artist and he certainly is not one now and will never be one in the future, if you'd assume that there is such thing imaginable for him.\r\nDue to these matters, his classes are filled with a thirst for confirmation. He spends hours of lectures trying to convince his students, who mostly are taking the class as a CORE requirement and don't give a shit, that he indeed is a great artist.\r\nHis overt focus on mystic elements of art is also a result of his inferiority complex; an attempt to add a superficial layer of value to his otherwise dull and unbecoming character.\r\nHe does have a good eye for art though. If you are an art student and can handle a pompous-for-no-good-reason teacher who would rather talk about himself most of the time, I suggest you befriend him and get his personal opinion on your work. He does not care for technique much but his understanding of color and composition is decent. He also knows the art market somewhat well because he used to buy art for rich people.\r\nBS and superficial mysticism as well as an attempt to talk to him about mental illness and the subconscious are the easiest tools to manipulate him with. He's certainly not a leader-type person therefore convincing him that you value his work and life is the key to get him to like you and speak highly of you.\r\nHe is a bit of a creep but a harmless one nevertheless.\r\nTake his class, BS your way, agree with him, praise him, get his critique of your work, but then move on. He's not the kind of a professor that you can benefit from for more than one or two classes.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-11-09T02:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "Really wish I had gotten to take this course with a different professor. Klank is really unorganized and often changed due dates of assignments and would forget to tell all the sections. He has a terrible attitude and often would ask students for their opinions and then tell them they were wrong. When students expressed distress, he told them to stop trying and that he didn't care if anyone liked him because he had ten-year and couldn't be fired. I wish I had had a professor who cared about his students and his job instead of just being a crappy prof because he knew he could get away with it. This is really disappointing to me because the actual material and readings for this class are really interesting. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-13T11:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "I think this class could have been much more engaging thereby making the students more responsive to the material being taught. \n\r\nI was frustrated with the lack of structure in the class and the elusive requirements listed for assignments, that often times I didn't want to listen to Klank even though a lot of the things he said still rung something inside of me. \n\r\nThe course material is very interesting and speaks to things that can be seen around you, but the way it is taught doesn't do the material justice. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-19T00:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "I am a business student and was worried going into this class (I only took it as a CORE class). Nearing the end of the semester, I have to say this is one of the greatest classes I have ever taken. If you are in college to actually learn about yourself and the world around you, I think this will be a great course to take. \r\nHowever, I think some students expect a simple outline of what they have to do to get an A in a class and they will do that minimum just to get that much closer to their degree. Not saying there is a problem with that, but that mindset limits learning and the real purpose of higher education. This is where I think most people get frustrated with Klank's teaching method. \r\nWith that said, the work is not hard at all in the class, as far as work goes its probably one of the easiest classes I have ever taken. You can browse over the readings and say a few words in discussion classes and discussion exams and do fine. BUT this is the class where I have had to THINK the most... I have experienced news ways of thinking that relate to every aspect of my life, not just art. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-20T15:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Book is a waste of money. I BS\'d the field trips and papers but apparently the TA\'s were all fools and didn\'t care much.\n\r\nLecture was as exciting as watching paint dry. Paint that would talk to you every second with "I am now drying. ____% dried".\n\r\nNone of the class cuties went to lecture, so it was just a nasty sausage fest that made me want to throw up.\n\r\nConsider taking it with another professor...\n\r\nVerdict: Klank - Jokester. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-21T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'This class will involve a lot of BS on your part, just to get that out of the way. The professor will go on a tangent every class so attending or not is up to you. However, the professor will literally read the exam answers on the class before the exams so you should definitely attend the class on those days. Discussions are required because they are a big part of your grade. You will have to make some questions about the readings and you will occasionally have discussion exams but they are nothing too difficult. The class is really easy so you should not having too much trouble if you do all your assignments.\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-23T21:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "I thought this class was pretty cool. I didn't realize how much theory was in the class, but it wasn't bad at all. The TA grades very easily. There is a LOT of reading to do, which I didn't do, but still managed to do very well in the class. You are assigned to go to museums in DC to see artwork, but I found some of the work interesting so it wasn't so grueling. Buy the books online or used at bookholders. His class might not make sense at first, but I began to understand things he was saying towards the end; the material is so simple, yet abstract. He does talk a lot about his life, which I think he plays up, but he seems to tie his stories into the class material. Overall, pretty good class and a nice teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T16:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "The guy was average as a professor and in general the class was really easy.\n\r\nAttendance was 33% of or grade. There are assigned seats as if we were all kids in gradeschool again.\n\r\nThere are many exhibitions we need to go to over the course of the semester to write 2 midterm papers on. The exams are just his self-defined material on beauty, the spheres of mind, etc..\n\r\nEverything was just so boring and idiotic in general. \n\r\nTo be honest I only went to class because we had a rather beautiful and alluring TA. If she weren't TAing the course there would be no point in going anymore. That's how bad the class is in terms of excitement.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T22:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'What complete BS. Do not take it if you\'re willing to sit hours on end and listen to his life stories. Every lecture consists of him in front of the class force-feeding the students to accept his ideals. Naturally a theory class is subjective, but prepare to have your opinions deflated into nothing because he\'s extremely pompous and arrogant. \n\r\nThe course itself is complete trash. Utter nonsense words are used to describe the simplest terms. \n\r\nThe TA\'s have no faith or interest in the class. There\'s ALOT of miscommunication and it\'s very unclear when assignments are due. \n\r\nThe thing about it is that you WILL get an A if you go to these "discussion" exams, and exhibitions. Your paper grade will be based on the mood of the TA. If he\'s having a bad week, watch out. Midterm and final is okay since they go through all the garbage material with you, so all you have to do is memorize. REALLY difficult to enjoy the class and it\'s a COMPLETE waste of time.\n\r\nConsider taking Weil for this CORE. Klank is just ...ugh.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-13T01:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Class is just pure nonsense. Everything is so naturally unnaturally idiotic.\n\r\nThere are all these garbage terms one has to review, plenty of laughable exhibitions one has to go to, and jokester discussions and attendance that one must attend to avoid losing 1/3 of your grade over. \n\r\nTAs are not only uninterested in teaching the course, but they have the AUDACITY to give 64/90+ ppl a failing grade on the midterm paper.\n\r\nDo not take this class for a core. If you are an art or sociology major.... good luck. May your devastating journey net you a passing grade.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2010-03-24T20:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': "He seems like a nice and cool guy, but I have problems with his class/teaching style. The TA had little interest in the class and there didn't seem to be much communication with him and Klank. REALLY difficult to get a concrete answer on what exactly the assignments were and when they were due; very unclear. Klank went on tangents ALL lecture then would try to cram in important actual information that was relevant to the class. Very, very difficult to take notes on his class, as most of the class is him telling stories (albeit usually interesting ones).", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-08-21T00:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'The professor is very, very tangential. Essentially, his teaching style involves telling stories about his life, that often don\'t relate to course material. I also didn\'t care much for the course material, which was highly conceptual. For example, the class\' definition of "form" was "the thing that makes the thing the thing that it is".\n\r\nHe\'s very nice and a lenient grader, but I struggled to pay attention in lecture.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-27T19:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'AMAZING teacher- can make the most boring stuff interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-24T04:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Such a nice guy and he has so many interesting things to say, except he only says interesting things, nothing relating to the class or the books we read. kinda wack and makes the class a lot harder than it should be ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-03-29T17:04:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Klank', 'course': 'ARTT150', 'review': 'Professor Klank was an alright teacher. His lectures were confusing and hard to follow. Professor Klank was very nice and always asked for feedback on the texts we would read. I would not have made it through this class without the amazing TA. Although her communication was not the best, she was very understanding and tried her best to connect with the students during discussions. This course might be tricky for students who have a hard time analyzing old texts. But I would not recommend this course unless it is necessary. For discussions, we would have text that we need to read and then pick quotes from the text, share and analyze them to show our understanding. Also, do not buy any of the texts he recommends, you should be able to find all of them online for no money. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-18T18:10:31Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Klank', 'slug': 'klank'}, {'courses': ['ANSC314', 'ANSC698D', 'ANSC698C', 'ANSC388', 'ANSC315', 'ANSC617', 'ANSC624', 'ANSC625', 'ANSC624', 'ANSC371', 'ANSC624', 'ANSC625', 'ANSC315', 'ANSC388', 'ANSC624', 'ANSC630', 'ANSC624', 'ANSC625', 'ANSC371'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Kohn', 'slug': 'kohn_richard'}, {'courses': ['ENEE621', 'ENEE222', 'ENEE620', 'ENEE662', 'ENEE322H', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE460', 'MSML604', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE469O', 'ENTS669F', 'MSML604', 'ENEE290', 'ENEE469O', 'ENEE324'], 'average_rating': 2.375, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard La', 'course': 'ENEE322H', 'review': "Dr. La is a pretty good professor. He teaches pretty well and sets a pretty large curve for the class, which he usually ends up lowering. The curve started at an 80% for an A, which was then lowered to a 75%. \n\r\nHis tests can be hard, but from what I've heard of other 322 classes, all of the tests are hard. He tells you that he will only assign homework every other week with around 4 problems on them, but he has consistently been giving us homework every week with 6-8 problems on it, which are very time consuming. Also, for the first two midterms he gave us homeworks which covered material that was going to be on the test and set the due date to after the midterm, which meant we didn't have the solutions to study from. \n\r\nOverall I'd say Dr. La is a good backup to Papamarcou if you can't get him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-12-07T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard La', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'He is decent at lecturing and is definitely really good at the stuff that he teaches. His exam averages were pretty low (around 40) so they are kind of difficult, but nothing too bad.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-17T00:36:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard La', 'course': 'MSML604', 'review': 'He had to handle a difficult topic for a class which was honestly not smart (including me). He tried his best, but it wasnt easy because of the online lectures.\r\nClass averages were pretty low throughout, but he curved generously in the end.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-21T19:46:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard La', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "The majority of his class will get Cs or lower, and there's a clear reason. Though 322 is one of the hardest EE courses, Richard La makes no attempt whatsoever to make the subject matter feasible. Wish I had never taken this professor, he caused the entire class unnecessary stress the entire semester, and the end of semester curve does in no way compensate for the terrible exams.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-24T21:46:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard La', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'Instead of seeing how poorly his students do and changing his teaching style to better their education, he fails them and smiles. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-24T21:54:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard La', 'course': 'ENEE222', 'review': 'Not a very good lecturer. Gives students little in study resources, especially for the final, which is most of the grade. Stressful.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-26T01:23:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard La', 'course': 'ENEE322H', 'review': "Let me begin by saying 322 is likely the most difficult EE course, in my opinion. It's a tough class and requires a lot of computational knowledge. That being said, La didn't do a great job of making the material accessible. Lectures made sense and things clicked. However, exams and homework often seemed to be a lot more involved than the examples given in lectures. Very low exam averages (40s or so), but there is a large curve of the overall grade. I have no issue with his teaching style, but his assignments are stressful to do, especially under a time crunch. He also did leave the class in the dark toward the end of the course in regards to the final grade, final exam preparation, etc., which I don't think helps perceptions of him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-03T02:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard La', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'Professor La is by all means a nice person who knows the subject material quite well. With that said, he was inadequate at teaching the material in a manner that was conducive to learning. 90% of your grade relies on two midterms and a final, the latter of which is worth 40%. As others have stated, the tests are stressful and difficult. For the final exam, we were not provided any study material nor given any supportive direction on the types of questions to expect. In addition, our only review session was cancelled; leaving students substantially unprepared and stressed. I had dedicated a great deal of time to review as much material as possible since my other exam grades were not great, but without a proper focus I wound up doing poorly. Overall, I did not find Professor La’s conduct regarding an exam worth 40% of our grade to be appropriate; the structure of the class, grading methods, and lack of content-accessibility all contributed to an awful learning experience.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-02-02T03:43:01Z'}], 'name': 'Richard La', 'slug': 'la_richard'}, {'courses': ['MUSC151', 'MUSC150', 'MUSC250', 'MUSC150', 'MUSC151', 'MUSC150'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Layton', 'course': 'MUSC150', 'review': "For the lecture part on MWF, the majority of the work for the class comes from keeping up with the reading, with occasional homework in the workbook to supplement it. So if you don't do the reading there is really not much work at all, but it is also harder to grasp the material. Layton is great at explaining it, but the class is only an hour long and there is a lot of material. Layton's tests are pretty much exactly like all the worksheets you do for the unit, just all combined into one test so you have to watch your time. And there are a few definitions, too, which you don't cover in homework, so make sure you review those before tests.\n\r\nAs for Layton himself, he is probably one of the best teachers I've ever had. He not only holds everyone's attention, but he entertains us. I am not a morning person and this was my first class everyday at 9 AM, so I would skip this class a lot if he wasn't a good teacher. But I actually enjoy coming to theory, which is something none of my other music major friends at other schools can say.\n\r\nAs for the ear training on T/Th, I'm probably biased because I'm a singer but I found it really easy. I didn't have to do anything outside of class for aural skills, I just showed up and sight sang and did the dictations and I'm pretty sure my grade is fairly close to 100%. Even if it is a challenge for some people, if you prepare the melodies before hand like you're suppposed to the class should be an easy A and will help pad your grade if your grade in lecture is borderline. And John is awesome. I specifically tried to get him again next semester because he is really nice and good at explaining things. He's a little awkward, but that might just be because he's new at teaching or maybe it's just how he is.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-05T12:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Layton', 'course': 'MUSC150', 'review': "Very funny teacher! Loves the students and explains stuff very well. I think he's a little picky when grading and the test arent as easy as you think. Overall i think i have a B in the class but the Lab portion will boost me up to an A since its 40% of your whole grade. The Lab section by the way is extremely easy", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-08T00:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Layton', 'course': 'MUSC150', 'review': "Dr. Layton is an AMAZING professor. He's entertaining, engaging, and a wonderful teacher. He makes sure to get to know all of his students, and his corny theory jokes make class enjoyable. His homework is straightforward, and I'd say he usually assigns it about once a week. He often travels to other schools to teach, so he is known to randomly cancel class. Exams are very reasonable. Definitely take Layton if you get the chance!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T19:55:56Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Layton', 'slug': 'layton_richard'}, {'courses': ['INST643', 'INST888', 'INST742', 'INST309', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST728L', 'LBSC789A', 'INST448', 'INST899', 'INST443', 'INST341', 'INST747', 'INST341', 'INST604', 'INST742', 'INST443', 'INST608Q', 'INST878Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Marciano', 'slug': 'marciano'}, {'courses': ['ENCE305', 'ENCE431', 'ENES481', 'ENCE630', 'ENES480', 'ENCE730', 'EDSP652'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "You will know the material cold after this class. It will be drilled into you through countless in class examples, nightly homeworks (each only taking about an hour) and of course, dilligent studying that is absolutely necessary for the three exams and the final. \n\r\nMcCuen is a strict teacher. Make sure your phone is off and away before you walk into his class! Walk in late and you will not get credit for that days homework. His exams are a speed game, and points fly off with his grading. Don't talk to other students during his lecture.\n\r\nGo to class, take good notes, practice practice practice, and you will do fine. McCuen is a thorough, respectable, dilligent and demanding teacher. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-24T19:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': 'if you know about fluids and its reputation, you should know how difficult it is. and most people know that mccuen is probably the strictest teacher in civil engineering. however, he is the one professor ive had that kept me engaged in the class and really taught the concepts in an understandable way and a way that related to real world engineering problems. his tests are hard and you have to really know the concepts and be able to retain them instantly. in short, the students who put in the most time and work will do the best in his class. because of that, id say hes a very fair teacher. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-26T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': 'I was not a fan. He knows how to teach the material but goes a little fast. He does not use a text book, only very old handouts which I really did not like. He recommends a text book or two but they do not compare well to the types of problems he does. \r\nI did not see him as a very fair professor. He claims to be the most strict grader in the engineering school. I do not know if it is being strict or just taking off an arbitrary amount of points for the solution not being perfect. \n\r\nNot to scare anyone--but 5/31 (or so) people dropped or withdrew from the class. Now recalculate the grade distributions...\n\r\nI would not take him again. But good luck with whoever you take! ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-20T19:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE431', 'review': 'Dr. McCuen is an excellent professor. He truly wants the best of his students and expects the calibre of work to be of the highest level, which is understandable since 431 is a senior level, design oriented class. Every topic covered has relevance to field work/design. Homeworks and projects were tough but necessary in order to be able to understand the material. This was a great course!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-28T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE431', 'review': "Skating by is not an option in his class. The minimum you can do and still pass is still a lot. This is all done for a reason though. His ultimate goal is for you to learn your stuff. Get ready for nightly homeworks, projects, and manageable (stressful nonetheless) tests. One of UMD's finest teachers. Talk to him any day of the week and he will help you. On a bad note, he does favor female engineers.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-08-29T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE431', 'review': 'FANTASTIC PROFESSOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Teaches the material in a clear, concise way. Combines both theoretical and applied topics in hydrologic engineering, better preparing us for the real world', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-06-17T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "McCuen is strict, but he has his students' success at heart. If you go in to seem him for homework help or show concern in your grade, you'll realize his objectives are to prepare students for the real world.\n\r\nThat being said, stay on top of the homework, and always always always go to class. He tends to have a pop quiz once or twice in a semester on precisely the day you're not there, and missing it could strongly hurt your grade. You'll learn a lot and remember more material than you'd expect in his classes. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-23T12:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': 'I wholeheartedly agree with the previous review.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-20T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "Dr. McCuen is the best professor I have had at the university, thus far. Although he tends to be strict, his teaching style (very real-world based) and ability to keep us on our toes all throughout class are unlike any professor that I have ever taken.\n\r\nA good number of people drop/fail/do badly in this course and it's known to be one of the hardest classes in the civil engineering curriculum. I think that if you stay on top of your work and get engaged in the subject (which isn't that hard because fluids is very interesting), you have a very good chance of getting at least a B. I like the fact that this is my most challenging course this semester and I will definitely retain the knowledge I gained from this course long after I graduate.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-07T18:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard McCuen', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': 'Nothing anyone else has not said, very strict(do not even try to go to the bathroom). but you learn and he makes things applicable to real engineering problems. He grades VERY strict, i received a 2/5 on a homework problem, when it was the right answer, because i did not box my clear answer. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-10-06T03:49:33Z'}], 'name': 'Richard McCuen', 'slug': 'mccuen'}, {'courses': ['ASTR340', 'ASTR480', 'ASTR620', 'ASTR680', 'ASTR350', 'ASTR380', 'ASTR421', 'ASTR350', 'ASTR350', 'ASTR350', 'ASTR399', 'ASTR421'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Mushotzky', 'course': 'ASTR380', 'review': 'Very boring, lecture tend to drone on and his slides have way more information than you would need ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-10-12T19:07:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Mushotzky', 'course': 'ASTR350', 'review': "One of the nicest professors out there. He's so accommodating and all his assignments were easy and manageable. How many professors are there that their students if they want a final exam or final paper?", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-16T02:31:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Mushotzky', 'course': 'ASTR350', 'review': "Lectures might not be it but he is really smart in his field. Makes assignments interesting and easy. He doesn't make assignments unnecessarily hard. \r\nGave option between final paper on any topic related to black hole or an exam. Our class chose to write a paper.\r\nOverall I liked him a lot.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-01T18:03:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Mushotzky', 'course': 'ASTR350', 'review': "Lectures were a little dry but homework was easy and manageable. \r\nThe midterm wasn't that bad, and this man gave us an option between a final paper and final exam. \r\nNeed I say more? If you have the chance, take him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-20T16:48:56Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Mushotzky', 'slug': 'mushotzky'}, {'courses': ['BUSI650', 'BMGT455', 'BMGT457', 'BUMK716'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Newman', 'slug': 'newman_richard'}, {'courses': ['BSCI330', 'BSCI353', 'BSCI338A', 'NACS608', 'BIOL708P'], 'average_rating': 3.7419, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI353', 'review': 'Dr. Payne has been my favorite professor since I have been here (7 semesters).\n\r\nI took BSCI330 with him as well and I love how passionate he is, and how he really wants us to work hard in his class. He is super quirky and is a stickler for the way you phrase a question (all in good intentions, but annoying when you want to understand a concept and not get boggled down by semantics), but overall I really enjoyed his lectures and he presented the material in a very interactive way\n\r\nOne day we all brought in flashlights and practiced doing optical illusions. \r\nAdvice: if you want to learn, and also enjoy interactive lecture series, go take Payne. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-25T16:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Best professor ever for BSCI330! Takes exam questions straight from powerpoints. All you have to do is go to class and he hints which slides will be on the exam. Also he is so understanding when it comes to late assignments. Great man. And for the person who said he is awkward in office hours, that is not true. I spoke with Payne multiple times and he is very very polite to women and quite the gentleman when it comes to manners and doing his students a favor. I love Payne and cannot wait to take his BSCI353 class. He was a wonderful teacher and he truly understands that undergrad students do not want more work than they need in order to understand the concepts. He is awesome. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-10-29T06:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "I completely disagree with the review below me. His exams WERE DEFINITELY fair. He tested us ONLY on the material on his powerpoints, which is a big plus for me. I am a busy person, and I am sure many people are too, so I do not have time to read 40 pages a day for this class (I am sure every other BSCI330 proffesor makes you read). Reading from the textbook is difficult because it is so dense and there is no way a professor will test you on all of that material. Dr. Payne tells you on the first day of school that he includes only the most important material on his powerpoints, and his exams derive only from his powerpoints. All you have to do to get an A in Dr. Payne's class is to attend his lectures, pay attention, take notes, and NOT procrastinate. His powerpoints are about 40 slides each and there are about 10 powerpoints on each exam, so it is very difficult to memorize 400 slides the day before the exam. Trust me... I know... \r\nThe only reason why I believe I got an A- and not an A was because I started studying for his tests literally 2 days before his exams. I actually started studying for the final a day before the exam... a horrible, horrible mistake.\n\r\nAnyways, if I managed to get an A- while severely procrastinating, it is definitely possible to get an A in his class if you have some sense of time management.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-08-24T18:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "God awful teacher. He is probably the single worst teacher I've had in all of my experience at UMD. His questions are beyond unpredictable, often testing on a single example he spends 2 minutes on as an essay question without even mentioning a concept he spents 40 slides on in class on his tests. Every detail he tests you on is as asinine as possible. If you are bioengineering, this is the worst possible class and is the polar opposite of any other class you take. He understands his stuff, but is a terribly dry lecturer whose lecture follows no cohesive format whatsoever. He only reads off slides making attending lecture borderline useless. Take it with Cao if you can.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-22T17:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI353', 'review': "I'm sure it's been repeated enough, but to do well in Dr. Payne's class, you need to know everything on his slides. Practice tests are a good depiction of what you should expect on the tests. I thought he was a great teacher and his lectures were interesting.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-12-30T02:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI353', 'review': "Sure, he can talk a lot I'll give you that. He knows the information he teaches quite well, but he comes off quite rude at times. Don't be fooled by your impression of him during lecture. I went to his office hours for help, and all he did was confuse me and make me feel like an idiot for wasting me time going to ask for help. He doesn't answer your questions during office hours, but instead consistently tells you that all the information is on the slides for us to work out. His exams are full of nonsense that test us on the details of his lectures. His exams are straight from the slides, but poorly written. He tests you on maybe 25% of everything we learn, so you can technically study over 80% of the material and end up getting a C. If his tests reflected more of what he taught, his class wouldn't be so bad. Thankfully, professor Quinlan taught the last third of the class. She wasn't bad at all.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-11-15T01:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Payne is a below average teacher. He reads straight off of the slides, and usually bored those few of us in attendance to death. Doing well in his class requires knowing every word of every slide, so really do memorize EVERYTHING, as he really will test on anything on the slides/mentions in class.\r\nIt's not 100% necessary to go to class, but I found that making that extra effort did help me somewhat when I was studying for the exams, as he usually doesn't test in much more detail than he goes in during lectures. Having recordings of the lectures also helped me immensely.\r\nThe lab will help boost your grade, and Dr. Payne also has a very generous policy about the final exam. If you get an A or A- on the final exam, then that will be your grade in the class, regardless of what you may have had previously. I studied extremely hard for the final and ended up getting an A in the class.\r\nOverall, not an incredibly hard class, just a ton of memorization, but if you're really interested in Cell Bio then it isn't that hard to put up with.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-29T20:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'He is a good teacher. You have to know all the slides and not just verbatim but how to apply them. I found tests to be pretty straight forward from lectures. I did bad throughout the semester but ended up with and A. \r\n*Spoiler* The final exam counts toward your overall grade!\r\nI mean, for that alone I would give him 5 stars!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-18T15:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'I got an A in his class, so I am not writing as a disgruntled former student. But I am writing to try to warn future students of Richard Payne. I will always remember Dr Payne because of how awful he is. He is fine if you ask questions during class but I am a girl and I went to him for office hours by myself. It seriously is one of the most uncomfortable experiences I have ever had at UMD. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-03-19T17:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI353', 'review': 'I have loved many biology professors and it pains me to dislike this one. He is a nice person but an AWFUL professor. He is terrible at explaining concepts and highly unprofessional. I sadly learned nothing from this man and wasted 3 credits. I was actually surprised when I saw how high his ratings were because I completely disagreed. \n\r\nTake someone else.. you will learn nothing. \n\r\nClass consisted of two tests and a final.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-02T23:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "One of the greatest professors I've ever had. Yes, there is a LOT of material and a LOT of detail, but this is a 300 level class- if you don't know if you like molecular biology at this point, you should have left a long time ago. His exams are extremely straightforward, he has an awesome regrade policy (he actually LIKES regrades unlike most teachers who see it as a hassle), is very responsive to student questions (on ELMS and in review sessions), and is all around a really interesting guy. As he says at the beginning of the semester, the grade you get out of the class is what you put in- he doesn't give extraneous work. If you love what you're doing, you'll want to learn because you want to- not because you need to be forced to.\n\n\r\nGreat professor, highly recommend him for every class he teaches (be it cell biology or neurophys).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-10-05T01:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Payne basically reads off the slides with adding a few words here and there. I thought this class was going to be really easy and just memorize stuff, but even though it was just that, it seemed like he sometimes chose weird stuff to test on. There could be 1 slide out of the set of lectures and it would be an essay question and if you don't know it perfectly you will probably not get any points on the essay. It seemed like sometimes he chose the less important stuff to test on if you thought the other stuff was more important.\n\r\nLab portion is good if your TA is good. I tried hard in lab to boost my grade. I got an A in the lab portion which combined with the lecture grade averaged me to a B final grade. It is possible to get an A if you study the material everyday and start memorizing/ understanding the material at the beginning versus just a few days before.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-06-08T00:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "memorize the lectures and i mean EVERYTHING in the lectures. you dont need to go to lecture, he posts all his slides on elms. learn the course material like a 'story' as he described, not as straight facts. once i understood how to learn the material this way it made studying easier. tests are 2-3 multiple choice, about 20 short answers worth 4-6 points each and the rest are 10 point questions, you need to hit the key words for each pathway to get full credit. test averages were in the low 70s. there were a bunch of easy online quizzes which were just grade boosters.\n\r\nlabs were not bad, a few were just spent wasting a lot of time waiting around for drugs to incubate but they were overall interesting and fun, especially because my TA David was awesome. 2-4 point pre-lab quiz in lab before it starts. \n\r\nyou will learn a LOT of material in this course and be prepared to study every night to keep up with it. overall, a very interesting class though and Dr. Payne has a cool british accent. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-21T01:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Professor himself is a nice guy and very knowledgeable. He cares about his students and has a sweet accent. He himself deserves a good rating. Now the class as a whole can be summed up with this: ZZZZZZZZZ.\r\nLab isn't very much fun. Lots of sitting around and doing nothing, waiting for shit to work that never does. Waste of everyone's time. Thank God I brought flashcards from my other classes to flip through during lab. The material is straight up memorization, and is DRY as can be. Well, at least it seems that way at 9am...rarely could I pay any attention even with my daily cup of trusty diner coffee at hand. Third exam material was so boring I thought my soul was going to die. But the material is useful in research/grad school/professional-y type things and I really wish I had the attention span to absorb it. Oh well. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-19T00:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "The way Payne teaches this class, he is irrelevant. Everything is on the slides so you don't even have to go to class as long as you memorize EVERYTHING. There's no real learning here, just memorize and dump on the test. If you're BIOE this class will most likely suck.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-15T21:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "This is straight memorization. Literally, requires no thinking. His lectures are extremely boring. All he does is read off the slide. You don't really have to go to lecture or read the book. Just memorize every slide for the tests. When I say memorize every slide, I mean EVERY slide. He'll ask a 10 poing question on something that takes about half a slide. Its kind of ridiculous. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-07T21:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "I personally did not click with Dr. Payne and his teaching style. Maybe it was the material, but this class required a great deal of memorization. Further, I often found it difficult to focus in lecture and end up trying to memorize everything right before the exams (Dont do this). Instead, start memorizing as soon as possible.\n\r\nHis exams are mostly short answer questions and partial credits are inconsistent. But if you know everything on the powerpoints, then it's simply a matter of reiterating it on the exams. \n\r\nLab, for a 300-level class, is very easy. Never touched the book. No curve, but a few EC were given. Easy to get B, work to get A.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-03-29T01:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Payne is a fun lecturer and definitely kept me engaged through the entire class period. You don't need the book for this class if you take good notes. His exams are straight from lecture. For this class, he is more interested in how well you understand the experimental evidence for EVERYTHING. Not just memorizing the experiments that were performed, but you have to understand how you could manipulate each experiment to test different parameters. You have to understand those experiments! \r\nHe tends to say A LOT during lecture. He'll put up a slide and then talk about it for like 15-20 minutes and sometimes that would lose me. \r\nI did go to his office hours and surprisingly he wasn't very friendly which caught me off guard because he comes off as really fun and approachable during class. \r\nHe's really cool about re-grades and he especially likes it if you can argue a good case. \r\nOverall he's a fun lecturer. I like how he presents the material in a way that keeps me interested. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-29T15:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': None, 'review': " Terrible professor! His class has two quizzes worth 15 points each. The quizzes are worded in a way so that you will get them wrong, they do not test on what you actually take away from the scientific article. There are two midterms worth 75 pts each. He forces you to learn all the material and tests you on less then half, so if you learn the wrong half then you are screwed. The final is worth 120 pts. Quinlan taught the last third of this class and she wasn't bad, I wish she taught the entire course. Luckily, 50 pts on the final came from her, while 70 pts came from Payne. His portion on the final tested you on one common theme and then a bunch of nonsense. Quinlan gave you a set of important questions to understand before the final and then tested you on those ideas which was great! The class had a total of 300 points, the curve was set at the beginning of the class which is stupid if you ask me because you don't know how people will perform before you test them. A 255 was an A, 225 was a B, 195 a C, and so on. \r\n Take this class with someone else instead of Payne if your looking fo learn the material better. He has an accent too which can also be difficult to understand at times. He might have been a good professor at one point, I can definitely see that, but it might be his time to retire now because I don't think he has it anymore. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-24T09:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Agree with previous reviewers. This class is a huge memory dump, and I feel like it was kind of a waste of money because of that. If you are a memorization jockey, you will be in hog-heaven, otherwise it\'s going to be really rough to remember every little detail from the slides (HINT: his tests are just that). Bought the book, read it in the beginning, aced the first test. Studied pretty much the night or two before on the last 2 tests and final and did fairly poor. Came out with a B despite my minimal efforts. If you keep up with the material, an A is incredibly doable here. \n\r\nPayne is the man. He tried, and is pretty fair with everything grade-wise. He occasionally pushed things back because he felt like we were "swamped." I hear horror stories from every other cell bio teacher. Get this guy and do yourself a favor.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-10-30T05:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very good lecturer. If you listen to his lectures and take notes, you will not need the textbook. He makes the material very interesting and easy to understand. One of my favorite professors at Maryland.\n\r\nHis tests are fair and reasonable. If you review by reading notes from lecture and read his slides, you will do fine. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-23T18:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Payne is a nice professor who definitely cares about his students. He's fair when it comes to regrades and his exams aren't terribly hard -- all you really need to do is know what's on the lecture slides. Though the book can help for supplemental understanding of the material, knowing everything in his lectures is key. I do mean everything -- he can ask 10 point (/100) open-ended questions on a single topic and if you don't know it well - you're grade will drop 10 points on the spot (though he's good about partial credit). Our class average was terrible for the second exam because of the snowstorms so Dr. Payne offered to allow us to make up for it by adding 15 extra points to the final. The lab portion of the class was not too bad (it was with Dr. Parent) especially if you're coming from taking those Orgo I/II or Gen Chem II labs; a grade booster if anything.\n\r\nBe sure to look at previous exams and his other questions before exams to know what Dr. Payne may be looking for.\n\r\nGoing to class is not needed as he posts all of his lecture slides on blackboard...but if you do go, you'll get to enjoy his bubbly personality and awesome accent.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-05-23T04:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'He is an amazingly nice guy who cares about students, although the material was dry. He tried to make it as interesting as possible, but I just could not bring myself to pay attention. Even though there is no "curve," there were enough cushy points built in to the class to allow for an a A with moderate effort (and without attending lecture). All lecture slides are posted online, and tests are ONLY based on the lecture slides, so reading the book is useless unless you want a more in-depth explanation of something he put on a slide because you didn\'t go to lecture. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-22T02:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Payne is an awesome professor! Definitely take him! His tests are based completely on his lectures, but he posts lecture notes, so you know exactly what to study. The exams are also very, very straightforward. He's a good lecturer, and he's just a really good teacher. He wants students to ask questions at any time during the lectures, and he's really receptive in general. This was probably the best bio class I've ever taken.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-17T18:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Payne is a good professor in that he certainly knows his stuff. But he's not as dynamic of a lecturer as Ades, the other 330 professor. Going to lectures is completely unnecessary since he reads directly off the slides most of the time and the stuff that he does say that's not on the slides he doesn't test you on. He is funny though, so it's fun to listen to him in lectures. He is a REALLY nice guy. \n\r\nIt is crucial to have a good lab TA- lab is supposed to be easy with minimal effort (I lost 1 point the entire semester in lab). He is really fair. Make sure you look over the old exams he posts, especially for the final which is cumulative and has A LOT (A LOT) of material on it. Take this class-- you will certainly learn a lot. Also, when you're taking his exams, make sure you are thorough he is picky with points.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-17T12:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Great professor!! Dr. Payne really cares about his students and grades fairly. He's willing to help you granted you apply the right amount of effort and he responds often to student concerns and questions.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-01T08:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI454', 'review': 'Dr. Payne is an awesome professor. He is very nice and fair. Lectures are interesting, he is very energetic! He teaches the material by first teaching you about how something was discovered or came to be. At first this can be tedious but you will soon realize that this method of teaching actually instills the information in you on a much deeper level of understanding. Exams require some preparation but he always holds helpful review sessions and has review questions and previous exams available to students. He can be pretty funny at times too :)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-07T00:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Payne is an excellent professor all around - engaging, witty, organized, and extremely knowledgeable. His exams are well-written and fair, often including research-oriented questions rather than straight memorization (ex. propose an experiment for testing whether x is a consequence of y). Plus, he has a cool British accent - can't beat that!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-26T15:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Dr. Payne was a fair professor that knows the cell biology material well. He focuses a lot on research methods at the beginning of class and often asks the class "how would you prove this or investigate this" because he is a researcher himself. There is a lot of material to learn, but just study the slides and do his practice questions and exams and you\'ll be fine. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T00:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "Dr. Payne is great - good, solid professor that is interested in his students. Oh yeah, he's from England, so he's got a cool accent. I really enjoyed his class, and it was great prep for the MCAT.\n\r\nHis lectures for BSCI330 are PowerPoint and usually consist of about 30 slides, which makes the material manageable. It's important to understand and go to lecture since that's what he tests from. \n\r\nHe is very fair when it comes to regrades and answers student submitted questions on BlackBoard. The grading breakdown is as follows:\n\r\nLecture - 68% (500 points)\r\nLab - 27% (200 points)\r\nWeb quizzes - 5% (40 points)\n\r\nA+ = 698-740\r\nA = 767-697\r\nA- = 655-675\r\nB+ = 630-654\r\nB = 606-629\r\nB- = 581-605", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-30T17:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Payne', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Good lectures- alot of it is a review from BSCI105.\n\r\nOnce you get into signal transduction pathways, Payne really shines. I learned more from this class than any other bsci course. Great prep for the MCAT too.\n\r\nWork consists of 1 lab/week and 3 midterms plus a final.\n\r\nMidterms were essay so be ready while the final was more fill-in the blank, matching, and short answer.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-10-23T12:14:00Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Payne', 'slug': 'payne_richard'}, {'courses': ['EXST039D', 'EXST049D', 'COMM639B', 'COMM649B', 'COMM659A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Popp', 'slug': 'popp'}, {'courses': ['HIST233', 'HIST427'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Price', 'slug': 'price_richard'}, {'courses': ['MATH310'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Rast', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'The lectures are great! He knows the material very well and explains them in a pretty clear way! Love him! I would recommend him to anyone with little proof experience.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-04T19:00:00Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Rast', 'slug': 'rast'}, {'courses': ['ENGL390', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Reynnells', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': "take him. that's the short answer. just take him. take him. take him. it will be the funniest and most comfortable class of your life. just look at the grade data. he is a great guy and will treat you with nothing but respect-- he got to know us all and made class seem like a get-together. you get out early if things move smoothly. take him. join his class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-04T23:52:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Reynnells', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': "super duper lenient.. Just do the work and you'll end up with an A+", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-07-10T20:34:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Reynnells', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': "Can't recommend him enough, super invested in teaching the class and very caring/understanding if you need any extensions...a bit eccentric but with all the extra credit opportunities he gives there's a reason that the majority of students get an A+ in his class, one of the most memorable professors I've had at UMD", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-02T13:58:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Reynnells', 'course': None, 'review': 'JUST TAKE HIM', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-10T23:39:07Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Reynnells', 'slug': 'reynnells'}, {'courses': ['EDCP651', 'EDCP888G', 'EDCP789T', 'EDCP610', 'EDCP697', 'EDCP612', 'EDCP619D', 'EDCP697', 'EDCP651', 'EDCP612', 'EDCP697'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Shin', 'slug': 'shin_richard'}, {'courses': ['BSCI283', 'BSCI348A', 'CBMG688M'], 'average_rating': 4.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Stewart', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "He's the sweetest and nicest professor I've ever had. He gives thorough, albeit boring lectures, and overall I'd recommend him to future students. \n\r\nAt the beginning of the year he said that there are 800 points for the class, no curve, and only 30 points worth of extra credit available. That's a *LIE*. There are a LOT more extra credit points available than he lets on! \n\r\nExams are very detail oriented and very difficult with averages usually in the 60's. They're based solely on the power point lectures, which he posts online. If you memorize absolutely EVERYTHING on the power points, you should get over 100% on the exams quite easily. Lecture attendance isn't mandatory, as he doesn't use clickers, but definitely recommended. \n\r\nLab gives you easy points with little work and effort. I guess it's there to boost your grade. Make sure to pay attention becasue the practical covers almost all the labs done in class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-02-24T22:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Stewart', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "This class was very easy. Although his lectures are boring and he tends to try very hard to make lectures exciting, they don't really make students want to stay in class. You must go to lecture 20 times at least to get the clicker points. \n\r\nOverall, Stewart is a very good teacher if you listen to what he says. He wants his students to pass so utilize his weekly study questions. If you answer these you will be prepared for the tests. \n\r\nAnother great thing Stewart does is posts the final question to each test and a sample test for every test. With these and Koofers tests (which were exactly the same tests we were given this year) it is impossible to not get an A. \n\r\nGood luck in Micro!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-25T17:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Stewart', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "He's an awesome professor. I like him a lot. He takes his time to go over the power point slides very well as well as answering any questions you may have. Though the powerpoint slides were somewhat boring there were still parts that captured my interest. Study in advance for the exams by going over every powerpoint slide and masteringbio helps a lot as well. Don't be afraid to approach him for anything in an appropriate manner if you have any questions about exams, lecture quizzes etc. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-01-07T07:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Stewart', 'course': 'BSCI443', 'review': "easy class, boring but really nice professor, take it to boost your science gpa. you won't learn much. NO EXAMS!!!\r\nJust really long problem sets based on research papers we read. every week, you must present a figure/section of a paper--requires some preparation outside of class but for the most part, easy easy easy. Attendance is not that serious.\r\nno final!!! \r\nYou will get an A. \n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-07-28T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Stewart', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "He's a great teacher who gives his students several opportunities to do well through extra credit on each exam, practice exams, and online quizzes which students are allowed to retake up to three times. This makes it easy to do well. He also sets up weekly review sessions where students can go and ask any questions they may have. He really knows his stuff and provides all his lecture notes online. All the information he test his students on are from the lecture notes, which make the exams very fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-01-23T19:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Stewart', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Knows his stuff. Very good lectures (he uses powerpoints that he posts online before the lecture) Powerpoints are very straightforward. Bring your laptop to class if possible because he goes through material faster than most can write. Very helpful in Q&A sessions he has every week. Tests are very fair and he gives a practice exam along with an extra credit question for each test before each test. So you always know exactly what is on the test, and how to do the extra credit. Overal very pleasant professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-11-27T02:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Stewart', 'course': 'BSCI223', 'review': "Not a very engaging lecturer although he really knows his stuff. He is much more help when you go to his office hours. Sit up closer because he doesn't ever seem to be very loud even when he is miked.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-21T15:58:00Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Stewart', 'slug': 'stewart_richard'}, {'courses': ['COMM231', 'COMM498B', 'COMM232', 'COMM331'], 'average_rating': 1.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Toth', 'course': 'COMM231', 'review': 'If you don’t need to take it, AVOID THIS CLASS AT ALL COSTS. Unfortunately, if you are a COMM-PR major, then you are out of luck, because it is required and there is no way out of it. Sorry. \n\r\nI NEVER rate classes on this website, but for this class, I had to make an exception. \n\r\nFirst of all, for a COMMUNICATION teacher, the least you would expect is a teacher who is vocal, outspoken, and knows how to COMMUNICATE. Not the case here. Professor Toth mumbles, and speaks in his low, monotone voice for the entire two hours. You must also be alert and pay attention to everything he says. Oh, you lost focus for about 30 seconds because he’s just that boring? Well guess what? You just missed a very important statement about something you need to know for your upcoming exam or paper. Guess what else? It won’t be repeated again. \n\r\nHe writes everything in abbreviations, and doesn\'t explain what they mean. You are just expected to know them. He also needs to be introduced to the enter key or how to indent. All of his "specs lists" for his assignments are so crowded and he fills up the WHOLE ENTIRE PAGE, single-spaced, to write everything that he wants from you, without a line to spare. It takes more time to read and try to interpret his abbreviations on his specs list than it does to write the actual assignment. \n\r\nWhen you think you’ve figured out what you need to do for the assignment, more likely than not, you will have done it wrong, and you will get your paper back replete with indistinguishable, illegible marks. Have fun figuring them out. The TAs can’t even understand them. \n\r\nToth is also the most miserable man I have ever met. He is always grumpy, and just plain rude. Good luck asking him for help without his making you feel like you are a complete idiot, and that you are wasting his time by even bothering to stay in his class. This is an introductory course to PR, yet he expects us to already be experts in the field. \n\r\nThis class should not be a 200-level course. I have never spent so much time for a class, and tried so hard for it, and managed to get such bad grades. Many people need to retake this class because he grades so harshly on all of the assignments. \n\r\nIt’s sad that this class sucks so much because it could have had a lot of potential. By the end of the semester, you will have definitely improved your writing and you will have learned a lot of useful skills that you’ll have to apply later in the PR world. Just make sure that, if you can, you take this class in the summer with a different professor to avoid the headaches, mental breakdowns, and tears that will come of this class with Toth. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-20T08:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Toth', 'course': 'COMM231', 'review': 'Don\'t take this class unless you are a PR major and have to because it is a requirement. Even then, try to take it over the summer because R. Toth is a TERRIBLE teacher. \n\r\nHe spends two hours mumbling and speaking in a monotone voice, so quietly, that only the front row can hear him. If you ask him to speak up, he will, for about 30 seconds. He trails off at the end of almost every sentence so you have no idea what is going on. \n\r\nHe takes simple assignments and unnecessarily turns them into assignments from hell. For a communications teacher, I have never met a person so bad at communicating. Every assignment/syllabus/pp slide has multiple colors on it, unnecessary pictures/graphics, and way more writing then can fit the page. The hardest part of the class is reading the papers/emails he gives you. Good communication is CLEAR and easy to understand. Everything Toth writes is confusing and misleading. \n\r\nToth abbreviates words for no reason so you don\'t even understand what he means. He actually abbreviates the word "between" so it says \'tween--that is literally ONE character less than the full word. Why abbreviate it?? \n\r\nThis class has so much potential and is actually something many students would love to take and learn about, but unfortunately with Toth as the teacher you come out having wasted your money and possibly a worse student then before you took the class. \n\r\nToth does not allow his students to email him so you must communicate with your TA. Good luck with that because my TA answers me either three days later or just ignores my emails altogether. \n\r\nToth is extremely rude and unhelpful to his students. He does not care about them at all. I don\'t understand why he even teaches if he doesn\'t care about his students-what\'s the point? At the end of the day, it wouldn\'t matter how rude he is if he was a good teacher, but HE IS NOT. \n\r\nYou must teach yourself all of the material and even then you will get terrible grades because he will take off points. You can\'t even learn from Toth\'s revisions because you can\'t read his handwriting (this includes the TAs because I\'ve asked them and they have literally said I can\'t read his writing so "I don\'t know"). He also circles random words and doesn\'t write any explanation so you don\'t know what is wrong with it. \n\r\nSave yourself the headaches and time and take this class over the summer with a different teacher. I only gave him 1 star because 0 wasn\'t an option. I\'m not trying to be dramatic-this class is actually this bad. Most students who have taken it before/with me said they had mental breakdowns MULTIPLE TIMES because of the class. I truly feel I would have learned more from a dead gerbil teaching the class then from Toth. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-22T16:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Toth', 'course': 'COMM231', 'review': "I took this class with Professor Toth last semester and learned more than I've learned in any college class so far. He is a hard professor to get used to, but once you learn how to read his assignments, you realize he's there to prepare you for future classes and writing in general. My writing has improved immensely from taking this course with Toth. If you are willing to put in the time and effort, you will gain a lot from this course.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-03T16:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Toth', 'course': 'COMM231', 'review': 'Toth is by far the worst professor teaching at UMD. He goes out of his way to make things confusing for you, like his 15 page syllabus with a million abbreviations you never understand. \n\r\nIt is true that you learn a lot from this class, but you are also stuck with hours of homework that you learn nothing from and are just tedious and are never even really graded. If you take this class just make sure you spend a lot of time on what really matters, like grammar which is 1/3 of your grade. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-11-21T12:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Toth', 'course': 'COMM231', 'review': "I remember reading these reviews and not truly believing what people thought, but when it comes to COMM231, Toth is definitely the worst educator I have ever encountered. He disregards students' workloads in other classes and doesn't properly prepare students for assignments. His expectations are extremely high yet he doesn't take the time to teach. His class is extremely intimidating and his TA's grade and comment assignments very harshly. For this being a prerequisite for other COMM classes, I would have expected more of a warm welcome into the field. All PR track COMM majors, unfortunately, this mandatory class WILL bring you hell. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-30T05:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Toth', 'course': 'COMM231', 'review': "Honestly one of the worst professors. I rarely dislike a professor, but Toth was HORRIBLE. Not only does he teach everything in a very confusing way, but he also is a really mean man. He seems very unhappy because he truly tries to make your life much harder. He believes his class is the only one you're in that matters. Avoid him at all costs.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-04-15T13:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Toth', 'course': 'COMM231', 'review': "Richard Toth is one of the worst teachers I've ever had in my entire life. He's completely disorganized and never got anything back to us on time--many times if I had known that I had done certain things wrong on one assignment, I didn't find out about it until I had already made the same mistake on other assignments. He's in his own world much of the time, and could not teach the class without the help of a TA, who could answer all of our questions while he couldn't. There didn't seem to be any structure to the course, many of the assignments were completely irrelevant to what we were learning, I don't feel like I learned anything valuable. AVOID THIS MAN AT ALL COSTS, I'm not kidding.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-30T21:33:00Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Toth', 'slug': 'toth_richard'}, {'courses': ['SURV699E', 'SURV742', 'SURV745', 'SURV440', 'SURV744', 'SURV699'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Valliant', 'slug': 'valliant'}, {'courses': ['GEOL443', 'GEOL489T', 'HONR279W', 'GEOL650', 'GEOL789K', 'GEOL650', 'GEOL443', 'GEOL683'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Walker', 'slug': 'walker_richard'}, {'courses': ['MATH246H', 'MATH436', 'MATH660', 'MATH669', 'MATH848W', 'MATH340', 'MATH740', 'MATH463', 'MATH744', 'MATH410', 'MATH848F', 'MATH411', 'MATH437', 'MATH868C', 'MATH299I'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Wentworth was not a good professor. He can be monotone while teaching and his lectures are poorly planned. Examples in class were complicated and not helpful. Like others have said, he tends to stop mid-thought during problems, trying to figure out the next step. His tests were hard and had very challenging problems. I felt like I understood the material, but struggled with the difficult of test problems. He made this class much harder than it needed to be. No curve at the end either. Seems like he's a nice guy, but definitely should not be teaching.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2012-01-13T23:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH246H', 'review': "I recommend against taking him if at all possible! He makes things much more complicated than they need to be by speaking and writing in very formal math language. He is not helpful at all in office hours either. He often will lose his train of thought and stand in front of the class and think to himself for several minutes, obviously wasting everyone's time. Makes many small mistakes when doing examples, and is no generous at all giving partial credit on exams and quizzes. If you don't get the correct final answer, you won't get much credit. He is just overall not a good lecturer, and doesn't seem to want students to succeed. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-16T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH341', 'review': "Wentworth was an ok teacher. His lectures can be interesting sometimes or really boring. The main problem with his teaching is his examples. He will often spend much time trying to figure out how to do his own example because he didn't finish up the work before coming to class and he has forgotten how to proceed. \r\nAlso, he often taught methods that were very different from the book's, which makes it hard to go and do the hw for the quizzes. \r\nSome topics that we were assessed on he only talked about generally for a few minutes without doing any examples.\r\nThe other professor, Hunt, had an open book open note policy for all exams, but Wentworth did not, which was annoying as there are many ways to solve diff eqs and it becomes difficult to keep them all straight.\r\nHowever, Wentworth is a nice guy and he is fairly approachable, it just would be nice if he prepared more for class. Also, he teaches a little too fast most of the time, so it is hard to wrap your brain around what he has just said before the next topic starts.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-21T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I did well in this class but ONLY because I had a good TA and because Wentworth's exams were much easier than the other 141 professors at the time. \n\r\nHis lectures are disjointed, very abstract, and poorly planned. He doesn't bring in notes or examples to do so it gets frustrating watching him try to come up with one on the spot. Brilliant man, not the most approachable guy, bad bad teacher. \n\r\nAvoid him if you rely heavily on lectures but if you're good at teaching yourself the material, you may be fine because again his exams are very easy. \n\r\nUtilize the Kirwan TA's before exams though, because Wentworth doesn't write the final. The Gulicks do, and the Kirwan TA's essentially belong to the Gulick so they know a lot better.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-11T20:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "He's a nice guy but he is a terrible lecturer! His exams were all right but a bit unpredictable. We also had a lot of questions on our tests that the other MATH141 classes didn't have to learn. His quizzes are unannounced (I guess to get people to go to discussion but it was annoying that I didn't know when to prepare for them). He was incredibly unprepared for lecture and spent much of our time staring at the board trying to figure out where he made a mistake. His examples also didn't make much sense and he never offered clear explanations and instead provided us with vague, beat-around-the bush responses. He was also very boring, mostly because no one knew what he was even talking about. I would definitely not take him.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-06-19T12:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'wentworth is the worst math teacher i have had at maryland, and seems to be the worst teacher available for calc 2. i have never recieved any emails from him and he has never replied to one of mine. additionally he does not post grades anywhere. previoius teachers had posted them on webassign or on the math website. he spends class solving his own examples which he has not previously solved. while this is better than a teacher that is just a reverse power point, he is not a sucessful teacher.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2011-05-18T14:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'I am pretty sure this was his first time teaching 141, and it showed. He expected students to understand tricky, new concepts right away. If you asked him questions about exams, he would say, "Is that all you care about is the exam? just learn it and the exam will not be hard". Mathlab due every Tuesday and Thursday, they were worthless and tedious. Lecture became useless, learned it all myself from the book. Worked incredibly hard and got a B. Take Gulick or someone else. Maybe he is better at upper levels? but he really sucked as a 141 teacher. Also little or no curve, we will never know because we dont see our final and no contact after class is over.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-17T20:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Wentworth was at best ok. He seemed to stumble through his examples and was corrected by students a lot. He didn't seem to have thought through his lecture and often times made things up. He would say this is the equation because it is or magically this is the equation. He does not teach the way the book does. He has invented his own way of doing problems and teaches those ways but often times cannot explain how he arrived at the equations he is using. I would only recommend him if you have no previous knowledge of the class because he will teach you in a way no one has before.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-16T12:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'I do not think he is a bad teacher, its just that some of his teaching is confusing and when people ask questions, he does not really answer it. Since its hard for me to comprehend him when he teaches cause he pauses alot and says uhh alot i had to teach most of the material myself to get this grade. His exams were fairly easy compared to other lecturers. The other reason i am doing pretty well is because i had probably one of the best math TAs on campus. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-05-03T11:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'The class was pretty straight forward and not bad. Only one matlab assignment the entire year and it was extremely easy. The practice tests are similar to the real exams and if you do the homework and study a little, you will do fine. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-22T15:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Good professor, knows the material but can go a little fast at times. Says stuff like "math should be natural" which is of no help at all but provides a little comic relief to an otherwise boring subject. Take him if you don\'t want to have to do matlab assignments. He had one at the beginning of the semester but then forgot about it. Tests aren\'t too difficult, he lectures for his tests so if you pay attention in lecture it isn\'t too difficult.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-14T01:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH341', 'review': 'Nice guy, I found taking 341 with him to be much better than 340 with Cohen. Tests were hard, and the average was low, but most of the material was taken almost directly from the homework. Curve at the end and weight of the final definitely help, I thought I was going to fail and ended up getting a B. Also, no MATLAB assignments was a definite plus.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-20T12:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "As a person he seems like a nice guy, approachable at least. As a lecturer he was average, not good or bad. If you went to lecture you would learn the material and if not you could learn it from the book with some effort. Exams were kind of hard and he looked for understanding of the material. Lack of any real MATLAB assignments was a definite plus. Decent curve, but test averages were pretty low so in the end it doesn't help as much as you'd expect. Like I said, not a bad professor to take, but not the best either.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-04-20T01:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "He rushed towards the end. The exams were harder than average since he pushed for understanding of material. He compensated with an OK curve...but I would've not taken the class with him.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2009-04-08T10:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Wentworth was on a mission to prove that he is a tough professor because this was his first semester at umd. he said he didnt care if our grades were bad as long as we learned things. unfortunately if, the whole class fails, everyone has to retake it anyways. if you have a choice, take any other professor. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-01T03:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Tests were very fair if you took the time to do the homework. Lectures were decent. Granted, the average test grades were relatively low, but he did curve in the end. Take him if you do not want to do a lot of Matlab assignments. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-19T02:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH744', 'review': 'Great professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-13T19:51:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH437', 'review': 'Phenomenal professor. He is extremely nice. The way he explains the material is very straightforward and he will spend a lot of time answering questions to make sure you understand the basic ideas. He really encourages people to ask questions and have a discussion. I would definitely take him again. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-17T03:23:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH660', 'review': "Nasty final exam, course is ok. He's probably better in person. The vibe of the online class was a little passive (not quite his fault) and some material was gone over a little quickly (nobody wanted to complain). Seems like a nice and encouraging guy but I couldn't draw any energy from him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-18T13:56:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH437', 'review': "Pretty good for differential forms, took time to answer questions every lecture and would be willing to spend a lot of time on helping people specifically. Also has a very soothing voice.\r\nonly complaint is that the text and the lectures didn't have as many examples as I would've liked so there was some ambiguity in why he did certain things in class, but that could be easily cleared up by asking at the start of lecture.\r\n\r\nSome of the material is quite hard and abstract, I had trouble and I took diff geo. and topology before this, but also didn't spend the time that I needed to. The stuff that I had seen before was easily adjusted to this more abstract framework.\r\nSeemed like there was a quite large curve for people who had low grades, I was below avg. on both exams and *well* below the homework average. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-05-18T14:29:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Richard Wentworth', 'course': 'MATH437', 'review': 'This was a hard class. It was hard, not because of incompence on the part of the instructor, but because the material is really hard. Rather, I found Wentworth to be an exceedingly talented teacher given the difficulty of the coursework. He was very responsive to questions in class and over email, a straight forward test writer, and incredibly well-versed in the subject. On a few occassions he actually remarked that the Wikipedia page on a given topic was his own. He understands the material is hard, and does his best to support students and apply a generous curve.\r\n\r\nThe only detraction I can make is for not setting office hours until a few weeks into the semester and waiting a bit too long sometimes to publish his lecture notes (i.e. on material after the homework was due). Also, I think that for lower level classes he may teach with a bit too much overkill.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-19T01:12:44.889145Z'}], 'name': 'Richard Wentworth', 'slug': 'wentworth'}, {'courses': ['GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'PSYC353', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS496', 'PSYC300', 'GEMS497'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Richard Yi', 'slug': 'yi_richard'}, {'courses': ['BUSI640', 'BUFN752', 'BMGT841', 'BMGT848R', 'BUSM741', 'BMGT848B', 'BUSO758G', 'BUSM610', 'BMGT640', 'BMGT841', 'BMGT340F', 'BMGT610', 'BMGT640', 'BUSM610', 'BUSM758J', 'BUSM758P', 'BUFN712', 'BMGT340F', 'BMGT610', 'BUSM758J', 'BUSM758P'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Richmond Mathews', 'course': 'BMGT610', 'review': "Super nice guy, but his class actually blows. Goes extremely fast and it's so hard to focus the entire time. Exams aren't awful but the case studies that he assigns are the worst thing ever. Don't recommend his class but as a person he's nice and understanding.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-10T23:01:46.246109Z'}, {'professor': 'Richmond Mathews', 'course': 'BMGT340F', 'review': "Take the other 340 professors for your own sanity. The course work with him is far more complex than it should be for the intro finance class and you don't end up learning what you need to for the future courses. He simply gets in front of the class with his slides, starts talking and plugging stuff into formulas, and you unfortunately never end up learning anything. \r\n\r\nThe grades are probably a solid 10-15% (if not more) lower than they would be compared to the other professors. Not to mention, you actually learn with the other professors.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-17T15:51:53.815542Z'}, {'professor': 'Richmond Mathews', 'course': 'BMGT340F', 'review': "He is a very nice guy but this is easily the worst class I've taken in the business school. He teaches extremely advanced/complex topics before teaching us the basics (not what you expect in the intro Finance class), leaving students with little material learned. He also assigns homework that has very little to do with the class material and the case studies will end up taking your whole weekend when assigned (which providing zero value towards the concepts required for the class).\r\n\r\nFrom what I've heard, the other 340 teachers are far better where you will actually learn and be set up well for future upper-level finance courses. On top of that, the grading in those is far fairer and you will be less stressed.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-20T04:38:03.728110Z'}, {'professor': 'Richmond Mathews', 'course': 'BMGT340F', 'review': "Rich is the goat. 10/10. He knows what he's talking about. The case studies sucked but his exams were pretty easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-26T03:48:11.149654Z'}, {'professor': 'Richmond Mathews', 'course': 'BUFN712', 'review': "The course consists of: 4 case assignments, participation, midterm, and final exam. The participation is based on in-class exercises that the prof does along with the students at the same time, submitted at end of class. Very easy. The case assignment are based on your valuation skills and knowledge (do not recommend this course for anyone who hasn't take Valuation in Corporate Finance). Two of the cases were done in a negotiation settings with other teams, which was very fun. The midterm/final were relatively easy if you study. The course load was good, not crazy heavy. The slides/material were short (it's better to write notes on them during the lecture). \r\n\r\nThe prof explained the concepts really well. He is very friendly, approachable, and considerate of student needs. The environment in class was very relaxed and enjoyable. He will do extra review zoom sessions outside of school hours to help students. Quick to respond to emails and very patient no matter how many questions you ask. He can tend to talk fast and rush through the slides, but if you stop and ask questions, he will slow down, repeat, re-explain. It is easy to not pay attention, so don't. Overall, great professor and course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-03-19T15:42:59.137242Z'}, {'professor': 'Richmond Mathews', 'course': 'BMGT610', 'review': "Really does his best to engage his students. He's a super nice dude and the structure of the class is good. No complaints", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-25T18:36:55.704853Z'}], 'name': 'Richmond Mathews', 'slug': 'mathews'}, {'courses': ['ENTS689L', 'ENTS689F', 'ENTS659B', 'ENTS759D', 'ENPM808I', 'ENTS759E', 'ENTS759D', 'ENTS689F', 'ENTS759D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rikin Thakker', 'slug': 'thakker'}, {'courses': ['MUSC801A', 'MUSC830A', 'MUSC609', 'MUSC643', 'MUSC832A', 'MUSC428', 'MUSC448K', 'MUSC830V', 'MUSC800A', 'MUSC802A', 'MUSC831A', 'MUSP621A', 'MUSC899', 'MUSC609', 'MUSC800A', 'MUSC129B', 'MUSC428', 'MUSC609', 'MUSC832A', 'MUSC609', 'MUSC129B', 'MUSC428', 'MUSC609'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rita Sloan', 'slug': 'sloan'}]
[{'courses': ['PHYS170'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Roald Sagdeev', 'course': None, 'review': 'I went to 4 lectures the whole semester, including the midterm. He only came to 2 of the lectures I went to and the rest were taught by a guest lecturer who had nooo idea what we were doing (not that any of us did either). The midterm was a joke and the final was as well. Just put together a strong powerpoint at the end and you will definitely get an A. Easiest science class of my life. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-13T14:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roald Sagdeev', 'course': None, 'review': 'Class really is a joke. A HW assignment each week, BS essay midterm where he gives you the topics beforehand, and a Fianl powerpoint presentation that takes a fews hours to research + put together. You will get an A as long as you put some effort into each assignment. Class was just really disorganized and there were points throughout the semester where I had absolutely no clue what my grade was. But if you want an easy non-lab science core, definitely take this class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-18T20:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roald Sagdeev', 'course': None, 'review': 'Class should not even be a college course, an absolute joke...two homework assignments, a BS midterm, and a final presentation that a 5th grader could put together. This class is easy but can be stressful as well considering that there is no syllabus and basically no outline of what is going on.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-26T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roald Sagdeev', 'course': None, 'review': 'A wonderful class. Can be regarded in two ways-- if you are there to learn, there is plenty. The guy is a famous physicist for a reason, and listening to him is both entertaining and can be extremely interesting, especially if he talks about his own experience (which is vast). If you are there to get an A, it is also really easy to do; no attendance is taken and he is an easy grader. The final (presentation) is a joke', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-23T17:32:00Z'}], 'name': 'Roald Sagdeev', 'slug': 'sagdeev'}, {'courses': ['JOUR320', 'JOUR479E', 'JOUR328R', 'JOUR779E', 'JOUR628R', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR327', 'JOUR472', 'JOUR627', 'JOUR801', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR472'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rob Wells', 'course': 'JOUR201', 'review': "Wells is a pretty decent teacher. But be warned he is a strict grader. You'll only get a B or above if you a super good writer. It is not surprising that you would receive a C or below especially at the beginning. \n\r\nYet, he is always willing to help. Wells is the DC Bureau Chief of the Dow Jones Newswire and you can imagine someone with such a position would lack the time to help his students but he is an exception. He will always make time to discuss anything if you need help, he responds swiftly to emails, and he is very approachable.\n\r\nAnd for the news quizzes...well you pretty much have to do it for every JOUR class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-18T01:06:00Z'}], 'name': 'Rob Wells', 'slug': 'wells_rob'}, {'courses': ['INAG110', 'INAG110S', 'INAG110', 'INAG110S', 'INAG110', 'INAG110S', 'INAG110', 'INAG110S', 'INAG110', 'INAG110S'], 'average_rating': 4.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Ballenger', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Easy class. Good teacher. Fair grader', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-22T17:04:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Ballenger', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Great guy and professor. I felt like I learned a lot from his class, and he made the class engaging and interactive. He's a bit tougher grader than some other OC professors (a.k.a. you're going to have to work a bit for your grade) but the payoff is a great speech learning experience. Would def recommend his course", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T17:21:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Ballenger', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Prof. Ballenger handled online classes and teaching very well. He is very approachable during and outside of class. The speeches make up the majority of the grade with a few participation assignments. He grades pretty fairly and gives constructive comments for improvement. This class is one of the few ones I enjoyed during Zoom University. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-28T02:33:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Ballenger', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Very easy class, but quite boring if I'm being honest. It was so formal for a public speaking class with very silly assignments. There was so much emphasis on outlines which is kinda weird I guess. Very easy but if you can take someone more exciting then I would.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-01T16:54:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Ballenger', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "No one wants to take INAG110, but since you have to make sure to take it with Mr. B. He is such a down to earth and caring professor. He wants everyone to do well and grades relatively easy. I do not like public speaking but Mr. B made lectures engaging and had a class environment that it was easy to make friends in. You have to do 4 speeches, but get notecards for all of them and the midterm/final is so incredibly easy it's not even funny.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-08T01:32:38Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Ballenger', 'slug': 'ballenger'}, {'courses': ['HIST208R', 'HIST208B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Bland', 'slug': 'bland_robert'}, {'courses': ['ENES102', 'ENES220', 'ENES220', 'ENES220'], 'average_rating': 4.4615, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Professor Bonenberger is an amazing professor for engineering statics, both ENES 102 and ENES 220. He writes everything you need to know on the chalkboard and goes over multiple examples for each topic. He is very helpful during the groupwork problems and isn't a harsh grader, often giving lots of partial credit. If you go to class everyday and take notes, you will do great in this class. His lectures aren't boring at all and the exams are very fair. Overall, he is one of my favorite professors here at UMD, I highly recommend you take him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-02T14:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Terrible teacher. Writes bad notes on the chalkboard. Doesn't do practice problems that even relate to the homework or tests. Tried emailing for help and it took the entire semester for him to respond. Highly discourage taking him if it's your first semester in college", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-26T00:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'The man! He is the best professor I have had thus far. He is a very effective teacher. From the beginning of enes102, I had no idea what a free body diagram was and was awful at basic physics. Bonenberger did such an amazing job illustrating material to the class. He uses real-world examples to apply the material he teaches in class. Bonenberger uses a step by step approach to teach class. Does a lot of example problems and numbers each step! Great guy overall. However, his grade distribution is not as good as other professors. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-19T21:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Very nice guy, explains stuff well. However, the exams were NOTHING like the homeworks and examples. The best way I can explain it is, the homework and quizzes were like riding a bicycle on a flat road (easy, straightforward). However, the exams were like mountain biking down Mt. Everest (vaguely relating to biking on a road, but about 10 times tougher.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-07-15T14:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Good teacher, but the class was just really tough for me. My TA graded the homework problems surprisingly tough. I often got points taken off even though, I had the answers to the homework online.\r\nTests were not really hard, but there was always one problem on every test that was just extremely hard. Most people would mess up on that problem and end up having the highest possible test grade a B or C.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-05-01T00:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Great professor, explained things very thoroughly and made sure that his students got the information they needed for exams/quizzes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-08-28T14:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Fantastic professor. His notes are extremely neat and detailed which are very helpful for doing the homework and organizing formula sheets for the exams. He is happy to clarify any questions students have during class, and helpful during office hours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-03T21:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "I also took ENES102 with him (received a B). That said, Dr. Bonenberger is an absolutely phenomenal teacher, even if he's a bit of an engineering stereotype -- extremely methodical. He does have a sense of humor and cares for his students, but he is also so subtle that I didn't fully appreciate it until my second semester with him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-26T22:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "There is no doubt that dr bonnenberger is a good teacher and if you go to class regularly you will get everything you need to know through the notes. That being said he can be really boring to have to listen to and moves at such a fast and robot like pace that most of the information is not understood. Also he is a bit awkward and hard to approach outside of class and otherwise. I prefer beigel or fourney they convey the same amount of information yet teach class in a manner that is more conversational and more involved for the students rather than writing all of the notes on the board and not giving you enough time to copy. Also besides Chang he is probably the harshest grader. On many occasions I would lose large amounts of points for simple calculation error which essentially caused me to get aetter below what I expected. If you can get a different professor, not Chang, take them instead, but if you're stick with him then it's not the end of the world ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-18T02:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Dr. Bonenberger is very good at teaching; he is methodical, clear, and helpful. As long as you do your work in the class and ask for help when you need it, he's a great professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T19:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Love this guy. He wrote the textbook and he really knows his stuf. Super methodical, bordering on obsessive but it works. Theres no way to take bad notes in his class he writes everything out on the board and explains everything hes doing very well. If u have any questions go to his office hours or ask after class cause hes not great with responding to email. Very fair with extra credit as well. One of the best teachers ive had at UMD by far. Do the work and study for tests and you should be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-29T14:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Bonenberger moves incredibly quickly, but is easy to understand, as long as you pay attention and take good notes. In one class period, you can expect to learn a lot of information. Not much of a personality; I think he's made an attempt at humor twice this semester. Overall, I would definitely recommend him, great professor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-05-09T00:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Not particularly exciting, but he explains the material well. Also his in class test reviews consist of telling you what to write on your formula sheet. (which is about half the battle in ENES classes)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-13T20:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Dr. Bonenberger is one of the best professors I've had so far. He co-wrote the textbook, so he definitely knows what he's talking about when it comes to Mechanics of Materials. However, he's also able to effectively communicate his knowledge to his students. He teaches in a very organized, linear, and methodical manner and explains every step and concept as he writes it on the board. \n\r\nUnlike some other mechanics professors, who show up to class late and delude their students into thinking they actually learn something in 20 minutes, Bonenberger teaches you for the full 50 minutes so that his students know the right way to solve mechanics problems, not just shortcuts you can throw away as soon as you leave ENES220. \n\r\nThe only downside is that he actually grades how well your beam does in the competition, and he nitpicks on the design report, so make sure you check your calculations and design your beam right! \n\r\nOverall, if you like an all-business professor who does not waste your time and teaches you all that you need to know, then this is the guy for you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-23T14:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "This guy is all business. He's a great teacher and does every example problem step by step. If you happen to come across the solutions to the homework you can tell they're done by him by how neat and organized they are. If you pay attention and write everything down that he does there's almost no way you don't get an A. He actually has given out extra credit. In my class he gave everyone in the class a bunch of extra credit just for everyone completing the professor reviews at the end of the semester.\n\r\nOn the one time he cracks a joke during the semester he will immediately apologize. He doesn't like nonsense and has almost no personality. One last thing, if you're one of those people that likes Beigel, be warned, he hates the guy. So when the exam review comes around he takes a lot cheap shots.\n\r\nAll in all, if you want to learn the material and don't need excitement in your class, pick him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-24T03:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Good teacher. Teaches everything step by step, which is really easy to follow. The 2 hour discussion period consisted of finishing that weeks material followed by doing 2-3 group problems. He was also very helpful with the problems.\n\r\nHomework solutions are "around". Look for them.\n\r\nTo do well on the exams, just study the practice problems he posts up. If you can do all of them and understand those problems, you will DEFINITELY get an A or B because the exam problems are just variations of the practice problems.\n\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-04-08T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Really good teacher. Teaches in a very methodical manner which is generally easy to follow, though a bit slow at times.\n\r\nI personally did a crossword in class most days and still did well.\n\r\nAnd surprisingly, he gave extra credit if you were there the day before Thanksgiving or if there was a lot of class participation on the UMD Course Evals.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-01-29T11:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'The good: The guy knows his stuff and if you are serious about your studies, take notes and do all your work, you will do well.\n\r\nThe bad: He doesnt joke about anything, or talk about anything besides the class, and hes got some OCD so hes really picky on homework and tests.\n\r\nThe ugly: Besides his gigantic glasses, he will never curve anything, gives no extra credit and takes an more delight than ive ever seen in seeing students not do well or fail tests/quizzes.\n\r\nSuggestion: If you take him, just do the work and dont take it too lightly. The material isnt really very tough for Statics or Mechanics but if you mess anything up, dont expect any sympathy from this guy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-10-28T22:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "My absolute favorite ENES professor. I had him for ENES 102 and 220. He explains things very well and his lectures are extremely detailed and easy to follow. Literally. This man has beautiful handwriting in chalk and is very organized. He does a ton of step by step examples in class, which were helpful for doing the homework. The exams were fair and straightforward. He gives practice problems from past exams with answers (but not solutions). They are very close to what will be on the exam, so do them! The ENES professors also always hold review sessions before exams and will go over all of the practice problems. Some of the exam problems required a bit of thinking, but weren't impossible. Some exams were definitely easier than others.\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-02T16:15:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "His notes and lectures are detailed and easy to follow. However, he never responds to emails and never posts anything on elms, you won't know your grade until he puts it on your transcript after the semester is over.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-06-21T13:04:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Bonenberger is the best teacher for 220. He may seem a little intimidating but his lectures are thorough and helpful. I'd highly recommend him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-08T19:55:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Felt like his teaching style was good. Lectures would be posted and include an example problem every class that would be helpful to follow for HW and studying. While he probably is one of the harder graders for 220, the tests are absolutely reasonable. I would recommend taking him. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-07-18T13:18:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Awesome professor. Really intelligent, and provides very clear and concise note for the class that are great for studying. Highly recommend taking him for 220, as he wrote the textbook for the class (and gives you an online copy for free). Lot's of office hours available throughout the semester if you need help.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-10-12T17:04:11.772630Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'I really liked professor Bonenberger, his notes are very clear and he does a great job of explaining difficult concepts. He also posts an agenda and the lecture notes for every class which was very useful. The exams and course content were challenging, however, he does his best to make sure that his students succeed. If you are struggling, go to his office hours!! They are very useful', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-02T16:45:17.965796Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'You can tell that he is extremely knowledgeable on the topics discussed in class. Notes are very clear and do a great job at explaining difficult concepts. Highly recommend him for 220.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-05T01:21:49.464620Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Excellent in every manner, great lectures, great notes, appropriate amount of homework, doesn't waste time, and will always try to help his students succeed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-07T23:13:17.959972Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Bonenberger', 'slug': 'bonenberger'}, {'courses': ['ENMA620', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA688', 'BIOE640', 'ENES181', 'ENMA150', 'ENMA150'], 'average_rating': 4.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Briber', 'course': 'ENMA150', 'review': 'This class is a decent amount of work. Professor Briber writes tons of notes during the lectures but he puts up power points online for kids who missed class. He is a really nice guy and is willing to work with students if they need help. The TAs are really nice too. I loved this class at the end because I really learned somethings about engineering and it was completely do-able without any prior knowledge except for basic math concepts. I recommend this class for people who are good at memorizing though, the tests are a lot of definitions.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-08T15:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Briber', 'course': 'ENMA150', 'review': "This class was just to fill a non-lab CORE. The material is a little dull, you really have to force yourself to study it when the exams come. Briber himself is great, he's really passionate about his work and you can tell. He brings in lots of hands on materials, so we can experience things for ourselves.\n\r\nIf you can sit through the dull lectures and take notes, you should definitely take this class. Not that I'm going to remember anything after the final, but he's a great guy, really personable and approachable outside class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T13:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Briber', 'course': 'ENMA150', 'review': "Briber is super boring in lecture. However you kind of need to go in order to get the information needed to pass the exams. there are two exams each worth 15% and 3 labs each worth 15%. there is a final paper worth 15% and hw is 10%. Basically, the labs are REALLY easy but time consuming. the HW is incredibly easy as well and the final paper is a restatement of wikipedia. \n\r\nthe TAs grade really leniently too and give you partial credit for almost anything. you can essentially get C's on both exams and still have an A if you hand in your work on time\n\r\nhe usually includes a bonus on the exams too. and sometimes in the homeworks.\n\r\nIts not uncommon to get over 100% in the class. If you can't get an A you actually have to TRY: meaning you don't attend a single lecture and turn in your stuff late if not at all. \n\r\nthis class is almost all memorization for the exams and there are only three math concepts you need to know. which by the way are simple algebra (plug in the variables)\n\r\nthe exams are all written so you do need to know the material. but honestly a middle schooler could ace this class not to mention a university student. its a great class to take if you need a CORE non lab science. \r\nbut the overall course work is a bit much, not hard just time consuming\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-12-20T08:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Briber', 'course': 'ENMA150', 'review': 'This is one of those classes that you sit in for an hour and a half and have no idea what the professor is talking about!! No so much a bad thing because the break-down of the class is fair. Lecture is boring and exams are pretty much worth nothing. you can fail both the mid-term and final assuming you do everything else right and still walk away with an A!!! Fairly easy class, somewhat interesting!!!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-11T16:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Briber', 'course': 'ENMA150', 'review': "I will try to make this review short and sweet.\r\n\r\n-Briber is a chill and cool professor but he sometimes goes into too much irrelevant detail that confuses you.\r\n-Lectures are usually boring (even for a STEM major such as myself who actually enjoyed the class).\r\n-The material is easy to learn and you will be fine as long as you pay somewhat attention to lectures.\r\n-There are a few writing assignments that are a bit long but are easy as long as you manage your time.\r\n-The guest lecturers are incredibly cool and interesting. By far the best part of the course.\r\n-There's 1 midterm and 1 final that are pretty easy as long as you go over everything in the very detailed study guides. I studied the night before the midterm and got an A so there's nothing to worry about.\r\n-You do some simple calculations here and there but if you were confused like I was at first, Briber posts the lecture notes which are easy to follow.\r\n\r\nOverall: Take this class if you can get your work done on time and are at least a little interested in STEM. It can be boring but the information is very applicable to the real world. It is a great gened and prof Briber is a good teacher. I highly recommend this class but keep in mind it is NOT a history class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T02:13:06.531234Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Briber', 'slug': 'briber'}, {'courses': ['AREC405', 'AREC610', 'AREC388', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC645', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC845', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC326', 'AREC326', 'AREC405', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Chambers', 'course': 'AREC405', 'review': "Super professor and class! Highly recommend it. Very engaging and Prof. Chambers is extremely helpful. Don't feel stupid asking questions because he genuinely wants to help. One of the best classes and teachers.\r\nCourse work isn't impossible but don't slack off on studying. Lecture is mandatory, but engaging. He will call you out in class if you break any sort of rules and it's honestly a rite of passage. Enjoy it and don't let it get to you. You'll learn everyone's last names and it's a wonderful class. Learn a lot and understand economics a lot better.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-11-07T22:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chambers', 'course': 'AREC405', 'review': 'Class was great, the exams were easy and he went through everything so that it was hard not to understand what he was asking on the exam. Awesome teacher! just dont yawn or come late to his class or he will YELL at you and put you on the spot infront of the entire class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-11T12:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chambers', 'course': 'AREC405', 'review': 'Great Professor! Very knowledgeable!Makes sure you understand the material.Workload is fair ,exams are a little bit harder then expected.I learned a lot from this course.5 stars! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-05-24T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chambers', 'course': 'AREC405', 'review': "Just want to say I had prof Chambers my senior year in 2013 and he was incredible and has been a valuable advisor to me on anything I've needed help with after graduation. Great great guy", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-01-23T23:23:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chambers', 'course': 'AREC405', 'review': 'I would not recommend this class. Prof Chambers talks extremely slow and I had to watch every lecture is 2x speed. The class is ONY made up of exams, no homework, no practice problems, just lectures and exams so you have no idea what a question or problem looks like until you take the exam.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-09-22T16:01:13.904400Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Chambers', 'slug': 'chambers_robert'}, {'courses': ['USLT498B', 'USLT498A', 'AMST340', 'USLT488B', 'USLT498C', 'AMST101', 'AMST498M', 'AMST498G', 'AMST498P', 'USLT201', 'AMST428P', 'USLT202', 'AAST498P', 'AMST289A', 'AMST498R', 'AMST398', 'AMST450', 'AMST328E', 'USLT320', 'AMST290', 'AMST498B', 'USLT498R', 'AMST450', 'AMST498C', 'AMST498L', 'USLT201', 'USLT498D', 'AMST498G', 'AMST498P', 'USLT202', 'USLT498A', 'USLT498C', 'AMST290', 'AMST290', 'AMST498B', 'AMST498C', 'USLT201', 'USLT498D', 'USLT498R'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Chester', 'course': 'USLT498A', 'review': "For those of you who enjoy watching movies in every single class, then this is the course and professor for you. You do have assignments (2 page papers) for most of the movies. I couldn't get higher than a 19/25, he's looking for something very specific. I think there were 11-12 movies in total we watched. Some of them were very interesting, some in spanish with english subtitles but it was fun to discuss them. He grades even hard with the bigger papers, got a C on both. Attendance and participation feel like the biggest part in the overall grade. Wasn't what I expected. He's a really good professor though, always encourages students to email him about the papers.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-01-30T16:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chester', 'course': 'AMST498L', 'review': "Nice guy. He is British so that's kinda funny for a while. A lot more writing than I expected. Not a bullshit class. attendance and contributions to discussions account for a larger chunk of the grade and he grades honestly and fairly. Cool class but don't take it unless you really like over analyzing movies.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-18T05:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chester', 'course': 'AMST289A', 'review': "I loved this class! Dr. Chester is a great professor who cares about his students. Definitely take this class if you like discussing various topics such as culture, identity, economy, the environment etc. I took this over the summer and it's not too much work in my opinion. We had readings each day for Tu-Thu and then a discussion each Friday. The readings were very informative and interesting. There were a total of 4 discussions, one midterm (very easy) and final group project. If you put effort in this class this is a very easy A gen ed that knocks out 3 requirements. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-16T03:20:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chester', 'course': 'USLT201', 'review': 'Dr. Chester is passionate about Latinx studies! His questions and comments stimulate an engaging class discussion. Participation is very important, so make sure you are participating! He is organized and flexible with assignments. There are a total of 4 assignments: 2 essays, 1 midterm, and 1 final.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T23:27:20.836876Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Chester', 'slug': 'chester'}, {'courses': ['HIST200', 'HIST201', 'HIST353', 'HIST357', 'HIST356', 'HIST266', 'HIST354', 'HIST222', 'HIST355', 'HONR299G', 'HIST408L', 'IMMR400', 'HONR239G', 'EXST030', 'IMMR200', 'HONR259J', 'HIST466', 'HNUH238Z', 'HIST201', 'HIST200', 'HIST201', 'HIST355', 'HIST466', 'HIST201', 'HIST222', 'HIST354', 'HIST356', 'IMMR400', 'HIST200', 'HIST201', 'HIST200', 'HIST201', 'HIST200', 'HIST201', 'HIST201', 'HIST355', 'HIST466'], 'average_rating': 4.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Greatest professor of all time. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-23T21:06:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST357', 'review': "Literally the greatest professor ever. He makes every class so engaging; it's just like hearing someone tell you a really interesting story, but that story is actually history! He really understands his students and makes an effort for everyone to be seen and have a chance to succeed. Take as many of his classes as possible!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-22T02:43:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'One of my favorite professors at this school. He has so much charisma. Go to discussion and participate. Learn the term definitions for the tests, and you will receive a B even if your writing skills are terrible (like mine are).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-09-06T16:49:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Great professor that keeps you engaged in the subject.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-29T03:17:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HONR299G', 'review': 'The best professor at UMD', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-20T01:55:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': None, 'review': "Intelligent professor who knows history very well. However, extremely overrated. Don't get me wrong, he is a good professor but I will never understand the fan club that surrounds him. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-22T18:55:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST356', 'review': "Took HIST356 (Emergence of Modern America, 1900-1945) in Spring 2019 as an elective. Professor Chiles was very charismatic and his lectures were engaging, well-researched, and full of good material and helpful images.\r\nMidterm was an oral exam (20 mins discussion about the prompt), final was two essays with prompts given ahead of time. Lots of readings each week, short summary due every class. Two papers throughout the semester and optional third for extra credit. Would absolutely recommend Prof. Chiles' classes to anyone, history or not -- be prepared to participate in discussion and do work on par with other upper level history classes, and enjoy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-25T00:49:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST356', 'review': 'Awesome! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-07-21T16:26:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST356', 'review': 'Excellent, extremely knowledgeable professor who cares deeply about your understanding in his course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-05T19:46:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HONR299G', 'review': 'Fantastic professor! So passionate about the material, really cares about his students. Makes his lectures really engaging, even when recorded! Few assessments, very fair. Participation in discussion is a must.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T20:08:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': 'Very knowledgeable and the course load was expected. He is very animated and makes learning about history enjoyable. You can tell he is passionate about what he is talking about. During fall 2020, he held only asynchronous lectures. It would have been nice to have a real zoom meeting with him every now and then, but overall it was a solid class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-21T11:17:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "I had Mr. Chiles fully online this semester and all his lecture were through YouTube video which wasn't to bad because you could re-watch them as many times as you want. But since I had ADHD it was kind of hard to pay attention but the class was very flexible because you could watch the videos at anytime. Also the weekly writing discussion weren't to bad as long as you watch the videos and the class discussion with the TA were really helpful. Also if you participated you'll get all the points, if it's verbally or even through the chats. My TA was so nice too she's Ms. Kocher and I would contact her instead of Mr. Chiles If I wanted a faster response with my emails. She was also very understanding with my disability and my commendations when it came to the essays and the only reason I got a C was because I never completed one of the major essay's which was my fault. If I had done so I would've probably gotten a B or A but other then that this class was pretty nice and I really love history so other then that I would recommend it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-01-08T02:45:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "Prior to taking HIST201 I read a ton of reviews on Chiles and HIST201 saying it would be one of the more interesting and easy geneds. I am here to warn you that this is definitely not the case. Chiles does put alot of effort into his video lectures but he should have added additional materials likes slides so that we could separate the important points from the trivial points instead of having to digest all the info from the entire video.\r\n\r\nI guess the grading depends on your TA but my TA was absolutely ruthless and nitpicky for even the smallest details on the exams and essays. I felt like she was doing this just to lower the average, even when my responses were detailed enough. You think your essay deserves a 100? Nah you're probably gonna get an 85, best case 90. There was busy-work every week in the form of discussion boards which did not help me learn or prepare for exams whatsoever.\r\n\r\nSo the bottom line is if you hate writing, avoid this course. 3 stars for Chiles, 1 star for the overall way this course was set up, and -10 stars for the TAs for their grading style. A course that was supposed to be interesting was unnecessarily transformed into a super boring and tedious course.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-02-09T21:58:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great teacher, amazing lectures, reasonable exams, and passionate about what he teaches. The best damn professor in ARHU/HIST', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-23T12:05:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Chiles is GOAT plain and simple. \r\nClass has some writing and 2 books for reading but there used to be weekly reading which he got rid of. Exams were identifying major events and he gives you a study guide with ones that may appear. Overall very straightforward. However, TA has a lot to do with your grading.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-08T19:51:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HONR239G', 'review': 'Dr. Chiles is genuinely among the best lecturers in the entire university. He is humble and open, an extraordinary lecturer, incredibly thoughtful, and worldly and clever to boot. His typical history classes are more demanding than this, and they involve drier reading with lots more factual retention, but I know they too are great at expressing narratives.\r\n\r\nThis class in particular is likely never being offered again, which is a shame, as it truly is remarkable. In essence, it is a book club wherein, through reading novels weekly and discussing them at length for two-and-one-half hours, you learn about the history of America through its stories and themes therein. It focuses a lot on humanism and the experience of the underprivileged in the nation, especially immigrants, beginning in our case from about 1850 until modern day. This is the only Zoom class I have been in where everyone always showed up, always had their camera on, and always participated, usually enthusiastically. Almost every student showed up to an optional, extra-credit class even, despite the average grade being an A-/A. If something like this is ever offered again and you enjoy or have enjoyed or think you might enjoy reading, then I would highly suggest it. It also helps you with communication skills and structuring arguments. (I would say writing, too, but the big term paper on the book/week you chose to lead the discussion was reduced in scope.) ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-14T07:42:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Chiles is an absolute beast. The man is a living encyclopedia. He rolls up to lecture in a suit everyday and shoots endless information about any topic throughout history. If you want a professor that knows every single thing about the subject, take Chiles.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-15T00:38:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "Literally the best professor I've ever had at this University. I was ENGAGED every day in his content, and you can clearly tell he is too. I've never written a review and I probably never will again, but he deserves to hear this and people deserve to know. ALSO!!! One of the best books I've ever read in school was in his class. Driving While Black. Absolutely highly reccommend to read. Simply put, thank you Dr. Chiles. Truly the definition of an increbile educator.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-17T03:14:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Dr. Chiles is great. His lectures are engaging and you will not get bored. The midterm and final were very straight forward and easy to prepare for. He did sometimes go over the class time but overall amazing professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-19T19:43:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Great professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-24T02:21:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "Top 5 lecturer at UMD. Take this class, you won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-03-23T00:49:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Dr. Chiles is an amazing college professor and I highly recommend him if you are planning on taking any history classes. The midterm was online for me and I was having technical issues and he was very lenient about it so I was still able to take the midterm.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-14T20:26:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'overated professor ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-28T06:31:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': "Professor Chiles is a great lecturer! While most of us took American History in high school, HIST 200 goes into greater depth on the founding of America through the Civil War period. Some of the material was familiar, but other bits of information came as a surprise. \r\n\r\nFair warning, Professor Chiles speaks quickly during lectures. If you're stressed about taking notes, don't be. Chiles posts all his lectures on Canvas Elms. Even better, Professor Chiles hands out study guides for all his exams, so you know what to study for. The TAs are very nice, but discussion sessions were boring at times. Assignments include two exams, one paper, and weekly discussion board posts. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-05T21:44:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': "As most people said, Chiles is the best history professor. Take his class if you need a gen ed or even as an elective. Don't skip class though. He doesn't post slides online.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-12T20:54:27.307061Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': "Echoing most of the other reviewers, Dr. Chiles is probably one of the most charismatic, passionate, and dedicated instructors at UMD. It's honestly embarrassing for the University that he isn't tenured. However, if you're going to register for one of his lectures, I would recommend not scheduling a class immediately after on the other side of campus. Lectures routinely went 1-3 minutes over their scheduled end time. It's a testament to Chiles' lecturing skills that almost no students even began to pack up until he remarked that the class was nearly over. Absolutely would recommend any of his classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T20:43:41.408673Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST200', 'review': 'Dr. Chiles is a great professor! You can tell how much he loves teaching. As someone who is not too interested in history, lecture definitely was a little boring at times. But overall a super easy class with only one paper and the study guides for the midterm/final are very similar to what is on the exam. A great class to take for a gen-ed!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T03:07:57.494007Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Chiles', 'course': 'HIST201', 'review': 'Goated professor. Made a history class interesting to a computer science major. This dude is so passionate about history its insane. Really great class, but I have to say, your grade really depends on the TA. My TA kyle was great and very understanding, but students with the other TA did not exactly share the same sentiment. Other than that, great class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T16:15:47.183295Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Chiles', 'slug': 'chiles'}, {'courses': ['AASP202', 'AASP398Q', 'AASP202H', 'AMST328M', 'AASP399', 'AASP499O', 'AASP412', 'AASP100', 'AASP100H', 'AASP202', 'AASP202H', 'AASP202', 'AASP202H', 'AASP398Q', 'AMST328M', 'AASP100', 'AASP100H', 'AASP202', 'AASP202H', 'AASP202', 'AASP202', 'AASP202H', 'AASP398Q', 'AMST328M'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Choflet', 'course': 'AASP202H', 'review': 'I had Professor Choflet for AASP202H and I really enjoyed the class! He was very accommodating and understanding with students, something that was especially appreciated in our current times. He varied the class between live discussions and prerecorded lectures, which I think was very effective because it was easier to keep up with and made the class itself more interactive. It is a lot of reading- something that he stated very clearly on the first day- but most of it is relevant and if you are interested in black culture, you can find them interesting. And even if you have trouble with a reading, he will probably go over it in class. I also really enjoyed how he included current cultural and artistic pieces like films, photography, music and more. Overall, I would recommend this class to anyone considering it! The honors work was the same as the AASP202 work, so all of this also applies to the class in general. I would recommend taking Professor Choflet if you have the chance to!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T17:46:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Choflet', 'course': 'AASP202', 'review': "Overall great professor. He was responsive to concerns and questions that everyone else had, and he made sure to communicate any schedule changes ahead of time for adequate preparation. He is a nice guy and genuinely wants everyone to succeed in class. \r\nThree things:\r\n1) It takes him awhile to grade stuff. I took this class in the fall and some of the assignments from October were not graded until Thanksgiving. \r\n2) He assigns a lot of readings. It's not too overwhelming, but as someone taking 2 math classes at the same time, it was a little much in terms of a personal workload\r\n3) Lectures can get a little dry in the latter half of class. The more people who participate, the better it gets. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-08T14:37:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Choflet', 'course': 'AASP202H', 'review': "Great professor, definitely cares about the topic and is super knowledgeable as well. The class was easy, and did not require much commitment. The midterm and final had study sets on Quizlet already made that I used to study for them, so it made test prep super easy. Dr. Choflet was very responsive and it seemed like he cared a lot about our learning. For most of the course, what you put in is what you'll get out. It doesn't take much to get a good grade in the course, but if you genuinely want to learn more about Black Culture in the U.S., it's up to you to pay attention and do the readings. Overall, it was a good class, and if you are looking to get some GenEds out of the way, its great for that. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-10T19:36:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Choflet', 'course': 'AASP202', 'review': 'Great Professor and great course. Class focused on major readings and group projects, but it was chill.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-29T05:20:03.350343Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Choflet', 'slug': 'choflet'}, {'courses': ['COMM371', 'COMM398K', 'COMM398N', 'COMM398W', 'COMM398J', 'COMM398P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Coleman', 'slug': 'coleman_robert'}, {'courses': ['ENGL391', 'ARHU158Q', 'ENGL394'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Crane', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "I've never been much of a writer but I learned a lot in his class. The amount of work he gave was reasonable and he's a very understanding person. I would definitely recommend taking this course with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-25T14:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Crane', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'Professor Crane is great! He is very through with not only his classroom instruction, but also his expectations. He is humorous and is really devoted to helping students improve their writing abilities. I would definitely recommend him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T19:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Crane', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': 'Great professor. Would highly recommend him to anyone who has to take ENGL391.\n\r\nMy writing has improved a lot because of this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-11T08:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Crane', 'slug': 'crane_robert'}, {'courses': ['EDPS751', 'SURV699', 'EDPS613', 'EDPS703', 'EDPS210', 'EDPS788P', 'EDCI788A', 'EDPS788A', 'EDPS788R', 'EDCI775', 'EDPS888', 'EDPS679', 'TLPL888', 'TLPL767'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Croninger', 'slug': 'croninger'}, {'courses': ['HONR279E', 'SLAA749P', 'SLAA744', 'SLAA888R', 'SLAA611', 'SLAA620', 'SLAA749I', 'SLAA649R', 'SLAA610', 'SLAA749B', 'SLAA899', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661'], 'average_rating': 2.3846, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': "These reviews of De Keyser are ridiculous. Anyone saying he is rude/mean is just plain wrong. Yes, I did fall asleep most classes. Yes, I'm also pretty sure he noticed I did. No, he never got angry at me. AND NO, I was not one of the annoying suck up girls either (and he was still nice to me). As a result, I barely participated. Still, somehow I got 100% in participation. That's pretty nice of him.\n\r\nNow, in my opinion the quizzes were dumb and so were the papers. The slides were okay. De Keyser, however, is beyond interesting. He has a story for everything which people below me seemed to have forgotten. When he lived in Europe, gypsies once tried to raid his house. He traveled to far western parts and had near death experiences in terrorist zones like Georgia. I found his videos and interviews to be very cool. The guy has been everywhere. I encourage you to at least visit him in his office once--his office is decked out with maps, travel magnets, and jut plain cool stuff.\n\r\nIn conclusion, I want everyone to understand that De Keyser is separate from his class. De Keyser is a great guy. When I had some really tough things happen in my personal life last semester (causing me to miss class) he responded by trying to comfort me and telling me how he was in a similar situation in his college years. When I bombed a quiz, I went in and talked about him. He even told me that he was surprised I didn't do better based on how I participate in class ( I could tell he genuinely meant it even though I always fall asleep in class--I guess nodding a lot makes teachers think you understand them). \n\r\nSOOOOooooOOOOoooOOO, I don't recommend the class, but if you ever come across De Keyser, he is a great person to know. Unbelievably intelligent (he knows WAY more than just linguistics). \n\r\nIt just upset me seeing all these comments below insulting him. (And those belgian chocolates were delicious). Also, forgive me of my thousands of grammatical errors. I only care about getting my point across.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-04-07T18:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': 'I have nothing more to say than how badly this class sucked for me. It truly sucked. I hated it. The teacher was annoying, rude, uninformative, and technologically challenged, and the material was boring to learn. Also his "quizzes\' that he considers "quizzes" are really like exams because he basically tests you on EVERYTHING learned for that unit and doesn\'t give you hints about what to study. So many people agree with me who took the class that it was the worst honors seminar of their life. Just avoid this class. For your own sanity. Also DeKeyser is super rude in person and hates when people call him out for being incompetent. Do NOT take this class. I repeat, DO NOT. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-02-10T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': "I would not say DeKeyser is as bad as the 3 most recent reviews suggest - most of my classmates agreed with me that those reviews were too extreme and not an accurate reflection of the class.\r\nDeKeyser is a nice guy, although he can have a bit of a temper if something annoys him - i.e. the technology (projector and videos never working). He accepts your questions and tries to answer them to the best of his ability and is pretty enthusiastic about linguistics and Europe. Very knowledgeable. Fluent in many languages too which is pretty cool! He can be pretty flexible, and the best part is that he grades generously. There are many times when I thought I did awful on quizzes but he gave me an A or curved it to an A. He also gave mostly A's and A minuses on the first paper (not sure about the second one, but I think he graded generously for that one too since my friends and I got A's). \r\nHOWEVER - this class was really dry and boring, content-wise. We watched old interviews he did and listened to PPT lectures mostly. He gave out too many handouts that most people barely looked at or used, and the lectures were pretty boring. He could be funny sometimes to make the class livelier, but I found myself and others fighting off sleep in this class. \r\nHomework-wise, this class had none other than the 2 papers. There are assigned readings for HW, but he never checked if you read them and most of the time you didn't have to (warning: this was just for this semester, it could change). So basically, he grades generously and there's little to no HW (except the papers were pretty darn stressful, I have to admit), but the class is really boring and the content isn't that interesting. Maybe to certain people it is, but most people I talked to thought it was boring.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-23T15:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': "This is one of the best classes I've ever taken! The material is always interesting and the professor always keeps the class as engaging as possible. Not even to mention how much of a genius Prof. De Keyser is - he knows everything and anything about the history and languages of every European country, and he himself even knows at least 6 different languages fluently! The work in the class isn't very much and it's actually pretty fun - we have 3 quizzes, which he grades pretty easily and cover interesting material; one 5-10 page paper for which we interview a local immigrant from Europe and record our findings, which isn't nearly as bad as it seems; and now, a week and a half before finals, he's assigned a 10-15 page paper requiring 20+ sources, all of which, of course, will be interesting. And don't even get me started about how much of a technology wiz this guy is - whenever we have a problem working powerpoint or the projector, Mr. DeKeyser is always on top of it. Unlike in my other classes, we haven't had a single technology problem all semester!\n\r\nOverall, this class is amazing - one of the best I've ever had - and I highly recommend it to anyone seeking an interesting, easy, and fun honors seminar.\n\r\nGood luck.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-12-10T02:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': "Terrible class. I nap every class and he finally called me out last class by asking if he is that boring. Yes. Yes De Geezer, you are the most boring !@#$% to listen to for an hour and 15 minutes. Do NOT take this honors seminar. Please. Please. Please. I cannot stress enough how many kids in my class hate this man. It is the worst class I have ever taken in my life. And I am good at languages. But no. He tests you on the history behind languages and the nitty gritty facts that no one cares about. Linguistic majors don't even make money when they graduate. So suck it DeKeyser. I will be napping in your class forever. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-06T04:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': 'Rudest professor ever. Dear Honors College, read this and SHUT the class DOWN. It is horrible. Waste of my time as an honors student and should not be offered at this university. The professor is terrible. He is inconsiderate about student concerns, and he never responds to email. He sucks as communicating concepts in class. The class is the most boring thing I have ever taken in my career here. Why should I sign up for a class that ends up being a class where the entire class fails quizzes and the professor grades unfairly. He loves linguistic majors and he is rude to everyone else. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-05T18:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': "Do yourself a favor and do not take this class. On the surface, it seems like it would be a pretty interesting class for anyone who likes studying other languages. Not at all. It's nothing more than a boring and non-engaging history class, if you can call wasting ten minutes each class trying to fix the projector only to stare at PowerPoints for the remaining hour.\n\r\nThe grading is set up this way:\r\n20% for participation, whatever that means. Hopefully he's generous here because I do not say a single word in class. There are readings assigned for each class, but God knows no one actually does them.\r\n20% for quizzes, which are for the most part impossible - not because the questions are difficult, but because the information is so darn boring.\r\n20% for an immigrant paper, in which you are tasked to find a recent immigrant from Europe and interview them about their language. And if this task sounds terrible, that's because it is. Don't expect any help at all from him in finding someone. A waste of time.\r\nAnd 40% for a final paper, which has to be 10-15 pages using at least 20 sources. The idea of the paper isn't too bad, but once you realize how boring and worthless the topic you are to research is, it just becomes another waste of time.\n\r\nAll in all, if you aren't interested in European languages, don't take this class. And if you are interested in European languages, don't take this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-11-29T21:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': "This class actually sucks. Most terrible honors seminar along with the one they have about language and the mind. Seriously don't take any language honors seminars. They are a weighty subject and they are tedious. De Keyser is kind of nice to the entire class but sometimes in person he is a big d*ckhead to people and the class gets really really boring. He grades harshly. He also has no idea how to work the technology. No idea. And that is his problem.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-10-23T01:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': 'This class is dreadful. Take another honors seminar. The teacher is completely rude and bogus and the material is even more bogus. I hope the honors college shuts this class down. It is boring and a complete waste of time. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-10-17T05:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': 'This is the WORST honors seminar I have ever taken. The professor is a complete annoying prick, and the material is nap-worthy boring. He is incompetant with using the projector, we watch movies he recorded from the 1980s, and he is very insecure about his ability to utilize technology in the classroom. The quizzes are what he would call fair but if you have no interest in the material GOOD LUCK. The man sucks at teaching what would otherwise be a good subject to learn about. He delves too deeply into the topic and it is a boring class. Do not ever take this honors seminar. IDK who the people below me even are but this class as of Fall 2013 is BORING. Save yourself some time and take a more interesting honors seminar. Also De Keyser is a complete a$$ when you ask him a question outside of class so just avoid him and the class completely.\n\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-10-16T02:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': "I took Languages of Europe with him in Spring 2012. He seemed a bit brusque at first, but overall he was a nice guy and knew a lot about the topic. There was a lot of reading and the quizzes could be tricky, but he was a super generous grader. I thought I failed every quiz, and all the things I thought I got wrong, I did, but even after he marked all my answers up, he'd still wind up giving an A- or B+. Overall, it was a pretty challenging course, but it was very interesting and I learned a lot.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-18T23:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': "De Keyser was a good professor! He is a nice guy and is really interested in the subject matter. (He also knows like 5+ languages, it's crazy!) If you're interested in lingustics/European languages/European history at all, I recommend the Languages of Europe seminar! There is a main final paper at the end, another shorter paper, a midterm, and occasional quizzes, and that's pretty much it!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-20T22:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert De Keyser', 'course': None, 'review': "I took Languages of Europe with R De Keyser.\r\nDe Keyser is probably one of the most knowledgable, most intelligent teacher I have had so far at UMD. He listens to students and their input and he's always willing to take however long it takes to explain things and/or answer questions about the class.\r\nAs for the class, the tests can be a little tricky only because there's a lot of material to study, but only five questions. However, there are oppurtunities to get back points with an extra essay in addition to the final essay, which isn't too difficult at all. He leaves the topic open enough that you research what you find most interesting about whatever place you find most interesting.\r\nAwesome class, awesome teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-06T21:11:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robert De Keyser', 'slug': 'keyser'}, {'courses': ['MUSC448P', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC448Y', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert DiLutis', 'slug': 'dilutis'}, {'courses': ['HLTH391', 'HLTH665', 'HLTH666', 'HLTH230', 'HLTH430', 'HLTH899', 'HLTH430H', 'HLTH776', 'HLTH899'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Feldman', 'course': 'HLTH665', 'review': 'Good lecture but Very low grade.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-07-10T13:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Feldman', 'course': 'HLTH391', 'review': 'Great professor! Makes material interesting.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-30T02:25:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Feldman', 'slug': 'feldman_robert'}, {'courses': ['BMGT450', 'BMGT450F', 'BMGT353', 'BMGT484'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Fiddler', 'slug': 'fiddler'}, {'courses': ['RUSS101', 'RUSS102', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Fradkin', 'slug': 'fradkin'}, {'courses': ['HIST289B', 'HIST408A', 'HIST206', 'HIST405', 'HIST406', 'HIST141', 'HIST189B', 'HIST204', 'HIST407', 'AMST856', 'AMST857', 'HIST810', 'HIST811', 'ENST140'], 'average_rating': 2.9375, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'HIST405', 'review': 'I\'ll try to be nice...\n\r\nI honestly think Robert Friedel has a tremendous grasp of the subjects he teaches (HIST206, HIST405, HIST406, HIST408) and also wants all of his students to have the same depth of knowledge. The only thing hampering him is his utter contempt for students. He doesn\'t seem to understand that criticism should always be constructive but not always negative. Watching him attempt to interact with the class was more of a lesson in terrorism than a lesson in history. He repeatedly lured students in with some tough, open-ended questions then would promptly savage them rhetorically after receiving their responses. "Raise your hand if you think that..?", then SMASH! Raising your hand is ill-advised, not that it will help you if you avoid doing so. He\'s been known to hold up the entire class for a few minutes until he finally gets an answer.\n\r\nHe really can be a great lecturer but a bit difficult to understand sometimes because of his hearing impairment. He does not post lecture notes online (but if you know where to look, you can find them ;-)), so take your butt to class or feel the wrath. Please arrive on time! His epic take downs of late-comers has garnered him the legendary moniker of "Deaf Hitler" by some students in private. \n\r\nHe follows the syllabus and generally stays on schedule but his grading practices are notoriously capricious and need more specificity. For instance, on one assignment, we were expected to critique the work of a fellow classmate. Our grade depended on whether or not it was "ruthless" enough for his taste. Misanthrope? Most of the time, people had no clue what the topic was for that week\'s assignment. On one particular week, at least three of us wrote a paper on the same topic, all roughly the same length (about one paragraph), and supported it with the same source. No collaboration was involved nor was it ever alleged by anyone. You guessed it, we all received very different grades. You will scratch your head trying to figure out why he takes off points. \n\r\nI hope I wasn\'t too hard on him. He\'s not a bad professor and, to be fair, this is supposed to be a tough class. Trust me, he is "Ivy-League" smart but his personality is more of a caricature of an Ivy League professor\'s. He loves books, hates people. On the other hand, he has a right to be annoyed by some students that don\'t have any appreciation for History or for the time and energy he has spent delivering such a qualitatively rich course.\n\r\nThe course itself would be perfect, if not for him, but what the heck is a perfect course anyway? Are you a perfect student? Go on, take his class!\n', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-06-04T07:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': 'this class requires a lot of work, for little in return. in fact, the only thing you get in return is a tarnished transcipt, even for a gemstone student.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-06-05T01:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': 'It has been said that this class is one of the hardest freshman class umd has to offer and, like the other reviewer said, is a weedout course for gems students.\n\r\nIt is true that this is a very stressful class. The TAs have near-complete control of the direction of the course, so pray for a good TA. There is a decent amount of readings due each week as well as routine journals. The 50-page research paper was just ridiculous. \n\r\nOn the bright side, the lectures were actually not bad. Not many show up though because there are no exams. Additionally, fellow gems students tend to be quite capable, so the research paper will be manageable....barely. \n\r\nNot many people like this class, but the high rating from me is because it is not difficult to earn an A...as long as you carry your weight, of course. \n\n\n\n\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T23:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': 'Like the other reviewers said, DROP if you\'re unsure you want to do Gems. This class is not worth the time commitment!\n\r\nPersonally, I never went to a single lecture save the first two. Just show up for discussion and you\'re fine since your TA has your grade in your hands. Some of the TAs are REALLY evil and unfortunately, you won\'t be able to pick up how tough they are until after the sched adjustment period. \n\r\nIn general, this class is pointless and totally irrelevant to the Gemstone program. You have mandatory "team" meetings twice every week and you must write a ~50 page paper by the end.\n\r\nIf you want to continue in Gems, don\'t let it scare you too much. It\'s not TOO difficult, it\'s just time-consuming. It\'s like hazing for Gemstone kids. Bear it, get through it, and enjoy the next three years. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': 'I took HIST175 and GEMS104 with him and the lectures were exact replicas of each other. In HIST175, your grading is determined on the testing of the material. In GEMS104, the lectures don\'t matter at all as your grade is determined by a project. \n\r\nHIST175: Your grade is 100% determined by the TA. Even though Friedel writes the tests the TA grades them. My TA was really picky. For example, we were asked to describe the Newcomen steam engine and the TA looked for the phrase "self-acting" specifically. If it wasn\'t there, you didn\'t get credit no matter how many other correct things you wrote. \n\r\nGEMS104: Attending lectures will have no effect on your grade since you won\'t be tested on the material. Readings and assignments are pointless. TAs are not helpful at all and don\'t know what they\'re doing. You should probably only take this class if you plan to stick with Gemstone. Otherwise, there are many better options for CORE. It is NOT an easy A. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-05-18T14:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': None, 'review': 'Overall, this course was not as bad as I thought it would be. Professor Freidel is not a bad lecturer, although it is hard to get used to his impediment because he is pretty much deaf. He goes quickly through the material, so I suggest bringing a computer to class to take notes.\n\r\nDiscussion was pretty boring because no one ever spoke up even when the TA tried to facilitate discussion. Each week you were supposed to do an online activity where you would go on the internet and research a topic and write about a page on it. This was a pretty big part of the grade.\n\r\nThere were 3 exams consisting of IDs where you had to identify different places or people or things, and then there were usually 2 essays. The exams were somewhat difficult, but easy to bs because they were very general.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-16T16:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': "im pretty sure this course will mirror the I-series course on carbon. for gems, no tests or quizzes were given, and no attendance was taken, so a class of 80 went down to 15 attendees, and then he made the journals (which were graded) based off lecture. goes through ppt slides way too fast to write by hand, and sometimes even with a laptop. somehow he manages to attract the most evil TA's known to man. his speech impediment is probably a result of partial deafness, but his english is good, all things considered. it was hard to understand him at first. \n\r\ngems104 is a weedout class with a paper that sucks. if you aren't sure you want to stay in, drop gems before taking this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-05-08T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': None, 'review': "This guy really knows his stuff. \r\nClass structure was powerpoints in lectures, one chapter of reading (which I didn't always do) and ~1 page of writing a week, 2-3 exams, and a cumulative final. Majority of powerpoint slides are available on notes.bookholders.com. This class definitely isn't just an easy A core class, but isn't too demanding either. Last history class I took was World History AP in high school (3 on AP test) and I found it to be around the same difficulty. \r\nBeing an engineering student/someone who is fascinated by technology, I found this class extremely interesting.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-01-25T22:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': None, 'review': "Friedel is an interesting character. Take this class if the description sounds generally interesting to you, but be warned that you could video tape him lecturing to an empty hall and him lecturing one of his classes and there would be no difference. \r\nOn the bright side he presents the history of science and technology with themes that helped me relate and understand many historical events. \r\nThe TA makes or breaks this class, so if you don't like your TA try switching discussion sections before giving up. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-03-31T19:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': "Too bad he got stuck teaching one of the most useless classes the university has to offer. He definitely knows his stuff, but he was teaching it to a group of students who knew they wouldn't find any use for the material in later courses. Plus, he was pretty arrogant and made the lectures extremely boring. The discussions were just as useless and almost completely unrelated to the lectures. There were random reflection assignments at the end of some lectures, but if you were in the later section, you could find out whether or not an assignment was going to be given. The 40-page history paper was a pain to research for and to write (even as a group). Just keep telling yourself that you'll land on a good Gemstone project in the end and you'll get through it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-14T05:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'HIST406', 'review': "Don't let him intimidate you. Show half an ounce of interest in the material of the course and he'll love you. My class was full of stupid bros who didn't even know when the fucking French Revolution took place, and this obviously got Dr. Friedel pissed. I can't blame him at all. Also, read his syllabus to the letter.\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-24T03:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': 'This professor/course combination sucked. Lectures were a waste of life, and he seemed so full of himself. He would occasionally interrupt class to single out students who had better things to do than listen to him rant about biofuels and such. My advice: resist the urge to drop gemstone while in this class, but bring other work to do during lectures', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-21T15:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': 'His lectures, while thoroughly researched, are seemingly pointless and extremely boring. Although he is well informed on his subject, I have no real idea how this information will help with the upcoming research project or any other class. Also, the lecture and the discussions have almost nothing to do with each other. Basically, the class requires a lot of patience and attendance is key considering that reflections are due at the end of randomly chosen classes.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-02-27T05:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': None, 'review': "Absolutely fascinating class. As someone who's never been particularly fond of history, Friedel's lectures were surprisingly engrossing, the textbook interesting (not to mention amusing), and the discussions well-led. The workload isn't too heavy and the material is interesting. I was highly impressed with this course, and would recommend it to anyone, whether they have an interest in history or not. Good way to fill SH and learn some history while you're at it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-11-30T14:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': None, 'review': ' After the first couple of weeks, I thought I was going to have a tough time with this class, but after the first exam, I was pleasantly surprised with an A (and the same for the second one!). I also did not know what to expect from the class since I was taking it because 1) it\'s a requirement and 2) out of the requirements, it sounded the most interesting. The last history class I took was AP US History two years ago and I got a 3 on the AP exam (to create a comparison to other people out there who want to take this class)\r\n Dr. Friedel definitely understands the material he lectures on and doesn\'t just present it as facts/dates, but more of a cause and effect "history." He uses a powerpoint as a reference guide during lectures and at the end of each lecture he always asks an important, relevant question that students answer on a note card and hand in to be read by their TA\'s (this is helpful in determining understanding of the material). His workload isn\'t very demanding (and is helpful!) and a good portion of the class grade is participation and the portfolio. Homework is basically reading the textbook (which is definitely recommended!) and the portfolio, which consists of doing some reading online (the websites are given on the syllabus) and answering some questions/statements based on the reading (and/or printing out articles). These are collected at the end of the semester. Attendance at discussion sections is definitely helpful and the TA\'s are pretty reasonable (in terms of the requirements and grading). The great thing about the homework/portfolio is that you can basically do it on your own time, its not like you have to hand something in every week, only when it\'s collected for a grade (or unless your TA announces he/she is going to collect it). The tests are reasonable, with the grading consisting of 40% short answer and 60% essay. The essay usually consists of three different questions (choose 1!!), and the short answer consists of choices, too, which gives the student more flexibility and allows them to choose the questions that they are better able to answer and get a better grade on. If you pay attention and understand the material (not just memorize!) you should be able to do well. The only thing to be careful of in the class is that it is very easy to lose concentration during the lectures and a student has to resist the temptation not to just copy down the powerpoint slides, because important information is sometimes not mentioned on the slides (aka...sometimes the slides aren\'t always the most effective way to take notes). Also, be prepared, because occasionally Dr. Friedel will rush through some slides at the end and a student will not be to read all of what\'s on it. On a personal note, three things that made it hard to concentrate in the class were 1)sometimes his voice sounds monotonous, 2)the class was in the middle of the afternoon, and 3) the room its located in makes me feel sleepy...\r\nso, those last three reasons aren\'t really great reasons to review a teacher and/or a class, but I just wanted to add them...\r\nAnd don\'t be afraid to ask questions if you are confused about anything.\r\nHope this helps.\r\nGood luck :)\n\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-25T23:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Friedel', 'course': None, 'review': 'Powerpoint-based lecture, supplemented with online exploration.\n\r\nI liked how the professor explained the consequences and changes that each concept and invention made on its respective time period, giving witty and insightful comments here and there.\n\r\nTests are not difficult as long the importance of each concept is explained throughly, therefore simple regurgitaiton of material will not suffice. Coming to class is also important, as there are no online lecture posts, and the explorations will not be enough to make up for not going.\n\r\nOverall, good professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-11-21T22:43:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Friedel', 'slug': 'friedel'}, {'courses': ['HLTH672', 'EPIB672', 'EPIB399', 'HLTH264', 'SPHL100', 'SPHL600', 'HLTH364', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'HLTH898', 'SPHL620', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SPHL610', 'HLTH635', 'HLTH898'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Gold', 'slug': 'gold_robert'}, {'courses': ['PUAF689P', 'PUAF798Y', 'HONR349I', 'PUAF689Y', 'PUAF688Y', 'PLCY688Y', 'PLCY213', 'PLCY689Y', 'PLCY689Y'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Grimm', 'course': 'HONR349I', 'review': "First of all, let me start by saying that Professor Grimm himself is awesome - he is a great lecturer, he is hilarious and very nice. However, I gave him a 3 because of his philanthropy honors seminar class I took this past semester.\n\r\nI have taken three years of classes at UMD, and this single honors seminar has been the MOST WORK I HAVE EVER HAD IN ONE CLASS. \n\r\nThere are about 7 papers to write (and the papers are graded HARSHLY because the TA's are terrible), and you have to schedule many meetings outside of class and go off campus to visit places on the weekends. \n\r\nThe TA's count how many times you speak in class, and then the top several people who spoke the most gets an A, etc. \n\r\nSo if you are rather shy or untalkative, you are at a disadvantage. If you want an A in participation, you need to literally talk over everyone else.\n\r\nIf you are looking for an easy A (or B even), do NOT take this philanthropy class. End of.\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-21T17:17:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Grimm', 'slug': 'grimm_robert'}, {'courses': ['ARTT200', 'ARTT100', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT340', 'ARTT418A', 'ARTT333', 'ARTT448A', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT333H', 'ARTT438D', 'ARTT448H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Hackett', 'slug': 'hackett'}, {'courses': ['MEES698B', 'MEES608R', 'MEES660', 'MEES660', 'MEES660'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Hilderbrand', 'slug': 'hilderbrand'}, {'courses': ['ENST423', 'ENST417', 'ENST499N', 'ENST250', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST417', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST423', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST417', 'ENST472', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Hill', 'slug': 'hill_robert'}, {'courses': ['NFSC315', 'NFSC425', 'NFSC688', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC678A'], 'average_rating': 2.0909, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "Hardest class in the game, and for god's sake it's a 100 level course. Forget it, take it with another professor. Discussion saved me not getting a D.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-21T17:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC315', 'review': "This class is no doubt one of the more challenging nutrition courses. But Dr. Jackson is extremely knowledgeable about the material. I've never gone to his office hours, cus he's super intimidating, but I studied off his slides and did better than I expected.\n\r\nLectures were really boring, but make sure you pay attention because if he goes over a concept, or set of statistics twice, it's most likely going to be on the exam. Also, I remember having to memorize a lot of numbers and equations; it doesn't seem relevant but they take up a lot of exam questions so better safe than sorry.\n\r\nthere were 3 case studies or something, where you had to talk about conditions of an infant, child, adult. if you don't know how to do it, go to the TA for help... she will guide you in the right direction.\n\r\ngood luck. study!!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-17T13:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "This class is tough, hands down. Dr. Jackson clearly knows what he is talking about but does a poor job explaining it to his students. The tests are extremely hard as some of the questions on there weren't covered at all in class. My best suggestion is to not take this class unless you like challenges. If you have no choice, then I seriously recommend doing the readings in the textbook. Some of it may be excessive but there are things I found that were questions on the test from the textbook that were never mentioned in lecture. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-12-26T16:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "do not take this class if it's just for a CORE. it's much less interesting than you would think, and a lot of work. it's definitely not an easy A, or even an easy B", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-10-11T15:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "This man should definitely be doing something else with his time. It seems like this class is too simple for him and he tries to dumb it down, but the exams dig deeper than he lets on by his demeanor.\n\r\nThe homework, in-class quizzes, and extra credit definitely saved the day.\n\r\nThe class isn't very fun to sit through (and you have to if you want extra credit stuff). He must've gone over this stuff so much that he's bored with it now and doesn't offer much enthusiasm.\n\r\nThe TAs are pretty helpful and the non-Exam grades are definitely worth putting effort into to keep your grade afloat.\n\r\nPersonally, I basically never read the book and managed to pass; although I think it would've helped if I did.\n\r\nFor a level 100 class, the reading seemed a bit excessive and the time spent on certain projects was a little beyond what one should do for a 3 credit class at that level.\n\r\nBe careful taking this as a CORE if you are not into the basics of Chemistry/Biology. It can be pretty rough without a lot of reading/memorizing.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-08-19T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "He is a really boring professor despite how interesting he could make the course material if he wanted to. His test questions are also really weird and unrelated sometimes. The good thing is that he pretty much only tests from the lecture notes. So I just memorized them. I only read three chapters out of the book the whole semester-- and that was just out of interest, I don't think it actually helped. Make sure you do well in discussion and go to lecture for the bonus points!! They really end up adding up and could make a huge difference.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-23T16:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': 'The man hates his life. He lectures about information that is useless on tests. He takes his miserable life out on his students. 3 Exams and Final worth 450 and the Discussion is worth 200. Final is hard, there will be no curve on anything. Class avgerage on all three tests was below a 70 and he thought that was fine? Bottom line unless you have to take this class avoid it!!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-16T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "This was pretty tough. I enjoyed the material but wished the expectations would have been more clearly laid out. I'm not expecting any hand-holding here, but too much of the lectured material never made it onto any of the exams. The essay questions on the exam are probably the hardest part of the entire class--if you're asked to describe a process or a sequence of events, know EVERY step. If you're not doing terribly well in the class, the final project is ridiculously easy compared to the exams; do well on that and it will help. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-02-11T02:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "Very difficult class. The exams were very tough and he asks questions about material that you don't even feel was covered in lecture. He clearly knows what he's talking about, but he's not good as a teacher.\n\r\nThe homework and projects aren't too bad and will probably save your grade.\n\r\nAs a freshman Food Science major already having taken NFSC112 (Intro to Food Science), I barely got a B- in NFSC100.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2008-06-18T21:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC315', 'review': "Yes, he is tough- he doesn't curve and you have to know the smallest details. However, the subject is fascinating, he is an amazing lecturer (very funny too!) and he truly has a passion for what he teaches. He also has interesting experiences he is willing to talk about after class. The bottom line is: don't take one of his classes and expect to get an A- take it for the interesting material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-24T04:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Jackson', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': 'DO NOT take this teacher or this class. YOU WILL FAIL just like myelf and the rest of my class did.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-01-07T12:07:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Jackson', 'slug': 'jackson_robert'}, {'courses': ['GVPT331', 'GVPT388P', 'GVPT479I', 'MLAW304', 'CPJT100', 'CPJT250', 'MLAW150', 'MLAW374', 'CPSP218', 'CPJT230', 'CPJT240', 'MLAW388', 'MLAW348C', 'MLAW377', 'MLAW404', 'MLAW305', 'MLAW100', 'MLAW358U', 'GVPT439E', 'MLAW358N', 'MLAW298V', 'MLAW378B', 'MLAW304', 'CPJT105', 'MLAW101', 'MLAW411', 'MLAW100', 'MLAW101', 'MLAW304', 'MLAW304', 'MLAW358U', 'MLAW378B', 'MLAW101', 'MLAW100'], 'average_rating': 2.6364, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': None, 'review': "Engaging and knows his stuff but completely unresponsive to student concerns. He'll pretend to care in class but when you email him he will never answer and he is not helpful at all. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-28T19:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Koulish's class on immigration was perspective changing. It can be difficult to begin a discussion about immigration with people outside of class because of how thoroughly uninformed I realize I was before taking the class. Immigration is a collusion of society, law, sovereignty, economics, and the list goes on, and Professor Koulish is an expert. This class was the tip of the iceberg, and I have since hit the ground running with reading and thinking about immigration and social philosophy on my own and in my course studies. I would recommend reading his book at the beginning of the semester, as it is dense and fascinating, and helps you see where he is coming from.\n\r\nI'm surprised to see the negative reviews of Professor Koulish, but I will say that his teaching style was very effective in a small class setting with an interesting topic and engaged students. I'm not sure how he would teach a course like GVPT100.\n\r\nKoulish is receptive to students who want to engage more deeply outside of class. Though he is busy and doesn't always have the time, he has been consistently willing to talk outside of class. He is an inspiration, a very intelligent person, and a formidable individual. If you engage and are interested, you will receive.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-04-11T18:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT331', 'review': 'The class definitely was not my favorite and I was not what I thought it would be. Koulish teaches with slides so its easy to follow along and take notes, but the way he teaches this course apparently is really different than how others teach it. As with any class, some material was really interesting and other stuff was really dry. Best advice always go to class because he does not post slides and above all always go to discussion, participate and get close to your TA because they do all the grading. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-01-28T04:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT331', 'review': "After the first day of this class last semester, I was really excited and felt sure that it was going to be an interesting course. However, after that first day, the original professor resigned, and Koulish stepped in.\n\r\nThen the class became a joke. \n\r\nI don't blame the course material, I blame Koulish. He is not an effective professor. His power points are often uninformative. Which would be fine if the words he spoke were informative. But they're not. He constantly puts down the legal profession and talks negatively about lawyers as if he is trying to talk his entire Law class OUT of becoming attorneys. Which doesn't make since if he is a law professor.\n\r\nI don't think Koulish is a bad person, he just shouldn't be teaching a 300 level GVPT class. Lectures are almost pointless, he posts everything on ELMS. Discussion isn't really worth it either but I think you get participation for going. There was a short paper (easy) and a research paper (also easy) as well as a midterm and a final. I may have gotten an A but it was not a fun experience.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-27T15:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "Koulish is a Douchebag and also not to say that the class is pointless, which makes it a bad combo. The System that the class works on is total BS. This man has 8 different TAs for a class of less tham 200 students and each TA has their own philosophy which greatly differs from Koulishs. This also reflects on the way exams are graded! Koulish is a wicked man. He knows how hard it is to to come by money, but yet he makes you go out there and buy a custom book that he complied for 100 dollars when in reality you can pass the class without the Book. I can go on forever but i am sure you get the gist of it. IF YOU love yourself, you'd stay away from Koulish!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-07-23T01:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'Koulish was a good teacher. He made what is rly a boring topic relatively interesting. That being said his lectures were really boring despite his efforts. TAs are not bad. One midterm One Final One Essay and Participation are your grades. USE GOOGLE DOCS AS A CLASS!! IT HELPS!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-09T17:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "class was soooo boring. honestly i didn't learn jack. there was one midterm, one essay, one final. every thursday we had to email in 2 questions about lecture for our discussion section. Some genius created a google doc where everyone studied together for the midterm and final so dat made everything essay. Got on A on the essay but that's only because my TA Chris was real chill. participation is worth 20% of your grade so keep dat in mind. I would recommend the class if u get chris as a TA. Heard the Anne lady was an a*% tho. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-23T21:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT331', 'review': 'This was my least favorite class in my four semesters at Maryland. \n\r\nI had a lot of problems with Professor Koulish, although I must first say that he wasn\'t originally intended to teach this class. The intended professor had to leave after the first week, so Professor Koulish stepped in. Nevertheless, he did a poor job with this class.\n\r\nHis class is not particularly difficult, yet I wouldn\'t consider it fair. For his exams, he provides a powerpoint "review," however none of the topics were on the test. He gave us a 10-12 page paper near the end of the semester, and a final exam. The paper was assigned too late in the semester, and he gave very little guidance about what to actually write.\n\r\nMy biggest problems with Koulish came from his lectures. Not only were his powerpoints messy and hard to follow, but they were also covered with grammar and spelling mistakes. He rarely seemed prepared. In addition, his own political beliefs were evident throughout. He wants you to believe that lawyers who work for the private sector or with the goal of making money are terrible people. \n\r\nIf you\'re looking for a LAW class, this is not it. It is focused primarily on sociology and Koulish\'s beliefs. The topics are somewhat related but not cohesive, and the readings are a little random as well. In addition, he often would not post the reading until the day before it was due. He never responded to a single email I sent him. \n\r\nOverall, he was unorganized and not a good lecturer. I gave him the benefit of the doubt at first because of the exceptional situation of having to step in at the last minute, but by the end I realized that he is an overall bad professor. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-21T14:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "Not as great a teacher as everyone is saying. He is totally distant during lectures and packs as many run-ons as possible. He is not easy to follow.\n\r\nI'm a straight A student and knew the material like the back of my hand but expect a C in this class because I had a ridiculous TA. If you have Anne, switch immediately. She is insanely pen-heavy and an unfair grader. For the first exam, the average in her discussion was a C-. When the average for an exam is that low, you can only blame the students so much. There was clearly a problem. \n\r\nThere are 2 exams. The final is cumulative. He told us the whole semester that it was non-cumulative until a few days before the exam that it was. You have discussion sections and a 6-8 paper. I would suggest taking this class with someone else.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-13T17:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'So I had prof koulish for GVPT100\r\nim not a huge political theory person but i took the class to get a better understanding\r\nhes a solid lecturer and what not\r\nbut something about him gave me a vibe saying im a douchebag\r\nhe was a dick to students sometimes\r\nthe TAs were ok decently helpful\r\nbut he is a pretty boting lecturer\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-07T15:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'Great teacher. His lectures were interesting and enthralling. His tests were really straight forward in that he gave you the essay questions beforehand. If you do the readings and practice writing the essay questions before the exam, you will do great. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-21T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT388I', 'review': 'Great professor! Had him for GVPT388I (the Public Policy Internship seminar) fall 2010. As it is a course that we are required to take if we want academic credit for our internship, he gave us good advise if we needed and asked us every week to talk about the progress we have made at our internships. He did not lecture a lot, it was mostly based on discussions. Since a lot of students were doing internships in campaigns we talked a lot about that. \n\r\nAs far as work goes, we had one 10-12 page paper to write by the end of the semester related to public policy. We had to choose a topic related to our internships. He asked us to submit a paper proposal and an outline of our analysis for our paper so he could give us feedback in the process. This made it easy to have most ideas organized before the end of the semester and have the 12 page paper done without cramming too much. We also had 2 guest speakers who were pretty interesting.\n\r\nOverall, great class. \n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-29T21:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'most boring class ive ever taken. he was a new teacher and i absolutely hated the class. i learned nothing the entire semester but somehow memorized the important stuff and got an A. Course consists of 2 midterms, a paper, and a final. i have friends with other gvpt100 teachers and they either had one less exam or their paper was the final', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-01-02T22:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Koulish is such an interesting person and he cares really deeply about the subjects being discussed in class. That being said, lectures are pretty much useless because he goes on tangents a lot. He's a great guy but not the greatest lecturer", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-06T00:03:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'MLAW100', 'review': 'Very unorganized teaching method. Not receptive to students concerns. Very ineffective teaching method. His teaching method will just make you more confused than before. Had to teach myself most of the course.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-08T18:38:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'MLAW358U', 'review': 'Please do not take this class. It was about immigration, so while on paper that may sound interesting, believe me, the class was not fun. Format is 2 essays and a final project, in the form of a presentation or a big paper. Topics were assigned and you could pick one from the list. Main issue- a dumb rule where we were only limited to the materials he provided, so online research was a no go. Class would go like this- half an hour two students present the local immigration related news, then another half an hour of Koulish going off topic for no reason. When the lecture starts an hour in, out of the 20 or so slides we get through like 5. Koulish knows his material, but goes off topic, is slow to grade any work with the TA. I had ungraded assignments for like a month or more straight, and the class was very dry. Unless you are passionate about immigration, skip this, take something else instead. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-18T02:09:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'MLAW100', 'review': "Dr. Koulish is a great guy, but not the best lecturer. His slides are not the easiest to understand, and when you expect him to explain them, he seems to go off topic. The final assignment (7-8 page essay or 15 minute podcast) is too long in my opinion. If he wanted us to do an essay, I wouldn't have a problem if it wasn't so long.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T03:06:08.270044Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'MLAW100', 'review': 'Smart man and interesting to talk with but his lectures are just him rambling and his tests are confusing and poorly worded. He gets about 2 slides into the 25 slide powerpoint before getting off topic and then you have to teach yourself that material. Your TA will be doing almost all of the grading and actual teaching.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T07:28:49.244276Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'MLAW100', 'review': 'MLAW100 was the dumbest class I’ve ever taken. Don’t recommend 😀', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-12T00:24:45.259495Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'MLAW358U', 'review': 'Dr. Koulish is the goat, class is super engaging and he knows a ton about the topic', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-09T16:16:24.428845Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'MLAW100', 'review': 'Terrible class and professor. Would give zero stars if could.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-09T23:35:34.026154Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Koulish', 'course': 'MLAW304', 'review': 'Very interesting guy. Kinda of just rambles on and is not organized at all. The readings and due dates are always changing. Its a required course and its not HORRIBLE. But its a 2.5 hour class and its pretty hard to stay engaged. The exams are worth like 5% so its not hard, theres a few assignments. He hates technology so you can only write in a notebook and then you turn it in and all your assignments are in that notebook. Again not horrible, kind of just seems like a waste of time sometimes and the 2.5 hour class is difficult', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-03-28T17:17:01.069777Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Koulish', 'slug': 'koulish'}, {'courses': ['RDEV689M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Lefenfeld', 'slug': 'lefenfeld'}, {'courses': ['ENGL748L', 'ENGL440', 'ENGL470', 'ENGL428X', 'ENGL626', 'ENGL699', 'ENGL313', 'ENGL748A', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL313', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL748B', 'ENGL431', 'ENGL313'], 'average_rating': 4.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': 'ENGL431', 'review': "Professor Levine is a great professor. I thought some of the earlier readings were a little dull, but he's a really smart man and an engaging teacher. The class is much better if you participate in lecture. Professor Levine is also really nice and funny in a wry sort of way. He also gives options for extra credit and lots of ideas for paper topics!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-29T22:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': 'ENGL313', 'review': "Second half of this course was much better than the first half. His lectures are not attendance mandatory, but you're really missing out if you don't go! He's funny and draws a lot of interesting parallels between works. There are two big papers, a final exam and then you have to write 12 short responses over the course of the semester. The responses can be pretty fun to write, and he reads them all! Overall, he totally earned my respect. I think the TA's can be hit or miss. My discussion section was great, but that's because of the students in it, not so much because of the TA. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-11T11:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "One of the best professors I've had at Maryland. He's open to his students prospectives. The material he chooses is not the most interesting but he makes it entertaining. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2010-03-26T18:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': 'ENGL431', 'review': "He is one of the best professors I've ever had at Maryland.\r\nHe knows his stuff (I mean, he is the editor of the Norton...), and he's really passionate about everything he teaches.\r\nAlso, one of the best things about him is that he likes when students think independently, not just regurgitating his or other critics' ideas. \r\nProfessor Levine is wonderful. Take his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-21T02:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': 'ENGL313', 'review': "Professor Levine is... okay. Though the readings can be dry, he's definitely passionate about American literature which helps with the content. He can be a little self-conceited at times which can be really off-putting. Overall, he's certainly not a bad professor, but I'm not planning on taking another one of his classes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T03:01:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "I really like Professor Levine, he truly is a good professor and engages with his students. He has a witty sense of humor too, and is open to all perspectives. I do think the readings are a bit dry like others have said, but he always makes it interesting when we talk about it in class by pointing out some things. If you participate more in class I think it's more interesting, so maybe it depends on who you are. However, I will say that for ENGL301 you're basically taking a version of american lit, and sometimes feels like a class about Frederick Douglass (I'm assuming bc that's what he studies and enjoys). I wish there was a bit more variety, even though we do study various things - they're shorter than the Douglass topics. \r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-21T18:20:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': None, 'review': "towards the end of the semester, I'm finding that he's very knowledgeable and insightful but his grading and critiques seem to be pretty harsh. I enjoyed the first half of the semester better than the second half. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-06T16:06:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': 'ENGL313', 'review': "If I were to use one word to best describe Dr. Levine, it would probably be quirky. But that is not a bad thing at all, it just took some time to get accustomed to his personality and style of teaching. I can see that he may not be some people's favorite professor, but he does really care about his students' comprehension and success. He is absolutely one of the fastest graders I have ever seen (grades within the day, which is especially impressive for papers), and he seems to delight in getting to read his students' work. He is definitely passionate about the material he teaches, and that is hard to not be infectious. Some of the early texts in the 17th century American literature can be a bit slow, but his enthusiasm and interest in itself is a motivator to care about the literature. He is an extremely fair professor who is an expert on what he teaches—he really knows his stuff. There are frequent assignments called reader-responses which are basically comprehension/interpretative checks of a text before the assigned class meeting. I found that once you get into it, they actually become fun and a little space for you to create your own thoughts about the text by simply writing it out. We had two essay assignments, and he allowed either a critical analysis or a pedagogy paper, which was a really interesting alternative that made the paper formatting fun to engage in. All in all, Dr. Levine is a great professor and one that I would definitely recommend!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-19T16:07:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "Pretty harsh grader, classes are boring. The actual content is kinda interesting, but it feels more like American literature/a class on Frederick Douglass. He's not super personable, though he is quick to respond to emails and grade assignments. He likes to go on tangents and the majority of the class is on their computers definitely not paying attention to him. I don't know that I've learned much from this class and I honestly regret taking this section.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-09T16:39:13.885575Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Levine', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "He is very easy to reach outside of the classroom and is super quick to respond to emails. He is unbelievably quick to grade papers and even gives detailed feedback going as far as correcting students' grammar. He is sweet and understanding of situations that might require an extension. You can tell that he genuinely likes teaching. After about 4-5 weeks in, it does focus heavily on Frederick Douglass and I can't say I'm personally interested in the topic but he's very enthusiastic about the subject and it makes up for it (a little). He appreciates students having their own thoughts and understandings of the work. Overall, I am very happy with the class. Would take again!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T01:22:06.738787Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Levine', 'slug': 'levine_robert'}, {'courses': ['EDHD430', 'EDHD320', 'EDHD221'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Marcus', 'course': 'EDHD430', 'review': "Dr. Marcus is a very nice old guy. He's very lenient and grades easily; I often talked to him after class. I think he's an okay teacher, but most students agree he's on the boring side and talks slowly. He teaches us like we're little kids in a way (that's his style, it's not demeaning, but it doesn't really want to make you listen). He doesn't allow laptops in class, but I used technology (iPad and cell phone) anyway. I didn't like the way he structured the course - it felt very one-sided. You would think a hot topic like gun violence/gun control would be really interesting to talk about; however, we didn't really talk about the side against gun control at all in this class. Dr. Marcus was very pro-gun control, guns are to blame, etc. He said theories worked based on his experience and he did have some interesting stories to tell from his work as a clinical psychologist or something. He was receptive to student concerns though and is a nice guy. While I'm more on the side of agreeing with him, I think the class wasn't representative of the whole issue. The discussion in the class was not stimulating - he was mainly talking at us and going through his slides slowly. Most of the time, I was very bored in class. He posts the lectures online. He would show us these extremely outdated videos in class that were cringe-worthy. The lectures are mostly about the models of prevention, theories of development of violence, things that incur risk. It was all pretty basic...and made boring by Dr. Marcus. Nice guy, but a little biased and definitely boring. \n\r\nAs for difficulty - easy for the most part, but the lecture exam is online and actually very tricky. You can only answer one question at a time and once you answer it, you can't go back... the average was a low B after he gave us points back. There was a 20 question MC quiz on ELMS as well, same format. It was tricky, but he gave us many points back on it. There is one research paper for the class, but it's honestly very easy and you have checkpoints. The final is easy - you get the prompts ahead of time and he randomly picks one. \n\r\nOverall simple class. Boring material. Nice teacher. Easy A/B. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-08T14:10:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Marcus', 'slug': 'marcus_robert'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688J', 'RDEV689N', 'RDEV640', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'EXST030', 'RDEV478B', 'RDEV640', 'RDEV689N', 'RDEV689N', 'RDEV440', 'RDEV640'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert McClennan', 'slug': 'mcclennan'}, {'courses': ['MUSC699V', 'MUSC228', 'MUSC644', 'MUSC831A', 'MUSC831V', 'MUSC699D', 'MUSC802A', 'MUSC801A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert McReynolds', 'slug': 'mcreynolds'}, {'courses': ['HLSA770', 'HLSA770'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Mekelburg', 'slug': 'mekelburg'}, {'courses': ['ENEE303', 'ENEE417', 'ENEE698E', 'ENEE610', 'ENEE307', 'ENEE303H', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENEE488'], 'average_rating': 2.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': "He just used the labs written by a different professor. Every lab except one was on analog circuits, but he decided to make the final on digital circuits, which was also half your final grade. Lastly, there was no consistency to how TA's graded lab reports.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-09-30T21:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': 'ENEE303H', 'review': "He is a very nice guy, just completely past his prime. He cannot teach whatsoever. The class becomes a mess, where few people know what they're doing, and you have to teach yourself. Don't put yourself through this teacher, even though you might somehow find yourself to an A.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-23T18:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "First and foremost, this guy cannot lecture for his life. I only went to the first 4 lectures before i stopped going. His lecture notes are basically him writing down nonsense on his computer that no one really understands anything. The best way to learn the material through this course is through discussion section, and just pray you have a good TA.\n\r\nHe assigns a presentation and paper due towards the end of the semester. Make sure you pick a paper with an easy circuit, otherwise you'll just be presenting nonsense, which alot of the students end up doing. \n\r\nHis exams are completely absurd, the average is always around the 40s. You are guaranteed to never have seen anything on the tests beforehand. It's open book, open notes and be prepared to guess on half the tests. Write down alot of relevant equations if you don't know the answer, at least you'll get some credit.\n\r\nOverall, the class wasn't too bad, i got an A and put very little effort into it. Don't be discouraged if you fail the first exam because there's still hope in the paper and final! Good luck if you're taking this course!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-31T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': 'ENEE303H', 'review': "His lectures are too difficult to understand unless you've taken ENEE313 or read ahead in Sedra/Smith. Everything I've learned about transistors is from the book.\n\r\nHow much work you do in the class is really dependent on the TA. I heard from previous semesters that the TA would just give out the answers. But our TA graded hard, didn't help us prepare for the test, and didn't have office hours.\n\r\nThe tests are absurd. The midterm was open book, open notes, and with calculator, and people only finished (guessed on) about half of the test.\n\r\nIf you're interested in research, it may be a good idea to take him and ask to work with him on a research project cause his research is amazing.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '?', 'created': '2009-03-29T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Cannot teach worth a damn, however, he is INCREDIBLY easy and a complete genius despite being 80 something years old. His tests are impossible, but no one does well.\n\r\nLike the guy before me said, his class ends halfway through the semester, then he expects you to do a research project.\n\r\nPretty much it's like this:\n\r\nIf you want to actually learn something, and have a good knowledge of what you're doing/talking about then this professor is NOT for you.\n\r\nIf you want an easy A, and minimum work, then this is your man.\n\r\nIf you do decide to take him, make sure you choose an EASY topic for your research paper. He kind of hits the ground running with regards to this; a topic is expected to be chosen in something like 2 weeks after classes begin.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-25T18:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'Prof. Newcomb is a very nice guy; however, he is not the best at teaching. He is rather boring and monotone. The key to this class is to do hw with other people. Do not do it by yourself...it will take much longer than needed. He gives a project (12 pages or so) that needs to be turned in at the end of the semester. He finishes teaching at halfway through the semester (which is kind of nice) because he goes extremely fast. Exams are extremely hard but there is a nice curve.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-29T19:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Newcomb is clearly knowledgeable and experienced when it comes to the subject, but he definitely should not be teaching anymore, at least this course (we'll see how the lab goes.) The entire course was taught before the midterm, and the midterm and final are pretty much the same because there is no material taught during the second half of the semester.\r\nYou spend the second half doing research project/s and presentations, which is cool but it doesn't help the fact that it is basically impossible to learn everything in a little more than a month. Also, there's no ELMS or any other communication whatsoever, so you have no idea how you're doing in the course. I even asked him but he doesn't even know, and he probably won't respond to your emails, citing something about how the cloud takes several days to send him things (yes, really). Fortunately, the tests aren't actually worth much, so even if you do poorly a good research paper/presentation can still save you.\r\nIf you already know about transistors/diodes I'm sure this class is great, but if you don't, you will only learn on your own time. DO NOT TAKE UNLESS YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT LEARNING THE MATERIAL.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-12-16T17:35:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'I would not recommend this professor for any course. He does not teach anything during lectures and does not communicate when asked simple questions about grading. Avoid this professor at all costs unless u want a D.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2018-01-03T03:35:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': 'ENEE303H', 'review': "Professor Newcomb teaches this class like a grad class, which is why a lot of undergrads seem to be complaining about his lecturing style. His lectures can be cryptic at times, but if you actually read the textbook and work problems on your own, you'll understand the material. A lot of the people who are complaining are likely not putting much effort into the course. \r\n\r\nThe way he teaches the class puts much of the burden of learning on the student. If you want a professor that will facilitate your learning every step of the way, pick another professor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-11T04:25:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Newcomb', 'course': None, 'review': "Newcomb's lectures are pretty dull and likely the beyond the scope of the course, but he is clearly a passionate professor eager for students to learn. I really don't think he deserves some of the bad reviews he gets. His grading is actually plenty generous, and the class is plenty passable even if you don't put too much effort in. \r\n\r\nI think his lectures really set you up for any future electronics courses you might take like 411. I learned in 411 that Newcomb covered a lot of topics in electronics pretty exhaustively-this is why his lectures are probably a bit too advanced.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-18T23:26:15Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Newcomb', 'slug': 'newcomb_robert'}, {'courses': ['MUSC448B', 'MUSC699B', 'MUSC469F', 'MUSC669F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Oppelt', 'slug': 'oppelt'}, {'courses': ['MLAW358E', 'MLAW358O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Percival', 'slug': 'percival'}, {'courses': ['SOCY431', 'SOCY416', 'SOCY100', 'SOCY100', 'SOCY456', 'SOCY456'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Pernick', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'Professor Pernick is a very nice older man who clearly is very passionate about Sociology. He knows what he is talking about and has background experience in business, which allows him to bring an interesting perspective to the topic. While he is excited about Sociology and has interesting examples and video clips that relate, he is not the greatest teacher. His lectures are pretty boring and tend to be straight from the textbook. We had three graded papers (1-2 pages), a group term paper, and midterm and final exams. He grades the independent papers very easily. I have yet to finish the group term paper but I can tell you that planning for it has been a nightmare. His midterm was very, very difficult and terribly organized, but he realized this and curved our scores significantly afterwards. His classes are easy to skip because we have so few assignments and you can get by with reading the chapters he goes over in class. Hopefully an easy A for me. Overall, he is an approachable, adorable man, but not the greatest Sociology teacher.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-19T13:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Pernick', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'If you want an easy A take him. 60% of my grade was from easy online homework through Revel, 15% included beginning of the class quizzes that are extremely easy, and the last 25% you had the option of taking a final or doing a group project/ presentation. He is very sweet and kind. I went to his office hours and he always gave interesting and helpful information about the class. Lectures are boring, but participation mattered so I went almost every class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-13T02:54:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Pernick', 'course': 'SOCY100', 'review': 'Dr. Pernick will oftentimes ramble on for most of the lectures, but the readings are pretty interesting and the class is an easy A+. Despite the lectures not always being so interesting, Dr. Pernick is the sweetest guy in existence and he is genuinely interested in your performance as a student and what your takes/interests are.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-30T20:58:11.152163Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Pernick', 'slug': 'pernick'}, {'courses': ['ANSC103', 'ANSC489H', 'ANSC115', 'ANSC420', 'ANSC242'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Peters', 'slug': 'peters_robert'}, {'courses': ['ENME431', 'ENME489T', 'ENME430', 'ENNU648B'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Sanders', 'course': 'ENME431', 'review': 'Very nice man, VERY smart and knows a lot about nuclear engineering (went to MIT and worked at MPR). Tests became progressively easier as he learned that the material was really hard for us.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-06-17T15:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanders', 'course': None, 'review': 'Lectures were informative, albeit dull. Very knowledgeable teacher with a lot to share and a very systematic approach. He allows you to use the textbook during exams to reference formulas, so make sure you understand what to use in each situation. Also, coffee.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-21T19:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanders', 'course': 'ENME430', 'review': 'Smart dude, definitely knows his stuff. Attendance is mandatory because he gives pop quizzes, but they are stupid easy. Homework is also easy an exams can be easy if you take good notes because they are open note/book. Very interesting class and not super difficult.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-22T19:02:13Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Sanders', 'slug': 'sanders_robert'}, {'courses': ['ENAE202', 'ENAE432', 'ENAE641', 'ENAE788K', 'ENME202', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE641', 'ENAE788K', 'ENAE202', 'ENAE432', 'ENAE202', 'ENME202', 'ENAE202', 'ENME202', 'ENAE641', 'ENAE788K'], 'average_rating': 3.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': "Dr. Sanner does what he does very, very well. He has this class (and I assume, 432 as well) down to a science. \n\r\nSome of the below reviews reference him having a bit of an ego; I didn't find that to be the case. \n\r\nHe is clearly a really intelligent person, and he obviously loves what he does (either that or he deserves an Oscar, because he completely fooled me). His HWK's discuss everything from planetary orbit to rocket simulations to wave plots from Proxima Centauri to Fourier Transforms. You get the sense that he put in way more time on these HWK's than any other professor ever would. He loves this stuff. \n\r\nLectures are interesting, and he puts all of the code notes on ELMS for reference. HWK's and labs become increasingly challenging, but usually are not too bad because some hints and tips are included. The content of the HWK's can be fascinating. \n\r\nMidterms and the Final are like compsci finals - written, with a good amount of theory (knowing what type of errors, if any, etc). The final especially is tough, because of sheer length and complexity [to Computer Science majors, it wouldn't be that bad, but to Aero Engineers, it is not easy]. \n\r\nOverall, I think Sanner is true professor's professor, and I look forward to (and fear) Systems and Controls Junior Year. \n\r\nOne last thought: if possible do NOT take the first lab section, and leave time before your lab in between classes. You can use the free time to work on the labs (he releases them with the first lab section) and then leave labs early when you finish. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-21T20:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE432', 'review': 'This is a class that will make you work for your grade and Dr. Sanner knows it. He is very good about clearly describing the course in the syllabus and he has been teaching this class for several years and has gotten very good at it. He may be the best professor in the Aerospace department.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-10T23:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': '(NOTE: For Spring 2011 Sanner did not teach ENAE202, so he may not for future classes as well. This review is for Mr. Parker who works at NASA Goddard and taught our class)\n\r\nAlthough a programming background is useful for this course (which covers MATLAB and C++), it is not necessary. I had no programming experience and did well.\n\r\nMr. Parker was always willing to go over homework questions at the start of class, stay after class to answer questions, and thoroughly answer emails. Homework was challenging, but doable. If you want to do well on tests, spend at least two hours (or more) working on your own homework code, before asking a friend if you have questions, because you\'re a lot more likely to remember things after having that "ah ha!" moment, than if a friend just tells you the answer.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-07-17T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': "202: Shame he isn't teaching this class anymore. Moved at a very reasonable pace and lectures were always very easy to follow. I struggled at the end of matlab and the beginning of C++, but he never gives unreasonable problems so I always managed to figure out the problems in the end. \n\r\n432: Probably my favorite class I have taken so far. The homeworks are challenging, but they are excellent ways to learn the material. I strongly recommend working in groups on these homeworks though. The tests as have been stated are not impossible. I got a B-, B+, and A+ (took me a little time to get used to them). The worst part of this class was the final project, so make sure you start at least four days in advance.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-03T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE432', 'review': "A lot of people will say that Sanner is an a$$ and has a huge ego, and I agree, that's how he comes across in a classroom setting. But he does that because he's not going to put up with students $hit. \n\r\nIn class he is extremely straightforward and will write down everything you need to know. I can read through my notes and it's almost like being in class because he's extremely meticulous about his details and writes exactly the way he talks. \n\r\nI went to Sanner a few times to discuss the final project he gives and he was way nicer than he would seem. As long as you try, and show him that you've attempted to understand what he wants you to do, he's extremely nice and helpful. I sat with him a few times and showed him what I had done and how I had attempted to solve the problem and the logic behind it, and he was very very helpful. Go in expecting to be told what to do and expecting answers without putting in the work and obviously he's not going to be that kind.\n\r\nAs much as I despised his class during the semester (I'm not so hot at controls/programming) I really liked the class in retrospect and I have a lot of respect for Sanner. The guy is a genius", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-22T11:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': 'labs are not bad and hw is easy if u have a few friends to help u. final and midterm are horrible so try to do well in everything else to balance them out. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-23T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': "I had Dr. Sanner for ENAE432 and ENAE202. Overall he's a really good teacher, probably the best in the department. Yes he may be cocky and an asshole but you will actually learn stuff from him. Just go to class, pay attention, and take notes. In both cases, do not buy the textbooks unless you have unlimited money because his lectures cover everything and the books don't really help. \n\r\nENAE202: This class was really straightforward and pretty much a joke. Note-taking is optional because he basically goes through MATLAB/C++ code that you can download from Blackboard. All the assignments/tests can be done easily by following the outline of his code and tweaking it. \n\r\nENAE432: This is a more challenging course. You basically have to attend lectures and take notes. The textbook is by no means a replacement (IMO it's useless). If you're absent, get notes from a classmate. The homeworks are pretty time consuming so work in groups. Tests are not hard but time management is key. Fortunately he gives extra credit opportunities so it's not hard to well. Final project can be tedious if you procrastinate. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-05-18T04:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': "A nice guy...I wasn't a big fan of his homework problems as they sometimes were confusing, but normally he points things out in the assignment and it is easier than you would think.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-11T21:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': "I started this class with 3 years of experience in Java (and a 5 on the AP AB Compsci Exam). Dr. Sanner said something about no one knowing how to program and the deplorable state of high school education in this country.\n\r\nIf you have experience, this class is a breeze. If not, you need to devote a lot of time to studying the programs from class.\n\r\nP.S. don't bother buying the books, they are expensive and useless.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-29T20:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': "As stated in another review, this class splits up in to two sections for the C++ section. I took Moylan and she could not make the class any easier. I knew nothing about C++ but it didn't matter. She was ridiculously lax about deadlines and curved like crazy.\n\r\nSanner on the other hand is a 5 star @$$hole. He has a huge ego - which is understandable, the guy is a genius - and is worthless at helping you. In lab, don't even bother asking him for help because you only have one shot. If you have more than one question, you're immediately stupid in his eyes - and he shows it - regardless of how much programming experience you have. In the Matlab portion, he covered all most everything you needed for the weekly lab in lecture so go to class and you should be ok.\n\r\nAbout the book(s) - don't buy them but try and find someone that did because they have a couple examples that might help if you get stuck. Google is also useful to find forums for coding examples.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-10-24T03:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE432', 'review': 'Most people need help with homeworks, so form study groups. Dr. Sanner is rather condescending if you seek homework help from him. His lectures are sometimes entertaining, and he gives lots of notes, but the notes are often not enough information to do homework. He moves through material quickly.\n\r\nHe does curve though. I had a lot of 50%s on homeworks and 70%s on quizzes, but as long as you try, you should pass.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-16T21:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': "If you have never taken programming classes before and you have no idea what you're doing you won't understand what he's talking about. He explains things as much as he can but for a student new to programming it doesn't make much sense and he runs through things too fast. He gives off an air of superiority a lot, which might be earned, but I don't like it.\n\r\nMatlab and C++ homeworks aren't too bad. It's a lot of guess and check. Ask the TA for help, they're usually more willing to walk you through processes slowly.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-06T19:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': 'If I had a different teacher, I may not have even passed the class. Homeworks range from absolute brutalities to half hour trivialities. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2019-06-25T18:59:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE788K', 'review': 'Overall: Intelligent professor, but tough.\r\n\r\nThe course: Do not take this course without knowledge of control systems (I hope that was obvious by now). A brief, quick review of probabilities will give you the false impression this course will go in a smooth and easy manner. The pace quickly picks up. He speeds through concepts pretty quickly, as an intellectual of his caliber would do. The only problem is he expects you to already know concepts he doesn\'t cover.\r\n\r\nListening and note-taking together, can not happen with both being completed to 100% accuracy. He writes A LOT. And talks a lot as he writes. He talks in a very calculated manner, which after processing, makes sense. But you don\'t have time to process because he\'s already saying/writing the next thing while you\'re trying to process the first. The connections between the points that are written on the board, so that you can make sense of the notes later, are spoken. So in essence, you have to write everything he writes, and write everything he says. Be prepared for the lecture time to dramatically increase due to the pausing, processing, and writing of what is spoken/written.\r\n\r\nEmail exchanges will be very "like code" - almost inhumane. Lacks empathy, but will be willing to makes adjustments given legitimate rationale.\r\n\r\nYour success, unless you are independently smart (if you are, then you already know), your success will ultimately depend on the study group you make, and the hours you have to commit to understanding the material outside of lecture.\r\n\r\n\r\nCan\'t knock his intelligence. But as a professor, you teach to convey and educate others - not throw out your knowledge and see what sticks. You\'re not hired just because you\'re smart. You\'re hired to teach to students. To people with different backgrounds and different stories. And understand that they are people at the end of the day. Not computers.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-08-10T19:39:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': 'Dr. Sanner is very knowledgeable and communicates an immense amount of information through lectures. The biggest issues with his teaching are with respect to the homework and labs, which tend to be more of an exercise in reading comprehension and doing exactly what he is telling you to do than to learn how to implement the coding practices properly. The length of the homework problem descriptions makes them very detailed and easy to get a good grade on, but the lack of straightforward questions allowing students to practice the topics more makes completing code on exams more difficult.\r\n\r\nThe exams are written with a lot of knowledge of math and notation necessary to complete the questions.\r\n\r\nAdditionally, most types of collaboration with classmates can be considered academic dishonesty by him, and never share code or how to approach lab or homework problems. \r\n\r\nOverall, Sanner is a good professor who you can learn a lot from, his homework and labs could just involve more practice to help students do better in the class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-05-27T17:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE788K', 'review': 'Normally, Sanner is a great professor and teaches in an engaging manner; however, the one thing I will knock him for is his grading. One of the most important things when it comes to understand your progress in the course is seeing the grades you get from homeworks and exams. He consistently either grades homeworks and exams 4-5 weeks after they\'re due or flat-out never grades them (happens with the later homeworks). He also never makes the grades for final exams public. I can literally go on GradeScope right now and see that my assignments I submitted for the second half of the course are marked "Submitted" with no numerical grade attached but still somehow ended up with a final grade on Testudo. If you e-mail him for your grade for your final exam, he just flat-out ghosts you. \r\n\r\nAt the end of the day, people attending grad school and taking a 788-level aerospace class are here to learn, especially from mistakes made on their homeworks and exams. Zero feedback on the second-half (and definitely the most important part) of the course doesn\'t help students learn from mistakes.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-26T05:58:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': "Sanner is very knowledgeable but his lectures are boring and he scares the shit out of me. Very intimidating and often condescending. Exams are bullshit online quizzes and don't really feel fair. The only good thing to take away from him is that I learned something, even if I lost my mind in the process. I wouldn't recommend Sanner, but it's not like you really have a choice to take his course.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-21T18:08:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': 'This course is required, so I\'m sorry to all aerospace majors. \r\n\r\nThis course was needlessly confusing and convoluted based on the way Dr. Sanner elected to structure assignments. Many of the homeworks revolved around math concepts such as eigenvalues and differential equations that many students in the class were unfamiliar with (including myself). This muddied the true objective of the class: learning MATLAB and C++. Dr. Sanner seemed more interested in letting us know that he knew how to do linear algebra and differential equations than making his students familiar with basic coding. All students I\'ve talked to agree that we "learn nothing" in lecture, and there\'s barely any point in attending at all. Lastly, Dr. Sanner never had his camera on, and didn\'t allow students to unmute during lecture. We had to type in the chat box, which was often missed until class was fully over. On more than one occasion, Dr. Sanner sent messages after the lecture answering questions that were given during. Every exam was curved, but the average on them was a C- (post curve).\r\n\r\nUninspiring professor that was more focused on a thesaurus than teaching his students.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-10T17:40:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': 'Sanner\'s lectures were meticulous and thought out, and from the layout of the course, it was easy to tell that this was not the first time that this course had been taught by him. His lectures were certainly well put together, and if you paid attention, it was nearly impossible to not grasp the concepts. The homeworks and labs were also fair for the most part, though there were certainly stand-out assignments that took a long time to finish due to the difficulty of the content. Sanner as an instructor is good, but he seems to not care in the slightest bit about any of his students. The setup of the course and it\'s incredibly strict rules and the fact that lectures are online without being able to even see him through his camera makes it seem like he just wants to "set it and forget it" with this course of that he doesn\'t want to interact with his students. He is frequently dismissive with questions during lectures, but it seems as though it is because there is a set amount of information that he needs to cover each class, and doesn\'t have much time to stop. However, he exceeds the 50 minute lecture time every single class, which makes it inconvenient when trying to arrive at the next class on time. Additionally, he seems super condescending in all of his communications, which is a stark contrast with his apparent terror at talking face to face with students. He takes forever to grade, but doesn\'t accept any late work, and offers the most miniscule amount of exam prep material ever. It was pitiful how little studying material we received. He gave us a 5 question practice exam for each midterm (the midterms have 12 questions) and did not include answers. If you wanted answers, you needed to go to office hours. It made studying for the exams really difficult and rather stressful, since the exams themselves are weighed unbelievably heavily. Overall, helpful class and I learned a lot, I just wish someone else taught it. The TAs were super nice and very helpful though, so I recommend getting to know one or multiple of them and asking them questions in office hours or via email when you need help.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-10T19:30:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Sanner', 'course': 'ENAE202', 'review': "Sanner is probably the smartest professor I have met so far, and that's a pretty hard feat. I feel you could ask him any possible question about the class (and then some) and he could give you the rocket scientist answer if he wanted to. I really learned a lot about matlab and c++ in this class and I feel many other professors probably wouldn't have been able been able to go this in depth.\r\n\r\nNow that's said, Sanner is also one of the least personable and accommodating professors I have met. He does not allow you to work on lab assignments beforehand, which would be extremely convenient if say, you had to leave early for a bus to go home for spring break. Other than that, most labs are pretty mild. Students have often asked questions in class and if he doesn't ignore them, he answers them like it's an inconvenience.\r\n\r\nExams are difficult and contain a lot of little intricacies that if you don't know the material through and through, you're screwed. Averages for the first two exams were sitting around 70, after a curve that could be 5-15 percent. Some questions are purposely made to trip you up. Exams also have a pretty high weighting so make sure to study.\r\n\r\nI personally do have some prior python and matlab experience so I did ok, but someone with limited or no experience at all will definitely struggle after the pace picks up a few weeks in. Also, c++ is a completely different animal for the unexperienced so buckle up.\r\n\r\nAs of before the final, the mean is sitting around 77 percent (according to canvas), but take this with a grain of salt.\r\n\r\nTLDR: Tough class, especially for unexperienced. No-nonsense professor with difficult assignments. Make sure to study well before hand.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-13T19:35:09Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Sanner', 'slug': 'sanner'}, {'courses': ['BUSI758N', 'PUAF689Z', 'PLCY689Z', 'PUAF689Y', 'PLCY689Y', 'EMBA759', 'EMBA789K', 'BMGT198C', 'PLCY689Z', 'PLCY689Z', 'PLCY689Z', 'EMBA759', 'BMGT198C', 'BMGT198C', 'EMBA789N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Sheehan', 'slug': 'sheehan'}, {'courses': ['THET116', 'THET328L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Siler', 'slug': 'siler'}, {'courses': ['PSYC789L', 'PSYC442', 'PSYC341', 'PSYC678', 'PSYC409', 'PSYC889', 'PSYC607', 'PSYC489X', 'HESP818C', 'NACS645', 'PSYC789', 'NACS898', 'PSYC468H', 'NACS799', 'PSYC468H', 'NACS645', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC341', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC341'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Slevc', 'course': 'PSYC341', 'review': 'He\'s a really funny professor and generally very nice, but his lectures are impossible to take notes on because he puts next to know information on the slides. The weekly quizzes are also extremely unfair. There are often two choices that both could be considered correct answers and when he reviews them he gives the weirdest reason for why one is slightly better than another. It\'s an interesting course, but don\'t expect to get the grade you usually get in other psych classes. I found PSYC300 to be more fair and easy than this course. \r\n\r\nMy class has brought up how we think the quiz questions are slightly unfair and he always says things like, "well if they were easy then everyone would be getting A\'s and it would look like I give A\'s to everyone." That\'s not true. If they were FAIR, people who pay attention in lecture and do the readings will get A\'s on the quizzes. It\'s honestly insane that he wants his students to not get A\'s so he can look like a "better" professor. If your students all fairly earn A\'s, then it\'s because they put in the work to do so. \r\n\r\nAgain, the professor is really funny and his lecture is entertaining, but his grading is completely out of pocket. So is the TA, Jade D. She is one of the worst TA\'s I have had my whole life.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-04-05T16:14:05.240902Z'}, {'professor': 'Robert Slevc', 'course': 'PSYC341', 'review': "The last rating is pretty accurate I don't understand why the grading can't just be fair and we have to have a constant discussion about why some questions just don't make sense. Grade probably depends on the TA I think this one has been grading way too harsh. Slevc is really cool and nice though", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-26T01:30:22.329482Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Slevc', 'slug': 'slevc'}, {'courses': ['LBSC682', 'INST742'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Spangler', 'slug': 'spangler'}, {'courses': ['PUAF699D', 'PUAF745', 'PUAF300', 'PUAF650', 'PUAF301', 'PUAF784', 'PUAF735', 'PUAF688E', 'AGNR301', 'PLCY735', 'PLCY745', 'PLCY784', 'HONR279N', 'PLCY698E', 'PLCY735', 'PLCY698E', 'PLCY745', 'PLCY735'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robert Sprinkle', 'course': None, 'review': "The sustainability department has already found a new professor for this class next semester. It's awful. He's awful. So boring. It's obvious he is a graduate professor. The readings he assigns are ridiculous. Plus the whole class is 3 assignments and a final. God only knows what grade I'll get. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-26T19:19:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robert Sprinkle', 'slug': 'sprinkle_robert'}, {'courses': ['ENST499J', 'ENST410', 'ENST472', 'ENST406', 'ENST689J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Tjaden', 'slug': 'tjaden_robert'}, {'courses': ['BMGT808M', 'BMGT828C', 'BUSI681', 'BMGT370', 'BMGT888W', 'BMGT888T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robert Windle', 'slug': 'windle'}, {'courses': ['GEOL445'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Roberta Rudnick', 'slug': 'rudnick'}, {'courses': ['ENAE635', 'ENAE681', 'ENAE788Q', 'ENAE655', 'ENMA486'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Roberto Celi', 'slug': 'celi'}, {'courses': ['LGBT200', 'LGBT448B', 'LGBT488D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Roberto Manuel Benedicto', 'slug': 'benedicto'}, {'courses': ['ENGL390', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robin Allen-Klein', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': "Mrs. Allen-Klein was easily the best professor I've had during this pandemic. She was super understanding of the fact that many of us were struggling with online university, plus she was definitely aware that a lot of us had to prioritize our major classes over this GenEd. We had multiple assignments get pushed back and she gave out extensions if you needed them, which was very much appreciated! That being said, this definitely isn't an easy A, you have to put the work in if you want to get a good grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-11T23:47:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Allen-Klein', 'course': 'ENGL390', 'review': 'Robin was an awesome teacher!! She only had us meet once a week on zoom, but had about 2 hours of conferences the other day for people to drop in and get help. Her grading is very fair and she will help you however she can. She was extremely considerate and dropped a bunch of assignments from the schedule because she saw students were overwhelmed with online learning. Take her class if you can!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-13T16:54:11Z'}], 'name': 'Robin Allen-Klein', 'slug': 'allen-klein'}, {'courses': ['ENGL392', 'GVPT319G'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robin Earnest', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "This ended up being a fairly easy class, but I would also agree with the previous reviewer in that Professor Earnest probably means well, but the most challenging aspect of the class is knowing what she wants. Compounding this problem is the fact that she is slow with returning grades back and by the time the final paper was due, we only had about 15%-20% of our graded work back (this was a summer class, but still). I tried working around this issue by emailing her, only to have specific parts of the email answered, and a follow-up email asking why I had received a certain grade was not responded to at all. I’m still not exactly sure what she wanted and while taking class I even heard two other classmates talking, one of whom had actually turned in the wrong assignment and received a B+.\n\r\nThe class itself consisted of a lot of grammar exercises, like how not to use ‘not,’ to be moderate in the use of passive voice, and avoiding 'big' words like prior. If you’d really like to learn, however, and increase your writing skills, I would recommend Mark Forrester for the junior English, who is harder, but really pushes you to become a better writer with great feedback and a college-level discussion.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-10-08T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Earnest', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "Earnest means well but doesn't go over things a lot. She is confusing and muddled. She is often late to class and rarely collects homework. Then she'll randomly ask for an assignment out of the blue for the first time in three or four weeks. The knowledge will prepare you but be wary of taking her course. She moves super slowly and then super quickly, but not necessarily in accordance with how the class is going. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-04-09T17:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Earnest', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "Dr. Earnest is one of the best professors I've had so far. Her background in law has given her extensive knowledge about the legal system, so if you are considering a career in law, then she can help answer any questions you might have.\n\r\nSome of the work is challenging, but the grades are fair, the workload is fair, and Dr. Earnest really does go out of her way to help you improve, so you should do fine.\n\r\nProbably the two best things about the class were that A) Dr. Earnest is very nice and helpful to everyone, and B) the work you do is very relevant to law and can serve as an introduction to the type of work one is asked to do in law school. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-23T15:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Earnest', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "Overall, I really enjoyed Dr. Earnest's course. I do feel like I learned a lot. She is very kind and enthusiastic about teaching, so I felt comfortable about participating in class. However, I definitely agree with the other reviewers who mentioned that it is difficult to know what she wants. \r\n\r\nMy TA, Blanca was so helpful and kind. She even helped me when she was busy studying for her exams when I emailed her about an issue with my open legal memo assignment. Blanca is amazing!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-31T22:46:30Z'}], 'name': 'Robin Earnest', 'slug': 'earnest'}, {'courses': ['THET428P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robin Frohardt', 'slug': 'frohardt'}, {'courses': ['MIEH760', 'MIEH600', 'MIEH775', 'MIEH785', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'SPHL291', 'SPHL399', 'MIEH698E', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'SPHL291', 'MIEH778', 'SPHL399', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH783', 'MIEH786', 'SPHL291', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'SPHL399', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robin Puett', 'slug': 'puett'}, {'courses': ['HLTH377', 'HLTH420', 'HLTH377H', 'HLTH386', 'HLTH489', 'EXST030'], 'average_rating': 4.1, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH377', 'review': "I have been trying to find a professor at UMD that genuinely loves what they do. Sawyer has a passion for his work and it is evident through class lectures. I took this class over Winter 2014 and would recommend that anyone take it. As long as you're going to take the time to watch the online lectures and take notes you will do well. All lectures are posted online as soon as the class opens and exams are scheduled for each Friday of the three week course. No need to buy the book for this shortened semester as Sawyer will tell you everything that you need to know. Do yourself a favor and take this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-01-22T15:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH377', 'review': "Prof. Sawyer is awesome and funny. I took his class online during the summer, and basically, you just need to listen to his lectures and take really good notes. Exams are all multiple choice, online, and come directly from what he talks about in class. Don't need the textbook at all. I found it to be a very easy class, also in part because it is also really interesting and the professor is hilarious. Everyone should take this class before they graduate!!!\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-07-03T22:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH420', 'review': "THE BEST PROFESSOR! if you're taking this class, only take it with him! Register early, because it fills up fast. Couldn't imagine this course with anyone else but Dr.Sawyer. Most of your time in here is spent presenting, but he makes you feel so comfortable. As someone who hated presenting, this turned out to be my favorite class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-12T22:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH377', 'review': "Literally the best class I've taken at Maryland. Dr. Sawyer is hilarious and if you pay attention, it's an easy A. Take it if you can!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-10-31T14:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH377', 'review': '1) This class is overrated but not horrible.\r\n2) Exams are pretty tough because there are only 2 and there is a lot of info to cover.\r\n3) DO NOT TAKE NOTES: 90% of the notes are online for free (http://www.bookholders.com/terpnotes.asp). Print this out and as he lectures all you need to do is read the notes and write down everything he says that is not already on the notes (there are a lot of pages but it will save you a lot of time)\r\n4) go to class because the online notes dont have everyting\r\n5)dont think you need text book. You need some pages from workbook for HW but you can ask someone in class to photocopy (do that early in the semester!)\r\n6)final was harder than the midterm ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-16T11:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH377', 'review': "Sawyer is incredibly funny. He is one of the few teachers who actually brings in GOOD guest speakers. I will say that his exams are kind of annoying and weirdly specific. But, as long as you go to class and take notes you'll be fine. If possible take the class with a friend so that you can compare notes! Oh, and don't bother buying the textbook because his exams are purely based on class lectures.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-17T21:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH377', 'review': 'Agreeing with KFuller here. Learned nothing that I hadn\'t already learned from high school health and Scarleteen. Additionally, while Prof. Sawyer generally knows his stuff with regard to history and more clinical issues like anatomy, sexual functioning, STIs, and sexual dysfunction, he presented particularly bare sections on subjects like queer sexuality, trans issues, and fetishes/kink, where it felt like he was just reading from a textbook. He made lots of little mistakes that I\'d think would be absurdly simple for a 30-year sex ed teacher to avoid, like continually confusing \'sex\' and \'gender\' and misspelling names of the researchers\' work he tried to teach about.\n\r\nHowever, those are smaller issues compared to the manner in which the class was taught. Its main audience is the heterosexual college student who knows little about sex, doesn\'t talk much to anyone outside their gender, and doesn\'t communicate well in relationships. Prof. Sawyer often pokes fun of kids who say anything about enjoying sex outside the norm. If you\'re queer, trans, non-gender-conforming, kinky, or even just female, you\'re going to feel like an outsider at some point in the class.\n\r\nThe tests are also problematic. Each is a 100 point scantron, asking incredibly specific (and often trivial) questions. For example, a test this term included a question asking (I paraphrase), \'Which vole is sluttier, the prairie vole or the montane vole?". You need to attend every lecture, as some of the questions are addressed by neither the posted Powerpoint notes nor the text. Homework is graded (it appears) on completion, and only makes up ~9% of the grade.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-16T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH377', 'review': "This course and professor have both been overrated. This is a relatively useless class resembling high school health. It is only good to fulfill advanced core, but there are tons of other, better courses to take. \n\r\nYou have to go to class and take notes in order to do well on the tests, and a lot of the questions aren't even presented in lecture.\n\r\nTests ask very specific questions, so you have to study just about everything and it is very tedious", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-03-29T01:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH377', 'review': "Professor Sawyer is my FAVORITE professor by far!! He is the funniest teacher I've ever had in my school career. THIS GUY SHOULD BE FAMOUS! He definitely knows his stuff, too. He's been teaching Sex Education for 30 years or more, and he wrote our book! As mentioned in the other review, it is a bit hard to get in the class but you ABSOLUTELY MUST take this class before you graduate!! \r\nThe course material is plentiful, but nevertheless very interesting. The exams are easy (not tricky at all) if you take notes on what he lectures and study the slides. Overall, very amazing class and professor, and I would recommend this class to any student regardless of year standing.. I would take this class again if I could!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-20T18:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robin Sawyer', 'course': 'HLTH377', 'review': 'Dr. Sawyer\'s class is the class you MUST take before you graduate from UMCP (if you can get in...)!!!\n\r\nHe is hilarious and obviously, the subject matter is very interesting :)\n\r\nJust a note: I would recommend comparing notes w/a friend or looking on Bookholders for notes b/c he tends to test pretty detailed information that you might not know by looking at only your notes alone. You don\'t need the textbook, but I would definitely recommend "Sexpertise".', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-14T17:11:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robin Sawyer', 'slug': 'sawyer_robin'}, {'courses': ['CCJS330', 'CCJS310', 'PSYC309K', 'CCJS350', 'CCJS452', 'CCJS461', 'CCJS370', 'CCJS318B', 'CCJS461', 'CCJS318B', 'CCJS461'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robin Shusko', 'slug': 'shusko'}, {'courses': ['PHSC410'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Robin Yi', 'slug': 'yi_robin'}, {'courses': ['HIST211', 'HIST467', 'HIST819K', 'HIST408B', 'HIST419T', 'HIST395', 'WMST619', 'HIST607', 'WMST211', 'HIST819M', 'HIST408W', 'HIST619X', 'WGSS211', 'HIST395', 'HIST419J', 'HIST608B', 'HIST408I', 'HIST467'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robyn Muncy', 'course': 'HIST211', 'review': 'Professor Muncy is very passionate about history. She is a great teacher and very knowledgable. I would take another class that is taught by her. Her assigned readings are lengthy but are very interesting. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-24T22:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Muncy', 'course': 'HIST467', 'review': 'Everyone is right, Muncy is such a great teacher because she is so passionate about history however...shes so hard! There is so much reading its ridiculous. On a good note you can pass the class without doing all of the readings because I got a B and I definitely did not do all of the readings. Of course it will help you but if you work or take 5 classes like me it would be almost impossible to do all of the work she assigns. Also, she is a very hard grader. All of her exams are essays so be prepared to make PERFECT sense because she is no joke. I did learn a lot from this course and it is very interesting its just a lot of work', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-27T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Muncy', 'course': 'HIST211', 'review': "Muncy is a great lecturer. She is SO passionate, and makes history interesting (well, as interesting as it can be). She was probably the best professor I've had this year. She's very likeable. \n\r\nHowever, do not take this class if you aren't serious about it, and it would help if you like history. I don't like history very much, and I thought this class sounded interesting enough so I signed up for the CORE requirement. Big mistake. I regret it. Although Muncy is great, there is a ridiculous amount of reading assigned for each lecture, and a good sized chapter of reading for discussion every week. Discussion is graded strictly, so if you're quiet it's a huge disadvantage. If you like to talk and you read the assigned reading, that will help you tons, discussion is a good chunk of your total grade.\n\r\nTwo exams, one is 10% of the final grade, the other is 20%. She gives you the possible essay questions and terms you have to define a week beforehand, she randomly chooses an essay on exam day and 2-5 pre-chosen terms. All that is nice and fair in theory. However. While 3 possible exam choices was do-able for the midterm (3 detailed outlines to create), 5 possible questions for the final was...crazy. For me, at least. The questions are very broad, so it's a lot of information. And I don't know who reads every single assigned reading, not me, so I had to skim through it all for relevant information. Just so much to remember; I got so stressed. \n\r\nThere is a 8-10 page magazine analysis. Like another reviewer said, not hard, but so time-consuming. And my TA said mine was well done but I still got a B. So I guess it depends on how hard your TA grades..\n\r\nIf you do not procrastinate, read everything, participate actively, overall just put A LOT of effort into this, I'm sure an A is possible. Just be forewarned, even if you put a good amount of work and really want an A, if you don't participate actively and really put time into exam preparation...good luck. I tried my best for an A, and I am a 4.0 Honors student (so far, there is a good chance I'll get a B in this class). ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-21T05:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Muncy', 'course': 'HIST211', 'review': "she's a great professor...so enthusiastic! however her class is not a joke. not many assignments and they are graded strictly. you have to read a lot for the class especially the first semester (she covered most of the stuff from the readings in lecture second semester)...very long readings you had to do for discussion...and you basically have to participate the entire discussion to do well. 8-10 page paper that was not hard but SOOO time consuming. reconsider taking this class for a core. it was my hardest class", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-15T16:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Muncy', 'course': 'HIST211', 'review': "She is so passionate about the subject that lectures were so much fun to go to. She knows what she's talking about and is so animated in teaching.\r\nDiscussions were kind of annoying because you were supposed to read a (long) passage and come being able to discuss it. Your grade depended on how many times you contributed to the discussion, if you spoke once- D, if you spoke twice-C, and so on.\r\nBut overall, I would definitely advise taking this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-17T12:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Muncy', 'course': 'HIST211', 'review': "Love this class!! Definitely helps that the TA is so nice and prepares us well for exams and papers, but we are given everything we need for the assessments. Nothing is a surprise, and everything that we are assessed on is explained thoroughly in class. Lectures are fine, not very boring but definitely only interesting if you like history/women's history. The reading is kind of a lot but she goes over everything in class without expecting everyone to already know what it is from the reading, so I wouldn't say it is 100% required.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-20T16:13:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Muncy', 'course': 'HIST211', 'review': "As a history major, I absolutely loved this class. Professor Muncy is a wonderful professor and lecturer and is clearly interested and passionate about the material. She was very engaging with her students and made eye contact with everyone, piecing them in to every little detail as she went on. She is very light-hearted and expressed her joy and love for us - which you don't hear from professors much. She truly wanted everyone to succeed and enjoy women's history.\r\n\r\nThis course is set up with 2 written exams - a midterm and a final - which are composed of ID terms and an essay. Study guides are given out, so as long as you spend time with that, you will have no problem. You will also have 2 independent writing assignments, ranging from 3-7 pages in length. Every class period you are expected to write the main points of the lecture and a question you still have on a piece of paper and turn it in for points. Professor Muncy then goes over the most asked questions in the next lecture. \r\n\r\nMy TA, Caitlin, was wonderful and very accommodating to our questions and concerns. She was a fair grader and gave good feedback that we can use in the future. Discussion is weighed heavily, so make sure you talk and participate at least 3-4 times per discussion to gain full points. \r\n\r\nOverall, this is one of my favorite courses this semester and I strongly recommend it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-24T15:00:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Muncy', 'course': 'HIST419J', 'review': "She's so great. I definitely recommend taking her. She was so understanding with everything I had going on and she worked with me without any complaints or disapproval. Her lectures are engaging and she makes sure she makes eye contact with you and will even notice if you're not feeling well and ask you if you're okay. I've honestly never met a professor as caring as her, I was shocked. You have to be engaged in discussion and speak a lot to get a good discussion grade, and also take time to prepare for the exam since it covers a lot of information. She grades kinda harsh, so just make sure you have proper and sufficient info in the papers. Other than that, she's super cool and understanding.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-29T02:39:20.370413Z'}], 'name': 'Robyn Muncy', 'slug': 'muncy'}, {'courses': ['FMSC330', 'FMSC431', 'HONR258W'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Robyn Zeiger', 'course': 'FMSC330', 'review': 'Dr. Zeiger must have changed the structure of her course since the previous review, because you do need the book. On her exams (which are all multiple choice), she has sections for her class material, sections from the textbook, and sections from the accompanying "reader." It\'s a pain because she does not lecture based off of the textbook so you are basically studying double (well more like quadruple... there is a LOT of reading assigned). She does give like 20 questions that are on the exam prior to the exam date but she will not give you the answers. To be completely honest, I guessed on most of the other 80 questions on the exam and landed a B. Others were not so lucky, as everyone I talked to had gotten D\'s on the midterm. \n\r\nThankfully, there are two papers which she doesn\'t grade too harshly on. But her grades are only based off of those four assignments. So it is very tough to get an A. \n\r\nAlso, I took this class during the election time so every day Zeiger would talk about voting for question 6, which was pretty annoying. Oh and she will tell everyone to put away their phones every class. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-06T17:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Zeiger', 'course': 'FMSC431', 'review': "I loved this class. You learn a lot of practical concepts, the material is interesting and easy to understand, and most of all, you learn a lot about yourself. \r\nFor a 400 level class, it's not too bad. If you do the work, which there isn't much other than reading (for the most part), you should be fine. I find that most of her lectures overlap with the reading material, but there are some things that aren't in the book, so it's best to go to class. \r\nAs a professor, she's awesome. Really fair, very understanding, and pretty funny, too. \n\r\nI would highly recommend this class to anyone who needs to take an elective or an advance studies class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-20T01:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Zeiger', 'course': 'FMSC330', 'review': "Good professor, teaches alot of concepts, easy to understand, what isn't covered in lecture usually isn't given on the exam, and she gives you questions that will be on the exam!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-08-11T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Robyn Zeiger', 'course': 'HONR258W', 'review': "Dr. Zeiger is a great professor and a very nice and interesting lady. Being a member of the LGBT community herself, she is a great resource regarding the issues. I learned a lot in this class and enjoyed the opportunity to learn and tackle something I haven't really addressed much on my own. There are a few papers, one based on watching a movie, and a group project. She likes the analysis kind of stuff and to talk about how you grew/learned from your experiences. If you do the required work there is no reason not to get an A. She says that herself. Definitely recommended for a diversity course if you are interested in gay & lesbian issues.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-03T02:42:00Z'}], 'name': 'Robyn Zeiger', 'slug': 'zeiger_robyn'}, {'courses': ['LBSC707', 'LBSC791'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rocco Debonis', 'slug': 'debonis'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rodney Schwartz', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Rodney Schwartz is hella annoying. He won’t give out A’s in COMM107, which is ridiculous, it should be an easy A. He hates technology and is incompetent at it, so there is always issues with ELMS and he doesn’t respond to emails. He gets off topic and then blames the students for the for the distraction. The majority of the class is him going over the material from the last class and talking about random shit, so you’ll only learn new material for about 5 minutes out of the entire class. So if you want a B in a class that you should earn an A in, learn barley anything, and listen to a guy who thinks he’s the shit, I’d highly recommend Prof. Schwartz.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-01-25T16:10:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Rodney Schwartz', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "So the professor's name is actually rodney schwartz, but i digress. DO NOT TAKE HIM FOR COMM. There are so many better teachers. He refuses to put anything on elms or tell you what your grades are. He is so unreasonable and does not teach at all. His tests are based completely on the book, but he rarely goes over the content it in class. And when he does, it takes him so long to go over a simple concept so its no help. And on top of that he is super petty when it comes to presentations and will take points off just because he doesn't agree with you. Literally comm is so he easy, but he makes it 10x harder just because he is so old fashion and refuses to get with technology and the times. My class was literally a month behind all the other sections so he had to drop half the assignments. DO NOT TAKE HIM!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-18T14:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rodney Schwartz', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Oh, Rodney. Anti-technology, ELMS becomes useless, and you don't ever know your grade. For a communications professor he is a poor communicator as well. You don't learn much, but if you embrace the stupidity of the class you will do fine. Workload is very small and doesn't require much time or effort, but don't expect to be inspired to learn more about communications or anything. Probably better to find a different professor if you don't want a slow-paced class you learn next to nothing in.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-14T12:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rodney Schwartz', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'This review is also for Rodney Schwartz, the Comm "Professor". This guy (I will abstain from calling him professor, as that entails he actually educates students) was the worst person I\'ve ever had for ANY class at Maryland. Not only was he completely incompetent at teaching the subject, his grades were vastly lower than every other comm class. First, onto his teaching skills. He has none. Seriously, he doesn\'t teach. More than half of our class was going over what we did last class, then the rest of it was him blabbering on about absolutely nothing. Well, if he sucks at teaching, at least he may give you a good grade right? Guess again. In a class full of 17 people, NO ONE GOT AN A. IN COMM107. 5 people around me got an 82 on one of the speeches, despite all varying in how well they actually did. Rodney Schwartz is the epitome of an awful "professor" at the University of Maryland, and you should avoid him unless you want to get a high C in COMM107. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '?', 'created': '2014-12-14T19:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rodney Schwartz', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Schwartz is a special type of person. He is the type of person that makes you so infuriated and frustrated at his teaching style, that the frustrations leak into other parts of your life. Every day after class (before I withdrew from it, because I could not take any more of his shit) I would find that I was still angry hours after I left the class. \r\nThe problems reached a head when I asked in class whether a certain book would count as a good source for the first speech. He said no, without explanation, so I asked again. This time he asked me if I was joking, and asked to speak with me after class. He chewed me out for being disruptive in class, and I told him that I had *NO* idea what he was talking about. I could tell that something was off about him at that point. \r\nAnd then the issues kept coming. Because he flat out REFUSES to use technology and post meeting times/places online, I didn't know that class was in the library one day, and he took away my participation points for the day. It's little things like that that added up, and caused me to withdraw from the class. Yes, I withdrew from the class, and got a big fat W on my transcript because of him. It was better than going through another day with him standing in the front of the class telling jokes, having no direction as a teacher.\r\nPlease take this as a warning. Stay away from Rodney Schwartz. He could quite possibly be the devil reincarnated, and his sole job on this earth is to drag students down to the depths of his education-less hell. Take my unfortunate story, and the other reviews, as proof that you do not want to have this man standing in front of you during class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-22T08:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rodney Schwartz', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Shittiest teacher ever.\r\nKnows next to nothing about communication, hates everything about technology, and will give everyone a terrible grade regardless of the quality of work. Highest grades in the class barely crossed the 90% mark.\n\r\nWorkload is fairly light, until the last few weeks where he frantically assigns the interview and persuasive and group speech to be due and presented within a week of each other.\n\r\nWork your ass off all semester, endlessly rehearsing your speeches, and dear old Rodney will reward you with a nice fat B.\n\r\nAvoid this teacher at all costs. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-12-29T12:01:00Z'}], 'name': 'Rodney Schwartz', 'slug': 'schwartz_rodney'}, {'courses': ['KNES300', 'KNES497', 'KNES462', 'KNES385', 'KNES300H', 'KNES462H', 'KNES385H', 'KNES789C', 'NACS898', 'KNES472', 'KNES672', 'EXST030', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'NACS640', 'KNES385', 'KNES385H', 'KNES385', 'KNES462', 'NACS898', 'KNES385', 'KNES462', 'NACS899', 'KNES385H', 'KNES385', 'KNES462', 'KNES385', 'KNES385H', 'NACS640'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rodolphe Gentili', 'course': 'KNES462', 'review': "Gentili is the man. Personable, funny and french. This class is very straight forward. We have class every 2-3 weeks and everything else is done online. The face-time (in-class) portion of the class is spent reviewing the online lectures and then he quizes us on the review that he just went over. If you go to those classes and pay even an iota of attention, you will get 10/10 every time. He cares about his students tremendously. As he returns quizes and tests in the first 30 minutes of the class, he talks with the student individually explaining what they got wrong, why and how they may be able to study better in the future. Great freaking class- extremely interesting and class once every 3 weeks!! However, everyone needs to know that Gentili MAKES this class. Best teacher I've had at UMD", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-12-10T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rodolphe Gentili', 'course': 'KNES462', 'review': "Dr. Gentili is one of the best professors I've had in Kinesiology. Very helpful and straight forward. The class is half online and half in person. When you meet up there is a quiz every class but they're easy! Just come to class he gives hints and clues of what's going to be on the quizzes. And his exams are straight forward, his study guides are on point. Not to mention how kind he is, he actually goes over the quizzes and exams with each student explaining how come they got some things incorrect. Overall great class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-01T13:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rodolphe Gentili', 'course': 'KNES462', 'review': "This teacher is amazing. He is so willing to help his students pass. Pay attention to his lectures because they are clues to what's going to be in his quizzes (on top of studying for it of course). The class is memorization but overall exams, quizzes, and final is STRAIGHT FORWARD. What he gives you in reviews and review slides is what you need to study and WILL expect on the test. As long as you're consistent with the reading you are guaranteed to do absolutely well in the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-17T12:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rodolphe Gentili', 'course': 'KNES462', 'review': "Rodolphe is a straight boss. He is very chill and laid back and is always willing to help his students when they have a problem. This class was blended online and is very straight forward. Memorize the slides, Don't miss quizzes. BOOM. you have an A. His accent is cool too.\n\r\nTake this for an option, you won't regret it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T22:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rodolphe Gentili', 'course': 'KNES385', 'review': 'Great learning outcomes/modules.. Was just difficult to handle family/work/school...\r\nVery critical with Lab(s). Overall great professor!\r\nHad TA-Christopher Gaskins', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2021-06-28T04:21:28Z'}], 'name': 'Rodolphe Gentili', 'slug': 'gentili'}, {'courses': ['EDCI688P', 'MATH314', 'EDCI683', 'EDCI352', 'EDCI645', 'EDCI798C', 'EDSP798C', 'EDCI656'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rodrigo Gutierrez', 'slug': 'gutierrez_rodrigo'}, {'courses': ['JOUR203'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Roland Hudson', 'slug': 'hudson_roland'}, {'courses': ['ENEE181', 'ENEE380', 'ENEE133', 'ENES100', 'ENES100A', 'ENEE205', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'ENEE101', 'GEMS396', 'ENEE408R', 'ENEE488', 'ENES499', 'ENEE417', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE299', 'ENEB304', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'ENEB408', 'GEMS497', 'ENEE101', 'ENEB408A', 'ENEE101', 'ENEE205', 'ENEB304', 'ENEE101', 'ENEB408A'], 'average_rating': 3.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': "Gomez is a guy that is as passionate about teaching as he is about circuits. He puts so much energy into his lectures that it makes me feel out of breath by the time his lecture is over. He cares about his students learning, and is a great help in office hours. He also holds extensive office hours (something like 6 hours a week when I took his class). That said, sometimes he'll just forget to show up to his office hours, so it's good to send him an email if you're going to go. I do highly recommend going to his office though, as it can be a great help.\r\n\r\nHomeworks are difficult, but are good at reinforcing what is done in lecture, and are only worth 5% of your grade, so they are much more for you as a tool to learn, and you'll essentially get out of them what you put into them. There are also occasionally a couple challenge questions that aren't graded, but can sometimes sneak their way into an exam. (More on that later, but he does release homework solutions before the exams).\r\n\r\nExams are difficult but fair for the most part. Our first exam he did pull out this question involving a random talyor series expansion that we never talked about, but in his defense the question was straight off the homework, it just caught everyone off guard because it was one of those challenge questions, and we never covered anything like it in class, so no one saw it coming and everyone got it wrong (But partial credit was clutch so it was aight). \r\n\r\nSpeaking of partial credit, he is the most extraordinarily generous teacher with partial credit I've ever had in my life, up to and including preschool. In the taylor series problem I mentioned before, I literally just wrote the initial equation and left it there because I had no clue what to do and he gave me 15/20 on that question. He also gave me full credit for a question I didn't even get the right answer on because he spotted an algebra mistake I made and decided that I actually knew how to do the problem (LOL). \r\n\r\nHe also has this great rule with exams that if your second midterm is better than your first, he'll REPLACE YOUR FIRST MIDTERM SCORE WITH YOUR SECOND. The dude is honestly a legend. He also has a rule that if you get an A on the final you get an A in the class, period. This is because in his mind, since the final is cumulative, if you ace the final, then that means you managed to understand what the class was designed to teach you by the end of the semester so therefore you should get an A (Sounds pretty reasonable to me).\r\n\r\nRegardless of who you take, 205 is going to be a challenging course that requires some level of effort and enthusiasm to succeed in. That said, Gomez does a fantastic job of getting you excited about the topic, and as long as you put in the effort, you will learn a great deal from him. 10/10 would take again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-10-31T21:51:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': 'Gomez is a really good lecturer but is really unprepared for class , as he often goes overtime. His homework assignments are really difficult and take several hours to complete. This semester Gomez made the class difficult as compared to previous semester, exam averages were in the 60s, even with the amount of leniency he gives in grading. No curve beyond the one mentioned in the syllabus, as the expected class average at the end was around a B/B-.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-23T00:25:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': 'Dr. Gomez is an extremely friendly teacher that definitely seems to care about his students mastering the material. One thing to note is that he is giving students the opportunity to do extra work over winter break in order to raise their grades, which is very admirable.\r\n\r\nHowever, I do not believe that Dr. Gomez has adjusted well to online learning. His lectures would likely be 10x more effective if taught in a classroom, but I cannot really blame him. His homework assignments are MUCH longer than stated on the syllabus, so be prepared to have a heavy weekly workload. Labs can often have confusing instructions but do not take too much time. The exams are mostly fair albeit having somewhat low averages. He does curve the exams sometimes, and has a generous curve at the end of the course.\r\n\r\nI would recommend Dr. Gomez if you feel confident in your circuit abilities, but the class can be rough at times.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-27T19:28:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE101', 'review': "This class was very easy, largely in part to my TA though. Not sure how much grade is affected by TA but I am certain that effort required is dependent on your TA. Some of the labs can be very tedious and feel kind of pointless but I found if you do them at least for completion you'll be fine. The class structure is cool with the Ted Talk style lectures, he is pretty funny when he lectures though. Very nice guy and there are lots of points to compensate for any late or undone assignments.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-29T00:42:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE101', 'review': "Class itself is pretty easy. Some labs can be tricky but the TA's get you through it. I enjoyed it but many people I know switched to CS because they didn't enjoy this class. Our TA was honestly the goat, gave us advice on other things outside of class as well. The friday lectures were actually mad annoying and people mainly did other work during and eventually just stopped going. Gomez came in once during lab and honestly just made things harder for us. If you make friends in class it's kind of fun.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-18T01:44:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE101', 'review': "Although the class was run by my TA and I didn't see Gomez often, I liked him when I did. He took an interest in what we were doing, told stories, and gave good feedback. Reccomend.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-01T01:16:46.633943Z'}, {'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE101', 'review': 'This class was mostly guest speaker lectures and a lot of labs. Both the labs and lectures were hit or miss, some weeks being better than others, but the class was very easy and mostly serves its purpose of being an introduction to interesting ECE topics. The lectures from Dr. Gomez were usually the best with live demonstrations and engaging delivery of the topics, and my TA who ran the lab was really chill and my entire section liked him.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-05T19:29:44.832530Z'}, {'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE101', 'review': "This is a very lab-focused course, and grading is dependent on your TA. That being said, the labs aren't very hard, but each lab may not interest everyone and you'd sometimes just want to leave early. Unfortunately, I somehow faced some sort of hardware problem almost with every lab, which didn't help the experience. The lectures were hit-or-miss too; it came to the point where some of the guest speakers Dr. Gomez was bringing in were legitimately making people fall asleep. Some of them were definitely more entertaining and engaging, including Dr. Gomez himself.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-18T23:56:24.613601Z'}, {'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': 'Dr. Gomez is a nice dude who knows a lot. His lectures on circuits are top notch, teaching the fundamentals of circuits very well. Class assignments consist of a couple midterms and the final, as well as weekly homeworks, quizzes, and labs. Quizzes are fairly easy, as are labs (though labs can get a bit tedious). Homework sets are usually quite long and difficult. If you take this course, you should be prepared to spend a significant portion of every weekend on the problem sets. Exams are very similar to the homework, with averages generally in the 60s. The first exam was rough, the second a bit easier, and the final was hard. Exams focus heavily on recent material, and the final is not cumulative (only material from after midterm 2). The grade cutoffs in the syllabus are a bit different than usual, which makes the class a bit easier (C- was a 55% or something). If you are decent at math and want to learn a lot about circuits, I would recommend taking this class. Just be prepared to spend a lot of time on homeworks. If you only want to get 205 out of the way and never think about circuits again, you should probably look for an easier professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-02T20:49:02.969277Z'}, {'professor': 'Romel Gomez', 'course': 'ENEE101', 'review': 'Honestly ENEE 101 is such a TA-driven class that I don’t even really feel qualified to give him a review. Almost all of the lectures are guest lectures and the majority of time in this class is spent in lab so you don’t really see him that often. However, the lectures he did give were pretty good. Honestly for this class you really just have to hope you get a good TA and go to office hours. There’s no curve because it’s pretty easy to do well as long as you take the time to do all of your labs, pre-labs, and reflection paragraphs. There are no exams or anything so it’s pretty low-stress overall. Don’t take an 8am section.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-12T05:11:49.115278Z'}], 'name': 'Romel Gomez', 'slug': 'gomez_romel'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'UNIV100Q', 'EDHI338V', 'EDHI338O', 'EDHI338C', 'EDHI338E', 'EDHI338X', 'EDHI338I', 'CHSE338X', 'CHSE338L', 'CHSE338L', 'CHSE338T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ron Padron', 'slug': 'padron'}, {'courses': ['GEOG130', 'GEOG413', 'GEOG313', 'GEOG423', 'GEOG788M', 'GEOG384H', 'GEOG398', 'GEOG384', 'GEOG385', 'EXST030'], 'average_rating': 3.1563, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': 'Professor Luna has been teaching this class for over 15 years and is an amazing professor. He makes the class so interesting and relates it to our everyday lives. Not to mention he is hilarious and truly cares about his students. The exams are based off the power point slides, just attend every class and it is honestly an easy A. Its just memorizing and doing 3 easy papers. Highly recommend if you are looking for an easy class! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-12-12T16:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': 'Terrible professor. He reads off his frequently grammatically incorrect powerpoints with outdated information. To top it off, you basically have to show up to lecture, so he can recite to you some nonsense, outdated facts that show up on the tests. Also, the discussion sections are pointless, you waste 50 minutes of your day every Thursday or Friday so you can get 10 "participation" points. Other than that the class is easy, but I strongly recommend not taking this class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-05-16T17:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "Easily the worst professor I've had at UMD. Rather than focusing on educating his students on developing countries, Ronald Luna prefers to have toddler-like meltdowns about people not coming to his lectures in the form of ridiculous tests. In order to do well in this class, not only do you have to study the embarrassingly outdated and nonsensical powerpoints Luna makes, but you'll have to memorize practically irrelevant facts that Luna mentions during lecture and recall those word for word on his tests. Honestly it baffles me that this man has a doctorate. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS OR ANYTHING WITH LUNA ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-09T17:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "If you only intend to take this class to get the DSSP credit, you're better off taking literally any other DSSP. Luna is extremely narcissistic and takes himself way too seriously for a 100 level course. He considers not going to his class a personal insult so he leaves blanks in his powerpoints (which he only posts for 24 hours before taking down), and even if you're paying attention in class it can be hard to catch the important information (I've attended every class). The exams are entirely based off memorizing long lists, and often times the information in his powerpoints is outdated and barely even makes sense. I'm studying for the final right now and I've found much better information by just googling the topics. Honestly it looks like an 8th grader made his powerpoints.\n\r\nI see that there are a lot of reviews from 2014 saying this class is great but my experience was anything but that. If you're really interested in learning about developing countries you're better off googling it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-08T20:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': 'Professor Luna was my absolute favorite teacher I have had in college. Class was always extremely interesting, I learned a lot about developing countries and relevant topics. He was very fair at teaching, his assigned projects were interesting and taught me a lot. I highly recommend taking this class!!!! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-22T14:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "He was a very straightforward person and the class was interesting. Exams were fair, there wasn't that much reading unless you count reading the slides. There is a group paper and video, 2 tests and 1 individual paper. I don't why people say he has hard accent he only has a slight one. He is really nice professor and would even write recommendation as long as you have an A in his class. As for memorization a lot of it is common sense and by the way I am not a geography major, but I agree discussion was annoying but you have to go since attendance is graded. However I would recommend this class to anyone cuz it is an interesting one, as for the book it was a complete waste of money since we only used it in discussion (not graded) and had the course syllabus, i suggest just take a picture of it from someone in class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-08T19:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': None, 'review': 'This was my second class with Luna and loved it just as much as the first one! Will definitely be looking to take future classes with him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-10-15T21:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "Even though he seems like a tough guy who doesn't take any bull, he is really an extremely effective professor who appreciates hard-working, smart students that put in the effort to do well in his class. I absolutely loved this class, and I think he's a wonderful professor. Even if you're in a big lecture class with him, try to get to know him by going to office hours, sitting in the first few rows, answering his questions in class, etc. It's really worth it! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-10-02T11:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "Easy course honestly. Test content comes directly from the PowerPoints and if that wasn't easy enough, he gives EXACT answers to test questions during each class and provides study guides that cover most of what will be on the tests. Didn't really strike me as a narcissist; he's cool. Very knowledgeable about the material, though his PowerPoint had more than a few minor grammatical errors. 2 Papers, 3 tests, and a group project compose the bulk of your grade. All straight forward, as long as you show up to get the PowerPoints, and the review sheets.Obviously, the group project success is dependent on the individual members, but the project isn't hard, just time consuming. SHOW UP TO CLASS and it's an easy A! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-08-13T11:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG100', 'review': 'Dr. Luna reads reviews about himself. He is very narcissitic. Easy class, he despises upper classmen. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-09-19T22:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "Luna is alright. He has a thick accent but that does not mean he's not understandable. Class gets boring after a couple lectures but it's important to go because he gives out answers to exam questions. He takes down the slides after 24hrs so download it asap. My TA didn't speak good English but that wasn't a problem. A lot of work for a 100 level class and it's all memorization. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-23T14:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG100', 'review': "Easy peezy class. Luna is pompous and irritating. I never went to class. Discussion is the most boring 50 minutes I've ever spent every Friday at 10am and the TA barely spoke English. I did learn some from this course but it was self taught from his slides the night before the multiple choice exams. Very easy course but not very enticing. I enjoy geography but Luna made me skip almost every class. Don't buy the book. The atlas is cool but only because I love maps.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-29T22:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "Dr. Luna is the greatest professor I've had at College Park. \n\r\nGeography 130 was literally life changing and I loved the class. I learned how to think in a world view. The ideas in the class were relevant and fun to discuss. \n\r\nDr. Luna relates his life and this class to college students so well. I went to every single class and I did not regret a single day. \n\r\nI took this class in the freshmen connection program and Dr. Luna was simply awesome. He answered questions, and cared for all the students.\n\n\r\nI'm tired of these terrible reviews, this man was an awesome teacher, don't be so disrespectful!\n\r\nYou will miss this class so much once its done..\n\r\nDr. Luna is a beast. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-02-18T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG100', 'review': 'I took this class for my SB core credit. and wanted an easy A. It proved out to be just for that. Learned lil from this course and there was not even need of buying the book. Prof Luna posts his presentations (often criticized for unnecessarily long and with incorrect English) online for a day which are more than enough to get an A in this course. There are 3 midterms and no finals which are all multiple choice questions and are very easy. There are points for attending the discussions and Luna tries to give the exam question in his lecture to boost the attendance (which drops exponentially as semester ends). He also gives a study guide (during his lecture) from which he makes the exam.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-09T16:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG788M', 'review': "In my time at the University of Maryland there has been nary a class I have experienced that was as disappointing as Geography with Prof. Ronald Wilfredo Luna. His oft-byzantine presentations presented obvious information in ways which were far too incomprehensible for most of us to understand. He's a carpetbagger at heart, and I often felt swindled by his draconian exams with magniloquent questions.\n\r\nTruly there exists no more abstruse or pedantic professor such as Wilfredo (if that is his real name.) His style of teaching elects to provoke emotional feelings of ego-death. As an avid afficionado in the art of Geography, I can say with utmost certainty that Wilfred wouldn't know two rocks if they were being sensually rubbed over his rock-hard, chiseled abs.\n\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-20T01:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG100', 'review': "I'm a senior, and had to take a geography class when I changed my major from ecology to environmental science and policy. I picked this one because I hoped it would be an easy A. It is, so far. I didn't study for the first exam, only went to half the lectures, and got a 90%. Tests are from the lecture slides, which he takes down after a day. Discussion is graded and pointless. I learned nothing and found the group assignments to be unhelpful and tedious. Im typically really good about going to class, but I resented attending this one. Dr. Luna makes huge generalizations, assumes his students to be completely ignorant because we're American and therefore are uneducated about the world and are not aware of the fact that everything is made in China, for instance, or that not everyone in the world has a cellphone. I found him offensive, uninteresting, and a poor lecturer. His biggest pet peeve is people not coming to class, he mentions it in every lecture and instructs students not to give anyone their lecture notes, because if they say they were sick, or there was a death in the family, they are lying. So dont bother emailing him if you miss class, even for a legitimate reason. There are a couple other 100-level geography classes. I recommend taking them. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-10T11:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "Easy class. This guy is basically a communist. He thinks that the US is the worst nation in the world and shows biased videos in class the degrade the US and Israel. It's sad. Big time asshole. Take the class for the A, but people should stand up to his ridiculous opinions.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-09-05T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "This guy is a pompous ass. He acts like he is God's gift to the world but he can't even fucking spell or use proper grammar in his slides which he takes down after only being up for 12 hours. \n\r\nOverall the class is incredibly easy but Luna was such a smarmy prick that it kinda ruined the whole class for me. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-14T23:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "I will admit that Dr. Luna does generalize a LOT, but as he says himself, it's to convey a point. \n\r\nThe class itself is an easy A. Showing up to every discussion earns you 100 points (an exam grade). His final is NOT cumulative and doubles as his third exam. The papers are relatively easy, and despite a lot of group work, the points are fairly easy to get if you put around 6 hours of work or so into each paper. I'll probably pass with a 94 or a 95.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-06T13:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': 'Overall, if you are taking this class for a core its not too difficult. Tests are easy but the papers and assignments are tedious and the TA I had was terrible at both teaching and grading. Also, if you are interested in developing countries, this class will give you a unorganized synopsis of the subject. Luna also has horrible grammar and he is offensive and incoherent at times. However, Luna does do an excellent job of explaining developing countries from the other perspectives outside the US. He shows how the developing world has suffered which is uncommon among western professors. overall decent course but not something I would fully recommend. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-05T12:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. Professor Luna is the absolute worst professor I've had here-he generalizes global problems into 4 bullet points and makes degrading comments that I find personally offensive. He doesn't know what he's talking about, I have no idea how he has his doctorate. Going to his lectures consists of him reading off his poorly made, grammatically incorrect slides. Discussion being mandatory is absolutely ridiculous & such a waste of time-it doesn't enhance anything you learn in class, it's completely unnecessary & annoying group work. Probably one of the dumbest classes offered here-don't take it unless someone else is teaching it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-15T11:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': 'Nice guy, good-looking TA, interesting material. Posts lectures online and covers all of the topics. Two exams, 2-3 med length papers, and a group project. I would definitely recommend this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-15T15:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG100', 'review': "Easiest class I've taken at UMD. His grammar is horrible and calls students out, but I enjoyed his class. Tests are super easy. Final is just a test and isn't cumulative. TAs are really nice. The grade is based practically on participation and attendance in discussion.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T16:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG100', 'review': "As a junior at the University of Maryland, I am well aware that the quality and style of teaching varies from professor to professor. That being said, I feel obliged to let the university know that Dr. Luna is the poorest instructor I've had during my time at Maryland. Dr. Luna's performance as an instructor is downright unacceptable. Not only were his powerpoint presentations littered with grammatical errors, but he frequently taught erratic material to the students, confusing specific geographical processes that he should have mastered in order to teach at an institution as well received as the University of Maryland. Frankly, Ronald Luna was unable to teach the class effectively, and for him to have earned a doctorate in geography is surprising to me, given the mediocre handling he has on the subject material. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-06T00:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "Personally, I liked Dr. Luna. As long as you go to class and listen to his lectures, you will do fine in the class. BUT if you don't, attend lecture, then you might not do as well on the exams. He does delete information out from his powerpoints. Dr. Luna is funny and really nice. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-04T01:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG100', 'review': "Awesome teacher! He is very down to earth and funny and really cares about his students. He is the kind of professor you can get to know and have a good relationship with. Go to class and focus and you will get good grades. All the bad reviews on here are for people who don't go to class and don't do well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-08-31T13:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG100', 'review': "For a geography class, this one wasn't too bad. Tests are straight forward and he posts lectures on blackboard. As long as you come to class and take a few notes you should get a decent grade. BEWARE!! If you plan on not coming to class, he deletes essential slides from the power point that is in class from the one that is posted on blackboard. He doesn't really refer to the text book often and you could probably get away without it, but buy the atlas, you will use it in discussion.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-13T10:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG100', 'review': "Dr. Luna doesn't really do a whole lot more than you can just get out of the book by reading it. His lectures consist of him reading off of a power point (which you can download from blackboard without going to lecture) and drawing unhelpful pictures on the board. All of his power points have terrible grammar, and so do his tests. This class relatively easy, however, it is due more to the simplicity of the material and easy points on group work than Dr. Luna's prowess as a teacher.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-17T13:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': 'Dr.Luna is an interesting fellow. It is sometimes difficult to decipher exactly what he is saying as the grammar in his power point lectures is never grammatically correct. As a teacher, he is pretty funny. He often uses examples in our daily lives to kind of correlate what he is teaching to how it affects us. The tests are pretty easy to be honest as long as you study the lectures. Don\'t waste your time reading the "suggested" readings. You have to also watch about an average of 3 Dial Access movies on your own time per exam since there are questions about them on each one. \n\r\nOh and just on a side note he might not be in class one week cause he is in cancun...and he will rub it in haha ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-05T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "Anyone giving professor Luna a bad review is the type of student who doesn't show up for class and expects all power points to just be online. Luna makes lectures interesting and is fairly laid back. His tests are reasonable and fairly easy if you pay attention and study even a little. There we're group papers and projects, but it was easily manageable because groups were large. I really liked this course and any minimal effort should at least get you a B. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-03-28T16:01:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': "Prof. Luna is easily the best lecturer I've taken so far in college. He is inspirational, reliable, and funny. He also tells you exactly what you need to know for his tests in class, so show up and be ready to jot that down. This is no nightly homework or reading in the class, but three tests, two essays, a group project keep you reasonably busy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-17T21:18:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Luna', 'course': 'GEOG130', 'review': 'Unfortunately left 2 weeks into the semester and never returned. Rest of semester was taught by a TA who simply read off slides and was very boring. Very disappointing as the class was probably going to be very interesting if Luna lectured, the first two weeks were very engaging. As for the class, this is a ton of work for a 100 level class. You can do well if you put time aside to study and work on the lengthy papers. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-14T02:31:50Z'}], 'name': 'Ronald Luna', 'slug': 'luna'}, {'courses': ['INAG106', 'INAG106', 'INAG106', 'INAG106', 'INAG106'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ronald Myers', 'slug': 'myers_ronald'}, {'courses': ['JOUR150', 'JOUR289I', 'JOUR689M', 'JOUR779X', 'JOUR368M', 'JOUR623', 'JOUR779M', 'JOUR775', 'JOUR479O', 'JOUR779Q', 'JOUR475', 'INST899', 'JOUR475', 'JOUR475', 'JOUR775', 'JOUR289I', 'JOUR475', 'JOUR657', 'JOUR779Z', 'JOUR289I', 'JOUR475'], 'average_rating': 3.5556, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ronald Yaros', 'course': 'JOUR289I', 'review': "This could have been a very interesting class. While Yaros does attempt to accommodate students, his lectures tend to be very biased when it pertains to his area of research (a very my-way-or-the-highway type). I agree with the person below, he sounds very condescending during class. His rubrics are often unclear and he is very nitpicky with grades, while offering very little feedback. I put in a good amount of effort, even visiting his office multiple times, but I'm walking away with a B. I wish they would offer this class with a different professor, it would be much more interesting and fun (what an I-series is meant to be).", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-12-11T03:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Yaros', 'course': 'JOUR289I', 'review': "Pro: The class is well-structured with weekly, consistent assignments. Yaros is very understanding of student workloads and tries to work with them.\r\nCon: Yaros is inconsistent with his grading criteria and is extremely picky about assignment submissions. When he shows examples of good journalism in class, the articles shown clearly contradict the principles he talks about earlier in the class. He's understanding of students but can come across as condescending at times when it comes to the course material. I expect most people to get a 'B' in this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-10-10T14:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Yaros', 'course': 'JOUR150', 'review': 'AWESOME CLASS. I know nothing about Journalism and am horrible with technology so it was a very challenging class in my opinion. This being said, Professor Yaros is always willing to help. He wants you to do well and he is very quick at responding to e-mails. He is an incredible professor. Highly recommended', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-05-05T20:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Yaros', 'course': 'JOUR150', 'review': "Best class I've taken at Maryland. You get graded on blogging, using Twitter, and shooting video on an iPod which is provided for the course (or you can use your iPhone). No tests, just writing, so if you like to write this class is great. You learn a lot about modern journalism. Take this class and get an easy A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-24T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Yaros', 'course': 'JOUR150', 'review': 'I loved class with Yaros, the whole class is general is very much based on technology so be prepared for that! I loved using twitter, blogspot, my phone and laptop specifically for the class. Final project seems like it will be a pain but he grades fairly as long as you do whatever it asks. He lets students borrow macbooks and itouchs to do assignments. Fun time!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-01-30T16:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Yaros', 'course': 'JOUR289I', 'review': 'Yaros is a nice guy, and wants to see his students succeed. Taking this class as a senior was enlightening; the freshmen and sophomores who did not take the class seriously set the bar for an "A" quite low. I did the homework (and put in the effort) and paid attention during the class time. He (pretty much) requires you to have your laptop in class to participate. His assignments are quite fun; you blog and tweet things. Interesting class, easy grading (if you actually care) and you get to use an iPad for half the semester. Glad I took the class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-20T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Yaros', 'course': 'JOUR289I', 'review': 'Professor Yaros is a great guy and knows how to keep class rolling. He is into technology which is great because he uses twitter and blackboard IM very efficiently. He also lays out all of your tasks in blackboard which is very helpful. If this class is offered I totally recommend it, you might get an iPad to use for half the semester like we did. Also, just do the work for this course it is not difficult and you will kick yourself for not doing well in the class ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-23T16:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Yaros', 'course': 'JOUR150', 'review': 'Professor Yaros is amazing. He is very knowledgeable in this subject. He really has a passion for what he teaches. He seems to care much more about his students actually learning things opposed to "grades." He grades leniently and fairly. I definitely recommend this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-01T15:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronald Yaros', 'course': 'JOUR289I', 'review': 'Really terrible class. The rubrics are arbitrary and extremely unhelpful as he never truly grades to what he says. The assignments are pointless and do not support the material well, just feels like busy work. He makes you take a quiz after every lecture and at least 2 of the questions are never addressed in the lecture. He is not helpful when explaining assignments. Overall. easy A but terrible class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-11T15:18:23.729529Z'}], 'name': 'Ronald Yaros', 'slug': 'yaros'}, {'courses': ['AASP298Z', 'EDCP108N', 'EDCP107', 'AASP298Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ronald Zeigler', 'slug': 'zeigler'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM382', 'COMM400'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rong Ma', 'slug': 'ma_rong'}, {'courses': ['ARCH402', 'ARCH170', 'ARCH478D', 'ARCH404', 'ARCH679', 'ARCH678D', 'ARCH478X', 'ARCH678X', 'ARCH408', 'ARCH478I', 'ARCH678I', 'ARCH403', 'ARCH408', 'ARCH459P', 'ARCH403', 'ARCH458', 'ARCH408', 'ARCH458'], 'average_rating': 3.2917, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "Eisenbach is an average professor. ARCH170 is an average class. You have 5 major projects, but you have to submit drafts, etc. You basically have something due every week. Discussion is mandatory. There are useless readings and online quizzes to ensure you read them. As I mentioned earlier, this is an average class. If you put in average work, you will get an average grade. I got a B because my TA had some sort of Vendetta against me. \n\r\nBottom Line: Only take this class if you don't mind learning about nonsensical architectural principles, and doing a bit of analyzing.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-02-02T04:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "I really liked Eisenbach, she was tough, but good. She was easy to contact and she kept the class interesting. She gave a few quizzes throughout the semester, but they were really only for attendance and counted as extra credit. There were four big projects throughout the semester, but she gave plenty of time to do them. Her exams were fair; if you study you'll do well, if you don't study you will not. I only ended up with a B because I didn't study enough for the final exam and did poorly on it. It is a fun class and I highly recommend it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-02-17T22:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "Class was alright, thought it would be okay to take her for an easy A for a CORE (didn't think it would be that bad). I could have sworn I would have had it too but he projects were sometimes annoying. It can be interesting at times though and I do remember a lot of the stuff, but if you just need an easy CORE class, look elsewhere at THET110 or something - ARCH seemed needlessly complicated for this kinda stuff.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-25T16:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': 'The course was overall pretty easy, but very time-consuming. Only take it if you have an interest in architecture or drawing. Otherwise, the projects can be painful. The easy exams and extra credit points make up for it though. Relatively all course notes were online. I only studied those notes and aced the exams. Class was only necessary for the random extra credit opportunities. Getting an A is very manageable with adequate time and some patience. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-23T21:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': 'The class is pointless and the assignments really have nothing to do with the class. A lot of time goes into the assignments and should be worth more points. The tests are basically just trivia.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-15T22:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "Projects are 50% of the grade, but they take way longer than you think. The 4th which is the final project, took me 30+ hours to complete. \r\nI found the notes she posted online extremely helpful when study for exams, although they are essentially the same stuff she has gone over in class, it is hard to stay awake through her lectures, so it is wise to read over the online notes to refresh memories.\r\nThere are extra credit opportunities given in the beginning of randomly selected lectures, so it would be your loss if it's given the day you skipped lecture or were late to class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-06T18:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "Eisenbach is what I call a spoon-feeding professor, as she spoon-feeds you information piece by piece and likes to linger on easy concepts. So this is good news for many.\n\r\nSkipping one class isn't the end of the world since she has a class website that has all the information on it. But she does give out extra credits, each worth 5pts, so I do suggest going to class. You want to earn all the extra credit you can because you WILL lose points for the exams!\n\r\nThe exams are graded harshly. You have to KNOW exactly what you're talking about! Studying the exact wording off of her website helps.\n\r\nThere are four assignment, besides the first one being an essay, the other three are all drawing related. Be ready to spend a significant amount of time on those since no ruler's allowed. The process also includes visiting and analyzing the sites..etc. On the last project, I spent nearly 20hrs. But the work did pay off.\n\r\nBottom line: Good professor. Be ready to be spoon-fed the material. Easy material, but it's about implementing the concepts in your projects. Recommended for those who have taken drawing classes and with some degree of creativity. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-09-07T23:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "While the projects take a lot of time, the exams are easy. Make sure you go to class for the first 2/3 of the semester because she gives out extra credit in class and it adds up to 5 points on your exam grade (which is out of 100) which is really nice. Find someone in your discussion that you can go to the sites with for the projects and take advantage of T.A. office hours because those also really help. I recommend this class if you are looking for an easy A and/or an HA requirement. Also don't buy the two books for this class they are a waste of money and you don't need them. Just use the notes online to study for the exam.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-27T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "The lectures are very boring.. she dims the light so half the class is asleep. projects are very time consuming. I got an a high A on all the projects and I averaged B's on the exam and I got a B+. Projects were way more time consuming and should have counted for more. This class is a waste of time if you want an Easy A for HA core. I recommend taking something easier.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-21T13:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': 'This review is coming from an ARCH major, so the opinion may vary....\n\r\nI found this class, and the teacher, to be very nice. The lectures can be a bit boring, and she does post the notes online, so students are tempted to skip. But in all honesty, the lectures are great for clarifying subjects (Especially near the beginning with the topics on Theories) and you can only partake in the extra credit options if you\'re on the specific day for lecture. \n\r\nThe majority of your grade, however, is dependent upon the TAs. I find that they tend to be a little leniant on grading, probably because this is a CORE class as well as an ARCH requirement. Also, be very careful with time management! The assignments can take longer than they first appear, and I (personally) had my discussion on fridays so I found that most of my "late-niters" occured on Thursday nights. \n\r\nThe tests aren\'t so bad if you study and attend lecture. The extra credits are FIVE points on a test, which always means the difference between a B+ and an A-. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-13T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': 'THIS REVIEW IS COMING FROM AN ARCHITECTURE MAJOR, MINORING IN HISTORY SO OPINION MAY DIFFER FROM OTHERS. \n\r\nI found the class very interesting. The material is a cross between architectural basics and history. Material is straight forward, presented clearly, and posted online. The tests are not difficult however I do recommend studying. Assignments are not too difficult but the time commitment may catch up with you. \n\r\nEisenbach seems to really enjoy the material and that appears through her teaching. She also seems to care about the students and trys to involve them in the lecture. \n\r\nMost students who complain about the class are non architecture majors taking it for an easy HA (which is true on a case to case basis). \n\r\nComplaints by others say the professor is boring presenting dry lectures. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-05-04T12:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': 'She is a very boring teacher. Lectures are very dry and are typically unhelpful. The online notes are much more helpful than lecture. Tests are very easy despite not listening at all during lecture. Projects are time consuming, but pretty fun. TAs are in general good', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-02T00:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': 'The material is simple. It is easy to get good tests grades without putting much effort into reading the online notes or learning from the lectures. \n\r\nThough, the assignments are time consuming "busy-work" tasks. Much of the work involves freehand sketching to scale and teaches you nothing. \r\nIf you do not like drawing, this class will piss you off. Take musc205 for HA instead.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-29T19:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': ' ARCH 170 was a very interesting, but different class! I took it mainly for the purpose of getting my HA out of the way, and I felt like I made the right choice in that regard. Although I never had taken an architecture class before, and although I\'m not really that artistic or too creative/design oriented, I got quite a bit out of the class, and I didn\'t feel like I was at a disadvantage by not having any background experience-the TAs were really cool about it, and the projects didn\'t require perfection, just effort and following directions.\r\n Speaking of projects, they are probably the biggest part of the class! There are four of them, worth a total of 50% of your grade-two midterms and a final are worth the other 50% (each exam=10%, final=30%). The thing about the projects though is that each one is worth progressively more percentage, so you need to make sure you don\'t slack off as the semester goes on! In general, the projects are pretty neat! Just be careful though, because they take more time than they originally might seem to require-so don\'t procrastinate! And don\'t be hesitant about talking to your TA, because they can be very helpful!\r\n Attending discussion and coming prepared is a must! If you don\'t attend, your grade will suffer! Most of the discussions revolve around the projects, except for the week before exams where we do reviews. Make sure you come prepared to discussion though, because often times there are intermediate steps to the projects and you will lose points if you don\'t come to discussion prepared!\r\n The lectures are not the most exciting and sometimes Professor Eisenbach can seem to talk about unnecessary information. However, even though most of the notes are available online, make sure you go to lecture as often as you can-there will occasionally be extra credit tasks, so you don\'t want to miss them.\r\n Besides the projects, the homework was just reading from the textbooks. Although it wasn\'t "checked" in any sense, I recommend you do read because it can be beneficial-and make sure you thoroughly check out the Supplemental Reading booklet because it will probably be used on your exam in some sense.\r\n The exams are a combination of multiple choice, short answers and a essay. The nice part is that she gives out the 3 possible essays ahead of time and only puts 1 on the exam. Therefore, if you prepare well, you should be able to get full credit for that part of the exam! The multiple choice aren\'t too bad, just make sure to read the question carefully! The short answer is where I lost the most points, because the questions can be tricky and you often have to need to have really paid close attention to details to get full credit!\r\n All in all though, I got a lot out of this class, and it gave me some new experiences that you don\'t have in other classes. Be aware, it can be a bit time consuming (you\'ll need to make a trip into DC!), but otherwise, you shouldn\'t have any problems if you do everything you are supposed to do, and if you take initiative on your assignments and plan ahead to make sure everything is done well!\r\n Good luck, and enjoy the class!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-21T18:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': 'Lectures are dry, but she enjoys teaching. Tests are straight-forward. Although notes can be found online, I found it helpful to combine and review lecture notes and online notes simultaneously for test study guides. Text books were a very big waste of money, try to buy only the supplement.Only after the final I felt i learned a lot in arch.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-17T02:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "Pretty straightforward class...boring lectures. Just teach yourself using the online resource. One of the better HAs to take because it's that darn easy to ace the class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-09-03T11:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "class was pretty boring and pointless. you don't even have to go to lecture because all the notes online are better than her notes in class. the projects can be hard, depending on ur TA. my TA was kind of picky, so the projects took me a lot of time. if ur considering this class for a core, i would recommend looking for better HA classes", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-06T18:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': 'The lectures themselves aren’t terribly interesting (unless you’re an Arch major), but almost all the material is on the website. The Professor is really nice and is more than happy to answer questions. Most of the assignments involved drawing and creativity, which I found to be a nice break from endless paper writing, and the TA I had was helpful.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-12-30T06:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': 'Lectures: Boring, unnecessary since notes are online\r\nAssignments: pretty fun except the essay, which was full of BS\r\nTests: require lots of memorizing and cramming', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-12-07T04:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "The class was a bit of a disappointment, though fortunately it's easy enough that going to lecture isn't altogether necessary. (Except near the end, as cities-related information is on the final and isn't online.) Eisenbach's lectures are less than stellar, but it's made up for by the fact that attendance isn't mandatory. The assignments are interesting, but be prepared to spend a good deal of time making detailed drawings.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-30T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "I rarely went to lectures and this did not really negatively impact my performance in the class, the issue is that you need to study the available notes for the tests and do well on those and also do well on the extremely large projects in order to get a good grade. Your TA is going to make the biggest difference though, a good one will make the class interesting and will guide you through the assignments and a bad one won't give you the tools necessary to get As on assignments. I enjoyed the class but I like architecture generally so the decision to take this class is based mostly on whether you like architecture and drawing. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-11-29T05:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "I thought this class would be an okay class to get my HA Core out of the way, especially since I had no desire to take any of the HA's. However, the description is a bit misleading. This class is essentially two class: the lectures where you learn about concepts and history (what I expected); and the discussion which hardly builds upon the lecture at all. Instead it stands alone as being essentially where you go over and hand in your four projects for the semester (three of which were heavily focussed on drawing...). I don't know if this is a reflection on the professor, but I didn't have a good experience with the class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-11-28T20:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "Exams are easy, I didn't go to lecture and studied about 1.5 hrs by reading the notes online and scored 96 and 82. The assignments are absolutely ridiculously time consuming. 25 hrs + for one of them. Also, very weird restriction of not allowing rulers to make Architectural drawings... WTF? Lectures are a waste of your time, the book is a waste of your money (if you take the class) I wouldn't recommend the class... but she isn't really a bad teacher... its just a terrible class. Film = better HA.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-08T04:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'course': 'ARCH170', 'review': "Exams are easy. Homework assignments take a lot of time to complete, and they make up a big part of your final grade. You really have to make use of TA office hours, otherwise it's not easy to do well on the assignments. Lecture is not very interesting. Course website is very helpful; pretty much all the lecture topics are covered there.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-01T18:38:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ronit Eisenbach', 'slug': 'eisenbach'}, {'courses': ['MATH241', 'MATH299B', 'MATH411', 'MATH246', 'MATH401', 'MATH406', 'MATH410', 'MATH246H', 'MATH141', 'MATH403', 'MATH445', 'MATH341', 'MATH430', 'CMSC475', 'MATH475', 'MATH140', 'MATH299F', 'MATH340', 'MATH241H', 'MATH299B', 'MATH340', 'MATH405', 'MATH410', 'MATH241', 'MATH410', 'MATH410', 'MATH299B', 'MATH340', 'MATH405'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'Ebrahimian is a very effective teacher. The best thing about his class is that he engages students and lets students finish proofs. If you want to learn material well, take his class.\r\n\r\nHowever, he makes the grading a bit harder than is really necessary, and has HW due every single class.\r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-11-24T03:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': None, 'review': "Ebrahimian is the man. Extremely knowledgeable on whatever subject he may be teaching, always willing to help students and is passionate about math overall. I think his courses are a bit on the hard side compared to other professors, but he teaches the content so well you probably won't even notice.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2017-12-31T03:12:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH341', 'review': "A great sense of humor and extremely knowledgeable. If he doesn't know the answer to question, he'll tell you and may come back with answer next class. Entertains students' questions and concerns, going so far as to sending out a survey on his performance halfway through the semester.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-10T23:58:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great teacher! Extremely useful lectures.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-11T17:29:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "He seems like a nice guy, but meh as a teacher. He writes everything down really fast and flies through examples making it hard to follow lecture sometimes. That said, lecture is pretty much him explaining concepts followed by doing examples all class. On the bright side he doesn't grade homework for 241 (at least when I took it in fall 2018). ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2018-12-21T02:57:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH341', 'review': 'I don\'t think MATH341 is that hard. But take that with a grain of salt. if you put in the same amount of work that you did in MATH340 then expect to get a higher grade in MATH341. As taught, the content is definitely conceptually easier for many people to grasp and the computational nature of the course suits many of the "honors" kids who are very good at doing that type of stuff.\r\n\r\nConceptually nothing in this course is very difficult if you bother to remember some of the concepts that you absorbed in MATH340. There are a lot of theorems which will have to be black boxed (some of the existence-uniqueness theorems require difficult real analysis). \r\n\r\nAs a lecturer I think Ebrahimian is okay. He covers the content with plenty of examples and if you have questions he will usually have a good explanation. There are plenty of professors in the department who are just awful lecturers, and Ebahimian is NOT one of them. He is a little more demanding than the average professor, however.\r\n\r\nDo make sure you keep up with the material. Doing homeworks last minute does not count. If you do that the weekly quizzes he gives will probably tank your grade hard.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-22T19:26:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'If you take this class with any other remotely difficult or time-consuming classes, you are doomed. He has homework due every class and weekly quizzes. As well, he will go very quickly through the material and if you take time to ask questions, he will just skip some material and say he will go back to it later (which he won’t). However, I believe I would have had a much better time in this class had it not been for the rest of my schedule also being rigorous. He is very friendly and tries his best to help everyone succeed, but only if you approach him. His grading is unforgiving but some of his policies help mitigate that (only if you do well enough in most of the course). Overall, a rough class that I wish I was more prepared for, but Ebrahimian is a good professor if you have too much time on your hands.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2019-12-20T14:13:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'Dr. Ebrahimian is a good professor. He explains things in an easy way. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-24T01:27:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'Prof. Ebrahimian is a good professor. His grading is clear and his exams are not so hard.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-02-05T03:20:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH445', 'review': 'I found his classes to be very difficult (especially since he has weekly quizzes), but he is a great lecturer and I learned much more than I would have with most other professors.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-27T14:21:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Very good lecturer. He does a lot of examples and every week he provides written notes that include even more written out examples. His homework does take a lot of time but that may just be due to the nature of Math 340/341. However, he is very helpful during office hours and does a really good job helping students out when they need it. Quizzes/exams are not overly challenging (at least they are not necessarily questions you don't expect) and he is a fair grader. Very happy to have taken him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-30T15:11:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Ebrahimian was a great and organized professor . The notes in class were fantastic and provided the general theory and lots of example problems. The quizzes and exams were representative of the notes from class and were a mix of easy and difficult problems. Overall great professor definitely one of the better options for MATH246.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-13T23:47:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'Dr. Ebrahimian is a good, organized lecturer. He also very much enjoys the process of problem-solving, and he is willing to field any questions. He posts all the lecture notes, and he has a nice summary note collection in pdf format with further examples and problems. He has been pretty reasonable, although a bit of a traditionalist in ways. \r\n\r\nHis class is more engaging than most 403 courses in a few ways: 1.) It covers somewhat more material (e.g., Sylow theorems, solvability, group presentations, which are not generally covered); 2.) To that end, he sometimes left material out of lectures to notes; 3.) He has weekly quizzes. Beyond the usual benefits of attending class, he also tends to draw exam and quiz problems from examples seen in class once, or in the extra examples/problems in his notes, or from the homework. In some cases, this has a slight problem insofar as it can mean two students might have equal overall understanding of the material tested by a particular question, but one of them, say, looked to the examples in the notes and say nearly the same question worked out, so they can do it basically immediately, whereas the other has to struggle through it and so spend less time on other problems. Of course, this is always a factor, but it seems somewhat distinguished here, so being studious is especially good in this class! \r\n\r\nOverall, a great professor and an important, interesting class for mathematics majors. The difficulty is probably 5/5 for most students, but it is also rewarding. The structure is essentially traditional with lecture, weekly p-sets, weekly quizzes, two midterms, and one final. I believe two quizzes and p-sets are dropped, and your lowest exam grade can be supplanted by your final, but otherwise, little or no curving. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-14T07:52:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Yo he a goat fr. His lectures are very clear and he takes the time to answer pretty much every student's question, even if someone else has already asked it before. His tests and quizzes are just like the homework and the class examples. You can't go wrong with him", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-14T21:02:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Dr. Ebrahimian is one of the best math teachers I have had. His lecture notes are clear and easy to follow. If a student has a question, he took the time to answer it even if it was already asked. Dr. E never got annoyed by "too many questions," and encouraged more questions. If we did not get to all the lecture material he wanted, he adjusted the following lectures accordingly. Although this was over virtual learning, I am certain the way he teaches in-person lectures is just the same.\r\n\r\nQuizzes and exams were very representative of what was learned in lectures and discussions. There were never any curveball questions, so if you attend lectures, discussions, and GSS occasionally, you should have all the resources needed to be successful. There were suggested textbook problems, but I found they were more complex than what was asked. However, they are good for more practice since the textbook is online and has solutions underneath each problem statement.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-20T14:59:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "He is an awesome teacher! I really enjoyed his lectures. I definitely didn't find the class easy but the exams and quizzes were fair.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T16:26:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Great lectures, easy quizzes, but a pretty hard class overall, so make sure you do as much of the HW as possible. Highly recommend taking 246 with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-05-25T03:09:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Dr. Ebrahimian finds a good balance between being accommodating and helpful while still making sure you actually get a good understanding of the material. Tests and quizzes, which make up the vast majority of grades for the class, are pretty similar to the examples covered in class, so take good notes and study them and you'll be fine. My only criticism is that the MATLAB textbook was sometimes pretty unhelpful for the projects, so be sure to find some resources (like Justin's notes) to get those done. Overall, definitely recommend taking this class with Ebrahimian though.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-21T20:00:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': 'Dr. Ebrahimian is a great lecturer and professor, especially for 403. Abstract Algebra is his research area so he is very knowledgeable on the subject and could answer any questions during lecture. This grading methods are also easy to follow and simple: drops 2-3 homeworks, 2-3 quizzes, and also lets you replace a bad exam with your final exam grade if you do better on it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-22T21:25:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Fantastic lecturer. Very knowledgeable and encourages participation. Keeps a document of all of the notes (theorems, definitions, example problems, etc.) from class, although you should still take notes because that document doesn't show the solutions to in-class examples. Doesn't grade on participation or attendance but those are still imperative to your understanding of the material if it's your first time seeing it.\r\n\r\nThe weekly quizzes and 3 exams over the course of the semester are not very difficult if you're caught up and have properly reviewed the notes and homework. The homework can be very difficult and time-consuming (especially the first few assignments) but it is generally necessary and helps with understanding. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T13:32:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Dr. Ebrahimian is an awesome professor. He always explains the concepts very clearly. He is happy to answer questions, and answers them very well. He gives very useful practical examples that help to explain the content better. He’s also a very nice guy and you can tell he cares about his students. He grades his exams and quizzes very fairly and the difficulty is also reasonable. I highly recommend Dr. Ebrahimian for MATH241.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-03-02T00:27:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Best math professor I've ever had at UMD. As long as you pay attention to the classes and practice sample exams, you are on a good scale. He explains stuff so clearly and breaks down the hard stuff well. I really enjoyed his classes and hope I would have chance to take more.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-03-12T18:09:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Great professor. He's very organized and responsive. I've never had an issue with approaching him with a question. He seems to really care about his students. Ebrahimian's quizzes and exams are fair. His expectations of students are also very reasonable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-21T18:14:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241H', 'review': 'The course is definitely difficult and requires you to pay attention, but Professor Ebrahimian made the class so much better. He knows literally everything there is to know about all the subjects and is always willing and able to help any student when they are struggling with a problem or grasping a concept. I absolutely loved learning with Professor Ebrahimian and would recommend him to anyone who needs to take Calc 3. The course was set up very well, and I liked that the hw was not required. It created a system that encouraged you to be responsible for your own learning without affecting your grade. The entire course was planned out in the syllabus, and there were no surprise assignments or unexpected changes to the schedule. His exams were super fair and his grading was very fast. We often would receive quizzes and tests back within a week of taking them, during the following class or two. This course was probably my favorite math course that I have taken in my academic career, and would love to have Dr. Ebrahimian as an instructor again in the future.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-10T19:50:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Dr. E is incredible. He teaches fast, but well and truly cares for his students. His tests and quizzes are fair, and he explains the material clearly. Can't go wrong with them. Definitely take him if you can, he is great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-13T01:16:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'He is a very good lecturer and explains concepts very well. He also answers any questions you have during lecture without making students feel embarrassed about asking complex or simple questions. The class is very fast paced but if you go to class you will learn everything pretty well. His tests and quizzes were also extremely fair. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-16T06:09:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'His lectures are well organized, does many practice problems to solidify our understanding, and he is very knowledgeable, so he can answer almost any question that is asked. One thing to note is that he does not grade homework, but it is very important to do', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-19T12:43:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Dr. Ebrahimian is a very good professor. His lectures are very informative and it's very useful if you go to them, however he does post some summarized lecture notes that are useful to know what you missed. You can also use this lecture note PDF to know what topics may fall in the quiz (as the weekly quizzes cover material from the previous Wednesday to the Monday preceding the quiz). As for his exams, they're overall fair. He provides a very generous amount of review material for every exam (even the final!) which you should ABSOLUTELY study. If you know every topic on those practice exams, you're near guaranteed to do well on his exams. He does teach fast, but he has to due to the sheer amount of material there is. Lowest exam is dropped for your final if it helps your grade, and your lowest 2 quizzes are dropped as well. One thing to note, the MATLAB assignments start off really easy, but the last couple can be challenging, so don't start those too late. If I'm recommending a good time to start and do these assignments, do it while you review for your exam! They're normally due shortly after an exam, but the content on these assignments are really helpful when it comes to understanding how to set up your integrals and the topics you should know. I found myself doing them AFTER the exams then being upset I didn't do them earlier!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-19T19:54:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Professor Ebrahimian is genuinely the best math professor I could have asked for. He has incredibly well-structured lectures and is always very well prepared for the class. He is concise and clear when explaining topics and has a very good teaching style. His exams aren't too difficult either. He makes sure to review practically all the different kinds of questions he's gonna ask on the exam so if you go to class and just pay attention, you'll get an easy A. For my class, he took a lot of quizzes but they only helped me out more cause they made me actually learn the section he was gonna quiz us on. If you can take him, TAKE HIM. I highly doubt there's a single math professor at UMD that is as good as and cares as much as Professor Ebrahimian.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-21T14:56:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': 'The best math professor. Everything was explained really well. The quizzes and exams are fair, and the homework can make you learn a lot.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T05:00:57.023823Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'challenging, but a great professor. had him for 341 last semester, but didn\'t get around to reviewing until now. \r\nhis weekly quizzes are mostly reiterations of the homework, and so are free points. \r\nbut you\'re going to need those points, as exams are quite hard (but fair), along with homeworks and study guides. if you do well on the homework and study guide, the exams are just like those. you\'ll walk out of the class really understanding the material he teaches you. if you just wanted an easy a...find someone else. \r\nalso, his class is very well-organized. notes are posted online, and his "drop one exam for the final" is merciful, since the final has an extra credit question.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T05:51:48.523101Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'One of the best math professor. He has weekly quiz, even sometimes stressful, but do force you to learn. He totally understand the fact that not every math major really like math and good at math (doing new problem during exam) so he give study guide for every exam and the exam questions are basically come from the study guide.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-21T20:46:02.923916Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'This course was legit one of the most challenging math classes I’ve ever taken in my life. However, having Ebrahimian teach it made it significantly more understandable. I would say Ebrahimian went above and beyond in terms of listening to his students’ requests and working his hardest to make sure we had what we needed to succeed. An incredibly knowledgeable lecturer, as well as a fast grader, Ebrahimian graded all of our assignments in a prompt, timely manner and even went as far as grading our second midterm within a day to give us time to decide whether or not we wanted to withdraw before the withdraw deadline. Never have I seen a man be asked a question and simply go to town on the blackboard and answer it concisely and understandably within a few minutes. He even dropped an extra quiz and homework for us at the end of the semester! 10/10 would recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T18:42:13.516850Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': 'Dr. Ebrahimian is a very good professor. He explains the concepts so well; even though his course is very challenging, he made it manageable. He gives us study guides before exams, and his exam problems are similar to (almost the same as) the study guide. He has hw and quizzes every week which helps us learn a lot. He tries his best to help us understand the material. Highly recommend him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T19:57:21.748995Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Dr. Ebrahimian is a great professor. He is very nice, and even cracks a clever joke once in a while. He puts a lot of emphasis on doing examples in class, and of course always had office hours available.\r\n\r\nWe did a week of preliminary stuff (set theory, notation, and intro to proofs), 4 weeks of linear algebra, and then spent the remaining 9 weeks on multivariable calculus. This is a proof-based course, so if you're planning on taking it, don't expect the homework and tests to be as simple as writing the correct answer. The weekly quizzes are usually not too difficult if you did the homework. That being said, the homework can take quite a long time, so start early!\r\n\r\nOverall, I really did love this class, and it's one of the reasons I'm adding a second major in math. If you have a strong interest in math or are a math major, I would highly recommend this sequence.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-24T01:10:22.585028Z'}, {'professor': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "If you go to every class, take notes, and do all the homework, all of which was fair and doable, you'll receive the grade you want. He provides study guides before midterms and final, and if you can do those and the problems from previous year exams, you'll most likely ace the exams. If you need help, his office hours are insanely helpful.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-23T05:11:46.857810Z'}], 'name': 'Roohollah Ebrahimian', 'slug': 'ebrahimian'}, {'courses': ['EXST019D', 'EXST019K', 'EXST018A', 'EXST028C', 'EXST018B', 'EXST048C', 'EXST009E', 'EXST019B', 'EXST019C', 'EXST029B', 'COMM729F', 'COMM619M', 'COMM629M', 'COMM749F', 'COMM609Q', 'COMM609R', 'COMM639N', 'COMM719F', 'COMM609F', 'COMM719S', 'COMM729S', 'COMM619N', 'COMM619S', 'COMM619T', 'COMM629P', 'COMM629F', 'COMM649N', 'COMM719J', 'COMM609G', 'COMM619G', 'COMM639G', 'COMM619F', 'COMM649G', 'COMM609F', 'COMM609G', 'COMM609M', 'COMM609N', 'COMM629F', 'COMM639G', 'COMM639N', 'COMM719C', 'COMM729C', 'COMM798I', 'COMM719C', 'COMM749C', 'COMM649N', 'COMM629F', 'COMM719C', 'COMM729C', 'COMM798I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rosalinda Meza-Steel', 'slug': 'meza-steel'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rosalyn Anderson-Howell', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "Extremely nice lady, she's there to help. She's also my BSOS advisor and she's very helpful there too. However, for a 1 credit class, there is wayyyyy to much work. Also it's kind of ironic because we had to do these time management projects that completely wasted like 5 hours of my time. Anyways, you'll have no problem with her, and class can be fun. I made a lot of friends in class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-14T19:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rosalyn Anderson-Howell', 'course': None, 'review': 'Extremely nice, knowledgeable teacher. She seems to really care about the UNIV 100 students, starts each class with highs and lows from everyone and ends class early when she can. She is also the assistant director of advising for the BSOS office so she can give a lot of info about course requirements, Double Majoring/minoring, and internships. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-30T17:44:31Z'}], 'name': 'Rosalyn Anderson-Howell', 'slug': 'anderson-howell'}, {'courses': ['GERM463', 'GERM283', 'GERM315', 'GERM449P', 'GERM368V', 'GERM475', 'GERM415', 'GERM282', 'GERM399T', 'WMST498V'], 'average_rating': 4.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rose-Marie Oster', 'course': 'GERM475', 'review': "I hate to say this about Dr. Oster, since she's wonderfully enthusiastic and knowledgeable, but she is very slow. Much of the fun I had in this class and GERM283 was outside of class from the textbook.\n\r\nThat being said, reading Viking sagas in the original is incredibly cool, and Dr. Oster will do everything in her power to help.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-01-07T16:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rose-Marie Oster', 'course': 'GERM283', 'review': 'Who\'d think that learning about vikings could be this boring? I thought that having students present all semester long was a terrible Idea- I would have rather read 3x as many books than sit through all those presentations. \r\nDr. Oster knows her stuff but quite frankly I couldn\'t pay attention. Maybe I need adderall but I\'ve never had this much trouble paying attention in class in my life. This was supposed to be my "roll over and get an A" class, but somewhere along the line I just stopped paying attention. If it wasn\'t for this class, I would have had straight A\'s this semester. le sigh. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-23T12:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rose-Marie Oster', 'course': 'GERM283', 'review': "Professor Oster is a wonderful teacher. She always has time for students to ask questions before quizzes. In fact, she even has two review sessions for the final. Sometimes she would even tell us not to worry about certain things because they wouldn't appear on the exam (much to the humor of our TA). \n\r\nOverall, she encouraged curiosity/learning and even though the class was constructed more like that of a graduate class, I feel it really helped me become an expert on the two topics (there is a powerpoint project and a term paper) I researched.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-14T14:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rose-Marie Oster', 'course': 'GERM283', 'review': 'Dr. Oster is an amazing professor. She is incredibly approachable and unlike some other professors really cares about how well her students do in her class. If you ever have any questions or want to learn more about the Vikings, she is always available and really makes an effort to help her students out. \r\nThe class itself is kind of dull cause we have to listen to each student give presentations. A lot of the students put in half assed efforts into their presentations which shows but there are some who really do the research and have very interesting presentations. There is 1 paper (5-7) on a topic of your choice due at the end of the semester. 2-3 quizzes, a midterm, and a presentation on a topic that you get to choose from a list. \r\nShe has a great sense of humor too and loves to talk about current day discoveries.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-15T17:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rose-Marie Oster', 'course': 'GERM283', 'review': "Dr. Oster is contagiously interested in Vikings. Her knowledge of history is very expansive, yet this is not a typical history class. She is very engaging, and wants the class to think, and try and suppose why they might have done something a certain way. I really liked this course. It was important to take good notes and study them, but if you do that there's no reason not to do well because she will tell you absolutely everything you should know.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-08T23:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rose-Marie Oster', 'course': 'GERM282', 'review': "Class is fun and she is really funny. Always willing to help if you don't understand something. Class is not a breeze, but if you pay attention you'll do fine. She brings treats for you during the tests.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-01-25T13:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rose-Marie Oster', 'course': None, 'review': 'Absolutely wonderful. Dr. Oster is a nice old Swedish lady with a great sense of humor, whose class is easy to follow and genuinely interesting. Lots of special guests, and she always brings cookies and treats. Tests are not gimmes, so you do have to put SOME effort in. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-24T03:48:00Z'}], 'name': 'Rose-Marie Oster', 'slug': 'oster_rose-marie'}, {'courses': ['BMGT451', 'BUMK715', 'BUMK717', 'BUMK758F', 'BUMK758H', 'BUMK758D', 'BMGT450', 'BMGT355', 'BMGT858E', 'BUMK701', 'BUSM701', 'BMGT350', 'BUMK716', 'BUMK724', 'BUSO741', 'BUSM702', 'BUSI731', 'BUSI732', 'BUSI650', 'BMGT858E', 'BUMK724', 'BUSI650', 'BUSI731', 'BUSO700', 'BUSI732', 'BUSO741', 'BUSO741', 'BUMK724', 'BUSI758J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rosellina Ferraro', 'slug': 'ferraro'}, {'courses': ['MEES606', 'MEES680', 'MEES698C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rosemary Jagus', 'slug': 'jagus'}, {'courses': ['KNES210', 'SPHL498O', 'KNES360', 'KNES214', 'KNES214', 'KNES214', 'KNES214', 'KNES214'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Rosemary Lindle', 'course': 'KNES260', 'review': "Easy Class. She posts the lectures online, and then you just come to class to review them. There are a few EASY assignments, such as a family health tree, which are mad easy. Midterm was pretty difficult but it was curved 20 points and the final wasn't too bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-01-02T20:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Rosemary Lindle', 'course': 'KNES214', 'review': "I took this as a hybrid class because it fulfills a DSSP but out of all of my classes, it was legit my hardest. The lectures and textbook readings are posted online and you are expected to watch them before the lab each week and complete the reading quizzes. I had like 20 pages of notes each week and each unit is about 4 weeks so that means about 80 pages of notes to know before the exam. All the exams are open notes, but no matter how much time I put into the lectures and readings I still struggled. There are weekly reading quizzes which are pretty easy 5 points per week. The only reason I didn't tank this class was because of the lab. The TA Tammy is so nice and the labs were genuinely enjoyable. The lab allows for a 2-hour slot but I was rarely there past 30/45 minutes. All the assignments are easy for the lab so it really balances out the exams. The exams are worth 60% of your grade and the lab is 40% so I was still able to do ok because the lab balanced out my exam scores. Dr. Lindle is super knowledgeable about what she teaches and is super nice, but the content was just really hard to understand and there was a lot of it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-23T18:41:01.800622Z'}], 'name': 'Rosemary Lindle', 'slug': 'lindle'}, {'courses': ['KNES402', 'KNES689Z', 'KNES300', 'KNES289W', 'KNES402H', 'KNES300H', 'NACS898', 'KNES497', 'KNES789W', 'EXST030', 'KNES789M', 'KNES300', 'KNES300H', 'KNES300', 'KNES300H', 'KNES689P', 'KNES789M', 'NACS640', 'KNES300', 'KNES300H', 'KNES402', 'KNES402H', 'KNES402', 'KNES300', 'KNES300H', 'KNES689P', 'KNES789W'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ross Miller', 'course': 'KNES300', 'review': "Straightforward class. Dr. Miller is a nice, realistic, and articulate professor. Explains concepts very well, the exams are fair and he provides lots of practice tests to prepare you. When I took the class, Dr. Miller gave you the option to either take exams online or in person. Material isn't too difficult. There are physics and math involved, but it's very light because Dr. Miller rather emphasize the theoretical concepts and tests you on simple trig instead. The lab portion was fine. A report was due every other week, but you get to work on it with group members and grading was pretty lenient.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T06:48:01.659678Z'}], 'name': 'Ross Miller', 'slug': 'miller_ross'}, {'courses': ['AOSC433', 'AOSC652', 'HONR229L', 'AOSC633', 'CHEM433', 'CHEM633', 'AOSC498', 'AOSC658E', 'AOSC620', 'HNUH218Y', 'CHEM433', 'CHEM633', 'AOSC680', 'AOSC433', 'AOSC633', 'CHEM433', 'CHEM633', 'AOSC680'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ross Salawitch', 'course': 'HONR229L', 'review': 'amazing, outstanding, brilliant, never seen a man quite like him', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-03-06T03:50:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Ross Salawitch', 'course': 'AOSC433', 'review': 'Ross was awesome, he did a great job of keeping class engaging when we all were getting Zoom fatigue. He takes a lot of student feedback when it comes to how the class is going — the final exam format was completely based on what we wanted!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-11T23:50:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Ross Salawitch', 'course': 'HNUH218Y', 'review': "Ross was one of the best teachers that I had during my first year at Maryland! He genuinely seems to love his job and always comes to class in good spirits, which is hard to do on Zoom. From a grading perspective he's very accommodating if you have any emergencies or other things impacting your schoolwork. The only thing that could have made this class better was if it was in person, as I assume it would have been even more fun. The class has no exams and is very interactive and discussion based, so you will learn a lot but also not be stressed out! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-13T16:48:04Z'}], 'name': 'Ross Salawitch', 'slug': 'salawitch'}, {'courses': ['COMM398C', 'COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Rowena Kirby-Straker', 'slug': 'kirby-straker'}, {'courses': ['EXST059B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Roxana Del Barco', 'slug': 'barco'}, {'courses': ['ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B', 'ENGL398B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Roxanne Clements', 'slug': 'clements'}, {'courses': ['BMGT350', 'BMGT457', 'BMGT350H', 'BMGT350N', 'BUMK716', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT350N', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT350N', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT350', 'BMGT350N'], 'average_rating': 3.4667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Lefkoff is the typical marketing professor; friendly, enthusiastic, and engaging. She loves to tell stories and she even admits early on that she goes more in-depth with the topics instead of just running you through the textbook terms. The good news is that means you get some interesting classes with games and activities. The bad news is that for the tests, you have to read the textbook to actually learn the terms you're being tested on.\n\r\nHer tests are reasonable and the marketing assignments you get are an easy A. You do have to do a presentation at the beginning of a class based on a current event that matches the chapter of the day, but that's graded generously as well. I have heard the other BMGT350 are amazing too, but you can't go wrong with Lefkoff!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-06T02:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Dr. Lefkoff is a very, very nice person. She is so enthusiastic and loves what she does. As many people have mentioned her teaching does not really correspond with the textbook. In other words, you will fail if you do not read the textbook. \n\r\nHer exams are mainly memorizing definitions from the textbook, so definitely make flash cards or something. Also her exams always have questions about class discussions or about videos we watch in class, so make sure you go to class!!\n\r\nEveryone is required to make a 4 minute presentation, so almost all of our classes in the semester started with 4 different presentation, so that took up about 15-20 minutes of our class time.\n\r\nWe do a lot of group/partner work. Class is kinda boring, but Dr. Lefkoff is always so enthusiastic.\r\nThere's some hw that's pretty easy. \n\r\nI would say it's pretty easy to get an A if you read the textbook and memorize the definitions, go to class, and do all the hw/research. \n\r\nShe is very nice and I would definitely recommend taking it with her!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-06-02T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Dr. Lefkoff is really nice, and very energetic. In class, she just goes over some terms, which will not cover everything you need for the exam (you'll have to read the book for that). The exams are 60 multiple choice, which are not very difficult, but it's not that easy to get an A in either. We also had some students presentation each class, which pretty much, nobody listens too, but count for 10% of your grade. From time to time, she'll also show some videos, give some examples or discuss something in class that isn't on the textbook, and that will probably end up as exam questions (in our last exam, I counted at least 5-6 questions like this). To me, this class basically just consisted in memorizing a bunch of terms, so I can't say I've gotten much from it (as others have put it, pretty much a useless class). If you end up in her class (especially the 9:30am section), you'll enjoy it, because she's always super excited and full of energy, but be prepared to put in the effort to read the book to do well in the exams. Overall, it's probably easy to get a B, but very hard to get an A in the end.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-29T12:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Does this lady even teach? The classes is an hour and fifteen minutes long and she teaches for about fifteen minutes of it. The rest of student presentations that no one gives a shit about.\n\r\nShe's a nice lady and all but jeezus what a waste of tuition money. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-04-30T13:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Lefkoff is a very excitable, high-energy woman. Some days she's just bouncing all over the place, going in and out of different voices and just overall acting crazy. Her lectures are interesting, although not necessarily relevant to the textbook (which contains 90% of the exam material but is never covered in class). The exams are not overly difficult, but it is not easy to get an A. There are also few opportunities for points outside of the exams (75% of total). I very much like Lefkoff as a person. She's very nice but I just don't get much out of her class. Of the 75 minutes she has us, 15-20 is spent on student article presentations that everyone more or less ignores, ~20 minutes for some awful video that will put you to sleep, but probably wind up as an obscure exam question, and the rest of the time is just her speaking excitedly on just a small fraction of the chapter we will be tested on. If you are good at memorizing long lists of terms for exams, you may do well in this class, but I can't say I learned much in regard to marketing.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-11-19T18:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'If you want a professor who shows consideration for their students, do not take Lefkoff. She is not understanding and does not work with you to resolve unique issues/problems. Here is a direct quote from her final email: \r\n"Please note that there is NO EXTRA CREDIT. It is not an option, at all, under any circumstances. Please do NOT ask for extra credit. I will not respond to any emails that request extra credit." \n\r\nHer teaching method is also very odd, she lectures off of her own notes and then pulls exam questions from some test bank that she didn\'t teach to. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-13T10:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350H', 'review': 'BMGT350 (Intro to Marketing) is a pretty boring, and as others put it "useless", class. If you are going to take it, and you are if you are a BMGT major, then take it with Lefkoff. She is a very energetic and passionate instructor and she cares about the students. Especially if you are in the Honors version.\n\r\nMore about the H-version (it is very different from the regular course): there are two exams, each covering half of the book. Each students is required to prepare a "discussion lead" once during the semester, where they will pick out two articles related to the chapter they are assigned and discuss it during the class. Finally, there is the Final Project, which is composed of a 15 minute presentation (individually) and a 12-15 page paper.\n\r\nAll in all, not that bad of a class. She will expect you to do all of the readings on your own to prepare for the exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-29T20:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Professor Lefkoff is one professor I would never forget. She is so enthusiastic and inspiring. She does everything in her power to make subjects interesting. As someone that does not particularly like the subject, the way she teaches the course helps me find the material a bit interesting and worth concentrating on. HOWEVER, her teaching method does not correspond to the way she makes the exam. There are always some areas of confusion. If you are not a good test taker, you would most likely fail every of her tests which make about 85% of your grade. The tests are also tiring. There are 60 questions for 75 minutes and you have to really think through any of them to get the right answers, which is not always given. I won't necessarily recommend her, but if you end up in her class, make sure to have a very strong plan of attack.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'b-', 'created': '2012-12-08T17:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Nearly useless professor. She's a nice woman but it's absolutely ridiculous how she teaches.\n\r\nFirst of all, she did not make the powerpoints. She gets them from Cengage, which is the company that produced the textbook. The textbook only touches on the most important aspects, but it ignores some of the smaller aspects, which are on the exam. \n\r\nEven worse, her lectures are based almost entirely on the powerpoints. I was reading the book before class and I learned absolutely nothing new. She even uses the same examples given in the book. She skips through a lot of crucial information in the powerpoints, which are eventually on the exam.\n\r\nBut you are almost obligated to attend class because she uses some case studies or videos (like 2 or 3 per midterm), and those are on the midterm/final. The worst part is she tests you on things that have nearly nothing to do with the course, and would not help you whatsoever in the future, and would not matter whatsoever if you remember it or not. For example, asking what juices a specific company produces. Who cares?", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-01T18:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Great professor. Boring powerpoint presentations, but what do you expect? Study the book and the practice questions on the book CD; they will appear on the exams. Make sure you participate a lot because she does NOT just give 100%'s on participation to anyway (you wont get above a B-/C+ on participation if you simply show up and don't talk). very straightforward material if you study the book. she's a great professor and does her best to engage her students in discussion. After all, that's the best way to learn marketing.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Professor Lefkoff is very animated and makes the classes fun and interesting. She's a really nice person to listen to, but the material can be a bit pointless. The exams are also pretty hard because there's always 2 or 3 answers that seem plausible. If you don't test well, it'll be a challenging class because exams make up pretty much all of your grade. Be sure to pay attention to all the materials in class, since little details can show up on the exam.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-09-18T23:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "This was probably one of the most pointless classes that I have sat though at UMD. The way her exams are weighted(3 make up 80% of your grade) and structured of them is totally unfair, and makes attending class pretty much pointless. All of the questions are A-E multiple choice almost every one can be narrowed down to two choices, and I basically guessed between the two for each one. I was one of the few students that actually came to class and contributed to the lecture but that didn't help my grade obviously. If I could go back in time I wouldn't have ever gone to class and allocated my time more effectively to reading the book during class time.\n\r\nIf you're like me and you expect the professor to teach you the concepts during the lectures and not try to trick you on exams, then I wouldn't recommend taking BMGT350 with Dr. Lefkoff.\n\r\nThis is the first C I've ever received in college and I'm very unhappy about it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2012-05-23T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Prof. Lefkoff is a really great lecturer as she makes what is very boring material interesting. Be prepared to see her get super excited about the subject and start running and screaming all over the room. Be prepared to hear stories from her college days and working for a oil refinery as a young adult. Be prepared to hear stories about her personal life that makes you shake your head.\n\r\nOverall, course is not difficult, you just have to read textbook and pay attention to every detail as it will pop up in the exams. Lowest exam score was a 84 and highest was a 88 but she offers no curve, so I got a B+ after the project and written case. Had I kept up the readings and note taking pulling off an A would not be that difficult.\n\r\nGoing to class is not necessary, but I did show up for most of her lectures because I enjoyed her. Overall, I would recommend her, but my classmates complained that the exam questions were tricky. I didn't really find that to be the case when I knew what the question was talking about. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-05-22T23:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Very bubbly and exciting lady, which is great for a 9:30AM lecture. Lefkoff really does love marketing and loves teaching it. Definitely try taking it with her.\n\r\nAs for the course, well, it's pretty difficult. The exams ask very specific questions that she doesn't cover in lecture. The case studies are also graded pretty harshly. One classmate told me that they basically grade them like this: perfect 100%, good 85%, poor 75%, so on and so forth. No in-betweens. You'll have to do a lot of reading and a lot of studying for the exams. The group project is pretty easy, a 20 minute presentation on how a company could improve its marketing strategies. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2012-05-16T11:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'She is a crazy lady, but lecture is very entertaining because of it. She runs around the room talking to the class and trying to get everyone excited. Lecture is very enjoyable for her class, I enjoyed it and I reccomend going.\n\r\nAs for her tests I found them to be incredibly challenging and are worth a huge chunk of your grade, I believe the breakdown is 26% 27% 27% for her 3 exams. No final which is nice, just a class project. I thought the exams were VERY challenging, she uses a great deal of stuff from lectures mixed in with vocabulary. I got the hang of it by the last exam, but I escaped with a 80% by the hair of my chin.\n\r\nSo in summary, she is a fun lecturer, but there is probably someone a little easier.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-13T02:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT457', 'review': 'Lefkoff does a great job of keeping class interesting with personal stories (her dog Willy comes up at least once a week), current events, and interesting cases. She really tries to mix up class and engage people. Unfortunately, the subject matter and material are pretty boring. Exams are tough so study details. Its really the multiple choice that gets everyone. Also, get her to grade your case paper. The TA for this class was HORRIBLE', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-04-17T21:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Her lecture is kind of interesting because of her extensive body action and numerous of examples. BUT DO BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU TAKING HER CLASS because her exams are fully based on EVERYTHING SHE SAID in class and extensive detail (not bold) in textbook, sometimes even include SMALLEST DETAIL in video you watched several chapters ago, her questions are some what tricky and very easy to mislead you. I completely hate her exams which was 93% of all grades.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-17T00:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'As many of the other reviews said, she is a really nice woman and does her best to keep the class involved and would make a great kindergarten teacher. As far as 350, she was..eh.\n\n\r\nHer tests were pretty easy and straight out of the book, so definitely have to study that a lot. 5 case studies are graded tough, make sure you put effort into them. Group project was really easy, as there was no written deliverable. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-16T15:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "The kind of teacher that a business school student usually thrives on. Uses the powerpoints from the book, 3 quizzes (1 dropped), case studies, 2 exams, a final, and a group project. No class participation or anything. I spent all semester not going to class because the powerpoints were online but it cost me on the final. A lot of her questions came from stuff she explained in class which made pulling an all-nighter going through slides and online material before the final not too effective.\n\r\nI would recommended going to class regularly and keeping an ear open as you are on your laptop on facebook or whatever, it'll be worth it on the exams. i was pissed at myself for getting a B in such a simple class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-14T21:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Professor Lefkoff is amazing. She is always upbeat and tries really hard to engage her students. She is a fair grader, especially on the group project. Her exams are multiple choice and are straight from the text and lecture. Very easy if you study. The second exam and the final are a little bit tougher than the first exam so make sure you actually read the material. If you show up to class, read the material and do well on the group project then you will get an A. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-24T22:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "I really liked her style of teaching. I felt that she made an effort to teach the subject in a more practical, rather than a theoretical fashion. Albeit she didn't give us a review sheet and such for the exam, she did tell us specifically that her exams were based on the MCQs on the textbook's website. True to her word, 60% of the questions came from the text's website. She has a knack for the subject, and especially if marketing is not your major, you should really take it with her because she makes an effort to teach it in an interesting manner.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-08-24T18:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "This professor is one of the worst i've encountered in my whole life.\r\nShe is completely sarcastic and a careless human being.\r\nWhen i took this class she seemed like an ok professor but as the semester progressed she became careless and very rude. She gave no reviews for the exams and was not polite when it came to asking questions in class.\r\nThe only thing she does is talk about her sons.\r\nIf you can avoid taking her, do it!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'a', 'created': '2010-08-04T17:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'She a very nice lady, but not a good professor. She gave no review for exams, and her class consisted of her reading directly for the powerpoint and book. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-08T14:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350H', 'review': 'Very nice woman, but somewhat boring lectures/discussions. The group project is hellish, its unfocused, and goes on half the semester. Aside from that and studying for the two exams, theres no work.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-21T03:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Dr. Lefkoff is wonderful and very enthusiastic. She cares about her students and was understanding of student needs. Use the slides and make notecards to prepare for exams but tbh they are fairly common sense if you read the question and know anything about the terms/marketing in general. That being said, they can also be tricky. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-08-12T23:57:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Professor Lefkoff has got such a great energy to her! Her passion for teaching and marketing makes the class way more interesting and it makes a huge difference in my mood during the class. She explains things clearly, has a fun teaching style, and provides great examples to help us understand the material better.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-19T19:35:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "She is very nice professor and very engaging. I didn't find her slides to be particularly helpful, and definitely learned most of the content from the textbook and her verbally lecturing, so try to take notes actively. The semester long group project was also pretty fun and not nearly as stressful as other group projects you might have in other classes. I do wish she provided practice exams for the midterms though.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T18:45:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': 'Professor Lefkoff was very pleasant, engaging, had great energy, and graded very fairly. Follow the rubrics closely for written assignments and there’s no way you’ll get less than an A on them. \r\nProfessor Lefkoff herself was as great as a marketing teacher as you’ll get, but the content is seriously the worst I’ve ever had to work through. Every concept is something you should already know intuitively, but it’s given a fancy marketing term that you need to remember for the exams. I’m an excellent reader and exam-taker, and I did well, but the content was truly miserable and, for lack of a more elegant word, BORING. I would highly recommend taking it with Lefkoff, since she truly improves it as much as she can, and I’d also recommend taking it online over the summer.\r\nFor exams: check out Professor Lefkoff’s PowerPoints when you’re in need of a study guide, be sure to remember the topics she spends more significant time on, study the topics from the written assignments, and check the key terms/summaries at the end of the chapters. You’ll dislike the exams and enjoy the course-long series of written assignments, so long as you have good teammates.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-09-21T14:17:43.890102Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "It's so dumb that the two exams in the class are worth so much of your grade. But other than that, Lefkoff is a really sweet person and her lectures are very helpful when preparing for the exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-26T03:49:43.516739Z'}, {'professor': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'course': 'BMGT350', 'review': "Very sweet and engaging lady. The structure of the course for the exams to be so much of your grade is terrible and grades are not handed out in this class. The group project is a lot of your grade as well and groups are assigned randomly. I know some groups struggled far more than others but I was lucky enough to have a good one. She's not the greatest professor, but the business school has some of the worst at this school which makes this lady seem like a ray of sunshine. Overall, nice lady, terrible course structure.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-18T15:27:57.208064Z'}], 'name': 'Roxanne Lefkoff', 'slug': 'lefkoff'}, {'courses': ['CBMG688J', 'BISI899', 'CBMG688J', 'CBMG688J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Roy Mariuzza', 'slug': 'mariuzza'}, {'courses': ['PLSC204', 'INAG250', 'INAG101', 'INAG199', 'INAG207', 'PLSC489R', 'INAG218', 'INAG237', 'INAG251', 'INAG299A', 'INAG299B', 'INAG288'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Roy Walls', 'course': None, 'review': 'Hands down, The best professor at UMd. Regardless if you are in the ag department or not (I personally am not), ENBE200 is still one of the most interesting classes the university has to offer.\n\r\nRoy Walls is the nicest and most understanding professor I ever had, and he will take his time getting to know every student personally.He will give you infinite opportunities to raise your grade to an A.\n\r\nENBE200 was a fun class to go to, you spend your class time learning machine work skills (including 2 types of welding, hot metal work, wood working, cold metal working, plumbing work etc....). Expect an A if you go to class everyday.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-29T23:03:00Z'}], 'name': 'Roy Walls', 'slug': 'walls'}, {'courses': ['GEOG170', 'GEOG376', 'GEOG498V', 'GEOG777', 'GEOG662', 'GEOG686', 'GEOG477', 'GEOG788C', 'GEOG198A', 'GEOG688A', 'GEOG688C', 'GEOG665', 'GEOG788X', 'GEOG663', 'GEOG697', 'EXST030', 'GEOG498X', 'GEOG664', 'GEOG650', 'GEOG685', 'GEOG650', 'GEOG662', 'GEOG686', 'GEOG665', 'GEOG663', 'GEOG670', 'GEOG662', 'GEOG686'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ruibo Han', 'slug': 'han_ruibo'}, {'courses': ['ENCE466', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE466'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Russell Anderson', 'slug': 'anderson_russell'}, {'courses': ['AOSC620', 'AOSC634', 'AOSC818', 'AOSC434', 'AOSC658D', 'AOSC658R', 'AOSC658E', 'AOSC458R', 'AOSC400', 'AOSC620', 'AOSC434', 'AOSC620'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Russell Dickerson', 'slug': 'dickerson_russell'}, {'courses': ['CCJS230', 'CCJS444', 'CCJS230', 'CCJS230', 'CCJS230', 'CCJS418K', 'CCJS230'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': 'Hamill is awesome, and he is very passionate about what he does. The layout of the class, however, is somewhat of a pain. The "one class a week, for two and a half hours of constant talking and no powerpoint or videos" thing requires a lot of of patience and focus. Lecture is therefore obviously long, but Hamill is not nearly as bad as everyone else seems to make him out to be.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2016-05-19T18:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': 'If you want to hear stories about being a cop and not learn about criminal law, take this class. Hamill "teaches" by assigning weekly papers on famous SCOTUS cases and then doesn\'t really discuss them in class. The 2.5 hour lecture is usually pretty brutal, as he likes to spend time letting the dumbest people in the class give their opinions about various things. Attending class is necessary though because he changes the syllabus constantly, due dates and exams included. He also doesn\'t use ELMS. We wrote 5 papers and took a midterm before a single grade for the class was posted. All things considered, the class is pretty easy. I don\'t think he even reads the papers, so if you turn them in you\'ll automatically do okay. The exams are unnecessarily tricky though because Hamill is a cop AND a lawyer. \n\r\nTake this class if you dare.Hamill is the lesser of two evils for professors. Definitely didn\'t have a great experience, but there\'s no way he could be more terrible than Dr. White. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-12-04T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': 'Hamil is a fun. He is a police officer that actually tells real life stories from his expereinces. Does he venture of from the topic, YES. However, he doesnt test us on info that he hasnt himself went over. At the end of class right before a test, he will give us a quick list of what to study. You turn in the assignments and its an easy B. My biggest issue was with how long the class was, but thats not his fault.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-12T15:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "I didn't like this class as much as I thought I would. Hamill was an engaging lecturer but I sometimes felt that he kept us there longer than necessary (he once kept us for the entire 2 hours, 45 minutes without a break...torture). His tests get progressively more difficult (the final was a lot harder than expected-then again, I didn't read the book thoroughly). I also felt like the test questions were worded awkwardly. Overall, it was an easy class but that doesn't mean you don't have to study-I came pretty close to a B.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-09-26T20:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': 'I recommend this class but prepare yourself cuz it is LONG. Almost 3 hours but he does keep you interested and engaged. Hamill is a police officer so he supplments giving you information with cop stories and personal experienes which can drag on but I guess he needs them to fill in the time. Honestly he tells you exactly what to write down and what you need for the exams, but don\'t make the mistake of thinking the first exam will be easy! I did and only got an 84, but the second one I studied a lot on and got a 98 on it.\n\r\nBasically the info is common sense, and if you pay attention and come to class you\'ll be fine. I didn\'t buy the textbook cuz it was $80 which is ridiculous, and honestly you don\'t need it. I got the PDF of book from a classmate for second exam and just read it to supplement my knowledge, but don\'t buy book; see if someone will loan it to you.\n\r\nYou have to write a paper for almost every week but it\'s easy as cake. Then two different papers about either a ride-along or a court case, and that\'s all there is.\n\r\nGo to class-- he gives out "quizzes" that if you\'re there for he\'ll bump you up a letter grade if you\'re close at the end of the semester.\n\r\nI recommend this course and this prof.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T18:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': 'Coolest professor ever.\n\r\nYes, the lecture is long. No, it doesn\'t feel that way. Professor Hamill does an excellent job of keeping you engaged for the whole lecture period, and lets you get dinner about halfway through. He doesn\'t use powerpoints which I think is great, since it forces him to "illustrate" any topics in the course by telling us stories. He\'s a 28-year veteran of the Montgomery County Police, so he\'s definitely seen it all and then some. He\'s accommodating and genuinely seems to care about us.\n\r\nThe course isn\'t too hard. There are a few case briefs which are 5 points each and two independent studies. You can either do a police ride along, a court visit or a prison visit. You then write a paper talking about your experiences, 15 points each. Very easy 15 points. The exams were the only tough part of this class, largely because of the tricky wording the questions use sometimes. I loved taking this class and highly recommend it to anyone who\'s also taken CCJS100 and 105.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-01-27T17:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "Hamill is GREAT! I actually really look forward to this class every week. He always has great stories and the class is very interesting. Even though it's long, the time flies by and he gives you a 15 min break in the middle of every class. He's also very accommodating and does everything he can to help you. \n\r\nThe multiple choice tests are pretty easy and as long as you do the case briefs in the way they tell you, you'll get full credit.\n\r\nSeriously, this is my FAVORITE class I have taken so far at UMD and Professor Hamill is my favorite professor I've ever had.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-06T22:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "This class is really long but it's interesting.\n\r\nThere are case briefs that you have to do each week, which are kind of confusing, but the TA's say that as long as you format it correctly, do it on the right case, don't plagarize, and don't BS it, you'll get A's on them. You need the textbook to do them. \n\r\nThat being said, this class really depends on your TA. I had the good TA, who had everything graded the next week and kept our grades updated on a spreadsheet which she brought to class for us to look at, (although, there was never a page on blackboard where we could check our grade). The other TA graded harshly and was never there so people never knew their grades.\n\r\nExams are kind of hard; tricky. But Hamill is fair and gives a curve to each exam when he finds that he gave a question that not a lot of people got.\n\r\nWhile the class is long and at a late hour(nearly 3 hours!) Hamill tells us that we knew it would be long when we signed up for it. However, class rarely goes to the end, and he gives us a break in the middle to get dinner and we can eat in the classroom.\n\r\nHamill tells some interesting stories since he is a cop during the day, and exam questions are based off of his lectures and the reading that parallels his lectures. \n\r\nHe also gives you two independent study papers to write, and he gives you the time to do it, which is nice. I went to the courts and did a police ride along.\n\r\nTake CCJS with Hamill!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-06-21T19:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "Easy class. However, my TA never gave us any grades or went to class. I emailed her a lot this semester and she never even responded, so I still don't know how I even did on all the papers. Would be much better if it was on ELMS. Hamill is nice, but would be a lot better if he used a powerpoint or something.\n\r\nEveryone says it's an interesting class, but I thought it was really boring and too long without a powerpoint.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-20T15:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': 'Your grade depends on three 50 question multiple choice exams and weekly homework on either 1-2 case briefs, independent study of the criminal justice system (police ride-a-long, court visit, etc) or a paper on the significance of a case (as stated from other reviewers, you can miss two of the case briefs). Get homework format/requirements squared away immediately because the syllabus isn\'t as straightforward as it appears to be. Also, get your book early because homework is due the second week of class and it comes from cases in the book. Some exam material will be from the book as well, so read it. The majority of material comes from voice-based lectures - Hamill explicitly states what will appear on exams as he is lecturing. There may only be a few lectures worth of material on each exam (our final exam is based on three lectures) because class will invariably be disrupted from snow or some other incident. Also, there are two "study days" where class is cancelled, so there aren\'t many lectures to attend. It never runs the full three hours, plus you get a decent break in the middle. You have no excuse - go to lecture. \n\r\nThat being said, I genuinely wanted to attend class every week anyway. Hamill is the most entertaining professor I\'ve had here at UMD - expect to laugh. However, he does get quite a lot of information across effectively in few lectures. I highly recommend Hamill\'s section of CCJS230. \n\r\nImportant: keep track of your own grade because elms was not set up for this class (our semester anyway), and if you have any issues with your grade talk/email to the TA\'s or Hamill - they will do everything they can to get you the points. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-16T10:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "This is my favorite class. I love it. I actually look forward to going to it -- and I'm the kind of person that always skips class.\n\r\nTake it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-30T15:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "Easy A. informative. you learn all modern criminal law and the history behind it, but his exams aren't too hard. he gives examples to help you remember the laws. the briefs are easy points as long as you format them correctly and don't forget your UID, plus you get to miss 2.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-17T03:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "One of my favorite teachers by far! He has so many great stories to tell that all relate with what we're talking about. He doesn't preach from the textbook which is what I like, if I wanted someone to teach me my textbook that I'm fully capable of reading I'd take a different class. \r\nAlso, as an actual police officer he has real experience in the field, which is cool if that's something you are considering, or even simply considering law school. \n\r\nIf you have the choice between Hamill and anyone else, it's definitely worth your time to take Hamill's if you can. He's that much better. \n\r\nThere are case briefs due each week which he gives you an outline of how to do, and they aren't graded too hard, two independent study papers (write about a police ride-along, visit a correctional facility or sit-in on a court case) and then a couple exams and a final. \n\r\nThe class is almost 3 hours long but he gives a break in the middle, and it only meets once a week, which is definitely worth it. The time will fly listening to him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-04-12T13:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "Hamill is overrated. The class is 3 hours long and he spends way too much time telling stories. They can be interesting stories sometimes, but it's not interesting when you have to read the textbook since he couldn't fit all the material into lecture. Also, the TA's are undergrad students who are incompetent when it comes to reading and grading papers, so they give you any grade they feel like making up. Even Hamill said the case briefs are an easy 50 points, but the TA's give out low grades. It would have been helpful if we were actually taught how to properly write a case brief. It was just assumed that we knew how to write one.\n\r\nSome of the topics in the class were interesting, but sometimes the material was repetitive and so common sense that it seemed made up. Overall, the class wasn't that great. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-27T17:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "The professor is a currently-serving Law Enforcement Officer with amazing inter-personal and teaching skills.\n\r\nThe class is long and at a late hour, but for good reason. He is an actual cop with an actual job. He tells incredibly hilarious stories and relates much of his course work to his personal experience.\n\r\nTaking this class will allow you to appreciate Law Enforcement as people on an almost personal basis.\n\r\nIf you take notes on everything in class and attend his classes (why wouldn't you?!), then you WILL pass his class.\n\r\nYou learn A LOT and he makes it FUN. Not much else needed to say other than TAKE THIS CLASS RIGHT NOW!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-08-19T14:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "Great professor, very interesting class. Tells stories pretty much the entire time, and they really help you to remember the concepts when it comes time for the test. You don't need to read the book, but it definitely helps. Weekly case briefs are pretty easy and don't take too much time as long as you don't wait until an hour before class to start them. Great class, I really recommend it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-29T19:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': 'Lectures are long but he does a great job at keeping the class intrigued. Top 3 professors I have had no doubt. Assignments are easy to get done and lecture is easy to follow. Just take a power nap before every class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-14T05:51:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "Hamill is a very interesting dude, in a good way. Though the lectures are long (2.5 hours), he fills in the time with a combination of course material and cop stories. The class before an exam he'll give you strong hints as for what to expect on exams so be sure to pay attention. If you attend lecture, do the easy writing assignments, and study for exams you'll do just fine. Unless you have a crazy good memory, you should at least review your notes prior to taking the exams. The 4/5 stars comes from the numerous mistakes/typos on exams; it's as if he doesn't proof read the exam questions prior to assigning them. This isn't the biggest deal but it's just frustrating when it happen on all the exams. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-04T14:29:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "If you ever had to sign up for a 2 and a half hour course, this would be the one. Hamill is a police chief and a lawyer as well, so he knows what he's talking about. The exams are easy as long as you take notes in lecture and study. There are 4 papers but they're nothing to lose sleep over because the prompts for them are straightforward and they make up a very small part of the grade. Also, I had him online thanks to the covid pandemic and he would almost always let us out of the zoom meetings earlier than 2 and a half hours. He understands us students have 4 other classes and a life outside his class. I'm glad I signed up to take him. Definitely one of the best professors I've had in my college career. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-05T23:40:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hamill', 'course': 'CCJS230', 'review': "Hamill is a very cool professor and he keeps his lectures really interesting. It sucks have a 2.5 hr lecture but when he's teaching the time honestly flies and he usually lets class out a bit early. The assignments are pretty simple and the exams aren't really hard as long as you take notes. He doesn't teach off of any slides to make sure you're listening to what he says cause that where most of the information for exams will come from. Overall he's a really cool guy with a lot of interesting stories. It was definitely worth taking the longer class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-04T22:50:53.141876Z'}], 'name': 'Russell Hamill', 'slug': 'hamill'}, {'courses': ['MEES608L', 'MEES608B', 'MEES608B', 'MEES608B'], 'average_rating': 1.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Russell Hill', 'course': 'ENST417', 'review': "Worst professor I've ever had, he writes and writes and writes information that you all have to memorize for his exams. Anything is fair game. I almost filled an entire notebook of notes from his class. He's a really smart guy but It if you can avoid it, don't take one of his classes. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-29T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hill', 'course': 'ENST423', 'review': "It was not enjoyable taking classes with Dr. Robert Hill. \n\r\nI took Enst417 and Enst423 with him. 417 wasn't a bad class and Hill was much better in that course. But its still him writing on the board the entire class period with no online material to study from. \n\r\n423, on the other hand, was a terrible experience. He reads off lecture slides (half of which weren't his and clearly did not have students as the audience), assigns homeworks but never graded or returned them, was not helpful when questions were asked, etc. He even graded a test in a way that contradicted the lecture slides, and then tried to mock us saying someone must have passed out an incorrect key (and I'm pretty sure he didn't give any points back when someone pointed this out). The final exam was not very similar to the midterms and each of his tests managed to have material on it I had never seen, even though I never missed class and paid attention.\n\r\nYou'll have to work hard and deal with a difficult teacher to get a B in Hill's classes. I'd give him 3 stars for 417 and 1 star for 423. Avoid him if possible.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-07-06T19:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Russell Hill', 'course': 'ENST423', 'review': "Dr. Robert Hill is one of the worst professors at UMD. Every class is him basically reading off of lecture slides he didn't even make. He adds almost no insight; he just reads them.\n\r\nThe exams are difficult. They only require memorizing the slides, with no critical thinking/analysis whatsoever. Terrible professor, and I learned nothing.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-04-17T17:27:00Z'}], 'name': 'Russell Hill', 'slug': 'hill_russell'}, {'courses': ['EDSP487', 'EDSP687'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ruth Buchanan', 'slug': 'buchanan_ruth'}, {'courses': ['ENPM683', 'ENPM808Y'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ruth Doherty', 'slug': 'doherty_ruth'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL273', 'UNIV100', 'UNIV104', 'UNIV108'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ruth Morris', 'slug': 'morris_ruth'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101S', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL293', 'ENGL395', 'ENGL296'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ruth Osorio', 'slug': 'osorio_ruth'}, {'courses': ['WMST488B', 'WMST488C', 'WMST498I', 'WMST628', 'WMST379D', 'WMST698L', 'WMST709', 'USLT318D', 'WMST379A', 'WMST619', 'WMST379B', 'WMST368', 'WGSS368', 'WGSS368', 'WGSS488B', 'WMST698B', 'WGSS368', 'WGSS488B', 'WMST698B', 'WGSS368'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ruth Zambrana', 'course': 'WMST200', 'review': 'This class was one of the most horrible classes I have ever taken. I am counting the minutes until its over. \n\r\nThe amount of reading is unbelievable, and I had to put all of my other classes on the back burner just to keep up with the work.\n\r\nNot to mention the fact that the work consisted wholly of being unbelievably racist towards white people, demonizing any person who has money, and hating on the U.S.A. any chance they could get.\n\r\nThis class was horrible because of the amount of work, and that I had to read every single night about how I was the devil reincarnated. \n\r\nThis class literally taught how AIDS was created by white people for the sole purpose of eradicating blacks and furthering the white societal goal of genocide of minorities. Oh, and granting abortion rights to women also furthered the white goal of genocide. Essentially, every achievement made by women, such as granting abortion rights, was spit upon as racist against minorities.\n\r\nYou had to study an unbelievable amount of reading for each exam. The class had two exams, and two large papers.\n\r\nThis is not a bad review solely based off of my grade. I got an A. But my grade is rare.\n\r\n Alot of people failed the midterm for writing their own views. After the exam was graded the professor literally spent 10-15 minutes of class discussing how it is not possible to be racist towards whites. And that some people mentioned racism towards whites on the exam, and that this view is wrong - which ultimately contributed to them not receiving points. (I had the sense not to do that)\n\r\nI got an A because I wrote about how horrible white people are, how democracy is an illusion, and how I am actually unconsciously racist even if I don\'t realize it. Not to mention how America hates all minorities, and how all white people of european descent are actually satan and systematically oppress every type of person known to man through our "unearned status" based upon a highly flawed, and false system of meritocracy.\n\r\nEssentially, if you are willing to lie through your teeth, and hate on every aspect of America and yourself then take this class.\n\r\nI went into this class a democrat and a feminist. I came out a republican, and anti-feminist.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-30T15:14:00Z'}], 'name': 'Ruth Zambrana', 'slug': 'zambrana'}, {'courses': ['PSYC100', 'PSYC420', 'PSYC334', 'PSYC798B', 'HONR219E', 'PSYC221', 'PSYC221H', 'PSYC309I', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC468H'], 'average_rating': 4.1613, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "I took this class in fall 2014 and to this day it is still my favorite psychology class that I've taken and he is the best professor I've ever had. I never even minded going to 9:30am lectures because he kept the class so engaged and made the lectures enjoyable. I learned so much and while it is a lot of work, it is very do-able because he makes the information easy to learn and understand. The final group paper was extremely long but it wasn't even that bad. I 100% recommend this class or any opportunity to have Curtis as a professor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-09-23T02:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Terrible professor. His quizzes are completely unfair. He says that his quizzes are strictly for him to tell if you're doing the reading and he said the answers can be found DIRECTLY from the readings. The problem is that half of the answers don't come from the reading...and you have to guess....which isn't fair because it's not in the reading... and he is NOT responsive to emails at all so if you try to explain why a question wasn't fair, he doesn't respond back (not professional...). For the essays, the grading scheme is: A (100%), B- (82%)...you can't score anywhere between 100% and 82%..... like what??..So one content mistake or one grammar mistake will already drop you down to a B-....another mistake will drop you down to a C-. Therefore it's possible to fail every single essay. Not a fair professor at all. Honestly, I'm a senior neurobio major so I've had some pretty tough/hard/unfair profs (like for Orgo2, Mam Phys, BCHM)...but honestly, curtis is the worst prof i've ever had here at umd. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2015-06-29T23:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "This course's content and lecturer are fantastic. A lot of it is common sense, but a lot of the content will surprise you. I read every word of the text book--each study is cited. \n\r\nIf you want to learn a lot take this course.\n\r\nIf you want to get a grade that will reflect your effort, do not take this course. \n\r\nBecause I liked this course so much, I put in much more work than I usually put into a class. I met with the TA and professor several times throughout the semester, and went over each exam with Curtis after receiving my grade.\n\r\nYou are not tested on your knowledge of interpersonal relationships. You are tested on your ability to take their exam. \n\r\nEach exam question must be answered with the EXACT word choices the professor/TAs are looking for. TAs unfairly take away points on the short answers but Curtis will often give them back. \n\r\nThe group paper is graded the same way as the short answers. Good writing, strong support, and argument are not the grader's concern. \n\r\nGood luck!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-04-15T14:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "I actually took this class Fall 2013 but did not post a review then.\r\nDr. Curtis is by far my favorite professor at UMD. I loved going to lectures, both the lectures and the textbook were incredibly interesting. He used personal examples and anecdotes to explain points and did not just use his powerpoint, although the powerpoints were actually useful (unlike some teachers). He kept the class interesting every day and I did not even mind the amount of work required. My only complaint would be the speed of grading (slow) although I'm assuming that was the fault of the TA's, not him. Definitely take this class and take Curtis for another class if you have the chance! You won't regret it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-23T02:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Dr. Curtis is very knowledgable and a great lecturer. The class is a lot of work and some questions on the test are tricky, but if you put in the effort and complete all assignments you should easily get an A or B. There are clicker points each lecture so it's best to go to those. There's also MANY extra credit opportunities. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-03T12:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'Good lecturer, but this class is A LOT of work. You can not slack off. The every other week Blended Learning Assignments were graded hard: you can only get a A, C, D, F and you can not redo them. Discussion was a joke. Weekly 50 questions that are submitted on elems on Mondays and no redo. The book is online(he wrote the book) so make sure you read everything. Test are HARD. Good luck in the class! ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-12-20T23:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "NEVER TAKE PSYCH!!!\n\r\nIf you like clicker classes, tedious online weekly quizzes (which you will end up taking shortcuts on), obnoxious blended learning assignments, and pointless discussion (which you will skip)..... then take this class. Otherwise, if you're normal and don't want to pull your hair out, avoid it. NOTE: I'm not saying it is hard, it is just miserable. \n\r\nNow on Professor Curtis:\n\r\nHe's honestly one of the better teachers I had freshman year. He does a great job being prepared for class, he uses a variety of methods to convey the information, and he honestly loves the subject. I'm sure psych majors consider him incredible because he truly knows and loves his material. But, for the average Gen-ed satisfying student, he's just a pretty good teacher. \n\r\nHe is very clear about his expectations and will not budge for almost anything. Read and follow the syllabus, and you won't ever need to even speak to him. Also, he is very available to the students and makes it clear that he is available to help with anything class-related. \n\r\nHe's pretty funny, and even funnier when he gets pissed off about phones going off in class. (organize it one day to see; 4 rings going off should do the trick).\n\r\nOverall, nobody can claim he's a jerk or unreasonable. He's strict, honest, and professional. The comments about him being condescending are slightly true, but for the most part that's just people being knit picky .", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-12T04:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'I had Curtis for PSYC100. He was very knowledgeable of anything to do with psychology and the way he led class and taught the material made sure that I was able to retain and apply everything that we learned. While he was strict on deadlines and assignments, he was willing to do what he could to make sure you succeed. I would recommend for any psychology class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-08-22T15:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Really nice guy but i had a hard time with this class. Easy material but asks for a lot on tests. There was a lot of extra credit in the class especially toward the end. But the weekly blended learning assignments were graded very . poorly- you either got a A, C, or D which is unfair to me doesn't let you redo them either. overall this class has been annoying but it could definitely be worse.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-15T17:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "Curtis was a great professor in my opinion. He clearly articulated all of the points, carried a professional attitude but at the same time was friendly, and even had his wife come in to explain how he practices the methods taught in the course. The online quizzes took a little bit of time, but as long as you read the textbook you can find all of the answers, and he then goes over most of what's covered in class. Would highly recommend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-25T17:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "Hes a solid dude, and a really good teacher, but he gives a lot of work. Also he takes years to give grades back. It took over 3 weeks to get an exam back. Don't even get me started on grading essays. Put it this way, the semester is over and I have no idea what my grade is going to be because I havent gotten my grades back yet for 2 essays or my final exam, so basically half of my grade is missing and the semester ended yesterday", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '?', 'created': '2012-12-21T01:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC420', 'review': "I took Curtis for Interpersonal and loved him. I also took him for PSYC420 expecting him to be fun and everything, and found that he wasn't. However, if you're serious about Psychology and plan on going into social research, you aren't going to find a better professor to teach you the material. He's challenging, but he explains concepts very clearly and knows what he's talking about. I highly recommend him. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-19T04:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC420', 'review': "I had Curtis for both PSYC334 and PSYC420. When I signed up for 420, I intentionally chose Curtis because I LOVED him for interpersonal. He was funny, engaging, creative, and clearly passionate about the subject. \n\r\nUnfortunately, that did not translate into 420. He speaks really condescendingly to the class and has been far from friendly and approachable. I don't know what happened--it feels like it's not even the same guy. I would not take 420 with him--he's too much of a jerk.\n\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-03-12T23:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "The material for this class is soooo intersting. It's the first time I actually read a textbook cover to cover but that might partilly be due to the quizzes on each chapter. Curtis has an insane amount of work for this class that isn't really necessary at all. This is what he gives: online chapter quizzes due before lecture, wiki project(soo much work), goals reports, goals pre and post test papers, and exam review worksheet thingies. There are lots of opportunities and I suggest that u do all of them. The exams are half mult. choice and half short answer. The exams can be tricky but once you understand how he thinks they get easier. Curtis is an engaging professor he just does the most when it comes to work AND he takes forever and a day to post grades. We didn't get our grades until December. he gets very defensive when you ask him about psoting grades but other than that he's a good professor. IF YOU ARE LAZY THIS IS NOT THE CLASS FOR YOU", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-01T04:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Curtis as absolutely fabulous. Very funny in lecture and explains things clearly. He is accessible outside of class and is willing to clarify/answer if you have questions about subject matter. The only hard thing about the class is its size (PSYC 100). Grades don't tend to be posted on time, and the worksheets are real point-drainers/GPA killers. Wording in exams/worksheets is also not always completely clear. Curtis is a great lecturer, but the class itself doesn't measure up.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-26T19:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "TAKE HIM IF YOU HAVE THE CHANCE. Great lecturer / professor. He's hilarious, engaging, and exciting. This class is difficult - exams are tough, the wiki project takes forever, and he's a tough grader but he's an amazing professor and he's fair. This class is interesting in itself but Curtis makes it phenomenal. The textbook for the class is awesome, I decided not to sell it back I like it so much. TAKE THIS CLASS.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-07T09:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "I really wish there was a 4.5 option, because there is really only two complaints I have about this man. 1) Some of his exam questions are weirdly worded and vague. If you ask him to clarify what it is asking, he will smile at you and shrug his shoulders. 2) He takes FOREVER to post grades, probably the TA's fault, but it gets really annoying sometimes when you wait over 2 weeks for a grade.\r\nBut now for the positives. He is awesome! He is sweet, funny, charismatic, and approachable. I took him for 221 and loved him, so decided to take 334 just because of him. The workload is a lot, but manageable if you don't procrastinate. He uses clickers which are really neat for his classes because you can see how many people in your class are virgins and how many of them have cheated on their lovers. He has some weird quirks about him, like his obsession with corn dogs and Tina Turner, but that just makes him even more adorable. I highly recommend him for 221 and 334 if you are willing to put out some effort for a really rewarding class experience. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-25T00:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "I love Curtis, but what's love got to do with it? (if you take PSYC334 you'll understand) Curtis is easily the best professor I've had at Maryland! You can tell he really cares about his students. I wish every Psychology class (or class in general) at Maryland was taught by him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-14T12:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "I agree that Ryan is a good professor. The main problem that I had with him is that he takes a LONG time to post grades. When questioned about grades, he blames it on his TA's and has many excuses why things aren't done on time. Also, he assigns a lot of things throughout the semester, but they aren't impossible to complete. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-17T20:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "Easily the best class I have ever taken at UMD. He is a great professor and so engaging. You have to go to class because you get clicker points, but the exams are a joke and the assignments aren't graded harshly, so as long as you do your work and go to class you'll get an A. Class is so interesting and fun. There were so many times I left class smiling just because I enjoyed it so much. Definitely take Curtis!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-17T03:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "Ryan is a fabulous lecturer. The class was so interesting and he was very engaging. However, there are a lot of assignments in the class. The exams weren't too difficult but I ended up forgetting to do a lot of the smaller assignments which really hurt my grade. I still highly recommend this class but you should be willing to put in the work it deserves. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-16T22:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': 'Curtis is one of the best professor in UMD!!\r\nI enjoyed every single lecture and going to his lecture was never boring.\r\nThe course material is interesting and work load is very manageable. He made everything clear for each exam. You dont need to read the text book as long as you go to every lecture. His exams are relatively easy and straight forward. \r\nOverall, I strongly recommend to take this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-05T18:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': 'Ok. So I took this class because I hear it was great. Which it is. Most interesting class I\'ve taken so far at UMD. He is an amazing lecturer and he uses clickers which takes polls of everyone...so he asks questions like "who has had sex within the last ___" and all (it\'s anonymous, which he shows you before asking).\n\r\nBut the only problem is that there are these "prep" worksheets on each chapter before the lecture. They are only 3 points each, but it\'s easy to forget to do them. And the questions are tricky, and from a question bank so you can\'t do it with other people. \n\r\nSo you get 2 or 1.5/3 a lot, and it seems like no big deal but it adds up to a huge gap in your grade.\n\r\nAlso, there are goal reports and stuff for a goal in improving your relationship with someone. Cool concept, until the TAs grade your stuff and you see that you\'ve gotten 5/10. Very difficult to do well on those, and again it takes a lot of points away.\n\r\nThe exams are really easy, just read the text and highlight and you\'re fine. But again those goal reports/prep worksheets WILL fuck your grade up.\n\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-02T22:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': 'Easily my favorite class, just because of the subject matter.\n\r\nBut Ryan was great!\n\r\nHe keeps the lectures interactive (he takes clicker points everyday for attendance) and interesting.\n\r\nHe loves corn dogs, snickers, and whatchamacallits.\n\r\nTests are really not that difficult if you 1) go to class and 2) pay attention in lecture and review notes.\n\r\nThree writing assignments, slightly difficult, but not impossible. One group presentation related to the two papers you have to write, although the papers are individual assignments.\n\r\nWeekly multiple choice "worksheets" on Blackboard for each chapter that we focus on. Questions can be tricky.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-20T03:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "First of all, I want to say that, yes he is a great lecturer. He is very engaging and attentive to the students' questions. The assignments are fair, as long as you monitor your wiki group's progress. However, what I really did not enjoy in his class were his exams. Some of the questions he asked are very obscure and are just completely irrelevant. I've attended almost every single class, and read through the entire book line by line, and I still came across questions on the exams that addressed topics that were rarely mentioned. I wish he emphasized more on comprehension of the topics rather than just ask for minor and obscure details. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-06-23T20:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': 'Ryan Curtis is a pretty good instructor. The class material is very interesting, but I would not say the class is an easy A. It\'s definitely doable, but not a "ride in the park." There\'s a lot of work, but it\'s worth it because you learn so much in the process. Ryan gives 3 exams (MC and short answer), a wiki paper, online worksheets, relationships goals, and clicker points. There\'s also a chance to get up to 10 points (out of 500 points) of extra credit through SONA.\n\r\nI really enjoyed this class and I definitely recommend that all psych majors take it. Whether you want to become a therapist, or if you just want to improve your relationship with your friends and family, I would take this class! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-25T00:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': "Curtis is great. He was a good teacher, had very organized powerpoints covering textbook information each class, had interesting clicker questions that asked people about themselves (for attendance), and it was adorable how he talked about his wife and how she and his 2 sons came in the last day!\n\r\nThere is a Wiki project. Groups are encouraged and you have to write a 11 pg. paper on a topic of your choice (relating to relationships-- if it's a 2 person group it's 12 pages, 3 person group 13 pages, and so on. So it's not too bad if you make a 5 person group, 3 pgs, per person! \n\r\nThe textbook is also pretty interesting. I learned a lot from this class, stuff useful in everyday life. Take this class! I really enjoyed it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T05:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': 'Ryan Curtis is the man! If Maryland knew what was good for the psych department they would have him teach more classes. I know Professor Curtis from taking his class and working in an adjacent lab to him. He is a phenomenal teacher and really good person. I noticed a girl approach him prior to an exam with some sort of distressing situations and he responded with understanding.\n\r\nYou must read the book and go to class, but you want to go to class because the lectures are pretty fun and interesting.\n\r\nTake Ryan Curtis for anything, but especially PSYC334 if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-13T22:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC334', 'review': 'I have had Ryan for 2 classes and he is one of the best professors I have ever had. He passionately cares about the topic, and gives interesting lectures. The tests are easy if you study and even though he gives worksheets, they are quick and painless. Highly recommend him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-09T17:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC221', 'review': "Going into this class, I thought it would be pretty boring, and I thought that the teacher might not be able to handle the class, as he was just a grad student. However, Prof. Curtis rose to the occasion, and was a very impressive speaker. He gave very accurate, concrete examples of the material we were covering. He was easy to connect with, and approachable. He was knowledgeable and professional. An all-around nice guy. The workload was decent; three exams, weekly assignments that weren't too difficult as long as you had the textbook, and a group presentation. Also, discussion attendance is taken, and that is where the group presentations are done, so you should go. A good class, and fairly easy.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-08T16:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Curtis', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': "Great guy! Dr. Curtis really knows his stuff and is very helpful in office hours if you're struggling with a concept. People really hate the class because they think it's a weed out course, but you'll do fine if you just do the work. The weekly worksheets are long and a pain, but all the answers are in the reading and help you study while you read. They can also be found online easily. There are 6 writing assignments, but again just answer the questions directly and without fluff and you'll be fine. Plus you can go to any of the TA office hours and they'll read over your papers before you turn them in. The exams can get you because they're multiple choice so you either know it or you don't but if you do all the work assigned it generally helps you study. Not a lot of extra credit. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-03-20T19:04:48Z'}], 'name': 'Ryan Curtis', 'slug': 'curtis'}, {'courses': ['BUFN750', 'BUFN758V', 'BUFN758W', 'BMGT343', 'BUFN760', 'BUSI758T', 'BUSI743', 'BUSM758S'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ryan Guttridge', 'course': 'BMGT343', 'review': "Bad professor. Half of what he talks about during lecture is irrelevant to the course curriculum and your homework and your exams. Difficult to do homeworks well without Chegg. If you get in a bad group for any one of the three randomly assigned group projects where nobody besides you does work then good luck because he won't help at all.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-18T02:31:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Guttridge', 'course': 'BMGT343', 'review': "I really enjoyed Professor Guttridge's classes. He is an experienced asset manager and you can tell he brings a real-world perspective to his lecture topics. The only negative I can think of is that his lectures don't have much interaction and engagement, but other than that the group projects were extremely relevant to a job in investment banking or asset management. Homework isn't crazy hard. Definitely utilize the TA office hours. Tests are pretty straightforward if you study the questions he gives you.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-11-09T21:44:35Z'}], 'name': 'Ryan Guttridge', 'slug': 'guttridge'}, {'courses': ['MATH111', 'MATH113', 'MATH241'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ryan Kirk', 'slug': 'kirk'}, {'courses': ['SPAN363', 'SPAN798E', 'SPAN408E', 'SPAN408T', 'SPAN408C', 'SPAN798K', 'SPAN303', 'FREN699T', 'GERM689T', 'SPAN798I', 'SPAN798U', 'SPAN798R', 'SPAN408G', 'SPAN361', 'SPAN899', 'SPAN798W', 'SPAN408Q', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN798A', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN362', 'SPAN442', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN798G'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ryan Long', 'course': 'SPAN303', 'review': 'Professor Long is an extremely caring person. He treats his students with a great amount of respect and patience. He is flexible with due dates (to a certain extent) and always provides constructive criticism when necessary. You can really tell he cares about teaching and providing an open space for discussion in class. If you do the homeworks and participate in class, it will be extremely difficult to fail. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-21T04:50:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Long', 'course': None, 'review': "I took Ryan for SPAN408Q and he is the best. He keeps class interesting and has a lot of stuff mixed in that is also in English which is pretty cool. He is really responsive to students needs and was so helpful with me this semester (I missed a lot of class time). He even gave a week extension on a paper for me. He is a great grader and cares about his students. Readings can be long but the class discussion is always really good so you can catch up if you didn't read it all. He is one of the best professors I've had in the Spanish program.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-12T20:36:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Long', 'course': 'SPAN363', 'review': 'Long is so caring, knowledgeable, and lenient with grading. All the good qualities make him one of the best professors in the Spanish department. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-18T05:08:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Long', 'course': 'SPAN408Q', 'review': "Ryan is one of the few professors on this campus who truly cares about you as a person. He is extremely sweet and doesn't want to give you a hard time. He will readily give extensions on assignments. As long as you actually do the readings, you'll be fine on the exams. That being said, be prepared to read 50-100+ pages a night. We had seven novels.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-02T05:41:14Z'}], 'name': 'Ryan Long', 'slug': 'long_ryan'}]
[{'courses': ['BSCI410', 'BCHM463', 'BCHM463'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ryan Marcheschi', 'slug': 'marcheschi'}, {'courses': ['CLAS170', 'RELS170'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ryan Moore', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': 'This is the best professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-09T01:59:32Z'}], 'name': 'Ryan Moore', 'slug': 'moore_ryan'}, {'courses': ['PHIL100', 'PHIL408F', 'PHIL408X', 'PHIL309J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ryan Ogilvie', 'slug': 'ogilvie'}, {'courses': ['ENME416', 'ENME744', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS497', 'ENME472', 'ENME416', 'ENME744', 'ENME416', 'ENME744', 'ENME416', 'ENME744', 'ENME416', 'ENME744'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ryan Sochol', 'course': 'ENME416', 'review': 'I loved this class. The projects are quite fun if you have a decent group and the overall workload is not bad at all. The grade scale is curved very heavily because Sochol has very high expectations so expect somewhwere in the 60-70 range to end up being an A. The exams are really tough but open note. Dr. Sochol can be odd sometimes with his expectations, but the course is great for those considering grad school.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-02T01:37:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Ryan Sochol', 'course': 'ENME416', 'review': "No homework in the class which is nice but workload ends up piling up near deadlines for the first 2 projects you'll be completing. After first project presentations were done, we had only 4-5 days to get the second project fully completed as well which was pretty stressful, but other than that, Dr. Sochol's exams were fair (considering that he curves pretty heavily) and the class was pretty enjoyable as well. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-02T00:43:06Z'}], 'name': 'Ryan Sochol', 'slug': 'sochol'}, {'courses': ['HIST235', 'HIST430', 'HIST408G', 'HIST234', 'HIST431', 'HIST215', 'HIST332', 'HIST333', 'HIST219P', 'HIST408P', 'RELS342', 'WMST298C', 'HIST428O', 'HIST215', 'HIST234', 'HIST235', 'HIST319E', 'HIST215', 'HIST234'], 'average_rating': 4.2667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST431', 'review': "Dr. Baron is simply amazing. Her teaching style is somewhat old school, lecture-based with room for questions. Just the way this sort of history should be taught. If you're not a fan of lectures, don't dispair. Because she has such a comprehensive understanding of the material, class is both engaging and (quite often) amusing. She's not the world's fastest grader, a fact which she herself admits, but she's very fair. She's also flexible with students regarding paper deadlines, exam dates, etc. If you're looking for a solid history class that will provide you with a wealth of knowledge and is taught by a genuinely wonderful person, take as many classes with Dr. Baron as possible.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-06T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST235', 'review': "She is an interesting teacher and is really nice. You get two five page essay assignments and two exams. The essays are analytical reviews on a primary and a secondary source. Take these paper to the writing center because she doesn't like grammatical errors. \n\r\nHer tests are kind of hard because she picks random 25 words and you have to write why they are important in historical times or something like that. She wasn't really specific on what she wanted on the test, so a lot of people didn't do so well. But she gave us a generous curve. She is really a slow grader, she went over our midterm on the last class. \n\r\nAlso, you have to go to class, take notes, and talk in class to get a good participation grade. Her power points are only pictures and your notes are based on what she says.\n\r\nThis class was really interesting, so I would recommend it to people who likes this kind of history.\n\n\n\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-05T18:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Baron knows a lot about the course subject, which is great. However, her class style is a bit annoying. It is very straightforward yet not very focused on techniques to improve your grade. For example, I attended every single lecture yet still ended up with a B in the class despite getting an A on the midterm. I had a 4.0, so this was very frustrating. We had to write two 5 page papers during the semester, but I only know my grade on one. She does not utilize Blackboard and takes forever to grade. \n\r\nAll in all, take this class if you are really interested in the subject and you don't mind getting a B. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-23T11:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': None, 'review': "She takes herself too seriously. I mean, this is a boring, idiotic, useless class, and she has to make it seem as though it actually makes some difference to students. It doesn't. \n\r\nShe's a nice woman and I'm sure she's a decent history teacher from all I heard about her. But for UNIV101, just like any other teacher, she's a 3. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T23:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': None, 'review': 'I really like this class and professor. She is very understanding and down to earth, and she also really knows her stuff. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-12T20:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST235', 'review': "Take this class! The only downside is that it takes awhile for her to get grades back on assignments but she is a very good professor and her lectures are interesting. She spends every class lecturing so make sure you take good notes. If you can't write fast, I recommend bringing a lap top. As long as you go to every class and take notes, you don't need to read. I wouldn't even buy the books unless you want to read them for yourself. She goes over all of the material in class that you need to know. Her exams are ID questions so they really aren't very challenging and she doesn't try to trick you. She is also very helpful in office hours so I recommend taking advantage of that too. This is one of the best classes I have taken at UMD and I recommend it to everyone. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-27T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': None, 'review': "Really good professor...thoroughly enjoyed the class. There is a somewhat large amount of reading but the grading isn't too bad. Overall good choice for a honors seminar. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T14:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': None, 'review': "Outstanding professor. I generally do not like history, but this professor has made it very easy interesting and easy to understand. Extremely knowledgeable, and any questions you ask in class that she does not have an answer for she will look up right then and there. Great sense of humor and extremely understanding of your schedule (will make adjustments to deadlines as needed). Fairly easy assignments, and is a just grader.\n\r\nShe assigns a lot of reading for this class, but if you don't have time to do it, you can still succeed by attending lectures and taking succinct notes.\n\r\nBest history teacher I have ever had by far, and a very interesting and good-hearted person.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-08T19:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST235', 'review': "Excellent professor. She lectures the entire class but does so in an interesting way, and her lectures are so comprehensive that if you take good notes you don't really have to read all of the assigned readings. BUT, it is imperative that you attend pretty much every class to get these notes, and attendance factors into your grade (she takes attendance at the beginning of each classs). I only skimmed the books before tests to find any information I was missing from my notes. The class has two papers, and a mid term and final. The final is not cummulative. Overall the class is interesting and mananagable. Not a super easy A but if you put in the effort you can definitely do well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-21T10:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST430', 'review': 'A very smart and fair professor. You should attend lecture and you should be fine on tests. You have to write a 15-page paper, but you have all semester to do it. I strongly recommend Professor Baron to all history majors.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-06-17T23:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST235', 'review': 'She is a wealth of knowledge and really interesting. Her lectures are formatted as kind of a story and she tells the history that way, which was really helpful. Great class and professor for someone who is not very into history, because she makes you become into it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-15T13:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST234', 'review': 'She is nice. However, she doesn’t get back to you within a timely manner, and has ignored many of my emails. You won’t know your grade the entire semester because she simply did not put grades in. Lectures are lengthy and reading was a lot. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-19T16:24:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST235', 'review': "Dr. Baron is a very nice lady and a great professor. The only complaint I have about her is that she is very anti-technology, so all notes have to be handwritten. She also doesn't put any words on her lecture slides, so you have to listen very carefully to get all of the information. She is very passionate about the subject and grades fairly.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T22:12:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST234', 'review': "Very interesting lectures and a relatively easy grader. My only complaints were her tending to not include names (etc.) in lecture slides, taking well past the drop period to enter in any grades, and not having (from what I could find) a syllabus posted. You have to attend lecture and take hand written notes. I didn't find it necessary to do any of the reading.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-23T06:12:34.785249Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Baron', 'course': 'HIST215', 'review': "HIST215 was a very interesting course and Professor Baron is very knowledgable. There were 3 assignments the entire semester and a take-home final. You do have to attend lectures and take notes, because not much more than pictures is on her powerpoints so you have to write down what she is saying. Your notes will definitely help you on the final. If you attend her lectures then the reading assignments aren't necessary. My only problem with her throughout the semester was how long she took to grade and respond to emails (she graded one of my assignments that was due in late September in December).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-13T04:50:34.417966Z'}], 'name': 'Sabrina Baron', 'slug': 'baron'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL272', 'ENGL271', 'ARHU309', 'UNIV104', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL469G', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL352', 'ENGL498'], 'average_rating': 3.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sabrina Islam', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Nice and lenient but a bit of a harsh grader in my opinion. Maybe writing just isn't for me though. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-14T02:37:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Islam', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': "I BSed most of my writing and it was a pretty easy class. She isn't very authoritative and you can literally just not participate in any discussions in Zoom and still get by. Don't think I would have learned much anyways (?) ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-09T20:40:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Islam', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Sabrina Islam is fine. It's an English class, so the professor doesn't really matter much. I skipped probably about half the lectures, and I'm still doing fine. If you can write decent papers, this class is easy. If you struggle with writing, then you might have some trouble.\r\n\r\nMy biggest complaint is that it takes forever for her to grade papers. Some of the assignment descriptions are kind of hard to get the hang of (maybe I should've gone to class more), so it was hard to tell sometimes if I was really writing about what the paper was supposed to be about. Since it took so long for the grades to come back, it kind of left me in suspense for a long time. Oh well, the grading itself is pretty lenient, or at least I think it was.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-15T16:36:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Islam', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Very kind and clearly passionate about English. Didn't do a great job making the class engaging in the online platform, but would take professional writing with her again if given the opportunity. I always felt encouraged and never walked away from a grade without great and constructive feedback.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-26T01:22:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Islam', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Really nice as a person, not that great of a grader a little too harsh. The classes don't really help just look at the assignment details and you should be fine. if you can't turn in on time shes really nice about it but I would let her know before", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-13T02:28:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Islam', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'She really loves to get to know her students, however, can be harsh in grading compared to when talking to her in class. She takes quite a while to grade anything, as it is coming to the end of the semester with 2 major assignments still not graded. I would take it with her again, but note that you need to put a lot of effort into the papers. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T15:47:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Islam', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Professor Islam is a very sweet person and is really passionate about English. Although the classes can get really boring from time to time as we do a lot of textbook reading and brief discussions, the assignments are 100% manageable. There are no tests or quizzes, or reading assigned for homework, but there are a few major writing assignments and one final writing assignment (8 pages) due at the end of the semester (this is technically the final). She gives a lot of time for all her assignments and is lenient with deadlines and extensions, and all the smaller assignments are graded by the TA (you'll almost always get a 100 on them if you do them), and the bigger assignments are graded by the professor. Also, she gives a lot of in-class time to work on assignments due that night or the following morning. The only reason why I rated her 4 stars is because she takes SO LONG to grade and also because the majority of the writing assignments are pretty boring. Aside from those things, I think she's a great teacher, this was a very easy class, and you should take Professor Islam!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-15T06:11:48.998396Z'}, {'professor': 'Sabrina Islam', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Professor Islam is so kind and easy to talk to. The course itself is a bit boring with classes mostly consisting of reading the textbook and peer reviews. Honestly, I missed most of the classes by the end of the semester. There are a few major assignments with drafts required so it's easy to manage your time around them (i'm usually a horrible procrastinator with essays). Islam is a bit slow with grading, as the semester ended last week and I'm still not sure what my grade will come out to be.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-22T15:33:58.676462Z'}], 'name': 'Sabrina Islam', 'slug': 'islam'}, {'courses': ['HLTH471', 'WMST471'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sabrina Matoff-Stepp', 'slug': 'matoff-stepp'}, {'courses': ['MIEH770', 'MIEH600', 'MIEH330', 'MIEH331', 'MIEH300', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH780', 'MIEH785', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH609', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'SPHL610', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH730', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH330', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH778', 'MIEH786', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'EPIB399', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786', 'MIEH788', 'MIEH898', 'MIEH899', 'MIEH309', 'MIEH609', 'MIEH786'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sacoby Wilson', 'course': 'MIEH300', 'review': 'He flies though all topics except environmental justice/ environmental racism. Has a lot of guest lectures because he can’t adequately teach the material. Tons of busy work, homework, weekly journal entries from Toms River, reads directly from slide, has word minimums on every assignment. Final exam and final paper that is 5-8 pages.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2017-11-20T16:13:10Z'}], 'name': 'Sacoby Wilson', 'slug': 'wilson_sacoby'}, {'courses': ['BMGT367', 'BMGT367'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sadie Edmonds', 'slug': 'edmonds_sadie'}, {'courses': ['ECON325', 'ECON602', 'ECON702', 'ECON630', 'ECON701', 'ECON402', 'ECON808', 'ECON709', 'ECON808', 'ECON402', 'ECON630', 'ECON808', 'ECON602', 'ECON808'], 'average_rating': 2.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sadik Aruoba', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': "Aruoba is clearly knowledable about the topic that he's teaching, but makes the class kind of difficult. Problem sets aren't really a problem, they're pretty easy, and very doable. It's the tests where he really gets you.\n\r\nThe class requires a little bit more math and optimization than a lot of people in ECON are comfortable with, so that's something to watch out for. If you understand the math, you'll probably be fine. I had a 75% average in exams for the semester, and that ended up being an A+. His grading policy is set up so that an average student will come out with a B.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-11-13T13:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sadik Aruoba', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': "Profesor Aruoba is not an easy Professor by any means. He will make you work for your grade. That said, he curves and the average student walks away with a B. The average on midterm one was 38, on midterm two 36 and the final around a 50 so you can see how large the curve is. He is approachable during office hours and will answer any questions you may have. Problem sets took time but were graded loosely. Exams were difficult. You really need to know your stuff or you will get steamrolled. I also found his exams to be too long for the amount of time we had. \n\r\nGood professor overall. Very knowledgeable and brings current real world economic events into the classroom. Discussion sections are mandatory but I found them very useful. I just didn't like the fact that we had several discussions that were actual lectures taught by the TA's. \n\r\nIn a nutshell: tough professor, tough exams, lots of optimization functions, lots of reading plus required articles that the professor provides, very challenging exams and problem sets. Hopefully you will learn. \n\r\nThe kid that posted a review below and said this class was easy is either a genius or the professor's teaching style has changed dramatically since then.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-02-24T03:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sadik Aruoba', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': "He basically lectures off of his slides and base his exams on the slides/previous exams. You don't really have to read the book. His lectures are extremely boring and makes discussion sections mandatory. Participation and 5 problem sets counts as 15% of your grade. The problem sets were difficult but as long as you put a decent amount of effort in it, you will receive full credit. The first exam that we had was extremely unfair because he barely went over the materials so the class average was a 36%..After the first exam, he wrote the next exam and the final similar to exams from previous years...but nonetheless, they were still difficult. As a result, the averages for the second exam was a 56 and the final was a 52. The best part about his grading policy is that if you score around average, you will get a B. If you score above average, you will push your grade up to an A-. That was what happened to me...i got a 47, 70, and 63 for all the exams and received perfect scores on all of my problem sets..I ended up with an A-. His curve is HUGE! If you can put up with his boring lectures and challenging exams, you should consider taking this class.\n\n\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-23T11:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sadik Aruoba', 'course': 'ECON325', 'review': "Class was really easy. You could probably not go to a single class and get an A if you understand the models. Lectures can be sleepy at times, but Aruoba really does know what he's talking about.\n\r\nHomework sets optional and generally easy.\n\r\nCourse requires some basic algebra and partial differentiation - we used the same math for each derivation but some people still didn't get it, which really hurt their test scores. If you get the math, you should get an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-12-29T17:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sadik Aruoba', 'course': 'ECON402', 'review': "Currently taking this class... midterm is about to happen, and I can't say I've understood a single thing the professor has said all semester, and every person at my table in class is in the same boat. If you don't already have EXTENSIVE knowledge of statistics, you will be lost for legitimately the entire class, every single week. My only saving grace for passing this class is going to office hours. Regardless I'm still going to fail this midterm, hopefully with the rest of the class so I'll at least be close to the average... just praying that I'll do well enough on the final project to pass. I hate this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-25T18:52:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Sadik Aruoba', 'course': 'ECON402', 'review': "His lectures were complex and hard to understand, especially if you only have a basic knowledge of statistics (like from AP stat or business statistics, etc). When students asked questions to clarify, he was not helpful for answering them. The average on the midterm was a 60 and he said that was pretty good/normal. The only good things were the way he designed the class to have no final exam, just a project, and to drop the lowest problem set grade. Additionally, he gave a pretty good curve at the end of the semester, but he wasn't clear about it beforehand so it kinda felt like we were in the dark the whole semester. Everyone in the class seemed to be confused and had to ask the TA for help. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-24T20:40:17Z'}], 'name': 'Sadik Aruoba', 'slug': 'aruoba'}, {'courses': ['COMM715', 'COMM738G', 'COMM350', 'COMM468A', 'COMM498W', 'HDCC208K', 'HDCC106', 'COMM201', 'ARHU158L', 'HONR269C', 'HHUM205', 'COMM340', 'COMM468M', 'COMM305', 'COMM305', 'COMM738C', 'WMST698C', 'COMM305', 'COMM370', 'COMM738C', 'WMST698C', 'COMM370', 'COMM305', 'COMM370', 'COMM399', 'COMM399', 'COMM714'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sahar Khamis', 'slug': 'khamis'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL390'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sajeela Yaqub', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'I had her for the online section for ENGL393 for abroad engineering students. Her section had way more work than the other sections.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-04-08T00:23:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Sajeela Yaqub', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Do not take her. Horrible at teaching and her online instructions are not clear. Too much work for 3 credits class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-24T15:19:20.465040Z'}], 'name': 'Sajeela Yaqub', 'slug': 'yaqub'}, {'courses': ['FMSC477', 'FMSC698F', 'FMSC879', 'FMSC730'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sally Koblinsky', 'slug': 'koblinsky'}, {'courses': ['CCJS418K', 'CCJS663', 'CCJS660', 'CCJS105', 'CCJS498C', 'CCJS699P', 'CCJS699', 'CCJS663', 'CCJS699'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sally Simpson', 'course': 'CCJS105', 'review': 'Very nice teacher. However her lectures are sometimes pointless. After the second week I stopped attending lectures because she rambled about everything that was in the book. You can easily pass the class without attending class. My TA was also very helpful too. She also gives a ten point extra credit at the end of the semester and grades have a slight curve. I would definitely recommend taking her. Very important hint: MAKE SURE YOU READ!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-10T14:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sally Simpson', 'course': 'CCJS105', 'review': 'Do not take a class that Professor Simpson is teaching. She is a horrible professor, focuses mainly on statistics that will never be on the exam, and has the nerve to call herself a "good teacher." Unless you are planning on coming to class EVERY day, taking tedious notes, and memorizing pretty much EVERY chapter, do not take this class. \n\r\nShe doesn\'t teach anything about the class and does not pass out review sheets; on top of this, she does not curve exams and gives out a measly 10-point extra credit assignment. Terrible class! ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-03-27T23:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sally Simpson', 'course': 'CCJS105', 'review': "Probably the absolute worst professor here at UMCP. This clown couldn't teach if her life depended on it. Made me memorize all this stuff for the final, then tries to trick you with true or false questions. Trickiest T/F in the game! fact. terrible. TA was garbage too, and graded like it was a 600 level class. unreal man", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-11-10T22:08:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sally Simpson', 'slug': 'simpson_sally'}, {'courses': ['GVPT479M', 'GVPT475', 'GVPT474', 'GVPT432', 'GVPT473', 'GVPT331', 'GVPT423', 'GVPT439W', 'CCJS498Y'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Samantha Davis', 'slug': 'davis_samantha'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Samantha Gendler', 'slug': 'gendler'}, {'courses': ['BSOS388F', 'BSOS388X', 'GVPT388B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': "Samantha O'Neil", 'slug': "o'neil_samantha"}, {'courses': ['HESP706', 'HESP630', 'HESP411', 'HESP710', 'HESP859', 'HESP704', 'EXST030', 'HESP635', 'HESP706', 'HESP704', 'HESP859', 'HESP859', 'HESP630'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Samira Anderson', 'course': 'HESP411', 'review': "I loved this course and Dr. Anderson, it was really a pleasure coming to class and learning from her. Course materials were always fantastic. Worksheets are great and cover all necessary information (and it was great to do them in breakout rooms and get help when necessary from TAs and Dr. Anderson). The Kahoots are fun in class and a great way to study, and I liked how the lectures were synchronous and recorded. Sometimes I couldn't make class (or was just burnt out) and having the recorded was great, but the synchronous lecture is good for being involved and invested in the class. Quizzes are straightforward and helpful for general knowledge and for the exams. Exams are very fair. \r\n\r\nShe was very accessible during office hours and very sweet, I'd recommend her any day. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-08T22:32:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Samira Anderson', 'course': 'HESP411', 'review': 'Anderson is so sweet and the course was very interesting. All of the lectures and homework aligned with the quizzes and exams nicely. All information was easily accessible, no textbook required. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-19T16:17:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Samira Anderson', 'course': 'HESP411', 'review': 'One of the nicest professors you will encounter. Her quizzes and hw all alligned with the lectures. She made herself readily available, and was very understanding when an emergency came up. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-21T19:04:37Z'}], 'name': 'Samira Anderson', 'slug': 'anderson_samira'}, {'courses': ['CMSC818C', 'CMSC417', 'CMSC711', 'CMSC818Y', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC818X', 'CMSC216H', 'CMSC417', 'CMSC711', 'CMSC417'], 'average_rating': 3.1538, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': "Bobby is a very good professor. He is also one of the smartest people at UMD. He's very intimidating at first but if you get to know him you'll realize he's a really nice guy. I think he did a good job teaching this class; needless to say, this was a very challenging course (more so than 412 in my opinion). \n\r\nThis class is conceptually simple, but the devil truly is in the details. Understanding how packets are routed through the internet is not a trivial matter. This requires understanding link-layer switching, and network-layer routing. I think Bobby did a rather crappy job explaining the link-layer. In particular, he failed to articulate the difference between forwarding and routing (which is HUGE). This certainly led to a lot of confusion.\n\r\nEither way, take this course with either Bobby or Neil Spring. Enough said.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-12T03:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': "The review from 2013 is really not telling at all. I had to drop this class because the median of the first test was like a 50. I have a pretty decent GPA (3.6), but this teacher's workload is IMPOSSIBLE to manage unless you purposely make your other courses really light.\r\n\r\nI had to drop and take the W for the sake of my other classes. Don't believe me? There are currently 15/40 spots open in the class after people dropping, and his average is about a 2.6 based off past years. Basically only take this class if you consider yourself extremely smart, and every other class has been easy for you.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2017-12-13T21:34:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC414', 'review': 'One of the co-teachers for 414. Dude knows what he is talking about, but is a bit of a douche to students in class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-06-11T17:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': "Really knows the course material, and much more. Course was unnaturally hard compared to other CMSC courses I've taken. Really tough.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-22T21:27:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': "Please do yourself a favor and take any other professor for this course if you can. Don't get me wrong, he's an incredibly smart professor, but he is just incredibly mean and his courseload is suffocating.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-09T22:59:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': 'If I could rate 0 stars, I would.\r\n\r\nHe\'s definitely an entertaining and exceptionally intelligent professor, he\'d be cool to have lunch with, TA for or do research under - but all that aside, he is a TERRIBLE instructor and should be avoided at all costs.\r\n\r\nThroughout the semester he has been very passive aggressive & sometimes just flat out mean with his responses to other students in class, on Piazza, and answering student questions on zoom, claiming that his goal is for us to "learn", and yet he refuses to straight up give an answer to a homework/exam question a student asks without making the student look like an idiot for not knowing first. \r\n\r\nAn example of his unpleasant demeanor: on the first day of class he literally said "I do not expect you to come to class" yet time and time again he expresses passive aggressive frustration with those who do not attend class or office hours.\r\n\r\nTo make matters worse, for some reason he REFUSES to upload recordings of lectures, nor any coherent powerpoint slides (instead he uploads drawings and scribbles he does during lecture that only someone who went to lecture would really understand) - either forcing students to join the Zoom call live or show up to class to stay on top of the material. This is the first course I have taken at UMD that does not provide at least some form of slides or an outline on the material covered in class. The problem with this practice is that his exams, while open note, are 100% based on content he covers in class so if you miss class and office hours & do not take detailed notes in class you\'re basically screwed.\r\n\r\nWhile all my other professors have been uploading recordings of their lectures, Bobby refuses. He will likely claim that because people joining on Zoom do not give their express consent to be recorded he won\'t do it or something to that effect, but if he actually cared he would use Panopto or some other solution.\r\n\r\nComing back to in person after 3 semesters of remote learning is tough, and since I am still used to asynchronous learning it has been a particular struggle for me to stay on top of projects and study for exams in this course.\r\n\r\nTLDR: Bobby\'s attitude and expectations for the course leave a lot to be desired, and his teaching skills are not that of a professor who should be making a $200,000/year+ salary (which is likely due to his research and tenure at the university but still). He should stick to research or graduate level courses but for the good of future CS undergraduate students, he should NOT BE TEACHING UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL COURSES.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-11-11T23:40:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': 'Taking 417 with Bobby is the Dark Souls of CMSC\r\n\r\nYou know what you\'re getting into if you take this course\r\n\r\nBobby is a great lecturer, the only thing I think he could improve on is recording his lectures so that you can go back to watch them later.\r\n\r\nThe programming projects are intense and will consume all your time. I agree with Bobby\'s methodologies for choosing C over other languages for the projects. I wish that we had fewer projects and more time to work on them, as they would often be a matter of "write until time is over" instead of "write until your project is working/complete". I think I would have learned more if I had the time to actually focus on getting some of the implementations working instead of having to move onto the next project.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-18T20:09:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': "Was my favorite class at UMD, really learned a lot about not just Networks, but about low level programming in general. \r\n\r\nThat said, other reviews about Bobby is fair. He's been in the field so long (he once told us in class that he's seen networks composed of single copper wire that people poke in needles to connect to, which is at least before 1985) that he kind of lost touch with what students already know/not know. \r\n\r\nI enjoyed the lectures (he's a pretty funny person). I learned a lot from projects too, despite it being very time consuming and often very underspecified. (There are no public tests to test the output formats against)\r\n\r\nI do really recommend this class with Bobby, but only if you you have some previous knowledge in computer networking and/or have strong C/C++ programming skills. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-20T21:23:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': 'Although I have a W, I have decided to audit this class and do the projects at my own pace. I was struggling with finding a job and made the mistake of taking another extremely programming-heavy course and I wasn\'t confident enough in C to finish the projects without error. I hope whoever reads these reviews knows that the 5-star reviews are not given by "normal" people. They\'re either really good at C, very passionate about networking, or just don\'t care about red flags. These are people who are not bothered by Bobby\'s demeanor or attitude and fail to realize that although they had a good experience, there are many people in the class who don\'t. \r\n\r\nI want to give a rather detailed review. I think Bobby\'s teaching philosophy can be somewhat debatable, so I\'ll mention what can be done better: [-]: negative or can be improved upon. [?] Depends on your perspective. [+] Undisputable good quality\r\n\r\n[-] Not recording lectures or office hours: I think the whole idea behind this is that when people know a lecture is being recorded, they stop attending class. Although this is true, we have to see if this is a good thing or a bad thing for the students. It might be demoralizing for the professor since he might not be able to interact with a class and you could argue this is bad for the students since some students are lazy and fall behind schedule because "everything is recorded". So let\'s analyze this in detail: [+] Bobby provides OH "relectures" for people who missed the class. [-] Bobby does not record OH even if people have other classes during the time of OH and sometimes refuses to discuss what was mentioned in detail because he "discussed it many times in OH". [-] Some students like me usually will rewatch lectures to fill in missing gaps in our knowledge, not having lectures recorded means we have to go on Piazza but given the next bullet points this isn\'t so "smooth". Overall, I think if Bobby wants people to attend lectures, he should find a way to take attendance and leverage it in part with the participation grade. \r\n\r\n[-] Being demeaning to the students: This is an area Bobby needs to work on for sure. You can\'t go out there and call people stupid or get annoyed when people can\'t grasp concepts easily. I\'ve seen instances where he literally said "this is a stupid question" even when the question was somewhat relevant. Maybe this might be why he doesn\'t record.......\r\n\r\n[?] Not giving previous exam solutions: This is probably a blessing in disguise. You are forced to learn where and how to find the information you need instead of having them given to you and just learning through pattern matching. I think this is a good thing but you can easily argue this is a bad thing.\r\n\r\n[?] Projects take up too much time: The tradeoff is that the projects are cool and useful on your CV. If you take this class, you should be informed that it is hard and a lot of work. Don\'t make the mistake of taking this with other hard classes.\r\n\r\n[+] Great Lecturer: Bobby can explain concepts well and you get engaged rather easily\r\n\r\nOverall, Bobby is your stereotypical grandiose narcissist who has a valid reason to be narcissistic. I rate him 3 stars because I feel like Bobby is an amazing lecturer but the 2 [-] are what makes him rather unpleasant. I have a feeling that even if he is given similar feedback from other students, he might not listen to them and continue with his current ways.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-11-19T21:09:59.646751Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': "Best CS course I've taken in terms of knowledge learned.\r\n\r\nIt's true this class is hard, and it will probably hurt your GPA. But once you overcome the class you become a much better programmer. \r\nI also enjoyed learning about how networking works, and this class has peeked my interest in learning of networking algorithms and protocols. It makes you think like a computer scientist.\r\n\r\nBobby is sometimes hard, but it seems like he brightened up compared to previous semesters, and he does want his students to learn.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-14T04:37:59.020722Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': "Lectures in person, not recorded, and no pictures allowed. Projects are in C/C++ except possibly final group project.\r\nIncredibly knowledgeable down-to-earth dude, with a lot of passion for teaching. He will call you out if you're not really paying attention, which you should be doing anyway.\r\nIf you like computer networks, you will get a lot out of this class if you put the effort in learning.\r\n\r\nThe projects are killer, please please start them early...\r\nEvery project based CS class says this, but actually start them early this class. He doesn't teach any code and just asks you to implement something from scratch.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-20T00:22:48.981151Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': 'The review left on 11/19/2022 sums up Bobby perfectly. "Bobby is your stereotypical grandiose narcissist who has a valid reason to be narcissistic" is a very good way to put it. His lectures can be very engaging since he is highly knowledgeable, funny, and interacts with his class often, but whether it be on piazza or in lecture, he will berate you infront of everyone; although; will help you nonetheless. Bobby is a cool dude and does have a soft side, It just sucks because there are more instances where he is hella rude than decent. There was one instance during a zoom OH where he openly stated a question was stupid and forced another student to answer it instead. Although I did say he can be rude to everyone, I have noticed that he is kinder to smarter students that don\'t irritate him. \r\n\r\nWith regards to the actual course: this class is essentially two classes at once: the lecture side will cover things on the exam, but the projects are completely self taught. Bobby will not teach you how to code sockets, instead he will provide sources and then you have to figure it out. Do not take this class if you are not confident in your coding ability YET. MAN pages will be your bible. There are no recordings, and the class notes are the scribble scrabble he does during lecture. \r\n\r\nAll-in-all: I do think you should take this class. I know my grade and review says otherwise, but you WILL learn a lot if you take this class, and it definitely forces you to become a better programmer. If you are going to take this class, make sure you have the time to give it your all. Most importantly - become a competent programmer before taking the class if you\'re not already. The final project is a group project that is still based on individuality, so if you end up with super smart people in your group and end up getting hard carried - that\'s two letter grades gone.\r\n\r\nTLDR: the class is a semester long suckfest, but is worth it in the end.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2023-01-11T07:22:38.742458Z'}, {'professor': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'course': 'CMSC417', 'review': "Bobby is a nice and good professor, but the projects in this class are the worst. I've been fine in all other CS courses I've taken but every project in this class seemed like it was taking up my entire week. You don't learn anything related to projects in class and if you don't start super early you're screwed. I took a W even though I had fine project grades and did decent on the well exam because I didn't feel like it was worth the stress of ruining my weeks for the projects. I've gotten A's in all other cs classes and have never even considered dropping a class until this class. I should've listened to the other reviews when they talked about projects bc I didn't believe them at first :(", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2023-01-18T23:26:51.410755Z'}], 'name': 'Samrat Bhattacharjee', 'slug': 'bhattacharjee'}, {'courses': ['KNES293', 'KNES289R', 'KNES497', 'PHSC497'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Samuel Clevenger', 'course': 'KNES289R', 'review': "If you're looking to take a gen ed, don't take him. For one, there are far too many readings for only one quiz that barely leaves an impact on your grade. Not to mention, he's a very harsh grader when it comes the papers and essays. His expectations are way too high for a single gen ed.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-21T19:25:45Z'}], 'name': 'Samuel Clevenger', 'slug': 'clevenger'}, {'courses': ['BMGT422', 'BMGT424', 'BMGT417', 'BUAC758C', 'BMGT323', 'BMGT410', 'BUAC758V', 'BUAC758W', 'BMGT310', 'BUAC758Y', 'BUAC758A', 'BUAC758D', 'BMGT326', 'BMGT311', 'BMGT321', 'BUAC758I', 'BUAC758U', 'BUAC758Z', 'BUAC770', 'BUSO616', 'BUAC712', 'BUSO780', 'BMGT289D', 'BUAC766', 'BUSO602', 'BMGT220H', 'BMGT221H', 'BMGT220', 'BMGT289D', 'BMGT221H', 'BMGT289D', 'BUAC712', 'BMGT289D', 'BMGT424', 'BUAC758U', 'BUAC766', 'BUAC770', 'BUSO780', 'BUSO780', 'BMGT289D', 'BUAC712'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': "Class is honestly a breeze, he's so cute and just tells stories or talks about different aspects of crazy fraud in the business world for the whole time. Not rigorous at all. We have had like 5 homework, and they're all graded fairly easy. Plus our final is both take home/open note and a group project. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-20T02:19:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BUAC712', 'review': 'Professor Handwerger is amazing! I have taken him for more than one course and looking forward to taking more taught by him. He is really knowledgeable and makes class fun and engaging. Something I appreciate about him is that he is great at providing feedback on almost every single assignment. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-11-30T21:54:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': "Really understanding during online semester and made sure students didn't do bad. I missed a quiz and emailed him and he let me retake it. He makes sure the workload isn't too heavy. Very highly recommend this course to anyone who can get a seat. Content is also pretty interesting and his weekly quizzes were very easy. He records all of his lectures and uploads them so live attendance isn't mandatory.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T21:00:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': 'Best teacher at UMD hands down. He is so sweet and cares so much about his students. Put in the effort and you will succeed! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T23:48:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT220H', 'review': 'Handwerger is such a sweet man. Accounting 1 is confusing and somewhat difficult, but he makes it tolerable. He may not be the best at explaining accounting topics, but he tells really funny stories and has lots of valuable experience as an accountant. There are lots of homeworks and assignments that are worth lots of points, so make sure to do them because they are essentially free points. Because of this, getting an A is pretty easy, and he wants his students to get an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-02T01:25:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': 'This professor is HANDS DOWN the BEST professor at UMD. He is such a sweet, funny guy who makes his class so interesting for his students. He also gives so many free points here and there so it makes it easier to get an A. I thought the course had a relatively low amount of work load but this can vary from student to student. His content is so interesting and he always tells cute little stories during class. Attendance to his class is not mandatory, since he records his lecture, but I highly recommend it. He is a very cute professor and a professor you must have at least once at UMD. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T03:15:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': 'He is very nice and understanding. Funny Jewish guy. Reminds me of my Zaide. When it comes to lecture he does not take attendance, class is interesting and he tells stories which are engaging. There are weekly quizzes, questions are vague, he often gives questions back bc majority of people get it wrong. He makes them tricky. They are all untimed and online. He has said the final will be timed and online for this semester. He has office hours in VMH and he cares and wants you to learn and ask questions if you have. Lastly, he records the lecture so overall I recommend this class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-18T20:13:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': 'Professor Handwerker is one of my favorite professors at UMD. He is always animated in the classroom and demonstrates interest in what his students are doing. His enthusiasm for the topic makes learning fun and exciting. His grading is fair and he makes it clear that he wants everyone to do well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-11T16:59:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': None, 'review': "I really enjoyed Handwerger's class. He is funny and engaging and makes the class have a comfortable environment. I would highly recommend him if you are looking for a fun gen ed to take.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T01:17:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': 'Great professor, an easy gen-Ed business class with interesting lectures. I would highly recommend the professor as well', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-13T13:59:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': 'Amazing Professor. Tries to keep the class alive, does no take attendance and isn’t strict with deadlines or assignment submissions. Very understanding of his students and even curves his quizzes. Overall great prof.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-05T15:54:18.741699Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': 'The best professor I have had. He is super approachable, kind, and funny. His classes are always fun, interesting, and entertaining. He is very understanding and will curve quizzes. He does not take attendance. I took this as a Gen Ed and I am happy that I did!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T20:49:56.003934Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': 'Best professor I have had he is engaging and interesting', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T13:16:09.769192Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT424', 'review': 'One of the best accounting professors. Take him for advanced accounting especially if you are about to graduate and want a good review before you take your CPA.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-02-08T19:55:02.150499Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'course': 'BMGT289D', 'review': "Just a really good guy. Curves almost everything so even though the homeworks can be a bit tricky, it's all good because he'll boost your grade no matter what. He really wants his students to do well and get good grades which to me is one of the best qualities in a professor. Would take this class with him again ten times out of ten.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-27T03:28:44.683455Z'}], 'name': 'Samuel Handwerger', 'slug': 'handwerger'}, {'courses': ['PHIL140', 'PHIL341', 'PHIL428K', 'PHIL848K', 'PHIL408V', 'PHIL440', 'PHIL209A', 'PHIL848B', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL688K', 'PHIL220', 'PHIL220H', 'PHIL220', 'PHIL220'], 'average_rating': 3.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "Great professor and a very interesting class. The course was very easy in my opinion. There was a lot of reading, and I would recommend doing it because it is very interesting. However, if you're not absolutely set on an A, you can definitely get a B without reading anything. Professor Kerstein is very insightful about the subject matter. I wish the course fostered more discussion and asked more for our opinions, but it is too large to do that in lecture and my TA kinda sucked. Overall, I would recommend this course and professor. It's a great way to fulfill a gen ed requirement!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-04-22T19:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "Great course to take for an easy A. This guy is very organized and knows what he's talking about. I thought his lectures were pretty interesting and I didn't mind going at 8:30AM. My TA sucked which kinda made going to discussions miserably boring but that is only a minor point. Go to lectures, take notes, and this will be a breeze", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-01T13:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL428K', 'review': "I've taken two classes with Kerstein -- 428K and 341. He's an interesting guy. Very organized, put together, deliberate (which I really appreciate for some reason) and very lucid when he explains things. He also doesn't hesitate to shut people up who ask stupid questions -- that was certainly what I like best about him. But if it's important to you to disrupt a 60 person lecture to ask the professor 3 consecutive questions about a topic you should already understand, then I guess he's not the guy for you.\n\r\nHis class gets kind of boring, though, which is why I deducted a star. Take his Kant class if you have the option (and if you think you're able). It's much more interesting, and allows you to go much more in depth.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-18T19:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "I thought this class would be interesting, but Kerstein does a good job of making it dry. It's an easy A, but it could be so much more interesting. He definitely does not care if you do well - he openly states that he wants to trick you and find obscure ways to take off points. He's a pretty arrogant guy and your typical pretentious philosopher, but it is an easy A if you're looking to fulfill a CORE. Discussion isn't necessary unless you need to hand in a paper, and as long as you read the articles and look at his outlines on ELMS, you should be able to do well on the exams without going to every single lecture.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-01T11:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': 'Easy A if you go to almost every class and if you are there for all the pop quizzes (which are extremely easy if you use common sense even if you have not done the readings). Discussion takes attendance so if you go it helps your grade as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-10-11T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "There are pop quizzes but he drops 2 out of 6. Even if you go to class without doing the reading, you can probably get some right because they are T/F. There are two short papers that do not involve much effort. There are two fairly easy exams and the final is just as easy. You should do the reading but if you don't, as long as you read through his notes thoroughly, you should be fine for the exams. Discussions are pretty pointless but you should still go. If I put more effort into this class, I could have easily gotten an A and I regret. But I would definitely recommend this class. It really isn't hard.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-23T18:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL341', 'review': "The only bad thing about this course was his idiotic TA. That woman is unbearable. Chris Ng. She was a complete moron. Luckily, I still ended up with an A in her course but I had to fight her the entire way. My God. Professor explained everything. Didn't nod on to whatever moronic thing some idiot said in the class. Would definitely give his opinion and straighten the kids out, but does so in a way that doesn't discourage the class from voicing their opinions in class. Ethical Theory was nice in general as well. Liked the writers chosen. Aristotle. Kant. Mill. Hume. Nietzsche. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-02-02T00:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "i had an A in this course. Kerstein isn't bad, although a lot of people complained about him being monotonous. To pass hiss class, do the readings ahead of time. No need to read more than once, he'd explain in class and then you'd understand.I had a t.a who went over his lecture slides and so i was good. If you have a good t.a, you should not never miss the discussion class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-30T22:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "Doesn't seem to have much emotion, very monotonic. His tests and quizzes are easy enough and I got away with not reading many of the articles he gives us. Beware you never express you own views its just a study of these philosophers.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-01-27T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': 'this course is annoying, the teacher is annoying, his monotone dry humor is annoying. the work is not hard but its annoying. you never discuss your own views, just the views of random philosophers .. hell curve if every1 does bad.. but hes just so annoying! not hard if u read, but then if you dont read, just go to discussion and youll be fine.. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-10T21:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "This is my easiest class this semester (and I'm a science major so you don't have to be a humanities person to do well). He explains things throughly and as long as you read the materials and listen to his lectures, you'll do well. The point of the class is to understand the arguments made in different pieces. You hardly ever have to come up with your own arguments, just regurgitate what other people said. Plus the topics are fairly interesting.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-05T21:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': 'do not take this course, extremely hard.\r\nunless you like critical reading and abstract thoughts.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2008-11-05T19:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL220', 'review': "Dr. Kerstein is an interesting guy. Very smart, speaks quite slowly so it's easy to understand concepts, looks oddly like Will Ferrell which threw me off the first several days of class. Reasonable amounts of reading each week, one in class quiz and one out of class, two papers and a group project. I wish there was more peer-to-peer discussion but am also enjoying learning about the different issues on my own. I found the class to be super applicable to a lot of health professions and am enjoying it so far.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-10-31T19:13:48.566796Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'course': 'PHIL220', 'review': "Dr. Kerstein is a nice guy and takes this class relatively seriously. The readings could be a bore sometimes, but I felt like they were mostly fair considering we met only twice a week for 50 min each time. Weekly readings along with two quizzes (one's in class so no skipping lectures), two papers, and a group paper/presentation (randomly assigned group). I found lecture to be a waste of time generally, but if you have trouble understanding the readings, Dr. Kerstein does post online lectures on them. Exams were easy and very fair. He would release four open answer exam questions at least five days before the exam then two of those questions would be the exam. Three exams total including the final. My only complaint is that discussion was genuinely never helpful and the TA could take a while to give feedback/grades on papers. Honestly, it's almost the end of the semester and I still don't have a grade on the paper and group paper that I turned in over a month ago. Overall, I enjoyed the class but it is a decent amount of work if this is a gen ed for you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T00:15:03.756621Z'}], 'name': 'Samuel Kerstein', 'slug': 'kerstein'}, {'courses': ['FGSM320', 'UNIV348P', 'HONR378E', 'HNUH328T', 'FGSM320', 'HNUH328T', 'FGSM320', 'HNUH328T'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Samuel Kessel', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Kessel is great. I took his honors seminar during my sophomore year because I was curious about public health. \n\r\nThe workload (when I took the course) consisted of reading and summarizing a public health related article each week, and a public health brief, along with a group project/presentation on a controversial public health issue. No exams. Very reasonable and fair. \n\r\nThis class really got me more seriously interested in public health (planning now to get an MPH). Dr. Kessel is a former Assistant to the Surgeon General- he graduated college with an electrical engineering degree, but went back to school to get his MD after getting into medicine. He is a pediatrician, and above all else a wonderful advocate for children\'s health, who was key in getting some very important children\'s healthcare legislature passed in Congress. He is fully aware people pick his class because of the proportion of A\'s, and he doesn\'t try to cover that up. \n\r\nI came into the class during a lot of the major healthcare reform bills, and it really helped me get a grasp on what "Obamacare" really was and what was legit/what was just gossip and heresay. Also let me wrap my head around HMO\'s, PPO\'s and all the other healthcare jargon that gets bandied about so much. Great teacher, solid seminar. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-12T03:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kessel', 'course': None, 'review': "Awesome professor. The class consisted of talking about current stories in the news that were relevant for class and then going through the days designated topic. From the mid point of the semester onward, students would teach the class about a relevant issue of their choice in debate format (2 to a side), while Professor Kessel would chime in when necessary and eventually resume control of the class once the debate died down. There were 2 papers, but as long as you follow his outline you'll be fine. I would HIGHLY recommend this class to anyone looking for an interesting honors seminar to take.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-07-28T14:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Kessel', 'course': 'HNUH328T', 'review': 'Dr. Kessel is one of the most engaging professors I have had. As a former Assistant Surgeon General, he has great insight into public policy. Although the seminar is a bit unconventional, it was one of the only classes where I found myself interested at all times and the assignments useful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-22T07:13:20.256328Z'}], 'name': 'Samuel Kessel', 'slug': 'kessel'}, {'courses': ['PUAF711', 'PUAF717', 'PLCY688Y', 'PLCY717', 'PLCY688G', 'PLCY688G', 'PLCY717', 'PLCY631', 'PLCY717'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Samuel McCann', 'slug': 'mccann'}, {'courses': ['JAPN421', 'KORA345', 'EALL300', 'JAPN422', 'JAPN101'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Samuel Ramsey', 'course': 'EALL300', 'review': 'Professor Ramsey is pretty cool. He is definitely passionate and knowledgeable about his subject. He likes for people to get involved in discussions in the class. There are a few 20 point quizzes that you are told about in advance and the midterm is very fair. It is an interesting class and a very fair amount of work. In my opinion, a great option for a linguistics class to complete an East Asian language minor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-09T18:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Ramsey', 'course': 'JAPN421', 'review': "Ramsey-sensei is very interesting person. His lectures can be a bit dry but if you can actually pay attention to them I think they're worth listening to.\r\n\r\nIn regards to JAPN421, there is a google doc out there with basically all the information on the class. I personally attended all lectures but I don't think that's necessary because I didn't pay much attention to them anyway. The only grades are literally just the quizzes and the final so just study for those. They are almost word for word what is on the google doc.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-07T20:12:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Ramsey', 'course': 'EALL300', 'review': "Lectures are dry. He doesn't like people who disagree/challenge his opinions, and you can clearly see this in lectures. I'd recommend taking an AAST course over this one, unless you really need this course. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-09-13T12:02:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Ramsey', 'course': 'EALL300', 'review': "Are lectures dry? Yes. Does he want you to regurgitate his viewpoints? Probably, but I'm willing to set aside these flaws because he's a very kind and forgiving professor. I had it really rough this semester and essentially fell behind on most of the work. After talking with him, not only did he accept my work late, he did so with no deductions. If that isn't a good teacher, I dont know what is. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-04T19:09:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Ramsey', 'course': 'EALL300', 'review': "This guy is the most chill professor ever. Since the class was virtual, he made the grade based solely on small and easy weekly assignments. The workload was almost nonexistent and I really appreciated it. He's retiring, so unfortunately the class might not be offered again - but if it is, this class is amazing for fulfilling your DVUP requirement. The material is also interesting for those that don't know much about East Asia.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-19T23:48:19Z'}], 'name': 'Samuel Ramsey', 'slug': 'ramsey_samuel'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG110', 'INAG110'], 'average_rating': 4.8214, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "One of the best teachers I have ever had period. Very easy A and the most fun you will have in a class at UMD. Take his class, you won't regret it", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-03T05:45:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Top tier, always go for him if you can get him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-03-16T14:10:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Easy fun and entertaining. Take him if you want crazy in your life.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-11T12:42:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Sam is a treat. Possibly one of the best instructors that I have had. He is also very willing to help on his time if you need it. Definitely recommend him.\r\n\r\nThe course should be a fairly easy A as long as you prepare for the exams and rehearse your speeches. Remember eye contact! that gets a lot of people.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-12T18:48:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "This course comes with an easy A and a little bit of insanity. I'd say Sam is sort of crazy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-05T04:07:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Sam can be aggressive at times. But if you can handle that, this class should be an easy A assuming you're putting in the work.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-06T19:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Sam is absolutely, without a doubt, the most amazing instructor I've ever had (and I'm a senior)! You will NEVER be bored in his class and you'll learn things that will follow you through your whole life! He's available to help 24/7 and wants everyone to succeed. Take his class and have the time of your life! You won't regret it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-25T15:52:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Sam is amazing and one of the most caring teachers I have had. Warning: He has no filter and makes some off-colored jokes but they are all with good intention so if you can handle that then go for it. He invites his class every year to his house for thanksgiving in case they have nowhere to go. 100% Reccomend', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-11T13:46:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "He's pretty wild, but leads an extremely enjoyable class if you're able to handle his insanity. Everyone grew to love him and everyone in the class gets to know each other well. Unlike any other prof I've had!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-19T16:31:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Absolutely crazy dude, in the best way. Sam managed to give an online class the feel of an actual in-person class, proving that you don't need to be insanely tech-savvy to pull off online teaching if you care and are willing to put in the work. He does make some not so politically correct comments, though, so if that bothers you, maybe stay away.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T03:07:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Are you tired of boring professors that put you to sleep? Do you finally want to get over your fear of public speaking? If so, then fasten your seatbelt and get ready for the experience of a lifetime! Sam is a one-of-a-kind instructor--he is energetic, engaging and over the top hilarious (he is also an easy A)! Best of all, you will get to know everyone in the class! 100% recommended--take him! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-20T18:47:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Fantastic professor and a fantastic person. Super high energy and makes online zoom classes something to look forward to. I personally struggle with social anxiety and doing oral presentations and I feel much more confident and comfortable after taking INAG110 with Sam. Super funny and understanding and I can only imagine how much more fun his class would be in person compared to online. The class should be an easy A if you prepare well for the speeches. Absolutely recommend his class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-04T17:33:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Sam's alright. He can be aggressive, and repeats the same jokes, which can get annoying. Final grade comprised of informative, persuasive, and professional speeches, three exams, and a bunch of reading quizzes that can be completed by skimming the text. Prepare for speeches and use feedback Sam and your classmates give, and you should be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-25T22:14:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'There is no way to describe a class this incredible! You must go through it yourself to fully understand how engaging and unique it is. Of all my courses, this is the one where I learned and grew the most. I also finally got to know everyone in there. If you want an unforgettable experience that will change your life, Sam is your man! 100% recommend!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-27T03:31:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'simply the coolest. take him at all costs, take the course later if you have to. the only dull parts of his class are the ones that is explicitly shoved down his throat by the curriculum. he is the man!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-15T20:19:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Take this class!! I was dreading taking a public speaking course and it turned out to be my favorite class. I don't usually write reviews but Sam deserves one. He cares so much about his students. The workload is extremely manageable and you get to pick your topic for the speeches. Although speeches can seem intimidating, Sam walks you through everything so you don't have to stress about it. I've made so many genuine friendships because of this class. Taking Sam's class is an experience that everyone reading this review should have. Go sign up for it!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-14T03:06:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'I took this class based on these reviews and I\'m really glad I did. This was by far the most interesting and fun class I took in the fall semester and I\'m glad for once that we have to take a comm gen ed. Similar sentiments as others where public speaking can be hard for me but this class was still my favorite. I saw a big improvement by the end of the course not only on my speaking but also with my pre-speech anxiety. I honestly spent a lot more time and stressed more for the first one than I did on my last one. A good amount of people seemed to not enjoy the lecture parts in the first half of the semester but I actually really liked them because I enjoy this content and its a break from what I learn as a STEM major elsewhere. He also tells us what to write down for notes which I enjoyed. He honestly is a great guy and you can tell he truly cares about his students. He\'s a little eccentric which can be annoying on days you feel tired but I wouldn\'t have had it any other way. Since class size is so small and we spend time learning about others, by the time class ended it really felt like a family (cheesy ik but I mean it) and I was actually kind of sad when it ended. His wife also makes baked goods for us the first week of each month.\r\n\r\nOnly "complaint" I have is that since he kind of teaches his own way you do have to look at the textbook for the midterm and final even though we never use it before then. We also got short take home quizzes that were things we didn\'t cover in class but the textbook had. I don\'t believe comm107 has exams so if that\'s a huge dealbreaker for you take comm instead but inag exams are fairly simple (I studied way more than I needed to and finished the midterm in 5 minutes and got a 98 on it) but comm107 will just be another gen ed you have to take and nothing like the experience inag gives you. Inag exams also are worth very little, mid term is 5%, final is 10%, speeches are the bulk, and he\'s a pretty lenient grader in my opinion. Some of my other friends took inag with other professors some of which seemed WAY harsher and another that I heard was maybe chiller than Sam (he has a few things he\'s strict on but they\'re very easy to follow and he reiterates them all the time), but none of them understood the connection we left the class with (and I say this as someone who didn\'t talk as much in class). ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-18T01:30:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Sam's INAG class was a blast, and this is coming from a huge introvert who always gets nervous when it comes to public speaking. Boring parts are not what he chooses to do but what he has to by the curriculum and he makes it tolerable through stories and letting us introduce ourselves in this early part of the class. One slight downside is that he doesn't teach the difficult parts of the midterm + final exams very well, but the majority of questions are easy (4/5 easy questions, last fifth was strange questions) and these are a small part of the total grade anyway. He is a very lenient grader for speeches, giving as many opportunities as possible to give more points if he can, and as someone who had many issues with stuttering, he gave me more points than I think other instructors would have given. On days we don't present we get to sit back and review one other person's presentation for the day, which meant it was a nice time to chill but also learn from others. I got to know about other people, from their names to interests to ideas, which is more than I could say compared to basically all my other courses at this campus. In short, this class is amazing and Sam is one of the best instructors for the course! Try to get his class because the experience is unlike any other class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-16T13:28:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Pros:\r\n- Sam makes what is normally a boring Gen-Ed course much more interesting\r\n- You can tell he cares very, very much about his students and oral communication in general\r\n- Everyone sees a noticeable improvement in their public speaking skills after taking his class\r\n- Easy exams, extra credit, and some pass/fail speeches that are easy 100s\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Lectures can be kind of contrived, he likes things being done in a very specific way\r\n- Very easy to lose lots of points on speeches if you make small mistakes/don't read the directions (i.e. a 70 point deduction for being >5 seconds under the minimum time limit. I believe this is more strict than other INAG/COMM professors are but I may be wrong)", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T20:05:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Lets get right to the point. Sam is the best INAG 110 instructor and professor at UM. Passionate, hilarious, knowledgeable and super high energy. He makes himself available 24/7 because he really cares and wants to see all his students succeed. No matter how afraid you are of public speaking, he will make you alot better and feel more confident. \r\nThis is also the first time I got to know everyone in my class and learn something about them. Sign up to meet the gen ed requirement but really take it for a once in a lifetime experience. Trust me, you won't regret it and, most of all, you will never forget it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-27T14:43:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Sam is by far the best INAG instructor out there. He really makes an effort to make lectures/classes enjoyable and he ensures that you can succeed at public speaking. This was the first gen ed that I truly enjoyed because Sam turned a boring subject into an interesting and fun class. The environment is different from the traditional classroom, so if you're someone who likes repetitive lectures or serious content don't take this class. Definitely take Sam's section if you want to grow as a speaker, learn something new about yourself, and are able to thrive in a creative atmosphere.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T03:59:28.148226Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Great professor. Sam is entertaining and keeps you engaged. Speeches are not that hard, just make sure to practice them. Great guy. All assignments are easy and take home. You can get an A pretty easily in here while enjoying yourself.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-16T07:42:03.998285Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Literally the best professor. He makes his class enjoyable and is extremely passionate about teaching. He turns public speaking into something pretty fun and he grades really fairly. His classes are about 19 people so you really get to know the people there. He creates the opportunity to let you improve as a speaker and is overall an amazing person\r\n\r\nTake his class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T06:12:21.910960Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Sam\'s a really fun and entertaining guy. I had a really wonderful time in his class, and he obviously cares about his students and wants to see them succeed. He\'s really energetic and brings more "fun uncle" vibes than "communication professor" vibes. My only qualms with the course are that there\'s not much to learn - I don\'t feel like I learned anything from the course that isn\'t already obvious ("meanings are in people, not words", "nonverbal communication can be more effective than verbal", etc) and most of the feedback he gives for speeches are cookie-cutter; you hear the same feedback given to basically every single person and he speaks as if he\'s filling in the blanks of a premade template. Overall though, fun guy and easy class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T19:02:22.563169Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'I was skeptical at first, but this guy is the best INAG teacher there is. But I am going to list the cons first. He grades speeches probably the harshest out of the other inag professors. As someone mentioned being like 5 seconds under a 5-minute speech will result in 70 points off of on speech. But I dont believe he actually gave someone 70 points off on a speech as someone in my class was 10 seconds under, he just silently urged them to keep on talking. He is a strict grader when it comes to presenting in general. He also has strict harsh rules, but these rules are just there to make sure you are doing your presentation correctly. People rarely ever fall outside of his rules like they are just common sense with his own twists on it basically, it\'s meant to encourage us to do our best. Sam is so energetic when it comes to speaking it brightens my boring day. He is always telling jokes our forcing us to tell jokes as everyone in the class must say 1 joke. (I\'ve said 3 jokes). He seriously doesn\'t want you to fail and its scary the length he\'ll go for you just so you dont fail. At first, I thought he was doing this so that we would have no excuses when it came to our assignments. But he really just wants us to pass the class as INAG should be an easy A. It is really the exams that may hit peoples scores. I honestly never studied for them cause the questions were common sense. And I scored like 80-82 which was fine since it was above average lol. He gives us so many extra credit opportunities its crazy. The environment in his class is very comforting. The way he sets up the seats brightens my day. We can present our speech topics on anything as Sam loves creativity. He really is "Sam the Man" as I cannot see any teacher that can have a bigger impact than he did. If you are looking for a fun class to actually better your speaking skills take Sam. If you are just looking for a class to just get a grade and dip, take anyone else. I hate public speaking, but I can definitely say I learned a lot from this class. I have seen improvements from my first speech to my last speech. INAG is not a hard class in general. So don\'t be afraid of taking Sam because he is a harsh grader.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T23:48:18.519606Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'Seriously just take his class for your communication gen ed. He genuinely is a great teacher and person and truly cares about everyone in his classes.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T16:33:24.404007Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': 'At the beginning of his class, he makes it seem like it’ll be much harder than it is — especially if you’re on the quieter side like me. But don’t be intimidated by that, he’s much more encouraging than he comes off at first, and he’s a great teacher and person. His feedback gets a bit repetitive at times, but he’s always available for further instructions and help if you ask. Definitely take this class for a comm credit!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-25T03:48:20.029081Z'}, {'professor': 'Samuel Rubin', 'course': 'INAG110', 'review': "Sam is the GOAT (Greatest of All Time)! If you need a communications class for the gen ed requirement, this is the guy to take it from. It's like no class you've ever had and you'll never forget it. He's a very fair grader and an easy A! Also, you'll get to know everyone in there, learn so much and have a lot of fun. 100% recommend because Sam is the man!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-26T14:50:50.305475Z'}], 'name': 'Samuel Rubin', 'slug': 'rubin_samuel'}, {'courses': ['BULM734', 'BULM744', 'BUSI672', 'BUSI788Y', 'BULM758A', 'BULM758C', 'BUSM784', 'BUSO751'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sandor Boyson', 'slug': 'boyson'}, {'courses': ['JOUR200', 'JOUR327', 'JOUR627', 'JOUR400', 'JOUR501', 'JOUR328X', 'JOUR289E', 'JOUR702', 'JOUR201', 'JOUR320', 'JOUR620', 'JOUR402', 'JOUR281', 'JOUR402'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sandra Banisky', 'course': 'JOUR400', 'review': 'Great teacher, fun class...take 400 with her', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-21T20:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Banisky', 'course': 'JOUR289E', 'review': 'Very funny and easy going lecturer. Provides good material to learn. Would recommend 10/10 for any class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:03:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Banisky', 'course': 'JOUR402', 'review': "Professor Banisky is absolutely amazing-- truly one of those professors that makes class so engaging and interesting. The class is discussion-based, and she fosters a wonderful environment where I felt comfortable contributing at any time. She's very witty and always has fun stories from her career that apply to class materials. She's also very understanding and easy to communicate with. The materials she provides are sufficient to learn and succeed in the class. I'd recommend her to anyone.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-02T17:37:58Z'}], 'name': 'Sandra Banisky', 'slug': 'banisky'}, {'courses': ['BSCI414', 'BSCI422', 'BSCI424', 'BSCI437', 'BSCI422', 'BSCI348D', 'BSCI422'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sandra Fox-Moon', 'course': 'BSCI424', 'review': "Exams were exactly based on the lectures. Lecture slides were all posted online, and highlighted the material that would be on exams. Exams were fair and straightforward. Dr. Fox-Moon is knowledgeable and cares about students' success. Some fun activities such as quizlet games thrown in as well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-12T02:00:52Z'}], 'name': 'Sandra Fox-Moon', 'slug': 'fox-moon'}, {'courses': ['HESP311', 'HESP606', 'HESP636', 'HESP859', 'NACS898', 'EXST030', 'HESP859', 'HESP859'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sandra Gordon-Salant', 'slug': 'gordon-salant'}, {'courses': ['EDUC388', 'EDUC498', 'BMGT498L'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sandra Loughlin', 'course': 'EDHD460', 'review': 'Sandra was my TA for EDHD460 which was taught by Dr. Alexander. Sandra is one of the best teachers out there. She is very enthusiastic during discussion and she really cares about her students. She has a strong academic background (attended Harvard) and thoroughly reviews material with you to help prepare you for the exam. She is a good leader whether she is a teaching assistant or a professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-15T16:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Loughlin', 'course': 'EDHD320', 'review': "She is hands down the best teacher in CP! She is young, awesome, funny, and helpful. Her class is pretty easy. You have a few connection papers, online quizzes which are kind of tricky but don't count for much, and a ridiculously easy final. Every time you go to class you get a slip of paper with three or four multiple choice questions which will be on the final. I finished the final in 3 minutes. I HIGHLY suggest taking this class, you won't regret it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-17T17:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Loughlin', 'course': 'EDHD320', 'review': 'Mrs Loughlin is a fantastic teacher. She really emphasizes interaction in the classroom and all of the assignments are very easy. We had three 2 page papers and quizzes and discussion elms every three weeks. Throughout the semester she gave us all the questions on the final so all we had to do was memorize. It was really interesting and she was a fun young teacher, not boring at all. Take this class with her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T18:41:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sandra Loughlin', 'slug': 'loughlin'}, {'courses': ['BMGT423', 'BMGT311', 'BMGT310', 'BMGT411', 'EDCI474'], 'average_rating': 4.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Professor Rose is a good professor and a nice lady. She cares for her students and if you show her your willing to work, she will do her best to help you. However, i think the prior reviews about her class being extremely easy and the exams being the same as the homeworks is very outdated. This class is not an easy A class and you have to study hard to get a good grade. \n\r\nThe class has 6 hws (one dropped), 6 quizzes (one dropped), 3 exams, and a cash flows exam. The best way to study for exams is to study the homework problems because some of them are mirrored in the exams but they are definitely not exactly the same. However, she is pretty clear on what you need to know before each exam. \n\r\nI would recommend to attend the class as much as possible because she reviews practice problems during class and that's probably the best way to learn the material. She can be quite monotonous but its not exactly the most exciting subject so I dont blame her. Overall, she is on the best accounting professors at Maryland so I recommend you take this class with her. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-17T15:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT423', 'review': "She's absolutely the best!!! I also took 310 with her, and she's really great! Fraud Examination is probably one of the best and easiest upper-level elective for accounting majors at UMD. This class consisted of a group presentation on a fraud case, a financial statement project (also group), a midterm, and a final (which this semester were both take-home). Participation and attendance are also a part of your grade. Even though the class is not hard, and the assignments are actually interesting, in order to do really well, you must give her a lot of details in your writing (especially for the exams and project). If you don't, things may turn out badly for you. Overall, this is a wonderful and interesting class, that I recommend everyone take. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-25T13:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': "Professor Rose is by far one of the best accounting professors I had during my time at Maryland. Her exams are very fair and straightforward, somewhat similar to the exercises she does in class. There are online assignments in connect due almost every week or two, but it's not too bad. She tends to go a bit fast and to be a little monotone in class, but it's not really a problem, if you take notes and review at home. She's also happy and readily available to help if you have any questions. An A is very easily attainable in her class, with some work, and you'll leave her class feeling like you've learned a lot. Whatever she teaches, I highly recommend that you take it. You'll be glad you did!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-06T20:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': "Literally the best professor ever. Gives you all the tools you need to get an A, learns *everyone's* name, and prepares you so, so well. I learned a ton in her class. Absolutely fantastic professor. One of the best things she does is give a fantastic review of the concepts from Principles, which is amazing because I completely forgot everything about that class. If you have the opportunity to take this class with her, you absolutely should!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-16T16:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': 'Professor Rose is one of the best accounting professors that I have had in the Smith school. She is extremely straightforward and fair with her exams. Although she can go a bit quickly through the lectures, keeping up and reviewing her practice problems gives you everything you need to get a solid A in the course.\n\r\nAt the end, you will be surprised with how much you actually learned throughout the semester after taking her class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-06T16:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': "Not the most exciting lecturer, but she doesn't need to be; BMGT310 is not too thrilling to begin with. Her lectures run through key concepts in the book's chapters, and she goes through several practice problems that you can later practice online on Wiley Plus. Class consists of 6 Wiley Plus homeworks (lowest score dropped), a quiz on basic accounting concepts, and 3 exams. Exams are VERY reasonable, as they directly mimic the problems you do in class or on WileyPlus, and she is VERY clear about what you need to know for each exam. \n\r\nShe is very nice and extremely approachable about any student concerns. She teaches the material as well as it needs to be taught and makes reasonable exams. A student can't ask for much more.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Would be a 5/5 but her cash flow exam for BMGT311 was very much unfair. Miss one line and you lose 20% of your grade. Still got an A though because the rest of her exams were fair. Her quizzes are usually very difficult, but she drops the lowest one and they're only worth 50 points so it's not too big of a deal. Good professor overall though, much better than Mostow for 310, and definitely worth taking for 311.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-26T23:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Professor Rose was the best accounting teacher I've had at UMD so far, with the possible exception of Bulmash. \n\r\nPros: \r\nClass is structured where if you do not read the book at least a little before, you're going to be a little lost. She goes over some basic concepts but does ALOT of examples which is really helpful, but if you cant follow it can be quite confusing. She does not lecture with powerpoints (NO Accounting teacher should) so its very helpful to come to class, pay attention, and write down every example you can because her exam questions are verbatim from the homework and textbook and class examples.\n\r\nShe is EXTREMELY straightforward- will literally post a list on BB of what content is on the exam and the exam is EXACTLY that no curve balls and nothing unexpected. She is approachable for questions and explains things very well, also what you need to know on CPA exam which is helpful. \n\r\nShe gives ALOT of partial credit - I got step one of a 25 point question wrong and therefore got every step wrong, but she went through my work and recalculated with my wrong answers and only took off one point when most accounting teachers take off 25 for a wrong bottom line. She also does not give multiple choice exams which is so helpful - its all open ended and some matching of terms thats usually very easy.\n\r\nCons:\r\nShe can be a little dry and monotone, but leases and pensions and error corrections isnt exactly the most interesting topic to teach.. understandable.\n\r\nClass consists of:\r\n2 midterms, 100 points each. 1 Cash Flows Exam (reproduce cash flow statement) 50 points, Quizzes 50 points (take 6, drop 1), Homework 50 points (do 6, drop 1) and a noncumulative final worth 100 points. \n\r\nI felt like I learned A LOT from Professor Rose and will probably take her fraud class just because she teaches it and I really enjoyed her teaching style. Recommend 10000% for both 310 and 311.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T18:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': 'Professor Rose is a great teacher. She is very clear is what she expects of her students. She explains the material very well and makes accounting interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-09T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': 'Professor Rose is very knowledgeable on the subject matter. Her class consists of teaching the concepts and going over the practice problems. Her exams are fair, and doing the WileyPlus questions best prepares you for those exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-21T18:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT310', 'review': "Professor Rose is an excellent accounting teacher. Class time consists of going over key terms and concepts from the chapter being covered and a lot of practice problems. The practice problems are nice because it helps you learn the material and some of the problems covered in class appear word-for-word on the exams. \n\r\nThe grading is 3 exams (including the final, which is not comprehensive), 1 quiz (worth half of an exam) and 6 online homework assignments. Class attendance is optional but really recommended because as noted earlier a lot of the material covered in class appears on the exam in either exact or very similar form. Reading the book helps to reinforce and clarify the information.\n\r\nI highly recommend taking Professor Rose's class. She is a very knowledgeable and fair teacher and although you'll need to study hard, it is rewarded with very manageable exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T00:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Rose', 'course': 'BMGT311', 'review': "Strengths\r\nProfessor Rose is a great teacher of accounting. She explains the material clearly and lets you know what will be on the exams/quizzes as well as what's important for the CPA exam. At first she seems really intimidating, however she is a really nice lady and most students like her. The class isn't too much work, some homework assignments, quizzes, and exams. Don't skip class because it's a lot of material and just reading the book would make it harder to learn. I do recommend reading the book though to study for exams and do the problems in the book to really learn the material. It's a hard course but she makes it easier by being a good teacher.\r\nDrawbacks\r\nThe only real drawback is sometimes her voice could be monotonous which made the class boring, taking it at 5PM didn't help. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-11-03T02:29:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sandra Rose', 'slug': 'rose_sandra'}, {'courses': ['HLTH434', 'HLTH672', 'EPIB672', 'HLTH264', 'HLTH364', 'HLTH364H', 'HLTH434H', 'SPHL399', 'HLTH364', 'HLTH364H', 'HLTH434', 'SPHL399', 'HLTH364', 'HLTH364H', 'HLTH434', 'HLTH434H', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH364', 'HLTH364H', 'HLTH434', 'SPHL399', 'HLTH364', 'HLTH364H', 'HLTH434', 'HLTH434H', 'HLTH672'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sandra Saperstein', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Saperstein is very knowledgeable in the field. Keep in mind she will grade you harshly- never got a perfect grade on anything!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T04:02:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Sandra Saperstein', 'course': 'HLTH364', 'review': 'She is so sweet and very understanding she makes the course very organized', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-17T16:16:11.965015Z'}], 'name': 'Sandra Saperstein', 'slug': 'saperstein'}, {'courses': ['CHEM624', 'CHEM425', 'CHEM624', 'CHEM624'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sangbok Lee', 'course': 'PSYC354', 'review': "This is also a review for Susan Lee, who taught Cross-Cultural Psychology (PSYC354).\n\r\nI despised this class. Lecture slides are often quoted verbatim from the textbook, and they're not posted online. Tests asked incredibly arbitrary questions and were mostly a challenge to remember random facts instead of actually learning material. The papers are inconsistent -- I crapped out the first one in a few hours and got an A, but the one that I actually put time into got me a B because I didn't define enough terms that were defined within the first week of class. \n\r\nIt does fill a Diversity credit. But honestly I couldn't stand this class. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-05-23T15:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangbok Lee', 'course': 'PSYC354', 'review': "Please note: this is a review for Susan Lee for Cross-Cultural Psychology. There appear to be multiple S. Lee's.\n\r\nI would strongly recommend against taking this class. Lectures are extraordinarily boring. While she doesn't post the slides online, they are merely poorly rehashed versions of the textbook. Tests are difficult insofar as she is a bad test writer. Often she will give points back after reviewing the scores and realizing that everyone missed multiple questions because they were worded poorly or they were not taught in class. Luckily there are two easy papers that can boost your grade (or at least that's how it worked out for me). The one merit to this class is that it's an easy way to fulfill a D CORE and one of the PSYC Theme III requirements. But if you can take something more interesting, do it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-21T01:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangbok Lee', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "-not a good lecturer; not engaging at all- thinks students knows exactly what he's talking about, but they don't entirely\r\n-lectures off slides\r\n-exams are tricky", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-26T21:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangbok Lee', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Not the greatest lecturer since he teaches off his slides, which are taken right out the book. You can easily do well just reading the book and doing the homework problems. At the very least, you should do the homework problems because many of his exam questions are taken straight out of the homework. His exams are entirely multiple choice so there won't be any partial credit on them. The only other source of possible questions on the exams come from problems that he works out in lecture. Unlike the questions taken from the homework, he'll change up the worked problems so you'll have to work backwards or calculate something during the exam. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-25T18:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangbok Lee', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Exams got progressively easier and were all multiple choice. He isn't the best lecturer out there and lectures were kind of more supplementary to the textbook and slides. Keep in mind that there isn't truly that much material covered in 271, so self teaching is not all that bad. Overall, he's a nice guy and I've heard better than that other 271 profs out there. The curve this semester was probably around ~7-8%.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-24T11:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangbok Lee', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "EXTREMELY BORING lectures! He's hard to understand and he doesn't answer questions well and moves either too fast or too slow. I fell asleep in almost every lecture as much as I tried to stay awake. But he does post all of his lecture powerpoints online and the TA goes over a lot of the homework problems in discussion, which is very helpful. His exams are very fair...all multiple choice and tests mainly on problems he went over in lecture in his powerpoints or that were assigned as chapter problems. He had a reasonable curve at the end of the semester too. Overall, pretty easy teacher, just really boring", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-20T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangbok Lee', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "Dr. Lee has been the worst instructor I have had at UMD. Though he seems very knowledgeable about the subject, he is unable to convey that knowledge in any way. He reads his lecture slides verbatim and then posts them online, so attending lecture is frustratingly pointless. Much worse, however, is his use of multiple choice exams and no other assignments. The final was worth 50% of your grade, and there were 40 multiple choice questions. This allowed for no partial credit, which limited his ability to actually assess your understanding of the concepts. Forget to carry a coefficient or make a math error on 4 final problems, and you've already lost 5% of your total grade. Only take Lee if you feel extremely confident in your ability to teach chem to yourself and be a perfectionist on exams.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-19T14:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangbok Lee', 'course': 'CHEM271', 'review': "He cannot speak English, but his exams are very fair, if not easy if you study even a little. He is approachable, and have a interesting sense of humor. I personally never went to lecture, and read the book and did well. But if you are type of person who doesn't like to read the book, and hope to retain everything from lecture, this is not the guy you want to take.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-13T20:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangbok Lee', 'course': 'ENAE324', 'review': 'Dr. Lee taught the second half of the class. The material in this half was really straightforward and lecture notes are posted on Blackboard. He literally prints out the pdfs and copies it on the board verbatim in lecture so showing up is a waste of your time. I skipped/slept through the last two weeks of class (8 hours of lecture) and just taught myself the stuff I missed the day before the final and still did fine. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-18T04:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sangbok Lee', 'slug': 'lee_sangbok'}, {'courses': ['AASP396', 'AASP398D', 'AASP189I', 'AASP400', 'GEOG398D', 'AASP400H', 'WMST498Y', 'AASP299I', 'WMST428C', 'GEOG398A', 'GVPT359F', 'SOCY398Y', 'AASP402', 'AASP360', 'AASP399', 'SOCY380', 'AASP230', 'AASP499C', 'AMST498E', 'SOCY498F', 'SOCY699B', 'WGSS498R', 'WMST698R', 'HNUH288B'], 'average_rating': 1.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP189I', 'review': 'The previous negative reviews are completely right! She is the worst professor I have ever had for a GenEd. She was not clear for what she specifically wanted for each part of the project and then graded very harshly. Our rough draft papers grade average was a 11/20. Which is incredibly low. I would not take her again. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-12-07T19:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP189I', 'review': "I actually made a account just to warn you, DO NOT TAKE HER. \r\nUnless you're an African American Studies she's going to screw you. Things like other classes, time constraints, etc don't matter to her, 30+ pages of reading, weekly paper, and a vague term project that she didn't really know what she wanted. \n\r\nShe's under the impression that no-one takes classes to fill up electives/requirements, and anyone who signed up has a fervent interest in this and gives you shit if you don't.\n\r\nTLDR: Bad professor, harsh grader, 9am class that takes attendance. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-05-08T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP398D', 'review': 'In my experience, Sangeetha Madhavan is the worst professor at UMD. I\'m honestly surprised she\'s rated 2 stars on here, that\'s a little too high. I agree with the lower rated reviews here, she plays serious favorites and makes no apologies for it.\n\r\nShe\'s extremely rude and disrespectful. In my 4 years here at Maryland, she was overwhelmingly the worst part about my time at this school. I had the displeasure of having her for 2 classes (forced to due to scheduling around my full time job) so I\'ve seen the best and worst parts of her.\n\r\nHer goal isn\'t to make the material enjoyable to learn. It\'s more of a brute force, curt, and strict "teaching" style. She thinks that the only thing students have to worry about is her class so it\'s fair to expect all Ph.D. level students that learn everything on their own by reading 100s of long JSTOR research papers. If you don\'t agree with her, she will not be a nice person to you. She will call you out and embarrass you in class making things very awkward. She made my life in her class an absolute hell.\n\r\nShe doesn\'t understand that people have different learning styles. Personally, I did not learn anything from her. Her rudeness along with her "teaching" style turned me completely off. She needs to realize that we are not one size fits all. You know how some professors just have "it" and they can make the driest subjects the most riveting and interesting? They treat you with respect and are actually fair in their grading. Well this is absolutely not Sangeetha Madhavan. She\'s the complete opposite of a good professor.\n\r\nHer militant views on treating students is very outdated. She needs to be flexible, we are not all trying to get a Ph.D. In fact, we are all humans that have other classes, other real life problems, jobs, and the world does not revolve around her pointless class. She needs to stop being an a-hole to students that are not her favorite.\n\r\nMy advice if you have to have her like I did and can\'t avoid it: try to be one of her favorites. Kiss up, do whatever. But still do your best to avoid if you can. I don\'t know what it\'s like to be her favorite but I\'ll assume her treatment of you isn\'t any worse than if she hates you.\n\r\nOn a lighter note: the rest of the African American studies department are awesome. Just really great group of professors and lecturers. Seriously everyone is amazing except for Sangeetha Madhavan, who is the worst. I wish she would leave the department and go to Rutgers.\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-04-16T19:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP189I', 'review': 'I am an engineering major who took AASP189I as a Gen-Ed elective, and came out of it more interested in the topic and more engaged by the course than I expected to be. I would say I agree to limited extent with the below reviews on a few points: \n\r\n1) She is a serious teacher, in that she cares a lot about the subject and expects students to care too. She is not averse to putting students on the spot (though she will call on others if a student is truly stumped). \n\r\nIn that vein, she assigns decent amounts of reading, even to this Honors Seminar class. We had a 15 page paper culminating a community project, and about 25 pages of reading per week. The first assignment she hits you with a 34 page paper by Dr. Sangaramoorthy (also in the AASP department), I think to get everyone into the flow of things and/or scared of the work to come. That being said, the material is usually not too difficult conceptually, and the first week\'s piece is the toughest you\'ll probably face. \n\r\n2) I think she does play favorites to a limited extent (and I say that as someone who probably benefitted from that tendency). If you speak more in class, and if you raise cogent points, she is more likely to look upon your work a little more favorably. \n\r\nAgain, though, this is not some huge thing as far as I can tell; I am merely speculating that my grade might have benefitted a point or two here and there from the benefit of the doubt. \n\r\nI did not notice what below reviews described as \'disrespectful,\' \'rude,\' or \'demeaning\' behavior. While I happened to agree with her on most points, I think that either she read the below reviews, or took a slight edge off, or was more relaxed with the Honors Seminar (or what have you), because while she freely challenged what students would say, she never did so in a blatant "You are wrong," or "What?" kind of way. She would bridge to something else and tie in a reason adding nuance to or perhaps contradicting the point, but not disrespectfully. \n\r\nIn summation: \n\r\nWork is moderate (some of the readings are dry), but not too bad: \n\r\nWeekly readings (3) with summation,\r\nProject w/Paper (15 Pages), and\r\nMid-term/Final [my year made a big open-source Google Doc reviewing everything and it worked well].\n\r\nCourse is more interesting than (I) expected, and Prof. Madhavan is in my opinion not what the below reviews make her out to be. For three Gen-Ed\'s especially, this class is well worth it. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-21T20:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP398D', 'review': "She's tough- like, look up the definition of a 'tough professor' in the dictionary, and you find a picture of Madhavan. However, she's not pointlessly mean, or unjustly difficult, and she doesn't assign a large workload (it's substantial) just to spite her students. She wants you to learn- that's the bottom line. In other classes, if you slack off/come to class late/ forget to hand things in on time, it's not a big deal. The thing with Madhavan is that, because she is so enthusiastic about these topics, if a student doesn't share her passion (and work to show it), she can come off a bit harsh. If you really want to learn about African Development, and are willing to put in the work, this is the prof for you. Lectures are great, guest speakers are great, structure of classes works really well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-08T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP398D', 'review': "Sangeetha Madhaven is a rude person who likes to demean her students. She picks on people and definitely makes her opinion known. It's her way or the highway. She is terrible grader and is very unfair. She's inconsistent and is a 20 page research paper. Don't take this class as an elective or core...it's requires a lot of time (and weekly readings) and unnecessary stress Good luck!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-04-28T16:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP398D', 'review': "I am writing this before I even get my final grade because i don't want anyone to assume I am saying this because I am bitter. She is really rude. I was absent once and I sent my classmates and email to make sure there wasn't anything to turn in that following week. She sent me a nasty email that discouraged me from writing to my classmates again. Instead she wanted me to read the slides which never ever mentioned materials we needed to turn in. She bully's students into participating even when it is clear that they don't understand or haven't read the material. She does it with a smile. She is a very hard grader and shows a lot of favoritism. I understand that by writing this I am risking my grade because it is easy to to see who I am from this review but I honestly feel like she should learn to be nicer. Education is not a field you get in to make people feel like idiots.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-06T13:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': None, 'review': "Her class was interesting but as a professor she's very unpleasant. Her grading is inconsistent and arbitrary. I would avoid her unless you really love this topic and don't mind risking your GPA.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-30T14:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': None, 'review': 'She is not a good teacher. She treated the class like it was a graduate class. She gave a 20 page term paper and a final that consisted of 20 short answer and 2 essays. She is very hard to please and expects everyone to care about Africa as much as she does. She does not make anything easy so if you want a challenge then take her class. You will regret it tho.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-15T22:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP400', 'review': "I am shocked to see such low reviews, but not too shocked as Prof Madhavan isn't any easy professor. She is really nice if you come to class and do your work. To me she was not all that hard, we had a short paper every other week. I didn't think she played favorites, but come to think of it she did show attitude to a student that was always late and disagreed with her a lot. She encourages you to think harder and more critically. I just did exactly what was on the syllabus and got an A on most the papers. The students each taught 2 classes each so it was hardly boring, mostly discussion, although some people may not like the heavy African reading (vs AfricanAmerican), and they are not books that you'd be familiar with, like the other profs who do AASP400or402 do. Still, good reading. She does that b/c she clearly loves Africa. Don't take the class if you aren't going to work a little. Not an easy A but you definitely within reach, and will get a new perspective on Africa and gain a lot of knowledge. I would be getting an A but I screwed up something in the end. Luckily I could care less about grades.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-01-28T09:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP297', 'review': "She is a terrible professor. She has been the reason why many aasp majors have a decline in their gpa. No matter how hard you work in her class, it won't matter if she doesn't like you. Plays favorites among her students and grades unfairly. Anyone passing through Maryland without having to take her class should consider themselves as lucky! Because she is terrrible!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-27T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'course': 'AASP297', 'review': "If I could give her a 0, I would. She is awful. The worst professor of the African American Studies Program. She is an unfair grader, boring, and plays favorites. She isn't a nice person outside of the classroom either. Total nightmare of a professor.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-27T16:00:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sangeetha Madhavan', 'slug': 'madhavan'}, {'courses': ['BUMK757'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sanjay Rao', 'slug': 'rao_sanjay'}, {'courses': ['PHYS839A', 'PHYS739', 'PHYS739', 'PHYS839A', 'PHYS739', 'PHYS839A', 'PHYS739', 'PHYS839A', 'PHYS830', 'PHYS739', 'PHYS839A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sankar Das Sarma', 'slug': 'sarma'}, {'courses': ['MATH003', 'MATH113', 'MATH013', 'MATH015', 'MATH115', 'MATH013'], 'average_rating': 4.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Santuria Orsetti', 'course': 'MATH013', 'review': "Clear expectations, always willing to help. But don't go in expecting an easy A, there's a lot of work assigned. Go to all classes. Really tries to explain things in a way that makes sense to students. Overall, a good remedial/transition-to-introductory math course.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-27T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Santuria Orsetti', 'course': 'MATH013', 'review': "Professor Orsetti is one of the besssssssssstttttttttt math teachers I've ever had. He really knows his stuff. He explains clearly in a way you can understand and if you don't understand he's great at clearing those misunderstandings up! i had him in 013 which turned into MATH113 in five weeks. even though I expect to get a B it's just because of test grades. the tests are rather difficult but absolutely choose Orsetti!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-06T14:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Santuria Orsetti', 'course': 'MATH013', 'review': 'This guy is the real deal and he knows his math. I was thanking God that for once he gave me a math instructor in my life who knows proper english. Honestly, he covered every single concept of algebra and pre-calculus in just one semester whereas it took my highschool teachers 3 years to do. He simply made me love math! Gives out excellent notes and relates real-life situations to make math more understandable. Definitely recommend him for any incoming freshmen.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T01:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Santuria Orsetti', 'course': 'MATH013', 'review': 'He is a really good professor and knows his stuff!! He tries to make class interesting. He is available during posted office hours and also is very willing to arrange alternate times to get additional help.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-27T17:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Santuria Orsetti', 'course': 'MATH013', 'review': "He's a really good teacher that is good at explaining things. He doesnt have a dry personaility and makes class some what interseting. You have to go to class to do well", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-07T16:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Santuria Orsetti', 'course': 'MATH013', 'review': 'Fantastic Teacher. I never enjoyed math before taking this class with professor Orsetti. \n\r\nGo to class and pay attention and you will ace this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-09-19T01:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Santuria Orsetti', 'course': 'MATH113', 'review': "He is a great teacher and explains everything and doesn't mind answering questions until the class understands. assigns homework every night but only collects 5 throughout the semester at random classes. If you miss hw when he collects it is an automatic zero for that assignment with 0 negotiation which isn't so good. He does give out around 10 quizzes and only grades 5 and drops the other which is a huge plus in his class. Highly recommend taking him he also made he class fun by making jokes.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-06T18:24:04.578323Z'}], 'name': 'Santuria Orsetti', 'slug': 'orsetti_santuria'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'CMLT280', 'CMLT270', 'CMLT275', 'WMST275', 'ENGL393', 'ENGL392', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL392', 'CINE245', 'ENGL245', 'ENGL398A', 'ENGL392'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sara Faradji', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Great teacher', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-03T21:23:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Faradji', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Very chill teacher and has the student's best interests in mind", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-05T23:18:10Z'}], 'name': 'Sara Faradji', 'slug': 'faradji'}, {'courses': ['WMST250'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sara Haq', 'slug': 'haq'}, {'courses': ['BSCI202', 'BSCI201', 'AREC200', 'BSCI279P', 'BSCI279T', 'BSCI201', 'BSCI202', 'AREC200', 'BSCI201', 'BSCI202', 'BSCI202', 'BSCI399L', 'BSCI201', 'BSCI202'], 'average_rating': 4.5833, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "Professor Lombardi is honestly one of the best biology professors I've had at this school. She tries really hard to make everything as clear as possible and you can definitely get at least a B during the class exams by just looking through the powerpoints. Professor Lombardi also gives tips for the lab section of the class, and offers a max of 10 points of extra credit. The class is out of 1000, so it's 1% of extra credit, but it's better than nothing. She's really strict about her cut offs though so a 895/1000 won't be rounded up to a 900/1000. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-12-21T00:16:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'AREC200', 'review': 'Dr. Lombardi is passionate and encourages student involvement in the class. The midterm was very easy and even had some extra credit questions. The final was written by the other professor though (Holzer). There was no textbook, but just a few readings which were posted on ELMS. Minimal effort for an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-12-21T13:40:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'AREC200', 'review': "One of the best professors I've had at UMD in terms of knowledge of the topic and enthusiastic lecturing. Really knows how to engage the class and get you to pay attention. \r\n\r\nAREC200 isn't too hard of a class. If you do well on the homeworks and have a good grasp of the topics, you'll do fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-11T18:04:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'AREC200', 'review': 'Absolutely wonderful. Very energetic and makes sure the class is all on the same page. Great at reviewing material covered and goes at a very easy pace to follow.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-25T16:49:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': "She is very helpful with understanding concepts although she does talk fast. She also tests on stuff she SAYS in class and not just what's written on the board. She also gives some lecture assignments. Very energetic and makes the class go by fast. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-22T04:55:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': "AWESOME professor. She knows her stuff and is extremely passionate about A&P. She brings a lot of energy into her lectures and makes them engaging. There's a good amount of memorization but that's just the nature of the course. She makes all the material very understandable. I was dreading this course but she made me love it! Hands down the best professor I've had at UMD.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-10T18:47:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': "Great professor, you can really tell she loves what she does and that makes the content a lot more engaging. She gives you everything you need for the exams right in her lectures, so keep up with the content and you should be fine. Especially online w open notes, everything you need she gives to you. I took her for BSCI201 last semester and got an A-, I'm taking her again for BSCI202 this semester and planning to get the same or above. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-22T17:21:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': 'I have nothing but very good things to say about Dr. Lombardi. She is consistently available to respond to any student questions or concerns, has an extremely approachable lecture style, and makes it very clear that she cares deeply about her students. I took her for both BSCI201 and BSCI202 and, while 202 was a bit tougher, both courses were highly dependent on the work the student puts in. Highly recommended!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-11T19:55:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': 'the absolute best', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-26T00:26:11.969309Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': "This class covers a lot of content, but Dr. Lombardi does an amazing job of teaching it in a way that's easy to understand. She also records all her lectures on Panopto, which is nice. Overall highly recommend", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-25T05:07:49.954485Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': 'If you want to rewatch lectures multiple times at 0.5x speed then this is the professor for you !', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-07T07:50:25.747135Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Lombardi', 'course': 'BSCI201', 'review': 'Dr. Lombardi is an incredible lecturer. Rather than dumping information on to students, she teaches in a way that effectively helps students grasp the material. She is also fair and very clear on her expectations. She is super sweet and always available to provide help and feedback when needed. I highly recommend taking her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-05T17:57:01.175711Z'}], 'name': 'Sara Lombardi', 'slug': 'lombardi'}, {'courses': ['DANC207', 'TDPS358C', 'DANC488', 'DANC109', 'DANC679', 'DANC708', 'DANC789', 'DANC608', 'DANC318', 'DANC319', 'DANC647', 'DANC398', 'DANC678', 'DANC399', 'DANC499', 'DANC698', 'DANC788', 'DANC799', 'HONR239C', 'DANC689I', 'DANC109', 'DANC109', 'DANC398', 'DANC399', 'DANC499', 'DANC608', 'DANC679', 'DANC698', 'DANC788', 'DANC468', 'DANC708', 'DANC779', 'DANC109', 'DANC399', 'DANC468', 'DANC499', 'DANC679', 'DANC788'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sara Pearson', 'course': 'DANC109', 'review': 'Sara is a ton of fun, and the studio portion of this class was lit. There are tons of tiny assignments due each week though which are just obnoxious. Also, the grading cutoffs are atrocious. Who looks at a class and decides that too many students are doing too well?\r\nA+ 100%+, A 97-100%, A- 93-96%, B+ 89-92%, B 85-88%, B- 81-84%, C+ 77-80%, C 73-76%, C- 69-\r\n72%, D+ 65-68%, D 61-64%, D– 57-60%, F 0-57% ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-18T17:11:04Z'}], 'name': 'Sara Pearson', 'slug': 'pearson_sara'}, {'courses': ['HONR208L', 'HONR208M', 'HONR268W', 'HONR269K', 'HONR209W', 'HHUM205', 'HONR218P'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sara Schotland', 'course': 'HONR208M', 'review': "Best seminar I've taken so far!\r\nProfessor Schotland is one of the best teachers I have ever had. She stimulates really interesting discussion and does a very good job of incorporating movies and literature in the course. She also gives summaries and excerpts from all the reading material so you don't have to read and purchase multiple novels in a short amount of time. You also still get the feel for the text and can have meaningful conversation about it.\r\n All of the assignments can be on any topic you want as long as it incorporates the overarching theme of Utopia/Dystopia. The assignments are fun and challenge your creativity.\r\nShe gives As as long as the time and effort is there.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-09T11:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Schotland', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Schotland is a fantastic professor. She really just wants you to share your opinion, there is never a wrong answer. The more personal connections you can make to the topic, the better. Although the class is long (2 and a half hours) and it seems like there is a lot of reading at first, she does a really good job of making the class interesting by using discussions and movies to break it up. The papers are really easy and very interesting because you can write about whatever you want. \r\nI would definitely recommend Professor Schotland and this class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-14T15:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Schotland', 'course': None, 'review': "Another positive review (: I had Dr. Schotland for HONR268W and it was a great class. She is honestly one of the nicest professors out there. She really cares about what you take out of class and is totally understanding. We only meet once a week for 2.5 hours but she mixes it up with discussion and video clips, which are interesting. It's a long class and I must admit, I started nodding once (but that was because I didn't sleep the night before). We had two papers and a final paper/project. Very broad and up to you on what you want to write or do your project on. Readings were also easy to read and interesting. Only thing is that she's not too amazing with technology. Maybe because we had a cart this semester. She'll get a real room equipped with everything next semester though! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-14T00:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Schotland', 'course': 'HONR208M', 'review': "There are a lot of positive reviews for Schotland, so this is one more. She really values positive discussion, and is more than happy to move on from an unproductive topic of conversation, so every seminar is relevant. She honestly seemed interested in the discussion herself.\n\r\nGrading is handled very smoothly. Show up, do the reading, do the three assignments, and she'll make sure you don't have to worry about your grade.\n\r\nClass readings are set up so that they don't become repetitive. Even in what I thought was a narrow and specific topic (Utopia), we read a huge range of material and watched a couple movies. Highly recommended.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-01T21:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Schotland', 'course': None, 'review': "Best honors seminar! Very interesting and not too demanding. We go over different topics of the death penalty every class and watch a movie/documentary for at least 30 mins. There's two 4 page papers on whatever topic you want on the death penalty and a final term paper. She encourages us to be creative and think outside of the box for our final paper, so for mine I'm doing a powerpoint and a painting. Best of all, you get to be informed about a relevant social topic. My opinion on the death penalty has definitely changed a lot after learning the facts. Great teacher, great material, great class! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-29T13:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Schotland', 'course': None, 'review': "Schotland is the sweetest professor. She finds really interesting sources. a third of your grade is class participation, so go to class and speak up!!! its a lot of reading, but it's very interesting. the grade relies on 3 simple papers and class participation, so don't worry about it. all she wants is for everyone to gain something from the class and do well; she is very understanding.SHe is very well connected and very helpful if this is a field you are interested in. We HIGHLY recommend her as well as this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-02T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Schotland', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Schotland is really an awesome teacher. She was professionally a lawyer, so she's really smart. She made our seminar engaging and informative. \r\nEven though the class is long (2 1/2 hours), it doesn't get boring because Professor Schotland moves the topics along, substituting movies and discussion. \r\nWe cover a lot of different topics in disability and I feel a lot more informed and passionate about the topic. \r\nI would highly recommend this course!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-16T03:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Schotland', 'course': 'HONR208L', 'review': 'By far the best professor I have had at UMD. She does not have many grades, but grades fairly and it is easy to know what she wants. Class participation is VERY important, so be sure to talk in class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-03-29T01:20:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Schotland', 'course': 'HONR218P', 'review': 'Amazing, interesting, organized, and easy. I truly looked forward to this class every week I had it. Highly recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-24T04:51:54Z'}], 'name': 'Sara Schotland', 'slug': 'schotland'}, {'courses': ['THET223', 'THET399Q', 'THET285'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sara Thompson', 'slug': 'thompson_sara'}, {'courses': ['BSCI370', 'BSCI106', 'BSCI106C', 'BSCI106H', 'BSCI106S', 'BSCI279V', 'BSCI106M'], 'average_rating': 2.1463, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI370', 'review': 'Dr. Via may be a good researcher, but she is not a good professor nor does she appear to be knowledgable about the course material she is supposed to be teaching. Via was simply not effective in communicating course material, and often seemed to become lost in thought trying to process the information on her slides. On many occasions, the professor would stare blankly at the powerpoint while she tried to figure out what the information that most likely she herself had put together, stating (verbatim), "I\'m not really sure what this slide is saying, but you guys should understand it for the test." I have taken numerous ecology, genetics, animal behavior, and even philosophy of evolution courses prior to taking BSCI370, so I came into this class with considerable knowledge of the subject. I was very excited to take this course because evolution is my major and my passion, and I can honestly say I was very disappointed. \r\nThe questions on the homework assignments were often incoherent, making it impossible to determine the true intention of the question and ultimately resulting in an incorrect answer because the student simply had to guess. When student concerns were brought to Via regarding these incoherent homework questions, she simply stated that she does not do regrades for homework assignments. Even when she had her TA grade the assignments, leaving room for error, Via refused to investigate student concerns about misgrading. The TA was instructed to grade assignments, yet did not seem to be able to apply a greater understanding of the subject matter when student answers strayed slightly from exactly what the rubric said. On one occasion, in regards to hominid evolution and migration to the Americas, Via asked a T/F question on a homework assignment stating "Early humans migrated from Asia on boats to colonize America". While this statement has never been in any textbook or published scientific literature upon a detailed search on online search engines, Via had included it in her powerpoint for class, leading the student to believe this answer was correct. In class the day the assignment was due, Dr. Via said that in her "opinion", the Bering Strait and Siberia is not a part of Asia, and that was her reasoning for marking that question "false". When a student brought her concern to Dr. Via that the Bering Strait and Russia are considered to be part of the Asian continent by the majority of geographical textbooks and societies, she simply stated she didn\'t agree, so she would keep it marked incorrect on the assignment. \r\nOverall, this course was extremely disappointing. Dr. Via did not effectively communicate course material, nor demonstrate any understanding of the information she was supposed to be presenting. When a science professor states, "I\'m not sure how people figure out the biomechanics of how fossils lived", it does not create much confidence in the professor for the student. I am thoroughly disappointed that the course was not informative whatsoever, and the professor was unable to communicate anything outside of the information in the textbook. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-05-01T11:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "I thought that Via's class was extremely adequate, but that she was a good lecturer. Her power points (posted online) had everything you needed for the tests, and there is a lot of extra credit. The homeworks helped with comprehension of course material, and she makes herself available to help students who need it. She posts many many things to study from. I feel like I didn't learn very much in this class (except for the last part of domains and classes), but it was fairly easy to get a good grade because she was good at presenting material. Also, her old tests are almost exactly the same as her current. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-05T22:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': "She is an okay lecturer. She covers the material and knows her stuff, but I understand how people can find her to be somewhat rude. Her exams are not terribly difficult and she does not curve, so you'll have to actually study some. The notes that she posts online are pretty much her entire lecture so you're not missing too much if you miss a few lectures. She does drop one exam which helps. \r\nOne problem that I have with her as a professor though is that she has a few lectures which really do not give any useful information towards the course. For example, when we began to discuss evoltuion, she spent an entire class discussing religion vs evolution. Also, after the last exam (before the final) she discusses lots of sustainability issues and inputs her own ideologies into her lectures, which i found unnecessary. Overall though, I think she's a decent professor and it is quite easy to get an A. She also gives a lot of extra credit oppurtunities. \r\nAs for the lab part, in honors you have to do 2 full lab reports, and don't have to do the weekly quizzes, which I found to be useful. The TAs (at least mine) do not really tell you how to write the reports so previous knowledge in writing lab reports would be useful for this class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-03-16T12:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': 'Professor Via was a great teacher in my opinion. An entertaining lecturer, always has great examples, very fair tests, and no clicker questions. She gives over 30 points extra credit throughout the course, and holds review sessions before tests. Although she comes off as rude, she has a very organized teaching style and I learned a lot from her class. And, the tests are composed of the lectures, so there are no real surprises. I would definitely recommend her!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-02T12:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Absolute worst professor I've had in 4 years of college- extremely unapproachable and condescending. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-01T21:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Via was enthusiastic and was a good lecturer. I liked that she always found many examples of the lecture material to help us understand it better. Watch out though, because those fun examples easily find their way to exams and I wasn't prepared for that the first time. \n\r\nMy TA was good, but lab seemed pretty disjointed with lecture. They vaguely connected but it's not like they helped me get a deeper understanding of the lecture material, which is what we were being tested on.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-10-11T20:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Her lectures are easy to follow. She puts her lectures online and the material on the exams are from the lectures, not from the book. She has occasional homework assignments but they are extremely brief and take 10 minutes to do. She also gives out several extra credit assignments which is really nice. Don't be intimidated by her, it's not a difficult course and the material is easy to learn. If you study for the exams you'll be fine and definitely get an A without putting forth too much effort.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-26T04:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'AWEFUL... probably one of the very worst professors. Very rude and condescending. Funny, because her lectures dont add up to her attitude. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-22T13:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106S', 'review': "A lot of people bash on Dr. Via, but I don't think she deserves it. If you study a day or two in advance for her tests, you'll do fine. The lab is easy and she gives around 40 points of extra credit. The things she does in class are actually kind of funny - don't take her too seriously. She's very opinionated, you'll see it when she starts talking about evolution and religion. Go to the review sessions and stay after and talk to her. She says she gets to know a few students this way and it could end up helping you.\n\r\nFind her past exams and study them, they will be 60% of the current exam. Don't read the textbook. At all. All of her tests are based on her lectures. Take good notes and study from her outlines. Actually read the lab manual for the prelab quizzes, it'll help you study for the lecture exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-18T04:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Definitely have mixed feelings about this course/professor as well. The material doesn't seem that bad, and she makes the tests seem like they're no big deal, but that's not really true. I did pretty badly on all of the exams, but you do get to drop the lowest exam and quiz grade, and lab will boost your grade as well. I did like that she held study sessions pretty often and offered extra credit, but she is very hard to approach and can come off very condescending and rude. Overall, I did learn, and could probably do a lot better in the class knowing what I do now. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-17T13:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Everyone is being way to harsh on Dr. Via. I personally think she is a perfectly fine professor, I like the system she has for grading which includes multiple extra credit assignments and the ability to drop your lowest exam grade. She's a bit quirky but hey whatever it takes to keep you awake. The only advice I have is GO TO LECTURE- her exams are based of what SHE goes into great detail about, not the book. Also, do the extra credit, not only does it boost your grade but it honestly helps you do better on the exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T14:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr. Via is an OK teacher. Sometimes it's hard to approach her and ask a question, but her outlines are really simple to understand. However, this class isn't as impossible as everyone makes it seem. She posts study questions before tests, and if you do them and study the answers, you'll be fine (as she tends to put in a couple of questions pretty much there). \n\r\nIt is a hard class, and you'll have to study at least 3 days in advance. Just know her outlines and study questions and pay attention in class. She gives out 40 points of extra credit which can really boost your grade, and if you have a good TA, the lab will boost your grade as well. Overall, it's a pretty fair class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-15T16:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr. Via is not a very good teacher. She makes the class really hard to understand a lot of the time, and her tests are kind of confusing. That being said, if your TA is good and you get good grades in lab, you'll be fine. Lab is 240 points, and I had a really good TA, which got me a lot of points. There was also like 30 points of extra credit in the class which really helps. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-13T02:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Everyone is bashing on Dr. Via. Wow.\n\r\nI'll start with the downsides of this class:\r\nI'll be honest. Yes, Dr. Via is a bit hard to approach, but when you do get the chance to talk to her, she's not that bad of a person.\n\r\nHer class is hard-I'll give you that. Her exams are almost impossible (unless you have access to old exams) so find someone who has taken her class and study from their past exams...it helps a LOT.\n\r\nShe also expects you to know and memorize minute details. (That can get kinda annoying and frustrating) WHO CARES ABOUT THE STUPID BEE DANCE?! (Memorize that. Seriously. It has shown up on all her past exams)\n\r\nUpsides of this class:\r\nYou learn a LOT--more than you possibly ever wanna know.\n\r\nShe's pretty organized with her lectures and she always posts her lectures online so you can print them out and make notes on them during her lecture (THIS HELPS A LOT)\n\r\nBottom line is: You're in for a challenge. Don't be lazy. Study hard and ask questions.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-12T15:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Dr. Via is no good! Considering this is ONLY an intro course, she expects too much from her students. \n\r\nFirst off, she goes into excessive detail on the lecture outlines. There is just too much stuff and it's all presented very quickly. She spends half a second on each bullet point and maintains that frenetic pace for the entire lecture. If you ask for clarification, half the time she will pretend not to hear/understand you. Then, when you try to go over the outlines on your own time, you find that they are impossible to decipher because everything is phrased so weird.\n\r\nSecond, everything under the sun seems to be fair game for the exams. If you don't memorize every little detail from the lecture notes, expect points off. Via also has a tendency to stick random textbook questions on there just for kicks.\n\r\nThe one good thing about this course is the amount of leeway that is given in terms of grading. You get to drop your lowest exam and your lowest lab quiz, and there are bonus point questions which can give your grade a significant boost if you do all of 'em.\n\r\nThere are also a lot of indirect grade boosters such as the lab quizzes (easy 100 points) and study questions (easy 40 points). \n\r\nI bombed the first exam (E) and did fine on the second one (high B). Didn't even bother taking the third one. Now it's the week before finals and I've got an 88%. Unfortunately, my chances of walking away with an A are nonexistent, so I'm just going to wing the final and take a low B.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2010-12-08T18:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106S', 'review': "Dr.Via is one of the worst teachers imaginable. If you want to keep your sanity, do not take her class. She not only is a horrible teacher, but she is also rude, inconsiderate, and ill-mannered towards her students.\r\nHer exams are UNREASONABLE!!! She expects you to memorize the exact wording of the lectures and if you know the answer but don't put it in her exact wording, it is wrong. So, it is entirely possible that you can study a lot and know all the material and still fail the exams.\n\r\nBottom Line: Don't get Via, if you have to move around all your classes or get inconvienient times, just do it.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-02T14:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Mixed feelings about this course. Via knows what shes talking about (most of the time - but couldn't explain C and N cycles in an exam review). She has very important messages about climate change, habitat destruction, and mountain top coal removal, all things i care about a great deal, but the way she prevents her knowledge about the subjects is very bullyish and abrasive.\n\r\nPlus side is - hardly studied and I got a B+ after 70's on all three exams. It kills me because if I had studied a little more I could have gotten an A.\n\r\nVia is survivable and okay - but take another professor if you can.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-22T14:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': "Ok this class is not that bad despite some of these reviews! You don't even have to read the book once!! If you just study her lecture outlines, which are posted online, you will be fine for her exams. Also her clicker points this semester were easy points, we got all of the points just by being there and clicking in an answer, even if it was wrong. A lot of people got 90/90 points for that. Also there's lots of opportunity for extra credit and a test is dropped. Worst thing about this class is that she doesn't really curve. Plus BSCI106 is boring and a pain no matter who you take. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T18:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Uninteresting, crazy and weird. I did not enjoy her class. It was beyond boring...Her exams were so pointless. The types of questions she asks sometimes you can't figure out how to answer them because of the wording. She also uses the ever-so-deadly multiple multiple questions which are also worded weird. The book isn't really needed. Uses way too many examples and you won't know which one will show up on the exams...Sorry if you get her. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T02:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "DONT TAKE THIS CLASS.\r\ni read the reviews for her before i took it but i figured that she couldn’t be all that bad. she was.\n\r\nthis was the hardest class i took all semester - i studied for over 18 hours straight for the final and i still think i did awful.\n\r\n1. she posts outlines online which are sometimes helpful, but most of the time are just missing WAY too many words and have weird fill in the blanks.\r\n2. she gives tons of examples in class that she expects you to remember verbatim on the tests (but she gets mad if you use her examples in study questions...)\r\n3. MULTIPLE MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS ARE THE WORST THING EVER\r\n4. she's an okay lecturer but is pretty rude to people asking questions and is REALLY tricky and mean about her clicker (attendance) points\r\n5. she gives extra credit which is a plus.. maybe about 20 pts total for a semester of 600+ pts\r\n6. lab was alright, i loved my TA which helped. we went over a lot of what was done in lecture, which (surprise surprise) was the stuff i actually learned rather than just memorizing.\r\n7. when you get near the end of the class, for the 3rd exam, she expects you to memorize random phylums and pull examples out of her confusing confusing outlines\n\r\nwow really long review. but just DONT take this class period, even if you have to move around other classes to take it. i studied my butt off and im still getting probably a C", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-17T21:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Via has the most boring and horrible lectures. She uses clicker questions against you, (asking extra clicker questions if she sees students leaving after a clicker). She will call you out during a lecture if she catches you leaving the class early. She is the most pretentious and RUDE woman I have ever met. You must study a lot in order to do well in this course. It is not only about reading the book or going to lectures, her exams are all about actually understanding the concepts and analyzing it. \n\r\nSTAY AWAY FROM HER CLASSES!\n\r\nshe has multiple-multiple choice questions... wtf?!?!', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-16T04:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'She\'s horrible. Her outlines are online and since she "forgot" to upload some of our clicker points (I had earned well over what I ended with) there is really no reason to go to class and listen to her drone. Especially since half the time she can\'t even decipher her own slides or really doesn\'t seem like she knows what she\'s saying. Entirely too many statements started with "So I was learning about this last week..."\n\r\nLike everyone before said, the exams are awful. If you do take her, make sure you remember every example she gives in lecture because it\'s fair game on the exam. The exams require you to have memorized and know evvvvvverything backwards and forwards, with averages usually in the low 70s.\n\r\nCondescending is the understatement of the century. The only bright side is that she does offer some extra credit.\n\r\nMy roommate takes BSCI106 with Jensen and loves it. Individual exams are even curved in that class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B?', 'created': '2009-12-16T01:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Don't listen to all the enthusiasm about Dr. Sara Via: nice interesting and helpful. She is the rudest human being I have ever met. She is so disrespectful, taunting students during class and threatening them with studying for her impossible exams. Her lectures are more like a performance, in which she obsesses and humiliates herself repeatedly.\n\r\nSTAY AWAY STAY AWAY STAY AWAY.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'c?', 'created': '2009-12-15T18:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "AVOID THIS PROFESSOR IF YOU CAN. I never knew someone so pretentious. Her lectures are very unorganized and sometimes I wondered if she even knew what she was talking about. I once made the mistake of emailing a possible mistake she might have made in lecture about DNA and she replied that she doesn't know much about it and made a guess as to why she is right. Her tests are unbelievable. Its not enough for you to know the material but to be able analyze it like it was an question in English class. She also likes harping about how evolution disproves the creationism a little to much. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-01T21:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Ok so I'm not reviewing this prof, I just wanted to tell you all that if you buy the international edition of the Scott Freeman book you could pay about $45 from bookholders instead of $170 from ubc. It's the EXACT same thing, same # of pages with same print and pics on them.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-08-20T13:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': 'I hated her class. Yes, she was a good lecturer, but her tests were impossible and she was very condescending and almost ignorant. Her tests are formatted so there can be multiple correct answers on her multiple choice (commonly known at UMCP as "multiple-multiple choice questions"). Her lectures never really followed the textbook, which can be frustrating if you want to clarify a point she made in class. She also hates it if you use laptops during lectures, even if the students use it to type lecture notes. So, if you want to get all the notes down, I suggest you speed up your note-taking skills or bring a voice recorder.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-05T16:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "I really liked Dr. Via as a person and as a lecturer. But what really killed me about her was her impossible tests. They're seriously impossible. She does this multiple/multiple choice where more than one answer can be correct, all of them can be correct, or none of them can be correct. It's so confusing! \r\nI hated the class because I have absolutely no interest in studying phylogeny of plants/algae. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-29T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': 'She is not very nice and very condescending. She seems to think that she\'s like the smartest person ever and that all the students are stupid little children. She repeatedly lectures the people who actually attend class that if they skip class they will fail. It\'s like, why is she lecturing the people who are actually there about not being there!? Also, her lectures are really unorganized and hard to understand, and she focuses on details that are really not that essential to understanding ecology and evolution, while skipping over topics that are ACTUALLY important.\r\nAlso, she is an environmental fanatic who seems to think that doomsday is coming any time now and she makes up "facts" such as "rainforest economics" that don\'t make any sense (especially if you already known something about REAL economics).', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-27T18:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "I had more fun in bsci106 than in any other class that semester. Via made things interesting, easy to understand, and her tests are straightforward. Definitely utilize other materials, like the book, and MasteringBio if you want a good grade in this course, but even if you don't, it's not that hard to do well on tests. She will let her political opinions be known, however, so if you are bothered by liberal viewpoints, she may not be the best choice for you. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-12T14:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'She is evil. She hates when people walk into class late. Many of the things that she states when she is teaching are false and she is a terrible professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-10T23:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': "I love Dr. Via! She is a pretty nice person and is helpful. At times she does seem annoyed, but overall she is still a good teacher.. And she will interact with you pleasantly if she recognizes you are truly interested (sit in the front, stay awake, talk to her after class about lecture).\n\r\nVia's tests have been multiple-multiple choice, and they are pretty good because you can have a chance to get some points even if you dont know all of the answers. My best advice is to form a study group. I did, and the results were great, if you can teach it yourself, you'll know it on the test! The tests aren't bad at all, and she drops the lowest one, and drops 2 online quizzes.\n\r\nHer lecture outlines are good, despite what everyone says. They have some minor mistakes on them, but they're not unusable. The best way to make use of them is to COME TO LECTURE and annotate the outlines with extra things she says in lecture, it helps, I got an A doing it. And always come back to the outlines when studying, especially with phylogeny, because you are expected to know it well.\n\r\nGive Via a chance, she's a respectable prof.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-01T00:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "Via is only good at research and nothing else. Her weekly quizzes are extremely confusing. her multiple multiple choice is just intimidating. doesn't respect students and regardless of the fact that you study, you still going to get an average score on the exam unless you are Isaac Newton. SHE IS A BAD BORING HORRIBLE TEACHER, I AM SCARED OF HER. Occasionaly, she crack jokes which is not funny but weird.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-22T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Reads off her powerpoint presentations. might as well not go to class, but even then her notes are not very organized and hard to understand when looking back at them. she makes an easy class confusing. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-05T17:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': "STAY AWAY FROM VIA! I REPEAT STAY AWAY FROM VIA!.\r\nshe makes everything harder than it needs to be, tries to confuse you one weekly quizes and midterms. shes not really friendly and is extremely sarcastic. She doesnt care about your grade. does a bell curve even though she does not like to admit it. so the same amount of people getting A's will get D's.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-05T12:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': "Via was a terrible professor. Her powerpoints and outlines always contained mistakes and she seemed annoyed at anyone who asked a question...didn't respect students at all.\r\nThen again, the material isn't hard and even if you're stuck with her, you'll do really well if you study enough. Exams are the standard BSCI multiple-multiple choice plus some short answer. Lab's not too bad.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-15T00:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'Although her lecture outlines were useless and confusing I found her exams pretty easy. If you paid attention during review session exam should go well.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-09-27T17:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106C', 'review': "I only liked her for the first lecture, and from there my opinion of her plummeted. She reads directly from her lecture notes so there is no point in going to class. I got an A in the course and skipped a good 2/3 of the classes once I figured out there was no point in going. The material isn't too hard and she tests you right from the lecture outline in addition to holding review sessions, though I never went. She also posts study questions with the answers, so it IS helpful in studying for the exams. The quizzes she gives are badly worded and it was hard to pick out an approriate answer. She didn't like you to ask her questions and like the others said, spent way to much time campaigning to save the rainforest. Aside from her boring lectures and lack of teaching skills, I didn't find the course too diffucult. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-31T01:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106C', 'review': 'This woman is perhaps the WORST biology professor I have ever encountered. She makes it very clear in the beginning of the course that she should be our last resort for help.She skipped important material in lecture to cover instead reasons that we should recycle and ways to save the rainforest. One lecture on that would have been enough but she managed to lecture about it for more than two weeks. She skipped human evolution even though it was still covered on the exam . The projector stopped working during the phylogeny lecture and although she didnt cover the material we were still expected to know ALL of the material for the exam. Dont even bother going to the last lecture on case studies because it is a pure waste of time as she goes through 50 min of the different organizations that are trying to save the rain forest. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-03-26T13:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'I came to BSCI 106 with such enthusiasm and ready to work and give it all i got. Hoping for a good professor, unfortunately i got Via. She is very disorganized and could care less about her students. Her tests are practically undoable. I would not recommond her to BSCI 106, and avoid her at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-12-16T15:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106', 'review': 'I\'ll second the contention that Dr. Via is extremely pretentious and pedantic does not even begin to cover the adjectives I could use. She assigns weekly quizes that once was due the night before a midterm. I am honestly blown away by what this woman considers rational in the assessment department (far too much: one quiz per week, 3 exams, two major homework assignments a major scientific paper 10-12 pages, a lab practical, and expects us to be able among our other course obligations) given her whirlwind lectures darting from one set of minutia to the next and often not in synch with lecture outlines. I never missed one solitary lecture, but very frequently she would berate the class on the poor attendance (to those who were conscientiously attending mind you)and it would seem as far as my personal opinion that she often tried constructing the quizes in such a manner as to "trick" those who didn\'t attend... I\'ll let you deduce the problem with that logic. I feel she aims to punish rather than teach and her mammoth impetuous ego and not the teaching ability to back it up is exactly why this is the worst professor I\'ve had in my 80+ accrued credit hours at a current 4.0 G.P.A. I also agree with those who mentioned her disorganization and skipping of important concepts of ecology and evolution. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-05T00:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sara Via', 'course': 'BSCI106H', 'review': "I wouldn't recommend that anyone take Dr. Via's class if it can be avoided. She is not very receptive of students' questions, sometimes treating questions with frustration or acting like the student was stupid for asking. She doesn't do a good job explaining the material covered in BSCI106, just rushes through powerpoints that don't make a whole lot of sense. She spends a lot of time on less important things and little time on the topics students have difficulty understanding. She has quickly lost the respect of many of the students.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-10-30T23:53:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sara Via', 'slug': 'via_sara'}, {'courses': ['ANSC235', 'ANSC275', 'ANSC340', 'ANSC225', 'ANSC250', 'ANSC688V', 'ANSC390', 'ANSC379', 'ANSC227', 'HONR218C', 'ANSC237', 'ANSC389', 'ANSC101', 'ANSC210', 'ANSC245', 'ANSC359', 'ANSC243', 'ANSC101', 'ANSC210', 'ANSC379', 'ANSC101', 'ANSC210', 'ANSC379', 'ANSC101', 'ANSC210', 'ANSC245', 'ANSC379', 'ANSC389', 'ANSC105', 'ANSC232', 'ANSC389', 'ANSC210'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sarah Balcom', 'course': 'ANSC225', 'review': "Dr. Balcom is...interesting. She can seem really intimidating and condescending but when it comes down to it, she really cares about her students. She is really flexible in extending deadlines if you talk to her about it and you realize just how nice she is. She's very open to working on projects with you and talking you through the process. If you turn something in late or do really badly on an assignment she'll take off only a couple of points. This being said, she has to see that you're a hard worker and you're really trying. Not just trying to turn in everything late. You have to be sincere about needing an extension or wanting a good grade. She's one of the most understanding professors I've ever had. \r\nThe only problem I have with her is I'm not really sure if I like how she lectures. It just seems condescending. I think that's just a personal opinion though. I'm sure other people are okay with it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-29T17:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Balcom', 'course': 'HONR218C', 'review': 'This class was far more work than it ever should have been. With weekly (~3 page) reflections, graded in-class participation, regular reading assignments (consisting of dozens of pages of technical papers), two large essays (~10 pages each at 10 pt font, writing about Internet views on Harambe, believe it or not), a partner research-project / student-lecture, and a final group video project, this class consumed countless hours of my time. Despite all this, it still feels like I learned almost nothing from the class as a whole. Dr. Balcom is fairly nice, but the class itself was positively dreadful. Overall, I recommend looking for your general-education credits somewhere else, unless you are sincerely interested in the public perception of animals.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-25T00:15:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Balcom', 'course': 'ANSC101', 'review': "If you do the pre-class quizzes (which are not timed and open note), attend lectures, and participate in class you will at the very least get a B in this class. It isn't a difficult class. Reading can be heavy but refer to the units objectives, which she makes very clear, and use that as a guideline for writing your pre class notes. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-16T23:01:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Balcom', 'course': 'ANSC101', 'review': 'This class was the heaviest workload out of all my classes in the beginning. The due dates are what was the most annoying. She also seems to be a lot but once the middle/end of the semester comes around most of it all makes sense. She really cares about her students and wants to prepare us for our future (harder) classes. Be prepared to have to interpret science papers, infographics, and other note-taking assignments. This class is not an easy A but is definitely possible if you work for it. Now that I understand why she seems to want so much from us, I would take her again.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-20T21:16:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Balcom', 'course': 'ANSC101', 'review': 'Dr. Balcom is a fair professor who truly cares about her students. I enjoyed ANSC101 and found the workload pretty manageable. The inclusion of lots of guest speakers keeps the class interesting and engaging. There are quite a lot of summative assessments, but for me they have been relatively easy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-01T20:31:08.351166Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Balcom', 'course': 'ANSC101', 'review': 'This class is not too hard. Exams are take-home, open note, and pretty easy. However the workload for this class is ridiculous. There are pre and post class assignments for every class and sometimes the post class assignments would take me upwards of an hour. The amount of infographics and visual assignments you have to make is every annoying. The content in the first two units is important but pretty boring.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T21:19:10.270641Z'}], 'name': 'Sarah Balcom', 'slug': 'balcom'}, {'courses': ['FREN472', 'FREN649G', 'FREN250', 'FREN301', 'FREN649B', 'FREN311', 'FREN449Z', 'FREN449A', 'FREN649C', 'FREN389A', 'FREN250H', 'FREN401', 'FREN499', 'FREN699E', 'FREN312', 'FREN699V', 'FREN498V', 'FREN699F', 'FREN387', 'FREN352', 'FREN352H', 'FREN449A', 'FREN387', 'FREN649A', 'FREN472', 'FREN649A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Benharrech', 'slug': 'benharrech'}, {'courses': ['AOSC201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Benish', 'slug': 'benish'}, {'courses': ['ENGL221', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL250', 'CMLT275', 'ENGL235', 'WMST255', 'WMST275', 'AMST298Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Bonnie', 'slug': 'bonnie'}, {'courses': ['GVPT100', 'GVPT409D', 'GVPT409H', 'GVPT201', 'GVPT700', 'GVPT421', 'GVPT424', 'GVPT429A', 'GVPT309C', 'GVPT722', 'BSGC399', 'GVPT201', 'HGLO101', 'BSGC399', 'GVPT722', 'BSGC399', 'BSGC399', 'HGLO101', 'HGLO208'], 'average_rating': 4.2222, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Croco is very nice and is a pretty good professor but the class is downright awful. There are ridiculous amount of incredibly tedious homework, all of which are graded. The first exam was really easy, the final exam ended up being curved 15 points because alot of people failed it. The paper was alot work, but was not graded too harshly. Try to get Zack as your TA. Avoid this class like the plague if you are not GOV major. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-11-19T05:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': 'I learned a lot in this class... but it was an awful experience. Despite being a 100 level class, it is very difficult. Much harder than it needs to be.\n\r\nThe homework assignments are VERY time consuming and extremely difficult. However, you must do well on them if you want a good grade.\n\r\nThe exams are not bad. Make sure you understand things conceptually and you will do fine on them.\n\r\nDefinitely do not recommend this class unless you need to take it.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-11-19T22:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "Professor Croco is a good professor. GVPT100 is a terrible class. Croco goes over the essential concepts in lecture multiple times, so it's easy to figure out what's important and what will be on the exams. She also encourages students to ask questions in lecture, which was really helpful. She speaks very fast and only focussed on one of the two projector screens in a fairly large room, so that was annoying. Overall though, I thought she was good and I actually learned from her.\n\r\nDo not take GVPT100 if you are not a gov major. And if you are, then make sure you do every hw assignment and get a good grade on it, even if you don't understand it. This is basically a gov stat class, so be prepared for that. Also, ask a lot of questions because everything builds on what you learned previously.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-21T21:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': None, 'review': "This class is probably one of the best I've taken at UMD. There is a large amount of reading every class (usually 30+ pages), but the reading guides Prof. Croco puts online are helpful for getting through them. The readings themselves are very interesting and cover a lot of international security topics, and we spend a good amount of time in class discussing the material.\n\r\nDefinitely a class for people looking to learn a bit more about the research component of political science, and for getting into heated debates about a variety of issues.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-07T17:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "A loud and fun personality in the classroom. GVPT 201 is a dreadful course but if you need to take it, she's the professor you want.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-01T16:55:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': 'Dr. Croco helped enliven an otherwise (kinda) boring stats class. It was a requirement for me (GVPT major). \r\nI had never taken a stats nor programming course before, so I knew it was going to be interesting. There are several (~11) coding HW assignments throughout the semester, but the coding wkbk kind of *gives* you the code to rework. Yes, it’s time-consuming, but it’s a lot easier once you get into a habit.\r\nMake sure to read the chapter in the textbook *before* lecture, otherwise you’ll fall behind quickly.\r\nI also found it easy to schedule office hrs with my TA to discuss some minor coding stuff, and stop by Dr. Croco’s during open office hrs to ask questions.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-18T02:38:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "Words cannot express how much this course ruined my semester. BUT Croco is awesome and keeps the lectures very entertaining. She is a great prof, but your TA's run the show. They're the ones grading your assignments and teaching you the detailed stuff. Exams are no joke.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2020-06-13T02:33:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "This class is not fun but Professor Croco is so entertaining. It's essentially a statistics and coding class. Not sure why it's labeled a gov class. Glad I'm done with it. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-11-24T00:20:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT309C', 'review': "I love Professor Croco. She's so entertaining, and can make any difficult topic much more fun. Super reasonable and predictable work load in my opinion, and no midterm or final exam for this class! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-03-25T19:28:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "While she is a nice teacher, she barely discussed coding which is a vital CRUCIAL part of this course. I'm not sure why she didn't discuss coding more. However, if you asked her about it outside of class she was helpful. Be aware, however, that this class is very boring and requires persistence to get an A especially if you have no coding experience like I did.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-05T18:24:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'HGLO101', 'review': "First thing: this course has a lot of reading, but you are reading actual books rather than textbooks, so it's not that bad. Also a lot of coding in R - this course is basically an introduction to using data science for politics/government. She does not teach the coding in class, but she does record tutorials and its especially not that bad if you know how to use Google. \r\n\r\nCoding assignments were once a week making a graph from a dataset. Aside from coding assignments, all other work was very easy, just a paragraph reflection and meme based on the readings for that week. Lectures were fun and she is very entertaining, definitely recommend especially if you're interested in data, but even if you're not.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-01T23:05:27.348995Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "I agree with the other reviews - avoid this class at all costs, but if you MUST take it, then you want this professor. She records each lecture and uploads them so attendance is not necessary. I did not go to class and it made our two exams very difficult, but I would rather cram the week of if it meant my weekly schedule was lighter. They are online and the second is worth much more points. The HW consists of a coding assignment each week due Wed night at 11:59 (based on accuracy). Our class did so bad as a whole, she curved the final 19 points- the mean was a 71, so basically a D. She is generous when she needs to be and is very good at addressing issues, answering questions, and being clear about what is to be expected. TA's go over homework code in sections so attendance for those are required and HELPFUL. She seems intimidating on day one, don't let that scare you off. It is not her fault this class sucks, she even said she is required to teach some things even if she doesn't think we will ever use it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-13T06:35:39.024447Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': 'I really liked professor croco. Her lectures can be kinda boring but she makes it as engaging and fun as possible. Honestly, her assignments are super cool if you let them be. The final memo was super fun to do, which I know sounds crazy to say about a 4 page regression analysis. GVPT201 has a bad reputation but croco will make sure you are taken care of', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-17T04:39:09.583199Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': 'When I initially signed up for this course, all I had heard was how much of a nightmare it could be. However, Dr. Croco was AMAZING. Her lectures are great and I highly recommend listening to them a few times to comprehend the material. The coding seems intimidating at first, but as long as you attend discussion and read the workbook, you will be fine. Also, do not be afraid to reach out to Dr. Croco, she is always happy to answer questions and will respond very quickly. If you are interested in political science research, then take this class!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-22T02:53:56.245355Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT201', 'review': "This class is mostly about stats and that jazz and basically serves as an intro to political research. It's boring, but she tries her best to make it interesting. R is used in this class like a calculator and you have coding assignments every week. Go to discussion for participation points. Other than that, the exams scores weren't the greatest and even though she said that she wouldn't give extra credit, she had like two extra credit opportunities.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-09T20:33:43.163474Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'HGLO101', 'review': 'If you are in Global Communities read this review carefully. Shes the only teacher who teaches this course. We were the first class to ever have her and take this course and thought it felt disorganized at times, it was a great class. Dr Croco is incredibly kind and passionate about what she does and comes to dorchester events to meet the students. She is the best. People really just hated on her because the course had coding assignments (which are so easy...and I HATE computer science). The class is literally so easy. We have a weekly reading that you have to write a 250 word reflection, a meme assignment, and a mini coding assignment (which is again...so easy). Love Dr Croco. There is no exams for this class nor is there a final.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-19T19:09:34.087682Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'GVPT309C', 'review': 'im not sure if this class is coming back but it was realllllly really cool to have guest lecturers. the workload was so little so we could focus more on enjoying the content.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-18T06:02:01.798727Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Croco', 'course': 'HGLO101', 'review': "If you like coding in R and reading PoliSci books then this class is for you. If not this is a great class to do HW in. Dr. Croco uses her time to repeat verbatim things you read that week. Each week you must write a reflection and create a meme, both of which are easy. If Dan is your TA you will be in luck, an amazing guy who is super helpful on all R assignments. The code can be hard to get the hang of and made me want to drop Honors but once you get over the learning curve you'll realize that Dr. Croco is right about all the benefits of knowing R. \r\n\r\nDr. Croco does try to incorporate student input and make her classes more engaging. This was the first year so I'm sure it will only get better. Attendance is not required and there are no tests. The final project is also very easy.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-26T02:28:26.192773Z'}], 'name': 'Sarah Croco', 'slug': 'croco'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'ENGL297', 'ENGL393X', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL388V', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL398R', 'ENGL388V'], 'average_rating': 4.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sarah Dammeyer', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Ms. Dammeyer is definitely one of the better ENGL101 professors. The class - of course - was pretty difficult, and there was a lot of work and several papers to write, but Dammeyer was always there for extra help. A lot of her assignments made you think outside the box and be creative, which was awesome. You'll really feel yourself becoming a better writer throughout the class - though you may not really love the workload at the time. I would recommend her to anyone who has to take ENGL101. She's a very sweet lady whose so friendly and very helpful. Go to her office hours! You won't regret it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-07-05T22:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Dammeyer', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "I really hate this class, but Sarah makes it tolerable. She's understanding of student's busy schedules and is pretty lax on deadlines and workload. Her grading system is also awesome. Highly recommend her for this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-06T20:25:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Dammeyer', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "dude her entire existence makes me so happy. she is literally the nicest person on the planet. super forgiving if you're feeling overwhelmed or if something in your life messed up. she is super understanding, approachable, and helpful. responds to emails pretty fast if she sees it too. I hate english with a passion and she still made it alright, like the other guy said. \r\n\r\ntaken during summer 2021 \r\n\r\nIf you need to take a professional writing course (ENGL 39x). TAKE IT WITH DAMMEYER. TRUST. I BEG YOU, TAKE IT WITH HER ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-08-16T01:26:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Dammeyer', 'course': 'ENGL398R', 'review': 'This is one of my FAVORITE professors and courses at UMD!! The course consisted of abut 4-5 essays as major assignments and collaboration with others students. Sarah is very accommodating and left me the best comments on my assignments and really helped us to see how our work could be applicable in the real world and I was never stressed about my grade. 10/10 would recommend this professor and course for your professional writing credit!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T22:14:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Dammeyer', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "The other reviews aren't lying! She's super nice and genuinely understanding. Gives helpful feedback. I thought I'd hate the class but she made it enjoyable and worthwhile.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-23T02:22:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Dammeyer', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Legitimately one of the best English professors I have ever had. Does a style of grading similar to contract grading. IE - if you complete every objective of the assignment, you will get 100%. Very understanding about modern life/setbacks - and willing to give an extension if you genuinely need it. An absolute pleasure to talk to, and very proactive in responding to emails. TAKE THIS PROFESSOR!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-07-07T13:51:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Dammeyer', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Amazing professor!! I took this class over the summer and I have to say Ms.Dammeyer is the most understanding person ever. I am somebody who is never fond of English and writing classes but Ms.Dammeyer structured the class in a way that your English and writing skills do not need to be perfect to do well in this class. As long as you follow the assignment rubric and complete the assignments on time you will do well. The assignments themselves are not that hard and are straightforward. However, being a summer class there is a good workload but definitely manageable.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-19T09:30:21.469646Z'}], 'name': 'Sarah Dammeyer', 'slug': 'dammeyer'}, {'courses': ['PHYS375', 'PHYS751', 'PHYS105', 'PHYS276', 'HONR268N', 'HONR269L', 'PHYS758E', 'PHYS485', 'PHYS685', 'PHYS276', 'PHYS485', 'PHYS685', 'PHYS276', 'PHYS485', 'PHYS685'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sarah Eno', 'course': 'PHYS105', 'review': 'she made the class unnecessarily hard. Got a B- even after putting in a lot of work', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:35:58Z'}], 'name': 'Sarah Eno', 'slug': 'eno'}, {'courses': ['MUSC129H', 'MUSC448X', 'MUSC699X', 'MUSC831S', 'MUSC629H', 'MUSC800S', 'MUSC469V', 'MUSC669V', 'MUSC801S', 'MUSC400S', 'MUSC660', 'HISP650', 'HISP680', 'ARCH201', 'MUSC830S', 'MUSC469V', 'MUSC669V', 'MUSC400S', 'MUSC469V', 'MUSC629H', 'MUSC660', 'MUSC669V', 'MUSC800S', 'MUSC469V', 'MUSC669V', 'MUSC831S', 'MUSC469V', 'MUSC629H', 'MUSC669V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Fuller', 'slug': 'fuller_sarah'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'CPPL200', 'CPPL201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Gordon', 'slug': 'gordon_sarah'}, {'courses': ['TLPL101', 'TLPL102', 'EDCI488P', 'TLPL488P', 'TLPL401', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL102', 'TLPL102', 'TLPL401', 'TLPL102', 'TLPL101', 'TLPL102', 'TLPL401'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sarah Henson-Darko', 'course': 'TLPL101', 'review': 'When I took her in the Spring 2020 semester, she literally is an amazing blessing and such an understanding and considerate teaching. SHe really showed she cared about you and was super understanding and accomadating if you simply needed extra time to complete an assignment. The Class itself is super easy and I actually enjoyed it and it kinda made me interested in the possibility of getting a master certification in Math. It honestly is super hard to not pass this class. If you dont do anything in the class then that on you and your grade will reflect it', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-08T17:13:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Henson-Darko', 'course': None, 'review': 'An amazing professor who is very understanding and easy to talk to. She gives you extra time if you need it, accommodates to students needs and grades mostly for completion and honesty on discussions.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-08T21:21:34Z'}], 'name': 'Sarah Henson-Darko', 'slug': 'henson-darko'}, {'courses': ['BMGT449F', 'BUFN760', 'BUFN763', 'BUFN738A', 'BUSM737', 'BUSM738A', 'BUFN730', 'BUFN620', 'BUFN740', 'BUFN768I', 'BUSM758I', 'BMGT449F', 'BMGT449F', 'BUDT721', 'BUFN620', 'BUFN730', 'BMGT449F', 'BUFN730', 'BUSM738A', 'BUSM758I', 'BMGT449F', 'BUFN620'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sarah Kroncke', 'course': 'BUFN620', 'review': 'Excellent lecturer all around. Very highly organized in every aspect of the course: slides, material, assignments, communication, grading, etc. \r\nHer lectures are a little bit boring, but easy to understand. Her assignments were good practical applications of the concepts. \r\nHer exams are very similar to what we did in class, but long, so you need to manage your time well. She grades leniently.\r\nVery friendly, approachable, quick to reply to emails, and always available to help.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T02:58:24.101034Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Kroncke', 'course': 'BUFN730', 'review': 'This course was easy concept-wise, but requires a lot of excel work. The professor explains well and is lenient with grading.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T03:41:03.534927Z'}], 'name': 'Sarah Kroncke', 'slug': 'kroncke'}, {'courses': ['EDSP210', 'EDSP451', 'EDSP410', 'EDSP690', 'EDSP487', 'EDSP470', 'EDSP652', 'EDSP424', 'EDSP454', 'EDSP490', 'EDSP614', 'EDSP687', 'EDSP601'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Mallory', 'slug': 'mallory'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Nelson', 'slug': 'nelson_sarah'}, {'courses': ['JOUR200U', 'HONR278E', 'JOUR698L', 'JOUR800', 'JOUR808B', 'JOUR175', 'JOUR458E', 'JOUR689P', 'JOUR698X', 'JOUR801', 'JOUR289F', 'JOUR479E', 'JOUR282', 'JOUR282', 'JOUR479E', 'JOUR282', 'JOUR479E', 'JOUR282', 'JOUR282'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sarah Oates', 'course': 'HONR278E', 'review': "Very nice professor who cares more about students learning the course material than grading. If you show up, participate in discussion, and do at least most of the readings, you'll be fine. One of the more enjoyable and manageable honors seminars I've taken.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-25T00:28:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Oates', 'course': 'JOUR282', 'review': "Great professor and very nice! Easy online class that was also very informative about current events worldwide through social media. There were a couple of readings and essays, but they weren't the worst. I highly recommend taking this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-11T18:42:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Oates', 'course': 'JOUR282', 'review': 'I loved this professor and she was really accommodating! The weekly assignments are not hard and the class was very interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-31T07:05:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Oates', 'course': 'JOUR282', 'review': 'Although everything was asynchronous, there still was a good setting she placed when teaching this class. The class is not bad at all, and she (or the TAs) did not grade my papers strictly so that was a huge plus. Take if you can, it was interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-16T17:41:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Oates', 'course': 'JOUR282', 'review': 'Extremely knowledgeable prof and extremely straightforward course. Three writing assignments, weekly discussion posts, weekly quizzes (easy control-f quizzes), and weekly readings. Took less than an hour a week except for the weeks of the papers. The papers were straightforward and graded fairly. Dr. Oates is one of the first profs where I feel like they really want me to succeed. An excellent course, very interesting too!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-21T15:04:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Oates', 'course': 'JOUR282', 'review': "Not gonna lie, I was nervous about the coursework of this class considering that it is comprised of weekly quizzes, discussions, 2 midterms, and a research paper but it turned out to be manageable. She is very responsive to emails and is quick to fix minor grading errors such as when points should not been taken off. The class itself is completely asynchronous so you don't have to worry about scheduling which is a HUGE W. Overall, I highly recommend this class for gen ed as it is primarily about the effort without the time stress unlike many other courses.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-06T20:07:04.508562Z'}], 'name': 'Sarah Oates', 'slug': 'oates_sarah'}, {'courses': ['DANC200', 'DANC228', 'DANC149', 'DANC148', 'DANC200S'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Oppenheim', 'slug': 'oppenheim'}, {'courses': ['JOUR328M', 'JOUR628M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Schaffer', 'slug': 'schaffer'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Thibeau', 'slug': 'thibeau'}, {'courses': ['SOCY105', 'SOCY100', 'SOCY105H', 'SOCY325', 'WMST325'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sarah Wanenchak', 'slug': 'wanenchak'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'PEER311', 'PEER321', 'PEER338'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sarah Wilson', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Best professor to ever have for univ100. I always looked forward to going to her class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-27T05:38:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Sarah Wilson', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Great professor. Knows how to make conversations fun and engaging and a very easy grader. You cannot go wrong by taking her class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-05T09:04:15Z'}], 'name': 'Sarah Wilson', 'slug': 'wilson_sarah'}, {'courses': ['JOUR200', 'JOUR200U', 'JOUR150', 'CPMS100', 'CPMS225'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Saranaz Abdollahzadeh Barforoush', 'slug': 'barforoush'}, {'courses': ['EDCI475', 'TLPL698'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Saroja Warner', 'slug': 'warner_saroja'}, {'courses': ['ENES672', 'ENES210'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Satish Tamboli', 'slug': 'tamboli_satish'}, {'courses': ['CHIN315', 'CHIN418D', 'CHIN318', 'CHIN418F', 'CHIN418I', 'CHIN320', 'CHIN418P', 'CHIN306', 'CHIN418A', 'CHIN418J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Satoru Hashimoto', 'slug': 'hashimoto'}, {'courses': ['ECON306', 'ECON321', 'ECON230'], 'average_rating': 2.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Satyendra Verma', 'course': 'ECON321', 'review': "Verma is the BEST professor I've had for a math-economics class! TAKE HIM IF YOU CAN. I can't believe he doesn't have more ratings.\n\r\nHe has 2 midterms, 1 large stat model assignment, bi-weekly online hw and 1 final. The key to passing all of them is going to his class! He doesn't post any notes but the hw problems and exam questions are class notes verbatim with different numbers. He tells you exactly what will be on the test and what to study for. Honestly, you don't even need the book if you go to his class. He takes the book jargon and gets rid of it then presents us the gist of the information.\n\r\nHe doesn't curve anything until the end. Depending on how you did on the midterm1 vs 2, he'll make one worth more that the other for your grade specifically. Mind you, he runs the model for every student. That's how much he cares about your learning. He refuses to penalize you for doing worse on the 2nd exam but wants to award you if he sees that you improved from the 1st to 2nd exam.\n\r\nHonestly, the guy's pretty funny and amicable. He likes to tell stories and crack jokes in class to make the atmosphere more friendly and it works. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2016-07-24T19:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Satyendra Verma', 'course': 'ECON321', 'review': 'Very difficult class. I was already very familiar with most of the topics, but this class was still an uphill battle. Even when I thought I had a solid grasp on a topic, the exams were INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT. I never had enough time to finish either of the midterms. Not to mention how much of a pain it was to try and learn SPSS basically on your own. Professor Verma does not use slides and goes through the material very quickly on the board. My advice is to sit in the front row at each lecture, record the audio on your phone for future reference/take pictures, and do practice problems. Get a study group. Verma is a nice guy - as he is not afraid to say - and most of the time he is a good professor. But he moves very quickly and the tests are nearly impossible. Bless the curve.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-05-17T00:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Satyendra Verma', 'course': 'ECON321', 'review': "Verma is a great professor if you actually show up to class. He doesn't post power points, and most of the problems on the exams are ones he did in class. He also gives a pretty generous curve. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-21T14:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Satyendra Verma', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': 'Verma is by far the worst professor I have ever had at the University of Maryland. For our ECON306 course, he did not use slides and only wrote on the chalkboard (with illegible handwriting) for the entire lecture. Also, the only thing he will post on blackboard to study off of is handwritten notes that do not make any sense and require detailed explanation. His tests are absurd as well. Avoid taking this class with this professor at all costs. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-12-16T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Satyendra Verma', 'course': 'ECON230', 'review': 'Very disorganized, This is the class I put the most time into and had the lowest grade in, luckily there was a curve.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-29T22:55:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Satyendra Verma', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': 'This man is a horrible teacher. I took Neri for ECON201 and Verma makes me miss him. He goes too fast because he handwrites his notes instead of using Powerpoints and there are no whiteboards in the front. Additionally, his handwriting sucks. \r\n\r\nIf you have to take him, make sure you go to class. Even though it will feel like a waste of time, he says things he does not include in the handouts he uploads to ELMS.\r\n\r\nI think I failed two out of the four exams we took in this class. The only reason why I am passing is because of all the extra points and curves he has given. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-05-23T20:29:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Satyendra Verma', 'course': 'ECON306', 'review': 'I am taking this class online Fall 2020 semester. His class is very difficult to follow. His lectures seem very rambling and his handwriting is difficult to decipher. Often, he has technology problems. The reason for my high rating and expected course grade is because he curves and listens to students recommendations. His teaching style is not preferable. However, the class is passable with a decent grade.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-11-12T16:30:28Z'}], 'name': 'Satyendra Verma', 'slug': 'verma'}, {'courses': ['SPAN362', 'SPAN361', 'SPAN798C', 'SPAN798O', 'SPAN408M', 'SPAN798W', 'SPAN363', 'SPAN408F', 'SPAN798Z', 'SPAN408D', 'SPAN798G', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN798J', 'SPAN408W', 'SPAN798U', 'SPAN408A', 'SPAN408E', 'SPAN363', 'SPAN798N', 'SPAN359P', 'SPAN448K', 'SPAN363', 'SPAN798F'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Saul Sosnowski', 'course': 'SPAN363', 'review': "I love this class (I don't even really like Spanish lit, but Saul makes it so tolerable). Saul is a wonderful and engaging lecturer who adds a lot more context to the readings. He's very intelligent and knows everything there is to know about every story we read and all the historical context behind it. He interacts really well with students, making the class fun. \r\nI wish grades were uploaded to the grade book - while I think I'll do well in the class, I would like to have a little more certainty. \r\nA paper rubric for the final paper and the group project would be appreciated, despite the clarity of instructions during class. \r\nThere are 4 grades, I think? 1 midterm, 1 final, 1 final paper (5-10 pages), and 1 group project. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-01T21:26:28Z'}], 'name': 'Saul Sosnowski', 'slug': 'sosnowski'}, {'courses': ['HIST289I', 'HIST601', 'HIST142', 'HIST619J', 'HIST608N', 'HIST408Y', 'HIST428Q', 'HIST304', 'HIST396', 'HIST457', 'FILM352', 'FILM329G', 'HIST319W', 'HIST619W', 'HIST619P', 'EXST030', 'HIST408L', 'HIST608B', 'HIST408T', 'HIST638K', 'HIST601', 'CINE329G', 'HIST319W', 'CINE329G', 'HIST319W', 'HIST339X', 'HIST408T'], 'average_rating': 4.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Saverio Giovacchini', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very intelligent and engaging professor. An eccentric and energetic teacher. Only reason giving 3 stars is because his course was sometimes hard to follow and could have used better structure. Otherwise the classes were well taught and mostly interesting. \n\r\nCourse was very reading heavy but the books were thoughtfully selected.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-08-21T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Saverio Giovacchini', 'course': 'HIST142', 'review': "So you know a professor is good when the worst thing you can say about him is his name is too hard to spell. Professor Giovacchini was always incredibly knowledgeable and very good at getting students involved. He would often call on students at random which, to me at least, helped make sure everyone was up to date on readings and awake. Also, for our final project, he insisted on meeting with every group. While we met with him, he gave amazing guidance about sources and possible ideas.\r\nHe also did a great job of using his expertise to make the class more interesting. He primarily studies film history so he was great at demonstrating the role Hollywood has spread American culture. Also, we got to watch a lot of movies which I personally enjoyed more than the readings. Also our final was to write a movie script (for the scheduled final we just watched the movies). \r\nOne of my favorite things about this class is just how well he kept bringing up earlier material. How many other teachers could relate Alexis de Tocqueville to Hollywood successfully?The only problem I had with Professor Giovacchini was that he sometimes seemed to jump around a bit time-wise. Like it seems we barely focused on the mid to late 19th century (I really wanted to learn how Europeans felt about slavery) and then spent 2/3's of the class on the early and mid 20th century and we barely got to anything past the 1970's and 80's. \r\nSo if you are primarily interested in the early industrial era, Giovacchini may not be for you. However, if you want an interesting class with a really smart, involved professor, take Giovacchini. I don't think I've ever seen a professor who tried so hard to have every student succeed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-04T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Saverio Giovacchini', 'course': 'HIST457', 'review': 'I would recommend him to anyone. There are a lot of readings, but outside of the first book, which is brutal, they are fairly enjoyable. If you take good notes in class and have some idea about the readings, tests and exams are a breeze. Tests are ID based usually with a mini-essay or two, nothing too difficult, very straighforward. But beware, he does like to call on people in class, so try and at least be familiar with the readings to avoid embarassment. But he is an extremely nice man who is very approachable outside of class. When I talked with him outside of class, it seemed like he actually cared about me as a person, rather than as simply a student. I would recommend turning in a rough draft of the final paper. It lightens the workload come exam time, and he also gives good feedback. Overall an enjoyable class if you are willing to put in the work, because you will get a lot out of it, and will be rewarded for your work.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-21T05:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Saverio Giovacchini', 'course': 'HIST457', 'review': "Really interesting class and professor. Not too many readings and a good mix of powerpoint, lecture and media clips. Two papers and a few exams that he graded generously. Great class made even better because it wasn't hard to do well!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-02T14:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Saverio Giovacchini', 'course': 'HIST429D', 'review': 'Giovacchini is one of the most interesting professors I have ever had. His classes were enjoyable, so it was easy to stay interested. The amount of reading is fairly heavy, so it is imperative that one stays on top of it. However, the readings assigned contained a wealth of knowledge, so they were worth doing. I would definitely consider taking another course with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-11-11T11:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Saverio Giovacchini', 'course': 'HIST457', 'review': "A good professor; he knows his stuff and is a very interesting person. If you slack off and/or don't read, you will get burned. Take the class if you are willing to put in the work, it is worth it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-06-17T23:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Saverio Giovacchini', 'course': 'HIST142', 'review': 'Do not take this class. It is 100+ pages of reading a week with random pop quizzes. Most of your grade is based on participation in discussions which is graded pretty harshly. Attendance is mandatory even though the lecture material is virtually irrelevant to the tests and quizzes. There are multiple essays with the most vague instructions possible. The only reason I gave it 2 starts instead of 1 is because the prof and TA were actually smart and kind people. They just ran a terrible course.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-16T23:33:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Saverio Giovacchini', 'course': 'HIST304', 'review': 'Interesting class and interesting professor. The films selected for this course were awesome and will be, obviously, totally different from what you are used to watching in the 21st-century. Dr. Giovacchini is a great person, an understanding teacher, and a lenient grader. My only complaint was that his lectures could be a bit more spiced up, discussion only came about when we watched a movie which seems underwhelming considering the crazy/complex time period the class covers. Take this class if you like film and/or if the 70s have ever interested you.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T05:44:00Z'}], 'name': 'Saverio Giovacchini', 'slug': 'giovacchini'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM382', 'COMM400'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Savreen Hundal', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "She's a really nice and caring professor, if you have any problems she always tries her best to help. Had her for comm107 and it was a great time for me. comm107 in itself really sucked for me because it was related to public speaking but she did try to make it a bit more fun. She has a... bubbly personality and it tends to lead towards awkward situations in class usually. Also, she is a bit of a tough grader, you have to have a really good speech for her to give you good marks, otherwise you will get stuck with a B- or C+ grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-30T04:30:09.951979Z'}], 'name': 'Savreen Hundal', 'slug': 'hundal'}, {'courses': ['MUSC329A', 'MUSC649A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Scot Hanna-Weir', 'slug': 'hanna-weir'}, {'courses': ['THET452', 'THET330', 'THET399T', 'THET451', 'THET293', 'HHUM106', 'THET222', 'THET294', 'THET499', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET799', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET351', 'THET425', 'THET429', 'THET669', 'THET386', 'THET222', 'THET286', 'THET330', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET788', 'THET789', 'THET386', 'THET429', 'THET451', 'THET222', 'THET286', 'THET386', 'THET399', 'THET788'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Scot Reese', 'course': 'THET330', 'review': "I'll grant you that he knows about musicals, but when it comes to directing a dramatic play, he's way out of his league. His directing class is well organized but very light on content. It's hard work but you don't learn much. He's not always respectful to students either and that doesn't help. The fact that he brings in muffins to class sometimes doesn't make up for it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-08-04T12:20:00Z'}], 'name': 'Scot Reese', 'slug': 'reese'}, {'courses': ['GVPT409Q', 'GVPT200', 'GVPT289J', 'GVPT889E', 'GVPT409E', 'GVPT889B', 'GVPT204', 'GVPT414', 'GVPT409M', 'GVPT414', 'GVPT204', 'GVPT409H', 'GVPT708A', 'GVPT204', 'GVPT204', 'GVPT708A'], 'average_rating': 4.3889, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "Not the most engaging class, since it's all about basic international political relations, but Dr. Kastner does an excellent job of making sure everyone understands the concepts. Even in a 150+ person lecture, he tries to engage his students by asking questions and calling on students to answer. I must admit, I didn't go to all the lectures because once we learned a theory or concept, that was about all he went over for the next couple lectures, just to ensure everyone understood it, but his PowerPoints are very informative and he posts them regularly. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-10-02T11:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "I really liked Kastner's class; it wasn't the most interesting thing in the world because it's a survey class and didn't get into much depth in anything, but it was fairly enjoyable. He's also really helpful in office hours if there's something you need help understanding or just want to discuss further.\n\r\nAnd if you have any choice in your TA's, David Prina's awesome!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-01T23:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "I actually love this class. I feel bad when I miss it. It is really interesting (well, some topics). I would say this class is kind of like intensifying your common sense. Most of the topics are pretty simple and the readings are really not that bad. Some of them are pretty long, but I usually go over them briefly and then search for topics that were talked about in class. Discussion is worth 20% of your grade, so you should definitely go and you actually have to participate to get full credit. Definitely do the readings before-hand. Otherwise, the structure of the class is 15%- First Exam, 15%- Second Exam, 20% 4-5 Page Paper with a choice of a few topics, and a 30% final exam. Don't wait until the last minute to study for the exam though, because it's a lot of information sometimes. In addition, he posts the lecture slides on ELMS, but he really expands on his points and gives many examples in class that help on the exams so I would encourage everyone to go. Also, this semester, every TA got to lead a lecture, which is sometimes nice but a few are pretty poorly done. Overall, Kastner is a really nice guy, he really cares about his students and always willingly answers questions. I would definitely rank him as one of the top professors I've had. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-01-27T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT409Q', 'review': "I really enjoyed this class. Professor Kastner is very knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. There is a sufficient amount of reading, and class participation is important (I believe its 25% of the grade), but he is a fairly easy grader and an overall nice guy. If you are interested in international relations and don't mind really getting into the specifics of this topic, then I would highly recommend the class. If you put in the effort, do the work, and participate in class, it shouldn't be difficult to get an A.\n\r\nThere are usually 4-5 readings a week, each reading anywhere form 10 to 40ish pages. Sometimes the readings can be a little tedious but most are pretty interesting and you almost always discuss them in class. There is a midterm, final, and term paper. He basically gives away the main topics for each exam - like i said, if you do the work, this class isn't difficult. The paper is really open-ended, you can write about whatever you want pertaining to the main topic. He is more than willing to help you with your topic or the paper in general.\n\r\nOverall, I would recommend this class and this professor. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-21T14:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': 'The class is very easy, but Kastner is not a good lecturer. He essentially reads the powerpoint and lectures as if he is reciting a speech. However, the class itself is very easy. \n\r\nIf you get to choose your TA though, Nathan Grossman was phenomenal. I never went to lecture but I never missed a discussion! ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-12T12:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "Professor Kastner was great. Sure, he's not the greatest lecturer, but they aren't so dull that you'll dread going. And he posts them all on elms, so if you decide to miss one or two, you're still fine. He is very understanding; I had surgery this semester and had to miss 3 weeks of school around midterms. He gave me as much time as I needed to make up the test and the paper we'd had due earlier. \r\nThere are two papers in here and two tests, the midterm and the final.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-05T17:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': 'nice enough guy but not the greatest lecturer. Class is easy, 2 tests and a paper. However avoid the TA Tara like the plague. She is no help whatsoever in discussion. Does not seem to care about how her students do. Plus she is a very, very hard grader. If you have the opportunity to switch to a different section do it, you will not regret it.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-14T20:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT409E', 'review': "I took East Asian Relations with Dr. Kastner for the Spring 2018 semester. The class focused mainly on China (which is his field of specialty, I am assuming), which was fine but it would have been nice if we focused more on the other countries in the region (although we briefly spoke about Japan and their relations with China, and North Korea). Most topics we discussed were either on China, issues related to China, or China's relations with a neighboring country.\r\n\r\nDr. Kastner is a fair grader and pretty helpful if you have questions. I had questions about the final presentation and he pointed me to several resources for my topic specifically. I also had to email him about an issue with a groupmate for a group project and thankfully he was very understanding. Personally I hate group projects, however he gave us a lot of time to complete the project and even gave us class time to work on the project, as well.\r\n\r\nI appreciate that he put up the powerpoint slides online before each class and also gave us a short 10-15 minute break during class since the class was 2 hours and 45 minutes long.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-31T22:38:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT409E', 'review': 'I took GVPT409E East Asian Politics with Kastner and he was an excellent professor. He is very knowledge and passionate about the Asian region and it shows through his lectures. Kastner is also really understanding. Fairly easy course if you come to class prepared by doing readings/participating. I worked hard on the major assignments and got an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-20T03:07:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT289J', 'review': "Prof Kastner is really knowledgeable about the East Asia region and it showed through his lectures. I appreciated the way in which he took the time to answer students' questions to the best of his ability, and he did a good job explaining more complex topics. There were about 3 major essays which were fairly open-ended and easy to respond if you listened in lecture.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T07:56:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT289J', 'review': "Professor Kastner is a really knowledgeable lecturer on East Asian politics. If you take GVPT289J you probably have some sort of interest in the inner workings of China overall, and Kastner does his best to quench your thirst through curated PowerPoints on major topics such as economy and cultural explanations of China's role in past and current events. The course grades are primarily divided into three major essay assignments, about 4 pages each, that ask you to explain the US-China relations in different fields. Attending the lectures should be enough to give you all the information that you need. Overall I think it was a very entertaining class with just the right amount of difficulty for an elective.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-19T03:02:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT204', 'review': 'GVPT204 is the new classification for what was once called 289J. As for the class, Kastner did a great job teaching it. His lectures are great and you should go to them since the slides on elms are vague. He really goes in depth about them. Gradewise, there were 3 papers, each worth 25% of your grade and I found the prompts straightforward. The remaining 25% was participation in discussion. As long as you are involved and talking, you should be fine. We had to be discussion leaders at one point in the semester and pose questions based on readings and lectures to the class. Overall, great class and great professor. You should take this class if you ever get the chance.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-13T03:46:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT204', 'review': 'Extremely kind and patient professor. Really knows his stuff when it comes to US-China relations. Learned a lot in this class, highly recommend', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-24T03:12:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT414', 'review': "I took 289J with Kastner (which is now known as 204) back in fall 2020 and then 414 with him this past semester (fall 2021). He is extremely knowledgeable about what he teaches and his passion shows through. He is helpful with meeting for office hours if you missed lecture and have questions about the slides (which are only an outline of what he talks about). I highly recommend taking a class or two with him, if you're interested in learning more about East Asia and are looking for a class with no busywork (just papers). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T21:44:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT204', 'review': "He's alright. I think he is the only one teaching it, but he is clearly knowledgeable about what he is talking about. GVPT204 is a DSSP and an I-Series which attracts people who may not be that invested or interested. Something to note about this class is that there are barely any assignments in this class: 3 exams and a paper and also discussion participation. If you mess up on one, it will drag your grade down. The exams are pretty straightforward where it is basically 15 MC trivia questions that can be found on the slides and 2 short FRQ which you basically have to regurgitate the points on the assigned readings. The last thing to say is that this covers a lot of topics which is related to US-China and sometimes it jumps from topic to another, but the class isn't that bad as long as you can cram slide info before an exam.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-09T20:27:12.022982Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT204', 'review': 'A really good professor, and a straightforward class. Two midterms and a final, a 5-page paper, and some discussion points. Interesting class, but reading heavy. Overall, recommend it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-16T16:34:56.510978Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT204', 'review': "Professor Kastner was a great professor. It's clear that he really cares about the learning of his students, willing to answer student questions, even if they really don't deserve to be answered. I think 204 was easily the most interesting of the GVPT courses I have taken so far, (170, 200, 201, and now 204). The course wasn't difficult gradewise, the four assignments were very straightforward. Like someone else mentioned, because there's only four real big grades--two midterms, an essay, and the final-- you'll need to do well on them, but they're not difficult if you have kept up with the readings. I definitely recommend this class and Professor Kastner more broadly.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-23T02:54:39.653743Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Kastner', 'course': 'GVPT204', 'review': "I really am glad I took this class, it's super interesting and I actually learned A LOT that I didn't know about US-China relations. Professor Kastner is very knowledgeable and I think he's very easy to understand. You just have to really want to pay attention, because if you don't it's easy for your mind to drift off during lecture. The tests are quite easy and straightforward because it's 15 multiple choice and 4 short answer, if you pay attention in lecture and also do the readings (they are usually not very long, so even if you don't read all of it you should still know a summary at least, or the main points) you should do fine on them. I learned a lot and am very interested in US-China relations now because of this class! I would recommend it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-27T18:11:08.981474Z'}], 'name': 'Scott Kastner', 'slug': 'kastner'}, {'courses': ['ENCE320'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Scott MacRae', 'slug': 'macrae'}, {'courses': ['HIST208Z', 'HIST208O', 'HIST113', 'HIST408R', 'HIST240'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Scott Moore', 'slug': 'moore_scott'}, {'courses': ['JOUR361'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Scott Rensberger', 'slug': 'rensberger'}, {'courses': ['PSYC424', 'PSYC798B', 'PSYC100', 'PSYC289E', 'PSYC111', 'UNIV798A', 'TLTC798', 'UNIV798B', 'PSYC237', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC237', 'PSYC237', 'PSYC237'], 'average_rating': 4.3125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC289E', 'review': 'I took this winter semester and it was the best descision I could have made. Dr. Roberts was engaging, funny, and incredibly knowledgable. He made 3 hours a day every day fun, or as fun they can be in a windowless room of BPS. The group project was a little stressful to do in a week, but he was very reasonable about expectations. His best quality: making everyone feel comfortable participating. He can turn the most idiotic question into a memorable answer without making the asker feel good about participating. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-04-13T18:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC289E', 'review': 'Dr. Roberts definitely cared a lot about his students. He was very responsive to emails. If a student showed some reason why an answer on a worksheet or an exam was wrong or could have been a different option, we would always reward correction points. He was extremely fair. There were ample extra credit opportunities. The material was extremely interesting. Be prepared to do a lot of work though. The worksheets every week always took many hours if you did them thoroughly. Doing them thoroughly is important to doing well on the exams. All of the exams are cumulative. It is a blended learning, so a scientific analysis is due every other week, but those are not bad. Just be prepared for doing more work than normal for a 200 level class. Overall a great class and great professor.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-01-05T15:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC289E', 'review': 'Fantastic teacher. \n\r\nHe cares deeply about how his students are doing in his class which shows in his quality of lectures and assessments. He is also very responsive to emails (he sent out a class email one time at 1:30 am, hard working man!). \n\r\nThe class does take a decent amount of time and effort but it is very well worth it. The material you will learn is incredibly interesting and highly applicable to your world today. \n\r\nYou will find yourself talking about what you learned to family and friends long after the course is finished.\n\r\nTake it!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-01-06T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC289E', 'review': 'This class is probably my favorite class I\'ve taken in college. I would categorize it as slightly more work than your average 200, but easy.\r\nThe material is just fascinating, and Dr. Roberts does a great job going through it at a good pace and focusing on more interesting details. The case studies were especially entertaining.\r\nDr. Roberts seems like he really cares about the students, but he also doesn\'t take BS or using cell phones in class. He WILL call you out, so some students found him intimidating--though I, personally, did not.\r\nHe did everything in his power to make grading favor the students and would always resolve conflicts in our favor. There was tons of extra credit available.\r\n Study the CLOs posted at the beginning of the class, and tests are a breeze. The SA\'s were graded a bit harshly and I would focus my energy on making those perfect if I had another chance. Also, the group project was a bit of work, but Dr. Roberts helped everyone with that as much as he could as well. \r\nOne of the comments below said worksheets were "very hard" and I think that is absolutely untrue if you have any remedial knowledge of psychology. I never got lower than an A on them.\r\nAlso, as far as class structure goes, the Blended Learning style is both a blessing and a curse as it does lend toward more work, but it also gives you some Thursdays off. Roberts does use clicker questions for participation, graded on correctness, but lectures are not a chore to attend because they\'re so interesting.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-12-21T13:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC289E', 'review': 'Class was not as tough as he makes it seem day 1. Weekly homework assignments take 1-2 hours. Bi-weekly 1 page papers. Group project. Exams were really a cinch. He tells you exactly what will be on it so you just have to learn it.\n\r\nAs for the teacher, he is probably the best communicator of the material I have ever had at Maryland. Really knows his stuff and knows the best ways to teach (considering he is a psychology doctorate). 5 stars are for Dr. Roberts. Class was pretty cool too.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-12-19T09:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'Best professor at UMD. He is funny, nice and presents the material in interesting ways.\n\r\nHowever, this is not an easy class. It requires a lot of work, but it is definitely worth taking. I had never taken a psyc class before, and I was pleasantly surprised.\n\r\nTake this class with Roberts if you can! Highly recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-11-19T22:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC289E', 'review': 'RIDICULOUS GRADING. OUTRAGEOUS. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-11-19T00:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC289E', 'review': 'The Psychology Of Evil, I-Series course, is a class that all psychology majors should take. \n\r\nThe material is SO INTERESTING. I loved going to class. You learn about why evil acts occur, what makes a person evil, the evolution of evil, psychopathy, the evil of inaction, and more.\n\r\nThat beign said, this class is no joke. It was pretty hard. Personally I think that it was too difficult for a 200 level course and should be switched to a 300. However Roberts did make up for the difficulty in the end by offering a lot of extra credit opportunities.\n\r\nThe class has a lot of different grades. Every class there are clicker questions, "learning checks." There are also points for attendance and Worksheets for homework. Worksheets WERE VERY HARD and took hours to complete. They are very very helpful to learning the material, though. There are also 3 group projects. These projects suck and didn\'t really help us learn anything. One of them was a group essay which was very hard to coordinate. There are also exams. Exams are difficult but extremely fair. They are made up of Multiple Choice and Short Answer questions, all of which accurately cover the course. Blended Assignments are another big part of the class - these are written essays (short) that are in place of class. There are two groups in the class, A and B, which alternate attending class on Thursdays. So everyone goes to class on Tuesdays, but on some Thursdays group A will go to lecture and group B will stay home and complete a Blended Assignment. Etc. \n\r\nRoberts has videos of the class posted on ELMS which are helpful as well. NO computers or cell phones allowed in class whatsoever. Class is very interactive and engaging so this shouldn\'t be an issue. He is also very fair when it comes to disputes about the worksheet questions.\n\r\nLots of extra credit offered! :-)\n\r\nGREAT class. I don\'t think I\'ve ever retained so much information from a class. It really makes you look at things differently. Definitely reccommend that you take it. \n\r\nSuggestion to Roberts would be the changing of the group projects. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-03T09:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC289E', 'review': "Dr. Roberts is a pretty phenomenal teacher. He has a good grasp on concepts and uses interesting examples to stick things in your head. The course is Blended Learning Style (don't meet every other Thursday and instead have pretty simply one page essay to write) and there is a weekly online homework. The online homework takes a couple hours and was confusing or wrong a bunch of times but Dr. Roberts gave points back to make up for it. Try to get a good group on the last big project. This class takes a bit of effort but you don't really notice since the material is really interesting. He has a no-electronics policy in his classroom and he'll call you out if you're texting.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-18T13:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC289E', 'review': "This class is very fun. He is very fun and will make jokes with you! PSYC289E required a lot of work but the class is fun and you learn about a lot of interesting topics. He's very engaging and you just have a great time really, minus the work\r\nI would recommend taking him and the Psychology of Evil :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-30T20:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC424', 'review': "Roberts is a fantastic professor who knows his material incredibly well and really, truly wants his students to become masters of it. \n\r\nThe workload in 424 is huge, but it's incredibly manageable once you realize that you just have to read the book chapter and answer questions on it. The book chapters are on the long side, and the questions are tough, so if you start it the night before it's due, you're going to have a bad time. If you do the reading early, and come back to the worksheet the next day, you can do it in half the time.\n\r\nWorking in a very large group (10 or so people) is a new experience for most people, and my group didn't really react well to it. Roberts makes the point that in the real world, you will sometimes have to work in large groups, but he doesn't effectively teach you how to do this. As a result, nobody does it right.\n\r\nThis class is for the brave. If you take it, you'll do a lot of work, and you will become tangibly more powerful. More than any other class, you get out of it what you put into it -- while most other classes have a very limited set of outputs, this class seems almost limitless in how much you could obtain if you put in the work.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-11T19:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC424', 'review': 'Absolutely amazing. Probably one of the best professors at the university. Although his class is challenging in the sense that there is a lot of work and you definitely have to earn your grade, his sytle of teaching and the topics he covers makes it beyond worth while. Everything he teaches is applicable and memberable, some of the things you learn you will realize how often you use it in everyday life which makes this class so exciting and easy!! If youre looking for a class that is interesting and fun TAKE THIS CLASS, or any other with Dr. Roberts!! But definitely be prepared to earn your grade!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-16T14:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'Dr. Roberts is amazing! I had him in the fall, and I learned so much. It does require a substantial amount of time and work, but not at all unbearable. With that said, it is DEFINITELY worth it, because his style of teaching and assigning work it extremely beneficial; I learned A LOT, and i still remember a great deal of it five months later! He is a psychologist, so he knows the best way for us to learn, and applies it. Dr. Roberts makes Psych FUN and INTERESTING!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-25T11:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC100', 'review': 'I had scott roberts this year for Psyc 100, and it was a lot of work. That being said, it was extremely interesting.\r\nMost of the work was done on weekends, with a "study guide" to be completed by the beginning of every week. the study guides took a long time at least 4 hours all put together, but he makes the chapters himself and they are filled with videos and other things that make it a lot less boring than if he just gave us a textbook and told us to read. If you study and do the work, though tiring at times, you will do fine.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-13T19:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC424', 'review': 'Scott Roberts was an incredibly engaging professor, and I feel that he challenged students to gain a great deal of knowledge through his course structure. That being said, this course required way too much work. The large-group project requirements are rediculous, and the weekly worksheets can take hours. I would recommend it if you can put in the effort.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-28T11:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Roberts', 'course': 'PSYC237', 'review': 'Completely ridiculous grader and rude to students.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-29T14:28:04.159761Z'}], 'name': 'Scott Roberts', 'slug': 'roberts_scott'}, {'courses': ['HONR279B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Scott Szymendera', 'slug': 'szymendera'}, {'courses': ['ENGL305', 'ENGL403', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL719A', 'ARHU158D', 'ENGL621', 'ENGL414', 'CMLT679K', 'ENGL702', 'ENGL428G', 'ENGL304', 'ENGL308A', 'ENGL719E', 'ENGL121', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL121', 'ENGL404'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Scott Trudell', 'course': 'ENGL301', 'review': "Never before have I had a professor who prioritized the wellbeing of his students as Dr. Trudell. You could tell he really cared about us and wanted us to learn and succeed. Make no mistake though, he expects a lot from his students, so you'll have to work hard throughout the semester. But taking a course with him was definitely worthwhile.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-26T16:24:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Trudell', 'course': 'ENGL121', 'review': "Honestly, this was honestly the best course I took so far at the University of Maryland. Dr. Trudell is very helpful and cares about his students as well. The course is fairly simple as well, as long you like music and understand the deeper meanings of it as well. The TA's are helpful as well, as long you participate in the class and are actually interested in what is taught, you will do well and enjoy the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-02T19:03:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Scott Trudell', 'course': 'ENGL308A', 'review': "Trudell was amazing. He's a great professor and he asks for the bare minimum. his midterms and finals are extremely easy and he even brought us homemade cookies one time. W prof", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-07T19:27:30.738885Z'}], 'name': 'Scott Trudell', 'slug': 'trudell'}, {'courses': ['BSCI422', 'CBMG699J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Scott Walsh', 'slug': 'walsh_scott'}, {'courses': ['ENGL395', 'ENGL612', 'ENGL611', 'ENGL390', 'ENGL297', 'ENGL776', 'ENGL488Q', 'ENGL699', 'ENGL497', 'ENGL497', 'ENGL493'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Scott Wible', 'slug': 'wible'}, {'courses': ['MATH213', 'MATH214', 'MATH140', 'MATH240', 'MATH015', 'MATH115'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sean Ballentine', 'slug': 'ballentine'}, {'courses': ['BUDT758K', 'BMGT435', 'BUDT758X', 'BUSI758B', 'BUSI630', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sean Barnes', 'slug': 'barnes_sean'}, {'courses': ['JOUR361', 'JOUR262', 'JOUR661'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sean Filburn', 'slug': 'filburn'}, {'courses': ['JOUR353', 'JOUR655', 'JOUR355', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR625', 'JOUR352', 'JOUR652', 'JOUR472', 'JOUR772', 'JOUR152', 'JOUR628C', 'JOUR355', 'JOUR472', 'JOUR655', 'JOUR772', 'JOUR355', 'JOUR628C', 'JOUR655', 'JOUR772'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sean Mussenden', 'slug': 'mussenden'}, {'courses': ['BMGT326', 'BUAC780', 'BMGT321', 'BUAC710'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sebahattin Demirkan', 'slug': 'demirkan'}, {'courses': ['SPAN203', 'SPAN204', 'SPAN302', 'SPAN303', 'SPAN363'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sebastian Bartis', 'slug': 'bartis'}, {'courses': ['MUSC129Q', 'MUSC629Q', 'MUSC129Q', 'MUSC629Q', 'MUSC129Q', 'MUSC629Q', 'MUSC129Q', 'MUSC629Q', 'MUSC129Q', 'MUSC629Q'], 'average_rating': 2.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sebastian Wang', 'course': 'MUSC129Q', 'review': "If you're willing to be subjected to the most vague, terribly organized, and half-assed class, syllabus, and grading scheme, then feel free to take this class. Otherwise, take African drumming. \n\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-08-15T14:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sebastian Wang', 'course': 'MUSC129Q', 'review': "Take African Drumming ensemble instead.\n\r\nIf you went to our performance, you could have easily seen which group (ours vs. African drumming) had more fun. \n\r\nAlthough I received an A, I don't think I did anything differently from my peers who got B's. He grades subjectively so either get on his good side or get an undeserved B in a one-credit class. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T14:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sebastian Wang', 'course': 'MUSC129Q', 'review': 'Totally agreed with previous review.\n\r\nThe only thing I might\'ve screwed up on was that I missed one class, with his permission, and he gave me a B. I emailed him asking HOW/WHY I received this grade (as opposed to asking him to give me a freaking A for the course) and his only response for my question\n\r\n1st email - \r\n"And based upon what you showed and did in class over the semester, as well as the final performance, I graded you on what I thought was the appropriate grade based upon all these factors"\n\r\n2nd email\r\n"Every class I tested participation, knowledge of the piece, knowledge of the instruments/sounds. The final performance is based on knowledge of the piece as well as the ability to perform it. "\n\r\nAre you joking? I just asked you for a personal evaluation and these are the same two answers you give me?\n\r\nBy the way, his syllabus is so freaking vague and half-assedly prepared that it\'s totally unfair how strict he gets with the grading criteria. He did not have any times prepared ahead of time for the practice rehearsals towards the end of the semester for the final performance, and I\'m pretty sure he gave some of my other peers from that class B\'s too because they couldn\'t make it to those practice times. Is it really our fault that you give us the exact times at the very last minute?\n\r\nI also had an A for my mid-semester grade, did not change anything about my contribution to the class (except maybe that one missed class).. and what do you know? All of a sudden I have a B as my final grade.\n\r\nMost importantly, I was expecting to learn more about the history of Korean culture.. all he makes you do is memorize the instruments/notes and play. Barely even goes into the history or beauty of these instruments. As a Korean, I am quite disappointed.\n\r\nThe no paper work/tests/quizzes ordeal might be a good incentive to take the class, but beware because he grades you on his instinct.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-19T21:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sebastian Wang', 'course': 'MUSC129Q', 'review': 'I am going to be drop dead honest with this professor. Good or bad, take it or leave it. Here is my review.\n\r\n1. He strongly believes that his class is a 3 credit course. Come on now.. this is a 1 credit course. If you ever miss one class, then you will receive the worst glare for the rest of the semester. You are also likely to receive a B or worse no matter how much you participate.\n\r\n2. He speaks to the students as if they are his kids. He has no respect whatsoever for the students. If he asks a certain question about reiterating verbally the rhythm, and you get it 99.9% right, or even 100% right, his answer will be, "ehhh..... yeah.... kind of.... yeah... you almost got it.... but not quite..." and then he would add on that either you said it "too slow.. or bad pronunciation.. or said it too fast." He basically just wants you to feel bad and try harder to answer his question more correctly next time, when even next time he will still say that you are not quite correct.\n\n\r\nOverall, his percussion skills may be great, but his teaching is like that of a teenager boy who is going through puberty smiling his butt off at the girls while teaching. Literally.\n\r\nPS. He ends class at the last minute, and then you need to put away the drums with him. So don\'t expect to finish on time.\n\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-13T21:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sebastian Wang', 'course': 'MUSC129Q', 'review': "I'm not sure why all the previous reviews were so negative; I've had a great experience with Dr. Wang so far this semester. In comparison to the previous reviews, he was very patient, was very helpful in correcting our drumming, and made the class a fun environment. He also sprinkled in some history lessons on Korean percussion. If you're looking to take a fun instrumental class or need to take one for your music major/minor, take this class!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-26T19:43:31.670395Z'}], 'name': 'Sebastian Wang', 'slug': 'wang_sebastian'}, {'courses': ['AREC489J', 'AREC456', 'AREC785', 'ECON785', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sebastien Houde', 'slug': 'houde'}, {'courses': ['ENEE720', 'ENEE623', 'ENEE698A', 'ENEE324', 'ENEE627', 'ENEE324H', 'ENEE322', 'ENEE420', 'ENEE439M', 'ENEE698P', 'ENTS669D', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE662', 'ENEE436', 'ENEE698P', 'ENEE698Q', 'ENEE698Q'], 'average_rating': 3.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sennur Ulukus', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': 'This class was difficult because the workload was higher than my other classes. There are weekly quizzes that are graded out of 20 points, but you get 10 points for just showing up to take them.\r\nThere are also weekly homeworks that can be time consuming and can be more in depth than the textbook or her lectures go into. \r\nThe homework and quizzes make up 20% of your final grade, and the other 80% are three exams and the final. The finals are most represented by the quizzes, so make sure to at least understand those.\r\nThis class can seem intimidating because the content is difficult, but her teaching style is very straightforward and her exams were not surprising.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-12-23T01:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sennur Ulukus', 'course': 'ENEE420', 'review': 'Good professor. Took her for 324 and now again for 420. Good, coherent lectures. HW is not excessively long, though can be tough - just a characteristic of the material being innately tough. Fair tests. Dry humor to keep lectures interesting. Definitely recommend this professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-02T23:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sennur Ulukus', 'course': 'ENEE324', 'review': 'Most of the time her midterms/class content are straightforward and Dr. Ulukus is very approachable...even though her quizzes are all over the place.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-05-28T17:22:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Sennur Ulukus', 'course': 'ENEE439M', 'review': 'One of the very very very few professors that know how to TEACH! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-10T19:57:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Sennur Ulukus', 'course': None, 'review': 'She does not treat her students properly. Her phd students claim to have toxic lab culture. If you are an american citizen, then she will treat you with respect.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-26T23:16:33.918248Z'}], 'name': 'Sennur Ulukus', 'slug': 'ulukus'}, {'courses': ['NFSC678D', 'NFSC498L', 'NFSC678L', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100H', 'NFSC620', 'NFSC678A', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC620', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC436', 'NFSC636', 'NFSC678A', 'NFSC678A', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC620'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Seong-Ho Lee', 'slug': 'lee_seong-ho'}, {'courses': ['KNES442', 'HONR258O', 'KNES440', 'KNES498Y', 'KNES610', 'KNES442H', 'KNES689O', 'KNES440H', 'KNES660', 'KNES662', 'KNES440', 'KNES440H', 'KNES660', 'KNES442', 'KNES442H', 'KNES610', 'KNES662', 'KNES440', 'KNES440H', 'KNES660', 'KNES498A'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'course': 'KNES442', 'review': "I definitely recommend taking this class; that being said, there is a significant amount of course work. Do NOT register for this class thinking psychology means easy. The readings, which are certainly interesting, are pretty hefty and not optional. All articles must be read and annotated. Don't fake it: it will come back to bite you on the midterm and final! They are super specific and frustrating, the average being low, but the curve being decent to give 1/2 A's and B's, the other half C's and D's. This is probably the only KNES class with a curve.\r\nAlso, register knowing you must participate in class. 25% of your grade is class participation, so don't expect to just sit through class and not contribute.\r\nThe paper is not too bad, as long as you figure out what he's looking for. I somehow managed an A, but this was a shock to me. It's very hard to know where you stand in the class", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-05-29T19:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'course': 'HONR258O', 'review': 'Seppo is the best professor I have had at Maryland. He is fair, and his class is quite entertaining. There is a fairly large packet of readings you need to do throughout the semester, but you also get to spend half of the semester on the driving range learning the game of golf. Seppo greatly improved my game, and is a great instructor. I highly recommend this course if you need an honors seminar.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-29T19:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'course': 'KNES442', 'review': "If you don't like to review 300 pages of journal articles, do not take this class. Each hw assignment is pages and pages of reading and highlighting. Concepts I thought were going to be cool are really just boring theories, thus the class is boring, and the paper you have to write for this class is the worst I've had to do in my college career. Tests were extremely hard but are at least curved. If you thought this was going to be like knes350 or knes451, stop. Sign up for something else. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-16T22:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'course': 'HONR258O', 'review': "Dr. Seppo is a great professor. He truly cares about his students, and doesn't care whether you are a novice or experienced golfer. The quizzes are difficult at first, but if you do the reading, they are manageable. The midterm and finals are rough, but if you actually read the material a few times you will be fine.\r\nThe best part about the course is getting the chance to play golf. You will spend the the first half of the semester on the driving range and then you will get to play one or two rounds of golf before going into the classroom when the weather gets cold. \r\nDr. Seppo can be a genuinely funny guy, and he always seems to be in a good mood. Though some of the inside material can be boring, the first half of the semester more than makes up for it, and I still found myself willing to come to class everyday.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-09T21:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'course': 'HONR258O', 'review': "I'd definitely agree with everything the other reviewers said. If you've never taken golf before, it's perfectly fine. Dr. Iso-Ahola grades the newbies on a different scale for the skill exam, and doesn't expect you to know the terminology right away. The quizzes are NOT easy, but once you get used to the kind of questions he asks, it's not so bad. More work than I expected for an Honors seminar about golf, but learning golf makes up for it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-10-21T12:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'course': 'HONR258O', 'review': 'This was a really fun and interesting honors seminar. Your grade depends on:\n\r\n - Journal entries (twice a week entries)\r\n - 6 papers (4 thought papers, 2 book reviews)\r\n - Skills tests (iron shots, wood shots, putting, etc)\r\n - 1 midterm\r\n - 1 final exam\n\r\nYou get a thick reading packet, but the readings are fairly easy to read (except, maybe, some of the scientific articles). A great thing about this honors seminar is the chance to go out to Paint Branch Golf Course and go play 9 holes. It really is an exhilarating experience.\n\r\nFor the first half of the semester, you practice your shots at the UMD Driving Range; the second half of the semester is in the class learning about the motor, psychological, and other aspects of golf.\n\r\nDr. Iso-Ahola is very fair grader, easily approachable, and open to any comments, suggestions, questions, etc. Although not exactly an easy A class, it is a fun, and unique, Honors seminar. If you have experience in golf or are interesting in learning something about golf, take this seminar.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-10T16:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'course': 'HONR258O', 'review': 'This class was incredibly fun. Where else can you play golf for college credit? There was a huge reading packet, weekly journals, six papers, and two books, but all of it was not difficult at all, as long as you did the work. It may sound like alot, but the course covers everything from social issues to biomechanics to history of golf, and you get to learn to play as well. Iso-Ahola was very helpful and open to students, and definitely enjoys getting to know everyone. He has been a reference for me in the past, and has also been willing to write recommendations even though I am not a Kinesiology major. If you are in Honors, and are interested in learning about golf, take this class. I enjoyed every bit of it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-22T23:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'course': 'HONR258O', 'review': 'Professor Ahola is the man. Very nice guy if you get on his good side, and very personable as you get to know him more. At first, with his accent, it may be a bit tough, but over time you can build a great relationship with him. This Honors seminar was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. If you are looking for an easy A seminar without a lot of work, look elsewhere. there is a large reading packet for between classes, journal to be written by hand after each class, many quizzes at the start of classes, 5-6 papers, 2 books, a midterm, and a final. the midterm and final are pretty tough, quizzes are very hit or miss, the journal and papers are not very hard as long as you meet the length requirements and put in minimal effort. you will get a feel for the class as the semester goes on. overall, the first 6-7 weeks you meet at the driving range and hit balls, and play 9 holes twice, making the class one of a kind. Its not easy, but definitely an enjoyable experience most of the time.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-18T20:15:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'course': 'HONR258O', 'review': 'I definitely recommend this honors seminar, not because it’s easy but because it will teach you so much. I was kind of mad when I realized it doesn’t fulfill any gen eds, but I am glad I took this class. It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure. For the first part of the semester, class would be at the golf course. Kind of a trek over there, and Seppo would never cancel for weather unless the golf course closed. When you get to class there would be a quiz waiting for you on the readings that were assigned the last class. There was so much to read! Most of those quizzes were tough but they don’t count much towards the final grade. The rest of class we learned how to golf. Definitely a one of a kind experience. Seppo can be gruff at times, but he is an excellent teacher. I went from never swinging a golf club before to being able to drive and putt pretty well. It is definitely a good life skill to have. When the weather got colder we finished golfing and had class inside. That was more boring but we learned so much from psychology to physics to philosophy. We did have to read 2 books, write 5 4-6 page papers, and had a midterm and a final. But the small class size (10 people) definitely helped us bond with each other and Seppo. He brought us food on the last day! He is really a nice and interesting fellow once you get to meet him. He’ll joke around with us but was sometimes partial to the guys and treated the girls a little differently (he’s kind of old school that way). Overall loved him and his class', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-26T03:45:40Z'}], 'name': 'Seppo Iso-Ahola', 'slug': 'iso-ahola'}, {'courses': ['JOUR531', 'JOUR532'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Serap Rada', 'slug': 'rada'}, {'courses': ['EXST019N', 'EXST019O', 'EXST019Q', 'EXST029F', 'COMM719E', 'COMM729E', 'COMM749E', 'COMM609O', 'COMM609P', 'COMM609X', 'COMM609Y', 'COMM619O', 'COMM619P', 'COMM629N', 'COMM619V', 'COMM619W', 'COMM629R', 'COMM719D', 'COMM749D', 'COMM729R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sergei Chernov', 'slug': 'chernov'}, {'courses': ['BSCI338O', 'BSCI404', 'BSCI440', 'BIOL708O', 'BIPH708O', 'BIOL704', 'BIPH704', 'BIOL708M', 'BSCI329', 'BIOL709R', 'BSCI339R', 'BSCI406', 'BISI712', 'BIOL704', 'BIPH704', 'BSCI330', 'BSCI404', 'BIOL704', 'BIPH704', 'BSCI404', 'BISI712'], 'average_rating': 2.9167, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Pros:\r\n-Reuses old exam questions. Get some from your friends and buy the purple book for $10 at the book store.\r\n-Explanations of concepts were not bad though. Teacher engaging with good sense of humor. Heavy Russian accent and very noticeable stutter. \r\n-Teacher receptive to student concerns and flexible. Available during office hours\r\n-Usually gives you back points on exams if you argue for it\n\r\nCons:\r\n-Slides are disorganized. Titles on first slide should be continued throughout presentation to divide the slides up. \r\n-Little context given for material. We all felt like large volumes of information were being explained and tossed at students without good context to memorize them.\r\n-Teacher arrived late, started class late, and ended class late, which was inappropriate and not good for students who had a class afterwards.\r\n-Reviews for exams were disjointed. Consisted of professor speeding through slides and realizing that it was a lot of material unfairly given to us. There should have been a better emphasis on big picture and better organization.\r\n-Many errors in answer keys and poorly designed, reused questions. Always had to get points back for every single exam. Disaster.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-08-04T13:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Extremely knowledgable profesor but not a good instructor. You will get used to his "uh\'s and um\'s" but you will not get used to his lecture style. His transitions between slides are poor and the way he presents the material is not ideal. Literally, all the TA\'s told me that they do not understand how we are learning from this guy because of the way he teaches.\r\nHe is a very nice person though and if you go to his office hours, he will make sure you understand the material. And like the reviews below, yes, Dr. Sukharev does re-use questions from old exams. He re-used a lot of them for the second and third exam. They were pretty much identical actually so if you have old exams, you will get an A.\n\r\nThe final exam was incredibly difficult. I pulled an all nighter studying for the final and I guessed on approximately 70% of it. luckily, the exam was out of 200 points but had 230 possible points. He also does not do the +/- system so you have to aim for that 90%.\n\r\nOverall, if you want an A on your transcript for BSCI440 then take Sukharev. If you actually want to learn the material and be prepared for medical school/MCATS, then take Singer.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-06-29T03:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "Solid professor. You learn soooooo much information and it's really cool to be able to apply it in real life situations. He doesn't curve at the end. But there are built-in curves with his exams. There are 4 exams (3 mid-terms and 1 final). Each are 200 points (so total of 800 points in lecture). With each exam, he gives extra buffer points (i.e. for the final, he only counts it out of 200 but there was a total of 253 points!!!! which helped soooooo much in boosting my grade). Discussion is 200 points (based on an individual 20 minute presentation, 4 quizzes, attendance, and participation). So there are a total of 1000 points. No curve. So 900 is an A, 800 is a B, 700 is a C. He doesn't do plus/minus either. Super, super, SUPER generous with regrades (but make sure you use pen!). Basically look at the answer key he posts outside his office and then go to his office hours and explain why you think you should get more points, and he is super generous with giving back points. He doesn't regrade the entire exam like most professors, but only looks at the questions you ask him which is super nice. This was definitely one of my favorite classes at UMD (the other one being BSCI330 with Dr. Ades). ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-06-08T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'This class is no joke. I spent sooo many hours studying for it, and in the end it was worth it. The material is interesting beyond belief and is incredibly relevant for premedical students. It is the sheer magnitude of material that makes it difficult to wrap your head around, but if you are diligent and keep up with lecture it isn’t too bad. The material itself is not hard to understand, it’s merely the ordeal of memorizing it is what makes the class hard.\n\r\nSukharev isn’t the best lecturer but his exams are fair and he is very generous with giving back points if you see him after an exam (do try to have a valid argument for why you should get points back though, nobody likes the kid who just wants points back because he just thinks he deserves them, and he’ll call you out for it). Sukharev is straightforward in his exams, which are very memorization-oriented, unlike Higgins and Singer, who are more application/case study based.\n\r\nSukharev likes details and will ask you to recall things like the pressure value of the valves going in and out of the heart. He also doesn’t give out +/-‘s for final grades. He will give out extra points on exams so it is possible to get over 100%.\n\r\nGo to discussion, I got lucky and had a ballin TA (yay Amol!) and you can usually get freebie points in discussion for showing up and giving a decent presentation. Quizzes in discussion are also given, which are harder than exam material but my year the last two quizzes were allowed to be taken in groups.\n\r\nThis class is a ton of work though; be aware when going in that this class will and should take up most of your time during the semester. Khan academy helps tremendously, but keeping up with (and attending) lecture will take you a long way.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-06-03T15:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "Honestly one of the best professors at UMD. He is very receptive, extremely fair and understanding. Lectures are great and he does a great job of keeping everyone's attention. Go to office hours and use the purple manual. ever exam has a built in curve so they don't curve the class at the end. he also doesn't do +/- grading so be mindful of this. his exams are straight from his slides and the things he says in lecture - so go to class! very generous with extra credit on the final - i pulled up my grade by 4% just because of the final and got an A in the class. prof sukharev is the bomb! take bsci440 with him!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-27T00:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "One of the most receptive professors I have met at this university. Unlike with other teachers I've had I felt as though he cared about his students and really just wanted them to learn the material. It can be kind of intimidating to speak with professors, but he is always willing to meet with you.\n\r\nThe class is by no means easy, there is a lot of material to cover and you will be asked about everything. But there are no tricks and Dr. Sukharev is very open to discussing mistakes made and giving points back when deserved.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-24T16:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'I really enjoyed having Dr. Sukharev. He\'s a really great lecturer and even manages to get a few chuckles in the middle of a class filled with tense students trying to copy down everything he says! I can\'t believe he covered all that information in one semester. \n\r\nHe\'s very fast paced but is very responsive to students. So don\'t hesitate to ask a question during or after class, no matter how hurried he seems, he\'ll take the time to answer. He may not smile much but he\'s very fair and has a very good sense of humor. Plus he cares, he\'s not one of those professors who would just give you the basic facts, he wants you to understand why (even the circuits part of neuron excitation. I loved that part of his teaching style though. As a student who can\'t memorize, I think that helped a lot for me. \n\r\nYou can also tell that he really cares about his students learning, which is always a fantastic thing to have in any professor. He uses lecture slides with summary topics he makes himself, when he could\'ve saved himself the trouble and just gotten them from the book. But that means it\'s reciprocal as well. If he took the time to make the slide, you should take the time to appreciate and learn it! Plus its pretty much certain that the subject is going to be on the exam in one way or another. \n\r\nDid I mention that he doesn\'t like to "dumb it down" too much? Its something that is really important in a processor, that means he\'s not given up on our learning capacity (yet)! A sign that he truly respects his students and would rather see them try than give up and hand out free points. Of course, this means I didn\'t do as well as I would have liked on my first exam (too much memorization for me) but I saw myself improving through my efforts in the class, which is pretty rewarding really. \n\r\nIf you want to learn physiology, you should definitely take 440 with Dr. S!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-20T03:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "Dr. Sukharev is a good professor - don't be scared off by his accent at the beginning of the semester. Focus on his notes and past exams rather than the book. Take good notes, as his slides are mostly just pictures and he will explain the important concepts verbally. There is a lot of memorization (esp. the receptors, circulatory system responses, etc) but just use the study aids provided by the TAs to help you memorize. This class is extremely helpful for the MCAT, and is very interesting, even if there is a lot to memorize!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T01:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Nice, funny, makes lecture entertaining sometimes. Exams are fair and doable, not many surprises. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-28T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Professor Sukharev is an extremely engaging and straightforward teacher. He is adorable and makes jokes during lecture to keep the class entertained. \n\r\nHe stutters sometimes but always gets the point across clearly. His exams are difficult but doable if you study exactly what he tells you to.\n\r\nExtremely willing to talk to you and is fair with regrades. Highly recommend!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-26T20:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "He is a sweet guy... unfortunately he is not the best teacher. Its his first time teaching cell bio at UMD, so there was nothing that could really help students prepare for his exams. He releases a study guide which not very helpful because it just lists LITERALLY EVERY TOPIC that was in the lecture slides. His slides are also not enough to review material because it's mostly just pictures, so make sure to record if you like retaking notes. Exams are all written response, and you have to know EVERYTHING to do well on them. It's an insane amount of detail and lecture material. I have a C in the class rn, and there is an extra credit assignment but lets hope he curves...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-12T23:25:16.332114Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Bruh he’s nice but too rogue. The averages for the exams are in the 60s……. Meanwhile the other teachers have averages in the 80s', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-06T22:09:04.285643Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'too much content for exams. not good at explaining concepts', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-12T23:15:03.251184Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "If you get to know Sukharev, you'll find that he's pretty decent and nice with a bit of humor. He does, however, seem to carry around a condescending & lackadaisical attitude.\r\n\r\nBut, he is NOT a good professor. He is terrible at explaining concepts, and he teaches new material by using even more convoluted and complex terms & principles. He almost expects us to already have a background in cell biology, biochemistry & mammalian physiology, even though these courses are not prerequisites for the class. There is also some math & physics that you'll have to know. Expect to learn a lot of material on your own or through the textbook. His study guides are always loaded and are either a hit or miss. There are 4 exams (3 during the semester & one cumulative final), and what was on the test is COMPLETELY different than what he puts on the study guide. He even admits that his study guide was too loaded at one point, and then for the next exam, he proceeds to double the information. In addition, there are no practice exams, he doesn't release an answer key, and doesn't go over the correct answers. He also spends a day reviewing for an exam and specifically tells us to memorize certain topics, then proceeds to not even put them on the exam. Also, the exam is ALL free-response. No multiple choice, true/false, etc. \r\n\r\nThe course is loaded with insane amounts of material & detail (just under 40 lectures with each lecture being at least 30+ slides - also I forgot to mention 95% of slides are diagrams & pictures with barely any words, so you'll have to record on your own because he'll only record maybe every other few lectures for whatever reason), and oftentimes, he doesn't even finish the lecture. Transitions between slides are nonexistent, and it feels like you're jumping every all at once. You're also better off betting the over on class time as he starts class late and ends the class late because spends the last few minutes + more quickly going over 10 slides that he didn't get to. \r\n\r\nI hope you find a way to stray far far away from him. Sukharev is a good person, but he is an awful instructor and is extremely disorganized, unprepared, and seems to not give an F about his students. He claims to give out an extra credit assignment that he calls easy, and then we find out that it's a whole coding program that researchers & graduates use in which we have to learn by ourselves to create molecules and answer difficult questions on it (the program is called VMD). His stutter and accent don't help the situation any better. He promises he'll go easy on the exam, and it turns out to be twice as hard as the previous. There are no TAs for the class, no discussion, no guidance, no nothing. I had a very difficult time getting used to his lecture style. He has no grade determination/cutoff at all, so you won't know where you stand until past finals, in which by then is already too late to inquire about grades. Granted this is his first time teaching BSCI330, but that's not an excuse to be a complete troll. 1/10 would not recommend.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T23:11:11.300520Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "-The course consist of material that are not prerequisite to this class. For example, genetics (from BSCI222) and biochemistry (from BCHEM461/462).\r\n-Rarely record any of his lectures. (only recorded about 20% for this semester)\r\n-Always show up 10 minutes late. (No, I am not joking. Lectures do not start after 10 minutes into the class EVERYDAY).\r\n-Lecture slides: 80% consists of diagrams that you have memorize and know how to DRAW them. Very brief explanation on each topic.\r\n-Lab is the only thing that is keeping up your grades and it is with another instructor/TA. Easy lab grade as long as you complete your assignment. \r\n-Quizzes: Literally posts them the night before the midterm and it won't be open until late afternoon.\r\n-Midterms: No multiple choice. All short answers and some of them you have to memorize and draw the diagrams. You have to label them as well. \r\nEarly this semester, on the day of midterm, he allowed students who arrived early to get a head start of the exam (about 15 minutes head start). Which is very unfair to the people who have classes before this one. \r\n-Extra credit assignment: Little to no instructions. People complained about technical difficulties with the app that we were suppose to run. When we emailed him about the issue, he would asks you to refer to an IT.\r\n-Midterm study guide: (sigh) Not very helpful...only about 10% of the stuff will be on the midterm. On the third midterm, he even send out annoucements about the things that we were suppose to remember yet none of the related question showed up.\r\n-Final exam study guide: For this semester...two parts. About ten pages combined. After completing the questions you will get about 41 pages of information. (Not joking)", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-17T10:47:23.343385Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'I will start by saying he is a very nice person, however nice doesn\'t exactly equal good. For his first time teaching in undergrad, I feel as this class had been nothing but a social experiment. His study guides for each exam before the final did not prep anyone for the exam, whatsoever. He literally released them 1-2 days before the final, and sometimes he forgets to add tings, so when we think we have it all, there is still more, and it made it worse when the extras he added did not show up in the exam. His quizzes that are also supposed to help us with exam prep were released the day before the exam as well, so no help there. I say that they were useless homework materials that were not graded. He literally said in class, "Don\'t worry guys, next semester I will get it right." So I wasted a good chunk of time and money trying to do well in a class, he\'s teaching for the first time, and said he would put in effort next semester. \r\n\r\nThe biology department has been no help either, even after a class full of emails, I was the only one to get a reply and they said they were looking into this. Nothing changed. We are supposed to receive extra credit, yet someone in the class group chat announced, he will only get extra credit if he feels like we earned it. While we were promised for Exam 2, all that showed up would receive extra credit. There was also an extra credit assignment, that when we asked for help because it is a program he uses, he told us to call the IT department over Thanksgiving break. Only a few students got it to work, and when they did, most didn\'t know how to use the program to find the answers. This course had been a displeasure to take and I wish I dropped in when I had the chance to.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2022-12-18T19:39:26.774246Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'This class was awful. The exams were super difficult and he was unclear about the content that would be on them. I feel like I worked so hard for nothing because my grade doesn’t reflect the effort I put into this class. His lectures are terrible and difficult to understand. Overall, would not recommend this professor AT all.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-18T20:37:27.936207Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'terrible class', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-18T20:38:09.621321Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Dr Sukharev is a nice guy, can be a bit rude at times, but is nice nonetheless. His lectures were hard to follow at first due to his stuttering, however you get used to it kind of like white noise. Dr Sukharev steadily became a better lecturer throughout the semester, slowly but surely. His exams were not extremely difficult but that averages were always in the 65-70 range. All in all, he’s a nice guy but needs to work on lecturing skills, I must say I did learn a lot from this course by putting in countless hours of study time.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T21:51:31.348755Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "very hard, extremely time consuming, nonetheless, I learned a insane amount of useful information regarding cell biology, if ur schedule is already stacked this professor is definitely not ideal but if it's easy you'll be fine just be ready to study a ton and make time to go to his office hours and any exam review sessions he host's outside of class time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-23T21:26:13.018899Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "He is such a sweet guy!!! But, he's not the best professor. He packs so much information in just one lecture and each exam we have covers about 9-13 lectures each. He was not consistent in recording lectures which was frustrating because I would miss so much during each lecture and could not go back and see what I missed. The only reason I did well was that I went to every lecture, every review session, and every office hours he held before an exam. You have to be willing to put in the work by looking through his lectures and taking extensive notes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-27T17:51:37.825730Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'His teaching style was not really the best for my learning. Although I did well in the class, I had to spend an insane amount of time preparing for exams. Although I hated every second of this class, I did learn a lot. He is a nice, quiet guy.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T18:17:49.746980Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': "I took this class very late in my college career, so I had already taken mammalian physiology, genetics, molecular genetics, biochem, and many other very hard classes. You could imagine my surprise when this class, which only prereq was one intro chem and bio course, ended up pulling from all of those classes and more and was one of the hardest classes I've taken. Luckily I was able to get an A due to the knowledge I gained from previous classes, but I couldn't imagine what it must've been like for the younger students who had no prior knowledge of any of these concepts before. I understand it was his first year teaching this class and he is used to teaching like 700-level courses, but the students shouldn't have to suffer for that. I think he was nice, but i hope if he teaches next semester, he tries to clean up and simplify the course because it was way too advanced for what the course should have been. I do think that ppl didn't take advantage of his office hours enough tho, if you went after you got an exam back he was very generous with giving points back if you explained and fought for your case, it definitely gave me to boost to get the grade I got.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-08T18:55:38.147865Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'course': 'BSCI330', 'review': 'Awful professor. Says "I will only give extra credit to students that deserve it" after everyone completed it. And the extra credit was by no means easy. You have to use an outdated program to analyze molecular structures, and he gives you no support or help. Also at the end of the semester, the grade distribution was absolutely bonkers. Some people got a lower percentage in the class, but they somehow received a better grade. Mentions nothing about the curve, completely disorganized, and cannot teach to save his life. DO NOT TAKE!!!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-04-06T18:34:04.053133Z'}], 'name': 'Sergei Sukharev', 'slug': 'sukharev'}, {'courses': ['PHYS121', 'PHYS122', 'PHYS161', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS270', 'ENEE489A', 'ENEE489Z', 'ENEE490', 'PHYS141', 'PHYS142'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sergio Picozzi', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "A lot of people like the way he teaches, but I had a hard time in this class. He doesn't really go over concepts, he just does practice problems on the board. All of his midterms are curved, they didn't really consist of the problems we did in class. He's nice and approachable, but personally, I didn't like his teaching style. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2017-12-21T00:45:04Z'}], 'name': 'Sergio Picozzi', 'slug': 'picozzi'}, {'courses': ['ECON422', 'ECON771', 'ECON708', 'ECON472', 'ECON772', 'ECON878', 'ECON423', 'ECON175', 'ECON708', 'ECON417', 'ECON423', 'ECON708', 'ECON771', 'ECON175', 'ECON708', 'ECON417', 'ECON708', 'ECON771'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sergio Urzua', 'course': 'ECON423', 'review': "Econ 423 is HARD. Urzua is good at making the class worthwhile. He's less about the math, and more about the economic reasoning.\r\n\r\nExams (3 Midterms and one cumulative Final) are difficult. Each builds on the last. Expect repeat questions, so take the time to learn from your previous mistakes. \r\n\r\nProblem sets (4 total) are also hard. Each takes at least 10 hours. Very STATA-heavy, so expect to be thrown into STATA with absolutely zero class time taken to explain the basics.\r\n\r\nCurves to a B/B+, depends on the class size.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-24T04:07:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergio Urzua', 'course': 'ECON423', 'review': "I learned a lot from Dr. Urzua, but he tries to cover too much material in a class. Many of the concepts he teaches branches into graduate-level economics, and having that knowledge will give you a leg up for internships/jobs as research assistants or junior economists. As a result, many of the concepts are taught in a rushed manner. If you don't stay on top of your work, you can easily fall behind in class.\r\n\r\nHis problem sets take on average 10-14 hours to complete, and the knowledge needed to complete the questions aren't explicitly covered in his lecture. His exams are notoriously difficult and tend to have class averages between 20% and 55%. His lectures are almost completely oral with occasional writing on the board to write the occasional equation or regression. His office hours aren't too helpful since he tends to be very vague with his answers.\r\n\r\nThe class involves a lot of independent studying and will allow you to have a more thorough understanding of the concepts. Don't take this class if your schedule is pushing anywhere more than 16 credits.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-01-04T00:12:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergio Urzua', 'course': 'ECON423', 'review': 'Left this review on rate my professor as well: He is very accessible and really wants his students to succeed. This course was extremely challenging and needed a lot of time dedicated to it. COVID updates to his normal syllabus: No final, dropped lowest midterm, and several quizzes. He curved to a B (I think he did this in normal semesters). Very knowledgeable and passionate about economics.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-12-26T01:20:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Sergio Urzua', 'course': 'ECON417', 'review': "Definitely demanding but also passionate about the subject. I think this was his first time teaching ECON417 and his expectations were very high for the undergraduate level. The final grade was based on 4 time-intensive problem sets and 2 written exams. The grading was fair but the content was difficult. That said, Dr. Urzua is willing to help you if you ask for it. He is responsive to emails, has accessible office hours, and is willing to re-teach a concept in class if you communicate that you're confused. His problem sets are also collaborative, which is very helpful. This class is open to BA and BS students and working together helped fill in everyone's knowledge gaps. \r\n\r\nEven if you don't earn the highest grade on your transcript, I would recommend a class with Dr. Urzua. He definitely prepares you to work or study further in the field. I can probably code Stata in my sleep now, and his focus on the applications (not just theory) of econometrics made the class way more interesting than ECON422.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-18T05:34:14.588080Z'}], 'name': 'Sergio Urzua', 'slug': 'urzua'}, {'courses': ['PUAF611', 'PUAF610', 'PUAF640', 'PLCY611', 'PLCY688I', 'PLCY610', 'PLCY610', 'PLCY610', 'PLCY641', 'PLCY611', 'PLCY641', 'PLCY610', 'PLCY641', 'PLCY611'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Seth Weissman', 'slug': 'weissman'}]
[{'courses': ['WMST619', 'WMST298F', 'WMST628', 'WMST386', 'WMST709'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Seung-Kyung Kim', 'slug': 'kim_seung-kyung'}, {'courses': ['ENPM677', 'ENPM693', 'ENPM604', 'ENPM616'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Seyed Bahari', 'slug': 'bahari'}, {'courses': ['PHYS270', 'PHYS411', 'PHYS441', 'UNIV150', 'PHYS115', 'HONR268N', 'PHYS442', 'HONR269L', 'PHYS275', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS444', 'PHYS122', 'PHYS121', 'PHYS141', 'PHYS410', 'PHYS115', 'PHYS260', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398', 'PHYS410', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE398', 'PHYS260', 'FIRE199', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398'], 'average_rating': 3.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shabnam Jabeen', 'course': 'HONR268N', 'review': 'Was super excited to take honors seminar about particle physics and programming. Ended up being extremely confused about equations, Linux, and the concepts. Lecture could have been executed much better. In fairness, I think she was teaching it like an upper level science course (there was no hand-holding and her instructions are super vague), but I wish someone told me I was supposed to look for resources outside of what she gave us. I figured out how to deal with this class eventually and I DO think it helped me get accustomed to scientific reading, but it could be done in a much gentler way, without letting me down for the course content.... I guess an auto-A seminar is the best way to do this, but it was still disappointing....\r\nRegarding the content, I do not recommend STEM honors seminars. Everyone in this class was at totally different levels for physics and programming, so you will either be bored or extremely frustrated.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-15T15:14:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Shabnam Jabeen', 'course': 'HONR268N', 'review': "The seminar was very difficult in terms of understanding the material. In the end, I ended up learning a lot about particle physics, but I felt like I was drowning the entire semester. Overall, it's a class worth taking.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-31T08:14:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Shabnam Jabeen', 'course': 'HONR269L', 'review': "Very accommodating. The class is very loose, and if you can consistently get work done in a timely fashion, it'll be a breeze. Easier than HONR268N (it's a 2 semester sequence).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-15T13:31:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Shabnam Jabeen', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'Prof Jabeen is not very good at lecturing, to the point that I would rather watch youtube videos instead of attending lectures because of how confusing the lectures can actually be (which I did). The saving grace is that the homeworks are graded very leniently (20 tries on each problem, even the multiple choice ones), and the quizzes are homework problems verbatim, and exams are also very similar to the homework problems and very fair, probably because they were often straight up lifted from the textbook. She is a very nice person, but if you want someone else to teach you choose another professor if you can. If you can get by with teaching yourself this course should be no problem because the assignments are very fair, but know that it is a LOT of content that keeps piling up so you should try your best not to fall behind. And as she will tell you, try to do a lot of practice problems.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-13T03:30:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Shabnam Jabeen', 'course': 'FIRE120', 'review': 'Great professor, super kind', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-20T04:44:16.781233Z'}, {'professor': 'Shabnam Jabeen', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "I heard mixed opinions about Jabeen's lectures, but I found them informative and at times entertaining due to her animated teaching style. She was also very nice and wanted her students to succeed, and would give extensions and small curves if necessary. Great professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-28T21:43:17.460794Z'}], 'name': 'Shabnam Jabeen', 'slug': 'jabeen'}, {'courses': ['ENES463'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shahab Kaviani', 'slug': 'kaviani'}, {'courses': ['NFSC498F', 'NFSC678M', 'NFSC678F', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC498F', 'NFSC678F', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC898', 'NFSC100', 'NFSC426', 'NFSC621'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shaik Rahaman', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "One of the worst lecturers I've ever witnessed. He's probably a very smart dude, but terrible at giving a decent lecture. He was one of 4 lecturers for my class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-02-28T15:13:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Shaik Rahaman', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': "Rahaman explains concepts in great detail, is friendly toward students, and is super knowledgeable. However, he can be very difficult to understand in both his delivery and the information he's presenting. His slides often go into detail beyond a 100 class. Thankfully, the exams omit almost everything Rahaman says because it's well beyond the class, but that means his lectures are somewhat boring and pointless - with a few interesting, understandable facts thrown in.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-12T23:39:40Z'}], 'name': 'Shaik Rahaman', 'slug': 'rahaman'}, {'courses': ['JOUR203', 'JOUR604'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shanaz Baksh', 'slug': 'baksh'}, {'courses': ['AASP100', 'AASP402', 'AASP310', 'AASP498M', 'AASP399', 'AASP211', 'AASP100H', 'AASP100', 'AASP100', 'AASP100', 'AASP211', 'AASP211', 'AASP211', 'AASP211', 'AASP100'], 'average_rating': 4.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shane Walsh', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "Dr. Walsh is very passionate about African American History and is very qualifed to teach the subject. However, he tells you to purchase a $90 book, but it isn't required to do well in the class. The class has very few assignments so be sure to do well on them. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-08-22T00:46:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Shane Walsh', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "He was a really nice Professor and very understanding too. I have ADHD to sometime it made paying attention a little hard but thankfully he was very understanding as well. His lecture for my class were Mondays through videos and the rest of the class was through zoom so it was pretty nice. But as long as you watch the lecture you'll be ok with the weekly assignment and heads up the essays were 1,000 words for my class but he gave us time just make sure you start early. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-08T02:59:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Shane Walsh', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "Dr. Walsh is well overqualified to teach this class. He's super passionate about this topic, so he likes to go off sometimes, but it still connects to the information on the PowerPoint and honestly helps me remember everything. The class is super chill, you just have to pay attention and mark down a couple key facts about each main person he goes over. This class does have like five graded assignments besides the final, so just make sure you do well with them. A couple of them are essays, but they are definitely manageable. Overall, pretty good class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-05T02:19:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Shane Walsh', 'course': 'AASP211', 'review': "I took this class with both Dr. Walsh and Dr. Nichols. They are both pretty chill and funny and Dr. Walsh is very intelligent and super passionate about this topic, so he likes to go off sometimes, but it still connects to the information. Between Dr. Walsh and Dr. Nichols, Dr. Walsh seemed a lot more professional and structured throughout the course. The class is super chill, it's an open dialogue where anybody can speak or because we had 100+ people on zoom this semester, you can get away with lurking and only listening. We watched the Get Out movie in this class and wrote two essays on it. However, the only other grades in the courses are 5 quizzes and 3 more essays which are not directly on the movie but rather, on race issues, and black history in general. It takes VERY long to get grades back, however, and there is little to no feedback on the essays throughout the course. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-08T04:23:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Shane Walsh', 'course': 'AASP211', 'review': "I took this class as an international student, which gave me a large amount of information about the segregation and inequality in the U.S from the Black people's side. Furthermore, the professor is extremely structured and well-formate with the lecture and flexible with the due date. I highly recommend this course and professor if you prefer to understand the social problem from another angle or fulfill the degree requirement with a meaningful A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-23T19:19:45.353307Z'}, {'professor': 'Shane Walsh', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': "I took him to get a GEN ED credit, trust me I only went to lecture about 5 times in total and I ended up with an A. I am not advising you to miss most of the semester but he is just a very great professor. Every time I attended his lecture he was very passionate about what he thought and if you need a history credit don't shy from taking this class with him. The semester I took him he had only 1 in-person quiz the rest I mean everything else was done online. When it comes to the class very easy class if you do pay attention and go to class but if not then everything is online/open-book so yea.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-21T19:40:42.116421Z'}, {'professor': 'Shane Walsh', 'course': 'AASP100', 'review': 'I had down syndrome, but this course was very easy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-20T17:14:21.806115Z'}], 'name': 'Shane Walsh', 'slug': 'walsh_shane'}, {'courses': ['ARTT255', 'ARTT448F', 'ARTT480H', 'ARTT448H', 'ARTT341H', 'ARTT479H', 'ARTT479A', 'HDCC208C', 'ARTT768', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT479C', 'HDCC208C', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT698B', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT255', 'ARTT479C'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shannon Collis', 'course': 'ARTT255', 'review': 'Great prof. Really helpful and friendly.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-26T03:02:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Shannon Collis', 'course': 'ARTT255', 'review': 'This class was interesting and I learned a lot. But all of the demos for the class came from LinkedIn Learning. It was basically a self taught class, since it was asynchronous. She answered emails quick and gave good feedback. And she offered to look over my rough draft and give me feedback before the due date, which was nice.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-19T00:54:38Z'}], 'name': 'Shannon Collis', 'slug': 'collis'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'EDSP498B', 'ENES213', 'ENES150'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shannon Hayes', 'slug': 'hayes'}, {'courses': ['KNES498A', 'KNES600', 'KNES400', 'KNES497', 'KNES789N', 'KNES400H', 'KNES785', 'KNES786', 'KNES778', 'KNES293', 'KNES898', 'KNES285', 'KNES285', 'KNES778', 'KNES786', 'SPHL399', 'KNES285', 'KNES778', 'KNES786', 'KNES285', 'KNES615', 'KNES778', 'KNES786', 'SPHL399', 'KNES285', 'KNES778', 'KNES786', 'KNES898', 'KNES285', 'KNES778', 'KNES786', 'KNES898', 'KNES285', 'KNES778', 'KNES786'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shannon Jette', 'course': 'KNES293', 'review': "Super nice and helpful teacher! I think she made the class so interesting and genuinely put in the effort to make sure students understood the material and its importance outside of the classroom. The two papers really weren't that bad, and I was really fascinated with the topics so I liked doing them. Would definitely recommend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-12T03:08:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Shannon Jette', 'course': 'KNES293', 'review': "A lot of information to process from a Zoom Distanced Learning environment.. Took this class Fall '20", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2021-06-28T04:23:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Shannon Jette', 'course': 'KNES285', 'review': 'Very interesting and helpful professor! She does a fantastic job outlining what is expected in the course and lectures are very intuitive. Weekly quizzes are easy and papers are super simple. Would love to take a course she teaches again!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-17T21:20:59.820660Z'}, {'professor': 'Shannon Jette', 'course': 'KNES285', 'review': 'Dr. Jette is such a sweet professor. Sometimes lectures can be a lot as she tends to get side tracked on certain topics, but it’s all still very interesting. The online quizzes are so easy and directly from her lectures. The papers are kind of challenging (especially the final) but you can ask her tons of questions and she’ll help! Overall great professor and would recommend her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-14T00:02:53.588061Z'}, {'professor': 'Shannon Jette', 'course': 'KNES285', 'review': 'She is an engaging lecturer. There are ~10 quizzes over the semester, 7 "CHILs" that are short writing assignments that help you write the 2 "SEs". These are the major graded assignments, between 1200-1800 words each about a historical topic of you choice from the modules. I found this course really interesting and most of the grading to be fair, although the TAs can be a bit harsh. Make sure you go to office hours for help writing your theses.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T14:22:04.257445Z'}, {'professor': 'Shannon Jette', 'course': 'KNES285', 'review': "I enjoyed her lectures, very engaging and loved that she posted the slides beforehand. Can get a bit sidetracked but is very passionate about the topics of this course. The TA's were a bit strict but go to office hours and you will be fine. Overall, pretty easy class and the workload was very reasonable- weekly quiz (open-note with 25 minutes), CHILS almost every week (Took 15 minutes at the very most but usually took 5-10 minutes), two Summative Evaluations (at most 2000 words), and the final which you could incorporate one of the SE's. She also offered two extra credit opportunities which could raise you a total of 2% added to your overall grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-07T05:11:38.461439Z'}], 'name': 'Shannon Jette', 'slug': 'jette'}, {'courses': ['ECON424'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shanxiao Wang', 'slug': 'wang_shanxiao'}, {'courses': ['MEES608O', 'MEES608O', 'MEES608O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shao Du', 'slug': 'du_shao'}, {'courses': ['ENGL313', 'ENGL433', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL358B', 'ENGL748F', 'ENGL235', 'ENGL659', 'ENGL358E', 'AMST328X', 'USLT498X', 'AMST298Q', 'CMLT679B', 'USLT498T', 'ENGL658B', 'ENGL699', 'ENGL378I', 'ENGL361', 'ENGL428A', 'CMLT679C', 'ENGL658C', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL378D', 'ENGL433', 'ENGL301'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sharada Balachandran Orihuela', 'course': 'ENGL361', 'review': "I enjoyed her class. She made an effort to keep things interesting and to hear feedback from everyone. She's a fair grader and is reasonable/open to feedback.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-07-09T02:17:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Sharada Balachandran Orihuela', 'course': 'ENGL378I', 'review': "She is amazinggg! She is open to everyone's ideas and encourages them. She's a fair grader and open to discussion always. One of my favorite classes I've taken. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-24T19:13:26Z'}], 'name': 'Sharada Balachandran Orihuela', 'slug': 'orihuela'}, {'courses': ['HLSA300', 'PHSC497', 'MIEH300'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sharon Barrett', 'slug': 'barrett_sharon'}, {'courses': ['HLTH391', 'HLTH780', 'HLTH665', 'HLTH391H', 'HLTH285', 'HLTH476', 'HLTH285H', 'EXST030', 'HLTH688D', 'MIEH698D', 'HLTH302', 'HLTH302H', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH285', 'HLTH285H', 'HLTH285', 'HLTH285H', 'HLTH780', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH665', 'HLTH665'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sharon Desmond', 'course': 'HLTH391', 'review': "Dr. Desmond is an amazing professor who really cares about her students and wants them to do well. She's very easy to talk to and she keeps the class entertaining. She has so much experience in the field so she knows what she is talking about and she can make the information clear by giving multiple examples. She is super funny and goofy, but that's what makes the class so entertaining! It's definitely one of those classes you actually look forward to attending because of her. Granted, her exams (1 midterm and 1 final) are pretty difficult because it doesn't just require memorization. You have to know your stuff and be able to apply it for any situation. Her exam format is multiple choice, short answer, fill in the blank and definitions, and 1 long essay. I suggest starting to study for exams WAY before the actual exam day. Other points (the health fair, poster presentation, timely topic, etc.) help make up for points though.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-31T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sharon Desmond', 'course': 'HLTH130', 'review': 'This course is pretty easy. Dr. Desmond posts the slides (usually, so just take general notes too), but only after class. She is sometimes unclear as to what she wants you to memorize, so I would read the assigned chapters before the exam and make sure you can answer all of the questions on the study guide. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T01:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sharon Desmond', 'course': 'HLTH285', 'review': 'The class is really good! I didn\'t really talk to Dr.Desmond much since the whole online class was asynchronous, but she was nice in the emails I have received from her. Her grading of the writing assignments is very fair, as long as you answer every part of the question or prompt. The only downside was that the in-class assignments in the powerpoints were HARD to find and easily missed. Also if she says some is "extra credit", it really isn\'t and it WILL count towards your grade if you don\'t do it. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-13T17:41:47Z'}], 'name': 'Sharon Desmond', 'slug': 'desmond'}, {'courses': ['LBSC631'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sharon Epps', 'slug': 'epps'}, {'courses': ['EDHI650', 'EDHI660', 'EDHI662', 'EDHI853', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI789', 'EDHI788', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI650', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI888', 'EDHI789', 'EDHI789', 'EDHI650'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sharon Fries-Britt', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very knowledgeable and has realistic and practical experience in many aspects of the field. Not always organized or on time but she is flexible with the class and adjusts the agenda based on what needs to be discussed.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-22T13:01:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sharon Fries-Britt', 'slug': 'fries-britt'}, {'courses': ['AASP298B', 'AASP398G', 'AASP297', 'AASP396', 'AASP400', 'AASP402', 'WMST265', 'AASP400H', 'AMST328K', 'AASP399', 'AASP202', 'AASP398G', 'AMST328K', 'AASP297', 'AASP398G', 'AASP400', 'AASP400H', 'AMST328K', 'AASP202', 'AASP398G', 'AMST328K', 'AASP265', 'WGSS265'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sharon Harley', 'course': 'AASP202', 'review': "I loved this class. Yes you HAVE to go to lecture but its totally worth it...There is alot of material but Prof. Harley makes it very easy to follow and understand...My T.A. was pretty helpful but then again I only needed his help once...The workload is pretty decent for the amount of material you actually learn....TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROF. HARLEY!!! She's the best!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-23T15:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sharon Harley', 'course': 'AASP202', 'review': "Class focused on black culture in post-emancipation era, Harlem Renaissance,black arts movement, and hip hop. Going to lecture is a MUST because she gives A LOT of notes that are not online. Like most African American studies class, there is a lot of reading. The quizzes are True/False and they are pretty fair. She gives a mid-term exam and a final exam that covers a lot of material. And there is also a 6-7 page mid-term paper. Harley makes lecture a little interesting sometimes by throwing in some of her personal stories and jokes. However, her TA's are not very helpful. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-20T21:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sharon Harley', 'course': 'AASP202', 'review': 'Very nice lady but horrible professor. Had us do around ten PowerPoints in teams for the first half of the semester that weren’t even on the syllabus. Then, still didn’t put the grades in for it. Quizzes and exams are confusing because of her wording, and lectures will have you lost. Very smart woman but nope.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-11T07:38:02.802363Z'}], 'name': 'Sharon Harley', 'slug': 'harley'}, {'courses': ['EDCP619B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sharon Kirkland-Gordon', 'slug': 'kirkland-gordon'}, {'courses': ['DANC109', 'DANC308', 'DANC371', 'DANC207', 'DANC489C', 'DANC488', 'HONR239C', 'DANC679', 'DANC789', 'DANC689C', 'DANC719'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sharon Mansur', 'slug': 'mansur'}, {'courses': ['JOUR202', 'JOUR300', 'JOUR130'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': "Sharon O'Malley", 'slug': "o'malley_sharon"}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'EDUC388', 'TLPL288E', 'EDSP652', 'EDCP108E', 'TLPL288D', 'EDUC388', 'EDUC388', 'TLPL288D', 'EDUC388', 'TLPL288E', 'EDCP108E', 'EDCP108E', 'EDUC388', 'TLPL288D', 'AAPS380'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sharon Vanwright', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "Awesome professor! Would recommend. She's very understanding with grades and assignments. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-03T22:42:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Sharon Vanwright', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE HER. UNIV 100 is supposed to be an easy class, given that it is one credit. However she makes this class a bigger deal than it is. I was had situations where I could not do assignments and she only gave me 50% on them knowing my situation. I am taking a comp sci class and an econ class and those teachers were more lenient than she was. Like it is an orientation class yet she makes big deal over it. The class is useless and the she thinks that her is legit. Get another teacher for UNIV 100. Literally every other teacher that I heard teach UNIV takes late assignments.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-12T20:12:51.157575Z'}, {'professor': 'Sharon Vanwright', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Great teacher and very understanding. If you are having an issue just email her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-15T23:45:15.566229Z'}], 'name': 'Sharon Vanwright', 'slug': 'vanwright'}, {'courses': ['KNES287', 'KNES201', 'KNES157O', 'KNES157N', 'PHSC497', 'KNES484', 'KNES497', 'KNES498J', 'KNES485', 'KNES389P'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shaun Edmonds', 'course': 'KNES287', 'review': 'SO INTERESTING!!! This class is so fascinating and challenges the way you think about things. The essays are graded HARD so put the effort in on the rough drafts. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-05-22T23:37:37Z'}], 'name': 'Shaun Edmonds', 'slug': 'edmonds_shaun'}, {'courses': ['CCJS498G', 'CCJS310', 'CCJS498F', 'CCJS498V', 'CCJS498V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shawn Eastman', 'slug': 'eastman_shawn'}, {'courses': ['HIST208Q', 'HIST208V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shawn Moura', 'slug': 'moura'}, {'courses': ['COMM748P', 'COMM798B', 'COMM798W', 'COMM712', 'COMM719', 'COMM749', 'COMM748', 'COMM798F', 'COMM760', 'COMM738V', 'COMM798G', 'COMM618', 'COMM388W', 'COMM604', 'COMM638', 'COMM601', 'COMM655', 'COMM130', 'HNUH238A', 'COMM659', 'COMM669', 'COMM729', 'COMM759', 'COMM609', 'COMM639', 'COMM748A', 'COMM619', 'COMM629', 'COMM649', 'HNUH238A', 'COMM130', 'COMM398I', 'COMM609', 'COMM619', 'COMM629', 'COMM639', 'COMM659', 'COMM669', 'COMM719', 'COMM729', 'COMM748A', 'COMM759', 'COMM798B', 'COMM659', 'COMM669', 'COMM719', 'COMM749', 'COMM759', 'COMM789A', 'COMM798F', 'COMM798G', 'COMM798F', 'COMM798G', 'COMM130', 'COMM619', 'COMM629', 'COMM659', 'COMM669', 'COMM719', 'COMM729', 'COMM759'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shawn Parry-Giles', 'slug': 'parry-giles_shawn'}, {'courses': ['ISRL449L', 'ENGL428X', 'JWST419J', 'SLLC698J', 'HHUM106', 'CMLT788A', 'ENGL331', 'ISRL349Q', 'CMLT788B', 'JWST478A', 'ENGL749J', 'ENGL332', 'JWST319C', 'JWST319R', 'JWST346', 'CMLT498T', 'ENGL479T', 'HEBR498L', 'JWST429L', 'CMLT788E', 'ENGL379J', 'ENGL888E', 'JWST699', 'JWST341', 'CMLT398B', 'HEBR498Q', 'ISRL618Q', 'JWST319Q', 'HEBR498A', 'JWST619J', 'CMLT398J', 'CMLT398K', 'ENGL348J', 'ISRL329J', 'WMST348J', 'CMLT398R', 'ENGL379D'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sheila Jelen', 'course': None, 'review': "Very passionate about her teachings and very knowledgeable but NOT an easy grader. I do not recommend taking this if you think it'll be an easy A as I have taken Jewish studies courses many times and did not get one. Also no matter what she will not round grades no matter how close you are. Not a lot of actual homework -- 3 5-page papers and a final", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-01-13T15:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheila Jelen', 'course': 'JWST272', 'review': 'Lots of reading, fair grader, make sure to participate because it can help you a lot.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-06-09T14:56:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sheila Jelen', 'slug': 'jelen'}, {'courses': ['ENGL393', 'JOUR459Z', 'JOUR479Z', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL395'], 'average_rating': 1.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sheila Lalwani', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "If you have a choice between taking Shelia's class and being attacked by a rabid raccoon, you'll probably have a better time and a better chance of success taking on the raccoon. She teaches nothing, most of the class is annoying busy work, and is a horrendously terrible communicator. On multiple occasions she has been unable to answer even basic questions by email, and often deducts large amounts of points from your writing without explaining why. She also provides rubrics but refuses to use them. When you peer review other students, she makes you research their topics and give them sources to include in their paper - literally doing their work for them. It's really hard to do well in her class but grades are inflated for the low end, so everyone is pushed toward a mediocre grade. This course was more time consuming than the overwhelming majority of my engineering classes, even though the material is much easier, because she assigns so much unnecessary work.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-04-26T01:45:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheila Lalwani', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Shes a pretty good professor. The class is busy work but it is a gen ed requirement. I really only spent 3 hours max a week on work aside from when we had big writing assignments due like the research paper and a 2 other major assignments. Aside from that, if you submit a decent enough paper you will do fine in this class. She even offers some extra credit at the end of the semester for doing course evaluations and going to the writing center. She really cares about her students and even though this was an online class, I really connected with her more than I do with other professors and she gives good feedback on your drafts to help you improve and get a good grade on the final draft. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-08T20:05:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheila Lalwani', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'I tried to give her a chance but she\'s a piece of shit. Coarse load is way too high. She makes you have a conference with her for every major assignment. She usually gives useless criticism because she doesn\'t actually read your rough draft. If you ask for specific instances of the issues she mentions, she\'ll dodge the question and in one instance got super passive aggressive with me because she "already told" me that I had the issue..... Lots of times we would get our grade and feedback for rough drafts AFTER the final draft was due. B1G brain. Avoid her class at all costs. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2020-06-08T20:44:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheila Lalwani', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': "She is a decent professor. This class was totally online and she was pretty hands-off. Final drafts were due 7 days after submission of the first draft, and she often did not get feedback to you until the day the final draft is due. You rely primarily on peer reviews to improve your papers, and honestly most of the peer reviews aren't great quality. However, her grading on final drafts is fair and not too harsh. The peer reviews and first drafts are graded harshly (top score is always an 85% at best) and will bring down your grade if you're aiming for an A. Overall, she is not as bad as some of the reviews online suggest and I would not mind taking her again. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-19T14:13:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheila Lalwani', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS. I signed up for an asynchronous class but had mandatory synchronous zoom sessions where the only thing covered was material we had already read in our asynchronous work. Feedback was one of two paragraphs copied and pasted for all students with no justification for deductions. She ruined what should have been a useful class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-02T00:19:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheila Lalwani', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'Massive workload for minimal feedback, rough drafts are expected to be final drafts. Depend on peer reviews for feedback on major assignments. Mandatory conferences even though it is a asynchronous course. Harsh grader.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-13T18:23:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheila Lalwani', 'course': 'ENGL393', 'review': 'she suck fr', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-25T14:42:46.773067Z'}], 'name': 'Sheila Lalwani', 'slug': 'lalwani'}, {'courses': ['ECON424'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shen Hui', 'slug': 'hui'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sherelle Green', 'slug': 'green_sherelle'}, {'courses': ['LBSC640', 'LBSC741', 'LBSC744', 'LBSC641'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sheri Massey', 'slug': 'massey_sheri'}, {'courses': ['AMST429J', 'AMST628M', 'AMST429B', 'ARHU439J', 'AMST498Y', 'AMST798Y'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sheri Parks', 'course': None, 'review': 'class did not have any structure. Not that many assignments. Easy A or B, depending on whether or not she likes you. But class could be boring. \n\r\nDO NOT SLEEP in class. she doesnt like that. AND TALK in discussion ALOT.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-20T19:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheri Parks', 'course': 'AMST260', 'review': "very confusing class. She does not give tell you wut she wants out of the assignments but other then that she is very nice and does help you if u go to her office hours. I just checked the grades for the class and there were only 18% A's..no idea how thats possible.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2008-02-05T11:49:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sheri Parks', 'slug': 'parks_sheri'}, {'courses': ['ENCH333', 'HONR288M', 'ENCH446', 'ENES100', 'CHBE333', 'CHBE444', 'ENES100A'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sheryl Ehrman', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Dr. Ehrman is one of the nicest ENES100 professors I've met. She teaches well, and helps out whenever she is needed. On the other hand, she can get terse at times, but if you have a strong personality also, you will work fine with her. She cares, which is something that I think a lot of the other teachers are missing. As opposed to someone like Evandro who can just be condescending and mean, or the other guy (forget his name) whose accent is impossible to understand, she will be a pleasure to work with. Her TF, Tuan, is leaving, though, and he was pretty much what made the class for me and my group, so take that into consideration - new TF might mean bumps in the road for a semester or two.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-28T02:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheryl Ehrman', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Nicest teacher ever. She'll go around taking pictures for her montage at the end of the year, you get the idea that she is very attached to the class and genuinely wants you to succeed. Good pick, especially because her teaching fellow Tuan Dang is the absolute best teacher/helper/friend anybody can ask for.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-02-08T00:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheryl Ehrman', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'she was a nice teacher, and she was pretty lenient when grading the presentations. If you go to her in office hours, she will help you. The class itself was bullhit though.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-23T15:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sheryl Ehrman', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': 'Nice, not condescending like other professors who think they\'re too good to teach introductory courses (I guess it\'s because it\'s fun for her to teach as well). You will get "supplementary assignments" that other sections won\'t have to do but they\'re very easy to do. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-16T02:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sheryl Ehrman', 'slug': 'ehrman'}, {'courses': ['ENCE470', 'ENCE470', 'ENCE470'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'ShiaauLir Wang', 'slug': 'wang_shiaaulir'}, {'courses': ['JWST319M', 'JWST478B', 'ISRL329K', 'ISRL349Z', 'HEBR498K', 'ISRL448K', 'JWST319K', 'ISRL249N', 'JWST219G', 'ISRL372', 'JWST372', 'ISRL349Z', 'JWST319M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shirelle Doughty', 'slug': 'doughty_shirelle'}, {'courses': ['EDCP108B'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shirley Browner', 'course': 'EDCP108B', 'review': 'I had her several years ago. Not sure if she still teaches, but she was a very nice person. She provided great advice for college success, as well as the campus resources available to students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-02T23:48:14.347613Z'}], 'name': 'Shirley Browner', 'slug': 'browner'}, {'courses': ['ENGL649A', 'ENGL489R', 'ENGL611', 'ENGL775', 'WMST498R'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shirley Logan', 'course': None, 'review': " I was interested in the course, but Prof Logan didn't organize the class very well: point values of assignments were changed the day they were due and she had a hard time deciding what assignments to give. There are two tests, several small papers, and two large papers, along with several books to read. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-10T19:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Shirley Logan', 'course': None, 'review': 'She is a really nice lady and an interesting teacher. The class consists of discussing the reading every day, taking one test and writing two papers. She really wants her students to enjoy the assigned books and promotes learning from peers by giving everyone a chance to speak and explain their opinions. Take this class if you can.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-01T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Shirley Logan', 'course': None, 'review': 'Pretty cool teacher; I had a fun time in her class. She didnt give any tests (except a final), but gave a quiz on the readings every week in discussion; nothing too bad. We had one paper which wasnt bad either. Just read and attend class and it will be easy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-17T18:48:00Z'}], 'name': 'Shirley Logan', 'slug': 'logan'}, {'courses': ['PLSC115', 'PLSC489Q', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC689A', 'PLSC689Q', 'PLSC489E', 'PLSC115', 'PLSC489E', 'PLSC689G', 'PLSC689G', 'PLSC215', 'PLSC489E'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shirley Micallef', 'course': 'PLSC115', 'review': "Let me say this class is an easy A in terms of work. She grades super weirdly though so other people may disagree with me. This isn't a hard class at all, but everything that went on in this class was obnoxious to say the least. There is clearly no communication between her and the TA. The TA we had when I took the course was terrible, she wouldn't follow the professors instructions and graded as she pleased even though it wasn't fair. An example of this is she took a point off of a classmates discussion for being on her phone, she said this was the first day of class after weeks of asking her what date she was on her phone and if she made a note of it. (The discussion is a huge part of our grade and there are always people on their phones and laptops who she never deducted points from.) The assignment on the first day of class was to use your phone and to text in your answers of questions and they would appear on the screen. She wouldn't let students sign in to attendance being 2 minutes late to a lab that was a 15 min walk away from our normal classroom. She told us we needed to talk once a day during the semester then that changed to not being enough and we had to talk more than once and sending in articles to not? It was so confusing and obnoxious, especially if you have other demanding classes and work going on. The professor is extremely hard to get in touch with, takes weeks for her to email you back because she's always out of the country. When I emailed her about the TA she had absolutely no idea what was happening. In all honestly it's not a hard class at all, and the material is interesting, but this was honestly the worst class I have ever taken here at UMD and I can't say I recommend it at all. This class is a huge waste of time, but if you're looking for an easy A and don't mind dealing with all this non-sense maybe take this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-03-27T17:48:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Shirley Micallef', 'course': 'PLSC115', 'review': 'The class was an easy A (if you study for the tests). Dr. Micallef was interesting to listen to online (I put the lectures at 1.25 speed or it would have been a bit slow to focus) and did a great job of explaining things. The tests were very difficult. Also, the group project was terrible (just because she did not provide lots of details on what she wanted and then graded it super strictly.)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-04T02:25:57Z'}], 'name': 'Shirley Micallef', 'slug': 'micallef'}, {'courses': ['AMST101', 'AMST205', 'AMST212'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shoji Sanders', 'course': 'AMST101', 'review': "The readings for this class are surprisingly interesting. Work is mostly just a discussion post and reply once a week and we only actually met a handful of times this semester, class was basically asynchronous. Would recommend if you need this as a gen ed and don't mind writing about 500-700 words every week, which wasn't bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-08T15:32:25Z'}], 'name': 'Shoji Sanders', 'slug': 'sanders_shoji'}, {'courses': ['BUSI758L', 'BUSI630', 'BUSI758Y', 'BUSI758Z', 'BUSI758X', 'BUSM606', 'BUSM752', 'BUMO758Q', 'BUSM708', 'BUSM758Z', 'BUSM708A', 'BUSM758K'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shreevardhan Lele', 'slug': 'lele'}, {'courses': ['BMGT343', 'BUFN740', 'BMGT848B', 'BMGT848F', 'BUFN758E', 'BUFN758L', 'BMGT340', 'BMGT340N', 'BMGT848P'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shrihari Santosh', 'course': 'BMGT343', 'review': 'I can\'t speak more highly of Shri. As a senior finance major, he is, without a doubt, the most educated and best prepared teacher I have ever had. Mainly a grad professor, I would highly recommend any finance undergrad to take him assuming you actually want to be successful in a financial/investing career. I learned more from him in a semester than I did in two years of other finance classes. He teaches like a graduate level course in that he doesn\'t just read off his powerpoint(tons of examples) and he is more concerned with you learning the information rather than being a "standard teacher". The class consists of two homeworks, one project, a midterm, and a final. There is 0 busy work in the class and only occasional readings. He also grades as a graduate class, mostly A\'s and B\'s, maybe 1 or 2 Cs. HOWEVER, this class is not easy, attendance is absolutely mandatory if you don\'t want to fail, and you have to actually like what you\'re learning. This is the class that will help you decide if you really want to go into investing/finance. If you don\'t go to class, I can guarantee you will fail. The powerpoints and book won\'t save you. But if you go to class, pay attention, be engaged, and want to learn, you\'ll more than likely come out with an A, a passion for investing/finance, and more knowledge than the rest of your finance classes combined.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-03-04T18:27:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Shrihari Santosh', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Worst professor I've ever had. All he does is scream conceptual stuff at student instead of teaching the notes. He has no idea how to do any calculator functions so he just gives us equations when it's 100x faster and more efficient to use a calculator. He tells us to solve the learning catalytic problem then 5 seconds later starts yelling at us about the answer. I can't even hear myself think. I've been teaching myself from Padhi's notes for the exam and doing very well. So if you can't get Padhi, at least you can use his notes. Do not take it with Santosh. Worst experience. Really ruined finance for me.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-17T19:35:45.513799Z'}], 'name': 'Shrihari Santosh', 'slug': 'santosh'}, {'courses': ['MATH113'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shujie Kang', 'slug': 'kang_shujie'}, {'courses': ['PLSC489W', 'PLSC125', 'PLSC689W', 'BISI899', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC420', 'PLSC608', 'PLSC125', 'PLSC608', 'BISI899', 'BISI899', 'PLSC608'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shunyuan Xiao', 'course': 'PLSC125', 'review': 'Great class. Lectures are easy to follow, and no tests or exams. 2 essays and a group project are the majority of your grade. Discussion sections are graded on participation. Pretty interesting, broad class about Food Security.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-01-26T15:32:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Shunyuan Xiao', 'course': 'PLSC125', 'review': "Took this class for the GenEd, and it was fine. Super easy to get an A if you show up and do the 2 essays and final project. Can be hard for some to understand Dr. Xiao's accent, but it isn't a problem for most, especially because lecture material is never tested. Overall good professor and course. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-12-17T05:49:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Shunyuan Xiao', 'course': 'PLSC125', 'review': "Thought this was an easy class but did require attendance to every lecture and discussion for the points. The essay exams were not difficult and the group project wasn't hard either. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-20T19:45:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Shunyuan Xiao', 'course': 'PLSC125', 'review': 'Great professor and class, literally a cs major but found a plant sciences class as an interesting and easy gen ed', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-20T04:43:09.624303Z'}, {'professor': 'Shunyuan Xiao', 'course': 'PLSC125', 'review': 'Overall, the class was an easy, interesting gened. The main parts of the grade are two essays, a group project, the tomato plant project (my favorite part of the course), and short writing assignments at the end of each class period used as a participation grade. Essay grading is very lenient.\r\nDr. Xiao is a solid lecturer who cares a lot about his work. As another commenter mentioned, he does have a bit of an accent, but I was fully used to it by the second lecture and it didn’t bother me at all. This semester, he co-taught with James Culver.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T05:38:19.940843Z'}], 'name': 'Shunyuan Xiao', 'slug': 'xiao_shunyuan'}, {'courses': ['EPIB651', 'EPIB652', 'EPIB698G', 'EPIB657', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Shuo Chen', 'slug': 'chen_shuo'}, {'courses': ['ENEE408C', 'ENTS699B', 'ENTS699C', 'ENEE299', 'ENEE408M', 'ENEE408C', 'ENEE408M', 'ENTS699C', 'ENEE408C'], 'average_rating': 1.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Shuvra Bhattacharyya', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': 'Snore.......', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-31T17:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Shuvra Bhattacharyya', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "He doesn't know how to teach. His lectures are extremely boring so don't even bother going to class. He is the only one who teaches ENEE150 though, so you're stuck with him if you take this course. He's not hard, just boring and incompetent. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-11-25T16:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Shuvra Bhattacharyya', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': 'Make no mistake, it is not difficult to get a good grade in this class, however, be prepared to learn absolutely nothing. The course description on the EE website does not match up at all with what is actually taught in the class. The first half of the class is spent sitting through the dullest most dubious lectures you will ever suffer through on vim and unix syntax. (not programming) about half way through when something about programming is taught it is presented in such a way that it seems like it is coming straight from a textbook. It tends to be about as cryptic as anyone could possibly make a lecture. Part of this is simply the C programming language, but the way in which it is presented could be much better. I have had the fortune to have already taken many programming classes (in Java mostly) so I am at least a bit more familiar with the content of the course which barely makes it beyond the remedial mark. This is a very new class so I am quite sure that the content will change at least slightly over the coming semesters, but it does not change the fact that Bhattacharyya is a less than stellar professor that is difficult to understand. The projects, while not difficult have at least three places you have to go to get information on how to go about doing it, and no where is there a complete set of instructions. Some information is given in e-mails, some in power points online, some in other project descriptions on line, and finally, some in the .h file gotten via glue. It is as if he tries to make it more difficult to find the information. \n\r\nThis is a required class for EE majors, and there are a small number of professors teaching this class so chances are you will be stuck with this guy, so good luck (its going to suck)', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-12T23:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Shuvra Bhattacharyya', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': 'Shuvra is a very fair teacher. His tests usually take the whole time, but they are more than manageable if you just look over the material. Also, he will give extensions on projects if he sees many students are struggling with them. This happened 2 times in my class when we were all a little lost on certain parts of the projects and he extended the due dates by about half a week in each case which really helped.\n\r\nShuvra is also a very annoying teacher though. He is a nice guy, but his teaching methods are all so tedious and dull that you will most certainly find yourself hating the projects and not paying attention a lot of the time in class. For each project you will have to write enormous amounts of automated tests for your code. These tests will sometimes be utterly useless, but you still have to take the ~15 minutes to make each one. This adds up to hours of complete boredom and busywork when you are required to make about 40 tests on the final project. Also, his lectures are very dull. He makes powerpoints the way everyone tells you not to make them by putting whole paragraphs on each slide. He will spend at least 20 minutes on each slide no matter how easy the material on it is. Furthermore, this causes him to never finish a lecture and you will leave this course feeling like you could have learned a lot more.\r\nOverall, this course is pretty easy and the actual coding of the projects is interesting. However, the lectures are boring, the automated tests are a pain to do, and we could have learned a lot more in the given time.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-23T19:59:00Z'}], 'name': 'Shuvra Bhattacharyya', 'slug': 'bhattacharyya'}, {'courses': ['VMSC688A', 'VMSC688A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Siba Samal', 'slug': 'samal'}, {'courses': ['ENME361', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'ENME808I', 'GEMS496', 'ENME331', 'GEMS497', 'GEMS296', 'ENPM808P', 'ENME332', 'ENME332', 'ENME331', 'ENME332', 'ENPM672', 'ENME332', 'ENPM808P', 'ENME332', 'ENPM672'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Siddhartha Das', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': "He only teaches studios (not lectures), and can be very loud and abrasive, but is a good teacher! He can explain things very well if you have the ability to ask the right questions amid his seemingly angry demeanor. Honestly I wouldn't have passed 331 or 332 without this man.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-16T18:22:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Siddhartha Das', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': 'Das definitely cares a lot about the students succeeding in the course. For this semester he taught studio and the second half of the course. He was definitely a very good teacher and he explained the thought process behind everything he did during studio. He wants everyone to do well and will more or less tell you what is on the exam. He is pretty loud as well and does not like it when people talk. \r\n\r\nThe studios are very helpful, but his lectures are pretty useless because he covers everything in studio in a more efficient way. Lectures are just derivations and boredom while studios are example problems with full explanations and derivations. He will explain anything and everything, just ask!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-27T05:32:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Siddhartha Das', 'course': 'ENME332', 'review': 'Dr. Das is an old fashion type of professor where he uses very little lecture slides and does example problems. For the first half of the semester, he led just the studio section then took over the lectures as well in the second half of the semester. In studios, Das did a quick lecture recap then went over a few example problems which were helpful. Das is unorganized when working problems but he hands out and post the solutions. If he runs out of space, he will write wherever there is space available, so if you look away, he may be in another place. The board looks unorganized, but if you follow along with him, it will make sense. \r\n\r\nAside from being unorganized and old fashioned, he does care about teaching the content and gets frustrated when students do not attend studios and lectures. He does answer questions, just have to be clear with what you are trying to ask. Das does have an accent which can be difficult to understand at first, but after a week or so, you can understand him and what he is saying. Das comes off as bad, but if you stick with it, he will be manageable. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-08-04T13:55:07Z'}], 'name': 'Siddhartha Das', 'slug': 'das_siddhartha'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Siemy Khan', 'slug': 'khan_siemy'}, {'courses': ['BIOE608', 'BIOE612', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS496', 'BIOE340', 'GEMS497', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Silvia Muro', 'slug': 'muro'}, {'courses': ['BIOE689D', 'BIOE331', 'BIOE232', 'BIOE601', 'BIOE489N', 'BIOE608', 'BIOE689U', 'BIOE464', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'BIOE232', 'BIOE464', 'BIOE232', 'BIOE232'], 'average_rating': 3.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Silvina Matysiak', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'Very organized, exams are fair. Lectures are theory and proof heavy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2017-12-30T02:14:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Silvina Matysiak', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'Her online lectures were hard to read due to the small size, but were alright. She made the exams flexible to take, but after above average performances on the first two exams the final was very hard. She was available to office hours ad was very accommodating during COVID. She is a nice professor and has a straight-forward teaching style, although her lectures are a lot of proofs compared to the exam. Go to discussion to get real exam practice, and solve all the previous exam problems (she gives good, detailed answer keys for them).', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-09-28T04:53:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Silvina Matysiak', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': 'She is very knowledgeable about her material and will mention distinct lab applications. While connecting these points is good, her lectures are extremely proof and theorem heavy whereas the exams are not. The exams are open notes but you should definitely do textbook problems and old exams if you are not someone that immediately understands the theorems she is teaching. She is very nice and clear about her syllabus and when things are due', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-27T15:33:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Silvina Matysiak', 'course': 'BIOE331', 'review': 'Would not recommend this professor. I found her accent hard to understand and she was not reasonable when I asked for help. I basically had to teach myself and struggled to get a B when I usually get As. This was not up to par with my experience with other classes and professors.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-01T19:31:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Silvina Matysiak', 'course': 'BIOE232', 'review': "Really had no clue how to do thermo and every class I went to I regretted going because I learned almost nothing. If I had not taken chem classes I literally would've failed. Also she doesn't have each assignment weighted so you literally have no clue what your grade is ever. Don't recommend. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-08T23:17:32Z'}], 'name': 'Silvina Matysiak', 'slug': 'matysiak'}, {'courses': ['UNIV348T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sina Beaghley', 'slug': 'beaghley'}, {'courses': ['DANC138W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sinclair Emoghene', 'slug': 'emoghene'}, {'courses': ['BMGT301', 'BUDT706', 'BUDT758F', 'BMGT301F', 'BUSI622', 'BMGT808E', 'BMGT408D', 'BMGT808D', 'BMGT808R', 'BUSM765', 'BUDT732', 'BUDT758G', 'BUSO731', 'BUDT722', 'BUSO731'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sivakumar Viswanathan', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "I feel this class was very challenging for an introduction course to information technology. Exams were very difficult, you really have to study and know the concepts.\n\r\nThe excel and access assignments was challenging too, but I got A+ on the both assignments. Here's a tip: get an IS major or someone who took BMGT301 to help you.\n\r\nWith that being said, he does curve at the end. I got an 80% on the mid-term exam and 70% on the final exam and somehow managed to get an A-. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-26T19:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sivakumar Viswanathan', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Siva is an incredibly smart man and really knows what he is talking about when it comes to info systems. He should be teaching upper level classes instead of intro. This is not good for business school students that just want to knock out useless bmgt301. He generally can see through BS answers on exams. he makes 3 or 4 versions of his exams that are all completely different so cheating is impossible. he posts his powerpoints online so paying attention during class is not necessary. He sent around a sign-in sheet for class participation.\n\r\nbottom line, if you are actually interested in info systems, this is a good teacher but if you were like me and just wanted to knock out another useless core, I'd look for another teacher.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-05-23T15:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sivakumar Viswanathan', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'This class was extremely challenging for an "introduction" course. Siva was very hard to understand and not very considerate of student questions or concerns. He generally teaches graduate courses and therefore has very high, unreasonable expectations for his undergraduate students. You have to attend class in order to fill in the power point slides. The quizzes and exams are exceptionally challenging. The Excel and Access assignments are nearly impossible. He makes himself available for office hours but tends to speak down upon students rather than send an approachable vibe.\n\r\nI highly recommend taking the course with another professor, or choosing the freshman fellows option. Otherwise, you need to constantly review the material and ask clarifying questions to earn a decent grade. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-16T02:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sivakumar Viswanathan', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'Overall, professor Siva cares about the students. He isnt mean and tries to teach. Unfortunately, his class is terribly boring and utterly useless. He is hard to understand and does not make the course work interesting. Powerpoint slides will do instead of attendance, but tests are a little challenging. Overall, I thought it was a big waste of my time', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-28T00:35:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sivakumar Viswanathan', 'slug': 'viswanathan'}, {'courses': ['HONR228N', 'AREC623', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC345'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Snaebjorn Gunnsteinsson', 'slug': 'gunnsteinsson'}, {'courses': ['ENPM808A', 'ENPM694', 'ENPM693', 'ENPM809K'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sohraab Soltani', 'course': 'ENPM694', 'review': "Obviously a talented professor but disorganized. Many errors in homework assignments, quizes, and grading that had to be pointed out by students and corrections requested. That could partially due to not verifying the TA's work. \r\n\r\nTwo lectures were missed with no followup (one for travel, another for flu). \r\n\r\nthe syllabus is kind of useless because the grading criteria, weight, and assignments will change somewhat randomly throughout the course. \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAlso if he says there won't be a final exam, take that with a grain of salt. There will be one, especially if students are suspected to be sharing answers to homework throughout the semester. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-17T04:10:02Z'}], 'name': 'Sohraab Soltani', 'slug': 'soltani'}, {'courses': ['EDCP108N', 'AASP498E', 'EDCP107', 'AASP498E', 'AASP498E', 'AASP498E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Solomon Comissiong', 'slug': 'comissiong'}, {'courses': ['HONR208B', 'SOCY699B', 'SOCY637', 'SOCY849', 'SOCY410', 'SOCY671', 'SOCY699J', 'SOCY380', 'SOCY498N', 'SOCY699S', 'SOCY849'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sonalde Desai', 'course': 'HONR208B', 'review': "Professor Desai is a really sweet lady. However, this honors seminar is long and sometimes boring. If you really want to learn more about gender inequality, education, the caste system, and poverty you'll enjoy this seminar. This class wasn't very much work and the TA was a fairly easy grader. We only had two papers and a poster project which is much less work than many seminars. The assignments didn't require much research outside the textbook.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T00:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sonalde Desai', 'course': 'HONR208B', 'review': 'As with all Honors Seminars, this course is kind of hit or miss. If you really love the topic, you will like it. Otherwise it is kind of dull. If you want to learn about Indian food and Bollywood movies, you are in the wrong class. You will learn a lot about the caste system and poverty and educational and gender inequalities in India. Professor Desalde is nice and the TA she had grade the papers is a fair grader, but this class was hard to sit through. It is my latest, longest, and farthest away class so it is just hard to have an attention span.\n\r\nThat being said, it is not a difficult class. The only assignments are 2 papers and a final project, all open to interpretation so that you can personalize it to you.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-05T13:06:00Z'}], 'name': 'Sonalde Desai', 'slug': 'desai_sonalde'}, {'courses': ['EDHD306'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sophie Jablansky', 'slug': 'jablansky'}, {'courses': ['CBMG688D', 'BSCI420', 'BSCI421', 'BISI799', 'BIOL708A', 'BISI899', 'CBMG699C', 'CBMG688D', 'BSCI420', 'CBMG699C', 'BISI899', 'BISI899', 'CBMG688D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sougata Roy', 'slug': 'roy_sougata'}, {'courses': ['CHEM131', 'CHEM272', 'CHEM277', 'CHEM131S', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM232'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Soumya Rastogi', 'slug': 'rastogi'}, {'courses': ['COMM400', 'COMM402', 'COMM498M', 'COMM475', 'COMM398E', 'COMM370', 'COMM107', 'COMM304', 'COMM307', 'COMM302', 'COMM475', 'COMM302', 'COMM304', 'COMM449F', 'COMM475', 'COMM302', 'COMM449F', 'COMM475', 'COMM307', 'COMM302', 'COMM304'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Soyoung Bae', 'slug': 'bae'}, {'courses': ['COMM107'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sreashi Das', 'slug': 'das_sreashi'}, {'courses': ['ENMA300', 'ENMA421', 'ENMA464', 'ENMA661', 'ENMA621', 'ENMA484', 'ENMA698K', 'ENME382', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA684', 'ENMA664', 'ENMA362', 'ENMA464', 'ENMA664', 'ENMA421', 'ENMA621', 'ENMA464', 'ENMA664'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sreeramamurthy Ankem', 'course': 'ENMA362', 'review': "I would give him a zero if that was an option. Absolutely incoherent when speaking and writing on the board, and all of his slides were straight from the textbook, so we were really on our own. At least he isn't a harsh grader. Hands down the worst professor I've had at this university. Best of luck MatES.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-11-05T16:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sreeramamurthy Ankem', 'course': 'ENMA464', 'review': 'Ankem is slightly difficult to understand, but his lecture slides are very clear. He has a sense of humor and is a decent teacher. He will post slides before exams to help you study. The exams are straightforward, so if you study the notes you should be fine. There are pop quizes, 2 exams, 1 paper and a presentation. Overall, ENMA464 is a pretty easy class as long as you attend class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-16T20:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sreeramamurthy Ankem', 'course': 'ENMA362', 'review': 'Personally I thought his speaking was pretty easy to understand though I can see why it may be a little hard. Definitely not a dealbreaker though. He basically reads off the very detailed lecture slides which can make it boring, but for me it was mostly boring because I felt like the content itself was EXTREMELY boring (probably the most boring content i have had to sit through ever, comparable somewhat to ENMA300 since its basically that but more in depth). The labs in this class are easy (at least it was for us, we had very chill TAs) and some were also kind of fun. Exams and quizzes were also very fair but some of the homework problems were a little complicated, which wasnt a big deal if you went to office hours or the TAs for some help.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:58:13.359696Z'}], 'name': 'Sreeramamurthy Ankem', 'slug': 'ankem'}, {'courses': ['BSCI411', 'CBMG688G', 'BISI899', 'BSCI411H', 'BISI899', 'BISI899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sridhar Hannenhalli', 'slug': 'hannenhalli'}, {'courses': ['ENCH440', 'CHBE440', 'ENCH468N', 'ENCH648N', 'CHBE480', 'BIOE689N', 'CHBE369', 'ENCH799', 'EDSP652', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE440', 'CHBE480', 'CHBE680', 'ENCH648', 'CHBE440'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Srinivasa Raghavan', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor:\r\nOne of the better Chem-E professors at UMD. He\'s nice, and really understand what he teaches the class.\r\nClass:\r\nTwo (2) midterms and one (1) final. Homework, and participation count as well. He is a pretty nice grader, and curves well too. For one of our exams, the average was a 72%, and the cutoff for an A was a 75%. One of the best parts of the class is how he does the homework portion of the grade - at the beginning of the semester, you pick a group of three (3) to do the homework for the rest of the semester. Homework is due weekly, and everyone in the group has to turn it in. However, only one member\'s homework is graded - and that grade is given to everyone in the group. The class is taught via powerpoint - I usually hate powerpoint as a tool for instruction, but in this class it was effective. His powerpoints were well prepared and take advantage of the different tools the Microsoft provides (the transiting). The professor typically breaks up his lectures by having the class discuss their thoughts on different topics. (He just goes "Discuss!"). We do use the software Polymath for homeworks - you can download a free trial for about two (2) weeks - however, since you work in groups, just have one person download it at a time so that you can have for almost two (2) months.\r\nOverall:\r\nVery interesting class, very good professor. You can;t go wrong here. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-01-17T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Srinivasa Raghavan', 'course': None, 'review': "He's completely awesome. His tests are hard and tricky. If you can get your hands on old tests, and get more practice, that's golden. The hws are a bit hard so make sure you go to the office hours about them and do them early on so that its not 2 am and your group gets too tired and cranky to work. Also, no textbooks needed for this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-31T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Srinivasa Raghavan', 'course': 'ENTS635', 'review': "The course is really good and the prof is excellent.. For scheduling your semester courses.. you should take into consideration that the HW's load of this subject is heavy.. you should dedicate at least 1 day just for solving the weekly HW's.. I'm glad that this course is a required ENTS course.. its worth the time and effort..", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-10T04:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Srinivasa Raghavan', 'course': None, 'review': "Best professor I've had yet. He uses powerpoints instead of a book, but I think it's extremely effective because the powerpoints are basically everything you need to know from the book in condensed form. He keeps the class engaged with discussions and questions. Some discussions are trivial, but they do help keep students engaged. Also a relatively generous grader.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-28T11:17:00Z'}], 'name': 'Srinivasa Raghavan', 'slug': 'raghavan_srinivasa'}, {'courses': ['EDSP692', 'EDSP695', 'EDSP691', 'EDSP694', 'EDSP452', 'EDSP210', 'EDSP421', 'EDSP494', 'EDSP495', 'EDSP470', 'EDSP430', 'EDSP652', 'EDSP452', 'EDSP692', 'EDSP495', 'EDSP695', 'EDSP452', 'EDSP692'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stacey Williams', 'slug': 'williams_stacey'}, {'courses': ['GVPT354', 'GVPT356', 'CPSN230', 'CPSN240', 'CPSN250', 'CPSN100', 'CPSN101', 'CPSP359N', 'CPSN230', 'GVPT356', 'GVPT105S', 'CPSN100', 'CPSN230', 'CPSN240', 'GVPT356', 'CPSN101', 'GVPT105S', 'GVPT356', 'CPSN100', 'CPSN230', 'CPSN240', 'CPSP218N', 'GVPT356'], 'average_rating': 2.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': None, 'review': 'Honestly, one of the best classes I have ever taken at UMD. Dr. Kosko cares so much for her students and she truly wants us to understand the material. I have learned so much and cannot wait to take another class with her. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-21T19:24:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN100', 'review': "This class is super boring. I would not take it if it wasn't required. We aren't allowed to use our computers for notes, so we all basically just sit there for an 1.5 hr class and try not to fall asleep. The TAs and the professor all grade differently, the assignments that we were given didn't have a rubric and we were not properly prepared for them. Although there is barely ever any homework, it takes super long to get graded. Dr. Kosko doesn't really know how to lecture and the lessons are poorly planned.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-03T21:22:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN100', 'review': "Not a bad teacher at all but DO NOT TAKE INTERNATIONAL STUDIES. Dr. Kosko was only just appointed the director of the IS program and the previous director left a terrible curriculum that doesn't fit with her teaching style at all. For all future scholars programs students, *please* switch to something else. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-06T03:11:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN100', 'review': "Horrible professor! Rude to students, irrelevant assignments, unknowledgeable on the topics she teaches -- it's as if she was chosen off the street to teach this course. She also loves to talk about herself, but she does not like to acknowledge or discuss other students' opinions. Keep an eye out for her knitting in the back of class while other people are presenting their hard work!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-08T02:57:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN100', 'review': "The class is very easy, the TA's are awesome. Stacy doesnt know what was going on though.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-08T19:36:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN100', 'review': 'Dr. Kosko is very knowledgable on International Studies and shows it in the class. She is a good person and cares for her students. She was very accommodating for me when one of my family members passed away. I feel like since she is a new director, she is still trying to figure out how to structure the class. All in all, she is doing the best with what she has. If you are interested in global issues definitely pick International Studies as your scholars program. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-11T21:48:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN100', 'review': "I honestly don't know what all of the other reviews are talking about. Dr. Kosko is great! She is very caring and kind to her students. She is actually VERY knowledgeable on the topics she discusses and is able to answer almost every question the students through at her, no matter how random or specific of a question is may be. She seems like a walking encyclopedia to me! And I actually find her lectures to be very entertaining and interesting. After her lecture on international development, I began strongly considering going into that field as a career, even though I walked into that lecture completely disinterested in it. I genuinely look forward to her lectures and the class was my favorite of the semester because Dr. Kosko made the lectures so exciting and even funny at times. However, she is very slow at responding to her students. Every time I have emailed her it has taken about a week or longer to get a response, and sometimes I don't get a response at all. The grades do typically come back slowly, but the TAs grade all of my assignments, not Dr. Kosko.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-12T00:29:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN100', 'review': 'The lessons are not planned well, and the lectures are extremely boring. She has also completely changed the curriculum from International Studies to International Ethics. If you are not interested in that, DO NOT take this class', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-03-30T00:29:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN101', 'review': 'This honestly wasn\'t that bad of a class. Boring, but not that bad. We had to write a bunch of reflections, but that really didn\'t take a long time. I think that International Studies definitely isn\'t for me based on how it is structured and presented, but it would definitely be interesting for someone who likes learning about political ethics and global development/solutions. Also, there were some "field trips" for this class and I would say that they were a bunch of fun!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-06-23T14:51:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'GVPT105S', 'review': "Okay this class was SUPER long. Although I signed up for International Studies, I didn't really think that it entailed so much discussion on international ethics. Personally, that is not at all something that I am interested in, so I did not like the class. Also, there are A LOT of readings that take forever, so make sure to block out time for that. The lessons are usually just class wide discussions about ethics and it can get frustrating at times. Unless there is a major change in the curriculum, I would say don't stick with International Studies.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-23T14:54:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN100', 'review': "Dr. Kosko's depth of knowledge and personality are sold short by the fact that this class has big lectures and meets only once a week. I genuinely believe that Dr. Kosko is a good instructor, but her class was incredibly boring. The course lacked direction so assignments felt arbitrary and it was hard to take much away from lecture.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-10T16:46:41.307579Z'}, {'professor': 'Stacy Kosko', 'course': 'CPSN100', 'review': "This class was pretty easy, but really boring and lectures weren't really planned out very well. Dr. Kosko herself isn't terrible, but she isn't amazing either when it comes to teaching this course. When I signed up for IS, I was hoping on having a more discussion based class about international topics, but instead, CPSN100 was just 1.5 hours of straight lectures once a week which were more focused on ethics and theories rather than tangible current and global issues. Guest speakers were brought in a couple times, which was interesting, but other than that, classes were very boring (not to mention, laptops aren't allowed so you can't really do much other than sit there). Even if you are interested in International Studies, unless they change the curriculum, I wouldn't recommend taking it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-07T09:33:00.422647Z'}], 'name': 'Stacy Kosko', 'slug': 'kosko'}, {'courses': ['EDCI471', 'EDCI480', 'EDCI689', 'EDCI375', 'EDCI360', 'EDCI460', 'EDCI651'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stacy Pritchett', 'slug': 'pritchett'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'EDUC388', 'EDUC388U', 'EDUC388C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stacy Woycheck', 'slug': 'woycheck'}, {'courses': ['ENFP350', 'ENFP620', 'ENFP651', 'ENFP415', 'ENFP629M', 'ENFP425', 'ENFP201', 'ENFP671', 'ENFP651', 'ENFP425', 'ENFP651', 'ENFP201', 'ENFP671', 'ENFP425'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stanislav Stoliarov', 'slug': 'stoliarov'}, {'courses': ['ANTH260', 'ANTH266', 'ANTH360', 'ANTH267', 'ANTH426', 'ANTH626'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stanley Herman', 'slug': 'herman_stanley'}, {'courses': ['ENGL243', 'ENGL688', 'ENGL788', 'HONR349J', 'ENGL499', 'ENGL125', 'ENGL428C', 'ENGL479A', 'ENGL379T', 'ENGL353'], 'average_rating': 3.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stanley Plumly', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HIM. It is not a poetry class where you analyze poems and actually think and learn. It is him ranting about a poem the whole lecture then taking a MULTIPLE CHOICE exam on HIS interpretation of the poem. Later in the semester the exams consist of FILLING IN THE BLANKS of random lines from poems that are over a page long. He is so narcissistic to think his opinion is the only accurate one on every poem and he even plays recording of HIM reading them. \n\r\nI have heard this is a good HL to take with other professors but if its Plumly DO NOT TAKE IT. \n\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-13T21:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stanley Plumly', 'course': None, 'review': "Plumly is legit. I mean, he's the poet laureate of Maryland, for goodness sake. He's not afraid to speak his mind, but he's awesome in that way.\n\r\nI had him for a smaller honors seminar with a bunch of other students who took poetry seriously, so I'm sure that affected the class dynamic and his attitude towards students (in a positive way).\n\r\nIf this seminar ever comes up again, and you love poetry, TAKE IT.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-20T22:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stanley Plumly', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': "Dr. Plumly is the most rude and pompous professor in the CORE department. AVOID this dumb class. I took it because I hate reading, and in poetry well you should know if you're even reading this review...that you won't have any outside reading to do, which is great since I am a BIO major with a ton of reading already to do. Anywho, he doesn't make it clear what to expect on the exams, and his style is too all over the place. I tried to meet with him once and he did not make himself readily available. THE TA'S ARE SO IMPORTANT, FREAKING AVOID JAMISON CANTOR. I am a senior at UMD, and honestly from all the TA's and professors I've had Jamison is a name and a face I will NEVER be able to forget. This a-hole ruined my experience. He is too intense, requires extra work (like recitation of a poem at the end of the semester in front of your class), and he grades harder on your exams, and he NEVER gives you hints on what to expect while the other TA's do. he thinks he's to good for maryland, so avoid him, avoid Plumly...avoid ENGL243.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-06-16T16:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stanley Plumly', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': 'I didnt think this class was easy. i got a 68 the first test. if you do not study you wont do well and although people think it will be easy, its far from that. sometimes he gives you breaks on tests which is nice. i got an A- because i started working to bring my grade up. just study and knowwwww your poems. youll be okay.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-24T16:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stanley Plumly', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': 'Awful professor, could put an insomniac to sleep. Tests involve recognizing lines from poems and matching them to the correct author. TAs suck at preparing you for exams.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-02T18:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stanley Plumly', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': "A lot of students don't like Professor Plumly's style of teaching; they claim he's old-fashioned, dry, and soporific. These things may be true, but if you try even the slightest bit in this class its not hard to do well.\n\r\nThere is no reading or work aside from the 3 tests. Go to lecture. Write down whatever is on the board. More importantly, GO TO DISCUSSION. Your TA grades your tests, so as long as you write on the exams what they tell you in discussion, your golden (you also get 50 points for attendance in discussion, so you should go either way).\n\r\nDon't be shy to switch TAs mid semester if your initial one is too hard or too unwavering in discussion. If you can get Shenandoah, she's awesome and really wants you to do well.\n\r\nThis class is easy enough, and definitely a good one to take to fulfill your HL core. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-01T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stanley Plumly', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': "Go to every lecture and write down whatever is on the chalkboard. Make sure to copy down places but don't pay too much attention to dates (they don't really matter unless it relates to the season). \n\r\nThree exams 100 pts each, discussion (mandatory) 50 pts, final 150 pts. Multiple choice, matching (author to poem) and short answers.\n\r\nIt's NOT difficult to get an A. It all depends on how hard your TA grades. (Avoid Jamison - all the other TAs are good though).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-24T16:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stanley Plumly', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': "show up to every class!! about 60% of the exams are based on things he said in lecture. if you dont have lecture notes you're basically screwed.\n\r\neasy to get a B, hard to get an A. \n\r\nif you get Laura as a TA, she's amazing.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-05-13T13:14:00Z'}], 'name': 'Stanley Plumly', 'slug': 'plumly'}, {'courses': ['SURV772', 'SOCY498F', 'SURV640', 'SURV641', 'SOCY634', 'SOCY498P', 'SURV829', 'SOCY699W', 'SOCY819', 'SURV699', 'SOCY699Y', 'SOCY701', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SOCY380', 'SURV699', 'SOCY634', 'SURV699', 'SURV772', 'SOCY699L', 'SURV699'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stanley Presser', 'slug': 'presser'}, {'courses': ['MATH111', 'MATH113', 'STAT100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stefan Poikonen', 'slug': 'poikonen'}, {'courses': ['ANTH345', 'ANTH240', 'ANTH434', 'ARCH428A', 'ANTH634', 'ARCH428R', 'ARCH628R', 'HISP619B', 'ANTH448R', 'ANTH632', 'ARCH478O', 'ARCH678O', 'HISP619O', 'HISP650', 'ANTH448R', 'ANTH632', 'ARCH478O', 'ARCH678O', 'HISP619N', 'HISP619O', 'ANTH496', 'ANTH696', 'HISP319A', 'HISP619A', 'ARTH389Y', 'HISP319N', 'ANTH496', 'ANTH696', 'HISP200', 'HISP319A', 'HISP619A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stefan Woehlke', 'slug': 'woehlke'}, {'courses': ['ITAL122', 'ITAL261', 'ITAL311', 'ITAL121', 'ITAL211', 'ITAL361', 'UNIV101', 'ITAL207', 'ITAL362', 'ITAL301', 'ITAL252', 'ITAL122H', 'ITAL121H', 'ITAL204', 'ITAL399T', 'ITAL103'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stefania Amodeo', 'course': 'ITAL211', 'review': 'If Amodeo wasn\'t my teacher, I would love her. She is goofy and funny and exactly what the other review said, a "crazy Italian grandmother."\n\r\nBut as a teacher, she is frustrating. She never says what she wants out of us, she just wants us to talk constantly about cities in Italy. I feel like I learned a lot about the historical monuments in Italy this semester but my speaking in Italian, the whole point of 211, didn\'t really improve at all. And when we have to talk in front of the rest of the class, she makes everyone critique you and points out everything you did wrong, which is nerve-wracking. The final is a half-hour conversation with just her, which I am actually looking forward to because I will do better speaking with just her than standing in front of the whole class and it will help my grade. Honestly, considering how little I speak out in class, she probably thinks I\'m an idiot.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-05T12:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Amodeo', 'course': 'ITAL203', 'review': "I give Amodeo a conditional 3 stars, because my situation is different from most others. I went on her study abroad in Genoa (where she's originally from) in January 2008, and then took this class Spring 2008, so she got to know me personally. I also live in the Italian cluster of the Language House, for which she is the Faculty Mentor, so you could say I'm one of her favorites. She is your typical crazy Italian grandmother: a funny and great person to know and be around, but could be better at teaching.\n\r\nFor example, 203 is the second semester grammar course. Her lesson structure is nearly non-existant, and often flies by the wind. She expects students to do too much work, and does not realize the students' comprehension of Italian is much much lower than what she thinks it is. At times she seems to forget we all take other classes.\n\r\nThat being said, if you are passionate about learning Italian, she'll like you, and you'll do fine. If you're only taking this class because of a requirement, I would find someone else.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-02-25T16:19:00Z'}], 'name': 'Stefania Amodeo', 'slug': 'amodeo'}, {'courses': ['ECON315', 'ECON441', 'ECON340', 'ECON443', 'ECON387', 'ECON200', 'ECON387', 'ECON200', 'ECON387', 'ECON200', 'ECON387', 'ECON443', 'ECON200', 'ECON387', 'ECON443'], 'average_rating': 3.0857, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': None, 'review': "so much busy work... and in a pandemic?! Her tests made me wanna cry. would've failed if it wasn't for GSS", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-11-24T00:17:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Terrible. Her exams are 100x harder than class material like homework and smart books. The GSS sessions, TA sessions and practice problems are no match for her exams. Doesn’t seem to care because she barely responds to emails. Only 1 hour for exams please dont take her. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2020-11-25T20:21:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I'm actually doing ok grade-wise, but I admit I've gotten lucky. She doesn't listen to her students and the majority of the class is severely struggling (averages are typically around 70-75).", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-11-30T22:24:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Please do not take her. Smart books and homeworks are no match for test material. If you reach out to her she’s either not going to respond to your email or she’ll reply with something that doesn’t help (in reference to grades) GSS sessions barely help. It’s like she purposely makes the exams so difficult for what reason I dont know. I would’ve been able to get by with at least a C if the exams weren’t rigorous and if we had longer than one hour. All in all, it didnt seem like she cared much. Even when other students would ask questions during zoom calls.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2020-12-02T22:14:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "People exaggerate the difficulty of this class. With that being said it is a 200 level class, not a 100 level. Overall exams are not too bad if you actually study. The busy work seems dumb but honestly it drills the content into ur head. She's a pretty good teacher but does get frustrated with students sometimes.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-04T02:50:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Thought she was a decent professor; make sure to take good notes since tests online are open note & almost all multiple choice, and if you take this course with no econ background, be prepared for a lot of graphs and be ready to analyze graphs in 30 seconds during a test possibly. Definitely a good course but I know a lot of kids complained about the pace of it, which I thought was pretty decent for a freshman taking a first-time college course; you teach yourself the content with the online textbook and then she goes over it in class to really get in your head which I liked; would reccommend!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-05T01:25:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I want to cut her some slack because it's her first semester dealing with this many students and having it online doesn't make it easy, but she was very ineffective as a teacher this semester and at least some of that is due to the online nature of the class to be fair. Do the readings and study them hard if you haven't taken micro before and you'll be fine, but I know I'm only doing well right now because I took Econ in high school.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-08T15:30:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Tests are very fair and you don't have to do much studying. Just to the homeworks and the smartbook assignments and you're good. You don't really have to pay attention to the lectures most of the content can be self learned. She knows what's she's talking about but gets kinda annoyed if you ask obvious questions.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-09T17:28:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'I’m a little annoyed by the people saying “just study and you’ll be fine” “we’re exaggerating””..More than half of the class is struggling at a borderline C/D...stop giving bias reviews if you’re already a pro at Econ. “Obvious questions”?? Econ is hard what other times do we have to ask questions if she doesn’t respond to emails? The pace wasn’t the issue the lack of assistance, help, matching test questions was the issue. Homeworks and smart books were annoying but do-able....Exams were a entire different thing. She could improve a lot of ways for the next round of students.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2020-12-10T17:47:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Assigns 1-2 textbook chapters every week. Chapters are not long, each one takes like 1 hour to finish if you read thoroughly. She goes over the material from the readings in class and records them. \r\n\r\nHW consists of Connect and Smartbook questions. Smartbook is a bunch of multiple choice questions based on the reading, but it's basically completion cause the questions are easy and you can get a bunch wrong and still get full credit. Connect questions are like problem sets, which can take a little while to finish and can get tricky, but prof drops lowest two connect and smartbook assignments, and you get 2 submissions per assignment, so there's some leeway if you mess up. \r\n\r\nIn class quizzes are assigned every week, but you get 2 attempts per quiz and prof gives you a chance to talk in groups about the quiz after the first attempt. \r\n\r\nExams are all multiple choice. If you don't know the material well then you're fffffffucked, but all you gotta do is study well, go to GSS, and go over past HW's and most importantly understand the material and you'll easily get a B+ or above every time. \r\n\r\nTo be honest, contrary to my peers, I really liked the class. If you're good at teaching yourself, you like economics, and you have an interest towards the subject, you will most likely get an A and learn a good amount. However, I can't say much about the professors teaching abilities because I mostly learned from the readings and HW assignments. You'll probably eat shit if you're looking for a loaf class and/or you rely on the professor to teach you most of the info. \r\n\r\nP.S I took this class during rona szn ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-16T02:06:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'The exams are typically easy if you know the content, and she lectures well, if you pay attention and take good notes you’ll do fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-17T01:36:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "She is one of the most organized teachers I've dealt with but does not take constructive criticism well. Overall the class is fairly easy if you put in the work you're supposed to. I was lucky and had a background in microeconomics before taking it so most things were not new to me. She understands what she's talking about but the execution of her teaching style did not always go well with students. It was her first time teaching such a large lecture AND it was online so got to cut her some slack there. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-17T02:08:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "(I took this class completely online.) This was a surprisingly difficult class for me. I put in a considerable amount of effort (significantly more than I've needed to get an A in most of my other classes so far) and still struggled to get the A. The pace of the class is quick–not unmanageable, but still quick. I also found the exams to be MUCH harder than the homeworks and review materials. From what I heard from my classmates, some people thought the exams were very unfair and some thought they were fine. As someone with no econ background but who genuinely put in a lot of effort, studied a lot, kept up with the material, etc, I'd say the exams are pretty hard but not impossible. She's a good professor and seems to know what she's talking about. \r\nOverall a solid course, but if you don't have a background in economics and/or economics just isn't your thing, be prepared to really work for it. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-22T02:44:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Lots of busy work which does cover the material and helps you learn, but the content of the exams is not directly covered by the homework and SmartBook assignments. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-25T02:23:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I had little trouble with Professor Scandizzo's class, and found the homework pretty straightforward, but I can understand the frustrations people have been expressing. She seems like a nice person overall and seems responsive to student concerns. I did, however, have to rely on the textbook for most of the class but her lectures were recorded and I'm glad I was able to watch them on my on time. The class felt overall pretty intuitive for me, but I can understand how people did not feel that she helped them that much through her lectures and tests.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-14T03:07:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "She literally doesn't know how to explain ANYTHING. homework is horrible and super hard and her lectures dont help one bit. you're better off taking a micro class at community college", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-17T21:53:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': None, 'review': "She is a very good lecturer and makes the topics very understandable in lectures with examples. Go to GSS sessions if you're confused and you'll be fine. The textbook assignments are really annoying but she drops your 2 worst grades.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-06T00:05:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Dr. Scandizzo is very knowledgeable about microeconomics! She explains the content very well and does practice problems during class so you can watch how to do problems step-by-step. The only problem is she ONLY talks about microeconomics-- there are no tangents or anything, which can make the lectures a little bit boring. But I came into the class with no background whatsoever in microeconomics and I am expecting an A, even though I only attending one review session in the entire semester. My best suggestion is to read the chapters and take notes before the lectures so you can use the lectures as a review. Dr. Scandizzo does cover most important concepts in each chapter, but sometimes there simply is not enough time for her to cover everything, so I really suggest you take in-depth notes in advance. There is a very reasonable amount of work. Half the assignments are graded for completion, and the other half is graded for accuracy. But you get two attempts for the assignments that are graded for accuracy, and she takes the better of your two scores. Personally, I find the homework assignments to be very difficult and the exams to be extremely easy, but most of the class believes that the homework is easy and the exams are difficult, so it may be subjective. Average exam scores hover around an 80, but my lowest exam score has been a 93. Just read the textbook chapters before class and take in-depth notes and you'll be fine, but you'll need to do that no matter what professor you have for this class. Dr. Scandizzo does everything right to help her students get good grades. It's just that the content is really hard for most people. There isn't much more she could possibly do to help.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T17:07:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'The TAs were very helpful and nice but she was very poor at explaining things during lecture. I had to work my but off for this course and had an A most of the semester until the last exam. I would try to take it at a community college if you can but be prepared to study a lot to a an A. The homework is difficult and the exams are deceptively difficult.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-21T03:44:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'EXAMS WERE SO HARD, the assignments she gave did not prepare you for the exam, the only way you were suppose to well on the exam is do the practice exam and go to class. She really nice but is awful at teaching, she explains in a very roundabout way, please take a different prof', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-01-20T03:39:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Her exams are extremely difficult especially compared to what other Econ professors gave out. I’d be fine with her being a hard teacher if she actually cared about her students, whenever I’d go to her office hours asking for help on concepts/how to improve my study skills to better my grade she always quickly dismissed me. Honestly just go for a different professor she doesn’t seem to care about teaching. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-22T02:08:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'I found Dr. Scandizzo to be a great professor. She is really knowledgeable on microeconomics and her lectures were pretty clear. I will say that the smartbook assignments were honestly pretty dumb and unhelpful. Make sure you attend lectures, do the readings, and GO TO GSS or office hours. Her exams were oddly specific and difficult but the practice tests were very similar so really try and master those. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-06T13:22:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Honestly don't really get the bad reviews. I came into the class with no micro experience but Prof. Scandizzo made everything easy to follow and fair. There was a fair amount of work every week since you have to do Smartbook questions and homework on Connect, but the Smartbooks are easy 100s and you get 2 attempts on the homework. Tests were really doable if you do the practice exams and take advantage of GSS study sessions. Her lectures also follow the notes very closely (with a couple more examples) so if you take good notes sometimes going to class isn't super necessary. I personally stopped going and just attended the review sessions before exams and was still able to get an A. I honestly wouldn't be put off by the bad reviews, just take her! If you put in the work it's definitely possible to do well in this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-15T03:22:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "People like to say Scandizzo is a horrible teacher but I found that not to be the case. If you do the assigned smartbooks and homework, along with the exam reviews, you'll do fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-01T20:53:46.270813Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I like Scandizzo I think she uses good examples to explain the topics and does good work building off past information. The homeworks are graded for completion and you get two attempts with the homework and she takes the highest grade which is nice. Go to the review sessions, look at the notes she posts on canvas, ask the TA's to review your past midterms and you'll do fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-06T04:25:03.464221Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "A very nice person, sometimes lectures are hard to follow. Smartbook lessons and Hw so basically completion which is nice for hw. She posts lecture slides if you can't make it to class but they are not very detailed. 2 midterms and 1 final.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-06T14:40:17.208019Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "It's a fairly easy class if you come to lectures. She answers questions well and her lectures do a good job clarifying material from the smartbook. There is a decent amount of busy work but that's going to be with all intro level courses and it boosts your grade which is nice.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T15:52:41.072805Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "The course is hard no doubt. I think she tries as hard as she can to help students get the material down during lectures and when that isn't enough there are a lot of resources she makes sure to push and review sessions with the TAs are great. The annotated slide shows are all posted online which is great incase you need to miss class but I really recommend going. Her tests are mainly multiple choice and a few short answers of drawing and identifying graphs. Its a decent amount of work outside of class and studying is definitely needed to do well at all on her tests and even the class in general because they weigh so much. One midterm I got a 90 the other a 73 and that was with a lot of studying (granted I still didn't have everything down and I hope the 73 was just a fluke). Its a lot of information fast but if you do your work, go to lectures or look over the slides, take notes, and go to review session you'll be good. She wants you to succeed and helps as much as she can the class is just rough.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-08T18:03:02.530772Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'I really loved Scandizzo as a person and professor. I think she is really friendly and easy to approach. Her examples in class are simple to follow and she is clear in her explanations. Go to class, attend GSS, and review as much as you can. I did extremely well on the first test, but not as well on the second. It is a tough class. I recommend taking her if you can because she cares a lot about the success of her students.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-09T01:46:15.550406Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "Very nice professor, but the way she taught was not very engaging. Her lectures were just a slideshow of notes. I obviously understand that she taught a large lecture for ECON200 which makes it hard to engage everyone, so it's kinda something you'd have to deal with. You have to do a lot of busywork in this class. Smartbooks seemed a bit pointless because in class she covers the same material from the chapters, but just less of the smartbook and only the material needed for exams. Completed notes will always be posted if you miss a class, and the GSS sessions and TA office hours are good resources to use if you need help understanding any concepts. It is a passable course, but will be boring at times - something I felt like I just had to get through. If there is an upper level course with her, I think it would be better because she can be more engaging in smaller groups - she's still very personable and approachable.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T21:39:29.634902Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I loved learning from professor scandizzo. Econ is hard to make interesting but she did as best as she could. Lectures could get boring, but if you did the weekly HW assignments and smartbooks, you don't really need to pay much attention. Her exams were pretty straightforward and were never on concepts that she didn't cover.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-17T04:43:14.542438Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'I did not attend a single lecture after the first month and still pulled out a B. That should be all the info you need.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-24T22:21:31.122297Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Super nice professor who gives all required material to do well in the class. I will say the exams were straight forward in a lot of ways, but I somehow always got a lower than expected grade. COME TO CLASS if you want an A. If you don’t care, the slides should suffice.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-22T20:50:05.858806Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': 'Easy class, but awful teacher. Does not explain anything better than the book does, and stopped going to class. However, easy class in general.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-06T19:20:20.910868Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'course': 'ECON200', 'review': "I've never taken econ or anything of the sort before, but I feel like this class wasn't nearly as terrible as the other reviews are saying. If you go to lecture, and start studying for exams at least a couple days in advance, you'll do fine. I didn't take textbook notes, or go to review sessions outside of the pre-exam kahoots (recommended). She's a decent professor, just sit up front and take hand written notes so you don't get distracted. Exams are straightforward, and the practice ones she gives are accurate to how the real ones are. Don't let the people who didn't put in any effort discourage you!!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-14T13:48:32.575346Z'}], 'name': 'Stefania Scandizzo', 'slug': 'scandizzo'}, {'courses': ['BMGT446', 'BMGT441'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stefano Collina', 'slug': 'collina'}, {'courses': ['HIST332', 'HIST408P', 'HIST333', 'HIST408N', 'HIST398', 'HIST399', 'HIST601', 'HIST395', 'HIST408J', 'HIST329V', 'RELS343', 'HIST619N', 'HIST113', 'HIST339I', 'HIST339O', 'HIST332', 'HIST333', 'HIST601', 'RELS342', 'HIST333', 'HIST339O', 'RELS343', 'HIST332', 'HIST339I', 'RELS342'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stefano Villani', 'course': 'HIST429I', 'review': 'This class was pretty rough to sit through. He uses Powerpoint heavily, but most of them are borderline-not-English paragraphs that he reads straight off the screen and doesn\'t elaborate on. He has a heavy accent and is sometimes difficult to follow. Everything discussed in class was straight out of the readings, so attendance in the class was pretty low. The first half of the course spent on Elizabeth I was much more interesting than the second half spent on Mary Queen of Scots, and I wish the class studied more about "the propaganda and myth" of their regimes like the description of the class promised. There are two papers, a term paper, a midterm and a final. He is a bit of a finicky grader, but not unreasonable. Take the class if you are already interested in the topic, but reconsider if you are looking for an engaging elective.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-05-31T13:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stefano Villani', 'course': None, 'review': "He's a cool guy; fresh from Italy, I could see where someone might struggle with his accent but his expertise is incredible and is an excellent teacher. Provides slides for the class (332 + 429) that are very good. one midterm paper, one final paper (in my experience) and a midterm test and a final, if you pay attention, read, and go to class, you'll do well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-02T05:54:00Z'}], 'name': 'Stefano Villani', 'slug': 'villani'}, {'courses': ['GVPT100', 'GVPT828L', 'GVPT460', 'GVPT479D', 'GVPT388L', 'GVPT170', 'GVPT868L', 'GVPT479C', 'GVPT460H'], 'average_rating': 2.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': 'GVPT100', 'review': "I created an account on this website after using it for a few years and I saw Rouse's name pop up for an upper level government class. I had the opportunity to take my first class in the government program GVPT100 with this professor. It was one of the most miserable and stressful experiences of my freshman year. It made me question my choice of being a government major at UMD. I received a C in her class after working on it for hours each week. She was extremely ineffective in teaching the lessons and the coordination between her and the TA's was horrible. I retook gvpt100 my sophmore year and received an A with a different teacher that actually taught the class. Stella's shortfalls as a professor did not just reverberate with me, but with the entire class. After teacher evaluations, when UMD allowed teachers to view them before the course ended, she scolded the class because they were overwhelming negative as the entire class with fed up with her teaching methods. How unprofessional. Moreover she refused to post the notes for a 100 level lecture and while I went to class every 9am lecture I still couldn't copy her notes and draw all of the graphs within her impossible to follow time frame. \n\r\n After this horrible experience with my first government class I decided to persevere and continue the major within UMD. My experiences have been great and the faculty has been exceptional in teaching the subject matter. As a student I strongly recommend you do NOT take a class with her. You will regret it and so will your GPA. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-11-12T00:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': 'GVPT479D', 'review': "I understand that it was a 400-level class, but her expectations were far too high. She didn't teach anything. She would have us read about these research studies which requires you to have taken at least 2 statistics classes. \r\nHer grading is another story. \n\r\nShe was very knowledgeable but in order to get any sort of real information from her you had to ask the questions. She speaks 500 words per second and barely gives you enough time to copy down any sort of notes or anything.\n\r\nDO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS UNLESS YOU TAKE IT PASS FAIL BECAUSE YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED WITH YOUR GRADE.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-21T22:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': "Professor Rouse is obviously very knowledgable on and passionate about her subject. But she definitely has the air of a professor who knows how smart they are, as she made it clear that everyone in the class should only contact her as last resort and she made some condescending comments. She has a strict no-technology policy and requires you to buy a clicker for the class, and there is always technical difficulties with the clickers, probably because we were in a 200 person lecture hall. She required us to read a textbook and a reader chapter every week, which equalled probably over a hundred very dry, long pages weekly - the reading expectations were absolutely ridiculous. You probably won't be able to get away without reading - I pretty much skimmed each 6-7 chapter section before the midterm and final. She refuses to post lecture slides online so that people who don't come to lecture (attendance is counted every day) can't see them, but (and this is important) SHE FILLS UP HER SLIDES WITH TONS OF INFORMATION AND GOES THROUGH THEM SO QUICK YOU WILL NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO WRITE THEM DOWN. YOU WILL NOT GET EVERYTHING DOWN. AND SHE WILL NOT POST THE SLIDES. You might be able to get away with recording lectures on your phone but its a pain in the ass considering the strict no-tech policy. She talks a million miles an hour as well. The class wasn't a huge deal for me as a GVPT major (and this being a requirement), so if you end up her in class and have to be there like me, it will be manageable, considering you have a more natural talent/understanding for gov. But DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HER FOR ONE MEASLY GEN ED IF YOU ARE NOT A GVPT MAJOR. It definitely won't be worth it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-14T07:39:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': None, 'review': 'She is probably the worst professor you will ever have, please NEVER take her class!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-07-21T16:38:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': "Everything the person said that submitted a review below on 12/14/2019 is 1000% true and I couldn't state it any better myself", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-08T18:40:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': "Do not take this class if it is not a requirement, she just lectures the whole time and the class has almost nothing to do with the basics of American government. She doesn't curve the class and homeworks are not particularly easy. She makes you read two things a week for discussion and both are utterly useless. DO NOT take the class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-08T21:25:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': 'I love professor Rouse! She keeps her lectures entertaining and tells you what you need to know for her papers and quiz’s. She does go through lecture slides a little quick sometimes so it’s hard to keep up. She also doesn’t tell you whats going to be on her exams, but her exams are very easy if you study. Sometimes her lectures are boring, but thats more to do with the course material rather than her and she always tries to make her lectures more entertaining.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-09T14:42:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': 'GVPT170', 'review': 'Lecture slides come straight from the textbook so either read the textbook or go to class or both i guess. Discussions r helpful to go to if u wanna understand the supplemental readings. Exams are straightforward and from the textbook. In my semester, she offered very easy extra credit that was applied to multiple sections of the grade.\r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-02-07T16:41:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': 'GVPT479D', 'review': "I also had her for 170 and that was awful, I ended with a B but I hated the class the whole time. However, for 479D I got an A-. I think her higher-level classes aren't as bad. But for all those GVPT170 reviews you have to remember that she doesn't grade those papers or your assignments in that class, the TAs do. So if you have an issue with your grade Rouse didn't do that, your TA. But she does create the exam, and that was awful and terribly hard, especially for a lower-level class. 479D was fine but there were a shit ton of readings, I kinda would cram and skim them a bunch just before writing the little papers and I did fine. I am also not too bad at school so idk if that had anything to do with it, but I never really paid attention in lectures and still got an A-. The exams in 479D weren't bad at all. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-04-01T14:20:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Stella Rouse', 'course': 'GVPT479D', 'review': "I was expecting to get an A so I am a little disappointed. I put a lot of effort into my papers and discussions. I thought the class/lecture was interesting, but def a little useless or intuitive. i didn't think the grading was fair for how easy the content was.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-02-18T06:04:03.787271Z'}], 'name': 'Stella Rouse', 'slug': 'rouse'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101A', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL101H'], 'average_rating': 4.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stephanie Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101S', 'review': 'Ms. Allen is a very kind and thoughtful teacher who is willing to assist any students in need. Personally I struggle with writing, but Ms. Allen helps guide students in the class format and is happy to answer any question thrown at her and guide her students on the right course. Highly recommend for any students taking this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T16:40:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephanie Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Fair grader, lets you skip class, very kind and thoughtful. She is a great professor and an easy A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-24T18:27:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephanie Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Great professor. Class does get a bit boring but I think that's just English 101 for you. Extremely patient, listening, thoughtful, understanding. Grades fairly. Deadlines are nice and spaced apart. Under her, there is no final exam and you just have five major assignments to submit (I don't know if this is true for all English 101 classes or not). \r\n\r\nReally nothing bad to say about her, she's been great and English 101 has been smooth sailing under her with minimal effort and stress. \r\n\r\nHighly recommend 10/10", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-23T03:21:39.933387Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephanie Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Great professor. Class does get a bit boring but I think that's just English 101 for you. Extremely patient, listening, thoughtful, understanding. Grades fairly. Deadlines are nice and spaced apart. Under her, there is no final exam and you just have five major assignments to submit (I don't know if this is true for all English 101 classes or not).\r\nReally nothing bad to say about her, she's been great and English 101 has been smooth sailing under her with minimal effort and stress.\r\nHighly recommend 10/10", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-28T11:20:10.004465Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephanie Allen', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "I took this class in Fall 2022, and it was very boring and mostly useless. However, I believe this to be the fault of the class, not the instructor. Her lectures were not interesting, but the assignments were very clear, and the class wasn't much work. I felt that she graded fairly, and I found her very willing to help with these assignments and answer any questions I had. It definitely wasn't necessary to do the readings (or to pay attention to the lectures), so I found this class to be low-stress and requiring little effort. I thought Ms. Allen did as good a job with this class as anyone could, and any failings in this course were with the material itself, and not the instructor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-22T02:48:20.132672Z'}], 'name': 'Stephanie Allen', 'slug': 'allen_stephanie'}, {'courses': ['EDHI740', 'EDUC898', 'EDUC888I', 'TLPL675', 'TLPL675'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephanie Brown', 'slug': 'brown_stephanie'}, {'courses': ['ENST481', 'ENST499D', 'ENST415', 'ENST681', 'ENST472', 'ENST689D', 'MEES681', 'ENST689', 'MIEH691', 'MIEH736', 'NFSC736', 'ENST689K', 'ENST499C', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST689K', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'MIEH691', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST689K', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST415'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephanie Lansing', 'slug': 'lansing'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM350', 'COMM352', 'COMM351'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stephanie Madden', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "I don't understand the other review at all...Ms. Madden was a great teacher! She really was interested in making the class enjoyable to her students. She asked her students about their preferences on exams and played really helpful videos that were informative and fun. You'll probably end up having a B in this class; you'll only get an A if you actually give this class your time which is least likely. But she was still an awesome respectable teacher who cared about her students.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-01-25T14:05:00Z'}], 'name': 'Stephanie Madden', 'slug': 'madden_stephanie'}, {'courses': ['MUED215', 'MUED320', 'MUED311', 'MUED420', 'MUED698C', 'MUED411', 'MUED489I', 'MUED697', 'MUED474', 'MUED494', 'MUED698M', 'MUED780', 'MUED729', 'MUED320', 'MUED484', 'MUED494', 'MUED697', 'MUED729', 'MUED411', 'MUED474', 'MUED729', 'MUED698M', 'MUED698Q', 'MUED698M', 'MUED320', 'MUED484', 'MUED494', 'MUED697', 'MUED729', 'MUED215', 'MUED698Q'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephanie Prichard', 'slug': 'prichard'}, {'courses': ['ENST499M', 'ENST422', 'ENST432', 'ENST689M', 'ENST622', 'ENST798', 'ENST472', 'ENST388', 'ENST689', 'ENST689Z', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ENST388', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST388', 'ENST432', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST689Z', 'HNUH248B', 'ENST388', 'ENST422', 'ENST472', 'ENST622', 'ENST689', 'HNUH248B', 'ENST432', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST689Z', 'HNUH248B'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stephanie Yarwood', 'course': 'HNUH248B', 'review': 'The class is honestly very easy, and it is really easy to get a good grade on it. Professor Yarwood is very accepting of feedback and will adjust the assignment deadlines and requirements to make it easier on the students. It may be annoying to go up to the greenhouse to take care of the plants, but compared to other UH courses, this is definitely one to take. There may be a lot of readings and assignments that seem stupid, but you still get a good grade on it even if you procrastinate and bs it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-27T02:11:45.289726Z'}], 'name': 'Stephanie Yarwood', 'slug': 'yarwood'}, {'courses': ['GVPT273', 'GVPT282', 'GVPT409C', 'GVPT409I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Arves', 'slug': 'arves'}, {'courses': ['MATH140', 'MATH115', 'MATH310', 'ENES106', 'MATH141H', 'MATH401', 'MATH461'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Balady', 'slug': 'balady'}, {'courses': ['ANTH240', 'ANTH447', 'ANTH448A', 'ANTH448Q', 'HONR278V', 'ANTH340', 'ANTH398D', 'ANTH647', 'ANTH688Z', 'ANTH689Q', 'ANTH298V', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH453', 'ANTH653', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH340', 'ANTH447', 'ANTH647', 'ANTH441', 'ANTH447', 'ANTH631', 'ANTH647', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH740', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH340'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stephen Brighton', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': "Professor Brighton is one of the best professors I have had at UMD. He is a very fun and approachable guy who will do as much as he can for you. He made the dull material in intro to archaeology bearable. His class is very easy to begin with. You don't have to go to class to succeed in this class, but I found him very entertaining and I went to every class. Highly suggest this prof. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-05-11T19:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Brighton', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': 'Boring lecture and even much boring discussion. If you want to get easy CORE credit, you should wait for Prof. Palus to teach this class. He is a boring lecturer too, but he is surprisingly generous and easier.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-12-06T18:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Brighton', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': "I loved Professor Brighton he was a really nice guy and if you had any questions he would give you great answers. It was seriously an Easy A I got a 100 and a 96 on the two midterm exams. You have three tests including the final two short lab papers and like 5 quizzes His slides do kind of suck though they don't really have much content they have a lot of photos but if you write down what he talks about you should be fine. If you bought the book that helped too.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-24T19:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Brighton', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': "Stephen Brighton is a really nice, approachable guy. He definitely knows the material he is covering, which is good if you have any specific questions that go beyond the info from lectures. \r\nThe weekly quizzes in discussion are pretty easy, and the tests for our semester were in essay form. For the essays, you need to memorize specific people or examples so you won't get points taken off for being too vague. \r\nI love all of his little jokes and short side-stories that relate to the topic in class. He does go through his powerpoint fairly quickly, (but he is thorough,) and that means you usually get out of class a few minutes early!\r\nIt's not the most exciting class, but the middle section on hominid evolution is the most interesting.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-04T20:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Brighton', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': 'Very boring, monotone lectures. TAs are competent at best; the discussion consist mainly of milling around in the so called lab washing artifacts- that is cleaning mud from things like beer bottles and petrified feces-multiple times. Just a waste of time basically. The lectures are not posted online, and there is absoltely no point in buying in the book if you write down what he says in lecture-which brings me to his lecture style. He has a powerpoint with minimal words and a bunch of pictures, and he goes on and on about things that are sometimes not relevant, and certainly not in the book. He goes very fast, so I would suggest to bring a recorder. His exams are all objective, and non-cumulative-could be a plus based on how you look at it. In other words, the final is based solely on material covered since the last exam. The exams are extremely easy, and should require only a glance over the notes, but the class made me feel like we were more focused on memorizing facts rather than actually learning things. Avoid-or at least consider M. Palus. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-10-30T13:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Brighton', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': "this man is really funny and he is very respectful and wants his students to learn and understand the material, which isn't that difficult by the way. it's mostly memorization, but the tests were really easy, however this may be because the TA made the tests pretty easy. my TA was madeline laub, if that is your TA as well then i heavily recommend you stay in this class. it really isn't that hard of a class, and i SUCK at gen eds. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-14T05:47:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Brighton', 'course': 'ANTH240', 'review': "Not a bad professor, but a really bad class. They don't grade anything. Tomorrow is the last day of exams and there is not a single grade put in elms. Grade is dependent upon 10 quizzes (10%) and 3 exams (90%). The lecture slides provide little to no information and classes are not recorded so if you miss any you're pretty much screwed, although he is pretty understanding about covid. Dr. Brighton is not a bad lecturer, but the class is so lecture heavy it can be hard to keep up and write down information when he goes on tangents. The questions on exams are extremely specific and it often feels like one of those classes that cares more about how much you memorize than how much you actually learned. The class average for the 2nd exam was around a 62 so proceed with caution. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-17T18:24:55Z'}], 'name': 'Stephen Brighton', 'slug': 'brighton'}, {'courses': ['BMGT310', 'BMGT220H', 'BMGT311', 'BUAC758L', 'BUAC758M', 'BUAC732', 'BUAC758F', 'BMGT220', 'BUSO616', 'BUSO602', 'BUAC758F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Brown', 'slug': 'brown_stephen'}, {'courses': ['ENFP405', 'ENFP621'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Hill', 'slug': 'hill_stephen'}, {'courses': ['ENES100A', 'ENES102', 'ENES100', 'ENES221', 'ENES220'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Kamakaris', 'slug': 'kamakaris'}, {'courses': ['MATH015', 'MATH214', 'MATH111', 'MATH011'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stephen Kcenich', 'course': 'MATH003', 'review': "Took the class spring 2008. the class material was made a lot easier by his simple tricks. He's a patient professor and really does make the class easy for everyone to get an A or B.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-04T14:14:00Z'}], 'name': 'Stephen Kcenich', 'slug': 'kcenich'}, {'courses': ['COMM713', 'COMM606', 'COMM679', 'COMM769', 'COMM606', 'COMM679', 'COMM769'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Lank', 'slug': 'lank_stephen'}, {'courses': ['BMGT411'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stephen Loeb', 'course': 'BMGT411', 'review': "He is the most knowledgeable teacher I've had for accounting. I think he is also the head of the accounting department in the Smith School. He talks a lot about his own research, and has had a lot of his research published as well. But he isn't a bragger, he genuinely wants you to learn from his experiences. He is extremely nice so definitely take advantage of his presence while you have it.\n\r\nThe class doesn't have much work; two hour-long group presentations (mostly skits and videos), a paper, and a test, along with class participation. It's probably the easiest accounting class, so take advantage!\n\r\nOnly downside is that this class is inherently boring, especially because half the time you are watching other groups present topics such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Discrimination, the Environment, etc.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-06T03:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Loeb', 'course': 'BMGT411', 'review': "Prof. Loeb is overall a nice man. This class has no exams, which is nice, but the class expectations are very vague. We have two 1-hour long presentations (sounds bad, but really isn't), a journal of topics, and a research/opinion paper. The expectations were so unclear I had absoutely no idea what my grade would be before he posted it. That said, I can't complain about how the class went because it really didn't take up much of my time. Also, Loeb takes attendance and participation VERY seriously. Not going to class/never participating is a bad, bad idea. He makes a dot by your name every time you speak and then compares your number against your classmate's numberss. Last note: talk to Loeb. He knows a lot of stuff and is a great resource about anything Accounting related.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-03T19:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Loeb', 'course': 'BMGT411', 'review': 'You have two group presentations during the semester, and almost every class period consists of an hour long group presentation from a group of about six. You are mostly graded on creativity so make sure your presentation is interesting/fun.Almost everyone gets an A on the them.\n\r\nHe takes attendance at the beginning of each class so you have to go to class, but if you are sick or something just email him and its fine. You also have to participate, he marks down how many times you participate and compares your total to your classmates in determing grades. \n\r\nYou have to write a corporate social responsibility paper on a company you get to pick, and be sure to follow the directions when they say to give your opinion throughout the paper.\n\r\nLastly, you have a take home essay final, which has to be really long, about 20 pages he told my class, so plan a lot of time during finals week to write this paper.\n\r\nOverall, enjoyable class to attend most of the time, not too much work, and a pretty easy A-.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-07-16T14:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Loeb', 'course': 'BMGT411', 'review': 'Not a very exciting course which for the most part consists of student presentation on various accounting-ethics topics. Loeb is a very reasonable grader and it helps talking to him to figure out the grading criteria. I strongly recommend going to all of the extra credit presentations to receive the grade boost at the end of the semester. It was one of the less challenging courses at the business school.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-02-20T19:28:00Z'}], 'name': 'Stephen Loeb', 'slug': 'loeb_stephen'}, {'courses': ['KNES355', 'KNES483', 'KNES222', 'KNES355H', 'KNES483H', 'KNES497', 'KNES355', 'KNES355H', 'KNES483', 'KNES483H', 'KNES355', 'KNES355H', 'KNES483', 'KNES483H', 'KNES355', 'KNES355H', 'KNES483', 'KNES483H', 'KNES355', 'KNES355', 'KNES355', 'KNES355H', 'KNES483', 'KNES483H'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stephen McDaniel', 'course': 'KNES497', 'review': "Personally, I really like Dr. McDaniel and his teaching style. He is a good professor who actually cares about his students doing well and learning the material they need to learn. He is passionate about making his students understand things that we will take with us as we go on in life, like how to critically read a research paper. Dr. McDaniel is not an easy grader and will make you learn and work for your grades but hey isn't that what college is for? I would recommend taking any of his classes and I wish that I had taken others of his. He is one of those professors who is there to help and you won't benefit if you sit back and try to slide through the class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-10-06T00:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen McDaniel', 'course': 'KNES355', 'review': 'Sounds like it would be fun but turned out to be one of the hardest classes. McDaniel has no problem failing people and is actually quite mean. Plus there are just mass amounts of information to study, making the exams difficult.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-16T22:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen McDaniel', 'course': 'KNES355', 'review': "Personally, Dr.Mcdaniel has a very old-minded teaching style. He expects everyone to remember the notes off of his 75 slides per lecture. He does not post any of his notes so you only get to see everything once. He is also rather mean and does not really care for his students' success. On top of that your grade is only based on 2 quizzes, 2 exams, and a final project. The 2 quizzes are only worth 10 points and the final project is only worth 40 points, so you're grade is dependent on how you do on his exams. EXAMS are very HARD!!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-01T23:31:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen McDaniel', 'course': 'KNES355', 'review': 'Worst class I\'ve ever taken. This professor is very rude and enjoys giving out bad grades. He will not care to fail you. The information he gives is equivalent to about 3 classes in one and gives out exams that are 90% essay questions along with fill in the blank. He does not post lecture content online because he wants it to "force us to make it to class" which is ridiculous. He is very strict, doesn\'t answer emails, and has a lot of weird and annoying rules. No phones during class, they must be put away. No drinks, no food, and no hats during exams. He was the first professor I\'ve ever had in 4 years to make the class bring their ID\'s on test day and he went around verifying them. When students ask questions, he responds with the most condescending comments. Do not take this this class. I repeat, do not. Save your GPA. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-08T21:17:46Z'}], 'name': 'Stephen McDaniel', 'slug': 'mcdaniel'}, {'courses': ['BSCI410', 'CBMG688I', 'BSCI414', 'CBMG688P', 'CBMG699D', 'BSCI416', 'CBMG699T', 'CBMG688A', 'BISI678C', 'BISI899', 'CBMG699D', 'BSCI410', 'CBMG688A', 'CBMG688P', 'CBMG699D', 'BSCI416', 'CBMG688I', 'CBMG699D', 'BISI899', 'BISI899', 'BSCI410', 'CBMG688A', 'CBMG699D', 'CBMG688P'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'I took it as a blended learning class, and it turned out to be much harder than I anticipated. There is A LOT of online material, and the in-class lectures once a week were not very helpful. Dr. Mount does not really go into the stuff that he expects us to know for the exams. I did bad on the first two exams, but still ended up with a good grade because I did well on the last exam and the final. The good thing is that he normalizes all the exams to a mean of 80 and drops the worst exam. From personal experience, Mount is understanding and nice, but he is not a very effective at explaining the material. Or maybe, this class is not suitable for blended learning since it is so technical.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-19T21:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Prof. Mount himself is not the world's most engaging lecturer. I had the blended learning version so I just had class one day a week and was given video lectures to watch for the other day. You can watch the lectures whenever (or never, though it's a good idea to look them over before exams).\n\r\nWeekly quizzes that I'd often forget to do until the day after the due date. Oops. Oh well, they're not too difficult anyway. You get a bunch of attempts so you can just brute force your way to a good grade on them.\n\r\nThe material varies from interesting genetic lab techniques to Mendelian genetics on steroids. The latter is far less interesting and often surprisingly complex. The textbook is extremely helpful here. Advanced Genetic Analysis by Meneely is a lifesaver. The Hartwell Genetics book had its moments but I used far less frequently.\n\r\nLowest of 3 exams is dropped. Each exam is curved pretty generously as well. \n\r\nNot a hard course, but be prepared to study a bit. Look over his old exams he posts on his website because reused questions are common. Fill out the study guides he posts on a Google doc (or print one off that's been completed and learn from that) and you'll probably be okay.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-19T20:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "If he teaches this as a blended learning class again, don't take it. He's not terribly difficult, but he doesn't teach at all! Lectures are rather useless, and the online lectures are poorly constructed (pauses, ums, even audible yawns). I learned more from my peers in the days before exams than from him in any format of lecture. Study guides frequently had questions that covered material that wasn't addressed in quizzes or lectures! He didn't proofread one of our exams and ended up having to add 16 points onto everyone's exam grade before curving them because the questions were impossible to answer with the given information. I don't really feel as if I learned anything new in this class that I didn't know from 222 already, just glancing information about some new genetic analysis techniques.\n\r\nThere are a few positives: he normalizes everything to an 80%, 88% is the A-/B+ line, and he'll either drop your lowest midterm or make the exam only 20% of your final grade (as opposed to 80%). And then he normalizes again at the end of the class so you get the highest grade out of those normalizations (or so he claims).\n\r\nOverall, not impressed. If you actually want to learn, I hear the other professors are pretty good.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-13T18:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "do not take this class with mount. i heard this class is much better in the fall with the other 2 professors\r\nmount is a horrible professor but getting a good grade in the class isn't too hard if you do above average and he curves a lot depending on class averages", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-06-08T01:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Fell alseep in his class whenever he lectured. He just didn't make the material very clear and went through the material way too fast. The homeworks are doable but takes a lot of time if you don't follow what he is saying in class.\r\nhis lecturing style is very boring making it hard to pay attention to. and even when i tried i couldn't understand the concepts very well. he teaches with facts instead of trying to help you understand the mechanisms... and his final was very unfair. changed the entired format compared with the previous exams...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-23T18:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Dr. Mount really knows his molecular genetics. The course consists of very up-to-date information, and was fascinating to learn. Grading is very fair and it's possible for lots of people to get A's. \n\r\nHowever, lectures can consist of over a 100 slides, which makes taking in the information like drinking from a fire hose. He also expects a strong background from BSCI222. Old tests are posted online, but he stresses not to go strictly by them. I suggest going to lecture, reading the book (though it is a lot), and going over the past exams. If you don't understand something on the old exams, make sure you study that concept as well as any related concept, since it's usually a slight variation from previous years that end up appearing on the exam. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-30T17:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'The content of the course was disorganized in my opinion. It was really hard to group the second half of the course in a category. He does not follow the order of the chapters in the book.\n\r\nMount as a teacher goes real fast in sometimes will not explain things clearly. Eventually the material gets so complicated you just tune out. \n\r\nPros: He normalize all averages to 80% so one time i actually got a 70 and the average was a 66 and my grade ended up being an 84.8. An A ended up being around 83 so just be a little higher than the average. Drops the lowest exam and hw\n\r\nCons: His homeworks are extremely hard. You always need to send him emails and go to his office hours just to get slightly closer to solving them. He says they are two notches higher than the hw you get from BSCI222 but its impossible. luckily he curves this impossible to 80% also.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-17T21:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Not a bad teacher, strong, relevant, up to date genetics information, but he should make tapes for insomniacs - his voice will put you to sleep immediately if you forget your morning coffee. \r\nHe gives you access to slides and internet information before lectures, has a crazy curve and does pretty good study guides before exams. He also posts old exams, which are very similar to current ones. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-10-24T20:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Stephen Mount is a mediocre *at-best* professor. While clearly brilliant with regards to his knowledge of genetics and biology as a whole, his poor public speaking/course design abilities severely damage his ability to teach. Content is disorganized; there is not clear architecture to what students are expected to learn and lectures take frequent roundabout tangents that are seemingly unrelated to course material. Ambiguous about grading --> literally does not communicate how he will assign grades. Gave a vague comment about how he matches exam grades to fit a certain standard deviation, but said he assigns letter grades based off how he "feels the class did as a whole". Doesn\'t have office hours and frequently ignores raised hands. Overall, the class is not too difficult, but teaching seems to be far outside of the abilities Stephen Mount has been given as a scientist.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-08T17:30:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'The definition of incredibly smart professor with an overly rigorous course. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-01-06T19:28:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "I took BCHM461 the same semester as this and I thought this class was harder despite Dr.Mount handing out more A's than BCHM461. BSCI410 is very similar to BSCI222 with a bit more detail added in. Dr.Mount is literally one of the most brilliant professors I have encountered at UMD. From the very first class, you can tell by the way he talks that he knows his stuff. However, learning from him is a bit of a challenge. My friends and I joke that he just operates in the 4th dimension while you're only in the 3rd dimension. He is so brilliant and uses so much jargon it can be incredibly difficult to learn from him. At the beginning of the semester, I had a really hard time figuring out how to study for this class because his teaching was really hard to understand. Do not read the textbook, look at(and memorize) the powerpoints! I do not think Dr.Mount is a bad professor or his class is excessively difficult, but you have to kind of learn things on your own. Find a group to study together with before the exam, it'll help a lot. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-13T18:46:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': None, 'review': 'Took Dr. Mount for both BSCI410 and BSCI416, in both cases he handed out a comical amount of (mostly busy) work that takes up an immense amount of time. While taking 4 other courses along with his, I often had as many assignments due for this one class in a week as I did for all my other sections COMBINED. Learning feels mostly self taught, with lectures often providing only the most basic ideas of what is going on. A study group/buddy is a must if you are in a section with Dr. Mount. Remarkably inflexible with deadlines, he will cite that the due date has been on the syllabus since day one and its on the student to plan appropriately and will refuse even a sub 24-hour extension for anything less than personal Armageddon. Assignments are almost always due at 11 pm on the due date and there IS a point penalty if you turn it in between 11 pm and 11:59 pm. Why is this? who knows! I have never seen another professor do this in my 4 years as an undergrad.\r\n\r\nDr. Mount is irrefutably a very intelligent professor that knows his field extremely well, but has what can be best described as a pathologic blind spot for the plight of students and fails to understand that not everyone who takes a required class of his is not planning on becoming a graduate level genetics researcher. The 2 star rating (as opposed to 1) comes from him being quite friendly when you catch him at office hours or after class. Otherwise I would recommend you stay away.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-02-14T15:01:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI416', 'review': 'Oh the misery. Where do I start? I was expecting this class to be fun, engaging, and not one to really impact my GPA or mental health due to the grade distribution on planetterp. Boy was I wrong. You walk into the first day of class and what happens? 20 page article to read by next class. Thereafter, you have a presentation every other week (total of 6, one where you will present and all of the others are ones where you will help make the presentation), a worksheet for each of the articles around every week, a giant grant proposal to work on throughout the semester, a mechanism report (where you will only get 2-3 weeks to work on but actually require much more time), and a final exam where you have to find answers to their long questions completely based off of articles you find on your own with no assistance. On top of that, you will not, I repeat, you will NOT get your grades back in a timely manner for anything just because they are slow graders and won\'t release grades for whatever unholy reason. This means you could make a mistake on your presentations one time and keep making them throughout the semester and get points docked for it because you never received your feedback in a timely manner. Some of the points you get docked on are absolutely silly and uncalled for as well. Dr. Mount will point something out in your presentation (for example not including something or saying that your figures are blurry) when in reality the presentation did not have that fault at all. He claims that he is "biased" on grading and will knock down points because of this bias when he does NOT pay attention to the presentations. I have seen him STARE at the ceiling for an extended period of time when someone was presenting when he was supposed to be grading their presentations. Someone in my class also went to his office hours and tried to have a conversation about how this class alone takes too much time and is affecting our mental health and Dr. Mount\'s reaction was "Well you should manage your time better." He is completely detached from the woes he inflicts on his students and that shows with his assignments, grades, and comments. Also his presentations are incredibly dull and make you want to fall asleep as well. In all, save yourself the mental and emotional strain and don\'t take this class (at least not with Dr. Mount) if you don\'t have to.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-23T17:46:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Stephen Mount', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "This class is an absolute pain. Material on the exams is barely covered. Lecture is incredibly boring. I can't give any tips for success because I got a C.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-10-12T22:34:32.175138Z'}], 'name': 'Stephen Mount', 'slug': 'mount_stephen'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688V', 'RDEV689M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Rudow', 'slug': 'rudow'}, {'courses': ['AREC892', 'AREC785', 'ECON785', 'AREC699', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC699', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC699', 'AREC898', 'AREC899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Salant', 'slug': 'salant_stephen'}, {'courses': ['ARSC059', 'ARSC300', 'ARSC301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Surjue', 'slug': 'surjue'}]
[{'courses': ['HLSA787', 'HLSA300', 'HLSA484', 'HLSA785', 'HLSA389', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'EXST030', 'HLSA778', 'HLSA484', 'HLSA484', 'HLSA484', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA898', 'HLSA899', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA688', 'HLSA786', 'HLSA799', 'HLSA484'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Thomas', 'slug': 'thomas_stephen'}, {'courses': ['MUET220', 'MUSC320', 'MUSC648'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stephen Thursby', 'slug': 'thursby'}, {'courses': ['BSCI421', 'BSCI427', 'BIOL708A', 'BSCI420', 'CBMG688W', 'BSCI339C'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Stephen Wolniak', 'course': 'BSCI420', 'review': 'Nice guy. Had him for cell bio, BSCI420. Teaches a little too fast and has NO online component to the classes at all. No ELMS, no online syllabus, nothing. I forgot his name half the time because you never see it anywhere past the syllabus he hands out early on.\n\r\nDoes a good job at making sure you know what to focus on for the exams. Lectures are filled with personal anecdotes that are appreciated if only because they give you time to catch up on your note-taking (and trust me, at his pace, you\'ll be falling behind nonstop).\n\r\nUse lectures to figure out how much of a topic he wants you to know, then learn the material from the textbook. \n\r\nTA who graded our exams was unnecessarily harsh but he\'s open to meeting with you to go over questions and will give credit back if he thinks you deserved it. \n\r\nOh, and if you ever say his grading is "unfair," he will murder you. So don\'t do that.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-18T05:12:00Z'}], 'name': 'Stephen Wolniak', 'slug': 'wolniak'}, {'courses': ['ENGL245', 'ENGL101', 'CMLT280', 'CMLT270', 'FILM245', 'CMLT235', 'ENGL101S', 'AASP298L', 'ENGL234', 'ENGL101H'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steve Beaulieu', 'course': 'ENGL101H', 'review': 'Fairly solid', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-17T20:04:32Z'}], 'name': 'Steve Beaulieu', 'slug': 'beaulieu'}, {'courses': ['MATH310', 'MATH734', 'MATH730', 'MATH310', 'MATH310', 'MATH310', 'MATH310'], 'average_rating': 3.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "In short, he is a great professor. The class is definitely challenging, but he makes it as fair as possible by drawing exam questions only from previous homeworks. He's always willing to answer questions, even if it's the answer to an upcoming homework problem. Definitely go to office hours and have lots of questions. His lectures themselves are not that useful, but really that's because proofs is something I think you just have to learn through practice. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-18T17:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "310 is a difficult course to teach since it's different than any other Math course students have taken. He teaches by doing examples, which isn't always a lot of help, but he makes up for it by answering any questions during class or office hours. The test questions are all taken from the homeworks and the tests are graded on a curve which makes them manageable/easy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-05T18:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "His teaching is not nearly as bad as the other reviews make it seem. I think it's just that the content can be difficult to grasp if you aren't used to writing proofs. If you spend a lot of time and make sure to fully understand what he is saying, the exams are not awful and his grading is very generous.\n\r\nHe teaches through doing rather than by example, which can be very, very frustrating at first when nothing makes sense, but eventually you'll get the hang of it. I learned a lot in his class!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-15T14:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'His teaching style is horrible. His method of instructing is by telling the class to try as many problems as possible without actually teaching them how to prove anything. At one point, all of us failed an assignment and verbatim, he stated that "[he] deduced that it was entirely [our] fault." At one point he was asked to solve one of our test problems on the blackboard and he was unable to do it. \n\r\nI used to be a math major, but I dropped it because of this class.\n\r\nNice guy, but avoid him at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-24T19:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Halperin made efforts to be friendly to students, but was a horrendous teacher. Never in my career as an undergraduate have I such a terrible learning experience. When presented with problems from the exam, he was unable to solve some of then. Yet, on this same exam, he claimed that it was OUR fault for not learning the material- yet every single person failed this same test. \n\r\nAvoid Steven Halperin at all costs.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-31T16:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'This class was an absolute train-wreck. Steve Halperin is a cool guy, but his ability to teach and prepare you for his tests is more or less like giving students butter knives when there is a gun fight. Absolutely horrible teaching ability + his cryptic book makes 310 an absolute atrocity of a class. And this is not from some one who is bitter... I actually scored really high on all the homeworks and midterms; this was just a high stress class that makes you go insane at times. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-17T12:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "Pretty mediocre professor. He doesn't have much respect for his students, the textbook he wrote is convoluted and any issues that come up out of the student's control is the student's fault.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-14T18:52:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Great professor to take for a pretty terrible grade distribution of a class. His tests are LITERALLY the same questions as the homework so there should be no reason why you should not get a 100% if not better on each exam(there is extra credit in each exam). This class is mostly self learning the techniques of proofing so if you want a free A and also a pretty decent understanding of mathematical proofing, this is your guy. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-16T21:04:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Like others have said, exam questions are directly from the homeworks (so you should definitely do them) but his lectures can sometimes be very confusing. He is always available in his office though to go over hw problems and concepts from class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-15T00:59:18.813394Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'This class is so easy with him, free A. Exams are literally the homework.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-03T14:34:29.406723Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Homework is the same problems as the exams, IDENTICAL. He even offers extra credit on each exam by dropping a question and making it extra credit.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-03T14:34:53.549295Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Easy ass professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T14:35:01.231068Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Easy professor, take this class with him for no struggling.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-03T14:35:11.681207Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': "Took this class with Kate first and I can tell you its night and day, kate's class will make you put in at least 30 hours each week whereas for this class you really only need to put 5 hours a week", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-03T14:35:49.239874Z'}, {'professor': 'Steve Halperin', 'course': 'MATH310', 'review': 'Professor Halperin is an extremely nice guy who cares about his students. The class at first is hard to understand but over time it gets better. Every exam is from the textbook which is really nice. In class it is sometimes hard to understand what is going on. Many people skip class and you can but I recommend you go since many times he goes over hw answers.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-12T02:50:26.013034Z'}], 'name': 'Steve Halperin', 'slug': 'halperin'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steve Leonard', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'excellent', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-17T01:01:12Z'}], 'name': 'Steve Leonard', 'slug': 'leonard_steve'}, {'courses': ['PHYS798I', 'PHYS410', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'PHYS275', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'PHYS798S', 'PHYS402', 'PHYS371', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS798C', 'PHYS402'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Anlage', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': "In the interest of full disclosure I am now working for Professor Anlage. That said I took his class before I started working for him and I really liked the class, which is odd for a 400 level physics class.\n\r\nUnlike many (or most) physics teachers, Professor Anlage actually gave a reasonable amount of work. I was pretty much always able to finish the entire homework assignments within a few hours of when I started. Also, he gave one extra credit problem per homework and they were often not difficult.\n\r\nIn addition, all of his tests seemed to have a reasonable degree of difficulty. I think all the test problems were fairly interesting and not overly difficult. I think the averages were like 80, 72, and 70 for the 2 midterms and final respectively (my previous physics class had been with Professor Gates and the first test had the cutoff for a B as a 30%). \n\r\nI don't know how much he ended up curving the class but upon checking the grade distribution, I saw that only 2 people in the class got below a C and about 2/3 of the class got A's and B's which seems like a good distribution. \n\r\nThat said I didn't think the lectures were overly interesting. One thing I have noticed is that as you get further along in Physics, the Physics becomes more and more abstract. So you really didn't come out of lectures feeling as though you learned anything real. I generally felt that I could solve a problem easily enough, but that problem would probably not have a strong basis in reality. \n\r\nHowever, one of the best things about Professor Anlage is that he always stayed after class for however long people were there to ask questions. There were several times where I stayed to ask something for over half an hour and he never seemed like he was rushed (unless another class started entering).\n\r\nTl; dr: Take 410 with him because you will almost definitely pass and you will have a thorough understanding of the material although you may feel as though the material is irrelevant.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-08-14T15:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Anlage', 'course': 'PHYS375', 'review': 'Professor Anlage is excellent. Really helps you out when things are going wrong in the lab, and is very patient about it too. He is a good lecturer - explains things well and answers any questions you can have. Definitely recommend him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-25T01:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Anlage', 'course': 'PHYS375', 'review': "I've had Dr. Anlage for two classes now, 375 and 402. He's the man. Real cheerful, and does a great job teaching the material. You might want to think about looking ahead in the book before going to lecture though, because he tends to move pretty quickly.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-17T23:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Anlage', 'course': 'PHYS402', 'review': "I'd heard a lot of really bad things about Anlage before taking the class, and was really nervous. However, he's actually a great physics professor. His weekly homeworks force you to learn the material, and learn it well, and his tests were a good level of challenge without being incomprehensible. He offered extra office hours to those who needed them, which I heard were very helpful. He can go fast and sometimes explanations aren't the best, but the text fills in any blanks quite nicely. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-27T22:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Anlage', 'course': 'PHYS371', 'review': "Anlage was great! Very approachable and kind guy, shared stories about his travels and his family to us but it never got in the way of course material. Had a lot of fun with the class, the only downside is that his quizzes were a bit weird and in my opinion unfair at times, but that's just how online classes are. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-18T23:02:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Anlage', 'course': 'PHYS371', 'review': 'Anlage was a really great professor. The class is hard but definitely fair. His exams really test whether you understand the material or not. \r\nHe did a really good job of teaching online! I was always engaged with his class and he is clearly passionate about the topics he teaches. The quizzes were hard but fair, the only downside was that most of the time it was 1 multiple choice question, so you either got a 0/10 or a 10/10, no in-between. The homework is fine if you work through it with a study group. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-13T17:01:53Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Anlage', 'slug': 'anlage'}, {'courses': ['PSYC100H', 'PSYC402', 'PSYC206', 'PSYC489N', 'NACS728E'], 'average_rating': 4.0833, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': None, 'review': "He has an inherently boring voice but I'll admit that if you pay attention, he actually becomes somewhat interesting. He posts all the materials you could ever need or want online (lecture slides, lecture notes that basically say exactly what the lecture slides say, practice exams, study guides). I almost never went to class and still got A's.\n\r\nGrade consists of 3 exams and 3 easy essays (final is optional). Exams are definitions, matching, and multiple choice, and always have 5 pts worth of extra credit available. The only downside is, the essays are due on the same day you have an exam. Just do the essay (500-750 words) on one day, cram everything for the exam the night before using all the online materials, and you should be fine. Like seriously the amount of time I spent for this class is nominal.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-07-02T03:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': None, 'review': 'I hated this class. His lectures were so boring and I did not pay attention at all because he couldn\'t keep our attention. Although he has everything online, it is still not enough to do well on the tests. His exams are there to trick you, and he puts choices such as "none of the above" or "all of the above" on almost every question which will trip you up. He is disconnected from his students and when he answers your questions, he doesn\'t succeed because he tends to go on unnecessary tangents. I should not be struggling to get an A in a 100 level course. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-04-04T12:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': 'PSYC402', 'review': 'I loved this guy. He is hilarious and a great lecturer and knows his material down to the smallest detail. I went to all of his lectures and studied a lot for the tests and did well on them. However he does post the power points online and posts practice exams that you can take as many time as you want and I think you got points for. There is a lot of material to learn. This class is basically psyc301 in more detail. Highly recommended class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-19T02:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': 'PSYC206', 'review': "I took this course as a three week course over the summer and considering everything was crammed together it was a pretty easy course. Literally all you have to do is study the slides, and review the practice exams. I missed almost 3 days while sick and I still pulled off a B+. He is very knowledgable and entertaining. I enjoyed the class. This class wasn't that bad at all.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-08-13T13:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': 'PSYC402', 'review': "Very pleasant, funny, and charming lecturer. His tests are extremely challenging though the first test was heavy duty neurophysiology and looked into a decent amount of biochemistry ( Doesn't mean you need orgo or anything). His second test looked over so many different systems including muscle, hearing, and visual that you cannot afford to miss a single lecture if you want a high grade. The third test was more relaxed, it cover the biological basis of learning, mental disorders, and functional organization of speech and speech disorders. Overall the class is not too difficult, a 180 is an A, and generally within reach for most students. The final replaces the lowest test, two quizzes that are online and can be repeated till you get full credit.\r\nOverall, if you study you'll do pretty well. But I think that generally you needed to have done well in Psyc301 or Bsci453 to do well in this course. The basics are covered but knowing more background information is a real benefit. \n\r\nI would personally take him again for another class if given the chance. \n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-09T14:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is such a cute little professor so listening to him in lecture was very easy. Everything is posted online, including study guides, extra links, practice exams, etc. His exams are so easy because the short answer format forces you to learn the material in a good way. Overall, the material was a bit challenging but very interesting and beneficial.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T13:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': 'PSYC402', 'review': "Brauth is a great teacher. You can tell he really knows his stuff. True, with 402 he posts lecture slides, notes, study guides, and practice exams online, so you probably don't need to go to class, but I thought it was interesting and always went. There is a lot to memorize and study, but it's a neural systems course so that's expected. I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in biopsychology or the brain.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-02T23:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Brauth is an excellent psychologist, but just an okay teacher. He definitely knows his stuff, but his lectures, I'm afraid, put me damn near to sleep more often than not. I'm starting to pick and choose when I go to lectures now, because I feel like they are not always necessary, the reason being because of Brauth's AMAZING course materials on Blackboard/Elms.\n\r\nThere are:\r\n1. The Powerpoints from each lecture\r\n2. Extensive Class Notes\r\n3. Study Guides for all exams\r\n4. Practice Exams for all exams\n\r\nPlus, he may hold online review sessions before exams. He's a nice enough guy and you can tell he is passionate about psychology, but honestly, all you REALLY need is your Blackboard account to pass this class with at least a B.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-04T04:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': 'PSYC402', 'review': "There is a LOT of material that needs to be memorized for this class--and it's primarily neurophysiology. Dr Brauth's a nice guy and he energizes his lectures with stories and a little dancing here and there, but you can get an A in his class without attending the lectures or reading long chapters in the book because he posts AMAZING lecture notes online. Even if you don't go to class, the notes + the powerpoint + sample exams are really more than enough to prepare for the exams. DO NOT RELY ON JUST THE POWERPOINT. It doesn't have even close to all the information you should know! The bulk of it is in the lecture notes, but they lack information, too, so it's necessary to use both in conjunction to really prepare for his exams.\n\r\nThe class is out of 200 points; 3 exams at 60 points each, and the final is optional. If you're at a borderline grade, it can't hurt you because he takes the top 3.\n\r\nYou basically get a free 20 points through an online quiz that can be taken over and over again. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-21T02:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': None, 'review': 'Total waste of time. He is so far removed from his students, asks very personal questions like "who here has had anorexia?" or "do any of you take adderal?" and says things like "you wouldn\'t know this since your under 21, but alcohol can be harmful if one drinks excessively" and is completely serious too. It is SO easy and a complete joke, but a waste of time. I would not recommend it simply because you won\'t get anything out of the course.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T19:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': None, 'review': "Prof. Brauth was a nice guy, who constantly tried to engage the students with corny jokes and humorous insights. He explains concepts fairly well in his powerpoints, which are available online. He does drone occasionally, but generally, a very knowledgeable person and nice to interact with. Three tests, and 1 online quiz that you can retake as many times as you need to get a 100. Plus, an optional final that can replace you lowest exam grade. What's not to love?", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-04-08T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Brauth', 'course': None, 'review': "The class can drag on a bit, but Prof. Brauth adds humor with his self-made illustrations in the powerpoints and examples. Not remarkable, but I don't have any complaints. Posts lecture notes online, but infomation is a lot more memorable if you attend lectures because it's a small class environment and his explanations of things will likely stick with you. No homework, 3 exams and a final.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-20T15:12:00Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Brauth', 'slug': 'brauth'}, {'courses': ['MATH140', 'MATH140H', 'STAT410', 'MATH141', 'MATH401', 'STAT470', 'MATH310', 'MATH141H', 'MATH410', 'MATH424', 'MATH402', 'MATH437', 'MATH406', 'MATH140', 'MATH140H', 'MATH402', 'MATH140', 'MATH424', 'MATH310', 'MATH406', 'MATH140', 'MATH402'], 'average_rating': 3.78, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'A true blessing. This man is the best teacher to take for MATH141. He makes the exams incredibly easy. The averages for his classes are on a whole other level than the other classes. And, he seems like a very nice guy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-05T22:21:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "The best choice for MATH140-141. His lectures consist of him working out some proofs and doing examples that relate to the WebAssign and his tests. His tests are pretty straight forward and not very hard since he posts his old test. Averages for the exams are around low to mid 80s. He also prepares you well for the final. I ended up getting a solid A on the final exam even though I got a few B's on his test. Overall just a nice guy to.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-05-18T17:17:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Chadwick is easily the best Calc 2 teacher. He gives the easiest tests that are simply plug and chug (no theory or proofs). He gave our class a 3% curve as well on top of a semester with an abnormally high gpa average for Math141', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-09-06T16:47:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH424', 'review': 'Great professor. His exams were very close to his study guides and overall fair. The only complaint I have is that he created a effectively down curved the class by changing the weights on assignments more than half way into the semester. In addition, instead of dropping two assignments (which is what the original syllabus stated), he decided to drop just one.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-06-20T02:01:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Really good teacher. The lectures/notes flow easily to follow. Dr. Chadwick hand writes everything, and goes through problems and examples of what you are learning to make it easy to understand. Quizes and exams are fair, and accurately reflect what was learned in class. Discussion worksheets are more concept based, and not the most helpful, but the homework and lectures are where the main focus is. Only problem with Dr. Chadwick is that he is not good at answering questions DURING lecture. Go to his office hours (which are underused except before an exam) if you need help. Really chill/easy going teacher. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-02-12T15:25:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Dr. Chadwick is a very thorough teacher. His lectures are all handwritten, and his example problems are very helpful for the homework. Exams and quizzes for his class are very fair, and cover whatever he reviews (no trick questions). Dr. Chadwick is still not able to answer questions during his lecture, but go to his office hours since hardly anyone does unless it is before an exam.\r\n\r\nDiscussions are helpful, but really depends on who your TA is.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-26T22:31:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Chadwick is a great teacher. With online lectures, he is very detailed which really helps you understand the material and units. He always allows students to stop him if they have any questions or if they're confused. I don't personally go to his office hours, I usually go to GSS which is a big help. His worksheets he assigns us during discussion with our TA are difficult. They're nothing compared to what you learn in lecture. Especially in the beginning, you literally don't understand why it's so hard. But overtime, it makes more sense and you get use to it. Quizzes every other-ish week, and they are very easy. Tests on the otherhand are much harder. But if you know the material and do practice, it's not hard to get over a 90. HW was given on WebAssign. He was nice enough to not assign hw on fridays, so hw was only twice a week. WebAssign kinda of sucks, but isn't that awful. Chadwick, great teacher, highly reccomend if you can get his class (they fill up very quickly)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-12-08T02:38:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I believe this class is one of the hardest classes that many undergraduates take. However, I would recommend taking this course with Dr. Chadwick. He was very detailed in his explanations of most of the concepts and would stop and answer any question during the lecture. I believe his demonstration of knowledge was what prepared many students for the exams. I'm not great at math, however I was able to do better than my expectations due to Chadwick. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-01-14T18:35:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Very detailed lecturer and clearly responds to any questions. Quizzes are very manageable, but I found GSS very helpful in studying for exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-20T01:59:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH410', 'review': "Highly recommend any math class with Chadwick. As everyone knows, 410 is one of the hardest math classes at UMD but its really manageable with Chadwick. He explains concepts well and his exams, homeworks, and quizzes are really straightforward. He's also really flexible about extending due dates if you need more time on a homework", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-04-29T18:31:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I took Chadwick's MATH140 and wanted him for 141 and I was lucky to make it into his class from the waitlist (he's really popular). \r\n-He gives detailed lectures and reasonable amount of work. Just like CALC 1, its 2 HWs/ week, 2 WKSTs/ week, and quizzes every other week and an exam maybe after 3 quizzes. \r\n-The only thing is that he's very meticulous about lecturing such that he doesn't love it when people ask a ton of questions. It gets him antsy that we're taking up time when he could be finishing notes. He also isn't flexible with quizzes and exams. I emailed him that I was getting my vaccine and wanted to take the quiz ahead of time but he ignored my email. \r\n-Other than that, his exams are pretty reasonable similar to questions he goes over in lecture)\r\n- I hear Guilick is good (he makes the exams I'm pretty sure). But the only thing about him is that he gives pop quizzes and Chadwick lets us know thru syllabus when quizzes are\r\n\r\nYeah would reccomend ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-29T20:48:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Everyone who gave this man a positive review lied. His lectures are just him rewording the textbook verbatim, he is not lenient or accommodating to students and his tests are unfair. Your best bet is relying on your TA if you want to understand the material in the slightest. Try asking him questions in class and he'll just ignore you or be too focused on cleaning the board to answer. And in the off chance that he DOES get to answer your question, he'll just restate what he said earlier and not provide any further elaboration. Me and many other students spend around 3-5 hours on a 10 question homework ALONE and the worksheets are substantially harder than the content we're quizzed/tested on. Overall, if you have the luck of having another professor TAKE THEM! And this is all coming from someone who took Calculus in high school.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-04T23:38:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Why is everyone lying about this man's ability to teach? He is not very detailed in his lectures, in fact he'll literally skip steps on the board and expect people to follow along. Though 2 homeworks a week is nice, it's hard to look on the bright side when a large portion of your day is spent completing it. I wouldn't recommend this professor to anyone and hopefully you guys don't make the same mistake I did.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-04T23:40:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'One of the best MATH Profs. His exams and quizzes are very easy and you just need to pay attention in the class. Would 10/10 recommend to take him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-06T22:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "He cannot teach, the only thing good about his class was the TA's office hours where they were actually able to explain the concepts he taught. In the lecture, he is just telling you what the textbook says and doing problems straight from there, might as well just read the textbook for yourself. His tests are unbearably hard and my class average was around a D only a few people were doing well, even people who had taken calc AB/BC were struggling. When someone asks a question during the lecture, he would either give a rushed response or not even answer the question the student asked. Chadwick also spends 20 min doing one problem with all the steps and expects us to do that on the exam. The discussion worksheets are hard too, the way Gulick writes the worksheets is beyond me. He also barely responds to emails, I tried contacting him about a quiz grade and no response, the only way your gonna get a response out of him is after the lecture or through one of the TA's and by then it takes 2-3 emails by the TA to actually get to him. Please do not choose him as your MATH140 prof.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-12-06T23:28:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Chadwick is by far better than Gullick. Make sure you get a good TA--they're more important tbh. Chadwick is great though. Go to lecture and you will be fine. Chadwick asks constantly if everyone is okay with what we are learning. He never makes fun of students or talks about their race--ahhem Gulick. I wish I could have this man every semester. He is truly one of the best math teachers I've ever had.\r\n\r\nClass structure:\r\nTwo weekly graded discussion worksheets like every Math140 prof, but he gives out sheets beforehand.\r\nTwo weekly graded WebAssigns\r\nOccasional quizzes--not weekly\r\n4 Midterms\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-08T03:23:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Dr. Chadwick is a mediocre lecturer, he'll often gloss over non-calculus parts of a problem and assume you know what's going on and is reluctant to take questions during lectures (as it detracts from the amount of time he has to give examples) but will happily stick around to give help after class. \r\n\r\nAs for the course itself, he is very transparent with due dates (all hw, quiz, and exam dates are listed in the syllabus...no surprises). He only gives 2 Webassigns and 2 worksheets per week. The Webassigns can be annoying and the worksheets are more theory than anything, but all in all help you understand the big ideas of each unit. The quizzes are very easy and are a fair benchmark of how you're doing so far. A few days before each exam he'll post 1-2 practice exams that will be covered in discussion. The exams themselves are challenging but not impossible. Best bet is to find a small group to work with, go to review sessions, and watch YouTube lessons on anything that doesn't click (Professor Leonard has been incredibly useful). At the end of the semester, he drops the lowest exam and a few worksheets. \r\n\r\nOverall, Dr. Chadwick is likely the best of the Calc 1/2 professors, and for good reason. Take him if you can. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-08T21:54:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Very good professor, his lectures are fast and he often hates being interrupted. But his exams are not that bad because the format is so similar to the practice ones and he covers enough of the topic that most of the people learn the material in the class. Discussions are a pretty big waste of time, but all the TA's were great and pretty helpful.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-10T03:15:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Chadwick presented the course material clearly and enthusiastically. The course dealt with algebraic structures and his teaching was very methodical and logical, which is very good for that kind of material. What I also liked a lot was that he was very genial and approachable. He was also very understanding with regard to giving people extra time to do homework. I enjoyed the class and recommend taking it with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-14T01:04:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH402', 'review': 'Dr. Chadwick is great - I found his lectures to be effective, he was happy to answer any questions during lecture, and he was very accommodating. Gives reasonable quizzes and exams.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T01:13:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "The best plus of this class was that the tests were extremely fair. That's not to say easy, but the practice tests you are provided are the exact same format and type of problems as the real test. Class time is pretty tight, so don't expect a very thorough explanation to questions, and he will go over each topic one time so if you don't catch it I'd recommend watching youtube videos on it.\r\n\r\nJust make sure you can do the practice tests and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-18T22:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'I recommend taking Dr. Chadwick’s class because it was a wholesome experience. \r\n\r\nHis quizzes are simple compared to the exams (20 minute quiz that’s like 1-2 problems). The exams are also fair, pay attention to the practice exam that he provides and make sure you understand how to do the problems. \r\n\r\nIn lecture, he seems to try to push through the material for the day to fit it all in. He does answer questions and is friendly about it, but it’s usually just him rewording what he said previously, and sometimes I’m not sure if it really helps the person asking. \r\n\r\nDiscussion worksheets and WebAssigns felt kind of pointless for me because they had harder questions than what was on quizzes/tests. WebAssigns were kind of rough because they’d take like 2 hours, but not really Dr. Chadwick’s fault because everyone has to go through it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T17:08:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Dr. Chadwick’s class is the perfect combination of moderation and challenge. I found his lectures to be effective. Although it is a lot of work such as quizzes, worksheets, etc. One of the best MATH Profs. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-27T02:54:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'He gives good lectures that were easy to follow and provided relevant examples to the homework and discussion worksheets. My chief complaint is that he offered no make-up options. I had COVID and still was not allowed to take the midterm that I missed due to isolation. He also did not record in-person lectures.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-07T21:46:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140H', 'review': "Also took 141H with Chadwick as well, and in my opinion he is the best calculus 1 and 2 professor here. Lectures are straightforward with both theory and examples of concepts. He occasionally gives hints to difficult questions on webassign and will basically give you the answers to worksheets in office hours. His exams are always straight forward and will always give out practice exams before each one. A very nice person as well and understanding of student's needs if they need a deadline extension. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-12T00:26:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "This guy is the best. A few things to note that might have changed from previous reviews of him:\r\n-Lots of people saying that his exams are super easy. Well he definitely has changed that recently, his exams are on par with the difficulty of other professors if not harder\r\n-He's not the best at answering questions in class. Super nice guy but he just gets anxious and doesn't always answer them correctly\r\n-The best thing about him is the fact that his notes are clearly understandable and he writes on the board (unlike others cough cough pilachowsky). Also he's not afraid to host class on zoom for religious holidays and stuff so reach out to him if that's an issue for you\r\n\r\nOverall, out of all the MATH140 and MATH141 professors at UMD, this is the one you want. He's not intimidating at all (quite the opposite) and everything is explained clearly and meticulously. \r\n\r\n\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-04-13T21:23:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Chadwick is a great professor! His lecture notes are neat and detailed, especially helpful for Webassign. \r\nFurthermore, Chadwick only tests what he has taught and reviewed in class, so you definitely earn a good 85% - 90% if you review and practice what he shows in class. \r\nHis weekly quizzes are quite easy (20 minute quiz which covers 1-2 problems). \r\nThe only 2 things that I might dislike about his class are:\r\n (1) the lecture hall sucks (it's the Armory) and \r\n (2) he isn't great at answering students' questions (mostly it's just rewording; but if you review the note after class, it will make more sense)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-04-27T16:43:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Dr. Chadwick is a fantastic person and lecturer. Exams are reflective of the lectures/readings. \r\n\r\nThere are many horror stories of this class, but if you just focus and practice every day you will be fine. The sample exams help significantly. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-18T14:01:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Dr. Chadwick's class definitely improved from 140. His biggest flaw is that he still spends far too much time on the derivations of the formulas that you will need to memorize for his exams (which are unnecessary to know for a 100-level course). As a result, he often ran out of time when doing important examples but made an effort to answer questions. His exams also improved and closely mimicked the practice questions and exams that he sent out beforehand. As for the class itself, Chad was very transparent with all test, quiz, and hw due dates and never had any surprises. While his lectures could be improved, he's definitely the best of the 100-level calc profs. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T23:15:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH424', 'review': "Class consists of homework's, problem sessions, quizzes, and exams. Chadwick does a good job in class explaining the concepts. Problem sessions provide you with examples and are representative of the quizzes. The homework is not too difficult and is representative of what is discussed in class. The exam questions are very similar to the problem sessions, quizzes, and homework's. If you study for the exams and quizzes the class isn't too difficult. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-20T02:59:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': None, 'review': 'Do not believe these reviews. I have no clue what’s happened to this man during the past year, but he seems to have completely flipped his rhetoric. His lectures go at 50,000mph and it’s impossible to understand any of it because you’re frantically trying to keep pace. He never goes over review sheets or hw, and the discussion section, rather than actually going over the material we learned, just consists of more grades work sheets that we never go over. He teaches around 6 new concepts a week without stopping to the point where you read a problem and feel like it’s written in ancient phonecian. Do not take this class unless you want to feel dumb, tired, and miserable on a daily basis.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-09-06T17:57:38.689945Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "This teacher is a pile of shit. Doesn't answer your questions in class. hardest exams in your life that you cannot complete in 50 minutes and his lectures are very, very fast. TAs are also complete and utter dogshit. Literally take any other professor for this dogshit class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-10-14T02:03:08.670647Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Not going to lie, this class is really difficult, which is not necessarily the instructors fault. However, for the exams, the problems that are practiced are never really given and thus you are expected to know formulas and situations which were not taught in lectures, which adds another level of difficulty. He does a good job of explaining concepts in lectures. I would recommend him for this course as it will be hard no matter the professor and Chadwick, I feel does a good job at helping make it "better".', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-11T15:44:21.076783Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "This class is difficult, but I fucked up: you will do much better if you DON'T do what I did: 1) I did not do the practice problems. 2) I missed about 7-9 days of discussion worksheets. Make sure you can wake up for the discussions because the grades pile up. 3) I only studied 1-2 days before a quiz/exam. \r\n\r\nHonestly, Chadwick isn't a totally bad professor, and neither is the TA that I had (my TA was prolly the best part lol). Chadwick does spend time getting into the theoretical side of calculus concepts and doesn't answer emails (isn't forgiving about the Webassign tech difficulties), but his lectures are fine and he gives practice problems that are similar to the ones that come out in the quizzes/exams. However, make sure to realize that his exams are kinda(..?) cumulative and sometimes theoretical, so you have to have a good grasp of the concepts that he introduces. Honestly, it's kind of a surprise how I even managed to get a passing grade though I put in such little effort. Just be diligent and DO THE PRACTICE PROBLEMS Chadwick gives you! They will help, for sure.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-04T06:11:39.334982Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Dr. Chadwick is an alright professor if you're a pretty quiet student like me. He isn't always the best at answering peoples' questions and concerns and can come off as a little judgmental or condescending. He is also not super great at keeping his students quiet during lecture so he can get talked over a lot. There's no actual review time in this class, so really any studying or practice you do will be outside of class, because his lecture time is almost strictly devoted to learning new content. He is also super unresponsive to emails so if you have any concerns, just talk to him after class. He's an okay professor. Honestly I think for MATH140 the most helpful people will be your TAs!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-08T22:05:45.173627Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Took this class with Chadwick based on previous reviews, but this professor is so terrible. The exams don't give partial credit, he ignores students' questions in class, the online homework has nothing related to class content, and the only way to do well is to pray you have a good ta. I would not recommend him as a professor at all, or this class at umd in general.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-12-08T23:42:16.022958Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Some of the reviews here are factual, but a lot of them have misleading information. Mr. Chadwick doesn't get as much credit as he deserves. He talks about all of the topics you will need to know for the class, goes over examples during lectures that are similar to quiz and exam problems, provides helpful review sheets before each midterm exam, and gives partial credit on exams if you actually SHOW that you know what you're doing. \r\n\r\nYes. He ignores students' questions during lectures (forcing some students to call out), and he isn't great at helping you understand the material, but if you put in the effort and go to office hours or talk to TAs you will do fine. People expecting a free class shouldn't be taking a math class in the first place (and if you need a math credit for your major try your best and you will do great things). Math is complicated and you will need to put in the effort to do well no matter what professor you take. \r\n\r\nOverall, I would honestly suggest taking Chadwick, but be prepared to study and review the material to do well. This year there were 4 midterm exams (each with 5 questions and with a time limit of 50 minutes) and our final this year will be 9-10 questions with a time limit of 2 hours. I plan on taking Chadwick for 141 if a spot opens up.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-09T19:59:44.336701Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Chadwick is a seemingly good professor, he teaches the material fine. Straight out of the textbook and answers a few questions, before he gets frustrated with the class. My major issue with Chadwick is that his exams were usually ALOT harder then the content he taught. On one exam, he even expected us to know a random volume equation completely offhand. If you have taken a quality AP Calc class you should be fine, but if not good luck! I would never take Chadwick again he does not curve and is not accommodating. He had no issue telling me I should drop the class, however when I met with him after doing well he refused to give me the time of day and answer my questions. If you take this class be prepared to review review review. The graded worksheets he gives twice a week and the exams are usually harder and not like the content he teaches in class. Chadwick always teaches the easiest questions and leaves us to fend for ourselves for the hard ones.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-11T17:15:02.906623Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'BEST PROFESSOR ON THE PLANET!!!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-12T15:37:13.455427Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Dr. Chadwick is rather meek and impersonal (which may be traits of all math professors but this is the only math class I've taken here), but he is not a bad professor. His explanations are good enough and he will occasionally answer questions. TAs were good, homework can be hard but most of the grade is exams anyways. Worksheets can also be hard but TAs and classmates can help get through it, and a little bit of effort goes a long way in understanding the concepts.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-18T01:59:02.609951Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Having taken 140, Professor Chadwick implicitly lets you know his class won\'t be easy. In his lectures, you\'d notice that he loves proofs: definition of derivatives, chain rule, and epsilon-delta definition of limits. On some exams, we may be asked to find the derivative of a function using the definition of a derivative, but you won\'t be asked to explain why it\'s correct. You\'re often taught content you don\'t need to know, which ultimately doesn\'t help since they\'re not thoroughly explained. In discussion, the worksheets focus on the theory behind the content taught. The TAs are an incredible help, and it\'s advised to ask as many questions to them. Professor Chadwick provides lectures for reviewing for upcoming exams, which were extremely beneficial. He also provides past semester exams both in discussion as practice, and online. He does answer questions during lectures, but you\'d be more likely to receive the best response if you stay after the lecture, as he doesn\'t mind writing on the chalkboard to re-explain a topic. The homework assignments are a lot more difficult than content discussed the day of in lecture, so it\'s also recommended you form study groups. I\'d say one should expect to be teaching themselves. The quizzes are simple, maybe one or two questions, and less difficult than discussion worksheets and homework assignments. It\'d behoove one to review lecture notes daily, understand how to solve the homework questions (instead of resorting to Google), and go to TA office hours, as well as the professor\'s own. Professor Chadwick certainly wasn\'t the best, but as it\'s my first semester, I can\'t compare him with other math professors. Nonetheless, as what\'s in the syllabus, "you can do well in the course, but it takes work".', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-21T14:51:26.146344Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Dr. Chadwick is not so bad of a professor. I would just say that the bulk of the grade in the class came from exams. My main issue is that the material learned in class was simple. Exam questions were a million times harder. Even in discussion, we didn’t necessarily have similar practice problems. If he gave us higher difficulty problems to get used to then, I’d appreciated that more. Calc can be hard. Dr. Chadwick can be a good prof to have if you don’t already struggle with math. My TA was super helpful. Partial credit on tests were very slim. Curve at the end wasn’t huge like everyone made it out to be. Just be sure to practice and study the way you study best.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2022-12-21T17:43:34.999616Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Professor Chadwick isn\'t a bad teacher, but he isn\'t quite the best either. I have enjoyed being in his class and the one thing making me from going off the rails is my TA. Chadwick lets you know that this course is not going to be easy. The one thing I like about his class are how his midterms are structured, as each midterm appears to be "unit tests" for each chapter we have covered in class. The midterms are hard, but he gives a midterm from the previous year and a sample midterm before each exam so they prepare you very well. I have had friends in this class who self-study and do incredibly well without having to go to lectures. Professor Chadwick makes the effort to answer questions and is genuinely a nice person. The web-assigns and discussion worksheets he gives are fair, BUT are harder than what we have covered in class (they aren\'t really good review material, but if you work well with other people in your class it should be fine). The quizzes are similar to class notes. Speaking of notes, although he does cover everything that is in the textbook and curriculum, he tends to skip steps during class due to time so if you need any clarifications, speak up! He sometimes goes over time but the most I have seen is him going over the time by around one or two minutes. He will tell you what is on the exams and what is not on the exam, such as particular proofs that he teaches you (proofs won\'t be on the exam and you don\'t have to know it for any exams, but he has said that it is good to know). \r\n\r\nOne helpful thing I would say is to go to his office hours whenever you get the chance or whenever you do not understand anything. Also, take good notes as they are helpful. Calculus 1 isn\'t that bad if you practice and take the time to learn or even ask questions. There are a lot of resources online to help you if you do not have the time to go to office hours. Plus, Chadwick gives you extra problems from the textbook for you to practice with. The web-assigns are similar to the problems on the textbook too. Everyone can do well in this class if they put in the work.\r\n\r\nOverall, Chadwick is an honest and prepares you well for the final. He does curve a little bit for the final as well. If you have taken AP calculus AB or BC before, that background knowledge can be decently helpful, but as usual, the AP calculus courses doesn\'t cover everything in calculus as calculus 1 in UMD covers some things you might have not seen before, and a lot of content you recognize previously in your AP calculus class. Personally, Chadwick\'s class goes as fast as AP calculus BC. Although I was able to keep up with his lectures, I am aware that some others are unable to keep up with his teaching and what I can say about that is to practice or even watch videos to try and understand. On midterms, he does give out partial credit unless said so otherwise (for example: on one of the midterms, Chadwick said that if we did not get the derivative correctly, we will receive 0 points on that question, which is honestly understandable, I don\'t know how you\'re getting through calculus with the wrong derivatives). All in all, he does a good job teaching and doesn\'t get enough credit for it.\r\n\r\nShoutout to my TA for being the best and the most helpful :)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-24T00:04:21.165802Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "For everybody saying this guy is an amazing teacher, is lying. They're only saying that because they have taken 2 years of Calculus prior to college (most have taken Calc AB AND Calc BC but weren't smart enough to get the credit so they took it again.) Of course if you already know the material, you are going to do decent, I would hope so if you don't have the IQ of a dead squirrel. So if you already have a strong understanding of Calculus, you should do okay. If you had never taken Calculus, it will be a struggle for you. This guy practically freestyles the textbook, and does very little teaching. In other words, he basically copies what the textbook says, word for word onto the chalkboard. The lectures aren't interactive, and he'll just keep writing while hoping we know what he's talking about. Actually no, he couldn't care less if we know the material or not. The only helpful thing in this course was my TA, Tyler. Tyler was very helpful and I was able to go to his office hours whenever I wanted to and he was always more than happy to help me with concepts I am not sure about. However, the discussions were completely useless. Despite taking a quiz every other week, (the quizzes were generally easy consisting of 2 questions), we would be graded on a worksheet that aren't test-like problems at all. The discussion worksheets were probably harder than the tests, maybe. Overall, this guy doesn't give an f about you or your grade, so take this class seriously.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2022-12-24T19:44:13.555845Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Chadwick is a good professor in the sense that he tells you what is exactly going to appear on the exam and his exams are fair but conceptual. You should attend all his lectures and most discussions. His TAs are really good too. The only negatives are that he cannot answer a student's queries properly so you must take help from the TA and the class is time consuming. Be prepared to put in time for it. If you do those, then you are pretty much guaranteed an A", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-15T08:52:15.395130Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "IDK why people keep saying he's the best in the department, every professor in this department is identical. The student is a number to this department, they do not care about your problems and your only hope is if you have a good TA, which I did not. Alex did not grade any of our worksheets until the day before the final and I had no clue how I was doing in the class. Average grade ended up being a 72 and Chadwick would not curve at all.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-30T21:07:35.977065Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "idk about all the other reviews on here but he spends most of the class time on deriving equations which would get complicated, would be very time consuming, and even after all that, we wouldn't even get tested on that part of derivatives. he doesn't curve the class so if you're below the average, you gotta pull your stuff together. to be fair, i didn't put in the amount of effort that i should've + it seemed that every smart student just happened to be in my section so it was tough. our TA was also not very helpful in that he was lazy, refused to grade most of our assessments until the very last minute (i'm talking a couple of days AFTER the final), and was very vague when we asked questions. discussions just sucked in general 'cause they were just worksheets after worksheets without reinforcing what we went over in class so studying outside of class is an absolute must. To return to Chadwick: he's certainly not the best professor. he does the easiest examples in class and then proceeds to test you on more complicated questions which, of course, can't all be completed in the span of 50 minutes. There are way better professors than this dude so unless you're a genuinely goated math person, pick someone else.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2023-01-31T03:33:48.543929Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Lectures were easy problems but exams were on a completely different level, extremely difficult, if you took Calc in high school this class should be easy but if you've never taken a Calc course before, taking it with Chadwick is like a death sentence. You need to put in a lot of effort to learn stuff not taught in class and are expected to know certain rules. Doesn't record lectures. Chadwick didn't allow us to check our grades on ELMS (disabled grade viewing) until the end and didn't know how I was doing. TA wasn't much help as well. Highly recommend staying far away from Chadwick and taking MATH140 with any other professor. It's for your own good.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2023-02-10T15:35:54.896848Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'The following will be a comprehensive review of both the class and this professor specifically.\r\n\r\nFirst, let\'s start with Professor Chadwick. Hands-down, Professor Chadwick was the worst mathematics teacher I have ever gotten. Accompanied by the fact that I have never learned Calculus in my life, his explanations were dull and his methods of teaching were non-existent. In fact, it got so bad to the point where I never showed up for class and had to learn derivation and other topics all on my own. Even for students who have taken calculus in high school, he does NOT teach and you will be sitting in a room for an hour and 30 minutes that consists of him doing textbook problems on his own and talking to himself. On that note, his method of "teaching" is to just translate the whole book word-by-word verbally which helps literally no one. He often skips steps on problems and rushes which leads to a lot of questions. As for his responses, they are all so convoluted that it makes everything more confusing than if he would have just ignored questions altogether. When he asks students if they understand, they would nod their heads and just stay silent for the remainder of the hour (or year for that matter).\r\n\r\nChadwick does NOT curve, mostly does NOT offer partial points, and does NOT record lectures. One more important thing to note is that Chadwick\'s exams do NOT have any WebAssign problems nor any resemblance to the study guides he gives us. Do not expect to succeed unless you have taken Calculus before and even then, it\'s still difficult to pass. Every positive review about Chadwick is, by assumption, a student who has taken Calculus in high school or someone who failed and is trying to get others to fail alongside them. Again, to reiterate, I have never taken a year of Calculus prior to Chadwick and only by sacrificing marks of other classes and using external resources did I manage to pass.\r\n\r\nNow onwards to the Math Department as a whole. Math at UMD is so comically difficult that it should be considered a cruel and unusual punishment. They do a terrible job at writing exams relative to the time students spend on each topic/chapter. Students have other responsibilities, however UMD math still continues to assign weekly quizzes, biweekly exams, and unforgiving WebAssign due dates (7 AM every Tues/Thurs). Not to mention that WebAssigns on average take 5 or more hours to finish because of the nature of the problems. I recommend everyone to steer FAR FAR away from the math department at UMD or transfer credits over from a community college.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-03-10T20:51:01.565171Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Chadwick', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Great professor. Lectures are easy to follow and the exams reflect the difficulty of in class work/examples. the textbook can help, but isn’t fully needed. homework is on webassign and they are the worst part of the class lol. i spend more time trying to figure those out than i do anything else in the class, but he drops the three lowest grades for HWs i think, and u can get by with photomath and chegg and stuff. the discussions are mandatory because the work is graded, but it’s honestly not too bad and is a good review of the content. the discussion quizzes (usually like every other week), are usually pretty straightforward and reflect what we did in lecture. definitely a good professor for this course!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-11T19:04:27.322009Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Chadwick', 'slug': 'chadwick'}, {'courses': ['PLSC244', 'PLSC425', 'PLSC452', 'PLSC489L', 'LARC389', 'PLSC361', 'PLSC489D', 'PLSC489G', 'PLSC489M', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC489N', 'PLSC251', 'PLSC389', 'PLSC489K', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'PLSC489B', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS397'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Steven Cohan', 'slug': 'cohan'}, {'courses': ['ENCE402', 'ENCE603', 'ENCE722', 'ENCE725', 'ENME465', 'ENME722', 'ENME741', 'ENPP611', 'AMSC698M', 'AMSC689E', 'AMSC808K', 'ENME725', 'ENRE689E', 'ENCE899', 'ENME809E', 'ENRE648F', 'ENRE648G', 'ENME741', 'ENRE689E', 'ENME465', 'ENME722', 'ENME808C', 'ENRE648F', 'ENCE899', 'ENME741', 'ENRE689E', 'ENME725'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Gabriel', 'course': 'ENCE424', 'review': 'Good professor, easy class. Workload can be somewhat challenging, but not overwhelming. A few team presentations and papers and two (open book) exams.\n\r\nA freebie for Project Management students.\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-10-26T09:39:00Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Gabriel', 'slug': 'gabriel'}, {'courses': ['BUFN770', 'BUFN771', 'BUSM798Z', 'BUFN762', 'BMGT446', 'BUFN721', 'BUFN723', 'BUFN660', 'BUSM758B', 'BUSI746', 'BMGT444', 'BMGT444', 'BUFN660', 'BUSI746', 'BUSI744', 'BUFN401', 'BUFN660'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Heston', 'course': 'BMGT446', 'review': "Doesn't really teach, final was pretty easy but did not learn a single thing. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-09-19T00:59:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Heston', 'course': 'BUFN660', 'review': "What a useless professor. If this course were graded on his time at Goldman Sachs or his stories of 9/11 I probably would have gotten an 'A' in this course. I am pretty sure he takes more time thinking of off the cuff misogynistic jokes than anything else. His lectures are really boring, just him speaking about his life. He is extremely intelligent, he just has to translate that into some form of teaching. Takes super long to grade anything. \r\n\r\nI'd love to have a beer with him, horrible professor with my experience. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-11T18:22:36Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Heston', 'slug': 'heston'}, {'courses': ['GEMS297', 'HONR289L', 'BSCI443', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'GEMS296', 'BISI799', 'BSCI379H', 'BSCI464'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Hutcheson', 'course': 'BSCI443', 'review': 'I really like how he taught the class and how he tested us on the material. Instead of just memorizing random facts, his exams required us to understand the materials that he taught in class. He even gave us a 1 sided cheat sheet for each exams, which honestly does not really help much since I just usually glance at it 2 to 3 times during the exam. I think that making the cheat sheet just helped me to study the materials. \n\r\nThe only thing that I did not like about this class was how the power point project on a primary research paper was graded. A lot of groups did poorly on this project. I felt like the professor graded it too harshly and that he was not really clear on how he was grading it.\n\r\nOverall I learned a lot and Professor Hutcheson was very nice and approachable. I felt like he really cared about his students. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-25T21:38:00Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Hutcheson', 'slug': 'hutcheson'}, {'courses': ['BIOE340', 'BIOE689P', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'BIOE612', 'GEMS397', 'BIOE489P', 'BIOE608', 'GEMS496', 'CHBE468P', 'BIOE389C', 'GEMS497', 'BIOE462', 'BIOE606', 'BIOE462', 'BIOE389C', 'BIOE462', 'BIOE606', 'BIOE462', 'BIOE605'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Jay', 'course': 'BIOE340', 'review': 'Dr. Jay is a great professor who treats his students with a great deal of respect. He has a policy where he will replace your two midterm grades with the score from the cumulative section from the final exam (and vice versa). This can help you a lot even if you slip up on one of the midterms. The lab section of the class is pretty hard, with some complicated MATLAB and not much guidance besides office hours. There are no homework assignments, and Dr. Jay is very skilled at explaining things in terms of modeling and giving an engineering perspective to physiology.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-29T18:34:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Jay', 'course': 'BIOE462', 'review': 'This class had a flipped classroom model, meaning that every week the students would take turns teaching the class in groups on an aspect of a video or paper which we would get beforehand. This kept the class engaging and it never felt boring. The exams were fair and the class was curved by ~5%. There is also a group project which is graded strictly, so do not wait until the last minute to start it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-29T03:37:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Jay', 'course': 'BIOE340', 'review': 'This class is purely invigorating, even better than doing the white stuff (sugar). Every time I learn about a new vessel or a new body part, I feel my adrenaline rush a little, especially in the nether regions. Say goodbye to your parasympathetic system because it will cease to exist in this class. I weaned off my caffeine addiction over the course of the semester because this class itself was enough to energize me for the entire day. I lied, I merely replaced my caffeine dependency with this class. I am thinking of dropping this class just so I can take it again next year to feel the same rush. If I was given the opportunity on my deathbed to relive any moment in my life, I would choose my time in this class in a heartbeat, my last heartbeat. Dr. Jay is the epitome of hype and I will vouch for him until the day I drop out (soon).', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-12T04:14:09Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Jay', 'slug': 'jay_steven'}, {'courses': ['ARTT200', 'ARTT330', 'ARTT481', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT438A', 'ARTT330H', 'ARTT438I', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT438H', 'ARTT210', 'ARTT469', 'ARTT200', 'ARTT200', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT481', 'ARTT200', 'ARTT469', 'ARTT469H', 'ARTT200', 'ARTT418B', 'ARTT418H', 'ARTT481'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Jones', 'course': None, 'review': 'Steves a funny guy, i had him for 3d design and metal casting and he was a good teacher in both. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-18T16:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Jones', 'course': 'ARTT200', 'review': 'Professor Jones "Jonsie" is awesome! He is sarcastic and seemingly intimidating, however he is harmless! He is very helpful and really inspired me to just go try different things and not worry so much about their outcome. He encourages community in the classroom and I am glad to have had him as a professor.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T19:52:00Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Jones', 'slug': 'jones_steven'}, {'courses': ['EDHI684', 'EDHI606', 'EDHI805', 'EDHI672', 'EDHI788K', 'EDHI606', 'EDHI672', 'EDHI684', 'EDHI672', 'EDHI672', 'EDHI606', 'EDHI672'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Steven Klees', 'slug': 'klees'}, {'courses': ['ARTH201', 'ARTH759', 'ARTH350', 'ARTH488G', 'ARTH488E', 'ARTH759C', 'ARTH759D', 'ARTH759F', 'ARTH759K', 'ARTH488D'], 'average_rating': 4.7273, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH488G', 'review': 'Prof. Mansbach is a fantastic professor. He is so elegant in his speech that it is sometimes actually difficult to understand some of his vocabulary. Awesome guy though, very nice and always thoughtful. \n\r\nThe class itself is very enjoyable. We read several novels about utopias and had a few presentations with a final term paper. The atmosphere is very fun and relaxed. Really glad I took the class! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-23T13:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': 'Great professor. Tremendous speaking voice that can hold your attention for the entire class period. He does have a tendency to use vocabulary which might be unfamiliar to some, as well as get a bit poetic with his descriptions of works, to the extent that it becomes confusing what one ought to write down / commit to memory and what one ought to simply let soak in. However, he balances that out by making it crystal clear which artists / works are peripheral and which ones you should probably remember. Nine times out of ten, those are the works you will see on the exams, especially on the final. That\'s not to say you shouldn\'t remember the others, because being able to recall lesser-known but no less relevant works in your essays is always a plus.\n\r\nAs another reviewer mentioned, the professor / TA\'s place emphasis on knowing the socio-political context in which the various Western art movements formed and flourished, and not at all on rote memorization of slides, dates and whatnot. There were all too many exam essays where I couldn\'t recall the name of the work, nor the artist, nor the date - heck there were even paintings that I had never seen before because I had missed that particular class - but I never received anything less than a "B" on an in-class essay (they grade to the "C" as being average) simply because I talked about the work in the context of its time period / art movement and the stylistic trappings of that era.\n\r\nSo, if you\'re not good with names, dates, etc, don\'t sweat it and take Steven Mansbach\'s class! I guarantee it will be an interesting and enriching experience.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-15T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH350', 'review': "Simply put, he is the best. As a professor, yes--he is exceptional in every regard as an educator, not only incredibly knowledgeable but also a dynamic, engaging, captivating speaker and lecturer.\n\r\nAs a human being--he recognizes talent and is generous in his appreciation. He is as good a listener as he is a speaker. He is approachable and friendly, and never before have I met a professor with whom I genuinely enjoyed talking to, and with whom it was so easy and natural. \n\r\nHe combines philosophy, politics, and theory with art in a way that is astounding. For the love of god, do yourself a favor and take a course with him, I promise you won't be disappointed. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-05T23:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': "Dr. Mansbach is hands down the best professor I have had so far. He is a great lecturer and the class material is really interesting. He and the TA's do a lot to help you out and get a good grade.\r\n The hardest part of any art history class is slide id's, especially for a course that covers so much material like this one. Dr. Mansbach, however, puts almost no emphasis on actually knowing the name and date of a painting (I got A's on all of the exams and correctly identified maybe half of the art works). The only slide id's we had to do were in discussion, and they were broken into a few weeks worth of lecture material at a time, so they weren't that bad.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-01-17T02:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': 'He is easily one of the best professors and lecturers I have had so far that I actually looked forward to coming to lectures. He has a nice voice and is very clear and organized. However, the class requires a lot of work for a 200 level course and you will have to work hard for a good grade.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-29T03:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': 'Take. This. Class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-21T14:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': 'Professor Mansbach is one of the best professors I have taken at Maryland. He is so enthusiastic; it was enjoyable coming to lecture and listening to him. The course is difficult. There are A LOT of paintings to memorize and it is difficult to remember all of the information about each stylistic time period. Assignments consisted of two exams, three quizzes, one paper, and the final. Lyndsay Bratton was a great TA. She was helpful in clarifying the concepts and wanted her students to do well. This was a very interesting course for a HA core, but it involves work so be prepared to study. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH350', 'review': "How has no one written about this professor yet? He is, first of all, the highest paid professor in the art history department, considering well.. he's written scholarly texts and is a renowned professor. \n\r\nHe is not easy. And it can be a good or a bad thing. Good thing - he knows his stuff. Too well. Just like most of the art history professors. At times, I thought he'd make up words but no.. intense vocabulary. And he'll throw in some German and French just to spice the lecture up. \n\r\nBad if you are going to slack off on the paper. He's the toughest grader I've had, because he can really see right through the bull and the slacking. \n\r\nI highly recommend him because its really rare to get such a great professor, even if he is a tough grader. I felt he really challenged students intellectually.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-18T17:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': "Professor Mansbach was an awesome professor whose passion and knowledge are evident in his lectures. Like others mentioned, he's quite eloquent and poetic in his descriptions of paintings, but they only help the student in remembering specific phrases and vocabulary for those specific paintings. \r\nThis class is only graded on 5 factors: participation in discussion, two midterms, a paper (you have to go to the national gallery of art to view a painting), and a final exam. He gives around 40 paintings to memorize per midterm, but most of the content consists of understanding the context/history of what was going on at that time and how that affected art, so the textbook is key for that. \r\nI don't know if it was like this for other semesters, but he was pretty lenient on grading, especially if he saw improvement in the student's work. I usually studied by just memorizing the paintings dates/names and reading the textbook a few days before. \r\nHis TA Tony was also super cool. He was always available to help students and constantly encouraged us to do our best. \r\nTake this class if u wanna broaden ur mind ahahha", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-21T20:38:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': 'ARTH201', 'review': "Professor Mansbach is great, but the class organization (at least online) has led to quite a difficult time. Mansbach is a lovely professor with a fantastic voice, and he has a beautiful passion for art history. I really enjoyed listening to his lectures. On the other hand, at least online the class was not organized well. It was entirely run by the TA's, and I often felt that grading could be arbitrary (and often took over a month). I ended up with an A, but I know a lot of people did not but probably deserved one. In general, quality of writing is a huge deal on the midterm and final exam, so keep this in mind if you're considering taking the class as a gen-ed. If you cannot write well you almost certainly will not get an A in this class. Getting an A requires a strong understanding and memory of important compositional elements and to be able to apply them to various time periods and styles well. This class is not easy but it is very rewarding. I know so much more about art now, and I am very thankful to Professor Mansbach for that gift. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-24T17:58:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Mansbach', 'course': None, 'review': 'heard great things about this course, but it seemed to be a lot different in the pandemic setting. You learn a lott of cool things, but try to take it in person because it is overwhelming online and it is asynchronous (so not as fun as it could be). Lectures were supposed to be 50 minutes, but they were on average 90+ minutes (and this is 2 lectures + discussion/week). Heavily run by TAs during fall 2020, and seemed to be a little disorganized. Wish I took it in person, but I still learned a lot and liked the class. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-30T16:06:53Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Mansbach', 'slug': 'mansbach'}, {'courses': ['PUAF698G', 'BUSI758P', 'PUAF689F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Steven Meier', 'slug': 'meier_steven'}, {'courses': ['PHYS105', 'PHYS728', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS499O', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS728', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS728'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Rolston', 'course': 'PHYS402', 'review': 'Definitely the best undergrad physics teacher I have had yet. Tests were hard, yes, but they were either open book or take home. hes also the director of the JQI (joint quantum institute), meaning he really knows his stuff.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-27T15:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Rolston', 'course': 'PHYS105', 'review': "Very knowledgeable, presents material in very straightforward way. The class was absolutely amazing and I would recommend it to almost anyone who wants to know how to make a difference in this world-there was a lot of interesting stuff presented, and I'm really glad I took it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-04-29T12:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Rolston', 'course': 'PHYS105', 'review': "Professor Rolston is a fantastic professor. I wasn't sure what to expect from PHYS105, but I seriously learned a lot about contemporary climate issues. Professor Rolston did an amazing job teaching and explaining all the concepts. He grades very fairly and does everything he can do to facilitate your learning.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-01-11T04:31:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Rolston', 'course': None, 'review': 'HIS TESTS R VERY HARD', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-10-25T20:01:15Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Rolston', 'slug': 'rolston'}, {'courses': ['SLAA749V', 'SLAA630', 'SLAA620', 'SLAA629A', 'SLAA760', 'SLAA498', 'SLAA649R', 'SLAA749G', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'SLAA899', 'SLAA749B', 'SLAA719', 'SLAA749M', 'SLAA630', 'SLAA749A', 'SLAA719', 'SLAA899', 'SLAA719', 'SLAA899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Steven Ross', 'slug': 'ross_steven'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Steven Seigart', 'slug': 'seigart'}, {'courses': ['EDPS210', 'EDPS301'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Steven Stakland', 'slug': 'stakland'}, {'courses': ['ENEE428', 'ENEE322', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE428', 'ENEE428', 'ENEE428'], 'average_rating': 2.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Tretter', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "I do not think people give Prof. Tretter enough credit. Sure, he may be older and somewhat monotone, but he knows his stuff and wants his students to do well. Be warned though, the grading can be pretty harsh sometimes, just know your stuff and practice the homework over and over. Tests usually consist of HW or variations thereof. They are usually pretty fair. Make sure to go to class too (he covers stuff that you wouldn't know otherwise)...He also let's you skip the final if you are alright with your grade in the class!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-01-04T01:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Tretter', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "This is the unfortunate case of an individual who was clearly not loved enough as a child thus restricting him from loving anyone else or for that matter feeling any sort of emotion period. This man is a robot covered in artificial skin. He speaks acts and lectures in the same monotone voice and never shows any interest in the material. He is definitely the worst professor I've had throughout my college career and have lost respect for the entire ece department for keeping this broken down machine. If you didn't get the hint do not take this professor no matter what. Wait a semester and take the class when a different professor teaches. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2013-11-26T16:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Tretter', 'course': 'ENEE322', 'review': "INCREDIBLY boring! I really didn't enjoy this class, and his teaching didn't help. He often went on tangents that were only vaguely related to course material. Homework was collected often, sometimes every class, and it was graded. His tests were pretty hard, too. You definitely need to go to class, and the homework helps. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-12-12T20:06:00Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Tretter', 'slug': 'tretter'}, {'courses': ['PSYC389', 'UNIV100', 'EDCP217', 'HESI217', 'PSYC389', 'BSOS361', 'PSYC303', 'PSYC389', 'PSYC389', 'PSYC389', 'BSOS361', 'PSYC303', 'PSYC389', 'PSYC303', 'PSYC389'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Steven Young', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Not bad at all. Really nice guy and very considerate. The work may feel like its a 3 credit class but it gives you some good information on how to navigate the school resources. You wont regret taking him', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-18T18:03:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Steven Young', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "Great teacher, very straightforward with his work. The only reason I have an A- and not an A or A+ is bc I missed a few assignments, but that was my fault. He is an easy professor and you won't regret taking him. As I said, just do the work on time and participate in class and you will be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-11-15T17:04:16Z'}], 'name': 'Steven Young', 'slug': 'young_steven'}, {'courses': ['ENGL394', 'ENGL398R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stewart Foehl', 'slug': 'foehl'}, {'courses': ['ENAE682', 'ENAE683', 'ENAE311H', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE414', 'ENAE488P', 'ENAE682', 'ENAE682'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stuart Laurence', 'slug': 'laurence'}, {'courses': ['JOUR360', 'JOUR660', 'JOUR360', 'JOUR360'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Stuart Schwartz', 'slug': 'schwartz_stuart'}, {'courses': ['BMGT828R', 'BUSI667', 'BUSI662', 'BMGT868J', 'BMGT868O', 'BMGT868P', 'BMGT868R', 'BUSI662', 'BMGT868R', 'BUSI662'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Subrahmaniam Tangirala', 'slug': 'tangirala'}, {'courses': ['BUDT732', 'BMGT830', 'BUSI630', 'BUSM762'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Subramanian Raghavan', 'slug': 'raghavan_subramanian'}, {'courses': ['BSCV182', 'BSCV302', 'BSCV191', 'BSCV301', 'BSCV309', 'BSCV399T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sue Briggs', 'slug': 'briggs'}, {'courses': ['EXST028B', 'EXST018C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Suha Kremin', 'slug': 'kremin'}, {'courses': ['GEOL120', 'MEES698E', 'GEOL789W', 'GEOL453', 'GEOL435', 'GEOL789L', 'GEOL489W', 'GEOL635', 'GEOL636', 'GEOL453', 'GEOL636', 'MEES698E', 'GEOL120', 'GEOL435', 'GEOL635', 'GEOL453', 'GEOL636', 'MEES698E'], 'average_rating': 4.4286, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sujay Kaushal', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "Really nice guy but very quiet and very boring, which can be good or bad. He puts all of his lecture slides online so you don't have to take notes, nonetheless pay attention. Discussion quizzes are easy and the overall work is easy and not hard to understand.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-02-03T13:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sujay Kaushal', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "Great professor. He's a bit quirky, monotone, and gets easily distracted. The course itself is pretty easy so don't worry. He also genuinely cares about his students which is always a plus.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-01T02:05:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Sujay Kaushal', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "Great prof and seems like a really nice guy who cares about his students. Not sure how his classes are in person compared to online but this was the easiest class I've ever taken. He drops the lowest exam, and the exams are really easy to begin with. Im pretty sure the class average is like a 96%", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-29T18:28:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Sujay Kaushal', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'Professor Kashul was one of my favorite teachers from this semester. Even though this is not a class I was particularly excited to sign up for, as it is not related to my major/interests, Sujay was always positive, inviting, and energized about teaching us, making me want to come to class. He was very good at connecting the things we were learning to real life, as well as to our personal lives, so this class can be relevant to anyone, regardless of their major. The content is interesting and can teach you a lot about the world around you. He was also really inspiring and I could tell that he really cared about his students and wanted us to succeed. There is a LOT of chances for extra credit during in-class extra credit quizzes, so if you show up to class, it it easy to do well. This is a great class to take for Gen-ed Natural Sciences credit and Sujay is an incredible professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-12T00:54:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Sujay Kaushal', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'Sujay is a great lecturer and person. His lectures are very engaging and whats on the lectures directly correspond to the exams (I think he just copy and pastes whats on the slides onto the exams). Class is laughably easy though. Basically gives extra credit every class. My grade right now is literally 126%. The TAs Joe and Sydney are great too. The class has a such a fun vibe', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-12T23:39:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Sujay Kaushal', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "Sujay is a very fun and engaging professor and lecturer. This was easily one of my favorite classes from this semester. I am not even really interested in Geology or Science whatsoever, but I took this class as a gen-ed requirement and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this course. If you are looking for an easy course to fill your schedule or if you're looking for a Natural Science gen-ed requirement, this is your class. Sujay gives extra credit basically every class and wants everyone to succeed. I had well over a 100% even after the final. This course has 4 exams - 3 midterms and a final. Don't sweat them - he sets you up for success by adding funny questions and answers. He also gives out a study guide for each exam. \r\n\r\nHe posts the slides on ELMS, so I made a habit of not going to lecture, but that clearly didn't affect me much. As long as you put the time in to take notes and go over the review guides, you will be just fine.\r\n\r\nThe TAs Sydney and Joe were very helpful and their discussion sessions were fun and engaging as well. A 5 question quiz and a short and to-the-point worksheet every week grants you participation points and more smaller grades to boost your grade up. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-24T14:52:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Sujay Kaushal', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'Is a little bit disorganized. Quizzes are generally easy for the class but there will be random trivia questions sometimes. Exams are fair for the most part, although trivia questions may appear. No extra credit paper for Spring 2023 semester so do not bank on that.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-19T21:58:03.096802Z'}], 'name': 'Sujay Kaushal', 'slug': 'kaushal'}, {'courses': ['AOSC617', 'AOSC658N', 'AOSC610', 'AOSC658E', 'AOSC494', 'AOSC494', 'AOSC494', 'AOSC617'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sumant Nigam', 'slug': 'nigam_sumant'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM353', 'COMM398I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sumin Fang', 'slug': 'fang_sumin'}, {'courses': ['WMST250', 'WMST200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sun Kim', 'slug': 'kim_sun'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sung Kim', 'slug': 'kim_sung'}, {'courses': ['ENAE420', 'ENAE482', 'ENAE423', 'ENAE653', 'ENAE652', 'ENME674', 'ENAE481', 'NIAV788W', 'NIAP788A', 'ENAE398H', 'EDSP652', 'ENAE423', 'ENAE481', 'ENAE324', 'ENAE420', 'ENAE482', 'ENAE652', 'NIAV788W', 'ENAE324', 'ENAE324', 'ENAE423', 'ENAE481'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sung Lee', 'course': 'ENAE420', 'review': 'Awesome professor who seems to genuinely care about his students.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-16T05:25:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Sung Lee', 'course': 'ENAE420', 'review': "Great professor who cares about his students understanding of the concepts being taught, and is willing to schedule personal help for students if they need it. The grading for homework and exams doesn't account for a propagating error, so if one piece is wrong everything else is wrong as well. Overall, this is a well-taught class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-19T03:44:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Sung Lee', 'course': 'ENAE423', 'review': "This class is great, in which you have a redo for each HW assignment, and HW counts the majority of the grade for the class, but be aware about the grading of the class. It is extremely brutal that unless your numerical answer is completely correct, you would get no credit at all despite how much effort you put in or how much work you wrote. His grading system is especially unforgiving for some questions that have lots of steps or divided into different parts in which that if you wrote the equation wrong in part A and then you may use the wrong equation from part A correctly into part B and C and so on, you are basically screwed since he wouldn't even give credit for carryover errors and will keep penalizing you over and over. I have never encountered a class with that excessive amount of penalties for carryover errors. \r\n\r\nHowever on the upside, he is extremely responsive to emails and very quick too. He is also very flexible with scheduling individual appointments as well, and he is very nice when you ask him for help.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-19T23:07:00.263382Z'}], 'name': 'Sung Lee', 'slug': 'lee_sung'}, {'courses': ['SURV615', 'SURV722', 'SURV721', 'SURV740', 'SURV625', 'SURV745', 'SURV615', 'SURV745', 'SURV615'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sunghee Lee', 'slug': 'lee_sunghee'}, {'courses': ['PHIL236', 'PHIL170', 'PHIL250', 'PHIL140', 'RELS236', 'PHIL318X', 'PHIL203', 'PHIL328C', 'PHIL344', 'PHIL100'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sungwon Woo', 'course': 'PHIL318X', 'review': "Great guy. Extremely knowledgeable and funny. Makes class as interesting as he can. \r\n\r\nHe's very understanding of student needs and would rather make students learn than work unnecessarily for a grade. This leads to his class being both low-stress and thought-provoking. I would definitely recommend his class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-21T18:54:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Sungwon Woo', 'course': None, 'review': 'Lectures are dull but he get the point across. Test are very difficult and based on total knowledge of the subject matter—many questions are essay format.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-10-18T18:27:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Sungwon Woo', 'course': 'PHIL236', 'review': 'Great professor overall. Don’t bother going to Friday discussions. We discussed everything in class. Friday’s were a all over the place and a huge waste of time.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-12-11T17:22:01Z'}], 'name': 'Sungwon Woo', 'slug': 'woo'}, {'courses': ['PHYS261', 'PHYS271', 'PHYS271M', 'PHYS261M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sungwoo Hong', 'slug': 'hong_sungwoo'}, {'courses': ['VMSC698'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sunil Khattar', 'slug': 'khattar'}, {'courses': ['EPIB611', 'EPIB622', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sunmin Lee', 'slug': 'lee_sunmin'}, {'courses': ['THET284', 'THET499K', 'THET669K', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'THET284'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Chiang', 'slug': 'chiang'}, {'courses': ['EDSP673', 'EDSP455', 'EDSP451', 'EDSP872', 'EDSP470', 'EDSP499F', 'EDSP485', 'EDCI588N', 'EDSP654', 'EDSP652', 'EDSP683', 'EDSP888A', 'EDSP888B', 'EDSP401', 'EDSP670', 'EDSP426', 'EDSP411', 'EDSP632', 'EDSP411', 'EDSP632', 'EDSP411', 'EDSP860'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan De La Paz', 'slug': 'de_la_paz'}, {'courses': ['EDCI481', 'EDCI488B', 'EDCI688W', 'EDCI489C', 'EDCI488G', 'TLPL418', 'EDCI397', 'EDUC588A', 'TLPL479G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Denvir', 'slug': 'denvir'}, {'courses': ['HONR258J', 'PHIL408O', 'PHIL308B', 'PHIL140', 'HONR218I', 'GEMS296', 'PHIL308D', 'GEMS297', 'HONR278Z', 'PHIL209E', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'PHIL788', 'PHIL808C', 'HONR359H', 'PHIL338J', 'PHIL209D', 'PHIL308Y', 'PHPE308B', 'PHIL308U', 'PHIL209D', 'PHIL308U', 'PHIL848'], 'average_rating': 3.9333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': None, 'review': "One of my favorite classes I've taken at Maryland thus far. She is a great professor, and she challenges her students to think critically and provide insightful analysis instead of thoughtless answers. She also helps a LOT to improve your writing. Definitely recommend any class she teaches.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-10-02T11:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Dwyer is the best professor I\'ve ever had. I took PHIL140 with her my first semester on campus, and then took HONR258J with her last semester just because she was the one teaching. She\'s hilarious and engaging, she\'s a "tough" but incredibly fair grader (she refuses to accept BS, but you are rewarded for hard work), and her classes are fun to be in. I\'ve learned a lot from her from both classes, and my writing is significantly better after working with her. \r\nOne of my favorite things about having her as a professor is that she will work with you on your papers. If you email her a draft, she will send back suggested changes, questions to think about, and general advice. Her responsiveness and helpful feedback make it nearly impossible not to do well. \r\nTake any class she teaches, you\'ll be glad you did. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-11-26T19:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Dwyer is a great professor but is a very difficult grader. While this class was very interesting and thought-provoking, the papers were quite stressful. However, as others have mentioned, she will review papers before you turn them in which helps greatly.\n\r\nIf you're really good at coming up with arguments and taking apart the arguments of others, you shouldn't have too much trouble. However, as a technical major, this was a bit more than I bargained for (and I've taken several honors seminars before as well as 400-level technical courses).\n\r\nPersonality-wise, Dwyer is a hoot. She's a sassy Australian and is to the point. She also bakes and brings in food every couple weeks!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-06-22T00:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Dwyer is a fantastic woman and a great teacher. She's very caring and nurturing and provides a safe learning place for her students. That being said, she dones't let anyone get away with sloppy work. Don't expect to do well in her class if you half-ass her assignments, because she can tell. She offers to review your papers before you turn them in. TAKE HER UP ON THIS. You're guaranteed at least a B if you review your papers with her, and she curves 85 up to an A so an A in her class is definitely doable. \n\r\nDo the readings before class obviously, and make sure you're engaged and involved. She definitely makes note of how hard you work, even if she says that won't affect your grade.\n\r\nShe's a funny person and she's very candid with her students. Expect to learn some life lessons and something about yourself from taking her class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-31T03:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': None, 'review': "She's pretty intense. While it's clear that she cares about her students and is willing to go very far out of her way to help them, she nonetheless comes off as intimidating and unapproachable.\n\r\nThis was an impromptu seminar-style class, so it was probably run differently than most. That said, she's clearly intelligent and willing to spend a lot of time making things clear. That's also frustrating, because she's willing to talk about topics that either aren't that interesting or aren't that difficult.\n\r\nI personally don't really click with her, but she earned every one of the three stars I'm giving her. She's genuine and caring and intelligent. I just didn't like being in her class that much.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-18T19:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dwyer was an amazing, engaging teacher, and this seminar was easily my favorite class of the semester. The workload is pretty light (1 exegesis, 3 short [1000 word] papers, and 1 ~1500 word final paper), and if you submit a draft the papers about a week early she will go over them for you before you submit them for a grade. The class discussions were usually interesting, with a lot of back-and-forth between the members of the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-02T17:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "Professor Dwyer was a fantastic teacher. I learned a lot from her and she's very easy to follow. She's also always available for help and encourages students to seek it out. However, Philosophy 140 was the worst course I've taken at Maryland. I signed up for it expecting it to be really enjoyable, but my TA completely ruined it. He taught in an awful, monotone voice and he seemed to hate teaching entirely. I e-mailed him for help several times and I rarely got an e-mail back. For the amount of work I put into this class, I really believe I should have gotten a better grade. This is the easiest class I'm in the semester and it's the class I have the lowest grade in. If you like philosophy, this is a great class. However, I'd recommend you take a different class, especially to fill a CORE. Or, if you're determined to take it, make sure you sign up for a section with a different TA. My experience was awful.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-12T15:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': None, 'review': 'Professor Dwyer is fantastic, and I would definitely recommend taking this course. The class (although slightly altered every semester) consists of a short exegesis, two short papers, and a final. If you submit a draft of your paper at least a week before the due date, she will review it for you. (It is always great to get comments/suggestions on a paper, especially when they are from the person that will eventually be grading it!) She is a very thorough grader, but very fair. You should know exactly how you did on a paper before ever getting it back.\n\r\nnote: Although the class reviews both sides of every argument and shows students new ways to look at issues, it does cover extremely controversial topics, and the students taking it tend to be liberal-leaning as a whole. If you have conservative views, I would suggest getting a friend to sign up with you. Class discussions are much more interesting when different sides of the political spectrum are represented (and Prof. Dwyer knows it) BUT be ready to defend your side.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-17T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': 'Professor Dwyer is amazing. She is always available for help whether it be online or at her office hours (online mostly). Make no mistake she never gives you the answers but she helps you find them in very creative and helpful ways to understand the source material. Be aware though this class is not a joke and should be taken seriously. I got an 85 in the class which is ok because she generously curves.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-09T17:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "Professor Dwyer is a kind, helpful instructor. Go to office hours if you need help - she loves interacting with students and will read over your papers and give tons of suggestions. My only issue with this class was the final paper, which during Spring '11 was on abortion. Considering most people, if not everyone, in the class had never taken a philosophy course before, this was an extremely difficult subject to write a first phil paper on. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-28T15:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': 'She is absolutely entrancing. Philosophy by its very nature makes people think about WHY they believe what they believe......a process that can be very confusing and thought provoking.\r\nProfessor Dwyer combines just the right amount of intellect, wit, and humor to teach controversial topics effectively. She loves students who regularly voice their opinions and has no problem answering questions.\r\nREALLY good class from which you will learn a lot from. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-14T16:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "While the class could be interesting, Dwyer's absolutely archaic grading policies take away from it. It could be partially because my T.A. was reluctant to offer any real help, taught in a complete and boring monotone, and seemed to dislike having to teach anything, but still.\r\nDwyer IS an engaging teacher, but her grading policies (like if you have one late assignment=0 for class) take away from it. On the tests, points are taken off for the most random things, and once those points are off, there is no way to get them back. I will be getting a B in the class, even though I tried harder on this class than others where I am getting an A. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-13T10:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': "As an introductory class in moral philosophy, the class is definitely effective. It isn't the most intellectually challenging due to the course level, and as indicated by the imbecilic comment saying this is the worst class ever.\n\r\nThe workload is fairly light, with eight one-page assignments throughout, two exams and two papers.\n\r\nGrades are distributed very fairly, and the lectures are engaging. A worthwhile class to take for those with half a mind for philosophy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-04T21:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': 'PHIL140', 'review': 'I felt this class was the worst class ever. Not because of her necessarily, but the topic is the most useless information ever. \n\r\nAs for Dwyer herself, she tests on the most random information from her slides. Very little grades so if you mess up on just one, then your screwed. \n\r\nEnd of the day I would not recommend this class or her. \n\r\nP.S I feel she gets off telling information that shocks the class. She once said "imagine yourself enjoying having sex with a 6 year old. have a good day."', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-10T00:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Dwyer', 'course': 'HONR278Z', 'review': 'Dr. Dwyer is a great person to take any class with. For the yoga Honors Seminar, she was great at starting discussions and giving everyone a fair chance to speak, as well as respecting opinions. If you plan on taking this class, I suggest you be prepared to speak often - she likes those kids. Also, my grade was struggling and I emailed her to re-do assignments for a re-grade, and she was totally okay with it! I never went to office hours but she was always telling us to just go chat with her. Shes great at what she does.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-01-08T04:20:35Z'}], 'name': 'Susan Dwyer', 'slug': 'dwyer_susan'}, {'courses': ['UMEI006', 'UMEI007', 'UMEI008'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Gould', 'slug': 'gould'}, {'courses': ['MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Heineman', 'slug': 'heineman'}, {'courses': ['EDCI401', 'EDCI402', 'EDCI405', 'EDCI600', 'EDCI689', 'EDCI400', 'EDCI423', 'EDCI603', 'TLPL430', 'TLPL447', 'TLPL479A', 'EDCI404', 'TLPL435', 'TLPL489A', 'TLPL478A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Hendricks', 'slug': 'hendricks_susan'}, {'courses': ['COMM250', 'COMM475'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': 'COMM250', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE HUBBARD!\n\r\nShe seems sweet at first glance, but my goodness she is the devil. I have no idea how one professor can have so much evil on the inside.\n\r\nDO\r\nNOT \r\nTAKE \r\nA\r\nCLASS\r\nWITH\r\nSUSAN\r\nHUBBARD\n\r\nYou've been warned. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2016-10-17T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': 'COMM475', 'review': "I've had Hubbard twice now, in both comm250 and comm475 and let me put this as nicely as I can, she's a true ****. \r\nShe is an enthusiastic professor but often students are shocked when they get their grades back. That's because her tests are extremely hard and she really prides herself for that. Based on her evaluations, almost half of her students (47% I believe) rated her as receiving too low of grades based on their effort. She used to work on campaigns but I guess she sucked at that and then became a professor. I assume this was for the shear fact of obtaining the power to fuck with you, for no reason, much like the police do. I digress. \r\nYes, college is hard but for the amount of effort you have to put in the class it's just not worth the unreasonable stress. And no, in case you thought for one second, that effort counts for anything, get that thought out of your head immediately! Effort means NOTHING to her, so don't waist your time meeting with her to talk about your grade. She doesn't care how much you studied, how hard you tried, what you've learned, how you can apply the material to real life situations, nothing! Find another professor to take these classes with and don't buy her girl scout cookies either.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2014-12-18T01:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': 'COMM250', 'review': "Ok so heres the deal. She's really a nice lady, but thats not gonna cut it. Her teaching style consists of putting up a slide with barely any writing on it, speaks about it when of the information she says is relevant or easy to understand, then switches to the next topic before you can finish taking notes. She always states that the class average for an exam is below 80. I will step out of an exam after an estimated 40 hours of studying thinking i got at least a 90, then boom exam scores go out and i get an 80. She then claims that these are the exam scores and are not a typo. The fact that she has to specify that scares me. Her exams were unfair given the amount of information we needed to know and how sucky of a lecturer she is. On top of all this the TA's were garbage and i could not understand a word they said ( and i never say that about people with accents). All in all the amount of studying, stress, and aggravation i got from this class was too much for the grade i received", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-19T01:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': 'COMM250', 'review': 'You have to study for this class. There are 2 midterms and a final, and you can earn up to 3% extra credit on your final exam by participating in SONA studies (you can find short, easy ones that can be done online at home). \n\r\nYou have to memorize stuff about a lot of theories, however the exams are all multiple choice, which makes it easier.\n\r\nHomework is due every week in discussion, it is graded on completion and whether or not you participated, so if you do the homework it should help your grade.\n\r\nShe was a good professor overall, used a lot of good examples in class that you can relate to or understand, which helped with understanding of the concepts. Questions on the tests can be tricky. No curve unless the average grade in the class is significantly low (under a C).', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-14T14:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': 'COMM250', 'review': "This is not an easy class and studying doesn't assure you an A. But she is an effective teacher and explains a lot if you attend lecture. She does have strict grading policies but they are equally strict for everyone. If you know right away not to mess with the grading policies then they shouldn't be a problem", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-04-23T16:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': 'COMM250', 'review': 'Susan Hubbard was my professor and I received a B in the class. However I definitely had to study. It is a lot of information to learn and there are not that many assignments. There are 3 exams and extra credit by doing a sona study. I would definitely recommend doing the sona study because its really easy. As long as you study your notes really well you should do fine in the class but unfortunately learning about theories is not very interesting. It is a lot of memorization', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-27T00:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': 'COMM250', 'review': "Professor Hubbard wasn't the best teacher, but she wasn't my worst either. The class doesn't take a lot of effort (2 exams + final, no quizzes or daily homework, just a discussion assignment due every other week), but it is imperative that you attend every class, take notes outside of the powerpoints, and study because though she is easygoing in class, her tests are pretty challenging and she doesn't give busy work to help balance out your grade. I had zero interest in the material, and her voice is very easy to tune out, but doing that only makes you have to work harder. Going to every discussion WILL save your grade. Not that the discussions were very helpful in understanding the material, but attendance and participation counts as a test grade which will be very helpful if you don't do so well on the exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-12T13:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': None, 'review': 'I took COMM 250. She might not be the sweetest person but her lectures and the course itself are very organized, which is something that I think is very important. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-11-09T00:46:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': 'COMM250', 'review': "The class is basically a course meant to filter people out of the COMM major. If you've generally done well in school, this class shouldn't be any different. It requires a lot of memorization, and the TA's and professor Hubbard don't like to hand anything to you, they make you learn and apply metatheoretical assumptions to theories yourself which is quite frustrating. She isn't the devil, like the other comments said, but she isn't the easiest or most approachable professor. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-18T20:01:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Hubbard', 'course': 'COMM250', 'review': "Taking COMM250(almost done).These review scared me but the class was pretty easy and not even that much work. But idk if its just bc I'm interested in the subject. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-08T03:24:01Z'}], 'name': 'Susan Hubbard', 'slug': 'hubbard_susan'}, {'courses': ['JOUR667', 'JOUR367', 'JOUR357'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Katcef', 'slug': 'katcef'}, {'courses': ['EDHD321', 'EDHD425', 'EDHD320'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Klauda', 'slug': 'klauda_susan'}, {'courses': ['PSYC354'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Lee', 'slug': 'lee_susan'}, {'courses': ['STAT100', 'STAT400', 'STAT430', 'STAT401', 'STAT440', 'STAT470', 'ENPM809C', 'MATH013', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SPHL610', 'STAT100', 'STAT400', 'STAT470', 'DATA110', 'STAT100', 'STAT110', 'STAT430', 'STAT470', 'STAT430', 'STAT470', 'DATA110', 'STAT110', 'DATA110', 'STAT110', 'STAT430'], 'average_rating': 4.7941, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "worst teacher ever doesn't know how to teach. Only way to get good grade in this class is to get the past exams from someone.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-04-17T03:39:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': "Probably the nicest lady I've ever met. That being said, she can't really lecture properly. We probably started class late everyday because she was gathering her things. Material is easy, just a lot of busy online work. The discussions aren't mandatory, and the TA's honestly don't even know what's going on in class. She drops a lot of stuff, and we probably had 15-20 extra credit opportunities, so that's nice. Take her if you want an easy B, but be warned that you might have to self teach yourself a lot.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-03T22:36:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Super nice, great professor.\r\nThere are three easy exams and a final, and a few quizzes. Since the quizzes aren't every week, a lot of people wouldn't show up to discussion. We are allowed to bring a sheet of notes into the exam, and she also let us do test corrections on the first and second exam (for 1/2 points back on the first and 1/4 points back on the second).\r\nShe must have canceled lectures at least 8 times over the semester for personal things that came up for her. When that happened, she would post a video quiz which was super easy, and you could retake it as many times as you wanted.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-15T15:28:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "TAKE FOR STAT400 - She's a great professor and she goes over every topic thoroughly. Lectures can be a little slow but thats better than them being fast. SO much extra credit ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-22T04:52:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': 'She was one of the nicest professors for my first semester at UMD. I have never been talented at math, but she enabled me to get an A+ in Stat100. Her review sheets are basically the same as the exam, so you’re definitely being prepared to do well. She is also lenient with deadlines of homeworks, and gave about 8 points of extra credit during the whole semester. She is very kind, but I notice that some students zone out during lecture, due to her rambling. She can ramble on, but she is just trying to give as much background and explanation as possible for these topics. I definitely recommend her for stat100 :) ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-17T21:07:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': 'She is very kind and understanding, classwork is pretty chill for the most part...she now uses Zoom to conduct online lectures on Friday (as a way to practice coding in SAS), and uses Mondays and most Wednesdays (some Wednesdays we also have online lectures) for lectures. Her lectures are pretty dry though and the slides are very long, but she posts them on ELMS, so it has all the info you need.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-19T00:50:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Mrs. Mazzullo shows that she cares about her students and wants all of us to learn. First and foremost, she allowed for test corrections in each of the three midterms (1/2 points back for Midterm 1, 1/4 points back for Midterm 2, and 1 point back for Midterm 3). Moreover, whenever she can't lecture due to some things coming up, she would post a video lecture with an attached quiz. Since the quiz has unlimited attempts, they were an easy way to not only obtain free points but also learn the material better. I thoroughly enjoyed having her as my STAT400 instructor, and recommend anyone who has a chance of signing up for her classes to do so.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-09T01:12:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT401', 'review': "Mazzullo is the first prof I've had that I think about and smile. The first that I'll actually miss when I graduate, even though we aren't buds or anything. She's just extremely, extremely nice, and sharp as a tack too. Any class she teaches will be easy, she will teach it well, and you'll have lots of opportunities for flexibility. Plus, it's clear what you have to know, and she will teach you all you have to know. \r\n\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-29T10:52:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Best teacher in my college life ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-30T14:47:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'One of the best and most lenient teachers out there. She wants everyone to pass and makes sure you really understand the material. How many professors allow you to correct your exam mistakes for partial credit?', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-26T01:34:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': 'The sweetest teacher on earth and really wants her students to succeed. She has PLENTY of review material for each of the tests as well as extra credit so her tests are a breeze if you take notes and come to lecture ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-15T23:52:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': "Sue is the best. Super sweet, so nice, and willing to answer any and all questions as much as needed. She's a little cluttered and will blow up your phone with announcements, but on the bright side, you'll never forget you have something due. Somehow she made stat fun, totally recommend. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-21T11:08:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Dr. Mazzullo is an extremely nice and caring professor who teaches the material in a straightforward, clear way. The only downside was that she didn't disable the chat feature in Zoom at the beginning of the semester, which allowed a bunch of annoying and pointless messages to distract everyone from learning the material.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-25T05:18:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Very nice professor. Clear, relevant slideshows that prepare you very well for exams. Numerous resources are available to help you get an A in this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-24T18:03:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "One of the nicest professors I've ever had. She wants everyone to pass, her projects are super simple, and her exams are really straightforward. She also lets you get back partial credit if you correct mistakes on exams. Only downside is that she's too nice. We're in a Zoom class and some students start spamming the chat with worthless questions, and she still takes the time to answer everyone. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-07T13:57:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Great professor. Sweet and very helpful. She gives all the resources you need to succeed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-04-07T18:25:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': "sooo sweet and great with the online format. She's so engaging and interactive. Take STAT100 if you need to get a math requirement! She's very patient with this class since stat is more conceptual rather than difficulty with computation. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-14T23:57:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT401', 'review': "Professor Mazzullo is widely considered to be the best UMD undergraduate statistics professor. Having taken her class, I can say that that title is 100% earned.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ Content is digestible and made extremely to understand. Prof Mazzullo is very good at explaining what could be very difficult and complex topics.\r\n+ Professor answers any question that anyone has, no matter how dumb a question may seem. This creates an extremely nurturing learning environment\r\n+ Easily the nicest professor I've had\r\n+ Exams are quite easy and fair\r\n+ Tons of opportunities for extra credit\r\n+ Teaches a ton of relevant skills for a variety of careers, such as Python, SAS, Excel, and Minitab, despite not explicitly needing to for this class.\r\nCons:\r\n- Only one I could think of was that the first midterm had a time crunch. However, it was still doable, and future exams did not suffer from this issue.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-20T22:51:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT401', 'review': 'One of the greatest professors at UMD!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-23T23:13:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': "I mean, I'm not even sure that anyone needs to review her anymore; absolutely phenomenal teacher and person. You almost have to try to get less than a B in her class. Not only is she a great grader but you'll actually learn a lot from her and she's a sweetheart.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-07-13T20:18:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': "I loved Susan's STAT430 class. Super nice, accommodating, and really easy, with extra credit. I learned a lot too! Absolutely take her if you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-07-16T19:00:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Amazing professor! She is one teacher that actually wants her students to do well. She gives a lot of opportunities to get extra credit, and get points back on tests. Also, she records classes which is nice. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-01T15:39:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Makes everything super clear. May be a bit slow, but you definitely have all the tools needed to succeed in this class. The workload is, from what I've heard, much lighter than other STAT400 professors. Highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-12T23:32:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Great professor! She explains topics well, and is genuinely a nice person. Her exams are fair, and she does a great job of accomdating student requests. When I took it Fall 2019 I remember she let us redo the questions we got wrong on exam 1 for half credit back, which was really nice. She also has plenty of other opportunities for extra credit.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-22T17:44:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Very good professor. Cares a lot about her students and always is willing to explain things or help out. The class itself was almost TOO easy to be honest. She gave bonus points on every exam, she let you regrade your exams for up to 80% points back, my 85 -> 97. She even cancelled one exam to not stress us out before finals. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T21:30:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': None, 'review': 'Prof. Mazzullo was a great professor. Her supplemental online lectures were very helful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-25T02:37:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'She is one of the few professors at UMD that truly cares about students and actively tries to help them. She gave us ample opportunities for extra credit, allowed notes on exams, and test corrections afterward. All she wanted was for us to learn something from the course and enjoy doing so. Honestly, as easy as this course was, I truly did learn. Many concepts have still stuck with me past the course. If you can take Mazzulo, do it. She is inspiring and a breath of fresh air in a bureaucratic teaching system. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-26T19:00:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Can't really imagine a better choice for STAT400, she's a very good and easy teacher. We had test corrections on our two midterms, and we got up to 80% back on the first midterm. The tests weren't even that hard in the first place. I would also barely go to lecture/pay attention in the second half of the semester, but her slides were good enough to learn off of that. She does a lot of practice problems in class to make sure you know the concepts. I guess one complaint could be that she moves too slow, and she probably does, but she really hammers in concepts this way. She even canceled the third midterm because people complained that it was too close to the final. The R projects were super easy too since she literally gives all the commands to you and you just change the numbers. And, you can tell that she truly cares about her students and makes sure that everyone can get an A even in a class of ~300 kids.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-11T18:21:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': "I'm not a big math person, but Professor Mazzullo was very lenient with rounding, dropping bad grades, and explaining test problems. My TA however was the worst - I caught multiple mistakes she made that saved me from a B or lower. Check everything through Mazzullo, NOT your TA.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-13T21:04:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Nice professor, but tends to over complicate such easy topics. A bit disorganized and lectures tend to be all over the place. If you want the class out of the way just take her.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-09T19:15:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Professor Mazzullo can be rather disorganized at some times, but she is extremely approachable and lenient on grading, which made the experience more bearable.\r\n\r\nOn the first midterm I took for her class, I did not do well, and got a low D. However, she offered a chance for 80% credit back through regrading as long as we came into discussion and corrected our answers. This changed my exam grade from a D to an A. I know of no other professor who is this generous with giving their students a second chance.\r\n\r\nSometimes I feel bad because students may exploit her leniency and take advantage of her class to talk while other students try to learn or push for extensions well beyond the deadline. I think it would be better for everyone if she made her expectations clearer and if she was firmer with due dates.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-11T01:08:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': 'Professor Mazzullo was an alright professor. In the beginning, she did a really good job teaching and explaining the material. After the second exam, the material got more complicated and it felt harder to follow along to her lectures. She tends to repeat herself and waste time (especially if she is teaching through zoom). A lot of people in the class complained that she was a bad teacher but personally I felt she was average. She kind of talked to students as if we were still in high school but in some cases, people needed it… Her practice exams REALLY reflect the real exam which helped a ton. She also gives plenty of opportunities for extra credit to boost your grade. \r\n\r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-17T01:37:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT100', 'review': 'Professor Mazzullo was an alright professor. In the beginning, she did a really good job teaching and explaining the material. After the second exam, the material got more complicated and it felt harder to follow along with her lectures. She tends to repeat herself and waste time (especially if she is teaching through zoom). A lot of people in the class complained that she was a bad teacher but personally I felt she was average. She kind of talked to students as if we were still in high school but in some cases, people needed it… Her practice exams REALLY reflect the real exam which helped a ton. She also gives plenty of opportunities for extra credit to boost your grade. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T01:06:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'course': 'STAT110', 'review': 'While I had no direct interaction with Professor Mazzullo, I can say that this course was well run for an asynchronous 1 credit programming course. As someone who took this course with MATH206 (Intro to Matlab), STAT110 one was far easier and less time consuming. Assignments consisted half ELMS quizzes and half coding assignments to be turned in as a pdf. All assignments were due on the last day of class, so self-pacing is key. I feel confident using R for very basic statistically tests and graphs and this certainly prepared me for RStudio in BSCI161. However, this was definitely an introduction.\r\n\r\nOverall, I would recommend this course if you want some exposure to RStudio. STAT110 is a great introduction!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-03-29T14:56:14.807952Z'}], 'name': 'Susan Mazzullo', 'slug': 'mazzullo'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'TDPS479', 'THET286', 'DANC200', 'DANC398', 'ARHU386', 'THET399', 'DANC689G', 'THET386', 'ARHU386', 'DANC338P', 'ARHU386', 'DANC200', 'DANC689G', 'THET285', 'THET324', 'THET325', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU386', 'ARHU386', 'DANC200'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Miller', 'slug': 'miller_susan'}, {'courses': ['PERS211', 'PERS212', 'PERS101', 'PERS102'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Moinfar', 'slug': 'moinfar'}, {'courses': ['BMGT367F', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT367F', 'BMGT367', 'BMGT367F'], 'average_rating': 1.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Susan Powell', 'course': 'BMGT367F', 'review': 'One of the coldest, most stuck up professors I have. Avoid her at all costs - she teaches the material fine, but all communication is done through the TA and her talking style is degrading and condescending.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-24T19:10:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Powell', 'course': 'BMGT367', 'review': "Without a doubt the most disrespectful professor I have ever had. She talks to students like we're 3rd graders and is extremely condescending. The class was easy, which it should be since it's 1 credit, but she somehow made it so I dreaded going to her class. She barely taught the content and took the entire semester to grade most assignments. If you take this as a junior, then you'll be looking for internships while in the class, which should mean you will get helpful feedback. Don't expect that from this professor. I did not receive a single word of feedback on any assignments. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-06T02:45:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Powell', 'course': 'BMGT367', 'review': "Didn't even have her for 367, but was assigned her for a mock interview for BMGT367. From the hour I spent with her I can tell she is awful. Apologies to anyone who would have to deal with that for an entire semester.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-05T21:15:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Powell', 'course': 'BMGT367F', 'review': 'Easy A but a waste of 50 minutes. Like many other teachers I have heard for this class, she often brings up where she works and makes it seem like a personality trait. Additionally, assignments are not graded until the end of the semester. Take another professor if you can', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-28T18:44:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Powell', 'course': 'BMGT367F', 'review': "This class is easy so that's why I would give it this high of a rating, however, the lectures were very dull and I wouldn't say I liked her teaching style. With that being said, the content can be pretty helpful when applying to jobs/internships, but I'm sure the content is the same with all the other teachers. Attendance is required but she was understanding if you missed a class due to illness. The TA was very helpful but as I said, she is not the best teacher and I hated participating in class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-17T20:18:13Z'}], 'name': 'Susan Powell', 'slug': 'powell_susan'}, {'courses': ['AMST204', 'ENGL101', 'ENGL300', 'ENGL101C', 'AMST418K', 'ENGL101S', 'HONR219F', 'AMST328X', 'AMST213', 'FILM298V', 'CINE282', 'AMST204', 'AMST320', 'AMST328X', 'AMST213', 'AMST418K', 'CINE282', 'AMST213', 'AMST213', 'AMST204', 'AMST320'], 'average_rating': 4.5385, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Though she was a pretty good teacher. I didn't agree with all of her opinions, but the class was good. She'll let you come to her office hours/send her your paper as many times as you want and she'll practically grade it before you turn it in. She was energized and cares about her students. At least for ENG101 she was a really good teacher.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-16T18:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': 'AMST204', 'review': 'Pramschufer was an alright teacher. She came to class energized and ready to teach, which was nice. But she was unethical and biased with her grades. This was a film class and we had to write analysis of the films, which no one knew how to do. She did not teach us about this, yet expected us to know how to write a perfect paper. It was very unethical and therefore I would not recommend you take her class. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-20T23:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Pramschufer is a fantastic teacher. It wasn't until the middle of the semester that we started to appreciate her super dry sarcasm. I really enjoyed taking her class, and she does a great job of making sure that her students are prepared for assignments. I learned a lot about writing, and I always felt comfortable asking questions and seeking help. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-13T03:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Pramschufer is probably one of the best I've had at UMD. She is always cheerful in class and willing to meet with students if office hours do not work out. She is always excited about the texts she teaches and even offers extra credit. She does grade a little hard, but is always there to help with every step of each essay if you ask her. I took this class because I'm not an English major and wanted to improve my writing, and I can definitely say that she has helped to improve my writing. Take a class with her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-11T22:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': None, 'review': 'Pramshufer is really nice. I think she got a little overwhelmed at times, but overall ran the classroom well. She is a difficult grader, but so are most English teachers at Maryland. That being said, if you work hard, you will probably get an A. You just have to be willing to put in the effort. A writing intensive course, not a lot of reading though. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-11T11:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': None, 'review': 'This professor is very enthusiastic about her class and what she is teaching. Shes really patient and always there to help her students if asked. The only criticism I have is that she grades a little hard, but it is a 300 level class and Im not an english major so its to be expected', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-04-06T16:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Prof. Pramschufer is very sweet. She’s very forgiving and her TA, Roya is very nice and understanding. The class has a pretty heavy/ moderate work load depending on what other classes you’re taking because you can get a little over whelmed with all of the essays and assignments in addition to your other courses. the class is pretty straight forward, especially if you took AP english in high school. Professor Pramschufer, as well as her TA are always willing to help and answer questions which is good. I would definitely recommend visiting their office hours a lot because Professor is very strict about what she wants to see on your essays, especially with exigence, cohesion, and works cited pages. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-08T13:47:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Prof. Pramschufer is so so nice and she really wants all of her students to succeed. There are like 5 different writing assignments and they aren't that bad because they all build on each other. When I say utilize the professor utilize her, she holds office hours and she is willing to meet with you whenever to go over your essay. She will read through your essay and make edits before it due multiple times to help you get a good grade. I will say Prof. Pramschufer is a strict grader when it comes to the essays that's why you should defiantly use office hours to get help. Overall, she was a great professor and I would 100% take her again and I would recommend her to future students. Oh also there is a recommended textbook but you can find it as a PDF online for free so I wouldn't get waste the money on the textbook. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-06T22:15:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': 'AMST328X', 'review': "I had her for AMST328X and she was an amazing professor, highly recommend taking the course especially if you're interested in disability studies or film! The work for the course was moderate, a discussion post and response usually due each week, nothing crazy. The exams were usually based on topics she brings up in discussion, so you should take notes on the themes and subject matters that she brings up. I would say that her grading is typical of most English profs, but you can definitely pick out what she's looking for as you continue in the course. She's very sweet and is willing to answer any questions, during class and outside of it. Overall she's bestie, take the course for two (2!) gen ed requirements and relatively easy A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-24T13:40:59.577948Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "This class feels like an honors section even though its not as it has small class size and the professor is always the one teaching (there are no TAs). The teacher is always nice and gives energy to the class (even during my 8am section), and provides very useful feedback and support on all the writing assignments. She's very clear about what needs to be done and the whole course has a clear path to success that you will do just fine if you follow it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-05T19:33:21.982876Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'She’s super kind and understanding regarding student life and setbacks. A lot of mini-assignments, but that might just be the course. Overall a lovely human being.\r\nI will note that her grading is a bit strict, but her feedback is pretty useful. She definitely expects a lot more effort than you may want to put into a Gen Ed. My advice: if you take her for this class, make sure to talk with her about your papers.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-06T18:42:17.966349Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "This teacher is AWESOME! She's very kind and makes the class enjoyable. It's quite a bit of essay writing, so she makes everyone work from early on and gives helpful feedback. Usually, 1 or 2 weeks before an essay/assignment is due, we would spend half the class time doing a peer review of our current progress. Basically, we get feedback WHILE we're writing the essays, rather than after we already submitted them. \r\nDefinitely recommend her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-06T19:01:49.482394Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'course': 'AMST204', 'review': "Professor Pramschufer is amazing! I can't recommend her enough. I was a little worried about this class since it was my first humanities class at UMD as a STEM major, but it was fairly easy. She's really enthusiastic and kind and sometimes lets you out of class early. There are two big essays and one small reflection, in class writing assignments, and two exams. Just take good notes and the essays/exams will be easy. If you go to office hours she's really helpful. Overall one of my favorite professors at UMD. Plus the class covers two gen eds so I highly recommend taking it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-09T20:44:24.804346Z'}], 'name': 'Susan Pramschufer', 'slug': 'pramschufer'}, {'courses': ['COMM350', 'COMM483', 'COMM354', 'COMM498B', 'COMM351', 'COMM331', 'COMM483', 'COMM201', 'COMM483', 'COMM483'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Susan Simon', 'course': 'COMM201', 'review': "Professor Simon is a sweetie. My class had attendance & in class assignments, so it's important that you come. Content is interesting & very straight forward on exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-27T18:13:59.766646Z'}], 'name': 'Susan Simon', 'slug': 'simon_susan'}, {'courses': ['BSST632', 'BSST635'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Szmania', 'slug': 'szmania'}, {'courses': ['BMGT340', 'BMGT440F', 'BMGT345', 'BMGT440', 'BMGT340N', 'BMGT398E', 'BMGT448P', 'BUSO758J', 'BMSO778F'], 'average_rating': 3.6538, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT440', 'review': "Dr. White is an amazing professor!!! She's super nice and helpful. 440 is a class with a lot of work, no matter who you take it with, but if you take it with her, it will be a great experience. In this class, we had a group case presentation, the takeover project (also in group), an individual case study, a midterm, and a lot of homework (which is not very hard). Good thing is that there was no final. If you put in some effort, you'll end up with a good grade. I really enjoyed the course, and I highly recommend taking any class with Dr. White. You won't regret it, and you'll learn a lot!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-25T13:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Amazing professor!! The material definitely isn't easy and you need to work your butt off and study a lot for exams, but White makes this class so much easier to understand! I took this class in Fall 2012 and they curved 1 exam only by a few percent. I heard from a friend who took it in Spring 2012 that they'd curve the exams 10-20%. So curving really depends on whether they make the tests reasonable or not. There's one 4-part project, it's individual and much easier than it looks. Each part takes about 1 hour to do. Online homework due about every week or every other week. White does a lot of examples in class and is really good at explaining things. She's also so, so sweet and helpful! She'll really do anything she can to help her students understand the material. I took the blended learning section which basically meant class was canceled about once a month (sometimes twice) and instead of class we'd have to watch online voice-over powerpoints and answer about 3-4 quiz questions - really easy. It was nice to have class canceled every now and then and to just watch the online lecture on your own time. Overall, White is an amazing and very helpful professor that makes 340 as easy as it could possibly be. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-01-05T00:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Very nice professor, extremely helpful.\n\r\nStay on the ball from day 1 and this class will be so much easier for you; you'll find that toward the end of the course people are angry when they look at past exams they failed when they were actually so easy compared to the later material. \n\r\nStart the group project early or it will be the bane of your existence.\n\r\nDo all of the practice problems that are available to you, and there is no reason why you should not ace the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-09-23T00:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'As the person below me said, all the material is on ELMS. Dr. White is a very nice lady who can answer whatever questions you may have. However, she puts tricky questions on her exams.\n\r\nThe class itself was very demanding. There are weekly homework assignments, 4 projects (all on the same company that you were assigned), 4 extra credits, 3 midterms and an optional final.\n\r\nThe maximum number of extra credit points you can get is 46/1000 (4.6%)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-01-01T05:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "This class is difficult. \n\r\nThere are three exams, an optional final, individual online projects, homework and extra credit. \n\r\nIf you miss an exam, you have to take the optional final exam. Do not take the optional final exam! Each exam goes through so much material, formulas, and problems that the final exam would be excruciatingly dreadful.\n\r\nDo all the extra credit. The exams are super hard and the class average for exam 2 and 3 is around a 60. So the extra credit is critical to boosting up your exam grades. The first exam is the easiest and there was no curve. There were slight curves for exam 2 and 3.\n\r\nI prepared for exams by first going over the professor's video exam review on blackboard. She explains concepts and solutions to word problems, and she will give big hints on what to expect on the exam: certain type of questions, specific factors to take into consideration, etc. Then I reviewed all of the past exams on blackboard. Note, sometimes her concept questions and word problems have no reference to the past exams or the video review. In other words, in order to receive an A, you should probably go to class regularly and read the textbook, in addition to preparing with the video review and past exams. \n\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-17T10:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'whatever you do, do not go to class. she posts legit everything you need online. make a baller cheat sheet and go through loads of practice tests and questions before the exams and you will get an A. anything else people say is a ruse, that is the extent of what you need to do for this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-14T21:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "BMGT 340 is one of the hardest classes u will take in UMD-(that is especially if ur not a finance major) Sue White is a great teacher although my peers did not necessarily agree-but I think its the course that is difficult to grasp not the teacher. I will admit though that her class is a bit boring-her voice puts you to sleep no matter what time of the day the class is held. She is really nice though and does everything possible to help students to do well. Very quick on emails. I sent her my excel sheet like 3 times before submitting and she literally told me the correct answer-and I did that with most of my assignments. She's really great and provides alot of imformation, voiceover powerpoints and anything to help students outside of class. She gives u 3 exams-21 questions all MCQ and a comprehensive final(the final is optional and is also MCQ) and for the final she told us what chapters and what kind of problems were going to be on the exam. I got a B+ 20 points away from an A---but I was glad I even got a B. I failed the 2nd exam but took the final and that boosted my grade since the lowest exam grade gets dropped. The breakdown of her class is:\r\n8 assignments(not very difficult but are time consuming)25%\r\n3 exams/1 comprehensive final(optional)75% \n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-02-12T01:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "White is not a good teacher, but she is very nice. Make sure to do all the EC, it will end up being worth your while! You don't need to go to class, just read the book and do as many practice problems as you can. Tests aren't too difficult, but they do have a decent amount of material so don't try cramming! The material isn't intellectually challenging, but it does take time to understand. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-21T19:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'WORST TEACHER EVER!!! Never take her! She is terrible!!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-04T20:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Challenging Class for sure, but not impossible to get an A in.\n\r\nYou do not have to go to lecture- if you read the book and understand you'll be fine\n\r\nDO ALL THE EXTRA CREDIT- it was the reason that I got an A in the class\n\r\n- do the practice exams over and over and you'll be fine: the chapter problems are much harder than anything she's going to put on this exam\n\r\nyou dont need to, but it is nice to have the slide packet and review packet- she posts nearly everything online", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T01:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'buy the exam review packet\r\ngo to class (it helps even though it seems worthless)\r\ndont buy the book\r\ndo ALL the extra credit\r\nstudy hard for the exams\r\nbe thankful when its over. this class sucks.\r\nwhite is very nice, but her course is boring and difficult.\r\nYou should be able to get a B without much difficulty.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-16T00:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Professor White has by far the most additional tools to help a student succeed than any other Professor I have had. On ELMS she has practice exams, videotaped review sessions, voiceover powerpoints for chapter practice problems, and all the lecture powerpoints. The in-class lectures are painful if you are lost, so if you fall behind you will be left behind.\n\r\nThe exams are difficult, and don't seem to lend themselves too much to the review material. You really have to know your stuff, because the exams are NOT just old exams with different numbers. The cheat sheets are helpful only for equations.\n\r\nThe semester long project is pretty easy, only because you don't actually have to do much. She sends out her version of the project so all you have to do is change her Starbucks information with your company's and it's done for you. That's worth about a fourth of your overall grade, so take it seriously.\n\r\nI also suggest doing all the extra credit, because it's pretty easy and is worth a maximum of 3.5% of your overall grade. Do all this, as you can't really depend on a curve because the second exam was only curved 2 percent and the third exam was only curved 4 percent.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-14T21:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'The professor was great. She genuinely wants to help the students and is very keen to help students do well on her exam. There is A LOT of material that she covers and attending class is almost a must along with attending the exam reviews, which can help you get 70% easy on the real exam if you paid good attention during her review.\n\r\nDo well on the first couple of exams since the 3rd one is a pain! Final is optional but was easier than the 3rd so that always helps as a backup if you mess up on any one exam.\n\r\nFirst exam is the easiest and getting an A is almost guaranteed if you attend the review and go over the slides.\n\r\nThe semester project is a pain if your group members dont like to work and leave things to the last minute but the grading and description is very easy and manageable.\n\r\nIt is finance so its not an easy class my any means, but if you put in the time and effort, getting an A is very easy considering all exams are MC.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-08-31T15:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Finance would be a difficult course.... if the exams were all open ended. There are 4 exams, but you only need to take 3. Each exam has 20 multiple choice questions + 1 bonus, so getting a few questions wrong has a rather large impact on your grade. On the positive note, there are plenty of extra credit assignments that will help boost your grade, and she might curve the exams.\n\r\nI thought this course wasn't very difficult, as I got an A without going to class. She posts notes and practices exams online, which is really nice of her, but also renders class time useless. Just show up three times a semester to lecture, for the 3 midterms. Do go to discussion and work with your team on the semester project, but class is useless", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-09T08:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'As the reviewer before me said, Finance is a difficult course. Dr.White gives a lot or resources and is always available to help out.Her exams are difficult so do not try to cram everything the night before. Just a word of caution on the semester long project. Start early and double check every part and you will do really well. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-30T15:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Finance is a fairly difficult course, and there is a lot of material. Dr. White makes a lot of effort to help students. She gives extra credit and lets you drop one of the four exams. If you have an A going into the final, you don't have to take it.\n\r\nIf you want to do well, go to class. Understand any and all problems that Dr. White goes through. An A is somewhat difficult, but not impossible. With good note sheets and a solid effort, you should be able to get at least a B.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-06-16T10:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Class Breakdown:\r\n4 Exams (25% each), You drop the lowest \r\n15% Project (It's a *****)\r\n10% Friday Sessions (Easy 100%)\n\r\nHere is how I COULD have gotten an A:\n\r\n1) Never going to a single class\r\n2) Doing the practice exams on my own\r\n3) Reading the book on my own\n\r\nWhat I failed to realize was that going to class was a complete waste of time. By the time I figured this out I had already taken 2 exams. I didn't go to a single class in prep for the 3rd exam and did MUCH better. If you spend the same amount of time you spend in class everyday going over practice exams/review session problems that are posted on BB you will get an A. \n\r\nThe project is a very long, tedious process. I recommend starting it very early to do well. We got a 100%, but we worked our asses off. \n\r\nDr. White is VERY good about getting back to students via email and is also excellent if you go to her office hours.\n\r\nDr. White's lectures suck because she doesn't go over many problems that you will see on the exam. The majority of the test problems look like problems off the practice exams.\n\r\nShe gives 3 extra credit assignments throughout the semester which are worth 5 points on each exam grade. I recommend doing all of them since the exams are tough. She also has 21 questions per exam, but grades the test out of 20 points, in effect having 1 extra credit question on each exam.\n\r\nDiscussions are pointless, you generally only spend about 20-30 minutes of the 50 in class. You usually only have to calculate 1 thing and upload it to blackboard. This being said, it's easy to get the full 10%, which can really help out your grade.\n\r\nFinal Recommendation: Treat this class like an online class. She has lots of resources posted on BB which is more than enough for you to get an A in the class. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-05-01T18:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'This class was boring and kind of useless, but if you have to take it its not the end of the world. She gives you 3 extra credit opportunities, and you can choose not to take the final exam if your grade is high enough. Definitely do the extra credits, because she is pretty strict about the project you have to do (which is also a waste of time). I would recommend going to discussion, the review sessions and nothing else, because she is really really dry in lecture.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T20:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'Susan White is very nice and is willing to help students who ask her for help. If you don\'t ask for help, then you\'re on your own. She appreciates it (and takes notice) when students e-mail her. She\'s very good about responding to e-mails and questions.\n\r\nUnless you are extremely good at focusing, you\'ll probably have a hard time staying alert during lecture. Piece of advice: stay on top of reading the chapters and doing practice problems on your own...This was definitely a "do-it-yourself" kind of class. \n\r\nTake advantage of ALL EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES. She has 3 chances, and they can dramatically impact your final grade. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-01-26T13:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'This class was pretty easy but also pretty boring. Just read the book and do the practice problems before the exams and youll be fine. the lectures are pretty pointless and you will fall asleep easily. the group project sucked and was graded toughly. she is a nice professor and will respond to emails quickly (but they are short and often non comprehensive. she gives extra credit and everything and i mean everything is posted online', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-29T17:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "The lectures can drag on and be boring, but overall it is a good class. She brings in a lot of interesting guest speakers and does a good job of keeping students up-to-date with current events in the economy.\n\r\nThe first two exams aren't too hard, but the third was very challenging. Luckily, even if you dont do well on the exams, she offers 3 extra credit assignments, which help you grade a lot. She posts old exams on Blackboard, which are helpful study tools. The final is optional, which is really nice.\n\r\nThe group project takes a long time, but just do it early and add a few extra things to it and make it look nice and you will probably get extra credit on that too. Discussion is mandatory, but it's easy points for going. If you put forth effort and do all available assignments, you will probably be happy with your grade even if you dont fully grasp the information.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-12-18T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Her lectures were boring, but the content of the class was fairly interesting, especially for a finance major. A lot of the concepts will come in handy in upper level courses such as Equity Analysis. The class wasn't too difficult to get an A in especially if you did the recommended homework problems. The group project wasn't too bad either, especially if you don't leave it until the end.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-11-26T11:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "It's really not that bad. Just don't let yourself fall behind, do the extra credits, and the project. Do go to class to understand how to work the problems. She gives you a lot of resources to do well which are overwhelming because there's just too much, but if you choose whatever is the most important, you'll do just fine on the exams. Final is optional, exams are MC but do not underestimate the difficulty- prepare. Her voice puts me to sleep. Reading the text isn't helpful, most exams are just problems, so if you don't have the time, just work the practice problems and read the power pts. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-10-22T00:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'Extremely boring teacher, must put in a lot of work by yourself. Lectures are probably useless for most people.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-10-21T14:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': 'People expect this to be a challenging class but its really not. For me going to class was a waste and I usually fell asleep because she speaks in the most monotone voice. I thought that the only beneficial part about actually attending lecture was when she went over how to do problems at the end of the chapter. Reading the book is a huge waste of time. The only thing that really works is to do all of the practice problems that she posts on blackboard. The extra credits help a lot. The semester long project takes awhile to do but she grades them very leniently. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-12-22T17:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Susan White', 'course': 'BMGT340', 'review': "Strengths\r\nShe is clear at what she teaches making it not hard to understand provided you pay attention and attend class, and then do the textbook reading. She is extremely helpful and wants students to do well. I have emailed her several times asking for help with projects or other questions as well as used her office hours. She wants students to succeed and it shows. Very nice lady as well. She offers lots of chances for extra credit as well. Tests are somewhat challenging. Do the problems she posts and practice tests. Make good cheat sheets. I strongly suggest doing all 3 extra credit assignments. You'll regret it if you don't and are at a 78 and would have had a B with the ECs.\r\nDrawbacks\r\nShe could be boring at times and I think part of this was her sweet motherly nature which was almost too good as she could sometimes put you to sleep lol. Some classes seemed to be too much content. Overall though for finance she taught it well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-03T02:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Susan White', 'slug': 'white_susan'}, {'courses': ['INFM737', 'INST714', 'INST701', 'INST627', 'INST314', 'INST808', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST335'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susan Winter', 'slug': 'winter_susan'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL221', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL222', 'ENGL250', 'WMST255'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Susanna Compton', 'slug': 'compton_susanna'}, {'courses': ['PUAF214', 'PUAF215', 'PUAF790', 'PLCY201', 'CPPL200', 'CPPL101', 'CPPL201', 'CPSP239P', 'PLCY309', 'CPSP339P', 'CPSP249P', 'PLCY201S', 'CPSP339P', 'CPPL100', 'CPSP339P', 'PLCY201S', 'CPPL101', 'CPSP339P', 'CPPL100', 'CPSP339P', 'PLCY201S'], 'average_rating': 4.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Susannah Washburn', 'course': 'CPPL101', 'review': 'I have had Professor Washburn for PLCY201 and CPPL101. She is one of the most down-to-earth and enthusiastic people you will meet. The coursework is fair and doable; you can easily get an A in the class as long as you put in the work. She makes the Public Leadership Scholars Program as fun as possible and is always eager to connect with her students during her office hours. If you are a Public Leadership Scholar, you are in good hands.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-27T02:41:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Susannah Washburn', 'course': 'PLCY201', 'review': "Washburn is the absolute best, which you probably know if you're in PL. Classwork is fair and doable, the TAs are helpful, and usually it's interesting. She's also always happy to talk to students and personable is an understatement.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-08T15:33:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Susannah Washburn', 'course': 'PLCY201S', 'review': "Washburn is my favorite professor I have had so far. She is super kind and truly cares about her students. I didn't particularly enjoy the class, but Washburn made the class tolerable. As long as you put minimal effort into your work, an A should be no problem.\r\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T03:31:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Susannah Washburn', 'course': 'PLCY201S', 'review': 'If you are choosing between the scholars programs, choose Public Leadership! Professor Washburn is engaging, personable, and invested in our success. Her teaching style is more than the typical lecture with in-class activities, group projects, and debates. While these assignments may seem daunting to some, Washburn creates a comfortable and open environment for her students where everyone is encouraged to participate, regardless of background or belief. Overall, I would highly recommend this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-19T23:20:20.366948Z'}, {'professor': 'Susannah Washburn', 'course': 'PLCY201S', 'review': 'If you are choosing between the scholars programs, choose Public Leadership! Professor Washburn is engaging, personable, and invested in our success. Her teaching style is more than the typical lecture with in-class activities, group projects, and debates. While these assignments may seem daunting to some, Washburn creates a comfortable and open environment for her students where everyone is encouraged to participate, regardless of background or belief. Overall, I would highly recommend this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-19T23:20:50.760513Z'}, {'professor': 'Susannah Washburn', 'course': 'PLCY201S', 'review': "She is an awesome professor and super easy to talk to. She's very responsive, understanding and approachable. She wants you to succeed and is there for you. I was annoyed by time it took to grade assignments. There is a lot of reading for the course and even though she claims that every word you read is important, you can pass just skimming for general concepts. She is invested in your success but she does expect a lot of you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-08T16:04:43.724066Z'}, {'professor': 'Susannah Washburn', 'course': None, 'review': "Prof. Washburn was such a good professor to learn from. She has so much experience in the public policy field and is so helpful with any questions that you have about it. PLCY201S was a decently easy class to get an A in. She drops your lowest essay grade and a huge bulk of your grade is based on attendance. She's also super understanding about late assignments or absences as long as you're honest. She wants to work with you to make sure you're getting everything that you can out of this class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-17T04:35:39.686712Z'}], 'name': 'Susannah Washburn', 'slug': 'washburn'}, {'courses': ['ASTR680', 'ASTR100', 'ASTR498N', 'ASTR498S', 'ASTR380', 'ASTR606', 'ASTR406'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Suvi Gezari', 'course': 'ASTR100', 'review': 'Homeworks and discussion sections are entirely disjoint from what is on exams. Her exams are unnecessarily complicated and lengthy. Avoid her if you can.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-01-17T19:42:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Suvi Gezari', 'course': 'ASTR380', 'review': 'basically this was the alien class. Gezari was very receptive and nice the semester. Pretty lenient grading', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-21T16:39:09Z'}], 'name': 'Suvi Gezari', 'slug': 'gezari'}, {'courses': ['MATH410', 'MATH411', 'MATH241', 'MATH808D', 'MATH141', 'STAT410', 'MATH808M'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Swarnava Mukhopadhyay', 'slug': 'mukhopadhyay'}, {'courses': ['ASTR288C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Sylvain Guiriec', 'slug': 'guiriec'}, {'courses': ['PHYS411', 'PHYS401', 'PHYS711', 'PHYS859I', 'PUAF689L', 'PLCY689L', 'PHYS798J', 'PHYS235', 'PHYS798J', 'PLCY689L'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sylvester Gates', 'course': 'PHYS401', 'review': "So I had a lot of problems with Gates' teaching style. First is that, being a theoretical physicist whose career is based on quantum mechanics, he is a bit too good at the concepts in this class. So he would often go over material too quickly for everyone to understand it. \n\r\nAlso, he was frequently out of town so we would often have a substitute which was not a horrible thing but I kind of like consistency. \n\r\nHowever, my biggest problem was his grading. He gave several quizzes throughout the semester and one of those was the day before Thanksgiving. How many people go to class that day? He also refused to let people make the quiz up.\n\r\nOn both of the midterms, the front page said you have 2 hours to complete the test. We had 1 hour classes. So pretty much no one finished the tests and the grades reflected that. Even if we had had enough time the tests were incredibly difficult and the grades still would have been awful (virtually all the questions were incredibly difficult unless you knew some obscure math trick).\n\r\nThese poor grades are reflected by the grade distribution. I think that over 60% of the class got a C or below, including about 1/4 of the class getting D's or F's. In my opinion, that is an absurd distribution that reflects an awful grade policy. \n\r\nThat said, he was good about answering questions so if you knew what you didn't understand you could ask for help easily enough. But I really didn't know what I didn't know until after the tests.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-08-14T16:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvester Gates', 'course': 'PHYS411', 'review': "He explains things well and knows the material extremely well. On top of that, he's a friendly guy who's willing to help his students in any way he can. He had this one inspirational lecture that actually made me want to go home and do some physics.\n\r\nHe's an award winning physicist, which is great, but this means that he travels a lot and misses a lot of class. When he isn't in class (which was in total about a third of the semester), he has one of his two post docs teach the class. As a result, the class material gets really fragmented. This is the main reason I'm not giving him 5 stars.\n\r\nHomework takes forever and tests are difficult, but this is no reason to downgrade him. This is just a forewarning.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-13T18:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvester Gates', 'course': 'PHYS401', 'review': "I've never met a man who has such a deep understanding of the subject matter at hand before taking a class with Dr. Gates. He is very passionate about what he teaches and genuinely wants everybody to do well.\n\r\nPROS:\r\n- Class is engaging and upbeat\r\n- Fair grading scheme\r\n- Definite sense of actually learning something throughout taking the course\n\r\nCONS:\r\n- Tests are DISGUSTINGLY hard; the first test had an average of about a 50%, and the second test grades were so poor that he did not count it.\r\n- Is absent frequently", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-22T03:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvester Gates', 'course': None, 'review': "very good prof. he REALLY knows his stuff and does a very good job presenting abstract ideas to the class.\n\r\nhis homework is extremely boring and if you try to attempt the mathematical work, you will need to spend 5-6 hours on it.\n\r\nin the end you might not get the grade you want, but you will have learned a lot... just don't try and challenge him in mathematics cause he will walk all over you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-02T14:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvester Gates', 'course': 'PHYS235', 'review': "This class was an unorganized mess. We didn't even get the syllabus until the second week. The course is an awkward mismatch of history from the late 1800s to WWII and surprisingly advanced nuclear physics. The math and science part was not taught well, especially in a class with students with no physics experience. The lectures were essentially Prof. Gates muttering to himself (he doesn't know what a microphone is) about random history and science things (a lot of which were irrelevant to the course). The TA seemed nice but was very awkward and was not good at teaching us the math we needed. We also have no way of knowing our actual grades since they're not posted accurately on elms or by his office. The only good thing about this class was that the grading was pretty fair. I still wouldn't take this class though.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-16T20:16:13.310679Z'}], 'name': 'Sylvester Gates', 'slug': 'gates'}, {'courses': ['HLTH391', 'HLTH460', 'HLTH106', 'HLTH285', 'HLTH371', 'HLTH471', 'HLTH140', 'HLTH490', 'HLTH230', 'WMST471', 'HLTH391H', 'EXST030', 'SPHL100', 'SPHL600', 'SPHL399', 'SPHL100', 'SPHL600', 'SPHL399', 'SPHL100', 'SPHL600', 'SPHL100', 'SPHL399', 'SPHL600', 'SPHL100', 'SPHL100', 'SPHL100', 'SPHL600'], 'average_rating': 3.2105, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "Dr Howard is not a great professor, but she's not awful. The reason why this class is getting a 1/5 from me is the grading and difficulty. This is the hardest 100 level course that UMD offers. Exceedingly few people get an A in this class. You can work everyday, study, and do A level work, and still wind up with a B- in this course. Do not take this class, grading is unfair, and this scares many students away from Public Health. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-06-22T17:02:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "She's super kind! Her lectures are kinda long but interesting. The course work seemed like a lot for a 100- level required course. The tests were challenging because it covered 7 long units. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-09T19:41:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': 'Fun to understand different rates in preventative medicine. \r\nCool videos on malpractice including Jay Cutler and Lead Abatement Research in DC in lower SEC.\r\nCool to learn about food injustice and other health disparities.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-06-28T04:26:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "Quite disorganized and doesn't really know what's going on. Let's the TA's teach nearly everything and is also nit-picky with assignments. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-08T23:25:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': 'The beginning of the year was a bit disorganized, but overall not a very difficult class. There is a big group project at the end, so hope you get a decent group assigned. Lectures are interesting and she is very understanding/kind.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-10T22:31:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "The professor herself is really sweet, but you rarely deal with her. Everything is run by the TAs who take this class wayyyyyy too seriously. It's not run like a 100 level class at all. The topics are interesting but tbh the TAs ruined the experience for me.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-28T15:31:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "Prof L-H is fine but its all run by TA's which are to serious and grade everything harshly. The rubrics are crazy and you are just glad if you get a B on an assignment. they do not take attendence M/W but they do on F discussion. I was flying home on friday and asked if I had to zoom in and the TA made me stay on until my flight literally took off. This just shows the level of craziness that this class is. I would not take this if you have holidays or wanting to go away on fridays. All of these other reviews are all true. There is a ridiculous amount of pre lecture work and then class M/W is a joke but you should attend bc there is a weekly quiz and they pull questions from both pre lecture material and class. Other odd thing is only have to attend M or W each week but not both because it is the same powerpoint. The powerpoint just goes over what you watched in pre lecture videos and readings. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-18T20:21:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "Dr. Sylvette La Touche- Howard is a good lecturer. Your class will be run mostly by your TA though. Depending on your TA, this class can be difficult because they can grade pretty harshly. You don't have to show up to enrichment activities, but you do need to show up for discussion (which is pretty useless). The majority of the class is made up of weekly quizzes, discussion activities, and a project (CAP). You don't need to really study for this class, but you do need to spend some time doing assignments. To be honest you don't need the textbook she asks you to buy, Its mostly supplementary information. Overall this class is pretty straightforward and an easy A if you read the slides and watch the video lectures.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-21T13:04:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': 'Such an odd format for a class. Started the semester thinking it would be MW lectures and F discussion but turned out to be that MW are an optional enrichment activity and F is mandatory discussion. Lectures were recorded from COVID times and you had to watch that on your own time and take quiz on Thursday. Assignments are confusing and really complex for an into level course. It is not a difficult course to pass and you wont be too stressed from this class but it is just an odd intro course. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-05T01:52:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "\r\nDr. Howard is nice but your closest point of contact is your TA. Your success, unfortunately, depends on the TA. \r\n\r\nThe format of the class was slightly strange. Dr. Howard and the TAs expect you to complete most of the assignments over the weekend, which is def inconvenient for most college students. We watched roughly 1-2 hours worth of videos and completed readings on Saturday and Sunday. On the bright side, we only had to attend one lecture (either Monday or Wednesday) and a discussion section on Friday. Both the lecture and discussion section were boring because we weren't learning anything new.\r\nLuckily, there were no exams in the class; only weekly 10-question quizzes. \r\n\r\nWhile the assignments can be hefty at times, they are manageable. You'll have a semester-long group project, so pick your group wisely. \r\n\r\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-08-05T20:43:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': None, 'review': "DO NOT BUY THE TEXTBOOK. I REPEAT, DO NOT BUY THE TEXTBOOK. THE PROF SAYS U NEED IT BUT YOU REALLY DON'T NEED IT FOR THE QUIZZES. I GOT As ON ALL OF THE QUIZZES WITHOUT THE TEXTBOOK. SAVE YOUR $60 PLEASE. anyways, this class was pretty easy just pray that you get a good group for the CAP project that doesn't slack off. also you attend lecture once a week. for discussion, make sure you watch the pre-discussion stuff. also u dont need to watch the lecture videos literally just look over the powerpoints and ur good.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-09-28T18:55:59.956995Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': 'No final for the class, easy quizzes as long as you watch the short videos or do the short readings. Discussion is once a week and lectures are useless.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-07T17:06:22.909417Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': 'I agree with a lot of the reviews already on here. DO NOT buy the textbook. The textbook literally isn’t even writing it’s a bunch of tedtalks and random things Dr. Howard threw together. Your grade definitely depends on the TA but just show up and do the work and you’ll be fine. Her weekly online quizzes can definitely be challenging as they’re worded very weirdly. The final was a group project you work on majority of the semester. Super easy course but Dr. Howard tries to make it more complicated than it needs to sometimes.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-14T00:14:29.252229Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL600', 'review': 'Dr. L-H is SO sweet and the TA was very kind and fast responding as well. Class is discussion based so you submit your weekly assignment a few hours before class and paired students do a presentation on the topic of the week. Super easy A and the professor is really easy to carry conversation with.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-21T03:37:33.501985Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "Honestly this is easy an easy class and I'm kind of upset I got a B+. I literally guessed on all of the quizzes and got above average, but your semester long cap project is graded by your ta. And I had the worse TA because she was so critical for everything I did. How did she find grammar errors when I plugged it into Grammarly? make it make sense. In short, do not buy that dumb book. Idk why she even advertises it lol. She posts a free snippet of what you're supposed to read from the book onto elms... This class wasn't time consuming, and it depends on your TA on what grade you'll get...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-21T22:49:55.470436Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "This class is an easy A honestly. DO NOT BUY HER TEXTBOOK! Waste of $46 or whatever it is, there wasn't a single assignment or reading in there that was needed for the class. Weekly quizzes, two of which are dropped. I just opened the study guide and googled the answers and did above average on them. The semester is one big group project, but as long as you do your parts of the assignment you can tell the TA that your group didn't help (if they didn't) and then they'll give good grades. Lecture isn't required but it is nice to go for some help on the quizzes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-24T14:40:16.709513Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "DONT BUY THE TEXTBOOK!!! i didn't even use it pls don't buy. but other than that, the professor and my TA were very sweet! it's a very easy course depending on the people in your group and your TA! eileen was super sweet so if she TAs you'll def be in good hands!!!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-27T07:10:29.932696Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "This is a pretty easy class and she's a nice professor! The textbook is not worth it to be honest. I never used it so don't worry too much about buying it!! As for the class, the quizzes and discussions are quite easy and chill. They ended up dropping only one quiz and two discussion grades, but if you do good on the discussions they can fairly distribute it to your quizzes instead! Btw, the course is graded by the TA so they will depict how your semester goes (my ta was very nice and a fair grader!!). The only con would be the semester long group project. It's not hard but it can be quite annoying. My group had minimal communication but we all still managed to do well on all of our assignments!!!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-29T16:41:52.255309Z'}, {'professor': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': 'Dr. LH is a nice prof teaching interesting content, so naturally she structures the course in an incredibly stupid format because apparently we can\'t have nice things. Actual lecture material is online asynchronous, the in-person lecture sessions are "enrichment activities" and you only go to 1 of the 2 a week (you don\'t choose, its based on discussion section), and the actual discussions are mandatory attendance. There\'s a semester long group project ending in a ~15 page group essay that counts as your final paper, so have fun with that and hope you have a good group. Also, there\'s an ELMS quiz every week on Thursdays, even though there\'s not supposed to be class on that day. The quiz claims to be based on content from the lecture videos, other random required videos, enrichment activities, and textbook. In practice, it\'s almost all from lecture videos, maybe a bit from enrichment activities.\r\n\r\nAs all the others have said, don\'t buy the textbook. It\'s a scam. The prof and TAs will repeatedly say you need it, but you don\'t. The weekly quiz questions will sometimes be like "as so and so said in the textbook...", but they\'re easy to guess and/or google without reading it. The week 2 discussion assignment will have something based on the textbook, but its just to scare you into getting it. Just ask someone else there or google it. Also, it\'s not a textbook. It\'s a canvas page hosted by a site other than ELMS, locked behind a $70 paywall for no reason. Don\'t get it!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-25T04:53:33.178661Z'}], 'name': 'Sylvette La Touche-Howard', 'slug': 'touche-howard'}, {'courses': ['BMGT380', 'BUSI764', 'BMGT380F', 'BMGT380N', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT380N', 'BMGT380', 'BMGT380N'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'T Anenson', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Amazing blaw professor. Will go out of the way to help you and teaches content in a very thorough and understandable way. Tests are straightforward but can be tricky sometimes, though she gives practice problems. Participation is easy points for grabs, and workload is on the lighter side. Grade heavily weighted on exams (no homework)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-26T00:57:43Z'}, {'professor': 'T Anenson', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "This lady is a saint. She cares a lot about if you are doing well and understand the material. She is fun, funny, and dumbs down concepts if they're hard. I didn't need the book in her class, but you really have to be in class for this one. Her slides are quite sparse and the exams are 100% based on lecture. Overall, great professor!! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-27T16:48:33Z'}, {'professor': 'T Anenson', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Prof. Anenson is a great professor for one of the hardest courses in the general business curriculum. Her class is extremely test heavy (85% of the final grade), but she gives plenty of review materials including an in-depth Q&A the lecture before each exam. The other assignments are easy participation points that help bring up the final grade. Attendance is not mandatory for a grade but it highly recommended to succeed in this class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2021-12-29T17:04:39Z'}, {'professor': 'T Anenson', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Great teacher and nicest professor I have had in Maryland. She wants her students to learn and succeed. Responds to emails right away and accommodates her students' needs. I applaud her professionalism and her ability to be a personable professor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-20T20:44:48Z'}], 'name': 'T Anenson', 'slug': 'anenson'}, {'courses': ['BSOS448T', 'UNIV100', 'UNIV362', 'BSOS361', 'UNIV362', 'BSOS361', 'BSOS361', 'UNIV362', 'BSOS361'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'TC Lloyd', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "TC is the most chill professor I've ever had. She get's straight to the point, her lectures are concise, and is really easy to talk to. Often got to leave her class early, sometimes even 30 minutes into class. Work is limited to just a couple short journals and a group presentation.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-26T18:17:32Z'}], 'name': 'TC Lloyd', 'slug': 'lloyd_tc'}, {'courses': ['EDCI435', 'EDCI638', 'TLPL445', 'TLPL688K', 'TLPL663', 'TLPL695'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tabitha Kidwell', 'slug': 'kidwell'}, {'courses': ['EDCP310'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tae Keum', 'slug': 'keum_tae'}, {'courses': ['EDCI611', 'EDCI697', 'EDCI786', 'EDCI788L', 'TLPL675', 'EDCI788X', 'TLPL770', 'TLPL788U'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Taharee Jackson', 'slug': 'jackson_taharee'}, {'courses': ['STAT401', 'STAT420', 'STAT702', 'SURV420', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'STAT818N', 'SPHL610', 'STAT818F', 'STAT705', 'STAT440', 'STAT705', 'STAT420', 'STAT440', 'SURV420', 'STAT705'], 'average_rating': 2.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'course': 'STAT420', 'review': "He's a very quiet and calm professor. His exams are similar to HW problems and he curves assignments. Pretty chill.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-26T06:59:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'course': 'STAT420', 'review': 'His exams are not very hard. However, I think he spends too much time covering review topics like convergence in distribution and convergence in probability, leaving us no time to cover other topics other than some basics.\r\n\r\nI think if you want more comprehensive content you should take someone like J. Xu.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-12T18:52:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'course': 'STAT401', 'review': 'Professor Saegusa is great. He teaches the content in an easily digestible manner and his exams are less nitpicky and more about overall concepts. Definitely recommend taking 401 with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-05-22T16:26:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'course': 'STAT420', 'review': "Was a fine lecturer, but STAT 420 is one those classes where it either clicked right away and you did really well, or it just never did and you'll end up doing consistently poorly despite spending hours and hours studying. Maybe I'm just salty because he mentioned at the beginning of class that he would curve all tests so that the average score was an 80, but didn't end up doing that (I would have gotten a C- if he had)", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D+', 'created': '2019-05-23T17:22:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'course': None, 'review': "I think he teaches well, but it's very boring at times. His exams are easy, and he spends an enormous amount of time doing review (like convergence in probability/distribution) and examples during lecture. Sometimes I found myself sleeping through ~50% of lecture and waking up with Saegusa still working on the same problem he started during the start of class. I think if you read the textbook, you can probably skip class. Make sure you do the homeworks, since the exams are the same questions with the numbers changed around. Recommend Jian Xu over him, if not for a (slightly) more engaging experience, going over more material", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-26T23:01:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'course': 'STAT420', 'review': "His teaching is okay in class. In office hours, he's really condescending and makes you feel stupid for asking him to re explain things from class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-09-11T22:41:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'course': 'STAT420', 'review': "I've been on the fence between one and two stars for a while, but what pushed me over the edge was Professor Saegusa's inconsistent (and quite frankly, insensitive) homework spacing. Professor Saegusa is barely able to communicate any of the material, and when he does, it is often a proof irrelevant to the homework/tests or a theorem riddled with typos. Don't get me wrong, I like math, but I only want to see the underlying theorem if the professor is capable of communicating the material relevant to homework/tests in the remaining time, and he simply isn't.\r\nHis tests frequently came with a massive time crunch that left the entire class scoring poorly. Despite this, he only curved one of our exams. I am not salty about a poor grade, in fact I am doing well. Rather, this fits into a constant pattern of him being insensitive about the time we need to do things, be it taking or scanning a test, or going from spacing his homeworks once every three weeks to once a week. That last thing really got on my nerves: his homeworks tend to take 5-10 hours, and there were a few weeks where I did not budget time for them, only to find out Tuesday that we had a homework due Friday. This was incredibly inconsiderate of our time; if you want to go from giving homework once every three weeks to once a week, the students need more of a heads up. He isn't necessarily mean, just inconsiderate.\r\nEssentially, if you decide to take Professor Saegusa, know that you will be teaching yourself much of the material, that he will assign homework inconsistently but frequently, that his tests are on a huge time crunch, and that his slides are riddled with typos. Do not recommend, though I know (sadly) that both of the STAT420 options aren't good ones.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-04T13:12:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'course': 'STAT420', 'review': "Saegusa does a poor job of explaining the material in class. He assigns long homework's that most of the class doesn't understand and is often unhelpful during office hours. He also threw the whole class off with a final nothing like what we'd seen previously, so much of the class dropped at least a letter grade, myself included. I'm only giving him 2 stars because I passed even though my grade was basically nuked down to a D+ by his insane final. I had a solid B before hand, so it's not like I had been struggling. Also he may curve on one exam but refuses to curve the overall grades in most cases. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-05-18T03:53:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'course': 'STAT420', 'review': 'My goodness. I certainly hope that Professor Saegusa\'s performance this semester was just because he was under the stress of the pandemic, but this course was just horrible. The lectures were quite horrid. He spent many weeks on reviewing material from a previous course and spent time complaining on what little time we had left. He spent an excessive amount of time on proofs which never came up again (I would not have minded such proofs if he backed it up with conceptual questions in homeworks/exams that required an understanding of how one proves a particular theorem). One could also expect a typo in his slides in nearly all his lectures. These time-wasting lecture practices lead to the course not covering all the material it planned to cover. \r\n\r\nThe workload for this class is far too much. This is the first semester where most of my classes were 400-level courses, and this course alone consisted of most of my workload in a week. On exams, the professor expects you to answer formally as though you were writing a paper. He insists that you explain each variable that you use despite some variables in statistics being conventional. In addition, the questions on exams were computationally intensive which made the exams very difficult to finish on time and gave you many opportunities to make mistakes. His grading is also quite unforgiving in terms of mistakes made during computation. \r\n\r\nThe professor\'s native language is not English, and I personally understand the difficulties that come with that. One of these difficulties is determining whether what is said, despite its truth, will come out as rude or condescending. Regardless, the professor said the things he said. He often says that topics are "easy" despite his students not having had the time to process the information. And so, he claims that a topic is easy while his students struggle. After a bad class result on an exam, at least in his perspective (The average was a C-), he said that students should "improve their learning skills." And during the class in which he went over this exam, the professor did not go over a question as it was "too easy." Beyond these examples, he can come off as quite condescending to students.\r\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-05-23T01:01:26Z'}], 'name': 'Takumi Saegusa', 'slug': 'saegusa'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL206', 'ENGL211', 'ENGL255', 'ENGL202', 'ENGL296', 'ENGL393'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tamar Leroy', 'slug': 'leroy'}, {'courses': ['INST632', 'EDCI687', 'EDCI788Q', 'EDCI697', 'EDCI611', 'INST652', 'INST362', 'INST810', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST899', 'TLPL788Q', 'TLPL702', 'TLPL708B', 'INST490', 'INST352', 'INST228', 'INST367', 'INST228'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tamara Clegg', 'course': 'INST362', 'review': 'I DO NOT recommend you take this professor. Too much busywork during lectures. Forces you to have mini-group work acitivities where alot of people are either not interested in activity or don\'t understand the concepts because the professor went over them too quickly. Forces students to participate ALOT more than other professors and makes students get a webcam + mic for online class when it\'s not really necessary for all but one group activity. This is a pain for students just taking her course as a major requirement. She wants webcams turnt on 100% of them time to make students hold each other "accountable" and to make the learning experience better. The webcams " mandatory always on" policy has not helped students learned better and has annoyed students more than anything else. Quizzes have questions on the minute details of the readings. Finally she does have mid-semester evaluations, where she gets evaluations from students but she has not really listened to the major complaints the class has and insists that she knows her way of running the class is the best.\r\n\r\nOverall I feel like she is treating her students more like highschoolers than college students because she is doing alot of things highschool teachers do to their students. College students should have the freedom to participate as much as they want in their courses.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-11-18T23:54:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Tamara Clegg', 'course': 'INST362', 'review': 'I 100% recommend you take Dr. Tammy for INST362. She is always very energetic and outgoing in lectures keeping you engaged with class activities within the lectures and we do a lot of simple group work. Quizzes are fairly simple and straight to the point aswell. This class is fun and very interested. You will learn very useful information.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-03T14:40:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Tamara Clegg', 'course': 'INST362', 'review': "Expect an A in the class as long as you pay attention to her lectures and course assignments. She's great.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-22T00:48:58Z'}], 'name': 'Tamara Clegg', 'slug': 'clegg'}, {'courses': ['JOUR200', 'JOUR201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tamara Cooke Henry', 'slug': 'henry_tamara_cooke'}, {'courses': ['ENES114', 'ENES213', 'UNIV100', 'ENES214', 'ENES113'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tamara Fuller', 'slug': 'fuller_tamara'}, {'courses': ['MATH220', 'MATH131', 'MATH868D', 'MATH868C', 'MATH740', 'MATH135', 'MATH437', 'MATH742', 'MATH661', 'MATH299G', 'MATH401', 'MATH430'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tamas Darvas', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': 'Great prof. Exams are just like homework problems, and he has a great personality', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-18T05:28:49.064497Z'}, {'professor': 'Tamas Darvas', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': 'The course is easy and Prof Darvas explains the material well. I would recommend him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T19:59:40.820547Z'}, {'professor': 'Tamas Darvas', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "Tamas is the GOAT! Take him- exams are pretty similar to the homeworks and the final was a combination of the first two exams plus a couple more questions at the end. They weren't too difficult although they were computationally heavy. Homeworks were not that bad and could be done in a couple hours (very Matlab heavy). Pretty much just learn the process for each topic and be able to reproduce it to do well in the class. Also a really fun guy and made me want to come to lecture even though the content he covered in class went over my head most times.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-04-04T20:19:40.612473Z'}], 'name': 'Tamas Darvas', 'slug': 'darvas'}, {'courses': ['BSCI202', 'CLFS609I', 'CPSP219L', 'BSCI103', 'BSCI447', 'CPSP218L', 'HESP305', 'BSCI222', 'BSCI279P', 'ENTM740', 'ENTM769', 'BSCI279T', 'BSCI361', 'HONR289A', 'BSCI103M', 'ENTM701', 'BSCI202', 'BSCI155', 'BSCI202', 'ENTM710', 'HESP305', 'BSCI202', 'BSCI447', 'BSCI222', 'BSCI202', 'BSCI447', 'BSCI202', 'BSCI447', 'BSCI202', 'HESP305'], 'average_rating': 2.9583, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr. O'Brien is very kind and wants to make sure you understand the material. Her exams are very conceptual, try to understand the bigger picture when studying, and then focus on the smaller details. She has past exams uploaded, they are very helpful and gives you a sense of what to expect for the exam. Lots of extra credit opportunities. Lab practicals are also very conceptual. Make sure you understand how different systems connect, and you will get an A!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-06-03T15:39:32Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'HESP305', 'review': "Wonderful lecturer - very intelligent and has interesting things to add about the lecture. She is super nice about grading and permitted students to turn in homework a little after it was due. \r\n\r\nI wish there was a better way to take notes in this class. She asks you to print out each lecture's PPTs, which feels expensive and wasteful, and typing on the PDF is simply less effective for note taking. I wrote the slide page number in the margins of my notebooks and took notes per slide, but that was cumbersome. Perhaps 2 PPTs, 1 super in depth and 1 more basic, would be good. However, this does stop you from needing to buy the textbook! I wish she had said in the syllabus or at the first lecture that we didn't NEED it so I could have saved money but it's really nice that she does that. \r\n\r\nI liked the group project (group of 4-5, short presentation) and the muscle quizzes (8 of them, do them on your own time, 5 attempts per) but did not love the Tuesday quizzes. They were sometimes a little too hard or very specific even though she lets you have a 3x5 card for each quiz. \r\n\r\nYou're allowed an 8.5x11 in sheet of paper (front and back, handwritten) for each exam. Exams vary - you need to have the big picture of concepts. Know vocab, even the stuff she didn't really emphasize in class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-11-29T04:22:01Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "Dr. O'Brien is very entertaining and outgoing. It's an easy class to participate in and she's very easy to talk to. This makes it really easy to get a letter of rec as long as you go to her office hours and participate she'll write you one. \r\nI personally did not see her intelligence come through in this class. Everything was prepared in advance and the material was repetitive to a fault. She doesn't give any info outside of the slides which makes paying attention in class difficult. There was very minimal critical thinking in this class and I found myself on cruise control for majority of it. But the material was interesting and it's easy to do well.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-01T21:20:17Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'HESP305', 'review': "The lecture videos were very fast paced and a lot of information gets covered in each so I had to watch them more than once which took up a lot of extra time. All of the info for the quizzes comes straight from the textbook so unfortunately it was a necessary purchase. A lot of study time was required to do well on the exams even though they are open note because of the time limit. If you're a HESP major, you have to take this class so just get through it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-19T15:54:09Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Good lecturer. One thing that really made me not rate her higher was her lack of empathy. Taking an online exam I accidentally hit the "submit" button instead of the "next page" button and she would not allow me to reopen the exam. Ended up losing out on like 30 points from an exam and she could not have cared less. Totally ruined my grade for the class. I understand that its a large class and that catering to every student may be difficult, however it still sucks that the one time I needed to ask her a question all year, she blatantly disregarded me and refused to help.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-22T17:38:53Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr. Obrien was pretty solid. Had her for online asynchronous BSCI222 and she made it pretty easy. She covered all the material in her lectures instead of requiring text book reading. There were also a lot of light assignments that give you the opportunity to boost your grade, and there's enough of them that if you miss some assignments it balances out. I straight up didn't do like 10 assignments and was still able to get an A which is really awesome. As long as you take notes and pay attention to class it should be pretty smooth sailing. She also gives practice questions for pre test review which are very helpful.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-01T16:26:50Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Best professor ever! She taught with Dr. StLeger and they were a dynamic duo!! Loved them! She gives you literally everything you need and more to succeed and her office hours were so amazing. 11/10 recommend!!! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-07-06T04:57:16Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'HESP305', 'review': "Dr. O'Brien is a fast talker, and might catch you off guard with her banter at times. Nevertheless, she provides you will all of the information needed to succeed in this course. For weekly quizzes, she will allot you a filled out 3x5 note card, and for exams you are allowed a hand written front and back piece of notebook paper. The only thing I did not like is that the exam questions were more in depth than the weekly quizzes. Otherwise, the grade is there for the taking as long as you put in the work. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-21T19:01:57Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'HESP305', 'review': 'She was very nice and responsive as well as accomodating throughout the semester. However, I felt the depth of information she gave was too much for an undergraduate class. At times it felt like I was in medical school and I found some of the info to be too in depth or not relevant/repeated. She reads directly from slides, so I didn’t even bother taking notes and did fine. The tests are pretty challenging, and we had a 3rd test 10ish days before our final which felt like too much. The information on tests and quizzes was weirdly specific and would focus on one small topic in depth, but if you make a sheet or note card you will be good. For essay questions, she said not to use word for word from slides, but takes off points if you put it in your own words. Overall my hardest HESP class yet but very rewarding. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-25T07:17:40Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "BSCI447 is a real brick of a class. With that said, Dr. O'Brien was a great instructor and made success reasonably obtainable. As long as you attend lecture, engage in the discussion and go to office hours as needed it should be a relatively alright time. I write this with respect to how my peers did in the same class with other professors and Dr. O'Brien for sure seems like the best option. Beyond leading a good class and teaching a hard subject well, she was very personable and communicative during the semester, something that is for sure not a given at the higher level BSCI classes. I would definitely recommend her for 447.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-06T19:23:40Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'HESP305', 'review': 'I found this class to be extremely stressful. Quizzes were weekly and only 5 questions (10 points total) so if you missed one question it did drop your grade some. Most of the content on the small quizzes consisted of 50 slides at least, which was very hard to put into a 3x5 notecard, even when I was paying attention. Like another comment stated, it felt like so much of the information I would never think to use again as it seemed more medical than anything. At times it felt more like Biology class than what my major is. Her teaching style was very difficult to follow as she read directly from the slides and only stated a few examples here and there. For her exams, there were extremely specific and in depth. Most of the exams I got an average of an B/C due to short answers on exams. I also found that the short answers that if you didn’t write what was in the notes you got points off, but if we did write directly from the notes you got points off because it was said to be plagiarizing. The thing that allowed me to get an A- was mainly due to doing well on the weekly quizzes and doing well on the final exam, though it was cumulative but I got lucky with my one piece of paper. Overall, the teaching style was just not fit for me and was overall just a lot of information that seemed to be too much. (This was also in-person)', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-10T23:54:58Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': 'Class is manageable, memorize the power points and you’ll do fine but the teacher herself is very rude. Don’t expect to get any help given the fact that she talks behind her students that receive lower scores. Not sure why she became a teacher given her outlook on receiving help and education.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-05T21:28:12Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': 'Great professor, I was worried because of the other reviews but she really cares about this class and her students. She gives snacks on exam days and lets you get 10 extra points for doing exam reviews. She gives LOTS of extra credit during lectures and on the exams and lets you drop a few assignments if you missed them. The class was tough and I had to study A LOT but it was worth it for the exams. Overall I would recommend her for sure. Everything you need to know for the exam she goes over in her lecture and her slides. (The practice exams help a lot!)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-11T01:56:34Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI447', 'review': "Pros: \r\nIs this class manageable? Sure. The real key to doing well in this class is just making flashcards of every single thing on her powerpoints. She takes everything directly from her powerpoints, in a lot of cases word for word. Sometimes even what seem like really small details will be on quizzes. I appreciate that she has assignments other than the exams and I also appreciated that we only had two exams. There's a lot of information to take in (11 topics, roughly 80-90 slides per topic).\r\n\r\nCons:\r\nDespite many positive reviews, I actually found Dr. O'Brien to be quite rude. She was dismissive of questions that she felt had obvious answers. I also thought it was overkill for her to give people different questions for exams, even though we all took exams in person. For one, I feel like it would be pretty hard to cheat when you're sitting in the classroom and she's straight watching everyone, some questions could work on one persons strengths and not another persons. That said, the distribution of questions is totally random, so it probably balances out. She also doesn't curve. Now, is it possible to get an A without the curve? Absolutely, but I feel like in a class where none of our exams had a high score of 100%, that doesn't totally make sense.\r\n\r\nOverall, if you are taking this as an elective, there are benefits in terms of medical school preparation (if that's the path you're going down), but there are many easier electives that I would've chosen first had I gotten the chance fit them into my schedule/gotten higher priority during scheduling. I probably wouldn't recommend this class or professor to my friends if they didn't absolutely have to take it.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-14T19:52:56Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': 'Doctor Obrien fails to understand life outside of the classroom. During the semester things happen outside of school that are not within our control. I have had countless family issues which greatly affected my performance within the class and i have tried countless times to justify myself but it just felt as if there was no remorse at all. Its always just "no", here is the UMD counseling if you need help. There was never a moment when she would try to understand where I am coming from. I found it frustrating because at times I felt hopeless in the class. But I guess it just doesn\'t matter because I am a college student and feelings dont necessarily matter.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-11-27T21:05:37.065105Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'HESP305', 'review': 'I found the class takes a lot of time and dedication, but is very doable. The weekly quizzes are five questions, and you get to bring a handwritten notecard. At the start of the year, there are weekly group assignments that help you prepare for exams. Then, at the end of the year, there are group presentations, which are straight forward if you follow the guidelines, and there is the chance to give feedback to the groups in class for points. I felt the exams (there is 3 and a final) were very tight on time, but they were strictly on the content covered in the class. For the exams (including the final), you get to bring a handwritten piece of paper, which can take a long time to make, but I found the time I spent on the sheets was worth it and important to succeed in the class. Overall, I thought the class was very satisfying, as I learned a lot and was able to do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-23T01:41:40.160602Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "I wanted to give you a zero but that's not possible so I give you a one. \r\n\r\nProbably the worst professor I've ever had.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-22T19:18:31.191796Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "I wanted to give you a zero but that's not possible so I give you a one. Probably the WORST professor I have ever had. She is not understanding at all and seems to lack the ability to act like an adult.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2023-01-22T19:20:17.593968Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Overall, I think that taking a class with Dr. O' Brien is a pretty solid decision. She drops a decent amount of assignments and assignments tend to be pretty relevant to the lecture. I took this asynchronously over winter break, and it was really manageable. She posts everything early, so if you start the class around a week early, it makes the class extremely easy. You are graded on posting unique discussion questions / answers and can have those done by literally the first week since she drops so many of them, and if you start those early, you don't have to worry about having no answerable questions left in the discussion board. Her lecture quizzes are HARD due to the tight time limit, and can tend to be inconsistent in difficulty. The expectations however are consistent throughout the whole class and overall it was a pretty easy 4 credits for three weeks of work.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-28T20:39:24.814854Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Just awful. Unavailable, unwilling to help, and a nasty attitude to top it off. I woke up each morning dreading the day ahead. Cannot believe UMD allows professors of this horrendous quality. Do NOT take.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-02-04T02:47:03.324460Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI202', 'review': 'Worst professor I’ve ever had by a mile', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-23T13:09:55.213955Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'My mental state literally depleted due to this course— not only was Dr. O’Brien unavailable to students, whenever someone tried to make contact with her, her replies would have 0 empathy. Whenever there was an issue in the class, rather than solving her reply would be “we’re all adults” and to learn to just handle the situation. Not to mention, her exam averages would always be around the 50s, yet she provided no curve for the course, and rather only some meager bonus points that in the end had barely any effect on the damage those exams would do to the rest of the class. I dedicated 30-40 hrs a week towards this course, too bad Dr. O’Brien couldn’t spare even some\r\nempathy for her students.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2023-02-27T21:12:39.395981Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Very rude, short, not understanding, not empathetic. Get ready to race to answer discussion questions since she lets students only type “hello” until they decide to finish answering the discussion question. (You’ll see) Claims she allows us to start early but opens the course while we’re literally taking finals. I’d give 0 stars if I could. Talks super fast in lecture recordings and is just pressed and over the top…also has the nerve to teach a class as hard like genetics and doesn’t offer a curve. There are assignments dropped but the assignments that are dropped barely hold any weight compared to the exams.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2023-03-01T19:42:51.932616Z'}, {'professor': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'course': None, 'review': 'Awful awful awful Professor. Has no regard for her students, no care about their success. Literally sets the course up for your failure with fast-paced lectures, graded discussions that depend on whether or not you can reply on a post when there are an uneven amount of students in the class, and basically implies that you are dumb if you don’t understand something. Please why is she even a professor I don’t know.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-06T20:16:40.933355Z'}], 'name': "Tammatha O'Brien", 'slug': "o'brien_tammatha"}, {'courses': ['ENGL689', 'ENGL498'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tania James', 'slug': 'james_tania'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688C', 'RDEV350', 'RDEV688I', 'RDEV688Z', 'RDEV450', 'RDEV688T', 'RDEV471', 'RDEV689B', 'RDEV600', 'RDEV690', 'URSP705', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV690', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV690', 'RDEV690', 'RDEV689Y', 'RDEV690'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tanya Bansal', 'slug': 'bansal'}, {'courses': ['ANTH220', 'ANTH222', 'ANTH323', 'ANTH323', 'ANTH323'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tanya Icaza', 'course': 'ANTH323', 'review': 'Answering as a freshman connection student. It\'s been one month and so far it\'s been good. This class is reading and discussion heavy, and we had occasional papers to write (basically not a lot of work so far). She is also really educated and is a great teacher, but the class usually turns into a long Q&A session for questions that can be answered on google. But either way she explains everything really well. She is also very supportive of her students, and is the "if you don\'t ask for anything, you won\'t get anything" type. If you need help, ask. If you need support, ask. If you need extension, ask. Early. Class is very straighfoward. Put in a effort and you should be fine. No exams/final as far as I know.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-10-11T20:36:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Tanya Icaza', 'course': 'ANTH323', 'review': "Professor Icaza is one of those professors where you can tell they genuinely and truly care about not only the subject they are teaching, but the learning and general well-being of their students. ANTH323 was an EXTREMELY interesting class, especially during the time of Covid. This class was essentially a public health class, but viewed from an Anthropological perspective, which was fascinating and made it really fun to learn about. During the class each week, we would have discussions on the readings (which were really interesting, shoutout to Cholera), and discussion was based around the questions that our peers asked and bouncing off of that. There were weekly 10-point online quizzes, which were easy if you payed attention in class and did the readings. There were a few papers, assignments, and a large group paper/presentation, but nothing too hard. I really encourage students of any and all majors to take this course, especially as it is so relevant right now. I am coming out of the class really feeling like I not only learned about the material, but learned how to ask meaningful questions and reflect on my studying. I really hope I get to take another class with Professor Icaza again, she's seriously the best and so understanding. Gives off cool aunt energy. Overall, if you have a chance to take this course or any course with her, take it!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-09T20:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tanya Icaza', 'course': 'ANTH323', 'review': "She is a great professor who tries to make lectures engaging. The workload isn't too much. The papers written are done in groups of around four. The average lecture consists of answering questions that students have, lectures are heavily based on the previous nights reading. There is a lot of chances to improve your grade, the weekly 10 points quizzes are easy if you payed attention in class. The class is easy as long as you do the work. She greatly cares about her students and provides useful feedback on assignments. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-16T02:36:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Tanya Icaza', 'course': 'ANTH323', 'review': 'Grades prospectus: An easy A+\r\nIf you put in the work for this class (and it\'s not even that much) this class is an easy A+. Grades come from weekly quizzes that you can control F the textbook for word for word half the time, in class participation (just attend and talk once per class) and a couple major papers. Feedback is very clear on the papers so while you may perform poorly on the first one, really take that feedback in, go to office hours, etc. and you can easily get an A average on those papers. One caveat is that the latter half of the course is group papers so you may need to do extra work because she "balances" groups so you are always ensured at least one person who does little to no work. She does somewhat take into account your work though and may raise your grade if you do more work than your teammates. \r\n\r\nEnjoyability Prospectus: B+ (Your mileage may vary):\r\nI think to a large extent this depends on your interest in the topic. As someone who has no particular interest in public health this wasn\'t exactly the most invigorating topic which made it a bit difficult to stay engaged in lecture and textbook readings (to be frank I didn\'t read the textbook). Prof Icaza is not a dry lecturer however and interacts with the class to a great extent so if this topic is interesting for you, this class is perfect. On the plus she also teaches various college skills on paper writing, citation, organization, etc. in addition to the basic pub health content as she is well aware of the FC nature of the class. Big props to her for that.\r\n\r\nOverall this course was a low work, relatively enjoyable course. If you need the credits this is a fantastic class with a good prof. I highly recommend', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-15T08:00:45.321801Z'}], 'name': 'Tanya Icaza', 'slug': 'icaza'}, {'courses': ['MATH113', 'MATH140'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tao Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_tao'}, {'courses': ['EDCI281', 'EDCI697', 'EDCI788F', 'EDCI776', 'EDCI792', 'TLPL774', 'TLPL788E', 'EDCI788E', 'EDCI788O', 'TLPL788N', 'TLPL792', 'EDCI898', 'TLPL788L', 'TLPL788L', 'TLPL774', 'TLPL788E', 'TLPL788N', 'TLPL792', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL774', 'TLPL788E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tara Brown', 'slug': 'brown_tara'}, {'courses': ['EDCP318V', 'UNIV100V', 'UNIV100V', 'UNIV100V'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tasha Vanterpool', 'slug': 'vanterpool'}, {'courses': ['AMST101', 'AMST203'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tatiana Benjamin', 'slug': 'benjamin'}, {'courses': ['GEOG376', 'GEOG476', 'GEOG748M', 'GEOG472', 'GEOG372', 'GEOG671', 'GEOG601', 'GEOG788D', 'GEOG201', 'GEOG211', 'GEOG798', 'GEOG798', 'GEOG798', 'GEOG798', 'GEOG798'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tatiana Loboda', 'slug': 'loboda'}, {'courses': ['INFM600', 'INFM612', 'LBSC770', 'INFM714', 'LBSC670', 'INFM732', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST715', 'INST335', 'INST612', 'INST408K'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Taverekere Srikantaiah', 'slug': 'srikantaiah'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM450'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Taylor Hahn', 'slug': 'hahn_taylor'}, {'courses': ['BULM720', 'BMGT478B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Taylor Wilkerson', 'slug': 'wilkerson'}, {'courses': ['HONR269T', 'HONR278G', 'GVPT289D', 'HNUH249P', 'HNUH249P'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Temim Nusraty', 'course': 'HONR278G', 'review': "This course is definitely lecture heavy, and you don't need the book. Lectures are usually long and boring, but the glass is easy and everyone will do well, whether you have background in government and politics or not. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-09T22:10:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Temim Nusraty', 'course': 'HONR269T', 'review': "I came into this class knowing absolutely nothing about Afghanistan, and I came out of it with a solid grasp of its history. I usually don't enjoy history classes, but this one was quite unique as we examined current events. We met with students in Kabul, Afghanistan, and that was pretty awesome, and he has some great guest speakers come in to talk. This class has an easy workload (just keep up with the readings), and it has an extremely unique aspect in terms of learning about the current situation in Afghanistan. This was by far my most interesting and instructive class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-16T15:11:10Z'}], 'name': 'Temim Nusraty', 'slug': 'nusraty'}, {'courses': ['ENME489Z', 'ENPM671', 'ENME670', 'ENES220', 'ENME808G', 'ENES602', 'ENES220', 'ENME400', 'ENME670', 'ENES220', 'ENME670'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Teng Li', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Lectures aren't very engaging and he tends to go super fast through examples and theories. Class wasn't very hard if you make sure you understand the homework, studio problems, and practice exam problems. I studied a few days before each test and got an A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-04-18T22:46:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Teng Li', 'course': 'ENME400', 'review': "In regards to ENME 400, Dr. Li was not the best for this course. Dr. Li taught 400 similar to ENES 220 (mechanics 2), but that made the course more confusing. Dr. Li uses power points to cover content, but that was not the most beneficial as he sped through the content while students were writing stuff down still. Utilizing TA office hours was the best way to learn the content. Homework and group project assignments were hard, but the TAs were helpful. In regards to the project, if you have a bad group, it will be really hard to do well on it. BE SURE TO HAVE A GOOD GROUP! In regards to exams, Dr. Li's exams were easy as they mirrored his review sessions, but Dr. Li solves problems differently than how the homework would be solved. \r\n\r\nIf possible, choose Dr. Thamire for ENME 400 to better understand the content for this course.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-25T17:51:16.346894Z'}], 'name': 'Teng Li', 'slug': 'li_teng'}, {'courses': ['MATH213', 'MATH140', 'MATH113', 'MATH115', 'MATH246', 'MATH141', 'STAT400', 'MATH240', 'MATH241', 'MATH131', 'MATH241H', 'STAT464', 'MATH120', 'MATH310', 'MATH436', 'MATH461', 'MATH401', 'MATH410', 'MATH430', 'MATH695', 'MATH406', 'MATH274', 'MATH463', 'MATH246H', 'MATH240', 'MATH299R', 'MATH410', 'MATH695', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'MATH241', 'STAT410', 'SURV410', 'MATH246', 'MATH463', 'MATH462', 'MATH463', 'MATH206', 'MATH241', 'MATH695', 'STAT410', 'SURV410'], 'average_rating': 4.1739, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': None, 'review': 'Terence is a nice guy. He knows what he is teaching, and his class is good, never boring.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2016-12-19T18:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Terence was an awesome teacher. He is very passionate about math and it shows while he is teaching because he always goes out of his way to show you why something works or why a formula is the way it is. His class can get a little boring at times but overall he is a pretty good math teacher who wants you to get a good grade. He is awesome about giving you opportunities to bump up low exam grades with his grading system. \n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-09T12:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Terence is the trifecta for a great math teacher: he's enthusiastic about the material, he can explain the content in an easily digestible way, and is an overall friendly person. I highly recommend taking a class with him if you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-04-25T15:39:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': 'Amazing teacher. Great attitude. Straight forward grading policy', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-08-28T16:16:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Lazy ass fuck. Didn't post the final exam location up until the final day. Emailed asking a few questions never replied back. Mailed about make up exam cause I had another exam but never heard back. Stupid fuck", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-11T05:16:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Hilarious ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2018-12-12T06:37:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Great Lecturer. I was in FC though so he had no TAs so took a long while to grade exams. Didn't respond to emails, and when I ask . him if he recieved something of mine he sounded like someone pretending to know what an email was. You will probably have a 5 star experience if he has a TA for your section so your exam can be graded while TLong plays Quake.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-04-11T14:54:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Funny and easier than other professors', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-16T21:10:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Not a bad professor, but he can be very skimpy at times and go over difficult material very quickly. MATH241 is also heavily reliant on TAs so if you get a bad one you kinda get screwed, but he's a good teacher overall.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-05-24T20:46:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Funny, easy, good lectures', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-01T23:54:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH436', 'review': 'Dr. Long is a funny, intelligent and easy guy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-13T02:00:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH436', 'review': 'It is enough to say that Dr. Long is one of the best professors in the Math Department.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-02T17:20:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH436', 'review': 'Dr. Long is a very nice professor. His grading is clear.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-16T15:32:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "Terence was not my favorite professor, which is unfortunate because he has such high reviews so I had high expectations. My biggest gripe with him is that he lectures so slow, painfully slow. I understand that for some it's nice to have a slower paced professor so no one gets left behind, and Terence definitely does that. However, if you did understand the material the first or second time around, the third and fourth explanations aren't needed.\r\n\r\nThe slow pace of his lectures got to the point where we wound up 2-3 weeks behind Kendall Williams' 246 lectures (I know because my roommate took Kendall's section the same semester). \r\n\r\nThe benefit of this is that the final exam covers much less material because you don't get to cover as much in the class. The downside of this is that I feel like I didn't actually learn anything. Terence teaches in a way where he gives you the exact steps to solve any problem so you always get the right answer. But gives zero explanation as to why those are the steps we take. So you can mindlessly solve a problem but only because you've memorized steps and in reality have no idea what you're doing (reminiscent of high school for me).\r\n\r\nOverall the class with him is an easy A but you don't actually learn. So take him if you don't care for math and just need to pass to graduate or if you want to boost your gpa. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-06-04T17:47:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'He makes the course very manageable and tells the content as it is without unnecessary proofs and such. He is also personable and a very unique, laid back personality. Sometimes the lectures can get a little boring, but they cover the content needed to succeed on the exam well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-06-08T00:59:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Great professor. Funny, easygoing and full of energy. He explains the material very well and makes the class engaging. The exams are very fair and he always discusses what will be on them. You've still got to know your stuff but he makes it a lot easier to.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-10T18:51:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Dr. Long is a laid back, but captivating professor who teaches the material in a straightforward, clear way. The assignments and exams weren't tricky or confusing at all, and he made sure to be as accommodating as possible during the pandemic. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-25T05:25:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH461', 'review': "Terence is one of my favorite math professors at UMD. He explains concepts very well in a straightforward but easy to understand way and is accommodating to questions during lecture. He's laid back and reasonable with his expectations, overall a nice guy. Only downfall was that he could be hard to get in touch with outside of class or office hours.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-07T18:14:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH241H', 'review': 'Great professor! he explains everything very clearly and goes at a slower pace to make sure you really understand what you need to know for homeworks and exams. he doesnt give much hw which is so nice, and the exams are nothing crazy or far off from what weve learned in class. He is very straightforward. Also the TA is very understanding about extensions and I never stressed about this class. He made math stress free and fun ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-04-25T16:33:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Best professor ever! He is so nice and his lectures are great. Take him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-13T20:06:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH436', 'review': 'Lecture was straight from the book and not very inspiring which was disappointing since his PhD thesis was in differential geometry. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T00:22:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Very cool guy. Makes the lectures more digestible. Provided copies of the lectures on youtube. Fewer exams than some other professors. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-31T19:10:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Entertaining professor with very accommodating grade curves. He also cuts out a lot of extraneous/useless material from the course, definitely take his course if you want to learn what you need and have fair grading. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-02-02T17:46:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH430', 'review': 'He was an amazing teacher, all the content is from the book but he explains it in a very understandable way. Homework consistency is good and exams are very fair. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-03-09T17:06:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Very deceiving - he gently/heavily hints at exams being very similar to practice exams that he gives you, and then the actual exam is the practice exam ramped up\r\n\r\nif you ever have an issue, I swear on my life that he put a fake email in the syllabus, and will never ever never ever respond to anything if you don\'t directly go to him.\r\nHe has all his lectures on youtube though, and they are extremely helpful and match what he actually does in lecture, if you ever decide to go.\r\n\r\nAlso, he has absolutely no authority over the class. I physically could not attend lecture anytime after the second week because of how annoying people were in the class with calling out. Also, I know linear algebra comes pretty easily/quickly to some people, and Terence understands that, but if it doesn\'t come to you quickly, you\'ll go crazy. I felt like an idiot several times throughout the semester from him saying things like "you can clearly see this...", "this is trivial...", or he just won\'t explain somethings sometimes because he views everything as trivial, you know, since he is an entire professor and has been studying the same stuff for years straight...............\r\n\r\nContent wise, he\'ll give you everything you need, and the homeworks/matlabs were easy. Sanity wise, i feel insane', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-07T20:05:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "You get what you expect in Professor Long's class. He's a laid-back, cut-the-BS Professor who teaches you what you need to know. The exams are easy and the HW is light and reasonable. He gave a small curve at the end, which was nice. MATH240 is not the hardest class, and Long keeps it that way. Long is also pretty understanding if you have to coordinate things with him. Long is simply an all-around solid Professor who will get you through Linear Algebra. Good luck.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-09T23:44:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "He's a really good lecturer but I don't think he's ever answered anyone's emails, which can get annoying if you have a quick question/concern. Some of his exams were a little difficult but they were mostly on par with what we learned. The only thing I really struggled with was the T/F sections because they were solely based on theorems and memorization and applying them, and I'm not very good with that, especially since there are hundreds in the book.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-05-16T18:03:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Extremely chill professor. I love this man so much. There is very little homework, but the homework there is is very reasonable and fairly easy so long as you know what you're doing. There are some people who call out in class which can get a tad annoying, but all the lectures are recorded on his YouTube channel; so any time you want to skip and watch the lectures you can. You honestly wouldn't miss too much, but I do overall recommend going to the lectures. The practice exams are fairly close to the real exam, but don't go memorizing them specifically as they don't cover every topic in the testable section and he makes sure to put some of these topics on these tests. The only reason I didn't get an A in this class is completely MY fault as I didn't properly prepare for the exam. Terence is a GOD professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-19T19:46:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "A super chill down to earth guy! His exams include questions that are VERY similar to questions he gives you in lectures or homework, and overall his other assignments were straightforward and very doable. His grading policies are incredibly lenient, and if I'm being honest, you get what you get for a grade, especially given his generosity with grading. Linear Algebra is quite the new subject for anyone with experience with math from before, and I will say terence will teach it to you well if you're willing and apt to learn :).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-21T21:09:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'I have mixed feelings because I felt like I preferred my experience in math141 over Math240 simply because the exams in 240 had so many easy places to lose points. If you study ahead, his classes are very useful, but sometimes not as much if you didn’t. The textbook was so good for the class and he went directly off of it which helped. He also had easy hw and matlab projects but the timings felt rushed', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-21T21:12:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Terence is overall a good lecturer. Linear algebra can be hard for some people to grasp and sometimes he went through material fast, but he would go back and answer questions if you asked. His exams weren't that hard and he held review sessions on youtube and gave us practice exams too. He will never respond to his email though so you're better off going to your TA or Terence's office hours", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-25T12:30:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Terrence was not a bad professor. However, he don't respond to the emails. Also, he don't give homework at all, by which some people won't learn and won't have enough problems. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2022-08-08T20:18:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Terence is probably the best professor for Math240. He always wears shirts with wolves on them, drinks a Mountain Dew in every class, and always references old sci-fi media in his lectures. He's full of personality and passion but is also a really great lecturer. I've never felt lost in his class, though linear algebra concepts can be challenging at times. His exams are fairly similar to the practice ones, but they are a little challenging - especially considering how he doesn't give homework, and the only grades you get are three exams, two MatLabs (very easy), and ten quizzes (moderately easy). He does curve the class by replacing the lowest exam score with the final & dropping the two lowest quiz grades.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-02T01:05:33.704663Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "The class is terribly structured and the professor's lectures are not engaging. You are only graded on 3 exams, a final, 2 matlabs, and 10 quizzes (exams taking up the majority of your grade), and messing up on just one exam can affect your letter grade. Only take his class if you are capable of teaching yourself linear algebra. I had to rely on outside sources to understand concepts. Also, he does not respond to emails or he will respond super late.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2022-12-13T03:04:54.798395Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "i liked long's teaching and he explained everything pretty well, but the class wasn't well organized. there were no notes online, and i missed a week due to covid so it was a bit hard to catch up. also, he never answers emails and would constantly post homework later than he said he would. however, his tests were reasonable. \r\ntl;dr pretty good teacher, horrible organizer.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-18T05:29:44.670891Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Lectures are ok but his exams are written so poorly.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-20T20:39:51.562369Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': 'Very cool guy and standard lectures. Follows the textbook to a tea which is great if you fall behind in lectures or want more examples. Generous cutoffs with A being a 90%+ as well but I often found the lack of practice material before exams not great. Sure there was the textbook but there were plenty of examples that were too convoluted or too simple to show up on an exam. Other than that, Terence was great.\r\n\r\nIf you have the option, take Terence.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-20T21:53:17.190178Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': 'not organized at all, no online notes or recordings, but exams were very fair. the averages were all pretty high. there were like only 5 or 6 homeworks and they were all from the textbook. and then the grade cutoffs were pretty generous too. 90 was an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T16:26:14.120297Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Chill Prof but the exams were hard', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-29T05:20:47.581979Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Good luck trying to get in contact with this guy digitally, not gonna happen. People complain that the exams are too hard or don't reflect what we do in class, but they usually don't do the recommended homework. Our exams are the hardest compared to all the other professors, but he doesn't give A- compared to other professors. He also replaces your lowest exam grade with your final if it improves your grade. I'd say pretty solid professor, you just have to be on top of your own stuff.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-30T17:56:21.218225Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "Super chill and very approachable. His exams were as fair as they could be. Lectures directly followed the textbook. He may seem 'unorganized' but I don't think there would be a reason to be thrown off as long as you are able to keep up with the lecture content. He seemed to really care about the content that he taught. Overall a great learning experience. Easily made this into one of my favorite math/stat courses.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T00:46:37.047249Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'STAT410', 'review': "Lectures were straight from the textbook, and exams were fair. There were around 6 homeworks other than 2 midterms. He may seem unorganized, but I didn't see an issue as long as you were able to keep up with the lecture content (which was all again, straight up from the textbook). Very approachable, flexible and interactive. One of the most easy going experiences with a math/stat class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T04:31:49.663460Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Amazing lecturer. He is a child at heart and conveys things in a great manner. Make sure you go to lecture and really take good notes because some specifics that he mentions are very important for his exams and for the final. Some exams are tricky, but as long as you have a good idea of everything going on from a conceptual standpoint, you will be okay.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T07:13:14.202837Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Definitely a chill guy and fair exam maker. Straight from the textbook and no one gets A-'s which is cool.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2023-01-22T00:27:09.561455Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Terence is really chilled and interesting lecturer. He might not very organized with his notes, but he explains difficult concepts well. The quizzes and midterms are fair, but the final for Fall 2022 was more difficult that I thought. Overall, his class is good and I definitely recommend it.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-02-20T02:13:36.530940Z'}, {'professor': 'Terence Long', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "His lectures are disorganized and has messy handwriting during lectures, so sometimes it's impossible to understand what he wrote. He has online recorded lectures from COVID so I guess those helped a little. His exams are somewhat fair, but we had weekly quizzes in which it varied from TA to TA. I had to try to learn linear algebra by myself.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2023-03-29T04:59:57.809098Z'}], 'name': 'Terence Long', 'slug': 'long_terence'}, {'courses': ['EXST049C', 'EXST009E', 'EXST009F', 'EXST019C', 'EXST019J', 'EXST049P', 'COMM609N', 'COMM639N', 'COMM719F', 'COMM619N', 'COMM649N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Teresa Salazar', 'slug': 'salazar_teresa'}, {'courses': ['ARMY202', 'ARMY201', 'ARMY101', 'ARMY102', 'ARMY106', 'ARMY302', 'ARMY301', 'ARMY105'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Terrence McCall', 'slug': 'mccall_terrence'}, {'courses': ['EDCP318J', 'EDCP318P', 'HESI318J', 'HESI318P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Terry Zacker', 'slug': 'zacker_terry'}, {'courses': ['GEOG416'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tetsuji Tanaka', 'slug': 'tanaka'}, {'courses': ['PORT104', 'PORT228C', 'PORT204', 'PORT229A', 'PORT205', 'LASC248C', 'LASC248A', 'SPAN229A', 'SPAN798F', 'PORT221', 'SPAN798I', 'PORT228M', 'PORT405', 'PORT228D', 'LASC248B', 'FILM332', 'PORT207', 'PORT332', 'PORT408A', 'SPAN408O', 'SPAN609A', 'LASC448Y', 'LASC648Y', 'PORT103', 'CINE332', 'IMMR200', 'PORT205', 'CINE332', 'PORT332', 'PORT405', 'PORT203', 'PORT409A', 'SPAN609A', 'LACS448Y', 'SPAN408O'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thayse Lima', 'course': 'PORT203', 'review': 'Professor Lima is amazing!!!! She is so kind and made the class very enjoyable. She is definitely an engaging and thoughtful professor. 100% recommend if you are planning to take any classes in the Portuguese department.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-26T23:09:38.438920Z'}], 'name': 'Thayse Lima', 'slug': 'lima_thayse'}]
[{'courses': ['BCHM465', 'BCHM675', 'BCHM661', 'BCHM889A', 'BCHM465', 'BCHM675', 'BCHM465'], 'average_rating': 2.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Theodore Dayie', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': "Dr. Dayie's class was one of the best classes I've taken. He presents the material clearly and has a genuine passion for the material. However, the textbook is a really good reference if anything is unclear. Pretty much, the only homework he assigned were questions on certain journal articles you had to read. His exams were very fair and straightforward; there were some computation questions, which were easy points. Other questions would ask you to design or analyze a sequence. A lot of it was really asking you to apply some of the basic principles that he would go over in class. Overall, great professor and very approachable outside of class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-05-30T12:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Dayie', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': 'Horrible. Absolutely horrible.\n\r\nIf you are looking for a class in which:\r\n-The professor rambles on for 50 minutes every lecture, going off on wild tangents with no coherency or central point\r\n-The lecture slides are so horrendously prepared, that a three-year old could have organized them better\r\n-The exams are much more challenging than the lecture slides would indicate\n\r\n--then take this class. If you want a straightforward, engaging, and fair class, then BCHM465 with Dayie is not for you.\n\r\nThis class had so much potential--the material is inherently interesting, but Dayie bogs all of it down by emphasizing obscure papers from the 1950s and just throwing information at you with no conceptual framework in which to organize it.\r\nAvoid this class with Dayie if you can, you will regret taking this class with him.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-04-07T19:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Dayie', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': 'Content on exams and quizzes is literally taken from the study guides he gives out a few days before assessments, so it can be hard to stay motivated to actually learn the content. His slides are disorganized, and he can be a little slow and easily confused. He seems friendly and nice, but he can also be ignorant and rude.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-01-28T21:35:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Dayie', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': 'Not an organized person. Did not go into depth on the actual biochemical processes, but instead rather focused on the history and the scientists that made the discoveries. Slow grader and makes the class extremely boring despite the challenging and interesting potential of this course.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-19T04:01:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Dayie', 'course': 'BCHM465', 'review': "Every class is structured differently and I think the assessments are appropriate for the content of the course. It is an 8 am class, which is difficult. However, the slides contain the information sufficient to pass an assessment. The quizzes keep students on their toes. The homework and literature provide insight into how things were discovered. An earlier comment complained about the history of discoveries but I think the consensus is that it helps with remembering the content. It's not content that we should memorize and forget. It is a 400-level Biochemistry course that discusses nucleic acid research and applications. Professor Dayie is a lovely person and it may take him a while to grade assignments (on his own), but you can tell that he is really passionate about nucleic acid biochemistry. If you just want an 'A', you'll have to approach this class with an open mind. I wish I had put more effort and time into the material but as a BCHM or nutrition science major, you might not have that luxury with a rigorous schedule (hence my 'B'), but I am happy with that grade nonetheless. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-06-08T20:55:35Z'}], 'name': 'Theodore Dayie', 'slug': 'dayie'}, {'courses': ['PHYS603', 'PHYS404', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS115', 'PHYS174', 'CHPH718A', 'CHPH718F', 'PHYS838A', 'PHYS420', 'PHYS106'], 'average_rating': 2.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "I don't pay attention in class much and I generally get by with discussion and with the textbook. I also had friends in the class to study with. \n\r\nI had to go to his lectures because he does clicker-like attendance. I'm mostly giving him a bad review because I didn't like that policy. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2015-12-07T21:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "He's nice and tells bad jokes but even our TA admitted he was a horrible lecturer. He mumbles and his handwriting is illegible so he's definitely not ideal for a lecture class with 200+ people.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-19T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'course': 'PHYS404', 'review': 'Prof. Einstein is incredibly nice, with a good sense of humor (dry, but he is funny). He compiles an excellent website chock-full of supplementary material.\n\r\nHowever, his lectures run very slowly and are quite dry. Much of the time, I am lost, and just mindlessly copying notes to hopefully understand later. His personal research focus is solid-state physics, and he states that he would do x "but this is not a solid-state physics course," yet often it seems as though there is a higher emphasis on solid-state things than there need be.\n\r\nIn short: great for supplementary material, horrible for primary lecturing.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-04T17:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'course': 'PHYS603', 'review': 'I posted the following critique to a tool we used to allow classmates to communicate with each other and Dr. Einstein about homework:\n\r\n"I have not been satisfied by the lectures thus far for the class. I thought it may be productive if there was some open conversation between the students that Dr. Einstein could see that might provide some constructive critiques about the lectures and suggestions for what changes we may like to see. Here are some notes I thought of today.\n\r\n-I would appreciate it if more attention was given to notation. Today you wrote on the board a function W without (as far as I could tell) saying what W was. Another example from today was <mathematical formula not shown here>, which to me was very confusing because I\'m not sure what was meant by the bar, which did not seem like standard use of notation to me.\n\r\n-I would appreciate it if the goals of the analysis were more explicit. I have heard "the game you play" or "what you have to do" followed by a short explanation of the next step in the analysis, but the reasoning behind that step or what it will get us on the way is often not explicit.\n\r\n-I have some difficulty understanding the motivation behind some of the goals of the analysis. Sometimes we will calculate the entropy or some other thermodynamic quantity of something, but the treatment is very abstract. While this affords a nice degree of generality, it is difficult to keep in mind what the quantities actually say about such an abstract system. It may be helpful to make references during calculations to a real physical system, even if it is just an ideal gas in a box or something of that nature.\n\r\n-There has not seemed to have been thus far much explicit coherence among the topics we have discussed, no obvious thread of commonality or narrative to the content. Right now as I feel as though my notes are a laundry list of facts that apply to particular systems under particular conditions. I can follow the calculations that lead to the results, but have little appreciation of the fundamental underpinnings.\n\r\nI hope that my classmates have additional comments to add that may be able to bring improvements to the lecture, and that Dr. Einstein will find these critiques helpful."\n\r\nThere was no response to the critique and no attempt to reform the lecture by Dr. Einstein. Attendance in the class was extremely poor, perhaps a quarter or third of students actually attended, and in class there was an atmosphere of tension and discomfort between the students and Dr. Einstein. The class in no way helped me understand any physics, just learn a bit about symbolic mathematical manipulation.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-23T15:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'course': None, 'review': "This class had some cool demostrations and was not too much work. We had weekly reaction papers, readings, 2 powerpoints and a final paper. We didn't have any test or quizes. He respects students opinions and wants to make the class enjoyable for us. I would recommend taking HONR228k.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-07T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'course': None, 'review': "Biweekly papers, and a huge paper and presentation. The class was overall boring but there were some pretty cool demonstrations. The entire last two months of class we spent listening to each other's presentations. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-05-18T14:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'course': 'PHYS404', 'review': 'Take a different class. He is absolutely incompetent at explaining things. Great guy, makes a lot of corny jokes, but cannot explain a thing.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-27T01:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'course': 'PHYS174', 'review': "He always gives lectures in a lab class that nobody pays attention to because out of the 10 minutes he spends talking, about 1.5 are actually relevant to that day's exercise, and then he gets annoyed when we don't know how to do something he never explained to us. He's also very condescending and not helpful at all when talked to in a one-on-one sense. The TA helped me in this class more than anything or anyone else. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-18T04:42:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'course': 'PHYS174', 'review': "Nice guy but a one credit lab shouldn't take so go damn long because you're waiting for him to walk around and check stuff off while his useless TA is equally as bad ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-04-16T17:18:15Z'}], 'name': 'Theodore L Einstein', 'slug': 'einstein'}, {'courses': ['PHYS410', 'PHYS104', 'PHYS675', 'PHYS624', 'PHYS623', 'PHYS779A', 'PHYS879J', 'PHYS402', 'PHYS879U', 'PHYS675', 'PHYS675'], 'average_rating': 2.875, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Theodore Jacobson', 'course': None, 'review': 'This was a miserable course. The material is hard and Jacobson is terrible at teaching the material. He often writes equations or notes on the board without explaining anything. He did curve a lot on the first exam but the average was still a B after the curve (because everybody did so poorly). The TA who grades the homework grades very hard so it is hard to do well on the homework as a grade boost. Do not take this class if you want an A', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-04-23T11:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Jacobson', 'course': 'PHYS411', 'review': "This was a really hard class. The material was very difficult. I'd like to say that this class was like a vector calculus boot camp. Problems commonly included partial differential equations, integrations in spherical/cylindrical coordinates, Legendre polynomials, Fourier analysis, and alot of other fancy stuff. The homework problems (from Griffiths) were long and tough, and Jacobson also created his own supplementary problems to add to the fun. They were actually sometimes easier than Griffiths'. \n\r\nOverall, Jacobson is a good lecturer. He presents the material quite well, and is very sharp when answering student qustions. If he can't properly address a student's question in class, he'll email the class later on explaining a concept. He is very nice and respectful of student concerns. Instead of just re-writing notes on the board, he actually interacts with student questions. He answers emails quickly. He does alot of interesting demos. His grading scheme is nice; grade is broken into 4 pieces: homework, midterm 1, midterm 2, and final exam (NOT cumulative). Your two best each count 35%, two worst are 15%. Very fair grading scheme. My only comment is that his final was really difficult, and I probably got like a 15% on it. Luckily, he seems to curve exams ...\n\r\nOverall, very fair professor. I may take PHYS410 this fall with him if I can fit it into my schedule. I'd recommend him. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-05-17T22:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Jacobson', 'course': None, 'review': 'Okay professor, honestly pretty boring. But if you need to take for a CORE take this class! Its an easy A with Jacobson, you can miss quite a few classes and still get an A. He curves A LOT and puts a lot of weight on homework. Go to the weekly homework sessions, they are one hour and the TA literally just gives you the answers and you will get an A.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-15T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Jacobson', 'course': None, 'review': "Nice guy and interesting class, although it is fairly time consuming if you want to do well and aren't scientifically inclined. He curves, since the whole class averages in the D range, prior to the curve, but we had a few obvious physics majors in the class who blew the curve since he averages the class to a B. Grades are 3 exams and weekly homework - my advice is to do put in the time to do well early with the home work and first few exams because the material gets harder. Fairly easy to get a B in the class, but it's hard to get an A.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-23T10:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Jacobson', 'course': None, 'review': "He's a nice guy and very reasonable, but honestly not the best professor. He's goes into much greater depth than he tests you on, and ends up confusing you in the process. You probably wont get an A.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-12T23:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Jacobson', 'course': None, 'review': 'really boring class\r\ndoes mainly demonstrations\r\nbut you can fall asleep very easily \r\ncurves tests', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-01T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Jacobson', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': "Jacobson gives way too much homework (expect to spend over 7 hours a week if you want to get above a 90), but I honestly thought he did a very good job of explaining the first 2/3rds of the content. Especially when we started going into Hamiltonian Mechanics, I struggled to follow what was going on in the homework and his supplied notes didn't help much. I did very poorly on the final even though I had the 3rd highest grade on the first exam. PHYS410 has a lot of great content by itself, and Jacobson tries to teach all of it and more, never skimping on homework along the way.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-06-10T23:05:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Jacobson', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': "I didn't do well because I am. Professor Jacobson is one of the best professors I had. He answers students' questions through piazza almost 7/24, and his lecture is unique and clear. He also gives you notes written by him, basically a textbook. Probably you find it is hard to read, by it is very concise and include everything you need for this subject(just need a full insight to read). is class is very challenging, don't take the class with him if you just want an easy A. But if want to learn some real physics, definitely choose him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-07-09T01:23:30Z'}], 'name': 'Theodore Jacobson', 'slug': 'jacobson_theodore'}, {'courses': ['PHYS625', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS161'], 'average_rating': 2.5882, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Very bad lecturer and professor in general. Spends the first 20 minutes of every lecture giving a terrible recap of all of the information from the previous 5 lectures and gets absolutely nowhere. Handwriting is atrocious and is hard to read even at the front of the room. Hard to understand in a large lecture as well. He does nothing but derivations which are nearly impossible to follow and his examples are equally if not more hard to follow because he literally makes them up as he goes. By the far the worst professor I have had thus far and do not recommend at all. Theodore, your grading system is awful as well. There's no way to tell if you are passing until the end of the semester when it's too late to fix anything ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-10-05T17:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Overall he is a good professor. His lectures can sometimes be slightly boring as he often spends long amounts of time working out practice problems that are hard to follow. However, he is a nice guy and he curves the exams, which are not very hard to begin with.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-11-02T15:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': 'Great teacher. Good with concepts. His handwriting can be difficult to understand though. Fairly average exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-02-18T13:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is literally one of the worst professors I have taken thus far in my academic career at UMD. He does not know how to teach, his handwriting is illegible and his grading system is based off of rank. As in, only 24% of the class can get A-s, As, and A+s.\r\nHe also states that F = ma literally EVERY LECTURE! It has been over two months and he continues to write this equation on the board. Kirkpatrick makes me very angry and his lectures are completely useless. He explains concepts poorly and I really want to drop the class, even though I am doing well. I do NOT recommend taking this professor!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-17T19:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS161', 'review': "Kirkpatrick is a fairly interesting teacher, although his lectures aren't really necessary to do well in his course. I mostly just read the textbook. The quizzes and tests were very straight forward.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-05T18:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'Dr. Kirkpatrick is overall a good professor and very reasonable. Yes he derives many equations using sometimes complex math but he is very willing to explain anything over and over until you get it. Also, this is physics so expect derivation in with any of the other professors. \n\r\nExams are not very difficult, do not be afraid. If you study lecture notes a little each day(go to TA or his office hours if you don\'t know a concept) and actually GO TO CLASS (which many people didn\'t after a while being a night class) you will be fine. He drops lowest test and gives a curve. 80\'s were around an A- to A. \n\r\nOverall, do not try to avoid, he is perfectly fine professor if you put a little work into the course.\n\r\nSide note: if you want to get the highest grades in the class then type in any subject gone over in class such as "Capacitors" into google with MIT lecture notes and then review those notes, you will get one of the highest grades. ex. "capacitors MIT lecture notes" good luck', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-06T00:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'He is not as completely awful as the other reviews make him seem. His homework is not on mastering physics which makes it easier. He tells you most of the questions that will be on the tests and lets you have a notecard...hence you can write down the problems. He also is a nice guy in office hours. Overall he is not terrible.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-12-21T12:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "He teaches a lot of senseless differential equations and proofs. He is boring, but he knows what he is teaching and is fair.\n\r\nHis tests are easy due to the fact that he tells us what is going to be on the test and we can use a note card. Most people cramp everything in the note card and get a decent grade on the exams. The quizzes in discussion were pretty hard at first, but then they just got to the point when it was easy math and plugging into equations.\n\r\nI believe he is blind from one eye, so if you sit on the left side of the lecture hall he will not see you. (I'm guessing his right eye is blind)\n\r\nHis experiments in class are really fun and you will probably learn a lot from them.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-01-26T15:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Dr. Kirkpatrick may use some complicated math in 260 lecture that a quarter of the class will know what it is, but he never requires any of it on the exams. The homeworks and quizzes aren't too bad, provided you study, and there are no pop quizzes so no surprises. He's incredibly knowledgeable and a nice guy. When people asked questions in class he was always willing and able to re-explain himself in order to help the students understand. All in all, he's a good professor; not great, but by no stretch terrible!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-10T21:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "I thought these reviews were a little misleading. He is not at all as bad of a teacher as everyone here claims. Yes, lectures sometimes involve proofs and derivations which can be difficult. However if you write down what he does on the board and just listen to what he says you will learn something. The tests can be really hard if you don't go to class or the review. In class he does examples which he warns may appear on the test in almost identical form. Going to the review also gives you almost everything that you need for studying including at least one identical problem.\n\r\nI enjoyed this class and I liked him as a teacher more than my other two physics teachers I had here. I'm done taking physics classes but if I had to take another one I would try to get in his class again.\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-21T00:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "He was a pretty bad teacher, and I usually left his lectures a little more confused than when I entered, but the class wasn't so bad. His tests didn't really cover any material you can't get out of the textbooks, and he pretty much gave away 1 or 2 questions on each test. I just studied from the textbook all semester and got an A.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-18T02:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'I didnt think he was nearly as bad as the other reviews made him seem. For starters, the class before a test, he basically tells you half the questions that will be on the test, so no excuse there. While he talks about diff eq, i never needed it. He asked for a proof here or there, but thats only because to prove it, you had use one of the concepts/equations in the chapter, so its fair game at that point. i never had to prove any of the fundamental equations in the chapters. oh, and he drops a test grade. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-08T00:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'HORRIBLE! taught with a lot of random proofs that are hard to follow since he used Diff Eqs extensively even though they were not required for the course. \n\r\nMassive curve at the end however. I flat out bombed the second test and final and still managed a B. Take anyone else.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-09-12T16:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "He's a horrible professor who lies to screw you over. Each lecture was 75 minutes of him writing cryptic proofs on the board that nobody understood because it contained a crap load of differential equations, which isn't even a prereq for the class. Like the other person said, he told us that we didn't need to understand the proofs just the general concepts, but the first question on the first exam asked for a series of proofs on oscillation. He also purposely designed the tests to be difficult so the class averages could be low. The test averages were in the 50s to low 60s. The book doesn't help either because his test problems aren't even like the book problems, even though he told us the test would have book-type problems. I don't know how I managed to pull off a B+ in the class but I wouldn't be surprised if I got a C because he purposely wanted people to do badly. Try to avoid him if you can. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-04-16T12:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "Agree wholeheartedly with person below me. terrible, terrible teacher. did a bunch of proofs involving god knows what, put one on the test and at least half the class got an F (not exaggerating). has the most ridiculous grading policy. purposely and knowingly makes his tests aggravatingly difficult (avg~60) and then expects to curve it to make it better. dont believe it. i got above the average on 2/3 tests, and he drops one; i did every homework/quiz and got an A in the lab class which is folded into your lecture grade. i ended up getting a C!!! biggest load of BS. and b/c of stupid phys dept policy, that means i got a c in the lab too. do not take him. i dont know who else you can take, b/c they all pretty much suck. oh and he's never in his office hours. the only plus is he doesnt use masteringphysics.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-04-14T02:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'The other two reviews for this class were right on point. He put a proof on oscillators on the first exam which no one could do being that differential eqns is not a prerequisite. I too got way above the average on 2/3 exams (like 70-80) and an A on the lab and still managed to pull a C. Definetly dont take him but between him and hill kirkp is the better choice. TRUST ME. Other than hill take any other professor over kirkp', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-12T00:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'Don\'t take his class!! Seriously, this class was such a bad experience. Kirkp spent most of the time doing weird proofs with differential equations that no one really followed. When asked if they were important he said that the class didn\'t need to know them...this turned out to be a complete lie because the first question of the first test was a paragraph asking for proofs using differential equations (which isn\'t even a prerequisite for this course). He read everything straight off of these yellow note sheets that he carried around and, when asked questions about what he was writing, occasionally would squint at them and then respond with an indifferent "I don\'t know." Learning out of the book isn\'t even an option because his test questions usually involve proofs that he does in class.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-09T19:34:00Z'}], 'name': 'Theodore Kirkpatrick', 'slug': 'kirkpatrick'}, {'courses': ['ENGL304', 'ENGL404', 'ENGL305', 'ENGL403'], 'average_rating': 4.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Theodore Leinwand', 'course': 'ENGL304', 'review': "I though that this teacher's expectations were too high, the reading was too demanding for me personally. If you have o take this class I recommend fining audio books on project Gutenberg. The only reason I took off stars was because my TA was unhelpful, and graded waaay to harshly. I'm not taking Shakespeare again. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-13T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Leinwand', 'course': 'ENGL304', 'review': 'to learn about the best, you need to learn from the best. \n\r\ndefinitely a favorite teacher. extremely engaging, great stories that relate to the class material, truly knowledgable about the crazy sexual/physical/theological controversies in shakespearean plays. \n\r\nworkload was not that of an easy A class, though it was relatively simple. approximately 7-8 plays, 300 word quiz on each play, two papers, and one easy final exam. final exam was very simple if you took good notes about what he said in class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-12T15:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Leinwand', 'course': 'ENGL304', 'review': "My favorite professor I've had at UMD so far! He's funny, provocative and makes the material relatable and come alive. I wasn't a huge Shakespeare fan to begin with, but he has made me love it and appreciate the plays more than I ever have before. Leinwand reminds me of why I became an English major. If you have the chance, take his class, you won't be sorry!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-05T00:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Leinwand', 'course': 'ENGL304', 'review': 'He was my favorite teacher of the semester. He was really engaging and his lectures were so interesting. I was intoxicated every class. He uses humor and his vast knowledge to engage the class. All you have to do is read the plays and pay attention in class. The final was directly from his lectures.\n\r\nOh, when I read the plays, I read them while I watched a performance online. It was much more helpful in my understanding. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-22T18:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Leinwand', 'course': 'ENGL304', 'review': 'Prof. Leinwand is very engaging, funny, knowledgeable, and insightful. His class was a pleasure to attend. The workload was not bad at all, and it was actually fun. The final exam was ridiculously easy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-21T19:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Leinwand', 'course': 'ENGL304', 'review': "Professor Leinwand is awesome. His lectures are exciting and informative. He is funny and makes the material easily understandable. \r\nThe class has a fairly light workload. You'll read about 7 plays during the semester and each one has a short 300 word take home quiz that's really easy if you do the reading. There are two papers and one pretty easy final. I'd definitely recommend this class. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-14T21:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Leinwand', 'course': 'ENGL304', 'review': "He's a great Professor. His lectures are very informative and interesting. The work load is perfect, hardly any work. Great class to take!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-03-02T20:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Theodore Leinwand', 'course': 'ENGL304', 'review': "This class was a wonderful experience! Professor Leinwand gave two background lectures on theatre in Shakespeare's time, and lectured on eight plays that the class read. His lectures were engaging and interesting. ENGL304 was my favorite class of the term.\n\r\nAssignments included reading the 8 plays, which was perfect and easy to keep up with, two papers, and a 300 word quiz on each play. \n\r\nI got a lot out of this course and the workload was very reasonable. Would definitely recommend! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-30T19:16:00Z'}], 'name': 'Theodore Leinwand', 'slug': 'leinwand'}, {'courses': ['ENGL301', 'ENGL408A', 'ENGL402', 'ENGL601', 'WMST408A', 'ENGL408B', 'ENGL699'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Theresa Coletti', 'course': None, 'review': "Really sweet lady and a good teacher. She had a lot of interesting things to say, I just wish they hadn't all been lectured. She showed us slides on a slideshow which was cute and I would definitely take another of her classes", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-04-23T16:48:00Z'}], 'name': 'Theresa Coletti', 'slug': 'coletti'}, {'courses': ['UNIV099', 'EDCP108I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Theresa Hale', 'slug': 'hale_theresa'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL272', 'ENGL271', 'ENGL280'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Theresia Pratiwi', 'slug': 'pratiwi'}, {'courses': ['COMM759', 'COMM798C', 'EXST028C', 'COMM669', 'EXST029A', 'COMM729C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Afton', 'slug': 'afton'}, {'courses': ['CCJS498E', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS370', 'CCJS451', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS451', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS451'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Alexander', 'slug': 'alexander_thomas'}, {'courses': ['PHYS270', 'ENEE680', 'ENEE380', 'ENEE380H', 'PHYS132', 'PHYS606', 'ENEE488', 'ENES601', 'PHYS761', 'ENEE681', 'ENEE489M', 'ENEE381', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE407', 'ENEE489J', 'PHYS761', 'ENEE681', 'PHYS761'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Antonsen', 'course': 'ENEE380H', 'review': "Antonsen was a good professor for the most part. His lectures tend to be boring but he's good at explaining the material if you manage to pay attention. The exams were alright, a combination of straightforward problems and ones we've never seen (but doable given the stuff he talked about in class). He curves generously in the end. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-31T02:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Antonsen', 'course': 'ENEE380H', 'review': "I took PHYS270 and ENEE380/380H with Dr. Antonsen. Physics was alright - the class itself is an odd mashup of material that was mostly very boring. Antonsen did a good job of making it bearable, often injecting humor into the giant 300 person lectures. \n\r\n380 was interesting and often very challenging - this semester the lecture was both honors and non-honors at the same time. The honors kids and regular students did exactly the same thing. I don't think I'd recommend taking this type of mixed class if you aren't doing honors - its just more challenging for non honors students who end up doing extra work they never signed up for. Antonsen was way more boring in 380 - maybe that's just the material though. \n\r\nDr. Antonsen is a good professor and a pretty solid choice for physics. Take Waks if you can for 380, though.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-13T00:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Antonsen', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "This guy isn't that bad when you get down to the root. This is his first semester teaching this course, so I don't know if he will teach it in the future.\n\r\nDr. Antonsen is actually from the Electrical engineering department, so what he is really good with in this course is explaining circuits. That was one of the concepts that I understood very easily, especially because he was able to explain it in such a clear way.\n\r\nExams were moderately difficult, just about as hard as a physics exam should be. The problems aren't plug and chug, but also aren't super difficult (though quite a few people found them hard)\n\r\nBasically, read your textbook, go to class (sometimes I doze off given the driness of the subject), and do some practice problems, and you should be fine.\n\r\nOverall, he's a great guy.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-04T17:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Antonsen', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': "He's nice, but his lectures are very dry, and jam-packed with information/equations. On top of that, he goes lightning quick if no one asks questions to slow him down. That being said, he's a lenient grader (at least for 381). All in all, ENEE381 is pretty much PHYS260/270 on steroids. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-01T23:21:57Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Antonsen', 'slug': 'antonsen'}, {'courses': ['MUSC229Z', 'MUSC436', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Baldwin', 'slug': 'baldwin_thomas'}, {'courses': ['ENES102', 'ENES220', 'ENME400', 'ENES221', 'EDSP652', 'ENES220', 'ENES102', 'ENES220', 'ENES102', 'ENES220', 'ENES220', 'ENES220', 'ENES102', 'ENES220', 'ENES102', 'ENES220'], 'average_rating': 4.15, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Up until the week before thanksgiving, I would have given Beigel 5 stars. When he teaches, he is excellent. He explains things clearly, and even manages to make it entertaining. He engages the class, and makes sure you are not afraid of asking a question, no mean feat for a class of 40+. However, by thanksgiving, his teaching took a turn for the worst. Never have I had a teacher who is more lazy. By the end, he started class 20 minutes late because he was sitting outside the room, too lazy to come in. He can be rude too. He once ripped someones homework in half to entertain the class. One girl asked for him to do a problem for final exam review. He said he didn't feel like it a proceeded to tell a joke. He seems to care more about coming off as smart, funny, aloof, and all knowing. Instead, he can be off-putting, lazy, and inconsiderate.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-26T15:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Unequivocally the best prof I've had at UMD.\n\r\nI don't even know how, though. He goofs off for the first 10+ minutes of class, and pretty much everything everyone else said, but when he gets to teaching...\n\r\nHe says more with less time and words than any other prof, but you can still understand it; he's not just fire-hosing you with information.\n\r\nI'm choosing a senior elective based about 50% on the fact that Beigel is teaching it.... TAKE BEIGEL.\n\r\nCaveat: He's not for everyone. A friend of mine really didn't like him because he does more physical, visible explanations rather than derivations and proofs. I hate derivations so this was perfect, but not for my friend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-09T10:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Overall, Beigel is a friendly and approachable teacher. However, I do not like his teaching style and I think he is somewhat lazy for a teacher. He basically writes down stuff on the board and you just copy what he writes down. He doesn't really explain material as he writes it down.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-15T03:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Beigel is a very good teacher. He doesn't beat around the bush and is very effective in teaching his students the best way to complete each problem. If you pay attention and make an effort to understand all the homeworks, you should be fine to pass the class. He is very approachable during office hours too, but sometimes instead of explaining a problem to you, he will just do it for you. If you ask, though, he won't have a problem explaining what he did.\n\r\nAlso if you are like me, you have difficulty trying to pay attention for a whole class period. He doesn't necessarily start teaching right away and will keep you engaged with stories which are always pretty interesting. His classes go by pretty fast so you're not sitting there watching the clock the whole time.\n\r\nDefinitely take Beigel.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-12-06T20:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "he is a good person. I like him as a person. As a teacher, it goes back and forth. He doesn't really teach as much as he just shows examples- and sometimes he lies when doing the problems just to see if someone will call him out on it. So... now I'm lost in the class. Just take him if you're a genius who wants a chill environment- if you really want to learn things- take another teacher, but go to Tom's office hours or review sessions. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-11-14T20:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "He's a really nice guy in general, and a pretty good teacher. The homework load was alright, especially if you did the problems throughout the week. If you waited until the last minute, it would suck, but you could still get them done. \n\r\nThe reason I won't give him 5 stars is because he was extremely inappropriate at time, especially towards females. He makes dirty jokes that were usually funny, but a lot of the time were downright offensive. One girl I know stopped going to his office hours and was afraid to ask him for help because of the things he said to her. \n\r\nGives good examples, and is helpful, but sometimes his jokes go way too far.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-05-17T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Pretty easy class, didn't need to study too hard for the exams and the homeworks are not too bad if you work with other students. Beigel is a funny guy and a decent teacher. He wastes a TON of time at the beginnings of classes, so you can show up 10 minutes late and usually miss nothing. He allows a lot of freedom with the project, which is nice compared to what others have had to do (ie Bonenberger's classes). I can see how some students may have trouble since he does not really teach concepts, but in reality these students are probably not cut out to be engineers.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-28T21:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "One of the best professors in the engineering department. People complain that he only does one or two examples a day, but the examples he does are exactly what you need to know he explains the examples thoroughly, showing each step. He does bs for most of this class but he can afford to because he's not teaching you the stuff you don't need to know. Pay attention in class and study his examples before the test, you'll be fine. If you want a teacher who goes the full time doing pointless examples and proofs just because it makes you feel like you're learning something, don't take him. Oh, he's also one of the nicest and funniest people out there.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-10T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "I'm obviously a minority here, but I was not a big fan of Beigel. He teaches by example, and not by concepts, which really screwed me over when I got to the final - a couple of the problems I had never seen before, and thus had no idea how to do them. \r\nThe homework and the in-class problems (he has us do some in discussion in groups) were easy, as all you needed to do was copy from the solutions manual. \r\nHowever, office hours were nice, even though they are always crowded. You can ask him questions one-on-one.\r\nFinally, his personality. Most people love it, I couldn't stand it. He would talk for 30 minutes into class, and then do one example problem. I would much rather spend that time sleeping since it was a 9am class, or let us out early. And I felt as though you couldn't come late or you might miss something, because the time he talked was irregular.\n\r\ntl;dr: Teaches by example, copy the homework, go to office hours, deal with him wasting your time.\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-05T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Tom is a good statics teacher. The concepts in statics are pretty easy: sum of all forces and moments equal 0, with a little bit of material properties included. Tom teaches with 1-2 examples per class. This is fine for people who learn through example, but I found I would not fully understand what was being taught. The homework problems ended up being a pain. I ended up in office hours every week to do them because I may miss a concept tom showed during lecture. \r\nTests (which are generally the same among all statics teachers) can be tricky because there can be problems you have never seen before, but can surely apply the big concepts to solving the problems. He gives out a lot of practice problems to prepare you for exams, so take advantage of those.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-30T02:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Wow after that final, I'm glad I even passed. I'll be honest, I think I learned more by doing the homework with the solution manual (obviously written out by Bonenberger), than going to Tom's lectures. We did on average one example a class, which definitely was not getting the material into my head. Others might have been at an advantage if they had physics or calc 3. Its a tough class, but enjoyable with Tom. You could always turn in stuff late, and he is so willing to help. I love him as a person, just not as a teacher. Get on his good side, and make an effort to show you're trying at least! He's not for everyone.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2011-05-30T20:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Great professor - definitely worth taking his class if you get the chance.\n\r\nThe other reviews are pretty spot on. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-04-23T19:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Ehhhh..I'm going to be honest in that I really don't see what the big deal is with this guy. He blazes through the material with one or two examples per topic which for boneheads like me simply is not enough to get the 'A' that everyone wants, nor is it enough to learn the material sufficiently well. I did laugh my ass off all semester though, and he is highly amusing, but looking back I would have rather had someone more rigorous because I feel like I would have definetly gotten my moneys worth having not had Tom. \n\r\nPros:\r\n- You can turn your all of your crap in pretty much as late as you want if you just tell a dead baby joke or make a general remark regarding the end of the human race as we know it (highly inevitable). \n\r\n- Is definetly sympathetic towards his students, and realizes that this university pretty much sucks ass in all aspects of teaching engineering (he went here too).\n\r\n- Makes classtime very quick and concise (could also be a bad thing for people like me)\n\r\nCons:\r\n- Rushes through material with one or two examples and not a very thorough or memerable approach (I've already forgotten a good amount since class has let out and its only been a few weeks.)\n\r\n- Is late, and is a HUGE slacker which for someone like me was annoying (again...didn't feel like I got my $ or time's worth)\n\r\nOverall I'd say go for it. Engineering is awful here anyways, so its not like you are going to find another teacher with an actual sense of humor like him. If you are smarter than I am (I'm an idiot and I got a B) and can extrapolate a lot out of a few simple problems, then this class will be a very easy and enjoyable experience with him. If you need to be smacked in the head with a hammer to learn the material then I would definetly go with someone else who is going to have a much more thorough and in depth approach to this class. \n\n\r\nHis class notes were only slightly helpful most of the time in attempting homework problems, and I found them to be very jumpy and illogical. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-04T11:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "VERY smart, funny, nice guy. Not once did he ever get angry at a student for asking a question or for clarification, no matter how stupid the question. He is very approachable and helpful, and really knows what you need to know and what you dont - he's been doing this for almost 20 years. However, the final exam was brutal, even though the midterms were easy, so be warned. I definitely recommend Beigel for ENES102.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-17T19:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Tom is easily the best professor I've ever had. He's a great guy, hilarious, very reasonable, strives to help his students however he can, and he's legitimately a good teacher. While most professors earn their teaching position simply by knowing the material (some don't even meet this qualification), Tom actually knows how to teach it as well, a skill that seems to be in strikingly short supply amongst UMD professors.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T04:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "The best engineering professor I have had at this university by far. I agree with all the other comments posted about him thus far:\r\n1. Comes to late pretty much every class\r\n2. Teaches you more in 25 minutes than you would learn in any other 50 minute class\r\n3. Tells semi-offensive jokes that you either find hilarious or slightly alarming.\r\n4. Cancels class whenever he isn't up for teaching that day\r\n5. Explains the material extremely well. \r\n6. He is extremely interested in answering any questions you have.\n\r\nI strongly recommend him for ENES102/220.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-03-01T07:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Tom is the man. Definitely take him for 102/220 if you can. Who knew you could learn material and have a good time in class? Blows my mind...', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-18T03:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "For some reason, he teaches a lot less than the other professors yet the students learn a lot more. Sometimes, the hour-long lecture is taught in as little as 20 minutes. Having him as a teacher drastically increases your chances of doing well on the midterms and finals. But he tells a lot of offensive jokes so if you're the sensitive type, avoid him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-21T16:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Beigel is the best instructor i've had. He only teaches about 25 minutes out of a normal class, but i guarantee you will learn more in those 25 minutes than you do in any other 50 minutes class. Also, the beginning of statics covers a lot of material from the beginning of physics and calc 3 and i learned my stuff for all 3 classes in beigels lectures. He also tells you exactly whats on tests and is the funniest teacher youll have. He sometimes will give you the option of leaving or staying and listening to his stories. Stay for the stories. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-15T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Either you like him or you hate him. hes a no BS kind of guy for problems, but a complete BS guy when it comes to doing work. he will occasionally cancel class within the first 5 minutes because he doesnt feel like teaching that day. this is great if you have other shit to do, but not so good if you want to learn and just walked all the way across campus to his class. He is willing to help out if you make an appointment to see him but dont count on him being in his office hours. his sense of humor is such that if u ask a question he will call you retarded but is clearly kidding and will proceed to answer. He doesnt teach from the book though so just write down the equations he give in class. they make things easier anyway. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-01T03:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Beigel is only for certain types of students. If you have trouble with Physics and ENES then he is definetly not for you. He doesn't really teach but if you are the type that can learn off one or two examples off the board and dont need every thing explained to you this is for you. He does however teach you only what you need to know and does not overload you with information. And somehow the class always seems to know exactly what problems will be on the exams. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-26T19:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Had him for ENES 102, ENES 220, and ENME 400...Great teacher. Strips the confusing bs down to what you really need to know. I'll warn you, he is pretty vulgar at times and is almost always late to class. If you don't care about that stuff, take him, he is a great teacher. If you follow what he does in class and review what he tells you will be on the tests and finals, you will get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-08-05T15:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "His class is definatley an experince. I'd recomend if you can get him. He'll always be late and won't always teach, which is a lot better than it sounds. He'll help you all you need at office hours and is a very understanding guy. Very freindly and funny. Highly recomend.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-11T15:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "tom is probably on of the most hilarious teachers ive ever had. he will come in late every day, and will tell some of the dirtiest, yet hilarious stories. sometimes he can be lazy when teaching the stuff, but he does explain it pretty well, and he'll help you if you really need it", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-06T19:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Beigel is awesome. He will take a problem, tell you how to do it the long way, then show you the easiest way to do it.\n\r\nHe is a genius. Most of us are not. So if you ask him a question he will try to lead you through it, but if you're too slow to understand he will move on and you will have to go to his office hours or ask him after class. Easier to just ask kids around you.\n\r\nHere's one thing you really don't know: Beigel is Chuck Norris in disguise. It could be a good thing, or a bad thing. Either way, it's awesome.\n\r\nJust take his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-06T18:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Beigel is by far one of the most unusual instructors I have encountered. He generally shows up late to class, tells lots of jokes and stories and can be quite profane. If you don't mind listening to his dirty jokes and frequent swearing, he actually does a pretty good job teaching. He does lots of examples that are likely to show up on exams and does a good job answering any questions if people don't understand. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-02T14:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "A great teacher. I never went to class unless there some concept I didn't understand in the homework. Beigel would then go over that type of thoroughly so it would be pretty difficult to not understand. His reviews for the tests also go over everything you would need to know. \n\r\nOverall Mechanics is not a hard course. You could easily just not go to class and teach it to yourself. But, if you to class you have to do very little work outside of it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-04T17:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Beigel teaches the students how to finish the problems they have to complete for the homework and exams in order to pass the course. He teaches with the minimal amount of academic BS that you will encounter from every other professor. It's almost like he has worked in the real world as an actual practicing engineer!\n\r\nThe lectures are straightforward and to the point:\r\n1. Here is a concept\r\n2. Here is a problem involving this concept\r\n3. Here is how you solve the problem\r\n4. next concept\n\r\nOn the first day Beigel is very up front about his teaching style and encourages students to switch to a different section if they don't like it. If you want a professor that reads the book to you verbatim, then don't take Beigel's class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-04T14:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "If you like being taught the easy and stripped down version, this is the teacher for you. I personally found him unprofessional. He consistently treated the class like his social hour and would start 20 min late and then keep us late because he didn't get through all of the material. \n\r\nIf you want to get on his good side, bring him food/mountain dew. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-23T18:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "This is the professor you want for mechanics of materials.\n\r\nTells you what you need to know for the test, how to think through problems, and how to apply that knowledge to real-world situations. He's also hilarious.\n\r\nWork is identical to statics- 1 hw/week, 3 tests or so, and a sweet project.\n\r\nTake Beigel, he's the man.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-23T12:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Beigel was an excellent professor who knows how to explain concepts better than most other professors. He has taught the course so many times at this point that he knows exactly what he's doing. He is consistently ahead of all other professors and therefore can take the time to tell you some of his best jokes or engineering facts. \r\n\r\nAs long as you attend lectures (most of them at least), understand homework problems, attend his review session before exams (extremely helpful), and most of all take the time to make an equation sheet, there is absolutely no way you won't get an A in this class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-11T00:35:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'This review is strictly based off of his online class as that is what people will be dealing with for the next semester or so. He was amazing in person, but lacks a little on the online transition. It was difficult to reach him, his lectures were released at 1am at night, and the first exam was difficult. That being said, he understood this and gave curves generously based on the struggle given to students. Extra credit opportunities were given and he consistently changed homework due dates based on the convenience of the class. His TA was great and usually the one people would contact. This was a summer class and was extremely accelerated so I imagine during the semester it will be easier.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-07-21T19:34:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Its covid time so that means its online but the way he runs the class is so easy to follow and keep up with the work. I love his short and concise videos for instruction and the homework isnt bad. the review sessions before exams are a lifesaver and Beigel is a really enjoyable person. Even with that rockstar addiction he has. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-11-05T18:42:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Mechanics is not an easy course. Most students have to retake it. I took it for the first time during the summer. Do not take this as a summer course under any circumstances.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n* No textbook is required.\r\n* Helpful lectures. The examples he provides are useful and similar to problems seen on the exam.\r\n* Equation sheet. He allows you to use both sides of a standard 8.5 by 11" paper. You are allowed to put *anything* on it. Examples, equations, whatever you want. I recommend creating your sheet digitally and then printing it in high quality. That way you can utilize the most out of both sides of the paper.\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n* Long exams, not enough time. The exam problems are too difficult to be completed within the time allotted to the exam. You won\'t have enough time to solve each problem correctly. Focus on what you know, prioritize accordingly. Go into this class expecting a B.\r\n* Groupwork. The groupwork is horribly categorized, the problems are too numerous and too creatively difficult. Try to complete as much as you can before class, so that you\'ll have some progress to show during class. The only way you can solve these is with hints. So whenever you get stuck, ask your groupmates and then ask the Professor or TA, do not hesitate!', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-09-03T01:36:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Beigel is a fantastic teacher. While he occasionally was a little slow on posting notes, he was very responsive to students concerns. He occasionally makes jokes that some may find a little off-putting, but he does it all in good humor and truly cares about his students and making sure students actually understand what's going on in class. The one annoying part of the class was the pre-lecture videos we had to watch before class, but they did help me to learn the course concepts very well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-04T12:02:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Beigel is a good professor. This was an asynchronous class and his video lectures were concise and easy to follow. He would always do practice problems during lecture. The one downside is that beigel is an extremely harsh grader, so you have to be nigh perfect on your exams to maintain an A (this class isn't curved).\r\n\r\nI'd recommend him though, he's good.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-10T17:50:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Concepts were taught mainly through examples so I felt that I wasn't actually learning the concepts. Exams were harder than the homework or practice exams that were given. He also didn't put grades into canvas ever so I was have to calculate my grade myself every time an assignment was given back. He isn't a bad teacher, just his teaching style and the way that the class worked didn't work well with me. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-12T23:41:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': "Good guy really nice and I felt like I did learn things. I did not like a couple of things: The hw took 6 hours or more some weeks, the exams were too hard and they weigh too much and if you screw up on one or 2 it's hard to recover, he doesn't answer emails frequently. I felt like I learned thou and he is definitely better than other professors. Go with him. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-05-15T19:29:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'Most of the things said about biegel I agree on, good and funny professor, teaches by example, but grades fairly harshly. However I do want to highlight a grading issue. All grades do not go in canvas. Some are on prairie learn, some are in gradescope, and I didn’t even get a grade back for the project. A week after the semester ended, I just see a grade pop up in testudo with no breakdown or explanation anywhere (from what I can find). Very disorganized.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-26T14:37:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Beigel', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'One of my favorite professors in the engineering department. He\'s a lot of fun, and his review sessions for midterms saved my grade. He\'s hilarious (depending on your type of humor) and he likes conversing with students. His iconic "celebratory chug" is great, and he made taking the class a great experience.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-06-01T00:50:11Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Beigel', 'slug': 'beigel'}, {'courses': ['JOUR106', 'JOUR368E', 'JOUR368N', 'JOUR668N', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR368G', 'JOUR668F', 'JOUR389E', 'JOUR689E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Bettag', 'slug': 'bettag'}, {'courses': ['ENES221', 'ENES220', 'ENES220'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Brodrick', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Absolute Maryland legend', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-09T23:05:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Brodrick', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Tom is an incredibly fair grader and an excellent professor who puts his knowledge of how the content is used in the engineering field into his explanation of concepts and their importance. At times some of the concepts came across as complex, but he reassured us that they really weren't and we just needed more practice and it would become easy. He was right, and overall his teaching, grading, and approach to engineering problems made him an excellent professor that I would highly recommend!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-19T18:06:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Brodrick', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "The thing about Brodrick is that he expects you to know what you're doing. He teaches like it's your third time taking the class but it's good. He simplifies things, that are easy to picture, and with a little HW outside class, you'll understand the concept and be able to apply it to any questions. The exams are very fair, as long as you do the practice exams and look and the examples he posts, you'll be good. 1000% Recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T18:45:36.419962Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Brodrick', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "Broderick is super chill and he likes to connect his job to the topics in class which is really interesting. He does examples on the board and it really helps you understand the content better for the homework and the exams. The exams were pretty fair overall but the homework's were annoyingly long. I highly recommend taking him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T18:52:25.966928Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Brodrick', 'slug': 'brodrick'}, {'courses': ['UNIV348E', 'FGSM340', 'HONR378J'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Carter', 'slug': 'carter'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'HIST428N', 'HIST201', 'IMMR400', 'HIST619W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Castillo', 'slug': 'castillo'}, {'courses': ['NFSC450', 'NFSC630', 'GEMS296', 'NFSC605', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'NFSC100'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Castonguay', 'course': 'NFSC100', 'review': 'Dr. Castonguay was one of the lecturers for this course. His style of delivery was either very repetitive or too... simple. With how information intense the exams are, he could have covered much more ground in lecture instead of re- and over-emphasizing already-clear points. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-02-11T02:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Castonguay', 'slug': 'castonguay'}, {'courses': ['ENGL479C', 'HONR229B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Clark', 'slug': 'clark_thomas'}, {'courses': ['PHYS199M', 'PHYS273', 'PHYS798B', 'PHYS407', 'PHYS799B', 'PHYS273H', 'PHYS441', 'PHYS798B', 'PHYS612', 'PHYS798B', 'PHYS798B', 'PHYS612', 'PHYS798B'], 'average_rating': 3.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Cohen', 'course': 'PHYS199M', 'review': "This is the class and the professor that I would recommend to anyone as a fun I-series class. As a science major in general, I found the class extremely interesting and fulfilling. I got much out of this class in term of personal and career development than I expected.\n\r\nAll the stuffs are elms and you just study straight from them for exams and final. The most challenging part was probably the reading assignments, but I gave up after the first month or so. You don't have to go to all the lectures, but since it's so entertaining, why not! As for the homework, if you took some sort of math in college, you would be fine. There were some that were a bit confusing, but most were just so annoyingly simple. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-07T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Cohen', 'course': 'PHYS199M', 'review': "A very interesting and charismatic professor. He's really enthusiastic about the course material and there are a ton of powerpoint slides that he goes through throughout the semester and I've found that you don't necessarily need to go to every lecture, but you should go to most. The homework is all math and conceptual physics, and as a physics major, I found this part to be incredibly simple. Exams aren't too bad, the two papers are graded very leniently, and a great way to study is just going through all of the slides a number of times. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-23T02:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Cohen', 'course': 'PHYS199M', 'review': "One of the nuttiest professors I've had here. Incredibly smart and incredibly enthusiastic, but as a business major I thought the class was going to be more of a history class rather than actually solving calculations in nuclear physics. Weekly homeworks were incredibly hard unless you had a partner to work on the homework with and the exams were incredibly difficult. Overall a good class though.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-11-06T17:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Cohen', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "Quite possibly the best physics professor I've had so far in UMD. \r\nThe tests on the other hand are extremely easy. Throughout the entire semester, I've been to lecture at most 5 times, read the book before the day of the exam, and still managed to pull As on my tests. \n\r\nThe only bad thing I would say about Cohen is the heavy weight he puts on Homeworks (20%) and Discussion Quizzes (5%), though this may work for you if you actually do your homeworks.\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-19T22:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Cohen', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': "Tom Cohen is a pretty cool guy as far as physics teachers go. He tried really hard to make boring material seem at least vaguely interesting and his tests looked a lot like the practice tests. He was very open to meeting with students, discussing concerns, and going over material outside of class. Overall he's a very approachable guy who just wants students to have a painless physics experience.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-19T01:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Cohen', 'course': 'PHYS199M', 'review': "the guy is smart, but it's pretty hard to pay attention in his lecture, so you're better off by just reading his slides. however, don't get too far behind, because you will regret it later when the midterm/exam comes around. \r\n\r\nhis grading...scheme/logic behind his grading is weird, but i think it helps? however he does NOT use elms to calculate your score, so you're pretty much not going to know at all where you are at until the end of the semester. the 2 papers are graded leniently for the most part, and the homeworks aren't that bad considering you can work on them together with other people. also i would say that this class is pretty even combination of history and math/physics. \r\n\r\nthe guy's nice, very knowledgeable, if you really put the effort you'll learn a lot, but this class is not a guaranteed gpa booster unlike a class like enes140 or enee200. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-18T05:50:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Cohen', 'course': 'PHYS199M', 'review': 'Funny professor, lectures are very interesting. Slow grader, however. HW is extremely easy, midterms are easy as long as you review the slides. Do the practice midterm very similar questions. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2019-12-15T22:50:10Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Cohen', 'slug': 'cohen_thomas'}, {'courses': ['BUSI672', 'BULM730', 'BULM742', 'BMGT470', 'BULM758T', 'BMGT888E', 'BUSI758I', 'BMGT476', 'BMGT478D', 'BUSM785', 'BMGT471F', 'BULM758C', 'BUSO752', 'BUSI759', 'BMGT473', 'BMGT471F', 'BMGT478G', 'BMGT478I', 'BMGT478G'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Corsi', 'course': 'BMGT470', 'review': "Course has one exam and two lengthy reports that are completed with a partner. The exam is fair but is entirely essay based. The other major component of the course is the airline simulation which is quite fun. Corsi is a good guy but gets angry when people skip class (which probably affects their grade) If you're someone who goes to every class the this is a great course for you", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-21T00:24:00Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Corsi', 'slug': 'corsi'}, {'courses': ['EDHI600', 'EDPS703', 'EDPS751', 'EDPS615', 'EDHI642', 'EDHI701', 'EDUC888A', 'EDCI685', 'EDUC898', 'EDPS679'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Davis', 'slug': 'davis_thomas'}, {'courses': ['MUSC658', 'MUSC651', 'MUSC251', 'MUSC451', 'MUSP103T', 'MUSP202T', 'MUSC464', 'MUSP302T', 'MUSP303T', 'MUSC464', 'MUSC471', 'MUSC651', 'MUSC251', 'MUSP303T', 'MUSC451', 'MUSC464', 'MUSC651'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas DeLio', 'slug': 'delio'}, {'courses': ['RDEV630', 'RDEV450', 'RDEV688Z', 'RDEV603', 'RDEV450', 'RDEV603', 'RDEV450', 'RDEV603', 'RDEV450', 'RDEV603', 'RDEV450', 'RDEV603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Dwyer', 'slug': 'dwyer_thomas'}, {'courses': ['EDUC388', 'EDUC498', 'EDUC388T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Eacho', 'slug': 'eacho'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL396', 'ENGL352', 'UNIV104', 'ENGL388W', 'ENGL391', 'ENGL388W', 'SPAN388W', 'ENGL388W', 'ENGL398A', 'SPAN388W', 'ENGL388W', 'SPAN388W', 'ENGL388W', 'SPAN388W'], 'average_rating': 4.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Earles', 'course': 'ENGL352', 'review': "Agree with the people below me. However, I just want to clarify that he grades on the grammar and syntax of your stories rather than its content, so for some (like me) the grade can seem unfair. Just don't make those mistakes and you should be fine.\n\r\nStructure of the class is like this: you have to write letters for the stories you read, a few short assignments, 2 short stories, 1 revision, 1 crafts paper, and 1 paper about the discussion you lead. He basically hands out free A's on anything other than the stories, so even if you fuck up once or twice you should still get a solid A in the class. From what I've seen, the only reason people do poorly is if they don't come to class.\n\r\nOverall, he's a cool dude and I definitely learned quite a bit from his class. Just don't cut him off while he's talking or submit stuff late and you should be fine. Would recommend taking his class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-21T03:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Earles', 'course': None, 'review': 'Harsh grader, very subjective. Grades should be based on your writing ability, not his opinion of your story. The instructions for many of the assignments are misleading, and you get docked for HIS lack of clarity. \r\nGenerally a nice guy, tho.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-09T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Earles', 'course': 'ENGL294', 'review': "Pretty adamant about turning things on time. One time a girl forgot to print something out because of a fire drill and he required her to get documentation of the drill along with the signatures of two witnesses. He does not accept late submissions. \n\r\nOther than that, he's a good teacher that genuinely wants you to be the best writer you can be. He's really good at constructive criticism. \n\r\nAs long as you stay on top of things (and it's really not a lot of things...) then it should be an easily achievable A. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T13:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Earles', 'course': 'ENGL391', 'review': "Really, really subjective about grading. Getting a rubric from him is like getting water from a stone. That said, he's pretty forgiving if you have decent grammar and mechanics in your paper. Funny guy too. Probably would recommend if you're already decent at writing because he doesn't necessarily *teach* a lot, necessarily. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-24T21:11:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Earles', 'course': 'ENGL388W', 'review': 'Great guy. Very funny. Led class well but I hated how long it was. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-07T18:20:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Earles', 'course': 'ENGL388W', 'review': "Tom was great! The internship was a lot of fun. I agree with others in that I didn't learn much about the mechanics of writing in this class. Luckily, I'm an English major and write well already, but if I didn't have a really solid grasp of English or how to write a paper, I don't think I'd do very well. Despite its length, I looked forward to ENGL388W every week. It was my favorite class this semester!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-22T00:39:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Earles', 'course': 'ENGL388W', 'review': "Took 388W during Spring 2022, but I want to add a review for anyone who's considering the internship because they want to tutor at the writing center. Prof Earles is a wonderful guy and really easy-going and funny. He's only harsh if you don't show up to your scheduled shifts, which is understandable, because this internship is supposed to prepare you to become an actual tutor. Classes were long, but they were only once a week, and they were enjoyable. You don't learn much about the mechanics of writing because the class is about tutoring and learning the mechanics of the WC - you're pretty much expected to already know the mechanics of writing. (If you didn't, when you applied for permission to take the class, you'd be rejected.) The workload can get a little overwhelming (readings were very long, there are a couple of group projects and discussions that every person needs to lead), but again, given that the class is once a week, it's not horrible. It also satisfies the Scholarship in Practice gen-ed req, which is an added bonus. Overall, this class is worth it, and if you'd like to try for it and you want to become a tutor, I highly encourage applying and taking the internship.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-01T19:43:49.858406Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Earles', 'course': 'ENGL398A', 'review': "Took this class for professional writing, specifically for the arts. This was a really good class. We had 5 main assignments: manifesto, press release, long review, grant paper, and e-portfolio. And also a few smaller assignments. All the main assignments felt practical and important for a working creative person / arts adjacent career. He's a really nice person. I found him to be an easy grader, but I already came in with good writing and grammar skills. He also left comments back on my papers, which I appreciated.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T19:02:41.310470Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Earles', 'slug': 'earles'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'PHYS170', 'PHYS399D', 'PHYS399F', 'PHYS399C', 'PHYS399E', 'PHYS399W', 'PHYS399Y', 'UNIV110', 'PHYS399I', 'PHYS170', 'PHYS399D', 'PHYS399E', 'PHYS399I', 'PHYS170'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Gleason', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Great & friendly, also had him for PHYS170. rlly cares about his students ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-11-16T04:33:12Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Gleason', 'slug': 'gleason'}, {'courses': ['CMSC878O', 'CMSC250H', 'CMSC764', 'AMSC764', 'CMSC798', 'AMSC663', 'CMSC389O', 'CMSC663', 'AMSC664', 'CMSC664', 'CMSC498P', 'CMSC798P', 'CMSC473', 'CMSC673', 'CMSC389O', 'CMSC389O', 'CMSC473', 'CMSC673', 'AMSC764', 'CMSC764', 'CMSC389O', 'CMSC473', 'CMSC673'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Goldstein', 'course': 'CMSC389O', 'review': 'Taught by TAs not this professor. But definitely a good STIC class to take. Lots of EC too, so not hard to get an A.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-02T18:35:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Goldstein', 'course': 'AMSC764', 'review': 'Probably the most interesting CS class I’ve taken. He definitely knows what he’s talking about and he’s very clear. Pace is very fast so make sure you’re paying attention.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-16T14:30:11Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Goldstein', 'slug': 'goldstein_thomas'}, {'courses': ['MATH403', 'MATH608P', 'MATH406', 'MATH808S', 'MATH600', 'MATH601', 'MATH606', 'MATH607', 'MATH808M', 'MATH808G', 'MATH808F', 'MATH689A', 'MATH808T', 'MATH341', 'MATH404'], 'average_rating': 3.8, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Haines', 'course': 'MATH341', 'review': 'Haines\' MATH 341 class was the toughest course I have ever taken, bar none. \n\r\nUnlike most 341 profs, he spent significant time on linear algebra (which is closer to his expertise) [6 weeks] before spending the last nine weeks on differential equations. To put it bluntly, you will probably not have a life if you do all of the HWK for this class. I went through a whole legal pad reviewing for the second final. Our class covered everything 246 covered and went slightly beyond 240 into some additional applications. The tests are tough, but he occasionally includes book problems, so if you have done all of the problems you\'ll see familiar ones on the tests. Nonetheless, he still knows how to drop the test average when he wants to. He likes theory and rigorously proves everything we use, though you will need to learn from the books for actually doing the HWK assignments. \n\r\nMy issues: \n\r\n1) He did not make it particularly clear what the final grades would be like (he told us all along he would curve, but by how much we are still waiting to see). That is not so important so long as the curve is fair, but it can still be quite stressful. \n\r\n2) He can come across as a bit cold or even condescending when people ask questions. I do NOT think he means to; just sometimes his answers seemed a bit blunt and almost "did you really ask that?" in tone. In office hours he is nice enough, though not as helpful as some other professors. \n\r\nIn terms of how much I learned this semester, he gets a full seven out of five points. In terms of his jokes (he started a bit stiff almost, in our class, but lightened up as the class went on I feel like), he gets a five. However, I think that the former is a four for Haines and the three for learning with classmates while poring over homework. Because of the two issues alluded to above, I give him a four overall. \n\r\nIf you are willing to suffer for a whole semester in order to really, really learn math, take Haines. If you think your will could crack, be it Week 2 or Week 14, I would consider someone else for 341. \n\r\nI think in like five years I will look back and appreciate the suffering and effort that was this class, but right now it is simply a relief to have made it out in mostly one piece. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-21T20:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Haines', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'Haines was a good and fair prof. His lectures were sometimes boring but he allows time for HW questions. He has 2 exams which are curved and weren\'t that bad if you keep up with HW. He gave practice exams for both. HWs were very helpful in learning and practicing the material and he drops 3.\r\nHe told some "funny" jokes to lighten the mood several times. \r\nOverall good prof, nice guy.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-04T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Haines', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'He is a very smart professor and will help with any problems. He does proofs about a third of the time and practice problems the other two thirds. He does curve at the end which is why I got a B. I would say if you are good or fair with math to take him. If math is a poor subject for you, look for someone else.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-04-15T23:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Haines', 'course': 'MATH600', 'review': "He wants to push students towards state-of-the-art mathematics. Fastest course I've ever taken. I believe it's his opinion that understanding 20%+ of the lecture is doing a good job, and the details are really an individual responsibility to fill in at home. He proves powerful theorems with really general hypotheses (no warm-up theorems) and most of the course is a stream of corollaries -- this approach is very efficient, but also tends to make things seem unmotivated. Tests are at the level of the qualifying exams. but are never unreasonable -- but if you haven't had the equivalent of 403/405 or have forgotten the material, you will probably die. In case it's relevant, he doesn't come across as a very nice person, but I'm glad to have had him as an instructor.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2007-12-25T01:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Haines', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'great professor', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-02T17:17:29Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Haines', 'slug': 'haines'}, {'courses': ['PUAF650', 'PUAF698L', 'PUAF742', 'PUAF744', 'PLCY744', 'PLCY203', 'PLCY689I', 'PLCY742', 'HNUH229T', 'HNUH229T', 'HNUH229T', 'PLCY744', 'PLCY742', 'PLCY744'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Hilde', 'slug': 'hilde'}, {'courses': ['CPSP119G', 'CPSP239G', 'CPSP249G', 'CPSP259G', 'GEOL102', 'GEOL204', 'CPSP118G', 'CPSP218G', 'GEOL104', 'CPSG100', 'GEOL331', 'CPSG101', 'CPSG200', 'CPSG240', 'CPSG230', 'CPSG250', 'HONR259C', 'GEOL431', 'CPSP359G', 'BSCI238A', 'BSCI333', 'CPSG100', 'CPSG200', 'GEOL104', 'GEOL331', 'CPSG101', 'CPSG230', 'CPSG240', 'CPSG250', 'CPSP359G', 'GEOL102', 'GEOL204', 'GEOL431', 'CPSG100', 'CPSG200', 'GEOL104'], 'average_rating': 4.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL104', 'review': "Great professor! He's funny and likes to tell corny jokes. You can tell he's super passionate about this topic. He gets so excited like a little boy talking about the subject. \n\r\nThere is a lot of memorization that goes into this class. Don't take it unless you can memorize facts and names very well. Holtz even said up front that this class relies on memorization A LOT. \n\r\nIf you put in the work and effort, you can get an A. The quizzes are easy, and his midterms usually use some of the questions from the quizzes. \n\r\nClass is great! I took it in Freshmen Connection and thoroughly enjoyed it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-11T18:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL104', 'review': "worst class ever. Clicker quizzes every day so you can never skip, so boring. Had 4 online tests so you didn't have to pay attention because you could look up the answers but the final is in class so unless you CRAM for the final you are not bound to do well. Wouldn't recommend ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-09-26T15:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': None, 'review': 'Very engaging professor and very passionate towards the stuff he teaches. He is arrogant though, but his humor and style of teaching makes up for it.\n\r\nPretty easy class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-08-24T18:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL104', 'review': "This class can be easy if you just keep up. Otherwise you are gonna be lost with scientific words you don't know.\n\r\nThe class structure is based around 4 online tests, clicker quizzes, and like 2 other assignments. His entire note guide (which is extremely detailed) is online and all the tests which are online (minus the final) can be done using these notes. I can't find an excuse as to why you would get a low grade besides you being extremely lazy or just legit stupid.\n\r\nHe is corny, but he is amazingly smart and wants you to understand. I liked the class and wouldn't mind taking the second part of it sometime.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-13T05:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL102', 'review': "This guy sucks. He's so stubborn and he's just plain annoying. DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU DON'T NEED IT!! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-17T14:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL104', 'review': "He's a really good teacher but you have to study so much for the tests. The first test was easy..but the second killed me. You can't forget to take the quizs because they add up in the end. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-08T12:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL102', 'review': "Great guy. He's honestly interested in the stuff he teaches (and it shows). Class is pretty straightforward - lecture is optional, but it's probably in your best interest to go since his tests are based more off lecture than the book (which I never opened). He makes a lot of corny jokes (and internet references...), and his tests usually have an abundance of extra credit points.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-05-19T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': None, 'review': "This class is not worth it. Its nice because the notes are online but there is so much material on tests and you need to know the all material for every exam. Beware of the grading policy also. The quizzes don't help your grade that much and make sure you do well on the Smithsonian project 1 because its worth a lot more than the second. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-27T22:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': None, 'review': 'This class is really not too challenging at all. Almost all the lecture material is posted online and the exams aren\'t too overwhelming. The only downside to this class is that is usually work done in discussion, so you really should attend-there\'s also quizzes every couple of weeks, too. However, most of the time discussion will at least be an opportunity to boost your grade and depending on who your TA is, it might not be a lot of work. The only big discussion assignment was the Kyoto project near the end, but that wasn\'t even bad.\n\r\nAlthough most of this class is okay, a big negative about this class is that it\'s co-taught by 3 professors, so it seems a big "scattered" and overwhelming at times. Just make sure you go through the slides before exams (there are two midterms and a final) and ask any questions about the material and you should be okay.........\r\nOut of the three professors, I thought Holtz was the best! Granted, sometimes it\'s hard to keep track of all the information he presents, but he brings energy and some humor to the lectures and keeps things "fresh"-you can tell he\'s really passionate about what he\'s doing......good luck!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-01T22:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL104', 'review': 'This class is harder than it sounds. It ended up being a lot more work than i wanted it to be. the book is pointless so dont buy it. the online notes are nice but they dont cover everything so you have to go to class which sucks since its at 10am. The exams arent too bad but the class is a lot of work', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-29T17:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL104', 'review': "Dr Holtz is a fantastic professor. He tells the corniest jokes, which make his lectures very enjoyable, and he is great at explaining the concepts in the course. He's also great at waking up the class when the content gets a bit boring.\n\r\nThere are extra credit questions on virtually every assignment/quiz/exam, so as long as you pay attention in the lectures you're sure to get a good grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-12-12T14:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL102', 'review': 'Great teacher. He tells rather corny jokes, but covers the material very well and lets you know exactly whats going to be on the exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-01-19T23:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': None, 'review': 'Best professor I have had at UMD! Funny guy, interesting lectures, enthusiastic about the subjects he teaches, lots of extra credit... all around great!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-11-20T06:08:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL204', 'review': "Exams, quizzes, and assignments are great. You don't need to go to class, just take half an hour a week to read the lecture notes he posts online. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-06-13T22:04:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'HONR259C', 'review': "DINOSAURS! Wasn't much of a dinosaur obsessor growing up (although I was always fascinated with them), but this easy-going class/seminar made the evolution and methods of research of dinosaurs extremely interesting (dinos are now my favorite animals).\r\n\r\nProfessor Holtz is super knowledgable about everything and is a great professor and person. Even though our quizzes were easy and didn't cover everything he talked about, he presented very concise details about the topics covered, and I was grateful for it!\r\n\r\nThe class itself is super chill. Lecture twice a week, basic essay on a research paper due every week, quiz every two weeks, and a fun media presentation capstone final on any topic of your choice!\r\n\r\nOne of the most fun classes I've taken at UMD as a CS major.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-01-10T21:22:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'CPSG200', 'review': "Holtz is amazing. Quizzes, Exams, Assignments, Projects, etc.. all are very reasonable and he is understanding if you have some issue with submitting things right when they're due. I would recommend him 100%", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-14T21:15:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'CPSG100', 'review': 'Very nice person, and tries to make things engaging. All assignments were very reasonable, and he was very lenient about grades. However, his online teaching style sometimes fell flat making the class sort of boring at times.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T17:58:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'CPSG100', 'review': "Dr. Holtz is great. He's like the blue to Dr. Merck's red, he's a bit mellow but he also has his goofy side. He definitely tried his best to make online colloquium as fun and engaging as possible", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-02-06T15:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL204', 'review': 'Holtz really loves his stuff. For those who do not know, Holtz is a world renown Paleontologist (Studies Dinosaurs), and his love for the topic in this class is quite evident. However, I do not think he handled the switch to online too well. His lectures (pre-recorded) would be around 3 hours in length, thsi combined with the fact that we had mandatory discussion sections and an "optional" review session, meant his class took way too much work and time than it should have for a gen ed. The homework assignments for this class also took way too long, however, I will note that out of the 8 total homework assignments, 7 of them were in the first 5 weeks of the course, which for the rest of the course there was essentially no homework, except for weekly discussion posts and a bi-weekly quiz (of which 2 lowest are dropped). He also gives around 5 bonus points on each exam (usually easy questions), so it is a nice buffer.\r\n\r\nIf you are taking this class for the Dinosaurs in its name, fair warning, this class is more of an evolution class or a speed run of history of life on the planet. We spent 2 lectures on Dinosaurs themselves, and you only really learned about their evolutionary traits or some special things about them as a whole. Like for example we did not talk about like anything about the Cretaceous Period which I find ironic because Holtz specializes in Tyrannosaurs (we did cover the extinction in great detail). We also spent a good chunk of time on stuff like paleoclimate (which while important) , is extremely boring and took up waaayy too much time. If you came to this class for an easy gen-ed, I believe the ease of this class is based solely on your love of prehistoric life, I loved dinosaurs and etc growing up, so this class was quite enjoyable and I did quite well on all of the midterms and finals because of that, however , this class can be challenging for those who werent as invested into Walking with Dinosaurs and etc when they were kids.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-18T10:43:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'CPSG101', 'review': 'This class is much more work than it should be, but as a professor for this 1 credit course, he is very kind an approachable and grades VERY leniently in this course. He also loves to throw jokes around, however, sometimes he flips the switch and becomes way too serious sometimes and again the work given for this class is way more than it should be.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-18T10:45:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'CPSG101', 'review': "The second part of SGC is a lot more work, however, Dr. Holtz explains it all really well, and his lectures are honestly amazing. He, Merck, and the TAs grade things very VERY leniently, and by the end you'll definitely feel like you learned a lot. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-19T14:24:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'CPSG200', 'review': 'Very easy 1 credit course, put almost no effort into it, but still gained a lot of good knowledge. Probs the best of the 3 cpsg courses. Holtz is very enthusiastic about what he teaches and its great', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-24T21:31:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL104', 'review': "If you are looking for an easy gen ed, this is not the class for you. If you are truly passionate about dinosaurs you may get a lot out of this class, but if you are not it will most likely not be interesting for you. If you don't have a geology experience, this class will hard, as he goes through the background topics very quickly. He is a passionate professor and knows his stuff, but he does not recognize that many of his students may not have a science background (because, again, this is a gen ed) and he is not accommodating of that gap. He threatened to make the midterm harder as retribution when he did not feel the class was taking the course seriously. Overall, he expects way too much for a 100 level gen ed, and he is perfectly fine with being vindictive if he feels the class is not reaching his lofty expectations.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-11-08T18:02:51.152828Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Holtz', 'course': 'GEOL204', 'review': 'It is my favorite course at college!!! Prof Holtz is very nice and he is passionate about what he teaches. The lecture is very interesting and you can learn a lot about fossils. If you love paleontology I would highly recommend all his courses.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-19T06:56:12.579289Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Holtz', 'slug': 'holtz'}, {'courses': ['GERM103', 'GERM203'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Kluber', 'slug': 'kluber'}, {'courses': ['BSCI338K', 'BSCI222', 'BIOL708V', 'BSCI339B', 'BIOL608K', 'BIOL608C', 'BIOL608L', 'BISI899', 'BSCI339V', 'BSCI222', 'BIOL709X', 'BISI899', 'BISI899', 'BSCI222'], 'average_rating': 4.0909, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Pretty straightforward class. Go to class and read the textbook. Reading the textbook is a must to do well in his class! Be determined to do well on the 3 exams, that way you don't have to take the final exam (it's optional) and not stress over one additional final during finals week. Overall, straightforward class- exams are fair, go to discussion and do all the homework/quizzes/creative writing assignments, and you should come out with an A easily. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-22T02:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Kocher drops an exam, including the final, which is a big plus. I dropped the final but I heard it was really easy and a grade booster.\r\nHe's a really boring teacher and I stopped going to class after two weeks. I never went to class and read the book instead and did really well, so if youre okay with skipping lectures and just reading, take Kocher. His exams were pretty easy and straightforward. He doesn't really try to trick you. Although the average for our first midterm was pretty high so he did make the second one quite a bit harder. (But it still wasn't bad).\r\nThere are three writing assignments that are a part of your discussion grade. These are generally a grade booster and easy points. If you can have Claire O'Quin as your TA, you should take her. She's been his TA for years and knows what he likes to test on. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-19T01:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr. Kocher is a nice, boring, and unenthusiastic professor who is pretty knowledgeable about genetics (obviously). His lectures are pretty dry (just goes straight through powerpoints which are posted online). The material isn't that difficult to grasp compared to other classes. The only annoying part about this class is the weekly discussions (2 hours each) where you discuss lecture material and take a 10 pt quiz (they drop your 2 lowest quizzes). The first few weeks they assigned homework from the book but eventually they stopped collecting it.\n\r\nCourse Structure:\n\r\n3 midterms (100 pts each)---> Look at old exams!! He repeats a lot of the same questions!\r\n1 final exam (optional if you are satisfied with your guaranteed grade based on your 3 midterms. 50 multiple choice, kinda difficult)\r\n3 writing assignments (25 pts each, essentially a completion grade)\n\r\nDespite his boring lectures, Dr. Kocher is very helpful when you ask questions. He is pretty straightforward and does not test you on super-complicated stuff. If it is complex, he will explain it thoroughly in lecture. \n\r\nDespite my semi-negative review about Kocher, I recommend taking him for genetics. His exams tend to be easier compared to other professors. Enjoy...", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-18T20:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "If you've had a good amount of high school biology (especially IB or AP stuff), you're probably set and at least half the material will be review to you (mitosis and punnet squares AGAIN?!).\n\r\nThe other half of the material is a mix between interesting cellular topics and bland number-crunching, gene-estimating tedium. \n\r\nDr. Kocher himself is not a bad guy. Lectures are pretty dry to the point where I stopped going a couple of weeks into the course. It's not a huge problem to not attend the class if you're lazy or looking to sleep in (like me) because he posts all the PowerPoint slides from class online. You can effectively learn all you need to know from them exclusively.\n\r\nExams are pretty tolerable. Often very similar to old exams. Go to the review session (or at least download the review sessions PowerPoint which, yes, is also online).\n\r\nLowest exam (including the final) is dropped so if you score well enough on the first 3, the final is optional. Grades are usually high enough so there's no curve-- take the final if you have a borderline grade. It's 50 multiple choice questions and not hard at all. \n\r\nThe book doesn't help too much, so if you're on the fence about buying it, you can probably be set without it. The answer manual is pretty handy, though-- get that alone if you want to save some money and see how to do your homework problems.\n\r\nHomework was collected for only the first two weeks in discussion. I don't even think it factored into the grade, but do it anyway. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-18T18:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "kocher is pretty boring and hard to learn from but his exams are really easy/ fair\r\nhe uses a lot of questions from previous exams\r\nif you have a good TA you are good to go\r\nClaire is the best TA\r\nreview sessions before exams are really helpful\r\nyou don't need to read every page of the chapter of the book just use the book to read over things that you are unclear about", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-06-08T01:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Professor Kocher is a really nice guy. If you memorize the major concepts, you should be fine, he doesn\'t test on specifics. Go to the reviews with Claire O\'Quinn, she\'s a life saver. Grading of the essay on his exams are completely dependent on what they\'re looking for. I remember I wrote tons for one essay, but I lost maybe six or seven points because I didn\'t include the bullet points that he had on his slides. That\'s where memorization comes in.\n\r\nHe\'s awesome, but don\'t expect him to help you if you go to his office. His exams are already really general, so he\'s not going to tell you what\'s on it. Usually you can figure it out by what he says in lecture. Sometimes he blatantly tells you "this will be on the exam, know how to do this."\n\r\nHe isn\'t very engaging in lecture, so a lot of the time people don\'t go. Just remember that if you decide to do that, you\'ll miss out on the hints that he gives out. Claire usually covers those in her reviews, but those are a day before the exam and usually there isn\'t enough time to study all the material you need to know.\n\r\nSomething I found very helpful was to have a google doc with a few of my buddies. We all took topics from his lectures and broke them down on the doc, exactly what we needed to know, and studied from there. If you can do that, and know how to do most of the problems from the book, you should be fine. \n\r\nA word of caution: Be careful what TA you get. They can make or break you. My TA was extremely nice, but her quizzes were nearly impossible. She was very knowledgable and helped us a lot, but the averages of her section compared to the rest of the class\' was about .7% higher altogether, which wasn\'t worth the points we lost for discussion.\n\r\nIn conclusion, Kocher is the man, study the big concepts, slides > the book, read the book for the potential essay questions. Know how to draw DNA, how to draw various stages of meiosis, DNA mapping, punnet squares, chi squared tests, sex determination. Those are usually almost always on his exams.\n\r\nDon\'t worry about the equations he gives you for genetic drift and mutation and stuff. We stressed out about that a lot and didn\'t know how to do the problems in the book, but they weren\'t even on the exam. \n\r\nI heard the final wasn\'t too bad, but fortunately I did well enough on the first three exams that I didn\'t have to take it. I hope this was helpful, good luck everyone :)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-01T04:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "i got an A- in this class BARELY, and didnt have to take the final. but i also never paid attention in lecture, and only read the book religiously for the first exam (which is also the exam i did the worst on.) there's a learning curve in this class and you just need to figure out how he tests. 85% of the stuff presented in lecture and in the books will never show up on the exam...so dont stress about it. look at his past exams and 60% of it will be there again on your test presented exactly the same, or a slight variation. then look at the homework questions and his slides to see what short answers and essays could possibly show up. very easy to figure out. GO TO THE REVIEW SESSIONS! they saved me, and i only went to the ones for test 2 and 3 (possibly again why my first test was the lowest)...the TA holding the review sessions will be your biggest help. seriously if i can get an A in this class simply from rigorous memorization three days before each exam, anyone can. he's your best bet. no one here has posted about the final and i cant either. but it is 50 mc and we saw the first page of the one from the year before....looks pretty easy if you feel like studying for it. so yeah thats about it. good luck! take kocher", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-27T05:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Dr. Kocher is a really great professor. I enjoyed his lectures and learned a lot about genetics. I liked the fact that he doesn't want students to memorize small details, but rather the main concepts. There are four exams in the semester, including the final, and you can drop your lowest grade. Therefore, if you are happy with your three midterm grades, you don't have to take the final. The final is multiple choice, where as the midterms are short answer/essay/matching/definition questions. Kocher usually gives you a good idea of what the essay question or short answers will be on the exam. The TA's also give a review session the night before each exam, which is extremely helpful. Exams are 75% of your grade, and discussion is 25%. There are weekly quizzes in discussion, as well as homework. There are three writing assignments throughout the semester, which are very easy and almost everyone gets 100% on them. Great course, definitely take it with Dr. Kocher! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-26T18:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Dr. Kocher is a very nice guy who wants you to understand the material. Although he tries to emphasize concept, a decent amount of memorization is still necessary.\n\r\nDiscussions are easy but highly dependent on who is your TA. There are four exams, including the final. You can drop one. I highly recommend doing well on the first three and dropping the final. Exams are not too bad. Be sure to look at past exams.\n\r\nNo curve and he gives pluses and minuses. Good if you have a B+, bad if you have an A-\n\r\nI enjoyed the class. Kocher is the professor to take for genetics', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T15:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Great professor. I really appreciated how he just wanted us to grasp the main concepts, rather than memorize every detail.\r\nHe also put in interesting things into the lecture.\r\nHis exams are very fair, and very similar to his old exams. There are weekly quizzes in discussion with about 3-5 questions, but some of the quizzes end up being dropped, and if you look at the practice problems assigned for those chapters, you're guaranteed a 10/10.\r\nThere are also three writing assignments, and they're graded very easily. Everyone gets at least a 25/30 for doing it. \n\r\nOh and he is a very nice guy if you go and talk to him in person.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-30T01:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Dr. Kocher is an amazing professor! He cares so much about his students doing well in the course, and he spends time trying to make the material easy to understand. Unlike other biology professors, Kocher wants you to understand the main picture rather than memorize tiny details that you will forget anyway. I learned so much from this class! The tests are also very fair. If you study all of his slides, you will have no problem getting a good grade. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-25T13:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Let me tell you right now, there is no curve. Beware the A- if you're pre-med!\n\r\nExams are easy. He always tests on big ideas (like the other reviewers below me have outlined). Always take a look at his old exams before exams because he frequently repeats questions.\n\r\n75% of your grade is 3 Exams, 1 Final Exam. One of these four exams is dropped (so if you do well on the three semester exams, you can drop the final exam). \n\r\n25% of your grade is discussion quizzes (pretty easy 10/10s), three essays (not too bad either) and participation. \n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T13:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Excellent Professor, very clear and straightforward. What\'s great about him is that he hates being hung up in annoying specifics just as students do (and Shields does just that from what my friends told me). His tests want you to nail down the general but crucial concepts with mastery; ie: Sample quest. from each test Fall 09 - \n\r\nFirst test: Gave you a pedigree and asked you to identify what the disease was (Autosomal, dominant etc) and rule out what it couldn\'t be and why. \n\r\nSecond Test: Asked you to draw structure of a helix (1 strand) of DNA but (of course) without the nitrogenous base which makes it fairly easy. \n\r\nThird Test: Asked you to explain in your own words what the Sanger Method is. \n\r\nHe doesn\'t like testing on the nitpicky facts so there\'s VERY little Multiple choice; the rest are short answers + 1 essay at the end. So never go into a midterm looking to just "wing it"; trust me you\'ll fail. The single most important advice I can give you, which ultimately got me the A, is on each midterm make sure you know the concepts YOU feel were the most general but yet the most important. And by that, I mean really know them; work out several problems in the book about them, make sure you could handle a question about those topics no matter how it is formulated and where he asks you to start from. \n\r\nSo this is where LECTURE, not discussion, becomes extremely important. Please, make sure to ALWAYS attend or if you really can\'t, then study the powerpoints he posts RELIGOUSLY!!\n\r\nEx of Important topics: \r\nFiguring out order of genes on a chromosome, Chi square, cloning vectors, DNA replication* (that diagram with replication forks, enzymes, etc), DNA repair, Transcription, Translation...\n\r\nEx of the kind of topics that are NOT so important: Definitions, Simple Punnett Squares, the bottleneck effect and lol i dont even remember like gene variation?, epistasis, biotechnology...\n\r\nIn my opinion, he\'s probably your best bet for this class. Even if his classes are all filled, be patient and get on the waitlists. I can assure you that he\'ll definitely be worth it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-08-24T14:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "He's a good lecturer, but the material can get boring. Each lecture covers exactly one chapter in the book, and I went to about 50% of classes, but read the book and was fine. All the material is in the book. Basically, you can either go to class and learn the material, or read the book on your own time. \n\r\nThere are four tests including the final, but the lowest one is dropped. His tests are pretty basic, and can be very similar to the old practice exams. \n\r\nDiscussion for me only lasted 1 hour, but it depends on the TA. Some sections went 2 hours. There are weekly quizzes on the chapters, which you need to do well on, since discussion is 25% of your grade. They're also easy if you know the basics of the material.\n\r\nKocher doesn't test a lot of specifics, which is refreshing for a bio class. He just wants you to understand general concepts. There's no curve though. 90% = A, 80% = B ... \n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-12-21T06:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "He's a good but boring professor. He drops one of your exams (including the final exam if that is your lowest exam---or you can choose not to take the final if your three midterms are good enough for you). He gave out 32% A's for the fall 2009. I ended up with a 89.33 but wouldn't give me the A. You write 3 papers, too, but they don't take much effort and generally boost your grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2009-12-19T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Very good genetics professor. He explains the material well and supplements his lectures by including interesting topics not covered in the textbook. When he uses PowerPoints, he often goes through the slides quickly, but posts the presentations on Blackboard after the lectures. Exams are easy and cover the most basic and important concepts. They usually include an essay, but you can choose one of two given topics to write about and the topics are usually general or hinted upon in class. He is also very responsive to students' needs and concerns (ex: possible changes in grading methods, exam dates, and discussion assignments). There was no homework assigned for his lecture specifically, but the mandatory two-hour discussion sections (which another professor is in charge of) included online homework assignments and 15-minute quizzes that weren't always helpful in understanding the material. If you took and did well in AP Biology in high school, this course shouldn't be that hard at all.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-14T04:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "ill be honest, hated the class, absolutely despised it, but from what i've heard as I’ve askd around, he is the easiest genetics professor by a lot. exams are exactly like old ones, to some extent. literally put no effort into this class until 2-3 days before the exams when i went on intense ‘memorize old exam mode’. it seemed to work alright. i came out with an A- overall but was expecting to get a much lower grade. this semester he did NOT drop the final exam, and I don't think he ever will drop the final again because of university policy. So watch for that because. did not understand a darn thing presented in lecture like ever. Not to mention lectures are absolutely terrible to sit through. No emotion at all from kocher. Talks very quietly, but that’s just how he is and you’ll get used to it. However I still went just in case he would hint about possible essay questions, because those are important. But he kind of stopped hinting at essay questions after the first exam. The first exam was very easy, and he basically told us what would be on it. The average was very high, so he made the 2nd exam very difficult, average in the 60s I belive. People hated on him for that, and sent nasty emails, so he stopped hinting about test questions. 3rd exam was in between the first two difficulty wise. The point is, I recommend the guy after going through it, even though I hated it, because literally nothing makes sense in lecture, at least to me. he goes off of powerpoints and just blabbers on about scientific methods, almost 80% of which will never show up on an exam. really in depth stuff that doesn’t mean anything to the average student. he is the only genetics guy where you can get away with putting no effort, as long as you have old exams. The final was much easier than I anticipated though. I thought I had learned nothing the entire semester then pulled a B+ on the final somehow, so I suppose I learned something. (Final exam is 50 MC while the 3 exams are all 100% writing). Best of luck, highly recommend. Still, it def won’t be any kind of fun. Also, he does these things called recitations, which are the discussion thing for 2 hours. Most professors make this really annoying, but with kocher you just talk about genetics ethics and go over homework which is basically a completion grade depending on your TA. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-12-15T17:18:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Honestly, he is very generous because his practice exams are similar to his real exams (in formatting). VOCAB IS SO IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the homework and concept quizzes make up half your grade, so the exams are less important. However, the exams are not so easy and require work. the final was multiple choice, but that is not necessarily easier. I recommend taking him, however, at the end of the course, there was no rounding up, even for .05% lower than the next grade. for example, a B- is an 80, NOT A 79.99%. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-12-21T04:47:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Great professor - it is evident that he knows what he is talking about, and is passionate about the material. The textbook is huge and not necessary at all - I did not look at it once and I got an A+ in the class, purely because I studied the lectures he posted online and studied the practice exams he posts. The homeworks due for each chapter can be difficult but were overall not super terrible. The worst thing about the class was that discussion was required, and really long.\r\nThere is a lot of material - you will be tested on pretty much all of it. The mathematical part of the class can be frustrating to conceptualize, but just takes practice. You will be doing a lot of math on the exams.\r\nThere is no BS in the class that can ruin your grade - if you study, you will do well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-06T20:22:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': 'Difficult class but doable. I don’t recommend any pre-meds take Kocher for this class because it’s hard to achieve an A and the grades are pretty unforgiving. The test grading is pretty arbitrary and sometimes the essays are graded leniently or extremely harshly. Also, he’ll test you on topics he mentions often but to a depth that he doesn’t really talk about in lecture. So I’d recommend looking up important terms online because the book and slides aren’t as detailed as he likes. Also, make sure you attend lecture. There are no recordings and the slides are hard to learn from. But he definitely does give some extra credit and the homeworks and papers are helpful to boost your grade.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-23T01:07:59.972412Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Seems like a really nice guy even though I had very few interactions with him. Unfortunately, he is a pretty bad lecturer. His slideshows are literally just screenshots of diagrams explaining concepts from the book and he just reads over it really quick. Be prepared to put in a lot of time outside of class trying to understand the concepts because I highly doubt you will understand it after lecture. That being said, he makes the class pretty easy to pass and get like a B in. However, if you're aiming for some type of A, be ready to put some real work in. Also, I think the best way to be prepared for his exams is to go over his slideshows and practice exam multiple times. If you review those, you will do fine on the exams.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-25T18:52:52.741620Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Kocher', 'course': 'BSCI222', 'review': "Kocher can be misleading about what information will be covered on exams. He does not put effort into answering questions; instead, he talks about retiring soon and that it is your job to figure it out. The content he covers in his lectures isn't super relevant to exams. I got through this course by literally reading every page in the textbook. He reuses a lot of material from past exams. Get ready to write essays on every exam and two writing assignments.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-28T23:08:20.109571Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Kocher', 'slug': 'kocher'}, {'courses': ['JOUR320', 'JOUR353', 'JOUR325', 'JOUR625'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Linthicum', 'course': 'JOUR320', 'review': "Really great guy, exceptionally knowledgable and experienced in journalism. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to writing and reporting, and you'll learn a lot from him. Here's the stats:\r\n- NO BEAT: that's a pretty big one. From what I hear, all of the other J320 teachers assign beats for outside weekly assignments, but Linthicum doesn't. So you can go to attend a CP meeting for the government meeting story, and you don't even have to leave campus for half of the other stories.\r\n- teaching style: alternating between in-class assignments and class discussion. Once a week you'll have an in-class assignment (usually a speaker for ~40 min and around an hour to write a ~300-500 word story). The other day, you'll be discussing methods for a new weekly story topic (health story, business story, profile, police story, etc.). He likes writing lists on the board of techniques for reporting and things to make sure you include in the story.\r\n- grading style: fair. He's not especially harsh. He'll be looking at your diction and language style and calling you out on any weirdly-phrased sentences or grammar issues, but it's not like an exact amount of points off for errors (he grades by letter grades, so A+ is 100, A is 95, A- is 90, B+ is 88, etc.). Missing essential facts is a C+, factual error is an F, and he DOES give A+ as well as F. So fact-check! (ESPECIALLY on in-class assignments)\r\nOverall, Linthicum's a great teacher. It's still J320, so it'll be tough. Just make sure you've got a plan for getting in your 10 clips before the last class and you'll be alright.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-14T13:10:00Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Linthicum', 'slug': 'linthicum'}, {'courses': ['CCJS418A', 'CCJS699L', 'CCJS710', 'CCJS388H', 'CCJS389H', 'CCJS699T', 'CCJS699P', 'CCJS489H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Loughran', 'course': 'CCJS388H', 'review': "Professor Loughran is a really, really nice guy. This is his first semester teaching in the CCJS Honors Program and you can tell that he's trying hard to be the best he can. He is very fair about assignments; he's moved due dates to make sure that we have enough to complete them. He's great about giving back major assignments the next week (class meets each Monday). He always encourages us to come to him with questions and he's great about responding to emails. He gets very enthused about topics that relate to his own fields of studies and we read one of the journal articles he published. Overall, Professor Loughran is awesome and just seems like such a cool person.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-11-26T20:50:00Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Loughran', 'slug': 'loughran'}, {'courses': ['ENGL388M', 'ENGL394', 'ENGL381', 'HONR379W', 'HONR368A', 'ENGL381', 'HONR368A', 'ENGL388M', 'HONR379W', 'ENGL381', 'HONR368A'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Lowderbaugh', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Dr. Lowderbaugh is a great professor. He is very willing and open to help you out with whatever questions you may have, and he is very responsive and accomodating with his e-mails. \n\r\nThe class requires a good deal of effort and is different from the writing that most students are used to. Professor Lowderbaugh will teach you how to write appropriately for the business world, which most students don't already know how to do.\n\r\nIf you are willing to put in the effort and listen to Professor Lowderbaugh's suggestions and comments and incorporate them into your writing, you should have no problem with getting an A. However, if you choose to think that your writing is already good enough for the business world and that Professor Lowderbaugh's comments aren't representative of how the real world is like, your grades will suffer.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-08-23T13:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Lowderbaugh', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'You should not take this class with this teacher. You do not understand just how awful he really is. Every class is him talking about nothing and then repeating himself and then you work in groups to edit your papers. Your group members are no better at writing than you and offer little help. Additionally, you have to write all the papers on your own. Most of the other junior English classes have you working in groups. Instead you spend an entire semester making up information for a proposal that is really stupid. This class is way too much work to get the grade. This teacher just set you up to fail.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-12T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Lowderbaugh', 'course': 'ENGL381', 'review': "Prof Lowderbaugh really cares about his students. He was readily available to talk to me after class (and office hours). Taking a 3 hour class can become boring, but he tried to keep us awake. In my opinion, he shouldn't have done the exact same thing every class - it became old fast. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-22T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Lowderbaugh', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': 'This was the most challenging course I have EVER taken in my life. Professor Lowderbaugh offers all his help so that his students receive the highest grades. He lets you rewrite papers and offers student conferences when asked. Taking his class, I feel, has extremely improved my professional writing skills. My final proposal from the class received good feedback with my supervisor (the proposal written in class is sent to the supervisor).\n\r\nUnlike other engl394 courses, you work on a proposal individually and the workload is immense. It requires research beyond mckeldin, and its unconventiality made it the most difficult class EVER.\n\r\nI worked really hard for my A, but at the end of day, I liked the class even though I had mini panic attacks every tues and thurs when I had the class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-06-01T14:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Lowderbaugh', 'course': 'ENGL381', 'review': 'Professor Lowderbaugh is a great Professor. Though sometimes he rambles with random stories, he provides some great advice to improve your resume and personal statements. I felt very well prepared for my internship at the Maryland General Assembly. I highly recommend this course. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-07T22:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Lowderbaugh', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Mr. Lowderbaugh has to be one of the worst professors at the University of Maryland. I hated having to attend his classes, he has no idea what he is talking about and everyone would have to sit while he fumbled through his 'lecture'. I have no idea why he is allowed to teach, none at all. He should have been fired a long time ago. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-24T08:48:00Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Lowderbaugh', 'slug': 'lowderbaugh'}, {'courses': ['CCJS320', 'CCJS320', 'CCJS318C', 'CCJS320', 'CCJS318C', 'CCJS320', 'CCJS320', 'CCJS318C', 'CCJS320'], 'average_rating': 4.7143, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Mauriello', 'course': 'CCJS320', 'review': "Mauriello is awesome, he's like a Bostonian version of Hamill. The class itself is very fun. You learn a lot about the different parts of forensics. There's even a firearms demo where you get to shoot blanks! He crams a lot of info into the few short weeks you have in summer school, and while you might gloss over some of the hairy details you still get the good stuff.\n\r\nHomework is very easy, he grades it based on completion not accuracy. We had one exam which made up 60% of our grade but it was very easy. Honestly, just go to class, do the homework and read the OJ Simpson Issues and you'll be fine. If you get less than an A, you didn't try hard. If you get less than a B, you tried really hard to do badly.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-06T20:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Mauriello', 'course': 'CCJS320', 'review': "His class is awesome! A must take at UMD. He is funny and very responsive to the students concerns. \n\r\nGuest lectures on polygraphs and firearms are awesome. The homework can be tedious and the exams are different than 60 MC, but it's all worth it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-06T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Mauriello', 'course': 'CCJS320', 'review': "The exam was a little different from my expectations but overall, he's a great and fun professor. One of the best. I would've rather taken it during the regular semester than the summer. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-18T12:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Mauriello', 'course': 'CCJS320', 'review': "I expected an A but earned a B. It was summer session so they did not give out anything to let me know where my grade stood. But, I guess the final exam wasn't too well. Good thing about the class was there was only one final, the lab exercises were fun, and Dr. M is just hilarious.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-08-11T16:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Mauriello', 'course': 'CCJS320', 'review': 'Mauriello is an amazing. If you want to learn in depth about forensic science you need to take this class. You are assigned to 1/3 crime scenes for the entire semester, and each person in the group gets assigned to a certain role for your crime. The crime scenes are super cool because you physically get to go to an area that he set up on campus that mimics a crime he designed. It is a very hands on course where you learn so much but everything is fun and interesting. There are module quizzes and activities due every week but the work takes one hour max and it definitely worth it to take the course. You can tell he LOVES teaching his class and really cares about his students understanding the material. If I could take this class again just for fun I would!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-11-08T20:56:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Mauriello', 'course': 'CCJS320', 'review': 'One of the best professors I’ve had at UMD, super funny and smart and wants students to do well. Strict enough to encourage you to work hard but also very understanding. I loved this class and plan to take his public speaking class as well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-21T14:02:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Mauriello', 'course': 'CCJS318C', 'review': 'CCJS318C is a new public speaking course in the CCJS department. I took it the first semester it was taught, Fall 2022. Professor Mauriello is a laid back, kind, and super knowledgeable professor. His expertise shines through his lectures and I really enjoyed having him as a professor. However, the course was not what I thought it would be. I expected to practice speaking more but instead, we only had about 2 formal speeches the whole semester. Most classes were either guest speakers (who, for the most part, were boring) and lectures on material that we didn’t need to or have to know. As for exams, the course quizzes were pretty easy and are based on Mauriello’s new public speaking book, which wasn’t an interesting read and had information with little to no relevance to college students. Yes, this was the first time the course was taught and I’m sure it will improve. But for that to happen, there needs to be public speaking every class and less book/lecture. So if you’re not the most confident public speaker and only want to practice a little, maybe this class is for you. Otherwise, maybe a COMMs course is your best best to practice speaking.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-08T19:35:44.959203Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Mauriello', 'slug': 'mauriello'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'EXST010'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas McCloskey', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Thomas is amazing! He genuinely cares about your success and well-being. He is very flexible and is THE fastest grader and responds to emails almost instantly. He knows comm107 is a gen-ed and is no one's priority, so if you just turn in all the assignments an A is guaranteed. The speeches aren't that bad and he's a very lax grader. Just don't go over or undertime, and you'll most likely get a 95-100%. He's a great lecturer and makes class so much fun. Also he lets us out of class early most days which is nice.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-03T13:45:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas McCloskey', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "Thomas is the best! We had weekly quizzes on the textbook where everything was copy and paste, and we had three attempts- it's impossible to fail them. I took the class on Zoom so it was all recorded lectures but he was super chill about grading! He knows that most people are just there for the requirement and is really understanding of it and doesn't give a lot of work. He is fun and even lets us call him by his first name! Definitely one of the best comm professors from what I have heard from my other friends! 10/10 recommend he's the best!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-14T19:38:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas McCloskey', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'Thomas is an enthusiastic and flexible professor. He grades assignments fast, gives great constructive reviews, and allows extensions easily if you ask him with a good reason (an important exam from another class coming up on the same due date as his class or something like that). As long as you turn assignments in on time and show efforts in your speech (slides and note cards), As are guaranteed. Most of the time, he lets students out of class early and he is fun to listen and talk to.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-27T16:58:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas McCloskey', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': "He is THE BEST comm107 professor. Firstly the structure of the class is really nice. He gets the required quizzes out of the way early in the semester and everything is very straightforward (both in what you are supposed to do and when it is due). He is a super interesting person to listen to and really kind. He is a super fast grader and as long as you put in the effort (to create notecards and do your best on the assignments leading up to the speech which prepare you for it) you will get a good grade. He is also just really interesting to listen to and uses pretty fun examples in class. Will often let class out early so you just have to make sure you get the assignments in on time. Clearly has student's interests at heart and is willing to work with you. 100% recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-26T19:01:45.824920Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas McCloskey', 'slug': 'mccloskey'}, {'courses': ['RDEV688P', 'ENES463', 'ENES663', 'ENES663'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Mierzwa', 'course': 'ENES463', 'review': 'Solid course to take with this guy, only complaint is that assignment directions were vague so it took a bit more time to understand.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-07-04T22:40:50Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Mierzwa', 'slug': 'mierzwa'}, {'courses': ['MEES631', 'MEES608F', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'MEES608B', 'GEMS497', 'MEES607', 'MEES609A', 'MEES601', 'MEES631', 'MEES608B', 'MEES601', 'MEES608B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Miller', 'slug': 'miller_thomas'}, {'courses': ['ENGL302', 'ENGL310', 'ENGL466', 'ENGL402', 'ENGL478F', 'ENGL310', 'ENGL466', 'ENGL302', 'ENGL375', 'ENGL375', 'ENGL402'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Moser', 'course': 'ENGL302', 'review': 'This class is easy. You only have to do 3 short papers, 1 long paper, a midterm and a final. I have taken many ENGL classes that assign much more writing.\r\nHe is really into what he teaches, and doesn\'t beat around the bush. He will flat out tell you that the characters "fuck like bunnies."\r\nOverall, a fun guy and an interesting class. I would recommend it.\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-13T00:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Moser', 'course': 'ENGL302', 'review': 'He\'s definitely a good professor and pushes you to think very deeply about medieval literature. The class isn\'t flat out easy though, maybe because I took it online and I didn\'t know much about medieval lit until I took the class. It\'s definitely challenging (heavy reading): weekly quizzes, weekly discussion boards, two response papers that are due before you actually talk about the text in class meaning you have to read the book or text and write a paper on it in advance (which was a bit of a shocker but it was fine once you get used to it), two other essays (midterm and final), and then two short discussion leader "papers" (only like 300 words). \r\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-06T16:03:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Moser', 'course': 'ENGL402', 'review': "Nothing but kind words for this professor. He knows the content incredibly well and takes a vested interest in how well the students understand the material. He is very easy to reach out to, so definitely take advantage of the fact that you have a professor that is easily accessible for all of your questions. Be respectful towards him and the class and he will show the same respect back. The professor is understanding of every student's personal and academic standing, so taking a personal day for your mental health or to study for other classes is fine in limitation, just be sure to reach out to him ahead of time. We are humans who just happen to be students, and he recognizes that. Classes are never boring and the assignments are always thought-provoking. Can't speak enough praise. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-04-09T18:06:49Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Moser', 'slug': 'moser'}, {'courses': ['CMSC132H', 'CMSC250', 'CMSC131', 'CMSC132', 'CMSC122'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Reinhardt', 'slug': 'reinhardt'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Steen', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Pretty much gives you an A+ as long as you show up and do the work. Really helpful teacher! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-17T18:19:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Steen', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'Guaranteed A+ if you just show up and participate. Super helpful and a great advisor as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-11-30T20:28:25.070283Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Steen', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'You will A+ just go to class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T21:39:37.419997Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Steen', 'slug': 'steen'}, {'courses': ['PLSC402'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thomas Turner', 'slug': 'turner_thomas'}, {'courses': ['GEMS104', 'HIST405', 'CPSP227', 'HIST619T', 'HIST205', 'HIST329X', 'HIST408F', 'CPSS225', 'HIST428T', 'HIST396', 'HIST428P', 'HIST638P', 'HIST407', 'HIST408O', 'HIST329X', 'HIST405', 'CPSS225', 'HIST428P'], 'average_rating': 3.4, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': 'HIST205', 'review': 'I absolutely love this class. As an environmental engineer, it was extremely helpful to take this class before I graduated. I definitely feel better informed about our environmental history to better prepare for projects now.\n\r\nDr. Z was an interesting guy, the lectures were a little boring, but most are. All of the books were great to have on had and really supplemented the class well.\n\r\nJust was the TA that semester and really helped bring the class full circle.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-12-22T13:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': "Dr. Zeller isn't that bad. Yes, the class is fairly boring and a ton of seemingly pointless work, but its really not terrible. If you put in your share of the work on the team paper and delegate work within your team, the paper is not hard. Lecture is usually pretty boring, but if you go to lecture, its really easy to participate in discussion without doing the readings. Dr. Zeller is a nice guy, just not a particularly interesting lecturer. \r\nOverall, a lot of work, but most of it isn't extremely difficult. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-24T18:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': 'HIST205', 'review': 'Dr. Zeller is a very nice man. He does have a German accent, but he is not difficult to understand. The class is challenging. Assignments included weekly page-long writings due in discussion, two papers, one midterm, and the final. Discussion is mandatory if you want to receive a decent participation grade. Attendance is taken every week. I was disappointed in the grading of the second paper. The TA said it was a challenging assignment, and would therefore not be graded harshly. This was not the case. I received a C and have never received below a B on a paper in college. Other students were not pleased with the assignment either. Be prepared to study for the exams, also. They involve a large amount of writing. I preferred taking this course for my SH core because it was not a history class on a specific country. The material covered involved countries around the globe.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-20T23:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': 'I honestly did not get the whole purpose of this class beyond the fact that there was tons and tons of busy work. I seriously had more work for this course than for any of my serious courses. Regardless, if you put the time in, it really isn\'t that hard...but you have to put A LOT of time in...no joke...more than should be required of any 100 level course...even for Gemstone...\n\r\nStill, the lecture topics were interesting and I would say I learned some pretty fun and thought invoking things from them. I just will there was less emphasis on the busy work thinly veiled as a "research paper" ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-25T17:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': 'GEMS104', 'review': 'Zeller teaches a class that honestly I think any middle school history teacher could teach. GEMS104 is ultimately a class about using common sense when learning about topics. Speaks in a monotone though and many people really space or doze off during class. Unreasonable enforcement of "no distractions" by TAs. Tries to make things more important and interesting than they really are which in turn makes him irritating. Final is easy; can be passed if you get the main points of the lecture from someone. Discussion is mandatory; topic discussion is often redundant while research discussion is a waste of time. Must do a 30 page paper which really isn\'t that bad since it\'s a group project. Unlike other professors that teach large lectures, he has input in your grades which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on which side of the fence you\'re on.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-02T01:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': None, 'review': ' Professor Zeller is a very interesting guy. Although there are things you might not particularly appreciate about his class, I think that you will enjoy it overall, and realize that it could be a lot worse!\r\n Most of the class required readings-ranging from the textbooks to online podcasts to articles on the website-and most were about very interesting topics! Most of the class was based around discussions about the different topics, although there were some times where he did lecture. We also went to a guest lecture, which was pretty cool!\r\n The biggest assignment due throughout the semester is the research project and the poster for it! You don\'t have any exams, except for the final, which consisted of some IDs, a short essay, and a longer essay. He does have shorter assignments throughout the year, but nothing too unbearable. For the research project, he breaks it down into smaller sections (with due dates) so that you don\'t wait until the last minute to complete it! He\'s a little strict on the research paper, especially regarding sources and formatting and such, but overall, it can help motivate you to do well when all is said and done. Also, sometimes his workload and syllabus is a little unclear and unbalanced, but at the end of the semester, you\'ll have time to work on the research paper, so you should be able to pull a good grade on it.\r\n A couple of words of advice to students would be to make sure that you stay on top of the assignments and don\'t be afraid to take initiative! Professor Zeller can be a bit disorganized sometimes, but make sure to contact him if you\'re unsure about anything! Also, make sure you come prepared to class and get involved, because participation makes a big impact on your grade, and he does take attendance via a sign-in sheet. \r\n You should be able to pull an A in the class, but the only reason I put a B in the "Grade Expected" box was because I didn\'t want the reader to assume that it would be a "gimme" A. A "B" is almost a definite grade if you do things as required, but getting the A will take a little extra desire and effort -although by no means is it unmanageable, because I pulled it off!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-21T17:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': 'HIST205', 'review': "I like Zueller as a person, and at times had lower energy humor that put a grin on my face. But I felt my time was wasted in his lectures. Zueller's format is 45 terms he covers in lecture throughout the semester, so you need to go to lecture right? Well..the terms for the most part lacked elaboration/historical context which is necessary for the final. You need to go to discussion though, Justin the TA does a better job setting the historical context. Word of warning though the readings at times were extremely dense, and made the class extremely boring. I learning a decent amount given the class' subject, but I would only recommend taking it if the topic of environmentalism/the environment is a passion you have.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-12-22T02:06:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': 'HIST205', 'review': 'The grading expectations for a 200 level course are too high. There are weekly readings with a corresponding writing assignment - 200 words. There\'s no rubric yet he expects essay-level writing without contractions, first-person, generic identifiers (people, individuals), etc. I ended up spending 3-4 hours a week on this minimal assignment. Every single returned assignment was littered with criticisms, and never once did I get positive feedback. I was not the only student who did not understand their expectations; the average was between 50-80% each week.\r\n\r\nThere are two papers - both of which are 80% graded on writing style and 20% content. We were told numerous times to go to the writing center more than once. I went twice, and even had my former composition professor read through it. I edit textbooks as my job, yet I somehow only got an 85% on the paper, lowering my grade to a B+. I read through their critiques and disagreed with nearly all of them. I met with the prof and the TA multiple times before the paper and received zero guidance other than being told, "If you cannot write at a collegiate level, you must go to the writing center."\r\n\r\nThe material for the class is interesting, but there\'s a reason why a 200-level course has so few A\'s and so many W\'s. I am a senior and this is the first class I\'ve ever dropped.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2018-11-01T22:49:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': 'HIST205', 'review': "Dr. Zeller is the man! He is like a encyclopedia when it comes to the information of the class, and he is always happy to elaborate or go over info that you don't understand. The readings are a little lengthy, but they are usually pretty riveting (Especially the Cronan piece). Justin (The TA) is also super knowledgeable and dedicated, and discussion sessions with him were always worth going to. Overall a really great course, and not overly difficult either.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-04-25T20:57:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Thomas Zeller', 'course': 'HIST205', 'review': "Dr. Zeller is a pretty good professor in terms of keeping you engaged and providing interesting topics to learn about. I rarely find myself bored or not taking notes in the class. However, there is a LOT of reading and work to do if you want an A. Luckily, the exams are not overly complicated or difficult as long as you study the main concepts. It's VERY conceptual. It's a class where you should understand the concepts and be able to give opinions off of them; there is no right from wrong answers as long as you can back it up. Just know what you're talking about and be strong in those ideas. Overall I think you should choose this class if you truly are interested or curious about environmental history and you shouldn't if you just want an easy A/not wanting much work for non-major classes. The TA (new one this semester) was also very nice and approachable for any accommodations or requests you need. And if you do decide to take this class, you should approach the assignments in an (especially essays) abstract way.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-20T19:10:44.819451Z'}], 'name': 'Thomas Zeller', 'slug': 'zeller'}, {'courses': ['AAST398A', 'AAST398E', 'RELS216', 'RELS289I', 'AAST398V', 'AAST398L', 'AAST388', 'AAST398I', 'HIST328D', 'AMST328V', 'AMST328O', 'AMST328P', 'IMMR319G', 'WMST498I', 'AAST378'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Thu Khuc', 'slug': 'khuc'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338B', 'EDHI338M', 'EDHI338K', 'EDHI338L', 'EDHI338X'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tiffany Harris', 'slug': 'harris_tiffany'}, {'courses': ['EDCI288D', 'EDCI288E', 'EDCP108E', 'TLPL288D', 'TLPL288E', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tilahun Beyene', 'slug': 'beyene'}, {'courses': ['KNES689W', 'KNES689D', 'KNES497', 'KNES385', 'KNES689M', 'KNES289W', 'KNES385H', 'KNES370', 'KNES370H', 'KNES476', 'KNES478', 'KNES477', 'KNES226', 'KNES226', 'KNES370', 'KNES370H', 'KNES478', 'KNES226', 'KNES370', 'KNES370H', 'KNES476', 'KNES478', 'KNES370', 'KNES370H', 'KNES477', 'KNES478', 'KNES370', 'KNES370', 'KNES370', 'KNES226', 'KNES370', 'KNES370H', 'KNES476', 'KNES478'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES289W', 'review': "Easy class, if you do the bare minimum you're guaranteed a B+. Teaching style was boring however which is why I knocked a point off. But this is arguably the easiest gen ed I ever took.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2018-09-06T16:51:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES370', 'review': 'great professor, so sweet', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-04-07T19:06:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES370', 'review': 'Human Motor and Development.\r\nGood learning about different aspects of human development.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2021-06-28T04:22:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES226', 'review': "The class is pretty average. He reads right off the power points and goes through the slides so fast it's hard to write notes. But he posts the power points after class, which was helpful. The exercises are pretty easy, and we get to take our quizzes twice, which is nice. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-19T00:45:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES226', 'review': 'The way that Dr. Kiemel grades the class makes it impossible to get lower than a B in the class if you just do the work. If you put a little effort into studying for the exams, an A is super attainable in this class. Overall, the lectures are boring, but I would highly recommend this class if you want an easy A.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-23T03:26:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES370', 'review': 'The class is super boring and he goes over exactly what is on the slides. If you are a good test taker, then this class is an easy A for you, Quizzes are super easy and directly relate to the content you are learning in class. DO THE TURNING POINT AND EXTRA CREDIT!!! All exams and finals are multiple-choice, which is easier to prepare for. Really not hard to get a good grade in this class, but the hard work comes from discussions. My TA was terrible and was a tough grader and the assignments were difficult and oftentimes way too complex for what we were learning compared to lecture content. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-04-18T13:43:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': None, 'review': 'Super easy exams. Lectures posted on panapto. Overall easy class and sometimes intersting. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-27T16:34:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES226', 'review': "He's a nice guy class is pretty straightforward. You can fail all the exams and still get a B in the class. I took this for the gen ed and didn't really put much effort into it and still pulled a B. If you put any effort into the class you can easily get an A. As a teacher, he's kinda boring since he basically reads off slides, which kinda made it hard to go to lectures. I would recommend this class though for easy an gen ed.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-05-16T20:22:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES226', 'review': "course is structured so you pass if you put little effort. It's challenging for an A or better. weekly discussions require you to present to the class biweekly which can be a hassle at times, the lectures can be really dry depending on the topic. For an A you must pass 10/12 quizzes, 5/6 present, and 90%+ avg on all 3 exams (2 exams being 25q and final being 50), finals cumulative and the final tries to trick you a good amount. The TA can be a bit harsh on grading weekly discussion assignments, but you'll still pass if you put in some effort, they're just nitpicky \r\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-20T02:43:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES370', 'review': 'Professor Kiemel is a very dry lecturer BUT the information is very interesting. I personally found his exams to be pretty easy ESPECIALLY the weekly online ones. He exams are pretty straight forward as long as you study his lectures and PowerPoints. He also gives lots of opportunities for extra credit by participating in studies, writing a paper, and then coming to lecture and doing turning point. As long as you put time and effort into it you’ll get an A. As for the “lab” it’s literally a discussion and I got a 10/10 on every assignment. Would definitely recommend this course and professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-14T00:06:30.702788Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES370', 'review': "Very nice professor but has boring lectures. Taking this class made me realize the KNES major is not for me, but that is good! Not the professor. Just not interested in this type of stuff anymore. The discussion assignments are easy and time-consuming, but if you follow the rubric, you'll get a 10/10. The exams were very tricky, but that also could've been about I'm not interested in the content. The extra credit assignments help your grade so DO THEM. Do all the turning points and the study.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-12-17T18:58:29.549007Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES370', 'review': "Dr. Kiemel is a really nice professor who is understanding and easy to contact. This class is very straightforward with 3 exams, discussion assignments, and weekly online quizzes. Attendance for lecture is not necessary, but in order to do well I would recommend going. Attendance for discussion is mandatory and is where you do most of your work for the class. The class's grades are majority based off the exams, so studying and being prepared for these exams is extremely important. Dr. Kiemel makes this relatively easy as he provides practice quizzes and recording to help prepare. The exams are all MC as well. Overall I have nothing bad to say about this class. Dr. Kiemel's lectures can get boring, but overall this class is relatively easy. He provides some extra credit opportunities which can help as well. If you get lazy like I did, your grade can slip pretty easily.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-23T00:27:44.023154Z'}, {'professor': 'Tim Kiemel', 'course': 'KNES226', 'review': 'Good professor, easy to understand and class is very structured, if you show up and do the work you should do well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-23T18:17:24.112982Z'}], 'name': 'Tim Kiemel', 'slug': 'kiemel'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'CMLT235', 'ENGL234', 'ENGL221', 'AASP298L', 'ENGL101H'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Timothy Bruno', 'slug': 'bruno'}, {'courses': ['AOSC200', 'AOSC493', 'AOSC494', 'AOSC658E', 'AOSC652', 'AOSC499', 'AOSC798', 'AOSC200C', 'AOSC200', 'AOSC200', 'AOSC200C', 'AOSC493', 'AOSC499', 'AOSC798', 'AOSC499', 'AOSC798', 'AOSC200', 'AOSC200C', 'AOSC493'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Tim Canty is an awesome and geeky person, but I will admit the lectures were very boring and I found myself falling asleep. That being said, he does post all the material online (lecture slides and recordings of the class) which is good for studying and catching up what you missed. It was a pretty easy A class... that being said if you did the review guides and practice tests/quizzes he puts up you should be fine. Also, an 85% was an A- and a 90% was an A. I just wished the class was more engaging because I went to lectures for the "topic of the day"s which were like pop in-class activities that you had to be present to receive credit for.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-18T13:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'This is one of my favorite classes I have taken at UMD. Tim Canty made the class exciting, with lots of demonstrations and models about weather. The topics themselves can be boring, but the science itself is simple. You will have to do reading for short, 5 point quizzes, but the answers are out of the book. There are 2 quizzes, a midterm and a final, but he uploads plenty of old ones, and he prepares you more than well enough for those. The TAs are alright. Overall, I learned a lot from this class, and I would recommend it for both science and non-science majors. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-12T04:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'This class feels like a prison. Tim Canty is not an engaging teacher and has his TA\'s sitting in the back of the classroom watching over the class and watching our every move. I find it unnecessary and excessive. This is one of the classes where he forces and drags you to class. He records his lectures and posts them online which truly is helpful and I am thankful he does that, however, by default, he encourages students to not go to class because they can view the lectures later. However, he has surprise exit cards he calls topics of the days which in turn "scares" or "stresses" students out into going into class. Also, when we have discussions, rather than reviewing material we went in class, we end up doing group projects which are supposed to support our grade. But discussion is only 50 minutes, so there isn\'t enough time to explain group projects and do a thorough coverage of material that was went over in class so students are put at a disadvantage. This class seems to set you up to succeed with the way he grades but if anything, it makes the class more tedious than necessary and is setting you up to actually do worse. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-05T15:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "Dr. Canty: Such a great professor who is really enthusiastic about the class and teaching you about weather and climate. He is really funny and he tries to keep the class engaging with demonstrations to help you visualize the concepts.\n\r\nExams: There are two exams and then the final (100 points each). Pretty easy, if you go to class and pay attention. Tim posts past exams on ELMS, but there aren't any answer keys, so you have to figure out the answers for yourself. Consists of about 10-15 multiple choice, and then 4-6 free response questions. Does not usually curve. \n\r\nQuizzes: 2 quizzes that are 40 points each. Same format as exams, just shorter.\n\r\nAdmission Tickets: 5 questions quizzes before every class. Answer are straight from the book.\n\r\nProjects: 2 group projects that take place in discussion, presentation format. Also easy, but the 1st project is easier than the second. \n\n\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-04-20T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Dr. Canty is a fantastic professor. Coming from someone who isn\'t even remotely close to being a science major, this class (and Dr. Canty) are perfect for those who need a lab/I-Series fulfilled. He does a great job. He uses good in-class models and keeps the material surprisingly interesting for a dry subject. \n\r\nHe does do five point quizzes due before every class on ELMS, but honestly the answers come straight from the textbook. There are also "Topic of the Day" sections on random class days where it\'s more or less a way to gauge attendance. (Both of these are worth 5% of your grade individually.) Projects are easy and are definitely a grade booster. In all, Canty is the man and this is a solid class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-08T18:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "Tim Canty is one of the funniest, cutest professors I've had at UMD. He keeps the class engaged well by incorporating videos, graphics, jokes, and sidestories into his lectures. The class itself isn't difficult and doesn't require a lot of studying if you go to all the lectures. There are two projects over the course of the semester that take a bit of time, but are graded generously and are there to boost your grade. Would 100% take this class again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-29T14:40:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "Very engaging, down to earth teacher. I never had him test on anything he didn't cover or have in his notes. He truly wants his students to do will but also won't put up with bs in class. He answers every genuine question and is almost always available for a one to one in office hours. Great class and great teacher. Material could get boring but he tried to make clouds as exciting as they could be.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-01-30T20:11:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "Extremely engaging lectures if you're interested in going. Absurdly self-aware of his nerdiness and lack of class-attendance. If you go to class, you will most likely get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-08-12T14:02:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "Tim Canty was such a genuine professor and I thoroughly looked forward to his class. He really cares about his students and their well-being. This being my first semester at UMD, it was so nice to have a professor I knew cared about me. He makes his lectures very entertaining, even if the actual topic is not. Tim's passion on the class made it worthwhile and I definitely would take this class again.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-16T02:57:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Tim is the cutest professor ever. If you go to class, you can get a good score.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-01-29T21:42:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "Tim is an absolute LEGEND. Sign up for AOSC200 and thank your respective god for allowing you to learn from one of UMD's best professors. Kind, funny, down to earth... what more could you want? ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-06-21T21:01:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Professor Canty clearly cares about his students and loves the material he teachers. He works to make all the lectures engaging and interesting and he teaches with an energy that makes the lectures fun to watch. He is funny, kind, and down to earth and cares more that his students understand the material rather than what grade they get. If you have the chance to take him, please do', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-07T17:09:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "Tim is the GOAT he is such a nice, caring, and funny professor and you can tell that he definitely enjoys everything that he is teaching. Best of all he canceled our final for this semester and let us just keep whatever grade we had in the class, or take it online if we wanted. If you're able to take Tim for a class definitely do. AOSC200 in general was pretty good and interesting but the discussion section group projects were annoying.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-17T02:48:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Tim is the GOAT he really cares for his students and is really hilarious during the lectures. The material is not that hard but you just need to read and understand the topics. take him if you can this guy deserves an award', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-10T02:57:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "Tim truly cares about his students' success in the class. He always emphasizes how he wants to help you and will follow through if you need it. Good class overall. Manageable workload. Just make sure to review the material and not fall behind. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-14T02:55:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Ill start with the positives: \r\nTim’s a super nice guy and pretty fair, he tries his best to keep the class interesting. He’s very understanding of students and their needs. He is never condescending towards students and understand that not everyone comes from the same background. Always answers questions from students in depth. \r\n\r\nNow the negatives:\r\nThe class is SO boring. It’s a class on weather, I’m not sure what you’d expect. If you’re not fascinated by weather, I don’t recommend this class. I took this class bc I thought it would be pretty cool but it is now interesting in the slightest. Tim tries his best to make things interesting but it’s just so boring. \r\nAnother thing is, this class is a lot more work than you’d expect, especially for a gen Ed. There are multiple group projects, 2 quizzes ( basically an online midterm - idk why he calls them quizzes), a midterm (in person) and a final (also in person). Oh and a TON of reading. If you read the textbook and do the admission tickets, you don’t need to go to lecture. Despite his fairness, he absolutely does try and “trap” you on the online quizzes. I think he takes his job far too seriously, especially for a gen ed. he tried to justify himself by saying things like “oh i told you not to cheat” It’s an online midterm, of course people are going to try and cheat - any logical person would. Personally I thought the midterms and Quizzes were more difficult than they should have been. \r\n\r\nOverall: \r\nTake this class if you’re super into weather, if you’re not do not take this class. \r\nTim’s a great guy but I do not like the way he structures his class. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-04-25T18:31:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Very easy grading system, great professor, if you go to class you will succeed!!!! However, DO NOT CHEAT!!!!! Tim purposely puts questions on quizzes that he knows are on the internet, and he will check for who googled the answers and report you to the honor council.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-04-27T15:33:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "He is not the best prof honestly and he doesn't care about his students at all ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-09T22:51:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Lots of assignments and projects. Don’t cheat or else you will get caught. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-07-21T02:54:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "He cares about what he's teaching but I feel that he has little compassion for his students.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-07-27T14:09:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Keep in mind this is a genEd and 99% of the people who take the class are only doing so because they have to. \r\n\r\nThis is how Tim runs his class,\r\nTells you to take an online exam, at your convenience, with open notes, and not proctored. That\'s just edging students to cheat. Any reasonable person who is taking this class, given these circumstances, will cheat - that\'s just a simple matter of fact. He traps you by asking very specifically worded questions, that when put into google, will give a certain response. If your answer is similar to what google has, he will accuse you of cheating. After "realizing" that 50ish kids have cheated, he will give the class two options:\r\n1) Admit to cheating. Get a 0 for that exam. No referral to student conduct\r\n2) Receive an XF from student conduct\r\n\r\nBut no matter what, you will be referred to student conduct, even if you admit to him that you cheated! That\'s the kind of man Tim is. He will pretend to be your friend, trap you, convince you to admit fault, then lie to you and report you regardless. \r\n\r\nDon\'t take this class... Tim is a dishonorable person who encourages cheating and does not keep his word. It\'s a class on WEATHER, he takes it far too seriously, especially for a genEd.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-07-28T19:40:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': "This guy is a joke, don't take his class unless you want to be accused of cheating.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-09-15T01:26:05.787525Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'If you are expecting an easy class, do not take it. You will need to attend lectures and even do outside studying. Make sure to do your work on time as he doesnt allow late work. His class isnt hard persay, but you CANNOT CHEAT he will find out and is super strict on it. He posts recorded lectures and his slides are really informative. He does host reviews before quizzes and exams. Tim is a nice guy and is caring as long as you dont cheat which apparently a lot of people have judging by the reviews.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-20T06:16:39.336954Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'Tim is very genuinely very passionate about the subject and lectures are very informative and are available on ELMS. If you attend lecture and put in effort into studying outside of lecture (including taking practice exams and attending review sessions in discussion), you’ll do fine on quizzes and exam.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T00:30:56.633962Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'this class is interesting and fun, and if you\'re gonna take this class, I would definitely take it with Tim. He\'s funny and a good lecturer. However, disclaimer: you have to do these projects in discussion with a group, and that can definitely take a toll on your grade especially if your TA is annoying about grading (and group projects suck in general). Also, you actually need to pay attention and study (not that much but like a tad), this is definitely an easy science class but not an easy gen ed if that makes sense. \r\nI did not do this, but taking notes in class may help you. This might be obvious for some people to do but I didn\'t think to in an "easy class" \r\n- also if you\'re planning to take this class for fun and not for gen ed reasons, make sure you have energy and room in your schedule to devote at least a little time to this class because it surprisingly requires some energy. \r\nThat said, it\'s super interesting and gives good general knowledge on our weather system, so I would still recommend taking it, just keep these things in mind :)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-26T00:18:40.841282Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Canty', 'course': 'AOSC200', 'review': 'I thought this class was pretty easy I would have had an A+ if i didnt forget about one of the weekly summaries but thats beside the point. Lectures are recorded and I didnt go to many during the 2nd half of the semester but I still watched them as they were very informative and he explained the concepts in a way that made them very easy for me to understand. Discussion projects was what took up most time out of class but were relatively easy and my TA was pretty good and didnt grade hard at all. Besides that, every lecture an easy admission ticket is due before you get to class. The single midterm was very easy in my opinion. The final was even easier though and I got a good grade with very little studying. Overall I recommend Tim, he brings some humor to lecture and just know hot air rises.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-13T04:37:53.699795Z'}], 'name': 'Timothy Canty', 'slug': 'canty'}, {'courses': ['KNES154N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Timothy Hamlet', 'slug': 'hamlet'}, {'courses': ['ENEE611', 'ENEE313', 'ENEE411', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE307', 'EDSP652', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE303H', 'ENEE611', 'ENEE303', 'ENEE307', 'ENEE611'], 'average_rating': 4.0769, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'Horiuchi is a fairly good professor for 303. He goes into a lot of detail about device physics, which didn\'t interest me too much personally, but it does make the derivations of the equations a bit easier to follow. We spent a lot of time discussing different designs that can be made with transistors, which was nice, but it felt like the second half of the semester was just a million ways to use the MOSFET, with little actual "new" content.\r\nRegarding the work, homeworks were fairly straightforward, if sometimes long. They come about once a week, and cover mostly whatever you do in discussion that week. Also, GO TO DISCUSSION. This is where you will get most practice with application of concepts.\r\nOn exams, the midterm and final were weighted equally and designed with the same expected time and difficulty. You get one cheat sheet, and there are no numbers, which is a godsend for people like myself who tend to think 9 + 2 = 13, or other similar math errors.\r\nOverall, a good professor to take this course with.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-16T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': "The class as a whole wasn't bad, even though device physics isn't really my area of interest. Homework assignments were usually pretty tough, but could be figured out by closely reviewing the textbook or lectures notes. The exams were also tough, but he lets you bring a double-sided sheet of notes, which is more useful as a study tool than for actually relying on during the test. In fact, he tends to give you most, if not all, of the equations that you will need, you just need to figure out how to apply them. His grading scale is laid out in the syllabus, but he will curve individual exams if the class average is really low. Overall, I'd recommend Dr. Horiuchi.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-26T23:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'Lectures were fairly straightforward, assignments were a bit difficult but not unmanageable, and there were only 2 exams, including the final which was designed to be the length of a normal exam. However, my one complaint is that Horiuchi spent a lot of time discussing device physics, topics which never appeared on the homeworks or exams. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-02-26T20:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE313', 'review': 'they dont call him tiny tim for nothin!', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-01T18:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Great Professor! Very clear lecture notes and really made me enjoy circuits. Exams aren't too bad and there's a nice curve at the end. Highly recommend.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-17T20:14:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'An excellent professor. He had well-written lecture notes, that would supplement his teaching (note supplement, not replace, go to class!) and was clear in teaching, and very helpful. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-12-19T19:52:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Good professor. Has videos of lectures online so easy to keep up but also easy to fall behind. Exams weren't bad just do as much practice as possible.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-21T14:06:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Not much workload, and exams are fair. Grading scheme is very easy as well, with a 50+% being a C. Didn't really like the teaching method, which was a reverse classroom structure, but the class was easy enough.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:15:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE307', 'review': 'Easy class if you have a nice TA, and Horiuchi is a great professor. 100% recommend you to take him for this and even 303. There are 7 labs in total due every 2 weeks so the workload is very manageable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-11T15:22:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'Great professor who really cares about his students. Online teaching is hard to do but his Livescribe PDFs made it a lot more bearable. I would recommend him for any ENEE course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-26T23:26:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': 'This professor cares about his students and wants them to succeed. His flipped lecture style can be difficult at times since you have to watch recorded lecture videos and take a quiz before attending that lecture in person, but they helped me retain course content a lot better. He does a lot of examples in class and in the recorded videos, so pay attentionand do plenty of practice before exams. He wants to set up his students for success, so I recommend taking a course from this professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-26T04:01:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "He's really nice and gave relatively easy exams (never tested on the harder parts of the material). Lectures were recorded online and a bit dry in my opinion but that's probably just me not being interested in the material. I did think watching the recorded lectures in advance before each class took a lot of time, but it helped me learn.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-23T02:30:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'course': 'ENEE303', 'review': "Was not a fan of the class structure, which was a flipped classroom where you had to watch the approximately hour long set of videos prior to class, and take a quiz on said videos before class. The classes themselves were like large discussion sections, which I did not understand the reasoning behind since there was already a discussion time built into the class. The homeworks took fairly long, but seemed manageable given you were up to date with the material. The class moves fairly fast and the material is somewhat difficult, so it is quite easy to fall behind and difficult to catch up with, which is what happened to me. Decent lecturer within the videos, although is very theory heavy when most of the homeworks and exams are based on the concepts in practice. Don't recommend unless you have a light workload for the semester or genuinely care about learning the material and don't mind the work that comes with it. I'm guessing all the positive reviews for this professor come from these kinds of students, which I feel do not represent most of the students that take this course. I will give him credit for the curve, though, which has a 50% as a C-.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2023-03-02T19:06:11.845694Z'}], 'name': 'Timothy Horiuchi', 'slug': 'horiuchi'}, {'courses': ['JOUR203', 'HONR239V', 'JOUR504', 'JOUR370', 'JOUR368N', 'JOUR668N', 'JOUR670', 'JOUR368N', 'JOUR370', 'JOUR668N', 'JOUR368N', 'JOUR370', 'JOUR668N', 'JOUR368N', 'JOUR370', 'JOUR668N', 'JOUR670', 'JOUR368N', 'JOUR370', 'JOUR668N', 'JOUR670'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Timothy Jacobsen', 'course': 'JOUR203', 'review': "if you're taking 203, TAKE JACOBSEN! really awesome guy who really wants to see his students do well. there are weekly assignments (like every 203 class) where you go out and collect photos/audio/video and then a final project that is a huge portion of your grade where you combine all 3 (or not, really up to you/your project). he gives you the final 3 or so weeks of class time to work on your final project, so you really should be able to finish before finals start. he's super helpful and understanding and overall just a really cool guy. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-05-13T11:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Jacobsen', 'course': 'JOUR370', 'review': "Prof. Jacobsen is a hard grader. It seems like he expects us to know how to shoot photos perfectly before we enter the class and grades us based off it. His grading method is not very transparent but you do learn a lot through his comments on ELMS. He's a very nice guy but drones on and on in class about irrelevant things.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-03T13:47:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Jacobsen', 'course': 'JOUR370', 'review': 'Nice guy but pretty harsh grader for a subjective sort of class like JOUR370.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-15T16:29:35.796134Z'}], 'name': 'Timothy Jacobsen', 'slug': 'jacobsen_timothy'}, {'courses': ['THET372'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Timothy Jones', 'slug': 'jones_timothy'}, {'courses': ['ENEE408T', 'ENME432', 'ENMA422', 'ENMA432', 'PHYS499T', 'ENMA489T', 'HONR298J', 'ENMA486', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA499', 'EDSP652', 'ENMA300', 'ENMA300', 'ENMA300', 'ENMA490', 'ENMA300'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Timothy Koeth', 'course': 'HONR298J', 'review': "Easy A, grading is fair. Class is a bit boring though unless you're super into particle accelerators. Also, a bit more advanced physics heavy than expected.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-11T17:54:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Koeth', 'course': 'HONR298J', 'review': 'Basically a confirmation of the review from 2019. Grading is generous as expected of an honors seminar, but the material is no joke. Not gonna lie, I had no idea what was going on for most of the lectures. Material is a little on the boring side unless you either love particle accelerators or you love history. Science history is at least better than your typical history class, and we were able to hear a bunch of very interesting stories, sometimes from guest lecturers. Professor Koeth is a pretty cool person though and very approachable too.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-19T23:55:50Z'}], 'name': 'Timothy Koeth', 'slug': 'koeth'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM351', 'COMM352', 'COMM350', 'COMM353'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Timothy Penn', 'slug': 'penn'}, {'courses': ['MATH130', 'MATH221', 'STAT400', 'MATH111', 'MATH131', 'MATH220', 'MATH241H', 'MATH140', 'MATH214', 'MATH241', 'STAT430', 'MATH141', 'MATH120', 'MATH115', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'SPHL610', 'ENES107', 'STAT430', 'STAT401', 'MATH140', 'MATH140H', 'STAT430', 'STAT430', 'STAT400', 'STAT430', 'STAT400', 'MATH140', 'STAT430'], 'average_rating': 2.8391, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'What can I say about this guy. I honestly think he belongs teaching at an elementary school. Very unprofessional. Shows up to class 10 minutes late, and he has to rush through his lectures because he\'s so late. Speaking of which, his lectures notes are pretty bad. And a lot of the time when we are doing example problems in the packet, he skips a lot of them because "we should know how to do them." Hands down, the laziest and most apathetic math teacher I have ever come across. One day the projector wasn\'t working, and he legit spent the whole class trying to fix it instead of writing things on the board. It doesn\'t end there, if you dare ask him a question he will give you an attitude 4/5 times. Hey Tim, you are a teacher how about you freaking teach us??? He also refuses to answer any questions during DISCUSSION. The whole point of discussion is to get help and understand how to do problems but noooooooo We have to "discuss among each other." How am I going to ask anyone else for help when the whole freaking class doesn\'t know whats going on! Oh yea, he also shows up late to his office hours! Good luck trying to get help from him... \n\r\nNow here is where things will take a turn for the worst. HIS TESTS. In 50 minutes, we take a test that\'s 8 QUESTIONS long, all of which are extremely hard. All the other sections have the same amount of time, but only 4-5 questions per test. Talk about an unfair douche. He also does this thing where he counts down to zero at the end of the test. If you dare turn in that test a millisecond after he says "zero" he will penalize you. \n\r\nSome final notes, He is really apathetic about his job, very lazy and could not give a damn about his students. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND NOT SIGNING UP FOR PILACHOWSKI, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. The only people that actually do good in his class are the geniuses that would get an A in the class no matter what teacher they had. Seriously look for a better teacher. I honestly don\'t understand how this bum has good reviews. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2015-11-21T16:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "He is a great math professor. He makes notes you can print and bring which he goes through in class. I took MATH140 before I took him so that may have made it easier. I didn't out in as much work as I shouldmhave so I got a B but an A should be easily attainable if you study. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-01-29T15:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "Pilachowski is frequently late to class and never has time to answer questions during class time. Given that, it is not hard to get an A in his class. \n\r\nPrint out his lecture outlines and attend all his lectures. He holds reviews before exams which is really nice and use the testbank to study! He's exams always follow the same template, and for each exam he let us have a formula sheet - front and back- and for the final we got 3! And do the hand in homework. It was easy points especially since my TA graded easily and he drops your 2 lowest scores. \n\r\nI can't say I learned a lot of statistics, but it was a fairly easy A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-28T20:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "I took STAT400 after having not done any Calculus for a few years. The Calculus in the class was fairly simple as this isn't a Calculus class, you're simply using it to calculate certain values (Covariance, mean, etc.) Professor Pilachowski went through his PowerPoint slides each class and posted supplementary material on the course website. I thought he did an excellent job at explaining the material, and the students that didn't do well were simply not interested in putting the time. I had to relearn parts of Calculus and still managed to get an A (without minus) in his class. The most annoying part of the class was his midterms. He often didn't print enough exams or answer sheets. He also doesn't give us enough time to complete the exam. I felt incredibly pressured to finish the exam on time, and rarely did anyone leave the class before the time was up. His TA Yiran Li was exceptional. I attended every discussion and never skipped, and working through sample problems was a tremendous help. For his midterms, he will post previous exams, and if you are lucky enough, your exam might look like one of them, but don't bank on it. I recommend doing the previous exams without looking at the answers, working through homework problems, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, look over material that was taught in class and not covered in the homework (Method of Moments, Maximum Likelihood, Probability Approximations). If you don't understand something, YouTube is a great help. Yes the below is true, he comes late, he doesn't notice the clock, and can be boring at times, but he is a phenomenal and lenient teacher, and if you TAKE NOTES and study hard, you can pass with an A. I didn't visit the tutors at all for this class either, so don't stress it, just do your part. I don't consider myself mathematically gifted, I just work hard enough to earn the A, and it is doable for this class. He also allows you to bring a calculator and a sheet of notes to the midterms, and the combined sheets of notes to the final. The final was far more relaxing because I was able to revise my answers multiple times and get a good grade. I often do better on the final due to having more time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-10-14T23:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'I honestly don\'t know how Professor Pilachowski received such good reviews from people. The class was a mix of those who had taken Calculus before and those who had not. I was a member of the latter group and suffered the consequences. He expected lecture outlines to be printed for every class (I didn\'t do it because I didn\'t want to use so much paper and ink). He moved extremely fast and only used a slideshow. The lessons seemed to be directed only at those who already had experience, and he responded rudely to anyone who asked questions. He was late to class multiple times and gave excuses like "being in his office and not looking at the clock." He was even late to the final! In addition, I had to make up and exam during his office hours and had to do so in the office, making it difficult to concentrate because he loudly (and rudely) explained and assisted other students coming in the entire time. It was an awful experience and I\'m so glad I managed a C- to pass (barely, and with a huge amount of tutoring).', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-23T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "TAKE TIM'S CLASS. He is an EXCEPTIONAL calculus professor, ESPECIALLY compared with the other shitty calc teachers at this school. He is enthusiastic, easy to follow, hilarious, and very knowledgeable. He is very clear about what he expects you to know and doesn't want you to know. Plus he sometimes brings in his sugar gliders (they're like pet flying squirrels) to class! \n\r\nHow to get an A-\r\n- GO TO LECTURE. He has lecture outlines that you can follow along in.\r\n- USE THE TESTBANK! He posts past tests AND answer keys, and they look very similar year to year - he doesn't change much.\r\n- DO WEBASSIGN AND DISCUSSION WORKSHEETS.\n\r\nThe book is useful only for practice problems - the book explanations are useless compared to Tim's straightforward explanations. If you do buy it, you do NOT need the solutions manual that comes with it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-25T23:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Pilachowski is crazy. Simply put. Not the good kind of crazy either. He teaches off of powerpoints, some of which are hard to follow. He will literally show up 10-15 minutes late for each class then take another 5 to start class. He rushes through his slides and will not usually take questions.\n\r\nWhen he does take questions, he uses a very rude tone and can be pretty sassy. Take Fouche if you have choice.\n\r\nPilachowski will teach you 1+1 but then will give you a test with crazy stuff on it.\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-23T15:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': None, 'review': "I took MATH111 for my major/CORE requirement. Pilachowski is okay, nothing exceptional. However, my TA, Josh Schnieder, was phenomenal! He was always down to help with anything. \n\r\nAll you need to do to pass this class no matter who your professor is USE THE TESTBANK to take exams used in previous years in order to study for your exams. Also, I went to each exam review before the exams with the math coordinator, can't remember his name but he was a super enthusiastic gay guy. Such a great professor... If I could remember his name I would HIGHLY recommend him because his method of teaching was great. \n\r\nOverall, MATH111 isn't bad as long as you are repetitive with studying those previous exams and go to discussion for the quizzes every week.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-07T23:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "Math is normally a dreadful subject for me, but Prof. Pilachowski made my Calc II experience as painless as possible. He would often come 10-15 minutes late to class, but he really cares about how well his students do so I wasn't bothered too much by the tardiness. He posts outlines that help the lectures go more smoothly, and sometimes even prints them out for his class. His exams are very fair. The discussion sucked and were mandatory, but there was no way around it. Try to get Yonathan Cwik as a TA if possible.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-10T14:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH131', 'review': "HOLY CRAP. \n\r\nSUCH AN EASY CLASS. The posts below were probably made by RETA***S. ahah honestly this class was easier than my Calc AP class. Pilachowski is amazing. His exams are identical to the ones he posts online. \n\r\nPlease just do the exams online, don't complain, because if you do, it probably means you're a dumb A**. \n\r\nHe is great! take him. I loved the TA Yonathan and Geeta. So helpful ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-21T05:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'AWESOME TEACHER- kinda corny but knows his math.\n\r\nUses a powerpoint and provides print outs on his website to follow along during class. Personally I followed along fine without the powerpoints infront of me, but a lot of people benefited from them.\n\r\nEasy to understand, sometimes go through slides quickly dependent on the time, but makes sure everyone comprehends the material and will stop to answer questions.\n\r\nProvides optional homework but you MUST DO THE WEBASSIGN! not only does it help understanding the material and review for the tests, it is an easy 10 points\n\r\nThe class prior to a test is a review session- he allows the students to bring in questions to go over that will be on the test.\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-08-24T00:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Tim's a weird teacher. He uses powerpoints to teach class which is pretty unconventional for math if you ask me, but it seems to work. He does kinda rush through the material, and that sometimes meant that I was woefully underprepared for the WebAssigns. There are quizzes in discussion which are actually pretty helpful, and while Tim has a bit of a temper he's overall a reasonable professor and I have learned quite a bit.\n\r\nJust note that the final exam is not written by him, it's a fair bit harder than his exams.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-19T20:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Course taken: Fall 2010 semester.\n\r\nFor those of you who took AP Calculus in high school and despised calculus WITH A PASSION, congratulations! The class was an easy A.\n\r\nLooking down on recent reviews, I don't understand why people give him bad ratings, especially since...THE PAST EXAMS AND SOLUTIONS ARE ONLINE. Pilachowski is the ONLY MATH220 PROFESSOR who posts past exams AND the answer keys.\n\r\n#1 Tip: USE THE TEST BANK, PEOPLE.\n\r\nWhen I took the class, Pilachowski said that he had to make the tests harder because (surprise!) people were doing TOO WELL on the exams. Exam 3 came around, and the questions didn't get harder.\n\r\nListen to my advice please. The class is doable, and the teacher knows how to teach the material well. The homework felt harder than the exams that weren't so bad because of the Test Bank online.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T20:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "This guy subbed for my calc 220 class, and boy am I glad I didn't take him. He really rushes through the material and doesn't stop to explain things. Seems like a nice guy, but spends so much time with his stupid jokes and referring to his office hours that he could probably just explain the problems better. In the corresponding webassigns for the classes he subbed, I struggled to get B's. Every other ones I get 100's or at least high 90's. Can't imagine him for a whole semester.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-03-16T17:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "His lectures were easy to follow, and he communicates very directly about what you need to know and what you don't. As a result, you go into tests well aware of what is expected. The tests follow the quizzes and homework assignments, so if you understand those then you will be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-17T14:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'WORSE TEACHER TRY TO AVOID. DOES NOT HELP ANY STUDENTS AND TEST ARE HARDER THAN ALL OTHER MATH 220 CLASSES. HARD TO UNDERSTAND HIS TEACHING. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-28T20:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "I hated this class. I had to drop it. I just could not learn from Tim's stupid powerpoints, and he went through them really fast without taking time to explain how he got the right answers. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2010-12-01T23:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Makes the same jokes every day. I haven't seen a single thing that we have learned in class actually show up on webassign, and he has no problem referring students to office hours rather than actually teaching the information during class. Never shows up on time.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-17T03:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'Very enthusiastic and funny professor. He incorporates humor into his lectures which helped to ease the stress of the course material. He teaches from powerpoints and posts lecture outlines on his website which you can print off. There are several homework assignments each week on WebAssign, an online program (you have to pay about $15 to use). There are three tests before the final. The problems Pilachowski uses in his lectures are much simpler than the ones on WebAssign and on tests, but there are many opportunities for you to get help. You must complete a worksheet in discussion each week, worth ten points. But you are allowed to work in groups and help each other. Good professor, I enjoyed having him. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-08T17:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "I have no idea why people rate him this low; he's at least a 4/5 teacher. \n\r\nAs you probably know, Math 220/221 has the reputation of being the calculus for dummies. While that's generally true, it is less so in Pilachowski's class. He doesn't dumb down his teaching just because it's supposed to be an easy class. That said, he's definitely the hardest teacher for the subject. However, if you take him you'll be counting your blessings when taking the final exam, which is the product of a colaborative departmental effort. His class makes an otherwise frustrating final a fairly easy task. \n\r\nHis exams aren't as easy as you'd come to expect from a 220/221 class. They actually require knowledge of the subject. He offers 4 extra credit points on his exams, which can really mean a difference between an A and a B. \n\r\nTo do well in the class COME TO LECTURES! He uses powerpoint slides that he DOES NOT POST ONLINE. The only way to make up the information is by asking a friend for notes or reading the book. Absolutely do old practice exams from previous years (available on test bank). They're all in the same format and the questions tend to be very similar to one another. Answers are also available. \n\r\nSome people mentioned that he appears to be condescending to students. He really isn't. There's a fine line between a condescending attitude and a person's quirks. In Pilachowski's case, he's just really quirky, something these commenters failed to realize. Just keep an open mind and you won't even notice his oddities after a while. \n\r\nOn the bad side, he is, like many mentioned, always late to class. This means he covers material somewhat superficially (not always) and goes over the 50 minutes alloted for class (always). He tends to make numerous mistakes, but they're rather minor arithmatic issues rather than calculus issues. He doesn't curve at all and doesn't allow any calculator use. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-21T03:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Timmy P is a great teacher. Everything is straight forward, and he is extremely organized to the point of OCD-but thats not a bad thing! His exams are completely fair, and even though he doesn't scale, its usually not necessary. The only bad thing is he can be pretty condescending to anyone who asks a question, even in his office hours. But overall I definitely recommend him! He's engaging and even has his funny moments. And its fine if you're late, he always is too!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-07T19:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Pretty good professor. Explained things clearly and thoroughly, always well organized (uses powerpoints). I learned a lot, and his exams weren't too difficult. Be aware that at least for MATH 220 he doesn't allow any calculators at all on his exams (even scientific), which other professors usually allow. Be prepared for some good old mental math.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-08-21T00:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "Dr. Pilachowski was a great professor. I learned so much from him personally, I find calc2 much easier than calc1. Anyways so many people rate him low, and that's because lots of ppl do bad in his class.. the ones that do NOT do the webassign BY THEMSELVES (yes--we know you can do virtually all of the problems in the TI-89) will do poorly because if you are able to do the webassigns and some of the practice book problems, then you WILL GET AN A. I just so happen to not get an A because I did miss a couple of classes... The final exam will be a piece of cake to you, since he is the hardest prof to take for calc, and all the calc profs write the exam together. I had a 95% on the final exam, was happy, and i believe there was a curve on the class... \r\noverall... great teacher. avoid him if your a procrastinator, like to wait until 2-3 days before an exam to study, or just plain want everything to be easy...", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-07-07T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Take Calc II with Denny Gulick. Pilachowski sometimes can't even do the problems he assigns you.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-06-17T15:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "He is a pretty good lecturer. One thing I liked about him that some other people did not appreciate was the fact that he uses powerpoints. I found that more useful than a chalkboard because it's easy to copy off of and keeps my notes organized. The discussions are nice because you have group worksheets that are always a guaranteed 100% because the TA goes over the answers at the end. Webassign can be a pain, especially if you have other exams to study for, but they are not that bad. It is important to do the webassign because they will count as an exam grade at the end. Overall, an easy class if you go to lecture and discussion. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-06-06T13:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "I don't know why everyone is rating him so low, because I felt like I learned a lot from this class. Maybe everyone just hates powerpoint, but I found it useful because it kept things organized and I could take notes really easily. Even if I didn't really understand what was going on during class, the notes were always easy to read and I could see exactly what he did, and apply that to the webassign problems. \n\r\nIt's pretty hard not to do well in this class, since there were plenty of points from the homework and discussion worksheets (which you HAVE to do in groups, so you almost always get 10/10). Tests are fair, though there's always one or two tricky questions.\n\r\nAnyway, I liked Pilachowski, even though he says weird things/tells weird jokes during class. He's a nice guy and a good math teacher. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-22T03:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "The worst math teacher ever. While he's funny he is an awful math teacher, not worth going to class. He teaches off of powerpoints which are hard to follow and does not convey the information well. If you can take a different math teacher do it!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-19T18:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "I did not like this professor. He obviously has a case of dyslexia which is evident when he attempts to do problems on the board. This does not happen often though since he presents lectures on powerpoint. (in my opinion I do not like learning math on powerpoint because I personally like to see the work done but he zips through all of that).\n\r\nHis exams are relatively hard without a calculus background. Many friends who even took calculus before still had C's on exams. He tries to have tricky questions.\n\r\nAs a professor I also did not appreciate him. He had a very matter-of-fact tone of voice and would make students feel stupid if they asked a question. Oh and if you ask to repeat a slide sometimes he might straight up say no.\n\r\nI would avoid this professor because he is not my ideal teacher. Perhaps he is for some but I heard there are much better professors.\n\r\nHope this review helps.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-13T15:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Average in all aspects...will arrive 5-10 minutes late to every class, often looking quite disheveled. Decent lecturer, but will use corny phrases often. Will help you when asked, but doesn't really go out of his way. Sometimes will go off topic, which can actually be good- he once spent nearly half the class explaining his experience in ballroom dancing, which was hilarious.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-12T00:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Listen, I've been to two lectures. The first one and the second one. Mr. Pilachowski is a standard professor. He isn't engaging, but how can you be, this is calculus. He is sort of rude when we people ask him questions or do something to upset him, but otherwise he is a straightforward person. Discussion quizzes are easy, the tests are always easier than web assign. Pretty much all you need to do is buy the text book and read anything that is in a gold box. Make sure to go to discussion, quizzes are easy but count for alot.\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-08T00:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': 'He was very boring and he would make sitting through class the most dreadful thing ever. He uses power point to teach the class and it works well. His tests are very fair. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-18T16:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "He was occasionally an entertaining guy. Yes he was late sometimes, but that was not a big deal and didn't affect learning. His powerpoint lectures were decent and I thought he did a good job explaining them. They include a lot of repetitive examples to drill the concept into your head. The exams are just 4 questions with multiple parts, and yes, there were tricky questions.\r\nThe online WebAssign homeworks were a hassle (especially the ones due Sunday mornings that you forget about until the middle of a party Saturday night). ...I was so close to having an A!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-11-15T01:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'Awful professor. 5-10 minutes late to almost every class, and makes terrible excuses for his lateness. As a result of his lateness, he tries to rush through the lecture. He is also very rude. He makes students feel stupid when they ask a question. Most people ask questions because he teaches too fast, BECAUSE OF HIS CONSTANT LATENESS. He also puts tricky problems on the quizzes even though we only get about 5 minutes to do them. As a result, you feel pressured and get text anxiety easily because you feel rushed. Also, he will make a mistake while solving a problem in class, and then he will say, "I was just testing you to see if you would catch me." HAHA! I don\'t think so. He needs to own up to his own mistakes. I do not recommend him. Look for another professor teaching that class. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-01-13T19:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': 'His exams are fair, though he is habitually 5-10 minutes late for class and fails to make available lecture outlines sometimes until 10am the morning of class (2pm). However, he demands the (3-times-a-week) web assigns be completed by 8am regardless of your busy weds. schedule-no flexibility, ironic considering his very lax, comedic and entertaining lecturing-a of good-work-ethic hypocrisy. He is saving grace, is, that he is a good professor... organized, and has wonderful clarity. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-05T00:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': 'His exams are are fair but theres always one or two tricky questions. He uses power point so his lectures are very organized. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-03T18:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I had Pilachowski for Calc 1 and Calc 2. Pilachowski provides lecture outlines that you should print out and bring to class. These are so helpful and keeps the material organized!!! During class he makes sure to emphasize the things that are important for you to focus on during class. There's a lot of material he needs to cover in a 50 minute class so sometimes topics are rushed, but that's where the lecture outlines help a lot. Webassigns can be difficult sometimes but he drops the lowest couple of homeworks. He also doesn't give minus grades. No curves :( but he says that he will round up to the next letter grade if you're very close ex/ 89.1 to an A or 79.1 to a B. Regardless of what teacher you have you'll have to put a lot of time into this course and in my opinion taking Pilachowski is a safe choice. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-13T22:25:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'Tim is the ABSOLUTE worst teacher I have ever had the displeasure of having. He is the most rude and bitter man I have ever encountered. DURING our “review” he wouldn’t even turn the light off when a student nicely asked him too because nobody could actually SEE HIS notes for the exam. I put “review” in quotations because his idea of a review is not at all helpful in preparing for the exam. He refuses to give you the answers to the worksheet he hands out. You’ll spend the whole class trying to figure out the answers and he will not answer any questions. \r\nHe teaches calc on a PowerPoint which has proven to be the LEAST EFFECTIVE way to do this. Don’t bother trying to write anything down because you won’t have time & if you do you won’t be able to pay attention to how you actually do it. Although he does a terrible job of explaining the information anyway. \r\nIf you have the great misfortune of having him as your teacher you will have to listen to him go over stupid class rules nearly every class. ONE time he even spent 20 minutes in the beginning of class going over “bike safety”. Nobody else in the class understood why he was doing this or what was going on. However I knew exactly what happened because the day before I saw him screaming at some kid riding his bike because he almost got hit by him. So basically he wasted all of our time because of his own personal issues. He is the worst. \r\nThe TA’S even admit he makes exams 10x harder then necessary. My TA told my class that for teachers like Tim who make the exams harder than the worksheets and homework he gives you, you should research online other schools and their coursework to try and learn the information. Because it’s my job to teach myself right?! \r\nIf you take this class this will 100% be the case. Guaranteed you’ll be teaching yourself all of the information. If you have absolutely no background in calc then you are extremely screwed for his class. \r\nThere are also no curves in his class even though so many people argue how unfair his tests are. ALSO, his advice to go look at passed exams will not help you in the slightest. He claims that they are similar to the exams, but they’re not at all. \r\nI learned more WHEN THE TA sub’d for him for a day and actually wrote and explained the information on the board, then during the whole semester with him teaching. \r\nAnother thing is that you’ll have lecture quizzes all the time in this class. He says they’re only once a week but a lot of times they’re twice a week. If you leave lecture even 10 min early there’s a good chance you’ll miss one because sometimes he’ll give them in the last 5 min of class!! \r\nThere is also SO MUCH HW.. at least 5 assignments with 10-15 problems each w likelihood of having a-e parts as well due every week. \r\nIt is clear that he doesn’t understand the concept of actually teaching. I highly recommend you look elsewhere for teachers because unless you are amazing at calc you will spend the the full semester trying to learn on your own.\r\n 1 star is an overstatement for this man, he deserves 0. \r\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-04-10T03:53:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Pilachowski is an OK teacher. He teaches the concepts pretty well, but the biggest problem is that he just stands there and goes through his online lecture slides. He never does any practice problem in lecture which is not helpful. Also, ALWAYS go to lecture. This dude will at some random day pull up a graded quiz. Expect him to pull up a quiz on every single day in the week. He doesn't curve at all in this class, but it's reasonable. His exams are FAIR in which if you really put in the work in this class (USE THE TEXTBOOK EVERY TIME), they are extremely easy.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-05-19T03:35:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Tim tends to read off of the lecture slides instead of working through problems. I managed to do well on the quizzes but terrible on the final (hence the D). Tim does not curve so be sure to do well on every exam. \r\n The lowest exam score is counted as half which doesn't boost your grade up much. Quizzes, WebAssigns, and Discussion Worksheets can boost your grade up a few percentage points and he drops at least 3 of the lowest scores - this is the only grade booster you'll get.\r\nThe TAs are helpful during discussion and very accessible. Definitely retaking this course again for my major - keep in mind that I scored a 4 on the BC Calc exam and got a D on the course and 98% overall on the pop quizzes...", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2019-06-09T22:01:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': None, 'review': 'DOOOO NOT TAKE THIS TEACHER! Any good reviews that were written on this website were guaranteed to be written by him. AVOID IF U CAN.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-11-21T05:59:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Decent teacher but he organizes his courses very well. Lectures are important to introduce you to the topic of whatever section of notes you are on, but you really learn material through the discussions and webassign problems. Attendance is a must! Some tips for his class are to make a group that you work with in your discussions and study out of class with them. We made a group this semester and honestly that's where I learned most of the course material. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-15T04:53:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "for each class, he won't cover a lot and most of them are easy to understand. We have quiz each week on discussion section and have webassign homework almost each week. He sometimes raised his voice suddenly during the class which scared me several times. He doesn't give any - so that for exmaple, you can only get A or B+.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-01-27T15:27:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Also known as "The Anti-Bike Crusader," Tim is not a personable professor. I took MATH140 with him last semester, and my experience with him sucked. He spends all class clicking away through online lecture slides without really teaching (because corny jingles REALLY help), and he would sometimes go off-topic and tell us about his current status on the Anti-Bike Crusade. I went to discuss one of my exams with him during his office hours, but he was very condescending. However, his exams were similar to the discussion worksheets, which was a relief (though I had already taken the course in high school). I give him 2 stars because I thought his class was easy, but I would NOT recommend for those new to Calc 1. I\'m sorry if you have to take him nevertheless.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-01-29T17:58:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE HIS STAT 400. It's boring. He just reads the slides. You don't have to take his class, Just stay at home, and do the test bank. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-02-16T20:41:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': 'Professor Pilachowski does a great job of teaching statistics. I took AP statistics in high school, and the two classes are almost identical in content. (The differences are that STAT400 includes a tiny bit of integration and some more specific named probability distributions, while AP statistics includes hypothesis testing and linear regressions.) In comparison, Pilachowski was a much better instructor who could teach the concepts in a clear and organized fashion. However, I did find that he was not very helpful with answering any questions if you were confused about the subject matter.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-08-15T00:40:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'Prof Pilachowski himself seems like a nice person, but the way he teaches and converses with students just doesn’t work for me. Class is all online this semester and attendance isn’t required because he doesn’t do any in-class participation stuff (thank god), so the structure of things is that he has students watch lecture videos he posts on ELMS, then come to the live sessions with any questions. Personally I’m really not a math person, and his lecture videos are usually clear and organized, but the live sessions are just confusing because the way he explains things only complicated things more for a lot of students. In addition, he is TERRIBLE at responding to emails. It takes him weeks, and his office hours are by appointment this semester, so the only way to contact him is email, even just to set up an office hour appointment. He will drop a few low-scored homework and discussion worksheets at the end of the semester, which is a godsend because there are a lot of worksheets, and Prof Pilachowski never gives extensions on anything (deadlines are pre-set and definite). Overall, he knows his stuff, but tends to be very unhelpful with accommodating his student’s needs (where I’m coming from on this is I have accommodations, and it was incredibly and unreasonably difficult to meet with him to get that all sorted out).', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-11-18T19:17:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'STAT400', 'review': "He's an average professor. Not terrible but also not amazing. He isn't super helpful when people ask questions, but he isn't mean about it or anything-- he just doesn't explain super well on the spot. I never really watched the pre recorded lectures much, just read the textbook and skimmed his videos for help if I needed it. His two midterms were exactly like the old exams in the testbank, so definitely study those.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-07-08T00:48:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'If you have taken AP Calculus BC, or AP Calculus AB, or lower-level calculus-related classes at UMD, then Pilachowski is probably an average or slightly below average professor at best. For people who have never taken calculus and this is the first course you will be taking, you want to AVOID PILACHOWSKI at all costs. His teaching method is quite possibly the worst fit for a math class. The way he teaches is by clicking "Next" on a 10-year-old PowerPoint. In lectures, he does not really explain anything or take any questions or do a real practice problem or show the steps or any of that. He does none of that at all. The way you learn math from a good teacher is by them showing you an example and giving you a step-by-step process on how to solve that specific problem in the future so that you would know what to do with that specific type of problem. Rather, he just reads word for word the complicated boring textbook definitions of terms in his powerpoints that never make sense to anybody. So to the general masses, unless reading word for word textbook definitions is how you learn math, his lectures are utterly useless. Now it would be unfair of me to critique the grading because all 140 classes have discussion worksheets and web assigns due each week graded on accuracy so even though that\'s a bit harsh, it is not his fault that\'s the way the coursework is given at UMD. What I can say however is that HE DOES NOT CURVE any of the tests even if the majority of the class fails or gets low grades. The most he does is drop a couple of the lowest discussion worksheets and hw assignments at the end of the semester which will not even impact your grade (1-2%maybe at most). What I can say is that when he is not clicking away at his PowerPoint, he constantly tries to make jokes throughout the lecture, as if to make up for the teaching method. He does organize things well and gives deadlines on the syllabus which I give him credit for. In order to succeed in this class, you would have either needed to A) have taken some form of calculus already so you have a thorough understanding already regardless or B) Have an amazing TA, prioritize all of your time onto this class and make the most out of every discussion session along with self-teaching yourself the entirety of the course. He is honestly fine as a person, just not the best teacher for someone new to calc.\r\n\r\nI am giving him a 1 star from the perspective that this was my first exposure to calculus ever and this was definitely not welcoming\r\nProbably a 2/3 star if you have taken the class before\r\n\r\nTl;DR\r\nBad choice if this is your first calculus class and you should drop it or choose another professor\r\nYou might do fine if you have a lot of exposure or have already taken calc', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-09-17T17:43:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Awful professor. The single upside is that he posted his COVID recordings to ELMS so I could do the lectures on my own and not have to come to his god-awful class. He goes over the syllabus EVERY class. All he does is talk about how much he hates bicycles. When he does decide to actually "teach" he just talks in the most robotic boring voice and clicks through slides. Doesn\'t write out a single equation. It\'s all on PowerPoint. Have to go to Math Success every night to survive this class. I took AP Calc in high school and got an A and this is a nightmare compared to that. My TA is also useless and I have to resort to using other discussion\'s TAs for help. Pilachowski also never responds to emails. Homework is assigned after every lecture that is due the next morning so if you need an extension or help, don\'t expect him to respond. I emailed him for my ADS accommodations nearly a week ago and still have no response. Worst professor on campus. Take Chadwick instead. He is significantly better. Everyone that was lucky enough to transfer out of Pilachowski\'s class into Chadwick\'s said it saved their grade and they\'re doing much better. The only other upside to this class is that he drops your lowest discussion and test grade, but that doesn\'t make much of a difference if he\'s not teaching the material clearly to begin with.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-10-25T14:34:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "If you are to take this course and get him as a teacher, don't waste your time going to the lectures. Watch them online as he tends to ramble in class and I got much more use out of watching the lecture videos online then being in class", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-11-29T23:38:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': None, 'review': "tim is an okay teacher. his lectures are just him reading off of his old slides without doing any work which can be confusing. i do appreciate how you can choose if u go to class or not, but watching the lectures is necessary if you want to pass. i have an A in all my classes bc i am a generally good student but this wasn't it. only take if needed. also exams were soo hard", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2021-12-09T22:19:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'AVOID THIS PROFESSOR! Professor Pilachowski was late for class most days which would cut into valuable lecture time. On top of this he could consistently go over the "rules of his class" every single day. Rather than the 50 minutes of lecture we should have had it was about 40. Since he was determined to get through all of his slides he would breeze through them so fast without answering most questions. Yes, he taught calculus through a slideshow every single day. He never wrote anything on the board. He would talk about bikes and scooters on the sidewalk some days while borderline harassing students for that outside of class. Once again, this would take up lecture time. The discussion worksheets were way harder than any examples he "taught" during lecture so everyone sat there having a way harder time than they should have. Homework was the same way, sometimes even putting material that we have not even learned on there. His exams were brutal, they were only 5 questions but 50 minutes was not enough time to finish with confidence for most students. Many trick questions on exams and would not curve exam grades or total grades at the end of the semester. When asking him a question via email, he would respond with very few words being vague with every answer sometimes ignoring the email completely. Horrible professor. Do not take his classes.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-12-21T03:39:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Pilachowski is an average professor. He is for sure not the best that you can get although I won\'t say he is absolutely terrible— he gets the job done. I took AP Calculus AB in high school which resulted in me getting significantly above the average on all the midterms and on the final exam but I can definitely say that if you have never taken a Calculus course before, you will have trouble in this class.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n- The final exam is EXACTLY the same as the previous couple years\' final exams. Like pretty much identical but different nambers. If you practice about 5 of them from the UMD math test bank, you should have no problem at all on the final. In my opinion (and reflected by the scores), the final exam is the easiest exam of the all the exams you will take in this class by far. This is important because the final is worth nearly 30% of your grade in this class.\r\n- Midterms are pretty easy and fair. There is always a topic or two for each unit that was never covered in AP Calculus though (ex: Newton-Raphson Method, and Delta Epsilon Proofs— in my experience at least), so you definitely need to study for this class, even if you\'ve taken AP.\r\n- TAs for this class are generally helpful, even if they aren\'t necessarily yours. \r\n- With some classes, you can get away with not going to discussion, but not this class. During every discussion there is a worksheet that you do with your table that counts for a grade.\r\n- Homeworks are on WebAssign and they are pretty easy and are good practice.\r\n- There is a lecture outline for every lecture and makes it pretty easy and straight-forward to follow through.\r\n- Pilachowski ends up dropping your lowest couple homeworks and discussion worksheets to help your grade. He also cuts your lowest midterm exam score in half so it is worth fewer points in the final calculation. For example: if your lowest midterm is a 70/100, it will be changed to a 35/50 which helps your grade by about 1 or 2%, which is helpful if you are close to the next letter grade.\r\n\r\nCons:\r\n- My worst complaint about this professor: he spends SO MUCH TIME at the beginning of EVERY CLASS talking about absolute nonsense. Pilachowski is infamous for hating bikes and electric scooters and will come into class with a new anecdote about how he almost runs over someone EVERY. SINGLE. CLASS... He also has general messages that he repeats every. single. class. which were helpful for maybe the first few weeks but even during the last weeks of the semester, he was reminding us to "mAke SuRe YoU PuT mAtH140 In ThE sUbJeCt LiNE of EaCh EmAiL oR eLSe I wILL nOT rEaD iT" or "mY CLocK iS SeT tO ThE tImE iN cOLorAdO". Not to mention that at the beginning of every class, he states "I think I will get through chapter ___ today", but then he doesn\'t and tells us to read the textbook or watch the lecture video online... Maybe if he didn\'t talk about the most irrelevant nonsense during the beginning of lectures, then he would actually finish teaching.\r\n- Like every college course, exams are everything. In this class specifically, you will take one diagnostic test at the beginning of the year, 4 midterms, and one final which total to over 80% of your overall grade. Each midterm is 12.5% of your final grade. Study hard for these exams as they will make or break your grade. One bad exam can drop you letter grades.\r\n\r\nOverall, pick someone else please. Save yourself. Pilachowski is an option for MATH141 which I am taking after MATH140 but me, along with almost everyone that had him for MATH140, are making sure to pick someone else. Pilachowski can get you by but overall, that\'s not the only job of a professor. Pilachowski almost always has the most amount of seats open for his sections because people try and avoid having him has a professor, rightfully so. However, if you are just looking to get in and out of Calculus 1 and you are familiar with the material already, Pilachowski is fine.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T20:43:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "People hated this guy and the class, but it really wasn't too bad AS LONG AS you attended all in-person lectures. It sucked, and he goes through the lectures super quick, but if you are sure to take notes the entire time and actually pay attention then you'll be okay. Be sure to do the past practice exams and know all the questions well because the exams are very similar to those. This guy isn't the nicest and he overcomplicates some concepts, but he is pretty generous when it comes to grading. No minuses for any letter grades, but still pluses, and he will round your grade up if you are borderline. He also does not like bike riders.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-26T00:46:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Everyone in the class GroupMe hated Tim and his class, but in my opinion, it wasn't bad. In regard to Tim's teaching style, he always uses PowerPoint slides from the previous decade. Because of his style, a majority of students didn't like him, but I think that his slides were well-structured and provided very good explanations of concepts and examples to help us understand those concepts. His lecture outlines were like guided readings and that helped me quite a bit. Also, he grades our exams quite leniently. I've heard that professors like Denny Gulick won't give partial credit, while Tim does, so I like that about his class. However, the main caveat is that you have to rely on the lecture videos he posts on ELMS. The issue with his in-person lecture is that he will start lecture late because he's quite adamant about keeping bikers off the sidewalk and he comes to the lecture hall late, so about 10-20 minutes have passed since the lecture should've started. He rushes through the slides in his in-person lecture, while his lecture videos allowed you to actually understand the concepts. I can't say much about him as a person, because, in his videos, he's like the nicest grandpa, while in-person, he's like Scrooge.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-16T20:22:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I thought I was not being a good student, but after taking math 141 with a real professor I have realized that he is awful. He is way too strict, and also doesn't even teach well. His PowerPoints do not explain how to do the problems, and then he asks questions on the exams that were barely covered in class. He makes his TAs grade the discussions harshly, which no one benefits from. Any other professor would be better. The TAs were good tho #Free Joe.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-03-14T19:28:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Tim’s video lectures and lecture notes are amazing and I felt that I understand the material really well. (I only went to two lectures the whole semester because the videos were the exact same, if not better. In-person was not required.) My professor for 141 is a terrible lecturer so I’ve been teaching myself entirely with Tim’s notes for that class, which are on his website for anyone to see. His way of teaching made it very easy for me to understand calculus despite no prior experience beyond precalc in high school. \r\n\r\nOne star subtracted because he is rude in emails. \r\n\r\nDon’t tell him if you ride a scooter. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-04-21T02:00:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I had Pilachowsi for MATH140 and 141, and I can say wholeheartedly I won't miss it. I thought he was fine when I took 140, but that was probably because I had already taken the class in high school so not much was new. Math141 is a different story. While I did pretty well in the classes, that is through no help of his. His lectures are him reading the textbook off of his PowerPoint slides to you. The only redeeming part is that he puts all the lecture videos online, so I haven't been to class since the first day. His exams are hard but not ridiculous if you study, and his TA's grade nicely (at least in my experience). There is no curve and his grade distribution will kick your butt in the end. If you can take someone else, I would recommend it. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-28T12:32:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'I would like to personally thank myself for carrying myself in that class. The powerpoints go over the most simple examples of each unit which is irrelevant because he picks things that have not been covered in class or are the hardest to do for his exams. He should switch careers and be a rapper too because he goes through the PowerPoint at an astronomical speed. He posts lecture videos online which is more helpful than in-person lectures. He does drop a good amount of discussion ws and hw but the TAs are my favorite part of this class. #lovePhil #loveJoe #loveJosh', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-03T22:42:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "His teaching style did not personally meet my learning style, and it seems that it did not meet others' styles as well. In his lectures, he basically just reads through examples and narrates what is happening. It becomes really unclear at times and I would've preferred if he worked out questions in front of us. For the entirety of the course, I pretty much had to learn everything via YouTube. His tests are not too bad, and there is a ton of partial credit to be earned. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-10T22:04:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Not gonna lie, I genuinely thing that the majority of bad reviews this guy gets in 141 are from people who never bothered to print out the lecture notes that he has on his website. Those lecture notes are REALLY detailed and help you keep track of the countless formulas and techniques that you will have to memorize through the course. The notes were a godsend for me since I am a terrible note taker. I cannot emphasize enough how helpful these lecture notes were in helping me do very well in the course. Seriously, this guy literally has a resource that will make the course significantly easier for you and yet so many people are too lazy to bother printing them out for use. To be honest he should emphasize the importance of his lecture notes more, since his lectures become much more easy to be followed when you have them with you. He is a good teacher, but if you want to make the most out of his course, for the love of god, USE THE LECTURE NOTES. Almost no one I knew in the class used them and I consistently performed far better than them. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-12T22:10:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'If you want to do well in 141 and are willing the put in the work, then Pilachowski is your best bet. He provides lecture outlines for each class which are very detailed and helpful. I wrote on these notes for every class and it was very helpful to look back on when studying for tests and especially the final. Secondly, he also provides lecture videos which are just about the same as going to class. Taking advantage of the lecture outlines are the easiest and best way to do well in this class. If you are still struggling, he also provides additional textbook problems to help you understand concepts better. One of the things I liked most about Pilachowski teaching is that he points you in the exact place to go for help. When it came to 141 concepts that relied on information taught in 140 he points to the exact place in the textbook to go to if you need to review. He offers all the resources and material you would need to do well and it is clear that he cares about how well students do. This class is hard but if you put in the work for the class it is possible to do well and taking Pilachowski can give you a pretty fair shot at it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T18:43:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Pilachowski is such a good lecturer, I don't know why he gets so much hate. He is very lenient in correction, lowest score is dropped by 50%, 3 worksheets are dropped and 8 homework assignments too! Other than all this he doesn't give a minus grade so if you have above an 89 in the course you get a 4.0 GPA. I would recommend taking him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-07-18T07:57:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Had an amazing time in MATH141 with him. The course felt rather easy with his grading scheme. Recommend taking him if the schedules match. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-07-18T07:58:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'MATH141 was an easy A+ with Pilachowski. Strongly recommend taking this course with him.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-08-18T12:56:48.144430Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Stop believing the 5 star reviews he has been known for giving himself fake reviews to boost his average. Unless you dedicate 15+ hours a week or have years of previous calc experience he is not a good professor, he teaches off a 15 year old power point and has never picked up a marker and done an equation all semester. He has the highest D,F, and W rate among all popular calc teachers', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-09-15T05:57:05.490372Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "(Preface: I took calc AB and BC in high school, though I didn't do great in either). Prof. Pilachowski is a good professor in my opinion. I believe he is an okay lecturer for the most part, but sometimes I feel he overcomplicates things which can confuse people. What makes him a good professor is not his lectures themselves, but all the resources he gives you to succeed. The discussion sessions are great for the most part, and his website has a ton of practice problems on them. His lecture outlines are also very nice since his lectures can be fast paced. Also, his grading policy is quite generous. Personality wise, he can come off as demeaning sometimes. He is other than that an absolute character, informing us on Roy Rogers deals and protecting the sidewalks from scooters.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-19T21:59:45.153082Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Pilachowski is a pretty terrible lecturer; he just clicks through his Powerpoints at lightning speed without really explaining anything or going through steps to work out problems. He also wastes time during lecture by showing up late or spending the first ten minutes of class ranting about how much he hates bikes/scooters, giving condescending speeches, or reviewing basic information like his email address even well into October/November. This was very frustrating, especially since he did not actually respond when I *did* email him.\r\n\r\nThe only reason I did not give one star is because he lets you watch his recorded lectures instead of attending in person. The videos are identical to the in-class lectures but at least you can watch at your own pace at your convenience. The graded discussion worksheets are not super fun but since all of the MATH 140 professors use them they are pretty much unavoidable. Overall I would suggest trying to get a different professor if you can, especially if you are new to calculus.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-30T01:27:33.623690Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "(Preface: I didn't take any calc or precalc in high school, I didn't even do trig) I feel intuitively that Pilachowski's lectures are good ones, and he makes lecture notes & study guides which also helped, but that does not translate to my test grades unfortunately. He also posts the video versions so you can review it whenever. He answers questions well enough and tries to emphasize when something will be on the exam. Homework is a reasonable length (~20 or 25 questions a week), and the textbook is also a free pdf online, so that's a plus.\r\nI absolutely hated that discussions were mandatory though. Its so hard to think in them because they're so loud, and I didn't feel like I learned much in them; I was so behind it felt like I was just writing what my group wrote and had to figure it out later. I really wish they posted the discussion worksheets in elms so I could look them over beforehand.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'F', 'created': '2022-11-30T14:36:14.379420Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASS IF YOU HAVE NEVER TAKEN CALC BEFORE. He teaches as though his class is an AP Clac review. Do not bother going to lecture, just watch lecture videos. 3 Midterms and 1 final. 3+ math labs each week. Expect to spend a lot of time on hw. The only thing good about this class was the sweet TA, Margot and that he posts his covid lectures so you don't have to actually go to his class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-06T14:35:59.142436Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'I took calc before, so either way this class was easy for me. The way it was structured was nice because there are no "-" grades, the discussions are helpful if you have a good TA (Margot <3), and the exams are straightforward if you study the tests from the test bank. The homework was a bit time consuming and I never paid attention in lectures/watched the videos since I already knew most of calculus. Attendance was also mandatory in lectures. Pilachowski himself wasted a lot of time talking about useless things like bicycles and the reviews for his exams in the lectures were not that helpful.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-06T21:34:27.983032Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I highly recommend you not to take this class unless if you have taken Cal before. Pilachowski teaches through a powerpoint and talks like a robot. His exams tend to also be a bit harder than the practice exams we are given and he's very picky when it comes to grading them. The only good thing about him is that he doesn't give minus grades and has recorded lectures. If you stuck with him I highly recommend getting close with the TAs so you can understand what is being taught in better detail.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-07T18:19:42.766256Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'For the love of god try to get any other teacher. Especially if you have not taken calc before. Homework takes a century and tests are NOT easy.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-09T04:15:24.855229Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "Tim is a professor who will either help you get through the class, or completely fail you. It all depends on how you learn. Basically, Tim doesn't teach MATH140 like the other professors where they work out problems on a chalkboard or whiteboard. Instead, he just scrolls through a slideshow. So if you can learn math through a slideshow or have taken calculus before, Tim is a good option. The one thing about Tim that is really great is his lecture outlines. For basically all his classes, he has a lecture outline for each unit and topic, allowing you to take notes on it digitally or print them out and take notes on them by hand. They have all the information you need, and all you need to do in work out the problems he goes over in lecture. His lectures are all recorded, so class attendance really isn't mandatory. I know a lot of other MATH140 professors aren't able to finish a topic completely in class, so having Tim's videos help a lot compared to a professor who doesn't record them and don't finish a topic completely. His exams are also on the easier side compared to other professors. He is a huge anti-bike person, so be prepared to get lectures on UMD bike laws and such. Your TA also plays a big role in your success with Tim, as my TA practically taught me the majority of the information. He applied a generous curve at the end as well.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-10T22:50:44.359291Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Would like to preface this with the fact that he doesn't even know his TA's.... he only has two for my class.\r\n\r\nI have taken calc before, not AP or IB level, but I do have a good amount of calculus experience. If you have 0 calculus experience stop reading this and go change your teacher or drop the class. Nothing prepared me for this. I won't say the material is extremely hard, because that would be a lie. However, his teaching style is probably the worst I've ever seen in my entire life. He will skip examples during class to show funny pictures or a quote that is not relevant to lecture at all. He is extremely rude to students when they ask GOOD questions. Test day? Get ready for yelling and screaming up until the exact second your test starts. Homework takes FOREVER to do. \r\n\r\nSo much more I could say but really that should be enough to convince ANYONE to drop the class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-11T18:29:51.354262Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': 'This is for the Spring 2022 Semester despite the review date posted. \r\n\r\nPros: Online Exams, Posts all slides, He doesn\'t believe in +/-, so it\'s A from 90-100, B, C, etc. , \r\nCons: Online assignments due every week and homework, Gives a sample review guide for exams but no answer key (also will not go over the guide unless you ask him for the answer) \r\n\r\nWhen you ask a question about the content or don\'t know, he\'s the type of professor to respond with, "What do you think the answer is?" so if that makes you anxious, avoid him. \r\nHe\'s a bit condescending when clarifying concepts as well. If you ask for clarifications for online assignments/projects, he responds with "read the directions." and that\'s it. The class itself isn\'t hard so I was able to get an A but I did not like the style of the professor.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T16:32:00.678586Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'if you haven’t taken calc before i don’t think he is the professor for you. he is very vague in his teaching style and does not actually write out any math problems physically in real time. he also i feel belittles people when you ask questions after class. also if you have any kind of test anxiety he makes testing environments so bad by yelling and screaming at people to follow his directions. if you end up\r\nwith him you’ll pay be fine as long as you talk to your TA anytime you need help. it’s also nice that he drops some of the lower grades but overall i would NOT recommend', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-13T17:58:36.726699Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "He was a terrible professor but the only reason I'm giving him such a high ranking is because you did not have to attend any of the lectures and could use the textbook or his recorded lectures as resources instead. The grade was VERY, VERY, VERY generous. There was an entire 10 point problem on the exam that I could not answer and still got an A on the final. Would take again if I needed another math credit", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T20:02:26.204662Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': 'Gets easily distracted in class, doesn’t teach in-depth, and expects you to know a lot coming into the class without teaching or reviewing it. Does not provide any curve. Worse Freshman teacher I had by far this semester.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-19T22:18:02.409390Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Took Calc 2 with Tim in Spring 2022. The guy is extremely rude when you email him for administrative issues (of which are his fault) or questions regarding concepts. Mans goes off of a 20-year old power point that's EXTREMELY vague and has never picked up a pencil to show us some examples. You will not learn JACK in his class, and will definitely have to spend hours watching Youtube videos/going off of the textbook.\r\n\r\nI would like to thank myself for excelling on the final. TAs were absolute legends.. shoutout to Joe!\r\n\r\nOne thing I gotta give him credit is his generous grading system with having no +/- grades -- strictly A, B, C, etc..", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-29T00:33:19.609122Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'STAT430', 'review': 'Took him for STAT430. While this professor does understand the material very well, lectures were very boring. There were a lot of assignments, especially online assessments which were assigned and were expected to be completed the same day, which is unreasonable. Many assignment instructions are hard to understand and decipher, making assignments harder than they needed to be. He doesn’t really answer any questions and can be quite condescending.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-11T04:25:01.545387Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'For the love of god, do not take this professor. He is not good at teaching at all. Even when approached outside of class, he is sarcastic and unforgiving. Take another professor if you can', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-12T03:08:22.413256Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I took him in Spring 2022, and he isn't as horrible as most students think.\r\n\r\nPros (great resources): online lecture videos, notes, grading policy, reviews, etc.\r\nCons: his in-person teaching style.\r\n\r\nAs long as you study diligently, you will pass the class!", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-02-20T00:36:52.677715Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "All he does is scroll through his presentation slides he most probably made decades ago. He does not work out any problems with the class and goes through the material rather quickly. Never go to him for a question, not only will he not answer it, whatever response he does come up with will be incredibly snide. The TA's are the best part about taking this class; they are very helpful. He is just not a good teacher. I can't vouch for his character but I can't imagine good things. If you like teaching yourself math, not asking questions, and taking notes at the speed of light; I would still implore you to consider taking someone else!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-02T16:16:42.353755Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': "I'm late reviewing him as I took math 140 3 semesters ago, obviously. He is bad, JUST BAD. Don't take him, take gulick instead if you are willing to have an early schedule. His exams are rediculus and he reduces the lowest exam score by half and drops alot of assignments but that does not make up for how downright bad he is. AVOID HIM!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-03-11T01:27:46.314745Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Do yourself a favor and skip his lectures and learn how to absorb the information from the textbook. Calculus 2 is not a hard math class if you study diligently.\r\n\r\nTim is a sour older man that teaches off slides. Even the TAs seem to not want to be around him.\r\n\r\nHowever, his tests are very fair and you know exactly what is expected of you in order to score high A’s', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-20T14:48:21.475193Z'}, {'professor': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'If you have to take Tim just know you will be teaching yourself Calculus 1, which is doable but you’ll have to work hard. Go to discussion and go to your TA’s office hours they will help you way more than Tim. He only reads from his slides and those slides are the exact same as his covid recordings. The slides are not really representative of the difficulty of what you’ll have to learn, they only really expose you to what you need to go learn on your own. \r\n\r\nThe benefits of Tim have nothing to do with his teaching, but his system. The exams are generally pretty similar to the practice exams, he drops a few hws/discussions, Halves the effect of your worst exam, and tends to curve grades by a little bit at the end. Tim himself is a horrible teacher who doesn’t even try, but he has some resources and policies which are better than nothing.\r\n\r\nTldr if you are planning on teaching yourself calculus there are some benefits in taking Tim, if not you are in for a rude awakening.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-20T23:48:51.475986Z'}], 'name': 'Timothy Pilachowski', 'slug': 'pilachowski'}, {'courses': ['MUSC456', 'MUSC455', 'MUSC229J', 'MUSC129S', 'MUSC629S', 'MUSC655', 'MUSC656', 'MUSC629J', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC229Z', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSC453', 'MUSC653', 'MUSC229J', 'MUSC629J', 'MUSC229J', 'MUSC453', 'MUSC629J', 'MUSC629Z', 'MUSC653', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W', 'MUSC229J', 'MUSC629J', 'MUSC801W', 'MUSC831W', 'MUSC229J', 'MUSC453', 'MUSC629J', 'MUSC653', 'MUSC800W', 'MUSC830W'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tim Powell', 'slug': 'powell_timothy'}, {'courses': ['ARMY201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Timothy Stephenson', 'slug': 'stephenson'}, {'courses': ['PHYS299B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Timothy Uher', 'slug': 'uher'}, {'courses': ['SURV630', 'SURV721', 'SURV430', 'SURV630'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ting Yan', 'slug': 'yan_ting'}, {'courses': ['HIST284', 'HIST319G', 'HIST382', 'HIST319A', 'HIST419B', 'HIST339E', 'HIST284', 'HIST382', 'HIST419B', 'HIST319A', 'HIST284'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ting Zhang', 'course': 'HIST339E', 'review': 'Dr. Zhang puts forward extremely coherent lectures and makes the material fun to learn. Highly recommend.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-11T03:49:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Ting Zhang', 'course': 'HIST284', 'review': "Super interesting class that covered A LOT of material. Very reading heavy (like easily 100+ pages a week), plus weekly reading quizzes and discussions on the readings. A lot of work for a low level class, but I enjoyed the subject so I didn't mind. Professor Zhang is very nice and very knowledgable about the subject. Attendance was mandatory (sign-in sheets were passed around).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-18T20:28:12.981271Z'}], 'name': 'Ting Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_ting'}, {'courses': ['STAT420', 'STAT401', 'STAT430', 'STAT818G', 'SURV420'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tingni Sun', 'slug': 'sun_tingni'}, {'courses': ['EDUC388'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tirza Bartels', 'slug': 'bartels'}, {'courses': ['AMSC466', 'MATH462', 'AMSC460', 'MATH246H', 'MATH424', 'MATH241', 'MATH461', 'AMSC808V', 'AMSC666', 'MATH120', 'CMSC466', 'CMSC460', 'AMSC808F', 'CMSC666', 'MATH410', 'MATH464', 'MATH135', 'MATH401', 'AMSC660', 'CMSC660', 'AMSC661', 'CMSC661', 'AMSC460', 'CMSC460', 'AMSC460', 'AMSC663', 'CMSC460', 'CMSC663', 'MATH246', 'AMSC460', 'AMSC664', 'CMSC460', 'CMSC664', 'AMSC460', 'CMSC460', 'MATH121'], 'average_rating': 3.1765, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'AMSC460', 'review': 'There was one day in class where Von Petersdorf ran around in front of the classroom at full speed and repeatedly apologized to the class in a high pitched squeaky voice because he got too nervous to continue teaching. He suffers from some serious anxiety when talking to people and should not really be in front of a classroom.\n\r\nPosts notes online that were actually quite good and reading through these is much more useful than going to lecture.\n\r\nDid not hand back any homeworks or exams at all.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-07T12:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH462', 'review': "Von Petersdorff is crazy. I don't even know what to say. Read the description below (by the anonymous guy in AMSC466) for a detailed description of lecture, as hard as it is to believe that description is correct and there is no exaggeration. \n\r\nTests:\r\nWere fair, and based on lecture material\r\nWe had one test and one final, but we were supposed to have two tests.\r\nWe took the test before spring break and got it back on the last day of classes in May.\n\r\nHomework:\r\nWas somewhat difficult, but we only had 3 homework assignments.\r\nThis was also handed back very late, about 2-4 weeks after turning it in.\n\r\nOffice Hours:\r\nIf you want to learn anything you pretty much have to go to office hours, he is much less nervous while in office hours.\n\r\nIf he wasn't crazy he would actually be a good professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-06-01T10:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'AMSC466', 'review': "Von Petersdorff is prone to panic attacks which sadly interfere with his ability to hold meaningful lectures. Last lecture, he got lost in the middle of a proof which put him in such a state that he twice threw himself on the ground in fits after dropping the eraser. His medical condition is manifested by loud bursts of panting and crying, and overall nervousness. He runs around the front of the classroom, and when he is having trouble reciting a proof will chew on his hand. Because he has panting attacks, students will falsely reassure him that they understand his lecture so he doesn't have an episode, if they think he is about to break down. This problem is compounded by the fact that he does not use a text so the student is reliant on his lectures to learn the material. \r\nWe took an exam on March 12, and as of May 3, we have yet to get them graded and returned. That exam and 3 homework assignments are all we have done in this class, so he is completely disinterested in providing feedback to students. When approached about this, he always says they will be ready tomorrow. Finals are soon and we have received feedback on 2 homework assignments from March, nothing else.This is not an appropriate review of student performance. \r\nTo clarify: This teacher has a condition that negates his ability to be an effective teacher during lecture, and outside of the classroom he finds no reason to provide feedback to students or find other methods to evaluate a student's progress. It is hard to be led to any conclusion other than the University turning a blind eye to his troubling condition out of pity. I would not recommend this teacher to any student.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-03T16:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Good lecturer, fair exams. However, he gets an anxiety attack anytime something goes even slightly wrong like writing the wrong thing on the board. He will erase and rewrite the whole thing multiple times. The exams weren't hard if you did the homework. The MATLAB assignments he gives out can get really ugly and painful if you don't know MATLAB. Overall, the class wasn't too bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-01-06T18:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'AMSC460', 'review': 'Despite the fact that AMSC460 supposed to be an application course, we hardly learned any applications. Lectures were good, but we were barely given any HW assignment (4 assignments were given to us instead of expected 6). Because we did not have any text to rely on; lack of HW assignments was especially hurting. \r\nThe few homework assignments, that we did get from instructor were very short, and given to us on last minute notices (to be fair, they did contained interesting problems). \n\r\nPros:\r\n1)Online notes that he did provide to us (which is materials covering first quarter of the course) were very organised and extremely helpful.\r\n2)Lectures in class were also good.\r\n3)He is a fare grader when it comes to checking exams.\n\r\nCons:\r\n1)Through later part of the course he almost stopped providing updates on his website and virtually gave us no HW so we had to rely only on the notes we made in class to prepare for the second midterm.\r\n2)Exams were not always related to HW\r\n3)He is very sensitive about due dates.\r\n4)He is difficult to talk to when he is tired or stressed out.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-04T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "He's an excellent professor who really understands the material and is pretty good at teaching it. His exams are extremely fair, and if you study you should do well, although it is easy to make stupid mistakes and lose a lot of credit. Matlab assignments were relatively long, but were graded very kindly and generally helped with everyone's grades. \n\r\nHe does have panic attacks, as other people have mentioned. Sometimes they interfere with class or getting an exam passed out on time. He seems to be working on controlling them, as sometimes he will come close to having a panic attack but will breathe deeply and control himself. It seems to help to give him all the answers he asks for and ensure him that everything is OK and readable when he starts to frantically erase.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-20T15:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH246H', 'review': "His exams are very straightforward, and he goes over the material on the review days before the exam. He's a very good professor and always tells you whats relevant. \n\r\nIf you go to class you probably wont even have to study for the exams.\n\r\nHe will also drop and exam if you need it", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-16T23:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': "He's a good professor. Study well and earn your grade with him", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-11T21:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'The instructor covered the material very well and explained how to do each type of problem however it was distracting to watch the professor have panic attacks in class in middle of a problem. It is unnecessary to erase the whole board because of a small algebra error such as a missed sign. His matlab assignments are very long and since he forgets to post them up I had less than a week to do the matlab and no time to do them over the weekend. I would suggest Von Petersdorff as a math professor since he covers the material well and because his tests are fairly straight forward on material covered in class.\n', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-27T21:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH221', 'review': "I have no idea what happened to me in this class. Math used to be my favorite, and best subject. But for some reason I got to this class and was just clueless. From what I heard, my classmates all found the class very easy and were doing very well on his exams. Me? I ended up with a C in the class because I failed the final miserably. The lectures left me lost and confused. On a side note, he was always very helpful during office hours. \r\nI don't quite know how to review him. Everyone around me found his exams easy. For me, I was just lost and confused. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-01-04T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "von Petersdorff is a good professor in my opinion. If you go to class and take good notes, you'll have a good idea of what's going on even if you don't pay attention. However, his exams are in no way easy. If you want to do well, you'll have to do the homework even though it doesn't count towards your grade. As with all math courses here, having a good TA can make a HUGE difference in how you do.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-22T18:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Dr. von Petersdorff conducts his class in a manner that is suited for math majors only, and fails to realize that the majority of people in the class do not necessarily have the same aptitude for math that he does. He fails to explain concepts that he deems simple, instead spending most of his lecture time on proving equations instead of actually teaching the class why those equations are useful. Few examples are shown, and those do not at all cover the breadth of problems that students are expected to answer. He is very disorganized, hard to contact (when I e-mailed him from my school address he never responded), and is overall a poor teacher for large introductory classes. On the other hand, if you have a really good TA or spend a lot of time learning the material yourself, his tests are generally pretty easy. Unfortunately, most of the class does not understand the material, and the median for our last two tests was in the mid-sixties. He's not curving the class.\r\nIf you have other options and want a good math teacher for lower-level classes, don't pick him.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-14T17:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH246', 'review': 'Fair exams, good lectures.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-01T17:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH120', 'review': "Try to take somebody else. His lectures are messy and make no sense, and the tests include material that hasn't been covered before. Tests are also very long, as almost everybody would be working till the end. Don't take him.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-01-26T15:35:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'MATH464', 'review': "At the beginning of the semester there were quizzes based on each class, which was fine, but those stopped after the first few weeks. The problem was there were almost no practice problems or homework's the entire semester. He decided to assign our only homework during finals weeks and it was worth 30% of our grade. He finally provided a few practice problems for the final exam, but most of the class was unprepared for the final since we'd had almost no other practice with the material all semester. Although the theory was well explained, he did almost no examples in class, so no one in the class really learned anything. The whole semester was basically a waste. Would not take this guy again or advise anyone who wants to learn the material NOT to take him. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-18T03:47:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'CMSC460', 'review': 'The professor does have some pretty bad anxiety at times and it can be really uncomfortable for the students, but overall he is a great professor. His explanations can be extremely in depth and hard to follow but he does not expect you to be able to derive those explanations for yourself, just to build some intuition as to why things work. His homework’s were pretty difficult but he would give out tips and answers when students were really struggling, his exams were extremely fair and very similar to his sample exams. I recommend taking this class with Dr Petersdorff.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T17:13:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'course': 'AMSC460', 'review': "feel like the reviews are too low for this prof. he's a nice guy and solid teacher. you don't really have to go to class since he posts really good notes online. for exams he always holds review sessions the class before that are very helpful and also gives practice exams that are fairly representative of the actual exam. my only issue with him was that the homeworks could get rather tedious, but I guess that is to be expected from a 400 level class. he also provides hints for the hw so nothing is insanely difficult", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T17:29:43.548613Z'}], 'name': 'Tobias von Petersdorff', 'slug': 'petersdorff'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL201'], 'average_rating': 2.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tod Jones', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "I liked Dr. Jones. He was a very nice guy. Class is a little dry but it's tolerable considering you get out early a lot. Rblood's comment stating he rarely ever went over assignments is completely flawed and ridiculous. They day which we are required to turn in our assignments he reads over the next assignment and asks if there are any questions. He also spend the Rough Draft clinic asking if we have any last minute clarifications which we might need. He always replies to the emails sent and he is very thorough in response. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-11-15T17:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tod Jones', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'Dr. Jones is a nice guy. He is very organized and the classes are predictable. A lot of people say that English 101 classes are all the same but I would disagree. I know a lot of people that had other professors and they had much more busy work. This class consisted of clear-cut papers and no busy work. Although the papers are semi-large, they are easily manageable. Dr. Jones can tell how much work you put into a paper and gives very fair grades. I always thought he gave me too high of grades for my papers. He is a good professor and will often let the class out early. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-12-26T23:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tod Jones', 'course': 'ENGL201', 'review': "I agree with Anon1. I thought Dr. Jones' class was interesting, since it was all about the Epic of Troy and I myself am interested in Greek mythology. He is not the most exciting professor in the world, but his lectures were generally fine. If you are interested in the subject matter and take the class seriously, you will not regret it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-10-20T22:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tod Jones', 'course': 'ENGL201', 'review': "I liked this teacher and thought the class was very interesting, but I can see where the other reviewers are coming from - he really doesn't explain what he wants from you. 40% of your grade is two essays and I think he spent two minutes total explaining what he wanted (but there was also a set of instructions). The final we had was 50% essay and when we asked how long or what he expected in this portion he just told us to use the time well. The reading amounts to about 7 hours a week and the daily quizzes can be tricky so you have to read carefully if you want an A. All that said, if you read carefully and know how to write an argumentative essay, you can definitely do well. If you don't, make use of online resources and the writing center and you should still do fine. You can get an A in this class if you want to.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-27T09:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tod Jones', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'My worst teacher since I\'ve arrived at college. Really never taught us anything about assignments that were helpful to us. Never thoroughly explained an assignment, nor how to write an effective audience analysis. Never in class did he himself lecture us as students on how to evoke exigence with the audience, which was a big part of the last few assignments. I got A\'s in AP english courses in high school, although it\'s my least favorite subject and my worst, and I come here and have been getting C\'s because quite frankly, I\'ve never been sure exactly what he expects from us on a paper. To end it, he even told me that my writing skill is "not where it should be for a college student at this point in the semester" Wow thanks. I highly suggest a different teacher if you aren\'t 100% confident in your writing abilities', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-11T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tod Jones', 'course': 'ENGL202', 'review': "Professor Jones was awful. His lectures were dry and boring, he didn't stimulate class discussion, and his book selection was poor. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-01-09T15:44:00Z'}], 'name': 'Tod Jones', 'slug': 'jones_tod'}, {'courses': ['GVPT200', 'GVPT406', 'GVPT406H', 'GVPT761', 'GVPT808C', 'GVPT200', 'GVPT406', 'GVPT803', 'GVPT761'], 'average_rating': 3.9, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "Professor Allee seems like a nice, cool guy and he tries to keep his lectures interesting. BUT, if you're not planning on keeping up with a large number of very long, dry readings, you won't learn anything. Lecture attendance isn't counted and he posts the slides online but the slides are very general so they don't help that much if you didn't go to lecture. There is a discussion section attendance/participation grade. My discussion section was kinda rough but it was probably because it was a 9 AM on a Friday. Overall it was just an OK class, you probably want to look into taking it with someone else if you know you won't do any readings because it'll be hard to get by without doing them. The two papers were somewhat difficult in terms of topic/research but they were open-ended", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-04-26T21:39:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "Professor Allee is a great professor! He's extremely passionate about this topic and it's a great class that connects to the current time. He connects a lot of concepts to current events and had a great time connecting it to the world as the course progressed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-01T01:59:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': None, 'review': "Prof Allee has very good lectures and my TA really cared about our class success. There are a couple term papers in the class and I feel like my TA graded them a bit harshly. Overall, it's not an extremely difficult class per se, but you will have to put in a good amount of effort to get a good grade.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-12-20T22:03:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "I had him spring 2020, the semester we shifted to online learning. Prof Allee was really accommodating and I enjoyed his style of lecturing--he kept it really engaging throughout. There were a few essays throughout the semester that weren't difficult if you paid attention in lecture.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-12T07:33:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Allee is a really great professor and he really cares about his students. The workload is very manageable and pretty easy to stay on top of. Discussions were mandatory but if you have a good TA, it's not too bad. Although Professor Allee is late to lectures sometimes, he is amazing!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-05T23:53:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': 'Allee is really interesting to listen to and is a really fair professor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-20T19:35:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "I liked having Allee for GVPT200. His lectures were a little boring, but nbd. He assigns readings every night, but I didn't do them most of the time and still did well. The first exam was a little annoying because he asked very specific questions that threw most of us off, but he was nice and made the final online. I liked him, class was fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-21T14:39:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': 'GVPT406', 'review': 'Professor Allee is really interesting to listen to and a nice guy, but his exams are extremely difficult if you don\'t already know all about the topic you\'re learning. He can get off-topic in his lectures for 406 talking about current relations and IOs (which is a good way to get off topic) but you\'ll end up not getting to learn as much as he wants you to. He will include some stuff you did not explicitly learn in class on the exam. He pulls a lot from the readings and refuses to give study guides or any very helpful advice for studying other than to "re-read" and "re-watch" everything. Obscure exam questions but is a seemingly fair professor in regards to absences and everything else.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-03-15T18:19:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': 'He waits until the very end of the semester to grade any assignments, and his questions on exams are ridiculous, to put it nicely. He asks very specific questions about countries mentioned in readings or little anecdotes he mentioned in class once. I got As on all assignments all year and a B- on the final (which I think is pretty good for never going to class). However, he rounded my 89.8 down to a B+ so I am a little salty. I took this as an "easy gen-ed", which it is in my opinion, but he kinda sucks :/', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-25T20:34:44.166913Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Allee', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': 'To be fair, I did like the topic and tried really hard, but it is not a bad class. Really interesting and in-depth lectures. The class was a midterm, a final, one paper, and discussion posts. We covered a lot, but the midterms did have random information that he mentioned like once and never again. Overall, for gen ed, there are better options, but if you are doing the class for your major, you are fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-16T16:37:25.289801Z'}], 'name': 'Todd Allee', 'slug': 'allee'}, {'courses': ['HLSC207', 'BSCI207', 'BSCI329', 'HONR239F', 'BSCI329H', 'BISI799', 'BSCI329H'], 'average_rating': 4.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': None, 'review': 'Cooke is the nicest man you will ever meet. He truly cares about his students and tries to make the course interesting. Unfortunately, 207 is just a very boring class due to the material. He really tries to make the class fun though. \n\r\nGeneral info:\r\n-restricted to students in Honors Integrated Life Sciences\r\n-3 exams and 1 final constitute most of the grade\r\n-homework every week or two\n\r\nPros:\r\n-very very nice \r\n-material not too difficult\r\n-posts powerpoints online, and most of the tested material is straight from them\n\r\nCons:\r\n-boring\r\n-his powerpoints can be hard to follow', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-02-15T22:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Like others, I\'ll preface this review by saying that BSCI207 just inherently sucks to begin with. Cooke is a very nice man but he couldn\'t make that class interesting if he tried (and he 100% does try). That being said, I never understood why some people revere him, because I hated taking this class with him.\n\r\nCons:\n\r\nCooke\'s approach to teaching is learning "general concepts" instead of rote memorization, but to be perfectly honest this approach made learning relatively easy material hell. There\'s no sense of organization to his lectures, so you have to sort through his PDFs.\n\r\nIf you take notes on your laptop like I do (OneNote, MS Word), you have to put in an insane amount of time making them outside of class. Most disorganized powerpoints you will ever see.\n\r\nHe uploads his lectures as PDFs instead of powerpoints, so you can\'t see any of the diagrams because they\'ve shrunk by a factor of 10. Useless.\n\r\nExams are 99% short answer writing prompts (the other 1% consists of phylogeny trees, completing picture diagrams, etc.) and the answer key is made so that the TAs look for buzz words. So even if your answer is technically right, you won\'t get credit because you didn\'t have the word they were looking for. Like someone else said, I never figured out how to study for them. In terms of difficulty, they\'re like 4-7 on a scale of 1-10. Don\'t cram.\n\r\nPros:\n\r\nHe drops 1 exam and 1 homework. Homeworks are easy, and end up saving your grade because he weights them so heavily.\n\r\nThe final was actually pretty easy too. It\'s 60% new material and 40% cumulative, and he makes the 40% very general so you don\'t have to study for it too much.\n\r\nStudying old exams helps a little, but not that much, because he doesn\'t reuse questions often.\n\r\nHe accepts regrade requests, looks it over himself, and will only regrade the specific questions that you requested so it\'s impossible for you to lose points. Definitely do regrades.\n\r\nHe genuinely tried to engage us with interactive in-class worksheets, which essentially translated to a free class period.\n\r\nHe goes to his own review sessions - they\'re 2 hours long, TAs lead for 1 hour and Cooke leads for the second hour. He holds 2 of them before every test. Some sessions were helpful, some weren\'t.\n\r\nFor ILS kids: your 207 TAs will most likely be in ILS as well, and are probably your friends, so you have connections whoop-de-doo good for you.\n\r\nBasically this class gave me the most grief over the semester. Cooke is probably the best teacher you\'re going to get for this class, even though he\'s not that great either, so it\'s all about knowing HOW to take this course instead of who you take it with. So yeah take Cooke but be warned the class is among the most annoying you\'ll ever take.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-06-09T02:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': None, 'review': "There is no way to make the content in this course interesting, but Dr. Cooke tries his hardest. He is a very kind man and professor that tries to make the content as exciting as possible, but sometime of the stuff is just dry as anything. The first 3 months of the semester are pretty lame in terms of class material; after the third exam, the material actually gets interested (too bad it’s only for a few weeks…) His exams are challenging, and I never really figured out how to study for them. Group work is encouraged in this class, which unless you’re a very social person, is annoying. As a bio major, this class made me really rethink my choice, because I didn’t enjoy it much. Dr. Cooke is approachable for office hours and tries to help your grade out as much as he can; he drops the lowest exam and homework grade. This class is meh, but if you're in ILS you'll get through it just fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-01-01T22:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'I honestly liked Cooke, but the class is just way to boring and useless. Cooke loves this 207 class, because I mean, he created the class..\n\r\nThis is probably the worst Bio class you will ever have to take, but it is so doable with Cooke and Jensen. \n\r\nJust study the old exams and memorize the answers. You can also look at the HLSC207 version from your honors friends. They are identical. \n\r\nIn the end, Cooke is much more interesting and interactive than Jensen. This class was bearable with Cooke. Definitely the best 207 professor. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-20T23:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Cooke was essentially a great teacher. His focus on concepts over details made biology more interesting and understandable. His exams were rarely too detailed oriented, and he dropped one exam as well as one reading assignment and homework. Reading assignments were a pain but I suppose they were useful in helping me learn how to read and comprehend scientific articles. Some of the interactive activities were a bit silly and unnecessary but this was only in one or two lectures throughout the year. Overall, definitely take if you have the option. ILS is a great program.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T14:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': None, 'review': "Great professor! \r\nI like the setup of this class, and especially the set up of this program.\r\nHaving us bunched up on one single floor helps a great deal. Not only have we become one of the most social floors in all of umcp, but we can also actively help each other on a daily basis. In addition, the professors are right downstairs, so if there is something you dont understand from the lecture, getting to the professor only takes a min. Almost everyone on this floor is friendly, social, and eager to learn.\r\nNow .. back to the class...At first, his style of lecturing didnt make sense to me. I did not know the best way to study for his tests, so I resorted to what worked for me in high school, which is to not pay that much attention during lectures and learn most of the materials from the book. I soon found out that was a bad idea. The book used for this class (Freedman) is SOOo bad! And his tests, which I thought were going to be detail oriented, were just the opposite. After failing his second test, I understood that the best way to study for his class is to both listen AND take notes for his lecture. And after the lecture, to go back over the lecture and take your own notes on it. And after that, to review your lecture notes daily until the exam. This takes a total of around 35 hours for a single exams, but it is the best way to study for these conceptually oriented exams. Oh.. and unless youre a genious of some sort, dont try to cram only a few days before the exam... its ridiculously hard to earn an A that way. Details can be temporarily integrated into our memory after a night of memorizing... but concepts just dont work that way. You can memorize the concepts but you'll get stuck when you have to apply those concepts in many new situations during the exam.\r\nHis exams are very fair if you know what to study for. Class avg. was a 86 for the first exam and a 82 for the second. As we get used to this new style of teaching biology, well hopefully score even higher. \r\nWe also get a Reading assignment and a GAE (similar to a worksheet). We are supposed to work in groups for the GAE but we rarely do cause they are so easy. But I must admit that they are both pretty helpful in the long run. Count them as grade boosters!\r\nDr. Cooke is very friendly. He is very eager to help his student even during times other than his office hours, and his explanations usually make sense.\r\nHe is also very popular among our floor; everybody likes him <3\r\nI curious about the complaints about his 'sex jokes' cause I havent seen him say any in this class.\r\nOverall, ILS is a great program. It makes biology come alive.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-12T13:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'I would rate his lectures 10/10 on a scale of boring. The only reason I went to class was so I didn\'t have to download the slides online. And even then I spent most of it falling asleep. Sometime mid-semester I figured out that it helps to stay awake if you count how many times he says "essentially" during his lectures. Once I got to 112 in a 50-min lecture. Good times.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-06-16T13:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Cooke is one of my favorite professors. Though he does make an uncomfortably large amount of sex jokes, he is very nice and approachable. If you have any questions he is more than willing to answer them. I had another class during his office hours and he was very accommodating and was willing to meet with students pretty much whenever.\r\n The TA\'s in this class are totally useless. They "lead" the question and answer sessions, but you might as well not show up until Dr. Cooke and Jensen get there.\r\n My suggestion is to embrace the group activities, because I have found it incredibly useful to bounce ideas off of other students in the class. Meeting with other people made the homeworks loads easier (I can only think of one time we spent more than 15 minutes on a homework or reading). Studying for the exams with a group also made it go a lot better. The exams weren\'t too bad, and they weight them and drop the lowest one.\r\nOverall, if you have a choice, I would take the class with Dr. Cooke because he is a great teacher, and at the very least he\'s pretty entertaining.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-17T02:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': None, 'review': 'While he means well, Dr. Cooke\'s 207H class is a horror of epic proportions. \n\r\nThe class is oddly designed, most of the TAs just took the class recently and can barely help, and the exams are horrifying because you are taught just the bare bones of a wide variety of things, with an emphasis of breadth over depth. He wants depth on the exams, resulting in terrible exam grades from having no idea what to study.\n\r\nThis class sucks. It was co-taught with Dr. Jensen, who is a really nice guy and a slightly better lecturer. Dr. Cooke means well, but the kid who sits behind me\'s description of him as a "horny hippie" works. He makes sex jokes to try to relate to us and fails, as well as quotes Darwin to excess. He and Jensen try to come up with these cute hands-on activities such as with pipe cleaners. Not cool at all.\n\r\nOverall the class is terrible, and as Anonymous said, you must memorize and not learn. Dr. Cooke means well, really. I think half of it is the class.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-16T02:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Let me preface this by saying that the class itself, and the material incorporated into it, is AWFUL. Dr. Cooke co-taught this class with Dr. Jeff Jensen, and he was certainly the more engaging of the teachers. His lectures are fairly clear and to the point, and his notes aren\'t annoying fill-in-the-blank like Dr. Jensen\'s are.\n\r\nTake these professors if you\'re willing to do a LOT of phylogeny and a LOT of "hypothetical application" of the material that you memorize. Yes, memorize, not learn. It\'s all evolution, phylogenies, and theories, and on exams, you\'ll be expected to take all of this and propose several plausible hypotheses as to animals\' evolution and ancestors, etc.\n\r\nReally, the entire thing was awful but if I had to choose the better professor of the pair, it would be Dr. Cooke!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-05-22T02:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': None, 'review': "I had Professor Cooke for an experimental discussion class for BSCI 207 that had around 20 students. He has a rather enthusiastic voice that keeps you engaged in the lecture that he gave. He was really good with questions too. Best of all, the class also involved hands-on activities to really help us understand the concepts. He was also lenient to a degree; while he took points off for some stuff in homework, he wouldn't care if someone was on Facebook or sitting with teir head down. This guy was very helpful in helping understand some crucial biological concepts.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-01-22T01:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'HONR239F', 'review': 'Professor Cooke is obviously invested in his subject matter and his fascination with plants is infectious. He acknowledges that most of of us in the class are there to fulfill a non-lab science requirement and does his best to make it as painless as possible for the "non-sciency" people. \n\r\nHe is one of the few professors I have had who is truly understanding of our status as college kids. He is accommodating and willing to be flexible but still expects you to do good work.\n\r\nPlants and Empires was a great class. I highly recommend anyone to take this. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T00:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Dr. Cooke is a great lecturer and a really friendly and approachable guy. There is a lot of material to learn for 207, but he does a great job teaching it!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-14T13:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Cooke co-taught this class with Jensen. It was a difficult class: the average on the exams were around 60%. The second exam had a 15 point curve in order to reach an average of 65% and the third exam had a 6 point curve. In addition to the 3 exams (one of which is dropped), there is a cumulative 150 point final, 3 mathbench quizzes, 75 points for clickers, and a diagnostic exam worth 25 points. This class entails knowing A LOT of information- so much information that I highly recommend studying at least a week in advance for the exams. I thought I would do well in this class because I got an A in bsci105 and bsci106, but I was wrong. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-22T00:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Dr. Cooke did a great job helping students understand the "big picture" rather than just little, unrelated facts. He truly cares about students and is very easy to talk to if you have a question or concern. Jensen\'s lectures were a little drier and less engaging than Cooke\'s.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-03-08T00:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'HONR239F', 'review': "Good professor, very knowledgable and approachable. Overall the class is relatively easy and very interesting. A great way to fulfil your non lab science core if you aren't that into science but are interested in history or economics. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-01-21T11:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': 'HONR239F', 'review': 'Terrific lecturer and guy. Easy to talk to and explains material very well. Also very funny and interesting. Time went by fairly quickly in class', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-13T14:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Todd Cooke', 'course': None, 'review': "Cooke is a very nice teacher and tries to make the class interesting even though a lot of the content is very boring (i.e memorizing the phylogeny of plants, animals, etc.). He covers a large breadth of material but makes the exams in depth which can make them difficult, but he weights the homework heavily, which are easy, so your grade will be good. The class is essentially a lot of memorization, and the way it is organized doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Overall it is a decent introductory class, but pretty much boils down to how much information you can rote memorize for the exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-19T02:47:20Z'}], 'name': 'Todd Cooke', 'slug': 'cooke_todd'}, {'courses': ['LING200', 'LING311', 'LING240', 'LING499C', 'LING689T', 'LING888', 'LING311', 'LING499C', 'LING240', 'LING311', 'LING499C', 'LING888', 'LING200', 'LING311', 'LING499C', 'LING689T', 'LING240', 'LING311', 'LING499C', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': 4.5789, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "Professor Bleam is awesome asf! Her teaching methods were so fun and helpful! She gave us alot of practice homework BUT it helped us review for the exams and such. We also had alot of quizzes, but don't freak out because it was pretty easy IF you studied. And PLEASE study for her class. Honestly, her exams and quizzes are set up just like the study guides and practice homeworks etc. ALSO if you are confused just go to her office hours! She is so easy to approach and not scary at all! Also the TA's are great. Anton (and Bleam) helped me out with alot of questions I had about the homework and helped me understand better alot of concepts I did not fully understand. Overall, Bleam is a fun, energetic,and well prepared Professor. She is the best professor I've had so far in my career as university student! :) I highly recommend her!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-07-21T22:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': 'LOVED this class! so interesting, fun and easy. def take this class if you can!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-01-07T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': "I like her. She is very nice as a professor. The only downfall I see to this course is that even though you may understand something fully, you can still fail a quiz if you don't understand her format. The test are well put together, just watch out for the multiple choice. I also think there are too many exercises, there were times when I felt like I needed a break. It's like you relive the high school experience of homework, but they do help you learn. Other than those few things, you will learn a lot from this course. If you're not a linguistics major, you will come in thinking the subject is pointless and another version of hooked on phonics, but she does give you an insight to how it fits into our real world.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-10-23T18:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "Awesome class! Dr. Bleam is a great lecturer-to the point, simple, easy to understand, and very aware of student concerns. If you go to the lectures, at least skim the readings, you should not need to spend much time studying. I got A's on both midterms. Didn't do 1/5 homeworks, which lost me my A. The material is so interesting, nothing I have paid attention to before. Overall, a good CORE.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-05-30T20:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': 'Dr. Bleam is such a sweet professor! She\'s really funny and down to earth, I go to class just to listen to her talk.\n\r\nThe class is really quite easy; Dr. Bleam makes all the notes available on ELMS, the homework and "prep exercises" keep you thinking about the material, and the required reading is minimal. Midterms don\'t really require studying as long as you can compartmentalize information well.\n\r\nBesides that, the material is genuinely interesting and opens up topics most people never give a thought to. If you\'re looking for a class to fill up your schedule without eating your time, consider this one.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-28T22:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': 'Dr. Bleam is a great professor who tries to engage her students and is a very nice person. The textbook is actually good and reading it is required for the routine homework (5 this semester). Exams are not tricky at all and very doable if studied well. This is a great core class because it actually teaches something new, interesting, and applicable to everyone. Great class!! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T23:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "I really liked the professor, she did a great job of explaining things thoroughly and not rushing through things. Very approachable, engaging. The tests aren't too hard as long as you know the concepts, but you do need to at least study. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-27T00:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': 'She is what inspired me to become a linguistics major! The class is simple: if you go to class, do the assignments and attend discussion, and A is nearly guaranteed. She is always willing to help, she will accommodate your schedule if you cannot make it to office hours, and she is really enthusiastic about what she teaches.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-26T00:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "I took this class as a personal interest and as a CORE.\n\r\nThis class is pretty well organized. There are a multitude of TAs available to help with the class and clarify material. The lectures are available in full to download from ELMS (if I remember correctly) and are very helpful to study from.\n\r\nThere are several exams, quizzes, and some regular homework, but this isn't a hard class to study for. As long as you pay attention to the info and logically understand the concepts, then you will have no issue getting an A.\n\r\nThe material is interesting and pretty logical if you take the time to apply it to the real-world. Makes doing all the work kind of fun.\n\r\nOverall, this is a great CORE to take. No steep learning curve and decently useful info to know (IMHO).", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-19T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING311', 'review': 'I like her but she makes things sound harder than they actually are.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-13T03:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "Amazing professor. Take good notes and that's pretty much all you'll need to study for the tests. She explains everything really well. Can't wait to have her again!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-11T21:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING311', 'review': 'Dr. Bleam is terrific. I have *no* criticisms (incredibly rare for me, even for professors I really like). She’s extremely friendly, she’s very good at explaining things, she’s helpful in office hours, her tests are very fair, and she’s incredibly organized. Easily the best professor I’ve had at UMD.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-19T22:21:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING311', 'review': "I love this course and love this professor. Her teaching style is incredibly helpful and interesting and the assignments she gives really supplement my learning instead of making me feel like I'm wasting my time.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2017-11-19T22:30:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': "Tonia is an amazing professor, and LING240 is an awesome class. She's super nice, always willing to help, and definitely let me off more than enough times for not coming to lecture because I had other CS classes :/\r\n\r\nNot the easiest elective because of all the exercises/homeworks, but super fascinating subject material. Midterm was actually kinda tough for me, but I'd say medium difficulty overall (you have to memorize linguistics concepts and phonology as well as do syntactical analyses of fake languages).\r\n\r\nPretty good choice for an elective! DEFINITELY take the class with Tonia, and you've a good chance of getting an A/B.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2017-12-14T19:06:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING311', 'review': 'Dr. Bleam is an amazing and very down-to-earth person. She keeps class interesting and is accepting to a lot of different ways of doing things.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-07T20:13:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING240', 'review': "(I took this class completely online.) Dr. Bleam is an amazing professor and LING240 is such an interesting class! She's an excellent teacher and her lectures are engaging and helpful. You will need to read articles/studies/experiments for this class but they are always interesting and understandable. The exams match material discussed in lectures and on exercises and homeworks, both in content and difficulty. They definitely supplemented my learning and did not feel like busywork or a waste of time. \r\nI honestly found the class to be easy and scored very well on the assignments and exams with minimal effort. HOWEVER, my classmates said they found the exams to be somewhat difficult and that the TAs were picky graders, so maybe it depends on whether or not you have a knack for this kind of thing. Either way, getting an A or B is totally doable if you are willing to put in at least a moderate amount of effort. My best piece of advice is to take notes during class AND on the readings. Nothing exhaustive but make sure you have all the key points and some examples. \r\nI highly recommend this class, especially if you're genuinely interested in linguistics. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-22T02:31:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "I took LING200 online with Dr. Bleam - she's a very good professor! This class was not hard (imo) and the workload was relatively low if you paid attention in lecture well. Very interesting course as well, in my opinion. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-05-18T19:22:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING200', 'review': "TL;DR Don't take this class if you want an easy A. Some of the content is interesting and enjoyable, other parts of it are tedious and annoying to solve without the IPA. Overall it isn't the worst if you put in a good amount of effort. \r\n\r\nProfessor Bleam is a good professor, it's the course content which i have a problem with. I expected the content to be solely focused on the theoretical and philosophical side of linguistics. It turns out this class was largely dominated by the International Phonetic alphabet and the scientific and technical side of linguistics. This was annoying because it takes a good amount of extra time to try to understand these concepts in addition to memorizing the IPA, which is something they required us to do. The memorization aspect really was just extra work as we could have grasped the concepts without struggling through the memorization. I went to almost every discussion section and lecture and i still found it so tedious to have to learn how to do the exercises. The topic isn't hard and I basically got the hang of it by the final, but the content/exercises were made unnecessarily hard by the memorization. Doing the out of class readings doesn't explain a whole lot either. You need to go to office hours and do some practice to understand. With this i will say that the homework assignments did help. My discussion section on the other hand was largely a waste of time. If they had provided us with a sheet detailing the IPA on tests, then the class average would have been much higher and in my personal experience I would have understood how to do the practice exercises better and much earlier on in the course. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-05-22T16:04:52Z'}, {'professor': 'Tonia Bleam', 'course': 'LING311', 'review': "Definitely one of the best professors I've had at UMD. She teaches the material in a very engaging manner, and she is very responsive to students' concerns. She makes sure you get the foundations of syntax down before building on them. She also seems to genuinely care about her students. One thing to keep in mind though is that there is a lot of homework for this class, but doing it does help you internalize the material.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-21T22:28:46.643276Z'}], 'name': 'Tonia Bleam', 'slug': 'bleam'}, {'courses': ['AMST101', 'AMST205', 'AMST202'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tony Perry', 'slug': 'perry_tony'}, {'courses': ['ANTH468B', 'HONR298D', 'ANTH615', 'ANTH410', 'ANTH491', 'ANTH471', 'ANTH398D', 'ANTH617', 'ANTH468N', 'ANTH498C', 'ANTH498G', 'ANTH610', 'ANTH498I', 'ANTH689O', 'ANTH671', 'ANTH358A'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tony Whitehead', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Whitehead is a really nice guy; however, he is really old and tells random stories all class. There is NO STRUCTURE to this class. Everybody is alway confused when something is due or how to even begin working on assignments because we haven't learned anything. It is very frustrating with finals a few weeks away and we haven't received in grades for the class. I am hoping I will luck out with an A, but honestly I have no idea. I would not recommend taking this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-04-23T11:23:00Z'}], 'name': 'Tony Whitehead', 'slug': 'whitehead_tony'}, {'courses': ['GEOL100', 'GEOL120', 'GEOL322', 'EXST030', 'GEOL110', 'GEOL444', 'GEOL100', 'GEOL110', 'GEOL100', 'GEOL110', 'GEOL120', 'GEOL444', 'AOSC123', 'GEOL100', 'GEOL123', 'GEOL100', 'GEOL110', 'GEOL110', 'GEOL100', 'GEOL110', 'GEOL100', 'GEOL120', 'GEOL444'], 'average_rating': 2.9091, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "Centorbi is one of the most incompetent professors I've had at Maryland. She told multiple students when asked if grades on ELMS were correct and weighted when it said that it was unweighted online. Even after she said all of this, now at the end of the semester she has changed everyone's grades to weighted and grades have dropped from 5-10%. I went from an A to a B. The only thing saving my A right now is the 5% extra credit field trip. \n\r\nThe class isn't too hard (she drops the lowest test, in-class activity, and homework/hw quiz grades), and she's changed her tests so they are all concept sketches with no multiple choice. However, she is a boring lecturer with a snarky attitude. I'm only taking this class for my science lab requirement but I have no idea how she has taught this class for so many years and can still be so uninformed and wrong when it comes to ELMS. \n\r\nSeriously disappointed in her lack of professionalism.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-12-08T20:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "I really like her she teaches straight out of the textbook. You have your online homework and online quiz due each week for the chapter and then at the end of the section there is an in class exercise. SHE HAS RECENTLY CHANGE THE WAY TEST ARE GIVEN, for GEOL 100 they use to be online test and the other teachers still give the online tests but in her class each test is 4 chapters long and she gives you about 2 questions per chapter that relate to a visual that has been reviewed in the class. So for the tests on the day of the exam 2 of the total 8 sketches will be chosen at random and then you must draw the sketches from your memory. But they are all given ahead so you just have to prepare a lot and you will be fine because it's all memorization. Overall I enjoy her as and GEOL 100 and would recommend it ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-11-16T13:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "The reviews saying she is an awful teacher have to be coming from people who skip class or don't study for the exams. Centorbi is a great teacher; she thoroughly reviews everything in the book to the point where I stopped reading the chapters and still felt very informed. It's easy to do well on the test if you take notes in class and review them beforehand, but she makes it even easier since the tests are open notes/textbook/internet. She's a very nice person and I recommend sitting in the first few rows as she often interacts with people and may give you hints on the clicker questions. The only complaints I would have is that discussions are work-heavy and the TA is kind of an asshole, but even he grades super loosely. It's easy to get an A in this class if you attend regularly and do the in-class activities assigned. You're also permitted to miss four days before she starts docking off participation points since the lowest four clicker grades are dropped.\n\r\nBottom line: Not a hard class if you pay attention, teacher is great, interesting content aside from rocks.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-11-12T18:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': 'I had the pleasure of Tracey as a professor for GEOL100 and it was easily the best class I had taken. Tracey\'s super nice, cheerful, and breaks all concepts down really well. Students from all majors should be able to understand the topics, regardless of your background. The topics were actually really cool and interesting as well. The lab had a great TA and went pretty hand-in-hand with the chapters to give you that "next-level" feel for what you\'re discussing. The extra credit field trip was a lot of fun too. I\'ve kept in contact with Tracey and keep her updated on how my semesters are going.\n\r\nAnd truthfully, I\'m fairly shocked regarding some of the reviews on here. But after reading through some, a lot sound like students who didn\'t read, didn\'t study, and wanted an easy A because they thought Geology would be the "easiest science class." If you keep up with the material, do light studying/reviewing regularly, use her lecture notes as guides along with your own, and actually try to care, you shouldn\'t have problems.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-05-07T21:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "Listen to the other reviews advising you to take another teacher! Seriously this teacher is the motherfucking devil. I took a 100 level class in rocks and it ended up being the class witht he most exhausting workload. \n\r\nThere are three online tests and one in class cumulative test. Her online tests she gets most of them from previous homework/quizes.and google. \n\r\nHer cumulative final though is ridiculous! She says it's easier because it's in person but it's not. This is not a 100 level class. \n\r\nI feel like I'm leaving this class with a PHD in rocks. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-09T23:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "So, I have never written one of these reviews but this was probably my worst class in my 4 years at the school so instead of studying for the final, I am writing this. I am taking geol120 as my core requirement and not only is Centorbi HORRIBLE, but this class is more demanding than any of my other upper level classes. The only way to do somewhat ok in this class is to go to every lecture and record every single thing she says. Even then- you probably won't do well on her tests. Her tests are online, but even so I got 60's on the tests. Her power points are useless, as is the book. You haven't seen half the stuff on the tests before. She is rude, condescending, and takes her 100 level class WAY to seriously. Without the extra credit field trip and discussion board to replace your lowest test grade, the class is almost impossible. The discussions also have quizzes so you cannot miss any of them, and the TA's are just as unhelpful as her. The final is also (in-person) 100 questions cumulative on the entire class- and you are allowed 1 notecard. This cheat sheet would make sense for a math class, not for a class testing you on the entire text book. This is by far the worst class I have taken at this university and I wish someone would have warned me when I signed up. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-19T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "The class isn't hard but graded harshly and there's a lot of work involved. She's a cool person, but takes the work and class way too seriously. The TAs made up for it (they were really cool, laid back, an funny).\r\nThe information is straight-forward and she does a good job explaining concepts, but the work load is ridiculous and discussions are pointless.\r\nThe textbook is cheap (ten dollars) because she uses not the latest edition.\r\nThe tests are made with trick questions rather than comprehensive or factual questions. If you try to tell her your answer was directly written from the textbook used for the class, she'll discredit it.\r\nThe clickers are good idea but poorly executed. She grades them and half of the time they are questions out of no where. \r\nThe extra credit was an interesting trip and worth it to go(5% extra) but there's a worksheet to fill out which takes up the entire trip so you can't enjoy actually being there.\r\nDiscussion involves reading news semi-relevant articles and memorizing random facts for a 3 point quiz. Then we do worksheets that are relevant. \r\nOverall, the class was not worth taking. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-09T21:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'This teacher is the worst, the class is the worst, but it\'s an easy A. \r\nIf you want to actually learn things about geology, look elsewhere. If you want an easy CORE class with a self-important ***** for a teacher, look no further. \r\nTeacher is the typical example of a person who takes herself too seriously, she is the worst. She\'s an unhappy person and, naturally, she enjoys the "power" of being a professor. \r\nIn conclusion, she is the devil. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-10-21T17:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "Centorbi is a wonderful person but an incredibly hard teacher. I got an A in the class by recording her lectures and then typing down what she said verbatim and using that for the exams. That is a LOT of work and I still only got by with an A (including the 5% extra credit trip). A lot of people underestimate this class cuz its supposed to be the easiest lab - which it IS, but that doesn't mean it's easy. must go to every class for clicker scores, do the geotours to cancel out a bad exam, and take awesome notes or be prepared to fail. DO THE EXTRA CREDIT TRIP --- not only was it really fun but it seriously helps your grade! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-05-15T18:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "I chose this course (along with GEOL110) to fulfill my lab credit core. Yes, it is not the easiest class, but for a science class, I don't think it could get much easier. The tests are tricky but really not as difficult as people say. Go to her lectures, write down everything she says and you will be fine. She is not some evil teacher, she is very fair. Her tests are online, you have to expect them to be kind of challenging or else this class would be too easy. There is an hour and 15 minutes to do 60 questions on each test, so there is plenty of time to look stuff up as long as you are organized. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-13T21:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "Do not take this class. Seriously, I don't care what anyone tells you. It is not easy. My friends told me it was easy, but its not. Even if you think you can cheat and do the online tests with people, the tests are so convoluted with tricky questions and ridiculous diagrams that you can't possibly do well on them. You have to go to every class for clicker exams which you always fail b/c she expects you to pay attention the entire time and then understand exactly what she just taught you. Its a complete waste of time and brings down your GPA for no reason. She loves to trick you, she's fat, and she's a horrible teacher. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-05-09T13:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'NOT AN EASY CORE CLASS AT ALL. Her tests are online, but impossible to take. You\'ll have to read between the lines to understand the stuff she talks about, very vague. You also have to go to every lecture because she uses stupid \'clickers\' to give participation grades and if you get a question wrong in the participation you get 50% for that question. Also she has a "no excuses" policy so if you\'re sick or dying and do an assignment you get a zero. Which is complete BULLSH@T. If I\'m sick in the hospital hooked up to IVs and feel like shit, you\'re telling me I can\'t have an extension on the assignment?? BULLSH!T', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-11T12:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "I don't know why everyone is saying this class is hard, it's not. The class is clicker points, online homework, and online tests, and a huge extra credit assignment. Put in a little effort, and you'll get an A easily", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-02T18:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "This class is pretty difficult, but you'll learn a lot in a really short amount of time. Do the extra credit she gives you. You'll need it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-17T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "This class is so hard. I always went to lecture, wrote down what she said, and took notes on the book chapters. The tests are online, which sounds great, but they're ridiculously hard. She only gives you an hour and fifteen minutes to complete them but it could easily take me 2 hours to find all the answers. DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS. I'd much rather take an in class test that is easier than taking this course online.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-04-29T18:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'This was a really tough class. Although I got an A, it was with a lot of difficulty and hard work. You will have to go above and beyond for this class, but its relatively little assignments that you just have to keep up with, not really huge papers or assignments besides the three exams, which are online. Do the discussion board, do the extra credit. Also, i suggest taking notes on your laptop or else you will miss typing down half of the information she puts on the test. \r\nBasically, type down everything she says, and everything that is on the powerpoints and videos. It will come back on the exams', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-13T19:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "I don't know half the people who wrote the reviews below, but they must be geology majors. This class was awful, easily the worst class ever. When you first get to the class and she tells you the tests are online, you get excited, but they are not based off the textbook at all. My first test I got a 75 with just studying off the book. The next 2 I just studied off of what she said in lecture and the slides and did better. I would recommend doing the discussion board because it is easy and to do the extra credit which is now only worth 5%. Also she is just a miserable *****. I have had teachers get mad at students for leaving class early, and even calling them out, but she would go on for a few minutes about why you shouldn't leave early. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-13T23:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "She is really not a good teacher at all. She is really mean and just really annoying. The class overall is easy. All the tests are online, including the final. You have to go to class though because she randomly gives in class exercises that are worth 10% of your grade. If you go on a field trip with her you get 5% added to your grade which is huge. Also, if 90% of people do course evaluations you get another 2% extra credit making an 83% an A. Take it, but don't expect to learn anything. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-13T02:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "This class was a waste of time. I wouldn't have taken it had I not needed a CORE lab science credit. Centorbi can be downright rude and has a bad attitude 75% of the time. Also, she moves way too fast during lecture. Printing lecture slides is a must because she does not give anyone time to write down information off of powerpoints during class. However, I refuse to waste all that paper and ink and therefore struggled with keeping up with her lectures.\n\r\nHer knowledge of geology is greatly apparent and she really does know what she is talking about. All exams are online which sounds awesome but in reality they are tough. I never scored above a C on one even though I did the 13 page review guide for every one. Attending lectures is a must because she randomly gives out in class assignments that are graded. Overall I really did not enjoy this class at all.\n\n", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-12T17:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'Class isn\'t hard if you do the work (not much), online exams mean you can use your notes and textbook, lecture is boring and but informative. She takes lectures straight out of the textbook and adds her own stuff. Many test questions come word-for-word from sentences in the book. You HAVE to go to discussion if you want to pass because almost half your grades come from there, but it is super easy if you do the (one-page) readings for the quizzes and if you work fast you can get out half an hour early most days. Also you get a day off from lecture whenever there is an online test, which is pretty nice.\n\r\nProf. Centorbi does a pretty good job. She seems nice enough in person, but she randomly becomes rather bitter and pessimistic in her lectures. She has a "NO EXCEPTIONS FOR ANYTHING EVER" policy which gets pretty ridiculous. She\'s also one of those profs who calls out students for texting and talking in class. But the class is easy so it\'s hard to fault her too much.\n\r\nBoring class, kooky prof, pretty standard for UMD.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-10T15:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'This class was honestly annoying and I did not benefit from taking it. Even though the exams are posted online, they are hard and the questions she asks are sometimes not even in the notes or lecture. What was even more ridiculous was that there were no exceptions on making up an exam and she even posted on our syllabus…\r\n"There are NO makeup exams for any reason!! Not if you are sick, not if there\'s a death in the family, not if your boyfriend/girlfriend ends up in the hospital, not if you have a car accident, not if you forget because you fell asleep after turning in your paper for another class. Complete it by midnight on Friday or take the zero."\n\r\nhonestly… thats just downright mean. Also if you miss discussion you get an automatic zero on an activity which is worth 35-45 points and you get a 0 on a 3-5 point quiz. \n\r\nI was bored to death in her lectures and had to struggle to keep myself awake most of the time. If you want to take GEOL120 i would suggest taking it with another professor. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-10T02:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "GEOL120 Powerpoint style with all the slides online. The tests are online but you can't do well on them on just the slides alone, you have to attend lecture. In lecture there are in class activities that count towards your grade. You have reading due for every discussion and a short 3 question quiz about the reading. Then there are activities in discussion. Some of the activities are very time consuming and sometimes aren't really related to class. There are 2 opportunities for extra credit: one field trip, and participation on the discussion board which will replace your lowest test grade. If you attend lecture and take good notes and do the extra credit you should get an A, I didn't do these things. As a teacher though she is nice but the material is very boring. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-11-30T14:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "I loved this class! Most of the information was really interesting, but some was pretty dry. The class moves pretty fast, so you have to keep up.\r\nYou don't really need to go to lecture since she posts the slides on elms, but if you do, she does give many hints for upcoming exams. Also, there's plenty of opporunities to get extra credit, like a field trip that can get you up to 10%!\r\nThe tests are online, which is good because you can use your notes, but she uses this testing system that shuts you out of the test if anything else is open. You have to turn off all automatic updates and virus scans and everything, which was a big pain.\r\nBut overall, i took this class as an elective and it wasn't too bad. Before all the exams, i printed out all the powerpoints and went through them using the book and did well on all three of the mid terms. the final had so many recycled questions, it wasn't bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-23T21:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "If you decide to take this course, make sure you go to lecture, since she says A LOT of stuff that isn't in the book. The exams for this course were weird. I felt a lot of the questions were neither in the book, nor were they mentioned in lectures, so I found my self guessing answers. \n\r\nDiscussion sections are really important too, even though most of what you do in discussion really don't help you much on any of the exams. The exercises will help your grade a lot.\n\r\nAs for the professor herself, I thought she was cool/ok at the beginning of the semester, but as the semester went on, she was just unnecessarily a jerk to people.\n\r\nThe best thing about this course is the extra credit field trip. It's worth 10% of your grade, and it's a fairly easy exercise which isn't graded harshly, so it's easy to get a 100% on. Whatever you do, MAKE SURE YOU GO ON THE TRIP! It really paid off.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T14:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "The first thing you should know about this class is that it is top 5 most boring classes available at Maryland. She posts her slides online, but she always says stuff that isn't on the slides that goes on the exams. You don't really need to go to lecture (like 1/2 our class), but if your too honest to skip lecture, bring something to entertain yourself with.\n\r\nHer exams were all online, but they were all very difficult. One good thing about this course is that there is a lot of extra credit chances to make up points. If you post on the weekly discussion board, you get graded on your posts and that grade replaces your lowest exam grade. Also, theres a extra credit field trip that added 10% to your final grade. So if you had an 80% you would have a 90% and an A. \n\r\nDiscussion sections are easy points that make up 25% of your grade, but the work can be time consuming. All in all, this was an annoying class that required a lot of work, but in the end, if you put in the work, you should do ok.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-11T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'So much to say!\r\nA- I hated this class. If it was not the easiest of the Cores that it fulfills, no one would take this class. The class does not teach you anything that you wouldnt already know. Her lectures are full of crap like "Global Warming is bad for people, the animals, and the environment." Really? I didnt know that? On the other hand, her class is so easy. Study from her PP and you should easily get A\'s on the tests.\r\nB- I hate this teacher. I had her last year and she is a miserable person and an even worse teacher. I emailed her a picture of my hospital bracelet WHILE I was still in the hospital and she wouldnt believe that I couldnt take the test because I was ill. I had to take her to the Dean and he eventually made her let me retake it. When I retook it I scored like a 90% on the multiple choice but surprisingly scored a 70% on anything that she graded and was subjective. She constantly made up lies about things I supposedly told her, and she was not at all understanding about my condition.\r\nThis teacher is a b*tch, the class is a joke, but its an easy A.\r\nCentorbi- if you\'re reading this, you got what you deserve! ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-21T07:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "I feel like GEOL120 is actually one of the classes that I've learned a lot in. Nothing that I would apply to my life really but interesting facts about the planet and natural disasters. The exams are in-depth but if you attend lectures and pay attention, it shouldn't be a problem. Discussions are a pain but easy points to your grade. Grades seem unreasonable at first but it works at towards the end.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-02T00:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "Prof. Centorbi's lectures are great and you must attend them to pass the course. The information is very interesting. Her exams are in-depth and difficult usually consisting of 40 mc and 2-5 short answers. They require a lot of study time. You are required to attend the discussion sections which are large portion of your grades. You go over two chapters a week and the chapters are long. I took the course expecting another decently easy freshman course. I was wrong, so do not make the same mistake. Overall it is a good course and you are forced to learn a lot. 4 stars for a tough but fair professor. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-13T15:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': None, 'review': "She's definitely not my favorite person but her class is very organized and pretty clear. We had concept sketches for exams and they are not hard but you really have to study. I would say there is a lot of work for a 100 level course. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-09T01:03:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "Centorbi was very straightforward and helpful as much as a professor in college should be. I noticed that most students expect college professors to tend to all their concerns but you have to realize that that's not the case.\r\n\r\nIn GEOL120, Centorbi covered a chapter or two from the book each week (which you really have to read if you want to ace the exams and final), and after four chapters there would be an exam that consists of 2 out of 8 potential concept sketches. It's very easy to study for the exams as they are just diagrams you can prepare and consult with her about prior to the test.\r\n\r\nOverall, the course was a very achievable A but not an easy one. You actually have to work harder than you did in high school to get the grade you deserve (shocker!) With that, she really is nice to those who put in the effort and try to fully understand her subject.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-03-17T00:42:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "This is a pretty straightforward class but there is a heavy work load. Quizzes every week, HW that takes an hour, random in class assignments. Discussion has quizzes every time you meet. There are 4 exams and a final. If she likes you she'll bump you up to the next grade like from and A- to an A. Try to get on her good side. Don't take this if you are a senior looking for an easy A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-03-27T18:05:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "Do not take this class unless it's in your requirements! Tracey is mono-toned and condescending. She introduces herself very well but it's misleading. she can be rude at times and always threatens the class by saying she'll assign us a quiz if we don't participate. The exams are online but they are extremely difficult as half the content we don't go over in class nor is it present in the textbook. Discussions are also every friday and theres always a quiz and graded classwork in the 50 minutes provided. The subject itself is very interesting and fun but the professor did not provide a great class experience. This was not an easy class by any means but you work for what you get! Do not recommend ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-06T00:33:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': 'She is pretty monotoned, but she is good at answering all questions during lectures. She is very informational, but her lectures are boring and she does not really care about certain people in the room. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-06T14:50:55Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "She is a great teacher if you pay attention. She lectures the entire class, letting out at most 15 minutes early. One hour of homework each week and a quiz to follow. Quizzes are online, you are allowed to use google, and most of the questions she pulled from quizlet so they aren't that hard. She know what she is talking about so be sure to copy the slides in addition to what she says. It is a lot of work but I enjoyed the class despite of this. For a level 100 you can definitely find another class for your NS or lab that wall be much less work. She offers a 5% extra credit at the end, and I highly recommend doing this. This call is a lot more fun if you find friends to study with. I expected an A, and I got one, but not easily this class does require work. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-17T00:14:11Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "This class when taken with the lab (geol110) is HELL. If I could give it 0 stars or negative stars I would. I don't know if it's because it's all online, but I have more work in these classes than I do in any others combined - AND IT'S NOT EVEN FOR MY MAJOR. I had to take a required lab science and I made the mistake of picking this one. Don't waste your time you will be miserable", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-09-25T02:28:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "*This is reviewing the course for online instruction*\r\ntl;dr This professor is NOT an easy A. 70% of each week was spent doing work for this class. She is the only professor in GEOL that used honorlock anti-cheat software for exams (video, mic, and screen recording). \r\n\r\nFULL REVIEW:\r\nEach week we were assigned: 30-100 hw problems (100pts), a quiz (40pts), 8-10 lecture videos with participation quizzes through out (you must watch these lecture videos because the these quizzes are scattered throughout and alone are worth 20% of final grade). All in all I spent at least 10+ hours a week for this professor alone. Exam weeks easily make this go to 15+. This is an absurd amount of work for an 100 level course. \r\n\r\nEach exam covered 3 chapters. It might not seem like much but take my word, it's a lot. Of everything that could be on the exam, we were tested on the simplest things like identifying different kinds of rocks.\r\n\r\nI gave two starts because she's a really nice person, but a mean professor. Her expectations of the students were way too high for an 100 level course. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-10-19T15:19:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': 'Makes the class really difficult and is not an easy A but gives 5% extra credit ON TOP OF FINAL COURSE GRADE at the end of the semester. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-27T21:37:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': 'I took GEOL100 completely online in Fall 2020, and the class was entirely asynchronous. It wasn\'t the worst class and not too difficult in my opinion. She would publish a bunch of lecture videos each Monday that would range from 5 to 20 minutes each and were easy to follow along with, just extremely boring. Embedded in the lecture videos were quiz questions about the content of the lectures, and some weeks these questions were retakeable until you got them right, and sometimes they weren\'t, there was no pattern to it. You would also be assigned a chapter to read each week from the textbook, and the textbook was interactive so there was a grade for completing the questions for each chapter. Most weeks I didn\'t even read the chapter and just answered the questions until I got them all right (they were graded for completion). My biggest complaint about this class is that the quizzes we had each week were created through the textbook service, so the questions were based entirely off of the textbook and not the lectures at all. Luckily, the quizzes are open note and you get two tries on them. There was a midterm roughly every three weeks in this class, and the midterms were based off of the lectures. The midterms also felt very "unpolished," there were often repeated questions, etc. Centorbi would also use a browser extension to prevent cheating on the exams that would film you the entire time. I would definitely study for the exams, but they weren\'t extremely difficult. She also had no TAs for this class, so the only way to contact her outside of emailing was her office hours that were only hosted once a week. Overall, not too difficult of a class, but definitely not an easy A if you don\'t have at least some interest in the subject.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-13T00:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "I took Tracey Centorbi's class in the fall of 2020. It was completely asynchronous. If you are willing to dedicate multiple hours every day studying, you'll pass. I used Quizlet, and it helped me survive the course's exams. Don't make the same mistake I did and spend too much time studying the textbook, I failed an exam this way. She says that she builds her exams mainly on the lecture videos she posts, the textbook material only factors a small amount into the exam. She also uses Honorlock. However, after discussions with the students, she removed all of Honorlock's predatory requirements.\r\n\r\nIn the final month, the class took a turn for the better. Due to the pandemic, the college allowed professors to make finals optional. The professor did, which allowed most of us to save our grades. If you think remembering hundreds of terms for one exam is rough, imagine studying for a cumulative final exam. She also posted an extra credit assignment, which added five points to your total grade.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-17T13:58:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL110', 'review': "The lab was horrible but it was easy. There was so much work involved and if it wasn't for the extra credit offered at the end I'd have a very different grade than the one I ended up with. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-23T05:13:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "Her lectures were very hard to understand and the in-class activities were very difficult as well, I do not recommend taking her class if you are not interested in geology because you will struggle. She wasn't the worst teacher but not the best, her extra credit opportunity did save me though so I would say she's alright. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-17T17:09:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL110', 'review': "This lab is difficult in some areas and really easy in others. It is taught by TAs, so you will never meet the lab director. Your grade really depends on the TAs and how they think you performed on your lab work. My TA was generally very helpful and guided us through any questions we had. For this lab you will work through the lab manual, have a pre-reading every week before lab, then have a quiz on that reading at the start of your lab period. These quizzes can be extremely tricky, so make sure you read, and read carefully. \r\n\r\nIt is apparently one of the easiest labs you can take, so I would recommend it. This course doesn't demand much attention rather than pre-reading and soaking in the information.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-05-24T14:45:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL120', 'review': "Tests were hard but if you studied and know how to quickly read a textbook you should do fine. Lectures felt like a waste of time but skipping them would impact your grade. Overall the class was very intuitive (what global warming is bad?!?!) which made the lectures being mandatory even more painful. Also I do not love her attitude it felt like she felt better than everyone else which like she isn't.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-08T23:52:09.315537Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': "Take a different professor or plan to take the natural lab another semester, do not take this teacher. She has an air about her in which she thinks she's better than everyone. She calls out students for small things. She tries to come off relatable the first few lectures but its just an act. Her TA's were unhelpful and both she and her TA's graded way too harshly. I typically do well in the sciences and I had to struggle through this class to get the grade that I got. Her midterms and final were just completely ridiculous unless you wrote down word for word what came out of her mouth. I literally did extra research outside of the class for an exam and still did worse than I wanted. I've had worse teachers so I won't give her a one but she doesn't deserve more than that. As for the lab, we were not given the right resources to prepare for it, and most people in my section barely got higher than a C. Also, on the midterms, because she uses some randomized testing feature, you can get asked the same question 5-7 times and you will get points taken off for each one so good luck if you don't know the answer. She also refuses to listen to critiques of this testing system and you cannot argue points back if this happens to you. I would give her a one but I've had worse professors, however she doesn't deserve more than a two.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-03-01T21:18:39.459871Z'}], 'name': 'Tracey Centorbi', 'slug': 'centorbi'}, {'courses': ['HLSA772', 'HLSA772', 'HLSA772'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tracey Manning', 'slug': 'manning_tracey'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'BIOE221', 'BIOE605'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tracy Chung', 'slug': 'chung_tracy'}, {'courses': ['EDCI397', 'EDCI488B', 'EDCI280', 'EDCI489C', 'EDCI488G', 'TLPL418', 'TLPL489G', 'TLPL479G', 'TLPL478G', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL361', 'TLPL489I', 'TLPL479G', 'TLPL479G', 'TLPL489G', 'TLPL489I', 'TLPL478G', 'TLPL479G', 'TLPL489G', 'TLPL489G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tracy Dunheimer', 'slug': 'dunheimer'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100', 'HLTH491', 'EXST030', 'HLTH492', 'HLTH399', 'HLTH386', 'HLTH289', 'HLTH491', 'HLTH492', 'HLTH491', 'HLTH492', 'HLTH491', 'HLTH492', 'HLTH289', 'HLTH399', 'HLTH491', 'HLTH399', 'HLTH491', 'HLTH491', 'HLTH492'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tracy Kennedy', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "Very nice lady, UNIV100 is a very laid-back course, just do your assignments (which are not difficult) and participate a bit in class and you'll be more than fine. Tracy was also extremely lenient with grading and let us out early on several occasions. Great choice for UNIV100.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-10T05:12:29Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Kennedy', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'A pretty easy class just some of the assignments were kind of dumb but nice lady. The only thing that made it confusing was she used the same CANVAS for her SPH section as well as her FC section', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-01T00:46:27.853157Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Kennedy', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'so so easy. its univ100 so makes sense. its so pointless where its usually boring but hey, gpa boost and easy stuff. super nice and accommodating.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-13T01:19:40.924847Z'}], 'name': 'Tracy Kennedy', 'slug': 'kennedy'}, {'courses': ['PSYC757', 'PSYC355', 'PSYC888A', 'NACS728D', 'PSYC679A', 'PSYC611', 'PSYC789', 'PSYC468H', 'PSYC888A', 'PSYC355', 'PSYC899', 'PSYC355', 'PSYC355', 'PSYC355'], 'average_rating': 4.2222, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tracy Riggins', 'course': 'PSYC355', 'review': "Professor Riggins is a pretty good teacher and you can tell she really cares about the subject and is interested in it. She tries to make her lectures interesting by adding videos, but sometimes that just isn't enough. The material seemed to be repetitive of both topics covered earlier in class and also topics I've covered in previous psyc classes. I'm not extremely interested in developmental psyc, so my review may be a bit biased. She also lets you know when there will be an in-class assignment ahead of time and puts roughly half of the lectures on Panopto which is great for when you just can't.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-05T16:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Riggins', 'course': 'PSYC355', 'review': 'For the amount of reading and additional movies and videos you\'re responsible for, she is a nice lady but a horrible lecturer -- she basically just reads from the book and goes entirely too fast. doesn\'t so much care if you actually are learning but rather you know her opinion and agree with it. Especially with her online quizzes, the questions more often than not are ridiculously unfair and graded in an entirely opinionated fashion, she will blatantly say that although the textbook proves all answers are correct, she was only looking for one specifically. She also holds an in class assignment the day of thanksgiving traveling and refuses to help out students because "its on the syllabus already"', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-10-21T12:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Riggins', 'course': 'PSYC355', 'review': "Nothing wrong with the teacher, she tries to engage and is knowledgeable. The class Developmental Psyc kinda lacked for me. You learn a whole bunch about infants. I would recommend this class to a girl but not a guy.\n\r\nTests aren't too bad but can be tricky. If you go to class with good notes you don't really need the book although its good as a reference. Powerpoints are all online which is huge if you miss a class.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-29T20:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Riggins', 'course': 'PSYC355', 'review': "Tracy is SO NICE. She's very helpful and always willing to talk to students and try to help them out. She tried to keep the class interesting by having many videos and photos in her lectures. However, the exams are most of the class grade, and they're tough. You definitely have to study and read the chapters. If you're not good at exams then this class can be rough. The chapters in the textbook are REALLY LONG and take hours to outline but it's worth it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-23T09:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Riggins', 'course': 'PSYC355', 'review': 'Basically I loved her. Great Professor, easy class but she makes it interesting. She really knows the material and is great one on one. Class is easy and fair with multiple opportunities for extra credit. I would love to take a class just to have her as my professor again. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-09T02:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Riggins', 'course': 'PSYC355', 'review': "dr. riggins is a really enthusiastic, vibrant teacher. she makes lectures really interesting filled with fun video clips. if you read the chapters you'll do well on the exams. she gives extra credit opportunities that can really improve your grade and she'll drop your lowest midterm grade (best two out of three). ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'b+', 'created': '2010-01-28T21:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Riggins', 'course': 'PSYC355', 'review': 'I love Professor Riggins! She is such a nice and helpful teacher. You do not need to attend her lectures if you read the chapters assigned, but if you need some clarifications, then do attend. She shows many videos that are really useful!\r\nExams are not hard!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-11-06T12:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Riggins', 'course': 'PSYC355', 'review': "You don't need to go to her class to do well on the exams, and she is well aware of this, which is why she has 6 in-class activities on undisclosed days. Her powerpoints pretty much have all the information. Although you can get by without the book, I bought an older edition of the book for like $5 and all I read was the chapter summaries as well as the powerpoints that she posted.\r\nAs far as Dr. Riggins, she is really nice and approachable. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-21T02:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Riggins', 'course': 'PSYC355', 'review': "I really enjoyed this class. Professor Riggins did a really good job of keeping the class interesting and showed us a lot of cool videos. She explained the information clearly and if you go to class and read the text it's pretty easy to get an A.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-12T18:40:00Z'}], 'name': 'Tracy Riggins', 'slug': 'riggins'}, {'courses': ['EDMS769B', 'EDMS645', 'EDMS787', 'EDMS646', 'EDMS769M', 'EDMS655', 'EDMS665', 'EDMS647', 'EDMS655', 'EDMS769T', 'EDMS787', 'EDMS451', 'EDMS655'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tracy Sweet', 'slug': 'sweet'}, {'courses': ['PSYC200', 'PSYC325', 'PSYC440', 'PSYC425', 'PSYC888C', 'PSYC300', 'PSYC200', 'PSYC425', 'PSYC200', 'PSYC425', 'PSYC440', 'PSYC300', 'PSYC425', 'PSYC200', 'PSYC478', 'PSYC479', 'PSYC200', 'PSYC300', 'PSYC200', 'PSYC300', 'PSYC200', 'PSYC425', 'PSYC440'], 'average_rating': 3.3023, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE PSYC200 WITH TRACY!!! ESPECIALLY DURING WINTER SESSION! She will not bother to see you in person, her TAs suck and her exams are near impossible since everything is online and you have to type everything rather than write out the equations. The equations are complex multi step and tedious and not plug n chug. If you are not good at figuring out which math concepts to use in a given scenario you will not do well. Class average for first exam was 70% and she only offers 1.75% extra credit. Do not listen to the people who expect an A if you struggle with math or plan to take this class online only.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2016-01-22T00:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "If you took AP stat, this class is basically just a repeat of that. It's honestly pretty dry material and Dr. Tomlinson does about as well as you really can do in making it even remotely interesting. The entire class is open notes, so dont worry about having to memorize equations. Take good notes and actually go to class (or get someone elses notes) and youll be alright (tip - when you get to stuff like z-tests and t-tests, spend like a half hour and learn how to make the calculator do them for you, itll save you a lot of time and calculation mistakes) \n\r\nThe homework is a pain in the ass, but it's not terribly difficult, just long. Just set aside like 2 hours each week and crank it out, its doable. The lab videos are absolutely pointless, I'd usually just mute them and have them running in the background while I did other things, and then watched the 10 seconds pertinent to the question that was asked. \n\r\nThere is a final paper, again not terribly taxing, just a pain to write. That's basically this whole class in a nutshell. Easy enough, just a pain at times. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-04-21T01:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Here's the thing with this class. If you're good at math, it is going to be pretty easy. If you aren't, you're going to have to try a bit. The material isn't terrible and Tracy does make it more interesting than it could be (I can't imagine this class with a boring, droning teacher). If you aren't lazy, and you're not good at math, there are lots of opportunities to boost your grade (participation points, a final paper).\n\r\nThe homework is not pleasant. There is a lot on Aplia and the setting she has it on is kind of harsh (you get 3 tries on each problem, and if you don't get it totally right the first time you can never get full credit on that problem).\n\r\nThe tests are open note/book. \n\n\r\nPS: if Kapil is your TA, be happy. He's a life saver.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-20T13:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': None, 'review': " Dr. Tomlinson is a really good teacher, she gets into the material and involves the class. She does a good job of answering any questions that anyone has. The way she presents the material makes it very easy to understand.\r\nHowever, she assigns homework on the material but often times it is due before the lecture on it is given. The textbook is fairly good, but some of the topics didn't really make sense until we discussed them in class, so it would have been beneficial to have the lecture before the homework was due, so that the practice could solidify the knowledge rather than just confuse the students. \r\nThe topics in this class weren't hard, it was just a ridiculous amount of work to do, which adds up even if you don't have to try too hard on it. You also have to attend every lecture for full participation points, which isn't always possible and shouldn't happen in a college course.\r\nThe lab videos you have to watch every week are a pain too, because unless you watch it straight through without skipping around or pausing, you won't get credit for it. It's nice that the discussion/lab isn't mandatory, but the videos are still obnoxious. \r\nShe also forbids you from using computers, which I feel shouldn't happen in a college course. I study and learn best when I take notes on the computer, so having to write everything by hand was obnoxious and the fact that I didn't have a choice in it was annoying in and of itself.\r\nThe tests are very easy and they are open note, and she also provides extra credit, so it's not hard to get a good grade. It's just an obnoxious class to take because she treats students like they are highschoolers. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-12-05T16:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "She gives way too much homework. Between videos and aplia it was hard to keep up. Additionally, she does aplia as an average of your best scores instead of taking your best try, which really hurt my grade considering homework was 40% of our grade. The way she takes attendance is ridiculous. You should not have to do clickers, and write out on half sheets. Although I think she would be a good teacher for someone who is naturally good at math, it was a really tough class for me. I also think she was very condescending at times. Her TA's also seemed very ill-informed. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-20T10:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Good teacher, hard course. Make sure to actually go to lecture and to keep up with the work.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2014-05-19T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Dr. Tomlinson was nice and approachable and extremely passionate about statistics. However, I felt she often got caught up in answering questions or going through each tiny step of a problem, rather than addressing larger concerns.\r\nThe homework was okay, though time intensive. The lab videos were AWFUL. They took forever to watch and the questions were often vague or relied on information from earlier in the video, so I would suggest writing EVERYTHING down. Both homework and lab videos are required. \r\nThere were also half-sheets that had to be completed in class that I felt offered no real value to the students, but attendance to all lectures was necessary for full participation points. \r\nThe TA\'s were very helpful to me because they offered review sheets for the test, but I found the class to be a lot of work for very little outcome. \r\nA "B" is not typical of my performance in my classes, and I think it goes to show that the tests are not reflective of the lectures, despite being open note.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-12-21T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Dr. Tomlinson was nice, helpful, and very clear in her lectures. I'd taken AP Stat before so I knew much of the content, but she still explains things pretty effectively. \n\r\nThe workload for the class is ridiculous and you have to attend every lecture for full participation credit, but all of the exams were completely open-note so it wasn't too bad. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-04-25T18:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'write everything on the homeworks, dont skip ANYTHING (especially how you calculate mean. its ridiculous but you actually have to write out, 2+2+2=6. 6/3=2. Mean=2). tests were open notes and very similar to the homeworks. I had Mark as my TA in discussion, HE IS AWESOME. he went through problems very similar to the homework problems which was very helpful. he is also really funny. homework is due every tuesday except for test weeks. \n\r\nlecture is incredibly boring, i read TFLN the entire time. you have to attend lecture bc attendance is taken in the form of clickers or hand written half-sheets of paper. easy A class with some effort. \n\r\n1 statistical analysis paper due at the end of the semester. not impossible, just annoying. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T01:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC309K', 'review': "Best Psychology teacher I've had! Her forensic psychology class is very interesting and mostly discussion based so as long as you do the assignments and come to class it's pretty easy to get an A. She is very fair and receptive of students needs as long as you are willing to communicate with her. Overall great class and great teacher", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-01T00:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Dr.Tomlinson didn\'t bother me initially until midway through the semester. I asked her a question on an exam because the wording of it was confusing, & she responded very rudely with "Do what it says." as if that clarifies or helps me at all? Then on the the paper the first thing that\'s due she said was to write a rough draft, assuming that was literally a rough draft I wrote the 5-8 pg paper as a rough draft..then the TA emailed everyone the night before it was due to write a 3 pg methodological review & summary..when I emailed to get clarification, nobody clarified. If I had not taken AP Statistics in high school I would be completely lost in this class because Dr.Tomlinson can\'t teach well at all & makes you do ridiculous examples that don\'t make sense with the material being taught. She also holds you over class with snarky remarks that she still has 3 more minutes. Don\'t take this class with her, take this class with the other guy that teaches it he seems really nice & helpful UNLIKE her.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-17T23:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Best math teacher I've ever had in my life. She truly cares about her students and wants to help. She asks often if she's doing a good job and has students review her class at different points. Sometimes she goes over things too quickly but as long as someone asks her to slow down or repeat things she has absolutely no problem with it. She is always willing to meet with students to help as well. 8am SUCKS. It gets very hard to pay attention and stay awake in a stat class that early but Tracy does the best she can with it. The discussion board is always open online for questions and Tracy or a TA gets back to students within a few hours at the most. She's very enthusiastic and ALWAYS wears black. LOTS of homework, exams are pretty tough, but if you have to take this class she's definitely the one to take it with.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-07T09:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC440', 'review': 'Horrible teacher!!! She does not care about her students. I would not recommend this teacher. You can get a good grade, but there is a lot of work for this course', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-11-03T12:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Course taken Spring 2011 semester. I got an A. I was worried I would get a B, but going to lab discussions and lectures help. Concepts are easy to grasp once you go to lab. Go to lectures; there is a participation grade.\n\r\nDon't miss any classes because for the people who abhor math, the class is very doable. \n\r\nHomework was harder than the exams. The paper wasn't awful. \n\r\nThe professor loves teaching and always stops to ask questions. Material you need to learn isn't very interesting, but Tomlinson's class makes you understand it well.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T20:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "While engaging during the course, her exams were a little ridiculous and she assigns far too much homework. This isn't high school anymore: attendance shouldn't be taken at lecture, only at specialized discussion. I can understand assigning weekly homeworks, but the assignments took hours and were repetitive and tedious: it should be our own responsibility to practice what we learn if we wish to do so. A third of the final exam consisted of 2 types of testing that she spent less than a lecture on, was not gone over in discussion, and we were never asked to know even for a homework assignment.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-17T22:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Prof. Tomlinson is a good teacher but she requires a lot! We had ten homework assignments and they ranged from three to six questions. However, each question has about five parts to it so you can see how they would take a long time. The homeworks aren't hard and if you go to lecture and lab you'll be just fine. I got a 77.5 and a 85 on two homeworks and A's on all the rest and this was done with minimal effort. I basically just looked at the notes while I was doing the homework. Also the book isn't really necessary if you go to lecture BUT it is helpful or clarification. I stopped doing the readings after the first midterm exam and I did fine but I also went to every lecture and lab. I'm not really good at math but her teaching style is extremely helpful if you're like me. If you're good at math this class might be a little boring but then again maybe you just won't go to lecture. There are two exams and a final. The final is cumulative ONLY in the sense that you need to remember some concepts and calculations/formulas. There is also a final paper which SUCKS!!! You have to do a rough draft, a peer review, a response to the peer review and a final draft. The paper is a critique of an article you find and I didnt put much effort into in and got an A overall. 16/20-rough draft, 9.5/10-peer review, 8/10-response, and 59/60-final. Luckily I got a really good peer review which helped my final. The class is long and gets boring at times but is definitely a class I would recommend for people that are worried about their grade. You also have to turn ur hw in before she starts talking in lecture or you'll get points deducted. hope this helps :) My final grade was a 94 but with the extra credit(i did all four) i got a 96.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2011-05-17T20:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Professor Tomlinson is one of the greatest professors at the University. She is patient and makes class exciting. As a person who is not that great at math, I understood everything. She did a very good job of communicating the material.\n\r\nShe is exactly what a teacher should be.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-03T18:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC309K', 'review': "My favorite class & my favorite teacher! The topics covered in the class are really interesting and Tracy always uses different ways to introduce material. The course load wasn't heavy at all, and it was easy to do well. Exams were a little tough, but nothing a little studying can't fix. TAKE THIS CLASS! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-29T19:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': None, 'review': "Tracy is incredibly considerate of others, and is invested in students' progress in any course she teaches. She always made time to talk to students, and clearly cared deeply about student learning and understanding of the material. She was made for teaching!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-19T22:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Very average professor. Nothing about her stood out to me except she took attendance 10 times a semester which was a *****. I would recommend her as a Psyc200 prof as she has great reviews right before the test and posts all powerpoints online. Makes studying a cinch.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-17T03:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Tracy seems to be a great professor, but the class is just extremely boring (and that's not entirely her fault). The material has very little to do with psychology, and I can't imagine it any different than STAT100 or MATH111. She was very bubbly and a good speaker, but the material just seemed old (I found it to be exactly the same as my high school AP stat class). So if you have to take the class, it won't be awful. The material will just be boring.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-15T20:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "I am not sure what the other people are talking about.\r\nTracy Tomlinson is an expremely poor teacher. She is condescending, disrespectful, and unprofessional. She is also unfamiliar with some of the course content, which shows in lecture. The work that she has students do is tedious and unhelpful. The class is more focused on calculations than concepts, and Tracy looks to deduct point wherever she can. She treats her T.A's terribly, and it is clear that they do not like her as well. Lastly, the concepts she teaches are not consistent with other introductory level statistics for psychology classes. She should not teach the class again.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-12T19:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "very nice professor..really cares about students and wants you to understand. If you don't understand something she will go over it as many times as needed. the course consists of three exams, final paper, and ten homework assignments. the homework assingments are extremely difficult and time consuming. if your not willing to spend an average of 5 hours on each homework you wont finish the assingment. she tends to post problems that she never went over how to do and don't make sense. in lecture she can get confused about what she is saying and is sometimes unclear. But before each exam she post a study guide..i would recommend not studying for the exam until this is posted..her exams are exactlyyyy the study guide..everything she says you need to know will be on it and never tries to trick you..she is extremely fair when it comes in that sense..exams are straightforward..one downfall are the homeworks.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-03T20:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Professor Tomlinson is a really great professor. She is extremely helpful and goes over topics more than once. The material in the class is not very difficult if you have taken a statistics class before. There are 3 exams, and she gives a review class. If you study the review you will do well on the test. There is one homework assignment each week, and its pretty tedious, but not very difficult. My only complaint about this class is that she posts the homework late at night, which makes it difficult to complete in time for lab, which is the only opportunity to ask any questions. Instead of having a final you have a final paper, which can be interesting if you choose a good article. The only bad thing is you have to write a paper reviewing someone elses paper and then respond to the person that edits your paper. Overall this class is not that difficult, and Professor Tomlinson is a good teacher.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-03T17:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "I did not enjoy Dr. Tomlinson's method of teaching statistics. She went over a lot of lectures pretty quickly and even if people asked questions, including myself, I felt that I was still left confused because of how fast she goes over the material. I've taken two statistic courses before this one, so you'd think I'd be able to understand and breeze through this course, too. Not at all. If her teaching style was a little different, I might have liked her a little more. \n\r\nThe work load isn't bad, though. Homework is pretty stupid because she gives 6 parts for each question (usually 5 or 6), but only 2 questions are graded. So, yeah, kind of a waste of time for all of that work. The tests aren't too bad if you know the material; you can have a half sheet with formulas on it.\n\r\nHer attendance policies are ridiculous and your homework is counted late as soon as she starts talking in lecture on the day it's due... no excuses, even if you're sick.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-11-30T14:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Tracy makes this class harder than it needs to be because her lectures are so thorough.\n\r\nWeekly homework assignments, sometimes difficult, sometimes simple.\n\r\nEXAMS ARE EASY. Just make sure you study the review slides! She literally takes the questions right off of them and changes the numbers.\n\r\nFinal paper instead of a final exam, which is a critique of an article that includes statistics.\n\r\nLectures posted online, online discussion board which tracy responds to (very helpful when doing homework)\n\r\nlectures too long though, easy to fall asleep.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-20T03:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC309K', 'review': "BEST CLASS I'VE EVER TAKEN. The material is so interesting and Professor Tomlinson is so nice. She loves to engage her students and listen to what they have to say. If you have the chance, take this class, you won't regret it. It's especially great for those student double majoring in psyc and crim!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2009-11-04T11:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': "I had her for PSYC200 and thought she was a good teacher there, but getting to PSYC300 it was substantially worse. The material is dry and the course moves so slowly, she spends half the time repeating information from the last class but she doesn't explain things well so it doesn't lead to a better understanding at all. The lab is frustrating, my section stayed the entire 2 hours every time just going over the things we went over twice already in class but other sections were only there for half an hour. The homework assignments are also extremely unclear, especially as it got to the end of the semester, the syllabus was not helpful so it was just having to check ELMS every week to see what was due. Very dull class that does not need to be 4 credits. I would suggest trying to take it with the other professor.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-01T15:41:22Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Boring lectures, a lot of work, but fair exams!! The study guide is really similar to the exams!! ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-03-10T16:49:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Good teacher, very knowledgeable lecturer, she'll make you work hard. Worth it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-01-13T21:06:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Dr. Tomlinson is really nice and understanding, especially with COVID-19 going on. She was really organized and the assignments were pretty clear to understand. Deadlines were clear and she held review sessions for quizzes that were very helpful and good practice. She replied to everyone on discussion boards for assignments and her TAs always replied promptly to emails and questions. Overall the content can be challenging at times, but theres tons of resources she provides so that you can improve. It helps to have some stats background but not necessary. The lectures were really effective at introducig and explaining the material and preparing you for practice problems to do on your own. I really enjoyed the class!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-20T18:03:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': 'Poor research examples for students to conceptualize the larger concepts. Prof. Tomlinson is condescending and giving lectures seems like a chore for her.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-03-07T06:00:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Very, very boring lectures. Her homeworks and quizzes also take entirely too long to complete. She and her TA's are not understanding of late work, even if its just a few minutes late. I hated this class and Im glad it over. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T21:17:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'I have a lot of mixed feeling about Dr. Tomlinson. I’ll start with the good. I really do think she is a great lecturer for this class and does a good job at explaining the material and making it relevant. She provides a lot of extra practice material if you do want that extra practice or explanations. She’s also pretty accessible if you have any issues or need to reach her. On the other hand, I don’t think she takes students needs into consideration, which can be really stressful considering some of her class policies. For one she doesn’t take any late work unless its excused. This policy pretty much tanked my grade. I understand not wanting students to turn things in late week after week, but I only missed one (1) assignment by AN HOUR and I was never really able to recover. Although my grade in the class wasn’t bad, it’s not the grade deserved and I know other kids had the same issue. Attendance is also mandatory and accounts for 30% of your grade, which is kind of brutal for an 8am class. I pretty much came in half asleep just to get my clicker points and would watch the lecture videos later in the day. The content can be hard to understand and sometimes she goes through her lectures REALLY fast (another reason I just preferred to watch the online lectures). I have the feeling she’s pretty set in her ways and doesn’t have any intention to improve. Instead of actually taking feedback into consideration she’ll blame data and say that her ratings are so low either here or on rate my prof because she is both a woman and teaches an 8am. All in all, she’s not the worst, but if you have the option to avoid her, I would. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-01-11T17:19:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': 'I have heard of people who are not huge fans of Tomlinson as a professor. Personally, I think she is fine. Nothing stands out about her (positively or negatively). I personally preferred her in PSYC300 to PSYC200. Although there is a relatively heavy workload (it is a 4 credit course), it has been easy to get good grades in this course. Exams are straight forward, labs are easy if you attend, and attendance is mandatory. Overall, she is a very standard professor. She cares about her students, has passion for the class, and does not give extremely challenging work. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-04-20T02:19:32Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Plz do not take her for PSYC 200. Take anyone but her. She does not do a good job of explained concepts. Her TAs are much better than her. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-21T16:36:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': 'This class is extremely hard and a lot of work, most of which consists of the weekly apa reports. I really was not a huge fan of Dr. Tomlinson when taking 200 but I much preferred her this semester. The 8am class is still brutal, but she makes an immense amount of effort to not only make sure her students understand the material, but are also well prepared way after taking her class. The sheer amount of topics that I can add to my CV after taking this class is seriously insane and even though I may not have wanted to wake up and go to class everyday, I am very grateful for what this class was able to provide me. As long as you put in the work and manage your time it really is not that bad. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-14T20:02:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC300', 'review': 'If you have to take psyc 300 take it with any other professor that offers it. Literally anyone! Dr. T is very educated in her field and passionate about research, but she is extremely difficult to work with. She is inconsiderate of the lives and struggles of her students. I wish I never took the class with her, and am glad I passed the course for the sole reason of never having to take a psych class with her again. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-18T15:24:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': "Dr Tomlinson is an amazing professor and very clearly explains the content and checks in to make sure there aren't any questions before moving on. She cares about her students and does a great job at outlining the expectations for the course. I highly recommend taking classes with her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-04T16:12:21.899979Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC425', 'review': "i've had her for three classes now and she's one of the kindest and most understanding and engaging professors I've had. She actually cares about the material and teaches it in a way that actually helps you learn it, not just some monotone lecture. and she gives out so many opportunities for points in her classes that it's kinda hard to fail if you just attend class, take good notes, do your assignments, and email her when you need more time on them. she actually cares about the well-being of her students. ignore the negative ratings about her tbh i swear you will love her class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-05T01:24:18.476069Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'Dr. Tomlinson is easily one of the most caring professors I have had. I do not understand why there is so many negative reviews of her, she is truly a gem. Perhaps people are confusing the difficulty of the content with her as a teacher, which is incredibly unfair to her. She cares about student needs, she is flexible, receptive to feedback, gives lots of opportunities for points and extra credit, and is extremely fair. She puts in a lot of effort to organize and manage class, and she is so engaging during lectures. I was worried about this class coming into it, but I honestly feel so much better about statistics because of her guidance and teaching. She makes things very manageable. My best tips are to attend all the classes, take notes on EVERYTHING you can (module readings, lecture, lab videos), attend review and lab sessions, and just get the work done in a timely manner. Emailing her or a TA when you need help will help you as well. Many of the discussions and assignments are easy points. I highly recommend Dr. Tomlinson.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-13T05:21:15.614896Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'I took PSYC200 with Prof Tomlinson in the Winter, and would not recommend it. For context, I had taken AP Stats in high school, and found it really easy (even got a 5 on the exam). The content isn’t hard, but it’s too much for three weeks. You have to watch about 3-4 hours of lecture videos everyday, another two hours on Wednesdays for labs and R modules and another hour for homework. She’s an okay lecturer and you’re mostly learning for pre-recorded videos which is nice since you can rewatch content. However, you never really see her. She hosts a review session on Fridays which isn’t helpful at all, and I don’t think she has office hours. Moreover, her exams are usually an incorrect measure of knowledge. It’s a math class and the exams are solely based on whether you put the numbers in correctly on Canvas, not whether you know the processes of theory behind the work. There’s no partial credit, and she’s a stickler about late work giving no credit. The class average for exam 1 was about 72% and for exam 2 it was about 70%.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-21T19:15:07.343536Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'course': 'PSYC200', 'review': 'This professor is horrible, truly horrible, I took PSYC200 with her last semester and hated the workload and the way she lectured. She does not take the time to explain concepts instead just teaching a single example and nothing else, she also assigned way too much homework, with hours of work each week. I am now taking her for PSYC300 and have to say DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS, she is an awful professor, most of the things we have done so far have been repeat assignments from PSYC200 and she assigns anywhere from 12-15 assignments a week, which is just way too much, when I reached out to my TA about the sheer volume of work there was she told me I was being dramatic and that this is what the University recommends but no other class I have taken has been this bad.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-02-09T20:46:12.637042Z'}], 'name': 'Tracy Tomlinson', 'slug': 'tomlinson'}, {'courses': ['HLTH285', 'HLTH490', 'HLTH391', 'HLTH420', 'HLTH230', 'HLTH471', 'WMST471', 'HLTH785', 'HLTH106', 'EXST030', 'HLTH778', 'HLTH490H', 'SPHL100', 'HLTH490', 'HLTH471', 'HLTH471H', 'WGSS471', 'HLTH490', 'HLTH490H', 'SPHL100', 'HLTH490', 'HLTH490H', 'HLTH106', 'HLTH106', 'HLTH471', 'HLTH106', 'HLTH471', 'HLTH490', 'HLTH490H', 'SPHL100'], 'average_rating': 3.6923, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'HLTH106', 'review': 'I agree with a number of the postings below. It sounds like she\'s a "great teacher" in person, but in my experience with her online, I\'d have to agree that she takes herself WAY too seriously! ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-01-15T15:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'HLTH285', 'review': "This course was really simple and most of the questions on the exams were intuitive/common sense. Saying that, in order to get an A you definately have to note what she emphasizes in class. The textbook is not needed at all. She has points for random in class lecture assignments. There was a book review in which the rubric was not given out beforehand, and even if you complete all the points she wants in the book review, you can still get a B C or D. Her TA was not helpful in my opinion and wasn't too approachable. Overall a good class but 8am in the morning makes you not want to go.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-19T00:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'HLTH285', 'review': '', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-06-28T21:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'HLTH285', 'review': "Professor Zeeger is awesome!! I ended up signing up for classes late because I switched majors over break, and didn't have much to choose from. The class is at 8:00 am and the only reviews I saw were the bottom 3 that were horrible. I was worried, but it was too late to change my mind. I am SO HAPPY that I had no other choice. I love this class. Zeeger's class really is as simple as going to class and studying. Tests aren't hard at all, multiple choice. There are some journals, but they are actually helpful. You just write about what was stressing you out and how you dealt with problems (big or small). You can't miss class too much though, because she does have random in class activities worth 5 pts each. Zeeger is such a great professor though, I have no idea how anyone could say anything negative about her. She makes class really fun, and that is saying a lot for someone taking her class at 8:00 am. She also teaches some really good techniques for dealing with stress that I will probably keep doing. I would recommend this class to anyone and everyone. Great professor, great class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-04-01T00:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'HLTH490', 'review': "I would definately take this class, or any class, with professor Zeeger. She returns grades extremely fast and was always available to answer any questions you may have. People are complaining that she grades too hard; i disagree. She even allows students to email assignments to her before turning them in so she can give you feedback. The help is there if you need it, but mind you, the class is not that hard. There is not alot of material and she gives study guides. Long story short: being in professor Zeeger's class was a pleasure! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-05T22:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'HLTH490', 'review': "I think that professor zeeger was a wonderful teacher. HLTH490 is a very dry and boring class but i think that she taught it the best she could and made it as interesting as HLTH490 could possibly be. She genuinely cared about her students and their success not only in the course but their success after they graduated. I am very glad that I had her as my professor and she continues to help me find a job even though I am not her student anymore. I highly suggest having her as a professor! She's a wonderful resource!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-01T14:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'HLTH490', 'review': "Prior to the class, I had heard negative reviews about Professor Zeeger. After taking her class last semester, I've found her class to be very useful for internships. She responds to feedback about the class and her teaching style. She returns assignments/grades quickly, which was much appreciated. I've taken classes where the professor or course was new and some really did not go well due to differing expectations and just mishaps from trial and error. Aside from that, the people with negative experiences tend to be the ones who didn't received the grade they expected, but probably deserved.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-01T02:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'HLTH490', 'review': 'One of the worst professors I had by far. It was her first semester teaching and thought she had to prove herself. She was not helpful and very disorganized. Her lectures are very dry and boring. VERY VERY VERY harsh grader. Did not learn anything from this class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-08-11T16:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': None, 'review': "Her grading is very inconsistent. She is not very helpful. One of the worst teacher's I've ever had.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-16T18:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "An uptight person who thinks shes a teacher. She takes her job way too seriously and you can tell from the GPA for her UNIV100 class. It is among the lowest of everyone who taught the class. Really useless person. What's funny is that she actually thinks she's making a difference.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-28T16:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': "Professor Zeeger is extremely caring about her students. The class operates in a flipped classroom, so we watch lectures online and then come to class for discussion. There's about a quiz every week which is based on lectures, plus a final group project spread out across the semester. The workload isn't too extreme and a good grade is attainable. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-11T23:18:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': None, 'review': 'Dr. Zeeger is a joy to learn from. This class was a breeze, but just know it will feel overwhelming doing internship obtaining processes and grant writing all at once. In the end, you will feel so relieved you got it done though! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T04:09:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'course': 'SPHL100', 'review': 'Dr.Zeeger is an amazing professor. This class was very easy and organized. You would watch all the lectures on your own, then come to class for a discussion, and have a weekly quiz while you\'re at it. There\'s also a semester long "CAP Project" with a group you\'re assigned to for a whole semester, but it\'s not overwhelming as it\'s broken up into many parts. Great professor, and person :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-07T04:28:08.445891Z'}], 'name': 'Tracy Zeeger', 'slug': 'zeeger'}, {'courses': ['EDCI689', 'EDCI471', 'EDCI480', 'EDCI375', 'TLPL421', 'TLPL489F', 'TLPL678', 'TLPL101', 'TLPL479F', 'TLPL421', 'TLPL489F', 'TLPL479F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tranae Johnson', 'slug': 'johnson_tranae'}, {'courses': ['ENEE759D', 'ENEE140', 'ENEE757', 'ENEE657', 'CMSC858Z', 'ENEE459D', 'CMSC818V', 'HACS289', 'HACS287', 'HACS479', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE140', 'ENEE140', 'ENEE140'], 'average_rating': 4.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tudor Dumitras', 'course': None, 'review': 'best prof NA', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-05T20:16:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Tudor Dumitras', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "Tudor's a pretty chill guy and a good teacher. He tries to structure his lectures around the concepts students find most difficult from assigned readings which helps. The homework he assigns for this class is fairly straightforward and ties in directly with projects he assigns for this class. His projects aren't too hard, but they take time.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-21T02:35:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Tudor Dumitras', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': 'Professor Tudor was very easy going and very approachable. I wish his lectures were structured a little better. The projects are ridiculously tedious for a two credit class, but I feel as it did prepare me for 150. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-30T05:04:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Tudor Dumitras', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': 'He’s a pretty good prof, but his lectures are a little disorganized. If you ask questions he’s good at clarifying though. He was consistently 5-10 minutes late and would hold us 10-15 minutes past the end of class, but this is likely just a online-learning thing. Overall nice Professor and not too hard of a class!', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-11-24T14:44:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Tudor Dumitras', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': 'Good lectures, always helpful in answering questions and explaining topics. Projects were really hard and took a long time but were very well thought out and really got right to the heart of the concepts while also introducing other topics and giving a taste of how programming algorithms are actually used in the real world. Overall the class was a really good introduction to c and programming more generally and did great at preparing us for 150. Some people say the class was a bit too hard for people who have no prior programming experiences, but I think its about the same difficulty as other introductory programming classes .', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-05T19:41:15.386546Z'}, {'professor': 'Tudor Dumitras', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': 'ENEE140 is supposedly an "intro" class but I did not find this the case at all. There is a lot to learn and it doesn\'t feel like a 2 credit class at all. There are weekly homework, around 8 quizzes in the semester, and 3 projects. The homework are doable, but if you do not have prior coding experience, USE THE TA\'S! They are very helpful. I personally did not use professor Tudor too often, as the TA\'s were very reliable for me. Make sure to make friends in the class as sometimes homeworks and projects become a bit much as the semester picks up and it is very useful to have people you can ask for help when the TA\'s are not available. The lectures went smoother as the semester went on, but at the beginning they were often confusing and went over lecture time. START EARLY on the projects. They are normally quite a lot of work. There are project help sessions the Friday before the project is due. These sessions last from 8am to 5pm. There are also weekly extra credit coding assignments and every project has extra credit on it. If you put in effort, you will see results. Just make sure to start things early and do not fall behind on the content.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-06T04:25:57.100308Z'}, {'professor': 'Tudor Dumitras', 'course': 'ENEE140', 'review': "For a 2 credit class, ENEE140 is a lot of work. Projects are very challenging and time consuming, as I found myself relying on TA's a lot despite having worked with C before. Projects are rewarding in the end, and I def learned something from them despite their rigorous nature. Lectures were pretty boring, as they only felt somewhat relevant and really only provided good information about half the time. Exams are fair and professor provides a lot of past exams (and answers to study). Use your TA's heavily and start projects early and you will be fine.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T21:43:07.824648Z'}], 'name': 'Tudor Dumitras', 'slug': 'dumitras'}, {'courses': ['THET116'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tyler Gunther', 'slug': 'gunther'}, {'courses': ['ARTT110'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Tyler Hildebrand', 'slug': 'hildebrand'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM351', 'COMM353'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tyler Page', 'course': 'COMM107', 'review': 'The class was pretty easy overall, not much work just 5 speeches and quizzes are straight from the reading. Overall nice teacher very relaxed and grades pretty easily. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-11-19T22:35:50Z'}], 'name': 'Tyler Page', 'slug': 'page_tyler'}, {'courses': ['EPIB610', 'EPIB301', 'EPIB630', 'EPIB662', 'EPIB399', 'SPHL602', 'HLTH301', 'HLTH301H', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'SPHL601', 'EPIB301H', 'EPIB301', 'EPIB301', 'EPIB301H', 'EPIB630', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'EPIB301', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB301', 'EPIB301', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB301', 'EPIB301H', 'EPIB788'], 'average_rating': 3.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Typhanye Dyer', 'course': 'EPIB301', 'review': 'Easy to get an A without actually attending lecture or discussion. Most people take the exams based off common sense and score okay. I was able to score fine without going to lecture, reviewing lecture slides, or attending discussion. All I did was read the relevant textbook chapters before the exam. The assignments were also graded moderately (not too harsh, not too lenient). That being said, if lecture attendance does begin to drop, she will administer "pop quizzes" during lecture. My recommendation is to show up and work on something else just in case. \r\n\r\nFor those who pay attention, she does tend to speak fast and she knows it so be ready but honestly a lot of her slide content seems to be repetitive (not in a good way). Also make sure you skim through her daily announcements about her personal life. They are often lengthy but sometimes (rarely) have relevant information about an assignment or lecture. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-11-24T22:49:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Typhanye Dyer', 'course': 'EPIB301', 'review': 'Prof Trevitt was a great prof! The class was super easy to understand! I took this class over winter break! The exams were very easy!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-18T23:52:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Typhanye Dyer', 'course': 'EPIB301', 'review': 'She is so kind. All her tests were open note and online (including the final), and as long as you reviewed the slides you should be good. Her announcement brightened my day, and honestly love her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-17T02:08:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Typhanye Dyer', 'course': 'SPHL602', 'review': "She is one of the best professors I've had at UMD. She knows how to teach, provides plenty of relatable and in-person examples, and really shows her personality throughout lectures. I never would have expected to enjoy my 4:15-6:15 epi lecture so much :) \r\nHer tests and homeworks are completely reasonable.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-09-26T21:25:17.518796Z'}, {'professor': 'Typhanye Dyer', 'course': 'EPIB301', 'review': 'she seems like a good person but her lectures seem almost pointless to go to. All she does is read off her slides and her lectures seem so unprepared. She has also changed her exams as they are no longer open note. Honestly, not one of my favorite professors at all.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-18T17:58:20.685739Z'}, {'professor': 'Typhanye Dyer', 'course': 'SPHL602', 'review': "Dr. Dyer is not only unbelievably disorganized, she is beyond unprofessional. Her energy is all over the place and when she lectures you don’t actually know what’s going on in her class. I thought it was just me until I started asking other people in the class if they knew what was going on and everyone else was just as flustered by her teaching mechanisms. She talks down on younger students, particularly those in the accelerated program, and will suddenly flip a switch despite attempting to be the “cool” teacher all semester.\r\n\r\nShe just reads straight from her slides with no added information so if you can read, you can skip class. I also didn’t appreciate her saying “things” and “stuff” rather than using the actual terminology needed to learn this material. She loves to talk about herself and thinks she’s funny. I can tell you more about her than about epidemiology. She sends lengthy emails with no relevant content to the class, solely about her personal life. I wouldn’t mind this if I was actually learning anything relevant to the course from her. \r\n\r\nWhen you take this course, it’s in an old classroom in the SPH building set up like a small auditorium. I need to point out the classroom is outdated because there’s not enough outlets in the class to make test taking efficient. The desks are also smaller than a MacBook Air so having a sheet of paper and a laptop is just uncomfortable (and not possible with one desk) when test taking. Someone pointed this out and asked if our exam could be taken in another large classroom so that we could have enough room to write and use our laptops or if we could just do paper exams. This question angered her and she took away partial credit for our math on her exam. I think professors and faculty need to do a mock exam in that classroom and determine if it’s fair for students to test in that room in its current state. It’s due for an upgrade and having partial credit taken away for such a fair question was absurd.\r\n\r\nThe following morning at 7AM we received a scathing email from her following the exam review. As quoted below and relevant to this review of her: \r\n\r\n“Hello Everyone:\r\nHope you rested well.\xa0 Me...not so much!”\r\n“We WILL have a few paper exams...not 95 of them. ..because...well...paper. Some of us care about the environment”\r\n“you can have your scratch paper. ONE sheet...because it will not be graded with the exam, so use front and back. You can bring it up and hand it in if you'd like but it is not necessary. In other words...there is no partial credit.”\r\n“those of you with empathy know that last night was unnecessarily cruel, childish, unacceptable and an embarrassment to the SPH.\xa0 You are OUR students...whether you are in my department or not...we take pride in admitting you to the various programs...and I see some of the accelerated students have forgotten they're in graduate school (kinda).”\r\n“The behavior exhibited last night was deplorable.”\r\n“I am hearing from your TA's that there was chatter in one class and they suggested if you need to have a conversation you could do so outside...and someone actually left?\xa0 This is unacceptable.”\r\n“This is not cute behavior...would your parents be proud of said behavior?\xa0 I doubt it. It was embarrassing. We were having fun...I was being light and accommodating...but I see that some don't know when to stop.” \r\n“this is MY CLASS! Mine! When you teach yours then you can have all the paper you want and allow your students to take exams in a separate classroom so they can spread out as needed and kill as many trees as you want”\r\n“I don't care if you lay on the floor to have enough room to write.\xa0 Stand in the back and write on the wall and have your computer on the floor next to you for all I care.”\r\n“I'm from the mess around and find out generation (X)...and YOU done messed around...and thus...YOU done found out.”\r\n“I am sorry that a few of your classmates' behavior has resulted in the ENTIRE class being thrown under the bus. My Zen vibes were mistaken for something I can't even put a name to. So if you're upset...thank your little friends.” \r\n\r\nLittle friends = accelerated students\r\n\r\nThe level of unprofessionalism she displayed during her half of the course wasn’t very “cute behavior” or “zen” of her. Thankfully, this is my only course with her. Her email had me in a state of shock for weeks and had me questioning this program entirely. I couldn’t believe the university allows this kind of behavior from professors. I never experienced anything like it at the community college I started at nor at my undergrad university. Just simply unkind and felt like a power trip.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-23T23:04:37.255796Z'}, {'professor': 'Typhanye Dyer', 'course': 'SPHL602', 'review': "Reiterating the review below re: Dr. Dyer's unprofessional and abusive behaviors. In my 17+ years of academia, I have never been spoken to so unprofessionally and harshly by a professor as we were in Dr. Dyer's email that was sent to a class of 90+ students. A handful of students asked questions that were appropriate to ask regarding the exam, and Dr. Dyer blew up on the whole class and took away the partial credit she had promised leading up to the exam. This behavior was not merited nor expected of a senior faculty member. Months later, I am still appalled. \r\n\r\nThe course is passable, and obviously required for MPH students, but I hope for everyone's sake that she no longer teaches it. I heard from so many of my peers that they were considering dropping out of their MPH program because of Dr. Dyer's treatment -- she should not have the power to impact aspiring public health professionals that way in the first semester of their graduate program. \r\n\r\nAs mentioned below, exams are no longer open note and are in-person using lockdown browser. There are 3 exams (1 for epi and 2 for biostats) and roughly bi-weekly homework. We were permitted to have an index card to write notes on for the epi exam and a sheet of paper for the biostats exams, but the professors changed their mind about it every week throughout the semester, so there's a chance this won't be allowed in the future. \r\n\r\nGood luck out there, y'all.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-18T15:58:16.351529Z'}, {'professor': 'Typhanye Dyer', 'course': 'EPIB301', 'review': "Dr. Dyer is funny and fairly nice, but... chaotic. She has a tendency to rush through lectures and then end 10 minutes early, meaning the rushing was pointless. One time she said she was going to try slowing down and then I think wound up going faster? Anyway, she has long slides with a lot of content on them, but doesn't really say anything that adds to the slides, so you could probably just skip lectures, read those, and be fine. The trick is actually finding the slides you need, cause she's reusing old ones from during covid and they don't always line up with the content covered that week. Ignore the reviews that say open note exams- they're closed note, in person, on ELMS with lockdown browser.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-25T05:04:45.355364Z'}], 'name': 'Typhanye Dyer', 'slug': 'dyer'}, {'courses': ['HONR238C', 'HNUH229P', 'HNUH229P', 'HNUH229P', 'HNUH229P'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Tyson Slocum', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Slocum does a great job of keeping you engaged with the content; most of the classes are looking at case-studies and examples of how companies try to affect climate legislation. It sometimes got a bit economics heavy when he got off topic. He brought in great guest speakers, like Neil Chatterjee, and he grades pretty easy on the papers. Just participate in class and ask questions and you'll be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-16T15:14:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Tyson Slocum', 'course': 'HONR238C', 'review': "Pretty interesting class, get to listen to guest speakers from a ton of different climate/energy organizations. Only three assignments in the class (3 essays), and although they're a bit long, he grades fairly and easily as long as you put in effort. The best part of the class by far was getting taught by Slocum. Such a kind, caring, and passionate guy and made going to class for 2.5 hours a bit more tolerable (although we got out early most weeks)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-19T23:11:36Z'}], 'name': 'Tyson Slocum', 'slug': 'slocum'}, {'courses': ['CMLT270', 'CMLT275', 'ENGL101', 'WMST275', 'ENGL256', 'ENGL398N'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Uchechi Okereke-Beshel', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'She is the best! She really cares about her students and wants you to improve. She is willing to put in the time to help you succeed. She is also an easy grader! :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2018-05-17T21:04:49Z'}], 'name': 'Uchechi Okereke-Beshel', 'slug': 'okereke-beshel'}, {'courses': ['BMGT289M', 'BMGT446'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ulrich Hewer', 'course': 'BMGT289M', 'review': 'This class is probably one of the more wtf classes that you have the opportunity to take here at UMD. As a science major, I had very little knowledge on the topic, which is fine since this is a gen ed and previous knowledge isn\'t required. Hewer is a very good teacher. Be prepared to take good notes though because everything is verbal, since there are no powerpoints and barely any writing on the blackboard. You also have to read various articles and papers, as well as chapters from the textbook as homework, which is what he uses as subject matter for his exams. The problem I had with this class was the way it was set up. You only have three grades for the whole semester: 2 midterms and a "final" which is just a third midterm. This can be either good or bad, depending on how you look at it. Also, there was such a clusterf*** of material that we had to read, it was almost overwhelming, and going into each exam no one knew exactly what to expect. The exams themselves weren\'t that hard as long as you read everything, and paid attention in class. All three were made up of half multiple choice questions which were pretty straightforward, and half free response where you should at least be able to bs your way through it for partial credit. Oh and there is a very generous curve at the end of the semester. Overall, this class isn\'t that bad saying that you put in the work. If you\'re like me, barely going to any lectures and just show up for the exams, cramming should be moderately successful and you should be able to pull off a B in the class. Take it if you need the gen ed and all the other BMGT289 classes are already full. If not try looking into the others first before settling for this one.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-02-27T05:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ulrich Hewer', 'course': 'BMGT446', 'review': 'Hewer is an excellent professor! Now, when you first begin taking his class, you might be "shell shocked" by his complete lack of technology usage. He has no power points, he doesn\'t use blackboard, and he hardly writes anything on the board. But the amazing thing is, he doesn\'t need any of those tools: his lecture is all you need to do well in the course. If you go to class and pay attention (which you really have to because he does cold calling just to get people engaged - not to punish anyone) you realize you can learn everything just by going to class. Its amazing! I\'ve never had a class like it, and I loved it.\n\r\nBasically Hewer will brief the topic he is going over, write up any formulas on the board, and then starts creating situations and asking the students what will happen; \'If a US firm exports to customers in Germany, and the Euro appreciates, does this hurt the US firm? What if they import inputs?\' And what he\'ll do is he\'ll either call on someone who has raised their hand or he\'ll simply walk over to you and look at you or call on someone obviously not paying attention ("Are you watching a movie?" lol!). But you can tell he really just wants to engage everyone and get them thinking; he\'s not trying to punish anyone for day dreaming.\n\r\nDue to such "cold calling" I would try harder than I did in other classes to pay attention so I could answer correctly if he called on me (or even raise my hand!). I learned the most out of going to this class, and when it came time for one of his quizzes and I wasn\'t feeling well and had to go to the doctor, I briefed the topics in the waiting room and realized I had learned everything in class and ended up getting an A on the quiz, but NOT because it was easy but because I learned everything in class.\n\r\nTests and quizzes are hard, there\'s a case study and two homeworks, all manageable, but by no means easy... I\'m pretty sure I\'m getting a B but I don\'t care because it was one of the best classes I\'ve ever taken! I learned so much; Hewer is so nice too! He has a German accent but its not distracting. \n\r\nTAKE INTERNATIONAL FINANCE WITH HEWER! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-18T01:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Ulrich Hewer', 'course': 'BMGT289M', 'review': 'I loved this class! I was amazed by his lectures because he could give a verbal lecture for almost three hours (he does give you a little break after an hour or so). He is very knowledgeable about the topic and it shows. I am a STEM major so I did not know anything about economics coming into this class and he made it easy to learn the topics. I took good notes during class and read the textbook and I found all the exams to be very fair, and not too challenging if you prepare well. The grade is three exams, which can seem intimidating at first but he prepares you very well for them. I put about 2-3 hours a week into this class reading the textbook and other materials, so it is not a huge workload. The transition to online learning was good; he uploaded a weekly lecture to watch on our time. He curved the class at the end. Overall, I learned so much from this class and anyone can succeed in it if they keep up with the work.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-26T21:19:43Z'}], 'name': 'Ulrich Hewer', 'slug': 'hewer'}, {'courses': ['LBSC602', 'LBSC713', 'INST607', 'LBSC791', 'INST352', 'INST614', 'INST615', 'INST709', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST152', 'INST208M', 'INST441', 'INST152', 'LBSC791', 'LBSC602', 'INST152', 'INST615', 'LBSC602', 'LBSC791', 'INST152', 'INST600', 'LBSC602', 'LBSC791', 'LBSC791', 'LBSC791', 'INST152'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'INST152', 'review': 'great professor, easy gen ed', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-16T03:00:37Z'}, {'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'INST152', 'review': 'Fun class, her lectures were great. No complaints.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-14T23:59:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'INST152', 'review': 'Great professor she really cares about the course. Manageable gen ed. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-22T22:34:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'INST152', 'review': 'Great professor, who is very nice and really cares about the course material. There are 2 writing assignments, no final/midterm, and a final project. There are some reading quizzes and in-class assignments but they are very easy to complete and some of your lowest grades get dropped at the end of the semester. Sometimes the course content can be very boring, however, it is all very easy to comprehend. For a gen ed, this is a very manageable and easy course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-23T22:11:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'INST152', 'review': 'Prof Gorham is awesome. She is super nice and is a really good lecturer. easy to listen and stay engaged in the class. this was a fun gen ed i highly recommend taking it, i learned a lot of applicable stuff!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-10-12T16:17:52.788008Z'}, {'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'LBSC602', 'review': 'Engaging and personable. Very well-organized. She frequently features guest lecturers for deeper exploration of various class topics, which is interesting and great for connecting course content to related subject areas/professional applications. Assignments were straightforward, and she grades pretty generously. Overall a great experience.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-28T18:31:26.298253Z'}, {'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'INST152', 'review': 'Very nice, and super understanding professor, and there are some pretty interesting lectures throughout the semester. There is no final, and just a few easy quizzes and written assignments throughout the semester. I did not focus too much on this class and pretty easily got an A. Highly recommend if you need a gen-ed.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T21:12:20.007513Z'}, {'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'INST152', 'review': "Professor is very nice and passionate about the topic. Just make sure to show up to the classes when there are exit tickets because you might not be able to do them if you don't know what went on that day. Overall, the class is very easy just make sure to master citing sources in APA format.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T22:43:59.204252Z'}, {'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'INST152', 'review': 'Dr. Gorham is the sweetest teacher, and she is incredibly flexible and helpful. Her content is fun, current, and she uses technology adeptly.\r\nThe work is not hard; this is a very easy elective or Gen-Ed. Go to class, become best friends with Purdue Owl APA citations, and do not join a group for the final project. The final project is not that hard, but it could become miserable with other members.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-29T04:45:26.976775Z'}, {'professor': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'course': 'INST152', 'review': "Dr. Gorham is very sweet and considerate. She's super passionate about teaching and always ready to help students. Plus, her class content is interesting and up-to-date. Make sure to show up to class to know the topic for the exit tickets.\r\n\r\nHonestly, this class is a fun experience. It's a chill GenEd class, and the work isn't too tough. Just show up to class, become familiar with Purdue Owl APA citations, and plan out carefully for the final project with your partners, if you want to work with others to divide the workload. It's a nightmare if your group procrastinate.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-20T02:20:58.819623Z'}], 'name': 'Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski', 'slug': 'gorham-oscilowski'}, {'courses': ['ENEE759K', 'ENEE641', 'ENEE446', 'ENEE651', 'CMSC751', 'CMSC498M', 'ENME808X', 'CMSC798', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE446', 'CMSC751', 'ENEE459P', 'ENEE641', 'ENEE651', 'ENEE641'], 'average_rating': 2.8571, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Uzi Vishkin', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': "Lectures were dry and very text dense - think slides upon slides filled with 9 point font. There were about six chapters in the book, and each had its own 100-150 slide set provided by the publishers, which is exactly what was went over in class. Vishkin adds some notes here and there but it's more or less words words words. He skips very quickly over the book stuff in an attempt to get to his own research, which is fairly interesting, I suppose. He mentioned like 10-20 times over the semester he was researching so and so and we were encouraged to research under him.\n\r\nThe book slides aren't fantastic for both this reason and the fact that they take, say, 10 pages to explain something that is in reality quite simple. The exercise are quite long, due about every three weeks, and they are annoying only because they range between very vague, open ended design questions to stupid common-sense questions. They were also not graded especially well by the TA. I had some of my solutions which were entirely incorrect get full credit and some solutions with a small typo get almost none. At a certain point in the semester I just started bullshitting the whole thing in an hour or two and getting the same scores as when I was spending 10 hours on each assignment.\n\r\nOne test, one final, both straightforward. Some definitions, some simple calculations, and some open-ended thought questions. 75% of the class is more or less rehashed from the honors version of 350, so I pretty much got an A not studying at all and just remembering what I had already learned.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-06-14T00:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Uzi Vishkin', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': "ENEE446 is a very insightful course, which in combination with Prof. Vishkin gets even more powerful. This course is not for the one's who just want to do exercise at the end of each chapter, but with this course students are expected to make equal effort as much as prof does on you. Prof. Vishkin has deep understanding and passion for the material required for this course and he delivers it at its best. The fact that he provides real life examples and current trends in computer industry makes his lecture very interesting. There's allot to absorb from the course and prof. Vishkin's lectures, so a constant effort interms of reading the material of textbook and attending the class lectures attentively is required. Final comment on this note is that my perspective towards pc have changed from what I had before taking this course and what it is after completion of this course, and am surely considering to make my career along this path. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-23T19:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Uzi Vishkin', 'course': None, 'review': 'I took the ENEE 759K[Parallel Algorithmics] course with Dr.Vishkin in Spring 2012 and I would definitely rate it as one of the best I have taken thus far at UMD, in terms of the depth in the concepts, the cutting edge nature of the field and its future scope.\n\r\nLECTURES: According to me, the most valuable part of the course were the lectures. The Professor clearly had a thorough understanding and passion for the field and he took care to ensure that the students understood the material taught in the lectures.\n\r\nCOURSE MATERIAL: A key factor of the course is its breadth - the material has been chosen to provide the students with an exposure to a range of Elementary routines, Techniques and Paradigms in the field of Parallel Algorithms. The students are also taught how to apply these "tools" as building blocks to create more involved Parallel Algorithms. At the end of the course, with a good grasp of the various tools and their application, the student will be able to get a clear idea of how to approach any new problem in the field.\n\r\nASSIGNMENTS: The programming assignments gave an opportunity for the students to actually implement the techniques learnt and produce very significant speed-ups. It also enabled the students to see for themselves that Parallel Programming on XMTC[PRAM-model] could be much simpler when compared to other Parallel Programming techniques. The Dry homework tested the ability of the students to apply the concepts learnt in class.\n\r\nEXAMS & GRADING: The two examinations were open-book and tested the student\'s understanding of the techniques. The Professor also gives due credit to students who demonstrate clear improvement as the class progresses.\n\r\nBoth the Professor and the TA were very helpful and were quick to clear every doubt the students had. The students were also given a clear break-up of the points for the Assignments and the Exams.\n\r\nI would strongly recommend the Parallel Algorithmics course by Dr.Vishkin as it is very relevant and the concepts taught have significant scope for application in the future.\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-16T00:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Uzi Vishkin', 'course': 'ENEE641', 'review': "His homework is straight out of the posted solutions on the book website, and won't care if you copy the answers. Teaches well, but his exams are really tough, and his grading scale is very subjective - the final can be up to 85% of your grade, so you won't know your grade until after it's posted. DON'T take 641 unless you were a CE major - or you might have to drop it after getting back the midterm grade. His exam reviews are very short - he will not give you any hints or general areas to study, nor will he review material unless someone asks a specific question about it in advance. He also advertises his parallel algorithms class, which only like 4 people from MD registered for this past semester", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-22T03:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Uzi Vishkin', 'course': None, 'review': 'I am surprised that so few have registered for the Fall 2010 ENEE459P course on parallel algorithms. I took ENEE459P with Dr. Vishkin in Spring 2008 and found it to be a relevant and informative course.\n\r\nThe lectures (two 75-minute lectures per week) were very helpful in understanding the course material. The professor often asked students questions during the lecture to make sure everyone understood the material, and he answered any questions I had as well. I could tell that he cared about the material he taught and understood it well. There is a book-like set of class notes posted on the course website, but I found that the notes were easier to understand after attending the lectures.\n\r\nAs a computer engineering major, I found the programming assignments to be a fun and valuable part of the course. The assignments are loosely based on algorithms given in the class notes, and the assignment sheets clearly explain what needs to be done. The assignments require only a little knowledge of C programming and relatively few lines of code. Most of the work is in understanding how to translate the high-level descriptions given in class into a working program. I found this to be the most educational part of the assignments, and it helped me to appreciate how simple parallel programming can be given the right platform.\n\r\nThe written homework was more difficult but worth the trouble. The questions required some thinking beyond merely restating things from the text. I personally appreciated the challenge, but even if you have a hard time with the questions, it does not hurt your grade very much. Figuring out the answers to the questions definitely helped me to understand the subject.\n\r\nGrading was very fair, and the grader/TA explained why points were taken off for certain things. The professor and TA were available to answer questions outside of class. The professor was especially willing to spend some time with students to explain anything that they found confusing.\n\r\nOverall, I would definitely recommend this course to computer science and computer engineering majors, and would encourage anyone interested in the future of computing to consider the course as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-27T19:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Uzi Vishkin', 'course': None, 'review': "I was so excited when I registered for this course (ENEE159V). I am sophmore in Computer Science. The grade I expect is at least A- and if i get lower than this grade I would be mad. However, The lecture was so boring and I think the professor should divide it into two lectures per week. The notes were unclear and they were not for freshmen. they should be taught for seniors. This course is very difficult his projects are waste of time. The projects takes at least 20 hours and maybo more to be done because they were unclear and not related to the notes. If you want to understand and finish the project you should do research and read other books and article on the internet. The TA was unhelpfull. if you send him an email he doesn't reply. I think he was easy on grading. and the good thing about the class that he didn't have tests. if he would have tests i would fail the class because i didn't understand anything. \n\r\nThe professor was good and nice with students. But he needs make it easier for students and to have more clear HomeWork and notes.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2009-03-28T02:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Uzi Vishkin', 'course': None, 'review': "If you are forced on gunpoint to take his course then I wish you gl. He's so sloppy when explaining", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-12-16T16:04:23Z'}], 'name': 'Uzi Vishkin', 'slug': 'vishkin'}, {'courses': ['AASP386'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Valencia Skeeter', 'slug': 'skeeter'}, {'courses': ['LING419C', 'HONR218L', 'LING410', 'LING661', 'LING660', 'LING879', 'LING689D', 'PHIL688T', 'LING888', 'LING879B', 'LING879D', 'LING879E', 'LING879F', 'LING879G', 'LING879J', 'LING888', 'LING888', 'LING888', 'LING410', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': 3.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Valentine Hacquard', 'course': 'HONR218L', 'review': "Hacquard gave a capable and comprehensive survey of the field, with thorough notes. However, her lectures were often slow and a bit monotonous, and the TA was somewhat incomprehensible. Don't be fooled: HONR218L is an introduction to linguistics. If that's what you're looking for, it should be a fine class; otherwise, you're probably signing up for the wrong one.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-03-19T14:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Valentine Hacquard', 'course': 'HONR218L', 'review': "I wasn't going to review this until I saw the other two biased reviews, and wanted to make sure the alternate viewpoint could be heard. Coming from someone who knew nothing about linguistics prior to taking this class, after taking it I've now actually declared linguistics as a double major. Sometimes you don't know you like something until you try it, and for me, that's how it was with linguistics.\n\r\nHow do you know if you'd like linguistics, though? As the other reviewers said, if you think this class is going to be a psycholinguistics/cognitive linguistics course, you'll probably be disappointed in 3/4 of the class material. The problem is that as interesting as psycholinguistics is, without a background in general linguistics study you'll be completely lost and unable to really learn much. We do spend a good amount of time learning the things others have mentioned (and Dr. Hacquard herself does research here into those kinds of things), but if you're hard-set on only learning those things and not any intro linguistics, you'd probably be better off looking for something else. \r\nSo if you are interested in those sorts of things, and come in with an open mind, you can really get a lot out of this class. You'll learn more than you will in the general intro linguistics class, in an honors-type classroom setting, and once you have some background, you'll get into those more advanced linguistics topics too.\r\nI found the grading very fair, the exams not easy but again, fairly curved, and lectures compelling - she gives out lecture slides that will ensure you don't have to worry the whole time about taking notes, but you definitely still need to listen because the slides are really just overviews of the lectures themselves.\n\r\nPlus, an added bonus- if you do find yourself interested in linguistics enough to pursue a major or minor, this class counts as the first class necessary for either.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-18T15:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Valentine Hacquard', 'course': 'HONR218L', 'review': "This class was not enjoyable at all. I was interested in how children acquire language and what I basically got was an intro linguistics class, which was not what I bargained for. The lectures were her reading aloud from a packet given to us; as if we couldn't read it ourselves. The information was confusing and very difficult to piece together. The exams were VERY hard, but they are curved, along with the other class grades. Overall, an extremely boring class, unless you're actually into linguistics.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-13T13:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Valentine Hacquard', 'course': 'HONR218L', 'review': 'I did not enjoy this class. I expected it to be much more about relating language to the mind...the psychology behind acquiring it, differences between species, etc. However, it mostly focused on the linguistic aspect, which did not interest me. The lectures were pretty boring and I did not like her teaching style at all. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-22T02:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Valentine Hacquard', 'course': 'LING410', 'review': "Learned a good amount about semantics. The workload was pretty light, and the material was presented well, with helpful walkthroughs as we built up knowledge. Dr. Hacquard and the TA felt easily accessible and very willing to help with any problems students had. This was an intro class but I wish we could have dug a bit deeper and gone a bit further with the material. The last unit was the best part of the class, since we got to look at semantic problems in the real world. Overall, her lecturing was easy to understand and sparked some very interesting discussions. I'd recommend Dr. Hacquard!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-26T22:22:45Z'}], 'name': 'Valentine Hacquard', 'slug': 'hacquard'}, {'courses': ['ARAB499C', 'ARAB499K', 'ARAB104', 'ARAB499B', 'ARAB398E', 'ARAB398I', 'ARAB410', 'ARAB310', 'ARAB789', 'SLLC698', 'ARAB298C', 'ARAB398F', 'FILM335', 'ISRL349V', 'SLLC335', 'ARAB399', 'ARAB499Q', 'FILM429Q', 'ARAB305', 'ARAB341', 'FILM341', 'ARAB499W', 'FILM329W', 'EXST030', 'ARAB206', 'ARAB398T', 'ARAB398L', 'ARAB499T', 'FILM429T', 'ARAB499G', 'FILM429A', 'CINE429A', 'CINE341', 'ARAB206', 'ARAB398L', 'ARAB398I', 'ARAB499N', 'ARAB499G', 'CINE429A', 'ARAB499T', 'CINE429T', 'CINE429B', 'ARAB499T', 'CINE429T'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Valerie Anishchenkova', 'slug': 'anishchenkova'}, {'courses': ['FREN242', 'HHUM105', 'FREN699J', 'HHUM206', 'FREN488V', 'FREN699O', 'FILM421', 'FREN699W', 'FREN498G', 'SLLC698W', 'FREN699A', 'FREN488Z', 'FREN421', 'FREN421H', 'FREN899', 'FREN387', 'FREN250', 'FREN250H', 'CMLT298B', 'EXST030', 'FREN699G', 'HONR299Z', 'FREN600', 'FREN499P', 'FREN498G', 'FREN699V', 'FREN499D', 'CINE329V', 'SLLC368V', 'CINE329V', 'SLLC368V', 'FREN242'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Valerie Orlando', 'course': None, 'review': "Honestly one of the most engaging professors you can have. The material taught can be ruined if you have a bad professor, but I've always believed that a good professor can make any class great. I've soaked in more knowledge from this class, and retained it, than most of my major classes. FREN242 is an extremely interesting topic regardless of whether or not it covers your major. The only tips you need to do well in this class is to keep up with the reading, think outside the box and participate. People think it's demanding but it's really not. Plus, on the bright side, there are no papers to write. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-16T15:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Valerie Orlando', 'course': None, 'review': 'This class changed my life! I enjoyed every film we watched, and I love learning about the history of cinema in France. Great CORE for students in general. Prof. Orlando is very nice, and is very knowledgeable about the subject. \n\r\nI kept my notes and the syllabus because the films were phenomenal. Awesome class.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-21T00:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Valerie Orlando', 'course': None, 'review': 'This was my absolute favorite class. When my French is better I hope to take the French version of this course. Best of all, she is an amazing professor and gives such great advice! The books were all amazing and I kept all of them! Participation is a huge part of her courses and here are some steps to take to get an A: read, take notes, ask questions, and get involved in the discussion! ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-19T01:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Valerie Orlando', 'course': 'FREN242', 'review': 'Just a great professor with pretty easy class. All of the material covered was quite refreshing.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-07T20:50:49.679254Z'}], 'name': 'Valerie Orlando', 'slug': 'orlando_valerie'}, {'courses': ['INFM750', 'INST737', 'INST888', 'HACS287', 'INST810', 'CMSC828E', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST899', 'INST750', 'INST737', 'INST800'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vanessa Frias-Martinez', 'slug': 'frias-martinez'}, {'courses': ['BSCV181'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vanessa Taft', 'slug': 'taft'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338A', 'EDHI338Z'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vasco Mateus', 'slug': 'mateus'}, {'courses': ['LBSC705', 'INFM718V', 'INST733', 'INFM603', 'INFM757', 'INFM747', 'INST327', 'INFM718A', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST309', 'INST630', 'INST123', 'INST208M', 'INST490', 'INST228', 'INST126', 'INST123', 'INST326', 'INST327', 'INST408M', 'INST123', 'INST228', 'INST327', 'INST408M', 'INST408W', 'INST728W', 'INST408M', 'INST733', 'INST228'], 'average_rating': 3.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vedat Diker', 'course': 'INFM603', 'review': 'Very Cool guy! Good discussions in class. Very understanding and adjusting professor', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-19T12:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vedat Diker', 'course': 'INST327', 'review': "Isn't a great lecturer but is very helpful to students. Also a pretty lenient grader. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-12-17T20:05:40Z'}, {'professor': 'Vedat Diker', 'course': 'INST123', 'review': "I am taking family mediation and this INST123 is still the stupidest class I'm taking. Technical content is easy. But not sure why we have so much busy work. Every week we have discussion posts that are ~500 words. Since the class goes so slow, there's nothing to really talk about in those posts. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-04-22T00:12:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Vedat Diker', 'course': 'INST123', 'review': 'Firstly, very easy course. However a TON of bullshit work (ex: discussions). Diker himself is very helpful and wants to see everyone succeed, however half the activities are unnecessary. Will say I did learn a good amount of SQL in the course.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-24T21:33:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Vedat Diker', 'course': 'INST123', 'review': "Easiest class I've taken in my entire life. You don't ever have to attend lecture.\r\n\r\nHowever, this class was the worst class I've ever taken. Pamela Duffy/Vedat Diker are stuck in the past with how they teach. Frankly, they have no idea how students actually learn, and they assign a stupid amount of pointless work which teaches you absolutely nothing.\r\n\r\nLong ass discussion boards every two weeks, required presentations which are nothing but busy work, and you're required to attend discussions every week, where literally all you do is wait until the TA gives you answers for work that you could just do yourself at home. Discussions in this class were the worst thing I've ever done in school or at UMD in general. Worst class I've ever taken. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-05-07T20:09:54Z'}, {'professor': 'Vedat Diker', 'course': 'INST123', 'review': "Very easy class but a horrible professor in terms of understanding students' needs and issues. Even with sicknesses and important private matters, he did not show any leniency and is very hard set on being a difficult person. He did not put any effort into helping me through my situation or understanding it. Horrible experience but very easy class. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-06-15T16:21:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Vedat Diker', 'course': 'INST327', 'review': 'Dr. Diker was a great professor. He was more than willing to help his students and was always available when needed. He is also a fair grader.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-02T23:51:58.664925Z'}], 'name': 'Vedat Diker', 'slug': 'diker'}]
[{'courses': ['GEOL489O', 'GEOL457', 'GEOL447', 'GEOL200', 'GEOL789E', 'GEOL789O', 'GEOL657', 'GEOL647', 'GEOL789M', 'GEOL447', 'GEOL647', 'GEOL789M', 'GEOL200', 'GEOL447', 'GEOL457', 'GEOL647', 'GEOL657', 'GEOL447'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vedran Lekic', 'course': 'GEOL200', 'review': 'Great professor with a lot of enthusiam which keeps the class engaging. The work load is not too bad and is pretty much just reading, but both books used in the class are very interesting. The exams reflect the lectures so as long as you go to class and study your notes, you will do pretty well. Overall, I am really glad I took this course and it was definitely one of my favorites this semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-01T20:27:57.838110Z'}, {'professor': 'Vedran Lekic', 'course': 'GEOL200', 'review': "This is guy is actually so swag and cool you should def take this class. He's super helpful and answers questions fully. Also super responsive to emails. Exams were fair and the work load wasn't crazy-- the two required readings were interesting and helped me apply the course content to stuff outside of geology.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-19T19:21:10.622140Z'}, {'professor': 'Vedran Lekic', 'course': 'GEOL200', 'review': "First, Dr. Ved is a great professor! He's super nice, and will always be willing to help, clarify material, and offer guidance about how to succeed in the course. Geology can be a lot to some, however, Dr. Ved will go out of his way to ensure that the class is able to fully grasp the material. Despite the GEOL200 lectures being at 9:30am he's still super engaging and enjoys teaching.\r\n\r\nGEOL200 is not a particularly difficult course, so if you are looking for an interesting I-Series that's not too hard and time consuming I recommend this 1000%. However, you should still pay attention and take notes in lecture. We are required to read 2 books throughout the semester (about 40-50 page reading per week, to be fully transparent), but the books are easy reads that go by quickly. The subsequent weekly reading quizzes aren't heavy percentage wise, an easy way to boost your grade, are only 9-10 questions, and are really the only homework you get (he drops 3 of your lowest ones anyways). Lastly, there are two projects, but they are also quick, the second one is a group one, and as long as you put effort and ask the professor and TAs for help/advice you'll do really great (averages were all in the mid to upper 80s). Overall, this is a really interesting course to take that isn't test intensive, and if you put in effort you'll do really well!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T22:37:00.423354Z'}], 'name': 'Vedran Lekic', 'slug': 'lekic_vedran'}, {'courses': ['CMSC828N', 'CMSC420', 'CMSC422', 'CMSC828C', 'CMSC798'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Venkatramanan Subrahmanian', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "Excellent professor, makes this class very approachable and informative.\n\r\nClass project was fair difficulty but the TA will walk you through it if you put in the appropriate effort.\n\r\nWay easier than Samet's 420 section, so choose this guy 10/10 times.\n\r\np.s. He taught Meesh so this guy is quite knowledgeable in his field.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-14T18:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Venkatramanan Subrahmanian', 'course': 'CMSC420', 'review': "I really like him a lot. He makes learning seems easy. His style of teaching is to tell you the overview of the main stuff first - then, give multiple examples until you understand. He cares for students and he explains well.\n\r\nHis exam so far wasn't hard and his projects are pretty straight-forward. His homework may require you to think a little. But as long as you go to class and do the hws and projects, you'll be fine. :)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-11-05T16:44:00Z'}], 'name': 'Venkatramanan Subrahmanian', 'slug': 'subrahmanian'}, {'courses': ['INFM605', 'INST702'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vera Rhoads', 'slug': 'rhoads'}, {'courses': ['BSCI420', 'BSCI421', 'BIOL620', 'BSCI339C', 'BIOL708A', 'BSCI410', 'CBMG699C'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vera Stupina', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Knows her stuff but has a very rushed, hard to understand lecture style', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-05-18T01:39:49Z'}, {'professor': 'Vera Stupina', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Stupina was very knowledgeable and overall a good professor. Her lectures were very dense, but she was happy to review concepts in office hours. Her homeworks and exams were not too hard. I did not think there was a language barrier. I would recommend her for BSCI410, but I would suggest previewing the lecture slides ahead of each class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-18T07:53:36Z'}], 'name': 'Vera Stupina', 'slug': 'stupina'}, {'courses': ['CCJS432', 'CCJS331'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vered Krasna', 'slug': 'krasna'}, {'courses': ['BUDT758R'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vernon Hsu', 'slug': 'hsu_vernon'}, {'courses': ['ENES114', 'UNIV100', 'ENES116', 'ENCO099', 'ENCO098', 'ENCO099', 'ENCO099', 'EDCP108I', 'ENCO099', 'ENES116', 'ENCO098', 'ENCO098', 'ENCO099'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Veronica Perrigan', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': "UNIV100 doesn't really matter but take it with her if you can because she seems to be one of the easier UNIV100 professors. For example, there was a scavenger hunt activity that all UNIV100 sections do and some people told me they had to run all over campus and find people but for our class, we just had to go around stamp and find locations. Also, she buys chick fil a for the class a couple of times in the semester. It doesn't really matter who you take UNIV100 with but if you can, take it with Perrigan.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-01-29T02:11:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Veronica Perrigan', 'course': 'UNIV100', 'review': 'One of the best UNIV100 teachers out there. She actually tries to get good guest speakers and even buys Chick-Fil-a and Dairy Icecream for the class after the scavenger hunt in Stamp. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-14T02:46:15Z'}], 'name': 'Veronica Perrigan', 'slug': 'perrigan'}, {'courses': ['ENGL487', 'ENGL488F', 'ENGL478M', 'ENGL607', 'ENGL488G', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL708B', 'ENGL699', 'ENGL375', 'ENGL387', 'ENGL243', 'ENGL478D', 'ENGL488G', 'CLAS309R', 'ENGL378B', 'ENGL375', 'ENGL375'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vessela Valiavitcharska', 'course': 'ENGL487', 'review': "GREAT professor- I took this course as an upper level elective (I am a psyc. major), and expected it to be difficult. Though the material is challenging at first (she mostly assigns us primary texts to read; aristotle, Plato, Isocrates, and other prolific writers), Prof. Valiavitcharska is very good at breaking down the readings and discussing them in class (note- you MUST go to class to do well). She also assigns grades very fairly, is very responsive to student concerns, and if you put in the effort you will likely to well in this class. A great class and I would definitely recommend taking it - provides a great overview of rhetoric and way to improve your reading and writing skills (esp. if you're considering law school but aren't an english major) . ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-19T19:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vessela Valiavitcharska', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': 'She was such a kind professor. She seemed really interested in our success in her class. The class wasn’t hard, and was actually pretty interesting. Really enjoyed having this professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-12T03:48:46.800740Z'}, {'professor': 'Vessela Valiavitcharska', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': "Very kind professor and well-versed on content. Engaging as well, as long as you are willing to contribute to discussions. She is very open to new interpretations (as well as letting you know what the more likely interpretation is) and as long as you at least somewhat grasp the content, you should be able to make meaningful comments. A couple essays and shorter writing pieces, but she is a fair grader and open to helping review and improve your writing. As someone who isn't particularly interested in poetry specifically, her class was still super interesting and fun.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-31T04:59:45.532615Z'}, {'professor': 'Vessela Valiavitcharska', 'course': 'ENGL243', 'review': "Great professor, definitely recommend! Very kind and receptive to students' thoughts. Also is very open to helping students with editing/providing feedback. If you take 243, definitely go for her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-02-20T03:47:57.315949Z'}], 'name': 'Vessela Valiavitcharska', 'slug': 'valiavitcharska'}, {'courses': ['MEES698B', 'MEES708M', 'MEES708N', 'MEES708X', 'MEES708Y', 'MEES698B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Viacheslav Lyubchich', 'slug': 'lyubchich'}, {'courses': ['CMSC351', 'CMSC434', 'CMSC396H', 'CMSC436', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC420', 'CMSC435'], 'average_rating': 3.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vibha Sazawal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "Vibha is an incredibly...alright professor.\n\r\nShe obviously knew the material for algorithms, her speech can be understood with no problems, and she is fairly excited about the content. She did a better job explaining the more abstract material, but for more concrete explanations, she wrote down the problem before hand, and copied them onto the board. This is a problem, because then she had no pacing. She went too fast during hard parts and too slow during easy parts. This was by far her biggest problem.\n\r\nShe's also a bit harsh on students who make mistakes (for example, failing to take good notes and looking for other ways to get the content). However, this seemed to improve over the semester.\n\r\nOverall, I would recommend taking another professor if you have the opportunity (for example, Kruskal for 351, whose lectures, when I attended, I felt I learned more from), but, if she's you're only option, she's not terrible.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2013-12-12T14:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vibha Sazawal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': "She was ok as a teacher. She clearly doesn't have as much mastery of algorithms as Golub does, but she actually attempts to make a boring class interesting with jokes and humor, which is quite a job in itself. Overall a pretty fair teacher, even giving points back when they were deserved on tests and homeworks. Definitely one of the liveliest teachers I've had in CS classes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-01-28T20:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vibha Sazawal', 'course': 'CMSC351', 'review': 'Vibha is an excellent teacher. She keeps class interesting and is always animated in her discussions. She answers questions clearly and concisely and presents material, even somewhat complex mathematical proofs, understandably. It is a shame she is only teaching CMSC351, so I may not get another chance to have her as a teacher.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-12-04T01:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vibha Sazawal', 'course': 'CMSC434', 'review': "Can't really complain too much about Dr. Sawazhal. Her class is easy as can be. The in class activities are an easy handful of points, her exams are open note, her semester long project isn't too daunting with groups. \r\n\r\nNice woman, very laid back but can be a little picky with her grading especially on the miscellaneous homework assignments. \r\n\r\nIf you want an Easy A/B, take her for 434 not Golub", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-05-09T17:18:45Z'}], 'name': 'Vibha Sazawal', 'slug': 'sazawal'}, {'courses': ['PHYS623', 'PHYS739', 'PHYS402', 'PHYS625', 'PHYS738'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Victor Galitskiy', 'slug': 'galitskiy'}, {'courses': ['ENEE381', 'ENEE490', 'ENEE488'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Victor Granatstein', 'course': 'ENEE381', 'review': "He prepares slides and reads them during lectures. If you miss a lecture, you can download his slides from ELMS and go over them at home. His HW's are all from the Cheng's textbook.\n\r\nDuring lectures, he explains proofs and derivations but he also shows how to solve simple problems and talks about the significance of theorems and equations. Do not hesitate to ask questions during his lectures, he is very good at answering them straight to the point (he will not mock you, like some profs do). \n\r\nThere are 2 exams in the class: one midterm and a final. Go to the ieee testbank to check out his past exams, they will help you. He solves 2 sample midterms and 2 sample final exams in class before those exams. His exams include an essay question about applications of theorems. For example, on the final, there was a question asking to write about the gain of an antenna.\n\r\nI think he is a good professor, and I recommend taking enee381 with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-21T16:37:00Z'}], 'name': 'Victor Granatstein', 'slug': 'granatstein'}, {'courses': ['BMGT298F', 'BMGT198D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Victor Mullins', 'slug': 'mullins_victor'}, {'courses': ['LARC471', 'LARC671', 'LARC748', 'LARC699', 'LARC151', 'LARC489B', 'LARC689B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Victoria Chanse', 'slug': 'chanse'}, {'courses': ['COMM609A', 'EXST019B', 'EXST009A', 'EXST018A', 'EXST018B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Victoria Segal', 'slug': 'segal'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Victoria Shay', 'slug': 'shay'}, {'courses': ['BMGT868N', 'BULM724', 'BUMO794', 'BUMO714', 'BMGT868L', 'BUSM754', 'BMGT868A', 'BMGT868C', 'BMGT868P', 'BUSI710', 'BUSO711', 'BMGT868P', 'BMGT868L', 'BMGT868P', 'BUSI710', 'BUSM754', 'BUSO711', 'BMGT868P', 'BUSO711', 'BMGT868P', 'BUSI710', 'BUSM754', 'BUSO711'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vijaya Venkataramani', 'slug': 'venkataramani'}, {'courses': ['ENEE408I'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vijayanand Kowtha', 'slug': 'kowtha'}, {'courses': ['INFM620', 'INFM612', 'INFM706', 'INST706', 'INFM711', 'INST354', 'INST627', 'INST354', 'INST447', 'INST354'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vikas Sahasrabudhe', 'course': 'INST354', 'review': 'My biggest issue with Vikas is his inability to write in English. His slides and assignment instructions are always extremely hard to understand. He is a very harsh grader and grades you on small details, like making sure your name is in multiple places on each document. Figuring out these small details is extremely hard because his writing is insanely unclear and overcomplicated. By the way, every sentence this man writes is a run-on sentence. Each of his lecture slides are just one-sentence paragraphs that are very hard to understand. His instructions are the same way, they use awful grammar, words are often used incorrectly, they are long, and they are unclear. This makes things extremely difficult considering he has very strict grading criteria in his head, that he is unable to relay on paper. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-05-07T01:34:24Z'}], 'name': 'Vikas Sahasrabudhe', 'slug': 'sahasrabudhe'}, {'courses': ['ENES221', 'ENME454', 'ENME371', 'ENME361', 'ENME472', 'ENME371', 'ENME472', 'ENME371', 'ENME454', 'ENME371', 'ENME361', 'ENES401', 'ENME401', 'ENME361', 'ENME371', 'ENME454'], 'average_rating': 2.7778, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': "Vince is nice and cares about his students BUT he's a tough grader.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-06-08T20:56:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': 'He cares about you learning the material. So learn it. Try not to make mistakes on the exams though.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-24T20:45:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': "So I took this class over the winter. Overall it is a lot of material in a short amount of time. There are 4 exams, 5 Hw's , 8 quizzes, and one take home exam. A lot of work for only 13 class sessions. Vince is tough, but he really wants us to be great engineers. Vince is concise, he clearly explains and relates all the material to real world examples. He does hold all students to a high standard, so just be prepared to suffer, but its for a good reason. I would take Vince again because I will be a better engineer for it, not because I enjoy working so hard. In short, Vince is a great professor.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-01-25T13:16:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': 'Vince is very particular professor. He thinks he knows the best way for students to learn and ubiquitously applies that learning methodology across all of his students. For example, requiring students to attend lecture with clicker participation quizzes and then creating weekly quizzes that pretty much check that you went to lecture. He assigns a ton of work to keep you busy. He also speaks very loudly over Zoom. On the other hand, I think his exams are fair, though he is a very harsh grader and is definitely looking out to take off points.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-02-22T03:45:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': "Very good professor. Explains the material well. Exams are similar to the practice exams but he's an extremely tough grader. If you make a minor mistake at the beginning of a problem and other questions depend on that answer, you will get something close to a zero on the rest of the exam.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-11T18:11:02Z'}, {'professor': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': "371 is broken up by having lecture taught by Vince and then studio sections led by other professors at UMD. Vince led lectures and these were very boring and long. He speaks very fast where he trips over his own words at times, but is a knowledgeable person. To ensure students attend lecture, he does clicker questions, but he will go over and give the answer as long as enough students attempt to answer and participate. Vince does lead one section for studios and you should AVOID him at all cost. His section normally has the lowest averages as Vince is a tough grader. There is a curve applied, but it varies across each section leader (each section has it's own curve).\r\n\r\nTo do well in 371, it really depends on who your group is and who your section leader is. There is a lot of work to be done in studios and outside of class, so having a group of students that do not procrastinate is super helpful. The work is not too challenging, it just is a lot to do and is tedious, especially if you make a mistake in a lab and need to start over. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-08-04T16:01:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'course': 'ENME361', 'review': "This class was incredibly challenging, but not for the reason of the content being overly difficult.\r\n\r\nThe lectures are insanely fast paced, and you'll get one, or maybe half of an example that will be extremely easy compared to HW and exams. HW much easier than exams, so not really relevant for helping your grade. For our section, you basically got a handful of practice exam questions that might be similar to what was on the exam, but the exam would be different enough to throw you off. He refused to give practice exam solutions which made it impossible to tell if you were doing anything correctly. Harsh grader as stated, but HW was graded on completion not accuracy. Massive curve for our class so a few F averages ended up passing with minimum C- or better.\r\n\r\nClass content could be interesting but this class is so focused on derivations that I feel very little real world use is gained from this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-08-15T20:37:43Z'}, {'professor': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': 'horrible , has no respect for students time. He must legitmatley think his course is the only course we are taking. probabaly have to dedicate 20 -25 hours a week for this class a week a report is due... which is every week', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2023-03-15T18:22:03.739235Z'}, {'professor': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'course': 'ENME371', 'review': 'teacher demands too much out of students. class drains my time and mental capacity. idk how this is allowed. he has absolutely no guilt either. id love to see him put 10 hrs a week on top of lecture ...', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2023-04-22T04:23:10.341657Z'}], 'name': 'Vincent Nguyen', 'slug': 'nguyen_vincent'}, {'courses': ['KNES157N', 'KNES157O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vipul Kumar', 'slug': 'kumar'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101', 'ENGL212', 'ENGL101A', 'ENGL250', 'ENGL265', 'ENGL101S', 'ENGL257', 'ENGL101H', 'ENGL296', 'WMST255', 'LGBT265', 'ENGL391'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Virginia Butler', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'grading was fair and she is a very nice person', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-27T18:55:18Z'}], 'name': 'Virginia Butler', 'slug': 'butler_virginia'}, {'courses': ['BSGC102', 'GVPT409G', 'BSGC101', 'GVPT803', 'BSGC302', 'GVPT289A', 'GVPT761', 'BSGC399', 'HONR208Q', 'GVPT808E', 'BSOS448W', 'GVPT409L', 'GVPT409H', 'GVPT409F', 'BSGC399', 'GVPT206', 'GVPT803', 'GVPT206', 'GVPT409G', 'GVPT406', 'GVPT407'], 'average_rating': 4.25, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Virginia Haufler', 'course': 'GVPT289A', 'review': 'Great lecturer. The lectures are engaging and interesting. Go to all discussions and do the assignments and you should be able to get an A easily. I did not participate that much in discussions, which is why I got an A- in the class. The TA I had, David Prina, was very nice and the discussions were engaging as well.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-05-28T12:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Virginia Haufler', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "Professor Haufler is a great lecturer! The topics she covers in international relations are very helpful. I also found her to be very charismatic about her students and would often post internship listing and attempt to help in anyway she could. You really don't need to go to lecture but for some reason EVERYONE did. She posts her slides online which are very explanitory and the book is also an easy read with great definitions. I often felt that before an exam reading the book was the best way to study. For the class you have about 5 homework assignments, a midterm, a ten page paper, and a final. She also offers a point of extra credit which helped me the A in the class. You MUST go to discussion this can seriously hurt your grade if you don't go. Overall, I highly recommend her class!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-01-05T00:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Virginia Haufler', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': 'Professor Haufler is interesting, but lectures are pretty boring to me. If you want to be engaged in the lectures, you really have to sit near the front. Haufler was very helpful in promoting activities outside of the class, that would help us understand the stuff she taught us. However, you need to establish a relationship with your TA, or you need to do well on your midterm, final paper, and the final. Haufler also offered extra credit. As I look back on the course, it was a lot more enjoyable than through the semester. The concepts are really easy, and Haufler made it easy to understand. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-20T19:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Virginia Haufler', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "Haufler is awesome and a great lecturer. That being said, the TA is the one who makes or breaks your grade. My TA (who will remain nameless) made the class much harder than it needed to be and definitely graded harder than the other TA's.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-11T21:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Virginia Haufler', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': "GVPT200 is my favorite course. A contributing factor is the fact that Professor Haufler teaches so well. She makes it soo easy to internalize the course information, especially since she relates it all to current events.\n\r\nReally manageable class. I suppose you don't need to attend lecture, but why wouldn't you? I went to every lecture and enjoyed it.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-23T23:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Virginia Haufler', 'course': 'GVPT200', 'review': 'Worst experience at UMD. Martin Elissetche has to be the worst TA in government and politics. He is rude and demeaning and calls people out in class. He honestly is an arrogant prick. Try to get Jennifer for your TA if you take this course.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-29T17:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Virginia Haufler', 'course': 'BSGC101', 'review': 'Wonderful and kind. The slides are packed full of information, but her exams are very manageable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-01-29T20:17:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Virginia Haufler', 'course': 'BSGC101', 'review': "Very dedicated to globalization, and wants her students to be the same. The course itself is one of the easiest available at UMD. It's a steal for 3 credits. Few graded assignments, extremely manageable exams, and the occasional group project. Didn't learn a lot in this class, but it's definitely a gpa boost and works well as a study hall.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-11-22T17:12:40Z'}], 'name': 'Virginia Haufler', 'slug': 'haufler'}, {'courses': ['EDHD315'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Virginia Knopf', 'slug': 'knopf'}, {'courses': ['FIRE153', 'FIRE120', 'FIRE253'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vivek Advani', 'slug': 'advani'}, {'courses': ['AREC388', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vivian Hoffmann', 'course': None, 'review': "The course was pretty straightforward. The first half of the year was lectures, the second half was presentations. The challenging part was knowing what material to take in from the presentations for the exam. There were two exams, a midterm and a final. The midterm was a combination of multiple choice and short answer. The final was all short answer. However, Hoffmann provided a review sheet, which was good preparation for the exam! Homework consisted of several assignments throughout the year involving a combo of multiple choice and short answer.\n\r\nHoffmann wasn't the greatest lecturer, but wasn't bad either. Sometimes she would get confused and mixed up when she was presenting, but she was approachable and simple. Good luck! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-27T20:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vivian Hoffmann', 'course': None, 'review': 'This teacher SUCKS!!!!\r\nVery unorganized and does not care about how students do in her class. \r\nMany people failed her midterm and final. I could have recieved an A if it wasnt for her problem sets.\r\nohh and she also gave us a group project , no guidelines , no nothing for it , just gave us a topic and expected us to know what she wanted out of it.\r\nOverall i did not like this class but i managed to pull a B.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-04T22:00:00Z'}], 'name': 'Vivian Hoffmann', 'slug': 'hoffmann_vivian'}, {'courses': ['HESP418B', 'HESP612', 'HESP404', 'HESP648A', 'HESP648B', 'HESP417', 'HESP639A', 'HESP613', 'HESP415', 'EXST030', 'HESP648B', 'HESP613', 'HESP648A', 'HESP648B', 'HESP612'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vivian Sisskin', 'slug': 'sisskin'}, {'courses': ['ARHU298L', 'ARHU319', 'ARHU318B', 'ARHU338', 'ARHU298J', 'ARHU319A', 'ARHU309'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vivianne Salgado', 'course': 'ARHU298L', 'review': 'I went to every class and paid attention. yet I was still so confused. She rambles a lot and seems to have no real organization to her thoughts. The class has a syllabus, yet none of the assignments follow the syllabus schedule. Salgado encourages a different way of thinking but her teaching style is quite frustrating.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-04-25T14:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vivianne Salgado', 'course': None, 'review': "Although she might seem silly and approachable, she is definitely not a teacher you want if you're genuinely interested in learning. She rambles, doesn't make sense and has no direction. She thinks she's being cool and creative by not using a syllabus when really it's just messy and complicated and she's making her shit up as she goes along.\r\nShe also decides if she likes you based on whether you agree with her or not. Basically, don't have an opinion that's not hers.\r\nSo if you feel like being totally confused in class, spacing out in class or just not going to class at all because there's really no fucking point, then sign on up. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-23T23:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vivianne Salgado', 'course': 'ARHU298L', 'review': 'She is definitely one of the best teachers I have had this semester. She actually cares about her students. Her class is real easy to do well in. All you have to do is read carefully over the reading and participate and you should do well in her class. She is very approachable and easy to talk with after class. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-11-08T17:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vivianne Salgado', 'course': 'ARHU298L', 'review': 'ARHU 298L is a great introduction to alternative forms of literature - think zines, comics etc. Vivianne rambles at times but if you hang in there, the contents of her lecture are pretty thought-provoking. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-06-02T02:40:43Z'}], 'name': 'Vivianne Salgado', 'slug': 'salgado'}, {'courses': ['PHYS404', 'PHYS276', 'PHYS739', 'PHYS738', 'PHYS420', 'PHYS405', 'PHYS260'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Vladimir Manucharyan', 'slug': 'manucharyan'}, {'courses': ['GVPT445', 'GVPT459R', 'GVPT459C', 'GVPT459X', 'GVPT459A', 'GVPT459P', 'GVPT459F', 'GVPT888A', 'GVPT445H', 'HONR209X', 'GVPT459H', 'GVPT459H', 'GVPT459K', 'GVPT445H', 'GVPT459X'], 'average_rating': 4.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Vladimir Tismaneanu', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great professor and really informative class - Professor Tismaneanu is pretty much THE authority on Eastern Europe. His lectures are very interesting and he makes an effort to tie the history to modern day events. He jumps around a bit chronologically, but you can usually follow his train of thought. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-11-20T12:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vladimir Tismaneanu', 'course': None, 'review': "Prof Tismaneanu is one of the most experienced lecturer's I've had, he has an amazing depth to his classes. His teaching style isn't for everyone though, he doesn't follow outlines or even really stick to one topic per class. He tends to jump around, sometimes between decades, often times between countries and ideologies but if you're interested then I highly recommend it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-01-08T13:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vladimir Tismaneanu', 'course': None, 'review': "Tismaneanu's grade distribution speaks for itself, at least for GVPT459C. I attended approximately 8 classes during the semester and got an A. I personally disliked his teaching method, he jumps from year to year and back again quite a lot, so note-taking is hard, but the information that he discusses is interesting and it is obvious that he is very knowledgeable about the history of Eastern Europe.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-07T00:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Vladimir Tismaneanu', 'course': 'GVPT459R', 'review': 'Professor Tismaneanu was easily my favorite professor at UMD and I will really miss him and his classes. I took four courses with him over my time at UMD.\r\n\r\nIf you are interested in learning about Eastern Europe, I would highly recommend that you take his courses. As others have mentioned, he is the authority on Eastern Europe. \r\n\r\nIf you are passionate about the subjects he teaches, I would highly recommend that you do the "extra credit" presentation for his course. He doesn\'t force anyone to do this, but he basically gives you the freedom to do whatever topic you like (as long as it relates to the class in some way) and you don\'t have to follow a rubric.\r\n\r\nI also appreciate that he doesn\'t force you to do obnoxious group projects, unlike many other GVPT professors.\r\n\r\nAs other reviewers mentioned, he does jump around from topic to topic - so it may be a bit difficult to take notes. That being said, the midterm, quiz, and final exam are always reasonable so if you are paying attention in class, you should be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-08-22T14:39:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Vladimir Tismaneanu', 'course': 'GVPT445', 'review': "I love this guy. His accent is a bit difficult to understand, but he is so kind and really funny. He laughs at his own jokes all the time and could talk about the course content for hours. So knowledgeable and passionate about helping his students. He doesn't bother assigning any busy work which is great. The class is basically one final paper and if you meet with him during office hours he'll help you outline the whole thing. Super generous and wise! Would definitely recommend. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-03-04T02:09:38Z'}, {'professor': 'Vladimir Tismaneanu', 'course': 'GVPT445', 'review': "He is extremely knowledgable about what he teaches and his lectures are super engaging since he includes several personal anecdotes. He can be quiet/hard to understand sometimes and it can be difficult to follow the flow of what his lectures are about at first, but you get used to it. He doesn't necessarily follow his syllabus (which can be frustrating if you like structure) but his class was a lot more about learning rather than a grade. The way he structured the class was how a college class should be: you show up to lectures and listen and don't have busy work. There were only two papers and a small discussion grade which is easy to do well on if you show up to lectures and do a short extra credit presentation. He gives a lot of freedom which encourages learning and paying attention. I will definitely take more classes with him before I graduate and recommend him to everyone. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-24T20:48:51Z'}], 'name': 'Vladimir Tismaneanu', 'slug': 'tismaneanu'}, {'courses': ['GEMS297', 'BSCI424', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'GEMS296', 'CBMG688L', 'BSCI348I', 'BSCI348K', 'BSCI348J', 'MOCB899', 'CBMG899', 'BSCI348I', 'BSCI348I', 'BSCI424', 'BSCI348J', 'CBMG899', 'BSCI348J', 'MOCB899', 'CBMG688L', 'BSCI348J', 'MOCB899', 'BSCI424', 'BIOI604'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Volker Briken', 'course': 'BSCI424', 'review': 'Exams was a pain to study for because you have to pretty much memorize everything since he asks you random questions from any random slides from class. But, not really challenging class since it is just pure memorization. \n\r\nThe professor is a nice and approachable guy. I can tell he wants everyone to do well by giving us extra credit, and he gave everyone 15 additional points on the final even though the average was 80%. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-25T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Volker Briken', 'course': 'BSCI424', 'review': 'This class is purely memorization so make sure to keep up with material. Also, this class is an ideal class for study groups. Try to apply what you have learned in class during lab and memorization will become a lot easier. Also, make sure you record lectures. It became a difference for me between an A and a B on exams!\n\r\nVery easy to get a B but difficult to get an A. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-08-16T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Volker Briken', 'course': 'BSCI424', 'review': "This class is all memorization.\r\nThere are 3 multiple-choice exams.\r\nYou have to study all 1000 powerpoint slides and have to know everything.\r\nI don't believe this class is curved, so for you pre-med *****es, a 90% is an A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2011-12-15T11:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Volker Briken', 'course': 'BSCI424', 'review': "This was a very enjoyable and rewarding class. I certainly learned a lot from it about various pathogens and diseases, which is exactly why I signed up for the course in the first place. The lab component was by far the best partly because it was well organized and presented, and partly due to my totally awesome TA Jenny who was such a pleasure to learn from. \n\r\nI wasn't sold on the read-from-powerpoint approach Dr. Briken uses. It doesn't actually teach us anything we can't learn by simply reading the powerpoints ourselves. I stopped going to class in the second half of the semester and still got an A. To do well in the class you absolutely must memorize everything in the powerpoints. Yeah, it's not the best method for learning, but if this is how the class is organized, then this is how you must approach it. The exams test you on not so central details; you end up getting the answer about how many nosocomial infections occur each year wrong and you don't really get to show you true knowledge about the disease or microorganism you've painstakingly studied. Overall, I really wish the lecture would be more interactive, then he would be a 5-star teacher. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-16T15:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Volker Briken', 'course': 'BSCI424', 'review': 'I have to agree with avgbiomajor. Briken was a great teacher and it was a pretty good class. I would recommend it if you are really interested in learning about a lot of different bacteria in one semester.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-13T18:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Volker Briken', 'course': 'BSCI424', 'review': 'Pathogenic Micro was one of the only courses I actually enjoyed and found useful at the same time. Alot of memorization, but I am no super overachiever and I got an A. It is a very fair course. Two semester tests, all MC with extra credit questions and a final. The final is not cummulative, but covers alot of material. Lab is fun easy points. If I were to recommend any science course to take at UMD, it would be this one. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-22T21:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Volker Briken', 'course': 'BSCI424', 'review': 'This course is an upper level lab class and made up of many pre-meds. I thought that most of it was very interesting and Dr. Briken was approachable. The course is based on memorization, but so is the first year of med school so people should be used to it. Micro labs are always a lot of fun and this one is no exception. There are weekly assignments but none of them are very challenging. There are three exams... the final has tons of information on it so beware. Overall, I liked the class and would reccommend it to people that are considering it. One other note... I didnt open the book except for when I bought.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-05T17:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Volker Briken', 'course': 'BSCI424', 'review': 'I have no idea where the stats are from but this is a no curve no extra credit medical class for potential weed outs. Vague lectures are presented and the slides needed to be memorized "encyclopedia style" for three exams (multiple choice mind you specific details). The textbook used is an actual encylopedia. It is an upper level with an easy lab but the instructor has one cut throat grading scheme that I cant justify as an undergrad. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2007-12-14T17:28:00Z'}], 'name': 'Volker Briken', 'slug': 'briken'}, {'courses': ['BSCI283', 'BSCI378H', 'CBMG688F', 'BISI899', 'BISI678M', 'BISI701', 'BSCI283', 'BISI701', 'BSCI283', 'BSCI283', 'BSCI412', 'BISI899', 'BISI899', 'BISI701', 'BSCI283', 'ENTM701'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Wade Winkler', 'course': 'BSCI283', 'review': 'Great professor. Amazing lecture style and very clear guidelines for what is expected on exams and assignments. Extremely helpful during office hours and via email. Always open to questions and you can tell he takes teaching seriously and cares about the students. His lecture style is engaging and he shows passion in the delivery of information. Slides were clear and easy to understand with no "clutter", which makes it easier to study since the main points have already been boiled down for you. The textbook is important for PAK questions but the majority of information can be absorbed through lecture material and slides. As a professor, he is top-notch and easily a top 5 professor in the bio or chem department. Take this class with him if you can!\r\n\r\nMy only complaint would be in the lab, where the TA seemed detached from the students and wouldn\'t offer help. She would often be sitting at the front of the class on her phone while my past lab classes involved the TA always walking around and offering help or advice to students as they performed lab. Pre and post-lab questions were also relatively easy but could take up some time especially since some of the directions would be unclear. However, since you can often work in groups in the lab it was manageable. Some labs would often run extremely long while others would finish with over half the lab remaining, which could be restructured to be more consistent. These critiques are for the lab manager and do not apply to Dr. Winkler. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-22T13:30:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Wade Winkler', 'course': 'BSCI283', 'review': "Dr. Winkler only taught 1 of the 3 units this semester (alongside Dr. Daniel Stein), but for the time he was around he did a great job. He's an engaging and passionate lecturer who seems to really enjoy teaching. He has a pretty mellow personality and was really easy to talk to. The one exam he made for our class was both shorter and more fair than the exams Dr. Stein made, and directly reflected what he spoke about in lecture. (Exams were all online and open-note/internet, too).\r\nThe class was formatted pretty weirdly this semester. PAK assignments were due at the beginning of the week, then Monday's class was just a discussion of the PAK answers instead of a new lecture, so we also had to watch recorded lectures for those days. Wednesdays were then normal lectures. Winkler and Stein both talked about how they might change the class's structure going forward, though.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-26T17:23:47.981757Z'}], 'name': 'Wade Winkler', 'slug': 'winkler_wade'}, {'courses': ['CMSC630', 'CMSC433', 'CMSC838M', 'CMSC474', 'CMSC798', 'CMSC498G'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Walter Cleaveland', 'slug': 'cleaveland'}, {'courses': ['BMGT828E', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT878F', 'BUSI690', 'BMGT878C', 'BMGT366', 'BMGT878P', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT878F', 'BMGT878P', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT878P'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Waverly Ding', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "I had Waverly for BMGT495 online during Spring 2021. We had three group presentations. Content was thrown at you and you were expected to apply it to case write-ups, not the clearest expectations. She didn't make much effort to really engage with us, but I guess that wasn't her main goal, she gives off a very serious, professional vibe. Exams were open note, mainly essay-based and graded a bit arbitrarily. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-19T01:48:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Waverly Ding', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'IF I COULD GIVE HER A LOWER GRADE I WOULD. I cant even explain in enough words how furious I am right now, this woman literally didn\'t attach a rubric to the midterm exam and then graded our exams based on said rubric that she LITERALLY made up and did not show us. She deducted 15 out of 50 points on my first questions because I neglected to talk about an entire section that I DIDNT KNOW I HAD TO TALK ABOUT BECAUSE I DIDNT HAVE THE RUBRIC and my grade dropped 10% in the entire class. Im taking 18 credits and this was supposed to be the bs class. Also She refuses to answer emails for at least a week to let everyone\'s "emotions settle" anyways, ill be raging hell a week from now. People told me not to take her but I did because I was like how bad can it be the class is so easy. Correct, but she genuinely wants me to hate her I guess ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-08T00:17:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Waverly Ding', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "The absolute WORST! I don't know what she trying to pull but put in my final grade? Stop trying to give it to me like a Merry Christmas present! I know I am passing this class but her grading is so arbitrary, gives us no time on exams, and it's almost like she wants us to hate her. She refuses to teach half the time, telling us to get into groups by ourselves and start projects, and this was supposed to be my easy class!! I wanted an A/A+ and she made my semester very bad. Wish I can give her 0/5 stars. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-12-24T15:59:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Waverly Ding', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'She always took the time to answer our questions and kept us engaged. She is strict, but her classes are very engaging, and as long as you focus, take good notes and participate you will do well. Remember that this is a business class and not something else, so come here with some seriousness and good intentions. Overall, Dr. Ding was great!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-10-20T21:04:04.447767Z'}, {'professor': 'Waverly Ding', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'I had Professor Waverly for spring 2021. She was an engaging professor that *wants* to help. Her lessons are clear, engaging, and very serious. My general advice for this class is that if you want to be good, FOCUS and take good notes, and try to participate as much as possible (asking and answering questions, attending office hours, group projects, etc.) Dr. Ding was great!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-10-22T13:55:48.710228Z'}, {'professor': 'Waverly Ding', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'The lectures are fine. A little boring and basic but they help you learn the subject. Requires attendance with a daily entrance quiz. Awful grader, will take months to get stuff back to you. Took the final in mid November and now in late December still have no grade. Creates some anxiety having 60% of the outstanding grade up in the air well past when grades are due', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-28T16:02:53.282671Z'}, {'professor': 'Waverly Ding', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': 'It is January 2nd and our finals grades have not been posted…', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-02T14:49:50.033754Z'}, {'professor': 'Waverly Ding', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "Attendance for this class was mandatory but lessons were all over the place and didn't make any sense even when I tried to pay attention. The actual work is pretty easy, but it is currently January 2nd and I still don't have my final project graded, final exam graded, and the participation part of my grade isn't in.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-03T02:18:09.838232Z'}, {'professor': 'Waverly Ding', 'course': 'BMGT495', 'review': "Not everybody's teaching style but she was very passionate and I thought made the class extremely interesting. Class isn't too intensive and mostly case studies which helps apply the material she's trying to teach. Def would take again if she was an option for my courses. grading is slow like other comments said though so prepare for that", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-02-20T23:16:24.760406Z'}], 'name': 'Waverly Ding', 'slug': 'ding_waverly'}, {'courses': ['EDCI685', 'EDCI467', 'EDCI788X', 'EDCI698', 'EDCI288W', 'EDPS788T', 'EDCI646', 'EDCI640', 'TLPL288W', 'TLPL456', 'TLPL691', 'TLPL730', 'EDCI463', 'EDCI898', 'TLPL462', 'TLPL899', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'TLPL452', 'TLPL206', 'TLPL288W', 'TLPL456', 'TLPL640', 'TLPL691', 'TLPL691', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL691', 'TLPL899', 'TLPL206', 'TLPL456'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Wayne Slater', 'course': 'TLPL288W', 'review': 'Wayne is a caring and passionate educator that truly cares about his students and the material he is teaching. Dr. S is the best.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-19T20:21:44Z'}, {'professor': 'Wayne Slater', 'course': 'EDCI288W', 'review': 'I dare you to find a better professor than Dr. Slater. He’s amazing. Take any class he teaches.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-04T06:38:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Wayne Slater', 'course': 'TLPL288W', 'review': 'the sweetest, most caring prof. deserves everything. I LOVE WAYNE', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-14T17:37:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Wayne Slater', 'course': None, 'review': "BEST PROFESSOR EVER. he is the sweetest old man and is so passionate about every topic in this class. There were readings every week which weren't difficult and for book readings in addition to that I never actually read. Spark notes or other sites like that were enough to facilitate the conversation needed for this class. I will be looking for other classes that he teaches. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T21:44:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Wayne Slater', 'course': 'TLPL206', 'review': 'hes such a slay! such a goofy guy with the most classic grandpa humor in every lecture. i wish i got to know him more because he mentioned really interesting research and was all-around awesome. this class deals with a lot of opinions but he was great at gently and positively encouraging everyone to share, and encouraged us to disagree with the readings. a big part of this class were the TAs but they were very sweet too (rasha & carla)! the weekly assignments that accompany the readings are quite easy, just take a bit of time. fairly light grader. for the midterm, he gave us all the questions/instructions in advance and encouraged us to just work on it on our own. he also cancelled the final exam b/c of our "good performance" throughout the semester which i thought was so sweet. lots of respect for Slater!!!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-12T21:03:10.358355Z'}, {'professor': 'Wayne Slater', 'course': 'TLPL206', 'review': "Dr. Slater is AMAZING; definitely one of the best professors at UMD! He's so caring, funny, and passionate about what he teaches, and the TAs in the course (Rasha and Carla) were also super sweet and amazing. There were weekly assignments on readings which were pretty easy and a bit tedious at times, but they also really helped me with understanding the readings better. The midterm was open-note and explained very thoroughly, and Dr. Slater cancelled our final exam (I'm telling you he's genuinely the best). Dr. Slater is also a very fair and easy grader. Lectures and discussions were so fun and engaging and I'm genuinely so sad this class is over. My favorite class ever, 100% take it (or any other course with Slater) if you can!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-07T09:14:00.256372Z'}], 'name': 'Wayne Slater', 'slug': 'slater'}, {'courses': ['BMGT808F', 'BUSI634', 'BMGT838R', 'BUSI758Z', 'BUSI785', 'BMGT385', 'BMGT828J', 'BMGT838O', 'BUSM624', 'BMGT434', 'BMGT838O', 'BMGT838O', 'BUSM624'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Wedad Elmaghraby', 'slug': 'elmaghraby'}, {'courses': ['BMGT434'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Weiming Zhu', 'slug': 'zhu_weiming'}, {'courses': ['PHYS261', 'PHYS271', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS174', 'PHYS375', 'PHYS261M', 'PHYS271M', 'PHYS121', 'PHYS260', 'PHYS275', 'CHPH718I', 'PHYS465', 'CHPH718I', 'CHPH718I', 'PHYS275', 'CHPH718I', 'CHPH718I'], 'average_rating': 1.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Wendell Hill', 'course': 'PHYS271', 'review': 'Avoid if at all possible.\r\nHe\'s suuuper lazy. I think he\'s fine with the *idea* of helping students, but on those rare occasions (lol) when it actually requires any effort to do so, he doesn\'t bother.\n\r\nDisorganized lecturer, pretty bad at explaining concepts. He likes transcribing long derivations from his notes, but without really explaining them very well or discussing practical applications. So hard to follow.\r\nUsed MasteringPhysics for homework, despite student protests, and never really bothered to give students help or slack when they would frequently have trouble with it. He always talked like he was going to "look into it" or do "something" about it, but he never did.\r\nHe isn\'t (in my experience) *explicitly* dismissive of student questions or concerns, but he just doesn\'t really try.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-12-09T13:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendell Hill', 'course': 'PHYS271', 'review': "Only reason he got 1 star was because 0 isn't an option. If you have any passion or interest in physics do not take his class because he will ruin all of it. Horrible teacher so take literally anyone else possible. Tests are impossible and he is unreasonable. Stay away", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-02T16:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendell Hill', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'Dr. Hill is by far the worst teacher I have ever had. If I could really rank him, he would be negative. NEVER EVER EVER take his class. His exams were impossible, the material is class was worthless. He has no respect for his students. He was awful to deal with, never responds to emails. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-01-26T19:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendell Hill', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'The most horrible teacher you will ever have. Just HORRRRRIBBBLLLE. Never take him, he should be fired from teaching.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-05-05T18:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendell Hill', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': "I have found professors in the physics department to be some of the worst professors I've had and Professor Hill was no exception. He taught the basic concepts in lecture, but then the tests were impossible proofs that could not be finished in the time given. There was a lot of homework every week (masteringphysics) and it didn't really help on the tests at all. There were also quizzes every week in discussion. If at all possible, avoid Hill.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-04-20T01:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendell Hill', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'Professor Hill did not treat students with respect and should not be teaching. His teaching style is abysmal. He refused to use a microphone although the class was in the large physics lecture hall. He repeatedly yelled at students to leave his class and would never start on time. After forcing students to buy clickers at the beginning of the semester, he stopped using them after 2 weeks of class. (I wanted my 50 dollars back, but the bookstore would not do a refund, sounds like a scam to me.) His powerpoint presentations were the bare concepts of physics 2 without any real explanation or examples. His exams, of course, were completely opposite, with detailed problems that were impossible to finish in the time of the exam. He even stated that our first exam was not possible to finish in the time he gave us, I guess thats why the average was a 40 and the high was an 85%. He barely did any example problems in class and gave us roughly 10 hours of homework a week, which was only 15% of our grade. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-13T18:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendell Hill', 'course': 'PHYS121', 'review': 'The only reason I got an A in the course is because I paid for a weekly tutor after the first exam. He taught topics that shouldn\'t be covered in this course. When I would attend office hours and ask for help he would make comments such as "You should know this" obviously I didnt because I am hear asking for you to re-explain it. It seems he has a passion for physics and wants to share that but doesn\'t understand how to teach lower level non-physics major courses', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-05-16T22:55:52Z'}], 'name': 'Wendell Hill', 'slug': 'hill_wendell'}, {'courses': ['ARTT100', 'ARTT100', 'ARTT100', 'ARTT353', 'ARTT100', 'ARTT353', 'ARTT100', 'ARTT353'], 'average_rating': 2.3889, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "Wendy Jacob's is one of the worst professor's i have ever encountered.She has a nasty rude attitude is very condescending to her students and ridged. The projects give little room for creativity, she assigns pointless homework assignments and exercises. She is a stickler for being on time and absences yet she is often late or doesnt show up at all. During studio work she hovers around rudely critiquing people in a unnecessary harsh tone causing discouragement rather then encouraging students. compared to the other art professors i have taken at umd wendy jacob's is truly an awful professor and mean person and should be avoided at all costs. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-03-24T01:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "I sat at an 89.1 for the last few weeks of the semester. The damn assignments took more of my time than any other classes, including my own major. In the middle of finals, ELMS lets me know I got a 75% in participation, dropping me to an 86 (granted, that's not bad, but I enjoy art as a subject, and this isn't even my major). \n\r\nShe's a harsh grader. She also loves to hear herself talk, which is unfortunate since she bans the use of earphones in class. People told me not to take her, but testudo had the professor of the section I was in as TBA. I was trapped.\n\r\nShe repeats herself endlessly, as if a collection of college students were incapable of reading instructions on their own or understanding after just one listen. Attendance is her favorite thing. Don't take her class.\n\r\nAlso, class seemed disorganized - so many things on the supply list that weren't necessary. Don't by the newsprint pad, or the erasers, or the colored pencils, or the actual pencils. You aren't required for any assignments to use them, they are suggestions. Save your fucking money.\n\r\nTL;DR: She kinda sucks, expects too fucking much out of you, and seems to be allergic to logic. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-12-18T23:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': 'I cannot believe how Wendy become a teacher. She teached knowledge so confused to the whole class. And she cannot explain them well. The worst thing is her worst attitude to students.Treating student like a machine not real people. Tons of HW need to do, but few grades she would give to students. I am so disappoitment that umd has a teacher like Wendy. Hope she will be fired soon, so then no student would be torment in her class. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-12-01T22:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "Wendy warns you ahead of time that she's kind of a hardass. Regardless, her attitude problem was much worse than I expected. She can be nice when she wants to be but overall, I felt like she treated the class as a whole like we were in kindergarten (no, we were not ACTING like kindergartners). \n\r\nOverall, alright class to take as an elective, but don't expect an easy A. She's a tough grader and doesn't respond well to arguments regarding grades. She will also take off points for every time you leave early/come in late.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-16T16:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': 'I don\'t see the problem people have with Ms. Jacobs. She\'s not a bad professor, although not stellar either. First off, the class attendance policy is a bit of a mixed bag. You can miss three studio sessions, regardless of whether the absences are excused or unexcused. It\'s great for healthy people who are never actually ill and just get "sick" strategically. However, I can see how it might be tough for people who are either of weaker stock or just have very busy / unpredictable schedules.\n\r\nThe class can be a lot of work if you procrastinate, so don\'t do it. The toughest bits are probably the sketchbook exercises and the final project. For both, you need to find the right balance between quality and finishing in a timely fashion.\n\r\nThe critiques are quite easy. Just point out something cool, or something not-so-cool, about a person\'s work, and then explain how it either enhances or detracts from the piece. The important thing is to actually speak up, or your attendance grade will plummet. Just standing there with your hand holding your chin and nodding like a world-renowned art critic is not going to be enough. Remember that it\'s all very subjective (plus it\'s an intro course) so don\'t be afraid to BS your critique, a lot of people will be BSing right alongside you. Just make it sound convincing.\n\r\nAlso, some of the grading seemed arbitrary, especially on the assignments. Ms. Jacobs would take off points for things that seemed to have no connection to the rubric or even anything, for that matter.\n\r\nOn the bright side, she really had the capacity to inspire you. Talking to her at length before projects really helped if I was in an artistic rut. Plus she was friendly. The people below who described her as mean, unapproachable and whatnot probably did something to get on her bad side.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-15T17:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "Ms. Jacobs has been really patient with me, i am not an art major and can't draw very well. she took a lot of time explaining assignments, expectations and how to execute certain techniques i wanted to use. She is a great professor. There are expectations and you are expected to be on time and not miss class, but she is very approachable. I would recommend her! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-11T22:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "I took this as an elective to get into ARTT353 and thought it may be fun and exciting. I've never taken an art course and I thought ARTT100 would be an interesting experience that would teach me useful fundamentals that I could apply to future courses. Unfortunately, I cannot honestly say that I got much out of this class. The important concepts taught through the course weren't conveyed well. Our brief lecture was done in a short Microsoft Word document that went over broad concepts that we needed to execute in our projects. It was really peculiar viewing arts in a word document. Maybe a powerpoint would have been better. The room also didn’t help make the brief lectures any better. It was often difficult to hear and there was no screen to project on. Students had to view the lectures in their own time because the font was small and projected art work unclear. There seemed to be a large feeling of ambiguity of how to apply the concepts to our assignments. To be fair so projects were more clear than other (the montage assignment and pattern assignment were very clear). However, the majority of assignments required a lot of questions and often at the critiques a large minority of the class would miss the boat on how to execute the idea. I felt this was especially true for the line assignment, road assignment, text assignment, and black square assignment. The projects often seemed to have an emphasis on quantity. A few of the projects could have been better if we simply had to do fewer pieces and had better explanation. I often felt rushed and stressed like I was in a 300 or 400 level class.\n\r\nOne of the things that made the course even more challenging was Ms. Jacobs’s attitude. She seemed rude to a couple students on more than one occasion. Ms. Jacobs addressed students who were late in a highly critical and borderline rude manner. Instead of talking to students in private she spoke loud and openly about their lateness problem or anything else she thought was wrong, which I felt was unprofessional. She also seems to have trouble with students asking for due date clarification. I’ve been around a few students who were confused about basic things and would not talk to Ms. Jacobs for help. Her tone on the first day of class may have caused this feeling. There was a huge focus on what NOT to do rather than how engaging the class would be. The whole experience was intimidating and just not pleasant. I did draw inspiration from my classmates that I shared an experience of mutual discontent and desire for something better. \n\r\nMr. Karis, our TA, was quiet, but approachable and helpful. Students stated that at the critique his project was the first one they enjoyed (and this was the 6th project). I like how he gave an exercise that directly related to project so we really got the idea. \n\r\nI felt the exercise after a lecture was really helpful and when Ms. Jacobs had an exercise before the montage projects it was also really helpful. This method was much better than simply drawing thumbnails because you could get direct feedback. The thumbnails also took up a ton of time and ended up being a chore with little result. We didn’t get feedback on the thumbnails and unless you asked directly and were clear about the goal of the project, your thumbnails may not have been helpful. The few in class exercises really brought ideas together because you knew right away if your execution and thought process was accomplishing what it should \n\r\nA few words to sum up this course would be discouraging, uninspiring, intimidating, frustrating, and draining. Going to Ms. Jacobs’s class was never something I looked forward to. This course is kind of heartbreaking because I really have enjoyed my UMD course at some level, but I cannot say the same for this class.\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-10T13:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': 'Terrible class. Avoid it like the plauge. The projects are boring. You will not learn anything from these projects. Take another professor.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-09-30T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "TERRRRRRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE! DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS. Assignments that she's giving out to us is just STUPID, and there are lot of writings that you have to do, and she criticize too much about EVERYTHING. Way too hard for ARTT100 level", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-09T23:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "This class is very frustrating. She is kind of unorganized and doesn't like it when you ask her questions. Projects are a joke in that it's just busy work. Terrible terrible. Pick another professor", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-02-15T23:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': 'I took ARTT100 as a fun course to round out my schedule, and actually learned a lot in it. Professor Jacobs was also very nice, I missed the final date and she let me bring in my project the next day with little or no penalization, and responded very quickly to my email concerning it. The work load is a little intense, but she is understanding when everyone tells her they will need more time. I would recommend her.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T15:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': 'Let me start off by saying that this is an Art100 class and the projects are not too bad and neither is the work load. But when it comes to choosing a professor stay away from Jacobs. She is unhelpful and criticizes work in a cruel matter. Her projects are not fun and she never seems to bring a good attitude to her class.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-11-03T02:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': 'Will help you if you are interested in the course material. And provides good advice to get you out of an artist block.\r\n\r\nHowever she is very particular about absences and being on time and will chew you out for being late. Accomodations occur half and half and if she doesn’t like you you’re basically done.\r\n\r\nOverall, would recommend you take ARTT100 with someone else, but it’s not the end of the world if you are with Wendy Jacobs', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-09T17:28:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "She's nice enough but is very particular. For the final project, she expects you to make 34 5x5 full pieces in just a couple of weeks. She assigns 5 pieces every time the class meets and sometimes 7 pieces. With all other school work, this is unreasonable. She's not that nice but not that mean.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-09T05:23:55.381384Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "Show up, be present, give effort, and know this course has a decent amount of work. Jacobs is a great professor and gives great feedback on a project you're working on. Especially the final project, which will consume a lot of time. I really liked Jacobs, she shows interest in her student's work and can give great feedback.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-13T03:08:49.160585Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT353', 'review': "Very chill class. I took this course as a complete beginner in photography, and now I feel much more confident using my camera to get the photos I want. The class was split into five project with the final project being an open assignment. She gives good feedback. As long as you put effort, you can get good grades. She is a bit constricting on creativity for projects. We didn't meet every week, so it felt like blended learning.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T18:53:56.563210Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': 'Wendy Jacobs is *Abrasive*Demanding* Inflexible* Angry*Expects students to have understanding for her mistakes, yet is totally unempathetic when it comes to the issues students are facing themselves*Makes ignorant comments regarding students * Reprimands students as punishment in front of all her other students in order to keep them on their toes and doing exactly what she says * Tightly wound and anxious demeanor most of the time*Her energy/aura makes students feel uneasy and uncomfortable *Lacks creativity* Burnt Out *Is the total opposite of "Je ne sais quoi"-lacks the creative and inspiring spirit most professors in the art department at UMD has *Uninspiring *Unsupportive*Jarring personality*If you value your mental health and your creative spirit and wish to foster your artistic skills in a comfortable safe environment-DO NOT take this professor. If there is another Professor teaching the same class, take that one. You can thank me later.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-18T16:45:06.751961Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'course': 'ARTT100', 'review': "Pros: Organized and punctual.\r\nCons: She doesn't work well with college aged students. She doesn't have creative flexibility. She is not easy to talk to about issues you may be having with the work.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-22T20:27:10.468749Z'}], 'name': 'Wendy Jacobs', 'slug': 'jacobs_wendy'}, {'courses': ['BMGT457', 'BUMK758A', 'BUMK757', 'BUMK758B', 'BUMK758F', 'BUMK758H', 'BUMK758Q', 'BUSM713', 'BUMK720', 'BUSM758K', 'BUMK774', 'BMGT758F', 'BUMK760', 'BMGT758F', 'BUMK774', 'BUSM713', 'BMGT484', 'BUMK760', 'BUSM715'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Wendy Moe', 'slug': 'moe'}, {'courses': ['PLSC400', 'ENST471', 'PLSC789M', 'ENST689Y', 'ENST407', 'BSCI442', 'ENST472', 'PLSC608T', 'ENST689O', 'ENST689', 'AGST130', 'PLSC130', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'PLSC608T', 'PLSC275', 'AGST130', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST689O', 'ENST689Y', 'PLSC130', 'PLSC608T', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'PLSC275', 'PLSC608T', 'PLSC789M', 'AGST130', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST689O', 'ENST689Y', 'PLSC608T'], 'average_rating': 1.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Wendy Peer', 'course': 'BSCI442', 'review': "Dr. Peer is a nice lady, but to be honest she is a thoughtless and out of touch instructor. Her lectures went so fast and had so many details, it was impossible to know what we needed to know and what she was just telling us for the sake of telling us. I am sympathetic to the fact that it is difficult to teach during an online semester, but she made it seem like an absolute chore to do basic things such as post lecture slides, record lectures, post announcements to the entire class, and provide info about exam format. She was not sympathetic to the fact that some students are unable to attend synchronous classes sometimes (because we're in a pandemic and some of us have to work to keep paying these bills) and honestly just didn't seem to understand that students are struggling more than we would if the class was in person. She made such a deal about not telling us what the final exam was going to be like and didn't provide any sample problems whatsoever. Our only midterm was written by a different professor and there were no other assignments that gave insight into her question style, so we went into the final completely blind. When the class approached her about feeling unprepared and anxious about going into the final like that, she basically gaslighted us and was so passive aggressive for no good reason. I know this sounds like one of those super dramatic reviews but I have genuinely never had a professor roll her eyes at someone asking a genuine question before and I was shocked. The class was overall an absolute mess but then again this was an online semester and the grades seem 10x better when she was in-person so theres that. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-05-12T18:16:19Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Peer', 'course': 'PLSC275', 'review': "I've taken classes in the chem department before and it's brutal. That's a well known fact at UMD. But Dr.Peer took a chemistry class (Orgo for plant sciences) and removed all the frills and trickiness. In practice I'm sure I didn't see as much material as the standard Orgo I kids, and I'm sure I didn't see nearly as tricky problems, but I think when push comes to shove, we will remember about the same material and know it about as well a year or two down the line. I think she taught what needed to be taught, and what could effectively be learned in a one semester course. She does give regular quizzes but I balanced it pretty well with some other very tough classes ( 2 CS courses), she says she pulls quiz problems right off the ungraded HW (your choice to do it or not...it's not handed in). And the test are basically the HW's so if you do the couple of Hours of homework you're asked to do a week, you're in fantastic shape. Honestly she (effectively) 3 quizzes so if your overloaded with work one week...as long as you catch up before the tests or the final you're fine. The one complaint is the one test and one final which are weighted evenly, but they were both straight forward tests with a absolute no trickery (did I mention she doesn't try to trick you), and I think they both had a fair amount of extra credit (at least the final did)! Good teacher, very accommodating, very friendly, made a daunting topic easy, great topic. If you have the choice between taking 275 and Orgo I, if you have a choice...take 275 with Dr. Peer.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-23T15:10:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Peer', 'course': 'PLSC275', 'review': "This instructor will just keep talking and talking at you, and will not stick to what info you will need. I found her to be quite uncertain and disconnected as an instructor. Often times she gets quiet during lecture, or doesn't fully finish her thoughts, and loses focus (which makes me lose focus).", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-08-30T13:17:37.301617Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Peer', 'course': 'PLSC130', 'review': 'I asked her plenty of questions to clarify things in class and she often meanders around some random topic she had floating in her head and fails to answer my question. The grades she gives out are often subjective and require a lot of discussions to really figure out what you got points off for. The rubrics in the class are not often used and she grades based on what she feels is the grade you deserve. A lot of this class is figuring things out on your own and learning to use other resources to get your answer.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-06T02:32:05.004595Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Peer', 'course': 'AGST130', 'review': 'This class seemed like it would be an interesting easy A gen ed. Somehow that was not the case at all. You hardly learn in class and they expect you to watch recorded lecture videos outside of class. I wouldn’t normally mind that but these are like four hours worth of lecture videos. This class goes heavily into the fermentation process but doesn’t discuss history like how or why fermentation created civilization (which is odd since that’s the name of the class). We are expected to take weekly quizzes on lockdown browser on these four hour videos. They will tank your grade if you don’t do well and I think I’ve only gotten a perfect score once. They ask for very specific answers so you almost always need to watch the lecture videos. I have learned absolutely nothing in this class and 100% regret taking it. The projects were easy but honestly quite stupid (making business proposals and creating a law). I wouldn’t recommend this class to anyone. Dr. Peer is nice but that’s about the only good thing I can say. The recorded lecture videos were just rough.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-16T04:13:17.674007Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Peer', 'course': 'AGST130', 'review': 'Save yourself the stress. Dont take this class', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2022-12-18T03:50:56.614310Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Peer', 'course': 'PLSC275', 'review': "Wendy Peer is a nice lady, however her teaching style was completely horrible. She would get quiet and not finish sentences, which made an already confusing course even more unbearable. She would also give us test questions based on extremely minute details from the book she had us read. I read the book and still couldnt answer her questions. DONT TAKE DR PEER'S CLASS, you will regret it. I dropped the class and I am opting to take regular orgo instead.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2022-12-21T19:41:38.859192Z'}, {'professor': 'Wendy Peer', 'course': 'PLSC275', 'review': "Dr. Peer is really nice and always lets me make-up quizzes, but she cannot teach well at all. She doesn't finish problems she is going over and her lectures are excruciating to sit through. If you do have to take her class though, review the learning outcomes for each topic of the weeks and you'll do much better. You honestly don't need to watch the videos if you memorize the learning outcomes, I learned this too late :(", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2023-04-26T23:26:19.537809Z'}], 'name': 'Wendy Peer', 'slug': 'peer_wendy'}, {'courses': ['LBSC706', 'LBSC707'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Wendy Simmons', 'slug': 'simmons_wendy'}, {'courses': ['CCJS498X', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS350', 'CCJS325', 'CCJS332', 'CCJS455', 'CCJS456', 'CCJS454', 'CCJS498Q', 'CCJS105', 'CCJS458C', 'MLAW358A', 'CCJS300', 'CCJS325', 'CCJS300'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Wendy Stickle', 'slug': 'stickle'}, {'courses': ['GEOL451', 'GEOL455', 'GEOL456', 'GEOL446', 'GEOL655', 'GEOL656', 'GEOL446', 'GEOL451'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Wenlu Zhu', 'course': None, 'review': "This was a fantastic course. I took it as my 'out of major technical elective' and it couldn't have worked better. The material was very interesting, the workload was low (esp compared to engineering) and Wenlu was a fair and nice grader. Wenlu Zhu stressed that she was more interested in getting us interested in Geology and the course, than giving us super hard homework or handing out bad grades. Also, this lecture consisted of 6 students- really 1-1 learning at its best.\n\r\nLecture was only once a week, homework took 1-2 hours and were due every 3 weeks. Midterm is a short presentation about an article she assigns, and the final is take home. There were also reading assignments due weekly, but these were only 3-4 pages or so - alls that was required was a group discussion about the article. Coming from an Engineering (non Geology background) I found the class very understanding in describing basic geology terms and concepts as they came up. My only complaint would be that with a 3 hour lecture, staying focused can be very difficult.\n\r\nAs a teacher Wenlu Zhu was very understanding. I accidentally presented on the wrong article for our midterm and she did not take off any points at all.\n\r\nAnother major perk is the opportunity to get involved with geology research through Wenlu Zhu. For example, she offered the three undergraduates in our class the opportunity to come aboard a ship in the Bahamas for a month or so doing field work. I'm not even a Geology major and this opportunity was still available. If only I hadn't already accepted a job this summer...\n\r\nI Highly recommend taking this course.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-30T09:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wenlu Zhu', 'course': 'GEOL451', 'review': 'Solid lecturer. Tests were somewhat difficult, as one had to memorize alot of groundwater flow equations. I prepared for the exams just by staring at her powerpoint lecture notes for a really long time. I never bought the textbook for this class. I went to most of the lectures, but my mind sort of wandered. The homeworks were sort of difficult, but were graded fairly. Overall, a fair teacher. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-20T11:22:00Z'}], 'name': 'Wenlu Zhu', 'slug': 'zhu_wenlu'}, {'courses': ['BSCI423', 'CBMG688D', 'BISI899', 'CBMG899', 'CBMG688D', 'CBMG899', 'BSCI423', 'BISI899', 'CBMG899', 'CBMG688D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Wenxia Song', 'slug': 'song_wenxia'}, {'courses': ['ENEE131', 'ENEE132', 'ENEE200', 'ENEE205', 'ENEE381', 'ENES100', 'ENEE148A', 'ENES100A', 'ENEE490', 'ENEE380', 'ENEE380H', 'ENEE488', 'ENEE381H', 'ENEE142', 'ENEE681', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE489L', 'ENES481', 'ENEB302', 'ENEB340', 'ENES480', 'ENEE140', 'ENEB302', 'ENEB340', 'ENEE205', 'ENEE490', 'ENES480', 'ENEE205', 'ENEE381', 'ENEE381H', 'ENEE396', 'ENES481', 'ENEE131', 'ENEE200', 'ENEE200', 'ENEE205', 'ENEE381', 'ENEE131', 'ENEE200', 'ENEE205', 'ENEE381', 'ENEB302', 'ENEE205', 'ENEE382', 'ENEE489L', 'ENES480'], 'average_rating': 3.7391, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "Really don't know what people are complaining about. I had him in summer 2014 and he was great. I felt like the homeworks were clear and easy, the 2 papers were fairly short (i actually wrote more on both of them because they were so short), the 2 group presentations were short and straightforward and if you went to class and did the homework the tests were not difficult. Pretty sure most of my class got an A or B at worst (aside for one guy who almost never came to class).\r\nWhen it comes to the material I think it throws off some engineering students because it requires some out of the box thinking and writing but I thought he was very knowledgeable. I liked the class a lot, my uncle has his own architecture firm and it made me think about the right type of balance you need between managers and engineers/architects and the ethics involved.\r\nI will admit the one negative is that he mumbles and doesn't speak very clearly but he told us that and apologized for it like the first day of class, still think he's a great teacher.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-07-13T12:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': "Ok professor, He tends to change every semester; one semester he may be a dick and give hard exams, and other semesters he is sane. Lectures vary in usefulness; they were mostly useful in the beginning but started making no sense near the end. I don't think he is as sarcastic as other people make him out to be. Exams were very unpredictable; the midterm was okay but the final had a circuit that counted for 50% of the grade, and if you get part one wrong you got the other two parts wrong. He is really soft spoken and apparently really smart.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-05-15T17:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'COMM401', 'review': "This review is for Professor BILL Lawson in the comm department. Lawson is...interesting. He can be funny and does have an earnest interest in his material, but he has a serious lack of professionalism and has crossed so many lines I don't know if there are any left to cross. He curses like a sailor and makes wildly inappropriate jokes for any circumstance. His sense of humor is caustic and oh boy does this man play favorites. Ego is out.of.control. If you aren't on his good list (the criteria for which is undetermined, but if you're an attractive female it helps) be prepared for an uphill battle. He is purposely unclear on his assignment guidelines (to get us thinking outside the box, so he says) and as a rule does not respond to email. Exams are comprised of open-ended essays and a smattering of jargon definitions for words you will never again use. Expect a B in his classes as a rule, although an A could be possible if you're willing to do some *personal* extra credit for it. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-04-24T02:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': 'He speaks softly and does not articulate sentences well. I am not a native speaker of English and at times I had problems hearing him even though I sat very close to the front row (read: one of the front rows). \n\r\nHis lectures were not well organized and not well-paced. He seemed to like to talk about things that were not related to the class during some lectures. However, during other lecture he rushed to cover material that he needed to cover. \n\r\nDr. Lawson was late to 90% of his lectures (5-7 minutes), which I did not like since I used my own money to pay for the class and I paid in full (100%). ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-02-02T21:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "One of those professors that really tires you out as the class progresses. In agreement with some other reviews, writing prompts and group projects are too vague. He ends up looking for certain things that are not clearly described, and the grades end up being very arbitrary. I was overall fortunate, and this didn't affect me, but looking at other's grades for exams and group projects, they seemed random at times. In the end, you might need a bit of luck to get the grade you want, which is especially annoying considering he is practically closed to regrades. He seems to think he is extremely generous on grading, when really, he's one of the harsher graders I've come upon.\n\r\nHe keeps a fairly interesting class, and is sarcastic at times. Sometimes he starts talking way too quietly for a class of our size. I would probably recommend the winter session, as other people on this page. However, do NOT expect it to be much easier; it's about the same level of difficulty I would guess. \n\r\nReading the book is not completely necessary, but it certainly helps. He has chapter summaries which are theoretically enough. The case studies are crucial for discussion though.\n\r\nAll in all, I would say he does a bad job of teaching this specific course. In my opinion, he fails to catch the heart of the issue of engineering ethics, and further fails to get people interested. I do not regret taking it over the winter, but it was a pain.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-01-23T15:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': "Knows the material really well and communicates it in an understandable way. He is very sarcastic which I found funny and helpful to shut up the kids who ask too many questions to show off their knowledge. I've heard complaints that he doesn't teach all the material but his exams are pretty much the same as examples he does in class. So far has been my favorite EE professor.\n\r\nPeople hate on Lawson and say he's rude and unhelpful but those are usually the people who don't put forth their best effort and don't go to his office hours. Lawson is a great teacher especially if you take advantage of his office hours for one on one teaching. Great guy who wants you to get out of UMD with a actual knowledge as opposed to the ability to just pass classes.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-11-27T13:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'COMM330', 'review': "This review is actually for William Lawson. OurUMD forwards to this page, so whatever. Overall, Lawson is a decent professor. He's enthusiastic about the material, and he definitely knows his stuff, but I wouldn't say that I learn much from his classes. Lawson is completely fixated on vocabulary. I don't think that memorizing exhaustive lists of communication jargon helps students become better writers, thinkers or speakers. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-10-27T20:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'Class is very easy. Took it over winter. Schedule was rigorous, about five hours a day, five days a week, but the material its very comprehensible. Readings are short and easy. Two papers that are short, and two group projects that are pretty easy. Participation is relatively important. Midterm and Final are easy as well. Give effort, and an A is yours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-06-01T13:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "This review is also for ENEE204 with Lawson, as I had him for both.\r\nLawson has a personality as described below, being sarcastic and fairly blunt. He teaches his classes the same way, however it is not as bad as others have described below.\n\r\nThe biggest thing about Lawson is you cannot bs your way through the class. He is very knowledgeable in the subjects he teaches, and can tell whether you know the material or are just rambling. He does have a sense of humor, however sometimes you are on the other end of the joke. If you take it personally, than you might not like him, but I don't think he ever truly dislikes a student.\n\r\nAll it comes down to with any class he teaches is you need to study. His tests have subtle tricks that catch you if you're not paying attention, but I have never been given a question that was not similar to one we have done before in a homework or class example. He is not 'impossible', unless you don't study ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-02-16T18:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "Had him for 200 and 204. He expects a good deal from his students. In 204, he emphasized concepts and intuition in homeworks/quizzes/exams but not so much in lecture, which would have been preferable.\n\r\nENEE200 was a frustrating class since he would often assign rather vague writing prompts for essays and exams, but grade according to specific expectations he had in mind. Grading on exams and essays seemed, to me, very arbitrary.\n\r\nHe's a funny guy, but not my favorite teacher. Both of my experiences with him were not the best, but I can see how some might really like him.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-30T12:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': "Very sarcastic, yet he WILL teach you the material. Most of the complaints I heard from my peers was how he didn't teach us anything, but in my opinion, those same students were pretty lazy. If you're not willing to do the HW, don't expect a good grade on exams or quizzes. It's common sense.\n\r\nOverall, he was unprepared at most times, yet I felt like I learned alot about basic circuitry this semester. If you're thick skinned and you're willing to work hard, expect an A", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "Terrible professor. Soft spoken and doesn't care about students. Not be fooled by the grade distribution. The A's is only about 20% of the class realistically for ethics. Looks for specific terms in every answer. Will take off all points if you dont have the specific answer that he has.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'BC', 'created': '2011-11-16T23:14:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "I'm not sure what the two people below are talking about. Maybe that was some crazy class but i assure for Comm classes HE IS AWESOME! \n\r\nI just had him for a summer course and it was such a chill class. And this is not just me talking, I asked older students in the class who'd had him before and they loved him. Honestly if you have any motivation to do well you will. He asked us to do a lot of readings but he quizzed very broad because he's a nice guy. I think he is also very insightful and passionate. He's also hilarious and an out of the box teacher in the best of ways. I really enjoyed this class and would definitely recommend people taking him! We watched a lot of good movies and read interesting books. Especially take his summer/winter classes. He is much more lenient with everything then!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-27T14:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': 'Last semester with Lawson was a train wreck, which is sad considering how misleadingly well it had started. Lawson always seems to be able to brighten your day....you know, that is, right up until he crushes your soul on his exams. I was actually very interested about 204 and, believe it or not, did about 3 weeks of studying before the start of classes. However, Lawson made doing well on tests virtually impossible. Despite my best efforts, I ended up with a B in a class I was very knowledgeable about. \n\r\nI very rarely take time out to rate professors because I find that people often exaggerate and whine instead of giving themselves enough time and doing the work. Lawson is a special case and I sincerely hope that last semester does not reflect what former (and future) students have to go through under him. Otherwise, if at all possible, I would suggest waiting a semester, taking care of cores/technical electives, and then taking Davis in the spring.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-26T22:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "I agree with most of what the other people have said, but I think they are being too harsh on Lawson. \n\r\nCons: His class is hard and you will work around 5 to 6 hours a week on homework. The quizes can be tricky and you can't just do well on them by memorizing. You really need to understand the material to do well in the class. Also the midterm and final are really hard and you will really need to study a lot for both.\n\r\nPros: His class is really interesting and he keeps the class attentive. I had him at 9:30 and I never was tired during the class. He is constantly calling on people and waiting for students to answer. He doesn't just lecture you till you fall asleep. \n\r\nOverall, if you want an easy semester definitely take Davis. I've heard his class is signficantly easier. You'll learn a lot from Lawson but you will be putting in a lot of hours of work for him.\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-07-21T16:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "Terrible professor. Makes the workload much harder and much more time consuming than it has to be. There are very few opportunities to do well in his class as evidenced by the only midterm. His tests are too difficult -- and btw making the final a little more manageable DOES NOT redeem an entire semester's worth of unpredictable quizzes, homeworks and an impossible test. To make things worse, Lawson is very arrogant and condescending; it's ironic that someone with this much experience and knowledge would have such child-like character flaws; a real shame that all of next semester's students will be stuck with him. Overall, a very poor choice for ENEE204 and most likely ENEE205. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2011-06-11T22:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "Lawson is by far the worst professor I have ever had at UMD. The ONLY good thing I've gathered so far about him is that he's your man if you really want to learn. Let me be clear on this for all of the people who share that view: YOU END UP LEARNING EVERY SINGLE THING THAT HE COULD POSSIBLY TELL YOU!!!! Everything from op-amps to semi-conductors to transistors, to understanding how circuits work in general. This is a 200 level course for God's sake!! It's not a job or an internship!!! There's such a thing as 300/400 levels if you hadn't quite noticed yet. So the late hours doing homework, the impossible midterms and his whole asshole persona make you beg the question: Am I really so dumb that I would let this clown ruin my GPA?\n\r\nAnd the thing is, there really aren't any redeeming qualities about his class. He doesn't care nor try to help (never shows up to office hrs), his tests are impossible and unfair, and he doesn't like giving partial credit (only does so to keep the average a 50 rather than a 30). As you can see, the overall theme here is you CAN'T WIN! When a teacher both hands you a hard test AND grades unfairly, you're screwed. I've never met a teacher who did both which is why I always managed the A or B. Now I'm stuck with a C for wanting to be an overachiever. I was shocked to see so many good reviews on here for 204 but, then again, most of them were in 08/09 when he was perhaps still sane. \n\r\nAll in all, I strongly recommend avoiding him. If you do though, please refer to this page at the end of the semester and reflect on what you did as you read this:\n\r\nYOU HAD BEEN WARNED. IT'S YOUR FAULT.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-06-07T17:09:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "Dr. Lawson is an extremely intelligent professor, but in my opinion he is not a very good teacher. \r\nIn the class there were weekly homework assignments, weekly quizzes, one midterm and one final exam. \r\nHe has very high expectations for his students and, in my opinion, only shows respect to those that meet them. The average midterm was 49. He is not fond of partial credit. Supporting what the previous reviewer stated, he relies heavily on conceptual and theoretical analysis of circuits. In my opinion, this made the class much harder. I learn from repetition and there wasn't much of it as far as the practical problems were concerned. He was a very difficult teacher for me in that he discouraged me from asking questions because he would make jokes of them in front of the class, he would not show up for his office hours and when he would make them he would rush your time and make you feel little for not knowing such a “simple concept”, and his exams (only the midterm I should say) were nothing like the previous semester that he would post online. There is no easy A here, nor B, nor C. I worked very hard to earn my C. He has no tolerance for exceptions, make up work, any of that. His final email to the class ended in, and I quote, “The grade you get in this class will be the grade on your transcript until the end of time.”", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-05-27T15:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "The reviews written by most of the students below (except maybe for the last post) are astoundingly inaccurate. To be honest, I really wanted to fry Lawson for all the evil things he did to us during the semester but for the sake of credibility and actually helping the students who read this, I will try to be impartial. \n\r\nPros: Lawson is one of the smartest guys you will ever meet. He is incredibly knowledgeable about literally anything circuit-related and, to be fair to him, he's probably one of the better lecturers the Clark School of Eng. has to offer (though the bar is set extremely low in EE). Also, if you suck up to him enough, he will give you marginally helpful advice for quizzes and homework. Lastly, the material he focuses on is very conceptual in nature which helps you learn a lot of interesting phenomena. \n\r\nCons: This guy is DEFIANTLY lazy, careless, and disorganized. He literally dares you to call him out on his antics just so he can insult your intelligence and give you whichever grade he feels like giving you -- and once he does, he just ignores your pleas every single day onwards. And, trust me, you're absolutely powerless in stopping this -- he is held in very high regard in the EE department and is practically untouchable (seriously, if you think i'm joking/exaggerating, ask around and you'll see) \n\r\nAdvice: Unless you are taking 12 creds or less, taking Lawson is suicide. He doesn't show up to office hrs and gives hw that even TA's can't figure out at times. Moreover, there is only one midterm and it is wildly unpredictable - seriously it will crush you mercilessly. The best you can hope for is being above average -- the average on our midterm was a 49 as calculated by Lawson himself. People often see him as a funny, goofy guy which is, I think, why he still has a loyal following -- but ultimately you find that he doesn't really care what happens to you unless he likes you. \n\r\nDon't be a hero. You're EE/CE, you deserve a break. Make your life easier. Pick Davis. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2011-05-25T20:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "I just finished taking Proessor Lawson's ENEE204 class. He very heavily focuses and the conceptual aspect of the class (explain the physical meaning behind the inductor, capacitor, transients, etc.) which can be very annoying, as he spends no time on this in class. His exams were very hard (class average for the first midterm was a 50, compared to Davis's 85ish averages). He is also kind a dick, and likes to shoot kids down when they ask questions and I'm sure discourages some kids from asking questions. He is also consistently late and does not hold to his promises. Seems very unorganized (didn't upload answers to practice exams because he couldn't find them?)\n\r\nGiven all of that, he is a pretty good teacher. He goes by the book (which he wrote, which helps) and his lectures are definitely worth attending. Also, if you see him in office hours, he is MUCH nicer than in class. He will really open up, and you can ask almost any question and he will provide a solid answer.\n\r\nOverall, the class was not a breeze at all, especially when I talked to friends in Davis's class. Looking for the easy A? go Davis. Looking to learn a lot? Go Lawson.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-17T17:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'COMM330', 'review': "Lawson was the best professor I ever had at UMD. If you get the chance to take a class by him, DO IT! Even if the class seems like a boring subject - he will make it fun! He makes you laugh EVERY class. Very fair grader. No final exam, just a group project that wasn't too bad! ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-21T13:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "Professor Lawson is the most compassionate professor out there. He is an amazing professor for ENEE204. I would 100% choose him over Prof Davis. I saw Prof Davis's ENEE204 homeworks and they were WAY WAY more complicated than Prof Lawson's homeworks. \n\r\nIn addition, if you go to Lawson at office hours he will literally GIVE YOU the answers to homeworks. His exams are also pretty easy. A HUGE Plus for Lawson is that he teaches from his own book! Meaning, if you ever need to skip a lecture just go over that section from the textbook! \n\r\nI would def recommend him over Davis. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-11-26T22:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "Ok class, ok teacher, more reading than I would have expected, but it wasn't bad.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-11-16T02:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'I would say Lawson is a pretty good professor. He\'s fair and he explains the material pretty well. But he shows up late a lot, which I find stupid because he doesn\'t give you points and mark you in when you show up late. I was late only once! That, and you have to say, "Good Morning Professor Doctor Lawson." But as a professor, I would say he\'s not bad.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-02-02T15:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': 'Lawson is an incredible teacher. Definitely take him for 204. He goes over the material very well and is happy to answer any and all questions that you have. I took this course during the summer, so i expect it to be quite different from the regular semester. His exams/quizzes sometimes require you to think slightly differently from his class examples, so dont take his examples for granted', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-01T15:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': 'Well..he IS a very great prof..but he likes to make jokes during class, and sometimes doesnt have enough time to cover all the material.and those jokes are not funny.it will be even better if he just focus on the lecture.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-14T21:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'Professor Lawson was amazing. He reviewed all material supposed to be covered in homework and none of his exams or papers were easy. Even the group project was a simple task. However, this is based off of having taken the course in winter. Either way I would highly recommend taking Professor Lawson.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-28T16:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "The class was really easy. The prof was really good. He was not a hard grader for HW's and papers. The test were easy and even if you did not do well he curved them. \n\r\nDrawback: there were two group projects that were annoying. I ended up doing a lot of work while the other members slacked on the group projects. Some group members didn't do anything so the group as a whole suffered because during presentations its was clear they didn't know what they were talking about. I barely got an A and it was because of the group projects. IF there weren't any group projects i would have less work and gotten a better grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-24T13:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "Lawson is a good prof. The class was straight forward, he wasn't sneaky or devious on the exams. I do recommend going to all of the review sessions prior to exams, they are extremely helpful. If he does throw in something rather ugly on an exam he'll usually do something similar to it during the reviews.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-05-23T10:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE380H', 'review': 'Very reasonable, very awesome professor. The kind of guy you could talk to casually. Makes jokes and interacts with class. Isn\'t afraid of "dumb" questions, and you can interrupt him at any time. If you do your homework, maybe read the (optional) book or his uploaded notes, you will be in good shape. \r\n\r\nHe even gave my class a 10 percent boost because we all came in wearing T-Shirts with Maxwell\'s equations on them!\r\n\r\nI wish I could have taken him for ENEE200 as well. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-01-13T20:16:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': 'Lawson is a pretty great professor. I thought his lectures were strong and the homework was challenging just enough to make you learn. Exams were pretty reasonable. My enjoyment of the class inspired me to pursue micro as one of my specializations.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-12-18T23:13:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': 'Lawson makes 380 a painless experience. Extends homework deadlines, has a handy set of lecture notes and makes reasonable exams (excluding our first midterm). On top of that, he curves as well. Also has a sense of humor to keep the class engaged. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-16T15:43:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': 'Lectures are not well taught and do not teach me much useful information. Hope for a good TA as it would be quite helpful. Grading is fair, with ample extra credit provided.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2019-12-21T18:19:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': 'Grading was arbitrary and was completely unwilling to consider otherwise. I do not believe he actually grades the exams, rather he looks at your name and decides a score based on the grades you received on previous assignments. Other students had the exact same answers on multiple questions, yet received either much higher or lower grades for the exact same answer.\r\n\r\nLecture style is a mess, nearly impossible to follow.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-02-13T20:29:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': 'Lectures were pretty boring, as he just read off the slides through various circuit examples. That might have been due to a lack of class participation online, but I could not remain engaged in most lectures. As for the rest of the course, Lawson made it pretty easy. Quizzes and the final were fair and the content of each assignment was clearly communicated to the class. The overall grading for the course was confusing and not clear to the class, but Lawson granted a small curve in the form of extra credit opportunities. The course material can be challenging, and you have to put in time and effort if you want to succeed in this course, but it is not too difficult. Overall, a fair professor that rewards students who are willing to put in the effort and show they want to learn.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-11T23:03:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE380', 'review': "I've taken many classes with Lawson and he's one of my favorite professors in the ECE Department. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-04T17:29:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': 'He is nice and a very fair grader. Has a sense of humor. Told us in advance what would be on the final, which was helpful.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-21T16:18:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "Lawson is a pretty chill guy, who tries to teach the course at a pace that actually helps you learn the material without feeling pressured by the deadlines.\r\n\r\nHowever, when it comes to teaching the course itself, I would say the TA was more of a professor than Lawson. \r\n\r\nStill, he's a pretty chill guy and I did enjoy going to this class.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-21T01:49:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE490', 'review': 'Took Lawson for 381 and 490, and will be taking him again for 489L. This will mainly go over his 490 class.\r\n\r\nLawson is one of my favorite professors in the ECE department. I found that his instruction can be dry at times when he just reads off his slides, but he is always good at explaining and clarifying things. He also made his classes very manageable in terms of workload, and gave out fair exam problems. Our final was take-home, and the midterms were open note/electronics (laptops allowed!). He always provided previous exams (some with solutions), so that was helpful too. He is very approachable and friendly, with a sense of humor that catches you off-guard with how unpredictable it can be sometimes (for the better). \r\n\r\nHe was also really generous with extra credit. He would often break us into groups to work on a problem, and then 2 groups would both get the correct answer. In this case, both groups would get extra credit, and the first to get the answer would get slightly more allocated to them proportionally. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-15T05:39:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "Disclaimer: I took this class over the winter.\r\nProfessor Lawson teaches ENEE200 well. I was already familiar with his style, and enjoyed it through the 3 short weeks of the class. Though the lectures were long and sometimes redundant, I'd rather take it with him than someone else because of his comedy and care.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-01-23T00:08:42Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENES100', 'review': "ENEE100 requires a lot of time and energy, and Professor Lawson made the experience more fun. He's witty and a good lecturer. Definitely will take him again.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-01-23T00:08:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': None, 'review': "This was Lawson's first year and hopefully his very last teaching ENEE140. Waking up in the morning and knowing he was the first professor I had to see literally drained everything out of me. He is a horrible lecturer, mumbles, and his slides do not help me learn at all. The only reason I am passing his class is that I had an amazing UTF who was patient and kind. If I had a better professor I would've enjoyed this much more.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-18T03:18:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': "Chicken scratches on slides and talks like he's half asleep for the entirety of the boring lecture. Nobody can read his lousy handwriting on graded assignments, and he is exetremely bad at teaching because he mumbles his way through the lectures.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-09-13T18:31:59.603925Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': 'I took this class the previous summer with Dr. Lawson, and I gotta say, it\'s not that bad of a course if you\'re already an engineering student. For starters, there\'s no heavy math, or math at all, and it\'s really just a philosophical discussion every lecture. We didn\'t have discussions during the summer session, instead, we\'d openly discuss as a class the different readings we\'d have to read right before. Participation was fair and honest as long as you said something, you got points.\r\n\r\nThe writing prompts on the final exam were somewhat vague; even I got points off because apparently I "misinterpreted the question". But as long as you\'re able to regurgitate the appropriate material based on keywords you\'ll see, you\'ll be fine. Overall, this class is light work, and the professor is quite boring at times, but at least it\'s not gonna give you any trouble. Keep up with the readings, say 1-2 things each class, clearly articulate key concepts and terms, and you\'ll get an A+.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-07T05:48:51.663229Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE205', 'review': "Lawson truly wants his students to succeed. Even though the lectures may seem boring, he wants students to really collaborate/participate when he asks questions. His class format is also really nice as there are only 10 quizzes in the class and a final at the end. He basically gives the question that will be on the quiz if you attend class and the topic so you don't have to study too much for those. The final he basically gave all the questions and went over them in class the week before. Just attend class even if it seems boring cause he drops hints and answers for everything he grades while lecturing.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-15T06:15:12.670515Z'}, {'professor': 'Wesley Lawson', 'course': 'ENEE200', 'review': "I took the winter session, so every day was equivalent to a normal semester week. The daily homework was to read case studies about sketchy/unethical incidents (usually ~4 pages of reading) and write a paragraph about them. There were a few quizzes, an independent paper (2-3 pages), a final exam, and two group projects. Dr. Lawson always drops hints (or even whole quiz questions) for what he's expecting, and the instructions are always extremely clear. He does have a tendency to mumble/slur some types of sounds, which *may* be difficult to understand if you have a hearing impediment. The course content can be dry at times, but he really tries to engage people and relate the content back to real life examples. You will get the most out of the class if you TALK. If you don't make the effort to engage, then this will be a terribly boring class (but you can still get a good grade).", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2023-01-24T22:26:14.059030Z'}], 'name': 'Wesley Lawson', 'slug': 'lawson_wesley'}, {'courses': ['HIST408E', 'HIST353', 'HIST608A', 'HIST408N', 'HIST354', 'HIST408L'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Whitman Ridgway', 'course': 'HIST353', 'review': "Yes, he is a tough professor and, yes, there is a ton of reading. However, he's extremely fair and is a good lecturer. He does expect a lot, but is also very willing to help you get to solid understanding of the material. During the last lecture, he was even willing to go over the themes he specifically said would be tested on the final.\n\r\nThere are several primary sources to read between each class and about 5 books over the course of the semester. However, he rarely asks about the primary sources, so those are mainly for your own benefit, and he'll also narrow down the book readings before the exams and quizzes to give you a much better idea of what to read. tl;dr yes there's a lot of reading, but not very much is mandatory.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-22T12:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Whitman Ridgway', 'course': 'HIST353', 'review': "This class was insane. Between the readings, the HUGE books, and the lectures, it was all over the flippin place! If you want to do well, you really need to talk to him and find out EXACTLY what he is looking for. It doesn't matter if you're right about something, it's about how well you talk about what HE was already thinking. \n\r\nHe's very nice and will help you out if you need it, but the reading alone is insane for 300 level. The books are more important than the primary source, so you might as well just ditch those. \n\r\nEvery day I was in this class I wanted to get out. Don't take it if you don't have to. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-04-17T19:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Whitman Ridgway', 'course': 'HIST353', 'review': 'Keep in mind I took this course during a 6 week summer session.\n\r\nThe amount of reading required is absolutely unbelievable, if not completely impossible to get done. We had to read 4 books (approx 400 pages each) and countless articles in a six week period. He is a good teacher, and really knows his stuff, but if you take this class be prepared to WORK\n\r\noh and the tests are all essay questions about the main themes in the books. so if you dont read, you fail', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-07-07T12:35:00Z'}], 'name': 'Whitman Ridgway', 'slug': 'ridgway'}, {'courses': ['HACS287', 'CMSC798'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Arbaugh', 'course': 'CMSC414', 'review': "He's trying really hard to change this course and make it interesting. The biggest fallback comes from trying to change it too quickly, often mid-semester. Long-term changes to a course are appreciated, but within a semester a course should be completely consistent (e.g. the professor should have the labs prepared in advanced), otherwise it can be stressful to the students.\n\r\nOtherwise I thought his teaching style was decent and the class was pretty cool. I learned a lot. I got to do lots of awesome things that I had never looked into because I wasn't sure how to do them legally. He was pretty nice and accommodating when I spoke to him. I was just stressed out about my grade for most of the semester because of how frequently details of the course changed. And Capture The Flag is awesome, but shouldn't be a graded assignment, since that brings it straight from something fun and interesting to something worrisome and annoying. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-01-11T03:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Arbaugh', 'course': 'CMSC412', 'review': "Arbaugh was frequently absent from class and he had his TAs teach for him. He took the projects from other universities, didn't do them himself, and rarely understood what was going on with them. Given how frustrating this class could get, it's insulting that he doesn't seem to give a hoot about the class, when he's expecting us to spend 12 credits worth of effort on a 3 credit class.\n\r\nAlso, I'm sure some people knew that Arbaugh was planning on teaching 412 in Windows instead of a unix-based system, but they really, really need to put that in the course catalog or something. Yet another thing Arbaugh could have done to make this class more reasonable.\n\r\nIn short, he sucks. The only reason he didn't get a 1 is because he is actually quite knowledgeable. He's not an idiot -- just a jerk and a flake.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-03T03:13:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Arbaugh', 'slug': 'arbaugh'}, {'courses': ['JOUR324', 'JOUR624'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Beecher', 'course': 'JOUR324', 'review': "This class is pretty boring. Professor loves to talk about himself but seems rather pretentious (he mentioned almost every week that he was looking for a publisher for his new novel). The class is extremely repetitive -- one day is devoted to reading a handful of student papers (but only the best ones, so no one that struggled gets to hear any constructive criticism), and the next day is devoted to maybe a quiz and going over initial research for the next week. You write a 500-800 word paper every week, and the only thing that changes is the topic. I don't think I learned very much from this class at all. \n\r\nThere's also a midterm and a final that tests your ability to pay attention to the Washington Post and NY Times editorial pages and what was covered in class, but since the only time you apply that knowledge is on these arbitrary tests, it doesn't end up doing all that much.\n\r\nSo, why not 1 star? It's a pretty easy A once you figure it out. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-23T15:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Beecher', 'course': 'JOUR324', 'review': "I took this class for one day and dropped it. He is the most boring person I have ever met in my entire life. He spoke in monotone and just read us nine pages about his life story, which wasn't very interesting. Wow, you got married and had kids. And went to Harvard. Yay for you. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-10-15T11:39:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Beecher', 'slug': 'beecher'}, {'courses': ['BIOE601', 'BIOE120', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'BIOE399H', 'GEMS497', 'BIOE489D', 'BIOE689D', 'CHBE468D', 'BIOE489D', 'CHBE468D'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Bentley', 'course': 'BIOE601', 'review': "He is a great teacher no doubt. The only problem is he keeps writing and writing. Sometimes it's hard to keep pace. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-02-25T21:22:49Z'}, {'professor': 'William Bentley', 'course': 'BIOE601', 'review': 'He is a really great teacher. If you want to learn more, you must try to keep his pace.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-01-06T23:27:49Z'}], 'name': 'William Bentley', 'slug': 'bentley'}, {'courses': ['ENST471', 'ENST472', 'ENST602', 'ENST499C', 'ENST689E', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST472', 'ENST689', 'ENST689'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Bowerman', 'slug': 'bowerman'}, {'courses': ['BSST399K', 'BSST338V', 'BSST327', 'BSST338P', 'BSST377', 'BSST377'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Braniff', 'slug': 'braniff'}, {'courses': ['ENCE424', 'ENCE605', 'EDSP652'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Brantley', 'slug': 'brantley'}, {'courses': ['MEES698Y', 'MEES708L', 'MEES708T', 'MEES618A', 'ANTH620', 'MEES620', 'MEES609A', 'MEES718', 'MEES708T', 'ANTH620', 'MEES620', 'ANTH620', 'MEES620'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Dennison', 'slug': 'dennison'}, {'courses': ['CPSP249T', 'HONR218M', 'HONR378P', 'MUSC248D', 'MUSC463', 'MUSC248E', 'MUSC240', 'MUSC240', 'MUSC240', 'MUSC248E', 'MUSC240', 'HDCC208A'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Evans', 'course': 'HONR218M', 'review': "Professor Evans was great!! Super receptive to student concerns, and very encouraging of everyone's work, no matter what their skill level was.\r\nThe class was set up very well, and the variety of projects in different fields (music notation software, Garage Band, film scoring) helped me expand my creativity out of my comfort zone.\r\nIn general, I loved having a dedicated time each week to play with music, and I learned a lot of skills from the amount of time I put into my music.\r\nPlus, he guaranteed an A if you worked hard, and it was awesome not having to be stressed about grades! Normally I need the grade pressure for motivation to work hard, but in this class I had no problem working hard because I loved the assignments!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-10-31T13:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Evans', 'course': 'HONR218M', 'review': 'This is honestly one of the hardest and most frustrating courses. Although it is titled "Music Composition for Non-Music Majors", this class probably would have been challenging even for music majors. I have been learning piano for upwards of seven years now, and I still struggle. This class is not about music. What this class IS about is computer software and technology which, if you are not already familiar with audio and sound engineering or computer science, is very time consuming, frustrating, and unsatisfying.\r\nNow, nearing the end of a full semester of this course, I find myself only being able to string together two or three sounds into something that sounds like what a middle schooler could come up with. And the professor is not very responsive to student concerns either. If you have not already familiarized yourself with some kind of music composition software before, you will find yourself in a whirlwind of frustration and confusion even after the beginning stages of using the new software. And the professor is unavailable for student help - if you don\'t learn correctly on your first attempt as he teaches the material, you fall behind. And if you fall behind, you stay behind. And he teaches the material and answers student questions with such an arrogant demeanor that I have felt incompetent for not having understood the material. If you love music and want to learn composition, do it yourself. Steer clear', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2015-11-10T16:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Evans', 'course': 'HONR218M', 'review': "I came into this course with essentially zero knowledge of music at any level (I played piano when I was in lower school), and Professor Evans was very receptive of this. the grading is all relative, so as long as you improve you get good grades. I also missed classes for religious holidays and he was willing to meet with me multiple times 1v1 to help me catch up. Overall the best honors seminar I've taken and cannot recommend it more.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-02-14T02:19:28Z'}], 'name': 'William Evans', 'slug': 'evans_william'}, {'courses': ['ENES220', 'HONR288O', 'ENES102H', 'ENES102', 'ENES232', 'ENES305', 'ENES304', 'ENES304', 'ENES305'], 'average_rating': 4.2, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "Fourney is one of the nicest professors ever. He's always funny in class and telling us stories about his days working with bombs, which are really cool to hear about. \n\r\nAs a teacher, he goes over the material you need learn, but his examples are usually a bit easier than what you'll see on the test. Before each of the tests, he'll give you hints on what's going to be on them, which makes studying for them a lot easier. He's pretty soft-spoken in class, but everyone really loves him too much to talk over him. Even so, sitting in the front of the room will benefit you. \n\r\nDuring our discussion, he'll tend to not give quizzes most times like the other teachers do, which really reduces the stress of having to study for them every week. He does give additional problems though, but since they're group work they're not too bad.\n\r\nOverall, he's a really great and chill professor, so take him if you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-16T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Great professor and really nice guy, and he wears a sick hat most of the time. He will really work with you in office hours until you understand. He definitely wants his class to do well. Exams are very fair, and grading is as well. As a lecturer, he does a lot of examples in order to make the material understandable, as well as show you how to get the right answer. Overall, definitely recommend taking him if you can. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T00:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "awesome professor. he teaches what he thinks is important and is very good at explaining the concepts. exams were fairly straightforward and tended to test your understanding of the fundamentals rather than special cases. in lecture, he'll work out problems that either he made up or one from an old exam.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T15:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "He teaches completely through example problems which made it difficult for me because I can't learn like that so it forced me to read and outline the book to understand how to do the problems he did during lecture. However, my only problem with him was the teaching style. He's extremely approachable and gives out his home phone number to ask him for any help at any time. Basically, the class is a bit like ENES102 all over again, if you do the homework and all the practice problems for the exam, you'll be fine. I think they're going to make all the sections a bit bigger for next semester due to budget cuts though so it'll be twice the size of a normal enes class for anyone taking it after this fall 09 semester. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-31T16:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'Great guy! He is a decent lecturer, tends to teach through example problems. He often talks about applications, and real life things that relate to the materiel. \r\nHe is always willing to meet outside of class. He gives out his phone number and encourages students to call with questions. He is one teacher that wants you to do well, and will sit with you until you understand the material. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-20T16:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': "one of the better professors that I have had since being a student here. he's clear when teaching the material, and most of the example problems he does on the board are pretty helpful.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-11T04:35:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES220', 'review': 'He is a good lecturer and makes himself pretty accessible outside of class. He stresses what is important and tries to present the material in as simple a manner as possible. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-07-24T11:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES102', 'review': 'He is clear, straightforward, and more than willing to help if you ask. Works through example or homework problems slowly but carefully. I did not find myself in need of a textbook to work any problems or study until about halfway through the semester.\n\r\nA word of caution, though: It is extremely important that you pay closest attention when he is teaching the concepts of the course rather than just equations or going through problems. Knowing the concepts and thinking about how you can apply them are key to succeeding in statics.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-07-08T13:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "He tends not to explain much in class, and often dawdles on problems, leading to a total of 1 or 2 problems being finished. In addition, he doesn't provide much in terms of actually teaching the material, and it is the responsibility of the student to read from the textbook, which isn't any better.\n\r\nIn terms of tests, a piece of advice would be to disregard the examples he gives you, since the test questions will be nowhere near simple and easy as that example. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-12-31T01:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Fourney', 'course': 'ENES102H', 'review': "I had him for ENES102 but I think the same will apply. He is a great lecturer and fair grader. Nothing is mind-blowing about the exams or homework. Work consists of weekly homeworks from the book, a project, and 3-4 tests. Statics is pretty much straight vector math and some physics 1 concepts.\n\r\nSupplement your notes from lecture with reading the book (its a well-written book) to get pretty easy A's on exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2007-10-23T12:01:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Fourney', 'slug': 'fourney'}, {'courses': ['MATH431', 'MATH642', 'MATH437', 'MATH848G', 'MATH848C', 'MATH740', 'MATH848D', 'MATH848R', 'CMSC389W', 'MATH299M', 'MATH430', 'MATH734', 'MATH744', 'MATH406', 'MATH431', 'MATH848L', 'MATH406', 'MATH431'], 'average_rating': 4.3, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH431', 'review': 'Quite possibly the biggest disappointment of a class I\'ve ever had. His class has no direction or structure. "Lectures" are just a discussion between himself and the 4-5 math geniuses in class who already know everything, while everyone else is left in the dust, not following a single word. This makes the homework problems and tests pretty hard. Finals are coming up and it will be interesting to see how he decides final grades, since everyone seems to be doing either really well or abysmally bad.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2013-12-17T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH431', 'review': 'Don\'t be fooled... this is a projective geometry course, not a computer graphics one. There is zero computer work involved, and almost no discussion about of how the material could even be applied to computer graphics. The professor admits that it is an "experimental" course... meaning there is no text, making it very difficult to follow if you get lost. He should really have lecture notes posted online to give students at least SOMETHING to go by.\n\r\nOnly take it if you kick ass at Linear Algebra.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-24T03:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH740', 'review': 'Great professor. Clearly enjoys what he is teaching. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-10T20:05:31Z'}, {'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH430', 'review': 'Dr. Goldman is very cool!\r\nHis assignments are straightforward.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-15T17:12:24Z'}, {'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH430', 'review': 'Really good professor. The assignments are not hard to do. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-04T03:31:38Z'}, {'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH430', 'review': 'Dr. Goldman is a nice professor. His assignments are straightforward.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-08T00:33:57Z'}, {'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH430', 'review': 'Mr. Goldman is a very good professor for upper-level math courses. His assignments are straightforward.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-11T04:18:16Z'}, {'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH430', 'review': 'Mr. Goldman is a very good professor for geometry-related math courses. His tests are straightforward.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-12T00:21:42Z'}, {'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH431', 'review': "Dr. Goldman is such a nice and helpful instructor! He is always willing to meet with his students outside of class to discuss homework, class material, and even just normal things in life! His homeworks were challenging because he wanted students to be challenged, but he's more than happy to elaborate or assist you if you're really stuck on a problem. He also provided us with notes from previous semesters, both from him and Justin Wyss-Gallifent, which were super useful in clearing up any confusion in the material. Overall, the course was difficult but Dr. Goldman was super helpful and friendly to everybody.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-29T23:19:21Z'}, {'professor': 'William Goldman', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': 'Super nice guy, not the best teacher, but I still learned a good amount and the curve was super generous', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-23T20:59:07.583385Z'}], 'name': 'William Goldman', 'slug': 'goldman_william'}, {'courses': ['ENEE140', 'ENEE150', 'ENEE440', 'ENEE445', 'ENEE408A', 'ENEE459A', 'ENEE245', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE408A', 'ENEE440', 'ENEE445', 'ENEE459V', 'ENEE408A', 'ENEE440', 'ENEE445', 'ENEE459A', 'ENEE408A', 'ENEE440', 'ENEE445', 'ENEE459V', 'ENEE408A', 'ENEE440', 'ENEE445', 'ENEE459A'], 'average_rating': 2.0952, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "The expectations that he has of you in this class are pretty high. Homework assignments and projects tend to be at different level than the material that you're going over in class (which is usually an 8am lecture by the way). When I took this class, I just felt that the projects would be near impossible with the material we learned in just lecture. There was an enormous amount of time spent each project just googling concepts and learning them on my own. Depending on your TA, you might get out of this class with a good grade regardless, as some TAs tend to sympathize with your situation.\n\r\nNo one got above a D on the final for my class, but as you can see that got pretty heavily curved. I had a C-average in exams and a 80% at the end of semester in the class, and that was curved up to an A+. If you put in some work and maybe get a good TA, it is possible to get out of this class with an A, but if you want to actually learn C and have a good understanding of C-programming, I'd recommend Qu or Yeung.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-11-13T13:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE245', 'review': "This is my First review for a teacher because I felt I had to warn other students about this professor. If you have the option do not take him.! His class WILL stress you out. Projects are almost impossible. All the other reviews are completely accurate in describing him. You will probably get an A because he gives out A's to anyone who tries but you will have a stressful time count on it ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-08T13:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "The things that were expected of me and my classmates from this course were impossible. From the beginning, the homework assignments were exceedingly difficult and they only got worse. Nobody could figure out what we were supposed to learn and retain from this class. This was an intermediate programming class, which was supposed to be a continuation of the C-programming class we took last semester; our final homework assignments involved using Javascript and webservers at a level that Professor Hawkins openly acknowledged was above our level of understanding. Whenever we had something we needed help figuring out, his default response was to Google it. That is an incredibly unhelpful assertion when we didn't even fundamentally know where to look to have a hope of beginning his assignments. He seemed like a very nice guy and he was also pretty knowledgeable but he just expected way too much from this class of freshmen and sophomores.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '?', 'created': '2013-05-09T11:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "Bad teacher. Don't take him.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'D', 'created': '2012-11-16T22:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': 'Hawkins\n\r\nHawkins knows the material very well, but not well suited to teach an Introduction programming class. If you have no programming experience, you will suffer in this class. Lectures were not very note-taking friendly. He doesn’t make effective use of the chalkboard space. He jokes about giving us stuff we haven’t seen before on exams and labs. Also, his syllabus is horribly written, so nobody had a clue when stuff was due.\n\r\nThe Labs for 140 can be difficult but definitely appropriate to the topics. The problem here is that if you having trouble, it is difficult to find help. He doesn’t give any other material besides the suggest book. I highly finding some external reference if you are having stuck and taking advantage of TA limited office hours. Fortunately, we have Hawkins for 1 day of the week, which mitigated the suffering we went through.\n', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-05-11T23:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "Dr. Hawkins is a really nice guy and a solid teacher. He tries to come up with interesting homework problems, but can get ahead of himself considering you have only a week to do most assignments. Tests are difficult, and the homeworks even more difficult. If you work during the week, or are in a lot of extracurriculars, I'd try to avoid this class just because it is so much work. If you do end up in this class, put the effort in and pay attention in lecture. He gives helpful hints that make the assignments a lot easier. Even if you can't get your programs working fully, get them partially working and hand them in anyway. This will get you ahead of the curve, because a lot of people don't get it working at all, or turn in something that crashes instantly. Go to discussion, because homework is 50% of your grade and you will have questions. By the end of the class, if you have done the homework, you WILL know how to program in C. Try really hard at the beginning of the semester to get your programs fully working, because it only gets harder and it's nice to have some safety margin in your grade. You'll get to a point in the class where most people just give up, so if you do the work, you should be fine. If programming is your weakness, you should probably take an easier teacher. Otherwise, like the other guy said, if you have the time to put into the homework, you'll be fine.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-18T00:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "If you have previous programming experience in C or Java, and are willing to devote the time necessary to all the homework you'll do fine. \n\r\nHe oftentimes will ask ridiculous things on the homework after inadequately covering them in lecture, but if you can't do it chances are that nobody else can either. The last 2 or 3 assignments became arbitrary at the end since nobody could keep up. Getting a 76 on the first midterm when the average was around 50 secured me an A in the class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-08-31T16:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "Absolutely an awful teacher. His homeworks are so hard that not even he can do them. His lectures are pointless. They have nothing to do with the basic idea of the homeworks. He don't prepare you for the midterm or final as well. I believe this is his first time teaching an intro course so he doesn't know how to teach it. Avoid him and if he is the only teacher available for ENEE 150, take it in another semester. The only thing you have to look forward to is a ridiculously high curve. The uncurved average in our class was a 44.6/100 ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-26T11:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "I cannot agree more with what the below person said about Hawkins. He's a nice guy, the TA's keep insisting he's reasonable when it comes to grades, but I am not buying it (maybe there will be a giant curve?) \r\nHis homeworks are ridiculously hard, and he doesn't prepare you for them at all (good thing they make up 50% of your total grade!) The first week of homework I literally spent 20+ hours on my programs trying to get them to work, but to no avail. I got a B+ in ENEE140, too. His motto is that you should be able to find out how to do things on your own by using the internet.\n\r\nThis class with Hawkins is flat out unreasonable - I get sick just thinking about it. \n\r\nDO NOT TAKE HIM!!!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-04-13T14:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "By far the worst professor I've ever had. I understand that he has good reviews for the higher up courses because he definitely knows what he's talking about but he doesn't know how to introduce these concepts to new programmers. About a quarter of the people in my class dropped because of their low grades and the average for the first exam was 45%.\n\r\nNot only this but he also almost never returns emails and refuses to let up on homeworks a little or make them somewhat understandable even when everyone refuses to turn them in because no one has any idea how to start.\n\r\nHe says in order to do the homeworks, we need to find the answers online but they don't exist online. Basically, programming experience or not, DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-07T12:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR FOR ENEE150!!!!! His lectures are completely random and don't really have anything to do with the homework. He only gives homework, midterm & a final, all of which are nearly impossible. He comes into the lectures and expects the students to have a higher level of knowledge than is taught in ENEE140. Because the homeworks are impossible, it is very difficult to know what will be on the midterm or final. He basically expects you to be able to teach yourself all the material of the class from outside sources such as google, because the book that he recommends that you get doesn't have information on more than half of the material he talks about in class. Horrible professor for this class.\n\r\nDO NOT TAKE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-04-05T19:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE440', 'review': 'Do not take this professor for any class he does not lecture at all . All he does is encourage you to research the contents of the class on google. If u wanna learn about microprocessor u basically have two options! go to other school or go to other school. Worst proffessor ever ! Obviously nobody wants to transfer at this point since most of the people takin his class are juniors or seniors so if ur interested in computer engineering take 446 , 408C 459k but avoid this guy u will get frustrated and end up hating your life', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-03T18:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE440', 'review': "I've had him for multiple classes. In each of the classes, Hawkins has come off more as a helper than a teacher (I think he'd take this as a compliment). During lectures, he'll only introduce you to ideas and assign homeworks on them. You're responsible for hunting down the documentation and software and then approach him with questions. But the annoying part is that he's hard to get ahold of. He's only available on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a few hours. He doesn't respond to emails at all. Even more annoying is that he doesn't return graded homeworks, so you pretty much have no idea how well you're doing in his class until you get your final grades.\n\r\nThe setup of the class is basically 2 huge projects, a midterm, a final, and a homework due every two weeks (no deadlines on the homeworks, so you can procrastinate until the final week =) ). As I said earlier, you're not going to know your grades for any of the assignments. I suspect that he doesn't even bother grading him, and bases your grade purely on the projects.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-19T22:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "The guy's cool and all, and the topics we cover are pretty useful to learn, the only issue is that they're seemingly impossible.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2019-04-26T01:58:29Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE150', 'review': "God I took his class last semester. I had my fair share of mental breakdowns, but I made it through. I honestly feel bad for anyone genuinely trying to learn C. His projects are insane for the time that's given. The exams are hard, the projects are hard, where do I get the break? The TAs. The TAs are your life saver and having a good one is essential. Most times TAs will tell you how to solve a problem and leave it to you to code it which makes it a lot easier. would rate 10/10 would cry again", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-09-18T08:12:06Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE440', 'review': "Taught almost nothing, did a horrible job administrating. I wouldn't recommend to anyone.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-05-22T03:12:30Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE440', 'review': "Sigh... where to begin? Unfortunately this course does not enable you to learn about microprocessors. What this course gives you is a haphazard and shallow view into microprocessors by doing weekly assignments with several of the lsi peripherals (timer,interrupt, etc.) on the device. This may sound fine, but it didn't help that lectures did not talk about the lsi perhipherals in any sense really. I don't fundamentally understand what these peripherals are, in what applications are they used, and how they interact with other peripherals. The assignments themselves take a long, long time after the third assignment, and they are unclear. The weekly assignments are basically using 1 of these peripherals and doing something to it. All this requires is setting up a bunch of registers, and that's pretty much it. This takes hours and hours to do, because there are several datasheets that you need to dig in to find which registers to use if you don't know microprocessors, or how to interpret the peripherals.\r\n\r\nTbh, the theme of the class was confusion. Assignments were confusing and the hawkins himself was confused at them, while the TA was unable to help as well (not his fault really).\r\n\r\nThe final project was a mess, and it was extremely confusing to understand what was required, as expectations and guidelines were terrible. We had to constantly badger him repeatedly to figure out the point of the project, and even then there were several things that no one really understood what was going on.\r\n\r\nLectures were of course pretty useless and provided no insight to what microprocessors are and do, and what the peripherals we used in the assignments are or do.\r\n\r\nEven though Hawkins may be a nice person and friendly, as a teacher he was ineffective and unable at presenting microprocessors, an extremely prevalent topic in Computer Engineering.\r\n\r\nIf you are someone wanting to take this course in order to learn microprocessors, beware. There is no structure or clarity in the course, and I feel like I ended up not learning microprocessors fundamentally which really sucks, and trust me, I put in the effort, we all did.\r\n\r\nI wonder how his 150 students survive...", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-05-28T03:10:12Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE445', 'review': 'Hawkins is by far one of the least helpful professors at this university. His classes are extremely unorganized to the point where he doesn\'t even know how to do the work he assigns his students. \r\n\r\nI know that he is a smart guy with tons of industry experience, but that does not translate well at all into academia. The saving grace of this course is the TA who has been nothing but helpful so far. Hawksin\'s whole guise as a "helper" is absolutely true, and that is not a good thing. There have been multiple occasions in which he will assign a project for lab and then when asked for clarification, he will simply deflect saying that he hasn\'t implemented it yet so he doesn\'t know.\r\n\r\nHis use of the ELMS/Canvas website is awful. No sylabus page, no indication about what he is going to talk about in the weekly lecture, every lab assignment is a separate submission in elms, which wouldn\'t be a problem if each lab didn\'t have subparts to be submitted separately. \r\n\r\nOverall, I would highly recommend you avoid this professor and this course unless you want to spend hours at a time just wondering why you decided to take this course. Hawkins is a nice guy, but that is not enough to carry over to teaching.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-03-09T18:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE459A', 'review': "Hawkins has a pretty bad rap among ECE students and maybe thats fair for other courses but he is well suited for ENEE459A. In 459A, you come up with an idea for a PCB and go through all the design and fabrication process's necessary to make your board a reality. Class meets once a week for 50 minutes and is very laid back. I actually learned something tangible in this class and had fun doing it.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-20T14:58:48Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE440', 'review': "I took this course Spring 2021\r\nThis class has a lot of potential but Professor Hawkins does not take advantage of it. He doesn't give you the tools or help necessary to complete the projects and no one in the class gets very far on them. The best part of the class is that you learn ARM assembly, but you could learn so much more if the professor restructured how assignments work.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-27T17:21:43Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hawkins', 'course': 'ENEE408A', 'review': "Professor Hawkins is not so good at teaching, but luckily in this class all you do is work on a project of your choice the whole semester. This is your chance to build whatever electronics/microcontroller project you've been wanting to build for years, and all you have to do for Hawkins is small weekly assignments (like progress updates) and a final report. Highly recommended.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-27T17:24:53Z'}], 'name': 'William Hawkins', 'slug': 'hawkins'}, {'courses': ['PUAF641'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Helkie', 'course': 'PUAF641', 'review': 'Pros: Test questions are taken directly from quizzes so there is no excuse for being unprepared. He is witty, knowledgable, and experienced.\n\r\nCons: Some may find his humor too dry, otherwise there is no reason not to take his course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-12T00:33:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Helkie', 'slug': 'helkie'}, {'courses': ['BIOL608F', 'BSCI440', 'BSCI105', 'BSCI207', 'CLFS510', 'CPSP218L', 'CPSP219L', 'BSCI338T', 'BSCI329', 'BIOL701', 'BSCI105M', 'EXST155'], 'average_rating': 3.4583, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': None, 'review': 'Wow. Its like drinking out of a fire hose! Seriously. You get bombarded gallons of information at a time. Make sure you keep up after every lecture like he tells you. He is a great person in character though. funny as hell.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-02-04T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'The class is not too challenging, an easy A. I took this class while working as a postbac at NIH, where he works as a counselor. While he behaves pleasantly in front of a large class, he is a different character when serving as a counselor. He treated me very poorly there. Without offering any constructive criticism, he simply judged my career goals and even my hobbies. I thought his attitude was very unprofessional and abrasive. He made sarcastic sneers about certain hobbies I have, and I just could not believe how unfriendly the atmosphere was. When I spoke to a coworker who had also sought "Dr" Higgins\' advice, he said he also had a negative experience. Beware of the types who are friendly when under public eye, but hostile in private "counseling" sessions...', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-09-21T16:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "I have never written a review for a professor but I pretty much had to for Professor Higgins. Ya it's a tough class but he is very generous with giving points back on exams and giving the class extra credit, not to mention he curves on top of that (I think for our semester an A was an 87%). He's also always willing to help you outside of class or his office hours if you need it. He definitely lives up to his reputation.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-05-23T23:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "This is a challenging course, because there are a lot of small details to be understood and memorized. Dr. Higgins is really helpful, especially if you go to his office hrs. Don't feel intimidated, because if you go to him a couple of times and ask good questions, then you will find him to be pleasant guy to talk to. He has been teaching this for ages, so he knows the stuff like the back of his hand. He goes super FAST! If you do not keep up then studying for exams would be stressful. For our semester, 87% was the B+/A- boundary, but then he also awards bonuses (for class and charity participation, etc), and we got 18 pts, so 85.2% was an A-, which is doable if you work hard and actually understand the main concepts!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-19T21:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HIGGINS! I\'ve heard this course is difficult no matter which professor you get because it\'s a "weed out" class. However, Higgins made it extremely difficult. This class was my only 100 level class but required the most work BY FAR. Unless you\'re really into biology, this course is going to be a struggle for you. I just needed it for my major so I thought it wouldn\'t be so hard since almost everyone has to take it and I used to like bio in high school... I thought wrong.\n\r\nI definitely thought I was going to receive an \'F\' in the class because I fell so far behind and was too scared to ask for help because Higgins is so intimidating and my TA, Sara Rowland, was not very helpful. But thank God for the curve because I got a \'D\' as my final grade. I needed a \'C\' for my major but hey, I\'m just glad I didn\'t fail! I got one \'D\' and three \'F\'s on the other exams so I have NO idea how I passed.\n\r\nUnfortunately, since I didn\'t get the \'C\' I needed in the class, I still need a bio course but there is no way in hell I\'d be able to retake the class without going insane. So instead I\'m taking BSCI106 this semester because I heard it\'s not as in depth as 105. I\'m hoping what I heard is right because I cannot take another semester of hell.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-01-07T23:41:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Amazing teacher. People don't like him because he has a good sense of humor. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-07-29T20:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He's the man. His haters need to lighten up. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-19T03:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'I thought Professor Higgins was great. I took 207 last spring with him and Professor Kent. I really enjoyed the way he taught the class. He was very engaging during lectures and he would always point out important concepts that would show up on the tests. Tests were multiple-multiple choice and were definitely challenging. If you decide to take Higgins, make sure you always go to lecture! Like others have said, a majority of the test material stems from his own words and NOT the powerpoint slides. I do understand how some people perceive his personality as "rude", as he can come off that way sometimes. But, I think it\'s just his sense of humor and as long as you aren\'t emotionally-unstable or have incredibly low self-esteem, you should be fine. In all honesty, I feel like I learned a lot from this class and from his teaching. BSCI207 is designed to filter out people, so it\'s going to be hard regardless of who you take. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-13T23:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I found Prof. Higgins to be a very rude person. On the message board, he would answer students in a very nasty manner that I though was completely unnecessary. A lot of material is covered in this class, and I think Higgins does a decent job at explaining it all. I didn't think his exams were very fair; there would be multiple questions on topics that weren't covered whatsoever. I would recommend taking 207 with another teacher if possible.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-10T14:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "He's a decent lecturer, unfortunately he caters to one learning style. I personally have difficultly listening and writing notes as fast as he talks, eventually I had to give up on notes because I would miss half the class writing the notes. It would be best to put words on the slide, but for some reason that was not his style.\n\r\nI expected a C at best because I didn't do well on the tests (D, F, C, Final exam F) but apparently failing is passing? because I got a B in the class. He'll never tell the average (probably because it's so low) but just study and you'll pass. But to be completely honest by the time the final exam rolled by I had no clue what to study that I barely did. He gave out no practice exam and left you wondering what the 80 multiple choice final would be on.\n\r\nHe's also very intimidating. And I liked him until he 'anonymously' made fun on me in class, no one else know who he was making fun of but I did.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-22T18:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Higgins class is hard because its all about concepts. You can not just memorize the slides and expect to do well in the class, you have to understand it. You also have to go to class because for most lectures the power points are mostly filled with graphs and pictures. \n\r\nOverall I think Higgins is a good teacher because he does not read from the slides and actually explain stuff really well. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'I had this class with HIggins/Haag/Carleton. I like Higgins, but the class is hard. Haag was the easiest of the three. Higgins is a cool guy but the class is a lot of work. The tests are really specific based on the lecture, so go to class. Reading the book helps a little bit too.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-20T15:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "Don't let these statistics fool you- Higgins is the BETTER professor. He works at NIH as well and his class is the class to take if you're interested in pre-med / taking the MCAT's. He's taught many of the medical professionals in state. He's really got his lecture down to a science and doesn't ramble- I HATE powerpoints but his lectures were enjoyable and got my interest more than most of my other classes. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-09-01T11:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Let me start by saying that Dr. Higgins is one of my favorite biology professors on campus. \n\r\nI had 207 with him and Dr. Kent. For a 200-lv bio class, it is difficult. Make sure you understand everything on the lectures because that is what you will be tested on. Although he might be intimidating at first, Dr. H really wants you to do well and is very receptive of questions. He is funny and really makes you understand the material. Also, he often drops major hints for exams during lectures so ALWAYS go. I dont even think an A is possible without attending class. A lot of people complain about 207. I actually found it to be very enjoyable. \n\r\nSince I seem to click with his teaching style, I ended up having 440 with Dr. H as well. This was my favorite bio class, hands down. The reason being that the material is very interesting. Class starts with the nervous system, then move on to cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, and ends with digestive. This is the kind of cool stuff that you will learn in med school. Additionally, he really stressed the pharmacology aspect of the course. So expect to understand how different drugs interact across multiple systems. He love up/downs and graphs on exams. Major concepts that he repeats will almost always show up later. This class is not easy but put in the work and you'll be fine. \n\r\nIf you want to enjoy lectures and really learn bio, go with Dr. Higgins. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-07-11T02:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'well this is a lot harder of a class, than i expected. I thought it was going to be a breeze like bsci 106. Make sure yo form a study group or else it will be hard to study well. His exams made you apply knowledge and not just memorize it. Hard class with no study group. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-19T19:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Higgins teaches based off of powerpoints. You can expect that the tests will be based mainly off of lecture powerpoints. However, he skips over slides that contain content that will be on the exams. He likes to do class demonstrations (involving guys holding hands) and tries to interact with the class so he does a great job at keeping everyone awake.\n\r\nThere's a lot of content, so DON'T FALL BEHIND. It'll be a hell of a time catching up. Ask a lot of questions, study as you go, and you should be okay\n\r\nHe has a slight curve at the end of the year. I thought I would end up with an 87 or so, but I got an A. You can also get a few bonus points for filling out the same survey both at the beginning AND at the end of the year.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-19T15:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Higgins is easy, but you cant be a retard if you take his class, go to lecture he will tell you everything that will be on the exam. the reason people dont like him is because he forces you to think and apply concepts, 207 was a course designed to make kids do that. i think hes the best teacher at the university (or that i have had so far) would gladly take his class again. he maybe a little pompous but hes also a funny and nice guy. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-05-03T01:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Depending on your background, Bio III isn't THAT hard. If you've taken Bio II at college, you don't really learn much in this class. It's organized to emphasize on the little details that may have been overlooked in Bio I/II. Interesting, but useless. \n\r\nDr. Higgins is definitely not approachable, but I don't mean that he's a monster. Just bad dad. He'll teach you what you need to know in way that makes you want to hate him. He seems to care about his students, but doesn't like to show it. He hints at test questions and test you on them. So, his test are pretty straightforward. Whatever he repeats in class about, he'll test you on. But you'll have to study somewhat. \n\r\nClass test average: C. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-04-23T15:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Let me start by saying that this is an extremely difficult course! But it can be managed IF and only IF you take the necessary steps to prepare yourself and succeed. The exams for the Higgins/Kent class are mostly multiple choice and True/False with some short answer Q's. As someone who sucks at multiple choice exams, this class was hell...I'm telling you RIGHT NOW, if you must take this class:\n\r\n1. You MUST go to lecture. Don't think you can just rely on the slides posted online. They are often lots of pictures for which you needed to be in class to understand what the significance of them or explanation was. Plus, he often says plainly what will be on the exams and/or what to completely ignore.\n\r\n2. Grab a few classmates and form a study group IMMEDIATELY. This is coming from someone who has historically resisted doing the study group thing. For this class, it's an absolute necessity.\n\r\n3. The textbook IS kind of helpful to solidify concepts, but I wouldn't say the tests are based on the book as much as what is covered in lecture! In other words, they don't follow the textbook, exactly, it's used as more of a reference book.\n\r\n4. Take advantage of one-on-one time with the professors (or when there's only a few students). For example they offered to meet with students in the stamp food court an hour before class to answer questions/go over material. When I went I found it helpful because it was a couple days before an exam, and he gave me some points to focus on. Those things ended up making up a significant amount of points on the exam. They are there to help you. Use them!\n\n\r\nLots of these suggestions seem kind of inconvenient and maybe even annoying to have to do to do well in this class. Trust me. I know. But the fact is, you're gonna be much better off and a lot less stressed. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR and listen to me. I beg you.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B?', 'created': '2011-04-18T19:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'I did not expect BSCI105 to be this hard. But with Higgins, it is. He puts up powerpoints before lecture so you can take notes on. He tends to skip a few slides each lecture and sometimes he moves really fast. But if you ask questions he will thoroughly answer them for you. He is always available during office hours...which I didnt go to. A lot of people had bad things to say about Higgins b/c his tests were so damn hard. No multiple choice (except for the final exam which was cumulative) and many graphs and charts needed to be interpreted. GSS review sessions helped a lot. Lab wasnt that bad, pretty easy. Just do what the TA tells you to do and you should be good to go. Overall, rigorous class which moves fast. I recommend going to lecture and then supplementing class notes with the textbook in order to clarify certain topics. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-02-02T01:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "BSCI207 is an extremely hard course and not many science majors are aware of how hard it actually is until they take it. I can honestly say this class is far worse than Orgo I because it was taught by Higgins.\n\r\nHiggins is a great man and is an excellent professor who gives the VERY BEST examples. HOWEVER, his exams are IMPOSSIBLE and he is not very helpful. The only time Higgins will be available to help is via blackboard and the five mins after class because I swear this man does not believe in office hours. I put my life into this class, formed a study group, and went to office hours almost every week. I received a 59% on the final and broke down into tears because I could of sworn I was going to fail. He makes you believe you are failing the whole entire semester and when he curves, you dont know whether to send him a thank u card or curse him. \n\r\nDr. Jeffrey cotaught this class and while he is boring, he does try to be funny. Honestly, I liked Dr. Jeffrey way better because his material was proportional to what was given on the exams.\n\r\nIf you have to take this class with Higgins and Jeffrey coteaches, make sure you secure an A with Jeffrey's exams and try your very best with Higgins.\n", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-01-17T01:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "The only reason I will not give Dr. Higgins 5 stars is becuase we are both super stubborn and stubborn people buck heads like rams. \r\nDr. Higgins is a phenominal lecuturer and does not make heavy use of the textbook. He puts his lectures online and if you go to class those lectures make perfect sense. A lot of my class did not do so hot simply because they did not attend lecture. NEVER miss lecture even if you are hung over from Thursday night. I have never learned so much in a biology course as I have his and I recommend him to anyone who is willing to put in the time to learn. If not take an someone who doesn't care. Here is my top five bits of advice.\r\n1. Go to lecture\r\n2. Be that annoying kid who asks questions during class\r\n3. Go to GSS. It's a lot of material \r\n4. DO NOT FALL BEHIND. Review notes everyday. Don't look at the picutres and say cool beans, but make sure you understand what is going on, on each slide.\r\n5. Don't get on his bad side you will both cry.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-05T13:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Professor Higgins is an absolutely horrible teacher and his class was a miserable experience. I have never been so fed up with and disappointed with a professor's attitude and teaching style. He does not care about his students and it shows in his lectures and exams. First of all, his lectures and PowerPoints are a complete joke. On average they are 60 slides long (as opposed to 12-15 that Prof. Jeffrey used to convey equal information) and are cluttered with useless pictures, duplicate slides, and information that just make learning the material harder. The lectures are rife with spelling mistakes and contradictions and I even had a lecture that included final exam information for a class he had taught years ago. It just shows how careless he is in preparing for class and how little he refines his lectures year to year. What bothered me the most however, was his tendency to jump back and forth from slide to slide during class. I recorded many of his lectures and used them to study for exams and when he did this, my notes would not match up with his PowerPoints and this was extremely frustrating.\n\r\nAside from his poor lectures, he came off as very crass, brash, and unapproachable. Some students may enjoy his sense of humor but I thought it got in the way of his teaching and was sick of him within a few classes. \n\r\nHis exams were noticeably harder than his co-teacher's (Dr. Jeffrey). They required us to know the material and apply it at a level we never went over in class. They were poorly written and averages were very low. Had it not been for Jeffrey's tests, I doubt I would've gotten an A in this class.\n\r\nI strongly discourage anyone from taking this class with Higgins. Expect to be confused by his lectures and read a whole lot from the book. I'm glad I got out of this class with an A and never have to take a class with this man again.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-21T12:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "I got a C,D,A, and a C on my exams respectively. Although I thought that I was getting a B-, I ended up with an A. You have to put in considerable effort in the class. I attended every review sessions. Make sure you have Amanda Murti as a TA. \n\r\nFrom what I have heard, Nelson and Benson, the other BSCI teachers are terrible. Make sure you have Higgins if you want to learn the material and a challenge. It's all about putting effort in. It's possible to get an A. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-18T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': 'Pompous? Yes. Critical? Yes. Cranky? Oh yeah. Knowledgeable? Yes. Challenging? Definitely. Only take this class if you are ready for a tough class you will have to devote a decent amount of time to (weekly GSS sessions). But if youre ready for that, grind it out, go to class, and you might get an A with the extra points he gives out. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-17T04:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He is a horrible, horrible man! He does not give you any help, his exams are poorly written, he is ignorant and doesn't care about your grade. I went to all of the review sessions, did all of the practice questions,went to all of the classes and sucked the living life out of my T.As with all of my questions and even that . .wasn't enough to earn a decent grade. The basic thing, he wants you to read his mind . .plain and simple.At the end of the day . .he's not available and he does not care a damn about you. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-11T21:13:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI105', 'review': "is extremely intelligent in the field of biology but is extremely difficult. I would not recommend taking this class especially as a intro bio course. He does not prepare you for the exams at all and everything it short answer and drawings. He does give you 60 extra credit points by taking online quizzes which is plus and is willing to give a curve even if he says he doesn't. this class is a FULL TIME job. i recommend going to every review offered if you do end up taking this class. but overall way to much work and exams are extremely unfair theres no point in studying he will trick you and put question on the exam he never mentioned in class. also for exam questions don't focus on the main points look for the small points. if he emphasizes that something will be on the exam and tells you to study it..dont study it..he puts the exact opposite..overall difficult professor but a nice guy", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-12-03T20:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "Most of what the previous reviewers have said is correct about the class. Dr. Higgins speaks too fast, skips slides, very critical. However, he IS very helpful. If you go to his office hours, or write questions on the discussion board, he is sure to answer then or direct you to the place in the text where you can find the answers. His tests are challenging b/c there isn't much partial credit. \r\n An annoying thing about the tests is that there are always mistakes on the practice tests and practice answer keys. So two exact questions have different answers, and it is hard to decipher which one is the correct answer. The TAs are not helpful either. Make sure you check your tests after you get them back. The reason is that the keys might be wrong too. \r\n The one boring part of this course is the part that is taught by Dr. Araneda. He lectures from the back of the room, so people in the front cannot hear him. He spends an entire lecture focusing on one slide, and expects you to know the rest. The tests written by him are confusing. But reading the book and looking at the CD for Araneda helps a whole bunch. For Higgins, GO TO CLASS!!!! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-27T12:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Let me start by saying this, this class is a lot of material, and a lot of it comes from all over the place. Higgins does mostly the physiology, and Kent does the Nature/environmental stuff. I personally didn't like the structure of the course too much, and I feel like it shouldn't be a pre-requisite for bio majors(Anantomy would be much more useful).\n\r\n Their grading system was a bit odd, but from what I heard around the class if you had something around an 85, you got an A, if you had above a 76 or 77 you had a B, and then I'm not sure what the C and D marks were.\n\r\nOverall, I thought they both did the best they could with the structure of the 207 course, and provided students with enough material to go over to do well enough on the exams. It wasn't a nightmare but it wasn't a walk in the park either. If you study, you should be ok.\n\n\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-05-20T20:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Yes, Higgins is pompous and rude and arrogant and makes you feel like an idiot. But, after spending a semester with him, the thing I dislike most about him is his disinterest in students. He arrives late to class, he ignores student emails, he avoids opportunities to actually discuss issues with students, and he is not sympathetic to their problems. You might enjoy the lecture, but all the learning has to be done on your own - prepare to spend your life on this class or take someone else for BSCI4440.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-05-19T17:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Higgins is a really great lecturer and he makes class pretty interesting. In the beginning I was enjoying class and thinking that biology was pretty neat...then I took his and Kent's exams...\n\r\nI just wish that there were other grades like assignments and stuff or at least a curve. :( \n\r\nIf you want an A, go to office hours as much as possible, even if you think you understand the stuff, because you might not. I wish I did. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '??', 'created': '2010-05-16T22:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He's a great lecturer if you participate in class. However, he makes it a point to make simple topics extremely difficult. If you take this class, be prepared to put in more time and effort that any Biology class you have before. This class was ridiculous- and I honestly hated going. His exams are really tough. Put effort into the class and you will do fine. Otherwise plan on struggling the entire time. The class is full-time job. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-27T22:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Alright, so, yes, Higgins is a hard professor. But he is also one of the best lecturers I have ever had. I really enjoyed going to lecture and learning (that's another thing- YOU HAVE to GO to lecture, you can't just listen to them or go off of his notes). The material he teaches is really interesting and he tells you in class what you do and don't need to know on his exams. He is only intimidating if you make him intimidating. You can tell he loves teaching-- and he's really good at it. But he can be pretty arrogant- but that's only because he's insanely smart and has really established himself as a research biologist. If you study hard for his exams, you will do well. If you don't- you will miserably fail. But, if you're not into studying, my advice is to get out of Bio now while you can.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-04-24T15:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Intimidating person. Not very helpful. Sometimes funny. Makes you feel stupid and worthless all the time. He will have a ppt slide up and then talk for twenty minutes about things that are on the next two slides. Then he\'ll skip the next two slides because he had already talked about them, so you\'ll never "see" what hes talking about...\n\r\nexams...yuck\r\nmostly increase and decrease...if A increased what would happen to B...if B happened...what would happen to D...\r\nhard matching questions\r\nGRAPHS!! he loves graphs...he\'ll ask you to draw a graph that describes a relationship for 12 points (no partial credits of course). and theyre not easy graphs.\n\r\nhe won\'t tell you that he is curving so he leads you to believe that you are getting a C for the entire semester until you get your final grade...so at that point you dont know if you should thank him for giving you a B or hate him for making you stress out all semester.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-03-05T18:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Very pompous and rude. Full of himself. Yells at you instead of actually teaching. The course material is already a little difficult to master, and he does not do a good job of teaching it and frankly makes it harder to learn. Do not reccommend him as a professor, but I did learn a lot from the textbook and lab.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-02-07T00:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Very full of himself. However, he seems pretty knowledgable on the subject. BSCI207 kind of sucks no matter what teacher you have. They way they set up the classes is very strange. Not organized at all really. Cant really study from lectures either. In lecture they just keep giving various facts and you are expected to just remember them.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-10-14T17:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He can be pretty intimidating and elitist since he's been teaching at umd for something like 30 years... however, he really is a great professor and even though this class was incredibly hard, he made the lectures really interesting and was very energetic (even if he does tell stupid jokes) while teaching. Sometimes, he would drop really obvious hints about exam questions.\n\r\nEven though he and Kent posted their lectures online, you MUST go to class. Most of his slides are pictures and equations, so you need to be there to take notes. The book is useful for background, but 80% of the exam is stuff from lecture. \n\r\nLike someone said already, he likes to put calculations and graphs on his exams. There was a lot of multiple choice on the midterms (~50 MC, then like 4 short answers at the end), and the final was 150 MC. \n\r\nBasically, if you have to take this class, do it with Higgins. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-22T02:59:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "i actually enjoyed this class very much. dr. higgins is quite enthusiastic and VERY knowledgeable since he is the mamm phys professor as well, so he knows his stuff; and from years of experience he knows how to keep students engaged and the materials memorable. exams are indeed difficult, but that in a way is a strength of his teaching. easy exams don't test you on what you know, it's the difficult ones that you benefit from. people just complain about him cause they don't work hard and expect good grades.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-19T01:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Higgins in a nutshell: Great teacher when it comes to material; a little condescending but usually in good taste and funny; Tests are HARD but doable with adequate studying; MUST attend lecture, there is no substitute even though power points are posted. If you want a class where you learn a lot and don't mind studying, this is your guy for it. Expect a B to a C with adequate studying, A if you work.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-01T08:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Higgins is energetic and makes it hard for you to fall asleep in class, which is good; however he also tries to artificially make the class harder than it has to be by having some trick questions and things like that.\n\r\nOn the other hand in some way or another he ends up telling you exactly what will be on each exam (if you go to all the lectures). \n\r\nI recommend him.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-04-14T03:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He's funny and can be entertaining but don't let that fool you, his tests are extremely and just ridiculous. you'll never be prepared for them.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2009-04-04T18:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': "Higgins is a great lecturer. He really makes you understand the material and is good at explaining difficult concepts. He really prepares you well if you are willing to put in time to learn the material. His lectures are entertaining and his class demonstrations keeps everyone awake. However, he's been teaching mamm phys for 30+ years and he lets you know. He likes to talk about himself and about all the current doctors, deans, and professors who have been his student at some point in time. If you want to learn, take Higgins..he knows his stuff! ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-21T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "He covers A LOT of material at a fast pace, but manages to make you understand it. He knows his subject well and expects you to by the end of class. It takes a lot of work and studying, but you should do fine if you've attended lecture and taken notes (and studied in advance!).\r\nHe's also very funny and a little bit insane ...and as much as I complained during the semester, I feel a void this year without him teaching me.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-15T01:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "I got an A, but not without hard work. You can't really study for the tests the night before, you have to start early and really make sure you understand the material. Higgins is a good and entertaining lecturer, but sometimes he can move fast and be unclear. Make sure you ask questions, he will always go back and answer them. Must attend lecture, his lecture outlines are full of pictures, not words, so you must take extra notes. He loves graphs and calculations for his exam questions, and in class he gives heavy hints on what those questions will be, or he flat out tells you.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-22T14:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Very interesting lecturer. He takes lots of quick breaks for jokes or witty comments, and seems to know what sort of teaching style engages college students. Despite his humor, he is a very good teacher. You must attend lecture because there is more to class than what's on the slides. Very receptive to questions, especially if they don't take lecture time.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-03-16T12:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Exams are difficult. Likes to use graphs and tricky questions. Lectures are engaging but he can be very condescending at times. Must attend lecture: his exams are derived from lecture not textbook.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-01-19T00:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI440', 'review': 'Engaging lecturer who knows how to keep a class of around 200 awake at 8 am. He explains everything very clearly. His exams are doable, although difficult, as they require that you thoroughly understand the relationships, cascades, and pathways. One drawback about him is just that he is pretty pompous and elitist.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2007-10-21T15:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Higgins', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Dynamic, interesting lecturer. Really cares about he subject and makes it comprehensible. Will keep you awake no matter how early you take his class. \r\nExams are objective, very few short-answers, primarily matching, definitions, etc. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-21T00:03:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Higgins', 'slug': 'higgins_william'}, {'courses': ['PSYC798V', 'PSYC610', 'PSYC798D', 'PSYC489R', 'PSYC764', 'PSYC489H', 'PSYC489O', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'PSYC468H'], 'average_rating': 3.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Hodos', 'course': None, 'review': 'Hodos is a very nice guy. He\'s quite funny, and he clearly enjoys teaching. The class is very straight-forward: read the book, come to class, watch a power point, wash, rinse and repeat with two exams in the middle. I fell asleep during his class with relative frequency, but when I managed to stay awake they were generally fairly interesting. He mostly reads right off of the PowerPoint, but from time to time gives an interesting fact. He\'s very helpful if you ask him a question, and he even devotes an entire class at the beginning of the semester to psychologically-designed study skills.\n\r\nExams are fairly easy (in PSYC100H, anyway). You have a collction of short answer questions (he gives you fifteen to twenty vocab words and you define eight to ten, with an example for each) and a choice of one of two essays to write. The tests are almost strictly from the book; the short answers are from the vocab in the margins, and the essays are from the chapter/section summaries. He even goes as far as to take off points if you fail to use "enough" answers from the book. This means that coming to class isn\'t necessary if you\'re just trying to pass the class, provided you\'re willing to spend a LOT of time going over the book. (I missed the majority of the classes, and he didn\'t notice.) Of course, being straight from the book doesn\'t make them EASY, but it\'s not too bad. The only assignments in the class are two exams and one final.\n\r\nI\'d recommend Hodos, but if you can I\'d try to get a class later in the day because I fell asleep in that class pretty frequently. =P', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-11-07T21:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Hodos', 'course': None, 'review': 'Being an honors class, the class was small and promted small discussions during some lectures. Other than that, mostly just lecturing from a powerpoint. Lecture was pretty interesting; Hodos was able to present the material well and make it easy to understand. He also seems to really enjoy teaching and was always friendly to students.\n\r\nOur exams were all short (1 paragraph) anwers and essays. The short answers were based on all the vocabulary words from the book (all the words from the glossery); he would pick perhaps 8 words and you would have to define 6 of them. This was the only thing that was difficult since there were so many voab words, especially for the final.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-05T17:54:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Hodos', 'slug': 'hodos'}, {'courses': ['CHEM131', 'CHEM231', 'CHEM131S'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Hollinsed', 'slug': 'hollinsed'}, {'courses': ['COMM107', 'COMM200', 'COMM330'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Howell', 'slug': 'howell_william'}, {'courses': ['LING322', 'NACS728Y', 'LING621', 'NACS645', 'LING320', 'LING819B', 'LING888', 'LING321', 'LING888', 'LING320', 'LING888', 'ARHU299D', 'LING888', 'LING320', 'LING888'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Idsardi', 'course': 'LING322', 'review': "Professor Idsardi really knows what he's doing. His lectures are in-depth and informative, with plenty of examples to demonstrate what he's talking about. The homework, which is fairly regular until the end of the course, is quite reasonable, and the tests focus on the central theme of each unit without incorporating side topis or requiring information from the other units.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2012-06-04T14:33:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Idsardi', 'course': 'LING321', 'review': 'He is very knowledgable about course material and explains things well. His tests are fair and relevant to the material we learned in that unit.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-19T18:02:26Z'}], 'name': 'William Idsardi', 'slug': 'idsardi'}, {'courses': ['BSCI430', 'BSCI370', 'BSCI338O', 'BIOL615', 'BSCI339E', 'BSCI430', 'BSCI338O', 'BSCI430'], 'average_rating': 3.2222, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Jeffery', 'course': 'BSCI430', 'review': 'I gave him 2 stars only because of the lenient grading system as mentioned below, but in terms of everything else he is one of the worst bio professors I have had. \n\r\nI second the review on 7/31. I am not a big fan of his lecturing style. He includes very few slides and very few information on the slides. Therefore in order to do well, you need to either be an excellent note taker or record lectures. I started recording lectures and did very well after doing so. In addition, Dr. Jeffrey\'s tests are not that fair. He asks you questions on things that he doesn\'t even cover in class, nor are they in the book. His tests are definitely more "application" based as opposed to pure memorization. Lectures are a total snoozefest, and he likes to diverge onto unrelated topics, making them tough to follow and tough to know what is important. The nice thing is that there are no outside assignments and your grade on the tests is your grade in the class, so the workload is not that bad. One thing I can\'t stand is that Dr. Jeffrey seems like he doesn\'t care about teaching and doesn\'t seem to put much effort into it. He says that if you want help, that you first need to see the TA before you see him. He also makes the TA in charge of regrades.\n\r\nLong story short, don\'t take this class. It also doesn\'t seem to be that useful for medical school since most of the time he spends talking about other animals instead of human development. Your better off taking something else. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-07T15:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Jeffery', 'course': 'BSCI430', 'review': 'I disagree with the previous reviewer that this is a "laid back" course. The grading scheme is definitely helpful but you must have really great notes to study for tests in this class, so you have to either listen in class or record and listen later. There\'s a ton of material he goes over so be prepared to study a lot. Although I really didn\'t like Dr. Jeffery\'s testing style, his lectures are clear and organized so that helps.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2014-07-31T09:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Jeffery', 'course': 'BSCI430', 'review': "If you're looking for a laid back upper-level course that will expand on BSCI330 and BSCI440, take this class. Dr. Jeffery is both brilliant and humble. The course material is straightforward and is mostly explained in the slides, so it's okay if you space out during lecture (I did quite a bit). He teaches through videos and experiments, which really illustrates the concepts well. One of the best parts of this class is the grading scheme: you can use either all three midterms, one midterm and the final, or just the final as your grade. Any bio class with a no-final option is a great class in my book!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-05-02T14:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Jeffery', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Jeffery is pretty straight-foward. His teaching style is very like high school; it is all powerpoint and reading off it. He is pretty monotone, but is interested in the subject. \r\nThe class covers much of what AP Bio did in high school but a little more in depth. The thing is, the exams are pretty specific. Examples that he goes through in class shows up on the exam. I put little effort and got a B.\r\nI personally don't think 207 should be pre-req/requirement for the bio major. But if you have a choice, Jeffery is a good choice considering the other professors.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-06-08T18:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Jeffery', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "His lectures aren't the most exciting things in the world but if you enjoy biology then you shouldn't have a problem paying attention. He really knows his stuff! I agree with the person that said to record lectures. I think it would help if you're like me and let your mind wander during lecture. His exams are fair considering other teachers make this course impossibly difficult. I would take him again if I had the opportunity later on in my other classes.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-01-04T17:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Jeffery', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'He is not the most exciting teacher, but he talks in a slow pace which makes the lectures easier to understand. Concepts are explained really well. The lecture slides are organized. He does not give sample exams that are similar to the actual exams, but rather practice questions. Exams are not too difficult though. There are no clicker questions or homework in this class, but everyone is expected to review the power points and read the book to stay on track. It is extremely helpful to buy a recorder and record the lectures and listen to them later along with the power points for review.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-12-09T15:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Jeffery', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Lectures are boring, but the material is really interesting, and he does know what he is talking about. There is a lot he does not put on the powerpoints that he just talks about, so you have to pay attention anyway. His tests were fair, and drew mostly from the lectures. Reading the book wasn't necessary, but still helpful.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-10-21T19:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Jeffery', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': "Lectures are soooo boring. He will put you to sleep. Uses Power Point and puts slides online after class. Exams aren't too bad if you know his lectures.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-03T18:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Jeffery', 'course': 'BSCI207', 'review': 'Snoooozefest. \r\nIncredibly monotonous and relies tremendously on slides. Awfully boring lecturer, but on the plus side has really objective exams that are not insanely difficult. ', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-10-21T00:01:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Jeffery', 'slug': 'jeffery_william'}, {'courses': ['FMSC290', 'FMSC341', 'EXST030', 'FMSC341', 'FMSC341', 'FMSC341'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Knight', 'slug': 'knight_william'}, {'courses': ['ENTM667', 'BSCI467', 'ENTM798W', 'ENTM798G', 'ENTM798D', 'BISI799', 'BISI899', 'ENTM735', 'HONR208D', 'ENTM798L'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Lamp', 'course': 'BSCI467', 'review': "This is a fun 4 credit lab/lecture course. Lamp is the man. Take this class when it is offered in the Fall. The class has some strict rules like no phones or laptops but he has pretty basic powerpoints and the exams and assignments each week are super easy... The class reminds me of a high school science class. Lots of busy work that can be completed. The TA for lab, Ellie, is amazing. Love her too. She was also my BSCI106 TA so if you enjoyed her for that lab you will like this lab. The insects we deal with are also kind of cool to look at. I highly recommend this course. Some of our assignments include photographs of different wetlands and streams we visit during the semester, a lab practical where we identify different bugs based on order, and the midterm is highly recycled material. My class created a google doc to study from which was super helpful, and the exam average was an 84%. Almost everyone can get an A in this class if you try. Lamp is a very reasonable man and he just expects you to show up to class and pay attention/participate, which shouldn't be hard. We also have Science Fridays where we watch an interesting video or two sometimes relating to dinosaurs or current news about droughts and water towers and we watched a cool video that showed close-ups of how some insects swim around in streams and rivers. The class is the most interesting one of my biology career and I wish every biology major could take this course. I loved it! You will too!! Just... don't get on Lamp's bad side. Turn in homework when he asks it to be due, show up to class on time ready to learn, and don't let your phone or laptop go off in class. We also had a project where we presented different sustainability issues going on in the USA in groups of 5. That was also an easy A and he just wants you to be enthusiastic about your topic. Great class overall. 5 or more stars. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-10-29T06:30:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Lamp', 'course': 'BSCI467', 'review': 'This class is NOT as chill as the person below said. It actually requires a good amount effort (it was my hardest class when I took it). The material itself is interesting, and Lamp is a good lecturer. However, the course is tough in terms of being able to memorize and identify by sight a bunch of insecta orders. The labs are enjoyable when you are doing the Field Trips. But after the 4th lab (last field trip), you spend the rest of the labs identifying all the insecta you caught. It is a very tedious course and is NOT as easy as it is supposed to be. I did really well but had to work for it.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-03T00:22:29Z'}], 'name': 'William Lamp', 'slug': 'lamp'}, {'courses': ['ENEE461', 'ENPM808M', 'ENPM662', 'ENME461', 'ENEE488', 'ENEE469R', 'EDSP652', 'ENEE467', 'ENEE461', 'ENME461', 'ENEE467'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Levine', 'course': 'ENEE461', 'review': "Not very fair as a grader. I lost a lot of points on lab reports for not including graphs that were not explicitly asked for in the lab manual, and they were not obviously supposed to be included. As a professor he's alright, but I learned a lot more from simply doing the labs and asking the lab tech Jay Renner for explanations. \n\r\nThe labs are challenging and interesting, but the reports should absolutely be more explicit on what they want from you in the first place.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2015-05-10T21:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Levine', 'course': 'ENEE661', 'review': 'Along with Blankenship, the only other prof who teaches from the engineering perspective (as opposed to the applied math perspective). Clear lectures; strongly encourages you to ask questions in class (never makes you feel like a doofus for asking anything). No nasty surprises on the exams.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-10-11T10:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Levine', 'course': 'ENME461', 'review': 'Great professor. You will learn a lot if you attend lectures (which are sort of optional because all the stuff that you need to know for labs is in lab assignments). Labs are interesting and are not difficult. You will learn how to use Simulink (which is part of Matlab). ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-21T16:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Levine', 'course': 'ENEE467', 'review': 'His lectures were not very engaging, and the course assignments were kind of rough around the edges (since this was the first semester the class was taught), but generally Prof. Levine is a nice guy, very helpful, and I ended up learning a lot from the labs in this class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-01-22T04:59:40.909714Z'}], 'name': 'William Levine', 'slug': 'levine_william'}, {'courses': ['PUAF689A', 'PLCY689A', 'BUSI758A', 'ENSE698J', 'ENME809F', 'PLCY798J', 'PLCY689A', 'PLCY689A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Lucyshyn', 'slug': 'lucyshyn'}, {'courses': ['BMGT380H', 'BMGT381', 'BMGT380', 'BUSI764', 'BMGT496', 'BMGT380N', 'BUSI758O'], 'average_rating': 4.125, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'Honestly, I rarely ever write these reviews, except to warn students never to take a certain professor. But, I want to write one for McClenahan because although he comes off as a rather grumpy old man, he is a great professor. \n\r\nYou need a rather thick skin to enjoy his class, because he doesn’t sugarcoat anything and he will call you out for wrong answers, annoying habits (NEVER sniff or blow your nose infront of him), and not doing the reading. That being said, he is a great teacher that explains everything very well. His tests are fair. They are not overly easy or overly difficult. He gives a generous curve and explains it in great detail. He gives practice exams and will help you prepare for the exams. Also, none of the test are cumulative so you only have to focus on current material. And, your allowed cheat sheets and he gives hints of what to put on them.\n\r\nI recommend you take McClenahan’s class and participate in it. Not only will you get a good grade, but you will actually learn and RETAIN a lot, which is more than I can say about most of my other classes. He makes it interesting with the cases and you’ll get to learn all about his collection of ex-wives by the end of the class too!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-08-13T22:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "After the first day of class with McClenahan, I wanted to drop the course. He comes off as intimidating and makes it seems as if he'll be very strict and require a lot of time. Don't let the first day scare you off. McClenahan is one of the best professors I've had at Smith and this class is probably the most useful one I've taken just because of how much I learned because of how he teaches.\n\r\nI assume most of the people who give him bad reviews are the ones that don't want to do anything in his class and get bad grades because of it (I get it, I want to do as little work as possible, too) but he's really accommodating if you ever go to him with a question or problem. He knows what he's talking about and makes it interesting. Overall, he's sarcastic and takes no shit but as long as you're not incompetent then he's not nearly as intimidating as he seems.\n\r\nGrade is 3 tests and participation. He drops a lot of hints in class about what's on the tests and you can have a cheat sheet. You can read the book and do fine on the tests, but he tells stories in class that help you understand stuff. His tests are also different (shorter but more comprehensive) than the other two BLaw professors'. Participation is really just being there for group discussions and volunteering like twice to summarize a case in class. Not bad.\n\r\nYou have to take this class no matter what, so you might as well get something out of it. Take it with him.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-19T00:21:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT381', 'review': "Great professor - a little cranky but a genuinely nice person! He seems to love teaching this class and does a great job making the content interesting and relevant. He really wants his students to learn. Very strict on participation, and yes his exams are very difficult, but he knows that and curves accordingly. If you read the material and prepare cases, there's no reason you shouldn't get a good grade and learn a ton.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-12-16T16:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "I am currently in BMGT380 with Professor McClenahan. If you are looking into this class, it's probably because it is required for your major. What you don't know yet is that this class is one of the most helpful classes you will take during your time at the business school.\n\r\nThis is how the class was structured during Spring 2014, so there may be some deviation in the future but I can only speak to what I know. There are two midterms and one final exam. These make up the majority of your grade. There is also a participation portion and this makes up 10 percent of your final grade. The way he has the class structured is he assigns you a reading for each class. Some chapters he may discuss in one class, some he may discuss over a few classes. He has a good feel for what the students struggle with, having done this for some time, and spends more time on the really difficult subjects. The expectation is for you to come to lecture having read the material. Then the Professor lectures on the material and once he gets to a case, he asks someone to explain the facts. He may ask you a few questions on the case and then he moves on if nobody has any questions. Overall this is a great way to learn the material. \n\r\nYou may have heard stories about Professor McClenahan. I assure you he is one of the best Professors I have ever had. As others have pointed out, he does comes off as intimidating early in the semester, but as you move forward in the semester you get less intimidated and start to see just how good of a Professor he is. He actually wants you to learn and do well. If you ask him a question he is able to answer it even if the answer is a little murky as some areas of the law may be. Even though he has been teaching this class for a while now, he still does research for class, which I feel is rare for a Professor these days. I specifically remember a few instances where I would make a comment or ask a question during class and think nothing of it. But the next class, Professor McClenahan would come up to me before lecture started and tell me he looked into what I said and inform me of what he found. I found this amazing as it showed not only did he listen to our questions and comments and answer them; he then took time out of his day to find out more information and get back to us. \n\r\nOverall, if you are taking BMGT380, take it with McClenahan. It is a difficult class. He expects you to do the reading. His exams are tough. But if you put the work in, are engaged, and brief a few cases, there is no reason for you not to do well and you will certainly learn a great deal.\n", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-05-31T12:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT381', 'review': "I really really like professor McClenahan! I was a little intimidated at first, especially since i didn't have him for 380, but once I went to his office hours you can immediately see how nice he is and he does genuinely care about his students. I worked pretty hard in 381 and I got an A. I think its important to show effort in his class and he does cold call if no one volunteers cases. Overall, I got a lot out of the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-29T12:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT381', 'review': "McClenahan is definitely one of the better professors at Smith. Don't listen to any of the bad reviews for him (those students are most likely the ones who put little effort into his course and suffered as a result.)\n\r\nMcClenahan reads right from the textbook for class and never uses slides or handouts. While this may seem boring, attend class. He drops hints on specific topics being covered on exams and topics to ignore (this helps you a ton for studying because there is a decent amount of material for each exam.) Furthermore, you are graded on class participation (by briefing cases or adding to class discussions.) \n\r\nBottom line, if you put the effort into reading and attending class, you will put yourself in a great spot to earn a high grade. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-15T17:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT381', 'review': "I took McClenahan for BMGT381 fall semester 2012. He was pretty scary at first, but he was a good teacher who knows a lot about law, and he turned out to be a pretty lenient grader. The exams were tough, but there were generous curves. He taught straight out of the book, without any PowerPoints, so make sure to do all the chapter readings. He also doesn't like to use technology a lot. Overall, I thought I learned a lot from the course. McClenahan is a pretty old-school, interesting professor, which I think was a good experience for me at the Smith School.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-01-30T02:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380H', 'review': "Professor McClenahan is one of the BEST professors at the Smith School, if not the University of Maryland as a whole. He really knows the material well and explains it to the students in an interesting, engaging way. You will be expected to do a relatively heavy amount of reading each week (including cases, which are the important part). I don't know about the other professors for B-Law, but in his class you will learn.\n\r\n3 exams (including final, not cumulative) and an optional paper that could bring down the weight from each exam. If you give an honest effort on the paper, you will get an A, and God forbid learn something too.\n\r\nDO NOT GET INTIMIDATED ON DAY ONE! He WILL scare you. But he gets comfortable with the class over time and will crack funny jokes and make the class enjoyable. Take this class with McClenahan.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2013-05-21T20:10:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT381', 'review': 'Don\'t take this class unless you just finished 380 last semester with him as your teacher. I didn\'t and I felt like a stranger and somewhat at a disadvantage. Although he has been called "gruff but more approachable toward the end" or something, I would say his habit of cutting you off or ignoring you once you make a small wording mistake or other error is unnecessary. Especially when participation counts. The material all seems the same by the end of course, I don\'t know how anyone actually follows it. Also doesn\'t post grades online. Why not?', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2013-05-13T22:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "I really liked Dr. McClenahan. The course is a bit tough but as long as you do the readings and go to class, you should be fine. The study guides are a tremendous help, just writing them out really made studying a lot easier.\n\r\nHe's a bit gruff at first but he gets nicer as the semester goes on. He loves it when you volunteer to summarize a case, so just read them once or twice the night before class and he'll quickly start liking you. If you're confused about something, just ask him to clarify it, because he's quite good at breaking concepts down. He also tried to connect some of what we were studying to more recent events; for instance, when we were going over the supremacy clause of the Constitution, he talked about the recent voter initiatives in Colorado and Washington which legalized recreational cannabis use. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-02-23T19:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT381', 'review': "I heard a lot about McClenahan and how he's kind of a grumpy guy and the class is hard. This could not be further from the truth for 381. He even says he likes 381 better because it's an elective and the students want to be there. He's very responsive to questions and is willing to explain things more, which I heard he doesn't do in 380.\n\r\nI didn't have him for 380 but took him for 381 since he's the only professor who teaches it. The class is graded on 3 exams (2 midterms and a final) and participation.\n\r\nThe class is set up so that you have to read ahead of time and read through the cases. The material alone isn't that exciting to me since I don't really like law but the cases are actually pretty interesting. You get participation points by volunteering to summarize the cases during class, which is pretty easy since the book lays it out for you.\n\r\nThe exams aren't that bad either. Each exam has a short multiple choice section and 2 essays. You get a cheat sheet for each exam so if you actually go through and make a good cheat sheet, you should be prepared for the exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-12-20T18:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'I do not understand why people tell you not to take 380 with McClenahan. He is a great teacher. The people that are writing horror stories about him are the ones who did not show up to class. If you do not go to class and do poorly on exams, he will not make time to help you. Which is what any ordinary teacher will do. He may seem scary in class when discussing the material, but he is very nice in office hours. I went into his office and he knew my name and asked me how I was doing. He actually cared about me and cared if I liked the class. He knows the material really well and enjoys speaking about it. He has great examples and makes the class laugh almost every time. \r\nI went to class half of the time and spoke maybe 5 times the whole year and got an 85% for participation. As long as you say something meaningful, he will put a check next to your name. If you have a couple checks, you get a B like myself. My guess is if you have 5 you probably get an A. Be aware he will shoot you down quick and cut you off if you are saying something wrong. It is a little rude, but its good for the rest of the class because they wont be confused by your stupidity. \r\nThe class has 3 exams all 24 multiple choice. The first one is curved heavily and people usually do not do as well. The second exam people do much better on. The final is alright and not Cumulative which is great. As long as you read the book and understand the terminology, you should be set for at least a B. I studied an average of 10 hours the night before each exam and got an A- on each. Im not a smart kid, i am an average student (3.4 GPA, Nothing special). This class is not that bad and McClenahan does a great job teaching it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-12-17T16:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380H', 'review': "There will be people that give you horror stories of Professor McClenahan which had me worried going into the class. However, his teaching style is extremely effective.\n\r\nMost classes are case review. You are expected to read before class but not everyone does. You do get a better participation grade if you volunteer to go over cases or he will cold call at times. Classes go back surprisingly quickly since the discussions are quite engaging.\n\r\nMost of the class is based on 3 exams. You can do an optional paper to lower the value of each exam. Do the paper since it's basically an automatic A if you submit it by the review deadline before the final deadline. The exams are 50% multiple choice, 50% 2 essays. The multiple choice are a bit tricky while the essays really depend on your ability to understand the law and how it applies. Most of the essay questions are similar to cases in class and he expects you to make arguments for certain sides. Also make a good cheat sheet but don't feel the need to make a full paper at 4 pt font. That is completely unnecessary since 95% of it, you won't even use since he expects you be understand how arguments are made based on law, not what the law says.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-23T22:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "*took BMGT380 over winter term*\n\r\nProfessor McClenahan makes you work for your grade, something you should be prepared to do anyway by signing up for Business Law. It's really important to read and keep up with the cases, as they'll give you a better understanding of his discussions in class. \n\r\nIf anything, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIS CHEAT SHEET POLICY. His exams are tough but manageable if you make a bomb cheat sheet. In addition, it's an amazing way of reviewing the material and getting reacquainted with concepts. \n\r\nProfessor McClenahan is not a bad guy at all. If you're not willing to work, then most likely you're not going to enjoy the class in general. Otherwise, I think he is a great professor and is extremely knowledgable about law & the textbook. Don't feel intimidated... just do the work. You'll be fine. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-26T16:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Professor McClenahan can be gruff and stand-offish at times - especially towards the beginning of the semester - but he's actually a pretty cool dude once you get to know him. While he does not practice law in Maryland (he's licensed for Virginia), he knows the course material and teaches it well.\n\r\nHe does randomly call on people to help go over certain cases and can get tough on those who obviously show that they never bothered to look over the chapters before classes. He's quite lenient when it comes to curving tests, even going so far as to cover exam material the class before the test and allows a cheat sheet.\n\r\nRead the books and attend his classes and you're pretty much guaranteed to earn at least a B if you pay attention. DO WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO AS A STUDENT AND YOU CAN'T FAIL.\n\r\nIf you're a slacker and the kind of person who thinks they can skate by just by reading the text and not attending classes, I highly suggest you do not take his classes.\n\r\nTL;DR: Tough professor, but very skilled in what he knows. Read the book and attend the lectures; you'll learn a lot from his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-01-03T23:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "As said by others, you get a cheat sheet for exams so you need to understand the concepts and apply them.\n\r\nThere are two routes you could go in this class. 1. Don't attend any classes, read the chapters the days before the tests, dont read any of the cases, make a baller cheat sheet, ace the 3 tests and get an A. 2. Go to most of the classes, get taught the concepts and note what the professor focuses on because that is what will be on the test, participate and read the cases and all that bs and get an A.\n\r\nI went with option 1 and got an A. He says attendance is a part of your grade but if you do well enough on tests, youll get half the attendance points and that is enough. The concepts are easy enough to understand if youre smart enough you can get the A.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-29T20:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "The worst professor ever! I took him at first seeing his gpa rating but the horror stories that I heard from my friends who all took him before made me switch teachers. He is extremely mean, would call on you and then argue if your opinion doesn't match his. His tests have essays which I hear are extremely difficult but thank god I made a wise choice and dropped this class before it was too late. Professor G. Mark is hell alot better and I'm glad I took this course with him! ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-11-28T22:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT381', 'review': "McClenahan is a gruff bearded man with a slight limp that looks like he's had a tough life, then you realize he's a successful lawyer that's not that old and actually a pretty nice guy. At first he seems coarse and arrogant but once he gets comfortable with a new class he will loosen up a lot and be enjoyable.\n\r\nAs far as the course goes, it's pretty important that you read the chapter before class if you want to have any chance of following what he is saying. That being said, just reading the book carefully should cover you for most of the multiple choice questions, but the essays are graded very strictly.\n\r\nI took 380 with him and got an easy A just by reading the book and sitting in class, 381 I barely got a B trying the same lax strategy.\n\r\n90% of the class is tests, with the second one being the hardest. He curves very significantly and you should have a good idea where you stand in the class after every test.\n\r\nOverall, a tough professor not for the faint of heart, but a good class and you'll learn a lot.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-06-17T11:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': "Professor McClenahan makes 380 harder than it needs to be so if you aren't interested in persuing law school than I suggest not taking him. With that being said, I learned a significant amount in his course and he truly is very intelligent. He wants his students to succeed. I did very badly on the first exam so I went to his office hours and pulled my grade up from a D to a B. If you show up to class, read the book carefully and review the cases you will do well in his class. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-24T23:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'WORST PROFESSOR EVER!! SO boring! SO ignorant! He hates law! He doesn\'t know answers to half the stuff he\'s teaching! His tests are extremely challenging. He only gives a "sample exam" for his first test so you can get a taste of what he tests like. But extremly hard! Don\'t take him!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-01-04T20:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380H', 'review': "The first few classes I felt very intimidated, but I really enjoyed this class. He starts to be funny at the end of the semester. Most of class he spends going over cases, so its kind of interesting. If you read the chapter and cases before class you will learn a lot, so try to read. Class was hard to follow when I hadn't read. Try to particpiate as much as possble, so at least read the cases and understand some of them really well before class. People generally volunteered in my class, so he only randomly called on people twice. The class is 3 exams worth 30% each and participation worth 10%. Exams are 15ish multiple choice and 2 essays. Exams are graded strictly, but he does curve, and you get a cheat sheet. Having a cheat sheet means you have to apply the concepts instead of just remember them.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-07-16T14:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380H', 'review': "Hard class. Lots of reading and you have to read ahead of time. Do at least 3-5 case debriefs if you want to get full participation. Exams are extremely difficult with 10-15 MC and 2 essays. Grades essays EXTREMELY strictly. I knew a lot of 4.0 honors students who got 0's on one of more of the essays. He'll even give out 2/3 out of 7 points...usually the average for the exams will be around 20/30. Basically you need a 76/100 to get an A including 10 pts particupation averaging to a 22/30 per exam. Final is brutal. \r\nHowever, he does know what he's talking about and you do learn a lot due to the forced reading. If you're a bad writer avoid this at all costs because you will suffer. The grade distribution on our umd 70+% A's is definitely outdated...my honors class definintely had less than 50% A's with a few C's...you have been warned", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-06-12T15:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380', 'review': 'I hated going to this class. You have to read the chapter before going to class. 10% of your grade is class participation. 90% is exams, which are very difficult, but he does curve them. He can be very intimidating and likes to randomly call on people to outline questions or cases in class. He is tough on his students and demands a lot out of them. Not the most fun class... that is for sure!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2008-11-12T12:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McClenahan', 'course': 'BMGT380H', 'review': "He's tough, but good. Take the reading seriously. On exams, you actually have to think, not just regurgitate information.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-21T03:40:00Z'}], 'name': 'William McClenahan', 'slug': 'mcclenahan'}, {'courses': ['GEOL471', 'GEOL100', 'HONR279W', 'GEOL445', 'GEOL789X', 'GEOL789O', 'GEOL671', 'GEOL789O', 'GEOL789O'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William McDonough', 'course': None, 'review': 'I really enjoyed his class. He is nice, friendly and a great teacher. Mr. McDonough is funny and tries to make Geology as fun as he possibly can. It is obvious that he truly loves geology. I would recommend this class to anyone. I am glad I took it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-12-10T17:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McDonough', 'course': 'GEOL110', 'review': 'Bill McDonough is the coolest, nerdiest professor. 10/10 would recommend. His rock puns are so gneiss and I phyllite if you gave this professor a chance you would not be disappointed. If you put in the effort, you will of quartz get an A. I love Bill and I love his passion for minerals. He rocks.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-10T17:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McDonough', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': 'Very nice guy. Exams are very easy and homework/exam questions can be found easily online. Exam questions are often pulled from homework questions. \r\nWarning: for the first exam, he included a few questions that theoretically was not supposed to be on the exam (as per the syllabus) but that he did mention in class.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2014-12-08T14:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McDonough', 'course': 'GEOL100', 'review': 'Alright, so all lecture slides are put online. But when people did not come to class, he messed with the students. He would tell the students that came to lecture that extra lectures/chapters would be on the midterms and then not send an email out. He also changed the day of the midterm and did not tell students. He pretty much wanted to "teach a lesson" to kids who didnt come to lecture, when he put everything online. You can completely pass the class without going to lectures but the teacher was an a-hole. **ALSO, he removed ALL THE LECTURE SLIDES AND QUIZZES THE DAY BEFORE THE FINAL!!! .....interesting course but the teacher did not understand that were in COLLEGE. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '85', 'created': '2011-12-21T13:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William McDonough', 'course': 'GEOL110', 'review': "He's a cool guy with a Boston accent. Only problem with him is that his lectures are pretty bad. He dwells on a single subject forever and never finishes the lecture so the only way to learn is through the book, which is essentially a picture book with captions under them. After reading the book, you would think the exams would be easy. Then the exams come and you wonder where these questions came from. The first exam average was a 50%... In conclusion, the exams are ridiculously hard that he made a revision to the syllabus saying he'll drop the lowest exam grade. He also had to make the final open book because everyone was failing exams throughout the semester. He doesn't curve.\n\r\nOverall, a great guy, bad class. Don't take it.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-02-05T13:21:00Z'}], 'name': 'William McDonough', 'slug': 'mcdonough'}, {'courses': ['BUFN751', 'BMGT848F', 'BUSM735'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Mullins', 'slug': 'mullins_william'}, {'courses': ['PUAF688C', 'PUAF698C', 'PUAF698N', 'HACS208P', 'PLCY698C', 'PLCY689O'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Nolte', 'slug': 'nolte'}, {'courses': ['PLSC101', 'PLSC453', 'PLSC407', 'PLSC460', 'PLSC399', 'PLSC100'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Phillips', 'course': 'PLSC101', 'review': 'PLSC101 is an intro class for a lot of the agriculture majors, but it is also a popular lab science to fulfill gen eds. Dr. Philips completely recognizes this and doesn\'t push a ton of memorization of the extensive knowledge. His lectures are a bit boring because the information is dry, but he does his best to make them interesting and tells you he is trying. He does not take attendance, but will sometimes give out extra credit on Friday\'s to the people who are there.\r\n\r\n2-3 midterms that are basically memorization, and a non cumulative final that has the same weight as every other exam. He will tell you that as a student he hated having insanely weighted finals. He is a really understanding guy, and has a lot of knowledge. No other homework assignments or papers or projects of any kind.\r\n\r\nThe lab is pretty simple, there are a few "exams" that are basically being able to identify different types of plants and give some facts about them. All the information is given to you and is very straightforward.\r\n\r\nSuper fun, not too hard, as long as you put in a bit of time to study for exams. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-05-07T14:43:12Z'}, {'professor': 'William Phillips', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great teacher. Great Advisor. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-03T03:07:25Z'}], 'name': 'William Phillips', 'slug': 'phillips_william'}, {'courses': ['ENGL101X', 'ENGL101', 'UMEI007', 'ENGL101S', 'CMLT280', 'FILM298D', 'ENGL202'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Pittman', 'course': 'ENGL101X', 'review': 'Will is an awesome professor. He makes everything fair. There are not too much assignments. And he did teach me a lot. Also, because he asked us to "socialize", I also made a lot friends in his class. BTW, I\'m not an English native speaker, but he is very patient although sometimes I may have horrible pronunciation. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-18T05:45:25Z'}, {'professor': 'William Pittman', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Pittman made the class super interesting and I learned a lot from him. It was not your traditional engl101 class because he taught it through reading a book about Buddhism. I would recommend him highly to any incoming freshman who needs to take an english course. He's also a really friendly guy who loves to tell stories.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-08-10T21:38:20Z'}, {'professor': 'William Pittman', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "William Pittman is a great professor. This is not your traditional ENGL101 class. He teaches about Buddha's teaching and how it would apply in the real world. He leaves helpful comments on the papers as well. Highly recommend him. Plus he does music on the side.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-09T17:17:09Z'}, {'professor': 'William Pittman', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Pittman is the GOAT! Go to his office hours if you're struggling. He really helped me. I learned a lot and actually enjoyed the readings he assigned for homework. Learn essay structure because that is how he grades. Overall, the A was not easy to achieve... he is a tough grader but his comments are very helpful. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-17T22:16:51Z'}, {'professor': 'William Pittman', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': "Pittman's class just makes sense. Little to no homework. Makes the most of class time. Explains exactly what he wants for every assignment. This class is just a joy to go to and learn in. You will not regret taking Professor Pittman. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-09T23:37:52Z'}, {'professor': 'William Pittman', 'course': 'ENGL101', 'review': 'This is probably the easiest english 101 course you can take at UMD, largely because of how great pittman is as a professor. He simplifies writing and makes it clear what he expects from you for every assignment. I would definitely recommend taking pittman. \r\n\r\nAs a side note, this class focuses on a book called "What the Buddha Taught" for a few assignments so just know that going in.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-10T17:53:01Z'}, {'professor': 'William Pittman', 'course': 'ENGL202', 'review': "Professor Pittman is one of my favorite professors of all time. I believe this was his first semester teaching a literature class, but the guy knows his stuff. And he knows how to teach. Classes were only discussions, with a socratic set up of the desks. You really have to read (or at least skim the readings) to know what's going on, but Pittman provides his own notes on the readings which clarify a lot so this isn't too much of a task. He's so kind and approachable, and so willing to help. He is not a harsh grader whatsoever; if he sees that you are understanding the concepts and able to think creatively and putting forth SOME effort, he will give you an A. ENGL101 is a different story since it is a composition class and it is more technical, but ENGL202 was a literal dream. Fave class ever, fave professor ever. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-19T03:24:33Z'}], 'name': 'William Pittman', 'slug': 'pittman'}, {'courses': ['ENPP611'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Powers', 'slug': 'powers'}, {'courses': ['CLAS170', 'RELS170', 'CLAS170', 'CLAS170'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Proffitt', 'course': 'CLAS170', 'review': "Such a good teacher! He is a very nice guy and gives a standard amount of work for a once a week class. The class is very interesting for a gen ed. I would 100% recommend mr. proffit and his class for an easy gen ed that you want to actually enjoy. Answers IMMEDIATELY and grades very fairly. There are a fair amount of readings, but if you know the content you'll be fine.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-17T22:03:11Z'}], 'name': 'William Proffitt', 'slug': 'proffitt'}, {'courses': ['BMGT484', 'BUSI758E', 'BUMK758W', 'AMSC760', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799', 'ENSE799'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Rand', 'course': 'BMGT484', 'review': 'Great class to take! He is very knowledgeable and is a great teacher. He posts grades right away and grades fairly. The group project is a lot of work but worth it since the topics are interesting. Exams are fair too. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-15T20:51:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Rand', 'slug': 'rand_william'}, {'courses': ['ARTT428', 'ARTT428H'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Richardson', 'course': 'ARTT428', 'review': 'i really enjoyed having Chip as my professor!!!! I was a bit intimidated at first when i signed up because i as the chair of the department i thought he was going to be like an impossible person to please but he is quite the opposite and especially if you work hard and are genuine about painting! he offers great criticism and freedom and is a real stand up guy. hes funny too so that helps lol :)', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-18T16:32:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Richardson', 'slug': 'richardson_william'}, {'courses': ['ENGL392'], 'average_rating': 2.1579, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "I will, from this day on, tell every one of my friends who are considering taking ENGL392 to not take it with Schatz. \n\r\nI am and English major and am going to law school, so I figured that a rigorous writing class would be good for me. Not to toot my own horn, but I am VERY proficient in grammar and professional writing, so I thought I would do relatively well. \r\nMy papers have been drenched in red ink for mistakes that I'm sure don't exist outside of Schatz's mind. I don't mind being wrong; if I blatantly went against something the professor said, then I'm wrong and that's fair. But when I get points off for things that were NEVER mentioned in class, not intuitive at all, and are superfluous at best, I'm pissed. \r\nFighting for your grade or against Schatz is pointless. I've spent many office hours trying to convince him that he never mentioned the problem in class with proof from other students, and I received nothing but condescension in return. \r\nI understand that legal writing is hard and legal writing in law school is hard. I shouldn't be getting A+ on every paper I spit onto and turn in. But this class is not academically challenging, it's personally challenging, to the point where I feel like I'm playing Frogger with my grade. The professor is disorganized, condescending, and hypocritical (he has at least 1 spelling error in every email; how can he hold me to a high standard when he himself can't spell?).\n\r\nIn short: arbitrary grading based mostly on personal preference, barely any help for those who question their grade, no respect for timeliness, and your hard work and actual knowledge of the material is not reflected in your grade", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-05-15T19:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "EDIT... I am updating this review one year later to reflect my refined opinion of this professor now that I have been most of the way through 1L at UC Berkeley (top ten law school).\r\nI am about to submit a brief for an *actual* law school writing class, and it made me reflect on this horror of a professor. I have just a couple points.\r\n1) Schatz's grading in no way resembles how the grading is done in law school. Especially true for legal citations which Schatz is ultra critical about, but the law schools aren't. Indeed, I can discern no logical reason for the way he grades.\r\n2) Schatz grades on a worse curve than law schools do (Schatz gives about 1 A for every 25-30 students). We are required to take legal writing first two semesters, but in the first semester, Berkeley doesn't even put our grades on the transcript because they knew legal writing has such a steep learning curve.\r\n3) This class only marginally helped me for my actual legal writing class.\n\r\nRegarding everything else, I think it's all covered pretty well in the reviews below. You guys are paying for your education and you deserve a competent, useful teacher, and a reasonable shot at getting an A comparable to the rest of the professional writing classes. They all effect your GPA the same. My advice, skip this class... and demand your money's worth.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2014-03-06T00:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'I left this course shocked at the level of disregard for student concerns and Schatz\'s exorbitantly brutal grading methods (many of which I will probably never understand). \n\r\nI nearly dropped this course a couple months ago, and it appears that I should have done so. If you take Schatz you will learn something about legal writing, but your scores will probably not reflect your effort or quality of work on any level.\n\r\nSchatz graduated from Georgetown Law, and that\'s great--awesome. Doesn\'t make him an expert on everything or his interpretations correct. This seems to be his view, and it handicaps any ability he might have once had to teach anyone who isn\'t a 3L student.\n\r\nWAKE UP, Schatz. This is UMD, not Georgetown Law. We have jobs. We have other classes. And we most certainly did not enter your class with the ability to read minds and with experience enough to enable us to write "at the A+ level" (with legal writing) you said you came in expecting to see!\n\r\nObviously, a few students have had exceptionally good experiences with Schatz (mostly his TAs). Good for you. You\'ll probably have an easier time in law school than the rest of us, if you go. \n\r\nThis review is for the purpose of informing other students of professors\' quality of teaching and that is what I intend to do. A friend of mine said she had Ernest and that she was easily approachable and worked well with most people. I don\'t know if she still teaches this class, but if you still want to take it, try it with her.\n\r\nAs terpalum said, you will not receive any form of clear direction when you\'re trying to write for assignments. I just tried disputing a grade and his explanation was that I was wrong. What a joke! On top of it, he is someone who rarely (if ever) admits he is wrong (which, ironically, is most of the time). \n\r\nI felt that I was teaching the class half the time because people would come to ME asking me what was going on and how to do it, yet I also consistently received grades that were FAR below fair. Clearly, I was one of the few people who could even GUESS correctly at how to approach some of these assignments.\n\r\nHis rude and unapproachable demeanor only makes things worse. It almost doesn\'t matter how well you do your job, because he will not do his.\n\n', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-13T10:55:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "This guy is really the worst professor I have had at UMD. He is extremely unclear with assignments. He is messy and unorganized. You will do nothing of value in class but critique articles in the Diamondback and peer review.. except nobody understands what is going on because the professor doesn't tell you. Yet this terrible professor somehow thinks its cool or of value to give super harsh grades. Quite ironic. Take another class or switch professors. This guy should be fired. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-05-13T01:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "This professor is terrible. Don't be fooled by the 2 or 3 good reviews, read further down and you will see a half dozen reviews that are much more accurate. Prof. Schatz is the most unorganized, unhelpful and most unfair professor I have had. Yes, the class will help prepare you for law school, but only because you are forced by the assignments to think like a lawyer. You would learn equally much if the class were taught by a monkey, but you would be much happier.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-02-28T11:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'I would strongly advise not taking this class with Professor Schatz. He is very unclear about what he wants. He is very disorganized. He grades extremely harshly. You will be very stressed out about this class. It is helpful if you are going to go to law school, but it is NOT worth it.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-01-09T11:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "Please don't think you'll be the exception. I took this class thinking hard work would defy the poor grade distribution. I was wrong. This was my only C in college and probably my biggest mistake. If you don't have to take this class, don't. \r\nGoing to class is pointless but attendance is mandatory. Literally useless peer reviewing 7/10 classes. Subjective grading doesn't even begin to cover it. And harsh grades on assignments are his thing (Cs and Ds on personal statements anyone?). Expect unrelated examples of assignments and then be told to go do it for the next class. And completely illegible comments on assignments.\n\r\nNice enough guy but a little full of himself. Skip it if you can and pick another professor if you can't. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2012-12-21T10:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "Legal Writing with Schatz was one of the more difficult classes I have taken at Maryland. The assignments are challenging and will prepare you for 1L writing assignments. I learned a lot from them and improved as a writer. However, in comparison, the assignments are much easier than dealing with Schatz. Don't expect him to follow the syllabus at all. Expect assignment sheets to be emailed out 12 hours before the assignment is due. He is extremely disorganized and can be a pain to deal with.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-22T11:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "Schatz is a great professor and a great guy. He is willing to listen to students' concerns and help where he can. He provides very useful feedback on assignments and is willing to change the date of assignments if need be. \r\nThe class was overall pretty good, it seemed to go by quickly each time. The assignments in the beginning of the semester aren't very hard but they become prgressively harder. However, this is to your benefit if you want to go to law school because it prepares you for your first year.\r\nThe key to doing well is to attend every class. By the end of the semester, the only students to show up and/or to complete the final project were students that showed up 99% of the time because they actually knew what they were doing.\n\r\nOverall, if you're planning on going to law shcool, I would definitely take this class. If not, take another junior english.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-05-21T14:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "If you are at all considering going to law school - TAKE THIS CLASS, and TAKE IT WITH PROFESSOR SCHATZ! He is by far the best professor I've ever had at Maryland, and his was also the most challenging class I've ever taken at Maryland. If you take this class, Schatz will definitely push you beyond any limits you may have thought you had, and he will bring out potential that you never thought you had in you. You will no doubt come out of this class thinking and writing like a lawyer, and you will be 100% more prepared for law school. He is extremely responsive to student concerns, and he has this amazing way of connecting with each and every one of his students. He is a tough grader, but only because he has justifiably high expectations for his students and wants to see them succeed. Don't get me wrong, the class is not impossible by any means. I worked my ass off and got an A-. TAKE THIS CLASS WITH SCHATZ! You won't regret it. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2012-05-19T19:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Schatz is one of the best professors I've had at Maryland. If you're interested in pursuing law school, I HIGHLY recommend that you take the legal writing course with him - he teaches you how to think and write like a lawyer. If you can't manage his class, then you probably should reconsider your law school aspirations. He went to Georgetown Law, so he knows first-hand what it's like to attend law school, and is very willing to provide any kind of feedback (for law school applications, or for law school in general). He's a really nice guy! Great professor. But like the other reviews, his syllabus does tend to change, but not in any significantly drastic way. He may push deadlines back, or assign one extra assignment (if the class did really poorly on average on the first one). He's very reasonable, and you definitely have to attend class every day. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-01T04:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "Schatz will help you write a great personal statement. He may give you a great recommendation for an internship. However, you are rolling the dice if you think hard work will get you an A in his class. No amount of hard work or following instructions will result in an A. The rules change and shift arbitrarily. If you ask why you lost points on assignments, there will be an awkward silence. If you want to improve your chances of getting an A, then brown nose. Don't question his grading criteria because it is vague if not non-existent and he will become threatened. Do be critical of your classmates and the Diamondback. Again, there is no amount of hard work that will get you an A in this class. I thought I was the exception when I read these reviews before taking the course. I wasn't. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-18T18:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'Schatz is a hard grader and is not particularly organized. However, if you want to go to law school, this class will put you way ahead of your peers. Whether you like it or not, you will learn how to write, research, and think better in this class. I would absolutely take this class again. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-12-16T16:31:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'Professor Schatz handed us the syllabus on the first day of class and that was the first and last time he ever looked at it. Assignments were emailed to us the night before the class they were due. Our "semester" project was given to us about a week and a half before it was due, and he even had the nerve to change it to a group assignment a few days later, changing the whole dynamic of the project about a week before it was due.\n\r\nOverall, he is extremely disorganized, unprofessional, and VERY frustrating as a teacher.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-09T12:24:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': "This was possibly one of the worst classes I have ever taken at this University. I'll admit, I learned a lot but it was not worth the frustration and unrewarded effort I experienced throughout the semester. \n\r\nI would not suggest taking ENGL392 with Schatz unless you really have nothing else going on and can dedicate all your time to this class. \n\r\nAdditionally, it was hard to determine where I stood in this class (grade-wise) because 25% of your grade is based on participation. Also, the assignment break down did not work out how he had planned so it was hard to tell what each assignment was really worth. I'll be interested to see what I get in this class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-16T17:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'I received a B on this class. I was a frustrating class, Prof. Schatz is by fat the worse professor I have ever had. He gives you assignments that are due hours before class starts, he posts stuff on elms very late. He is not understanding at all. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'b', 'created': '2009-09-01T14:57:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'Class was always interesting and useful, but I was often frustrated because assignments were posted hours before class or hidden deep in elms. \n\r\nVery tough grader. I never had any idea what my grade in the class was... I was shocked when I got an A. I definitely was more stressed out over this class than I have ever been before. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-01T14:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL394', 'review': "Professor can be funny, but is very demanding. You'll have several projects and/or papers you will need to complete. He doesn't give you a chance to procrastinate, he'll always have an assignment that you're spending time on and a paper you'll be writing or drafting. Expect to put time into this class whether you want to or not.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-04-28T12:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schatz', 'course': 'ENGL392', 'review': 'Although I received an A in this course, I would advise going another route. Minimal instruction is provided with maximum expectations. The class was repeated scolded for getting something wrong that he never taught us.\n\r\nAlso, expect to get homework via email a few hours before its due.\n\r\nENJOY', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-02-05T18:30:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Schatz', 'slug': 'schatz'}, {'courses': ['MATH111', 'MATH107', 'MATH115'], 'average_rating': 4.9231, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'Great teacher. Made the work easy', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2014-05-14T15:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "I've always had issues with math but this is the man that changed that. He is an AMAZING professor. He doesn't assume that you know everything. He teaches at an elementary level without making you feel stupid which is just what I needed. He's also very entertaining. Enjoy this class", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-01-10T02:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'Bill Schildknecht is the man! He made the class really easy, which was surprising considering that I am horrible at math. Before each exam he would devote class to reviewing everything that would be tested, going through each type of problem in an in-depth manner. He also had optional review sessions outside of class that I would highly recommend, the exams closely followed the sample tests he provided. He was really good about answering any questions in lecture, and was very clear in his explanations. He was funny, entertaining, and very flamboyant, which made a very boring subject tolerable at such an early hour. Get this guy if you can. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-16T13:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'Amazing professor, really funny and keeps you awake during class. More importantly makes the material easy to understand! Great class, good teacher...get him!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-23T23:06:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'I never did the hw and just reviewed the practice exam and got by. He is a great professor just go to class and u can learn from the problems he does on the board which sometimes end up on the test. I highly recommend him. We only had 3 test and a final as well as 10pt quiz in discussion which the 2 low grades get dropped. My TA was pretty nice as well carter price. TAKE HIM IF YOU HAVE THE CHANCE OR GO ON WAIT LIST ITS WORTH IT!!!!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-22T14:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'He is HILARIOUS and makes everything really easy to follow. At the finals review session, where students from all sections (and with different professors) came together, I heard them saying, "Why couldn\'t our professor have explained it like that? I just understood everything from the whole semester." ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-15T23:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': 'great teacher, hes pretty hilarious with his snide talk \n\r\nhe does things like that to keep you awake\n\r\nif you have to take 220 or 111...take him!\n\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-02T16:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "Professor Schildknecht is a great professor. It is very easy to do well as long as you go to class and pay attention. Just make sure you get A's on everything up until the Final. The final was really hard and I doubt I broke a C but still got an A in the class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-09-19T01:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "The class was pretty easy to begin with, but Dr. S. made it even easier. He explained things very clearly and you could tell he really wanted the students to be successful. He's also really funny and a very nice guy overall.\n\r\nExams weren't too bad, and he even gives you sample exam problems from previous semesters. He doesn't try to trick you, but you might need to think a bit on a few problems here and there.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2008-06-18T21:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH220', 'review': "If you're looking for a teacher to keep you awake during class, this is the guy. He has a very distinct voice and is a pretty funny guy. The course material may be a bit challenging, but he does a good job explaining. His T.A. Russell Halper did an excellent job. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2008-05-12T13:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "The best math professor at UMD. Not only is he hilarious but he really knows what he's talking about. He is an amazing teacher and goes out of his way to help students. I hate math, but I LOVED this class with him. I normally stuggle in math, but got an A. If you have to take a math or have to take Math111, try hard as hell to get into his class...he is amazing and makes the lectures fun and interesting. I would recommend him to everybody!!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-14T16:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH111', 'review': "Wow... he's so hilarious, even when he's not trying to be funny. He's really flamboyant and so funny to listen to, which makes for a great math lecture. The class is easy, and he makes it even easier. He covers everything you need to know for exams and goes out of his way to help students. You take a weekly quiz in discussion, so the quiz is like an attendance grade. Easy A, and so amusing. TAs are usually nothing special, but you might get lucky. I recommend taking his class if you have to take 111.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-11-14T19:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Schildknecht', 'course': 'MATH115', 'review': 'Amazing teacher and is extremely caring for his students. He always wants each student to know what their doing and makes sure to answer any questions in clear understandable detail.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-11-29T02:31:17Z'}], 'name': 'William Schildknecht', 'slug': 'schildknecht'}, {'courses': ['EDCP888C', 'EDCP630', 'EDCP632', 'EDCP640', 'EDCP641', 'EDCP746', 'EDCP789N', 'EDCP789B'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Strein', 'slug': 'strein'}, {'courses': ['ANSC453', 'HONR238F', 'ANSC489C', 'ANSC688W', 'ANSC688C', 'ANSC388'], 'average_rating': 3.3333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'William Stricklin', 'course': 'HONR238F', 'review': "The most boring class I have taken at Maryland. Stricklin is unorganized, and skipped our class 3 times but expected us to carry on and present and discuss without him. He didn't know a single student's name in our 18 person class. When he did show up he rambled and name dropped random animal ethology scientists, talking in extreme detail about things that were barely related to the class. There was no need to do any of the readings because there was no discussion, he just rambled for 75 minutes straight every class. The only reason I didn't drop this class is because there were only 3 assignments and he barely graded them so it was an easy A. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-11-29T16:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Stricklin', 'course': 'ANSC453', 'review': "The semester I took this class, we had a relatively large class and a co-lecturer- meaning, Stricklin wasn't in the classroom most days outside of the first week! He's quite prominent in his field so you can't blame him but often he was just in his office. The content is easy and just requires quite a bit of reading and attending lecture (graded!). The worst grade I got in this class was a B- for the group presentation but we wrote it before we even saw a rubric (needless to say you should always look for or ask for a rubric before completing an assignment). Countered by discussion grade and easy exam grades, don't sweat it. just go to class. \n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-09-01T11:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'William Stricklin', 'course': 'HONR238F', 'review': 'Great class, very easy, with lots of discussion. Is a great idea if you are into philosophy, but as someone with not much experience in cognitive ethology, it was a good class, and was very informal. Very little work involved, beyond presenting an article, a debate, and a paper, all of which are graded pretty leniently. The professor was very knowledgeable, and Kim his TA was a dear as well. Great class that gets you thinking without being much work. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-02-08T19:28:00Z'}], 'name': 'William Stricklin', 'slug': 'stricklin'}, {'courses': ['HLSA720', 'HLSA720', 'HLSA720', 'HLSA720'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'William Tilburg', 'slug': 'tilburg'}, {'courses': ['SOCY100', 'SOCY105'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Willie Thompson', 'slug': 'thompson_willie'}, {'courses': ['URSP688Z', 'HONR239K', 'URSP372', 'URSP673', 'URSP688G', 'URSP709', 'URSP709', 'URSP688Z', 'URSP709', 'URSP709', 'URSP688Z', 'URSP709'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Willow Lung Amam', 'slug': 'amam'}, {'courses': ['MATH141', 'MATH241H', 'MATH401', 'MATH241', 'MATH475', 'MATH141H', 'CMSC475', 'MATH310', 'MATH340', 'MATH140', 'MATH341', 'HONR279T', 'MATH299T', 'MATH240', 'CMSC456', 'ENEE456', 'MATH456', 'MATH299J', 'MATH240', 'MATH299E', 'CMSC398D', 'CMSC475', 'MATH240', 'MATH241H', 'MATH340', 'MATH475', 'CMSC475', 'MATH240', 'MATH401', 'MATH475', 'CMSC398D', 'CMSC475', 'MATH240', 'MATH475'], 'average_rating': 4.5625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Excellent teacher, great office hours, always willing to go the distance for students. Will take again if I can for higher level courses.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-03-16T14:12:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Great Teacher', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-07T15:09:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Wong is so nice and really good at explaining concepts. He goes over the material various times until we grasp it', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-11T05:02:57Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH140', 'review': 'Great professor! He sometimes talks a little too quickly for me to follow, but he is very approachable and will answer any question you have.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2018-05-18T01:28:50Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': None, 'review': "He was a great professor! I took him for Calc 2 and 3, straightforward, and very nice. He first goes over theory and then examples in lectures. Fair exams. He had hws for Calc 2, were a bit difficult, but then exams were fair. Calc 3, I don't think he had HW, I did problems from the book, and the exams were quite manageable. Be careful on his exam 4 for calc 2 and 3, they were a bit troublesome for people. I think he kinda curves. I want to try to take a 400 level with him; he's awesome!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-09-18T16:30:41Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH341', 'review': "Wiseley is an awesome professor. He is excellent at explaining things clearly in class and is very helpful in office hours as well. For MATH341, he assigned projects that were interesting and actually helpful for learning concepts and how to use MATLAB and Mathematica. Not that it matters, but it's also insane how quick this man grades exams - he usually posted grades within 1 day of giving the exam. His assignments and exams are always very fair, though not always a cakewalk.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-10-17T19:47:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Dr. Wong is an amazing professor. He knows the material very well and is very good at explaining it. In class, he basically gives an overview of the chapter and proceeds with multiple examples. Exams are fair. He is always willing to help, especially during office hours.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-12-05T03:22:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'He was very thorough in his teaching and writes everything on the board, usually a lot of examples. He tells you what the questions on the midterms will be, and does a lot of practice for the final. MATLAB assignments are very doable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-19T01:21:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'He teaches a little fast but leaves notes up for a while so you have enough time to understand everything. He also does an expert job explaining his process working through a problem, so it is easy to follow. Quizes and tests are very easy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-04-10T20:46:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great lecturer, easy to follow, and makes everything simple. Tests are reasonable. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-03T16:50:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Easy to follow; very detailed in explanations; moves quick but keeps the notes up for a while; is very open in office hours. Quizes and exams are easy.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-05-13T18:40:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Great lecturer, easy to keep up with. Doesn't have too much patience with students sometimes though", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-17T20:06:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "I loved Wiseley. He's very accommodating as a professor (polled us on which of 3 days we'd prefer the first midterm). He's also great at lecturing. Dude comes in with his own bag of multiple colors of chalk so his lecture notes are color coded so students can better follow them.\r\n\r\nUses tons of examples during his lectures and when he goes over proofs they are pretty thoroughly written and explained to make sure you understand each step. \r\n\r\n401 is a pretty easy class, but I think Wiseley did a pretty good job of keeping it fun and interesting, I genuinely enjoyed what we learned in the class, and can see the usefulness of the applications of linear algebra presented (which given the class is called applications of lin alg I think this is the ultimate goal). \r\n\r\nTake Wiseley for any class. You won't regret it. Dude is organized, accommodating, and great at explaining and does not bore you to sleep like some others unfortunately.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-06-04T17:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Wiseley is hands down the best math professor I've had. His lectures are very clear and organized.\r\n\r\nHe always told us what questions would be on the upcoming quizzes and exams at the beginning of every lecture so we would know what to focus on.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-10-21T00:07:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Great professor, but not very accommodating. His lectures are very detailed and have plenty of examples that he works through. My only complaint is he is not very considerate of personal issues. I had a death in the family just before a test and he was not willing to work out an alternative timeframe for me to take the test. Other than that, great guy.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2020-11-24T14:49:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': "Easy to follow lectures and he's very fair with quizzes and exams. Adapted to the online environment really well, too.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-03T14:13:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Amazing lecturer with concise notes and explanations. Also very generous to his students, and never tries to make things harder than they need to be. 10/10 would take again', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-12-11T22:00:14Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241H', 'review': "I took this course in Spring 2020.\r\n\r\nPros:\r\n+ Extremely good lecturer. Will make sure all students understand what's going on.\r\n+ Generally nice guy.\r\n+ Is extremely flexible and adaptable to extenuating circumstances, especially during the pandemic. Dude made all of our quizzes and tests (including the final) open note and untimed.\r\n\r\nWong is often called one of the best undergraduate math professors, and after taking his class, I now know exactly why.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-12-22T02:20:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Dr. Wong is a very good math teacher. The content is challenging as the semester progresses, but his notes provide a good foundation. In discussions, Dr. Wong provides the TAs with examples to use which are very helpful to use when studying for quizzes and exams.\r\n\r\nVirtually, exams and quizzes were opened note and due in a 24 or 48-hour period, so timing was not an issue if stuck on a problem. The only issue with Dr. Wong is that his notes may be messy at times but for the other 99% of the time, his notes are clear and easy to follow', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-30T00:59:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': '*class was fully online due to covid*\r\nI signed up for Dr. Wong because he had a 5 star rating, and he deserves every bit of it. His lectures were clear, informative, and full of examples to help you better understand the relatively difficult content of the class. He writes his notes out as he explains things, which can leave some awkward silences, but it also means he moves at the perfect pace for people doing handwritten notes. All quizzes and exams were take home, unproctored, and untimed (24 hours for quizzes and 48 for exams). There was no homework other than the matlabs, which were a complete pain, but I think it was just something the department required of the class without a real reason as to why. Overall, great teacher. Highly recommend.\r\n', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-06T02:56:10Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'CMSC475', 'review': '(online fall 2020)\r\n\r\nWas excellent lecturing and responsive to questions while giving proofs and examples for course content. Pace was fine and he was generous with regards to exam scheduling.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-12T02:14:34Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'CMSC475', 'review': "Couse was interesting, Wiseley taught it well and recorded lectures. Homework and exams followed the lectures to a T and were easy enough. Average exam grades were around 90 without a curve, but that might've been because they were open for 48 hours due to online classes so you could rewatch lectures.\r\n\r\nOnly nitpick is I thought it was kind of boring sometimes but that might've just been the fact that the class was online. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-15T04:17:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH475', 'review': 'The one and only. Class was easy and relaxed. Having background in a lot of the material, I only wish the pace was a little faster so we would be able to cover more interesting graph theory topics.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-18T06:49:21Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH241', 'review': 'Very interesting material thought he could teach pretty slowly at times. He tried to make the material as understandable as possible and usually succeeded. The exams were easy if you do the suggested practice problems because the exam problems are literally the same thing with different numbers', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-01-23T05:12:03Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': 'Genuinely nice professor. Failed the first exam, was still able to bring the grade up to an A through weekly office hours and studying. Taught 2 week of vector spaces / determinants, 5 weeks of calc 3, 4 weeks of linear algebra topics, 4 weeks of graph theory. Definitely a fast-paced class, take only if you really like math.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-06-22T21:52:47Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Wong was an amazing professor and clearly cares about teaching. His lectures are logical and easy to follow. I genuinely enjoyed 240 with him. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-07T04:45:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Wiseley was one of the best math professors I've ever had. He went really fast in lecture but given all the material we had to cover, he tried his best to explain it in intuitive way. \r\n\r\nGetting an A in his class is totally possible. I made the mistake of slacking off on the final. Study well and you'll ace his exams.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-18T17:49:33Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Great guy, very down to Earth. Lectures were pretty good but took me a couple rewinds to really get it down. He tends to skip over some of the basics of somethings that he assumes you would catch onto, but if you're like me then it'll probably take you a little bit to figure out. Overall, great class and definitely would take Wong again.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-18T18:03:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Wiseley is a great professor and really nice guy. The lectures were straight to the point and easy to understand. He did a lot of first giving the definition of whatever new thing we were learning about, and then going through examples. His exams are fair and easy if you do the suggested exercises for the sections being covered. We had weekly quizzes during discussion section which was a little annoying but still useful for reviewing and making sure you were on top of the new content. \r\n\r\nHe's really great at answering your questions during office hours and is not condescending about it at all (unlike some other profs). Right before the final he held a 3 hour review session on Zoom with practice questions. If you can, take him!!!!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-25T21:15:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH401', 'review': "The absolute GOAT. Exams are easy because he tells you exactly what to study for and doesn't throw curveballs at you. Lectures are actually interesting and you can tell he has a lot of passion for what he's teaching. Does a review session the class before every exam which helps a lot in preparing for them. Homework isn't super busy, it teaches you the material, and you do some pretty neat stuff in them (for one of them, we did image compression in MATLAB). 10/10 recommend Wiseley for literally any class you can take with him. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-18T20:41:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH475', 'review': 'One of the best professors out there. Exams are fair and he tells you exactly what to study for. The class is no walk in the park though. You gotta put in the work', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-11-06T16:32:29.886381Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Wiseley is the absolute GOAT. Midterms are extremely fair. He wants all of the students to succeed. You're able to tell that he loves teaching linear algebra when he explains hard concepts and answering questions from students. Dr. Wong is by far one of the greatest professors I've encountered in the Math department so far. I'd take him no matter what.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-07T03:02:06.250473Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "For a professor that has taught 10+ courses, he most definitely knows how to teach. One of the best lecturers and note-takers at this university. I struggle with math and Wiseley has made me a bit more interested in learning about math. His name truly checks out.\r\nAlso, a shoutout to his TA Weimin Jiang. Two GOATs in the math department.\r\n\r\nPlease take his class if there is an open spot. You'll hear others complain about their math classes, but not from Professor Wong.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-14T03:52:34.562364Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "He's a really nice guy, and his quizzes and exams are pretty fair. However, his teaching style is somewhat mediocre, and I find myself often referring to the textbook over lecture notes.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-14T15:12:16.442106Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'I feel like I\'m the odd one out for saying it because there are just so many positive reviews on here, but I know for a fact I\'m not the only one who thinks Wong is very overrated. Yes, he doesn\'t give you any surprises on quizzes/exams, which I appreciated. Yes, he\'s a nice guy. But does that mean he deserves a better rating than someone like Justin? Certainly not. The fact that he tells you what to expect on assessments is the upside of his class. But aside from that, I genuinely don\'t think he is that good of a teacher. He overcomplicates simple concepts and doesn\'t explain difficult concepts in enough detail because he expects that you\'ll catch on. Students would often ask him reasonable questions for clarification, to which he would say stuff like "Have you taken Calc 3? Have you taken CMSC250? You would understand if you had. I can\'t explain this to you, it\'s just hard because it\'s math and you\'ll have to figure it out yourself." He gave exam review problems but refused to give solutions for them, claiming "You can check yourself to see if your work is correct." The problem, though, is that if you don\'t actually understand the concepts then you can\'t check your work! I found my TA and the textbook to be way better resources than Wong. I even felt bad for my TA because he had to teach us so much stuff that Wong never clarified in class. Overall, I wouldn\'t say to avoid his class; just be prepared to do some self-teaching and don\'t expect to understand the material just from his lectures.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-15T21:34:27.529218Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "This class was my favorite during this semester because of Wiseley. This man is absolutely without a doubt GOATED on the sticks. If you're seeing this review and decide to take MATH340 if Wiseley is an option you should 100% do it. Exams and quizzes were always extremely fair as we had prior information of the material they would cover. During the lectures proofs could get quite technical and were very abstract at times. However, class input was heavily encouraged which I felt helped everyone grasp the proofs better. But even if a lot of the minutia within the proof confused you (which it did for me) most material on assignments really only required knowledge on theorems and not the proof itself.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-19T19:50:10.135230Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Wong is pretty cool. The midterms weren’t anything crazy, and the final was decently difficult. The reason he gets 2 stars is because of how fast he teaches. It got to the point where I felt I wasn’t learning anything so I stopped coming to the class. I learned a decent amount through the textbook and some MIT lectures. The camera Wong records the class with is extremely bad, but I blame that on the ARM building. With all that being said, this class stressed me out a lot because the concepts were flying in class and I could it grasp them, so I spent a lot of time trying to learn it myself. Unfortunately, there were some concepts that he only went over in lecture that the book doesn’t go over, so you do miss some things. Wouldn’t recommend taking this class if you can avoid it.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C+', 'created': '2022-12-21T02:37:14.513391Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': 'This dude is the absolute goat. Exams and homeworks were very fair. He really isn\'t out to get you, just wants to see you learn the important stuff and do well. Great teacher, and has a really good understanding of when and where to do example problems. Every time I found myself thinking "okay but how does this work in practice" he had at least one example he went through. He\'s also like unbelievably nice and funny and a cool dude.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-21T06:17:24.239118Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Wisely Wong is a beast. Take him at all cost, zero regrets.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-22T01:47:15.770912Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Absolute goat. Moved very quick but managed to actually teach all the material too. He skims over some foundational material so if you don't have a background in the material, you'll have to spend some time studying up outside of class so you understand what's going on at all. Homework was super tough but exams were very clear and not meant to trip you up. Most I've ever learned in a class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-24T03:27:41.057852Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'I mean the other reviews pretty much sums up everything I was going to say. Good professor and easy class, take it if you want to learn and also get a GPA booster.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-24T04:47:31.746817Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "Really good, knowledgeable teacher. He shows a lot of different examples but for me, it was really hard to understand everything conceptually. Make sure TO LISTEN TO HIM while he's teaching because nothing he writes will explain anything conceptually.\r\n\r\n- IF YOU HAVE A BAD TA FOR DISCUSSION, GO TO ANOTHER TA's class. \r\n- YOU HAVE TO SHOW UP TO LECTURE EVERY DAY BECAUSE THE RECORDINGS ARE SO BAD (240p with muffled audio)\r\n\r\nQuizzes are really easy. He tells you the questions the lecture before and there was often an example that he worked out in class of that question (show up to lecture) \r\n\r\nFinal is difficult (got a score in the low 80s). Exams were fair (high 80s,90s) and definitely easier than some of the other teachers like Long. No homework is assigned/graded. Good professor, just wished he explained some of the earlier topics a little more.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-12-26T21:45:16.772090Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "Homework, Projects, Quizzes & Exams:\r\n- Homework every 1-2 weeks (consisted of reach problems), quizzes weekly, 2 projects (one on MATLAB and one on Mathematica), 4 exams. Some simple proof problems, and a lot of computational problems. Never anything unfair or unexpected.\r\n\r\n\r\nClassroom Environment:\r\n- Very quiet, with all students focused on the chalkboard and little talking. Even though it seemed awkward at times, Dr. Wong always welcomed questions.\r\n\r\n- Each lecture came with a dizzying amount of new content -- lots of definitions, example problems, theorems, and proofs. I personally managed this by copying verbatim what was written on the chalk board, although I know not everyone needed to do this.\r\n\r\n\r\nPacing, Difficulty & Curve:\r\n- Pacing was very quick. 2 weeks of Linear Algebra, 5 weeks of Calculus III, 3 more weeks of Linear Algebra, 5 weeks of applications in combinatorics & graph theory (his research specialty, which was new to everyone). Definitely manageable with lecture notes, textbook PDFs, classmate collaboration, and office hours.\r\n\r\n- Dr. Wong was adamant about not curving, but in the end my 92 came out as an A. \r\n\r\n- You'll figure out in the first two weeks if this class is a good fit for you. I highly recommend it; by the end, you will have a good grasp on 240, 241, and 310, and you might even be prepared to take 410 in the spring.\r\n\r\n\r\nProfessor:\r\n- Super chill, he'll ask you to call him Wiseley. Always welcomes any questions, and very open during office hours. 10/10 great professor and person.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-27T02:45:12.853754Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH475', 'review': "Excellent professor. Teaches so well and is always willing to help. But he moves pretty fast so make sure you're keeping up", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-01-01T16:53:11.102558Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': 'Great guy, very knowledgeable, and always takes time to answer questions. His tests were fair, but the final was pretty tough (although it was made by Manning). He usually said what would be on the weekly quizzes, but would always talk super fast to the point it would be very easy to miss something. Although, he was very helpful during office hours. Definitely a good choice.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-01-05T06:00:17.840832Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': 'I decided to take his course partly because Dr. Wong is so well-regarded; unfortunately, I was disappointed. He often obfuscates relatively easy topics with fast and verbose speech. It took me most of the semester to realize that I need to just ignore him and study on my own. He also grades quite slowly.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'XF', 'created': '2023-03-09T03:50:58.945564Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH240', 'review': "I honestly have no clue why his reviews were so high. I attended every lecture and barely learned anything. His lectures consist entirely of theorems and definitions and he doesn't attempt to explain anything. The exams are fair, but the final had content that was not covered at all. I have no point of reference for the other professors, so maybe this is just how Math240 is as a class, but I don't get the 4.63 rating.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2023-04-18T17:40:02.041478Z'}, {'professor': 'Wiseley Wong', 'course': 'MATH340', 'review': "I thought Wiseley was a great instructor. His lectures were very structured, which I appreciated and which made it easy to study. I found both his homeworks and exams to be fair, though the homework did take up a lot of time. I would not recommend the course itself, as there was way too much material packed into it, and we spent a lot of time covering topics completely unrelated to the course description. However, I thought Wiseley was a good lecturer and that he was very approachable and willing to help. I would take another class with him, but if I could go back, I wouldn't take MATH340 again.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-04-22T03:01:47.426636Z'}], 'name': 'Wiseley Wong', 'slug': 'wong_wiseley'}, {'courses': ['BMGT402', 'BMGT302', 'BMGT404', 'BUDT758Y', 'BMGT431', 'BUAC758S', 'BUDT758X', 'BUDT703', 'BUDT704', 'BUDT737', 'BMGT402', 'BMGT402', 'BUAC758S', 'BUDT703', 'BUDT704', 'BMGT402', 'BMGT408V', 'BUDT737', 'BUAC758S', 'BUDT703', 'BMGT302', 'BUDT702', 'BMGT408E'], 'average_rating': 2.8333, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Woei-Jyh Lee', 'course': 'BMGT302', 'review': 'Overall, good guy. You are going to have to practice your skills outside of class. If you THOROUGHLY prepare for the final and have done your work through the semester, you should do fine. Use the slide code for example code for everything you need to do. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-08-12T23:45:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Woei-Jyh Lee', 'course': 'BMGT302', 'review': 'Not that difficult to get an A/B if you do all the work. Coding can be confusing, especially for business students. The biggest complaint amongst 302 students would be his accent which is really difficult to understand.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-08-26T15:32:08Z'}, {'professor': 'Woei-Jyh Lee', 'course': 'BMGT302', 'review': "I honestly wouldn't recommend him at all if you can avoid it. Easily the worst lecturer I've ever had. The material itself isn't too hard but majority of the class activities, homework assignments and project follow class lectures very closely where he makes simple concepts so hard to understand. A quick google search helped me learn more than his lectures. There are tons of free videos on coding on YouTube which helped me with his class. You have to put in double the effort. It is manageable but will definitely take your time and energy. It made me so frustrated to have to teach myself literally everything. If you have ADHD or bad concentration like me, RIP to you. Seriously. He seems nice and knowledgable though. But I am paying to learn, not anything else. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-05-28T21:45:51Z'}, {'professor': 'Woei-Jyh Lee', 'course': 'BUDT704', 'review': 'Generous guy , but I recommend learn the subject online .', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-01-26T21:28:39Z'}, {'professor': 'Woei-Jyh Lee', 'course': 'BMGT402', 'review': "Defenitely not worth your time. Although every student gave bad reviews for his teaching, smith school of business doesn't give a damn about the feedback given by studnets. Instead we are being forced to have him again for big data course.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2023-03-26T20:41:01.049518Z'}, {'professor': 'Woei-Jyh Lee', 'course': 'BMGT402', 'review': "He is a great professor and very well tenured/experienced in his field and studies. He is a bit hard to understand at times due to is accent but mostly if you're not paying attention. If you actually pay attention to his lectures you will have no problem.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-10T07:18:36.198095Z'}], 'name': 'Woei-Jyh Lee', 'slug': 'lee_woei-jyh'}, {'courses': ['MATH648I', 'MATH141H', 'MATH411', 'MATH648Q', 'MATH141', 'MATH416', 'MATH858C', 'MATH420', 'MATH401', 'MATH630', 'MATH631', 'MATH464', 'MAIT699', 'AMSC420', 'STAT426', 'DATA604', 'MATH416', 'MATH858L', 'DATA604', 'MAIT699', 'MATH416', 'MATH416', 'MATH858G'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Czaja's grading was extreme and the opposite of lenient. No partial credit was given. The final exam was easy, but the other exams were the hardest exams I've ever taken.\n\r\nClass average was a D+. \n\r\nCzaja was a great lecturer but his exams were too hard compared to lecture. I wouldn't suggest taking him at all.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2016-06-20T14:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Ok this guy\'s lecture is quite real. He explains stuffs at such a complicated and minor level that I have no clue as to what is happening. Furthermore, his examples in class are so basic. I learned more for discussions than I did from lectures. His accent is quite distracting also. The quizes are hella easy, but I feel he types "hardest calc problems ever made" in google to get the four problems he needs for the exams. In the final exam he will probably make us prove fermat\'s last theorem, so can\'t wait for that. My grades went like 72 100 52 (fourth one will probably 43 or something). This guys is chill doh, and he is wayyyy more lenient than the other lecturers. So pick this guys. oh and he is funny af.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-12-02T13:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'A wonderful teacher. Accent can a bit difficult to follow though. But makes the subject matter easy. \r\nHis way of grading was far by one of the best.\r\n4 exams-lowest dropped\r\n7 quizes- lowest 2 dropped\r\nA flat score of 50 for scoring atleast 30% on Web Assign and no weekly deadline for homework.\r\nI got an A in his class. Definitely take him', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-02-18T13:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH411', 'review': "Dr. Czaja is great professor. He makes a lot of jokes in class and is willing to answer questions in class, but don't expect much help on homework problems in his office hours. The homework problems were assigned out of the book. The exams he wrote were pretty difficult, but then again, so was the material. Some of the questions were problems from the homework, but asked in a way to make you think about the problem in another way.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-30T12:36:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Dr. Czaja (pronounced cha-ya for others who may not be fluent in polish) was quite a character. He first came off as a little mundane but as the semester progressed, he would tell more and more jokes in his matter of fact tone which made them even funnier.\n\r\nFor my semester (FA13) he gave 4 exams and 7 quizzes. Each exam was 100 points, and 1 was dropped. Each quiz, administered by your TA, was 20 points, and 2 were dropped. Homework was through WebAssign, which Czaja states very clearly is terrible. He is sort of forced by departmental people to use it, apparently, so of our homework grade, if we complete 30% of homework in general for the semester, you get the 50 points for homework.\n\r\nMy only complaints would be that he is sometimes a little slow with putting out the practice problems for the exams/quizzes. For example, he didn\'t send the answers to the practice final exam until 4 hours before the exam was held...sort of annoying. Speaking of the final, it is a test made by the Calc II department head and is considerably tougher than Czaja\'s exams, at least this year. I got a 99, 100, 99, and 87 respectively on Czaja\'s four midterms, while hardly getting an 84.5 on the final. Be prepared to study your butt off for the final and DO PREVIOUS EXAMS. Czaja said that "practicing the previous exams will only tell you what will NOT be on this one" and while that is partially true, the topics are more or less exactly the same and the questions are asked in the same way since the same guy writes it every year (thus far). Work hard, and you can get a great grade. I worked hard and got the highest grade in my 200 person lecture (617/650 total possible points).', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-19T15:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Dr. Czaja's grading scale was:\r\n90-100 = A\r\n75-89 = B\r\n60-74 = C\r\n50-59 = D\n\r\nThe total class was out of 650 points made up of 4 100 point midterms(1 dropped), 19 10 point quizzes(4 dropped) and the final 200 point exam. Dr. Czaja does webassign but does not \r\ninclude it in the grade. Dr. Czaja, unlike many of his colleagues(Or maybe they just don't care, which is very possible) recognizes how poorly the webassign system is designed and the high frequency of lost points where a student puts in 'c' for the constant rather than 'C', among other issues.\n\r\nIn studying for the midterms, focus on the review problems Dr. Czaja posts on his website rather than webassign, because those are more likely to be on the exam. Only after doing all the practice problems should you bother with webassign.\n\r\nThis is the MATH department, so your success all depends on who the TAs for your lecture are and the TA you have for your discussion. And for the departmental final, the TAs for the course that semester.\r\nI lucked out with a very good TA for my discussion, Adam, who explained topics well despite the early hour of the morning, wrote helpful explanations on our quizzes as to where we went wrong, was easily approachable after discussion and in office hours. Furthermore, he took the time to write us up review packets for a few of the midterms.\r\nOn the other hand, there was also a TA that was very strict on their grading, and according to some of my classmates(unconfirmed second hand), a much less valuable TA in discussion.\n\r\nDr. Czaja's lecturing style is essentially basic proofs. He'll go over basic examples for each of the required concepts, and leave more difficult examples for TAs to go over in discussions.\r\nWhile Dr. Czaja has a fairly strong accent, it's very easy to understand, and his chalkboard handwriting is clear enough to understand as well.\n\r\nThe textbook, the same book from Calculus 1, is useless. It is used in Calculus 2 to 'save Calculus I students money' as they continue in their Calculus track. There are better free textbooks and resourcecs online, such as <http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/> \r\nThe person with the authority to assign the textbook for Calculus 1 is none other than Dr. Denny Gulick, who is the author of the textbook, and profits from every copy sold.\r\nThe Mathematics department as a whole cares very little for undergraduate students, and contradictory to the goal of education, spends your tuition dollars doing its very best to minimize the # of people who succeed in their classes, which are required for every student in CMNS and ENGR.\n\r\nDespite all this, Dr. Czaja cares about his students' success, even in undergraduate. If you can, take his lecture of 141.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-12-26T21:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Calculus 2 is HARD. However, Czaja has a very forgiving grading system which makes it easier for one to get a high grade. 50% is a D, 60% is a C, 75% is a B, 90% is an A. There are 4 exams during the semester (drops 1) and 19 quizzes (drops 4).\n\r\n I will admit I have a very weak math background, taking precalc and calc 1 from a community college and coming here to take Calc 2. Most people I know that came to UMD after community college and took calc 2 had to retake calc 1 again. But I managed to squeak by after thinking I was going to get a D in this class. \n\r\nDr. Czaja's a really nice guy, and seems to be clear when he lectures in class. I noticed that a lot of people don't seem to show up though. I think it is because he usually does examples from straight from the book. \n\r\nThis Fall 2011 semester, Czaja did not require webassigns for hw, so that was a big plus. However, it can be a double-edged sword because you end up not getting necessary practice for the concepts if you aren't diligent enough. So I suggest you just do the problems in the book instead. \n\r\nOnce again, I stress that this class is hard. You have to do hw daily and make sure you actually understand the concepts as they come or you'll end up with a C like me, which could have been very avoidable, especially with Czaja's grading system. \n\r\nThe good thing though, is that its almost impossible to get lower than a C in this class. I got a 65, 50, 64, 66 respectively on the exams and a low quiz average and somehow managed to get a C. If you get anything lower it's because you blew off this class. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2011-12-21T23:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Does professor Czaja give practice exams for 141 and how many exams are there? Thank you', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-08-07T02:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Prof Czaja is an okay prof. His exams and quizzes are fairly easy, but I hated his teaching style. He spent half the class wiping the board. Assignments (when I took him in Fall2010): 3 exams (drops lowest), 27 hw's (drops 7), 7 quizzes (drops 2), and the final. His grading scale is on a curve (a 75 is a B and an a 60 is a C).", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-07-29T17:53:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I heard horror stories that Cal 2 is the worst of all three of the Cals, but with Czaja is was very easy to get an A as long as you studied hard. For half the semester he was a good teacher, then when it got to chapter nine he just stopped being helpful and I had to rely heavily on Math Success Program. He drops a test, two quizzes, and five homeworks. Also his curves are so kind. I got a B in Cal and managed to get an A in Cal 2. Would definitely take if you don't mind teaching yourself and reaching out to outside help!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-01-18T16:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Czaja was a very good teacher however, the final exam had problems more difficult than exams or quiz's. Czaja made us laugh just about every class. Homework was assigned on the website webassign. These problems were a real pain. The first problem on every exam was graded for either full credit or no credit. Czaja actually awarded everyone twenty points when almost everyone one of these wrong. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2011-01-16T21:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Czaja is a great teacher. He absolutely knows his shit. I can't remember a single instance of him not knowing how to do a problem or stumbling when answering a question. He comes in and starts class right away. He's got an accent but it's nothing bad, you can still understand everything he is saying. Class is generally engaging and he is hilarious when he jokes around. Some of the material is hard imo, and you will probably need to go to class and look at the textbook after. He drops a ton of the grades, curves when necessary, and his tests are pretty fair. The final was ridiculous though. I thought I was going to get a C but ended up with a B. Recommended. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-16T17:02:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Prof. Czaja was easily the best math professor I have had. He was able to explain the concepts very concisely and I felt like I actually learned in his class instead of simply memorizing what we needed to know for the exams. His grading scheme is awesome and it's basically impossible to fail. Plus, he was a really nice guy and wanted his students to do well. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2010-12-16T11:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "He has an accent, but its not that big a deal.\n\r\nThe biggest problem is that the examples that he uses in class are either way to simple so that you can't really study or learn from them, because the tests are much more complicated, or they are so complicated that it is impossible to understand the material.\n\r\nAdditionally his tests are hard, yes he posts old tests to review, but usually there were not solutions posted, and he usually put s them up really, really, late the night before the test so you can't even ask your TA any additional questions about the material on the test.\n\r\nI took AP Calc BC in high school and not only got a 5 and I also got an A in the class. I retook Calc II so that I could refresh and get a solid A as a freshman, and no thanks to Czaja that will not happen despite working my tail off in this class.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-07T12:29:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH464', 'review': 'Czaja did a very good job of explaining the conceptual basis of Fourier, wavelet, and wavelet packet transforms. He also did a good job of keeping the target of any proof present in the students\' minds, but sometimes proofs were a little hard to follow anyway, and some proofs left me with a feeling of "so what" afterward (that is, some proofs seemed to add nothing substantial to my understanding of the nature of the proven proposition - I would\'ve been content with accepting a statement as true and perhaps seeing some cases of it being true or a brief explanation of the gist of the proof). It was also a little hard for me to discern what the instructor expected us to be learning at any given moment. It seemed the exams often were not clearly connected to lecture material (usually there was relevant class material that one could use to solve exam problems, but problems were often presented with notation that hadn\'t been used in class, such as the use of "inverse Fourier transform" instead of "synthesis formula", so some extra cognitive overhead had to be taken into account). Also, as a student who had no prior experience with Matlab, homework assignments to be complete in Matlab seemed a bit open-ended (though I scored highly on all the ones I\'ve received back), and most of my challenge with the homework came not from my lack of understanding of the mathematical nature of any given transform but rather from particular difficulties of implementing them in Matlab (converting infinite sums over finitely supported sequences into finite sums, making sure that indices of sequences always started at 1 so that calls of values from a sequence would work, etc.).\n\r\nOverall, I learned a lot, and I thought a lot about transforms, but I also spent a lot of time thinking about things that seemed to have little to do with transforms.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-12-02T23:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "This guy was a great professor up until the first test. After that, everything goes downhill FAST. The examples he offers in class are completely useless and unhelpful for studying. \n\r\nOverall I really didn't enjoy taking this class and thought that czaja was very unclear in how he presents the tough material, ex: taylor series, lagrange remainder. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-27T00:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Fantastic professor. Great sense of humor. Posts practice exams the night before the actual exam that are near exact copies of the actual exam. If you can ace the practice exam, you'll ace the actual exam. Has an accent, but rarely gets in the way.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-11-23T03:08:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Prof. Czaja is a great Math Professor - if you see him in a course you are thinking about - choose his! He explains Calc quite clearly and definitely enhanced my understanding of the subject. The course IS challenging guys no doubt but if you go to every class and pay attention, do the work there should be no problem. He welcomes questions in office hours and always makes extensions prior to exams. His grading system is extremely fair - a mini-freshmen forgiveness program! Best of all is that his accent and humor, really makes Calc fun especially in that dim smelly armory. I am SO going to miss his famous "well"haha. Wish he taught Calc 3 I would so take his section. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-07-09T19:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I don't understand why other people gave really good reviews for him!\n\r\nHe does NOT explain things clearly and many people didn't bother to go to class....the only good thing is his grading system is fair! If there is a professor who actually teaches math well like margetis or justin and they are teaching this class TAKE IT WITH THEM! \r\nanyways I didn't like him take justin you will be better off!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-04-08T12:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Czaja is a very fair and respectful teacher. I really enjoyed his sense of humor and did not find his accent annoying or difficult to understand whatsoever. The practice problems he posts on his website are very helpful and he loves helping students outside of class.\r\nAlthough the tests can be difficult, Czaja's grading system is extremely forgiving, although the no-partial-credit question on each exam can suck if you make a careless mistake. I forgot to write pi in my answer to this question on the first exam, but he generously awarded full credit with a little note reminding me not to do it again.\r\nCzaja takes time to explain the interrelatedness between all the concepts, so stuff actually makes sense if you pay attention. I highly recommend taking his class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-17T11:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'This professor is fair. His tests are extremely polar (5 questions on each test); there will be one really, really easy question that will recieve NO partial credit because it is just that easy. Meanwhile another question on the test might be quite difficult. The other questions will be somewhere in between. Has an odd sense of humor. My test scores were a 94, 59, and 67, my quiz avg. was likewise around 78 (after dropping 2 lowest), and I got 160/200 points on the final. Somehow came out with an A-. Take MATH141 with Czaja. \n\r\nHis lectures are average. I stopped going after the 1st (of 3) tests. He drops your lowest of 3 tests, 2 lowest quizzes of 7 quizzes, and lowest 3 (of 13) homeworks. You only need a 60% overall for a C, 50% for a D, 75% for a B, and 90% for A. Overall, this professor is very fair, much more easy going than the other Calc II profs. I mean come on, you need only a 60% for a C. Take this class if you want to avoid Francis Gulick, Ray Johnson, or even the great Denny Gulick also. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-08-17T16:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "Czaja has one of the fairest grading systems where 1 test, 2 quizzes, and 3 home works are dropped. Loves the theory behind Calc 2 but usually only uses examples from the book. I got a C because I only did the Webassign and no additional problems on my own. With that said if you understand the basics of Calc 2 material and do the practice problems/quizzes he puts up you will do fine. Lecture attendance is person to person basis depending on how well you know the material. I'd go though. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-05-01T08:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Czaja is probably one of the better professors for math141. Exams, though challenging, are actually quite fair. He has a grading system where you are allowed to drop an exam, 2 quizzes, and 3 homework assignments. He is very fair and understanding. Though his lectures may seem dull, he is more than happy to answer your questions if asked.\n\r\nHe has a lot of safety nets for those who might fail the course. If you truly work hard and do problems from the book (not just webassign), then there should be no excuse for anything lower than a C.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-22T19:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "I would highly advise that you not take Calc II with Prof. Czaja. First, his accent is understandable, but can be quite annoying. Second, his lecture comes right out of the book, so you don't get the benefit of additional examples. Third, his exams and homeworks are downright rediculous. The homeworks are extremely tedious to complete, and often on topics you don't need to know. Furthermore, the tests are extremely difficult, and test the smallest details of the course. For example, one test was on the chapter involving infinite series, and there was not one problem involving Taylor polynomials/series, which is a major part of the chapter. Instead, he tested on the stupid little details that no one remembers. If you are forced to take this guy, going to class is really not necessary, just study and do a ton of examples, and you can probably scrape by with a B.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-12-20T17:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': "He is a good teacher and don't be alarmed if all you do in class are proofs b.c that's normal. He drops 2 quizzes, 3 hws (from online) and 1 test. He is helpful from the fact he gives a prac test b4 an exam which is almost alike. He gives lots of prac that will be on the final. from easiest to hardest: test -> quiz -> webassign. good class overall.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T14:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Czaja (pronounced shy-ya) is an interesting professor. He cares that students actually understand the material, and unlike other professors that I\'ve had, he will step back in lecture and remind you of the "bigger picture" behind Calc II.\n\r\nCzaja had a fair grading system: he lets us drop an entire test (1 out of 3), 3 out of 13 homeworks, and 2 out of 7 quizes. The final exam is worth a lot, and he puts a lot of emphasis throughout the class on its importance and weight (200 pts out of 600pts of the grade). \n\r\nI did not find him to be an *amazing* lecturer, but I wouldn\'t say he was bad either. Overall, I think Czaja is a good professor, and I would recommend him for anyone looking to take calc III and higher level math. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-12-18T03:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH141', 'review': 'Odd professor in some ways. He was a good teacher, but he made it difficult. Wanted us to learn the material on our own as much as possible, only because he truly wanted us to learn the material and this was the best way. Fairly hard exams, very hard HW, not an easy professor, but is a great professor to teach you the material and prep you for Calc III and on.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2008-12-03T04:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH416', 'review': 'For this class, he\'s honestly a really good lecturer. He explains how things came to be and why things matter, which is always a good thing when introducing left field concepts. So I enjoyed his lectures a lot.\r\n\r\nOverall the class is pretty straightforward in the content, as his lecture notes span maybe 30 or 40 pages for the entire course (of course, they are not fully complete). He also allows for students to make up grades with an extra-credit project worth around 10%, but the project comes with very high standards.\r\n\r\nThe exams are what I call "troll": as a veteran student of mathematics they consist of various little tricks which are decently easy to see if you are decently mathematically mature and which seem intractable if you are not, which is why the exam averages are 60-70%.\r\n\r\nOverall the course is interesting and I would recommend people take it for an elective or something like that.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-12-10T02:01:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH630', 'review': "Not sure if this helps since only one professor is teaching this class for the year, and there is no choice. He's knowledgeable and smart. He talks about the history of mathematics during lectures, which I consider rather rare. He's also helpful during office hours.\r\n\r\nThe textbook is available to university students via the online library or the course elms site. He covers everything until the Radon-Nikodym theorem and L-p spaces. He usually covers L-p spaces but not the R-N theorem in the first semester. The course content is exactly the topics on the textbook not including some fringe materials on the book.\r\n\r\nHis homework is hard but doable, just costs a huge amount of time.\r\n\r\nHis exams are hard but the grading is lenient. Harder exam questions are similar to easier homework questions. He asks for counterexamples a lot, so better if you have a bank of counterexamples prepared so you don't need to come up with one during the exam. If the question is about proving or giving a counterexample to a statement, then a correct T/F gets 2/20, a counterexample gets 10/20, and with justification, you get 20/20. The proof questions are easier and I didn't get points off so no idea how he grades them. Sometimes hand-wavy justifications also get the points as long as the example is right, unless the justification is completely off.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-12-29T01:56:53Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH630', 'review': 'He has high expectation for the class. I didn\'t like him at first as he came off as serious and intimidating. But as the course progressed I started to appreciate his philosophy and found him a rather charming professor. Also gave us candies for halloween.\r\n\r\nHomework was consisted of problems from the text. Exams were short and quick as long as one is familiar with all the results and counterexamples. There were many questions of the nature "does X theorem still hold if we drop the Y assumption", so make sure you know all the theorem statements by heart.\r\n\r\nPreparation for the final stressed me out - he made it clear that he\'d assess our understanding of the big picture of all the convergence modes and function spaces. Miraculously the university switched covid policy and made our final optional just before the exam could take place. Czaja gave us a good deal regarding grades and I suspect few in the class actually took the final.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-30T23:14:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'course': 'MATH631', 'review': "my god, comparing to last semester's 630, he's an angel managing this class.\r\nStructure-wise this course is 630 take away all the stressful in class exams.\r\nCouldn't ask for more.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-19T01:19:40Z'}], 'name': 'Wojciech Czaja', 'slug': 'czaja'}, {'courses': ['MATH401', 'MATH140', 'MATH241H', 'AMSC460', 'CMSC460'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Wujun Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_wujun'}, {'courses': ['PHYS741', 'PHYS174', 'PHYS623', 'PHYS749', 'PHYS270', 'PHYS420', 'PHYS411', 'PHYS749', 'PHYS613', 'PHYS411', 'PHYS749'], 'average_rating': 4.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Xiangdong Ji', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'Probably the best professor I had of the three physics classes I had to take. His exams were fair and a generous curve was given on each one. He taught the material clearly and tried to do so without boring anyone. ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-01-14T04:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Xiangdong Ji', 'course': 'PHYS260', 'review': 'i liked him a lot, he was a good prof and tried to make the class somewhat enjoyable, which was nice cuz i hate sitting through long boring classes.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2008-11-19T14:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Xiangdong Ji', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'Extremely fun to talk to and observe in class. He is very intelligent and his tests are exactly taken from the homework sets.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2019-12-17T16:41:25Z'}, {'professor': 'Xiangdong Ji', 'course': 'PHYS270', 'review': 'Professor Ji was among the most enthusiastic teachers I have ever had. His excitement and passion for physics made the class truly enjoyable. He was also able to clearly and effectively answer any and all questions I had about the material.\r\n\r\nThe main criticism I have heard is that people do not think his exams are hard enough to prepare students for the final. (When I took his class in fall 2019, the exams were almost exact transcriptions of the homework assignments.) Frankly, this is nonsense. If you know what you are doing and have a good, comprehensive formula sheet going into the exam, you will be fine.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2020-02-26T04:37:47Z'}], 'name': 'Xiangdong Ji', 'slug': 'ji_xiangdong'}, {'courses': ['BMGT343', 'BUFN755'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Xiaohui Bakshi', 'slug': 'bakshi_xiaohui'}, {'courses': ['COMM777', 'COMM738E', 'COMM775', 'COMM398E', 'COMM399', 'COMM400', 'COMM307', 'COMM730', 'COMM307', 'COMM399', 'COMM399'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Xiaoli Nan', 'slug': 'nan_xiaoli'}, {'courses': ['EPIB650', 'EPIB655', 'EPIB653', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB651', 'EPIB788', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'EPIB785', 'EPIB655', 'EPIB651', 'EPIB898', 'EPIB899', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB655', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB655', 'EPIB655'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Xin He', 'course': 'EPIB655', 'review': "Xin is a really passionate teacher who cares about his students' performance. He takes the time after each test to assess how the class is doing and to gauge the pace of the course. His explanation of the material is very thorough and easy to understand.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2017-12-14T18:49:23Z'}], 'name': 'Xin He', 'slug': 'he_xin'}, {'courses': ['ENME712', 'ENME350', 'ENME331', 'ENME350', 'ENME350', 'ENME350', 'ENME331', 'ENME331', 'ENME350'], 'average_rating': 3.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Xinan Liu', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': "I go to this man's office hours any day over jungho's. Prof Liu is patient, smart, and will try to make you laugh. The course is hard af tho. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2020-11-21T23:37:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Xinan Liu', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': '"Don\'t make mistakes! Students lose points because they make mistakes." Liu often says the way to be successful for 350 is to not make mistakes which is the most useless thing to say. He has a heavy accent (not his fault of course) and talks fast, so it is hard to understand him at times. He seems like he\'s trying to be funny and lighthearted, but when he tries to help students, they often are left more confused. Liu leads the lab portion of 350, and also works with Kim to write and grade the exams. He is a harsh grader on exams, but easy-going on lab assignments.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-27T18:50:04Z'}, {'professor': 'Xinan Liu', 'course': 'ENME350', 'review': 'On the rare occasion that Prof Liu gives lectures instead of Professor Kim, it\'s very difficult to follow and he goes too quickly, but that\'s not his primary job in this course. Mostly what he does is oversee lab and host office hours. In both of these roles, he is a nice guy who will really try to help you succeed. When he says "just don\'t make mistakes," it\'s more of a language barrier thing than him being rude.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-12-28T23:47:21.138127Z'}], 'name': 'Xinan Liu', 'slug': 'liu_xinan'}, {'courses': ['ECON422', 'ECON201'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Xing Hong', 'slug': 'hong_xing'}, {'courses': ['PHIL328C', 'PHIL236', 'PHIL140', 'RELS236'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Xuan Wang', 'slug': 'wang_xuan'}, {'courses': ['MATH808R', 'MATH406', 'MATH403', 'MATH600', 'MATH808P', 'MATH601'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Xuhua He', 'course': 'MATH403', 'review': "Explains things in a very easy to understand manner. His proofs, even the long ones, are much more easy to follow than with most professors. He explains what he's doing. Harsh grader though in my opinion.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-11T00:32:07Z'}, {'professor': 'Xuhua He', 'course': 'MATH601', 'review': 'Good', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-05-22T21:39:12Z'}], 'name': 'Xuhua He', 'slug': 'he_xuhua'}, {'courses': ['BMGT451', 'BMGT858R', 'BMGT858A', 'BMGT858N', 'BUSM702', 'BUSM705'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yajin Wang', 'course': 'BMGT451', 'review': "I love Professor Wang. She puts a lot of effort into her classes and I really enjoyed the collaborative aspects of her course. She likes to use case studies to teach you concepts and the midterm exam (no final exam!) was pretty comprehensive, but as long as you come to class and take some notes and go over her presentations, you'll be fine. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-09T14:17:47Z'}], 'name': 'Yajin Wang', 'slug': 'wang_yajin'}, {'courses': ['BUFN740', 'BMGT840', 'BMGT848F', 'BUFN758P'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yajun Wang', 'slug': 'wang_yajun'}]
[{'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yali Pan', 'slug': 'pan_yali'}, {'courses': ['SURV722', 'SURV742', 'SURV699N', 'SURV701', 'SURV672', 'SURV699', 'SURV744', 'SURV745', 'SURV740', 'BSOS233', 'SPHL601', 'SPHL602', 'SPHL603', 'EPIB300', 'EPIB315', 'SURV625', 'SURV701', 'EPIB315', 'SURV740', 'SURV625', 'SURV701', 'EPIB315', 'SURV740'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yan Li', 'course': 'EPIB315', 'review': "Don't really understand what she says and just reads slides. Learned more from my TA than her. Also gives pop quizzes during lecture so attendance is a must.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-12-16T22:03:59Z'}, {'professor': 'Yan Li', 'course': 'EPIB315', 'review': 'Amazing professor! Really understanding and clearly cares about her students. Her exams and assignments are very reasonable. I learned a lot in this course.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2021-12-16T23:39:07Z'}], 'name': 'Yan Li', 'slug': 'li_yan'}, {'courses': ['BIOE456', 'BIOE485', 'BIOE457', 'BIOE486', 'BIOE420', 'BIOE420', 'BIOE485', 'BIOE420', 'BIOE485'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yang Tao', 'course': 'BIOE457', 'review': 'I have mixed reviews about him. He\'s a really nice guy and a very easy grader. Based on what I\'ve heard about Dr. White, Dr. Tao\'s class is a complete joke. However, he is a terrible lecturer and struggles to communicate concepts effectively both in lecture and in lab. He\'s helpful if you go meet with him as he\'ll often work out the problem for you unlike some professors who will just "guide" you through it. He\'s also very helpful during lab with troubleshooting. Then again, this class is not too difficult and you should be able to teach yourself most concepts. He is also hilarious and will keep you entertained in class. Bottom line, if you actually want to learn electronics well or if you are interested in medical instrumentation, then take Dr. White in the spring. If you are just looking for an A, the Dr. Tao is the safer choice.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-12-22T13:17:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yang Tao', 'course': 'BIOE485', 'review': "I realize I'm probably one of the very few dolts that got a B in this class, but I was pretty deterred from caring about it for a number of reasons. Firstly, this is NOT an engineering class, no matter how much he acts like it is. We did not design a single piece of instrumentation equiptment the entire semester. We built an EKG off of a prescribed schematic that he made himself, and we wrote a stupid labview (worst software ever written) program to process, filter, and display the signal. So all in all, this was more of a computer science experience. As far as the electronics goes, any idiot with remedial high school level electronics background can put together a circuit from reading a schematic.\n\r\nYou literally sit there and stare at him while he rambles on about his slides that he takes out of the book. There are a lot of slides, which he annotates in class. The problem is that his hand writing is serial-killer grade quality, so it's impossible to read. Also, he is nearly impossible to understand on his best day because of his thick accent. He generally assumed that everyone knew more electronics than we learned, remembered, or could deal with, so his lecture notes on that material were pretty miserable.\n\r\nHe also gives you 3 pages of (cheet-sheet-sheet as he calls them) for each test. As a result, I literally did NO studying - all of my effort went into making these massive things, and I got a B+ overall. If you actually care, this class should be a GPA booster.\n\r\nAs far as training us to be more able bodied instrumentation engineers (fancy word for EE), this was a monumental failure. I think they just put a bunch of BS down on paper to get the BIOE program accredited, and as a result the class looks good but lacks any genuine engineering training. My oh my how I have wasted my money with BIOE. INFURIATING", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2012-02-29T20:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yang Tao', 'course': None, 'review': "Doesn't really give many assignments. All of his lectures were taken out of the book. His exams tested some of the more important concepts from lecture as well as some random details from lecture. However, he allows you to have three sheets of notes for the exam so they're really not that bad. The only thing that will be even remotely time-consuming is the ekg project at the end of the semester.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-24T12:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yang Tao', 'course': 'BIOE485', 'review': 'uhhhhhhhh.......BEST PROFESSOR EVER!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2010-12-14T13:56:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yang Tao', 'course': None, 'review': "Really cares about his students and their education. Doesn't do much of the traditional lecture/hw assigment/paper routine. He wants to make sure you know about important, emerging concepts, how to succeed after college. For his exams, study the lecture notes, especially specific examples he talks about a lot in class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-10T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yang Tao', 'course': None, 'review': 'Great professor, but most of the time very busy.\n\r\nNo work for the majority and very simple homework.\n\r\nFinal paper relied on your group project.\n\r\nSeveral guest speakers.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2008-05-01T16:51:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yang Tao', 'course': None, 'review': "3-4 papers but they all build on one-another.\n\r\nProfessor is very animated and passionate about entrepeunerial (sp?) engineering. If you aren't into that, then you'll probably be bored like I was, but if you ever want to be an inventor, listen up!", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2007-12-03T19:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yang Tao', 'course': 'BIOE485', 'review': 'He is notorious for rambling a lot and in this class it is hard to follow what he is saying many times. If you look around the room, most people are on their laptops doing some sort of other work. However, his effort in getting dozens of clinical mentors, many guest speakers, and his own real-world experience is first-class and I can tell he is a very knowledgeable professor (only one in the department with a PE), and puts a lot of effort into making this class function. He is also a lenient grader, and as long as you show you did SOMETHING, you will probably get an A.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-27T16:56:36.854026Z'}], 'name': 'Yang Tao', 'slug': 'tao_yang'}, {'courses': ['ECON443'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yang Xu', 'slug': 'xu_yang'}, {'courses': ['MATH430', 'MATH748F', 'MATH436', 'MATH742', 'MATH868K', 'MATH858Y', 'MATH406', 'MATH848G', 'MATH274', 'MATH848S', 'MATH848Y', 'MATH274', 'MATH848V', 'MATH246H', 'MATH498R', 'MATH401'], 'average_rating': 2.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yanir Rubinstein', 'course': 'MATH406', 'review': "Actually really bad. I had taken this class by mistake and didn't realize it was a mistake until after add/drop, and he was the only available professor. He didn't have any reviews yet; just one from like 5 years ago that said he was awful. I said ehh, it's only 1 bad review, but I should've listened. So far the mean exam grade has been a 60 and he says he isn't going to curve it. Lectures are painful. He does zero prep and reads VERY slowly through the book, and if you ask a question he will either barely answer it or talk down to you. Probably just here for the research. The grade distribution is nice, HW's aren't graded and you get points for making a study guide, but seeing how the exams (basically the only source of a grade: 5 quizzes, ~10% each and he drops the lowest one) it's not looking great. Unless you are really good at Math and it's like your passion/you do Math research for fun, this class is gonna be the death of your GPA. I've taken up to Calc3 and LinAlg, and this class could be interesting, but he makes it tedious to sit through and gets mad when students don't show up to lecture.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C-', 'created': '2021-04-14T22:09:16Z'}, {'professor': 'Yanir Rubinstein', 'course': 'MATH274', 'review': "I would not recommend this prof to anyone. I think he really did want us to understand but he did not know how to lecture effectively and also was not very good about answering questions. He would basically just write out a proof of something he found interesting on the board without explaining much of anything and did not go over the more complicated parts of it. This was a math history class and the exams were true/false for 30 points, each question was 5-10 points and if you got it wrong you lost all those points, and the rest of the exam was usually a proof of something he showed in class that you just had to memorize, but you never knew which of the examples he was going to put on the test and there were about 4 weeks of classes between exams so anything was up for grabs. The final was a 16-page single-space essay with little to no guidance which he graded extremely harshly. The only grades were the 3 exams and the final. It was really hard to get through this class every day but I had to since it was a requirement, if you don't need to take a class with him, don't. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2022-04-13T15:16:43Z'}], 'name': 'Yanir Rubinstein', 'slug': 'rubinstein'}, {'courses': ['EDCP318N', 'HESI318N'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yanira Ortiz', 'slug': 'ortiz_yanira'}, {'courses': ['VMSC720', 'GEMS296', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'VMSC720'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yanjin Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_yanjin'}, {'courses': ['ENCE305', 'ENCE688O', 'ENCE432', 'ENCE489O', 'ENST499L', 'ENST499A', 'ENST499L', 'ENST499L'], 'average_rating': 4.375, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yaron Sternberg', 'course': 'ENCE432', 'review': "I just LOVE Sternberg. His life has been so crazy and awesome. This class is a lot of him telling stories about his past projects. The tests are still hard because its impossible to know what he is going to ask you. But I'm taking another one of his classes next semester. He's the best. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2012-11-26T19:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yaron Sternberg', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': 'Great professor. Very clear and focused on problem solving. Has obviously been doing this for years and used them to hone his lectures to near-perfection. Helpful with questions. Unusual grading system, but no harder than any other. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-21T00:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yaron Sternberg', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "An excellent professor. Clear lectures, straightforward content. Tests usually have two problems with relatively obvious answers and one that involves a trick before you can use the equation. Grading system is unusual, but all you have to do is beat the average of the other schlubs in the class, and they tend not to do well. \n\r\nHis voice is very similar to Mel Brooks' 2000 Year Old Man, which is fun.\n\r\nCertainly no complaints. The class I took was very technical; don't take it unless you need to learn fluid mechanics.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-14T20:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yaron Sternberg', 'course': 'ENCE432', 'review': "By far one of the GREATEST professors in the department. Dr. Sternberg emphasized both the theoretical as well as field applications of groundwater hydrology. This class is one of the best and most interesting i've had so far!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2010-12-28T22:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yaron Sternberg', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "One of the best professors in the Civil engineering.\n\r\nGo To EVERY class. He explains the content extremely well. If he sees class attendance drop he'll give quizzes that end up becoming worth 10% of your grade.\n\r\nHuge downside is his grading system. If you make one little mistake on your exams you lose a majority of your points.\n\r\nTakes the sum of your exam score divided by the average as a great. Sucks if you get a little lower than average on exams but also allow you to raise your grade if you kill the test. I went from a F to a C with the final.\n", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'C', 'created': '2010-06-21T17:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yaron Sternberg', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "He's a very tough professor but he's one of the best I've had in the Civil curriculum so far. If you know the material well you should do decently on the tests. Just watch out for any tricks the problems may have (one of the questions on our final had you take the sqrt of a negative number, which was right, because the answer was 'no flow'). He makes the final fairly straightforward. I ended up with a final score of 4.17 and he gave me an A, so it really depends on how well your class does.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-16T10:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yaron Sternberg', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "Very hard class, you must pay attention in class and also keep up with the reading and do the homeowork, even though it is optional. He has a very unique but fair grading system. He takes your exam score and divides it by the average for that exam to calculate your score. 3 exams and final, drop lowest score. He then gives grades out according to the grade distribution. 3 might be a C, with B's starting at 4 or 4.5 and A's starting around 6. Sounds crazy but exam averages are usually in the 30's", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-29T18:03:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yaron Sternberg', 'course': 'ENCE305', 'review': "Work your ass off in his course. I'm serious, never let up, go to office hours every MWF and do every problem in the book. If you're taking this class then you probably will need to know this material for your career, and there is no one better to learn from than Sternberg. Don't be scared of him.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-15T03:12:00Z'}], 'name': 'Yaron Sternberg', 'slug': 'sternberg'}, {'courses': ['HESP422', 'HESP610', 'HESP406', 'HONR279M', 'HESP602', 'HESP611', 'NACS728K', 'HESP818B', 'HESP639P', 'HESP610', 'HESP602', 'HESP611', 'HESP610'], 'average_rating': 2.5, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yasmeen Shah', 'course': 'HESP498C', 'review': "This is a general warning for this professor: IF POSSIBLE AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Do not do research with her--she treats undergrads as grunt labor, is generally not a good mentor and doesn't involve you with research design or data analysis. She is caustic and passive aggressive. She will lie to your face about giving a good reference. I wish I had known about her before working with her, she is incredibly unprofessional and maintaining a good working relationship with her is impossible. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-08-08T17:25:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yasmeen Shah', 'course': 'HESP406', 'review': 'REALLY interesting class, but you have to work for your grade', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-05-16T02:46:00Z'}], 'name': 'Yasmeen Shah', 'slug': 'shah'}, {'courses': ['ENEE244', 'ENEE446', 'ENEE350', 'ENEE646', 'EDSP652', 'ENEB354', 'ENEB346', 'ENEB345', 'ENEE350', 'ENEB346', 'ENEB354', 'ENEE350', 'ENEE350', 'ENEE446', 'ENEB354', 'ENEE350'], 'average_rating': 3.1111, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': "Oruc is an incredibly interesting guy. He is extremely knowledgeable, very personable, and rather considerate. I would recommend actually talking to him, even if you don't take a class with him.\n\r\nThat being said, I thoroughly enjoyed ENEE350 with him and thoroughly disliked ENEE446. I thought 446 was uninteresting and rather difficult, as homeworks were long and REALLY tested your understanding of the material (as opposed to your ability to apply it) by asking you to design algorithms or methods. His notes seem to be incomplete, and there is hardly enough information to complete the homework. The first exam was difficult as the questions were unclear, and the final was a takehome, which took a very long time to complete. On top of that, I hardly feel like I learned anything from the class, and am extremely relieved that it is over.\n\r\nOruc is a great guy and 350 is an interesting class that isn't very difficult IF YOU CAN PROGRAM WELL. However, I would recommend taking 446 with someone else.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2014-05-21T10:28:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': "I felt like this class was a waste of my time. The textbook was just a series of PDF files and slides that he wrote himself, and the material we ended up covering for the semester was not what he said we'd cover in the syllabus. I was able to do decently well on the homeworks and tests, but I definitely did not learn anything from this class.\n\r\nOn a positive note, Oruc is an extremely nice and friendly guy. He was also responsive to student concerns, and extended the homework deadline once when no one could finish. I just wish he had been a better teacher.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2013-12-25T01:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': "He's not the best professor, but teaches a reasonable amount. His wording is terrible: homeworks and test problems are often unclear. If you really need to learn ENEE446 well, I would probably recommend against Oruc. You can get an A in the end, but won't learn as much as you should.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-12-23T19:04:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': 'Professor Oruc is one of the most agreeable and pleasant people you\'re likely to have the pleasure to meet. He\'s friendly, understanding, and takes interest in the well-being of his students. Also, if you have any interest in European history or culture, be sure to ask.\n\r\nAs a professor, Oruc is what I like to call "aggressively competent." He really knows the material, and communicates it effectively and clearly, for the most part. He\'s also not prone to rambling or wandering off-topic like some other professors. Importantly, he doesn\'t take things too seriously, and has a sense of humor. That means that lectures can be downright enjoyable in addition to being fun. \n\r\nIn summary: even though it wasn\'t the easiest, 446 was probably the most fun class I took this semester. If you\'ve got a chance to take a class with Oruc, jump on it.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2013-05-09T17:12:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "Oruc is a really great guy and is very nice and personable. I really don't like programming at all, but ive had a little more experience that some other EEs i think writing C (even though id rather cut off a foot than program something) so i guess i have a little bit of an advantage. not a whole lot though. none of the material is all that terribly difficult, and the class really doesn't have a particularly heavy workload. the second half of the class isn't really as relevant to electrical engineering as it is to computer engineering so its hard to stay motivated i guess you could say. i would with out a doubt take oruc again. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-04-08T21:37:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "...If you are taking this class as EE, and Umer is the TA for this class ->TAKE IT. ....If not, you might want to consider other options ...In any case, good luck !\r\n... I think Dr Oruc is a great professor, but it's somewhat difficult understand the subject he is teaching. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-12-29T22:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Uruc caters to computer engineers who have some familiarity with this material. For those who are EE beware unless you have an awesome TA such as Umer. Otherwise this professor is way past his prime and fails to communicate well with the stuents', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-12-05T17:23:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "He's among the best prof's I ever had. He actually cares about his students. It's a pity though that he uses vesp and a little programming that most of us actually hate. But either way, he's the best. Hands down.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-04-12T20:18:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Good teacher. He puts a lot of effort into making sure his students understand material during lecture. Also his homework assignments are not very difficult.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-01-22T11:26:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Im not exactly sure how useful Dr. Orucs class is in the real world, since a lot of the material is stuff he wrote. His explanations can sometimes be unclear but luckily he posts lecture slides as well as the lecture videos so you can listen to it multiple times until you understand it. Midterm was average, final was difficult. Curve of around 6% at the end.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B-', 'created': '2018-12-23T00:20:26Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': "Had him for ENEE350 as well, which he was a little better for. Oruc rambles a lot and doesn't explain anything clearly, which was ok in ENEE350 because it was a coding class and you could learn more by just running tests on the code, but ENEE446 is a theory class that actually requires a good lecturer. He's nice and it's not too hard a class, but you won't learn as much as you might with someone else.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2019-11-17T20:25:15Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "Personality-wise, Oruc's a kind person for sure. This semester we had the pandemic so he moved the due date back for like half of the assignments. His lectures are useful, but he a glosses over important background information when doing examples (especially vesp early on). That being said, a lot of what I learned this semester came from the TA's who were pretty amazing.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2021-01-01T22:57:24Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Dr Oruc is a nice person but not the greatest professor. He rambles during class and his homework assignments are confusing and time consuming. TA was rude and unhelpful. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2021-07-28T13:10:45Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Awesome teacher for ENEE350 since he wrote his own program to simulate machine code and assembly, and assigned those for homework. You get to learn a lot since you get to see how the machine works and what changes step by step in the simulation. The lectures are also recorded online so you can always look at those. Taking off a star because his test contains materials not taught in class. You can do perfectly on the homework but pretty bad on the test.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-09-21T04:12:06Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'Oruc is very nice and easygoing. His homework are straightforward, but the lectures do not help out much. The class structure is a little lazy. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'P', 'created': '2022-05-24T20:17:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE446', 'review': "He's very nice, although the course is a bit messy. He typed up notes for us as we went along, which is good, but also bad because all the homework problems came from the notes and these often had errors or were unclear which wasted a lot of time. Our final was quite difficult and covered concepts we hadn't practiced at all, but was also curved a lot. Also he had the class online even though I took it Spring 2022.\r\nOverall not a bad experience. He's a cool guy and eager to share more about the material if you're interested.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-06-21T20:17:13Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': "Cool guy, but yet another ECE professor that's well past caring about educating students. One can compare his lectures over the years and see how he's increasingly prioritizing having his students beta-test his learning software over teaching a structured course. To be even more depressed, look at other university's courses and see what well-organized, mistake-free, and clearly delivered material looks like. Average on midterm was a 60, entirely due to poorly designed time constraints.\r\n\r\nHopefully one day ECE courses at UMD won't be full of old profs teaching increasingly disorganized material from 2008 following no educational principles whatsoever who pretend their course structures aren't abject failures by having outrageous curves *breathes*, but I can't see that happening any time soon. If you're somehow reading this deciding whether to go to umd for ece, go to a university program that cares about actually educating undergrads. Waste of time.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-11-25T21:15:13.004451Z'}, {'professor': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'course': 'ENEE350', 'review': 'It was an interesting class, but the lectures are very disorganized and do not help a lot. He also uses us to beta test his code or use his code for a lot which is kind of confusing, but I feel like I learned a decent amount.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-12T19:09:34.665318Z'}], 'name': 'Yavuz Oruc', 'slug': 'oruc'}, {'courses': ['HESP400', 'HESP300', 'HESP818D', 'NACS645', 'HESP818P', 'HESP724', 'NACS898', 'HESP300', 'HESP724', 'HESP300'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yi Ting Huang', 'course': 'HESP300', 'review': 'She is so incredibly sweet and helpful; she really wants the success for her students and will work with them as much as needed, because this class can be a little challenging.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-12T03:26:30.293798Z'}], 'name': 'Yi Ting Huang', 'slug': 'huang_yi_ting'}, {'courses': ['BUDT775', 'BUSI634', 'BUSM758R', 'BUSO624', 'BUDT758L', 'BUSI757', 'BUSO624', 'BUDT758L', 'BUSO624', 'BUSO624', 'BUDT758L'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yi Xu', 'slug': 'xu_yi'}, {'courses': ['ENMA489A', 'ENMA698A', 'ENMA688', 'ENMA300', 'ENMA461', 'ENMA400', 'ENME382', 'ENMA600', 'ENMA499', 'ENMA484', 'ENMA684', 'ENMA489C', 'ENMA689C', 'ENMA400', 'ENMA600', 'ENMA461'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yifei Mo', 'slug': 'mo_yifei'}, {'courses': ['EDCI763', 'EDCI661', 'EDCI625', 'TLPL645', 'TLPL641', 'TLPL645', 'TLPL641', 'TLPL645'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ying Alice Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_alice_ying'}, {'courses': ['INST627', 'INST314', 'INST741', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST809', 'INST810', 'INST447', 'INST899'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yla Tausczik', 'course': 'INST314', 'review': 'Great professor. More than willing to help students in need. Highly recommend ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2018-06-03T15:09:00Z'}], 'name': 'Yla Tausczik', 'slug': 'tausczik'}, {'courses': ['UNIV389C', 'FGSM360', 'HONR378A'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ylber Bajraktari', 'slug': 'bajraktari'}, {'courses': ['EXST009D', 'EXST018C', 'EXST028B', 'EXST048D', 'EXST049L', 'COMM609I', 'COMM619J', 'COMM629I', 'COMM719G', 'COMM729K', 'COMM619I', 'COMM749K'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yong-Ha Lee', 'slug': 'lee_yong-ha'}, {'courses': ['FMSC332'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yoonjoo Lee', 'slug': 'lee_yoonjoo'}, {'courses': ['ISRL448L', 'ISRL342', 'ISRL448A', 'GVPT399G', 'HIST376', 'JWST619', 'JWST699', 'COMM498E', 'ISRL448C'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yoram Peri', 'course': 'HIST376', 'review': 'Great professor! Very helpful as well. Reading IS A MUST!! READ READ READ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2016-10-19T14:33:00Z'}], 'name': 'Yoram Peri', 'slug': 'peri_yoram'}, {'courses': ['KORA102', 'KORA202', 'KORA212', 'KORA312', 'KORA101', 'KORA201', 'KORA211', 'KORA311', 'KORA398Y', 'KORA398Z'], 'average_rating': 2.6, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA311', 'review': "If you sign up for KORA311 and you've only taken the pre-requisite UMD Korean classes, be very careful. Before entering this course, you are expected to know a LOT of vocabulary words that were not taught in previous courses, yet are not listed in the assigned textbooks. The in-class readings took a huge amount of time because 교수님 had to stop and ask if there were words we didn't know. In addition, these words will often be used on quizzes and tests.\n\r\nI'm not saying this course is impossible, but it will require more memorization than you would expect. You will also have to memorize certain poems for the tests (ask your TA about these). Surprisingly though, we didn't learn that much grammar.", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2015-12-10T19:58:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA311', 'review': "She is a nice and friendly woman, but she does not know how to teach. \n\r\nOverall, the class is very easy but boring as heck. I think the hw amount is not that bad (especially if your TA is nice enough it's going to be a guaranteed A). \n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2015-12-08T13:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA202', 'review': "There hasn't been a recent review for Professor Ramsey, so I figured I would write one in case students are thinking about taking KORA classes. I have taken KORA101, 102, 201, and 202 over the past four semesters. \n\r\nOverall, Professor Ramsey is a very nice lady and likes to see students make progress. However, her teaching style is a bit difficult. KORA 101 and 102 are pretty fun and easy enough if you put in an adequate amount of effort. Most of what you learn in class is straight from the book, but every week the TA will introduce some aspect of Korean culture. You have quizzes every Thursday that aren't too hard as long as you review a bit. \n\r\nKORA 201 and 202 were a bit different. First off, tests became a lot more difficult. At least for our class, she used to let us keep the reading prompts in 101/102 to help us answer questions. However, in 201/202 she gives you a passage for 5 minutes, lets you write down things, but then takes away both the story and anything you wrote down before you even see the questions you have to answer. Tests in 201/202 rely a lot more on purely memorizing the book instead of testing you on what you have learned which I found a bit unfair. In a language class memorization is important, but I think there should be more of a focus on being able to apply the vocab/grammar you learn in your own words. She basically expects you to memorize specific sentences and wording. The professor has the habit of including material from chapters you haven't covered yet on exams, but if you point this out during/after the test the TA can give you points back. Also, you skip an entire book between 201 and 202 which makes you feel extremely lost in 202 since you don't know half the grammar and vocab used in the textbook. \n\r\nMy advice is to become good friends with the TA for your class. They make the weekly quizzes and usually hold review sessions if you ask. \n\r\nNeedless to say I felt pretty frustrated during most of KORA202. I didn't have time to dedicate hours studying for this class each week, but if you have more time you might do better in the class. I would still recommend taking Korean classes, but just be prepared for KORA202 (maybe purchase the textbook you skip and review over the summer). Again, I don't fully agree with Professor Ramsey's teaching style but I really like her as a person. \n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-05-06T18:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA211', 'review': "I cried myself to sleep because of this class. Professor Ramsey does teach it straight off the textbook and attendance is basically mandatory or else she'll not look too fondly upon you. She is not afraid to put you on the spot for lateness, grammar mistakes or anything. The students in this class has a ridiculous range of Korean backgrounds from natural speakers/writers to complete twinkies... Even though this is suppose to be the beginner's level for heritage students, the pace of the class got crazy fast. Kind of a miracle that I managed to get a B....\n\r\nI don't think it's really fair that heritage kids have to take this class if we don't know really know the language at all with kids that already know so much.. HOLD ON TO YOUR TA LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT in this class. She ultimately makes/grades almost everything. \n\r\nIf you need this class for whatever requirement you were gonna do, DO SOMETHING ELSE LIKE SPANISH. Not worth it, at all.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-01-02T08:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA101', 'review': "I dropped this course after the first 3 weeks. Irksomely, I'll get a W, but it's better than fighting through the craziest class ever.\n\r\nBy our 3rd week, she expected us, non-heritage speakers, to be able to listen to Korean words and write them in Hangul. Anyone who knows Hangul knows there are overlapping vowels, so unless you know the spelling of the word, you have to guess. Which makes it even harder because we were not really taught the meaning of the words to begin with.\n\r\nThe textbook was designed for high school students and we had to order it through an obscure Korean book website, meaning that I cannot return them. I ended up giving them to a friend who planned on taking the class next year.\n\r\nI loved the TA, but Ramsey could never make up her mind on what she wanted us to know. She say one thing and our quiz the following class would have it on there plus a bunch of other things we hadn't studied for (because she changed her mind and didn't tell us). The homework was similar, she'd change her mind 2 or 3 times and so several students always had the wrong assignment. There wasn't a syllabus that accurately state assignments. \n\r\nThis class, as mentioned previously, was highly unorganized and a joke to college courses. I honestly feel that the only reason she is the teacher for the entire Korean department is because her husband is the department chair.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'W', 'created': '2011-12-14T14:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA212', 'review': "A nice enough woman... but this class (and the whole KORA dept at UMD) is a joke, unfortunately--despite the many Korean students here, we do not have a major, for instance.\n\r\nTo be fair, not completely her fault. The heritage class is comprised of many different students at different levels of mastery, and so, if you are higher than the level that she teaches on most of the time, you will do pretty well. Exams are very fair, and she likes to great a bit more strictly than the class would prefer. As someone else mentioned, a nice TA helps a lot. But despite this, she does try...it just ends up not being very good.\n\r\nShe notices those who score well on exams, but she does/will help those who ask for it. \n\r\nTAs grade quizzes, she grades the exams. One group presentation, but even if you do horribly on that, if you have good grades on the other assignments, you'd still do well enough overall.\n\r\nBasically, if you are above level at all, you learn nothing from this class. I am really poor at reading and writing, but I'm pretty above speaking-wise, and it was this way for me. \n\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-10T13:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA212', 'review': "Overall, she is just a terrible teacher. She just makes students read straight from the book and randomly goes on tangents and expects you to know that material. She stops students in the middle of their sentences when they're speaking to interrupt with her own interpretation/translation, and she frequently pauses for at least 5 minutes to give an answer to a student who asks a question. It doesn't help that there are some students who are really good at Korean while there are others who can barely speak it, all in the same class. \n\n\r\nThere were several korean minors who dropped their minors because of the horrible teaching system. If you are above the standard level of speaking, reading, and writing, don't expect to learn anything out of the class. It's an easy A, but you basically sit there and waste your time. If you need a Diversity core, go ahead, but reconsider if you are serious about learning the language.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-03-09T14:39:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA311', 'review': "She was such a good teacher in terms of teaching and preparing material for every class. However, her exams were impossible. Make sure you have a nice TA, otherwise, you will definitely end up with a C or a B. I barely got an A and I went to Korean School at my church for a while. Her exams consist of memorizing poems.\n\r\nIt's very ridiculous. I advise you to not take this class if you are not minoring in Korean. It's not worth the effort. There is a quiz ever week too. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-18T14:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA211', 'review': "The TA was nice. I don't know if he'll be there next time though. \n\r\nThe professor seems like a nice enough person. If you miss three classes, your grade drops a letter grade.--However, there is really no need for you to be there. She just teaches the class directly off the book (that is, we take turns reading the book out loud for the whole class). We also have the exams, quizzes, essays, homework assignments, and a presentation. I'm an above average korean speaker and I basically learned nothing...but I skipped a few classes which impacted my grade a bit in the beginning. Oops. \r\nOn the plus side, it isn't a hard class if you're good at Korean? ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-01T01:52:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'course': 'KORA102', 'review': 'Extremely easy and dull course. Unfortunately the level of the class as a whole is low and we spent a lot of time waiting for students. The teacher never did anything to challenge us, just maybe wrote some new vocab on the board and changed the subject right away.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-05-22T15:23:00Z'}], 'name': 'Younghi Ramsey', 'slug': 'ramsey_younghi'}, {'courses': ['BIOE420', 'BIOE608', 'BIOE632', 'BIOE606', 'BIOE605', 'BIOE489K', 'BIOE689Z', 'BIOE489O', 'BIOE658I', 'BIOE434', 'EDHD412'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yu Chen', 'slug': 'chen_yu'}, {'courses': ['EXST009B', 'EXST019G', 'EXST049N', 'COMM609E', 'COMM639E', 'COMM619E', 'COMM649E', 'COMM609D', 'COMM619D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yu Tang', 'slug': 'tang'}, {'courses': ['KNES370', 'KNES370H', 'KNES497'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yue Du', 'slug': 'du_yue'}, {'courses': ['MATH140'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yue Zhao', 'slug': 'zhao_yue'}, {'courses': ['ARTH382', 'ARTH488B', 'ARTH290', 'ARTH779', 'ARTH679A', 'ARTH389D', 'ARTH689B', 'ARTH489C'], 'average_rating': 3.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yui Suzuki', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': 'Her TA, Caroline Shields, is horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Avoid at all costs.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2013-09-09T14:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yui Suzuki', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': "Suzuki is very passionate about what she is teaching, but she expects a lot from students. So if you are going to take this class as a core requirement, don't. You have to memorize every single details about more than 50 artistic objects and places to do well in the exams. There is a research paper and you have to write 3 pages to describe a statue.\n\r\nIn terms of TAs, if your TA does not like you, they can be really unreasonable with grading (which does not happen with TAs in other majors). \n\n", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2012-12-16T22:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yui Suzuki', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': "Dr. Suzuki presents everything using powerpoint slides, but she is a very good lecturer. She presents the material in a very clear and concise manner. She also posts handouts that you can take notes on. Her exam format is 20/50 points in slide IDS and 30/50 points in an essay. The slide IDs are the easy part. The essay is where most people lose points. The readings that she assigns help with the exam essays because they'll give you some ideas to write about. In short, it's an interesting class, but if you just need an HA class, take another one because this one is way too much work if you just need an HA.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-12-22T11:15:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yui Suzuki', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': 'If considering taking this course with Suzuki, I suggest you run. She was a poor lecturer and gave wayyyyy too many details about artwork (basically gave us a formal analysis of everything) and then tests us on half of what she said. Also, she doesn\'t allow students to record her lectures because it\'s "copyrighted material" so if you miss class or fall asleep then find a friend who can provide you with notes. \n\r\nGrades aren\'t up yet but I think I got a C in the class because during the essay portion of the midterms, I failed miserably. Slide ID\'s (where you see an objet, identify it\'s name, date/period, material, etc.) I did well on.\r\nThe TA\'s are not so specific on what they\'re looking for on essays so I didn\'t really know how to improve. \r\nBasically, this class is NOT an easy A. If you\'re looking for an easier HA/D core, look at the music stuff.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-21T13:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yui Suzuki', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': "This class has been an interesting experience. I signed up for this class to satisfy CORE credits. I expected a class where the art revolves around the culture, but instead I entered a class where the culture revolves around the art. Allow me to explain in a bit.\r\nFirst off, I am a studio art major, so I thought it was going to easy to examine and describe the objects, since as an artist I consider these type of things. Being an art major also helps because the vocabulary for describing the objects comes more easily.\r\nWhen a lecture is introduced, it usually begins with some background information about the corresponding regions and also key questions to consider, unifying elements for all the artifacts in the lecture. From there on, background information becomes scarce as you plunge into the array of objects and their purposes and meanings. From analyzing the artifacts' important and common characteristics, we learn about the culture and its beliefs, whether that be religion, tradition, politics, etc. Dr. Suzuki does a good job in explaining the objects and definitely knows what she's talking about. However, it felt that she was going too quickly sometimes during the Powerpoint, and names and locations were hard to write down just from hearing her say them. But that is partly my fault because before we came to classes, we were supposed to print out the handouts with all the info and look over them before class to get a better understanding of what is being taught. I didn't do the assigned readings, but now I know they are important in fully grasping the context/background of the cultures.\r\nThe discussion sections with TAs are essential to this course. The TAs help us to take in the info from lectures and analyze them further. Getting to know your TA is important, too, as the TA will be the one grading your quizzes, exams, and papers. Office hours are generally convenient so stop by to visit if you have any questions regarding anything your TA writes on your paper. It really helps to speak up a lot during class when discussing artifacts, too, because your TA can correct any misconceptions. TAs not only reinforced the information that was taught to us in lectures, but they also prepared us for the important museum paper and a giant aspect of the entire course: WRITING. Yes, it is very important to be able to write well, organize your essay, and convey the analysis well and very clearly.\r\nOverall, this class was very enriching despite all the work and such. It provided me with a greater understanding and appreciation of all arts, knowing the behind intricate details and purposeful handiwork, deeper motives stand.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-12-13T19:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yui Suzuki', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': 'I think people should know that this is NOT an "easy A" class. But you do learn a ton of stuff.\n\r\nFirst of all, this Yui Suzuki is a lady and she doesn\'t have an accent. So the first reviewer might be talking about a different Dr. Suzuki.\r\nShe is overall quite knowledgeable and when I dropped by her office to ask a few questions she was willing to answer them and clarify what I need to know for the exams.\n\r\nBasically you need to do lots of dense reading, write proficiently, and be able to memorize facts about the objects that she talks about in lecture. The pictures of the objects are posted on ELMS, and she puts everything you need to know about them in a handout, which is also available on ELMS. One thing people really struggle with though, is writing. If you come in on the exam day prepared for the "Slide ID", which is identifying the artistic object, medium, time period...etc, you\'ll do fine on that section. But on the essays, she\'s looking for a lot of specific details. If you write a high-school level essay on your exam, you\'ll get a D or C, for sure. That\'s where everybody struggles since the essay is usually about 50% or more of your exam grade.\r\nThe keys to success in this class are 1) DO THE ASSIGNED READINGS! and 2)realize that your TA is a tremendous resource. People complain about failing this class, but it\'s mainly because they never do any of the readings. Yeah the articles are really dense and if you read closely some of the writers aren\'t too good either, but they give you TONS of information you could use in your exam essay. Another thing is, if you get points off on your first exam essay, TALK TO YOUR TA about it. It might depend on who your TA is, but my TA (Matthew Lincoln) was approachable and very, very knowledgeable. He would tell you exactly what was wrong with your first one and what you could do to make improvements so you don\'t make the same mistake. That being said, if you\'re not already proficient in writing about humanities and arts and you don\'t make an effort to communicate with your TA, this class will be boring and annoying. Unlike in chemistry department, where an army of TA grades everybody\'s paper and you never know who graded which section of your exam, your personal TA grades every single thing you turn in to him in ARTH290. So I cannot stress enough how important it is to get to know exactly what the TA is looking for in each assignment.', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-12-08T15:42:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Yui Suzuki', 'course': 'ARTH290', 'review': 'First of all you must know that I am not an art enthusiast. I took this class for diversity credit.\n\r\nHowever looking past the boring material of ARTH290 I want to honestly rate professor Suzuki on how he taught.\n\r\nIf it is not easy for you to follow heavy accents than this is definitely not the professor for you. Most of the time I would only make out a few words in each sentence. When he spoke he took forever to get to the point of what he was talking about. It took so long that I would no longer remember where he even began. I have never heard a professor say "uhh" between every other word during the entire lecture. Very unprofessional. Lets just say that during the tests the lecture hall was packed and during the actual lectures was nearly empty.\n\r\nI\'m sure professor Suzuki may be better in a smaller classroom where he said he perfers but as a stuent I do NOT recommend this professor ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-08-23T12:40:00Z'}], 'name': 'Yui Suzuki', 'slug': 'suzuki'}, {'courses': ['CHIN102', 'CHIN220', 'CHIN101', 'CHIN201', 'CHIN305', 'CHIN331', 'CHIN402', 'CHIN302', 'CHIN332', 'CHIN105', 'CHIN306', 'CHIN301', 'CHIN203', 'CHIN205', 'CHIN204', 'CHIN103', 'CHIN401', 'CHIN201', 'CHIN301', 'CHIN331', 'CHIN103', 'CHIN204', 'CHIN332', 'CHIN203', 'CHIN204', 'CHIN203', 'CHIN204', 'CHIN301', 'CHIN331'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yuli Wang', 'course': 'CHIN301', 'review': 'Wang-laoshi is a good teacher overall. She actually cares about her students and wants them to pass and you will get a good grade if you put in the work. She does pick favorites though and says some not-so-PC stuff occasionally.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-03-07T20:09:20Z'}, {'professor': 'Yuli Wang', 'course': None, 'review': 'She somewhat cares about her students but I’ll say all the other Chinese language teachers are nicer than her. She’s quite impatient and will call you out if “you’re not paying attention.” She’s not even going to try to understand your situation. Took the online version because of the virus, and she doesn’t understand that it’s harder to concentrate and find a quiet spot when everyone else in your house is also working online. She can spend time saying that someone is being a waste of time but she can’t repeat a simple phrase that’ll only take a few seconds? The class also often ends a few minutes earlier than it should, so there was definitely enough time. If you really can’t hear her, don’t bother asking for a question repeat, just pretend your audio isn’t working. ', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-09-29T15:04:46Z'}, {'professor': 'Yuli Wang', 'course': None, 'review': 'If you don’t like teachers that be saying “don’t waste our time” or stuff like that, do not take Wang laoshi. Her assignments are helpful and she makes everyone practice a lot, but she needs to fix her attitude.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-09-29T15:08:56Z'}, {'professor': 'Yuli Wang', 'course': None, 'review': "Yea... she comes off kind of rude and hurts my feelings but, oh well... right? But work wise, I guess it's alright", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2020-10-18T21:22:03Z'}], 'name': 'Yuli Wang', 'slug': 'wang_yuli'}, {'courses': ['FIRE120', 'FIRE160', 'FIRE260', 'FIRE198', 'FIRE298', 'FIRE398', 'FIRE398', 'FIRE120'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yun Choi', 'course': 'FIRE160', 'review': 'Dr. Choi great professor and respected by the class. He can be tough but if you need help, he is always willing to spend time to clarify the content. One caveat, grading can be slow. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-05-11T23:13:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Yun Choi', 'course': 'FIRE160', 'review': "Grading is slow, but it's worth it to have had Dr. Choi. He seems really intimidating at first because he's pretty expressionless but he's really funny and invested in your success. You should know what you're doing before you get to lab because he cold calls - but it really doesn't matter if you don't know the answer.\r\nKeep your lab notebook up to date, if you have a question it's probably already answered somewhere on elms, talk to him if you're ever confused. He's a really nice guy and really reasonable. He brings in food a lot - it's for the students and he gets kinda sad if nobody eats it. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2018-06-24T16:54:01Z'}, {'professor': 'Yun Choi', 'course': 'FIRE120', 'review': "Very condescending and negative. Your work will never be good enough and he will continue to drill the same points which have been corrected already. However, FIRE120 is a very easy class so it's still easy to get an A. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-12-15T22:49:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Yun Choi', 'course': 'FIRE298', 'review': " Dr. Choi is a great professor if you want to be prepared for success later in the field of the stem. People say he's imtimidating and I think its because they are scared to ask questions that may seem dumb. I think its a combination of us not being prepared for class in general, and the fear of making a mistake. But, if you talk to a peer mentor or Dr. Choi himself you can realize they are nice people and want to help you succeed. He tries to be funny by posting science related memes. He also tries to be realistic as possible in lab training. You can tell he is very passionate about his research by how he talks and explains the research in the class. Also the content in this class can help you later down the line in advance stem classes. I recommened to take Dr. Choi's class if you are intrested in developing your professional skills as a student as well as develop a more broad knowledge for stem.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-10-29T17:08:39Z'}], 'name': 'Yun Choi', 'slug': 'choi_yun'}, {'courses': ['EDCP310', 'EDCP789R', 'EDCP697'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yun Lu', 'slug': 'lu_yun'}, {'courses': ['ENCE201', 'ENCE444', 'ENCE613', 'ENCE715', 'ENCE899', 'EDSP652', 'ENCE444', 'ENCE710', 'ENCE444', 'ENCE613', 'ENCE444', 'ENCE715', 'ENCE899', 'ENCE444', 'ENCE613', 'ENCE688W'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Yunfeng Zhang', 'course': 'ENCE613', 'review': 'Great professor. Material taught is very concise and his exams are fair. Generous curve in the end', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2022-12-05T19:46:42.102508Z'}], 'name': 'Yunfeng Zhang', 'slug': 'zhang_yunfeng'}, {'courses': ['EDCP108C'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Yvonne Oslin', 'slug': 'oslin'}, {'courses': ['ARTT200', 'ARTT110', 'ARTT333', 'ARTT438D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zac Benson', 'slug': 'benson_zac'}, {'courses': ['MUSC099'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zachariah Matteson', 'slug': 'matteson'}, {'courses': ['ENPM624'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zachary Dunbar', 'slug': 'dunbar_zachary'}, {'courses': ['PHYS374', 'PHYS624', 'PHYS274', 'PHYS851', 'PHYS373', 'PHYS610', 'PHYS373', 'PHYS373', 'PHYS610', 'PHYS121', 'PHYS610'], 'average_rating': 3.5714, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Zackaria Chacko', 'course': None, 'review': 'The other reviews seem to hit the nail on the head with Chacko. He has been one of my favorite professors to have and though the course was tough I really enjoyed it and actually looked forward to lecture. \n\r\nMy favorite thing about him is how clear he is with tests/assignments. He lays out exactly what subjects will be on the tests and very lenient when it comes to pushing an hw due date back if it needs to be which is great. If you have the chance of taking him in a physics course I would definitely make the suggestion to do it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2011-05-19T01:01:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zackaria Chacko', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': "Chacko's grading scheme is pretty fair. If you attain maximum points on the homework (14 assignments worth 2 points each, maximum points to earn is 20), get the one homework question completely correct on the midterm, and both homework questions completely correct on the final, then you get a C. He makes it clear from the get-go that getting an A is not an easy task.\n\r\nThat said, if you work hard on the homework, it'll probably carry over the midterm. I felt like I did terribly on the midterm, maybe getting a C but bracing for worse, but I ended up getting an A.\n\r\nHe engages the students in questioning during lecture to keep them active in coming up with physical reasoning or making observations about physical systems that lead to the course content he wants to deliver. His examples, while right out of the book, were still very helpful and usually presented with much more clarity than in the text. I think I learned more in this class than any other physics class I've had up to this point (and there are still things I should go back to review!).\n\r\n(And don't get me wrong - while I worked hard and think I should go back and study even more, I'm not an exemplary student. When Chacko said we should be working extra problems from the text, even should be reading the text, and said we should be reading extra textbooks, I was mildly terrified that that was what was expected of me if I was to ever succeed in physics. I mean, when do I get the time to do all this stuff? I think if you have good attention to the physics of classical systems, and good intuition about how systems should behave, then you'll do fine.)", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-02T23:49:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zackaria Chacko', 'course': 'PHYS410', 'review': 'Thinking about taking 410 with Dr. Chacko? Here\'s what will probably happen to you if you\'re like most people in the class right now:\n\r\n-You\'ll spend a lot of time working some tough homework problems\r\n-As a result, you\'ll have gained a lot of knowledge which may be personally gratifying\r\n-Then you\'ll take his exam\r\n-After the exam you\'ll feel like an incompetent idiot who has not learned anything\n\r\nDr. Chacko is very likeable, and more than anything I respect the man because he\'s undoubtedly a genius. His lectures mainly follow the book, but he also adds in tidbits here and there that I think will be very useful. And you can tell that he really cares about preparing students for graduate-level classes.\n\r\nWhat I didn\'t like is that there are only two exams (a midterm and a final) which together make up 90% of the grade. And the exams are hard! Knowing all the material extremely well will get you about half the points on an exam. Don\'t bother telling him his tests are hard either, because he\'ll just chuckle and say, "I thought it was easy." I expect there will be a curve, though.\n\r\nOverall, the class has been great, and who cares about the grade you get as long as you learn something, right?', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2009-11-17T23:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zackaria Chacko', 'course': 'PHYS373', 'review': 'Dr Chacko a rude and unhelpful professor. He expected us to know much of the material before taking the course. He would often ask the class a question that nobody new the answer to, then spend the next 10 minutes of class time waiting for somebody to guess the right answer rather than teaching. Additionally, when nobody knew the answer to the question, he would tell us its "pathetic" that we don\'t know, and remind us that we "weren\'t trained properly".\r\nIn terms of teaching ability, he was average at best; he got the material across, but could do better. He did little more than write out examples from the book.\r\nDo not take a class with Chacko if you can avoid it. He will insult your intelligence every chance he gets, and other professors can teach the material just as well if not better.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-01-30T01:48:30Z'}, {'professor': 'Zackaria Chacko', 'course': 'PHYS373', 'review': 'Dr. Chacko is a good professor and a decent teacher, but he expects a lot from his students. I felt that his exams were fair but definitely difficult. \r\n\r\nHe was open to class criticisms and advice and actually improved based on what we said which was nice. \r\n\r\nThe lectures were at times a bit dry and sometimes he could come off as a bit impatient or even rude, but I dont think he means to be. I just think he holds his students to a high standard, and really cares that we reach it ', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-01-09T21:48:27Z'}, {'professor': 'Zackaria Chacko', 'course': 'PHYS373', 'review': "Definitely avoid taking him if you can. I know that teaching math online is a pain for the teacher, but his class was extremely unhelpful. I don't think the fault is his completely, as I believe that math classes should be taught by math professors, not physics ones. His tests were super hard, but at least he made them open everything during the pandemic. Brace yourself for 40% averages, but a huge curve at the end of the semester. And pray that you get a better TA than we did. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2021-01-13T16:58:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Zackaria Chacko', 'course': 'PHYS373', 'review': "Dr. Chacko gets a bad rap, but he's a pretty good professor. He was a bit rough but was extremely open to changing styles when requested by the students, and jumped through hoops to make this class easier on us. The TA we had was honestly much less helpful than he was. The exams are hard sometimes but the curve made up for them with no problem.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-21T17:53:21Z'}], 'name': 'Zackaria Chacko', 'slug': 'chacko'}, {'courses': ['UNIV100'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zackary Hull', 'slug': 'hull_zackary'}, {'courses': ['CMLT270', 'ENGL393', 'ARAB304', 'ARAB305', 'ARAB398L', 'ARAB204', 'ARAB105', 'ARAB205', 'ARAB104', 'ARAB499I', 'ARAB499J', 'ARAB401', 'ARAB499O', 'ARHU318A', 'ARAB386', 'ARHU298J', 'ARAB399'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zein El-Amine', 'slug': 'el-amine'}, {'courses': ['BMGT485', 'BMGT495', 'BMGT301', 'BMGT403', 'BMGT407', 'BMGT301F', 'BMGT301', 'BMGT301F', 'BMGT301', 'BMGT301F', 'BMGT301', 'BMGT301F', 'BMGT301', 'BMGT301', 'BMGT301', 'BMGT301', 'BMGT301F'], 'average_rating': 3.1364, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': "I loved taking Karake's class. The things we learned about were super interesting. I will admit there is a lot of reading-- read the book if you want to do well--but it's worth it if you are interested in information systems. Her exams and quizzes are super specific so watch out for that. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-05-23T20:21:58Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'Dr. Karake is enthusiastic and cares about students who care about the material. If you do the work, you will be fine. If you need help, the TAs are very insightful and will guide you to figuring it out or clarifying the questions being asked. Start the projects early so you can get help when you need it. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2019-08-12T23:49:28Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': 'Her grades are given out by ranking you on a curve compared to other students. While this may help out some students, the majority of people in my class were dragged down below A level despite having a 95% in the class', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-04-07T13:40:17Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'Professor Karake is my favorite teacher I have had thus far at UMD! She keeps you very engaged in each class and has a personality that could make any topic enjoyable to learn. Good powerpoints and answers any question you have thouroughly.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2020-04-22T17:57:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': 'Genuinely the worst professor I’ve ever had, is incompetent teaching online and then blames students for issues. Is unresponsive to emails and when she does respond is unhelpful. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2020-12-21T16:15:18Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Dr. Karake is the best professor I've had at the University of Maryland. She is an extremely hard working teacher that cares whether her students understand the material she is teaching. She constantly asks if the concepts are clear to the class and has no problem going over things multiple times. I highly recommend taking her class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-01-06T20:29:35Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Professor Karake is an amazing professor. The class topics can be so boring, but she makes the environment so friendly and she's pretty funny. She makes sure to know her students personally, and constantly keeps everyone engaged. On top of that, she's really good at teaching. One thing I will say is that her exams and quizzes are really hard. The questions require a lot of critical thinking, and unless you memorize the chapters and her powerpoints and are really good at Excel, they'll be almost impossible to pass. The questions, in my opinion, are beyond what we're capable of understanding as students, so it's quite difficult. But as a person and professor, she's engaging and knowledgeable, though she can be quite strict if you don't pay attention. ", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-11-20T19:49:09Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': "Karake is very sweet and tries to have a relationship with her students. Unfortunately, this class is relatively difficult unless you really like excel. Her lectures tend to end in tangents and don't really help with class content. Exams were kinda difficult since you never really knew what you were walking into. ", 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2021-12-14T23:21:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Honestly, this professor is so messy. She can barely explain concepts, her lectures are a disaster, and she isn't that nice with students. Her exams are filled with random questions that are unrelated to what we are learning. I wish the class focused more on Excel and less on conceptual muddle. I suggest you find another professor to take this class, or take it elsewhere. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2021-12-22T13:37:36Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "I don't understand the negative reviews for professor Karake. She isn't messy at all and has well structured lectures. Usually about half of it is conceptual applications of info systems and then the other half is excel. Both of those are on the exams. She explains excel very well too and works through the applications with you. She is very nice with students and tries to have a relationship with them. She clearly knows the subject well and cares about every students learning. I also never had an exam question that wasn't related to the class, and she gives a curve on the exams. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-04-30T23:03:48Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': 'Professor Karake is by far the best professor in the entire business school. Her class may be difficult but all of the skills you learn translate directly into jobs/internships. If you take the class seriously and aim to grasp excel skills instead of cramming information the night before exams you will take away lots of valuable skills.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-10-12T16:20:12.403453Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': 'She reads off the slides and then whizzes through excel without a break-the excel projects are pretty difficult and the most helpful resources are the TAs. She never replies to emails and the lectures are very very boring, exams are difficult and contain very specific questions from the book.', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B+', 'created': '2022-11-06T23:29:10.844253Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': "She is actually such a good professor. She genuinely cares about her students and if you pay attention you'll do well", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-14T15:15:36.959364Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': "I don't understand how people like her so much, she can be pretty condescending. Exams throw in random concepts that are never/rarely mentioned in class. She doesn't care about the success of students and expects people to understand excel right off the bat. If you aren't good with excel and data, I would strongly recommend taking this with a different professor or community college.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2022-11-17T19:39:09.796131Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Dr. Karake is easily one of the best professors I've had at UMD and she makes sure to focus on what you will actually use in your career. She clearly loves teaching and makes it clear how much she respects and appreciates all of her students. Her class is my favorite every week!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-11-23T20:53:02.085944Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Professors like Karake are the reason tenure is a bad idea. She's just given up if you can even get a response from emails you send. She doesn't have very engaging lectures and if I didn't have the help of the TAs, I'm pretty sure I'd be failing the class. It's made me question if I want to stay an IS major. From talking to my friends, I wish I would have taken it with Shapiro. They look like they are doing cool things in that class. Take anyone else if you can.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-11-26T05:07:23.508653Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': 'she’s incredibly sweet and wants all her students to succeed. all the exam material is either in the slides or discussed in class, and she lets you have a sheet of notes. engaging lectures and useful, applicable material', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-18T15:45:56.810582Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': 'Probably the worst professor I’ve had at Maryland. She is extremely condescending and unorganized. While she gives you a study guide and note sheet on the exams, the study guide has very little to do with the actual exams. The questions on the exams are extremely specific. If you don’t read the book you will struggle. She also doesn’t respond to emails. With that being said she does always say she wants her students to do well.', 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-12-22T16:26:49.103618Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': "I don't recommend her because she talks down to people. This class is unnecessarily difficult and she can't teach well. The exams are filled with the most random stuff. Take a different professor!", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-12-24T12:45:43.619054Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "I also don't understand why people like this professor or why she (according to herself) is so highly respected in academia. I don't think she's great at explaining things, and you pretty much see each concept only covered once, which is strange in a class rooted in application. She writes her own word problems for homework assignments and the grammar makes the assignments unclear or ambiguous.\r\nShe does clearly love the subject and seems to like her students. She does also come across as condescending as noted by others, but some things you have to take as a cultural difference being perceived a certain way.\r\nAll of that said, an A is possible. Despite the frustration. I have since taken courses of this subject but more advanced, and had to work less hard to do more complicated coding because the information was taught better by different professors.", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-12-25T03:01:29.906706Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301F', 'review': "she was unresponsive towards students and didn't try to make class engaging. never answered emails, and made the exams impossible to do well on without the curve because they were filled with the smallest facts from the book that were hardly mentioned. This class was insanely boring and I feel like I didn't learn even though I did decent in the class. Excel projects were super hard compared to her class examples. I would have failed without the TAs!", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2023-01-03T16:10:24.621924Z'}, {'professor': 'Zeinab Karake', 'course': 'BMGT301', 'review': "Great and knowledgeable professor. Actually helps you understand the concepts we're learning. She makes the class engaging. There are 4 Excel projects that we do during the semester and three exams total.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2023-04-25T21:20:46.018860Z'}], 'name': 'Zeinab Karake', 'slug': 'karake'}, {'courses': ['RUSS102', 'RUSS201', 'RUSS202', 'RUSS499G', 'RUSS101', 'RUSS499D', 'RUSS499C', 'RUSS301', 'RUSS302', 'PSYC603', 'PSYC660', 'PSYC661', 'RUSS303', 'RUSS201', 'RUSS303', 'RUSS202', 'RUSS201', 'RUSS202', 'RUSS201'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Zhanna Gerus-Vernola', 'course': None, 'review': "I've had her for maybe 5 or 6 classes. She's just the best. Laidback but tough when she needs to be and very engaging.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2015-04-08T12:34:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhanna Gerus-Vernola', 'course': 'RUSS101', 'review': "One of the best teachers I've had at this school, she is so helpful with her students and even gives you hints on the exams. She is also very generous in her grading, and gives you multiple opportunities when you mess up on tests/projects. The class is naturally a lot of work because it's every day, but she REALLY helps you learn Russian!", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-11-06T02:19:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhanna Gerus-Vernola', 'course': 'RUSS101', 'review': "Zhanna is such a great teacher and sweet person!! She's extremely flexible, helpful, and understanding. As long as you put in at least a little effort into this class, you should get an A. I highly, highly recommend taking Russian with her.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-05T00:16:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhanna Gerus-Vernola', 'course': 'RUSS102', 'review': "Zhanna is a phenomenal teacher- one of my favorite teachers thus far at UMD. She is incredibly funny and interactive with the students in class. She is extremely helpful and flexible as well. \r\nThough the course was intensive, it was a manageable amount of work; as long as you attempt the homework, you'll do very well in this class. Zhanna also went over the homework during class fairly often, which helps. She's awesome- keeps you awake and engaged in class... ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-05-09T17:54:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhanna Gerus-Vernola', 'course': 'RUSS202', 'review': "Zhanna is one of the best Russian professors I've had. She's so sweet and patient but she's also really good at explaining things and she makes the class so enjoyable.\r\nMy only thing is I think sometimes she's too lenient. There are people in the class who definitely got an A or a B without learning anything the whole semester. It's a 5 credit class, but the amount of work is less than that of 3 credit classes I've taken. Pretty much, like any language class really, you can learn as much or as little as you want, and your letter grade doesn't really reflect this.\r\nBut as a professor and a person, Zhanna is SUPER :-) ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2009-05-27T17:57:00Z'}], 'name': 'Zhanna Gerus-Vernola', 'slug': 'gerus-vernola'}, {'courses': ['MATH221'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zhao Liu', 'slug': 'liu_zhao'}, {'courses': ['ANSC460', 'ANSC214', 'GEMS296', 'ANSC212', 'GEMS297', 'GEMS396', 'GEMS397', 'GEMS496', 'GEMS497', 'ANSC688I', 'ANSC460', 'ANSC688I', 'ANSC460', 'ANSC688I'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Zhengguo Xiao', 'course': None, 'review': 'He is a very nice professor, full of knowledge in his field but he was disoriented with his explanations and hard to take notes to. Fair tests but attendance is important to him (immunology course)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2020-05-01T08:30:40Z'}], 'name': 'Zhengguo Xiao', 'slug': 'xiao_zhengguo'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zhichao Phillips', 'slug': 'phillips_zhichao'}, {'courses': ['BSCI378H', 'BSCI410', 'CBMG699Y', 'MOCB899', 'BISI899', 'MOCB899', 'BISI899', 'MOCB899', 'BISI712'], 'average_rating': 4.625, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Zhongchi Liu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "When I took this course Spring 2016, it was split between Dr. Liu and Dr. Wu teaching it. Dr. Liu taught the first half of the course, and I by far thought she was the better professor (not quite Dr. Wu’s fault though, it was her first time teaching.) Dr. Liu can be a little bit hard to understand sometimes, but she really does mean well. I went to office hours a few times and she was very helpful. I hear the other molecular genetics profs aren't that great, so Dr. Liu might be your best bet. She was pretty generous in letting us drop one of the two midterms, and she drops a few of the lowest clicker questions. It’s clear she wants her students to do well. I managed to pull off an A- and genetics definitely doesn’t come naturally to me.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2016-06-01T21:00:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhongchi Liu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "Dr. Liu is super nice! She held homework help sessions and reviews before the exams. The homework questions weren't too bad. The exams were fairly easy but tended to run pretty long. Overall, the material covered in class was interesting, but not unbearably hard. The first half of it was a rehash of BSCI222, while the second half presented newer techniques and discoveries. A lot of it would be something you would hear in a biochemistry class.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2014-05-30T12:40:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhongchi Liu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'She is very very nice and kind ^_^', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2011-05-22T03:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhongchi Liu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'If you read the book, and pay attention to class, then it would be easy.\n\r\nExams were easy,.. HW can be confusing, but she holds hw session to help students out.\n\r\nShe is very very nice. \n\r\nI highly recommend her!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2010-11-01T21:48:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhongchi Liu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'The class itself, at least when Dr. Liu taught, was pretty much a repeat of BSCI222. We did go a little bit more into modern technologies and recent discoveries though. Dr. Liu also likes to talk about her research, which is interesting at first but sometimes over our heads.\n\r\nOnly 2 tests and a final, and we got to drop one of the tests (not the final). Also had a few homework assignments (taking about 2 hours each to complete).', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2007-11-05T17:45:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhongchi Liu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Liu was very sweet and overall a really great professor. Her lectures, homeworks, and exams never got too difficult or took up too much time. (Almost too easy...) She could explain concepts fairly well. She made time for her students, holding many office hours. I did not think there was much of a language barrier. I would recommend her for BSCI410 to anyone in the future. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2021-05-18T07:49:05Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhongchi Liu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': "I really enjoyed taking Dr. Liu's class! Her lectures are easy to understand and she records all of them so you can go back later to review any information you missed, which took a ton of pressure off trying to get everything down in your notes during class. We consistently get out of class 10-20 minutes early and I thought her exams were fair. Her accent is not really an issue at all and she obviously is very knowledgeable about the field. First 1/3 of the semester is basically a rehash of BSCI222 and the rest is about molecular techniques and model organisms, based on what she has told us. Would definitely take her again. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-03-30T19:52:12Z'}, {'professor': 'Zhongchi Liu', 'course': 'BSCI410', 'review': 'Dr. Liu is nice and her class is very organized and pain-free! The lectures are easy to follow and always recorded and uploaded promptly. The midterms are split into two parts- the in-class written portion and the online multiple choice portion. The multiple choice is online and very easy, stuff straight from the lecture. The in class written portion can be difficult because it is very memorization heavy and there is a lot of information to learn. But, she does drop one midterm if it improves your grade. The homeworks are also easy but maybe one or two questions are a bit of a curveball that involve actually thinking critically lol. The final was pretty difficult but the online part was almost half of the total score, so that made up for it. There are 2 question, 5 points quizzes after each lecture, also very easy but she drops 4 of them for everyone. In the end, I had an 88% with nothing dropped, and I was worried about ending up with an A-. But, once my worst midterm was dropped and 4 of the worst quizzes, I ended up with an A!! \r\n\r\nOtherwise, the material of the class is super relevant to a lot of other fields and you learn a lot. Especially if you work in a lab, this class is great. Super chill class with good averages and helpful professor!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-19T20:31:22Z'}], 'name': 'Zhongchi Liu', 'slug': 'liu_zhongchi'}, {'courses': ['CMSC858D', 'CMSC427', 'CMSC702'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zia Khan', 'slug': 'khan_zia'}, {'courses': ['ENGL234', 'ENGL749B', 'ENGL448B', 'ENGL300', 'ENGL301', 'ENGL748J', 'ENGL448C', 'ENGL628D', 'AASP298L', 'WMST448B', 'CMLT679J'], 'average_rating': 3.75, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Zita Nunes', 'course': 'ENGL234', 'review': "She is a tough cookie. This class was very interesting but it was a ton of work. Lots of readings that were essential to passing the quizzes (twice a week) and papers that were graded so unfairly it was ridiculous. However, she is a very nice woman who made every effort to allow her students the chance to get an A. It just took a ton of work, which I didn't expect.", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-06-14T23:47:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zita Nunes', 'course': 'AASP298L', 'review': "so easy its ridiculous. 2 quizzes a week, interesting reading if you like to read, lectures get way boring as time goes on\n\r\nall TAs are good it seems but the best is STEED. discussion is always good\n\r\nB on midterm and A on first paper, haven't gotten second paper grade", 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-05-05T22:43:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zita Nunes', 'course': 'AASP298L', 'review': 'Interesting class, and the professor is extremely knowledgeable on the subject matter. The quizzes are easy if you do the reading, but there is A LOT of reading. Two papers are assigned throughout the semester, and the grading is pretty tough. Quizzes are given in the first 5 minutes, so you cannot be late, and if you are you get a zero. She drops the two lowest quiz grades.', 'rating': 3, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2008-12-11T18:11:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Zita Nunes', 'course': 'ENGL234', 'review': 'Very interesting lectures. 2 quizzes a week, one in lecture and one in discussion. A LOT of reading and you must read to do well on quizzes. Papers are graded toughly but tests are just old quiz questions. overall good class', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'b', 'created': '2008-11-14T01:11:00Z'}], 'name': 'Zita Nunes', 'slug': 'nunes_zita'}, {'courses': [], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zoe Schlueter', 'slug': 'schlueter'}, {'courses': ['ENTS640', 'ENTS656', 'ENTS749D', 'ENTS699L', 'ENTS749E', 'ENTS669G', 'ENEB352', 'ENTS699N', 'DATA650', 'MSML650', 'DATA650', 'ENTS640', 'MSML650', 'ENEB352', 'ENTS749E', 'ENTS749F', 'DATA650', 'ENTS640', 'MSML650'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Zoltan Safar', 'slug': 'safar'}, {'courses': ['EDPS210'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'bradley quarles', 'slug': 'quarles'}, {'courses': ['GEOG211'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Ahmad Khan', 'slug': 'khan_ahmad'}, {'courses': ['HIST208Y'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alda Benjamen', 'slug': 'benjamen'}, {'courses': ['EDHI338A', 'EDHI338C', 'EDHI788Z', 'EDCP671', 'EDHI338L', 'EDHI338K', 'HESI671', 'EDHI338B', 'CHSE338N', 'HESI671'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Alison Mojto', 'slug': 'mojto'}, {'courses': ['FMSC383', 'FMSC610'], 'average_rating': 4.6667, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Amanda Berger', 'course': 'FMSC332', 'review': 'easy professor! makes the material interesting. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2010-12-30T02:27:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Berger', 'course': 'FMSC332', 'review': 'Loved this professor, she is so cute and very nice, she give weekly quizzes and there are two papers..also she loves Mean Girls movies that you will need to watch for one her assignment..what else yes her Exams...study her notes and try reading the textboook as well..and the finale exam was pretty as well..it was not cumulative I hope I helped! :)', 'rating': 4, 'expected_grade': 'B', 'created': '2010-09-02T00:44:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Amanda Berger', 'course': 'FMSC332', 'review': 'She gives you notes to fill in during lecture. Her examples are very inetersting and she keeps you engaged in the subject. You should really study for the test, but alteast you know what the test will be on, unlike some professors!', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-11-11T16:18:00Z'}], 'name': 'Amanda Berger', 'slug': 'berger_amanda'}, {'courses': ['AREC382', 'AREC624', 'AREC623', 'AREC454', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'ECON484', 'AREC454', 'AREC466', 'AREC624', 'ECON484', 'ENCE489T', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899', 'AREC386', 'AREC399', 'AREC699', 'AREC799', 'AREC898', 'AREC899'], 'average_rating': 2.1429, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Anna Alberini', 'course': 'AREC382', 'review': 'Her class is easy, but she continues to use outdated data for many years. She does not have office hours, and it is extremely hard to make an appointment with her. She is too busy to help her students. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2016-04-26T12:46:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Alberini', 'course': 'AREC382', 'review': "TERRIBLE professor! She uses outdated data for nearly ten years and some of the command even cannot find on the excel 2007. The world is changing however she keeps her assignment sheets as they were ten years ago. She does not have office hours and she is extremely unaccessible. When you make an appointment with her to discuss the homework, she can let you wait outside her office for nearly one hour, and then she rushed out of her office and leave a work to you--I have to go, I have class! This makes you really disappointed. She values her time, but she never value your time. She also doesn't respect her students. She is too busy to help her students. ", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2016-04-08T16:50:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Alberini', 'course': 'AREC382', 'review': "Great professor! Very easy class if you keep up and ask her for help. Highly recommend the class especially if you're an AREC major.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2015-07-20T16:05:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Alberini', 'course': 'AREC382', 'review': 'She is TERRIBLE!!!!!Her class is super easy. While making you confidence on getting an A in this class, she is capable of CURVING DOWN your grade. Unbelievable!', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-08-13T18:22:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Alberini', 'course': 'AREC382', 'review': 'She is still using outdated things like overhead projector and the content is disorganized mess. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2013-01-30T14:38:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Alberini', 'course': 'AREC382', 'review': "This is an interesting class, even if you're not an AREC major. You'll learn about the functions of Excel to answer different questions about economics and agriculture.\n\r\nDr. Alberini is very nice and very helpful. Don't be afraid to ask for help because she is approachable and wants her students to succeed.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2009-06-16T10:32:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Anna Alberini', 'course': 'ECON484', 'review': 'Do not take any courses with this professor. She very obviously picks favorites and if you are not a favorite, you will know. I was appalled when I emailed her asking a question about a homework assignment and she responded with "seriously?". If a professor feels the need to say "seriously" in response to a question, that is a problem. Do not take her classes unless you want to feel stupid and dumb by your professor whose job it is for you to understand the material. ', 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2022-04-14T16:41:19Z'}], 'name': 'Anna Alberini', 'slug': 'alberini'}, {'courses': ['KNES161T', 'KNES161F'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Anne Contee', 'slug': 'contee'}, {'courses': ['ENME445', 'ENRE489K', 'ENME489K', 'ENME445', 'ENRE489K', 'ENME445', 'ENME489K', 'ENRE489K'], 'average_rating': 5.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Baldev Raheja', 'course': 'ENRE489K', 'review': "He's a great professor. Explains topics well, and is really responsive to emails. I told him I was struggling a little with the course and he graded my final assignment with some leniency so I could get a good grade.", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2018-07-22T19:30:56Z'}], 'name': 'Baldev Raheja', 'slug': 'raheja'}, {'courses': ['KNES131D'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Barbara Bernstein', 'slug': 'bernstein_barbara'}, {'courses': ['HLTH325', 'HLTH325H', 'SPHL601', 'HLTH666', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'HLTH899', 'HLTH609', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH688', 'HLTH898', 'HLTH899'], 'average_rating': 1.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Barbara Curbow', 'course': 'HLTH325', 'review': "not good. it feels like the first time she looked at the slides is as she teaches. she is not knowledgable and can't answer questions in class.", 'rating': 1, 'expected_grade': '', 'created': '2019-10-20T18:18:18Z'}], 'name': 'Barbara Curbow', 'slug': 'curbow'}, {'courses': ['ANTH222', 'ANTH341', 'ANTH455', 'HONR239N', 'ANTH641', 'ANTH635', 'ANTH358A', 'ANTH675', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH222', 'ANTH789', 'ANTH789'], 'average_rating': 4.0, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman', 'course': 'HONR239N', 'review': 'Great professor. Taught the class really well and made the topic genuinely interesting to students. Class was pretty discussion-oriented, so doing the readings was helpful (though you can get by without sometimes). ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A+', 'created': '2019-04-26T02:11:23Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman', 'course': 'ANTH222', 'review': "If you think that taking a social science natural lab is a good idea, let me stop you there and tell you go do an actual STEM lab. I mistakenly thought this was a good idea and I am a BSOS major. There are weekly online MC quizzes which have the answers on PowerPoints she uploads to Canvas. She has 3 exams which are also online, so the tests aren't that bad. The thing that made me contemplate some dark thoughts was the weekly lab. Lab is usually 16 people on their computers trying to do a worksheet which is literally either you fiddling with bone casts or just scouring websites that are provided. These things are painful and not remotely fun at all, and most of the time, you will have to finish the rest of the lab assignment after class. Other than that, professor is nice, but this class requires too much work for no reason. ", 'rating': 2, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2022-05-26T21:00:31Z'}, {'professor': 'Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman', 'course': 'ANTH222', 'review': 'I really enjoyed this class. The professor is great and very engaging when lecturing. The labs do get a bit repetitive with mostly measuring bones. The weekly quizzes and labs are manageable as long as you pace yourself. I found class time sufficient for finishing most labs with a few being done on my own. The one difficult point are the exam written questions, which are graded quite harshly. Other than that, highly recommend for a lab science.', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A-', 'created': '2022-05-31T00:07:38Z'}], 'name': 'Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman', 'slug': 'pavao-zuckerman_barnet'}, {'courses': ['PSYC433', 'PSYC695', 'EDCP680', 'PSYC664', 'PSYC289D', 'EDCP686', 'PSYC234', 'PSYC686', 'PSYC700', 'PSYC686', 'PSYC234'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Beth Sperber Richie', 'slug': 'richie'}, {'courses': ['BMGT301', 'INFM741', 'INFM736', 'INFM737', 'INST741', 'INST714', 'INFM711', 'INST728P', 'INST314', 'INFM799', 'INST810', 'INST809', 'INST709', 'INST799', 'INST899', 'INST888', 'HLTH672', 'HLTH710', 'INST709'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brian Butler', 'slug': 'butler_brian'}, {'courses': ['LBSC724', 'LBSC602', 'FILM319J', 'SLLC368E'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brian Real', 'slug': 'real_brian'}, {'courses': ['EPIB740', 'KNES602', 'EPIB399', 'EPIB785', 'KNES601'], 'average_rating': None, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [], 'name': 'Brit Saksvig', 'slug': 'saksvig'}, {'courses': ['AGNR300', 'ENSP400', 'ENST421', 'ENST440', 'ENSP101', 'ENST722', 'ENST640', 'ENSP386'], 'average_rating': 4.6471, 'type': 'professor', 'reviews': [{'professor': 'Bruce James', 'course': 'ENSP101', 'review': 'Fantastic professor, very understanding and helpful. Pretty clear. Lots of writing as others have mentioned, but nothing terrible. Highly recommended. ', 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2012-12-19T13:20:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bruce James', 'course': 'ENSP101', 'review': "Dr. James is an awesome guy, and a great professor. His lectures never seemed like lectures. They were interesting and I always enjoyed attending. It was easy to take notes and understand everything he was talking about. Discussions were good. We typically read articles and then discussed them in groups, sometimes having debates. He allows up to 100pts of extra credit for attending various seminars. I'm looking forward to taking him for ENSP400. Tests are written, and require understanding of the material. Due to shipping snafus, I never received the textbook, and was fine without it. Look at the exams from the previous years, go over the lectures, and you'll be fine. The paper topics were interesting, but its important not to put off finding scientific sources and starting the papers. ", 'rating': 5, 'expected_grade': 'A', 'created': '2011-11-10T12:07:00Z'}, {'professor': 'Bruce James', 'course': 'ENSP400', 'review': 'Since I can only post one review, I\'ve included my reflections on both ENSP101 and ENSP400:\n\r\nENSP101 - Dr. James is a really cool guy who really cares about the class and tries to make it enjoyable! The downside to the class is that the exams are really long, and it can be quite a bit of work, especially since you have to write a lot! Plus, sometimes, it doesn\'t always seem like the questions on the exams really demonstrate your knowledge and they seem to be somewhat tough on the grading. Therefore, be prepared to study hard! However, even if you don\'t do well (which, for the first exam, is typical of most people), he does provide plenty of extra credit opportunities to make up for them! There are a couple papers and problem sets throughout the semester in addition to the two midterms and the final (the final is worth the same as both midterms combined). Make sure you really read the directions for the papers carefully and don\'t procrastinate! They do require some effort (and you need stuff such as outside sources, which can require more time than you might think)! The problem sets, although not too bad in general, were one thing that I wasn\'t so keen on, because they could be kind of vague and almost too "open"-sometimes you aren\'t able to know if you answered them correctly and it was frustrating when I lost points when I thought I shouldn\'